one, and when he was tired
of both, whistling melodiously, until he reached the North Bridge,
which, at this point, connects the old and new towns of Edinburgh. Here
he stopped for a minute, to look at the strange, irregular clusters of
lights piled one above the other, and twinkling afar off so high, that
they looked like stars, gleaming from the castle walls on the one side
and the Calton Hill on the other, as if they illuminated veritable
castles in the air; while the old picturesque town slept heavily on, in
gloom and darkness below: its palace and chapel of Holyrood, guarded day
and night, as a friend of my uncle's used to say, by old Arthur's Seat,
towering, surly and dark, like some gruff genius, over the ancient city
he has watched so long. I say, gentlemen, my uncle stopped here, for a
minute, to look about him; and then, paying a compliment to the weather,
which had a little cleared up, though the moon was sinking, walked on
again, as royally as before; keeping the middle of the road with great
dignity, and looking as if he would very much like to meet with somebody
who would dispute possession of it with him. There was nobody at all
disposed to contest the point, as it happened; and so, on he went, with
his thumbs in his waistcoat pockets, like a lamb.

'When my uncle reached the end of Leith Walk, he had to cross a pretty
large piece of waste ground which separated him from a short street
which he had to turn down to go direct to his lodging. Now, in this
piece of waste ground, there was, at that time, an enclosure belonging
to some wheelwright who contracted with the Post Office for the purchase
of old, worn-out mail coaches; and my uncle, being very fond of coaches,
old, young, or middle-aged, all at once took it into his head to step
out of his road for no other purpose than to peep between the palings at
these mails--about a dozen of which he remembered to have seen, crowded
together in a very forlorn and dismantled state, inside. My uncle was a
very enthusiastic, emphatic sort of person, gentlemen; so, finding that
he could not obtain a good peep between the palings he got over
them, and sitting himself quietly down on an old axle-tree, began to
contemplate the mail coaches with a deal of gravity.

'There might be a dozen of them, or there might be more--my uncle was
never quite certain on this point, and being a man of very scrupulous
veracity about numbers, didn't like to say--but there they stood, a