The party took rooms on Prince’s Street, a thoroughfare one hundred feet wide and a mile in length, graced with noble monuments of art and bowery pleasure-grounds. It is considered one of the most picturesque streets in the world.
Around you are shops with splendid windows, statues, public gardens, birds, and flowers; above you are houses six or eight stories high; above these, on the rocky hillsides, are queer old buildings of other times; and high over all is the Castle, cold and grand on its rocky throne.
“I shall rest to-morrow, boys,” said Master Lewis, “and shall let you roam at will. Let us spend the evening in one of the public gardens.”
After supper, the party went to one of these fragrant street-gardens. The band of the Duchess of Sutherland’s Own, as a certain Highland regiment is called, filled the quiet air with delicious music.
The sun withdrew his light from the street, the gardens, and the tall houses on the hills, but the Castle stood long in the mellowed glory of the sunset.
But the sun left even the Castle at last, and then began a spectacle that seemed like an illusion or fairy-land.
EDINBURGH CASTLE.
Lights began to twinkle in the streets; then in the tall windows [!-- original location of 'Edinburgh Castle' --] [!-- blank page --] above them. Now and then a whole face of an antique pile was illuminated; now some little eyrie that seemed hanging in air burst into flame; now a line of terraces began to twinkle. The lights crept up the hillsides everywhere.