Edinburgh is the only town in Great Britain, which I have visited, whose streets are not shunned by respectable people at night.
A fine road about two miles long leads to Leith, which stands for Piræus to the Scotch Athens. There, in the mud and smoke, dwells a population of sixty thousand toil-stained folk, who contrast strongly with their elegant neighbours of Edinburgh. There is nothing here to attract the eye of the traveller, unless it be the harbour with its two piers—one 3,530, the other 3,123 feet long—where the inhabitants can go and breathe the sea air, away from the noise and smoke of the town.
Along the coast to the west, two miles from Leith, we come upon the interesting village of Newhaven. Here we find a little world apart, composed of fisherfolk, all related one to another, it is said. They treat as Philistines all who did not first see the light in their sanctuary, and the result is that they are constantly intermarrying. All the men work at fishing. The women go to Edinburgh to sell what their husbands catch, and bring back empty baskets and full pockets. These worthy women would think they were robbing their dear village if they bought the least thing in Edinburgh. Needless to say, the little community prospers. To see the costume of the women, who, in no point imitate the ridiculous get-up of their sisters in great towns; to see the activity and zeal for their work, one would believe oneself in France.
"All the skippers own their own boats, and the pretty little houses they live in," said the Scotchman who accompanied me.
And how neat and clean they look, those little white houses covered with climbing plants of all sorts! The whole scene speaks loudly of the work, thrift, and order of the people.
By pushing on two miles further we come to Granton. There we can take the boat which will carry us over the Firth of Forth, and set us down at Burntisland in Fifeshire; but instead of there taking the train to the north of Scotland, we will stop to see Rossend Castle.
Standing on a promontory, which dominates the Firth of Forth and the hills of Edinburgh, Rossend Castle is one of the most romantic places in Scotland.
Its old square tower contains the bedroom used by Mary Stuart when she travelled in Fifeshire, and stopped at the castle. The present owner, whose hospitality is proverbial in the neighbourhood, has religiously preserved the room intact. It is there just as it existed three hundred years ago, with its two little turret-rooms, oak wainscoting, and a thousand relics of its unhappy visitor.
The portrait of Mary Stuart at Rossend is the most striking that I saw in Scotland. Placed over the mantelpiece, it seems to fill the room with its dreamy melancholy gaze. It seems to follow you, and you cannot take your eyes off it. I occupied this room for four nights, a prey to the saddest thoughts. It was in the month of January, and the wind, which was blowing hard across the Firth, roared round the tower. With my feet before the fire, which burned in the immense fireplace, I let my fancy reconstruct the scene in which poor Chastelard lost his head, first figuratively, and then in reality.