The castle, defiant, untakable save by long siege and famine, held for King George by a garrison of a few hundreds, spread itself like a rock lion in a high-lifted rock lair.

Bands of Highlanders watched its gates and accesses, guarding against Hanoverian sallies.

From the castle down stretched Edinburgh, heaped upon its long, spinelike hill, to the palace of Holyrood, and all its tall houses, tall and dark, and all its wynds and closes, and all its strident voices, and all its moving folk, seemed to have in mind that palace and the banner before it.

The note of the having rang jubilation in all its degrees, or with a lower and a muffled sound distaste and fear, or it aimed at a middle strain neither high nor low, a golden mean to be kept until there might be seen what motif, after all, was going to prevail! It would never do, thought some, to be at this juncture too clamorous either way.

But to the unpondering ear the jubilation carried it, as to the eye tartans and white cockades made color, made high light, splashed and starred and redeemed the gray town.