branch line through Peebles, and this route can be recommended to the hippogriffs of cycles and motors. Beyond the Catrail, ancient barrier of the Picts or the Britons of Strathclyde, our main railroad, as its way is, keeps on straight up the course of the Gala, leaving to its right the dreary Lammermoors; then between the Castles of Borthwick and Crichton, it enters on the more prosaic Lothian country. To the left is seen the Pentland ridge, and straight ahead springs up the cone of Arthur’s Seat beaconing us to Edinburgh, goal of the race for which a Caledonian express will be speeding along the farther side of the Pentlands. And not a kilt have we seen yet, since leaving London! Of this more anon; kilts are not at home on the Borders, though I have seen one on the Welsh Marches, worn in conjunction with a pith helmet by a retired Liverpool tradesman. Since “gloves of steel” and “helmets barred” went out of fashion on Tweedside, the local colour has been that modest shepherd’s plaid displayed in Lord Brougham’s trousers to the ribaldry of _Punch_, and even that goes out of homely wear. You may buy Scott and Douglas tartans in the shops, but they seem vain things, fondly invented, as indeed are some of the patterns now seen in the Highlands. But there will be a good show of kilts in Edinburgh Castle, where once they were like to be bestowed in the dungeon:-- Wae worth the loons that made the laws To hang a man for gear-- To reave o’ life for sic a cause As _lifting_ horse or mare! And here our North British express, panting through the fat Lothians, comes to slacken under the castellated walls of that gaol which tourists are apt to take for the Castle--no true kilts to be looked for there nowadays, yet perhaps at the Police Court under the head of drunk and disorderly! So let us leave the Borderland behind with a quotation from an American writer (_Penelope in Scotland_) who knows what’s what, and who at first sight fairly loses her heart to Edinburgh, _haars_, east winds, and all, that are its thorns in the flesh. “I hope,” she very sensibly says, “that those in authority will never attempt to convene a Peace Congress in Edinburgh, lest the influence of the Castle be too strong for the delegates. They could not resist it nor turn their backs upon it, since, unlike other ancient fortresses, it is but a stone’s-throw from the front windows of all the hotels. They might mean never so well, but they would end by buying dirk hat-pins and claymore brooches for their wives; their daughters would all run after the kilted regiment and marry as many of the pipers as asked them, and before night they would all be shouting with the noble Fitz-Eustace, Where’s the coward that would not dare To fight for such a land?” CHAPTER II AULD REEKIE