used as a settlement for students. It has a story of sudden death to tell--probably several, were all known, for the enclosed court was evidently intended for defence. Here was the house of Bailie Macmorran, a rich merchant of James VI.’s reign, when rich merchants were held in great repute by a needy king: this special one had more than once banqueted the King and Queen Anne of Denmark in this very house. The High School boys had a “barring out,” and actually held the High School in a state of siege, and Bailie Macmorran was sent to settle the matter, ordered the door to be forced open, and was then and there shot dead by one of the boys. It is said that the boy who fired was the son of the Chancellor of Caithness, and thus the ancestor of the earls of Caithness, and that his gentle blood saved him from his ever being discovered or brought to justice. Another thing to remember of Riddle’s Close is that, two centuries later, David Hume lived up a spiral stair on the east side of it, and there began to write his history of England. Byers’ Close[39] brings one back from tragedy to comedy. In the old house overhanging this close on the east, with three richly carved windows at its polygonal end, there once lived that Adam Bothwell, Bishop of Orkney, who married Mary, Queen of Scots to Bothwell “with preachings.” A bit of old stair leading to a garden terrace that once overlooked the Nor’ Loch, can be seen from Advocates’ Close. But in Byers’ Close Lord Coalstoun’s wig, to any one who has read the inimitable story in Chambers’s _Traditions of Edinburgh_, still remains, like the coffin of Mahomet, suspended in mid-air. The author tells how in that day (1757) it was the general custom for judges and advocates to don their wigs and gowns in their own houses, and proceed in state, with their cocked hats in their hands, when St. Giles’s bell sounded a quarter to nine, to the Parliament House. Earlier hours must have prevailed then than now, for we are led to understand that, though the legal brethren assembled at nine o’clock instead of at ten, they yet found time to lean over their windows after breakfasting, “enjoying the morning air, and perhaps discussing the news of the day, or the convivialities of the preceding evening, with a neighbouring advocate on the opposite side of the alley.” It so happened that one morning two very young women in the window immediately above that of Lord Coalstoun, were killing time by the somewhat cruel sport of swinging a kitten, suspended by a cord secured round it, up and down out of their window. As the kitten came down, the learned judge popped out his head. In a moment the maidens above saw it, and drew the kitten rapidly up,--but the judge’s wig came with it, firmly fixed in the little angry claws. Imagine the mirth tempered by dread at the upper window! But also imagine the feelings of the senator below,--his wig lifted as by magic from his head, and the morning air blowing “caller” on his exposed