Fortunately, the population did not need to remain within doors, or in the obscurities of the wynds and closes, more than it liked. It could pour itself out of doors into the main street; and it did so daily with a profusion beyond all modern custom. Any morning or afternoon about the year 1561 the High Street of Edinburgh, from the Castle to the Canongate, must have been one of the liveliest and most bustling thoroughfares in Europe. Need we cite, for witness, that chapter in _The Abbot_ in which Scott takes occasion to describe it, just about this date, when he brings young Roland Græme for the first time into Edinburgh under the convoy of Adam Woodcock the falconer? Scott is so excellent an authority in such matters that his account may pass as hardly less authentic than that of a contemporary. We can see, with Roland Græme, the populace “absolutely swarming like bees on the wide and stately street”; we can see the “open booths projecting on the street,” with commodities of all sorts for sale, and especially Flanders cloths, tapestry, and cutlery; we can pick out in the crowd its most representative figures, such as the “gay lady, in her muffler or silken veil,” stepping daintily after her “gentleman usher,” or the group of burghers standing together, “with their short Flemish cloaks, wide trousers, and high-caped doublets.” Nor are we much surprised when there come upon the scene the two parties of richly dressed aristocratic gallants, with their armed retinues of serving-men, meeting each other with frowns in the middle of the causeway, and immediately falling upon each other in a desperate _tulzie_ or street fight, in vindication of their right of way, and of the hereditary feud between their families. Scott required such a _tulzie_ for his story, and therefore brought it in where it suited him best. But, though Edinburgh was famous for its _tulzies_ or causeway-fights between noblemen and lairds at feud, they were hardly everyday occurrences. Once a week or once a month was about the rate in real history. For greater authenticity, therefore, we may seek glimpses of the High Street of Old Edinburgh in Scottish literature of earlier date than the _Waverley Novels_.