The face of the beautiful night before me brings back another time. I fancy I am leaning again over the grey wall, which bounds the sloping road on yonder Calton, looking down with rapt and dreamy eyes upon that wonderful scene below. Hew Murray’s arm is in mine; we have the visionary reverence of youth upon us, and when we speak, we speak low, and with few words. Yonder noble hill with its proud crest, and its visible darkness--yonder faint towers, far below, of storied Holyrood--that grand rugged line from the dim valley of the palace to the bluff front of the castle, with its graceful hovering crown of St Giles lying so fitly upon the stately head of our royal city--the gleaming lights, halfway between the dim sky and the dimmer earth--the confused hum ascending up in softened dreamy murmurs. So near the life and din of a great city; so near the wonderful gloom and silence of the everlasting hills. There is a jarring sound below. I start and open my eyes--and I am looking forth upon the placid water of Fendie, the low cottage lights below, and the steady stars above--an old man and alone! After our third session together at college, Hew Murray went to his distant destination. Murrayshaugh himself came to Edinburgh to superintend his son’s outfit, and to my very great grief, and the regret of the whole band of us, slightly mingled with envy, Hew set sail in a Leith smack--we had no steamers in those days--for London, from whence he was to proceed to Portsmouth, where his ship lay. Hew was not of the cosmopolitan class; he was one of those--happily still existing, and I hope increasing in these days--whom the very name of home and country stirred like a trumpet. After the greatest motive of all--and I fear that in our youthful time _that_ had but little comparative weight with us, as it had little place in the teachings of those who had the guiding of our unformed minds--the honour of his name and of his native land roused the warm spirit of my dear friend, Hew, as no other causes could. “For poor auld Scotland’s sake”--in some degree we all shared the intense and loving loyalty which took this as its centre, but it was a ruling principle with Hew Murray; and he felt his banishment most painfully, though he submitted to the necessity like a man--for Hew had not any very brilliant hopes.