The spot itself, however, has indeed changed with time, and but few links are left it to recall bygone days. The loud tramp of Dundee’s dragoons long since died away in Rottenrow. No longer do the rustling gowns of bishop and dean sweep through the cathedral choir. Even the house from which the ill-fated Lord Darnley, sick to death, was carried to the lonely Kirk o’ Fields three hundred years ago, has disappeared. Cavalier and Covenanter and Virginia merchant have given place to the petty trader and the artizan. The house at the foot of Glassford Street, where Prince Charlie put up in the ’45, has been pulled down; and of the walls which witnessed the rejoicing bonfires of the Whig burgesses after the news of Culloden, few are left but those of the dim cathedral. Even the Saltmarket at hand has been so altered of late years, that if worthy Bailie Nicol Jarvie were to step out again on the causeway he would find no trace at all of the narrow, ill-paved, unlighted lane of his day, with its high, rickety houses, and creaking shop-signs. Rather must the city pride herself now upon her glories of the present. Far off, upon the great Clyde artery at Govan, where the nets of the salmon-fishers once hung in the sun to dry, the noise of a myriad hammers has just ceased for the holiday, and the iron skeletons of a hundred ships stand silent in the darkness--spectres not of the past but of the future. Overhead, between the high house-roofs, the heaven is very dark, and above the lanterns of the clock the Tron steeple is hidden from sight; but one side of the neighbouring tower--that of the ancient Tolbooth in High Street--reflects the red glare, from a mile away, of the iron furnaces at Hutchesontown--those undying vestal fires of the nineteenth century; and the golden vane upon the spire shines, strangely lit, alone in the dark heaven. Significant indications, these, of the strong modern life that throbs in the veins of the ancient city. But the great gilt hand of the clock overhead is approaching midnight, and along the streets, from the four points of the compass, comes the sound of innumerable hastening feet. It is the crowd gathering to observe this immemorial ceremony of “bringing in the year.”