The appearance of the city, on this dreadful afternoon, was very remarkable, and such as we hope it will never again exhibit. All the streets to the west of St Giles’s were crowded with citizen volunteers, apparently irresolute whether to lay down their arms or to retain them, and whose anxious and crest-fallen looks communicated only despair to the trembling citizens. The sound of hammers was heard at the opening of every lane, and at the bottoms of all important _turnpike_ stairs, where workmen were busied in mounting strong doors, studded thickly with nails, moving on immense hinges, and bearing bolts and bars of no ordinary strength—the well-known rapacious character of the Highlanders, not less than their present hostile purpose, having suggested this feeble attempt at security. The principal street was encumbered with the large, tall, pavilion-roofed family carriages of people of distinction, judges, and officers of the crown, which, after being hastily crammed with their proper burdens of live stock, and laden atop with as much baggage as they could carry, one after another wheeled off down the High Street, through the Netherbow, and so out of town. A few scattered groups of women, children, and inferior citizens, stood near that old-accustomed meeting place, the Cross, round the tall form of which they seemed to gather, like a Catholic population clinging to a sacred fabric, which they suppose to be endowed with some protecting virtue. At the ordinary dinner hour, when the streets were as usual in a great measure deserted, and while the assemblage of citizens were still deliberating in the New Church aisle, the people of the High Street were thrown into a state of dreadful agitation, by a circumstance which they witnessed from their windows. The accustomed silence of “the hollow hungry hour” was suddenly broken by the clatter of a horse’s feet upon the pavement; and on running to their windows, they were prodigiously alarmed at the sight of one of their anticipated foes riding boldly up the street. Yet this alarm subsided considerably, when they observed that his purpose seemed pacific, and that he was not followed by any companions. The horseman was a youth apparently about twenty years of age, with a remarkably handsome figure and gallant carriage, which did not fail in their effect upon at least the female part of the beholders. The most robust Highland health was indicated in his fair countenance and athletic form: and, in addition to this, his appearance expressed just enough of polish not to destroy the romantic effect produced by his wild habiliments and striking situation. The tight tartan trews showed well upon a limb, of which the symmetry was never equalled by David Allan, the national painter, so remarkable for his handsome Highland limbs, and of which the effect, instead of being impaired by the clumsy boot, was improved by the neat brogue, fastened as it was to the foot by sparkling silver buckles. He wore