Still the preparations went on; and, in the sadness and anxiety of the day, the drilling of the highlanders and archers--who had become so expert as to face all possible ways at a single word of command--were not a jot abated, while the gloom of the night was broken by the clinking of hammers erecting scaffolding in every thoroughfare, as well as by pattering feet of official and other men learning to “make their legs” against the levee, and the scratching of grinders’ pens translating, redacting, and otherways brushing up loyal and dutiful addresses, which came before them on all complexions of paper, and in all concatenations of orthography. Nor were these glimpses through the gloom confined to sounds; the sights were equally delectable. Here, one might catch a sight of some single star, not of the first magnitude, twisting her face into all expressions, and her neck into all attitudes, in order to find the barleycorn of beauty in the bushel of chaff; and there again might be beheld a whole constellation, bedraperied with sheets as aforesaid, streaming forward through some long gallery, tailed and terrible as comets, and then retreating backwards with perplexed and puzzled steps, tucking up the sheets as they progressed, and occasionally dropping like falling stars from the firmament of their practice. Morning dawned; and the sleepless eyes and speculationless telescopes again faired forth to scan the gloomy east. One from the top of the Calton, cried “There is the Royal George! I know her by the spread of her sails, and the sweep of her oars.” The crowd looked toward the sea, and saw nothing. The observer looked at his telescope: a moth had settled upon the object glass, with downy wings elevated above, and feet and feelers extended below. Still the crowd collected, till every height commanding a view of the point at which the Forth mingles its broad waters with the ocean, was absolutely paved with human beings, all worshipping towards the east, with more intense devotion than a caravan of Moslem pilgrims in the desert.