On the afternoon of this bright Beltane day, the return of the great naval hero from the shores of Flanders caused an unusual commotion and satisfaction in Dundee. The whole inhabitants were "on tiptoe," and a joyous murmur spread along the Mole when the well-known caravels of Wood were seen to enter the river; for now, though the admiral was a knight and baron of Parliament, who fought under the king's pennon, he still dabbled a little in merchandise, which gave him additional value in the estimation of the thrifty burgesses and merchant traders of the town. Thus, every ship in the harbour, from the great argosie that traded with the Levant, down to those little crayers or low-built smacks which are still peculiar to the Scottish firths, hoisted her colours. The bells in the vast tower of St. Mary rang a merry peal; groups of old weather-beaten tars, wearing broad blue bonnets, gaberdines of Galloway white, and enormous boots of rough skin, assembled on the rock of St. Nicholas, and on the Mole, which then lay to the westward thereof, to observe, and exercise their nautical criticism on the aspect of the tall ships which, before a gentle eastern breeze, were slowly coming abreast of the town. There are bluff old fellows of this kind--half man and half fish--who, in all ages, have haunted the piers of seaport towns, and are great, pugnacious, and, moreover obstinate authorities, in all matters appertaining unto salt water. Amid all the dense population so interested in the arrival of the admiral, there were none who bent their eyes more eagerly on the coming ships than five fair young girls who were seated on the bartizan of a large mansion, which (after surviving nearly all its baronial cotemporaries) still stands at the corner of Fish-street, and the Flesher-row, which were then, as they are yet, the busiest part of all Dundee, and contained some of the finest examples of old Scottish street architecture. This mansion is large and square, like a great bastel-house; and at three of its corners has broad round towers, which are strong enough to turn cannon balls. The whole superstructure rests on an arcade composed of finely-moulded elliptical arches, that spring from fluted pilasters.* Its arcade is partly sunk into the earth, and it is further diminished of its original height by a slate roof sloping down upon the walls, which of old were surmounted by a bartizan, from whence a view could be obtained of the river to the south, and that quaint old thoroughfare to the west, where, two hundred years before, the schoolboy _William Wallace_, slew the son of Selby, the English governor; but to the north the lofty mansions of the Nethergaitt shut out the view. * In 1808, two hundred silver coins of James VI. were found imbedded in the wall of this fabric, which is now named King James's Custom House, from the use to which it was last applied.