The Heart of Midlothian 



Crags ? If you know Scott's Scotland, 

 and have ever been in the ancient 

 capital of the North, you may have 

 taken Sir Walter's favorite walk at the 

 close of day. And if it chanced to be 

 mid-June you would not have had so 

 very long to wait for the glories of the 

 dawn itself, so short are the hours 

 of darkness at that season of the year 

 in the higher latitudes. 



What scenes of pomp and pageantry, 

 what tragedies, what triumphs, have 

 not those heights looked down upon! 

 The joys and sorrows of a people dur- 

 ing centuries of turbulence struggling 

 onward, yet ever upward, toward the 

 goal to which they have finally at- 

 tained. There is the line of the old 

 High Street, every foot of it historic, 

 from the great castle on the rock to 

 Holyrood. In the middle of the old 

 Grassmarket a tablet imbedded in the 

 pavement still carries the figure of 

 a heart the same heart we saw 

 wrought into the iron fabric of the 



[33] 



