16 HAKDY FERNS. 
early morning found me wending my way through 
old dingy streets, past houses of a dozen stories 
high, to Arthur's Seat, where in some retired 
nook I was told I might find Asplenium septen- 
trionale. Ever and anon, as I walked, I turned 
to gaze. Below me lay the fair Palace of Holy- 
rood, with its ruined graceful Chapel and its 
thousand associations. There Kizzio was mur- 
dered. There the beautiful but hapless Queen 
Mary sinned and repented. There the Pretender 
slept — Pretender indeed ! Instinctively I hummed 
the old Jacobite toast, ending — 
But which Pretender is, and which the King, 
Why, bless us all, that's quite another thing ! 
Away to the left, in the Old Town, is the 
Tolbooth, and a little further the Canongate, 
places that seem to come to you as scenes of 
your childhood, so familiar have the wondrous 
pages of Sir Walter Scott made them ; and as one 
toils up the steep ascent to Arthur's Seat a crowd 
of old memories rush in upon the mind, and the 
