and the longing for this little piece of earth make themselves plaintively heard in his last notes.By Lothian Road, after which Stevenson quaintly thought of naming the new edition of his works, and past Boroughmuirhead and the "Bore Stane," where James FitzJames set up his standard before Flodden, wends your southward way to the hills.The builder of suburban villas has pushed his handiwork far into the fields since Stevenson was wont to tramp between the city and the Pentlands; and you may look in vain for the flat stone whereon, as the marvelling child was told, there once rose a "crow-haunted gibbet." Three-quarters of an hour of easy walking, after you have cleared the last of the houses will bring you to Swanston; and half an hour more will take the stiff climber, a little breathless, to THE TOP OF CAERKETTON CRAGS.
You may follow the high road - indeed there is a choice of two, drawn at different levels - athwart the western skirts of the Braid Hills, now tenanted, crown and sides of them, by golf; then to the crossroads of Fairmilehead, whence the road dips down, to rise again and circumvent the most easterly wing of the Pentlands.You would like to pursue this route, were it only to look down on Bow Bridge and recall how the last-century gauger used to put together his flute and play "Over the hills and far away" as a signal to his friend in the distillery below, now converted into a dairy farm, to stow away his barrels.Better it is, however, to climb the stile just past the poor-house gate, and follow the footpath along the smoothly scooped banks of the Braid Burn to "Cockmylane" and to Comiston.The wind has been busy all the morning spreading the snow over a glittering world.The drifts are piled shoulder-high in the lane as it approaches Comiston, and each old tree grouped around the historic mansion is outlined in snow so virgin pure that were the Ghost - "a lady in white, with the most beautiful clear shoes on her feet" - to step out through the back gate, she would be invisible, unless, indeed, she were between you and the ivy-
draped dovecot wall.Near by, at the corner of the Dreghorn Woods, is the Hunters' Tryst, on the roof of which, when it was still a wayside inn, the Devil was wont to dance on windy nights.In the field through which you trudge knee-deep in drift rises the "Kay Stane," looking to-day like a tall monolith of whitest marble.
Stevenson was mistaken when he said that it was from its top a neighbouring laird, on pain of losing his lands, had to "wind a blast of bugle horn" each time the King VISITED HIS FOREST OF PENTLAND.
That honour belongs to another on the adjacent farm of Buckstane.
The ancient monument carries you further back, and there are Celtic authorities that translate its name the "Stone of Victory." The "Pechtland Hills" - their elder name - were once a refuge for the Picts; and Caerketton - probably Caer-etin, the giant's strong-hold - is one of them.Darkly its cliffs frown down upon you, while all else is flashing white in the winter sunlight.For once, in this last buttress thrown out into the plain of Lothian towards the royal city, the outer folds of the Pentlands loses its boldly-
