Heart of MidLothian Author:Walter Scott General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1895 Original Publisher: Archibald Constable Subjects: Great Britain Fiction / Classics Fiction / Historical Fiction / Literary Fiction / Legal Law / Legal History Literary Criticism / European / English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh True Crime / Murder / General ... more »Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing text. When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million books for free. Excerpt: CHAPTER III. My native land, good night!" Lord Byron. In the present day, a journey from Edinburgh to London, is a matter at once safe, brief, and simple, however inexperienced or unprotected the traveller. Numerous coaches of different rates of charge, and as many packets, are perpetually passing and repass- ing betwixt the capital of Britain and her northern sister, so that the most timid or indolent may execute such a journey upon a few hours' notice. But it was different in 1737. So slight and infrequent was then the intercourse betwixt London and Edinburgh, that men still alive remember that upon one occasion the mail from the former city arrived at the General Post-Office in Scotland, with only one letter in it. The usual mode of travelling was by means of post-horses, the traveller occupying one and his guide another, in which manner, by relays . of horses from stage to stage, the journey might be accomplished in a wonderfully short time by those who could endure fatigue. To have the bones shaken to pieces by a constant change of those hacks was a luxury for the rich -- the poor were under the necessity of using the mode of conveyance with which nature had provided them. The fact is certain. The single epistle was addressed to the principal director of the British Linen Company. With a strong heart, and a frame patient of fatigue, Jea...« less