Chamberss Edinburgh Journal, No. 448 | Page 4

having small
gardens enclosed in iron palisades in front of them. The garden gates
open upon a pavement of nine feet in width; the carriage-road is thirty
feet across; and on the opposite side is another but lower terrace,
surmounted with handsome semi-detached villas, with ample
flower-gardens both in front and rear, those in the front being planted,
but rather sparingly, with limes, birches, and a few specimens of the
white-ash, which in summertime overshadow the pavement, and shelter
a passing pedestrian when caught in a shower. At one end of Our
Terrace, there is a respectable butcher's shop, a public-house, and a
shop which is perpetually changing owners, and making desperate
attempts to establish itself as something or other, without any particular
partiality for any particular line of business. It has been by turns a
print-shop, a stationer's, a circulating library, a toy-shop, a Berlin-wool
shop, a music and musical-instrument shop, a haberdasher's shop, a
snuff and cigar shop, and one other thing which has escaped our

memory--and all within the last seven years. Each retiring speculator
has left his stock-in-trade, along with the good-will, to his successor;
and at the present moment it is a combination of shops, where
everything you don't want is to be found in a state of dilapidation,
together with a very hungry-looking proprietor, who, for want of
customers upon whom to exercise his ingenuity, pulls away all day
long upon the accordion to the tune of We're a' noddin'. The other end
of Our Terrace has its butcher, its public-house, its grocer, and a small
furniture-shop, doing a small trade, under the charge of a very small
boy. Let thus much suffice for the physiology of our subject. We
proceed to record its history, as it may be read by any one of the
inhabitants who chooses to spend the waking hours of a single day in
perusing it from his parlour window.
It is a fine morning in the middle of June, and the clock of the church at
the end of the road is about striking seven, when the parlour shutters
and the street doors of the terrace begin to open one by one. By a
quarter past, the servant-girls, having lighted their fires, and put the
kettle on to boil for breakfast, are ostensibly busy in sweeping the
pathways of the small front-gardens, but are actually enjoying a
simultaneous gossip together over the garden railings--a fleeting
pleasure, which must be nipped in the bud, because master goes to
town at half-past eight, and his boots are not yet cleaned, or his
breakfast prepared. Now the bedroom-bell rings, which means hot
water; and this is no sooner up, than mistress is down, and breakfast is
laid in the parlour. At a quarter before eight, the eggs are boiled, and
the bacon toasted, and the first serious business of the day is in course
of transaction. Mr Jones of No. 9, Mr Robinson of No. 10, and Mr
Brown of No. 11, are bound to be at their several posts in the city at
nine o'clock; and having swallowed a hasty breakfast, they may be seen,
before half-past eight has chimed, walking up and down the terrace
chatting together, and wondering whether 'that Smith,' as usual, means
to keep the omnibus waiting this morning, or whether he will come
forth in time. Precisely as the half hour strikes, the tin horn of the
omnibus sounds its shrill blast, and the vehicle is seen rattling round
the corner, stopping one moment at No. 28, to take up Mr Johnson. On
it comes, with a fresh blast, to where the commercial trio are waiting

for it; out rushes Smith, wiping his mouth, and the 'bus,' swallowing up
the whole four, rumbles and trumpets on to take up Thompson, Jackson,
and Richardson, who, cigars in mouth, are waiting at a distance of forty
paces off to ascend the roof. An hour later, a second omnibus comes by
on the same benevolent errand, for the accommodation of those
gentlemen, more favoured by fortune, who are not expected to be at the
post of business until the hour of ten. As Our Terrace does not stand in
a direct omnibus route, these are all the 'buses' that will pass in the
course of the day. The gentlemen whom they convey every morning to
town are regular customers, and the vehicles diverge from their regular
course in order to pick them up at their own doors.
About half-past nine, or from that to a quarter to ten, comes the
postman with his first delivery of letters for the day. Our Terrace is the
most toilsome part of his beat, for having to serve both sides of the way,
his progress is very like that of a ship at sea sailing