t, the best of ways; but to go to him hot-foot from Appin's
agent was little likely to mend my own affairs, and might prove the mere
ruin of friend Alan's. The whole thing, besides, gave me a look of
running with the hare and hunting with the hounds that was little to my
fancy. I determined, therefore, to be done at once with Mr. Stewart and
the whole Jacobitical side of my business, and to profit for that
purpose by the guidance of the porter at my side. But it chanced I had
scarce given him the address, when there came a sprinkle of
rain--nothing to hurt, only for my new clothes--and we took shelter
under a pend at the head of a close or alley.

Being strange to what I saw, I stepped a little farther in. The narrow
paved way descended swiftly. Prodigious tall houses sprang up on each
side and bulged out, one story beyond another, as they rose. At the top
only a ribbon of sky showed in. By what I could spy in the windows, and
by the respectable persons that passed out and in, I saw the houses to
be very well occupied; and the whole appearance of the place interested
me like a tale.

I was still gazing, when there came a sudden brisk tramp of feet in time
and clash of steel behind me. Turning quickly, I was aware of a party of
armed soldiers, and, in their midst, a tall man in a great-coat. He
walked with a stoop that was like a piece of courtesy, genteel and
insinuating: he waved his hands plausibly as he went, and his face was
sly and handsome. I thought his eye took me in, but could not meet it.
This procession went by to a door in the close, which a serving-man in a
fine livery set open; and two of the soldier-lads carried the prisoner
within, the rest lingering with their firelocks by the door.

There can nothing pass in the streets of a city without some following
of idle folk and children. It was so now; but the more part melted away
incontinent until but three were left. One was a girl; she was dressed
like a lady, and had a screen of the Drummond colours on her head; but
her comrades or (I should say) followers were ragged gillies, such as I
had seen the matches of by the dozen in my Highland journey. They all
spoke together earnestly in Gaelic, the sound of which was pleasant in
my ears for the sake of Alan; and though the rain was by again, and my
porter plucked at me to be going, I even drew nearer where they were, to
listen. The lady scolded sharply, the others making apologies and
cringing before her, so