ounded me,
nor of how very apt I was (if I went on) to stumble on the ladder of the
gallows. It was a plain fair morning, but the wind in the east. The
little chill of it sang in my blood, and gave me a feeling of the
autumn, and the dead leaves, and dead folk's bodies in their graves. It
seemed the devil was in it, if I was to die in that tide of my fortunes
and for other folk's affairs. On the top of the Calton Hill, though it
was not the customary time of year for that diversion, some children
were crying and running with their kites. These toys appeared very plain
against the sky; I remarked a great one soar on the wind to a high
altitude and then plump among the whins; and I thought to myself at
sight of it, "There goes Davie."

My way lay over Mouter's Hill, and through an end of a clachan on the
braeside among fields. There was a whir of looms in it went from house
to house; bees bummed in the gardens; the neighbours that I saw at the
doorsteps talked in a strange tongue; and I found out later that this
was Picardy, a village where the French weavers wrought for the Linen
Company. Here I got a fresh direction for Pilrig, my destination; and a
little beyond, on the wayside, came by a gibbet and two men hanged in
chains. They were dipped in tar, as the manner is; the wind span them,
the chains clattered, and the birds hung about the uncanny jumping-jacks
and cried. The sight coming on me suddenly, like an illustration of my
fears, I could scarce be done with examining it and drinking in
discomfort. And as I thus turned and turned about the gibbet, what
should I strike on, but a weird old wife, that sat behind a leg of it,
and nodded, and talked aloud to herself, with becks and courtesies.

"Who are these two, mother?" I asked, and pointed to the corpses.

"A blessing on your precious face!" she cried. "Twa joes[7] o' mine:
just twa o' my old joes, my hinny dear."

"What did they suffer for?" I asked.

"Ou, just for the guid cause," said she. "Aften I spaed to them the way
that it would end. Twa shillin' Scots: no pickle mair; and there are
twa bonny callants hingin' for't! They took it frae a wean[8] belanged
to Brouchton."

"Ay!" said I to myself, and not to the daft limmer, "and did they come
to such a figure for so poor a business? This is to lose all indeed."

"Gie's your loof,[9] hinny," says she, "and let me spae your weird to
ye."

"No, mother," said I, "I see far enough the way I am. It's an unco t