a lawyer, who was an Appin Stewart,
and a man therefore to be wholly trusted; and it should be his part to
find a ship and to arrange for Alan's safe embarkation. No sooner was
this business done than the words seemed to leave us; and though I would
seek to jest with Alan under the name of Mr. Thomson, and he with me on
my new clothes and my estate, you could feel very well that we were
nearer tears than laughter.

We came the by-way over the hill of Corstorphine; and when we got near
to the place called Rest-and-be-Thankful, and looked down on
Corstorphine bogs and over to the city and the castle on the hill, we
both stopped, for we both knew without a word said that we had come to
where our ways parted. Here he repeated to me once again what had been
agreed upon between us: the address of the lawyer, the daily hour at
which Alan might be found, and the signals that were to be made by any
that came seeking him. Then I gave him what money I had (a guinea or two
of Rankeillor's), so that he should not starve in the meanwhile; and
then we stood a space, and looked over at Edinburgh in silence.

"Well, good-bye," said Alan, and held out his left hand.

"Good-bye," said I, and gave the hand a little grasp, and went off down
the hill.

Neither one of us looked the other in the face, nor so long as he was in
my view did I take one back glance at the friend I was leaving. But as I
went on my way to the city, I felt so lost and lonesome, that I could
have found it in my heart to sit down by the dyke, and cry and weep like
any baby.

It was coming near noon when I passed in by the West Kirk and the
Grassmarket into the streets of the capital. The huge height of the
buildings, running up to ten and fifteen stories, the narrow arched
entries that continually vomited passengers, the wares of the merchants
in their windows, the hubbub and endless stir, the foul smells and the
fine clothes, and a hundred other particulars too small to mention,
struck me into a kind of stupor of surprise, so that I let the crowd
carry me to and fro; and yet all the time what I was thinking of was
Alan at Rest-and-be-Thankful; and all the time (although you would think
I would not choose but be delighted with these braws and novelties)
there was a cold gnawing in my inside like a remorse for something
wrong.

The hand of Providence brought me in my drifting to the very doors of
the British Linen Company's bank.

FOOTNOTE:

[36] The Duke