hen I was more
put out.

And yet I must wait and do nothing, and partake of my meals, and
entertain the ever-garrulous Rowley, as though I were entirely my own
man. And if I did not require to entertain Mrs. McRankine also, that was
but another drop of bitterness in my cup! For what ailed my landlady,
that she should hold herself so severely aloof, that she should refuse
conversation, that her eyes should be reddened, that I should so
continually hear the voice of her private supplications sounding through
the house? I was much deceived, or she had read the insidious paragraph
and recognised the comminated pearl-grey suit. I remember now a certain
air with which she had laid the paper on my table, and a certain sniff,
between sympathy and defiance, with which she had announced it: "There's
your _Mercury_ for ye!"

In this direction, at least, I saw no pressing danger; her tragic
countenance betokened agitation; it was plain she was wrestling with her
conscience, and the battle still hung dubious. The question of what to
do troubled me extremely. I could not venture to touch such an intricate
and mysterious piece of machinery as my landlady's spiritual nature; it
might go off at a word, and in any direction, like a badly-made
firework. And while I praised myself extremely for my wisdom in the
past, that I had made so much a friend of her, I was all abroad as to my
conduct in the present. There seemed an equal danger in pressing and in
neglecting the accustomed marks of familiarity. The one extreme looked
like impudence, and might annoy; the other was a practical confession of
guilt. Altogether, it was a good hour for me when the dusk began to fall
in earnest on the streets of Edinburgh, and the voice of an early
watchman bade me set forth.

I reached the neighbourhood of the cottage before seven; and as I
breasted the steep ascent which leads to the garden wall, I was struck
with surprise to hear a dog. Dogs I had heard before, but only from the
hamlet on the hillside above. Now, this dog was in the garden itself,
where it roared aloud in the paroxysms of fury, and I could hear it
leaping and straining on the chain. I waited some while, until the
brute's fit of passion had roared itself out. Then, with the utmost
precaution, I drew near again, and finally approached the garden wall.
So soon as I had clapped my head above the level, however, the barking
broke forth again with redoubled energy. Almost at the same time,