er generation, was this same Paulus Pleydell, Esq.,
otherwise a good scholar, an excellent lawyer, and a worthy man.

Under the guidance of his trusty attendant, Colonel Mannering, after
threading a dark lane or two, reached the High Street, then clanging with
the voices of oyster-women and the bells of pye-men; for it had, as his
guide assured him, just' chappit eight upon the Tron.' It was long since
Mannering had been in the street of a crowded metropolis, which, with its
noise and clamour, its sounds of trade, of revelry, and of license, its
variety of lights, and the eternally changing bustle of its hundred
groups, offers, by night especially, a spectacle which, though composed
of the most vulgar materials when they are separately considered, has,
when they are combined, a striking and powerful effect on the
imagination. The extraordinary height of the houses was marked by lights,
which, glimmering irregularly along their front, ascended so high among
the attics that they seemed at length to twinkle in the middle sky. This
coup d'aeil, which still subsists in a certain degree, was then more
imposing, owing to the uninterrupted range of buildings on each side,
which, broken only at the space where the North Bridge joins the main
street, formed a superb and uniform place, extending from the front of
the Lucken-booths to the head of the Canongate, and corresponding in
breadth and length to the uncommon height of the buildings on either
side.

Mannering had not much time to look and to admire. His conductor hurried
him across this striking scene, and suddenly dived with him into a very
steep paved lane. Turning to the right, they entered a scale staircase,
as it is called, the state of which, so far as it could be judged of by
one of his senses, annoyed Mannering's delicacy not a little. When they
had ascended cautiously to a considerable height, they heard a heavy rap
at a door, still two stories above them. The door opened, and immediately
ensued the sharp and worrying bark of a dog, the squalling of a woman,
the screams of an assaulted cat, and the hoarse voice of a man, who cried
in a most imperative tone, 'Will ye, Mustard? Will ye? down, sir, down!'

'Lord preserve us!' said the female voice, 'an he had worried our cat,
Mr. Pleydell would ne'er hae forgi'en me!'

'Aweel, my doo, the cat's no a prin the waur. So he's no in, ye say?'

'Na, Mr. Pleydell's ne'er in the house on Saturday at e'en,' answered the
fem