and dark lanes
of sooty houses. As well might the steps have proposed to pursue meteors
playing at hide-and-seek among the clouds of a midnight sky that the
tempest was troubling. Nevertheless, Colin Bell, who by virtue of his
ceaseless stir in the exercise of his heathen-god-like abilities, had
constituted himself captain of the detective band, would be up and at
hand immediately, and would say 'Master--sir, Young an' me will bring
them, sir, if ye'll let's.' It was just as good to 'let' as to hinder,
for, for others to be out thus, and he in, seemed to be an advantage
gained over Colin to which he could never be rightly reconciled. He was
bold and frank, and full of expedients in cases of emergency; especially
he appeared capable of rendering more reasons for an error in his
conduct than one could well have imagined could have been rendered for
anything done in life below. Another drawback in the case was, that one
could never be very seriously angry with him. If more real than
pretended at any time, his broad bright eye and bluff face,
magnificently lifted up, like the sun on frost-work, melted down
displeasure and threatened to betray all the policy depending on it; for
in the main never a bit of ill heart had Colin, though doubtlessly he
had in him, deeply established, a trim of rebellion against education
that seemed ever on the alert, and which repulsed even its portended
approach with a vigour resembling the electric energy of the torpedo.

"As we did not much like this place, we did not remain long in it. I had
meanwhile, however, resources which brought relief. Those friends whose
society I most enjoyed occasionally paid us a visit from Edinburgh; and
in leisure hours I haunted the banks of the Esk, which, with wood, and
especially with wild-roses, are very beautiful around the church of
Inveresk. This beauty was heightened by contrast--for I have ever hated
the scenery of, and the effect produced by, sunny days and dirty
streets. Nor do the scenes where mankind congregate to create bustle,
'dirdum and deray,' often fail of making me more or less melancholy. In
the week of the Musselburgh Races, I only went out one day to toss about
for a few hours in the complicated and unmeaning crowd. I insert the
protest which I entered against it on my return:--

"'What boots this turmoil
Of uproar and folly--
That renders the smile
Of creation unholy?
If that which we love
Is life's bes