| 673 | 674 | 675 | 676 | 677 |
| 1 | 198 | 396 | 594 | 792 |
|
good things, notwithstanding. The lassies were pretty and agreeable;
the bailie's wife was one of the best creatures that ever lived; and my
uncle was in thoroughly good cue. The consequence of which was,
that the young ladies tittered and giggled, and the old lady laughed
out loud, and the bailie and the other old fellows roared till they were
red in the face, the whole mortal time. I don't quite recollect how many
tumblers of whiskey-toddy each man drank after supper; but this I
know, that about one o'clock in the morning, the bailie's grown-up son
became insensible while attempting the first verse of ‘Willie brewed a
peck o' maut’; and he having been, for half an hour before, the only
other man visible above the mahogany, it occurred to my uncle that it
was almost time to think about going, especially as drinking had set
in at seven o'clock, in order that he might get home at a decent hour.
But, thinking it might not be quite polite to go just then, my uncle
voted himself into the chair, mixed another glass, rose to propose his
own health, addressed himself in a neat and complimentary speech,
and drank the toast with great enthusiasm. Still nobody woke; so my
uncle took a little drop more - neat this time, to prevent the toddy
from disagreeing with him - and, laying violent hands on his hat,
sallied forth into the street.
'
it was a wild, gusty night when my uncle closed the bailie's door, and
settling his hat firmly on his head to prevent the wind from taking it,
thrust his hands into his pockets, and looking upward, took a short
survey of the state of the weather. The clouds were drifting over the
moon at their giddiest speed; at one time wholly obscuring her; at
another, suffering her to burst forth in full splendour and shed her
light on all the objects around; anon, driving over her again, with
increased velocity, and shrouding everything in darkness. ‘Really, this
won't do,’ said my uncle, addressing himself to the weather, as if he
felt himself personally offended. ‘This is not at all the kind of thing for
my voyage. It will not do at any price,’ said my uncle, very
impressively. Having repeated this, several times, he recovered his
balance with some difficulty - for he was rather giddy with looking up
into the sky so long - and walked merrily on.
'
The bailie's house was in the Canongate, and my uncle was going to
the other end of Leith Walk, rather better than a mile's journey. On
either side of him, there shot up against the dark sky, tall, gaunt,
straggling houses, with time-stained fronts, and windows that seemed
to have shared the lot of eyes in mortals, and to have grown dim and
sunken with age. Six, seven, eight Storey high, were the houses;
storey piled upon storey, as children build with cards - throwing their
dark shadows over the roughly paved road, and making the dark night
darker. A few oil lamps were scattered at long distances, but they only
served to mark the dirty entrance to some narrow close, or to show
where a common stair communicated, by steep and intricate
windings, with the various flats above. Glancing at all these things
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