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| 1 | 198 | 396 | 594 | 792 |
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with the air of a man who had seen them too often before, to think
them worthy of much notice now, my uncle walked up the middle of
the street, with a thumb in each waistcoat pocket, indulging from time
to time in various snatches of song, chanted forth with such good-will
and spirit, that the quiet honest folk started from their first sleep and
lay trembling in bed till the sound died away in the distance; when,
satisfying themselves that it was only some drunken ne'er-do-weel
finding his way home, they covered themselves up warm and fell
asleep again.
'
I am particular in describing how my uncle walked up the middle of
the street, with his thumbs in his waistcoat pockets, gentlemen,
because, as he often used to say (and with great reason too) there is
nothing at all extraordinary in this story, unless you distinctly
understand at the beginning, that he was not by any means of a
marvellous or romantic turn.
'
Gentlemen, my uncle walked on with his thumbs in his waistcoat
pockets, taking the middle of the street to himself, and singing, now a
verse of a love song, and then a verse of a drinking one, and when he
was tired of both, whistling melodiously, until he reached the North
Bridge, which, at this point, connects the old and new towns of
Edinburgh. Here he stopped for a minute, to look at the strange,
irregular clusters of lights piled one above the other, and twinkling
afar off so high, that they looked like stars, gleaming from the castle
walls on the one side and the Calton Hill on the other, as if they
illuminated veritable castles in the air; while the old picturesque town
slept heavily on, in gloom and darkness below: its palace and chapel
of Holyrood, guarded day and night, as a friend of my uncle's used to
say, by old Arthur's Seat, towering, surly and dark, like some gruff
genius, over the ancient city he has watched so long. I say, gentlemen,
my uncle stopped here, for a minute, to look about him; and then,
paying a compliment to the weather, which had a little cleared up,
though the moon was sinking, walked on again, as royally as before;
keeping the middle of the road with great dignity, and looking as if he
would very much like to meet with somebody who would dispute
possession of it with him. There was nobody at all disposed to contest
the point, as it happened; and so, on he went, with his thumbs in his
waistcoat pockets, like a lamb.
'
When my uncle reached the end of Leith Walk, he had to cross a
pretty large piece of waste ground which separated him from a short
street which he had to turn down to go direct to his lodging. Now, in
this piece of waste ground, there was, at that time, an enclosure
belonging to some wheelwright who contracted with the Post Office for
the purchase of old, worn-out mail coaches; and my uncle, being very
fond of coaches, old, young, or middle-aged, all at once took it into his
head to step out of his road for no other purpose than to peep between
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