Catriona | Page 2

(what was worse in my case) set them asking questions.
So that I behooved to come by some clothes of my own, and in the meanwhile to walk by
the porter's side, and put my hand on his arm as though we were a pair of friends.
At a merchant's in the Luckenbooths I had myself fitted out: none too fine, for I had no
idea to appear like a beggar on horseback; but comely and responsible, so that servants
should respect me. Thence to an armourer's, where I got a plain sword, to suit with my
degree in life. I felt safer with the weapon, though (for one so ignorant of defence) it
might be called an added danger. The porter, who was naturally a man of some
experience, judged my accoutrement to be well chosen.
"Naething kenspeckle," {1} said he; "plain, dacent claes. As for the rapier, nae doubt it
sits wi' your degree; but an I had been you, I would has waired my siller better-gates than
that." And he proposed I should buy winter-hosen from a wife in the Cowgate-back, that
was a cousin of his own, and made them "extraordinar endurable."
But I had other matters on my hand more pressing. Here I was in this old, black city,
which was for all the world like a rabbit- warren, not only by the number of its indwellers,
but the complication of its passages and holes. It was, indeed, a place where no stranger
had a chance to find a friend, let be another stranger. Suppose him even to hit on the right
close, people dwelt so thronged in these tall houses, he might very well seek a day before
he chanced on the right door. The ordinary course was to hire a lad they called a caddie,
who was like a guide or pilot, led you where you had occasion, and (your errands being
done) brought you again where you were lodging. But these caddies, being always
employed in the same sort of services, and having it for obligation to be well informed of
every house and person in the city, had grown to form a brotherhood of spies; and I knew
from tales of Mr. Campbell's how they communicated one with another, what a rage of
curiosity they conceived as to their employer's business, and how they were like eyes and
fingers to the police. It would be a piece of little wisdom, the way I was now placed, to
take such a ferret to my tails. I had three visits to make, all immediately needful: to my
kinsman Mr. Balfour of Pilrig, to Stewart the Writer that was Appin's agent, and to
William Grant Esquire of Prestongrange, Lord Advocate of Scotland. Mr. Balfour's was a
non-committal visit; and besides (Pilrig being in the country) I made bold to find the way
to it myself, with the help of my two legs and a Scots tongue. But the rest were in a
different case. Not only was the visit to Appin's agent, in the midst of the cry about the
Appin murder, dangerous in itself, but it was highly inconsistent with the other. I was like
to have a bad enough time of it with my Lord Advocate Grant, the best of ways; but to go
to him hot-foot from Appin's agent, was little likely to mend my own affairs, and might
prove the mere ruin of friend Alan's. The whole thing, besides, gave me a look of running
with the hare and hunting with the hounds that was little to my fancy. I determined,
therefore, to be done at once with Mr. Stewart and the whole Jacobitical side of my
business, and to profit for that purpose by the guidance of the porter at my side. But it
chanced I had scarce given him the address, when there came a sprinkle of rain--nothing
to hurt, only for my new clothes--and we took shelter under a pend at the head of a close
or alley.
Being strange to what I saw, I stepped a little farther in. The narrow paved way
descended swiftly. Prodigious tall houses sprang upon each side and bulged out, one
storey beyond another, as they rose. At the top only a ribbon of sky showed in. By what I

could spy in the windows, and by the respectable persons that passed out and in, I saw the
houses to be very well occupied; and the whole appearance of the place interested me like
a tale.
I was still gazing, when there came a sudden brisk tramp of feet in time and clash of steel
behind me. Turning quickly, I was aware of a party of armed soldiers, and, in their midst,
a tall man in a great coat. He walked with