Tales and Fantasies | Page 6

that point as out of a fortification. She had a knitted shawl over
her head; her blue Highland eyes took the light from the neighbouring
street-lamp and sparkled; and when the door opened and closed upon
her, John felt cruelly alone.
He proceeded slowly back along the terrace in a tender glow; and when
he came to Greenside Church, he halted in a doubtful mind. Over the
crown of the Calton Hill, to his left, lay the way to Colette's, where
Alan would soon be looking for his arrival, and where he would now
have no more consented to go than he would have wilfully wallowed in
a bog; the touch of the girl's hand on his sleeve, and the kindly light in
his father's eyes, both loudly forbidding. But right before him was the
way home, which pointed only to bed, a place of little ease for one
whose fancy was strung to the lyrical pitch, and whose not very ardent
heart was just then tumultuously moved. The hilltop, the cool air of the
night, the company of the great monuments, the sight of the city under
his feet, with its hills and valleys and crossing files of lamps, drew him
by all he had of the poetic, and he turned that way; and by that quite
innocent deflection, ripened the crop of his venial errors for the sickle
of destiny.
On a seat on the hill above Greenside he sat for perhaps half an hour,
looking down upon the lamps of Edinburgh, and up at the lamps of
heaven. Wonderful were the resolves he formed; beautiful and kindly
were the vistas of future life that sped before him. He uttered to himself
the name of Flora in so many touching and dramatic keys, that he
became at length fairly melted with tenderness, and could have sung
aloud. At that juncture a certain creasing in his greatcoat caught his ear.
He put his hand into his pocket, pulled forth the envelope that held the
money, and sat stupefied. The Calton Hill, about this period, had an ill
name of nights; and to be sitting there with four hundred pounds that
did not belong to him was hardly wise. He looked up. There was a man
in a very bad hat a little on one side of him, apparently looking at the
scenery; from a little on the other a second night- walker was drawing
very quietly near. Up jumped John. The envelope fell from his hands;
he stooped to get it, and at the same moment both men ran in and
closed with him.
A little after, he got to his feet very sore and shaken, the poorer by a
purse which contained exactly one penny postage- stamp, by a cambric

handkerchief, and by the all-important envelope.
Here was a young man on whom, at the highest point of lovely
exaltation, there had fallen a blow too sharp to be supported alone; and
not many hundred yards away his greatest friend was sitting at supper -
ay, and even expecting him. Was it not in the nature of man that he
should run there? He went in quest of sympathy - in quest of that droll
article that we all suppose ourselves to want when in a strait, and have
agreed to call advice; and he went, besides, with vague but rather
splendid expectations of relief. Alan was rich, or would be so when he
came of age. By a stroke of the pen he might remedy this misfortune,
and avert that dreaded interview with Mr. Nicholson, from which John
now shrunk in imagination as the hand draws back from fire.
Close under the Calton Hill there runs a certain narrow avenue, part
street, part by-road. The head of it faces the doors of the prison; its tail
descends into the sunless slums of the Low Calton. On one hand it is
overhung by the crags of the hill, on the other by an old graveyard.
Between these two the roadway runs in a trench, sparsely lighted at
night, sparsely frequented by day, and bordered, when it was cleared
the place of tombs, by dingy and ambiguous houses. One of these was
the house of Colette; and at his door our ill- starred John was presently
beating for admittance. In an evil hour he satisfied the jealous inquiries
of the contraband hotel-keeper; in an evil hour he penetrated into the
somewhat unsavoury interior. Alan, to be sure, was there, seated in a
room lighted by noisy gas-jets, beside a dirty table-cloth, engaged on a
coarse meal, and in the company of several tipsy members of the junior
bar. But Alan was not sober; he had lost a thousand pounds upon a
horse- race, had received the news at dinner-time, and