|
Main
- books.jibble.org
My Books
- IRC Hacks
Misc. Articles
- Meaning of Jibble
- M4 Su Doku
- Computer Scrapbooking
- Setting up Java
- Bootable Java
- Cookies in Java
- Dynamic Graphs
- Social Shakespeare
External Links
- Paul Mutton
- Jibble Photo Gallery
- Jibble Forums
- Google Landmarks
- Jibble Shop
- Free Books
- Intershot Ltd
|
books.jibble.org
Previous Page
| Next Page
Page 14
III.
Although dismayed and self-accusing for having frightened Auld
Jock into taking flight by his incautious talk of a doctor, not
for an instant did the landlord of Greyfriars Dining-Rooms
entertain the idea of following him. The old man had only to
cross the street and drop down the incline between the bridge
approach and the ancient Chapel of St. Magdalen to be lost in the
deepest, most densely peopled, and blackest gorge in Christendom.
Well knowing that he was safe from pursuit, Auld Jock chuckled as
he gained the last low level. Fever lent him a brief strength,
and the cold damp was grateful to his hot skin. None were abroad
in the Cowgate; and that was lucky for, in this black hole of
Edinburgh, even so old and poor a man was liable to be set upon
by thieves, on the chance of a few shillings or pence.
Used as he was to following flocks up treacherous braes and
through drifted glens, and surefooted as a collie, Auld Jock had
to pick his way carefully over the slimy, ice-glazed cobble
stones of the Cowgate. He could see nothing. The scattered
gas-lamps, blurred by the wet, only made a timbered gallery or
stone stairs stand out here and there or lighted up a Gothic
gargoyle to a fantastic grin. The street lay so deep and narrow
that sleet and wind wasted little time in finding it out, but
roared and rattled among the gables, dormers and chimney-stacks
overhead. Happy in finding his master himself again, and sniffing
fresh adventure, Bobby tumbled noisily about Auld Jock's feet
until reproved. And here was strange going. Ancient and warring
smells confused and insulted the little country dog's nose. After
a few inquiring and protesting barks Bobby fell into a subdued
trot at Auld Jock's heels.
To this shepherd in exile the romance of Old Edinburgh was a
sealed book. It was, indeed, difficult for the most imaginative
to believe that the Cowgate was once a lovely, wooded ravine,
with a rustic burn babbling over pebbles at its bottom, and along
the brook a straggling path worn smooth by cattle on their driven
way to the Grassmarket. Then, when the Scottish nobility was
crowded out of the piled-up mansions, on the sloping ridge of
High Street that ran the mile from the Castle to Holyrood Palace,
splendor camped in the Cowgate, in villas set in fair gardens,
and separated by hedge-rows in which birds nested.
In time this ravine, too, became overbuilt. Houses tumbled down
both slopes to the winding cattle path, and the burn was arched
over to make a thoroughfare. Laterally, the buildings were
crowded together, until the upper floors were pushed out on
timber brackets for light and air. Galleries, stairs and jutting
windows were added to outer walls, and the mansions climbed,
story above story, until the Cowgate was an undercut canon,
such as is worn through rock by the rivers of western America.
Lairds and leddies, powdered, jeweled and satin-shod, were borne
in sedan chairs down ten flights of stone stairs and through
torch-lit courts and tunnel streets, to routs in Castle or Palace
and to tourneys in the Grassmarket.
From its low situation the Cowgate came in the course of time to
smell to heaven, and out of it was a sudden exodus of grand folk
to the northern hills. The lowest level was given over at once to
the poor and to small trade. The wynds and closes that climbed
the southern slope were eagerly possessed by divines, lawyers and
literary men because of their nearness to the University. Long
before Bobby's day the well-to-do had fled from the Cowgate wynds
to the hilltop streets and open squares about the colleges. A few
decent working-men remained in the decaying houses, some of which
were at least three centuries old. But there swarmed in upon, and
submerged them, thousands of criminals, beggars, and the
miserably poor and degraded of many nationalities. Businesses
that fatten on misfortune--the saloon, pawn, old clothes and
cheap food shops-lined the squalid Cowgate. Palaces were cut up
into honeycombs of tall tenements. Every stair was a crowded
highway; every passage a place of deposit for filth; almost every
room sheltered a half famished family, in darkness and ancient
dirt. Grand and great, pious and wise, decent, wretched and
terrible folk, of every sort, had preceded Auld Jock to his
lodging in a steep and narrow wynd, and nine gusty flights up
under a beautiful, old Gothic gable.
A wrought-iron lantern hanging in an arched opening, lighted the
entrance to the wynd. With a hand outstretched to either wall,
Auld Jock felt his way up. Another lantern marked a sculptured
doorway that gave to the foul court of the tenement. No sky could
be seen above the open well of the court, and the carved, oaken
banister of the stairs had to be felt for and clung to by one so
short of breath. On the seventh landing, from the exertion of the
long climb, Auld Jock was shaken into helplessness, and his heart
set to pounding, by a violent fit of coughing. Overhead a shutter
was slammed back, and an angry voice bade him stop "deaving
folk."
Previous Page
| Next Page
|
|