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In former times, England had her Tyburn, to which the devoted victims of justice were conducted in solemn procession up what is now called Oxford Street. In Edinburgh, a large open street, or rather oblong square, surrounded by high houses, called the Grassmarket, was used for the same melancholy purpose.
He put up for the night at one of the many inns of the Grassmarket; and, revolving in his mind what he had already seen, retired to bed. Early next morning, he arose, dressed, and sallied forth to gratify his curiosity; but, with no one to whom he could communicate the feelings that every new object awakened, he felt solitary among the surrounding crowds.
The distance he had to go was a matter of a quarter of a mile, or less, and the greater part of it was on the level, through the sunken valley of the Grassmarket. But Bobby had literally to drag himself now; and he had still to pull him self up by his fore paws over the wet and greasy cobblestones of Candlemakers Row.
Without waiting for her answer, Miss Mackenzie entered a tiny shop close by, purchased a mutton-pie and handed it to Baubie Wishart, who received it with wondering reverence. Miss Mackenzie took her way home westward up the Grassmarket.
"Gae wa'," replied Mause; "I trow ye are yet in the bonds of sin, and in the gall of iniquity, to grudge your bonniest and best in the cause of Him that gave ye a' ye hae I promise I hae dune as muckle for Mr Harry as I wad do for my ain; for if Cuddie was found worthy to bear testimony in the Grassmarket" "And there's gude hope o't," said Alison, "unless you and he change your courses."
That night the mob broke into the Tolbooth, the prison, commonly called the Heart of Midlothian, dragged the wretched Porteous from the chimney in which he had concealed himself, and carried him off to the Grassmarket, where, as the leader of the rioters, a tall man dressed in woman's clothes said he had spilled the blood of so many innocents. "Let no man hurt him," continued the speaker.
In Bobby's day of youth, and that was in 1858, when Queen Victoria was a happy wife and mother, with all her bairns about her knees in Windsor or Balmoral, the Grassmarket of Edinburgh was still a bit of the Middle Ages, as picturesquely decaying and Gothic as German Nuremberg. Beside the classic corn exchange, it had no modern buildings.
During the melancholy procession of the criminal and his guard, accompanied by the magistrates, ministers, and others from the Old Tolbooth, which stood in the Lawnmarket, to the scaffold, which was placed in the Grassmarket, there was not the slightest appearance of a riot, nor after Wilson had been suspended, until life was extinct, did the least manifestation of disturbance occur on the part of a vast crowd of people collected from town and country to witness the execution.
"Just come along, and we'll soon be at your digs, and we'll talk as we drive along," and he piloted her to a waiting cab; and getting in beside her, it moved off, as she heard him say "Grassmarket" to the driver. But she had little interest in anything, now that Peter was here. She felt a sense of security in his company that she had never felt before.
'The landlord sighed in open envy when the laddies and the little dog tumbled down the Row to the Grassmarket on their gypsying. His eyes sought out the glimpse of green country on the dome of Arthur's Seat, that loomed beyond the University towers to the east. There are times when the heart of a boy goes ill with the sordid duties of the man.
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