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The first man who entered an officer of the Crown from the sheriff's court on the bridge took off his hat to the majesty that dominated that bare cell. The Cowgate region presented many a startling contrast, but such a one as this must seldom have been seen.
Tailed by scuffling gamins, the strange little procession moved quickly down the wynd and turned into the roaring Cowgate. The policemen went before to force a passage through the press. The Bible-reader followed the box, and Bobby, head and tail down, trotted unnoticed, beneath it.
Thence he reeled and staggered through the Parliament Close, and got down the back stairs, which have now disappeared, often stumbling by the way, and thus got into the Cowgate, some of the town-guard being close after him.
He declared that he thought he could not know this Madge Wildfire, if placed before him in a different dress, but that he believed he might recognise her voice. The magistrate requested him again to state by what gate he left the city. "By the Cowgate Port," replied Butler. "Was that the nearest road to Libberton?"
It was a Bible reader who chanced to come in from the Medical Mission in the Cowgate who thought to look in the fly-leaf of Auld Jock's Bible. "His name is John Gray." He laid the worn little book on Auld Jock's breast and crossed the work-scarred hands upon it. "It's something by the ordinar' to find a gude auld country body in such a foul place."
Dwellers in the tenements darted up wynds and blind closes, climbed twisting turnpike stairs to windy roosts under the gables, or they scuttled through noble doors into foul courts and hallways. Beggars and pickpockets swarmed under the arches of the bridge, to swell the evil smelling human river that flowed at the dark and slimy bottom of the Cowgate.
One night I went along the Cowgate after every one was a-bed but the policeman, and stopped by hazard before a tall LAND. The moon touched upon its chimneys, and shone blankly on the upper windows; there was no light anywhere in the great bulk of building; but as I stood there it seemed to me that I could hear quite a body of quiet sounds from the interior; doubtless there were many clocks ticking, and people snoring on their backs.
When the multitude arrived at the Cowgate Port, they secured it with as little opposition as the former, made it fast, and left a small party to observe it.
"I should have thought," said the clergyman, "that would have sounded vulgar in the great city." "Not at all," replied the Duke; "you must suppose it is not the broad coarse Scotch that is spoken in the Cowgate of Edinburgh, or in the Gorbals.
These little Elzevirs are the memoranda and trophies of many a walk by night and morning through the Cowgate, the Canongate, the Bow, St Mary's Wynd wherever, in fine, there were to be found brokers and trokers, those miscellaneous dealers in things rare and curious.
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