第84章 I MEET A CHEERFUL EXTRAVAGANT(1)

I PASS over the next fifty or sixty leagues of our journey without comment.The reader must be growing weary of scenes of travel; and for my own part I have no cause to recall these particular miles with any pleasure.We were mainly occupied with attempts to obliterate our trail, which (as the result showed) were far from successful; for, on my cousin following, he was able to run me home with the least possible loss of time, following the claret-coloured chaise to Kirkby-Lonsdale, where I think the landlord must have wept to learn what he had missed, and tracing us thereafter to the doors of the coach-office in Edinburgh without a single check.

Fortune did not favour me, and why should I recapitulate the details of futile precautions which deceived nobody, and wearisome arts which proved to be artless?

The day was drawing to an end when Mr.Rowley and I bowled into Edinburgh to the stirring sound of the guard's bugle and the clattering team.I was here upon my field of battle; on the scene of my former captivity, escape and exploits; and in the same city with my love.My heart expanded; I have rarely felt more of a hero.All down the Bridges I sat by the driver with my arms folded and my face set, unflinchingly meeting every eye, and prepared every moment for a cry of recognition.Hundreds of the population were in the habit of visiting the Castle, where it was my practice (before the days of Flora) to make myself conspicuous among the prisoners; and I think it an extraordinary thing that I should have encountered so few to recognise me.But doubtless a clean chin is a disguise in itself; and the change is great from a suit of sulphur-yellow to fine linen, a well-fitting mouse-coloured great-

coat furred in black, a pair of tight trousers of fashionable cut, and a hat of inimitable curl.After all, it was more likely that I should have recognised our visitors, than that they should have identified the modish gentleman with the miserable prisoner in the Castle.

I was glad to set foot on the flagstones, and to escape from the crowd that had assembled to receive the mail.Here we were, with but little daylight before us, and that on Saturday afternoon, the eve of the famous Scottish Sabbath, adrift in the New Town of Edinburgh, and overladen with baggage.We carried it ourselves.I would not take a cab, nor so much as hire a porter, who might afterwards serve as a link between my lodgings and the mail, and connect me again with the claret-coloured chaise and Aylesbury.

For I was resolved to break the chain of evidence for good, and to begin life afresh (so far as regards caution) with a new character.

The first step was to find lodgings, and to find them quickly.

This was the more needful as Mr.Rowley and I, in our smart clothes and with our cumbrous burthen, made a noticeable appearance in the streets at that time of the day and in that quarter of the town, which was largely given up to fine folk, bucks and dandies and young ladies, or respectable professional men on their way home to dinner.

On the north side of St.James' Square I was so happy as to spy a bill in a third-floor window.I was equally indifferent to cost and convenience in my choice of a lodging - 'any port in a storm'

was the principle on which I was prepared to act; and Rowley and I made at once for the common entrance and sealed the stair.

We were admitted by a very sour-looking female in bombazine.I gathered she had all her life been depressed by a series of bereavements, the last of which might very well have befallen her the day before; and I instinctively lowered my voice when I addressed her.She admitted she had rooms to let - even showed them to us - a sitting-room and bedroom in a SUITE, commanding a fine prospect to the Firth and Fifeshire, and in themselves well proportioned and comfortably furnished, with pictures on the wall, shells on the mantelpiece, and several books upon the table which I found afterwards to be all of a devotional character, and all presentation copies, 'to my Christian friend,' or 'to my devout acquaintance in the Lord, Bethiah McRankine.' Beyond this my 'Christian friend' could not be made to advance: no, not even to do that which seemed the most natural and pleasing thing in the world - I mean to name her price - but stood before us shaking her head, and at times mourning like the dove, the picture of depression and defence.She had a voice the most querulous I have ever heard, and with this she produced a whole regiment of difficulties and criticisms.

She could not promise an attendance.

'Well, madam,' said I, 'and what is my servant for?'

'Him?' she asked.'Be gude to us! Is HE your servant?'

'I am sorry, ma'am, he meets with your disapproval.'

'Na, I never said that.But he's young.He'll be a great breaker, I'm thinkin'.Ay! he'll be a great responsibeelity to ye, like.

Does he attend to his releegion?'

'Yes, m'm,' returned Rowley, with admirable promptitude, and, immediately closing his eyes, as if from habit, repeated the following distich with more celerity than fervour:-

'Matthew, Mark, Luke and John Bless the bed that I lie on!'

'Nhm!' said the lady, and maintained an awful silence.

'Well, ma'am,' said I, 'it seems we are never to hear the beginning of your terms, let alone the end of them.Come - a good movement!

and let us be either off or on.'

She opened her lips slowly.'Ony raferences?' she inquired, in a voice like a bell.

I opened my pocket-book and showed her a handful of bank bills.'I think, madam, that these are unexceptionable,' said I.

'Ye'll be wantin' breakfast late?' was her reply.

'Madam, we want breakfast at whatever hour it suits you to give it, from four in the morning till four in the afternoon!' I cried.

'Only tell us your figure, if your mouth be large enough to let it out!'

'I couldnae give ye supper the nicht,' came the echo.