f ony strange body comes
about."

"Whaur are ye gangin'?" cried Auld Jock. He was wide awake, with
burning, suspicious eyes fixed on his host.

"Sit you down, man, with your back to my siller. I'm going for a
doctor." The noise of the storm, as he opened the door, prevented his
hearing the frightened protest:

"Dinna ging!"

The rain had turned to sleet, and Mr. Traill had trouble in keeping his
feet. He looked first into the famous Book Hunter's Stall next door, on
the chance of finding a medical student. The place was open, but it had
no customers. He went on to the bridge, but there the sheriff's court,
the Martyr's church, the society halls and all the smart shops were
closed, their dark fronts lighted fitfully by flaring gas-lamps. The
bitter night had driven all Edinburgh to private cover.

From the rear came a clear whistle. Some Heriot laddie who, being not
entirely a "puir orphan," but only "faderless" and, therefore, living
outside the school with his mother, had been kept after nightfall
because of ill-prepared lessons or misbehavior. Mr. Traill turned,
passed his own door, and went on southward into Forest Road, that
skirted the long arm of the kirkyard.

From the Burghmuir, all the way to the Grassmarket and the Cowgate, was
downhill. So, with arms winged, and stout legs spread wide and braced,
Geordie Ross was sliding gaily homeward, his knitted tippet a gallant
pennant behind. Here was a Mercury for an urgent errand.

"Laddie, do you know whaur's a doctor who can be had for a shulling or
two for a poor auld country body in my shop?"

"Is he so awfu' ill?" Geordie asked with the morbid curiosity of lusty
boyhood.

"He's a' that. He's aff his heid. Run, laddie, and dinna be standing
there wagging your fule tongue for naething."

Geordie was off with speed across the bridge to High Street. Mr. Traill
struggled back to his shop, against wind and treacherous ice, thinking
what kind of a bed might be contrived for the sick man for the night. In
the morning the daft auld body could be hurried, willy-nilly, to a bed
in the infirmary. As for wee Bobby he wouldn't mind if--

And there he ran into his own wide-flung door. A gale blew through the
hastily deserted place. Ashes were scattered about the hearth, and the
cruisey lamp flared in the gusts. Auld Jock and Bobby were gone.

III.

Although dismayed and self-accusing for having frightened Auld Jock into
taking flight by his incautious talk