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