an
instant destruction seemed inevitable, but next moment his heels struck
the lower ledge and he remained fast. With an earnest "Thank God!" he
began to creep along. The ledge conducted him to safer ground, and in
another quarter of an hour he was free!

To get as far and as quickly as possible from Dunnottar was now his
chief aim. He travelled at his utmost speed till daybreak, when he
crept into a dry ditch, and, overcome by fatigue, forgot his sorrow in
profound unbroken slumber. Rising late in the afternoon, he made his
way to a cottage and begged for bread. They must have suspected what he
was and where he came from, but they were friendly, for they gave him a
loaf and a few pence without asking questions.

Thus he travelled by night and slept by day till he made his way to
Edinburgh, which he entered one evening in the midst of a crowd of
people, and went straight to Candlemaker Row.

Mrs. Black, Mrs. Wallace, Jean Black, and poor Agnes Wilson were in the
old room when a tap was heard at the door, which immediately opened, and
a gaunt, dishevelled, way-worn man appeared. Mrs. Black was startled at
first, for the man, regardless of the other females, advanced towards
her. Then sudden light seemed to flash in her eyes as she extended both
hands.

"Mither!" was all that Andrew could say as he grasped them, fell on his
knees, and, with a profound sigh, laid his head upon her lap.

CHAPTER TWELVE.

THE DARKEST HOUR BEFORE THE DAWN.

Many months passed away, during which Andrew Black, clean-shaved,
brushed-up, and converted into a very respectable, ordinary-looking
artisan, carried on the trade of a turner, in an underground cellar in
one of the most populous parts of the Cowgate. Lost in the crowd was
his idea of security. And he was not far wrong. His cellar had a way
of escape through a back door. Its grated window, under the level of
the street, admitted light to his whirling lathe, but, aided by dirt on
the glass, it baffled the gaze of the curious.

His evenings were spent in Candlemaker Row, where, seated by the window
with his mother, Mrs. Wallace, and the two girls, he smoked his pipe and
commented on Scotland's woes while gazing across the tombs at the glow
in the western sky. Ramblin' Peter--no longer a beardless boy, but a
fairly well-grown and good-looking youth--was a constant visitor at the
Row. Aggie Wilson had taught him the use of his tongue, but Peter was
not the man to use it