an's
justice to the fear of God's visitation. The dead they buried on the
Borough Muir; the living who had concealed the sickness were drowned, if
they were women, in the Quarry Holes, and if they were men, were hanged
and gibbeted at their own doors; and wherever the evil had passed,
furniture was destroyed and houses closed. And the most bogeyish part of
the story is about such houses. Two generations back they still stood
dark and empty; people avoided them as they passed by; the boldest
schoolboy only shouted through the key-hole and made off; for within, it
was supposed, the plague lay ambushed like a basilisk, ready to flow
forth and spread blain and pustule through the city. What a terrible
next-door neighbour for superstitious citizens! A rat scampering within
would send a shudder through the stoutest heart. Here, if you like, was
a sanitary parable, addressed by our uncleanly forefathers to their own
neglect.

And then we have Major Weir; for although even his house is now
demolished, old Edinburgh cannot clear herself of his unholy memory. He
and his sister lived together in an odour of sour piety. She was a
marvelous spinster; he had a rare gift of supplication, and was known
among devout admirers by the name of Angelical Thomas. "He was a tall,
black man, and ordinarily looked down to the ground; a grim countenance,
and a big nose. His garb was still a cloak, and somewhat dark, and he
never went without his staff." How it came about that Angelical Thomas
was burned in company with his staff, and his sister in gentler manner
hanged, and whether these two were simply religious maniacs of the more
furious order, or had real as well as imaginary sins upon their
old-world shoulders, are points happily beyond the reach of our
intention. At least, it is suitable enough that out of this
superstitious city some such example should have been put forth: the
outcome and fine flower of dark and vehement religion. And at least the
facts struck the public fancy and brought forth a remarkable family of
myths. It would appear that the Major's staff went upon his errands, and
even ran before him with a lantern on dark nights. Gigantic females,
"stentoriously laughing and gaping with tehees of laughter" at
unseasonable hours of night and morning, haunted the purlieus of his
abode. His house fell under such a load of infamy that no one dared to
sleep in it, until municipal improvement leveled the structure with the
ground. And