to 'is ain mind. An' syne he's usefu', an' hauds 'is gab by the
ordinar'." He often reinforced his inclination with some such
argument.

With all their caution, discovery was always imminent. The
kirkyard was long and narrow and on rising levels, and it was cut
almost across by the low mass of the two kirks, so that many
things might be going on at one end that could not be seen from
the other. On this Saturday noon, when the Heriot boys were let
out for the half-holiday, Mr. Brown kept an eye on them until
those who lived outside had dispersed. When Mistress Jeanie
tucked her knitting-needles in her belt, and went up to the lodge
to put the dinner over the fire, the caretaker went down toward
Candlemakers Row to trim the grass about the martyrs' monument.
Bobby dutifully trotted at his heels. Almost immediately a
half-dozen laddies, led by Geordie Ross and Sandy McGregor,
scaled the wall from Heriot's grounds and stepped down into the
kirkyard, that lay piled within nearly to the top. They had a
perfectly legitimate errand there, but no mission is to be
approached directly by romantic boyhood.

"Hist!" was the warning, and the innocent invaders, feeling
delightfully lawless, stole over and stormed the marble castle,
where "Bluidy" McKenzie slept uneasily against judgment day.
Light-hearted lads can do daring deeds on a sunny day that would
freeze their blood on a dark and stormy night. So now Geordie
climbed nonchalantly to a seat over the old persecutor, crossed
his stout, bare legs, filled an imaginary pipe, and rattled the
three farthings in his pocket.