Straight down the length of the empty market the laddies ran,
through the crooked, fascinating haunt of horses and jockeys in
the street of King's Stables, then northward along the fronts of
quaint little handicrafts shops that skirted Castle Crag. By
turning westward into Queensferry Street a very few minutes would
have brought them to a bit of buried country. But every
expedition of Edinburgh lads of spirit of that day was properly
begun with challenges to scale Castle Rock from the valley park
of Princes Street Gardens on the north.

"I daur ye to gang up!" was all that was necessary to set any
group of youngsters to scaling the precipice. By every tree and
ledge, by every cranny and point of rock, stoutly rooted hazel
and thorn bush and clump of gorse, they climbed. These laddies
went up a quarter or a third of the way to the grim ramparts and
came cautiously down again. Bobby scrambled higher, tumbled back
more recklessly and fell, head over heels and upside down, on the
daisied turf. He righted himself at once, and yelped in sharp
protest. Then he sniffed and busied himself with pretenses, in
the elaborate unconcern with which a little dog denies anything
discreditable. There were legends of daring youth having climbed
this war-like cliff and laying hands on the fortress wall, but
Geordie expressed a popular feeling in declaring these tales "a'
lees."

"No' ony laddie could gang a' the way up an' come doon wi' 'is
heid no' broken. Bobby couldna do it, an' he's mair like a wild
fox than an ordinar' dog. Noo, we're the Light Brigade at
Balaklava. Chairge!"