fronts lighted fitfully by flaring gas-lamps. The bitter night
had driven all Edinburgh to private cover.

From the rear came a clear whistle. Some Heriot laddie who,
being not entirely a "puir orphan," but only "faderless" and,
therefore, living outside the school with his mother, had been
kept after nightfall because of ill-prepared lessons or
misbehavior. Mr. Traill turned, passed his own door, and went on
southward into Forest Road, that skirted the long arm of the
kirkyard.

From the Burghmuir, all the way to the Grassmarket and the
Cowgate, was downhill. So, with arms winged, and stout legs
spread wide and braced, Geordie Ross was sliding gaily homeward,
his knitted tippet a gallant pennant behind. Here was a Mercury
for an urgent errand.

"Laddie, do you know whaur's a doctor who can be had for a
shulling or two for a poor auld country body in my shop?"

"Is he so awfu' ill?" Geordie asked with the morbid curiosity of
lusty boyhood.

"He's a' that. He's aff his heid. Run, laddie, and dinna be
standing there wagging your fule tongue for naething."

Geordie was off with speed across the bridge to High Street. Mr.
Traill struggled back to his shop, against wind and treacherous
ice, thinking what kind of a bed might be contrived for the sick
man for the night. In the morning the daft auld body could be