story above story, until the Cowgate was an undercut canon,
such as is worn through rock by the rivers of western America.
Lairds and leddies, powdered, jeweled and satin-shod, were borne
in sedan chairs down ten flights of stone stairs and through
torch-lit courts and tunnel streets, to routs in Castle or Palace
and to tourneys in the Grassmarket.

From its low situation the Cowgate came in the course of time to
smell to heaven, and out of it was a sudden exodus of grand folk
to the northern hills. The lowest level was given over at once to
the poor and to small trade. The wynds and closes that climbed
the southern slope were eagerly possessed by divines, lawyers and
literary men because of their nearness to the University. Long
before Bobby's day the well-to-do had fled from the Cowgate wynds
to the hilltop streets and open squares about the colleges. A few
decent working-men remained in the decaying houses, some of which
were at least three centuries old. But there swarmed in upon, and
submerged them, thousands of criminals, beggars, and the
miserably poor and degraded of many nationalities. Businesses
that fatten on misfortune--the saloon, pawn, old clothes and
cheap food shops-lined the squalid Cowgate. Palaces were cut up
into honeycombs of tall tenements. Every stair was a crowded
highway; every passage a place of deposit for filth; almost every
room sheltered a half famished family, in darkness and ancient
dirt. Grand and great, pious and wise, decent, wretched and
terrible folk, of every sort, had preceded Auld Jock to his
lodging in a steep and narrow wynd, and nine gusty flights up
under a beautiful, old Gothic gable.

A wrought-iron lantern hanging in an arched opening, lighted the