stairs to windy roosts under the gables, or they scuttled through
noble doors into foul courts and hallways. Beggars and
pickpockets swarmed under the arches of the bridge, to swell the
evil smelling human river that flowed at the dark and slimy
bottom of the Cowgate.

A chill November wind tore at the creaking iron cross of the
Knights of St. John, on the highest gable of the Temple
tenements, that turned its decaying back on the kirkyard of the
Greyfriars. Low clouds were tangled and torn on the Castle
battlements. A few horses stood about, munching oats from
feed-boxes. Flocks of sparrows fluttered down from timbered
galleries and rocky ledges to feast on scattered grain. Swallows
wheeled in wide, descending spirals from mud villages under the
cornices to catch flies. Rats scurried out of holes and gleaned
in the deserted corn exchange. And 'round and 'round the empty
market-place raced the frantic little terrier in search of Auld
Jock.

Bobby knew, as well as any man, that it was the dinner hour. With
the time-gun it was Auld Jock's custom to go up to a snug little
restaurant; that was patronized chiefly by the decent poor small
shopkeepers, clerks, tenant farmers, and medical students living
in cheap lodgings--in Greyfriars Place. There, in Ye Olde
Greyfriars Dining-Rooms, owned by Mr. John Traill, and four doors
beyond the kirkyard gate, was a cozy little inglenook that Auld
Jock and Bobby had come to look upon as their own. At its back,
above a recessed oaken settle and a table, a tiny paned window
looked up and over a retaining wall into the ancient place of the
dead.