on the ladder of the gallows. It was a plain, fair morning, but
the wind in the east. The little chill of it sang in my blood, and
gave me a feeling of the autumn, and the dead leaves, and dead
folks' bodies in their graves. It seemed the devil was in it, if I
was to die in that tide of my fortunes and for other folks'
affairs. On the top of the Calton Hill, though it was not the
customary time of year for that diversion, some children were
crying and running with their kites. These toys appeared very
plain against the sky; I remarked a great one soar on the wind to a
high altitude and then plump among the whins; and I thought to
myself at sight of it, "There goes Davie."

My way lay over Mouter's Hill, and through an end of a clachan on
the braeside among fields. There was a whirr of looms in it went
from house to house; bees bummed in the gardens; the neighbours
that I saw at the doorsteps talked in a strange tongue; and I found
out later that this was Picardy, a village where the French weavers
wrought for the Linen Company. Here I got a fresh direction for
Pilrig, my destination; and a little beyond, on the wayside, came
by a gibbet and two men hanged in chains. They were dipped in tar,
as the manner is; the wind span them, the chains clattered, and the
birds hung about the uncanny jumping-jacks and cried. The sight
coming on me suddenly, like an illustration of my fears, I could
scarce be done with examining it and drinking in discomfort. And,
as I thus turned and turned about the gibbet, what should I strike
on, but a weird old wife, that sat behind a leg of it, and nodded,
and talked aloud to herself with becks and courtesies.

"Who are these two, mother?" I asked, and pointed to the corpses.