“Dinna ging!”
The rain had turned to sleet, and Mr. Traill had trouble in keeping his feet. He looked first into the famous Book Hunter's Stall next door, on the chance of finding a medical student. The place was open, but it had no customers. He went on to the bridge, but there the sheriff's court, the Martyr's church, the society halls and all the smart shops were closed, their dark 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 hurried, willy-nilly, to a bed in the infirmary. As for wee Bobby he wouldn't mind if—
And there he ran into his own wide-flung door. A gale blew through the hastily deserted place. Ashes were scattered about the hearth, and the cruisey lamp flared in the gusts. Auld Jock and Bobby were gone.