This train of reasoning brought me to a more resolved complexion; though it was far from closing up my sense of the dangers that surrounded me, nor of how very apt I was (if I went on) to stumble 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. “A blessing on your precious face!” she cried. “Twa joes [7] o’mine: just two o’ my old joes, my hinny dear.” “What did they suffer for?” I asked. “Ou, just for the guid cause,” said she. “Aften I spaed to them the way that it would end. Twa shillin’ Scots: no pickle mair; and there are twa bonny callants hingin’ for ’t! They took it frae a wean [8] belanged to Brouchton.” “Ay!” said I to myself, and not to the daft limmer, “and did they come to such a figure for so poor a business? This is to lose all indeed.” “Gie’s your loof, [9] hinny,” says she, “and let me spae your weird to ye.” “No, mother,” said I, “I see far enough the way I am. It’s an unco thing to see too far in front.” “I read it in your bree,” she said. “There’s a bonnie lassie that has bricht een, and there’s a wee man in a braw coat, and a big man in a pouthered wig, and there’s the shadow of the wuddy, [10] joe, that lies braid across your path. Gie’s your loof, hinny, and let Auld Merren spae it to ye bonny.”