"Can aught be done?" I asked. "I saw a dyke as we cam here," said Nicol, "and ower the back o’t was a yaird. There was likewise a gate i’ the dyke. I’m thinkin’ that’ll be the back door o’ the hoose. If ye were awfu’ determined, Laird, ye micht win in there." I thought for a moment. "You are right," I cried. "I know the place. But we will first go back and fetch the horses, for it is like there will be wild work before us ere night." But lo and behold! when we went to the inn stable my horse was off. "I thocht he needit a shoe," said the ostler, "so I just sent him doun to Jock Walkinshaw’s i’ the East Port. If ye’ll bide a wee, I’ll send a laddie doun to bring him up." Five, twenty, sixty minutes and more we waited while that accursed child brought my horse. Then he came back a little after midday; three shoes had been needed, he said, and he had rin a’ the way, and he wasna to blame. So I gave him a crown and a sound box on the ears, and then the two of us set off. The place was high and difficult of access, being in a narrow lane where few passers ever went, and nigh to the city wall. I bade Nicol hold the horses, and standing on the back of one I could just come to within a few feet of the top. I did my utmost by springing upward to grasp the parapet, but all in vain, so in a miserable state of disappointed hopes I desisted and consulted with my servant. Together we tried the door, but it was of massive wood, clamped with iron, and triply bolted. There was nothing for it but to send off to Mistress Macmillan and seek some contrivance. Had the day not been so wild and the lane so quiet we could scarce have gone unnoticed. As it was, one man passed, a hawker in a little cart, seeking a near way, and with little time to stare at the two solitary horsemen waiting by the wall. Nicol went off alone, while I kept guard—an aimless guard—by the gate. In a little he returned with an old boat-hook, with the cleek at the end somewhat unusually long. Then he proposed his method. I should stand on horseback as before, and hang the hook on the flat surface of the wall. When, by dint of scraping, I had fixed it firmly, I should climb it hand over hand, as a sailor mounts a rope, and with a few pulls I might hope to be at the summit. I did as he bade, and, with great labour, fixed the hook in the hard stone. Then I pulled myself up, very slowly and carefully, with the shaft quivering in my hands. I was just gripping the stone when the wretched iron slipped and rattled down to the ground, cutting me sharply in the wrist. Luckily I did not go with it, for in the moment of falling, I had grasped the top and hung there with aching hands and the blood from the cut trickling down my arm. Then, with a mighty effort, I swung myself up and stood safe on the top.