From the landlord at the inn I bought a suit of homespun clothes which, by good fortune, fitted Nicol; and left his soaked garments as part payment. Clad decently, he looked a great, stalwart man, though somewhat bent in the back, and with a strange craning forward of the neck, acquired, I think, from much wandering among hills. I hired a horse to take him to Edinburgh, and the two of us rode out of the yard, followed by the parting courtesies of the host. Of our journey to Edinburgh, I have little else to tell. We came to the town in the afternoon, and went through the streets to the port of Leith, after leaving our horses at the place arranged for. I was grieved to part from Maisie, for I had ridden her from boyhood, and she had come to know my ways wondrous well. We found a vessel to sail the next morn for Rotterdam, and bargained with the captain for our passage. When all had been settled, and we had looked our fill upon the harbour and the craft, and felt the salt of the sea on our lips, we betook ourselves to an inn, _The Three Herrings_, which fronted the quay, and there abode for the night. BOOK II—THE LOW COUNTRIES CHAPTER I OF MY VOYAGE TO THE LOW COUNTRIES We were aboard on the next morning by a little after daybreak, for the captain had forewarned me, the night before, that he purposed to catch the morning tide. To one inland-bred, the harbour of Leith was a sight to whet the curiosity, There were vessels of all kinds and sizes, little fishing smacks with brown, home-made sails, from Fife or the Lothian coast towns, great sea-going ships, many with strange, foreign names on their sides, and full of a great bustle of lading and unlading. There was such a concourse of men, too, as made the place like a continuous horse-fair. Half a dozen different tongues jabbered in my ear, of which I knew not one word, save of the French, which I could make a fair shape to speak, having learned it from Tam Todd, along with much else of good and bad. There were men in red cowls like Ayrshire weavers, and men in fur hats from the North, and dark-skinned fellows, too, from the Indies, and all this motley crew would be running up and down jabbering and shrilling like a pack of hounds. And every now and then across the uproar would come the deep voice of a Scots skipper, swearing and hectoring as if the world and all that is in it were his peculiar possession.