So along they went, up between the high houses of Edinburgh's principal thoroughfare and down by the then Old Bow, with its strange old fronts and leering storm windows, as if they were curious about the modern people, so unlike their ancient inhabitants, all which sights raised a wonderment in the western Celt, which could only be satisfied by questions, and which, again, were answered with as much particularity as if she was not only to see them all again, but to seek them out for a purpose. Then how the boy watched the face of the man, as if some instinct had told him he would befriend his grandmother, and be in the room of a father to him. And what had this boy ever learned yet through his eyes alone, to be able to read backwards the looks of love. Do we not get dreary? The road has no windings, and there are no trees to conceal the cave of skulls on the Aventinian mount. Once again with his victim,--for surely we cannot count the deaf and dumb boy with the wistful eyes as being destined to have his name--if it could be known in the strange country--recorded in the list, within the little back room. The colleague was there, lying drowsy from the prior night's potations, but not unexpectant of the return of his friend. His eye brightened as the quickened orb threw off the drowsy vapours; and could he be otherwise than polite--the word is not misapplied--to the strangers? But where was the Irish friend? Oh, she would come in good time; and though it were long, did not Helen M'Dougal place upon the table, in a goodly bottle, that which qualified the ardour of impatience? The boy must be cared for too till the friend came, and Mary Hare would do that duty in the front room--yea, might there not have been sweetmeats in Log's lodgings when the Logs had now waxed wealthy? In two hours that woman was lying a corpse in the bed of the small room "with the window looking out on the dead wall." The boy was dumb, but he had wistful eyes, and begged imploringly with these to see his grandmother. The women could not even lie to him, and tell him he would see her in the morning.