Shadows passed and repassed the wretched aperture which was level with the pavement, and served for a window. Feet cased in white funnel boots garnished with scarlet turnovers, gold spurs and red morocco spur leathers, in clumsy Cromwellian calf-skins, or in brogues of more humble pretensions, appeared and disappeared as the passengers strode up and down the close; and many pretty feet and taper ancles in tight stockings of green or scarlet silk set up on "cork-heeled shoon," tripped past, the fair owners thereof displaying, by their uplifted trains, rather more than they might have done, if aware that a pair of curious eyes were looking upward from the Cimmerian depth of that ghastly vault. Bare-footed children gambolled about in the spring sunshine; with ruddy and laughing faces they peeped fearfully into the dark hole, and on discerning a human face through the gloom, cried "a bogle, a ghaist!" and fled away with a shout. Propped on his staff, the toiling water-carrier passed hourly, conveying limpid water from the public wells, even to the lofty "sixteenth story," for a bodle the measure. Lumbering sedans were borne past by liveried carriers at a Highland trot; and the voices that rang perpetually in the narrow alley, though enlivening the prison of Walter, only served to make his sense of degradation and captivity more acute. Anon, all those sounds ceased one by one; the bells of evening tolled, the ten o'clock drum was beat around the ancient royalty, and died away in the depths of Close and Wynd, and night and silence stole together over the dense and lofty city. The last wayfarer had gone to his home, and a desolate sense of loneliness fell upon the heart of Walter Fenton. "Alas, alas!" he exclaimed, "had my dear friend Lady Dunbarton been on this side of the border, I had not been thus persecuted and forgotten. And Finland, why tarries he? Friendship should bring him to me, for shame cannot withhold him; I have committed no crime." So passed the fourth day. Night came on again, and the poor lad felt an oppression of spirit, a longing for freedom, and abhorrence of his dungeon; so bitter and intense, that reflection became the most acute torment. He turned restlessly among the straw, its very rustle fretted him, and he started up to pace to and fro in the narrow compass of the vault. He muttered, moaned, and communing with himself, pressed his face against the rusty grating, while listening intently to catch a passing sound, and inhale the cool fresh breeze of the spring night.