The Bow, a steep winding street that descended the southern side of the hill on which the old city stands, was then closed by a strong gate called the Upper Porte, under the shadow of which the coach stopped. On the right a heavy Flemish house projected over the street, on beams of carved wood; on the left, the house of Weir the wizard frowned its terrors across the narrow way. A sentinel opened the creaking barrier, received the nightly toll, and Walter, after bidding adieu to the generous Earl, was about to retire, when the latter called him back. "Harkee, Fenton; you have far to go, and in these times, when soldiers are openly murdered in the streets, my rapier may be of some service should any quarrelsome ruffler cross your path; take it, for I have pistols." "A thousand thanks, my lord," replied Walter, receiving from the Earl a long and richly chased rapier sheathed in crimson velvet. He threw the embroidered belt over his shoulder, and strode away with a feeling of pride and elation, to find himself once more a free and armed man; while the great caravan occupied by the earl, rumbled down the windings of the narrow street with increased speed, waking all the echoes of its hollow stone staircases, and scaring those indwellers who heard them through their dreams; all sounds heard by night in the Bow being fraught with imaginary terrors, and attributed to the wandering spirit of that diabolical wizard, who a short time before had expiated his real and supposed enormities amid a blaze of tar barrels on the castle hill, and whose uninhabited mansion was then viewed with horror, as it is still with curiosity. With a heart brimming with exultation, and glowing with anticipations of happiness, which for the time made the revolving world in all its features shine like a beautiful kaleidoscope, Walter pirouétted and danced down the Lawnmarket and through the narrow Craimes. Was it possible that but an hour ago he was so very wretched and degraded? Was it not all a dream, this new joy, a dream from which he feared to awake? Ah, thought he, one requires to have tasted the bitterness of captivity, to know the value and the glory of freedom. Again he wore a sword, and the consciousness of bearing arms and having the spirit to use them, imparted to the cavaliers of other times a bearing, to which the gentlemen of the present age are strangers.