"Now let us drinke, Till we nod and winke, Even as good fellows should do; We shall not misse To have the blisse Good wine doth bring men to!" "Hold fast, my brethren," cried one whom his lordship recognised to be the Reverend Mr. Joram, the famous cavalier chaplain of Dunbarton's Foot. "Hold fast--and every lass we meet must kiss us all from right to left--ay, d--me! or drink a pint of hot sack at one gulp." "Bravo!" shouted the rest. "Once, twice, thrice, and away!"--and onward they came, hand in hand, dancing and singing with stentorian voices that made the whole street ring. Clermistonlee drew his rapier, and shrunk under the carved arches of those stone arcades which supported the houses on both sides of the way; and, without perceiving him, this crowd of merry fellows passed on to beat the watch and terrify the sleepy denizens of other quarters. Glad of his escape--for he had confidently expected a dangerous brawl--Clermistonlee hurried down Mary King's Close. Debauched and roué as he was, he felt an involuntary shudder on descending into the gloomy precincts of that deserted street, a locality shunned by all since the plague had swept off its entire inhabitants. For a hundred years its houses remained closed, and gradually it became a place of mystery and horror, the abode of a thousand spectres and nameless terrors. Superstition peopled it with inhabitants, whom all feared, and none cared to succeed. Those who had been foolhardy enough to peep through the windows after nightfall, saw within the spectres of the long-departed denizens engaged in their wonted occupations--headless forms danced through the moonlit apartments, and on one occasion a godly minister and two pious elders were scared out of their senses, by the terrible vision of a raw head and blood-dripping arm, which protruded from the wall in this terrible street, and flourished a sword above their heads, and many other terrors which are duly chronicled in that old calender of diablerie, _Satan's Invisible World_.