Just as I reached the bridge, beneath which the river was roaring rather uncomfortably, a ragged-looking figure started out from an entry. A solitary lamp, suspended from above, gave me a full view of this personage, who resembled an animated scarecrow.
He stared me full in the face, and then muttered, with a wink and a leer,--
"Was ye seekin' for ony body the nicht? Eh wow, man, but it's cauld!"
"Who may you be, my friend?" said I, edging off from my unpromising acquaintance.
"Wha may I be?" replied the other: "that's a gude ane! Gosh, d'ye no ken me? Au'm Geordie Dowie, the town bauldy, that's as weel kent as the Provost hissell!"
To say the truth, Geordie was a very truculent-looking character to be an innocent. However, imbeciles of this description are usually harmless.
"And what have you got to say to me, Geordie?"
"If ye're the man I think ye are, And ye're name begins wi' a D, Just tak ye tae yer soople shanks, And tramp alang wi' me,"
quavered the idiot, who, like many others, had a natural turn for poetry.
"And where are we going to, Geordie, my man?" said I in a soothing voice.
"Ye'll find that when we get there," replied the bauldy.
"Hey the bonnie gill-stoup! Ho the bonnie gill-stoup! Gie me walth o' barley bree, And leeze me on the gill-stoup!"
"But you can at least tell me who sent you here, Geordie?" said I, anxious for further information before intrusting myself to such erratic guidance.
He of the gill-stoups lifted up his voice and sang--
"Cam' ye by Tweedside, Or cam' ye by Flodden? Met ye the deil On the braes o' Culloden?
"Three imps o' darkness I saw in a neuk, Riving the red-coats, And roasting the Deuk.
"Quo' ane o' them--'Geordie, Gae down to the brig, I'm yaup for my supper, And fetch us a Whig.'
"Ha! ha! ha! Hoo d'ye like that, my man? Queer freends ye've gotten noo, and ye'll need a lang spoon to sup kail wi' them. But come awa'. I canna stand here the haill nicht listening to your havers."
Although the hint conveyed by Mr Dowie's ingenious verses was rather of an alarming nature, I made up my mind at once to run all risks and follow him. Geordie strode on, selecting apparently the most unfrequented lanes, and making, as I anxiously observed, for a remote part of the suburbs. Nor was his voice silent during our progress, for he kept regaling me with a series of snatches, which, being for the most part of a supernatural and diabolical tendency, did not much contribute towards the restoration of my equanimity. At length he paused before a small house, the access to which was by a downward flight of steps.