I left my lodgings as hastily as if it had been a pest-house. I
did not even stop to receive some change that was due to me on
settling with my landlady, and I saw the poor woman stand at her
door looking after my precipitate flight, and shaking her head as
she wrapped the silver which she was counting for me in a
separate piece of paper, apart from the store in her own moleskin
purse. An honest Highlandwoman was Janet MacEvoy, and deserved a
greater remuneration, had I possessed the power of bestowing it.
But my eagerness of delight was too extreme to pause for
explanation with Janet. On I pushed through the groups of
children, of whose sports I had been so often a lazy, lounging
spectator. I sprung over the gutter as if it had been the fatal
Styx, and I a ghost, which, eluding Pluto's authority, was making
its escape from Limbo lake. My friend had difficulty to restrain
me from running like a madman up the street; and in spite of his
kindness and hospitality, which soothed me for a day or two, I
was not quite happy until I found myself aboard of a Leith smack,
and, standing down the Firth with a fair wind, might snap my
fingers at the retreating outline of Arthur's Seat, to the
vicinity of which I had been so long confined.
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