At a merchant's in the Luckenbooths I had myself fitted out: none
too fine, for I had no idea to appear like a beggar on horseback;
but comely and responsible, so that servants should respect me.
Thence to an armourer's, where I got a plain sword, to suit with my
degree in life. I felt safer with the weapon, though (for one so
ignorant of defence) it might be called an added danger. The
porter, who was naturally a man of some experience, judged my
accoutrement to be well chosen.
"Naething kenspeckle," {1} said he; "plain, dacent claes. As for
the rapier, nae doubt it sits wi' your degree; but an I had been
you, I would has waired my siller better-gates than that." And he
proposed I should buy winter-hosen from a wife in the Cowgate-back,
that was a cousin of his own, and made them "extraordinar
endurable."
But I had other matters on my hand more pressing. Here I was in
this old, black city, which was for all the world like a rabbit-
warren, not only by the number of its indwellers, but the
complication of its passages and holes. It was, indeed, a place
where no stranger had a chance to find a friend, let be another
stranger.
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