Volume 1 - Electric Scotland

126 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD.
demolishing of the Crafty, that equally strong and
more cunning opponent who had managed to seize
from him in a moment the prize which he had almost
made his own. But that he had dark moments,
and that he could not always moderate those fiery
spirits as much as he wished, there could be little
doubt.
No thought of this, however, was in his mind when
the October number had been seen through the press,
with endless laughter and the highest anticipations of
triumph. The chorus of young performers disappear
into their homes, into their other frolics— perhaps to
some solemn Edinburgh dinner-party where an irre-
strainable laugh, a word or look thrown at each other
behind backs, would be all by which they would dare
to express their excitement over this new adventure
and mystery, or the sensation, the explosion which
they awaited on the morrow—till they could escape
to the joyous relief of some favourite tavern, for clubs
were not as yet, to let out the laughter and l^e agita-
tion. In the meantime the man in plain apparel for a
moment had the scene all to himself He received the
new number, fresh and fragrant from the press—it is
but an old and shabby number now, the brown covers
faded, the columns less smooth and regular than in
later days—with his heart beating in his ears. Did
it mean fortune and success? or did it mean some-
thing very different ? But he did not allow himself
to dwell upon that darker chance. Before he left
Princes Street he copied with his own hand into a new
quarto volume the letter he had just sent to the
captain of his forces, he " whose going forth was
comely as the greyhound, and his eyes like the