noon
`` Good-bye , '' said I , and gave the hand a little grasp , and went off down the hill . Neither one of us looked the other in the face , nor so long as he was in my view did I take one back glance at the friend I was leaving . But as I went on my way to the city , I felt so lost and lonesome , that I could have found it in my heart to sit down by the dyke , and cry and weep like any baby . It was coming near noon when I passed in by the West Kirk and the Grassmarket into the streets of the capital . The huge height of the buildings , running up to ten and fifteen stories , the narrow arched entries that continually vomited passengers , the wares of the merchants in their windows , the hubbub and endless stir , the foul smells and the fine clothes , and a hundred other particulars too small to mention , struck me into a kind of stupor of surprise , so that I let the crowd carry me to and fro ; and yet all the time what I was thinking of was Alan at Rest-and-be-Thankful ; and all the time -LRB- although you would think I would not choose but be delighted with these braws and novelties -RRB- there was a cold gnawing in my inside like a remorse for something wrong . The hand of Providence brought me in my drifting to the very doors of the British Linen Company 's bank . FOOTNOTE : -LSB- 36 -RSB- The Duke of Argyle .