The little chill of it sang in my blood, and gave me a feeling of the autumn, and the dead leaves, and dead folks' bodies in their graves.

It seemed the devil was in it, if I was to die in that tide of my fortunes and for other folks' affairs.

On the top of the Calton Hill, though it was not the customary time of year for that diversion, some children were crying and running with their kites.

These toys appeared very plain against the sky; I remarked a great one soar on the wind to a high altitude and then plump among the whins; and I thought to myself at sight of it, "There goes Davie." My way lay over Mouter's Hill, and through an end of a clachan on the braeside among fields.

There was a whirr of looms in it went from house to house; bees bummed in the gardens; the neighbours that I saw at the doorsteps talked in a strange tongue; and I found out later that this was Picardy, a village where the French weavers wrought for the Linen Company.