It stood there , bare and great and smokeless , like a place not lived in ; only in one of the top windows , there was the peak of a nightcap bobbing up and down and back and forward , like the head of a rabbit from a burrow . I had little welcome when I came , and less kindness while I stayed ; but at least I was watched as I went away . Alan and I went slowly forward upon our way , having little heart either to walk or speak . The same thought was uppermost in both , that we were near the time of our parting ; and remembrance of all the bygone days sate upon us sorely . We talked indeed of what should be done ; and it was resolved that Alan should keep to the county , biding now here , now there , but coming once in the day to a particular place where I might be able to communicate with him , either in my own person or by messenger . In the meanwhile , I was to seek out a lawyer , who was an Appin Stewart , and a man therefore to be wholly trusted ; and it should be his part to find a ship and to arrange for Alan 's safe embarkation . No sooner was this business done , than the words seemed to leave us ; and though I would seek to jest with Alan under the name of Mr. Thomson , and he with me on my new clothes and my estate , you could feel very well that we were nearer tears than laughter . We came the by-way over the hill of Corstorphine ; and when we got near to the place called Rest-and-be-Thankful , and looked down on Corstorphine bogs and over to the city and the castle on the hill , we both stopped , for we both knew without a word said that we had come to where our ways parted . Here he repeated to me once again what had been agreed upon between us : the address of the lawyer , the daily hour at which Alan might be found , and the signals that were to be made by any that came seeking him . Then I gave what money I had -LRB- a guinea or two of Rankeillor 's -RRB- so that he should not starve in the meanwhile ; and then we stood a space , and looked over at Edinburgh in silence . `` Well , good-bye , '' said Alan , and held out his left hand . `` Good-bye , '' said I , and gave the hand a little grasp , and went off down 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 storeys , 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 . PROLOGUE -- JOHN AMEND-ALL On a certain afternoon , in the late springtime , the bell upon Tunstall Moat House was heard ringing at an unaccustomed hour . Far and near , in the forest and in the fields along the river , people began to desert their labours and hurry towards the sound ; and in Tunstall hamlet a group of poor country-folk stood wondering at the summons . Tunstall hamlet at that period , in the reign of old King Henry VI. , wore much the same appearance as it wears to-day . A score or so of houses , heavily framed with oak , stood scattered in a long green valley ascending from the river .
At the foot , the road crossed a bridge , and mounting on the other side , disappeared into the fringes of the forest on its way to the Moat XXXXX , and further forth to Holywood Abbey .
AMEND-ALL House PROLOGUE Thomson Tunstall bogs hour labours left noon