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Not willingly, for Simon, contrary to the roving habits of ordinary weekly tenants, had not changed his abode since his wedding-day, and the river was as a friend to him. He declared he “could na sleep o’ neets without th’ wayter singin’ to him.” However, he connived to find a very similar tenement, in just such another cul-de-sac, with just such another tripe-dresser’s cellar underneath, and that, too, without quitting Long Millgate. Midway between the college and the tannery this court was situated, its narrow mouth opening to the breezes wafting down Hanover Street: they could still look out on the verdure of Walker’s Croft, and the Irk laved its stony base as at that same Skinner’s Yard, which Simon lived to see demolished.

It was May; bright, sunny, perfumed May. The hawthorn hedges on the ridge of the croft were white with scented blossoms, and the Irk—not the muddled stream which improvement (?) is fast shutting out of remembrance—went on its dimpled way, smiling at the promise of the season. The echoes of the May-day milkcart bells, and the flutter of their decorative ribbons, were dying out of all but infantile remembrance;—the month was more than a fortnight old.