The country is quiet at nicht, tae, but it's quiet in a different way.

For there the hum o' insects fills the air, and there's the music o' a brook, and the wind rustling in the tops o' the trees, wi' maybe a hare starting in the heather.

It's the quiet o' life that's i' the glen at nicht, but i' the auld, auld City the quiet is the quiet o' death.
Weel, that nicht I was passing through Threadneedle street, hard by the Bank of England, that great, grey building o' stane.

And suddenly, on the pavement, I saw them--twa young things, glad o' the stillness, his arm aboot her waist, their een turned upon one another, thinking o' nothing else and no one else i' a' the world.
I was sae sorry for them, puir weans! They had'na e'er ta'en a bit walk by their twa selves in the purple gloaming.

They knew nothing o' the magic of a shady lane, wi' the branches o' old trees meeting over their heads.