Sentence The Twentyseventh
And as the two cousins and friends, Roxy and Jinty, hurried along the narrow, cobbled, rubble-walled slope of Waird's Close, taking sharp turnings, climbing and descending seemingly random flights of steps, it struck Roxy that in centuries past this must have possessed some air of heimischness, being home for many families, as well as business premises for a variety of trades – she recalled hours spent poring over old city directories, pre-dating official censuses be several generations, finding flashes of humour in the bowdlerising by editors who entered the occupations of common prostitutes as Gentlemen's Nursemaid, and described the Old Town's many brothels as Places of Entertainment, or Gentlemen's Private Club; as they found the corner where the surveillance cameras failed to register the disappearance of the young man they had been observing, and set into the angle of two walls, a narrow space outlined by an embrasure held a narrow wooden door, stoutly built, brass-bound and studded, tightly-fitting and with barely enough space for the proverbial cigarette-paper to slip between it and the grey stone of the wall; Jinty squeaked, scanning the passageway in which they stood and the schematics she had grabbed before leaving her office, “where does it lead to/” asked Roxy, but Jinty shook her head, indicated the plans she held and said that this doorway was not shown, “but it's been here forever,” cried Roxy, “just look at it”; Jinty nodded, and hazarded that it must have been deleted - adding ominously that such action could only have been taken by someone very senior in the City Council; “we have to try it,” suggested Roxy and Jinty as the only authorised person present, reached out, took hold of the great iron ring which seemed made for the door’s handle, and turned it, expecting a shrieking scroop of rusty metals grinding, but the mechanism was well-oiled, turned smoothly and silently, and with just the whisper of different air pressures, within and without, balancing their flow, the door opened and from far within, where all was dark and muffled, deep beneath the Heart of Midlothian, there came a long-drawn-out and plangent miaowl, not perhaps, a howl, though more than a moan – a sound imbued with such an eerie reverberation that both cousins were dumbstruck for several seconds, until, together and in perfect harmony, the both screamed like banshees!
And as the two cousins and friends, Roxy and Jinty, hurried along the narrow, cobbled, rubble-walled slope of Waird's Close, taking sharp turnings, climbing and descending seemingly random flights of steps, it struck Roxy that in centuries past this must have possessed some air of heimischness, being home for many families, as well as business premises for a variety of trades – she recalled hours spent poring over old city directories, pre-dating official censuses be several generations, finding flashes of humour in the bowdlerising by editors who entered the occupations of common prostitutes as Gentlemen's Nursemaid, and described the Old Town's many brothels as Places of Entertainment, or Gentlemen's Private Club; as they found the corner where the surveillance cameras failed to register the disappearance of the young man they had been observing, and set into the angle of two walls, a narrow space outlined by an embrasure held a narrow wooden door, stoutly built, brass-bound and studded, tightly-fitting and with barely enough space for the proverbial cigarette-paper to slip between it and the grey stone of the wall; Jinty squeaked, scanning the passageway in which they stood and the schematics she had grabbed before leaving her office, “where does it lead to/” asked Roxy, but Jinty shook her head, indicated the plans she held and said that this doorway was not shown, “but it's been here forever,” cried Roxy, “just look at it”; Jinty nodded, and hazarded that it must have been deleted - adding ominously that such action could only have been taken by someone very senior in the City Council; “we have to try it,” suggested Roxy and Jinty as the only authorised person present, reached out, took hold of the great iron ring which seemed made for the door’s handle, and turned it, expecting a shrieking scroop of rusty metals grinding, but the mechanism was well-oiled, turned smoothly and silently, and with just the whisper of different air pressures, within and without, balancing their flow, the door opened and from far within, where all was dark and muffled, deep beneath the Heart of Midlothian, there came a long-drawn-out and plangent miaowl, not perhaps, a howl, though more than a moan – a sound imbued with such an eerie reverberation that both cousins were dumbstruck for several seconds, until, together and in perfect harmony, the both screamed like banshees!
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