and
afterwards for a season to Sandy-Knowe;--and thus the time whiled away
till about my eighth year, when it was thought sea bathing might be of
service to my lameness.

For this purpose, still under my aunt's protection, I remained some
weeks at Prestonpans, a circumstance not worth mentioning, excepting
to record my juvenile intimacy with an old military veteran, Dalgetty
by name, who had pitched his tent in that little village, after all
his campaigns, subsisting upon an ensign's half-pay, though called by
courtesy a Captain. As this old gentleman, who had been in all the
German wars, found very few to listen to his tales of military feats,
he formed a sort of alliance with me, and I used invariably to attend
him for the pleasure of hearing those communications. Sometimes our
conversation turned on the American war, which was then raging. It was
about the time of Burgoyne's unfortunate expedition, to which my
Captain and I augured different conclusions. Somebody had showed me a
map of North America, and, struck with the rugged appearance of the
country, and the quantity of lakes, I expressed some doubts on the
subject of the General's {p.020} arriving safely at the end of his
journey, which, were very indignantly refuted by the Captain. The news
of the Saratoga disaster, while it gave me a little triumph, rather
shook my intimacy with the veteran.[27]

[Footnote 27: Besides this veteran, I found another ally at
Prestonpans, in the person of George Constable, an old friend
of my father's, educated to the law, but retired upon his
independent property, and generally residing near Dundee. He
had many of those peculiarities of temper which long
afterwards I tried to develop in the character of Jonathan
Oldbuck. It is very odd, that though I am unconscious of
anything in which I strictly copied the _manners_ of my old
friend, the resemblance was nevertheless detected by George
Chalmers, Esq., solicitor, London, an old friend, both of my
father and Mr. Constable, and who affirmed to my late friend,
Lord Kinedder, that I must needs be the author of _The
Antiquary_, since he recognized the portrait of George
Constable. But my friend George was not so decided an enemy
to womankind as his representative Monkbarns. On the
contrary, I rather suspect that he had a _tendresse_ for my