ou take it with you when you die." My
father had just received an intimation from a lawyer, requesting his
immediate attendance in Edinburgh, where his brother had died suddenly
the evening before, to make arrangements for his funeral, and look after
his effects, as he believed he had died intestate. My mother had
hastened up stairs with the intelligence, and to request me to come
down, when she found me seated upon the chair, with my head sunk upon my
breast, as if I had been in a profound sleep. Overcome by the vapour,
she sank upon the floor; the noise of her fall brought up my father,
whose first task was to rush to me, give me a gentle shake, and then
look in agony at me and at his wife. When he took his hand from me, I
fell to the floor by the side of my mother, and the window opened as I
had contrived. Uttering a cry of anguish, he seized the wife of his
bosom in his arms, hurried out of the fatal room, sent the servant girl
for the surgeon, and returned for me, who was lying as if dead, my eyes
open and fixed, dull and void of expression. My mother soon recovered; a
few neighbours came to her aid; and the surgeon was, fortunately, soon
found. Their utmost efforts were for long, to all appearance, of little
avail. The surgeon had almost despaired of success; at length his
patience and skill were rewarded by my returning animation. The rest is
already known.

So violent was the shock my constitution had sustained, from the action
of the noxious gas, that it was several weeks before I was enabled to
leave my room. The skill of my surgeon was evidently operating a
beneficial change upon my mind. The languor and heaviness, mixed with
restless anxiety, which had so long oppressed me, began to yield to the
powers of his prescriptions; my hallucinations became less annoying and
more distant in their attacks, until they entirely ceased, and I was
restored to the full enjoyment of existence. Change of scene was his
final medicine; and this I most cheerfully agreed to take, for my
circumstances were now affluent, and enabled me to live or wander where
I might choose. My restless mind would at times dwell with peculiar
pleasure upon some one favoured project or other; and, fearful lest I
should fall again into some new philosophical dream, I resolved to
travel. With a stout horse and a heavy purse, I bade adieu to my parents
for a short time, and rode out of my native valley, accompanied by
Malcolm Dow, a stout lad who had