ld to give the young, great man that
proper, decent, unnoticing disregard for the poor, insignificant,
stupid devils, the mechanics and peasantry around him, who were,
perhaps, born in the same village. My young superiors never insulted
the clouterly appearance of my plough-boy carcase, the two extremes of
which were often exposed to all the inclemencies of all the seasons.
They would give me stray volumes of books; among them, even then, I
could pick up some observations, and one, whose heart, I am sure, not
even the "Munny Begum" scenes have tainted, helped me to a little
French. Parting with these my young friends and benefactors, as they
occasionally went off for the East or West Indies, was often to me a
sore affliction; but I was soon called to more serious evils. My
father's generous master died, the farm proved a ruinous bargain; and
to clench the misfortune, we fell into the hands of a factor, who sat
for the picture I have drawn of one in my tale of "Twa Dogs." My
father was advanced in life when he married; I was the eldest of seven
children, and he, worn out by early hardships, was unfit for labour.
My father's spirit was soon irritated, but not easily broken. There
was a freedom in his lease in two years more, and to weather these two
years, we retrenched our expenses. We lived very poorly; I was a
dexterous ploughman for my age; and the next eldest to me was a brother
(Gilbert), who could drive the plough very well, and help me to thrash
the corn. A novel-writer might, perhaps, have viewed these scenes with
some satisfaction, but so did not I; my indignation yet boils at the
recollection of the scoundrel factor's insolent, threatening letters,
which used to set us all in tears.

This kind of life--the cheerless gloom of a hermit, with the unceasing
moil of a galley slave, brought me to my sixteenth year; a little
before which period I first committed the sin of rhyme. You know our
country custom of coupling a man and woman together as partners in the
labours of harvest. In my fifteenth autumn my partner was a bewitching
creature, a year younger than myself. My scarcity of English denies me
the power of doing her justice in that language, but you know the
Scottish idiom: she was a "bonnie, sweet, sonsie (engaging) lass." In
short, she, altogether unwittingly to herself, initiated me in that
delicious passion, which, in spite of acid disappointment, gin-horse
prudence, and bookworm philosophy, I h