S FORTUNE

The days of the years of my prenticeship having glided cannily over on
the working-board of my respected maister, James Hosey, where I sat
sewing cross-legged like a busy bee, in the true spirit of industrious
contentment, I found myself, at the end of the seven year, so well
instructed in the tailoring trade, to which I had paid a near-sighted
attention, that, without more ado, I girt myself round about with a proud
determination of at once cutting my mother's apron string, and venturing
to go without a hold. Thinks I to myself, "faint heart never won fair
lady"; so, taking my stick in my hand, I set out towards Edinburgh, as
brave as a Highlander, in search of a journeyman's place. When I think
how many have been out of bread, month after month, making vain
application at the house of call, I may set it down to an especial
Providence, that I found a place, on the very first day, to my heart's
content, in by at the Grassmarket, where I stayed for the space of six
calendar months.

Had it not been from a real sense of the duty I owed to my future
employers, whomsoever they might be, in making myself a first-rate hand
in the cutting, shaping, and sewing line, I would not have found courage
in my breast to have helped me out through such a long and dreary time.
The change from our own town, where every face was friendly, and where I
could ken every man I saw, by the cut of his coat, at half a mile's
distance, to the bum and bustle of the High Street, the tremendous
cannons of the Castle, packed full of soldiers ready for war, and the
filthy, ill-smelling abominations of the Cowgate, where I put up, was
almost more than could be tholed by man of woman born. My lodging was up
six pair of stairs, in a room of Widow Randie's, which I rented for
half-a-crown a week, coals included; and many a time, after putting out
my candle, before stepping into my bed, I used to look out at the window,
where I could see thousands and thousands of lamps, spreading for miles
adown streets and through squares, where I did not know a living soul;
and dreeing the awful and insignificant sense of being a lonely stranger
in a foreign land. Then would the memory of past days return to me; yet
I had the same trust in Heaven as I had before, seeing that they were the
dividual stars above my head which I used to glour up at in wonder at
Dalkeith--pleasant Dalkeith! ay, how different, with its bonny river Esk,
its gardens full of goos