tipend of
seventy-four pounds sterling per annum. I and my surroundings have grown
quietly older and older together. I have outlived my wife; I have buried
one generation among my parishioners, and married another; I have borne
the wear and tear of years better than the kirk in which I minister
and the manse (or parsonage-house) in which I live--both sadly out of
repair, and both still trusting for the means of reparation to the pious
benefactions of people richer than myself. Not that I complain, be
it understood, of the humble position which I occupy. I possess many
blessings; and I thank the Lord for them. I have my little bit of land
and my cow. I have also my good daughter, Felicia; named after her
deceased mother, but inheriting her comely looks, it is thought, rather
from myself.

Neither let me forget my elder sister, Judith; a friendless single
person, sheltered under my roof, whose temperament I could wish somewhat
less prone to look at persons and things on the gloomy side, but whose
compensating virtues Heaven forbid that I should deny. No; I am grateful
for what has been given me (from on high), and resigned to what has been
taken away. With what fair prospects did I start in life! Springing from
a good old Scottish stock, blessed with every advantage of education
that the institutions of Scotland and England in turn could offer; with
a career at the Bar and in Parliament before me--and all cast to the
winds, as it were, by the measureless prodigality of my unhappy father,
God forgive him! I doubt if I had five pounds left in my purse, when the
compassion of my relatives on the mother's side opened a refuge to me
at Cauldkirk, and hid me from the notice of the world for the rest of my
life.

September 14th.--Thus far I had posted up my Diary on the evening of the
13th, when an event occurred so completely unexpected by my household
and myself, that the pen, I may say, dropped incontinently from my hand.

It was the time when we had finished our tea, or supper--I hardly know
which to call it. In the silence, we could hear the rain pouring against
the window, and the wind that had risen with the darkness howling
round the house. My sister Judith, taking the gloomy view according to
custom--copious draughts of good Bohea and two helpings of such a
mutton ham as only Scotland can produce had no effect in raising her
spirits--my sister, I say, remarked that there would be ships lost
at sea and men drowned t