; and
am sorry to confess that it was indeed a perfect shame to be seen. At
Dalkeith, where one is well known, any thing may pass; but I was always
in bodily terror, that, had he gone to Edinburgh, he would have been
taken up by the police, on suspicion of being either a Spanish pawtriot
or a highway robber.

CHAPTER XXV.--A PHILISTINE IN THE COAL-HOLE.

They steeked doors, they steeked yetts,
Close to the cheek and chin;
They steeked them a' but a wee wicket,
And Lammikin crap in.

_Ballad of the Lammikin_.

Hame cam our gudeman at een,
And hame cam he;
And there he spied a man
Where a man shouldna be.
Hoo cam this man, kimmer,
And who can it be;
Hoo cam this carle here,
Without the leave o' me?

_Old Song_.

Years wore on after the departure and death of poor Mungo Glen, during
the which I had a sowd of prentices, good, bad, and indifferent, and who
afterwards cut, and are cutting, a variety of figures in the world.
Sometimes I had two or three at a time; for the increase of business that
flowed in upon me with a full stream was tremendous, enabling me--who say
it that should not say it--to lay by a wheen bawbees for a sore head, or
the frailties of old age. Somehow or other, the clothes made on my
shopboard came into great vogue through all Dalkeith, both for neatness
of shape and nicety of workmanship; and the young journeymen of other
masters did not think themselves perfected, or worthy a decent wage, till
they had crooked their houghs for three months in my service. With
regard to myself, some of my acquaintances told me, that if I had gone
into Edinburgh to push my fortune, I could have cut half the trade out of
bread, and maybe risen, in the course of nature, to be Lord Provost
himself; but I just heard them speak, and kept my wheisht. I never was
overly ambitious; and I remembered how proud Nebuchadnaazer ended with
eating grass on all-fours. Every man has a right to be the best judge of
his own private matters; though, to be sure, the advice of a true friend
is often more precious than rubies, and sweeter than the Balm of Gilead.

It was about the month of March, in the year of grace _anno Domini_
eighteen hundred, that the whole country trembled, like a giant ill of
the ague, under the consternation of Buonaparte, and all the French
vagabonds emigrating over, and landing in the Firth. Keep us all! the
folk, doitit bodies,