less reek, and the nasty gutters of the
Netherbow.

To those, nevertheless, that take the world as they find it, there are
pleasures in all situations; nor was mine, bad though I allow it to be,
entirely destitute of them; for our work-room being at the top of the
stairs, and the light of heaven coming down through skylights, three in
number, we could, by putting out our heads, have a vizzy of the grand
ancient building of George Heriot's Hospital, with the crowds of young
laddies playing through the grass parks, with their bit brown coaties,
and shining leather caps, like a wheen puddocks; and all the sweet
country out by Barrowmuirhead, and thereaway; together with the
Corstorphine Hills--and the Braid Hills--and the Pentland Hills--and all
the rest of the hills, covered here and there with tufts of blooming
whins, as yellow as the beaten gold--spotted round about their bottoms
with green trees, and growing corn, but with tops as bare as a
gaberlunzie's coat--kepping the rowling clouds on their awful shoulders
on cold and misty days; and freckled over with the flowers of the purple
heather, on which the shy moorfowl take a delight to fatten and fill
their craps, through the cosey months of the blythe summer time.

Let nobody take it amiss, yet I must bear witness to the truth, though
the devil should have me. My heart was sea-sick of Edinburgh folk and
town manners, for the which I had no stomach. I could form no friendly
acquaintanceship with a living soul; so I abode by myself, like St John
in the Isle of Patmos, on spare allowance, making a sheep-head serve me
for three days' kitchen. I longed like a sailor that has been far at
sea, and wasted and weatherbeaten, to see once more my native home; and,
bundling up, flee from the noisy stramash to the loun dykeside of
domestic privacy. Every thing around me seemed to smell of sin and
pollution, like the garments of the Egyptians with the ten plagues; and
often, after I took off my clothes to lie down in my bed, when the
watchmen that guarded us through the night in blue dreadnoughts with red
necks, and battons, and horn-bouets, from thieves, murderers, and
pickpockets, were bawling, "Half-past ten o'clock," did I commune with my
own heart, and think within myself, that I would rather be a sober, poor,
honest man in the country, able to clear my day and way by the help of
Providence, than the Provost himself, my lord though he be, or even the
Mayor of London, with