unwillingly, went to copy deeds in the
office of the commissary clerk, and I, almost reconciled to obscurity
and hard labour, to assist in unloading a Baltic trader in the harbour
of Leith.

CHAPTER VI.

"Speech without aim and without end employ."--CRABBE.

After the lapse of nine months, I again returned to Edinburgh. During
that period, I had been so shut out from literature and the world, that
I had heard nothing of my friend the poet; and it was with a beating
heart I left the vessel, on my first leisure evening, to pay him a
visit. It was about the middle of July; the day had been close and
sultry, and the heavens overcharged with grey ponderous clouds; and, as
I passed hurriedly along the walk which leads from Leith to Edinburgh, I
could hear the newly awakened thunder, bellowing far in the south, peal
after peal, like the artillery of two hostile armies. I reached the door
of the poet's humble domicile, and had raised my hand to the knocker,
when I heard some one singing from within, in a voice by far the most
touchingly mournful I had ever listened to. The tones struck on my
heart; and a frightful suspicion crossed my mind, as I set down the
knocker, that the singer was no other than my friend. But in what
wretched circumstances! what fearful state of mind! I shuddered as I
listened, and heard the strain waxing louder and yet more mournful, and
could distinguish that the words were those of a simple old ballad:--

"O Marti'mas wind, when wilt thou blaw,
An' shake the green leaves aff the tree?
O gentle death, when wilt thou come,
An' tak a life that wearies me?"

I could listen no longer, but raised the latch and went in. The evening
was gloomy, and the apartment ill lighted; but I could see the singer, a
spectral-looking figure, sitting on a bed in the corner, with the
bedclothes wrapped round his shoulders, and a napkin deeply stained
with blood on his head. An elderly female, who stood beside him, was
striving to soothe him, and busied from time to time in adjusting the
clothes, which were ever and anon falling off, as he nodded his head in
time to the music. A young girl of great beauty sat weeping at the
bedfoot.

"O dearest Robert," said the woman, "you will destroy your poor head;
and Margaret your sister, whom you used to love so much, will break her
heart. Do lie down, dearest, and take a little rest. Your head is
fearfully gashed, and if the bandages loose