spite having been taken to him in the town-hall,
on account of having led the magistracy wrong, by doing what he ought to
have let alone, thereby making himself and the rest a topic of amusement
to the world at large, for many and many a month.

Others, to be sure, it becomes me to make mention, have another version
of the story, and impute the cause of his having been turned out to the
implacable wrath of old Bailie Bogie, whose best black coat, square in
the tails, that he had worn only on the Sundays for nine years, was
totally spoiled, on their way home in the dark from his lordship's, by a
tremendous blash, that my unfortunate uncle happened, in the course of
nature, to let flee in the frenzy of a deadly upthrowing.

CHAPTER III.--COMING INTO THE WORLD.

--At first the babe
Was sickly; and a smile was seen to pass
Across the midwife's cheek, when, holding up
The feeble wretch, she to the father said,
"A fine man-child!" What else could they expect?
The father being, as I said before,
A weaver.

HOGG'S _Poetic Mirror_.

I have no distinct recollection of the thing myself, yet there is every
reason to believe that I was born on the 15th of October 1765, in that
little house standing by itself, not many yards from the eastmost side of
the Flesh-Market Gate, Dalkeith. My eyes opened on the light about two
o'clock in a dark and rainy morning. Long was it spoken about that
something great and mysterious would happen on that dreary night; as the
cat, after washing her face, went mewing about, with her tail sweeing
behind her like a ramrod; and a corbie, from the Duke's woods, tumbled
down Jamie Elder's lum, when he had set the little still a-going--giving
them a terrible fright, as they all took it first for the devil, and then
for an exciseman--and fell with a great cloud of soot, and a loud
skraigh, into the empty kail-pot.

The first thing that I have any clear memory of, was my being carried out
on my auntie's shoulder, with a leather cap tied under my chin, to see
the Fair Race. Oh! but it was a grand sight! I have read since then the
story of Aladdin's Wonderful Lamp, but this beat it all to sticks. There
was a long row of tables covered with carpets of bonny patterns, heaped
from one end to the other with shoes of every kind and size, some with
polished soles, and some glittering with sparribles and cuddy-heels; and
little red worsted boots for bairns, with blue and wh