and, though a wee bowed in the near leg, from a
suppleness about his knee-joint, nevertheless as active as a hatter, and
fit for any calling whatsoever under the sun. One thing I had determined
in my own mind, and that was, that he should never with my will go
abroad. The gentry are no doubt philosophers enough to bring up their
bairns like sheep to the slaughter, and dispatch them as cadies to Bengal
and the Cape of Good Hope, as soon as they are grown up; when, lo and
behold! the first news they hear of them is in a letter, sealed with
black wax, telling how they died of the liver complaint, and were buried
by six blacks two hours after.

That was one thing settled and sealed, so no more need be said about it;
yet, notwithstanding of Nanse's being satisfied that the spaewife was a
deceitful gipsy, perfectly untrustworthy, she would aye have a finger in
the pie, and try to persuade me in a coaxing way. "I'm sure," she would
say, "ane with half an e'e may see that our son Benjie has just the
physog of an admiral. It's a great shame contradicting nature."

"Po, po," answered I, "woman, ye dinna ken what ye're saying. Do ye
imagine that, if he were made a sea-admiral, we could ever live to have
any comfort in the son of our bosom? Would he not, think ye, be obliged
with his ship to sail the salt seas, through foul weather and fair; and,
when he met the French, to fight, hack, and hew them down, lith and limb,
with grape-shot and cutlass; till some unfortunate day or other, after
having lost a leg and an arm in the service, he is felled as dead as a
door-nail, with a cut and thrust over the crown, by some furious rascal
that saw he was off his guard, glowring with his blind e'e another
way?--Ye speak havers, Nanse; what are all the honours of this world
worth? No worth this pinch of snuff I have between my finger and
thumb--no worth a bodle, if we never saw our Benjie again, but he was aye
ranging and rampauging far abroad, shedding human blood; and when we
could only aye dream about him in our sleep, as one that was wandering
night and day blindfold, down the long, dark, lampless avenue of
destruction, and destined never more to visit Dalkeith again, except with
a wooden stump and a brass virl, or to have his head blown off his
shoulders, mast high, like ingan peelings, with some exploding earthquake
of combustible gunpowder.--Call in the laddie, I say, and see what he
would like to be himsell."

Nanse ran but t