Becoming my own master, I flung my gown at
the bar-keeper, and commenced gay man on my
own account. In Edinburgh, I ran into all the
expensive society which the place then afforded.
When I went to my house in the shire of Lanark,
I emulated to the utmost the expenses of men of
large fortune, and had my hunters, my first-rate
pointers, my game-cocks, and feeders. I can more
easily forgive myself for these follies, than for
others of a still more blamable kind, so indifferently
cloaked over, that my poor mother thought
herself obliged to leave my habitation, and betake
herself to a small inconvenient jointure-house,
which she occupied till her death. I think, however,
I was not exclusively to blame in this separation,
and I believe my mother afterwards condemned
herself for being too hasty. Thank God,
the adversity which destroyed the means of continuing
my dissipation, restored me to the affections
of my surviving parent.
My course of life could not last. I ran too fast
to run long; and when I would have checked my
career, I was perhaps too near the brink of the
precipice. Some mishaps I prepared by my own
folly, others came upon me unawares. I put my
estate out to nurse to a fat man of business, who
smothered the babe he should have brought back
to me in health and strength, and, in dispute with
this honest gentleman, I found, like a skilful general,
that my position would be most judiciously
assumed by taking it up near the Abbey of Holyrood.
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