My friend had
difficulty to restrain me from running like a madman
up the street; and in spite of his kindness and
hospitality, which soothed me for a day or two, I
was not quite happy until I found myself aboard of
a Leith smack, and, standing down the Frith with
a fair wind, might snap my fingers at the retreating
outline of Arthur's Seat, to the vicinity of which
I had been so long confined.
It is not my purpose to trace my future progress
through life. I had extricated myself, or rather
had been freed by my friends, from the brambles
and thickets of the law, but, as befell the sheep in
the fable, a great part of my fleece was left behind
me. Something remained, however; I was in the
season for exertion, and, as my good mother used
to say, there was always life for living folk. Stern
necessity gave my manhood that prudence which
my youth was a stranger to. I faced danger, I
endured fatigue, I sought foreign climates, and
proved that I belonged to the nation which is proverbially
patient of labour and prodigal of life. Independence,
like liberty to Virgil's shepherd, came
late, but came at last, with no great affluence in its
train, but bringing enough to support a decent appearance
for the rest of my life, and to induce
cousins to be civil, and gossips to say, ``I wonder
who old Croft will make his heir? he must have
picked up something, and I should not be surprised
if it prove more than folk think of.
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