He loved the rough exercises
of wrestling, boxing, leaping, and quarterstaff,
and frequented, when he could obtain leisure,
the bull-baitings and foot-ball matches, by which
the burgh was sometimes enlivened.
Richard, on the contrary, was dark, like his
father and mother, with high features, beautifully
formed, but exhibiting something of a foreign character;
and his person was tall and slim, though
muscular and active. His address and manners
must have been natural to him, for they were, in
elegance and case, far beyond any example which
he could have found in his native burgh. He
learned the use of the small-sword while in Edinburgh,
and took lessons from a performer at the
theatre, with the purpose of refining his mode of
speaking. He became also an amateur of the
drama, regularly attending the playhouse, and assuming
the tone of a critic in that and other lighter
departments of literature. To fill up the contrast,
so far as taste was concerned, Richard was a dexterous
and successful angler---Adam, a bold and
unerring shot. Their efforts to surpass each other
in supplying Dr Gray's table, rendered his housekeeping
much preferable to what it had been on
former occasions; and, besides, small presents of
fish and game are always agreeable amongst the
inhabitants of a country town, and contributed to
increase the popularity of the young sportsmen.
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