heart—proved my bane, to a far greater extent
than in my humbler sphere as a weaver.

"For a time all went on smoothly enough,
and I might have done well, had I been
ordinarily prudent, and had not the twin devils of
conceit and the love of flattery taken possession
of me, to a degree that made me imagine I was
one of the greatest wits and geniuses in the
world, and that some of the good fellows,
whose evenings I made so pleasant, would
sometime or other find the means of advancing
my fortunes. I am old enough—and sad enough
now—to know that a man is his own best
friend, if not his only one; and that he who
that expects others to help him forward in the great
life-battle, while he himself does nothing, is as
big a fool as was ever suffered to crawl upon
the earth. But I was full of hope at that time,
and had not discovered mankind to be that
'unco squad' which Robert Burns described.
I was out so much at nights, and so late during
my newspaper engagements—sometimes on
business, oftener for pleasure—such pleasure as
illimitable whisky toddy could supply—that my
wife began to grieve and pine, and make things
very disagreeable at home. This ought to have
cured me of my unfortunate habits, but it did
not—the more's the pity!—and afforded me, in
my perversity of mind, an additional excuse for
persistence in wrong-doing. It is an old story,
too, and a sad one; and I need not repeat too
much of it. Late hours and debaucheries too
frequent, the one or the other, affected by
degrees my capacity for work. I gave
dissatisfaction at the office, and ultimately, I must
pay after many efforts on the part of my
employer to bring me back into the ways of
sobriety and regularity, I lost my situation.

"The blow for a while was stunning. But
I plucked up heart. I had no idea of going
back to the mill, even if I could have been
taken on again. I felt that I was a journalist,
and something better than a weaver; and a
journalist I resolved to remain. But I saw no
chance of advancement in this career at home,
and as for London, which I once thought of
attempting, I gave up the idea of it, and
resolved to try my fortune in the United States.
A little subscription was got up for me,
sufficient to pay my passage to New York in a
sailng packet—there were no steamboats on the
Atlantic at that time and to leave my wife as much as
would maintain her for three months,
even if she did not, as she said she would, go
back to the mill. I was full of hope and
courage, and resolved to send for her as soon
as I could turn round in the New World. I
had great ideas of my future. Andrew Jackson,
whose Irish mother had once kept an applestall
at a street corner in Limerick or Dublin,
I forget which, was President of the United
States, and if he, born so low, could rise so
high, could not I rise in that land of liberty
above my present mean estate, and be a little
more of a somebody than I could ever hope to
be at home? We had bad weather going out,
and the voyage lasted seventy-one days, during
all which time I had neither the means nor the
opportunity for indulgence in liquor. I had
not been a week in New York before I found
that I had made a great mistake as regards the
chances of employment in that city; and I
trudged away on foot to Philadelphia. Here
also I found that I was out of my element, and
discovered that America was not exactly the
place for such as I, who was not a farmer, a
farm-labourer, or a lusty mechanic, who was not
able to clear a farm on the outskirts of civilisation,
and fight with the bears and Red Indians.
I was disappointed and sick at heart. No doubt
I was a poor fool, and a coward as well. A
countryman from the West of Scotland, whom
I met in Philadelphia, helped me on a bit, and
tried to get me a newspaper engagement. But
I knew nothing of American politics, and did
not care to learn; and became, I scarcely
know how, or by what gradations, a mere
loafer, living from hand to mouth, from hour
to hour, as it were, on chances that were
scarcely better for me than for the birds, or
the stray dogs that prowled about the streets.
I was long in this condition, brightened up
now and then by my temporary friend and
permanent foe, the whisky bottle, which was
provided for me in the company of a few of
my countrymen, who liked my society, and
were glad to drink with any one who had
recently arrived from the 'dear old country,'
as they called it, and who loved to sing Auld
Lang Syne, and Willie brewed a Peck o' Maut,
and other songs that recalled Scotland to their
memory.

"I had written home the news of my bad
fortune, and after while at the instigation of
my wife, a letter was sent to me from my old
friend the lawyer's clerk, to say that another
newspaper engagement, about as good as the
last, but on another journal, awaited me, if I
thought it advisable to return, and would notify
the fact immediately. I was but too willing.
The home-sickness was strong upon me. My
Philadelphian friends subscribed money enough
to pay my passage across the Atlantic, and gave
me a little purse in hand, and a parting supper,
which I remember to this day as one of the
happiest incidents in my weary life. 'The
mirth and fun grew fast and furious,' as we
toasted Scotland and her worthies, and above
all, 'the immortal memory of Robert Burns,'
whose equal in genius on this occasion I fully
believed myself to be—a belief, I think, that
was shared by several of the company. The
passage home was pleasanter than the voyage
out, and occupied but nineteen days. I often
thought, as I paced the deck, and I sometimes
think the same now, that I ought, with my
generous ideas—my love of company and
conversation, and my conviviality of nature, to have
been born to a good estate, and thus been
enabled to dispense hospitality to high and low.
I should have made a tolerably good country
squire, and devoted my mornings to my books,
my garden, or my farm, and my evenings to
the company of good fellows. But with my
tastes and predilections I was a mere waif and
stray, a floating straw upon the river of life, and
by no means the big ship that I thought myself.

"On my return home, after a happy meeting