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. [See Note 1.--Holyrood.] It was then
I first became acquainted with the quarter, which my little work
will, I hope, render immortal, and grew familiar with those
magnificent wilds, through which the Kings of Scotland once
chased the dark-brown deer, but which were chiefly recommended to
me in those days, by their being inaccessible to those
metaphysical persons, whom the law of the neighbouring country
terms John Doe and Richard Roe.
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