CHAPTER X, 



RESUMES HIS FORMER HABITS. 



EDWARD had left Banff on the 31st of July 1846, full 

 of hope ; after six weeks he returned to it, full 

 of despair. He had gone to Aberdeen with his col- 

 lection, accompanied by his wife and family ; he re- 

 turned from it alone and on foot, without a single 

 specimen of his collection, and without a penny in his 

 pocket that he could call his own. He felt ruined, 

 disappointed, beggared, his aims and hopes in life 

 blasted. He was under the necessity of leaving his 

 wife and children at Aberdeen ; for they could not tra- 

 vel fifty miles to Banff on foot. 



Edward felt terribly crushed on re-entering his 

 desolate home. A strange-like heaviness of mind 

 came over him. The place was drear and lonesome. 

 It was so different from what it had once been. It 

 was no longer enlivened by the prattle of his children, 

 or the pleasant looks of his wife. There was neither 

 fire, nor food, nor money. The walls, which, only 

 a few weeks before, had been covered with his trea- 

 sures the results of the hard labour of years were 

 bare and destitute. The house was desolation itself. 



After remaining there for a short time, a neigh- 



