98 THE BANK ACCOUNTANT. 



must give you those of mine in turn. But they are sadly 

 unlike. You have been going on through life like a 

 horseman on a journey, and are now far in advance of the 

 starting-point, I, on the contrary, have been mounted, 

 whip and spur, on a hobby, and after seventeen years' 

 hard driving, here I am in exactly the same spot I set out 

 from. But I have had rare sport in the fine ups and 

 downs, and have kept saddle the whole time. You re- 

 member I was on the eve of becoming a mason appren- 

 tice when you left me. The four following years were 

 passed in wandering in the northern and western High- 

 lands, and hills, and lakes, and rivers, one of the hap- 

 piest and most contented, though apparently most forlorn 

 of stone-masons. I lived in these days in kilns and barns, 

 and on something less than half-a-crown per week, and 

 have been located for months together in wild savage 

 districts where I could scarce find in a week's time a 

 person with English enough to speak to me ; but I was 

 dreaming behind my apron of poets and poetry, and of 

 making myself a name ; and so the toils and hardships 

 of the present were lost in the uncertain good of the 

 future. Would we not be poor, unhappy creatures, dear 

 Einlay, were there more of sober sense in our composition 

 and less of foolish hope ? In 1824 I went to Edinburgh, 

 where I wrought for part of two years. I was sanguine 

 in my expectations of meeting with you. I have looked 

 a thousand times after the college students and smart 

 lawyer-clerks whom I have seen thronging the pavement, 

 in the hope of identifying some one of them with my early 

 friend. On one occasion I even supposed I had found 

 him, and then blessed God I had not. I was sauntering 

 on the Calton on a summer Sabbath morning of autumn, 

 when I met with a poor maniac who seemed to recognize 

 me, and whose features bore certainly a marked resem- 



