LIFE OF WILSON. Xxvii 



enough for an Indian war-feast keep the flour-barrel full bake 

 loaves like Hamles Head* make the loom thunder, and the 

 pot boil; and your snug little cabin re-echo nothing but sounds 

 of domestic felicity. I will write you the moment I hear of 

 George. I shall do every thing I have said to you, and never 

 lose sight of the eighteenth of March ; for which purpose I shall 

 keep night school this winter, and retain every farthing but 

 what necessity requires depend upon me. These are the out- 

 lines of my plan. If health stand it, all will be well; if not, 

 we cannot help it. Ruminate on all this, and consult together. 

 If you still think of coming down, I hope you would not hesi- 

 tate for a moment to make my neighbourhood your home. If 

 you come I shall be happy to have you once more beside me. 

 If you resolve to stay on the farm, and put things in order as 

 far as possible, I will think you have done what you thought 

 best. But I forget that my paper is done. 



"Robb, Orr, &c. have escaped as yet from the pestilence; 

 but Robb's three children have all had the ague. Rabby Rowan 

 has gone to Davie's Locker at last: he died in the West Indies. 

 My brother David talks of coming to America, and my father, 

 poor old man, would be happy to be with you, rough and un- 

 comfortable as your situation at present is. As soon as I finish 

 this I shall write to your mother and Alexander. There is a 

 letter for John M., which he is requested to answer by his fa- 

 ther-in-law. I hope John will set a firm resolute heart to the 

 undertaking, and plant a posterity in that rich, western coun- 

 try, to perpetuate his name for ever. Thousands here would 

 rejoice to be in his situation. How happy may you live thus 

 united together in a free and plentiful country, after so many 

 years of painful separation, where the bare necessaries of life 

 were all that incessant drudgery could procure, and even that 

 but barely. Should even sickness visit you, which God forbid, 

 each of you is surrounded by almost all the friends you have in 

 the world, to nurse you, and pity and console you; and surely 

 it is not the least sad comfort of a death bed, to be attended by 

 * The name of a rock near Paisley. 



