xviii LIFE OF 



the evening, with the hope of following up the impression left on his 

 mind by a dream which he imperfectly recollected in the morning. 

 His solitary musing walks were still continued, and often extended 

 to Auchinbathie Tower, in visits to his father and family, to Loch- 

 winnoch, and his favourite Calder. As the game laws were not so 

 strict, or the individual preservation so much attended to, as they 

 are at present, a gun was his frequent companion, and his deeds in 

 this way were often extolled by his fellow-workers. To these 

 poaching expeditions may, perhaps, be assigned his first lessons in 

 discriminating the various game that occurred, and which showed 

 him at once, when in a new country, the difference of its birds from 

 those to which he had been accustomed. 



"Wilson now left Paisley to visit his brother-in-law, "William 

 Duncan, at Queensferry on the banks of the Forth, where he re- 

 mained for a few months assisting his relative at his employment, 

 and afterwards accompanied him on a mercantile travelling excur- 

 sion over the eastern districts of Scotland. This was the greatest 

 distance he had yet been from his birth-place, and the new scenes 

 and variety of incidents which he encountered, induced him to 

 think that the occupation of a travelling merchant would be far 

 preferable to the sedentary, and, to him, irksome employment of a 

 weaver. He resolved, therefore, to attempt " the establishment of 

 his good fortune in the world,"* and, being able, by the kindness 

 of his friends, to provide the requisites for a small pack, and having 

 " fitted up," as he tells us,t " a proper budget, consisting of silks, 

 muslins, prints, &c, &c, for the accommodation of those good people 

 who may prove his customers," he commenced a new and more 

 varied life, with a light heart, and sanguine expectations of success. 



" ' Ralph the pedlar ' 



bore a curious pack, 



With trinkets fill'd, and had a ready knack 

 At coining rhyme." 



In this itinerant Life he for some time persevered, alive both to 

 the beauties of the country he travelled through, and the repulses 

 he often met with when displaying his wares. His attention was 

 attracted by everything of worth, and he would often leave his tract 



* Journal, Poems, 1st Edit. f Ibid. 



