the inhabitants. It was a sorry retreat for declining years and
sickness, and a sad and cheerless home for the fresh cheek and glad
hopes of youth; and all the worse, that neither father nor daughter was
'to the manner born;' for poor John Glegg had, as he said, had plenty of
guineas in his time; at least, what should have been plenty, had they
been wisely husbanded. But John, to describe the thing as he saw it
himself, had always 'had luck against him.' It did not signify what he
undertook, his undertakings invariably turned out ill.

He was born in Scotland, and had passed a great portion of his life
there; but, unfortunately for him, he had no Scotch blood in his veins,
or he might have been blessed with some small modicum of the caution for
which that nation is said to be distinguished. His father had been a
cooper, and when quite a young man, John had succeeded to a
well-established business in Aberdeen. His principal commerce consisted
in furnishing the retail-dealers with casks, wherein to pack their dried
fish; but partly from good-nature, and partly from indolence, he allowed
them to run such long accounts, that they were apt to overlook the debt
altogether in their calculations, and to take refuge in bankruptcy when
the demand was pressed and the supply of goods withheld--his negligence
thus proving, in its results, as injurious to them as to himself. Five
hundred pounds embarked in a scheme projected by a too sanguine friend,
for establishing a local newspaper, which 'died ere it was born;' and a
fire, occurring at a time that John had omitted to renew his insurance,
had seriously damaged his resources, when some matter of business having
taken him to the Isle of Man, he was agreeably surprised to find that
his branch of trade, which had of late years been alarmingly declining
in Aberdeen, was there in the most flourishing condition. Delighted with
the prospect this state of affairs opened, and eager to quit the spot
where misfortune had so unrelentingly pursued him, John, having first