"But it pleased God to take away by death all my ewes and my lambs, and
my long-horned cow, and my spotted bull, for if they had lived, and if I
had kept the farm of Corfardin, I had been a lost man to the world, and
mankind should never have known the half that was in me. Indeed, I can
never see the design of Providence in taking me to your district at all,
if it was not to breed my acquaintance with you and yours, which I hope
will be one source of happiness to me as long as I live. Perhaps the
very circumstance of being initiated into the mysteries of your
character,[29] is of itself a sufficient compensation for all that I
suffered in your country."

Disappointed in obtaining an ensigncy in a Militia Regiment, through the
interest of Sir Walter Scott, and frustrated in every other attempt to
retain the social position he had gained, he returned to Ettrick, once
more to seek employment in his original occupation. But if friendship
had somewhat failed him, on his proving unsuccessful at Ettrick-house,
his _prestige_ was now completely gone; old friends received him coldly,
and former employers declined his services. He found that, till he
should redeem his reputation for business and good management, there was
no home for him in Ettrick Forest. Hogg was not a man who would tamely
surrender to the pressure of misfortune: amidst his losses he could
claim the strictest honesty of intention, and he was not unconscious of
his powers. With his plaid over his shoulders, he reached Edinburgh in
the month of February 1810, to begin, in his fortieth year, the career
of a man of letters. The scheme was singularly adventurous, but the die
was cast; he was in the position of the man on the tread-wheel, and felt
that he must write or perish.

It affords no matter of surprise that the Shepherd was received coldly
by the booksellers, and that his offers of contributing to their