Thus, a stranger to the ordinary motives which lead young men to make
the army their choice, and without the least desire to become either a
hero or a dandy, I really do not know what determined my thoughts that
way, unless it were the happy state of half-pay indolence enjoyed by
Captain Doolittle, who had set up his staff of rest in my native
village. Every other person had, or seemed to have, something to do,
less or more. They did not, indeed, precisely go to school and learn
tasks, that last of evils in my estimation; but it did not escape my
boyish observation, that they were all bothered with something or
other like duty or labour--all but the happy Captain Doolittle. The
minister had his parish to visit, and his preaching to prepare, though
perhaps he made more fuss than he needed about both. The laird had
his farming and improving operations to superintend; and, besides, he
had to attend trustee meetings, and lieutenancy meetings, and
head-courts, and meetings of justices, and what not--was as early up,
(that I detested,) and as much in the open air, wet and dry, as his
own grieve. The shopkeeper (the village boasted but one of eminence)
stood indeed pretty much at his ease behind his counter, for his
custom was by no means overburdensome; but still he enjoyed his
_status_, as the Bailie calls it, upon condition of tumbling all
the wares in his booth over and over, when any one chose to want a
yard of muslin, a mousetrap, an ounce of caraways, a paper of pins,
the Sermons of Mr. Peden, or the Life of Jack the Giant-Queller, (not
Killer, as usually erroneously written and pronounced.--See my essay
on the true history of this worthy, where real facts have in a
peculiar degree been obscured by fable.) In short, all in the village
were under the necessity of doing something which they would rather
have left undone, excepting Captain Doolittle, who walked every
morning in the open street, which formed the high mall of our village,
in a blue coat with a red neck, and played at whist the whole evening,