when he could make up a party. This happy vacuity of all employment
appeared to me so delicious, that it became the primary hint, which,
according to the system of Helvetius, as the minister says, determined
my infant talents towards the profession I was destined to illustrate.

But who, alas! can form a just estimate of their future prospects in
this deceitful world? I was not long engaged in my new profession,
before I discovered, that if the independent indolence of half-pay was
a paradise, the officer must pass through the purgatory of duty and
service in order to gain admission to it. Captain Doolittle might
brush his blue coat with the red neck, or leave it unbrushed, at his
pleasure; but Ensign Clutterbuck had no such option. Captain Doolittle
might go to bed at ten o'clock, if he had a mind; but the Ensign must
make the rounds in his turn. What was worse, the Captain might repose
under the tester of his tent-bed until noon, if he was so pleased; but
the Ensign, God help him, had to appear upon parade at peep of day. As
for duty, I made that as easy as I could, had the sergeant to whisper
to me the words of command, and bustled through as other folks did. Of
service, I saw enough for an indolent man--was buffeted up and down
the world, and visited both the East and West Indies, Egypt, and other
distant places, which my youth had scarce dreamed of. The French I
saw, and felt too; witness two fingers on my right hand, which one of
their cursed hussars took off with his sabre as neatly as an hospital
surgeon. At length, the death of an old aunt, who left me some fifteen
hundred pounds, snugly vested in the three per cents, gave me the
long-wished-for opportunity of retiring, with the prospect of enjoying
a clean shirt and a guinea four times a-week at least.

For the purpose of commencing my new way of life, I selected for my
residence the village of Kennaquhair, in the south of Scotland,