CHAPTER III


_My Old Nurses Story_.

I was now almost nineteen. I had completed the usual curriculum of study
at one of the Scotch universities; and, possessed of a fair knowledge of
mathematics and physics, and what I considered rather more than a good
foundation for classical and metaphysical acquirement, I resolved to
apply for the first suitable situation that offered. But I was spared
the trouble. A certain Lord Hilton, an English nobleman, residing in one
of the midland counties, having heard that one of my father's sons was
desirous of such a situation, wrote to him, offering me the post of
tutor to his two boys, of the ages of ten and twelve. He had been partly
educated at a Scotch university; and this, it may be, had prejudiced him
in favour of a Scotch tutor; while an ancient alliance of the families
by marriage was supposed by my nurse to be the reason of his offering me
the situation. Of this connection, however, my father said nothing to
me, and it went for nothing in my anticipations. I was to receive a
hundred pounds a year, and to hold in the family the position of a
gentleman, which might mean anything or nothing, according to the
disposition of the heads of the family. Preparations for my departure
were immediately commenced. I set out one evening for the cottage of my
old nurse, to bid her good-bye for many months, probably years. I was to
leave the next day for Edinburgh, on my way to London, whence I had to
repair by coach to my new abode--almost to me like the land beyond the
grave, so little did I know about it, and so wide was the separation
between it and my home. The evening was sultry when I began my walk, and
before I arrived at its end, the clouds rising from all quarters of the