Chapter 1

By Cauk and keel to win your bread,
Wi' whigmaleeries for them wha need,
Whilk is a gentle trade indeed
To carry the gaberlunzie on.

Old Song.

FEW have been in my secret while I was compiling these narratives, nor
is it probable that they will ever become public during the life of
their author. Even were that event to happen, I am not ambitious of the
honoured distinction, digito monstrari. I confess that, were it safe to
cherish such dreams at all, I should more enjoy the thought of remaining
behind the curtain unseen, like the ingenious manager of Punch and his
wife Joan, and enjoying the astonishment and conjectures of my audience.
Then might I, perchance, hear the productions of the obscure Peter
Pattieson praised by the judicious and admired by the feeling,
engrossing the young and attracting even the old; while the critic
traced their fame up to some name of literary celebrity, and the
question when, and by whom, these tales were written filled up the pause
of conversation in a hundred circles and coteries. This I may never
enjoy during my lifetime; but farther than this, I am certain, my vanity
should never induce me to aspire.

I am too stubborn in habits, and too little polished in manners, to envy
or aspire to the honours assigned to my literary contemporaries. I could
not think a whit more highly of myself were I found worthy to "come in
place as a lion" for a winter in the great metropolis. I could not rise,
turn round, and show all my honours, from the shaggy mane to the tufted
tail, "roar you an't were any nightingale," and so lie down again like a
well-behaved beast of show, and all at the cheap and easy rate of a
cup of coffee and a slice of bread and butter as thin as a wafer. And
I could ill stomach the fulsome flattery with which the lady of the
evening indulges her show-monsters on such occasions, as she crams her
parrots with sugar-plums, in order to make them talk before company. I
cannot be tempted to "come aloft" for these marks of distinction, and,
like imprisoned Samson, I would rather remain--if such must be the
alternative--all my life in the mill-house, grinding for my very bread,
than be brought forth to make sport for the Philistine lords and ladies.
This proceeds from no dislike, real or affected, to the aristocracy of
these realms. But they have their place, and I have mine; and, like
the iron and earthen vessels in the old fable, we can scarce come
into collision without my being the sufferer in every sense. It may be
otherwise with the sheets which I am now writing. These may be opened
and laid aside at pleasure; by amusing themselves with the perusal, the
great will excite no false hopes; by neglecting or condemning them,