Chapter 1 - Page 2

indifferently cloaked over, that my
poor mother thought herself obliged to leave my habitation, and
betake herself to a small inconvenient jointure-house, which she
occupied till her death. I think, however, I was not exclusively
to blame in this separation, and I believe my mother afterwards
condemned herself for being too hasty. Thank God, the adversity
which destroyed the means of continuing my dissipation, restored
me to the affections of my surviving parent.

My course of life could not last. I ran too fast to run long;
and when I would have checked my career, I was perhaps too near
the brink of the precipice. Some mishaps I prepared by my own
folly, others came upon me unawares. I put my estate out to
nurse to a fat man of business, who smothered the babe he should
have brought back to me in health and strength, and, in dispute
with this honest gentleman, I found, like a skilful general, that
my position would be most judiciously assumed by taking it up
near the Abbey of Holyrood. [See Note 1.--Holyrood.] It was then
I first became acquainted with the quarter, which my little work
will, I hope, render immortal, and grew familiar with those
magnificent wilds, through which the Kings of Scotland once
chased the dark-brown deer, but which were chiefly recommended to
me in those days, by their being inaccessible to those
metaphysical persons, whom the law of the neighbouring country
terms John Doe and Richard Roe. In short, the precincts of the
palace are now best known as being a place of refuge at any time
from all pursuit for civil debt.

Dire was the strife betwixt my quondam doer and myself; during
which my motions were circumscribed, like those of some conjured
demon, within a circle, which, "beginning at the northern gate of
the King's Park, thence running northways, is bounded on the left
by the King's garden-wall, and the gutter, or kennel, in a line
wherewith it crosses the High Street to the Watergate, and
passing through the sewer, is bounded by the walls of the Tennis
Court and Physic Gardens, etc. It then follows the wall of the
churchyard, joins the north west wall of St Ann's Yards, and
going east to the clackmill-house, turns southward to the
turnstile in the King's Park wall, and includes the whole King's
Park within the Sanctuary."

These limits, which I abridge from the accurate Maitland, once
marked the Girth, or Asylum, belonging to the Abbey of Holyrood,
and which, being still an appendage to the royal palace, has
retained the privilege of an asylum for civil debt. One would
think the space sufficiently extensive for a man to stretch his
limbs in, as, besides a reasonable proportion of level ground
(considering that the scene lies in Scotland), it