Chapter 5

CHAPTER V.

MR. CROFTANGRY SETTLES IN THE CANONGATE.

If you will know my house,
'Tis at the tuft of olives here hard by. AS YOU LIKE IT.

By a revolution of humour which I am unable to account for, I
changed my mind entirely on my plans of life, in consequence of
the disappointment, the history of which fills the last chapter.
I began to discover that the country would not at all suit me;
for I had relinquished field-sports, and felt no inclination
whatever to farming, the ordinary vocation of country gentlemen.
Besides that, I had no talent for assisting either candidate in
case of an expected election, and saw no amusement in the duties
of a road trustee, a commissioner of supply, or even in the
magisterial functions of the bench. I had begun to take some
taste for reading; and a domiciliation in the country must remove
me from the use of books, excepting the small subscription
library, in which the very book which you want is uniformly sure
to be engaged.

I resolved, therefore, to make the Scottish metropolis my regular
resting-place, reserving to myself to take occasionally those
excursions which, spite of all I have said against mail-coaches,
Mr. Piper has rendered so easy. Friend of our life and of our
leisure, he secures by dispatch against loss of time, and by the
best of coaches, cattle, and steadiest of drivers, against hazard
of limb, and wafts us, as well as our letters, from Edinburgh to
Cape Wrath in the penning of a paragraph.

When my mind was quite made up to make Auld Reekie my
headquarters, reserving the privilege of EXPLORING in all
directions, I began to explore in good earnest for the purpose of
discovering a suitable habitation. "And whare trew ye I gaed?"
as Sir Pertinax says. Not to George's Square--nor to Charlotte
Square--nor to the old New Town--nor to the new New Town--nor to
the Calton Hill. I went to the Canongate, and to the very
portion of the Canongate in which I had formerly been immured,
like the errant knight, prisoner in some enchanted castle, where
spells have made the ambient air impervious to the unhappy
captive, although the organs of sight encountered no obstacle to
his free passage.

Why I should have thought of pitching my tent here I cannot tell.
Perhaps it was to enjoy the pleasures of freedom where I had so
long endured the bitterness of restraint, on the principle of the
officer who, after he had retired from the army, ordered his
servant to continue to call him at the hour or parade, simply
that he might have the pleasure of saying, "D--n the parade!"
and turning to the other side to enjoy his slumbers. Or perhaps
I expected to find in the vicinity some little old-fashioned
house,