because the soul within had loved more; it was the face of the Son of Man,
and he was carrying him like a lamb in his bosom. He gazed more and more
as they travelled through the cold night; and the joy of lying in the
embrace of that man, grew and grew, till it became too strong for the
bonds of sleep; and he awoke in the fog of a London morning.
CHAPTER III. ENDEAVOURS.
And, even should misfortunes come,
—I, here wha sit, hae met wi’ some,
An’s thankfu’ for them yet.
They gie the wit of age to youth;
They let us ken oursel’;
They mak’ us see the naked truth,
The real guid and ill.
Tho’ losses, and crosses,
Be lessons right severe,
There’s wit there, ye’ll get there,
Ye’ll find nae other where.
BURNS.
Hugh took his advertisement to the Times office, and paid what seemed to
him an awful amount for its insertion. Then he wandered about London till
the middle of the day, when he went into a baker’s shop, and bought two
penny loaves, which he put in his pocket. Having found his way to the
British Museum, he devoured them at his leisure as he walked through the
Grecian and Roman saloons. “What is the use of good health,” he said to
himself, “if a man cannot live upon bread?” Porridge and oatmeal cakes
would have pleased him as well; but that food for horses is not so easily
procured in London, and costs more than the other. A cousin of his had
lived in Edinburgh for six months upon eighteen-pence a week in that way,
and had slept the greater part of the time upon the floor, training
himself for the hardships of a soldier’s life. And he could not forget the
college youth whom his comrades had considered mean, till they learned
that, out of his poor bursary of fourteen pounds a session, and what he
could make besides by private teaching at the rate previously mentioned or
even less, he helped his parents to educate a younger brother; and, in
order to do so, lived himself upon oatmeal and potatoes. But they did not
find this out till after he was dead, poor fellow! He could not stand it.
I ought at the same time to mention, that Hugh rarely made use of a
crossing on a muddy day, without finding a half-penny somewhere about him
for the sweeper. He would rather walk through oceans of mud, than cross at
the natural place when he had no coppers—especially if he had patent
leather boots on.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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