I pass over, likewise, the mournful recollection of my worthy father's death. He was swept away in an avalanche, which, on the melting of the snow, detached itself from the mountain's brow. He and Help perished together. Oh, I remember, as it were but yesterday, Watch's look when he entered the house, and all but told us in words what had happened. But what avail such recollections? My father was dead, and, in a few hours, my mother followed him; she was seized prematurely with her pains, and, ere assistance could be procured, there was a dead mother and a still-born child. I wonder yet that I kept my senses; but I was stupified. My uncle, a gruff and worldly-minded, but shrewd carle, arranged and managed everything, and took me home with him, the day after the double funeral. My mother's brother--with whom I now lived, and by whom I was educated, in the town of Moffat, Dumfriesshire--had made a respectable independence as a packman; and having only one son, and being a widower, he found no great inconvenience in accommodating me. His son was grown up; and, having a natural taste for a sea-faring life, he was, soon after my arrival, placed as middy on board of an East Indiaman; so my uncle and I had the whole house to ourselves. But my uncle's temper was bad; and there was that in his manner to me which seemed ever and anon to say--You are devilishly in my road, I wish I were quit of you. Accordingly, being now a pretty well-educated lad of seventeen, I cast about in my own mind for a profession, or some way or other of supporting myself, independent of my snarling relative. Jamaica, I remember, was thought of, and I even had some pairs of shoes made for the voyage; but the person died on whose patronage my uncle relied, and the scheme luckily blew up. I wrote a good hand, and was quite master of book-keeping, both by single and double entry; so I was put to a writer's desk in Dumfries, with many admonitions, and much wise instruction. But I had been accustomed to the hills and streams, and fishing, and all the varieties of an active life; and so, one fine evening, I went out to walk on the banks of the Nith, but forgot to return to my desk next morning. In fact, I had returned to Moffat, telling my uncle that I was tired of sitting, and would rather, like himself, carry a pack. At this he seemed at first somewhat startled; but, finding me resolute, he at last consented, and agreed to furnish me with credit to the amount of L20 sterling. A suitable box was accordingly purchased, and a somewhat limited assortment of penknives, watch-seals, scissors, thimbles, needles, pins, brooches, Bibles, and Psalm-books, with a small assortment of shawls, waistcoat pieces, and Kilmarnock night-caps, &c., were selected and packed up; and the following morning was fixed upon for my departure, when my uncle requested my company for a little in his own small sitting room, off the kitchen.