CHAPTER III .-- COMING INTO THE WORLD.
-- At first the babe Was sickly; and a smile was seen to pass Across the midwife's cheek, when, holding up The feeble wretch, she to the father said, "A fine man-child!" What else could they expect?
The father being, as I said before, A weaver.
HOGG'S _Poetic Mirror_.
I have no distinct recollection of the thing myself, yet there is every reason to believe that I was born on the 15th of October 1765, in that little house standing by itself, not many yards from the eastmost side of the Flesh-Market Gate, Dalkeith.

My eyes opened on the light about two o'clock in a dark and rainy morning.

Long was it spoken about that something great and mysterious would happen on that dreary night; as the cat, after washing her face, went mewing about, with her tail sweeing behind her like a ramrod; and a corbie, from the Duke's woods, tumbled down Jamie Elder's lum, when he had set the little still a-going--giving them a terrible fright, as they all took it first for the devil, and then for an exciseman--and fell with a great cloud of soot, and a loud skraigh, into the empty kail-pot.
The first thing that I have any clear memory of, was my being carried out on my auntie's shoulder, with a leather cap tied under my chin, to see the Fair Race.

Oh! but it was a grand sight! I have read since then the story of Aladdin's Wonderful Lamp, but this beat it all to sticks.

There was a long row of tables covered with carpets of bonny patterns, heaped from one end to the other with shoes of every kind and size, some with polished soles, and some glittering with sparribles and cuddy-heels; and little red worsted boots for bairns, with blue and white edgings, hanging like strings of flowers up the posts at each end;--and then what a collection of luggies! the whole meal in the market-sacks on a Thursday did not seem able to fill them;--and horn-spoons, green and black freckled, with shanks clear as amber,--and timber caups,--and ivory egg- cups of every pattern.