Nevertheless, I am not unaware,
that, as Envy always dogs Merit at the heels, there may be those who
will whisper, that albeit my learning and good principles cannot
(lauded be the heavens) be denied by any one, yet that my situation at
Gandercleugh hath been more favourable to my acquisitions in learning
than to the enlargement of my views of the ways and works of the present
generation. To the which objection, if, peradventure, any such shall be
started, my answer shall be threefold:
First, Gandercleugh is, as it were, the central part--the navel (SI
FAS SIT DICERE) of this our native realm of Scotland; so that men, from
every corner thereof, when travelling on their concernments of business,
either towards our metropolis of law, by which I mean Edinburgh, or
towards our metropolis and mart of gain, whereby I insinuate Glasgow,
are frequently led to make Gandercleugh their abiding stage and place of
rest for the night. And it must be acknowledged by the most sceptical,
that I, who have sat in the leathern armchair, on the left-hand side of
the fire, in the common room of the Wallace Inn, winter and summer,
for every evening in my life, during forty years bypast (the Christian
Sabbaths only excepted), must have seen more of the manners and customs
of various tribes and people, than if I had sought them out by my
own painful travel and bodily labour.
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