which seemed plainly to intimate that severe indisposition had been
unable to extinguish altogether the brilliancy of that fancy which the
world had been pleased to acknowledge in the creations of Old Mortality,
the Bride of Lammermoor, and others of these narratives. But I,
nevertheless, threw the manuscripts into my drawer, resolving not to
think of committing them to the Ballantynian ordeal, until I could
either obtain the assistance of some capable person to supply
deficiencies, and correct errors, so as they might face the public with
credit, or perhaps numerous and more serious avocations might permit me
to dedicate my own time and labour to that task.

While I was in this uncertainty, I had a visit from a stranger, who was
announced as a young gentleman desirous of speaking with me on
particular business. I immediately augured the accession of a new
boarder, but was at once checked by observing that the outward man of
the stranger was, in a most remarkable degree, what mine host of the
Sir William Wallace, in his phraseology, calls _seedy_. His black
cloak had seen service; the waistcoat of grey plaid bore yet stronger
marks of having encountered more than one campaign; his third piece of
dress was an absolute veteran compared to the others; his shoes were so
loaded with mud as showed his journey must have been pedestrian; and a
grey _maud_, which fluttered around his wasted limbs, completed
such an equipment as, since Juvenal's days, has been the livery of the
poor scholar. I therefore concluded that I beheld a candidate for the
vacant office of usher, and prepared to listen to his proposals with
the dignity becoming my station; but what was my surprise when I found
I had before me, in this rusty student, no less a man than Paul, the
brother of Peter Pattison, come to gather in his brother's succession,
and possessed, it seemed, with no small idea of the value of that part
of it which consisted in the productions of his pen!