Page:Guy Mannering Vol 3.djvu/222

212 "So much the better, my dear sir; but that is a general character—Mr. Brown must tell us where he was born."

"In Scotland, I believe, but the place uncertain."

"Where educated?"

"In Holland, certainly."

"Do you remember nothing of your early life before you left Scotland?"

"Very imperfectly; yet I have a strong idea, perhaps more deeply impressed upon me by subsequent hard usage, that I was during my childhood the object of much solicitude and affection. I have an indistinct remembrance of a good-looking man whom I used to call papa, and of a lady who was infirm in health, and who, I think, must have been my mother; but it is an imperfect and confused recollection—I remember too a tall thin man in black, who used to teach me my letters and walk out with me; and I think the very last time"—

Here the Dominie could contain no