Jemmy Stubbins, or the Nailer Boy

It was our fortune to be born in the country—far away, at the foot of one of the blue hills of Scotland—in a quaint old fashioned little house—in a quiet little village that seemed shrunken and grey, and grim, and decrepid with age. The drooping ashes, the solemn oaks, and the shady plane-trees, spread their long arms tenderly over the straw-thatched roofs of this lowly hamlet, as if to defend it from the burning sun and reckless storms; and the Ayrshire rose and ivy crept up and clung to its damp and crumbling walls. In the broken parts of the gables, and in the crevices of the ruined chimneys, the dew-fed wall-flower grew in poverty and beauty, and shook the incense from its waving flowers into the bosom of summer.