One o'clock
I longed like a sailor that has been far at sea , and wasted and weatherbeaten , to see once more my native home ; and , bundling up , flee from the noisy stramash to the loun dykeside of domestic privacy . Every thing around me seemed to smell of sin and pollution , like the garments of the Egyptians with the ten plagues ; and often , after I took off my clothes to lie down in my bed , when the watchmen that guarded us through the night in blue dreadnoughts with red necks , and battons , and horn-bouets , from thieves , murderers , and pickpockets , were bawling , `` Half-past ten o'clock , '' did I commune with my own heart , and think within myself , that I would rather be a sober , poor , honest man in the country , able to clear my day and way by the help of Providence , than the Provost himself , my lord though he be , or even the Mayor of London , with his velvet gown trailing for yards in the glaur behind him -- do what he likes to keep it up ; or riding about the streets -- as Joey Smith the Yorkshire jockey , to whom I made a hunting - cap , told me -- in a coach made of clear crystal , and wheels of the beaten gold . It was an awful business ; dog on it , I ay wonder yet how I got through with it . There was no rest for soul or body , by night or day , with police-officers crying , `` One o'clock , an ' a frosty morning , '' knocking Eirishmen 's teeth down their throats with their battons , hauling limmers by the lug and horn into the lock-up-house , or over by to Bridewell , where they were set to beat hemp for a small wage , and got their heads shaved ; with carters bawling , `` Ye yo , yellow sand , yellow sand , '' with mouths as wide as a barn-door , and voices that made the drums of your ears dirl , and ring again like mad ; with fishwives from Newhaven , Cockenzie , and Fisherrow , skirling , `` Roug-a-rug , warstling herring , '' as if every one was trying to drown out her neighbour , till the very landladies , at the top of the seventeen story houses , could hear , if they liked to be fashed , and might come down at their leisure to buy them at three for a penny ; men from Barnton , and thereaway on the Queensferry Road , halloing `` Sour douk , sour douk ; '' tinklers skirmishing the edges of brown plates they were trying to make the old wives buy -- and what not . To me it was a real hell upon earth . Never let us repine , howsomever , but consider that all is ordered for the best . The sons of the patriarch Jacob found out their brother Joseph in a foreign land , and where they least expected it ; so it was here -- even here , where my heart was sickening unto death , from my daily and nightly thoughts being as bitter as gall -- that I fell in with the greatest blessing of my life , Nanse Cromie !