His father met him with some impatient questions as to what he had been living on so long, for the old man well knew how scantily his pocket was supplied. "Pretty much like the young ravens," answered he; "I only wished I had been as good a player on the flute as poor George Primrose in The Vicar of Wakefield. If I had his art, I should like nothing better than to tramp like him from cottage to cottage over the world."―"I doubt," said the grave Clerk to the Signet, "I greatly doubt, sir, you were born for nae better than a gangrel scrape-gut."
Source: wiktionary