IN MEMORIAM — DAVID tlOBERTSON. 21 



after spending nearly a year at this trade, he resolved to leave it; 

 and he obtained an engagement at a limestone quarry near East 

 Kilbride, having as his work to assist in the removal of soil from 

 the portions of rock intended to be quarried. 



At the age of eighteen he entered the service of a Mr. 

 M'Asland, farmer, Newlandmoor, East Kilbride. Besides 

 driving the milk to Glasgow, he had to take part in the out-door 

 work, while his periods of leisure in the evening were devoted to 

 attempts to increase his stores of knowledge. Among the subjects 

 which he tried to study in this way were arithmetic and book- 

 keeping. He had a day-book, ledger, and cash-book, in which 

 were entered the transactions of the farm so far as these came 

 under his own cognisance. As part of his work was to drive the 

 corn to the mill where it was ground, and to bring the meal back 

 again, he was able on one occasion, by reference to these books, 

 to detect an attempted overcharge in the miller's account. 



"When he was about twenty-one years of age, his ser%'ice was 

 transferred to Mr. Thomas Ballantine, whose farm lay about 

 three miles south of East Kilbride. It was ao-reed that at eight 

 o'clock on the winter nights, after the horses had been fed by 

 David, he should be allowed to attend a night-school at a place 

 called Millwell, a few miles distant, to take lessons in arithmetic. 

 As the book used in this school was " Gray's Arithmetic," in 

 which he had already made considerable progress, he did not need 

 to attend every night, but only when he met with some difficulty 

 which had brought his calculations to a standstill. In this way 

 he succeeded, by the end of the winter, in working nearly through 

 the book. His aim in these studies was to become proficient in 

 reading, writing, and arithmetic, so as to be able to raise himself 

 above the position of a common labourer, if the opportunity for 

 doing so should ever present itself. This laudable ambition in- 

 duced him to take the important step now to be narrated. 



About the year 1830, when he had reached the age of twenty- 

 four, two of his old playmates — Robert Miller and John Miller — 

 entered Glasgow College as divinitv students. He began to think 

 that he might succeed in the medical profession, but the friends to 

 whom he mentioned this project tried to dissuade him from carry- 

 ing it into efifect. He himself had some doubts as to the prudence 

 of the step he contemplated ; but it appeared to him to afford 



