

IN MEMORIAM—DAVID ROBERTSON. 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 service was 
transferred to Mr. Thomas Ballantine, whose farm lay about 
three miles south of East Kilbride. It was agreed 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 divinity 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 effect. He himself had some doubts as to the prudence 
of the step he contemplated; but it appeared to him to afford 
