WEAVING AND A VILLAGE OF WEAVERS. 23 



on following the ancestral occupation and becoming a 

 weaver. 



Nothing could have formed a greater contrast to the 

 byre and the plough he was leaving than the loom to which 

 he was going. Of all occupations, there is none that 

 employs the body more than weaving, while actively 

 exercising the mind. In working, one hand moves the 

 "lay," the other drives the shuttle ; in some classes of work, 

 the shuttle is deftly thrown through the warp from hand to 

 hand, either of which moves the " lay " in the short interval 

 between. The feet work the "treddles," the fingers tie 

 the thread, while the eye is ever on the alert to see that all 

 goes well in the countless intricacies of the cords ; for a 

 single flaw would spoil the cloth. In weaving a striped 

 stuff, still greater care is required. The darker or lighter 

 lines must be inserted by means of additional shuttles, 

 which are laid aside on the edge of the loom till required, 

 each in turn shooting to and fro under the ever active hand. 

 The breadth of each stripe has to be judged by the eye, 

 which the expert workman learns to do with singular 

 accuracy, assisted, if need be, by a pair of compasses, which 

 lie ready for use when the requisite breadth is thought to be 

 reached, a process of minute judgment that necessitates 

 unusual correctness of observation. 



Weavers then formed, as a whole, a remarkable class 

 of men intelligent, and observant of the progress of events 

 at home and abroad ; devoted to politics, strongly or 

 wildly radical, if not tainted with revolutionary senti- 

 ments, after the intoxication of the first French Revolution ; 

 great talkers when they gathered together in the street 

 or public-house, during the intervals of work ; intensely 



