THE APPRENTICE IN THE SUNSHINE. 41 



painter, as they sat there at this employment unwonted in 

 a weaving shop, behind the countless threads and beams of 

 the loom, with the light streaming in upon them through 

 the near window, under the thatched roof open to the 

 rigging? which was hung with the cobwebs and the 

 accumulated stour and dust of years. Speaking on the 

 subject to her brother, a communicative old man who 

 still survives in his eighty-second year, bent with cruel 

 rheumatism, I asked if there was anything of the tender 

 passion involved in the arrangement, for it was an unusual 

 thing for a young girl to do. He replied that ft they were 

 only bairns thegither readin' a lesson ; " and rightly 

 remarked that had love been in their hearts, there would 

 have been precious little thought of learning in their heads. 

 The eager student was also abundantly assisted by his 

 good mistress in this scholastic work, as we have seen, 

 while the passages read were illuminated by her intelligent 

 commentary and abundant memory stores. Under this 

 gentle tuition, John made rapid progress, for, as David 

 Brand says, "he was terrible anxious aboot learnin'." 

 So anxious was he, as he himself used to tell, that he also 

 carried on his studies in church for his poor attire did not 

 keep him from public worship, though submitting him to 

 public remark, and "claes werena just sae dandy in 

 thae days," as observed by one of his friends. When the 

 minister gave out the psalm to be sung and the chapter 

 to be read, John got the place turned up by one of his 

 kindly neighbours, and followed the reading as far as he 

 was able, and with increasing facility ; and when the text 

 was selected, he laboriously conquered it in the book during 

 intervals in the discourse. After he returned home, he 



