THE APPRENTICE IN THE SUNSHINE. 47 



propelling the other, amidst the ringing laughter of both 

 forbidden sounds when Pirie was present. John's 

 youthful associate is still alive in the village in which 

 they had these merry bouts, a hale, genial, intelligent old 

 man of eighty-one, inspector of poor of his native parish, 

 and to him I am indebted for vivid glimpses of the village 

 life of the time and John's sojourn there. 



After Mrs. Pirie's sudden death, Duncan's life became 

 gradually more miserable, both from his master's fists 

 and from the want of household comforts when his fireside 

 good genius had fled. In the end, so intolerable did it 

 become that he ran away at last for good and all, in 

 1814, when his apprenticeship was about finished, never 

 more to return. 



When the quiet young man of twenty looked back 

 from the road to Johnshaven, a fishing village five miles 

 off, and saw Drumlithie asleep in the hollow, in the 

 dim morning light, he felt exultant, like an Israelite of 

 old escaping from "the house of bondage." His cruel 

 Pharaoh, however, survived for more than thirty years 

 after, till 1847. 



The village since then has passed through not a few 

 changes. When " white weaving," or the trade in bleached 

 linen, was introduced, it reached its acme of prosperity, 

 and could boast of more than a hundred active weavers 

 and a flourishing trade. It now possesses but one. The 

 busy workshops have all been swept away ; the commonty 

 is no longer theirs ; the peat moss beyond has been 

 drained, and coal is universal ; the toot of the cowherd, 

 and the merry blast of the stage-coach, as it swept through 

 the streets like a bright vision of the busy outer world, 



