THE JOURNEYMAN'S FIRST FREEDOM. 55 



pattern, then more difficult to produce with existing 

 appliances than now. While talking together on weaving 

 matters, Hadden challenged John to make a similar piece, 

 wagering a good deal that he could not do it. They 

 parted for the evening. Next morning, John produced 

 the cloth required, woven to pattern. He had worked at 

 it all alone during that night ! 



Some of the woollen goods, then woven entirely by 

 the hand, were very trying to the weaver, and looked much 

 more so to the unaccustomed on-looker, from .the extreme 

 exertion and watchfulness they required. Such were some 

 of the patterned broad-loom winceys, which were double 

 the common width, and were woven in a special large 

 or "broad loom," the pattern being produced by means 

 of the Jacquard machine, invented in 1/90. In these, 

 the shuttle had to be deftly thrown from hand to hand 

 extended at full stretch, through the moving warp, 

 operated on by numerous treddles below, over which the 

 nimble feet of the weaver moved with unerring accuracy, 

 though of necessity out of sight. These cloths John used 

 to weave at this early date in Aberdeen, which still retains 

 its ancient fame for winceys, though they are now made 

 chiefly of cotton and wool. 



There also lived in Aberdeen, during the whole of 

 John's stay there, another weaver, poor and lame, but full 

 of the lyrical afflatus, who afterwards became famous, 

 William Thorn. Born in that city in 1797, he was three 

 years John's junior, and worked in a cotton factory in 

 Belmont Street, removing thence to Dundee in 1831. It 

 was not, however, till he returned, in 1840, to reside at 

 Inverurie in Aberdeenshire, where he first began to publish, 



