HIS OTHER FRIENDS AT NETHERTON. 199 



" hustle " when it was time to separate, the various plans 

 kindly suggested to the discomfited weaver to get him home 

 unharmed to Netherton, the final discovery of the lost 

 sandals, and the non-discovery of the culprit. Sometimes 

 they were found in odd places. One night, after a pleasant 

 intellectual sederunt, Charlie entered, when parting time 

 came, in the guise of a wandering hunchback, and paraded 

 the room with a great bunch between his shoulders, amidst 

 the hilarious laughter of his companions. John meantime 

 was silently searching for his boots, carefully secreted from 

 possible theft as he deemed them, now nowhere to be seen ; 

 unwitting, from his short-sightedness, of the merry 

 mischief that twinkled in the eyes of his friend. A simul- 

 taneous search was ostentatiously made^by his companions, 

 including the new hunchback, and for a time in vain. Just 

 when it was decided that John must doff his stockings and 

 trip home barefooted, the hunchback's burden suddenly 

 dropped, and the missing brogues were revealed ! 



" O happy, happy days ! O merry, merry times ! with a 

 vast o' fun ! " Their memory lighted up the old man's face, 

 touching it also with sadness, as he related the story to me, 

 in his eighty-seventh year. 



Forbes remained teaching in the same cottage long 

 after the Disruption, and was session clerk of the parish 

 of Tough for many years. After retiring from active 

 labour, he continued to live there, his house being kindly 

 granted him by the proprietor, Farquharson of Haughton, 

 and there he died, long after his friends had been scattered 

 far and wide. 



Another friend of John's was James Black, a younger 

 brother of Charles, then a lad, acting as farm servant at 



