BOYHOOD. 6 



In his childish years, John Wilson was as beautiful and animated 

 a creature as ever played in the sunshine. That passion for sports, 

 and especially angling, in which his strong nature found such char- 

 acteristic vent in after years, was developed at an age when most 

 little boys are still hardly safe beyond the nurse's apron-strings. 

 He was but three years old when he rambled off one day, armed 

 with a willow wand, duly furnished with a thread line and crooked 

 pin, to fish in a " wee burnie," of which he had taken note, away a 

 good mile from home. Unknown to any one, already appreciating 

 the fascination of an undisturbed and solitary " cast," the blue-eyed 

 and golden-haired adventurer sallied forth to the water-side, to 

 spend a day of unforgotten delight, lashing away at the rippling 

 stream, with what success we may perhaps find recorded in Fytte 

 First of " Christopher in his Sporting Jacket :" — 



"A tug — a tug! With face ten times flushed and pale by turns 

 pre you could count ten, he at last has strength, in the agitation of 

 his fear and joy, to pull away at the monster ; and there he lies in 

 his beauty among the gowans and the greensward, for he has 

 whapped him right over his head and far away, a fish a quarter of 

 an ounce in weight, and, at the very least, two inches long ! Off 

 he flies, on wings of wind, to his father, mother, and sisters, and 

 brothers and cousins, and all the neighborhood, holding the fish 

 aloft in both hands, still fearful of its escape ; and, like a genuine 

 child of corruption, his eyes brighten at the first blush of cold blood 

 on his small fumy fingers. He carries about with him, up-stairs 

 and down-stairs, his prey upon a plate ; he will not wash his hands 

 before dinner, for he exults in the silver scales adhering to the 

 thumb-nail that scooped the pin out of the baggy's maw; and at 

 night, ' cabined, cribbed, confined,' he is overheard murmuring in 

 his sleep — a thief, a robber, and a murderer, in his yet infant 

 dreams !" 



While the future Christopher was thus early asserting himself 

 out of doors, the " Professor" also was displaying his capacity in 

 the nursery. There his activity and animation kept the little circle 

 alive from morning to night. With his sisters he was a great 

 favorite; they looked up to his superior intelligence, and wondered 

 at all he did. Of in-door amusements, the most exciting to their 

 youthful minds and his precocious genius was that of pulpit ora- 

 tory. One sermon he used himself to speak of as being a chef- 



