CHAP, in.] "OLD 31" EDINBURGH ACADEMY. 55 



tremendous vigour, with a kind of demonic force, on 

 his tormentors. I think he was let alone after that, 

 and gradually won the respect even of the most 1843-44. 



thoughtless of his schoolfellows/' 1 



It was on some such occasion as that to which 

 Mr. Macfarlane here refers, somewhere in 1843 or 

 1844, that my own closer intimacy and lifelong 

 friendship with James Clerk Maxwell began. I can- 

 not recall the exact circumstances, only the place in 

 the Academy yards, the warm rush of chivalrous 

 emotion, and the look of affectionate recognition in 

 Maxwell's eyes. However imperturbable he was, one 

 might see that he was not thick-skinned. 



Shortly after this we became near neighbours, my 

 mother's new domicile being 27 Heriot Eow, and we 

 were continually together for about three years. 



His letters now refer with more of interest to his 

 progress at school, especially to exercises in verse, and 

 to outdoor recreation with companions ; above all to 

 his delight in bathing and in learning to swim. In 

 this, as in everything he did, he invented curious 

 novelties, and was particularly fond of mimicking his 

 old acquaintance, the frog. 



On Sundays he generally went with his father to 

 St. Andrew's Church (Mr. Crawford's) in the forenoon, 

 and, by Miss Cay's desire, to St. John's Episcopal 

 Chapel in the afternoon, where, also by her desire, he 

 was for a time a member of Dean Kamsay's catecheti- 



1 " One hautboy will," etc. From an entry in his father's Diary 

 of May 19, 1847, it appears that he was even then not free from 

 annoyance. And I can bear witness to the fact. 



