MEMOIR OF THOMAS BEWICK. 43 



cabbage the best," while another would press upon 

 the audience the deliciousness of potatoes and 

 onion sauce, and in the warmth of his loyalty 

 would wish that the King could but know how 

 good a dish this was, in which case he would 

 never want it for his supper. With the aged 

 men I felt much amused. From the avidity with 

 which they gathered news, they seemed to live 

 upon it. Several of them met every day at the 

 lodge,* or earth-built hovel, close by my father's 

 pit, for the purpose of being gratified in this 

 way. The carts and wains came in all direc- 

 tions, and many of them from a great distance, 

 for coals, the drivers of which imparted to 

 them all they knew of what was going on in 

 their several neighbourhoods. In this kind of 

 treat I often partook with them when I was gin 

 driver, by slipping in among them between the 

 drawing up of each cart of coals to the bank. The 

 information thus obtained was then speedily given 

 in detail at the smith's shop at Mickley, whence it 

 was spread over the neighbouring country. One 

 of these old men, John Newton (the laird of the 

 Neuk), almost every morning, while I was young, 

 met me and my schoolfellows at or near the Haly 

 Well (Holy Well) as we were going to Mickley 

 School, and he seldom passed me without clapping 

 my head, accompanied with some good wishes. 

 Many years after this, while I lived at the Forth, 

 Newcastle, I met a little boy, one morning coming 

 to school there, when I clapped his head, and 



* This lodge having always a good fire kept on in it, with a 

 bed of straw on each side, bounded by the trunks of two old 

 trees, to answer the double purpose of bed-stocks and seats, 

 often proved a comfortable asylum to the benighted, weary, 

 shivering traveller wandering on the road. 



