MEMOIR OF THOMAS BEWICK. 51 



the look and deportment of Ralph the best, I gave 

 the preference to him. Matters bearing upon this 

 business were slightly talked over, and my grand- 

 mother having left me twenty pounds for an 

 apprentice fee, it was not long till a good under- 

 standing between parties took place, and I soon 

 afterwards went to R. Beilby upon trial. 



The first of October was the day fixed upon for 

 the binding. The eventful day arrived at last, 

 and a most grievous one it was to me. I liked my 

 master ; I liked the business ; but to part from the 

 country, and to leave all its beauties behind me, 

 with which I had been all my life charmed in an 

 extreme degree, and in a way I cannot de- 

 scribe, I can only say my heart was "dike to 

 break; and, as we passed away, I inwardly bade 

 farewell to the whinny wilds, to Mickley bank, to 

 the Stob-cross hill, to the water-banks, the woods, 

 and to particular trees, and even to the large 

 hollow old elm,* which had lain perhaps for cen- 

 turies past, on the haugh near the ford we were 

 about to pass, and which had sheltered the salmon 

 fishers, while at work there, from many a bitter 

 blast. We called upon my much esteemed school- 

 fellow, Kit Gregson, at Ovingham, where he and 

 his father were waiting to accompany us to New- 

 castle all on the same errand (we were both 

 bound on that day). While w r e were condoling 

 comforting each other I know not what to call 



* This old tree was swept away by the great flood of the ijth 

 November, 1771. [See Sykes's " Local Records," 1833, i., 283-9, f r a 

 full account of this catastrophe. Ovingham boat-house was entirely 

 destroyed, and two only of the ten people it contained survived. 

 At Byvvell, the horse of Mr. Elliot, Bewick's father-in-law, was saved 

 by getting on the altar table in the Black church, where, with other 

 horses, it had been placed for safety.] 



