EAKLY LABORS AND INSTRUCTIONS. 3 



custom of that company, pensioned off, so as to spend his declin- 

 ing years in ease and comfort. 



Oar uncles all entered his majesty's service during the last 

 French war, either as soldiers or sailors ; but my father remained 

 at home, and, though too conscientious ever to become rich as a 

 small tea-dealer, by his kindliness of manner and winning ways 

 he made the heart-strings of his children twine around him as 

 firmly as if he had possessed, and could have bestowed upon 

 them, every worldly advantage. He reared his children in con- 

 nection with the Kirk of Scotland — a religious establishment 

 which has been an incalculable blessing to that country — but he 

 afterward left it, and during the last twenty years of his life held 

 the office of deacon of an independent church in Hamilton, and 

 deserved my lasting gratitude and homage for presenting me, 

 from my infancy, with a continuously consistent pious example, 

 such as that the ideal of which is so beautifully and truthfully 

 portrayed in Burns's "Cottar's Saturday Night." He died in 

 February, 1856, in peaceful hope of that mercy which we all ex- 

 pect through the death of our Lord and Savior. I was at the 

 time on my way below Zumbo, expecting no greater pleasure in 

 this country than sitting by our cottage fire and telling him my 

 travels. I revere his memory. 



The earliest recollection of my mother recalls a picture so oft- 

 en seen among the Scottish poor — that of the anxious housewife 

 striving to make both ends meet. At the age of ten I was put 

 into the factory as a " piecer," to aid by my earnings in lessening 

 her anxiety. With a part of my first week's wages I purchased 

 Ruddiman's "Rudiments of Latin," and pursued the study of that 

 language for many years afterward, with unabated ardor, at an 

 evening school, which met between the hours of eight and ten. 

 The dictionary part of my labors was followed up till twelve 

 o'clock, or later, if my mother did not interfere by jumping up 

 and snatching the books out of my hands. I had to be back in 

 the factory by six in the morning, and continue my work, with 

 intervals for breakfast and dinner, till eight o'clock at night. I 

 read in this way many of the classical authors, and knew Virgil 

 and Horace better at sixteen than I do now. Our schoolmaster 

 — happily still alive — was supported in part by the company ; he 

 was attentive and kind, and so moderate in his charges that all 



