Xvi LIFE OF 



He now laboured at the employment of a journeyman only when 

 necessity urged. Such books as the kindness of his friends supplied 

 him with were kept about his loom, and much time was occupied 

 in perusing them, and in attempts to turn his ideas into verse. His 

 enviable faculty of seizing upon the strong and bearing points of 

 any subject or incident had become apparent, and the sallies of 

 boyish wit and ridicule among his companions, gained for him a 

 superiority far beyond what was due to his years.* 



Having spent some time in this manner at Paisley, he became a 

 journeyman gauze weaver to his father, who resided sometimes at 

 Lochwinnoch, sometimes at Auchinbathie Tower ; and though he 

 now wrought more diligently, and bore the character of being " the 

 most sober and tramping journeyman that had ever entered the 

 village," the thought that he had been disappointed in his pros- 

 pects of a higher profession — his utter distaste for the trade that 

 had been chosen for him — and the higher feelings which his slight 

 literary education had awakened — bore the mastery over his anxiety 

 to perform his allotted tasks, and he was sometimes seduced from 

 them by the pleasure he experienced in rambling among the 

 woods of Castle Semple, or by the banks of the river Calder — one 

 of the most beautiful and romantic mountain streams I have ever 

 seen. These solitary walks confirmed the pensive and diffident 

 turn of his mind, but fitted it to enjoy the deeper solitudes he was 

 afterwards destined to traverse. It was here that he brooded over 

 what he then considered his ill-fated lot, or formed and reformed 

 schemes for his future advancement ; where he saw nature as she 

 was in her mild and soothing aspects and more placid skies, her 



* While "Wilson wrought at Lochwinnoch, he was much importuned by one 

 of his shopmates to write him an epitaph. This individual had excelled in 

 little except daundering upon Sundays about the hedgerows and whin bushes 

 in search of birds' nests. Wilson for a long time resisted the entreaties of his 

 companion, for this best reason, that there was nothing in his character that 

 could entitle him to a couplet ; but being hard pressed, he burst forth with 

 the following extemporaneous hit, which at once silenced the inquirer, and set 

 bis shopmates into a roar of laughter at his expense : — 



" Below this stane John Allan rests, 

 An honest soul, though plain, 

 He sought hail Sabbath days for nests, 

 But always sought in vain." 



