THOMAS BEWICK. 



83 



their feelings. He relates the first time he ever took particular notice of the 

 fair sex, which was when a boy at school. Miss Betty Gregson, the daughter 

 of his teacher, one time reproved him, but in a winning way, for some 

 unkindness to her little dog, "a sleek, fat, useless animal." The gentle 

 manner of the reproof was more successful than a beating from his father 

 would have been, and he says the good impression made by her gentleness 

 prevented him annoying any of the girls at school, and was never effaced, but 

 was " fostered through life and settled into a fixed respect and tender regard 

 for the whole sex." Such a sentiment does honour to the manhood of the 

 writer. This tenderness and esteem for woman formed a characteristic of 

 Bewick noticeable to all, even when he was young, and it became more 

 emphasized as he grew old. Rough he could be among his companions, 

 and ready for any frolic, but no one was ever able to say he had failed to pay 

 proper respect to the other sex. 



Towards the end of his apprenticeship Bewick says he entertained an 

 undeclared feeling of love for Miss Beilby, his employer's daughter. He 

 would have offered to marry her, he asserts, had there not been so many 

 obstacles in the way, for his attachment was strong; but when her uncle 

 insulted him and he removed from the house the attachment seems to have 

 terminated. 



At another time, in 1776, when he was roving in the Highlands, he 

 had a little adventure which afforded him some pleasure and excitement 

 for the moment. Departing from a house where he had remained a day or 

 two, he was pressed by a young Gaelic girl to accept some trifling memento 

 of his visit ; and this, he says, she did with such sweetness, seeming to urge 

 his further stay, that, to use his own words, " I could not help it, I seized her 

 and smacked her lips," and when the " lassie " sprang away, and her healthy 

 agile form disappeared, he moralised on his disappointment, "and felt grieved 

 because he could not hope ever to see her more." 



At another time he expresses his decided opinion that " it would be 



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