XVI 
LIFE OF 
Be ’t kent to a’ the warld in rhyme, 
That wi’ right mickle wark an’ toil, 
For three lang years I’ve ser’t my time, 
Whiles feasted wi’ the hazel oil. — August , 1782. * 
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, f 
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 “ the 
most sober and tramping journeyman that had ever entered 
the village,” the thought that he had been disappointed in his 
prospects 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 pleasures he experienced in rambling among the 
woods of Castle Semple, or by the banks of the river Calder — one 
* His indenture for three years, dated 31st July, 1779, is now in possession 
of Mr Clark, Seedhill Mills, Paisley. 
f 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 bard pressed, he burst forth with the following 
extemporaneous hit, which at once silenced the inquirer, and set his 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. 
