Then he went to a farmer's to tend cattle, and in this employment he experienced the hard and savage treatment to which hired boys were so frequently subjected at that day. Drenched with rain after tending his herd all day, the brutal farmer would not permit him to go near the fire to dry his clothes. He had to go to his miserable bed in an out-house, where he poured the water from his shoes, and wrung out his wet clothes as dry as he could. In that foggy climate his garments were often as wet in the morning as he left them in the evening, and so days would pass without his having a dry thread upon him.
But it did not rain always. Frequently his herd was pastured near the old castle, which, during the long summer days, he studied more intelligently, and in time learned all about its history and construction. And still he observed the flowers and plants that grew about his feet. It seemed natural to him to observe them closely and to learn their names and uses.
In due time he was apprenticed to a weaver. This was before the age of the noisy, steaming factory. Each weaver then worked at home, at his own loom, and could rent, if he chose, a garden and a field, and keep a cow, and live a man's life upon his native soil. Again our poor, shy apprentice had one of the hardest of masters. The boy was soon able to do the work of a man, and the master exacted it from him. On Saturdays the loom was usually kept going till midnight, when it stopped at the first sound of the clock, for this man, who had less feeling for a friendless boy than for a dog or a horse, was a strict Sabbatarian. In the depth of the Scotch winter he would keep the lad at the river-side, washing and wringing out the yarn, a process that required the arms to be bare and the hands to be constantly wet. His hands would be all chilblains and frost-bitten.
But again we may say it was not always winter. In the most dismal lot there are gleams of sunshine. The neighbors pitied and comforted him. His tyrant's wife was good to him as far as she dared. It was she, indeed, who inspired him with the determination to learn to read, and another friendly woman gave him regular instruction. He was sixteen years old when he learned his alphabet. A school-girl, the daughter of another weaver, would come into his shop to hear him read his lesson, and tell him how to pronounce the hard words. This bright, pretty girl of twelve would take her seat on the loom beside the bashful, lanky boy, who, with the book close to his eyes and his finger on the page, would grope his way through the paragraph.