Apprenticed

Having a vigorous constitution, I took great delight in all the outdoor games of boyhood, and was especially distinguished for fleetness of foot. More than once I accompanied an uncle in his visits to the Cheviot Hills, which I keenly enjoyed.

But my school-boy days soon came to an end. It was necessary I should work. On the 5th of March 1810 (when I was not quite 12½ years old), I was ushered into the printing-office of Mr. Lochhead, of Berwick-on-Tweed, he was rather a harsh man ; but I liked the business very well, and took to it kindly. Our hours of work were long—from about 6 a.m. to 8 p.m. Notwithstanding, I found time to read at night, often when the rest of the family were asleep. Many of our friends supplied me with books, for my father's shelves were but scantily furnished. He had; however, among others, Josephus's "Wars of the Jews," by L'Estrange, which I read through more than once. An odd volume (the last) of the Spectator, also, I remember, highly interested me.

An effort of memory some time after I was apprenticed had nearly changed my whole course of life. I had heard a sermon one day from a reverend gentleman who lived some miles off, on the words of Paul, "God forbid that I should glory, save in the Cross of the Lord Jesus Christ”. It was a forcible and well-delivered discourse. Some twelve months afterwards he came on a visit to Berwick, and there preached the same sermon. I remembered it all, and, going home, wrote it down from beginning to end. The manuscript was handed about; my friends were not a little proud of it; and some gentlemen in the neighbourhood into whose hands it fell talked seriously of sending me to college. But I felt no special inclination to study theology, and eventually preferred to remain a Printer rather than to become a Parson. This I have never regretted.