attention, and he desired to follow it. One of the most notable of these early escapades was his taking off his shirt to wrap in it a paper bees' byke (nest), which was new to him, and which he thus conveyed home; but on its being observed that he was shirtless, he came very near to getting beaten, and had his wasps' nest destroyed before his eyes.
He was next sent to a dame's school; but his habit of taking tame rats, mice, and other creatures there in his pockets became intolerable to the mistress. A crises came through a tame "kae," or jackdaw, which his mother one day sent him out with, under orders not to bring it back to the house again. He could not find it in his heart to part with the "kae," and carried it to school, hid in his trousers. But the "kae," failing to accommodate itself to his altered position when he knelt down at prayer, disturbed the school by its sudden cre-waw / cre-waw / set the children all laughing, and caused him to be expelled in spite of the friendship that existed beween the teacher and his mother. It was the same at two other schools of more importance. Against all his good resolutions, the temptation not to lose the chance of getting a rare bird or beast always proved too much for him. Before he was six years old he was declared utterly incorrigible and hopeless, and his parents soon after were glad to get work for him in a tobacco-factory, at which he could earn two shillings a week. They thought that he was falling into idle ways in his rovings and gatherings of "vermin." Here he met with some encouragement from his master, as he was fond of birds. But before he was eight the consideration of larger wages, and the prospect of extending his field of observation, caused him to seek work at a mill about a couple of miles from Aberdeen. Though he had to rise at four in the morning, so as to be at the mill by five, and was seldom home till nine in the evening, and with but short meal-hours, he was happy and contented at Grandholm Mill. The wages were from three to four shillings a week, rising to five or six, Edward says: —
- People may say of factories what they please, but I liked this factory. It was a happy time for me whilst I remained there. It was situated in the centre of a beautiful valley, almost embowered amongst tall and luxuriant hedges of hawthorn, with watercourses and shadowy trees between, and large woods and plantations beyond. It teemed with nature and natural objects. The woods were easy of access during our meal-hours. What lots of nests! What insects, wild-flowers, and plants, the like of which I had never seen before! Prominent amongst the birds was the sedge-warbler,[1] which lay concealed in the reedy copses, or by the margin of the mill-lades. Oh, how I wondered at the little thing; how it contrived to imitate all the other birds I had ever heard, and none to greater perfection than the chirrup of my old and special favorite the swallow.
When he first saw a kingfisher the sight was like a revelation—an introduction to a world of poetry. But, as in poetry, illusion and reality lie near each other, so his simple account of his chase after it actually reads like a parable of life and its dreams.
But this delightful life could not last. When he was barely eleven his father apprenticed him to a man named Begg, a drunken shoemaker, who had a particular dislike to his natural-history pursuits, and beat him so mercilessly in his mad fits that the boy at last refused to go back, and ran off, making his way on foot to his mother's relatives at Kettle, who, however, so little relished the new accession, that he had to return home again, as he had come, somewhat humbled.
He now agreed to finish his apprenticeship with a man in Shoe Lane. In addition to his pupil-money, his employer received a percentage of his earnings. Here Edward was in a measure his own master, and pursued his studies, managing to begin a botanical garden, which he stocked with rare wild-flowers. He saw birds and animals stuffed in the gunsmiths' windows, and tried his hand on a mole, of which he was not a little proud. Having finished his apprenticeship, he got steady work for a time at set wages, and would have gone on with some degree of content, although he never liked his trade, had not a slack period come. He was thrown out of work, and his funds ran down. He tried to stow himself away in a ship for America, but, as the vessel was rigorously searched before sailing, he had to come forth.
His next step was to enlist in the Aberdeenshire militia, but we can infer that the military drill was not much to his taste. He nearly incurred severe penalties for breaking the ranks when a rare butterfly flitted past during parade. He was only saved by the earnest appeal of a lady friend of the officer in command. He
- ↑ Called also the English mocking-bird and Scottish nightingale.
