CHAPTER III.
APPRENTICESHIP.
The boy was learning idle habits. He refused to go back to the Lancaster school. Indeed, from the cruel treatment he had received there, his parents did not ask him to return. He had now been expelled from three schools. If he went to a fourth, it is probable that he might also have been expelled from that. It would not do for him to go scouring the hills in search of adders, or to bring them home to the “terrification” of his neighbours. He himself wished to go to work. His parents at last gave their consent, though he was then only about six years old. But poor people can always find something for their children to do out of doors. The little that they earn is always found very useful at home.
TOBACCO WORKING.
Edward’s brother, who was about two years older than himself, was working at Craig and Johnston’s tobacco work. On inquiry, it was found that the firm was willing to take young Edward at the wage of fourteen-pence a week. The tobacco-spinners worked in an old house situated at the end of the flour mill in St. Nicholas Street. Each spinner had three boys under him—the wheeler, the pointer, and the stripper. Edward went through all these grades. As a stripper he could earn about eighteen-pence a week.
THE BRIG O’ BALGOWNIE.
The master was a bird-fancier, so that Edward got on very well with him. The boy brought him lots of nests and young birds in summer, and old birds which he trapped during winter. The master allowed him to keep rabbits in the back yard; so that, what between working and playing, attending to his rabbits and catering for their food, his time passed much more happily than it had done at school.