CHAPTER II .-- MY OWN FATHER.
The weaver he gied up the stair, Dancing and singing; A bunch o' bobbins at his back, Rattling and ringing.
_Old Song_.
My own father, that is to say, auld Mansie Wauch with regard to myself, but young Mansie with reference to my granfather, after having run the errands, and done his best to grannie during his early years, was, at the age of thirteen, as I have heard him tell, bound a prentice to the weaver trade, which from that day and date, for better for worse, he prosecuted to the hour of his death:--I should rather have said to within a fortnight of it, for he lay for that time in the mortal fever, that cut through the thread of his existence.

Alas! as Job says, "How time flies like a weaver's shuttle!" He was a tall, thin, lowering man, blackaviced, and something in the physog like myself, though scarcely so weel-faured; with a kind of blueness about his chin, as if his beard grew of that colour--which I scarcely think it would do--but might arise either from the dust of the blue cloth, constantly flying about the shop, taking a rest there, or from his having a custom of giving it a rub now and then with his finger and thumb, both of which were dyed of that colour, as well as his apron, from rubbing against, and handling the webs of checkit claith in the loom.
Ill would it become me, I trust a dutiful son, to say that my father was any thing but a decent, industrious, hard-working man, doing every thing for the good of his family, and winning the respect of all that knew the value of his worth.

As to his decency, few--very few indeed--laid beneath the mools of Dalkeith kirk-yard, made their beds there, leaving a better name behind them; and as to industry, it is but little to say that he toiled the very flesh off his bones, driving the shuttle from Monday morning till Saturday night, from the rising up of the sun, even to the going down thereof; and whiles, when opportunity led him, or occasion required, digging and delving away at the bit kail-yard, till moon and stars were in the lift, and the dews of heaven that fell on his head, were like the oil that flowed from Aaron's beard, even to the skirts of his garment.

But what will ye say there?
Some are born with a silver spoon in their mouths, and others with a parritch-stick.

Of the latter was my father; for, with all his fechting, he never was able much more than to keep our heads above the ocean of debt.