Life of John Eadie Author:James Brown Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: EEMINISCENCES OF THE SCHOOL-BOY. 23 ' he was careless in his dress, and used to lounge about ' a good deal in a seemingly aimless way. When he ' was a student... more » he brushed up and paid more attention ' to appearances.' The Rev. James Robertson, of Newington, who was a pupil of Mr. Browning's, writes thus—' When I ' went to Tillicoultry, a boy of ten, our friend's time ' there was about over. He was leaving for college, ' and it was but seldom that I saw him during his 'student-days, so as to cultivate acquaintanceship. ' Indeed, we little boys stood in such awe of him as a ' phenomenon of learning, that we did not presume to ' consider him as one of ourselves. " Still the wonder ' grew," that while it was so difficult for us to remem- ' ber things, his only difficulty appeared to be to forget ' them. It was a tradition among the boys that he ' had, by way of pastime, committed to memory the '" Paradise Lost" on his way from Alva before school ' time—six in the morning—and that, on the examin- ' tion day, in addition to all his other work, which ' was prodigious, he professed to recite the whole of ' Milton's masterpiece.' Mr. Browning's servant—now living in Alloa— remembers that when she was driving back the cows to the field after morning-milking, she used to meet him coining ' skelping along on his bare feet,' book in hand, and his tin vessel, which contained his dinner, hanging by his side, along with his shoes, in the soles of which there was ' a great lot of big tackets.' The little boys at school 'made fun' of the tackets, but' he never took it ill,' he was ' such a real good-natured, kindly callant.' The power of mastering the contents of a piece of24 FEATS OF MEMORY. writing at a single glance, to which Mrs. Smith refers, remained with him all through life. Wh...« less