the
mould of my mother than in that of the robust sailor, whose "back,"
according to the description of one of his comrades, "no one had ever
put to the ground," was slim and loosely knit; and I used to suffer much
from wandering pains in the joints, and an oppressive feeling about the
chest, as if crushed by some great weight. I became subject, too, to
frequent fits of extreme depression of spirits, which took almost the
form of a walking sleep--results, I believe, of excessive fatigue--and
during which my absence of mind was so extreme, that I lacked the
ability of protecting myself against accident, in cases the most simple
and ordinary. Besides other injuries, I lost at different times during
the first few months of my apprenticeship, when in these fits of partial
somnambulism, no fewer than seven of my finger-nails. But as I gathered
strength, my spirits became more equable; and not until many years
after, when my health failed for a time under over-exertion of another
kind, had I any renewed experience of the fits of walking sleep.

My master, an elderly man at the time--for, as he used not unfrequently
to tell his apprentices, he had been born on the same day and year as
George the Fourth, and so we could celebrate, if we pleased, both
birthdays together--was a person of plodding, persevering industry, who
wrought rather longer hours than was quite agreeable to one who wished
to have some time to himself; but he was, in the main, a good master. As
a builder, he made conscience of every stone he laid. It was remarked in
the place, that the walls built by Uncle David never bulged or fell; and
no apprentice or journeyman of his was permitted, on any plea, to make
"slight wark." Though by no means a bold or daring man, he was, from
sheer abstraction, when engrossed in his employment, more thoroughly
insensible to personal danger than almost any other individual I ever
knew. On one occasion, when an overloaded boat, in which he was carrying
stones from the quarry to the neighbouring town, was overtaken by a
series of rippling seas, and suddenly sank, leaving him standing on one
of the thwarts submerged to the throat, he merely said to his partner,
on seeing his favourite snuff-mull go floating past, "Od, Andro man,
just rax out your han' and tak' in my snuff-box." On another, when a
huge mass of the boulder clay came toppling down upon us in the quarry
with such momentum, that it bent a massive iron lever like a bow, a