eeling of
intense shame at having dreamed of such a thing! Passing through one
short street into another, I marched on mechanically; but the Lord God
of my father was guiding my steps, all unknown to me.

A certain notice in a window, into which I had probably never in my life
looked before, here caught my eye, to this effect--"Teacher wanted,
Maryhill Free Church school; apply at the Manse." A coach or bus was
just passing, when I turned round; I leapt into it, saw the Minister,
arranged to undertake the School, returned to Glasgow, paid my
landlady's lodging score, tore up that letter to my parents and wrote
another full of cheer and hope; and early next morning entered the
School and began a tough and trying job. The Minister warned me that the
School was a wreck, and had been broken up chiefly by coarse and bad
characters from mills and coal-pits, who attended the evening classes.
They had abused several masters in succession; and, laying a thick and
heavy cane on the desk, he said:

"Use that freely, or you will never keep order here!"

I put it aside into the drawer of my desk, saying, "That will be my last
resource."

There were very few scholars for the first week--about eighteen in the
Day School and twenty in the Night School. The clerk of the mill, a good
young fellow, came to the evening classes, avowedly to learn
book-keeping, but privately he said he had come to save me from personal
injury.

The following week, a young man and a young woman began to attend the
Night School, who showed from the first moment that they were bent on
mischief. On my repeated appeals for quiet and order, they became the
more boisterous, and gave great merriment to a few of the scholars
present. I finally urged the young man, a tall, powerful fellow, to be
quiet or at once to leave, declaring that at all hazards I must and
would have perfect order; but he only mocked at me, and assumed a
fighting attitude. Quietly locking the door and putting the key in my
pocket, I turned to my desk, armed myself with the cane, and dared any
one at his peril to interfere betwixt us. It was a rough struggle--he
smashing at me clumsily with his fists, I with quick movements evading
and dealing him blow after blow with the heavy cane for several
rounds--till at length he crouched down at his desk, exhausted and
beaten, and I ordered him to turn to his book, which he did in sulky
silence. Going to my desk, I addressed them and asked them to i