lang, a distance of two miles.
Here he remained till he was about twelve, when he and I were sent to
Gorbals Youths' School in Greenside Street, Glasgow. We had thus five
miles to go morning and evening, but we had season-tickets for the
railway part of the distance, viz. between Rutherglen and Glasgow.
Thomas Neil was master of this school. We were in the private room,
rather a privileged place, compared with the rest of the school, seeing
we received the personal attentions of Mr. Neil, and were almost free
from corporal punishment, which was not by any means the case in the
public rooms of the school--Mr. Neil being, I was going to say, a
_terror to evildoers_, but he was in fact a terror to all kinds of
doers, from the excitability of his temper and general sternness.

'Here James usually kept the first or second place in the class, which
was a large one; and if he happened to be turned to the bottom (an event
which occurred pretty often to all the members of the class with Mr.
Neil), he would determinedly endeavour to stifle a tearful little "cry,"
thus demonstrating the state of his feelings at being so abased. But he
never remained long at the bottom; like a cork sunk in water, he would
rise at the first opportunity to his natural level at the top of the
class. It was because of his diligence and success in his classes while
at this school, I suppose, more than from any definite idea of what
career he might follow in the future, that after leaving he was allowed
to prosecute his studies at the Glasgow High School, where he gained
many prizes, and fully justified his parents' decision of allowing him
to go on with his studies instead of taking him away to a trade. At home
he prosecuted his studies very untiringly both during session and
vacation.

'After entering the classes of the Glasgow University he studied in an
attic room, the window of which overlooked an extensive and beautiful
stretch of the Vale of Clyde. I remember feeling compassion for him
sometimes as he sat at this window, knowing what an act of self-denial
it must have been to one so boisterous and full of fun as he was to see
us, after our work was over of an evening, having a jolly game at
rounders, or something of that sort, while he had to sit poring over his
books.

'James was not a serious, melancholy student; he was indeed the very
opposite of that when his little intervals of recreation occurred.
During the day he would be out about the