Page:A Sketch of the Life of George Wilson, the Blackheath Pedestrian.djvu/21

 and her husband got possession of the property, the payment of the 200l. was resisted at law, and the defendant would have succeeded, but for the kind and liberal interference of the present Lord Chancellor, then a barrister, and going the Northern circuit. After a good deal of legal contest, it was finally agreed between Mr. George Browne, the attorney for the defendant, and Mr. Clayton, the attorney for our family, to submit the matters in dispute to Counsellor Scott, who was then in town. He kindly undertook the enquiry, and remained in Newcastle, while the judges and other barristers proceeded to Carlisle, and finally adjusted the business by awarding to my mother the 200l. with four years interest due on it; but Mr. Scott generously refused to take any fee for the professional trouble he had received; thus evincing that he still partook in the kind dispositions of all his family towards us. As we advanced in years, I was placed at the Chapel Free School, where I continued a pupil for four years, and at the age of thirteen, I was apprenticed, through the influence of the same worthy uncle, Mr. John Bell, but much against my own inclinations, to a shoe-maker, a freeman of the Corporation, who, however, treated me with great unkindness and cruelty; but I served him with fidelity for seven years, and at the age of 21, obtained my freedom of the Corporation. My mother, who knew my aversion to the business, and finding me smart and intelligent, took me as a clerk in her own business of pawn-broking, at an allowance of twenty pounds a year, with board and lodging. I remained with her seven years; at the end of which time, by thrift and economy, and paying