Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 3.djvu/267

Rh once came to see me, although the distance was not quite two miles. But my friend Mr Cantley hearing of my misfortune, at twelve miles' distance, sent me proper medicines and applications, by means of which I recovered the use of my arm; but found myself too weak to think of going into service again, and had entirely lost my appetite, so that I could take nothing but a draught of milk once a day, for many weeks.

In order to amuse myself in this low state, I made a wooden clock, the frame of which was also of wood; and it kept time pretty well. The bell on which the hammer struck the hours was the neck of a broken bottle. Having then no idea how any time-keeper could go but by a weight and a line, I wondered how a watch could go in all positions, and was sorry that I had never thought of asking Mr Cantley, who could very easily have informed me. But happening one day to see a gentleman ride by my father's house, which was close by a public road, I asked him what o'clock it then was: he looked at his watch, and told me. As he did that with so much good-nature, I begged of him to show me the inside of his watch; and though he was an entire stranger, he immediately opened the watch, and put it into my hands. I saw the springbox with part of the chain round it, and asked him what it was that made the box turn round; he told me that it was turned round by a steel spring within it. Having then never seen any other spring than that of my lather's gunlock, I asked how a spring within a box could turn the box so often round as to wind all the chain upon it. He answered that the spring was long and thin, that one end of it was fastened to the axis of the box, and the other end to the inside of the box, that the axis was fixed, and the box was loose upon it. I told him I did not yet thoroughly understand the matter:—'Well, my lad,' says he, 'take a long thin piece of whalebone, hold one end of it fast between your finger and thumb, and wind it round your finger, it will then endeavour to unwind itself; and if you fix the other end of it to the inside of a small hoop, and leave it to itself, it will turn the hoop round and round, and wind up a thread tied to the outside of the hoop.'—'I thanked the gentleman, and told him that I understood the thing very well. I then tried to make a watch with wooden wheels, and made the spring of whalebone; but found that I could not make the watch go when the balance was put on, because the teeth of the wheels were rather too weak to bear the force of a spring sufficient to move the balance; although the wheels would run fast enough when the balance was taken off. I enclosed the whole in a wooden case very little bigger than a breakfast tea-cup; but a clumsy neighbour one day looking at my watch, happened to let it fall, and turning hastily about to pick it up, set his foot upon it, and crushed it all to pieces; which so provoked my father, that he was almost ready to beat the man, and discouraged me so much that I never attempted to make such another machine again, especially as I was thoroughly convinced I could never make one that would be of any real use.

As soon as I was able to go abroad, I carried my globe, clock, and copies of some other maps besides that of the world, to the late Sir James Dunbar of Durn, about seven miles from where my lather lived, as I had heard that Sir James was a very good-natured, friendly, inquisitive gentleman. He received me in a very kind manner, was pleased with what I showed him, and desired I would clean his clocks. This, for the first time, I attempted; and then began to pick up some money in that way about the country, making Sir James's house my home at his desire.

Two large globular stones stood on the top of his gate; on one of them I painted with oil colours a map of the terrestrial globe, and on the other a map of the celestial, from a planisphere of the stars which I copied on paper from a