Page:Littell's Living Age - Volume 132.djvu/320

314 disliked his trade so much that he tried several things (he was a church beadle for a short period), but in his twentieth year he could not see any prospect of a better opening in Aberdeen, and removed to Banff, where he had found work. His landlady was greatly puzzled by him, as well as his shopmates, who were often brought into rather close neighborhood to his favorites; her excessive carefulness compelling him to make his stool serve for a repository. She said, "She didna ken fat [what] kind o' chiel he was. A' body tried to keep awa' frae vermin but himsel'."

He married when only twenty-three years of age a sensible Banff woman who so far understood him, and helped him, and did not banish his "vermin;" and though she had good cause to appreciate his sobriety, for, in spite of advice, he never took whiskey with him in his rambles, she could not but have agreed so far with his drunken fellow-workmen, when they spoke of him as "a queer wanderin' kind o' creature." He now began seriously to collect, since he had room to keep. "It was indispensably necessary for him to husband carefully both his time and his money, so as to make the most of the one and the best of the other. And in order the better to accomplish this, he resolved never to spend a moment idly nor a penny uselessly;" a resolution from which he never departed. His wages were only 9s. 6d. a week, so that he could not abridge his working-hours.


 * He had bought an old gun for four-and-sixpence; but it was so rickety that he had to tie the barrel to the stock with a piece of thick twine. He carried his powder in a horn, and measured out the charges with the bowl of a tobacco-pipe. His shot was contained in a brown paper bag. A few insect-bottles of middling size, some boxes for containing moths and butterflies, and a botanical book for putting his plants in, constituted his equipment.

He did not cease work till nine at night, and commenced it at six in the morning. The moment he was free he set out on his rounds, with his supper in his hands or in his pocket. The nearest spring furnished him with sufficient drink.


 * So long as it was light, he scoured the country, looking for moths or beetles, or plants or birds, or any living thing that came in his way. When it became so dark that he could no longer observe, he dropped down by the side of a bank, or a bush, or a tree, whichever came handiest, and there he dozed or slept till the light returned. Then he got up and again began his observations, which he continued until the time arrived when he had to return to his daily labor. It was no unusual circumstance for him — when he had wandered too far, and came upon some more than usually attractive spot — to strip himself of his gear, gun and all, which he would hide in some hole; and thus lightened of everything, except his specimens, take to his heels and run at the top of his speed, in order to be at his work at the proper time. . . . His neighbor used to say of him, "It's a stormy night that keeps that man Edward in the house."

Sometimes he was caught in severe rainstorms on lonely moors, and before he could find shelter his insufficient pill-boxes had given way with the wet, and he presented the aspect of a vagrant so overrun with vermin that the good people into whose houses he went ran away from him in fright. Often all the bed he could get was to drop feet-foremost into a hole in a bank. "Think of having a polecat or a weasel sniff-sniffing at your face while asleep! Or two or three big rats tug-tugging at your pockets, and attempting to steal away your larder! These visitors, however, did not always prove an annoyance. On the contrary, they sometimes proved a windfall; for when they came within reach, they were suddenly seized, examined, and, if found necessary, killed, stuffed, and added to the collection." Many were the adventures he thus had with creatures of the night — polecats, otters, and rats. With owls and other night-birds he was abundantly familiar, and from night observations he was able even to note some new facts about so well-known an animal as the rabbit.

He divided the district into three circuits — six miles along the coast one way, and about five the other, and a radius of some five miles inland; and, though he could only visit one circuit on one night, each of them was visited twice a week, and his nets and other repositories he had set down for securing prey were carefully searched. But he was considerate, and tried to save the creatures all needless pain, using chloroform, which he always carried with him. It is worth noting, too, that, scant of time as he was, he faithfully kept the Sabbath, which was no doubt in favor of health, not to speak of higher things.

When he was by stress of weather hindered from going abroad, he devoted his time to making cases for his specimens, many hundreds of which he finished at one time or other in his life. But these did not always protect him from pillage. 