CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL
OF
POPULAR
LITERATURE, SCIENCE, AND ART.

ROB GRAHAM

A TWEEDSIDE REMINISCENCE, BY W. CHAMBERS, LL.D.

I propose giving one of my early recollections, which lately turnedup in the memory of the past. It refers to an incident which occurredonly a few years after the beginning of the present century, when Iwas a boy at the burgh school of Peebles, a small town on the Tweed.The school in its way had a somewhat superior reputation, and drew toit pupils from a distance of several miles around. Trudging in allweathers, the children of farmers and ploughmen came to be educatedalong with boys and girls belonging to the town. Whatever they were,all were treated alike, and the intermingling of classes was neverfound to be in any respect disadvantageous; on the contrary, theresprung up agreeable acquaintanceships between the town and country boysthat were mutually useful and agreeable.

Among the crowd of country lads who thronged in daily, there was oneI have some cause to remember. His name was Rob Graham. I will try togive a picture of Rob. Imagine a sturdy boy of twelve years of age,well knit together, barelegged and barefooted in summer, with coarsered hair surmounting a brow so large that one would say there weregood brains under it. Rob's face was placid like that of an old man,and I think was slightly marked with small-pox, as was then not at allunusual. His dress, of a simple kind, consisted of a pair of dingycorduroy trousers and waistcoat, and a short coat of that coarse fabricknown as Galashiels blue, with two broad metal buttons staring outbehind; which buttons, from their well-worn appearance, had probablyembellished a succession of coats of Rob's father and grandfather; forin those days buttons were buttons, and went through a good deal ofservice before being dismissed. As the fastenings of the dress couldwith a rive of the hand be rapidly torn asunder, the wearer could atany moment throw off clothes and shirt and plunge into the river starknaked. As Rob's leather cap, stuck on the top of his shock of red hair,was worth very little, we should deal liber

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