otnote 50: _Waverley_, chap, xlvii. note.]

His Uncle Thomas, whom I have described as I saw him in extreme old
age at Monklaw, had the management of the farm affairs at Sandy-Knowe,
when Walter returned thither from Prestonpans; he was a kind-hearted
man, and very fond of the child. Appearing on his return somewhat
strengthened, his uncle promoted him from the Cow-bailie's shoulder to
a dwarf of the Shetland race, not so large as many a Newfoundland dog.
This creature walked freely into the house, and was regularly fed from
the boy's hand. He soon learned to sit her well, and often alarmed
Aunt Jenny, by cantering over the rough places about the tower. In the
evening of his life, when he had a grandchild afflicted with an
infirmity akin to his own, he provided him with a little mare of the
same breed, and gave her the name of _Marion_, in memory of this early
favorite.

CHAPTER III {p.078}

Illustrations of the Autobiography Continued. -- High School
of Edinburgh. -- Residence at Kelso.

1778-1783.

The report of Walter's progress in horsemanship probably reminded his
father that it was time he should be learning other things beyond the
department either of Aunt Jenny or Uncle Thomas, and after a few
months he was recalled to Edinburgh. But extraordinary as was the
progress he had by this time made in that self-education which alone
is of primary consequence to spirits of his order, he was found too
deficient in lesser matters to be at once entered in the High School.
Probably his mother dreaded, and deferred as long as she could, the
day when he should be exposed to the rude collision of a crowd of
boys. At all events he was placed first in a little private school
kept by one Leechman in Bristo Port; and then, that experiment not
answering expectation, under the domestic tutorage of Mr. James
French, afterwards minister of East Kilbride in Lanarkshire. This
respectable man considered him fit to join Luke Fraser's class in
October, 1778.

His own account of his progress at this excellent seminary is, on the
whole, very similar to what I have received from some of his surviving
schoolfellows. His quick apprehension and powerful memory enabled him,
at little cost of labor, to perform the usual routine of tasks, in
such a manner as to keep him generally "in a decent place" (so he once
expressed it to Mr. Skene) "about the middle of the class; with
which," he continued, "I {p.079} was the better c