His mother, who was equal to the emergency, sent the boy to a teacher of the old school, who had himself worked his way from the plough. After the exercise of considerable diplomacy, an arrangement was arrived at whereby the youth was to go to school on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, and make shoes during the remaining days of the week. This suited him admirably. That very night he seized upon a geography, and began to learn the counties of England and Wales. The fear of failure never left him for two hours together, except when he slept. The plan of work was faithfully kept; though by this time shoe****** had lost its charms. He shortened his sleeping hours, and rose at any moment that he awoke--at two, three, or four in the morning. He got his brother, who had been plodding with him over shorthand, to study horticulture, and fruit and vegetable culture; and that brother shortly after took a high place in an examination held by the Royal Horticultural Society. For a time, however, they worked together; and often did their mother get up at four o'clock in the depth of winter, light their fire, and return to bed after calling them up to the work of self-culture. Even this did not satisfy their devouring ambition. There was a bed in the workshop, and they obtained permission to sleep there. Then they followed their own plans. The young gardener would sit up till one or two in the morning, and wake his brother, who had gone to bed as soon as he had given up work the night before.
Now he got up and studied through the small hours of the morning until the time came when he had to transfer his industry to shoe******, or go to school on the appointed days after the distant eight o'clock had come. His brother had got worn out.
Early sleep seemed to be the best. They then both went to bed about eight o'clock, and got the policeman to call them up before retiring himself.
"So the struggle went on, until the faithful old schoolmaster thought that his young pupil might try the examination at the Bangor Normal College. He was now eighteen years of age; and it was eighteen months since the time when he began to learn the counties of England and Wales. He went to Bangor, rigged out in his brother's coat and waistcoat, which were better than his own;and with his brother's watch in his pocket to time himself in his examinations. He went through his examination, but returned home thinking he had failed. Nevertheless, he had in the meantime, on the strength of a certificate which he had obtained six months before, in an examination held by the Society of Arts and Sciences in Liverpool, applied for a situation as teacher in a grammar-school at Ormskirk in Lancashire. He succeeded in his application, and had been there for only eight days when he received a letter from Mr. Rowlands, Principal of the Bangor Normal College, informing him that he had passed at the head of the list, and was the highest non-pupil teacher examined by the British and Foreign Society. Having obtained permission from his master to leave, he packed his clothes and his few books. He had not enough money to carry him home; but, unasked, the master of the school gave him 10s. He arrived home about three o'clock on a Sunday morning, after a walk of eleven miles over a lonely road from the place where the train had stopped. He reeled on the way, and found the country reeling too. He had been sleeping eight nights in a damp bed. Six weeks of the Bangor Session passed, and during that time he had been delirious, and was too weak to sit up in bed. But the second time he crossed the threshold of his home he made for Bangor and got back his "position," which was all important to him, and he kept it all through.
"Having finished his course at Bangor he went to keep a school at Brynaman; he endeavoured to study but could not. After two years he gave up the school, and with 60L. saved he faced the world once more. There was a scholarship of the value of 40L. a year, for three years, attached to one of the Scotch Universities, to be competed for. He knew the Latin Grammar, and had, with help, translated one of the books of Caesar. Of Greek he knew nothing, save the letters and the first declension of nouns; but in May he began to read in earnest at a farmhouse. He worked every day from 6 A.M. to 12 P.M. with only an hour's intermission. He studied the six Latin and two Greek books prescribed; he did some Latin composition unaided; brushed up his mathematics; and learnt something of the history of Greece and Rome. In October, after five months of hard work, he underwent an examination for the scholarship, and obtained it; beating his opponent by twenty-eight marks in a thousand. He then went up to the Scotch University and passed all the examinations for his ordinary M.A.
degree in two years and a half. On his first arrival at the University he found that he could not sleep; but he wearily yet victoriously plodded on; took a prize in Greek, then the first prize in philosophy, the second prize in logic, the medal in English literature, and a few other prizes.
