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returning a copy of Latin verses with corrections. "You must not be too sanguine about your success [in this field]," says the Professor. Boys who have been accustomed to Latin verses, and have some turn for poetry, have great advantages over others." I have ascertained, and evidently Jardine knew, that Drummond, unlike most boys of ability, never courted the muses.

In the end of 1812, or beginning of 1813, Drummond, through the influence of Mr Aitchison, received his appointment to the academy at Woolwich; and thither, in the spring of 1813, he proceeded as a cadet.

CHAPTER III.

BOYISH TRAITS.

I FEEL justified in recording in a separate chapter the few facts which have been preserved, throwing light on the boy-life of Thomas Drummond. That these have value will appear when we come-having got to the end of his too short day-to look back over his way of life, and form an estimate of his character and powers.

Mention has already been made of his constructive tendencies-how he was always "making things." The power of contrivance, and the enjoyment of its exercise, the courage to face, and the ingenuity to overcome difficulties, seem to have been as distinct in the boy as in the man. Moreover he had the capacity, which lies at the root of discovery, of being made miserable by things not understood, On a new roasting jack coming to the house, he took it to his sister, saying he was very unhappy because he did not know why it ticked. The unhappiness continued till he undid the jack and got at its secret.

There is a story told of him, which affords a glimpse at once of the boy's objects, and of the circumstances of the family. Sometimes the taste for "making things" could not be indulged for want of money to get the

raw material of his manufactures, little as its cost might be. Once when he was suffering from this money difficulty, a chance offered, and in the expectation of a gratuity, he held a doctor's horse during his visit to a patient. The doctor, coming out, was going to be generous. But grandmother Somers, who had witnessed the proceeding, throwing up the window, prohibited Tom's taking the largess. She was even then full of hope of the boy, and could not refrain from hinting to the doctor "that he might live to hold Tom's horse yet." The boy himself, whose pride as against his desire for the money was not uppermost, was grievously disappointed at the interference, and the flitting from his view of a whole fourpence-perhaps sixpence-worth of the longed-for materials.

He was mainly given to study, and found all the relaxation he desired in the exercise of his constructive tastes. Having sufficient companionship at home in his brothers and sister, he had few boy friends. He never was a saunterer, bird-nester, or wanderer over the country. For bird-nesting, indeed, he had an absolute abhorrence. It is said he once watched for days for an opportunity to thrash a boy, a skulking fellow, whom he had found drowning young sparrows in the river. He was full of tenderness, felt for all suffering, and was ever active to relieve it.

Unlike his brothers, says Miss Drummond, he never, during his boyhood, cost his mother an anxious thought. He was always busy, always calm and cheerful, always hopeful. And this temper followed him through life. He was never over-enthusiastic, and never desponding. The foundation of this equableness was undoubtedly his perfect self-reliance, which was early manifested, and rested on the early-developed consciousness of power.

His sister tells of the first occasion on which she noticed a marked exhibition of this internal energy. They were all proud of his college certificates, as of everything connected with him. When he got his appointment to Woolwich, and she was helping him to pack his trunk preparatory to his first great adventure in life, her chief care was that these certificates should be carefully stowed away. He came and asked her for them, and, to her horror, threw them into the fire. "If I can't earn a better character than that," said he, "I don't deserve it." They were burned. Most boys treasure such things with pride, even when they have long ceased to be of value. To Drummond, confident of his future, they were unimportant from the first. It was no act of carelessness as to documents not immediately available for any purpose. No man preserved with more religious care papers for which he had respect-even when, apart from sentiment, they were valueless. After his death, all the letters his mother ever wrote to him were found in a packet, labelled "My dear mother's letters;" while another contained those received from his sister-" My sister's little notes."

Before he went to Woolwich, Drummond had never been at any distance from the home circle, excepting on one occasion, when he went by sea to Easdale, in Argyleshire. The vessel in which he sailed was a small sloop going for a cargo of slates. The Caledonian Canal was not then open, and the voyage was consequently a long one, from the east to the west of the island, through the stormy Pentland Firth, and round Cape Wrath. The journey seems to have been undertaken for the health of his younger brother John. An account of it is preserved in a graphic letter, written by Drummond from Easdale to Grandmother Somers, and dated

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11th July 1812. If "throwing up bile" was good for John's complaint, the voyage must have been exceedingly to his advantage. This letter contains a passage which may be regarded as exhibiting some literary ambition, but which, more probably, is the mere natural expression of a boy's elevated feelings. "The weather to-day," he writes, "is inexpressibly delightful, and the lofty mountains, deep valleys, mild and serene sky, and calm sea, combine to form scenes at once beautiful and sublime."

In a very different style is written his letter to Mr Aitchison, of 3d October 1812, shortly before his appointment to Woolwich, and which was penned at Mr Aitchison's request, no doubt with a view to its being submitted to influential friends. "I feel a strong inclination for the profession of a military engineer. I have studied for these two years those branches preparatory for such a line, and have received a satisfactory certificate from Mr Leslie, professor of mathematics in Edinburgh. Could I only be so fortunate as to obtain a strong recommendation to Lord Mulgrave [then MasterGeneral of the Board of Ordnance], I would soon obtain the wished-for appointment."

The "strong inclination" no doubt existed. His thoughts must have been for some time directed to the profession, as one into which his entrance could be secured, and for which, by excellence in mathematics, he had shown an aptitude. And he would like the general notion of it. That the inclination, however, belonged to that class of desires known as "yearnings after the indefinite," will presently appear. Mr Aitchison procured the necessary recommendation to Lord Mulgrave, and soon after, Drummond was appointed to a cadetship at the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich.

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