It meant something to be a horse in that stable—­much more than it meant to be a groom.  When these points of comparison arose, I pushed them back as evil and discontent with the will of God.  This master man used to talk to his horses, but he seldom talked to his grooms.  Sometimes I was permitted the luxury of a look at the great dining-hall, or the drawing-rooms.  That also was another world to me, a world of beauty for God’s good people.  Even the butlers, footmen, and other flunkies were superior people, and I envied them, not only the uniform of their servitude but their intimate touch with that inner world of beautiful things.

I spent one winter at the big house, and then the shame of my ignorance drove me forever from the haunts of my childhood.  I entered the city of Belfast, seventeen miles distant, and became coachman and groom to a man who, by the selling of clothes, had reached the economic status of owning a horse.  In adapting himself to this new condition, he dressed me in livery, and, after I had taught him to drive, I sat beside him in the buggy with folded arms, arrayed in a tall hat with a cockade.  The wages in this new position were so small that when I had paid for my room and meagre board, I had nothing left for the support of my brothers and sisters, who were still in dire poverty.

The young lady I had met on the farm lived in this city and in my neighbourhood; but I would have considered it a matter of gross discourtesy to call on her, or, indeed, do anything save lift my hat if I met her on the street, our social stations were so far apart.  But she had told me the name of the church she attended, and, as I was thinking more about her at that time than about anybody else, I stole quietly into the church as soon as the doors were opened, and, ensconcing myself in a corner under the gallery, I scanned the faces eagerly as they came in.  From that obscure point I saw the young lady once a week.  At the end of three months, her family came without her.  The third Sunday of her absence I was almost on the point of asking about her; but I mastered the desire, held my station, and went to Scotland, where I entered a coal-pit as a helper to one of my brothers.  My pay for twelve hours a day was a dollar and fifty cents a week.  If I had not been living in the same house with my brother, this would not have sustained me in physical efficiency.

The contrast between my life as a groom and this blackened underworld was very marked, and I did not at all relish it.  We were all, men and boys and sometimes girls, reduced to the common level of blackened humans, with about two garments each.  The coal dust covered my skin like a tight-fitting garment, and coal was part of every mouthful of food I ate in that fetid atmosphere.  I had a powerful body that defied the dangers of the pit; but the labour was exhausting, and my face was blistered every day with the hot oil dripping from the lamp on my brow.