HKB
stores of clothing and hardware, and displayed them for sale; he eagerly listened to all that such visitors had to tell of the ongoings of the world beyond the valley.
The people of the Knocknalling district were very poor. The greater part of them were unable to support the younger members, whose custom it was to move off elsewhere in search of a living when they arrived at working years,--some to America, some to the West Indies, and some to the manufacturing districts of the south. Whole families took their departure in this way, and the few friendships which Kennedy formed amongst those of his own age were thus suddenly snapped, and only a great blank remained. But he too could follow their example, and enter upon that wider world in which so many others had ventured and succeeded. As early as eight years of age, his mother still impressing upon her boys the necessity of learning to work, John gathered courage to say to her that he wished to leave home and apprentice himself to some handicraft business. Having seen some carpenters working in the neighbourhood, with good clothes on their backs, and hearing the men's characters well spoken of, he thought it would be a fine thing to be a carpenter too, particularly as the occupation would enable him to move from place to place and see the world. He was as yet, however, of too tender an age to set out on the journey of life; but when he was about eleven years old, Adam Murray, one of his most intimate acquaintances, having gone off to serve an apprenticeship in Lancashire with Mr. Cannan of Chowbent, himself a native of the district, the event again awakened in him a strong desire to migrate from Knocknalling. Others had gone after Murray, James MacConnel and two or three more; and at length, at about fourteen years of age, Kennedy himself left his native home for Lancashire. About the time that he set out, Paul Jones was ravaging the coasts of Galloway, and producing general consternation throughout the district. Great excitement also prevailed through the occurrence of the Gordon riots in London, which extended into remote country places; and Kennedy remembered being nearly frightened out of his wits on one occasion by a poor dominie whose school he attended, who preached to his boys about the horrors that were coming upon the land through the introduction of Popery. The boy set out for England on the 2nd of February, 1784, mounted upon a Galloway, his little package of clothes and necessaries strapped behind him. As he passed along the glen, recognising each familiar spot, his heart was in his mouth, and he dared scarcely trust himself to look back. The ground was covered with snow, and nature quite frozen up. He had the company of his brother Alexander as far as the town of New Galloway, where he slept the first night. The next day, accompanied by one of his future masters, Mr. James Smith, a partner of Mr. Cannan's, who had originally entered his service as a workman, they started on ponyback for Dumfries. After a long day's ride, they entered the town in the evening, and amongst the things which excited the boy's surprise were the few street-lamps of the town, and a waggon with four horses and four wheels. In his remote valley carts were as yet unknown, and even in Dumfries itself they were comparative rarities; the common means of transport in the district being what were called "tumbling cars." The day after, they reached Longtown, and slept there; the boy noting ANOTHER lamp. The next stage was to Carlisle, where Mr. Smith, whose firm had supplied a carding engine and spinning-jenny to a small manufacturer in the town, went to "gate" and trim them. One was put up in a small house, the other in a small room; and the sight of these machines was John Kennedy's first introduction to cotton-spinning. While going up the inn-stairs he was amazed and not a little alarmed at seeing two men in armour--he had heard of the battles between the Scots and English--and believed these to be some of the fighting men; though they proved to be but effigies. Five more days were occupied in travelling southward, the resting places being at Penrith, Kendal, Preston, and Chorley, the two travellers arriving at Chowbent on Sunday the 8th of February, 1784. Mr. Cannan seems to have collected about him a little colony of Scotsmen, mostly from the same neighbourhood, and in the evening there was quite an assembly of them at the "Bear's Paw," where Kennedy put up, to hear the tidings from their native county brought by the last new comer. On the following morning the boy began his apprenticeship as a carpenter with the firm of Cannan and Smith, serving seven years for his meat and clothing. He applied himself to his trade, and became a good, steady workman. He was thoughtful and self-improving, always endeavouring to acquire knowledge of new arts and to obtain insight into new machines. "Even in early life," said he, in the account of his career addressed to his children, "I felt a strong desire to know what others knew, and was always ready to communicate what little I knew myself; and by admitting at once my want of education, I found that I often made friends of those on whom I had no claims beyond what an ardent desire for knowledge could give me."