The stockings were now made by machines, but were formerly all made by
hand. The inventor of the first machine was a young man who had fallen
deeply in love with a young woman, who, like most others living
thereabouts at that time, got her living by making stockings. When he
proposed to her, she would not have him, because she knew another young
man she liked better. He then told her if she would not marry him he
would make a machine that would make stockings and throw her out of work
and ruin them all. But the girl decided to remain true to the young man
she loved best, and was presently married to him.
[Illustration: GOLDIELANDS TOWER.]
The disappointed lover then set to work, and, after much thought and
labour, succeeded in making a stocking machine; and although it created
a great stir in Hawick, where all three were well known, it did not
throw any one out of work, but was so improved upon with the result that
more stockings were made and sold at Hawick than ever before!
We thanked the old lady for her story, and, bidding her good-bye, went
on our way. Presently we came to the ruins of a castle standing near the
road which a clergyman informed us was Goldielands Tower, mentioned with
Harden by Sir Walter Scott in the "Lay of the Last Minstrel.
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