Captain Marryat also succeeded in finding out a man of sixty, one James Gooding, dweller in Salcombe parish, near Sidmouth, who had in his day been a lace-maker of some reputation. "I have made hundreds of yards in my time," he said, "both wide and narrow, but never worked regularly at my pillow after sixteen years of age." Delighted to exhibit the craft of his boyhood, he hunted out his patterns, {414}and, setting to work, produced a piece of trolly edging, which soon found a place in the albums of sundry lace-collecting ladies, the last specimen of man-worked lace likely to be fabricated in the county of Devon.[1165] The lace schools of this time were a great feature, there being many in every village, and as few other schools existed, boys in addition to the girls of the place attended and learnt the industry. The usual mode of procedure was this. The children commenced attending at the age of five to seven, and were apprenticed to the mistress for an average of two years, who sold all their work for her trouble: they then paid sixpence a week for a time and had their own lace, then threepence, and so on, according to the amount of teaching they still required. The young children went first from ten to twelve in the morning, to accustom them to work by degrees. At Honiton the full hours were from eight to eight in the summer and in the depth of winter, but in the spring and autumn less, on account of the light, as candles were begun only on September 3rd--Nutting day--till Shrovetide. The old rhyme runs:-- "Be the Shrovetide high or low, Out the candle we will blow." At Sidbury it was _de rigueur_ that directly a young girl married, however young, she wore a cap, but till then the lace-makers were famous for the beautiful dressing of their hair. When school began they stood up in a circle to read the "verses." If any of them read "jokily," they were given a penalty, and likewise for idleness--so much extra work. In nearly all schools they were taught reading from the Bible, and in some they learnt writing; but all these are now things of the past. [Illustration: Fig. 159. VENETIAN RELIEF IN POINT.--Reproduced by the late Mrs. Treadwin. _To face page 414._]