At this critical moment the memory of this helper acted as a magnet to them all; and it was this lode-stone that drew on first David, and then his brother William. In such pleasant guise did that useful calling present itself; in such Christian fashion came to the youth this summons. The lawyer’s gown appeared to him as the robe of the Samaritan. So far, so good. But the career of the law requires a long apprenticeship; and apprenticeship means money. The examination fees alone for a solicitor amount to a good sum, and there was a substantial premium on apprenticeship to a good firm to be paid in addition. Then there would be over five years without earnings. Where would they obtain the resources to face the strain? At this point Richard Lloyd turned to the pooled family savings of himself and his sister, Mrs. William George, and dipped deep. Little was left when sufficient for this purpose had been drawn, and even so the supply was precariously meagre. Could they find enough to start the two boys on their careers? It was clear, on a survey, that they could not send the boys either to a higher school or to a University. How, then, were they to acquire that considerable store of general knowledge required of the legal apprentice? David had done well under Evans’s faithful tuition. He had advanced into the higher mathematics; he had read a certain amount of history; he had now mastered the elements of French and Latin. But much more was required if he was to pass that first obstruction in the great obstacle race set before the novice in the law—the Preliminary Examination. He must, for instance, know more French. He must read Cæsar and Sallust. The village dominie could not carry David as far as that. Here seemed a formidable gulf to bridge. Less formidable barriers have closed careers to others and driven them back into the workshop. But human love can leap over great obstacles; and Richard Lloyd was no ordinary man. He knew neither French nor Latin. Very well, he would set out to learn them. So together the uncle and the nephew started into the unexplored. Hand in hand, they tackled the Latin and the French grammars, and thumbed the dictionaries. For this great-hearted man knew that if both be ignorant of the way it is better to go together. Company gives courage. So in the dark winter evenings, with the light of a candle, they together spelt out the sentences of Cæsar and Sallust and laboriously read Æsop in French. I will warrant that those lessons in Latin and French were not wasted. I even doubt sometimes whether the class-rooms of Eton or Harrow, with their picked teachers, can show anything so inspiring as this little village study—the uncle and nephew struggling along that unknown path, lit only by zeal and affection. May it not be, perhaps, that the accident of this laborious schooling gave a special nourishment to the boy’s instinct of self-confidence, proved more potent than the spoon-feeding of some well-endowed college?