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David Robb is the weaver of Pettybaw.

All day long he sits at his old-fashioned hand-loom, which, like the fruit of his toil and the dear old greybeard himself, belongs to a day that is past and gone.
He might have work enough to keep an apprentice busy, but where would he find a lad sufficiently behind the times to learn a humble trade now banished to the limbo of superseded, almost forgotten things?
His home is but a poor place, but the rough room in which he works is big enough to hold a deal of sweet content.

It is cheery enough, too, to attract the Pettybaw weans, who steal in on wet days and sit on the floor playing with the thrums, or with bits of coloured ravellings.
Sometimes when they have proved themselves wise and prudent little virgins, they are even allowed to touch the hanks of pink and yellow and blue yarn that lie in rainbow-hued confusion on the long deal table.
All this time the 'heddles' go up and down, up and down, with their ceaseless clatter, and David throws the shuttle back and forth as he weaves his old-fashioned winceys.
We have grown to be good friends, David and I, and I have been permitted the signal honour of painting him at his work.
The loom stands by an eastern window, and the rare Pettybaw sunshine filters through the branches of a tree, shines upon the dusty window-panes, and throws a halo round David's head that he well deserves and little suspects.