DONALD MILLER. 61 



ed it with thankfulness ; and though, when he had 

 potatoes of his own to dispose of, he never failed to 

 lower the market for the benefit of the poor, every one 

 now, except the farmers, pronounced him rigid and 

 narrow to a fault. On a dissolution of parliament, Cro- 

 marty became the scene of an election, and the hon. 

 member apparent, deeming it proper, as the thing had 

 become customary, to whitewash the dingy houses of 

 the town, and cover its dirtier lanes with gravel, Donald 

 was requested to direct the improvements. Proudly did 

 he comply; and never before did the same sum of 

 election-money whiten so many houses, and gravel so 

 many lanes. Employment flowed in upon him from 

 every quarter. If any of his acquaintance had a house 

 to build, Donald was appointed inspector. If they had 

 to be enfeoffed in their properties, Donald acted as bailie, 

 and tendered the earth and stone with the gravity of a 

 judge. He surveyed fields, suggested improvements, 

 and grew old without either feeling or regretting it. 

 Towards the close of his last, and almost only illness, he 

 called for one of his friends, a carpenter, and gave orders 

 for his coffin ; he named the seamstress who was to be 

 employed in making his shroud; he prescribed the 

 manner in which his lyke-wake should be kept, and both 

 the order of his funeral, and the streets through which 

 it was to pass. He was particular in his injunctions to 

 the sexton, that the bones of his father and mother 

 should be placed directly above his coffin ; and pro- 

 fessing himself to be alike happy that he had lived and 

 that he was going to die, he turned him to the wall, and 

 ceased to breathe a few hours after. With all his rage 

 for improvement, he was a good old man of the good old 

 school. Often has he stroked my head, and spoken to 

 . me of my father ; and when, at an after period, he had 



