HIS HOUSEHOLD. 109 



' Then oh, my first, my only love, 



The kindliest, dearest, best ! 

 On Him may all our hopes repose, 



On Him our wishes rest ! 

 His be the future's doubtful day, 



Let joy or grief befall ; 

 In life or death, in weal or woe, 

 Our God, our guide, our all.' 



Under such auspices, Hugh Miller set up his house- 

 hold in Cromarty. His salary was but sixty pounds 

 a year, and the addition which he made to it by literary 

 contributions was as yet small. Mrs Miller continued 

 to take a few pupils. A parlour, bed-room, and kitchen 

 had been furnished, and one servant did the menial 

 work. An attic room was occupied with shelves, on 

 which his few books and fossils, the nucleus of a good 

 library and a valuable museum, were arranged. A 

 table and chair were placed in this room, and it became 

 Hugh's study. It was here that he wrote a number of 

 tales and sketches, published in the continuation of 

 Wilson's Tales of the Borders. They are, perhaps, of 

 all his compositions, the least marked by fascination 

 and originality. He had no enthusiasm, he tells us, 

 either for the memory of Wilson or for the publication 

 he had set on foot. The dreary, semi-intellectual rout- 

 ine of a bank clerkship, besides, damped his literary 

 ardour ; and when, at a late hour in the evening, he took 

 up for literary composition the pen which an hour 

 earlier he had used to chronicle his monotonous summa- 

 tion of figures, he seemed to have lost the power to con- 

 jure with it. Add that the remuneration was wretchedly 

 small, five pounds for matter to fill a goodly volume, 

 and enough will have been said to account for the de- 

 fectiveness of the pieces. His mind gradually regained 

 its elasticity, and he soon found more lucrative em- 



