324 MAN OF SCIENCE. 



hostess, her daughter, the little boy drawing at table, 

 in fact, the whole establishment and its dramatis 

 personce seemed known to me. What kind of new 

 optical or mental illusion was this ? At last the idea 

 dawned upon me that my memory was reproducing one 

 of Hugh Miller's graphic descriptions in his First Im- 

 pressions "of England and its People. The story of the 

 spinet-player, the account of the boy before me who 

 spoke at Temperance Meetings, and other living touches 

 came fast upon me. On my asking the head of the 

 house whether a Scotchman had once lived there, she 

 eagerly took up the theme, and in one almost incessant 

 flow ran on thus : " Oh, he was such a nice man. But 

 then he had odd tastes. Eliza there used to take 

 him to quarries and out-of-the-way places all round 

 the town, and there he chopped and chopped away with 

 a hammer till he filled a bag with stones. 1 never knew 

 such a man. What could he ever do with all these 

 bits of stone ? But he was so kind to us all. Then 

 after he had gone away who should come to our door 

 one day but the schoolmaster, with a book in his hand. 

 ' Here's a fine description of you all,' said he. ' The 

 Scotchman has been writing about you/ So there, to be 

 sure, was such a nice account about my son playing 

 upon the spinet, and Eliza, and Tommy, and me. 

 Who'd 'a thought that he would write about us ? Do 

 you know him, sir, and can you tell me what he does in 

 Scotland?" " I can't say," I replied, "that he is an 

 acquaintance of mine, but, like many people in the 

 North, I know a good deal about him. He has 

 raised himself from being a workman to be a writer of 

 remarkable books, and he is Editor at present of the 

 Witness, the organ of a body called the Free Church of 

 Scotland." " La, now, sir, do you say so ? " was the 



