346 MAN OF SCIENCE. 



never to be forgotten by those who lived in it, and 

 shared the principles and emotions of those engaged 

 in the struggle which ended in the formation of the 

 Free Church. If one happened to see him the day 

 before the publication of the Witness, then one was sure 

 to see in the next day's article some of the observations 

 that had fallen from him the day before. Some, not 

 all, for surely every one who knew Hugh Miller must 

 have felt, as I do, that his mind was deeper, richer, more 

 far-sighted, than any of his written utterances showed 

 it to be. 



' How one wishes one could recall some of those 

 pleasant meetings, but 



" The path we came by, thorn and flower, 

 Is shadowed by the growing hour, 

 Lest life should fail in looking back." 



Among the gleams of the past, seen through that 

 shadowed vista, is one of a summer evening when, after 

 dining with the Millers at Sylvan Place, we walked to 

 Blackford Hill. In the valley behind the hill he and 

 the other gentlemen of the party tried who could throw 

 furthest some of the large stones lying about. It was 

 soon seen whose arm had had the advantage of being 

 strengthened by labour, so greatly did his throw exceed 

 the others. I think it was at that time that, referring 

 to the change from labour with the chisel in the open 

 air to labour at the desk, he said the last was far 

 harder than the first, and that the change had come too 

 late to him. " It was too late ere I was caught," was 

 his expression. 



' One evening the conversation turned on ghosts, 

 a propos of Mrs Crowe's " Night Side of Nature," which 

 had just been published. It was said that that lady 

 had sought out every one who could tell her a ghost- 



