ALLEVIATIONS. C3 



leaps. His master and fellow-workmen, who, during 

 the first months of his apprenticeship, have regarded 

 him as too awkward to learn his trade, are suddenly as- 

 tonished to find him one of the most expert hewers in 

 the squad. ' So flattered was my vanity/ he writes to 

 Baird, ' by the respect which they paid me on this ac- 

 count, and such satisfaction did I derive from emulating 

 them in what they confessed the better department of 

 their profession, that the coming winter, to which, a few 

 weeks before, I had looked forward as good men do to 

 the pleasures of another state of existence, was no longer 

 an object of desire.' 



To throw down the tools, however, could not but be 

 a relief, and the leisure of winter is hailed with satis- 

 faction. After a pedestrian journey to Strath-Carron, in 

 company \vith his cousin, George Munro, in the course 

 of which he makes some observations, not of an im- 

 portant character, on an old Scotch forest of native pine, 

 he returns to Cromarty. The education of toil has 

 already done more for him than any previous education, 

 and the unruly boy has become a thoughtful, docile 

 young man. 



