86 THE APPRENTICE. 



the biirying-groimd. A few weeks after the night of 

 this dream, one of my paternal cousins in the second 

 degree, was seized by a fever of which he died. I attended 

 his funeral, and found that the grave had been opened to 

 receive his corpse on exactly the patch of sward to which 

 the beam had turned/ 



This dream he calls ' a prophecy of contingency ; 

 one of those few dreams which, according to Bacon, 

 nen remember and believe because they happen to hit, 

 not one of the many which they deem idle and forget, 

 because they chance to miss/ To us it is interesting 

 as showing, especially when taken in connection with 

 the small experiment in .necromancy previously related, 

 how strongly, even- at this early period, Hugh Miller's 

 mental state was influenced by his physical condition. 

 Brooding on early death by day, wandering among 

 tombs in night-visions, his brain was rapidly approach- 

 ing that degree of agitation at which will and intellect 

 fall under the dominion of mania. 



Both in the Schools and Schoolmasters and in the 

 letter to Baird, he dwells upon the wretched and dis- 

 solute life of the two or three (we have two in the earlier 

 account and three in the later) farm-servants who oc- 

 cupied the same bothy with himself and his master. In 

 his twenty-seventh year Hugh Miller pronounced em- 

 phatic condemnation on the bothy system ; he returned 

 to the subject when fifty, and it was to enforce his 

 opinion by the experience of his life. ' There were/ he 

 writes to Baird, ' two unmarried farm-servants who 

 lodged with us in the barrack. They were both young 

 men ; and the life they were almost necessitated to lead 

 was one of the most unfriendly possible to the formation 

 of moral character. All day they were employed in the 

 monotonous labours of the farm. Their evenings, as 



