IN THE BOTHY. 89 



sideration that large farms, worked by men in bothies, 

 send most meat to the London market. 



It may be hoped that such bothies as that in which 

 Hugh Miller lived at this time are no longer to be found 

 in Scotland. The roof leaked ; the sides were ' riddled 

 with gaps and breaches ; ' along the ridge, ' it was open 

 to the sky from gable to gable/ ' so that,' he writes, 

 ' when I awakened in the night, I could tell what o'clock 

 it was, without rising out of bed, by the stars which 

 appeared through the opening/ Even in this dismal 

 place, however, he contrived to supply himself with the 

 consolations of literature. From a wandering pedlar he 

 obtained the old Scottish poems of Gawin Douglas and 

 William Dunbar, besides a collection of ' Ancient Scottish 

 Poems ' from the MS. of George Bannatyne. These 

 books he 'perused with great interest, lying on the 

 barrack floor, with the page spread out within a few 

 inches of the fire/ At last, even this resource failed 

 him. The fuel used for warming the barrack became 

 soaked with rain, and could not produce a blaze by 

 which it was possible to read. There was nothing for 

 it but to stick doggedly to work, passing as many hours 

 of the twenty-four in sleep as was practicable. He found 

 that, by a little judicious management, a great deal of 

 sleep could be got into the twenty-four hours, and that 

 sleep was not a bad makeshift in the absence of livelier 

 entertainments. ' I restricted myself/ he writes to Baird, 

 ' to two meals per day, that immediately after taking 

 dinner I might go to bed ; and in a short time this new 

 arrangement became such a matter of habit that I com- 

 monly fell asleep every evening about six o'clock, and 

 did not rise, sometimes not even awaken, until near 

 eight next morning. Since this time I have been ac- 

 customed to decide whether. I am happy or the contrary 



