CHAPTER I. 



FAVOURABLE OPINIONS FROM OLD DAVID WRIGHT AND UNCLE 

 JAMES FIRST WORK AS JOURNEYMAN AUNT JENNY'S COT- 

 TAGE SENDS POETICAL PIECES TO ROSS SELF-DELINEA- 

 TION. 



ON returning to Cromarty, Miller soon regains his 

 health, and things wear for him on the whole a 

 pleasant aspect. Old David Wright, who had occasion- 

 ally been morose to his apprentice (his own distresses im- 

 peratively demanding that relief) now declares that, though 

 unsecured to him by any written agreement, Hugh had 

 been 'beyond comparison more tractable and obedient 

 than any indentured pupil he ever had/ Uncle James, 

 whose predictions of failure at work, as a natural sequel 

 to failure at school, had contributed not a little to the 

 support of Miller at the worst time for it would be ex- 

 quisitely gratifying to punish and to please Uncle James 

 by one and the same course of action does ample justice 

 to the faithfulness with which, from a mere sense of 

 honour, he has completed his engagement, and owns that 

 there is in him, after all, the making of a man. 



His first employment as a journeyman is character- 

 istic. To seek - remunerative employment to start in 

 life for himself would be his natural impulse. But the 

 better and homelier part of his nature has now ripened, 

 and kindness of heart, one of his deepest qualities, proves 

 stronger than the prompting of ambition. * Aunt Jenny/ 



VOL. I. 



