98 THE JOURNEYMAN. 



a sister of his mother, who had long wished to have some 

 dwelling which she could call her own, and in which her 

 spinning-wheel and knitting-needles might supply her 

 modest wants, had never surmounted the alarm occasioned 

 by the prospect of paying rent. Hugh inherited a little 

 piece of garden ground from his father. Part of this he 

 now devotes to the purpose of building a cottage for Aunt 

 Jenny. Money he has none, but the few pounds which 

 his aunt has saved are enough to buy wood for the roof 

 and to pay for carting the necessary stones and mortar, 

 and he builds the cottage. The worthy aunt is saved 

 from fear of rent for the remainder of her days, and Hugh 

 has his reward. The cottage is still to be seen in the 

 village of Cromarty, bearing witness, while stone and 

 lime endure, to the competence of Hugh Miller as a stone- 

 mason, and to the simplicity, solidity, and kindliness of 

 his character. It is in little circumstances like this that 

 one learns infallibly what is in a man. When the scenes 

 are arranged, the audience assembled, the attitude given, 

 it is easy to act the generous part ; but the quiet heart- 

 heroism, unseen by the world, unsurmised even by itself, 

 which makes Hugh Miller pause, on the threshold of life, 

 to build a cottage for Aunt Jenny, cannot deceive us. 



This undertaking is completed in the spring of 1823, 

 and the day has now come when employment must be 

 sought in earnest. Some little time elapses two or 

 three weeks at most during which he looks in vain. ' I 

 was a good deal depressed/ he writes to Baird. ' I was 

 somewhat diffident of my^skill as a workman ; and I felt 

 too, very strongly, the force of that sentiment of Burns to 

 which we are indebted for his excellent elegiac poem, 

 " Man is made to mourn." " There is nothing," said the 

 poet, " that gives me a more mortifying picture of human 

 life than a man seeking work." 



