198 THE JOURNEYMAN. 



man than many of my acquaintances. But the founda- 

 tion on which my hopes were raised was not one of sand 

 a sandy foundation would have served me until the 

 day of the tempest, whereas the thin vapour upon which 

 I had built sunk of itself without being once assailed. 

 Suffice it to say that, as my fears subsided and my 

 pride increased, my prayers became more and more a 

 matter of form, until at length they ceased altogether, 

 and except that I believed in the being of a God, and 

 continued to see a beauty in moral virtue, I became, in 

 thought and feeling and action, the same man I had 

 formerly been. 



1 In the working season of the two following years, 

 I wrought and resided at Conon-side a gentleman's 

 seat and farmsteadings situated on a bank of the river 

 Conon near where it falls into the Cromarty frith. 

 When there, there was no one for whose good opinion I 

 cared a pin within twenty miles of me, so I felt myself 

 at liberty to do or say whatever I thought proper. In a 

 short time I became a favourite with my brother work- 

 men. " He is a good-natured, honest, knowing fellow," 

 they would say, " but desperately careless of Church." 

 This was just the character I wished to bear ; as for 

 Church attendance, I thought it rather a dubious virtue. 

 Indeed, I had seen too much of the prejudices of man- 

 kind, and knew too little of true Christianity, to think 

 otherwise. 



f When at Conon-side, I had an opportunity of 

 studying several characters of the grave, serious cast, 

 but the knowledge of them which I acquired there 

 did me no good. One, a Mr M , was a man of a grave, 

 taciturn humour, whose definition of the word " Chris- 

 tian " would be, as I apprehended, " a hearer of the 

 gospel for Mr MacDonald's sake." He was exceeding 



