240 THE JOURNEYMAN. 



regarded his nephew was as that of a tender parent, the 

 counsel, the example, the sympathetic forbearance, the 

 just appreciation, which Miller experienced at his hands, 

 were such as the fewest parents can bestow. Prom 

 Uncle James, as by a fine moral contagion, Hugh derived 

 that proud integrity, that sensitive honour, in money 

 matters, which was with him, as with Burns, a passion. 

 The death of Ross, though at the moment his pre- 

 occupation with grief for the loss of his uncle prevented 

 him from feeling the full force of this second blow, must 

 also have touched him keenly. Among his early friends 

 Swanson had his deepest respect, but the tenderest of his 

 friendships was with Ross. Of him alone among his 

 boyish companions did Miller speak as possessed of 

 genius, and we have seen enough to prove that his esti- 

 mate was not extravagant. Ross could sympathize with 

 much which elicited no response from the Puritan rigour 

 of Swanson, and with his delicate feeling for beauty were 

 combined a feminine gentleness and depth of affection 

 which greatly endeared him to Miller. The circum- 

 stances of his death have a pathos deeper than the pathos 

 of romance. He was living in Glasgow, occupying the 

 same rooms with a brother mechanic, when this last was 

 seized with consumption. For several months he was un- 

 fit to work. Ross, who had been consumptive in his most 

 vigorous years and in whom the vital flame was now wan- 

 ing fast, continued to toil for both, and as his fine talent, 

 incomparably superior to that of the ordinary house- 

 painter, enabled him to execute work which required deli- 

 cate handling rather than exertion of physical energy, he 

 found remunerative employment as long as his fingers 

 could hold a brush. Having thus shielded against want 

 the comrade who was dying only a little faster than him- 

 self, Ross beheld him sink into the grave, and, the last 



