HUGH MILLER. 119 



hills behind it, formed the distant landscape. Not a cloud 

 rose upon the sky, not a salmon gUded beneath me in the 

 river, nor a leaf shook upon the alders that o'erhung the stream, 

 but raised some poetic emotion in my breast' The next 

 winter and spring were spent at Cromarty, where he again met 

 WilUam Ross, but in the working season of 1822 he returned 

 to Cononside. In a letter written at this period, he says : ' I 

 had determined early this season to conform to every practice 

 of the barrack, and as I was an apt pupil, I had in a short 

 time become one of the freest, and not the least rude of its 

 inmates. I became an excellent baker, and one of the most 

 skilful of cooks. I made wonderful advances in the art of 

 practical joking, and my bo7i-mots were laughed at and re- 

 peated. There were none of my companions who could foil 

 me in wrestling, or who could leap within a foot of me ; and 

 after having taken the slight liberty of knocking down a young 

 fellow who insulted me, they all began to esteem me as a lad 

 of spirit and promise.' 



The neighbourhood of Cononside enabled Miller to extend 

 his geologic explorations in a definite direction. He had been 

 urged by the foreman of the squad with which he was con- 

 nected to study geometry and architecture, and these he 

 pursued for some time. He finished his apprenticeship on 

 the nth November 1822, amidst great hardship, while working 

 at a wall and farm-steading in the neighbourhood of Cromarty, 

 often standing * day after day with wet feet in a water-logged 

 ditch.' 'How these poor hands of mine,' he says, 'burnt and 

 beat at night at this time, as if an unhappy heart had been 

 stationed in every finger; and what cold chills used to run, 

 sudden as electric shocks, through the feverish frame.' Ere 

 the wmte*- was over, he had gained his ordinary robust health. 



