UNIVERSITY ] 

 HUGH MILLER 



and, we fear, a total disregard for geography, made his 

 hero effect a raid. When a man has got a view from 

 Dan to Beersheba in which to smite the enemy hip 

 and thigh, he need not be troubled with a few outlying 

 counties. 



The parish school of Cromarty which Miller attended 

 numbered about a hundred and twenty boys and girls. 

 The windows of the building fronted the opening of 

 the Cromarty Firth, recalling at least by * the mystery 

 of the ships ; the Portland of Longfellow's own early 

 days. The tax of twenty peats to the school from the 

 Highland boatmen paid for every boat in the trade 

 recalls the salary of the public hangman of Inverness 

 and Aberdeen, and the dues often formed the subject 

 of debate between the boys and the irate Gaels, who 

 did not fail to retort the taunt of the hangman's per- 

 quisite. The schoolmaster was a worthy that might 

 have sat for the figure of Jonathan Tawse in Dr. 

 Alexander's Johnny Gibb, and was, though a fair scholar, 

 rather inefficient as a disciplinarian and teacher. Yet 

 it was his boast one now, alas, in these days sadly 

 becoming obsolete that he sent forward more lads to 

 the bursary competition at the Northern university than 

 any other teacher, and his 'heavy class' of a few 

 boys in Latin was increased by his persuading the 

 willing Uncle James to set Miller to the Rudiments in 

 that time-honoured volume by Ruddiman, who had in 

 his own days been a first bursar at Aberdeen. The 

 teaching of Latin had been one of the props to educa- 



