HUGH MILLER 33 



suading him from the occupation. They had pointed 

 to a hovel on a laird's property, who had left it standing 

 that at some future date it might be turned to profit 

 when he should have a drove of swine, or when a ' squad ' 

 of masons would pass that way. The life which had 

 been introduced by the large farm system had been 

 criticised already by Burns, who in the jottings of his 

 Highland Tour had been struck by the superior intelli- 

 gence of the Ayrshire cottar to the stolid boorishness of 

 the agricultural labourer in the districts of the Lothians 

 and the Merse. Recent legislation has largely mitigated 

 the evils of the system which, even in a higher scale 

 of comfort, has received a stern indictment in the 

 eighth chapter of Dr. William Alexander's excellent work 

 which we have before quoted, and to which, as the classic 

 of the movement with which Miller's life is associated, 

 \ve shall again refer. ' Better,' said Cobbett, who had 

 studied it during a brief sojourn in the country, 'the 

 fire-raisings of Kent than the bothy system of Scotland.' 

 Even geological rambles and communings with the 

 Muse afforded but scant alleviation of the hardships 

 endured. During rainy weather the food would often 

 be oatmeal eaten raw, at times with no salt save from 

 a passing Highland smuggler, or consist of hastily pre- 

 pared gruel or brochan. In time he learned to be a 

 fair plain cook and baker, so as at least to satisfy the 

 demands of the failing teeth of his old master. Accord- 

 ingly, he was not sorry when the three years of his 

 apprenticeship closed, and as a skilled labourer he 



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