Excerpt from The Life and Letters of Hugh Miller, Vol. 2 of 2 To be initiated in banking, it was necessary for him to proceed a second time'to the South of Scotland. He sailed for Edinburgh, expecting to be taken into the office of the Commercial Bank there, but found, on his arrival, that he was to be stationed in the branch office at Linlithgow. He spent a few days in Edinburgh, both before going on to Linlithgow, and on his return thence; and experienced, on both occasions, great kindness from Sir T. Dick Lauder, Mr Robert Paul, manager of the bank in Edinburgh, and others. Hugh was no sooner out of sight of Miss Fraser, than he began writing to her. He embarked after nightfall, November 27, 1834 the ship weighed anchor at dawn, and we find him, pen in'hand, 'tossing on the Moray Frith, on the swell raised by the breeze of the previous night.' The breeze freshens, and he betakes himself to his berth; but the pen is not laid aside. He overhears the master and one of the passengers discuss ing a highly interesting topic, - woman.' They appear to be no enthusiasts on the subject of the sex. Your sweetheart, for instance, ' says the master, 'was just as fine a lassie as a man could Wish to meet with anywhere, and yet you were only a short while in London when she got married to another. But they are all the same.' Rubbish, ' thinks Hugh; I don't believe a word of it. The last things I looked on with interest, as we swept along the Sutor, were the little grey rock and the beech tree. How much happiness, my own Lydia, have I eu j oyed beside them But he has too much contempt for the speakers, or is too sea-sick, to rise and do battle for the fair. We have an eagle aboard, ' he proceeds; a noble looking bird, but quite as bad a sailor as myself. He is. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.