Scenes and legends of the north of Scotland : $b or, The traditional history of Cromarty — John Stuart Mill — John Shaqi
Scenes and legends of the north of Scotland : $b or, The traditional history of Cromarty
John Stuart Mill · en
On the southern shore of the Bay of Cromarty, two miles to the west
of the town, there stood, about ninety years ago, a meal-mill and the
cottage of the miller. The road leading to the country passed in front,
between the mill and the beach; and a ridge of low hills, intersected
by deep narrow ravines, and covered with bushes of birch and hazel,
rose directly behind. There was a straggling line of alders which
marked the course of the stream that turned the mill-wheel; while
two gigantic elms, which rose out of the fence of a little garden,
spread their arms over both the mill and the cottage. The view of the
neighbouring farm-steadings was shut out by the windings of the coast
and the ridge behind; and to the traveller who passed along the road
in front, and saw no other human dwelling nearer him than the little
speck-like houses which mottled the opposite shore of the bay, this
one seemed to occupy one of the most secluded spots in the parish. Its
inmates at this period were John Williamson, the miller, or, as he was
more commonly termed, Johnie o’ the Shore, and his sister Margaret--two
of the best and most eccentric people of their day in the country-side.
John was a poet and a Christian, and much valued by all the serious
and all the intelligent people of the place; while his sister, who was
remarkable in the little circle of her acquaintance for the acuteness
of her judgment in nice points of divinity, was scarcely less esteemed.
The duties of John’s profession left him much leisure to write and to
pray. During the droughts of summer, his mill-pond would be dried up
for months together; and in these seasons he used to retire almost
every day to a green hillock in the vicinity of his cottage, which
commands an extensive view of the bay and the opposite coast. And
there, in a grassy opening among the bushes, would he remain until
sunset, with only the Bible and his pen for his companions. He was so
much attached to this spot, that he was once heard to say there was no
place in which he thought he could so patiently await the resurrection,
and he intimated to his friends his wish of being buried in it; but, on
his deathbed, he changed his mind, and requested to be laid beside his
mother. It is now covered by a fir-wood, and roughened by thickets of
furze and juniper, but enough may still be seen to justify his choice.
On one side it descends somewhat abruptly into a narrow ravine, through
the bottom of which there runs a little tinkling streamlet; on the
other, it slopes gently towards the shore. We look on the one hand,
and see, through the chance vistas which have been opened in the wood,
the country rising above us in long undulations of surface, like waves
of the sea after a storm, and variegated with fields, hedge-rows, and
clumps of copse-wood. On the other, the wide expanse of the bay lies
stretched at our feet, with all its winding shores and blue jutting
headlands: we look down on the rower as he passes, and hear the notes