WORTHLESS FELLOW-WORKMEN. 147 



and deepens into purple the green-blue of the Pent- 

 lands, looking through the wooded avenue until the 

 Inchkeith light flashes out above the darkening sea. 

 'Nunquam minus solus quam cum solus/ 'alone/ as he 

 puts it, ' but not solitary/- - he communes with his own 

 heart, ponders on men and things, and lays up fact after 

 fact, conclusion after conclusion, in a memory which, from 

 his sixth year, appears to have lost not one gleaning of 

 his experience. With the peace and beauty of nature 

 around him, and Edinburgh at hand, his circumstances 

 might at first sight be pronounced favourable. 



There was, however, a very important drawback. It 

 was a serious misfortune for Miller, and one which left 

 deep traces of its injurious influence upon his mind, that 

 the men in company with whom he worked at Niddrie 

 were, for the most part, dissolute and worthless. Nor were 

 the exceptions of a kind likely to inspire him with any 

 enthusiasm for the order to which he provisionally be- 

 longed. They were men of strong religious sentiments but 

 narrow intellects, unable, save by the silent eloquence of 

 then- moral superiority to the rest of the squad, to make 

 any impression either upon him or upon their comrades. 

 The others were as bad specimens of their class as it 

 is possible to conceive. Selfish and wilful as spoiled 

 children, brutishly sensual, flippantly because ignorantly 

 infidel, habitually profane, they showed Miller how base 

 a thing a working man can be, and to his dying day his 

 opinion of working men retained the stamp which it 

 received in the society of these reprobates. Owing to 

 the building mania which was at its height at this time, 

 they had abundance of work and high wages, but they 

 were mean enough to be jealous of the workman from 

 the North, and Miller found himself exposed to the 

 thousand nameless vexations which spiteful cunning can 



