WORTHLESS FELLOW-WORKMEN. 149 



putation for cleverness and spirit. The revolting exploit 

 just mentioned was spoken of with enthusiasm in the 

 shed, and the workmen regaled each other for days after 

 with accounts of similar feats which they had executed or 

 of which they had heard. c I was told/ proceeds Miller, 

 ' of an Edinburgh mechanic, a mason, who on the death 

 of a relative received a legacy of about eighty pounds. 

 He was no sooner paid the money than he carried home 

 his tool chest, and shoved it under his- bed. He then 

 commenced a new course of life. He bought an elegant 

 suit of clothes ; hired a hackney coach by the week ; 

 attended all the fashionable amusements of the place ; 

 and regularly, once in the day, called in his carriage on 

 his brother workmen. In six weeks the whole of his 

 money was expended. He then took out his tool chest from 

 under his bed, and returned to his former employment/ 

 This fellow seems to have had a trace of humour in him. 

 At first hated as an intruder, and ridiculed as a 

 Highlander, Miller, being found to be not only capable 

 of holding on his own ;- ; path, but superior in the valued 

 accomplishments of swimming, leaping, running, and 

 wrestling, rose into something like popularity among his 

 fellow-workmen. It was impossible, however, that be- 

 tween him and them there could be any communion ; 

 and, tacitly accepting these sixteen masons of Niddrie 

 as representatives of their class, he acquired a profound 

 distrust, sharpened and embittered by contempt, for 

 workmen in general. It cannot be denied that, so far as 

 these unfortunates were concerned, he gave working 

 men a fair trial, and looked candidly and boldly into 

 their ways and habits. He permitted himself to be 

 carried along in the stream when the masons of the dis- 

 trict turned out on strike, and he forced himself to 

 endure one or two dreary hours in accompanying them 



