34 FAMOUS SCOTS 



could retire about the Martinmas of 1822 to Cromarty, 

 where his first piece of work was a cottage built with 

 his own hands for his aunt 



In 1823 he was with a working party at Gairloch, 

 and was there for the last time to experience the dis- 

 comforts in the life of the working mason when employed 

 by a niggard Highland laird. Forced from the barn in 

 which they were at first domiciled into a cow-house to 

 make room for the hay, they found themselves called 

 upon to convert the materials of this hovel into the 

 new building upon which they were engaged. This 

 they effected by demolishing the entrance gradually, and 

 hanging mats over it, leaving themselves ultimately 

 to the cold October wind which not even Miller's 

 experiences as a boy of the caves in the Sutors of 

 Cromarty could render tolerable. But he had begun 

 to see that the sphere of constant employment was 

 narrow and narrowing in his native place, and, as the 

 building mania in the South at the time seemed to 

 afford a better opening for a steady workman, to 

 Edinburgh accordingly he resolved to betake him- 

 self. 



There was the additional reason in a desire to free 

 the family from the burden of a house on the Coalhill 

 of Leith, which had long before fallen to his father 

 through the legacy of a relative, and which had 

 threatened, through legal expenses, lack of tenants, 

 and depreciated value, to become a serious legacy 

 indeed. The parish church of North Leith had been 



