58 FAMOUS SCOTS 



through the representation of local landowners and 

 traders, the Commercial Bank of Scotland was induced 

 to extend one of its branches to the town. The services 

 of a local shipowner were secured for the post of agent, 

 and Miller was offered the place of accountant. It was 

 necessary, of course, that he should qualify himself for 

 his new duties, and so he sailed to Leith to acquire 

 his initiation at Linlithgow. He was now in his thirty- 

 second year. 



Before leaving Cromarty he had been engaged upon 

 his Scenes and Legends of the traditional history of the 

 country, and on his forwarding his manuscript to Sir 

 Thomas Dick Lauder, to whom it is dedicated, he was in- 

 vited by the hospitable baronet to meet Mr. Adam Black 

 the publisher, whose long retention of the copyright of the 

 Waverley Novels has shed distinction on the firm of which 

 he was the head. By him very generous terms were 

 offered, and Miller by his venture realised ;6o over his 

 second book, which still seems to enjoy in its thirteenth 

 edition no slight share of popularity. He was even 

 pressed by Sir Thomas to make his own house at Grange 

 his residence while in the south, but, Linlithgow having 

 been already fixed upon he took his passage in the 

 fly-boat running on the canal between Edinburgh and 

 Glasgow and soon f reached the fine old burgh as the 

 brief winter day was coming to a close, and was seated 

 next morning at my desk, not a hundred yards from 

 the spot on which Hamilton of Bothwellhaugh had 

 taken his stand when he shot the Good Regent.' At 



