116 RENNIE'S MASTER ANDREW MEIKLE. TART VII. 



candour and liberality, at once acknowledging its supe- 

 riority to his own, urged Mr. Drummond to adopt it. 

 The invention consisted of a newly-contrived wheel, 

 28 feet in diameter and 10 feet broad, for raising 

 water in a simple, economical, and powerful manner, at 

 the rate of from 40 to 60 hogsheads a minute ; and it 

 was necessary so to raise it about 17 feet, in order to 

 reach the higher parts of the land. The machinery 

 on being erected was set to work, and with such good 

 results, that in the course of a very few years the four 

 miles of barren moss was completely washed away, and 

 the district was shortly after covered with thriving farm- 

 steads, as it remains to this day. 



Meikle was a thorough mechanical inventor, and, 

 wherever he could, he endeavoured to save labour 

 by means of machinery. Stories are still told in the 

 neighbourhood in which he lived of the contrivances 

 he adopted with this object in his own household, some 

 of which were of an amusing character. One day a 

 woman came to the mill to get some barley ground, and 

 was desired to sit down in the cottage hard by until 

 it was ready. With the first sound of the mill-wheels 

 the cradle and churn at her side began to rock and to 

 churn, as if influenced by some supernatural agency. No 

 one was in the house besides herself at the time, and she 

 rushed from it frightened almost out of her wits. Such 

 incidents as these brought an ill name on Andrew, and 

 the neighbours declared of him that he was " no canny." 

 He was often sent for to great distances for the purpose 

 of repairing pumps or setting mills to rights. On one 

 occasion, when he undertook to supply a gentleman's 

 house with water, so many country mechanics had tried 

 it before and failed, that the butler would not believe 

 Meikle when he told him he would send in the water 

 next day. Meikle, however, told him to get every- 

 thing ready. " It will be time enough to get ready," 

 said the incredulous butler, "when we see the water." 



