Poor little Charlie Egan, with only his fifteen summers over his head, truly found in his commanding officer one {136} who was touched with the truest Christian sympathy, and acted well towards him the part of the Good Samaritan. Such conduct is a noble example. It is the secret of lasting popularity. It is more,--it is the secret of true happiness. In 1894 occurred a protracted strike among the colliers throughout the country. The Niddrie coal-works were affected by it, and for seventeen weeks the men were out of employment, and their families suffering the severest hardship. On this question he expressed himself at a later date most forcibly in these words:--'I do not know anything to a patriotic mind more terrible for the country, and bad for it, than anything in the shape of strikes--those industrial wars which the country has witnessed and which had been an evil thing in every way. I know it will be said that I am a man of war, and that I love war, and all that sort of thing. Never was there a greater fable. Though I have never had to stand on a great European field of battle, I have seen too much of war in all its horrible aspects not to hate it in every sense of the word. In the same way with those industrial wars, there is nothing more deplorable and nothing which has tended more to unhappy homes, and all the consequences thereof.' But the Niddrie miners were in sore straits, and a deputation of them went to the Colonel to lay their case before him, and they did not appeal in vain. He told them very plainly he had no sympathy whatever with the strike; 'but man, Tam,' addressing the leader of the deputation, 'I would rather do anything than see the women and weans starving,' and there and then he promised to give one pound daily to keep the soup-kitchen going, so that they might at least have one good meal a day. Not only so, but as long as the strike lasted, vegetables in abundance were supplied from the Niddrie House gardens. {137} [Sidenote: The country gentleman] In New Craighall there is a large reading-room and bagatelle-room. Many years ago the building was erected by the Wauchope family for a school, and was used as such up till 1896, when it was superseded by the large school erected by the Board at Niddrie Mill. Niddrie bowling-green, gifted to the villagers lately by Sir Charles Dalrymple, has been a great boon to the men; and Colonel Wauchope contributed largely to the expense connected with its formation. A bleaching-green in the centre of the village--part of it fenced off for football; the local football club; the local brass band--these were all objects of his liberality. Was a site for a church or a chapel wanted, it was given ungrudgingly, and his grounds were thrown open for Sunday-school excursions and picnics during the summer months. In cases of accident to any of the miners, he had an ambulance waggon ready at the collieries, and in many other ways he indicated his interest in the villagers.