He had not long to experience what Gilbert Burns said was to his brother the saddest of all sights, that of a man seeking work. He had called on the town-clerk to see whether some means could be devised of setting himself free from the property when, on mentioning his occupation, he was not only told the prospect of a sale was not so hopeless as he had expected, but was introduced to a builder erecting a mansion-house in the south of Edinburgh. He lodged in the village of Niddry Mill, and found his experience of life among metropolitan labourers the very reverse of favourable. His not very high opinion of the working classes, for, as we shall see, Miller remained a Whig to the last with a wholesome horror for Radicals and Chartists, was doubtless due to the circumstances under which he found himself, and not to any feeling of superiority on his part. The social condition of the working classes was then on the eve of transition, and the organisation of even skilled labour was but in a rudimentary condition. In Edinburgh at least, the better class of mechanics sought within the walls of the city a more remunerative sphere for their labour, so that it was only the inferior body of workmen that was found on the outskirts. At first, he was subjected to a good deal of low and petty tyranny from his fellow-labourers, which was not calculated to improve his opinion of the class. Some slight relief, however, he managed to find in the new geological surroundings--the carboniferous deposits--and by observation and theory he made his way to some good results in his own science, at a time when there was no map, manual, or even geological primer in existence. The policies of Niddry and walks in the ruins of Craigmillar were a solace from the drunken and intemperate habits of the men, whose forty-eight shillings for the fortnight's wage were soon consumed by Sunday drives to Roslin or Hawthornden, or by drinking bouts in the lower rookeries of the High Street. There still largely prevailed the convivial habits such as Fergusson has described as characteristic of the Edinburgh of his day, the tavern 'jinks' alluded to by Scott in _Guy Mannering_, and by Lockhart in his _Life of Burns_. In the taverns the landlords kept a cockpit or a badger as a necessary part of their attraction. Employment being constant through the pressure of the building mania prevalent throughout this year, the masters were largely at the mercy of the men, so that strikes were rife and the demands of the workers exorbitant. Altogether it was no favourable school for Miller to learn regard for his own class. Again and again, to the end, do we find not undeserved denunciations of the dangers of Chartism, and his own reiterated belief that for the skilled workman there is no danger, and for the thriftless no hope.