far ahead of them; and ere the evening of Friday, when they had
still a full day's work on each of their columns, David's was completed
in a style that defied criticism; and, his tartan coat again buttoned
around him, he sat resting himself beside it. The foreman went out and
greeted him. "Well," he said, "you have beaten us all: you certainly
_can_ hew!" "Yes," said David; "I _thought_ I could hew columns. Did the
other men take much more than a week to learn?" "Come, come, _David
Fraser_," replied the foreman; "we all guess who you are: you have had
your joke out; and now, I suppose, we must give you your week's wages,
and let you away." "Yes," said David; "work waits for me in Glasgow; but
I just thought it might be well to know how you hewed on this east side
of the country."

John Fraser was a shrewd, sarcastic old man, much liked, however, by his
brother workmen; though his severe sayings--which, never accompanied by
any ill-nature, were always tolerated in the barrack--did both himself
and them occasional harm when repeated outside. To men who have to live
for months together on oatmeal and salt, the difference between porridge
with and porridge without milk is a very great difference indeed, both
in point of salutariness and comfort; and I had succeeded in securing,
on the ordinary terms, ere the arrival of John, what was termed a _set_
of skimmed milk from the wife of the gentleman at whose dwelling-house
we were engaged in working. The skimmed milk was, however, by no means
good: it was thin, blue, and sour; and we received it without complaint
only because we knew that, according to the poet, it was "better just
than want aye," and that there was no other dairy in that part of the
country. But old John was less prudent; and, taking the dairy-maid to
task in his quiet ironical style, he began by expressing wonder and
regret that a grand lady like her mistress should be unable to
distinguish the difference between milk and wine. The maid indignantly
denied the fact _in toto_: her mistress, she said, did know the
difference. "O no," replied John; "wine always gets better the longer it
is kept, and milk always the worse; but your mistress, not knowing the
difference, keeps her milk very long, in order to make it better, and
makes it so very bad in consequence, that there are some days we can
scarce eat it at all." The dairy-maid bridled up, and, communicating the
remark to her mistress, we were told next morning t