Geordie Sinclair was chairman, and when he rose to open the meeting and introduce Smillie, he felt as if the whole world were looking on and listening.

"Weel, men," he began, halting and hesitating in his utterance, "for a lang time now there has been much cryin' for a union here. There has been a lot of persecution gaun' on, an' it has been lang felt that something should be done. We ha'e heard of how other men in other places ha'e managed to start a union, and how it has been a guid thing in risin' wages. Mr. Smillie has come here the nicht to tell us how the other districts ha'e made a start, and what thae other districts has gotten. If it can be done there, it can be done here. I ha'e wrocht aside Bob Smillie, an' I ken what kind of man he is. He has done great wark doon in the west country, an' he is weel fitted and able to be the spokesman for the miners o' Scotlan'. I'm no gaun' to say ony mair, but I can say that it gie's me great pleasure to ask Mr. Smillie to address ye."

A round of applause greeted Smillie as he rose to address them. Tall and manly, he dominated his audience from the very first sentence, rousing them to a great pitch of enthusiasm, as he proceeded to tell of all the many hardships which miners had to endure, of the "Block" system of persecution, and to point to the only means of successfully curing them by organizing into one solid body, so that they might become powerful enough to enforce their demands for a fuller, freer, and a happier life. Never in all his life did he speak with more passion than he did that night in Lowwood.

Little Robert was present in the hall—the only child there; and as Smillie spoke in passionate denunciation of the tyrannies and persecutions of the mine-owners and their officials, his little heart leapt in generous indignation. Many things which he had but dimly understood before, began to be plain to him, as he sat with eyes riveted upon Smillie's face, drinking in every word as the speaker plead with the men to unite and defend themselves. Then, as his father's wrongs were poured forth from the platform, and as Smillie appealed to them in powerful sentences to stand loyally by their comrade, the boy felt he could have followed Smillie anywhere, and that he could have slain every man who refused to answer that call. Away beyond the speaker the boy had already glimpsed something of the ideal which Smillie sketched, and his soul throbbed and ached to see how simple and how easy it was for life to be made comfortable and good and pleasant for all. Bob Smillie never won a truer heart than he did that night in winning this barefooted, ragged boy's.

Round after round of applause greeted the speaker when he had finished, and in response to his appeal to them to organize, a branch of the union was formed, with Geordie Sinclair as its first president. At the request of the meeting Smillie interviewed Black Jock next morning, and as a result Sinclair got started on the following day.

Smillie stayed overnight with Geordie. They were certainly somewhat cramped for room, though Geordie had just lately got another apartment "broken through," which gave them a room and kitchen.

The two men sat late into the night, discussing their hopes and plans, and the trade union movement generally.

"It's a great work, Bob, you ha'e set yersel', an' it'll mean thenklessness an' opposition frae the very men you want maist to help," said Sinclair as they talked.

"Ay, it will," was the reply, spoken in a half dreamy tone, as if the speaker saw into the future. "I ken what it'll mean, but it must be done. I have long had it in me to set myself this work, for no opposition ought to stand in the way of the uplifting of the workers. I ... It's the system, Geordie!" he cried, as if bringing his mind back to the present. "It is the system that is wrong. It is immoral and evil in its foundations, and it forces the employers to do the things they do. Competition compels them to do things they would not have to do if there were a cooperative system of industry. Our people have to suffer for it all—they pay the price in hunger, misery and suffering."

"Ay," said Geordie, "that's true, Bob. But what a lang time it'll tak' afore the workers will realize what you are oot for. They'll look on your work wi' suspicion, and a wheen o' them'll even oppose you."

"Ay," was the reply, "I know that. It will mean the slow building up of our own county first, bit by bit, organizing, now here, now there, and fighting the other class interests all the time. It will divide our energies and retard our work, and the greatest fight will be to get our own people to recognize what is wanted and how to get it. Then through the county we'll have to work to consolidate the whole of Scotland; from that to work in the English and Welsh miners, while at the same time seeking to permeate other branches of industrial workers with our ideas. And then, when we have got that length, and raised the mental vision of our people, and strengthened their moral outlook, we can appeal to the workers of other lands to join us in bringing about the time when we'll be able to regard each other, not as enemies, but as members of one great Humanity, working for each other's welfare as we work for our own."

"That's it, Bob," agreed Geordie, completely carried away with Smillie's enthusiasm. "That's it, Bob. If we can only get them to see hoo' simple and easy it a' is ... Oh, they maun be made to see it that way!" he burst out. "We'll work nicht an' day but in the end we'll get them to see it that way yet."

"Yes, but it won't be easy, Geordie," he replied. "Our people's lives have been stunted and warped so long, they've been held in bondage and poverty to such an extent, that it will take years—generations, maybe—before they come to realize it. But we must go on, undeterred by opposition, rousing them from their apathy, and continually holding before them the vision of the time we are working to establish. Ay, Geordie,"—and a quieter note came into his voice, "I hope I shall be strong enough to go on, and never to give heed to the discouragements I shall undoubtedly meet with in the work; but I've made up my mind, and I'll see it through or dee."

The talk of the two men worked like magic upon the impressionable mind of young Robert, who sat listening. Long after all had retired for the night he lay awake, his little mind away in the future, living in the earthly paradise which had been conjured up before him by the warm, inspiring sentences of this miners' leader, and joyful in the contemplation of this paradise of happy humanity, he fell asleep. Could he have foreseen the terrible, heartbreaking ordeals through which Smillie often had to pass, still clinging with tenacity to the gleam that led him on, praying sometimes that strength would be given to keep him from turning back; of the strenuous battle he had, not only with those he fought against, but of the greater and more bitter fights he too often had with those of his own class whom he was trying to save; and of the fights even with himself, it would have raised Smillie still more in the estimation of this sensitive-hearted collier laddie.



CHAPTER VII

ON THE PIT-HEAD

"Hooray, mither, I've passed the examination, an' I can leave the school noo!" cried Robert one day, breaking in upon his mother, as she was busily preparing the dinner. She stopped peeling the potatoes to look up and smile, as she replied: "Passed the fifth standard, Robin?" she said, lovingly.

"Ay," said the boy proudly, his face beaming with smiles. "It was quite easy. Oh, if you had just seen the sums we got; they were easy as winking. I clinked them like onything."

"My, ye maun hae been real clever," said Mrs. Sinclair encouragingly.

"Sammy Grierson failed," broke in Robert again, too full of his success to contain himself. "He couldna' tell what was the capital of Switzerland! Then the inspector asked him what was the largest river in Europe, an' he said the Thames. He forgot that the Thames was just the biggest in England. I was sittin' next him an' had to answer baith times, an' the inspector said I was a credit to the school. My, it was great fun!" and he rattled on, full of importance at his success.

"Ay, but maybe Sammy was just nervous," said his mother, continuing her operations upon the potatoes, and trying to let him see that there might have been a cause for the failure of the other boy to answer correctly.

"Ach, but he's a dunce onyway," said the boy. "He canna spell an easy word like 'examination,' an' he had twenty-two mistakes in his dictation test," he went on, and she was quick to note the air of priggish importance in his utterance.

"Ay, an' you're left the school now," said Mrs. Sinclair, after a pause, during which her busy fingers handled the potatoes with great skill. "Your faither will be gey pleased when he comes hame the day," she said, giving the conversation a new turn.

"Ay, I'll get leavin' the school when I like, an' gaun to the pit when I like."

"Would ye no' raither gang to the school a while langer?" observed the mother after a pause, and looking at him with searching eyes.

"No," was the decisive reply. "I'd raither gang to work. I'm ready for leaving the school and forby, all the other laddies are gaun to the pit to work."

"But look at the things ye micht be if ye gaed to the school a while langer, Robin," she went on. "The life of a miner's no' a very great thing. There's naething but hard work, an' dangerous work at that, an' no' very muckle for it." And there was an anxious desire in her voice, as if trying to convince him.

"Ay, but I'd raither leave the school," he answered, though with less decision this time. "Besides, it'll mean more money for you," he concluded.

"Then, look how quick a miner turns auld, Rob. He's done at forty years auld," she said, as if she did not wish to heed what he said, "but meenisters an' schoolmaisters, an' folk o' that kin', leeve a gey lang while. Look at the easy time they hae to what a collier has. They dinna get up at five o'clock in the mornin' like your faither. They rise aboot eight, an' start work at nine. Meenisters only work yae day a week, an' only aboot two hoors at that. They hae clean claes to wear, a fine white collar every day, an' sae mony claes that they can put on a different rig-oot every day. Their work is no' hard, an' look at the pay they get; no' like your faither wi' his two or three shillin's a day. They hae the best o' it," she concluded, as she rested her elbows on her knees and again searched his face keenly to see if her arguments had had any effect upon him.

"Ay, but I'd raither work," reiterated the boy stubbornly.

"Then they hae plenty o' books," continued the temptress, loth to give up and keen to draw as rosy a picture as possible, "and a braw hoose, an' a piano in it. They get a lang holiday every year, and occasional days besides, an' their pay for it. But a collier gets nae pay when he's idle. It's the same auld grind awa' at hard work, among damp, an' gas, an' bad air, an' aye the chance o' being killed wi' falls of stone or something else. It's no' a nice life. It's gey ill paid, an' forby naebody ever respects them."

"Ay, mither; but do you no' mind what Bob Smillie said?" chipped in the boy readily, glad that he could quote such an authority to back his view. "It's because they dinna respect themselves. They just need to do things richt, an' things wadna' be sae bad as they are," and he felt as if he clinched his argument by quoting Smillie against her.

"Ay, Robin," she replied, "that's true; but for it a', you maun admit that the schoolmaister an' the meenister hae the best o' it." But she felt that her counter was not very effective.

"My faither says meenisters are nae guid to the world, but schoolmaisters are," said the boy, with a grudging admission for the teaching profession. "But I dinna care. I'd raither gang to work. I dinna want to gang ony langer to the school. I'm tired o' it, an' I want to leave it," and there was more decision in his voice this time than ever.

"A' richt, Robin," said Mrs. Sinclair resignedly, as she emptied the peeled potatoes into a pot and put them on the fire.

There were now seven of a family, and she knew that Robert was needed to increase the earnings, and that meant there was nothing but the pit for him.

"You maun hae been real clever, though, to pass," she said again, after a pause. "How many failed?"

"Four, mither," he cried, again waxing enthusiastic over the examination. "Mysie Maitland passed, too. She was first among the lasses, and I was first in the laddies."

"Eh, man, Bob, learnin' is a gran' thing to hae," she said wistfully, looking at him very tenderly.

"Ay, but I'm gaun to the pit," he said decisively, fearing that she was again going to enlarge upon the schoolmaster's life.

"Very weel," she said after a bit, "I suppose ye'll be lookin' for a job. Your faither was saying last nicht that ye're too young to gang into the pit. Ye maun be twelve years auld afore ye get doon the pit noo, ye ken. So I suppose it'll be the pithead for ye for a while."

She had often dreamed her dream, even though she knew it was an impossible one, that she would like to see her laddie go right on through the Secondary School in the county town to the University. She knew he had talents above the ordinary, and, besides, her soul rebelled at the thought of her boy having to endure the things that his father had to go through with. She was an intelligent woman, and though she had had little education, she saw things differently from most of the women of her class. She had character, and her influence was easily traced in her children, but more especially in Robert, who was always her favorite bairn. She was wise, too, and had fathomed some secrets of psychology which many women with a university training had never even glimpsed.

She often maintained that her children's minds were molded before she gave them birth, and that it depended upon the state of mind she was in herself during those nine months, as to what kind of soul her child would be born possessing. It may have been merely a whim on her part, but she held tenaciously to her belief, acted in accordance with it, and no one could dissuade her from it. Robert was her child of song, her sunny offspring, stung into revolt against tyranny of all kinds. His soul, strong and true as steel, she knew would stand whatever test was put upon it. Incorruptible and sincere, nothing could break him. Generous and forgiving, he could never be bought.

"I'll gang the nicht, mither, an' see if I can get a job. I micht get started the morn," he said breaking in upon her thought.

"A' richt, Robin," she replied with a sigh of resignation. "I suppose it'll hae to be done. It'll be yer first start in life, an' I hope ye'll aye be found doin' what's richt; for guid never comes o' ill thinkin' or ill doin."

"If I get a job, mither, maybe I'll get one-an'-tippence a day like Dick Tamson. If I do it'll be a big help to you, mither. My! I'll soon mak' a poun' at that rate," and he laughed enthusiastically at the thought of it. A pound seemed to represent riches to his boyish mind. What might his mother not do with a pound? Ever so many things could be bought. And that was merely a start. His wages would soon increase with experience, and when he went down the pit, which would be soon, he'd earn more, and his mother would maybe be able to buy new clothes for all the family.

He wondered what it would be like to have a new suit of clothes—real new ones out of a shop. Hitherto he had only enjoyed "make downs," as they were called—new ones made out of some one's cast-off clothing. But a real new suit, such as he had seen the schoolmaster's boy sometimes wearing! That would be a great experience! And so, lost in contemplation of the things big wages might do, the day wore on, and he was happy in his dreams.

That same night Robert went to call on the "gaffer," Black Jock, and as he neared the door he met Mysie Maitland.

"Where are ye goin', Rab?" she enquired shyly.

"To look for a job," he replied proudly, feeling that now he was left school, and about to start work, he could be patronizing to a girl. "Where are you gaun?" he asked, as Mysie joined him in the direction of Walker's house.

"I'm gaun to look for a job, too," she replied. "I'm no' gaun back to the school, an' my mither thinks I'll be as weel on the pit-head as at service. An' forby, I'll be able to help my mither at nichts when I come hame, an' I couldna' do that if I gaed to service," she finished by way of explanation. As Mysie was the oldest of a family of six, her parents would be glad to have even her small earnings, and so she, too, was looking for a job.

When Walker came to the door, Robert took the matter in hand, and became spokesman for both himself and Mysie.

"We've left the school the day, Mr. Walker, an' Mysie an' me want to ken if ye can gie us a job on the pitheid?" and Walker noted with amusement the manly swagger in the boy's voice and bearing.

"We dinna' usually start lasses as wee as Mysie," replied Walker, eyeing the children with an amused smile, "but we need twa or three laddies to the tables to help the women to pick stones."

Mysie's face showed her keen disappointment. She knew that it was not customary for girls to be employed as young as she was; and Robert noted her disappointed look as well.

"Could ye no' try Mysie, too?" he asked, breaking in anxiously. "She's a guid worker, an' she'll be able to pick as many stanes as the weemen. Willn't ye, Mysie?" And he turned to the girl for corroboration with assurance.

As Mysie nodded, Walker saw a hint of tears in the girl's eyes, and the quivering of the tiny mouth; and as there is a soft spot in all men's hearts, even he had sympathy, for he understood what refusal meant.

"Weel, I micht gie her a trial," he said, "but she'll hae to work awfu' hard," and he spoke as one conferring an especial concession upon the girl.

"Oh, she'll work hard enough," said Robert. "Mysie's a guid worker, an' you'll see ..."

"Oh, then," said Walker hurriedly breaking in upon Robert's outburst of agreement, "ye can both come oot the morn, and I'll try and put ye both up."

"How muckle pay will we get?" asked Robert, who was now feeling his importance, and felt that this was after all the main point to be considered.

"Well, we gie laddies one an' a penny," replied Walker, still smiling amusedly at the boy's eagerness, "an' lasses are aye paid less than callants. But it's all big lasses we hae, an' they get one an' tippence. I'll gie Mysie a shillin' to begin wi'," and he turned away as if that settled the matter, and was about to close the door.

"But if she picks as many stanes as a laddie, will ye gie her the same pay as me?" interrupted Robert, not wishing the interview to end without a definite promise of payment.

"She's gey wee," replied Walker, "an' she canna' expect as much as a laddie," and he looked at Mysie, as if measuring her with a critical eye to assess her value.

"But if she does as muckle work, would ye gie her the same money?" eagerly questioned the boy, and Mysie felt that there was no one surely so brave as Robert, nor so good, and she looked at him with gratitude in her eyes.

"Very weel," said Walker, not desiring to prolong the interview. "Come oot the morn, an' I'll gie ye both one an' a penny."

"Six an' sixpence a week," said Mysie, as they tramped home. "My, that's a lot o' money, Rab, isn't it?"

"Ay, it's a guid lot, Mysie," he replied, "but we'll hae to work awfu' hard, or we'll no' get it. Guid nicht!" And so the children parted, feeling that the world was about to be good to them, and all their thought of care was bounded by six and sixpence a week.

Mysie was glad to tell the result of the whole interview to her parents. She was full of it, and could talk of nothing else as she worked about the house that night. Her mother had been in delicate health for a long time, and so Mysie had most of the housework to do. Matthew Maitland and his wife, Jenny, were pleased at the result, and gave Robert due credit for his part—a credit that Mysie was delighted to hear from them.

The next morning the two children went to work, when children of their years ought to have been still in bed dreaming their little dreams.

The great wheels at the pithead seemed terrible in their never-ending revolutions, as they flew round to bring up the loads of coal. The big yawning chasm, with the swinging steel rope, running away down into the great black hole, was awesome to look at, as the rope wriggled and swayed with its sinister movements; and the roar and whir of wheels, when the tables started, bewildered them. These crashed and roared and crunched and groaned; they would squeal and shriek as if in pain, then they would moan a little, as if gathering strength to break out in indignant protest; and finally, roar out in rebellious anger, giving Robert the idea of an imprisoned monster of gigantic strength which had been harnessed whilst it slept, but had wakened at last to find itself impotent against its Lilliputian captor—man.

An old man instructed them in their duties.

"You'll staun here," he panted, indicating a little platform about two feet broad, and running along the full length of the "scree." "You'll watch for every bit stane that comes doon, an' dinna' let any past. Pick them oot as soon as you see them, an' fling them owre there, an' Dickie Tamson'll fill them into the hutch, an' get them taken to the dirt bing."

"A' richt," said Robert, as he looked at the narrow platform, with its weak, inadequate railing, which could hardly prevent anyone from falling down on to the wagon track, some fifteen or twenty feet below on one side, or on to the moving "scree" on the other.

"Weel, mind an' no' let any stanes gang past, for there are aye complaints comin' in aboot dirty coals. If ye dinna work an' keep oot the stanes, you'll get the sack," and he said this as if he meant to convey to them that he was the sole authority on the matter.

He was an old man, and Robert, as he looked at him, wondered if he had ever laughed. "Auld Girnie" they called him, because of his habit of always finding fault with everything and everybody, for no one could please him. His mouth seemed to be one long slit extending across his face, showing one or two stumps sticking in the otherwise toothless gums, and giving him the appearance of always "grinning."

The women workers' appearance jarred upon Robert. So far women to him had always been beings of a higher order, because he had always thought of them as being like his mother. But here they were rough and untidy, dressed like goblins in dirty torn clothes, with an old dirty sack hanging from the waist for an overall. Instinctively Robert felt that this was no place for women. One of them, who worked on the opposite side of the scree from Robert—a big, strong, heavily-built young woman of perhaps twenty-five—in moving forward tore her petticoat, which caught in the machinery, and made a rent right up above her knee.

"Ach, to hell wi' it," she cried in exasperation, as she turned up the torn petticoat, displaying a leg all covered with coal grime, which seemed never to have been washed.

"Is that no' awfu'? Damn my soul, I'll hae to gang hame the nicht in my sark tail," and she laughed loudly at her sally.

"I'll put a pin in it, it'll do till I gang hame," she added, and she started to pin the torn edges together. But all day the bare leg shone through the torn petticoat, and rough jokes were made by the men who worked near by—jokes which she seemed to enjoy, for she would hold up the torn garment and laugh with the others.

The women and boys never seemed to heed the things that filled Robert and Mysie with so much amazement. The two children bent over the swinging tables as the coal passed before them. They eagerly grabbed at the stones, flinging them to the side with a zeal that greatly amused the older hands.

"Ye'll no' keep up that pace lang," said one woman. "Ye'll soon tire, so ye'd better take it easy."

"Let them alone," broke in the old man, who had a penny a day more for acting as a sort of gaffer. "Get on wi' yer own work, an' never mind them."

"Gang you to hell, auld wheezie bellows," replied one woman coarsely, adding a rough jest at his breathlessness, whilst the others laughed loudly, adding, each one, another sally to torment the old man.

But after a time Robert felt his back begin to ache, and a strange dizzy feeling came into his head, as a result of his bent position and the swinging and crashing of the tables. He straightened himself and felt as if he were going to break in two. He glanced at Mysie, wondering how she felt, and he thought she looked white and ill.

"Take a wee rest, Mysie," he said. "Are ye no' awfu' dizzy?"

Mysie heard, but "six and sixpence a week" was still ringing in her head. Indeed, the monotonous swing of the tables ground out the refrain in their harsh clamor, as they swung backwards and forwards. "Six and sixpence a week," with every leap forwards; "six and sixpence a week" as they receded. "Six and sixpence" with every shake and roar, and with each pulsing throb of the engine; and "six and sixpence a week" her little hands, already cut and bleeding, kept time with regular beat, as she lifted the stones and flung them aside. She was part of the refrain—a note in the fortissimo of industry. The engines roared and crashed and hissed to it. They beat the air regularly as the pistons rose and fell back and forth, thump, thud, hiss, groan, up and down, out and in: "Six and sixpence a week!"

Mysie tried to straighten herself, as Robert had advised, and immediately a pain shot through her back which seemed to snap it in two. The whole place seemed to be rushing round in a mad whirl, the roof of the shed coming down, and the floor rushing up, when with a stagger Mysie fell full length upon a "bing" of stones, bruising her cheek, and cutting her little hands worse than ever. This was what usually happened to all beginners at "pickin' sklits."

One of the women raised Mysie up, gave her a drink from a flask containing cold tea, and sat her aside to rest a short time.

"Just sit there a wee, my dochter," she said with rough kindness, "an' you'll soon be a' richt. They mostly a' feel that way when they first start on the scree."

Mysie was feeling sick, and already the thought was shaping in her mind that she would never be able to continue. She had only worked an hour as yet, but it seemed to her a whole day.

"Six and sixpence a week" sang the tables as they swung; "six and sixpence a week" whirred the engines; "six and sixpence a week" crashed the screes; and her head began to throb with the roar of it all. "Six and sixpence a week" as the coal tumbled down the chutes into the wagons; "six and sixpence" crunched the wheels, until it seemed as if everything about a pit were done to the tune of "six and sixpence a week."

It was thundered about her from one corner, it squealed at her from another, roared at her from behind, groaned at her in front; it wheezed from the roof, and the very shed in which they stood swayed and shivered to its monotonous song. "Six and sixpence a week" was working into every fiber of her being. She had been born to it, was living it, and it seemed that the very wheels of eternity were grinding out her destiny to its roar and its crash, and its terrible regular throb and swing.

She grew still more sick, and vomited; so one of the women took her by the hand and led her down the narrow rickety wooden stair out across the dirt "bing" into the pure air. In a quarter of an hour she brought her back almost well, except for the pain in her head.

"Where the hell hae ye been, Mag?" wheezed the old gaffer, addressing the woman with irritated authority.

"Awa' an' boil yer can, auld belly-crawler," was the elegant response, as she bent to her work, taking as little notice of him as if he were a piece of coal.

"Ye're awa' faur owre much," he returned. This was an allusion to clandestine meetings which were sometimes arranged between some of the men in authority—"penny gaffers," as they were called—and some of the girls who took their fancy.

After all, gaffers had certain powers of advancement, and could increase wages to those who found favor in their eyes, to the extent of a penny or twopence per day, and justified it by representing that these girls were value for it, because they were better workers. Again, matters were always easier to these girls of easy virtue, for they got better jobs, and could even flout the authority of lesser gaffers, if their relations with the higher ones were as indicated.

Mag replied with a coarse jest, and the others laughed roughly, and Mysie and Robert, not understanding, wondered why the old man got angry.

Thus the day wore on, men and women cursed while familiarities took place which were barely hidden from the children. Talk was coarse and obscenely suggestive, and the whole atmosphere was brutalizing. Long, however, before the day was ended, Robert and Mysie were feeling as if every bone in their little bodies would break.

"Just take anither wee rest, Mysie," said Robert. "I'll keep pickin' as hard as I can, an' ye'll no' be sae muckle missed."

"Oh, I'll hae to keep on, too," she replied, almost despairingly, with a hint of tears in her voice. "Ye mind I promised to work hard, an' ye said I was a guid worker, too. If I dinna' keep on I micht only get a shillin' a day."

"But I'll pick as much as the twa o' us can do," pursued Robert, with persuasive voice. "I'll gang harder, until ye can get a wee rest."

So Mysie, in sheer exhaustion, stopped for a little, and the dizzy feeling was soon gone again. Yet the horrible pain in the back troubled them all day, and the dizziness returned frequently, but the others assured them that they'd soon get used to it. Their hands were cut, bruised and dirty, and poor little Mysie felt often that she would like to cry, but "six and sixpence a week" kept time in her heart to all her troubles, and seemed to drive her onward with relentless force.

With rough kindness the women encouraged the two children, and did much to make their lot easier. But it was a trying day—a hard, heartbreaking day, a day of tears and pains and discouragement, a horrible Gethsemane of sweat and agony, whose memory not even "six and sixpence a week" would ever eradicate from their minds, though it made the day bearable.

The great wheels groaned and swished like the imprisoned monster of Robert's imaginings, and at last came to a halt at the end of the shift; but in the pattern which they had that day woven into the web of industry, there were two bright threads—threads of great beauty and high worth—threads which the very gods seemed proud of seeing there, twisted and twined, and lending color of richest hue to the whole design—threads of glorious fiber and rare quality, which sparkled and shone like the neck of a pigeon in the sunshine. These threads in the web of industry, which had shone that day for the first time, were the lives of two little children.



CHAPTER VIII

THE MANTLE OF MANHOOD

Months passed, and Robert still worked on the pithead. Much of the novelty had passed, and he was accustomed to the noise and clamor, though he never lost the feeling that he was working with, or, indeed, was part of, some giant monster, imprisoned and harnessed, it is true, but capable of titanic labors and fall of unexpectedness. It was ever-present, implacable and sinister, yet so long as its fetters held, easily controlled.

The warm weather had come, and the lure of the moors called to him at his work. Away out over there—somewhere—there were strange wonders awaiting him. He watched the trains, long, fast, and so inevitable-looking, rushing across the moor about a mile and a half from where he worked, and often, he thought that perhaps some day one of those flying monsters would bear him away from Lowwood across the moors into the Big City. What was a city like? And the sea? How big would it be? It was a staggering thought to imagine a stretch of water that ended on the sky-line—no land to be seen on the other side! What a wonderful world it must be!

But a touch of bitterness was creeping into his character, and for this his mother's teaching was responsible. Nellie was always jealous of the welfare of the working class, and was ever vigilant as to its interests. She did not know how matters could be rectified, but she did know that she and her like suffered unnecessarily.

"There's no reason," she would say, "for decent folk bein' in poverty. Look at the conditions that puir folk live in!"

"Hoot ay! Nellie, but we canna' help it," a neighbor would reply. "It's no' for us to be better."

"What way is it no'?" she would demand indignantly. "Do you think we couldna' be better folk if we had no poverty?"

"Ay, but the like o' us ken no better, an' it wadna' do if we had mair. We micht waste it," and the tone of resignation always maddened her to greater wrath.

"There's mair wasted on fancy fal-lals among the gentry than wad keep many a braw family goin'. Look at the hooses we live in; the gentry wadna' keep their dogs in them. The auld Earl has better stables for his horses than the hooses puir folk live in!"

"That's maybe a' richt, Nellie, but you maun mind that we're no' gentry. We havena' been brocht up to anything else. Somebody has got to work, an' we canna' help it," and the fatalistic resignation but added fuel to her anger.

"Ay, we could help it fine, if we'd only try it. It's no' richt that folk should hae to slave a' their days, an' be always in hardships, while ither folk who work nane hae the best o' everything. I want a decent hoose to live in; I want to see my man hae some leisure, an' my weans hae a chance in life for something better than just work and trouble," and her voice quivering with anger at the wrongs inflicted upon her, she would rattle away on her favorite topic.

"There you go again. You are aye herp, herpin' at the big folk, or aboot the union. I wonder you never turn tired, woman," the reply would come, for sometimes these women were unable to understand her at all.

"I'll never turn tired o' that," she would reply. "If only the men wad keep thegither an' no' be divided, they'd soon let the big folk see wha' was the maist importance to the country. Do you think onybody ever made a lot o' money by their ain work? My man an' your man hae wrocht hard a' their days. They've never wasted ony o' their hard-earned money, an' yet they hae naething."

"No, because it takes it a' to keep us," would be the reply, as if that were a conclusive answer, difficult to counter.

"Well, how do ye think other folk mak' a fortune? Do ye think they work harder than your man does? No! It's because our men work so hard that other folk get it aff their labor. Do they live a better life than your man or mine? They waste mair in yae day, whiles, than wad keep your family or mine for a whole year. Is it because they are honester than us? No. You ken fine your man or yoursel' wadna' hae the name o' stealin'. But they steal every day o' their lives, only they ca' it business. That's the difference. It's business wi' them, but it wad be dishonest on oor pairt. Awa', woman! It's disgraceful to think aboot. Naebody should eat wha disna work, an' I dinna care wha hears me say it," and the flashing eyes and the indignant voice gave token of her righteous wrath.

"That's a' richt, Nellie, but it has aye been, an' I doot it'll aye be. We just canna help it," would come the reply.

"I tell you it's everybody's duty to work for better times. We've no richt to allow the things that gang on. There's nae guid in poverty and disease an' ill-health, an' we should a' try to change it; and we could if only you'd get some sense into your held, an' no' stand and speak as if you felt that God meant it."

"Ay, Nellie, that's a' richt, but it's the Lord's will, an' we maun put up wi' it."

At this juncture Mrs. Sinclair's patience would become exhausted, and she would flare up, while the neighbor would suddenly break off the discussion and go off home.

Her children were taught that it was a disgrace not to resent a wrong, and Robert, though only a boy, was always sturdily standing up against the things he considered wrong at the pit-head.

Robert dreamed and built his future castles. There was great work ahead to do. He never mentioned his longings and visions to anyone, yet Mysie's sweet, shy face was creeping into them always, and already he was conscious of something in her that thrilled him. He was awkward, and his speech did not come readily, in her presence. Whole days he dreamed, only waking up to find it was "knocking-off" time. There was an hour's break in the middle of the day, and then he wandered out on the moor. Its silence soothed him, and he would lie and dream among the rough yellow grass and the hard tough heather, bathing his soul in the brooding quietness of it all.

He was now twelve years of age, and longing to get at work down the pit. It was for him the advent of manhood, and represented the beginning of his real work.

One night in the late summer, after the pit had knocked off and the "day-shift" was returning home, he and Mysie were walking as usual behind the women. He had meant to tell her the great news all day, but somehow she was so different now, and besides a man should always keep something to himself as long as possible. It showed strength, he thought.

"I'm goin' doon the pit the morn, Mysie," he said, now that he had come to the point of telling her, and speaking as casually as he could.

"Oh, are you?" said Mysie, and stopped, disappointingly, and remained silent.

"Ay. I'm twelve now, you ken, an' I can get into the pit," feeling a bit nettled that she was silent in the face of such a happening.

"Oh!" and again Mysie stopped.

"My faither has got a place a week syne that'll fit John an' him an' me. The three o' us are a' goin' to work thegither. If he could have gotten yin sooner, I'd hae been doon a month syne. But he's aye been waitin' to get a place that wad suit us a'," he said, volunteering this information to see if it would loosen her tongue to express the regret he wanted her to speak.

But again Mysie did not answer. She only hung her head and did not look up with any interest in his news.

"It's aboot time I was in the pit now, ye ken. You used to get doon the pit at ten. My faither was in it when he was nine, but you're no' allowed to gang doon now till you are twelve year auld. I'm going to draw aff my faither and John," and he was feeling more and more exasperated at her continued silence.

Yet still Mysie did not speak, and merely nodded to this further enlightenment.

"I've never telt onybody except yoursel'," he said, hurt at her seeming want of interest, and feeling that what he was going to say was less manly than he intended it to be. Indeed he was aware that it was decidedly childish of him to say it, but, like many wiser and older, he could not keep his dignity, and took pleasure in hurting her; for there is a pleasure sometimes in hurting a loved one, because they are loved, and will not speak the things one wants them to say, which if said might add to one's vanity and sense of importance. "So ye'll just be by yoursel' the morn, unless they put Dicky Tamson owre aside you," he added viciously.

"I dinna want Dicky Tamson aside me," she said with some heat, and a hint of anxiety in her voice, which pleased him a little. "He's an impudent thing," and again she relapsed into silence, just when he thought his pleasure was going to be complete.

"Oh, they'll maybe put Aggie Lowrieson on your side o' the table," he volunteered, glad that at last she had shown some feeling.

"They can keep Aggie Lowrieson too," she said shortly. "I dinna' want her. I'll get on fine mysel'," and she said no more.

He talked of his new venture all the way home, and he felt more and more hurt because she did not reply as eagerly and volubly as he wished.

"It'll be great goin' doon the pit," he said, again feeling that he was going to be priggish. "Pickin' stanes is a' guid enough for a laddie for a wee while, an' for women, but you're the better to gang into the pit when you're the age. You get mair money for it. Of course, it's hard work, but I'll be earnin' as much as twa shillin's a day in the pit, and that'll be twelve shillin's a week."

But Mysie could not be drawn to look at his rosy prospects, and still kept silent, so that the last few hundred yards were covered in silence. At the end of the row where they always parted, he could not resist adding a thrust to his usual "good-night."

"Guid nicht then, Mysie. I thocht may be ye'd be vexed, seem' that Dickie Tamson can torment you as muckle as he likes now." And so he went home feeling that Mysie didn't care much.

But Mysie had a sore heart that night. She knew only too well that Dick Tamson would torment her, and would be egged on by the other women to kiss and tease her, and they would laugh at it all. Robert had always been her champion, and kept Dick, who was a mischievous boy, at a distance. She was sorry that Robert was going down the pit, and it seemed to her that she'd rather go to service now. The harsh clamor and the dirty disagreeable work were bearable before, but it would not be the same with Robert away. She knew that she would miss him very much. She thought long of it when she lay down in her bed that night. He had no right to think that she was not vexed, and she cried quietly beneath the blankets.

"Here's Mysie greetin'," cried her little brother, who lay beside her. "Mither, Mysie's greetin'."

"What's wrang wi' her?" called the mother anxiously from the other bed.

"I dinna' ken," answered the boy, "she'll no' tell me."

"What is't that's wrang with you, Mysie?" again called the mother more sharply.

"I've a sore tooth," she answered, glad to get any excuse, and lying with promptitude.

"Well, hap the blankets owre your head," the mother advised, "and it'll soon be better. Dinna' greet, like a woman."

But Mysie still continued to cry softly, choking back the sobs, and keeping her face to the wall, so as not to disturb the other sleeper beside her—cried for a long hour, until exhaustion overcame her, and at last she fell asleep, her last thought being that Robert had no right to misjudge her so.

Robert, on the other hand, as is the prerogative of the man, soon forgot all about his disappointment at Mysie's seeming want of interest in his affairs, and was busy with his preparations for the next day.

He had a lamp to buy, for Lowwood was an open-light pit, and was soon busy on the instructions of his father learning the art of "putting in a wick" to the exact thickness, testing his tea flask, and doing all the little things that count in preparing for the first descent into a coal mine. He was very much excited over it all, and babbled all the evening, asking questions regarding the work he would be called upon to do, and generally boring his father with his talk.

But his father understood it all, and was patient with him, answering his enquiries and advising him on many things, until latterly he pleaded for a "wink o' peace," and told the boy "for any sake" to be quiet.

Geordie Sinclair knew that this enthusiasm would soon evaporate. Only too well he knew the stages of disappointment which the boy would experience, and for this reason he was kindly with him.

He was now looking forward with better prospects. Robert was the second boy now started, and already matters were somewhat easier; but he shuddered to think of the lot of the man who was battling away unaided, with four or five children to support, and depending on a meager three and sixpence or four shillings of a daily wage to keep the house together. For himself the prospect was now better, and in looking back he realized what a terrible time it had been—especially for his wife; for hers was the more difficult task in laying out the scanty wages he earned.

It never had seemed to strike him with such force before, even when matters were at their worst, what it had meant to her; and as he looked at her, sitting knitting at the opposite side of the fire, he was filled with compassion for her, and a new beauty seemed to be upon her lined face, and in the firm set of her mouth.

Thus he sat reviewing all the terrible struggle, when she had slaved to keep him and the children, during the time he was injured, and a pang shot through, as the conviction came to him, that perhaps he had not been as helpful as he might have been to her, when a little praise even might have made it easier for her.

Impulsively he rose to his feet and crossed to where she sat, taking her in his arms and kissing her.

"Losh, Geordie, what's wrong with you!" she enquired, looking up with a pleased sparkle in her eyes, for he was usually very undemonstrative.

"Oh, just this, Nellie," he said with embarrassment in every feature of his face, "I've been thinking over things, and I feel that I havena' given you encouragement as I should have done, for all that you have done for me and the bairns."

"You fair took my breath away," said Nellie with a pleased little laugh; then, as she looked at his glowing face, something came into her throat, and the tears started.

"There now, lassie," he said, again gathering her into his arms, and kissing her tenderly, "it's all past now, my lass, and you'll get it easier from this time forth. God knows, Nellie, you are worth all that I can ever do for you to help," and the happy tears fell from her eyes, as she patted his rough, hairy cheek, and fondled him again, as she had done in their courting days.

"I'll wash the floor for you, lass," he said impulsively, almost beside himself with happiness, as he realized that this little act of his had made them both so happy. "You've been in the washing tub all day, and I ken you'll be scrubbin' on the floor first thing in the morning, as soon as we are away to the pit. But I'll do it for you the nicht. The bairns are all in bed, and I'll no' be long. You sit an' tak' a rest," and he was off for the pail and a scrubbing brush, and was back at the fireside pouring water from the kettle before his wife realized it.

"Oh, never mind, Geordie," she said remonstratingly, "I'll do it myself in the morning. You've had your own work to do in the pit, an' you need all the rest you can get."

"No," he said decisively. "You sit doon, lass. I'll no' be lang. Just you sing a bit sang to me, just as you used to sing, Nellie, an' I'll wash out the floor," and he was soon on his knees, scrubbing away as if it were a daily occurrence with him. And Nellie, pleased and happy beyond expression, sat in the big chair by the fireside and sang his favorite ballad, "Kirkconnel Lea."

Oh, that I were where Helen lies, For nicht and day on me she cries, Oh, that I were where Helen lies On fair Kirkconnel Lea.

Oh, Helen fair, beyond compare, I'll mak' a garland o' your hair Shall bind my heart for evermair Until the day I dee.

And Nellie Sinclair never in all her life sang that song so well as she did that night; and she never sang it again. Robert, who was lying in the room, heard her glorious voice, and marveled at the complete mastery she showed over the plaintive old tune. It was as if her very soul reveled in it, as the notes rose and fell; and it stirred the boy into tremendous emotional excitement, as the tragedy was unfolded in the beautiful words and the sadness of the old tune.

It was a memorable night of quiet happiness for all, and there was so much of tragedy lying behind it unseen and unknown. But so often are the sweetest moments of life followed by its sadness and its sorrow.



CHAPTER IX

THE ACCIDENT

Next morning at five o'clock Robert leapt from his bed, full of importance at the prospect of going down the pit. Stripping off his sleeping shirt, he chattered as he donned the pit clothes. The blue plaid working-shirt which his mother had bought for him felt rough to his tender skin, but unpleasant as it was, he donned it with a sense of bigness. Then the rough moleskin trousers were put on and fastened with a belt round the waist, and a pair of leg-strings at the knees. The bundles of clothes, separately arranged the night before, had got mixed somewhat in Robert's eagerness to dress, with the result that when his brother John rose, with eyes half shut, and reached for his stockings, he found those of Robert instead lying upon his bundle.

"Gie's my socks," he ordered grumpily, flinging Robert's socks into the far corner of the kitchen. "You've on the wrong drawers too. Can ye no' look what you're doin'?" and the drawers followed the socks, while Robert looked at his mother with eyes of wonderment.

"Tak' aff his socks, Rob," she said, "he's a thrawn, ill-natured cat, that, in the mornin'."

"Well, he should look what he's doin' an' no' put on other folk's claes," and immediately the others burst out laughing, for this advocate of "watchin' what he was doin'" had in his half sleepy condition failed to see that he had lifted his jacket and had rammed his leg down the sleeve in his hurry and anger.

"Noo, that'll do," said Geordie, as John flung the jacket at Robert, because he laughed. "That'll do noo, or I'll come alang yer jaw," and thus admonished John was at once silent.

Robert soon had his toilet completed, however, even to the old cap on his head, upon which sat the little oil-lamp, which he handled and cleaned and wiped with his fingers to keep it bright and shiny, whilst all the time he kept chattering.

"For ony sake, laddie, hand your tongue," said Geordie at last, as he drew in his chair to the table to start upon the frugal breakfast of bread and butter and tea. "Your tongue's never lain since you got up."

Robert, thereupon, sat down in silence at the table, though there were a hundred different things he wanted to ask about the pit. He could not understand why everyone felt and looked so sleepy, nor divine the cause of the irritable look upon each face, which in the dim light of the paraffin lamp gave a forbidding atmosphere to the home at this time of the day.

At last, however, the meal was over, and when Geordie had lit his pit lamp and stuck his pipe in his mouth, all three started off with a curt "Good morning" to Mrs. Sinclair, who looked after her boys with a smile which chased away the previous irritability from her face.

Arrived at the pit-head, they found a number of miners there squatting on their "hunkers," waiting the time for descending the shaft. As each newcomer came forward, the man who arrived immediately before him called out: "I'm last." By this means—"crying the benns,"—as it was called—the order of descent was regulated on the principle of "First come, first served." Much chaffing was leveled at little Robert by some of the younger men regarding his work and the things which would have to be done by and to him that day.

At last came the all important moment, and Robert, his father and two men stepped on to the cage. After the signal was given, it seemed to the boy as if heaven and earth were passing away in the sudden sheer drop, as the cage plunged down into the yawning hole, out of which came evil smells and shadows cast from the flickering lamps upon the heads of the miners. The rattling of the cage sent a shiver of fear through Robert, and with that first sudden plunge he felt as if his heart were going to leap out of his mouth. But by the time he reached the "bottom," he had consoled and encouraged himself with the thought that these things were all in the first day's experience of all miners.

That morning Robert Sinclair was initiated into the art of "drawing" by his brother John. The road was fairly level, to push the loaded "tubs," thus leaving his father to be helped with the pick at the coal "face." After an hour or two, Robert, though getting fairly well acquainted with the work, was feeling tired. The strange damp smell, which had greeted his nostrils when the cage began to descend with him that morning, was still strong, though not so overpowering as it had been at first. The subtle shifting shadows cast from his little lamp were becoming familiar, and his nervousness was not now so pronounced, though he was still easily startled if anything unusual took place. The sound of the first shot in the pit nearly frightened him out of his wits, and he listened nervously to every dull report with a strange uneasiness. About one o'clock his father called to him.

"Dinna tak' that hutch oot the noo, Robert. Just let it staun', an' sit doon an' tak' yir piece. Ye'll be hungry, an' John an' me will be out the noo if we had this shot stemmed."

"A' richt," cheerfully replied the boy, withdrawing down to the end of the road, where his clothes hung upon a tree, and taking his bread from one of his pockets, he sat down tired and hungry to await his father and John.

Geordie's "place" was being worked over the old workings of another mine which had exhausted most of the coal of a lower seam many years previously, except for the "stoops" or pillars, which had been left in. This was supposed to be the barrier beyond which Rundell's lease did not go. It would be too dangerous to work the upper seam with the ground hollow underneath, so the "places" had all been stopped as they came up, with the exception of Geordie Sinclair's. Sinclair was puzzled at this, and he often wondered why his place had not been stopped with the others. He was more uneasy, too, when he began to find large cracks or fissures in the metals, and spoke of this to Andrew Marshall a few nights before; but he did not like to seem to make too much of it, and the matter was passed over, till the day before, when Walker visited the place for a few minutes, when Geordie accosted him.

"What way is my place going on?" he asked, and was told that it was a corner in the barrier, which extended for one hundred yards and must go on for that distance, and that there was really no danger, as the ground below was solid.

So, busily working away, and finding still more rents in the floor and roof, Sinclair thought it must just be as he had seen it in other places of a like kind, the weight of the upper metals which were breaking over the solid ground by reason of the hollow beneath between the stoops, though in this case it did not amount to much as yet.

The coal was easy to get; he had one boy "forrit to the pick," with Robert as "drawer," and his prospects seemed good, he thought, as he was busily preparing a shot, ramming in the powder, and "stemming" up the hole. He was busy ramming the powder in the prepared hole, while the elder boy prepared clay, with which to stem or seal it up after the powder had been pressed back, leaving only the fuse protruding.

"Here's a tree cracking," said the boy, drawing his father's attention to a breaking prop; but as this is a common occurrence in all mines where there is extra weight after development, Geordie thought nothing of it at the time, intending merely, before he lighted his shot, to put in a fresh prop.

"Bring in another prop, sonny," he said to the boy, "and I'll put it in when I have stemmed this hole," and the boy turned to obey his order.

But suddenly a low crackling sound, caused by the breaking of more props, was heard, then a roar and a crash as of thunder, followed by a long rumbling noise, which left not a moment for the two trapped human beings to stir even a limb or utter a cry. The immensity of the fall created a wind, which put out little Robert's lamp; the great rumbling noise filled him with a dreadful fear, and he sprang involuntarily to his feet.

"Faither! Faither!" he called, terror in his voice and anxiety in his little heart, but there was no reassuring answer. He felt his breathing getting difficult; the air was thick with dust and heavy with the smell of rotting wood and damp decaying matter.

"Faither! Faither!" he called again louder in his agony, darting forward, thinking to go to their assistance, and knocking his head against a boulder.

"John! Faither! I'm feart," and he began to cry. Afraid to move, unable to see, he staggered from one side to another, bruising his face and arms against the jagged sides, the blood already streaming from his bruises, and his heart frantic with fear.

"Oh, faither! faither! Where are ye?" and he began to crawl up the incline, in desperate fear, while still the rumbling and crashing went on in long rolling thunder. "Oh! oh!" he moaned, now almost mad with terror. "Faither! John! Where are ye! Oh! oh!" and he fell back stunned by striking his head against a low part of the roof.

Again he scrambled to his feet, certain now that some disaster had happened, since there was no response to his appeals, and again he was knocked to the ground by striking his head against the side of the roadway. But always he rose again, frantically dashing from side to side, as a caged lark, when first caught, dashes itself against the bars of its prison; until finally, stunned beyond recovery, he lay in a semi-conscious condition, helpless and inert, his bruises smarting but unfelt, and the blood oozing from his nose and mouth.

Andrew Marshall, working about fifty yards away, heard the roar and the crash, and the boy's cries, and at once ran to Geordie's place. In his haste and anxiety he nearly stumbled over the prostrate boy, who lay unconscious in the roadway.

"Good God! What has happened?" he exclaimed, anxiously bending over the boy and raising him up, then dashing some cold tea from Robert's flask upon him, and forcing some between his lips. Then, when the boy showed signs of recovery, he plied him with anxious questions.

"Where's yir faither? What's wrang?" But the boy only clung to him in wild terror, and nothing connected could be got from him.

Andrew lighted the boy's lamp and tore up the brae, leaving Robert shrieking in nervous fright.

"Great Christ! It has fa'en in!" he cried, when he had got as far as he could go. "Geordie! Geordie! Are ye in there?" and as no answer came, he began tearing at the great blocks of stone, flinging them like pebbles in his desperation, until another warning rumble drove him back. Immediately he realized how helpless he was alone, so he went back to the boy and hurried him down the brae and out to where some other men were at work. A few hasty words, and Robert was passed on, and Andrew went back with the men, only to find how hopeless it all was; for occasionally huge falls continued to come away, and it seemed useless to attempt anything till more help was procured.

Andrew hurried off to the bottom and overtook Robert, sending back others to help, and he ascended the shaft and was off to break the news to Mrs. Sinclair; after which he returned to the pit, determined to get out all that remained of Geordie and the boy John.



CHAPTER X

HEROES OF THE UNDERWORLD

Matters were now much easier and more comfortable for Geordie Sinclair and his wife. They had long since added another apartment to their house, and the "room" was the special pride of Nellie, who was gradually "getting a bit thing for it" just as her means permitted. They had two beds in each apartment, and the room was furnished. Mrs. Sinclair had long set her mind upon a "chest of drawers," and now that that particular piece of furniture stood proudly in her room, much of her day was given to polishing it and the half-dozen stuffed bottomed chairs, which were the envy of every housewife in the village. A large oval mirror stood upon the top of the drawers, and was draped with a piece of cheap curtain cloth, bleached to the whiteness of new fallen snow.

This mirror was a much-prized possession, for no other like it had ever been known in the village. The floor was covered with oilcloth, and a sheepskin rug lay upon the hearthstone, while white starched curtains draped the window. The getting of the waxcloth had been a wonderful event, and dozens of women had come from all over the village to stand in gaping admiration of its beauty. This was always where Mrs. Sinclair felt a thrill of great pride.

"Ye see," she would explain, "it's awfu' easy to wash, and a bit wipe owre wi' soap an' watter is a' it needs."

"My, how weel aff ye are!" one woman would exclaim, "I'm telt that ye maunna use a scrubbin' brush on't, or the pattern will rub off."

"Oh, ay," Nellie would laugh with a hint of superior wisdom in it. "Ye'll soon waste it gin ye took a scrubber to it. An' ye maunna use owre hot water to it either," she would add.

"Oh my!" would come in genuine surprise. "Do you tell me that. Eh, but you're the weel-aff woman now, to hae a room like that, an' rale waxcloth on the floor!"

"I thocht it was a fine, cheerie bit thing," Nellie would say. "It mak's the hoose ever so much mair heartsome."

"So it is," would come the reply. "It's a fine, but cheerie thing. You're a rale weel-aff woman, I can tell ye," and the woman would go home to dream of one day having a room like Mrs. Sinclair's, and to tell her neighbors of the great "grandeur" that the Sinclair's possessed, whilst Nellie would set to, and rub and polish those drawers and that mirror, and the stuff-bottomed chairs till they shone like the sun upon a moorland tarn, and she herself felt like dropping from sheer exhaustion.

She even took to telling the neighbors sometimes, when they came on those visits that "working folk should a' hae coal-houses, for coal kept ablow the beds makes an awfu' mess o' the ticks."

"Oh, weel," would be the reply, made with the usual sigh of resignation, "I hae had a house a gey lang while now, an' I dinna think I've ever wanted ony sic newfangled things as that."

"That's what's wrang," Mrs. Sinclair would reply. "We dinna want them. If we did, we'd soon get them. What way would the gentry hae a' thae things, an' us hae nane?"

"That's a' richt, Nellie," would be the reply. "We wadna ken what to do wi' what the gentry has got. They're rich an' can afford it, an' forby they need them an' we don't. I think I'm fine as I am."

"Fine as ye are!" with bitter scorn in her tones. "Ye'll never be fine wi' a mind like that."

"Wheesht, woman Nellie! You're no feart. Dinna talk like that. We micht a' be strucken doon dead!"

This usually ended the discussion, for Scots people generally—and the workers especially—are always on very intimate terms with the Deity, and know the pains and penalties of too intimate allusions to His power.

Yet, with all her discontent, Mrs. Sinclair found life very much easier than it had been, for now that she had some of the boys started to work, she had made her house "respectable," and added many little comforts, besides having a "bit pound or twa lyin' in the store." So she looked ahead with more hope and a more serene heart. Her children were well-fed and clothed, and the old days of hunger and struggling were over, she thought. Geordie was now taking a day off in the middle of the week to rest, as there was no need for him to slave and toil every day as he had done in the past. After all it would only be a very few years till he would no longer be able to work at all.

Rosy looked the future then, as Mrs. Sinclair, on the day on which young Robert went down the pit, showed off her room "grandeur" to an admiring neighbor.

"My, what braw paper ye hae, Nellie. Wha put it on for ye? Was it yirsel'?" asked the visitor with breath bated in admiration.

"Ay, it was that. I just got the chance o' the bargain, an' I thocht I'd tak' it," she replied, with subdued pride.

"Oh, my! it's awful braw, an' sae weel matched too! I never saw anything sae well done. You're rale weel-off, do ye ken."

"My God! What's wrang?" cried Nellie suddenly, gazing from the window with blanched cheeks.

"I doot there's been an accident. I heard the bell gang for men three tows a' rinnin', an' I see a lot o' men comin' up the brae. I doot the pit's lowsed."

Both of them hurried to the door, and found that already a crowd of women had flocked to the end of the row, and were standing waiting anxiously on the men, in order to learn what had happened. They did not talk, but gazed down the hill, each heart anxious to know if the unfortunate one belonged to her. The sickening fear which grips the heart of every miner's wife, when she sees that procession from the pit before the proper quitting hour, lay heavy upon each one. The white drawn faces, the set firm lips, and the deep troubled breathing told how much the women were moved.

Wives and mothers, sweethearts and sisters, oh, what a hell of torture they suffered in those few tense moments whilst waiting for the news, which, though to a great extent it may relieve many, must break at least one heart. No man, having once seen this, ever wants to witness it again. Concentrated hell and torture with every moment, stabbing and pulling at each heart and then—then the sad, mournful face of Andrew Marshall as he steps forward slowly past Mag Robertson, past Jean Fleming, past Jenny Maitland, past them all, and at last putting a kindly hand on the shoulder of Nellie Sinclair, he says, with a catch in his voice that would break a heart of granite: "Come awa' hame, Nellie. Come awa' hame. Ye'll need to bear up."

Then it is whispered round: "It's Geordie Sinclair killed wi' a fa'." And hope has died, and dreams have fled, and the world will never again look bonnie and fresh and sweet and full of happiness, nor the blood dance so joyously, nor the eyes ever again sparkle with the same soft loving glance.

No more happy evenings, such as the night before had been, when the glamor and romance of courtship days had come back, and they had found a new beauty of love and the glory of life, in the easier circumstances and rosy hopes ahead.

Misery and suffering, and the long keen pain, the sad cheerless prospect, and over all the empty life and the broken heart.

Lowwood was plunged into gloom when the news of the accident was known, and every heart went out in sympathy to Nellie Sinclair and her young family. It was indeed a terrible blow to lose at one and the same time her husband and her eldest boy.

It was two days later, and the bodies had not yet been recovered. Men toiled night and day, working as only miners fighting for life can work, risking life among the continually falling debris to recover all that remained of their comrades.

"It couldna ha'e been worse," said Jenny Maitland sorrowfully to her next door neighbor. "It's an awfu' blow."

"Ay," rejoined her neighbor, applying the corner of her apron to her eyes. "It mak's it worse them no' bein' gotten yet. I think I'd gae wrang in the mind if that happened to our yin," and then, completely overcome, she sat down on the doorstep and sobbed in real sorrow.

"I suppose it's an awfu' big fall. He had been workin' on the top o' some auld workin's, an' I suppose they wadna ken, an' it fell in. It maun hae been an awfu' trial for wee Rob, poor wee man. His first day in the pit, an' his father an' brither killed afore his een!"

"Hoo has Nellie taken it, Jenny?" enquired the neighbor, after a little, when her sobs had subsided.

"Ye'd break yir heart if ye could see her," replied Jenny sorrowfully. "I gaed owre when oor yin gaed out wi' the pieces—he cam' hame at fower o'clock to get mair pieces, for they're goin' to work on to ten the nicht—an' I never saw onything sae sad-lookin' as her face. She has never cried the least thing yet. Never a tear has come frae her, but she'd be better if she could greet."

"Do ye tell me that! Puir Nellie! It's an awfu' hand fu' she is left wi', too," commented the neighbor.

"Ay, she jist looks at ye sae sad-like wi' her big black een; never a word nor a tear, but just stares, an' she's that thin an' white lookin'. I look for her breakin' doon a'thegither, an' when she does I wadna like to see her. The bits o' weans gang aboot the hoose wonderin' at her, and she looks to them too, but ye'd think she'd nae interest in onything. She jist looks out o' the window an' doon the brae to the pit. It's awesome to look at her."

"Oh, puir body!" and again the kindly neighbor was overcome, and Jenny joined her tears too in silent sympathy.

"The minister was owre last nicht," said Jenny after a little, "but I dinna think she ever spoke to him. He cam' in just when I was comin' oot, an' I dinna like to leave her. He talked away a wee while an' then put up a prayer; but there was nae consolation in't for onybody. I think the sicht o' her face maun hae been too muckle for him. He didna stay very lang, and gaed awa' saying he'd come back again. Nellie has everything ready—the bed a' made, wi' clean sheets an' blankets on them—an' there she stan's always at that window, lookin' doon the brae. It would break yer heart to see her, Leezie, she's that vexed lookin'." So they wept and sorrowed together.

* * * * *

Down in the pit, Andrew Marshall, Matthew Maitland, Peter Pegg, and a number of others toiled like giants possessed. Their naked bodies streamed with sweat and glistened in the light of their lamps. Timber was placed in position, and driven tight with desperation in every blow from their hammers; blocks of rock were tossed aside, and smashed into fragments, ere being filled into the tubs which were ever waiting ready to convey the debris to the pit-head. Few words were spoken, except when a warning shout was given, when some loose rubble poured down from the great gaping cavern in the roof, and then men jumped and sprang to safety with the agility of desperation, to wait till the rumbling had ceased, only to leap back again into the yawning hell, tearing at the stones, and trying to work their way into the place where they knew Geordie and the boy were lying. It seemed impossible that human efforts would ever be able to clear that mountain away.

"Wait a minute, callans," said Andrew, almost dropping with exhaustion, and drawing his hands across his eyes to wipe the sweat from them, whilst he "hunkered" down, his back against a broken tree which stood jutting out from the building, supporting a broken "baton" (cross-tree), which bent down in the center, making the roadway low and unsafe. "Let us tak a minute's thocht, and see if we can get a way o' chokin' up that stuff fear fallin' doon. We'll never get it redd up goin' like this."

So they sat down, tired but still desperate, to listen to each one suggesting a way of stopping the debris from continuing to fall. Baffled and at their wits' end, they could think of nothing.

At last in came a number of other men to relieve them—men equally anxious and desperate as they, burning with the desire to get to grips with this calamity which had come upon two of their comrades.

"I'm no' goin' hame," said Andrew decisively, "till I see Geordie out." He was almost dropping with exhaustion, but he could not think of leaving his dead friend in there. So at last it was agreed that he should stay, and at least give the benefit of his advice. The others, more tired than ever they had been before in all their experience of the mines, where hard work is the rule, trudged wearily home, to be met by the waiting groups of women and children, who at all times stood at the corners of the village eagerly asking for news, "If they'd been gotten yet."

After a few minutes' deliberation a plan was decided on by Andrew and his comrades of trying to choke up the hole in the roof with timber, and the work went on desperately, silently, heroically. Time and again their efforts were baffled by new falls, but always the same persistent eager spirit drove them back to their toil. So they worked, risking and daring things of which no man who never saw a like calamity has any conception, and which would have appalled themselves at any other time.

"Look out, boys," called Tam Donaldson, springing back to the road as the warning noise again began, and great masses of rock came hurtling down, filling the place with dust and noise.

A cry of pain and horror broke upon them as they ran, and brought them back while the crumbling mass was still falling.

"Great God! It's wee Jamie Allan," roared one man above the din. "He's catched by the leg! Here, boys, hurry up! Try an' get this block broken afore ony mair comes doon. God Almichty! Are we a' goin' to be buried thegither? This bit, boys! Quick!" And they tore at the great masses of stone, the sweat streaming from every pore of their bodies, cursing their impotence as they smashed with big hammers the rock which lay upon Jamie's leg.

"Mind yersel's, laddies!" warned Jamie, as again the trickling noise began, heralding another fall. "Leave me, for God's sake, an' get back!" But not one heeded. Desperate and strong with the strength of giants, they toiled on, the sight of suffering so manifest in Jamie's eyes, as he strove not to cry out, spurring them onward.

"Ye'll never lift that bit, Tam," said Jamie, as four of them tore at the block which lay upon his leg. "It's faur too big. Take an ax an' hack the leg off. I doot it'll be wasted anyway. Oh, dear! Oh, dear!" And unable longer to endure the pain, he roared aloud in agony, and tore at the stone himself with his fingers, like an imprisoned beast in a trap.

"Here, boys, quick!" cried Andrew, getting his long pinch in below the stone, upon a fine leverage. "Put yir weight on this, Tam, an' Jock an' Sanny'll try an' pull Jamie out. Hurry up, for she's working for anither collapse. A'thegither!" and so they tugged and tore, and strained and pulled, while the roars of the imprisoned man were deafening.

"A'thegither again, laddies!" encouraged Andrew. "This time!" and with a tremendous effort the stone gave way, and Jamie was pulled clear, his leg a crushed mass of pulpy blood and shattered bones. They dragged him back clear of any further falls, and improvised a stretcher on which to carry home his now unconscious body.

"That was a hell o' a narrow shave," quietly observed Tam Donaldson, as they panted together, and tried to collect themselves. "His leg's wasted, I doot, an' will need to come off." When they had their stretcher ready, the wounded man was tenderly placed upon it, carefully covered up with the jackets of the others; whilst half-a-dozen of them carried him to the pit bottom, and finally bore him home, where the doctor was ready waiting to attend to him.

Andrew and a few others worked away, and at last managed to get the running sore in the roof choked up with long bars of timber, and even though it continued to rumble away above them, the heavy blocks of wood held, and so allowed them to work away in comparative safety.

Peter Pegg and Matthew Maitland returned at six o'clock next morning, bringing with them another band of workers to relieve those who had worked all night, but still Andrew Marshall would not leave the scene of the disaster. He worked and rested by turns, advising and guiding the younger men, who never spared themselves. They performed mighty epics of work down there in the darkness amid the rumbling, falling roof. It was a great task they were set, but they never shirked the consequences. They never turned back. Risks were taken and accepted without a thought; tasks were eagerly jumped to, and the whole job accepted as if it were just what ordinarily they were asked to do.

Crash went the hammers; thump went the great blocks of material into the tubs, and the men quietly got away the tubs as they were filled. Night and day the great work went on, never ceasing, persistent, relentless. If one man dropped out a minute to breathe and rest when exhausted, another sprang into his place, and toiled and strove like an engine.

There was something great and inspiring even to look on at those mighty efforts—something exhilarating and elevating in the play of muscles like great long shooting serpents under the glistening skins of the men. Arms shot out, tugged and tore, jerked and wrenched, then doubled up and the muscles became knots, bulging out as if they would break through the skin, as the great blocks were lifted; and then the blocks were cast into the tub, the knots untied themselves, and slipped elastically back into their places, and the serpents were momentarily at rest until the body bent again to another block. Out and in they flew, supple and silent, quick as lightning playing in the heavens; they zig-zagged and shot this way and that, tying and untying themselves, darting out and doubling back, advancing and retiring in rhythmic action, graceful and easy, powerful and inevitable. Bending and rising, the swaying bodies gleamed and glistened with greasy dust and sweat, catching the gleams from the lamps and reflecting them in every streaming pore. Straining and tearing, the muscles, at every slightest wish, seemed to exude energy and health, glowing strength and power.

It was all so natural and apparently easy—an epic in moleskin and human flesh, with only the little glimmer of oil-lamps, which darted from side to side in a mad mazurka of toil, crossing and recrossing, swinging and halting, the flames flattening out with every heave of their owners' bodies, then abruptly being brought to the steady again. Looked at from the road-foot, it was like a carnival of fireflies engaged in trying how quickly they could dart from side to side, and cross each other's path, without coming into collision.

Who shall sing in lyrical language the exhilaration of such splendid men's work? Who shall catch that glow of strength and health, and work it into deathless song? The ring of the hammers on the stone, the dull regular thud upon the timber, the crash of breaking rock, and the strong, warm-blooded, generous-hearted men; the passionate glowing bodies, and above all, the great big heroic souls, fighting, working, striving in a hell of hunger and death, toiling till one felt they were gods instead of humans—gods of succor and power, gods of helpfulness and strength.

So the work went on hour after hour, and now their efforts were beginning to tell. No more came the rumbling, treacherous falls; but perceptibly, irresistibly was the passage gradually cleared, and the way opened up, until it seemed as if these men were literally eating their way into that rock-filled passage.

"Can ye tell me where Black Jock is a' this time?" enquired Andrew, as Peter and Matthew and he sat back the road, resting while the others worked. "Rundell has been here twa or three times, for hours at a time, but I hae never seen Walker yet."

"I hae never seen him either, an' I was hearin' that he was badly," returned Peter, and his big eye seemed to turn as if it were looking for and expecting some one to slip up behind him.

"Ay," broke in Matthew, "badly! I wadna say, but it micht be that he's badly; but maybe he's not."

"Do ye ken, boys," said Andrew quietly, taking his pipe out of his mouth, and speaking with slow deliberation, "I'm beginnin' to think Black Jock is guilty o' Geordie's death. Geordie, as we a' ken, had ay something against Walker. There was something he kent aboot the black brute that lately kept him gey quiet; for, if ye noticed, whenever Geordie went to him about anybody's complaint, the men aye won. I ken Walker hated him, an' I'm inclined to think that he has deliberately put Geordie into this place, kennin' that the lower seam had been worked out lang, lang syne. His plans wad tell him as muckle about the workin's, and I ken, at least, he's never been in Geordie's place since it was started, an' there's nae ither places drivin' up sae far as this. They're a' stoppit afore they come this length; an' forby, frae what Rundell has let drap the day, he never kent that the coal was being worked as far up as this. By ——! Peter, gin I could prove what I suspect, I'd murder the dirty brute this nicht! I would that!"

"Would Nellie no' ken, think ye, what it was that Geordie had against Black Jock that kept him sae quiet?" enquired Peter.

"I couldna' say," answered Andrew, "but some day when I get the chance I'll maybe ask her, an' if it is as I think, then there'll be rows."

"Let me ken, Andrew," broke in Matthew. "Let me ken if ever ye discover onything; an' ye can count on me sharin' the penalties o' hell alang wi' ye for the murder o' the big black brute."

"I heard," said Peter, "that he was boozin' wi' Mag Robertson and Sanny. But we'll no' be long in kennin', for ill-doin' canna hide."

* * * * *

After three frantic days of fighting against calamity, during which Andrew never left the fight except for that brief journey to tell Nellie the news, at last they came upon the crushed mass of bloody pulp and rags, smashed together so that the one could not be told from the other—father and son, a heap of broken bones and flesh and blood.... And no pen can describe accurately the scene.

The light had gone out from one woman's heart, the hope had been crushed from her life. The rainbow which had promised so much vanished. The lust and urge had gone out of eager life. Never again would the world seem fair and beautiful. Instead, all the weary fight and desperate battle with poverty and privation over again; the dull misery and the drab gray existence, and always the pain—the heavy, dragging pain of a broken life. With a woman's "Oh! my God!" the world for one heart stood still, and the blind fate of things triumphed, crushing a woman's soul in the process.



CHAPTER XI

THE STRIKE

A week had passed, and Geordie Sinclair and his boy, or at least all that could be gathered up of them, had been laid to rest.

Nellie was very ill, and was now in bed. The reaction had been too much for her. But, as Jenny Maitland had said: "She's never cried yet, an' it would hae been better gin she had. She jist looked at ye wi' her big black e'en sae vexed-like and faraway lookin', an' never spoke hardly. When they carried out the coffins, she sprang up gin she wad follow them, but was putten back to bed again. It was heart-vexin' to look at her."

Robert suffered, too. The sympathy of everyone went out to him. At night when he went to bed the whole scene was reenacted before him in all its horror. Those tense moments of tragedy had so powerfully impressed his boyish mind that he could never forget them.

At the end of the week Andrew Marshall visited them to talk over matters. A collection had been made at the pay-office by the men employed at the pit, and a beautiful wreath purchased and placed upon the grave. A substantial balance had been handed over to Mrs. Sinclair, and this defrayed the expenses of the funeral. After Andrew had spoken of various things, he broke on to the object of his errand that night.

"I hae been thinkin', Nellie," he began nervously, "that I could tak' Rob in wi' me. Ye see, I ha'e no callans o' my ain, and I ha'e aye to get yin to draw off me. So, gin ye're agreeable, I could tak' Rob, an' I'll be guid to him. He can come an' be my neighbor, an' as he'll hae to get work in ony case, he micht as weel work wi' me as wi' ony ither body. Forby I'll maybe be able to pay him mair than plenty ithers could pay him, an' that is efter a' the point to be maist considered. What do ye think?"

But Mrs. Sinclair could not think; she merely indicated to him that he might please himself and make his own arrangements with the boy, which Andrew did, and Robert went to work with him the following week. He was a mass of nerves and was horribly afraid—indeed, this fear never left him for years—but, young as he was, he recognized his responsibility, to his mother and the rest of the family. He was now its head, and had to shoulder the burden of providing for it, and so his will drove him to work in the pit, when his soul revolted at the very thought of it. Always the horror of the tragedy was with him, down to its smallest detail; and sometimes, even at work, when his mind wandered for a moment from his immediate task, he would start up in terror, almost crying out again as he had done on the day of the accident.

Andrew kept his word and was good to the boy now in his care. Indeed, he took, as some said, more care of the boy than if Robert had been his own, for he tried to save him from every little detail that might remind him of the accident.

"That's yours, Robin," he said, when pay-day came, as he handed to the boy the half of the pay earned.

"Na, I canna' tak' that, Andrew," replied Robert, looking up into the broad, kindly, honest face of the man. "My mither wouldna' let me."

"Would she no'?" replied Andrew. "But you are the heid o' the hoose, Robin, sae just tak' it hame, an' lay it down on the dresser-head. We are doin' gey weel the noo, an' forby, ye're workin' for it. Noo run awa' hame wi't, an' dinna say ocht to yir mither, but just put it doon on the dresser-head." And so the partnership began which was to last for many years.

About this time there happened one of those tremendous upheavals, long remembered in the industrial world, the great Scottish Miners' Strike of 1894. The trade union movement was growing and fighting, and every tendency pointed to the fact that a clash of forces was inevitable. The previous year had seen the English miners beaten after a protracted struggle. They had come out for an increase in wages, and whilst it was recognized that they had been beaten and forced to go back to work suffering wholesale reductions, yet a newer perspective was beginning to appear to the miners of Scotland.

"We'll never be able to beat the maisters," said Tam Donaldson, when the cloud first appeared upon the industrial horizon. "The English strike gied us a lesson we shouldna forget."

"How's that?" enquired Peter Pegg, as he sat down on his hunkers one night at the end of the row, while they discussed the prospects of the coming fight.

"Weel, ye saw how the Englishmen fought unitedly, an' yet they were beaten, an' had to gang back on a reduction. We'll very likely be the same, for the maisters are a' weel organized. What we should do is to ha'e England an' Scotland coming out together, an' let the pits stan' then till the grass was growin' owre the whorles. That would be my way o' it, and I think it would soon bring the country to see what was in the wind."

"That's richt, Tam. It would soon bring the hale country to its senses; for nae matter what oor fight is, we are aye in the wrang wi' some folk; so the shock o' the hale country comin' out would mak' them tak' notice, an' would work the cure."

So they talked of newer plans, while Smillie toiled like a giant to educate and organize the miners. He had taken hold of them as crude material, and was slowly shaping them into something like unity. A few more years and he would win; but the forces against him knew it, too, and so followed the great fight which lasted for seventeen weeks.

Singularly enough, while there was undoubtedly much privation, there was not very much real misery, as the strike had started early in a warm, dry summer.

Communal kitchens were at once established throughout the country. Everybody did his best, and the womenfolk especially toiled early and late. A committee was appointed in each village to gather in materials. Beef at a reasonable price was supplied by a local butcher. A horse and cart were borrowed, which went round the district gathering a cabbage or two here; a few carrots or turnips there, parsley at another, and so on, returning at night invariably laden with vegetables for the next day's dinner. Sometimes a farmer would give a sheep, and the local cooperative society provided the bread at half the cost of production. Those farmers who were hostile gave nothing, but it would have paid them better had they concealed their hostility, for sometimes, even in a single night, large portions of a field of potatoes would disappear as by magic.

Robert worked in this fight like a man. He helped to cut down trees and saw them into logs, to cook the food at the soup kitchen. Everything and anything he tried, running errands, and even going with the van to solicit material for the following day's meals.

All were cheerful, and no one seemed to take the fight bitterly. Sports were organized. Quoiting tournaments were got up, football matches arranged, games at rounders and hand-ball—every conceivable game was indulged in, with sometimes a few coppers as prizes but more often a few ounces of tobacco or tea or a packet of sugar. Dances in the evenings were started at the corner of the row to the strains of a melodeon, and were carried on to the early hours of the morning. It was from these gatherings that the young lads generally raided the fields and hen runs of the hostile farmers, returning with eggs, butter, potatoes, and even cheese—everything on which they could lay their hands.

At one of these gatherings Robert related his experience with "auld Hairyfithill." Robert had been round with the van that day, and calling at Wilson's, or Hairyfithill Farm, to ask if they had any cabbage to give, he heard the old man calling to the servant lass: "Mag! Mag! Where are ye? Rin an' bring in the hens' meat; there's thae colliers coming."

Nothing daunted, Robert had gone into the kitchen to ask if they had anything to give the strikers.

"Get awa' back to yer work, ye lazy loons, ye!" was the reply from old Mr. Wilson. "Gie ye something for your soup kitchen! Na, na! Ye can gang an' work, an' pay for your meat. Gang awa' oot owre, and leave the town, an' dinna come back again." And so they had drawn blank at Hairyfithill.

"It wad serve him richt, if every tattie in his fields was ta'en awa'," said Matthew Maitland, after the story had been told and laughed over.

"It wad that," agreed a score of voices; but nothing was done nor anything further said, so the dancing proceeded.

About two o'clock in the morning while the dancing was still going on and a fire had been kindled at the corner in which some of the strikers were roasting potatoes and onions a great commotion was suddenly caused, when Dickie Tamson and two other boys drove in among them old Hairyfithill's sow which he was fattening for the market. Some proposed that the pig be killed at once.

"Oh no, dinna kill it," said Matthew Maitland, with real alarm in his voice. "Ye'd get into a row for that. Ye'd better tak' it back, or there may be fun."

"Kill the damn'd thing," said Tam Donaldson callously, "an' it'll maybe a lesson to the auld sot. Him an' his hens' meat! I'd let him ken that it's no' hens' meat the collier eats—at least no' so lang as he can get pork."

"That's jist what I think, too, Tam," put in another voice. "I'd mak' sure work that the collier ate pork for yince. Come on, boys, an' mum's the word," and he proceeded to drive the pig further along the village, followed by a few enthusiastic backers. They drove it into Granny Fleming's hen-house in the middle of the square, put out the hens, who protested loudly against this rude and incomprehensible interruption of their slumbers, and then they proceeded to slaughter the pig.

It was a horrible orgy, and the pig made a valiant protest, but encountered by hammers and picks, knives and such-like weapons, the poor animal was soon vanquished, and the men proceeded to cut up its carcass. It was a long and trying ordeal for men who had no experience of the work; yet they made up in enthusiasm what they lacked in science, and by five o'clock the pig was cut up and distributed through a score of homes. Every trace of the slaughter was removed, and the refuse buried in the village midden, and pork was the principal article on the breakfast table that morning in Lowwood.

"I hear that auld Hairyfithill has offered five pound reward for information about his pig," said Tam Donaldson a few mornings later.

"Ay, an' it's a gran' price for onybody wha kens aboot it," said auld Jamie Lauder. "Pork maun hae risen in price this last twa-three days, for I'm telt it was gaun cheap enough then."

"That is true," said Tam, "but it was a damn'd shame to tak' the auld man's pig awa', whaever did it. But I hear them saying that the polisman is gaun to the farm the nicht to watch, so that the tatties 'll no' be stolen," he went on, as some of the younger men joined them, "an' I suppose that the puir polisman hasna' a bit o' coal left in his coal-house. It's no' richt, ye ken, laddies, that a polisman, who is the representative o' law and order in this place, should sit without a fire. He has a wife an' weans to worry aboot, an' they need a fire to mak' meat. Maybe if he had a fire an' plenty o' coal it wad mak' him comfortable, an' then he'd no' be sae ready to leave the hoose at nicht an' lie in a tattie pit to watch thievin' colliers. If a man hasna' peace in his mind it'll mak' him nasty, an' we canna' allow sic a thing as a nasty polisman in this district!"

"That's richt, Tam," said one of the younger men. "It would be a shame to see a woman an' twa-three weans sittin' withoot a fire an' a great big bing o' coal lyin' doon there at the pit. We maun try an' keep the polisman comfortable."