Part 15 (1/2)

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 gra.s.s 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, b.u.t.ter, 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 la.s.s: ”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 d.i.c.kie 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 d.a.m.n'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 carca.s.s.

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 princ.i.p.al article on the breakfast table that morning in Lowwood.