Part 4 (2/2)

And so I piled up a great double handfu' o' sand. It seemed to me that the higher I put the wee ba' to begin with the further I could send it when I hit it. But I was wrong, for my attempt was worse than Mac's. I broke my club, and drove all the sand in his een, and the wee ba'

moved no more than a foot!

”That's a shot, too!” cried Mac.

”Aye,” I said, a bit ruefully. ”I--I sort o' missed my swing, too, Mac.”

We did a wee bit better after that, but I'm no thinkin' either Mac or I will ever play against the champion in the final round at Troon or St. Andrews.

CHAPTER VI

I maun e'en wander again from what I've been tellin' ye. Not that in this book there's any great plan; it's just as if we were speerin'

together. But one thing puts me in mind o' another. And it so happened that that gay morn at Montrose when Mac and I tried our hands at the gowf brought me in touch with another and very different experience.

Ye'll mind I've talked a bit already of them that work and those they work for. I've been a laboring man myself; in those days I was close enough to the pit to mind only too well what it was like to be dependent on another man for all I earned and ate and drank. And I'd been oot on strike, too. There was some bit trouble over wages. In the beginning it was no great matter; five minutes of good give and tak'

in talk wad ha' settled it, had masters and men got together as folk should do. But the masters wouldna listen, and the men were sair angry, and so there was the strike.

It was easy enough for me. I'd money in the savings bank. My brothers were a' at work in other pits where there was no strike called. I was able to see it through, and I cheered with a good will when the District Agents of the miners made speeches and urged us to stay oot till the masters gave in. But I could see, even then, that, there were men who did no feel sae easy in their minds over the strike. Jamie Lowden was one o' them. Jamie and I were good friends, though not sae close as some.

I could see that Jamie was taking the strike much more to heart than I. He'd come oot wi' the rest of us at the first, and he went to all the ma.s.s meetings, though I didna hear him, ever mak' a speech, as most of us did, one time or another. And so, one day, when I fell into step beside him, on the way hame frae a meetin', I made to see what he was thinking.

”Dinna look sae glum, Jamie, man,” I said. ”The strike won't last for aye. We've the richt on our side, and when we've that we're bound to win in the end.”

”Aye, we may win!” he said, bitterly. ”And what then, Harry? Strikes are for them that can afford them, Harry--they're no for workingman wi' a wife that's sick on his hands and a wean that's dyin' for lack o' the proper food. Gie'en my wife and my bairn should dee, what good would it be to me to ha' won this strike?”

”But we'll a' be better off if we win----”

”Better off?” he said, angrily. ”Oh, aye--but what'll mak' up to' us for what we'll lose? Nine weeks I've been oot. All that pay I've lost.

It would have kept the wean well fed and the wife could ha' had the medicine she needs. Much good it will do me to win the strike and the s.h.i.+llin' or twa extra a week we're striking for if I lose them!”

I'm ashamed to say I hadn't thought of the strike in that licht before. It had been a grand chance to be idle wi'oot havin' to reproach myself; to enjoy life a bit, and lie abed of a morn wi' a clear conscience. But I could see, the noo Jamie talked, how it was some of the older men did not seem to put much heart into it when they shouted wi' the rest of us: ”We'll never gie in!”

It was weel enough for the boys; for them it was a time o' skylarkin'

and irresponsibility. It was weel enough for me, and others like me, who'd been able to put by a bit siller, and could afford to do wi'oot our wages for a s.p.a.ce. But it was black tragedy for Jamie and his wife and bairn.

Still ye'll be wonderin' how I was reminded of all this at Montrose, where Mac and I showed how bad we were at gowf! Weel, it was there I saw Jamie Lowden again, and heard how he had come through the time of the strike. I'll tell the tale myself; you may depend on't that I'm giving it to ye straight, as I had it from the man himself.

His wife, lying sick in her bed, always asked Jamie the same question when he came in from a meeting.

”Is there ony settlement yet, Jamie?” she would say.

”Not yet,” he had to answer, time after time. ”The masters are rich and proud. They say they can afford to keep the pits, closed. And we're telling them, after every meeting, that we'll een starve, if needs must, before we'll gie in to them. I'm thinkin' it's to starvin'

we'll come, the way things look. Hoo are ye, Annie--better old girl?”

”I'm no that bad, Jamie,” she answered, always, affectionately. He knew she was lying to spare his feelings; they loved one another very dearly, did those two. She looked down at the wee yin beside her in the bed. ”It's the wean I'm thinkin' of, Jamie,” she whispered. ”He's asleep, at last, but he's nae richt, Jamie--he's far frae richt.”

Jamie sighed, and turned to the stove. He put the kettle on, that he might make himself a cup of tea. Annie was not strong enough to get up and do any of the work, though it hurt her sair to see her man busy about the wee hoose. She could eat no solid food; the doctor had ordered milk for her, and beef tea, and jellies. Jamie could just manage the milk, but it was out of the question for him to buy the sick room delicacies she should have had every day of her life. The bairn was born but a week after the strike began; Jamie and Annie had been married little more than a year. It was hard enough for Annie to bring the wean into the world; it seemed that keeping him and herself there was going to be too much for her, with things going as they were.

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