decided just yesterday to start the places, and that Andra and Geordie can start the morn. I ha'e no ill wull at ony o' the twa o' them, and I'm vexed that things ha'e been as bad as they've been, but I couldna get the boss to start the places, and what could I do? They can a' be back at their work the morn if they like to look at it reasonably. Of course, ye can please yersel'," he went on, "it's a' yin to me; but if Rundell tak's it into his head to ha'e a fight, well—ye ken what it means, an' I wouldna like to ha'e ony strife the noo', for times are very hard for us a'."

Simple and honest as Jamie was, Black Jock's plausibility appealed to him, and he began to think that Walker perhaps was not so bad as he was made to appear. Again, Jamie knew that Rundell was a man of hasty temper and impulsive judgments, and could not brook trouble, and he began to think that perhaps it might be better to hold the meeting as suggested and tell the men what he had heard, and appeal to them to go back to work.

"All right," he said to Walker, "I'll call a meeting to-night and put the case as you have said, and ask them to go back. But mind, you've not to go back on your promise. You'll have to start Andrew and Geordie within twa days, or the men will no' continue to work. Mind, I'm taking a lot on myself to do this, and you'll have to carry out your part and start them."

"I'll fill my part, never fear," was the answer, and there was relief in Walker's voice. "See, there's my hand," he said, extending a big black limb as he spoke, first spitting on his palm to ensure due solemnity. "There's no dryness about that, Jamie. I mean it. I'll start Geordie and Andrew all right. You get the men to go back to work to-morrow, for I'm afraid Rundell will make trouble if you remain idle anither day. Noo' I promise." And Jamie took the extended hand in token of the bargain and returned to summon the meeting, which was duly held, and, as Walker had anticipated, the men were appeased, and returned to work the next day.

Sure enough, within two days Andrew Marshall and Geordie Sinclair were both started to work, and matters went smoothly for a time.

But though they had had a lesson, it did not stop their activities as agitators for the establishment of a union, for they knew that there was no protection for any of them if they remained unorganized.

"Men never were meant to work and live as colliers do," said Geordie, thoughtfully. "Life should be good, and free, and happy, with comfort and enjoyment for all. Look at the birds—they are happy! So are the flowers, or they wouldn't look so pleased. God meant a' men and weemin to be glad, even though they have to work. But hoo' the hell can folk be happy and worship God on two and sixpence a day? It's all wrong, Andrew, an' I'll never believe that men were meant to live as we live."

"That's true, Geordie," agreed Andrew soberly. "I only wish we could get everybody to see it as we see it. There's plenty for a' God's creatures—enough to make everybody happy, an' there need be no ill-will in the world, if only common-sense was applied to things; but I'm damn'd if I can see where even the men can be happy who are making their money oot o' our lives. They're bound to ken surely that what comes from misery can not make happiness for them."

"True, Andrew, true, and we maun just go on working for it. Sometimes I have the feeling that we are on the point of big changes: just as if the folk would awaken up oot o' their ignorance, with love in their hearts, an' make all things right for everybody. A world o' happiness for everybody is worth workin' for. So we maun gang on."

And so they talked of their dreams and felt the better for it.

CHAPTER IV

A YOUNG REBEL

About two years after these events little Robert Sinclair went to school. It was a fine morning in late spring, and Robert trudged the seemingly long road, clasping an elder brother's hand, for the school lay about a mile to the north-west of the village, and that seemed to the boy a very long way.

It was a great experience. Robert's clothes had been well patched, his face had been washed and toweled till it shone, his eyes sparkled with excitement, and his heart beat high; yet he was nervous and awed, wondering what he would find there.

"By crikey," said wee Alec Johnstone to him, "wait till auld Clapper gie's ye a biff or twa wi' his muckle tawse. Do ye ken what he does to mak' them nippy? He burns them a wee bit in the fire, an' then st'eeps them in whusky. An' they're awful sair."

"Oh, but I ken what to do, Rab, if ye want to diddle him," put in another boy. "Just get a horse's hair—a lang yin oot o' its tail—and put it across yer haun', an' it'll cut his tawse in twa, whenever he gie's ye a pammy."

"That's what I'm gaun to do, Jamie," replied another. "I'll get some hairs frae Willie Rogerson. He's gettin' me some frae his father's when he's in the stable the morn, an' ye'll see auld Cabbage-heid's tawse gaun in twa, whenever he gie's me yin." And they all looked admiringly at this little hero who was going to do this wonderful thing so simply.

"I got four yesterday," said another, "an' I wasna' doin' onything. By criffens! it was sair, an' gin I had only had a horse's hair, I'd soon ha'e putten his tawse oot the road."

"I got four yesterday too," said another, "an' a' because I was looking at yon new laddie wha cam to the schule yesterday. By! they were sair. I never heard auld Cabbage-heid till he cam up an' telt me to put oot my haun."

"It's Peter Rundell's his name," chimed in another. "He's the Boss's laddie. My! if you just saw what fine claes he has on. A new suit, an' lang stockings, an' a pair o' fine new buits."

"Ay, an' a white collar too," said another, "an' hundreds o' pooches in his jacket."

"He has a waistcoat wi' three pooches in it—yin for a watch—an' a braw, black, shiny bonnet."

"He had a white hankey too, an' sweeties in yin o' his pooches."

Robert felt a certain amount of resentment as he listened to the description, and he grudged Peter Rundell his new suit for he himself had never known anything of that kind, but had always worn "make-downs" created by his mother's clever fingers out of the discarded clothes of grown-ups.

"Auld Cabbage-heid didna' like me looking at Peter Rundell an' that's the way he gied me four, but I'll get a horse's hair too, an' his tawse 'll soon get wheegh. He's awful cruel, Rab," he said, turning to Robert, "an' ye'd better look oot."

Each and all had some fearful story to tell of the cruelty of the headmaster, and all swore they'd get even with him. These stories filled Robert with a certain fear, for he was an imaginative and sensitive boy. Still he knew there was no escape. He must go to school and go through with it whatever the future might hold for him.

So far he had grown wild and free, and loved the broad wide moor which began even at the end of the row where he lived. It seemed to him that there never had been a time when he did not know that there was a moor there. Nothing in it surprised him, even as a child. Its varied moods were already understood by him, and its silences and its many voices appealed to and were balm to his soul. The great blue hills which fringed it away in the far distance were for him the ends of the world, and if he could go there some day, he would surely look over and find—what? The thought staggered him, and his imagination would not, or could not, construct for him what was at the other side. All day, often, he had lain stretched full length upon the moor, watching the great white clouds sailing past, seeing himself sometimes sitting astride them, proudly surveying, like God, the whole world. At times it was so real that he bounded to his feet when by some misadventure he slipped from the back of the cloud. He listened to the songs of larks, the cries of curlews and lapwings and all the other moorland birds, and