“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 shillin’ 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 space.  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.