“Vengeance is Mine, saith the Lord.  I will repay.”  She reminded me of those words.  And I was ashamed, for that I had been minded to forget.

And when I would have hidden myself away from a’ the world, and nursed my grief, I was reminded, again, that I must not.  My boy had died for humanity.  He had not been there in France aboot his own affairs.  Was it for me, his father, to be selfish when he had been unselfish?  Had I done as I planned, had I said I could not carry on because of my ain grief, I should have brought sorrow and trouble to others, and I should have failed to do my duty, since there were those who, in a time of sore trouble and distress, found living easier because I made them laugh and wink back the tears that were too near to dropping.

Oh, aye, I’ve had my share of trouble.  So when I’m tellin’ ye this is a bonny world do not be thinkin’ it’s a man who’s lived easily always and whose lines have been cast only in pleasant places who is talking with ye.  I’ve as little patience as any man with those fat, sleek folk who fold their hands and roll their een and speak without knowledge of grief and pain when those who have known both rebel.  But I know that God brings help and I know this much more—­that he will not bring it to the man who has not begun to try to help himself, and never fails to bring it to the man who has.

Weel, as I’ve told ye, it was for twa shillin’ a week that I first worked.  I was a strappin’ lout of a boy then, fit to work harder than I did, and earn more, and ever and again I’d tell them at some new mill I was past fourteen, and they’d put me to work at full time.  But I could no hide myself awa’ from the inspector when he came around, and each time he’d send me back to school and to half time.

It was hard work, and hard living in yon days.  But it was a grand time I had.  I mind the sea, and the friends I had.  And it was there, in Arboath, when I was no more than a laddie, I first sang before an audience.  A travelling concert company had come to Oddfellows’ Hall, and to help to draw the crowd there was a song competition for amateurs, with a watch for a prize.  I won the prize, and I was as conceited as you please, with all the other mill boys envying me, and seein’, at last, some use in the way I was always singing.  A bit later there was another contest, and I won that, too, with a six-bladed knife for a prize.  But I did not keep the knife, for, for all my mither could do to stop me, I’d begun even in those days to be a great pipe smoker, and I sold the knife for threepence, which bought me an ounce of thick black—­a tobacco I still like, though I can afford a better now, could I but find it.

It was but twa years we stayed at Arboath.  From there we went to Hamilton, on the west coast, since my uncle told of the plenty work there was to be found there at the coal mines.  I went on at the pitheads, and, after a week or so, a miner gave me a chance to go below with him.  He was to pay me ten shillings for a week’s work as his helper, and it was proud I was the morn when I went doon into the blackness for the first time.