His was the temperament that having found an ideal would storm the gates of Heaven to realize it; or wade through hell, suffering all its penalties to gaze upon the face of that he sought.

So the meeting ended in great enthusiasm, and the audience was amazed and pleased to find that this man Hardie was not the vulgar-minded, loud-mouthed ignorant agitator of which the press had told them; but was just one of themselves, burning with a sense of their wrongs, with ability to express their thoughts in their own words, and with an uncompromising hatred of the system which bred these wrongs in their lives.

Tam Donaldson and Robert compared notes after the meeting was over in the following conversation: 

“What do you think o’ it, Tam?”

“Christ! but it was great,” was the reply.

“What aboot the three wives noo, Tam?”

“Oh, for ony sake, dinna rub it in, Rob.  I feel that small that I could hide myself in the hole of my back tooth.  Man, do you ken, I jist felt as if we were a’ back in the Bible times again, wi’ auld Isaiah thundering oot his charges and tellin’ the oppressors o’ the people what he thought of them.  The white heid o’ Hardie maun hae been gey like Isaiah’s.  Or sometimes it was like John the Baptist, comin’ to tell us o’ the new world that was ready to dawn for the folk!  Man, it was hellish guid, and frae this day I’m a Socialist.  I’ve always been fightin’ the oppressors o’ the workers, an’ only wish I had a tongue like Hardie, so that I could gang roon’ the hale country tellin’ folk the rale God’s truth aboot things.  Guid God!  Rob, it was better than goin’ to the kirk!”

“Ay, it was gran’, Tam.  I’m goin’ to read up this Socialism; for it seems to me to be worth it.”

“So will I. I hae got twa or three bits o’ books that I bought, an’ I’ll swallow them as quick as I can.  Lod!  It seems as if a new world had opened up a’ thegether the night.  I’m that dam’d happy, I could rin roon’ an’ tell everybody aboot it!  But I suppose we maun gang awa’ hame to bed; for we’ll hae to gang to oor work the morn, though it’s dam’d cauld comfort to think o’ gaun oot to the pit, when we could hae better conditions to work in if only folk had the sense to do right.”

Thus they parted, full of the subject which had stirred them so much that night.

Robert went home, full of vision of an emancipated world, his whole heart kindled and aglow with the desire to be a spokesman like Hardie on behalf of the workers, and thoroughly determined to devote the rest of his life to it.

“There’s nae word o’ Mysie yet,” said Nellie, when he came in, and her words seemed to shock him with their unexpectedness.

“Is there no’?” he replied, trying hard to bring his mind back to the realities.  “What kind o’ word did Jenny get frae the polis?”

“Oh, they ken naething aboot her,” said Nellie.  “A’ that is kenned is jist what we heard already.  The polis hae been searchin’ noo for a fortnight an’ nae trace o’ her can be got.  Mr. Rundell has pit it in the papers; but I hae my doots aboot ever seeing her again.  Mysie wasna’ the lassie that wad keep her folk in suspense.  She wad ken fine that they’d be anxious.  Matthew an’ Jenny are in an awfu’ way.”