“Weel, I don’t ken,” said Geordie.  “But I’ve thocht for a lang while back that you had a hand in it.  Have I done anything to ye, for I don’t ken o’ it?”

“Ye’ve never done me any harm, Geordie,” replied Walker with a show of sincerity.  “What mak’s ye think that?”

“Weel, for a lang time noo’, I’ve ay been kept in hard places, or places wi’ nae air, or where there was water to contend wi’.  There’s ay been something, an’ I ha’e come to the conclusion that there’s mair design than accident in it.”

“I dinna think so,” was the reply.  “But maybe it’s because you’re ay agitatin’ to have a union started.”

“An’ what about it,” enquired Geordie, getting a bit heated.  “If I ha’e been advocatin’ the startin’ o’ a union?  It seems to me to be muckle needed.”

“Oh, I’ve nothing to say aboot it,” replied Walker.  “It’s the boss, an’ I was merely givin’ ye a hint for yer ain guid.”

“It’s a’ richt,” exclaimed Geordie, getting still more heated.  “I can see as far through a brick wall as you can see through a whin dyke.  The boss has naething to do wi’ it.  It’s you, an’ I’m quite pleased to get the chance to tell ye to yer face.  Ye could, many a time, ha’e given me a better place, if you had cared.  But let me tell you, if there was a union here, it would soon put an end to you an’ yer damn’d cantraips.”

“Very weel.  Gang on an’ start yin.  Man, though ye were a’ in a union the morn, I could buy an’ sell the majority of them for the promise of a guid place, or a bottle of whisky—­Ay, if they jist thocht they were in wi’ the gaffer, I’d get all I wanted frae the maist o’ them.  A clap on the shoulder, a smile, or even a word would do it.  The one hauf o’ the men can ay be got to sell the ither.  Ye daurna’ cheep, man, but I hear of it.”

“Damn’d fine I ken that,” replied Geordie, “an’ it’s mair the peety.  But that’s no’ to say that men’ll ay be like that.  If they’d be true an’ stick to yin anither, they’d damn’d soon put an end to sic gaffers as you.”

“Maybe ye’ll be the first to be put an end to,” said Walker, rising to leave.  “I might ha’e something to say to—­”

“You rotten pestilence o’ hell,” cried Geordie, now fairly roused, and jumping over the coals on the “roadhead” after him.  “I’ll cleave the rotten heart o’ ye if I get my fingers on ye, you an’ yer fancy women, yer gamblin’ an’ yer shebeens!”

But Walker was off; he did not like to hear these matters of his private life mentioned, and so Geordie, left to himself, lit his pipe, and sat down to cool his temper.

A few minutes later Matthew Maitland came round to borrow a shot of powder, and Geordie unburdened his mind to him.

“He’s a dirty brute,” said Matthew, “an’ it’s time we had a union started.  I hear great stories aboot how Bob Smillie’s gettin’ on wi’ the union that he started doon the west country.”

“I ken Bob fine,” said Geordie.  “He’s a fine fellow.  I worked next wall to him doon there a while, an’ a better chap ye couldna’ get.”