Thus went Geordie from house to house, meeting with much discouragement, and even downright opposition, but he was always good-humored, and so he seldom failed to extract a promise to attend the meeting.

The night of the meeting arrived, and the hall—­an old, badly lit and ill-ventilated wooden erection—­was packed to its utmost.  There were eager faces, and dull, listless ones among the audience; there were eyes glad with expectancy, and eyes dulled with long years of privations and brutal labor; limbs young and supple and full of energy, and limbs stiff and sore, crooked and maimed.

Geordie Sinclair was chairman, and when he rose to open the meeting and introduce Smillie, he felt as if the whole world were looking on and listening.

“Weel, men,” he began, halting and hesitating in his utterance, “for a lang time now there has been much cryin’ for a union here.  There has been a lot of persecution gaun’ on, an’ it has been lang felt that something should be done.  We ha’e heard of how other men in other places ha’e managed to start a union, and how it has been a guid thing in risin’ wages.  Mr. Smillie has come here the nicht to tell us how the other districts ha’e made a start, and what thae other districts has gotten.  If it can be done there, it can be done here.  I ha’e wrocht aside Bob Smillie, an’ I ken what kind of man he is.  He has done great wark doon in the west country, an’ he is weel fitted and able to be the spokesman for the miners o’ Scotlan’.  I’m no gaun’ to say ony mair, but I can say that it gie’s me great pleasure to ask Mr. Smillie to address ye.”

A round of applause greeted Smillie as he rose to address them.  Tall and manly, he dominated his audience from the very first sentence, rousing them to a great pitch of enthusiasm, as he proceeded to tell of all the many hardships which miners had to endure, of the “Block” system of persecution, and to point to the only means of successfully curing them by organizing into one solid body, so that they might become powerful enough to enforce their demands for a fuller, freer, and a happier life.  Never in all his life did he speak with more passion than he did that night in Lowwood.

Little Robert was present in the hall—­the only child there; and as Smillie spoke in passionate denunciation of the tyrannies and persecutions of the mine-owners and their officials, his little heart leapt in generous indignation.  Many things which he had but dimly understood before, began to be plain to him, as he sat with eyes riveted upon Smillie’s face, drinking in every word as the speaker plead with the men to unite and defend themselves.  Then, as his father’s wrongs were poured forth from the platform, and as Smillie appealed to them in powerful sentences to stand loyally by their comrade, the boy felt he could have followed Smillie anywhere, and that he could have slain every man who refused to answer that call.  Away beyond the speaker the boy had already glimpsed something of the ideal which Smillie sketched, and his soul throbbed and ached to see how simple and how easy it was for life to be made comfortable and good and pleasant for all.  Bob Smillie never won a truer heart than he did that night in winning this barefooted, ragged boy’s.