Between You and Me Part 4

"Not a bit of it!" said I. "If you're not, I'm not. I'll try it again.

What do you say, Mac?"

We felt the same way. But I learned a lesson then that has always made me cautious in criticizing the capitalist who sits back and rakes in the siller while others do the work. The man has his uses, I'm tellin'

ye. I found it oot then; they're findin' it oot in Russia now, since the Bolsheviki have been so busy. I'm that when the world's gone along for so many years, and worked out a way of doing things, there must be some good in it. I'm not sayin' all's richt and perfect in this world --and, between you and me, would it be muckle fun to live in it if it were? But there's something reasonable and something good about anything that's grown up to be an inst.i.tution, even if it needs changing and reforming frae time to time. Or so I think.

Weel, e'en though I could see, noo, the reason for Munro to be gettin'

his big share o' the siller Mac and I made, I was no minded not to ha'

another try for it myself. Next season Mac and I made our plans even more carefully. We went to most of the same towns where business had been bad before, and this time it was good. And I learned something a manager could ha' told me, had he liked. Often and often it's necessary to tak' a loss on an artist's first tour that'll be more than made up for later. Some folk go to hear him, or see him, even that first time. An' they tell ithers what they've missed. It was so wi' us when we tried again. Our best audiences and our biggest success came where we'd been most disappointed the time before. This tour was a grand success, and once more, for less than three months of work, Mac and I banked more than a hundred pounds apiece.

But there was more than siller to count in the profits of the tours Mac and I made together. He became and has always remained one of my best and dearest friends--man never had a better. And a jollier companion I can never hope to find. We always lived together; it was easier and cheaper, too, for us to share lodgings. And we liked to walk together for exercise, and to tak' our amus.e.m.e.nt as well as our work in common.

I loved to hear Mac practice. He was a true artist and a real musician, and when he played for the sheer love of playing he was even better, I always thought, than when he was thinking of his audience, though he always gave an audience his best. It was just, I think, that when there was only me to hear him he knew he could depend upon a sympathetic listener, and he had not to worry aboot the effect his playing was to have.

We were like a pair of boys on a holiday when we went touring together in those days, Mac and I. We were always playing jokes on one another, or on any other victims we could find usually on one another because there was always something one of us wanted to get even for. But the commonest trick was one of mine. Mac and I would come down to breakfast, say, at a hotel, and when everyone was seated I'd start, in a very low voice, to sing. Rather, I didn't really sing, I said, in a low, rhythmical tone, with a sort of half tune to it, this old verse:

"And the old cow crossed the road, The old cow crossed the road, And the reason why it crossed the road Was to get to the other side."

I would repeat that, over and over again, tapping my foot to keep time as I did so. Then Mac would join in, and perhaps another of our company. And before long everyone at the table would catch the infection, and either be humming the absurd words or keeping time with his feet, while the others did so. Sometimes people didn't care for my song; I remember one old Englishman, with a white moustache and a very red face, who looked as if he might be a retired army officer. I think he thought we were all mad, and he jumped up at last and rushed from the table, leaving his breakfast unfinished. But the roar of laughter that followed him made him realize that it was all a joke, and at teatime he helped us to trap some newcomers who'd never heard of the game.

Mac and I were both inclined to be a wee bit boastful. We hated to admit, both of us, that there was anything we couldna do; I'm a wee bit that way inclined still. I mind that in Montrose, when we woke up one morning after the most successful concert we had ever given, and so were feeling very extra special, we found a couple o' gowf b.a.l.l.s lyin' around in our diggings.

"What do ye say tae a game, Mac?" I asked him.

"I'm no sae glide a player, Harry," he said, a bit dubiously.

For once in a way I was honest, and admitted that I'd never played at all. We hesitated, but our landlady, a decent body, came in, and made light of our doots.

"Hoots, lads," she said. "A'body plays gowf nooadays. I'll gie ye the lend of some of our Jamie's clubs, and it's no way at a' to the links,"

Secretly I had nae doot o' my bein' able to hit a little wee ball like them we'd found so far as was needful. I thought the gowf wad be easier than digging for coal wi' a pick. So oot we set, carryin' our sticks, and ready to mak' a name for ourselves in a new way.

Syne Mac had said he could play a little, I told him he must take the honor and drive off. He did no look sae grateful as he should ha'

done, but he agreed, at last.

"Noo, Harry, stand weel back, man, and watch where this ball lichts.

Keep your een well doon the coorse, man."

He began to swing as if he meant to murder the wee ba', and I strained my een. I heard him strike, and I looked awa' doon the coorse, as he had bid me do. But never hide nor hair o' the ba' did I see. It was awesome.

"Hoots, Mac," I said, "ye must ha' hit it an awfu' swipe. I never saw it after you hit it."

He was smiling, but no as if he were amused.

"Aweel, ye wouldna--ye was looking the wrong way, man," he said. "I sort o' missed my swing that time. There's the ba'----"

He pointed, and sure enough, I saw the puir wee ba', over to right, not half a dozen yards from the tee, and lookin' as if it had been cut in twa. He made to lift it and put it back on the tee, but, e'en an' I had never played the game I knew a bit aboot the rules.

"Dinna gang so fast, Mac," I cried. "That counts a shot. It's my turn the noo."

And so I piled up a great double handfu' o' sand. It seemed to me that the higher I put the wee ba' to begin with the further I could send it when I hit it. But I was wrong, for my attempt was worse than Mac's. I broke my club, and drove all the sand in his een, and the wee ba'

moved no more than a foot!

"That's a shot, too!" cried Mac.

"Aye," I said, a bit ruefully. "I--I sort o' missed my swing, too, Mac."

We did a wee bit better after that, but I'm no thinkin' either Mac or I will ever play against the champion in the final round at Troon or St. Andrews.

CHAPTER VI

I maun e'en wander again from what I've been tellin' ye. Not that in this book there's any great plan; it's just as if we were speerin'

together. But one thing puts me in mind o' another. And it so happened that that gay morn at Montrose when Mac and I tried our hands at the gowf brought me in touch with another and very different experience.

Ye'll mind I've talked a bit already of them that work and those they work for. I've been a laboring man myself; in those days I was close enough to the pit to mind only too well what it was like to be dependent on another man for all I earned and ate and drank. And I'd been oot on strike, too. There was some bit trouble over wages. In the beginning it was no great matter; five minutes of good give and tak'

in talk wad ha' settled it, had masters and men got together as folk should do. But the masters wouldna listen, and the men were sair angry, and so there was the strike.

It was easy enough for me. I'd money in the savings bank. My brothers were a' at work in other pits where there was no strike called. I was able to see it through, and I cheered with a good will when the District Agents of the miners made speeches and urged us to stay oot till the masters gave in. But I could see, even then, that, there were men who did no feel sae easy in their minds over the strike. Jamie Lowden was one o' them. Jamie and I were good friends, though not sae close as some.

I could see that Jamie was taking the strike much more to heart than I. He'd come oot wi' the rest of us at the first, and he went to all the ma.s.s meetings, though I didna hear him, ever mak' a speech, as most of us did, one time or another. And so, one day, when I fell into step beside him, on the way hame frae a meetin', I made to see what he was thinking.

"Dinna look sae glum, Jamie, man," I said. "The strike won't last for aye. We've the richt on our side, and when we've that we're bound to win in the end."

"Aye, we may win!" he said, bitterly. "And what then, Harry? Strikes are for them that can afford them, Harry--they're no for workingman wi' a wife that's sick on his hands and a wean that's dyin' for lack o' the proper food. Gie'en my wife and my bairn should dee, what good would it be to me to ha' won this strike?"

"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 s.h.i.+llin' 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 s.p.a.ce. 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.