ob, an'
I'll be guid to him. He can come an' be my neighbor, an' as he'll hae to
get work in ony case, he micht as weel work wi' me as wi' ony ither
body. Forby I'll maybe be able to pay him mair than plenty ithers could
pay him, an' that is efter a' the point to be maist considered. What do
ye think?"

But Mrs. Sinclair could not think; she merely indicated to him that he
might please himself and make his own arrangements with the boy, which
Andrew did, and Robert went to work with him the following week. He was
a mass of nerves and was horribly afraid--indeed, this fear never left
him for years--but, young as he was, he recognized his responsibility,
to his mother and the rest of the family. He was now its head, and had
to shoulder the burden of providing for it, and so his will drove him to
work in the pit, when his soul revolted at the very thought of it.
Always the horror of the tragedy was with him, down to its smallest
detail; and sometimes, even at work, when his mind wandered for a moment
from his immediate task, he would start up in terror, almost crying out
again as he had done on the day of the accident.

Andrew kept his word and was good to the boy now in his care. Indeed, he
took, as some said, more care of the boy than if Robert had been his
own, for he tried to save him from every little detail that might remind
him of the accident.

"That's yours, Robin," he said, when pay-day came, as he handed to the
boy the half of the pay earned.

"Na, I canna' tak' that, Andrew," replied Robert, looking up into the
broad, kindly, honest face of the man. "My mither wouldna' let me."

"Would she no'?" replied Andrew. "But you are the heid o' the hoose,
Robin, sae just tak' it hame, an' lay it down on the dresser-head. We
are doin' gey weel the noo, an' forby, ye're workin' for it. Noo run
awa' hame wi't, an' dinna say ocht to yir mither, but just put it doon
on the dresser-head." And so the partnership began which was to last for
many years.

About this time there happened one of those tremendous upheavals, long
remembered in the industrial world, the great Scottish Miners' Strike of
1894. The trade union movement was growing and fighting, and every
tendency pointed to the fact that a clash of forces was inevitable. The
previous year had seen the English miners beaten after a protracted
struggle. They had come out for an increase in wages, and whilst it was
recognized that they had been beaten and forced to go