isunderstanding seemed to grow wider
every day. Old Granny Frame, the "howdie-wife" of the village, always
declared that he would be a great man, but others just took it for
granted that he would never see things as they saw them.

He was already too serious for a boy, and his joys were not the joys of
other children. Sensitive, and in a measure proudly reserved, he took
more and more to the moors and the hills. All day sometimes he roved
over them, and at other times he would lie motionless but happy, for the
moor always understood. If he were hurt at anything which happened, the
moor brought him solace; if he grieved, it gave him relief; and if he
were happy, it too rejoiced. He loved it in all moods, and he could not
understand how its loving silence was dreaded by others.

His parents now found that their battle, though not much easier,
certainly was no worse, and hope shone bright for them in the future.
The oldest boy was already at work and one girl was away "in service."
Robert, too, would soon be ready, and in quick succession behind him
there were three other boys. Geordie Sinclair was often told by his
workmates that he would "soon ha'e naethin' to do but put in wicks in
the pit lamps." But Geordie merely smiled. How often before had he heard
that said of others who had families like his own and he knew that he
would never see them all working. Fifty years was a long time to live
for a collier in those days of badly ventilated and poorly inspected
pits and many men were in their graves at forty.

Walker still indulged in petty persecution, whilst Geordie agitated for
the starting of a union, and many a battle the two had, until the enmity
between them developed into keen hatred.

"I wonder what Black Jock really has against me," he had said over and
over again, unable to understand his persistent hostility, but his wife
had never dared tell him.

One night, however, after he had been out of work a week, because, as
Black Jock had said, "there was nae places," she decided to tell him the
real reason of Walker's antipathy.

"Man, it's no' you, Geordie, that Black Jock has the ill will at," she
ventured to say, "it's me, an' he hits me an' the bairns through you."

"You," said Geordie in some surprise, "hoo' can that be?"

Bit by bit, though with great reluctance, she told her husband how and
when Black Jock had attempted to degrade her. When she had ended, he sat
in grim silence, while the ticking of th