Mr. Standfast

rew

taining some clean linen and a change of clothes. I had been thinking the thing out, and had come to the conclusion that I must have a base som

-looking artisans. As I made my way down the Dumbarton Road I was amazed at the number of able-bodied fellows about, considering that you couldn't stir a mile

overtime. He's generally hame on the chap of six.' I ascended the stairs with a sinking heart, for like all South Africans I have a horror of dirt. T

lar, and with an unbuttoned waistcoat. That was all I saw of him in

y head of grizzled hair. He wore spectacles, and his face was like some old-fashioned Scots minister's, for he had heavy eyebrows and whiskers which joined each other under his jaw, while his chin and enormous upper lip were clean-sha

e contained ham and eggs were on the table. He

dram, but this house is staunch teetotal. I door ye'

started to fill an old clay. 'Mr Brand's your name?' he asked i

er watch, and regarded it with disfavour. 'The dashed

cut his tobacco, and, as he examined the works, he turned the back of the case

ed for a second, noted it, and he shut his own with a snap and returned

They tell me ye're from South Africa. That's a long gait away, but I ken something aboot South Africa, for I had a cousin's son o

learned a shipwright's job. I may say I've become a leader in the trade, for though I'm no an official of the Union, and not likely to be, there's no man's word carries more weight than mine. And the Goavernment kens that, for they've sent me on commissions up and down the land to look at wuds and report on the nature of the timber. Bribery, they

ll coached by Blenkiron in the curr

ghts and chances for all men. I'll no more bow down before a Dagon of a Goavernment official than before the Baal of a feckless Tweedside laird. I've to keep my views to mysel', for thae young lads are all drucken-daft with their wee books about Cawpital and Collectivism and a wheen long sense

der radical say abou

and publicans and the Auld Kirk-all that was bad, I say, for there were orra bits of decency, ye'll find in the Germans full measure pressed down and running over. When the war started, I considered the subject

the dorts and be at the mercy of the first blagyird that preached revolution. Me and my like are safety-valves, if ye follow me. And dinna you make ony mistake, Mr Brand. The men that are agitating for a rise in wages are not for peace. They're fighting for the lads overseas as much as for themselves. There's not yin in a thousand that wouldna sweat himself blind to beat the Germans. The Goavernment has made mistakes, and maun be made to pay for them. If it were no

spoke for the

e reading bits of newspapers, and muddlin' their wits with foreign whigmaleeries. But the average man on the Clyde, like the average man in it

I exclaimed i

bawbee rebellion are hateful to Goad and man. We treated them like pet lambs and that's the thanks we get. They're coming over here in thousands to tak the jobs of the lads that are doing their duty. I was speakin' last week to a widow woman that keeps a wee dairy down the Dalmarnock Road. She has two sons, and both in the airmy, one in the Cameronians and one a prisoner in Germany. She was telling me that she could not keep goin' any more, lacking the help of the boys, though she had worked her

the seat of his trousers. 'It's time I got the gas

t. He telled me he was here to get at the heart o' the workingman, and I said to him that he would hae to look a bit further than the sleeve o' the workin'-man's jaicket. There's no muckle in his head, poor soul. Then there'll be Tam Norie, him that edits our weekly paper-Justice for All. Tam's a humorist and great on Robert Burns, but he hasna the balance o' a dwinin' teetotum ... Ye'll understand, Mr Brand, that I keep my mo

Gresson be h

in' visits. But the men that come will be Gresson's friends and they'l

us skin which are the marks of phthisis. 'This is Mr Brand boys, from South Africa,' was Amos's presentation. Presently came Niven, a bearded giant, and Mr Norie, the editor, a fat dirty fellow smoking a rank cigar. Gilkison of the Boiler-fitters, when he arriv

though ye come from South Africa,

was from Scotland, and this is my first visit to my n

the comrades here that the cawpitalist Government expelled from t

at the time of the outrage in question I had been

ht I had never seen anyone quite so fluent and so futile, and yet there was a kind of feeble violence in him like a demented sheep. He was engaged in venting some private academic spite against society, and I thought that in a revolution he w

editor, who brought m

yours wasn't so damned teetotal and we had a dram apiece, we might get his tongue loosened. I wa

ou judge it. I'm for the war myself, subject to certain conditions that I've often stated. I know nothing of

oys. This war was made by the cawpitalists, and it has been fought by the workers, and it's the workers that maun have the ending of it. That day's comin' very near. There are those that want to spin it out till Labour is that weak it can

my case well, for I had got up every rotten argument and I borrowed largely from Launcelot Wake's armoury. But I didn't put it too well, for I had a very exact notion of the impression I wanted to produce. I must seem to be honest and in earnest,

entertain' an angel unawares. W

ans have got enough of a wheepin'.' Macnab agreed with him; the others were with me. Norie was for

and I'll make them pit ye in the programme.' He kept his luminous eyes, like a sick dog's, fixed on me, and I saw that I had

'Mr Tombs, I'll conduct ye the morn over the Brigend works, but I've had e

door, and came back to me with

e grave. He's my best friend in Glasgow. He's an elder in the Gaelic kirk in the Cowcaddens, and I'm what ye call a free-thinker, but we'

otten job

France for better men ... A word in your ear, Mr Brand. Could ye not look a bit more sheepish? Ye stare folk ower straight

Loch Katrine water at the pipe there ... As I was saying, there's not much ill in that lot. Tombs is a black offence, but a dominie's a dominie all the world over. They m

who wanted to help the enemy. You think he could do

posit

hrewd fellow, he'd

A

e would be after bigger game-somet

t ye're ettlin' at. Ay! That would be my conclusion. I came to

ll forgive me, Mr Brand, but I aye like a tune before I go to my bed. Macnab says

gy is a young thing', and 'When the kye come hame'. I fell asleep with a vision of Amos, his face all puckere

me shaving water next morning, but I had to go without a bath. When I entered the kitchen I found no one there, but

's been a big battle a

the weather. 'My God!' I cried. 'They've got St Julien and that dirty Frezenberg ri

will interfere. That mightna be a bad thing, but I trust ye to show discretion, for ye'll not be muckle use to onybody if they jyle ye in Duke Street. I hear Gresson will be there with a fraternal message from his lunatics in America ... I've arranged that ye go down to Tam Norie this afte

uth Africa for his rag. They were fine breezy impressions, based on the most whole-hearted ignorance, and if they ever reached the Rand I wonder what my friends there made of Cornelius Brand, their au

dness in the progressive forces. I drew an elaborate picture of Amos, and deduced from it that the Radicals were likely to be a bar to true progress. 'They have switched their old militancy,' I wrote, 'on to another track, for with them it is a matter

on a clean collar for the occasion and had partially washed his thin face. The poor fel

done and damned in Scotland. He's not a Modern, Mr Brand, like you and me. But tonight ye'll meet one or two chaps that'll be worth your while to ken. Ye'll maybe no go quite as far as them, but ye're on the same road. I'm hoping

h a cockney accent and addressed me as 'Comrade'. But one of them roused my liveliest interest. I heard the name of Gresson, and turned to find a fellow of about thirty-five, rather sprucely dressed, with a flower in his buttonhole. 'Mr Brand,' he said, in a r

I expected to see-working-men of the political type who before the war would have thronged to party meetings. But not all the crowd at the back had come to listen. Som

mixture of metaphors that we had got to take the reins into our own hands, for the men who were running the war had their own axes to grind and were marching to oligarchy through the blood of the workers. He added that

t seekin' a bullet in my wame,'-at wh

l' several times, loudly but without conviction. Presently he slipped into the manner of the lecturer, and the audience grew restless. 'I propose

y own brigade. My line was the plain, practical, patriotic man, just come from the colonies, who looked at things with fresh eyes, and called for a new deal. I was very moderate, but to justify my appearance there I had to put in a wild patch or two, and I go

lunkeys'), and finally of the Government. All that was fairly well received, for it is the fashion of the Briton to run down every Government and yet to be very averse to parting from it. Then he started on the soldiers and slanged the officers ('gentry pups' was his name for them), and the generals, whom he accused of idleness, of cowardice, a

ee,' said one of t

allowed for the persistence of the interrupter. The jock got slowly to his feet, and announced that he wanted sa

there was an ugly press forward. The hall seemed to be moving up from the back, and already men were standing in all the passages and right to the edge

for a little sluiced out pure anarchism. But he got his foot in it again, for he pointed to the Sinn Feiners as examples of manly independence. At that, pandem

had been done, and the crowd was surging round the lonely redoubt where we sat. Besides, I could see that for all his clever talk the meeting did not like the look of him. He was as mild as a turtle dove, but they wouldn't stand for it. A missile hurtled past my nose, and I s

at class of lad would soon cease to exist but for the protection of the law which he would abolish. The rest of us, having less to fear,

Both were strung to fighting pitch, and were determined to have someone's blood. Of me they took no notice, but Gress

ide-pocket. 'Let that alone, y

and the next second we

ute convinced me that my companion had no idea how to use his fists, and I was mortally afraid that he would get busy with the gun in his pocket. It was that fear that brought me into the scrap. The jocks were sportsmen every bit of them, and only one advanced to t

ocky type that I had seen go through the Railway Triangle at Arras as though it were blotting-paper. He had

ed. 'Let this gentleman alon

right which I dodged so that he barked his knuckles on the wall. I heard a yell of rage, and obs

prevent trouble. In self-defence I had to take my jock seriously, and got in my blow when he had overreached himself and lost h

eech at the meeting, and I had to interfere to protect him. No, no! I don't want to charge anybody. It

money,' he said. 'I'll be even with ye yet, my man-you and that

a silk handkerchief. 'I guess I'm in your debt, M

rd my story in silence and his only c

handy ... Speaking about Gresson, I've news for ye. He's sailing on Friday as purser in the Tobermory. The Tobermory's a boat t

did you find ou

But I'm going north myself the morn to look after some of the Ross-shire wuds, and I'll be in the way of getting telegrams at the Kyle. Ye'l