Between You and Me

affer just went away. He was to pay me ten shillings, but never a three-penny bit of all that siller did I see! It was cruel hard, and it hurt me sore, to think

e hoists go in and out. Easy work, ye'll say. Aye-if a trapper did only what he was paid for doing. He's not supposed to do ought else than open and close gates, and his orders are that he must never leave them. But trappers are boys, as a rule, and th

a' that, we had good times in the pit. I got to know the men I worked with, and to like them fine. You do that at work, and especially underground

the top of the brae, and there we'd keep our oil for our lamps, and leave our good coats. We'd carr

ces decided that I should spend my life so instead of working mair with my twa hands, it's been what I knew of men and women that's been of service to me. When I come upon the idea for a new song 'tis less often a bit o

imitating this queer character or that, sometimes, but I'd do it only for my ain pleasure. I was no thinkin', in yon days, of e

aboot in the pit that I could sing a bit. I had a good voice enough, though I knew nothing, then, of how to sing-I've learned much of music since I went on the stage. Then, though, I

a rule. We were great ones for being entertained. And we never lacked entertainers. If a man could do card tricks, or dance a bit, he was sure to be popular

oftener than any

ey asked. But later I got over that, and those first audiences of mine did much for me. They taught me not to be afraid, so long

p of the popular songs of the day, that the famous "comics" of the music halls were si

r himself. He could no sing, but he was a great story teller. Had he just said, out and out, that he was making up tales, 'twould have been all richt enough. But, no-Jock must pretend he'd been everywhere he told about, and

sing one day, and I w

sta

e I'll be tellin' ye of a thing that hap

th Africa, Jock," s

th Africa-I climbed three of them there in a day, once. Weel, I

ork, and my song not sung! I'd a new chorus I was wanting them to hear, too, and I was angry with puir Jock-more shame to

the face where Jock was working. It happened that he was at work there alone that day, so I was able to make my plans against his coming back, and be sure it wouldna be spoiled. I had a mask and an old white sheet. On the mask I'd painted ey

as if the dell were after him. I'd told some of the miners what I meant to do, so they were waiting for him, and when he came along they saw how frightened he was. They had to s

go back to w

nd kept my head I'd be lying there dead the noo. I surprised him, ye ken, by putting up a fight-likes he'd never known mortal man to do so mu

f it before the day wa

o be run up in the buck

as I'd known he would.

iting for a

wi' ye-the one with which ye killed all the outlaw

" he said, scornfully. "Would a pistol bullet hurt

'm not knowing so much as you do about ghosts. But te

see the joke I'd played on him at once. And the other miners-they were all in the secret began to roar with laughter. They weren't sorry

ughing at him so, to try again to punish me. He was very sensitive, and he never came back to the Eddlewood Colliery; the very next day he found a job in another pit. He was

pony instead of tending a gate. That was better work, and meant a few

kets till he found one where a man had left a bit of bread and cheese at piece time. He'd eat that, and then he would go after a flask of cold tea. He'd fasten it between his forefeet and pull the cork with his teeth-and then he'd tip the flask up between his teeth and drink his tea like a Christ