"Man," he cried lustily, "they've fund coal here and they're to sink pits a' ower the countryside."
When I reached the school the bairns were waiting to tell me the news.
"Please, sir," said Willie Ramsay, "they're going to build a town here bigger than London."
"Bigger than Glasgow even," said Peter Smith.
A few navvies went past the school.
"They're going to build huts for thousands of navvies," said a lassie.
"Please, sir, they'll maybe knock down the school and have a mine here," suggested Violet Brown.
"They won't," I said firmly, "this ugly school will stand until the countryside becomes as ugly as itself. Poor bairns! You don't know what you're coming to. In three years this bonny village will be a smoky blot on God's earth like Newcastle. Dirty women will gossip at dirty doors. You, Willie, will become a miner, and you will walk up that road with a black face. You, Lizzie, will be a trollop of a wife living in a brick hovel. You can hardly escape."
"Mr. Macnab of Lappiedub will lose all his land," said a boy.