Round after round of applause greeted the speaker when he had finished, and in response to his appeal to them to organize, a branch of the union was formed, with Geordie Sinclair as its first president. At the request of the meeting Smillie interviewed Black Jock next morning, and as a result Sinclair got started on the following day.
Smillie stayed overnight with Geordie. They were certainly somewhat cramped for room, though Geordie had just lately got another apartment "broken through," which gave them a room and kitchen.
The two men sat late into the night, discussing their hopes and plans, and the trade union movement generally.
"It's a great work, Bob, you ha'e set yersel', an' it'll mean thenklessness an' opposition frae the very men you want maist to help," said Sinclair as they talked.
"Ay, it will," was the reply, spoken in a half dreamy tone, as if the speaker saw into the future. "I ken what it'll mean, but it must be done. I have long had it in me to set myself this work, for no opposition ought to stand in the way of the uplifting of the workers. I ... It's the system, Geordie!" he cried, as if bringing his mind back to the present. "It is the system that is wrong. It is immoral and evil in its foundations, and it forces the employers to do the things they do. Competition compels them to do things they would not have to do if there were a cooperative system of industry. Our people have to suffer for it all—they pay the price in hunger, misery and suffering."
"Ay," said Geordie, "that's true, Bob. But what a lang time it'll tak' afore the workers will realize what you are oot for. They'll look on your work wi' suspicion, and a wheen o' them'll even oppose you."
"Ay," was the reply, "I know that. It will mean the slow building up of our own county first, bit by bit, organizing, now here, now there, and fighting the other class interests all the time. It will divide our energies and retard our work, and the greatest fight will be to get our own people to recognize what is wanted and how to get it. Then through the county we'll have to work to consolidate the whole of Scotland; from that to work in the English and Welsh miners, while at the same time seeking to permeate other branches of industrial workers with our ideas. And then, when we have got that length, and raised the mental vision of our people, and strengthened their moral outlook, we can appeal to the workers of other lands to join us in bringing about the time when we'll be able to regard each other, not as enemies, but as members of one great Humanity, working for each other's welfare as we work for our own."
"That's it, Bob," agreed Geordie, completely carried away with Smillie's enthusiasm. "That's it, Bob. If we can only get them to see hoo' simple and easy it a' is ... Oh, they maun be made to see it that way!" he burst out. "We'll work nicht an' day but in the end we'll get them to see it that way yet."
"Yes, but it won't be easy, Geordie," he replied. "Our people's lives have been stunted and warped so long, they've been held in bondage and poverty to such an extent, that it will take years—generations, maybe—before they come to realize it. But we must go on, undeterred by opposition, rousing them from their apathy, and continually holding before them the vision of the time we are working to establish. Ay, Geordie,"—and a quieter note came into his voice, "I hope I shall be strong enough to go on, and never to give heed to the discouragements I shall undoubtedly meet with in the work; but I've made up my mind, and I'll see it through or dee."
The talk of the two men worked like magic upon the impressionable mind of young Robert, who sat listening. Long after all had retired for the night he lay awake, his little mind away in the future, living in the earthly paradise which had been conjured up before him by the warm, inspiring sentences of this miners' leader, and joyful in the contemplation of this paradise of happy humanity, he fell asleep. Could he have foreseen the terrible, heartbreaking ordeals through which Smillie often had to pass, still clinging with tenacity to the gleam that led him on, praying sometimes that strength would be given to keep him from turning back; of the strenuous battle he had, not only with those he fought against, but of the greater and more bitter fights he too often had with those of his own class whom he was trying to save; and of the fights even with himself, it would have raised Smillie still more in the estimation of this sensitive-hearted collier laddie.