"Not yet," he had to answer, time after time. "The masters are rich and proud. They say they can afford to keep the pits, closed. And we're telling them, after every meeting, that we'll een starve, if needs must, before we'll gie in to them. I'm thinkin' it's to starvin' we'll come, the way things look. Hoo are ye, Annie—better old girl?"
"I'm no that bad, Jamie," she answered, always, affectionately. He knew she was lying to spare his feelings; they loved one another very dearly, did those two. She looked down at the wee yin beside her in the bed. "It's the wean I'm thinkin' of, Jamie," she whispered. "He's asleep, at last, but he's nae richt, Jamie—he's far frae richt."
Jamie sighed, and turned to the stove. He put the kettle on, that he might make himself a cup of tea. Annie was not strong enough to get up and do any of the work, though it hurt her sair to see her man busy about the wee hoose. She could eat no solid food; the doctor had ordered milk for her, and beef tea, and jellies. Jamie could just manage the milk, but it was out of the question for him to buy the sick room delicacies she should have had every day of her life. The bairn was born but a week after the strike began; Jamie and Annie had been married little more than a year. It was hard enough for Annie to bring the wean into the world; it seemed that keeping him and herself there was going to be too much for her, with things going as they were.
"She was nae strong enough, Jamie, man," the doctor told him. "Yell ha' an invalid wife on your hands for months. Gie her gude food, and plenty on't, when she can eat again let her ha' plenty rest. She'll be richt then—she'll be better, indeed, than she's ever been. But not if things go badly—she can never stand that."
Jamie had aye been carefu' wi' his siller; when he knew the wife was going to present him wi' a bairn he'd done his part to mak' ready. So the few pound he had in the bank had served, at the start, weel enough. The strikers got a few shillings each week frae the union; just enough, it turned out, in Jamie's case, to pay the rent and buy the bare necessities of life. His own siller went fast to keep mither and wean alive when she was worst. And when they were gone, as they were before that day I talked wi' him, things looked black indeed for Jamie and the bit family he was tryin' to raise.
He could see no way oot. And then, one nicht, there came a knocking at the door. It was the doctor—a kindly, brusque man, who'd been in the army once. He was popular, but it was because he made his patients afraid of him, some said. They got well because they were afraid to disobey him. He had a very large practice, and, since he was a bachelor, with none but himself to care for, he was supposed to be almost wealthy—certainly he was rich for a country doctor.
"Weel, Jamie, man, and ho's the wife and the wean the day?" he asked.
"They're nane so braw, doctor," said Jamie, dolefully. "But yell see that for yersel', I'm thinkin'."
The doctor went in, talked to Jamie's wife a spell, told her some things to do, and looked carefully at the sleeping bairn, which he would not have awakened. Then he took Jamie by the arm.
"Come ootside, Jamie," he said. "I want to hae a word wi' ye."