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56 ROAMIN' IN THE GLOAMIN'
liked the companionship of man and that they never had been known to attack anybody in the mines.
"Come on, Harry," he finished up, "let's hae a sing-sang thegither. That'll keep us cheery!" And there, each seated on the ground or on a lump of coal, we sang whatever songs we knew. Jamie was a student of poetry and could quote long "screeds" of Burns, Walter Scott, Hogg, the Ettrick shepherd, and Tannahill, the weaver poet of Paisley. I learned to like these poets too, and not long afterwards I was delighted to get a loan of several of Jamie's books the contents of which I eagerly devoured.
To Jamie, and another extraordinary character whom I first met in the pits, Rab MacBeth, I think I owe my determination to keep up my singing. At least, both men encouraged me to sing to them and their evident enjoyment of it pleased me more than I can tell. Rab MacBeth was really a worthy — one of the most amusing and original fellows in Lanarkshire and he had the reputation of being just about the best all-round miner in the shire. Big and brawny, with a voice like a bull and a laugh like a peal of deep-toned bells, he added a most quaint touch of humour to his other faculties. He was one of my first "gaffers." While he hewed the coal I drew it back from the "face" and filled it into the empty hutches. We were working, I remember, in a very wet place and while Rab was comparatively dry, digging as he was on a sort of ledge above me, I was "plowtering" about all day up to my thighs in water. I must have complained about the discomfort and misery of it all — I forget how it came to arise — but Rab stopped his hewing, looked down at me and yelled out in his great booming voice, "Well, sing, ye wee devil ! Singin' and whisky's the best things to mix wi' watter."
Rab MacBeth's father before him had been a character in Hamilton. The story is told about the old man having wandered into the local "geggie" (any portable theatre