not likely to be, there's no man's word carries more weight than
mine. And the Goavernment kens that, for they've sent me on
commissions up and down the land to look at wuds and report on
the nature of the timber. Bribery, they think it is, but Andrew
Amos is not to be bribit. He'll have his say about any Goavernment
on earth, and tell them to their face what he thinks of them. Ay,
and he'll fight the case of the workingman against his oppressor,
should it be the Goavernment or the fatted calves they ca' Labour
Members. Ye'll have heard tell o' the shop stewards, Mr Brand?'

I admitted I had, for I had been well coached by Blenkiron in the
current history of industrial disputes.

'Well, I'm a shop steward. We represent the rank and file against
office-bearers that have lost the confidence o' the workingman. But
I'm no socialist, and I would have ye keep mind of that. I'm yin o'
the old Border radicals, and I'm not like to change. I'm for
individual liberty and equal rights and chances for all men. I'll no
more bow down before a Dagon of a Goavernment official than
before the Baal of a feckless Tweedside laird. I've to keep my views
to mysel', for thae young lads are all drucken-daft with their wee
books about Cawpital and Collectivism and a wheen long senseless
words I wouldna fyle my tongue with. Them and their socialism!
There's more gumption in a page of John Stuart Mill than in all
that foreign trash. But, as I say, I've got to keep a quiet sough, for
the world is gettin' socialism now like the measles. It all comes of a
defective eddication.'

'And what does a Border radical say about the war?' I asked.