He took off his spectacles and cocked his shaggy brows at me.
'I'll tell ye, Mr Brand. All that was bad in all that I've ever wrestled
with since I cam to years o' discretion - Tories and lairds and
manufacturers and publicans and the Auld Kirk - all that was bad,
I say, for there were orra bits of decency, ye'll find in the Germans
full measure pressed down and running over. When the war started,
I considered the subject calmly for three days, and then I said:
"Andra Amos, ye've found the enemy at last. The ones ye fought
before were in a manner o' speakin' just misguided friends. It's
either you or the Kaiser this time, my man!"'

His eyes had lost their gravity and had taken on a sombre
ferocity. 'Ay, and I've not wavered. I got a word early in the
business as to the way I could serve my country best. It's not been
an easy job, and there's plenty of honest folk the day will give me a
bad name. They think I'm stirrin' up the men at home and desertin'
the cause o' the lads at the front. Man, I'm keepin' them straight. If
I didna fight their battles on a sound economic isshue, they would
take the dorts and be at the mercy of the first blagyird that preached
revolution. Me and my like are safety-valves, if ye follow me. And
dinna you make ony mistake, Mr Brand. The men that are agitating
for a rise in wages are not for peace. They're fighting for the lads
overseas as much as for themselves. There's not yin in a thousand
that wouldna sweat himself blind to beat the Germans. The Goavernment
has made mistakes, and maun be made to pay for them. If it were
not so, the men would feel like a moose in a trap, for they would
have no way to make their grievance felt. What for should the
big man double his profits and the small man be ill set to get
his ham and egg on Sabbath mornin'? That's the meaning o' Labour
unrest, as they call it, and it's a good thing, says I, for if Labour