Songs and rhymes of a lead miner

[Frontispiece: THE AUTHOR.]



  SONGS AND RHYMES

  OF A

  LEAD MINER.


  By

  THOMAS GRIERSON GRACIE,
  Wanlockhead.



  DUMFRIES:
  COURIER AND HERALD PRESS, HIGH STREET.
  1921.




  _INDEX._


  _PERSONAL NOTE AND PREFACE_

  _DESCRIPTIVE PIECES--_
    Ridge of Glengonar
    A Fishin' Splore
    Troloss
    The Otter Hunt
    The Bearers
    Mennock Burn
    Heights of Glendyne
    A Waddin' in the Glen
    Three Fishers
    Ma Wag-at-The-Wa'
    Curmudgeon
    Bonnie Banks o' Cree
    Chancellor's seat, Leadhills

  _MEMORIAM PIECES--_
    Last of the Old Band
    To Mr and Mrs James Slimmon
    Doctor Wilson
    Funeral of Private Alex. Howland
    Lines on a Friend
    Wullie Tamson
    Kitchener
    David Cumming
    Baby M'Kenzie
    Wanlock Lads
    Auld Volunteers
    Young Volunteers
    Pony Driver's Lament
    Bride's Lament
    Davy's Grave

  _SONGS--_
    The Auld Sangs
    My Auld Violin
    Auld Thackit Hoose
    Auld Grey Glen
    Level No. 6
    Emergency Pump, Level No. 4
    Turnin' o' the Wheel
    To Arms
    Happy Lover
    Never Seen More
    Wanlock's Buirdly Robin
    Lass o' Durisdeer
    Bonnie Jean
    Betty o' The Strankly
    Lass o' Glendoweran
    Sae Wull We Yet
    Doric o' Scotland
    Cheer Up
    Where is the Hindenburg Line?
    Forward
    Wanlock
    Auld Cronie Tam
    H.L.I.
    Brave Lads o' Sanquhar
    Mennock Burn

  _MISCELLANEOUS PIECES--_
    Scunner't
    Absent Friend
    The Miner
    Love
    Curlin'
    A Word o' Advice
    Jock
    The Exile
    The Old Churchyard
    Letter in Rhyme
    The Answer
    Note o' Thanks
    Leadhills
    Euchan's Banks
    On Higher Plane
    Song Birds
    The Photo
    "Something Wrang"
    The Flu'
    Wee Jim
    The Nurses
    The True Man
    An Evening Prayer
    Rabbie
    Welcome Home
    Day Dream
    To Wanlock Soldiers


    Lowther Wind's Wail




PERSONAL NOTE AND PREFACE.

One of a family of ten, I was born at Wanlockhead, Dumfriesshire, in
the year 1861.  My boyhood was spent in the midst of comparative
poverty, under whose grim shadow so many toilers live and die.  Of my
parents I say nothing here, except that my love and reverence for
their memory remain undimmed to this day.  The amount of love and
self-sacrifice involved in bringing up a large family on the earnings
of the lead miner at that period--from fifteen to seventeen shillings
per week--I leave to the imagination of my readers.  In spite of poor
environment, my boyhood was, on the whole, happy and care-free.  My
greatest delight was to roam the glens and hills of my nativity.  My
pet aversion was the school, and to be confined within its four walls
when the sun was shining and the birds singing outside was to me the
refinement of cruelty.  My parents and teachers must have been at
their wits' end with me, for, in spite of heavy punishment, I played
truant whenever opportunity offered.  I was employed as a lead washer
at the age of thirteen, for the magnificent wage of fivepence per
day.  This was increased at the rate of one penny or twopence yearly,
at the discretion of the manager.  After working five years at lead
washing it came my turn to go underground as a labourer and miner's
assistant, where in course of time I became a fully qualified lead
miner.

I will not weary my readers with an account of my ups and downs in
life or of my many startling experiences in the lead and coal mines.
I was a coal miner in different parts of Scotland for six years.  I
did not take kindly to the work, and when I left it I fervently hoped
it was for good.  Of the coal miners I have a high opinion.  Beneath
the rough exterior of the most of them they are true to the core;
brave hearted men, who have proved their sterling worth on many a
shell-torn, blood-stained field, and in many an appalling mine
disaster; ready to fight, suffer, or die on the field of battle for
their ideals: ready in the mine disaster to go to almost certain
death to rescue their comrades.  Can human nature rise higher than
this?

My hobby has been the study of music and the playing of different
instruments.  I have gained an elementary knowledge of composition,
harmony, and counterpoint, and in the playing of different
instruments made myself fairly expert.  My favourite is the violin,
and my earnings with it at concerts, balls, kirns, and merry-makings
generally enabled my wife to keep the pot boiling and the bairns fed
and clad when the lead miner's wage was utterly inadequate for that
purpose.

At the outbreak of the Great War I commenced to rhyme.  I am sorry if
the jingo spirit is too evident in some of my pieces.  Such were
composed in the dark days, when our brave soldiers had their backs at
the wall, and required every moral and material support that could be
given them.  For the political and religious bias of my pieces I make
no apology.