Nice morning, he said.
Yes, but cold, I replied.
Yes, it is cold. How are you going on yonder?
I dont think therell be any more deaths, I said. The poor fellows are getting on now.
Thank God! he said with a genuine reverence in his tone of voice, and keep such an accident far from my pit.
Amen to that, I replied. Is this your pit, then?
I call it mine, he said laughing, but its a companys. Im manager.
Indeed, I said, then perhaps you can gratify my wish to go down.
Go down? he said laughing, Yes, if youll come and stay with us a night or two.
I hesitated, but he pressed me.
I should like you to come, doctor. A word or two from you would go well home to my pit-lads who are terribly careless. You being a doctor and a scientific man would be believed.
How did you know I was a doctor? I asked.
How did I know thou wast a doctor? Why, didnt I come over to Stannicliffe pit, and see you at work with the poor lads. Say youll come doctor, youll do your work better after a change, and Ill send word over that you are here if youre wanted.
On those conditions Ill come then, I said. Is that your house?
Yes, thats my house under the hillside there, facing the south, where the lights are; you saw it as you came up. Pretty? Well, as pretty as we can make it. Looks like an oasis in a black desert; and hard work it is to keep it decent with so many pits about, each belching out its clouds of villainous smoke black as the coal which makes it; for you see we have not only the fires for the pumping and cage engine, but those at the bottom of the ventilating shafts, and the soot they send floating out into the air is something startling, without counting the sulphurous vapours which ruin vegetation.
Of course, if you like to go down you can go. Ill go with you. Oh yes: Ive often been down. I should think I have! Hundreds of times. Why, Ive handled the pick myself in the two-foot seam as an ordinary pitman, though Im manager now. I dont see any cause to be ashamed of it. And, after all, its nothing new here in Yorkshire. I could point out a score of men who have been at work in the factories, now holding great works of their own.
Accidents? Well, yes; we do have accidents, in spite of all precautions and inspection, but not so bad as at Stannicliffe. Ill tell you of one by and by. Now you, coming down to see a coal pit, look upon it as a dangerous place. Without being cowardly, youll shudder when we go down the great black shaft a couple of hundred yards, and youll then walk as if you were going through a powder-magazine. But you know what you used to write in your copy-book at school, Familiarity breeds contempt. Truer words were never written, and I see it proved every week. Its dangerous work going up and down our pit, and yet the men will laugh, and talk, and do things that will almost make your blood run cold. It is like throwing a spark amongst gunpowder to open a lamp in some parts of our mine; but our men, for the sake of a pipe, will ran all risks, even to lighting matches on the walls, and taking naked candles to stick up, that they may see better to work.
Yes, weve had some bad accidents here, but I shall never forget one that happened five-and-twenty years ago. Tell you about it? Good: but it shall be after tea, by the warm fireside, and then if you like to go down the pit in the morning, why, go you shall.
There, thats cosy. This is the time I always enjoy after tea, with the curtains drawn; the wind driving the snow in great pats against the window-panes as it howls down the hillside, and makes the fire roar up the chimney. Not particular
over a scuttle of coals here, you see. One of your London friends was down once, and he declared that if he lived here he should amuse himself all day long with poker and shovel.
And now, about this story of the accident I promised only to hear this you must learn a little more beside. You neednt go out of the room, my dear.
Well, as I told you, it was five-and-twenty years ago, and I was just five-and-twenty years old then working as regular pitman on the day or night shift. Dirty work, of course, but there was soap in the land even in those days; and when I came up, after a good wash and a change, I could always enjoy a read, such times as I didnt go to the night-school, where, always having been a sort of reading fellow, I used to help teach the boys, and on Sundays I used to go to the school and help there.
Of course it was all done in a rough way, for hands that had been busy with a coal-pick all day were not, you will say, much fit for using a pen at night. However, I used to go, and it was there I found out that teaching was a thing that paid you back a hundred per cent, interest, for you could not teach others without teaching yourself.
But I may as well own to it it was the teaching at the Sunday-school I used to look forward to, for it was there I used to see Mary Andrews, the daughter of one of our head pitmen. He was not so very high up, only at the pit village he lived in one of the best houses, and had about double the wages of the ordinary men.