Adventures of Working Men Part 8

"I felt that it was madness to try and get out, though, had I been alone, I should have tried to reach the pit by climbing from tier to tier; but with a child it was impossible. My best plan seemed to be to follow the example of a grey-haired old man who was holding on by the railings in front of the gallery and calmly, to all appearance, watching the leaping of the fire, though I shuddered as I saw the progress it was making: the curtain was dropping in fiery flakes upon the stage; scenery and woodwork were falling cras.h.i.+ng down; while from over the chandelier in the centre of the ceiling a red glowing light kept playing, towards which the smoke floated in wreaths.

"Cras.h.!.+ cras.h.!.+ cras.h.!.+ wings and flies kept falling upon the stage, now from back to front one blaze, from which the sparks, like a golden whirlwind, rushed up amidst the smoke; while the roar became fiercer and fiercer as the currents of air rushed towards the body of flame and fanned it into fresh fury. The glow now fell upon my face, and I turned to fly, for there seemed greater danger in staying than in attempting to escape. The gallery was now nearly empty, though the cries, shouts, and groans from the staircase were still awful.

"I had already leaped over two or three benches, when I remembered the child, and dashed to drag out the little trembling thing, pale and half-stifled with the wreathing smoke which spread through the place.

The next moment I had her on my back, and hurried to the right-hand door; but here the struggle and turmoil were fearful, and I turned and made my way to the other, climbing over the broken-down barrier at the back of the gallery, beneath which lay two women groaning.

"I looked back: there were the flames, now crawling round the pillars on each side the stage, and licking and playing amongst the curtains of the private boxes. The audience had all gone from the other parts of the house, but men were darting out of the orchestra door, bringing with them loads of anything valuable they could rescue from the flames.

"In front of the gallery still sat the old man leaning over the railings, and with a half-dread upon me that something was wrong, I hurried back and shook him heavily, when I started back in horror as he fell across the benches, turning up the most distorted face I ever saw as he lay evidently in a fit from fright.

"The flames were coming nearer and nearer, and the smoke grew more and more stifling. The anxiety to be out of this horrible place was intense, but I could not go and leave a fellow-creature helpless in such a situation; so once more making my way to the open door, I set the child down close by the women, leaped back from bench to bench, and somehow contrived to lift the old man and drag him to the top of the staircase, where I staggered against the wall overcome with dread, for the child was gone. 'Had she been taken down the stairs?' I asked the women, and shook them roughly to get an answer, but they were quite insensible. It was too much to bear, and I dashed down the staircase, up which still came the sounds of yelling and struggling, as the people fought their way towards safety; but every here and there the crippled and wounded of the fight were left behind, to slowly crawl downwards, their countenances blanched with horror.

"Round and round, ever downwards, I hurried till I came upon a party of men coming up, headed by a body of policemen--for the staircase was at length open; and in reply to my anxious inquiries, I learnt that they had met someone carrying a child, and the next moment I was down in the entrance catching the little one out of the arms of the man who had turned back to bring her down.

"And now, as I stood there faint and exhausted, I But first one and then another brought out, crushed and bleeding, till I staggered off, the child taking me home, further and further from the lurid light behind, towards which people were hurrying from all directions; for I was giddy and confused, but none the less thanks for for my escape."

CHAPTER TEN.

MY PATIENTS AT THE MINE.

My residence in Sheffield made me pretty well acquainted with the Yorks.h.i.+re character, bluff, rough, frank, and hospitable. The first impressions of Yorks.h.i.+re are perhaps not pleasant, but you soon find that beneath the rough crust there is a great deal that is very warm-hearted and kind.

Upon more than one occasion some terrible accident at one of the coal pits of the South Yorks.h.i.+re collieries took me out of the town to supply the extra help needed at such a time, and more than once I have been present at terribly heart-rending sights.

I know nothing more shocking, unless it be a wreck, than one of those coal pit accidents, where a s.h.i.+ft of men have gone down in robust health to their work, and then there has been a noise like thunder, the news has run like lightning, and the first cry is whose man or whose boy was down.

It was during one of those journeys when I had been summoned to help, that, strolling towards a neighbouring pit for the sake of change and rest after a couple of days' very hard toil amongst the injured by fire and the falling of the mine roof, I came upon the manager of the neighbouring mine.

He nodded to me in a familiar way.

"Nice morning," he said.

"Yes, but cold," I replied.

"Yes, it is cold. How are you going on yonder?"

"I don't think there'll be any more deaths," I said. "The poor fellows are getting on now."

"Thank G.o.d!" 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 it's a company's. I'm manager."

"Indeed," I said, "then perhaps you can gratify my wish to go down."

"Go down?" he said laughing, "Yes, if you'll 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, didn't I come over to Stannicliffe pit, and see you at work with the poor lads. Say you'll come doctor, you'll do your work better after a change, and I'll send word over that you are here if you're wanted."

"On those conditions I'll come then," I said. "Is that your house?"

"Yes, that's 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. I'll go with you. Oh yes: I've often been down. I should think I have! Hundreds of times.

Why, I've handled the pick myself in the two-foot seam as an ordinary pitman, though I'm manager now. I don't see any cause to be ashamed of it. And, after all, it's nothing new here in Yorks.h.i.+re. 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. I'll 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, you'll shudder when we go down the great black shaft a couple of hundred yards, and you'll 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. It's 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, we've 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, that's 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_ needn't 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 s.h.i.+ft. 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 didn't 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.

"Consequently, Mary Andrews was a little better dressed and better educated than the general run of girls about there; and there was something about her face that used, in its quiet earnestness, to set me anxiously watching her all the time she was teaching, till I used to wake up of a sudden to the fact that the boys in my cla.s.s were all at play, when, flus.h.i.+ng red all over the face, I used to leave off staring over to the girls' part of the big school-room, and try to make up for lost time.

"I can't tell you when it began, but at that time I used somehow to a.s.sociate Mary Andrews' pale innocent face with everything I did. Every blow I drove into a coal-seam with my sharp pick used to be industry for Mary's sake. Of an evening, when I washed off the black and tidied up my hair, it used to be so that she might not be ashamed of me if we met; and even every time I made my head ache with some calculation out of my arithmetic--ten times as difficult because I had no one to help me--I used to strive and try on till I conquered, because it was all for Mary's sake.

"Not that I dared to have told her so, I thought, but somehow the influence of Mary used to lift me up more and more, till I should no more have thought of going to join the other pitmen in a public-house than of trying to fly.

"It was about this time that I got talking to a young fellow about my age who worked in my s.h.i.+ft. John Kelsey his name was, and I used to think it a pity that a fine clever fellow like he was, handsome, stout, and strong, should be so fond of the low habits, dog-fighting and wrestling, so popular amongst our men, who enjoyed nothing better than getting over to Sheffield or Rotherham for what they called a day's sport, which generally meant unfitness for work during the rest of the week.

"'Well,' said John, 'your ways seem to pay you,' and he laughed and went away; and I thought no more of it till about a month after, when I found out that I was what people who make use of plain simple language call in love, and I'll tell you how I found it out.

"I was going along one evening past old Andrews' house, when the door opened for a moment as if some one was coming out, but, as if I had been seen, it was closed directly. In that short moment, though, I had heard a laugh, and that laugh I was sure was John Kelsey's.

"I felt on fire for a few moments, as I stood there unable to move, and then as I dragged myself away the feeling that came over me was one of blank misery and despair. I could have leaned my head up against the first wall I came to and cried like a child; but that feeling pa.s.sed off to be succeeded by one of rage. For, as the blindness dropped from my eyes, I saw clearly that not only did I dearly love Mary Andrews--love her with all a strong man's first love, such a love as one would feel who had till now made his sole companions of his books--but that I was forestalled, that John Kelsey was evidently a regular visitor there, and, for aught I knew to the contrary, was her acknowledged lover.

"I did not like playing the spy; but, with a faint feeling of hope on me that I might have been mistaken, I walked back past the house, and there was no mistake, John Kelsey's head was plainly enough to be seen upon the blind, and I went home in despair.

"How I looked forward to the next Sunday, half resolved to boldly tell Mary of my love, and to ask her whether there was any truth in that which I imagined, though I almost felt as if I should not dare.

"Sunday came at last, and somehow I was rather late when I entered the great school-room, one end of which was devoted to the girls, the other to the boys. At the first glance I saw that Mary was in her place; at the second all the blood in my body seemed to rush to my heart, for there, standing talking to the superintendent, was John Kelsey, and the next minute he had a cla.s.s of the youngest children placed in his charge, and he was hearing them read.