The Underworld Part 12

"There now, la.s.sie," he said, again gathering her into his arms, and kissing her tenderly, "it's all past now, my la.s.s, and you'll get it easier from this time forth. G.o.d knows, Nellie, you are worth all that I can ever do for you to help," and the happy tears fell from her eyes, as she patted his rough, hairy cheek, and fondled him again, as she had done in their courting days.

"I'll wash the floor for you, la.s.s," he said impulsively, almost beside himself with happiness, as he realized that this little act of his had made them both so happy. "You've been in the was.h.i.+ng tub all day, and I ken you'll be scrubbin' on the floor first thing in the morning, as soon as we are away to the pit. But I'll do it for you the nicht. The bairns are all in bed, and I'll no' be long. You sit an' tak' a rest," and he was off for the pail and a scrubbing brush, and was back at the fireside pouring water from the kettle before his wife realized it.

"Oh, never mind, Geordie," she said remonstratingly, "I'll do it myself in the morning. You've had your own work to do in the pit, an' you need all the rest you can get."

"No," he said decisively. "You sit doon, la.s.s. I'll no' be lang. Just you sing a bit sang to me, just as you used to sing, Nellie, an' I'll wash out the floor," and he was soon on his knees, scrubbing away as if it were a daily occurrence with him. And Nellie, pleased and happy beyond expression, sat in the big chair by the fireside and sang his favorite ballad, "Kirkconnel Lea."

Oh, that I were where Helen lies, For nicht and day on me she cries, Oh, that I were where Helen lies On fair Kirkconnel Lea.

Oh, Helen fair, beyond compare, I'll mak' a garland o' your hair Shall bind my heart for evermair Until the day I dee.

And Nellie Sinclair never in all her life sang that song so well as she did that night; and she never sang it again. Robert, who was lying in the room, heard her glorious voice, and marveled at the complete mastery she showed over the plaintive old tune. It was as if her very soul reveled in it, as the notes rose and fell; and it stirred the boy into tremendous emotional excitement, as the tragedy was unfolded in the beautiful words and the sadness of the old tune.

It was a memorable night of quiet happiness for all, and there was so much of tragedy lying behind it unseen and unknown. But so often are the sweetest moments of life followed by its sadness and its sorrow.

CHAPTER IX

THE ACCIDENT

Next morning at five o'clock Robert leapt from his bed, full of importance at the prospect of going down the pit. Stripping off his sleeping s.h.i.+rt, he chattered as he donned the pit clothes. The blue plaid working-s.h.i.+rt which his mother had bought for him felt rough to his tender skin, but unpleasant as it was, he donned it with a sense of bigness. Then the rough moleskin trousers were put on and fastened with a belt round the waist, and a pair of leg-strings at the knees. The bundles of clothes, separately arranged the night before, had got mixed somewhat in Robert's eagerness to dress, with the result that when his brother John rose, with eyes half shut, and reached for his stockings, he found those of Robert instead lying upon his bundle.

"Gie's my socks," he ordered grumpily, flinging Robert's socks into the far corner of the kitchen. "You've on the wrong drawers too. Can ye no'

look what you're doin'?" and the drawers followed the socks, while Robert looked at his mother with eyes of wonderment.

"Tak' aff his socks, Rob," she said, "he's a thrawn, ill-natured cat, that, in the mornin'."

"Well, he should look what he's doin' an' no' put on other folk's claes," and immediately the others burst out laughing, for this advocate of "watchin' what he was doin'" had in his half sleepy condition failed to see that he had lifted his jacket and had rammed his leg down the sleeve in his hurry and anger.

"Noo, that'll do," said Geordie, as John flung the jacket at Robert, because he laughed. "That'll do noo, or I'll come alang yer jaw," and thus admonished John was at once silent.

Robert soon had his toilet completed, however, even to the old cap on his head, upon which sat the little oil-lamp, which he handled and cleaned and wiped with his fingers to keep it bright and s.h.i.+ny, whilst all the time he kept chattering.

"For ony sake, laddie, hand your tongue," said Geordie at last, as he drew in his chair to the table to start upon the frugal breakfast of bread and b.u.t.ter and tea. "Your tongue's never lain since you got up."

Robert, thereupon, sat down in silence at the table, though there were a hundred different things he wanted to ask about the pit. He could not understand why everyone felt and looked so sleepy, nor divine the cause of the irritable look upon each face, which in the dim light of the paraffin lamp gave a forbidding atmosphere to the home at this time of the day.

At last, however, the meal was over, and when Geordie had lit his pit lamp and stuck his pipe in his mouth, all three started off with a curt "Good morning" to Mrs. Sinclair, who looked after her boys with a smile which chased away the previous irritability from her face.

Arrived at the pit-head, they found a number of miners there squatting on their "hunkers," waiting the time for descending the shaft. As each newcomer came forward, the man who arrived immediately before him called out: "I'm last." By this means--"crying the benns,"--as it was called--the order of descent was regulated on the principle of "First come, first served." Much chaffing was leveled at little Robert by some of the younger men regarding his work and the things which would have to be done by and to him that day.

At last came the all important moment, and Robert, his father and two men stepped on to the cage. After the signal was given, it seemed to the boy as if heaven and earth were pa.s.sing away in the sudden sheer drop, as the cage plunged down into the yawning hole, out of which came evil smells and shadows cast from the flickering lamps upon the heads of the miners. The rattling of the cage sent a s.h.i.+ver of fear through Robert, and with that first sudden plunge he felt as if his heart were going to leap out of his mouth. But by the time he reached the "bottom," he had consoled and encouraged himself with the thought that these things were all in the first day's experience of all miners.

That morning Robert Sinclair was initiated into the art of "drawing" by his brother John. The road was fairly level, to push the loaded "tubs,"

thus leaving his father to be helped with the pick at the coal "face."

After an hour or two, Robert, though getting fairly well acquainted with the work, was feeling tired. The strange damp smell, which had greeted his nostrils when the cage began to descend with him that morning, was still strong, though not so overpowering as it had been at first. The subtle s.h.i.+fting shadows cast from his little lamp were becoming familiar, and his nervousness was not now so p.r.o.nounced, though he was still easily startled if anything unusual took place. The sound of the first shot in the pit nearly frightened him out of his wits, and he listened nervously to every dull report with a strange uneasiness. About one o'clock his father called to him.

"Dinna tak' that hutch oot the noo, Robert. Just let it staun', an' sit doon an' tak' yir piece. Ye'll be hungry, an' John an' me will be out the noo if we had this shot stemmed."

"A' richt," cheerfully replied the boy, withdrawing down to the end of the road, where his clothes hung upon a tree, and taking his bread from one of his pockets, he sat down tired and hungry to await his father and John.

Geordie's "place" was being worked over the old workings of another mine which had exhausted most of the coal of a lower seam many years previously, except for the "stoops" or pillars, which had been left in.

This was supposed to be the barrier beyond which Rundell's lease did not go. It would be too dangerous to work the upper seam with the ground hollow underneath, so the "places" had all been stopped as they came up, with the exception of Geordie Sinclair's. Sinclair was puzzled at this, and he often wondered why his place had not been stopped with the others. He was more uneasy, too, when he began to find large cracks or fissures in the metals, and spoke of this to Andrew Marshall a few nights before; but he did not like to seem to make too much of it, and the matter was pa.s.sed over, till the day before, when Walker visited the place for a few minutes, when Geordie accosted him.

"What way is my place going on?" he asked, and was told that it was a corner in the barrier, which extended for one hundred yards and must go on for that distance, and that there was really no danger, as the ground below was solid.

So, busily working away, and finding still more rents in the floor and roof, Sinclair thought it must just be as he had seen it in other places of a like kind, the weight of the upper metals which were breaking over the solid ground by reason of the hollow beneath between the stoops, though in this case it did not amount to much as yet.

The coal was easy to get; he had one boy "forrit to the pick," with Robert as "drawer," and his prospects seemed good, he thought, as he was busily preparing a shot, ramming in the powder, and "stemming" up the hole. He was busy ramming the powder in the prepared hole, while the elder boy prepared clay, with which to stem or seal it up after the powder had been pressed back, leaving only the fuse protruding.

"Here's a tree cracking," said the boy, drawing his father's attention to a breaking prop; but as this is a common occurrence in all mines where there is extra weight after development, Geordie thought nothing of it at the time, intending merely, before he lighted his shot, to put in a fresh prop.

"Bring in another prop, sonny," he said to the boy, "and I'll put it in when I have stemmed this hole," and the boy turned to obey his order.

But suddenly a low crackling sound, caused by the breaking of more props, was heard, then a roar and a crash as of thunder, followed by a long rumbling noise, which left not a moment for the two trapped human beings to stir even a limb or utter a cry. The immensity of the fall created a wind, which put out little Robert's lamp; the great rumbling noise filled him with a dreadful fear, and he sprang involuntarily to his feet.

"Faither! Faither!" he called, terror in his voice and anxiety in his little heart, but there was no rea.s.suring answer. He felt his breathing getting difficult; the air was thick with dust and heavy with the smell of rotting wood and damp decaying matter.

"Faither! Faither!" he called again louder in his agony, darting forward, thinking to go to their a.s.sistance, and knocking his head against a boulder.

"John! Faither! I'm feart," and he began to cry. Afraid to move, unable to see, he staggered from one side to another, bruising his face and arms against the jagged sides, the blood already streaming from his bruises, and his heart frantic with fear.

"Oh, faither! faither! Where are ye?" and he began to crawl up the incline, in desperate fear, while still the rumbling and cras.h.i.+ng went on in long rolling thunder. "Oh! oh!" he moaned, now almost mad with terror. "Faither! John! Where are ye! Oh! oh!" and he fell back stunned by striking his head against a low part of the roof.

Again he scrambled to his feet, certain now that some disaster had happened, since there was no response to his appeals, and again he was knocked to the ground by striking his head against the side of the roadway. But always he rose again, frantically das.h.i.+ng from side to side, as a caged lark, when first caught, dashes itself against the bars of its prison; until finally, stunned beyond recovery, he lay in a semi-conscious condition, helpless and inert, his bruises smarting but unfelt, and the blood oozing from his nose and mouth.

Andrew Marshall, working about fifty yards away, heard the roar and the crash, and the boy's cries, and at once ran to Geordie's place. In his haste and anxiety he nearly stumbled over the prostrate boy, who lay unconscious in the roadway.

"Good G.o.d! What has happened?" he exclaimed, anxiously bending over the boy and raising him up, then das.h.i.+ng some cold tea from Robert's flask upon him, and forcing some between his lips. Then, when the boy showed signs of recovery, he plied him with anxious questions.

"Where's yir faither? What's wrang?" But the boy only clung to him in wild terror, and nothing connected could be got from him.

Andrew lighted the boy's lamp and tore up the brae, leaving Robert shrieking in nervous fright.

"Great Christ! It has fa'en in!" he cried, when he had got as far as he could go. "Geordie! Geordie! Are ye in there?" and as no answer came, he began tearing at the great blocks of stone, flinging them like pebbles in his desperation, until another warning rumble drove him back.

Immediately he realized how helpless he was alone, so he went back to the boy and hurried him down the brae and out to where some other men were at work. A few hasty words, and Robert was pa.s.sed on, and Andrew went back with the men, only to find how hopeless it all was; for occasionally huge falls continued to come away, and it seemed useless to attempt anything till more help was procured.

Andrew hurried off to the bottom and overtook Robert, sending back others to help, and he ascended the shaft and was off to break the news to Mrs. Sinclair; after which he returned to the pit, determined to get out all that remained of Geordie and the boy John.

CHAPTER X

HEROES OF THE UNDERWORLD