ON THE PIT-HEAD
"Hooray, mither, I've passed the examination, an' I can leave the school
noo!" cried Robert one day, breaking in upon his mother, as she was
busily preparing the dinner. She stopped peeling the potatoes to look up
and smile, as she replied: "Passed the fifth standard, Robin?" she said,
lovingly.
"Ay," said the boy proudly, his face beaming with smiles. "It was quite
easy. Oh, if you had just seen the sums we got; they were easy as
winking. I clinked them like onything."
"My, ye maun hae been real clever," said Mrs. Sinclair encouragingly.
"Sammy Grierson failed," broke in Robert again, too full of his success
to contain himself. "He couldna' tell what was the capital of
Switzerland! Then the inspector asked him what was the largest river in
Europe, an' he said the Thames. He forgot that the Thames was just the
biggest in England. I was sittin' next him an' had to answer baith
times, an' the inspector said I was a credit to the school. My, it was
great fun!" and he rattled on, full of importance at his success.
"Ay, but maybe Sammy was just nervous," said his mother, continuing her
operations upon the potatoes, and trying to let him see that there might
have been a cause for the failure of the other boy to answer correctly.
"Ach, but he's a dunce onyway," said the boy. "He canna spell an easy
word like 'examination,' an' he had twenty-two mistakes in his dictation
test," he went on, and she was quick to note the air of priggish
importance in his utterance.
"Ay, an' you're left the school now," said Mrs. Sinclair, after a
pause, during which her busy fingers handled the potatoes with great
skill. "Your faither will be gey pleased when he comes hame the day,"
she said, giving the conversation a new turn.
"Ay, I'll get leavin' the school when I like, an' gaun to the pit when I
like."
"Would ye no' raither gang to the school a while langer?" observed the
mother after a pause, and looking at him with searching eyes.
"No," was the decisive reply. "I'd raither gang to work. I'm ready for
leaving the school and forby, all the other laddies are gaun to the pit
to work."
"But look at the things ye micht be if ye gaed to the school a while
langer, Robin," she went on. "The life of a miner's no' a very great
thing. There's naething but hard work, an' dangerous work at that, an'
no' very muckle for it." And there was an anxious desire in her voice,
as if trying to convince him.
"Ay, but I'd raither leave the school," he answered, though with less
decision this time. "Besides, it'll mean more money for you," he
concluded.
"Then, look how quick a miner turns auld, Rob. He's done at forty years
auld," she said, as if she did not wish to heed what he said, "but
meenisters an' schoolmaisters, an' folk o' that kin', leeve a gey lang
while. Look at the easy time they hae to what a collier has. They dinna
get up at five o'clock in the mornin' like your faither. They rise aboot
eight, an' start work at nine. Meenisters only work yae day a week, an'
only aboot two hoors at that. They hae clean claes to wear, a fine white
collar every day, an' sae mony claes that they can put on a different
rig-oot every day. Their work is no' hard, an' look at the pay they get;
no' like your faither wi' his two or three shillin's a day. They hae the
best o' it," she concluded, as she rested her elbows on her knees and
again searched his face keenly to see if her arguments had had any
effect upon him.
"Ay, but I'd raither work," reiterated the boy stubbornly.
"Then they hae plenty o' books," continued the temptress, loth to give
up and keen to draw as rosy a picture as possible, "and a braw hoose,
an' a piano in it. They get a lang holiday every year, and occasional
days besides, an' their pay for it. But a collier gets nae pay when he's
idle. It's the same auld grind awa' at hard work, among damp, an' gas,
an' bad air, an' aye the chance o' being killed wi' falls of stone or
something else. It's no' a nice life. It's gey ill paid, an' forby
naebody ever respects them."
"Ay, mither; but do you no' mind what Bob Smillie said?" chipped in the
boy readily, glad that he could quote such an authority to back his
view. "It's because they dinna respect themselves. They just need to do
things richt, an' things wadna' be sae bad as they are," and he felt as
if he clinched his argument by quoting Smillie against her.
"Ay, Robin," she replied, "that's true; but for it a', you maun admit
that the schoolmaister an' the meenister hae the best o' it." But she
felt that her counter was not very effective.
"My faither says meenisters are nae guid to the world, but
schoolmaisters are," said the boy, with a grudging admission for the
teaching profession. "But I dinna care. I'd raither gang to work. I
dinna want to gang ony langer to the school. I'm tired o' it, an' I want
to leave it," and there was more decision in his voice this time than
ever.
"A' richt, Robin," said Mrs. Sinclair resignedly, as she emptied the
peeled potatoes into a pot and put them on the fire.
There were now seven of a family, and she knew that Robert was needed to
increase the earnings, and that meant there was nothing but the pit for
him.
"You maun hae been real clever, though, to pass," she said again, after
a pause. "How many failed?"
"Four, mither," he cried, again waxing enthusiastic over the
examination. "Mysie Maitland passed, too. She was first among the
lasses, and I was first in the laddies."
"Eh, man, Bob, learnin' is a gran' thing to hae," she said wistfully,
looking at him very tenderly.
"Ay, but I'm gaun to the pit," he said decisively, fearing that she was
again going to enlarge upon the schoolmaster's life.
"Very weel," she said after a bit, "I suppose ye'll be lookin' for a
job. Your faither was saying last nicht that ye're too young to gang
into the pit. Ye maun be twelve years auld afore ye get doon the pit
noo, ye ken. So I suppose it'll be the pithead for ye for a while."
She had often dreamed her dream, even though she knew it was an
impossible one, that she would like to see her laddie go right on
through the Secondary School in the county town to the University. She
knew he had talents above the ordinary, and, besides, her soul rebelled
at the thought of her boy having to endure the things that his father
had to go through with. She was an intelligent woman, and though she had
had little education, she saw things differently from most of the women
of her class. She had character, and her influence was easily traced in
her children, but more especially in Robert, who was always her favorite
bairn. She was wise, too, and had fathomed some secrets of psychology
which many women with a university training had never even glimpsed.
She often maintained that her children's minds were molded before she
gave them birth, and that it depended upon the state of mind she was in
herself during those nine months, as to what kind of soul her child
would be born possessing. It may have been merely a whim on her part,
but she held tenaciously to her belief, acted in accordance with it, and
no one could dissuade her from it. Robert was her child of song, her
sunny offspring, stung into revolt against tyranny of all kinds. His
soul, strong and true as steel, she knew would stand whatever test was
put upon it. Incorruptible and sincere, nothing could break him.
Generous and forgiving, he could never be bought.
"I'll gang the nicht, mither, an' see if I can get a job. I micht get
started the morn," he said breaking in upon her thought.
"A' richt, Robin," she replied with a sigh of resignation. "I suppose
it'll hae to be done. It'll be yer first start in life, an' I hope
ye'll aye be found doin' what's richt; for guid never comes o' ill
thinkin' or ill doin."
"If I get a job, mither, maybe I'll get one-an'-tippence a day like Dick
Tamson. If I do it'll be a big help to you, mither. My! I'll soon mak' a
poun' at that rate," and he laughed enthusiastically at the thought of
it. A pound seemed to represent riches to his boyish mind. What might
his mother not do with a pound? Ever so many things could be bought. And
that was merely a start. His wages would soon increase with experience,
and when he went down the pit, which would be soon, he'd earn more, and
his mother would maybe be able to buy new clothes for all the family.
He wondered what it would be like to have a new suit of clothes--real
new ones out of a shop. Hitherto he had only enjoyed "make downs," as
they were called--new ones made out of some one's cast-off clothing. But
a real new suit, such as he had seen the schoolmaster's boy sometimes
wearing! That would be a great experience! And so, lost in contemplation
of the things big wages might do, the day wore on, and he was happy in
his dreams.
That same night Robert went to call on the "gaffer," Black Jock, and as
he neared the door he met Mysie Maitland.
"Where are ye goin', Rab?" she enquired shyly.
"To look for a job," he replied proudly, feeling that now he was left
school, and about to start work, he could be patronizing to a girl.
"Where are you gaun?" he asked, as Mysie joined him in the direction of
Walker's house.
"I'm gaun to look for a job, too," she replied. "I'm no' gaun back to
the school, an' my mither thinks I'll be as weel on the pit-head as at
service. An' forby, I'll be able to help my mither at nichts when I come
hame, an' I couldna' do that if I gaed to service," she finished by way
of explanation. As Mysie was the oldest of a family of six, her parents
would be glad to have even her small earnings, and so she, too, was
looking for a job.
When Walker came to the door, Robert took the matter in hand, and became
spokesman for both himself and Mysie.
"We've left the school the day, Mr. Walker, an' Mysie an' me want to
ken if ye can gie us a job on the pitheid?" and Walker noted with
amusement the manly swagger in the boy's voice and bearing.
"We dinna' usually start lasses as wee as Mysie," replied Walker, eyeing
the children with an amused smile, "but we need twa or three laddies to
the tables to help the women to pick stones."
Mysie's face showed her keen disappointment. She knew that it was not
customary for girls to be employed as young as she was; and Robert noted
her disappointed look as well.
"Could ye no' try Mysie, too?" he asked, breaking in anxiously. "She's a
guid worker, an' she'll be able to pick as many stanes as the weemen.
Willn't ye, Mysie?" And he turned to the girl for corroboration with
assurance.
As Mysie nodded, Walker saw a hint of tears in the girl's eyes, and the
quivering of the tiny mouth; and as there is a soft spot in all men's
hearts, even he had sympathy, for he understood what refusal meant.
"Weel, I micht gie her a trial," he said, "but she'll hae to work awfu'
hard," and he spoke as one conferring an especial concession upon the
girl.
"Oh, she'll work hard enough," said Robert. "Mysie's a guid worker, an'
you'll see ..."
"Oh, then," said Walker hurriedly breaking in upon Robert's outburst of
agreement, "ye can both come oot the morn, and I'll try and put ye both
up."
"How muckle pay will we get?" asked Robert, who was now feeling his
importance, and felt that this was after all the main point to be
considered.
"Well, we gie laddies one an' a penny," replied Walker, still smiling
amusedly at the boy's eagerness, "an' lasses are aye paid less than
callants. But it's all big lasses we hae, an' they get one an' tippence.
I'll gie Mysie a shillin' to begin wi'," and he turned away as if that
settled the matter, and was about to close the door.
"But if she picks as many stanes as a laddie, will ye gie her the same
pay as me?" interrupted Robert, not wishing the interview to end without
a definite promise of payment.
"She's gey wee," replied Walker, "an' she canna' expect as much as a
laddie," and he looked at Mysie, as if measuring her with a critical eye
to assess her value.
"But if she does as muckle work, would ye gie her the same money?"
eagerly questioned the boy, and Mysie felt that there was no one surely
so brave as Robert, nor so good, and she looked at him with gratitude in
her eyes.
"Very weel," said Walker, not desiring to prolong the interview. "Come
oot the morn, an' I'll gie ye both one an' a penny."
"Six an' sixpence a week," said Mysie, as they tramped home. "My, that's
a lot o' money, Rab, isn't it?"
"Ay, it's a guid lot, Mysie," he replied, "but we'll hae to work awfu'
hard, or we'll no' get it. Guid nicht!" And so the children parted,
feeling that the world was about to be good to them, and all their
thought of care was bounded by six and sixpence a week.
Mysie was glad to tell the result of the whole interview to her parents.
She was full of it, and could talk of nothing else as she worked about
the house that night. Her mother had been in delicate health for a long
time, and so Mysie had most of the housework to do. Matthew Maitland and
his wife, Jenny, were pleased at the result, and gave Robert due credit
for his part--a credit that Mysie was delighted to hear from them.
The next morning the two children went to work, when children of their
years ought to have been still in bed dreaming their little dreams.
The great wheels at the pithead seemed terrible in their never-ending
revolutions, as they flew round to bring up the loads of coal. The big
yawning chasm, with the swinging steel rope, running away down into the
great black hole, was awesome to look at, as the rope wriggled and
swayed with its sinister movements; and the roar and whir of wheels,
when the tables started, bewildered them. These crashed and roared and
crunched and groaned; they would squeal and shriek as if in pain, then
they would moan a little, as if gathering strength to break out in
indignant protest; and finally, roar out in rebellious anger, giving
Robert the idea of an imprisoned monster of gigantic strength which had
been harnessed whilst it slept, but had wakened at last to find itself
impotent against its Lilliputian captor--man.
An old man instructed them in their duties.
"You'll staun here," he panted, indicating a little platform about two
feet broad, and running along the full length of the "scree." "You'll
watch for every bit stane that comes doon, an' dinna' let any past. Pick
them oot as soon as you see them, an' fling them owre there, an' Dickie
Tamson'll fill them into the hutch, an' get them taken to the dirt
bing."
"A' richt," said Robert, as he looked at the narrow platform, with its
weak, inadequate railing, which could hardly prevent anyone from falling
down on to the wagon track, some fifteen or twenty feet below on one
side, or on to the moving "scree" on the other.
"Weel, mind an' no' let any stanes gang past, for there are aye
complaints comin' in aboot dirty coals. If ye dinna work an' keep oot
the stanes, you'll get the sack," and he said this as if he meant to
convey to them that he was the sole authority on the matter.
He was an old man, and Robert, as he looked at him, wondered if he had
ever laughed. "Auld Girnie" they called him, because of his habit of
always finding fault with everything and everybody, for no one could
please him. His mouth seemed to be one long slit extending across his
face, showing one or two stumps sticking in the otherwise toothless
gums, and giving him the appearance of always "grinning."
The women workers' appearance jarred upon Robert. So far women to him
had always been beings of a higher order, because he had always thought
of them as being like his mother. But here they were rough and untidy,
dressed like goblins in dirty torn clothes, with an old dirty sack
hanging from the waist for an overall. Instinctively Robert felt that
this was no place for women. One of them, who worked on the opposite
side of the scree from Robert--a big, strong, heavily-built young woman
of perhaps twenty-five--in moving forward tore her petticoat, which
caught in the machinery, and made a rent right up above her knee.
"Ach, to hell wi' it," she cried in exasperation, as she turned up the
torn petticoat, displaying a leg all covered with coal grime, which
seemed never to have been washed.
"Is that no' awfu'? Damn my soul, I'll hae to gang hame the nicht in my
sark tail," and she laughed loudly at her sally.
"I'll put a pin in it, it'll do till I gang hame," she added, and she
started to pin the torn edges together. But all day the bare leg shone
through the torn petticoat, and rough jokes were made by the men who
worked near by--jokes which she seemed to enjoy, for she would hold up
the torn garment and laugh with the others.
The women and boys never seemed to heed the things that filled Robert
and Mysie with so much amazement. The two children bent over the
swinging tables as the coal passed before them. They eagerly grabbed at
the stones, flinging them to the side with a zeal that greatly amused
the older hands.
"Ye'll no' keep up that pace lang," said one woman. "Ye'll soon tire, so
ye'd better take it easy."
"Let them alone," broke in the old man, who had a penny a day more for
acting as a sort of gaffer. "Get on wi' yer own work, an' never mind
them."
"Gang you to hell, auld wheezie bellows," replied one woman coarsely,
adding a rough jest at his breathlessness, whilst the others laughed
loudly, adding, each one, another sally to torment the old man.
But after a time Robert felt his back begin to ache, and a strange dizzy
feeling came into his head, as a result of his bent position and the
swinging and crashing of the tables. He straightened himself and felt as
if he were going to break in two. He glanced at Mysie, wondering how she
felt, and he thought she looked white and ill.
"Take a wee rest, Mysie," he said. "Are ye no' awfu' dizzy?"
Mysie heard, but "six and sixpence a week" was still ringing in her
head. Indeed, the monotonous swing of the tables ground out the refrain
in their harsh clamor, as they swung backwards and forwards. "Six and
sixpence a week," with every leap forwards; "six and sixpence a week" as
they receded. "Six and sixpence" with every shake and roar, and with
each pulsing throb of the engine; and "six and sixpence a week" her
little hands, already cut and bleeding, kept time with regular beat, as
she lifted the stones and flung them aside. She was part of the
refrain--a note in the fortissimo of industry. The engines roared and
crashed and hissed to it. They beat the air regularly as the pistons
rose and fell back and forth, thump, thud, hiss, groan, up and down, out
and in: "Six and sixpence a week!"
Mysie tried to straighten herself, as Robert had advised, and
immediately a pain shot through her back which seemed to snap it in two.
The whole place seemed to be rushing round in a mad whirl, the roof of
the shed coming down, and the floor rushing up, when with a stagger
Mysie fell full length upon a "bing" of stones, bruising her cheek, and
cutting her little hands worse than ever. This was what usually happened
to all beginners at "pickin' sklits."
One of the women raised Mysie up, gave her a drink from a flask
containing cold tea, and sat her aside to rest a short time.
"Just sit there a wee, my dochter," she said with rough kindness, "an'
you'll soon be a' richt. They mostly a' feel that way when they first
start on the scree."
Mysie was feeling sick, and already the thought was shaping in her mind
that she would never be able to continue. She had only worked an hour as
yet, but it seemed to her a whole day.
"Six and sixpence a week" sang the tables as they swung; "six and
sixpence a week" whirred the engines; "six and sixpence a week" crashed
the screes; and her head began to throb with the roar of it all. "Six
and sixpence a week" as the coal tumbled down the chutes into the
wagons; "six and sixpence" crunched the wheels, until it seemed as if
everything about a pit were done to the tune of "six and sixpence a
week."
It was thundered about her from one corner, it squealed at her from
another, roared at her from behind, groaned at her in front; it wheezed
from the roof, and the very shed in which they stood swayed and shivered
to its monotonous song. "Six and sixpence a week" was working into every
fiber of her being. She had been born to it, was living it, and it
seemed that the very wheels of eternity were grinding out her destiny to
its roar and its crash, and its terrible regular throb and swing.
She grew still more sick, and vomited; so one of the women took her by
the hand and led her down the narrow rickety wooden stair out across the
dirt "bing" into the pure air. In a quarter of an hour she brought her
back almost well, except for the pain in her head.
"Where the hell hae ye been, Mag?" wheezed the old gaffer, addressing
the woman with irritated authority.
"Awa' an' boil yer can, auld belly-crawler," was the elegant response,
as she bent to her work, taking as little notice of him as if he were a
piece of coal.
"Ye're awa' faur owre much," he returned. This was an allusion to
clandestine meetings which were sometimes arranged between some of the
men in authority--"penny gaffers," as they were called--and some of the
girls who took their fancy.
After all, gaffers had certain powers of advancement, and could increase
wages to those who found favor in their eyes, to the extent of a penny
or twopence per day, and justified it by representing that these girls
were value for it, because they were better workers. Again, matters were
always easier to these girls of easy virtue, for they got better jobs,
and could even flout the authority of lesser gaffers, if their relations
with the higher ones were as indicated.
Mag replied with a coarse jest, and the others laughed roughly, and
Mysie and Robert, not understanding, wondered why the old man got angry.
Thus the day wore on, men and women cursed while familiarities took
place which were barely hidden from the children. Talk was coarse and
obscenely suggestive, and the whole atmosphere was brutalizing. Long,
however, before the day was ended, Robert and Mysie were feeling as if
every bone in their little bodies would break.
"Just take anither wee rest, Mysie," said Robert. "I'll keep pickin' as
hard as I can, an' ye'll no' be sae muckle missed."
"Oh, I'll hae to keep on, too," she replied, almost despairingly, with a
hint of tears in her voice. "Ye mind I promised to work hard, an' ye
said I was a guid worker, too. If I dinna' keep on I micht only get a
shillin' a day."
"But I'll pick as much as the twa o' us can do," pursued Robert, with
persuasive voice. "I'll gang harder, until ye can get a wee rest."
So Mysie, in sheer exhaustion, stopped for a little, and the dizzy
feeling was soon gone again. Yet the horrible pain in the back troubled
them all day, and the dizziness returned frequently, but the others
assured them that they'd soon get used to it. Their hands were cut,
bruised and dirty, and poor little Mysie felt often that she would like
to cry, but "six and sixpence a week" kept time in her heart to all her
troubles, and seemed to drive her onward with relentless force.
With rough kindness the women encouraged the two children, and did much
to make their lot easier. But it was a trying day--a hard, heartbreaking
day, a day of tears and pains and discouragement, a horrible Gethsemane
of sweat and agony, whose memory not even "six and sixpence a week"
would ever eradicate from their minds, though it made the day bearable.
The great wheels groaned and swished like the imprisoned monster of
Robert's imaginings, and at last came to a halt at the end of the shift;
but in the pattern which they had that day woven into the web of
industry, there were two bright threads--threads of great beauty and
high worth--threads which the very gods seemed proud of seeing there,
twisted and twined, and lending color of richest hue to the whole
design--threads of glorious fiber and rare quality, which sparkled and
shone like the neck of a pigeon in the sunshine. These threads in the
web of industry, which had shone that day for the first time, were the
lives of two little children.