My residence in Sheffield made me pretty well acquainted with the
Yorkshire character, bluff, rough, frank, and hospitable. The first
impressions of Yorkshire 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 Yorkshire 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 shift 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 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 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."