Chapter 7

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.