David's Little Lad

“There it is,” said Miles; “she’s sure set agen it, and yet it must be.” Then bending down and speaking in a low voice, in her ear. “Shall I tell the lady about Stephie? Nan.”

“Yes,” said Nan, unloosing her hold, and looking up into his face with a sigh. She had the scared look in her wild, bright eyes, I have seen in the hunted hare, when he flew past me – dogs and horsemen in full pursuit. Now she buried her head in her brother’s rough jacket, with the momentary relief which the telling of Stephie’s story would give to the tension of her fears.

“Tell me about Stephie,” I said.

“Stephie,” continued Miles – “he was our brother. Mother set great store by Stephie; he was so strong, and big, and brave. Nothing ’ud daunt ’im. Many of the lads about ’ere ’ud try; and they’d say, ‘Wait till the day you goes down inter the mine, and you’ll show the white feather’; but he – he larfed at ’em. He ’ad no fear in ’im, and h’all the stories ’bout fire-damp, and h’all the other dangers – and worse’rn all, the ghosts of the colliers as died in the mine, they couldn’t daunt him. Other lads ’ud run away, wen they come near the h’age; but he – he on’y counted the days; and ‘Mother,’ ’e’d say – for mother war werry weakly – ‘Mother, wen you ’as my wage, you can buy this thing and t’other thing, and you’ll be strong in no time.’ Well, mother she thought a sight on Stephie, and she never wanted ’im to go down inter the mine; and she used to ask father to try and ’prentice ’im to another trade, for he war so big, and bright, and clever; but the times was bad, and father couldn’t, so Stephie had to go. He was clever, and fond o’ readin’, and a man wot lived near, lent ’im books, real minin’ books, and he knew ’bout the dangers well as anybody; but nothing could daunt Stephie, and he often said that he’d work and work, and rise hisself; and he’d try then ef he couldn’t find h’out something as ’ud help to lessen the danger for the colliers. At last the day came wen he was to go down.”

Here Miles paused, drew a long breath, and little Nan buried her head yet farther into his rough jacket. He stooped to kiss her, then raising his head, and fixing his eyes on my face, he continued. “The day ’ad come, and Stephie got h’up very early in the mornin’, and he put on ’is collier’s dress, and we h’all got up – Nan and h’all; and mother she give ’im ’is breakfast. Well, he was standin’ by the fire, and mother’s ’and on ’is shoulder, and ’er eyes on ’is face, when father, he came.

“Father had h’always promised to go down the first time wid Stephie, and show ’im the mine, and put ’im wid someone as ’nd learn ’im ’is work; but now he said, ‘Stephie, lad, I can’t go down till night. I ’as ’ad a sudden call elsewhere, so thee ’ad better wait, lad;’ but Stephie answered, ‘No, father; there’s poor little James, Black William’s son, and he’s going down too, to-day; and he’s rare and daunted, and I ain’t a bit; and Black William said as he might stay along wid me the first day, so I must go, father, and Black William ull take care on us both;’ then father, he said no more – on’y mother, she cried and begged Stephie to wait. And he looked at ’er amost scornful, for h’all he loved her so; and he said, ‘Does thee tell me to forsake the little sickly lad?’ Then he kissed mother, and he kissed little Nan, and waved his hand back at ’em, and set off running to the bank, and I ran wid ’im, and he said to me, ‘Miles, lad, don’t you h’ever be daunted when your turn comes to go down, for God takes care of h’everybody, in the earth and on the earth – ’tis all the same to God.’ Then he stepped on to the cage, and gripped the hand of little James, who was shakin’ fit to drop, and he called h’out to me – ‘Tell mother as I’ll be coming up wid the day crew, and to ’ave supper ready, for I’ll be very ’ungry,’ and the other colliers larfed to ’ear ’im so ’arty.

“Well, Miss Morgan, that day mother war stronger nor ordinary, and she cleaned and scrubbed the floor, and when evening came, she got a rare and good bit of supper ready, and just wen we was looking h’out for Stephie, and mother had put a rough towel, and water in the tub, ready for him to wash hisself, who should come runnin’ in but the wife of Black Bill, h’all crazy like, and ’ringin’ ’er ’hands; and she said there had been a gas explosion, and h’every livin’ soul in the mine was dead.”

Here Miles paused; speaking again in a moment, more slowly.

“That wasn’t true. A few did escape, and was brought up next day. But Black Bill was dead, and Stephie, and little James. Black Bill was found all burnt dreadful; but Stephie and little James – it was the after-damp had done for them. They was found in one of the stalls; Stephie’s arms round the little lad.” Another long pause. “Mother, she never held up her head – she died three months later, and now there’s on’y Nan, and father, and me. Nan is such a careful little body, and keeps the house so trim.”

“You are not afraid to go down into the mine?” I said.

“Well, miss, it is a bit of a cross; partic’lar as it cuts up the little ’un so; but, good gracious! it ain’t nothin’; there ain’t bin a h’accident for h’ages – and I ain’t daunted.”

“When are you going down?”

“On Monday, Miss Morgan.”

“Little Nan,” I said, turning to the child, “I mean to come to see you at your own house on Monday. You may expect me, for I shall be sure to come; and I’ll bring you pictures – lots; and if you like, I can show you how to colour them.”

I thought this offer must charm Nan, and make her forget the terrors of the mine; but it did not. She looked gravely, almost fretfully at me, and it was Miles who said, “Thank you.”

“I must go now,” I said, jumping to my feet. “I have stayed too long already; but I’m very glad I have met you, Miles, and Nan. I think your Stephie a real, real hero; and, Miles, I love you for being so brave, and I should like, beyond anything, to shake hands with you, and to kiss little Nan.”

After clasping a small brown hand, and pressing a warm salute on two trembling lips, I started home. The children’s story had excited me, and warmed my heart. For the present it absorbed my thoughts, even to the exclusion of Owen. I said I would do much for these two. This boy and girl, so lonely, so interesting, with their tragic story and tragic life, should find in me a benefactor and friend. The thought was delicious and exhilarating. David, through my intervention, should rescue Miles from the miner’s life, and relieve the timid little sister from her worst fears. My spirits rose high as I contemplated this event, which a word from my lips could bring about. I entered the house humming the wild sweet air which the children had set to their Methodist hymn. The music of my voice was greeted by the richer music of gay and happy laughter. I stood motionless in the hall. My heart almost ceased to beat, then bounded on wildly. The colour fled from my cheeks and lips, returning in a moment in a full tide of richest crimson. I could have given way then. I could have rushed to Owen’s side, thrown my arms round his neck, and wept out on his breast, a whole flood of healing and forgiving tears. Had I done so, my soul would have been knit to his with a love strong as the old love was weak – noble as the old passionate affection was erring and idolatrous; but I did not. I conquered the emotion, which the sound of his voice, and his laughter, had stirred within me. I told myself that that was not my Owen – mine, my hero was dead. Untidy, pale, agitated, but unforgiving, I opened the drawing-room door and went in. David, mother, and Owen, were standing in a loving, happy group. I went up to the group – they had not heard me come in – and touched Owen on the sleeve, and said, in a quiet voice, “Welcome home, brother.”

For an instant two bright, dark eyes looked expectantly into mine – one instant the brilliant eyes wore that look – one instant after, they were blank with disappointment. Then all was commonplace – a commonplace, but affectionate brother’s kiss was on my cheek, and a gay voice said, laughingly —

“Why, Gwladys, you’re as wild and disreputable-looking a little romp as ever.”

Chapter Nine

Earth – Air – Fire – Water

Whether Owen had come back, in my opinion, a hero, or an unpardoned and disgraced man, appeared after his first swift glance into my face to affect him very little, if at all; and I had to admit to myself that whatever else he may have failed in, he had arrived at Ffynon with a full knowledge of the duty which he had undertaken.

As a boy, he had always loved engineering, and when in those bright and happy days he and I had discussed his golden future, the pros had generally ended in favour of his becoming an engineer.

“All things considered, I should like this best, Gwladys,” he would say. And though in these very youthful days he appeared to care more for poetry and the finest of the fine arts, yet it was here, I believe, that his true talent lay. Owen had not been idle during the four years of his exile, he had studied engineering as a profession when he was at Oxford, and during these years he had gone through a course of practical training with regard to the duties of a mining engineer, not only in the German mines, but in the North of England. He now brought this knowledge to bear on the rather slow working and unprofitable mine at Ffynon. This mine, which belonged to our mother, had at one time yielded a great deal of coal and was a source of much wealth, but of late, year by year, the mine yielded less, and its expenses became greater. It was worked on an old-fashioned system; it had not the recent improvements with regard to ventilation; and many serious accidents had taken place in consequence. Neither was the manager popular, he worked the mine recklessly, and many accidents of the most fatal character were constantly taking place from the falls of roofs, this expression meaning the giving way of great portions of the coal for want of proper supports being put under it. A short time before Owen’s return, the manager of the mine for some more flagrant act of carelessness than usual, had been dismissed, and it was on hearing this, that Owen had written to David, telling him of his studies and his profession, reminding him also that when a boy he had more than once gone down into the old mine at Ffynon, that with his present knowledge he believed the mine to be still rich in coal, and that it only needed to be properly worked to yield a fine return. He spoke strongly against the unprofitable and expensive system which had hitherto been adopted; and finally he begged of David to give him permission to step into the manager’s shoes, and for at least a year to have absolute control of the mine: promising at the end of that time to reduce order out of chaos, to lessen current expenses, and to bring in the first instalments of what should be large profits.

He had frankly told David his reason for this: he had a debt to pay, a debt of love and gratitude it was true, but still a debt that fretted his proud spirit, a debt that must be paid before he could know happiness again. But it was just on account of this reason that David hesitated to accept the services of one whose knowledge of the work he meant to undertake, was certainly great. The primary motive in Owen’s heart, seemed to David, in the present state of Ffynon mine, hardly a worthy one. Coal was valuable, gold scarce, but lives were precious; it seemed to David that until all was done to insure the safety of the lives of those men and boys who worked in the mine, gold ought to weigh very low in the balance, and as he alone of us all knew something truly of his brother’s character, so he hesitated to accept his offer; but while David hesitated, mother urged. Mother was ignorant of the miner’s life; gold to mother was not valueless: she had dreams of the Morgans being restored to all their former riches and power, she had also, notwithstanding his one fall, still implicit faith in Owen. Owen would not only win the gold but make the mine safe. It was a grief to her to leave Tynycymmer, but it was a counterbalancing delight to live on any terms for a year with her favourite son; she urged the acceptance of his offer. Thus urged, David yielded.

We moved to Ffynon. Owen arrived, eager, hopeful, enthusiastic, as of old. Handsome and brilliant as ever he looked as gay as though he had never known a sorrow. So I thought for the first week after his arrival, then I saw that his spirits were fitful, sometimes I fancied a little forced; a bad report of the mine would depress him for the day, whereas good news would send his gay laugh echoing all over the small house.

Thus I found myself in the midst of mining life. Mother, hitherto profoundly ignorant of such matters, now took up the popular theme with interest and zest.

She and I learned what fire-damp, black-damp, after-damp meant. We learned the relative destructiveness of explosions by gas and inundations by water. Then we became great on the all-important subject of ventilation. We knew what the steam jet could do, what furnace ventilation could effect. I admired the Davy lamps, learned something of their construction, and at last, I obtained the strongest wish I at present possessed, namely, a visit to this underground region of awe and danger, myself. It is a hackneyed theme, and I need scarcely describe it at length. I remember stepping on to the cage with some of the enthusiasm which I had admired in Miles’ brave hero brother, and long before I reached the bottom of the shaft, suffering from an intolerable sense of suffocation, and shivering and shaking with inward fear, such as must have overtaken poor little James on that fatal day. Finally, when I got to the bottom, recovering my courage, rejoicing in the free current of fresh air which was blown down from the great fan above, growing accustomed to the dim light of the Davy lamps, and then discovering little, by little, that the mine with its rail-roads, its levels, its drift ways, where the loaded trams of coal ran swiftly down, impelled by their own weight, its eager, grimy workers, its patient horses, destined many of them to live and die in this underground gloom, was very like a town, and had an order and method of its own.

The knowledge gained by the visit, the knowledge gained by listening to Owen’s and David’s conversation, the knowledge perhaps greater than all, which I had won by my friendship for Miles and Nan, inspired in me the strongest respect and admiration for the brave collier. He works in the dark, his heroic deeds are little heard of beyond his own circle, and yet he is as true a hero as the soldier in the field of battle or the sailor in the storm: his battle-field is the mine, his enemies, earth, air, fire, and water. Any moment the earth can bury him in a living tomb, a vast quantity of that solid coal may give way, and crush him beneath its weight; any instant, the air, in the poisoned form of black, or after-damp, may fill his lungs, take all power from his limbs, fell him in his strength and prime to the earth, and leave him there dead; or in half an instant, through the explosion of a match, the wrong adjustment of a safety-lamp, the whole mine may from end to end become a cavern of lurid fire, destroying every living thing within its reach. Or one stroke too many of the miner’s pick, may let in a volume of black and stagnant water from an unused and forgotten pit, which rising slowly at first, then gaining, in volume, in strength, in rapidity, buries the miners in a watery grave of horrible and loathsome desolation.

Yes, the miners are brave; for small pay they toll unremittingly, labouring in the dark, exposed to many dangers. Day by day these men go down into the mines literally with their lives in their hands. The wives, mothers, sisters, know well what the non-arrival of a husband, father, brother means. They hope a little, fear much, weep over the mangled remains when they can even have that poor source of consolation, and then the widow who has lost her husband, dries her eyes, puts her shoulder to the wheel, and like a true Spartan woman, when his turn comes, sends down her boy to follow in his father’s steps, and, if God wills it, to die bravely, as his father died before him.

I visited the schools about Ffynon, and noticed the bright dark-eyed, Welsh children, each boy among them destined to become a collier as he grew up. Many of these boys shrank from it, struggled against it, feared it as a coming nightmare; some few, as the dreaded time drew near, ran away to sea, preferring the giving up of father and mother, and encountering the hardships of the sea, to the greater hardships of the mine, but most of them yielded to the inevitable fate.

I found, too, on observation that the colliers of Ffynon were a religious people; the sentiments I had heard in astonishment and almost awe dropping from the lips of little Miles, I found were the sentiments rather of the many than the few. They lived an intense life, and they needed, and certainly possessed, an intense faith.

The body of them were not Church people; they had a simple and impassioned service of their own, generally held in the Welsh tongue. At these services they prayed and sang and listened to fervent addresses. At these services, after an accident, slight or great, the men and women often bowed their heads and wept. Their services were alive and warm, breathing the very breath of devotion, suited to their untrained, but strong natures. They left them with the sense of a present God alive in each heart; a God who would go with them into the mine, who would accompany them through the daily toil and danger, and, if need be, and His will called them, would carry them safely, even in a chariot of fire, into the Golden City.

To the religious miner, the descriptions of Heaven as written in the Apocalypse, were the very life of his life. He loved to sit by his fire on Sunday evenings, and slowly read from the well-worn page to his listening wife, and his lads and lasses, of the city sparkling with gems and rich with gold. To the man who toiled in the deepest of darkness, a land without night or shadow was a theme of rapture. To the man who knew danger and pain, who fought every day with grim death, that painless shore, that eternal calm, that home where father, mother, brother, sister, rudely parted and torn asunder here, should be together, and God with them, was as an anchor to his soul. No place on earth could be more real and present than Heaven was to the religious collier. Take it from him, and he could do no more work in the dark and dangerous mine; leave it with him, and he was a hero. The colliers had one proud motto, one badge of honour, which each father bequeathed as his most precious possession to his son – this motto was “Bravery;” one stigma of everlasting disgrace which, once earned, nothing could wipe out, “Cowardice.” In the collier’s creed no stone was too heavy to roll away to rescue a brother from danger. Into the midst of the fire and the flood, into the fatal air of the after-damp, they must go without shrinking to save a companion who had fallen a victim to these dangers. Each man as he toiled to rescue his fellow man, knew well that he in his turn, would risk life itself for him. No man reflected credit on himself for this, no man regarded it as other than his most simple and obvious duty.

Into the midst of this simple, brave, and in many ways noble people, came Owen with his science and his skill. He went down into the mine day after day, quickly mastered its intricacies, quickly discovered its defects, quickly lighted upon its still vast stores of unused treasures. At the end of a month he communicated the result to David. I was seated by the open window, and I heard, in detached sentences, something of what was spoken, as the brothers paced the little plot of ground outside, arm in arm. As I watched them, I noticed for the first time some of the old look of confidence and passion on Owen’s face. The expressive eyes revealed this fact to me – the full hazel irids, the pupils instinct with fire, the whole eyes brimming with a long-lost gladness, proclaimed to me that the daring, the ambition I had loved, was not dead.

“Give me but a year, David,” I heard him say in conclusion. “Give me but one year, and I shall see my way to it. In a year from this time, if you but give me permission to do as I think best, the mine shall begin to pay you back what I have lost to you!”

David’s voice, in direct contrast to Owen’s, was deep and sad.

“I don’t want that,” he said, laying his hand on his brother’s arm, “I want something else.”

“What?” asked Owen.

“I want something else,” continued David. “This is it. Owen, I want you to help me to fulfil a duty, a much neglected duty. I take myself to task very much for the gross way I have passed it by hitherto. God knows it was my ignorance, not my wilful neglect, but I ought to have known; this is no real excuse. Owen, I have lived contented at Tynycymmer, and forgotten, or almost forgotten, this old mine. I left things in the hands of the manager; I received the money it brought without either thought or comment. And all the time, God help me, the place was behind its neighbours. I had not much money to expend on it, and I was content it should be worked on the old system, never thinking, never calculating, that the old system involved danger and loss of life. The mine is not ventilated as the other mines are; in no mine in the neighbourhood do so many deaths occur. You yourself have discovered it to be full of many dangers. So, Owen, what I ask of you is this, help me to lift this sin of my neglect off my soul. I don’t want the money, Owen; it is enough for me, it is more than enough, to see you as you now are; the money, I repeat, is a thing to me of no value, but the people’s lives are of much. I can and will raise the sum you require to put the mine into a state of safety, to perfect the ventilation, to do all that can be done to lessen the danger for the colliers. Do your part in this as quickly as possible, Owen, and let us think nothing of money gains for the present.”

While David was speaking, Owen had again drawn a veil of perfect immobility over his face. Impossible, with this veil on, to guess his thoughts, or fathom his feelings.

“Of course, of course,” he said, “the ventilation shall be improved and all that is necessary done.”

Chapter Ten

Little Twenty

I had not forgotten my promise to visit Nan on the day her brother first went down into the mine.

I selected a bundle of illustrated papers – some old copies of Punch– as, judging from the delight I took in them myself, I hoped they would make little Nan laugh. I also put a sixpenny box of paints into my pocket. These sixpenny paint-boxes were the most delightful things the Tynycymmer children had ever seen, so, doubtless, they would look equally nice in the eyes of Nan.

The Thomas’s cottage was one of a row that stood just over the pit bank. I ascended the rather steep hill which led to it, entered the narrow path which ran in front of the whole row of houses, and where many women were now hanging out clothes to dry, and knocked at Nan’s door. She did not hear me; she was moving briskly about within, and singing to her work. Her voice sounded happy, and the Welsh words and Welsh air were gay. I knocked a second time, then went in.

“I am so glad to hear you singing, Nan,” I said. “I was sure you would be in trouble, for I thought Miles had gone into the mine to-day!”

Little Nan was arranging some crockery on the white dresser. She stopped at the sound of my voice, and turned round with the large china tea-pot in her hand. When I had seen her on Saturday, seated weeping on the old cinder-heap, I had regarded her as a very little child. Now I perceived my mistake. Nan was no child; she was a miniature woman. I began to doubt what effect my copies of Punch and my sixpenny paints would produce on this odd mixture; more particularly when she said, in a quiet old-fashioned voice – “But he did go into the mine, Miss Morgan; Miles went down the shaft at five o’clock this mornin’.”

“You take it very calmly when the time comes,” I continued; “I thought you would have been in a terrible state.”