There was a silence, broken only by the snoring of air through the wind-bore cast of the pump. The sound echoed in the darkness, mingled with the suck and gurgle of water through the lower snore-holes. Though they barely heard that sound, subconsciously each man approved it, aware, deep down within himself, that it meant the proper functioning of the pump.
Harry Brace turned to Robert.
“It’s not as wet as in the Scupper, though.”
“No!” said Robert quietly, “we’re well out o’ that sheugh.”
Slogger said:
“If the wet irks ye, Harry, lad, ye better ask the missus for a clout.”
Everybody laughed. Carried away by his success, Slogger gaily nudged David in the ribs.
“You’re a clivor young fella, Davey. Can ye do anything about my wet backside?”
“What about kicking it?” Davey suggested dryly.
There was a louder laugh than ever. Slogger grinned: in the dim light of that dark place he looked like some gay gigantic devil bent on a rich Satanic jest.
“Good lad! Good lad! That would warm it reet enough.” He approved Davey, taking his measure with one white eye. “Ye are a clivor fella after all. Is’t true what I hear, that yer goin’ te the Baddeley College to teach all the professors in Tynecassel?”
David said:
“I hope they’ll teach me, Slogger.”
“But for why in all the world are ye going?” expostulated Slogger with a wink at Robert. “Don’t ye want to grow up a proper collier like me wi’ an elegant figger an’ face? An’ a canny bit o’ money tucked away in the Fiddler’s bank.”
This time Robert did not see the joke.
“He’s going because I want him to get out of this,” he said sternly; and the burning stress he laid upon that word silenced them all. “He’s taken his chance. He’s worked hard, has got his scholarship, he goes to Tynecastle Monday.”
There was a pause, then Hughie, the silent one, suddenly declared:
“I wish I could get the length of Tynecassel. I’d fair love to see the United regular.” The longing in Hughie’s voice made Slogger laugh again.
“Don’t ye worry, lad.” He slapped Hughie on the back. “Ye’ll be playin’ for the United yerself one of they days. I’ve seen ye, I know what ye can do. Mon, I heard the Tynecassel spotter wor coming down to watch ye at the next Sleescale match.”
Hughie coloured under his dirt. He knew Slogger was pulling his leg. But he didn’t care. He’d get there one day, for all their jokes. He’d show them, and show them soon, he would!
All at once Brace lifted his head, cocked one ear towards the slant.
“Hey!” he exclaimed, “what’s like the matter wi’ the pump?”
Slogger stopped chewing, every one sat perfectly still, listening into the darkness. The snoring of the pump had stopped. For a full minute none of them spoke. David felt a queer cold pricking run down his spine.
“Dammit,” Slogger said slowly with a sort of obtuse wonder. “Will ye lissen to that! The pump has let up on us.”
Ogle, who was not long working in the Paradise, got to his feet and felt for the feeder. Hastily, he called out:
“The level’s rising. There’s more water here. A heap more water.” He paused, fumbling about with his arm in the water of the feeder; then, with sudden anxiety: “I’ll better fetch the deputy.”
“Wait!” Robert stopped him with a sudden sharp command; then in a reasoning tone he added: “Don’t be runnin’ outbye like a bairn, mon. Let Dinning bide where he is. Hover a bit! Hover a bit! There’s never any trouble with a bucket pump. And there’s nowt serious the matter wi’ this pump. It’s only some sludge choked up the clack. I’ll see to it myself.”
He got up in a quiet, unhurried style and went down the slant. The others waited, not speaking. In five minutes there came the slow suck of the cleared valve, the throaty gurgle of the restarted pump. Another three minutes and the healthy snoring was restored. The tension binding the men relaxed. A great sense of pride in his father’s knowledge broke over David.
“I’ll be damned…” Ogle sighed.
Slogger derided him.
“Don’t ye know there’s niver need to worry wi’ Robert Fenwick in the sett. Come on and fill some tubs. You’ll addle nowt by sittin’ here all day.” He rose, tugged off his singlet; Brace, Hughie and Ogle went back to their heading; David started towards his tubs, passing Robert as he came down the dip.
“You made short work o’ that, Robert,” Slogger said. “Ogle nearly had us roofed!” and he laughed extravagantly.
But Robert did not laugh. He pulled off his singlet with a curiously remote expression on his drawn face. Then he threw it down without looking. The singlet fell in a puddle of water.
They restarted. Swinging their picks, cutting, bringing down the coal. The sweat broke out on them again. The pit dirt clogged their skin. Five hundred feet down, two miles from shaft bottom. The moisture seeped slowly from the roof, it dropped incessantly like unseen rain in a pitch-dark night. And over and above it all there rose the measured stertor of the pump.
TEN
At the end of that shift David led his galloway to the stables and saw him comfortable.
This was the worst bit of all, he had known it would be the worst of all, but it was worse even than he had thought. With firm strokes David caressed the pony’s neck. Dick turned his long head, seemed to look at David with those soft blind eyes, then nuzzled towards the pocket of his jacket. Often David saved a bit of bread from his bait, or maybe a biscuit. But to-day there was something special; he pulled out a lump of cheese — Dick went simply mad about cheese — and slowly fed the pony, breaking off little pieces, holding them flat on his palm, spinning out the pleasure for Dick and for himself. The wet velvety feel of the galloway’s muzzle on his hand brought a lump to his throat. He slowly rubbed his wet hand on the lapel of his jacket, took a last look at Dick and went rapidly away.
He walked outbye down the main road, passing the place where a fall of roof had killed three men the year before: Harrower, and the two brothers Neil and Allen Preston, he had been there when they dug them out, all mangled, flattened, their chests caved in and bloody, their mouths pressed full of dirt. David would never forget that fall. He always walked slower under the place with a stubborn determination to show that he was not afraid.
Along the road he was joined by Tom Reedy and his brother Jack, Softley, Ogle, young Cha Leeming, son of the Slogger, by Dan Teasdale and some others. They reached the shaft bottom where a big crowd stood waiting to ride the bank, jammed together yet patient. The cage was single and could take only twelve persons at a time. Besides the Paradise the cage was serving Globe and Five Quarter Coal, the levels above. David found himself squeezed next to Wept, away from the larking of Tom Reedy and Softly. Wept fixed him with his dark, intense gaze.
“Ye’re going to college, then, to Tynecassel?”
David nodded. Again it seemed to him too strange to be real. Perhaps he was a little worn by the last six months, the strain of working by night, of studying with Mr. Carmichael, whirling to Tynecastle to sit the scholarship, learning joyfully of the result. The silent struggle between his mother and his father had worried him too: Robert doggedly intent that he should get the scholarship and leave the pit, Martha equally determined he should remain. When the news had come of his success, she had said nothing, not one word. She had not even prepared his clothes for his departure, she would have no hand in it, she would not.
“Ye must mind Tynecassel, lad,” Wept said. “Ye’re takin’ your journey into the wilderness where they meet with darkness in the daytime and grope in the noonday as in the night. Here!” He slipped his hand into his inside pocket and pulled out a thin folded finger-marked booklet much soiled by coal dust. “You’ll find counsel in this! It’s been good company to me many a bait time in this very pit.”