"If it's anything that's bad," replied the big miner with a deeper note in his voice, "I'd soonest hear it now. Mysteries don't get any t' better for keepin'. Besides, it'll give me time to sleep on't; and that's not a bad thing to do when yo've a big job to handle."
Mrs Bowcock came back as he said this, and Lennard had his cup of tea, and they of course talked about the war. Naturally, the big miner and his pretty little wife were the most interested people in Lancashire just then, for to no one else in the County Palatine had been given the honour of hearing the story of the great battle off the Isle of Wight from the lips of one who had been through it on board the now famous Ithuriel.
But when Tom Bowcock came out of the little sitting-room three hours later, after Lennard had told him of the approaching doom of the world and had explained to him how his pit-shaft was to be used as a means of averting it—should that, after all, prove to be possible—his interest in the war had diminished very considerably, for he had already come to see clearly that this was undeniably a case of the whole being very much greater than the part.
Tom Bowcock was one of those men, by no means rare in the north, who work hard with hands and head at the same time. He was a pitman, but he was also a scientific miner, almost an engineer, and so Lennard had found very little difficulty in getting him to grasp the details of the tremendous problem in the working out of which he was destined to play no mean part.
"Well, Measter Lennard," he said, slowly, as they rose from the little table across which a very large amount of business had been transacted. "It's a pretty big job this that yo've putten into our hands, and especially into mine; but I reckon they'll be about big enough for it; and yo've come to t' right place, too. I've never heard yet of a job as Lancashire took on to as hoo didn't get through wi'.
"Now, from what yo've been telling me, yo' must be a bit of an early riser sometimes, so if yo'll come here at seven or so i' t' mornin', I'll fit yo' out wi' pit clothes and we'll go down t' shaft and yo' can see for yoursel' what's wantin' doin'. Maybe that'll help yo' before yo' go and make yo'r arrangements wi' Dobson & Barlow and t'other folk as yo'll want to help yo'."
"Thank you very much, Mr Bowcock," replied Lennard. "You will find me here pretty close about seven. It's a big job, as you say, and there's not much time to be lost. Now, if Mrs Bowcock has not gone to bed, I'll go and say good-night."
"She's no'on to bed yet," said his host, "and yo'll take a drop o' summat warm before yo' start walkin' to t' hotel, for yo'll get no cab up this way to-neet. She'll just have been puttin' t' youngster to bed—"
Tom Bowcock stopped suddenly in his speech as a swift vision of that same "youngster" and his mother choking in the flames of the Fire-Mist passed across his senses. Lennard had convinced his intellect of the necessity of the task of repelling the Celestial Invader and of the possibility of success; but from that moment his heart was in the work.