Tidkins lighted his pipe, and smoked for some moments in silence.
"I tell you what, Meg," he exclaimed, after a pause; "you shall sing me a song. I feel in such an uncommon good humour this evening—in such excellent spirits. No—I won't have a song: I tell you what you shall do."
"What?" said Margaret, as she mixed two glasses of gin and water.
"You shall tell me all about the coal-mines, you know—your own history. You told it me once before; but then I wasn't in a humour to hear you. I missed half, and have forgot t' other half. So now, come—let's have the Life and Adventures of Miss Margaret Flathers."
The Resurrection Man laughed at this joke—as he considered and meant it to be; and the Rattlesnake, who never dared to thwart him in any thing, and who apparently had some additional motive to humour him on this occasion, hastened to comply with his request—or rather command.
She accordingly related her history, the phraseology of which we have taken the liberty materially to correct and amend, in the following manner.
CHAPTER CXVI.
THE RATTLESNAKE'S HISTORY.[82]
"I was born in a coal-mine in Staffordshire. My father was a married man, with five or six children by his wife: my mother was a single woman, who worked for him in the pit. I was, therefore, illegitimate; but this circumstance was neither considered disgraceful to my mother nor to myself, morality being on so low a scale amongst the mining population generally, as almost to amount to promiscuous intercourse. My mother was only eighteen when I was born. She worked in the pit up to the very hour of my birth; and when she found the labour-pains coming on, she threw off the belt and chain with which she had been dragging a heavy corf (or wicker basket), full of coal, up a slanting road,—retired to a damp cave in a narrow passage leading to the foot of the shaft, and there gave birth to her child. That child was myself. She wrapped me up in her petticoat, which was all the clothing she had on at the time, and crawled with me, along the passage, which was about two feet and a half high, to the bottom of the shaft. There she got into the basket, and was drawn up a height of about two hundred and thirty feet—holding the rope with her right hand, and supporting me on her left arm. She often told me those particulars, and said how she thought she should faint as she was ascending in the rickety vehicle, and how difficult she found it to maintain her hold of the rope, weak and enfeebled as she was. She, however, reached the top in safety, and hastened home to her miserable hovel—for she was an orphan, and lived by herself. In a week she was up again, and back to her work in the pit; and she hired a bit of a girl, about seven or eight years old, to take care of me.
"How my infancy was passed I, of course, can only form an idea by the mode of treatment generally adopted towards babies in the mining districts, and under such circumstances as those connected with my birth. My mother would, perhaps, come up from the pit once, in the middle of the day, to give me my natural nourishment; and when I screamed during her absence, the little girl, who acted as my nurse, most probably thrust a teaspoonful of some strong opiate down my throat to make me sleep and keep me quiet. Many children are killed by this treatment; but the reason of death, in such cases, is seldom known, because the Coroner's assistance is seldom required in the mining districts.