‘Noo, “Scholar Tom” had a tarr’ble large footprint, ye ken, an’ it was that I was i’ search o’, for I had my suspicions o’ what might have happened, an’ I was convinced that that d——d, mistetched beggor was at the bottom o’ poor Jack Jefferson’s sudden endin’—ay, an’ whenivvor I thought o’ that fine, brave chap an’ his bright face an’ his happiness, I says ti myself, “There’ll be no rest nor pleasure nor nowt for ‘the Heckler’ till the mystery’s discovered; an’ it’s yor job ti discover it,” I says ti myself.
‘He was bound ti have been there, for, o’ course, it was him as shooted out that nonsense at Harry that had gliffed him, an’ dootless it was him that had flashed his davy i’ the galloway’s eyes.
‘Jack, d’ye see, would have been lousin’ off frae his wark an’ walkin’ doon the drift at that time when the galloway started off; but what beat me was that Jack couldn’t hev got oot o’ the way i’ time, bein’ fine an’ active, grand at hearin’ and seein’, an’ ne fool forbye that.
‘Noo, just when I had detarmined upon this i’ maa mind a sort ov an inspiration takes us aal ov a sudden. “Wey divvn’t thoo take that driver lad alang wi’ thoo ti show thoo exactly where the trajiddy happened?” it says tiv us just as thoo it was a real, genu-ine voice i’ my inside. “Sink me!” thinks I, “it’s a tarr’ble clivvor idea, an’ sae I will.”
‘“Has thoo anything else ti add ti that, Inspiration?” I axes it, an’ shortlies efter it says, “Divvn’t thoo trust ower much ti what Nicholson says, nor tell him o’ yor plan beforehand, for he’s i’ Tom’s power, an’ tarrified ov him,” it says again.
‘“Gox!” thinks I, “but this is the champion; wey, I’s as good a spiritualist as Tom himself.”
‘“There’s one last question I must ax thoo,” says I, for I hadn’t properly thought beforehand o’ the difficulty o’ gannin’ doon the pit on “pay-Saturday,” an’ that is: “Hoo i’ the warld can us gan in-bye? for thoo kens that naebody but the furnace-man, engine-man, an’ horse-keeper gans doon that day, an’ if anyone else wanted ti, wey, he would have ti get leave frae the manager, an’ even then he would have ti have a deputy alang wiv him. Answer us this, Inspiration,” says I, “an’ it’s a clagger for thoo, I’s warned.”
‘But, mevvies efter two minutes, it whispers back two words, “drift,” an’ “beer.”
‘“Drift?” I repeats, an’ “beer?” An’ then aal at onst I sees the implication, for I kenned the lodge-keeper at the head o’ the drift nicelies, an’, what’s mair, I kenned what Sammy Cuthbertson, the local preacher, calls “the joint iv his harness” still better.
‘Sae I gans up tiv him quietly, an’ I says tiv him, “Geordy,” says I, “hoo much o’ the best beer will five bob procure iv an emergency?”