Chapter Twenty.
The Jordan River.
Can I ever forget that day? It seemed the worst of all the ten. Yes, I think it was quite the worst. Before the last of those ten days came, I had grown accustomed to suffering; the burden given me to carry began to fit on my young shoulders. I lay down with it, and arose with it; under its weight I grew old in heart and spirit, as old as Nan. Laughter was far from my lips, or smiles from my eyes.
But why do I speak of myself? Why do I say, I, I? I was one of many suffering women at Ffynon?
Let me talk of it as our sorrow!
What a leveller trouble is! There was mother, laying her proud head on little Nan’s neck; there was the under-viewer’s wife taking me in her arms, and bidding me sob a few tears, what tears I could shed, on her bosom.
Yes, in the next ten days the women of Ffynon had a common sorrow. I do not speak here of the men, the men acted nobly, but I think the women who stood still and endured, had the hardest part to play.
“Heroic males the country bears,
But daughters give up more than sons;
Flags wave, drums beat, and unawares
You flash your souls out with the guns,
And take your heaven at once.
“But we; we empty heart and home.
Of life’s life, love! we bear to think
You’re gone, to feel you may not come.
To hear the door-latch stir and clink,
Yet no more you—nor sink.”
But I must tell my story. I left little Nan, I went home to mother. I told her, for I had to tell her now, something about David. She was not much alarmed, I don’t think I was either. We thought it probable that David would come up out of the mine at any moment. I think our worst fears and our strongest suffering was for Owen. We sat together, dear mother and I, very anxious, very expectant, very patient. Hour after hour we sat together, waiting for David and Owen. Overhead, poor Gwen suffered and moaned; we did not tell her of our anxiety, she was too ill to hear it. In the room next to Gwen’s, the little baby slept. When my fear and anxiety grew quite unbearable, I used to steal upstairs and look at David’s little lad. Once I took the little icy hand and held it in my own for a long time, and tried to chafe it into life and warmth. I could not do it. No more than I could chase away the fear which was growing, growing in my own hearty From my window I could see the pit bank. It was an ugly sight, and one I seldom gazed at. I hated the appearance of the ugly steam-engines, and the dusty coal-covered figures. I hated the harsh noise, the unpleasing commotion; but to-day nothing comforted me so much as to draw the blinds, which were down, and look towards this same pit bank; the roaring steam, the appearance of quiet, rapid, regular work soothed my fears, and became a blessed and soul-sustaining sight. I felt sure as long as these signs of regular work were going on on the bank, that all must be right in the mine. Still, why did not David return? So much depended on his return, he had promised so faithfully not to remain below a moment longer than was necessary.