"Be that'n the thanks I get? Ah! it be coming home to ye, be it! Ye sent my man off to work in pain; he couldn't hardly crawl: how d'you like pain yerself? If the leg's broke, Squire, you'll ha' time to lie and think on't."
She strode on, Chattaway sending an ugly word after her, and soon came in sight of the mine—which appeared to be in an unusual bustle. A crowd had collected round the mouth of the pit, and people were running to it from all quarters. Loud talking, gesticulating, confusion prevailed: what could be causing it?
"Happen they be looking for him as is lying yonder!" quoth she. But scarcely were the words out of her mouth when a group of women running, filling the air with cries and lamentations, came in sight. Her coarse face grew white and her heart turned sick as the fatal truth burst upon her conviction. There had been an accident in the mine!
CHAPTER XXXI
DOWN THE SHAFT
It was only too true. Whether from fire-damp, the rushing in of water, or some other mischief to which coal-pits are liable, was as yet scarcely known: nothing was certain except the terrible calamity itself. Of the men who had gone down the mine that morning, some were dead, others dying. Meg Pennet echoed the shrieks of the women as she flew forward and pushed through the crowd collected round the mouth of the pit. The same confusion prevailed there that prevails in similar scenes of distress and disaster elsewhere.
"And Mr. Chattaway himself was down the shaft, you say? He went down this morning? My friends, it is altogether an awful calamity."
The woman pushed in yet further and confronted the speaker, her white face drawn with anguish. He was the minister of a dissenting chapel, a Mr. Lloyd, and well known to the miners, some of whom went regularly to hear him preach.
"No, sir; Chattaway was na down the shaft; he is na one of the dead, more luck to him," she said, her words brought out brokenly, her bosom heaving. "Chattaway have this morning made me a widda and my young children fatherless. My man was stiff with rheumatiz, he was—no more fit to go to work nor I be to go down that shaft and carry up his poor murdered body. I knowed his errand as soon as I heerd his horse's feet. He made him get off the settle, and druv him out to work as he'd drive a dog; and when I told him of his hardness, he lifted up his whip agin me. Yes! Pennet's down with the rest of 'em; sent by him: and I be a lone widda."