Chapter Twenty Five.
Shows the Miner in his Sunday Garb, and Astonishes Clearemout, besides Relating some Incidents of an Accident.
The sun rose bright and hot on Sunday morning, but the little birds were up before the great luminary, singing their morning hymn with noisy delight. It was a peaceful day. The wind was at rest and the sea was calm. In the ancient town of St. Just it was peculiarly peaceful, for the numerous and untiring “stamps”—which all the week had continued their clang and clatter, morning, noon, and night, without intermission—found rest on that hallowed day, and the great engines ceased to bow their massive heads, with the exception of those that worked the pumps. Even these, however, were required to do as little work as was compatible with the due drainage of the mines, and as their huge pulsations were intermittent—few and far between—they did not succeed in disturbing the universal serenity of the morning.
If there are in this country men who, more than any other, need repose, we should say they are the miners of Cornwall, for their week’s work is exhausting far beyond that of most other labourers in the kingdom. Perhaps the herculean men employed in malleable-iron works toil as severely, but, besides the cheering consciousness of being well paid for their labour, these men exert their powers in the midst of sunlight and fresh air, while the miners toil in bad air, and get little pay in hard times. Sunday is indeed to them the Sabbath-day—it is literally what that word signifies, a day of much-required rest for body, soul, and spirit.
Pity that the good old word which God gave us is not more universally used among Christians! Would it not have been better that the translation Rest-day had been adopted, so that even ignorant men might have understood its true signification, than that we should have saddled it with a heathen name, to be an apple of discord in all generations? However, Sunday it is, so Sunday it will stand, we suppose, as long as the world lasts. After all, despite its faulty origin, that word is invested with old and hallowed associations in the minds of many, so we enter our protest against the folly of our forefathers very humbly, beseeching those who are prone to become nettled on this subject to excuse our audacity!
Well, as we have said, the Sunday morning to which we refer was peaceful; so would have been Maggot’s household had Maggot’s youngest baby never been born; but, having been born, that robust cherub asserted his right to freedom of action more violently than ever did the most rabid Radical or tyrannical Tory. He “swarmed” about the house, and kicked and yelled his uttermost, to the great distress of poor little Grace, whose anxiety to get him ready for chapel was gradually becoming feverish. But baby Maggot had as much objection to go to chapel as his wicked father, who was at that time enjoying a pipe on the cliffs, and intended to leave his family to the escort of David Trevarrow. Fortunately, baby gave in about half-past nine, so that little Grace had him washed and dressed, and on his way to chapel in pretty good time, all things considered.
No one who entered the Wesleyan Chapel of St. Just that morning for the first time could have imagined that a large proportion of the well-dressed people who filled the pews were miners and balmaidens. Some of the latter were elegantly, we might almost say gorgeously, attired, insomuch that, but for their hands and speech, they might almost have passed for ladies of fashion. The very latest thing in bonnets, and the newest mantles, were to be seen on their pretty heads and shapely shoulders.
As we have said before, and now repeat, this circumstance arose from the frequency of the visits of the individual styled “Johnny Fortnight,” whose great aim and end in life is to supply miners, chiefly the females among them, with the necessaries, and unnecessaries, of wearing apparel.