“Yes, and as I shall not be able to work there again,” said Penrose sadly, “I would advise you to try it. Zackey is entitled to get the benefit of the discovery, for he was with me at the time, and, but for his aid, dear boy, I should have been suffocated.”
Maggot said no more on that occasion about the mine, being a man of few words, but, after conversing a short time with the wounded man, and ascertaining that no hope was held out to him of the recovery of his sight, he went his way to the forge to work and meditate.
Setting-day came—being the first Saturday in the month, and no work was done on that day in Botallack, for the men were all above ground to have their “pitches” for the next month fixed, and to receive their wages—setting-day being also pay day.
Some time before the business of the day commenced, the miners began to assemble in considerable numbers in the neighbourhood of the account-house. Very different was their appearance on that occasion from the rusty-red fellows who were wont to toil in the dark chambers far down in the depths below the spot where they stood. Their underground dresses were laid aside, and they now appeared in the costume of well-off tradesmen. There was a free-and-easy swing about the movements of most of these men that must have been the result of their occupation, which brings every muscle of the body into play, and does not—as is too much the case in some trades—over-tax the powers of a certain set of muscles to the detriment of others.
Some there were, however, even among the young men, whose hollow cheeks and bloodless lips, accompanied with a short cough, told of evil resulting from bad air and frequent chills; while, on the other hand, a few old men were to be seen with bright eyes and ruddy cheeks which indicated constitutions of iron. Not a few were mere lads, whose broad shoulders and deep chests and resolute wills enabled them to claim the title, and do the work, of men.
There were some among them, both young and old, who showed traces of having suffered in their dangerous employment. Several were minus an eye, and one or two were nearly blind, owing to blast-holes exploding in their faces. One man in particular, a tall and very powerful fellow, had a visage which was quite blue, and one of his eyes was closed—the blue colour resulting from unburnt grains of powder having been blown into his flesh. He had been tattooed, in fact, by a summary and effective process. This man’s family history was peculiar. His father, also a miner, had lived in a lonely cottage on a moor near St. Just, and worked in Balaswidden Mine. One night he was carried home and laid at his wife’s feet, dead—almost dashed to pieces by a fall. Not long afterwards the son was carried to the same cottage with his right eye destroyed. Some time later a brother dislocated his foot twice within the year in the mine; and a few months after that another brother fell from a beam, descended about twenty-four feet perpendicularly, where he struck the side of the mine with his head, and had six or seven of his teeth knocked out; glancing off to one side, he fell twenty feet more on the hard rock, where he was picked up insensible. This man recovered, however, under the careful nursing of his oft and sorely tried mother.
Maggot was present on this setting-day, with a new cap and a new blue cloth coat, looking altogether a surprisingly respectable character. A good deal of undertoned chaffing commenced when he appeared.
“Hallo!” exclaimed one, “goin’ to become an honest man, Maggot?”
“Thinkin’ ’bout it,” replied the smith, with a good-humoured smile.
“Why, if I didn’t knaw that the old wuman’s alive,” said another, “I’d say he was agoin’ to get married again!”