‘Well, now, this looks good; porridge, beefsteak, potatoes, toast, and marmalade.’
‘I hope you will enjoy it all.’
There was not much talk over our meal. Mr. Craig was evidently preoccupied, and as blue as his politeness would allow him. Slavin’s victory weighed upon his spirits. Finally he burst out, ‘Look here! I can’t, I won’t stand it; something must be done. Last Christmas this town was for two weeks, as one of the miners said, “a little suburb of hell.” It was something too awful. And at the end of it all one young fellow was found dead in his shack, and twenty or more crawled back to the camps, leaving their three months’ pay with Slavin and his suckers.
‘I won’t stand it, I say.’ He turned fiercely on me. ‘What’s to be done?’
This rather took me aback, for I had troubled myself with nothing of this sort in my life before, being fully occupied in keeping myself out of difficulty, and allowing others the same privilege. So I ventured the consolation that he had done his part, and that a spree more or less would not make much difference to these men. But the next moment I wished I had been slower in speech, for he swiftly faced me, and his words came like a torrent.
‘God forgive you that heartless word! Do you know—? But no; you don’t know what you are saying. You don’t know that these men have been clambering for dear life out of a fearful pit for three months past, and doing good climbing too, poor chaps. You don’t think that some of them have wives, most of them mothers and sisters, in the east or across the sea, for whose sake they are slaving here; the miners hoping to save enough to bring their families to this homeless place, the rest to make enough to go back with credit. Why, there’s Nixon, miner, splendid chap; has been here for two years, and drawing the highest pay. Twice he has been in sight of his heaven, for he can’t speak of his wife and babies without breaking up, and twice that slick son of the devil—that’s Scripture, mind you—Slavin, got him, and “rolled” him, as the boys say. He went back to the mines broken in body and in heart. He says this is his third and last chance. If Slavin gets him, his wife and babies will never see him on earth or in heaven. There is Sandy, too, and the rest. And,’ he added, in a lower tone, and with the curious little thrill of pathos in his voice, ‘this is the day the Saviour came to the world.’ He paused, and then with a little sad smile, ‘But I don’t want to abuse you.’
‘Do, I enjoy it, I’m a beast, a selfish beast’; for somehow his intense, blazing earnestness made me feel uncomfortably small.
‘What have we to offer?’ I demanded.
‘Wait till I have got these things cleared away, and my housekeeping done.’
I pressed my services upon him, somewhat feebly, I own, for I can’t bear dishwater; but he rejected my offer.