“Yes, that is so,” the manager answered, looking keenly at him, and wondering who he was.
“The others that are hurt—are their lives in danger?”
“I am afraid so,” the man replied.
“Then I have a right to be with them,” the rector answered quickly. “I am a clergyman, and I have hastened here, fearing this might be the case. But I have also attended an ambulance class, and I can dress a burn. Besides, I am a younger man than our friend here, and, if you will let me down, I will go.”
“By George, sir!” exclaimed the manager, looking round for approval and smiting his thigh heavily, “you are a man as well as a parson, and down you shall go, and thank you! You may make the men more comfortable, and any way you will put heart into them, for you have some to spare yourself. As for danger, there is none!—Jack!”—this in a louder voice to some one in the background—“just twitch that rope! And get that tub up, will you? Look slippery now.”
Lindo felt a hand on his arm and, obeying the silent gesture of the nearest gaunt figure, stepped aside. In a twinkling the man stripped off the parson’s long coat and put on him the pilot jacket from his own shoulders; a second man gave Lindo a peaked cap of stiff leather in place of his soft hat and a third fastened a pit lamp round his neck, explaining to him how to raise the wick without unlocking the lamp, and also showing him that, if it hung too much on one side or were upset, its flame would expire of itself. And upon one thing Lindo was never tired of dwelling afterward—the kindly tact of these rough men, and how by seemingly casual words, and even touches, the roughest sought to encourage him, while ignoring the possibility of his feeling alarm.
Meanwhile Mr. Keogh, standing in a state of considerable perplexity and discomfiture where the rector had left him, heard a well-known voice at his elbow, and turned to find that Gregg had arrived. The younger doctor was not the man to be awed into silence, and, as he came up, was speaking loudly. “Hallo, Mr. Keogh!” he said. “Heard you were before me. Have you got them all in hand? Cuts or burns mostly, eh?”
“They are not above ground yet,” Mr. Keogh answered. He and Gregg were not on speaking terms, but such an emergency as this was allowed to override their estrangement.
“Oh, then we shall have to wait,” Gregg answered, looking round on the scene with a mixture of curiosity and professional aplomb. “I wish I had spared my horse. Any other medical man here?”
“No; and they want one of us to go down in the bucket,” Keogh explained. “There are some injured men at the foot of the shaft. I have a wife and children, and I thought that perhaps you——”