It may be seen that the working of a mine requires the very greatest care. If this is not taken, the roof may fall in and crush the labourers; or fire-damp may explode and blow them to pieces, and perhaps set fire to the mine itself and destroy it; or black or choke-damp may suffocate them, as the
fumes of charcoal do; or water may rush in and drown them. A lamp, invented by a very learned man, Sir Humphrey Davy, is used when there is a risk of fire-damp. It is closely surrounded with very fine wire-gauze, through which neither the flame of the candle nor the gas can pass, yet the light can get out almost as well as through the horn of a common lantern.
Before any workmen are allowed to go into the pit in the morning, certain officers, called “over-men” and “deputies,” go down through every part that is being worked, to see that all is safe. If anything is wrong, or doubtful, the inspecting deputy places a shovel across the place, or chalks a warning on the blade and sticks it in the ground, that it may be seen by the hewer. As soon as they have found the mine safe, the hewers come down and begin their work; and when they have had time to fill a corve or so, they are followed by the putters and other labourers. Sometimes it is necessary to work all the twenty-four hours, and then the people are divided into three gangs, who each work eight hours; but the poor little trappers are divided only into two parties, who have each to be down in the mine twelve hours together, sitting all alone by the side of their traps, like poor little Dick, in the dark.
Story 6—Chapter 2.
Little Dick’s father, Samuel Kempson, was a hewer. He had not been brought up to the mining work, like most of the men; but once, when there had been a strike among the colliers, he and others from a distant county, being out of work, had got employed, and tempted by the high wages, had continued at it. While little Dick was sleeping at his trap, and getting a cuff on the head from Bill Hagger, Samuel Kempson was sitting, pick in hand, and hewing in a chamber at the end of a main passage nearly two miles off. The Davy lamp was hung up before him, and the big corve was by his side. There he sat or kneeled, working with his pick, or filling the corve with his spade. Often he thought of the green fields and hedges and woods of his native county. Though his wages had been poor, and his work hedging or ditching, or driving carts, or tending cattle; and though he had been sometimes wet to the skin, and cold enough in winter, yet in summer he had had the blue sky and the warm sun above him, and he had breathed the pure air of heaven, and smelt the sweet flowers and the fresh mown grass, and he sighed for those things which he was never likely to enjoy again.
There he was, a hewer of coal, and a hewer of coal he must remain, or run the chance of starving; for he had a large family, and though he had had good wages, three shillings and sometimes four shillings a day, and no rent to pay, and coals for a trifle, he had saved nothing. He had now got into such a way of spending money that he thought he couldn’t save. His wife, Susan, thought so too. She was not a bad wife, and she kept the house clean and tidy enough, but she was not thrifty. Both he and she were as sober and industrious as most people, but they had meat most days, and plenty of white bread, and butter and cheese, and good clothes, and other things, which cost money, so that out of twenty-two shillings a week, there was next to nothing to put by. They had, too, a number of children, and some of them were heavy burdens, and were likely to remain so. The eldest boy, Jack, had had a fancy for the sea, and he had gone away when quite a little chap with a captain who had taken a liking to him, and the vessel had never more been heard of. That was before they left their old home in the country and came to live at the coal-pits. Poor Susan often thought of her lost boy, with his laughing blue eyes, and his light hair curling over his fair brow, just as he was when he went away. Mothers are apt to think of their lost young ones. It is well if a parent can feel sure that her child is with God in heaven, that she can say, “I taught it early to love Jesus; I know that he trusted in His cleansing blood, in His all-sufficient sacrifice on the cross.”
Poor Susan had not that thought to comfort her, but still it did not trouble her. She mourned her lost boy like a loving mother, but not so much for his sake as because she wished again to fold him in her arms, and press once more a kiss on his cheeks.