Sir George Tressady Volume I Part 21

On the other side of the cottage meanwhile a boy of about fourteen was sitting. He had just done his afternoon's wash, and was resting himself by the fire, enjoying a thumbed football almanac. He had not risen when the visitors entered, and while his grandmother was speaking his lips still moved dumbly, as he went on adding up the football scores. He was a sickly, rather repulsive lad with a callous expression.

"Let me wait outside, George," said Letty, hurriedly.

Some instinct in her shrank from the poor mother and her story. But George begged her to stay, and she sat down nervously by the door, trying to protect her pretty skirt from the wet boards.

"Will you tell me how it was?" said George, sitting down himself in front of the bowed mother, and bending towards her. "Was it in the pit? Jamie wasn't one of our men, I know. Wasn't it for Mr. Morrison he worked?"

Mrs. Batchelor made a sign of a.s.sent. Then she raised her head quickly, and a flash of some pa.s.sionate convulsion pa.s.sed through her face.

"It wor John Burgess as done it," she said, staring at George. "It wor him as took the boy's life. But he's gone himsel--so theer--I'll not say no more. It wor Jamie's first week o hewin--he'd been a loader this three year, an taken a turn at the hewin now an again--an five weeks sen John Burgess--he wor b.u.t.ty for Mr. Morrison, yer know, in the Owd Pit--took him on, an the lad wor arnin six an sixpence a day. An he wor that pleased yo cud see it shinin out ov im. And it wor on the Tuesday as he went on the afternoon shift. I saw im go, an he wor down'earted. An I fell a cryin as he went up the street, for I knew why he wor down'earted, an I asked the Lord to elp him. And about six o'clock they come runnin--an they towd me there'd bin an accident, an they wor bringin im--an he wor alive--an I must bear up. They'd found him kneelin in his place with his arm up, an the pick in it--just as the blast had took him--An his poor back--oh! my G.o.d--scorched off him--_scorched off him_."

A shudder ran through her. But she recovered herself and went on, still gazing intently at Tressady, her gaunt hand raised as though for attention.

"An they braat him in, an they laid him on that settle"--she pointed to the bench by the fire--"an the doctors didn't interfere--there wor nowt to do--they left me alone wi un. But he come to, a minute after they laid im down--an I ses, 'Jamie, ow did it appen' an he ses, 'Mother, it wor John Burgess--ee opened my lamp for to light hissen as had gone out--an I don't know no more.' An then after a bit he ses, 'Mother, don't you fret--I'm glad I'm goin--I'd got the drink in me,' he ses. An then he give two three little breaths, as though he wor pantin--an I kiss him."

She stopped, her face working, her trembling hands pressed hard against each other on her knee. Letty felt the tears leap to her eyes in a rush that startled herself.

"An he would a bin twenty-one year old, come next August--an allus a lad as yer couldn't help gettin fond on--not sen he were a little un. An when he wor layin there, I ses to myself, 'He's the third as the coal-gettin ha took from me.' An I minded my feyther an uncle--how they was braat home both togither, when I wor n.o.bbut thirteen years old--not a scar on em, n.o.bbut a little blood on my feyther's forehead--but stone dead, both on em--from the afterdamp. Theer was thirty-six men killed in that explosion--an I recolleck how old Mr. Morrison--Mr. Walter's father--sent the coffins round--an how the men went on because they warn't good ones.

Not a man would go down the pit till they was changed--if a man got the life choked out of im, they thowt the least the masters could do was to give un a dacent coffin to lie in. But theer--n.o.body helped me wi Jamie--I buried him mysel--an it wor all o the best."

She dried her eyes again, sighing plaintively. George said what kind and consoling things he could think of. Mary Batchelor put up her hand and touched him on the arm as he leant over her.

"Aye, I knew yo'd be sorry--an yor wife--"

She turned feebly towards Letty, trying with her blurred and tear-dimmed sight to make out what Sir George's bride might be like. She looked for a moment at the small, elegant person in the corner,--at the sheaf of nodding rosebuds on the hat--the bracelets--the pink cheeks under the dainty veil,--looked with a curious aloofness, as though from a great distance. Then, evidently, another thought struck her like a lash. She ceased to see or think of Letty. Her grip tightened on George's arm.

"An I'm allus thinkin," she said, with a pa.s.sionate sob, "of that what he said about the drink. He'd allus bin a sober lad, till this la.s.st winter it did seem as though he cudna keep hiself from it--it kep creepin on im--an several times lately he'd broke out very bad, pay-days--an he knew I'd been frettin. And who was ter blame--I ast yo, or onybody--who was it ter blame?"

Her voice rose to a kind of cry.

"His feyther died ov it, and his grandfeyther afore that. His grandfeyther wor found dead i the roadside, after they'd made him blind-drunk at owd Morse's public-house, where the b.u.t.ty wor reckonin with im an his mates. But he'd never ha gone near the drink if they'd hadn't druv him to't, for he wasn't inclined that way. But the b.u.t.ty as gave him work kep the public, an if yer didn't drink, yer didn't get no work. You must drink yoursel sick o Sat.u.r.days, or theer'd be no work for you o Mondays. 'Noa, yer can sit at ome,' they'd say to un, 'ef yer so d.a.m.ned pertickler.' I ast yor pardon, sir, for the bad word, but that's ow they'd say it. I've often heerd owd John say as he'd a been glad to ha given the b.u.t.ty back a shillin ov is pay to be let off the drink. An Willum, that's my usband, he wor allus at it too--an the doctor towd me one day, as Willum lay a-dyin, as it ran in the blood--an Jamie heard im--I know he did--for I fouu im on the stairs--listenin."

She paused again, lost in a mist of incoherent memories, the tears falling slowly.

After a minute's silence, George said--not indeed knowing what to say--"We're _very_ sorry for you, Mary--my wife and I--we wish we could do anything to help you. I am afraid it can't make any difference to you--I expect it makes it all the worse--to think that accidents are so much fewer--that so much has been done. And yet times are mended, aren't they?"

Mary made no answer.

George sat looking at her, conscious, as he seldom was, of raw youth and unreadiness--conscious, too, of Letty's presence in a strange, hindering way--as of something that both blunted emotion and made one rather ashamed to show it.

He could only pursue the lame topic of improvement, of changed times. The disappearance of old abuses, of "b.u.t.ties" and "tommy-shops"; the greater care for life; the accident laws; the inspectors. He found himself growing eloquent at last, yet all the time regarding himself, as it were, from a distance--ironically.

Mary Batchelor listened to him for a while, her head bent with something of the submission of the old servant, till something he said roused again the quick shudder, the look of anguished protest.

"Aye, I dessay it's aw reet, Mr. George--I dessay it is--what yer say.

The inspectors is very cliver--an the wages is paid proper. But theer--say what yer will! I've a son on the railway out Lichfield way--an he's allus taakin about is long hours--they're killing im, he says--an I allus ses to im, 'Yer may jest thank the Lord, Harry, as yer not in the pits.' He never gets no pity out o me. An soomtimes I wakes in the morning, an I thinks o the men, cropin away in the dark--down theer--under me and my bed--for they do say the pits now runs right under Ferth village--an I think to mysel--how long will it be before yo poor fellers is laying like my Jim? Yer may be reet about the accidents, Mr. George--but I _know_, ef yer wor to go fro house to house i this village--it would be like tis in the Bible--I've often thowt o them words--'_Theer was not a house_--no, nary one!--_where there was not one dead_.'"

She hung her head again, muttering to herself. George made out with difficulty that she was going through one phantom scene after another--of burning, wounds, and sudden death. One or two of the phrases--of the fragmentary details that dropped out without name or place--made his flesh creep. He was afraid lest Letty should hear them, and was just putting out his hand for his hat, when Mrs. Batchelor gripped his arm again. Her face--so white and large-featured--had the gleam of something like a miserable smile upon it.

"Aye, an the men theirsels ud say jest as you do. 'Lor. Mrs. Batchelor,'

they'd say, 'why, the pits is as safe as a church'--an they'd _laff_--Jamie ud laff at me times. But it's the _women_, Mr. George, as knows--it's the women that ave to wash the bodies."

A great trembling ran through her again. George instinctively rose, and motioned to Letty to go. She too rose, but she did not go. She stood by the door, her wide grey eyes fixed with a kind of fascination on the speaker; while behind her a ring of children could be seen in the street, staring at the pretty lady.

Mary Batchelor saw nothing but Tressady, whom she was still holding by the arm--looking up to him.

"Aye, but I didna disturb my Jamie, yer know. Noa!--I left im i the owd coat they'd thrown over im i the pit--I dursn't ha touched is back. Noa, I _dursn't_. But I made his shroud mysen, an I put it ower his poor workin clothes, an I washed his face, an is hands an feet--an then I kissed him, an I said, 'Jamie, yo mun go an tell the Lord as yo ha done your best, an He ha dealt hardly by you!--an that's the treuth--He ha dealt hardly by yer!'"

She gave a loud sob, and bowed her head on her hands a moment. Then, pushing back her grey locks from her face, she rose, struggling for composure.

"Aye, aye, Mr. George--aye, aye, I'll not keep yer no longer."

But as she took his hand, she added pa.s.sionately:

"An I towd the vicar I couldn't be Bible-woman no more. Theer's somethin broken in me sen Jamie died. I must keep things to mysen--I ain't got nuthin good to say to others--I'm allus _grievin_ at the Lord. Good-bye to yer--good-bye to yer."

Her voice had grown absent, indifferent. But when George asked her, just as they were leaving the cottage, who was the boy sitting by the fire, her face darkened. She came hurriedly to the door with them, and said in George's ear:

"He's my darter's child--my darter by my first usband. His feyther an mother are gone, an he come up from West Bromwich to live wi me. But he isn't no comfort to me. He don't take no notice of anybody. He set like that, with his football, when Jamie lay a-dyin. I'd as lief be shut on him. But theer--I've got to put up wi im."

Letty meanwhile had approached the boy and looked at him curiously.

"Do you work in the pits too?" she asked him.

The boy stared at her.

"Yes," he said.

"Do you like it?"

He gave a rough laugh.

"I reckon yo've got to like it," he said. And turning his back on his questioner, he went back to his almanac.

"Don't let us do any more visiting," said George, impatiently, as they emerged into the main street. "I'm out of love with the village. We'll do our blandishments another day. Let's go a little further up the valley and get away from the houses."

Letty a.s.sented, and they walked along the village, she looking curiously into the open doors of the houses, by way of return for the inquisitive attention once more lavished upon herself and George.

"The houses are _quite_ comfortable," she said presently. "And I looked into Mrs. Batchelor's back room while you were talking. It was just as Mrs. Matthews said--such good carpets and curtains, two chests of drawers, and an harmonium--and pictures--and flowers in the windows.

George! what are 'b.u.t.ties'?"

"'b.u.t.ties' are sub-contractors," he said absently--"men who contract with the pit-owners to get the coal, either on a large or a small scale--now mostly on a small scale. They engage and pay the colliers in some pits, in others the owners deal direct."

"And what is a 'tommy-shop'?"

"'Tommy' is the local word for 'truck'--paying in kind instead of in money. You see, the b.u.t.ties and the owners between them used to own the public-houses and the provision-shops, and the amount of coin of the realm the men got in wages in the bad old times was infinitesimal. They were expected to drink the b.u.t.ty's beer, and consume the b.u.t.ty's provisions--at the b.u.t.ty's prices, of course--and the b.u.t.ty kept the accounts. Oh! it was an abomination! but of course it was done away with long ago."

"Of course it was!" said Letty, indignantly. "They never remember what's done for them. Did you see what _excellent_ teas there were laid out in some of the houses--and those girls with their hats smothered in feathers? Why, I should never dream of wearing so many!"