Archibald Cronin - The Stars Look Down

“You’re not angry with me, David?”

Why under heaven should he be angry with her?

“Heavens, no, my dear.”

Reassured, she lifted her limpid swimming eyes. She kissed him. She was sweet to him all that evening, most terribly sweet. She got up actually next morning, which was Saturday, to give him his morning tea. When she saw him off on his bicycle that same afternoon to spend the week-end working with Carmichael she clung to him and would hardly let him go.

But she did let him go after one last big hug, as she called it. Then she went into the house, humming lightly, pleased that David loved her, pleased with herself, pleased with the nice long free week-end before her.

Of course she wouldn’t let Joe come to supper to-night, she wouldn’t dream of such a thing, the cheek, indeed! of Joe for even suggesting it. To talk about old times he had said, well, could you believe it. She hadn’t even bothered to tell David about Joe’s impertinence, it was not the kind of thing a lady cared to mention.

That afternoon she took a pleasant stroll down the town. Outside Murchison’s she paused, debating, as it were, and deciding well, yes, it was a useful thing to have in the house. She went in and elegantly ordered a bottle of port, invalid port, to be sent down, this afternoon, for sure now, Mr. Murchison. David didn’t like it, she knew, but David had lately been most unreasonable and he was away in any case and would never know. What was the old saying again, what the eye didn’t see the heart didn’t grieve for. Good, wasn’t it? Smiling a little Jenny went home, changed her dress, scented herself behind her ears, like it said in Home Chat , and made herself nice, Jenny did, even if it was only to be nice for herself.

At seven o’clock Joe came to the door. Jenny answered his ring.

“Well, I declare,” she exclaimed, shocked. “After all I said.”

“Ah, come on now, Jenny,” Joe said ingratiatingly, “don’t be hard on a fella.”

“The very idea,” said Jenny. “I’ve a good mind not to let you in.”

But she did let him in. And she did not let him out till it was very late. She was flushed and disarranged and rather sheepish. She giggled. The port, the invalid port was finished.

On the next day, Sunday the 7th of December, Jack Reedy, eldest of the Reedy brothers, and his marrow, Cha Leeming, worked their shift in the Scupper Flats, an extra shift because they were doubling to complete the P. W. contract. Robert was in the same shift though much further up the Flats at the head of the slant. His heading was bad. The heading of Reedy and Leeming was good, about one mile and a half from the pit-bottom. At five o’clock the shift stopped work and came out of the pit. Reedy and Cha Leeming, before they came out, left a fine jud of unworked coal on the face of their heading. About five or six tubs of coal would be in this jud when it was brought down, good coal and easy to get when they came in next morning.

Well satisfied, Jack Reedy and Cha stopped at the Salutation for a drink on the way home. Jack had a bit of money. For all it was Sunday night they had several drinks and then several more. Jack got merry and Cha was half-seas over. Arm in arm together they rolled up the Terraces, singing. They went to bed. Next morning both slept in. But neither appreciated the point of his sleeping in till later.

At half-past three of the morning of Monday Dinning, the deputy in charge of the district, entered the Paradise section and made his examination of the workings. He did this before admitting the morning shift. Stick in hand, head bent, Dinning plodded diligently through the Mixen and Scupper Flats. Everything seemed satisfactory so Dinning returned to his kist in the Scupper ropeway and wrote out his statutory report.

The shift then came in, one hundred and five persons, made up of eighty-seven men and eighteen boys. Two of the shift, Bob Ogle and Tally Brown, made up to Dinning in the ropeway.

“Jack and Cha slep’ in,” Bob Ogle said.

“To hell!” Dinning said.

“Can Tally and me hev that heading?” Bob said. “It’s a bitch of a one we hev.”

“To hell,” Dinning said. “Take it, then!”

Ogle and Brown went up the ropeway with a bunch of men, amongst whom were Robert, Hughie, Slogger Leeming, Harry Brace, Swee Messer, Tom Reedy, Ned Softly and Jesus Wept. Tom Reedy’s young brother Pat, a boy of fifteen, whose first week it was inbye proper, followed on behind.

Robert was in good spirits. He felt well and hopeful. He had slept soundly, his cough had not been so troublesome; in the last few months, with a strong sense of relief, he had come to the conclusion that his fears of flooding had been unfounded. As he walked up through the blackness of the slant, which was low and narrow, four feet high, six hundred feet below the surface and two miles from the main shaft, he found himself beside little Pat Reedy, youngest of the Reedy tribe.

“Eh, Pat,” he joked, encouraging him. “It’s a fine place ye’ve come for your holidays.” He clapped Pat on the back and went down through the dip known as the Swelly and up to his far heading with Slogger. The heading was drier than it had been for weeks.

Ogle and Brown were already in their heading further back. They found the jud left by Jack and Cha. They started work, drilled two yard shot holes into the face of the jud and another of the same depth to the right of the projection. At quarter to five Dinning, the deputy, came along. He charged and fired the shots. Eight tubs of coal came down.

Dinning saw that the shots had fired well and the line of the coal face straightened.

“To hell, lads,” he said, nodding his satisfaction, “that’s all reet.” He went back up the Scupper ropeway to his kist.

But ten minutes later Tom Reedy, the putter, came after him. Tom said, in a great hurry:

“Ogle says will you come inbye. There’s water comin’ through the shot holes, he says.”

Dinning appeared to reflect.

“To hell, he says.”

Tom Reedy and Dinning went back to the heading. Dinning took a look at the face, a real good look. He found a thin trickle of water coming through the middle of it between the two shots he had fired. There appeared to be no pressure behind it. He smelled the water. The water had a bad smell, a smell of styfe which meant black damp about, he knew it was not virgin coal water. He did not like the look of it at all.

“To hell, lads,” Dinning said, dismayed. “Ye’ve holed. Ye better try and get rid of some o’t.”

Ogle, Brown and Tom Reedy began to tub the water, to try and get rid of it by letting it through the pack walls on the low side of the drawing road At that moment Geordie Dinning, who was Dinning’s son and a hand putter with Tom Reedy in Scupper Flats, came by.

“Here, Geordie, lad,” Dinning cried. Though Dinning said to hell without offence and without knowing he said it, strangely enough he never said it before his son.

Dinning took his son Geordie back to the kist with him. While he was hurrying to his kist he thought about the branch telephone but the telephone was some way off and it was still so early he was afraid Hudspeth might not yet have come to bank. Besides, Dinning was not very good at thinking. At the kist he got out his stub of copying-ink pencil and wrote two notes. He wrote laboriously, wetting the pencil occasionally on his tongue. In the first note this is what Dinning wrote:

Mr. Wm. Hudspeth, Under-Viewer, Dear Sir,

The water has holed into Scupper No. 6 Branch and is over the boots in the slope and more is coming and there is more going to the haulage than the pumps can manage. You might come inbye and see it and I will be at the kist in Paradise ropeway if not there in Mixen number two Bench. P.S. There is very great danger of flooding out.