Complete works of hall c.., p.95
Complete Works of Hall Caine, page 95
In another moment he had stepped into the cage and looped down the iron rail in front of it. There was a moment’s silence among the panic-stricken people as the cage began to move downward.
At the bottom of the shaft a group of men waited to ascend. Their faces were lurid in the dim light. Before the cage grounded Hugh Ritson could hear their breathing. “How many of you are left?” he asked.
“No’but two now — Giles Raisley and auld Reuben,” answered one of the men. The others, without heeding the master’s question, had scrambled into the cage, and were already knocking the signal for the ascent.
Hugh Ritson turned toward the working known among the men as the sandy vein. The cage was now rising, and the pitman who had spoken found himself left on the pit bottom; the single moment that he had given to the master had lost him his chance of a place. He cast one stern glance upward, and a muttered oath was on his lips. At the next instant he had taken the direction followed by Hugh Ritson, and was walking one pace behind him.
In the silence the dull thud of their footsteps on the rock beneath mingled with the drip, drip of the water overhead. When they had gone a hundred yards down the narrow working there came another and far more terrible sound. It was such a sound as the sea might have made if it had rushed through a thousand crevices in the rock. It was the sound of the thousands of tons of sand as they forced their way from the dense mass above. And over the hiss as of the sea was the harsh crack of great timbers splitting like matchwood.
Toward the awful scene of this tumult Hugh Ritson quickened his steps. The man followed close at his heels. Presently their passage was blocked with sand like a wall. Then over their heads the cross-trees cracked, and the upright forks split and bent at the right and left of them. In another moment the ground beneath them shook under the new weight that lay on it. They stepped quickly back, and in an instant, with a groan such as the sea makes when it is sucked by the ebbing tide from a cave in a rock, the floor, with all its freight, went down a score of feet. It had fallen to an old working that lay below.
Then the bent forks hung from the roof in empty air. Silence followed this shock, and through the silence there came a feeble cry for help. Hugh Ritson stepped out, plucked his candle from his hat, and held it before his feet.
“Where are you?” he called, and his voice came back through the echoing depths beyond. Presently a man could be dimly seen clinging to a cross-piece in an alcove made for an air-shaft from the main working. To get to him the treacherous ground must be crossed, with its cracking roof, through which the sand slid even yet, and under the split timbers that still creaked.
Hugh Ritson did not hesitate; he turned to leap down, saying, “Follow me.” But the man clung to him from behind.
“For God’s sake, dunnot!” he cried. “I can not go there. It’s mair nor my life is worth!”
Hugh Ritson twisted about, and looked him steadily in the face.
“What is your name, my man?”
“Davey Braithwaite.”
“Then you are the young fellow whose wife died last week?”
“Ey,” with a drooping head.
“Your child died before her, did it not?”
“Ey, he did, poor laal thing!”
“Your father and mother are gone, too?”
“They’re gone, for sure!”
“And you have neither kith nor kin left in all the world?”
“Nay, no’but mysel’ left.”
Hugh Ritson said no more; a hard smile played on his white face, and at the next instant he had leaped down on to the bed of sand below.
The man recoiled a pace or two and wrung his hands. Before he was aware of what had happened, Giles Raisley and the master were standing beside him.
“Where were old Reuben and his gang stationed?” said Hugh Ritson.
“In the main working; but the water is dammed up; we can never pass.”
They returned to the shaft bottom, and walked thence down the cutting that ran from it at right angles. A light burned far away in the dim vista of that long dark burrowing.
It was a candle stuck to the rock. The men who worked by it had left it there when they rushed off for their lives. Through the bottom of this working there ran a deep trough, but it was now dry.
This was the channel by which the whole pit was drained. Beyond the light the three men encountered another wall of sand, and from behind it and through it there came to them the dull thud and the plash of heavy water.
“If auld Reuben’s theer, he’s a dead man,” said Giles Raisley, and he turned to go.
Hugh Ritson had struggled to the top of the heap, and was plowing the sand away from the roof with his hands. In a little while he had forced an opening, and could see into the dark space beyond. The water had risen to a reservoir of several feet deep. But it was still four or five feet from the roof, and over the black, surging, bubbling waves the imprisoned miner could be seen clinging to a ledge of rock. Half his body was already immersed. When the candle shot its streak of light through the aperture of sand, the poor creature uttered a feeble cry.
In another moment the master had wormed his body through the hole and dropped slowly into the water. Wading breast deep, he reached the pitman, gave him his hand, and brought him safely through the closing seam.
When the cage rose to the surface again, bringing back to life and the world the last of the imprisoned miners, a great cheer broke from many a lusty throat. Women who had never thought to bless the master, blessed him now with fervent tongues. Men who had thought little of the courage that could rest in that slight figure, fell aside at the sense of their own cowardice. Under the red glow that came from the engine fire many a hard face melted.
Hugh Ritson saw little of this, and heeded it not at all. He plucked the candle, still burning, from his hat, and threw it aside. Then he walked through the people toward his room, and when he got there he shut the door, almost slamming it in the faces of those who followed. He pulled down the window-blinds, and began afresh his perambulation to and fro.
He had grown paler and thinner. There was a somber light in his eyes, and his lips were whitening. His step, once quick and sure, despite his infirmity, was now less certain. He had not slept since the night of Mercy’s death. Determined never to encounter again the pains and terrors of sleep, he had walked through the long hours of the four succeeding nights. He knew what the result must be, and did not shrink from it. Once only he had thought of a quicker way to the sure goal that was before him. Then he had opened a cupboard, and looked long and intently at a bottle that he took from its shelf. But he had put the bottle back. Why should he play the fool, and leap the life to come? Thus, night after night, he had walked and walked, never resting, never pausing, though the enfeebled limbs shook beneath him, and the four walls of the room reeled in his dazed eyes.
Before returning to their homes, the people gathered in the darkness about the office on the pit-brow and gave one last cheer.
The master heard them, and his lip curled.
“Simpletons! — they don’t understand,” he muttered, beneath his breath, and continued his melancholy walk.
Next morning, a banksman, who acted as personal attendant on Hugh Ritson, brought him his breakfast. It was not early.
The sun had risen, but the blinds of the office were still drawn, and a candle burned on the table. The man would have put out the candle and let in the sunlight, but the master forbid him. He was a Methodist, and hummed psalm tunes as he went about his work. This morning he was more than usually fresh and happy when he entered with his tray; but at the sight of Hugh Ritson’s pallid face his own face saddened.
“You are a young man yet, Luke,” said the master. “Let me see, how old are you?”
“Seventy-nine, sir. I was born in ninety-eight. That was when auld Bonnypart was agate of us and Nelson bashed him up.”
“I dare say you have grandchildren by this time?”
“Bless you, ey, and great-grandchilder, and ten of them, too; and all well and hearty, thank the Lord!”
The sound of a bell, slowly tolling, came from across the dale. Hugh Ritson’s face contracted, and his eyes fell.
“What bell is that?” he asked, in an altered tone.
“It’s like to be the church bell. They’re burying poor auld Matha’s lass and her wee barn this morning.”
Hugh Ritson did not touch his breakfast.
“Luke, close the shutters,” he said, “and bring more candles.”
He did not go out that day, but continued to walk to and fro in the darkened room. Toward nightfall he grew feverish, and rang frequently the bell that summoned the banksman. He had only some casual order, some message, some unimportant explanation.
At length the old man understood his purpose, and settled himself there for the night. They talked much during the early hours, and often the master laughed and jested. But the atmosphere that is breathed by a sleepless man is always heavy with sleep, and in spite of his efforts to keep awake, Luke dozed away in his chair. Then for hours there was a gloomy silence, broken only by the monotonous footfall within and the throb of the engine without.
The next day, Friday, the sun shone brilliantly, but the shutters of the little house on the pit-brow remained closed, and the candle still burned on the table. Hugh Ritson had grown perceptibly feebler, yet he continued his dreary walk. The old banksman was forbidden to send for a doctor, but he contrived to dispatch a messenger for Parson Christian. That night he watched with the master again. When the conversation failed, he sung. First, a psalm of David, “The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God;” then a revival hymn of Charles Wesley about ransom by Christ’s blood.
It would have been a strange spectacle to strange eyes. The old man — young still, though seventy-nine, dear to troops of dear ones, encircled in his age by love and honor, living in poverty that was abundance, with faith that was itself the substance of things hoped for, his simple face ruddier and mellower than before — rocking his head and singing in the singleness of his heart. The other man — barely thirty, yet already old, having missed his youth, his thin cheeks pallid as linen, his eyes burning with a somber light — alone in the world, desolate, apart — walking with an uncertain step and a tremor of the whole frame, which seemed to lurch for poise and balance, yet swinging his arms with the sweep of the melody, and smiling a forced smile through his hard and whitened lips.
When the singing ceased, Hugh Ritson paused suddenly and turned to the old banksman.
“Luke,” he said, abruptly, “I suppose there will be many to follow you when your time comes?”
“Ey, please God,” answered the banksman, dashing away a furtive drop that had rolled on to his cheek; “there’ll be my childer, and my childer’s childer, and their childer, forby. Maybe the barns will lay me behind the mother; poor auld body!”
Hugh Ritson’s face darkened, and he resumed his walk.
“Tut! what matter?” he asked himself; “the night winds are enough to moan over a man’s grave.” And he laughed a little.
Next morning — Saturday morning — he wrote a letter, and sent Luke to the village to post it. Then he attended to some business relating to the pit. After that, he shut the door and bolted it. When the old man brought the midday meal he knocked in vain, and had to go away.
Night closed in, and still there came no answer to the old man’s knock. When the sun had set the wind had risen. It threatened to be a tempestuous night.
Toward ten o’clock Parson Christian arrived. He had wrestled long with his own heart as to what course it was his duty to take. He had come at last in answer to the banksman’s summons, and now he knocked at the door. There was no answer. The wind was loud in the trees overhead, but he could hear the restless footfall within. He knocked again, and yet again.
Then the bolt was drawn, and a voice at once strange and familiar cried, “Come in, Parson Christian.”
He had not called or spoken.
The parson entered. When his eyes fell on Hugh Ritson’s face he shuddered as he had never shuddered before. Many a time he had seen death in a living face, but never anything like this. The livid cheeks were stony, the white lips were drawn hard, the somber eyes burned like a deep, slow fire, the yellow hands were gaunt and restless. There was despair on the contracted brow, but no repentance. And the enfeebled limbs trembled, but still shuffled on — on, on, on, through their longer journey than from Gabbatha to Golgotha. The very atmosphere of the room breathed of death.
“Let me pray with you,” said the parson, softly, and without any other words, he went down on his knees.
“Ay, pray for me — pray for me; but you lose your labor; nothing can save me.”
“Let us call on God,” said the parson.
A bitter laugh broke from Hugh Ritson’s lips.
“What! and take to him the dregs and rinsings of my life? No!”
“The blood of Christ has ransomed the world. It can save the worst sinner of us all, and turn away the heavy wrath of God.”
Hugh Ritson broke again into a bitter laugh.
“The end has come of sin, as of trouble. No matter.” Then, with an awful solemnity, he added: “My soul is barren. It is already given over to the undying worm. I shall die to-morrow at sunrise.”
“No man knows the day nor the hour—”
Hugh Ritson repeated, with a fearful emphasis, “I shall die as the sun rises on Sunday morning.”
Parson Christian remained with him the weary night through. The wind moaned and howled outside. It licked the walls as with the tongues of serpents. The parson prayed fervently, but Hugh Ritson’s voice never once rose with his. To and fro, to and fro, the dying man continued his direful walk. At one moment he paused and said with a ghastly smile, “This dying is an old story. It has been going on every day for six thousand years, and yet we find it as terrible as ever.”
Toward three in the morning he threw open the shutters. The windows were still dark; it seemed as if the dawn were far away. “It is coming,” he said calmly. “I knew it must come soon. Let us go out to meet it.”
With infinite effort he pulled his ulster over his shoulders, put on his hat, and opened the door.
“Where are you going?” said the parson, and his voice broke.
“To the top of the fell.”
“Why there?”
Hugh Ritson turned his heavy eyes upon him. “To see the new day dawn,” he said, with an awful pathos.
He had already stepped out into the gloom. Parson Christian followed him. They took the path that led through the moor end to the foot of Cat Bells. The old man offered his arm, but Hugh Ritson shook his head and walked one pace ahead. It was a terrible journey. The wind had dropped. In the air the night and day commingled. The dying man struggled along with the firm soul of a stricken lion. Step by step and with painful labor they ascended the bare side of the fell in the gray light of morning. They reached the top at last.
Below them the moorland lay dark and mute. The mist was around them. They seemed to stand on an islet of the clouds. In front the day-break was bursting the confines of the bleak racks of cloud. Then the day came in its wondrous radiance, and flooded the world in a vast ocean of light.
On the mountain brow Hugh Ritson resumed his melancholy walk. The old parson muttered, as if to himself, “Wilt thou break a leaf driven to and fro? Wilt thou pursue the dry stubble?” Hugh Ritson overheard the words, and all his manner changed. The stubborn lips softened, the somber eye melted, the contracted brow relaxed, and for the first time in all this length of years, he cried like a little child.
At the same instant the sun swept up, and he fell. Parson Christian bent over him. The crimson of the east twas reflected on his white face. The new day had dawned.
On the Tuesday following two mourners stood by an open grave in the church-yard of Newlands. One of them was white-headed; the other wore the jacket and cap, the badge and broad arrow of a convict. The sexton and his man had lowered the coffin to its last home, and then stepped aside. A tall man leaned on the lych-gate, and a group of men and women stood in silence by the porch of the church. The afternoon sun was low, and the shadows of the tombstones stretched far on the grass.
The convict went down on his knees, and looked long into the grave. When he arose, the company that had gathered about the porch had gone, and voices singing a hymn came from within the old church. It was the village choir practicing. The world’s work had begun again.
CHAPTER XVIII.
Two days later the fell behind the Ghyll was a scene of unusual animation. It was the day of the shearing. The sheep, visibly whiter and more fleecy for a washing of some days before, had been gathered into stone folds. Clippers were seated on creels ranged about a turf fire, over which a pot of tar hung from a triangle of boughs. Boy “catchers” brought up the sheep, one by one, and girl “helpers” carried away the fleeces, hot and odorous, and hung them over the open barn doors. As the sheep were stripped, they were tugged to the fire and branded from the bubbling tar with the smet mark of the Ritsons. The metallic click of the shears was in the air, and over all was the blue sky and the brilliant sunshine.
In a white overall, stained with patches of tar and some streaks of blood, smudged with soap and scraps of the clinging wool, Parson Christian moved among the shearers, applying plentiful doses of salve from a huge can to the snips made in the skin of the sheep by the accidents of the shears.
“We might have waited for the maister afore shearing — eh?” said Reuben, from one of the creels.
“He’ll be here before we finish, please the Lord,” answered the parson.
“Is it to-day you’re to gang for him?”
“Yes, this afternoon.”
“A daub on this leg, parson, where she kicked — deuced take her!... It’s like you’ll bring him home in a car?”
“Ay; Randal Alston has loaned me his mare.”
“Why, man, what a upshot we’ll have, for sure — bacon pie and veal and haggis, and top stannin pie and puddings, I reckon.... Just a hand to her leg, parson, while I strip the coat and waistcoat off this black-faced herdwick.... Is the mistress to come home, too?”
