Part 1 (1/2)
Facing Death.
by G. A. Henty.
CHAPTER I.
EVIL TIDINGS.
A row of brick-built houses with slate roofs, at the edge of a large mining village in Staffords.h.i.+re. The houses are dingy and colourless, and without relief of any kind. So are those in the next row, so in the street beyond, and throughout the whole village. There is a dreary monotony about the place; and if some giant could come and pick up all the rows of houses, and change their places one with another, it is a question whether the men, now away at work, would notice any difference whatever until they entered the houses standing in the place of those which they had left in the morning. There is a church, and a vicarage half hidden away in the trees in its pretty old-fas.h.i.+oned garden; there are two or three small red-bricked dissenting chapels, and the doctor's house, with a bright bra.s.s knocker and plate on the door. There are no other buildings above the common average of mining villages; and it needs not the high chimneys, and engine-houses with winding gear, dotting the surrounding country, to notify the fact that Stokebridge is a mining village.
It is a little past noon, and many of the women come to their doors and look curiously after a miner, who, in his working clothes, and black with coal-dust, walks rapidly towards his house, with his head bent down, and his thick felt hat slouched over his eyes.
”It's Bill Haden; he works at the 'Vaughan.'”
”What brings he up at this hour?”
”Summat wrong, I'll be bound.”
Bill Haden stopped at the door of his house in the row first spoken of, lifted the latch, and went in. He walked along a narrow pa.s.sage into the back-room. His wife, who was standing at the was.h.i.+ng-tub, turned round with a surprised exclamation, and a bull-dog with half-a-dozen round tumbling puppies scrambled out of a basket by the fire, and rushed to greet him.
”What is it, Bill? what's brought thee home before time?”
For a moment Bill Haden did not answer, but stooped, and, as it were mechanically, lifted the dog and stroked its head.
”There's blood on thy hands, Bill. What be wrong with 'ee?”
”It bain't none of mine, la.s.s,” the man said in an unsteady voice. ”It be Jack's. He be gone.”
”Not Jack Simpson?”
”Ay, Jack Simpson; the mate I ha' worked with ever since we were b.u.t.ties together. A fall just came as we worked side by side in the stall, and it broke his neck, and he's dead.”
The woman dropped into a chair, threw her ap.r.o.n over her head, and cried aloud, partly at the loss of her husband's mate, partly at the thought of the narrow escape he had himself had.
”Now, la.s.s,” her husband said, ”there be no time to lose. It be for thee to go and break it to his wife. I ha' come straight on, a purpose. I thawt to do it, but I feel like a gal myself, and it had best be told her by another woman.”
Jane Haden took her ap.r.o.n from her face.
”Oh, Bill, how can I do it, and she ill, and with a two-month baby? I mis...o...b.. me it will kill her.”
”Thou'st got to do it,” Bill said doggedly, ”and thou'd best be quick about it; it won't be many minutes afore they bring him in.”
When Bill spoke in that way his wife knew, as he said, that she'd got to do it, and without a word she rose and went out, while her husband stood staring into the fire, and still patting the bull-dog in his arms. A tear falling on his hand startled him. He dropped the dog and gave it a kick, pa.s.sed his sleeve across his eyes, and said angrily:
”Blest if I bain't a crying like a gal. Who'd a thawt it? Well, well, poor old Jack! he was a good mate too”--and Bill Haden proceeded to light his pipe.
Slowly and reluctantly Mrs. Haden pa.s.sed along the row. The sad errand on which she was going was one that has often to be discharged in a large colliery village. The women who had seen Bill go in were still at their doors, and had been joined by others. The news that he had come in at this unusual hour had pa.s.sed about quickly, and there was a general feeling of uneasiness among the women, all of whom had husbands or relatives below ground. When, therefore, Jane Haden came out with signs of tears on her cheeks, her neighbours on either side at once a.s.sailed her with questions.
”Jack Simpson's killed by a fall,” she said, ”and I ha' got to break it to his wife.”
Rapidly the news spread along the row, from door to door, and from group to group. The first feeling was everywhere one of relief that it was not their turn this time; then there was a chorus of pity for the widow. ”It will go hard with her,” was the general verdict. Then the little groups broke up, and went back to their work of getting ready for the return of their husbands from the pit at two o'clock. One or two only, of those most intimate with the Simpsons, followed Jane Haden slowly down the street to the door of their house, and took up a position a short distance off, talking quietly together, in case they might be wanted, and with the intention of going in after the news was broken, to help comfort the widow, and to make what preparations were needed for the last incoming of the late master of the house. It was but a minute or two that they had to pause, for the door opened again, and Jane Haden beckoned them to come in.