Part 3 (2/2)
”Oi'm thinking o' getting larning.”
”Thinking o' getting larning!” the miner repeated in astonishment, ”why, 'ee be just a dun o' getting larning. 'Ee ha' been at it for the last foive year, lad, and noo thou'st going to be done wi' it and to work in the pit.”
”Oi'm a going to work in the pit, dad, and oi'm a gwine to get larning too. Oi've made oop my mind, and oi'm gwine to do it.”
”But bain't 'ee got larning?” the miner said. ”Thou canst read and write foine, which is more nor I can do and what dost want more?”
”Oi'm a going to get larning,” Jack said again, steadily repeating the formula, ”and oi'm gwine soom day to be a manager.”
Bill Haden stared at the boy and then burst into a fit of laughter.
”Well, this bangs a'.”
Mrs. Haden was as surprised but more sympathetic.
”Bless the boy, what hast got in your head now?”
Jack showed not the slightest sign of discomfiture at his father's laughter.
”I met a chap to-day,” he said in answer to Mrs. Haden, ”as told I that if I made up my moind to work and joost stuck to 't, I could surely make a man o' myself, and might even roise soom day to be a manager; and I'm a going to do it.”
”Doant 'ee say a word to check the boy, Bill,” Mrs. Haden said to her husband, as he was about to burst out into jeering remarks. ”I tell 'ee, what Jack says he sticks to, and you oughter know that by this time.
What the man, whos'ever he might be, said, was right, Jack,” she went on, turning to the boy. ”Larning is a great thing. So far you ain't showed any turn for larning, Jack, as I ever see'd, but if you get it you may raise yourself to be an overman or a viewer, though I doan't say a manager; that seems too far away altogether. If you stick to what you say you may do it, Jack. I can't help you in larning, for I ain't got none myself, but if I can help you in any other way I 'ull, and so 'ull feyther, though he does laugh a bit.”
”He be roight enough to laugh,” Jack said, ”for I hain't had any turn that way, I doant know as I ha' now, but I'm a going to try, and if trying can do it,” he said in his steady tones, ”oi'll do it. I think I ha' got some o' the bull-dog strain in me, and I'll hoult on to it as Bess would hoult on to a man's throat if she pinned him.”
”I know you will, my lad,” Mrs. Haden said, while her husband, lighting his pipe and turning to go out, said:
”It matters nowt to me one way or t'other, but moind, lad, larning or no larning, thou'st got to go into the pit next week and arn your living.”
”Jack,” Mrs. Haden said presently, ”dost know, I wouldn't do nowt wi'
this new fancy o' thine, not till arter thou'st a been to work i' the pit for a while; a week or two will make no differ to 'ee, and thou doan't know yet how tired ye'll be when ye coom oop nor how thou'lt long for the air and play wi' lads o' thy own age. I believe, Jack, quite believe that thou be'st in arnest on it, and I know well that when thou dost begin thou'lt stick to 't. But it were better to wait till thou know'st what 'tis thou art undertaking.”
Jack felt that there was a good deal in what his mother said. ”Very well, mother. 'Twant make no differ to me, but oi'll do as th' asks me.”
CHAPTER IV.
THE VAUGHAN PIT.
Among the group of men and boys a.s.sembled round the mouth of the Vaughan pit on the 7th of June were two little lads, Jack Simpson and Harry Shepherd, who were to make the descent for the first time. The boys were fast friends. Harry was the taller but was slighter than Jack, and far less st.u.r.dy and strong. Both were glad that they were to go into the pit, for although the life of a gate-boy is dull and monotonous, yet in the pit villages the boys look forward to it as marking the first step in a man's life, as putting school and lessons behind, and as raising them to a position far in advance of their former a.s.sociates.
Nowadays the law has stepped in, and the employment of such mere children in the mines is forbidden, but at that time it had not been changed, and if a boy was big enough to shut a door he was big enough to go into a mine.
”Dost feel skeary, Jack?” Harry asked.
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