Yet it was not of these things he thought. Perhaps he did not think of anything particularly, but a far-off lilt of a children"s game which was played at school, kept iterating and reiterating through his brain, and everything seemed done to that tune.
"Don"t take a laddie, oh, Laddie oh, laddie oh, Don"t take a laddie oh, Take a bonnie wee la.s.sie."
It sang continually within him and men seemed to move to its regular beat, as they hurried to get ready. He looked at the hills, and noted how quiet everything seemed, their curving outlines gave such a sense of eternal rest. There was a patch of lovely blue sky above him, he noticed where the clouds opened up and a glint of golden glorious sunshine came through; but it looked garish and it closed again and the white clouds trailed away, their lower fringes clinging to the hill tops like veils of gossamer woven by time to deck the bride of Spring. A lark rose at the edge of the crowd of weeping women and children as if unmindful of the tragedy over which it sang so rapturously, and he noted its fluttering wings and swelling throat as it soared in circles of glad song.
All these things and more he noted though it was but a momentary pause.
"Are you right?" came the question from the men at the windla.s.s, far away it seemed and unconnected with the scene.
"Right," he answered with a start, and looking round he seemed to become aware of the white-faced, red-eyed women among whom his mother"s face seemed to stand out. She was not weeping, he noticed, but oh G.o.d! her face seemed to turn him with the intensity of the suffering in her eyes.
He realized that he had not noticed her before, and now with a wild throb of pity he stretched out his hands towards her, a look of suffering in his eyes, as if he were feeling the pains of humanity crucified anew, and the chair began to drop slowly below the surface, swinging down into the darkness and the evil dangers that lurked below.
Her face was the last thing he saw--a face full of agony yet calm with a great renunciation coming to birth in her eyes, her lips drawn thin like a slit in her face and all the color gone from them, the head bent a little as if a great blow had fallen upon her--an island of agony set in a sea of despair.
A wild impulse seized him to go back. It was too much to ask of a woman, he felt. Too great a burden of tragedy to heap upon one soul, as he cast his mind back through the suffering years and viewed all the pain she had borne, and the terrible Gethsemane which her life had been; but as the chair swung round he clutched the swaying rope and with the other hand steadied it from crashing against the side of the shaft as they slowly dropped lower and lower into the darkness and the evil smells which hung around.
"Things look bad here," said his comrade as they pa.s.sed down where at some time a huge portion from the side had fallen out and down into the bottom of the old shaft.
"Ay," answered Robert, "everything seems just ready to collapse," and they dropped lower and lower, swaying from side to side, cautiously guiding their swinging chair from the moss-oozing side, their nerves strained as they listened to the creeking rope as it was paid out from above.
"Holy G.o.d," cried his mate, "that was a near thing," as a huge ma.s.s of rocks and slimy moss lunged out a little below them and hurtled away in a loud rumbling noise.
Robert pulled the signal cord to stop and looked up to see the white clouds pa.s.sing over the narrow funnel-like shaft in which they hung.
Then he gave the signal to let out again noting how thick with damp the atmosphere was becoming, and having difficulty with his light.
Lower and lower they swung and dropped down into the old shaft and as the rope creaked and crazed above them it lilted:
"Choose, choose, wha" you"ll tak", Wha" you"ll tak", wha" you"ll tak", Choose, choose wha" you"ll tak", A laddie or a la.s.sie."
And the memory of the old lilt brought back other scenes again and he found himself guiding the chair from the shaft side steering it off with his hand at every rhythmic beat of the child song.
Soon they reached the bottom of the shaft, for it was not very deep, and found a ma.s.s of debris, almost choking up the roadways on either side of the bottom. But they got out of their chair and soon began to "redd"
away the stones though they found very great difficulty in getting the lamps to burn. Occasionally, as they worked, little pieces came tumbling from the side of the shaft, telling its own tale, and as soon as Robert got a decent sized kind of opening made through the rocks which blocked the roadway he sent up the other man to bring down more help and to get others started to repair the old shaft by putting in stays and batons to preserve the sides and so prevent them from caving in altogether.
He found his way along the level which had been driven to within nine feet of going through on the heading in which the inbreak of moss had taken place. He noticed the roof was broken in many places and that the timber which had been put in years before was rotten. Strange noises seemed to a.s.sail his senses, and stranger smells, yet the lilt of that old childish game was ever humming in his brain and he saw himself with other boys and girls with clasped hands linked in a circle and going round in a ring as they sang the old ditty.
"Three breakings should dae it," he said as he looked at the face of the coal dripping with water from the cracks in the roof. "If only they were here to put up the props. I could soon blow it through," and he began to prepare a place for batons and props, pending the arrival of more help from those who were only too eager to come down to his aid.
It was almost an hour before help came in the shape of two men carrying some props. Then came another two and soon more timber began to arrive regularly and the swinging blows of their hammers as they drove in the fresh props were soon echoing through the tunnels, and Robert set up his boring machine and soon the rickety noise of it drowned all others. He paused to change a drill when a faint hullo was heard from the other side.
"Hullo," he yelled, then held his breath in tense silence to hear the response which came immediately. "Are you all safe?" he roared, his voice carrying easily through the open coal.
"Ay," came the faint answer; "but the moss is rising in the heading and you"ll have to hurry up."
Robert knew this, and one of his helpers had gone down an old heading to explore and had returned to say that it was rising steadily and was now within two hundred feet from the old shaft down which he had descended.
"Where away did the roof break?" roared Robert as he changed his second drill.
"Half way doon the cousie brae," came the answer, "an" we"re all shut in like rats. Hurry up and get us oot," and again the rickety, rackety noise of the boring machine began and drowned all other noises.
He soon drilled his holes and he could hear them on the other side singing now some ribald song to keep up their courage, while others who were religiously inclined chanted hymns and psalms, but all were wondering whether Robert and his men would be able to break through the barrier in time to save them before the persistently rising moss claimed them.
He charged his shots and called them to go back, telling them the number of his charges, then lit his fuse and ran out of the old level to wait in a place of safety while the explosion took place.
Soon they boomed out and the concussion put them all in darkness; but they soon had the lamps re-lit and were back in among the thick volumes of powder smoke, groping about and shading their lamps and peering in to see what their shots had done to lessen the barrier between them and their imprisoned comrades.
Then the shovels set to work and tossed the coal which the shots had dislodged back into the roadway and soon the boring machines were busy again, eating into the coal; for those tireless arms of Robert"s never halted. He swung the handle or wielded the pick or shovel, never taking a, rest, while the sweat streamed from his body working like some mechanical product for always in his mind he was calculating his chances for being able to blast it through the barrier before the moss rose.
"It has only a stoop length an" a half to rise now," reported one of the men. "It"s creeping up like the doom o" the day o" judgment. But I think we"ll manage. If these shots do as well as the last ones we should be within two feet of them, an" surely to G.o.d we can bite the rest of it, if we canna blaw it. Let me stem the shots, Rob, an" you take a rest."
"You go to h.e.l.l," was the unexpectedly astounding reply; for no one had ever heard Robert Sinclair use language like this before. "As soon as thae shots are off an" if they blaw as well as the others we"ll turn out the coal an" then you can gang up the pit, every yin o" you. I"ll soon blow through the rest of it, and if you are all up by then it will make for speed in getting the others out. We"re going to have a race for it even though we manage as I"m thinking to. So get out of the way and don"t talk. Again the air"s getting too dam"d thick for you all remaining here. There"s hardly as muckle as would keep a canary living,"
and again he called to those on the other side to beware of the shots, and again ran out to a place of safety while the explosions took place.
Once more the result of the shots was good; but the smoke choked and blinded them and one man was overcome by the fumes. They carried him out the road a bit and after he showed signs of coming round, Robert gave instructions for him to be taken to the surface.
"Oh, Lod, but it"s nippin" my e"en," said one as he rubbed his eyes and blew his nose, sneezed and finally expectorated. "It"s as thick as soor milk, be dam"d!"
"Well, get him up, and I"ll away back and redd out the shots and try and get it through again. The moss is rising quicker noo an" it has only aboot eighty feet to come."
So back he went among the thick choking volume of smoke, tripping and stumbling and staggering from side to side as he scrambled on. Would he be in time to blast the barrier down before the steadily creeping moss rose to cut off his only avenue of escape?
"My G.o.d! What"s that?" he asked himself as he paused while a rumble and crash behind him told him that the old shaft had caved in burying his comrades in rocks and moss and water.
He ran back but could get no further than within a stoop length of the old shaft. There were hundreds of tons of debris and all was finally lost. For the first time terror seized him and he tore desperately at the bowlders of stone, cutting his fingers and lacerating his body all over with cuts and bruises. He raved and swore and shouted in desperation, the sweat streaming from every pore, his eyes wild and glaring, but he was soon driven back by the moss which was oozing and percolating through the broken ma.s.s of bowlders and gradually it forced him back with a rush as it burst through with a sudden slushing sound as if suddenly relieved from a barrier which held it. Back he rushed, his light again becoming extinguished, the flood pursuing him relentlessly, the air now so heavy that he could hardly breathe, but groping his way he reached the first end roadway down which for the moment the flood ran to meet the rising moss creeping up relentlessly from below.
Choking and only half conscious he staggered on with all sense of disaster gone from his mind, with no thought of his comrades on the other side waiting so impatiently to be released, and singing their frothy songs in the hope that all was well, his legs doubling below him, and his lungs heaving to expel the poison which the thick air contained.
Down at last he fell, his head striking against the side of the roadway, and he lay still.
The moss might rise hungrily over him now, the rotten roof might fall upon him, all the dangers of the mine might conspire together against him; but nothing they might do could ever again strike terror into the young heart that lay there, feebly throbbing its last as it was being overcome with the deadly poison of the black damp.
He was proof against all their terrors now, the spirit could evade them yet; for though the old shaft might collapse and imprison his body and claim it as a sacrifice to the King Terror of the Underworld, no prison was ever created that could contain the indomitable spirit of man as G.o.d. He was free--free, and was happy and could cry defiance to the dangers of the mine, to the terrors of time itself. He could clutch the corners of the earth, and play with it as a toy of time, among the G.o.ds of Eternity.
"Choose, choose wha" you"ll tak"," throbbed the young heart and a smile of triumph played upon the lips as the pictures of bygone times flitted across his dying brain. He was again the happy infant, hungry it may be, and ill-clad, but Heaven contained no happier soul. The little stomach might not be filled with sufficient food; but the spirit of him as it was in younger years knew no material limits to its laughter in the childish ring games of youth. Again he was waiting in the dark wintry mornings on Mysie, so that she would not be afraid to go to work on the pit-head; ay, and he was happy to take the windward side of her in the storm, and shield her from the winter"s blast, tying her little shawl about her ears and making her believe he did not feel the cold at all.
He was back again at his mother"s knee, listening to her glorious voice singing some pitiful old ballad, as she crooned him to sleep; or lying trying to forget the hunger he felt as the glorious old tune seemed to drown his senses while he waited to say his prayer at night.
"Jesus, tender shepherd, hear me, Bless Thy little lamb to-night, In the darkness be Thou near me, Keep me safe till morning light."
Then there was the "good-night" to everyone and the fond kiss of the best of all mothers, the sinking into sleep that billowed and rocked the weary young spirit of him, crushed and bruised by the forces of the world, and finally the sweet shy smile of a young girl blushing and awkward, but flooding his soul with happiness and thrilling every fiber of him with her magic as she stood upon the hill crest, outlined against the sunset with a soft breeze blowing, kissing the gray hill side, bringing perfumes from every corner of the moor and beckoning him as she rose upward, he followed higher and higher, the picture taking shape and becoming more real until it merged into spirit.
And the creeping moss moved upward, hungry for its prey and greedy to devour the fine young body so fresh and strong and l.u.s.ty; but it was balked, for it claimed only the empty sh.e.l.l. The prize had gone on the wings of an everlasting happiness and the spirit of the moor, because there is no forgetting, triumphed over the spirit of destruction, so that in the records of the spirit he shall say:
"I shall remember when the red sun glowing Sinks in the west, a gorgeous flare of fire; How then you looked with the soft breeze blowing Cool through your hair, a heaving living pyre Fired by the sun for the sweet day"s ending; I still shall hear the whirring harsh moor-hen, Roused from her rest among the rushes bending I shall remember then.
"I shall remember every well-loved feature, How, on the hill crest when the day was done, Just how you looked, dear, G.o.d"s most glorious creature, Heaven"s silhouette outlined against the sun; I shall remember just how you the fairest, Dearest and brightest thing that G.o.d e"er made, Warmed all my soul with holy fire the rarest, That vision shall not fade."
But pain and tragedy forever seem to have no limit to their hunger; and in the clear spring air above the place where the bodies of her boys lay, Mrs. Sinclair"s heart was again the food upon which the tragedy of life fed. All the years of her existence were bound up in the production of coal, and the spirits of her husband and of her sons call to-day to the world of men--men who have wives, men who have mothers, men who have sweethearts and sisters and daughters, stand firm together; and preserve your women folk from these tragedies, if you would justify your manhood in the world of men.