Complete Works of Stanley J Weyman

by Stanley J Weyman

  The rector recoiled, not at the sound of the man’s profanity, but in disgust at his own mistake. Then he held out his hand. “My man,” he said, “I beg your pardon. It was I who was wrong.”

  The giant looked at him with another stare, but made no answer, and a dozen steps brought them to another cabin. Across the doorway — there was no door — hung a rough curtain of matting. This the man raised, and, holding his lamp over the threshold, invited the rector to look in. “I guess,” he added significantly, “that you would not have made that mistake, master, after seeing this.”

  Lindo peered in. On the floor, which was little more than six feet square, lay four quiet figures, motionless, and covered with coarse sacking. No human eye falling on them could have taken them for anything but what they were. The visitor shuddered, as his guide let the curtain fall again and muttered with a backward jerk of the head, “Two of them I came down with this morning — in the cage.”

  The rector had nothing to answer, and the man, preceding him to a cabin a few yards farther on, invited him by a sign to enter, and himself turned back the way they had come. A faint moaning warned Lindo, before he raised the matting, what he must expect to see. Instinctively, as he stepped in, his eyes sought the floor; and although three pitmen crouching upon one of the benches rose and made way for him, he hardly noticed them, so occupied was he with pitiful looking at the two men lying on coarse beds on the floor. They were bandaged and muffled almost out of human form. One of them was rolling his sightless face monotonously to and fro, pouring out an unceasing stream of delirious talk. The other, whose bright eyes met the newcomer’s with eager longing, paused in the murmur which seemed to ease his pain, and whispered, “Doctor!” so hopefully that the sound went straight to Lindo’s heart.

  To undeceive him, and to explain to the others that he was not the expected surgeon, was a bitter task with which to begin his ministrations; but he was greatly cheered to find that, even in their disappointment, they took his coming as a kindly thing, and eyed him with surprised gratitude. He told them the latest news from the bank — that a cage would be rigged up in a few hours at farthest — and then, conquering his physical shrinking, he knelt down by the least injured man and tried to turn his surgical knowledge to account. It was not much he could do, but it certainly eased the poor man’s present sufferings. A bandage was laid more smoothly here, a little cotton-wool readjusted there, a change of posture managed, a few hopeful words uttered which helped the patient to fight against the shock — so that presently he sank into a troubled sleep. Lindo tried to do his best for the other also, terrible as was the task; but the man’s excitement and unceasing restlessness, as well as his more serious injuries, made help here of little avail.

  When he rose, he found one of the watchers holding a cup of brandy ready for him; and, sitting down upon the bench behind, he discovered a coat laid there to make the seat more comfortable, though no one seemed to have done it, or to be conscious of his surprise. They talked low to him, and to one another, in a disjointed taciturn fashion, with immense gaps and long intervals of silence. He learned that there were twenty-seven men yet missing, but it was thought that the afterdamp had killed them all. Those already found alive had been in the main heading, where the current of air gave them a better chance.

  One or other of the workers was continually going out to listen for the return of the party who were exploring the workings near the foot of the other shaft; and once or twice a member of this party, exhausted or ill, looked in for a dose of tea or brandy, and then stumbled out again to get himself conveyed to the upper air. These looked curiously at the stranger, but, on some information being muttered in their ears, made a point on going out of giving him a nod which was full of tacit acknowledgment.

  In a quiet interval he looked at his watch and wound it up, finding the time to be half-past two. The familiar action carried his mind back to his neat, spotless bedroom at the rectory and the cares and anxieties of everyday life, which had been forgotten for the last five hours. Could it be so short a time, he asked himself, since he was troubled by them? It seemed years ago. It seemed as if a gulf, deep as the shaft down which he had come, divided him from them. And yet the moment his thoughts returned to them the gulf became less, and presently, although his eyes were still fixed upon the poor collier’s unquiet head and the murky cabin with its smoky lamp, he was really back in Claversham, busied with those thoughts again, and pondering on the time when he should be above ground. The things that had been important before rose into importance again, but their relative values among themselves were altered, in his eyes at any rate. With what he had seen and heard in the last few hours fresh in his mind, with the injured men lying still in his sight — one of them never to see the sun again — he could not but take a different, a wider, a less selfish view of life and its aims. His ideal of existence grew higher and purer, his notion of success more noble. In the light of his own self-forgetting energy and of others’ pain he saw things as they affected his neighbor rather than himself and so presently — not in haste, but slowly in the watches of the night — he formed a resolution which shall be told presently. The determinations to which men come at such times are, in nine cases out of ten, as transitory as the emotions on which they are based. But this time, and with this man, it was not to be so. Kate Bonamy’s words, bringing before his mind the responsibility which rested upon him, had in a degree prepared him to examine his position gravely and from a lofty standpoint; so that the considerations which now assailed him could scarcely fail to have due and lasting weight with him, and to leave impressions both deep and permanent.

  He was presently roused from his reverie by a sound which caused his companions to rise to their feet with the first signs of excitement they had betrayed in their manner. It was the murmur of voices in the heading, which, beginning far away, rapidly approached and gathered strength. Going to the door of the cabin, he saw lights in the gallery becoming each instant more clear. Then the forms of men coming on by twos and threes rose out of the darkness. And so the procession wound in, and Lindo found himself suddenly surrounded — where a moment before no sounds but painful ones had been heard — by the hum and bustle, the quick question and answers, of a crowd. For the men brought good news. The missing were found; and though many of them were burned or scorched, and others were suffering from the effects of the afterdamp, the explorers brought back with them no still, ominous burden, nor even any case of hopeless injury, such as that of the poor fellow in delirium over whom his mates bent with the strange impassive patience which seems to be a quality peculiar to those who get their living underground.

  Not that Lindo at the time had leisure to consider their behavior. The injured were brought to him as a matter of course, and he did what he could with simple bandages and liniment to keep the air from their wounds, and to enable the men to reach the surface with as little pain as possible. For more than an hour, as he passed from one to the other, his hands were never empty; he could think only of his work. The deputy-manager, who had been leading the rescue party, was thoroughly prostrated. The rest never doubted that the stranger was a surgeon, and it was curious to see their surprise when the general taciturnity allowed the news to spread that he was only a parson. They were like savants with a specimen which, known to belong to a particular species, has none of the class attributes, and sets at defiance all preconceived ideas upon the subject. He, too, when he was at length free to look about him, found matter for astonishment in his own sensations. The cabin and the roadway outside, where the men sat patiently waiting their turns to ascend, had become almost homelike in his eyes. The lounging figures here thrown into relief by a score of lamps, there lost in the gloom of the background, had grown familiar. He knew that this was here and that was there, and had his receptacles and conveniences, his special attendants and helpers. In a word, he had made the place his own, yet without forgetting old habits — for more than once he caught himself looking at his watch, and wonder
ing when it would be day.

  Toward seven o’clock a message directed to him by name came down. A cage would be rigged up within the hour. Before that period elapsed, however, he was summoned to see the poor fellow die who had been delirious ever since he was found and who now passed away in the same state. It was a trying scene coming just when the clergyman’s wrought-up nerves were beginning to feel a reaction — the more trying as all looked to him to do anything that could be done. But that was nothing; and he felt gravely thankful when the poor man’s sufferings were over and the throng of swarthy faces melted from the open doorway.

  He sat apart a little after that until a commotion outside the cabin and a cheery voice asking for Mr. Lindo summoned him to the door, where he found the same manager who had sent him down the night before, and who now greeted him warmly. “It is not for me to thank you,” Mr. Peat said— “I have nothing to do with this pit — the owner, to whom what has happened will be reported, will do that; but personally I am obliged to you, Mr. Lindo, and I am sure the men are.”

  “I wanted only to be of help,” the clergyman answered simply. “There was not much I could do.”

  “Well, that is a matter of opinion,” the manager replied. “I have mine, and I know that the men who have come up have theirs. However, here is the cage; perhaps you will not mind going up with poor Edwards?”

  “Not at all,” said the rector; and, following the manager to the cage, he stepped into it without any suspicion that this was a trick on the part of Mr. Peat to insure his volunteer’s services being recognized.

  He found the ascent a very different thing from the descent. The steady upward motion was not unpleasant, and long before the surface was reached his eyes, accustomed to darkness, detected a pale gleam of light stealing downward, and could distinguish the damp brickwork gliding by. Presently the light grew stronger — grew dazzling in its wonderful whiteness. “We are going up nicely,” his companion murmured, remembering in his gratitude that the ascent, which was a trifle to him even with shattered nerves, might be unpleasant to the other— “we are nearly there.”

  And so they were; and slowly and gently they rose into the broad daylight and the sunshine which seemed to proclaim to the rector’s heart that sorrow may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning.

  Standing densely packed round the pit’s mouth was a great crowd — a crowd, at any rate, of many hundreds. They greeted the appearance of the cage with a quick drawing-in of the breath and a murmur of pity. Lindo’s face and hands were as black as any collier’s; his dress seemed at the first glance as theirs. But as he helped to lift his injured companion out and carry him to the stretcher which stood at hand, the word who he was ran round; and, though no one spoke, the loudest tribute could scarcely have been more eloquent than the respect with which the rough assemblage fell away to right and left that he might pass out to the trap which had been thoughtfully provided — first to carry him to the vicarage for a wash, and afterward to take him home. His heart was full as he walked down the lane, every man standing uncovered, and the women gazing on him with unspoken blessings in their eyes.

  A very few hours before he had felt at war with the world. He had said, not perhaps that all men were liars, but that they were unjust, full of prejudice and narrowness, and ill-will; that, above all, they judged without charity. Now, as the pony-cart rattled down the road through the cutting, and the sunny landscape, the winding river, and the plain round Claversham opened before him, he felt far otherwise. He longed to do more for others than he had done. He dwelt with wonder on the gratitude which services so slight had evoked from men so rough as those from whom he had just parted; and unconsciously he placed the balance in their favor to the general account of the world, and acknowledged himself its debtor.

  CHAPTER XXII.

  THE RECTOR’S DECISION.

  The church clock was striking nine as the rector, jogging along behind the little pony, came in sight of the turnpike-house outside the town. He had no overcoat, and the drive had chilled him; and, anxious at once to warm himself and to reach the rectory as quietly as possible, he bade the driver stop at the gate and set him down. The lad had been strictly charged to see the parson home, and would have demurred, but Lindo persisted good-humoredly, and had his way. In two minutes he was striding briskly along the road, his shoulders squared, and the night’s reflections still running like a rich purple thread through the common stuff of his every-day thoughts.

  In this mood, which the pure morning air and crisp sunshine tended to favor and prolong, he came at a corner plump upon Mr. Bonamy, who, like all angular, uncomfortable men, was an early riser, and had this morning chosen to extend his before-breakfast walk in the direction of Baerton. The lawyer’s energy had already been rewarded. He had met Mr. Keogh, and learned not only the earlier details of the accident — which were, indeed, known to all Claversham, for the town had sat up into the small hours listening for wheels and discussing the catastrophe — but had further received a minute description of the rector’s conduct. Consequently his thoughts were already busy with the clergyman when, turning a corner, he came unexpectedly upon him.

  Lindo met his glance and looked away hastily. The rector had been anxious to avoid, by going home at once, any appearance of parading what he had done, and he would have passed on with a brief good-morning. But the lawyer seemed to be differently disposed. He stopped short in the middle of the path, so that the clergyman could not pass him without rudeness, and nodded a jerky greeting. “You have not walked all the way, I suppose, Mr. Lindo?” he said, his keen small eyes reading the other’s face like a book.

  “No,” the rector answered, coloring uncomfortably under his gaze. “I drove as far as the turnpike, Mr. Bonamy.”

  “Well, you may think yourself lucky to be well out of it,” the lawyer rejoined, with a dry smile. “To be here at all, indeed,” he continued, with a gesture of the hand which seemed meant to indicate the sunshine and the upper air. “When a man does a foolhardy thing he does not always escape, you know.”

  The younger man reddened. But this morning he had his temper well under control and he merely answered, “I thought I was called upon to do what I did, Mr. Bonamy. But of course that is a matter of opinion. Perhaps I was wrong, perhaps right. I did what I thought best at the moment, and I am satisfied.”

  Mr. Bonamy shrugged his shoulders. “Oh, well, every man to his notion,” he said. “I do not approve, myself, of people running risks which do not lie within the scope of their business. And as nothing has happened to you — —”

  “The risk of anything happening,” the rector rejoined, with warmth, “was so small that the thing is not worth discussing, Mr. Bonamy. There is a matter, however,” he continued, changing the subject on a sudden impulse, “which I think I may as well mention to you now as later. You, as churchwarden, have in fact, a right to be informed of it. I — —”

  “You are cold,” said Mr. Bonamy abruptly. “Allow me to turn with you.”

  The rector bowed and complied. The request, however, had checked the current of his speech, even the current of his thoughts, and he did not finish his sentence. He felt, indeed, for a moment a temptation as sudden as it was strong. He saw at a glance what his resolve meant. He discerned that what had appeared to him in the isolation of the night an act of dignified self-surrender must, and would, seem to others an acknowledgment of defeat — almost an acknowledgment of dishonor. He recalled, as in a flash, all the episodes of the struggle between himself and his companion. And he pictured the latter’s triumph. He wavered.

  But the events of the night had not been lost upon him, and, after a brief hesitation, he set the seal on his purpose. “You are aware, I know, Mr. Bonamy,” he said, “of the circumstances under which, in Lord Dynmore’s absence, I accepted the living here.”

  “Perfectly,” said the lawyer drily.

  “He has made those circumstances the subject of a grave charge against me,” the rector continued, a touch
of hauteur in his tone. “That you have heard also, I know. Well, I desire to say once more that I repudiate that charge in the fullest and widest sense.”

  “So I understand,” Mr. Bonamy murmured. He walked along by his companion’s side, his face set and inscrutable. If he felt any surprise at the communication now being made to him he had the skill to hide it.

  “I repudiate it, you understand!” the clergyman repeated, stepping out more quickly in his excitement, and glaring angrily into vacancy. “It is a false and wicked charge! But it does not affect me. I do not care a jot for it. It does not in any sense force me to do what I am going to do. If that were all, I should not dream of resigning the living, but, on the contrary, would hold it, as a few days ago I had determined to hold it, in the face of all opposition. However,” he continued, lowering his tone, “I have now examined my position in regard to the parish rather than the patron, and I have come to a different conclusion, Mr. Bonamy — namely, to place my resignation in the proper hands as speedily as possible.”

  Mr. Bonamy nodded gently and silently. He did not speak, he did not even look at the clergyman; and this placid acquiescence irritated the young man into adding a word he had not intended to say. “I tell you this as my church-warden, Mr. Bonamy,” he continued stiffly, “and not as desiring or expecting any word of sympathy or regret from you. On the contrary,” he added, with some bitterness, “I am aware that my departure can be only a relief to you. We have been opposed to one another since my first day here.”

  “Very true,” said Mr. Bonamy. “I suppose you have considered — —”

  “What?”

  “The effect which last night’s work may have on the relations between you and Lord Dynmore?”

  “I do not understand you,” the rector answered haughtily, and yet with some wonder. What did the man mean?

  “You know, I suppose,” Mr. Bonamy retorted, turning slightly so as to command a view of his companion’s face, “that he is the owner of the Big Pit at Baerton from which you have just come?”