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Authors: Winston Graham
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seeking the dogs to come after you,’ she said, suddenly contemptuous. `I wonder surgeon don’t give folk like you rat’s bane ! I would an’ all?
‘Mebbe it d’seem hard for you. But if once your soul be drawn out t’understand the promise of forgiveness and-‘
`Cock’s life !’ she shouted. `You really think you can get: me to a praying feast?’
`Sister, I offer ee this only for the sake of –’
`And I tell ‘ee to be off, lug a Tell your old wives’ fables to them as wishes to hark to them!’
She slammed the door in his face. He stared at the wood for a moment, then philosophically began to walk back to the Verneys with his bottle of lotion. He would have to leave 2s with them to pay the surgeon when he called.
Having done this, he quickened his pace, for the height of the sun told him, it was time he was at the mine. His partner, Peter Hoskin, was waiting, and together they climbed down the series of inclining ladders to the forty fathom level, and stooped through narrow tunnels and echoing caves until they reached the level they were driving southwest in the direction of the old Wheal Maiden workings.
Sam and Peter Hoskin were old friends, having been born in the neighbouring villages of Pool and Illuggan and having wrestled together as boys. They worked together now as tut men; that is on a constant wage per fathom excavated, paid by the mine owner; they were not tributers who struck bargains with the management to excavate promising or already discovered ground and received an agreed share of the proceeds of the ore they raised.
Their work at present, driving away from the main excavations, was made more difficult because, as the distance from the air shafts increased, it became harder to sustain a good day’s work without moving out of the tunnel every hour or so to fill their lungs with oxygen. This morning, having picked away’ all that had been broken yesterday, and having carried it away and tipped it’ in the nearest cave or `plot’, they had recourse to more, gunpowder.
They put in the charge and squatted on their haunches until the explosive went off and sent reverberatory echoes and booms back along all the shafts and tunnels and wynds, with shivers and wafts of hot air from which they had to shelter their candles. As soon as the echoes died away they went back, climbed over the debris and fallen rubble and began to waft the fumes away with their shirts to peer through to see how much rock had come down. Inhaling this smoke was one of the chief causes of lung disease, but if you waited until the fumes dispersed in this draughtless hot tunnel it meant twenty minutes wasted every time you used explosive.
During the morning as they worked Sam thought more than once of the bold, defiant but candid face of the girl who had come to the door at the doctor’s. All souls, he knew, were equally precious in the sight of God; all must kneel together at the throne of grace, waiting like captives to be set free; yet to one who like himself sought to save a few among so many, some seemed necessarily more worth the saving than others. She, to Sam, seemed worth the saving. It might be a sin, so to discriminate. He must pray about it.
Yet all leaders - and he in his infinitely small way had been appointed a leader - all leaders must try to see into the souls of those they met, and in looking must discern so far as he was able the potentiality of the person so encountered. How else did Jesus choose his disciples? He too had discriminated. A fisherman, a tax collector, and so on. There could be no wrong in doing what Our Lord had done.
Yet her rejection had been absolute. One would have to pray about that too. Through the power of grace there had been convulsions of spirit and conversions far more dramatic than might be needed here. ‘Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou Me?
At croust they moved out of the bad end into the cooler and less contaminated air of a disused cave which had been worked
‘Mebbe it d’seem hard for you. But if once your soul be drawn out t’understand the promise of forgiveness and-‘
`Cock’s life !’ she shouted. `You really think you can get: me to a praying feast?’
`Sister, I offer ee this only for the sake of –’
`And I tell ‘ee to be off, lug a Tell your old wives’ fables to them as wishes to hark to them!’
She slammed the door in his face. He stared at the wood for a moment, then philosophically began to walk back to the Verneys with his bottle of lotion. He would have to leave 2s with them to pay the surgeon when he called.
Having done this, he quickened his pace, for the height of the sun told him, it was time he was at the mine. His partner, Peter Hoskin, was waiting, and together they climbed down the series of inclining ladders to the forty fathom level, and stooped through narrow tunnels and echoing caves until they reached the level they were driving southwest in the direction of the old Wheal Maiden workings.
Sam and Peter Hoskin were old friends, having been born in the neighbouring villages of Pool and Illuggan and having wrestled together as boys. They worked together now as tut men; that is on a constant wage per fathom excavated, paid by the mine owner; they were not tributers who struck bargains with the management to excavate promising or already discovered ground and received an agreed share of the proceeds of the ore they raised.
Their work at present, driving away from the main excavations, was made more difficult because, as the distance from the air shafts increased, it became harder to sustain a good day’s work without moving out of the tunnel every hour or so to fill their lungs with oxygen. This morning, having picked away’ all that had been broken yesterday, and having carried it away and tipped it’ in the nearest cave or `plot’, they had recourse to more, gunpowder.
They put in the charge and squatted on their haunches until the explosive went off and sent reverberatory echoes and booms back along all the shafts and tunnels and wynds, with shivers and wafts of hot air from which they had to shelter their candles. As soon as the echoes died away they went back, climbed over the debris and fallen rubble and began to waft the fumes away with their shirts to peer through to see how much rock had come down. Inhaling this smoke was one of the chief causes of lung disease, but if you waited until the fumes dispersed in this draughtless hot tunnel it meant twenty minutes wasted every time you used explosive.
During the morning as they worked Sam thought more than once of the bold, defiant but candid face of the girl who had come to the door at the doctor’s. All souls, he knew, were equally precious in the sight of God; all must kneel together at the throne of grace, waiting like captives to be set free; yet to one who like himself sought to save a few among so many, some seemed necessarily more worth the saving than others. She, to Sam, seemed worth the saving. It might be a sin, so to discriminate. He must pray about it.
Yet all leaders - and he in his infinitely small way had been appointed a leader - all leaders must try to see into the souls of those they met, and in looking must discern so far as he was able the potentiality of the person so encountered. How else did Jesus choose his disciples? He too had discriminated. A fisherman, a tax collector, and so on. There could be no wrong in doing what Our Lord had done.
Yet her rejection had been absolute. One would have to pray about that too. Through the power of grace there had been convulsions of spirit and conversions far more dramatic than might be needed here. ‘Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou Me?
At croust they moved out of the bad end into the cooler and less contaminated air of a disused cave which had been worked
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