e chief engineer. Scorrier had known
him quite well, one of those Scotsmen who are born at the age of forty
and remain so all their lives. His face--the only one that wore no
smile--seemed grieving that duty had deprived it of that last luxury.
With wide eyes and drawn lips he had died protesting.

Late in the afternoon the old miner touched Scorrier's arm, and said:
"There he is--there's my boy!" And he departed slowly, wheeling the body
on a trolley.

As the sun set, the gang below came up. No further search was possible
till the fumes had cleared. Scorrier heard one man say: "There's some
we'll never get; they've had sure burial"

Another answered him: "'Tis a gude enough bag for me!" They passed him,
the whites of their eyes gleaming out of faces black as ink.

Pippin drove him home at a furious pace, not uttering a single word. As
they turned into the main street, a young woman starting out before the
horses obliged Pippin to pull up. The glance he bent on Scorrier was
ludicrously prescient of suffering. The woman asked for her husband.
Several times they were stopped thus by women asking for their husbands
or sons. "This is what I have to go through," Pippin whispered.

When they had eaten, he said to Scorrier: "It was kind of you to come and
stand by me! They take me for a god, poor creature that I am. But shall
I ever get the men down again? Their nerve's shaken. I wish I were one
of those poor lads, to die with a smile like that!"

Scorrier felt the futility of his presence. On Pippin alone must be the
heat and burden. Would he stand under it, or would the whole thing come
crashing to the ground? He urged him again and again to rest, but Pippin
only gave him one of his queer smiles. "You don't know how strong I am!"
he said.

IV

He himself slept heavily; and, waking at dawn, went down. Pippin was
still at his desk; his pen had dropped; he was asleep. The ink was wet;
Scorrier's eye caught the opening words:

"GENTLEMEN,--Since this happened I have not slept...."

He stole away again with a sense of indignation that no one could be
dragged in to share that fight. The London Board-room rose before his
mind. He imagined the portentous gravity of Hemmings; his face and voice
and manner conveying the impression that he alone could save the
situation; the six directors, all men of commonsense and certainly
humane, seated behind large turret-shaped inkpots; the concern and
irrita