ose on the night shift
were about to go below, the wages were paid down to the last weights
taken at the pit-mouth. Then Hugh Ritson closed his doors and began
afresh his melancholy perambulation of the room.

That night--it was Wednesday night--as darkness fell on the mountain and
moorland, there was a great outcry in the Vale. It started at the
pit-mouth, and was taken up on every side. In less than a quarter of an
hour a hundred people--men, women, and children--were gathered about the
head of the shaft. There had been a run of sand in the pit, and some of
the hands were imprisoned in the blocked-up workings. Cries, moans, and
many sounds of weeping arose on the air in one dismal chorus. "I knew it
would come;" "I telt the master lang ago;" "Where's my man?" "And mine?"
"And my poor barn--no'but fifteen." "Anybody seen my Willie?" "Is that
thee, Robbie, ma lad?--No." As every cageful of men and boys came to the
surface, there was a rush of mothers, wives, and fathers to recognize
their own.

Hugh Ritson went out and pushed his way through the people.

"Where is the sand running?" he asked of a pitman just landed.

"In the sandy vein, 2, 3, 1," answered the man.

"Then the shaft is clear?"

"Ay, but the water's blocked in the main working, and it's not safe to
go down."

Hugh Ritson had taken the man's candle out of his hand, and was fixing
it with the putty in the front of his own hat.

"Are you ready?" he shouted to the engine-man, above the babel of
voices.

In another moment he had stepped into the cage and looped down the iron
rail in front of it. There was a moment's silence among the
panic-stricken people as the cage began to move downward.

At the bottom of the shaft a group of men waited to ascend. Their faces
were lurid in the dim light. Before the cage grounded Hugh Ritson could
hear their breathing. "How many of you are left?" he asked.

"No'but two now--Giles Raisley and auld Reuben," answered one of the
men. The others, without heeding the master's question, had scrambled
into the cage, and were already knocking the signal for the ascent.

Hugh Ritson turned toward the working known among the men as the sandy
vein. The cage was now rising, and the pitman who had spoken found
himself left on the pit bottom; the single moment that he had given to
the master had lost him his chance of a place. He cast one stern glance
upward, and a muttered oath was on his lips. At the next instant he had
tak