another sally to torment the old man.

But after a time Robert felt his back begin to ache, and a strange dizzy
feeling came into his head, as a result of his bent position and the
swinging and crashing of the tables. He straightened himself and felt as
if he were going to break in two. He glanced at Mysie, wondering how she
felt, and he thought she looked white and ill.

"Take a wee rest, Mysie," he said. "Are ye no' awfu' dizzy?"

Mysie heard, but "six and sixpence a week" was still ringing in her
head. Indeed, the monotonous swing of the tables ground out the refrain
in their harsh clamor, as they swung backwards and forwards. "Six and
sixpence a week," with every leap forwards; "six and sixpence a week" as
they receded. "Six and sixpence" with every shake and roar, and with
each pulsing throb of the engine; and "six and sixpence a week" her
little hands, already cut and bleeding, kept time with regular beat, as
she lifted the stones and flung them aside. She was part of the
refrain--a note in the fortissimo of industry. The engines roared and
crashed and hissed to it. They beat the air regularly as the pistons
rose and fell back and forth, thump, thud, hiss, groan, up and down, out
and in: "Six and sixpence a week!"

Mysie tried to straighten herself, as Robert had advised, and
immediately a pain shot through her back which seemed to snap it in two.
The whole place seemed to be rushing round in a mad whirl, the roof of
the shed coming down, and the floor rushing up, when with a stagger
Mysie fell full length upon a "bing" of stones, bruising her cheek, and
cutting her little hands worse than ever. This was what usually happened
to all beginners at "pickin' sklits."

One of the women raised Mysie up, gave her a drink from a flask
containing cold tea, and sat her aside to rest a short time.

"Just sit there a wee, my dochter," she said with rough kindness, "an'
you'll soon be a' richt. They mostly a' feel that way when they first
start on the scree."

Mysie was feeling sick, and already the thought was shaping in her mind
that she would never be able to continue. She had only worked an hour as
yet, but it seemed to her a whole day.

"Six and sixpence a week" sang the tables as they swung; "six and
sixpence a week" whirred the engines; "six and sixpence a week" crashed
the screes; and her head began to throb with the roar of it all. "Six
and sixpence a week" as the coal tumbled down the chutes into the
wagons