; "six and sixpence" crunched the wheels, until it seemed as if
everything about a pit were done to the tune of "six and sixpence a
week."

It was thundered about her from one corner, it squealed at her from
another, roared at her from behind, groaned at her in front; it wheezed
from the roof, and the very shed in which they stood swayed and shivered
to its monotonous song. "Six and sixpence a week" was working into every
fiber of her being. She had been born to it, was living it, and it
seemed that the very wheels of eternity were grinding out her destiny to
its roar and its crash, and its terrible regular throb and swing.

She grew still more sick, and vomited; so one of the women took her by
the hand and led her down the narrow rickety wooden stair out across the
dirt "bing" into the pure air. In a quarter of an hour she brought her
back almost well, except for the pain in her head.

"Where the hell hae ye been, Mag?" wheezed the old gaffer, addressing
the woman with irritated authority.

"Awa' an' boil yer can, auld belly-crawler," was the elegant response,
as she bent to her work, taking as little notice of him as if he were a
piece of coal.

"Ye're awa' faur owre much," he returned. This was an allusion to
clandestine meetings which were sometimes arranged between some of the
men in authority--"penny gaffers," as they were called--and some of the
girls who took their fancy.

After all, gaffers had certain powers of advancement, and could increase
wages to those who found favor in their eyes, to the extent of a penny
or twopence per day, and justified it by representing that these girls
were value for it, because they were better workers. Again, matters were
always easier to these girls of easy virtue, for they got better jobs,
and could even flout the authority of lesser gaffers, if their relations
with the higher ones were as indicated.

Mag replied with a coarse jest, and the others laughed roughly, and
Mysie and Robert, not understanding, wondered why the old man got angry.

Thus the day wore on, men and women cursed while familiarities took
place which were barely hidden from the children. Talk was coarse and
obscenely suggestive, and the whole atmosphere was brutalizing. Long,
however, before the day was ended, Robert and Mysie were feeling as if
every bone in their little bodies would break.

"Just take anither wee rest, Mysie," said Robert. "I'll keep pickin' as
hard as I can, an' ye'll no' be sae