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Updated: June 1, 2025
Still, even so, several of the workmen had been suffocated, and one of the pitmen asked Geordie in dismay whether nothing could be done to prevent such terrible disasters in future. "The price of coal-mining now," he said, "is pitmen's lives." Stephenson promised to think the matter over; and he did think it over with good effect.
Still, even so, several of the workmen had been suffocated, and one of the pitmen asked Geordie in dismay whether nothing could be done to prevent such terrible disasters in future. "The price of coal-mining now," he said, "is pitmen's lives." Stephenson promised to think the matter over; and he did think it over with good effect.
The sight that met his eyes, now that he was in full view of the scene, was an extraordinary one. Scattered about the trampled grassplots was a crowd of pitmen, surging hither and thither, some armed with pickaxes, some with hedge-stakes, some with nothing but nature's weapons. One fellow was in the act of loading an old blunderbuss.
Indeed, a sort of traditional disrepute seems long to have clung to the pitmen, arising perhaps from the nature of their employment, and from the circumstance that the colliers were among the last classes enfranchised in England, as they were certainly the last in Scotland, where they continued bondmen down to the end of last century.
The prisoners were brought together, five of the pitmen with twenty of the lads marched with those able to walk, to the village, where they shut them up in the school-room. The other pitmen remained in charge of the wounded of both sides, and the rest of the party were sent back to Mr. Brook's to fetch the women and girls. Near the house they met Mr.
The book on gardening was a special favourite, and soon the pitmen were astonished to see changes in the tiny plots of ground behind their houses. The men in charge of the pit horses were coaxed for baskets of manure, pennies were saved and devoted to the purchase of seed, and the boys found that the most acceptable present was no longer a gay handkerchief or ribbon, but a pot of flowers.
In vain they appealed to Rockycana; he had done with them for ever. "Thou art of the world," they wrote, "and wilt perish with the world." They were said to have made a covenant with the devil, and were commonly dubbed "Pitmen" because they lived in pits and caves. Yet not for a moment did they lose hope.
Drat you!" came a bellow, and there rushed upon the rear of the attackers the old skipper, cutlass in hand, followed close by the rest of his little crew. This apparition, sudden and unexpected, upset the nerves of the pitmen, and in a moment they began to run, falling away from George and tumbling over each other in their haste.
He did not work himself indeed, the close air oppressed him much more than it did the pitmen, and he had little hope for his own life, however it might end, but he sat the whole time, supporting the head of the man who was hurt, and keeping up the resolution of the others, putting them in mind of the only hope in their dire distress, and guiding them to prayer and repentance, such as might fit them for life or death.
It was reported that the few defenders were holding the house against the besiegers, but that they could hold out little longer. The Fairburn pitmen had declined to be mixed up in the quarrel, as they called it. "Good Heavens!" exclaimed George, "what a state of things!" Bolting out of the house, he ran back at full speed to the wharf, his plan already clear in his head.
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