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Updated: June 17, 2025
"Well, I dunno," Harry Shepherd said; "if this is going to do us as much good as we hopes, and think it is, would it be right to keep the chaps o' the place out? O' course we wouldn't go beyond Stokebridge, but we might keep it to that."
Haden would not move, but sat with scores of other women, watching the mouth of the pit, and the smoke curling up, till night fell. The news spread round Stokebridge late in the evening that the managers had determined to shut up the mouth of the pit, if there was still smoke in the morning.
There were plenty of young women and young men in Stokebridge who were as ready as ever to dance and to drink, and who were, perhaps, even gaudier in attire and more boisterous in manner than usual, as a protest against the recession of their juniors; for Stokebridge was divided into two very hostile camps, and, as was perhaps not unnatural, those over the age of the girls and lads at the night-schools resented the changes which had been made, and rebelled against the, as they asserted, airs of superiority of younger sisters and brothers.
A week after Jack Simpson had gone to work in the "Vaughan" there was a knock one evening at the door of the schoolmaster of the Stokebridge National School. "Please, Mr. Merton, can I speak to 'ee?" "What, is that you, Jack Simpson!" the schoolmaster said, holding the candle so that its light fell upon the boy before him. "Yes, come in, my boy." The lad followed him into the parlour.
They agreed that a cricket-match would be the greatest attraction, and that the band of the soldiers would delight the girls. It was arranged that a challenge should be sent to Batterbury, which lay thirteen miles off, and would therefore know nothing of the feast. The Stokebridge team had visited them the summer before and beaten them, therefore they would no doubt come to Stokebridge.
But the area was wide, there were scores of villages as badly off as Stokebridge, and the share of each of the general fund was very small. A local committee was formed, of which the vicar was at the head, for the management of the funds, and for organizing a body of nurses.
For years the vicar in the church and the dissenting ministers in their meeting-houses had preached in vain against the evil. Their congregations were small, and in this respect their words fell upon ears closed to exhortation. During the year which had elapsed, however, there was a perceptible change in Stokebridge, a change from which those interested in it hoped for great results.
Dodgson, that all the good work should not be checked by the ingress of a fresh population, directed that all vacancies should be filled up by such colliers of good character as resided at Stokebridge, working for other pits in the neighbourhood.
He had seen her often since the time when he first met her at the commencement of the strike, as he had helped them in their preparations for removing from Stokebridge, and had entirely got over the embarrassment which he had felt on the first evening spent there. After talking for a few minutes, Jack said gravely to Mr. Merton, "I hope that these clothes will do, Mr. Merton?"
She didn't say nowt, but she was ready to go. If she hadn't gone down to th' shaft none of them would ha gone. She's a rare plucked 'un, she is, I tell e'e." But in spite of Jack's indignant repudiation of any credit, the brave action was the talk of Stokebridge and of the neighbouring pit villages for some time.
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