Helbeck of Bannisdale, vol 2 | Page 2

a bottle in his hand. It was
Laura who handed him the mug, and it was she who, stooping down,
put the spirit to the lips of the fainting workman. Her mind seemed to
float in a mist of horror, but her will asserted itself; she recovered her
power of action sooner than the men around her. They stared at the
young lady for a moment; but no more. The one hideous fact that
possessed them robbed all else of meaning.
"Did he see it?" said Laura to the man's friend. Her voice reached no
ear but his. For they were surrounded by two uproars--the noise of the
crowd of workmen, a couple of thousand men aimlessly surging and
shouting to each other, and the distant thunder of the furnace.
"Aye, Miss. He wor drivin the tub, an he saw Overton in front--it wor
the wheel of his barrer slipped, an soomthin must ha took him--if he'd
ha let goa straight theer ud bin noa harm doon--bit he mut ha tried to
draw it back--an the barrer pulled him right in."
"He didn't suffer?" said Laura eagerly, her face close under his.
"Thank the Lord, he can ha known nowt aboot it!--nowt at aw. The gas
ud throttle him, Miss, afore he felt the fire."
"Is there a wife?"
"Noa--he coom here a widower three weeks sen--there's a little gell----"
"Aye! they be gone for her an t' passon boath," said another voice;
"what's passon to do whan he cooms?"
"Salve the masters' consciences!" cried a third in fury. "They'll burn us
to hell first, and then quieten us with praying."
Many faces turned to the speaker, a thin, wiry man one of the
"agitators" of the town, and a dull groan went round.
* * * * *
"Make way there!" cried an imperious voice, and the crowd between
them and the entrance side of the shed began to part. A gentleman came
through, leading a clergyman, who walked hurriedly, with eyes
downcast, holding his book against his breast.
There was a flutter of caps through the vast shed. Every head stood

bared, and bent. On went the parson towards the little platform with the
railway. The furnace had sunk somewhat--its roar was less acute----
Laura looking at it thought of the gorged beast that falls to rest.
But another parting of the throng--one sob!--the common sob of
hundreds.
Laura looked.
"It's t' little gell, Ned! t' little gell!" said the elder workman to the youth
he was supporting.
And there in the midst of the blackened crowd of men was a child,
frightened and weeping, led tenderly forward by a grey-haired
workman, who looked down upon her, quite unconscious of the tears
that furrowed his own cheeks.
"Oh, let me--let me go!" cried Laura. The men about her fell back.
They made a way for her to the child. The old woman had disappeared.
In an instant Laura, as of right, took the place of her sex. Half an hour
before she had been the merest passing stranger in that vast company;
now she was part of them, organically necessary to the act passing in
their midst. The men yielded her the child instinctively, at once; she
caught the little one in her sheltering arm.
"Ought she to be here?" she asked sharply of the grey-haired man.
"They're goin to read the Burial Service, Miss," he said, as he dashed
away the mist from his eyes. "An we thowt that the little un would like
soom day to think she'd been here. So I found her--she wor in school."
The child looked round her in terror. The platform in front of the
furnace had been hurriedly cleared. It was now crowded with
men--masters and managers in black coats mingled with workmen, to
the front the parson in his white. He turned to the throng below and
opened his book.
"_I am the Resurrection and the Life._"
A great pulsation passed through the mob of workmen. On all sides
strong men broke down and wept.
The child stared at the platform, then at these faces round her that were
turned upon her.
"Daddy--where's Daddy?" she said trembling, her piteous eyes
travelling up and down the pretty lady beside her.
Laura sat down on the edge of a truck and drew the little shaking
creature to her breast. Such a power of tenderness went out from her, so

soft was the breast, so lulling the scent of the roses pinned into the
lady's belt, that the child was stilled. Every now and then, as she looked
at the men, pressing round her, a passion of fear seemed to run through
her; she shuddered and struggled in Laura's hold. Otherwise she made
not a sound. And the great words swept on.
* *