He could understand how his brothers would feel at the chance of working one day by themselves.  He had always been their guide and protector.  They had gone into the pit with him when they left school, and had just continued working with him since, learning their trade from his greater experience, and trusting always to his better judgment when there was danger to avoid.  They would go out that day with the intention of working like slaves to produce an extra turn of coal.  Even though it were but one extra hutch, they would fill it, and slave all day with never a rest, so that they could have the satisfaction of seeing approval in his eyes, when they told him at night how many they had turned out, and how well things had gone generally with them in his absence.

He reached the pit, to find that the moss was already rising in the shaft, and that there was no possibility of getting down to try and save these twenty-three men and boys who were imprisoned in the darkness beneath.

He came across Tam Donaldson, who was the last to get up.

“Tell me aboot it, Tam,” he said.  “Is there no chance of getting down?  Do you think any of them will be safe so far?” and a whole lot of other anxious questions were rattled off, while Tam, dripping wet from having to wade and fight the last fifty fathoms toward the pit bottom, through the silent, sinister, creeping moss that filled the roadways and tunnels, stood to give him an account of what had taken place.

“They were a’ sitting at their piece, Rob—­a’ but James and Andra.  They were keen to get as muckle work done as possible, an’ they had some coal to get to fill oot a hutch, when a’ at yince we heard Andra crying on us to rin.  Had they a’ ran doon the brae we’d a’ hae been safe, for we could hae gotten to the bottom afore the moss; but some ran into the inside heading, an’ hadna time to realize that their outlet was cut off, an’ there they are; for the moss was comin’ doon the full height of the road when I ran back to try an’ cry on them to come back.  So I had to rin for’t too, an’ jist got oot by the skin o’ my teeth.

“I kent fine it wad happen,” he went on, as Robert stood, the tears in his eyes, as he realized how hopeless the position was of ever being able to restore these men and boys again to their homes.  There was anger in Tam’s voice as he spoke.  “It’s a’ to get cheap coal, an’ they ought to hae known, for they were telt, that to open oot that seam into long well workings so near the surface, an’ wi’ sic a rotten roof, was invitin’ disaster, wi’ as muckle rain as we hae had lately.  They are a lot o’ murderers—­that’s what they are!  But what the hell do they care, sae lang as they get cheap coal!”

Robert turned away sick at heart.  It was certainly a foolish thing, he had thought at the time, for the management to change their method of working the coal; for even though the seam had grown thinner, he felt that it could have still been worked at a profit under the old system.  He knew also that the men were all upset at the time by this change, but the management had assured them that there was no danger, and that it would mean more money for the men, as they would be enabled to produce more coal.