PROEM



In a shaft on the Gravel Pits, a man had been buried alive. At work in a
deep wet hole, he had recklessly omitted to slab the walls of a drive;
uprights and tailors yielded under the lateral pressure, and the rotten
earth collapsed, bringing down the roof in its train. The digger fell
forward on his face, his ribs jammed across his pick, his arms pinned to
his sides, nose and mouth pressed into the sticky mud as into a mask;
and over his defenceless body, with a roar that burst his ear-drums,
broke stupendous masses of earth.

His mates at the windlass went staggering back from the belch of
violently discharged air: it tore the wind-sail to strips, sent stones
and gravel flying, loosened planks and props. Their shouts drawing no
response, the younger and nimbler of the two--he was a mere boy, for
all his amazing growth of beard--put his foot in the bucket and went
down on the rope, kicking off the sides of the shaft with his free foot.
A group of diggers, gathering round the pit-head, waited for the tug at
the rope. It was quick in coming; and the lad was hauled to the surface.
No hope: both drives had fallen in; the bottom of the shaft was blocked.
The crowd melted with a "Poor Bill--God rest his soul!" or with a
silent shrug. Such accidents were not infrequent; each man might thank
his stars it was not he who lay cooling down below. And so, since no
more washdirt would be raised from this hole, the party that worked it
made off for the nearest grog-shop, to wet their throats to the memory
of the dead, and to discuss future plans.

All but one: a lean and haggard-looking man of some five and forty, who