The great wheels at the pithead seemed terrible in their never-ending revolutions, as they flew round to bring up the loads of coal.  The big yawning chasm, with the swinging steel rope, running away down into the great black hole, was awesome to look at, as the rope wriggled and swayed with its sinister movements; and the roar and whir of wheels, when the tables started, bewildered them.  These crashed and roared and crunched and groaned; they would squeal and shriek as if in pain, then they would moan a little, as if gathering strength to break out in indignant protest; and finally, roar out in rebellious anger, giving Robert the idea of an imprisoned monster of gigantic strength which had been harnessed whilst it slept, but had wakened at last to find itself impotent against its Lilliputian captor—­man.

An old man instructed them in their duties.

“You’ll staun here,” he panted, indicating a little platform about two feet broad, and running along the full length of the “scree.”  “You’ll watch for every bit stane that comes doon, an’ dinna’ let any past.  Pick them oot as soon as you see them, an’ fling them owre there, an’ Dickie Tamson’ll fill them into the hutch, an’ get them taken to the dirt bing.”

“A’ richt,” said Robert, as he looked at the narrow platform, with its weak, inadequate railing, which could hardly prevent anyone from falling down on to the wagon track, some fifteen or twenty feet below on one side, or on to the moving “scree” on the other.

“Weel, mind an’ no’ let any stanes gang past, for there are aye complaints comin’ in aboot dirty coals.  If ye dinna work an’ keep oot the stanes, you’ll get the sack,” and he said this as if he meant to convey to them that he was the sole authority on the matter.

He was an old man, and Robert, as he looked at him, wondered if he had ever laughed.  “Auld Girnie” they called him, because of his habit of always finding fault with everything and everybody, for no one could please him.  His mouth seemed to be one long slit extending across his face, showing one or two stumps sticking in the otherwise toothless gums, and giving him the appearance of always “grinning.”

The women workers’ appearance jarred upon Robert.  So far women to him had always been beings of a higher order, because he had always thought of them as being like his mother.  But here they were rough and untidy, dressed like goblins in dirty torn clothes, with an old dirty sack hanging from the waist for an overall.  Instinctively Robert felt that this was no place for women.  One of them, who worked on the opposite side of the scree from Robert—­a big, strong, heavily-built young woman of perhaps twenty-five—­in moving forward tore her petticoat, which caught in the machinery, and made a rent right up above her knee.

“Ach, to hell wi’ it,” she cried in exasperation, as she turned up the torn petticoat, displaying a leg all covered with coal grime, which seemed never to have been washed.