“Do ye tell me that!  Puir Nellie!  It’s an awfu’ hand fu’ she is left wi’, too,” commented the neighbor.

“Ay, she jist looks at ye sae sad-like wi’ her big black een; never a word nor a tear, but just stares, an’ she’s that thin an’ white lookin’.  I look for her breakin’ doon a’thegither, an’ when she does I wadna like to see her.  The bits o’ weans gang aboot the hoose wonderin’ at her, and she looks to them too, but ye’d think she’d nae interest in onything.  She jist looks out o’ the window an’ doon the brae to the pit.  It’s awesome to look at her.”

“Oh, puir body!” and again the kindly neighbor was overcome, and Jenny joined her tears too in silent sympathy.

“The minister was owre last nicht,” said Jenny after a little, “but I dinna think she ever spoke to him.  He cam’ in just when I was comin’ oot, an’ I dinna like to leave her.  He talked away a wee while an’ then put up a prayer; but there was nae consolation in’t for onybody.  I think the sicht o’ her face maun hae been too muckle for him.  He didna stay very lang, and gaed awa’ saying he’d come back again.  Nellie has everything ready—­the bed a’ made, wi’ clean sheets an’ blankets on them—­an’ there she stan’s always at that window, lookin’ doon the brae.  It would break yer heart to see her, Leezie, she’s that vexed lookin’.”  So they wept and sorrowed together.

* * * * *

Down in the pit, Andrew Marshall, Matthew Maitland, Peter Pegg, and a number of others toiled like giants possessed.  Their naked bodies streamed with sweat and glistened in the light of their lamps.  Timber was placed in position, and driven tight with desperation in every blow from their hammers; blocks of rock were tossed aside, and smashed into fragments, ere being filled into the tubs which were ever waiting ready to convey the debris to the pit-head.  Few words were spoken, except when a warning shout was given, when some loose rubble poured down from the great gaping cavern in the roof, and then men jumped and sprang to safety with the agility of desperation, to wait till the rumbling had ceased, only to leap back again into the yawning hell, tearing at the stones, and trying to work their way into the place where they knew Geordie and the boy were lying.  It seemed impossible that human efforts would ever be able to clear that mountain away.

“Wait a minute, callans,” said Andrew, almost dropping with exhaustion, and drawing his hands across his eyes to wipe the sweat from them, whilst he “hunkered” down, his back against a broken tree which stood jutting out from the building, supporting a broken “baton” (cross-tree), which bent down in the center, making the roadway low and unsafe.  “Let us tak a minute’s thocht, and see if we can get a way o’ chokin’ up that stuff fear fallin’ doon.  We’ll never get it redd up goin’ like this.”

So they sat down, tired but still desperate, to listen to each one suggesting a way of stopping the debris from continuing to fall.  Baffled and at their wits’ end, they could think of nothing.