“Aren’t you goin’ to wash yourself first?”
“What am I to wesh mysen for?”
“Well, you can’t eat your dinner—”
“Oh, strike a daisy, Missis! Dunna I eat my snap i’ th’ pit wi’out weshin’? —forced to.”
She served the dinner and sat opposite him. His small bullet head was quite black, save for the whites of his eyes and his scarlet lips. It gave her a queer sensation to see him open his red mouth and bare his white teeth as he ate. His arms and hands were mottled black; his bare, strong neck got a little fairer as it settled towards his shoulders, reassuring her. There was the faint indescribable odour of the pit in the room, an odour of damp, exhausted air.
“Why is your vest so black on the shoulders?” she asked.
“My singlet? That’s wi’th’ watter droppin’on us from th’ roof. This is a dry un as I put on afore I come up. They ha’e gre’t clothes-’osses, an’ as we change us things, we put ’em on theer ter dry. ”
When he washed himself, kneeling on the hearth-rug stripped to the waist, she felt afraid of him again. He was so muscular; he seemed so intent on what he was doing, so intensely himself, like a vigorous animal. And as he stood wiping himself, with his naked breast towards her, she felt rather sick, seeing his thick arms bulge their muscles.
They were nevertheless very happy. He was at a great pitch of pride because of her. The men in the pit might chaff him, they might try to entice him away, but nothing could reduce his self-assured pride because of her, nothing could unsettle his almost infantile satisfaction. In the evening he sat in his arm-chair chattering to her, or listening as she read the newspaper to him. When it was fine, he would go into the street, squat on his heels as colliers do, with his back against the wall of his parlour, and call to the passers-by, in greeting, one after another. If no one were passing, he was content just to squat and smoke, having such a fund of sufficiency and satisfaction in his heart. He was well married.
They had not been wed a year when all Brent and Wellwood’s men came out on strike. Willy was in the Union, so with a pinch they scrambled through. The furniture was not all paid for, and other debts were incurred. She worried and contrived; he left it to her. But he was a good husband; he gave her all he had.
The men were out fifteen weeks. They had been back just over a year when Willy had an accident in the mine, tearing his bladder. At the pit head the doctor talked of the hospital. Losing his head entirely, the young collier raved like a madman, what with pain and fear of hospital.
“Tha s’lt go whoam, Willy, tha s’lt go whoam,” the deputy said.
A lad warned the wife to have the bed ready. Without speaking or hesitating she prepared. But when the ambulance came, and she heard him shout with pain at being moved, she was afraid lest she should sink down. They carried him in.
