第41章

'Oh no!Not if trade was good,there wouldn't be.But if things were bad for a long spell,the young ones might go funny.I tell you,they're a selfish,spoilt lot.But I don't see how they'd ever do anything.They aren't ever serious about anything,except showing off on motor-bikes and dancing at the Palais-de-danse in Sheffield.You can't make them serious.The serious ones dress up in evening clothes and go off to the Pally to show off before a lot of girls and dance these new Charlestons and what not.I'm sure sometimes the bus'll be full of young fellows in evening suits,collier lads,off to the Pally:let alone those that have gone with their girls in motors or on motor-bikes.They don't give a serious thought to a thing--save Doncaster races,and the Derby:for they all of them bet on every race.And football!But even football's not what it was,not by a long chalk.It's too much like hard work,they say.No,they'd rather be off on motor-bikes to Sheffield or Nottingham,Saturday afternoons.'

'But what do they do when they get there?'

'Oh,hang around--and have tea in some fine tea-place like the Mikado--and go to the Pally or the pictures or the Empire,with some girl.The girls are as free as the lads.They do just what they like.'

'And what do they do when they haven't the money for these things?'

'They seem to get it,somehow.And they begin talking nasty then.But I don't see how you're going to get bolshevism,when all the lads want is just money to enjoy themselves,and the girls the same,with fine clothes:and they don't care about another thing.They haven't the brains to be socialists.They haven't enough seriousness to take anything really serious,and they never will have.'

Connie thought,how extremely like all the rest of the classes the lower classes sounded.Just the same thing over again,Tevershall or Mayfair or Kensington.There was only one class nowadays:moneyboys.The moneyboy and the moneygirl,the only difference was how much you'd got,and how much you wanted.

Under Mrs Bolton's influence,Clifford began to take a new interest in the mines.He began to feel he belonged.A new sort of self-assertion came into him.After all,he was the real boss in Tevershall,he was really the pits.It was a new sense of power,something he had till now shrunk from with dread.

Tevershall pits were running thin.There were only two collieries:Tevershall itself,and New London.Tevershall had once been a famous mine,and had made famous money.But its best days were over.New London was never very rich,and in ordinary times just got along decently.But now times were bad,and it was pits like New London that got left.

'There's a lot of Tevershall men left and gone to Stacks Gate and Whiteover,'said Mrs Bolton.'You've not seen the new works at Stacks Gate,opened after the war,have you,Sir Clifford?Oh,you must go one day,they're something quite new:great big chemical works at the pit-head,doesn't look a bit like a colliery.They say they get more money out of the chemical by-products than out of the coal--I forget what it is.And the grand new houses for the men,fair mansions!of course it's brought a lot of riff-raff from all over the country.But a lot of Tevershall men got on there,and doin'well,a lot better than our own men.They say Tevershall's done,finished:only a question of a few more years,and it'll have to shut down.

And New London'll go first.My word,won't it be funny when there's no Tevershall pit working.It's bad enough during a strike,but my word,if it closes for good,it'll be like the end of the world.Even when I was a girl it was the best pit in the country,and a man counted himself lucky if he could on here.Oh,there's been some money made in Tevershall.And now the men say it's a sinking ship,and it's time they all got out.Doesn't it sound awful!But of course there's a lot as'll never go till they have to.They don't like these new fangled mines,such a depth,and all machinery to work them.Some of them simply dreads those iron men,as they call them,those machines for hewing the coal,where men always did it before.And they say it's wasteful as well.But what goes in waste is saved in wages,and a lot more.It seems soon there'll be no use for men on the face of the earth,it'll be all machines.But they say that's what folks said when they had to give up the old stocking frames.I can remember one or two.

But my word,the more machines,the more people,that's what it looks like!

They say you can't get the same chemicals out of Tevershall coal as you can out of Stacks Gate,and that's funny,they're not three miles apart.

But they say so.But everybody says it's a shame something can't be started,to keep the men going a bit better,and employ the girls.All the girls traipsing off to Sheffield every day!My word,it would be something to talk about if Tevershall Collieries took a new lease of life,after everybody saying they're finished,and a sinking ship,and the men ought to leave them like rats leave a sinking ship.But folks talk so much,of course there was a boom during the war.When Sir Geoffrey made a trust of himself and got the money safe for ever,somehow.So they say!But they say even the masters and the owners don't get much out of it now.You can hardly believe it,can you!Why I always thought the pits would go on for ever and ever.Who'd have thought,when I was a girl!But New England's shut down,so is Colwick Wood:yes,it's fair haunting to go through that coppy and see Colwick Wood standing there deserted among the trees,and bushes growing up all over the pit-head,and the lines red rusty.It's like death itself,a dead colliery.Why,whatever should we do if Tevershall shut down--?It doesn't bear thinking of.Always that throng it's been,except at strikes,and even then the fan-wheels didn't stand,except when they fetched the ponies up.I'm sure it's a funny world,you don't know where you are from year to year,you really don't.'

It was Mrs Bolton's talk that really put a new fight into Clifford.