a village many miles from Bolton; it makes no
odds where it were, my tale will be all the same. My fayther and mother
were godly people, and taught me to love the Lord by precept and example
too. I worked in the pit till I were about twenty; when one day, as my
butty and me was getting coal a long way off from the shaft, the prop
nearest me began to crack, and I knowed as the roof were falling in. I
sung out to him, but it were too late. I'd just time to save myself,
when down came a big stone a-top of him, poor lad. I shouted for help,
and we worked away with our picks like mad; and by the help of crows we
managed to heave off the stone. The poor young man were sadly crushed.
We carried him home as softly as we could; but he were groaning awful
all the way. He were a ghastly sight to look on as he lay on his bed;
and I'd little hope for him, for he'd been a heavy drinker. I'd talked
to him scores of times about it, but he never heeded. He used to say--
`Well, you're called a sober man, and I'm called a drunkard; but what's
the difference? You takes what you like, and I takes what I like. You
takes what does you good, and I takes what does me good.' `No,' says I,
`you takes what does you harm.' `Ah, but,' says he, `who's to say just
where good ends and harm begins? Tom Roades takes a quart more nor me,
and yet he's called to be a sober man; I suppose 'cos he don't fuddle so
soon.' Well, but to come back to my poor butty's misfortune. There he
lay almost crushed out of all shape, with lots of broken bones. They
sends for the doctor, and he says-- `You must keep him quiet. Nurse him
well; and whatever ye do, don't let him touch a drop of beer or spirits
till I give ye leave.' Well--would ye believe it?--no sooner were
doctor's back turned than they pours some rum down the poor lad's
throat, sure as it'd do him good. And so they went on; and the end on
it was, they finished him off in a few days, for the poor fellow died
mad drunk. Arter that I couldna somehow take to the pit again, and I
couldn't have anything more to do with the drink. I said to myself; `No
one shall take encouragement to drink from _you_ any more.' So I joined
a Temperance Society, and signed the pledge. I'd saved a little money,
and looked about for summat to do. I hadn't larning enough to go into
an office as a writer; and I wouldn't have gone if I had, for I should
have wasted to skin and bone if I'd sat up all the day on a hig