A Nurse's Duty Read Online Free PDF

father of Dave, had been checking on reported movement in the rock strata above a thin coal seam when a wooden pit prop buckled and broke and a large stone fell on his head, killing him instantly.
    ‘Eeh, poor man,’ sighed Rachel, shaking her head sorrowfully. ‘I feel for Mrs Mitchell an’ all. It’s a good job she has Dave still at home.’
    ‘Aye, well, I suppose it means she won’t have to move out of the colliery house at least, not when Dave’s a hewer,’ Da agreed. ‘Now, I think we’ll say a prayer for the poor widow and the lad.’
    Obediently the family fell to their knees and bowed their heads.
    ‘Dear Father,’ cried Da, lifting his head up to the white-washed ceiling as though he could see through his closed eyes and the ceiling and through the slate roof of the house to the heavens beyond, ‘we ask you to give comfort to your servants, Millie Mitchell and her son, David. Be with them in their affliction, oh God, help them to know that their loved one has gone to a happier place where there is no pain or sorrow. We are assured that our brother Mitchell is with you now in glory, dear Lord, but we ask that you lay your hand on his family and give them peace. We ask it through Jesus Christ, our Lord and Saviour. Amen.’
    Da got slowly to his feet and helped Mam up also. ‘We brought him home on the flat cart, Rachel,’ he said to his wife. ‘No doubt you and Karen will be going to pay your respects after tea.’
    Karen put the kettle on to boil and set the table. No one spoke. Even Joe was sitting grim-faced, staring at the fire. But when they sat down to tea, he broke his silence.
    ‘We said that seam needed more supports, Da, the deputy told the under manager. Now there’s a man dead.’
    ‘Joe, we don’t talk about work on a Sunday.’ In spite of the tragedy which had happened that day, Thomas Knight was not about to relax his strict observance of the Sabbath any more than he had had to do already.
    ‘But what if it had been tomorrow instead of today?’ demanded Joe. ‘That seam’s nobbut two and a half feet high. That stone could have brought more down with it and blocked men behind it and then there would have been –’
    ‘Joe! I said we won’t talk about it today,’ said Da, and he reached for the sugar bowl and spooned sugar into his pint pot of tea. ‘I have a meeting to go to the night, over at Coundon. I would like some peace and quiet to think about it.’
    Joe subsided into his seat and stared at his plate and Karen gazed at him with a new terror in her heart. Oh, she knew there was always danger in the pits but from the way Joe had shown he was familiar with the coal seam in question, she realized that he must work in it, or at least near it. She shivered at the thought that it might have been him or Da brought home on a cart and was flooded with a profound sympathy for Dave Mitchell and his mother. When she and her mother paid their sympathy visit that evening, she saw a different Dave altogether from the one she knew. His blue eyes were red and his shoulders bowed with emotion as he sat in a corner, taking little notice of anything. Karen went up to him and put her hand on his arm.
    ‘I’m sorry, Dave,’ she whispered. He looked down at her hand for a moment and covered it with his own but he did not speak and she could see he was too full of sorrow. Karen looked at his mother who was sitting by the table, already dressed in black. She was dry-eyed and her face seemed more angry than sorrowful to Karen. Her lips were clamped tightly together and her pale eyes full of ire. Karen breathed a sigh of relief when her mother deemed they had been there long enough and they went out into the fresh air of the street.
    The following week, Karen got her results and they were all she had hoped for. She had matriculated with credit in all subjects, even French. The first thing she did was to go into Bishop Auckland to Miss Nelson’s house, for it was still the summer holidays