Germinal - Emile Zola [48]
And at that very moment old Mouque walked in. He was a short, bald man, battered-looking but still with plenty of flesh on him, which was unusual for an ex-miner who had turned fifty. Ever since he had been put in charge of the horses, he had taken to chewing tobacco so much that his gums bled and his mouth was all black. When he saw the pair of them with his daughter, he was furious.
‘What the hell are you all doing in here? Come on, out you go! Little trollops, bringing a man in here like this!…And using my nice, clean straw for your dirty deeds!’
La Mouquette thought this hilarious and laughed helplessly. But Étienne was embarrassed and left, while Catherine simply gave him a smile. Just as the three of them were making their way back to pit-bottom, Bébert and Jeanlin also arrived on the scene, bringing a tub-train. There was a pause as the tubs were loaded into the cage, and Catherine went up to their horse and stroked it as she told her companion all about him. This was Battle, a white horse with ten years’ service2 and something of an elder statesman. He had spent the ten years down the mine, occupying the same corner of the stable and doing the same job every day up and down the roadways; and not once in that time had he seen daylight. Very fat, with a gleaming coat and a good-natured air, he seemed to be living the life of a sage, sheltered from the misfortunes of the world above. Moreover, down here in the darkness, he had become very crafty. The roadway in which he worked had now grown so familiar to him that he could push the ventilation doors open with his head, and he knew where to stoop and avoid getting bumped at the places where the roof was too low. He must have counted his journeys too because when he had completed the regulation number, he flatly refused to start another and had to be led back to his manger. Old age was now approaching, and his cat-like eyes sometimes clouded over with a look of sadness. Perhaps he could dimly remember the mill where he had been born, near Marchiennes, on the banks of the Scarpe, a mill surrounded by broad expanses of greenery and constantly swept by the wind. There had been something else, too, something burning away up in the air, some huge lamp or other, but his animal memory could not quite recall its exact nature. And he would stand there unsteadily on his old legs, head bowed, vainly trying to remember the sun.
Meanwhile the operation was continuing in the shaft. The signal-hammer had struck four times and they were bringing the horse down, which was always an anxious moment because occasionally the animal would be so terrified that it would be dead on arrival. Up on the surface it would struggle wildly as they wrapped it in a net; then, as soon as it felt the ground vanish from under its feet, it would go quite still, petrified with fear, and disappear from view, its eyes wide and staring, without so much as a quiver along its coat. This particular horse had been too big to fit between the cage guides, and when they had hooked its net below the cage they had been obliged to tie its head back against its flanks. The descent took nearly three minutes, as they had to slow the winding-engine for safety’s sake. The tension mounted, therefore, as they waited for it below. What was happening? Surely they weren’t going to leave him there dangling in the dark? Finally he appeared, as motionless as stone, his staring eyes dilated with terror. It was a bay, hardly three years old, called Trumpet.
‘Mind out, mind out!’ shouted old Mouque, whose job it was to receive him. ‘Bring him over here. No, don’t untie him yet.’
Soon Trumpet was lying in a heap on the cast-iron floor. He did not stir, seemingly still caught up