Page:Navvies and Their Needs.djvu/14

 of a river over which a viaduct had to be built. Just across the river was a village, and a pretty little church in the middle of it, and on Sunday when the bells rang for service, and we could see the people turning out in their smart clothes, looking so trim and happy, I think some of us used to feel what a difference there was between us and them. And then, when the bells stopped, and all was still, there was an odd sort of feeling, as if we were shut out, like them the Bible tells of who came too late. Of course, we might have gone if we'd liked. But we didn't think so. We didn't think we should be welcome there. Folks would have stared at us, and whispered, and indeed we didn't know whether they'd have let us in at all without a black coat, and it was only very few of us had that. Many a time I lay on the river bank listening to the bells, and watching the people, and sometimes I fancy those bells preached the first sermon I ever got any good from. When I left that work, I tramped a long way, just working a week here and a week there, and never settling. I felt sick and weary of the bad ways I'd got into, and yet I didn't know how to get out of them. Well, it happened about Christmas-time, about five years ago. I'd been tramping all the week, and on Christmas night was getting to the end of my journey. It was in Yorkshire. The snow was lying pretty deep, and I'd lost my way on a high, bleak moor. I stopped at a farm-house to ask the way to the work I was seeking, and they showed me a short way down through a dark wood. I was beginning to think I had lost the way again, and I felt down about it, for I was tired out, when all of a sudden I saw a bright light in front of me, shining on the path. I've often thought of it since,