Page:Walker (1888) The Severn Tunnel.djvu/184

Rh the arrival of the large cage, which was bringing up a further batch of men.

Every man was panting for breath, and excited to the last degree with fear.

I must say that my heart sank, and I feared the worst; but at that moment the cage arrived at the top with ten or twelve men, and a foreman, named Tommy Lester, who I knew had been working beyond the ‘Shoots.’ I turned to him eagerly, and said:

‘Lester, what did you see?’

‘I see nothin’, sir.’

‘What is it then?’

‘I don’t know, only the river’s in.’

‘Where were you working?’

‘In No. 8.’

‘And you saw nothing ?’

‘No. It was beyond me.’

I turned to another, and said:

‘Where were you working ?’

‘In the long heading.’

‘And what did you see?’

‘I see nothin’, but the river’s in.’

‘I think you are a pack of fools,’ I said; ‘I think a five-pound note will cure it all.’

My reason for saying this was that these points were beyond the ‘Shoots,’ and there the bed of the river was dry at low water; so that if any hole existed there we could stop it as we had done the hole in the Salmon Pool.