CHAPTER I THE EARLY MARRIED
       LIFE OF THE MORELS

    "THE BOTTOMS"
          succeeded to "Hell Row".

    Hell Row
        was a block of thatched,
           bulging cottages
             that stood
                   by the brookside
                       on Greenhill Lane.

    There lived the colliers
         who worked
               in the little gin-pits
                   two fields away.

    The brook
        ran under the alder trees,
           scarcely soiled
               by these small mines,
         whose coal
            was drawn to the surface
                   by donkeys
             that plodded wearily
                in a circle
                   round a gin.

    And all over the countryside
        were these same pits,
           some of
              which had been worked
                   in the time
                       of Charles II,
         the few colliers
               and the donkeys burrowing
             down like ants
                   into the earth,
           making queer mounds
               and little black places
             among the corn-fields
                   and the meadows.

    And the cottages
           of these coal-miners,
         in blocks
               and pairs here and there,
         together with odd farms
               and homes of the stockingers,
           straying over the parish,
         formed the village of Bestwood.

    Then,
           some sixty years ago,
         a sudden change took place.

    The gin-pits
        were elbowed aside
               by the large mines
                   of the financiers.

    The coal and iron
           field of Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire
        was discovered.

    Carston,
           Waite and Co. appeared.

    Amid tremendous excitement,
           Lord Palmerston formally
              opened the company's first mine
                   at Spinney Park,
         on the edge
               of Sherwood Forest.

    About this
          time the notorious Hell Row,
           which through growing old
            had acquired an evil reputation,
         was burned down,
           and much dirt
            was cleansed away.

    Carston,
           Waite & Co. found
             they had
                  struck on a good thing,
         so,
           down the valleys
               of the brooks
             from Selby and Nuttall,
         new mines were sunk,
           until soon
            there were six pits working.

    From Nuttall,
           high up on the sandstone
               among the woods,
         the railway ran,
           past the ruined priory
               of the Carthusians and
             past Robin Hood's Well,
         down to Spinney Park,
           then on to Minton,
         a large mine among corn-fields;
        from Minton
               across the farmlands
                   of the valleyside
                 to Bunker's Hill,
           branching off there,
         and running north
               to Beggarlee and Selby,
           that looks
               over at Crich
                   and the hills of Derbyshire:
         six mines like black studs
               on the countryside,
           linked by a loop
               of fine chain,
         the railway.

    To accommodate the regiments
           of miners,
         Carston,
         Waite and Co.
              built the Squares,
           great quadrangles of dwellings
               on the hillside of Bestwood,
         and then,
           in the brook valley,
         on the site
               of Hell Row,
           they erected the Bottoms.

    The Bottoms
          consisted of six blocks
               of miners' dwellings,
           two rows of three,
         like the dots
               on a blank-six domino,
           and twelve houses
               in a block.

    This double row of dwellings
        sat at the foot
               of the
             rather sharp slope from Bestwood,
           and looked out,
         from the attic windows
               at least,
           on the slow climb
               of the valley towards Selby.

    The houses themselves
        were substantial and very decent.

    One could walk all round,
           seeing little front
               gardens with auriculas and saxifrage
                   in the shadow
                       of the bottom block,
         sweet-williams and pinks
               in the sunny top block;
        seeing neat front windows,
           little porches,
         little privet hedges,
           and dormer windows
               for the attics.

    But that was outside;
        that was the view
               on to
                   the uninhabited parlours of
                 all the colliers' wives.

    The dwelling-room,
           the kitchen,
         was at the back
               of the house,
           facing inward between the blocks,
         looking at
               a scrubby back garden,
           and then at the ash-pits.

    And between the rows,
           between the long lines
               of ash-pits,
         went the alley,
           where the children
              played and the women gossiped