Household words, No. 2, April 6, 1850

The True Story of a Coal Fire

One winter’s evening, when the snow lay as thick as a great feather-bed all over the garden, and was knee-deep in the meadow-hollows, a family circle sat round a huge fire, piled up with blocks of coal of that magnitude and profusion which are only seen at houses in the neighbourhood of a coal-mine. It appeared as if a tram-waggon had been ‘backed’ into the room, and half its load of great loose coal shot out into the enormous aperture in the wall which lies below the chimney and behind the fire-place in these rural abodes. The red flames roared, and the ale went round.

The master of the house was not exactly a farmer, but one of those country personages who fill up the interval between the thorough farmer and the ’squire who farms his own estate,—a sort of leather-legged, nail-shoed old gentleman, whose elder sons might easily be mistaken for gamekeepers, and the younger for ploughboys, but who on Sundays took care to ‘let un see the difference’ at church. Their father was therefore never called Farmer Dalton, but old Mr. Dalton, and almost as frequently Billy-Pit Dalton—the coal-mine in which he held a share being named the ‘William Pitt.’ His lands, however, were but a small matter; his chief property was a third share he had in this coal-mine, which was some half a mile distant from the house. His eldest son was married, and lived close to the mine, of which he acted as the chartermaster, or contractor with proprietors for the work to be done.