Explore "Red O'Shaughnessy" by J.H.M. Abbott on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
WHEN he came to the end of the tunnel O'Shaughnessy found half a score of completely naked men, whose coal-dusted skins glistened with streaky runlets of perspiration, toiling in the suffocating atmosphere of a hot and stifling cavern, as they hacked out lumps of coal with their picks from the black seam. A huge fire was burning in the middle of this great chamber, and its acrid fumes made breathing difficult and the work more laborious and exacting than it might have been had the mine been properly ventilated. A sub-overseer, evidently as a matter of principle, swore vigorously and bitterly at O'Shaughnessy, and set him to work with a pick.
"Bog in, ye ugly big ------ !" the man shouted. "I'll crack y'r ----- skull if I cotches ye loafin'."