Page:Navvies and Their Needs.djvu/17

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NAVVIES AND THEIR NEEDS.
13

teach ourselves, and we want some one to come to us and find us out and teach us."

CHAPTER II.

IN my last paper I promised a description of a navvy village. Will my readers spend a Sunday with me at L——— W———, and let me show them, not only the village itself, but its inhabitants—something of the outer and inner life of the place, and something, too, of the work which was carried on there not by, but for the navvies. L——— W——— is a place that was. I saw it rise, watched its life, and have looked on the deep waters which roll over the place where it stood. It has passed away, and the busy crowd that peopled it, but the memory of it lives, and something more—the lessons that were learnt there, lessons some of which I would impart to my readers, lessons which will, I trust, bear their fruit, a harvest of widespread and undying good. I must preface further that in writing of the work done at L——— W———, a work in which I had a happy share, it is very far from my purpose to wite about myself By far the greater part of the work was done by lay helpers, a kind and most helpful band, without whose assistance my own efforts would have been of little avail. We worked together, very closely united by our common aim, and, I think, never stopping to ask whose share was the largest. In speaking, therefore, of these things we did and tried to do, I shall speak always of "our work," begging the reader to remember thas his attention is asked only to the work.

We set out, then, on Sunday morning in good time