Next morning at five o'clock Robert leapt from his bed, full of importance at the prospect of going down the pit. Stripping off his sleeping shirt, he chattered as he donned the pit clothes. The blue plaid working-shirt which his mother had bought for him felt rough to his tender skin, but unpleasant as it was, he donned it with a sense of bigness. Then the rough moleskin trousers were put on and fastened with a belt round the waist, and a pair of leg-strings at the knees. The bundles of clothes, separately arranged the night before, had got mixed somewhat in Robert's eagerness to dress, with the result that when his brother John rose, with eyes half shut, and reached for his stockings, he found those of Robert instead lying upon his bundle. "Gie's my socks," he ordered grumpily, flinging Robert's socks into the far corner of the kitchen. "You've on the wrong drawers too. Can ye no' look what you're doin'?" and the drawers followed the socks, while Robert looked at his mother with eyes of wonderment. "Tak' aff his socks, Rob," she said, "he's a thrawn, ill-natured cat, that, in the mornin'." "Well, he should look what he's doin' an' no' put on other folk's claes," and immediately the others burst out laughing, for this advocate of "watchin' what he was doin'" had in his half sleepy condition failed to see that he had lifted his jacket and had rammed his leg down the sleeve in his hurry and anger. "Noo, that'll do," said Geordie, as John flung the jacket at Robert, because he laughed. "That'll do noo, or I'll come alang yer jaw," and thus admonished John was at once silent. Robert soon had his toilet completed, however, even to the old cap on his head, upon which sat the little oil-lamp, which he handled and cleaned and wiped with his fingers to keep it bright and shiny, whilst all the time he kept chattering. "For ony sake, laddie, hand your tongue," said Geordie at last, as he drew in his chair to the table to start upon the frugal breakfast of bread and butter and tea. "Your tongue's never lain since you got up." Robert, thereupon, sat down in silence at the table, though there were a hundred different things he wanted to ask about the pit. He could not understand why everyone felt and looked so sleepy, nor divine the cause of the irritable look upon each face, which in the dim light of the paraffin lamp gave a forbidding atmosphere to the home at this time of the day. At last, however, the meal was over, and when Geordie had lit his pit lamp and stuck his pipe in his mouth, all three started off with a curt "Good morning" to Mrs. Sinclair, who looked after her boys with a smile which chased away the previous irritability from her face.