21382	----	Son Philip, by George Manville Fenn. ________________________________________________________________________ Philip is the son of an old mine-owner. His father and mother would have liked him to become something other than an overseer in their mine, but it is what Philip wants to be. Some of the men are engaging in dangerous practices, and deeply resent it when Philip pulls them up over them. One of them swears that he will put his mark on Philip. Under Philip's guidance the mine begins to run well, but still some of the men are resentful of not being allowed to smoke even though there is gas in the mine. At this point there are a couple of those George Manville Fenn situations, which find you wondering "how ever will Philip get out of this?" And so the book ends, with Philip running a really successful mine, with a good accident record. How does he do it? ________________________________________________________________________ SON PHILIP, BY GEORGE MANVILLE FENN. CHAPTER ONE. THEIR BOY. "Well, why not be a soldier?" Philip Hexton shook his head. "No, father. There's something very brave in a soldier's career; but I should like to save life, not destroy it." "You would save life in times of trouble; fight for your country, and that sort of thing." "No, father; I shall not be a soldier." "A sailor, then?" "I have not sufficient love of adventure, father." "Oh no, my boy, don't be a sailor," said Mrs Hexton piteously. "I have had sufferings enough over your father's risks in the mine." "No, no, Phil; you must not be a sailor," said sturdy, grey-haired old Hexton, laughing. "I should never get a wink of sleep if you did. Every time the wind blew your mother would be waking me up to ask me if I didn't think you were wrecked." "No, dear; I shall not be a sailor," said Philip Hexton; and leaving his chair at the breakfast table he went round to his mother's side, sank down on one knee, passed his arm around her, and drew her to his broad breast. It was a pleasant sight to see the look of pride come into the mother's face, as she laid one hand upon her son's shoulder, and pressed a few loose strands of hair away from his thoughtful forehead, which wrinkled slightly, and there was a look of anxiety in his face as he looked tenderly at the loving woman. "That's right, Phil dear," she said; "don't choose any life that is full of risks." "Don't try to make a milksop of him, mother," said Mr Hexton, laughing. "Why, one would think Phil was ten years old, instead of twenty. I say, my boy, had she aired your night-cap for you last night, and warmed the bed?" "Well, I must confess to the warm bed, father," said the young man. "A night-cap I never wear." "I thought so," said Mr Hexton, chuckling. "You must not stop at home, Phil. She'll want you to have camomile tea three times a week." "You may joke as much as you like, Hexton," said his wife, bridling, "but no one shall ever say that I put anybody into a damp bed; and as for the camomile tea, many a time has it given you health when you have been ailing." "Why, you don't think I ever took any of the stuff you left out for me, do you?" "Of course, dear." "Never took a glass of it," said Old Hexton, chuckling. "Threw it all out of the window." "Then it was a great shame," said Mrs Hexton angrily, "and a very bad example to set to your son." "Never mind, Phil; don't you take it," chuckled Mr Hexton. Then becoming serious he went on: "Well, there's no hurry, my boy; only now that you are back from Germany, and can talk High Dutch and Low Dutch, and French, and all the rest of it, why it is getting time to settle what you are to do. I could allow you so much a year, and let you be a gentleman, with nothing to do, if I liked; but I don't hold with a young fellow going through life and being of no use--only a tailor's dummy to wear fine clothes." "Oh no, father; I mean to take to a business life," said Philip Hexton quickly. "Of course, my lad; and you'll do well in it. I began life in a pair of ragged breeches that didn't fit me, shoving the corves of coal in a mine; and now," he exclaimed proudly, "I'm partner as well as manager in our pit. So what I say is, if I could do what I have done, beginning life in a pair of ragged breeches that didn't fit me, why, what can my boy do, as has had a first-class education, and can have money to back him?" "My dear James," said Mrs Hexton, "I do wish you would not be so fond of talking about those--those--" "Ragged breeches, mother?" said the old fellow, chuckling; "but I will. That's her pride, Phil, my boy. Now she wears caps made of real lace, she wants to forget how humble she used to be." "Nothing of the kind, James," said the pleasant lady tartly; "I'm not ashamed of our humble beginnings, but I am ashamed to make vulgar remarks." "That's a knock-down, Phil, my boy," said Mr Hexton. "There, I won't mention them again, mother. But come, we are running away from our subject. I'm heartily glad to see you back, Phil," he cried; and there was a little moisture gathered in his eyes as he spoke; "and I thank God to see that you have grown into so fine, healthy, and sturdy a fellow. God bless you, my boy! God bless you!" He had left his seat at the foot of the table, and came round to stand beside his son, patting his shoulder, and then taking and wringing his hand. He half bent down, too, once, as if to kiss the broad sunburnt forehead, but altered his mind directly, as he thought it would be weak, and ended by going and sitting down once more. "There's plenty of time, of course," he said, "but somehow I shouldn't dislike to have it settled. Have you ever thought about the matter, Phil?" "Yes, father, deeply," said the young man, rising, and then standing holding his mother's hand. "I like sport, and games, and a bit of idleness sometimes, especially for a Continental trip." "Well, if you call that idleness, Phil," said the elder, rubbing his legs, "give me the hardest day's work in the pit. Remember our climbing up the Gummy Pass, mother, last year?" "Oh, don't talk about it, father," said the old lady. "But then we are not so young as we used to be. Go on, Philip, my dear." She held on tightly by her son's hand as she spoke, and kept gazing up at him with a wonderfully proud look. "Well, father, as I say, I like a bit of change." "Of course, my lad; all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy." "But I think it is the duty of every young man--boy, if you like, mother," he said, smiling. "Young man, Philip," she replied, "for I'm sure you've grown into a very fine young man." "Ugly as possible," growled the father, with a twinkle in his eye. "I'm sure he's a much finer and handsomer young man than you were when I married you, father!" said the old lady with spirit. "Oh, of course!" chuckled Mr Hexton; "he's lovely! Phil, boy, pray use scented soap and plenty of pomatum." "Come, father, let's set aside joking for the time," said Philip quietly. "I'm very glad to get home again, and to find my mother so proud and happy to have me back--and you, too, sir." Mr Hexton nodded, and changed his position a little. "You want to know what I mean to settle to be, sir?" "Yes, my boy; I should like to know." "Well, father, I'll tell you, for I have thought of it long and deeply, and I have studied chemistry a good deal for that end." "Bravo, Phil!" said Mr Hexton. "A doctor, mother; I thought as much." "No, sir, not a doctor; though I think a medical man's a grand profession, and one only yet in its infancy. But I want to be of some use, father, in my career. I want to save life as a medical man does. You know the old saying, father?" "About getting the wrong pig by the ear, as I did?" "No, sir; about prevention being better than cure." "Yes, my boy; but what are you going to prevent instead of cure?" "I want to prevent so much loss of life in our coal-pits, father." "Oh, my boy, my boy," cried Mrs Hexton passionately; "don't say you want to take up your father's life!" "Why not, mother dear?" said the young man firmly; "would it not be a good and a useful life, to devote one's self to the better management of our mines--to studying nature's forces, and the best way of fighting them for the saving of life?" "But, my boy, my boy, think of the risks!" "I didn't spend hundreds on your education to have you take to a pit life," growled Mr Hexton. "Oh, my boy, it is such a dangerous life. The hours of misery we pass no one knows," cried Mrs Hexton, wringing her hands. "Mother," said the young man, "it is to endeavour to save mothers and wives and children from suffering all these pains; for I would strive to make our mines so safe that the men could win the coal almost without risk. And as for education, father," he said proudly, as he turned to the stern, grey, disappointed man, "is it not by knowledge that we are able to battle with ignorance and prejudice? Don't regret what you have given me, father." "But it seems all thrown away if you are going to be nothing better than overseer of a mine." "Oh, no," said the young man smiling, "it will give me the means for better understanding the task I have in hand; and if, mother, I can only save four or five families from the terrible sufferings we know of, I shall not have worked all in vain." "No, my boy, no," said Mrs Hexton mournfully. "Ah!" he exclaimed, "knowing what I have of pit life, it has made me wretched scores of times to read some terrible account of the long roll of unfortunates burned, suffocated, or entombed, to die in agonies of starvation and dread. Don't be disappointed, father, but let me make my effort, and work with you." The elder seemed to hesitate for a moment, and then held out his hand. "No, Phil," he said, "I won't stand in your way. I'm disappointed because I wanted you to be something better, but--" "Better, father! Could you find a better man than Davy, whom we bless for his lamp?" "Which the reckless donkeys will open in a dangerous gallery," cried Mr Hexton angrily. "No, my boy; Humphry Davy was a man indeed, and if you turned out half as good, or a quarter, I should be proud of you." "That I shall never be, father," said the young man; "but I mean to try." CHAPTER TWO. DOWN IN THE PIT. "Don't tell me, lad; I hevn't worked in t'pit twenty year for nowt. Think I don't know? Him and his newfangled ways are wuth that!" The great swarthy pitman snapped his fingers as he stood in the centre of a group waiting for the return of the cage from the bowels of the earth. All about them was dark and weird-looking, with the lights casting strange shadows where the machinery stood around. There was a hissing noise and a ruddy light from the engine-house, with the panting clank of machinery; pistons worked up, and wheels spun round; while where the group of miners stood there was a square, black-looking pit, surrounded by a massive frame-work, supporting one big wheel, from which depended a thin-looking wire-rope, which was rapidly running down. A few minutes after, and there was the ringing of a bell, the clink-clank of machinery; the wheel spun round in the other direction, and in due time the cage, as it was called, came to the surface; the group of men stepped in, and the signal for descent was about to be given, when one of the men exclaimed: "Here he cooms!" Philip Hexton strode up the next moment, nodded shortly to the men, stepped into the crowded cage, and giving the signal, the stout iron-framed contrivance began rapidly to descend, and the fresh comer, who was still very new at these descents, felt that strange sensation as the cage rushed down, just as if the whole of the internal organs had burst out laughing at the fun they were going to have of trying to frighten their owner's head. It is not a pleasant sensation, that of a descent into a coal-pit. There is the rushing noise of the cage, the whirring of wheels, the constant dripping and plashing sound of falling water, the thudding of the pump, the stifling feeling of dank heat, the stuffy mist, and joined to all the knowledge that if that slender thread of wire-rope should happen to break, the cage would fall perhaps hundreds of feet, and its occupants be killed. Then, he who descends knows that he is going into a series of subterranean caves where the gas escapes, that the slightest contact with a light will explode, burning, slaying, and destroying, and leaving behind the choke-damp, which is even more deadly in its insidious effects. Now Philip Hexton, in making up his mind to take to his father's life, had readily prepared himself to run all risks, in the hope of soon lessening them; but after three months' action as deputy assistant-manager under his father, he had awakened to the fact that all he had done had been to establish a general feeling of dislike amongst the men, who, though they did not openly show it, opposed Philip Hexton all the more by a stubborn, quiet resistance that he found it difficult to overcome. It was something unusual for the manager's son to come down upon the night shift; but, after mastering the various technicalities of the place, the young deputy had set himself vigorously to work to try and more rigorously enforce the rules of the mine, many of which, he soon found, were terribly neglected by the men. Upon reaching the bottom, Philip saw the party go into a kind of office, where each was supplied with a locked and lighted Davy-lamp, whose little wick burned dimly through the wire gauze; and then, as they were about to shoulder their sharp steel-pointed picks, he said aloud: "You'll need to be very careful to-night, my lads, for there's a good deal of gas up in the new four-foot." The men did not answer, but went sulkily away, leaving Philip to take a gauze lamp of a larger construction to go and spend a couple of hours inspecting different parts of the mine, in company with one of the oldest hands in the pit. "I wish I could get the men to believe a little more in me," he said, as they went plashing along through the dark passages of the muddy pit, past places where the black roof was supported by stays, some of which were seamed and charred by explosions and fires in the mine. "Ay, lad, they're a bit obstnit," said the old miner; "they don't like interference." "No," said Philip rather bitterly, "not even when I am working to save their lives." "Nay, lad; but that's what they don't believe. Yo' mun go on wi' 'em more gently. But what brought you down to-neet?" "There was a fall in the barometer, and a great want of pressure in the atmosphere this evening," said Philip. "I could not rest without coming to see that everything possible was done." "Ah," said the overman grimly, "that's what our lads weant believe in-- your brometers, and pressures, and such like. They don't like to be teached by one who they say's nobbut a boy." "Does it matter how many years old a person is," cried Philip sternly, "if he can point out what is right? Look here," he said, as he stopped short in a low-roofed and distant part of the mine, "do you see this?" He pointed to his Davy-lamp, inside of which the light kept burning blue, and there was a series of little sputtering explosions. "Ay, I see it, lad; it's often so," said the overman coolly; "but the ventilation's about reet, and it will soon carry that off. It's nowt to do wi' no brometers." "Listen!" said Philip; and as the man impatiently stood still, there was a low dull hissing noise plainly to be heard, where the gas was rushing from the cracks and fissures of the shaley rock and gathering in the long galleries of the mine. "Now," said Philip, "does not the barometer speak truly? When the air is weighty and dense it keeps back the gas, when it is light the gas forces its way out. What would be the consequences if I were to open our lamp?" "There wouldn't be no consekences," said the overman with a grim laugh; "there'd be a inquest, if they had pluck enough to come and hunt out what of us was left." In spite of himself, Philip could not help a shudder, as he listened to the cynical, callous manner in which his companion spoke of their proximity to a dreadful death. Then, bidding him follow, he went on along the gloomy maze towards where he could hear the rumble of trucks laden with coal, the sound of the ringing picks, the echoing shouts of the men, and the impatient snort of some pony, toiling with its load up an incline. There was a quick sharp draught of air as they passed through a door which was closed behind them by a boy, and, satisfied that the ventilation was good, Philip Hexton and his companion went on. Meanwhile Ebenezer Parks, the big miner who had been complaining when the young man came up, kept on with his remarks as, in company with his party, he made his way to the four-foot seam, as it was called--a part of the mine where the good coal was but a yard in thickness, and at which they had to work in a stooping, sometimes in a lying, position. "She sings to-night, lad," said one of the men, as they stripped themselves to their trousers, and then began to use their sharp-pointed picks, their blackened skins soon beginning to glisten with perspiration in the stifling heat. "Hey, she do," said Ebenezer, giving a careless glance at his sputtering lamp. "There's part gas in pit to-neet." The dim sputtering lamps, and the warning hiss of the gas were forgotten as the men worked on, showing wondrous skill in the handling of their picks, and fetching out great lumps of coal with the greatest ease, in spite of the awkward position in which they worked. This went on for a couple of hours, when Ebenezer threw down his pick, seated himself with his back against a pillar of coal, one of those left to support the roof, and took from his trousers pocket a steel tobacco-box, a black short pipe, and a nail. "Who's going to hev a smoke?" he said. "I wouldn't let young master ketch you smoking," said one of the men. "He'd better not say owt to me," said the man fiercely. "I know what I'm 'bout better than he can tell me;" and as he filled his pipe several more laughed and filled theirs; while, looking like some black spirit of mischief, the big miner took the gauze lamp from the roof where it hung. "Now then, lads, who wants a leet?" he said; and, taking the nail, he proceeded to pick the lock of the Davy-lamp, or rather unfasten it with the improvised key. There was a click as the little snap flew back; and then, placing his pipe in his mouth, he proceeded to open the lamp. This was about as wise an act as for a man to strike a match over an open barrel full of glistening grains of gunpowder--perhaps far worse. CHAPTER THREE. MAKING AN ENEMY. Even as the big miner had his hand upon the gauze cover of the Davy-lamp there were tiny little explosions going on within, for in spite of the great current of air that was kept up through the pit, a draught which swept away the dangerous gas, there were places which its purifying influence did not reach, places such as this new gallery in the four-foot seam, where the vapour had been steadily increasing for hours and collecting round the heads of the men. Familiarity breeds contempt. Often enough we know that the men who work in gunpowder mills have to be searched to keep them from taking matches with them when they enter the mill. Philip Hexton and his companion went on, the latter ready to grumble as he grew weary of what he looked upon as unnecessary labour. "T'pit was reet enew," he said to himself; and what need was there of "peeking and poking about this how?" For the young inspector seemed never satisfied. He was always on the look-out for danger; and as they went on and on through the black galleries, where the iridescent tints of the shaley coal flecked with iron pyrites glittered and flashed in the dim light, he kept pausing and listening. "He won't stop at it long," said the overman to himself; "he's 'bout scarred of it now. I niver see a lad so freckened at every sound." It was quite true. Philip Hexton was startled at every sound; but it was from fear for others--not for self. So far from feeling the ordinary coward's dread, he would have gone at once into the most dangerous places to save another's life; but he was at times appalled at the reckless ways of the men. In one gallery the roof, as the light glimmered upon it, was one beautiful fret-work of ancient vegetation, being carved, as it were, into knotted stems full of beautiful flutings. Huge ferny leaves could be seen bending in graceful curves, and here and there, shining like cuttings in jet, traces of the cone-like fruit borne by some of the trees of that far-back age when the coal was deposited in bituminous beds. These geological remains had a great interest for Philip Hexton, and he promised himself plenty of amusement when his time of leisure came. At present it was all work--extremely hard work, for, until he could thoroughly master every technicality in the pit, he felt himself to be at a great disadvantage with the men. "Yo' weant be so partic'lar when yo've been here a few year, Master Hexton," said the overman, as they were making their way down a wide gallery whose coal had been worked out long enough before, and across which part of the mine they were passing to reach a distant portion where the men were at work on the "new four-foot." "Indeed!" said Philip, smiling, "I think you'll find me twice as strict." "Not yo'," chuckled the man; "I used to think the same when I was young; but, bless thee, lad, a man's life would be a burden to him if he was fancying the pit o' fire at every bit of gas. There'd be no coal-mining at all, for the lads'd be too scarred to come down." "If I live and have my way," said Philip sternly, "the pit here shall be so safe that work can go on in peace for every one, and every man shall act as guardian of his fellow's safety." "Sounds very pratty, lad," said the overman, "but it weant wuck. Look here, there's a bit o' gas in this corner." He held the lamp up close to the roof, and tiny explosions again began inside the gauze. Then he lowered the lamp, and they ceased, showing how light the explosive gas was, and how it floated about the roof. "Sithee," continued the overman, holding up the lamp again, so that Philip could make out that there was a rift above their heads, where at some time or other the roof had fallen; "that place has got part gas in it, for the ventilation don't touch here; but that don't mean as the whole mine's dangerous." "But the whole mine _is_ dangerous," said Philip hastily. "It's made dangerous by the recklessness of the men. Stop, man, what are you going to do?" He was too late, for, unperceived by him, the overman had unlocked the lamp, and held it up open above their heads, when there was a blinding flash, and an echoing report, and then a rumbling, distant, rushing noise. "What do you think o' that, lad?" said the overman coolly, relocking his lamp. "I think it was madness," said Philip excitedly. "You might have fired the mine." "Nay, lad, there was no fear o' that I knowed well enew what I was doing, and that bit o' gas was just as well away." The young deputy's heart beat fast, and he was about to speak angrily, but he felt that it would be better to consult with his father to see if a stop could not be put to such reckless ways. For he argued if an overman would run such a risk as this, knowing that the detached portion of gas might possibly communicate with a larger body, was it not likely that the ordinary winners of the coal would, without the overman's knowledge and experience, run even greater risks? "Yo'll get used to it all by and by," said the man condescendingly; "and if yo'll take my bit of advice, yo'll let the men tak' care o' theirsens." Philip Hexton must have walked in and out quite a couple of miles, examining ventilating-doors, seeing that the boys who opened and shut them for the corves to pass were doing their duty, and the like; and, trifling as it may sound, a great deal depends in a coal-mine upon such a thing as the opening and shutting of a door, for by means of these doors the current of air that is sucked, as it were, through the passages of the pit by the great furnace at the bottom of the shaft is altered in its course, and turned down this or that passage, sweeping out the foul air or gas, and making safe the pit. Hence, then, the neglect of one boy may alter the whole ventilation of some part of a mine, the purifying draught may be stopped from coursing through some dangerous gallery where the gas comes singing out of the seams, a light be taken inadvertently there, and ruin and death be the result. The young deputy was going on thinking to himself whether it would not be possible to invent a process by which the dangerous gas of a mine might be collected in great gasholders, and then burned within gauze shades for the lighting up of the pit, when the distant _chip_--_chip_--_chip_ ringing and echoing where the men were at work in the new four-foot grew less persistent, and in place of becoming louder as they drew nearer, gradually began to cease, as if first one man and then another had thrown aside his took. "Hadn't we better turn down here now, Master Hexton?" said the overman. "No; I want to inspect the new four-foot," replied Philip. "My lad, thee needn't go theer to-neet," said the overman. "That's all right, I warrant." "He has some reason for stopping me from going there," was Philip Hexton's first thought. "The men have ceased working; something must be wrong." "This is the gainest wayer," said the overman, turning sharply down a passage, light in hand, of course thinking that his companion would follow him, for he knew well enough what the stoppage meant, and he did not want the young man to see the miners smoke. But Philip Hexton was made of different metal to what he expected, and, careless of being left in the gloom of one of those weird passages, the young man stood for a moment peering forward into the black darkness, and, making out a faint glimmer of light, stretched out his hands and began to make his way cautiously along by the shaley wall. It was terribly bad walking, the floor being uneven from the many falls of coal from the roof. Here and there, too, were wooden supports which had to be avoided; but after stumbling along cautiously for about fifty yards, and avoiding the obstacles as if by a miracle, the distant glow of light was sufficient, dim as it was, to show him the supports that intervened, and fifty yards further he could walk quite fast, for there were the Davy-lamps hanging here and there, each forming a faint star, with a dull halo around. They seemed very near the ground till the young deputy remembered that they were in the four-foot seam, and the next moment he was spared a violent blow by one of his hands coming in contact with the roof. Philip Hexton's heart beat fast at the sight he saw; and for a moment he felt as if he must turn and run for his life. But he did not. Bending down half-double, he ran towards the group of men, gaining impetus each moment, till, stumbling over some of the newly hewn-out coal, he was thrown, as it were, full against Ebenezer Parks, his right fist catching the burly miner in the ear, just as he was, pipe in mouth, about to open the lamp, and they fell heavily together, the lamp fortunately being extinguished by the shock. CHAPTER FOUR. AN UNPLEASANT THREAT. "You villain!" cried Philip excitedly, as he rose, and then seated himself panting upon a lump of coal; "another moment, and you would all have been lying scorched and dying where you now stand." "Villain, eh?" roared the great pitman, staggering up with his head bleeding from a cut caused by his fall, "villain, am I, lad? Then I'll be villain for some'at." As he spoke, beside himself with passion, he caught up his miner's pick, and, but for the quick movement of the young man, would have dealt him what might have been a deadly blow. "Nay, nay, Eben, lad," cried one of the men, closing with him, "howd thee hand: we don't want murder here." But it was not until a couple more of the miners had seized him by the arms and wrested away the short sharp pick, that he ceased to struggle. Philip stood as well as the low roof would allow of the erect posture, and looked on. "There lad, thou'st better goo," said one of the men; "and don't thee coom interferin' agen." "Interfering!" cried Philip, with spirit, "recollect who I am, and that I will not have such reckless acts in the mine." "Oh, it's thy mine, is it?" said the man in a provoking tone. "I didn't know that. Say, Eben Parks, thee mustn't niver smoke a pipe in Master Philip Hexton's mine." "Let me goo!" cried the big miner; "let me goo, I tell 'ee! I'll mak' such a mark on him as he weant forget again." "Let him go!" cried Philip angrily, "and let him touch me if he dare; and let him recollect that there is law in the land for men who commit assaults, as well as for those who break the rules of the pit." "I'll put such a mark on him as he weant forget," cried the big miner, after another ineffectual struggle to be free. "Why don't 'ee goo!" cried one of the men again. "Thee keeps makin' him savage wi' staying." "Loose him, I tell you!" said Philip firmly; and they released the big miner, who came at him like a bull; but as the young man did not flinch, but gazed full in his eyes, the great fellow made what we call "an offer" at him, and then let his arms fall to his side. "Sithee!" he exclaimed, pointing to his bleeding head, and speaking in a low, hoarse voice, "thou'st made thy mark on me, and I don't rest till I've made mine on thee. Now goo, while thee shoes are good; thou'st not wanted here." Philip turned from him with an angry look of contempt, and addressed the men: "You seem to forget, my lads, that under my father I'm inspector of this mine." "Ay, and a nice pass too, for a set o' boys to be put over us, ordering men about as if they was bairns," growled the big miner. "And that my orders here are to be strictly obeyed," continued Philip, ignoring the great ruffian's presence. "Why did you men stand by and see that fool--I can call him nothing else--I say, why did you, a set of experienced men, stand by, and see that fellow deliberately break the most important rule in the mine, and not interfere?" "S'pose men are going to wuck here through a night shift and not want a pipe o' 'bacco?" said one of them fiercely. "I suppose that when you work for a company of proprietors, and receive their money, you are going to obey their regulations, and are going to avoid damaging their property, if you will not even take care not to risk your own lives." "Bah! Stoof!" exclaimed one of the party. "Theer's no danger." "No danger!" cried Philip, pointing to the other lamps, "why, you see for yourselves that the mine is terribly fiery to-night. Shame upon you! Look how the gas keeps flashing inside the lamps. You know there is danger. I told you there was danger before you came to work." "And how did you know?" cried Ebenezer Parks insolently. "By study, brute!" cried Philip passionately; "by making use of the brains with which I have been blessed, and not going through life willing to risk the lives of my fellow-men for the sake of a little self-indulgence." "Don't see much self-indulgence, as thou calls it, in having a pipe o' 'bacco." "Ay! how wouldst thou like to wuck all neet on the neet shift?" cried another. "Sithee," cried Ebenezer, spitting in his great black hands and thrusting his head forward, "thou ca'st me a fool, lad." "Stand back!" cried Philip, so sternly that the great fellow flinched. "You are worse than a pack of children," he continued. "Shame on you! learn to give up your self-indulgence sooner than run such risks." "Ay, it's easy enew to talk," growled one of the men; "but don't you think you are coming to lord it over us. S'pose we don't know when she's safe and when she isn't?" "If I'm to judge from what I've seen to-night," cried Philip, "I'm sure you do not know, and that you are not fit to be trusted. Because you work in a seam and it is safe to-day, do you suppose it follows that it will be safe to-morrow? I tell you men that you are always working on the very edge of death through your own folly." "And I tell 'ee," cried Ebenezer Parks, "that thou knows nowt about it." "Silence, sir!" cried Philip, whose blood was up; and in a puzzled way, as if he could not half understand it, the big miner shook his head, and shrank back astonished that this boy, as he called him, should master him as he did. For the big miner had yet to learn that knowledge is power--a power of ten thousand times greater force than the stoutest muscles ever owned by man. "I have never spoken to you before as I am speaking now," cried Philip. "You force me to it, and I tell you that, while I have the management here, the regulations shall be strictly carried out to the very letter; there shall be no evasions--no more of these contemptible tricks. How did you open that Davy-lamp, sir?" he cried, turning sharply upon Ebenezer. There was no answer, and the big fellow actually shrank as Philip made a sharp movement forward. But it was not to strike a blow, only to pick up something lying shining amongst the pieces of coal. "Just as I thought," said the young man, holding out the nail; "a contemptible pick-lock, to open the lamps that are locked up, by a wise rule, for your safety; and you--you great mass of bone and muscle, you call yourself a man! Shame upon you, shame!" Without another word, Philip picked up the extinct lamp just as the overman came up in search of him, placed it under his arm, signed to the new-comer to lead on, and followed, hot, flushed, and angry, along the dark galleries, and out of the pit. "Yah!" growled Ebenezer Parks, breaking the silence that lasted some few minutes after Philip's steps had died away; "he's nobbut a boy." "Nobbut a boy, eh?" said one of the men who had held him; "well, all I can say is, as I hope my bairn'll grow up just like un." "He was man enew to tackle thee, Eben," said another. "Ay, he's a plucked un," said another. "I like the lad, that I do." "Like him!" growled Eben, glaring vindictively round at his companions. "Man enew for me? Sithee: you know me, lads, and what I can do." There was no reply. "Yo' all know me, and what I can do, and do you think I'm going to let a bit of a boy, wi' his pretence about his larning and studies, bunch me and ca' me a fool and a brute when I know more about t'mine wi' one o' my hands than he does wi' his whole body." Still there was no reply, the men taking up their picks and looking uneasily at the speaker. "Tell 'ee what. I'm a man, I am, and a man o' my word. I said I'd put my mark on him for this job; and I will. Yo' all hear me, don't 'ee? I say I'll put my mark upon him." The big miner, with his fierce blackened face and rolling eyes, looked vindictive enough then to be guilty of any atrocity as he seemed to be seeking for an answer. "Yo' hear me? I say I'll put my mark upon him." "Not thou, lad," said one of his companions at last. "I tell 'ee I will. Never mind when or wheer. And now wheer's the man as'll go and tell him what I say?" No one spoke, and soon after that was heard the regular metallic _chip_--_chip_--_chip_ of the picks in the black wall of coal, Ebenezer Parks muttering to himself the while, and thinking of how he could best revenge himself upon "that boy." CHAPTER FIVE. 'TWIXT FATHER AND SON. When her son went home, Mrs Hexton was sitting up very straight and stern-looking in her chair, with a knitted stocking in one hand, a worsted-threaded needle in the other, and a handkerchief tied over her head to keep off the draught, for the new drawing-room was cold. Mr Hexton was seated in an easy-chair--at least, he was in the easy-chair; but it is not fair to say that he was seated, for he was filling up the chair just as if he had no bones, and making a rather sonorous noise as he breathed. It was past one o'clock, and the servants had gone to bed at ten, soon after which time Mr Hexton had proposed that they should follow, but Mrs Hexton had declared her intention of sitting up for her son. "Why, what nonsense!" her husband had said. "Come along to bed." "You can go, dear," she replied quietly. "I should not be happy if I did not see him safely back. And, besides, he will want a cup of tea and a bit of toast." "And his face washed, and his feet put in warm water, while his mother brushes his hair, and fusses over him," said Mr Hexton pettishly. "For goodness' sake, don't go on petting and coddling the boy like that." Mrs Hexton said nothing--only rose from her chair, and placed the tea-tray and the caddy ready, for they had been brought in the last thing by one of the maids. Then she lifted the bright copper kettle out of the fender and placed it on the hob, where it began to sing a song of its own composition, and she ended by taking up three pairs of her son's stockings to darn. There was not the slightest need for Mrs Hexton to perform such a duty as this, but she had darned her husband's stockings when they were poor people, and she could not easily give up her old habits when they were comparatively rich. And now, as she ran the long, glistening needle in and out amongst the worsted threads, her husband sat back in his chair and said it was absurd; but all the same, as he watched her with half-closed eyes, he thought what a good woman she was, and how happy it made him to think that she was not in the slightest degree spoiled by prosperity, while he fervently prayed that she might continue as she was to the end. Then, as he sank back lower and lower, thinking how earnestly his son had set about his task of reforming and improving the matters in the mine, he began to recall the terrible accidents that had happened at their pit, and at those in the neighbourhood. It would be a grand thing, he thought, if Philip, with his fresh and earnest mind and his knowledge, could do something to lessen the dangers of the pitman's life; though he rather trembled for the result, knowing as he did how hard it is to get over old prejudices. Then all became very misty and strange; and to his blurred eyesight it seemed as if Mrs Hexton's grey stocking-covered hand got itself mixed up with her head, and her head appeared to be mixed up with the copper kettle on the hob, and then it was his wife who was singing like the tea-kettle, and then all was blank till he started up wide awake, for there was a noise at the door, and Mrs Hexton immediately began to make the tea. "Have I been asleep, mother?" said Mr Hexton. "Hallo, Phil! back again?" "Why, father--mother!" exclaimed the young man, "why haven't you both gone to bed?" "I thought you'd find a cup of tea so refreshing," said the old lady briskly; and, waiting till it had stood long enough, she poured out a cup, placed a pair of slippers a little more in front of the fire, her work in a basket, and ended by kissing her son and saying good-night. He followed her to the door, where she laughingly turned round and bade Mr Hexton make haste up, kissed her son once more, and left him with his father. "Nice to be you, Phil," said the latter. "Oh, she has left out two cups! I'll have a cup of tea with you." This he took, and then, as father and son sat together, the latter was the first to speak. "I've had rather a scene to-night, father," he said. "Scene! What! Not an accident?" said Mr Hexton, nearly upsetting his tea in his excitement. "No, father, no accident; but the pit was so foul to-night that I believe if I had not interfered the place would have fired." "They will do it, Phil; they will do it," said Mr Hexton, as soon as his son had finished his narration. "I've tried all I know to stop it, but they'll run any risk, especially if they've tried the same thing before without accident." "Yes, I see that," said Philip. "It is so hard to make them see that there is danger at one time that does not exist at another." "Exactly," said the elder seriously. "But I'm very sorry about that fellow Parks. He's a spiteful and dangerous man. I don't like his owing you a grudge." "I'm not afraid, father," said Philip. "I've right on my side. I believe, too, that he is a great coward." "Maybe," said Mr Hexton thoughtfully; "but still I would much rather it had not happened. Bother the fellows! it does seem hard; we are always striving to give them the means of working in safety, and in return they fly in your face." "We'll forgive them that, father," said the young man smiling, "but we must have the rules of the mine strictly carried out." "I'll back you up, Phil, in anything in reason," said Mr Hexton; "but look here: be careful--don't trust yourself in that fellow's way, my boy. I'm afraid he's an ugly character, and there's no knowing to what lengths spite will lead an ignorant man. What shall you do? Haul him up before the bench for threatening language--have him bound over?" "No, father," said Philip quietly, as he sipped his tea. "I shall take no further notice. I have shown the men to-night that I mean business, that I am working for their good; and I have no doubt in the end that they will learn to respect me as well as obey." "And I wanted to stop him from going down the pit," said Mr Hexton to himself, as he sat watching his son. "It will be a long fight, father," cried Philip, rising and holding out his hand. "Good-night!" he said with a smile; "we've declared war, but I mean to win." CHAPTER SIX. IN GREAT PERIL. There could be no doubt that Philip Hexton did mean to win the fight, and there could also be no doubt that he was going the right way to work to win it. The greater part of the men met his efforts for their good in a surly, churlish way, as people will meet any one who tries to interfere with their cherished notions; but there were others, few though they were, who had the good sense and honesty to own that the young deputy was right, and to join with him in trying to reform the ways of the men in the pit. Ebenezer Parks went on with his work as usual, showing no disposition to resume the quarrel; but Philip noticed one thing, and that was--the man never would look him in the face. No sooner did the young deputy come in sight than Parks bent over his work, or stooped to trim his lamp with the wire that passed through it; he never once gazed frankly and openly in Philip's eyes. Time wore on, and there could be no doubt about it, the mine regulations were better kept, and hence there was less likelihood of an accident occurring, though, of course, the utmost vigilance could not protect those who worked from mishap. Philip, with his father's help, devised two or three alterations in the ventilation of the mine, which also made it less fiery, as the pitmen called it; but his great project was to have another shaft. "You see, father," he said, "we burrow into the ground like animals, but we do not take their precautions. A fox or a rabbit always has a second hole by which he can escape if there is anything wrong with the first. Ours is without doubt a dangerous pit, and if anything happened to block the shaft, the poor fellows down below would be entombed." "Yes, my boy," said Mr Hexton grimly; "but it doesn't cost the rabbits or the foxes ten thousand pounds to make their second hole. It would cost us that. We must be content with one." That question of a second shaft was always cropping up in Philip Hexton's brain, for, said he to himself, it is a sin against four hundred men to let them go down that place without providing them with proper means of escape. But upon going into calculations he found that the cost of a second shaft would approach the ten thousand pounds before all was ready, and he knew that the proprietors would not listen to such a proposition. What, then, was to be done? The answer came to him one evening like a flash of thought; and, starting off, he made his way through the scrubby patch of woodland on the hill-slope joining the colliery lands to the next property. It took him some time to find that of which he was in search, for the neglected ground was overgrown with tangled brambles, hazels, and pollards; and a stranger would have at once looked upon the wilderness of a place as unturned ground. But Philip knew better. He was growing weary of his search, however, when he made his discovery in a fashion that he did not anticipate, for, just as he was forcing his way through a tangled part of the wood, and parting the shady hazel stubbs that arrested his progress, his feet seemed to drop suddenly from beneath him, and he went down into semi-darkness, to hang clinging with the energy of despair to the hazel boughs; while, had he had any doubt about his position as he swung gently to and fro, he was taught by the horrible echoing plash that came up from hundreds of feet below, as the mass of crumbling earth and roots, upon which he had stepped, fell into the water. For a few moments the horror of his position seemed to paralyse him, and such a strange sense of terror mastered his faculties that he felt that he must lose his hold and fall into the depths, to be drowned in a few moments in the awful pit. For this was the place of which he had been in search--the shaft of the old colliery, that had not been worked for quite a hundred years; a place almost forgotten, but of whose existence he was sure, for in the plan of their own mine he had found allusions to it and some former manager had made notes of the risks that might be encountered if any of the galleries were driven far enough to tap either of those belonging to the ancient mine, which would contain water enough to flood their own. The elastic hazel boughs had bent down and down until Philip Hexton's head was five or six feet below the crumbling edge of the mine shaft; and as he endeavoured to obtain more hold for his feet, he only seemed to kick the earth and stones away, causing them to fall and send up a repetition of that horrible echoing plash. Below him, as he glanced down once, all was terrible darkness, though even in his horror he noticed that the sides of the old shaft were covered with beautiful ferns. Above him was a tangle of crossing and interweaving branches, twigs, and brambles, and if, as might take place at any moment, the boughs by which he held should break, there was no hope for him. He knew that he must die, and probably his fate would never become known. He hung there swinging to and fro for some moments, making not the slightest effort, till the horribly paralysing shock had somewhat passed away. Then, as his nerves began to resume their wonted tone, he tried to think. All depended upon his being perfectly cool, and calling up all his strength of mind he made his plans. If he struggled vigorously he knew that the chances were that he would tear the rotten moss-grown stubb up by the roots; if he swung about too much the branches would give way at their intersection with the low stem; if he should force his feet into the crumbling sides he would only kick down more stones and soil, and undermine the hazel roots. It was indeed a position of awful peril--one in which, though such a proceeding would have been folly, most people would have exhausted themselves by shrieking for help where there was not a soul within hearing. To and fro, with a gentle pendulum-like swing, as he let himself hang to the full extent of his muscles, swayed Philip Hexton; and then, with the greater part of his horror mastered by enforced coolness, he made his first effort for life. There was no other plan open to him but to draw himself up hand over hand with as little effort as possible; and this he began to do. There were plenty more hazel boughs above his head if he could reach them, and each of these, if added to those he grasped, would strengthen his position, for they came from other roots; and very cautiously he made his first effort, drawing himself steadily up till his chin reached his hands, and then, after waiting a moment, loosening his hold with one hand, and with a lightning-like rapidity getting a fresh grasp. In spite of his efforts to change his position cautiously, the hazel boughs swayed to and fro in a most ominous fashion, and he could hear the loosened earth and stones falling below him in a shower. It was enough to unnerve him, but he strove on, knowing now that it was a question of moments, and that if he could not grasp the boughs of another stubb the one from which he was banging must give way, and be precipitated with him into the abyss. The splashing below was horrible, and it seemed to be multiplied to a vast extent by the echoes, till the noise came up like a strange hissing roar. But there was not a moment to lose; and though the suggestion of his own fall nearly unnerved him he kept up the struggle hand over hand, but with the knowledge that he seemed to get no higher, for all he did was to turn the hazel boughs into powerful levers strong enough to begin tearing the stubb up by the roots. One by one he could hear them crack on the side farthest away, and the great bush came slowly bodily over towards him, bringing bough after bough within his reach; and these he seized, forcing those he before clung to down beneath him into the pit. But still he seemed to get no higher, and--horror of horrors! he could now see the roots of the hazel coming over towards him. _Crack_, _crack_, in a dull heavy way, they kept being torn asunder, and it soon became evident that the bush was only held now by one of its stoutest roots. The soft earth showered down upon the panting man, and his muscles quivered under the tension to which they were exposed; but now he was able to rest his arms to some extent by clinging to the branches below him with his legs. Was there no hope? Such a short distance to climb if the hazel stubb would only hold; but he dare now hardly move, for the slightest vibration brought down more earth, and, moment by moment, be expected to hear the final crack, and then to feel the rush of the air as he was hurried down into the black depths below. It was very horrible, and so great was the strain upon his mind as well as muscles that for a moment he found himself thinking whether it would not be a relief to loosen his hold and fall into oblivion. "When I have made my last effort!" something seemed to whisper to him, and with it came the thought that if he were merely clinging to the hazel stems over the side of a road by some woody bank, he would feel none of this paralysing fear. The task to win to safety would seem easy then. Why should it not now? It was the triumph of mind over cowardice and ignorant fear; and rousing his energies, while there was yet time, he looked about for the means of safety. Yes; there it was. He was no nearer the top than when he first made his attempt at escape. All he had done was to tear the hazel up by the roots, but it had bent down with it the bough of another stubb, a stout, tough-looking bough, belonging evidently to a hazel growing farther from the edge of the shaft. Could he reach that he might better his position, but the long, tough, thorny brambles that hung down swaying about were in his way, unless he could make use of them as ropes. It was for life, and regardless of their cruel thorns he seized two in one of his hands and made a snatch higher towards the root of the stubb. Another: clinging with his knees to the branches. Another: and he had hold of the crumbling, mossy wood, some of which fell with a quantity of earth. Another quick, sharp, despairing effort, and--joy! he had seized the fresh stout branch that had been bent down by the loosened stubb. Another effort, and he would have been on the edge of the shaft, when there was a sharp tug behind, and he felt himself arrested by the brambles that had twisted round one of his legs--a slight tug, but enough to stop him in his perilous position. The tangle of hazel boughs to which his legs were clinging came away with a fierce rush, an avalanche of earth fell, and Philip Hexton was once more swinging to and fro over the awful pit, listening with closed eyes to the rustle and rush of the great rooted-up hazel, as it fell into the pit. CHAPTER SEVEN. A JOURNEY UNDERGROUND. Plash! One horrible, echoing, weird sound that seemed as if it would never cease to reverberate against the sides of the pit-shaft, and then a silence so terrible that Philip Hexton felt as if all was over. He unclosed his eyes for a last look towards heaven, and the blue sky was above him; the great hazel stubb had made a clearance; a feeling of hope once more filled his breast. He had hold of a stout, tough bough, and he had only to relieve himself of the clinging bramble to be able to climb up into safety. But he was weak and exhausted now, and it took a greater effort than he expected before he sank down upon his knees amongst the mossy growth and thanked God for his escape. A young and healthy man soon recovers from a shock, and before long Philip Hexton was on his way back to his home, with the exultant feeling upon him that the risk he had run was for the benefit of his fellows, for he could see now the way to provide, at a very moderate cost, a second shaft to their own pit. There it was already made. It was only a question of acquiring some fifty or a hundred acres of worthless land with the old pit workings, and the ridding of those workings from water. They had galleries in their own mine that he knew nearly reached those of the old, and to drive from one to the other was the simplest of things. The very next day, provided with the old map of the mine, which he had been studying half the night, he descended the shaft with one of the shifts of men, and, providing himself with a lamp, he set off alone to explore some of the old workings which had been given up in consequence of the dread that at any time the ancient mine might be tapped and their own pit flooded by the enormous gathering of water. It was a long and dreary journey, one which no one saw him undertake, for the men went off at once to their work; and after going down two or three of the long black passages Philip felt a strange sense of hesitation about going farther. It was not, he told himself, that he was afraid of journeying alone there in the dark; and, armed as he was with one of the best of the Davy-lamps, he had no fear of gas; the choke-damp there was no occasion to mind, as that followed an explosion; but all the same he felt such a hesitation as he had never, even on his first descent, felt before. "I must be shaken by my adventure," he said to himself laughing; and he considered for a moment or two whether he should go back and get one of the overmen for a companion. He gave up the idea, though, directly, and went on, forcing himself to master the nervous sensation and to do his duty like a man. There were miles of galleries in the pit, and it was no light task to make a way through mud and water between the crumbling walls. Here and there great patches of the roof had tumbled down, and in places he found that the masses of coal that had been left as pillars had been taken away, and the ceiling of the pit had come down bodily, so that he had to sit down and study his map to find a way round to the part he wanted to reach. It was strangely depressing work; but Philip Hexton had a big spirit, the strength of mind that has enabled Englishmen to make their nation what it is; and hence no sooner was he stopped by a fall of rock in one place, than he sought out and found a way round to the other side. Sometimes a clear dry part would enable him to get along pretty quickly, but generally it was very slow travelling; often, where the seam of coal hewn-out had been a thin one, it was in a position bent double. And now, as he exerted himself, he felt less of the feeling of dread. Once only did it come very strongly, and that was when, after getting by a very narrow, crumbling part of the workings, he heard a heavy fall of rock behind, and he crept cautiously back, feeling sure that the passage by which he had come was stopped up, and that he might be left there to starve, buried alive, without a prospect of being saved. A reference to his map reassured him, and he went on. But now a fresh doubt assailed him. Suppose his lamp should go out: how would it be possible to get back? If he had been ready to give way to them there were hundreds of such fear-engendered thoughts ready to oppress him; but he fought against them steadily, and was the master as he plodded on, with his faintly marked shadow, distorted and broken as it fell upon the walls, forming his only companion in his quest. "Poor mother!" he thought once; "how alarmed she would be if she could see me now!" "But it must be done," he added, half aloud. "Ours is notoriously a fiery mine. Ah! it is foul here." For the lamp began to sputter and burn dimly within the gauze for a few minutes, till he reached a more open place, thinking--"If I can get this task done, I shall have made the mine comparatively safe, and who knows but the old workings may not prove, with our modern appliances, well worthy of carrying on?" He was so elated by these thoughts that the remainder of his dark subterranean journey seemed not one-half as difficult; and at last he seated himself on a block of stone fallen from the roof to consult his map. "Let me see," he said, half aloud, as, with the map spread upon his knees, he held his lamp so that the dim light might the better fall upon the canvas-backed paper; "I must be about here; and if so, according to this plan the old mine workings might be reached through this gallery, or this, or this." He ran his finger along the different lines drawn in red ink, and was studiously considering how it would be best to proceed if he could win his father, and, through him, the other proprietors, to his plans, when all at once he started up, listening attentively, for it seemed to him that he could hear a sound as of some one working with pick or bar away ahead of the place where he was seated, and not back in the yielding seams of the pit. _Tap_, _tap_, _tap_! Yes, there it was plainly enough, and from a part of the pit where there could be no working going on. What could it be? Nobody would be in that end of the mine. It was completely deserted. He did not believe anyone had been in that part of the great maze for months; there was nothing to bring a pitman there. "Now if I were a superstitious fellow," said Philip to himself, "and ready to believe in ghosts and goblins, I should run back and spread the news that this part of the pit is haunted by the restless spirit of some poor pitman who lost his life here years ago, and comes back to work. But I don't believe in that sort of story, and I'm going to see what it means." All the same he felt very much startled; for it seemed so unaccountable for anyone to be there. The men would be in the regular seams. There was nothing to bring them here; and as they toiled at piece-work, they would not lift a pick except to hew out coal. No overman would be here without his knowledge; and try how he would to find some reason for the sound, he was still at fault. The only possibility was that, in some peculiar way the echo of a hewer's pick ran along the silent galleries, to be reverberated from this distant wall. "Impossible!" he said, doubling up his map and replacing it in his breast, as he rose and took up his lamp. "It is impossible!" he said again, as _tap_, _tap_, _tap_, the regular stroke as of a pick was heard, and with no small feeling of trepidation he went to search out the cause of the unusual sound. CHAPTER EIGHT. PARKS'S MARK. Before he had gone far he became aware that the noise came from the old gallery that he had marked down as being the most likely to lead nearest to the workings of the ancient pit, and, after carefully peering down it, he held his lamp above his head to gaze in farther. But he could see nothing; and suddenly the noise ceased. With a quick motion Philip thrust the tall, thin lamp inside his flannel mine-coat and buttoned it up, for the thought suddenly struck him that if anyone was at work there he would be sure to have a light. It turned out as he expected, for there, upon a ledge of rock about fifty yards ahead, stood a Davy-lamp, shedding its soft dull rays around, so that some fell upon a wall of coal, which glistened in the light as if it had been newly cut. "It is very strange," thought Philip. "Why should anyone be at work here? It is dangerous, too. The old mine full of water must be close behind." "Well," he said, "Davy-lamps are not at all ghost-like things, so let us see what it all means;" and going cautiously forward, with his own lamp hidden, he crept near enough to see that there was a heavy iron bar lying upon the flooring of the wide chamber, for the gallery had been opened out here, and beside it a heap of newly-chipped coal, the result of an effort evidently being made to bore through into the ancient pit. "Why, it is treachery!" exclaimed Philip mentally. "Someone is trying to flood--Ah!" A tremendous blow fell upon his head, and he dropped to the ground, motionless, stunned as it were in body; but with every faculty of his mind quickened, and, with his eyes half-closed, he saw a dark figure stride across him, a short iron bar in his hand, pick up the lamp and hold it down. "Yes, I ar'n't made no mistake, Muster Hex'on. I said I'd mak' my mark on yo, and yo've got it this time. How came he here?" The man stood in a listening attitude for a few moments, and then, apparently satisfied, raised his bar to strike again. "That first un seems to hev done it," he said with a coarse laugh. "Spying, that's what he was about. Now I'll give them a job." He set down the lamp once more upon the ledge, picked up the big bar, and began to drive it heavily in the hole he had made in the coal, the great bar going in quite three feet at each stroke, while Philip lay watching him, paralysed still in body, but seeing all that took place. At the end of half-a-dozen strokes the bar seemed to go through farther, and as the great miner drew it back a little stream of dirty water came trickling through, and Parks stood watching it intently. "I knowed it wur theer," he muttered; "but it'll never make no head if I don't open it a bit more." He hesitated for a moment, and then, raising the bar once more, drove it through with all his force. The effect was very different to what he had anticipated, for he must have dislodged a goodly-sized piece of coal on the other side, and as he snatched back the bar there was a fierce rush of water in a spurt as big as a man's arm, whose flash Philip Hexton just saw, and then the lamp was extinguished. The noise was so great--such a fierce, hissing roar--that the cry uttered by Ebenezer Parks was half drowned; while, in less time than it takes to tell it, the young deputy felt a sudden shock as a rush of cold water bathed his face and head, acting so magically that he rose quickly, and, with the water rising above his ankles, began to feel his way along the stony wall, as fast as he could, in the direction in which he had come. The confusion from the blow was rapidly passing away, cleared as it was by a great horror--that of being overtaken and drowned in the flooding mine, and, sometimes striking himself heavily, but always making progress, he waded on. Still it was slow work, for the water seemed to hinder him, and he had reached a curve where the gallery took a fresh direction when there was a fiercer roar behind, one which betokened that the water was forcing for itself a greater way; and so it proved, for in a very few moments the rushing icy stream was above his knees. It was very horrible there in the darkness, listening to the gurgling rush of the water, ever increasing in violence; but forgetting self for the moment, Philip wondered where his assailant could be, and then, hearing nothing, he began to think of the men in the pit, and whether they would have time to escape. All depended, he knew, upon whether the wall of coal between the two mines stood firm where Ebenezer's bar had not struck, and hoping this would be so, but despairing of his own life now, he waded on, the water being far above his knees. "I shall never find my way in the dark," he groaned, with a chilly feeling of horror creeping over him, and placing his hands above his throbbing breast as if to check the beating of his heart, he uttered a cry of joy, for they came in contact with the lamp. It was, of course, extinct as he tore it from his breast, but he had matches in his pocket far above where the water had yet reached. It was a risk, but he must chance the gas. The air caused by the rushing water might have swept it away, and trembling so that he could hardly perform the office, he drew key and matches from his pockets, nearly, in his agitation, dropping the lamp in the rushing stream that swept against his legs. He saved it, though, and struck a match, which went out directly, and another and another shared its fate. The next burned brightly, though, and no explosion following, he lit the lamp, trimmed the wick, dropped the match in the water, where it went out with a faint hiss; and then, closing the gauze, he held the feeble Davy above his head. It was a star of hope, though, to him; and so it must have been to Ebenezer Parks; for as the rays shone out, there came from far behind a wild, despairing yell, and then, as Philip turned towards it, there was a fierce hissing rush, the stream doubled in volume, he was swept against the wall, and it was only by hurrying with it that he was able to keep his feet. Twice over he essayed to turn, but the effort was vain. It was impossible to battle with it. All he could do was to hold his lamp up so as to guide him from striking against the wall, and go with the rushing stream, that now increased so in depth that he felt that before long he might be compelled to swim. The hours or more that he passed in that flood of rushing waters seemed afterwards like some terrible confused dream to the young man, for it was long enough before he found himself in a part where the galleries took an upward inclination, and he gained a place where, faint and exhausted, he could rest with the water only about to his knees, and draw out the map, by whose help he at length made out where he was. Even then he had a long and arduous trial before he managed to wade to the foot of the shaft late at night, to find lights burning and the pumping-engine at its fullest speed, but unable to arrest the steady rise of the water, which, by the next day, had completely drowned the workings, though its progress was sufficiently slow to enable the men to save their lives before it came upon them in the lower seams. A fortnight elapsed before the pit was once more drained, during which time Philip had been seriously ill, suffering greatly from the shock. His first inquiry was for Ebenezer Parks, whose body, however, was not found for some time, where it had been forced into a cranny by the stream; and in strange corroboration of the tale Philip Hexton had to tell, his great muscular hand still grasped the big iron bar, round which the muscles were as tense as steel. Poor wretch! In the gratification of his miserable malice he had done much mischief and had lost his life; but he had hastened Philip Hexton's plan of utilising the shaft of the old mine, which his villainous act had drained, and the result before long was that the old pit property was purchased for a mere song, the galleries fully opened out, and the mine, over which Philip became overseer-in-chief, was acknowledged with its double shaft to be the best-ventilated and safest in the land. The best proof of which was that for the next ten years there was not a single serious accident; and, as Mrs Hexton declared to her friends, all through the thoughtfulness of her brave boy. THE END. 
21863	----	DERRICK STERLING A STORY OF THE MINES BY KIRK MUNROE Author of "THE FLAMINGO FEATHER" [Illustration: IN THE BURNING BREAKER.] NEW YORK AND LONDON HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS COPYRIGHT, 1888, BY HARPER & BROTHERS COPYRIGHT, 19l6, BY KIRK MUNROE PRINTED IN THE U. S. A. CONTENTS I. IN THE BURNING BREAKER II. A FEARFUL RIDE III. THE MINE BOSS TAKES DERRICK INTO HIS CONFIDENCE IV. INTRODUCING HARRY, THE BUMPING-MULE V. ATTACKED BY ENEMIES, AND LOST IN THE MINE VI. THE SECRET MEETING.--A PLUNGE DOWN AN AIR SHAFT VII. A CRIPPLE'S BRAVE DEED VIII. DERRICK STERLING'S SPLENDID REVENGE IX. SOCRATES, THE WISE MINE RAT X. IN THE OLD WORKINGS.--MISLED BY AN ALTERED LINE XI. A FATAL EXPLOSION OF FIRE-DAMP XII. THE MINE BOSS IN A DILEMMA XIII. LADIES IN THE MINE.--HARRY MULE'S SAD MISHAP XIV. A LIFE IS SAVED AND DERRICK IS PROMOTED XV. A "SQUEEZE" AND A FALL OF ROCK XVI. BURSTING OF AN UNDERGROUND RESERVOIR XVII. IMPRISONED IN THE FLOODED MINE XVIII. TO THE RESCUE!--A MESSAGE FROM THE PRISONERS XIX. RESTORED TO DAYLIGHT XX. GOOD-BY TO THE COLLIERY ILLUSTRATIONS In the burning breaker "Here, lad, lead this mule down the rest of the way, will ye?" Suddenly there came a blinding flash, a roar as of a cannon Good-by to the colliery DERRICK STERLING: A STORY OF THE MINES CHAPTER I IN THE BURNING BREAKER "Fire! Fire in the breaker! Oh, the boys! the poor boys!" These cries, and many like them--wild, heartrending, and full of fear--were heard on all sides. They served to empty the houses, and the one street of the little mining village of Raven Brook was quickly filled with excited people. It was late in the afternoon of a hot summer's day, and the white-faced miners of the night shift were just leaving their homes. Some of them, with lunch-pails and water-cans slung over their shoulders by light iron chains, were gathered about the mouth of the slope, prepared to descend into the dark underground depths where they toiled. The wives of the day shift men, some of whom, black as negroes with coal-dust, powder-smoke, and soot, had already been drawn up the long slope, were busy preparing supper. From the mountainous piles of refuse, of "culm," barefooted children, nearly as black as their miner fathers, were tramping homeward with burdens of coal that they had gleaned from the waste. High above the village, sharply outlined against the western sky, towered the huge, black bulk of the breaker. The clang of its machinery had suddenly ceased, though the shutting-down whistle had not yet sounded. From its many windows poured volumes of smoke, more dense than the clouds of coal-dust with which they were generally filled, and little tongues of red flame were licking its weather-beaten timbers. It was an old breaker that had been in use many years, and within a few days it would have been abandoned for the new one, recently built on the opposite side of the valley. It was still in operation, however, and within its grimy walls a hundred boys had sat beside the noisy coal chutes all through that summer's day, picking out bits of slate and tossing them into the waste-bins. From early morning they had breathed the dust-laden air, and in cramped positions had sorted the shallow streams of coal that constantly flowed down from the crushers and screens above. Most of them were between ten and fourteen years of age, though there were a few who were even younger than ten, and some who were more than sixteen years old.[1] [Footnote 1: A law of the State of Pennsylvania forbids the employment of boys less than twelve years old in breakers, or less than fourteen in mines. This law is not, however, strictly enforced.] Among these breaker boys two were particularly noticeable, although they were just as black and grimy as the others, and were doing exactly the same work. The elder of these, Derrick Sterling, was a manly-looking fellow, whose face, in spite of its coating of coal-dust, expressed energy, determination, and a quicker intelligence than that of any of his young companions. He was the only son of Gilbert Sterling, who had been one of the mining engineers connected with the Raven Brook Colliery. The father had been disabled by an accident in the mines, and after lingering for more than a year, had died a few months before the date of this story, leaving a wife and two children, Derrick and little Helen. For nearly five years before his father's death Derrick had attended a boarding-school near Philadelphia; but the sad event made a vast difference in his prospects for life, and compelled his return to the colliery village that he called home. Mr. Sterling had always lived up to his moderate income, and though his salary was continued to the time of his death, the family then found themselves confronted by extreme poverty. They owned their little vine-covered cottage, at one end of the straggling village street, and in this Mrs. Sterling began to take boarders, with the hope of thus supporting her children. Her struggle was a hard one, and when one of the boarders, who was superintendent of the breaker, or "breaker boss," offered Derrick employment in his department, the boy was so anxious to help his mother that he gladly accepted the offer. Nothing else seemed open to him, and anything was better than idleness. So, after winning a reluctant consent from his mother, Derrick began to earn thirty-five cents a day, at that hardest and most monotonous of all forms of youthful labor, picking slate in a coal-breaker. He had been brought up and educated so differently from any of his companions of the chutes that the life was infinitely harder for him than for them. He hated dirt, and loved to be nice and clean, which nobody could be for a minute in the breaker. He also loved the sunlight, the fields, and the woods; but no sunshine ever penetrated the thick dust-clouds within these walls. In the summer-time it shone fierce and hot on the long sloping roof, just above the boys' heads, until the interior was like an oven, and in winter they were chilled by the cold winds that blew in through the ever-open windows. Here, and under these conditions, Derrick must work from seven o'clock in the morning until six in the evening. At noon the boys were allowed forty minutes in which to eat the luncheons brought in their little tin pails, and draw a few breaths of fresh air. During the first few weeks of this life there were times when it seemed to Derrick that he could not bear it any longer. More than once, as he sat beside the rattling chute, mechanically sorting the never-ending stream, with hands cut and bruised by the sharp slate, great tears rolled down his grimy cheeks. Over and over again had he been tempted to rush from the breaker, never to return to it; but each time he had seemed to see the patient face of his hard-working mother, or to feel the clinging arms of little Helen about his neck. He would remember how they were depending on his two dollars a week, and, instead of running away, would turn again to his work with a new energy, determined that, since he was to be a breaker boy, he would be the best in the colliery. In this he had succeeded so well as to win praise, even from Mr. Guffy, the breaker boss, who usually had nothing but harsh words and blows for the boys who came under his rule. He had also been noticed by the superintendent of the colliery, and promised a place in the mine as soon as a vacancy should occur that he could fill. In the breaker he had been promoted from one seat to another, until for several weeks past he had occupied the very last one on the line of his chute. Here he gave the coal its final inspection before it shot down into the bins, from which it was loaded into cars waiting to carry it to cities hundreds of miles away. Above all, Derrick was now receiving the highest wages paid to breaker boys, and was able to hand his mother three big silver dollars every Saturday night. The first time he did this seemed to him the proudest moment of his life, for, as she kissed him, his mother said that this sum was sufficient to pay all his expenses, that he was now actually supporting himself, and was therefore as independent as any man in the colliery. It was a wonderful help to him, during the last few weeks of his breaker boy life, to think over these words and to realize that by his own efforts he had become a self-supporting member of society. It really seemed as though he increased in stature twice as fast after that little talk with his mother. At the same time his clothes appeared to shrink from the responsibility of covering an independent man, instead of the boy for whom they had originally been intended. Beside Derrick Sterling, that hot summer afternoon, sat Paul Evert, a slender, delicate boy with a fine head set above a deformed body. He did not seem much more than half as large as Derrick, though he was but a few months younger, and his great wistful eyes held a frightened look, as of some animal that is hunted. He too had been compelled by poverty to go into the cruel breaker, and try to win from it a few loaves of bread for the many little hungry mouths at home, which the miner father and feeble mother found it so hard to feed. For a long time the rude boys of Raven Brook had teased and persecuted "Polly Evert," as they called him, on account of his humped back and withered leg, and for a long time Derrick Sterling had been his stanch friend and protector. While the even-tempered lad used every effort to avoid quarrels on his own behalf, he would spring like a young tiger to rescue Paul Evert from his persecutors. Many a time had he stood at bay before a little mob of sooty-faced village boys, and dared them to touch the crippled lad who crouched trembling behind him. On this very day, during the noon breathing-spell, he had been compelled to thrash Bill Tooley, the village bully, on Paul's behalf. Bill had been a mule-driver in the mine, but had been discharged from there a few days before, and taken into the breaker. He now sat beside Paul, and during the whole morning had steadily tormented him, in spite of the lad's entreaties to be let alone and Derrick's fierce threats from the other side. That Derrick had not escaped scot-free from the noon-hour encounter was shown by a deep cut on his upper lip. That Bill Tooley had been much more severely punished was evident from the swollen condition of his face, and from the fact that he now worked in sullen silence, without attempting any further annoyance of the hump-backed lad beside him. Only by occasional glances full of hate cast at both Derrick and Paul did he show the true state of his feelings, and indicate the revengeful nature of his thoughts. This was Paul's first day in the breaker, where he had been given work by the gruff boss only upon Derrick Sterling's earnest entreaty. Derrick had promised that he would initiate his friend into all the details of the business, and look after him generally. He had his doubts concerning Paul's fitness for the work and the terrible life of a breaker boy, and had begged him not to try it. Paul's pitiful "What else can I do, Derrick? I have got to earn some money somehow," completely silenced him; for he knew only too well that in a colliery there is but one employment open to a boy who cannot drive a mule or find work in the mine. Therefore he had promised to try and secure a place for his crippled friend, and had finally succeeded. Paul was struggling bravely to finish this long, weary first day's work in a manner that should reflect credit upon his protector; but the hours seemed to drag into weeks, and each minute he feared he should break down entirely. He tried to hide the cruel slate cuts on his hands, nor let Derrick discover how his back ached, and how he was choked by the coal-dust. He even attempted to smile when Derrick spoke to him, though his ear, unaccustomed to the noise of the machinery and the rushing coal, failed to catch what was said. While the crippled lad, in company with a hundred other boys, was thus anxiously awaiting the welcome sound of the shutting-down whistle, at the first blast of which the torrents of coal would cease to flow, and they would all rush for the stairway that led out-of-doors, the air gradually became filled with something even more stifling than coal-dust--something that choked them and made their eyes smart. It was the pungent smoke of burning wood; and by the time they fully realized its presence the air was thick with it, and to breathe seemed wellnigh impossible. Then, just as the boys were beginning to start from their seats, and cast frightened glances at each other, the machinery stopped; and amid the comparative silence that followed they heard the cry of "Fire!" and the voice of the breaker boss shouting, "Clear out of this, you young rascals! Run for your lives! Don't you see the breaker's afire?" As he spoke a great burst of flame sprang up one of the waste chutes from the boiler-room beneath them, and with a wild rush the hundred boys made towards the one door-way that led to the open air and safety. Obeying the impulse of the moment, Derrick sprang toward it with the rest. Before he could reach it a faint cry of "Derrick, oh, Derrick, don't leave me!" caused him to turn and begin a desperate struggle against the mass of boys who surged and crushed behind him. Several times he thought he should be borne through the door-way, but he fought with such fury that he finally won his way back out of the crowd and to where Paul was still sitting. "Come on, Polly," he cried, "we haven't any time to lose." "I can't, Derrick," was the answer; "my crutch is gone." Surely enough, the lame boy's crutch, which had been leaned against the wall behind him, had disappeared, and he was helpless. At first Derrick thought he would carry him, and made the attempt; but his strength was not equal to the task, and he was forced to set his burden down after taking a few steps towards the door. He called loudly to the last of the boys, who was just disappearing through the door-way, to come and help him. At the call the boy turned his face towards them. It was that of Bill Tooley, and it bore a grin of malicious triumph. The next instant the great door swung to with a crash that sounded like a knell in the ears of Derrick Sterling, for he knew that it closed with a powerful spring lock, the key of which was in Mr. Guffy's pocket. The crash of the closing door was followed by a second burst of flame that came rushing and leaping up the chutes, and above its roar the boys heard shrill voices in the village crying, "Fire! Fire in the breaker!" CHAPTER II A FEARFUL RIDE As Derrick and Paul realized that they were left alone in the burning breaker, in which the heat was now intense, and that they were cut off from the stairway by the closed and bolted door, they remained for a moment speechless with despair. Then Derrick flung himself furiously against the heavy door again and again, with a vague hope that he might thus force it to give way. His efforts were of no avail, and he only exhausted his strength; for the massive framework did not even tremble beneath the weight of his body. Still he could not believe but that somebody would open it for them, and he would not leave the door until tiny flames creeping beneath it warned him that the stairway was on fire and that all chances of escape in that direction were gone. He tried to make himself seen and heard at one of the open windows, but was driven back by the swirling smoke. Then he turned to Paul, who still sat quietly where he had been left. The crippled lad had not uttered a single cry of fear, though the eager flames had approached him so closely that he could feel their hot breath, and knew that in another minute the place where he sat would be surrounded by them. As Derrick sprang to his side, with the intention of dragging him as far as possible from them, he said, "The slope, Derrick! If we could only get to the top of the slope, couldn't we somehow escape by it?" "I never thought of it!" cried Derrick. "We might. We'll try anyhow, for if we stay here another minute we shall be roasted to death." Stooping, he lifted Paul in his lithe young arms, and with a strength born of despair began to carry him up the long and devious way that led to the very top of the lofty building. He had scarcely taken a dozen steps, and was already staggering beneath his burden, when he stumbled and nearly fell over some object lying on the floor. With an exclamation, he set Paul down and picked it up. It was the crutch, Paul's own crutch; and it was so far above where they had sat at work that it seemed as though it must have been flung there. The boys did not pause to consider how the crutch came to be where they found it, but joyfully seizing it, Paul used it so effectively that they quickly gained the top of the building and stood at the upper end of the long slope. It was a framework of massive timbers supported by high trestle-work, that led from the highest point of the breaker down the hill-side into the valley, where it entered the ground. From there it was continued down into the very lowest depths of the mine. On it were double tracks of iron rails, up which, by means of an immensely long and strong wire cable, the laden coal cars were drawn from the bottom of the mine to the top of the breaker. As a loaded car was drawn up, an empty one, on the opposite track, went down. The angle of the slope was as steep as the sharply pitched roof of a house, and its length, from the bottom of the mine to the top of the breaker, was over half a mile. This particular slope was provided with a peculiar arrangement by which a car loaded with slate or other refuse, after being drawn up from the mine to a point a short distance above the surface, could be run backward over a vertical switch that was lowered into place behind it. This vertical switch would carry it out on the dump or refuse heap. The top of the dump presented a broad, level surface for half a mile, on which was laid a system of tracks. Over these the waste cars were drawn by mules to the very edge of the dump, where their contents were tipped out and allowed to slide down the hill-side. During working hours a boy was stationed at this switch, whose business it was to set it according to the instructions received from a gong near him. This could be struck either from the bottom of the mine or the top of the breaker, by means of a strong wire leading in both directions from it. One stroke on the gong meant to set the switch for the mine, and two strokes to set it for the dump. A flight of rude steps led up along the side of the slope from the mouth of the mine to the top of the breaker. Derrick and Paul thought that perhaps they might make their way down this flight of steps and thus escape from the blazing building; but when they reached the end of the slope, and looked down, they saw that this would be impossible. Already the steps were on fire, and the whole slope, as far as they could see, was enveloped in a dense cloud of smoke. Through it shot flaming tongues that were greedily licking the timbers of the tall trestle-work. If Derrick had been alone he would have made the attempt to rush down the steps, and force his way through the barrier of smoke and flame; but he knew that for his companion this would be impossible, and that even to try it meant certain death. As he hesitated, and turned this way and that, uncertain of what to attempt, an ominous crash from behind, followed by another and another, warned them that the floors of the building were giving way and letting the heavy machinery fall into the roaring furnace beneath. They knew that the walls must quickly follow, and that with them they too must be dragged down into the raging flames. Paul, sitting on the floor, buried his face in his hands, shutting his eyes upon the surrounding horrors, and prayed. Derrick stood up, gazing steadily at the rushing flames, and thought with the rapidity of lightning. Suddenly his eye fell upon an empty coal-car standing on the track at the very edge of the slope, and he cried, "Here's a chance, Paul! and it's our only one. Get into this car, quick as you can. Hurry! I feel the walls shaking." As Paul clambered into the car in obedience to his friend's instructions, though without an idea of what was about to happen, Derrick sprang to one side, where a brass handle hung from the wall, and pulled it twice with all his might; then back to the car, where he cast off the hooks by which the great wire cable was attached to it. Again he pulled furiously, twice, at the brass handle. He had done all that lay in his power, and was now about to make one last, terrible effort to escape. The red flames had crept closer and closer, and were now eagerly reaching out their cruel arms towards the boys from all sides. Beneath them the supports of the building tottered, and in another moment it must fall. Down the slope the shining rails of the track disappeared in an impenetrable cloud of smoke, and Derrick could not see whether his signal to the switch-tender had been obeyed or not. As Paul crouched on the bottom, at one end of the car, his companion said, "I'm going to push her over and let her go down the slope, Polly. If the trestle hasn't burned away she'll take us through the fire and smoke quick enough. If there's anybody down there and he's heard the gong and set the switch, we'll go flying off over the dump. I guess I can stop her with the brake before she gets to the edge. It's half a mile, you know. If the switch is open, we'll go like a streak down into the mine and be smashed into a million pieces. It won't be any worse than being burned to death, though. Now good-by, old man, if I don't ever see you alive again. Here goes." "Good-by, dear Derrick." Then the crippled lad closed his eyes and held his breath in awful expectation. Derrick placed one shoulder against the car, gave a strong push, and, as he felt it move, sprang on one of the bumpers and seized the brake handle that projected a few inches above its side. In the mean time the two boys had been missed in the village, and as it became known that they were still within the breaker, the entire population, frenzied with excitement, gathered about the blazing building, making vain efforts to discover their whereabouts, that they might attempt a rescue. No men on earth are braver in time of danger, or more ready to face it in rescuing imperilled comrades, than the miners of the anthracite collieries. Had they known where to find Derrick and Paul, a score of stalwart fellows would willingly have dashed into the flames after them. As it was, no sign that they were still in existence had been discovered, and the spectators of the fire were forced to stand and watch it in all the bitterness of utter helplessness. One man indeed ran up the blazing stairway, and with a mighty blow from the pick he carried crashed open the door against which Derrick had so vainly flung himself. Only a great burst of flame leaped forth and drove him backward, with his clothing on fire and the hair burned from his face. He was Paul Evert's father. Upon receipt of the tidings that her boy was shut up in the burning breaker, without any apparent means of escape, Mrs. Sterling had fallen as though dead, and now lay, happily, unconscious of his awful peril. Little Helen sat by her mother's bedside, too stunned and frightened even to cry. In Paul's home a crowd of wailing women surrounded Mrs. Evert, whose many children clung sobbing to her skirts. Suddenly two sharp strokes of a gong rang out, loud and clear, above the roar of the flames and the crash of falling timbers. The crowd of anxious spectators heard the sound, and from them arose a mighty, joyous shout. "They're alive! They're alive! They're at the top of the slope!" But what could be done? The trestle was already blazing, and the upper end of the slope was hidden from the view of those below by dense volumes of ink-black smoke. Again the gong rang out, "one, two," and one man of all that throng thought he knew what it meant. Springing to the mine entrance, the old breaker boss threw over the switch bar, and set the vertical switch for the dump. Then came a crash of falling walls, and out of the accompanying burst of fire and smoke, down along the shining track of the slope, shot a thunder-bolt. It seemed like a thunder-bolt to the awe-stricken spectators, as it rushed out of the flames, leaving a long trail of smoke behind it. In reality it was a coal-car, bearing in one end a crouching figure and a crutch. At the other end stood Derrick Sterling, bareheaded, with rigid form and strained muscles, and with one hand on the brake handle. With a frightful velocity the car crossed the vertical switch and shot out over the level surface of the dump. Derrick felt the strength of a young giant as he tugged at that brake handle. The wood smoked from the friction as it ground against the wheel; but it did its duty. On the very edge of the dump, half a mile from the vertical switch, the car stopped, and Derrick sat down beside it, sick and exhausted from the terrible nervous strain of the few minutes just past. It seemed hours since the machinery had stopped in the breaker and the rush of boys had been made for the door-way; but it was barely ten minutes since the first alarm had been given. From the time he stood face to face with death at the top of the slope, and started that car on its downward rush through the flame and smoke, less than two minutes had passed, but they spanned the space between life and death. As yet Derrick could not realize that they had escaped nor did he until he felt a pair of arms thrown about his neck and heard Paul's voice saying, "Derrick, dear Derrick! you have saved my life, and as long as it lasts I shall love you. If ever I have a chance to show it, you shall see how dearly." Then Derrick stood up and looked about him. A crowd of men and boys were running along the top of the dump towards them. In another minute they had both been placed in the car, and amid the joyous cries and exultant cheers it was being rapidly rolled back towards the village. When Mrs. Sterling began to recover consciousness she smiled at the boy whom she saw standing beside her, and said, faintly, "I've had an awful dream, Derrick, and I thank God it was only a dream." And Derrick said, "Amen, mother." CHAPTER III THE MINE BOSS TAKES DERRICK INTO HIS CONFIDENCE In a mining community serious accidents, and even terrible disasters, are of such frequent occurrence that in Raven Brook the burning of the old breaker soon ceased to furnish a topic of conversation. It was not until the day after that of the fire that Derrick learned of the presence of mind displayed by the old breaker boss in comprehending his signal on the gong and setting the vertical switch for the dump. As soon as the old man came home that evening, Derrick went to his room prepared to pour out his heartfelt thanks. He had hardly begun when the breaker boss interrupted him with, "There, that'll do, an' I don't want to hear no more on it. Any fool knows that two gongs means 'dump switch,' an' when one's been in the mines forty year, man an' boy, as I have, he don't take no credit to himself for doing fool's work. When you get older you'll know better'n to mention sich a thing." "But, Mr. Guffy--" "That'll do, I tell ye!" roared the irascible old man. "Clear outen here, and go over to Warren Jones's; he wants to see ye. Hold on!" he added, as Derrick was about to leave the room. "On your way stop and tell that hunchback butty[2] of yourn to be on hand in the new breaker at sharp seven to-morrow morning, if he wants to keep his job. Do ye hear?" [Footnote 2: Butty is the word used by miners to denote helper or partner.] As he went out Derrick smiled to think of the old man's pride, which would not allow him to accept thanks or praise from a boy for performing a creditable action. At the same time the breaker boss was muttering to himself, "He's a fine lad. If he'd 'a' come to grief through any fault of mine I'd never got over it. 'Twon't do, though, to let him see that I think more of him than of any others of the young scoundrels. Boys allus gets so upperty if they thinks you're a-favorin' of 'em. They must be kep' down! Yes, sir! kep' down, boys must be." Derrick could not help wondering why he too had not been ordered to report at the new breaker the next morning, but thought it better not to ask any questions. After supper he went over to see Mr. Jones, in obedience to the instructions received from the breaker boss. Warren Jones, the assistant superintendent, or, as he was generally termed, the "mine boss," of the Raven Brook Colliery, was a pleasant-faced, outspoken young man of about thirty. At present he was acting as superintendent, and the burden of responsibility bore heavily upon him. He had a host of warm friends, but had made some bitter enemies among the miners by his direct honesty of purpose and determination to deal out even-handed justice to all over whom he exercised authority. Although generally good-natured and slow to find fault, he could be quick and stern enough when occasion demanded. Such was the man who greeted Derrick Sterling cordially that evening, showed him into his library, and made him sit down, saying that he wished to have a little talk with him. He spoke in terms of such praise of Derrick's behavior on the previous day as to bring a blush of pleasure to the boy's cheeks. "By-the-way, Derrick," he asked, "how did the breaker catch fire?" "I haven't the least idea, sir," answered Derrick, looking up in surprise. "Oh, all right," said the other, carelessly. "I didn't know but what you might have heard something said about it." "No, sir, I haven't; that is, not anything that I thought amounted to anything. I have heard some of the boys talking about 'Mollies,' and saying that they beat the world for floods and fires. What are 'Mollies' anyway, Mr. Jones?" The mine boss looked at him curiously for a moment before replying, "If you really don't know, it's time you did, for you're likely to see and hear a great deal of them if you decide to make mining your business in life. All that I know about them is this: "Many years ago a young woman named Mary, or Mollie Maguire, was murdered in Ireland, and several young fellows belonging to an order called 'Ribbonmen' bound themselves by an oath to avenge her death and kill her murderer. They succeeded so well in this undertaking, and escaped detection so easily, that they proceeded to redress other wrongs, real and fancied. They were joined by other men of their own way of thinking, and finally they became a widely spread and powerful society. In course of time, whenever anybody was mysteriously killed in Ireland, it came to be said that the Mollie Maguires had done it, and so the name clung to them. "At last the murderous order was introduced into this region by some Irish miners who wished to get rid of an objectionable overseer, and also to control the labor unions among the miners. It has so spread that now its members are known to exist in every mining community of the anthracite country. It is one of the most cowardly organizations ever formed by men, and one of the most cruel. Its victims are given no warning of the fate in store for them, but are struck down in the dark, or from an ambush, by unseen hands. "Often the murderer has no previous acquaintance with, or knowledge of, the man whom he kills. He blindly obeys the command of his infernal order, and is thus made a tool to avenge some petty grievance or fancied injury. "The Mollies have become a plague-spot that threatens the health and life of this region. It is the duty of every honest man and boy who is brought into any sort of contact with them to thwart their evil designs in every possible way." "Well," said Derrick, drawing a long breath, "I had no idea that there were such wicked men in this country." "No," he answered the mine boss, "you are but a boy, and have had but little experience in the wickedness of this world; but I know you are brave, and I believe you to be honest and loyal. I am therefore going to trust you, and tell you something that I had no intention of mentioning when I sent for you this evening. It is this: "I have every reason to believe the Mollies are strong in this colliery, and that they intend to make trouble here. I have lately received several anonymous letters making demands that cannot possibly be granted, and containing vague threats of what will happen in case they are not satisfied. This morning I found this note pinned to my door." Here Mr. Jones opened a drawer of his desk, and took from it a dirty sheet of paper, which he handed to Derrick. On it was scrawled the following: "Bosses take Wornin'. New breakers can burn as well as old. Fires cost munny. Better pay it in wage to "MOLLIE." As the boy finished reading this strange communication which was at the same time an admission and a threat, he looked up in surprise and began, "Then you think, sir--" "Yes," interrupted the mine boss. "I not only think, but I feel convinced, that the mischief has begun. Moreover, I am determined that it shall end before it goes any further. I am most anxious to discover who is at the bottom of it, and in this I want you to help me." "Want _me_ to help!" exclaimed Derrick, in astonishment. "Yes, you," answered Mr. Jones, smiling. "Your very youth and inexperience will render you less likely to be suspected than an older person. I am certain that I can count upon the son of my old friend Gilbert Sterling to perform truly and faithfully any duty which his employers may see fit to intrust him with. Is it not so, Derrick?" "Yes, sir, it is," cried the boy. "Just tell me what you want me to do, and if I don't succeed it won't be because I haven't tried my best." "That is just what I expected you to say," remarked the mine boss, quietly. "Now we will lay our first plans. I suppose you have had enough of the breaker, haven't you?" "Indeed I have, sir." "Very well. For a change I am going to offer you a job in the mine where I will give you a bumping-mule to drive. Your wages will be five dollars a week." "A bumping-mule?" queried Derrick, in a tone of perplexity not unmixed with disappointment. From the preceding conversation he had expected to be intrusted with something very different from mule-driving; nor had he any idea what sort of an animal the one in question might be. This time Mr. Jones not only smiled but laughed outright; for, from the boy's face and tone, he easily understood what was passing in his mind. "A bumping-mule," he explained, "is the animal that draws the loaded coal-cars from the chambers, or breasts, to where they are made up into trains. These trains are then hauled by a team of mules to the foot of the slope. Then, when the empty cars are brought back, the bumping-mule distributes them to the several places where they are required. I suppose his title comes from his causing the cars to bump together as he makes them up into trains. In attending to your duties as driver of this most important mule, I can assure you that your time will be fully occupied from the minute you go into the mine until you leave it. "I suppose," he added, with a humorous twinkle in his eyes, "that our conversation led you to think you were to be appointed 'air boss' of the mine, or placed in charge of a gang at the very least?" "No, sir," answered Derrick, a little hesitatingly; "I ain't quite such a greeny as that. But I don't see how I can help you very much by just driving a bumping-mule." "You can help me in two ways: first, by doing your duty so faithfully that I may be able to depend on you at all times; second, while I am in doubt as to whom I may trust, it will be of great assistance to me to know that there is at least one person constantly in the mine who will be true to the interests of his employers, and on the alert to detect any attempt to injure them." "I hope you don't mean that I am to be a spy in the mine, sir?" "No, my boy, I do not. I want you to attend strictly to your duties as driver of a bumping-mule. At the same time I want you to consider that your eyes and ears are acting in the place of my eyes and ears. If at any time they see or hear anything which according to your best judgment I ought to know, I hope you will be man enough to tell me of it." "Well, sir," answered Derrick, "I am glad of a chance to go into the mine and to earn five dollars a week. If you will let me do whatever I think is right about telling you things without making any promises, I will keep my eyes and ears wide open." "That is all that I want you to do, my boy." "All right, sir, then I'll do my best; and I hope I sha'n't have anything to tell you except about the bumping-mule." "So do I hope so with all my heart, Derrick," said the mine boss, gravely; "for I am inclined to think that if you have anything else to tell me it will be something very serious and unpleasant. Now you may take this order for a pair of rubber boots and a miner's cap and lamp over to the store and get the things. Be on hand to go down with the first gang of the morning shift. You will find me in the mine, and I will see that you are properly set to work. Good-night." "Good-night," answered Derrick, as, with the store order in his hand, and his mind full of conflicting emotions, he left the house. Several miners of the day shift were in the store when Derrick went to present his order. By questioning him as to what he wanted with mine clothes, they soon learned that he was to begin life underground the next day as driver of a bumping-mule. "De young bantam'll find it a tougher job than riding empty cars down de slope," sneered one big ugly-looking fellow, whose name was Monk Tooley, and who was Bill Tooley's father. "I reckon you've laid in a big supply of cuss-words as a stock in trade! Eh, lad?" asked another. "No, I haven't," said Derrick, flushing hotly. "I don't believe in swearing, and if I can't drive a mule without it I won't drive him at all." "Then I reckon you'll hunt some other business putty quick," answered the miner with a coarse laugh in which the others joined. "Mules won't work without they hears the peculiar langwidge they's most fond of." "Well," said Derrick, "we'll see." And leaving the store with his purchases he started homeward. On the way he stopped to deliver Mr. Guffy's message to Paul Evert, and to tell his friend the great news that on the following day he was to begin the life of a miner. "I wish I was going with you," said Paul. "I wish you were, Polly," answered Derrick. "Perhaps there will be a chance for you down there before long, and by that time I will have learned all the ropes, and can tell you what's what." Although Derrick had lived much among collieries, he had never been allowed to go down into a mine. His parents had kept him as much as possible from associating with the rough mine lads of the village. Thus, until he went into the breaker to earn his own living, he had held but slight intercourse with them. His friend Paul, being the son of a miner, knew far more of underground life than he, and often smiled at his ignorance of many of the commonest mine terms. Derrick was a peculiar boy in one respect. He disliked to ask questions, and would rather spend time and patience in finding out things for himself, if it were possible for him to do so. What he thus learned he never forgot. He was thoroughly familiar with the surface workings of a colliery, and could explain the construction of the great pumps that kept the mine free from water, the huge, swiftly revolving fan that drew all foul air from it, or any of its other machinery. His father's profession had long seemed to him a most desirable one, and he spent much of his spare time in studying such engineering books as still remained in the house. He loved to pore over his father's tracings and maps of the old workings. With these he had become so well acquainted that he believed he could locate on the surface the exact spots beneath which ran the gangways, headings, and breasts of the abandoned portions of the mine. By means of these old maps he had also discovered on the mountain side, more than a mile away, the mouth of a drift leading into a vein worked out and abandoned more than twenty years before. This discovery he kept to himself as a precious secret bequeathed to him by his father, though he had not the slightest idea that it would ever be of any practical value to him. After leaving Paul, Derrick hurried home to tell his mother the great news that he was to work in the mine and earn five dollars a week, and to show her his mine clothes. He was greatly disappointed that instead of rejoicing over his brightening prospects she only gazed at him without speaking, until the tears filled her eyes and rolled down her pale cheeks. "Why, mother," he said, "aren't you glad? Only think--five dollars a week!" "Oh, my boy, my boy," she exclaimed, drawing him to her, "I can't let you go down into that horrible place! 'Twas there your father met his death." "Shall I go back to the breaker, then, mother?" "No, no; I didn't mean what I said. God has delivered you from one fearful peril, and he can guide you safely through all others. Yes, I am glad, Derrick--glad of any step that you take forward; but oh, my boy, be very careful wherever you go. Remember how precious your life is to me." Dressed in his new mine clothes, Derrick hurried through breakfast the next morning, and started for the mouth of the slope bright and early. On his way he met Bill Tooley, who stopped him by calling out, "Look a-here, young feller. They say yer a-going down ter drive my mule." "Didn't know you had a mule," answered Derrick, pleasantly. "Well, I did have a mule; an' what's more, I'm going ter have him again. Any feller that goes to driving him before I get back will be sorry he ever done it, that's all. I don't care if he is the bosses' pet, and did take a ride in a hand-car." CHAPTER IV INTRODUCING HARRY, THE BUMPING-MULE As Derrick walked towards the entrance to the mine, he wondered what the bully whom he had just met meant by what he said. He did not then know that Bill Tooley had been discharged from the mine by Mr. Jones for brutal treatment of the mule he had driven, and for general laziness and neglect of his duties. At the mouth of the "travelling-road," down which the early arrivals were compelled to make their way into the mine, Derrick was greeted by a little group of miners who were lighting their lamps and preparing to descend. "'Tis bonny to see thee, Derrick lad," called out one of them. "'Twill be luck to the mine to have such as you in her," said another. "My lad would ha' been your age an' he'd lived," said a third. "'Twould ha' been a proud day for me to ha' seen him alongside o' thee, lad, lighting his bit lamp, and ready to take up the life of an honest miner." In the group was Tom Evert, Paul's father, a brawny, muscular man, who was considered one of the best miners in Raven Brook. Taking Derrick a little to one side, he said, "They tell me, lad, thou'rt to drive Bill Tooley's mule." "I don't know anything about Bill Tooley's mule," answered Derrick. "I only know that Mr. Jones said I was to drive a bumping-mule, and I intend to do exactly what he tells me." "Of course, lad, of course; but the bumping-mule he has in mind will be Bill Tooley's, I doubt not, and I'd rather 'twould be another than you had the job. Bill Tooley, with his feyther to back him, is certain to take it out, some way or another, of the lad that steps into his place." "I'm not afraid of Bill Tooley, as you ought to know, Mr. Evert," said Derrick, somewhat boastfully, as he thought of the thrashing he had so recently given the young man in question. "Of course not, lad, of course not. I know you can lick him fast enough in fair fight. My poor little Paul can bear ready witness to that, for which I'm under obligations to you. It's not fair fighting I mean; for when it comes to argyfying with them Tooleys, it's foul play you must look out for; and what the young un lacks in pluck he makes up in inflooence." Derrick was about to ask what he meant, but was interrupted by a movement of the miners towards the entrance. In another moment he found himself rapidly descending the steep steps of the travelling-road, and feeling that the attempt to keep pace with the long-limbed fellows ahead of him must certainly result in his pitching headlong into the unknown depth of blackness. The travelling-road was a gigantic stairway, leading at a steep angle directly down into the earth. It was high enough for a man to stand upright in without hitting his head against the roof, and it was provided with steps. They were cut or dug out of the rock, earth, or coal down through which the road passed, and were very broad and very high. The front edge of each was formed of a smooth round log. From the roof and sides of the road dripped and trickled little streams of water that made everything in it wet and soggy, and rendered the edges of the steps particularly slippery. The air in the road was chilly in comparison with that of the warm summer's morning in which the outside world was rejoicing, and Derrick shivered as he first encountered its penetrating dampness. Of course the darkness was intense, but at first it was partially dispelled by the lights of the half-dozen miners in whose company he had entered the road. As they gradually left him behind, their twinkling lights grew fainter and fainter, until at last they vanished entirely, and Derrick found himself stumbling alone down the apparently interminable stairway. While yet in company with the miners, he had passed through one door made of heavy planks, that completely closed the road, and now he came to another. Through its chinks and cracks there was a rush of air from outside inward that hummed and whistled like a small gale. It took all of Derrick's strength to pull this door open, and it closed behind him with a crash that reverberated in long, hollow echoes down the black depths before him. Some distance below he was startled by a heavy booming sound from above, which was followed by a tremendous clattering, mingled with shouts and cries. In the first of these sounds he recognized the closing of the door through which he had recently passed, but he could not account for the others. They were continued, and grew louder and louder as they approached, until at length they were close at hand, and he saw lights and a confused mass of struggling forms directly above him. Stepping to one side, Derrick flattened himself against the wall to let them pass; but just as the miner who came first reached that point, he tossed the end of a rope into the boy's hands, saying, "Here, lad, lead this mule down the rest of the way, will ye? I'm in a powerful hurry myself." [Illustration: "HERE, LAD, LEAD THIS MULE DOWN THE REST OF THE WAY, WILL YE?"] In another instant he had gone, leaping with immense strides down the precipitous steps, and Derrick found himself staring into the comical face of a large mule which, with his fore-feet on one step and his hind ones on that above, looked as though he were about to stand on his head. "Go on, can't yer!" called out an impatient voice from behind the mule. "Do ye think I can hang onto this 'ere blessed tail all day? A mule's no feather-weight, let me tell yer." Then Derrick realized that another man held the mule by the tail, and was exerting all his strength to prevent him from going down too fast. Accepting the situation, he started ahead, encouraging the mule to follow; but this arrangement did not seem to suit the animal, for he refused to budge a step from where he stood, nor could the man in the rear push him along. "Here, you!" the man called out to Derrick, "come back here and steer him while I take his head. When he gets started, hang on to his tail with all your might, and hold back all yer can." So they changed places, and the mule was so greatly pleased at having got his own way that he began to plunge down the stairs with great rapidity. Derrick felt almost as though he were being rushed through space on the tail of a comet, and shuddered to think of the broken limbs and general destruction that must inevitably follow such reckless travelling. The mule, however, seemed to know what he was about as well as the man who led him, and took such good care of himself that Derrick soon plucked up courage, and even began to enjoy the situation. As he was thinking that they must be somewhere near the centre of the earth, the mule gave an unusually violent plunge forward, and then stopped so suddenly that poor Derrick found himself sprawling on the animal's back, with both arms clasped tightly about his neck. With this the mule began to caper and shake himself so violently that the boy was forced to loose his hold and fall to the ground, amid roars of laughter from a score of miners who witnessed the scene. Greatly confused, Derrick scrambled to his feet, gave a reproachful glance at the mule, which was calmly gazing at him with a wondering look in his wide-open eyes, and turned to see in what sort of a place he had been so unceremoniously landed. At the same moment Mr. Jones, dressed in miner's costume, and looking as grimy as any of the others, stepped from the laughing group and said, "My boy, I congratulate you on being the first person who ever rode into this mine on mule-back, I am glad you found the travelling-road so good. Came on your own mule too. How did you know this was the bumping-mule you were to drive?" "I didn't know what sort of a mule he was until just as we got here and he bumped me off his back," replied Derrick; "and I begin to think that he knows more about driving than I do." "Well, you have made a notable beginning," said the mine boss, "and I am sure you two will get along capitally together. Harry Mule, this is Derrick Sterling, who is to be your new driver, and I want you to behave yourself with him." Then to Derrick he said, "Harry has the reputation of being the most knowing, and at the same time the most perverse, mule in the mine. I believe though he only shows bad temper to those who abuse him, and I have selected you to be his driver because I know you will treat him kindly, and give him a chance to recover his lost reputation. If he does not behave himself with you, I shall put him in the tread-mill. Now stand there out of the way for a few minutes, and then I will show you where you are to work." Derrick did as he was directed, and quickly found himself intensely interested in the strange and busy scene before him. The travelling-road entered the mine in a large chamber close beside the foot of the slope that led upward to the new breaker. From this chamber branched several galleries, or "gangways," in which were laid railway-tracks. Over these, trains of loaded and empty coal-cars drawn by mules were constantly coming and going. By the side of the track in each gangway was a ditch containing a stream of ink-black water, flowing towards a central well in one corner of the chamber, from which it was pumped to the surface. Opposite to where he stood, Derrick saw the black, yawning mouth of another slope, which, as he afterwards learned, led down into still lower depths of the mine. The men around him were handling long bars of railroad iron, which they were loading with a great racket on cars, and despatching to distant gangways in which new tracks were needed. Two large reflector lamps in addition to the miners' lamps made the chamber quite bright, and with all its noise and bustle it seemed to Derrick the most interesting place he had ever been in. He was sorry when the mine boss called and told him to bring along his mule and follow him. They entered one of the gangways, leading from the central chamber, which the mine boss said was known as Gangway No. 1. He also told Derrick something about his mule, and said that by its last driver, Bill Tooley, the poor animal had been so cruelly abused that he had sent it to the surface for a few days to recover from the effects. "I guess he has recovered," said Derrick, "judging from the way he brought me into the mine." They had not gone very far before they came to a closed door on one side of the gangway beyond which the mule absolutely refused to go, in spite of all Derrick's coaxings and commands. "It is the door of his stable," said the mine boss, who stood quietly looking on, without offering any assistance or advice, waiting to see what the boy would do. Tying the end of the halter to one of the rails of the track on which they were walking, Derrick started into the stable, where he quickly found what he wanted. Coming out with a handful of oats, he let the mule have a little taste of them; and then, loosening the halter, tried to tempt him forward with them. This plan failed, for Harry declined to yield to temptation, and remained immovable. Then Derrick turned a questioning glance upon the mine boss, who said, "Never again hitch an animal to a track along which cars are liable to come at any moment. Now, why don't you beat the mule?" "Oh no, sir!" exclaimed Derrick, in distress. "I don't want to do that." "Neither do I want you to," laughed the other. "I only asked why you didn't?" "Because," said Derrick, "I want him to become fond of me, and my mother says the most stubborn animals can be conquered by kindness, while beatings only make them worse." "Which is as true as gospel," said the mine boss. "Well, the only other thing I can suggest is for you to go into the stable, get the harness that hangs on the peg nearest the door, and put it on him." Acting upon this hint, Derrick had hardly finished buckling the last strap of the harness when the mule began to move steadily forward of his own accord. "That's his way," said the mine boss. "In harness he knows that he is expected to work, but without it he thinks he may do as he pleases." Presently the mule stumbled slightly, and again he stopped and refused to go ahead. "Do you know what is the matter now, sir?" asked Derrick. "I think perhaps he wants his lamp lighted," replied the mine boss. A miner's lamp, attached to a broad piece of leather, hung down in front of the mule from his collar. The boy lighted this lamp, and immediately the mule began to move on, showing that this was exactly what he had wanted. "Seems to me he knows almost as much as folks," cried Derrick, highly delighted at this new proof of his mule's intelligence. "Quite as much as most folks, and more than some," answered his companion, dryly. During their long walk they passed through several doors which, as Derrick was told, served to regulate the currents of air constantly flowing in and out of the mine, and kept in motion by the great fan at its mouth. Whenever they approached one of these the mine boss called, loudly, "Door," and it was immediately opened by a boy who sat behind it and closed it again as soon as they had passed. Each of these boys had besides his little flaring lamp, such as everybody in the mine carried, a can of oil for refilling it, a lunch-pail and a tin water-bottle, and each of them spent from eight to ten hours at his post without leaving it. Finally Derrick and the mine boss came to a junction of several galleries, a sort of mine cross-roads, and the former was told that this was to be his headquarters, for here was where the trains were made up, and from here the empty cars were distributed. At the farther end of each of the headings leading from this junction two or more miners were at work drilling, blasting, and picking tons of coal from between its enclosing walls of slate. They were all doing their best to fill the cars which it was Derrick's business to haul to the junction and replace with empty ones. There were also a number of miners at work in breasts, or openings at the sides of the gangways that followed the slant of the coal vein, who expected to be supplied with empty cars and have their loaded ones taken away by Derrick. These breast miners filled their cars very quickly, as the moment they loosened the coal it slid down the slaty incline, above which it had been bedded, to a wooden chute on the edge of the gangway that discharged it directly into them. As Derrick was told of all this, he realized that he and Harry Mule would have to get around pretty fast to attend to these duties, and supply empty cars as they were needed. What interested him most in this part of the mine was an alcove hewn from solid rock near the junction, in which was a complete smithy. It had forge, anvil, and bellows, and was presided over by a blacksmith named Job Taskar, as ugly a looking fellow, Derrick thought, as he had ever seen. Here the mules were shod, tools were sharpened, and broken iron-work was repaired. It was a busy place, and its glowing forge, together with the showers of sparks with which Job Taskar's lusty blows almost constantly surrounded the anvil, made it appear particularly cheerful and bright amid the all-pervading darkness. Nearly every man and boy in that section of the mine was obliged to visit the smithy at least once during working hours. Thus it became a great news centre, and offered temptations to many of its visitors to linger long after their business was finished. After pointing out to Derrick the several places at which his services would be required, the mine boss left him, and the boy found himself fully launched on his new career. He soon discovered that Harry Mule knew much more of the business than he did, and by allowing him to have his own way, and go where he thought best, Derrick got along with very few mistakes. Among the miners upon whom he had to attend he found brawny Tom Evert, stripped to the waist, lying on his side, and working above his head, but bringing down the coal in glistening showers with each sturdy blow of his pick. When he saw Derrick he paused in his work long enough to exchange a cheery greeting with him and to dash the perspiration from his eyes with the back of his grimy hand; then at it he went again with redoubled energy. At the end of one of the headings Derrick found another acquaintance in the person of Monk Tooley. He scowled when he saw the new driver, and growled out that he'd better look sharp and see to it he was never kept waiting for cars, or it would be the worse for him. Twice Derrick started to leave this place, and each time the miner called him back on some trivial pretext. The boy could not see, nor did he suspect, what the man was doing, but as he turned away for the third time, Monk Tooley sprang past him with a shout, and ran down the heading. Derrick did not hear what he said, but turning to look behind him, he saw a flash of fire, and had barely time to throw himself face downward, behind his car, when he was stunned by a tremendous explosion. Directly afterwards he was nearly buried beneath an avalanche of rock and coal. CHAPTER V ATTACKED BY ENEMIES, AND LOST IN THE MINE Although Derrick was terribly frightened by the explosion, and considerably bruised by the shower of rocks and coal that followed it, the car had so protected him that he was not seriously hurt. Had his mule started forward the heavily loaded car must have run over and killed him. Fortunately Harry was too experienced a miner to allow such a trifling thing as a blast to disturb his equanimity, especially as the two false starts already made had placed him at some little distance from it. To be sure, he had shaken his head at the flying bits of coal, and had even kicked out viciously at one large piece that fell near his heels. The iron-shod hoof had shattered the big lump, and sent its fragments flying over Derrick, but in the darkness and confusion the boy thought it was only part of the explosion, and was thankful that matters were no worse. As Derrick cleared himself from the mass of rubbish that had fallen on him, and staggered to his feet, he was nearly suffocated by the dense clouds of powder-smoke from the blast. He was also in utter darkness, both his lamp and that of Harry Mule having been blown out. In his inexperience he had not thought to provide matches before entering the mine, and now he found himself in a darkness more dense than any he had ever dreamed of, without any means of procuring a light. His heart grew heavy within him as he realized his situation, for he had no idea whether the miner who had played so cruel and dangerous a trick upon him would return or not. An impatient movement on the part of Harry Mule suggested a plan to him. Casting off the chain by which the mule was attached to the car, and holding the end in his hand, he said, "Go on, Harry, and take me out of this place." At this command the intelligent animal started off towards the junction as unhesitatingly as though surrounded by brightest daylight, and Derrick followed. They had not gone far before they met Monk Tooley, leisurely returning to the scene of his labors. "Hello! Mr. Mule-driver," he shouted, "what are you a-doing here in de dark, an' how do yer like mining far as ye've got? Been studying de effect of blarsts, and a-testing of 'em by pussunal experience?" Derrick felt a great lump rising in his throat, and bitter thoughts and words crowded each other closely in his mind. He knew, however, that the man before him was as greatly his superior in wordy strife as in bodily strength, so he simply said, "The next time you try to kill me you'd better take some surer means of doing it." "Kill you! Who says I wanted to kill you?" demanded the miner, fiercely, as he stopped and glared at the boy. "Didn't I holler to ye to run? Didn't I give yer fair warnin' that I was shootin' a blarst? Didn't I? Course I did and yer didn't pay no 'tention to it. Oh no, sonny! 'twon't do. Ye mustn't talk 'bout killin' down in dese workin's, cause 'twon't be 'lowed. Come back now, an' git my wagon. Here's a light for yer, but don't let me hear no more talk 'bout killin', or ye may have a chance to wish yer was dead long before yer really is." Derrick made no reply to this, but turning Harry Mule about, they went back after the car. He was convinced that this man was his bitter and unscrupulous enemy, and made up his mind that he must be constantly on his guard against him. He did not tell anybody of this startling incident of his first day's experience in the mine for a long time afterwards; as, upon thinking it over, he realized that the peril, which he had so happily escaped might readily be charged to his own carelessness. At lunch time he let Harry Mule make his own way back to the mine stable for oats and water. He had been told by the mine boss that the knowing animal would not only do this, but would afterwards return to his place of duty when started towards it by one of the stable-boys. While the mule was gone, his young driver went into the blacksmith's shop to eat his own lunch in company with Job Taskar, who had invited him to do so. Job questioned Derrick closely as to his acquaintance among the men and boys of the colliery, and asked particularly in regard to his likings or dislikings of the several overseers. "I hear thee's a great friend o' t' mine boss," said Job. "Not at all," answered Derrick. "Mr. Jones was a friend of my father's, but I hardly know him." "All says thee's boss's favorite." "I'm sure I don't know why they should. Of course it was good of him to give me a job; but he had to get somebody to drive the mule. It doesn't seem to me that I've got any easier place than anybody else." Here Derrick put one hand up to his badly aching head, which had been bruised by a flying chunk from Monk Tooley's blast. Noting the movement, Job asked what was the matter, for although he had heard about the blast from Monk Tooley, he wanted to learn what the boy thought of it. "I got hit by a falling chunk," replied Derrick, guardedly. "Humph!" growled Job; "better keep clear o' they chunks. One on 'em might hit ye once too often some time." Job held no more conversation with the boy, but lighted his pipe, and sat at one side of the forge, scowling and smoking. Derrick also kept silence, as he sat on the opposite side of the forge, rubbing his aching head with a grimy hand. While they sat thus, several miners dropped in for a smoke and a chat. They all looked curiously at Derrick, but none of them spoke to him. Thus neglected, he felt very unhappy and uncomfortable, and was glad when the jingling of Harry Mule's harness outside gave notice that it was again time to go to work. The rest of the day passed uneventfully and monotonously, for, with the exception of burly Tom Evert, who gave the lad a cheery word whenever he passed him, nobody spoke to him. Even Harry Mule seemed to realize that his young driver was not having a very pleasant time, and rubbed his nose sympathetically against his shoulder, as much as to say, "I'm sorry for you, and I'll stand by you even if nobody else does." At last, in some mysterious way, everybody seemed to know all at once, that it was time to quit work, and Harry Mule knew it as quickly as anybody. Before Derrick noticed that the miners had stopped work, this remarkable animal, having just been unhitched from a car, threw up his head, uttered a prolonged and ear-rasping bray, and started off on a brisk trot, with a tremendous clatter and jingling of chains, towards his stable. The door-boys heard him coming, opened their doors to let him pass, closed them after him, and started on a run for the foot of the slope. Of course Derrick followed his charge as fast as possible, calling, as he ran, "Whoa, Harry! Whoa! Stop that mule, he's running away!" Neither Harry nor anybody else paid the slightest attention to him, and when he finally reached the stable he found his mule already there, exchanging squeals and kicks with several other bumping-mules that had come in from other parts of the mine. Then he knew that it was really quitting-time, and went to work, as quickly as his inexperience would allow, to rub Harry down, water and feed him, and make him comfortable for the night. Everybody else who had stable-work to do finished it before he, and when at last he felt at liberty to leave the mine and start towards the upper world and the fresh air he longed so ardently to breathe again, he was alone. Derrick found his way without difficulty to the large chamber at the foot of the slope. There, as he did not see any cars ready to go up, he turned towards the travelling-road, with the intention of climbing the steep stairway he had descended that morning. Suddenly there arose cries of "There he is! There he is! Head him off!" Before the startled lad knew what was about to happen, he was surrounded by a score of sooty-faced boys. Cutting him off from the travelling-road, these boys pushed him, in spite of his opposition and protests, into a far corner of the chamber, where, with his back against the wall, he made a stand and demanded what they wanted of him. "A treat! a treat!" shouted several. Then room was made for one who seemed to exercise authority over them, and who, as he stepped forward, Derrick recognized with surprise as Bill Tooley, ex-mule driver, and now breaker boy. "What are you down here for, and what does all this mean, Bill?" asked Derrick, as calmly as he could. "It means," answered Bill, putting his disagreeable face very close to Derrick's, "dat yer've got ter pay fer comin' down inter de mine, an' fer takin' my mule, when I told yer not ter; dat's what it means. An' it means dat we're goin' ter initerate yer inter de order of 'Young Sleepers,' what every boy in de mine has got ter belong ter." Derrick had heard of this order of "Young Sleepers," and knew it to be composed of the very worst young rascals in the coal region. He knew that they were up to all kinds of wickedness, and that most of the petty crimes of the community were charged to them. In an instant he made up his mind that he would rather suffer almost anything than become a member of such a gang. While these thoughts were passing through his mind the cry of "A treat! a treat!" was again raised, and Bill Tooley again addressed Derrick, saying, "Ter pay yer way inter de mine, de fellers says yer must set up a kag er beer. Ter pay fer drivin' my mule, I say yer got ter take a lickin', an' after that we'll initerate yer." Now, both Derrick's father and mother had taught him to abhor liquor in every form; so to the boy's first proposition he promptly answered, "I haven't got any money, and couldn't afford to buy a keg of beer, even if I wanted to. I don't want to, because I'm a blue ribbon, and wouldn't buy even a glass of beer if I had all the money in the world. I won't join your society either, and I don't see how you can initiate me when I don't choose to become a member. As for a licking, it'll take more than you to give it to me, Bill Tooley!" With these bold words the young mule-driver made a spring at his chief tormenter, in a desperate effort to break through the surrounding group of boys. In the distance he saw the twinkling lights of some miners, and thought if he could only reach them they would afford him protection. Derrick's defiant speech for an instant paralyzed his hearers with its very boldness; but as he sprang at Bill Tooley they also made a rush at him with howls of anger. He succeeded in hitting their leader one staggering blow, but was quickly overpowered by numbers and flung to the ground, where the young savages beat and kicked him so cruelly that he thought they were about to kill him. He tried to scream for help, but could not utter a sound, and the miners who passed on their way to the slope thought the fracas was only a quarrel among some of the boys and paid no attention to it. At length Bill Tooley ordered the boys to cease from pummelling their victim, and stooping over him, tied a dirty cloth over his eyes; then he gave a whispered order, and several of the boys, lifting the helpless lad by his head and feet, bore him away. After carrying him what seemed to Derrick an interminable distance, and passing through a number of doors, as he could tell by hearing them loudly opened and closed, his bearers suddenly dropped him on the hard ground. Then Bill Tooley's voice said, "Yer'll lie dere now till yer make up yer mind ter jine de Young Sleepers. Den yer can come an' let me know, an' I'll attend ter yer initeration. Till then yer'll stay where yer are, if it's a thousand years; fer no one'll come a-nigh yer an' yer can't find de way out." While Bill was thus talking the other boys quietly slipped away. As he finished he also moved off, so softly that Derrick did not hear the sound of his retreating footsteps. It was not until some minutes had passed that he realized that he had been left, and was alone. Meantime those who had thus abandoned their victim to the horrors of black solitude, in what to him was an unknown part of the mine, were gathered together at no great distance from him. There they waited to gloat over the cries that they hoped he would utter as soon as he realized that he was abandoned. In this they were disappointed, for though they lingered half an hour not a sound did they hear; then two of the boldest among them decided to take a look at their prisoner. Shielding the single lamp that lighted their steps so that its rays should not be seen at any great distance, they crept cautiously to where they had left him. He was gone! This had not been expected, and with an ill-defined feeling of dread they hurried back to the others and made their report. "Oh, well, let him go!" exclaimed Bill Tooley, brutally. "'Twon't hurt him to spend a while in de gangway. Let's go up to supper, and afterwards come down an' hunt him." As none of them dared to object to any proposal made by the bully, the whole gang of begrimed and evil-minded young savages hurried to the foot of the slope. Here they tumbled into a car, and in a few minutes were drawn up to the surface, where they scattered towards their respective homes and waiting suppers. Paul Evert, who ever since work had ceased in the breaker, more than an hour before, had lingered near the mouth of the slope, waiting for the appearance of his friend, ventured to ask one of them if he had seen Derrick. "Don't know nothing about him," was the reply, as, greatly alarmed to find the lad whom he had helped to persecute already made an object of inquiry, the Young Sleeper hurried away. Bill Tooley had overheard Paul's question, and stepping up to him, he said, "Look a-here, young feller, yer ain't got no call as I knows on to be a meddling wid what goes on in de mine and don't concern you. I don't mind tellin' yer, though, that yer butty's doin' overwork, and mebbe won't come up all night. I heerd one of de bosses orderin' him to it." Although Paul thought this somewhat strange, he knew that the miners frequently stayed down to do overwork, and was much relieved at such a plausible explanation of his friend's non-appearance. On his way home he stopped to tell Mrs. Sterling what he had heard. He found her very anxious, and just about to go out and make inquiries concerning her boy. The information that Paul brought relieved her mind somewhat, and thanking him for it, she turned back into the house with a sigh, and gave little Helen her supper, at the same time setting aside a liberal portion for Derrick when he should come. Until nearly ten o'clock she waited, frequently going to the door to look and listen; then she could bear the suspense no longer. Throwing a shawl over her head, and bidding Helen remain where she was for a few minutes, the anxious mother started to go to the house of the mine boss to gain certain information of her boy. As she opened her own front door, something that she saw caused her to utter a cry and stand trembling on the threshold. CHAPTER VI THE SECRET MEETING--A PLUNGE DOWN AN AIR-SHAFT What Mrs. Sterling saw was her own son Derrick, who was just about to enter the house. As the light from behind her shone full upon him, he presented a sorry spectacle, and one well calculated to draw forth an exclamation from an anxious mother. Hatless and coatless, his face bruised, swollen, and so covered with blood and coal-dust that its features were almost unrecognizable, he could not well have presented a more striking contrast to the clean, cheerful lad whom she had sent down into the mine with a kiss and a blessing that very morning. "Why, Derrick!" she exclaimed, the moment she made sure that it was really he. "What has happened to you? has there been an accident? They said you were kept down for overwork. Tell me the worst at once, dear! Are you badly hurt?" "No, indeed, mother," answered the boy in as cheerful a tone as he could command. "I am not much hurt, only bruised and banged a little by a blast that I carelessly stayed too close to. A little hot water and soap will put me all right again after I've had some supper; but, if you love me, mother, give me something to eat quickly, for I'm most starved." By this time they were within the house, and as Mrs. Sterling hastened to make ready the supper she had saved for Derrick, he dropped into a chair utterly exhausted. He might well be exhausted, for what he had passed through and suffered since leaving home that morning could not have been borne by a boy of weaker constitution or less strength of will. He was greatly revived by two cups of strong tea and the food set before him. After satisfying his hunger he went to his own room, and took a bath in water as hot as he could bear it, and washed his cuts and bruises with white castile-soap, a piece of which Mrs. Sterling always managed to keep on hand for such emergencies. It was fortunate for her peace of mind that the fond mother did not see the cruel bruises that covered her boy's body from head to foot. The bath refreshed him so much, and so loosened the joints that were beginning to feel very stiff and painful, that Derrick believed he was able, before going to bed, to perform the one duty still remaining to be done. Mrs. Sterling thought he had gone to bed, and was greatly surprised to see him come from his room fully dressed. When he told her that he must go out again to deliver an important message to the mine boss, she begged him to wait until morning, or at least to let her carry it for him. Assuring her that it was absolutely necessary that he should deliver the message himself that very night, and saying that he would be back within an hour, Derrick kissed his mother and went out. On the street he met with but one person, a miner hurrying towards the slope, to whom he did not speak, and who he thought did not recognize him. Mr. Jones had closed his house for the night, and was about to retire, when he was startled by a knock at the outer door. Recent events had rendered him so suspicious and cautious that he stepped to his desk and took from it a revolver, which he held in his hand as he stood near the door, and without opening it, called out, "Who's there? and what do you want at this time of night?" As softly as he could, and yet make himself heard, Derrick answered, "It is I, sir, Derrick Sterling, and I have got something important to tell you." At this answer a man who had stolen up behind Derrick, unperceived by him in the darkness, slipped away with noiseless but hurried footsteps. "Is anybody with you?" demanded the mine boss, without opening the door. "No, sir; I am all alone." Then the door was cautiously opened, Derrick was bidden to step inside quickly, and it was immediately closed again and bolted. Leading the way into the library, the mine boss said, not unkindly, but somewhat impatiently, "Well, Sterling, what brings you here at this time of night? working boys should be in bed and asleep before this." While Derrick is explaining to the mine boss why he is not abed and asleep, and giving his reasons for disturbing him at that late hour, we will return to the mine, and see for ourselves what befell him there, after the events narrated in the last chapter. The Young Sleepers had left him blindfolded, alone, and in total darkness, lying on the floor of an unfamiliar gangway. The boy's first impulse, when he realized that his persecutors had departed and left him alone, was to tear the bandage from his eyes and fling it far from him. Of course this did not enable him to see anything, but he felt more free now that the cloth was removed, and was thankful they had not bound his wrists so that he could not have reached it. His next impulse was to shout for help, but an instant's reflection decided him not to do so. It was not at all probable that anybody except his tormentors would hear him, and they would only rejoice at this evidence of his distress. He knew that all his shoutings would not bring them to him until they were ready to come, and he felt that he had too little strength left to waste it thus uselessly. He could not bear to remain where he was without at least making an attempt to help himself; so he rose to his feet, and feeling his way very cautiously, began to walk along the gangway. Although he did not know it, he involuntarily turned in the opposite direction from the place where Bill Tooley and his companions were waiting and listening to hear from him. For some time Derrick expected to reach a door, behind which he should find a boy, or to meet a train of mule-cars, or a miner who would lead him to the foot of the slope. At length, however, when he had walked a long distance, and yet found none of these, his courage began to leave him and a wild terror to take its place. Suddenly, like a flash, it occurred to him that he had not struck any rails in walking, nor felt any indications of a car-track. Filled with a new dread, he stooped down, and with trembling hands felt every inch of the wet floor from one side of the gangway to the other. There was no sign of a track, and he knew, what he had already suspected, that it had been torn up, and that he was in an abandoned gangway, which another human being might not enter for years. This revelation of the full horror of his situation was too much for the overstrained nerves of the poor lad. He uttered a loud cry, which was echoed and re-echoed with startling distinctness through the silent, rock-walled gallery, flung himself on the wet floor, and burst into bitter sobbings. How long he lay there, in a sort of semi-stupor after this first outburst of his despair, he had no means of knowing, but he was finally roused into an attitude of eager attention by what sounded like a distant murmur of voices. He sat up, and then sprang to his feet, rubbing his eyes and staring in a bewildered manner into the darkness of the gangway ahead of him. Did he see a light only a few paces before him? It seemed so. Yet he was not sure, for it was not a direct ray, as from a lamp, but a sort of dim, flickering radiance that appeared to rise from the very floor almost at his feet. For several minutes Derrick stared at it incredulously, unable to fathom the mystery of its appearance. Was it a light produced by human agency, or was it one of those weird illuminations that sometimes arise from the dampness and foul air of old mines? He stepped towards it to satisfy himself of its true character, and as he did so was confronted by a danger so terrible that, although he had escaped it, his heart almost stopped beating as he realized its full extent. By the vague light proceeding from it he saw a pit-hole occupying the entire width of the gangway, and apparently of great depth. Around its edge had been built a barrier of logs breast-high. Through age these had so decayed and fallen that, had Derrick continued a few steps further on his way, instead of stopping to indulge his grief, he must have walked into the pit and fallen to the bottom. The sound of voices that he had heard came up through this opening, and he was just about to call for help, to whoever was down there, when his attention was arrested by one voice louder and harsher than the others. It sounded like that of Job Taskar, the blacksmith, and it said, as though in settlement of some dispute, "I don't care a rap who does it, or how it is done, Jones must be put out of the way somehow or other." Another voice, which was hardly audible, asked, "What about the kid?" To this came answer in a voice which there was no mistaking for other than Monk Tooley's, "De Young Sleepers is lookin' arter him. Dey're givin' him a big scare. Blinded him, and toted him back and for'ard, going in and out t'old gangway door between whiles to make him think he was a long ways off. Den dey left him just inside t'old gangway, nigh de slope. He thinks he's at de far end of nowhere by dis time. Dey'll soon drive him from de mine." "If they don't, others will," said Job Taskar's voice. "We don't want no boss's pets spying round this mine. Now, lads, we'll get out of this. Remember, next regular meeting's on the 27th. We'll fix then how all's to be done." There was a confused murmuring after this, but Derrick could make nothing out of it, and in a few minutes a strong draught of air sucked down the hole over which he hung, and the dim light disappeared. As it did so, the poor lad gave one wild cry for help. It only reached the ears of the last of those below as he was leaving the chamber in which they had held their meeting. To him it sounded so awful and supernatural that he was greatly frightened, and hurried on after the others, leaving the door open behind him, whereby the strong draught down the air-shaft was continued. For a few minutes Derrick thought he was indeed lost, and gave himself up to despair. Then he gradually recalled the words of Monk Tooley that referred to himself, and received a gleam of hope from them. If indeed he had been left just inside the door of an old gangway, near the foot of the slope, might he not find his way back to it and escape? He shuddered as he thought of the long walk through the awful darkness, but he was no better off where he was. So, with much thinking and hesitation, he finally started back on the road he had come, carefully feeling his way and making but slow progress. He thought he should never reach the end; but at last he came to a door, beyond which he heard the sound of human voices, and through the crevices of which air was rushing outward. Cautiously he pulled it open, fearing lest some of his late persecutors might be waiting to seize him. The way was clear, and though he saw several lights in the distance, none was near him. Gently closing the door, he darted towards the travelling-road down which he had come that morning, and entered it without having been observed. The climb up the gigantic stairway was a tedious one for the weary lad, and called for such frequent rests that it occupied him nearly an hour. When he finally reached the top he had barely strength enough left to drag himself home. This was the story that Derrick Sterling told the assistant superintendent in the library of the latter's house that night. Mr. Jones listened to it with the gravest and most earnest attention, only interrupting now and then to ask a question concerning some point that was not made quite clear, or to give utterance to an expression of sympathy as Derrick related some of his sufferings. The brave lad had not intended to say anything regarding his treatment by the Young Sleepers, but was obliged to do so in answer to questions as to how he happened to be left in the old gangway. When he had finished, the mine boss grasped him warmly by the hand, and said, "My boy, by this timely information, so miraculously obtained, you have doubtless given me a chance for my life which I should not otherwise have had. Your adventures have been most thrilling, and your deliverance wonderful. Now go home and to bed; you must not think of going to work again until I give you permission to do so." Once more Derrick found his mother anxiously awaiting his return. He told her that the mine boss had been very kind to him, and that as he was not going to work the next day she need not waken him in the morning. Then he threw himself, all dressed as he was, upon his bed, and while trying to relate to her some of the events of his first day in the mine, fell into a profound sleep. Meantime other events, equally thrilling with those just related, were taking place in the mine. Bill Tooley's brutal disposition was mainly the result of his home training and influences, for he could not remember having had a single gentle or kind word spoken to him in all his stormy life. In spite of it he was troubled with some prickings of conscience, and a sort of pity that evening, as he reflected upon the unhappy condition of the lad whom he had left to wander alone amid the awful blackness of the abandoned gangway. He had not intended to do anything so cruel as this when he first left Derrick where he did. He thought the boy would certainly cry out for help, and after allowing him to suffer thus for a short time he meant to go to him and offer to release him upon condition of his joining the Young Sleepers. This plan had been upset by Derrick's disappearance, and then it was more to assert his authority over his companions than with the idea of inflicting further cruelty upon their victim that he had ordered him to be left for a while. Now he began to feel anxious concerning the fate of the lad, and eager to effect his release. Feeling thus, as soon as he had finished an uncomfortable supper in his wretched home, filled with quarrelling children, and ruled by a slatternly, shrill-voiced mother, he hurried out to try and induce some of his companions to accompany him down into the mine in a search for Derrick. He had some difficulty in doing this, for the other boys were badly frightened by what had taken place, and dreaded to return into the mine. It was more than an hour after he started out before he had persuaded four of the boldest among them to join him in the proposed search. As this little party gathered at the mouth of the slope, and prepared to descend in a car that was about to start down with some timbers for props, a timid voice said, "Can't I go too, Bill? Please let me! I know you are going to look for Derrick. Please, Bill!" It was Paul Evert, who, with an undefined feeling of dread and fear for the safety of his friend, had hung on the outskirts of various groups of boys in the village street until from their conversations he had learned the whole story. With senses sharpened by anxiety and love, he had discovered that Bill Tooley and his companions were going in search of the missing lad. Now, with his father's mine cap bearing its tiny lamp on his head, he begged to be allowed to go with them. Bill hesitated for a moment, and then, for fear lest if he refused Paul would spread the story of what he had discovered, or perhaps, moved by some better feeling, he said, "Yes, pile in if yer want to, dough I don't see what good you can do." Overjoyed to receive this permission, Paul hastily scrambled into the car just as it began to move, and in a few minutes was landed with the rest at the foot of the slope. Some time before this Derrick had emerged from the old gangway, and turned into the travelling-road, up which he was now laboriously making his way. There did not happen to be an overseer at the bottom of the slope just then, and to the one or two men who observed them the presence of boys in the mine at all hours of the day and night was too common to attract comment; so the little party had no difficulty in entering the old gangway without being noticed or questioned. For some reason which he could not explain Paul had brought with him a new clothes-line, which he now carried, coiled and hung about his neck. Bill Tooley took the lead, and Paul, with the aid of his crutch, hobbled along close after him, while the others walked fearfully in a bunch at some little distance behind. They had not gone far when Bill stopped and picked up a piece of cloth from the ground. "Here's what was over his eyes," he said, "an' as it's a bit furder dan where we left 'im, it shows he's gone furder in." The boys gazed at the cloth in awe-struck silence, as though it were something to be dreaded; and, when Bill called out, "Come on, fellers, yer won't never find nothing a-standin' dere like a lot o' balky mules," they followed him even more reluctantly than before. Lighted by their lamps, they made far more rapid progress than poor Derrick had in the darkness, and soon approached the place where he had discovered the dim, reflected light above the mouth of the old air-shaft. Just here the oil in their leader's lamp began to give out, and its flame to burn with a waning and uncertain light. All at once a strong draught of air extinguished it entirely. He took a step forward in the darkness towards a log which he had barely seen, and thought might be Derrick Sterling lying down. Then came a terrible cry, and Paul's light showed nothing in front of him save the yawning mouth of the shaft down which Bill Tooley had pitched headlong! CHAPTER VII A CRIPPLE'S BRAVE DEED As Bill Tooley thus met the fate Derrick had so narrowly escaped, and the Young Sleepers who followed him were left without a leader, they were thrown into a sad state of confusion. Two of them started to run back, another threw himself on the floor and burst into loud lamentations, while the fourth stood motionless and silent from fear. Of them all, only Paul Evert, the crippled lad, retained his presence of mind. As upon all such occasions he who retains full command of his faculties and remains calm at once assumes the position of a leader, so it was now. In a voice that sounded loud and stern as compared with his ordinary gentle tone, Paul commanded the runaways to stop and return at once. They hesitated a moment and then obeyed him. He ordered the boy who lay upon the floor to cease his outcries and get up. Then the little fellow approached as close to the air-shaft as he dared, and lying down, with his head beyond its edge, he listened. In a moment he was rewarded for his pains, for he heard a faint moan. There came another more distinctly, and he knew that wherever Bill Tooley was he was still alive, and might possibly be saved. Taking the lamp from his cap, and the coil of line from about his neck, where it seemed to have been placed for this very emergency, he tied the one to an end of the other and gently lowered it into the shaft. Before doing this he ordered two of the boys to hold him tightly by the legs, and thus prevent him from slipping over the edge. Quieted, and with some of their courage restored by his coolness, they did as he directed, and held him with so firm a grip that for many days afterwards his legs bore black and blue imprints of their fingers. As the little lamp swung downward the draught of air caused it to flare and flicker as though it were about to be extinguished, but it was nearly full of oil, and the wick had just been pricked up, so it continued to burn and throw an uncertain light upon the glistening masses of coal that formed the sides of the shaft. It had not been lowered more than ten feet when its feeble rays disclosed a dark object, apparently suspended in mid-air, in the centre of the shaft. It was Bill Tooley, and Paul saw that by some means his downward plunge had been arrested, and that he was now clinging to an invisible support. Hastily pulling up the lamp, Paul replaced it on his cap, and doubling his line, made one end of it fast to an old timber prop or support of the gangway roof that stood a short distance from the shaft. Knotting the loose end about his body, and bidding the boys place one of the old logs close to the edge of the shaft and hold it there to prevent the rope from being chafed or cut, the brave little hump-backed lad, who, like most of those in his condition, was unusually strong in his arms, swung himself into the dark hole. Down he slid into the blackness, slowly and cautiously, until he came to the object of his search. It was Bill Tooley's limp body hanging across a stout timber brace, which, extending from side to side of the shaft and firmly bedded in its walls at each end, had been left there by the miners who cut this air-channel. As Paul's withered leg was of no assistance to him in clinging to the timber, he lashed himself securely to it before attempting to do anything for the boy who had so recently been his enemy and tormentor, and was now dependent upon his efforts for even a chance for life. Bill was not unconscious, though so weak from pain and fright as to be nearly helpless. Under the influence of Paul's cheering words, and after the line had been securely fastened about his body, he was induced to let go his desperate hold of the timber and grasp the rope. Then Paul called out to the boys above to pull up very slowly and carefully, as the least carelessness might result in dashing both Bill and him to the bottom of the shaft. Bill Tooley was a heavy weight for the frightened boys at the top to manage, and several times, even in the short distance of ten feet, his upward progress was arrested, and Paul feared that they were about to let him slip back. Obeying his instructions, two of the boys walked away with the rope, instead of trying to pull up hand-over-hand, while the other two held the log at the edge in place, and made ready to catch hold of Bill's arm as soon as he should come within reach. Finally his head appeared above the surface, and he was dragged, screaming with pain, over the edge, and laid groaning on the floor of the gangway. Then the rope was again lowered to the brave little fellow who was clinging in perfect darkness--for his light had at length blown out--to the timber brace in the shaft. He was drawn to the surface much more quickly and easily than Bill Tooley had been; but when he found himself once more in safety, a reaction from the nervous strain of the past half-hour set in. Throwing himself down beside Bill, he began to sob so violently as to greatly astonish the boys, who beheld but could not comprehend this weakness in one whose strong will had but a minute before so completely mastered theirs. In a few moments Paul recovered his composure sufficiently to ask two of the boys to go to the chamber at the foot of the slope and procure assistance to carry Bill Tooley, who was evidently unable to walk. After a long delay these two returned, in company with several miners, who brought a stretcher such as is often kept in coal mines in readiness for the accidents that are so common to them. From what the messenger boys had told them, these men knew most of the facts connected with the accident. They were so loud in their praise of Paul for his brave deed that he became greatly confused, though it must be confessed that praise from these great strong men, any one of whom would be proud to have done what he had, sounded very pleasantly to the crippled lad. In order to have a little time to think it all over, he hobbled on ahead of the others, who moved but slowly with their burden. When he was thus alone with his thoughts, Paul suddenly remembered the object for which he had entered the mine. It had been completely lost sight of in the excitement of the past hour, but now he realized that they had discovered nothing concerning Derrick's fate. He grew faint and cold at the remembrance of the air-shaft. Did his dear friend's body lie at the bottom of it? He trembled as he thought how very possibly this might be the case, and waiting for the men to overtake him, he asked if they knew anything of Derrick Sterling. "Yes," answered one of them, "I saw him come out of his mother's house as I was passing on my way to the slope, more'n half an hour ago." "Are you sure?" asked Paul, in great surprise. "Certainly I am. Why not? was there anything strange in that?" "Yes, we thought he was lost in the mine, and have been hunting for him." "Well, you were mistaken, that's all, and you've had your hunt for nothing." Paul was made very happy by this news, though it greatly puzzled him. The other boys were relieved to hear that Derrick was safe, but greatly alarmed as to what fate was in store for them as a punishment for the injuries they had inflicted upon him. Judging from what they would have done under similar circumstances, they did not doubt that Derrick had already spread the story of his wrongs through the village, together with the names of all those who had persecuted him. At length the party reached the foot of the slope, and Bill Tooley, with his head resting in Paul Evert's lap, and moaning with pain, was sent in an empty car to the surface. The bully had made himself so unpopular by his cruelty, and by his overbearing ways, that nobody except Paul felt very sorry for him. When it was learned that he had received his injuries in consequence of his persecution of Derrick Sterling, the general verdict was that he was rightly served. The injured boy was carried to his home, whither Paul accompanied him; but the latter was so frightened by the outcries of Mrs. Tooley when she learned what had happened that he hurried away without entering the house. On his way home he stopped at the Sterlings' to inquire if Derrick were really safe, and was much comforted to learn that he had just come in and gone to bed--"Where you should be yourself, Paul," said Mrs. Sterling, kindly, as she bade him good-night. As the tired but light-hearted boy hobbled into his own home, his father, who had sat up waiting for him, without knowing where he had been, roughly ordered him to bed, saying it was no time of night for lads like him to be prowling about the street. The sensitive little fellow went up-stairs without a word, all his light-heartedness dispelled by this harsh reception, and the tears starting to his eyes. His back ached so from his unwonted exertions that even after he got to bed he tossed and tumbled feverishly for several hours before falling into a troubled sleep. Tom Evert left his house earlier than usual the next morning, and went to the mouth of the slope, where he found a number of his friends assembled. They began to congratulate him, and continued to do so until in great bewilderment he exclaimed, "What's it for, mates? Is it a joke?" "For thy son, man." "For my son? which of 'em?" "Thy crippled lad, Paul, of course. Is the man daft?" "No; but I think ye must be, to be running on in such a fashion about a lad that's not only a wellnigh helpless cripple, but I'm afeared is going bad ways. 'Twas nearer midnight nor sundown before he came in frae t' street last night, and I sent him to bed wi' a flea in his ear." A perfect roar of laughter greeted this speech. "Wellnigh helpless, is he?" cried one. "Well, if he's helpless I'd like to know what you'd name helpful?" "Going to the bad, is he?" "Out late o' nights! That's a good one." "An' yez sint him to bed wid a flea in his ear, an' him just afther doin' the dade should mak' ye the proudest fayther in de place! Did iver I moind de likes of that?" These and many similar expressions greeted the ear of the astonished miner, and from them he began to comprehend that his son Paul had done something wonderful, and had thereby become a famous character in the village. At length, after much effort, for they would not believe but that he knew the whole story, he learned of his boy's brave deed of the night before. Instead of going down the slope the miner hurried home, where he found Paul, looking very pale and languid, just sitting down to his breakfast. Picking up the frail boy, and holding him in his strong arms as he used to when he was a baby, the delighted father exclaimed, "Paul, lad, forgie me this time, and I'll never speak thee rough again. Thee's made me, I think, the proudest man in the state this day. Crippled and all, thee's proved thyself worth a score of straight lads, and to thy fayther thee's worth all the lads in the world. Mither, our Paul's done that any man in t' mine might be proud of, an' he's the talk of the colliery." Thus was Paul more than repaid for all his suffering of the night before, and as he hobbled to his work in the new breaker that morning he was once more happy and light-hearted. The evening before, Job Taskar had called Monk Tooley from his house, and as they walked away together he said, in a low but significant tone, "That Sterling lad's not down in the mine, Monk." "He must be dere, fer de Sleepers left him where he'd be safe, an' I know he's not come up de slope since." "He's not there, I tell you; for I just now saw him going into Jones's house, and heard him say he had something important to tell him." "If yer saw him and heerd him of course he must be up; but I don't see how he did it. If he's told de boss anything it must be a blab on de Sleepers, fer he can't know anything else." "Whatever it is, he's dangerous to have round, and we must look out for him." "All right! just leave him to me. I'll have de Sleepers fix him. Dey'll do anything my boy Bill tells 'em; he's got 'em under his thumb." "Look sharp about it, then." "Ay, ay, mate, I'll give Bill de word to-night soon as he comes in." Then the two separated, and Monk Tooley went home, thinking over a plan by which the Young Sleepers, under his son Bill's direction, could effectually drive Derrick Sterling from the mine. As he opened his own door he called out in his loud, rough voice, "Bill come in yet?" Stepping into the front room, he stood still in amazement. The wife of a neighbor was holding up a warning finger towards him, and saying, "Sh--h!" His own wife and two other women were bending over a bed in one corner, and the children, whom he had never before known to be quiet when awake, were standing or sitting silently in various frightened attitudes about the room. "Who is it?" he asked, hoarsely, with an attempt at a whisper. "It's Bill," answered one of the women. "He's badly hurted, falling down a shaft in the mine, and is like to die. They say Paul the cripple saved him." "Bill! my Bill! You're lying!" cried the miner, fiercely. "Bill came out of de mine wid de day shift. I seen him." Rough and cruel as he was, the man had, hidden somewhere in his being, a deep-seated affection for his son Bill. Although he had never been heard to speak other than harshly to him, Bill was the pride and joy of his hard life. A blow aimed at Bill struck him with redoubled force. His hatred of Derrick Sterling arose from the fact that the lad had thrashed his boy. Now to tell him that his boy Bill was so badly hurt that he was likely to die was like wrenching from him all that he held worth living for. The women made way for the rough miner as he strode to where his son lay on a heap of soiled bedclothing, tossing and moaning, but unconscious, and in a high fever. One look was enough, and then Monk Tooley left the house, and set forth on a ten-mile walk through the night to fetch the nearest doctor. By sunrise the doctor had come and gone again, having done what he could. He said the boy would live if he were kept quiet and had careful nursing, but that he was injured in such a way that he might be lame for the rest of his life. When Monk Tooley went down into the mine that day--for he must now work harder and more steadily than ever to support this added burden--he was a silent, heart-broken man. It was nearly noon before Derrick Sterling awoke after his first day of bitter experience in the mine. Though he was still sore and lame, hot water and sleep, two of nature's most powerful remedies in cases of his kind, had worked such wonders for him that he felt quite ready to enter the mine again, and face whatever new trials it might have in store for him. After dinner the mine boss came to see him, and was amazed to find him looking so well and cheerful. "You seem to come up smiling after every knock down, Derrick," he said. "I shouldn't wonder if you would even be ready to go down into the mine again to-morrow." "Indeed I think I must, sir," said Derrick, earnestly. "I don't believe any one else can get along with Harry Mule as well as I can." "Let me see. How many years have you been driving him?" asked Mr. Jones, gravely. "Only one day, sir," replied Derrick laughing, "but I think he's very fond of me, and I know I am of him." "All right; if you insist upon it, you shall go down again to-morrow to your bumping-mule. Now I want to talk to you seriously." The conversation that followed was long and earnest, and it was ended by Mr. Jones saying, just before he left, "I must manage somehow or other to be there on the 27th, and I want you to go with me, for I don't know anybody else whom I dare trust. It only remains for us to discover a way." CHAPTER VIII DERRICK STERLING'S SPLENDID REVENGE The new breaker, in which Paul Evert now worked as a slate-picker, was in general appearance very much like the old one, but its interior arrangement was different, and of such a nature as to make life much easier for those who worked in it. The greatest improvement was the introduction of a set of machines called "jigs." The coal from the mine, after being drawn to the very top of the breaker, first passed between great spiked rollers, or "crushers;" then through a series of "screens," provided with holes of different sizes, that separated it into several grades of egg, stove, nut, pea, buckwheat, etc. From the screens it was led into the jigs. These are perforated iron cylinders set in tubs of water, and fitted with movable iron bottoms placed at a slight angle. A small steam-engine attached to each machine raises and lowers or "jigs" this iron bottom a few inches each way very rapidly. The contents of the cylinders are thus constantly shaken in water, and as the slate is heavier than the coal, most of it settles to the bottom, and is carried off through a waste chute. The wet coal runs out through other chutes placed a little higher than that for slate, and extending down through the length of the breaker to the storage bins at its bottom. Along these chutes in the new breaker, as in the old one, sat rows of boys picking out the bits of slate that had escaped the jigs, and among them was Paul Evert. When Derrick Sterling entered the new breaker on the afternoon of the day following that which had brought such memorable adventures, he was surprised at the comparative absence of coal-dust. It still rose in clouds from the crushers and screens, but there was none above the chutes. He understood the theory of jigs, but had never seen them at work, and now he was so greatly interested in watching them as almost to forget the errand on which he had come. It was only when Mr. Guffy spoke to him that he thought of it, and handed the breaker boss the note he had come to give him. "All right," said the boss reading it. "I'm sorry to lose him, for he is a quiet, steady lad, and, could in time be made very useful as a picker. I doubt, though, if his back would hold out long at the work. Yes, you may take him along now if you want to." Stepping over to where his friend sat, Derrick said, "Come, Paul, you're not to work any more to-day; I want to have a talk with you outside." When they had left the breaker, Derrick said, "How would you like to go down into the mine, Paul, and be a door-tender, very near where I work, and get twice as much money as you can make in the breaker?" "Of course I should like it," answered Paul, gravely; "but I don't think they want a cripple like me down there." "Yes, they do want just exactly such a fellow as you are; they found out last night what you could do in a mine. Mr. Jones says that if you want to you can go down with me to-morrow morning, and begin at once without waiting for the end of the month. You are to go with me to the store this evening for your mine cap, lamp, and boots. See, here's the order for them." Paul stared at the order for a moment as though he could not believe it was real. Then exclaiming, "Oh goody, Derrick! I'm so glad to get out of that hateful, back-aching breaker," he gave a funny little twirl of his body around his crutch, which was his way of expressing great joy. Derrick shared this joy equally with Paul, and to see them one would have supposed they had just come into fortunes at least. To a stranger such rejoicings over an offer of monotonous work down in the blackness of a coal mine would have seemed absurd, but if he had ever been a breaker boy he could have fully sympathized with them. The two boys were standing beside the check-board, near the mouth of the slope, and after their rejoicings had somewhat subsided Derrick said, "Let's see who's sent up the most to-day." The check-board was something like the small black-board that hangs behind the teacher's desk in a school-room. It was provided with several rows of pegs, on which hung a number of wooden tags. Each of these tags, or checks, had cut into it the initials or private mark of the miner to whom it belonged. When a miner working in the underground breasts or chambers filled a car with coal and started it on its way to the slope, he hung on it one of his checks. When the same car reached the top of the slope the "check boss" stationed there took the check from it and hung it in its proper place on the check-board. At the end of working-hours the number of checks thus hung up for each miner was counted, and the same number of car-loads of coal credited to him. Acting on Derrick's suggestion, the boys turned to the check-board, and quickly saw that there were more checks marked M. T. than anything else. "Why, Monk Tooley has got the most by three loads!" exclaimed Derrick, counting them. "He must have worked all through lunch-hour, and like a mule at that. I wonder what's got into him?" "Perhaps he's trying to make up for what Bill won't earn now," suggested Paul, quietly. "That's so," said Derrick. "I never thought of that, Polly; and I haven't thanked you yet for going down into the mine to look for me last night, or told you what a splendid fellow I think you are." "Please don't, Derrick," interrupted Paul, with a troubled expression; "you mustn't thank me for anything I tried to do for you. Don't I owe you more than anything I can ever do will pay for? Didn't you bring me out of the burning breaker? and don't I love you more than most anybody on earth?" "Well, you're a plucky fellow anyway," said Derrick, "and I'd rather have you down in the mine if there was any trouble than half of the men who are there. Let's stop and see how Bill Tooley's getting along on our way home." "All right," assented Paul; "only if his mother's there I shall be almost afraid to go in." As the boys walked away from the vicinity of the check-board, a man who had come up the slope but a few minutes before, and had been watching them unobserved, stepped up to it. He was Job Taskar the blacksmith, known to the men who met in the chamber at the bottom of the air-shaft, in the old workings, as Body-master of Raven Brook. The check boss had asked him to stop there a minute, and look out for any cars that might come up, while he stepped inside the breaker. Casting a hurried glance around to see that no one was looking, Job Taskar slipped three of Monk Tooley's checks from their peg, thrust them into his pocket, altered the chalked figure above the peg, and resumed his place. When Derrick and Paul reached the Tooleys' house it seemed to them even more noisy than usual. Several women sat gossiping with Mrs. Tooley in the door-way, while a dozen children and several dogs ran screaming or barking and quarrelling in and out of the room where the sick boy lay. They asked his mother how he was, and what the doctor had said of his condition. "Ye can go in and see for yourselves how he is," was the reply, "there's naught to hinder. Doctor said he was to be kept perfectly quiet and have nussin', but how he's going to get either with them brats rampaging and howling, and me the only one to look after them, is more than I know." Accepting this invitation, the boys stepped inside, and picking their way among the children and dogs to the untidy bed on which Bill lay, spoke to him and asked him if there was anything they could do for him. He was conscious, though very weak and in great pain, and on opening his eyes he whispered, "Water." For more than an hour he had longed for it, until his parched tongue was ready to cleave to the roof of his mouth, but nobody had come near him, and he could not make himself heard above the noise of the children. Taking the tin dipper that lay on a chair beside the bed Derrick went out to the hydrant to fill it with the cool mountain water that flowed there. Paul drew a tattered window-shade so that the hot western sun should not shine full in the sick boy's face, loosened his shirt at the neck, smoothed back the matted hair from his forehead, and with a threatening shake of his crutch, drove a howling dog and several screaming children from the room. These little attentions soothed the sufferer, and he looked up gratefully and wonderingly at Paul. When Derrick returned with the water he lifted his head, and stretched out his hand eagerly for it. At that moment Mrs. Tooley came bustling to the bedside to see what the boys were doing. Catching sight of the dipper she snatched it from Derrick's hand, crying out that it would kill the boy to give him cold water, "and him ragin' wid a fever." This so frightened the boys that they hurriedly took their departure, and poor Bill cast such a wistful, despairing glance after them as they left the house that their hearts were filled with pity for him. At the supper-table that evening Derrick asked: "Does it hurt people who have a fever to give them water, mother?" "No, dear; I do not think it does. My experience teaches me to give feverish patients all the cooling drinks they want." Then Derrick told her what he had seen and learned of Bill Tooley's condition that afternoon. He so excited her pity by his description of the dirt, noise, and neglect from which the sick lad was suffering that she finally exclaimed, "Poor fellow! I wish we had room to take care of him here!" "Do you, mother, really? I wanted to ask you, but was almost afraid to, if he couldn't come here and have my room till he gets well. You see he's always treated Polly worse than he has me, and yet Polly risked his life for him. It isn't anywhere near so much to do as that, of course; but I'd like to give up my room to him, and nurse him when I was home, if you could look after him a little when I wasn't. I can sleep on the floor close to the bed, and be ready to wait on him nights. You know I always liked the floor better than a bed, anyway, and I believe he'll die if he stays where he is." They knew each other so well, this mother and son, that a question of this kind was easily settled between them. Though both fully realized what a task they were undertaking, it was decided that if his parents would consent Bill Tooley should be brought to their house to be nursed. When Monk Tooley came up from the mine that evening and examined the check-board to see how the numbers to his credit compared with the tally he had kept, he became very angry, and accused the check boss of cheating him. The latter said he knew nothing about it. There were the checks to speak for themselves. He had hung each one on the peg as it came up. "Den dey've been stolen!" exclaimed the angry man, "an' if I catch him as done it, I'll make him smart for it, dat's all." The check boss tried to show him how perfectly useless it would be for anybody to steal another's checks. "You know yourself it wouldn't do him any good, Tooley," he said. "He couldn't claim anything on 'em, or make any kind of a raise on 'em; besides I've been right here every minute of the day, barrin' a couple when I ran inside the breaker on an errand. Then I left Job Taskar, as honest a man as there is in the colliery, to keep watch, and he said nothing passed while I was gone." "Well," answered Monk Tooley, "I'm cheated outer three loads, and you know what dat is ter a man what's worked overtime ter make 'em, an' has sickness and doctor's bills at home. But I'll catch de thief yet, an' when I do he'll wish he'd never know'd what a check was." As he was walking down the street after supper, smoking a pipe and thinking of his sick boy, who seemed to have grown worse since morning, and of his lost checks, Monk Tooley was accosted by Derrick Sterling, who said, "Good-evening, Mr. Tooley. How's Bill this evening?" "None de better fer your askin'," was the surly answer, for the man felt very bitter against Derrick, to whom he attributed all his son's trouble. "I'm sorry to hear that he isn't any better," continued the boy, determined not to be easily rebuffed. "Well, I'm glad yer sorry, an' wish yer was sorrier." This did not seem to promise a very pleasant conversation, but Derrick persevered, saying, "It must be very hard for Mrs. Tooley to keep so many children quiet, and I believe the doctor said Bill must not be troubled by noise, didn't he?" "Yes, an' if ye'd muzzle yer own mouth de whole place would be quieter." "My mother wanted me to say to you that if you'd like to send Bill over to our house for a few days, it's so quiet over there that she thought it would do him good, and she'd be very glad to have him," said Derrick, plunging boldly into the business he had undertaken to manage. "Tell yer mother ter mind her own brats an' leave me ter mind mine, den de road'll be wide enough for de both of us," was the ungracious answer made by the surly miner to this offer, as he turned away and left Derrick standing angry and mortified behind him. "That comes of trying to do unto others as you would have others do unto you," he muttered to himself. "Seems to me the best way is to do unto others as they do unto you, and then nobody can complain. I declare if I had as ugly a temper as that man has I'd go and drown myself. I don't believe he's got one spark of human feeling in him." Monk Tooley was not quite so bad as Derrick thought him, but just at that time everything seemed to go wrong with him, and he was like some savage animal suffering from a pain for which it can find no relief. He began to repent of his ugliness to Derrick almost as soon as the latter had left him, saying to himself, "Maybe de lad meant kindly arter all." Going back to his untidy, noisy home, he entered the house, and standing by his son's bedside gazed curiously at him. The boy was evidently growing worse each minute, as even the unpractised eye of the miner could see. He was tossing in a high fever, calling constantly for the water which in her ignorance his mother would not give him, nor did he appear to recognize any of those who stood near. "I fear me his time's come," said one of the neighbor women, several of whom, attracted by curiosity, came and went in and out of the house. Although the remark was not intended for his ears, Monk Tooley heard it, and apparently it brought him to a sudden determination. Without a word he left the house and walked directly to that of the Sterlings. Entering the open door-way without the ceremony of knocking, which was little practised in that colliery village, he found the family gathered in their tiny sitting-room, Derrick poring intently over a plan of the old workings of the mine, Helen reading, and their mother sewing. Bowing awkwardly to Mrs. Sterling, he said, "Derrick tells me, missus, dat you're willin' to take my poor lad in and nuss him a bit. His own mither has no knowledge of de trade, an' he's just dyin' over yon. If yer mean it, and will do fer him, yer'll never want for a man to lift a hand fer you and yours as long as Monk Tooley is widin call." "I do mean it, Mr. Tooley, and if you can only get him here, I'll gladly do what I can for him," said Mrs. Sterling. "I'll bring him, mum, I'll go fer him now;" and Monk Tooley, with another awkward pull at the brim of his hat, left the house. In five minutes he was back, accompanied by another miner, and between them they bore a mattress on which lay the sick boy. He was undressed, bathed, and placed in Derrick's cool, clean bed. Within an hour cooling drinks and outward applications had so reduced the fever and quieted him that he had fallen into a deep sleep. Within the same time all the village knew, and wondered over the knowledge, that Monk Tooley's sick lad was being cared for in the house of the widow Sterling. CHAPTER IX SOCRATES, THE WISE MINE RAT When Derrick and Paul found themselves descending the slope, together with a carful of miners, the next morning, it seemed to them a long time since they had traversed its black depths. So accustomed do the toilers of the colliery become to exciting incidents that elsewhere would furnish subject for weeks of thought and conversation, that often a single day suffices to divert their attention to something new. So it was with our two boys, in whose minds their recent adventures were already shorn of their terrors, and only thought of as something unpleasant, to be forgotten as quickly as possible. Therefore they did not speak of them as they talked together in low tones, but only of the present and the future. "I think it's awful good of you and your mother to take Bill Tooley into your own house and nurse him," said Paul. "Oh no," laughed Derrick, "it isn't so very good. Revenge is what we are after, and that is one way of getting it." Hearing Bill Tooley's name mentioned between the boys, one of the miners who rode in the car with them had leaned forward to learn what they were saying. At Derrick's last remark this man started back and gazed at him curiously. "He's got the very stuff in him to make a Mollie of," he thought. "To think he's so sly. He's got the fellow he hates into his own house, pretending that he wants to nurse him, and now he's going to take out his revenge on him. Perhaps he's going to poison him, or fix pins in the bed so they'll stick him. Anyway, I'll have to give Monk the hint of what he's up to." Then, admiringly, and half aloud, he muttered, still looking at Derrick, "The young villain!" From the foot of the slope Derrick set off for the stable to get Harry Mule, while Paul waited for the making up of a train of empty cars, in which he was to ride to the junction near the blacksmith's shop. There Derrick was to meet him, take him to his post of duty, and tell him about opening and closing the door, and tending the switch of which he was to have charge. In spite of the fact that he and Derrick had been friends but a single day, Harry Mule appeared to recognize his young driver, and gave him a cordial greeting as he entered the stable. At least he threw up his head and uttered a tremendous bray, which went "Haw! he-haw, he-haw, he-haw!" and sounded so absurdly like a laugh that Derrick laughed from sympathy until the tears ran down his cheeks. The mule gazed at him with a look of wonder in his big eyes, and stood so meek and quiet while his harness was being put on that Derrick thought perhaps his feelings had been hurt. To soothe them he talked to him, and told him that Paul had come down into the mine to work. As they left the stable, and Derrick stopped to fasten the door, Harry started in the opposite direction from that in which he should have gone, and ran down the gangway, kicking up his heels and braying, as though he were a frisky young colt in a pasture instead of an old bumping-mule down in a coal-mine. Derrick ran after him, and for some time could see the reflection of the collar-lamp, which was swung violently to and fro by the animal's rapid motion. The disappearance of this light in the distance was followed by an angry shouting and a muffled crash. Derrick was provoked that his mule should have made all this trouble, and was anxious to discover the full extent of the mischief done, but he could not help laughing when he reached the scene of confusion. The first object he saw was Harry himself, standing still and gazing demurely at him with the wondering look which was his most common expression. He was hitched in front of a string of mules which were attached to a train of empty cars, and was evidently prepared to act as their leader. The boy driver of these mules, with many muttered exclamations, was trying to disentangle their harness from the snarl it had got into, and in one of the cars stood Paul Evert, looking somewhat dilapidated and greatly disgusted. "Hullo, Derrick!" he called out. "Where did that mule come from?" "Why, that's Harry, my bumping-mule," answered Derrick as he came up laughing. "Bumping-mule! I should think he was," said Paul. "He made these cars stop so quick that I was almost bumped out of 'em, and the skin's all knocked off my nose. I don't see what he wanted to come bumping along this way for." "Why, I told him you were coming," said Derrick, "and I suppose he wanted to welcome you to the mine." "Well, I'm sorry you told him, and--" Just then the driver shouted "Gee up!" and Harry Mule, anxious to do his duty in his new position, started ahead so briskly as to pull the other three mules promptly into line and give a violent jerk to the cars. Losing his balance with this unexpected motion, Paul sat suddenly down in the bottom of the car he was in, and there he wisely decided to remain. When they reached the junction, Derrick asked Paul to wait for him until he and Harry Mule had distributed the empty cars to their several destinations. Attracted by its cheerful light, Paul stepped inside the blacksmith's shop, where Job Taskar, who was hammering away as busily as usual, glanced up as he entered, but paid no further attention to him. A minute later the smith, who had just begun his day's work, and still wore his coat, pulled it off and flung it to one side. Something dropped from one of its pockets unnoticed by him as he did so, and Paul was on the point of calling his attention to it. He did not, however, because the smith's helper, a slim, dreary-looking young man, to whom nobody ever paid much attention, also noticed the falling object, and picked it up without being seen by Job. Gazing at it curiously for a moment, he restored it, as Paul thought, to the pocket from which it had fallen. In reality, he slipped it into a pocket of his own coat which lay under that of his boss. Derrick now came back, and with him Paul went to the door that he was to tend. Just inside of it, on a platform laid above the ditch of black, rapidly flowing water, stood a rude arm-chair made out of rough boards. Above it hung a board full of holes into which several pegs were thrust. Derrick told Paul that with these pegs he must keep tally of the number of loaded cars that passed this station, and that he must always be ready to answer promptly the call of "Door." Within reach from the chair was a lever by means of which the switch was moved. Paul was told that after each door call there would come another explaining on which track the approaching cars were to go, and that he must listen carefully for it and set the switch accordingly. After showing him the large oil-can from which he might refill his lamp, Derrick bade him good-by and returned to his own work. This morning passed much more pleasantly to the young mule-driver than the first one had. Not only did Tom Evert greet him cordially, and thank him for what he had done for Paul, but Monk Tooley gave him a gruff "Mornin', lad," and most of the other men spoke pleasantly to him, as though to atone in a measure for his previous suffering. Above all, he occasionally had to pass Paul's station, and the mere sight of his faithful friend leaning on his crutch and holding open the door was a source of joy. As Paul had much spare time on his hands, he occupied it in becoming acquainted with his surroundings, and was especially interested in the curious markings on the black slate walls of the gangway near his door. Many of these were in the form of exquisite ferns, others of curious leaves such as he had never seen, quaint patterns like the scales and bones of queer fishes, or the ripplings of water on a smooth beach. In one place he found tiny tracks, as though a small bird had run quickly across it, and had stamped the imprint of its feet on the hard surface. It was Paul's first lesson in geology, and it gave him his first idea that this hard slate, and the veins of coal enclosed between its solid walls, might have had a previous existence in another form. He pondered upon the length of time that must have passed since those ferns grew, and since that running bird made those footprints, and finally concluded to ask Derrick if he knew. At noon, after Harry Mule had been sent jingling to his stable, Derrick rejoined his friend, and they ate lunch together. As they talked of the strange markings on the walls, and Derrick confessed that he knew no more concerning their age than Paul, the latter suddenly paused, and with a slight gesture directed attention to something in the roadway. Looking in the direction indicated, Derrick saw, sitting bolt-upright on its hind-legs, and gazing steadily at them, an immense rat. He was quite gray, and evidently very old; nor did he seem to be in the least bit afraid of them. "Doesn't he look wise?" whispered Paul. "As wise as Socrates," answered Derrick. Not having had Derrick's education, Paul did not know who Socrates was, but the name pleased him, and he said it over softly to himself--"Socrates, Soc, Socrates. That's what I'm going to call him, Derrick--'Socrates.' I've seen him round here two or three times this morning, and every time he's sat up just like that, and looked as if he knew all that I was thinking about. I believe he could tell how old the ferns are." "I don't believe they're as old as he is," replied Derrick, laughing. The rat did not seem to like this, for at Derrick's laughter he gave a little squeak and darted away, disappearing beneath the door. Within five minutes Paul pointed again, and there sat the rat in precisely the same position as before. "Perhaps this is what he wants," said Paul, throwing a bit of bread towards the rat. Approaching it cautiously, the beast first smelled of it, and then seizing it in his mouth again darted beneath the door. Several times did he thus come for food, but he always carried it away without stopping to eat even a crumb. "He must have a large and hungry family," said Derrick. "Or else it isn't his dinner-hour yet, and he is waiting for the proper time to eat," laughed Paul. Always after this Socrates the rat was a regular attendant upon the boys at lunch-time, and he never failed to receive a share of whatever they had to eat. Often at other times, when no sound save the steady gurgle of the black water beneath him broke the tomb-like silence of the gangway, Paul would see the little beady eyes flashing here and there in the dim lamplight, and would feel a sense of companionship very comforting to his loneliness. At such times Paul would talk to the rat about the queer pictures on the walls, and ask him questions concerning them. For hours he talked thus to his wise-looking companion, until he began to believe that the rat understood him, and could really answer if he chose. Sometimes when he was asked a question he could not answer, he would reply, "I don't know, but I'll speak to Socrates about it"; and at the first opportunity he would explain the whole difficulty to his gray-whiskered friend. Frequently, by thus thinking and talking the matter over, he would arrive at some conclusion, more or less correct, and this he would report as "What Socrates thinks." At noon that day Monk Tooley, as usual, ate his lunch and smoked his pipe with Job Taskar in the blacksmith's shop; but he was very quiet, and not inclined to be talkative as was his habit. When he left, the blacksmith's helper slipped out after him, and saying, "'Ere's summut I think belongs to you, Mr. Tooley," handed him three bits of wood, on each of which was deeply scored M. T. "My lost checks!" exclaimed the miner. "Where'd yer get 'em, Boodle?" "They dropped out hof Taskar's pocket when 'e flung hoff 'is coat this mornin', and hi picked 'em hup unbeknownst to 'im." "So he's de one as stole 'em, is he?" began the miner in a passion. Then, changing his tone, he added, "But never mind, Boodle; of course he only took 'em for de joke, and we'll say no more about it. Yer needn't mention havin' found 'em." "Hall right, Mr. Tooley, hit shall be has you says," replied the helper, meekly, though he was really greatly disappointed at this turn of affairs. He disliked as much as he feared his boss, and had hoped that this little incident might lead to a quarrel between him and the miner whose lost property he had just restored. Monk Tooley went back to his work muttering to himself, "All dis means summut; but we'll just lie low a bit, and mebbe Body-master an me'll have a score ter settle yet." The Young Sleepers had been so badly demoralized by the incidents following their attempt to extract a treat from Derrick, and especially by the mishap of their leader, that they had not the courage to repeat the experiment. Derrick and Paul therefore left the mine that evening without being molested. They took pains, however, not to be very far behind two brawny pillars of strength in the shape of Tom Evert and Monk Tooley when they reached the foot of the slope. Before going home Monk Tooley walked with Derrick to the Widow Sterling's, to inquire after his boy, and was much pleased to learn that he was getting along nicely. "It lightens my heart ter hear yer say dat, missus," he said to Mrs. Sterling, "an' it's not one woman in ten thousand would do what yer doin' fer my poor lad." "Derrick proposed it," said Mrs. Sterling, with a mother's anxiety that her son should receive all the credit due him. "Without his help I'm afraid I should not have been able to invite Bill to come here." "He's a fine lad, missus," replied the miner, "an' if de time ever comes dat I can serve you or him, my name's not Monk Tooley if I don't jump at de chance." After sitting a while with Bill, and doing what lay in his power to make him comfortable, Derrick again got out his father's plans of the old workings of the mine, and pored over them intently. Finally he exclaimed, "It's all right; I am sure of it!" "What are you so sure of, my son?" asked his mother, looking up from her work. "Something I have been trying to find out for Mr. Jones, mother, but he does not want a word said about it; so I must keep the secret to myself, at any rate until after I have seen him." "Seems to me that you and Mr. Jones have a great many secrets together. You really are becoming quite an important young man, Derrick." Although Derrick only smiled in reply, he thought to himself that his mother was about right, and hoped others would take the same view of his importance that she did. Selecting some tracing-paper from among the things left by his father, the boy made a tracing from the plan he had been studying. He followed all the lines of the original carefully, except in one place where the plan was so indistinct that he could not tell exactly where they were intended to go. Being in a hurry, and feeling confident that they should be continued in a certain direction, he drew them so without verifying his conclusions. When he had finished he left the house, and went directly to that of the mine boss, taking the tracings he had just made with him. CHAPTER X IN THE OLD WORKINGS--MISLED BY AN ALTERED LINE Mr. Jones was expecting Derrick that evening, and was waiting somewhat impatiently for him. When the boy at last arrived he was taken into the library, where, as soon as the door was closed, the mine boss asked: "Well, Derrick, have you heard anything more about the meeting?" "Not a word, sir." "To-morrow is the 27th, you know." "Yes, sir, I know it is." "And my fate, and perhaps yours too, may be decided within twenty-four hours from now." At this Derrick started; he had not realized that he was in any particular danger. "Do you think, sir, they would pay any attention to a boy like me?" he asked. "I certainly do," replied the mine boss. "They would pay attention to anybody or anything that stood in their way, or seemed likely to interfere with their plans. I am afraid, from what Job Taskar said the other day, that they consider your presence in the mine as dangerous to them. I am sorry that my liking for you, and efforts to promote your interests, should have placed you in such an unpleasant position. If you like I will try and get you a place as errand boy in the main office of the company, where you will be in no danger." "Oh, no, sir!" exclaimed Derrick. "Please don't think of such a thing. I'd rather take my chances with the Mollies in the mine than go into an office. There I should never be anything but a clerk; while here I may some day become an engineer, as my father was. Don't you think I may, sir?" "Yes," answered the other, smiling at the boy's earnestness, "I think any boy of ordinary intelligence and blessed with good health can in time occupy any position he chooses, if he directs his whole energy in that direction, and makes up his mind that no obstacle shall turn him from it." "I have made a beginning, sir," said Derrick, much encouraged by these words from one who was so greatly his superior in age, knowledge, and position, and whose opinion he valued so highly. "Have you?" asked the mine boss, with a kindly interest. "In what way?" "I am studying my father's books, and trying to work out problems from some old plans I found among his papers. One of them is a plan of the very oldest workings of this mine, and I have brought a tracing of a part of it to show you." "Very good," said Mr. Jones, glancing at the tracing carelessly. "I have no doubt that in time you will become a famous engineer." Although this was spoken kindly enough, it was evident that the speaker's thoughts were far away, probably trying to devise some means for being present at the approaching meeting in the mine. Noting this, Derrick said, "I did not bring the tracing just to show what sort of work I could do, sir, but because I think it will lead us to where we can hear what they say at that meeting." Instantly the mine boss exhibited a new interest. "Explain it," he said. Then Derrick told him of the old drift-mouth he had discovered, and said he felt confident that if they followed the gangway leading in from it they would reach the top of the old air-shaft into which Bill Tooley had fallen, and up which had come the voices of the Mollies at their previous meeting. "If we could get there by this back way it would be capital!" exclaimed the mine boss. "In that case my presence in the mine would be unknown and unsuspected; whereas, if we should go in as you did, from the other end of the old gangway, we could hardly escape discovery. If that route proves practicable a great load is lifted from my mind; for, somehow or other, I must find out what these Mollies are up to. You are of course sure of the correctness of the plans?" "My father drew them," answered Derrick. "I was not questioning your father's accuracy; I only wanted to know if this tracing was an exact copy of the original." "Yes, sir, it is," answered Derrick, though with a slight hesitation in his voice as he thought of the one place he had not been quite sure of. This was where the plan had been somewhat blotted and blurred, so that he could not see whether or not two lines joined each other. Having made up his mind that they ought to be joined, he had thus drawn them on his tracing. It was such a small thing that he did not consider it worth mentioning. Thus, without meaning to make a false statement, he said that his tracing was an exact copy of the original, and by so doing prepared the way for the serious consequence that followed. Derrick was a fine, manly fellow, and was possessed of noble traits of character, but like many another boy he was inclined to be conceited, and to imagine that he knew as much if not a little more than his elders. Nor was he backward in parading his knowledge, or even of allowing it to appear greater than it really was. In the present instance he was proud of the confidence reposed in him by the mine boss, and of the skill with which he had prepared the plan of operations they were now discussing. It really seemed to him that he was about to become the leader in a very difficult enterprise in which the other was to be a follower. The mine boss, with a quick penetration of human character, gained by years of study and experience, suspected something of this weakness on Derrick's part, but did not consider that either the proper time or opportunity had yet come for warning him against it. So Derrick's plan was discussed in all its details, and before they separated that night it was adopted. In order that the mistake made by Derrick in his slight alteration of the plan of the old workings, as shown in his tracing, may be understood, a few words of explanation are necessary. The old drift-mouth, that he had discovered almost hidden beneath a tangle of vines and bushes, was on a mountain side above a deep valley. Farther down was the mouth of a second drift, which he had not discovered, and knew nothing of. On the opposite side of the mountain was another valley, the bottom of which was on about the same level as the higher of these drifts. The old workings ran from them through the mountain, and under this valley in which the present colliery was located. When the gangway from the upper of the two drifts had been opened as far as the valley, the vein that it followed took a sudden dip. The gangway was in consequence changed into a slope, which finally led into the workings beneath. Some time after they had been abandoned a great "break" or cave-in of the ground above there had occurred at the edge of the valley, and by it an opening was made into the lower set of workings. It was on the opposite side of the valley from this break that the new workings were now being pushed; and somewhere between it and them was the old air-shaft and the chamber that the Mollies had selected as their place of secret meeting. Now Derrick had got hold of a plan of the lower set of these old workings which he knew nothing of, and thought it was a plan of the upper set, which in reality only extended to the edge of the valley. He knew that the upper drift-mouth was on about the same level as the top of the old air-shaft, and thought he had a plan showing that the two were connected. He reasoned that by entering the old gangway at the break, and following it under the valley, they would not only save distance, but would be conducted directly to the top of the air-shaft which they wished to reach. By the joining of those two lines at the blurred place on the plan it was made to conform so perfectly to this theory that he felt satisfied his conclusions were correct, and consequently made his confident statements to Mr. Jones. The latter had been connected with the Raven Brook Colliery but a few months, and knew nothing of its old and abandoned workings, not yet having found time to study their plans or explore them. He did know, however, that Mr. Sterling had been one of the company's most trusted engineers, and that Derrick had long been interested in poring over and tracing his father's plans of these very workings. When, therefore, he had carefully examined the tracing that the boy had made, and now assured him was an exact copy of the original plan, and found that it showed a system of galleries by which the top of the air-shaft might be gained from the break, he had no hesitation in saying that they would make the attempt to reach it from that direction. Had he sent for the original plan he would have quickly discovered Derrick's error. He thought of doing this, but did not, for fear of wounding the lad's feelings by appearing to mistrust him. It was arranged between them that Mr. Jones should leave the village on the afternoon of the 27th, as though bound on some distant expedition, and have it understood that he might possibly be absent all night. An hour before sundown he was to be at the break, prepared to explore the old gangway to which it gave entrance. Here Derrick was to meet him, after having left the mine an hour earlier than usual, gone home for supper, and told his mother that he should be out late on some business for the mine boss. This plan was successfully followed, without suspicion being aroused, and the young mine boss met his boy companion at the appointed time and place. They both had safety-lamps, and each carried a small can of oil, for they did not know how long they might have to remain in the mine. In the break they found a rickety ladder that had been placed there for the use of the village children, who were accustomed to come here with baskets, and in a small way mine coal for home use from the sides of the old gangway. Descending this, they lighted their lamps at the bottom, and entering the black opening began to follow the path marked out on Derrick's tracing. For some distance the way was comparatively smooth, and they made rapid progress. Then they began to encounter various obstacles. Here a mass of rock had fallen from the roof, and they must clamber over it. In another place a quantity of waste material had so dammed a ditch that for nearly a quarter of a mile the gangway was flooded with cold, black water, through which they had to wade. It was above their knees, and, filling their rubber boots, made them so heavy as to greatly impede their progress. In several places where the old timber props had rotted out, such masses of rubbish choked the gangway that they were compelled to crawl on their hands and knees for long distances through the low spaces that were still left. Once they were on the point of turning back, but animated by the importance of their errand they kept on, cheering each other with the thought that they would not be obliged to come back this same way in order to leave the mine. During the earlier portion of the journey, as they encountered these obstacles, the mine boss urged, almost commanded, Derrick to go back and leave him to continue the undertaking alone. In spite of some faults the lad was no coward, and he begged so earnestly to be allowed to keep on that the other consented, on condition that no greater danger presented itself. At length they had overcome so many difficulties that the road behind them fairly bristled with dangers, and the young man felt it would be an act of cruelty to send the boy back to encounter them alone. Now and then, as they crawled over piles of fallen debris, and there was but little space between them and the roof, the flames within their safety-lamps burned faint and blue, and they breathed with great difficulty. The mine boss knew they were passing through spaces filled with the deadly "fire-damp," and he urged Derrick to make all possible haste towards more open places where they could keep below its influence. They passed through a door in a fair state of preservation, but fairly covered with the pure white fungus growth of glistening frost-like sprays, which in the mine are called "water crystals." Everywhere were the signs of long neglect and decay, and unenlivened by the cheering sounds of human toil the place was weird and awful. The very drippings from the roof fell with an uncanny splash that struck a chill into Derrick's heart. Long before they reached the end of their journey he regretted having planned and proposed it; but he bravely kept his fears and regrets to himself, and plodded sturdily on behind his companion. As for the latter, his thoughts were also of a most dismal character. He realized even more fully than Derrick the dangerous position in which they had placed themselves, and felt that his experience should have warned him against such an undertaking. Meantime those who were to meet in the old chamber at the bottom of the air-shaft were already gathered together, and were earnestly discussing the affairs of their order. Job Taskar, as presiding officer, made a long speech. In it he denounced the mine boss for discharging several of their members, and refusing to take them back, though petitioned to do so by a large number of those who remained at work. He also charged him with placing a spy in the mine in the person of Derrick Sterling, and of having removed the son of one of their most prominent members to make room for him. At this point he looked steadily at Monk Tooley. "Don't yer say nothin' agin Derrick Sterling," growled that miner, "fer I won't hear ter it. He's doin' fer my lad this minute what dere isn't anoder man in de meetin' er in Raven Brook Colliery, nor I don't believe in de State, would ha' done in his place." "Do yer know what he's doing it for?" interrupted another member, springing to his feet. "No, yer don't, an' yer can't make a guess at it; but I can tell yer. It's for revenge, an' nothing else. I heerd him say it his own self to Paul the cripple, coming down the slope, only yesterday morning. 'I'm taking out my revenge on him,' says he; them's his very words." "All right," replied Monk Tooley, "if yer heerd him say it, den he's doin' it fer revenge, and it's de biggest kind of revenge I ever knowed of a man or a boy ter take out on anoder. Do yer know dat he's give up his own bed ter my Bill, an' dat he sets up nights awaitin' on him an' a-nussin' of him? No, yer don't know nothin' about it, an' I don't want ter hear anoder word from yer agin him. I'm his friend, I am." An awkward silence followed this announcement, for the members thought that perhaps if Monk Tooley were Derrick Sterling's friend, he might also be a friend of the mine boss, whom they had almost decided should be put out of the way. The silence was finally broken by Job Taskar, who asked sarcastically if Monk Tooley knew who stole his three checks from the check-board two days before. "Yes, I do," answered the miner, promptly. "Then you know it was this same sneaking boss's pet, Derrick Sterling." "No, I don't." "I tell you I saw him do it!" cried Job, in a rage. "Him and the hunchback went up to the board together, and when the boss stepped away, so they thought nobody wasn't looking, the pet slipped 'em into his pocket. I saw it with my own eyes." "An' I tell yer yer lie!" shouted Monk Tooley. "Here's de checks, an' dey come outen yer own pocket, yer black-hearted old scoundrel!" At these astounding words Job Taskar sprang towards Monk Tooley with clinched fists, as though to strike him, and all present watched for the encounter in breathless suspense. Just then the door behind them was pushed open, and standing on its threshold they saw the mine boss and Derrick Sterling. CHAPTER XI A FATAL EXPLOSION OF FIRE-DAMP At this startling apparition of the last two persons in the world whom they would have expected to see in that place, the assembled miners remained for some moments motionless with astonishment. Having stationed a trusty sentinel at the end of the gangway nearest the new workings, who was to give them instant warning of the approach of any outsider, they imagined themselves perfectly safe from interruption. They had not considered the possibility of an approach from the rear through the abandoned workings, for they were generally believed to be impassable owing to deadly gases and the quantity of material that had fallen in them. Thus the unannounced appearance of the very persons whose fate they had just been discussing seemed almost supernatural, and a feeling of dread pervaded the assembly. On the other hand, Mr. Jones and his companion were equally, if not more greatly, dismayed. Having approached the door during a momentary silence among the miners, they had not been warned by any sound of what they should find beyond it. Thinking that they were upon an upper level, and separated from their enemies by many feet of solid rock, they suddenly found themselves in their very midst. At the first view of what was disclosed by the opening door, Derrick uttered a little frightened cry, and involuntarily drew back as though about to run away. It was only a momentary impulse. In an instant his courage returned, the hot blood surged into his face, and stepping boldly forward he stood beside the mine boss, determined to share whatever fate was in store for him. Among the Mollies the first to recover from his stupefaction was Job Taskar, who crying "Here they are, lads! Now we've got 'em!" made a spring at the mine boss, with clinched fist still uplifted, as it had been to strike Monk Tooley. The black muzzle of a revolver promptly presented to his face by the steady hand of the young man caused him to stagger back with a snarl of baffled rage. Taking a couple of steps forward, which motion Derrick followed, and standing in full view of all the Mollies, with the revolver still held in his hand where it could be plainly seen, the mine boss said: "My men, I want you to excuse this interruption to your meeting, and listen to me for a few minutes. I think I know why you are thus assembled in secret. It is to decide upon some means of getting rid of me and of my young friend Derrick Sterling. You have been taught by this man that we are your enemies, and are working against your interests. Let me give you a few facts that will serve to show who are your real enemies, and who are your true friends. "Job Taskar is, I believe, your Body-master and leader. He had told you that this lad is a spy, sent into the mine to discover your secrets and work against you. He hates Derrick Sterling. Why? "A few years ago Job Taskar was blacksmith to a distant colliery in another district. This lad's father was engineer in the same mine. Taskar was paid by the men for sharpening their tools, so much for each one. They were compelled to go to him by the rules of the colliery. He so destroyed the temper of the drills and other tools brought to him as to make them require sharpening much oftener than they would if he had done his work honestly. He was thus stealing much of the miners' hard-earned wages. Mr. Sterling found this out, procured Taskar's discharge from the works, and had an honest man put in his place. When the same gentleman found the same dishonest blacksmith working in this mine he warned him that if he caught him at any of his old tricks he would have him discharged from here. Now Taskar hates that engineer's son, and wants to have him put out of the way. Do you wonder at it? "He wants me removed for a much more simple reason. It is that he would like to be mine boss in my place. This would so increase his influence in your society that he might in time be made a county delegate, and live without further labor upon money extorted from hard-working miners." At this point the members glanced uneasily at each other. They were amazed at the knowledge showed by the mine boss of their affairs. "Now, my men, a few more words and I am through," continued the speaker. "In regard to those of your number whom I discharged, and refused to take back, although petitioned to do so, you know who they are, and I needn't mention names. I will only say that they were detected in an attempt to injure the pumps and destroy the fans. Had they succeeded the colliery would have been closed, and all hands thrown out of work for an indefinite length of time. You would have been in danger from fire-damp and water. Probably some lives would have been lost. They were unscrupulous men, and had they succeeded in their villainy you would have been the greatest sufferers. "As for you, sir," he said, sternly, turning to Job Taskar, "I have long had my eye on you, and have come to the conclusion that this mine and all employed in it would be better off if you should leave it. I therefore take this opportunity to discharge you from this company's service. If after to-night you ever enter this mine again it will be at your peril." The man was too thoroughly cowed by the boldness of this proceeding to utter a word, and when the young mine boss, saying "Come, Derrick," and "Good-evening, men," suddenly stepped outside the door and closed it, he stood for an instant motionless. Then with a howl of "Stop 'em! Don't let 'em escape!" he tore open the door and sprang into the gangway beyond. It was silent and dark, not even a glimmer of light betraying the presence or existence of those who had but that moment left the chamber. For a brief space the man stood bewildered, and then began to run towards the door that opened into the new workings. Several of the miners followed him until they came to where their sentinel stood. He, watchful and on the alert, as he had been ever since they left him there, was greatly surprised at their haste and the impatient demands made of him as to why he had allowed two persons to pass. Of course he stoutly denied having done so, and declared he had seen no living being since taking his station at that place. "Then they're back in the old workings, lads, and we'll have 'em yet," cried Job Taskar. "They can't get out, for the gangway's choked beyond. They must have been hid yonder near the place of meeting since lunch-time, waiting for us, and they're hid now, waiting till we leave, so's they can sneak out. But they can't fool us any more, an' we'll get 'em this time." With this the man, fuming with rage and disappointed hate, turned and retraced his steps up the gangway, followed by four of his companions. The rest of the Mollies, feeling that no more business would be transacted that evening, and having no inclination to join in the human hunt, dispersed to different parts of the new workings, or went up the slopes to the surface. Monk Tooley stayed behind, not for the purpose of joining in the pursuit of the mine boss and his companion, but with a vague idea of protecting Derrick from harm in case they should be caught. Led by Job Taskar, the four Mollies eagerly and carefully explored every foot of the gangway, and even climbed up into several worked-out breasts at its side, thinking the fugitives might be hidden in them. After surmounting several minor obstacles, they finally came to one that was much more serious. It was a mass of fallen debris that filled the gangway to within a couple of feet of its roof, and extended for a long distance. Thinking that perhaps it completely choked the passage a few yards farther on, and that he might now find those whom he sought in hiding, like foxes run to earth, Taskar eagerly scrambled up over the loose rocks and chunks of coal, reaching the top while his followers were still at some distance behind. [Illustration: SUDDENLY THERE CAME A BLINDING FLASH, A ROAR AS OF A CANNON] Suddenly there came a blinding flash, a roar as of a cannon discharged in that confined space, a furious rush of air that extinguished every light and shrouded the gangway in a profound darkness, and the rattling crash of falling rocks and broken timbers. The Mollies who followed Job were hurled, stunned and bleeding, to the floor of the gangway. Even Monk Tooley, who was at a considerable distance behind them, was thrown violently against one of the side walls. As for Job Taskar, he lay dead on the heap of debris over which he had been climbing when the uncovered flame of his lamp ignited the terrible fire-damp that hung close under the roof. He was burned almost beyond recognition, and the clothes were torn from his body. Among the fragments of these afterwards picked up was found a portion of a letter which read: "_It will be impossible to obtain the position until_ _position must be supported by a number of votes wh_ _when you become mine boss._ "_You know as well as anybody that a county delega_ When the battered and bruised miners had recovered their senses, relighted their lamps, and ascertained the fate of their leader, they were content to drag themselves out from the gangway without pursuing any further the search in which they had been engaged. Fortunately for them the quantity of gas exploded had been small, else they might have been instantly killed, or the gangway so shattered as to completely bar their way of escape, and hold them buried alive between its black walls. As it was, it brought down a great mass of debris on top of that already fallen, and so choked the passage beyond where Job Taskar's body lay that it was effectually closed. Although Derrick and the mine boss were far in advance of their pursuers, and had already passed most of the obstacles to their rapid progress, they were very sensible of the shock of the explosion when it occurred. The rush of air that immediately followed was strong enough to extinguish their safety-lamps, and cause them to stagger, but it did them no injury. When these two had so suddenly stepped from the presence of the Mollies, and slammed the door in their faces, they had instantly extinguished their lamps, and started on a run back through the gangway by which they had come. Of course, in the utter darkness, they could not run fast nor far, but they were well beyond the circle of light from Job Taskar's lamp when he sprang out after them, and that was all they wanted. When they saw the little cluster of flickering lights borne by the Mollies disappear in the opposite direction from that they were taking, they felt greatly relieved, and a few minutes later ventured to relight their own lamps and continue their retreat. "Looks as if we'd got to go out the way we came in, after all, doesn't it, sir?" said Derrick, who was the first to speak. "It does rather look that way," answered the mine boss, "but I'd rather risk it, under the circumstances, than face those fellows just now. They have had a chance to recover from their surprise at our appearance, and some of them are as mad as hornets to think they let us go. A moment's hesitation when we opened that door and found ourselves among them would probably have cost us our lives. Our very boldness was all that saved us. A danger boldly faced is robbed of half its terrors. "By-the-way, Derrick, our coming on those fellows as we did was a most remarkable thing. I thought your tracing was leading us to the top of the air-shaft instead of to the chamber at its bottom. We must be on a lower level than we thought. How do you account for it? Can you have made a mistake in regard to the plans?" Derrick's heart sank within him as he remembered the weak spot in his tracing; but he answered, "I don't think so, sir; though it does look as if something was wrong." Here conversation was interrupted by the difficulties of the road, for they had reached the mass of fallen debris that blocked Job Taskar's way a little later. As they crawled on hands and knees over the obstruction, the mine boss said, hoarsely, and with great difficulty, "Hurry, boy! there's gas enough here to kill us if we breathe it many minutes. If we had naked lights instead of safeties we'd be blown into eternity." After they had safely passed this danger he said, "I hope with all my heart that those fellows won't come that way looking for us; there's sure to be an explosion if they do. I don't believe they will, though," he added, after a moment's reflection; "they're too old hands to expose themselves needlessly to the fire-damp." They had again waded through the icy water, which the mine boss said he must have drawn off before it increased so as to be dangerous, and were well along towards the opening into the break, when the muffled sound of the explosion reached their ears. "There's trouble back there!" exclaimed Mr. Jones, as he relighted their lamps, which the rush of air had extinguished, "and I'm afraid that somebody has got hurt. You go on out, Derrick, and I'll go back and see. No, I won't, either. I can get there as quickly, and do more good, by going round outside and down the slope. Come, let us run." In a few minutes they had reached the bottom of the break, climbed the rickety ladder, and once more they stood in safety beneath the starlit sky of the outer world. "Eight o'clock," said Mr. Jones, looking at his watch. "We've been in there three hours, Derrick, and seen some pretty lively times. What I can't understand, though, is how we got in on that lower level. Never mind now; we must run, for I'm anxious about that explosion." The news of the disaster in the mine had already reached the surface, but nobody knew exactly how or where it had taken place. A crowd of people, including many women and children, was rapidly gathering about the mouth of the slope, anxious to learn tidings of those dear to them who were down in the mine with the night shift. The voice of the mine boss calling out that the explosion had occurred in an abandoned gangway, and that nobody who was in the new workings was hurt, gave the first intimation of his presence among them. His words carried comfort to the hearts of many who heard them, but filled with dismay the minds of those who had seen him but a short time before at the underground meeting. They had thought he must surely be still in the mine, and could in no way account for his presence, for they knew positively that he had not come up by the slope or the travelling-road. While the mine boss was speaking, Derrick felt a hand on his shoulder, and turning, he saw Paul Evert, who exclaimed, joyfully, "Oh, Derrick, I'm so glad! I was afraid you were down in the mine, and I was going to help hunt for you." "No, Polly, I'm all right, as you can see; but I wish you'd run home and tell mother I am--will you?" Paul went willingly to do this, and Derrick prepared to follow the mine boss once more into the underground depths, to render what assistance he could. They were about to step into an empty car and start down the slope, when the signal was given from below to pull up a loaded car, and they waited to see what it might contain. As it came slowly to the surface, and within the light of their lamps, they saw in it Monk Tooley and four other miners, who, battered and bruised, had evidently suffered from the explosion. When the first of these was helped carefully from the car, and his glance fell upon the mine boss, with Derrick Sterling standing beside him, a look of fear came into his face, he uttered a loud cry, staggered back, and would have fallen had not Monk Tooley caught him. CHAPTER XII THE MINE BOSS IN A DILEMMA The companions of the Mollie who exhibited such consternation at the sight of the mine boss were almost as frightened as he to see those for whom they had been so recently searching through the old workings, and who they thought must surely have been killed by the explosion, standing before them. They shrunk back as the young man stepped towards them; but reassured by his cheery words, they allowed him to help them from the car, and were almost ready to believe that it was not he, but some other who had confronted them so boldly at the meeting. He could not have been kinder to them if they had been his dear friends; and from that hour they ranked among his firmest supporters and adherents in the colliery. Derrick caught hold of Monk Tooley, and insisted upon taking him, as he said, to see Bill, and show him that he was all right. In reality he wanted to give the man a chance to rest, and recover somewhat from his recent trying experience, before meeting with his wife and children. Bill Tooley, under kind care, amid quiet and pleasant surroundings, and aided by his own strong constitution, was in a fair way to recover his health and strength. The fever had left him, and he was able to sit up for a few minutes at a time. The only serious trouble seemed to be with his right leg. It gave him great pain, and was threatened with a permanent lameness. He already seemed a different boy from what he had been, and would hardly be recognized for the bully of a short time before. He gave way to occasional outbursts of impatient anger, but these were always quieted by the gentle presence and soothing words of either Mrs. Sterling or little Helen; and in his rough way he would express sorrow for them by saying, "Don't yer mind me, mum; I don' mean nothin'; only dis ere blessed leg gits de best of me sometimes." Or to Helen, "Don't yer be afeared, sissy; I know I talks awful ugly; but I ain't. It's only de pain of de leg breakin' out in bad words." The meeting between father and son that night, when Derrick persuaded Monk Tooley to go home with him, was curious to witness. Bill was as fond of his father, in his way, as the latter was of him, and had been very anxious when he knew he was in the mine at the time of the explosion. Both were much affected when Monk stepped to his son's bedside; but they had no words to express their feelings. The father said, "Well, lad, how goes it?" Bill answered, "Middlin', feyther. I heerd yer got blowed up." "Well, yer see I didn't. Job Taskar's killed, though." "Better him nor anoder." "Yes. Yer want ter be gittin' outen dis, son. Times is hard, an' idlin's expensive." "All right, feyther; I'll soon be in de breaker agin." This was all; but the two were assured of each other's safety and well-being, and for them that was enough. Monk Tooley accepted a cup of tea from Mrs. Sterling, and departed with a very warm feeling in his heart towards those who were doing so much for his boy. His wife and the neighbor women, who as usual were gathered in her house, were loud in their exclamations of pleasure and wonder at seeing him safe home again from "the blowing up of the mine," but he gruffly bade them "be quiet, and not be making all that gabble about a trifle." The mine boss took an early opportunity to examine the plans of the old workings, and soon discovered the slight difference between them and Derrick's tracing that they had followed in their recent expedition. Summoning the boy, he pointed it out, and asked him whether he had made a mistake in copying the plan, or had purposely made the alteration that had led to such serious consequences. Derrick confessed that he had added a little to one line of the plan, because he thought the line was intended to go that way, and when he drew it so it seemed to make everything come out all right. "Well," said Mr. Jones, "the result shows that instead of making everything come out all right, you made it come all wrong. Now, Derrick, I want this to be a lesson that you will remember all your life. By making that one little bit of a change in a single line you placed yourself and me in great peril. In consequence of the situation to which it led one man has lost his life, and several others came very near doing so. You thought you knew better than your father who drew that plan, and in your ignorance undertook to improve upon his work. "I won't say that good may not come out of all this, for I believe that with the loss of their leader the society of Mollies is broken up, in this colliery at least, for some time to come, but that does not make your fault any the less. "Remember, my boy," he added, somewhat more gently, as he saw great tears rolling down the lad's cheeks, "that the little things of this life lead to and make up its great events, and it is only by paying the closest attention to them that we can ever hope to achieve good results." This was all that was ever said to Derrick upon this subject, but it was enough, and he will never forget it. When he left the presence of the mine boss he was overwhelmed with shame, and was angry to think that what he considered so trifling a thing as to be unworthy of mention should be treated so seriously. For an hour he walked alone through the woods back of the village, and gave himself up to bitter thoughts. Gradually he began to realize that every word the mine boss had said was true, and to see what he had done in its proper light. He thought of all the kindness Mr. Jones had shown him, and the confidence reposed in him. Finally he broke out with, "I have been a conceited fool, and now I know it. If I ever catch Derrick Sterling getting into a scrape of this kind again for want of paying attention to little things, or by thinking he knows more than anybody else, he'll hear from me, that's all." This was only a vague threat, but it meant a great deal, and from that day to this neither of these failings has been noticed in the young miner, even by those most intimately acquainted with him. Nearly two weeks after this, upon returning home one evening from his day's work in the mine, Derrick found a message from Mr. Jones awaiting him. It asked him to call that evening, as the mine boss wished to see and consult him upon business of importance. Mrs. Sterling was greatly pleased at this, for it showed that her boy still enjoyed the confidence of the man who had it in his power to do so much for him, and that his favor was not withdrawn in consequence of the recent affair of the tracing. Derrick had told his mother the whole story, without making any effort to shield himself from blame; and though she had trembled at the resulting consequences of his fault, and the knowledge of how much worse they might have been, she had rejoiced at the manner in which he accepted its lesson. She had only feared that Mr. Jones, upon whom so much depended, would never trust her boy again, or take him into his confidence as he had done. Derrick was made equally happy by the message; for since the day on which the mine boss had pointed out the weak spot in his character, and delivered his little lecture on the wickedness of neglecting details, he had held no conversation with him. He made haste to finish his supper, wondering all the while, with his mother and Bill Tooley, who was now able to sit at the table with them, what the business could be. "There's some ladies over there," said little Helen; "they came to-day, and I saw them." "Where?" asked Derrick. "At Mr. Jones's." Now as the young mine boss was a bachelor, and lived alone, with the exception of an old negro servant, this was startling information, and her hearers thought Helen must have made some mistake. However, on the chance that she might be right, Derrick was more particular than usual in getting rid of every particle of grime and coal-dust, and dressed himself in his best clothes. These, though much worn, nearly outgrown, and even mended in several places, were scrupulously neat, and made him appear the young gentleman he really was. Although Derrick had been away to boarding-school, and was very differently brought up from the other boys of the village, he was not at all accustomed to society, especially that of ladies, and he felt extremely diffident at the prospect of meeting these strangers, if indeed Helen's report were true. As he approached the house of the mine boss he saw that it was more brilliantly lighted than usual, and just as he reached the door a shadow, apparently that of a young girl, moved across one of the white window-shades. Instead of ringing the bell the boy walked rapidly on, with a quickly beating heart, for some distance past the house. "Supposing it should be a girl," he thought to himself, "I should never dare say anything to her, and she'd find it out in a minute; then she'd make fun of me. I wish I knew whether I was going to see them, or see Mr. Jones alone. I hope he won't make me go in and be introduced." Undoubtedly Derrick was bashful, and while he had apparently been brave in the burning breaker, and in various trying situations, was only a coward after all. Again he approached the house, and again he walked hurriedly past it. As he turned and walked towards it for the third time somebody came rapidly from the opposite direction, and stopped at the very door he was afraid to enter. They reached it at the same moment, and the somebody recognizing him, said heartily, "Ah, Derrick, is that you? I'm glad I got back in time. I was unexpectedly detained by business, and feared you might get here before me. Walk in." There was no help for it now. Wishing with all his heart that he were safely at home, or down in the mine, or anywhere but where he was, and trembling with nervousness, Derrick found himself a moment later inside the house, and--alone with Mr. Jones in the library. "Sit down, Derrick," said the latter, as he stood in front of the fireplace. "I have sent for you to ask you to help me out of a sort of a scrape." So he was not to be asked to meet strange ladies or girls after all, and his fears were groundless. What a goose he had been! Why should he be afraid of a girl anyhow? she wouldn't bite him. These and other similar thoughts flashed through Derrick's mind as he tried to listen to Mr. Jones, and to overcome a feeling of disappointment that in spite of his efforts presently filled his mind. "It is this," continued the mine boss. "For some time past my only sister, Mrs. Halford, who lives in Philadelphia, has been threatening to bring her daughter Nellie on a trip through the Lehigh Valley into the coal region to see me, and be taken down into a mine. They arrived unexpectedly this afternoon, and have got to return home the day after to-morrow; so to-morrow is the only opportunity they will have for visiting the mine. Of course I had made arrangements to take them around, and show them everything there is to be seen; but now I find I can't do it. Two hours ago I received a telegram telling me that an important case, in which I am the principal witness, is to be tried in Mauch Chunk to-morrow, and I must be there without fail. Now I want you to take my place, act as guide to the ladies, and show them all the sights of interest about the colliery, both above-ground and in the mine. Will you do this for me?" Derrick hesitated, blushed, stammered, turned first hot and then cold, until Mr. Jones, who was watching him with an air of surprise and amusement, laughed outright. "What is the matter?" he asked at length. "Ain't I offering you a pleasanter job than that of driving a bumping-mule all day?" "No, sir--I mean yes, sir; of course I will, sir," said Derrick, finally recovering his voice. "Only don't you think one of the older men--" "Oh, nonsense! You're old enough, and know the colliery well enough. I don't want them taken through the old workings," added Mr. Jones, with a twinkle in his eyes. "If you did, sir, I believe I could guide them as well as anybody!" exclaimed Derrick, with all his self-possession restored, together with a touch of his old self-conceit. "I haven't a doubt of it," answered the other. "Now, if it's all settled that you are to act as their escort to-morrow, step into the parlor and let me introduce you to the ladies." With this he threw open the door connecting the two rooms, and said, "Sister, this is Derrick Sterling, of whom I have spoken to you so often, and who will act as your guide in my place to-morrow. Derrick, this is my sister, Mrs. Halford, and my niece, Miss Nellie." Poor Derrick felt very much as he had done when, with the same companion, he had been unexpectedly ushered into the meeting of the Mollie Maguires, and, as on that occasion, his impulse was to run away. Before he had a chance to do anything so foolish, a motherly-looking woman, evidently older than Mr. Jones, but bearing a strong resemblance to him, stepped forward, and taking the boy by the hand, said, "I am very glad to meet you, Derrick, for my brother has told me what a brave fellow you are, and that he feels perfectly safe in trusting us to your guidance to-morrow." Then Miss Nellie, a pretty girl of about his own age, whose eyes twinkled with mischief, held out her hand, and said, "I think you must be a regular hero, Mr. Sterling, for I'm sure you've been through as much as most of the book heroes I've read about." Blushing furiously at this, and coloring a still deeper scarlet from the knowledge that he was blushing, and that they were all looking at him, Derrick barely touched the tips of the little fingers held out to him. Then thinking that this perhaps seemed rude, he made another attempt to grasp the offered hand more heartily, but it was so quickly withdrawn that this time he did not touch it at all, whereupon everybody laughed good-naturedly. Instead of further embarrassing the boy, this laugh had the effect of setting him at his ease, and in another minute he was chatting as pleasantly with Miss Nellie and her mother as though they had been old friends. Before he left them it was arranged that, early in the morning, he should show the ladies all that was to be seen above-ground, and that they should spend the heat of the day in the cool depths of the mine. The boy had much to tell his mother, little Helen, and Bill Tooley, who were sitting up waiting for him, when he arrived home; but, after all, he left them to wonder over the age of Miss Halford, whom he only casually mentioned as Mr. Jones's niece. CHAPTER XIII LADIES IN THE MINE--HARRY MULE'S SAD MISHAP When Derrick awoke the next morning, at an unusually early hour, it was with the impression that some great pleasure was in store for him. Before breakfast he went down into the mine to give Harry Mule's sleek coat an extra rub, and to arrange for another boy and mule to take their places that day. At eight o'clock he presented himself at the door of Mr. Jones's house, dressed in clean blue blouse and overalls, but wearing his smoke-blackened cap and the heavy boots that are so necessary in the wet underground passages of a mine. The mine boss had already gone to Mauch Chunk, and Miss Nellie was watching behind some half-closed shutters for the appearance of their young guide. "Here he is, mamma!" she exclaimed, as she finally caught sight of Derrick. "How funnily he is dressed! but what a becoming suit it is! it makes him look so much more manly. Why don't he ring the bell, I wonder? He's standing staring at the door as though he expected it to open of itself. Ahem! _ahem!_" This sound, coming faintly to Derrick's ear, seemed to banish his hesitation, for the next instant the bell was rung furiously. The truth is he had been seized with another diffident fit, and had it not been broad daylight he would probably have walked back and forth in front of the door several times before screwing up his courage to the bell-ringing point. The door was opened before the bell had stopped jingling, and an anxious voice inquired, "Is it fire?" Then Miss Nellie, apparently seeing the visitor for the first time, exclaimed, with charming simplicity, "Oh no! Excuse me. I see it's only you, Mr. Sterling. How stupid of me! Won't you walk in? I thought perhaps it was something serious." "Only I, and I wish it was somebody else," thought bashful Derrick, as, in obedience to this invitation, he stepped inside the door. Leaving him standing there, Miss Mischief ran up-stairs to tell her mother, in so loud a tone that he could plainly hear her, that Mr. Sterling had come for them, and was evidently in an awful hurry. "I'm in for a perfectly horrid time," said poor Derrick to himself. "I can see plain enough that she means to make fun of me all day." Mrs. Halford's kind greeting and ready tact made the boy feel more at ease, and before they reached the new breaker--the first place to which he carried them--he felt that perhaps he might not be going to have such a very unpleasant day after all. Both Mrs. Halford and Miss Nellie were greatly interested in watching the machinery of the breaker and the quick work of the slate-picker boys; but in spite of the jigs and the wet chutes the coal-dust was so thick that they did not feel able to remain there more than a few minutes. As they came out Mrs. Halford said, "Poor little fellows! What a terribly hard life they must lead!" "Yes, Mamma, it's awful," said Miss Nellie. "And don't they look just like little negro minstrels? I don't see, though, how they ever tell the slate from the coal. It all looks exactly alike to me." "The slate isn't so black as the coal," explained Derrick, "and doesn't have the same shine." They walked out over the great dump, and the ladies were amazed at its extent. "Why, it seems as if every bit of slate, and coal too, ever dug in the mine must be piled up here!" exclaimed Miss Nellie. "Oh no," said Derrick, "only about half the product of the mine is waste, and only part of that comes up here. A great quantity is dumped into the old breasts down in the workings to fill them up, and at the same time to get rid of it easily." "But isn't there a great deal of coal that would burn in this mountain of refuse?" asked the girl. "Yes, indeed, there is; and sometimes the piles get on fire, and then they seem to burn forever." "I have an acquaintance in Philadelphia," said Mrs. Halford, "who has been trying experiments with the dust of these waste heaps. He pressed it in egg-shaped moulds, and has succeeded in making capital stove coal from it. The process is at present too expensive to be profitable, but I have no doubt that cheaper methods will be discovered, and that within a few years these culm piles will become valuable." "What's the use of bothering with it when there's an inexhaustible supply of coal in the ground?" asked Miss Nellie. "But there isn't," answered Derrick. "This coal region only covers a limited area, and some time every bit of fuel will be taken out of it. I have heard that it is the only place in the world where anthracite has been found. Isn't it, Mrs. Halford?" "I believe so," answered that lady; "or at least the only place in which anthracite of such fine quality as this has been discovered. Inferior grades of hard coal are mined in several other localities, and bituminous or soft coal exists almost everywhere." From the culm pile they went to see the great pumping-engine, and the huge fans that act as lungs to the mine, constantly forcing out the foul air and compelling fresh to enter it. Then, as the day was growing warm, they did not care to go any farther, but went back towards the house to prepare for their descent into the mine. On their way they stopped to call on Mrs. Sterling at Derrick's home, which, covered with its climbing vines, offered a pleasing contrast to the unpainted, bare-looking houses lining the village street beyond it. Here both Mrs. Halford and Miss Nellie were greatly interested in Bill Tooley, of whom they had already heard. He could not be induced to enter into conversation with them, merely answering, "yes, 'm" or "no, 'm" to their questions; but from what he said after they had gone he evidently thought their call was intended solely for him. For a long time he cherished it in his memory, and often spoke of it as a most wonderful event. Derrick took this opportunity to secure his lunch-pail and water-can, which he slung by their chains over his shoulder. When the ladies had prepared themselves for their mine expedition, he was amused to see that Miss Nellie was similarly equipped, she having found and appropriated those belonging to her uncle. Both the ladies wore old dresses, and India-rubber boots, which they had brought with them for this very purpose, and both were provided with waterproof cloaks. At the mouth of the slope Derrick said something through a speaking-tube that reached down into the mine. Directly the clang of a gong was heard in the breaker above them, and the great wire cable, extending its vast length between the rails of the tracks, began to move. Two minutes later a new coal-car, one of a lot that had been delivered in the mine the day before, and had not yet been used, was drawn up out of the blackness to the mouth of the slope, and stopped in front of them. Some hay had been thrown into the bottom, and as the ladies were helped in, Miss Nellie exclaimed that it looked as though they were going on a straw-ride. Handing each of them a lighted lantern to carry, and lighting the lamp on his cap, Derrick tugged at the wire leading to the distant engine-room, and gave the signal to lower. The car at once began to move, and as they felt themselves going almost straight down into the blackness between the wet, glistening walls of the slope, and were chilled by the cold breath of the mine, the mother and daughter clung to each other apprehensively. At first they looked back and watched the little patch of daylight at the mouth of the slope grow rapidly smaller and more indistinct, until it looked almost like a star. Then Derrick warned them that there was danger of hitting their heads against the low roof, and said they must hold them below the sides of the car. When next they lifted them they were amid the wonders of the underground world, in the great chamber at the foot of the slope. They were surrounded by a darkness that was only made the more intense at a short distance from them by the glimmering lights of a group of miners who had gathered to watch their arrival. Here Derrick left them while he ran to the stable to get his mule. The ladies did not get out of the car, but stood in it after the cable had been cast off, and watched the loaded coal-wagons as, one at a time, they were pushed to the foot of the slope, and quickly drawn up out of sight. During this interval their eyes gradually became accustomed to the lamp-lit darkness, so that they could see much better than at first. In a few minutes their young guide returned, leading Harry Mule, whose swinging collar-lamp and wondering expression struck Miss Nellie as so comical that she could not help laughing at him. "Haw! he-haw, he-haw, he-haw!" brayed Harry Mule, in answer to the unaccustomed sound; and at this greeting the girl laughed more heartily than ever. The mule was hitched to the car, Derrick sprang in front, cracked the whip that had hung about his neck, and they started on what, to two of them at least, was the most novel ride they had ever undertaken. When they reached his stable Harry Mule stopped short and refused to go on. "What is the matter?" asked Miss Nellie. "I expect he wants us to go in and see his house," answered Derrick. "Why, I never heard of such a funny mule. Do you suppose he knows we are visitors?" "Of course he does," answered the boy, gravely; "and he knows that visitors always want to see the mine stable." So they all went in to look at it. In the long, low, narrow chamber, hewn from solid rock, were thirty stalls. Several of them were occupied by spare mules, who turned an inquiring gaze at the visitors, and blinked in the light of their lanterns. At one end were bales of hay and bags of oats, while just outside the door stood a long water-trough, which, as mine water is unfit for use, was supplied from above-ground through iron pipes brought down the slope. In spite of living in a continual midnight, so far from pastures and the light of day, which some of them did not see from one year's end to another, these mine mules were fat and sleek, and appeared perfectly contented with their lot. Apparently satisfied that justice had been done to his place of abode, Harry Mule offered no further objection to moving on, when they again got into the car, and the stable was quickly left behind. By-and-by Derrick called out "Door!" As it opened for them to pass, and Paul Evert recognized his friend, he cried, "Oh, Derrick, Socrates--" Then seeing the visitors, he stopped abruptly, and stared at them in confusion. "Never mind, Polly; we'll be back pretty soon," shouted Derrick, as the car rolled on, "and then you can tell us all about it." "What did he say?" inquired Mrs. Halford. "I didn't quite understand," replied Derrick; "but, if you don't mind, we'll go back there after a while and eat our lunch with Polly--he'd be so pleased!--and then we'll ask him." "Who is Polly?" asked Miss Nellie. "He's Paul Evert, my best friend, and he's a cripple." "Oh, he's the boy you saved from the burning breaker! Yes, indeed, mamma, let's go back and eat our lunch with him." Mrs. Halford agreed to this, and after they had visited the blacksmith's shop, where a cheery young fellow named Aleck was installed in Job Taskar's place, they went back to Paul's station. Both the ladies were charmed with the gentle simplicity and quaintness of the crippled lad, and he thought he had never been so happy as in acting the part of host to this underground picnic party. He showed them all the strange and beautiful pictures on the walls of the gangway, and Derrick managed to break off for them a couple of thin scales of slate on which were impressed the delicate outlines of fern leaves. Mrs. Halford sat in Paul's arm-chair, and he made a bench of the tally-board for Miss Nellie. The two boys were content to sit on the railway track, and each ate out of his or her own lunch-pail. All at once Paul said, "'Sh! There they are! See!" At this the visitors looked in the direction indicated, and both screamed. "Oh, you've frightened them away!" said Paul, regretfully. "Why, I do believe they were rats!" cried Mrs. Halford, in a tone of great surprise. "Of course they were," answered Paul--"my rat Socrates and Mrs. Socrates and a whole lot of little Soc rats. I meant to tell you, Derrick; he brought them out this morning, his wife and a family of such cunning little fellows." When the ladies had heard the whole story of Socrates the rat, and how wise he was, they became greatly interested, and wished he would appear again. "He will," said Paul, "if we only keep quiet. He's too wise to stay away at lunch-time, but he don't like loud talking." So they all kept very quiet, and sure enough the rat did come back after a little while, and sitting upon his hind-legs, gravely surveyed the party. In the gloom behind him could be seen the shining beady eyes of some members of his family, who made comical attempts to sit up as he did. Being duly fed, they all scampered away with squeaks of thanks, and soon afterwards Harry Mule broke up the picnic by coming jingling back from his stable, to which he had been sent for dinner. "I think he is just the very dearest old mule I ever saw," said Miss Nellie, when they were once more seated in the car, and Harry, was taking them towards a distant heading. "Yes, indeed, he is," answered Derrick, proud to hear his mule thus praised; "and I love him as much as--as he loves me," he finished, with a laugh. They spent several hours in visiting different parts of the mine, and becoming acquainted with all the details of its many operations. At the end of one heading they found the miners who had just finished drilling a hole deep in the wall of coal beyond them, and were about to fire a blast. The visitors were intensely interested in watching their operations. First a cartridge of stiff brown paper and powder was made. The paper was rolled into the shape of a long cylinder, about as big round as a broom-handle, the end of a fuse was inserted in the powder with which it was filled, and the cartridge was thrust into the hole just prepared for it. Then it was tamped with clay, the fuse was lighted, the miners uttered loud cries of "Blast ho!" and everybody ran away to a safe distance. In less than a minute came a dull roar that echoed and re-echoed through the long galleries. It was followed by a great upheaval of coal, a dense cloud of smoke, and the blast was safely over. These miners had a loaded car ready to be hauled away. One of them asked Derrick if he would mind hitching it on behind his empty car, and drawing it to the junction, adding that the boy who had taken his place that day was too slow to live. "All right," said Derrick. "I guess we can take it for you." So, with two cars instead of one to pull, Harry Mule was started towards the junction. On the way they had to pass through a door in charge of a boy who had only come into the mine that day. This door opened towards them, and they approached it on a slightly descending grade. As they drew near to it, with Harry Mule trotting briskly along, Derrick shouted, "Door!" Again he shouted, louder than before, "Door! door! Holloa there! what's the matter?" The little door-tender, unaccustomed to the utter silence and solitude of the situation, sat fast asleep in his chair. At last Derrick's frantic shoutings roused him, and he sprang to his feet, but too late. A crash, a wild cry, and poor Harry Mule lay on the floor of the gangway, crushed between the heavy cars and the solid, immovable door! CHAPTER XIV A LIFE IS SAVED AND DERRICK IS PROMOTED Mrs. Halford and her daughter were flung rudely forward to the end of the car by the shock of the collision, and were, of course, badly frightened, as well as considerably shaken up and somewhat bruised. They were not seriously hurt, however, and with Derrick's assistance they got out of the car and stood on the door-tender's platform. Derrick sent the boy who had been so sleepy, but who was now wide-awake and crying with fright, back to ask the miners they had just left to come to their assistance. Then he turned his attention to Harry Mule. The poor beast was not dead, but was evidently badly injured. He was jammed so tightly between the cars and the door that he could not move, and the light of Derrick's lamp disclosed several ugly-looking cuts in his body, from which blood was flowing freely. The tears streamed down the boy's face as he witnessed the suffering of his dumb friend, and realized how powerless he was to do anything to relieve it. He was not a bit ashamed of these signs of grief when he felt a light touch on his arm, and turning, saw Nellie Halford, with eyes also full of tears, standing beside him, and gazing pityingly at the mule. "Will he die, do you think?" she asked. "I don't know, but I'm afraid so, or that he's too badly hurt to be made well again, and so will have to be killed." "No, he sha'n't be killed. My uncle sha'n't let him. If he does, I'll never love him again!" exclaimed Miss Nellie, with determined energy. "Poor old mule! poor Harry! you shall have everything in the world done for you if you only won't die," she added, stooping and patting the animal's head with her soft hand. Feebly lifting his head and pricking forward his great ears, Harry Mule opened his eyes, and looked at the girl for a moment so earnestly that she almost thought he was going to speak to her. Then the big, wondering eyes were closed again, and the shaggy head sank on the wet roadway, but Nellie felt that she had been thanked for her pitying words and gentle touch. After a while the little door-tender came hurrying back, followed by the men for whom he had been sent. They were much excited over the accident, on account of the character of the visitors who had been sufferers from it, and were inclined to use very harsh language towards the boy whose neglect of duty had caused it. This, however, was prevented by Mrs. Halford, who declared she would not have the little fellow abused. She said it was a burning shame that children of his age were allowed in the mines at all, and it was no wonder they went to sleep, after sitting all alone for hours without anything to occupy their thoughts, in that awful darkness and silence. The loaded car proved so heavy that it had to be unloaded before it could be moved. Then the empty car was pushed back from Harry Mule, and he made a frantic struggle to regain his feet. After several unsuccessful attempts he finally succeeded, and stood trembling in the roadway. It was now seen that he had the use of only three legs, and an examination showed his right fore-leg to be broken. "He'll never do no more work in this mine," said one of the men. "The poor beast will have to be killed." "He sha'n't be killed! He sha'n't, I say. We won't have him killed; will we, mother?" cried Nellie Halford, her voice trembling with emotion. "No, dear, not if anything we can do will prevent it," answered the mother, gently. "Don't you think," continued the girl, turning to Derrick, "that he might be mended if anybody would take the time and trouble?" "Yes, I think he might, because there is a mule at work in the mine now that had a broken leg, and they cured him. He was a young mule, though. I'm afraid they won't bother with one so old as Harry." "He's listening to every word we say," interrupted the girl, "and I do believe he understands too. Just look at him!" The wounded mule was standing in a dejected attitude on the very spot where he had been so badly hurt; but his patient face, with its big eyes, was turned inquiringly towards them, and it did seem as though he were listening anxiously to the conversation about himself. He managed to limp a few steps away from the door, so that it could be opened, and was then left in charge of the little door-tender, who was instructed to keep him as still as possible. After the miners had given the empty car a start, Derrick found that he could keep it in motion, and undertook to push it as far as the junction, Mrs. Halford and Miss Nellie following on foot. The two miners remained upon the scene of the accident to refill the car they had been compelled to unload. The ladies and Derrick had gone but a short distance when they heard, faintly, through the closed door behind them, a plaintive "Haw, he-haw, he-haw, he-haw." As Nellie Halford said, it sounded exactly as though poor dear old Harry Mule were begging them not to leave him. They had nearly reached the junction when a cheery voice rang out of the gloom ahead of them, saying, "Holloa there! where's your mule? and where's your light? You wouldn't run over a stranger, would you?" "I'm the mule," replied Derrick, as, panting and perspiring with his exertions, he looked around a rear corner of the car to see who was coming. "Why, Derrick, is that you?" inquired the voice, in a tone of great surprise. "What has happened? where are the ladies?" "Oh, Warren!" exclaimed Mrs. Halford, from somewhere back in the darkness, "I'm so thankful to see--I mean to hear--you. Here we are." "But I don't understand," said Mr. Jones, for it was he who had so unexpectedly come to their assistance. "What is the meaning of all this? Where's the bumping-mule?" "We had a collision with a door," explained Miss Nellie, "and poor Harry Mule got crushed. His leg's broken, and he's all cut up. But oh, Uncle Warren, you won't have him killed, will you?" "I can't promise until I find out how badly he is injured." "Oh, but you must, Uncle Warren. If you have him killed, I'll never love you again," insisted Miss Nellie, repeating the threat she had already made. "Well, dear, I'll promise this: he shall not be killed unless I can show you that it is the best thing to be done, and you give your consent." "Then he'll live to be an old, old mule!" cried Miss Nellie, joyfully; "for I'll never, never consent to have him killed." As the ladies once more got into the car, and the mine boss helped Derrick push it towards the junction, Mrs. Halford said, "How do you happen to be back so early, Warren? I thought you were to be gone all day." "Why, so I have been," he answered, with some surprise. "Don't you call from six o'clock in the morning to nearly the same hour of the evening all day?" "You don't mean to say that it is nearly six o'clock?" "I do; for that witching hour is certainly near at hand." "Well, I never knew a day to pass so quickly in my life. I didn't suppose it was more than three o'clock, at the latest." "It is, though; and to understand how time passes down in a mine, you have but to remember two often quoted sayings. One is, 'Time is money,' and the other, 'Money vanishes down the throat of a mine more quickly than smoke up a chimney.' Ergo, time vanishes quickly down in a mine. Is not that a good bit of logic for you?" Both the ladies laughed at this nonsense, but it served to divert their minds from the painful scene they had just witnessed, and therefore accomplished its purpose. From the junction Mr. Jones sent some men back to get Harry Mule and take him to the stable, where his injuries could be examined and his wounds dressed. He also ordered a report to be made concerning them that evening. Then the ladies' car was attached to a train of loaded coal-wagons, and the party were thus taken to the foot of the slope. As the great wire cable began to strain, and they started slowly up the slope towards the outer world, both Mrs. Halford and Miss Nellie looked back regretfully into the mysterious depths behind them. "I wouldn't have believed that in a few hours this awful place could exercise such a fascination over me," said the former. "I really hate to leave it, and wish we were coming down again to-morrow." "So do I," exclaimed Miss Nellie; "and if I were a boy, I'd study to be an engineer, and spend my life down among the 'black diamonds' of the coal-mines." Did this girl know of the hopes and ambitions of the boy who sat beside her? This question flashed through his mind; but he quickly answered it for himself: "Of course not, Derrick Sterling. What a fool you are to fancy such a thing! She only knows and thinks of you, if she thinks of you at all, as a mule-driver, such as she has seen a dozen of to-day." Although the sun had set when they reached the top of the slope, and a breeze was blowing, the outer air felt oppressively warm after that of the mine, and the ladies became suddenly aware of a weariness they had not before felt. Derrick was made very happy, and almost forgot for a time his sadness at Harry Mule's pitiable condition, when Mr. Jones invited him to come and take tea with them. Joyfully accepting the invitation, the lad hastened home to change his clothes, and the others, walking more slowly gazed after him. "I think he's splendid!" exclaimed Miss Nellie, with the outspoken decision that generally marked the expression of her thoughts; "and I do hope he will have a chance to become a mining engineer." "He will, if he keeps on trying for it as he has begun," said her uncle. "Any boy, no matter if he is born and brought up a gentleman, as Derrick Sterling certainly was, who goes in at the very bottom of any business, determined to climb to the top, will find a way to do it." "I like to see a boy not ashamed to do dirty work, if that is what his duty calls him to do," said Mrs. Halford. "He comes out all the brighter and cleaner by contrast when the dirt is washed off." If Derrick's right ear did not burn and tingle with all this praise, it ought to have done so; but perhaps he was too busy telling the exciting news of the day at home to notice it. He did not walk past the Jones's house, nor hesitate before ringing the door-bell on this occasion, as he had the evening before, but stepped up to it with all the boldness of one who was about to meet and greet old acquaintances. Besides, his mind was too full of the sad fate that had befallen his mule to admit of more than the briefest consideration of personal feelings. At the supper-table the conversation was wholly of mines, collieries, and the perils of miners' lives, in regard to which Mr. Jones related a number of interesting incidents. "How wonderful it is!" said Miss Nellie, who had listened to all this with eager attention. "Who first discovered coal, anyway, Uncle Warren? and how did people find out that it would burn?" "If you mean who discovered anthracite coal, I believe the credit is generally given to a man named Philip Gunter, who lived in a cabin on the side of a mountain not far from where we are now sitting. He was a hunter; and the story goes that one day in the year 1791 he had been out hunting for many hours, without securing any game, which made him feel very badly, for when he left home that morning there was no food in the house. Towards night he was returning, greatly depressed in spirits, and paying so little heed to his footsteps that he stumbled and fell over some obstacle. Stooping to see what it was, he found a black stone, different from any he had ever before noticed. He had, however, heard of stone coal, and thought perhaps this might be a lump of that substance. Having nothing else to carry, he decided to take it home as a curiosity. Soon afterwards he gave it to a friend, who sent it to Philadelphia, where it was pronounced to be genuine coal. A few gentlemen became interested in this discovery, and formed themselves in the 'Lehigh Coal-mine Company.' A mine was opened, and four laborers were employed to work it; but as there was no way of getting the coal they mined to market they were soon discharged, and the project was abandoned for the time being. "Nothing further was done until 1817, when Colonel George Shoemaker, of Pottsville, took four wagon-loads of anthracite coal to Philadelphia, and tried to sell it there. People laughed at him for telling them that those black stones would burn; but he guaranteed that they would. Upon this a number of persons bought small quantities on trial; but all their efforts failed to set it on fire. Then they became very angry, and tried to have Colonel Shoemaker thrown into prison for cheating them. He fled from the city, pursued by officers who held warrants for his arrest. Finally he managed to elude them, and reached his home, thoroughly disgusted with coal, and ready to swear that he would have nothing more to do with it. "In the mean time a lot of the black stones had been purchased for trial by the Fairmount Nail-works. It was placed in one of the furnaces, and the proprietor spent a whole morning with his men in trying to make the stuff burn. They were unsuccessful, and finally, completely disheartened by their failure, they shut the furnace door and went off to dinner, uttering loud threats against the man who had sold them such worthless trash. Upon their return to the works they were filled with amazement, for the furnace door was red hot, and a fire of the most intense heat was roaring and blazing behind it. Since that time there has been no difficulty in selling anthracite coal nor in making it burn. Now the production of coal in this country has reached such enormous proportions that its annual value is equal to that of all the gold, silver, and iron mined in the United States during the year." Just here Mr. Jones was interrupted by the arrival of the report of Harry Mule's condition. It was very brief, and pronounced the animal to be so badly injured, and his chances of recovery so slight, that it would cost more to attempt to cure him than he was worth. "Now what am I to do about him?" asked Mr. Jones. "I want to buy that mule, Warren," said Mrs. Halford. "Please give him to me," pleaded Miss Nellie. "I should like to have a chance to try and cure him," said Derrick; and all these requests were made at once. Mr. Jones looked at them with a puzzled smile, thought a moment, and then said, "All right: I will sell him to you, sister, for one cent, provided you will give him to Nellie, and that she will leave him with Derrick to care for and cure if he can." "That's a splendid plan!" cried Miss Nellie. "Have you any place in which to take care of him?" asked Mrs. Halford of Derrick. "Yes," answered the boy, "we have a little empty stable back of our house that will make a tip-top mule hospital." "Then it's a bargain, Warren; and if you take care of him, Derrick, you must let me pay all the doctor's bills, and furnish all necessary hay, corn, and oats." Thus it was decided that Harry Mule should be restored to health and usefulness, if money, skill, and kind care could do it. Before Derrick left, the mine boss said to him, "Now that there is no Harry Mule for you to drive, I am going to promote you, and let you work with Tom Evert as his helper. In that position you will gain a thoroughly practical knowledge of mining. You may report to him to-morrow." CHAPTER XV A "SQUEEZE" AND A FALL OF ROCK As it was impossible for Harry Mule to climb the gigantic stairway of the travelling-road, his legs were bound so that he could not move them, a platform was laid across two coal-cars from which the sides had been removed, and he was placed on this, and firmly lashed to it. In this manner he was drawn to the top of the slope, and from there he managed to limp, though with great difficulty and very slowly, to the little stable behind the Sterlings' house. Here, by order of the mine boss, carpenters had been at work since early morning making a roomy box-stall in place of two small ones, and providing it with a broad sling of strong canvas, which was hung from eye-bolts inserted in beams overhead. This was passed beneath the mule's belly, and drawn so that while he could stand on three legs if he wished, he could also rest the whole weight of his body upon it. After Harry Mule was thus made as comfortable as possible, a skilful veterinary surgeon set his broken leg, and bound it so firmly with splints that it could not possibly move. He also sewed up the cuts on various parts of the animal's body, and said that with good care he thought the patient might recover, though his leg would probably always be stiff. These operations occupied the attention of Mr. Jones, the Halfords, and the Sterling family, including Derrick, until noon, when it was time for Mrs. Halford and Miss Nellie to take the train for Philadelphia. Before leaving, Mrs. Halford had an interview with Bill Tooley, who was now able to hobble about with the aid of a crutch. She said that if he would, under Derrick's direction, take care of Harry Mule, and see that all his wants were promptly supplied until he got well, she would pay him the same wages that he could earn by working in the breaker. Of course Bill gratefully accepted this offer; and either because he had a feeling of sympathy for an animal that was suffering in much the same way that he was, or because his own trials and the kindness shown him had really softened his nature, he proved a capital and most attentive nurse. Often after this, when Derrick entered the stable unexpectedly, he discovered these two cripples engaged in conversation. At least he would find Bill Tooley perched on the edge of the manger, where he balanced himself with his crutch, talking in his uncouth way to the mule; while the latter, with great ears pricked forward, and wondering eyes fixed unwinkingly upon the speaker, seemed to pay most earnest attention to all that he said. As Derrick watched the train bearing his recently made friends roll away from the little station, and disappear around a sharp curve in the valley, he experienced a feeling of sadness, for which he was at first unable to account. In thinking it over, he decided that it was because he felt sorry to have anybody go away who had been so kind to his much-loved bumping-mule. Turning away from the station, he walked slowly back to the mouth of the slope, jumped into an empty car, and was lowered into the mine. Why did the place appear so strange to him? All the interest, of which it had seemed so full but the day before, was gone from it, and Derrick felt that he hated these underground delvings. A feeling of dread came over him as he started along one of the gangways in search of Tom Evert, to whom he had been ordered to report for duty. The air seemed close and suffocating, and the lamps to burn with a more sickly flame than usual. To the boy the faces of the miners looked haggard, and their voices sounded unnaturally harsh. He overheard one of them say, "Ay, she's working, there's no doubt o' that; but it's naught to worrit over; just a bit settlin' into place like." Derrick wondered, as he passed out of hearing, what the man meant; and as he wondered he was startled by a sharp report like the crack of a rifle, only much louder, and a horrible grinding, crushing sound that came from the rock wall of the gangway close beside him. The sound filled him with such terror that he fled from it, running at full speed through the black, dripping gallery. He ran until he came to a group of miners who were strengthening the roof with additional props and braces of new timber. He told them of his fright, and they laughed at him. "He's heerd t' mine a-talking, and got skeert at her voice," said one. "She's allus a-cracklin' an' a-sputterin' when she's uneasy and workin' hersel' comfortable like; don't ye know that, lad? It's only a 'squeeze.' Sich noises means naught but warnin's to put in a few new timbers here and there," explained another, more kindly. He was an old man, in that his cheeks were sunken and his hair was gray, though he had lived less than forty years. This is counted old among miners, for their terrible life and the constant inhaling of coal-dust ages them very rapidly. Seeing him thus aged, and feeling that he would be less likely to ridicule him than the others, Derrick ventured to ask him if there was really any danger of a general caving in of that part of the mine. "Hoot, lad! there's allus danger in t' mine," was the reply. "But if ye mean is there more now than ordinary, I'd answer ye 'No.' It's a common thing this squeezing and settling of a mine, and times there's men killed by it, but more often it's quieted without harm bein' done. No, no, lad; haud ye no fears! I'd bid ye gang oot an' I thocht ye war in danger." Although Derrick was greatly comforted by these words, he could not help dreading to hear more of the rock explosions, which are caused by the roof, walls, and pillars of the mine giving slightly beneath the vast crushing weight of material above them. When he reached Paul Evert's station, and found that the crippled lad had heard some of the same loud snappings and crackings, but was not alarmed at them, he felt ashamed of his own fears, and casting them entirely aside, asked to see what the other was drawing. Paul was very fond of drawing with a pencil, or bit of charcoal, or anything that came to his hand, on all sorts of surfaces, and really showed great skill in his rude sketches of the common objects about him. Since coming into the mine he had found more time to indulge his taste than ever before; and though his only light was the wretched little lamp in his cap, he had produced some beautiful copies of the dainty ferns and curious patterns imprinted on the walls about him. He had also afforded Derrick great amusement by making for him several sketches of Socrates the wise rat in various attitudes. Until this time he had never hesitated before showing his friend any of his efforts, but now he did, and it was only after much urging that he reluctantly handed Derrick the sheet of paper on which he had been working. It was an outline sketch of the figures composing their underground picnic party of the day before, including Socrates, and Derrick had no sooner set eyes on it than he declared he must have it. "I was doing it for you, 'Dare,'" said Paul, using his especial pet name for Derrick, which he never did except when they were alone. "But you must let me finish it, and that will take some time; there is so much to put in, and my light is so bad." Derrick was obliged to agree to this, though he would have valued the sketch just as it was, and handing it back, he went on towards where Paul thought his father was at work. At last he found him, in a distant heading that was exhausted and about to be abandoned, engaged in the dangerous task of "robbing back." In cutting into a vein it is often necessary to leave walls and pillars of solid coal standing to support the roof, and when the workings about them are exhausted it is customary to break away these supports for the sake of what coal they contain. This is called "robbing back," and is so dangerous a job that only the very best and most experienced miners are intrusted with it. Sometimes the roof, thus robbed of its support, falls, and sometimes it does not. If it does fall, perhaps the miner "robber" gets killed, and perhaps he escapes entirely, or with only bruises and cuts. Tom Evert was a "company man"; that is, he received regular wages from the company owning the mine, no matter what quantity of coal he sent out, or what kind of work he was engaged upon. Most of the other men were paid so much per cubic yard, or so much by the car-load, for all the coal they mined. Evert was considered one of the best workmen in the mine, and for that reason was often employed on the most dangerous jobs. On this occasion he was "robbing back" in company with another skilful miner; but they had only one helper between them. The burly miner would have been glad to welcome any addition to their force, but he greeted Derrick with especial cordiality, for the boy was a great favorite with him. "It does me good to see thee, lad," he exclaimed, when Derrick reported to him as helper, "and I'll be proud to have thy feyther's son working alongside of me. Pick up yon shovel and help load the wagon, while we tackle this chunk a bit more, and see if we can't fetch it." A miner's helper has to do all kinds of work, such as running to the blacksmith's with tools that need sharpening, directing the course of drills beneath the heavy hammer blows, holding lamps in dark places, loading cars, or anything else for which he may prove useful. Shovelling coal into a car is perhaps the hardest of all, and this was what Derrick was now set at. It was hard, back-aching work, but he was fresh and strong, and he took hold of it heartily and vigorously. Suddenly he dropped his shovel, sprang at Tom Evert who was stooping down to pick up a drill, and gave him so violent a push that he was sent sprawling on his face some little distance away. Carried forward by his own impetus, Derrick fell on top of the prostrate miner. Behind, and so close to them that they were covered with its flying splinters, crashed down the great pillar of coal, weighing several tons, that the "robbers" had been working on. It had unexpectedly given way before their efforts, and would have crushed Tom Evert beyond human recognition but for Derrick's quick eye and prompt action. When the big miner regained his feet he appeared dazed, and seemed not to realize the full character of the danger he had so narrowly escaped. He gazed at the fallen mass for a moment, and then, appreciating what had happened, he seized Derrick's hand, and shaking it warmly, said, "That's one I owe thee, lad. Now we'll knock off, for I'll do no more 'robbing' this day." On their way to the foot of the slope the little party met the mine boss, superintending the placing of new timbers, and taking such other precautions as his experience suggested against the effects of the "squeeze," which still continued, though less violently than when Derrick entered the mine. He was surprised at seeing them thus early, for it wanted nearly an hour of quitting-time. When he heard of Tom Evert's narrow escape, he acknowledged that they had a good excuse for knocking off, and complimented Derrick upon his presence of mind. "By-the-way, Tom," he said, "you may quit 'robbing' for a few days. I want you and your partner to go down on the lower level and pipe off the water that's collecting in the old gangway--the one in which Job Taskar was killed, you know." "It'll be a ticklish job, boss." "I know it, and that's the reason I send the steadiest man in the mine to do it. It's got to be done by somebody, or else it will break through some day and flood the whole lower level." "All right, sir; I'll do my best wi' it; but I'll be mor'n glad when it's safe done." With this Tom Evert went on towards the slope; but Derrick stayed behind with the mine boss to learn what he might of the operation of placing the timber supports of a mine roof. He had not watched this work long when a distant muffled sound, something like that of a blast, and yet plainly not produced by an explosion, reached their ears. Although not loud, it was an ominous, awe-inspiring sound; and Derrick would have taken to his heels and made for the bottom of the slope had not his pride kept him where he was. To his surprise the mine boss, who had listened intently to the sound while it lasted, seemed to regard it as a most natural occurrence. Giving a few directions to his men, he turned to the boy, saying, "Come, Derrick, let us go and see what is the trouble back in there." For an instant Derrick looked at him to see if he were really in earnest; then realizing that he was, he followed him without a word. When they reached Paul Evert's door, the mine boss said, "It's quitting-time, Paul; so get out of this as quickly as you can. It is just possible that we may all have to run," he explained to Derrick, after Paul had obeyed his order and left them, "and in that case all those using crutches will need a good start." Of course this did not greatly reassure Derrick, and he would gladly have followed his friend Paul had not duty commanded him to remain with his friend the mine boss. Finally they reached the place where, less than an hour before, Derrick had been helping to "rob" the old heading; and here they discovered the cause of the sound they had heard. The roof above that entire set of workings, so far as they could judge, had fallen; and had not Tom Evert decided to quit work when he did, it is probable that no trace would ever have been found of him or those with him. Derrick felt deeply thankful that his life had been thus preserved, as he walked thoughtfully beside the mine boss away from the scene of disaster. "How invariably Nature asserts herself in the end, and defies the puny efforts of man to alter her ways," said Mr. Jones to himself, musingly. Then to his companion he said, "I brought you with me to try you, Derrick. I hated to come myself, for I did not know what might be going on, after all these squeezes and movements of the mine. It had to be done, though, and it seemed a good opportunity for testing your courage, so I asked you to come with me. As a mining engineer, you will often be called upon to perform similar unpleasant and dangerous tasks." "I was afraid, and didn't want to come one bit," said Derrick, with a nervous laugh. "That doesn't make any difference. I was afraid too, but we came all the same. The proof of your courage is not whether you are afraid to do a thing or not, but whether or not you do it." So Derrick's courage was tested, and withstood the test, which was indeed fortunate; for, within a short time, he was to be placed in a position that would try the courage of the bravest man in the world. CHAPTER XVI BURSTING OF AN UNDERGROUND RESERVOIR Upon reaching the surface that evening, Derrick and the mine boss found that the weather had greatly changed since noon and that a storm threatened. It set in that night, and the rain poured down in a steady, determined sort of way, as though it had made up its mind that this time, at least, the earth should be thoroughly watered. When Derrick joined the other miners at the mouth of the slope in the morning, it was still raining, and as they were lowered into the underground world, the men joked with each other about getting in out of the wet, and pitied the poor fellows who were obliged to work above-ground on such a day. Descending the second slope into the lowest level of the mine, Tom Evert and his party made an examination of the place in which they were to work. The new excavations on this level were of limited extent, work having only recently been begun on them; but a powerful pump had been placed at the top of the slope leading down into them, and it was to bring the accumulated water in the old workings within reach of it that the mine boss had sent them down. Going up the old gangway, past the chamber at the foot of the air-shaft which Derrick had such good reason to remember, they soon came to the fallen mass of rock, coal, and earth through which they were to cut a channel and insert a pipe for the release of the water beyond. The material was too loose for blasting, so the work had to be done with pick and shovel, and the debris removed with wheel-barrows, and distributed along the gangway. It was hard, dangerous, and exhausting work, and at the end of three days Derrick was heartily tired of it. Still the rain poured steadily down, and people in the upper world began to talk of danger from floods, and great damage to the ungathered crops. Even in the mine the effect of the heavy rain began to be noticed. The drippings from the roof fell thicker and faster, the tricklings down the walls became little rivulets, and the black streams in the ditches swirled along angrily. The great pumps worked steadily, night and day, at their fullest speed, and from the mouths of the waste-pipes young rivers of black water were poured; but the mine grew constantly wetter and more uncomfortable. Finally the mine boss decided that it was almost time to temporarily abandon the lower workings, and allow them to fill up, so that the whole force of both pumps might be directed towards keeping the upper level free of water. He spoke to Tom Evert of this, and the latter begged for just one day more, as he thought he had nearly cut through to the water, and was anxious to get the pipe laid, and have that job off his hands. "Very well," said Mr. Jones, "you may have one day, Tom, and no more until after the rain stops; for without both pumps in the upper level we shall, very soon, have to shut down altogether." During the morning of that fourth day they uncovered a wall of rock, which barred their way completely, and Tom Evert decided that at least one blast would be necessary to force an opening through it. After lunch-time he left the other miner, with the two helpers, to drill a hole in it, while he went up into the village to procure some powder and fuse for the work. Those left below had not been long at work when Derrick noticed a little stream of water spurting out at one side of the rock. He called the attention of the miner to it, and he, without a word, sprang to the place and tried to check the stream, first with earth, and then with strips torn from his shirt, but could not. As he stopped its flow at one point, it burst out at another. Finally he exclaimed, "It's no use, boys! we'll never be able to draw this water off through any pipe; it's going to take that business into its own hands, and the best thing we can do is to get out of here quick as we know how." Even as he spoke there came a rattling rush of earth and loose rock, followed by the roar of angry waters, as they leaped out of the blackness like a savage animal upon its prey. The long pent-up waters, swollen by the heavy rains and scorning any effort to draw them off gradually, had burst forth in all their fury, and in less time than it takes to write of it, the old gangway was filled with the surging torrent. At the first outbreak Derrick and his companions started to run for their lives down the gangway, but as they reached the door of the Mollies' meeting-room the torrent was upon them. They had barely time to spring inside the door and close it as the mad waters swept past. The door offered but a momentary protection, but ere it had been crushed in they were climbing the old air-shaft towards the upper level. It was a desperate undertaking, for the few timber braces left by those who had cut the shaft were so far apart that often they had to dig little holes for their hands and feet in the coal of the sides, and thus work their way slowly and painfully upward. It was their only chance, and they knew it, for they could hear the detached bits of falling coal and rock splash into the water as it rose in the shaft behind them. Finally they reached the top. As they drew themselves wearily, with almost the last of their strength, over the edge, and lay on the floor of the gangway, they were filled with new terror at seeing the light from their lamps reflected in the black waters apparently but a few feet below them. The water was evidently rising into the upper level, and before long their present place of refuge would be flooded. Urged by this peril, they made all possible speed down the gangway into the new workings at the foot of the slope, where they were confronted by a scene of the greatest confusion. The gangways, headings, chambers, and breasts of the lower vein were already full of the turbid flood, and the few miners who had been at work down there had barely escaped with their lives into the level above. Now the water was rising so rapidly that it was evident the upper level would also be flooded in a few minutes. In the great chamber at the bottom of the slope that led to the upper world and safety, miners were flocking from all parts of the workings. Some were trying to drive frightened mules up the travelling-road; others were throwing movable property into cars to be drawn up the slope, and others still were crowding into the same cars, that they too might reach a place of safety. The two men who were with Derrick ran to one of these cars, calling on him to follow them. It was already so crowded that they could not wedge themselves into it, so they clung on behind, and were thus dragged up the slope. That Derrick did not follow them was because he thought of Paul Evert. Poor little lame Paul! where was he amid all this danger and confusion? Had he already got out of the mine, or was he still at his station back in the dark gangway, unmindful of danger? Perhaps somebody had seen him. Derrick shouted, "Where is Paul Evert? Has anybody seen him?" The answer came in the voice of one of the mule-boys. "Yes, I seed him, 'bout five minutes ago, when I run out de las' load. He ain't come out yet." Could Derrick leave him down there, to take his chances of getting out or drowning, while he sought safety for himself? With one instant of agonized thought he decided that he could not. Snatching up a can of oil on which his eye happened to light as it stood by the track just at the foot of the slope, he dashed into gangway No. 1, shouting as he did so, "I'm going to try and get Paul Evert out! If we don't get back come and look for us; we'll hold out as long as we can." They tried to stop him, and shouted to him to come back; that there was no hope, and he was only throwing away his own life; but he paid no attention to them, and was gone before they could prevent him. He had hardly disappeared from their sight when the water began to rush and roar up from the mouth of the lower slope, in a froth-crowned, surging torrent. At the same instant it poured out from the old gangway, to which it had access through the air-shaft up which Derrick and his companions had escaped. They knew by its great leaps and spurts that some other reservoir had broken loose, and that before it found the level it was seeking the whole mine must be flooded and drowned. There was no more thought of saving property, but each man became intent only on escaping with his life from the swirling flood. They had got several cars fastened together, ready for such an emergency, and now these were quickly filled with grimy-faced, frightened men and boys. The signal was given to hoist. There came a strain on the great cable, and as the fierce waters rushed at them, and even flung their black, wet arms about them as if to hold them back, the cars were drawn up, slowly up, beyond reach of the destroying flood, towards daylight and safety. At the top of the slope was another scene of wild anxiety and confusion most pitiable to witness. Men, women, and children stood, without other protection than their thin garments, in the pitiless rain, praying, shouting, discussing, asking questions which nobody could answer, and crowding forward to scan, with breathless anxiety, the faces of each car-load of miners as it reached the surface. At the mouth of the slope stood Mr. Jones, in constant communication with a trusty fellow down in the mine, at the other end of the speaking-tube. With him were half a dozen steady men, upon whom he could depend, and to whom he had given orders not to allow a living soul to go down in any of the empty cars he was despatching as rapidly as possible to those below, "There are plenty down there now," he said, "and perhaps more than can be drawn up before the water reaches them. You can do no good there yet awhile. When the time comes that I want volunteers to go down I'll let you know fast enough." He kept the mouth of the travelling-road similarly guarded, and no one was allowed to descend. Among those who pressed close to him, and begged, almost with tears in their eyes, to be allowed to go down and make one effort to save their loved ones before the waters reached them, was burly Tom Evert. "My lad, my crippled lad's down there, boss; ye can't refuse a feyther the chance to save his boy," pleaded the big miner. "Tom, if he's not already at the foot of the slope, you know as well as I that there's not one chance in ten thousand of finding and getting him out. They tell me the water's rising fast on the upper level already. No, my poor fellow, you must wait a bit. You're to be my right-hand man in the work that I fear is ahead of us. I can't let you throw away your life without a chance of its doing good." "And Derrick, boss, the brave lad I left in the low level facing the waters. It's fearful to think on. If he's drownded and my lad's drownded, their death'll be on my hands. I might ha' gone more slow and cautious like. I might ha' kep' out altogether the day, an' let the low level flood, as ye talked of, boss, but for being a pig-headed fool." "Don't take on that way, Tom. Cheer up, man. You'll see them all coming up out of the trouble safe and sound yet. And don't take this matter to heart as you're doing. If there's any blame to be placed it's on my head; but I don't think there's blame to be placed on any of us. There's One above who rules such matters, and who sends rain and floods as He does the sunshine, all for some wise purpose." Just then word came up the speaking-tube that the water was gaining so fast that all hands were about to leave the mine. At the same instant the harsh clang of the engine-room gong was heard. The wire cable was strained taut, and then began to move slowly over its rollers. "They are coming!" shouts the mine boss. "Stand back and give them room." But the crowd could not stand back. Who were coming? Were all there, or were some left? It was not in human nature to stand back. They must see, and learn the worst at once. Oh, how slowly the cable moved! How terrible was the suspense! A great silence fell upon the waiting people. It was unbroken save by the creaking of the rollers on the slope, the pattering of raindrops, and an occasional hysterical sob. At last the twinkling lights are seen down in the blackness. Then the first car comes in sight; then another, and another, until at last the entire train, with its human freight, has reached the surface. "Stay where you are, men!" commands the mine boss, "Answer to your names as I call them off." The young man's voice rings out sharp and clear as he calls the long roll, beginning, "Adams, Andrews, Apgar," and so on down the alphabet to "Zegler"; and clear and prompt come back the answers, "Here, here, here," of those who have come up from the pit. At last it is finished, and the awful truth is known. Nine men and boys are unaccounted for, and they were not at the foot of the slope when the cruel waters sprang into the great chamber and the last car was drawn up. Nine are down there, alive or dead; and among them are Derrick Sterling, Paul Evert, and Monk Tooley. With the cries and tears of joy over those who had come up and were restored to loving hearts, a shudder passed over the assembly, and a groan of anguish rose from it that was pierced by a single sharp cry. It was that of a widowed mother for her only son. Springing on an empty car, and standing where all could see him, the mine boss spoke to them. "It will all come out right yet," he said. "Keep up your courage. Those brave fellows down there are not going to let themselves be drowned like rats in a hole. They'll make a strong fight for life first, and it's going to be a fight that we can help them in. They're safe enough for the present, in some high place beyond the reach of the water, and there they'll stay till we go for them and fetch them out. We'll have two more pumps here and at work before morning. They will soon make room for us to work down there. Then if we don't find the lads we're after, we are no miners, that's all. There's a promise for you now! See it, men?" With this the speaker pointed to the eastern sky, and all eyes were turned in that direction. From horizon to horizon it was spanned by a glorious rainbow. One end rested on the opposite side of their own valley, above the old workings of the mine, while the other was uplifted on a lofty mountain-top. In the west the sun had broken through the black rain-clouds, and was now sinking in a glory that passes description. CHAPTER XVII IMPRISONED IN THE FLOODED MINE Mr. Halford looked up from the paper that he was reading at the breakfast-table in the pleasant Philadelphia home, and exclaimed, "Here's an account of a terrible colliery disaster, wife; and I do believe it is in Warren Jones's mine, the very one you and Nellie visited a few days ago." "Oh, husband, it can't be!" "It certainly is, though. 'Raven Brook Colliery. Flooded last evening just as men were about to quit work. Rushing waters cut off retreat of nine men and boys, of whose fate nothing is yet known. Rest escape. Water still rising. But little hope of a rescue. Following is list of victims: Sterling, Evert, Tooley----'" "Not Derrick Sterling, father, nor Paul Evert, nor Bill Tooley?" interrupted Miss Nellie, as she left her seat and went to look over his shoulder. "Yes, my dear, those are the very names. Derrick, Paul, and Monk--not Bill--Tooley; and here is something more about one of them: "'Derrick Sterling, whose name appears among those of the victims, is the only son of the late Gilbert Sterling, a mining engineer, formerly well known in this city. The young man was seen at the foot of the slope just before the final rush of waters. He might easily have escaped, but went back into the mine in the vain attempt to save his friend Paul Evert, a crippled lad. He fully realized the terrible risk he was running, for his last words were, "If we don't get out, come and look for us." This is a notable instance of modern heroism, and is an example of that greatest of all love which is willing to sacrifice life for friendship.'" "Poor Derrick! Poor little Paul! Oh, it is too awful!" and tender-hearted Nellie Halford burst into tears. So all the world knew that Derrick Sterling was a hero, and that, alive or dead, he was somewhere in that flooded mine. After that morning thousands of people who had never heard his name before eagerly scanned the daily papers for more news concerning him and the poor fellows whose fate he was sharing. Derrick had not gone far in his search for Paul Evert when his lamp, which had been burning dimly for some minutes, though unnoticed in his excitement, gave an expiring flash and went out. The boy's impulse was to return to the foot of the slope for a new supply of oil. Then he remembered that he had a canful with him, the one he had almost unconsciously snatched up when he started on his present errand. Filling the lamp in the dark was slow work, and occupied several minutes of valuable time. While thus engaged his ear caught the sound of rushing waters that seemed to come from out of the darkness behind him. Nearer and nearer it came, and it grew louder and louder, as with trembling hand he struck a match and relighted his lamp. Its first gleam fell upon a wall of black waters rolling rapidly towards him, up the gangway, breast-high, and cutting off all chance of escape. What should he do? It was useless to run; the waters could run faster than he. It would be impossible to stem that fierce current and fight his way out against it. Must he, then, die, alone in that awful place with no sound save the roar of waters in his ears? Could it be that he should never again see his mother and little Helen and the sunlight? Was his life over, and must he be carried away by the black flood that was reaching out to seize him? Like a flash these thoughts passed through his mind, and like another flash came a ray of hope. Close beside him was the mouth of a chute belonging to a breast that he knew followed the slant of the vein upward for a great distance. He sprang towards it, flung his oil-can into it, and in another moment, though the chute was above his head, he had climbed the slippery wall and entered it. As he drew himself up beyond their reach the savage waters made a fierce leap after him, and swept on with an angry, snarling roar. A few minutes later they had risen above the mouth of the chute and completely filled the gangway. Derrick was entombed, and the door was sealed behind him. In the mean time a similar escape was being effected but a short distance from him, though he knew nothing of it. Monk Tooley and four other men working near him in a distant part of the mine received no intimation of the outbreak of waters and the disaster that was about to overwhelm them. Their first warning of trouble came with the stoppage of the air-currents that supplied them with the very breath of life. For a few minutes they waited for them to be resumed; then, flinging down their tools, and filled with a strange fear, they started through the maze of galleries towards the slope. On their way they were joined by Aleck, the blacksmith, and Boodle, his helper. Next they came upon Paul Evert, standing anxiously by his door. He had become conscious, without being able to explain how, that something terrible was about to happen, though he had no idea what form the terror was to take. Joining the fugitives, he was hobbling along as fast as possible, and trying to keep pace with their rapid strides, when Monk Tooley stopped, picked him up, and, holding him like a baby in his strong arms, said, "We'll get on faster dis way, lad." Half-way to the slope they met the advancing waters from which Derrick had just escaped. The miner who was in advance gave a great cry of "It's a flood, mates, and it's cut us off. We're all dead men!" "No we beant!" shouted Monk Tooley. "Up wid ye, men, inter de breast we just passed." Running back a few steps to the mouth of a chute he had noticed a moment before, the miner tossed Paul up into it much in the same way that Derrick had tossed his oil-can into a similar opening. Springing up after him, Tooley lent a hand to those behind, and with an almost supernatural strength dragged one after another of them up bodily beyond the reach of the flood. Only poor Boodle was caught by it and swept off his feet; but he clutched the legs of the man ahead of him, and both were drawn up together. In another minute they too were sealed in behind an impassable wall of water. Although they did not know it at the time, they were in a chamber adjoining that in which Derrick had sought refuge, and were divided from him only by a single wall of coal a few feet thick. It was a very small chamber, for the coal found in it proving of an inferior quality, it had quickly been abandoned. The one on the opposite side of the wall from them, in which Derrick found himself, was of great extent, being in fact several breasts or chambers thrown into one by the "robbing out" of their dividing walls of coal. "Out wid yer lights, men!" cried Monk Tooley as soon as they had all been dragged in. "De air's bad enough now, an' de lamps 'll burn de life outen it. Besides, we'll soon have need of all de ile dat's left in 'em." The air of that confined space was already heavy and close, with eight men to breathe it, and eight lamps to consume its oxygen. Extinguishing all the others, they sat around one lamp, pricked down low, for they could not bear the thought of absolute darkness. Monk Tooley had assumed a sort of leadership among them, and by virtue of it he ordered every lunch-pail to be emptied of what scraps of food it contained, and all of it to be given to Paul for safe keeping. There was not much--barely enough of broken crusts and bits of meat to fill Paul's pail; but it was something, and must be doled out sparingly, for already the men gazed at it with hungry eyes. Then they tried to talk of their situation and discuss the chances of escape. On this subject they had but little to say, however, for they all knew that long before the waters could be lowered so that any attempt to save them could be made, the foul air of that small chamber would have done its fatal work. Indeed, they knew that before one day should have passed their misery would be ended. Even as they tried to talk, poor Boodle, saying that he was sleepy, lay down on the bare rock floor, where he was almost instantly fast asleep and breathing heavily. "'Tis like he'll never wake again," said one of the miners, gloomily. "Let him sleep, then; 'tis the easiest way out of it," responded a comrade. One after another they succumbed to the effects of the heavy atmosphere, and fell asleep. Finally, all excepting the crippled lad, even including Monk Tooley, whose light Paul had taken and set beside him, lay stretched out on the hard floor, sound asleep and breathing in a distressed manner. Paul felt drowsy, but the horror of his surroundings was too great to admit of his sleeping. He wanted to think, and try and prepare his mind for the awful unknown future that overshadowed him. As he thought, great tears began to run down his thin cheeks, then came a choking sob, and he buried his face in his hands. Gradually he became calm again, and his thoughts resembled delightful dreams, so full were they of pleasant things. In another moment they would have been dreams, and the last of that little band would have been wrapped in a slumber from which neither he nor they would ever have wakened. From this condition a sharp squeak caused Paul to start and look up. Directly in front of him, and so close that he could have touched it, was a large rat, whose eyes twinkled and glistened in the lamplight. As Paul lifted his head it uttered another squeak and sat up on its hind-legs. "I do believe it's Socrates," said Paul; and sure enough it was. Mechanically, and without thinking of what he was about, Paul took a bit of meat from his lunch-pail and tossed it to the rat, which immediately seized it in its mouth and scampered away. Then Paul realized that he was wasting precious food, and made a vain effort to catch the rat. The beast was too quick for him, and darted away towards a dark corner of the chamber, whither Paul followed it, hoping to discover its nest and perhaps recover the meat. He saw the rat run into a hole in the wall about two feet above the floor; and putting his face down to it, trying to look in, he felt a delicious current of fresh air. It was not very strong, but it caused the flame of his lamp to flicker, so that he withdrew it hurriedly for fear it should be extinguished. Suddenly he started as though he had been shot, and almost let fall the lamp in his excitement. Had he heard a human voice? Of course not! How absurd to imagine such a thing! But there it was again; and it said, "Holloa! Is anybody in there?" The sound came to his ear distinctly enough this time through the hole, and placing his mouth close to it, Paul shouted back, "Holloa! Yes, we're in here, and we want to get out. Who are you?" The boy almost screamed for joy at the answer which came to this question; for it was, "I'm Derrick Sterling. Are you Paul Evert?" Derrick was almost as greatly affected when the voice said, "Yes, I'm Paul, and there are a lot more of us in here, and we are stifling. But oh, Derrick, dear Derrick! I'm so glad you're not drowned." Then Paul went back to the others, and found it almost impossible to waken them. He finally succeeded; and when they comprehended his great news, each one had to go to the hole, draw in a deep breath of the fresh air, and call through it to Derrick, for the sake of hearing him answer. It was so good to hear a human voice besides their own; and though they knew he was a prisoner like themselves, it somehow filled them with new hope and longings for life. They had no tools with them, but all fell to work enlarging the hole with knives, the iron handles of their lunch-pails, or whatever else they could lay hands upon, while Paul stood by and held the lamp. Although Derrick had plenty of air and space to move about in, his situation had been fully as bad as theirs, for he had been alone. Nothing is so terrible under such circumstances as solitude, with the knowledge that you are absolutely cut off from mankind, and may never hear a human voice again. He had pricked his lamp down very low so as to save his oil, and was lying at full length on the cold floor, a prey to the most gloomy thoughts. All sorts of fantastic forms seemed to mock at him out of the darkness. He could almost hear their jeering laughter, and was rapidly giving way to terror and despair, when a ray of light flickered for a moment on the rocky roof above him. Springing to his feet and rubbing his eyes, he looked in the direction from which it seemed to have come, and saw it again, shining through what he had taken for a solid wall of rock. Then he called out, and Paul Evert, the very one of whom he had been in search, answered him. Half an hour later the hole was sufficiently large to allow a man to squeeze through it, and Derrick had thrown his arms around Paul, and hugged him in his wild joy and excitement. The thing for which the miners felt most grateful, next to their escape from the little stifling chamber and their meeting with Derrick, was his can of oil. Now they knew that with care they might keep a lamp burning for many hours; and the dread of total darkness, which is greater than that of hunger, or thirst, or any form of danger, no longer oppressed them. Aleck, the blacksmith, had a watch, and from it they learned that it was still early in the evening; though it already seemed as if they had been imprisoned for days. Some of the men began to complain bitterly of hunger and to beg for food, but Monk Tooley said they should not eat until the watch showed them that morning had arrived. To divert their thoughts, he proposed that they should make their way along the breast to its farther end, so as to be as near as possible to the slope and a chance of rescue. Acting upon this advice, they made the attempt. It was a most difficult undertaking, for the floor was of smooth slate, sloping at a sharp angle towards the gangway. It was like trying to crawl lengthwise of a steep roof to get from one row of the timbers that supported the upper wall to another. They were several hours on the journey, but finally reached the end of the long breast in safety. There they must wait until relieved from their awful situation by death, or by a rescuing party who would be obliged to tunnel through many yards of rock and coal to reach them. They managed to construct a rude platform of timbers, on which to rest more comfortably than on the smooth sloping rock floor, and here most of them lay down to sleep. Derrick and Paul lay side by side, with arms thrown about each other's necks. The former was nearly asleep when his companion whispered, "Dare!" "Yes, Polly." "Here's something for you; and if I don't live to get out, you'll always keep it to remember me by, won't you?" "I shouldn't need it for that, Polly; but I'll always keep it, whatever it is." It was Paul's sketch of the underground picnic-party, and Derrick knew what it was when he took it and thrust it into the bosom of his shirt, though days passed before he had a chance to look at it. Three days after this the same men and boys lay on their log platform, in almost the same positions, but they were haggard, emaciated, faint, and weak. Their last drop of oil had been burned, and they were in total darkness. A light would have shown that they lay like dead men. Suddenly one of them lifts his head and listens. "Thank God! thank God!" he exclaims, in a husky voice, hardly more than a whisper, "I hear them! they're coming!" Derrick's quick ear had detected the muffled sound of blows, and his words gave new life to the dying men around him. CHAPTER XVIII TO THE RESCUE!--A MESSAGE FROM THE PRISONERS From the moment the news came that nine men and boys were imprisoned in the flooded mine, preparations for their rescue, or at least of learning their fate, were pushed with all vigor. Although it had stopped raining, the night was dark, and great bonfires were lighted about the mouth of the slope. These were placed in charge of the old breaker boss, Mr. Guffy, and his boys, who fed them with dry timbers, and kept up the brilliant blaze until daylight. Around these fires the entire population of the village stood and discussed the situation; and by their light the workers were enabled to perform their tasks. The miners were divided into gangs, headed by the mine boss and by Tom Evert, and their work was the fetching of the steam pumps from across the valley and setting them up near the mouth of the slope. They had to be connected, by long lines of iron pipe, with the boilers under the breaker, and from each a double line of hose was carried down the slope until water was reached. It was nearly daylight when these operations were completed, and a faint cheer went up from the weary watchers as they saw four powerful streams of water added to the torrent that the regular mine pump had kept flowing all night. "Now, men," said the mine boss, when he saw that all was working to his satisfaction, "I want you to go home and get all the solid rest you can in the next two days, for after that I shall probably call upon you to work night and day." "We'll be ready boss, whenever you give the word," was the prompt answer from a score of stalwart fellows. Then all turned towards their homes, knowing they could do nothing more until the pumps had prepared a way for them. During the next day the news of the disaster spread far and wide, and from all sides visitors poured into the little village. Among these were a number of reporters from the metropolitan papers, some of whom, filled with a sense of their own importance, buzzed around like so many bumblebees. They blundered into all sorts of places where they had no business, bored everybody whom they could approach with absurd questions, and made of themselves public nuisances generally. While some among them acted thus foolishly, there were others who behaved like gentlemen and the sensible fellows they were. Of these the most noticeable was a well-built, pleasant-faced young man, named Allan McClain. He asked few questions, but each one had evidently been well considered and was directly to the point. He was quiet and unobtrusive, never displayed a note-book or pencil, kept his eyes and ears wide open, and, as a result, sent to his paper the best accounts of the situation that were published. How he did it was a mystery to the others, few of whom had even thought of giving to their business the careful study and attention that McClain bestowed upon it. The mine boss had been particularly annoyed by the conduct of several of these members of the press, and when they applied to him for permission to accompany the first gang of workmen down into the mine, he firmly but courteously said "No." He explained to them the dangers attending the proposed undertaking, and that there would be no room in the mine for any but those actively engaged in the work of rescue. Some of the reporters made such an outcry at this, and talked so loudly of their rights and of what they would do in case the mine boss persisted in his refusal, that he finally said if they could not behave better than they had he should be compelled to order them from the colliery altogether. During this scene Allan McClain listened to all that was said without speaking a word. Shortly afterwards the mine boss, meeting him alone, said, "I am sorry, sir, to be obliged to include you in my apparent discourtesy, but you know that if I made a single exception I could not enforce my rule." "I know it, Mr. Jones," was the pleasant answer, "and I do not expect any privileges that may not be extended to the rest. Your action will, however, make no difference to me, as I expect to leave the village to-day." Allan McClain did take the afternoon train away from Raven Brook, after bidding his companions good-by; but none of them knew where he had gone or the reasons for his departure. The pumping of the mine was so successful that two days later the water in it was lowered a few feet below the roof of the great chamber at the bottom of the slope. The mine boss had watched it closely, going down almost every hour to note the change of its level, and he now decided that the time had come to begin more active operations. The day before, a sturdy young man, much begrimed with coal-dust, and wearing a rough suit of mine clothes that had evidently seen long service, had presented himself at the mouth of the slope, and asked leave to take part in the rescue, in case there was any way in which he could be made useful. He said that he came from the neighboring colliery of Black Run, where the Raven Brook men had once rendered good service during a time of disaster, and that his name was Jack Hobson. The mine boss had thanked him for his offer of assistance, and said he would gladly accept it if he found an opportunity. The young man remained near the scene of operations, making himself so generally useful, and performing with such promptness and intelligence any little task given him, that the mine boss took a decided fancy to him before the day was over. Now that Mr. Jones wanted three reliable men to go down with him and make an exploration, he selected Tom Evert, Jack Hobson, and another young miner who had a brother among the victims of the flood. The departure of this little party was watched by a great crowd of people, who realized that if work could not be begun at once there would be little chance of finding any of the imprisoned men alive. Among the spectators were many reporters, any one of whom would gladly have paid a round sum to be taken along, and thus gain an opportunity of describing the appearance of the drowned mine. At the foot of the slope the exploring party found a rude but strong flat-boat that the mine boss had caused to be built and sent down for this very purpose. Sitting in it with bent bodies, for there was but little space beneath the roof of the chamber, they pushed off across the black waters and began a voyage so weird and mysterious that at first their thoughts found no expression in words. All about them floated traces of the disaster; here the body of a drowned mule, and there a bale of hay, or a quantity of timbers that, wrenched and broken, told of the awful force of the waters. These and many like tokens of destruction came slowly within the narrow circle of light from their lamps, and vanished again behind them. After a careful search along the opposite side of the chamber, they located gangway No. 1, in which the water was still within two inches of the roof. "It'll be some time afore we can get in there, sir," said Tom Evert. "Yes, Tom, three days at least, perhaps more." "T' big breast lies in here on this side t' gangway." "I know it, Tom; and if you'll pick out the spot that promises easiest working, we'll open a heading into it. We may find them there. If we don't we can work our way through it, above the water level, to the wall that divides it from the next one. Some of them are almost sure to be there if they're still alive." "That's what I think, sir; and if you say so, we'll start in right here. Can you tell just how far in t' breast lies?" "If that's all, we'll soon knock a hole through that, and then, please God, I'll find my crippled lad, an' t' brave one that went back after him. If we find 'em dead, old Tom Evert don't never want to come out alive. He couldn't." "Never fear, Tom, we'll find them alive," said the mine boss, cheerily. "I have full faith that we shall. If they're only in the big breast we'll have them out in three days more. Now, men, drive those staples into the wall, make the boat fast to them, and pitch in. As soon as you've cut a shelf to work on, I'll go back for fresh hands. This job's going to be done with half-hour reliefs." Jack Hobson held the staples in position while Tom Evert, lying on his side, drove them into the wall of solid coal with a dozen blows from his heavy hammer. These were the blows heard faintly by Derrick Sterling on the farther side of that massive wall; and the welcome sound carried with it new life and hope to him and his fainting comrades. Dropping the hammer, and seizing his pick, the burly miner struck a mighty blow at the wall, and followed it up with others so fast and furious that the coal fell rattling into the boat, or splashing into the water in glistening showers. The work of rescue was begun. As he sat there, Jack Hobson's eye lighted on a long, dark object floating near them, and calling attention to it, he said, "Don't you think, sir, that water trough might be bailed out and used as a sort of boat to establish communication between this point and the foot of the slope? I have been used to canoes, and believe I could manage it." The mine boss said it was a good idea, and he could try if he wanted to. So the trough, which was simply a long, flat-bottomed box, was brought alongside, bailed out, and placed in charge of the young man from Black Run. He made a rude paddle, and during the next two days did capital service in ferrying miners and tools back and forth between the opposite sides of the chamber. By this addition to the underground fleet the large boat could be left at the entrance to the heading, where it proved most useful as a landing-stage. The work was pushed with all possible speed, a dozen of the strongest and most skilful miners, who handled their picks with desperate energy, taking half-hourly turns each at driving the heading. Behind the miner who was thus at work, other men passed out the loosened material from hand to hand, and thus kept the opening clear. Whenever there was no demand for his services as ferry-man, Jack Hobson took his place among these workers, and by his cheering words and tireless energy kept up their spirits and spurred them on to greater efforts. When they had got about half-way through it was thought best to close the outer end of the heading with an air-tight door, and place another ten feet behind it, thus forming an airlock. Fresh air was forced into and compressed in the heading by means of an air-pump operated from the flat-boat at the outer end. These precautions were taken for fear lest when they broke through into the breast the air in it, compressed by the flood, should rush out with destructive force. It was also feared that, relieved from its air pressure, the water in the breast would rise and cut off the escape of any persons who might be in there. The position of those engaged in the work of rescue was by no means free from peril. The pumps, running at fullest speed, were barely able to keep the water from rising and flooding the new heading, so great and continuous was the flow into the mine from the soaked earth above it. They did not know but that any moment some fresh and unsuspected accumulation in the old workings might break forth and send a second flood pouring in upon them. Above all there was an ever-present danger from foul gases, which formed so rapidly that at times work had to be entirely suspended until they could be cleared away. Thus every time the relief men went down to their self-imposed labor their departure was watched by anxious women with tearful eyes and heavy hearts. For a day and a night these stout-hearted men worked without knowing whether they sought the living or the dead. On the afternoon of the second day, during a momentary pause in the steady rattle of the picks, Jack Hobson, who was at the inner end of the heading, thought he heard a knocking. Calling for perfect silence, he listened. Yes, it was! Faint, but unmistakable, it came again. "Tap, tap, tap; tap, tap, tap; tap, tap, tap," and a pause. Then it was repeated, and its meaning could not be doubted. As plain as human speech, it said, "Here we are, still alive, but in great distress. We know you are coming, but you must hurry." From mouth to mouth the joyful news was carried out from the heading, across the sullen waters, up the slope to the anxious waiting throngs, and on throbbing wires throughout the length and breadth of the land. Mrs. Sterling heard it and lifted her tear-stained face in earnest thankfulness to Heaven. The Halfords heard it in Philadelphia, and Mr. Halford said he could stand it no longer, but must go to Raven Brook and be on hand when the men were rescued. Before another sun rose that faint tapping made in the recesses of the drowned mine by Derrick Sterling with a bit of rock had been heard around the world. Now the brave fellows in the heading knew what they were working for, and the blows of their picks fell faster and harder than ever on the glistening wall that still opposed its black front to them. The excitement at the mouth of the mine was now intense, and every man who came up from it was besieged by anxious inquiries for the very latest news. What was the meaning of the three taps three times repeated? Did it signify that there were nine persons in the breast, or only three? If only three, where were the others? Who were the three? How many were alive? Were any dead? These and a thousand like questions were asked and discussed, but nobody could answer them certainly. The reports brought up were only regarding the progress of the work. So many feet in an hour, so many yards a day. Now there are only six feet more to cut through; now five, four, three, and now but eighteen inches. The suspense is terrible. To the mothers and wives waiting for the end up in the little village it is almost too great to be borne. To the haggard men behind those eighteen inches of black rock it seems as though the breath of fresh air for want of which they are dying would come too late. They press eagerly against the wall, and in their feebleness pick vainly at it with their fingers. It will not yield. Even Monk Tooley, who was so fierce and strong five days before, can make no impression on it. Now but one foot of wall remains, and Tom Evert pauses in his task to dash the sweat-drops from his eyes, and to call, as he has already a dozen times, "Holloa! Holloa in there!" Like an echo comes the answer, faint but distinct, "Holloa! Hurry!" He only stops to call louder than before, but with a tremble in his voice, "Is--Paul--Evert--alive?" and with ear held against the wet wall he breathlessly awaits the answer. "Yes." The word is enough, and with the fury and strength of a giant he again attacks the wall. He pays no attention to the relief who is ready to take his place. He knows nothing, cares for nothing, save that his boy is waiting for him beyond those few inches of crumbling coal. At last his pick strikes through. A few more desperate strokes and the barrier is broken away. He springs into the breast. Another instant and his crippled lad, whom he had thought never to see again, is strained to his heart, and the burly miner is sobbing like a child. CHAPTER XIX RESTORED TO DAYLIGHT In the overwhelming joy of the moment, Tom Evert had no thought save for the son whom he had snatched from the very gates of death. He was absolutely unconscious of the presence of another human being in the breast, nor did the broken words of blessing and gratitude uttered by the faint-voiced miners find their way to his ear. His instinct was to get his lad out from that stifling, foul-aired place, and, still holding him in his arms, he crawled back through the heading, was borne swiftly across the waters from which he had snatched their prey, and drawn up the slope. As he stepped from the car at its mouth, and they saw what it was he bore so tenderly and proudly, a mighty cheer went up from the assembled throng. Another and another. They were wild with joy. The long suspense was over, the terrible strain was relaxed, and they gave way to their feelings. Suddenly they noticed that the drooping head of the lad was not lifted from the broad shoulder on which it rested. His arms hung limp and lifeless. A great silence came over the multitude. They stood awe-stricken, as in the presence of death, and pressing aside in front of the advancing miner, they made way for him to pass. Still bearing his burden, unconscious of all besides, and looking neither to the right nor to the left, Tom Evert passed through the human lane thus formed, and went home--home to the rude, unpainted house in which Paul was born, and which, during the darkness and despair of the past five days, had been a constant picture before his mind's eye--home to the mother whose tenderest love has ever been for her crippled boy. Home! Although Tom Evert, with eyes and ears only for his own, had no thought of the others for whom he had broken open the prison door, there was no lack of warm hearts and willing hands to help them. Following close after the miner Warren Jones entered the breast, and directly behind him was Jack Hobson. The light from their lamps dazzled the eyes that for three days had lived in a darkness as absolute as though no light existed in the universe. Turning them away from the light, the prisoners listened eagerly for the voices of their deliverers. The first words they heard were from the mine boss, the man on whom they had depended, and who they knew had planned and carried out their rescue. "Are you all here, men?" "There's nine of us." "And all alive?" "All alive yet, thank God; though Boodle, poor lad, is wellnigh gone." "Where is Derrick Sterling?" "Here I am, sir," came a weak but well-known voice from back in the darkness. Before Mr. Jones could locate it, the young man who had followed him so closely into the breast sprang to the side of the lad, and seizing his hand, exclaimed, "Derrick Sterling, you are a splendid fellow, and this is one of the very happiest moments of my life!" "Who are you?" asked Derrick, faintly. "My name is Allan McClain," was the answer, "and if you will give me your friendship I shall consider it an honor to be proud of." Trying weakly to return the hand-pressure of the young stranger, Derrick answered, "He who has come to our rescue at the risk of his own life must indeed be my friend!" Then the mine boss found them, and saying, "Drink this, my poor, brave lad," gave him a cup of rich warm soup, that had been made nearly an hour before, and kept warm over a spirit-lamp in the boat, just outside the heading. It filled the boy with new life, and when he and the others had drank of it all that was allowed them, they felt strong enough to crawl out through the heading. Derrick was the first to go and the first to be drawn up the slope, supported in the car by the young man to whom he had just given his friendship. As they approached the blessed sunlight, and the weary lad caught its first gleam, still far above him, he pressed the hand of his companion, and could do nothing but gaze at it. Could it be the very light of day that he had longed for and prayed for and despaired of ever seeing again? He knew it must be, but it seemed almost too glorious to be real. When they reached the surface, the light that had roused such a tumult of feeling within him revealed two great tears coursing slowly down through the grime of his hollow cheeks. The excitement over Paul Evert's appearance was as nothing compared with that aroused by the sight of Derrick Sterling. Had not his name been a household word throughout the land for days? Was he not a brave fellow whom they all loved? Could they cheer loud enough or long enough to do him honor, and testify their joy at his deliverance? It did not seem as though they could; and poor Derrick stood before them, trembling with strong emotion, without knowing which way to turn or look. The reporters, who were taking mental notes of his appearance, also gazed curiously at the young man who had come up from the mine with him, and on whom he now leaned. He was a miner, of course, for he was dressed in mine clothes, and was as begrimed as the sootiest delver of them all, but who was he? He had somewhere lost his miner's cap, and the yellow, close-cropped curls of his uncovered head had a strangely familiar look. He noticed their stares, knew what was passing in their minds, and laughingly said: "Yes, fellows; I'm McClain of the _Explorer_, and I guess I've got a beat on you all this time." Then to Derrick he said, "Come, Sterling, we must get out of this; there's a mother waiting for you over there." Just then another car-load of rescued men was drawn up, and again the excited spectators broke forth in a tumult of cheers. Under cover of this diversion, Derrick, half supported by Allan McClain, walked slowly away towards the little vine-covered cottage at the end of the village street. Here his mother awaited him, for she felt that their meeting was something too sacred to be witnessed by stranger eyes. At the mouth of the slope similar meetings were taking place between others who had less self-control or less delicacy, but who, in their way, showed equal affection and deep feeling. Wives greeted husbands who appeared to them as risen from the dead, and mothers wept over sons whom they had deemed lost to them forever. As Monk Tooley stepped from the car, the first to hold out a hand to him was his son Bill, leaning on a crutch, and still bearing traces of his illness. His greeting was, "Well, feyther, we've missed yer sad! Thought maybe yer wouldn't get back no more." "I'm not dat easy got rid of, lad. Had a plenty ter eat, hain't yer?" "Plenty, feyther, sich as it was." "Dat's more'n I have, an' I hope yer've saved a bite fer yer dad. Starvin's hungry work." Nothing else was overheard; but the tones of the rough man and his equally rough son held an unwonted accent of tenderness. As they grasped each other's hand, one gazed curiously at his father's haggard face, and the other cast a pitying glance at his son's rude crutch. Not the least interested spectator of these touching scenes was Mr. Halford, who had arrived that morning from Philadelphia. When, after all the rest had been sent safely to the surface the mine boss was drawn up the slope, and was in turn greeted with a rousing cheer, that gentlemen slipped an arm through his, and led him away, saying, "You have done nobly, Warren, and I am proud to call you brother." "I could have done nothing, Harold, if these brave fellows had not stood by me as they have." "And they could have done nothing without your level head to direct them and your splendid example to stimulate them." So the great colliery disaster was happily ended, and in Raven Brook village great sorrow was turned to great joy. As the two gentlemen sat talking together in the room that the mine boss called his den, that evening, Mr. Halford said, "By-the-way, Warren, I did not take this trip wholly out of curiosity to witness your rescue of the miners. I want to learn something of this young Sterling. Did you know his father?" "Yes, he was one of my warmest friends." "Was his name Gilbert?" "Yes." "Do you know whether he ever lived in Crawford County?" "That is where he came from; he was born and raised there." "Did you ever hear him speak of owning any property there?" "I have heard him mention a little old rocky farm that was left to him; but he always spoke of it as being too poor to have any value. In fact he once told me that it was not worth the taxes he paid on it." "I declare, I believe it is the very place! If these Sterlings turn out to be the people you lead me to think they are, Warren, there's a small fortune awaiting them." "What! a fortune awaiting the widow Sterling and Derrick? It can't be! Why, they haven't a relative in the world." "That may all be, but what I tell you is true. If this Gilbert Sterling was a son of Deacon Giles Sterling of Newfields, in Crawford County, his heirs are the owners of one of the most valuable bits of property in the State. Why, man, this little old rocky farm you speak of, if it is the same--and I am inclined to think it must be--lies in the very centre of the richest oil district that has yet been discovered. The best-paying well owned by our company is located on its border. For a clear title to that farm I am authorized to offer twenty-five thousand dollars cash, and a one-fifth interest in whatever oil may be taken from it." The next morning Mr. Jones called at the Sterlings', and was amazed to find Derrick already showing signs of recovery. A splendid constitution and a determined will, aided by twelve hours of sleep and an abundance of nourishing food, were already beginning to efface the traces of hunger and suffering. The boy gave his visitor a cheerful greeting, and tried to express something of his gratitude in words, but they failed him utterly. The other said, "Don't try, Derrick. It's over now, and we all have cause for the most profound gratitude; but each of us understands the other's feelings, and there is no need of words between us." Mrs. Sterling's eyes were filled with happy tears as, sitting beside her son, she tried to tell something of the pride she felt in him. After a while she said, "I know it's wrong, but I can't help trying to look ahead a little, and, I confess, with some anxiety. I want my boy to do what is right, and I do not want him to remain idle; but oh! Mr. Jones, I cannot let him go down into that awful mine again. It has nearly killed him; and I am sure I could not survive another such experience." "I don't blame you for feeling as you do," said the young man, "and I think perhaps some other arrangement can be made. One reason for my calling this morning was to ask if I might bring a gentleman to see you who is greatly interested in Derrick, and desirous of making his acquaintance. Are you willing that I should, and do you think Derrick is strong enough to receive visitors?" "Certainly I am," said Mrs. Sterling; and Derrick answered for himself that he felt strong enough to see any number of gentlemen who were interested in him. So Mr. Jones left them, and shortly afterwards returned with Mr. Halford, who soon won his way to the mother's heart by saying pleasant things about her boy, and to Derrick's by thanking him for his kindness to Mrs. Halford and Miss Nellie. He said that he had been especially commissioned by his daughter to inquire concerning the welfare of her bumping-mule, and was glad to hear from Derrick that that knowing animal was rapidly recovering from his injuries. The conversation was led on from one thing to another, until Mr. Halford was satisfied that he had really found the family of whom he was in search. Then he told them of the good-fortune in store for them, provided they could prove their ownership of the little Bradford County farm. Trembling with excitement, Mrs. Sterling brought out a box full of her husband's papers, among which was found a deed for the farm, and receipts for taxes paid up to the time of his death. Having satisfied himself of the correctness of these, Mr. Halford made them the offer of which he had spoken to Mr. Jones the evening before. Then he left them, saying he knew they would want some time to consider his proposition, and that he would call the next day to learn their decision. After their visitors had gone, Derrick and his mother gazed wonderingly at each other. Could it all be true? Were their days of poverty really over? Was the overworked mother to have a release from the toil and the bitter anxieties that made her look so thin and careworn? Were Derrick's dreams of a college education and a profession about to be realized? Long and earnestly they talked, but not as to what answer they should give Mr. Halford. They had decided that almost before he left. They talked with grateful and loving hearts of the Heavenly Father who had so ordered their ways as to turn their very darkness into brightest light. As she thought over her mercies, the wonderful promises that had sustained the widowed mother through so many an hour of trial came back to her with their fullest force. That afternoon Derrick felt strong enough to walk out, and went to the Everts' to see his dear friend and recent companion in suffering. He found Paul able to see and talk to him, but in bed, and very weak and languid. "If I could only get away, far away from it all, Dare," he said. "The horror of the mine hangs over me all the time, and I'd almost rather never get well than go down into it again." Then Derrick bent down and whispered something that brought a new light into the crippled lad's eyes and a faint flush to his pale cheeks. "Oh, Dare!" he exclaimed. "Is it true? Really! Do you mean it?" Derrick answered that it was true, and he meant every word of it. CHAPTER XX GOOD-BY TO THE COLLIERY What Derrick whispered to Paul Evert as he bent over him was: "You needn't ever go down in the mine again, Polly. I want you to go to Philadelphia with me to learn to be an artist. The money's ready, and it's all fixed that I'm to go; and if you only say the word it will be fixed for you to go too. I'm only waiting for you to get strong to tell you the whole story. Don't say a word about it yet, though, for it's a secret." A hope like this was a wonderful medicine to the delicate lad, and when, an hour later, his father came in, he was astonished at the change for the better that had come over him. "Why, Paul lad, an hour since I was thinking I'd saved thee for naught but to die, after all," said the miner. "Now I find thee bright and smiling, and chipper as a tomtit. Whatever's happened?" "Derrick's been to see me, father." "Ay; I might ha' know'd it. No other could cheer thee like him. He's a noble lad, and a true friend o' thine, Paul. I doubt if another would ha' gone back i' t' face o' t' skirling waters on chance o' saving thee." "I'm sure not, father." While Paul was thus talking of Derrick, Derrick was talking of Paul. He had gone home full of a newly formed plan. In fact plans had formed themselves so rapidly in his mind since Mr. Halford's visit that they were already trying to crowd each other from his memory. The one now uppermost was in regard to Paul. Going to his own room, he took out from a small drawer, where he kept his choicest treasures, the sketch of the underground picnic party that Paul had drawn down in the mine, and given him while they were imprisoned together in the darkness. It was soiled and a little torn, but every spot of grime upon it was a memento of that terrible experience; and though the picture was of recent origin, associations were already clustered so thickly about it that to Derrick it was a priceless treasure. Showing it to his mother, he asked what she thought of it. "I think it is capital!" she exclaimed. Then Derrick told her the story of the sketch, of Paul's longing to be an artist, and his dread of going into the mine again. He ended by saying, "Now, mother, when I go to Philadelphia to prepare for college, can't Polly go with me and study to be an artist? He won't be very expensive, and I'm sure we're going to have money enough for all." "Of course he can, Derrick. I would much rather you had a companion than to go alone, and I know you two will enjoy much together, and be of great help to each other. As for the money, dear, I would rather remain poor all my life than not have you willing to share whatever you have with those who need it. The longer you live, Derrick, the more fully you will realize that the greatest pleasure to be gained from money is by spending it for the happiness of others." So it was settled that Derrick and Paul should go to Philadelphia together, and Paul made such haste to get strong, so as to hear the whole story, that it had to be told to him that very evening. By the next morning, when Mr. Halford called upon the Sterlings to receive their answer to his offer, they had already in imagination spent so much of the money they expected to receive from him that it would have been impossible for them to say anything but "Yes," even if they had wanted to. Mr. Halford was greatly pleased with the plans made for Derrick and Paul, and promised to look out for them in Philadelphia, secure a pleasant boarding-place for them, and see that they got into the best schools in the city. He said they ought to start as soon as possible, for the autumn terms were about to begin. Before he left he handed Mrs. Sterling a check for a larger amount of money than she had ever in her life possessed. He said she might find it convenient for immediate use while the necessary steps for the transfer of the little Crawford County farm to the great oil company were being taken. In two weeks after Mr. Halford's departure everything was in readiness for that of the boys, and the time had arrived for them to start for the great city. Harry Mule, whose leg had been so well mended that it could be taken out of splints, was to be left in charge of Bill Tooley. Bill was to be allowed to hire him out to the mine boss as soon as he was able to work, and that gentleman had promised them both a job at hauling waste cars over the dump. Thus neither of them would be obliged to go down into the mine again. Bill Tooley was now able to walk without his crutch; but his leg would always be stiff, and he would never be free from a limp in his gait. As Harry Mule had the same peculiarity in his, they became known in the colliery as the two "Stiffies." Under this title they acquired considerable fame for their fondness for each other, and for the wisdom of one of them. The first of October was a glorious autumn day, and even the ragged colliery village looked pretty, after a fashion, in the golden haze through which the rising sun shone down upon it. As Derrick, and Paul, accompanied by Mrs. Sterling, Helen, the mine boss, and burly Tom Evert, walked down to the little railway-station, the miners of the day shift were gathering about the mouth of the slope, and preparing to descend into the recently pumped-out workings. From them came many a rough but honest farewell shout to the boys who had endeared themselves to all the village. "Tak' care o' thysels, lads!" "We'll not forget ye, an' ye'll bear us in mind!" "Whene'er thee's tired o' city, coom back, an' ye'll find a welcome!" "Mind t' fire-damp i' t' city, lads, an' use naught but safeties!" "Good-by!" As long as they were within hearing the boys, shouted back such answers as, "We'll try to!" "Thank you, Ike! We won't forget you; never fear!" "Good-by all!" Then the train came along. A few loving words were hastily spoken, and they were off. The hard, grimy, perilous life of the breaker and the mine was left behind, and a new one of study, ambitious dreams, and successes was opening broadly before them. [Illustration: GOOD-BY TO THE COLLIERY] At first the boys were inclined to feel very homesick, and their conversation was only of the dear ones whom they had just left. Gradually the feeling wore off, as their attention was attracted by the grand scenery through which they were travelling. Paul revelled in the gorgeous coloring of the autumnal foliage which covered mountain, hill, and valley with splendid mantles of crimson and gold. As the train, following the picturesque windings of the Lehigh, crept along some mountain-side hundreds of feet above the low-lying bottom lands, his delight at the vast expanse of exquisite scenery unfolded before them knew no bounds. "I didn't know the world was so beautiful," he said to Derrick, with a sigh of deep content, as the vivid pictures of the grand panorama flashed rapidly by. Derrick shared this enthusiasm, though to a less extent. He was more interested in the various forms of mining operations which were to be seen on all sides. His continued exclamations of, "Oh, Paul! look at that new breaker," or, "Isn't that a capital idea for a slope?" at last attracted the attention of a middle-aged gentleman who, with a lady, occupied the seat immediately behind them. Finally he leaned forward, and, speaking to Derrick, said, "Excuse me; but as you seem to be familiar with mining operations, perhaps you will kindly tell me what the great black buildings, of which we now see so many, are used for?" "Why," answered Derrick, somewhat surprised that anybody should be ignorant regarding what to him were among the commonest objects of life, "those are breakers." Then seeing that the other was still puzzled, he explained, simply and clearly, the uses of breakers, and in a few minutes found himself engaged in earnest conversation with the stranger upon mining in general, and coal mining in particular. At last the gentleman said, "You seem to be as well informed on the subject as a miner." "I am, or rather I have been employed in a mine until very recently," answered Derrick. "Indeed! It must be a most interesting occupation, but I should think a very dangerous one. I have a son who visited one of these coal-mines at the time of a disaster that threatened a number of lives, and his accounts of what he saw and experienced at the time are very thrilling. It was, I believe, at a place called Raven Brook." It was now Derrick's turn to be interested, and he said, "Why, that's where we have just come from! Raven Brook is the station at which we took the train." "If I had known that we were to stop there," said the gentleman, "I believe my wife and I would have got off and waited over one train, for we have been very curious to see the place. We have been on a trip to the West," he added, by way of explanation, "and our son's accounts of his experience came to us by letter. Besides, we read much of that disaster in the papers." "It was awful," said Derrick, simply. "Then you were in the village at the time? Perhaps you know a brave young fellow named Derrick Sterling?" A quick flush spread over the boy's face as he answered, "That is my name." "What!" exclaimed the gentleman; "are you the young man who went back into the mine and risked his life to save a friend?" "I expect I am," answered Derrick, with burning cheeks; "and this is the friend I went to find." "Well, of all wonderful things!" cried the stranger. "To think that we should meet you of all persons. Wife, this is Derrick Sterling, the brave lad that Allan wrote to us about, and whose name has been so much in the papers lately." "You don't mean to say," exclaimed Derrick, "that you are Allan McClain's father?" "I am," answered the gentleman; "and this is his mother. We are both very proud to make the acquaintance of the Derrick Sterling of whom our boy writes that he is proud to call him friend." Paul received an almost equal share of attention with Derrick; and during the rest of the journey their new-found friends did everything in their power to make the time pass quickly and pleasantly to them. Both Mr. and Mrs. McClain gave the boys an urgent invitation to make their house their home, at least until they selected a boarding-place, and were greatly disappointed to learn that this was already provided for them. Nothing could exceed Allan McClain's amazement when, upon meeting his parents at the railway-station in Philadelphia, he found them in company, and apparently upon terms of intimate acquaintance, with two of his friends from the Raven Brook Colliery. He was delighted to learn that Derrick and Paul had come to the city to live, and promised to call the next day and arrange all sorts of plans with them. Mr. Halford, who was also at the station, was almost equally surprised to see them with the McClains, who, he afterwards told Derrick, were among the best families in the city. His carriage was at the station, and in a few minutes more the two boys, who but a short time before had been only poor colliery lads, were ushered into a handsome house, where Mrs. Halford and Miss Nellie were waiting to give them a cordial welcome. Two days later they were established in pleasant rooms of their own, had begun their studies, and, above all, found themselves surrounded by a circle of warm friendships. * * * * * Very nearly five years after the date of this chapter, just before sunset of a pleasant summer's day, a barge party of gay young people rowed out over the placid Schuylkill from the boat-house belonging to the University of Pennsylvania. In the stern of the barge, acting as coxswain, sat a young man of delicate frame and refined features. His pale, thoughtful face showed him to be a close student, and the crutch at his side betrayed the fact that he was a cripple. On each side of the coxswain sat a young lady, both of whom were exchanging good-natured chaff with the merry-faced, stalwart fellow who pulled the stroke oar. "I don't believe rowing is such hard work after all," said one of them, "though you college men do make such a fuss about your training and your practice spins. I'm sure it looks easy enough." "You are quite right, Miss Nellie," answered the stroke; "it is awfully easy compared with some things--cramming for a final in mathematics, for instance." "Oh, Derrick!" exclaimed the other young lady, "you can't call that hard work. I'm sure it doesn't seem as though you had spent your time anywhere but on the river for the past two months. If you can do that, and at the same time graduate number one in your class, with special mention in mathematics, the 'cramming,' as you call it, can't be so very difficult." "All things are not what they seem," chanted Derrick. "It may be, sister Helen, that there are some things in heaven and earth not dreamt of in your philosophy, after all!" "Oho!" laughed Nellie Halford. "_Pinafore_ and Shakespeare! What a combination of wit and wisdom! It's quite worthy of a U. P. Senior." "He's not even a U. P. Senior now," said the coxswain, from the stern of the barge. "He has gone back in the alphabet, and is only an A. B." "An idea for your next cartoon, old man," cried Derrick. "The downfall of the Seniors, and their return to the rudimentary elements of knowledge. By-the-way, Polly," he added, more soberly, "do you remember that to-day is the anniversary of your entering upon the career of breaker-boy five years ago?" "It is a day I never forget, Dare," answered Paul Evert, gravely, as he gazed into the handsome sun-tanned face in front of him, with a look in which affection and pride were equally blended. THE END 
6338	----	Scanned by Sean Pobuda (jpobuda@adelphia.net) Boy Scouts in the Coal Caverns, Or The Light in Tunnel Six By Major Archibald Lee Fletcher CHAPTER I CAMPING IN THE BREAKER "And so I says to myself, says I, give me a good husky band of Boy Scouts! They'll do the job if it can be done!" Case Canfield, caretaker, sat back in a patched chair in the dusky, unoccupied office of the Labyrinth mine and addressed himself to four lads of seventeen who were clad in the khaki uniform of the Boy Scouts of America. Those of our readers who have read the previous books of this series will have good cause to remember George Benton, Charley ("Sandy") Green, Tommy Gregory and Will Smith. The adventures of these lads among the Pictured Rocks of Old Superior, among the wreckers and reptiles of the Florida Everglades, in the caverns of the Great Continental Divide, and among the snows of the Hudson Bay wilderness have been recorded under appropriate titles in previous works. The four boys were members of the Beaver Patrol, Chicago. Will Smith was Scoutmaster, while George Benton was Patrol Leader. They wore upon the sleeves of their coats medals showing that they had passed the examination as Ambulance Aids, Stalkers, Pioneers and Seamen. Instructed by Mr. Horton, a well-known criminal lawyer of Chicago, the boys had reached the almost deserted mine at dusk of a November day. There they had found Canfield, the caretaker, waiting for them in a dimly-lighted office. The mine had not been operated for a number of months, not because the veins had given out, but because of some misunderstanding between the owners of mines in that section. The large, bare room in which the caretaker and the Boy Scouts met was in the breaker. There was no fire in the great heater, and the tables and chairs were black with dust. A single electric light shone down from the ceiling, creating long, ghost-like shadows as it swayed about in a gentle wind blowing through a broken window. "Well," Tommy Gregory said, as the caretaker paused, "you've got the Boy Scouts, and it remains for you to set us to work." "And a sturdy looking lot, too!" grinned the caretaker. "Oh, Mr. Horton wouldn't be apt to send a lot of cripples!" laughed Sandy Green. "He's next to his job, that man is!" "I presume he told you all about the case?" suggested Canfield. "Indeed he did not," replied Will Smith. "Not a thing about it?" asked the caretaker. "He only said that you would give us full instructions." "That's strange!" Canfield observed thoughtfully. "Perhaps he thought we wouldn't want to undertake the job if we knew exactly what it was!" suggested Sandy. "It is a queer kind of a job," Canfield admitted, "but I don't think you boys would be apt to back out because of a little danger." "I wanted to back out several times," laughed Tommy, "but, somehow, these others boys wouldn't permit me to." "Go on and tell us about it," urged Sandy. "Tell us just what you want us to do, and then we'll tell you whether we think we can do it or not." "You've got to find two boys!" replied Canfield. "Mother of Moses!" exclaimed Tommy. "I hope we haven't got to go and dig up blond-haired little Algernon, or discover pretty little Clarence, and turn a bunch of money over to him!" "I think these two boys may have money coming to them," the caretaker replied. "There must be money back of it or the friends of the lads wouldn't be giving me cash to spent in their interest." "Where are these boys?" asked Will. "I've heard the opinion expressed that the boys are somewhere in the mine!" answered Canfield. "I can hardly believe that they are, but it has been suggested that we may as well begin the search under ground." "Where do these boys belong?" asked George. "Anywhere and everywhere," was the reply. "Jimmie Maynard and Dick Thompson came here as breaker boys six months ago. They were ragged and dirty, and appeared to be as tough as two young bears. They worked steadily until the day before the mine closed down and then they disappeared." "That's easy," declared Tommy. "They got tired of work!" "That may be," answered the caretaker, "but they certainly didn't get tired of drawing their pay. They went away leaving about eight dollars the two of them in the care of the company." "Then something must have happened to them!" Will suggested. "Who's looking for these boys?" asked George. "A New York lawyer," was the reply. "I know nothing whatever about the man. In fact, I don't know why he wants to find out where the boys are. He sends me money and tells me to continue my quest until the boys are found, and then to send them to New York." "So you have entire charge of the search," said Sandy, tentatively. "Yes," was the reply, "except for Joe Ventner. He's a detective sent on from New York by this Burlingame person, the lawyer to whom I referred a short time ago." "What part of the world is he searching?" asked Will. "He seems to think that the boys ran away because of some childish prank put on by them the night before. They broke some windows in a couple of shanties down by the tracks, or, at least, the other boys say they did, and Joe thinks they ran away because of that. He accounts in that way for them not calling after their pay envelopes." "So he thinks they've gone out of the country, does he." "Yes," was the reply. "He comes back here every few days to ask if I have heard anything regarding the youngsters, and then goes away again. If you leave it to me, I don't think the fellow is working very hard in the case. There's a half a dozen saloons in a little dump of a place about ten miles away, and my idea is that he puts in a good deal of his time there." "You don't seem to take to this detective?" asked George. "Oh, I don't know, as he's so much worse than the average private detective," replied the caretaker. "He's out for his day's wages, and the easier he can get them, the better it suits him." "So you don't know who wants these boys, or what they're wanted for?" asked Will. "Lawyer Burlingame never took you into his confidence so far as to post you on the details of the case?" "He never did!" answered the caretaker. "Is he liberal with his money?" asked George. "He pays all the bills I send in," was the answer. "And seems to keep this bum detective pretty well supplied with ten dollar bills." "We may have to investigate this investigator!" laughed Sandy. "Did Mr. Horton say anything to you about your lodgings while here?" asked the caretaker. "It's getting too cold here for me, and we may as well be shifting to warmer quarters." "You said a short time ago," Will began, "that you rather thought we ought to begin this search in the mine itself." "That's my idea!" answered the caretaker. "Do you think the boys are hiding in the mine?" "Well, there are some things connected with the case which point in that direction," replied Canfield. "For instance, there's a lot of queer things going on underground." "Ghosts?" demanded Tommy. "You're not steering us up against a haunted mine, are you?" asked George with a wink at his chum. "That would be too good to be true!" "I haven't said anything about ghosts or haunted mines," chuckled the caretaker. "I'm only saying that there are queer things taking place in the mine. Now there's Tunnel Six," he went on, "I have seen lights there with my own eyes, when I know there wasn't a person within two miles of the spot except myself. And I've heard noises, too! These unaccountable noises which make a man think of graveyards and ghosts." "But why should two healthy, active boys want to seek such a hiding place?" asked Will. "It certainly can't be very pleasant in the dark and damp tunnels! Besides, where would they get their provisions?" "I'm not arguing the case, lads," the caretaker replied, "I'm placing the case in your hands without instructions. I only suggest that you look in the mine first, but you don't have to do that unless you want to!" "I don't see how we can find fault with that arrangement!" laughed Will. "And now," he went on, let's arrange about our lodgings. In the first place, who knows that we are here on this job?" "Not a soul, unless some one saw you coming into the breaker!" "That's just as it should be," Will went on. "Now I propose that we camp out in the breaker. There must be a cozy corner somewhere, under the chutes, or in back of a staircase, or away up under the roof, where we can camp out while we are going through the mine." "You won't find the old breaker a very comfortable place to live in," suggested Canfield. "Well, we can line the walls of some little cubbyhole with canvas if necessary, and you can string a wire in so as to give us electricity for heating and lighting, and we can live as comfortable as four bugs in a rug. If we keep out of sight during the day time, no one will ever suspect that we are here." "Have it your own way!" replied Canfield. "I'll see that you get plenty to eat and plenty of bed clothing." "That'll help some!" laughed Tommy. "During the night we can travel through the mine with our lights, and during the daytime we can crawl into our little beds and sleep our heads off!" "When do you want your first load of provisions?" asked Canfield. "Right now, tonight!" replied Sandy. "Well, come along then," Canfield said, rising from his chair, "and I'll let you pick out a spot for your camp, as you call it." After quite an extended search through the breaker the boys selected a small room on the ground floor, from which one window looked out on the half deserted yard where the weigh-house stood. The room was perhaps twenty feet in size each way, and the walls were of heavy planking. The whole apartment was sadly in need of it scrubbing, but the lads concluded to postpone that until some future date. "I can bring in cot beds and bedding," the caretaker announced, "and string the electric wire for heating, lighting, and cooking before I go to bed. That will leave you all shipshape in the morning, and you can then begin your cleaning up as soon as you please." The caretaker was as good as his word, and before ten o'clock the cots and bedding were in place, also an electric heater and an electric plate for cooking had been moved into the apartment. Not considering it advisable to go out for supper, Canfield had also brought in provisions in the shape of bacon, potatoes, eggs, bread, butter, coffee, and various grades of canned goods, so the boys had made a hearty meal and had plenty left for breakfast. While cooking they had covered the one window with a heavy piece of canvas. "Now you're all, tight and snug for the night," the caretaker smiled, as he turned back from the door and glanced over the rather cozy-looking room. "If I'm about here during the night, I'll look in upon you again." Canfield stepped out and closed the door behind him. Then he came back and looked in again with a big smile on his face. "Do you boys know anything about mines?" he asked. "Not, a thing!" replied Tommy. "Then don't you go climbing down the ladders and wandering around in the gangways tonight," the caretaker warned. "Say, there's an idea!" Tommy said to Sandy, with a wink, as Canfield went out. "How do you think one of these mammoth coal mines looks, any way?" "Cut that out, boys!" exclaimed Will. "If I catch one of you attempting the ladders tonight, I'll tie you up!" "Who said anything about going down the ladders tonight?" demanded Tommy. CHAPTER II THE CALL OF THE PACK It was somewhere near midnight when the boys sought their beds. Will and George were soon asleep, but Tommy and Sandy had no notion of passing their first night in the mine in slumber. Ten minutes after the regular breathing of the two sleepers became audible, Tommy sat up in his bed and deftly threw a pillow so as to strike Sandy in the face. "Cut it out!" whispered Sandy. "You don't have to do anything to wake me up! I've been wondering for a long time whether you hadn't gone to sleep! You looked sleepy when the light went out." "Never was so wide awake in my life!" declared Tommy. "Well, get up and dress," advised Sandy. "If we get into the mine tonight, we'll have to hurry!" "Have you figured out how we're going to get into the mine?" asked Tommy. "It will be the ladders for us, I guess." "Of course, it'll be the ladders!" replied Sandy. "Do you suppose Canfield is coming here in the middle of the night to turn on the power?" "I wonder how deep the shaft is?" asked Tommy. "I guess this one must be about five hundred feet." "Is that a guess, or a piece of positive information?" "It's a guess," laughed Sandy, drawing on his shoes and walking softly across the bare floor in the direction of the shaft. The boys passed out of the sleeping chamber into a passage which led directly to the shaft of the mine. This shaft was perhaps twenty feet in width. It included the air shaft, the division where the pumps were operated, and two divisions for the cages which lifted the coal from the bottom of the mine. The pumps were not working, of course, and no air was being forced down. One of the cages lay at the top so the other must have been at the bottom of the shaft. As the boys looked down into the shaft, Tommy seized his chum by the arm and whispered: "Did you see that light down there?" "Light nothing!" declared Sandy. "But I did see a light!" insisted the other. "Perhaps you did," replied Sandy, "but if there's any light there it's merely a reflection from our electrics. There may be a metallic surface down there which throws back the light rays." "Have it your own way!" grunted Tommy. "You know yourself that the caretaker said there were lights in the mine which no one could account for and he especially mentioned the light in Tunnel Six. "All right!" Sandy grinned. "We'll sneak down so quietly that any person who happens to be at the bottom of the shaft with the light will never suspect that we are within a hundred miles of the place. We may be able to geezle the fellow that's making the ghost walk around here nights." The boys took to the ladders and moved down as silently as possible. Now and then a rung creaked softly under their feet, but they got to the bottom without any special mishap. Tommy drew a long breath when at last they landed at the bottom of the shaft. He threw his light upward, then, and declared that in his opinion they were at least ten thousand feet nearer the center of the earth than they were when they started down. "I remember now," Sandy said with a grin, "that the Labyrinth mine is only about five hundred feet deep. If I remember correctly, there are three levels; one at three hundred feet; one at four, and one at five." "And which level is this?" asked Tommy. "Why, we're on the bottom, ain't we?" "Of course," laughed Tommy. "I ought to have known that!" "Well come along if you want to see the mine!" urged Sandy. "All we have to do is to push our searchlights ahead and walk down the gangway. We'll come to something worth seeing after a while." As the boys advanced they found the gangway considerably cluttered with "gob," or refuse, and the air was none of the best. "I wish we could set the air shaft working," suggested Sandy. "Well, we can't!" Tommy answered with a scornful shrug of his shoulders. "We can't set the whole works going in order to give us a midnight view of the Labyrinth mine. What gets me is how are we going to find our way back? There seem to be a good many passages here." "I've got that fixed all right!" Sandy exclaimed. As the lad spoke he took a ball of strong string from his pocket and tied one end to the cage which lay at the bottom of the shaft. "Now we can go anywhere we please," he chuckled, "and when we want to return, all we've got to do is to follow the string." "Quite an idea!" laughed Tommy. The boys proceeded along the gangway, walking between the rails of the tramway by means of which the coal was delivered at the bottom of the shaft. The experience was a novel one to them. The dark walls of the passage, the echoes which came from the counter gangways, the monotonous dripping of water, as it seeped through seams and crevices in the rock, all gave a weird and uncanny expression to the place. After walking for some distance the boys came to a level which showed several inches of water. "We can't wade through that!" Tommy declared. "Well," Sandy suggested, "if we go back a little ways, we can follow a cross heading and get into the mine by another way." The boys followed this plan, and, after winding about several half-loaded cars which had been left on the tramway, found themselves in a large chamber from which numerous benches were cut. "Where does all this gas come from?" asked Tommy stopping short and putting a hand to his nose. "There must be a blower somewhere," Sandy explained. "What's a blower?" demanded Tommy. "What does it look like, and does it always smell like this?" "It doesn't look like anything!" replied Sandy. "It's composed of natural gas, and they call it a blower because it blows up out of crevices in the coal and in the rocks." "If I should light a match, would it set it on, fire?" asked Tommy. "I wouldn't like to have you try it!" The boys continued on their way for some moments, and then Tommy stopped and extinguished his light, whispering to Sandy to do the same. "What's that for?" demanded the latter. "Didn't you hear that noise behind the cribbing?" asked Tommy. "Rats, probably!" "Rats nothing!" replied Tommy. "Rats don't make sounds like people whispering, do they? Keep still a minute, and we'll find out what it is!" "You'll be, seeing a light next!" Sandy suggested. "I see it now!" answered Tommy. Sandy saw it, too, in a moment. It seemed at first to be floating in the air at the very top of the gangway. It moved from side to side, and finally dropped down nearer to the floor. There seemed to be no one near it or under it. Its small circle of illumination showed only the empty air. "What do you make of it?" asked Tommy. "Is this Tunnel Six?" asked his chum. "I don't know! If it is, we've seen the light the caretaker referred to. We'll have a great story to tell in the morning!" The boys stood in the darkness of the gangway watching the light for what seemed to them to be a long time. Now the light advanced toward them, now it receded. Now it lifted to the roof of the gangway, now it dropped almost to the floor. At intervals, the noises behind the cribbing to which Tommy had referred were repeated, and the boys at last moved over so as to stand with their ears almost against the wooden walls. "There is some one behind the cribbing, all right!" Tommy declared. "I hear some one breathing." "Aw, keep still!" whispered Sandy. "If there is anyone there, you'll frighten them away! I though I heard some one myself!" "I'll tell you what I think," Tommy suggested in a moment, "and that is that either Will and George, or both of them, beat us to this gangway. They are hiding behind there on purpose to give us a scare." "That's a dream!" replied Sandy. "We left them both asleep." "Dream, is it?" repeated Tommy scornfully. "You just listen to the sound that comes from behind this cribbing, and tell me what you make of it!" Both boys listened intently for a moment, and then Sandy switched on his light and moved swiftly along the cribbing as if in search of an opening. Tommy gazed at him in astonishment. "You've gone and done it now!" he said. "There's some one in here all right!" Sandy explained. "Did you hear the call of the pack a minute ago? There are Boy Scouts in there, and what we hear are the signals of the Wolf Patrol." "That's right!" cried Tommy excitedly. "That's right!" CHAPTER III WHO CUT THE STRING "Do you suppose he would understand the call of the Beaver Patrol?" asked Sandy. "I'm going to try him, anyway!" The boy brought his hands together in imitation of the slap of a beaver's tail on the water, and listened for some reply. "He'll understand that if he's up on Boy Scout literature," suggested Sandy. "He ought to be wise to the signs of the different patrols if he's a good Boy Scout." There was a short silence, broken only by the constant drip of the water in an adjoining chamber and then the call of the pack came again, clearly, sharply and apparently only a short distance away. "What did Mr. Canfield call those two boys we are looking after?" asked Sandy, after waiting a short time for the repetition of the sound. "Jimmie Maynard and Dick Thompson," replied Tommy. Sandy threw out his chest and cried out at the top of his lungs. "Hello, Jimmie! Hello, Dick!" The lad's voice echoed dismally throughout the labyrinth of passages, but there was no other reply. Tommy and Sandy gave the call of the Beaver Patrol repeatedly, but the call of the Wolf pack was heard no more. "I'll bet it's some trick!" exclaimed Sandy after waiting in the chamber for a long time in the hope of hearing another call from the boys who were hidden somewhere behind the cribbing. "What do you mean by trick?" demanded Tommy. "Why, I mean that some of the breaker boys, out of work because of the stoppage of operations, may have sneaked into the mine on purpose to produce the impression that there are ghosts here." "But ghosts wouldn't be giving signals of the Wolf Patrol, would they?" asked Tommy. "Not unless they were Scouts," replied the other. "Oh, well, of course the kids would want to test us, wouldn't they, seeing that we were only boys?" "Well, we've discovered one thing by coming down here," said Tommy, "and that is that there really are people in the mine who have no business here." "Then we may as well go back to bed," advised Sandy. "Do you know how many corners we've turned since we came in here?" asked Tommy. "About a thousand, I guess," replied Sandy. "Yes, and we'd have a fine old time getting out if you hadn't brought that ball of twine!" "Tell you what we'll do," Sandy said, as the boys turned their faces down the gangway, "we'll pass around the next shoulder of rock and then shut off our lights. Perhaps, the kids who gave the cry of the pack in there will then show their light again." "That's a good idea, too!" The boys came at length to a brattice, which is a screen, of either wood or heavy cloth, set up in a passage to divert the current of air to a bench where workmen are engaged, and dodged down behind it, after turning off their lights, of course, "Now, come on with your old light," whispered Tommy. As if in answer to the boy's challenge, the light showed again, apparently but a few yards way from their hiding place. A moment later the call of pack sounding louder than before, rang through the passage. The boys sprang to their feet and switched on their lights. "Why don't you come out and show yourselves?" shouted Tommy. "I don't believe you're Scouts at all!" declared Sandy. There was no answer. The boys could hear the drip of water and the purring of the current as it crept into a lower gang-way, but that was all. "That settles it for tonight!" exclaimed Tommy. "I'm not going to hang around here waiting for Boy Scouts who don't respond to signals!" "That's me!" agreed Sandy. "We'll go to bed and think the matter over. There may be some way of trapping those fellows." "Suppose it should be Jimmie Maynard and Dick Thomson?" asked Tommy. "Then we'd have the case closed up in a jiffy!" was the reply. Before leaving that particular chamber, Tommy selected a large round piece of "Gob," placed it in the center of the open space, and laid another small piece of shale on top of it. "What are you doing that for?" demanded Sandy. "Don't you know your Indian signs?" demanded the boy. "This means, 'this is the trail.' Now I'll put one stone to the right and that will tell these imitation Boy Scouts to turn to the right if they want to get out." "I guess they can get out if they want to," suggested Sandy. Thirty or forty feet further on, where, following the string, the boys turned again, this time to the left, Tommy laid another signal which showed the direction to be taken. "There," he said with a grin, "we've started them on the right path. If they don't want to follow it, that isn't our fault!" "We must be getting pretty near the shaft," Sandy said, after the boys had walked for nearly half an hour on the backward track. "Pull on your string," suggested Tommy, "and see if it stiffens up like only a short length of it remained out." Sandy did as requested, and then dropped to the floor with his searchlight laid along the extension of the cord. "The other end is loose!" he said in a tone of alarm. "Loose?" echoed Tommy. "How did it ever get loose?" Sandy sat down on the floor of the passage and began drawing the cord in, hand over hand. "I'm going to see if it's been cut!" he said. Tommy stepped on the swiftly moving cord and held it fast to the floor. "You mustn't draw it in!" he exclaimed. "As long as it lies on the floor as we strung it out, we can follow it without taking any chances. If you pull it in, then it's all off." "I understand!" Sandy agreed. "I didn't pull much of it in." The boys started up the gangway, one of them keeping a searchlight on the white thread of cord. They seemed to make a great many turns and once or twice Sandy declared that they were walking round and round in a circle. "I don't believe the passages run so we could walk around in a circle!" argued Tommy. "That ain't the way they run passages in mines!" "I don't care!" Sandy insisted. "We've been turning to the left about all the time, and if you leave it to me, we'll presently come out in the chamber where we heard the call of the pack!" "That may be right," admitted Tommy. "It does seem as if we'd been turning to the left most of the time. Besides," he went on, "we've been walking long enough to have reached the shaft three or four times." "And yet," argued Sandy, "we've been following the line of the cord every step. It lies right in the middle of the gangway here, and we're going the way it points all the time." This bit of reasoning seemed to give the boys fresh courage, and they walked on, expecting every moment to come in sight of the frame work which surrounded the shaft. At length, after a long half hour, Tommy stumbled over an obstruction lying in a chamber which somehow seemed strangely familiar. He lifted his foot and gave the obstruction a hearty kick. "That's my Indian sign of the trail!" grunted Sandy. "For the love of Mike!" exclaimed Tommy. "Have we been traveling all this time to come out in this same old hole at last?" "That's what we have!" replied Sandy. "If we had paid no attention to the string whatever and followed the rails when we came to the main gang way, we would have been home and in bed by this time!" "But we didn't," grinned Tommy. "We thought we had a cinch on getting out by way of this cord and so we followed that. I don't see, though," he continued, "how we came back to this same old chamber by following the cord. That looks queer to me!" "I'll tell you how!" replied Sandy. "There's some gink been walking on ahead of us stringing the cord out for us to follow!" Tommy sat down on the bottom of the chamber and wrinkled his freckled nose provokingly. "We're a couple of easy marks!" he laughed. "Easy marks is no name for, it!" "Well, what'll we do now to get out?" Tommy asked. "First thing we know, it'll be daylight, and then Will and George'll be calling out the police to find us. We ought to get home before they wake." "I'm willing!" declared Sandy. "I'd like to be in my little bed this minute! I've had about enough of this foul air!" The boys passed along until they came to the second trail sign and then stopped. Tommy pointed down to it with a hand which was not quite steady and looked up into his chum's face with frightened eyes. "That's been moved!" he said. "How do you know it's been moved?" "Because you had the side stone on the other edge." "I don't think I did!" argued Sandy. The boys puzzled over the situation for a few moments, and then proceeded down the chamber looking for the tramway rails. They passed from chamber to chamber and finally came to a place where the slope was upward. "I guess we've struck it at last!" Sandy exclaimed. "But there are no rails here!" Tommy argued. "Then we're on the wrong track again," admitted Sandy. He bent down to the rock with his searchlight and pointed out evidences that the passage had once been laid with rails. "When they strip a chamber or a counter gangway," he said, "they take away the rails. It seems that we are now in a part of the Labyrinth mine which has been worked out." "I know what to do!" exclaimed Tommy. "I'll give the call of the Beaver Patrol and tell those ginks who have been giving the call of the pack that we're lost! That ought to bring them out of their holes." The Beaver call was given time after time, but no reply came. "Say," Tommy said after his patience had become exhausted, "I believe it's daylight. Look at your watch. I left mine in the bed!" "I left mine in bed, too," answered Sandy. "I know it is day, because I'm hungry." CHAPTER IV A SENSATIONAL DISCOVERY When Will awoke he began preparations for breakfast before paying any attention whatever to his chums, whom he believed to be sleeping quietly on their cots. It was November, and quite chilly in the apartment, so his next efforts were directed to coaxing the electric coils into a cheery glow. Presently George came tumbling out in his pajamas and sat down on a rickety chair to talk of the adventures in prospect. "I wonder if the Labyrinth mine is so much of a labyrinth after all?" he asked. "It seems to me that we might find our way through it without danger of losing ourselves," he continued with a yawn. "It's some labyrinth, I take it," Will replied. "Well, we can make chalk marks on the walls as we move along," suggested George. "Besides," he added, "we can string an electric wire through the center gangway and turn on the lights." "There are probably electric lights there now," answered Will. "Then there's no danger of our becoming lost," George argued. "I wish you'd go to the back of the room and tip over those two cots," grinned Will. "It's the hardest kind of work to get Tommy and Sandy to bed, but when you do get them in bed once, it's harder still to get them out of it. Just tip the cots over and roll 'em out on the floor." George approached the two cots in a stealthy manner and made ready to give Tommy and Sandy the bump of their lives. "Don't break their necks!" advised Will. As soon as George reached Tommy's bunk he stretched forth a hand for the purpose of tangling the boy up in the bed clothing so that his fall to the hard floor might be in a measure broken. As, he swung his hand over the cot, however, his eyes widened and he called out to Will that the boys were not in their cots. There was a look of alarm as well as of annoyance on each face as the lads thought over the situation. "The little idiots!" exclaimed Will. "That isn't strong enough!" George corrected. "There's no knowing how long they've been gone," Will suggested. "The chances are that they went away as soon as we went to sleep." "In that case, they're in trouble!" George declared. "In what kind of trouble?" "The good Lord only knows!" replied George. "Tommy and Sandy can get into more different kinds of trouble in less time than any other boys on the face of the earth. They're the original lookers for trouble!" "Do you suppose they've got lost in the mine?" asked Will. "It may be worse than that!"' cried George. "They may have butted into some of the people the caretaker indirectly referred to last night." "He did speak of strange noises and mysterious lights, didn't he?" "He certainly did, and I've got a hunch that Sandy and Tommy have butted into some hostile interests. "It does seem as if they would be back by this time unless they were in trouble!" The boys prepared an elaborate breakfast in the hope that Tommy and Sandy, who would be sure to be hungry, would return in time to partake of it. A dozen times during the meal they walked back to the shaft opening and looked anxiously down into the dark bowels of the mine. "Those fellows are always getting into trouble," Will said, rather crossly, as he stood looking down. "They have a way of running into most of their dangers at night, too. It was the same up on Lake Superior, the same in the snake-haunted Everglades of Florida; the same on the Rocky Mountains, and the same in the Hudson Bay country." "They sure do keep things moving," grinned George. "I think," Will suggested after a time, "that we'd better find Canfield and get his advice before we do anything in the way of setting up a search. I hate to admit that two members of our party got into a scrape on the same night we struck the mine, but I guess there's, no way out of it." While the boys talked together, the door opened softly and the caretaker entered, accompanied by a short, paunchy man with a very red face and eyes which were black, small and suspicious. He was a man well past middle age, but he seemed to be making a bluff at thirty-five. His hair, which had turned white at the temples, and his moustache were both dyed black. Canfield introduced the new-comer as the detective, Joe Ventner, of New York, and the boys greeted him courteously. He accepted their proffered hands with an air of condescension which was most exasperating. He puffed out his chest, and at once began talking of some of his alleged exploits in the secret service of the government. "How did you pass the night, boys?" ask Canfield. "Slept like pigs," replied Will with a laugh. "Where are the others?" asked Canfield. "They're out getting a breath of fresh air, I reckon," answered George. The boys did not take to the detective at all. There was an air of insincerity about the man which at once put them on their guard. Had Canfield visited them alone, they would have explained to him the exact situation. In the presence of this detective, however, they decided to do nothing of the kind. "Now then," the detective said after a moment's silence, "if you boys will outline the course you intend to pursue in this matter, I think we can arrange to work together without our plans clashing." "We have talked the matter over during the night," Will replied, "and have decided to remain here only long enough to obtain some clue as to the direction taken by the boys in their departure." "Then you think they are not here?" asked the detective. "There is no reason why they should be here, is there?" asked Will. "I don't know that there is," replied Ventner. "Can you imagine any reason for their wanting to linger about the mine?" asked George. "No," was the reply. "It has always been my opinion that the boys left the mine because they feared arrest for some boyish offense committed in some other part of the country, and that they are now far away from this place." Both lads observed that the detective seemed particularly pleased with the statement that they proposed to abandon the search of the mine immediately. Somehow, they caught the impression that they would interfere with his plans if they remained. "It might be well," Ventner said, directly, "to keep me posted as to any discoveries you may make. We must work together, you know." "Certainly," replied Will, speaking with a mental reservation which did not include giving up of any information worth while. "Well, then I'll be going," the detective said, strutting across the room, with his little round belly protruding like that of an insect. "You can always find me at the hotel down here, if I'm in this part of the country. Just ask for me ask for me and I'll show up." Canfield was turning to depart with the detective when Will motioned him to remain. The caretaker turned back with a surprised look. Will waited until the door had closed on the detective before speaking. Even then, he went to the door and glanced down the passage. "Something exciting?" smiled the caretaker, noting the boy's caution. Will answered, "There's something exciting. Tommy and Sandy disappeared during the night." "Disappeared?" echoed the caretaker. "Yes," George cut in, "there was some talk of their visiting the mine just before we went to bed, and we are of the opinion that they went down the shaft shortly after we fell asleep, and failed to find their way to the surface again. We are considerably alarmed." "I should think you would be!" replied the caretaker. "In the first place, the Labyrinth mine bears the right name. There are old workings below which a stranger might follow for days without finding the way out." "Then we'll have to organize a search for the boys," George suggested. "Besides,"' continued Canfield, "there are things going on in the mine which no one understands. I have long believed that there are people living there who have no right to take up such a residence." "I'm sorry you said anything to this detective about our being here," Will said after this phase of the case had been discussed. "As a matter of fact," the caretaker replied, "I didn't intend to say anything to Ventner about your being here, but in some way he received an intimation that you were about to take up the case and so pumped the whole story out of me." "Perhaps he received his information from the New York attorney," suggested Will. "I'm sure that he did not," answered the caretaker. "If the attorney had written to him in regard to the matter at all, he would have posted him so fully that when he cross-examined me such a proceeding would have been unnecessary." "Has this man Ventner visited the mine often?" asked George. "Yes, quite frequently." "Does he always go alone?" "Yes, he always goes alone," was the answer. "Once I accompanied him to the bottom of the shaft but there he suggested that we go in different directions, and did not seem to want me anywhere near him." "I don't like the looks of the fellow, and that's a fact!" exclaimed Will. "He doesn't look good to me." After some discussion it was decided that the caretaker would accompany the two boys to the bottom of the shaft and direct them down gangways, which they could follow without fear of losing their way, and the illumination of which would be likely to be observed by anyone wandering about the blind chambers and passages of the mine. When they reached the bottom of the shaft, climbing down the ladders, as Tommy and Sandy had done some hours before, they gathered in a little group at the bottom while the caretaker gave them a few general instructions regarding the general outlines of the Labyrinth of tunnels, chambers and cross passages which lay before them. "Did any one come down after us?" asked Will directly. "No one," was the reply. "Why do you ask?" "Because," Will answered, "there's some one skulking off down that passage, and it looks to me like that bum detective!" CHAPTER V THE FLOODED MINE "What makes you think it's Ventner?" asked the caretaker. "Did you see his face? I don't think he is here." "I didn't see his face," answered Will, "but I saw the shape of his shoulders and the hang-dog look of him." "You're prejudiced against Ventner," laughed Canfield. "I admit it!" replied Will. "He looks to me like snake in the grass. I don't think anything he could do would look good to me." "Now," Canfield said, "perhaps we'd better be mapping out a plan of campaign. There are three gangways leading in three different directions. We'll leave one of the lights burning at the shaft, then we'll each take a light and proceed into the interior, making as much noise as we conveniently can, and flashing the light into all the chambers and cross headings we come to." "How long are these gangways?" asked Will. "Somewhere near a half a mile straight ahead," was the answer. The caretaker went away swinging his electric searchlight, and Will and George pushed forward in their respective passages. After proceeding a short distance, George heard Will calling to him. "There's some one just ahead of me in the gangway!" Will declared. "I think we ought to go together!" "Do you think it's that bum detective?" asked George. "I certainly do!" "Well, we can go together if you like," George said. "We can't cover quite as much ground in that way, but I guess we can accomplish more in the long run!" The boys had proceeded only a short distance when they heard Canfield calling to them. A moment later they heard the caretaker's steps ringing on the hard floor of the gangway down which they were advancing. He came up to them, panting, in a moment. "There's something mighty queer about this mine," the caretaker declared. "It was punk dry only two days ago, and now there are four or five feet of water where the gangway I started to follow dips down. "And look there!" Will exclaimed holding his light aloft and pointing, "you can see plenty of water ahead! I guess all the gangways are taking a washing, and the water seems to be rising, too!" "Is there any way by which the mine could be intentionally flooded?" asked George. "There may be some one planning trouble for the owners." "There is only one way that I know of in which the mine could be flooded intentionally," replied the caretaker. "There is a large drain, of course, in what is known as the sump. Considerable water runs off in that way, and the rest of the drippings are taken out by the pumps. If this sump drainage could become clogged, the mine, of course, would become flooded though not to such an extent, unless the pumps were kept constantly at work." "Then I guess you'd better set the pumps going," Will suggested. "We can't get into the mine in its present condition unless we swim." "Haven't you got a boat?" asked George. "Why, yes," replied the caretaker. "There's a couple of boats somewhere in the mine. The operators placed them here thinking they might come in handy at some future time, but I haven't any idea where they are now. Still, I think they're not far away." "If you'll go and set the pumps in motion," Will advised, "George and I'll look around for the boats. We may need them before the pumps get under motion the way the water is pouring in now." "I guess Tommy and Sandy don't come back because they're penned in by water," George suggested, as the boys began searching the vicinity of the shaft for the boats. "If they're anywhere within hearing distance, they ought to answer us when we called out, hadn't they?" asked Will. "We haven't tried that yet," George answered. "Suppose we let out a couple of yells!" To think in this case was to act, and the boys did let out a couple of yells which brought the caretaker running back from the shaft. The boys were listening for some answer to their shouts when he arrived, and so they paid little attention to his numerous questions. "There is no time to lose," Canfield went on. "I'll go to the top at once and call an engineer and a couple of firemen. When you find the beat, take a trip down the main gangway here and stick your lights into all the cross-headings and chambers you see. But, above all," he continued, "don't fail to leave a light here at a shaft, and be careful that you never pass out of sight of it." Canfield hastened away, climbing the ladders two rungs at a time, and soon disappeared into the little dot of light at the top. The two boys searched patiently for the boat for a long time, but did not succeed in discovering it. At last, Will suggested that it might be in the mule stable and thither they went. The boat was there, in excellent condition, and the boys soon had it swinging to and fro on the surface of the water which now lay several feet deep in the main gangway. "Jerusalem!" exclaimed George, taking the depth of the water with an oar, "if the water is four feet deep here, how deep must it be at the middle of the dip?" "About forty rods, I should think!" exaggerated Will. The boys left a large searchlight at the shaft so situated that it looked straight down the passage they proposed following, and started away in the boat. The flashlights illuminated only a small portion of the underground place, but the boys could see some distance straight ahead. Once they ceased rowing to listen, believing that they had heard calls from the darkness beyond. The sound was not repeated, and they were about to proceed when a sound which brought all their nervous energy into full swing reached their ears. It was a bumping of an oar or paddle against the side of a boat. The blow echoed through the cavern as sharply as a pistol shot might have done. There could be no mistake in the cause. "Now who's in that other boat?" "Somehow," George grumbled in a whisper, "we always have propositions like that put up to us! There's always a mystery in every trip we take! We found one on Lake Superior, and one in the Florida Everglades, and one at the top of the Rocky mountains and one in the Hudson Bay wilderness." "Yes, and we solved them, too!" grinned Will. "And we're going to solve this one! You remember about my seeing some one sneaking in here just ahead of us, don't you?" "Yes," was the answer. "You thought it was that bum detective." "I think so yet," replied Will. "If it's the detective," asked George, "why didn't he give the alarm when he found that the mine was being flooded. He might at least have done that and saved the company a great deal of expense and trouble." "Give it up," replied Will. "I might ask you," he went on, "why he was rowing away into a flooded mine which is supposed to be deserted." "And I'd have to give you the answer you gave me," George declared. The boys could now hear the strokes of the oarsman who was in the lead quite regularly and distinctly. Now and then he turned into crossheadings and chambers, as if to escape from their surveillance, but they kept steadily on after him, not taking into account the fact that they were leaving the light they had set at the shaft far out of view. "Perhaps we ought to turn back now," George proposed, in a short time, seeing that they came no nearer to the boat in advance. "We left the main gangway some time ago, and we ought not to get too far away from it." Will turned and looked back, facing only inky blackness. "We should have stuck to the main gangway," he said. "I don't even remember when we left it. Is it very far back?" "Some distance," answered George. "You see we followed this other boat without thinking what we were doing." "Perhaps, if we continue to follow the other boat,' it will lead us somewhere. The fellow rowing must know something about the interior of the mine or he probably wouldn't be here!" "I've been listening for a minute or more, trying to catch sound of the fellow's oars," George went on, "but there's nothing doing. I guess he's led us into a blind chamber and slipped away!" "We don't, seem to be lacking for excitement," Will suggested with a grin. "We've lost Tommy and Sandy, and the machinery of the mine has been interfered with and the lower levels axe filling with water! Any old time we start out to do things, there's a general mix-up!" "Aw, quit growling and listen a minute," suggested George. The boys listened only for a moment when the sound George had heard was repeated. It was the call of the Wolf pack! CHAPTER VI THE BEAVER CALL "That's Tommy!" exclaimed Will. "I never knew that he belonged to the Wolf Patrol!" George observed. "He might give the call without belonging to the Patrol!" urged Will. The boys listened, but the sound was not repeated, although they called out the names of their chums and gave the Beaver call repeatedly. "I guess it was a dream," George suggested. "Then it was the most vivid dream I ever had!" Will declared. They rowed about the chamber for some moments, searching for the source of the call, but to no purpose. "Let's go back to the shaft," urged George. "I'm agreeable," answered Will. "The only question now is whether we can find the shaft. The water is so deep that all branches of the mine look alike to me!" In passing out of the chamber into another passage the boys were obliged to stoop low in order to avoid what is called a dip. After passing under the dip so close to the ceiling that the boys were obliged to lie down in the boat in order to protect their heads, they came to a large chamber which seemed to be fairly dry save in the center, where there was a depression of considerable size. "Nothing doing here!" Will exclaimed as he flashed his searchlight around the place. "This chamber looks as if there hadn't been an ounce of coal mined here for a hundred years." "Then let's get out," George proposed, "and make our way back to the shaft if possible. If we can't, we'll make noise enough to attract Canfield's attention and let him come and lead us out." "Here we go, then," cried Will, giving the boat a great push toward the dip. "We can't get out any too fast." The boat came up against a solid projection of rock! "I don't seem to see any way out!" George exclaimed. "Well, it's there somewhere!" declared Will. "I see it now!" cried George. "It's under water!" "Under water?" repeated Will. "Yes, under water!" answered George. "If we get out of this hole before the pumps get to working we'll have to swim!" Will turned his searchlight on the dip and saw that it was now full clear to the down dropping roof. "I guess we'll have to swim," he agreed. "That black water doesn't look good to me," George exclaimed with a little shudder. "It seems to me that I can see snakes and alligators wiggling in it from here. Looks worse to me than the swamps of the Everglades! And there was a quart of snakes to every pint of water down there!" "But we got to swim just the same!" urged Will. "In half an hour from now the air in this chamber will be unbreathable. There is no vent at all, now that the water fills the dip, and the coal gas is naturally seeping in all the time." "That's all right, too!" admitted George. "But I'm not going to jump into that black water until I have to. If a rope or something should twine around my legs while I was in there, I'd drop dead with fright! Besides," he went on, "the chances are that Canfield will get the pumps going before long now." The boys waited for a long half hour, during which time the water rose steadily. It seemed certain that the mine was about to be flooded throughout all the lower levels. "Tommy and Sandy may have bumped into just such a situation as this," Will said, as he pushed the boat from side to side in the hope of coming upon some exit from the place. "Serves 'em good and right!" exclaimed George. Will chuckled to himself and held up a wet hand high up toward the roof of the chamber or passage. "There's a current of air here!" he said. "Then we won't smother to dead!" George grunted. "And, look here," Will continued, as the boat bumped into a pyramid of shale which had been thrown up to within a few inches of the roof, "some one has been building this hill of refuse and using it for a refuge!" "It does look that way," George agreed. "That shows that, at some time the water must have ascended to the very top of the wall. We may have to climb up there ourselves in order to keep from getting our clothing soaked in that ink down there!" The water rose higher and higher in the passage, and it seemed to the boys that by this time most of the lower gangways were entirely impassible. "It doesn't seem to me that the water in this blooming old mine could rise any faster if the whole Mississippi river were turned into it!" cried George in a tone of disgust. "If Canfield doesn't get his pumps going before long, he'll have a job here that'll take him all winter." "I presume he's doing the best he can," Will argued. "For all we know, the boilers as well as the electric motors may have been tampered with. That would be just our luck!" "I wonder what's become of that bum detective?" asked George after a short silence. "We heard him rowing along in front of us one minute, and the next minute there wasn't a single sound to indicate that there was another boat in the mine." "As soon as I get out of this," Will stated, "I'm going to make it my business to find out whether that detective is regularly employed on this case. He looks to me like a crook." It was dreary waiting there in the sealed-up chamber, and the boys found themselves dropping into long intervals of silence while they listened for the gurgle of the water which would indicate that the great pumps had been set in motion. During one of these intervals of silence they heard sounds which brought them to their feet in great excitement. Almost unable to believe his ears, Will turned to George with a question on his lips: "Did you hear that?" he asked. "Of course I did!" "I did, too, but I thought I must be dreaming." "No dream about that!" replied George. "That's the call of the Beaver Patrol!" "And that means that Tommy and Sandy are not far away!" "We heard the call of the Wolf Patrol not long ago," suggested George. "I wonder if this blooming old mine is chock full of Boy Scouts of assorted sizes. There can't be too many here to please me!" The boys returned the Beaver call but no answer came. At times they thought they heard whispers coming from the dark reaches of the cavern, but they were not quite certain. "There may be real Beavers in here for all we know!" suggested Will. "That's all you know about it!" chuckled George. "Beavers only operate in running water." "Well, isn't that water out there running?" asked Will. "No jokes now!" replied George. "I've got all I can endure now without standing for any of your alleged witticisms!" While the boys sat in the boat, occasionally moving it from side to side, a shaft of light appeared directly above the point where the shale had been heaped up. It moved swiftly about for an instant and then dropped out of view. It was a moment before either boy spoke. "That's some of Tommy's foolishness!" Will declared. George repeated the Beaver call several times, but no answer came. "That's a searchlight, anyway!" insisted Will. "And I don't believe these ginks in the mines have electric searchlights to lug around with them!" Will unshipped an oar and struck the water with the flat of the blade several times, exerting his whole strength. "Keep it up!" advised George. "That sounds exactly like a beaver's tail connecting with the surface of a stream!" "Yes, keep it up!" cried a voice out of the darkness. "Keep it up, and perhaps some beaver'll come along and build a dam to get you out of that mess you're in! You're always getting into trouble, you two!" "You've got your nerve with you!" exclaimed Willy, half-angrily. "Here you go out in the night and get lost, and we come out after you, and the mine gets flooded, and we get tied up between the solid wall and a bend in the passage, and then you blame us for getting into trouble!" "Can you climb?" chuckled Tommy, throwing the rays of his searchlight on the boat. "If you can just mount up on that pile of shale and work your way through the opening between the two levels. This might have been used as a sort of an air hole a few hundred years ago," he went on, "but I'll bet that not one out of a hundred of the miners of today know that there is an opening here!" Leaving the boat, the boys mounted the pile of shale and were soon making their way up the rugged face of the shaft in the direction of the level, which ran along above the one now being flooded. "Can you find your way out of this dump, now?" asked Will as the boys stood with their chums at the end of the long passage. CHAPTER VII A TREACHEROUS FOE "There seems to be fewer twists and turns in this level than on the one below it," Tommy explained, "and I guess we can find our way out readily enough. If we don't," he went on, "I shall be obliged to eat a ton or two of coal to keep from starving to death." "Serves you right!" declared Will. "You had no business getting up in the middle of the night and wandering off into the mine!" "What did you do?" demanded Tommy. "We waited until morning, and then enlisted the services of the caretaker," replied Will. "So far as I can remember, this is about the nine hundredth relief expedition we've been out on in search of you boys!" "Seems to me," Tommy chuckled, "that you're the lads that were in need of the relief expedition. We found you boxed up in a chamber in a boat." "But we wouldn't have been in any such mess if we hadn't started out to look you up!" George declared. "We should have been back before you got out of bed this morning, if some one hadn't cut our string," replied Sandy. "We had a cinch on getting out, but some geezer led us a fool chase by cutting our cord and steering us around in a circle." "Did you see any one?" asked Will. "Not a soul!" was the reply. "But there's some one in here, just the same. We heard the call of the Wolf Patrol a long time ago and we've heard it several times since." "What do you mean by some one cutting your string?" asked George. "Why," replied Sandy, "we tied the loose end of a ball of twine to one of the shaft timbers and unwound the ball as we moved along, expecting to follow it back when we wanted to get out. "How do you know some one cut it?" asked Will. "Perhaps you broke it," George suggested. Sandy took a piece of the cord from his pocket and passed it over to George with a shy chuckle. "See if you can break that!" he said. George tried his best to break the string, but it remained firm under all his strength. The boys now fell into a discussion of the ways and means of getting out of the mine. "I believe," Sandy exclaimed, "That if we follow the current of air which the rising water is forcing out of this old shaft, we will come to the entrance. As you all know, a current of air takes the shortest way to any given point, and this one ought to blow straight toward the shaft." "Great head, that, little boy!" laughed Tommy. After proceeding some distance the steady thud, thud of the pumping machinery was heard, and the boys understood that the efforts of the caretaker were at last bringing results. The sounds also aided them in direction, and in a short time they stood at the shaft on the second level. When they came out to the timber work, Will, who was in the lead, motioned to the others to remain in the background. "What's doing now?" whispered Sandy. "There's a man working on the ladders," explained Will in a low whisper. "I can't see him yet, but I can hear the sound of a saw." "He may be cutting the rungs," suggested Tommy. "That's the notion I had," replied Will. "Suppose we all get around behind the air shaft and wait until we can find out what he is up to. It may be that bum detective, for all we know." "What would he be doing there?" questioned Sandy. "Sawing the rungs!" whispered Will. "He wouldn't cut them down, of course, but he might saw them so that they would break under our weight and give us a drop of a couple of hundred feet." "It doesn't seem as if any human being would do a thing like that!" cried George. "It would be a wicked thing to do!" While the boys whispered together, the sound of sawing continued. The man engaged at the task was evidently unfamiliar with such work, for they heard him puffing and blowing as the saw cut through the wood. "He's cutting the rungs, all right!" Will said in a moment. "And that cuts off our escape until the cables can be put in motion and the cages started. I wish I had him by the neck!" "We'll get him by the neck, all right, before many days," Sandy cut in, "if we can only get a sight of him so as to be sure of his identity." Presently the man ceased working, and they heard him ascending the ladders, step by step. In a moment the saw which he had been using dropped from his hands and clattered to the bottom of the shaft. Then they heard him springing swiftly forward, and directly they knew that he had reached the top. The boys all looked disgusted. "And we never caught sight of him!" exclaimed Tommy. Will now walked around to the front of the shaft and looked down. The saw which had been used lay shining on the lower level. "I'm going down after that!" he said in a moment. "Yes, you are!" whispered Tommy. "I got to have it!" insisted Will. "Well, go on and get it, then," laughed Sandy. "You've got to show me!" "I don't think he cut the rungs between this level and the next one," George interposed. "It may be safe to use the lower ladders." "I can soon find out!" Will declared. The cutting had been done between the second level and the top. The ladders below seemed perfectly safe. After testing them thoroughly, Will trusted himself on one of the rungs and let himself down slowly, bearing as much weight as was possible on the standards. He was at the bottom in a moment, and in another moment stood by the side of his chums with the saw in his hand. "I don't think that's so very much!" Tommy exclaimed. "Right here, then," Will explained, "is where you get your little Sherlock Holmes lesson! This is a new saw, as you all see. It probably never was used before. Now the man who did the cutting bought this at some nearby store. Don't you see what it means?" "That's a fact!" cried Tommy. "We can find out who bought the saw, and so discover the gink who tried to commit murder by sawing the ladders." "And look here," Will went on, "do you see these threads hanging to the teeth of the saw? Do you see the color?" "Blue!" replied the boys in a breath. "That's right, blue. Now, what sort of a suit did the detective wear this morning? It was blue, wasn't it?" "Sure it was!" replied George. "A blue serge! I noticed it particularly because it wasn't much of a fit." "Well, these are blue serge threads!" commented Will. "That's right, too," admitted Sandy. While the boys still stood at the second level they heard some one moving down from the top. Will rushed around to the ladder and looked up. He could not see the face of the man who was climbing down, but he could see that he did not wear a blue serge suit. In a moment he called out to him, asking some trivial question regarding the action of the pumps. When the man looked down he saw that it was Canfield. The caretaker seemed surprised at finding the boys at the second level. He kept on descending. "Wait!" Will called. "Stop where you are!" "But I've got to find out what's the matter with the machinery at the bottom," the caretaker called out. "There's something wrong there!" "Then you'd better take long steps," replied Will, "for if you put any weight on those rungs, you're likely to land at the bottom of the shaft. The rungs have been cut!" "I can't believe that!" replied Canfield. "Suppose you look and see!" The caretaker advanced cautiously downward until he came to where a fine line of sawdust lay on one of the rungs. "Do you know who did this?" he asked. "We think we do," replied Will, "but this isn't any time for long stories. The first thing for us to do is to get back into the breaker and cook Tommy and Sandy three or four breakfasts apiece!" "So you found them, did you?" asked Canfield. "No; we found them," shouted Tommy. "Well, how're you going to get out?" asked the caretaker. "Get a rope," directed Will, "and throw it over the sound rung lowest down, and we'll climb up until we can trust our weight on the ladder." This plan was followed, and in a short time the boys all stood, hungry and tired, in their room in the breaker. Tommy made an instantaneous dive for the provisions which had been brought in the night before. "Nice old time we've had!" he exclaimed, with his mouth full-of pork and beans. "I guess we're some Boy Scouts after all!" "I'm going to tie you up tonight!" Will declared. While the boys talked and ate the caretaker darted to the door leading to the passage which ended at the shaft. He returned in a moment looking both angry and frightened. "The pumps have, stopped!" he said. "The line will probably be flooded before tomorrow morning. The very devil seems to have taken full charge here today. I never saw anything like it!" "There are boys in the mine who will be drowned!" exclaimed Tommy. "I'm not so sure of that," answered Canfield. "It was only a suggestion on my part that the boys we are in search of have taken refuge under ground. I think I must have been mistaken!" "Do you know, whether these breaker boys belonged to the Boy Scouts or not?" asked Will. "Did you ever see any medals or badges on their clothing which told of Boy Scout experiences?" "Sure they belong to the Boy Scouts!" declared the caretaker, "and that is the very reason why I sent for Boy Scouts to help find them." "What Patrol did they belong to?" asked Will. "If you had heard them howling like wolves around the breaker night after night," was the reply, "you wouldn't ask what patrol they belonged to!" "Then they are in the mine!" shouted Tommy. We all heard the call of the pack, but the funny thing is that they wouldn't show themselves. CHAPTER VIII "THEY WENT UP IN THE AIR" "There's something funny about those boys!" exclaimed Canfield. "They seemed to be merry-hearted fellows, just a little bit full of mischief, but for some reason they never mixed with the others much." "Where did they come from when they came here?" asked Will. "The information in the letters I received from the attorney in charge of the case is that they came here from New York, not directly but by some roundabout way." "Did this attorney ever inform you why he wanted the boys found?" asked Tommy. "Are we all working in the dark?" "He never told me why he wanted the boys found. For all I know, they may be wanted for some crime, or they may be heirs to an immense property. My instructions are to find them. That's all!" "Where did these boys lodge?" asked Will. "They didn't have any regular room," was the reply. "They slept in the breaker whenever the watchman would permit them to do so, and when he wouldn't, they threw stones at him and slept in the railroad yard somewhere. But the strangest part of the whole business is the way they disappeared from sight." "You didn't tell us about that!" exclaimed Sandy. "I meant to," the caretaker answered. "The last seen of them here they were at work on the breaker. It was somewhere near the middle of the afternoon, and the cracker boss had been particularly ugly. The two boys were often caught whispering together, and more than once the cracker boss had launched such trifles as half pound block of shale at them. I happened to be on the outside just about that time." "The boys didn't go up in the air, did they?" asked Sandy with a chuckle. "They haven't got wings, have they?" "To all intents and purposes, they went up into the air!" answered the caretaker. "One moment they were on the breaker sorting slate and stuff of that kind out of the stream of coal which was pouring down upon them, and the next moment they were nowhere in sight!" "Had any strangers been seen talking with them?" "Now you come to a point that I should have mentioned before!" replied the caretaker. "Two days before they left a strange boy came to the mine and went to work on the breaker. He was an unusually well-mannered, well-dressed young fellow, and so the breaker boys called him a dude. He resented this, of course, and there was a fight at the first quitting time. These two boys, Jimmie, and Dick, stood by the new lad, and gave three or four of the tough little chaps who work on the breaker a good beating up." "Now we've got hold of something!" exclaimed Will. "Were these three boys together much after that?" "No," was the reply. "The new boy thanked Jimmie and Dick for helping him through his scrape, and that was about all. They might have talked together for five minutes that night, but they were never seen in each other's company again so far as I know." "How long did this new boy stay here?" asked George. "He quit the next day." "He didn't go up in a pillar of fire, did he?" grinned Sandy. "No, he walked up to the office and asked if he could get his pay for the time he had worked. The boss told him he'd have to wait until Saturday night, and he turned up his nose and walked out." "And where did he go?" asked George. "He said he was going down the river in a boat," answered the caretaker. "He bought an old boat, stocked it with quite a supply of provisions, and started on his way. The next day the boat was found bottom side up on a bar, and the lad's hat lay on the bank not far away." "Do you think he was drowned?" asked Sandy. "It would seem so." "Drowned nothing!" exclaimed Tommy. "He sneaked those provisions into the mine under cover of the darkness and the three little rascals are feeding on them yet. You can see the end of that without a telescope!" "Now, smarty!" exclaimed George. "You've told us where the boys went, and where the provisions landed, and all that, now tell us why these kids hid themselves in the mine. And while you are about it, you may as well tell why they gave the Wolf call and refused to reply." "This story," replied Tommy with a grin, "is not a novelette, complete in one number. It's a serial story, and will be continued in our next issue. What did you say about the pumps stopping, Canfield?" "They've stopped, all right!" the caretaker replied. "Are you going to let the ginks flood the mine?" asked Sandy. "While I was out a few moments ago," Canfield explained, "I notified one of the clerks in the company's office to send up a gang of men to repair the machinery. They ought to be here by this time." "How long will it take to repair the pump?" asked Tommy. "It may take an hour and it may take twenty-four. "In the meantime," Tommy continued, "do you think you could send one of the county officers out to round up this bum detective?" "You mean that you want him watched?" asked Canfield. "Sure!" answered Tommy. "He sawed the rungs in the shaft, didn't he? He could get ten years for that!" "All right," replied Canfield. "I'll send word out and have him arrested if you are positive that he is the man that did the cutting." "We are positive that he's the man," replied Will, "but it'll spoil everything if you have him arrested. We want to give him a free hand for a time, and see what he will do. He's a crook, and he's bound to show it! And another thing," the boy went on, "we don't want anyone to know that he is under suspicion. We just want him watched." "You're handling the case," smiled Canfield, "and I'll take any steps you advise. I can't tell you how sorry I am that I brought the detective in here this morning!" "Well," Will said, "we put up a bluff about getting out of town and perhaps we can make that stick. We can take a train out and come back in on a lonely freight, and get into the mine without his knowing anything about it. The mine is the best place to work from, anyway!" "That's why I wanted to know how soon the mine could be pumped out!" stated Tommy. "I don't care about wading around in a mess of water that's blacker than a stack of black cats." "I think I can have the mine fairly dry by the time you boys get out of town and back again!" laughed Canfield. "Well," Tommy said, "then you'd better got a couple of dry-goods boxes and fill them full of good things to eat, and drop 'em down to the first level. Perhaps you know of a cozy little chamber there where we can set up housekeeping." "I know just the place," said the caretaker. "To the left of the old tool house there's a room where odd articles of every description have been stored for any number of years. The blacksmith and the fire-boss used to go there to smoke and tell stores, if I remember right." "Does anyone ever go there now?" asked Will. "Not that I know of," was the reply. "Then we'll drop down there some time towards morning," Will decided. "And in the meantime," he added, with a wink at his chums, "we'll be looking for a boy tramp out in the railroad yards." "What do you mean by that"' asked the caretaker. "Oh, I've just got an idea," replied Will, "that there's a kid hanging around this part of the country whom we ought to interview." "But I don't understand." "You wait until we get hold of him, and you'll understand all right!" laughed Will. "We just need that boy!" "But how do you know there is such a boy?" urged the caretaker. "He gets it out of a dream book!" Tommy chuckled. "Do you mean to say that there is some go-between the boys who may or may not be in the mine and some persons outside who are interested in them?" asked the caretaker. "I didn't say anything of the kind!" replied Will. "There are times," Tommy explained to Canfield, "when the gift of frank speech is taken away from Will, so you mustn't blame him for not answering. He'll tell you all about it when the time comes." The caretaker went away with a puzzled look on his honest face. CHAPTER IX WHO DISCOVERED THE LEAK? "You've got to explanation me," George laughed as the caretaker left the room, and the boys began picking up their clothing, preparatory to the alleged journey. "I can't understand what you mean by saying that you'll watch out for a boy tramp in the railroad yards." "It's a sure thing, isn't it?" Will asked, "that the boys we are in search of are in the mine? We don't know what they're in there for. They may be hiding there because of some fool notion they have in their heads, or they may have been sent here for some definite purpose." "You bet they've been sent here for some definite purpose," George replied. "They never came here to work on the breaker without having some well-defined motive. Boys answering to their description don't accept such jobs as they accepted here!" "Well, the boys are in the mine," Will continued. "As stated, we don't know what they're there for, but we know they're there. Now, this third boy comes to the mine and works just long enough to get in touch with the other two. Then he disappears." "Buys a lot of provisions and goes down the river to leave his hat on the bank!" laughed Tommy. "I guess that was a pretty poor imitation of a suicide or a drowning accident, either!" "But this boy didn't get to be intimate with the two breaker boys," contended George. "He talked with them about two minutes after the fight, according to Canfield, but paid no further attention to them after that. If he had any secret understanding with them, he must have done a whole lot of talking in a mighty short space of time." "The right kind of a boy can say a good deal in a minute and half!" laughed Tommy. "But suppose we let Will go on and explanation us about that boy tramp in the railroad yards. I think I know what he's getting at, but I'm not quite certain. Go on, Will, it's up to you." "In order to make the connection," laughed Will. "I will state for the third time that we know that the boys are in the mine. It may also be well to state, once more, that we are reasonably certain that this other boy came to the mine for the specific purpose of communicating with the other two. Now this boy didn't drop into the river. He dropped the provisions he bought for the boat into the coal mine, and left them there for the consumption of the two boys inside. That's reasonable, isn't?" "Fine deduction, as Sherlock Holmes would say to Watson!" laughed George. "But this third boy," Will went on, "doesn't go into the mine. He stays outside to serve as a means of communication between the boys who are hiding in the mine and some interested person or persons on the outside. That's perfectly clear, isn't it? "That'll do very well for a theory," replied George. "I'll go you a plate of cookies," argued Sandy, "that Will is right, and that this third boy is hanging around taking messages from the two boys in the mine and also to the two boys in the mine." "Didn't I say it was all right for a theory?" chuckled George. "Now, the point is this," Will continued. "What are those boys in the mine for? What do they want there? Why didn't they answer our Boy Scout challenge when we replied to their call of the pack?" "If you don't ask so many questions, you won't get so many negative answers," Sandy advised. "We're here to find the boys, and I don't see that it makes any difference to us what they're in there or not." "But we've found the boys now," contended Tommy. "We haven't got our hands on them yet, of course, but we know they're in there, and we know it's only a question of time when we get hold of them." "Well," Will insisted, "I'm going to find a motive before I quit the case. I'm going to know who sent those boys here, and all about it, before I make any report to Mr. Horton." "Go as far as you like," laughed Tommy. "My bump of curiosity is growing half an inch a day, and will continue to spread out until I find out exactly what those boys are doing burrowing in a deserted mine." "Now, we'll get back to the point we started from," Will explained. "This boy who is undoubtedly doing duty outside the mine in the interests of the persons who sent the two boys in, furnishes the clue to the whole situation! When we find him, and find out what he's up to, and trace any communications he may make back to their original source, we'll have the whole case tied up tight!" "That's right!" declared Tommy. "We'll have the case tied up tight if we succeed in getting hold of this third boy." "Oh, go on!" laughed Sandy. "We'll be picking third boys and fourth boys and fifth boys out of the air the next thing you know. We never went away on a Boy Scout expedition yet that we didn't find all manner of kids hanging around on purpose to be discovered. We found them on Old Superior; and in the Everglades; and on the Great Continental Divide; and up in the Hudson Bay country, we began to think we had stumbled on the center of population so far as Boy Scouts were concerned!" "There's just one thing that's likely to make us trouble," Will resumed. "And that is the fact that Canfield very foolishly slopped over to Ventner when explaining the purpose of our visit here. That bum detective knows now that we're here to search the mine. Of course he might have received, as Canfield says, most of his information from outside sources, but the caretaker should have thrown him off the track instead of telling him exactly what our mission here was." "But Ventner came here to search for the boys himself!" George broke in. "At least, he says that he did." "There's a mystery about the whole matter," Sandy declared, "and I'd like to help clear it up from beginning to end!" "We're likely to have a chance!" laughed Tommy. "What are we going to do all the afternoon?" George asked. "Wander around town," smiled Will, "and find out about the evening train, and ask fool questions about the pumps and the mine, and laugh at the idea of anybody living in there. That'll give Ventner the idea that we're going for good, I reckon. He's a pretty bum skate to pose as a detective!" "I'll tell you what I'm going to do most of the afternoon!" Tommy declared. "I'm going to the hay! I never felt so bunged up for want of sleep in my innocent life." "Haven't you forgotten something?" asked Sandy. "Sure!" shouted Tommy. "I'm forgetting to eat!" "And you're forgetting something else!" insisted Sandy. "Nix on the forget!" declared Tommy. "When I forget my eatings and sleepings, the world will come to an end!" "You forgot to read a chapter in your dream book!" said Sandy. "Never you mind that dream book," Tommy replied. "Whenever you want to find the answer to any puzzle, you look in that dream book!" After eating another hearty meal the boys, having already packed their wardrobes, locked the door of their room and addressed themselves to slumber. They were awakened about five o'clock by a loud knocking on the door, and presently they heard the voice of Canfield calling to them. "Wake up, boys!" he cried. "I have good news for you!" "All right, let her go!" shouted Tommy. "The pumps are working, and the water is lowering in the mine!" "That's nice!" laughed Sandy. "And we've found out what caused the sudden flooding," the caretaker went on. "It seems that a partition, or wall, between the Labyrinth and the Mixer mine unaccountably gave way. The Mixer mine has been flooded for a long time and, as it lies above the level of the Labyrinth, the water naturally flowed into our mine as soon as the wall was down." "But what caused the partition to fall?" asked Will, opening the door for the admission of the caretaker. "No one knows!" was the answer. "If you look about a little," Tommy suggested, "I think you'll find traces of dynamite. Who discovered the break in the dividing wall?" "A gang under the leadership of Ventner, the detective!" was the reply. The caretaker was very much surprised and not a little annoyed at the effect his answer had upon the four boys. "I don't see anything humorous about that!" he said as the lads threw themselves down on the bunks and roared with laughter. "It looks funny to me!" Tommy replied. "It we had never showed up here, the mine wouldn't have been flooded. As soon as we start away or promise to leave the district, which amounts to the same thing, this cheap skate of a detective finds the break, and all is well again!" "Why, you don't think that he had anything to do with the trouble at the mine, do you?" questioned the caretaker. "Oh, of course not!" replied Sandy. "Ventner had nothing to do with cutting the ladder. That fellow will land in state's prison if he keeps on trying to murder boys by sawing ladder rungs!" "I had forgotten that,' said Canfield. "Well, don't forget that this man Ventner is playing the chief villain's role in this drama!" Tommy advised. "And another thing you mustn't forget," the boy continued, "is that you're not to say a word to him that will inform him that he is suspected." "I think I can remember that!" replied the caretaker. The boys prepared a hasty supper and then, suit cases in hand, started for the little railway station. There they inquired about the arrival and departure of trains, bought tickets, and made themselves as conspicuous as possible about the depot. "Keep your eye out for the third boy," George chuckled, as the lads walked up and down the platform. "Don't get excited about the third boy," Will replied. "We'll find him when the right time comes!" "There's Ventner!" exclaimed Tommy as the detective came rushing down the platform. "Of course the good, kind gentleman would want to bid us farewell!" "I'd like to crack him over the coco!" exclaimed Sandy. "I'll bet he's got some kind of a fake story to tell," suggested Will. "He looks like a man who had been working his imagination overtime!" "News of the two boys!" shouted the detective as he came up smiling. CHAPTER X THE BOY IN THE "EMPTY" "Didn't I tell you," whispered Will, "that he is there with a product of his imagination? If you leave it to him, the two boys we're in search of are somewhere on the Pacific slope!" "He must think we're a lot of suckers to take in any story he'll tell!" whispered Tommy. "A person that couldn't get next to his game ought to be locked up in the foolish house!" "I've just heard from a railway brakeman," Ventner said, rushing up to the boys with an air of importance, "that the two lads you are in search of were seen leaving a box car at a little station in Ohio. I don't just recall the name of the station now, but I can find it by looking on the map! It seems the lads left here on the night following their departure from the breaker, and stole their passage to this little town I'm telling you about." "Good thing you came to the depot," declared Will. "We should have been out of town in ten minutes more." "Where is this town?" asked George, thinking it best to show great interest in the statement made by the detective. "It's a little place on the Lake Erie & Western road!" was the answer. The detective took a railroad folder from his pocket and consulted a map. It seemed to take him a long time to decide upon a place, but he finally spread the map out against the wall of the station and laid his finger on a point on the Lake Erie & Western railroad. "Nankin is the name of the place. Strange I should have forgotten the name of the place. They were put out of the car at Nankin, and are believed to have started down the railroad right of way on foot." "But you said they were seen leaving the car at Napkin!" Tommy cut in. "Now you say they were put out of the car!" "Well, they were chased out of the car, and that covers both statements," replied the detective somewhat nervously. "Thank you very much for the information!" Will exclaimed as the train the boys were to take came rolling into the station. "The pointer is undoubtedly a good one, and we'll take a look at the country about Nankin." There was a crossing not more than six miles from the station where the boys had taken the train and they were all ready to jump when the engineer slowed down and whistled his note of warning. It was quite dark, although stars were showing in a sky plentifully scattered over with clouds and, as the boys dropped down out of the illumination of the windows as soon as they struck the ground, they were not seen to leave the train by any of the passengers. In a moment the train rushed on, leaving the four standing on the roadbed looking disconsolately in the direction of the town. "Now for a good long hike!" exclaimed Tommy. "It's for your own good!" laughed Sandy. "I can always tell when something is for my own good," Tommy contended. "You don't look it!" chuckled Sandy. "When anything's for my own good," the boy continued, "it's always disagreeable! It makes me think of a story I read once where the man complained that everything he ever wanted in this world was either expensive, indigestible or immoral." "Well, get on the hike!" laughed George. "You can stand here and moralize till the cows come home, and it won't move you half an inch in the direction of the mine!" "And look here," Will exclaimed as the boys started up the grade, "when we get within sight of the lights of the station, we must scatter and keep our traps closed! We can all make for the mine by different routes. Ventner thinks we are out of town now, and the chances are that he'll be plugging around trying to accomplish some purpose known only to himself. For my part I don't believe he is employed on the same case we are! He's working for some outside parties!" "That's the way it strikes me!" George agreed. "If the detective had been honestly trying to assist us, the mine wouldn't have been flooded, the pumps wouldn't have broken down, and the electric motors would have been found in excellent working order." "Did you notice the suit he had on when he stood talking with us at the station?" asked Will. "That was a blue serge suit, wasn't it?" "It surely was!" Tommy declared, quick to catch the point. "And there was a tear down the front of it which looked as if it had been made by the scraping of a saw! I guess if you'll inspect the shreds we found on the saw with the breaks in that coat front you'll find where the saw got in its work, all right!" "And there was a cut on his, hand, too!" Sandy observed. "Looked like he had bounced the saw off one of the rungs on top of a finger." "Oh, he's a clever little boy all right!" Tommy cut in. "But he forgot to leave his brass band at home when he went out to cut into that ladder! If he does all his work the way he did that job, he'll be sitting in some nice, quiet state's prison before he's six months older." When the boys came within a quarter of a mile of the station lights, they parted, Will and George turning off from the right of way and Sandy and Tommy keeping on for half a dozen rods. When the four boys were finally clear of the tracks they were walking perhaps twenty rods apart, and at right angles with the right of way. "Now, as we approach the mine," Will cautioned his companion, "keep your eye out for Ventner and this third boy. They are both likely to be chasing around in the darkness." The route to the mine, taken by Tommy and his chum crossed a network of tracks, led up to the weigh-house and so on into the breaker. As they came to a line of empty cars standing on a spur they heard a movement in one of the empties and crouched down to listen. "There's some one in there!" declared Tommy. "Some old bum, probably!" This from Sandy who had recently bumped his shins on a pile of ties and was not in a very pleasant humor. "It may be the boy we're looking for!" urged Tommy. Sandy sat down on the end of a tie and rubbed his bruised shin vigorously, muttering and protesting, against railroad yards in general and this one in particular as he did so. Tommy made his way under the empty and sat listening, his ear almost against the bottom of the car. Presently he heard a movement above and then it seemed to him that something of considerable weight was being dragged across the floor. This was followed in a moment by a slight groan, and then a shadowy figure leaped from the open side door and started away in the darkness. Now Sandy had been warned to hang onto the third boy like grim death if he caught sight of him. He saw this figure bounce out of the car and start, away. Therefore, he promptly reached out a foot and tripped the unknown to the ground. He fell with a grunt of anger and pain and lay rolling on the cinders which lined the roadbed for a moment without speaking. In the meantime, Tommy had crawled out from under the car and stood ready to seize any second person who might make his appearance. Almost immediately a second body came bouncing out of the empty. Instead of starting away on a run, however, the second person stopped where Sandy stood beside the wiggling figure and looked down upon it. "Hand him one!" he said in a boy's voice. "Who is it?" asked Sandy. "Don't know!" was the reply. "What was he doing to you?" "He was trying to rob me!" "I don't think a man would get rich, robbing people who ride in empties!" laughed Sandy. "I shouldn't think their bank rolls would make much of a hit with a bold, bad highwayman!" "There's men riding the rods," was the reply, "who would kill a boy for a dime! If I wasn't opposed to cruelty to animals, I'd give this fellow a beating up right now. He tried to drag me from the car by the leg and nearly broke my ankle!" "I heard him dragging you across the floor!" Tommy said, coming up to where the two stood. "Can you see who it is?" he added. "He's just a tramp!" the other replied. "I saw him sneaking around the empties just before dark." "Why were you sleeping in an empty?" asked Sandy. "Because I like plenty of fresh air!" replied the boy with a chuckle. While the boys talked the tramp arose and sneaked away, limping over the ties as if tickled to death to get out of the way of the three youngsters. As he disappeared in the darkness Tommy turned to the boy who had dropped out of the car to ask him a question. The boy was nowhere to be seen. "Now we've gone and done it!" cried Sandy. "I guess we have!" agreed Tommy. "We've let the third boy get away from us! And we couldn't have done a worse thing!" he went on, "because the boys in the mine will know that we are still in this vicinity!" While the boys stood blaming themselves the sharp call of the Wolf pack came to them. CHAPTER XI A KNOCK AT THE DOOR When Will and George came to the back of the weigh-house they heard some one moving about at the front. "That's probably the caretaker, taking his last look for the night," suggested Will. "He pokes around all the outbuildings every night before he goes to bed. At least, he is supposed to." "But this fellow hasn't got any lantern," urged George. "The plot deepens!" chuckled Will. "Can you crawl around there and see who it is," asked George, "or shall I go? It may be a thief, or it may be Ventner, or it may be this boy we're looking for. Anyway, we want to know who it is!" "I'll go!" Will suggested, "and don't you make any racket if you hear something doing there. The one thing to do at this time is to keep our presence here a profound secret." Will moved cautiously around the angle of the weigh-house just in time to see a figure leaving the side of the building and moving toward the breaker. There was a little side door in the breaker not far from the weigh-house, and it was toward this that the prowler was making his way. Half way to the little house the fellow stumbled over some obstruction in his path and fell sprawling to the ground. He arose with an impatient oath and moved on again, but not before the watcher had recognized both the figure and the voice. Will, turned back to where George stood. "That's Ventner," he said. "Are you sure?" "Dead sure!" There was a short silence. "What can we do now?" "I don't know of anything we can do, unless it is to watch the rascal and see where he goes," answered the other. "The chances are that he's trying to get into the mine!" "That shows the fellow is a crook!" Will contended. "He has full permission to enter the mine at any time he sees fit." "Of course, he's a crook!" agreed George. "What would he be sneaking around here in the night for, if he wasn't engaged in some underhand game? You just wait until we get into the mine," the boy continued, "and we'll give him a ghost scare that'll hold him for a while." As Ventner approached the little side door leading into the breaker, a light flashed in the window of the room which the boys had occupied, and directly Canfield's voice was heard asking: "Who's there?" "Now if he's on the square, he'll answer!" whispered Will. There was no reply whatever, and in a moment the caretaker called again, this time rather peremptorily: "What are you prowling about the yard for?" The detective dropped to his knees and began crawling away. "If I see you around here again," the caretaker shouted in a braver tone now that the intruder was taking his departure, "I'll do some shooting!" Evidently giving over the attempt to enter the mine at that time, the detective arose to his feet as soon as he gained the shelter of the weigh-house, and walked away, passing as he did so, within a few feet of where the boys were standing. "That settles that bum detective, so far as we are concerned!" Will said to his chum, in a whisper. "We knew before that he was playing a rotten game on us, but we didn't know that, his plans included such surreptitious visits to the mine." After making sure that the detective was not within sight or sound, Will and George tapped softly at the little door and were admitted by the caretaker. Five minutes later they were joined by Tommy and Sandy. "Were you boys out there a few moments ago?" asked Canfield. "Nix!" replied George. "That was Ventner. We saw him from the weigh-house. He was trying to sneak his way into the mine!" "But he has full permission to enter at any time he sees fit!" urged the caretaker. "It doesn't seem as if he would attempt to steal his way in during the night. You must be mistaken!" "Yes, and perhaps we were mistaken about the sawing of the ladder, too!" Tommy broke in. "Yes, we may all be mistaken about that." "Not so you could notice it!" declared Sandy. "If you look at the thief's coat, you'll see that he didn't do all the sawing on the rungs of the ladder. We've got him too dead to skin!" Without any lights being shown on the surface, the boys were conducted down the ladder to the first level. There they found a room very cozily furnished, indeed. A lounge from the office, a couple of good sized cupboards, and a large table had been brought down, together with a serviceable rug and numerous chairs, and the apartment presented an unexpectedly homelike appearance. The current was on, and two electric lamps made the room as light as day. The cooking was to be done over electric coils so that the presence of the boys would not be disclosed by smoke. One of the ventilating pipes which supplied the offices in the vicinity of the shaft with fresh air passed through the room, so there was no lack of ozone. "Have we got plenty of eatings?" asked Tommy. "Plenty!" was the reply. "I have arranged for fresh meat, milk and vegetables to be brought in every evening." "Talk about your bull-headed, obstinate men!" exclaimed Tommy, as the caretaker finally took his departure. "That fellow takes the cake! He knows very well that we caught Vintner in the act of sawing on the ladder, and he knows, too, that we heard Wolf calls while we were in the mine. Still he shakes his head and says that he don't know about the boys being there, and don't know about that bum detective being crooked. If you could get a saw and operate on his head, you'd find it solid bone!" "You'll feel better after you get supper!" Sandy declared. "This isn't any grouch!" insisted Tommy. "This is the true story of that man's life! If I had a dollar for every time he doesn't know anything, I'd be the richest boy in the world!" "Are you thinking of going down the mine tonight?" asked George, with a wink at Will. "We might try another midnight excursion." "If you kids go into the mine tonight," declared Will, "I'll send you both back to Chicago on the first train!" "Aw, how are you going to find these boys if you don't go into the mine?" demanded Tommy. "I suppose you'll want us to wait till daylight when the owners will be looking around to see if any damage was done by the inundation. The best time is at night!" "Look here," Will argued, "we've got to do more than lay hands on the boys! We've got to find out why they are hiding in the mine." "That's the correct word," agreed George. "Hiding is the word that expresses the situation exactly!" "There is no doubt," Will continued, "that the boys were sent here by some one for some specific purpose. They are hiding in the mine with a well-defined motive. I have an idea that we might be able to find them in twenty-four hours, but what is more important, is to find out what they are up to." "Well, in order to get the whole story, we'll have to pretend that we are looking for them and can't find them!" George said. "That's right!" laughed Tommy. "Give them plenty of rope and they'll hang themselves. We may as well have the whole story while we're at it." Before preparing their beds for the night, the boys paid a visit to the shaft and made their way down to the rungs which had been cut. They found that they had been replaced by new ones. There was still water in the lower levels of the mine, but it was slowly disappearing through the sump, and the indications were that it would be dry by morning. The boys listened intently for some evidence of occupancy as they moved up and down the shaft, but all was still. "This would be a good place to tell a ghost story," Tommy chuckled as they moved back to their room on the first level. "There's about a million stories now, entitled "The Ghost of the Mine!" declared Sandy. "Perhaps however," he went on, "one more wouldn't hurt." "If I see a ghost tonight," declared Tommy, "it'll be in my dreams!" Sandy and Tommy were sound asleep on their cots as soon as supper was over, and Will and George were getting ready to retire when the soft patter of a light footstep sounded in the vicinity of the shaft. "Rats must be thick in the mine!" suggested George. "Rats nothing!" declared Will. "Those two youngsters are prowling about in order to see what we are up to!" As he spoke the boy arose, turned off the electric light and stepped out into the passage. CHAPTER XII A MIDNIGHT ROBBER There was a quick scamper of feet as Will stepped out, then silence! "Where did he go?" asked George, joining big chum on the outside. "Down the ladder!" replied Will. "Why don't we go and see where he went?" "That might be a good idea," Will replied. "Do you think it's safe for us to try to navigate that shaft in the dark?" "We can stick to the ladders, can't we?" asked George. "We ought to find out where the kids hang out," Will argued. "I'd like to get my hands on one of them!" "I don't think we're likely to do that tonight," George answered. "It seems to me that about the only way we can catch those fellows is to set a bear trap. They seem to be rather slippery." Will, clad only in pajamas and slippers, moved toward the shaft and looked down. It was dark and still below, and he turned back with a little shudder. The situation was not at all to his liking. "Well, are you going down?" asked George. "Sure, I'm going down!" Will answered. "I'm only waiting to get up my nerve! It looks pretty dreary down there. If we could use a light I wouldn't mind, but it's pretty creepy going down that hole in the darkness." "Then suppose we wait until morning," suggested George. Will leaned against the shaft timbers and laughed. "It'll be just as dark in here in the morning, as it is now!" he said. "I think we'd better go on down tonight and see if we can locate the fellows." The two boys passed swiftly down the ladder, paused a moment at the second level, and then passed on to the third. The gangways leading out from the shaft were reasonably dry now. Lower down the dip they were still under a few inches of water. "I don't see how we're going to discover anybody down in this blooming old well!" George grumbled. "There might be a regiment of state troops here an we wouldn't be able to see a single soldier!" "We can't show a light, for all that!" declared Will. "We've just got to wait and see if they won't be kind enough to show a light." "You guessed it," chuckled George, whispering softly in his chum's ear, "there's a glimmer of light, now!" "I see it!" Will replied. The boys left the ladder and moved out into the center gangway. They could see a light flickering some distance in advance, and had no difficulty in following it. "That's an electric torch!" Will commented. "Perhaps, if we follow along, we'll be able to track them to their nest," George suggested, "and, still, I don't care about getting very far away from the shaft. We might get lost in these crooked passages." "Yes," replied Will. "Some one might head us off, too. I don't care about being held up here in pajamas." The mine was damp and cold, and a wind was sweeping up the passage toward the shaft. The boys shivered as they walked, yet kept resolutely on until the light they were following left the main gangway and disappeared in a cross heading. "That means 'Good-night' for me," whispered Will, "for I'm not going to get out beyond the reach of the rails. I guess we'll have to go back and invent some other means of trapping those foxy boys." As Will spoke the light reappeared and moved on down the gangway again. Then, for the first time, the boys saw a figure outlined against the illumination. Will caught his chum by the arm excitedly. "That isn't one of the boys at all!" he exclaimed. "Well, how large a population do you think this mine has!" demanded George. "If it isn't one of the boys, who is it?" "That bum detective!" answered Will. "So he got in here at last, did he?" chuckled George. "Well, it's up to us to find out what he's doing in here!" "Do you think that is the gink who was prowling around our room?" asked Will. "If he is, then our little trip in the country doesn't count for much!"' "The fellow who visited us," George argued, "was light and quick on his feet. This bum detective waddles a lot like an old cow." "Then we've passed the boy who called to see us, and failed to leave a card," grinned Will. "We may meet him as we return!" "Here's hoping we bump straight into him if we do meet him," George exclaimed. "I'm just aching to get my hands on that fellow!" "I'm not particularly anxious to catch him just yet," Will suggested. "I want to find out what the kids are up to before we pounce down upon them." While the boys stood in the passage, whispering together, the light moved on until it came to a chamber which seemed to be rather shallow, for the reflection of the searchlight was still in the gangway. "Now we've got him!" exclaimed Will. "I think I remember that chamber, and, unless I'm very much mistaken, it opens only onto this passage! While he's poking around in there, we'll sneak up and see what's he's doing!" Before the boys reached the entrance to the chamber they heard the sounds of a pick. When they came nearer and looked in they saw the detective poking away at heap of "gob" which lay in one corner of the excavation. He worked industriously, and apparently without fear of discovery. Now and then he stooped down to peer into a crevice in the wall, but soon went on again. "I wonder if he thinks he can find two boys in that heap of refuse?" laughed George. "I wonder why he don't use a microscope." The detective busied himself at the heap of refuse for a considerable length of time, and then began further Investigation of little breaks in the wall. Using his pick to enlarge the openings he made a systematic search of one break after another. "Looks like he might be hunting after some pirate treasure," George chuckled. "I never heard of Captain Kidd sailing over into the sloughs of Pennsylvania. Did you?" "That tells the story!" Will whispered. "The fellow is here on some mission of his own. That story of his about being in quest of the boys is all a bluff! I reckon he had heard somewhere that two boys were missing and came here with the fairy tale!" "Well, he's got a good, large mine to look in if he's in search of treasure," George suggested. "He can spend the rest of his days here, provided the operators don't get sore on him." While the boys looked, Ventner turned toward the entrance to the chamber, and they scampered away. Turning back, they saw him pass out of the place where he had been working and into a similar excavation farther on. There he worked as industriously as before. "You see how it is," Will suggested. "The fellow is hunting for something, and doesn't know where to look for it! So it's all right to let him go ahead with his quest for hidden wealth, or whatever it is he's after. When he finds it, we'll not be far away!" "I like this walking about in my naked feet," George grunted in a moment. "I had my slippers on when I came down the ladder, but I either had to take them off and carry them in my hands or lose them in the mud." "Same here!" Will said. "I'm going back to my little cot bed right now and go to sleep. I think we have the detective sized up and we can catch the kids some other night." "Me for the hay, too," George exclaimed. "I don't think I was ever quite so sleepy in my life!" "Now, on the way back," Will cautioned, "we ought to keep still and keep a sharp lookout for the person who was sneaking around our quarters." "Whoever it was may be between us and the shaft," George suggested. "If I thought so," Will argued, "I'd just stand around and wait until they pass us on the way in. I don't want to find those boys just now. There's a mystery connected with this mine which the caretaker knows nothing about, and which Mr. Horton never referred to when he sent us down here. "We wouldn't be able to breathe if we didn't discover an air of mystery every fifteen minutes," George declared. Half way back to the shaft the boys, who were walking very softly in their stockinged feet, heard a rattle as of a moving stone or piece of coal in the passage, and at once drew up against the side wall. While they stood there, scarcely daring to breathe, they sensed that some one was passing them in the darkness. The tread was light and brisk, and they thought they heard a soft chuckle as the unseen figure breezed by them. "I'll bet the lad who was listening near our door never came down the shaft until after we did!" George whispered after the figure had passed by. "That's very likely!" agreed Will. "Then he may have been poking around our quarters while we have been gone." "That's very likely, too." Believing the way to be clear now, the boys hastened on toward the shaft. Just as they reached the foot of the ladder they heard a sound which sent the blood throbbing to their checks. "He's making fun of us!" exclaimed George. "It looks like it," admitted Will. The sound they heard was the low, complaining snarl of the Wolf. "The nerve of him!" exclaimed George. "Perhaps he'll answer now!" Will suggested. Then followed the "slap, slap, slap!" of the Beaver Patrol. No answer came from the darkness beyond the shaft. "He's got his nerve with him!" declared Will. "When I get hold of him, I'll teach him to answer Boy Scout challenges!" When the boys got back to their quarters they found Tommy and Sandy sitting in the darkness with their automatics and their searchlights in their hands. One of them turned on a finger of light as the boys entered but immediately shut it off again. "What's coming off here?" demanded Will. "Do you know what those fellows did?" asked Tommy. "They came here while we were asleep and stole about half our provisions!" CHAPTER XIII ONE MORE HUNGRY BOY "We may as well turn on the lights!" Will said. "If any one comes in here to steal Tommy's necktie," he added with a wink at his chum, "we want to see what he looks like." "Why didn't you stay here and watch, then?" demanded Tommy. "Why did you go off and leave the camp all alone? I heard people moving around, and I thought it was you." Will and George sat down on the edge of their cots and laughed. "Yes, you thought it was me!" Will said directly. "You never heard a thing! You'd better look and see if the midnight visitors didn't steal your pajamas. Or they might have taken your pillow." Tommy threw a shoe at his tormentor and turned on the electric light. "Now that I'm awake," he said with a sly grin, "I think that I'll get myself something to eat. Seems to me I'm always hungry." While the boy rattled among canned goods and candled eggs to see if they were fit for a four-minute boil, Sandy turned to George. "What did you find in the mine?" he asked. "We found that bum detective nosing around. We've got his number now, all right," the boy went on, "and there's something in the mine that he wants to find and he doesn't know where to look for it. He isn't looking for Jimmie and Dick any more than we're looking for a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow. I don't believe he was ever sent here to make a search for the missing boys!" "What was he doing when you saw him?" asked Sandy. "Poking around in worked-out chambers with a pick!" "Did he see you?" "You bet he didn't! Do you think we're going to walk six miles in from the country in order to dodge the detective, and then let him run across us in the mine?" "Yes, but what's he looking for?" insisted Sandy. "That, me son," George replied with a wink, "is locked in the bosom of the future! We may be able to find out what he's doing here when we find out who struck Billy Patterson." "Don't get gay now!" grinned Sandy. "Well, if you insist upon it," George continued with a smile, "Ventner was digging in refuse heaps for something which he didn't find!" "Did you meet the boys who stole our provisions?" was the next question. "I wish you'd got hold of them!" "We are certain that one of them passed us while we were returning," George answered. "The nerve of him!" shouted Sandy. "The idea of his coming here and swiping our provisions!" Tommy cut in. "If I ever get hold of that gink, I'll beat his head off!" "You going back after than bum detective tonight?" asked George. "Not me!" answered Sandy. "Me for ham and eggs." "What's the matter with passing the ham and eggs around?" Every one of the four boys sprang forward as the words came from somewhere just outside the door. "That's one of those thieving kids!" declared Tommy. "You've had your share!" shouted Sandy. "It has now been nine day's since I've tasted food!" came the answer from the other side of the door, and the boys thought they caught a chuckle between the words. "All right!" replied Tommy. "You go and sit in the deserted mine nine days more, and then we'll consider whether you have any right to be hungry. Go on away tonight, anyhow!" "Not so you could notice it," came the insistent tones from beyond the door. "I'm going to stay right here until I get something to eat!" "Eat the stuff you stole!" advised Sandy. "You're in wrong!" came from the other side of the door. "I haven't had a thing to eat in forty or fifty days. Come on, now," he added, "be good fellows and open up. I'm so hungry I could eat a brass cylinder." "Aw, let him in!" advised Tommy. "He'll stand there chinning all night if we don't! We've got enough to eat for the present anyway." Will unfastened the door and a tall slender young fellow of perhaps seventeen stopped inside the room and stood blinking a moment under the strong, electric light. His face was streaked with coal dust and his clothing was ragged and dirty. Still the boy looked like anything but a tramp. Tommy eyed him suspiciously for a moment. "Where'd you come from?" he asked. "Off the rods!" was the reply. "And I suppose," Sandy broke in, "that you were just taking a stroll by starlight and just happened to walk into this mine." "Sure," answered the other with a provoking grin. "Well, if anybody should ask you," Tommy continued, "you're the boy that had a mix-up with the tramp tonight, and ran away while we were trying to invite you to supper. What do you know about that?" "Invite me to supper now and see if I'll run away!" "If you boys will cut out this foolish conversation for a minute," Will suggested, "I'll try to find out what this boy wants. Do you mean to say," he added turning to Tommy, "that you bumped into this kid while returning to the mine from the tracks?" "Didn't I tell you about that?" asked Tommy. "I thought I did. We found him in a mix-up with a tramp, and that's all there is to it!" "And I told you at the time," the stranger interrupted, "that the tramp tried to rob me! That was all right, too. He did try to rob me, but I didn't have a blessed cent in my possession, so he didn't get anything! The tramp who got a hold of me night before last stripped me clean! And that, you see, is why I haven't got any money to buy provisions with. And also that's the reason why I'm hungry." The four boys gathered around the stranger and began a systematic course of questions which at first brought forth only unsatisfactory answers. "And also," the boy went on, taking up the speech he had begun some minutes before, "that's why two boys are hungry just about this time. I got rolled for my wad plenty." "That's South Clark street!" laughed Tommy. "That's Bowery!" corrected the other. "What'd you say about other boys being hungry?" asked Sandy. "I said that's why two other boys are hungry." "They ain't hungry any more," declared Tommy with a wink. "That listens good!" the stranger said. "Because," continued Tommy, "they came in here about an hour ago and stole everything they could get their hands on." "Brave boys!" laughed the other. "You wasn't hiding behind the door when they gave out nerve, either!" declared Tommy. "Here, these boys come here and steal our grub and you seem to think they did a noble thing! What's your name anyhow?" "Buck!" was the reply. "Elmer Cyrus Buck, 409 Lexington Avenue, N.Y.C. Member of the Wolf Patrol, Boy Scouts of America, and just about ready to scrap for something to eat!" "Why didn't you say so before?" Tommy exclaimed, setting a great slice of ham and several freshly boiled eggs, together with bread and butter and canned tomatoes before the young man. "How long since you've seen Jimmie Maynard and Dick Thompson?" asked Will. "You must have failed to connect with them tonight!" "How do you know that?" "Because if you had bumped into them, they would fed you out of the provisions they stole from us!" "I haven't been looking for them tonight!" Elmer replied. "I tried to follow you to the mine," he added turning to Tommy and Sandy, "when you left me at the car. But, somehow, I lost track of you in the darkness, and when you finally got into the mine, I had to wait for things to quiet down before I could force an entrance. I don't think I could have got in at all if some one hadn't been ahead of me with a jimmy, or an axe, or something of that kind." "That must have been Ventner," suggested Will. "Mother of Moses!" cried Elmer. "Has that fellow got into the mine again? Does he know you're here?" "He knew that we were here," was the answer, "but he thinks we've gone away! He's down in the mine now, hunting for a pot of diamonds in the refuse cast aside by the miners." "Well, you've got him into the mine, at last," Will suggested. "What is the next move you are thinking of making?" "After I finish my modest supper," Elmer answered with a nod at the great stack of food which Tommy had piled on his plate, "I'm going to give you boys the surprise of your lives!" "You're pretty well done now," laughed Will. "And I'm going to begin," Elmer resumed, "by fishing two members of the Wolf Patrol out of the mine and bringing them up here to apologize for stealing your grub!" "If you'll do that," replied Will, "we'll forgive you!" CHAPTER XIV MINE RATS READY FOR WAR "Wait till I destroy this hen fruit," Elmer said, "and I'll go down and bring those two foolish youngsters up with me. It's time we had an understanding with you boys. You're here looking for something, and we're here looking for something. Perhaps we would meet with better success if we talked over our plans." "What are you looking for?" demanded Tommy. "Keep it dark," grinned Elmer. "I'm not going to tell you a thing until I bring Jimmie and Dick up here so they can get next to the whole story! I guess you boys can work together without scrapping, can't you?" "When we find the boys," laughed Will, "our job will come to an end!" "You just wait till I go and bring up Jimmie and Dick, and I'll tell you all about it! I won't be gone more than a minute." "So that's what you came down here after, isn't it?" "Yes, we came here to dig two boys out of a mine." "I don't believe it!" replied Elmer. "We came here from Chicago for that very purpose," went on Will. "Who sent you here?" asked Elmer. "Lawyer Horton." "Then Lawyer Horton didn't tell you the 'whole story,'" laughed Elmer. "He held out on you boys just to see if you wouldn't get the story at the mine. Of course he didn't know where we were at the time he sent you down here, but he never sent you for the express purpose of finding us!" "Then why did he send us?" asked Tommy. "You just wait till I go and bring up Jimmie and Dick, and I'll tell you all about it! I won't be gone more than a minute." "But hold on," cried Sandy. "You mustn't go chasing down into the mine now. That bum detective is there, and we don't want him to know that we're anywhere within a hundred miles of this place." "He doesn't know that we're here, either," commented Elmer. "His notion is that he drove us all into the next state when he caused the mine to be flooded. He thinks he has the whole mine to himself, now." "So he caused the mine to be flooded, did he?" "Sure he did," was the curt reply. "The boys saw him digging away at the wall which protects this dry mine from the wet one next door." "So you saw him doing it, did you?" "I didn't, because I haven't been in the mine before any length of time, but Jimmie and Dick saw him. "We've been told that he made the trouble," Will agreed, "but we weren't so very sure of it, after all. At least, we didn't have the proof. He ought to get twenty years for that!" "Well, if you keep asking me questions all night," Elmer declared, "I'll never get the boys up here, and you'll never know why you were sent here! You can come along with me if you want to." "But how about this detective?" insisted Sandy. "We ought to be able to get the boys up here, without letting him know that we are in the mine," answered Elmer. "We needn't travel with a fife and drum corps ahead of us, nor even carry any lights down with us. He's probably working in some inside chamber." "All right," Will answered, "we've had our trip through the mine tonight, so we'll let Tommy and Sandy go with you. Are you sure the boys will come if you ask them to?" "Sure they'll come!" was the reply. The two boys drew on their rubber boots with which they had provided themselves before taking up their quarters in the mine, and which they had been too excited to use on a previous occasion, and Will loaned a pair to Elmer, then they started down the ladders. "It would be something of a joke if we should butt into that detective now, wouldn't it?" Sandy laughed, as they passed down from the second level. "I shouldn't consider it much of a joke," replied Tommy. "We took a lot of pains to make him think we'd gone out of town!" As the boys walked softly down the center gangway they heard a fall of rock which seemed to come from the passage next north. This passageway was connected by the main one with a cross-heading, situated perhaps three hundred feet from the shaft. "I don't know much about mines," whisper Elmer as the boys stopped and listened to the clatter of the rocks as they settled down on the floor of the cavern, "but that sounds to me a whole lot like a fall from the roof. I hope the boys are not injured." The boys walked faster until they came to the cross-passage and then turned to the right. Just as they left the main gangway, they heard the sound of running feet and directly the distant creaking the ladder rungs. "Some one's making a hot-foot for the surface!" exclaimed Tommy. "That's Ventner!" declared Sandy. "How do you know that?" "Because he wears heavy boots. We have rubbers, me and Dick, and Jimmie and Dick, who are down in the mine, are also wearing rubber boots!" "The farther he gets away from the mine, the better it will suit me," Elmer broke in. "I wish he'd go away and stay for a hundred years." "The chances are that he dug away one of the pillars and caused that drop from the roof," suggested Sandy. "I guess that's all right, too," Elmer argued. "If he's been digging around here the way the boys say he has, he's certainly taking chances on cutting down more than one column. He ought to be fired out of the mine!" The boys now came to a chamber across the entrance to which a great mass of shale had been thrown when the fall from the roof took place. At first they listened, fearful that they would hear voices of the lads they were in search of beyond the wall, possibly crushed under the weight of the of stone. Then they passed along for a short distance and peered into the chamber over the heap of refuse. What they saw brought excited exclamations to their lips. Jimmie and Dick stood in the interior of the chamber, hedged in by fallen debris. They were swinging their searchlights frantically from side to side, and, while the boys looked, they began the utterance of such yells as had never before been heard in that gloomy place. "What's the trouble?" asked Elmer, showing his light at the narrow opening between the roof of the chamber and the pile of refuse. "Oh, you're there, are you?" asked one of the boys. "We thought perhaps you'd gone back to New York and left us to starve to death." "Well, you didn't starve, did you?" asked Elmer. "Wow, wow, wow!" yelled Jimmie. "Now, what is it?" asked Elmer. "Rats!" yelled the boy. "Millions of rats! They're creeping out by the regiment from the cribbing where we were hidden!" "That idiot of a detective," the other boy went on, "undermined a pillar and let about half an acre of roof down into this chamber. When the roof fell, it broke the cribbing and the rats began pouring out. "They won't hurt you!" declared Tommy. "Only you mustn't go to picking a quarrel with them. They're fighters when they get their tempers up. Just let them alone and they'll let you alone!" "Who's that talking?" demanded Jimmie. "That's the relief expedition!" laughed Elmer. "You ought to be fired out of the Wolf Patrol for not answering Boy Scout signals!" Tommy broke in. "We called to you more than a dozen times, and you never answered once!" "Well, we had to wait until Elmer reported kind of fellows you were, didn't we?" asked Dick. "We couldn't go and make friends with you with knowing what you were here for, so we kept out of your way until Elmer could find a way to learn more about you." "And instead of finding a way," Jimmie took up the argument, "he goes off and gets lost in a thicket about six feet square and never shows up with any grub for twenty-four hours! So we had to go and steal grub of the boys!" "Yes, and we're going to have you pinched when you get out!" laughed Tommy. "You'll get ninety days for that." "Where'd that bum detective go?" asked Jimmie. "When the roof fell, we heard him go clattering down the gangway running as though he had only about thirty seconds in which to get to New York." "He's a long distance from the mine by this time," Elmer suggested. "Well," Jimmie said, "I don't like the company of these rats, so if you'll kindly dig into the refuse on your side, we'll work from this side and we'll soon be out. These rats look hostile." "You let 'em alone!" advised Tommy. "Yes, I'll let 'em alone -- not!" shouted Jimmie. "You wait until I get an armful of rocks and I'll beat some of their heads off!" "For the love of Mike, don't do anything of the kind!" yelled Tommy. "They'll climb onto you nine feet thick if you injure one of them!" But it was too late! Jimmie acquired an armful of large sized pieces of slate and began tossing them into the huddle of rats in the corner. For an instant the rats squealed viciously as they wore struck by the sharp edges of the slate, then they seemed to confer together for a moment or two, then they spread out like a fan and began moving toward the two boys. "Now you've done it!" cried Tommy. "If you don't get out of. There in about a second, the rats'll eat your legs off!" Without waiting for the boys to assume the offensive, the rats began screaming and springing at their feet. The three boys on the outside of the barrier, understanding the peril their friends were in, crawled up to the top of the wall of refuse which shut the boys into the chamber and turned their lights inside. It seemed to them then that the rats were two or, three deep on the floor. There appeared to be hundreds--thousands of them. They circled around the boys, becoming bolder every moment. They nipped at the rubber boots and left the marks of their teeth on the tough uppers. "Now, boys," Tommy yelled, as they drew their automatics and leveled them over the wall, "shoot to kill! This is no Sunday School picnic! And while we're shooting, boys, you back up to this wall, and see if you can't work your way to the top. If you can get up here, we can manage to displace enough slate to let you through." The boys fired volley after volley, but the rats came on viciously. CHAPTER XV A STICK OF DYNAMITE By this time Jimmie and Dick had their automatics out and were firing into the horde of rats. They killed the rodents by the score, yet for every one slaughtered a dozen seemed to appear. Presently the chamber became so full of powder smoke, the air so stifling, that the lads were obliged to cease firing. "Work your way up this wall," Tommy cried out to the lads as he heard them panting below. "Work your way up so we can catch hold of you, and you'll soon be out of that mess!" "There's a dozen rats hanging to my boot!" cried Dick. "And mine, too!" declared Jimmie. The three boys on the outside continued to hurt refuse from the top of the wall into the chamber. This in a measure kept the rats back, and before many minutes Jimmie and Dick were drawn to the top of the barrier. Their rubber boots were cut in scores of places by the sharp teeth of the rats, and even their clothing as high up as their shoulders showed ragged tears. A dozen or more rats hung to the boys' boots until the top was reached, then they dropped back screaming with baffled rage. "Talk about your wild Indians!" exclaimed Tommy. "I never saw anything as vicious as that was! I told you boys not to open up an argument with those fellows! Mine rats are noted for their courage when attacked." "How many bites did you get?" asked Elmer anxiously. "I got half a dozen nips!" answered Jimmie. "And so did I," Dick cut in. "Well, you boys ought to get back to the room right away," Tommy suggested, "and have peroxide applied to the wounds. I've known of people dying of blood poison occasioned by rat bites." "Have you got it in camp with you?" asked Elmer. "We're the original field hospital!" laughed Tommy. "We never leave Chicago without taking with us everything needed in the first aid to the wounded line. We'd be nice Boy Scouts to go poking about the country with nothing with which to heal our wounds!" "Boys," Elmer now said, with a mischievous grin on his face, "I want to introduce you to Jimmie Maynard and Dick Thompson. I've heard that your names are Sandy and Tommy, but that's all I know about it!" "Green and Gregory!" laughed Tommy. "My name's Gregory. Sandy's name isn't Sandy at all but Charley. We call him Sandy because he looks like he'd been rolled in sand." "Well, we may as well be getting back to headquarters!" declared Sandy after these original introductions had been made. "But hold on," he continued turning back to Jimmie and Dick, with a look on his face intended to be severe, "aren't you going to bring our provisions back?" "The provisions," laughed Jimmie, "were hidden in the chamber where the rats were, and you're welcome to all you can get your hands on now!" "Oh, well," Sandy groaned, "I suppose we'll have to buy more." "One difficulty about passing in and out of the mine so frequently," Tommy stated, "is that this man Ventner is likely to catch us at it. There's no knowing what he'll do next if he finds that we're searching the place. According to Elmer, you know," he continued, "we didn't finish our job when we landed on you boys. He says the real game is now about to begin." "He's right there!" declared Jimmie. "Strange thing Mr. Horton didn't tell us all above it!" complained Tommy. "Where was the use of his sending us down here and making monkeys of us? He ought to be ashamed of himself!" "He wanted to see whether you could find out what you were here for!" laughed Elmer. "Perhaps he understood that after you caught us, we'd tell you all about it. He's a pretty foxy guy, that man Horton, from all I hear about him. I'm going to Chicago some day to meet him!" "Well, what is it we've got to look for now?" demanded Sandy. "You just wait till we get to headquarters!" replied Jimmie. "We ought to do that just as quickly as possible," Tommy ventured, "because there's no knowing when that bum detective may return. I'd give a whole lot of money right now to know what he is looking for!" The three strangers regarded each other laughingly, evidently well pleased at the puzzled look showing on the faces of their friends. "Wait till we get to headquarters and get a square meal under belts," Jimmie promised, "and we'll tell you what this bum detective's looking for. It won't take long to do it, either." "You know, then, do you?" asked Tommy. "Of course, we know!" "Then why don't you tell?" "Couldn't think of telling on an empty stomach!" laughed Jimmie provokingly. As the boys walked along the passage, only a short distance from the old tool house, they heard a rattling and bumping on the shaft ladders and instantly extinguished their lights. Presently they heard footsteps on the hard floor of the gangway, and then a light such as those being used by the boys flashed out. "Now we're in for it!" exclaimed Tommy. "For the love of Mike, don't let him see us!" whispered Jimmie. "It'll spoil everything if he does," Dick submitted. The boys crowded close against the wall of the gangway and waited impatiently for Ventner to pass along. He was muttering to himself as he moved down the gangway, and his round, protruding belly and his little shapeless shoulders reminded the watching lads of the gnomes they had read about, living in underground cells and preying at night upon the fairies. Only for a trifling accident the boys would certainly have been discovered. Just as the detective same to a position ten or fifteen feet from where they were standing, when he was in a position to see their faces by the rays cast on ahead by the flashlight, he partly turned his ankle in a stumble on the rails, and for a moment the rays of the light were directed downward. He hobbled along, raving and cursing, for a few steps and then walked briskly on again. But the ever-watchful eye of the searchlight no longer struck upon the wall where the boys stood, and they realized that for the present they were safe from discovery. Ventner moved on down the gangway and soon disappeared in a cross cutting which ran to the right. "That's lucky!" exclaimed Jimmie. "Why didn't we geezle him?" demanded Tommy. "Because we want his help!" replied Dick. "His help?" laughed Sandy. "Yes, you'll get his help, all right! That fellow would get up in the middle of the night to do you a dirty trick, and don't you ever forget it!" "That's the way he's going to help us!" laughed Elmer. "He'll get up in the middle of some dark night to do us a dirty trick, and before he knows what he's about, he'll be doing us a great kindness!" "Suppose I slip back there and see what he's doing?" asked Tommy. "Can you find your way back to headquarters alone?" asked Sandy. "If I can't," asserted Tommy, "I won't be sending any wireless messages to you! If you think I'm likely to get lost, Dick can go back with me. He ought to know every corner in the old mine." "Sure he does!" laughed Jimmie. "We've been traveling this mine for a good many nights now, and we know it like a book." So Tommy and Dick started back down the passage, the intention being to hasten to the spot where Ventner disappeared from the gangway, and then return to their companions immediately. "We can't stay very long, you know," Tommy explained, "because you've got to have that peroxide dope put on your bites. It doesn't pay to fool with wounds of that description!" "We'll be back to the old tool room as soon as they are!" answered Dick. "It will take only a minute to run down there and back!" When the boys reached the cross-cutting into which Ventner had disappeared, they saw his light some distance away. It seemed to be in one of the chambers connected with the cross-cutting. As they looked, the detective stepped forward into the circle of illumination and began working with a pick. "Is he always doing that when you see him?", asked Tommy. "You bet he is!" answered Dick. "What's he doing it for?" "You'll have to ask Elmer that." "But you know, don't you?" "Of course I know, but I'm not going to tell, cause we all agreed that the story should never be told by any member of our party until Elmer gets ready to tell it. So you see you've got to wait!" "If I had my way about it," gritted Tommy, "I'd go back there and geezle that bum detective and wall him up in a chamber until he got hungry enough to tell the story himself. Then we wouldn't have to go sneaking around the mine in order to keep out of his way!" "That would be a foolish move," insisted Dick, "because every stroke of the pick Ventner takes he helps us along in the game we're playing." "You're the original little mystery boy, ain't you?" said Tommy rather crossly. "All right, I'll get even." The detective now moved farther along the cross-cutting and attacked a column of mingled rock and coal which helped to support the roof. "The blithering idiot is going to try that trick again!" exclaimed Dick. "He'll have the whole mine down on our heads if he doesn't stop that business. He's always cutting down pillars." "Just say the word," declared Tommy, "and I'll go stop him!" "Let him go his own gait," replied Dick. "We'll manage to keep out of the way of the falls, and he can run his own chances." Presently they saw the detective take something which resembled a stick of dynamite from a pocket and begin the work of setting it into the pillar. The boys moved hastily back. "Now what do you think of that for a fool?" exclaimed Dick. "He'll have the whole mine down on our heads some day, just as sure as he's a foot high! I hope he'll be broken in two when the fall comes." The boys stood some distance away watching the detective as he awkwardly manipulated the stick of dynamite. CHAPTER XVI CAUSED BY A FALL In the meantime Sandy, Elmer and Jimmie reaching the old tool house, found Will and George very wide awake and doing the most extraordinary stunts of cooking. "You said that your friends would be hungry," laughed Will, "and so we're preparing to feed them up fine. After that, you know, you've got to go on and tell us why we were sent down here without any real information as to the work we were to do." "Where did you leave, Tommy and Dick?" asked George. "They went back to see what the detective was up to." "So he's in the mine again, is he?" "Yes," replied Sandy, "and if I had my way about it, he'd go out so quick that he'd think he'd struck a barrel of dynamite." "If he keeps fooling with dynamite, he's likely to do that anyhow," Elmer cut in. "The boys say that he uses dynamite in the search of the mine he is making. He doesn't know how to use it, either!" "Then he's got to be fired out of the mine!" declared Will. "We can't have him around here carrying dynamite in his clothes, and dropping it on the ground. You might as well give a baby a box of matches and a hammer to play with. Some day there'll be an explosion." "Aw, leave him alone for a few days!" Jimmie advised. "He's doing us a lot of good just now, and we don't want to lose his help." "His help?" repeated Will. "He's bully help!" shouted George, with fine sarcasm. "I guess I'll have to tell you about the mystery of the mine," Elmer laughed. "Tommy ought to be here to get the story with the rest, but you can tell him about it later on." "He ought to be here any minute now," Jimmie asserted. "Oh, he'll be here all right!" George argued. "Go on with the story. It's been hours since you came in here with the suggestion that there was a story, and you haven't told it yet!" "Yes," Will interrupted, "get busy and tell us what Mr. Horton neglected to say when he sent us down here; and while you are about it," the boy went on, "you may as well tell us whether you really became lost in the mine, or whether you were sent here to do the very things you did do." "Also," George broke in, "you may as well tell us what the detective is doing here, and how he is helping you in trying to blow up the mine." "The boys were never lost in the mine a minute!" replied Elmer, with a grin, "and Mr. Horton knew it. Mr. Horton received his instructions from Attorney Burlingame of New York, and I am positive that Burlingame gave his brother lawyer the whole story." "Foxy game, eh?" laughed Will. "I guess they wanted you to find out if we boys were of any account, and whether we were playing fair!" laughed Jimmie. "Well, anyway, they expected you to find us and learn the story I'm now going to tell," Elmer continued. "Jerusalem!" exclaimed Will. "Why don't you get at it. That story has been jumping from tongue to tongue clothed in mystery for hours and we haven't been favored with it yet!" "The story opens," Elmer began, "on a cold and stormy night in October in the year 1913. As the wind blew great gusts of rain down upon such pedestrians as happened to be out of doors--" "Aw, cut it out!" exclaimed Will. "Why don't you go on and tell the story? We don't want any more of that Henry James business! You know he always has a solitary horseman proceeding slowly on foot." "Well, it was a dark night, and a stormy one!" declared Elmer. "If it had been clear and bright, Stephen Carson, the Wall street banker, wouldn't have received a dent in his cupola. In stepping down from his automobile his foot slipped on the wet pavement, and he fell, striking on the back of his head. "What's that got to do with this mine mystery?" demanded George. "It has a great deal to do with this mine mystery," Elmer answered. "Stephen Carson arose from the ground, rubbed the back of his head with his gloved hand, and continued on his way to a meeting of a board of directors. He appeared to be perfectly sane and responsible for his acts at the meeting of the board, and when he left in his machine there were no indications that he had suffered more than a slight bruise from his fall. He was not seen at home again for two weeks." "Now you begin to get interesting!" declared Will. "Where did he go?" asked Sandy. "That is what his friends don't know," replied Elmer. "But he must have been seen somewhere!" insisted Sandy. "He was," answered Elmer. "He was seen in the vicinity of this mine." "Wow, wow, wow!" exclaimed Sandy. "What was he doing here?" asked Will. "Wandering about the premises." "Now I can tell you the rest," Will said with a chuckle. "Go on, then," advised Elmer. "From the meeting of the board of directors that night," Will went on whimsically, "this man Stephen Carson wept directly to a safety deposit vault where three or four hundred thousand dollars in the way of cash and jewelry were hidden. He took the whole bundle and disappeared. Is that anywhere near right, Elmer?" "Go on!" Elmer replied. "Then in two weeks time he comes back and says that he don't know where he put the jewelry, but that he thinks he hid it in this mine. And, as they can't find any place where he hocked the jewelry, or put it up to carry out some gigantic Wall street plan, they are forced to believe that he really did mislay the jewelry while temporarily out of his head. Is that anywhere near right?" "If you'll amend your report so as to show that he went to the Night and Day bank and drew out something over two hundred thousand dollars which he had on deposit there, and disappeared with the entire sum, you'll come nearer to the truth." Will gave a long whistle of amazement. "Two hundred thousand dollars in real money!" exclaimed George. "Yes, he took two hundred thousand dollars in real money away with him that night," Elmer went on, "and when he returned to his home again, he was penniless and in rags." "Was he in his right mind?" asked Will. "He seemed to be." "Has he now recovered from the injury he received that night?" "So the doctors say." "Then why doesn't he tell what he did with the money?" "That part of his life is blank. He was seen in the vicinity of this mine, yet denies it. He was seen loitering in the woods not far away, but insists that he never visited this mine except to attend meetings of the board of directors." "Now I've got you!" laughed Will. "His friends think he hid the money in this mine and we've been sent here to find it!" "That's the idea," agreed Elmer. "And this bum detective is here for the same purpose!" "Yes, though where he received his information is more than I know. Upon his return to his home, Mr. Carson immediately made good the two hundred thousand dollars taken from the Night and Day bank and employed detectives to look up the missing coin. "Is Ventner one of them?" asked Will. "I don't think so," replied Elmer. "We were sent here to look through the mine, with the understanding that you were to come on from Chicago in a few days. Mr. Horton recommended you to Mr. Burlingame and so you were employed." "Then this detective has no right here at all?" "None whatever, so far as I can make out." "Then why not fire him?" "Because he may accidentally run across the money some day." "If he does, he'll get away with it!" declared George. "No, he won't," answered Elmer, "He'll be watched every minute from now on. You may be sure of that!" "But you didn't seem to know what he was doing tonight," laughed Will. "But I knew enough to come to the right place for the information I desired," replied Elmer. "Strange thing Tommy and Dick don't come!" Sandy exclaimed, stepping to the door of the old tool house and listening intently. "They should I have been here a long time ago!" "Perhaps they've butted into Ventner," suggested Jimmie. "They wouldn't do that," Elmer replied. "Every blow he strikes with his pick saves us the trouble of making one." "You don't think he had any directions from anyone, do you?" asked Will. "You don't think he knows, where to look for the money any more than you do?" "No, I think he just heard of the loss of the money and came down here on his own account." "Well, if he's using dynamite in the mine," Will continued, "he ought to be turned out of it. If Mr. Carson really hid two hundred thousand dollars in currency in here, it's in some little pocket easy to find if we get into the right chamber. The use of dynamite might bury it twenty feet deep under a load of shale that would never be removed!" "That's a fact!" cried Elmer. The boys now stepped to the door and listened again, attracted by the sound of running feet. "There's something doing!" exclaimed Sandy. "When Tommy comes home on a run, there's always something going on." Directly the boys came panting up, stopping in the doorway to look behind them. They were both well winded. "That bum detective back there," Tommy exclaimed as soon as he could catch his breath, "is putting in dynamite enough to blow up the whole mine. He's attaching a long fuse, so he can get out before the explosion comes. We tried to get down far enough to choke off the fuse, but couldn't do it. In just about another minute, you'll hear something like a Fourth of July celebration!" CHAPTER XVII THE SIGNS IN STONES "We thought he'd send the shot off before we got up the ladders!" exclaimed Dick. "We're expecting to hear the roar of it every minute now!" "Perhaps something went wrong," suggested Will. "What part of the mine is he in?" asked Jimmie. Tommy explained the location of the cross cutting and Jimmie gave a whistle of dismay. In a moment he asked: "Was he cutting into one of the pillars?" "Yes," was the answer, "he was getting ready to blow it down with dynamite. It's a wonder we don't hear the explosion!" "If the spot where he's working is the place I think it is," Jimmie continued, "the gink stands a pretty good chance of finding something. We've been searching in that chamber, and just before you boys showed up tonight we thought we were on the right track. Whether the money is there or not, it is a sure thing that the walls of the chamber have been tampered with. We think, though, that the money is there!" "Then we mustn't let Ventner get it!" exclaimed Will. "It won't do him any good to get it after that stick of dynamite explodes!" exclaimed Tommy. "It'll blow him to Kingdom Come." "Well, why don't we go down and see about it?" asked Will "Not for me!" exclaimed Tommy. "He may blow his own head off if he wants to," Dick put in, "but he can't blow off mine, not with my consent. I've got only one head!" "I don't believe there's going to be any explosion at all!" exclaimed Elmer. "He wouldn't be apt to lay a fuse that would burn fifteen or twenty minutes, and you've certainly been that length of time coming up here, to say nothing of the time we've been talking!" "All right!" Tommy exclaimed. "Perhaps he was loading up that pillar with dynamite just for the fun of it!" "It would be a nice thing to have him blow that money out of the pillar and get away with it, wouldn't it?" scoffed Will. "Come on, then," shouted Tommy, "I can take you to the firing line in about a minute. If you want to see an earthquake in a coal mine, just come along with me! You'll see it, all right!" The boys left the old tool house without spending any more time in conversation, and hastened down the ladders to the lower level. On the way down the last gangway they heard some one moving about in the darkness, and then came a cry of warning. "Stand clear! Stand clear!" "That's Ventner's voice!" exclaimed Will. "There's a blast going off in a minute!" the voice came again. "Now we've gone and done it!" exclaimed Will. "After all the trouble we've taken to make that fellow think we've left the country, we've let him bump right into us. I wonder if he really has fired the fuse?" "Stand clear! Stand clear!" shouted the voice. Almost before the words had died out, the explosion came, tearing more than one pillar out of position and dropping a great mass of slate down on the floor of the cross-cutting. For a moment the gases which filled the chambers were overpowering. The only wonder was that they were not ignited. The electric lights carried by the boys shone dimly through the smoke of the confined place. "There goes Ventner," whispered Will, pointing to a figure moving swiftly through the half-light of the place. "He's going to see what the shot brought down!" suggested Tommy. The Boys rushed forward in a little group. When they gathered at the scene of the explosion, the detective was not there. "If he got hold of the cash, he knew what to do with it all right!" exclaimed Tommy. "He got away with it before we got a chance to see what he had. Now we've got to catch him!" "May as well look for a needle in a load of hay!" grumbled Sandy. "Look here," Jimmie exclaimed. "There's away to keep him shut up in the mine if we do the right thing. This cross-cutting runs out to a gangway on the north, and that, in turn, leads, of course, to the shaft. Now, one of you boys duck out to the shaft and see that he doesn't get up. You'll have to go some on the way there, because a man with two hundred thousand dollars in his pocket will put up some running match!" "I'm off!" shouted Tommy. "I know I can get to the shaft before he can! He's too fat-bellied to run, anyway!" Tommy started away at a swift pace, and the other boys closed in on the gangway, Will alone stopping at the scene of the explosion. "This gangway," Dick explained, "runs back into the mine for some distance, but there are no cross passages. I guess the coal wasn't very good here. At least, they never spread out the drive." "Then we've got him bottled up unless he got out of the shaft!" declared Sandy. "We'll soon know whether he got out or not!" "I don't believe he would try to get out," suggested Elmer. "The chances are that he'd make for the back of the mine, thinking to hide away with the plunder, provided he had any plunder to hide away with." "I'm afraid he found the hidden money," Will said, taking a scorched ten-dollar bill from a pocket. "I found this back there, where the pillar fell. I guess he found the cash all right!" "And that's a nice thing, too!" exclaimed Sandy. "You boys kept saying that Ventner was helping you find the coin. You were right about that, for he did find the coin. And now the trick is to get it away from him!" "I'd like to know whether Ventner got up the shaft or not,"' suggested George, "and I believe I'll take a run up there and see." "That's a good idea!" advised Will. "If he didn't get up the shaft he's surely imprisoned in the gangway. He may be between this cross-cutting and the shaft, or he may have gone further in!" "It'll take a long time to find out about that," suggested Jimmie. Directly Tommy and George were heard returning from the shaft. They came through the gangway flashing their lights in every direction. "He never went up the shaft!" Tommy exclaimed as they came near. "We've got him canned in the mine all right. If he's got the money, we'll take it away from him! He wouldn't know what to do with it anyway!" "First," suggested Will, "we'd better make sure that the fellow got the money. The bank note I found may have never been in the possession of Mr. Carson. And even if it was, it may be the only one to be blown out of its hiding place by the explosion. It strikes me that we'd better give the place a thorough search before we waste much time looking for Ventner. If, as Tommy says, he never left the mine by way of the shaft, we've got him blocked in, all right!" The boys now began a careful examination of the cross-cutting where the explosion had taken place. As has been stated, more than one pillar had been blown out. There was a great heap of debris on floor, and this the boys attacked with a vim. Tommy and George were now standing guard at mouth of the cross-cutting so that no one could pass down the gangway toward the shaft. "Suppose that fellow did get the money?" asked Sandy, as the boys cleared away the heaps of slate, "what then?" "Then we'll have to take it away from him." "We'll catch him first." "We've got him blocked in, haven't we?" asked Sandy. "Oh, we know that he can't get out," Dick cut in, "but we know, too, that there are a lot of shallow benches along that gangway. We can't walk in and pick him out in a minute. Besides," the boy continued, "when we find him, we may find his pockets empty." "That's just what we will do!" Elmer agreed. "He'll hide the money in another place, and swear that he never found it!" "I wish we'd kicked him out of the mine!" exclaimed Sandy. The boys continued the search until daylight, and then, leaving Tommy and George still on guard, they went up to the old tool house for breakfast. The lads were by no means elated over what had taken place. They believed that Ventner had succeeded in finding the money, and were certain that, even if located in the mine, he would deny any knowledge of it. "I guess we got you boys into a mess by insisting on having the detective roaming around," admitted Elmer, as the boys were eating a hastily prepared breakfast. "I guess we should have listened to you in regard to that. There is no knowing how much trouble we have made!" "He may help us find the money after all!" laughed Will. "Yes," cut in Sandy, "it may be easier to get it away from him than to find the place where it was hidden." "Oh, yes, if we could lay our hands on him and order him to give up two hundred thousand dollars, and he, would say: 'Yes, I've been waiting to find the owner,' that would be all right, too! But the thing isn't likely to turn out in that way! He'll hide the money, and swear he never found it! Then, when everything quiets down, he'll sneak back and get it!" This from Jimmie, who seemed to a take a rather gloomy view of the situation. The boys remained at the old tool house only a short time. Their minds were fixed so intently on the work in hand that they hardly knew whether they had had any breakfast at all. As they passed down the ladders to the lower level, they heard something which resembled a shot, and almost tumbled over each other going down into the gangway. Will and Elmer were first to reach the cross-heading where the explosion of dynamite had taken place. They called to Tommy and George, but received no answer. They walked for some distance down the gangway without hearing any sound indicating the presence of their companions, or of any one else. "Now that's a funny thing!" exclaimed Will. "I don't see why those boys should go rambling about the mine at a time like this just for the fun of the thing!" "They never did!" replied Elmer. "You remember the shot we heard?" "It might not have been a shot!" suggested Will. As the boy spoke he bent over and pointed to stones lying on the floor of the gangway. "There!" he said. "The boys have left a record. They not only point out the trail, but warn us that there is danger in following it!" CHAPTER XVIII TWO HOLD-UP MEN "That's Boy Scout talk all right!" exclaimed Elmer. "Yes, the three stones, piled one on top of the other, mean that there is danger in following the trail. I don't understand exactly what kind of danger can be threatening us, and so the only thing we cart do is to go on and find out," Will said with a glance backward. The other boys now came up and a short consultation was held. It was decided to leave Sandy and Dick at the point where the explosion had taken place, while Will, Elmer and Jimmie followed on down the gangway. "Now whatever you do," warned Will as the two boys were left behind, "don't leave this gangway for a minute. If Ventner isn't out of the mine now we don't want him to get out. He may money or he may not. That is one of the things no fellow can find out at this time, but whether he has or not, we want him to give an account of himself before he leaves the Labyrinth. He's got several important questions to answer." The boys promised to watch the passage faithfully, and the others passed on down the gangway, flashing their lights in every direction and making no pretense of moving quietly. "Look here," Jimmie said after they had proceeded some distance into the mine and discovered nothing of importance, "I have in my possession a great idea! Want to hear about it?" "Sure!" laughed Will. "We're making too much noise." "Making too much noise in order to attract the attention of a couple of lost youngsters?" asked Elmer. "'They're not lost!" insisted Jimmie. "They've been lured away or dragged away! We don't know how many men were in the mine with Ventner?" "Well, produce your idea!" Elmer exclaimed. "Well, my notion is that I ought to go on ahead of you boys, walking as quietly as possible and without a light. If there are people waiting to snare us, they'll naturally think we've bunched our forces and are all coming along together. Then, you see," he continued, "I'll be right in among them before they suspect that we have a skirmish line out." "That's an all right notion, kid!" answered Will. "Then I'll be on my way," Jimmie replied. "And if I need help at any time, I'll give the call of the pack!" "But you mustn't do that unless you have to," Wilt cautioned, "because, the minute the cry is heard, everybody within eighty rods would know what's going on. Have you matches with you?" The boy felt in the pockets of his coat and nodded. "Well, then," he said, "if you want to signal, wet your hands and rub the phosphorus off the matches. Turn your hands, palms in our direction, so no one can see from the other side and wig-wag." "That will be fine!" exclaimed Jimmie. "I've got this wig-wag system down pat. I guess this Boy Scout training is pretty poor, ain't it, eh? The darker it is, the better we an talk!" Jimmie darted away, while Will and Elmer remained stationary for a short time in order to give him an opportunity to get out of the range of their lights. Directly they heard him whispering back and listened. "There's another stone cairn here!" he said. "I guess I knocked it over, for I can't tell exactly what it is. You can learn that when you come up with your searchlights! I think there are three stones." "All right!" Will whispered back. When the boys came to the spot from which the voice had been heard they found three stones lying side by side on the floor of the gangway. It was plain that they had been placed one on top of the other, and so they accepted them as another warning of danger. "I wish we had some intimation of the kind of trouble we are likely to get into," Elmer suggested, as they passed along. "I don't like this idea of boring a hole in the darkness with a little bit of a light and anticipating an attack at any minute." "I don't like it a little bit myself," replied Will. "A person so inclined might shoot us down without ever showing himself," declared Elmer. "In fact, the only protection we have lies in the fact that Jimmie is on ahead, and would not be likely to pass any one lying in wait for us. Bright little boy, that!" "There he is now!" exclaimed Will. "He's using the phosphorus, all right, and I can begin to understand what he's trying to say? There's a 'W', and an 'A', and an 'I', and a 'T'. That means that he wants us to stay where we are. The system works fine, doesn't it?" The question now was as to whether the lads should extinguish their lights. That, of itself, they understood would be suspicious in case they should be in sight of their enemies. It would simply proclaim their knowledge of the danger they were in, whatever it was. "I think we'd better keep the lights going until we hear something more," said Elmer. "Jimmie will talk again in a minute." The boys waited patiently for some moments, and then the wig-wag figures came again. Will read slowly: "There's a 'V', and an 'E', and an 'N', and a 'T', and an 'N', and an 'E', and an 'R'," he said. "Now the boy's starting it again. He says, 'Ventner is here.' Now wait a minute, there's more coming!" "The next words are: 'With two others.'" "It's only a question of time when that detective will get next to the wig-wag game," Elmer declared. "This gangway smells like a match factory already. I wonder how far Jimmie is away from them." Directly Jimmie began talking the wig-wag tongue again. This time he said that Tommy and George were not in sight, and had evidently been surprised and taken prisoners. He advised Will and Elmer to come on softly with their lights out. The boys did as requested, but they had advanced only a few paces in the darkness when Canfield, accompanied by Sandy and Dick came running up, showing both lack of breath and profound excitement. "Boys," Canfield called. "Boys!" "Will!" yelled Sandy. "I guess they're going to bust up the whole combination!" declared Will rather sourly. "I wish I had them by the neck!" "They may have important news," suggested Elmer. "Anyway, we'll have to turn on our lights and meet them. If we don't, they'll keep on yelling all down the gangway!" Canfield and the two boys came up as soon an Elmer showed a light, and stood for a moment looking cautiously about. "I don't think you boys ought to go any further into the mine," Canfield exclaimed, breathing heavily from the long chase down the passage. "I have just received word that two of the most desperate hold-up men in the country have taken refuge here. There's no knowing how they got over to the mine, but it is a sure thing that they did get here, for couple of breaker boys saw them climbing into the breaker." "What time was this?" asked Will. "Oh, I don't know," replied Canfield. "The matter was reported to me early this morning. I couldn't find you before, or you should have had the news sooner. It isn't safe for you to go into the mine!" "Your information," grinned Will, "comes a little bit late, but it's all right, just the same. Ventner is in there, and there are two men with. It's a mystery how they made their way in without being discovered, but it seems that they did so." "What are you going to do?" asked Canfield. "We're going on into the mine." "In the face of my warning?" "It's just this way," answered Will. "We left two of the boys on guard in this passage, not so very long ago, and they have disappeared. We suspect that Ventner and the two men to whom you refer have good reason to know something of their whereabouts." "They won't injure the boys!" pleaded Canfield. "We don't mean to give them a chance!" insisted Elmer. "We're going to jerk those boys out so quick it'll make their heads swim!" "But it's positively dangerous!" urged the caretaker. "If there wasn't an element of danger in the situation, we wouldn't be here!" replied Will, "I don't see as we need to run away from two hold-up men, anyway," the boy went on. "Here are five boys and one full grown man in the gangway. We ought to give a pretty good account of ourselves, in case some one starts anything!" "Where's the fifth boy?" asked Canfield. "It seems to me that you're getting quite an accumulation of boys in here!" "Two of the boys are Jimmie Maynard and Dick Thompson!" answered Will. "You know you informed me quite positively not long ago that the I two lads were hundreds of miles from this place by that time." "You might barricade the hold-up men and starve them out," suggested Canfield, "that is, if you're sure they're in there!" "We have just had a wireless from the interior," Elmer answered. "There are three men in there, all right!" "Well, it won't take any longer to starve three out than it would one!" declared Canfield. "Yes," Elmer cut in, "and about the first time the hold-up men got good and hungry, they'd be sending out Tommy's ears or one of George's fingers just as a warning to us not to meddle with their appetites." Before long Jimmie began wig-wagging again, but before any words could be formed the waiting boys heard a distant scuffle, a short, quick cry of alarm, and then the phosphorus-covered palms disappeared from sight. "They've got Jimmie!" Elmer said in a tone of dismay. "Well, what are we going to do?" demanded Sandy. "We've got to do something right away, and that's no story out of the dream book!" "I don't suppose it would be of any use to rush them," suggested Elmer. "They'd mow us down like rats!" declared Dick. "It strikes me," Sandy said, "that we'd ought to get back further and keep out of sight until we can decide upon some definite plan of action." "I've got an idea wandering around in the back of my brain," Will said. "If the situation is exactly as I think it is, we may be able to get the best of those hold-up men after all." CHAPTER XIX THE MONEY IN SIGHT "Not while they have possession of the boys," Canfield declared dolefully. "They'll murder those boys if we shut off their supplies!" "Oh, I don't know about that!" suggested Dick. "We've been mixed up in a great many awkward situations but we always managed to save our necks. We'll get the boys out in some way!" "Look here, Mr. Canfield," Will said, "how well do you know this mine?" "Every inch of it!" was the reply. "Every inch of every level," asked Will. "Yes, sir!" replied the caretaker, rather proudly. "I can go into any part of it without a light!" "Then look here, Dick," Will directed. "You chase back to the old tool house and bring back a long rope. And when you return, stop at the second level. Some of us will meet you there." "I hope you don't expect to pull these boys up through fifty or a hundred feet of shale?" asked the caretaker. "I don't know whether my scheme will work or not," Will answered, "but it's worth trying! We have to leave at least two here, well armed and take the others with us. You'll have to act as guide, Mr. Canfield, and we'll meet Dick when he comes down to the second level with the rope. As soon as we get the boys out of their trouble, we can leave the three outlaws in full possession of the mine. If we watch the shaft at the old tool house, they can never get out without our knowing it!" "I don't understand what you have in mind," faltered Canfield. Leaving Sandy and Elmer in the gangway from which the wig-wag signals had been shown, the others hastened up the ladder to the second level. Then Dick ran away to bring the rope, while Will questioned the caretaker regarding the fall between the two levels. "You remember the old shaft, cut through years ago, and doubtless deserted when the vein ran out, which at one time connected the two levels, don't you?" asked the boy of the caretaker. "There is such a place," replied the caretaker. "Can you find it?" "Of course I can." "Does the fall open into the system of chambers in the center or to the north? You understand what I mean! Is it possible to enter any of the benches or chambers connecting with the north gangway on the lower level by means of this deserted shaft?" "I am not quite certain about that," replied Canfield, "but my idea is that the north benches and chambers can be reached by means of that opening. I am glad you thought of that," he went on. Dick now returned with the rope, and the three proceeded down the second level until they came to a confusion of passages and benches which would certainly have bewildered any one not familiar with the mine. "Unless I am very much mistaken," Canfield went on, "this passage, the one straight ahead, runs almost directly over Tunnel Six. If I am right in this, the deserted shaft is here." "And Tunnel Six is the haunted corridor, isn't it?" asked Dick. "That's where the lights have been seen!" replied the caretaker. "You never believed in the ghost stories told about Tunnel Six?" asked Will. "I should think you'd begin to see now that the alleged ghosts were pretty material things." "Well, I don't know about the ghosts," replied the caretaker, "but I really was getting a little bit nervous when you boys arrived. You know," he continued, "that we all feel a little shivery when we butt into anything which we can't understand." "Well, suppose you follow this passage to the end and see if you discover anything like the deserted shaft," suggested Dick. "You're not going to venture into the lower level again, are you?" asked Canfield. "I don't blame you boys for wanting to rescue your companions, but, at the same time, I don't want to see you throw your lives away. Those are desperate men in Tunnel Six!" "If my idea is worth anything at all," replied Will, "we'll get the boys out without ever letting the hold-up men know that we are within a mile of them. You know we had very little difficulty in getting out of the chamber where we left the boat." "Trust you boys for inventing ways of doing things!" exclaimed Canfield. "Of course," Will said hesitatingly after a time, "it may be that this deserted shaft doesn't connect with Tunnel Six, but even if it doesn't, we'll find some way of getting to our friends from the new position. We can only try, anyway!" "I'm pretty certain that it connects with Tunnel Six," replied the caretaker. "But you mustn't show your light when you approach the old shaft," he went on, "because if it does connect with the chamber we seek, and the chamber in turn connects with the north passage, the robbers will see what we're doing." "That's a valuable suggestion!" replied Will. "I'll go on ahead," Canfield continued, "and find the old shaft. Then you can follow on with the rope, and one of you boys can drop down and see what can be discovered." "It's dollars to apples," chuckled Dick, as the boys trailed along after the caretaker, "that we, find the three kids trussed up like a lot of hens ready for the market in the chamber where you came so near getting wet. I hope we do, at any rate!" "There's one thing we overlooked," Will said as Canfield whispered to them that he had found the deserted shaft, "and that is this: We should have directed the boys in the gangway to have attracted the attention of the outlaws by a little pistol practice while we are communicating with our friends. They may be all packed away in the chamber together." "Yes, we should have attended to that," replied Dick. "Perhaps I'd better go back now and tell them to get busy with their automatics." "We may as well investigate the situation here first," the other answered. The boys heard the caretaker creeping about in the darkness, and presently a piece of shale or coal was heard rattling down the old shaft. "We'll have to get that blundering caretaker away from there," whispered Will. "If we don't, he'll notify the hold-up men that we're getting ready to do something! I've heard that about three-fourths of the people in the world object to doing anything unless they can take a brass band along, and I guess it's true." "Say," Canfield whispered, calling back to the lads, "when that stone dropped down, I heard something that sounded like a paddle slapping down on the water. That room can't be wet yet, can it?" "The Beaver call!" whispered Will. "Right you are!" replied Dick. "The boys are there, all right!" "Now the next thing to do is to find out if those highwaymen are watching them," declared Will. "I'll tell you that in a minute," Dick whispered. As the boy spoke, he passed one end of the rope to Canfield. "Hang on to it, whatever takes place!" he whispered, "and I'll drop down and see what's going on." "You must be very careful," warned Canfield. "That's all right," answered Dick, "but we can't stand here all day figuring out precautions. We've got to know right off whether there's anyone in that chamber watching the boys!" "What a joke it would be to put on a ghost in Tunnel Six!" laughed Will in a decidedly cheerful frame of mind now that rescue seemed so near. "Don't try any foolishness!" advised Canfield. "Let's rescue the boys if possible and make our way out of this horrible place." Will crawled to the edge of the shaft with Dick and whispered as he lowered him into the dark opening below: "Remember, that Ventner may have discovered the money. If so, we must secure it before we leave the place! It will be just like him, to stow the bank notes away in some chamber like the one you are about to enter. When you strike bottom, if there is no one in sight except the boys, turn on your searchlight and take a good look over the interior of the chamber. "We were in there not so very long ago, but at that time we weren't thinking of making a search there for hidden money. You'll have to use your own judgment about turning on the light, of course. The outlaws may be out in the gangway, some distance from the entrance to the chamber, or they may be within six feet of where the boys are held as prisoners." "Tommy ought to be able to tell me the minute I strike the heap of shale whether the outlaws are close by or not!" Dick suggested. "Of course!" answered Will, "if he knows. If the men are not in sight, and he doesn't know where they are, you'll simply have to take chances. If you get caught in there, you'll have to shoot, and shoot quick!" Dick dropped down into the old shaft and directly the anxious watchers above heard the rattle of shale as it dropped from the pyramid under the opening. Will, still clinging to the rope, lay on his stomach and peered downward, watching with all anxiety for some show of light, or some sound which might indicate the situation below. Directly Will felt a soft, steady pull at the rope, and knew that one of the boys was ready to be hoisted to the top. Dick came up first, chuckling as he landed on the edge of the break in the rock, and was immediately followed by Jimmie. "Where's Tommy and George?" asked Will in a whisper. "They're down there looking for the money!" "Looking for the money in the darkness?" "Sure!" was the reply. "You see," he went on, "those ginks tied us up, good and tight, and then threw the money around promiscuous like!" "So the money is there?" asked Will. The news seemed too good to be true! "It was there when we were first thrown into the chamber," replied Jimmie, "but I have an idea that Ventner sneaked in and removed it so as to prevent his mates getting any share." A light flashed out from below, followed immediately by a pistol shot! CHAPTER XX SANDY IS DISCHARGED Elmer and Sandy, guarding the gangway variously called the North section and Tunnel Six, presently heard voices coming from the direction of the shaft, and the latter moved back a few paces in order to inspect the new-comers. In a moment he saw three rather pompous looking men approaching him, their footsteps being directed by a man clothed as a miner. "Here, boy!" shouted one of the pompous men. "Can you tell me where Canfield, the caretaker of the mine may be found?" "He's up on the next level," replied Sandy. "I was told he was down here," growled the speaker, who was very short and fat, and very much out of breath. "He was here a little while ago," answered Sandy. "What's the meaning of this show of firearms?" demanded the fat main, after glancing disdainfully at the automatic in the boy's hand. "We've got three robbers cooped up in the mine," replied Sandy. "That's the old, old story!" exclaimed the fat man. "I don't know that I ever knew of a mine that wasn't haunted, either by ghosts or robbers! Mysteries seem to breed in coal mines!" Sandy walked back to the place where, he had left Elmer, and the three men and their guide followed him. When Elmer caught a view of the fat man's face and figure, he gave a sharp pull at Sandy's sleeve. "That's Stephen Carson!" he said. "I guess I'd better keep out of sight, because I don't care about getting into an argument with him. He's the most contrary person I ever saw in my life, and never fails to get up an argument about something or other with yours truly." "You seem to know him pretty well," whispered Sandy. "I ought to," returned Elmer, "he's my Uncle!" "The two tall men in the party are my father and the cashier of the Night and Day bank. I'll take a sneak, and that will shorten the session." Accordingly, Elmer strolled along the gangway and came to a halt some distance from where the three men had drawn up. "My boy" Carson went on, looking condescendingly at the youth, "will you kindly run up to the second level and tell Mr. Canfield that his presence is required by the president of the mining company?" "I'm not allowed to leave this place, sir," replied Sandy, taking offense at the man's air of proprietorship. "All persons in and about this mine," Carson almost shouted, "are subject to my orders. Run along now, you foolish boy, and don't make any trouble for yourself!" The man's manner was so unnecessarily dictatorial and offensive that Sandy found it impossible to restrain his temper. He was not naturally a "fresh" youngster, but now he had passed the limit of endurance. "Aw, go chase yourself!" he said. "You're discharged!" shouted Carson. "You didn't hire me!" retorted Sandy. "You haven't got any right to discharge me! I'm going to stay here until I get ready to leave!" "If you don't get out of the mine immediately, I'll have you thrown out!" shouted Carson. "I never saw such impudence!" "If I do get out," replied Sandy with a grin, "you'll wish I hadn't!" Carson turned to Elmer's father and the bank cashier, and the three consulted together for a short time. Then Elmer's father came closer to where Sandy was standing. "Why do you say that?" he asked. "Why do you think we will wish you had remained in case you are sent out of the mine?" "Because I was left here to prevent robbers getting out of the gangway. They're further in, and have captured three of my chums." "All nonsense!" shouted Mr. Carson breaking into the conversation impatiently. "These breaker boys never tell the truth!" "Are you Mr. Buck?" asked Sandy, speaking an undertone to Elmer's father. "Because if you are, you'll find Elmer just a short distance ahead. He's on guard, too. He didn't want his uncle to recognize him, because he says he's always getting up an argument with him." "I'm glad to know that Elmer is attending to his duty," Mr. Buck answered. "Somehow," he continued with a smile, "Stephen Carson always rubs Elmer the wrong way of the grain." "What's he butting in here for?" asked Sandy, while the cashier of the Night and Day bank and the miner stood by waiting for the peace negotiations to conclude. "Why, he came in to get his two hundred thousand." replied Mr. Buck. "He thinks he knows now right where he left it." "Does he often get foolish in the head like that?" asked Sandy with a grin. "If he does, he ought to hire a couple of detectives to keep track of him when he is wandering out in the night!" "Oh, Stephen is usually a pretty level-headed sort of a fellow!" replied Mr. Buck. "He is out of humor just now because he has always denied that he visited the mine during his two weeks of absence. He is one of the men who dislike very much to be caught in an error of any kind." "So he knows where the money is?" asked Sandy. "He says he can find it if he can secure the services of Canfield, the caretaker. He remembers now of getting in the mine, and of hearing footsteps in the darkness. His impression at that time was that robbers had followed him in, so he unloaded the banknotes in a small chamber which he is now able to describe accurately but which he cannot, of course, find." "Was the money hidden on this level?" asked Sandy. "Yes, on this level." "In this gangway?" "He thinks it was hidden here." "Right about here, or further on?" "Right about here," was the answer, "he seems to remember something about Tunnel Six. He thinks he hid the money there! As soon as he finds Canfield, the caretaker will probably be able to tell him exactly how Tunnel Six looks." "It looks all in a mess right now! I can tell you that," grinned Sandy. "What do you mean by that?" "I mean that there's been doings here!" replied Sandy. "Are there really robbers in there?" "Sure, there are robbers in there!" "Then perhaps we'd better bring in a squad of deputies." "If you'll just let us boys alone," Sandy said, "we'll bring the money out if it's anywhere in the mine, but if this man Carson goes to butting in at this time, he'll have to dig out his own money. He won't believe there's any robbers in there, and he wants to fire me out of the mine, so I guess we'd better let him go his own gait a little while." "He'll do that anyhow no matter what you say!" replied Mr. Buck. "Look here!" shouted Carson, starting forward with his stomach out and his fat shoulders thrown back, "what's all this conversation about? Why don't some one go up and get Canfield, and why isn't that young rowdy thrown out of the mine? I won't have him in here!" "Say," Sandy broke in, "Mr. Buck says that you're looking for Tunnel Six. If you are, I can show you right where it is!" "Do so, then!" shouted Carson. "Go straight ahead," Sandy directed, "and when the robbers begin to shoot, you command them to throw down their weapons in the name of the law! They'll probably do it, all right, if you tell them to but you'll be lucky if they don't throw them down your throat!" "Do you mean to tell me," screamed Carson, "that there are actually robbers here, and that they have taken possession of Tunnel Six?" "That's the idea," replied Sandy. "Why, that's where I put my--" "That's where you put your money, is it?" Sandy went on. "I never saw such impudence!" roared Carson. "Well, go on and get your money!" advised Sandy. "Just go straight down the gangway until you come to a face of rock and then switch off to the left, and you'll find yourself in a chamber used at present by robbers and hold-up men as a winter resort." "Oh you can't frighten me!" declared Carson. "I believe that you're here in quest of the money yourself!" "That's right!" admitted Sandy. "Go on in, now, and tell the robbers to give up your hoarded gold! Just butt in, and tell 'em what you want them to do! They'll probably do just as you tell them to!" "I never saw such imprudence in my life!" roared Carson, wiping his perspiring forehead with a large red silk handkerchief. "I don't see where the impudence comes in!" replied Sandy. "You said you wanted to find Tunnel Number Six in order that you might locate your money. I'm telling you where it is, and what to do to get it!" "Old Stephen never took a bluff in his life!" chuckled Mr. Buck. "Now see if he doesn't go stalking down that passage and declaring himself in the name of the law!" The banker did exactly what Mr. Buck had predicted. He went storming down the passage, giving notice to all intruders to walk out of his mine in a peaceable manner. Mr. Buck followed along until he came to where Elmer was standing with his back against the wall, and then the two paused and entered into conversation. The cashier of the Night and Day bank and the miner started back toward the shaft. "What's the matter?" shouted Sandy. "Why don't you stay and see the fun? There'll be shooting here directly!" The miner and the cashier now took to their heels and were soon of out of sight. Every moment the boy expected to see a flash of fire in the gangway. Carson was now very near to Tunnel Six, and it seemed certain that the outlaws must soon open fire on him. "Come back, Stephen!" shouted Mr. Buck. "Don't make a fool of yourself!" "This is all pure bluff!" shouted Carson. "There are no robbers here at all. This is a scheme to keep me out of Tunnel Six, where I believe my money to be hidden!" They saw Carson halt in his rather clumsy passage down the gangway, and draw an automatic from his pocket. There was a quick shot and the banker rushed ahead! CHAPTER XXI "I TOLD YOU SO!" Directly Elmer, Sandy and Mr. Buck heard the banker shouting at the top of his lungs and dashed on toward the mysterious tunnel. "He'll get his head shot off in there!" exclaimed Sandy. "I don't care if he does!" declared Elmer. "Your uncle isn't such a bad old fellow, after all," Mr. Buck exclaimed. "He has plenty of courage, at any rate!" "But I don't understand why they don't open fire on him!" exclaimed Sandy. "The robbers certainly were in there not very long ago. We heard the scuffle when they geezled Jimmie." "Who fired that shot?" asked Mr. Buck. "Uncle Stephen did," replied Elmer. "I saw the flash spring out from the spot where he stood!" "Well, what do you know about that?" exclaimed Sandy. "The old chap is actually making his bluff good! He's getting into Tunnel Six single handed and alone! I guess we'll have to advertise for those three outlaws if we find 'em in here! He's a nervy old follow, isn't he?" The three now followed fast on the heels of the banker, and soon came to where he stood swinging his searchlight at the end of a short drift which ended, after sliding under a dip, in a chamber which, at first glance seemed to be piled high with a with a mass of shale. While the three looked on, Carson dropped on his knees beside a crevice in the wall and began an eager exploration of the opening. Directly he sprang to his feet with rage and disappointment showing on every feature of his face. He raved about the cluttered chamber for a moment, almost dancing up and down in his anger and chagrin, and then sat limply down on the pile of shale. "It's gone!" he said. "The money's gone!" "So it wasn't hidden back there in that cross cutting at all?" asked Sandy. "We thought sure we had a cinch on the coin several hours ago!" "It was hidden here in this chamber!" declared Carson wearily. "The minute I entered the place I remembered where I had hidden it. And now it's gone! I've had all my trouble for nothing." As he ceased speaking, he glanced suspiciously at Sandy. And Sandy, in turn, made a most provoking face. "I believe you know something about my money!" Carson said. "Sure I do!" replied Sandy. "Then where is it?" "The robbers got it!" "That's a nice story to tell," howled Carson. "If you think I'm going to be defrauded out of my money in this way, you're very much mistaken!" Without paying any further attention to the threats of the banker, Sandy stepped over to Elmer's, side and pointed up the deserted shaft. "There's where the robbers went," he said, "and they doubtless took Carson's money with them. I don't understand why Will didn't stop them." "Will and George probably released their friends and went away," complained Elmer. "I don't think they showed very good judgment in doing that, either. The result is that the money has disappeared entirely. A short time ago, Uncle might have reclaimed it." "We don't know whether the money has gone beyond recall or not," replied Sandy. "I don't believe Will and George ever left the old shaft unguarded. They are still somewhere in this vicinity!" Carson now blustered up to Sandy and pointed an accusing finger into the lad's face. Sandy regarded him with indifference. "Now that your story of the robbers has been disproved," Carson shouted, "you may as well tell me who took my money. If I had not the courage to make this investigation in person, that cheap story of the robbers would have held good for all time!" "That's a horse on me, all right!" admitted Sandy. "I don't know where the robbers are, unless they went up through that old shaft, and it doesn't seem as if the boys would permit that!" "Too thin! Entirely too thin!" declared Carson. "A moment ago you tried to tell me that the money wasn't hidden near Tunnel Six at all, but was hidden back there near the cross-cutting." "We had good reason to believe it was hidden there!" replied Sandy. "We found a burned ten dollar banknote there just after a dynamite explosion had taken place." "That would naturally lead to the supposition that the money had been hidden there!" Mr. Buck exclaimed. "Come to think of it," Sandy went on, "I believe that was one of Ventner's tricks. I believe he blew down those pillars and burned the banknote for the express purpose of making us search two or three weeks in the wrong place. I guess we have underestimated that fellow's ability. He's a keener man than I supposed!" "I don't quite see the point to that," Elmer suggested. "When you say that Ventner probably caused you to dig in the wrong place, you admit that he must have known something about the right place. Now, how could he have known anything about where to look for that money?" "I don't know," replied Sandy. "But when you say that he might have known exactly where to look, you set him down as a fool, because he has been searching a long time and never came upon it until today." "I think I can understand that," Mr. Buck said. "This man you speak of probably knew where to find the money provided he could discover the right drift, bench, chamber or tunnel. Like Mr. Carson, here, he could doubtless go straight to the cache if directed into the right apartment." While the four stood together at the bottom of the chamber, their searchlights making the place as light as day, an exclamation came from the shaft above, followed by two pistol shots. Carson dropped to his knees and began twisting at his automatic, which had in some way become entangled in the lining of his pocket. "There are your robbers!" he shouted. "Put out your lights!" "Don't you do anything of the kind!" argued Sandy. "Get out of range of the old shaft and keep your lights burning so you can shoot any one who drops down! I guess we have them hemmed in!" "It's a scheme to get away with my money!" shouted Carson. "I wish you had your old money chucked down your throat!" exclaimed Sandy. "I'm getting sick of the sound of the word!" All members of the party now drew back toward the dip, where they were entirely concealed from any one in the old shaft. Directly there was a rattling of shale and slate, and then the lights showed the figure of Tommy sitting astride the peak of the pyramid. "What are you fellows trying to do down there?" he asked. "We're looking for Carson's money?" replied Sandy. "Did you get it?" the boy demanded. "Not yet!" "That's the boy that's got my money!" shouted the banker. "Money's a good thing to have!" grinned Tommy. "What have you done with the highwaymen?" asked Sandy. "Why continue this senseless talk about highwaymen?" demanded Carson, "when you know just as well as I do that there are no robbers here other than yourselves! Mr. Buck," he added, turning to Elmer's father, "I call upon you to assist me in restraining these robbers until the proper officers can be summoned." "Where did that fat man come from?" asked Tommy. "You impertinent rascal!" shouted Carson. "Sure!" answered Tommy. "But where did you say you came from?" "I'm president of this mining company!" screamed Carson, "and I'll have you all in jail if you don't produce my money!" "Is this the gentleman who went batty and lost two hundred thousand dollars?" asked Tommy, sliding down from the slate pyramid and standing beside Sandy. "That is believed to be the man!" laughed Sandy. "Believed to be!" roared Carson. "Does he know where he left the money?" asked Tommy. "Sure I know where I left my money, you young Jackanapes!" declared Carson. "I pointed out the exact hiding place only a few moments ago!" "You found it empty?" "Yes, I found it empty!" roared Carson. "Then," Tommy suggested, "we've all got to get busy." "What do you mean by that?" demanded Carson. Before Tommy could reply, Will came sliding down the rope and landed within a few feet of where the little group stood. "Look here, Will," Tommy said, "Are you sure we made a good search of those three ginks? They've got the money all right!" "How do you know they did?" demanded Will. "That fat man over there who looks as if he was about to bust," Tommy grinned, "is Mr. Carson, the man who hid the money and couldn't find it again. He's just been looking in the place where he concealed it, and it isn't there! We've got to get busy!" "I don't understand this at all," Mr. Buck interrupted. "It's just this way," Will said, facing the speaker, "we caught the three men who were wandering about in the mine. We rescued our chums first, and then when the outlaws heard your party advancing they scrambled up the old shaft and took to their heels supposing, of course, that we had lost no time in getting out of the mine." "And you geezled them all?" asked Sandy. "The whole three!" replied Will. "All we had to do was to stretch a rope across a passage, trip them up, and do a little winding around their graceful forms before they could catch their breath. They are all tied up good and tight now." "And you searched them for the money and didn't find it?" shouted Carson. "And we searched them for the money and didn't find it!" repeated Will. "I don't believe it!" shouted Carson. "You'll be telling me in a moment, when I ask you to produce your robbers, that they have broken their bonds and escaped!" At that moment, George's voice was heard calling down the shaft: "Break for the main shaft!" they heard him saying. "Head those fellows off. They cut their ropes and got away!" "I told you so!" thundered Carson. CHAPTER XXII CONCLUSION "Bright boys up there!" exclaimed Will, as the unwelcome news of the escape of the robbers came down the old shaft. "Me for the elevator?" shouted Tommy. All four boys, Will, Elmer, Tommy and Sandy started in a mad race down the gangway. As they carried their searchlights with them, and as Mr. Carson and Mr. Buck moved at a slower pace, the latter gentlemen were soon feeling their way through the dark tunnel. "We've just got to head 'em off!" grunted Tommy as the boys passed along at a pace calculated to break the long distance running records. "I don't believe they'll make for the main shaft anyway," Sandy panted. "I don't believe they will, either," Will declared, "but if we get to the lift first, we'll be dead sure they don't got out!" Will was in advance as they swung into the lighted space about the shaft. The first thing be observed was that one of the cages was just starting upward. He sprang to the push button and almost instantly the cage dropped back to the third level again. The power was on in honor of the visit of the president of the company. "Pile in, boys!" he shouted. "We'll stop at the second level!" The man at the top responded nobly to the quick signals given to start and stop, and in a very short space of time the elevator stood at the second level. The bar was down, but Will threw it aside and stepped out into the passage. There he saw the bank cashier and the miner standing cowering against the wall only a few feet from the shaft. "What are you doing here?" asked Will. "We started to the top," the miner replied, "but stopped here because we thought there might be need of our assistance on this level." "Why on this level?" asked Will, observing that the miner was pretty thoroughly frightened. "I haven't heard of any disturbance here!" "But there has been a disturbance here!" insisted the cashier. "We heard scuffling out there in the darkness, but as we had no lights, we could not investigate. My friend, the miner, had a light on the lower level, but he lost it as we made our way out to the shaft." "Has any one passed up the shaft?" asked Will. The miner shook his head. "Then we're on time all right!" cried Will exultantly. "We have the outlaws headed off!" The heavy voices of the two men who had been left on the lower level now came rumbling up the shaft. "What do you mean by leaving us in this plight?" demanded Carson. "Lower the cage and take us to the top!" "Stay down there and look after your money!" cried Sandy, mockingly. "I think I know where my money is!" shouted Carson. "I wish I knew!" returned Sandy. In the moment of silence which followed, the boys instantly and heard the call of the Beaver Patrol ringing down the second level. "George seems to be alive anyway!" laughed Tommy. A moment later a snarling sound which seemed to emanate from a whole pack of Wolves reached the ears of the boys. "Why didn't you tell me there were wild animals in the mine?" shouted the cashier. "Let me into that cage immediately!" "Don't be in a hurry," advised Tommy. "All the Wolves and Beavers you'll find in here won't do you any harm!" While Carson and Elmer's father continued to call from below, and while the Boy Scout challenges rang in the second level, two pistol shots were heard not far away from the shaft. The cashier and the miner both broke for the cage, but were turned back at the point of Sandy's automatic revolver. "You stopped here because you though you might be of some assistance, you know," the boy said. "Now you just remain here long enough to help out." "But there are people being murdered in there!" cried the cashier. Two more shots came from the gangway and then the stout figure of the detective came staggering into the circle of light around the shaft. He had evidently been wounded seriously, for he fell as he drew near to where the boys were standing and raised his eyes in a piteous appeal for help. Will stooped over and felt of his pulse. "You're about done for!" the boy said in a husky tone. "Who did it?" "Those two hold-up men," was the faint reply. "Where are they now?" asked Will. "I fired back," replied the detective wit a grim smile, "and I guess they're lying on the floor of the passage!" Will bent closer over the wounded detective while Tommy and Sandy started down the gangway on a run, closely followed by Elmer. "Why did they shoot you?" asked Will. "I found the money," Ventner replied, "and hid it in a crevice in the wall, and they found it. When we managed to escape by cutting the ropes I saw them take the money and disappear in the darkness. I followed on and accused them of the act and they shot me! Then I shot back, and I guess it's a pretty bad mess, when you take it altogether!" "Where is the money?" asked Will. "They have it in their possession," was the reply, "if they haven't hidden it again." Before the wounded detective could continue, George, Jimmie, Dick, Canfield, Sandy and Tommy came running out of the gangway. "Where's Elmer?" asked Will. "We left him back there talking with one of the hold-up men," replied George. "They're both badly hurt, and won't last long!" "I'm not sorry!" moaned Ventner. A moment later, Elmer came out of the passage with a bill-book of good size in his hand. He lifted the book gaily as he entered the illumination. "I'll bet he's got the money!" exclaimed Tommy. "Sure he has!" replied Will, and Elmer nodded. The voices of Carson and Buck again came roaring up from below. "Why don't you lower the cage?" Carson shouted. "I'm going to have every one of you arrested as soon as I find an officer! You can't work any of your gold brick schemes on me!" "We may as well drop down and take them aboard," laughed Will. Carson was swelling with rage when he step onto the platform of the list. He shook his fiercely under Will's nose, and announced that would have him wearing handcuffs before night. "How much reward was offered for the return that two hundred thousand dollars?" asked the boy without paying any attention to the angry demonstrations of the banker. "Twenty thousand dollars!" replied Carson. "But you'll never get a cent of it. I hired a party of Boy Scouts to come here from Chicago and look into the case, but they never came near me." "When you write to Chicago again," Will replied with a smile as the elevator stopped at the second level, "just tell Mr. Horton that the Beaver's didn't succeed in getting the money, but that the Wolves did. Elmer has the money in his possession this minute!" "Impossible!" shouted Carson. "Hand him the money, Elmer," requested Will. Carson snatched the bill book as it was held out to him and began looking through the ten thousand dollar banknotes which it contained. "The next time you get drunk and fall out of your machine, don't accuse every one you meet of robbing you!" Sandy cut in. "Are you the boys who came on from Chicago?" demanded Carson. "Sure," replied Will. "I guess I'm an old fool!" admitted Carson. "Here I've been roaming around about half a day accusing you boys of stealing my money, when all the time you were planning on returning it to me!" "Do we get the reward now?" asked Will. "Twenty thousand and expenses!" replied Carson. "I'll settle with Elmer and his chums later." "It's a shame to take the money!" declared Sandy, but Will gave him a sharp punch in the back and he cut off any further remarks which he might have had in his mind. The story ends here because the adventure ended with the finding of the money. The old tool house was deserted that night. The two hold-up men and the detective recovered after a long illness in a Pittsburgh hospital. The detective was permitted to go his way after promising to keep out of crooked detective deals in the future. He never told how or where he received his information about the lost money. The hold-up men were given long sentences in prison. A few weeks later, when the mining company resumed operations at the Labyrinth, Tunnel Six was walled up. Mr. Carson, the president, declared that it made what few hairs he had left stand on end to think of the experiences he had endured there! However, there are still stories about the breaker, that on dark, nights, when the wind blows, and the rain falls in great sheets, there are mysterious lights floating about Tunnel Six. Jimmie and Dick often tell exactly how these lights were made and how they enjoyed themselves down in the bowels of the earth, but superstitious miners still claim that the boys were not responsible for all the lights which burned there! Dick and Jimmie also have their joke with the Beaver Patrol boys whenever they meet, declared that if they had not finally relented and dropped the string the boys had carried into the mine for their own protection, they would still be wandering around in the Labyrinth Mine. "And now," Will said as they settled down in their old room on Washington boulevard, "we going to be good boys from this time on and remain in Chicago and stay at home nights!" However, in three days, the boys were preparing for another bit of adventure, the details of which will be found in the next volume of this, series entitled: "Boy Scouts in Alaska; or, The Camp on Glacier." The End 
20040	----	Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this file which includes the original illustrations. See 20040-h.htm or 20040-h.zip: (http://www.gutenberg.net/dirs/2/0/0/4/20040/20040-h/20040-h.htm) or (http://www.gutenberg.net/dirs/2/0/0/4/20040/20040-h.zip) THE CALL OF THE BEAVER PATROL Or A Break in the Glacier by CAPT. V. T. SHERMAN Author of The War Zone of the Kaiser; Boy Scouts with Joffre; The Perils of an Airship; The Boy Scout Signal, Etc. [Frontispiece] [Illustration] 1913 M. A. Donohue & Co. Chicago CONTENTS Chapter Page I--Camping in the Breaker 7 II--The Call of the Pack 15 III--Who Cut the String? 21 IV--A Sensational Discovery 28 V--The Flooded Mine 35 VI--The Beaver Call 41 VII--A Treacherous Foe 47 VIII--They Went Up in the Air 54 IX--Who Discovered the Leak? 60 X--The Boy in the Empty 67 XI--A Knock at the Door 73 XII--A Midnight Robber 79 XIII--One More Hungry Boy 86 XIV--Mine Rats Ready for War 92 XV--A Stick of Dynamite 99 XVI--Caused by a Fall 106 XVII--The Signs in Stones 113 XVIII--Two Hold-Up Men 120 XIX--The Money in Sight 127 XX--Sandy Is Discharged 134 XXI--"I Told You So" 141 XXII--Conclusion 148 Boy Scouts in the Coal Caverns Or, The Light in Tunnel Six CHAPTER I CAMPING IN THE BREAKER "And so I says to myself, says I, give me a good husky band of Boy Scouts! They'll do the job if it can be done!" Case Canfield, caretaker, sat back in a patched chair in the dusky, unoccupied office of the Labyrinth mine and addressed himself to four lads of seventeen who were clad in the khaki uniform of the Boy Scouts of America. Those of our readers who have read the previous books of this series will have good cause to remember George Benton, Charley ("Sandy") Green, Tommy Gregory and Will Smith. The adventures of these lads among the Pictured Rocks of Old Superior, among the wreckers and reptiles of the Florida Everglades, in the caverns of the Great Continental Divide, and among the snows of the Hudson Bay wilderness have been recorded under appropriate titles in previous works. The four boys were members of the Beaver Patrol, Chicago. Will Smith was Scoutmaster, while George Benton was Patrol Leader. They wore upon the sleeves of their coats medals showing that they had passed the examination as Ambulance Aids, Stalkers, Pioneers and Seamen. Instructed by Mr. Horton, a well-known criminal lawyer of Chicago, the boys had reached the almost deserted mine at dusk of a November day. There they had found Canfield, the caretaker, waiting for them in a dimly-lighted office. The mine had not been operated for a number of months, not because the veins had given out, but because of some misunderstanding between the owners of mines in that section. The large, bare room in which the caretaker and the Boy Scouts met was in the breaker. There was no fire in the great heater, and the tables and chairs were black with dust. A single electric light shone down from the ceiling, creating long, ghostlike shadows as it swayed about in a gentle wind blowing through a broken window. "Well," Tommy Gregory said, as the caretaker paused, "you've got the Boy Scouts, and it remains for you to set us to work." "And a sturdy looking lot, too!" grinned the caretaker. "Oh, Mr. Horton wouldn't be apt to send a lot of cripples!" laughed Sandy Green. "He's next to his job, that man is!" "I presume he told you all about the case?" suggested Canfield. "Indeed he did not," replied Will Smith. "Not a thing about it?" asked the caretaker. "He only said that you would give us full instructions." "That's strange!" Canfield observed thoughtfully. "Perhaps he thought we wouldn't want to undertake the job if we knew exactly what it was!" suggested Sandy. "It is a queer kind of a job," Canfield admitted, "but I don't think you boys would be apt to back out because of a little danger." "I have wanted to back out several times," laughed Tommy, "but, somehow, these others boys wouldn't permit me to." "Go on and tell us about it," urged Sandy. "Tell us just what you want us to do, and then we'll tell you whether we think we can do it or not." "You've got to find two boys!" replied Canfield. "Mother of Moses!" exclaimed Tommy. "I hope we haven't got to go and dig up blond-haired little Algernon, or discover pretty little Clarence, and turn a bunch of money over to him!" "I think these two boys may have money coming to them," the caretaker replied. "There must be money back of it or the friends of the lads wouldn't be giving me cash to spend in their interest." "Where are these boys?" asked Will. "I've heard the opinion expressed that the boys are somewhere in the mine!" answered Canfield. "I can hardly believe that they are, but it has been suggested that we may as well begin the search under ground." "Where do these boys belong?" asked George. "Anywhere and everywhere," was the reply. "Jimmie Maynard and Dick Thompson came here as breaker boys six months ago. They were ragged and dirty, and appeared to be as tough as two young bears. They worked steadily until the day before the mine closed down and then they disappeared." "That's easy!" declared Tommy. "They got tired of work!" "That may be," answered the caretaker, "but they certainly didn't get tired of drawing their pay. They went away leaving about eight dollars, the two of them, in the care of the company." "Then something must have happened to them!" Will suggested. "Who's looking for these boys?" asked George. "A New York lawyer," was the reply. "I know nothing whatever about the man. In fact, I don't know why he wants to find out where the boys are. He sends me money and tells me to continue my quest until the boys are found, and then to send them to New York." "So you have entire charge of the search," said Sandy, tentatively. "Yes," was the reply, "except for Joe Ventner. He's a detective sent on from New York by this Burlingame person, the lawyer to whom I referred a short time ago." "What part of the world is he searching?" asked Will. "He seems to think that the boys ran away because of some childish prank put on by them the night before. They broke some windows in a couple of shanties down by the tracks, or, at least, the other boys say they did, and Joe thinks they ran away because of that. He accounts in that way for their not calling after their pay envelopes." "So he thinks they've gone out of the country, does he." "Yes," was the reply. "He comes back here every few days to ask if I have heard anything regarding the youngsters, and then goes away again. If you leave it to me, I don't think the fellow is working very hard in the case. There's a half a dozen saloons in a little dump of a place about ten miles away, and my idea is that he puts in a good deal of his time there." "You don't seem to take to this detective?" asked George. "Oh, I don't know as he's so much worse than the average private detective," replied the caretaker. "He's out for his day's wages, and the easier he can get them, the better it suits him. "So you don't know who wants these boys, or what they're wanted for?" asked Will. "Lawyer Burlingame never took you into his confidence so far as to post you on the details of the case." "He never did!" answered the caretaker. "Is he liberal with his money?" asked George. "He pays all the bills I send in," was the answer. "And seems to keep this bum detective pretty well supplied with ten-dollar bills." "We may have to investigate this investigator!" laughed Sandy. "Did Mr. Horton say anything to you about your lodgings while here?" asked the caretaker. "It's getting too cold here for me, and we may as well be shifting to warmer quarters." "You said a short time ago," Will began, "that you rather thought we ought to begin this search in the mine itself." "That's my idea!" answered the caretaker. "Do you think the boys are hiding in the mine?" "Well, there are some things connected with the case which point in that direction," replied Canfield. "For instance, there's a lot of queer things going on under ground." "Ghosts?" demanded Tommy. "You're not steering us up against a haunted mine, are you?" asked George with a wink at his chum. "That would be too good to be true!" "I haven't said anything about ghosts or haunted mines," chuckled the caretaker. "I'm only saying that there are queer things taking place in the mine. Now there's Tunnel Six," he went on, "I have seen lights there with my own eyes, when I know there wasn't a person within two miles of the spot except myself. And I've heard noises, too! These unaccountable noises which make a man think of graveyards and ghosts." "But why should two healthy, active boys want to seek such a hiding place?" asked Will. "It certainly can't be very pleasant in the dark and damp tunnels! Besides, where would they get their provisions?" "I'm not arguing the case, lads," the caretaker replied, "I'm placing the case in your hands without instructions. I only suggest that you look in the mine first, but you don't have to do that unless you want to!" "I don't see how we can find fault with that arrangement!" laughed Will. "And now," he went on, "let's arrange about our lodgings. In the first place, who knows that we are here on this job?" "Not a soul, unless some one saw you coming into the breaker!" "That's just as it should be," Will went on. "Now I propose that we camp out in the breaker. There must be a cosy corner somewhere, under the chutes, or in back of a staircase, or away up under the roof, where we can camp out while we are going through the mine." "You won't find the old breaker a very comfortable place to live in," suggested Canfield. "Oh, we can line the walls of some little cubby-hole with canvas if necessary, and you can string a wire in so as to give us electricity for heating and lighting, and we can live as comfortable as four bugs in a rug. If we keep out of sight during the day time, no one will ever suspect that we are here." "Have it your own way!" replied Canfield. "I'll see that you get plenty to eat and plenty of bed clothing." "That'll help some!" laughed Tommy. "During the night we can travel through the mine with our lights, and during the daytime we can crawl into our little beds and sleep our heads off!" "When do you want your first load of provisions?" asked Canfield. "Right now, tonight!" replied Sandy. "Well, come along then," Canfield said, rising from his chair, "and I'll let you pick out a spot for your camp, as you call it." After quite an extended search through the breaker the boys selected a small room on the ground floor, from which one window looked out on the half-deserted yard where the weigh-house stood. The room was perhaps twenty feet in size each way, and the walls were of heavy planking. The whole apartment was sadly in need of a scrubbing, but the lads concluded to postpone that until some future date. "I can bring in cot beds and bedding," the caretaker announced, "and string the electric wire for heating, lighting, and cooking before I go to bed. That will leave you all shipshape in the morning, and you can then begin your cleaning up as soon as you please." The caretaker was as good as his word, and before ten o'clock the cots and bedding were in place, also an electric heater and an electric plate for cooking had been moved into the apartment. Not considering it advisable to go out for supper, Canfield had also brought in provisions in the shape of bacon, potatoes, eggs, bread, butter, coffee, and various grades of canned goods, so the boys had made a hearty meal and had plenty left for breakfast. While cooking they had covered the one window with a heavy piece of canvas. "Now you're all tight and snug for the night," the caretaker smiled, as he turned back from the door and glanced over the rather cozy-looking room. "If I'm about here during the night, I'll look in upon you again." Canfield stepped out and closed the door behind him. Then he came back and looked in again with a half-smile on his face. "Do you boys know anything about mines?" he asked. "Not a thing!" replied Tommy. "Then don't you go climbing down the ladders and wandering around in the gangways tonight!" the caretaker warned. "Say, there's an idea!" Tommy said to Sandy, with a wink, as Canfield went out. "How do you think one of these mammoth coal mines looks, anyway?" "Cut that out, boys!" exclaimed Will. "If I catch one of you attempting the ladders tonight, I'll tie you up!" "Who said anything about going down the ladders tonight?" demanded Tommy. CHAPTER II THE CALL OF THE PACK It was somewhere near midnight when the boys sought their beds. Will and George were soon asleep, but Tommy and Sandy had no notion of passing their first night in the mine in slumber. Ten minutes after the regular breathing of the two sleepers became audible, Tommy sat up in his bed and deftly threw a pillow so as to strike Sandy in the face. "Cut it out!" whispered Sandy. "You don't have to do anything to wake me up! I've been wondering for a long time whether you hadn't gone to sleep! You looked sleepy when the light went out." "Never was so wide awake in my life!" declared Tommy. "Well, get up and dress," advised Sandy. "If we get into the mine tonight, we'll have to hurry!" "Have you figured out how we're going to get into the mine?" asked Tommy. "It will be the ladders for us, I guess." "Of course it'll be the ladders!" replied Sandy. "Do you suppose Canfield is coming here in the middle of the night to turn on the power?" "I wonder how deep the shaft is?" asked Tommy. "I guess this one must be about five hundred feet." "Is that a guess, or a piece of positive information?" "It's a guess," laughed Sandy, drawing on his shoes and walking softly across the bare floor in the direction of the shaft. The boys passed out of the sleeping chamber into a passage which led directly to the shaft of the mine. This shaft was perhaps twenty feet in width. It included the air shaft, the division where the pumps were operated, and two divisions for the cages which lifted the coal from the bottom of the mine. The pumps were not working, of course, and no air was being forced down. One of the cages lay at the top so the other must have been at the bottom of the shaft. As the boys looked down into the shaft, Tommy seized his chum by the arm and whispered: "Did you see that light down there?" "Light nothing!" declared Sandy. "But I did see a light!" insisted the other. "Perhaps you did," replied Sandy, "but if there's any light there it's merely a reflection from our electrics. There may be a metallic surface down there which throws back the light rays." "Have it your own way!" grunted Tommy. "You know yourself that the caretaker said there were lights in the mine which no one could account for, and he especially mentioned the light in Tunnel Six." "All right!" Sandy grinned. "We'll sneak down so quietly that any person who happens to be at the bottom of the shaft with the light will never suspect that we are within a hundred miles of the place. We may be able to geezle the fellow that's making the ghost walk around here nights." The boys took to the ladders and moved down as silently as possible. Now and then a rung creaked softly under their feet, but they got to the bottom without any special mishap. Tommy drew a long breath when at last they landed at the bottom of the shaft. He threw his light upward, then, and declared that in his opinion they were at least ten thousand feet nearer the center of the earth than they were when they started down. "I remember now," Sandy said with a grin, "that the Labyrinth mine is only about five hundred feet deep. If I remember correctly, there are three levels; one at three hundred feet; one at four, and one at five." "And which level is this?" asked Tommy. "Why, we're on the bottom, ain't we?" "Of course," laughed Tommy. "I ought to have known that!" "Well come along if you want to see the mine!" urged Sandy. "All we have to do is to push our searchlights ahead and walk down the gangway. We'll come to something worth seeing after a while." As the boys advanced they found the gangway considerably cluttered with "gob," or refuse, and the air was none of the best. "I wish we could set the air shaft working," suggested Sandy. "Well, we can't!" Tommy answered with a scornful shrug of his shoulders. "We can't set the whole works going in order to give us a midnight view of the Labyrinth mine. What gets me is, how are we going to find our way back? There seem to be a good many passages here." "I've got that fixed all right!" Sandy exclaimed. As the lad spoke he took a ball of strong string from his pocket and tied one end to the cage which lay at the bottom of the shaft. "Now we can go anywhere we please," he chuckled "and when we want to return, all we've got to do is to follow the string." "Quite an idea!" laughed Tommy. The boys proceeded along the gangway, walking between the rails of the tramway by means of which the coal was delivered at the bottom of the shaft. The experience was a novel one to them. The dark walls of the passage, the echoes which came from the counter gangways, the monotonous dripping of water as it seeped through seams and crevices in the rock, all gave a weird and uncanny expression to the place. After walking for some distance the boys came to a level which showed several inches of water. "We can't wade through that!" Tommy declared. "Well," Sandy suggested, "if we go back a little ways, we can follow a cross heading and get into the mine by another way." The boys followed this plan, and, after winding about several half-loaded cars which had been left on the tramway, found themselves in a large chamber from which numerous benches were cut. "Where does all this gas come from?" asked Tommy stopping short and putting a hand to his nose. "There must be a blower somewhere," Sandy explained. "What's a blower?" demanded Tommy. "What does it look like, and does it always smell like this?" "It doesn't look like anything!" replied Sandy. "It's composed of natural gas, and they call it a blower because it blows up out of crevices in the coal and in the rocks." "If I should light a match, would it set it on fire?" asked Tommy. "I wouldn't like to have you try it!" The boys continued on their way for some moments, and then Tommy stopped and extinguished his light, whispering to Sandy to do the same. "What's that for?" demanded the latter. "Didn't you hear that noise behind the cribbing?" asked Tommy. "Rats, probably!" "Rats nothing!" replied Tommy. "Rats don't make sounds like people whispering, do they? Keep still a minute, and we'll find out what it is!" "You'll be seeing a light next!" Sandy suggested. "I see it now!" answered Tommy. Sandy saw it, too, in a moment. It seemed at first to be floating in the air at the very top of the gangway. It moved from side to side, and finally dropped down nearer to the floor. There seemed to be no one near it or under it. Its small circle of illumination showed only the empty air. "What do you make of it?" asked Tommy. "Is this Tunnel Six?" asked his chum. "I don't know! If it is, we've seen the light the caretaker referred to. We'll have a great story to tell in the morning!" The boys stood in the darkness of the gangway watching the light for what seemed to them to be a long time. Now the light advanced toward them, now it receded. Now it lifted to the roof of the gangway, now it dropped almost to the floor. At intervals, the noises behind the cribbing to which Tommy had referred were repeated, and the boys at last moved over so as to stand with their ears almost against the wooden walls. "There is some one behind the cribbing, all right!" Tommy declared. "I hear some one breathing." "Aw, keep still!" whispered Sandy. "If there is anyone there, you'll frighten them away! I thought I heard some one myself!" "I'll tell you what I think," Tommy suggested in a moment, "and that is that either Will and George, or both of them, beat us to this gangway. They are hiding behind there on purpose to give us a scare." "That's a dream!" replied Sandy. "We left them both asleep." "Dream, is it?" repeated Tommy scornfully. "You just listen to the sound that comes from behind this cribbing, and tell me what you make of it!" Both boys listened intently for a moment, and then Sandy switched on his light and moved swiftly along the cribbing as if in search of an opening. Tommy gazed at him in astonishment. "You've gone and done it now!" he said. "There's some one in here all right!" Sandy explained. "Did you hear the call of the pack a minute ago? There are Boy Scouts in there, and what we hear are the signals of the Wolf Patrol." "That's right!" cried Tommy excitedly. "That's right!" CHAPTER III WHO CUT THE STRING? "Do you suppose he would understand the call of the Beaver Patrol?" asked Sandy. "I'm going to try him, anyway!" The boy brought his hands together in imitation of the slap of a beaver's tail on the water, and listened for some reply. "He'll understand that if he's up on Boy Scout literature," suggested Sandy. "He ought to be wise to the signs of the different patrols if he's a good Boy Scout." There was a short silence, broken only by the constant drip of the water in an adjoining chamber, and then the call of the pack came again, clearly, sharply and apparently only a short distance away. "What did Mr. Canfield call those two boys we are looking after?" asked Sandy, after waiting a short time for the repetition of the sound. "Jimmie Maynard and Dick Thompson," replied Tommy. Sandy threw out his chest and cried out at the top of his lungs: "Hello, Jimmie! Hello, Dick!" The lad's voice echoed dismally throughout the labyrinth of passages, but there was no other reply. Tommy and Sandy gave the call of the Beaver Patrol repeatedly, but the call of the Wolf pack was heard no more. "I'll bet it's some trick!" exclaimed Sandy after waiting in the chamber for a long time in the hope of hearing another call from the boys who were hidden somewhere behind the cribbing. "What do you mean by trick?" demanded Tommy. "Why, I mean that some of the breaker boys, out of work because of the stoppage of operations, may have sneaked into the mine on purpose to produce the impression that there are ghosts here." "But ghosts wouldn't be giving signals of the Wolf Pack, would they?" asked Tommy. "Not unless they were Scouts," replied the other. "Oh well, of course the kids would want to test us, wouldn't they, seeing that we were only boys?" "Well, we've discovered one thing by coming down," said Tommy, "and that is that there really are people in the mine who have no business here." "Then we may as well go back to bed," advised Sandy. "Do you know how many corners we've turned since we came in here?" asked Tommy. "About a thousand, I guess," replied Sandy. "Yes, and we'd have a fine old time getting out if you hadn't brought that ball of twine!" "Tell you what we'll do," Sandy said, as the boys turned their faces down the gangway, "we'll pass around the next shoulder of rock and then shut off our lights. Perhaps the kids who gave the cry of the pack in there will then show their light again." "That's a good idea, too!" The boys came at length to a brattice, which is a screen, of either wood or heavy cloth, set up in a passage to divert the current of air to a bench where workmen are engaged, and dodged down behind it, first shutting off their lights, of course. "Now, come on with your old light," whispered Tommy. As if in answer to the boy's challenge, the light showed again, apparently but a few yards away from their hiding place. A moment later the call of the pack, sounding louder than before, rang through the passage. The boys sprang to their feet and switched on their lights. "Why don't you come out and show yourselves?" shouted Tommy. "I don't believe you're Scouts at all!" declared Sandy. There was no answer. The boys could hear the drip of water and the purring of the current as it crept into a lower gangway, but that was all. "That settles it for tonight!" exclaimed Tommy. "I'm not going to hang around here waiting for Boy Scouts who don't respond to signals!" "That's me!" agreed Sandy. "We'll go to bed and think the matter over. There may be some way of trapping those fellows." "Suppose it should be Jimmie Maynard and Dick Thompson?" asked Tommy. "Then we'd have the case closed up in a jiffy!" was the reply. Before leaving that particular chamber, Tommy selected a large round piece of "gob," placed it in the center of the open space, and laid another small piece of shale on top of it. "What are you doing that for?" demanded Sandy. "Don't you know your Indian signs?" demanded the boy. "That means 'This is the trail.' Now I'll put a stone to the right, and that will tell these imitation Boy Scouts to turn to the right if they want to get out." "I guess they can get out if they want to," suggested Sandy. Thirty or forty feet further on, where, following the string, the boys turned again, this time to the left, Tommy laid another signal which showed the direction to be taken. "There," he said with a grin, "we've started them on the right path. If they don't want to follow it, that isn't our fault!" "We must be getting pretty near the shaft," Sandy said, after the boys had walked for nearly half an hour on the backward track. "Pull on your string," suggested Tommy, "and see if it stiffens up like only a short length of it remained out." Sandy did as requested, and then dropped to the floor with his searchlight laid along the extension of the cord. "The other end is loose!" he said in a tone of alarm. "Loose?" echoed Tommy. "How did it ever get loose?" Sandy sat down on the floor of the passage and began drawing the cord in, hand over hand. "I'm going to see if it's been cut!" he said. Tommy stepped on the swiftly moving cord and held it fast to the floor. "You mustn't draw it in!" he exclaimed. "As long as it lies on the floor as we strung it out, we can follow it without taking any chances. If you pull it in, then it's all off." "I understand!" Sandy agreed. "I didn't pull much of it in." The boys started up the gangway, one of them keeping a searchlight on the white thread of cord. They seemed to make a great many turns and once or twice Sandy declared that they were walking round and round in a circle. "I don't believe the passages run so we could walk around in a circle!" argued Tommy. "That ain't the way they run passages in mines!" "I don't care!" Sandy insisted. "We've been turning to the left about all the time, and if you leave it to me, we'll presently come out in the chamber where we heard the call of the pack!" "That may be right," admitted Tommy. "It does seem as if we'd been turning to the left most of the time. Besides," he went on, "we've been walking long enough to have reached the shaft three or four times." "And yet," argued Sandy, "we've been following the line of the cord every step. It lies right in the middle of the gangway here, and we're going the way it points all the time." This bit of reasoning seemed to give the boys fresh courage, and they walked on, expecting every moment to come in sight of the frame work which surrounded the shaft. At length, after a long half hour, Tommy stumbled over an obstruction lying in a chamber which somehow seemed strangely familiar. He lifted his foot and gave the obstruction a hearty kick. "That's my Indian sign of the trail!" grunted Sandy. "For the love of Mike!" exclaimed Tommy. "Have we been traveling all this time to come out in this same old hole at last?" "That's what we have!" replied Sandy. "If we had paid no attention to the string whatever and followed the rails when we came to the main gang way, we would have been home and in bed by this time!" "But we didn't," grinned Tommy. "We thought we had a cinch on getting out by way of this cord and so we followed that. I don't see, though," he continued, "how we came back to this same old chamber by following the cord. That looks queer to me!" "I'll tell you how!" replied Sandy. "There's some gink been walking on ahead of us stringing the cord out for us to follow!" Tommy sat down on the bottom of the chamber and wrinkled his freckled nose provokingly. "We're a couple of easy marks!" he laughed. "Easy marks is no name for it!" "Well, what'll we do now to get out?" Tommy asked. "First thing we know, it'll be daylight, and then Will and George'll be calling out the police to find us. We ought to get home before they wake up." "I'm willing!" declared Sandy. "I'd like to be in my little bed this minute! I've had about enough of this foul air!" The boys passed along until they came to the second trail sign and then stopped. Tommy pointed down to it with a hand which was not quite steady and looked up into his chum's face with frightened eyes. "That's been moved!" he said. "How do you know it's been moved?" "Because you had the side stone on the other edge." "I don't think I did!" argued Sandy. The boys puzzled over the situation for a few moments, and then proceeded down the chamber looking for the tramway rails. They passed from chamber to chamber and finally came to a place where the slope was upward. "I guess we've struck it at last!" Sandy exclaimed. "But there are no rails here!" Tommy argued. "Then we're on the wrong track again," admitted Sandy. He bent down to the rock with his searchlight and pointed out evidences that the passage had once been laid with rails. "When they strip a chamber or a counter gangway," he said, "they take away the rails. It seems that we are now in a part of the Labyrinth mine which has been worked out." "I know what to do!" exclaimed Tommy. "I'll give the call of the Beaver Patrol and tell those ginks who have been giving the call of the pack that we're lost! That ought to bring them out of their holes." The Beaver call was given time after time, but no reply came. "Say," Tommy said after his patience had become exhausted, "I believe it's daylight. Look at your watch. I left mine in the bed!" "I left mine in bed, too," answered Sandy. "I know it is day, because I'm hungry." CHAPTER IV A SENSATIONAL DISCOVERY When Will awoke he began preparations for breakfast before paying any attention whatever to his chums, whom he believed to be sleeping quietly on their cots. It was November, and quite chilly in the apartment, so his next efforts were directed to coaxing the electric coils into a cheery glow. Presently George came tumbling out in his pyjamas and sat down on a rickety chair to talk of the adventures in prospect. "I wonder if the Labyrinth mine is so much of a labyrinth after all?" he asked. "It seems to me that we might find our way through it without danger of losing ourselves," he continued with a yawn. "It's some labyrinth, I take it," Will replied. "Well, we can make chalk marks on the walls as we move along," suggested George. "Besides," he added, "we can string an electric wire through the center gangway and turn on the lights." "There are probably electric lights there now," answered Will. "Then there's no danger of our becoming lost," George argued. "I wish you'd go to the back of the room and tip over those two cots," grinned Will. "It's the hardest kind of work to get Tommy and Sandy to bed, but when you do get them in bed once, it's harder still to get them out of it. Just tip the cots over and roll 'em out on the floor." George approached the two cots in a stealthy manner and made ready to give Tommy and Sandy the bump of their lives. "Don't break their necks!" advised Will. As soon as George reached Tommy's bunk he stretched forth a hand for the purpose of tangling the boy up in the bedclothing so that his fall to the hard floor might be in a measure broken. As he swung his hand over the cot, however, his eyes widened and he called out to Will that the boys were not in their cots. There was a look of alarm as well as of annoyance on each face as the lads thought over the situation. "The little idiots!" exclaimed Will. "That isn't strong enough!" George corrected. "There's no knowing how long they've been gone," Will suggested. "The chances are that they went away as soon as we went to sleep." "In that case, they're in trouble!" George declared. "In what kind of trouble?" "The good Lord only knows!" replied George. "Tommy and Sandy can get into more different kinds of trouble in less time than any other boys on the face of the earth. They're the original lookers for trouble!" "Do you suppose they've got lost in the mine?" asked Will. "It may be worse than that!" cried George. "They may have butted into some of the people the caretaker indirectly referred to last night." "He did speak of strange noises and mysterious lights, didn't he?" "He certainly did, and I've got a hunch that Sandy and Tommy have butted into some hostile interests. "It does seem as if they would be back by this time unless they were in trouble!" The boys prepared an elaborate breakfast in the hope that Tommy and Sandy, who would be sure to be hungry, would return in time to partake of it. A dozen times during the meal they walked back to the shaft opening and looked anxiously down into the dark bowels of the mine. "Those fellows are always getting into trouble," Will said, rather crossly, as he stood looking down. "They have a way of running into most of their dangers at night, too. It was the same up on Lake Superior; the same in the snake-haunted Everglades of Florida; the same on the Rocky Mountains, and the same in the Hudson Bay country." "They sure do keep things moving," grinned George. "I think," Will suggested after a time, "that we'd better find Canfield and get his advice before we do anything in the way of setting up a search. I hate to admit that two members of our party got into a scrape on the same night we struck the mine, but I guess there's no way out of it." While the boys talked together, the door opened softly and the caretaker entered, accompanied by a short, paunchy man with a very red face and eyes which were black, small and suspicious. He was a man well past middle age, but he seemed to be making a bluff at thirty-five. His hair, which had turned white at the temples, and his moustache were both dyed black. Canfield introduced the new-comer as the detective, Joe Ventner, of New York, and the boys greeted him courteously. He accepted their proffered hands with an air of condescension which was most exasperating. He puffed out his chest, and at once began talking of some of his alleged exploits in the secret service of the government. "How did you pass the night, boys?" asked the caretaker. "Slept like pigs!" replied Will with a laugh. "Where are the others?" asked Canfield. "They're out getting a breath of fresh air, I reckon," answered George. The boys did not take to the detective at all. There was an air of insincerity about the man which at once put them on their guard. Had Canfield visited them alone, they would have explained to him the exact situation. In the presence of this detective, however, they decided to do nothing of the kind. "Now then," the detective said after a moment's silence, "if you boys will outline the course you intend to pursue in this matter, I think we can manage to work together without our plans clashing." "We have talked the matter over during the night," Will replied, "and have decided to remain here only long enough to obtain some clue as to the direction taken by the boys in their departure." "Then you think they are not here?" asked the detective. "There is no reason why they should be here, is there?" asked Will. "I don't know that there is," relied Ventner. "Can you imagine any reason for their wanting to linger about the mine?" asked George. "No," was the reply. "It has always been my opinion that the boys left the mine because they feared arrest for some boyish offense committed in some other part of the country, and that they are now far away from this place." Both lads observed that the detective seemed particularly pleased with the statement that they proposed to abandon the search of the mine immediately. Somehow, they caught the impression that they would interfere with his plans if they remained. "It might be well," Ventner said, directly, "to keep me posted as to any discoveries you may make. We must work together, you know." "Certainly," replied Will, speaking with a mental reservation which did not include the giving up of any information worth while. "Well, then, I'll be going," the detective said, strutting across the room, with his little round belly protruding like that of an insect. "You can always find me at the hotel down here, if I'm in this part of the country. Just ask for me and I'll show up." Canfield was turning to depart with the detective when Will motioned to him to remain. The caretaker turned back with a surprised look. Will waited until the door had closed on the detective before speaking. Even then, he went to the door and glanced down the passage. "Something exciting?" smiled the caretaker, noting the boy's caution. "Yes," Will answered, "there's something exciting. Tommy and Sandy disappeared during the night." "Disappeared?" echoed the caretaker. "Yes," George cut in, "there was some talk of their visiting the mine just before we went to bed, and we are of the opinion that they went down the shaft shortly after we fell asleep, and failed to find their way to the surface again. We are considerably alarmed." "I should think you would be!" replied the caretaker. "In the first place, the Labyrinth mine bears the right name. There are old workings below which a stranger might follow for days without finding the way out." "Then we'll have to organize a search for the boys," George suggested. "Besides," continued Canfield, "there are things going on in the mine which no one understands. I have long believed that there are people living there who have no right to take up such a residence." "I'm sorry you said anything to this detective about our being here," Will said, after this phase of the case had been discussed. "As a matter of fact," the caretaker replied, "I didn't intend to say anything to Ventner about your being here, but in some way he received an intimation that you were about to take up the case and so pumped the whole story out of me." "Perhaps he received his information from the New York attorney," suggested Will. "I'm sure that he did not," answered the caretaker. "If the attorney had written to him in regard to the matter at all, he would have posted him so fully that when he cross-examined me such a proceeding would have been unnecessary." "Has this man Ventner visited the mine often?" asked George. "Yes, quite frequently." "Does he always go alone?" "Yes, he always goes alone," was the answer. "Once I accompanied him to the bottom of the shaft, but there he suggested that we go in different directions, and did not seem to want me anywhere near him." "I don't like the looks of the fellow, and that's a fact!" exclaimed Will. "He doesn't look good to me." After some discussion it was decided that the caretaker would accompany the two boys to the bottom of the shaft and direct them down gangways, which they could follow without fear of losing their way, and the illumination of which would be likely to be observed by anyone wandering about the blind chambers and passages of the mine. When they reached the bottom of the shaft, climbing down the ladders, as Tommy and Sandy had done some hours before, they gathered in a little group at the bottom while the caretaker gave them a few general instructions regarding the general outlines of the Labyrinth of tunnels, chambers and cross passages which lay before them. "Did any one come down after us?" asked Will directly. "No one," was the reply. "Why do you ask?" "Because," Will answered, "there's some one skulking off down that passage, and it looks to me like that bum detective!" CHAPTER V THE FLOODED MINE "What makes you think it's Ventner?" asked the caretaker. "Did you see his face? I don't think he is here." "I didn't see his face," answered Will, "but I saw the shape of his shoulders and the hang-dog look of him." "You're prejudiced against Ventner," laughed Canfield. "I admit it!" replied Will. "He looks to me like a snake in the grass. I don't think anything he could do would look good to me." "Now," Canfield said, "perhaps we'd better be mapping out a plan of campaign. Here are three gangways leading in three different directions. We'll leave one of the lights burning at the shaft, then we'll each take a light and proceed into the interior, making as much noise as we conveniently can, and flashing the light into all the chambers and cross headings we come to." "How long are these gangways?" asked Will. "Somewhere near a half a mile straight ahead!" was the answer. The caretaker went away swinging his electric searchlight, and Will and George pushed forward in their respective passages. After proceeding a short distance, George heard Will calling to him. "There's some one just ahead of me in the gangway!" Will declared. "I think we ought to go together!" "Do you think it's that bum detective?" asked George. "I certainly do!" "Well, we can go together if you like," George said. "We can't cover quite as much ground in that way, but I guess we can accomplish more in the long run!" The boys had proceeded only a short distance when they heard Canfield calling to them. A moment later they heard the caretaker's steps ringing on the hard floor of the gangway down which they were advancing. He came up to them panting, in a moment. "There's something mighty queer about this mine," the caretaker declared. "It was punk dry only two days ago, and now there are four or five feet of water where the gangway I started to follow dips down. "And look there!" Will exclaimed holding his light aloft and pointing, "you can see plenty of water ahead! I guess all the gangways are taking a washing, and the water seems to be rising, too!" "Is there any way by which the mine could be intentionally flooded?" asked George. "There may be some one planning trouble for the owners." "There is only one way that I know of in which the mine could be flooded intentionally," replied the caretaker. "There is a large drain, of course, in what is known as the sump. Considerable water runs off in that way, and the rest of the drippings are taken out by the pumps. If this sump drainage should become clogged, the mine, of course, would become flooded though not to such an extent, unless the pumps were kept constantly at work." "Then I guess you'd better set the pumps going," Will suggested. "We can't get into the mine in its present condition unless we swim." "Haven't you got a boat?" asked George. "Why, yes," replied the caretaker. "There's a couple of boats somewhere in the mine. The operators placed them here thinking they might come in handy at some future time, but I haven't any idea where they are now. Still, I think they're not far away." "If you'll go and set the pumps in motion," Will advised, "George and I'll look around for the boats. We may need them before the pumps get under motion the way the water is pouring in now." "I guess Tommy and Sandy don't come back because they're penned in by water," George suggested, as the boys began searching the vicinity of the shaft for the boats. "If they're anywhere within hearing distance, they ought to answer us when we called out, hadn't they?" asked Will. "We haven't tried that yet," George answered. "Suppose we let out a couple of yells!" To think in this case was to act, and the boys did let out a couple of yells which brought the caretaker running back from the shaft. The boys were listening for some answer to their shouts when he arrived, and so they paid little attention to his numerous questions. "There is no time to lose," Canfield went on. "I'll go to the top at once and call an engineer and a couple of firemen. When you find the boat, take a trip down the main gangway here and stick your lights into all the crossheadings and chambers you see. But, above all," he continued, "don't fail to leave a light here at a shaft, and be careful that you never pass out of sight of it." Canfield hastened away, climbing the ladders two rungs at a time, and soon disappeared into the little dot of light at the top. The two boys searched patiently for the boat for a long time, but did not succeed in discovering it. At last, Will suggested that it might be in the mule stable and thither they went. The boat was there, in excellent condition, and the boys soon had it swinging to and fro on the surface of the water which now lay several feet deep in the main gangway. "Je-rusalem!" exclaimed George, taking the depth of the water with an oar, "if the water is four feet deep here, how deep must it be at the middle of the dip?" "About forty rods, I should think!" exaggerated Will. The boys left a large searchlight at the shaft, so situated that it looked straight down the passage they proposed following, and started away in the boat. The flashlights illuminated only a small portion of the underground place, but the boys could see some distance straight ahead. Once they ceased rowing to listen, believing that they had heard calls from the darkness beyond. The sound was not repeated, and they were about to proceed when a sound which brought all their nervous energy into full swing reached their ears. It was the bumping of an oar or paddle against the side of a boat. The blow echoed through the cavern as sharply as a pistol shot might have done. There could be no mistake in the cause. "Now who's in that other boat?" "Somehow," George grumbled in a whisper, "we always have propositions like that put up to us! There's always a mystery in every trip we take! We found one on Lake Superior, and one in the Florida Everglades, and one at the top of the Rocky mountains and one in the Hudson Bay wilderness." "Yes, and we solved them, too!" grinned Will. "And we're going to solve this one! You remember about my seeing some one sneaking in here just ahead of us, don't you?" "Yes," was the answer. "You thought it was that bum detective." "I think so yet," replied Will. "If it's the detective," asked George, "why didn't he give the alarm when he found that the mine was being flooded. He might at least have done that and saved the company a great deal of expense and trouble." "Give it up," replied Will. "I might ask you," he went on, "why he was rowing away into a flooded mine which is supposed to be deserted." "And I'd have to give you the answer you gave me," George declared. The boys could now hear the strokes of the oarsman who was in the lead quite regularly and distinctly. Now and then he turned into crossheadings and chambers, as if to escape from their surveillance, but they kept steadily on after him, not taking into account the fact that they were leaving the light they had set at the shaft far out of view. "Perhaps we ought to turn back now," George proposed, in a short time, seeing that they came no nearer to the boat in advance. "We left the main gangway some time ago, and we ought not to get too far away from it." Will turned and looked back, facing only an inky blackness. "We should have stuck to the main gangway," he said. "I don't even remember when we left it! Is it very far back?" "Some distance," answered George. "You see we followed this other boat without thinking what we were doing." "Perhaps, if we continue to follow the other boat, it will lead us somewhere. The fellow rowing must know something about the interior of the mine or he probably wouldn't be here!" "I've been listening for a minute or more, trying to catch sound of the fellow's oars," George went on, "but there's nothing doing. I guess he's led us into a blind chamber and slipped away!" "We don't seem to be lacking for excitement," Will suggested with a grin. "We've lost Tommy and Sandy, and the machinery of the mine has been interfered with, and the lower levels are filling with water! Any old time we start out to do things, there's a general mixup!" "Aw, quit growling and listen a minute," suggested George. The boys listened only for a moment when the sound George had heard was repeated. It was the call of the Wolf pack! CHAPTER VI THE BEAVER CALL "That's Tommy!" exclaimed Will. "I never knew that he belonged to the Wolf Patrol!" George observed. "He might give the call without belonging to the Patrol!" urged Will. The boys listened, but the sound was not repeated, although they called out the names of their chums and gave the Beaver call repeatedly. "I guess it was a dream," George suggested. "Then it was the most vivid dream I ever had!" Will declared. They rowed about the chamber for some moments searching for the source of the call, but to no purpose. "Let's go back to the shaft," urged George. "I'm agreeable," answered Will. "The only question now is whether we can find the shaft. The water is so deep that all branches of the mine look alike to me!" In passing out of the chamber into another passage the boys were obliged to stoop low in order to avoid what is called a dip. After passing under the dip so close to the ceiling that the boys were obliged to lie down in the boat in order to protect their heads, they came to a large chamber which seemed to be fairly dry save in the center, where there was a depression of considerable size. "Nothing doing here!" Will exclaimed as he flashed his searchlight around the place. "This chamber looks as if there hadn't been an ounce of coal mined here for a hundred years." "Then let's get out," George proposed, "and make our way back to the shaft if possible. If we can't, we'll make noise enough to attract Canfield's attention and let him come and lead us out." "Here we go, then," cried Will, giving the boat a great push toward the dip. "We can't get out any too fast." The boat came up against a solid projection of rock! "I don't seem to see any way out!" George exclaimed. "Well, it's there somewhere!" declared Will. "I see it now!" cried George. "It's under water!" "Under water?" repeated Will. "Yes, under water!" answered George. "If we don't get out of this hole before the pumps get to working we'll have to swim!" Will turned his searchlight on the dip and saw that it was now full clear to the down dropping roof. "I guess we'll have to swim," he agreed. "That black water doesn't look good to me," George exclaimed with a little shudder. "It seems to me that I can see snakes and alligators wiggling in it from here. Looks worse to me than the swamps of the Everglades! And there was a quart of snakes to every pint of water down there!" "But we got to swim just the same!" urged Will. "In half an hour from now the air in this chamber will be unbreathable. There is no vent at all, now that the water fills the dip, and the coal gas is naturally seeping in all the time." "That's all right, too!" admitted George. "But I'm not going to jump into that black water until I have to. If a rope or something should twine around my legs while I was in there, I'd drop dead with fright! Besides," he went on, "the chances are that Canfield will get the pumps going before long now." The boys waited for a long half hour, during which time the water rose steadily. It seemed certain that the mine was about to be flooded throughout all the lower levels. "Tommy and Sandy may have bumped into just such a situation as this," Will said, as he pushed the boat from side to side in the hope of coming upon some exit from the place. "Serves 'em good and right!" exclaimed George. Will chuckled to himself and held a wet hand high up toward the roof of the chamber or passage. "There's a current of air here!" he said. "Then we won't smother to death!" George grunted. "And, look here," Will continued, as the boat bumped into a pyramid of shale which had been thrown up to within a few inches of the roof, "some one has been building this hill of refuse and using it for a refuge!" "It does look that way," George agreed. "That shows that at some time the water must have ascended to the very top of the wall. We may have to climb up there ourselves in order to keep from getting our clothing soaked in that ink down there!" The water rose higher and higher in the passage, and it seemed to the boys that by this time most of the lower gangways were entirely impassible. "It doesn't seem to me that the water in this blooming old mine could rise any faster if the whole Mississippi river were turned into it!" cried George in a tone of disgust. "If Canfield doesn't get his pumps going before long, he'll have a job here that'll take him all winter!" "I presume he's doing the best he can," Will argued. "For all we know, the boilers as well as the electric motors may have been tampered with. That would be just our luck!" "I wonder what's become of that bum detective?" asked George after a short silence. "We heard him rowing along in front of us one minute, and the next minute there wasn't a single sound to indicate that there was another boat in the mine." "As soon as I get out of this," Will stated, "I'm going to make it my business to find out whether that detective is regularly employed on this case. He looks to me like a crook!" It was dreary waiting there in the sealed-up chamber, and the boys found themselves dropping into long intervals of silence while they listened for the gurgle of the water which would indicate that the great pumps had been set in motion. During one of those intervals of silence, they heard sounds which brought them to their feet in great excitement. Almost unable to believe his ears, Will turned to George with a question on his lips: "Did you hear that?" he asked. "Of course I did!" "I did, too, but I thought I must be dreaming." "No dream about that!" replied George. "That's the call of the Beaver Patrol!" "And that means that Tommy and Sandy are not far away!" "We heard the call of the Wolf Patrol not long ago," suggested George. "I wonder if this blooming old mine is chock full of Boy Scouts of assorted sizes. There can't be too many here to please me!" The boys returned the Beaver call but no answer came. At times they thought they heard whispers coming from the dark reaches of the cavern, but they were not quite certain. "There may be real Beavers in here for all we know!" suggested Will. "That's all you know about it!" chuckled George. "Beavers only operate in running water." "Well, isn't that water out there running?" asked Will. "No jokes now!" replied George. "I've got all I can endure now without standing for any of your alleged witticisms!" While the boys sat in the boat, occasionally moving it from side to side, a shaft of light appeared directly above the point where the shale had been heaped up. It moved swiftly about for an instant and then dropped out of view. It was a moment before either boy spoke. "That's some of Tommy's foolishness!" Will declared. George repeated the Beaver call several times, but no answer came. "That's a searchlight, anyway!" insisted Will. "And I don't believe these ginks in the mines have electric searchlights to lug around with them!" Will unshipped an oar and struck the water with the flat of the blade several times, exerting his whole strength. "Keep it up!" advised George. "That sounds exactly like a beaver's tail connecting with the surface of a stream!" "Yes, keep it up!" cried a voice out of the darkness. "Keep it up, and perhaps some beaver'll come along and build a dam to get you out of that mess you're in! You're always getting into trouble, you two!" "You've got your nerve with you!" exclaimed Will, half-angrily. "Here you go out in the night and get lost, and we come out after you, and the mine gets flooded, and we get tied up between the solid wall and a bend in the passage, and then you blame us for getting into trouble!" "Can you climb?" chuckled Tommy, throwing the rays of his searchlight on the boat. "If you can, just mount up on that pile of shale and work your way through the opening between the two levels. This might have been used as a sort of an air hole a few hundred years ago," he went on, "but I'll bet that not one out of a hundred of the miners of today know that there is an opening here!" Leaving the boat, the boys mounted the pile of shale and were soon making their way up the rugged face of the shaft in the direction of the level, which ran along above the one now being flooded. "Can you find your way out of this dump, now?" asked Will as the boys stood with their chums at the end of a long passage. CHAPTER VII A TREACHEROUS FOE "There seems to be fewer twists and turns in this level than on the one below it," Tommy explained, "and I guess we can find our way out readily enough. If we don't," he went on, "I shall be obliged to eat a ton or two of coal to keep from starving to death." "Serves you right!" declared Will. "You had no business getting up in the middle of the night and wandering off into the mine!" "What did you do?" demanded Tommy. "We waited until morning, and then enlisted the services of the caretaker," replied Will. "So far as I can remember, this is about the nine hundredth relief expedition we've been out on in search of you boys!" "Seems to me," Tommy chuckled, "that you're the lads that were in need of the relief expedition! We found you boxed up in a chamber in a boat." "But we wouldn't have been in any such mess if we hadn't started out to look you up!" George declared. "We should have been back before you got out of bed this morning, if some one hadn't cut our string," replied Sandy. "We had a cinch on getting out, but some geezer led us a fool chase by cutting our cord and steering us around in a circle." "Did you see any one?" asked Will. "Not a soul!" was the reply. "But there's some one in here, just the same. We heard the call of the Wolf Patrol a long time ago and we've heard it several times since." "What do you mean by some one cutting your string?" asked George. "Why," replied Sandy, "we tied the loose end of a ball of twine to one of the shaft timbers and unwound the ball as we moved along, expecting to follow it back when we wanted to get out." "How do you know some one cut it?" asked Will. "Perhaps you broke it," George suggested. Sandy took a piece of the cord from his pocket and passed it over to George with a sly chuckle. "See if you can break that!" he said. George tried his best to break the string, but it remained firm under all his strength. The boys now fell into a discussion of the ways and means of getting out of the mine. "I believe," Sandy exclaimed, "that if we follow the current of air which the rising water is forcing out of this old shaft, we will come to the entrance. As you all know, a current of air takes the shortest way to any given point, and this one ought to blow straight toward the shaft." "Great head, that, little boy!" laughed Tommy. After proceeding some distance the steady thud, thud of the pumping machinery was heard, and the boys understood that the efforts of the caretaker were at last bringing results. The sounds also aided them in direction, and in a short time they stood at the shaft on the second level. When they came out to the timber work, Will, who was in the lead, motioned to the others to remain in the background. "What's doing now?" whispered Sandy. "There's a man working on the ladders," explained Will in a low whisper. "I can't see him yet, but I can hear the sound of a saw." "He may be cutting the rungs," suggested Tommy. "That's the notion I had," replied Will. "Suppose we all get around behind the air shaft and wait until we can find out what he is up to. It may be that bum detective, for all we know." "What would he be doing there?" questioned Sandy. "Sawing the rungs!" whispered Will. "He wouldn't cut them down, of course, but he might saw them so that they would break under our weight and give us a drop of a couple of hundred feet." "It doesn't seem as if any human being would do a thing like that!" cried George. "It would be a wicked thing to do!" While the boys whispered together, the sound of sawing continued. The man engaged at the task was evidently unfamiliar with such work, for they heard him puffing and blowing as the saw cut through the wood. "He's cutting the rungs, all right!" Will said in a moment. "And that cuts off our escape until the cables can be put in motion and the cages started. I wish I had him by the neck!" "We'll get him by the neck, all right, before many days," Sandy cut in, "if we can only get a sight of him so as to be sure of his identity." Presently the man ceased working, and they heard him ascending the ladders, step by step. In a moment the saw which he had been using dropped from his hands and clattered to the bottom of the shaft. Then they heard him springing swiftly forward, and directly they knew that he had reached the top. The boys all looked disgusted. "And we never caught sight of him!" exclaimed Tommy. Will now walked around to the front of the shaft and looked down. The saw which had been used lay shining on the lower level. "I'm going down after that!" he said in a moment. "Yes, you are!" whispered Tommy. "Got to have it!" insisted Will. "Well, go on and get it, then," laughed Sandy. "You've got to show me!" "I don't think he cut the rungs between this level and the next one," George interposed. "It may be safe to use the lower ladders." "I can soon find out!" Will declared. The cutting had been done between the second level and the top. The ladders below seemed perfectly safe. After testing them thoroughly, Will trusted himself on one of the rungs and let himself down slowly, bearing as much weight as was possible on the standards. He was at the bottom in a moment, and in another moment stood by the side of his chums with the saw in his hand. "I don't think that's so very much!" Tommy exclaimed. "Right here, then," Will explained, "is where you get your little Sherlock Holmes lesson! This is a new saw, as you all see. It probably never was used before. Now the man who did the cutting bought this at some nearby store. Don't you see what it means?" "That's a fact!" cried Tommy. "We can find out who bought the saw, and so discover the gink who tried to commit murder by sawing the ladders." "And look here," Will went on, "do you see these threads hanging to the teeth of the saw? Do you see the color?" "Blue!" replied the boys in a breath. "That's right, blue. Now, what sort of a suit did the detective wear this morning? It was blue, wasn't it?" "Sure it was!" replied George. "A blue serge! I noticed it particularly because it wasn't much of a fit." "Well, these are blue serge threads!" commented Will. "That's right, too," admitted Sandy. While the boys still stood at the second level they heard some one moving down from the top. Will rushed around to the ladder and looked up. He could not see the face of the man who was climbing down, but he could see that he did not wear a blue serge suit. In a moment he called out to him, asking some trivial question regarding the action of the pumps. When the man looked down he saw that it was Canfield. The caretaker seemed surprised at finding the boys at the second level. He kept on descending. "Wait!" Will called. "Stop where you are!" "But I've got to find out what's the matter with the machinery at the bottom," the caretaker called out. "There's something wrong there!" "Then you'd better take long steps," replied Will, "for if you put any weight on those rungs, you're likely to land at the bottom of the shaft. The rungs have been cut!" "I can't believe that!" replied Canfield. "Suppose you look and see!" The caretaker advanced cautiously downward until he came to where a fine line of sawdust lay on one of the rungs. "Do you know who did this?" he asked. "We think we do," replied Will, "but this isn't any time for long stories. The first thing for us to do is to get back into the breaker and cook Tommy and Sandy three or four breakfasts apiece!" "So you found them, did you?" asked Canfield. "No; we found them," shouted Tommy. "Well, how're you going to get out?" asked the caretaker. "Get a rope," directed Will, "and throw it over the sound rung lowest down, and we'll climb up until we can trust our weight on the ladder." This plan was followed, and in a short time the boys all stood, hungry and tired, in their room in the breaker. Tommy made an instantaneous dive for the provisions which had been brought in the night before. "Nice old time we've had!" he exclaimed, with his mouth full of pork and beans. "I guess we're some Boy Scouts after all!" "I'm going to tie you up tonight!" Will declared. While the boys talked and ate the caretaker darted to the door leading to the passage which ended at the shaft. He returned in a moment looking both angry and frightened. "The pumps have stopped!" he said. "The mine will probably be flooded before tomorrow morning! The very devil seems to have taken full charge here today. I never saw anything like it!" "There are boys in the mine who will be drowned!" exclaimed Tommy. "I'm not so sure of that!" answered Canfield. "It was only a suggestion on my part that the boys we are in search of have taken refuge under ground. I think I must have been mistaken!" "Do you know whether these breaker boys belonged to the Boy Scouts or not?" asked Will. "Did you ever see any medals or badges on their clothing which told of Boy Scout experiences?" "Sure they belong to the Boy Scouts!" declared the caretaker, "and that is the very reason why I sent for Boy Scouts to help find them." "What Patrol did they belong to?" asked Will. "If you had heard them howling like wolves around the breaker night after night," was the reply, "you wouldn't ask what patrol they belonged to!" "Then they are in the mine!" shouted Tommy. "We all heard the call of the pack, but the funny thing is that they wouldn't show themselves." CHAPTER VIII "THEY WENT UP IN THE AIR!" "There's something funny-about those boys!" exclaimed Canfield. "They seemed to be merry-hearted fellows, just a little bit full of mischief, but for some reason they never mixed with the others much." "Where did they come from when they came here?" asked Will. "The information in the letters I received from the attorney in charge of the case is that they came here from New York, not directly but by some round-about way." "Did this attorney ever inform you why he wanted the boys found?" asked Tommy. "Are we all working in the dark?" "He never told me why he wanted the boys found. For all I know, they may be wanted for some crime, or they may be heirs to an immense property. My instructions are to find them. That's all!" "Where did these boys lodge?" asked Will. "They didn't have any regular room," was the reply. "They slept in the breaker whenever the watchman would permit them to do so, and when he wouldn't, they threw stones at him and slept in the railroad yard somewhere. But the strangest part of the whole business is the way they disappeared from sight." "You didn't tell us about that!" exclaimed Sandy. "I meant to," the caretaker answered. "The last seen of them here they were at work on the breaker. It was somewhere near the middle of the afternoon, and the cracker boss had been particularly ugly. The two boys were often caught whispering together, and more than once the cracker boss had launched such trifles as half pound blocks of shale at them. I happened to be on the outside just about that time." "The boys didn't go up in the air, did they?" asked Sandy with a chuckle. "They haven't got wings, have they?" "To all intents and purposes, they went up into the air!" answered the caretaker. "One moment they were on the breaker sorting slate and stuff of that kind out of the stream of coal which was pouring down upon them, and the next moment they were nowhere in sight!" "Had any strangers been seen talking with them?" "Now you come to a point that I should have mentioned before!" replied the caretaker. "Two days before they left a strange boy came to the mine and went to work on the breaker. He was an unusually well-mannered, well-dressed young fellow, and so the breaker boys called him a dude. He resented this, of course, and there was a fight at the first quitting time. These two boys, Jimmie and Dick, stood by the new lad, and gave three or four of the tough little chaps who work on the breaker a good beating up." "Now we've got hold of something!" exclaimed Will. "Were these three boys together much after that?" "No," was the reply. "The new boy thanked Jimmie and Dick for helping him through his scrape, and that was about all. They might have talked together for five minutes that night, but they were never seen, in each other's company again so far as I know." "How long did this new boy stay here?" asked George. "He quit the next day." "He didn't go up in a pillar of fire, did he?" grinned Sandy. "No, he walked up to the office and asked if he could get his pay for the time he had worked. The boss told him he'd have to wait until Saturday night, and he turned up his nose and walked out." "And where did he go?" asked George. "He said he was going down the river in a boat," answered the caretaker. "He bought an old boat, stocked it with quite a supply of provisions, and started on his way. The next day the boat was found bottom side up on a bar, and the lad's hat lay on the bank not far away." "Do you think he was drowned?" asked Sandy. "It would seem so." "Drowned nothing!" exclaimed Tommy. "He sneaked those provisions into the mine under cover of the darkness, and the three little rascals are feeding on them yet. You can see the end of that without a telescope!" "Now, smarty!" exclaimed George. "You've told us where the boys went, and where the provisions landed, and all that, now tell us why these kids hid themselves in the mine. And while you are about it, you may as well tell why they gave the Wolf call and refused to reply." "This story," replied Tommy with a grin, "is not a novelette, complete in one number. It's a serial story, and will be continued in our next issue. What did you say about the pumps stopping, Mr. Canfield?" "They've stopped, all right!" the caretaker replied. "Are you going to let the ginks flood the mine?" asked Sandy. "While I was out a few moments ago," Canfield explained, "I notified one of the clerks in the company's office to send up a gang of men to repair the machinery. They ought to be here by this time." "How long will it take to repair the pump?" asked Tommy. "It may take an hour and it may take twenty-four." "In the meantime," Tommy continued, "do you think you could send one of the county officers out to round up this bum detective?" "You mean that you want him watched?" asked Canfield. "Sure!" answered Tommy. "He sawed the rungs in the shaft, didn't he? He could get ten years for that!" "All right," replied Canfield. "I'll send word out and have him arrested if you are positive that he is the man that did the cutting." "We are positive that he's the man," replied Will, "but it'll spoil everything if you have him arrested. We want to give him a free hand for a time, and see what he will do. He's a crook, and he's bound to show it! And another thing," the boy went on, "we don't want anyone to know that he is under suspicion. We just want him watched." "You're handling the case," smiled Canfield, "and I'll take any steps you advise. I can't tell you how sorry I am that I brought the detective in here this morning!" "Well," Will said, "we put up a bluff about getting out of town and perhaps we can make that stick. We can take a train out and come back in on a lonely freight, and get into the mine without his knowing anything about it. The mine is the best place to work from, anyway!" "That's why I wanted to know how soon the mine could be pumped out!" stated Tommy. "I don't care about wading around in a mess of water that's blacker than a stack of black cats." "I think I can have the mine fairly dry by the time you boys get out of town and back again!" laughed Canfield. "Well," Tommy said, "then you'd better get a couple of dry-goods boxes and fill them full of good things to eat, and drop 'em down to the first level. Perhaps you know of a cosy little chamber there where we can set up housekeeping." "I know just the place," said the caretaker. "To the left of the old tool house there's a room where odd articles of every description have been stored for any number of years. The blacksmith and the fire-boss used to go there to smoke and tell stories, if I remember right." "Does anyone ever go there now?" asked Will. "Not that I know of," was the reply. "Then we'll drop down there some time towards morning," Will decided. "And in the meantime," he added, with a wink at his chums, "we'll be looking for a boy tramp out in the railroad yards." "What do you mean by that?" asked the caretaker. "Oh, I've just got an idea," replied Will, "that there's a kid hanging around this part of the country whom we ought to interview." "But I don't understand." "You wait until we get hold of him, and you'll understand all right!" laughed Will. "We just need that boy!" "But how do you know there is such a boy?" urged the caretaker. "He gets it out of a dream book!" Tommy chuckled. "Do you mean to say that there is some go-between between the boys who may or may not be in the mine and some persons outside who are interested in them?" asked the caretaker. "I didn't say anything of the kind!" replied Will. "There are times," Tommy explained to Canfield, "when the gift of frank speech is taken away from Will, so you mustn't blame him for not answering. He'll tell you all about it when the time comes." The caretaker went away with a puzzled look on his honest face. CHAPTER IX WHO DISCOVERED THE LEAK? "You've got to explanation me," George laughed, as the caretaker left the room, and the boys began picking up their clothing, preparatory to the alleged journey. "I can't understand what you mean by saying that you'll watch out for a boy tramp in the railroad yards." "It's a sure thing, isn't it?" Will asked, "that the boys we are in search of are in the mine? We don't know what they're in there for. They may be hiding there because of some fool notion they have in their heads, or they may have been sent here for some definite purpose." "You bet they've been sent here for some definite purpose," George replied. "They never came here to work on the breaker without having some well-defined motive. Boys answering to their description don't accept such jobs as they accepted here!" "Well, the boys are in the mine," Will continued. "As stated, we don't know what they're there for, but we know they're there. Now, this third boy comes to the mine and works just long enough to get in touch with the other two. Then he disappears." "Buys a lot of provisions and goes down the river to leave his hat on the bank!" laughed Tommy. "I guess that was a pretty poor imitation of a suicide or a drowning accident, either!" "But this boy didn't get to be intimate with the two breaker boys," contended George. "He talked with them about two minutes after the fight, according to Canfield, but paid no further attention to them after that. If he had any secret understanding with them, he must have done a whole lot of talking in a mighty short space of time." "The right kind of a boy can say a good deal in a minute and half!" laughed Tommy. "But suppose we let Will go on and explanation us about that boy tramp in the railroad yards. I think I know what he's getting at, but I'm not quite certain. Go on, Will, it's up to you." "In order to make the connection," laughed Will. "I'll state for the third time that we know that the boys are in the mine. It may also be well to state, once more, that we are reasonably certain that this third boy came to the mine for the specific purpose of communicating with the other two. Now, this boy didn't drop into the river. He dropped the provisions he bought for the boat into the coal mine, and left them there for the consumption of the two boys inside. That's reasonable, isn't it?" "Fine deduction, as Sherlock Holmes would say to Watson!" laughed George. "But this third boy," Will went on, "doesn't go into the mine. He stays outside to serve as a means of communication between the boys who are hiding in the mine and some interested person or persons on the outside. That's perfectly clear, isn't it?" "That'll do very well for a theory," replied George. "I'll go you a plate of cookies," argued Sandy, "that Will is right, and that this third boy is hanging around taking messages from the two boys in the mine and also to the two boys in the mine." "Didn't I say it was all right for a theory?" chuckled George. "Now, the point is this," Will continued. "What are those boys in the mine for? What do they want there? Why didn't they answer our Boy Scout challenge when we replied to their call of the pack?" "If you don't ask so many questions, you won't get so many negative answers," Sandy advised. "We're here to find the boys, and I don't see that it makes any difference to us what they're in there for." "But we've found the boys now," contended Tommy. "We haven't got our hands on them yet, of course, but we know they're in there, and we know it's only a question of time when we get hold of them." "Well," Will insisted, "I'm going to find a motive before I quit the case. I'm going to know who sent those boys here, and all about it, before I make any report to Mr. Horton." "Go as far as you like," laughed Tommy. "My bump of curiosity is growing half an inch a day, and will continue to spread out until I find out exactly what those boys are doing burrowing in a deserted mine." "Now, we'll get back to the point we started from," Will explained. "This boy who is undoubtedly doing duty outside the mine in the interests of the persons who sent the two boys in, furnishes the clue to the whole situation! When we find him, and find out what he's up to, and trace any communications he may make back to their original source, we'll have the whole case tied up tight!" "That's right!" declared Tommy. "We'll have the case tied up tight if we succeed in getting hold of this third boy." "Oh, go on!" laughed Sandy. "We'll be picking third boys and fourth boys and fifth boys out of the air, first thing you know. We never went away on a Boy Scout expedition yet that we didn't find all manner of kids hanging around on purpose to be discovered. We found them on Old Superior; and in the Everglades; and on the Great Continental Divide; and up in the Hudson Bay country, we began to think we had stumbled on the center of population so far as Boy Scouts were concerned!" "There's just one thing that's likely to make us trouble," Will resumed. "And that is the fact that Canfield very foolishly slopped over to Ventner when explaining the purpose of our visit here. That bum detective knows now that we're here to search the mine. Of course he might have received, as Canfield says, the most of his information from outside sources, but the caretaker should have thrown him off the track instead of telling him exactly what our mission here was." "But Ventner came here to search for the boys himself!" George broke in. "At least, he says that he did." "There's a mystery about the whole matter," Sandy declared, "and I'd like to help clear it up from beginning to end!" "We're likely to have a chance!" laughed Tommy. "What are we going to do all the afternoon?" George asked. "Wander around town," smiled Will, "and find out about the evening train, and ask fool questions about the pumps and the mine, and laugh at the idea of anybody living in there. That'll give Ventner the idea that we're going for good, I reckon. He's a pretty bum skate to pose as a detective!" "I'll tell you what I'm going to do most of the afternoon!" Tommy declared. "I'm going to the hay! I never felt so bunged up for want of sleep in my innocent life." "Haven't you forgotten something?" asked Sandy. "Sure!" shouted Tommy. "I'm forgetting to eat!" "And you're forgetting something else!" insisted Sandy. "Nix on the forget!" declared Tommy. "When I forget my eatings and sleepings, the world will come to an end!" "You forgot to read a chapter in your dream book!" said Sandy. "Never you mind that dream book," Tommy replied. "Whenever you want to find the answer to any puzzle, you look in that dream book!" After eating another hearty meal the boys, having already packed their wardrobes, locked the door of their room and addressed themselves to slumber. They were awakened about five o'clock by a loud knocking on the door, and presently they heard the voice of Canfield calling to them. "Wake up, boys!" he cried. "I have good news for you!" "All right, let her go!" shouted Tommy. "The pumps are working, and the water is lowering in the mine!" "That's nice!" laughed Sandy. "And we've found out what caused the sudden flooding," the caretaker went on. "It seems that a partition, or wall, between the Labyrinth and the Mixer mines unaccountably gave way. The Mixer mine has been flooded for a long time and, as it lies above the level of the Labyrinth, the water naturally flowed into our mine as soon as the wall was down." "But what caused the partition to fall?" asked Will, opening the door for the admission of the caretaker. "No one knows!" was the answer. "If you look about a little," Tommy suggested, "I think you'll find traces of dynamite. Who discovered the break in the dividing wall?" "A gang under the leadership of Ventner, the detective!" was the reply. The caretaker was very much surprised and not a little annoyed at the effect his answer had upon the four boys. "I don't see anything humorous about that!" he said as the lads threw themselves down on the bunks and roared with laughter. "It looks funny to me!" Tommy replied. "If we had never showed up here, the mine wouldn't have been flooded. As soon as we start away or promise to leave the district, which amounts to the same thing, this cheap skate of a detective finds the break, and all is well again!" "Why, you don't think that he had anything to do with the trouble at the mine, do you?" questioned the caretaker. "Oh, of course not!" replied Sandy. "Ventner had nothing to do with cutting the ladder! That fellow will land in state's prison if he keeps on trying to murder boys by sawing ladder rungs!" "I had forgotten that," said Canfield. "Well, don't forget that this man Ventner is playing the chief villain's role in this drama!" Tommy advised. "And another thing you mustn't forget," the boy continued, "is that you're not to say a word to him that will inform him that he is suspected." "I think I can remember that!" replied the caretaker. The boys prepared a hasty supper and then, suit cases in hand, started for the little railway station. There they inquired about the arrival and departure of trains, bought tickets, and made themselves as conspicuous as possible about the depot. "Keep your eye out for the third boy," George chuckled, as the lads walked up and down the platform. "Don't get excited about the third boy," Will replied. "We'll find him when the right time comes!" "There's Ventner!" exclaimed Tommy as the detective came rushing down the platform. "Of course the good, kind gentleman would want to bid us farewell!" "I'd like to crack him over the coco!" exclaimed Sandy. "I'll bet he's got some kind of a fake story to tell," suggested Will. "He looks like a man who had been working his imagination overtime!" "News of the two boys!" shouted the detective as he came up smiling. CHAPTER X THE BOY IN THE "EMPTY" "Didn't I tell you," whispered Will, "that he is there with a product of his imagination? If you leave it to him, the two boys we're in search of are somewhere on the Pacific slope!" "He must think we're a lot of suckers to take in any story he'll tell!" whispered Tommy. "A person that couldn't get next to his game ought to be locked Up in the foolish house!" "I've just heard from a railway brakeman," Ventner said, rushing up to the boys with an air of importance, "that the two lads you are in search of were seen leaving a box car at a little station in Ohio. I don't just recall the name of the station now, but I can find it by looking on the map! It seems the lads left here on the night following their departure from the breaker, and stole their passage to this little town I'm telling you about." "Good thing you came to the depot," declared Will. "We should have been out of town in ten minutes more!" "Where is this town?" asked George, thinking it best to show great interest in the statement made by the detective. "It's a little place on the Lake Erie & Western road!" was the answer. The detective took a railroad folder from his pocket and consulted a map. It seemed to take him a long time to decide upon a place, but he finally spread the map out against the wall of the station and laid his finger on a point on the Lake Erie & Western railroad. "Nankin is the name of the place. Strange I should have forgotten the name of the place. They were put out of the car at Nankin, and are believed to have started down the railroad right of way on foot." "But you said they were seen leaving the car at Nankin!" Tommy cut in. "Now you say they were put out of the car!" "Well, they were chased out of the car, and that covers both statements," replied the detective somewhat nervously. "Thank you very much for the information!" Will exclaimed as the train the boys were to take came rolling into the station. "The pointer is undoubtedly a good one, and we'll take a look at the country about Nankin." There was a crossing not more than six miles from the station where the boys had taken the train, and they were all ready to jump when the engineer slowed down and whistled his note of warning. It was quite dark, although stars were showing in a sky plentifully scattered over with clouds and, as the boys dropped down out of the illumination of the windows as soon as they struck the ground, they were not seen to leave the train by any of the passengers. In a moment the train rushed on, leaving the four standing on the roadbed looking disconsolately in the direction of the town. "Now for a good long hike!" exclaimed Tommy. "It's for your own good!" laughed Sandy. "I can always tell when anything's for my own good," Tommy contended. "You don't look it!" chuckled Sandy. "When anything's for my own good," the boy continued, "it's always disagreeable! It makes me think of a story I read once where the man complained that everything he ever wanted in this world was either expensive, indigestible or immoral." "Well, get on the hike!" laughed George. "You can stand here and moralize till the cows come home, and it won't move you half an inch in the direction of the mine!" "And look here," Will exclaimed as the boys started up the grade, "when we get within sight of the lights of the station, we must scatter and keep our traps closed! We can all make for the mine by different routes. Ventner thinks we are out of town now, and the chances are that he'll be plugging around trying to accomplish some purpose known only to himself. For my part I don't believe he is employed on the same case we are! He's working here for some outside parties!" "That's the way it strikes me!" George agreed. "If the detective had been honestly trying to assist us, the mine wouldn't have been flooded, the pumps wouldn't have broken down, and the electric motors would have been found in excellent working order." "Did you notice the suit he had on when he stood talking with us at the station?" asked Will. "That was a blue serge suit, wasn't it?" "It surely was!" Tommy declared, quick to catch the point. "And there was a tear down the front of it which looked as if it had been made by the scraping of a saw! I guess if you'll match the shreds we found on the saw with the breaks in that coat front you'll find where the saw got in its work, all right!" "And there was a cut on his hand, too!" Sandy observed. "Looked like he had bounced the saw off one of the rungs on top of a finger." "Oh, he's a clever little boy all right!" Tommy cut in. "But he forgot to leave his brass band at home when he went out to cut into that ladder! If he does all his work the way he did that job, he'll be sitting in some nice, quiet state's prison before he's six months older." When the boys came within a quarter of a mile of the station lights, they parted, Will and George turning off from the right of way and Sandy and Tommy keeping on for half a dozen rods. When the four boys were finally clear of the tracks they were walking perhaps twenty rods apart, and at right angles with the right of way. "Now, as we approach the mine," Will cautioned his companion, "keep your eye out for Ventner and this third boy. They are both likely to be chasing around in the darkness." The route to the mine taken by Tommy and his chum crossed a network of tracks, led up to the weigh-house and so on into the breaker. As they came to a line of empty cars standing on a spur they heard a movement in one of the empties and crouched down to listen. "There's some one in there!" declared Tommy. "Some old bum, probably!" This from Sandy who had recently bumped his shins on a pile of ties and was not in a very pleasant humor. "It may be the boy we're looking for!" urged Tommy. Sandy sat down on the end of a tie and rubbed his bruised shin vigorously, muttering and protesting against railroad yards in general and this one in particular as he did so. Tommy made his way under the empty and sat listening, his ear almost against the bottom of the car. Presently he heard a movement above and then it seemed to him that something of considerable weight was being dragged across the floor. This was followed in a moment by a slight groan, and then a shadowy figure leaped from the open side door and started away in the darkness. Now Sandy had been warned to hang onto the third boy like grim death if he caught sight of him. He saw this figure bounce out of the car and start away. Therefore, he promptly reached out a foot and tripped the unknown to the ground. He fell with a grunt of anger and pain and lay rolling on the cinders which lined the roadbed for a moment without speaking. In the meantime, Tommy had crawled out from under the car and stood ready to seize any second person who might make his appearance. Almost immediately a second body came bouncing out of the empty. Instead of starting away on a run, however, the second person stopped where Sandy stood beside the wiggling figure and looked down upon it. "Hand him one!" he said in a boy's voice. "Who is it?" asked Sandy. "Don't know!" was the reply. "What was he doing to you?" "He was trying to rob me!" "I don't think a man would get rich robbing people who ride in empties!" laughed Sandy. "I shouldn't think their bank rolls would make much of a hit with a bold, bad highwayman!" "There's men riding the rods," was the reply, "who would kill a boy for a dime! If I wasn't opposed to cruelty to animals, I'd give this fellow a beating up right now. He tried to drag me from the car by the leg and nearly broke my ankle!" "I heard him dragging you across the floor!" Tommy said, coming up to where the two boys stood. "Can you see who it is?" he added. "He's just a tramp!" the other replied. "I saw him sneaking around the empties just before dark." "Why were you sleeping in an empty?" asked Sandy. "Because I like plenty of fresh air!" replied the boy with a chuckle. While the boys talked the tramp arose and sneaked away, limping over the ties as if tickled to death to get out of the way of the three youngsters. As he disappeared in the darkness Tommy turned to the boy who had dropped out of the car to ask him a question. The boy was nowhere to be seen. "Now we've gone and done it!" cried Sandy. "I guess we have!" agreed Tommy. "We've let the third boy get away from us! And we couldn't have done a worse thing!" he went on, "because the boys in the mine will know that we are still in this vicinity!" While the boys stood blaming themselves the sharp call of the Wolf pack came to them. CHAPTER XI A KNOCK AT THE DOOR When Will and George came to the back of the weigh-house they heard some one moving about at the front. "That's probably the caretaker, taking his last look for the night," suggested Will. "He pokes around all the outbuildings every night before he goes to bed. At least, he is supposed to." "But this fellow hasn't got any lantern," urged George. "The plot deepens!" chuckled Will. "Can you crawl around there and see who it is," asked George, "or shall I go? It may be a thief, or it may be Ventner, or it may be this boy we're looking for. Anyway, we want to know who it is!" "I'll go!" Will suggested, "and don't you make any racket if you hear something doing there. The one thing to do at this time is to keep our presence here a profound secret." Will moved cautiously around the angle of the weigh-house just in time to see a figure leaving the side of the building and moving toward the breaker. There was a little side door in the breaker not far from the weigh-house, and it was toward this that the prowler was making his way. Half way to the little house the fellow stumbled over some obstruction in his path and fell sprawling to the ground. He arose with an impatient oath and moved on again, but not before the watcher had recognized both the figure and the voice. Will turned back to where George stood. "That's Ventner," he said. "Are you sure?" "Dead sure!" There was a short silence. "What can we do now?" "I don't know of anything we can do, unless it is to watch the rascal and see where he goes," answered the other. "The chances are that he's trying to get into the mine!" "That shows that the fellow's a crook," Will contended. "He has full permission to enter the mine at any time he sees fit." "Of course, he's a crook!" agreed George. "What would he be sneaking around here in the night for, if he wasn't engaged in some underhand game? You just wait until we get into the mine," the boy continued, "and we'll give him a ghost scare that'll hold him for a while." As Ventner approached the little side door leading into the breaker, a light flashed in the window of the room which the boys had occupied, and directly Canfield's voice was heard asking: "Who's there?" "Now if he's on the square, hell answer!" whispered Will. There was no reply whatever, and in a moment the caretaker called again, this time rather peremptorily: "What are you prowling about the yard for?" The detective dropped to his knees and began crawling away. "If I see you around here again," the caretaker shouted in a braver tone now that the intruder was taking his departure, "I'll do some shooting!" Evidently giving over the attempt to enter the mine at that time, the detective arose to his feet as soon as he gained the shelter of the weigh-house, and walked away, passing as he did so, within a few feet of where the boys were standing. "That settles that bum detective, so far as we are concerned!" Will said to his chum, in a whisper. "We knew before that he was playing a rotten game on us, but we didn't know that his plans included such surreptitious visits to the mine." After making sure that the detective was not within sight or sound, Will and George tapped softly at the little door and were admitted by the caretaker. Five minutes later they were joined by Tommy and Sandy. "Were you boys out there a few moments ago?" asked Canfield. "Nix!" replied George. "That was Ventner. We saw him from the weigh-house. He was trying to sneak his way into the mine!" "But he has full permission to enter at any time he sees fit!" urged the caretaker. "It doesn't seem as if he would attempt to steal his way in during the night. You must be mistaken!" "Yes, and perhaps we were mistaken about the sawing of the ladder, too!" Tommy broke in. "Yes, we may all be mistaken about that." "Not so you could notice it!" declared Sandy. "If you look at the thief's coat, you'll see that he didn't do all the sawing on the rungs of the ladder. We've got him too dead to skin!" Without any lights being shown on the surface, the boys were conducted down the ladder to the first level. There they found a room very cosily furnished, indeed. A lounge from the office, a couple of good sized cupboards, and a large table had been brought down, together with a serviceable rug and numerous chairs, and the apartment presented an unexpectedly homelike appearance. The current was on, and two electric lamps made the room as light as day. The cooking was to be done over electric coils so that the presence of the boys would not be disclosed by smoke. One of the ventilating pipes which supplied the offices in the vicinity of the shaft with fresh air passed through the room, so there was no lack of ozone. "Have we got plenty of eatings?" asked Tommy. "Plenty!" was the reply. "I have arranged for fresh meat, milk and vegetables to be brought in every evening." "Talk about your bull-headed, obstinate men!" exclaimed Tommy, as the caretaker finally took his departure. "That fellow takes the cake! He knows very well that we caught Ventner in the act of sawing on the ladder, and he knows, too, that we heard Wolf calls while we were in the mine. Still, he shakes his head and says that he don't know about the boys being there, and don't know about that bum detective being crooked. If you could get a saw and operate on his head, you'd find it solid bone!" "You'll feel better after you get supper!" Sandy declared. "This isn't any grouch!" insisted Tommy. "This is the true story of that man's life! If I had a dollar for every time he doesn't know anything, I'd be the richest boy in the world!" "Are you thinking of going down the mine tonight?" asked George, with a wink at Will. "We might try another midnight excursion." "If you kids go into the mine tonight," declared Will, "I'll send you both back to Chicago on the first train!" "Aw, how are you going to find these boys if you don't go into the mine?" demanded Tommy. "I suppose you'll want us to wait till daylight when the owners will be looking around to see if any damage was done by the inundation. The best time is at night!" "Look here," Will argued, "we've got to do more than lay hands on the boys! We've got to find out why they are hiding in the mine." "That's the correct word," agreed George. "Hiding is the word that expresses the situation exactly!" "There is no doubt," Will continued, "that the boys were sent here by some one for some specific purpose. They are hiding in the mine with a well-defined motive. I have an idea that we might be able to find them in twenty-four hours, but what is more important, is to find out what they are up to." "Well, in order to get the whole story, we'll have to pretend that we are looking for them and can't find them!" George said. "That's right!" laughed Tommy. "Give them plenty of rope and they'll hang themselves. We may as well have the whole story while we're at it." Before preparing their beds for the night, the boys paid a visit to the shaft and made their way down to the rungs which had been cut. They found that they had been replaced by new ones. There was still water in the lower levels of the mine, but it was slowly disappearing through the sump, and the indications were that it would be dry by morning. The boys listened intently for some evidence of occupancy as they moved up and down the shaft, but all was still. "This would be a good place to tell a ghost story," Tommy chuckled as they moved back to their room on the first level. "There's about a million stories now, entitled The Ghost of the Mine!" declared Sandy. "Perhaps however," he went on, "one more wouldn't hurt." "If I see a ghost tonight," declared Tommy, "it'll be in my dreams!" Sandy and Tommy were sound asleep on their cots as soon as supper was over, and Will and George were getting ready to retire when the soft patter of a light footstep sounded in the vicinity of the shaft. "Rats must be thick in the mine!" suggested George. "Rats nothing!" declared Will. "Those two youngsters are prowling about in order to see what we are up to!" As he spoke the boy arose, turned off the electric light and stepped out into the passage. CHAPTER XII A MIDNIGHT ROBBER There was a quick scamper of feet as Will stepped out, then silence! "Where did he go?" asked George, joining his chum on the outside. "Down the ladder!" replied Will. "Why don't we go and see where he went?" "That might be a good idea," Will replied. "Do you think it's safe for us to try to navigate that shaft in the dark?" "We can stick to the ladders, can't we?" asked George. "We ought to find out where the kids hang out," Will argued. "I'd like to get my hands on one of them!" "I don't think we're likely to do that tonight," George answered. "It seems to me that about the only way we can catch those fellows is to set a bear trap. They seem to be rather slippery." Will, clad only in pajamas and slippers, moved toward the shaft, and looked down. It was dark and still below, and he turned back with a little shudder. The situation was not at all to his liking. "Well, are you going down?" asked George. "Sure, I'm going down!" Will answered. "I'm only waiting to get up my nerve! It looks pretty dreary down there. If we could use a light I wouldn't mind, but it's pretty creepy going down that hole in the darkness." "Then suppose we wait until morning," suggested George. Will leaned against the shaft timbers and laughed. "It'll be just as dark in here in the morning, as it is now!" he said. "I think we'd better go on down tonight and see if we can locate the fellows." The two boys passed swiftly down the ladder, paused a moment at the second level, and then passed on to the third. The gangways leading out from the shaft were reasonably dry now. Lower down the dip they were still under a few inches of water. "I don't see how we're going to discover anybody down in this blooming old well!" George grumbled. "There might be a regiment of state troops here and we wouldn't be able to see a single soldier!" "We can't show a light, for all that!" declared Will. "We've just got to wait and see if _they_ won't be kind enough to show a light." "You guessed it," chuckled George, whispering softly in his chum's ear, "there's a glimmer of light, now!" "I see it!" Will replied. The boys left the ladder and moved out into the center gangway. They could see a light flickering some distance in advance, and had no difficulty in following it. "That's an electric torch!" Will commented. "Perhaps, if we follow along, we'll be able to track them to their nest," George suggested, "and, still, I don't care about getting very far away from the shaft. We might get lost in these crooked passages." "Yes," replied Will. "Some one might head us off, too. I don't care about being held up here in pajamas." The mine was damp and cold, and a wind was sweeping up the passage toward the shaft. The boys shivered as they walked, yet kept resolutely on until the light they were following left the main gangway and disappeared in a cross heading. "That means 'Good-night' for me," whispered Will, "for I'm not going to get out beyond the reach of the rails. I guess well have to go back and invent some other means of trapping those foxy boys." As Will spoke the light reappeared and moved on down the gangway again. Then, for the first time, the boys saw a figure outlined against the illumination. Will caught his chum by the arm excitedly. "That isn't one of the boys at all!" he exclaimed. "Well, how large a population do you think this mine has!" demanded George. "If it isn't one of the boys, who is it?" "That bum detective!" answered Will. "So he got in here at last, did he?" chuckled George. "Well, it's up to us to find out what he's doing in here!" "Do you think that is the gink who was prowling around our room?" asked Will. "If he is, then our little trip in the country doesn't count for much!" "The fellow who visited us," George argued, "was light and quick on his feet. This bum detective waddles along like an old cow." "Then we've passed the boy who called to see us, and failed to leave a card," grinned Will. "We may meet him as we return!" "Here's hoping we bump straight into him if we do meet him," George exclaimed. "I'm just aching to get my hands on that fellow!" "I'm not particularly anxious to catch him just yet," Will suggested. "I want to find out what the kids are up to before we pounce down upon them." While the boys stood in the passage, whispering together, the light moved on until it came to a chamber which seemed to be rather shallow, for the reflection of the searchlight was still in the gangway. "Now we've got him!" exclaimed Will. "I think I remember that chamber, and, unless I'm very much mistaken, it opens only on this passage! While he's poking around in there, we'll sneak up and see what he's doing!" Before the boys reached the entrance to the chamber they heard the sounds of a pick. When they came nearer and looked in they saw the detective poking away at a heap of "gob" which lay in one corner of the excavation. He worked industriously, and apparently without fear of discovery. Now and then he stooped down to peer into a crevice in the wall, but soon went on again. "I wonder if he thinks he can find two boys in that heap of refuse?" laughed George. "I wonder why he don't use a microscope." The detective busied himself at the heap of refuse for a considerable length of time, and then began a further investigation of little breaks in the wall. Using his pick to enlarge the openings he made a systematic search of one break after another. "Looks like he might be hunting after some pirate treasure," George chuckled. "I never heard of Captain Kidd sailing over into the sloughs of Pennsylvania. Did you?" "That tells the story!" Will whispered. "The fellow is here on some mission of his own. That story of his about being in quest of the boys is all a bluff! I reckon he had heard somewhere that two boys were missing and came here with the fairy tale!" "Well, he's got a good, large mine to look in if he's in search of treasure," George suggested. "He can spend the rest of his days here, provided the operators don't get sore on him." While the boys looked, Ventner turned toward the entrance to the chamber, and they scampered away. Turning back, they saw him pass out of the place where he had been working and into a similar excavation farther on. There he worked as industriously as before. "You see how it is," Will suggested. "The fellow is hunting for something, and doesn't know where to look for it! So it's all right to let him go ahead with his quest for hidden wealth, or whatever it is he's after. When he finds it, we'll not be far away!" "I like this walking about in my naked feet," George grunted in a moment. "I had my slippers on when I came down the ladder, but I either had to take them off and carry them in my hands or lose them in the mud." "Same here!" Will said. "I'm going back to my little cot bed right now and go to sleep. I think we have the detective sized up and we can catch the kids some other night." "Me for the hay, too," George exclaimed. "I don't think I was ever quite so sleepy in my life!" "Now, on the way back," Will cautioned, "we ought to keep still and keep a sharp lookout for the person who was sneaking around our quarters." "Whoever it was may be between us and the shaft," George suggested. "If I thought so," Will argued, "I'd just stand around and wait until they pass us on the way in. I don't want to find those boys just now. There's a mystery connected with this mine which the caretaker knows nothing about, and which Mr. Horton never referred to when he sent us down here. "We wouldn't be able to breathe if we didn't discover an air of mystery every fifteen minutes," George declared. Half way back to the shaft, the boys, who were walking very softly in their stockinged feet, heard a rattle as of a moving stone or piece of coal in the passage, and at once drew up against the side wall. While they stood there, scarcely daring to breathe, they sensed that some one was passing them in the darkness. The tread was light and brisk, and they thought they heard a soft chuckle as the unseen figure breezed by them. "I'll bet the lad who was listening near our door never came down the shaft until after we did!" George whispered after the figure had passed by. "That's very likely!" agreed Will. "Then he may have been poking around our quarters while we have been gone." "That's very likely, too." Believing the way to be clear now, the boys hastened on toward the shaft. Just as they reached the foot of the ladder they heard a sound which sent the blood throbbing to their cheeks. "He's making fun of us!" exclaimed George. "It looks like it," admitted Will. The sound they heard was the low, complaining snarl of the Wolf. "The nerve of him!" exclaimed George. "Perhaps he'll answer now!" Will suggested. Then followed the "slap, slap, slap!" of the Beaver Patrol. No answer came from the darkness beyond the shaft. "He's got his nerve with him!" declared Will. "When I get hold of him, I'll teach him to answer Boy Scout challenges!" When the boys got back to their quarters they found Tommy and Sandy sitting in the darkness with their automatics and their searchlights in their hands. One of them turned on a finger of light as the boys entered but immediately shut it off again. "What's coming off here?" demanded Will. "Do you know what those fellows did?" asked Tommy. "They came here while we were asleep and stole about half our provisions!" CHAPTER XIII ONE MORE HUNGRY BOY "We may as well turn on the lights!" Will said. "If any one comes in here to steal Tommy's necktie," he added with a wink at his chum, "we want to see what he looks like." "Why didn't you stay here and watch, then?" demanded Tommy. "Why did you go off and leave the camp all alone? I heard people moving around, and I thought it was you." Will and George sat down on the edge of their cots and laughed. "Yes, you thought it was me!" Will said directly. "You never heard a thing! You'd better look and see if the midnight visitors didn't steal your pajamas. Or they might have taken your pillow." Tommy threw a shoe at his tormentor and turned on the electric light. "Now that I'm awake," he said with a sly grin, "I think that I'll get myself something to eat. Seems to me I'm always hungry." While the boy rattled among canned goods and candled eggs to see if they were fit for a four-minute boil, Sandy turned to George. "What did you find in the mine?" he asked. "We found that bum detective nosing around. We've got his number now, all right," the boy went on, "and there's something in the mine that he wants to find and he doesn't know where to look for it. He isn't looking for Jimmie and Dick any more than we're looking for a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow. I don't believe he was ever sent here to make a search for the missing boys!" "What was he doing when you saw him?" asked Sandy. "Poking around in worked-out chambers with a pick!" "Did he see you?" "You bet he didn't! Do you think we're going to walk six miles in from the country in order to dodge the detective, and then let him run across us in the mine?" "Yes, but what's he looking for?" insisted Sandy. "That, me son," George replied with a wink, "is locked in the bosom of the future! We may be able to find out what he's doing here when we find out who struck Billy Patterson." "Don't get gay now!" grinned Sandy. "Well, if you insist upon it," George continued with a smile, "Ventner was digging in refuse heaps for something which he didn't find!" "Did you meet the boys who stole our provisions?" was the next question. "I wish you'd got hold of them!" "We are certain that one of them passed us while we were returning," George answered. "The nerve of him!" shouted Sandy. "The idea of his coming here and swiping our provisions!" Tommy cut in. "If I ever get hold of that gink, I'll beat his head off!" "You going back after than bum detective tonight?" asked George. "Not me!" answered Sandy. "Me for ham and eggs!" "What's the matter with passing the ham and eggs around?" Every one of the four boys sprang forward as the words came from somewhere just outside the door. "That's one of those thieving kids!" declared Tommy. "You've had your share!" shouted Sandy. "It has now been nine days since I've tasted food!" came the answer from the other side of the door, and the boys thought they caught a chuckle between the words. "All right!" replied Tommy. "You go and sit in the deserted mine nine days more, and then we'll consider whether you have any right to be hungry. Go on away tonight, anyhow!" "Not so you could notice it," came the insistent tones from beyond the door. "I'm going to stay right here until I get something to eat!" "Eat the stuff you stole!" advised Sandy. "You're in wrong!" came from the other side of the door. "I haven't had a thing to eat in forty or fifty days. Come on, now," he added "be good fellows and open up. I'm so hungry I could eat a brass cylinder." "Aw, let him in!" advised Tommy. "He'll stand there chinning all night if we don't! We've got enough to eat for the present anyway." Will unfastened the door and a tall, slender young fellow of perhaps seventeen stepped inside the room and stood blinking a moment under the strong electric light. His face was streaked with coal dust and his clothing was ragged and dirty. Still, the boy looked like anything but a tramp. Tommy eyed him suspiciously for a moment. "Where'd you come from?" he asked. "Off the rods!" was the reply. "And I suppose," Sandy broke in, "that you were just taking a stroll by starlight and just happened to walk into this mine." "Sure!" answered the other with a provoking grin. "Well, if anybody should ask you," Tommy continued, "you're the boy that had a mixup with the tramp tonight, and ran away while we were trying to invite you to supper. What do you know about that?" "Invite me to supper now and see if I'll run away!" "If you boys will cut out this foolish conversation for a minute," Will suggested, "I'll try to find out what this boy wants. Do you mean to say," he added turning to Tommy, "that you bumped into this kid while returning to the mine from the tracks?" "Didn't I tell you about that?" asked Tommy. "I thought I did. We found him in a mixup with a tramp, and that's all there is to it!" "And I told you at the time," the stranger interrupted, "that the tramp tried to rob me! That was all right, too. He did try to rob me, but I didn't have a blessed cent in my possession, so he didn't get anything! The tramp who got a hold of me night before last stripped me clean! And that, you see, is why I haven't got any money to buy provisions with. And also that's the reason why I'm hungry." The four boys gathered around the stranger and began a systematic course of questions which at first brought forth only unsatisfactory answers. "And also," the boy went on, taking up the speech he had begun some minutes before, "that's why two other boys are hungry just about this time. I got rolled for my wad plenty." "That's South Clark street!" laughed Tommy. "That's Bowery!" corrected the other. "What'd you say about other boys being hungry?" asked Sandy. "I said that's why two other boys are hungry." "They ain't hungry any more," Tommy declared with a wink. "That listens good!" the stranger said. "Because," continued Tommy, "they came in here about an hour ago and stole everything they could get their hands on." "Brave boys!" laughed the other. "You wasn't hiding behind the door when they gave out nerve, either!" declared Tommy. "Here these boys come here and steal our grub and you seem to think they did a noble thing! What's your name, anyhow?" "Buck," was the reply. "Elmer Cyrus Buck, 409 Lexington Avenue, N. Y. C. Member of the Wolf Patrol, Boy Scouts of America, and just about ready to scrap for something to eat!" "Why didn't you say so before?" Tommy exclaimed, setting a great slice of ham and several freshly boiled eggs, together with bread and butter and canned tomatoes, before the young man. "Why didn't you say something about being a Boy Scout before you tried to hold us up for a hand-out? You seem to go at everything wrong end first!" "How long since you've seen Jimmie Maynard and Dick Thompson?" asked Will. "You must have failed to connect with them tonight!" "How do you know that?" "Because, if you had bumped into them, they would have fed you out of the provisions they stole from us!" "I haven't been looking for them tonight!" Elmer replied. "I tried to follow you to the mine," he added turning to Tommy and Sandy, "when you left me at the car. But, somehow, I lost track of you in the darkness, and when you finally got into the mine, I had to wait for things to quiet down before I could force an entrance. I don't think I could have got in at all if some one hadn't been ahead of me with a jimmy, or an axe, or something of that kind." "That must have been Ventner," suggested Will. "Mother of Moses!" cried Elmer. "Has that fellow got into the mine again? Does he know you're here?" "He knew that we were here," was the answer, "but he thinks we've gone away! He's down in the mine now, hunting for a pot of diamonds in the refuse cast aside by the miners." "Well you got into the mine at last," Will suggested, "what is the next move you are thinking of making?" "After I finish my modest supper," Elmer answered, with a nod at the great stack of food which Tommy had piled up on his plate, "I'm going to give you boys the surprise of your lives!" "You've pretty near done that now!" laughed Will. "And I'm going to begin," Elmer resumed, "by fishing two members of the Wolf Patrol out of the mine and bringing them up here to apologize for stealing your grub!" "If you'll do that," replied Will, "we'll forgive you!" CHAPTER XIV MINE RATS READY FOR WAR "Wait till I destroy this hen fruit," Elmer said, "and I'll go down and bring those two foolish youngsters up with me. It's time we had an understanding with you boys. You're here looking for something, and we're here looking for something. Perhaps we would meet with better success if we talked over our plans." "What are you looking for?" demanded Tommy. "Keep it dark," grinned Elmer. "I'm not going to tell you a thing until I bring Jimmie and Dick up here so they can get next to the whole story! I guess you boys can work together without scrapping, can't you?" "When we find the boys," laughed Will, "our job will come to an end!" "So that's what you came down here after, is it?" "Yes, we came here to dig two boys out of a mine." "I don't believe it!" replied Elmer. "We came here from Chicago for that very purpose," went on Will. "Who sent you here?" asked Elmer. "Lawyer Horton." "Then Lawyer Horton didn't tell you the whole story," laughed Elmer. "He held out on you boys, just to see if you wouldn't get the story at the mine. Of course he didn't know where we were at the time he sent you down here, but he never sent you for the express purpose of finding us!" "Then why did he send us?" asked Tommy. "You just wait till I go and bring up Jimmie and Dick, and I'll tell you all about it! I won't be gone more than a minute." "But hold on!" cried Sandy. "You mustn't go chasing down into the mine now. That bum detective is there, and we don't want him to know that we're anywhere within a hundred miles of this place." "He doesn't know that we're here, either," commented Elmer. "His notion is that he drove us all into the next state when he caused the mine to be flooded. He thinks he has the whole mine to himself now." "So he caused the mine to be flooded, did he?" "Sure he did," was the curt reply. "The boys saw him digging away at the wall which protects this dry mine from the wet one next door." "So you saw him doing it, did you?" "I didn't, because I haven't been in the mine before for any length of time, but Jimmie and Dick saw him." "We've been told that he made the trouble," Will agreed, "but we weren't so very sure of it, after all. At least, we didn't have the proof. He ought to get twenty years for that!" "Well, if you keep asking me questions all night," Elmer declared, "I'll never get the boys up here, and you'll never know why you were sent here! You can come along with me if you want to." "But how about this detective?" insisted Sandy. "We ought to be able to get the boys up here without letting him know that we are in the mine," answered Elmer. "We needn't travel with a fife and drum corps ahead of us, nor even carry any lights down with us. He's probably working in some inside chamber." "All right," Will answered, "we've had our trip through the mine tonight, so we'll let Tommy and Sandy go with you. Are you sure the boys will come if you ask them to?" "Sure they'll come!" was the reply. The two boys drew on their rubber boots with which they had provided themselves before taking up their quarters in the mine, and which they had been too excited to use on a previous occasion, and Will loaned a pair to Elmer, then they started down the ladders. "It would be something of a joke if we should butt into that detective now, wouldn't it?" Sandy laughed, as they passed down from the second level. "I shouldn't consider it much of a joke," replied Tommy. "We took a lot of pains to make him think we'd gone out of town!" As the boys walked softly down the center gangway they heard a fall of rock which seemed to come from the passage next north. This passageway was connected by the main one with a cross-heading situated perhaps three hundred feet from the shaft. "I don't know much about mines," whispered Elmer as the boys stopped and listened to the clatter of the rocks as they settled down on the floor of the cavern, "but that sounds to me a whole lot like a fall from the roof. I hope the boys are not injured." The boys walked faster until they came to the cross-passage and then turned to the right. Just as they left the main gangway, they heard the sound of running feet and directly the distant creaking of the ladder rungs. "Some one's making a hot-foot for the surface!" exclaimed Tommy. "That's Ventner!" declared Sandy. "How do you know that?" "Because he wears heavy boots. We have rubbers on, and Jimmie and Dick, who are down in the mine, are also wearing rubber boots!" "The farther he gets away from the mine, the better it will suit me," Elmer broke in. "I wish he'd go away and stay for a hundred years!" "The chances are that he dug away one of the pillars and caused that drop from the roof," suggested Sandy. "I guess that's all right, too," Elmer argued. "If he's been digging around here the way the boys say he has, he's certainly taking chances on cutting down more than one column. He ought to be fired out of the mine!" The boys now came to a chamber across the entrance to which a great mass of shale had been thrown when the fall from the roof took place. At first they listened, fearful that they would hear the voices of the lads they were in search of beyond the wall, possibly crushed under the weight of the mass of stone. Then they passed along for a short distance and peered into the chamber over the heap of refuse. What they saw brought excited exclamations to their lips. Jimmie and Dick stood in the interior of the chamber, hedged in by fallen debris. They were swinging their searchlights frantically from side to side, and while the boys looked, they began, the utterance of such yells as had never before been heard in that gloomy place. "What's the trouble?" asked Elmer, showing his light at the narrow opening between the roof of the chamber and the pile of refuse. "Oh, you're there, are you?" asked one of the boys. "We thought perhaps you'd gone back to New York and left us to starve to death." "Well, you didn't starve, did you?" asked Elmer. "Wow, wow, wow!" yelled Jimmie. "Now, what is it?" asked Elmer. "Rats!" yelled the boy. "Millions of rats! They're creeping out by the regiment from behind the cribbing where we were hidden!" "That idiot of a detective," the other boy went on, "undermined a pillar and let about half an acre of roof down into this chamber. When the roof fell, it broke the cribbing and the rats began pouring out." "They won't hurt you!" declared Tommy. "Only you mustn't go to picking a quarrel with them. They're fighters when they get their tempers up. Just let them alone and they'll let you alone!" "Who's that talking?" demanded Jimmie. "That's the relief expedition!" laughed Elmer. "You ought to be fired out of the Wolf Patrol for not answering Boy Scout signals!" Tommy broke in. "We called to you more than a dozen times, and you never answered once!" "Well, we had to wait until Elmer reported what kind of fellows you were, didn't we?" asked Dick. "We couldn't go and make friends with you without knowing what you were here for, so we kept out of your way until Elmer could find a way to learn more about you." "And instead of finding a way," Jimmie took up the argument, "he goes off and gets lost in a thicket about six feet square and never shows up with any grub for twenty-four hours! So we had to go and steal grub off the boys!" "Yes, and we're going to have you pinched when you get out!" laughed Tommy. "You'll get ninety days for that." "Where'd that bum detective go?" asked Jimmie. "When the roof fell, we heard him go clattering down the gangway running as though he had only about thirty seconds in which to get to New York." "He's a long distance from the mine by this time," Elmer suggested. "Well," Jimmie said, "I don't like the company of these rats, so if you'll kindly dig into the refuse on your side, we'll work from this side and we'll soon be out. These rats look hostile." "You let 'em alone!" advised Tommy. "Yes, I'll let 'em alone--not!" shouted Jimmie. "You wait until I get an armful of rocks and I'll beat some of their heads off!" "For the love of Mike, don't do anything of the kind!" yelled Tommy. "They'll climb onto you nine feet thick if you injure one of them!" But it was too late! Jimmie acquired an armful of large sized pieces of slate and began tossing them into the huddle of rats in the corner. For an instant the rats squealed viciously as they Were struck by the sharp edges of the slate, then they seemed to confer together for a moment or two, then they spread out like a fan and began moving toward the two boys. "Now you've done it!" cried Tommy. "If you don't get out of there in about a second, the rats'll eat your legs off!" Without waiting for the boys to assume the offensive, the rats began screaming and springing at their feet. The three boys on the outside of the barrier, understanding the peril their friends were in, crawled up to the top of the wall of refuse which shut the boys into the chamber and turned their lights inside. It seemed to them then that the rats were two or three deep on the floor. There appeared to be hundreds--thousands of them. They circled around the boys, becoming bolder every moment. They nipped at the rubber boots and left the marks of their teeth on the tough uppers. "Now, boys," Tommy yelled, as they drew their automatics and leveled them over the wall, "shoot to kill! This is no Sunday School picnic! And while we're shooting, boys, you back up to this wall, and see if you can't work your way to the top. If you can get up here, we can manage to displace enough slate to let you through." The boys fired volley after volley, but the rats came on viciously. CHAPTER XV STICK OF DYNAMITE By this time Jimmie and Dick had their automatics out and were firing into the horde of rats. They killed the rodents by the score, yet for every one slaughtered a dozen seemed to appear. Presently the chamber became so full of powder smoke, the air so stifling, that the lads were obliged to cease firing. "Work your way up this wall," Tommy cried out to the lads as he heard them panting below. "Work your way up so we can catch hold of you, and you'll soon be out of that mess!" "There's a dozen rats hanging to my boots!" cried Dick. "And mine, too!" declared Jimmie. The three boys on the outside continued to hurl refuse from the top of the wall into the chamber. This in a measure kept the rats back, and before many minutes Jimmie and Dick were drawn to the top of the barrier. Their rubber boots were cut in scores of places by the sharp teeth of the rats, and even their clothing as high up as their shoulders showed ragged tears. A dozen or more rats hung to the boys' boots until the top was reached, then they dropped back screaming with baffled rage. "Talk about your wild Indians!" exclaimed Tommy. "I never saw anything as vicious as that was! I told you boys not to open up an argument with those fellows! Mine rats are noted for their courage when attacked." "How many bites did you get?" asked Elmer anxiously. "I got half a dozen nips!" answered Jimmie. "And so did I," Dick cut in. "Well, you boys ought to get back to the room right away," Tommy suggested, "and have peroxide applied to the wounds. I've known of people dying of blood poison occasioned by rat bites." "Have you got it in camp with you?" asked Elmer. "We're the original field hospital!" laughed Tommy. "We never leave Chicago without taking with us everything needed in the first aid to the wounded line. We'd be nice Boy Scouts to go poking about the country with nothing with which to heal our wounds!" "Boys," Elmer now said, with a mischievous grin on his face, "I want to introduce you to Jimmie Maynard and Dick Thompson. I've heard that your names are Sandy and Tommy, but that's all I know about it!" "Green and Gregory!" laughed Tommy. "My name's Gregory. Sandy's name isn't Sandy at all, but Charley. We call him Sandy because he looks like he'd been rolled in sand." "Well, we may as well be getting back to headquarters!" declared Sandy after these original introductions had been made. "But hold on," he continued turning back to Jimmie and Dick, with a look on his face intended to be severe, "aren't you going to bring our provisions back?" "The provisions," laughed Jimmie, "were hidden in the chamber where the rats were, and you're welcome to all you can get your hands on now!" "Oh, well," Sandy groaned, "I suppose we'll have to buy more." "One difficulty about passing in and out of the mine so frequently," Tommy stated, "is that this man Ventner is likely to catch us at it. There's no knowing what he'll do next if he finds that we're searching the place. According to Elmer, you know," he continued, "we didn't finish our job when we landed on you boys. He says the real game is now about to begin." "He's right there!" declared Jimmie. "Strange thing Mr. Horton didn't tell us all about it!" complained Tommy. "Where was the use of his sending us down here and making monkeys of us? He ought to be ashamed of himself!" "He wanted to see whether you could find out what you were here for!" laughed Elmer. "Perhaps he understood that after you caught us, we'd tell you all about it. He's a pretty foxy guy, that man Horton, from all I hear about him! I'm going to Chicago some day to meet him!" "Well, what is it we've got to look for now?" demanded Sandy. "You just wait till we get to headquarters!" replied Jimmie. "We ought to do that just as quickly as possible," Tommy ventured, "because there's no knowing when that bum detective may return. I'd give a whole lot of money right now to know what he is looking for!" The three strangers regarded each other laughingly, evidently well pleased at the puzzled look showing on the faces of their friends. "Wait till we get to headquarters and get a square meal under our belts," Jimmie promised, "and we'll tell you what this bum detective is looking for. It won't take long to do it, either." "You know, then, do you?" asked Tommy. "Of course, we know!" "Then why don't you tell?" "Couldn't think of telling on an empty stomach!" laughed Jimmie provokingly. As the boys walked along the passage, only a short distance from the old tool house, they heard a rattling and bumping on the shaft ladders and instantly extinguished their lights. Presently they heard footsteps on the hard floor of the gangway, and then a light such as those being used by the boys flashed out. "Now we're in for it!" exclaimed Tommy. "For the love of Mike, don't let him see us!" whispered Jimmie. "It'll spoil everything if he does," Dick submitted. The boys crowded close against the wall of the gangway and waited impatiently for Ventner to pass along. He was muttering to himself as he moved down the gangway, and his round, protruding belly and his little shapeless shoulders reminded the watching lads of the gnomes they had read about, living in underground cells and preying at night upon the fairies. Only for a trifling accident the boys would certainly have been discovered. Just as the detective came to a position ten or fifteen feet from where they were standing, when he was in a position to see their faces by the rays cast on ahead by the flashlight, he partly turned his ankle in a stumble on the rails, and for a moment the rays of the light were directed downward. He hobbled along, raving and cursing, for a few steps and then walked briskly on again. But the ever-watchful eye of the searchlight no longer struck upon the wall where the boys stood, and they realized that for the present they were safe from discovery. Ventner moved on down the gangway and soon disappeared in a cross cutting which ran to the right. "That's lucky!" exclaimed Jimmie. "Why didn't we geezle him?" demanded Tommy. "Because we want his help!" replied Dick. "His help?" laughed Sandy. "Yes, you'll get his help, all right! That fellow would get up in the middle of the night to do you a dirty trick, and don't you ever forget it!" "That's the way he's going to help us!" laughed Elmer. "He'll get up in the middle of some dark night to do us a dirty trick, and before he knows what he's about, he'll be doing us a great kindness!" "Suppose I slip back there and see what he's doing?" asked Tommy. "Can you find your way back to headquarters alone?" asked Sandy. "If I can't," asserted Tommy, "I won't be sending any wireless messages to you! If you think I'm likely to get lost, Dick can go back with me. He ought to know every corner in the old mine." "Sure he does!" laughed Jimmie. "We've been travelling this mine for a good many nights now, and we know it like a book." So Tommy and Dick started back down the passage, the intention being to hasten to the spot where Ventner had disappeared from the gangway, and then return to their companions immediately. "We can't stay very long, you know," Tommy explained, "because you've got to have that peroxide dope put on your bites. It doesn't pay to fool with wounds of that description!" "We'll be back to the old tool room as soon as they are!" answered Dick. "It will take only a minute to run down there and back!" When the boys reached the cross-cutting into which Ventner had disappeared, they saw his light some distance away. It seemed to be in one of the chambers connected with the cross-cutting. As they looked, the detective stepped forward into the circle of illumination and began working with a pick. "Is he always doing that when you see him?" asked Tommy. "You bet he is!" answered Dick. "What's he doing it for?" "You'll have to ask Elmer that." "But you know, don't you?" "Of course I know, but I'm not going to tell, because we all agreed that the story should never be told by any member of our party until Elmer got ready to tell it. So you see you've got to wait!" "If I had my way about it," gritted Tommy, "I'd go back there and geezle that bum detective and wall him up in a chamber until he got hungry enough to tell the story himself. Then we wouldn't have to go sneaking around the mine in order to keep out of his way!" "That would be a foolish move," insisted Dick, "because every stroke of the pick Ventner takes helps us along in the game we're playing." "You're the original little mystery boy, ain't you?" said Tommy rather crossly. "All right, I'll get even." The detective now moved farther along the cross-cutting and attacked a column of mingled rock and coal which helped to support the roof. "The blithering idiot is going to try that trick again!" exclaimed Dick. "He'll have the whole mine down on our heads if he doesn't stop that business. He's always cutting down pillars." "Just say the word," declared Tommy, "and I'll go stop him!" "Let him go his own gait," replied Dick. "We'll manage to keep out of the way of the falls, and he can run his own chances." Presently they saw the detective take something which resembled a stick of dynamite from a pocket and begin the work of setting it into the pillar. The boys moved hastily back. "Now what do you think of that for a fool?" exclaimed Dick. "He'll have the whole mine down on our heads some day, just as sure as he's a foot high! I hope he'll be broken in two when the fall comes." The boys stood some distance away watching the detective as he awkwardly manipulated the stick of dynamite. CHAPTER XVI CAUSED BY A FALL In the meantime Sandy, Elmer and Jimmie, reaching the old tool house, found Will and George very wide awake and doing the most extraordinary stunts of cooking. "You said that your friends would be hungry," laughed Will, "and so we're preparing to feed them up fine. After that, you know, you've got to go on and tell us why we were sent down here without any real information as to the work we were to do." "Where did you leave Tommy and Dick?" asked George. "They went back to see what the detective was up to." "So he's in the mine again, is he?" "Yes," replied Sandy, "and if I had my way about it, he'd go out so quick that he'd think he'd struck a barrel of dynamite." "If he keeps fooling with dynamite, he's likely to do that anyhow," Elmer cut in. "The boys say that he uses dynamite in the search of the mine he is making. He doesn't know how to use it, either!" "Then he's got to be fired out of the mine!" declared Will. "We can't have him around here carrying dynamite in his clothes, and dropping it on the ground. You might as well give a baby a box of matches and a hammer to play with. Some day there'll be an explosion." "Aw, leave him alone for a few days!" Jimmie advised. "He's doing us a lot of good just now, and we don't want to lose his help." "His help?" repeated Will. "He's bully help!" shouted George, with fine sarcasm. "I guess I'll have to tell you about the mystery of the mine," Elmer laughed. "Tommy ought to be here to get the story with the rest, but you can tell him about it later on." "He ought to be here any minute now," Jimmie asserted. "Oh, he'll be here all right!" George argued. "Go on with the story. It's been hours since you came in here with the suggestion that there was a story, and you haven't told it yet!" "Yes," Will interrupted, "get busy and tell us what Mr. Horton neglected to say when he sent us down here; and while you are about it," the boy went on, "you may as well tell us whether you really became lost in the mine, or whether you were sent here to do the very things you did do." "Also," George broke in, "you may as well tell us what the detective is doing here, and how he is helping you in trying to blow up the mine." "The boys were never lost in the mine a minute!" replied Elmer, with a grin, "and Mr. Horton knew it. Mr. Horton received his instructions from Attorney Burlingame of New York, and I am positive that Burlingame gave his brother lawyer the whole story." "Foxy game, eh?" laughed Will. "I guess they wanted you to find out if we boys were of any account, and whether we were playing fair!" laughed Jimmie. "Well, anyway, they expected you to find us and learn the story I'm now going to tell," Elmer continued. "Je--rusalem!" exclaimed Will. "Why don't you get at it. That story has been jumping from tongue to tongue clothed in mystery for hours and we haven't been favored with it yet!" "The story opens," Elmer began, "on a cold and stormy night in October in the year 1913. As the wind blew great gusts of rain down upon such pedestrians as happened to be out of doors----" "Aw, cut it out!" exclaimed Will. "Why don't you go on and tell the story? We don't want any more of that Henry James business! You know he always has a solitary horseman proceeding slowly on foot." "Well, it was a dark night, and a stormy one!" declared Elmer. "If it had been clear and bright, Stephen Carson, the Wall street banker, wouldn't have received a dent in his cupola. In stepping down from his automobile his foot slipped on the wet pavement, and he fell, striking on the back of his head." "What's that got to do with this mine mystery?" demanded George. "It has a great deal to do with this mine mystery," Elmer answered. "Stephen Carson arose from the ground, rubbed the back of his head with his gloved hand, and continued on his way to a meeting of a board of directors. He appeared to be perfectly sane and responsible for his acts at the meeting of the board, and when he left in his machine there were no indications that he had suffered more than a slight bruise from his fall. He was not seen at home again for two weeks." "Now you begin to get interesting!" declared Will. "Where did he go?" asked Sandy. "That is what his friends don't know," replied Elmer. "But he must have been seen somewhere!" insisted Sandy. "He was!" answered Elmer. "He was seen in the vicinity of this mine!" "Wow, wow, wow!" exclaimed Sandy. "What was he doing here?" asked Will. "Wandering about the premises." "Now I can tell you the rest," Will said with a chuckle. "Go on, then," advised Elmer. "From the meeting of the board of directors that night," Will went on, whimsically, "this man Stephen Carson went directly to a safety deposit vault where three or four hundred thousand dollars' in the way of cash and jewelry, were hidden. He took the whole bundle and disappeared. Is that anywhere near right, Elmer?" "Go on!" Elmer replied. "Then in two weeks time he comes back and says that he don't know where he put the jewelry, but that he thinks he hid it in this mine. And, as they can't find any place where he hocked the jewelry, or put it up to carry out some gigantic Wall street plan, they are forced to believe that he really did mislay the jewelry while temporarily out of his head. Is that anywhere near right?" "If you'll amend your report so as to show that he went to the Night and Day bank and drew out something over two hundred thousand dollars which he had on deposit there, and disappeared with the entire sum, you'll come nearer to the truth." Will gave a long whistle of amazement. "Two hundred thousand dollars in real money!" exclaimed George. "Yes, he took two hundred thousand dollars in real money away with him that night," Elmer went on, "and when he returned to his home again, he was penniless and in rags." "Was he in his right mind?" asked Will. "He seemed to be." "Has he now recovered from the injury he received that night?" "So the doctors say." "Then why doesn't he tell what he did with the money?" "That part of his life is blank. He was seen in the vicinity of this mine, yet denies it. He was seen loitering in the woods not far away, but insists that he never visited this mine except to attend meetings of the board of directors." "Now I've got you!" laughed Will. "His friends think he hid the money in this mine and we've been sent here to find it!" "That's the idea," agreed Elmer. "And this bum detective is here for the same purpose!" "Yes, though where he received his information is more than I know. Upon his return to his home, Mr. Carson immediately made good the two hundred thousand dollars taken from the Night and Day bank and employed detectives to look up the missing coin. "Is Ventner one of them?" asked Will. "I don't think so," replied Elmer. "We were sent here to look through the mine, with the understanding that you were to come on from Chicago in a few days. Mr. Horton recommended you to Mr. Burlingame and so you were employed." "Then this detective has no right here at all?" "None whatever, so far as I can make out." "Then why not fire him?" "Because he may accidentally run across the money some day." "If he does, he'll get away with it!" declared George. "No, he won't," answered Elmer, "He'll be watched every minute from now on. You may be sure of that!" "But you didn't seem to know what he was doing tonight," laughed Will. "But I knew enough to come to the right place for the information I desired," replied Elmer. "Strange thing Tommy and Dick don't come!" Sandy exclaimed, stepping to the door of the old tool house and listening intently. "They should have been here a long time ago!" "Perhaps they've butted into Ventner," suggested Jimmie. "They wouldn't do that," Elmer replied. "Every blow he strikes with his pick saves us the trouble of making one." "You don't think he had any directions from anyone, do you?" asked Will. "You don't, think he knows where to look for the money any more than you do?" "No, I think he just heard of the loss of the money and came down here on his own account." "Well, if he's using dynamite in the mine," Will continued, "he ought to be turned out of it. If Mr. Carson really hid two hundred thousand dollars in currency in here, it's in some little pocket easy to find if we get into the right chamber. The use of dynamite might bury it twenty feet deep under a load of shale that would never be removed!" "That's a fact!" cried Elmer. The boys now stepped to the door and listened again, attracted by the sound of running feet. "There's something doing!" exclaimed Sandy. "When Tommy comes home on a run, there's always something going on." Directly the boys came panting up, stopping in the doorway to look behind them. They were both well winded. "That bum detective back there," Tommy exclaimed, as soon as he could catch his breath, "is putting in dynamite enough to blow up the whole mine. He's attaching a long fuse, so he can get out before the explosion comes. We cried to get down far enough to choke off the fuse, but couldn't do it. In just about another minute, you'll hear something like a Fourth of July celebration!" CHAPTER XVII THE SIGNS IN STONES "We thought he'd send the shot off before we got up the ladders!" exclaimed Dick. "We're expecting to hear the roar of it every minute now!" "Perhaps something went wrong," suggested Will. "What part of the mine is he in?" asked Jimmie. Tommy explained the location of the cross-cutting and Jimmie gave a whistle of dismay. In a moment he asked: "Was he cutting into one of the pillars?" "Yes," was the answer; "he was getting ready to blow it down with dynamite. It's a wonder we don't hear the explosion!" "If the spot where he's working is the place I think it is," Jimmie continued, "the gink stands a pretty good chance of finding something. We've been searching in that chamber, and just before you boys showed up tonight we thought we were on the right track. Whether the money is there or not, it is a sure thing that the walls of the chamber have been tampered with. We think, though, that the money is there!" "Then we mustn't let Ventner get it!" exclaimed Will. "It won't do him any good to get it after that stick of dynamite explodes!" exclaimed Tommy. "It'll blow him to Kingdom Come." "Well, why don't we go down and see about it?" asked Will. "Not for me!" exclaimed Tommy. "He may blow his own head off if he wants to," Dick cut in, "but he can't blow off mine, not with my consent. I've got only one head!" "I don't believe there's going to be any explosion at all!" exclaimed Elmer. "He wouldn't be apt to lay a fuse that would burn fifteen or twenty minutes, and you've certainly been that length of time coming up here, to say nothing of the time we've been talking!" "All right!" Tommy exclaimed. "Perhaps he was loading up that pillar with dynamite just for the fun of it!" "It would be a nice thing to have him blow that money out of the pillar and get away with it, wouldn't it?" scoffed Will. "Come on, then," shouted Tommy, "I can take you to the firing line in about a minute. If you want to see an earthquake in a coal mine, just come along with me! You'll see it, all right!" The boys left the old tool house without spending any more time in conversation, and hastened down the ladders to the lower level. On the way down the last gangway they heard some one moving about in the darkness, and then came a cry of warning. "Stand clear! Stand clear!" "That's Ventner's voice!" exclaimed Will. "There's a blast going off in a minute!" the voice came again. "Now we've gone and done it!" exclaimed Will. "After all the trouble we've taken to make that fellow think we've left the country, we've let him bump right into us. I wonder if he really has fired the fuse." "Stand clear! Stand clear!" shouted the voice. Almost before the words had died out, the explosion came, tearing more than one pillar out of position and dropping a great mass of slate down on the floor of the cross-cutting. For a moment the gases which filled the chambers were overpowering. The only wonder was that they were not ignited. The electric lights carried by the boys shone dimly through the smoke of the confined place. "There goes Ventner," whispered Will, pointing to a figure moving swiftly through the half-light of the place. "He's going to see what the shot brought down!" suggested Tommy. The boys rushed forward in a little group. When they gathered at the scene of the explosion, the detective was not there. "If he got hold of the cash, he knew what to do with it all right!" exclaimed Tommy. "He got away with it before we got a chance to see what he had. Now we've got to catch him!" "May as well look for a needle in a load of hay!" grumbled Sandy. "Look here," Jimmie exclaimed. "There's a way to keep him shut up in the mine if we do the right thing. This cross-cutting runs out to a gangway on the north, and that, in turn, leads, of course, to the shaft. Now, one of you boys duck out to the shaft and see that he doesn't get up. You'll have to go some on the way there, because a man with two hundred thousand dollars in his pocket will put up some running match!" "I'm off!" shouted Tommy. "I know I can get to the shaft before he can! He's too fat-bellied to run, anyway!" Tommy started away at a swift pace, and the other boys closed in on the gangway, Will alone stopping at the scene of the explosion. "This gangway," Dick explained, "runs back into the mine for some distance, but there are no cross passages. I guess the coal wasn't very good here. At least, they never spread out the drive." "Then we've got him bottled up unless he got out of the shaft!" declared Sandy. "We'll soon know whether he got out or not!" "I don't believe he would try to get out," suggested Elmer. "The chances are that he'd make for the back of the mine, thinking to hide away with the plunder, provided he had any plunder to hide away with." "I'm afraid he found the hidden money," Will said, taking a scorched ten-dollar bill from a pocket. "I found this back there, where the pillar fell. I guess he found the cash all right!" "And that's a nice thing, too!" exclaimed Sandy. "You boys kept saying that Ventner was helping you find the coin. You were right about that, for he did find the coin. And now the trick is to get it away from him!" "I'd like to know whether Ventner got up the shaft or not," suggested George, "and I believe I'll take a run up there and see. "That's a good idea!" advised Will. "If he didn't get up the shaft he's surely imprisoned in the gangway. He may be between this cross-cutting and the shaft, or he may have gone further in!" "It'll take a long time to find out about that," suggested Jimmie. Directly Tommy and George were heard returning from the shaft. They came through the gangway flashing their lights in every direction. "He never went up the shaft!" Tommy exclaimed as they came near. "We've got him canned in the mine all right. If he's got the money, we'll take it away from him! He wouldn't know what to do with it, anyway!" "First," suggested Will, "we'd better make sure that the fellow got the money. The bank note I found may have never been in the possession of Mr. Carson. And even if it was, it may be the only one to be blown out of its hiding place by the explosion. It strikes me that we'd better give the place a thorough search before we waste much time looking for Ventner. If, as Tommy says, he never left the mine by way of the shaft, we've got him blocked in, all right!" The boys now began a careful examination of the cross-cutting where the explosion had taken place. As has been stated, more than one pillar had been blown out. There was a great heap of debris on the floor, and this the boys attacked with a vim. Tommy and George were now standing guard at the mouth of the cross-cutting so that no one could pass down the gangway toward the shaft. "Suppose that fellow did get the money?" asked Sandy, as the boys cleared away the heaps of slate, "what then?" "Then we'll have to take it away from him!" "We'll catch him first." "We've got him blocked in, haven't we?" asked Sandy. "Oh, we know that he can't get out," Dick cut in, "but we know, too, that there are a lot of shallow benches along that gangway. We can't walk in and pick him out in a minute. Besides," the boy continued, "when we find him, we may find his pockets empty." "That's just what we will do!" Elmer agreed. "He'll hide the money in another place, and swear that he never found it!" "I wish we'd kicked him out of the mine!" exclaimed Sandy. The boys continued their search until daylight, and then, leaving Tommy and George still on guard, they went up to the old tool house for breakfast. The lads were by no means elated over what had taken place. They believed that Ventner had succeeded in finding the money, and were certain that, even if located in the mine, he would deny any knowledge of it. "I guess we got you boys into a mess by insisting on having the detective roaming around," admitted Elmer, as the boys were eating a hastily prepared breakfast. "I guess we should have listened to you in regard to that. There is no knowing how much trouble we have made!" "He may help us find the money after all!" laughed Will. "Yes," cut in Sandy, "it may be easier to get it away from him than to find the place where it was hidden." "Oh, yes, if we could lay our hands on him and order him to give up two hundred thousand dollars, and he would say: 'Yes, I've been waiting to find the owner,' that would be all right, too! But the thing isn't likely to turn out in that way! He'll hide the money, and swear he never found it! Then, when everything quiets down, he'll sneak back and get it!" This from Jimmie, who seemed to take a rather gloomy view of the situation. The boys remained at the old tool house only a short time. Their minds were fixed so intently on the work in hand that they hardly knew whether they had had any breakfast at all. As they passed down the ladders to the lower level, they heard something which resembled a pistol shot, and almost tumbled over each other getting down into the gangway. Will and Elmer were first to reach the cross-heading where the explosion of dynamite had taken place. They called to Tommy and George, but received no answer. They walked for some distance down the gangway without hearing any sound indicating the presence of their companions, or of any one else. "Now that's a funny thing!" exclaimed Will. "I don't see why those boys should go rambling about the mine at a time like this just for the fun of the thing!" "They never did!" replied Elmer. "You remember the shot we heard!" "It might not have been a shot!" suggested Will. As the boy spoke he bent over and pointed to three stones lying on the floor of the gangway. "There!" he said. "The boys have left a record. They not only point out the trail, but warn, us that there is danger in following it!" CHAPTER XVIII TWO HOLD-UP MEN "That's Boy Scout talk all right!" exclaimed Elmer. "Yes, the three stones, piled one on top of the other, mean that there is danger in following the trail. I don't understand exactly what kind of danger can be threatening us, and so the only thing we can do is to go on and find out," Will said with a glance backward. The other boys now came up and a short consultation was held. It was decided to leave Sandy and Dick at the point where the explosion had taken place, while Will, Elmer and Jimmie followed on down the gangway. "Now whatever you do," warned Will as the two boys were left behind, "don't leave this gangway for a minute. If Ventner isn't out of the mine now, we don't want him to get out. He may have the money or he may not. That is one of the things no fellow can find out at this time, but whether he has or not, we want him to give an account of himself before he leaves the Labyrinth. He's got several important questions to answer." The boys promised to watch the passage faithfully, and the others passed on down the gangway, flashing their lights in every direction and making no pretense of moving quietly. "Look here," Jimmie said after they had proceeded some distance into the mine and discovered nothing of importance, "I have in my possession a great idea! Want to hear about it?" "Sure!" laughed Will. "We're making too much noise." "Making too much noise in order to attract the attention of a couple of lost youngsters?" asked Elmer. "They're not lost!" insisted Jimmie. "They've been lured away or dragged away! We don't know how many men were in the mine with Ventner!" "Well, produce your idea!" Elmer exclaimed. "Well, my notion is that I ought to go on ahead of you boys, walking as quietly as possible and without a light. If there are people waiting to snare us, they'll naturally think we've bunched our forces and are all coming along together. Then, you see," he continued, "I'll be right in among them before they suspect that we have a skirmish line out." "That's an all right notion, kid!" answered Will. "Then I'll be on my way," Jimmie replied. "And if I need help at any time, I'll give the call of the pack!" "But you mustn't do that unless you have to," Will cautioned, "because, the minute the cry is heard, everybody within eighty rods would know what's going on. Have you matches with you?" The boy felt in the pockets of his coat and nodded. "Well, then," he said, "if you want to signal, wet your hands and rub the phosphorus off the matches. Turn your hands, palms in our direction, so no one can see from the other side and wig-wag." "That will be fine!" exclaimed Jimmie. "I've got this wig-wag system down pat. I guess this Boy Scout training is pretty poor, ain't it, eh? The darker it is, the better we can talk!" Jimmie darted away, while Will and Elmer remained stationary for a short time in order to give him an opportunity to get out of the range of their lights. Directly they heard him whispering back and listened. "There's another stone cairn here!" he said. "I guess I knocked it over, for I can't tell exactly what it is. You can learn that when you come up with your searchlights! I think there are three stones." "All right!" Will whispered back. When the boys came to the spot from which the voice had been heard they found three stones lying side by side on the floor of the gangway. It was plain that they had been placed one on top of the other, and so they accepted them as another warning of danger. "I wish we had some intimation of the kind of trouble we are likely to get into," Elmer suggested, as they passed along. "I don't like this idea of boring a hole in the darkness with a little bit of a light and anticipating an attack at any minute." "I don't like it a little bit myself," replied Will. "A person so inclined might shoot us down without ever showing himself," declared Elmer. "In fact, the only protection we have lies in the fact that Jimmie is on ahead, and would not be likely to pass any one lying in wait for us. Bright little boy, that!" "There he is now!" exclaimed Will. "He's using the phosphorus, all right, and I can begin to understand what he's trying to say? There's a 'W', and an 'A', and an 'I', and a 'T'. That means that he wants us to stay where we are. The system works fine, doesn't it?" The question now was as to whether the lads should extinguish their lights. That, of itself, they understood would be suspicious in case they should be in sight of their enemies. It would simply proclaim their knowledge of the danger they were in, whatever it was. "I think we'd better keep the lights going until we hear something more," Elmer said. "Jimmie will talk again in a minute." The boys waited patiently for some moments, and then the wig-wag figures came again. Will read slowly: "There's a 'V', and an 'E', and an 'N', and a 'T', and an 'N', and an 'E', and an 'R'," he said. "Now the boy's starting it again. He says, 'Ventner is here.' Now wait a minute, there's more coming!" "The next words are: 'With two others'." "It's only a question of time when that detective will get next to the wig-wag game," Elmer declared. "This gangway smells like a match factory already. I wonder how far Jimmie is away from them." Directly Jimmie began talking the wig-wag tongue again. This time he said that Tommy and George were not in sight, and had evidently been surprised and taken prisoners. He advised Will and Elmer to come on softly with their lights out. The boys did as requested, but they had advanced only a few paces in the darkness when Canfield, accompanied by Sandy and Dick came running up, showing both lack of breath and profound excitement. "Boys," Canfield called. "Boys!" "Will!" yelled Sandy. "I guess they're going to bust up the whole combination!" declared Will rather sourly. "I wish I had them by the neck!" "They may have important news," suggested Elmer. "Anyway, we'll have to turn on our lights and meet them. If we don't, they'll keep on yelling all down the gangway!" Canfield and the two boys came up as soon as Elmer showed a light, and stood for a moment looking cautiously about. "I don't think you boys ought to go any further into the mine!" Canfield exclaimed, breathing heavily from the long chase down the passage. "I have just received word that two of the most desperate hold-up men in the country have taken refuge here. There's no knowing how they got over to the mine, but it is a sure thing that they did get here, for a couple of breaker boys saw them climbing into the breaker." "What time was this?" asked Will. "Oh, I don't know," replied Canfield. "The matter was reported to me early this morning. I couldn't find you before, or you should have had the news sooner. It isn't safe for you to go into the mine!" "Your information," grinned Will, "comes a little bit late, but it's all right, just the same! Ventner is in there, and there are two men with, him. It's a mystery how they made their way in without being discovered, but it seems that they did so." "What are you going to do?" asked Canfield. "We're going on into the mine." "In the face of my warning?" "It's just this way," answered Will. "We left two of the boys on guard in this passage, not so very long ago, and they have disappeared. We suspect that Ventner and the two men to whom you refer have good reason to know something of their whereabouts." "They won't injure the boys!" pleaded Canfield. "We don't mean to give them a chance!" insisted Elmer. "We're going to jerk those boys out so quick it'll make their heads swim!" "But it's positively dangerous!" urged the caretaker. "If there wasn't an element of danger in the situation, we wouldn't be here!" replied Will. "I don't see as we need to run away from two hold-up men, anyway," the boy went on. "Here are five boys and one full grown man in the gangway. We ought to give a pretty good account of ourselves, in case some one starts anything!" "Where's the fifth boy?" asked Canfield. "It seems to me that you're getting quite an accumulation of boys in here!" "Two of the boys are Jimmie Maynard and Dick Thompson!" answered Will. "You know you informed me quite positively not long ago that the two lads were hundreds of miles from this place by this time." "You might barricade the hold-up men and starve them out," suggested Canfield, "that is, if you're sure they're in there!" "We have just had a wireless from the interior," Elmer answered. "There are three men in there, all right!" "Well, it won't take any longer to starve three out than it would one!" declared Canfield. "Yes," Elmer cut in, "and about the first time the hold-up men got good and hungry, they'd be sending out Tommy's ears or one of George's fingers just as a warning to us not to meddle with their appetites." Before long Jimmie began wig-wagging again, but before any words could be formed the waiting boys heard a distant scuffle, a short, quick cry of alarm, and then the phosphorus-covered palms disappeared from sight. "They've got Jimmie!" Elmer said in a tone of dismay. "Well, what are we going to do?" demanded Sandy. "We've got to do something right away, and that's no story out of the dream book!" "I don't suppose it would be of any use to rush them," suggested Elmer. "They'd mow us down like rats!" declared Dick. "It strikes me," Sandy said, "that we'd ought to get back further and keep out of sight until we can decide upon some definite plan of action." "I've got an idea wandering around in the back of my brain," Will said. "If the situation is exactly as I think it is, we may be able to get the best of those hold-up men after all." CHAPTER XIX THE MONEY IN SIGHT "Not while they have possession of the boys," Canfield declared, dolefully. "They'll murder those boys if we shut off their supplies!" "Oh, I don't know about that!" suggested Dick. "We've been mixed up in a great many awkward situations, but we've always managed to save our necks. We'll get the boys out in some way!" "Look here, Mr. Canfield," Will said, "how well do you know this mine?" "Every inch, of it!" was the reply. "Every inch of every level," asked Will. "Yes, sir!" replied the caretaker, rather proudly. "I can go into any part of it without a light!" "Then look here, Dick," Will directed. "You chase back to the old tool house and bring back a long rope. And when you return, stop at the second level. Some of us will meet you there." "I hope you don't expect to pull these boys up through fifty or a hundred feet of shale?" asked the caretaker. "I don't know whether my scheme will work or not," Will answered, "but it's worth trying! We shall have to leave at least two here, well armed, and take the others with us. You'll have to act as guide, Mr. Canfield, and we'll meet Dick when he comes down to the second level with the rope. As soon as we get the boys out of their trouble, we can leave the three outlaws in full possession of the mine. If we watch the shaft at the old tool house, they can never get out without our knowing it!" "I don't understand what you have in mind," faltered Canfield. Leaving Sandy and Elmer in the gangway from which the wig-wag signals had been shown, the others hastened up the ladder to the second level. Then Dick ran away to bring the rope, while Will questioned the caretaker regarding the fall between the two levels. "You remember the old shaft, cut through years ago, and doubtless deserted when the vein ran out, which at one time connected the two levels, don't you?" asked the boy of the caretaker. "There is such a place," replied the caretaker. "Can you find it?" "Of course I can." "Does the fall open into the system of chambers in the center or to the north? You understand what I mean! Is it possible to enter any of the benches or chambers connecting with the north gangway on the lower level by means of this deserted shaft?" "I am not quite certain about that," replied Canfield, "but my idea is that the north benches and chambers can be reached by means of that opening. I am glad you thought of that," he went on. Dick now returned with the rope, and the three proceeded down the second level until they came to a confusion of passages and benches which would certainly have bewildered any one not familiar with the mine. "Unless I am very much mistaken," Canfield went on, "this passage, the one straight ahead, runs almost directly over Tunnel Six. If I am right in this, the deserted shaft is here." "And Tunnel Six is the haunted corridor, isn't it?" asked Dick. "That's where the lights have been seen!" replied the caretaker. "You never believed in the ghost stories told about Tunnel Six?" asked Will. "I should think you'd begin to see now that the alleged ghosts were pretty material things." "Well, I don't know about the ghosts," replied the caretaker, "but I really was getting a little bit nervous when you boys arrived. You know," he continued, "that we all feel a little shivery when we butt into anything which we can't understand." "Well, suppose you follow this passage to the end and see if you discover anything like the deserted shaft," suggested Dick. "You're not going to venture into the lower level again, are you?" asked Canfield. "I don't blame you boys for wanting to rescue your companions, but, at the same time, I don't want to see you throw your lives away. Those are desperate men in Tunnel Six!" "If my idea is worth anything at all," replied Will, "we'll get the boys out without ever letting the hold-up men know that we are within a mile of them. You know we had very little difficulty in getting out of the chamber where we left the boat." "Trust you boys for inventing ways of doing things!" exclaimed Canfield. "Of course," Will said hesitatingly after a time, "it may be that this deserted shaft doesn't connect with Tunnel Six, but even if it doesn't, we'll find some way of getting to our friends from the new position. We can only try, anyway!" "I'm pretty certain that it connects with Tunnel Six," replied the caretaker. "But you mustn't show your light when you approach the old shaft," he went on, "because if it does connect with the chamber we seek, and the chamber in turn connects with the north passage, the robbers will see what we're doing." "That's a valuable suggestion!" replied Will. "I'll go on ahead," Canfield continued, "and find the old shaft. Then you can follow on with the rope, and one of you boys can drop down and see what can be discovered." "It's dollars to apples," chuckled Dick, as the boys trailed along after the caretaker, "that we find the three kids trussed up like a lot of hens ready for the market in the chamber where you came so near getting wet. I hope we do, at any rate!" "There's one thing we overlooked," Will said as Canfield whispered to them that he had found the deserted shaft, "and that is this: We should have directed the boys in the gangway to have attracted the attention of the outlaws by a little pistol practice while we are communicating with our friends. They may be all packed away in the chamber together." "Yes, we should have attended to that," replied Dick. "Perhaps I'd better go back now and tell them to get busy with their automatics." "We may as well investigate the situation here first," the other answered. The boys heard the caretaker creeping about in the darkness, and presently a piece of shale or coal was heard rattling down the old shaft. "We'll have to get that blundering caretaker away from there," whispered Will. "If we don't, he'll notify the hold-up men that we're getting ready to do something! I've heard that about three-fourths of the people in the world object to doing anything unless they can take a brass band along, and I guess it's true." "Say," Canfield whispered, calling back to the lads, "when that stone dropped down, I heard something that sounded like a paddle slapping down on the water. That room can't be wet yet, can it?" "The Beaver call!" whispered Will. "Right you are!" replied Dick. "The boys are there, all right!" "Now the next thing to do is to find out if those highwaymen are watching them," declared Will. "I'll tell you that in a minute," Dick whispered. As the boy spoke, he passed one end of the rope to Canfield. "Hang on to it, whatever takes place!" he whispered, "and I'll drop down and see what's going on." "You must be very careful," warned Canfield. "That's all right," answered Dick, "but we can't stand here all day figuring out precautions. We've got to know right off whether there's anyone in that chamber watching the boys!" "What a joke it would be to put on a ghost in Tunnel Six!" laughed Will, in a decidedly cheerful frame of mind, now that rescue seemed so near. "Don't try any foolishness!" advised Canfield. "Let's rescue the boys if possible and make our way out of this horrible place." Will crawled to the edge of the shaft with Dick and whispered as he lowered him into the dark opening below: "Remember," he said, "that Ventner may have discovered the money. If so, we must secure it before we leave the place! It will be just like him to stow the bank notes away in some chamber like the one you are about to enter. When you strike bottom, if there is no one in sight except the boys, turn on your searchlight and take a good look over the interior of the chamber. "We were in there not so very long ago, but at that time we weren't thinking of making a search there for hidden money. You'll have to use your own judgment about turning on the light, of course. The outlaws may be out in the gangway, some distance from the entrance to the chamber, or they may be within six feet of where the boys are held as prisoners." "Tommy ought to be able to tell me the minute I strike the heap of shale whether the outlaws are close by or not!" Dick suggested. "Of course!" answered Will, "if he knows. If the men are not in sight, and he doesn't know where they are, you'll simply have to take chances. If you get caught in there, you'll have to shoot, and shoot quick!" Dick, dropped down into the old shaft and directly the anxious watchers above heard the rattle of shale as it dropped from the pyramid under the opening. Will, still clinging to the rope, lay on his stomach and peered downward, watching with all anxiety for some show of light, or some sound which might indicate the situation below. Directly Will felt a soft, steady pull at the rope, and knew that one of the boys was ready to be assisted to the top. Dick came up first, chuckling as he landed on the edge of the break in the rock, and was immediately followed by Jimmie. "Where's Tommy and George?" asked Will in a whisper. "They're down there looking for the money!" "Looking for the money in the darkness?" "Sure!" was the reply. "You see," he went on, "those ginks tied us up good and tight, and then threw the money around promiscuous like!" "So the money is there?" asked Will. The news seemed too good to be true! "It was there when we were first thrown into the chamber," replied Jimmie, "but I have an idea that Ventner sneaked in and removed it so as to prevent his mates getting any share." A light flashed out from below, followed immediately by a pistol shot! CHAPTER XX SANDY IS DISCHARGED Elmer and Sandy, guarding the gangway variously called the North section and Tunnel Six, presently heard voices coming from the direction of the shaft, and the latter moved back a few paces in order to inspect the new-comers. In a moment he saw three rather pompous looking men approaching him, their footsteps being directed by a man clothed as a miner. "Here, boy!" shouted one of the pompous men. "Can you tell me where Canfield, the caretaker of this mine, may be found?" "He's up on the next level," replied Sandy. "I was told he was down here," growled the speaker, who was very short and fat, and very much out of breath. "He was here a little while ago," answered Sandy. "What's the meaning of this show of firearms?" demanded the fat man, after glancing disdainfully at the automatic in the boy's hand. "We've got three robbers cooped up in the mine," replied Sandy. "That's the old, old story!" exclaimed the fat man. "I don't know that I ever knew of a mine that wasn't haunted, either by ghosts or robbers! Mysteries seem to breed in coal mines!" Sandy walked back to the place where he had left Elmer, and the three men and their guide followed him. When Elmer caught a view of the fat man's face and figure, he gave a sharp pull at Sandy's sleeve. "That's Stephen Carson!" he said. "I guess I'd better keep out of sight, because I don't care about getting into an argument with him. He's the most contrary person I ever saw in my life, and never fails to get up an argument about something or other with yours truly." "You seem to know him pretty well," whispered Sandy. "I ought to," returned Elmer, "he's my Uncle! The two tall men in the party are my father and the cashier of the Night and Day bank. I'll take a sneak, and that will shorten the session." Accordingly, Elmer strolled along the gangway and came to a halt some distance from where the three men had drawn up. "My boy," Carson went on, looking condescendingly at the youth, "will you kindly run up to the second level and tell Mr. Canfield that his presence is required by the president of the mining company?" "I'm not allowed to leave this place, sir," replied Sandy, taking offense at the man's air of proprietorship. "All persons in and about this mine," Carson almost shouted, "are subject to my orders. Run along now, you foolish boy, find don't make any further trouble for yourself!" The man's manner was so unnecessarily dictatorial and offensive that Sandy found it impossible to retain his temper. He was not naturally a "fresh" youngster, but now he had passed the limit of endurance. "Aw, go chase yourself!" he said. "You're discharged!" shouted Carson. "You didn't hire me!" retorted Sandy. "You haven't got any right to discharge me! I'm going to stay here until I get ready to leave!" "If you don't get out of the mine immediately, I'll have you thrown out!" shouted Carson. "I never saw such impudence!" "If I do get out," replied Sandy with a grin, "you'll wish I hadn't!" Carson turned to Elmer's father and the bank cashier, and the three consulted together for a short time. Then Elmer's father came closer to where Sandy was standing. "Why do you say that?" he asked. "Why do you think we will wish you had remained in case you are sent out of the mine?" "Because I was left here to prevent robbers getting out of the gangway. They're further in, and have captured three of my chums." "All nonsense!" shouted Mr. Carson breaking into the conversation impatiently. "These breaker boys never tell the truth!" "Are you Mr. Buck?" asked Sandy, speaking in an undertone to Elmer's father. "Because if you are, you'll find Elmer just a short distance ahead. He's on guard, too. He didn't want his uncle to recognize him, because he says he's always getting up an argument with him." "I'm glad to know that Elmer is attending to his duty," Mr. Buck answered. "Somehow," he continued with a smile, "Stephen Carson always rubs Elmer the wrong way of the grain." "What's he butting in here for?" asked Sandy, while the cashier of the Night and Day bank and the miner stood by waiting for the peace negotiations to conclude. "Why, he came in to get his two hundred thousand dollars!" replied Mr. Buck. "He thinks he knows How right where he left it." "Does he often get foolish in the head like that?" asked Sandy with a grin. "If he does, he ought to hire a couple of detectives to keep track of him when he goes wandering out in the night!" "Oh, Stephen is usually a pretty level-headed sort of a fellow!" replied Mr. Buck. "He is out of humor just now because he has always denied that he visited the mine during his two weeks of absence. He is one of the men who dislike very much to be caught in an error of any kind." "So he knows where the money is?" asked Sandy. "He says he can find it if he can secure the services of Canfield, the caretaker. He remembers now of getting in the mine, and of hearing footsteps in the darkness. His impression at that time was that robbers had followed him in, so he unloaded the banknotes in a small chamber which he is now able to describe accurately but which he cannot, of course, find." "Was the money hidden on this level?" asked Sandy. "Yes, on this level." "In this gangway?" "He thinks it was hidden here." "Right about here, or further on?" "Why," was the answer, "he seems to remember something about Tunnel Six. He thinks he hid the money there! As soon as he finds Canfield, the caretaker will probably be able to tell him exactly how Tunnel Six looks." "It looks all in a mess right now! I can tell you that," grinned Sandy. "What do you mean by that?" "I mean that there's been doings here!" replied Sandy. "Are there really robbers in there?" "Sure, there are robbers in there!" "Then perhaps we'd better bring in a squad of deputies." "If you'll just let us boys alone," Sandy said, "we'll bring the money out if it's anywhere in the mine, but if this man Carson goes to butting in at this time, he'll have to dig out his own money. He won't believe there's any robbers in there, and he wants to fire me out of the mine, so I guess we'd better let him go his own gait a little while." "He'll do that anyhow no matter what you say!" replied Mr. Buck. "Look here!" shouted Carson, starting forward, with his stomach out and his fat shoulders thrown back, "what's all this conversation about? Why don't some one go up and get Canfield, and why isn't that young rowdy thrown out of the mine? I won't have him in here!" "Say," Sandy broke in, "Mr. Buck says that you're looking for Tunnel Six. If you are, I can show you right where it is!" "Do so, then!" shouted Carson. "Go straight ahead," Sandy directed, "and when the robbers begin to shoot, you command them to throw down their weapons in the name of the law. They'll probably do it, all right, if you tell them to, but you'll be lucky if they don't throw them down your throat!" "Do you mean to tell me," screamed Carson, "that there are actually robbers here, and that they have taken possession of Tunnel Six?" "That's the idea," replied Sandy. "Why, that's where I put my----" "That's where you put your money, is it?" Sandy went on. "I never saw such impudence!" reared Carson. "Well, go on and get your money!" advised Sandy. "Just go straight down the gangway until you come to a face of rock and then switch off to the left, and you'll find yourself in a chamber used at present by robbers and hold-up men as a winter resort." "Oh you can't frighten me!" declared Carson. "I believe that you're here in quest of the money yourself!" "That's right!" admitted Sandy. "Go on in, now, and tell the robbers to give up your hoarded gold! Just butt in, and tell 'em what you want them to do! They'll probably do just as you tell them to!" "I never saw such impudence in my life!" roared Carson, wiping his perspiring forehead with a large red silk handkerchief. "I don't see where the impudence comes in!" replied Sandy. "You said you wanted to find Tunnel Six in order that you might locate your money. I'm telling you where it is, and what to do to get it!" "Old Stephen never took a bluff in his life!" chuckled Mr. Buck, "Now see if he doesn't go stalking down that passage and declaring himself in the name of the law!" The banker did exactly what Mr. Buck had predicted. He went storming down the passage, giving notice to all intruders to walk out of his mine in a peaceable manner. Mr. Buck followed along until he came to where Elmer was standing with his back against the wall, and then the two paused and entered into conversation. The cashier of the Night and Day bank and the miner started back toward the shaft. "What's the matter?" shouted Sandy. "Why don't you stay and see the fun? There'll be shooting here directly!" The miner and the cashier now took to their heels and were soon out of sight. Every moment the boy expected to see a flash of fire in the gangway. Carson was now very near to Tunnel Six, and it seemed certain that the outlaws must soon open fire on him. "Come back, Stephen!" shouted Mr. Buck. "Don't make a fool of yourself!" "This is all pure bluff!" shouted Carson. "There are no robbers here at all. This is a scheme to keep me out of Tunnel Six, where I believe my money to be hidden!" They saw Carson halt in his rather clumsy passage down the gangway, and draw an automatic revolver from his pocket. There was a quick shot and the banker rushed ahead! CHAPTER XXI "I TOLD YOU SO!" Directly Elmer, Sandy and Mr. Buck heard the banker shouting at the top of his lungs and dashed on toward the mysterious tunnel. "He'll get his head shot off in there!" exclaimed Sandy. "I don't care if he does!" declared Elmer. "Your uncle isn't such a bad old fellow, after all," Mr. Buck exclaimed. "He has plenty of courage, at any rate!" "But I don't understand why they don't open fire on him!" exclaimed Sandy. "The robbers certainly were in there not very long ago. We heard the scuffle when they geezled Jimmie." "Who fired that shot?" asked Mr. Buck. "Uncle Stephen did," replied Elmer. "I saw the flash spring out from the spot where he stood!" "Well, what do you know about that?" exclaimed Sandy. "The old chap is actually making his bluff good! He's getting into Tunnel Six single handed and alone! I guess we'll have to advertise for those three outlaws if we find 'em in here! He's a nervy old fellow, isn't he?" The three now followed fast on the heels of the banker, and soon came to where he stood swinging his searchlight at the end of a short drift which ended, after sliding under a dip, in a chamber which at first glance seemed to be piled high with a mass of shale. While the three looked on, Carson dropped on his knees beside a crevice in the wall and began an eager exploration of the opening. Directly he sprang to his feet with rage and disappointment showing on every feature of his face. He raved about the cluttered chamber for a moment, almost dancing up and down in his anger and chagrin, and then sat limply down on the pile of shale. "It's gone!" he said. "The money's gone!" "So it wasn't hidden back there in that cross-cutting at all?" asked Sandy. "We thought sure we had a cinch on the coin several hours ago!" "It was hidden here in this chamber!" declared Carson wearily. "The minute I entered the place I remembered where I had hidden it. And now it's gone! I've had all my trouble for nothing." As he ceased speaking, he glanced suspiciously at Sandy. And Sandy, in turn, made a most provoking face. "I believe you know something about my money!" Carson said. "Sure I do!" replied Sandy. "Then where is it?" "The robbers got it!" "That's a nice story to tell," howled Carson. "If you think I'm going to be defrauded out of my money in this way, you're very much mistaken!" Without paying any further attention to the threats of the banker, Sandy stepped over to Elmer's side and pointed up the deserted shaft. "There's where the robbers went," he said, "and they doubtless took Carson's money with them. I don't understand why Will didn't stop them." "Will and George probably released their friends and went away," complained Elmer. "I don't think they showed very good judgment in doing that, either. The result is that the money has now disappeared entirely. A short time ago, Uncle might have reclaimed it." "We don't know whether the money has gone beyond recall or not," replied Sandy. "I don't believe Will and George ever left the old shaft unguarded. They are still somewhere in this vicinity!" Carson now blustered up to Sandy and pointed an accusing finger into the lad's face. Sandy regarded him with indifference. "Now that your story of the robbers has been disproved," Carson shouted, "you may as well tell me who took my money. If I had not the courage to make this investigation in person, that cheap story of the robbers would have held good for all time!" "That's a horse on me, all right!" admitted Sandy. "I don't know where the robbers are, unless they went up through that old shaft, and it doesn't seem as if the boys would permit that!" "Too thin! Entirely too thin!" declared Carson. "A moment ago you tried to tell me that the money wasn't hidden near Tunnel Six at all, but was hidden back there near the cross-cutting." "We had good reason to believe it was hidden there!" replied Sandy. "We found a burned ten-dollar banknote there just after a dynamite explosion had taken place." "That would naturally lead to the supposition that the money had been hidden there!" Mr. Buck exclaimed. "Come to think of it," Sandy went on, "I believe that was one of Ventner's tricks. I believe he blew down those pillars and burned the banknote for the express purpose of making us search two or three weeks in the wrong place. I guess we have under-estimated that fellow's ability. He's a keener man than I supposed!" "I don't quite see the point to that," Elmer suggested. "When you say that Ventner probably caused you to dig in the wrong place, you admit that he must have known something about the right place. Now, how could he have known anything about where to look for that money?" "I don't know," replied Sandy. "But when you say that he might have known exactly where to look, you set him down as a fool, because he has been searching a long time and never came upon it until today." "I think I can understand that," Mr. Buck said. "This man you speak of probably knew where to find the money provided he could discover the right drift, bench, chamber or tunnel. Like Mr. Carson, here, he could doubtless go straight to the cache if directed into the right apartment." While the four stood together at the bottom of the chamber, their searchlights making the place as light as day, an exclamation came from the shaft above, followed by two pistol shots. Carson dropped to his knees and began twisting at his automatic, which had in some way become entangled in the lining of his pocket. "There are your robbers!" he shouted. "Put out your lights!" "Don't you do anything of the kind!" argued Sandy. "Get out of range of the old shaft and keep your lights burning so you can shoot any one who drops down! I guess we have them hemmed in!" "It's a scheme to get away with my money!" shouted Carson. "I wish you had your old money chucked down your throat!" exclaimed Sandy. "I'm getting sick of the sound of the word!" All members of the party now drew back toward the dip, where they were entirely concealed from any one in the old shaft. Directly there was a rattling of shale and slate, and then the lights showed the figure of Tommy sitting astride the peak of the pyramid. "What you fellows trying to do down there?" he asked. "We're looking for Carson's money?" replied Sandy. "Did you get it?" the boy demanded. "Not yet!" "That's the boy that's got my money!" shouted the banker. "Money's a good thing to have!" grinned Tommy. "What have you done with the highwaymen?" asked Sandy. "Why continue this senseless talk about highwaymen?" demanded Carson, "when you know just as well as I do that there are no robbers here other than yourselves! Mr. Buck," he added, turning to Elmer's father, "I call upon you to assist me in restraining these robbers until the proper officers can be summoned." "Where did that fat man come from?" asked Tommy. "You impertinent rascal!" shouted Carson. "Sure!" answered Tommy. "But where did you say you came from?" "I'm president of this mining company!" screamed Carson, "and I'll have you all in jail if you don't produce my money!" "Is this the gentleman who went batty and lost two hundred thousand dollars?" asked Tommy, sliding down from the slate pyramid and standing beside Sandy. "That is believed to be the man!" laughed Sandy. "Believed to be!" roared Carson. "Does he know where he left the money?" asked Tommy. "Sure I know where I left my money, you young jackanapes!" declared Carson. "I pointed out the exact hiding place only a few moments ago!" "You found it empty?" "Yes, I found it empty," roared Carson. "Then," Tommy suggested, "we've all got to get busy." "What do you mean by that?" demanded Carson. Before Tommy could reply, Will came sliding down the rope and landed within a few feet of where the little group stood. "Look here, Will," Tommy said, "are you sure we made a good search of those three ginks? They've got the money all right!" "How do you know they did?" demanded Will. "That fat man over there who looks as if he was about to bust," Tommy grinned, "is Mr. Carson, the man who hid the money and couldn't find it again. He's just been looking in the place where he concealed it, and it isn't there! We've got to get busy!" "I don't understand this at all," Mr. Buck interrupted. "It's just this way," Will said, facing the speaker "we caught the three men who were wandering about in the mine. We rescued our chums first, and then when the outlaws heard your party advancing they scrambled up the old shaft and took to their heels, supposing, of course, that we had lost no time in getting out of the mine." "And you geezled them all?" asked Sandy. "The whole three!" replied Will. "All we had to do was to stretch a rope across a passage, trip them up, and do a little winding around their great big forms before they could get their breath. They're all tied up good and tight now." "And you searched them for the money and didn't find it?" shouted Carson. "And we searched them for the money and didn't find it!" repeated Will. "I don't believe it!" shouted Carson. "You'll be telling me in a moment, when I ask you to produce your robbers, that they have broken their bonds and escaped!" At that moment, George's voice was heard calling down the shaft: "Break for the main shaft!" they heard him saying. "Head those fellows off! They cut their ropes and got away!" "I told you so!" thundered Carson. CHAPTER XXII CONCLUSION "Bright boys up there!" exclaimed Will, as the unwelcome news of the escape of the robbers came down the old shaft. "Me for the elevator!" shouted Tommy. All four boys, Will, Elmer, Tommy and Sandy, started in a mad race down the gangway. As they carried their searchlights with them, and as Mr. Carson and Mr. Buck moved at a slower pace, the latter gentlemen were soon feeling their way through a dark tunnel. "We've just got to head 'em off!" grunted Tommy, as the boys passed along at a pace calculated to break the long distance running records. "I don't believe they'll make for the main shaft anyway," Sandy panted. "I don't believe they will, either," Will declared, "but if we get to the lift first, we'll be dead sure they don't get out!" Will was in advance as they swung into the lighted space about the shaft. The first thing he observed was that one of the cages was just starting upward. He sprang to the push button and almost instantly the cage dropped back to the third level again. The power was on in honor of the visit of the president of the company. "Pile in, boys!" he shouted. "We'll stop at the second level!" The man at the top responded nobly to the quick signals given to start and stop, and in a very short space of time the elevator stood at the second level. The bar was down, but Will threw it aside and stepped out into the passage. There he saw the bank cashier and the miner standing cowering against the wall only a few feet from the shaft. "What are you doing here?" asked Will. "We started to the top," the miner replied, "but stopped here because we thought there might be need of our assistance on this level." "Why on this level?" asked Will, observing that the miner was pretty thoroughly frightened. "I haven't heard of any disturbance here!" "But there has been a disturbance here!" insisted the cashier. "We heard scuffling out there in the darkness, but as we had no lights, we could not investigate. My friend, the miner, had a light on the lower level, but he lost it as we made our way out to the shaft." "Has any one passed up the shaft?" asked Will. The miner shook his head. "Then we're in time all right!" cried Will exultantly. "We have the outlaws headed off!" The heavy voices of the two men who had been left on the lower level now came rumbling up the shaft. "What do you mean by leaving us in this plight?" demanded Carson. "Lower the cage instantly, and take us to the top!" "Stay down there and look after your money!" cried Sandy, mockingly. "I think I know where my money is!" shouted Carson. "I wish I knew!" returned Sandy. In the moment of silence which followed the boys heard the call of the Beaver Patrol ringing down the second level. "George seems to be alive anyway!" laughed Tommy. A moment later a snarling sound which seemed to emanate from a whole pack of Wolves reached the ears of the boys. "Why didn't you tell me there were wild animals in the mine?" shouted the cashier. "Let me into that cage immediately!" "Don't be in a hurry," advised Tommy. "All the Wolves and Beavers you'll find in here won't do you any harm!" While Carson and Elmer's father continued to call from below, and while the Boy Scout challenges rang in the second level, two pistol shots were heard not far away from the shaft. The cashier and the miner both broke for the cage, but were turned back at the point of Sandy's automatic revolver. "You stopped here because you thought you might be of some assistance, you know," the boy said. "Now you just remain here long enough to help out." "But there are people being murdered in there!" cried the cashier. Two more shots came from the gangway and then the stout figure of the detective came staggering into the circle of light around the shaft. He had evidently been wounded seriously, for he fell as he drew near to where the boys were standing and raised his eyes in a piteous appeal for help. Will stooped over and felt of his pulse. "You're about done for!" the boy said in a husky tone. "Who did it?" "Those two hold-up men," was the faint reply. "Where are they now?" asked Will. "I fired back," replied the detective with a grim smile, "and I guess they're lying on the floor of the passage!" Will bent closer over the wounded detective while Tommy and Sandy started down the gangway on a run, closely followed by Elmer. "Why did they shoot you?" asked Will. "I found the money," Ventner replied, "and hid it in a crevice in the wall, and they found it. When we managed to escape by cutting the ropes I saw them take the money and disappear in the darkness. I followed on and accused them of the act and they shot me! Then I shot back, and I guess it's a pretty bad mess, when you take it altogether!" "Where is the money?" asked Will. "They have it in their possession," was the reply, "if they haven't hidden it again." Before the wounded detective could continue, George, Jimmie, Dick, Canfield, Sandy and Tommy came running out of the gangway. "Where's Elmer?" asked Will. "We left him back there talking with one of the hold-up men," replied George. "They're both badly hurt, and won't last long!" "I'm not sorry!" moaned Ventner. A moment later, Elmer came out of the passage with a bill-book of good size in his hand. He lifted the book gaily as he entered the illumination. "I'll bet he's got the money!" exclaimed Tommy. "Sure he has!" replied Will, and Elmer nodded. The voices of Carson and Buck again came roaring up from below. "Why don't you lower the cage?" Carson shouted. "I'm going to have every one of you arrested as soon as I can find an officer! You can't work any of your gold brick schemes on me!" "We may as well drop down and take them aboard," Will laughed. Carson was swelling with rage when he stepped onto the platform of the list. He shook his fist fiercely under Will's nose, and announced that he would have him wearing handcuffs before night. "How much reward was offered for the return of that two hundred thousand dollars?" asked the boy, without paying any attention to the angry demonstrations of the banker. "Twenty thousand dollars!" replied Carson. "But you'll never get a cent of it. I hired a party of Boy Scouts to come here from Chicago and look into the case, but they never came near me." "When you write to Chicago again," Will replied, with a smile as the elevator stopped at the second level, "just tell Mr. Horton that the Beaver's didn't succeed in getting the money, but that the Wolves did. Elmer has the money in his possession right this minute!" "Impossible!" shouted Carson. "Hand him the money, Elmer," requested Will. Carson snatched the bill book as it was held out to him and began looking through the ten-thousand-dollar banknotes which it contained. "The next time you get drunk and fall out of your machine, don't accuse every one you meet of robbing you!" Sandy cut in. "Are you the boys who came on from Chicago?" demanded Carson. "Sure!" replied Will. "I guess I'm an old fool!" admitted Carson. "Here I've been roaming around about half a day accusing you boys of stealing my money, when all the time you were planning on returning it to me!" "Do we get the reward now?" asked Will. "Twenty thousand and expenses!" replied Carson. "I'll settle with Elmer and his chums later on!" "It's a shame to take the money!" declared Sandy, but Will gave him a sharp punch in the back and he cut off any further remarks which he might have had in his mind. The story ends here because the adventure ended with the finding of the money. The old tool house was deserted that night. The two hold-up men and the detective recovered after a long illness in a Pittsburgh hospital. The detective was permitted to go his way after promising to keep out of crooked detective deals in the future. He never told how or where he received his information about the lost money. The hold-up men were given long sentences in prison. A few weeks later, when the mining company resumed operations at the Labyrinth, Tunnel Six was walled up. Mr. Carson, the president, declared that it made what few hairs he had left stand on end to think of the experiences he had endured there! However, there are still stories about the breaker, that on dark nights, when the wind blows, and the rain falls in great sheets, there are mysterious lights floating about Tunnel Six. Jimmie and Dick often tell exactly how these lights were made, and how they enjoyed themselves living down in the bowels of the earth, but the superstitious miners still claim that the boys were not responsible for all the lights which burned there! Dick and Jimmie also have their joke with the Beaver Patrol boys whenever they meet, declaring that if they had not finally relented and dropped the string the boys had carried into the mine for their own protection, they would still be wandering around in the Labyrinth Mine. "And now," Will said as they settled down in their old room on Washington boulevard, "we're going to be good boys from this time on and remain in Chicago and stay at home nights!" However, in three days, the boys were preparing for another bit of adventure, the details of which will be found in the next volume of this series entitled: "Boy Scouts in Alaska; or, The Camp on the Glacier." The End. [Frontispiece] BOY SCOUTS IN ALASKA Or, The Camp on the Glacier CONTENTS Chapter Page I--UNDER SEALED ORDERS 7 II--THE PRINT OF A THUMB 14 III--A MESSAGE IN CODE 21 IV--THE LOST PLANS 28 V--FISHING IN ALASKA 35 VI--A MISSING BOY 42 VII--A LOST "BULLDOG" 49 VIII--ON THE GULF OF ALASKA 56 IX--THE CLUES WILL FOUND 63 X--IN LUCK AT LAST 70 XI--MAKING NEW PLANS 76 XII--ANOTHER LOST "BULLDOG" 83 XIII--THE BEGINNING OF THE TRAIL 89 XIV--THE LAD WITH THE "DRAG" 94 XV--A BREAK IN THE GLACIER 100 XVI--GEORGE AND SANDY CAUGHT 107 XVII--THE MORSE CODE 114 XVIII--THE ROCKS TUMBLE DOWN 122 XIX--VICTIMS OF THE QUAKE 130 XX--DOWN IN THE CHASM 137 XXI--EXPLAINING CORDOVA INCIDENTS 142 XXII--THE PLANS AT LAST 148 CHAPTER I UNDER SEALED ORDERS An August night in Alaska. To the North, the tangle of the Chugach Mountains; to the East, Bering Glacier; to the South, the purple waters of the Gulf of Alaska; to the West, Prince William Sound. All around, the grandeur of a world in the making--high mountains, rugged summits, deep cut valleys, creeping glaciers. In a log cabin standing in the center of a small forested moraine four boys of about seventeen were grouped together. The one door and the two windows of the structure were covered with mosquito wire. The hum of insect life came into the room with the monotony of the murmur of the sea. Although it was after ten o'clock in the evening, the sun still rode high above the horizon. A few hundred feet from the outer edge of the ice-cliff, the forested moraine became a "dead" glacier. When a glacier advances no longer, but draws back year by year, it is said to be "dead." The live glacier is simply a river of ice pouring down precipices and into gorges and fiords. As a matter of fact, the log cabin was built upon a glacier, for under the luxuriant summer undergrowth, under the flowers, and under the bright green of the hemlocks, lay a great bed of ice which, however, was slowly receding. In times gone by the current of ice had flowed into the Gulf of Alaska, but now, because of drainage in another direction, the glacial ice swept off to the west, in the direction of Copper river. The four boys in the cabin had just finished supper, the cooking having been done over a gasoline "plate," and they were now discussing the advisability of spending the remaining hour of daylight in the investigation of the strange, wild land in which they now found themselves. Two days before they had landed at Katalla, and had spent the intervening time in transferring their supplies to the log house on the glacier. They had traveled northward by the inland route, and landed in the vicinity of Controller bay, bringing with them provisions sufficient for a long stay in the wonderful North. Those who have read the previous volumes of this series will well remember the adventures of Will Smith, Charley (Sandy) Green, George Benton and Tommy Gregory. After startling experiences among the Pictured Rocks of Old Superior, in the mysterious swamps of the Everglades, in the rocky caverns of the Continental Divide, amidst the snows of the Hudson Bay wilderness, and in the coal caverns of the Pennsylvania anthracite region, they had decided to spend a portion of the summer in Alaska. They had reached Controller bay without serious accident, and now found themselves in one of the most picturesque sections of the great territory, with plenty of provisions and ammunition. The lads were all dressed in the khaki uniform of the Boy Scouts of America, the badges showing membership in the Beaver Patrol of Chicago. Their coat sleeves showed medals proclaiming the fact that they had passed examinations and were well qualified to serve as Stalkers, Seamen, Pioneers, or in the Ambulance squad. The pennant of the Beaver Patrol flew above the door of the cabin. Tommy Gregory separated himself from, the group about the supper table and walked to the heavily-screened doorway. His face was covered by an Alaska head-net, and he wore a pair of strong leather gloves. "Why didn't some of you boys tell me that the mosquitos here are as large as robins?" he asked. "Because they are only half as large," replied Sandy Green with a grin. "If some one will hand me my gun off the table," Tommy went on, with a wrinkling of his freckled nose, "I'll shoot one, and we can have him for supper! One of the outlaws ought to make a good meal for us four!" "Better do the killing with a handspike," advised Sandy, "for we haven't any ammunition to throw away. Besides," the boy went on, "I don't believe a thirty-eight would kill one of these wild animals, anyway!" "Up on the Yukon," George Benton interrupted, "when they sentence a man to death, they don't hang him. They send him down the river in an open canoe, and give the mosquitos a crack at him!" "You stated that in the way of an exaggeration," Will Smith suggested, "but it is the absolute truth, for all that! Men lost among the nigger-heads have been found later on with their bones picked dry." "What's a nigger-head?" asked Tommy. "A nigger-head is a bog," was the reply. "When I say a bog, I don't mean a swampy hole, either. I mean a grassy knoll sticking up out of a swamp full of mud. If you keep on the bogs, or nigger-heads, you are reasonably safe, but if you drop down into the mud, you are likely to go in over your head." "How far down does this mud go?" demanded Sandy. "Down to the ice," replied Will. "This entire country," he went on, "is lined with ice! Ten or twelve feet below the foundation of this cabin, the ice is almost as hard as steel. Sometimes the earth-crust over the ice is a foot thick, and sometimes it is ten feet." "Are those brilliant flowers growing over a glacier?" asked Tommy, pointing to a group of violets growing not far away. "Sure!" replied Will. "If it wasn't for the ice, there wouldn't be any violets here. The glacier supplies water as well as soil." "What'd you say about going up to the end of the moraine?" asked Sandy, joining Tommy at the screened door of the cabin. "Isn't it quite a climb?" asked Will. "It isn't so very steep," replied Tommy, "but the way seems to be rather rocky. I'd like to know where all these round stones come from!" "They are brought down by the glacier ice and rounded into shape by the same force which discharges the ice stream into the gulf. There is always a line of moraine at each side of a glacier, and usually several ridges in the middle of it. Those at the edge are called lateral moraines, those in the middle, medial moraines, and those at the end, terminal moraines. And that's about all I know of Alaska," Will added, with a smile. The lads passed up the moraine for some distance, until, in fact, they came to a point where vegetation became thinner, and hemlocks of smaller growth. Then they turned toward the west and stood for a long time watching the yellow glory of the sunset. But the heat of day passes swiftly in Alaska when the direct rays of the sun fail, and so the boys were soon glad to return to their cabin, which they had found standing unoccupied. "I'd like to know the history of this old shack," Sandy said, as they paused in the gathering darkness at the doorway. "There's no knowing how long it has stood here, waiting for us to come and gladden its dirty old walls with our presence and our scrubbing brushes!" laughed Tommy. "I've seen a good many cleaner cabins in my life!" "And there is no knowing how many tragedies have been enacted here, either!" exclaimed George. "It must have witnessed many a queer sight!" "It must have been built within a year or two," Will observed, "for the logs do not yet show decay." "What I can't get through my noodle," George said, with a puzzled look, "is why any one should construct such a habitable little cabin in this out of the way spot, and then go away and leave it. We must be at least twelve or fifteen miles from the nearest neighbor." "We're farther than that," observed Sandy, "judging from the time it took us to row our supplies over from the floating dock where we landed. I hope we'll be ready to go out by the time our provisions run short." "Look here, Will," Tommy questioned, "did Mr. Horton direct you to this exact spot, or did he only tell you to locate somewhere in this vicinity? You never told us what he said." "He told me," was the guarded reply, "that I might be able to find a deserted cabin on this moraine." "And he told you right where to find the moraine?" asked Sandy. "Of course he did!" "And you said nothing to us about that, either," complained Tommy. "You're always holding something back from us!" "Well, now that we're here," George suggested, "perhaps Will can be coaxed into telling us exactly what we're here for." "I should say so!" exclaimed Tommy. "We don't, know at the present moment whether we're here to trap brown bears, or to box and ship Northern Lights to the eastern markets." "Don't get sarcastic, boys!" replied Will. "I was instructed by Mr. Horton to communicate to you all the information in my possession on our first night in camp, and I'm ready right now to obey orders. Shall we go inside? The bugs are pretty thick out here!" "I should say so!" shouted Tommy. "I'm pretty well hedged in from the blooming insects," he went on, "but it makes me nervous to hear them blowing their dinner horns every minute." "Gee!" exclaimed Sandy. "Whenever I get into this anti-mosquito rig, I feel like an armored train!" Twilight lay heavy over the landscape now, and so the boys were confronted by a dark interior as they stepped into the cabin. "Who's got a searchlight handy?" asked Will. Tommy replied that he would have a light on in a second, but before the finger of light from the electric shot into the room, Will half fell over a yielding figure which lay on the floor not for away from the table. Then the circle of light, thrown hastily down, rested upon the white, drawn face of a boy not far from sixteen years of age. There was a little showing of blood on the floor, and his eyes were tightly closed, indicating that he had been rendered unconscious by a wound. The lad was dressed in the khaki uniform of the Boy Scouts of America, and the badge on his hat showed that he was Leader of the Fox Patrol. A long envelope torn open at one end and bearing the name of Will Smith, lay empty by the lad's side. "Where did he come from?" cried Tommy, "and who is he?" "Must have dropped out of the sky!" declared Sandy. CHAPTER II THE PRINT OF A THUMB "The Fox Patrol!" exclaimed George. "I wonder if that means the Fox Patrol of Chicago? It doesn't seem to me that this kid could have followed on our heels across the continent!" Will lifted the torn envelope from the floor and examined it critically. "That's your name isn't it?" asked Sandy looking over his shoulder. "It certainly is!" replied Will. "Well, you've got the address left, anyhow!" said George. "Say," Tommy suggested, opening his eyes very wide, "some gink followed the boy here, bumped him on the coco, and stole the communication! I reckon we're getting into the center of population again. Here we are, several hundred miles from nowhere, and we've unearthed an innocent messenger and a bold highwayman already!" "Have you any idea what the stolen paper contained?" asked George. "Not the slightest!" replied Will. "Wasn't it arranged that Mr. Horton should communicate with you after we reached this point?" asked Sandy. "Certainly not!" was the reply. "He gave me full instructions before we left Chicago. If I found a deserted cabin at this point, I was to make camp here. If I did not, I was to keep along the coast toward Bering Glacier until I discovered one answering this description." "But where did this kid come from?" insisted Tommy. "How did he ever get here all by his lonely? We had two guides to help us in, and it seems that he came alone, that is, as far as we can see." "I don't think he came alone!" replied Sandy pointing to the wound on the boy's head. "He never got a bump like that in a fall!" "Oh, we'll have to wait until the kid wakes up!" Tommy cut in. "We'd better be doing something to help him out of his trance, instead of standing here guessing. He may be badly hurt!" The limp figure was lifted from the floor and placed on one of the bunks fastened to the wall of the cabin. The lad groaned slightly as the change was made, but did not open his eyes. "I guess he got a bad bump," Will suggested. "And I'm sorry to say that his wound requires a piece of surgery far beyond my ability to perform. I'm afraid we'll have to send out for a doctor!" The boys used every means within their knowledge to bring the lad back to consciousness, but all their efforts proved unavailing. The lad lay in a comatose condition long after all their resources had failed. So busily engaged were the boys in their efforts at resuscitation that they did not for a moment remember that they, themselves, might be in danger from the same hand which had struck down the boy. As they worked over the lad, bathing the wound with hot water and endeavoring to force stimulating drinks between the set teeth, they did not observe a bearded face was pressed for a moment against a window pane. It was an evil face, and was gone on the instant. After three hours of steady exertion, the boys relaxed their efforts and sat down to consider the situation. They had searched the boy's clothing, but had found nothing giving a clue to his name or residence. "Right out of the air!" exclaimed Sandy. "If we should blunder into a camp devoid of a mystery, we'd have to move out or die of suffocation!" "I'd like to know who the boy is, and where he came from," Will said, after a short pause, "but the principal question now is this: What was in the paper that was stolen from the envelope?" "Probably some information directed to you," suggested Tommy. "Undoubtedly," Will answered. "And now, instead of coming into your hands," George remarked, "the warning, or the command, or whatever you may call it, passes over to the man who attempted murder in order to secure it!" "That's just the size of it!" Tommy agreed. "It strikes me," George suggested, "that we'd better set a guard through the rest of the night. The fellow who struck this blow may be waiting to strike another!" "How long were we gone from the cabin?" asked Will. "Less than an hour," replied Sandy. "Then, if we had at once set up a search for the assassin," Will went on, "we might have discovered him." "Not in a thousand years, in this wild country!" exclaimed Tommy. Will went to the door and looked out toward the east. "It will be daylight directly," he said, "and then we will see what can be accomplished in the way of finding clues." "Nix on the clue!" argued Tommy. "The gink who bumped our friend on the cupola came after the paper. He got the paper and ducked, and that's all there is to it! If there were any secret communications concerning our mission in the paper, the robber got them!" "And where does that leave us?" asked Sandy. "Up in the air!" grumbled Tommy. "So far as I can see," Will stated, "you boys have the situation sized up correctly! The boy was sent here to convey certain information to me. He made his way to the cabin before being attacked. Then he was struck down and the important paper abstracted from the envelope." "I've got an idea!" cried Tommy springing to his feet and walking up and down the cabin floor. "I've got a bully idea!" "Pass it around," advised Sandy. "This lad wasn't followed in at all!" Tommy went on. "The man who attacked him and stole the paper was waiting for him at this cabin! The lad was mistaken for the boy whose name appears on the envelope, and so he got what was meant for some one else!" "But look here," George argued, "if the assassin was waiting here for the boy to come, why didn't he jump us as soon as we made our appearance?" "That's another question I can't answer," Tommy admitted. "I might say that the man reached the cabin and found this boy sitting here alone, but that would be only guess work." Will arose and walked over to the bunk where the wounded boy lay. "Half a dozen words from his lips would settle the whole question," he said, "but it appears to me that it will be a long time before he will be able to speak a word. All our Boy Scout learning in the matter of wounds is ineffective here!" "There's one thing clear to me," George argued, "and that is that some one in this wild region now knows more about our mission here than we do ourselves. Of course, Will may know quite a lot regarding it," he added, with a wink, "but, if he does, he hasn't yet confided the story to us." "That's a hint that you get busy and tell us what we're here for," suggested Tommy with another wink. "I'll tell you what I know about the matter," Will answered, "but in the face of the fact that a more recent reading of the case is known to exist, the chances are that any explanations I may make may prove to be worthless." "Can you answer a straight question?" asked Tommy. "I think so," answered Will. "Will you answer a straight question?" persisted the boy. "Certainly!" "Then answer it. What are we here for?" "We are here," replied Will, "to secure the print of a thumb!" "Has the shock of this incident turned your head?" asked Tommy. "I answered the question correctly!" replied Will. "We came all the way from Chicago to find the print of a man's right thumb!" "Where do you expect to find it?" demanded Sandy. "Somewhere among the mountains and glaciers," smiled Will. "I can get all the thumb prints I want on South Clark street!" declared Tommy. "Of course, it's fun to come out here, under any pretext whatever, but I think Mr. Horton might have given us a more sensible errand than that. This is worse than the trip to the coal mine!" "Now tell us the excuse Mr. Horton gave for wanting this print of a man's right thumb," smiled Sandy. Will arose and went to the door. The sun was lifting through a narrow pass in the mountains, and the creatures of the thickets and the air were astir. A flock of water fowl was winging swiftly to the north, and what seemed to be the keen eyes of a wolf looked out from the shelter of the undergrowth. The air was clear and invigorating. "Why don't you answer my question?" asked Sandy. "Did you hear footsteps outside?" asked Will. Sandy shook his head, but the two boys, after drawing on their head-nets, stepped out into the glorious morning. "There is no reason," Will decided, "why the person who attacked the boy and stole the paper should find it necessary to leave this section without trying to find out something more. I have an idea that whoever injured the lad is still in this vicinity--that he will remain in this vicinity as long as there is a prospect of his securing additional information." "The mosquitos will eat him up if he remains around here without proper shelter!" Sandy suggested. "That is one way of fighting off mosquitos," Will said, catching the boy by the arm and pointing off to the east, where a faint line of smoke was making its way through the still air. "There's some kind of a camp there, all right!" exclaimed Sandy. Tommy and George now came out of the cabin and the four boys stood for some moments watching the column of smoke which seemed to grow more dense every moment. While they looked, a second column appeared beside the first. "If we were in a Boy Scout country," Tommy exclaimed, "I should say that was an Indian signal for help." "In a Boy Scout country!" repeated Sandy. "If this isn't a Boy Scout country, what is it? Every inhabitant, so far as we know, belongs to the order!" "Well, there's a Boy Scout call for assistance," urged Tommy, excitedly, "and I think we'd better get a move on and see what it means!" CHAPTER III A MESSAGE IN CODE "We mustn't all go," Will said, as his companions started on a run in the direction of the smoke signals. "I should say not!" exclaimed Sandy. "If we should all go away at one time we might find another wounded boy in the cabin on our return!" "Suppose you keep watch, then," Tommy suggested. "All right," Sandy agreed. "I'll stay if you'll stay with me." Tommy grumbled a little at the idea of missing a little possible excitement, but the two lads entered the cabin and closed the door while Will and George started away toward the signals. The moraine over which they passed was something like a floor of loose rocks of different sizes, with mats of mosses, lichens, sedges, and dwarf shrubs scattered here and there, so the traveling was by no means easy. Now and then the boys came to a place where the rocks were entirely bare, and here their progress was more rapid. The columns of smoke grew more distinct as they advanced, and, after traveling a mile or more, they came to a position from which a figure could be seen moving back and forth between the two fires. "That's a kid all right!" Will decided, watching the figure closely through a field glass. "And he's wearing a Boy Scout uniform, too!" "I have an idea," George declared, with a sly wink at his chum, "that if we should ascend to the Mountains of the Moon and drop into a gorge a thousand feet deep, we'd find a Boy Scout in a khaki uniform at the bottom." "I'm not kicking at the discovery of a Boy Scout," laughed Will. "The more Boy Scouts we come across in this desolate land the happier we shall be." "I'm not kicking, either," replied George. "I was only commenting on the queer fact that we find Boy Scouts in every region we chance to visit." "You'll find the little fellows scattered all over the world!" declared Will. "And they're always doing something wherever they are." Will now handed the field glass to George and he, in turn, made a short study of the figure passing back and forth between the two fires, piling wood now on one and now on another. "It's dollars to doughnuts," Will observed, "that the boy by the fires came in with the one who lies in the cabin with a busted head." "I've been considering that proposition," George said. "Then, perhaps, we may be able to solve a portion of the mystery as soon as we get into conversation with the lad," Will continued. "I wonder why he didn't come to the cabin during the night?" asked George. "He surely must have seen the lights shining from the windows." Will turned and looked back over the route they had followed. "We can't see the cabin from here," he said. "That's a fact," George agreed, "and if the smoke hadn't been going up good and plenty we would never have seen that!" The next moment the lad at the fires saw Will and George approaching and ran forward to meet them, uttering as he ran the sharp, quick bark of the fox. The boys responded with the challenge of the Beaver Patrol. The lad met the two with anything but a serious or anxious expression on his face. He grasped them heartily by the hand and pointed toward the columns of smoke, still rising into the sky. "No matter where you start a signal fire," he said with a smile, "you're sure to find some Boy Scout who will understand and answer." "Even in Alaska!" George grinned. "A thousand miles from nowhere you can dig up a nest of Boy Scouts by sending up an Indian sign for help." "Are you Will Smith?" the boy asked after a few more words of greeting had been exchanged. "If you are, I've come along way to find you!" "Yes, I am Will Smith," the boy answered. "How'd you guess it?" asked George. "Why didn't you ask me if I was the boss of the bunch? Don't I look dignified enough?" "I have a description of Will Smith lying nicely tucked in at the back of my brain!" replied the boy. "Mr. Horton told me where I'd be apt to find him. It seems that I've found him all right, but in doing so, I've lost my chum! Haven't seen anything of a stray Boy Scout, have you?" Will did not reply to the question immediately, yet he did not care to convey to the boy the news of what had occurred until after a clear understanding of the situation had been reached. "What's your name?" asked George. "Frank Disbrow, Fox Patrol, Chicago," was the reply. "And your chum?" asked Will. "Bert Calkins, Fox Patrol, Chicago." "Do you mean to tell me that you have followed us boys from Chicago?" asked George. "You've had a long chase if you have done so!" "No," answered Frank, "we were very much surprised, one day, to receive a wireless telegram from my father, who is connected in various business operations with Lawyer Horton. The wireless stated that father had work for us to do in Alaska, and the result of it all was that we received a long message in code from Mr. Horton." "In code?" asked Will, excitedly. "Exactly! In code." "In whose code?" asked Will. "Father's," was the reply. "I see," said Will. "And you, of course, understand your father's code?" "Certainly!" was the answer. "What did the message in code say?" asked George. "It was addressed to Will Smith," was the answer, "and I, following instructions, did not translate it." "The message to you simply requested the delivery of the code message?" asked Will. "Yes, that's all it told us to do." "Do you know what the code message contained?" asked Will. "I do not!" was the reply. "You see," the boy went on, "Bert Calkins and I were at Cordova on a vacation. If the wireless message had been two hours later it would have found us on the way to Cook Inlet." "Just traveling about for the fun of the thing, eh?" asked George. "That's the idea," replied Frank. "Perhaps we'd better return to the cabin before we get the history of this boy's life," suggested George, with a grin. "I don't like the way these mosquitos howl about my ears. I'm afraid they'll devour the net and begin on me." "The cabin?" repeated Frank. "Did you find the cabin?" "Sure we did," answered George. "And we left the cabin for an hour or so last night, and when we came back we found a member of the Fox Patrol asleep on the floor." "So that's where Bert went, is it?" asked Frank. "You see," the boy went on, "I got separated from Bert just this side of Katalla. He loitered behind to view the scenery, or something of that sort, and I came on ahead." "And he never caught up with you?" asked George. "He never did," was the reply, "although I saw him at different times during yesterday. I thought he headed off in this direction, and so came here. I've had rather a bad night looking for him." "He had the code message addressed to Will?" asked George. "Yes," was the reply. "The untranslated code message?" Will asked. "Yes, the untranslated code message." "Glory be!" shouted George. Frank looked at the boy in wonder for a moment, and then turned to Will with a question in his eyes. "It's a long story," Will said in answer to the look, "and we'd better wait until we get to the cabin before entering upon it." "Is Bert all right?" asked Frank. "He got a little bump on the head somewhere," answered George, "but he'll come out of that all right, in time. I wasn't rejoicing because your chum got a poke on the belfry," George went on, whimsically, "I was shouting because the man who stole the code message didn't accomplish anything." Frank, who was now standing by the fire collecting such bits of wardrobe as had been removed from his handbag, and also collecting the remains of the solitary lunch of which he had partaken that morning, again turned to Will with an interrogation point in each eye. "Was the code message stolen?" he asked. "It certainly was!" Will answered. "At least a large envelope with my name written across the front was found, with the end torn open, by your friend's side as he lay on the floor." "That's the work of the man who followed us in!" declared Frank. "We'll get this story all out of you pretty soon," laughed George. "Suppose we go to the cabin before we uncork the entire yarn," suggested Frank. "To tell you the truth, boys, I didn't have half enough breakfast, and I'm about starved to death!" "All right," Will replied. "There's nothing to keep us here that I know of. Did you see any one around your camp in the night?" he continued. "What kind of a night did you pass?" "A rotten, bad night!" was the answer. "I traveled a long way before I came to any wood suitable for building a campfire, and after I got one built it seemed to send out a bugle call to every wild animal within forty miles of the place. I guess I heard bears, and wolves, and wild dogs, and bull moose, and every other form, of wild life known to Alaska, at some time during the night!" "And all the time," grinned George, "you were not more than a mile or so from our cabin. It's a wonder you didn't see our light." "Well, I didn't," Frank replied. "But that's past and gone," he went on, in a moment, "and what I'm thinking about at the present time is this: Did the man who stole the code message from Bert force the boy to translate it for him? Tell me something more about the attack on the boy." "We don't know anything about the attack," replied Will. "We found him lying on the floor of the cabin unconscious, and he has been unconscious ever since." "Well," Frank went on, "Bert understands the code, for I taught it to him while we were translating the telegrams which came to me. Now, if this outlaw took the code before he struck the blow, the chances are that he ordered Bert to translate it for him. In that case, something which those opposed to you ought not to know is in the hands of your foes." CHAPTER IV THE LOST PLANS "Well, there's a chance that the boy didn't translate the code message," George argued. "Anyway, we ought not to worry about that part of the case. Time enough to fret when real trouble comes." By this time the boys had reached the cabin, after an exhausting journey over the moraine. They found Tommy and Sandy standing just inside the screened doorway, waiting impatiently for their arrival. "Where did you find this one?" asked Tommy with a grin. "Did he drop down out of the sky?" Sandy questioned. Frank stood back for a moment, eyeing the two critically. "I know you two kids," he said. "You're Tommy and Sandy. I've read about you in the Chicago newspapers, but I never expected to meet you out in Alaska. You seem to be getting plenty to eat, judging from your condition. And that brings back to my mind the condition of my own stomach." "Boys," Will exclaimed, "this is Frank Disbrow. He started for our cabin in company with Bert Calking, the boy we found on the floor last night. The two were bringing a code despatch to me, and they became separated early yesterday morning." "A code message, was it?" Tommy asked. "Yes, a code message," Will answered, "but the bearer of the despatch may, for all we know, have been forced to translate the message for the benefit of the man who robbed him of it." In a moment Frank was by the side of his chum, gazing down into a white and haggard face. He turned away in a moment with a little shiver of anxiety. His face, too, was pale. "I'm afraid that's a serious wound!" he said. "If we only had a surgeon," Sandy suggested. "I'll go get one," offered Tommy. "I can cut across to Katalla in no time and bring back the best doctor there is in the country." "I'll go with you," offered Sandy. "Now, wait a minute, boys!" Will said in a moment. "Let's think this matter over. If you go to Cordova instead of Katalla, you can communicate with Frank's father at Chicago, and so get in touch with Mr. Horton. In this way, we can learn the contents of the code despatch. There surely was some strong reason for sending it, and it seems as if we ought to know its contents." "That's a good idea, too," exclaimed Tommy. "We'll go to Katalla, and perhaps we can find a boat about ready to sail for Cordova. In that case we ought to get up to the wireless station and back in a couple of days. The distance isn't great, but it's rough traveling." "I wish we could take Bert with us," suggested Frank. "Are you thinking of going?" asked Will. "Yes," was the reply, "if I could take Bert out." "Bert is in no condition to be taken out," Will answered, "and even if he were it would take so long to make the journey that we could get a surgeon out here before we could land him in a hospital." "I think," Frank said, "that I ought to go with the boy who is sent out after a surgeon. It is not certain that father will communicate by wireless save to his son. Anyway, I can find out a great deal more by talking with him than could any one else." "I guess that's right!" Will replied. "Then I'll go with him!" Tommy shouted. "I want to see what's going on in the world of fashion, anyway!" "All right," Will said. "Pack up your provisions and get ready to move. Of course you'll need provisions." "I usually do!" grinned Tommy. The lads packed up the good supply of sandwiches and started off towards Katalla. It was somewhere near noon when they left the cabin, and they expected to reach the town on the coast before twilight fell, the distance being not more than fourteen miles. "If you don't get to town when night falls," Will warned, "don't try to camp out in the open, but keep going until you find some human habitation. You remember what happened to Bert!" "Any one who comes within a half a mile of me in a lonely place," Tommy put in, "will scrape the acquaintance of a bullet." "And here's another thing," Will advised, "don't travel without a wet cloth or a bunch of green leaves inside your hat. It'll be ninety in the shade before the afternoon is over!" "Yes, and a hundred in the sun!" declared Sandy. "That's a nice weather for the Arctic regions, isn't it?" asked Frank. "We have to take it just as we find it!" replied Will. The boys started away on a brisk walk, and were accompanied by their chums some distance down the faint trail which led to the coast. At one time in the history of the country one large glacier had completely covered that section. But now, thousands of subordinate canyons and hollows on the mountains were filled with independent masses of ice. All that section of Alaska, from smoking Wrangell to the Pacific coast, shows volcanic peaks. There are many dead craters, and some which are not so dead! There are still peaks of fire as well as rivers of ice. After the departure of the two boys, Will and the others devoted considerable attention to the wounded lad. They did their best with the simple means at hand, but never, for an instant, did the boy regain consciousness. "I don't think we can do anything for him until the surgeon comes," Will said as he threw himself disconsolately into a chair. "If we only knew whether he was forced to translate the code message for the benefit of the man who robbed him," Sandy suggested, "there wouldn't be so much doubt as to what course we ought to take." "The code message," Will argued, "may change the whole scheme." "Yes," Sandy complained, "and we won't know what to do until Frank comes back with the duplicate." "We won't know what to do then unless Will loosens up!" laughed George. "Referring, of course," Sandy laughed, "to the prospective story of the mark of the human thumb. Will was about to tell us all about it when we saw the signals sent up by Frank." "That's a fact," Will replied. "I didn't get any further than the mention of the human thumb, did I?" "We're waiting to hear the rest of it now!" declared Sandy. "Well," Will began, "there was a safe robbed in Chicago one night, and two men were accused of the crime. The accused men were in the employ of the manufacturing concern whose safe was entered. They admit that they were in the private office of the firm during the night, but they deny that they opened the safe." "Of course!" laughed George. "Now don't form any hasty conclusions," Will went on. "There was a third person in the office that night, according to the stories told by the two men who are accused, but this third person says he wasn't there!" "Then this third person may be the one who opened the safe." "That is the theory of the defense," Will explained. "But what's all this got to do with the mark of a man's right thumb?" asked George. "I'm coming to that," Will went on. "The three men who were in the office that night--we are supposing for the sake of the argument that there were three men there, and that the man who says he wasn't there is lying about it--were looking over a set of plans for a new machine which the company was arranging to manufacture." "I've got you now!" laughed Sandy. "The thumb print of the third man was left on the drawings!" "That's the idea," admitted Will. "The two men say that they were not a little annoyed during the course of the evening because this man, Babcock, persisted in pawing over the plans with dirty hands. They declare that the marks of both thumbs are to be seen on drawings, not in plain dust and grime, but in ink." "He must have spilled the ink," suggested George. "That's what they say," Will replied. "Well, go on!" urged George. "The statement is made by the two accused men that they worked over the plans until after midnight, and that they left this man Babcock at the office when they went to their homes. Babcock denied that he was in the office at all that night." "Where are the plans?" asked George. "In Alaska," answered Will. "But whereabouts in Alaska?" Will looked at the boy quizzically for a moment before he answered. "That's just what we're here to find out!" he finally said. "But why, when, where, how?" began the boy. "One at a time!" laughed Will. "On the morning following the robbery, the plans having been rejected by the two men who were accused of robbing the safe, were sent to a mining company having an office at Cordova. So far as the defense is concerned, they have never been seen since that time." "Were they actually sent?" demanded George. "Yes, they were sent. The manager of the mining company admits having received them. He says they were turned over to a clerk for examination. From the time they passed into the hands of this clerk, no one had seen them. The clerk says he never had them." "Do the manager and the clerk know what the defense in the robbery case expects to prove by the papers if they can be secured?" asked George. "They are not supposed to know," Will answered. "But you think that they may know, for all that?" "At the time of leaving Chicago, I had no idea that there would be any trouble at all in securing the plans. In fact, until Bert was found lying on our floor last night, I believed that we should discover the papers as soon as we came upon one Len Garman, a miner who has, against the advice of his friends, been prospecting in this district, and who is known to have at one time occupied this cabin." CHAPTER V FISHING IN ALASKA "Are you sure this is the same cabin?" asked George. "Yes, I am sure this is the same cabin. At any rate, the description is perfect, both as regards the structure and the surroundings." "I may be somewhat dense," George went on, "but I can't understand why a miner who is fool enough to prospect for gold on a dead glacier should take pains to conceal plans concerning the manufacture of a machine. What did he want of the plans?" "I didn't say that he was concealing the plans," laughed Will. "Well, you inferred as much!" "As a matter of fact, I think he is hiding the plans." "Does he expect to go into the manufacturing business?" grinned Sandy. "I don't know about that," Will replied, "but there is talk that the clerk and the miner conspired to lose the plans." "Because of the thumb prints?" asked Sandy. "No; because the machine outlined in the plans is a mining machine, and because this clerk, Vin Chase, his name is, and this miner, Garman, have a notion in their head that they can steal the idea and bring forth a machine of their own. At least that is the supposition in Chicago." "The plot deepens!" laughed George, "We'll be doing business with the Patent Office the first thing we know!" "Are the plans which are claimed to hold the thumb prints of any value?" asked Sandy. "What I mean is, is the alleged invention of any account? You know there are plenty of inventions which are not worth the paper they are drawn on." "Spaulding and Hurley, the two men accused of stealing the money," Will answered, "declare that the plans are absolutely without value." "Why didn't you tell us all this before we left Chicago?" asked George. "I don't see any necessity for your keeping the story of the plans such a profound secret!" "Well," answered Will, "the principal reason why I didn't tell you the whole story in Chicago is that I didn't care to clutter your minds up with a puzzling proposition which might be solved in a moment at the end of the journey. I expected to find Garman and the plans in this cottage. In that case, I should have shipped the plans back to Chicago and we should have gone with our playful little vacation under the North Star." "Then you wouldn't have told us anything about the plans or the robbers?" questioned Sandy. "Certainly not," was the reply. "You see, boys," Will went on, observing the injured look on the faces of his chums, "we've always been mixed up in some mystery, ever since the day we started out to visit the Pictured Rocks of Old Superior. So I thought you might like one trip free of puzzles and excitements." "Don't you never permit us to lose sight of a mystery!" exclaimed George. "I eat mysteries three times a day, and then dream of mysteries at night! And Sandy," he went on, "just gets fat on mysteries!" "All right," Will agreed. "If you want to tie your intellect all up into knots studying out such Sherlock Holmes puzzles as come to me, I have no objections." "Well, we've found the cottage," George observed presently, "but we haven't found the man." "Perhaps Bert Calkins found him," contended Will. "Do you really think the miner is still hanging around this cabin?" asked Sandy. "Do you think he is the man who gave Bert the clout on the head? If you do think so, we'd better keep a sharp lookout." "Garman wouldn't know anything about our coming here after the plans!" suggested George. "Any man who steals another man's invention, or tries to steal it, will go to almost any length to protect the thing he has stolen. Even if Garman had no previous knowledge of our visit to this place our arrival here would at once excite his suspicions." "I see that now," agreed George, "and the first thing the fellow would do would be to try to discover what we were doing here." "Yes," continued Will, "and that would be sufficient motive for him to attack the bearer of the code despatch." "I guess we've got it all doped out now," laughed George. "All we've got to do is to find this man Garman, take the original plans away from him, mail them back to Chicago, and go on about our business." "And the lawyers in Chicago will do the rest!" grinned Sandy. "It looks easy, doesn't it?" suggested Will. "Why, if this miner doesn't know anything about what we're here for, we can tell him any story we're a mind to. We can tell him we're here on a vacation and have money to invest in a mine, if he can find the right kind of a mine for us," laughed George. "In twenty-four hours after we get hold of him, we can have him eating corn out of our hands, like a billy goat." "You say it well!" laughed Sandy. "That's all very well," Will agreed, "provided Garman isn't the man who took the code despatch from Bert Calkins." "And provided, too," George declared, "that Garman didn't force the boy to translate the despatch for his benefit." "And provided, also," Sandy cut in, "that the code despatch doesn't give away the whole snap to the miner. If he sees the machine plans referred to in any way, he'll think we want to get them away from him, because they are the stolen plans, and then it will be all off for us!" "And so, when you come to round up on the proposition," Will argued, "we are not much further along than we were when we left Chicago, except that we have found the cabin." "Who said anything about getting dinner?" asked Sandy, after a short pause. "I remember having a little snack about twelve o'clock, but that wasn't to be considered as a full meal, I hope." "What have we got to eat?" asked Will. "Nothing but a lot of canned stuff!" declared Sandy. "Well, then, go out and get a deer, or half a dozen rabbits, or go back here to the little creek that runs into Copper river and see if you can get a mess of fish. There ought to be plenty of fish in Alaska!" "What kind of fish can you get?" asked Sandy. "Salmon!" answered Will. "How far is it to the creek?" was the next question. "Something over a mile, I should say," replied Will. "It can't be any further than that," George cut in. "The glacier this cabin is built on supplies most of the water for it." "All right, then," Sandy replied. "I'll get myself up a little lunch consisting of a couple of slices of bacon and three or four eggs, and go out and catch a ten-pound salmon for dinner. Want to go with me, George?" he added. "No need of all three staying here." "Let Will go," replied George. "I'm tired, and there's a particularly interesting book I'd like to finish this afternoon." Will went pawing among the fishing tackle, and finally called out to George who was just crawling into a bunk with his book: "What do they catch fish with in Alaska?" "Hooks!" replied George. "Hooks and eyes?" asked Will, with a chuckle. "Sure! Hooks and eyes! You see 'em with the eyes, and grab 'em with the hooks!" "Aw, never mind that gink!" laughed Sandy. "He doesn't know any more about fishing in Alaska than a hog knows about Sunday! Bring along all the flies we've got and some red flannel, and some pieces of dirty bacon, and we'll manage to get fish. If one bait won't answer, another will." "Do we have to cut a hole through the ice?" asked Will. "Cut a hole through the ice!" repeated George. "Eighty or ninety in the shade! If you don't get this boy out of here, Sandy," George added, "I'll give him a poke in the eye!" After selecting such flies, hooks, and lines as they thought might prove alluring to the fish, Will and Sandy started away in the direction of the little stream which ran out of the glacier a mile or so to the north and took a general direction toward Copper river. After walking half a mile or more, they came to a line of rocks which seemed to extend from the open ice of the glacier to the coast, a distance of perhaps five or six miles. West of this line of moraine rocks the land sloped gradually to the northwest and here the headwaters of the little creek they sought were found. Straight away to the north, west of the glacier, rose a range of wooded hills just now bright with blossoms and swarming with insect life. The little creek crept along to the south of this range, and, further down, separated the ground to the south from the hills. Sandy leaped across the little rivulet as it came bubbling out of the ice hidden under the moraine and started down the bank next to the line of hills. Will kept to the other side. "Why don't you come across?" shouted Sandy. "What's the good of crossing over at all?" Will asked. "Before long the stream will be so wide that you can't cross back, and then you'll have to retrace your steps clear to the headwaters!" "I can swim, can't I?" laughed Sandy. "Not in that cold water!" replied Will. Sandy only laughed in reply to the warning, and the two boys proceeded downstream, one on each side of the rivulet. Within half an hour they caught half a dozen salmon of fair size, weighing from four to six pounds, using only red flannel for bait. "What do you think of a fish in his right mind that'll try to eat red flannel?" asked Sandy, speaking from the opposite side of the creek. "Boys do more foolish things than that!" answered Will. "Explanation!" grinned Sandy. "They smoke cigarettes, for one thing!" replied Will. "Even a fish that tries to make a meal off red flannel won't smoke a cigarette." "We don't seem to get anything very big!" shouted Sandy. "Well," Will answered back with a faint smile, "take a look up the hillside and see if that bear coming is large enough for you!" CHAPTER VI A MISSING BOY "Bear nothing!" laughed Sandy. "There isn't a bear within a hundred miles of us! You can't fool your Uncle Isaac!" "Look back and see!" advised Will. Sandy paid no attention to the remark, but kept on fishing, following on down stream until he was some yards in advance of his chum. So interested was he in the sport in which he was engaged that he thought no more of what had been said to him regarding the bear until a pistol shot reached his ears. Then he glanced quickly in the rear, taking in the whole line of the hillside at one glance. Just at that moment the whole landscape seemed to consist principally of bear! Will had wounded a great brown bear, and he was charging down toward the place where Sandy stood. The boy drew his automatic and faced about, hardly knowing what else to do, as the creek was too wide to leap across. The bear came on with a rush. "Run!" shouted Will. "I guess you'll have to show me a place to run to!" Sandy shouted back. "This bear seems to have taken possession of about all the territory there is on this side of the creek." "Shoot, you dunce, shoot before he gets up to you!" shouted Will. "If he gets one swipe at you with that paw, you'll land out in the Gulf of Alaska! Fill him full of lead!" Sandy began firing, but the bear came steadily on. "You'll have to swim for it!" shouted Will in a moment. "You mustn't let that big brute get near enough to hand you one with that educated left of his. Jump in and swim and I'll help pull you out!" Sandy looked at the creek and shivered. The water looked blue, as if shivering from the cold. He faced about and decided to take a few more shots at the bear before risking his life in the cold water. "You'll have to jump!" Will shouted from the other side. "I wouldn't have to jump," Sandy cried back, "If you'd do more shooting and less talking! Go on and use up your lead!" In the excitement of the time, Will had, indeed, forgotten to keep his automatic busy. He now began shooting as fast as the weapon would carry the lead away, and bruin seemed to take offense at the activity with which the bullets flew about him. He was bleeding in several places, and was in a perfect frenzy of rage. "I guess that's an armored bear!" Will shouted across the creek. "I don't believe our bullets have any effect on him!" By this time the bear was within a few paces of Sandy. The boy's automatic was empty now, yet he obstinately refused to spring into the water. Bruin reached out one paw and Sandy ducked, coming up behind the clumsy animal and landed a blow with the butt of the automatic on his head. The next few moments were something of a blank in the mind of the boy. He heard Will calling to him, he knew that he had been struck by the bear, knew that his chum's bullets were still flying across the river, and knew that things were turning black around him. Then he felt a dash of cold water in his face, and looked up to see Will standing over him, pouring water out of his hat. "What did I do to the bear?" he asked faintly. "Wait till you get to a mirror and see what the bear did to you!" replied Will. "What you got was a plenty!" "Why didn't I jump in and swim across?" asked Sandy feebly. "Because you're the most obstinate little customer that ever drew the breath of life," answered Will. "You took a chance on being eaten alive by a bear rather than get your feet wet!" "Did I get my feet wet?" asked Sandy. "No, but I did!" answered Will. "I had to swim across. The bear handed you one between the eyes and then dropped dead. I was afraid you'd lie here all night if I didn't do something, so I swam over." "So you're the one that got wet?" grinned Sandy. "Yes, I'm the one that got wet, but you're the one that got beat up!" replied Will. "Do you think you can walk home now?" "Sandy straightened out one arm at a time, then one leg at a time, then arose to a sitting position. "I don't know why not!" he replied. "Get up and see if you can walk!" advised Will. "'Course I can walk!" replied Sandy. "I just went down for the count!" He scrambled slowly to his feet and turned about to gaze at his late antagonist. The bear was lying stone dead close to the stream. "He's a big one, isn't he?" he asked. "He certainly is," was the reply. "If he'd got a good swipe at you before he became weak from loss of blood, you'd be in the 'Good-night' land all right now!" the boy added, with a grin. "Well, I'm glad he didn't, then!" answered Sandy. "Do you think we can carry the rug home?" asked Will. "Perhaps you can," replied Sandy. "I don't feel as if I could carry an extra ounce. I guess Bruin did pass me a stiff jolt!" "You bet he did!" replied Will. "Anyway," he added, "we'll have to leave the rug until some other time, because we've got quite a lot of fish to carry. If any one steals the hide, we'll have to stand it." "We might skin the bear and put the hide up in a tree," suggested Sandy. "We'll have to tan the pelt in the sunshine, anyway!" "That's a good idea, too!" exclaimed Will, getting busy at once with his knife. "And that reminds me that we can have bear steak for supper if we want it. We all like bear steak, you know!" "I should say so!" replied Sandy. It took the boys only a short time to remove the pelt from the bear and provide themselves with a few pounds of steak. Then leaving part of their fish, they started away up the creek toward the cabin. Now and then Will stopped in the hurried walk to look toward Sandy and grin in the most provoking manner. "If you see anything about me you don't like," Sandy said, half-angrily, on the third or fourth inspection, "you can just step over here and knock it out of me! What are you making fun of me for?" "You look like you'd been through a battle with a cage of monkeys," replied Will. "You've got a swipe on the side of the face, and your cheek is scratched and bloody, and you got a swipe on your shoulder, and there's a tear on your shoulder, in the flesh as well as in your coat, and one eye will be black as soon as the blood settles under the contusion. Take it up one side and down the other, you're a pretty disreputable looking object!" "You wait until you get into a fight with a bear, and see how you come out! I'll bet you won't look as if you'd just dropped in from a pink tea! You'll look about like thirty cents!" "When I see a bear coming," replied Will, "I hope I'll have the sense to run! I won't stay and get into a knock-down argument with him!" It was nearly sundown when the boys came in sight of the cabin. They looked eagerly through the twilight for a light, expecting that George would have the great acetylene lamp in working order. But no light showed from the cabin, and all was still as they approached the door. When Will looked in he saw the interior was in confusion. "I should think George might straighten things out a little bit," he grumbled. "I'll bet he's been asleep all the afternoon!" "I presume he has," agreed Sandy. Will reached to the top of a shelf for an electric flashlight and swung the circle of flame about the room. "Why, look here!" he said excitedly, "what do you know about that?" "About what?" demanded Sandy, who was looking the other way. "About Bert's bed being empty!" "That's another joke!" "Not on your life!" exclaimed Will. Sandy turned around, gave one glance at the vacant bunk, and dropped weakly back into a chair. "Do you think he got up and walked away?" he asked. "No," replied Will, "I don't!" "Then, who carried him away?" demanded Sandy. Will turned the rays of the searchlight on the bunk where he had seen George cuddle down and then walked over toward it. "George didn't!" he answered, "because George is here sound asleep!" "Sound asleep?" repeated Sandy. "Do you suppose he'd lie here and sleep and let some one come and carry away Bert?" Will took hold of the boy's leg and half drew him out of the bunk. "Wake up, here!" he shouted. George yawned and rubbed his eyes. "First good sleep I've had in a week!" he said. "Did you sleep all the afternoon?" asked Will. "I guess I did!" "Hear any one around the cabin?" "How could I, when I was sound asleep?" "Well," Will went on, "while you were having that fine sleep, some one came to the cabin and carried off Bert Calkins!" "What are you talking about?" demanded George. "Look in his bunk and see!" advised Sandy. "How was it ever done?" demanded George. "I'm not asking how it was done," Will returned. "What I want to know is: Why was it done? What object could any one have in carrying away that kid? I wouldn't believe he was gone if I didn't see the empty bunk." "It's something connected with that code message!" Sandy suggested. "I've got it!" replied Will. "The man took the message away before he knew whether he could read it or not. When he found he couldn't read it, he came back to get Bert to read it for him." "But Bert is in no condition to be kept prisoner," George insisted. "He won't give the information the man seeks, and the man will probably mistreat him because he can't! What we've got to do is to get a move on and find the boy before he is starved or beaten to death." "That's just what we've got to do!" agreed Will. "We've got to drop everything until we find that boy!" CHAPTER VII A LOST "BULLDOG" "How much do you know about this case?" asked Tommy of Frank, as the two stumbled over the uneven moraine. "How much do I know about what?" asked Frank. "Why, this case that your father talked with you about when he used the wireless; the case referred to in the code message." "Why, I know that you boys are out here in search of the print of a man's right thumb!" laughed Frank. "Is that all?" "Yes, I know a little more than that. I know that two men are soon to be tried for burglary, and that the discovery of the thumb marks is quite essential to a successful defense." "Did your father tell you all that?" "Oh, we talked quite a lot by wireless." Tommy considered the situation for a moment and then said: "I wish you'd tell me all you know about it." In as few words as possible, Frank related the story practically as told to George and Sandy by Will. "Does Bert know all about this?" asked Tommy when the recital was finished. "Did you talk the matter over with him?" "I certainly did." "I hope," Tommy mused, "that he wasn't forced to tell anything about the thumb marks when the man robbed him." "I don't think he would do that," suggested Frank. "He would be apt to plead ignorance." The boys came, about nine in the evening, to the little station of Katalla, which is just a mite of a town sitting perched high above the Gulf of Alaska. The first thing they did was to make inquiries at the water front regarding transportation to Cordova. As they passed swiftly from point to point, consulting a half-breed here, an Esquimaux there, and an American trader at another point, they noticed that they were being followed. Finally Tommy drew back and waited until the man who seemed to be pursuing them came up. "Are you looking for me?" he asked. "I would like to speak with you," was the reply. "Well, then, why didn't you come up like a man and say so?" demanded Tommy. "You needn't have skulked along in the dark!" "Fact is," the man answered, "that I heard you making inquiries regarding the possibility of getting to Cordova tonight." "Yes, that's where we want to go." "Have you secured transportation yet?" "We have not!" Tommy answered. "Well, I was going to let you inquire at one more place," said the other, "and then tender you the use of my boat." "Why were you going to wait?" "Because I wanted you to exhaust your last chance so that I could get my own price for the service." "You must be a Yankee!" laughed Tommy. "Right!" was the reply. "I'm a Yankee direct from Boston. I don't have many opportunities of acquiring wealth out here, and I smelt real money as soon as I saw you boys come to town a couple of days ago." "What kind of a boat have you?" asked Tommy. "A swift little motor boat." "Can you get us to Cordova and back by seven or eight in the morning?" "I don't think I can do the job as soon as that, but I'll do the best I can! Why are you in such a hurry?" "There's a boy sick at the camp!" was the short reply. "How much are you going to charge for the use of your boat?" asked Frank. "We're willing to pay for fast service." "I think a couple of hundred dollars will be about right," was the reply. "It's a little bit risky going out in the night." Tommy was about to protest against the exorbitant charge, but Frank motioned him to remain silent. "The price is satisfactory," he said. "When can you start?" "In an hour," was the answer. After promising to meet the boys at the floating dock in an hour's time, the owner of the motor boat took his departure, and the two lads dropped into a smoky and smelly restaurant for supper. The place was foul with evil language as well as evil smells, and the boys did not remain long. Instead of sitting down at the table and ordering their meal, they bought such provisions as they could get and took their way to the water front. When they sat down to eat their rather unpalatable repast, they saw that a boy of about their own size and age was loitering not far away. "I'll gamble you a five cent piece," Tommy whispered to Frank, "that that is a Boy Scout! What do you say?" "You're on!" exclaimed Frank. Tommy struck three times on the planking of the dock with his open hand. Instantly there came back to his ears the low snarling voice of a bulldog. Then footsteps advanced down the dock, and the boy soon stood close to the others. "You're a Beaver?" he asked. "And you're a Bulldog!" said Tommy. The boys presented their hands, palm out, in the full salute of the Boy Scouts and then stood examining each other's faces. "Where's the Bulldog Patrol located?" asked Tommy. "Portland, Oregon," was the reply. "Do you live here now?" asked Frank, who had already been introduced as a member of the Fox Patrol. "I'm obliged to live here," was the answer, "because I can't get out of town. I wish I could get away!" "You may go with us," offered Tommy. "Where?" was the question. "To Cordova tonight, and to a camp out on a glacier tomorrow." "Tickled to death!" exclaimed the boy. "You're welcome!" declared Tommy; "Who're you going with?" was the next question. "He didn't give us his name, but he said he owned a fast motor boat, and he said he'd get us there and back before noon tomorrow!" "Jamison is the only man here who has a motor boat, but you want to look out for him. He's as crooked as a corkscrew!" "That's the impression I received when he fixed his price." "Well," the stranger said in a moment, "I've got a little baggage up the street and I'll go and get it." He was gone perhaps half an hour, and when he returned the boys saw an anxious expression on his face. "Are you sure that man Jamison is going out with you tonight?" he asked. "He said he would," was the reply. "He's up there loading in whiskey," the boy, who had given his name as Samuel White, continued, "and has surrounded himself with about as tough a bunch of crooks as there is in all Alaska." "Perhaps he wants them to help run the boat," suggested Tommy. "No, there's something crooked on foot!" declared Sam. "The fellows are whispering together in a bar-room up the street, and pounding the tables, and letting cut great shouts of laughter as if they had a good joke on some one." "Do you know any of the men with Jamison?" asked Frank. "One of them," the boy replied, "is a crooked mine agent, and one is a fellow who hangs around town without revealing any business whatever, but seems to have plenty of money." While the boys talked, Jamison, accompanied by two men who seemed to be somewhat under the influence of liquor, came down to the dock. After nodding familiarly to the lads, he gave a signal with a lantern which he carried in his hand, and in a short time a very capable looking motor boat came puffing out of the darkness. "There you are, boys!" he said. "Jump in, and I'll have you up to Cordova in no time. I've got a good crew on board, and I may be able to get you back long before noon." The boys did not exactly like the looks of the "good" crew, but they said nothing as they took their seats in the little trunk cabin and waited for the boat to get under motion. When at last the motors began whirling and the rocking motion told the lads that they were out among the high waves, Jamison came in and seated himself by Tommy's side. "Little bit bumpy tonight," he said, "but you'll soon get used to that. If you have the money ready, I'll collect fares now." Frank took two hundred dollars in bank notes from a pocket and passed it over to the owner of the boat. "A hundred apiece," Jamison said. "I was to have a hundred for each passenger. You owe me a hundred more." "Don't pay any hundred for me," Sam White exclaimed, springing to his feet. "I'll jump overboard and swim back." Frank laid a hand on the boy's arm and pushed him back into a seat. "It's all right," he said. "I did agree to pay a hundred dollars a passenger. You're quite welcome to the ride at my expense." As Frank spoke he took a roll of bank notes from another pocket and stripped off one of the denomination of one hundred dollars. Jamison saw large denominations, some as high as five hundred dollars, in the roll, and his evil eyes glittered greedily. When Frank put up the roll, the fellow's eyes followed it until it passed out of sight in the pocket. Other members of the crew had seen the money also, and Tommy was decidedly uncomfortable as he thought of the situation they were in. Having received his pay, Jamison grew very friendly and confidential, and began pointing out the show places along the dim coast. Presently Sam whispered cautiously in Tommy's ear: "He is headed for the Barren islands, and not Cordova," he said. CHAPTER VIII ON THE GULF OF ALASKA "Where are the Barren islands, and why should he want to take us there?" asked Tommy, apprehensively. "The Barren islands," replied Sam, "lie in the Gulf of Alaska, just south of the mouth of Copper river, west of Controller bay. They extend along the coast, only a short distance out, for twenty miles or more, and are just what the local name signifies, Barren islands." "But why should he want to take us there?" insisted Tommy, slipping a hand toward his hip pocket to make sure that his automatic was ready for any emergency. Sam did not answer the question, for Tommy's quick start of surprise, his low exclamation of dismay, checked the words which were on his lips. Instead, he pushed closer to the lad and asked: "What is it? What's wrong?" "My revolver has been taken!" replied Tommy. Frank, sitting close to his chum on the other side, now pushed his hand into his hip pocket and brought it forth empty. "So is mine!" he said. The boys looked at each other for a moment in the gathering darkness without speaking. The situation was a serious one. "Who did it?" asked Tommy presently. "No one has been near me except that man Jamison," replied Frank. "He's the only one who's been within reaching distance of me," Tommy observed. "He must be a clever pickpocket!" "I saw him eyeing that roll of money rather greedily," Sam cut in, speaking in a very low tone, for Jamison had new turned back from the prow and was looking in their direction. "I noticed that, too," Frank answered. "I'm afraid we're going to get into trouble with that gink. Anyway," he continued, "he's started in right. He did well to get our guns before he started anything!" "He didn't get my revolver," Sam said with a low chuckle. "It's a little bit of a baby thing, but it's a great deal better than none!" "It will shoot, won't it?" asked Tommy. "It will shoot, all right, but it's only a twenty-two," replied the boy. "I've been trying for the last two days to get a square meal on it, but couldn't get even a ham sandwich. They don't look with favor on baby guns up in Alaska. They want the real thing!" "Well, keep your gun where you can reach it at any moment!" advised Frank. "Even a twenty-two caliber may prove effective at short range." "I presume," Sam went on, "that my coming on board in shabby clothes, and as an object of charity, convinced Jamison that I wasn't worth searching. I saw him looking me over, though!" "Object of charity--not!" returned Frank. "We're mighty glad you're with us right now! You say he's taking us to the Barren islands. Well, we wouldn't know the Barren islands from any other place without you. You've put us on our guard, at least, and that's worth more than the price of the ticket! We're glad of your company, too!" "Now, see here, boys," Tommy whispered, "we mustn't let this man Jamison know that we have discovered that we have been robbed. The minute he knows that we are suspicious of him, the matter will come to a focus immediately. We've got to have time to think this matter over before anything is done." This plan of action was agreed to, and the boys sat for some minutes in silence. After a time Jamison came to where they were seated, just at the doorway of the trunk cabin, and began asking questions about the need for a doctor. Tommy explained that a member of their party had been injured by a fall, and that they were going to Cordova in quest of a surgeon. He again asked Jamison to put on full speed. "There's a man over here on the coast, this side of Katalla, who is said to be a fine surgeon," Jamison explained, after Tommy had finished his statement. "He's a sort of a recluse, people say, and lives alone in a shabby hut, high up above the tide. You might stop and consult him. That would be better, it seems to me, than going away up to Cordova. Still," he went on with a grim smile, "I've been paid to take you to Cordova and back, and, if you insist, I mean to live up to my bargain!" Sam gave Frank a quick poke in the ribs and whispered in his ear: "Yes, he does!" "Let him play out his string," whispered Frank in return. "This surgeon," Jamison went on, "is a queer old fellow. Sometimes he'll take a case, and sometimes he won't. If he feels in an ugly mood, he's likely to kick us out of his cabin." Tommy listened with apparent interest to what the treacherous Jamison was saying, but it is needless to remark that he did not accept it as truth. It was his belief that the fellow was manufacturing a pretext for getting himself and his friends quietly on shore as soon as one of the Barren islands was reached. There were three men on board the motor boat besides Jamison. They were evil-looking fellows, and spent most of their time on the forward deck, where the steering wheel and the motors were located. The men frequently drank out of a black bottle, and were fast becoming intoxicated. Instead of attempting to restrain the fellows, Jamison seemed to encourage them in their debauch. "He's getting them in trim to start something," Sam whispered, as the three men broke into a rough drinking song. "Yes," agreed Tommy, "I imagine that he wants whatever takes place on board the boat tonight to be regarded as the acts of men made irresponsible by whisky. You'd better keep your gun handy, Sam!" "I've got my hand on it every minute!" replied the boy. "And if anything is started here, Jamison will be the first one to know that I've got it! He's the man that needs the lesson!" It was very dark now, and the sea was rough. The motor boat plunged about like a leaf, tossing from wave to wave, and dropping into one trough after another. It was plain that the members of the crew were becoming too drunk to handle the boat. Jamison finally approached the cabin doorway and sat down on one of the stationary seats. Notwithstanding the fact that the boat was taking water at almost every jump, the fellow's face bore a satisfied look. "What are those fellows trying to do with the boat?" asked Tommy. "Oh, they're all right!" answered Jamison. "Looks to me like they were trying to drop us to the bottom," Frank said. "There won't be any boat left directly!" "I guess they have got a little too much John Barleycorn on board!" laughed Jamison, as the boat gave a lurch which sent him head foremost from his seat. "I'd go and take the wheel myself, only I don't know much about running a motor boat under present conditions." Frank gave Tommy a quick nudge in the side. "I can run the boat," he whispered, "shall I?" "If he'd let you, yes!" replied Tommy. "Where shall I take her?" "To Cordova, of course, but perhaps you'd better wait until the men get a little bit drunker. Jamison will become frightened for the safety of his boat before long, and then he won't object to your taking charge of her. He's beginning to look sick already." "If I ever get hold of that wheel," Frank whispered to Tommy, "I'll send her flying toward Cordova! I hope the members of the crew will be too drunk to know which, way I'm taking them." Directly the boat gave another tremendous lurch, soaking the boys with cold salt water. Jamison rose to his feet with an oath and, steadying himself by clinging to the top of the cabin, shook a fist angrily at the man at the wheel. The man frowned back. "What are you doing, you drunken hobo?" shouted Jamison. The man grinned foolishly but said not a word. "I wish I knew how to operate a motor boat as well as he does when he's sober," gritted Jamison. "The owner of a boat ought to know how to run her!" suggested Frank. "I bought the boat only a few days ago," replied Jamison. "Look here," Frank said, as the boat gave another sickening whirl, "I can run a boat all right. Shall I take hold?" "No," replied Jamison sourly, "we've got to land!" "But there is no place to land," urged Sam. "There is a place on the point where the doctor lives," answered Jamison, "where we can land in a rowboat. I'm glad now that I brought the dinghy along with us. We can anchor the motor boat under the point and take refuge in the doctor's cabin until this storm blows over." The boys were greatly disappointed at this decision on the part of Jamison, but they dare not argue the point with him for fear that he would suspect that they were watching his every movement. In a few moments a dark bulk showed directly in front of the racing motor boat, and only the quick action of the man at the wheel prevented a collision with a bold headland which showed dimly under the light of the few stars which looked down from the cloudy sky. In a moment the boys saw a light, and then Sam whispered to Frank: "That's not a coast point," he said. "It's one of the Barren islands. I don't believe there's any doctor there, as he said! What shall we do if he asks us to go ashore?" "We'll have to go, I suppose," returned Tommy, "but, all the same," he went on, "if we get a chance to get possession of the boat, we'll let these outlaws take a swim to the shore!" Presently the boat came under the shelter of the headland, and then a member of the crew, in obedience to whispered orders from Jamison, dropped into the dinghy which had been trailing behind, and shouted to his mate to follow. Then Jamison himself stepped into the dinghy, which was swinging about wildly in the surf. "Now boys," he said, "if you'll get aboard, we'll take you ashore for an interview with the doctor. He'll demand big pay, but he's skillful and you ought to secure his services if you can." "Only one man on board now," cried Tommy, "Now's our chance!" CHAPTER IX THE CLUES WILL FOUND "I wish one of you boys would give me a good swift kick," George exclaimed as the three lads stood in the cabin discussing the strange disappearance of Bert Calkins. "I'd do that all right if it would accomplish anything!" laughed Will. "I'll do it anyhow, if you insist upon it!" grinned Sandy. "It was a rotten thing for me to do!" exclaimed George. "I never expected to go to sleep when I lay down in my bunk, but I did go to sleep, and some one walked into the cabin and carried Bert away! I'll never get over it if anything serious happens to him!" "Aw, cut it out!" exclaimed Sandy. "We'll find him all right. The question before the house right now is whether we're going to get supper before we start out on a hunt for the kid." "We may as well get supper," Will advised. "There's no use whatever of our running around in circles in the dark. We've got to sit down here and reason it out. Before we do anything at all, we ought to reach some conclusion as to why the poor kid was taken away." "Why, I thought that was all understood," Sandy interrupted. "I thought we decided not long ago that the man who stole the code wireless came back to get Bert to translate it for him." "There was some talk of that kind," Will agreed, "and I guess it's as near to the truth as we can get with our present knowledge of the incident. Anyway, I can conceive of no other reason for the abduction." "Then we may as well get supper while we're studying out the proposition," George said, "and, by way of penance, I'll do the cooking!" The lad turned to Sandy to ask a question regarding the sudden appearance of the bear steak, and then for the first time noted his dilapidated and generally disreputable condition. "Where did you get it?" he asked, pointing to the bruised face and torn garments. "You've gone and spoiled a perfectly good Boy Scout suit." "And the bear we're going to have for supper," Will chuckled, "came very near spoiling a perfectly good Boy Scout." "Did the bear hand him that?" asked George. "He certainly did!" replied Sandy. "And he put me out for the count, too!" "Then I'll take great joy in eating him!" declared George. While George fried the bear steak over the gasoline "plate," Sandy told the story of the fishing trip, while Will listened with a grin on his face, now and then interrupting with what Sandy declared to be an entirely irrelevant remark. The big acetylene lamp which, had come in with the boys' baggage had not been set up, so the cabin was now lighted only by flashlights. This made cooking difficult, and George protested against it, so Will went to work setting up the tank and getting the big lamp into use. "That's better!" exclaimed George, as the great light flashed out. "Now, while I'm cooking the supper, you might look about and see what you can discover in the way of clues. There is an old theory, you know, that no person can enter a room and leave it without their leaving behind some trace of having been there!" "That's a part of the Sherlock Holmes business that I entirely overlooked!" laughed Will. "Come to think of it, the fellow must have left some clue here. We'll see if we can find it!" While Sandy and George worked industriously over the gasoline "plate," frying bear meat and fish, and making toast and coffee, Will began a thorough search of the cabin floor. He moved about for some moments on his hands and knees, studying the rough boards through a microscope. When he came to the bunk he examined that in the same careful and painstaking way. Sandy and George pretended to be very much amused at his alleged posing as an investigator, but the boy paid no attention to their smiles and sarcastic remarks. All through the meal Will kept his own counsel as to what he had discovered, if anything. His chums quizzed him unmercifully, but he gave out no information regarding discoveries until after the meal was completed and they sat, wrapped in their heavy coats, before the stripped table, now bearing only empty dishes. "Now tell us about it!" demanded Sandy. "How tall was this man who carried Bert, away?" "Five feet six," replied Will. "Black or white?" "Black hair and eyes and whiskers." "Fat or lean?" "Neither, just heavily built." "Come, Smarty," Sandy laughed, "perhaps you'll be kind enough to go on now and tell us the color of his necktie." "He didn't wear any necktie!" answered Will. "He wore a leather hunting shirt and leather leggings. His hands were protected from the mosquitos by leather gloves. He wore moccasins." "Will you be kind enough to tell us what he had for supper last night?" asked Sandy. "Also, can you tell us which side he sleeps on nights?" "This is no joke!" Will answered. "I really think I have a good description of the man who abducted Bert. And I think, too, that the description will serve to locate him." "That's all right!" laughed George, "when Tommy comes back, we'll have him get out his dream book and read you to sleep!" "Yes," Will said gravely, "when Tommy comes back with the surgeon." "It would be a rotten proposition, wouldn't it, if Tommy should get back with the surgeon before we found Bert?" "It certainly would," answered Will. "Tommy can't possibly get back before some time tomorrow night," Sandy argued, "and we ought to be able to find the boy before that time!" "Especially as Will has a perfect description of the outlaw," said George with a wink at Sandy. Then the boy added with a laugh: "Go on, Will, and tell us how you know the man's size and weight." "Yes," Sandy broke in. "Tell us how you know he's exactly five feet six. You weren't here to measure him!" "The wall measured him!" replied Will. "Oh!" exclaimed Sandy with a grin. "Back there by the door," Will went on, "the man leaned against the wall for some purpose. Of course, I don't know why, but I suspect that he leaned there for a moment to get the boy well balanced in his arms before stepping outside. At any rate, he stood there for an instant with a broad back braced against the dusty logs. You can see where the top of his head came, without getting up." "That's reasonable!" replied Sandy. "Now tell us how you know he has black hair and eyes." "He left half a dozen hairs on the pillow at Bert's bunk," replied Will. "Also he left coarser black hairs which evidently came from his face. They lie there on the table." The boys examined the hairs curiously, and then Will asked: "What do you think of it?" "I think," replied Sandy, "that Bert regained consciousness while he was being lifted from the bunk and got in a couple of digs at the fellow's hair and whiskers." "The motion which removed the hair and whiskers," suggested George, "might have been entirely involuntary." "That's very true!" answered Will. "It doesn't seem to me that the boy regained consciousness. If he had, he would have made such objections to being taken away that George would have been awakened. At any rate the hairs are here, and that is sufficient!" "Now tell us how you know about the bulk of the fellow." "The marks on the wall show that," replied Will. "What do you know about his leather leggings, hunting shirt and gloves?" asked Sandy. "I know about the moccasins, because I saw the tracks on the floor myself. He must be an Indian if he wore moccasins." "I never saw an Indian with long whiskers!" replied Will. "Well, go on and tell us about the leather he wore," urged George. "The hunting shirt," Will replied with a smile, as he pointed to a small piece of leather lying on the table, "was patched and in the struggle at the bunk the patch was torn away. A cloth garment, you know," he continued, "wouldn't be apt to be patched with leather." The boys looked at the leather patch, not much larger than a silver dollar, and nodded their heads. "The marks on the wall where the outlaw seems to have balanced his burden, show that he wore leather gloves," Will continued. "You can see the blunt mark where he threw up a hand to steady himself. The fingers of a cloth glove would have shown narrower." "I guess you've got the Sherlock Holmes part of it all right!" said George, "so all we've got to do now is to find the boy!" "But this will help!" Sandy argued. "At least we know what kind of a man to look for. By the way, how did you know that he wore leather leggings?" "He lost a buckle!" replied Will. "I found it on the floor under Bert's bunk. And so, you see," the boy went on, "when we find a man wearing leather leggings from which a buckle has been lost, we'll be perfectly justified in keeping close watch of him." "It seems as if there must have been a struggle here!" George argued in a moment. "The man lost hair, whiskers, a buckle, and a patch off his hunting shirt! I don't see how I could have slept through it all!" "Well, you did!" returned Sandy, "and that's all there is to it!" "Are we going out tonight?" asked George. "Of course, we are!" answered Sandy. "We're not going to crawl into bed in comfort and leave Bert in the hands of some brigand!" Will held up his hand for silence, and the boys sat looking at each other with questioning eyes as a soft knock came on one of the windows. In an instant their eyes were turned in the direction of the sound, and what they saw caused them to spring excitedly to their feet. During the silence which followed, the sound of a heavy footstep was heard at the door of the cabin. When they looked again nothing was to be seen at the window. CHAPTER X IN LUCK AT LAST Instead of moving toward the dinghy, the boys sprang to the top of the trunk cabin and dashed forward toward the wheel. With an oath Jamison tried to clamber back to the deck of the motor boat, but the dinghy was just then performing a bit of nautical gymnastics at the bottom of a trough and he did not succeed in reaching the desired footing. He fell back into the bottom of the boat, cursing the two rowers because they had not assisted him. As Frank and Tommy sprang forward over the cabin the man at the wheel released his hold and reached for a pistol. The boat swung around and would have been capsized only that Frank seized the wheel and brought her head to the waves again. The wheelsman struck a savage blow at the boy as he threw the wheel around, and was in turn the object of attack from Tommy. The two went to the deck together and came near being thrown into the sea. When the short battle ended the wheelsman lay on the deck unconscious, his head rolling from side to side as the boat tossed about on the waves. In the fall his head had struck the rail. Seeing that Jamison and the rowers were still trying to board the motor boat, Sam rushed to the after deck and threatened them with his revolver. In a moment Jamison presented a thirty-eight at the boy's head. "This is piracy!" he shouted. "Surrender, or I'll blow your head off! This is piracy, I tell you!" The only reply to the man's threat was the increased clatter of the motors. Tommy had turned on full power, and Frank was heading the craft for the mouth of Copper river. As she drew away from the dinghy, several harmless shots were fired. "That was a close shave!" Tommy declared as the three boys gathered on the forward deck. "If Jamison hadn't been a fool, we couldn't have done it! Can you find your way to Cordova, Frank?" he added. "Sure I can!" was the reply, "but I take it that we don't want to go there just now." "And why not?" asked Tommy is surprise. "Because this is piracy, all right!" exclaimed the boy. "Old Jamison was right, and he'll have all the officers along the coast after us as soon as he gets to land. We're in bad with the cops now." "But Jamison won't be able to get to land tonight!" suggested Sam. "Indeed he won't!" agreed Frank. "He'll have to pull in toward the island and lie there on his oars until daylight." "Can't he land?" asked Tommy. "I don't think he can land in the dark!" was the reply. "Why can't we get to Cordova and get back here with the surgeon before he can communicate with the officers?" asked Tommy. "We can't afford to go into hiding just now. We've got to get the doctor up to the cabin, and we've got to find out what that code message contained." "How far is it from here to Cordova?" asked Frank. "It must be about thirty-five or forty miles," replied Sam. "If the waves wouldn't keep us traveling up and down all the time, we ought to make it in about three hours." "Jamison was trying to make us believe he was doing a fine thing if he took us to Cordova and back in ten or twelve hours!" said Tommy. "I don't think he intended to take us to Cordova at all!" insisted Sam. "Well," Tommy argued, "there's no way he can stop us until we get to Cordova, and he can't stop us then unless he reaches the coast or gains the wireless station before we leave the town. Once out on the gulf again, with the surgeon on board, we'll reach Katalla in spite of Jamison, and start the doctor toward the cabin." "Then here goes for the town!" cried Frank, turning on an extra bit of power and sending the boat through the waves like a meteor. It was rough riding, but the boys were fairly good seamen and stood the shaking up well. About midnight the wheelsman began showing signs of consciousness. He sat up on the swaying deck and motioned for water. "Tip him overboard!" advised Sam. "Aw, give him a drink," argued Tommy. "If you'd had had as much red liquor during the last few hours as he's had, you'd want to connect with the water cooler, I guess! Give the man a show!" "Where are you taking the motor boat?" asked the wheelsman. "Cordova." "Is that right about your wanting a surgeon?" "That is right!" replied Tommy. "Where is he wanted?" asked the wheelsman, who had given the name of Boswell. "Why didn't you bring the sick boy out with you?" "Because we thought it better to take the surgeon to him!" replied Tommy. "The boy really wasn't able to be moved!" "Fever?" asked Boswell. Tommy hesitated a moment before replying. He was in doubt as to just how much he ought to tell Boswell. The fellow seemed to be friendly enough, and might be useful in case the lads were arrested for piracy, as, if he saw fit, he could testify that Jamison was not carrying out his agreement with them, but, instead, was planning to maroon them on a barren island in the gulf. Owing to these considerations it seemed best to keep on good terms with the fellow, and yet Tommy did not care to describe in full what had taken place at the cabin. "No, the boy isn't sick of fever," Tommy finally answered. "He received a wound on the head and lies unconscious." Both boys thought they saw Boswell give a quick start, but in a moment his face was as impassive as ever. "Do you know what Jamison was up to?" asked Sam after a short pause. Boswell looked keenly at the boy before answering. "I only know what he told me!" he replied. "What did he tell you?" "He said he had a joke on you boys; that he was charging you three hundred dollars for a trip to Cordova, and that he meant to leave you on the first little island in the gulf that he came to." "Did he tell you why he was going to do that?" asked Tommy. Again Boswell looked keenly at his questioner. "I guess I'd better not answer that question," he said finally. "I wish you would answer it," Tommy urged. "I ought to know just what motive the fellow has for throwing obstacles in my way. "He thinks it's funny!" answered Boswell. "That isn't the correct answer," Tommy insisted. "He has some motive for what he is trying to do. I'd like to know what that motive is." "You can't find out from me!" declared Boswell. "You must be a chum of his!" sneered Sam. "I hate the ground he walks on!" replied Boswell. "I wouldn't have hired out to him at all if I hadn't been drunk. But I'm not going to repeat to any one what he told me in confidence!" "We shall have to put you off some distance this side of Cordova," Tommy suggested, "because if we don't you're likely to make us trouble by reporting the case of alleged piracy as soon as we land." "You needn't trouble yourself about my reporting anything," Boswell answered. "I'm not mixing with Jamison's affairs! If you boys are arrested for piracy, I'll tell all I know about it, and that won't do you any harm." Dawn came slowly that morning, for heavy clouds were gathering in the sky. The short Arctic night came to an end at last, however, and in the murky distance the boys saw the long coast line. Shortly after three o'clock they passed the wireless station and landed, not without some difficulty at Cordova. They found the town asleep, of course, but after a time an early riser directed them to the residence of a surgeon. They arranged with him to meet them later in the day and at once set out for the wireless station. It was two hours before they saw the operator coming to his post of duty. He remembered Frank, and willingly promised to at once open communication with Seattle and take up the work of securing a duplicate of the code message. He explained that a copy had been kept, but that it had been destroyed by a careless janitor, who had said that he could make nothing at all of the jumble of words and letters! As soon as Seattle answered the Cordova call, a duplicate of the code telegram was asked for, and Seattle undertook to place the request on the wire and cause it to be rushed through to Chicago. "We ought to receive the answer some time this afternoon," the operator said as the boys started away. CHAPTER XI MAKING NEW PLANS When the boys returned to the floating dock at which the motor boat had been tied during their absence at the station they found Boswell sitting in the cabin in a crouching attitude. "Did you get what you wanted?" he asked. Tommy shook his head. "Then," continued the sailor, "you'd better give over trying to get it for the present and duck away from here! You'll have trouble if you don't!" "What do you mean by that?" asked Frank. "Do you see the tug coming up the bay?" asked Boswell. "Certainly!" was the reply. "Well, she's been signalling to have this boat held until she arrives! And the chances are that she picked up Jamison and his pirates somewhere near the island where you left them." "Then, of course, Jamison will want us arrested for piracy?" asked Tommy tentatively. "I presume that's what it means." "Well," Boswell replied, "when you take another man's boat and leave him afloat in a dinghy, you must expect something to come of it besides kisses. Of course you'll be arrested!" Frank gave a long, low whistle of dismay. "Then," he said, "we'll have to go and notify the surgeon of what's coming off and get him to go on to the cabin alone." "Yes," Tommy added, "and we can tell him to inform the boys what's going on here. We may have to remain here for several days if we are actually arrested." "But how about the code duplicate?" asked Sam. "I presume that will have to remain with us unless it comes before the doctor leaves for the cabin," Tommy answered. "Look here," Sam said, "you two boys are the fellows Jamison wants. He won't put up much of a search for me. You go back to the wireless station and tell the operator to deliver the code duplicate to me and I'll see that it gets to the cabin." "It's all right of you to make the offer," Tommy replied, "but there's no one at the camp that can read it." "Then why can't Frank slip away and get the message to camp?" inquired Sam. "Will certainly ought to have it," suggested Tommy. "I'll tell you what we'd better do," Frank advised. "We'd better make a rush for the Cordova dock before that tug gets in. Then we can arrange with the doctor to go on to the cabin by any conveyance he can secure while we take a sneak into the wilderness and get back when we can and as we can. That's better than being arrested." "I'm for it!" declared Sam. "But how will you obtain possession of the wireless when it comes if you duck away in advance of the arrival of the tug? The message won't be here as soon as the tug is." The boys pondered over this proposition for a moment, and then Frank came to the front with another suggestion. "I'll go back to the wireless station," he said, "and arrange for the operator to leave the message in some secret hiding place where we can get it after nightfall." "I don't like this fugitive-from-justice business!" exclaimed Tommy. "I don't either," replied Frank, "but it's a long ways better than lying in some dirty old jail. We can arrange here with father's agent to find out what sort of a case they've got against us, and pick out a good lawyer to represent us, so we'll be all ready to defend ourselves when the arrest is finally made." "Your father has an agent here?" asked Tommy, regarding Frank suspiciously. "What business is he in?" "Oh, quit it!" replied Frank. "We haven't any time to talk about private affairs. What we've got to do right now is to find out how we're going to escape arrest at this time. I'll go and make the arrangement with the operator, and we'll all make the arrangements with the doctor, and then we three boys will start across country to the little old log cabin in the lane!" "There ain't no lane there!" grinned Tommy. "There may be some time, when that part of the country becomes a suburb of Cordova!" laughed Frank. "But I reckon I'd better be getting back to the wireless office. That tug's coming in hand over hand!" The boy was back from the office inside of ten minutes, but by that time the tug was so near that the motor boat was obliged to shoot ahead at full speed in order to keep clear of her. The boys saw Jamison standing by the captain urging him to greater efforts in the speed direction, and saw him shake a huge, ham-like fist in their direction as the motor boat left the tug behind. "I'll tell you why I want to leave the case in the hands of a lawyer here," Frank said, as the boat shot toward the Cordova dock, "Jamison doesn't want to prosecute us boys for piracy. He's interested in some way in this case you are here to handle, and he wants to keep us under lock and key until something he wants done can be accomplished." "I'm sure that's right!" Tommy answered. "I don't know much about this thumb-print case," Frank went on, "but I believe that this man Jamison is trying to make sure that you boys don't get hold of the drawings you are looking for. Of course I have no proof, but I'm sure that, in the long run, you'll find that I'm right?" The motor boat made such good time in the run for the Cordova dock that the tug was nearly out of sight when the boys climbed into the main street of the town. "Now," Tommy said, as they all stood together at the principal business place of the town, "Frank can go and make sure that the doctor will start for the cabin immediately, and Sam and I will go and buy provisions for the cross country trip. We may be two or three days in making it, and we'll surely want to eat on the way." "But we can't get the wireless until night!" urged Frank. "He's going to bring it to Cordova tonight and leave it in the old blacksmith shop just back of the line of store buildings." "Well, we can get all ready to go," Tommy urged. "We don't want to take any chances on being pinched just as we get ready to leave!" "We'll meet at the old shop in half an hour," Frank suggested, "and then we can make all the plans necessary." Tommy noticed that afternoon that a strange fatality seemed to accompany all of Jamison's efforts to cause the arrest of the boys. First, there was no Federal officer in the town. Next, there was no judicial or ministerial officer before whom a complaint of piracy could be made. Next, the motor boat owner and his two outlaws accosted Boswell on the street and made to him insulting remarks concerning his championship of the boys. Following this there was a general mixup, in which Boswell was not permitted to fight alone, and the result was that Jamison and his two sailors were badly beaten up. However, while the lads knew exactly what was taking place, and understood the hostility of the town toward Jamison, they understood, too, that it would be the duty of almost any officer to arrest them if they should make their appearance on the public street. Tommy wondered vaguely at the hostility displayed toward Jamison, but Frank explained it all by saying that the fellow was a common loafer and hadn't a friend in town. The boys might have been arrested a dozen times that day had the hostility to Jamison and his men not taken such positive form. But while Jamison, half-intoxicated, roared about the street, the boys kept as quiet as possible and so escaped general notice. About two in the afternoon the boys were very much surprised to see a gentleman who had been pointed out to them as the surgeon walk into the old blacksmith shop where they sat. He beckoned Frank to one side and the two engaged in a short but apparently satisfactory conversation, at the conclusion of which the doctor shook the boy's hand heartily. "All right," he said on taking his departure, "I'll attend to the matter at once! I know the operator and it'll be all right there." "Now, what's up?" demanded Tommy suspiciously. "I've got a new scheme!" replied the boy. "Pass it around!" urged Tommy. "Now, you just wait until I see whether the doctor gets the message or not!" replied Frank. "If he does, it's us for a ride home!" "I'd like to steal that old drunkard's motor boat!" Tommy said. Frank broke into a hearty laugh. "You just wait and see!" he said. "We've got to be mighty careful to keep away from the Federal officers, for a deputy marshal has been sent for. Can you get up a good hot run if you have to?" "You bet I can!" answered Tommy. "Well, we may get a signal to make a hot foot to the dock directly," the boy went on, "and if we do, there mustn't be any mistake about the pace you set." "Are you really going to steal the motor boat?" asked Sam. "I don't know!" replied Frank. "We've been waiting around here all day for something to take place, and I guess it's about time there was something doing." "I thought you were going to wait until night before sneaking out with the despatch," suggested Tommy, eyeing his friend suspiciously. "When we made those plans," replied Frank with a grin, "I didn't know how many friends I had in town." "Is the doctor going with us?" asked Tommy. "No," was the reply, "we are going with him!" "Aw, have it your own way," Tommy exclaimed. "I never could get any satisfaction talking with you!" The doctor returned to the old blacksmith shop in an hour and called Frank outside. The two talked together for a moment, and then the boy called out the wonderful news that they wouldn't even have to run to the dock; that a carriage was waiting for them! "Something mighty funny about this!" mused Tommy. "I'd like to know who that boy is that has such luck in Alaska! Anyone would think he owns the town, the way things are shaping themselves here!" A moment later a wagon drawn by a pair of sturdy horses made its appearance in front of the old blacksmith shop, and the boys took their seats. As they did so the sound of a pistol shot came from around the corner and Jamison dashed into view, hatless, coatless, very red in the face and very excited as to manner. By his side appeared a man whom the doctor at once recognized as a Federal officer. He came to a halt when he saw the boys in the wagon. "Wait!" he commanded, "I have warrants for your arrest!" CHAPTER XII ANOTHER LOST "BULLDOG" The step outside the cabin door halted, and the boys stood silent for a moment, hardly knowing whether to dispute the stranger's entrance or to admit him with a show of courtesy. While they waited, Will glanced at the window and saw the flutter of a white hand on the pane. "That's the Boy Scout salute!" he said. "Another Boy Scout?" whispered Sandy. "I wonder if it rains Boy Scouts up here in Alaska!" "I wish there were a thousand here!" George declared. "I don't care how many Boy Scouts show up just now," Will argued, "but I would like to know where they all come from!" There now came a knock on the door and a gruff voice demanded admittance. "Shall I open the door?" whispered Will. "May as well," answered George. When the door swung open, a stout man of middle age presented himself in the opening. After casting a keen glance about the interior he stepped inside and closed the door. "You boys seem to have taken possession of my home!" he said. "We found the cabin unoccupied, and took the liberty of using it," Will answered in a conciliatory tone. "Oh, it's all right!" returned the other. "That's the way I took possession of the place! I found the cabin deserted and just moved in." "We can vacate if necessary," Will suggested. "Oh, there's room enough for all of us, I take it!" answered the stranger. "My name is Cameron, and I spend only a day or two here occasionally. I was hoping when I saw your light that you were having a midnight supper. How about something to eat?" "There's plenty in the cabin!" George replied. "We can give you either fish or bear steak for supper." "Then I'm glad to find you here!" laughed the other, "for I've been traveling all day and I'm as hungry as a wolf!" The visitor threw himself into a chair and began a careful survey of the interior, far more searching than the one made from the doorway. "My name is Cameron, as I said before," he said, "and I'm prospecting for gold." "Prospecting for gold on a glacier?" asked Will. "Young man," Cameron replied, "there is plenty of gold in this vicinity. The ice brought it here. I'm being laughed at by my friends," he continued, "because I'm searching for the mother lode. But, all the same, I've every prospect of discovering it!" "The mother lode in a glacier?" asked Sandy. "It is my theory," Cameron went on, "that the range of mountains to the north holds gold in large quantities. It is a part of my theory, too, that the drifting ice brought tons of it down to the moraine. If I find any gold here at all, I'll find it in quantities sufficient to clog the money markets of the world!" Cameron looked from face to face as he spoke, apparently anticipating a burst of enthusiasm from his listeners. "Up on the Yukon," he went on, "the gold was found under the ice, where it had been deposited by glaciers which are now dead. The same conditions exist here. For all we know, there may be tons of the precious metal at the bottom of the first layer of ice." "That's very true!" replied Will. "And if you don't mind, we'll stick around a short time and see what you discover." "Remember," Cameron said then, "that this is my claim!" "Of course," Will answered, "we wouldn't attempt to rob you of any legitimate discovery." In the meantime George and Sandy were preparing a supper for the visitor. With their heads bent low over the gasoline "plate," they discussed the personality of the man and his theory in low conversation. "How tall should you say that fellow was?" asked Sandy. "About five foot six!" was the reply. "And he's stout!" "Decidedly so." "And he wears a leather hunting shirt, and leather leggings, and he took off a pair of serviceable leather gloves when he entered?" "I see what you're getting at," George replied, "Can you see whether there's a buckle missing from his leggings?" "There is!" answered Sandy. "And a patch missing from his hunting shirt?" "Just as sure as you're a foot high!" "Did you ever see such nerve?" whispered George. "He comes here and steals a sick boy, and then has the nerve to return and claim the cabin!" "Well, I'm glad he came," Sandy whispered back. "All we've got to do now is to play the sleuth when he leaves the cabin." "You mean that if we follow him in his journeys over the country we'll be apt to find Bert?" asked George. "That's just the idea!" replied Sandy. "I wonder if his mug is sore where Bert extracted the whiskers?" "I wonder if he expects to get a good night's sleep, with Bert lying in some uncomfortable hiding place?" George asked. "I'd like to poke him in the mug, just for luck!" "That wouldn't help us find Bert," Sandy cautioned. "We've just got to be good to him and follow him wherever he goes." "Watch me put him off his guard," George suggested. "How long have you been in this neighborhood?" he asked, turning to Cameron. "I ask," the boy continued, "because one of our chums wandered away from the cabin while we were out fishing and hasn't returned." Cameron's eyes sought the floor for a moment. "I have just returned from the coast," he said, "so, unless your friend strayed off in that direction, I wouldn't have caught sight of him. Do you mean that he strayed away in the darkness?" he asked. "No," replied George, "he strayed away this afternoon while temporarily out of his mind. My friends were out fishing, and I was asleep at the time. He received a slight wound on the head, from a fall, not long ago, and that is probably the cause of his aberration of mind." The boys thought they saw a sudden expression of satisfaction creep over Cameron's face as George finished his explanation. "If you'll serve Mr. Cameron's supper," Sandy said, giving George a sly wink, "I'll go with Will, and we'll take different directions so as to cover more ground. We are getting anxious about Bert." Of course the object of the boys in leaving the cabin was to meet the Boy Scout who had signalled to them from the window. When they turned the corner of the cabin, they found a thin, pale lad in a torn and faded khaki uniform leaning against the outer wall. "Why don't you come in?" asked Will. "Is the miner in there yet?" asked the boy. "Yes, he says the cabin belongs to him, and he's going to remain all night! What do you know of him?" "Nothing at all!" replied the boy, "except that I've been following him for half a dozen miles in the hopes that he would lead me to some place where I could eat and sleep." "Did you call out to him?" asked Will. "No," was the answer. "I was afraid he would send me back if I did. Miners in this section are not fond of leading strangers to their claims." "Where do you belong?" asked Sandy pointing to the Bulldog badge displayed on the boy's ragged coat. "Bulldog Patrol, Portland," was the reply. "How'd you get out into this country in such a plight?" asked Will. "My chum and I," was the reply, "started out to seek our fortunes. We got to Katalla and couldn't get a thing to do. Sam--his name is Sam White--insisted on remaining in town, but I made a break for the country." "How long since you've had anything to eat?" asked Sandy. "About twenty-four hours," was the reply. "Well, come on in, then, and we'll feed you up." "Of course I'll go, now that I know that you are running the camp," replied the boy. "I suppose I should have gone in anyway, directly, for just as I came up I heard the man knocking at the door. I was still afraid I'd get kicked out if I put in an appearance at any miner's cabin and asked for food, but I should have risked it." "I didn't know that miners did such things," Sandy observed. "Some of them do, and some of them don't," replied the boy. "You haven't given us your name yet," suggested Will. "Ed Hannon," was the reply. "Well come on in the cabin, Ed Hannon," laughed Sandy, "and we'll fill you up, but you mustn't say a word about having seen that miner, and if he talks to you about the route by which you approached the cabin lie like a thief! Which way did he come from, anyway?" "He came from the west," was the reply. "I plumped into him not far from one of the little rivulets which joins Copper river not very far away." "There!" said Sandy. "Now I guess we've got something tangible." CHAPTER XIII THE BEGINNING OF THE TRAIL When Will and Sandy entered the cabin with Ed Hannon, Cameron sprang up to meet them. There was a show of excitement in his manner as he exclaimed: "So you found the lost boy, did you?" "No," Will replied, "this is not the lost boy, but it is a lost boy!" "Where did you come from?" asked Cameron hastily, regarding Ed with a pair of bold, black eyes. "How long have you been in this district?" "I came from Katalla today," answered the boy. "Tonight, you mean," corrected Cameron. "I started early this morning," replied Ed, "but I guess I've been wandering around the country a good deal. It seems that I came up to the cottage from the north." Cameron sank back into his chair with a look of satisfaction on his face. The boys now busied themselves getting a substantial meal for Ed, and the boy was soon attacking a generous slice of bear steak. If Cameron had the plans bearing the thumb marks, he was certainly the man to keep them concealed if he believed them to be of any value whatever to any one. If he did not have charge of the plans, then the chances were that Vin. Chase, the crooked clerk, had them and that any reference to them in the presence of Cameron would be communicated as soon as possible to the actual holder. Will was certain that Cameron was the man who had given the name of Len Garman by Mr. Horton in the interview in which he had received his instructions. At that time he did not believe that Cameron, or Garman, whichever his name was, knew anything whatever of the thumb prints on the plans. He did believe, however, that the fellow would fight to the death for the drawings, not because he believed them to be of value as evidence, but because he believed them to be of great value to one in quest of mining machinery suitable for that section of the country. Directly Cameron began pacing to and fro in the cabin and occasionally glancing out of the window. There were only a few stars in sight and no moon, but for all that the fellow appeared greatly interested in the landscape outside. "Are you expecting some one?" Will finally asked. "Certainly not," was the reply. "Why do you ask such a question?" "Because you seem anxious about something." "I am anxious about something," replied Cameron seating himself by Will once more. "I don't like the idea of this boy coming in here with his story of being lost on the moraine. "You think he came here for a purpose?" "I must say that I do!" Will saw that Cameron was fearful that Ed had brought in a message of some kind, and so talked to the point for some moments in the hope of drawing the miner out. But the miner only stared at Ed with his evil eyes and said nothing of importance. "I know what's eating you, old fellow," Will thought to himself. "You think that there's a gang of Boy Scouts scattered over the moraine looking for Bert, and you're afraid they'll find him!" Sure enough this prognostication seemed to be the true one, for directly Cameron drew on his head net and leather gloves and walked to the door. He paused there a moment and turned back to say to Will: "It will soon be morning, and I desire to get to the point of my investigation before daylight. I have been very courteously entertained and shall return to your cabin at night, with your permission." "I guess it's your cabin rather than mine!" replied Will with a smile. "I think you are acting very decently about our taking possession of it. Of course you'll always find food here as long as we remain." With a wave of the hand at the group of boys gathered about the table, Cameron went out and closed the door. They heard him moving heavily along toward the east and then came silence. "He's stopping to see if he's watched," suggested Sandy. "He'll be watched all right!" George declared. "But how?" asked Sandy. "I'm the original sleuth!" George replied with a grin. "I can follow the fellow by the sound of his footsteps, even if he is wearing moccasins!" "Does any one doubt that Cameron is the man formerly known as Len Garman?" asked Will. The boys all shook their heads, but Ed turned an inquiring face toward the speaker. "He gave the name of Cameron here, did he?" he asked. Will nodded. "Well, that isn't the name I heard him called by at Katalla," Ed declared. "So you saw him at Katalla, did you?" asked Sandy. "Yes, I saw him at Katalla two days ago. He seemed to have a lot of business with a young fellow who appeared to be a stranger in the town." "What name did he give there?" "Brooks!" replied Ed. "Well, we mustn't stand here chinning while the fellow is getting out of sight," suggested George. "I'm going to take after him right now!" "Wait," Sandy suggested, "and I'll go with you." "Do you think he will go straight to Bert?" asked Will. "I have no doubt of it!" was the reply. "It's just this way," George went on, "Cameron is suspicious that a great effort is being made to discover the whereabouts of the kidnapped boy, and he can't rest easy until he knows that he is safe. Besides, the fellow would like to know whether Bert had regained consciousness." "Yes, I presume he is anxious to learn what the code despatch he stole contains," Will answered. "There was some talk," Sandy said, directly, "about Bert regaining consciousness before he left the cabin. Do you think that possible?" "No, I don't!" replied George. "I should have heard a struggle had anything of the kind taken place. The fact of the matter is," the boy went on, "that Cameron thinks some one is after the drawings he values so greatly. He found Bert here with the code message and naturally concluded that the cipher referred in some way to his plans." "Well, come on, then," Sandy urged. "We'll have to be moving if we follow Cameron. I think we've talked too long already." "Don't you worry about that," Will declared. "Cameron will hang around the cabin for half an hour or more in order to see if any one leaves. Before any one goes out, we'll turn off the light and make a noise like going to sleep. Then, when all is good and dark, you two can slip out and locate the miner if you can." "Locate him?" repeated Sandy. "We've got to locate him. He'll go straight to Bert and that's exactly where we want to go." The boys made a great commotion in the cabin as if preparing for bed, and finally the lamp was extinguished, leaving the room in complete darkness. "Now, be careful when you open the door," whispered Will. For a wonder the door opened noiselessly on its hinges, and was closed without the slightest jar. Directly Will heard a soft tap at the window and pressed his face against the pane. "Cameron is still in sight," Sandy's voice said, "and not very far away. He seems to be satisfied that we've all gone to bed, and is heading for the west. Looks like he was following the trail we followed when we went out after fish." "Go to it, then," Will said. "Don't expose yourselves by being too rash, and don't come back in the morning without bringing Bert with you." "You watch me!" Sandy replied, and then he was gone. CHAPTER XIV THE LAD WITH THE "DRAG" When the federal officer appeared in front of the spirited team, announcing that he had a warrant for the arrest of the boys, Tommy and Sam both whispered to the driver to cut loose with the whip. "Run him down!" Tommy insisted. "Jump the rig over him!" Sam advised. The doctor, however, stretched forth a detaining hand and the driver held in the horses. "That's right!" Frank exclaimed. "You mustn't get into any quarrel with the officers," Dr. Pelton suggested. "We can soon settle this matter." "Je-rusalem!" exclaimed Tommy. "Here we've been hanging around an old blacksmith shop all day, and skulking through the streets, and not getting half enough to eat, only to get pinched at the last minute! If I had my way, I'd bump that officer on the coco and make for the landing. We can't stay in this blooming little burg all the rest of our natural lives. Will will be anxious." "Now don't get excited!" laughed Frank. "We'll get out in, a few minutes, all right." "If it was so easy to get out in a few minutes," argued Tommy, "why didn't you get out hours ago?" Frank only laughed as the impatient question and sprang out of the carriage. The doctor alighted, too, and they both stood for a moment in close consultation with the officer. Jamison, who was now very drunk, stood weaving about in the street, demanding that all the boys, and the doctor, and the driver of the carriage, be thrown into jail on a charge of piracy. "Don't you think," Frank suggested to the officer, "that this man is too drunk to be out on the street?" "Why, of course he is," replied the officer beckoning to an associate who stood watching the group from the next corner. When the associate came up, Jamison was ordered under arrest, and was taken away with many threats and exclamations of rage. "I don't like this man Jamison any better than you do," the officer said, speaking to Frank and Dr. Pelton, "but the case did look rather bad for the boys, and I had to do something." "He collected three hundred dollars of me, for a trip to and from Cordova," Frank explained, "and then tried to maroon us on one of the Barren islands. There's a member of his crew back here in the blacksmith shop who will tell you the same story." "So you paid him three hundred dollars, did you?" asked the officer. "Yes, sir," answered the boy. "And you have proof that he tried to maroon you?" "Yes, sir!" "And you took the boat only to enforce the contract you had made?" "That's the idea!" replied Frank. "Then I'm not going to bother with the case at all!" replied the officer. "If you had come to me with this story the minute Jamison began to rave about arrest, you wouldn't have been put to all this inconvenience." "I think," grinned Frank, "that Jamison ought to pay us back the three hundred dollars, because he never brought us to Cordova at all, and even if he had, he wouldn't have earned the money until he returned us to Katalla. He ought not to keep the money." "That's a fact!" exclaimed the officer with a smile at the boy. "I'll go down to the jail and make him give it back." The officer started away, and Tommy and Sam sat in the carriage regarding Frank with wide open eyes. "Say, who is that kid?" Tommy asked. "I don't know," replied Sam. "Did you notice that any time he said anything to the officer that the officer just fell right in with his ideas?" "Sure I did," was the reply. "And did you notice how the doctor paid special attention to every remark he made?" "I couldn't help but notice it," was the reply. "Well, that kid's got these fellows up here buffaloed all right," Tommy declared. "And that being the case, I wonder why he didn't use some of his influence hours ago and get us started on the road to Katalla." "I give it up!" Sam replied. Frank and the doctor stood talking together for a few moments, and then the federal officer returned and handed two hundred dollars in bank notes over to Frank. "Jamison thinks he ought to have a hundred dollars because he paid the tug for bringing him and his crew in," the officer said, "and because he's going to let you run his motor boat up to Katalla." "What do you know about that?" whispered Sam. "I'll bet that boy's father is president of the United States," replied Tommy. "Or he may be king of England." "Whoever he is, he's got a pull," replied Sam. "Drag!" exclaimed Tommy. "Whenever a man's got a dead sure cinch like that, it's a drag and not a pull!" "Well," the doctor said, "we're losing time! We may as well go to the wireless office and get our code message. I presume it's ready for delivery by this time." "It's about time we were thinking about that boy with his head in a sling, too!" Tommy suggested. "It won't take us long to get there now," Doctor Pelton remarked. The Gulf of Alaska was remarkably smooth, when the vicious habits of that body of water are taken into consideration, and the boys made the run to Katalla without accident in little less than three hours, arriving at the floating dock with the sun still more than three hours in the sky. "Now for the rotten part of the journey," Tommy suggested. "If we hadn't had to wait for the wireless after we landed at the dock we should have arrived here in time to reach the cabin before dark." "Who's got the wireless?" asked Sam. "Frank's got it tucked away under his uniform!" laughed Doctor Pelton. "He wouldn't even let me take a look at the envelope!" "Do you know what's in it, Frank?" asked Tommy. "Sure I do," was the reply. "Then, what's all this mystery about? Why don't you pass the information around?" demanded Tommy impatiently. "All in good time!" laughed the boy. "I don't see any use of all this mystery!" Tommy grumbled, turning to Sam, "I get shut out of the inside features of every game I'm in!" "Now, how do we get to the cabin?" asked the doctor. "Walk, I suppose," grumbled Tommy. "It's only about fourteen or fifteen miles, and the country between the two points is mostly on end. We ought to get there by an hour or two after midnight, if we don't stop to play marbles on the way." "If you will all wait here a few moments," Frank said, "I'll go and see what I can do in the shape of a rig." "A rig!" repeated Tommy. "Fat lot of fun you'd have driving a rig over that moraine!" "Of course we can't drive clear to the cabin," Frank replied, "but we can get quite along way from the coast if we have a strong team and a good wagon!" "Yes, I remember smooth country somewhere on the route," replied Tommy. "But even at best," Frank explained, "we shall have to walk five or six miles, so we may as well be getting busy." In a very few minutes Frank returned with a pair of strong horses and wagon more desirable for its strength than its comfort. "Where'd you find it?" asked Tommy. "Sent a wireless ahead asking for it!" replied Frank. "I wish you'd send a wireless over to the cabin," Tommy grinned, "and ask the boys to have supper all ready when we get there, and you might suggest that Sandy and George meet us a half a mile this side with a pie under each arm." "I believe if that kid should ask to have some one dip him a blue blazer out of an ice cold spring it would be done," Sam whispered to Tommy, as the party clambered into the wagon. "He's certainly got a drag somewhere!" replied Tommy. "Things are running pretty smoothly boys," suggested Doctor Pelton as the straggling buildings of the coast town disappeared from view. "They're running too smoothly!" exclaimed Tommy. "First thing we know, there'll be a cylinder head blowing out, or a volcanic eruption, or something of that kind. We've been having things altogether too easy ever since we landed at Cordova." "Just listen a moment," Frank said, "I guess there's something going to happen, right now!" There came a long, low rumbling sound, apparently moving from east to west, followed by a tipping of the moraine which almost brought the horses to their knees. "It would never answer," Tommy grumbled, "for us to make a trip to Alaska without bunting into a glacier ready to smash up things!" "That's not a glacial slide!" Frank said. "It's an earthquake!" CHAPTER XV A BREAK IN THE GLACIER "An earthquake?" repeated Tommy. "I thought they never had earthquakes in Alaska any more!" "There are few weeks when there are no earthquakes!" was the reply. "Well, when's it going to stop quaking?" asked Sam, springing out of the wagon. "It seems to me that we're getting a sleigh ride!" The others followed his example, and stood in a moment within fifty feet of a slowly widening chasm which seemed to run from east to west across the entire moraine. They had just reached the timber line when the disturbance began, and now they saw trees a hundred feet in height and from six to eight inches in diameter dropping like matches into the great opening in the earth. "Gee!" exclaimed Tommy. "The breath of the earthquake is enough to freeze one! I wish I had a couple of fur coats!" The boy expressed the situation very accurately, for the opening of the moraine revealed the mighty mass of ice which lay under it. The glacier which had lain dead under the mat of vegetation for how many hundred years no one would ever know, showed far down in the great cavern, and a gust of wind sighing through the ragged jaws laid a chill over the little party. Slowly the chasm widened. The ground under the boys' feet seemed to be unsteady. With a swaying motion it dropped off toward the coast, except at the very edge of the cavern, which seemed to be doubling down like a lip folded inside the mouth. "It strikes me," Frank said, "that we would better be getting the team out of the track of that chasm! If we don't, the horses and wagon will take a drop." Tommy and Sam both sprang forward, but it was too late! The southern line of the chasm seemed, to drop away for fifty feet or more, and trees and rocks crashed into the opening. The horses and the wagon went down with the rest. The screams of the frightened horses cut the air for an instant, and then all was silent. "Rotten!" cried Tommy. "Fierce!" shouted Sam. "Awful!" declared Doctor Pelton. Frank stood looking at the ever-widening chasm for a moment and then faced toward the coast. "We'll have to walk around it now, I'm thinking," Tommy said, in a moment. "And a nice job we've got!" As far as the eye could see the chasm extended, now growing in size, now contracting. A pale blue mist rose out of the opening, and the air was that of an August day no longer. The sliding motion continued, and the chasm increased its width. "Will it never stop?" asked Sam, almost thrown to the ground by a quick convulsion of the surface. "Not just yet!" replied the Doctor gravely. "I can tell you in a moment just what has taken place. The weight of soil and timber on top of the dead glacier is shifting. The volcanic action tipped the moraine to the south and it broke, opening the way to the ice below. There is no knowing how serious the break may be. For all we know, the upheaval may send this whole moraine into the Gulf of Alaska." "That's a cheerful proposition, too!" Tommy exclaimed. "I wish I could get close enough to the chasm to look down," Sam observed. "I'll bet it's a thousand feet!" "You'd better not try that!" advised Frank. "The question before the house at the present moment," the doctor said, "is how I am going to get to my patient." "Can't we get across this little crack in the earth?" asked Sam. "That depends on the length of it!" answered Frank. "If the Doctor's theory is correct, this whole point has cracked away from the glacier above. In that case, we may be obliged to in some way work ourselves to the bottom of the chasm and up on the other side." "We never can do that!" Sam insisted. "Alaska is full of just such gorges as this one," Frank explained. "The whole country is resting on an icy foundation, and earthquakes find congenial conditions when it comes to cracking the crust. We don't know how long this chasm is, but the chances are that it isn't as long now as it will be!" "Yes," agreed the doctor. "The chances are that the chasm started here today will continue to grow in length until it cuts across the point of land between Controller bay and the Bering glacier. I have known chasms of this character to travel fifty miles in a night, and I have known them to walk with such dignity that it took them ten years to go ten miles." "But there must be some way of getting across it!" exclaimed Tommy. "Everything has been going all right up to now, and we're not going to be kept away from the cabin by any such playful little earthquake as this!" "We'll do the best we can," Frank said gravely. The boys turned to the east and west and traversed the line of the chasm for long distances. In places the width was not more than thirty feet. In others it was at least a hundred. Occasionally the walls of soil and ice sloped down at an angle of forty degrees, in other places the wall was vertical. Within an hour the sound of running water was plainly heard, and the boys understood that the convulsion of nature had opened a reservoir somewhere in the glacier, and that the long chasm would soon become a rushing torrent. The prospect was discouraging. "I wish we had an airship!" suggested Tommy, as they came back to the starting place, a few minutes before the night closed down upon the moraine. "It's provoking to think that we can't get across a little chasm not any wider than a street in old Chicago!" "I think I could get along very well with a derrick!" said Sam. After a long conference, it was decided to keep to the west and endeavor to pass around the chasm in that direction. "We certainly can't remain here inactive," the doctor argued. "We've got to go one way or the other, and I think the chances are better toward the west!" "It will soon be good and dark," cried Tommy, "and then we'll have to make some kind of a camp for the night." "I've got a searchlight with me," suggested Frank. "So've I," answered Tommy. "I'll tell you one thing we forgot," Sam cut in. "You didn't make Jamison give up your automatics!" "Don't you ever think we didn't," Tommy answered. "That is," he continued, "the officer made him give them up. At least he brought them back when he came from the jail!" "Seems to me," Tommy added, looking at Frank critically, "that you've got some kind of a drag with the people at Cordova." "Never mind that now," Frank replied. "What we need now is some kind of a drag to get us across this chasm." The electrics illuminated only a narrow path, but the boys and the doctor made fairly good time as they advanced toward the west. After walking at least a mile and finding no narrowing in the surface opening, the boys stopped once more for consultation. While they stood on the edge of the chasm considering the situation, a bright blaze leaped up some distance to the north. "Some one's burning green boughs!" exclaimed Tommy. "How do you know that?" asked Sam. "Look at the white smoke!" answered Tommy. "I guess if you had made and answered as many Boy Scout smoke signals as I have, you'd know how to make a smudge." "It's so bloomin' dark I couldn't tell whether the smoke is while or black!" declared Sam. "I can see only the bulk of it." "If it was good and black," Tommy answered, "we couldn't see it so plainly. And, come to think about it," he added, laying a hand excitedly on Frank's shoulder, "there are two columns of smoke." "I see the two now," Frank answered. "One column has just begun to show. You know what that means, of course!" "It means a Boy Scout signal for assistance," replied Tommy. Doctor Pelton turned to the boys with an anxious face. "Do you really mean that?" he asked. "Sure we do!" replied Tommy. "Two columns of smoke ask for help." "Then there must be Boy Scouts in trouble on the other side of the chasm!" the doctor concluded. "That's about the size of it!" Frank exclaimed. "Look here," Tommy declared, "we've just got to get across that crack! I wonder if it would be possible to find walls so slanting that we could pass down this side and up the other." "Well, even if we did," Sam argued, "there's a rush of water at the bottom. I don't see how we could get across that." "I know how we can get across it if we find the walls accommodating," Tommy exclaimed. "You saw how the trees tumbled into the chasm, didn't you? Well, if we can find a place where the moraine was heavily wooded, we'll find a bridge of tree trunks across any water there may be at the bottom! And the bridge may not be very far down, either!" "Great head, little man!" laughed Frank. "You ought to consider the matter very seriously before entering the chasm at all," suggested the doctor. "Remember that it is uncertain as to size and that the walls are liable to crumble." "But see here," exclaimed Tommy, "there's a Boy Scout signal for help on the other side, and we've just got to get across! For all we know, the cabin may have been wrecked by the earthquake, and the boys may have been injured in some way!" "I'm game to go!" shouted Sam. "Of course I'll go with you," the doctor went on. "In fact, I am satisfied that you are doing the right thing in making the attempt to cross. I only uttered a warning which we must all heed whenever we come to a place where a crossing seems possible." The boys soon discovered a place where the walls did not appear to be very steep and where the mass of trees which had fallen completely covered the bottom. Then, cautiously feeling their way, they crept down. CHAPTER XVI GEORGE AND SANDY CAUGHT When George and Sandy left the cabin they saw the figure of the miner very dimly outlined away to the west. "We ought to get closer," Sandy whispered. "First thing we know, he'll duck down into some hollow, and that'll be the last of him for the night. I guess we can creep up without his catching us at it." "Of course we can!" replied George. "He's making so much noise himself that he can't hear us! He wouldn't make much of a Boy Scout when it came to stalking, would he?" The boys succeeded in getting pretty close to the miner; so close in fact, that occasionally they heard him muttering to himself as he stumbled over rocks and occasionally became entangled in such underbrush as grew along the top of the moraine. "We can't be very far away from the place where the bear tried to beat me up," Sandy whispered, as they drew up for a moment. "I wouldn't mind having a bite out of that same bear just about now!" After a time they came to the head waters of the creek in which Will and Sandy had fished, and saw Cameron standing on the other side. "He's going into the mountains!" whispered Sandy. "That's exactly where he's keeping Bert," George agreed. In a short time Cameron paused in his walk and uttered a low whistle. "What do you think of that?" asked Sandy. "He's going to meet some one here. And that means," the boy went on, "that he's had a pal watching Bert while he's been away." "And it also means," George added, "that we can't be very far from the spot where Bert is concealed. I hope so, anyway, for I'm about tired enough to crawl into my little nest in the cabin." "I should think you'd talk about sleep!" scoffed Sandy. "You slept all the afternoon!" "If you mention that long sleep of mine again," George said half-angrily, "I'll tip you over into the creek. I'm sore over that myself!" While the boys stood waiting end listening an answering whistle came from the side of a mountain not far from the rivulet. "There's his chum!" whispered Sandy. "If we get up nearer, we may be able to hear what they say." The boys crept along under the dim light of the infrequent stars, and finally crouched down behind an angle of rock which was not more than twenty feet removed from where Cameron stood. They had hardly taken their position when a second figure made its appearance. The two stood talking together in whispers for a short time and then started to walk away. "There's something doing, all right!" exclaimed Sandy. "Yes, indeed, there is!" agreed George. "They wouldn't come out into such a hole as this after midnight to tell each other what good fellows they are, or anything like that." "I'm getting suspicious!" Sandy chuckled. "Why suspicious?" "Because those fellows whispered!" "I see the point," replied George. "From our standpoint those fellows were all alone here in one of the wild places of Alaska, yet they drew close together and whispered when they communicated with each other!" "They wouldn't do that," urged Tommy, "unless they were afraid of being overheard. It shows that they believe some one to be watching them." The two men were now moving quite swiftly up the slope of the mountain. At times they were entirely hidden by the luxuriant growths, and at times they came out on little bald spots where rock outcropped to the exclusion of vegetation. The boys followed on into the thickets, pausing now and then to listen for the sounds of the advance of the others. Presently they came to a shelf of rock which overlooked the valley of the rivulet. They paused for a moment to listen for the sounds of those in advance when a strong electric searchlight was thrown on their faces and they saw the grim, round barrel of an automatic pointing at their breasts. "You may as well hand over your automatics, boys!" Cameron said. "And be quick about it, too." This last sentence came from a thin, cadaverous looking fellow whose face was only half revealed through the meshes of the head net. There was nothing for the boys to do but to pass over their revolvers. Their searchlights were also taken from them, and then their hands were tied tightly behind their backs. "Did you have a pleasant tramp through the woods?" asked Cameron. "Say," growled Sandy, "if you'll just turn my hands loose, I'll give you a poke in the jaw!" "That wouldn't be polite!" sneered Cameron. "Don't take any lip from the young imps," snarled the other. "They've given us enough trouble already!" "You're a foxy old gink!" exclaimed Sandy. "I wish I had you on South Clark street, Chicago, for a few minutes!" "So that's why you came to the cabin is it?" asked George. "Certainly," replied Cameron. "I had an idea that you'd follow me away! You see I figured it out exactly right!" "Why did you want to make trouble for us?" asked Sandy. "Because you're too smart!" answered Cameron. "What do you mean by that?" "When you sat sizing me up in the cabin while I was eating supper," Cameron went on, "you informed me as plainly as words could have done that you knew me to be the man who had abducted your friend." "You didn't show that you knew," George suggested. "I tried not to show that I knew," answered the other. "What'd you steal Bert for?" asked Sandy. "I needed him in my business," answered Cameron. "Come, don't stand here all night talking with the little gutter-snipes!" exclaimed Cameron's companion. "We've got work to do!" "March along, then, boys!" Cameron ordered. The lads were now pushed forward into a cavern which opened on the shelf of rock where they had been taken prisoners. The opening in the mountain side seemed to be of considerable size, for the boys passed from an outer chamber of fair dimensions to two smaller ones further in. In the last of these chambers, on a huddle of blankets, lay the boy for whom they had been searching. "Is he dead?" asked Sandy. "No such luck," snarled Cameron. "If you'll untie my hands, I'll look after him," George said. The bonds were cut and George bent over the still figure. "Has he regained consciousness at all?" he asked. Cameron turned to his companion. "Tell them, Fenton," he said, "whether the lad woke up during my absence. You were here all the time?" he added. "Yes, I was here all the time!" answered Fenton. "And the lad never opened his eyes once. That was a deuce of a blow you gave him, Cameron!" "And what did you gain by it?" demanded Sandy. "We'll show you directly what we gained by it!" Cameron answered. Seeing a bucket of water at one side of the cavern, George carried it over to the heap of blankets where the boy lay and began bathing his forehead and wrists. The boy groaned feebly but did not speak. "What did you hit him with?" asked George angrily. "The handle of my gun!" was the sullen reply. "Why?" asked Sandy. "Because I wanted to get a paper he had." "Well, you got it, didn't you?" asked the boy. "Yes, I got it!" "And much good it did you, too!" said George angrily. "Look here!" Cameron almost shouted, "can either one of you boys read that code despatch?" George shook his head. "Is there any one at the cabin who can read it?" "I have never known of any member of the party reading the cipher," replied George. "I never have seen a code despatch before." "You are lying to me!" shouted Cameron. "The boy to whom the despatch was addressed can certainly read it! Which one of you bears the name of Will Smith? Don't lie to me now!" "Will Smith is at the cabin!" replied Sandy. "Just my luck!" shouted Cameron. "What do you want to know about the code despatch?" asked Sandy. "I want to know what it contains. And what is more, I'm going to know, too! I want one of you boys to write a note to this Will Smith and get him to come here to this cave." "Not for mine!" exclaimed Sandy. George made no verbal reply, but the expression of his face showed that he had no intention of doing anything of the kind. "It will be the worse for you if you don't!" shouted Cameron. "Oh, you've got the top hand for a few minutes now," Sandy said, tauntingly, "but you'll soon find out that you're not the only man in the world that's got a gun!" This last as Cameron flourished an automatic in his hand. "You'll write the note, or you'll starve to death!" replied Fenton. "Then we'll starve!" answered George. "No, we won't starve!" declared Sandy. "We'll get the best of you outlaws in some shape, and give you a beating up that will put you in the hospital for six months!" Fenton raised his fist as if to strike the speaker, but Cameron caught his arm. "Not now," he said. "Wait until all other plans have been tried." "We have other work to do at this time, anyway," Fenton said, with a scowl, "so we'll just lock the door on these young gutter-snipes and leave them to think the matter over!" The men passed out of the small cavern, but before they left the outer one, they rolled a great stone into the opening they had just passed through and blocked it firmly on the outer side. CHAPTER XVII THE MORSE CODE "And this," said Sandy, as the great stone began to render the atmosphere of the place close and unpleasant, "is what I call a fine little Boy Scout excursion! Did they leave one of the searchlights?" "Not intentionally," replied George, "but I swiped one!" "Well, we mustn't show a light until they get some distance away!" advised Sandy. "We don't want them to know that we have it." "And we'll need it badly," George suggested, "if we're to give Bert any attention! I wonder if the poor boy has had any care since he's been here! It doesn't seem to me that they would be heartless enough to leave him here in an unconscious condition very long!" "You can never tell what such fellows'll do," Sandy observed. The boys remained silent for a long time, each one busy with his own thoughts. After what seemed an aeon, they saw that it was daylight outside. Then they turned on their electric and made an examination of their wounded chum. They found that the bandage on his head had been changed, and that his pulse was not so high as when he had been discovered in an unconscious condition at the cabin. "I guess they've done the best they could," Sandy observed, "and I'm much obliged to them for that! Have you got anything to eat?" "Now, look here, Sandy," George replied whimsically, "have you any idea that I'd ever go away with you without taking something to eat? You got up from the table one minute and demand something to masticate the next! You're about the most regular boy at your meals I over knew. What'll you have now, pie or cake?" "Pie!" laughed Sandy. "Well, you get a bear sandwich!" replied George. "I've got four great big thick ones wrapped up in paper and stowed away in my pockets. If those ginks had suspected anything of the kind, they would have taken them away from me. They're a bum lot, those men!" "Produce one of the sandwiches!" demanded Sandy. "They named me Sandy at first because I'm such a hand for sandwiches!" George brought forth two great slices of bread and about a pound of fried bear meat. Sandy's eyes sparkled at the sight. "We'll have one apiece now," George suggested, "and one apiece tonight. But every time they come near the cave, we'll tell them how hungry we are. That will make them think we're suffering." "You don't think we're going to stay here till night, do you?" demanded Sandy munching away at his meat. "I hope not," answered George. "I wonder if Bert's had anything to eat since he got the wallop on the coco?" asked Sandy. "Suppose we mince some of this meat up very fine and feed it to him. He may not know when he swallows it, but it will give him strength just the same." The suggested plan was followed, and Bert was given quite a quantity of the tender meat. At first it was necessary to pass it down his throat with draughts of water, but later, much to the surprise and joy of the boys, he began, to swallow naturally. "He's coming back to life!" shouted Sandy. "A boy's all right as soon as he begins to eat! Sprinkle some water in his face and we'll see what effect that has." The boys were so pleased that they almost cheered with delight when at length Bert opened his eyes and looked about. "Time to get up?" he asked. "Naw," replied Sandy. "Go to sleep again!" "That you, Sandy?" asked Bert. "That's Sandy all right!" replied the boy. "Why don't you open a door or window and let in some air?" asked Bert. "Aw, go to sleep!" advised Sandy. "Nice old dive you've got here!" Bert went on. "Here I've walked about nineteen thousand miles to find a boy named Sandy and a boy named Will, and a boy named Tommy, and a boy named George, and when I find them they shut me up in a rotten old morgue." "How'd you come to ask for Sandy?" demanded the boy. "The name struck me as being funny!" was the reply. "Where are the others? Are you here alone?" "George is over there on the floor," replied Sandy. "Ring off, now, and go to sleep! You're in no shape to talk." "I remember something about getting a dip on the head," Bert said in a moment, evidently after long cogitation. "What was there about it?" "You got it!" replied Sandy. "Go to sleep!" "If you'll give me some more of that meat, I'll go to sleep!" George pushed forward about half of one of the sandwiches and the boy began eating it greedily. In a moment, however, his arm dropped to his side and he appeared to be unconscious again. "He's too weak to go at the grub like that," George advised, turning on the light. "We'll have to be careful!" But Bert was not unconscious again. He was only sleeping. "I'd like to know what brought him out of that trance," remarked George as the boys sat regarding the youngster with inquiring eyes. "I don't know any more about it than you do," answered Sandy, "but, if you'll leave it to me, setting the stomach to work put the blood in circulation, and that swept the cobwebs out of his brain." "Sounds all right, but I don't believe it!" replied George. The day passed slowly. Bert slept continuously until George's watch told him that it was nearly four o'clock in the afternoon. Then he opened his eyes for a few moments, finished the rest of the sandwich and went to sleep again. "Weak as a cat!" exclaimed Sandy. The boy had scarcely closed his eyes when Cameron's voice was heard at the entrance. "Are you boys ready to write that note?" he asked. "Come in here a minute," requested Sandy. "I want to get a good poke at that ugly mug of yours!" "You won't feel quite so lively after going hungry for a day or two," sneered Cameron. "You needn't mind about the letter, anyway," he added. "I have information that there's a boy coming in from Cordova who can read the code despatch and we're laying for him now." "I don't want to seem to be irreligious," Sandy replied, "but I beg leave to state that if I owed the devil a debt of a thousand of the greatest liars on earth and he wouldn't take you and call the debt square, I'd cheat him out of it! Your fabrications are too cheap!" "Don't get fresh now," advised Cameron. "If you do, I'll come in there and take it out of your hide!" "Come on in!" urged Sandy. "I'd just like to get a good crack at your crust! I think I could fix you up in about five minutes so you'd want to lie in bed for about five months!" "Aw, what's the good of stirring him up!" whispered George. "I want to get him so mad that he'll say something that he wouldn't say if he wasn't angry!" replied Sandy. "What's your idea about this boy coming in, anyway? Do you believe it?" "No!" was the reply. "There isn't any one to come in. And even if there was, there is no way in which he could be notified that he was coming! So you see, he's just lying for the fun of it!" "Well, I'm sorry, boys," Cameron observed, "that you won't take advantage of the offer I'm making you. I brought a basket of provisions with me, and you might be having a square meal in five minutes if you'd only do what I ask you to do." "I thought you didn't want the letter now!" scoffed Sandy. "Oh, I'll get it all right whether you write it or not!" answered Cameron. "But if you have anything to say to me, you'd better say it now, because you won't see me again until tomorrow morning. I've just come from the cabin, and the boys there are about wild over your disappearance. I explained that I found your hats not far from a piece of torn and bloody turf, and that seemed to make them feel worse than ever." "Oh, they're on to you all right!" replied Sandy. "You can't make anything stick with them. They know that you're the outlaw who stole Bert, and they know that you haven't any more right to the cabin than they have. You'll go sticking your nose around that domicile some time and get it knocked off! It's a two to one bet right now that they know that you've caught George and I in some kind of a trap." "Let him alone," advised George. "What's the use of starting anything? He can make us trouble if he wants to!" "Run along now," continued Sandy. "We were having a quiet little snooze when you butted in. It's all right this time, but don't you ever do it again. Here's hoping you remain away until morning!" Cameron was heard to pass through the outer caverns and all was still, about the place. Notwithstanding the assumed lightheartedness of the boys, they realized that they were in a serious situation. "I'm going to dig this stone out!" declared Sandy shortly after the departure of the miner. "I believe we can move this beautiful door if we go at it right. Come on and help me push." The boys pushed with all their might, but the stone was firmly blocked on the outside, and could not be moved. "It's after five o'clock," George said looking at his watch, "and if we do anything tonight, we'll have to do it right away. What time did Tommy say he would be back with the doctor?" "There was some talk about his being back early in the evening," replied Sandy. "And that gives me an idea!" the boy continued. "Pass it out!" said George. "First," Sandy said, hesitatingly, "let me ask a question. Do you know how the boys are going to get in from the coast? What I mean is, have you any idea which way they will take on leaving Katalla?" "That's all a guess," replied George. "They may come this way, though," suggested Sandy. "Yes, if they keep straight to the north until they strike the valley of this little creek and then turn east to the cabin, they'll be apt to pass this way." "Here's hoping they do," Sandy said fervently. "I don't see how that will help," George complained. "We're shut up in a hole, and might yell for a thousand years without being heard." "Just you wait a minute," Sandy advised. "Let me see that searchlight of yours. Have you the red and blue caps with you?" "They're right at the end," replied George. "Just unscrew that cover and take them out. I thought you knew where to find everything connected with an electric searchlight!" Sandy unscrewed the false cover at the end of the battery case and brought forth two celluloid caps; one blue, and one red. "It's been so long since we've used these Boy Scout signals," he add, "that I've almost forgotten which color we use for the dash and which for the dot when we signal in the Morse code." "The red is the dash," explained. George. "What are you going to do?" "I'm going to hoist a signal of distress," laughed Sandy. "Expect it to show through the rocks?" "I guess it'll show out of any opening we can look out of!" exclaimed Sandy. "I'm going to put on the red cap and set the light where it'll shine through the two outer caverns. If any of the boys come within sight of it, they'll understand the scrape we're in." "Great head!" exclaimed George. "The boys will be coming back from Katalla before long, and Will and Ed will naturally be searching for us, so we're pretty sure to have the signal seen and answered before morning!" "That's our only hope!" replied Sandy. "Unless our Boy Scout signal brings one party or the other, we're likely to starve to death in this rotten old cavern. Let's see how it works," the boy went on, screwing the red celluloid cap firmly over the eye of the electric. After seeing that everything was in order, he switched to the blue cap. In both cases the light worked perfectly. "There you are!" he said with a chuckle. "If one of the boys sees the red light, he'll read it for a Morse dash and if he sees the blue light, he'll read it for a Morse dot!" CHAPTER XVIII THE ROCKS TUMBLE DOWN After the departure of George and Sandy from the cabin, Will and Ed decided that the best thing they could do would be to go to bed. They had been without sleep for many hours, and were thoroughly exhausted. "I am anxious to know what success George and Sandy have in chasing Cameron," Will said, as he disrobed in the dark and tumbled into his bunk, "but I don't see how we can help matters any by sitting up." No answer came from the bunk occupied by Ed save a prolonged snore, and Will knew that his companion was already in the land of dreams. When Will awoke it was broad daylight and the sun was high in the heavens. Looking at his watch, he was surprised to see that it was after twelve o'clock. In a moment, he heard Ed stirring in his bunk, and then the boy sat up, rubbing a pair of sleepy eyes. "That was a corker!" Will exclaimed. "Have any of the boys returned?" asked Ed. "Oh, they're back before this, of course," Will answered. "They've probably gone outside in order to give us a chance to sleep!" "I don't see any indications of their presence," Ed said. "Everything looks exactly as it did when we went to bed last night." Will, after arranging his head net, and drawing on a pair of gloves, opened the door and cast an anxious glance over the landscape. "They haven't been out here!" he said. "What do you think it means?" "It means that they're giving that fat miner along chase!" answered Ed. "I'm afraid they're in some trouble," replied Will apprehensively. "Suppose I look for them while you get breakfast," suggested Ed. "Good idea," replied Will "I'll get pancakes and coffee and eggs for breakfast and then, after we eat, we'll both go out and look for the boys. I'm afraid they've been led into a trap!" "How about leaving the cabin alone?" asked Ed. "The cabin can go hang!" answered Will. Ed returned in half an hour and reported that no trace of the lost lads had been discovered. The boys then ate breakfast and started away. "Which way did they go?" asked Ed. "Sandy said they were headed to the west." "Then to the west we go," Ed exclaimed, darting forward in advance. The boys searched patiently until five o'clock without discovering any trace of the missing lads. Then, they returned to the cabin and prepared supper. As they came within sight of the cabin they saw a stout figure dodging away into the grove of trees to the east. "That's that sneak of a Cameron," Will said. "If he keeps shoving his ugly nose into our business, I'll ornament it with lead!" After supper the boys loaded their pockets with sandwiches and a bottle of cold coffee and set forth again. "I don't think we went far enough to the west," Will said, as they made their way over the moraine. "You remember the line of hills across the little creek? Well, I have an idea that if the boys have been captured they have been taken there." "And if Bert has been hidden away anywhere in this vicinity," Ed answered, "he is there, too! In fact," the boy added, "it is my belief that if the miner is responsible for the disappearance of George and Sandy the three boys will be found together somewhere!" "You are probably right!" Will agreed. "The miner and his gang wouldn't care about watching two separate points." "I don't think they'd be apt to murder the boys, do you?" asked Ed. "No, I don't think they would," Will replied. "Outlaws of the Cameron stamp resort to all sorts of tricks and crimes, but they usually fight shy of murder. I'm afraid, however, that the boys will be starved or beaten up." It was seven o'clock when the boys finally came to the south bank of the rivulet, in the vicinity of the place where Sandy had encountered the bear. The sun was now well in the west and the south side of the line of cliffs lay in heavy shadows. "If there's any deviltry going on," Will said, pointing to the summits above, "it's right over there under those peaks!" "I guess there's plenty of room under the peaks for mischief to be plotted," Ed suggested, "I can see pigeon holes all along the cliff." "Caves, do you mean?" asked Will. "Sure," was the reply. "Those cliffs are of volcanic formation, and some of the strata are softer than others, and the water has cut into the heart of the range in many places." "One would naturally suppose that such openings would be filled with ice in Alaska," Will suggested. "They may be filled with ice in the winter," answered Ed, "but in the summer time they are hiding places for bears and crooked miners." The boys advanced to the edge of the stream and Will swept his field glass along the distant slope. Presently he handed the glass to Ed. "Tell me what you see," he said. "I see something that looks like the eye of a wild animal looking out over the valley!" answered the boy. "What can it be?" "My first idea was that some one had built a fire in a cave," Will answered, "but the more I look at it, the more I suspect that the light comes from an electric." "Then that must be the boys!" exclaimed Ed excitedly. "But why don't they come on out?" asked Will, anxiously. "Perhaps they have found Bert and don't want to leave him!" suggested Ed. While the boys watched the red light, which seemed to glimmer from the very extremity of the cavern, it turned to blue! "Now I've got it," cried Will almost dancing up and down in his excitement, "you know what that means, don't you?" "I can't say that I do!" replied Ed. "It seems to me that the Portland Boy Scouts are not very well posted," laughed Will. "One of the boys--which one, I don't know, of course--is talking to us in the Morse code!" "Still I don't understand," said Ed. "The red light means a dash," Will explained, "and the blue light means the dot. Now we'll see if we can catch what the boy is saying." "But where does he get the red and blue lights?" asked Ed. "From red and blue caps screwed over the electric searchlight," was the reply. "All of our electrics are provided with these signal caps." "There, the light is red again!" cried Ed. "I'll show how it works," Will said, bringing out his own flashlight and unscrewing the false cover from the loading end. Directly he had the blue and red caps out, and then the red one was fastened over the eye of the searchlight. "There, you see!" Will exclaimed turning on the light. "We've got a beautiful red light and that means a Morse dash." "I see," answered Ed. "And when you turn on the blue, that means a dot. I learned the Morse code, of course, when I was admitted to the Boy Scouts, but I never knew that it was used in that way." "I wonder if he sees this?" asked Will as he swung the red light back and forth in the growing twilight. "We'll have to wait and see," replied Ed. "Of course, he'll answer if he knows we're here!" Swiftly the light changed from red to blue and from blue back to red again. This took place several times and then Will said: "Now, count!" "Red," said Ed. "Red again. Red again." "That's 'O'," exclaimed Will. "I guess we've got him at last!" "Now there's another red," Ed went on. "Now there's a blue. Then one more red. Oh, this seems to be easy!" "That's 'K'!" cried Will. "O. K., don't you see? O. K. That means that he knows we're here!" "Glory be!" shouted Ed. "The boys are all right or they wouldn't be signalling. I hope they've found Bert!" Will signalled back "O. K.," and then the lads turned back up the rivulet, the idea being to cross over to the north side. "I want to find out why the boys don't show themselves instead of signalling," Will explained. "There must be some good reason." After a walk of half a mile upstream the boys found it possible to cross without wading, and then they turned down toward the mouth of the cavern where the lights had been seen. As they did so, two figures detached themselves from a group of trees which stood not far to the east and followed stealthily along behind them. If the lads could have heard the conversation carried on at that time between Cameron and Fenton, they would have proceeded on their way with less confidence. "Just what we've been looking for!" chuckled Cameron. "We surely have them trapped now!" replied Fenton. "They'll naturally step into the outer cavern to see why their chums don't walk out, and when they do so, we'll hold them up with our guns until we can build up a barrier which will keep them in." "One of the boys certainly must understand the code we are so anxious about," Fenton observed. "That's the kid we want. We've certainly got to find out what that message contains! If the people in the east are trying to steal our plans, we certainly ought to know it!" The boys, however, heard nothing of this talk and passed on down the north side of the creek. As soon as they came opposite the cavern, in sight of the light once more, they stopped and began signalling. As they did so, Cameron and Fenton came nearer and waited anxiously for the lads to enter the cavern. "I'd like to know what all that signalling means!" said Cameron. "Boy Scout signals," replied Fenton. "You can't read them, can you?" asked the miner. "Of course not," replied Fenton, "I'm no Boy Scout!" The boys continued to signal back and forth until the situation was fairly well understood. Will and Ed knew that Bert had been found and that all three were barricaded in the cave. They were disposed to make their way to the rescue of the boys without further delay, but George advised them to wait until it became darker, as Cameron might return at almost any moment. The news that Bert had regained consciousness was very welcome and, confident of their ability to thwart the plans of the miner, the boys looked forward to quiet hours in the cabin. Of course the boys had no suspicion that their enemies were close at hand watching every movement. Cameron and Fenton became impatient, after a time, and began advancing slowly toward the boys, who were now not very far from the mouth of the outer cavern. Something better than an hour passed, and then George signalled from the interior of the cavern that it might be well for the boys to come up and begin the work of removing the rocks which barred their egress. "Sneak In," George signalled. "Don't show yourself more than you have to. Cameron may be about! It may be that he has seen our signals already!" Sandy replied that he had not discovered any indications of the presence of the miner, and the two boys advanced to the shelf of rock which faced the opening. It was nine o'clock then. "What's that strange noise?" asked Will as they moved along the shelf. "You've got me!" replied Ed, "The ground's tipping!" There came a deafening crash and the whole face of the cliff fell away! When Will and Ed regained their feet and looked through the dust which was rising over the scene, they saw that there was no longer any cavern in view. The rock on which they stood was sliding down the slope. "Buried alive!" cried Will with a sob, "Buried alive!" CHAPTER XIX VICTIMS OF THE QUAKE The broad rock upon which the boys stood slid down the declivity for some distance and brought up against a thicket of trees which stood not far from the bank of the creek. The boys were fairly thrown from their feet as the rock struck, but fortunately they were not injured in the least. It was quite dark now, and the dust rising from the disturbed earth made the scene still more dim. The first thing the boys heard when they scrambled to their feet was a faint moan and then a call for help. "Sandy! George!" called Will. There was no answer from above, but a faltering voice was heard just at the edge of the thicket, where the rock had crushed into a hemlock of unusual size. "Help," the voice said. "Help!" Will threw his searchlight in the direction of the sound and soon saw a writhing figure in the underbrush which had been crushed down by the fall of the rock. "Who are you?" asked Will. "Fenton," was the answer. "Where'd you come from?" asked the boy in amazement. "For God's sake," exclaimed the writhing man, "don't stop to ask questions now. My leg is smashed under the rock upon which you are standing! It is enough to say that I came here with Cameron!" "Where is Cameron?" asked Will. Fenton pointed further down the slope. "He fell over in that direction when a rock struck him," he said. Will and George made a thorough examination of the slope where the cavern had been before wasting any time on their injured enemies. They called loudly to George and Sandy but received no answer. "I'm afraid," Ed said, "that the boys were crushed under the falling rocks! If they were, we ought to leave the men responsible for their death where they are! They are not deserving of human help!" "And yet," Will replied, "I can't find it in my heart to leave them in such a plight. We ought at least to see if we can get them out of their present cramped quarters." After much exertion the boys managed to manufacture something like a handspike from one of the broken saplings, and with this they began prying at the heavy rock. It gave, but slowly. While they worked away, hoping every instant to be able to draw Fenton from under the stone and so lessen his sufferings, they saw the hand of the man they were so unselfishly assisting stealing toward his hip pocket. "Watch him!" whispered Will. "He means to shoot us as soon as he is released! That shows what kind of a dirty dog he is!" As the rock was lifted by slow degrees and propped so that its weight was not so heavy upon the unfortunate man the boys saw that his hand was creeping closer to his hip pocket. When at last the weight was removed, Fenton's first act was to attempt to draw his weapon. Ed kicked it from his hand and then proceeded to tie the fellow's wrists together behind his back. "You're a dirty sneak," the boy exclaimed, "or you wouldn't try to kill the people who have saved your life! From this time on, you get no assistance from us!" "I didn't mean anything!" whined Fenton. "Don't lie about it!" fritted Will. "Where's Cameron?" "You'll find him lower down!" was the reply. "I hope he's broken his neck!" Ed cut in. But Cameron had not broken his neck. Instead, he had broken an arm, and one foot had been badly bruised by a falling stone. He was unconscious when the boys lifted him and laid him in an easier position. The two men were at once searched for weapons and left for the time being to take care of themselves. There was no fear of their escaping, for one of Fenton's legs had sustained a compound fracture and Cameron's foot was badly injured. "What next?" asked Will as the two boys stood facing the spot where they believed George, Sandy and Bert to be buried under many tons of rock. "It seems as if we ought to do something for the boys!" "I'm afraid it's too late!" replied Ed, dejectedly. "We never can dig under those rocks without help," commented Will, "therefore, I think we'd better be on the watch for Tommy and Frank and the surgeon. They surely ought to be somewhere near the cottage by this time, if not already in it." "If they've had such blooming bad luck as we have," Ed observed, "they're probably in jail somewhere! I don't think I ever saw anything in a worse mess! The very Old Nick seems to be after us!" "This," Will observed with a grave smile, "is what we call a quiet little Boy Scout excursion! We have visited the Pictured Socks, the Everglades, the Great Continental Divide, the Hudson Bay country and got trapped in an anthracite mine in Pennsylvania since we started out on our quests for adventure." "You seem to have found adventure all right!" smiled Ed. "You bet we have!" replied Will. The boys made still another inspection of the spot where the cliff had fallen, and thought that they heard a faint call from the inside. "They are there!" cried Will. "I'm sure they're there, and alive!" "But they can't live there very long!" suggested Ed. "So we'd better be doing something to get them, out!" "The first thing to do," Will stated, "is to signal to the other fellows. I'm sure Tommy and Frank must be in with the surgeon before this!" "There'll be plenty of work for the surgeon, I imagine," Ed added. "I'm afraid so," Will admitted. "But how are you going to signal to the cabin?" asked Ed. "Indian smoke signals!" was the reply. Almost before the words were out of Will's mouth, Ed was gathering both dry and green branches from the thicket. "If the boys are at the cabin, or even on their way there," Will continued, "they'll be sure to see the signal, for the night is not so very dark now, and the land where we are is considerably higher than the moraine upon which the cabin is built. We'll have to get a blazing fire of dry wood and then pile on green branches." "That ought to make a smudge visible ten miles off!" said Ed. "Not quite so far as that!" smiled Will, "but it's a sure thing the signals ought to be seen as far as the cabin." "Perhaps this earthquake shook the cabin down," suggested Ed. "I heard a racket over to the south which seemed to indicate that the moraine was being crumpled up like a piece of leather in a blaze." "It seems to me," Will agreed, "that the earthquake did change the map of Alaska in some particulars. Now, if you've got enough dry wood, we'll start the fire and in five minutes we'll be ready for the green boughs!" Two roaring fires were soon going on the mountainside, and then both Cameron and Fenton pleaded to be assisted nearer to the circle of warmth. They were both shivering with the cold. "We ought to give you a swift toss into the blaze!" exclaimed Will. "And we may do it, too," he went on, "if we find that our chums have been brought to their death by your abducting them!" "We had nothing to do with their being in the cave!" lied Cameron. "What were you doing in the edge of the thicket?" asked Ed. "We were watching you and your friends," was the reply. "We thought that you were in quest of our mine!" "Did you see those red and blue lights?" asked Will. "Certainly we did," replied Cameron. "Well, they told the story of what has taken place since the boys left the cabin to follow your footsteps last night, so you may as well save your breath. Lies won't help you any!" However, the lads managed to bring the two men closer to the fire and then set about piling on more green boughs. "Now," Will said, as he stood regarding the two columns of smoke with no little satisfaction, "if our friends are within five miles of us, they ought to understand that we are in need of a little friendly assistance." Time and again the two boys went back to the place where the cavern had been and listened patiently for some further indication that their friends were still alive. Several times they heard the rumbling of a voice but they could not distinguish the words of it. Finally Will went back to where Cameron lay on the ground by the fire and asked abruptly: "Is your name Garman, Cameron or Brooks?" The fellow gave a quick start of surprise but made no answer. "Is this man Fenton the clerk who stole the machine drawings?" was the next question. "Where are the plans now?" "I don't know anything about any plans!" declared Cameron. "What do you fellows expect to do with the plans?" asked Will. "We haven't got them!" was the surly reply. "Don't lie about it!" Will advised. "We know that the plans were sent to Fenton's employer and that Fenton stole them." "How do the plans concern you?" demanded Cameron. "We don't want the plans because they are alleged to represent a valuable invention," Will replied. "We want them because they are needed in the criminal court of Chicago." "I suppose you boys planned this costly and dangerous expedition for the purpose of seeing how the plans look!" sneered Fenton. "That's about the size of it!" replied Will. "Well, we don't know anything about the plans!" declared Cameron, "and we wouldn't give you any information on the subject if we did!" "All right," Will replied. "We can tie you up out here and the mosquitos will do the rest!" Before Will could ask the question which was on his lips, three quick pistol shots came from the south. "There!" the boy said excitedly, "the signals have brought a response!" "Friend or foe?" asked Ed. "That's more than I know!" Will replied. CHAPTER XX DOWN IN THE CHASM When Tommy, Frank, Sam and the doctor started toward the bottom of the chasm in order that they might reach the spot from which the smoke signal was ascending on the other side, they anticipated rough going, but the actuality was much worse than anything which had been expected. The soil extended only six or eight feet. Passing this they came to a point where the solid glacier had been opened by the earthquake. The break was uneven, there being little shelves and ledges upon which the feet might rest, but the going was uncertain for all that. The roaring of the fast-lifting torrent prevented conversation, and the darkness made signalling impossible except when the searchlights were held in position. It was very cold at the bottom of the break, too, and the boys felt their hands growing numb. However, they proceeded with good speed until they came to a point where the current had swept the tree trunks far apart and parallel with each other. Here it became necessary for them to take the chance of a long jump. When it came Sam's turn to make the leap, the log upon which he struck rolled under his weight and he went down under the wreckage and rush of water. Frank and Tommy sprang to his assistance at once, reaching down in the hope of getting hold of his hand, but the swift current carried the boy along until he was beyond their reach. They saw his head come to the surface and saw him strike out for the floating logs on the north side of the chasm. Then the bushy top of a tree drifted down upon him and he went under. The boys stood for a moment as if paralyzed at what had taken place, and then Tommy sprang into the mass of floating boughs and, clinging to one which sustained his weight, called out to Frank to turn his searchlight on the place where he stood. Frank did as requested, but it showed only a half-frozen and dripping boy clinging to the boughs of a tree which was already beginning to drop down beneath his weight. The lads had about abandoned all hope of rescue when Sam's head once more appeared above the surface. He was within a short distance of Tommy and the boy, dropping his searchlight, sprang toward him. He succeeded in getting hold of the boy's arm. Then Frank, appreciating the situation, dropped in and, while retaining hold of a reasonably firm log on the west side of the chasm, caught the rescuer by the hand. Doctor Pelton, who had been creeping nearer to the point of danger, now seized Frank by the arm and slowly and with great effort the human chain drew the half-drowned boy to the little platform of logs and brush upon which the doctor stood. Sam lay there for a moment panting and shivering, and then sprang to his feet. The north wall was still to climb. The slope here was more gradual and all four soon found themselves at the top of the chasm, wet and cold, but on the side where the Boy Scout signal had shown. "We ought to tell the boys we are coming, hadn't we?" asked Tommy. He drew his automatic from his pocket as he spoke and pressed the trigger, but there was no explosion. "Try mine!" advised Doctor Pelton. "I guess I'm the only person who didn't get wet." As he spoke the doctor fired three quick shots. "I wonder if they'll answer?" asked Tommy. "They will if they can," replied Sam. "I don't know your chums, of course, but when a Boy Scout sends up a signal for help and shots are fired, it is only good manners to acknowledge the courtesy." No answering shots came for a moment, however, for Will and Ed were at that moment some distance away from the place where their automatics had been thrown after having been taken from Cameron and Fenton. The shots came before long, however, and the party of wet and shivering boys pressed on. "I'd like to know what the boys are doing so far away from the cabin," Tommy grumbled. "They ought to have sense enough to stay put!" The party was met just beyond the illumination of the fire by Will and Ed, who greeted their chums with such cordiality that a rather perilous situation was at once suspected. "What are you boys doing out here in the scenery, anyhow?" demanded Tommy. "You ought to be at home in the cabin with a hot supper ready for us! You always go wrong when I go away!" he added with a grin. "There's no time to tell long stories now," Will hastened to say. "The thing we've got to do is to pry open that mountain and dig George, Sandy and Bert out." "Are they dead?" asked Tommy, turning very white. "There's some one alive in there," replied Will. "We hear something which sounds like the human voice but we can't distinguish any words." "Earthquake?" asked Tommy. "Earthquake!" replied Will. "But how----" Will cut Frank off with a gesture and pointed to the cliff. "We've got to get to work!" he said. Just then a low groan reached the ears of the members of the group and Doctor Pelton sprang toward the place where Cameron and Fenton lay. Tommy dashed after him and looked down on the two men. "Where did you get 'em?" he asked. "We didn't get 'em," was the reply. "The earthquake got 'em." "Then I'll bet they were trying to do something to Bert!" Tommy declared. "Right, little man!" replied Will. "But we haven't got time to talk about it now. This, I suppose," he added, turning to the surgeon, "is the doctor you brought from Cordova?" "That's Doctor Pelton," Tommy answered, "and this," he continued, pointing to Sam, "is Sam White, Bulldog Patrol, Portland, Oregon. He isn't as hungry as he looks to be, for we fed him up good and proper on the way out!" During this brief introduction, Sam and Ed had been eyeing each other with half concealed grins. "You boys seem to know each other," Tommy said. "That's my chum," Sam replied, pointing to Ed. "I saw fit to seek my fortunes in town while he made a break for the mines." The boys greeted each other warmly and then all turned their attention to that portion of the cliff where the caverns had once stood. "They're still alive," Frank exclaimed as he reached a little fissure in the rock and bent downward. "I can hear some one talking!" "Did you say that George and Sandy and Bert were all in there?" asked Tommy, turning to Will. "How did they get in there?" "They were all in there just before the earthquake," replied Will. "I can't stop now to tell you how it all happened. They were signalling to us when the shock came." "Signalling, how?" asked Tommy. "Morse code, red and blue lights!" replied Will. "It's all the work of the miner and his bum friend," Will continued. "The boys were barricaded in the cave when the earthquake stirred things up, and the same convulsion which wrecked the cave injured the two men who were responsible for the condition the boys were in. Now you know all about it that I'm going to tell you until we get the lads out and get back to the cabin!" "They're not dead, anyway," Frank exclaimed "I can hear Sandy's voice!" CHAPTER XXI EXPLAINING CORDOVA INCIDENTS "I've found the door to the hole in the ground!" shouted Tommy, a few moments later, as he sent a great rock rolling down the slope. The boys rushed to the opening so made and were overjoyed at seeing a light in the cavity thus exposed. "Your door isn't big enough!" laughed Frank. "A good-sized cat couldn't get through there!" "What are you boys talking about?" came a voice from the inside. "Another one of those foolish questions!" laughed Tommy. "We're not talking at all, little man!" he continued. "We're getting our shoes shined! What are you doing in there?" "We're not in here at all!" replied Sandy. "We're up on the Masonic Temple, watching a Columbia Yacht Club regatta!" "Aw, cut it out!" advised Will. "Are you boys all safe?" "Sure we're all safe!" answered Sandy, "George has a grouch because he hasn't anything to eat here, but the rest of us are all right!" "Where's Bert?" asked Frank. "In here!" was the answer. "We brought a surgeon for him," Frank went on. "He doesn't need a surgeon now!" replied George. "What he needs more than anything else is a cook!" "We'll give him two cooks!" shouted Tommy. "Why don't you hurry up and get us out?" demanded Bert, in a weak voice. "If you remain in there a few weeks," Tommy laughed, "perhaps you'll get so thin you can crawl out of this crack!" "Well, get to digging!" replied George. "And for the love of Mike," exclaimed Sandy, "when you get to digging, don't drop any rocks on top of us! We have a little hole here now about four feet square!" After making a study of the situation and advising with Doctor Pelton as to the proper course to pursue, the boys began prying at a large rock which lay almost on top of the shelf upon which the boys had ridden to the thicket. The rock moved, but grudgingly. "If you can move that rock," the doctor said, "I think the one just above it will slide down and leave an opening large enough for the boys to pass out of. It ought not to be much trouble to move it!" Notwithstanding the doctor's predictions, the boys worked at the rock with their home-made handspikes for an hour before it broke loose and rattled down upon the shelf just above the fire. "Come out of that now," cried Tommy stooping down and looking into the cavern. "Come on out, now!" Sandy was not long in obeying instructions. George came next and then the two lads turned about and lifted Bert out of his cramped position. "That pigeon hole we've been occupying is about four inches square!" Sandy declared. "And I'm just about dead for a good long breath of fresh air! I never knew before how good air tasted." Bert glanced around the circle of faces and smiled amusedly as he saw that his chum was there with the rest. "Where'd you go, Frank?" he asked. Frank hastened to the lad's side and bent over him. "I headed for the cabin," he answered, "and missed it. The Indian smoke signal brought the boys out and they fed me up." Will now approached the spot where the two boys were talking and pointed to Cameron and Fenton now sitting with their faces illuminated by the blaze. They both scowled at the inspection. "Which one of those men gave you the clout on the head?" Will asked. "That fellow with the alfalfas," replied Bert. "And he stole the code message you were carrying?" "I don't know!" replied Bert. "I had it when he came into the cabin and began talking with me and I haven't thought of it since. Was it stolen?" "You bet it was!" replied Frank. "But we've been to Cordova and got a duplicate of it!" Cameron and Fenton scowled fiercely as they listened to the conversation. "Have you got the code message with you now?" asked Will. "Sure I have!" answered Frank. "Suppose you read it, then." Frank took an envelope from his pocket, tore off one end, and brought out an ordinary sheet of letter paper bearing the heading of the wireless company. The boys gathered about him eagerly. "It isn't very much!" Frank said with a laugh. "Say, you two fellows," he added, waving the paper in the direction of Cameron and Fenton, "would, you like to hear this code despatch read?" "You bet they would," cut in Sandy. "That's all they've been thinking about for the last two days!" "Well, it's short and sweet and very satisfying!" Frank laughed. "Aw, read it!" demanded Tommy. "What's the use of making a monkey of yourself? Let's see what it has to say for itself." Frank bent a searchlight on the paper and read: "Will Smith, in camp near Katalla, Alaska: The machine plans have been traced to the cabin to which you were directed. Make close examination there before looking elsewhere. Horton." "What do you know about that, Cameron?" asked Will with a smile. "Are the plans really hidden in our cabin?" "Your cabin!" sneered Cameron. "I guess the cabin belongs to us as much as it does to you!" Tommy cut in. "Are the machine plans hidden there?" "What do you want of the machine plans?" demanded Cameron. "They don't belong to you!" roared Fenton. "We have no claim upon them," replied Will. "In fact, we have no use for them at all, except that we want to identify the mark of a human thumb which soiled one of the papers." "All lies!" shouted Cameron. "I'm telling you the truth," declared Will. "Then why didn't you come right to me and say so?" demanded Cameron. "You didn't give us a chance!" replied Will. "Are the plans hidden in the cabin?" asked Sandy. "This is all a faked-up story you are telling me!" Fenton shouted. "Whoever wired you that the plans were in the cabin didn't know what he was talking about! We don't know anything about the plans." "That doesn't agree with what Cameron just said," Frank laughed. "Cameron doesn't know anything about the plans, either," raged Fenton. "Are you the clerk who stole the plans from your employer?" asked Will. "I tell you that I don't know anything about any plans!" stormed Fenton. "Cameron and I are prospecting this moraine for gold, and we have no interest in any plans whatever!" "And yet Cameron gave Bert a crack on the coco and stole the code message!" suggested Will. "He probably thought the message referred to our mining properties!" declared Fenton. "We had a right to suppose it had." "Then you won't tell us where the plans are?" demanded Will. "I tell you that I don't know anything about the plans," screamed Fenton. "I never saw the plans." "All right," Will replied. "We'll leave you fellows out here to think the matter over. By morning you will probably know where the plans are hidden. The mosquitos may be able to convince you." "A little meditation may refresh his memory," Frank said. "What have you got to do about it, anyhow?" demanded Cameron. "I don't think you've got any right to butt in here!" "Who is that freshie?" asked Fenton. "Frank Disbrow," replied the doctor with a smile. "He's the son of the military officer in charge of the military stations in Alaska." The boys all turned and regarded Frank curiously. "So that's why the walls all fell down when you knocked!" exclaimed Tommy. "That's why the federal officer refused to make any arrests. That's why Jamison returned the money and gave us the use of his motor boat. I begin to understand some of the things that took place at Cordova now. Why didn't you tell us something about it before we had all that trouble?" "Oh, I didn't want to mix father up in the combination," Frank replied with a smile. "Besides," he added, "it did look something like piracy." "It certainly did," observed Doctor Pelton. "If Frank hadn't been a member of the pirate crew, I rather imagine that you boys would be cooling your heels in some Alaska prison about now. Of course, you would have been released in time, but the affair would have made you considerable trouble." "Who's Bert, then?" demanded Tommy. "Bert is the son of a prominent federal official at Chicago," replied Frank. "But we've had enough of this," the boy declared modestly. "I didn't do any more than any other boy would have done." "You undertook that long trip out to the cabin when you didn't have to!" exclaimed Will. "That was good of you!" CHAPTER XXII THE PLANS AT LAST With a parting glance at Cameron and Fenton, the boys, accompanied by the doctor, turned away in the direction of the cabin. "Wait!" shouted Fenton. "Don't go off and leave us in this plight! We'll starve to death if you do!" "What about those plans?" demanded Will. "I'll help you find the plans!" screamed Cameron. "I'll see that you get the plans; if you get us out of this scrape!" "Keep still!" commanded Fenton. "I refuse to keep still!" declared Cameron. "I'm not going to be left here to be devoured by insects. Tell me the truth about the plans," he went on, "what do you want of them?" "We want to introduce the plans in evidence in the criminal court at Chicago," replied Will. "And that will betray our secret," commented Fenton fiercely. "Those plans are worth millions of dollars to us! They represent the only perfect mining machine ever invented." "We don't care anything about your mining machine," Will answered. "Have you noticed anything peculiar about the plans?" Frank asked. "Nothing except that they are dirty!" was the reply. "Marked up with thumb prints, for instance?" "Yes, there are thumb prints," replied Cameron. "Well, we want the thumb prints," Frank laughed. "You're a fool if you listen to any such arguments!" screamed Fenton. "Why should these gutter snipes want the papers for the thumb prints?" "That's what we want them for!" insisted Frank. "Are you going to tell us where the plans are?" "I'll tell you!" replied Cameron. Fenton turned his back on his friend and refused to discuss the question further. When the lads started away carrying Cameron on a rude litter, they left his follow conspirator lying by the fire. "Please bring him along," pleaded Cameron. "He'll die if you leave him there! I can tell you where the plans are, and I'll do so, whether he likes it or not. This has been a misunderstanding all around. We were only trying to protect our interest in the mines which we believed to exist in this neighborhood, and in the plans, which we believed to be very valuable!" Thus urged, the boys turned back and constructed a second stretcher for Fenton. The journey to the cabin was a long one, but the shelter was reached about daylight. Then Tommy at once began the preparation of breakfast. "We'll have to get out pretty soon," Will laughed, "because the population of this county seems to be increasing with amazing rapidity. At the present time we have four Beavers, two Foxes, and two Bulldogs besides a very eminent surgeon. In other words," the boy went on, "we have this collection of wild animals in addition to a very eminent surgeon and two men with busted legs. If some one doesn't bring in provisions pretty soon, we'll have to exist on mosquito soup!" "The mosquitos have been living off us long enough!" Tommy answered. "They ought not to find fault if we begin living off them!" "I heard you boys talking about thumb prints on a set of plans," Doctor Pelton said, addressing Will. "I'd like to know what it all means." "The story is soon told," Will answered. "On a night in Chicago not long ago, three men, Spaulding, Hurley and Babcock, worked until nearly daylight on the plans which we came to Alaska to find. They are experts in their line and were examining the plans of an invention which the inventor claimed would revolutionize mining. "The three men rejected the plans as impractical, and Spaulding and Hurley left for home, leaving Babcock at the office. After the departure of the two men, the company's safe was broken open and robbed of a large sum of money. Naturally the men who had worked in the office during the night were questioned concerning the disappearance of the cash. Spaulding and Hurley replied, truthfully, that they had left Babcock in the office and that the safe was intact at the time of their departure. "Babcock's reply to this statement was that he had not been at the office that night at all, and that he could furnish a perfect alibi which he proceeded to do. Spaulding and Hurley were arrested and thrown into prison, while Babcock, secure in his fraudulent alibi, was not even suspected until Mr. Horton, a noted criminal lawyer, was retained by the two respondents. "In discussing the case, Spaulding and Hurley explained how Babcock had participated in the discussion of the plans, and added that if the plans could be found, his thumb marks would be noted on the paper. They said he handled the attached sheets carelessly, and that the marks of both thumbs showed very plainly." "That will be a perfect defense!" said the doctor. Cameron and Fenton who had been listening intently to the recital, now both spoke at once: "Were the plans really rejected by the experts?" they asked. "They certainly were!" replied Will. "Then we've been through all this trouble for nothing!" exclaimed Fenton. "If you two fellows hadn't been engaged in this dirty game," Will said severely, "you would have been mixed up in some other dirty deal, so you're probably no worse off than you would have been in any event." "If you'll go to the peg driven into the wall near the north window," Cameron remarked, "pull out the peg and run your finger into the augur hole, you'll find the plans rolled into a very small package." Will rushed to the peg indicated, and the plans were soon in his hands. "This settles it!" exclaimed Will. "The case is finished!" "Are the thumb marks there?" asked Frank. "Plain as the nose on your face!" replied the boy. "And to think that they have been right under our nose all the time!" exclaimed Tommy. "I shall certainly have to partake of a large meal before I can recover my reason!" "And to think that, after we came all the way to Alaska, we received the correct tip regarding the hiding place from Chicago by wireless!" "I know how the people at Chicago came to discover the whereabouts of the plans," shouted Fenton. "There's a sneak of a clerk in the office where I was employed who gave me away. He saw me looking over the plans and betrayed me." "Perhaps he didn't want to see you make a fool of yourself!" Will suggested. "He probably knew the plans had been rejected." "I'll settle with him!" declared Fenton. "If you do," Will replied, "you'll serve a term in an Alaska prison for abduction!" "Yes," Fenton went on, "he probably wired the truth to Chicago after the search for the plans began in the office! When he saw me looking over the plans, I was obliged to tell him what they represented. I also told him where we were going to hide the plans, and of course, he had to wire that, too!" "That clerk must be rewarded!" smiled Tommy. Such a supper as the boys ate that night! Notwithstanding the dreary predictions of Tommy, there was plenty of provisions in the cabin, and the party feasted on the game which was brought in as an addition to the supply until they returned to civilization. They were obliged to bridge the chasm in order to reach Katalla, where they found the Jamison motor boat waiting for them. They also found the wheelsman, Boswell, waiting for them there, he having made the trip from Cordova in a tug. At the request of Jamison, who had been released after the departure of the boys, he had made the journey in order to take possession of the motor boat. When, after many delightful trips about the Gulf of Alaska, the Boy Scouts all turned their faces homeward, the wheelsman was left in charge of the boat. They afterwards learned that Jamison never claimed the craft, and that Boswell retained undisputed possession of it. Doctor Pelton saw that Cameron and Fenton were well cared for on their arrival at Katalla, and a handsome present was sent to the federal officer by Frank Disbrow. Frank and Bert accompanied the Boy Scouts to Chicago and later on became very warm friends. The two members of the Fox patrol, Sam White and Ed Hannon, traveled with the boys as far as Portland. When the boys reached Chicago, Babcock was arrested and the unmistakable thumb prints secured the immediate release of Hurley and Spaulding. "There's one thing we've forgotten," Tommy said as the boys landed in Chicago, one autumn morning. "What's that?" asked Will. "We neglected to bring back that bear hide!" "I should think you'd want that bear hide!" laughed Frank. "I should think you'd be ashamed to look the bear in the face!" declared Sandy. The boys received the promised reward for the discovery of the plans and once more settled down in Chicago to take up their studies. THE END. BLACK ART IN CINCINNATI Mr. Quinsey of Cincinnati was not an Apollo; neither had he ever assumed a name other than his own. He had never conducted a scheme to defraud by use of the mails; nor had he ever robbed a post-office or shot any body; yet his character is so interesting that I cannot, in justice to myself, omit a passing notice. Quinsey was known as a mesmerist, a ventriloquist, an illusionist, a prestidigitator and a master of the Black Art, and occasionally in "pleasing sorcery that charms the sense" he would entertain audiences at church fairs, picnics and the like for simple fees, while he found much pleasure amusing friends gratuitously at their homes, at his home and sometimes at his place of business. One evening, at a little entertainment given by himself in neighboring Glendale, after he had knocked the spots off of several decks of cards; after he had taken half a dozen watches that belonged to people in the audience from the janitor's pocket; after he had received communications from departed spirits; after he had removed the head from a beautiful woman and had made the removed head talk; after he had paralyzed four men and a woman on the stage and had allowed the committee to stick pins in them, and after the curtain had dropped, one of the awe-stricken auditors, who had been instrumental in introducing Mr. Quinsey in Glendale, asked the wonderful magician why he did not follow this business in preference to any other? The professor smiled blandly and appeared silent, but a voice that seemed to come from the bakery underneath the hall, was heard to remark in a deep melodious tone: "He has something better." Quinsey was superintendent of what was known as the night set in the registry division of the Cincinnati post-office, and his hours of labor were from 10:30 P. M. to 7 A. M. In this set were employed six or seven clerks who worked under the superintendant's direction, and who performed practically the same kind of work that he did. It was their duty to properly record all registered matter that arrived in Cincinnati between 4 P. M. and midnight from the various railroad lines centering there, rebill it and pouch it in the through registry pouches to be dispatched in the morning. There were something like thirty bills to make out, and the same number of pouches to properly close and send out. When the mails were running heavy the clerks never had a minute to spare, but when they were light, as they frequently were one or two nights each week, there was some opportunity for sociability and innocent amusement. On these occasions Quinsey would sometimes tell the boys how easy it was for people to be mistaken; how much quicker was the hand than the eye; how it was that frequently things were not what they appeared; how easy it was to deceive the keenest intellect by doing something different than your actions would indicate, and how figures and objects are materialized and made to do their master's bidding. Sometimes he would illuminate his ideas by a few practical illustrations, and after the young men had seen him shake any number of big silver dollars, a wheelbarrow full of handkerchiefs, and a lot of lanterns from a common gesture, and, in transfixed amazement, had beheld ordinary registered letters vanish before their eyes, without being able to tell where they went, they longed for the nights to come when the work was light. Quinsey was immense! About this time, while in Chicago, Kidder came to me for conference with an armful of documentary evidence of skillful depredations. Here were the envelopes in which registered letters had from time to time been mailed at offices in Southern Indiana, Ohio, Kentucky, and West Virginia, addressed to offices in all portions of the great Northwest, and which had been rifled of large portions of their contents. Everyone of the letters had passed through the Chicago post-office, where they had been handled during the night time. At first glance one would say it surely indicated trouble in Chicago. But why, if the thief was in Chicago, did he confine himself to operations on the letters from this particular section, when he could probably have access to those from any other as well. A few minutes later when we discovered that everyone of the letters referred to had also passed through the Cincinnati office, and in every instance had been dispatched from that office in the morning in through pouches to Chicago, Kidder adjusted his eye-glasses, and offered as a reward, for the capture of the villain, a claim near that beautiful miniature salt-water sea, known as Devil's Lake in Dakota. On the following morning when I tapped Herrick on the shoulder in Cincinnati, and asked who wrote the Chicago registry bills at night that were dispatched in the morning, he answered, "Quinsey," and seemed so amused at my question that he asked why I wanted to know. "For the reason that I think whoever is doing it is too inquisitive." "Well, if its Quinsey, I am afraid we'll have our hands full to catch him, for he's just a little bit the slickest man in America. He does all the seemingly impossible things ever heard of, and he does them right before your eyes, too. Quinsey is absolutely marvelous. Why, one night I was in the registry room looking around when, suddenly, I discovered my watch was gone. I had looked to see what time it was when I entered. Well, a little later somebody found it in the Boston pouch, with a tag on it marked: 'Covington.'" "Yes," said Salmon, who was listening, "and I understand he charms birds, too; while somebody told me a few days ago that at cards he was so expert that nobody would sit in with him; that when it came his deal he could hold anything he wanted; that the high cards, figuratively speaking, would come to him in carriages; and remain till after the show-down." The next day I went to Lexington, Ky., and while there I wrote a letter to Mr. Abram Hayden, of Aberdeen, Dakota, on one of the letter-head sheets of Mills, Jackson & Johnson, which read as follows: "Dear friend Abe: Jim Turner was in from East Hickman half an hour ago and left the enclosed $200 for me to send to you, and he said you would know how to use it. He has just sold a car-load of mules to Springer, of Cincinnati, but he said he believed there was more profit in loaning money at 20 per cent. in Dakota, than there was in raising mules in Kentucky at present prices. Say, Abe, when are you coming back after Mary? I heard Min. Stevens and some of the girls in her set say it was considered a sure thing. Hope it is; for of all the real fine blue-grass girls around these parts I think Mary is the----well never mind, old boy, if I wasn't married I'd try and prevent her going to Dakota. You better hurry up. Jim just stuck his head in the door and told me to tell you if you couldn't get a gilt edge loan at 20, not to let it go less than 18. Jim is a cuss. I suppose your brother wrote you what happened up at Gil. Harper's recently. If the cyclones haven't got you by the time this reaches Aberdeen, write. Very truly, your friend, FRANK N. MILLS." This letter I registered at Lexington and at night, about 11 o'clock, when I had followed it into the Cincinnati post-office, Herrick and Salmon were in the money-order division on a step-ladder, peering through a glass transom into the registry division. As soon as possible I joined them, and patiently we waited for Quinsey to turn a trick. It was exactly two A. M. when he commenced on the Chicago bill. He reached the letter from Lexington at precisely 2:45. It was fat and tempting. Herrick was on the top of the ladder at that instant, and he sent a peculiar thrill of surprise through me when he turned and whispered: "Hush, hush, he has picked it up." "Now he's feeling of it." "He's looking at the back of the of the R. P. E. (the outside envelope) to see how well it's sealed." "He's laid it down and placed a book over it; somebody is moving around." "It's quiet now and he's looking at the back again." "Hush, don't move, he's carefully feeling again." "It's under the blotter now; somebody at the other table got up to get a drink. There's no one at his table but himself." "Hush now, he's making a close examination to see how well its sealed." "Hush now, for God's sake don't move; he's trying to open it with his knife." "Hush, hush, hush, he'll have it opened in an instant." "Its open now, and he's looking at the letter envelope very closely." "There, d----n it, some fellow has moved again and he's shoved it under the blotter." "Hush, hush, don't stir; he's feeling of the letter again." "Hush, don't breathe, he's trying to raise the flap of the envelope; it comes up hard; don't move." "There, there, there, he's got it up." "Hush, he's got the money out and is reading the letter." "He's smiling as he reads." "We must open the door and rush, in now." "Come, be quick and be quiet; you know he's chain lightning." "The door's unlocked; now, all together, go!" An instant later there was a flutter, and all was over. The great conjurer had at last performed an illusion that was not optical--an act not mentioned on the bill. Applause. Curtain. Prison. BOYS' COPYRIGHTED BOOKS Printed from large, clear type on a superior quality of paper, embellished with original illustrations by eminent artists, and bound in a superior quality of binders' cloth, ornamented with illustrated covers, stamped in colors from, unique and appropriate dies, each book wrapped in a glazed paper wrapper printed in colors. BOY SCOUT SERIES By G. HARVEY RALPHSON, of the Black Bear Patrol. 1.--Boy Scouts in Mexico; or, On Guard with Uncle Sam. 2.--Boy Scouts in the Canal Zone; or, The Plot Against Uncle Sam. 3.--Boy Scouts in the Philippines; or, The Key to the Treaty Box. 4.--Boy Scouts in the Northwest; or, Fighting Forest Fires. 5.--Boy Scouts in a Motor Boat; or, Adventures on the Columbia River. 6.--Boy Scouts in an Airship; or, The Warning from the Sky. 7.--Boy Scouts in a Submarine; or, Searching an Ocean Floor. 8.--Boy Scouts on Motorcycles; or, With the Flying Squadron. 9.--Boy Scouts Beyond the Artic Circle; or, The Lost Expedition. 10.--Boy Scout Camera Club; or, Confessions of a Photograph. 11.--Boy Scout Electricians; or, The Hidden Dynamo. 12.--Boy Scouts in California; or, The Flag on the Cliff. 13.--Boy Scouts on Hudson Bay; or, The Disappearing Fleet. 14.--Boy Scouts in Death Valley; or, The City in the Sky. 15.--Boy Scouts on the Open Plains; or, The Round-up not Ordered. 16.--Boy Scouts in Southern Waters; or, the Spanish Treasure Chest. 17.--Boy Scouts in Belgium; or, Under Fire in Flanders. 18.--Boy Scouts in the North Sea; or, the Mystery of U-13. 19.--Boy Scout Verdun Attack. 20.--Boy Scouts with the Cossacks; or, Poland Recaptured. 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You are privileged to select the particular style of Ranger bicycle you prefer; Motorbike model, "Arch-Frame," "Superbe," "Scout," "Special," "Racer," etc. While you ride and enjoy it in your spare time hours --after school or work, evenings and holidays --your admiring friends can be easily induced to place their orders through you. Factory to Rider Every purchaser of a Ranger bicycle (on our factory-direct-to-the-rider sales plan) gets a high-grade fully guaranteed model direct from the factory at wholesale prices, and is privileged to ride it for 30 days before final acceptance. If not satisfied it may be returned at our expense and no charge is made for the use of machine during trial. Delivered to You FREE We prepay the delivery charges on every Ranger from our factory in Chicago to your town and pay the return charges to Chicago if you decide not to keep it. Choice of 44 Styles Colors and Sizes in the Ranger line Easy Payments if desired, at a small advance over our special Factory-to-Rider cash prices. Parts For All Bicycles In the Ranger catalog you will find illustrated bicycle cranks, cups, cones, sprockets and a complete Universal Repair Hanger and Repair Front Forks designed to fit any and every bicycle ever manufactured in America. Complete instructions are given so that any boy can intelligently order the parts wanted. You will also find repair parts for all the standard makes of hubs and coaster-brakes and all the latest equipment and novelties. Tires at Factory Prices Share with us our savings in Trainload Tire Contracts and in the Samson, Record and Hedgethorn Tires get the best Tire values in America at Wholesale Factory Prices. Send No Money But write us TODAY for the Big Ranger Book and particulars of our 30 Day Free Trial Plan, wholesale prices and terms. [Illustration] MEAD CYCLE COMPANY Dept. D210 CHICAGO, U.S.A. 
28697	----	[Illustration: "Raise him up!" Skip shouted, and in another instant Fred was suspended over the old shaft.] DOWN THE SLOPE BY JAMES OTIS _Author of "Telegraph Tom's Venture," "Messenger No. 48," "Toby Tyler," "The Boy Captain," "Silent Peter," etc., etc._ _ILLUSTRATED_ [Illustration] M. A. DONOHUE & COMPANY 407-429 Dearborn Street CHICAGO COPYRIGHT 1899 BY THE WERNER COMPANY M. A. DONOHUE & COMPANY PRINTERS AND BINDERS 407-429 DEARBORN STREET CHICAGO CONTENTS PAGES CHAPTER I--THE BREAKER BOY 7-14 CHAPTER II--THE WARNING 14-24 CHAPTER III--IN THE SHAFT 24-33 CHAPTER IV--THE BARRIER 33-41 CHAPTER V--THE MOB 41-50 CHAPTER VI--ON DUTY 51-59 CHAPTER VII--THE STRUGGLE 59-66 CHAPTER VIII--THE PURSUIT 67-75 CHAPTER IX--JOE BRACE 75-84 CHAPTER X--THE RESCUE 85-93 CHAPTER XI--BILLINGS AND SKIP 94-101 CHAPTER XII--A SINGULAR ACCIDENT 101-110 CHAPTER XIII--BURIED ALIVE 110-118 CHAPTER XIV--PRECAUTIONS 118-126 CHAPTER XV--A DISCOVERY 126-134 CHAPTER XVI--GOOD SAMARITANS 134-142 CHAPTER XVII--DOWN THE SLOPE 142-150 CHAPTER XVIII--SHUT DOWN 150-158 CHAPTER XIX--THE CONSULTATION 158-165 CHAPTER XX--THE ACCUSED 165-172 CHAPTER XXI--AMATEUR DETECTIVES 173-180 CHAPTER XXII--UNEXPECTED NEWS 180-187 CHAPTER XXIII--A MISADVENTURE 187-195 CHAPTER XXIV--BILL'S MISHAP 195-202 CHAPTER XXV--JOE'S INTERVIEW 203-210 CHAPTER XXVI--TURNING THE TABLES 210-217 CHAPTER XXVII--AN UNLOOKED-FOR DENIAL 217-224 CHAPTER XXVIII--OPINIONS 224-230 CHAPTER XXIX--A QUESTION OF TITLE 231-237 CHAPTER XXX--A SUIT AT LAW 237-244 CHAPTER XXXI--SKIP 244-253 CHAPTER XXXII--ACQUITTED 253-262 CHAPTER XXXIII--VICTORIOUS 262-269 CHAPTER XXXIV--THE NEW MINE 270-273 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS "Raise him up!" Skip shouted, and in another instant Fred was suspended over the old shaft _Frontispiece_ Fred set off at full speed, and almost immediately a shout went up from the rioters: "The sneaks are sending for help! Stop that boy!" 74 "You four are to act as sentinels," said the superintendent. "Study this map and you will hit upon a scheme" 95 "Please don't drag me off," Skip said, piteously. "I'll never hurt you or anybody else again" 128 DOWN THE SLOPE CHAPTER I THE BREAKER BOY "Jest moved here, eh?" "Came last Friday." "And you are going into the breaker?" "Yes." "For thirty-five cents a day?" "That is all the company pays, and a green hand can't expect to get more." "Were you ever in a mine before?" "I never even saw one." "A trip down the slope will be enough to make you wish such a place in which to earn a living never existed. Why don't you try something else before it is too late?" "What do you mean by 'too late'?" "When a fellow is in debt to the company's store he can't afford to be independent, and it is about the same as selling yourself outright for enough to eat and drink." "I won't get into debt." "Wait a week, and see if you can say the same thing then." "I mustn't get trusted. I'm the only one to whom mother can look for support. We hadn't any money with which to go to the city, and so came here. It isn't likely I shall be obliged to stay in the breaker forever, and after a while it will be possible to get a better job. Where are you working?" "I'm Bill Thomas' butty." "What's that?" "His helper. He's a miner, and I'll have the same kind of a lay after being with him a while." "Were you ever in the breaker?" "I sorted slate from coal most three years, an' got more dust than money; but I'm tough, you see, an' didn't wear out my lungs." "What's your name?" "Sam Thorpe; but if you ever want anybody to help you out of a scrape, an' I reckon that'll happen before many days, ask for Bill's butty." "I am Fred Byram, and mother has hired the new house near the store." "I'm sorry for you; but as it can't be helped now, keep your eyes peeled, for the boys are a tough lot. When you want a friend come to me. I like your looks, and wish you'd struck most any other place than Farley's, 'cause it's the worst to be found in the Middle Field." With this not very encouraging remark Sam went toward the mouth of the slope, and the new breaker boy was left to his own devices. It was six o'clock in the morning. The underground workers were coming singly or in groups to begin the day's work for which each would be paid in accordance with the amount of coal taken out, and no one could afford to remain idle many moments. Fred knew he must report to the breaker boss before seven o'clock, and approached the grimy old building wondering if it would be necessary for him to work three years, as Sam Thorpe had done, before earning more than thirty-five cents per day. Entering the breaker, which was thickly coated both inside and out with coal-dust, he reported to Donovan, the boss, by saying: "I have come to work. Here is my ticket." "Green?" "Yes, sir." "Here, Chunky, take this new hand alongside of you, and see that there is no skylarking." The boy referred to as Chunky made no reply; but looked up from beside the long chute at which he was sitting, as if the task of breaking in a new hand was very welcome. A fat, good-natured fellow he apparently was, and Fred fancied he would be an agreeable task-master. He, like the others, was curious to know if his companion had been in a mine before, and on receiving the information, remarked sagely: "You'll be mighty sick of the whole thing before night, but it's safer than down in the galleries." "What must I do?" "At seven o'clock the coal will be dumped in at the other end of the chute, an' while it's runnin' past you must pick out the slate." "Is that all?" "By the time your hands are cut into mince-meat you'll think it's enough," was the grim reply, and before Fred could speak again the day's labor had begun. The black fragments came through the chute with a roar which was deafening, and the "green hand" was at a loss to distinguish coal from slate. "Take out the dull, grayish stuff," Chunky shouted, as he seized from the moving mass sufficient fragments to serve as specimens, and in a short time Fred began to have a general idea of his duties. Before the forty minutes "nooning" had come around his hands were cut and bleeding; but the thought of his mother, who looked to him for support, was enough to keep him busily at work, and when the whistle sounded he had most assuredly earned half of the thirty-five cents. A short rest, a lunch eaten amid the sooty vapor, which caused one to fancy he was gazing through a veil whenever he glanced across the building, and then the fatiguing labor was recommenced, to be ended only at the stroke of six, when miners, buttys, mule drivers and bosses hastened to the surface of the earth once more after having been deprived of sunlight for nearly twelve hours. Without paying any especial attention to the fact, Fred noticed that although he was among the last to leave the breaker, the majority of the boys followed close behind as he started toward home. In order to reach the company's store it was necessary to traverse a mirey road on which were no habitations for nearly fifty yards, and when Fred was half this distance from the breaker, a voice from behind shouted: "Hi! Hold on a bit, you new feller!" Fred turned to see a dozen of those who had been at work near him, advancing threateningly. "What do you want?" he asked, regretting now that he had not hurried on ahead as Chunky suggested shortly before the whistle sounded. "We've got a word to say, an' you're wanted very pertic'lar." "I can't stop now." "That's too bad, for there's a little business to be settled right away," and the largest of the party stepped so near in front of Fred that it would have been impossible for him to have advanced, except at the risk of an encounter. "Won't it do just as well in the morning?" "I'm afraid not." "But I promised to come straight home." "You can't go till our 'count has been fixed." "I don't owe you anything." "Don't eh?" "No. I never even saw one of your crowd until I came to work this morning." "What of that?" "It shows there can be no account between us." "You're makin' a big mistake, young feller. Ain't this your first day in the breaker?" "Of course it is." "Then what about payin' your footing?" "My footing?" "Every feller who comes here has got to make things square with us by standin' treat." "Well I'm one who can't do it." "Oh, yes you can," and here the bully looked at his companions, who echoed his words, crowding yet closer around Fred, until it was literally impossible for him to make the slightest movement. "I haven't got a penny, and what I earn is for mother." "You can get an advance at the store." "Do you suppose I'll run in debt for the purpose of treating you?" "That's about the size of it." "Then you're making a big mistake, for I won't do anything of the kind," and Fred made one desperate attempt to force his way through the crowd. "Look out for him!" the leader shouted, as he struck Fred a blow on the cheek which would have sent him headlong but for the others who acted as a sort of brace. The new breaker boy was not disposed to submit tamely, and struck out blindly but vigorously drawing blood from more than one nose before borne to the earth by press of numbers. While he was thus helpless every fellow who could get near enough dealt him one or more blows, and not until they were tired of the sport did the young ruffians cease. "Now let up," the leader cried, in a tone of authority. "He's had a dose that shows what we can do, an' will git it ten times as bad to-morrer, if he don't come down with the treat." The disciplining party ran swiftly toward the settlement when these words had been spoken, probably because a dozen or more miners were approaching, and Fred was left to make his way home as best he could. He had just staggered to his feet when the men arrived upon the scene; but no one paid any particular attention to him, save as one miner remarked with a laugh: "I reckon here's a lad who didn't know the rules; but it won't take him long to find them out." Fred was too sore both in mind and body to make any retort, and he limped down the road believing this first attempt to earn a living was already a dismal failure. He would have kept the story of the attack a secret from his mother, but for the marks of the conflict which could not be hidden, and when questioned represented the affair as of no especial importance. Mrs. Byram had a fairly good idea of the case, however, when he said despondently: "I believe it would be better to try some other kind of work. Why can't we go to the city?" "Because our capital is so limited. To come here it was only necessary to move our furniture three miles, and the promise of needle-work from the superintendent's family assured us sufficient income to meet the absolute cost of living. But you need not go to the breaker again; it may be possible to find employment elsewhere." "There's little chance of that in this town, mother," Fred replied with a brave attempt at cheerfulness. "I should be worse than a loafer to remain idle while you were working, and by keeping my eyes open that crowd can't do very much mischief." "Wouldn't it be better to pay your 'footing' as they call it? Once that has been done there can be no excuse for troubling you." "I won't give them the value of a penny, and I'll stick to my job. Perhaps, by flogging the bully I can teach them to let me alone." "But you musn't fight, Fred," Mrs. Byram said, in alarm. "It's better to have one regular battle than to get such a drubbing as this every night. If they make any more fuss I shall take care of myself." Now that the first sense of injury had passed away, Fred felt as if he had been at fault to allow himself to be so easily overcome, and, distasteful as was the work in the breaker, he had fully resolved to remain and assert his rights in a manly way. CHAPTER II THE WARNING On the second morning Fred did not present himself at the dingy old building until nearly time for the whistle to sound, and those whom he had good cause to look upon as enemies were already at their places by the chute. "I heard some of the fellers served you out last night," Chunky said, much as if such proceedings were a matter of course. "They'd better not try it on again," Fred replied, in a tone of determination. "Are you goin' to fight?" "I'll protect myself, if nothing more." "It won't do any good to try." "Why not?" "Because there are too many of 'em, an' Skip Miller can down any feller in this breaker." "Who is Skip Miller?" "The boss of the crowd who laid for you." "Then I'll settle matters with him, and when he gets the best of me it will be time to pay my footing; but not before." "He'll chew you all up." "I ain't so sure of that. Did you know what they were going to do?" "I had a mighty strong s'picion." "Why didn't you tell me?" "Then I'd got a thumping. I wanted you to hurry out with me?" By this time the work had begun, and the noise was so great that conversation could be indulged in only at the expense of considerable shouting. Fred's hands, sore from the previous day's labor, were cut anew in many places, and more than one piece of slate was marked with his blood as he threw it among the refuse. The "gang," as Fred termed his enemies, gave no sign of carrying the threat previously made into execution. The watchful eyes of the breaker boss prevented them from idling, and nothing occurred to arouse the new boy's suspicions until just before the noon-day whistle sounded, when a piece of board, thrown while Donovan was not looking, fell at Fred's feet. At first he believed the intention was to hit him with the missile; but when the stream of coal ceased to flow through the chute, Chunky said as he picked up the board: "The warnin' has come." "What do you mean by that?" For reply Chunky handed his mate the piece of lumber on which was printed in scrawling characters with red chalk: "PAy OR SkiP. WE MEAN BiSNEss. No SNEAkS LoWED HEAR. ToNiTE iS THE LASt CHANcE. THE BREAkER REGulATERs." "So they call themselves regulators, eh?" Fred said, half to himself, as he deciphered the message after considerable difficulty. "That's some of Skip's doings. He's started a reg'lar s'ciety, an' fellers what don't join have to step round mighty lively sometimes." "Do you belong?" Chunkey hesitated an instant as if ashamed of the fact, and then replied: "It don't pay to keep out, 'cause they run things to suit therselves, an' a feller can't hold his job very long when they're down on him." "According to that I shan't be here a great while unless this command is obeyed?" "That's what I'm afraid of. Why not come up with a little treat, an' settle the whole thing that way? You can't do anything by fightin', for there are so many." Fred hesitated an instant as if considering the matter, and then replied angrily: "I won't be forced into anything of the kind! If you belong to the gang tell them that I shall protect myself the best I know how, and somebody will get hurt when there's another row." Chunky had an opportunity to repeat the message at once, for Fred had but just ceased speaking when Skip beckoned for him to come to the other side of the building, and a command from the chief of the regulators was not to be disobeyed with impunity. Fred was watching the movements of his enemies narrowly when Donovan approached on his way to the water casks. "Have the boys been tryin' to make you pay your footing?" the breaker boss asked. "Yes, sir, and it looks as if they didn't intend to let me stay very long," Fred replied, as he held up the notification to quit. "What are you going to do about it?" and the man looked curiously at the boy. "Stay where I am until they get the upper hand. I can't treat, for I haven't the money, and I may be able to show that the regulators are not the bosses here." "I like your pluck, my lad, and can, perhaps, give you a lift. Skip shall have a flea in his ear before the whistle sounds again; but, of course, it's none of my business what happens after working hours." "I don't expect any assistance, sir, and if they down me it can't be helped." "You've taken a pretty big contract; but between us both I reckon it can be carried out." Then Donovan continued on, and, looking up, Fred saw that all his enemies had been watching the interview closely. "They may conclude it isn't best to tackle me, if he is going to take a hand," he thought, and at this moment Chunky returned. "Now you have got yourself in a scrape!" "How so?" "Skip and all the fellers saw you talkin' to Donovan, an' they know you showed him the message from the regulators." "What of that?" "They don't 'low anything of the kind, an' you've got to take a thumpin', even if you do treat." "So I'm to get a double dose, eh?" "That's about the size of it. Skip says you'll be laid up for a week when the s'ciety gets through with you." "I'm much obliged for the promise; but don't believe quite all he says." Chunky shook his head as if to intimate that the case was a desperate one, and then the nooning had come to an end. The clouds of coal dust which had but just settled rose again as the machinery was put in motion, and all was activity once more. Although Fred had spoken so bravely he felt seriously disturbed, and during the remainder of the day his mind was fully occupied with thoughts of how he might successfully resist his enemies. When night came he had arrived at no satisfactory conclusion, and at the signal to cease work Chunky ran swiftly away thus showing that while he would not join with the society as against his mate, he did not intend to take sides with him. Donovan's promise of assistance was not a vain one. When Fred emerged from the breaker a few paces behind Chunky he saw the boss waiting for him, and the latter said in a friendly tone: "It don't do you much good to be seen talkin' to me, for both men an' boys hate what are called bosses' pets; but we'll stave off this row till you get used to the ropes, when it's a case of taking care of yourself." Under the protection of Donovan, Fred walked to his home, feeling a bit ashamed of thus avoiding the meeting with the regulators, and more than one jeering cry did he hear before reaching the house. "Be careful of yourself now," Donovan said, as they arrived at the cottage. "This won't make the lads any better disposed toward you, an' it isn't safe to move 'round very much in the dark." "I'll come home alone to-morrow an' have it out." "Don't be rash. Wait for a chance, an' if Skip gets hurt pretty bad nobody here'll feel sorry." Then Fred entered the house, and after a bath, a hot supper, during which his mother spoke many encouraging words, and a long consultation to his best course, he felt little fear of the regulators. Mrs. Byram had good news for her son. The wife of the superintendent had introduced her to several other ladies who promised to give her employment, and the prospect of earning money seemed better than was anticipated when the question of moving to the settlement had been under discussion. "We shall get along famously," she said, "and, perhaps, it won't be many months before it will be possible to get enough ahead so we can venture to the city. I am going to open an account at the store in your name, for what little cash we had is very nearly exhausted." "When are you going?" "Now. I shall be busy to-morrow, and you must have a hearty supper." "I'll go; the store isn't the nicest place possible during the evening." "But the boys who are watching for you?" "They won't dare to do anything when the men are around," Fred replied, carelessly, and taking the memorandum which his mother had prepared, he left the house. The one street of the settlement was almost deserted, for it was yet too early to see the toilers who would spend the short time of rest in the open air near the store, and Fred's business was soon transacted. The desired credit was readily granted, and with his arms filled with packages he started toward home once more. For the first time in the past twenty-four hours he had forgotten the existence of the regulators, and the fact that Skip Miller with half a dozen companions was waiting for him never came into his mind until a hand was suddenly pressed over his mouth, as a hoarse voice whispered: "Catch hold his legs an' arms, fellers! Never mind the stuff now." In a twinkling Fred was lifted from the ground by a boy at each limb, while the one who had spoken kept a firm hold upon his mouth, and in this fashion he was carried swiftly along in the direction of the breaker, as he thought. "We'll have to fetch them bundles so's to make it look as if he fell in," some one said, and a voice, which he recognized as Skip's, replied: "That's so. You fellers what ain't doing anything pick 'em up." "Who's got the rope?" "I have." "Why not throw him in an' run the chances? It's too bad to lose what cost half a dollar." "There's time enough to fix that after we've got him to the shaft." "Hold your tongues, or somebody will hear us!" Skip whispered, angrily, as his companions thus discussed the preliminaries. Then came a long time of silence broken by the footsteps of the party, or the loud breathing of those who were carrying the burden. Several times Fred tried to give an alarm; but his mouth was held so firmly that not a sound could escape his lips, and after a while he contented himself with simply trying to form some idea of the direction in which he was being taken. When the party had carried him for ten or fifteen minutes a halt was made, and then his captors took the precaution of enveloping his head in a coat, which shut out every sound, save the loudly uttered remarks of the regulators. He heard Skip berating one of the party, because some reference was made to their destination, and then ensued a noisy discussion as to what should be done with him. "If he don't turn up to-morrer mornin' old Donovan will swear we took him off, an' there'll be a heap of trouble for all hands," one of the boys suggested. "What of that? Nobody can say we did it, an' after he's had one night of it, I reckon he'll be willin' to do as we say." "But how'll he get out?" "That's for him to say. We'll show him what it is to go agin our crowd, an' the rest is his business." Then Fred was borne forward again until it seemed as if fully half a mile had been traversed, when the regulators halted for the second time. The wrappings were removed from his head, and as nearly as the prisoner could tell he was some distance from the breaker; at the mouth of what appeared to be an abandoned shaft. "Now, look here," Skip Miller said, as he stood before his prisoner. "You've taken it into your head that us reg'lators don't 'mount to nothin'; but by to-morrer mornin' you'll think different. What we say we mean an' don't you forget it. If you'd been man enough to do like every other feller it would 'a been all right; but instead of that you go babyin' to old Donovan, an' we don't 'low sich funny business." "What are you going to do now?" "Show what the reg'lators 'mount to. When you come out of this I reckon you'll be willin' to pay up like a man, an' join us." "It will have to be a pretty stiff dose to make me do anything of the kind," Fred said, angrily. "That's jest what this is goin' to be. We're lettin' you off of a poundin' so's to show what can be done, an' if you say so much as a word to old Donovan we'll pretty near kill you." "I shall talk to whoever I please." "Not after you come out of this. Don't think we'll allers let you off so cheap, an' at the first show of tellin' what's been done to-night we'll give you another lesson." Fred realized that it was useless to bandy words with those who held him so completely in their power, and understanding also that he could do nothing to better his condition, held his peace. Skip showed himself to be an adept in the business of subduing refractory breaker boys, by giving his orders promptly, and in such a manner as would soonest accomplish the work. Under his energetic directions Fred's hands were soon tied behind his back, a gag was fastened in his mouth, and the rope placed under his arms. "Now raise him up, an' you needn't be careful about lettin' him drop. The sooner he gets to the bottom the quicker we can go back to the store. Put the bundles near the mouth of the shaft, an' in a couple of days somebody will find him." "It'll go rough with us if he tells who left him here," one of the party suggested. "There's no danger of that. Before he gets out he'll know what it means to fool with us." Fred remained passive. He could not believe these boys would dare to do anything very serious. And to attempt resistance would accomplish no possible good. "Raise him up!" Skip shouted, and in another instant Fred was hanging over what appeared to be a deep hole, to be dropped with a suddenness and force which, for the time being, deprived him of consciousness. While he lay at the bottom of the shaft the regulators placed the parcels taken from the store, in such a manner as to make it appear that he had fallen in by accident, and when this had been done they went swiftly toward the settlement, regardless of whether their victim lived or died. CHAPTER III IN THE SHAFT Mrs. Byram had no suspicion that her son might be exposed to any danger until after he had been absent an hour, and then the remembrance of the threats made by Skip Miller and his friends caused her the deepest anxiety. Fred would not have staid at the store longer than was absolutely necessary, and the fear of foul play had hardly gained possession of her mind before she was on her way to search for him. The company's clerk had but just finished explaining that the new breaker boy left there with his purchases some time previous, when Donovan entered in time to hear the widow say: "I do not understand why he should remain away so long, for he must know I would be troubled concerning him." "Didn't your boy stay in the house after I left him at the gate, Mrs. Byram?" the breaker boss asked. Mrs. Byram explained why Fred ventured out, and the man appeared to be disturbed in mind. "This is just the time when he oughter kept his nose inside. Them young ruffians are likely to do any mischief." "Then you believe something serious has happened." "I didn't say quite that; but it won't do much harm to have a look for him. You go home, an' I'll call there in an hour." Then turning to some of the loungers, he asked, "Has anybody seen Skip Miller lately?" "You're allers tryin' to make out that he's at the bottom of everything that goes wrong," Skip's father, who entered at this moment, said in a surly tone. "If he ain't, it's not for lack of willingness. Do you know where he is?" "Home, where he's been for an hour or more." Donovan looked hard at the speaker, and Miller retorted: "If you don't believe me, it won't take long to find out for yourself." "That's exactly what I'm going to do. Mrs. Byram, I will see you again in less than an hour." With these words the breaker boss left the store, and Fred's mother walked slowly home, the anxiety in her heart growing more intense each moment. Two hours passed before Donovan returned and announced his inability to find the missing boy. "I did think Skip might have had a hand in it," he said; "but I reckon he's innocent this time. I found him near his own home with a crowd of cronies, and according to all accounts he's been there since supper." "But what has become of Fred?" Mrs. Byram asked, preserving a semblance of calmness only after the greatest difficulty. "I hope nothing serious has happened. The superintendent has been notified, and promises to send men out in search of him at once. It is just possible he went down the slope to see the night shift at work." There was nothing in these words to afford the distressed mother any relief, and the sorrow which would not be controlled took complete possession of her, as Donovan hurried away to join those who were examining every place where an accident might have occurred. Meanwhile the subject of all this commotion remained where the regulators had left him. It was a long time before he recovered consciousness, and then several moments were spent in trying to decide where he was and what had happened. The fragments of conversation heard while the boys were carrying him told that he was in an abandoned shaft, and, unacquainted though he was with mines in general, it did not require much thought to convince him how nearly impossible it would be to escape unaided. The bonds which fastened his limbs, as well as the gag, had not been tied firmly, and in a short time he was free to begin such an examination of the place as was possible in the profound darkness. Here and there he could feel the timbers left when the shaft was deserted, and, after groping about some moments, discovered a tunnel-like opening ten or twelve feet across. The roof or top of this place was beyond his reach, and he knew it must be a drift from which all the coal had been taken. "It may lead for miles under the hill, and I would be no better off by following it," he thought. "Unless there is a slope which communicates with it, I'd be in a worse fix than now, because the chances of being lost or suffocated must be about even." Then in his despair he shouted at the full strength of his lungs, until it was impossible to speak louder than a whisper. Nothing less than the booming of a cannon could have been heard from the shaft by any one in the settlement, and with the night shift in the working mine there would hardly be any one in the vicinity. After giving full sway to his grief for half an hour or more, anger replaced sorrow, and he rushed into the tunnel with no other thought than to escape from that particular place. Stumbling on over decaying timbers, rocks, and mounds of earth which had fallen from the roof, he pushed straight ahead until the decided inclination told that this drift tended upward. There was now reason to believe it might communicate with another which, in turn, was reached by a slope, and hope grew strong once more. How long he had traveled when the sound of voices caused him to halt it was impossible to form any idea; but it seemed as if several hours elapsed, and the first thought was to shout for help. "I won't do it," he said, checking himself. "This tunnel may have led me back to the other mine, and if the people ahead are some of the night shift they'll be likely to have considerable sport at my expense." Walking cautiously in the direction of the voices he was suddenly brought to a standstill by an apparently solid wall of earth. He groped around until there was no question but that he had reached the end of the drift, and when this discovery had been made he found a small aperture which opened into a gallery or chamber where were a dozen men, the lamps in their hats illumining the place sufficiently for Fred to distinguish the party. He had reached the limit of the abandoned drift, and was looking in upon a portion of the new mine. Even now he made no appeal for help. The conversation of the men caused him to listen with no thought of his own condition. "Unless we do the job to-morrow night there's little chance of gettin' through with it all right," one of the party was saying, and another replied with an oath: "There's no reason why we should wait. To-night would suit me." "I don't believe in it," a third man said. "What's to be gained by floodin' the mine, an' turnin' ourselves out of a chance to earn a living?" "You allers was chicken-hearted, Joe Brace. Haven't we put up with enough from the mine owners an' bosses? We work for starvation wages, while they can barrel money." "Would you say that if you hadn't been thrown out of a job?" "That's my business. Here's a crowd of us who have sworn to stick together, no matter what happens, an' five have been warned out. Are we goin' peaceable, not liftin' a finger agin them as have got rich while we starved?" "But how are we helpin' ourselves by floodin' the mine?" "Three or four of sich bosses as Donovan may be in the drift when with one stroke of a pick I let the water into the lower level, and that'll show the others we're men, even if they do treat us like brutes." "You will drown some of your own mates." "Them as are on the level must take their chances." "It's murder, that's what it is, an' I'll have none of it!" Brace cried, as he leaped to his feet, and in another instant the whole party were facing him who dared dispute their right to do wrong. For some moments our hero could not distinguish a word, so great was the confusion; but when the tumult subsided in a measure two men were holding Brace, while he who appeared to be leader stood before him in a threatening attitude. "You've sworn to go with the crowd, and know the penalty for traitors." "I know that I'll blow the whole business if I get the chance. I've got a brother in the lower level; do you think I'll stand by while he is bein' murdered?" "Better do that than turn agin us. We'll give you one chance; swear to hold your tongue, an' we'll do no more than make sure you can't betray us." "An' if I don't choose to swear?" "Then we'll leave you here lashed hand an' foot. When the mine is flooded this drift will be cut off, an' it don't need a lawyer to say what'll happen then." "So to spite them as have done you a bad turn you're willin' to murder me?" "That's about the size of it." "Listen to me, Cale Billings. I promised to stand by you fellers when the agreement was to help each other agin the bosses; but now it's murder you mean. I'd rather be on the lower level when the deed is done than have part or parcel with them as are willin' to make widows an' orphans." "Then we know what to do," Billings cried angrily, as he rushed toward Brace, and for several moments Fred had only a confused idea of what was taking place. Brace was fighting against the entire party, and, under such circumstances, the struggle could not be prolonged. When the watcher could next distinguish the occupants of the chamber Brace laid on his back bound hand and foot, while the others were on the point of departure. Billings remained behind his companions to say: "We gave you all the chance we could, an' now it's only yourself you've got to thank for what'll happen before forty-eight hours go by." "I'd die twice over rather than put the stain of blood on my hands." "Well, you've got the chance to try it once, an' I reckon you'll wish things was different before long. We'll take good care nobody comes this way too soon." Then the party filed out of the room, one or two glancing back with undisguised pity, and as they passed along the drift the place was wrapped in profound darkness, with nothing to break the silence save the doomed man's heavy breathing. Fred waited until believing the would-be murderers were beyond the sound of his voice, and then he called softly: "Brace! Brace!" "Who's there?" "A breaker boy who came into the mine yesterday." "Where are you?" Fred explained to the best of his ability, and added: "Do you know of any way I can get out of here?" "No; that part of the mine has been closed a good many years, an' it would take a week to work up through the old slope. Before then the water on the lower level is bound to flood this end of the workings." "And we shall be drowned." "I don't see any help for it." "But we can't stay here and be killed!" Fred cried in an agony of fear. "It's tough, but there's no way out of it unless----" "What? Speak quickly, for time mustn't be lost if we're to do anything toward helping ourselves." "How large a cut is there through the wall where you are standing?" "It's only a small one--perhaps four or five inches across." "Couldn't you make it large enough to crawl through?" "It wouldn't take long if I had a shovel; but without one it will be hard." "Set about it, lad; work is better than idleness when a fellow is in this kind of a scrape." Fred obeyed instantly, tearing away the earth regardless of the injury done his hands; but making very slow progress. The wall was composed of slate and gravel, and a pick would have been necessary to effect a speedy entrance. Meanwhile Brace strove to cheer the boy by talking of the possibility that they might yet escape, and hour after hour Fred continued at the task until the moment arrived when it was possible, by dint of much squeezing, to make his way through the aperture. "Do you think it is near the time when the men are to flood the mine?" he asked, groping around until his outstretched hands touched Brace's prostrate body, when he began feverishly to untie the ropes. "No, lad, we must have half a dozen hours before us." "Then we are all right!" Fred cried joyfully. "You know the way out, and Billings' plot can be made known in time to prevent the mischief." "Don't fool yourself with the idea that matters have been straightened because I'm free," Brace replied, as he rose to his feet when Fred's task had been finished. "But what is to prevent our leaving here?" "Did you catch what Billings said when he left?" "Yes." "Then there's no need of sayin' anything more. Some of the murderin' crowd will be on guard at the entrance to the drift, and, knowing what we do of their plans, every means will be used to prevent our ever seeing daylight again." "Don't you intend to do anything toward trying to escape?" "Of course. I'm not quite a fool." "Shall you go back with me, or try to find the shaft?" "That would be useless. We will go straight through this drift." "But if Billings' crowd are watching for you?" "It's simply a case of fighting for life. There ain't much hope of overpowerin' them; the job will be child's play compared with tryin' to hold our own agin the flood that's sure to come soon." Brace groped around for something which would serve as a weapon, but finding nothing, he said grimly: "We'll have to go as we are, lad, an' remember that if we don't get through the drift you'll never see the breaker again." CHAPTER IV THE BARRIER Brace did not so much as ask if Fred was willing to join him in the struggle which must surely ensue, if they met those who intended to work such great injury to the mine. He walked straight on without speaking until five minutes had elapsed, and then said in a whisper: "It wouldn't be safe for any of that crowd to be found loafin' near the entrance to the drift, so we may expect to run across them before long. If they get the best of me, an' you can slip past while they are doin' it, don't wait, but make the most of your time." "I wouldn't leave you to fight alone." "Why not? My life don't count for anything when there are so many to be saved. Run if you can, and tell what Billings intends to do. The superintendent is the one who should hear it first, but if the time is short speak to any of the bosses." Up to this moment Fred had thought only that he and Brace might insure their own safety; but now personal welfare seemed insignificant as compared with what might be done for others. Following closely behind Brace, that there might be no possibility of an involuntary separation, he walked on in silence until the leader suddenly halted with a cry of dismay. "What's the matter?" Fred whispered. "The villains have taken good care we sha'n't escape. The drift has been filled up this side of the doors." "Can't we dig our way through? They haven't had time to bring much stuff in here." "More than likely two or three loads of coal have been dumped, and then the doors were fastened. The drift has been worked out, and none of the bosses would come here in time to suspect mischief." "What can we do?" "Wait a bit till I make sure what's before us." Brace clambered upon the barrier, assured himself there was too much to be removed in the limited time at their disposal, and then came back to where Fred was waiting in painful suspense. "It must be the old shaft or nothing. Walk fast now for the minutes are going mighty quick." Alone, Fred would have had difficulty in retracing his steps, but Brace pushed forward as if it was possible to see every foot of the way, and when the chamber was reached immediately began forcing his body through the aperture which had seemed hardly large enough for Fred. Neither gave any heed to possible injuries, and the man's clothes were in tatters when they emerged on the opposite side of the wall to make their way with all speed along the tunnel. For a while the inclination of the path told Fred the proper direction was being pursued, and then it seemed as if they traveled an unusually long time over a road which appeared to be perfectly level. "Are you sure we are right?" he asked at length, seizing Brace by the arm to force him to halt. "I don't know anything about it. This part of the mine was closed before I ever heard of such a place as Farley's." "We should have continued going down hill until the shaft was gained." "Then we are off the track sure; but it can't be helped now, and there is little chance of finding our way back. The air isn't bad, and we'll keep on; it may be there is another slope beside the one about which I have heard." "We must be on the lower level." "I reckon we are." "And it can't be long before Billings will do as he threatened." "You're right." "Then we are certain to be drowned unless we can find a higher drift." "Yes, an' it'll be a clear case of luck if we strike one. Don't stop to talk now. We must go at full speed while the air is good." Seizing Fred by the hand, Brace started once more, and for the time being both forgot fatigue in this struggle for life. On with feverish energy they pressed, yet no glimmer of light broke the profound darkness. More than once each fell over the litter of timbers, but only to rise and struggle on again, until finally Brace halted. "It's no use," he said with a moan. "Each step now is carrying us lower. I remember hearing some of the old hands say the abandoned drifts were a hundred feet or so farther down the hill. We must be considerably below the deepest shaft." "Have you given up all hope?" Fred asked in a whisper, for while surrounded by the dense blackness the full tones of his voice sounded fearsome. "Ay, lad, all hope." "Try once more. There surely is a way out if we could only strike it!" "We may as well meet the water here. I've been in the mines long enough to know that this runnin' at random is worse than standin' quiet. When a man's time has come there's no use to fight." Fred could not urge him farther. The numbness of fear was upon him, brought by this sudden surrender of the man whom he had believed would be able to extricate them from the precarious position, and now he thought only of his mother. How long the two remained there silent and motionless neither ever knew. To Fred it seemed as if hours passed before Brace seized him by the arm as he cried at the full strength of his lungs: "Hello! Mate! This way!" Then he ran forward at full speed, dragging Fred with him, and shouting like an insane man all the while until finally the boy could see a tiny spark of light far in the distance. "It's some one looking for us," Fred cried. "Whether he's come for us, or is on business of his own, matters little since his light is burning." Then, as Brace ceased speaking, Fred heard a familiar voice shouting, and an instant later Sam Thorpe had grasped him by the hand. "Why, it's Bill's butty! What are you doing here?" "I came to look for the new breaker boy; I thought Skip's crowd had done him some mischief." "So they did, an' another set of scoundrels would have drowned us all out but for your coming." "What do you mean?" "There's no time for talkin' now. How did you get here?" "By an old slope that I stumbled across the other day. I found Fred's bundles near the shaft, and believed he had been let down there." "Go on the best you know how; I'll give you a bit of an idea about ourselves while we're walking." The gleam of the lamp Sam wore in his cap was sufficient to show the way, and by the time the entrance to the slope had been reached the butty boy knew the whole story. "Billings' gang won't be able to do anything till after the day shift go on, an' I think it would be a good idea to let the superintendent know what has happened. Why not stay here till I tell him part of the story?" "Go ahead," Brace replied. "We'll wait for you." "Will you tell my mother that I am all right?" Fred asked. "She shall hear of it first," Sam said, as he stole out into the open air, as if fearful of being seen. "Why didn't we go with him?" Fred asked when he was alone with Brace. "Because nobody knows how far the plan to flood the mine may have gone, and by showing ourselves the villains may begin the job too soon to be prevented." It was yet dark. Instead of having been imprisoned in the tunnels twenty-four hours, as Fred had believed, less than eight were passed there. That Mr. Wright believed the news Sam brought to be of vital importance was shown by his coming with the boy with the utmost speed, and on entering the shaft he said to Brace: "Tell me all you know about the plan to flood the mine." The story was given in detail, and at its conclusion Mr. Wright asked: "How do you happen to know so much about this thing?" "Because I belonged to the party till I found they meant murder." "Are you acquainted with all the members?" "No, sir; wasn't allowed. Billings allers let us understand there was a big crowd, but wouldn't let any besides the officers know about it; he said the men might give themselves away by talkin' if they found who was members." "Why do they wish to throw all hands out of employment by flooding the mine?" "Some of the bosses are too hard on 'em, sir, an' a good many think it's like sellin' theirselves to deal at the company store." "They should have come to me with their grievances; but it is too late to talk of that now, and immediate steps must be taken to prevent the mischief. It won't be policy for you to show yourself until my plans have been perfected, otherwise they would take alarm. The boy can go home, and I want him to be in the breaker this morning as if nothing had happened. Where can you remain in hiding for a few days?" "I don't know, sir, unless I leave town." "That will not do, for I may wish to talk with you again." "He can come with me," Fred said quickly. "We do not know any one here, and there's no danger of his being discovered." "It's a good idea. Go with the boy, Brace, and I can let you know when it will be safe to venture out." "Very well, sir; but don't deal harshly with Billings' crowd. They've tried to do me the most harm one man can work another; but yet, for the sake of their wives an' children, I'd not feel easy in mind if they was turned away without warning." "I promise to be as lenient as is consistent with the safety of others," Mr. Wright replied, as Fred and the miner left the slope, walking rapidly lest they should be observed, and a few moments later Mrs. Byram was clasping to her bosom the son whom she had feared was lost to her forever on this earth. It was not long that Fred could remain at home. He had promised to go to the breaker, and after he and Brace partook of a hearty meal, at the conclusion of which the latter was shown to a room where there was no chance of his being seen, he started out, with the promise to his mother that he would be very careful. By some channel of information the news had been spread that the missing boy returned home during the night, and no one paid any particular attention to him as he walked down the street, but on entering the breaker Skip Miller and his friends were decidedly disturbed. The leader of the regulators glanced from Fred to Donovan, as if expecting he would be called upon to give an account of his misdeeds; but Chunky, who had evidently not been let into the secret, greeted his mate as if the latter's return was something he had expected. "Where was you last night?" he asked. "I went out near the old shaft," Fred replied, and Skip, who overheard the words, appeared to be very much relieved. "I thought you'd run away." "Why should I do anything like that?" "I dunno, 'cept that you wanted to get clear of the thumpin' that the regulators promised." "I'm not such a fool as that," Fred replied carelessly, and then the outpouring of coal put an end to further conversation. CHAPTER V THE MOB Fred could not prevent himself from glancing now and then in the direction of Skip Miller and his friends during the forenoon, and on each occasion he found one or more of the party gazing at him as if in wonderment. They failed to understand how he succeeded in leaving the shaft, and this surprise was less than that called forth by the fact of his remaining silent regarding their ill-treatment. One, two, three hours passed much as usual, and then something happened which caused the oldest worker in the mines unbounded astonishment. The machinery suddenly stopped, and from all the bosses came the orders that every laborer should return home without delay. No explanations were given, and when the vast army were on the outside they stood in groups around the works discussing the cause of this very strange state of affairs. "I never knew anything like this to happen at Farley's before," an old miner said. "And they don't even tell us why we are cheated out of a day's work." "The engineer says there is nothing the matter with the machinery." "Yes, an' he, like us, has been ordered to go home." These and a dozen other remarks Fred heard as he left the breaker, and while loitering for an instant to learn if any one suspected the true state of affairs he became conscious that Skip and his friends were regarding him with mingled anger and consternation written on their faces. "You'd better get out of here, or there may be trouble," Chunky whispered. "Why?" "'Cause Skip has got plenty of time now to serve you out, an' he looks like somethin' was goin' to be done." "He'd better not try any more games. I can take care of myself in the daylight." "What do you mean? Did he do somethin' last night?" Before Fred could reply the captain of the regulators came up, and Chunky lost no time in moving away from this very important personage. "Say," Skip began, as he stepped threateningly in front of Fred, "what's the meanin' of all this?" "Do you mean the shutting down of the machinery?" "Of course I do." "Why should I know anything about it?" "Don't try to play off innocent to me. You've been blowin' about what the regulators did, an' that's why all hands can suck their thumbs to-day." "Don't you think that is a foolish idea?" Fred asked, with a feeble effort at a smile. "Do you fancy you, the regulators, or I, are so important that the whole force is laid off because of anything which may have happened between us?" Skip was staggered by this reply, and after thinking the matter over for a moment, he said in a surly tone: "All I've got to say is that things will be too hot for you in this town, if a word is told about what was done last night." "You said pretty near the same before throwing me down the shaft." "Well, I'm sayin' it again, for it stands you in hand to remember it." "I won't forget." Skip turned quickly as if the tone offended him, and after glaring fiercely at the breaker boy, walked slowly toward his friends. "What's in the wind now? Is he making any more threats?" Looking around quickly Fred saw Sam Thorpe, who had just come up the slope with Bill Thomas. "Skip is afraid the shutting down has some connection with the doings of the regulators. Isn't it queer to stop the machinery so soon when Mr. Wright was anxious to keep everything a secret?" "I heard him say that the pumps were out of order. One set got choked this morning, and it wouldn't be safe for the miners to stay in the lower level till they were repaired." Sam winked meaningly as if he thought the matter had been arranged very skillfully; but Fred was yet at a loss to understand how anything could be gained by this move. "Why were all hands thrown out?" "There are some general repairs to be made, and it was better to do the whole at the same time." "Then there's no reason why Brace should hide any longer." "He mustn't so much as show his nose. Come over by the slope and watch Billings and his crowd. They are in a peck of trouble, expecting that Brace will be found, and since no one is allowed to enter the mine matters begin to look tough for them." Fred followed his friend and saw those who had intended to cause a terrible disaster clustered around the mouth of the slope in a feverish state of excitement. "This is a nice way to treat honest men," Billings was saying as the two approached. "We work for starvation wages, an' then get laid off whenever the bosses like, without so much as a notice. It's time we did something to show we're men." "I'm told the pumps are choked," an old miner said, "an' if that's the case Mr. Wright oughter shut down. Farley's never has had a very good name; but one or two stoppages like this'll show it's worked on the square." "What a fool you are!" Billings cried angrily. "Haven't you got sense enough to see that this thing has been done so's we'll run deeper in debt at the store, an' have to submit to a cut down when Wright gets ready to put the screws on?" Several of the bystanders loudly expressed their belief in the correctness of Billings' theory, and instantly the greatest excitement prevailed. The group increased in numbers each moment, and Billings took upon himself the office of spokesman. One proposed they march in a body to the superintendent's house and demand that the machinery be started again. Another insisted on forcing their way into the mine to ascertain the true cause of the stoppage, and in this last speaker Fred recognized one of the men who had helped make Joe Brace a prisoner. "They want to find him before Mr. Wright orders an examination," he whispered to Sam, and the latter replied: "In less than an hour they'll have force enough to do as they please. It's time we were out of this; you go home to tell Joe, and I'll see Mr. Wright if possible." Fred was all the more willing to follow this advice because Skip and his party were in the immediate vicinity, and the lawlessness of the men might render them bold enough to administer the promised flogging then and there. The streets of the little town were crowded with knots of miners, some of whom seemed to think the superintendent had acted for their good, while others were indulging in the most extravagant threats. Mrs. Byram was standing in the doorway when her son arrived, and it could readily be seen by her face how relieved she was to have him with her once more. "You mustn't leave the house again to-day," she said in a tremulous voice. "Go up stairs and tell Mr. Brace what has happened." The miner was impatient to learn the cause of the excitement, for he could hear the hum of voices on the street; but did not care to look out of the window for fear of being seen. Fred's story was not a long one, and he had to repeat it several times before Brace was satisfied. "I s'pose Wright knows his own business best; but it looks mighty dangerous to shut down so sudden." "Perhaps it was the only course to pursue," Fred suggested. "Billings' crowd may have been so near carrying their plot into operation that there was no time for anything different." "That might be; but take my word for it, there's going to be trouble at Farley's before this fuss is settled." "Do you think Billings would dare to force his way into the mine?" "He'd dare do anything with men enough at his back." "Suppose they got in and didn't find you?" "I ain't thinkin' of myself, for it would be easy to get out of town." "If they have an idea you've escaped from the drift all hands will be on the watch, knowing you could expose their plot." "Everything is correct so long as they don't find out where I am, an' when it's time to move I'll agree to give 'em the slip. Go down stairs so you can see if the trouble is about to begin." Before Fred could obey, Sam Thorpe burst into the room. "There's a regular mob on the way to Mr. Wright's house. They threaten to burn it if the works are not opened in an hour." "Where is the superintendent?" Brace asked. "In the mine I think; he's not at home, for I just came from there." "Is Billings leadin' them?" "Yes." "How many of the company's men are on guard at the slope?" "About a dozen." "Who are they?" Sam repeated the names, and Brace said musingly: "There are one or two that I'm doubtful of. They've been too thick lately with Billings." "It can't be helped now, for Mr. Wright wouldn't dare show himself long enough to make any change." At this moment a loud cry from the street caused the boys to run quickly down the stairs, and Brace ventured to look out from between the folds of the curtain. The mob, in a spirit of bravado and to gain recruits, were parading the streets before making their demands, and had halted in front of the company's store that Billings might harangue those near by. He was dilating upon the wrongs inflicted on honest workingmen, and calling for everyone to join in the struggle for their rights, when, to the astonishment of all, Mr. Wright appeared, coming from the direction of the slope. The superintendent would have passed the mob and entered the store, but that the men barred his way, forcing him to halt directly in front of Mrs. Byram's home. "We was lookin' for you," Billings said insolently, as he stepped close to Mr. Wright. "Well, now that you have found me speak quickly, for there is very much that I must do before night." "Open the works!" a voice shouted. "Give us a chance at the bosses!" "Tell us what's the matter. Why are we thrown out of a job?" "Hold on!" Billings cried, "I'll do the talking." It was several moments before the tumult ceased sufficiently for the leader to make himself understood, and meanwhile the superintendent stepped on the threshold as Mrs. Byram opened the door. "In the first place," Billings began, "we want to know why the works have been shut down?" "Because the pumps in the lower level are choked, and there is every danger that portion will be flooded." "But why are us miners barred out?" "It is evident someone has been trying to work mischief, and I do not care to run the risk of allowing the same party free access to the place until all the damage is repaired." "Do you mean to accuse us of tryin to drown each other?" one of the throng asked. "I shall make no accusations until everything can be proven; but meanwhile all must remain out of the works that the guilty parties may not be able to do worse mischief." "That is only a trick to keep us idle so the store bills put us more completely in your power," Billings cried insolently. "You know the company must lose a great deal of money by taking the men out." It was impossible for Mr. Wright to make himself heard further. The miners began to speak, each one for himself, and little could be distinguished save the threats to burn the houses belonging to the officers of the works, if the machinery was not started immediately. After this threat had been made the men grew more bold, and before those in the cottage had time to screen themselves a shower of stones were flung at the superintendent, who barely succeeded in protecting himself by jumping behind the door. Fred and Sam, the latter of whom had an ugly cut on the cheek, closed the door quickly, bolting and barricading it with the furniture nearest at hand, and the riot had begun. The angry men pelted the house with such missiles as could be most easily procured, and during two or three minutes it seemed as if the building must be wrecked. Mr. Wright would have run into the street as the only way by which the widow's property could be saved; but Fred and Sam prevented him by force, and Brace, who came down stairs at the first alarm, said decidedly: "You mustn't think of such a thing. Your life would be taken." "It is cowardly to remain here." "It is foolhardy to face, single handed, two or three hundred brutes like those who are yelling." "But the widow's property?" "The building belongs to the company, and you can easily pay her for what may be destroyed." During this brief conversation the front windows had been shattered, and the mob appeared to be on the point of carrying the place by storm when a voice cried: "I ain't here to fight agin women who are in the same box with ourselves. What's to prevent our smashin' the windows of his own house?" "That's the way to talk," another replied. "Come on; we'll attend to his case later." As if by magic the mob vanished; but the hoots and yells told of the direction in which they had gone. "Something must be done at once, or there is no knowing where this thing will end. Fred, you and Sam get some boards up at these windows, and I'll learn how many of the men can be trusted to stand by us. Keep out of sight a while longer Brace." Mr. Wright left the building by the rear entrance, the boys watching until he disappeared within the company's store, and then Sam proceeded to obey the orders. Nearly every pane of glass in the front of the house had been broken, and there was not lumber enough to close more than one. "We shall have to go to the yard for boards; do you dare to try it, Fred?" "Why not? Skip's crowd are most likely with the men." Mrs. Byram was afraid to have her son leave the house at such a time; but Joe Brace made light of her fears, and she gave a reluctant consent. "We sha'nt be away more than half an hour, and the mob will pay no attention to us while they have so much mischief on hand," Fred said as he followed Sam. CHAPTER VI ON DUTY In order to reach the yard where the lumber was to be found it was necessary that the boys should pass near the store, and at a point where Mr. Wright's house could be seen plainly. The mob which now surrounded it was in full view, and the angry shouts, mingled with breaking glass, came to their ears with great distinctness. "It doesn't seem right for us to stay here when we might be of some service there," Fred said as he pointed in the direction of the building. "I don't know what we could do if we were on the spot. It isn't likely those men would stop because we asked them to do so, and, so far as I can judge, it is very much better to stay at a respectful distance." "And let them destroy the buildings?" "What can you do to prevent it?" "Nothing that I know of, and yet it is wicked to let this thing be done without some protest." "Mr. Wright would attend to that matter if a protest would amount to anything. Our duty is to protect your mother, and that must be attended to before anything else." "I realize that fact fully; but----" At this moment Mr. Wright called from the rear of the store: "Boys, come here!" Obeying the summons they were led to a rear room where were assembled the principal officers of the mine, all looking more or less frightened, and the superintendent said as they entered: "Is there anything to prevent your doing as I wish during the next few hours." "Not that I know of, sir," Fred replied. "We were about to fasten up the broken windows at home; but that is of little consequence in case you require our services." "The force of men on guard at the slope is too small if the rioters try to effect an entrance. It is in the highest degree important that Billings' crowd be prevented from getting in, until all our arrangements have been made. Will you go on duty there until troops can be summoned?" "We are willing to do everything in our power." "Then arm yourselves with these guns." Mr. Wright pointed to a number of muskets as he spoke, and Sam did not delay in selecting a weapon. "I must tell mother where I have gone or she will be worried," Fred said, as he started toward the door. "I will call upon her at once, and you need not delay." "How long are we likely to remain on duty?" "Only until troops arrive. We have telegraphed to the governor, and a company should be here within the next twenty-four hours." "It isn't probable the sentinels will take our word for it that you have sent us." "Here is a line to Donovan, and you had better start at once, for there's no saying how soon the rioters may get tired of destroying dwellings. Tell Donovan that we hope to send him a larger force soon." The boys felt very much like soldiers as they marched toward the slope, each armed with a gun and half a dozen cartridges, and the tumult which could be heard distinctly, heightened the illusion. "They have set fire to some building," Sam said, as he pointed to a column of smoke which rose from the direction of the superintendent's home. "If that kind of work has begun there's little chance of its being ended while Billings' crowd hold the town." "I ought to have staid with mother. There's no reason why I should help fight the company's quarrels while she may be in danger." "You could be of no assistance, and it is better to be out of the way, for Skip and his gang will not remain quiet while it is possible to do mischief." "At the same time I should be with her," Fred replied; but making no motion to return. Upon arriving at the entrance to the slope they were stopped by a sentinel who cried as he leveled his gun: "Halt! What do you want?" "We have been sent by Mr. Wright with a note to Donovan," Sam replied. "Stay where you are, and I will call him." "This looks like fighting," Sam said, as the sentinel shouted for the breaker boss. "If they are afraid to let the boys come nearer than hailing distance, what'll be done when the mob get here?" "If the soldiers arrive things will be worse than they are now," Fred said with a sigh, and then Donovan interrupted the mournful conversation by calling as he came up the slope: "Oh, it's you, eh? Well, get in here quick. I thought Mr. Wright had sent some one to help us." "So he has," and Sam handed the breaker boss the superintendent's letter. "We're to go on duty here till help arrives in the shape of soldiers." "I s'pose you two will count for one man; but we need a good many more by the looks of things. Go into the first level an' stay there till you're wanted." Obeying these instructions the boys found a dozen men lounging about the chamber, some lying on the empty trucks, and others moving to and fro restlessly; but all well armed. Each one was most eager to know what was being done in the village, and the story had but just been told when the first alarm came. "Get up to the mouth of the slope," Donovan shouted from above. "There's a small crowd comin' this way, an' it's best to be prepared for 'em." The command was promptly obeyed, and all watched the score of men who were approaching. Instead of nearing the sentinels they turned off to the left before arriving within hailing distance, and one of the party said in a tone of satisfaction: "That's all right; they're only lookin' around to see if our eyes are open." "They are going in the direction of the shaft into which Skip's crowd threw me," Fred whispered to Sam. "Yes." "And in that way it would be possible to get into this portion of the mine." "I s'pose so; but they ain't likely to make such a long trip as that." "Why not, if by so doing the lower level could be flooded without any risk to themselves?" "Now don't get frightened, Fred, there isn't one chance in a hundred that any of the crowd know about the old gallery." "But if they do all of us might easily be driven out by the water." "Since it troubles you so much, speak to Donovan. He's the boss, and will know if anything should be done." "You tell him." "Not much; I'm not going to be laughed at." Fred hesitated only a moment; he believed that it was of the utmost importance this possible means of entering the mine should be guarded, and calling Donovan aside told him of his escape from the shaft; but refrained from mentioning Joe Brace's name. "I reckon you're more frightened than hurt, lad; but at the same time I don't want to run any risks. Since Sam Thorpe knows the way through, take him an' start. One of you could keep a hundred from comin' in at such a small hole as you tell about." "Are we to stay there?" "Half an hour'll be long enough; if they don't show theirselves by then we'll know there's nothin' to be feared from that quarter." Fred repeated to Sam what Donovan had said, and the orders were not received in a cheerful spirit. "That's all you get for bein' scared. It ain't any joke to travel through the lower level, an' we can count on stayin' there till midnight." "It's better than being flooded out." "I'm not so sure of that." "Then you won't go?" "Of course I will. Do you think I'm such a fool as to act dead against orders. Come on, an' let's get through with it as soon as possible." By using an empty car, allowing it to run down the grade by its own weight, they were soon at the heavy doors which marked the termination of the first level. Here a halt was made, because even the boys whose duties it was to open the barriers were absent, and from this point the remainder of the journey was made on foot. At the lower level five miners were found repairing the pumps, and the boys were forced once more to tell what had occurred in the village. "Men what want to work don't go round kickin' up sich a row as this," one of the party said, as Fred and Sam passed on. "Give some of that Billings' crowd a chance an' the slope never'd be opened agin." "There's a miner who won't join the mob," Fred said. "Yes; but for every man like that a dozen can be found to fight against their own interests." Now the boys no longer walked side by side. Sam led the way, watching narrowly the lamp in his companion's cap to discover the first signs of fire-damp, and guarding well the flame which served to show him the proper course. "Be careful of your matches," he said warningly. "They may be worth a good deal before we get back from this wild goose chase." "How much farther must we go?" "Half an hour of fast traveling should bring us to where you found the tunnel choked with coal, an' I don't reckon you count on tryin' to get any farther." "We couldn't do it, no matter how much we might want to." "Oh, yes; when the doors are opened that pile will come down mighty quick; but while it stays as it is the passage is blocked better than if a dozen men were on guard." Another time of silence, during which the boys walked rapidly, and then Sam uttered an exclamation of surprise. "Some one has been working here. Half the coal is pulled away, an' it won't be much of a job to get into the chamber." "Who could have done it?" "Perhaps Billings' gang worked a spell after the order to quit was given?" "What could they have gained by reaching Joe again?" "Taken him through the old drift to the shaft. But let's work our way over this pile, an' then start back before our oil gives out." Ten minutes of sharp labor and the boys were in the chamber where Brace had been left to die, Sam throwing himself on the hard floor, as he said: "We'll take a breathin' spell before leaving. You see now there was no use in comin'." "So it seems; but I couldn't help thinking some of that crowd which passed the slope knew how to get here." "It ain't possible--Hark! What was that?" A low hum as of conversation could be heard from the other side of the wall, and Sam sprang to the aperture made by Fred and Joe Brace. "I'll never yip again about you're being scared," he whispered after one glance. "Here come the whole crowd, an' we're in a fix." "They won't dare to crawl through, if we threaten to shoot." "Let's first find out exactly what they are here for. It may be they are only looking for Joe." Standing either side the aperture the boys watched the approach of the men whose movements were revealed by the miner's lamp each carried. It was impossible to distinguish the conversation until the party was very near the break in the wall, and then one shouted: "Hello Joe! How are you?" "We've come to pull you out of this scrape," another said, after waiting a few seconds for a reply. Then a lamp was pushed through, Fred and Sam crouching close against the wall to avoid observation, and its owner cried in a tone of astonishment: "He isn't here! The place is empty!" A deep silence reigned for a moment, and then some one said in an angry tone. "It ain't hard to understand the whole thing now. He slipped the ropes, an' come out this way. Wright has heard the story, an' that's why the works were shut down so suddenly." "But what's become of him? He ain't in the town." "Of course he is, an' hidin' somewhere. Jim, you run back an' tell Billings so's he can hunt the sneak out." "Are you goin' on alone?" "Why not? Them fools are guardin' the slope, an' we can flood the place before they so much as think any one has got in behind them. Tell the boys we'll be back by sunset." Sam touched Fred, to warn him that the time for action had arrived, and, slight as was the movement, it caught the attention of the man on the opposite side. "Hold on," he cried. "There's somebody in here, an' we must know who it is." Before he could thrust his lamp through, Sam shouted: "Stand back, or there'll be trouble. Two of us are here, both armed, and we shall fire at the first one who so much as shows the tip of his nose." CHAPTER VII THE STRUGGLE Recognizing at once that the voice they had just heard did not belong to the man for whom they were looking the rioters remained silent with surprise, and during this short interval Sam brought the butt of his gun to the floor with unnecessary force in order that there might be no question about his being armed. "Who is inside?" one of the party finally asked, and Sam replied: "It does not make any difference so long as you don't attempt to come through." "We shall do it just the same, an' it'll be so much the worse for you if a finger is raised to stop us." "There's no need of very much talk. We're here to keep you out. At the first movement both will shoot, and we've got ammunition to hold the place 'till the others come." This bold assertion caused the rioters no little uneasiness, as could be told from the fact that the entire party retreated down the drift, where they apparently began a consultation as to the best course to be pursued under the circumstances. "Come on this side," Sam whispered. "If we stand opposite each other and are obliged to shoot we shall get the worst of it." "Do you really mean to kill them?" Fred asked as he changed his position. "I intend to hit whoever comes through if I can, an' they'll have to run the risk of the killin' part." "If we could only send word to Donovan." "Well, we can't, an' it looks as if we might have to stay here a long while, unless they get the best of us. Nobody will think of coming to look for us for a good many hours, an' that's why I said we were in a fix." Neither of the boys cared to prolong the conversation. Their situation was desperate, and to state it in words seemed like making it worse, but, as Fred afterward said, "they kept up a terrible thinking," until the rioters began operations by approaching the aperture once more, keeping close to the wall on either side to prevent giving the defenders an opportunity of using their weapons. "See here," the spokesman began, "we've come to give you a chance of actin' square. You know who we are, an' that what we do will help all hands who work here. Let us through peaceably, an' we'll allers be your friends, but if we're obliged to fight for it there'll be nothin' left of you." "We'll take our chances rather than have such as you call us friends; but it strikes me that a fight, with all the weapons on our side, is too big a contract for you to tackle." "Put out your lamps, boys, an' we'll show these fools what can be done." In an instant the tunnel was plunged in profound darkness, and the lights worn by the boys served to reveal their whereabouts clearly. Both realized how great would be the disadvantages under such circumstances, and in the least possible time the tiny flames were extinguished. Even while this was being done the rioters attempted to effect an entrance; but, without exposing himself to a blow, Sam discharged his weapon, paying little regard to accuracy of aim. The noise of the report echoed and reëchoed through the passages, and the chamber was filled with smoke, during which time Fred fancied he saw a form leaning half through the aperture, and he also fired. "That makes two cartridges, an' now we've only got ten left," Sam said in a half whisper. "At this rate we can't keep the battle goin' a great while, an' when the thing is ended we shall have to take whatever they choose to give." "Donovan may send some one before the ammunition is exhausted." "He won't think of such a thing for a good many hours yet. Could you find your way back to where the men are at work on the pumps?" "And leave you alone?" "One of us must go, or else these fellows will soon be where a great amount of mischief can be done." "I am willing to do whatever you think best." "Then go, and tell whoever you meet, of the pickle I am in. I'll stay because I'll most likely make a better fist at fighting than you." "Do you want the cartridges?" "Yes, and the gun." Fred placed the weapon against the wall near his companion, and turned to go. "Don't light your lamp until you are so far away that the flame can't be seen, for it won't do to let them know we have divided forces." A silent handshake and Sam was alone. "It's goin' to be a tough job, an' most likely I'll get the worst of it," he said to himself, as he leaned toward the aperture in a listening attitude. Five minutes passed, and then came a shower of missiles, causing a choking dust to arise; but doing no further injury. Immediately afterward the boy fancied another attempt was being made to crawl through, and he discharged both weapons in rapid succession. "Now we've got him!" a voice shouted, and before Sam could reload the guns two or three men were in the chamber. He crouched in the further corner hoping to slip the cartridges in the barrel, while they should be hunting for him; but one of the party ignited a match, and an instant later he was held as if by bands of iron. "Light your lamps, an' be lively about it, for there's another one here!" Sam made one violent effort to release himself; but in vain. When the chamber was illuminated he saw a crowd of men peering in every direction for Fred. "It's Bill Thomas' butty," one of the party said in surprise. "I didn't know he was a bosses' pet." "Neither will he be very long. Where's the other fellow?" and Sam's captor tried to choke the answer from him. "If he don't speak quick strangle him. We can't spend much time on a kid," some one suggested, and the question was repeated. Sam knew that the men were in no humor to be trifled with, and there was little doubt but the strangling would follow unless he obeyed. It was possible to delay the explanations for a few seconds, and thus give Fred so much more time to reach the lower level. With this view he coughed and struggled after the vice-like pressure upon his throat was removed, to make it appear as if it was only with the greatest difficulty he could breathe, and fully a moment was thus gained when his captor kicked him two or three times as he said: "None of that shamming. Speak quick, or I'll give you something to cough for." "The fellow who was with me went back to the slope." "How long ago?" "When we first knew you were here." "That's a lie, for we heard you talking." "What makes you ask any questions if you know better than I?" "When did he leave?" "I told you before. Of course he waited long enough to find out how many there were of you." At least five minutes had passed from the time Sam was first questioned, and this must have given Fred a safe start. "Go after him, Zack, and take Jake with you," the spokesman said, sharply. "Travel the best you know how, for everything depends on overtakin' him." The two men started at full speed, and the leader asked Sam: "Where is Joe Brace?" "Brace?" Sam repeated, as if in bewilderment, "Why he didn't come with us." "Wasn't he in this place when you got here?" "Of course not. I'm most certain I saw him in the village just after the works were shut down." There was a ring of truth in the boy's tones which could not be mistaken, and the rioters appeared satisfied. "Abe, go an' tell Billings that Brace got out of here in time to warn Wright, an' let him know what we've struck. Don't waste any time now." When the messenger had departed the leader beckoned to another member of the party, and said as he pointed to Sam: "Take care of him. The whole thing would soon be up if he should get away." "What'll I do with the cub?" the man asked in a surly tone. "Anything so that you keep him safe. A thump on the head will help straighten matters, if he tries to kick up a row." "Where are you going?" "We'll foller up Zack an' Jake, an' if they catch the boy there'll be nothin' to prevent our finishin' the business we came for." After a brief consultation, which was carried on in such low tones that Sam could not distinguish a word, the men started down the drift, leaving the prisoner and his captor alone. Sam knew the man was named Bart Skinner, and that he was an intimate friend of Billings'. He had the reputation of being quarrelsome and intemperate, and was exactly the sort of person one would expect to see among such a party as were now committing lawless deeds. "I don't count on wastin' much time with you," Bart said when the footsteps of his companions had died away in the distance. "I'll leave you in a safe place pervidin' you behave; but let me hear one yip, an' I'll try the weight of my fist. Come along." No attempt had been made to fetter Sam. The rioters understood that it was impossible for him to escape, and probably looked upon it as a clear waste of labor. When Bart spoke he seized the boy by each arm, forcing him through the aperture, and then retaining his hold as he followed. Once in the tunnel the two pressed on at a rapid gait toward the shaft, Sam being obliged to walk a few paces in advance, until they arrived at a point where a tunnel had been run at right angles with the drift; but which was shut off by stout wooden doors. "We'll stop here a bit," Bart said, as he tried to unfasten the rusty bolts which had not been used for many years. Believing that he might as well accept his capture with a good grace instead of sulking over it, Sam did what he could to assist in opening the doors. When the task was finally accomplished Bart motioned for the boy to enter first, and after assuring himself by the flame of his lamp that the air was pure, he obeyed. "Go on a bit, an' see if it is a drift, or only a stable." "They've exhausted the vein after following it about thirty feet," Sam replied, as he walked the full length, and when on the point of turning to retrace his steps the doors were closed with a clang, while from the outside could be heard the mocking voice of Bart as he shoved the bolts into their sockets: "It's deep enough for what I want to use it. You'll do no mischief while here, an' I reckon the bosses will hunt a long time before findin' you." Then Sam heard the sound of rapidly retreating footsteps, and thought to himself as he vainly shook the timbers: "If those fellows overtook Fred I'm likely to stay here till the mine is flooded." CHAPTER VIII THE PURSUIT When Fred left Sam to defend the breach in the wall he fully realized the necessity of giving the alarm quickly, and did not stop to light his lamp until after scrambling over the barrier of coal. Once this had been done he ran at his best pace, guided by the wooden tracks on which the cars were hauled, until he was obliged to halt from sheer lack of breath. A dull sound in the rear caused him to push on again very quickly, for he believed Sam had found it necessary to discharge his weapons. On making the second halt a few moments later, he detected a certain scurrying noise which at first he fancied might have been caused by the rats; but immediately came the voice of a man, and he knew the rioters were pursuing him. "I'll get a pretty heavy dose if they catch me," he muttered, hurrying once more, and when the journey was half finished it became apparent that the pursuers were gaining upon him. The lives of others beside his own might be sacrificed, if he did not win the race, and he bent all his energies to the undertaking. Once he stumbled, almost fell; but luckily recovered his balance, and darted on, forced to run upon the ties because the space either side was so narrow. Nearer and nearer came the men until he could hear their heavy breathing, and one of them shouted: "Halt, or we'll shoot!" Knowing that they might have gotten possession of his gun he had reason to believe the threat would be carried into execution; but he said to himself: "It's better to be killed by a bullet than take what they choose to give," and the command only served to quicken his pace. Minute after minute passed; no shot was fired, his breath came in quick gasps, and it seemed impossible to continue the flight many seconds longer. The pursuers were now within a few yards, and nothing could be seen ahead. Whether the lower level was close at hand or a mile away he could not decide; but in his despair he shouted for help. "Pick up some chunks of slate an' see if you can't hit him. At this rate we shall soon have to turn back." One of the men stopped long enough to gather an armful of fragments, and as he continued the pursuit threw them with murderous intent at the fugitive. Two passed very near the almost exhausted boy's head; but none inflicted any injury, and he shouted again and again for those who were working at the pumps. At the very moment when Fred lost all hope a tiny ray of light appeared from out the gloom, and he cried for help once more; then fell headlong to the ground. When he next realized anything he was surrounded by miners, who had evidently been running, and one asked, impatiently: "Can you tell us what happened, lad, an' how them sneaks managed to get in here?" "Have they gone back?" "Indeed they have; we chased them the matter of half a mile, an' then concluded it was time we got the story from you, for it might not have been safe to pass the first drift." In a few words Fred told his story, adding as it was ended: "There is a big crowd of them, and all hands are bent on flooding the mine." "We don't care to have them drown us out like rats, so I reckon there'll have to be some fightin' done before that little game is played." "But what about Sam?" "They've got hold of him for sure; but he'll have to take his chances with the crowd, for we can't help him now." "They'll kill him!" "I don't reckon there's much chance of that, lad; but if there was we couldn't do a thing. I'd go farther than most anybody, for he was my butty, an' a right good boy; but he's in the hole to stay 'till the company get the upper hand of them as would kill their best friends to injure the bosses." Fred knew it was Bill Thomas who spoke in such a tone of utter helplessness, and there could be no doubt as to the correctness of his statements. "I'd go back alone if I had the gun." "Then it's lucky you left it behind. Best go up the slope an' tell Donovan what has happened here, so's he can send men to the old shaft. Say to him that we'll be through in a couple of hours more, an' want him to start the pumps, for we're workin' in four feet of water." After stationing one of their number as guard the miners resumed their labor, and Fred started toward the slope, bent on inducing Donovan to take some steps for the relief of Sam. Wearied by the previous exertions he made but slow progress, and when he reached the breaker at least half an hour had elapsed. Those who had been left to guard the mine were on duty in positions where their bodies would be sheltered in case of an attack with fire-arms, and in a group outside were forty or fifty of the rioters. "Bill Thomas wants to know if you will start the pumps? They are working in four feet of water," Fred said, as he approached Donovan. "It can't be done now if the whole level is flooded. These fellows have made two rushes, and are gettin' ready for another." "Don't you suppose this is to prevent you from discovering that a portion of the rioters are getting in through the old shaft?" and Fred told of what had occurred in the drift. "That's jest the size of it; but what can be done? We can't spare a man from here." "There are surely more at the store who would help us." "Very likely; but they won't come while this crowd is here." "If Mr. Wright knew what was going on he could send a party to the shaft." "Yes, if he knew it." "Why not send him word?" "How?" This was a question. Fred did not answer, and Donovan continued: "There's no chance by which any one could get from here to the store, while that gang of murderers keep watch over all our movements." "It is nearly night. In an hour it will be too dark for them to see what is going on." "Who will take the risk of trying to slip past them?" "I will." "You'll be in a worse box than Sam is, if they catch you." "Something must be done, and since you can't spare anybody to go to the poor fellow's assistance I'm ready to take my chances while trying to help him." Donovan did not reply until after looking carefully around as if calculating the probabilities of success, and then he said: "I've a mind to let you attempt it. If the soldiers don't arrive before morning, and Billings' crowd are coming through the old shaft as you say, we must have help soon, or give up the fight. There is a chance you will get past all right, and I'm certain we can expect no one to come unless we say it is impossible to hold out longer." "I am ready to go." "Very well; wait until it is dark, an' then you may make a try for it." It would have pleased Fred better, if he could have been actively employed at once, for the knowledge that Sam was in the power of the rioters troubled him more than personal danger would have done; but nothing remained save to wait as Donovan said, and he tried to be patient. From the men on guard he learned that Mr. Wright's house had been attacked; but the mob contented themselves with destroying the windows and setting fire to the stable. The building itself yet remained intact, and there was reason to believe no more outrages, except such as might be committed near the mine, would be committed. "Them as are standin' in with Billings don't really know what they want, except as he tells them," Fred's informant said, "an' that's what makes things of this kind dangerous. If the men understood exactly the cause of such rows, there'd be little trouble." "But since they don't, what will be the result of this one?" Fred asked. "That's more'n I can tell. The mob may quiet down, an' then again they may grow worse, so there's no sayin' what'll happen. Anyhow, you don't want to take many chances on your way to the store." "I've got to help Sam." "Right you are; but at the same time you ain't called on to take too big risks. Don't start unless things look favorable for gettin' through all right, 'cause Cale Billings ain't a nice sort of a man to meet when he's on the top of the heap." "Sam is in his power." "How do you know?" "It is only reasonable to suppose so." "Then all the more cause for you to keep away from him. I'd like to have some one to see the boss; but I haven't got the nerve to send a boy instead of goin' myself." Since this was a direct reflection upon Donovan, Fred refrained from making any reply, and the conversation ceased. Twice before dark the rioters made a demonstration in front of the slope, as if bent on effecting an entrance, and each time Fred fancied more men were sent in the direction of the old shaft. It was not for him to make any suggestions, however, and with a heavy heart he watched the maneuvers, believing that each moment saw Sam in more peril. A messenger was sent to the miners in the lower level telling them that the pumps could not be started, and urging all hands to hold the drift against the rioters; but that was everything which could be done under the circumstances, and the most vulnerable point was virtually left unguarded. When night came the lawless party built several fires between the slope and the shaft, very much as if they wished to show that they were on guard, and Donovan motioned to Fred as he walked a few paces down the drift. "I didn't want the others to hear what I said, for it's just as well they shouldn't know what a scrape we're in. If you can get to the store, tell Mr. Wright that he mustn't wait for the soldiers; there's no question but Bill Thomas' party have got their hands full keepin' back them as come in by the shaft, and it can't be long before we'll be snowed under. It's about twenty to one now, an' in case of a rush the matter would be settled mighty quick." "If I can leave the mouth of the slope without being seen there'll be no trouble." "Half a dozen of us will go out a short bit, an' you shall follow on behind. There ought to be a chance of slippin' off, an' if there isn't we'll have to give it up, for I'm not willin' you should take too big risks." Fred threw off his coat and vest that he might be in good condition for running, and then as the men marched out of the slope he crouched in the rear. The rioters made no demonstration; but stood ready to repel an attack, watching closely all the maneuvers, and Donovan whispered to the boy: "It won't do to try it, lad. They are scattered around in such a way that you couldn't get a dozen yards before bein' seen." "I'm going to try it." "Don't, lad, don't," several said quickly, and, fearing he might be forcibly detained, Fred started. He went straight back from the slope, bending low in the vain hope of escaping observation, and having gained a distance of an hundred feet set off at full speed, forced to run in a half circle to reach the road. To those who were watching it seemed as if hardly a second elapsed before a great shout went up from the rioters. "The sneaks are sendin' for help!" "Stop that boy!" "Don't let him get away!" These and a dozen other orders were given at the same time, and those rioters who were nearest Fred began the pursuit. "He'll never reach the store," Donovan said sadly, as he led the way back to the slope when Fred was swallowed up by the darkness. "Even if these fellows don't overtake him there are plenty between here and there who'll hear the alarm." CHAPTER IX JOE BRACE During the first five minutes after he was locked in the short drift, Sam Thorpe gave himself up to unreasoning anger. He threw himself again and again upon the timbers as if believing it would be possible to force them apart, and shouted at the full strength of his lungs until he was literally unable to speak louder than a whisper. Then recognizing the uselessness of such proceedings, he sat down to think over the matter calmly. "If Fred succeeded in giving the alarm, I'm not in very much danger of being drowned out," he said to himself; "but if he was caught I can count on dying in about two hours." With this mental speech came the assurance that he had yet a hundred and twenty minutes in which to fight for life, and he resolved not to waste a single second. The lamp in his cap gave sufficient light for a thorough examination of his prison, and it was soon made. A solid wall of earth and slate surrounded him, the only outlet was through the doors, which were of planks and thickly studded with nails that they might be strong enough to resist a heavy pressure of water. His only weapon was a stout pocket knife; but even with a saw he could not have cut his way through. The hinges were next examined. They were fastened to large joists which in turn had been set firmly into the strata of slate. The only weak point he could find was where the two doors came together, and the flat bolt was exposed. Its entire width and about an inch of its length could be seen thickly covered with rust, and here Sam decided to direct his efforts. "There isn't much chance I can cut it through in two hours," he said; "but it's better to work than lay still thinking of what may happen." Breaking the stoutest blade of his knife he began with the jagged surface to scratch at the iron. While cutting through the rust his progress was reasonable rapid; but on firm metal was very much like filing a boiler plate with a pin. Then the blade of his knife was worn smooth, and he broke off another piece, repeating the operation until the steel had been used to the hilt. The bolt was cut nearly half through; but as he judged, two hours must have passed. "If they succeed in flooding the mine I shall still be a prisoner when the water comes," he muttered, and at that moment he heard the sound of approaching footsteps. Two or more had come from the direction of the shaft, and halted near the door. "It's no use to try and fight our way into the drift through the hole," he heard one of the new-comers say, and recognized the voice as that of Cale Billings. "Are you goin' to give up beat!" "Not much. Inside of an hour we'll have fifty men here, and while the fools think we are trying to get in by the slope a tunnel can be made from one of the smaller cuttings." "What good will that do?" "If I ain't mistaken we shall come out on the second level where it'll be no more than child's play to get the best of both crowds." "But suppose Wright has sent for soldiers? I heard he telegraphed to the governor." "We'll be in possession of the mine, an' I reckon they'll be willin' to make terms with us, for a regiment couldn' drive us out." "Well, what are you stoppin' here for?" "I want to see where that boy is. We mustn't lose him yet awhile." "He's in here." "An' I reckon he'll stay till we want him," Billings replied with a laugh, after apparently examining the bolt. Then the two men passed on, and Sam began his slow task again. Hope was strong in his breast, for he knew from the conversation that Fred had succeeded in warning the miners. He used the small blade, and it wore away so quickly that there could be no chance it would last to complete the work. "If I could get a purchase on the door it might be broken open now the bolt is cut so much," he said, looking around once more. Near the uprights was an extra piece of joist standing on end as if forming a portion of the side. The floor of the cutting was full of irregularities where the slate had been broken or taken out, and this gave him the opportunity to get the required purchase. With one end of the joist pressed firmly against a slight elevation, and the other on the doors just over the bolt, he clambered up until near the top, when all his weight and strength were brought into play. Once, twice, he swayed up and down, and then inch by inch the metal yielded until the heavy timbers swung outward, and he was free so far as liberty of movement in the drift was concerned. At the moment when he emerged there was no one in the passage, and he hurriedly re-closed the doors that his escape might not be discovered by those who should pass. After some difficulty he succeeded in pushing the broken piece of iron into the sockets in such a manner that a casual observer would hardly notice anything wrong, and then, extinguishing the light in his cap, he went swiftly toward the shaft, arriving there just as half a dozen men were on the point of descending. Crouching against the wall at one corner the new-comers failed to notice him; but it was impossible to ascend the rope ladder which had been let down, without attracting attention, because of the numbers who continued to arrive at irregular intervals. During an hour he waited, shrouded from view by the gloom, and then came the desired opportunity. Two men returned from the further end of the drift, and ascended the ladder. "I'll follow them and run the risk of being recognized," he said to himself, and suiting the action to the words he climbed the network of rope immediately behind the second rioter. It was twilight when he arrived at the surface, and Billings' forces were building a row of fires directly in front of the slope. To start toward the village immediately would be to take too many chances of detection, and Sam loitered on the outskirts of the crowd watching for the desired opportunity, which came when Fred left the slope to carry Donovan's message to Mr. Wright. Instantly the alarm was given Sam started in pursuit, accompanied by a dozen others, and only by outstripping the rioters could he hope to make his escape. Fred ran as he had never done before, with the howling mob at his heels, and foremost among them was Sam. Two men were in advance of the escaping prisoner; but by an apparent misstep while he ran alongside the second, the rioter was overturned, and but one remained; the others being so far in the rear as not to count in the chase. Fred glanced over his shoulder now and then; but the darkness prevented him from recognizing his friend until the latter deliberately threw himself in front of the pursuer, and a tumble was the result. "Keep on it's me--Sam!" the butty boy shouted, as he scrambled to his feet before the man had fully recovered his senses, and with a cry of glad surprise, Fred asked: "How did you get away?" "It's too long a story to tell now when we need all our breath. Are you trying to reach home?" "No; the store." "Then you know what Billings' crowd are intendin' to do." "Yes, and help is needed at once." Sam made no reply. Both the men he had over-thrown were on their feet again, and, with a dozen others, were close in the rear, making every effort to overtake the fugitives. The race was virtually won, however, unless other rioters were met on the road. The boys yet had thirty or forty yards the advantage, and before this could be overcome they were within sight of the store, from which, attracted by the shouts, came Mr. Wright and a number of employees. All of these latter were armed, and the pursuers halted at a respectful distance, while the boys dashed into the building breathless and nearly exhausted. It was several moments before Fred could repeat the message Donovan had sent, and this was hardly done when a message from the governor arrived, stating that no troops could be sent until the following day. "I'm afraid those at the mine will have to take care of themselves," Mr. Wright said, when he learned of the condition of affairs there. "If we should leave here, or even divide our force, the store as well as the offices might be sacked." "But the mine will be flooded if Billings succeeds with the tunnel." "It can't be helped now. We should need, at least, fifty men to effect an entrance, and eighteen is the full number who can be trusted." "Those who are there may be drowned." "There is no danger of that since all hands are on the alert for the first signs of trouble." "Then Sam and I may as well go home." "It would be a good idea to tell Brace that he must try to get here unobserved. The men already believe he is in town, and I am afraid they may discover his hiding place, when there's bound to be mischief done." Disheartened, because after incurring all the danger no real good had been done, Fred motioned to Sam, and left the store. The streets of the village presented an unusual appearance. Nearly every house was open and lighted as if for a general illumination, while the sidewalks were crowded with throngs of excited women and children. "This would be a good time for Skip to pay you off," Sam said, as they walked swiftly along. "While so much is goin' on they could do pretty near as they pleased without fear of being stopped." "What he might do seems to be of little consequence compared with the danger which threatens the poor fellows at the mine. If the lower level should be flooded while they were guarding the drift there's every chance all would be drowned." "It don't do to think of such things when there's nothing which can be done to help them. It might be worse, an' there's some comfort in that." "I fail to see anything very cheering in such an idea," Fred replied, and then the two were at Mrs. Byram's home. The door was locked; but the lightest of taps sufficed to attract the widow's attention, and the visitor received no less warm a reception than did the son. Brace was so impatient to learn what had been done by the rioters that he descended the stairs immediately upon hearing the boys' voices, and while Mrs. Byram prepared supper, Fred and Sam gave an account of their own adventures, as well as all which was known concerning the mob. "So I'm to sneak over to the store, eh?" the miner asked, as the recital was concluded. "That was what Mr. Wright said." "I'll do nothin' of the kind." "Why not?" "Because I've had enough of hidin' like a fellow who had done somethin' wrong." "But it isn't safe to show yourself." "I'll take the chances, an' see what Billings' gang can do." "Don't think of such a thing," Mrs. Byram cried in alarm. "You might be killed." "A fellow who has worked a matter of half a dozen years at Farley's can't be knocked out so easy." "Are you going into the street?" "Yes, an' to the mine if I take the notion." "What could you do alone against two or three hundred men?" "Show that there is one fellow who ain't afraid of the whole murderin' gang." "That would be the height of foolishness." "I can't help it," was the dogged reply, and Brace rose to his feet as if to leave the house. Both Sam and Fred sprang up to detain him; but before a word could be spoken by either, angry shouts and cries were heard in the distance. "They are up to fresh mischief," Sam exclaimed, as he cautiously pulled back the curtains to look out. "There are a dozen of the rioters on the sidewalk," he cried, "and they are evidently watching us." Brace ran to Sam's side, and the instant he showed himself some of the men shouted: "Here's the traitor! We've got him caged!" "String him up!" "Yank him out so's the bosses can see how we treat spies!" These cries were echoed by the body of men who were approaching on a run, and Mrs. Byram said, as she drew Brace from the window: "They have learned you are here, and in their mad excitement murder may be committed." Then came from the street as if to give emphasis to her words: "Hang him! Hang him! He's worse than the bosses!" "You must go to the store now," Sam cried. "What's the good? They will get in there as easily as here." "Mr. Wright and his men are well armed and can protect you." "There has been no shootin' done yet, an' I'll not be the cause of the first bullet. It is better to give myself up at once." "You shall not," and Sam clasped the miner around the waist. "Try the back door; it will be possible to give them the slip if you hurry." Brace hesitated a moment as if unwilling to display anything which might be mistaken for cowardice, and then Fred and Sam literally forced him toward the door. "While you run I will attract the attention of the men," Mrs. Byram said, as she showed herself at the window, and the miner sprang out at the very instant when half a dozen of the rioters entered the gate. "Tryin' to give us the slip, eh?" one of the party cried, as all rushed forward. It was too late for Brace to return; in a twinkling the men had surrounded him. Fred and Sam saw a short but sharp struggle, and before they could so much as make a move toward going to his assistance he was overpowered. Attracted by the cries of their companions, those at the front of the house came around swiftly, and Brace was half carried, half forced into the street. Mrs. Byram tried to plead with the mob; but they pushed her aside without ceremony as they shouted: "We'll show them at the store how we deal with spies and traitors." "We've got the rope and the sneak, now we only need two or three of the bosses to fix the thing up brown." "Do you suppose they really mean to hang him?" Fred asked in a tone of awe, and Sam replied sadly: "I'm afraid they will. Billings always was down on him, and the men are so excited as to hardly know what they are about, so anything is possible." CHAPTER X THE RESCUE The capture of Brace seemed to inflame the passions of the mob, and not even while the buildings were being sacked was the town in such a state of excitement. By the time the prisoner had reached the vacant lot in front of the store it appeared as if every man, woman, and child in the village were on the street. Sam and Fred felt impelled to follow the howling, shrieking mob, although it was not probable they could aid the unfortunate man, and both pressed as near as possible. "Billings' gang haven't got possession of the mine yet," Sam whispered. "How do you know?" "Because if that had happened we would see Bill Thomas or Donovan around here somewhere." "Perhaps they have been made prisoners." "It isn't likely. Even if they couldn't hold their own it would be possible to retreat in good order, armed as they were." "Don't you suppose Mr. Wright will try to do something if these fellows really mean to hang Brace?" "They are bound to help him; but I don't see what can be done against so many." Owing to the crowd around him it was impossible for the boys to see the prisoner. The men swayed to and fro as if fighting among themselves, and after a time the reason of these movements was made plain. Two long pieces of timber had been lashed together at one end, and set up like the letter V inverted. These were held in place by some of the mob, and drove through the fastenings at the top was a long rope. Billings was on hand acting as master of ceremonies, and when this portion of the work had been finished, he shouted: "Half a dozen of you take hold of the rope, an' when I count three, string him up." In an agony of apprehension Fred looked toward the store. No one appeared at the door; it seemed as if the bosses had abandoned Joe Brace. "Stand ready, boys!" Billings shouted. "We'll soon show 'em how we serve out spies." There was a moment of painful silence, during which more than one of the mob acted as if frightened because of the terrible crime about to be committed, and then an old miner cried: "Hold on! This thing has gone far enough!" "What do you mean?" Billings asked angrily. "Just this: I joined your crowd to stand up for my rights not to commit murder. There's been mischief done already, an' the most of us will be sorry when we've had time to think the matter over." "Hold your tongue and go home like the rest of the old women." "I'll stay where I am, an' you'll be the one to go home if the boys take my advice." Then continuing, the old man reminded the throng that he had worked at Farley's longer than the majority could remember. He spoke of the fact, that until this day, there had been no mob rule; intimated that they were blindly following one in whom very few ever reposed confidence, and asked if they were willing to hang a friend simply because Billings commanded it. The speech was a long one, and before twenty words were spoken as many determined-looking men gathered around Brace to prevent any harm from being done. "Don't listen to the old fool," Billings cried, in a voice hoarse with rage; but now very few paid any attention to him, and, when the prisoner's friend finished his appeal there was no danger a human life would be taken. Some of those who had been most eager to drag Brace away unloosened his bonds, and at least a hundred stood ready to defend him. At this juncture Mr. Wright came from the store, and the mob were in the proper frame of mind to listen. He explained the true condition of affairs, told exactly why the works had been shut down, and finished by promising to let the matter be forgotten, regardless of the amount of property destroyed, in case the mob should disperse. "And if we go home, what then?" Billings asked, sneeringly. "We'll starve to please you, eh?" "Those who attempted to flood the mine will not starve at Farley's, for all in the plot must leave. Not one of that party can work here; but the others shall be treated as before." "So we're to be driven out?" "Certainly. It isn't probable any honest miner would care to work with those who may succeed in drowning their fellows simply to gratify a spite against the officers of the company." "It will take more than you to drive us away." "I can at least prevent you from entering the mine, and that I shall do even if it is necessary to station guards entirely around the property. Are you willing to go home now, men, with the assurance that work shall be resumed in the morning." "Ay, that we are, an' glad of the chance. It was out of the fryin'-pan into the fire when we left one set of bosses to take up with Cale Billings an' his cronies," a miner shouted and immediately the mob dispersed, leaving the leaders standing in the lot, evidently consulting as to how their lost power might be regained. When Brace was at liberty he joined Sam and Fred, and the three walked to the latter's home, neither speaking until they were inside. "Do you think the strike is really over?" Mrs. Byram asked, after Fred told her of what had occurred. "It is so far as the majority of the miners are concerned," Brace replied; "but there's no telling what Billings may contrive to do between now and morning." "I suppose those men are still in the mine trying to overpower Donovan's party." "Most likely; but now that Wright has got the upper hand there's little chance they'll be allowed to stay very long." Despite the excitement on every hand the occupants of Mrs. Byram's cottage were glad to retire at the first opportunity, and before the tumult in the street had died away they sought the needed repose. It had been decided that Brace should remain for a while, since it might be dangerous to meet Billings and his friends while they were smarting under the sting of defeat. At the usual hour next morning the whistle sounded, summoning the miners to work, and every one responded save those who had been warned to leave the town. Mr. Wright was at the entrance to the slope, and had a pleasant greeting for each man and boy, causing more than one to look ashamed because of the part taken in the wanton destruction of his property. Joe Brace and Sam went into the drift, leaving Fred with Chunky, and that young fellow said, as he seated himself at the chute: "Things have been pretty lively 'round here, eh?" "I should say so. Were you out with the regulators?" "I saw 'em once or twice." "If you'll take my advice you'll leave that crowd. Skip Miller's as bad as Billings." "Don't speak so loud; he's lookin' over this way, an' may make things hot for you if much is said." "If he didn't do anything yesterday I guess he ain't dangerous." "He couldn't find you." "Then he was lookin' for me?" "That's what I heard some of the fellers say." "I should think he'd seen enough of such business; but if he hasn't I'll have to take care of myself." "Be careful," Chunky whispered. "He an' some of the other fellers think you are more of a spy than Joe Brace was." "And they mean to flog me for it?" "Skip says you told Mr. Wright about their droppin' you in the shaft." "Hadn't I the right to? Do you suppose I'll let them try to kill me, and never open my mouth about it?" "Well, it ain't safe, for he's got a big crowd." "Then he hasn't had enough of the riot?" "It ain't that; but he says the regulators have got to stand up for their rights, an' you haven't paid your footin' yet." "And I don't intend to. If any of them try to make me it'll go hard with them." At this point the machinery was started, the stream of coal and slate began to flow through the chute, and the breaker boys were forced to attend to their work. Several times during the morning Donovan spoke to Fred as he passed, and at twelve o'clock, when all hands were indulging in the forty minutes "nooning," and Chunky had crossed over to speak with Skip, the breaker boss ate his lunch by the new boy's side. "You didn't come back again last night," he said. "No, sir. After Brace got away from the mob he and Sam went home with me. We didn't think you'd need us when the trouble was nearly settled." "Neither did we. As soon as the men found their senses Mr. Wright brought a lot of them up here, an' we soon got rid of Billings' friends." "Had they begun to dig a tunnel?" "Bless you, yes, an' were within a dozen feet of Bill Thomas' party when we found them. If the row had lasted two hours longer we couldn't be workin' here to-day, an' some of the boys would be under water." "Do you think the whole matter is finished?" "Yes, so far as the majority of the men are concerned; but Billings swears he won't be driven out of town, an' he may manage to do more mischief." "Why don't Mr. Wright have him arrested?" "Because he gave his word that nothin' should be done to them as went home peaceably, an' he couldn't jump on Billings without bringing all hands into the scrape. 'Cordin' to my way of thinkin' we've got off cheap." "Was Mr. Wright's house damaged very much?" "It'll take a good many hundred dollars to put it in the same condition it was before; but money doesn't count when there's been no blood spilled." "Do you think there is any chance the men will try to hurt Brace now?" "That's hard to say. You're in as much danger as he is, for they know that you and Sam stood in with us, an' it's just possible some dirty trick will be played. You an' Bill Thomas' butty are to stop at the office to-night; Mr. Wright wants to see you." "What for?" "He'll have to explain that. It's time to go to work again; be careful of yourself." Donovan walked away as the whistle sounded, and Chunky came back looking very stern. "You'll get into more trouble by standin' in with the bosses," he said, in what sounded like a threatening tone. "Does Skip Miller think he can say who I shall talk with?" "Whether he does or not none of the fellers like bosses' pets." "Even if I was a 'pet,' as you call it, I can't see how it concerns any one but myself; almost anything is better than being a regulator." "I've told you what the fellers think, an' that ends it; look out for yourself after this." "I can't accuse you of ever looking out for me, not even when a hint might have saved me from a pounding." Chunky made no reply, and Fred understood that, although the riot was ended, his position in the community had not been bettered. One sample of mob rule evidently pleased the regulators, and they were prepared to assert their alleged rights more strongly than ever. When the day's work was finished Joe Brace and Sam came for Fred, and he walked out of the breaker in their company, while Skip and his adherents stood near the building ready to take advantage of the first opportunity for mischief. "Don't think we shan't get a whack at you," the leader cried. "Them fellers won't allers be 'round, an' when our time does come things'll be worse than they was in the shaft." "If I ever hear of your touchin' Fred I'll take a hand in the row myself," Brace said threateningly. "Oh, yes, you will," Skip replied with a leer, and then led his followers down the road, each one making some insulting remark as he passed. "I'll straighten that fellow out," Joe said angrily. "He's got the will to do most anything, an' we must take him down a peg before it'll be safe for you to move around." "Don't say anything to them, for it will only make matters worse. I'll see to it that they don't get another chance at me. Sam, Mr. Wright wants to see us at the store. Will you wait for us, Joe?" "Indeed, I will. Till things get settled I want to keep my eye on both you boys." The superintendent was in his office, at one end of the building, when the party entered, and he beckoned them to join him. "Don't hang back, Brace, for I wish to see you as well. I want to take your butty away, and give you Fred instead. How would you like that?" "First class, sir." "I wish to have a few whom I can trust, on the lower level. I don't ask for any spying: but expect to be informed if there is any serious mischief brewing. There may yet be some who will aid Billings to gain his revenge. Sam is to remain with Thomas; but will work near you." "Very well, sir," and Brace rose to go, thinking the interview was at an end; but Mr. Wright detained him. "The most important matter is concerning the old shaft and drifts, from which points very much mischief might be done. Sit down while we talk of it." At this moment Skip Miller entered unobserved by those in the office, and, seeing the occupants of the little room, made his way behind a pile of goods where he could hear very much of what the superintendent said. CHAPTER XI BILLINGS AND SKIP Joe Brace did not appear to think there was much to fear from the late rioters, so far as the possibility of their making an entrance through the old shaft was concerned. "This end of the gallery is pretty well filled up already," he said, "an' with a few loads of slate it can be shut off entirely, more especially after the doors are barred." "It is not from that portion of the mine that I apprehend any trouble. Look here," and Mr. Wright spread on the desk before him a plan of the workings. "At this point you can see that an old drift runs parallel with, and not more than three yards from our lower cut. The veins probably come together farther on." "It wouldn't take a man very long to work his way through," Joe said, reflectively. "And not knowing where an attempt may be made, it will be very difficult to prevent mischief." "Unless the old shaft should be guarded." "To do that we should be obliged to station men entirely around our works, for here is the abandoned slope, and farther down the hill two or three places where an entrance could be effected." "But Billings an' his crowd don't know all this." "Possibly not; yet there are many of the older men who could tell the story." Joe shook his head in perplexity. [Illustration: "You four are to act as sentinels," said the Superintendent. "Study this map and you will hit upon a scheme."] "I am not warranted in hiring a large force of men as guards," Mr. Wright continued, "and we must do that from the inside. You and Thomas, with these boys as helpers, shall work on the lower level, and I will take care that none but true men are near by." "How will that mend matters?" "You four are to act as sentinels. It makes little difference how many loads you take out, for the company will pay day wages." "Even then I don't see how we can do anything." "You and Thomas must form some plan. Study this map, and I am confident you will hit upon a scheme." "Is there any chance that the drift's choked with gas?" "Very little." Joe was thoroughly puzzled, and after several moments of silence Mr. Wright said: "Get your supper now, and then talk the matter over with Thomas." At this intimation that the interview was at an end, the miner left the office followed by the two boys, and when they were out of the store Skip Miller came from his hiding place without having been seen by the superintendent or his clerks. The leader of the regulators lounged carelessly toward the door until satisfied no one was paying any particular attention to him, when he stepped briskly out, and walked rapidly to a groggery situated at the farther end of the town. Here, as he had anticipated, was Cale Billings and a select party of friends, all of whom were discussing their late defeat. Skip did not care to state the reason for his coming in the presence of the entire party, and waited patiently in one corner of the room until it should be possible to beckon the leader out of doors. "Wright may think we're whipped," Billings was saying; "but that's where he makes a big mistake. He can't drive us out of this town, no matter how much he may blow, an' it won't be many days before we'll show what's what." "There's little chance for us the way things look now," one of the party said, with a laugh. "How do you know? The folks 'round here have seen what I can do, an' they'll soon find out that there's a good deal of fight left." As he said this Billings looked first at one and then another to note the effect of his bold words, and in doing so chanced to see Skip, who immediately made a series of what he intended should be mysterious gestures. "What's the matter with you?" the man asked, angrily; but instead of replying, Skip placed his finger on his lips and quickly left the room. It was several moments before the leader understood he was wanted, and when this fact dawned upon him he followed, meeting the boy a few yards from the entrance. "Was you cuttin' up them monkey shines for me?" he asked in a surly tone. "Of course." "Well, what's wanted?" "You jest said as how you'd like to get square with the company." "S'posen I did? Does that concern you?" "P'raps I heard somethin' 'round to the store you'd want to know." "Say, if you've got anything to tell, out with it, for I can't fool away my time with you." "First I've got a trade to make." "Talk quick." "Do you know the new breaker boy? The one what's so thick with Wright an' Joe Brace?" "Yes." "I want to get square with him, an' if you'll help me do it I'll tell what I heard a lot of 'em saying." "Was it anything I'd like to know?" "It'll show jest how you can get the best of the whole crowd." "Then I'll do what I can, an' be glad of the chance, 'cause I've got a little score to settle with him myself." Skip no longer hesitated; but repeated in detail all he had heard while hiding in the store, Billings listening with closest attention. "That's the best piece of news I've heard for a year, my boy," the latter said, "an' you sha'n't be the loser by tellin' me. If you've got the nerve to do a little work after everything is ready, both the breaker boss an' this new feller shall be where they can't help themselves." The leader of the regulators felt exceedingly proud that the rioter should ask him to participate in the plot, and promised, without the least show of hesitation, to do anything which might be required of him. "How long before you'll be ready?" he asked. "It may be a week; but you drop in here for a minute every evenin' so's I can talk about the thing if the plans don't work. There's no use to be in a hurry over sich a job as this." "I'll show up reg'lar," Skip cried gleefully, and then, as Billings re-entered the groggery, he hurried away to tell the good news to some of his chums. During this plotting Joe Brace and Bill Thomas were at Fred's home discussing the best means of following Mr. Wright's instructions. The plan of the works was studied carefully; but in it was found no solution to the problem, and when they retired that evening nothing definite had been decided upon. The night shift went to work as usual, and but for the evidences of wanton destruction a stranger would hardly have mistrusted that Farley's had lately been a scene of rioting. On the following morning Fred passed through the breaker to speak to Donovan before entering the slope, and Skip Miller displayed the greatest excitement on seeing him. "I don't know how it could have happened," the breaker boss said, "for I haven't told even my own wife that you was to be Joe's butty; but these young villains know all about it. I've heard Skip tellin' his cronies, an' I'm sure they're up to some mischief. Be careful, an' don't go outside alone, leastways, not till the business of the riot has blown over." "I'll look to it that they haven't a chance to do much harm," Fred replied, laughingly, as he passed on to learn the first duties of a miner. Joe, Bill, and Sam accompanied Fred to his new working place, and the former said as they were being let down the incline: "I hear Billings swears he won't leave town." "I passed him on my way home last night," Bill added, "and he warned me agin keepin' Sam as my butty." "Why?" "He says he is a spy, hand in glove with you, an' that all who work with them as give information to the bosses will catch it rough." Bill Thomas laughed as he said this; but Joe looked serious. "I don't like this way of working. The lower level is bad enough without thinkin' all the time that somebody is tryin' to do a fellow up." "Nonsense. Barkin' dogs don't often bite, an' so long as we know he means mischief there ain't much chance of trouble. The thing to be figgered out is, how're we goin' to fix this job?" Again the two men discussed the situation, walking along the drift with the plans before them, while the boys were forced to be content with listening to the conversation. It was finally decided that they should work here and there along the entire cut, trusting that it would be possible to hear if any one began to dig on the opposite side. "It's a case of keepin' quiet an' listenin' for suspicious sounds," Bill said. "We won't try to get out coal to-day, an', perhaps, by night Mr. Wright will have a better plan." "By watchin' Billings we could get some kind of an idea as to when he was likely to begin operations." "Donovan promised to see to that part of it." "Then we'll kinder lay 'round till we get the hang of the place. You boys go on to the end of the drift an' come back. Don't make any noise." The forenoon was spent in what was little more than patrol duty, and when Mr. Wright came below he approved of their plans. Nothing better was suggested, and until night-fall all four paced to and fro, the other miners having been withdrawn from the drift. When evening came Skip did not wait to see if Fred came out; but hurried off to the groggery where he was made happy by Billings' extreme friendliness. "The leader of the mob arose immediately upon seeing him, and led the way outside, saying when they were some distance from the building: "I've been thinkin' over what you told me, an' am certain we can work this thing all right." "When?" "In a day or two. If you could manage to get hold of that paper the job might be done in a jiffy." "But Joe an' Bill have got it." "S'posen they have. A smart lad like you oughter find some way to get at it, an' it would be worth your while to try." "It couldn't be done." "P'raps not by you; but I know of some, no older than you, who'd have it before morning. Of course, I don't blame a boy for not tryin' when he hasn't the nerve----" "See here," Skip cried, impatiently, "haven't I showed grit enough to do most anything?" "If you have, prove it by gettin' hold of that paper." "I can't see what you want it for?" "Because it shows us all the levels. With it we can tell jest where to begin work." "I'll make a try for it anyhow; but I can't figger any way to get at it." "Watch for a chance. They won't keep it in their hands all the time, and, by knockin' off work now an' then, loafin' 'round near where they are, you'll soon have your hands on it." "You won't go back on me if I get into trouble?" "Don't worry about that; I never shake a friend." With this assurance Skip walked away feeling very happy because of the manner in which Billings spoke; but sadly perplexed as to the best course to accomplish the desired end. CHAPTER XII A SINGULAR ACCIDENT Two trustworthy men had been selected from the night shift to keep guard on the lower level during the time between sunset and sunrise, and about an hour before the relieving whistle sounded, not having heard any suspicious noises, they lounged down toward the slope where the miners were at work. Here, paying but little attention to what was going on around them, they conversed with the laborers, or smoked pipes as black as their faces, in order to while away the moments which must elapse before the labor was ended. Men were passing and re-passing on every hand, and in the darkness no one saw a small figure, in whose cap the lamp was not lighted, run swiftly from the foot of the slope up the drift where the sentinels should have been. On either side of the passage shallow cuttings had been made that the miners might step aside to avoid the cars as they were drawn to and fro. Into one of these the figure with the unlighted cap glided, and, crouching in the farthest corner was screened from view unless a careful search should be made. When the day shift came on duty Chunky reported to the breaker boss that Skip Miller could not come to work on this day. "Why not?" Donovan asked sharply. "'Cause he's got to do somethin' at home. He told me to tell you." "When did you see him?" "Last night." "Where?" "Over by Taylor's." "What were you doin' at that grogshop?" "Nothin'. I was jest walkin' around, an' met him." "Look here, Chunky, it will be best for you to keep away from that place. No decent man or boy would go there, an' I'd be sorry to know you trained with the regulators. I've got my eye on them fellers, an' when trade is dull they'll be the first to get their walkin' papers." "If father don't care what I do, it ain't any business of yours, so long as I work from whistle to whistle." "That's very true; but I shall make it my business to see what your father has to say about it." This threat had the effect of checking the almost insolent air Chunky had begun to display, and he went to his place at the chute very meekly. While this brief conversation was being held Joe and Bill, with their helpers, entered the lower level where the careless sentinels reported matters as being quiet. "We haven't heard more'n a rat since you left," one of them said. "I don't believe Billings has got the nerve to try any funny business, an' in this case Mr. Wright is more frightened than hurt." "That's a good fault, matey," Bill replied gravely. "It's better to have half a dozen of us nosin' around for a week or two, than run the risk of what Cale an' his friends may do." "Oh, I ain't kickin'; but it don't seem reasonable they could get into the old drift, for it must be choked with gas." "By findin' that out we might save a good deal of work," Joe replied, quickly. "It wouldn't take long to cut through where the wall is thinnest." "You're right mate, an' we'll get at it now. Boys, go over to the blacksmith's for four shovels," Bill added as he pulled the plans from his pocket. Sam and Fred obeyed, and while they were absent the two men studied the drawing for at least the hundredth time. Save for those who were seated on a block of coal poring over the paper, the drift was deserted, and the one who had secreted himself in the cutting crept silently forward until it was possible to see what the miners were doing. As a matter of course this party was Skip Miller, and he said to himself, with a chuckle of satisfaction: "With all day before me it'll be queer if I can't get what Billings wants." When Sam and Fred returned Bill had decided at which point the excavation should be made, and he said, designating a spot hardly more than a dozen yards from where Skip was hidden: "If the plan is co'rect this oughter be our place. We'll try it anyhow. You boys tell one of the drivers to bring up a car, for we don't want to choke the drift with dirt." Then Bill stuck his pick in the wall, which was made up of earth and slate. Skip, who sat directly opposite, had a full view of all that was done. When the car had been brought into position Bill told Sam and Fred to shovel into it what he and Joe threw from the cutting, and soon all four were working industriously. Before the time for "nooning" arrived it became necessary to shore up the top of the tunnel lest the mass of earth should fall and bury the laborers, and when this was done both the men entered the excavation, which was now twelve feet in length. In this confined space the air was oppressively warm, and the miners threw off their blouses, leaving them in the drift near the entrance. Skip knew that in the pocket of the one worn by Bill was the paper he had been instructed to steal, and he watched eagerly for an opportunity to creep up unobserved. While Sam and Fred were at work it was impossible to do this; but the car had been nearly filled, and in a short time it would be necessary to get another. The men could no longer throw the dirt from where they were working to the entrance, and Fred had been ordered to stand midway the cutting that he might pass it on to Sam. "I'll run this car down, an' get another if you'll give me a lift at starting it," Sam finally shouted, and Fred came out. The incline was sufficient to carry the rude vehicle to the switches at the foot of the slope after it was once set in motion, and, using a crowbar as a lever, this was soon accomplished. Sam ran behind it a few paces, and then clambered up to the brake where he could control the movements of the heavy load. Fred watched him until the tiny flame in his cap was lost to view in the distance, and then he returned to the tunnel, unconscious that Skip had glided from his hiding-place to follow closely behind. It was necessary the leader of the regulators should work with the utmost celerity, for if Fred turned he would distinguish the dark form even in the gloom. Skip had already formed a plan. He crept close behind the boy whom he hated, until the latter entered the tunnel. Then stooping he picked up the crowbar, and raised it for a blow. In this position he waited until Fred was in the middle of the tunnel clambering over the pile of dirt to get at his shovel. The time had come. Swinging the heavy bar once around he struck the bottom of the joist which supported the shoring over head, and the heavy timbers, put up insecurely because they were to be used but temporarily, fell with a crash. The jar disturbed the earth at the top, and large masses fell, completely filling the entrance, burying alive those who were on the inside. "That settles them, I reckon," Skip cried, gleefully, as, unmindful of the blinding dust, he sprang toward Bill's blouse. To find the plan of the mine was but the work of a moment, and then, with the precious document thrust in the bosom of his shirt, he started at full speed toward the entrance to the slope. The crash of the timbers and earth was by no means an unusual sound in the mine, where heavy masses of coal were constantly being detached by blasts, and the leader of the regulators had good reason to believe it would be unnoticed. His only care was to avoid Sam, in case he should return sooner than might be expected, and to this end he darted from one cutting to another, until having reached a point from which, at the proper moment, he could gain the slope. Here he remained partially screened from view until the empty car, which Sam was to send to the new cutting, had passed on its way up the drift. Now he listened intently, and in a few moments came the cry: "A break! A break, and three men buried! Help on the lower level!" Those who were near enough to hear this appeal sent the alarm from drift to drift up the slope, until the entire mine seemed to be ringing with the words: "Help is needed on the lower level!" In view of all that happened, together with the knowledge that if any attack was made by the Billings' gang it would be on the lower level, every workman ran with all speed to the bottom of the slope, and among the foremost was Mr. Wright. "What has happened?" he asked of a blacksmith, who was darting toward the chamber in which the tools were stored. "Bill Thomas, Joe Brace, and a butty are buried in a cutting the fools were makin' up there a piece." "Go back," Mr. Wright cried to the swarm of men which came down the slope like a living stream. "Not more than twelve can work to advantage, and we have that number here." "But we want to do our share," an old miner replied. "You shall have a chance if we do not find them soon. It is not safe to have so many here at once." All hands understood the reason for this caution, and as the crowd turned to ascend Skip Miller slipped from his hiding place and joined them. He did not fear detection while every one was in such a state of excitement, and even if he should be recognized it would be only natural for him to have followed the men at the first alarm. It was necessary, however, that he should avoid Donovan, and with the utmost caution he emerged from the slope, running as fast as his legs would carry him on reaching the open air. Not until Taylor's groggery was near at hand did he slacken speed, and then, assuming as best he could an air of composure, he opened the door cautiously to peep in. Cale Billings was the only customer, and on seeing Skip, he cried: "Come in, lad. I reckon you're here to see me." Struggling hard to prevent his heavy breathing from being observed by the proprietor, the leader of the regulators entered, and whispered: "There's been an accident on the lower level, an' two or three shut in." "Explosion?" "The top of the cuttin' fell in, an' it won't be a easy job to dig em out." "Was you there?" Sam nodded his head in a triumphant manner. "You're a lad after my own heart," Billings said, approvingly, as he extended a huge, grimy hand for the boy to shake. "If half the men here had your spunk Wright wouldn't have got the best of us so easy. Did you fix that thing I told you about?" Skip nodded his head, and again Billings shook his hand. "That's what I call business. Let's have it." The leader of the regulators was about to draw the dearly-earned document from his pocket when the proprietor of the place interfered. "None of that," he said sharply. "There's somethin' goin' on what ain't straight, an' I won't have it in my shop." "Do you mean to go back on a friend?" Billings asked in an injured tone. "Not a bit of it; but the company are lookin' after you mighty sharp, Cale, an' I don't want to get in trouble. There's plenty room out of doors." "All right, the shop belongs to you; but it may be the losin' of a good customer," and Billings walked out with Skip close at his heels. "Now give me the paper." When the document was delivered the man glanced at it to make sure it was the one wanted, and then said in a fatherly tone: "I reckon you've fixed things to suit yourself if the new breaker boy was in the cuttin' when the roof fell." "They're diggin' for him now; but I'm goin' to get the worst of this job." "How so?" "Taylor will blow the whole thing, an' then Wright will know it was me." "Ain't I here to protect yer?" "Yes; but----" "Don't worry, my son. Go into the breaker as if nothin' had happened." "I can't 'cause I sent word I wouldn't come to-day." "Then keep out of sight till night, and meet me on the railroad track after dark. We'll have this job mighty nigh done before morning." Billings was walking toward the slope, and not daring to follow him any farther, Skip ran swiftly in the opposite direction, wondering where he could hide until sunset. For the first time he began to fear the consequences of his cruel deed, and the thought that the officers of the law might soon be in search of him was by no means reassuring. He sought the shelter of the thicket farther up the hill where a view of the slope could be had, and there he waited, expecting each moment to see lifeless bodies brought from the mine. CHAPTER XIII BURIED ALIVE At the moment when Skip Miller knocked away the joist which supported the timbers at the top of the tunnel, Fred had stooped to pick up his shovel, and this position saved him from being instantly killed. One end of the shoring plank was yet held by the upright placed in the center of the cutting, and it remained at an angle, although pinning him down, while the earth covered him completely. For a moment he was at a loss to know what had happened, and then he heard, as if from afar off, Joe calling him by name. "Here I am under the timber," he replied. "Are you hurt much?" "I think not; but I shall stifle to death if the dirt isn't taken away soon." "It ain't a sure thing that you won't stifle even then," he heard Bill say sharply. "Take hold, mate, an' let's get him from beneath while we have a chance to breathe." Then the grating of the shovels was distinguished, and pound by pound the weight was removed until nothing save the timber held him down. "Can you get out now?" Joe asked, and his voice sounded strangely indistinct. "Not till the joist is pulled away." "When that is done it's safe to say tons of the roof will follow," Bill muttered, and Joe asked: "Does it hurt you much, lad?" "The edges are cutting into my back terribly." "Grin an' bear it as long as you can. Our only chance for life is to break through the wall into the old tunnel; but if that timber is taken away it's good-bye for all hands." "Then don't bother about me. It's better one died than three." There was no reply to this. The men were digging at the barrier of earth with feverish energy, and each instant respiration became more difficult. The slight amount of air which filtered through the bank of slate and sand was no more than sufficient for one pair of lungs. The darkness was profound. The lamps had been extinguished by the shock, and five minutes later it was impossible to re-light them. The oxygen had become so nearly exhausted that a match would not burn. Fred bit his lips to prevent an outcry. The huge timber was crushing him slowly but surely, and the pain was intense. Each instant the blows of the men grew fainter. Strength and even the power of movement was rapidly succumbing to the noxious vapor. Joe was the first to give up, and as the pick fell from his nerveless hands he said faintly: "It's all over, lads. We might as well pull the timber from Fred, and die at the same moment." "Don't weaken, mate," Bill said, imploringly. "Who knows but we're within a few inches of the other drift." "Even if that's true, the chances are we'll be stifled by the gas." "The alarm may be given in time to save us from the entrance." "Sam can't have come back yet, an' before any one knows what has happened we shall be dead." Joe had lost all courage and the apathy of despair was upon him. His words robbed Fred of the last hope, and as it fled consciousness deserted him. Bill delivered a few more feeble blows with the pick, and then he in turn sank to the ground. The hand of death was very nearly upon them, and the agonies of dissolution already passed. Within a few feet of where the unconscious men lay, willing hands were working at the obstruction. No more than three could labor at once, but these were relieved every two minutes, in order that their energy might not be impaired by weariness, and meanwhile others shoveled the slate and earth into cars, that the drift might be kept clear. Mr. Wright personally assisted in the labor, and it was he who began the cheering which ensued when an aperture was made in the barrier. "At it with a will, boys," he shouted, "but be careful about removing the timber, for some of the poor fellows may be beneath it." The foul air rushing out nearly overcame the laborers, but the eager rescuers heeded not their own peril, and the moment finally came when the unconscious ones were fully exposed to view. "Pass out the men, and then dig beneath the boy; he must be released in that manner, otherwise we may all share their fate," and Mr. Wright shoveled the earth carefully away from Fred, while the others carried Joe and Bill into the drift. From his place of concealment on the hillside Skip Miller saw a party of men come out of the slope bearing an ominous looking burden. "One of them is dead," he whispered to himself, as his face paled. Then came another party, and a few seconds later the third, each carrying a similar load, marched down the road leading to the village. The sight nearly overpowered Skip; he shook as if in an ague fit, and after staring at the sad spectacle until the men had passed from view, he turned and ran through the grove, believing the officers were close upon him. The news that two miners and a boy had probably been killed spread through the village rapidly, and Cale Billings was in Taylor's groggery when one of the late rioters brought the intelligence. "It's a wonder they don't accuse us of havin' somethin' to do with the accident," the newcomer added, and the proprietor said sternly: "I don't want to drive customers away, but if any who come here have had a hand in murder, they'd better not show their heads 'round this place again." Billings looked disturbed, but made no reply. Although having had no direct share in the crime, he knew he was really an accomplice, and the knowledge that Taylor might inform against him was by no means pleasant. It was eight o'clock in the evening when Skip ventured to come down from the hillside, and he looked like a boy who had been very ill. Even at this late hour he did not dare to walk through the village, but skulked around the outskirts until he saw Chunky, whom he hailed in a whisper. "Where have you been?" Fred's chute mate asked in surprise. "I had some work on the other side of the hill." "Have you been there all day?" "Yes. Jest got back. Are those fellows dead!" Ordinarily Chunky was not quick to arrive at conclusions, but now he asked in a suspicious tone: "How did you know anything about it if you've jest got back?" "Oh, I heard from some of the fellows." "Who?" "Never mind," and Skip spoke sharply. "Did they all get killed?" "None of 'em; but the doctor says Fred won't be over it for three or four days. Joe an' Bill are both in bed, though they'll be out in the morning." "Does Wright know who did it?" "Did what?" "Why, knock--whatever was done." "I thought the roof of a cuttin' fell in 'cause it wasn't shored up enough." "I s'pose that was the reason," Skip replied in a nervous way. "It seems to me you know more about this thing than anybody else." "You'd better not say that again," and Skip stepped forward a few paces with clenched fists. "You can get the best of me, so I'll have to hold my tongue; but I reckon I've had all I want of the regulators. Tryin' to kill a feller who never did much of anything to you is a mean trick." "Shut up or I'll knock your head off. You can't back out of our s'ciety, an' if you ever say I tried to kill anybody I'll pound you till there won't be an inch of skin left." Chunky did not wait to hear more. He started at full speed toward his own home, and Skip was more alarmed than before. "Now I'm in a worse scrape than ever, for he's jest fool enough to tell what he knows, an' then there will be trouble. I'd better go to meet Billings, an' perhaps he can help me out." He could reach the rendezvous without going through the village, and greatly to his relief the leader of the rioters was waiting to receive him. "Now this is somethin' like business," and Billings patted the boy on the head. Skip stepped back; the touch of the man's hand now, when through him he had gotten into so much trouble, was disagreeable. "What am I to do?" he asked fiercely. "Help me finish what you've begun." "I won't do it. They'll have me arrested, an' you must get me through the scrape." "So I will after I've served the company out. We'll go off somewhere together." "And I'm to leave home?" "There's nothin' for it if Wright gets the idea that you knocked the timber away." "If he doesn't know it already there are them who will tell him. Chunky thinks I did somethin' to help the thing along." "He does, eh?" and now Billings began to look disturbed. "Is he likely to go to any of the bosses?" "He might tell some one else who would do it." "That's true. What with him an' Taylor, things begin to seem kinder scarey for me." "I'm in worse trouble." "You're right, an' that shows we two must keep together." "But I don't want to leave home." "You can't help yourself. Once in the scrape, it's bad to back out." Skip had good evidence that the way of the transgressor is hard. He felt a decided repugnance to becoming Billings' constant companion, but he dared not go home, and it seemed as if there was no other course left open. "It won't do to stay here very long, for folks might see us, and it wouldn't be hard to guess we were up to mischief. Will you go with me, or take the chances of bein' arrested?" "I'll have to do what you say," Skip replied with a groan, and Billings started straight across the hill toward the abandoned shaft. "Where are you going?" "We'll hide for a while. It ain't safe to loaf 'round here much longer. Here's a dollar. Go to Taylor's an' get somethin' to eat. Tell him I want cooked food, 'cause I'm bound on a tramp." "I don't dare show up there." "Move on, or I'll break every bone in your body! You've got to toe the mark now if you don't want to go to jail." Billings used the tone of a master, and Skip understood that his crime had brought him to slavery of the most degrading kind. The groggery was filled with men when he arrived, and in the number he found safety. All were excitedly discussing the accident, some intimating that Billings had a hand in it, and no one paid any particular attention to the frightened boy who crept cautiously in, as if to avoid being seen. "Wants grub, eh?" Taylor asked, when Skip made known his errand. "What's he up to? Afraid they'll nab him for what was done to-day?" "I don't know." "Now, look here, Skip Miller, I ain't got any too much love for you, but it don't seem right to let a boy go on as you've begun. Go home now, an' leave Billings to take care of his own business." "If I don't carry back the stuff he'll say I stole his money." "Well, take the grub, an' then get back as soon as you know how." "All right," Skip replied meekly. "If you're not home in half an hour I'll see your father to-night." "I wish I dared to go," Skip said to himself as he hurried away with the bundle. "Workin' in the breaker ain't a marker to what it'll be runnin' around with Cale Billings." CHAPTER XIV PRECAUTIONS Not until two days had elapsed were the victims of the "accident" able to leave their rooms, and then they met Sam and Mr. Wright at Mrs. Byram's home. "We'll be ready for work in the morning," Bill said in reply to the superintendent's inquiries. "What troubles me is that I've lost the plan of the old mine. It was in my blouse when the timber fell, an'----" "How that joist could have got away without some one to help it is what worries me," Joe interrupted. "I set it, an' know the weight from above could not have any effect." "There is no chance of foul play. The level has been guarded night and day, therefore, unless our trusted men are at fault, it was purely an accident." "I'm not sayin' it wasn't; but yet the whole business looks queer," and with this remark Joe dismissed the subject from his mind. Mr. Wright had come to learn when the guardians of the level would be ready to return to duty, and Bill's answer sufficed. "The men who have been there during the past twenty-four hours shall be given other work in the morning, and once more I can rely on you. Thus far nothing suspicious has been seen or heard," he said, "and I begin to believe Billings has given up his thoughts of revenge. The only strange thing is that Miller's boy has disappeared, and his father can think of no reason why he should run away." "Farley's won't be the loser if he never comes back," Joe replied. "That boy is a bad one, an' it wouldn't take much to make me believe he an' Billings are firm friends." "There is no necessity of talking about him; we are not afraid of boys. The question is whether we are warranted in guarding the lower level much longer." "That's for you to say, sir. We had rather be at our regular work." "Well, we'll try it a day or two more. Perhaps you'd better break through into the old drift, and then we shall know whether it is possible for evil-disposed persons to find a hiding place there." This closed the interview so far as Mr. Wright was concerned, and on his leaving the house the others discussed the work to be done the following day; but Skip Miller's disappearance had little place in the conversation. Bill mourned the loss of the plan, which was supposed to be the only guide to the old mine, but Joe did not think it was of such very great importance. "All we care to know is whether the air's foul, an', of course, the best way is to finish the tunnel which came so near finishin' us. That work can be done without any guide." "But we may want to follow up the drift, which will be a long job if we have to go on blindly." "There's no use fussin' over what can't be helped. The paper got trampled into the dirt, most likely, otherwise them as have been lookin' would 'a found it before this." "I don't feel like givin' over the search so easy; s'pose we four have a reg'lar hunt in the morning?" "Sam and I will go now," Fred said. "We shall feel better for a little exercise after being cooped up in the house so long." "Very well. Take a turn at it this afternoon, an' if you don't succeed Joe an' I'll try to-night." The boys set off without delay, but they were a long while reaching the slope, for every person on the street thought it necessary to congratulate them upon having escaped a terrible death, and at the breaker Donovan delayed the search by making minute inquiries as to the condition of affairs in the drift just prior to the accident. "Any one would think from all these questions that you believed somebody was responsible for the trouble," Sam said with a laugh. "P'rhaps I do. Billings an' Skip Miller disappeared on the same day, an' that looks suspicious to me, though Mr. Wright won't listen to anything of the kind." "It's a big satisfaction to know they have left," Fred added, "and we have gotten rid of them cheaply. Do you know where they went?" "Out of the village somewhere; Harvey saw them walking up the track." "Then we can reckon that there'll be no more mischief done for a while. Come on, Fred, let's get down the slope." The boys left the breaker without noticing that Chunky was trying to attract their attention, and were soon in the lower level making a systematic search. Shoveling over the loose dirt along the track, they continued on until the cutting which had so nearly been a grave for Fred was passed, and then Sam said as he halted: "It's no use to hunt here. It couldn't have got up this way." "The draught may have carried it quite a distance." "There isn't air enough stirrin' to move it a foot; but it won't do much harm to look." They were nearly at the chamber where Sam was taken prisoner before Fred abandoned the hunt, and as he turned to retrace his steps both came to a sudden halt. As if from beneath their feet arose a muffled cry of distress. The boys looked at each other in alarm, and as they stood motionless the mysterious sound was repeated. "What can it mean?" Fred asked in a whisper. "That's more'n I can tell. There's no drift below this." "That was surely a human being, and in trouble of some kind." "Perhaps the cry comes from the end of the drift which has been closed." "It sounds under the ground right here," and Fred stamped with his foot just as the noise was heard for the third time. "There's no question about it's being a man. Come on; let's bring some of the miners to help find him." The boys ran down the drift at full speed, and half an hour later returned with two of the miners. "It was right here that we heard it," Sam said, as he pointed to the shovels they had left behind, in order to mark the spot. The party listened intently, but no sound save their own breathing could be distinguished. "I thought you'd been frightened about nothing," one of the miners said with a laugh. "You might as well tell us the mine was haunted as to give out such a yarn. I'll guarantee that nothin' larger'n a mouse could hide here." "But we surely heard a cry," Fred insisted. "And it seemed to come from beneath our feet." "Nonsense. It's foolish to make such talk when we know the thing's impossible," and the men turned away as if angry at having been brought so far on a useless errand. "We know whether----" Sam ceased speaking very suddenly, for at that moment the sound of distress came with great distinctness. The men looked around, each trying to hide his fear, and then a regular search was begun. The noise could not have come from the old drift, and the level was examined thoroughly, but without success. "It beats me," one of the miners said at length. "I'm sure there's nothing beneath here but the solid earth." "Let the boys tell Wright," the other suggested, and his companion assented. "We'll hang around here till he comes or you get back; but don't stay very long, for I don't like the looks of things." "Why not?" "It may be a warnin' for some of us. I've heard tell of such." Fred laughed heartily, and the man replied impatiently: "When you've been in a mine as long as I have, you won't think there's any fun to be made of warnin's. Before the explosion of fire damp in the old workings, I've been told the miners heard all kinds of queer noises." "Go on," the second man said fretfully, "an' don't waste time chinnin' here when p'rhaps we oughter be gettin' out to save our lives." The boys started, feeling a trifle disturbed because of the unexplainable cries, and arrived at the store as the whistle sounded for the night shift to begin work. The superintendent was surprised by the information brought, and insisted, as had the miners, that the sounds could not have been made by a human being. "I will go down the slope at once, however," he said, and the boys accompanied him on what proved to be a useless errand. Every portion of the lower level was searched. A party descended the old shaft, traversing the abandoned passages to the chamber connecting with the new portion of the workings, but nowhere could be seen any signs of life. Joe and Bill, alarmed because the boys had not returned, came to look for them in time to join the exploring parties, and the latter was decidedly uneasy when Mr. Wright ordered the useless labor to be stopped. He, in common with several others, believed the mysterious noises to be warnings, and there was every evidence of a panic until Mr. Wright spoke at considerable length on the subject, intimating that the cries were due to natural causes. Then those who were off duty went home, and among them were Joe, Bill, and their helpers. These last discussed the subject without arriving at any definite conclusion when the time to separate arrived. On the following morning work was resumed in the cutting. The loose earth having been cleared away, a reasonably solid roof was put up, and once more the tunneling operations were pushed forward vigorously. All hands were on the alert for a repetition of the mysterious cries, but nothing was heard save the noise of the picks and shovels, with now and then a muffled crash as fragments of the vein were detached by blasts. During the "nooning" lunch was eaten in the cutting, and while they were sitting quiet a singular vibration of the earth could be felt. "It seems as if some one was digging directly beneath us," Fred said, when the little party ceased eating to gaze at each other in surprise. "Most likely there's a line of slate just under our feet, an' brings the sound from the other drift," Joe replied promptly. "That's about the size of it," Bill added; but the boys noticed that both the men listened from time to time as if in great perplexity. The peculiar tapping continued without interruption, and before the time of rest had more than half expired Joe said, as he arose to his feet: "Come on, lads. We're close to the old drift, an' after that's been opened we'll have another look around, for I want to find out what these queer noises mean." Each one worked with the utmost rapidity, and when another hour had been spent Bill's pick broke through the barrier of earth. "That ends the job, an' now to see how the air is." The miner had hardly ceased speaking when a huge volume of gas burst through the aperture, nearly suffocating the party and extinguishing the lamps instantly. "Jump to it lively, boys!" Joe cried hoarsely, as he began shoveling back the earth. "When you can't work any longer get a breath of fresh air in the drift." There was every danger that the lower level might be so filled with the noxious vapor as to cause an explosion, and both men and boys labored manfully. All were working blindly, but the general direction of the aperture was known, and the greater portion of the earth could be thrown with a fair degree of accuracy. Ten minutes passed and the flow of foul air was partially checked. Twice had each person been forced to retreat to the main drift, and Fred was about to go for the third time when it seemed as if the flooring of dirt gave way beneath his feet. Half suffocated by the gas, and overwhelmed by the falling fragments, he hardly realized what had occurred until finding himself in what was unmistakably another and yet lower tunnel or drift. CHAPTER XV A DISCOVERY After the first alarm passed away, Fred understood that he had fallen but a few yards, and the earth which covered him represented only a very small portion of the upper tunnel's floor. Scrambling to his feet he fancied for a moment that the sound of scurrying footsteps could be heard, and while listening, Joe said: "Hello! Are you hurt?" "Not a bit." "Where are you?" "It seems like a regular cutting, and the air is pure." "Light your lamp an' look around." Obeying this command, Fred found his suspicions correct, and so reported. "Can you get back?" "Not unless you pull me up." "We'll attend to that in a minute." The rush of air from below had so far checked the gas, now partially shut off, that the men could also light the lamps in their caps, and the remainder of the task was quickly accomplished. With a couple of timbers as braces the aperture to the old mine was closed securely, and then the attention of the men was turned to the boy. "Look out down there!" Bill shouted. "I'm goin' to drop a couple of joists so's we can come back." "Let them go." "Now drag 'em out of the way, an' we'll follow." When this had been done the men and Sam descended, all completely mystified by this new discovery. "Here's somethin' that I reckon Mr. Wright didn't know about," Bill said, as he surveyed the scene, and then he added with great emphasis as a sudden thought occurred to him. "Now we can come pretty nigh guessing what them noises meant. Some one has been tryin' to get into the other level, an' when a big hole was made Fred put an end to the work by fallin' through." This could be told by the mound of earth a short distance away, as well as by the marks of a pick around the edges of the aperture; but further proof was found in the shape of a shovel which Sam stumbled over. "This belongs to the company," he cried, pointing to the brand. "Yes, an' a blind man can figger who's been here. Cale Billings didn't leave town as he tried to make folks believe." "Then let's have him. This cuttin' can't be so long but that we'll get all over it before sunset," Joe cried, as he wrenched the shovel handle from the iron work to serve as a weapon. "I thought I heard somebody running in that direction when I first fell," Fred said, pointing toward the quarter in which it was reasonable to suppose the old shaft might be found. Joe led the way, the others following close behind until, when half a mile had been traversed, they arrived at two slopes or inclined tunnels, running at right angles from the level. "It won't do to pass these," Bill cried. "We'll take one, while the boys search out the other." He darted into the right-hand opening as he spoke; but returned before Joe could join him, saying: "That was a false cutting. It only runs a dozen yards, an' there's nothin' in it. Sam, you an' Fred look into the other one while we keep on." The idea of coming upon Cale Billings while they were unarmed was not a pleasant idea for the boys; but they would have braved considerably greater danger rather than show signs of fear, and both obeyed promptly. This slope ran at an inclination of nearly forty-five degrees for about fifty yards when it turned sharply to the right, terminating in a small chamber where the vein had probably came to an end. As Sam and Fred entered the place a figure darted from one corner and attempted to rush past them; but the flight was checked very suddenly. "Why it's Skip Miller!" Sam cried, as he lowered his lamp that the rays might fall upon the prisoner's face. "Yes, it's me," Skip said, piteously. "Please don't drag me off." [Illustration: "Please don't drag me off," Skip said, piteously. "I'll never hurt you or anybody else again."] "How did you come here?" "With Billings; he made me do jest what he said, an' I didn't dare to show up in town." "Why not?" "'Cause I knew Mr. Wright would have me 'rested on account of pretty nigh killin' you." "What?" Fred cried, in surprise. "Then it wasn't an accident?" Skip literally groveled on the ground in his fear. He understood now that his share in that business had not been known until he himself betrayed the fact. "Don't lug me off," he screamed. "I'd have to go to jail." "You wouldn't so long as we kept the thing a secret," Fred replied, with a feeling of mingled pity and contempt because of the abject terror displayed. "We must take you with us; but needn't tell about your villainy." "Then father would just about beat me to death for runnin' away. Why not let me stay here? I'll never hurt you or anybody else again." Although Skip had tried to kill them, the boys felt a certain sense of aversion to dragging him away while he pleaded so piteously, and in order to gain time in which to think the matter over, Sam said: "Tell us how you got into the lower level." In a faltering voice Skip gave a truthful account of all his movements on that particular day. "Have you been here ever since?" "Yes." "And Billings, too?" "He went out twice for whisky an' some water." "What have you been doing?" "Billings made me dig an' shovel all day, an' most of the night." "Trying to get into the lower level, eh?" "Yes, an' when I got played out he pretty near pounded my head off." "I reckon we heard you yelling. Where is Billings now?" "He ran ahead of me when the earth began to cave in, an' that's the last I've seen of him. Say, it won't hurt you a bit to let me stay here, an' I'll do the square thing if I ever get out of the scrape." "You'd starve to death." "I'd rather take the chances of that than go to jail, or let father get hold of me." "But what good will it be to stay here?" Fred asked. "Hiding won't mend matters, and you'll have to come out some time." "That may be; but I don't want to go now," and once more Skip fell on his knees in front of those whom he had wronged. "What do you think about it, Fred?" Sam asked, in a whisper. "I don't like to yank him out, no matter what he tried to do to me." "Nor I." "Then why not let him stay? He'll get punishment enough by hiding here alone in the darkness with nothing to eat." "But we shall have to give him a little grub. We can't think he's hungry when we're got plenty." "I'll agree to whatever you say." Sam was silent for a moment, and then turning to the kneeling boy, he asked: "Could you find your way out of here?" "I might if I had a lamp; but the oil has all been burned in mine." "How long do you count on staying?" "Jest as many days as I can." "Well, see here, we're going off, an' leave you to take the dose in your own way; but it's on the agreement that you try to be a decent fellow after gettin' out." "I'll promise anything, an' won't so much as say the name regulators agin." "If it's possible, Fred an' I'll bring you some grub; but you mustn't count on it." "Don't take any risks," Skip replied, humbly. "I can live on wind a couple of days if that villain of a Billings don't come back." "You needn't worry about that. If he went up the drift Bill an' Joe will most likely nab him. Come, Fred, we mustn't stay any longer, or they'll think something is wrong." As the boys turned to go Skip tried to thank them for the mercy shown; but did not make a great success at it. He had been literally trembling with fear, and now his gratitude rendered him almost incapable of speech. "That's all right, Skip. We'll see whether you mean it or not after you get out." "I'll be square as a brick if I ever get through with this scrape," he replied, and then as the boys turned the angle of the slope he was hidden from view in the darkness. "I don't know as we're actin' very sensible," Sam said, slowly, when they were in the drift once more; "but it's better than draggin' the poor beggar off to be arrested." "A good idea, Sam, and I'm sure Skip will be a decent fellow after this. We must try to get back here to-night with food and oil." "Unless Joe and Bill keep us at work we'll have plenty of time, for--hello! Here they come now!" The two miners could be seen in the distance, or, rather, the light of their lamps was visible, and when they were within speaking distance, Fred asked: "Did you find him?" "No; we've followed up the drift as far as we dared, an' are now goin' back to see if any of the day crew know these old works. Where did that slope lead to?" "It ends about fifty yards from here." "Didn't see anything of the villains, eh?" "Billings isn't there, that's certain," Fred replied after a brief hesitation. The men did not appear to notice the equivocal answer, and Bill suggested that they return to the workings without further delay. "We'll have a guard set at the shaft, so he can't give us the slip in that way, an' if any of the boys know these drifts it won't be a long job to smoke him out." "He may get off before we can reach the top of the slope," Fred suggested, hoping by this means to prevent the conversation from reverting to their long delay. "Then so much the better, lad," Bill replied, in a tone of satisfaction. "All we want is to be rid of such trash, an' if he leaves town that's enough." If at this moment either of the party had turned it would not have been difficult to distinguish even in the gloom the form of Cale Billings, as he followed ready to work further mischief, or escape as might be most convenient. Unsuspicious of the nearness of their enemy, the little party continued on to the hole through which Fred had fallen, and as they clambered up the joists the leader of the rioters muttered: "Don't think you can smoke me out so easy. I'll leave my mark on this mine before bein' run down, or know the reason why." Neither Sam nor Fred gave so much as a passing thought to the man who was responsible for all the damage which had been done; they were so engrossed with the desire to aid Skip without being discovered by those who might call him to an account for his crime that all else seemed as trifles. "I'll tell mother, and she will cook for us what may be needed," Fred whispered, after they were in the lower level walking rapidly toward the slope. "That part of it don't trouble me so much as how we're to come back to the mine without bein' seen by some of the men," Sam replied, and, turning sharply Bill asked: "What are you fellers chinnin' about?" "There's no harm in talkin', eh?" and Sam assumed an air of impudence such as the men had never seen before. "I don't reckon there is, lad; but seein' as how we've hung together so long, it wasn't strange to ask." "I didn't mean to be too fresh, Bill," Sam replied, understanding that he had spoken in a disagreeable manner. "Fred and I were only figuring about coming back to make sure Billings didn't get into the level while you were outside." "That part of it can be fixed easy. Joe shall go to the store while I see if anybody here knows about the old drift, and with three on guard I don't reckon he can do much mischief." "Then you can stay with him while I run home for some provisions," Fred whispered, and during this conversation Cale Billings was clambering up the joist which led to the last level. CHAPTER XVI GOOD SAMARITANS Knowing that Joe and Bill were in Mr. Wright's confidence Donovan had no hesitation about placing guards as desired, and immediately after they ascended from the slope every exit was closely watched. "Now you boys can see we've fixed things in proper shape," Bill said, in a tone of triumph. "Do whatever you choose until to-morrow, an' Joe an' me'll attend to Mr. Billings' case." "But he might get into the lower level by the same way we did," Sam ventured to suggest. "There are plenty below to take care of that." "Then there's no reason why we should come back?" "Not unless you want to see the game played out." "We'll run down to Fred's house, and then have a look at the place where he went through." "Suit yourselves about that," was the careless reply, as Bill started toward the store to confer with the superintendent. "Now is our chance," Sam whispered. "It won't take us more than ten minutes to run over to your house, and we can get back before Bill comes." Fred started at a rapid pace, and by the time the miners had finished telling their story to Mr. Wright, Mrs. Byram knew of the interview with Skip. "Of course I will give you some food," she said, readily. "It may prove to be the best possible thing for him that he should be so thoroughly frightened. Can you carry oil enough in a bottle?" "As much as will be needed until to-morrow. It won't do any harm if he scrapes along on short rations for a while," Sam replied, with a laugh. "The only thing is to get him something before Joe an' Bill go back." A generous package of food, a small quantity of oil, the whole in a paper parcel, and the good samaritans started for the slope once more, noting with satisfaction as they passed that the miners had not yet left the store. No particular attention was paid to them as they entered the slope, and screening the package as much as possible from view, the boys went with all speed to the repentant regulator's hiding place. So far as could be seen, the cutting through which Fred had fallen remained as when they ascended, and after letting themselves down this the task was well nigh accomplished. Skip was most extravagant in his demonstrations of gratitude when they entered the chamber and displayed the supplies. "It'll take me a mighty long while to straighten this thing up; but I'll do it somehow," he said, and Sam replied, roughly: "We'll talk about that later. Jest now there's a chance others will find out where you are, for Joe and Bill have gone after men to help search for Billings." "Then they didn't find him?" "No." "I reckon he has gone to Taylor's." "That won't do him much good unless he walks out of town, for now it is known he's near by, all hands are bound to hunt him down." "Then they'll be sure to find me." "We'll hold on in the old drift till they get back, an' try to prevent them from coming up here by saying we've searched this slope," Fred said, after a moment's thought. "That's the only way I know of to keep the secret." "It won't do any harm to make the attempt," Sam added. "Don't light your lamp, and keep perfectly quiet." Skip retreated once more to the farther corner of the chamber, and the boys walked slowly down to the drift, halting a short distance from the mouth of the slope as Sam picked up a shovel. "Here's another tool belonging to the company. It must have been thrown away by Billings or Skip when you dropped on their heads." "Keep it to show we've been hunting; it can't be long now before the men come, and we'll need some good excuse for loafing here." "Let's sit down till we hear them. I'm tired enough to want a rest." Seated on the decaying timbers of the car track the boys discussed in whispers the possibility of aiding Skip to escape from his unenviable position, with never a thought of the deed with which Billings was to crown his villainous career. The leader of the mob had immediately begun to look about for a chance to wreak his vengeance on the company, when Joe and Bill with their helpers left the level, and he was yet at the farther end of the passage when the boys returned with supplies for Skip. Their desire to avoid attracting the attention of the workmen caused them to move noiselessly, consequently he was ignorant of the fact that they were in the mine. It was hardly five minutes after they descended to the old drift when he came back to the cutting, and the odor of gas brought him to a stop. "Them fools broke through after all," he said, examining the earth piled up at one end, "an' I reckon they found out it wasn't safe to work much farther on that course." One of the shovels was standing against the side of the excavation, and with this he dug a portion of the dirt from the hole made by Bill's pick. The foul air rushed through with such force as to nearly suffocate him; but instead of being disappointed he appeared overjoyed. "I couldn't a' fixed things better in a week's solid work, an' I'll take the chances of gettin' out." Enlarging the aperture by pushing the earth through between the braces while he covered his mouth and nose with his blouse, he crept back to the drift, unfastened his cap-lamp, removed the safety screen, and placed the light in the passage after raising the wick a trifle. Just as these preparations had been completed the faint sound of the whistle could be heard from above. "It's astonishin' what luck I'm having," he muttered. "I can get out while the day shift are leavin', an' ten minutes will be enough to fill this level so full of gas that no power can prevent an explosion." The air was heavy with the noxious vapor as he went rapidly toward the slope up which crowds of miners were passing, and as some of the men loitered behind the others it became necessary he should hide in the drift to escape detection. "Why don't the fools move faster," he said, in a hoarse whisper. "It can't be many seconds before the thing comes, an' there'll be no chance for me. There'd be a lynchin' sure if I should show up jest ahead of an explosion." Big drops of perspiration stood on his brow as he realized that the trap he had set for others might close upon himself, and for an instant he resolved to run back and extinguish the lamp. "It won't do," he said, half turning and then moving nearer the slope. "There's gas enough in the drift to choke me before I'd get ten yards. Why don't the idiots move faster!" Only the absolute conviction that he would be lynched if caught at such a time prevented Billings from rushing out. Each second the vapor became denser, and he wondered why the miners did not perceive it. The catastrophe must be very near at hand, and he was exposed to the greatest danger. When it seemed as if an hour had passed, the last man went up the slope, and he started at full speed to gain a higher level. The incline was almost reached; half a dozen steps more and he would be partially sheltered by the jutting point of slate. "Luck is still with me," he cried, so loud that those above must have heard him, and at that instant the earth seemed to rock to and fro; there was a flash of blinding light, and the air was filled with flying fragments. Where had been the lower level was now an apparently solid mass of earth, coal, and slate, covering the body of him who had wreaked his vengeance upon the company. Joe and Bill were returning from the store when the noise of the explosion was heard, and they, as well as everyone in the vicinity, knew from sad experience what had occurred. "We're responsible for this!" Bill cried, his face paling. "The gas has burst through from the old drift." "Thank God it came when most of the poor fellows were quittin' work," and Joe started on a run, followed by every person in the village. At the mouth of the slope a vast crowd had gathered. Women were calling their husbands and children by name, and as each learned her loved ones were safe, shouts of joy mingled with the wailings of those whose cries remained unanswered. Even after Mr. Wright arrived the utmost confusion prevailed. All knew it would be certain death to make a descent, while the deadly vapor was so dense, and a second explosion might be expected at any moment. Bill and Joe stood near the mouth of the slope ready to respond to the first call for volunteers, when Mrs. Byram came up. "Where is Fred?" she asked, with a brave attempt controlling her fears. "He went to your house with Sam, so there's no need to worry about them." "They were not there more than ten minutes." "Then both are in the crowd somewhere, for they wouldn't go down the slope till we got back." The almost distracted mother had no thought of keeping Skip's secret at such a time, and when the two miners heard her story all hope for the safety of the boys fled. "They must have been in the old drift underneath the explodin' gas," Joe exclaimed, involuntarily. "It isn't sure the trouble began where we think," Bill said, quickly, with a warning glance at his companion. "I've known of men who were shut in a drift for a week, an' then brought out none the worse for wear, so don't despair, Mrs. Byram." "But why isn't something done to aid them?" "We shall set to work the very minute it is safe to venture into the next level. Go home, an' Joe or I will bring you the first news." "Do you think I could remain there knowing my boy is dying, or--or--dead?" The women near by endeavored to console the sorrowing mother with words of encouragement they themselves believed to be false, and Bill whispered to his mate: "There's a mighty slim show for the poor lads, an' it's through helpin' him as tried to murder 'em that they've been caught." Mr. Wright was doing his utmost to ascertain how many were yet in the mine, and after a long while succeeded in learning that at least a dozen men had been overpowered while some distance up the slope. Those who reached the surface told of a number whom they had seen fall, and some were certain one or two did not have time to gain the slope. "Who will go with me?" the superintendent asked, as a car was made ready. "I don't want the married men to volunteer, for they are needed at home, and none of us may come back alive." "Then why not stay here yourself?" a woman cried. "Your wife an' children need you as much as ours need their fathers." "Because it is my duty," was the calm reply. "Now who will come? I only want two." "Then the car is full," Bill said, as he and Joe took their places in the box-like vehicle. "We're willin' to go alone, if you'll stay behind." "No man shall encounter dangers from which I shrink. Lower away slowly, boys," he added to those who were fastening a rope to the car, "and keep a sharp look-out for our signals." "An' it was his house my Jim helped try to burn!" the woman who had spoken before said in a whisper. "Make haste," Mr. Wright cried, impatiently. "Remember that every second is precious." The miners crowded around the car to shake its brave occupants by the hand as if they were never to return, and it was absolutely necessary to push them away in order that the terrible journey might be begun. With their safety lamps held so that the condition of the air might be ascertained at each stage of the descent, the men slowly disappeared from view, and at the mouth of the slope the crowd surged to and fro in painful suspense; but not a sound could be heard, save as some wife or mother gave vent to a sob of distress. CHAPTER XVII DOWN THE SLOPE During the time that Billings was making his preparations for the last act of his life, Sam and Fred remained seated a short distance from the cut which led to Skip's hiding place. Both were listening intently for the first sound which should betoken the coming of the miners, and the falling earth which was displaced by Billings' feet as he worked in the cutting attracted their attention. "There's some one in the tunnel we made," Sam whispered. "Let's creep up and find out who it is." "That won't do, for there's no chance Billings would come back if he once got out, and we should arouse suspicions." Despite this warning Sam advanced a short distance, and on becoming convinced that the tunnel really had an occupant rejoined Fred, as he whispered: "We'd better sneak further along. I reckon somebody is on guard up there, and we musn't be seen so far down." He had held the shovel during this excursion, and still retained it as they walked noiselessly along the drift until arriving at the mouth of the short slope. Here the two halted at the moment when the confined gas, ignited by the open lamp, burst its bonds, and the shock sent them headlong up the incline. Huge masses of earth were detached on every hand, except directly in the narrow way leading to Skip's hiding place, and on scrambling to their feet a solid wall shut them out from the drift. "What was that?" Fred cried in alarm, as he assured himself his lamp was uninjured. "An explosion, an' we're penned in here to starve to death," Sam replied, in a trembling voice. "Can't we dig through this bank and reach the hole in the roof?" "There is no longer any lower level, as we knew it, and unless we could make a new drift there'd be no use working." "But this part of the mine seems to be all right." "Yes, unless there's another explosion I reckon we can stay here 'til--" "'Till what?" "We shall starve to death after a while." This mournful conversation was interrupted by Skip, who came running down the slope with the most abject fear written on every feature of his face. Familiar as he was with the mine he had no need to ask for the cause of the noise, and understood as well as Sam the little hope there was for life. "Are you shut in, too?" he cried. "We're here," Sam replied, grimly. "An' you'd been outside if I hadn't wanted to stay rather than take a flogging." "You're right, Skip, but this ain't the time to find fault. All three are in the same box, an' we might as well be friendly." "Won't they try to get us out?" Fred asked, faintly. "Nobody knows where we are," Skip replied, bitterly. "We told mother about you, and she'll be sure to repeat it to Joe and Bill now we're in such danger." Skip's face brightened for an instant, and then he said, in a despairing tone: "They don't know where this place is. Billings is certain the oldest miners never heard of the drift; he thinks it was made years before the workings were opened at Farley's." "Joe and Bill have been down here." "Even they wouldn't know where to start in. How long will the air hold out, Sam?" "I don't know, but there's no need of usin' it any faster than's necessary. We'll put out two of the lamps; one is enough, an' we may be mighty glad to drink the oil." Fred was very nearly incapable of action. The knowledge that his companions had lost hope literally dazed him, and he could not even follow Sam's suggestion. Two of the lamps were extinguished, and since Fred was the only one retaining the means of dispelling the darkness, Sam and Skip forced him on ahead as they went still further into the tunnel where the air would be more pure. "This is the only point from which we may expect aid," Sam said, "an' seein' that we can do nothin' it's better to stay here." "Won't Joe and Bill try to help us?" Fred asked. "They'll try, but whether it'll be possible to do anything is another matter." "Can't we begin to dig? We've got one shovel." "Neither of us knows in which direction to start, an' when workin' more food would be needed, therefore, to keep alive as long as possible we'd better stay quiet." Skip threw himself on the floor close to the end of the cutting, as if reconciled to whatever might happen, and Sam sat down beside him. "Do you think there is any chance that we can get out of here?" Fred asked after a long silence, and Sam replied, gravely: "We may as well look the matter straight in the face. It's possible they can strike us without much trouble, but that ain't likely." During half an hour the boys remained silent and motionless, as if each was trying to reconcile himself to the terrible doom which threatened, and then Fred said, with a feeble attempt at cheerfulness: "It must be near supper time. Suppose we have one square meal?" "Because a man knows he's slowly drowning there's no reason why he should try to keep his head under water more than is necessary," Sam replied, sternly. "What do you mean?" "We are not suffering with hunger now, but soon will be, so it's wise to wait till grub is absolutely needed to keep us alive." "Then let's do something; this sitting still thinking of what is to come seems worse than the reality can ever be." "Very well, we've got a shovel; we'll decide in which direction it's best to dig, an' begin operations." "There surely is a chance of striking another drift." "Yes, there's a chance," Sam replied, as if the conversation wearied him. "Each one shall say which course he thinks most likely to bring us out." Skip wished to continue up the slope, arguing that each inch gained would carry them so much nearer the surface, while Fred believed it best to work through the mass of earth that had fallen, because there a pick would not be necessary. "We'd better try Skip's plan," Sam finally said. "By making our way along the old drift a chamber of gas might be struck, when all hands would be suffocated. Come on, and I'll start it." He wielded the shovel until tired, the others carrying the earth back to the foot of the slope in their hats, and then Fred tried his hand at the labor. In this manner each did a certain amount of the work, but at the expense of no slight suffering. In the confined space it was very warm, and this exercise brought with it an intense thirst, which, of course, could not be quenched. Skip drank a little oil now and then, but Fred could not force himself to taste the ill-smelling stuff. There was no way by which the passage of time could be measured. When all were sleepy they laid down to rest, and on awakening a small quantity of food was dealt out. After the scanty meal had been eaten they continued what every one now believed was useless labor, ceasing only when the desire for slumber became overpowering again. Reckoning these periods of work and rest as days and nights, seventy-two hours had elapsed when the supply of food was exhausted, and they realized that the final struggle was at hand. The air remained reasonably pure, probably because a vent had been left somewhere in the choked drift, but there were moments when the odor of gas was perceptible, thus causing Sam to believe efforts were still being made to reach them by those on the outside. But little work was done when the food had been consumed. Now and then one or the other would use the shovel in a listless way for a few moments at a time, but each had become so weak that any prolonged exertion was out of the question. They slept as much as possible, and refrained from discussing the terrible situation. Fred no longer listened for the sounds which would tell that help was near at hand, and the odor of the oil did not prevent him now from taking his share when the scanty allowance was doled out. Finally the hour came when the last drop had been drank. The tiny flame of the lamp seemed to have been the only link which connected them with the outer world, and then without any means of dispelling the profound darkness the bitterness of death came upon them. Fred was the first to sink into a stupor from which he awakened only at rare intervals. Then Skip yielded to despair, and Sam was virtually alone. All three were half sitting, half lying in the excavation they had made, and the moments passed unheeded. To Fred it seemed as if he had been unconscious for many days when he became aware that Sam was shouting wildly. In a dazed way he raised his head, and after a while understood that his companion was saying in an incoherent tone: "They're coming! They're coming!" "Who? Who?" Skip asked, feebly, trying in vain to rise to his feet. "The miners! Can't you hear the sound of their picks?" When they could bring themselves to understand the meaning of Sam's words both the sufferers were revived by the excitement sufficiently to stagger to an upright position, but as only at intervals was the cheering sound heard, fatigue soon overpowered them again, and once more Sam alone remained conscious. He made every effort to preserve all his faculties, and after another long, painful time of suspense he was rewarded by hearing a faint hail. "Hello! lads, are you near?" "Yes! yes! In the end of a short slope." "How many are there?" "Three." "All well?" "Two are pretty near gone. Hurry as fast as possible." "Don't fret, lad, we're workin' the best we know how, an' have been these four days, though not allers on the right track." Then from time to time the laborers shouted in order that they might not deviate from the right course, and Sam answered each call at the full strength of his lungs, which at the best was faint. Nearer and nearer came the sound of shovels and picks until the trembling of the wall told that life, liberty, and food were near at hand. Sam remained leaning close against the barrier that he might hear every hail, until he saw the face of a man appear from amid a shower of falling earth, and then, knowing the rescue was accomplished he lost consciousness. Around the mouth of the shaft stood a great crowd when the inanimate boys were brought out. During the nights as well as days this throng remained waiting to see those known to be in the half-ruined mine. These anxious watchers, sympathizing with the three grief-stricken mothers, had left their posts only so long as was absolutely necessary, and had seen each lifeless body as it was sent to the surface, the last coming from the slope being the mangled remains of Cale Billings. Each morning the newspapers had printed long articles regarding the disaster at Farley's, and in the list of those known to be dead were four names, the number of victims sacrificed that Billings might avenge a fancied wrong. With the rescue of the boys the work was finished, and in the rear of the bearers all the watchers and laborers followed to the village, remaining in the streets until word was sent that no injuries had been sustained. Then, perhaps for the first time, came the question of what was to be done now that Farley's was in such a condition as to preclude any possibility that the works could be opened for several months. "It's a hard look-out for all of us," one old miner said to a mate, "but thank God that villain of a Billings has no more than four lives to answer for." CHAPTER XVIII SHUT DOWN Food and rest were all that was needed to restore the boys who had been rescued to their normal condition once more, and since the works were necessarily shut down they had ample opportunity for the latter remedy. Fred learned from his mother that Bill and Joe had remained foremost among the laborers nearly every moment of the time they were imprisoned in the drift; but the full story of the rescue was not told until on the second day, when Joe called. "It looked pretty blue one spell," the latter said in reply to Fred's questions. "The first attempt to get down the slope was a failure. When we reached the upper level all three were so nearly overcome by the foul air that Mr. Wright could hardly make the signal for the car to be pulled back. Late at night we tried it agin, an' brought out the four poor fellows who were caught on the slope. Next mornin' Billings' body was found, an' then it wasn't hard to tell what caused the trouble." "Did you spend any time there looking for us?" "No, for Bill and me calculated that if you hadn't got to Skip before the explosion come it would be a month's work to find the bodies. We went down the old shaft, an' began from there, workin' at guess till both of us began to believe we'd gone wrong. If Sam hadn't yelled jest as he did the gang would have started in from the old drift that runs to the chamber." "In that case we wouldn't have been found in time." "You're right; but seein' as we did find you all secure, there's no use speculatin' about the other side of the matter." "Have you seen Skip?" "He was down to the store this mornin' tellin' what he knew of Billings' movements, for the coroner is investigatin' the affair." "And Sam?" "He's lively as a cricket, an' counts on comin' here this afternoon." "How long will it be before the works can be opened again?" "Two or three months for the whole gang, but some can begin in half that time, I reckon. It's goin' to be rough on them as haven't anything laid by for a rainy day." "And mother and I can be counted among those," Fred said, with a sigh. "Don't worry about that my son," Mrs. Byram replied cheerily. "It is sufficient for me that your life has been spared, and I am certain we shall be able to provide for the future, but you are not to go into the mine again. The four terrible days spent at the slope, fearing each instant that the rescuing party would reach the drift too late, caused me to resolve that you should not be exposed to any more such dangers." "But it don't stand to reason he'll have another experience like the last," Joe said, promptly. "He's already gone through more'n the majority of us fellers, an' lightning don't often strike twice in the same place." Mrs. Byram shook her head to signify that the decision was final, but before she could add words to the gesture Mr. Wright knocked at the door. "I have come to make some arrangements with Fred about working in the store," he said, as his summons was answered, and entering, continued, after a nod to the invalid and Joe, "we shall need more help there for a while, and will pay three dollars per week." There could be no hesitation about accepting the proposition, and before the superintendent left it was decided Fred should begin next morning, provided he felt sufficiently strong. "Sam Thorpe is to work with you," Mr. Wright said as he turned to leave the house, "and I expect good service from my new clerks." "I'll go bail that you get it," Joe said, with a laugh, "an' now, if it ain't askin' too much, I'd like to know what chance there is for the rest of us." "We can use about a hundred men, among whom will be you and Bill. The pumps have been choked so long that it will be some time before even the upper level can be put into working shape, but employment shall be given to all at the earliest possible moment." Then Mr. Wright returned to the office, and during the remainder of the day Fred had quite as many callers as could be entertained in the little house. Among these were Sam and Skip, and the latter renewed the promises made in the mine. "I've backed out from the Regulators, an' while the shut down lasts am goin' to see what I can do in the way of workin' the garden. Father's let me off from a floggin' if I go straight after this." On the following morning Fred was at his new place of business at a very early hour, and both he and Sam found plenty with which to occupy their time until sunset, when they were at liberty to do as they chose. During the next week nothing of particular interest to the young clerks transpired. At the mine the largest force, which could be worked to advantage, was employed, and those who were forced to remain idle were given credit for food and rent. When the labor had become systematized to such a degree as to allow the superintendent a little leisure, and while Fred was copying some letters in the private office, Mr. Wright watching him several moments in silence, asked: "Do you never expect to do anything but work in a mine, Fred?" "Oh, yes, sir; if mother and I can get some money laid by I want to go to the city." "What will you do there?" "I don't know, sir, but there should be plenty of chances for a fellow who is willing to work." "There are, but since it may be some time before you are in a condition to leave here, why not make yourself familiar with this branch of mining?" "How could that be done, sir?" "By hard study. You may use any of my books, and after getting a smattering of the business you might decide to take up civil engineering, a profession which would suit you admirably." "If I only could." "There is nothing to prevent. Here is a work which you can understand, and after mastering its contents I'll guarantee you're ready to hold your own against any engineer's assistant in the middle field." On that very day Fred began his studies, and Sam joined him with the understanding that not less than two hours of each evening should be devoted to the work. Both the boys were astonished at discovering how little they really knew about mining, even though well acquainted with many of the details, and rapid progress was made during the fortnight that followed. "If you keep on at this rate we'll be lookin' for new buttys," Bill said one evening when the students had explained to him the principles of hydraulics. "You won't need any for some time, and then, perhaps, we shall have learned how ignorant we are, and give up in despair." "There'll be a good many called for to-morrow. The upper level is in workin' order, an' a hundred men are to be put on in the morning." This was, indeed, good news. The inhabitants of Farley's had been anxiously awaiting the day when it would be possible to earn something toward the household expenses, and this first evidence that the works were really to be opened caused a great amount of pleasurable excitement. Nearly every one in the village was at the mouth of the slope to see the workmen go in, and there Sam and Fred met Skip. "Mr. Donovan has promised to take me into the breaker as soon as there is any coal to come out," he said, gleefully, "an' my garden is lookin' fine." "I don't reckon you've sold many vegetables yet," Sam replied, laughingly. "The plants are only just up, an' the stuff will be late; but the first that is ripe I'm going to send you fellers, an' Bill and Joe." The miners entered, while the spectators cheered loudly, and then the idle ones dispersed, well content to know their time would soon come. Skip returned to his garden, while Sam and Fred resumed their duties at the store, but were interrupted an hour later by Mr. Wright, who said: "It is important that a message be delivered in Blacktown before noon, and there will be no train until late this afternoon. Do you boys feel in trim for a ten mile tramp across the mountain?" "Yes, sir, an' double the distance if necessary," Sam replied, promptly. "Very well; wrap up some crackers and cheese while I write a letter." Ten minutes later the two were on their way with no slight task before them, for it would be necessary to travel over a rough country the entire distance, since the journey by the road around the mountain could not be performed in a day. It was an agreeable change after having been confined to the store so long, and they trudged on merrily, resolved to return in a more leisurely fashion because Mr. Wright had said no more work would be required of them until morning. In three hours the message had been delivered, and they were on their way home. Little time was spent in the valley, but on ascending the mountain once more a halt was made for lunch. They were midway between Blacktown and Farley's. Not a dwelling could be seen in either direction, and the boys speculated as to what the country looked like before coal was found in the vicinity. "I wonder what caused the first man to come here lookin' for it?" Sam said, musingly. "Most likely some one well up in geology was hunting for specimens, and found an out-cropping vein." "It must have been a mighty pleasant surprise." "And one that I would like to experience. Just fancy poking around in this way till you struck what could be easily turned into gold." As he spoke Fred dug up the earth here and there with a stick, playing the part, as he supposed, of the first discoverer, and at the same time slowly ascending the mountain. "Hold on; don't leave so soon. I'm just getting ready to rest in proper style." Fred turned around to return when he struck his toe against what appeared to be a projecting rock, and fell headlong. "That's what you get for tryin' your hand at prospecting," Sam said, with a laugh, and Fred arose to his feet with a rueful look on his face, which caused his companion yet more mirth. "It may be sport for you, but I don't see anything so funny about knocking all the skin off----Hello! What a queer looking rock I tumbled over!" He had turned, and was gazing at the projecting point, a fragment of which was broken, when Sam came up to learn the cause of his companion's astonishment. "Why, it looks like coal!" he exclaimed, taking a piece from the ground to examine it more closely, and an instant later Fred was startled by hearing him shout, "It is coal! The vein at Farley's must run straight through the hill!" "Then this belongs to the company." "Not a bit of it. The one who owns the land can work here, and if we could raise money enough to buy ten or fifteen acres on this side of the hill, Byram and Thorpe would be mighty rich fellows." CHAPTER XIX THE CONSULTATION It is not to be wondered at that the boys were in a perfect fever of excitement because of their startling discovery. They uncovered the spurs of pure coal sufficiently to learn that it was a true vein, and, judging from the indications, there could be no question but it extended over a large area just below the surface. "Is it as good as that taken out at Farley's?" Fred asked, when they ceased digging for a moment. "I can't see any difference. Why, you and I alone could mine enough to make us pretty near rich, for there's neither shaft nor slope to be made." "Do you suppose this land is valuable?" "For farming purposes it isn't worth a cent, and unless the owner knows what is here it could be bought for a song." "What is the price of a song according to that estimate?" "Well, say a thousand dollars for a hundred acres." "But you wouldn't need as much in order to get at this vein." "Buildings would be necessary after a while, an' you'd want a track to get the coal into market." "Don't you suppose we could manage to get a thousand dollars?" "If you count on doin' it by workin' at Farley's, it would take about a thousand years. All the money I can earn has to be used by the family now that father isn't working." "But can we do nothin'?" "It does seem kinder tough to find a fortune, and not be able to take advantage of it, but I can't figure out how we can turn it to account." "Let's fill our pockets with these pieces, and tell Mr. Wright what we've struck." "Yes, an' before to-morrow night he'd own this whole tract. It would be wiser to see what Bill an' Joe think about the chances of raisin' money." "Very well, we'll talk with them. It won't do to leave this uncovered, an' I'm in a hurry to get back." The earth was scraped, and above this the boys strewed branches and leaves until one might have searched a long while without discovering the secret. Then, walking at their best pace, the successful prospectors continued on toward Farley's, trying in vain to suppress their excitement. Those whom they wished to consult were at the mine, and without even stopping to tell Mrs. Byram of their discovery they went directly to the slope. Bill and Joe were in the second level, at some distance from the other workmen when the boys arrived. "What do you think of that?" Fred asked, excitedly, as he held out one of his specimens. Bill, supposing he was to see a rare sight, brought his cap-lamp close to the object for a second, and then said angrily: "Haven't you boys got anything better to do than bring coal in here for us to look at? We see enough of that stuff without luggin' it around in our pockets." "But this didn't come from Farley's." "Well, s'posin it didn't, what of that?" and Bill threw the coal far down the drift. "Not much, except that Sam and I found a vein three miles from any settlement." "What?" both the miners cried in the same breath, and Bill ran to pick up what he had thrown away so contemptuously. Fred began and Sam ended the story of the "find," and while they were talking Bill turned the specimen over and over, saying when they concluded: "If as good coal as that shows at the surface it must be a big vein." "It is, but how can we take advantage of the discovery? Sam thinks the land could be bought for a thousand dollars." "Then you must buy it." "How could we raise so much money?" "People don't allers pay cash for what they buy. You might get it for two or three hundred dollars down, with a mortgage for the balance." "Even then I don't see how it can be done." "Nor I jest now, but we'll figure the thing out to-night at your house. Joe an' me will be there after supper. Don't tell anyone except your mother, 'nd when you boys are rich I speak for the job of breaker boss." Then Bill and Joe, hardly less excited than their younger companions, resumed the interrupted labor, and the amateur prospectors went to tell the wonderful news to Mrs. Byram. Fred's mother was not as elated as the boys thought the occasion demanded, but when the miners arrived, and appeared to be so sanguine that the discovery would be of great pecuniary benefit to those who made it she became greatly interested. The main question was how to raise the necessary money with which to purchase the land, and this had not been answered when the party broke up at a late hour. "We'll figger it out somehow," Bill said as the visitors arose to depart. "It's been sprung so sudden like that we haven't had time. Joe an' me will learn who owns the land first, an' then some of us'll get a bright idee." With these cheering words the meeting was adjourned, and Sam and Fred went to bed to dream of becoming millionaires through the accident which befell the latter as he fell over the spur of coal. Next morning, however, they awoke to the fact that the day's provisions depended upon their labors in the store, and as this was also the first step toward earning sufficient money with which to buy the land, both were on hand at an unusually early hour. "I want you to go over to Blacktown bank," Mr. Wright said to Sam when he entered the building. "The train leaves in half an hour, and since you can return by the same conveyance there is no reason why I should give two boys a holiday, as I did yesterday." "I will be ready in time, sir," Sam replied, and Fred whispered: "Why not walk home, and see if anybody has been fooling around the spur we found." "That's jest what I'll do, providin' it is possible to get back before the train is due. There can't be any kickin' if I'm here an hour or two ahead of time." A package of papers and a bank book was given to Sam by the cashier, who said, warningly: "Here are two thousand dollars in checks, and you are to bring back eight hundred dollars in change. Be careful what you do, and come home on the first train after the business has been done." "I don't reckon any one would kick if I walked instead of waitin' until afternoon for the cars," Sam said as he took the documents. "It isn't very safe to come across the mountains with so much cash; but I don't suppose there is any danger," the man replied, and Sam glanced meaningly at Fred as he left the building. "I wish I hadn't said anything to him about looking at the vein," Fred muttered to himself as his companion disappeared from view. "It would be better if he came directly back without thinking of what will never bring us in a cent of money." It was too late now, however, to regret the words which had been spoken, and Fred found plenty with which to busy himself during the remainder of the day. At noon a telegram came for Mr. Wright, and in response to what was probably an imperative summons, he started for the city on the next train; the one on which Sam would have returned had he not determined to walk across the mountain. An hour passed, and yet the messenger was absent. "That boy has had time to travel twice the distance from Blacktown here," the cashier said impatiently to Fred, and the latter could make no reply, but he in turn was growing very anxious. "How would it do for me to go and meet him?" he asked finally. "That is foolish talk," was the petulant reply. "If he doesn't come soon it will be best to send a sheriff's officer." This remark was well calculated to make Fred yet more nervous. Not for a moment did he believe Sam would do anything dishonest, and yet he should have been back, even in case he had walked home, several hours before. It was after sunset when the messenger finally made his appearance, and Fred was about to greet him with words of jest, but the expression on Sam's face caused him decided alarm. "What is the matter?" he asked, anxiously. "I have been robbed," was the reply, in a hoarse whisper. "How?" "I don't know. Coming across the mountain I laid down on the land we wanted to buy, an' I fell asleep. When I awakened the money was gone, an' that is all I know about it." "Money gone, eh?" the bookkeeper cried. "What did you want to buy land for?" "That has nothing to do with the loss of the cash," Sam replied as he looked the man full in the face. "I lost the package which was given me at the bank, and have been hunting for it since noon." "It will make considerable difference, as you'll find out before this thing is cleared up," and the cashier moved toward the door as if to prevent the boy from leaving the building. "Why not tell the truth, and say you stole the money?" "Because I didn't do anything of the kind." "Tell that to the marines, for you can't make me believe it. Thieves don't loaf around the mountain." "They must have done so in this case, for I walked nearly back to Blacktown, and should have found the package if it had fallen from my pocket." "Then where is it?" "I don't know." "Fred, go for a constable." The cashier yet remained by the door, and now he held it open a few inches that his order might be obeyed. "Please don't do a thing like that," Fred cried, while Sam stood near the desk pale as death, but every action breathing defiance. "Do you think I'll let a boy steal eight hundred dollars, and do nothing toward recovering it?" "Wait until Mr. Wright comes back and see what he thinks." "And in the meantime he or his accomplice will have had plenty of time in which to carry the cash beyond our reach." "But I am sure that what he tells is the truth." "I don't believe a word of it. Such a thing never happened before, and the thief sha'nt go free now if I can prevent it." Fred was about to plead yet further for his friend, but the cashier checked him by saying: "Another word in his behalf and I shall believe you know something of this very mysterious robbery. Will you go for the constable?" "No, I won't move a step from this place until Mr. Wright comes back." This show of friendship was not sufficient to save Sam from the ignominy of an arrest. The cashier had hardly ceased speaking when one of the miners made an attempt to enter the store, and the angry official sent him for the guardian of the peace. "You'll have a chance to go back to Blacktown, and it may be that you will find the money on the way," he said, in a tone of irony. Sam made no reply. Silent and motionless he awaited the coming of the officer. CHAPTER XX THE ACCUSED Not for a moment did Fred believe it possible Sam had done anything dishonest in regard to the money, and yet it seemed very singular that he could have been robbed without knowing when the deed was committed. He had no opportunity to speak privately to the accused boy, because of the strict watch maintained by the cashier, but he remained very near him, as if eager to show confidence in his innocence. From the time the miner had been sent in search of an officer not a word was spoken. Now and then Sam glanced at his friend as if to ask that his story be credited, and the accuser kept a strict watch over every movement. There was no parley when the officer arrived, his duty was to take the prisoner away, and he did so in a matter-of-fact manner which aroused all of Fred's anger. "It wouldn't do him any harm to say he knows you ain't a thief," he whispered, "but never mind, old fellow, Bill an' Joe shall come to see you." "Believe I've told the truth, an' that is enough for me," Sam replied, with a choking sob. "Tell the folks at home about it, but try to make 'em know I never stole a dollar." Fred promised to do this, and would have accompanied his friend to the depot but for the cashier, who said, sternly: "I insist on your remaining here. A large amount of money is missing; you boys have got a secret between you, and it may have some connection with the robbery. I will not allow you to talk with the prisoner." "Do as he says, an' don't have any row," Sam added. "I'll stay here," was the reply, "and when Mr. Wright gets back we'll see what he's got to say about it." "It's time for the train," the constable interrupted. "Go on quickly, Sam, before a crowd gathers." Fred gazed after the accused until he was lost to view in the distance, and then turned away with a heavy heart. The cashier had nothing more to say about the robbery, but he found plenty of work for the boy to do, much as if wishing to keep him in sight until Mr. Wright came home. It was half-past eight when the last train arrived and the superintendent was not on it. Fred should have been home two hours before, and his mother, always in fear of an accident since the explosion, came in search of him. To her the story of Sam's misfortune was told, and she at once demanded a private interview with the cashier. "Don't tell him why we wanted to buy land," Fred whispered, and his mother promised to keep the secret for a short time at least. Ten minutes' conversation with the angry official sufficed, and then the two went to Sam's home, where the sad news was told. Not until ten o'clock did Fred and his mother reach the little cottage where Bill and Joe were impatiently awaiting their arrival. "We've heard something about the trouble," the former said, "and want to know all the perticlars." Fred repeated what has already been told, and added: "What he said concerning the land we talked of buying has made the cashier more suspicious than he would have been. It's too bad to give the secret away, but it must be done unless the money can be found." "There's no reason why we can't wait a while," Joe said after some thought. "I'll go to Blacktown to-morrow, an' see him." "You surely can't think he took it?" "Of course not, an' yet I don't understand how it could 'a been stole." "He must have lost the money." "It wouldn't be a bad plan for us to walk to Blacktown over the same path he took," Bill said. "Fred can show us the way." "I don't believe they'll let me leave. The cashier seems to think I'm concerned in the robbery." "It won't take me long to tell him he don't run this place. I'll go to Mr. Wright's house, find out when he's likely to be back, an' then tend to the other matter. Joe, wait here." The miner was not absent more than an hour, and when he returned the others had come to the conclusion that Sam had lost the money before reaching the coal vein. "Mr. Wright has jest telegraphed that he's on his way to New York, so we may not see him for two or three days. I've told the folks at the store what's to be done, an' though there's some kickin' about Fred's leavin', they don't dare to say very much." Then the sad visaged party separated to get as much rest as possible, and at early dawn the miners were at Mrs. Byram's again. Believing Sam had traveled over nearly the same course as that taken by he and Fred, the latter did his best to guide the searchers correctly. "There's no use to hunt round very much till we strike the vein, for there's where he missed the money, so we'd better travel at our best gait to that place," Joe said, as he led the way with Fred by his side. The sun had been above the horizon but a few moments when they reached the scene of the discovery, and despite Sam's dangerous position Bill insisted on viewing the out-cropping of coal. "It's a true vein, there's no question of that," he said, after a careful examination, "an' we must hustle to get the cash what's needed to buy the property." "I'd be willin' to give up my share if Sam was out of his scrape." "You won't do any such foolish thing. We'll help the lad an' ourselves at the same time, for there's a chance to get rich here which mustn't be lost," and Bill covered the spur once more. Now the search was begun. Fred led the way slowly, the others following a short distance behind, and all three scrutinized the ground carefully. Not a word was spoken by either until they were on the highway near Blacktown, and then Bill said sadly: "If it was lost somebody has found it, an' in case thieves run him down it ain't likely they're going to be so foolish as to give us a chance to get on their track." "Where are we to go now?" Fred asked. "We'll see a lawyer if there's one in the place, an' then have a talk with Sam." There was no trouble about getting legal advice, and in the company of a kindly-faced gentleman the party were ushered into the jail where Sam, in the lowest depths of despair, was found. "Oh, I'm so glad you've come!" he cried, seizing Fred by both hands. "It has been terrible here." "Don't be downhearted, lad," Bill said, with an attempt at cheerfulness. "We'll stick by you no matter what happens." "I want you to tell me the whole story," the lawyer interrupted. "Describe every little particular of the journey." "There isn't much to tell. I got the money, an' walked as fast as I could to a place on the mountain, where I laid down to rest, an' fell asleep. When I woke up the package was gone." "Did you see anyone who might be following you?" "No sir." "Whom did you meet after leaving the town?" "Not a single person." "Are you certain the money was in your pocket when you laid down?" "I felt of it a little while before that." The lawyer continued to question Sam for a long while, but without gaining any new information, and even the boy's friends were forced to admit that the story was a strange one. "I'd say it was thin if I didn't know Sam so well," Bill mused as the party left the jail after promising the prisoner they would return at the earliest opportunity. "The boy couldn't 'a took the money, that's certain; but how he contrived to get rid of it beats me." "It is possible we may learn something to our advantage before the trial can be held," the lawyer suggested in a tone which to Fred sounded the reverse of cheerful; "but I think it very important you should see Mr. Wright without delay." "Joe shall go to New York." "How could I find him there?" "Fred and me'll get right back to Farley's, ask for his address, an' send it to you by telegraph." "That is a very good idea. A train leaves in less than an hour," the lawyer said approvingly. "Decide where the message shall be sent, and it will be there before he arrives." Joe was unwilling to take so much responsibility upon himself, and urged that he did not look fit to visit the city; but Bill overruled all his objections. "You're the one to go, so that settles it," the miner said as he pulled out his wallet. "Here's what money I've got, an' if more's needed let me know." "What am I to say to the superintendent if I see him?" "Urge that no further steps be taken against the boy. After what you say he did during the riot the officers of the company should be lenient." "But that kind of talk sounds as if you believed he'd stole the money," Bill exclaimed in surprise. "The case looks very bad for him, and if it should be called up before we found some evidence in his favor he would most certainly be convicted." Sam's friends gazed at each other in astonishment. That the lawyer employed to defend him should thus intimate he was guilty almost shook their faith in the boy's innocence. "You must go all the same," Bill said, after a long pause, "an' me an' Fred will toddle back home." The adieus consisted only of the words "good-bye," and then the miner and the boy turned their faces toward Farley's once more. "It seems as if finding the coal was bad luck for us," Fred said when they were on the mountain. "If it hadn't been for that, poor Sam never would have thought of walking home." "I don't go very much on what folks call luck, lad. The thing was bound to come whether you saw the vein or not, so we must buck agin it." "The lawyer thinks Sam stole the money." "An' more'n he'll believe the same if somethin' don't turn up." "I can't fancy what could happen to help him unless the thief himself came forward to tell the whole story." "It does look kinder black, but we mustn't lose heart." "Of course this settles our chances of buying the land." "Nothin' of the kind. My day is broke up now, an' I'll spend the rest of it lookin around a bit." "Sam will need all the money we've got to spend." "I've a little laid by for a rainy day, an' with what Joe can raise we oughter pull through on both jobs." On arriving at the spur another search was made with the same result as before, and then the two hurried on, sending a telegram to Joe immediately after reaching the town. CHAPTER XXI AMATEUR DETECTIVES Fred was forced to attend to his duties at the store immediately after the return from Black town, and while so engaged could not fail to hear the many comments upon the case. The news of the alleged robbery had spread with wonderful rapidity, and the majority of the miners believed Sam to be guilty. Twice during the afternoon the cashier questioned Fred closely as to what the prisoner meant when he spoke of their desire to buy land, but despite the coaxing and even threats he refused to divulge the secret. "If it can't be helped I'll tell Mr. Wright, but nobody else," the boy repeated, and further than this he positively refused to speak. "Then it's time you went home," the official finally said, in an angry tone. "You know so much about this thing that I don't believe it's safe to have you where there are many valuable things which might be stolen." "If you think I'm a thief, why not send me to jail with Sam?" "I shall suggest to Mr. Wright that you be arrested, and I fancy he'll follow my advice." Fred walked out of the store knowing that several of the clerks had overheard the latter portion of the conversation, and believing those whom he met on the street already looked upon him as a thief. "It can't be helped, my boy," his mother said. "You have the satisfaction of knowing the accusation is false, and that must suffice until the time when the whole affair is brought to light." "I'm afraid that never will be. Everybody thinks Sam is lying, and if we should tell of the coal we discovered the folks would say for sure he stole the money." During the remainder of the day Fred staid in the house, not so much as showing his face at the window, and shortly after sunset Bill called. "I've found out who owns the land," he cried triumphantly. "I wish we'd never walked across the mountain." "Now don't be foolish, lad." "How can I help it when people call me a thief." "I heard the cashier had kinder turned you out: but that don't 'mount to anything. Wait till the superintendent comes back." "He'll believe as the others do." "Then wait till I catch the real thief." "You?" "I'm going to try it." "But you can't leave the mine." "That's jest what I have done." "What? Have you thrown up the job?" "Me an' the cashier had a little tiff a few minutes ago, an' I've closed accounts with Farley's." "I hope you didn't take up what he said to me." "Well, I kinder had a row on my own account, but that ain't neither here nor there. We're both loafin' now, an' I want you to take a trip with me." "Where?" "I ain't jest sure, but we'll strike Blacktown first, an' then go wherever things look most promisin'." "Have you heard anything?" Mrs. Byram asked, as she gazed at the man sharply. "I can't say I have, an' I can't say I haven't. Skip give me a idee that's worth workin' up even if it comes to nothin', so we'll have a vacation." "Tell me what you've heard?" Fred cried, excitedly. "It ain't so very much, only jest enough to set me thinkin'. One of Skip's regulators was over here this noon, an' flashed up considerable money for a boy like him." "And you think he stole the package from Sam?" "I don't say anything of the kind, but Skip heard 'bout the trouble Sam was in, an' thought it wouldn't do a bit of harm if we found out where this feller got so much cash." "When are you going?" "In the mornin', but don't get your hopes up, for it may all end in smoke." Regardless of this warning Fred did grow excited, and before Bill took his departure he felt quite confident that the thief would soon be discovered. His spirits fell considerably next morning when Joe returned from New York, having come home on the night train. "It's no use," he said sadly, as he entered Mrs. Byram's home just as Fred and Bill were making ready to set out for Blacktown. "Won't Mr. Wright do anything to help Sam?" "No; he says if the boy is innocent it will be much better to have the matter settled in court, when everybody will know he was wrongfully accused." "Does he believe him guilty?" "I'm afraid so, though he didn't say very much." "When is he coming home?" "Day after to-morrow. He got a long letter from the cashier yesterday, an' I reckon that made the case look pretty tough agin Sam." "Well," Bill said, speaking for the first time since the arrival of his mate, "we've spent the money for nothin', but it can't be helped now. We thought it would be best to see him, an' since it's turned out wrong all we can do is to push the other plan for what it's worth." "What's the other plan?" Joe asked. Bill explained, and concluded by saying: "It will be a good idee to have you here to post us on what happens while we're away. Keep your eyes peeled, an' if anything pertic'lar turns up come over." Then, without waiting to hear whether Joe was pleased with the idea, Bill started, calling sharply to Fred as he left the house: "It won't do to loaf, lad, if we've got to get Sam out of the scrape with all the officers of the company agin us." A hurried good-bye to Joe, a kiss from his mother, and Fred followed, bent on proving his friend's innocence in order that the suspicion of crime might also be removed from him. During the walk to Blacktown hardly a word was spoken, but Bill said when they were within sight of the village: "We'd best separate here an' to-night I'll meet you over by the hotel." "Ain't we going to see Sam?" "Not to-day." "But what am I to do?" "Walk 'round 'till you run across Skip, an' then make friends with the feller what's with him." "Is Skip here?" Fred asked in surprise. "Of course, else how could we find the boy? I gave him money last night, an' reckon he come over on the first train." "Did he say where he'd be?" "No, but you'll sure run across him. Then hang 'round till it's time to meet me. It don't stand to reason well find out anything to-day, but we'll get our pipes laid." Bill turned away as if fearing to prolong the interview lest he be seen by the boy whom he fancied knew something about the case, and Fred walked aimlessly to and fro for nearly an hour, when he was accosted by Skip. "When did you come?" the latter asked, as if in surprise as he glanced meaningly toward a rather disreputable looking boy at his side. Fred told the exact truth, and added that he was "laying off" from work for a day or two because of an invitation of Bill Thomas' to see the sights in Blacktown. Skip's friend at once proposed that Fred spend the day with them, and the two strangers in the village were soon pretending to enjoy the lavish hospitality of the fellow who was known by the name of Gus Dobson. Only once, before it was time to meet Bill did Skip have a chance to speak privately with Fred. Their host had left them while he talked in whispers for several moments with a friend of about the same age and general appearance, and Skip said: "I'd like mighty well to help Sam out of his scrape, 'cause it would kinder square off what I did to hurt you an' him." "Do you think this fellow knows anything about the money?" "He ain't givin' himself away; but jest see how much cash he's got. As many as three dollars were spent yesterday at Farley's, and he's still slingin' it out." "Perhaps this is some he's been saving." "Gus Dobson hasn't worked any to speak of since the Regulators was started, an' I know he hadn't a cent at the time of the fuss over to Farley's." "Has he said anything about Sam?" "Yesterday he asked a good many questions." "I don't see how we're going to find out where the money comes from unless he wants to tell us," Fred said, with a sigh, and then Gus, looking considerably disturbed, joined them. "When are you fellers goin' home?" he asked, abruptly. "I'll start pretty soon," Skip replied, "but Fred don't have to leave till Bill Thomas gives the word. What's up?" "Nothin' much 'cept I won't see you agin." "Why not?" "I promised to take a trip with the feller what was jest here, an' it's time we was off." "What's that for?" "I don't know as it's any business of yours," and Gus looked at his guests suspiciously. "Of course not," Skip replied quickly, "but we've had such a good time that a feller can't help feelin' sorry you've got to go." This explanation did not appear to be entirely satisfactory. The boy alternately gazed at one and then the other for several moments in silence, and finally said in a threatening tone: "A good many fellers have tried to get the best of me, but I allers made 'em sick before the job was finished." "Now what are you drivin' at?" Skip asked, in well simulated surprise. "If you don't know I won't waste time talking," was the reply, as Gus walked hurriedly away, and the boys saw him join his friend a short distance off. "He's tumbled to our game," Skip said sadly, "an' I'd like to knock the head off the feller what put him up to it." "That shows he knows something about the money." "He may think we're on another racket; but there's no use loafin' 'round here. I'll go to the depot an' you find Bill." Fred had no difficulty in following this last suggestion. The miner was already at the rendezvous, and when the details of the apparent failure had been given, he exclaimed angrily: "It's all my fault, an' instead of helpin' Sam I've done him a power of harm." "What do you mean?" "I was in too much of a hurry, and thought myself mighty smart, so told the lawyer what we suspicioned. He ain't much less of a fool than I am, for he sent out to find a friend of Gus', and asked him all kinds of questions. Now we've driven 'em away, an' may as well go ourselves." "Are we to give up working?" "There's no use in stayin' here any longer, an' we'll strike across the mountain. Come on, so's it'll be possible to get home before dark." CHAPTER XXII UNEXPECTED NEWS Fred was opposed to leaving Blacktown without seeing Sam; but Bill, smarting under the sense of having brought about his own defeat, insisted upon an immediate departure. "It ain't likely we could get into the jail now the day is so far spent, an' if we did, what would be the use? There's nothing that could be said to cheer the boy." "I promised." "You can keep it the next time we come," and Bill put an end to the discussion by starting toward the mountain. Fred followed with a heavy heart, and the two trudged on in silence until they were within a short distance of the newly-discovered coal vein, when Bill exclaimed in surprise: "I'm blest if there isn't Joe! What's up now, I wonder?" This question was soon answered. The approaching miner cried while yet some distance away: "What are you comin' back so soon for?" "There was no reason why we should stay longer," and without sparing himself in the slightest, Bill explained what a blunder had been committed. "Well, you'd better go to Blacktown agin, or else take the train for New York." "Why?" "The cashier has been swearin' out a warrant for Fred's arrest, an' it'll be served the minute he gets back." "A warrant for me?" Fred cried in alarm. "What have I done?" "The fool thinks you know where the money is, an' that you made the arrangements with Sam, before he left, to get away with it." "Mr. Wright won't allow such a thing." "The letter he wrote seems to have made the cashier's neck stiffer than it was yesterday, an' I don't reckon it would do much good to depend on any officer of the company." "I'll give that feller a piece of my mind," Bill cried angrily, and Joe replied: "Don't do it yet a while. He told Donovan this noon that you'd gone with Fred to put the cash in a safe place, so it may be that the constable would like to see you by this time." "Why, where does he think it was?" "Buried on the mountain somewhere, an' if he sends men out to see if any diggin' has been done lately, the vein will surely be found." "I'll go back any way!" Bill cried after a short pause. "Such as him shan't call me a thief." "Now, look here, matey, what will be the good of gettin' yourself in jail? I've told Fred's mother jest how the matter stands, an' she believes as I do, that it'll be better to hang off a while in the hope something will turn up." "An' have the constables chasin' us all over the country." "It ain't certain they'll do that." "But it may never be known positively who took the money," Fred added. "If you're both so anxious to go to jail, wait till it is proved Sam is a thief, an' then show up to the constable. Things can't be worse for holdin' on a few days." "'Cordin' to your own figgerin' there's a chance the coal will be found." "I'll take care of that business while you an' Fred keep out of sight. With what I had, an' what could be borrowed, I've got two hundred an' twenty dollars. You shall take the odd money, an' the balance I'll plank down as a first payment on the land." "Do you know who owns it?" "A farmer who lived five or six miles the other side of Blacktown." "That's correct, an' the sooner you see him the better." "Will you agree to keep away from Farley's?" "Yes," Bill said slowly, as if angry with himself for making the promise. "Fred an' me'll sneak 'round 'till the trade's made for this side the mountain, an' then figger up what it's best to do." "Where can I see you to-morrow?" "Right here. We'll stay in the woods a night or two." "Have you got anything to eat?" "No; but it's an easy matter to buy all we want." "Take this money in case it is necessary to leave on the jump, an' I'll go on." Handing his mate the twenty dollars, Joe went at a sharp gait toward Blacktown, and Bill said, with a shrug of the shoulders: "So we're both thieves 'cordin' to the cashier's ideas; but wait 'till we get the land secured, an' I'll give that young man a lesson such as won't be very pleasant." "Do you really mean to sleep in the woods?" "Why not? It's warm weather, an' we'll be pretty nigh as well off there as at home." "Then we'd better be looking for a good place. If mother hadn't sent word that I was to stay away, I'd go to Farley's this minute an' let them arrest me, for it seems as if we act guilty by running off." "That's jest my idee, lad; but we'll obey orders a day or two." A short distance to the right was a thickly-wooded grove, and here the two soon found what would serve very well as a camp. A small cleared space, almost entirely screened from view by bushes, afforded all the protection which might be needed, and Bill threw himself on the ground. "I reckon we can go without supper," he said, with forced cheerfulness, "an' there'll be no bother about lockin' the doors." "It won't be long before I'm asleep. Walking around so much has tired me more than a full day's work in the breaker." "Don't keep awake on my account. The sooner your eyes are closed the sooner you'll forget that there's a chance of bein' sent to jail." With his head pillowed on some dry leaves Fred had no difficulty in summoning slumber; but Bill tossed to and fro on the hard bed without the slightest desire for sleep. The boy was dreaming of the frightful hours spent in the short slope after the explosion, when he was awakened by the pressure of a hand on his mouth. It was dark, save for the twinkling stars, and silent, except when the leaves were swayed by the gentle wind. "Don't speak," Bill whispered as he removed his hand. "I can see the light of a fire over there to the right, an' it's well for us to know who are campin' so near." "What do you want me to do?" "Follow me. We'll creep up far enough to see what's goin' on, an' then come back, unless there's reason for changin' our lodgings." "I'll keep close behind you," and Fred rose to his feet, Bill parting the bushes with both hands to avoid the slightest noise. The glow of flames could be seen a long distance away, evidently on the opposite edge of the grove, and the two approached it as rapidly as was consistent with silence. Soon the hum of voices was heard, and after a short time Bill stopped suddenly, gripped Fred by the hand, and pointed ahead. Around a camp-fire, over which pieces of meat were being cooked, sat Gus Dobson and the friend who had caused him to distrust Fred and Skip. "There may be a chance for us to find out a good deal of what we want to know," Bill whispered, and once more he advanced, moving with the utmost caution. It was possible for the spies to creep within five yards of the encampment, thanks to the bushes, and when this had been accomplished the boys were eating supper. "I don't believe in stayin' here too long," Gus was saying when Fred and Bill were near enough to distinguish the conversation. "Nobody 'd think of huntin' for us in this place," his companion replied, "an' it ain't safe to take the cars yet a while, for them boys from Farley's have got men to back 'em." "S'pposen they have? How can anybody find us if we walk up the track to the next station?" "It's easy enough to send word all around, an' then we'd be nabbed the minute we showed our noses in a town." "It will be jest as bad if they come here huntin' for us." "You're a reg'lar fool, Gus Dobson. So long as we can keep the stuff where it is, what'll be gained by arrestin' us? We've got to take it with us when we leave, an' then whoever catches us will have the thing down fine." "But we can't stay here forever." "A couple of weeks won't hurt us, an' by that time folks will give up lookin' so sharp. They'll think we got away." "We're too near Farley's." "Then make a move. We can keep on a dozen miles or so through the woods, an' bury the stuff agin." "I wanter get to New York." "There's plenty of time for that, an' it'll be nothing more'n fun to camp out two or three weeks." Gus made no reply, and after supper had been eaten his companion lay down beside the fire, saying as he did so: "I'm goin' to sleep; you can figger the thing out between now and mornin', and say what you're willin' to do." "It'll have to be as you say, I s'pose," Gus replied, sulkily; "but we must leave here." "All right, we'll start to-morrow, an' when a good place is found, put up a reg'lar camp." As he said this the boy rolled over as if to end the conversation, and Gus laid down beside him. Bill waited until the heavy breathing of both told that they were asleep, and then, with a motion to Fred, he began to retreat. Not until he was an hundred yards from the camp-fire did the miner halt, and said in a low whisper: "It was a mighty good thing for us that warrant had been sworn out for you. If the cashier had waited a day or so we'd gone home without an idee of where them young scoundrels were." "It seems certain they've got the money." "Not a doubt of it." "Why don't we jump right in on them? Perhaps they'd tell where it was buried." "If they didn't we'd be worse off than before, for either one is smart enough to know nothin' can be done to 'em while the cash is hid. The only way for us is to keep an eye on the little villains, 'till they get ready for a move. Then we'll do our work." "It'll be pretty hard to watch in the daytime without being seen ourselves." "We must manage to do it somehow, for this is, perhaps, our last chance to help Sam." CHAPTER XXIII A MISADVENTURE Neither Fred nor Bill had any desire to sleep, now that the solution of the mystery seemed so near. They remained in the same place where the halt was made until the blackness of night gave way before the pale threads of light. "It's gettin' pretty nigh time to begin our work," Bill said, "an' this heat we mustn't make any mistake." "I'm afraid we can't get near enough to see whether they take the money or not. Perhaps it isn't anywhere around here." "Then we'll follow 'em, if it takes a week, to find out what we're after. My idee is that we'd better separate, so's to make sure of knowin' what's goin' on. You stay here, an' I'll creep over to the other side, then we shall be doublin' our chances." "But what is to be done in case we don't see them dig up the money?" "Foller, no matter how long a chase they lead us. We shall come together somewhere on the road; but it won't be a bad plan for you to take a little of this money. If we had only bought some grub last night things would be in better shape." "I can get along without food for a week if there is any hope of helping Sam." "The whole thing will be cleared up providin' we don't loose sight of them. Here's the money, an' now I'll be off. You'd best crawl nearer before the sun rises." With a pressure of the hand Bill started, making a wide detour around the encampment, and Fred was alone, trying hard to repress a tremor of excitement which was causing him to tremble as if in an ague fit. After waiting half an hour, and assuring himself that Bill was well off, Fred began an advance, working his way from bush to bush until convinced he could approach no nearer with safety. By this time the sun had risen, and his rays falling upon the faces of the sleepers, awakened them. Both sprang to their feet, and Gus began building the fire while his companion was busily engaged at something among the bushes--preparing food for cooking, as Fred thought. "Then you still think we oughter leave here?" Gus said, interrogatively. "Yes, an' the sooner the better. There's no knowin' when that feller's friends may come sneakin' around agin. We'll hurry up with the breakfast, an' start when it's over." The boys had quite an outfit, as Fred could now see. A frying-pan, coffee-pot, tin cups, plates, and a bag well filled with provisions. Gus acted the part of cook, and soon the odor of hot coffee was wafted in the direction of the watcher, causing him to feel the need of something to eat. But little conversation was indulged in during the preparations for the meal. Gus' companion did not show himself until everything was ready, and then he ate hurriedly as if time was too precious to admit of talking. "Now let's divide the load," the boy said, as he leaped to his feet and began tying the cooking utensils together. "If you'll see to the grub, I'll take care of these." Fred gazed intently, expecting to see the money exposed to view; but no mention was made of it. Gus shouldered the bag; his companion swung the remainder of the baggage over his shoulder, and the two started, walking rapidly around the mountain on a course which would carry them to the eastward at right angles with the railroad track. Fred followed, remaining as far in the rear as was possible to keep them within view, and at such a distance that he could no longer overhear the conversation. Beyond a doubt Bill was also in pursuit; but he did not show himself, and Fred fancied he was well over to the left travelling on a parallel line with the boys. During an hour these relative positions were maintained, and then Gus threw down the bag as if to make a halt. "Now they're going to dig up the money," Fred said to himself, and he pressed forward that he might see all which occurred. In this he was mistaken, however. The two had simply stopped to rest, and such of the conversation as could be overheard only had reference to the location for a permanent camp, Gus insisting they were far enough away from the villages, while his companion urged that twice this distance should be covered. "It's plain they have no idea of digging," Fred muttered. "It begins to look as if we had made a big mistake; but if that is so, what was the meaning of the talk they made last night?" It was an enigma which he could not solve. Although believing they were on the wrong track, he did not feel at liberty to abandon the search until after consulting with Bill, and as yet no signs had been seen of that gentleman. The halt was continued for half an hour, and then the two boys pushed on again, walking at a leisurely pace until the forenoon was well nigh spent, when they came to a full stop at the bank of a small brook. They were now, as nearly as Fred could judge, eight or nine miles from the starting point, and that this was the end of the journey could be told by the preparations made. From the bag a new hatchet was produced, and both set about hewing small trees and bushes with which to build a camp. Not until this shelter was put up did Fred dare to move near enough to hear what was said, and then he found a hiding-place in the thicket twenty paces in the rear of the rude dwelling. Even though two hours had been spent in this work, Bill did not show himself. It was possible, however, that he believed it dangerous to move about in the daytime, but would join his companion after dark. Such conversation as the boys indulged in had no especial interest to the listener, since it referred almost entirely to the length of time they would remain in the camp. When the day came to an end Fred had not heard anything of importance, and he resolved to advise an immediate return to Farley's when Bill should join him. During the evening Gus and his companion appeared to be very jolly; they told stories, sang, and laughed as if there was nothing in connection with this "camping out" to be concealed, and the watcher in the bushes wondered why the miner did not come. Half a dozen men might have walked around the encampment without being observed by the boys, and Bill's delay seemed very singular. Fred did not dare to leave his place of concealment, and even if it had been perfectly safe to do so, he knew not in which direction to look for his friend, therefore nothing could be done save exercise patience. The hours passed without any change in the condition of affairs. The camp-fire burned itself out. The supposed culprits retired to rest, and Fred, who had slept but a short time during the previous night, found it absolutely impossible to prevent his eyes from closing. Lower and lower his head drooped upon his breast until slumber came, and he remained unconscious for many hours. The glare of the sunlight aroused him after the occupants of the camp were astir, and he sprang to his feet in alarm. The noise made by this sudden movement startled those whom he had been detailed to watch, and before Fred could collect his scattered senses both the boys were upon him. For a single instant the three stood surveying each other, and then Gus and his companion seized the bewildered spy by the arms, rendering useless his frantic struggles to defend himself. "Can you hold him, Tim, while I get something to tie his hands?" Gus cried, and Tim replied: "I can take care of three or four jest like him. Get the rope outer the bag; that'll be strong enough." With a quick movement the boy clasped Fred around the waist and held him firmly until Gus returned. When the prisoner's hands had been lashed to his side he was led to the camp, where his legs were also bound, and the captors seated themselves in front of him. "Now tell us where that man is?" Tim said, sternly. "What man?" "You know who I mean; the feller what come over to Blacktown with you an' Skip." "I wish I knew," Fred replied with a sigh. "Don't lie to us," and Gus shook his fist in the helpless boy's face. "That miner went to a lawyer an' told him I had a hand in stealin' the money what Sam Thorpe lost. Then you an' Skip tried to pump me. Now give us the whole yarn, or things will be mighty hot." Fred remained silent. "He's been follerin' us ever since we left the town," Tim said after a moment's thought, "an' it stands us in hand to get outer this lively, or the rest of his gang will be on us." "Have we got to do more trampin' jest on account of a sneak like this?" Gus asked fretfully. "Do you want to stay an' run the chance of bein' carried back to Blacktown?" "Of course not; but travelin' all the time when we mighter got on the cars in the first place is more'n I bargained for." "If you'd had your way we'd been pulled in before this. Get the stuff in shape, an' I reckon we'll fix things right now. Let him carry the load, an' we'll take the tramp kinder easy." Gus obeyed with a very ill grace, and while he was getting the cooking utensils together Tim walked along the bank of the brook to where a flat stone lay half submerged in the water. Fred watched his every movement as he overturned this, and dug with a pointed stick until a small, square package had been exposed to view. There was no question in the prisoner's mind but that the wrappings of cloth covered the money Sam was accused of stealing, and now the secret had really been discovered, all else seemed trifling in comparison. "I wonder how it happened that I didn't see that when they left the last camp?" he thought, as Tim put the bundle carefully in the inside pocket of his coat. "So you've found out what you come for, eh?" the boy cried, angrily. "Well, it won't do any good, for when we get through with sneaks they can't do much harm. Pick up that load, an' if you don't walk lively I'll find a way to make you." "How can I pick up anything while my legs are tied?" Tim unfastened the ropes from Fred's ankles; loosened one of his arms, and threw the cooking utensils over his shoulder. "Come on Gus," he said, impatiently. "We'll take turns carryin' the grub 'till we've given the slip to whoever may be follerin', and then he can tote the whole load." Fred was faint from lack of food; but he mentally braced himself to perform the task, and Gus cried as he struck him a blow full in the face: "Step out now, an' when we make camp to-night you'll get a taste of how we serve spies. It'll be a worse dose than the regulators ever gave you, an' don't forget it." "There's no time for foolishness," Tim said, impatiently. "His gang may be close behind, an' we can't afford to pay him off yet a while." With this sage remark he took up the provision bag, and led the way across the base of the hill, at right angles with the course pursued on the previous day, while Gus remained in the rear to urge the prisoner on in case he faltered. CHAPTER XXIV BILL'S MISHAP Joe Brace returned to Farley's on the morning after he warned Bill and Fred of what the cashier intended to do, and went directly to Mrs. Byram's. "I've bought the land!" he cried, exultantly. "The farmer was mighty glad of a chance to sell for five hundred dollars, an' if I'd had more time the price could have been whittled down to four. There's a mortgage of three hundred to be paid in a year, an' that'll be jest the same as nothin' after we show up what's there." "Did you see Fred?" the widow asked, anxiously, paying but little attention to the good news. "Met him an' Bill last night; told 'em what was up, and they'll keep shady 'till things can be fixed." "Then nothing was accomplished by their going to Blacktown?" Joe explained why that excursion had been a failure, and added: "They're on the right track, so we can count on everything comin' out right before long." "Are you intending to stay here?" "No; I only came to tell you what had been done, an' shall go back on the train to make sure my deed is recorded. I bought in the name of Byram, Thorpe, Thomas & Brace. How does that strike you for a firm?" "Although you and Mr. Thomas are so sure the discovery will be a source of great wealth, I can't feel much interest in it while Fred is in danger. I wish they would go to some city, rather than remain so near home." "I shall see 'em this afternoon an' now that the business of the land is settled, will advise them to take a little pleasure trip." "Please see to it that they do not suffer for food." "I'll tend to everything in great shape. Have you heard whether Mr. Wright has got back?" "He sent word that he would be home to-night." "Then, perhaps, I'd better wait an' have another talk with him." "No, no; I will see him myself. It is more important you care for those who are hiding in the woods." Joe had no further time for conversation. The train by which he intended to return to Blacktown was already due and he hurried away after repeating confidently: "I'll see'em to-night, ma'am, an' you can rest easy. They shall live on the fat of the land now we own a coal mine." There was barely time for the miner to leap on board the cars, and as they were whirled away by the puffing engine, the constable who had arrested Sam accosted him. "Where you bound, Joe?" "To Blacktown," was the gruff reply. "What are you up to? Servin' warrants for that fool of a cashier?" "Yes, I reckon that's about the size of it." "Got one for me?" "Of course not; what makes you talk such nonsense?" "I heard that Bill was goin' to be 'rested, 'cause he'd tried to help Sam, an' seem's he's a mate of mine I didn't know but you'd planned to pull in the whole family." "But now be honest, an' admit that the case looks pretty black for the two boys." "That's all nonsense. Sam lost the money, an' it was the fault of the company, not his." "How do you make that out?" "Easy enough. They'd no business to send him with so much stuff. It was the cashier's duty, an' that's what makes him so sore, 'cause Mr. Wright's bound to blame such slip-shod ways of shirkin' work." "Allowin' you're right, it don't help Sam Thorpe's case any." "We'll see about it before the world's many days older. I ain't quite a fool, an' when I get through your precious cashier will feel sick." After this threat Joe refused to indulge in further conversation, and the constable left him to seek more agreeable company. The words of the officer had aroused a new train of thought in the miner's mind, he fancied the lawyer whom Bill had consulted should be informed of what had happened. With this idea he visited the legal gentleman, immediately after the train arrived in Blacktown, and not only told him all which had happened relative to the robbery; but divulged the secret of the vein. The knowledge that his clients were in a fair way to be rich, and, consequently, influential, caused a very decided change in the lawyer's manner, and he displayed more zeal than Joe had expected. "We can easily get bail for your friends in case they are arrested," he said, "and in the meanwhile I will attend to the deeds. It is necessary the titles should be searched before the discovery is known by the public, and if you need any money I shall be glad to advance it." "If the farmer can't back out of his trade, we've got all that'll be wanted yet awhile," Joe replied "but the most important thing jest now is to get Bill an' the boys out of their scrape." "Can you find Mr. Thomas?" "I reckon so." "Then tell him to come here at once. Perhaps it will be well for the boy to remain in hiding a day or two longer, and I shall make it my business to ascertain what evidence there is against him." "I'll go for Bill now," and Joe left the office, after having been again assured by the lawyer that the transfer of the property would be attended to without delay. The miner prepared for his walk by buying a small stock of provisions, and then he set off in the direction of the mountain, believing it would be possible to find his mate with but little difficulty. An hour's tramp brought him to the famous vein on which he had already built many air-castles; but neither Bill nor Fred could be seen. Satisfying himself that there were no strangers in the vicinity he called them loudly by name; but without receiving any reply. Then he trudged on around the mountain, shouting alternately for one and the other, until afar off in the distance it seemed as if an answering hail could be heard. Now he ran with all speed in that direction, and soon he heard Bill's voice crying: "Joe! Is it you, Joe?" "Indeed it is, my hearty. Where are you?" "Here in the bushes with what come mighty nigh bein' a broken leg." Joe was soon by the side of his mate, whom he found lying on the ground apparently in the last stages of exhaustion. "What's the matter, old man? Are you hurt?" Bill told of what he and Fred had seen, and about the proposed chase, concluding by saying: "When the little villains started around the mountain I follered, as the boy an' me had agreed on; but after a two-hour's tramp I fell into a hole, an' reckon my leg is broke." "I don't see any hole," Joe said, as he looked about him. "It happened a long bit back. I didn't want to break up the game by lettin' Fred know what was wrong, an' so tried to crawl toward the vein, thinkin' if folks were sent out to look for the money they'd find me; but this is as far as I could get. It would 'a been a case of starvin' if you hadn't come along." "If you're hungry I can fix that part of it all right," and Joe produced the package of provisions. "Have a good time with this while I take a look at the leg." Only the most superficial examination was necessary. The broken bones could be plainly felt, and the limb was so swollen that it seemed essential, that the boot and trousers should be cut from it. "I don't see my way clear in this job," Joe exclaimed, as he removed the garments. "It ain't safe to leave you here alone, an' yet help must be had to carry you to Farley's." "Now that I've got a mouthful I can lay here a few hours longer. Go on, I'll keep till you get back." "If there was some water near by I could tie you up more comfortable like." "Never mind that, but leave at once, so to be the sooner here." Joe hesitated no longer, but set off across the mountain at a speed which brought him to Farley's in less than half an hour. Here it was only necessary to state what had happened in order to find plenty of volunteers for the task of bringing Bill home, and as the party set out Mrs. Byram followed a short distance by Joe's side, in order to say: "I've seen Mr. Wright, and he evidently believes both Sam and Fred are guilty." "Won't he let up till we can run down them fellers what Bill was follerin'?" "He says to me, as he did to you, that the law must take its course, and will not even do anything to prevent Bill's arrest." "We're goin' to bring the poor feller home, an' this company what think they own Farley's an' every soul in it had better let him alone." "Take him to my house, where he can have more care than at a boarding-place." "All right, an' thank ye, ma'am." "But what about Fred? Where is he?" "There's no call to worry because of him. As soon as Bill is off my hands I'll hunt the boy up, an' p'rhaps the two of us will bring home the real thieves." The widow could go no farther, and Joe took his place at the head of the party, walking at his best pace. Bill was suffering a great deal of pain when his friends arrived, but not a word of complaint escaped his lips, and some pleasant word was exchanged for every greeting. "It'll be a hard pull to get me over the mountain, but I'll not see Farley's for many a long day if you can't hold out." "We'll have you there, old man, an' not spend any too much breath over the job," Joe said cheerily, as he began to build a litter. Several of the party were curious to learn why Bill had come into that out-of-the-way place, but he refused to make any explanations, and Joe pretended not to hear the many questions. It was nearly dark before the injured man arrived at Mrs. Byram's home, and then nature had so far asserted her rights that he lay unconscious until after the physician arrived. "I reckon I've done all that's possible," Joe said to the widow, "an' now I'll start back." "You won't think of searching through the woods in the night." "No; but I'll trudge over to where I found Bill, so's the hunt can be begun bright an' early. It ain't likely I'll bring Fred home till after I've seen the lawyer agin." "If he isn't in trouble it will be better to remain away a few days longer." "I'll answer for it that he's all right, ma'am, an it sha'n't be many hours now 'till he can hold his head up with the best of 'em." With these cheering words Joe left the house, intending to go home for supper before continuing his task; but on arriving opposite the store Mr. Wright stopped him by saying sternly: "I would like to have a few words with you, Mr. Brace." "My time has come," Joe muttered to himself; "but I'll show these smart fellows that they can't haul up everybody in town jest because it pleases 'em." CHAPTER XXV JOE'S INTERVIEW Joe Brace had a very good idea of why the superintendent wished to see him, and he entered the office prepared to speak his mind plainly. "I understand that you have not been working for the past day or two," Mr. Wright began. "That's correct." "Have you left our employ?" "It amounts to pretty much that." "Has Thomas quit also?" "When a man knows that he's to be arrested, he ain't likely to hang 'round so's the warrant can be served without much trouble to the constable. But jest now Bill isn't in a condition to work for anybody." "What's the matter?" "He broke his leg, an' a lot of the boys have brought him to the Widder Byram's house." "I hadn't heard of that." "It'll come kinder rough on the constable." "I understand to what you refer, Brace, and am not pleased to hear you speak in such a manner." "It can't be helped, sir. When a feller sees them as risked everything to do the company a good turn while Billings had full sway, run down an' chucked into jail for nothin', it makes him feel sore." "There was good reason for the arrest of Sam Thorpe." "Even admittin' that's so, which I don't, why should Fred Byram an' Bill be pulled into the fuss? There's nothin' to connect them with it." "They have acted very suspiciously ever since the money was said to have been lost." "That's where you are makin' a big mistake, Mr. Wright. I've had a hand in all their maneuvers, an' so has the widder, consequently if one is guilty the whole crowd are." "What do you mean?" "I can't explain yet awhile; but it'll come out before long, when you'll see everything was square an' above board." "Look here, Brace," Mr. Wright said, in a friendly tone: "I called you in here to have a confidential chat upon the subject, and it is not right to keep from me anything which may have a bearing on the matter." "What I know can't be told for a while; but I'll give you the particulars of what we've already found out," and without further questioning Joe related the events of the past three days, save so far as they were connected with the discovery of the vein. "It surely looks suspicious," the superintendent said, musingly; "but I fail to understand how those boys could have gotten the money from Sam's pocket, unless he remained in town skylarking with them." "That's somethin' I can't explain; but when I find Fred we'll know a good deal more about the matter." "Do you think anything could be accomplished by my visiting Sam?" "I'm certain of it, for one talk with him is bound to convince you he isn't a thief." The superintendent remained silent several moments, and it seemed very much as if this second conversation with Joe had caused a change of opinion. "Very well," he said finally, "I will think the matter over. Shall you be here in the morning?" "I'm goin' to leave Farley's as soon as I get a bite to eat, an' it ain't likely I'll be back 'till Fred can come with me." Mr. Wright arose to intimate that the interview was at an end, and Joe left the store with a gesture of defiance and anger toward the cashier. While all this was taking place Fred occupied anything rather than an enviable position. When the march was begun he found it extremely difficult to make his way through the woods, loaded down as he was and with one arm tied to his side; but Gus had no mercy. At every opportunity he spurred the prisoner on, using a stout stick for the purpose, and more than once was Fred on the point of open rebellion. He felt confident the boys would not dare do more than give him a cruel flogging, after which they must leave him behind; but this would be to lose sight of the thieves, and almost anything was preferable to being thus defeated in his purpose. "I'll stick it out," he said to himself, "and wait for the time when I can tell the story to some one who will help make them prisoners." During an hour the boys traveled straight ahead, and then Gus insisted upon a halt. Tim agreed, because his breakfast had not been perfectly satisfactory, and he wanted a second meal now they were, as he believed, free from pursuit. The provisions were brought out from the bag, and as the two boys began to eat Fred's hunger returned with such a force that he could not resist the impulse to ask for food. "Say, if you'll give me some of that bread I'll carry all the load when we start again. I haven't had a mouthful since I left Blacktown." "An' you'll go without two or three days longer," Gus replied with malicious pleasure. "You'll have the whole load, an' no trade about it either, so hold your tongue or I'll use the stick again." Tim laughed as if he thought it great sport to hear the prisoner begging for food, and Fred threw himself upon the ground, resolving not to give them another opportunity for mirth. "If there's a chance to get hold of the bag to-night I'll help myself," he thought. "It can't be stealing, for I'm surely entitled to a share when they force me to stay with them." Gus amused himself for a while by thrusting food close to the prisoner's face and then withdrawing it, but he tired of this when Fred made no effort to take what he knew was not intended for him. The halt continued about an hour, and then, as Gus had threatened, both packages were placed on Fred's shoulders. "Now step out livelier than you did before, for we don't want to make another halt until we are ready to build a camp," Tim said, as he began the advance. "Treat me decent an' I'll travel as fast as you can." "You ain't gettin' it half as bad as you deserve, an' it'd be a good idea to keep your mouth shut." As during the first portion of the journey, Gus amused himself by prodding the prisoner with a stick, but as the day lengthened and Tim refused to halt, the boy grew too weary to indulge in such pleasantries. In order that Fred might carry all the burden, it was necessary to unloosen both his hands, and, without being observed by his companions, he contrived to transfer several crackers from the bag to his pocket. The second stage of the journey lasted nearly two hours, and then Tim decided the camp should be erected on the bank of a small stream. They were now, according to Fred's belief, not more than twenty miles from Blacktown, and a trifle less than that distance from Farley's. As far away as the eye could reach was a town, but no one knew its name. "We might have stayed nearer home if the camp is to be made so close to a settlement," Gus said fretfully. "While we keep out of sight nobody'll know we're here, an' in case we want to leave suddenly on the cars, it won't be far to walk. I'd like to get hold of a boat, an' then we could run down the stream without much trouble." "Why not buy one?" "After a day or two we'll find out if there is any near. Just now we must get the camp built, an' then take things comfortable for awhile." Fred watched Tim's every movement in order to learn where the money would be hidden; but failed to see any attempt at burying it. The protuberance just over his breast served to show the treasure was yet in his possession, and Gus seemed well content it should remain there. The prisoner was ordered to hew the materials for the camp while the others put them together, and during this work he contrived to eat the stolen crackers. The shelter was a rude affair, hardly more than sufficient to protect them from the rays of the sun, and when completed all hands lay down to rest, Fred being bound hand and foot again to prevent any attempt at escape. Not until night was the prisoner given food, and then Gus doled out two crackers, an amount which would have been little more than an aggravation if he had not previously ministered to his own wants. During the hours of darkness no watch was kept; but Fred remained awake nearly all the time, straining his ears in the vain hope that he might hear something of Bill. The second and third days were but repetitions of the first, and then it became necessary to visit the village in order to procure food. "I'll walk up the stream 'till a place to cross is found," Tim said, "an' if I don't see a boat before then, will strike out for the town. Keep your eye on the sneak, an' don't give him a chance to get away." "Help me fix the ropes around his legs a little tighter, an' I'll answer for it that he won't go far." Tim complied with this request, and when Fred was trussed up like a chicken, he took from his pocket the stolen money. "It won't do to carry all this, so you'd better take care of it a while. Ten dollars will be enough for me, even if I should happen to come across the boat." Subtracting this amount from the total, he gave the remainder to Gus, who put it carelessly in his pocket as if accustomed to handling large sums of money. Then he started along the bank of the stream, his companion accompanying him a short distance, and Fred realized that the time had come when he must make one desperate attempt to take his jailer prisoner. "Gus has got nearly all the money," he said to himself, "and if I could manage to slip the ropes it would only be a question of a fight, in which I'm almost certain to get the upper hand." He had been left seated with his back against the trunk of a tree, and the first move necessary was to release his arms. To do this he struggled desperately, regardless of the pain; but the bonds remained firm until Gus returned, when, as a matter of course, he did not dare to make any further movement. "Now Tim is so far away that he can't interfere, I'm going to pay you off for playin' the sneak," Gus said, as he took up his station directly in front of the prisoner. "If I had my way you shouldn't have a bite to eat from now out, an' by the time we get ready to leave you couldn't do much mischief." "If you're afraid, why not kill me? That's the safest plan." "I'd like to," was the savage reply, "an' would if I was sure of not bein' pulled up for murder. I can give you a lively time for the next two or three hours, though." Gus began to fulfill his promise by tickling Fred's nose with a twig, and the prisoner was by no means averse to the cruel sport, since it gave him a good excuse to struggle. He writhed and twisted as if to move beyond reach of his tormentor; but all the while his sole aim was to release his hands, and Gus was so deeply engrossed with the efforts to cause pain that he failed to understand what his victim might succeed in doing. CHAPTER XXVI TURNING THE TABLES The constant straining caused Fred to perspire freely, and after many vain efforts he succeeded in catching the rope which was around his wrists, under the point of a projecting limb of the tree. Now he had a purchase, and by a mighty effort at the moment when Gus made a more than usually vicious lunge, slipped one of his hands from the bonds, thanks to the perspiration which moistened the strands. He did not take immediate advantage of his freedom. It was essential to await a favorable opportunity, and this came when Gus knelt before him for the purpose of pricking the apparently helpless boy with the blade of his knife. Fred could not arise; but he flung both arms around his tormentor's neck, hugging him so close as to prevent the latter from using his hands. For an instant his surprise was so great that he remained motionless; but before Fred could take any advantage of his inactivity Gus recovered from the shock to exert all his strength, and began to free himself. Under ordinary circumstances Fred would have been no match for his captor; but now the knowledge of what was to be gained lent him great energy, and he clung to him with desperation. "Let go, or I'll stab you with this knife," Gus shouted; but Fred was too careful of his wind to make any reply. Over and over they rolled, one trying to use his weapon, while the other did his best to prevent it, and but for an accident the battle might have been continued until the smaller boy was exhausted. It was not possible to control the direction of their bodies, and suddenly both were precipitated into the stream. Fred was a good swimmer, while his adversary knew but little of the art, and he succeeded in holding Gus' head under water until he was nearly strangled. The tables were now turned. It only remained for Fred to drag the half-unconscious boy to the shore, and there transfer the rope from one pair of legs to the other. When Gus again had a clear idea of matters he was securely tied, and Fred had put into his own pocket the package of money which Sam was accused of stealing. To pack in small compass the remaining store of provisions, cut a stout stick, and place the hatchet in a belt improvised from a piece of the rope, occupied but a few moments, and then Fred said, sternly: "I'm going to slacken up on your legs a bit, so's you can walk, and now it's your turn to step out lively." "When Tim comes back you shall pay for this." "I intend to be a long distance from here before that time arrives." "He can catch you." "To do it he'll have to be smarter than I think he is." "Wait an' see." "That's just what I don't propose doin'. I understand your purpose now; you're trying to keep me here as long as possible. Get up." "I won't an' you can't make me." Fred struck the prisoner several severe blows; but he did not so much as cry out. "I'll beat you black and blue, if you don't stand up and walk." "Pound away, I can bear a good deal of that rather than go to jail." Again Fred used the stick; but in vain. Gus shut his teeth firmly, and took the punishment with a stoicism worthy a better cause. It was important that no time should be lost. Tim might find a boat and return to the camp before going to the town. Fred stood still in perplexity for an instant, and then throwing aside the stick raised Gus in his arms. It was a heavy burden; but he staggered on with all possible speed. As soon as Gus began to understand that he might be carried away despite his refusal to walk, he set up a series of the most terrific yells, and Fred was forced to come to a halt. "I'll soon put an end to that kind of fun," he said, angrily, while whittling a piece of soft wood. "With this in your mouth there won't be much screaming." Now Gus began to fancy he might be finally beaten, and then tried new tactics. "See here, all you want is the money, an' now you've got it I'll agree that neither Tim nor me'll chase or try in any way to catch you, if I'm left here. There's no need even to take off the ropes; but let me stay where he'll see me." Fred shook his head. "I need you quite as much as I do the money, and I am bound to take you along." "What good will it do to have me put in jail?" "It'll be the means of freeing a better fellow than you ever dared to be." "I'll kill you some day." "Possibly, but that don't let you out of this scrape." By this time Fred had the gag ready, and a stout pressure on the prisoner's cheeks caused him to open his mouth. The wood was thrust between Gus' teeth, and Fred tied his handkerchief over it to prevent it from slipping. "Now when you're willing to walk I'll take that out," he said. "Once in every few minutes, when we have to stop to rest I'll look at your eyes. If you wink, it means you're ready to do as I say." Gus glared at him savagely; but was careful to keep his eyes wide open. Again Fred shouldered his burden, realizing, meanwhile that he could never reach Farley's if his prisoner remained obstinate. When an hundred yards had been traversed he was forced to rest. Gus' eyes stared at him. A second and a third time was this repeated. At each interval the distance was shorter, and Fred knew he could not travel much farther. "If he don't give in pretty soon I shall," he muttered to himself as he threw his burden to the ground for the third time. To his great relief Gus winked violently when Fred pulled the handkerchief down to gain a view of his eyes and the gag was removed without loss of time. "Will you agree to walk now?" he asked. "Yes, yes; it wouldn't take a feller long to stifle with that thing in his mouth." "I don't care what happens so long as I get you to Farley's." Once more Gus tried to beg off; but Fred would not listen. "Walk fast," he said, "and if you don't do your best, in goes the gag again." There was no necessity of emphasizing the demand. The prisoner moved with alacrity; but his captor was by no means certain as to which was the proper course. Tim had made so many turns in his flight that Fred's ideas regarding the points of the compass were very hazy. Both the boys were suffering from lack of water, and no halt was made until two or three hours past noon, when they were at the edge of a swamp. Quenching their thirst with the ill-tasting liquid, they lay down on the ground to rest, and did not continue their journey for some time. "Why not stay here all night?" Gus asked. "Because we haven't traveled far enough yet." "But I can't hold out much longer, no matter how hard I try." "You'll have to go as far as I do." "Wait till mornin', an' then I'll walk twice as fast to make up for the time spent now." "We must get in another hour's tramp before sunset," Fred replied, determinedly, and although Gus pleaded very hard the decision was not changed. But little was accomplished during the last portion of the traveling. Both were thoroughly tired, and when the shadows of night shrouded the recesses of the forest in gloom the welcome word was given. "Here's a little stream, and we'd better stop here, there's a chance for a drink." "It's about time," Gus added, sulkily as he threw himself on the ground. Fred divided half of the food into two portions; but did not dare to loosen the prisoner's arms sufficiently to admit of his eating unaided. "I'll feed you first, and then take my share," he said, and Gus devoured the food ravenously, after which he quenched his thirst, when Fred bound him securely to a tree. The prisoner slept soundly; but to his captor the night was the longest he had ever known. He did not dare give himself wholly up to slumber lest Tim should be on their track, and attempt to effect a rescue, while the fear that the money might be lost, this time beyond recovery, rendered him very nervous. "It's going to be tough lines before we get to Farley's," he said to himself; "but I ought to hold out if for no other reason than to clear Sam beyond a doubt." When the morning finally came Fred fed Gus again; both took large drinks of water, and their journey was resumed. Now Gus neither begged nor made comments. He marched just ahead of his captor in a sullen manner, as if having decided upon a certain course of action, and Fred remained continually on the alert, fearing lest he meditated an attack. At noon the two halted, and while eating the last of the provisions, knowing that after this they must go hungry until arriving at a settlement, Fred fancied he heard a noise as of someone approaching. His first thought was that Tim had succeeded in following their trail, and he hurriedly made ready a gag to prevent an alarm from being given. Gus heard the same noise, and before Fred could prevent him he began to shout loudly for help. It was several seconds before the outcries could be checked, and then the mischief had been done. The noise of a heavy body forcing its way through the underbrush sounded more clearly, and Fred sprang to his feet, hatchet in hand, ready to defend himself to the utmost. Gus looked triumphant, and again shouted loudly; but the expression of his eye was changed to despair as the stranger burst through the foliage. "Why Joe! Joe!" Fred cried, as he leaped forward and caught Brace by the hands. "How did you happen to get here just when you were most needed?" "I reckon I'd gone right past without knowin' you was anywhere near, if it hadn't been for your wild yells." "It was Gus who did that," Fred replied, glancing with a smile toward the discomfited prisoner. "He thought as I did, that it was Tim." "Do you mean his partner?" "Yes." "Have you got the best of both?" In the fewest words possible Fred explained how the capture had been made, and Joe actually leaped for joy when the stolen money was displayed. CHAPTER XXVII AN UNLOOKED-FOR DENIAL "You've done a big thing, my boy," Brace said, approvingly, when Fred's story was concluded, "an' it won't be long before we can bring Sam back to Farley's with not so much as a suspicion against him. Besides that, we own the land that'll make all hands rich." "How did you do it?" Joe gave him all the details, and concluding with the interview between himself and Mr. Wright, said: "I didn't leave that night as I decided on; but went back to see poor Bill, an' your mother insisted I stay till mornin'. The sun wasn't up when I started out, an' a mighty blind hunt it proved to be till the first camp was struck. That kinder livened me a bit; but I couldn't get onto the trail, an' from then till Gus yelled I hadn't any idea which way to go." "How far do you suppose we are from Farley's?" "I reckon it'll take smart walkin' for the rest of this day, an' the best part of to-morrow before we see the works." "And the provisions I took from Tim and Gus are all gone." "I've got enough for supper, if we don't eat too hearty, and the balance of the time we can suck our thumbs." "Then we'd better make another start. It must be three o'clock." "Do you know the straight cut?" "I'm not even certain we're heading right." "By keeping on the high land we are bound to come out somewhere near Farley's or Blacktown." When the journey was continued Gus took good care to give his captors no trouble, for he understood that Joe would show but little mercy, if there was any attempt to cause delay. At a reasonably rapid pace the three marched until darkness forced a halt, and then the small amount of provisions Brace had brought was consumed without satisfying the hunger of either member of the party. Gus was tied between his captors, where he could stretch himself at full length, and the night passed quietly. There was no longer any fear Tim could effect a rescue, even though he might be near at hand, and Fred enjoyed a most refreshing rest. What all hoped would prove to be the last day's journey was begun without breakfast, and the advance was by no means rapid. At ten o'clock Fred declared he could go no farther without a rest, and the party sought shelter from the sun under a wide spreading tree, where a view could be had of a depression in the land for some distance ahead. Joe and Fred were facing this open stretch, and had but just begun to discuss the subject which was ever uppermost in their minds--the coal vein--when a figure carrying a heavy burden emerged from the thicket on the lower side, evidently bent on ascending the mountain. "Now, what can that fellow be doing?" Joe asked, as he arose to his feet. "It's a boy, an' we'd be in big luck if it should turn out to be that precious Tim." "But it isn't; he wears a cap, and this one has a hat. It looks something like----Why it is! It's Skip!" "Skip?" Joe repeated in amazement. "What's he doin' out here, an' with such a load?" "In order to answer that question I shall have to ask him," and Fred shouted the boy's name. Skip started as if alarmed at being summoned, and then, waving his hat in triumph, he came toward the party at his best pace. "I knew I'd find you if I hunted long enough," he exclaimed as he came within speaking distance, and added when he finally reached the tree and threw down the burden. "It's mighty heavy, an' I thought one spell yesterday I'd have to give up the job. Reckon you're glad to get it, eh?" "What have you there?" "Grub, of course. When Joe didn't turn up, an' there was no sign of Fred, I figured that you'd both want somethin' to eat, so took out my wages in what was handiest to eat. Mrs. Byram said I'd never find you, but it wouldn't do any harm to try, so here we are." "Did you spend your money to buy us food?" Fred asked. "Why not? It'll take a good deal more'n that to straighten things between us, an' I'd like to get the 'count squared some time." "You've done it already, Skip. It was you who first put us on the track of the thieves, and now you've helped the cause along wonderfully, for it has been a good while since I had all I could eat." "Well, fill yourself up right now. There's no need to hurry, for you can't get to Farley's to-night, an'----Hello, Gus! Got through with your trip so soon?" "You'll wish I hadn't before this thing is ended," was the surly reply, and then the prisoner turned his back on the ex-chief of the regulators. Quite naturally Skip was eager to hear the result of the chase, and while Joe and Fred were eating they gave him the full particulars. "Do you know the way home?" Brace asked when the story was told. "Of course. I've been out here half a dozen times. Was you calculatin' to keep straight ahead?" "Yes." "Then you'd gone six miles the other side of Farley's." "If that is the case, it's lucky you found us. Let's make another start; now I've filled up it seems possible to travel without stopping again until we are at mother's door." With a guide and provisions in plenty, the long tramp yet to be endured seemed but a trifling affair, and the party, with the single exception of Gus, were in the best of spirits. The night was spent near a small water course in the valley, and at three o'clock all hands entered the company's store at Farley's. Both Mr. Wright and the cashier were in the building, and they listened in undisguised astonishment as Joe told the story of the capture. "Here is the money, except what they have spent," Fred said when Joe concluded the recital, and he handed the package to the superintendent. An examination showed that but fifty-three dollars were missing, and then Mr. Wright turned to Gus, who was wearing a look of mingled indignation and innocence. "How did you get this money from Thorpe?" "Who is he, sir?" "The boy who was bringing it from the bank." "I never saw him." "Then how did you get these notes?" "I never had 'em sir." "Why, I took them out of his pocket," Fred cried, in surprise. "Explain yourself," Mr. Wright said to the prisoner. "Me an' Tim Sanger was goin' to camp out on the mountains while work was slack," Gus began with an air of truthfulness. "We had a shanty built, an' Tim went off fishin' when this feller," here he pointed to the astonished Fred, "jumped in on me. I'd seen him in Blacktown, so didn't think anything was out of the way till he knocked me down." "Why did he strike you?" "That's jest what I don't know. He tied me all up like this, an' I had to do as he said till we met Joe Brace. Then I heard one of 'em say to the other: 'This will get Sam out of the scrape, for we can say Gus Dobson had the money what was stole, in his pocket.' That's all I know about it, an' I never saw them bills till this very minute." "It was a good scheme for Sam to give up the money in this way when he found the case was so dead against him," the cashier said in a low tone, as if speaking to himself; but he took care that Mr. Wright should hear distinctly. "What do you mean?" Joe cried fiercely. "Nothing, nothing, I must have been thinking aloud." "You intended we should hear every word," the miner added, excitedly. "Be quiet, Brace, while we get the facts of this strange story," Mr. Wright said, sharply. "You have got the facts already sir. I told you before I left town that this fellow was one of the thieves." "That doesn't prove anything," the cashier replied, with a malicious smile. "I'll prove more than that to you, if you dare show your nose out doors." "Either leave the office, Brace, or hold your tongue," and now the superintendent spoke in an angry tone. "Fred, what have you got to say in answer to this boy's story?" "Not a word, sir. What Joe has told you is true, and if it ain't believed you can serve the warrant which was issued for me, as soon as you please." "He can't say anything," Gus added, triumphantly. "If Tim was here he could tell you jest why we left Blacktown; but, of course, he don't know about the job this feller is try in' to put up on me." "Where is Tim?" "I dunno. He'll likely come home when he can't find me." "Are you willing to stay here until he returns?" "Sure; there ain't any reason why I'd want to run off, if you tell my folks where I am." Joe could contain himself no longer. "Do you mean to put his word agin ours?" he cried fiercely. "Why not?" the cashier asked, softly. "It looks to me very much as if his having been brought here was an outrage." "If you speak to me agin I'll spoil the whole of your face, you cur! After arestin' a boy for meetin' with an accident in doin' what you oughter done, an' gettin' out warrants for others what couldn't have had a hand in the matter, it's easy to see why you want to believe this little villain's story. When the truth is known you understand blessed well that the town will be too hot to hold you." "That will do," Mr. Wright cried, sternly. "I shall have no such language used here. Leave this moment, Brace, and when you are more calm we'll discuss the matter." Joe looked in silence first at the cashier, and then at the superintendent, after which he said to Fred and Skip: "Come, lads, this is no place for us. We've saved the company's money, an' now are likely to be treated as we were for standin' by 'em at the time of the riot." With this reminder he walked out of the building followed by both the boys. CHAPTER XXVIII OPINIONS The three who had entered the store in such high spirits left it in a maze of bewilderment and anger. That Gus could concoct so plausible a story was none the less astonishing than that Mr. Wright should give it credence, so far as to refrain from ordering the boy's immediate arrest. Joe was so enraged that during the walk to Fred's home he did nothing but inveigh in the strongest terms against the company, and more especially these two of its servants who had insulted both himself and Fred by refusing to believe their united statements. "I'll pound that cashier 'till he can't say beans," he cried, shaking his fist in impotent rage. "What good will that do? People won't believe our story any quicker because of it." "I'll be satisfied, an' that's enough." "Don't make such threats," Fred said, imploringly. "If he hears of them it will only give him a chance to make trouble for you." "I'll not only make 'em; but carry out every one. It won't take much more talk to coax me into servin' Wright the same way." Several of the miner's acquaintances hailed him as he passed; but his heart was so full of anger that he paid not the slightest attention, and Fred felt a sense of most profound relief when they were inside the house, where the wild threats could not be heard by those who might report them at the store. After the greetings with Mrs. Byram the travelers went to the chamber where Bill lay helpless, his fractured limb bound in splints and bandages. Here the different stories were told again, and the invalid's astonishment was not less than that of his companions. "It don't hardly seem reasonable," he muttered, after a long pause. "I reckon the best thing would be for you an' Fred to see the lawyer right away. There's no knowin' what kind of a scrape may grow out of this." "It'll do jest as well if we go in the mornin' on the first train," Joe replied. "After the tramp we've had it comes kinder natural to hanker for a bed." "I s'pose it would be tough; but don't waste any time to-morrow." "Wright can't do much between now an' then, so rest easy, mate. They won't be able to take the land from us, an' in another year we'll be among the big-bugs ourselves." "Are you sure the trade can't be backed out of?" "I've left everything with the lawyer, and he'll fix matters about right." Bill closed his eyes as if in thought; Fred went down stairs to talk with his mother, and Skip took his departure, Joe saying as he accompanied him to the door: "We won't forget what you've done, lad, an' before long us four--that's countin' Sam--will be in condition to pay off our scores." "I'll have all I want when the fellers I buried in the mine promise to forget what's been done." "Then you can rest easy, for the matter was settled yesterday when you brought the grub." After Skip left Joe went out to see his friends, and an hour later he returned in a perfect rage. "That villain of a cashier has taken good care to tell his side of the story," he exclaimed, bursting into the invalid's room, "an' more'n half the men I've seen believe we got the money from Sam to stick the robbery on that thievin' Gus. Mr. Wright has taken the boy up to his house, an' is pettin' him like a prince, I s'pose, to square off for what we did to him. Why, even Donovan says old man Dobson oughter prosecute us for the outrage, as he calls it." "I can't believe it!" Bill cried, trying in vain to rise to a sitting posture. "I'm tellin' the truth, all the same. There's a big excitement in town, an' I wouldn't be surprised if Fred was arrested in the mornin', spite of what he's done." "Don't the folks know what kind of a boy that Dobson feller is?" "I reckon they do; but the cashier keeps talkin' about destroyin' one feller's character to help another, an' the blind fools here swallow all he says." "What makes him so down on our crowd?" "'Cause he had no business to make the arrests, an' if it was proved Gus an' Tim stole it, he'd be in a bad mess with all hands." "Look here, Joe"--and Bill spoke very earnestly--"it don't make any difference how tired you an' Fred are, you must go to Blacktown this very night. That lawyer will tell us jest what oughter be done, an' we've got to fight this thing tooth an' nail, now all hands are agin us." Joe realized that this was good advice, and went at once to confer with Mrs. Byram and Fred. The result of this last interview was that an hour after midnight the miner and the boy left the house quietly, and walked at a rapid pace directly across the mountain. "This is pretty tough, lad," Joe said, when they were some distance from the town. "It seems as if I'd done nothin' but tramp for the last month." "I won't grumble if this matter is straightened out finally, but just now it looks as though all hands would have been better off to let things go as they might." "Don't get downhearted. When our mine is open you can afford to laugh at this little fracas." Although Joe spoke so cheerily he was far from feeling comfortable in mind, as was apparent when they visited the lawyer's house at a very early hour next morning. The mental anxiety could be plainly read on his face as he waited to receive the legal opinion after telling his story. "I don't think you need fear any serious trouble, although matters may be very disagreeable for a while," that gentleman said. "It will be well for us to make complaint against the Dobson boy, and by causing his arrest be certain of having him here when he is wanted. I will attend to it at once." "How much money do you want?" "We won't speak of that now. When I do business for a firm as rich as yours, I am not afraid of losing my fees." "It would be hard to find any poorer concern." "There's where you make a mistake, Mr. Brace. Your title is clear; an expert, whom I sent, reports that there can be no question as to the presence of coal in large quantities, and I shall be only too glad to purchase stock when the company is formed." "Do you mean the whole of that?" Joe asked, his eyes glistening with delight. "To prove it I will advance on your joint note any reasonable amount of money which may be needed. In fact, I think it would be a good idea to give Mr. Wright a hint of your discovery, when I'm quite sure he'd view this whole affair in a different light." "We'll keep the secret a while longer. I'd rather get out of the scrape before folks know what we've found, an' then settle old scores. Now, Fred, s'pose we go to see Sam?" "I'll walk to the jail with you, and you can wait until I have despatched an officer to Farley's for the Dobson boy." The fact that Lawyer Hunter had come with the visitors insured them every facility for seeing their friend, and the three met in the turnkey's room with the knowledge that they might be together the entire day. Poor Sam looked forlorn, indeed, when he entered the apartment. It had been so long since his friend's last visit that he fancied they were deserting him. His appearance changed decidedly when they explained the reason for their absence, and two hours were spent in giving a detailed account of all that had happened since his departure from Farley's. Then, forgetting the present troubles, the three talked of the day when they would be mine owners instead of laborers, and built so many air castles that neither heeded the passage of time until Mr. Hunter returned with the information that an officer had visited Farley's only to find the superintendent looking anxiously for Gus. "It seems that Mr. Wright took the boy home last night, and, believing in his protestations of innocence despite your testimony, left him unguarded. As might have been expected, he took advantage of this credulity to make his escape, and now I fancy it will be many days before he re-visits this part of the country." "Then all we have done goes for nothing," Fred said, mournfully. "In that you are very greatly mistaken. Thorpe will be acquitted beyond a doubt, and it is not likely Mr. Wright dare press any charge against you at present. I shall go with you to Farley's, after Sam is released on bail, and guarantee matters will be set right." "Am I to go out?" Sam asked in surprise. "As soon as it can be arranged. Your friends are to accompany me, and the matter can be accomplished very quickly." Fred was amazed at the ease with which all this was done. He and Joe went before a magistrate, and repeated under oath the story they had told so often; two friends of Mr. Hunter's signed a paper to which the other's names had already been affixed, and, ten minutes later, Sam was with them, looking radiantly happy at being in the open air once more. It was too late to return home, unless Joe and Fred were willing to take another tramp across the mountain, and all three went to the hotel, where they formed a very jolly party. On the first train next morning the partners, accompanied by Mr. Hunter, arrived at Farley's, and found public sentiment greatly changed. The flight of Gus had caused very many to believe he really was the guilty party, although no one could guess how he gained possession of the money, and the walk to Mrs. Byram's was something like an ovation. CHAPTER XXIX A QUESTION OF TITLE It was as if each person who had doubted Sam's honesty felt it necessary to call at Mrs. Byram's and congratulate him upon what now appeared to be good proof of his innocence. Fred and the miners also came in for their share of attention, and even Bill, whose limb was paining him severely, joined his partners in celebrating their victory, which now seemed certain. Before returning home Mr. Hunter called to consult with his clients relative to making a stock company of the new mine, and, when he left, it was with full authority to do whatever he believed their interests demanded. Among the visitors in the evening was Donovan, and he had no hesitation in calling himself very severe names for having been so stupid as to think it possible his old friends could have been engaged in any questionable transaction. "The cashier is about as sore a man as can be found in town," he said, "an' if I ain't way off in my reckonin' he'll be lookin' for another job mighty soon." "Does he say anything against us?" Bill asked. "He's glum as a fish. Every feller who goes in wants to know where Gus is, an' he keeps out of sight all that's possible." "Have you seen Mr. Wright to-day?" "No; but I heard he an' that lawyer of yours had a long chin about the business. Say, Bill, by the time you get out of this scrape you'll owe a pretty penny for law, I reckon. Why don't you try to make the company pay it?" "We can stand the racket, an' won't ask a soul to help us." "Somebody must have died an' left you a pile, for men that work at Farley's don't often have enough to pay big lawyers for runnin' around." "It'll be all right, Donovan, so don't worry about that." But the mine boss did worry. He failed to understand how Bill and Joe could incur such expense with any prospect of paying it, and when he left the house it was to discuss the matter in all it's bearings with a select few of his particular friends. The superintendent did not consider it worth his while to call; but on the following morning Joe received a note to the effect that if he intended to return to the mine, it would be to his advantage to resume his work at once. "Tell Mr. Wright that I've got through with his company, an' he can put a man in my place whenever it suits him," the miner said to the messenger, and the latter had hardly reached the store before a workman from Blacktown arrived with the startling intelligence that the four who had been accused of the robbery had purchased a large tract of land on the mountain, and were about to open a mine. This news was so wonderful that one of the loungers volunteered to walk to the town for the sole and only purpose of learning if it was really true. An hour later it was rumored that Fred received the following telegram from Blacktown: "Have opened books for subscriptions, and already received pledges to the full amount necessary for beginning the work. ARTHUR HUNTER." The lounger returned in hot haste with information that the people there were in the highest state of excitement regarding the new company which was being formed by some of the most influential men in the county, and related with many embellishments of his own, the story of how the vein had been discovered by Sam and Fred. This was sufficient to cause another stream of callers to Mrs. Byram's house, and, learning that the secret had been made known, the four owners had no hesitation in giving all the particulars. Now the cashier was more unpopular than ever. Even those who refrained from censuring him on the day previous, had nothing but hard words for the man who could make such an error as to charge with theft those who were wealthy in the possession of such a rich vein as the new one was reported to be. Fully one-third of all those in the company's works took a half holiday to see the new mine, and some of the most sanguine started out to prospect for other evidences of coal. In six hours land in the immediate vicinity of the mountain increased in price, until it would hardly have paid to buy it, unless gold could be found in large quantities, and the entire county was in a ferment of excitement. It is needless to say that the four partners were very happy; but even in the midst of the great joy they found time to wonder why Skip had not called to congratulate them. Nearly every other one of their friends and acquaintances visited the house at some time during the day and evening; but the ex-chief of the regulators was conspicuous by his absence. "I wonder what the matter is with him?" Fred asked, when, at a late hour, the partners were alone. "Do you suppose he thinks we don't want to see him just because we have been fortunate?" "If he does it's the biggest mistake of his life. I like the little rascal, although he did play us a bad trick, an' if he don't show up before noon to-morrow, I'll hunt him out," Joe said, laughingly. But Skip did not put in an appearance before the time set, and, true to his word, Joe went in search of him. The information he brought back to his partners was mystifying. Skip had not been at home since the day on which Sam was liberated, and his father fancied he was absent on some work for the firm. This singular disappearance troubled Fred greatly, and during the remainder of the day he spoke more often of the boy than regarding the mine. "He'll turn up before long," Joe said, after all had tried in vain to conjecture where he might be; but Fred fancied that the miner did not speak very confidently. Nothing was heard personally from Mr. Wright; but it was common gossip about town that he had visited the newly-discovered vein several times, and spent one entire day at Blacktown. Another twenty-four hours passed, and Skip had not returned home. His parents were now beginning to feel alarmed; but the majority of the townspeople, not trusting in the sincerity of his repentance, intimated that he had joined Gus, preferring to run away rather than lead an industrious life. "I won't believe anything of the kind," Fred replied, hotly, when Donovan reported the general feeling regarding the disappearance. "He never would have done so much to help us, unless meaning exactly what he said." "I reckon hard work didn't agree with him," the breaker boss answered, with a laugh. "When Bill gets a little better Joe and I will go after him." "Where?" "I don't know; but it won't do any harm to look around, and I am----" Fred was interrupted by a knock at the door, and on answering it was handed a telegram. "Somebody is beggin' to be let in to the new company, I reckon," Donovan said, laughingly; but his smile vanished very quickly as he saw the look which came over the boy's face. "What's the matter, lad?" Joe cried, and instead of replying Fred handed him the telegram, which read as follows: "MR. FRED BYRAM:--Superintendent Wright has served an injunction restraining our company from taking further steps, on the plea that the land purchased belongs to him. His case, so far as I can learn, is very strong. It is advisable that you and Brace come here at once." "ARTHUR HUNTER." "Wha--wha--what does it mean?" Joe stammered. "I should say things were gettin' serious," Donovan replied, as he read the message over Joe's shoulder, "Mr. Wright is a hard man to fight, an' the chances are he'll get the best of you." Then he left the house as if in great haste to spread this additional news, and the partners looked at each other in dismay. "That is why we've heard nothin' from the superintendent since our secret leaked out," Bill said, grimly. "You two had better tramp across to save time. You can get there three hours ahead of the next train." "Come on," Fred cried, as he aroused from the daze caused by the startling intelligence. "Let's learn the worst quickly." "It's pretty tough to lose the thing after swellin' as we have for the last couple of days," Joe added, gloomily, but without rising from his seat. "Don't whine 'till we're sure it's gone," and Bill tried very hard to speak cheerily. At this point Mrs. Byram entered the invalid's room to say: "Mr. Wright has sent over to ask Fred and Mr. Brace to call at his office." "Matters are beginning to look brighter already," Bill cried, and Joe asked gruffly: "How do you make that out?" "If he was so sure of provin' we had no claim to the land, he wouldn't have a word to say. Now he's tryin' to make a trade." "He can't with me. Unless you, Fred an' Sam insist, it'll be the whole or nothing." "Now that's the way to talk," Bill replied. "If we can raise the money to fight there won't be any bargain made." "Don't you intend to call upon the superintendent?" Mrs. Byram asked. "Not a bit of it, ma'am. Tell whoever he sends that Fred an' Joe are too busy just now, but if he wants to make a 'pointment some time next week, they'll try to see him." "But it can't do any harm to talk with Mr. Wright." "It won't do any good, an' they'd better see the lawyer first." Mrs. Byram left the room to deliver the message, and Bill delayed his partners that they might know exactly how he felt regarding the matter before starting on the journey. CHAPTER XXX A SUIT AT LAW "Don't give in an inch," Bill said, in conclusion to his remarks concerning the validity of the title. "Get over there as quick as you can, and don't let the lawyer weaken." "It'll take big money to carry on a fight in law." "We'll try to raise it somehow." After promising to send him word as to the progress of affairs before night, in case they were detained more than one day, Joe and Fred went down stairs, and at that moment Mrs. Byram opened the door to admit Mr. Wright. He was particularly pleasant in his greetings, and asked, as he observed that they were on the point of going out: "Did you finally conclude to come to the office?" "We were on our way to Blacktown," Joe replied gruffly. "But we have plenty of time for a chat, since the train does not leave for two hours of more." "We are going to walk," Fred explained. "Then you can surely spare me half an hour." "What for?" Joe asked sharply. "I wish to see if we can't arrive at some amicable settlement of the suit which I have been forced to bring." "Wouldn't it been better to have talked first, an' then begun the law business?" "In regard to that I had no alternative. The company ordered me to proceed exactly as I did." "I'd like to hear what's goin' on down there," Bill shouted from above, and Fred said: "It's no more than fair that we should go upstairs. He's got the right to know what Mr. Wright proposes." "Yes, I prefer to speak with all the partners, though perhaps there is no necessity of sending for Thorpe." "We haven't got the time to do that," Joe replied. "Come on, an' let's get through with the business as soon as we can, for we're due in Blacktown mighty soon." The miner led the way to the invalid's chamber, and Bill greeted his former superintendent with the curtest of nods. "I have come in the hope that we can arrange matters without having recourse to the law," Mr. Wright began. "If, immediately after discovering the vein, you had advised me, I could have told you that our company owns the entire mountain, by purchase from the heirs of the original owner." "But Mr. Hunter told us the title was perfect," Fred interrupted. "Lawyers cannot always be depended upon. There is no question as to the truth of what I say, and here is a true copy of our deed." He handed Bill a legal looking document; but the miner motioned it away. "I don't want to see it," he said. "Neither of us could understand it in a week's study. The only thing for us to do is listen to what you propose." "In view of the services you all have rendered in the past, I should be sorry to see you lose the money already paid on this property, and more so to have you involved in an expensive lawsuit. Now I am empowered to make this offer: The company will return the money paid, settle with your attorney, and allow you a reasonable compensation for the labour performed. In addition, it may be that we can give you a few shares in case it is decided to open new works." As Mr. Wright paused Bill raised his head, and looking fixedly at the visitor, asked: "If the property is yours beyond a question, what makes you offer to give us anything?" "Because you have acted in such a friendly manner toward us. I am not one who forgets a friend." "You came mighty near doin' so when Sam was arrested, an' warrants sworn out for Fred an' me." "That was a matter in which it was to your interest that the law should take its course. A large majority of the people believed you knew something about the robbery, and the only way to settle it absolutely was to have the case decided in court." "Then we ought to thank you, I s'pose," and Bill leaned forward, despite the pain caused by the movement. "If we conclude to take the offer we'll let you know to-morrow." "I am sorry to say that we can agree to no delay. If the terms are accepted at once, well and good; but they will not be held open for a lawyer to interfere." "Then I'll speak for myself, an' say no," Bill cried, angrily. "The others can act as they please; but if all this is to be done jest on account of your friendship, then where's the harm of waitin' till next week, if we want to?" "I have only repeated the stipulations made by the company." "Well, we don't want anything to do with 'em," Joe added. "What Bill says goes with me, an' I reckon Fred'll stick by us." "I believe as they do, Mr. Wright." "Then you refuse the generous proposition?" "We do, but have our own idea as to how generous it is," Bill replied, grimly. "Do you think it will be possible to fight successfully a company as rich as ours?" "We'll try it for a while, anyhow, an' won't give in till we're whipped." "I don't like to make any threats; but feel it my duty to warn you of the consequences, if we press the charge of theft. The evidence is strongly against you, and more particularly so since you returned the money." "I reckon that about winds up this 'ere interview," and Joe arose to his feet with a menacing air. "Go ahead with the suit; but there's such a thing as collectin' damages, an', rich as your company is, I don't believe they can get out of payin' 'em." "That is child's talk. If you refuse what is little less than a present, I will go." "An' it's pretty nigh time." Joe added, as he opened the door. "Don't try to make us any more such presents, or we may not keep our temper." It could be plainly told that the superintendent had already lost his temper, for he went down stairs rapidly, slamming the street door behind him with a force which literally caused the cottage to tremble. "He ain't so sure of his case, as he would have us believe," Bill said, when they were alone. "It's jest possible he may try to make things hotter for us by servin' the warrant on Fred, so you'd better not come back from Blacktown, till the widder sends word. Get over as quick as you can, an' don't forget to tell the lawyer about the generous proposition." The two started without further delay, and the reception met with by those whom they passed on the street told how rapidly the bad news had travelled. On the day previous every person was very cordial, as if trying to establish his or her position as friend; but now they were greeted even less pleasantly than before the riot, and Joe said, savagely: "They're a set of curs. I did believe some of the things we heard yesterday; but now soft words won't go down with me, no matter how the property turns out." "It can't make any difference what is done or said, all I ask is that we get Sam out of his troubles." "You an' me are about as deep in the mire as he is if the case goes agin us. We'll try not to borrer trouble till there's better reason. Where do you s'pose Skip is keepin' himself all this time?" "I wish I knew. Nobody can make me believe he went off with Gus." "He's got a different game than that, an' I'm thinkin' we'll hear from him mighty soon." "Why?" "No partic'lar reason, I only jest think so." Having changed the topic of conversation, which was the sole cause of his mentioning Skip's name, Joe relapsed into a silence which was not broken until the two arrived at the newly-discovered vein. Here a party of surveyors were running imaginary lines and measuring distances, as they referred from time to time to several formidable looking documents, and Joe said, bitterly: "Wright is gettin' ready for the fight. If we had plenty of money I wouldn't feel so bad; but unless the lawyer can borrow some for us, we're likely to come out the little end of the horn." "We shall soon know all about it," and Fred continued the journey at a swift pace. Mr. Hunter was in his office when the partners arrived, and the expression on his face was not such as to inspire courage. "I didn't expected you so soon," he said, motioning them to be seated. "We walked over rather than wait for the cars," Fred replied. "I was sorry to summon you on such sorry business but Superintendent Wright has begun a fight for the possession of the land, and some of our prospective stockholders are alarmed by the attack." "Has he really got any hold on the property?" "He claims that the company's deeds give them title to the entire mountain." "Then how did it happen that the farmer could sell?" "It all hinges upon the question of survey. If the lines run twenty years ago are incorrect, as he claims, then the land you bought is located in the valley, and in that event not worth half you paid for it." "What does the farmer say?" Joe asked. "I fancy Mr. Wright has bribed him to forget where his property was. Two days ago he had a very clear idea of the location, but this morning he thinks Mr. Wright is correct. In fact, he is almost ready to swear he owned land only in the valley." "He told me exactly where it was situated, an' we bought with the positive understandin' that he was sellin' a tract on the mountain," Joe said. "That is one of the questions I wanted to decide. If he made those representations, we may force him to tell the truth rather than stand a suit for obtaining money under false representations." Fred thought it was time to tell of Mr. Wright's proposition, and when he had finished the story the lawyer said with a look of positive relief: "I'm glad to hear that. We will force them to show their hands by asking an immediate trial for Thorpe." "But suppose he should be convicted?" Fred cried. "Skip is not at home, and we need his evidence." "We must take that risk, rather than allow them time to work up a worse plot." CHAPTER XXXI SKIP It seemed to Fred as if they were about to sacrifice Sam in order to aid in confirming the title of the land, and it required no slight amount of Mr. Hunter's eloquence to persuade him differently. "By pressing for trial we have a better chance of proving his innocence. Under ordinary circumstances I would be certain of the result; but where so much property is a stake I do not like to trust the superintendent too implicitly." "But what effect can his innocence or guilt have on the other question?" "It might prejudice our case if he went before a jury. Every point must be guarded against, and this is the first to be settled." "Can we raise money enough to carry the thing through?" Joe asked. "I think so; but will tell you better to-morrow after I have had time to see some of the subscribers with whom I have not yet spoken." "Do you think we've got any chance of winning?" "I wish it were possible to say yes; but under the circumstances it seems to me that the odds are in the favor of the company represented by Mr. Wright." "Yet you don't advise us to accept his proposition," Fred said. "Certainly not. Even if I was in favor of making a compromise, the amount offered would be no temptation. I should advise you to refuse ten thousand dollars, for it will cost the company much more than that if we can raise sufficient to carry on the suit." "Is there anything for us to do?" Fred asked. "Very much. It is necessary to remain here, and send for Thorpe. I will first attend to pressing for trial, and then have an interview with the farmer for the purpose of frightening him into telling nothing but the truth. I fancy we can restore his memory by threatening him with a criminal suit." "I'll run over for Sam," Joe said, as if a walk of five miles across the mountain was nothing more than a pleasure trip. "It won't do for you to come," he added, as Fred was about to speak, "because I'm afraid Wright might use that warrant." "Yes, it is much better you should remain here," Mr. Hunter said quickly. "Isn't it possible to find the boy who first suggested Dobson was the thief?" "I'm afraid not; it looks very much as if he'd run away." "It won't do any harm to walk around town while I'm gone," Joe suggested. "You may come across some feller who has seen him." "I shall expect to meet all three this afternoon," the lawyer said, as his clients rose to go. "Do not talk with any one regarding either case, and, above all, make no promises without first consulting me." Joe and Fred left the office, the former saying when they were out of doors: "Keep a stiff upper lip, lad, an' if the company gets the best of us, remember that Farley's isn't the only colliery in the middle field. When Bill is on his pins again we can pull up stakes an' look for another job." "I am worrying about Sam rather than ourselves. It would be terrible if he was convicted of a crime he never committed." "Better that than to be guilty; but we won't look at it in such a bad light yet awhile. I'm off now; when it's time for me to be back, hang around the hotel." Then Joe started at a brisk pace, and with a heavy heart Fred walked aimlessly through the town. The idea that by so doing he might learn something regarding Skip seem preposterous, and he hardly gave it a thought after Joe made the suggestion, therefore he was startled by hearing a familiar voice crying: "Hi! Fred! Hold on a minute!" Turning quickly he saw Skip coming toward him at full speed, and looking as if he had been on a long, rough journey. "Where have you been?" he asked, in surprise. "Trying' to find that feller Tim." "Tim? What did you want of him?" "Nothing'; but I thought you might. When things turned out at Farley's as they did it seemed to me that by gettin' hold of him the truth would come out." "Have you been at that work all this time?" "Yes." "Of course you couldn't find him." "Of course I could, an' if you want him I'll go straight to where he's hiding." Fred looked at his friend in astonishment for an instant, and he cried: "Come to the lawyer's with me this minute. You're the very fellow he's been wanting to see." Five minutes later the two were closeted with Mr. Hunter, who appeared very well pleased with the news brought by Skip. "How did you chance to find the boy?" he asked. "It was a good deal like luck. Fred told about he an' Gus campin' by the river, an' I snooped up that way. A lot of us fellers stayed a week in the same place, so it was handy to get around. It was two days before I saw any signs of him, an' then I come mighty nigh tumblin' over his camp." "How long since you left him?" "Yesterday noon." "Have you been traveling all this time?" "Pretty much; but it don't make any difference if you want to send after him." "That is exactly what I want to do, and as soon as possible." "I'm ready now," and Skip started toward the door. "I didn't mean quite as soon as this. Go for something to eat, while I make the necessary arrangements. Come back here when you've had dinner." "It'll be two or three dinners in one," Skip muttered, as he followed Fred down stairs. "Didn't you take any provisions?" "Some; but not enough to last a great while. It don't make any difference, though, so long as I found Tim." Skip was not so excited but that he could eat a hearty meal, and when it was finished the two boys returned to Mr. Hunter's office just as that gentleman entered, accompanied by a constable. The official questioned Skip very minutely as to Tim's whereabouts, and when the boy had explained the situation to the best of his ability, the former said: "I reckon we won't have to walk all the way. By riding up the valley road eight or ten miles it is possible to cut off a good bit of the distance." "Very well, adopt any method which will insure your return to-morrow noon, for the trial is to come off at twelve o'clock. Go with him, Skip, and see to it that there is no loitering by the way." "Are you intending to hire a team?" Fred asked the constable. "Yes." "Then I'll go with you to the stables." The constable walked rapidly ahead leaving the boys to follow more leisurely, and Fred had time for a brief conversation. "You've been a good friend, Skip, and none of us will ever forget what you've done." "I don't want you to remember what happened while I was boss of the regulators." "We never think of it. Now do you believe it is possible to go to the camp and back by noon?" "It'll be a tight squeeze, even allowin' that we ride a good part of the way; but we'll pull through somehow." "Then if Tim has run off, all your work will have been for nothing." "It can't be helped if things turn that way; but I think he's too much frightened by the disappearance of Gus to leave a good hiding-place." At this moment the officer emerged from the stable in an open wagon drawn by a powerful-looking horse, and Skip shouted, as he clambered in: "We'll be back by noon." Then the two were whirled rapidly away, and Fred walked slowly to Mr. Hunter's office depressed by a sense of impending evil. The lawyer was absent, and, not caring to stroll around the town where he might meet acquaintances from Farley's, the boy remained alone until late in the afternoon, when Joe and Sam arrived. "The trial is to come off to-morrow," he cried, mentioning first that subject which was nearest his heart. "And you couldn't find Skip," Joe added, mournfully; but his face lighted up wonderfully on being told of what had occurred during his absence. "We'll come out of the scrape all right, if one of the young scoundrels can be produced, so you an' Sam may as well look cheerful." "Is there anything new at Farley's?" Fred asked. "Wright is goin' around like a bear with a sore head; but I didn't hear anything about his servin' the warrant on you. I reckon neither him nor that blessed cashier fancy havin' the trial come off so soon." "How is Bill?" "Chipper as a chicken. Your mother has sent some clean clothes, an' we'd better mosey over to the hotel to make ourselves comfortable like." Before any objection could be offered to this plan Mr. Hunter entered; but he did not delay the partners very long. After asking a few questions and jotting down the answers, he dismissed them with the caution to be at the office by eleven o'clock next morning. During the evening Joe tried very hard to appear jolly and perfectly at ease; but the boys could not simulate cheerfulness, and the hours passed wearily despite their companion's efforts. At an early hour Fred and Sam were on the road down which Skip had driven, waiting for his return; but when the appointed time for them to go to Mr. Hunter's office arrived, they had watched in vain. Now the suspense was positively painful. The lawyer exhibited the utmost impatience, because the constable did not come, while his clients were on the verge of despair. At half-past eleven when the train from Farley's arrived, the boys saw Mr. Wright and the cashier pass on their way to the court-room, and a few moments later Mr. Hunter said: "We can't wait any longer. Very likely Tim had left his hiding-place when the officer got there, and the latter is so foolish as to try to find him. I should have warned them that Skip must return at all hazards, for by sending him away we lose a most important witness." The boys arose to their feet in silence, and Joe was positively despondent in the face of what seemed very like defeat. On arriving at the court the partners were given seats within the enclosure reserved for attorneys, and very near the superintendent; but he paid no attention to them. The cashier glared fiercely at Sam for an instant, and then turned to look steadily in another direction. The court was occupied with another case, and in answer to Sam's question Mr. Hunter said that his trial would not begin until it was finished. "If it'll hold on 'till to-morrow so's to give Skip a fair chance of gettin' here, I'll be willin' to sit in this chair all night," Joe whispered to Fred. "It can't be delayed very long, or Mr. Hunter would tell us," was the mournful reply. "S'pose I slip out an' watch for him? He won't know where to come if there's nobody in the office." This Fred thought was a very good idea, and he suggested it to the lawyer, who said: "The constable knows that he is needed here, therefore they will put in an appearance immediately after arriving." Five minutes later Sam was called upon to plead, and he answered firmly: "Not guilty." Then the cashier was summoned to the stand, and told his story correctly, except as to the latter portion, when he said that Fred appeared very nervous during the time his friend was absent. He also declared that the two boys made mysterious signs to each other, and in a variety of ways appeared guilty. The teller of the bank, Mr. Wright, the constable who made the arrest, and one or two others gave evidence, and when the prosecution closed matters looked very black for the prisoner. Then Sam himself was called to the stand, and for half an hour underwent a most searching examination. He described very minutely the journey to Blacktown; related every particular connected with his receiving the money, and explained why he chose to walk home, when, by waiting a short time, it would have been possible to ride on the cars. That he had the money two or three moments before reaching the newly-discovered vein he was very positive. He had not intended to go to sleep when he laid down to rest. On awakening it was several moments before the loss was discovered, and then he searched in every direction. Over and over again he told what is already known, and when the testimony was finished, it could be seen from the faces of those around, that the story was not generally believed. Then Fred was called upon to tell of the chase and capture, after which Joe took the stand. Had Skip been there the prisoner's case would have been strengthened just so much; but he yet remained absent, and even Mr. Hunter looked disheartened. The miner was kept on the stand as long as possible, in the hope the missing one might come, and then the defense had been exhausted. Unless Skip appeared within a few seconds Sam would be deprived of his liberty. CHAPTER XXXII ACQUITTED If Skip had been an actor in a pantomime, and rehearsed the scene every day for a week, he could not have arrived more precisely, than when he made his appearance at the very moment Mr. Hunter was about to declare the defense closed. Sam and Fred sprang to their feet as he entered the door, and Joe actually shouted, so great was his joy and relief; but he was speedily made to understand by the officers that another breach of decorum as flagrant would result in his expulsion from the court-room. Following Skip came the constable leading Tim, who looked frightened and pale. Mr. Hunter at once called the prisoner to the witness stand. Not knowing that Gus had denied having seen the money, Tim soon said enough to convict himself, and in a few moments was ready to confess his share in the matter. "I didn't take it," he said, whiningly. "Gus showed me the money here in town an' told as how he'd sneaked it out of the pocket of a feller what he found asleep on the mountain. He agreed that I could have half if I'd go off somewhere with him." "Where is he now?" Mr. Hunter asked. "I don't know. When I went for some grub he was watchin' Fred Byram what we caught followin' us." "What had been done with the money?" "He had all that was left but ten dollars, an' I was goin' to spend that." "What had Fred Byram done to you?" "Tried to get the stuff, so's his chum wouldn't be sent to jail." "How did he know you had the bills?" "That's what puzzles me, 'less Gus give himself away to Skip Miller." "Have you seen your friend since you left him to go in search of provisions?" "If I had he'd been used up pretty bad for runnin' off with the cash after coaxin' me to leave town with him." Very little more in the way of evidence was needed, and in a short time Sam was told by the judge that there was nothing to show he was at fault in the matter, except so far as being careless in lying down to sleep, while having such an amount of money in his pocket. With this slight reprimand he was discharged from custody, and Tim sent to jail. When the partners were in the street once more Joe found it almost impossible to keep his joy within bounds. He acted in the most extravagant manner until Fred reminded him that the people might think he was intoxicated. "We'll telegraph to Bill, anyhow," he cried, and straightway the following message was sent: "WILLIAM THOMAS, Farley's, Pa.: "Skip Miller has fixed everything. Sam is free. Hurrah for Skip. JOE." "There," he said, after writing the telegram, a task of no mean magnitude for him, "that puts the credit jest where it belongs. I ain't sayin' the lawyer didn't do his share; but he'd been snowed under if Tim hadn't been brought in the nick of time." Skip was radiant with delight, as he had every reason to be, since now he felt certain his past misdeeds were atoned for, and the partners repeated over and over again that they owed him a debt which could never be repaid. Mr. Hunter insisted that the owners of the mine should remain in Blacktown until he learned whether sufficient money could be raised with which to defend the suit brought against them; but Joe was bent on going to the depot for the purpose of witnessing Mr. Wright's departure. "I want to see how he an' and his precious cashier look after failin' in convictin' an innocent boy of stealin' what never oughter been put in his charge." Fred did not care to indulge in such questionable triumph; but the miner was so persistent that he could not well refuse, and the three stood on the platform when their accusers boarded the cars. Neither of the men glanced toward the little group; but a bystander who had been present at the trial, said loud enough to be heard by both: "It looks like pretty poor business for a big corporation to try to send a boy to jail in order that he may be robbed of his property." "You're a sensible man," Joe cried, approvingly, as he insisted on shaking hands with the stranger, "an' if the time ever comes when me or my mate can do you a good turn we'll be glad." After this the four walked to the hotel, for Skip was sadly in need of food, and Joe said, in a tone of satisfaction: "I'm willin' to bet considerable that when we get back to Farley's we'll find as how Wright has gone somewhere on business, an' the cashier is takin' a vacation. Bill will show my telegram to everybody what comes in, and the whole town will be agin 'em." "If the company wins the suit, Mr. Wright won't care very much about what is said, for with two mines he will be the boss of this section," Sam replied. "I don't bother with anything at Farley's jest now; the company can run matters to please themselves, if they fail to cheat us out of our property." Now that one cause for anxiety was removed the partners devoted more time to discussing the question of title, and before night-fall had succeeded in making themselves feel decidedly uncomfortable. During the evening Mr. Hunter called with cheering news. "Among the subscribers I have found four gentlemen of means, who will advance the funds necessary for defending the suit, provided they are allowed a certain additional amount of stock in case of success. The four owners of the property must sign an agreement to that effect, and the business is settled." "How will that affect our interest?" Fred asked. "I think an equitable arrangement would be to give you jointly one-half the amount of stock issued, and with the remainder there will be no difficulty in raising sufficient to open and operate the mine." "Is that a fair division? We know very little about such things." "If there had been no trouble your share would be larger; but, under the circumstances, I think the proposition a generous one." "Then we are satisfied," Joe replied. "Bring on your documents so we can sign 'em, for I want to get back to-morrow." "I will write the agreement, and go to Farley's with you on the first train. Money for your personal expenses is to be advanced, and here is an installment. When it is gone come to me for more." "A hundred dollars!" Joe exclaimed, as he counted the bills. "We can't complain but that your subscribers are doing the thing in good style." "So they should since a large amount of money is to be made, if we are successful with the suit." Then Mr. Hunter left the partners, and Skip, who was already looked upon as a member of the new company, and they found ample material for conversation until it was time to retire. Next morning the party started for Farley's in company with the lawyer and one of the gentlemen who proposed to advance the capital. There were only a few people at the depot; but from them Sam received a most cordial welcome. Men whom he had never spoken to before congratulated him upon the happy result of the trial, and many were the harsh words spoken against the superintendent and cashier. After he ran home to see his mother for a moment the four partners assembled in Bill's chamber, and there the necessary documents were drawn up. "I have already applied for a charter," Mr. Hunter said, when all had signed, "and it only remains to win the case before opening the mine." "You'll keep us posted about what is goin' on?" Bill asked, and the lawyer replied in the affirmative, when he and the prospective stockholder took their departure, leaving the boys and Joe to gratify the invalid's curiosity concerning the happenings at Blacktown. On this day Fred saw Chunky for the first time since the discovery of the vein, and the breaker boy expressed his satisfaction at the result of the trial. "I knowed Sam wouldn't steal money," he said, emphatically; "but it looked one spell as if they'd prove it on him." "If it hadn't been for Skip matters never would have been made so plain, and even if he was acquitted, some folks might have thought him guilty." "Yes, Skip did a good job there," Chunky said, reflectively. "It's funny he made such great friends with you fellers after bein' so wild to serve you out. He's left the regulators, too, an' now I can be captain, if I want to." "Why, I thought that foolish business had all been done away with." "Not much it ain't. We can get along without Skip, an' not half try." "Don't have anything to do with such fellows, Chunky. You'll only get into trouble, and the time is sure to come when, like Skip, you'll be sorry for ever having had any connection with them." "He didn't run the concern same's I'm goin' to do, if I get to be captain," Chunky replied, with a mysterious gesture, and then he hurried away in the direction of the breaker. During the week which followed Sam's acquittal nothing of especial interest occurred. Bill was getting along as well as could have been expected; but both he and his partners were decidedly dejected as to the result of Mr. Wright's claim. As the days passed they grew more despondent, until Mrs. Byram insisted that nothing more be said about the suit in the presence of the invalid, because his extreme nervousness tended to excite fever. Then came the day on which a telegram was received from Mr. Hunter, requesting one or more of the partners to call at his office, and Joe and Fred made ready to answer the summons. "Don't keep me waiting for the news," Bill said sharply. "I can't help thinkin' Wright will spring some kind of a game on us, if he thinks there's any chance this scheme might fail." "If we're wanted on that business you shall hear the minute we know about it," Joe replied, and then he and Fred started, preferring to walk rather than wait for the train. Contrary to Brace's belief, both Mr. Wright and the cashier had remained at Farley's after the trial. It is possible they heard a few unwelcome truths; but, as a rule, those who were forced to work under them did not dare to speak too plainly. Neither Joe nor Fred had seen the gentlemen since they stepped on board the cars at Blacktown, but now they were met face to face when the travelers arrived at the out-cropping vein. The superintendent nodded carelessly, much as he would have done toward a stranger, while his companion deliberately turned his back upon the new-comers. Joe whistled as he passed on, to show how little concern he felt at meeting the two whom he considered enemies, but he whispered to Fred when they were farther down the mountain: "I want to know what them fellers are doin' out here. It looks as if some crooked work was goin' on." "They can't run away with the vein," Fred replied laughingly, "and I don't see how their being in this vicinity can hurt us." "Nor I; but it won't do any harm to watch 'em. They're none too honest to play any kind of a mean trick." "It's too late to turn now, for they'd surely know what we were up to." "We can keep on a little farther, an' then double back under cover of the trees." "All right. I don't suppose it will make much difference if we loaf a bit." Joe walked straight ahead until they were within shelter of a line of foliage, and then turning sharply to the left, circled around the side of the mountain to a point just above the vein, where the two men could be plainly seen, while the watchers were hidden among the bushes. Mr. Wright and the cashier at first sight appeared to be walking aimlessly to and fro, as if calculating the width of the coal mine, and now and then the former stooped to pull up a stake, which he placed in another position. "It looks as if they was figgerin' how wide the slope would have to be," Joe whispered. "I reckon we've wasted our time sneakin' over here." "They are moving the stakes driven by the surveyors!" Fred exclaimed, after a brief pause. "But what good will that do 'em?" "I don't know; of course, the lines can be run again by any one; but there must be a scheme in it, for Mr. Wright wouldn't be out here unless something could be gained by it." "They've got no right on our land, an' I'll warn them off," Joe said, as he arose excitedly to his feet. "Don't so much as show yourself. We'll hurry on to see Mr. Hunter; he'll know what is up." "Come on, then, an' be quick about it, for there's no tellin' when these tricks are dangerous." The miner and the boy literally ran down the hill, slackening not the pace until forced to do so, and both were nearly breathless when they neared the lawyer's office. Before Mr. Hunter could speak Joe told what had been seen, and that gentleman grew quite as excited as were the others. "I learned yesterday that Wright had bought a strip of land near yours, regardless of the fact that he claims to own this side of the mountain, and has ordered a force of workmen there immediately. We now know he is changing the surveyor's stakes in order to erect buildings on our tract, and thus force us to become plaintiffs instead of defendants. "How would that benefit him?" "In several ways which I have not time to explain. Wait here until I return." Then Mr. Hunter left the office in great haste, and Fred and Joe looked at each other in dismay. CHAPTER XXXIII VICTORIOUS The lawyer did not return for several hours, and then he said: "I have sent for surveyors, and we will run our own lines early to-morrow morning, after which an officer shall be stationed there to warn him from encroaching. You must be on the spot as early as possible to attend to matters." "He'll find us when the sun comes up. Was this why you sent the telegram?" "I wanted to discover what he meant by the hiring of carpenters and the ordering of lumber; but that you have already done." "When will the case be tried?" "Next week I think; but that is of minor importance just now. The supposed location of the purchase is to be pointed out to the surveyors, therefore one of you must remain here until they arrive. "When do you expect them?" "On the first train to-morrow." "Fred can wait for 'em, an' I'll leave in time to get there by daylight." "Very well; make your preparations to stay until I send word that it is no longer necessary." Joe and Fred left the office to purchase such provisions as might be needed while holding possession of the disputed property, and when this had been done the question arose as to how word could be sent to Bill. "The story is too long for a telegram," Fred said, "so suppose we say by wire that there is nothing particularly new, and write a letter?" "Go ahead. I ain't much of a fist with a pen, so while you're tellin' the yarn I'll send the message." Joe retired early in order to be in readiness for the journey, and Fred was not awake when, shortly after midnight, he slipped out of the house. It was not an easy matter to find his way in the darkness; but he finally succeeded after straying from the right course several times, and was thoroughly astonished at finding half a dozen men already in possession. A small amount of lumber was scattered here and there, as if placed in readiness to be used, and a temporary camp had been erected close beside the coal vein. The men had but just awakened when he arrived, and in reply to his angry question of why they were there, one of them asked impudently: "What business is it of yours?" "I happen to own a quarter of this land, an' it'll be hot for all hands if there's any attempt at puttin' up a building." "It'll take us about two minutes to clean you out, an' we'll do it, if you so much as yip again." Joe was literally trembling with rage. He fancied a portion of his title to the tract would be lost, if he did not drive the intruders away, and before the spokesman had time to defend himself against an attack, the miner knocked him headlong with one well-directed blow. Then, picking up an axe which lay near by, he made such a furious onslaught upon the remainder of the party that they scattered in every direction. Instead of following, he chopped and tore at the camp until it was demolished, and then destroyed all the provisions it had contained, in addition to pounding into shapeless masses the tin cooking utensils. By this time the carpenters got their scattered forces together and were marching in a body against the man who had put them to flight. In the immediate vicinity of the camp were stored nearly all the tools, and, standing over these, Joe shouted: "As true as my name's Brace I'll kill the first man who comes here," and he brandished the axe above his head. "Don't be a fool!" some one cried. "What can you do against the crowd?" "Split open the head of the first who comes within strikin' distance. After that has been done you may manage to get the best of me; but one is sure to go down--which shall it be?" None of the party cared to prove the truth of Joe's threat, and they fell back a short distance, giving him an opportunity to intrench himself behind the fragments of the camp. The miner took care to gather the tools around him so they could not be seized in case a sudden rush was made, and then, as he afterward said, "read the riot act" to the trespassers. Matters were in this condition when Fred and the surveyors arrived. The carpenters were seated on the ground a short distance away, while Joe remained perched on the ruins of the hut calmly smoking his pipe; but prepared for any attack, however sudden. "Go back to Blacktown and tell the lawyer to send some officers," the miner cried, "These beauties are countin' on buildin' a house right here, I'll hold 'em off till they can be arrested." "Oh, yes you will," one of the party shouted. "Wait till the crowd get here from Farley's, an' then we'll see who runs this place." Joe brandished his axe, as an intimation of what he was prepared to do, and cried to Fred who stood in silent astonishment a few paces away: "Hurry on, lad, there's no time to be lost!" This roused Fred to a sense of the necessity for immediate action, and he started off at full speed. The surveyors thinking quite naturally that they were not included in the hostilities, made ready to perform the work for which they had been engaged; but no sooner were the instruments set up than the carpenters made a dash at them, crying: "If we have to lay still you shall do the same. Stand back an' wait till Mr. Wright comes." "Stick to your job, an' if one will help me, I'll get rid of the whole boiling," Joe cried as he advanced. "Look here, my friend," the elder of the surveying party said in a low tone, "I understand something about this fight, and don't propose to get mixed up in what isn't really any of my business. We'll run the lines, if nobody molests us; but won't put ourselves out to do it." "Then I can't count on you?" "Not at all; this is too serious business for us to be involved in. If you want to buy a good revolver, though, I'll sell one cheap, and take my pay when we meet in Blacktown. "You're a brick," Joe cried, enthusiastically. "Give me the shooter, an' I'll guarantee to pay any price for it." The weapon was delivered, and the miner left his fortification, marching directly toward the enemy. "I give you a fair warnin' to clear out," he said, leveling the revolver. "This is my land, an' I order every one to leave. These surveyors are here to run the lines for my partners an' me. The first who interferes with em' will get a ball. I ain't talkin' foolish, for you know the law will uphold me in defendin' my own. Now begin the job," he added, to the surveying party, "an' we'll see who wants to have trouble." This argument was understood by Mr. Wright's adherents, and they kept at a respectful distance, while the others did their work. New stakes were set up without any regard to those already in position, and the labor had but just been completed when the superintendent and two members of his company arrived. "Why are you not at work?" he asked one of the carpenters. For reply the man pointed toward Joe, who was pacing to and fro on what he believed to be the boundary line of his property. "Get those timbers up," Mr. Wright cried angrily. "You may drag them off; but the first one who dares so much as raise a joist for any other purpose, shall suffer!" Joe shouted. "Knock that fellow down! What business has he here?" and the superintendent's voice trembled with suppressed fury. "I'm where I belong, an' seein's how your men don't dare do the knockin' down, s'pose you take a hand at it." Mr. Wright advanced as if to act upon the suggestion; but before he reached the imaginary line the miner shouted: "If you put a foot on this land I'll shoot. Send your crowd home, and then if you want to tackle me I'll throw the revolver down, an' meet you half way." The superintendent paid no attention to this remark, save to halt on the safe side of the danger line, where he whispered a few words to one of his men, and the latter started at full speed for Farley's. "I reckon my jig is about up," Joe muttered to himself. "He's sent for help, an' they're bound to bring what'll be of more service than this revolver." The surveyors, evidently believing there was no especial reason why they should stay, now matters were nearing a crisis, took their departure, and the miner was once more left alone to defend his rights. Ten minutes later Fred appeared from among the trees, followed by five determined looking men, and Joe's cheers were not ended when Mr. Hunter came in view. The lawyer shook hands with the miner as he said: "You've saved us what might have been a bad mess. Now we have a reasonably large force, and can hold out until an injunction is procured." "Are you likely to get one soon?" "A clerk will bring it in a short time. The application has been granted, and the only delay is while the papers can be made out." "I'm glad of that, for Wright has sent after more help, an' when it comes things are likely to be hot." Mr. Hunter now advanced and held a long conversation with the superintendent and his friends, at the conclusion of which he ordered Joe to have the lumber dragged from the tract staked out by the surveyors. In this work Fred assisted, while the miner stood guard with his revolver to prevent any interference, and when the task was finished the former whispered to his partner: "Did they scare you, Joe?" "Well, I don't mind ownin' to you that they did; but not one in the gang knew it. I was bound to stick as long as I could, an' a big lot of bluff helped me through." "Mr. Hunter says that if the injunction can be served on Mr. Wright before the men begin work, it will be all right." "Is that the only thing he knows of to stop matters?" "It will be enough." "I'd rather trust to my fist than any paper that was ever written." After a time Fred succeeded in making the miner understand what kind of a document it was they depended upon to prevent the superintendent from trespassing, and the explanation had but just been made as Mr. Hunter's clerk arrived with the important document. When this had been served on Mr. Wright the matter was settled temporarily, and the lawyer said to Fred and Joe: "You can return home, and the next summons will be for the trial. This move of Wright's has been a foolish one, and will, I think, prejudice his case." CHAPTER XXXIV THE NEW MINE It is unnecessary to give the details of the long trial to establish the title of that certain tract of land known as "Louder's Slope." Suffice it to say that all the claimants were there with the exception of Bill Thomas, and the case was finally settled in favor of the defendants. The farmer who sold the property to Joe was literally frightened into telling the truth, and although the company showed a deed for the land, no record could be found for the same. The general opinion of those who understood the case was that Mr. Wright had attempted to play a desperate game, and failed because it was impossible to corrupt certain parties in the Recorder of Deeds' office. In fact, a very ugly rumor gained circulation immediately after the trial, to the effect that a large sum of money had been offered a clerk, if he would change a number of figures on the books to correspond with the deed which was exhibited in court. When Joe, Fred, and Sam returned home absolute owners of the valuable tract, the walk from the depot to Mrs. Byram's house was a regular ovation. Those who rejoiced when it seemed certain the boys would not benefit by the discovery, were apparently as well pleased as the partners' warmest friends, and during the evening following the announcement of the verdict, Farley's was in a high state of excitement. Among the last who called to offer congratulations was Skip, and he said emphatically as he and Fred stood by the side of Bill's bed: "I'm as glad as if some of the luck was mine. You say I've squared accounts, an' that's enough to make me feel mighty good. Of course, you'll have to hire breaker boys, an' I'd like a job at the new mine, 'cause it ain't likely things here'll be very pleasant for me." "Fred an' me have figgered out a place for you, lad," the old miner replied, as he took Skip's hand in his. "Our mine won't be open for two or three months, an' durin' that time the firm are goin' to send you to school. When the store is opened--for, of course, we'll need one--you're to go into it, an' the day Skip Miller can take hold of the accounts he's goin' to have full charge." The ex-captain of the regulators looked from one to the other in silence several seconds, and then he asked, in a hesitating way: "You ain't makin' fun of a feller, eh?" "Not a bit of it, lad, an' if you run over to Blacktown to-morrow an' ask Mr. Hunter he'll show that the money has been paid for your schooling." Skip did not trust himself to reply, but after shaking each of his friends by the hand he hurriedly left the house, and Chunky, who entered a few moments later, said to Fred: "I reckon Skip wishes he was you. I met him jest now, an' he was cryin' reg'lar tears, an' wouldn't stop to listen when I told him the fellers had chose me for captain." Nothing was seen of either Mr. Wright or his cashier until nearly two weeks after the case had been ended, and then the former called at Mrs. Byram's cottage to offer his "congratulations." "It is not well that there should be any hard feelings between us since we are to be neighbors," he said. "What I did was in the interests of the company which I represent, and any other course would have been impossible." To this remark Fred made no reply; but he was willing to be on apparently friendly terms with the superintendent, which was more than can be said of the elder partners. Bill bluntly told Mr. Wright what he thought of his conduct, and expressed the hope in very plain words, that it would not be necessary for the new firm to have any business relations with the old company. Four months later the Byram-Thorpe works were formally opened, with Bill as mine boss, Fred and Sam as superintendents, and Joe in charge of the shipments. It must not be understood that the two boys were fully qualified for their responsible positions; Bill and Joe acted as advisers, and if one year's work is any criterion the quartette have administered the affairs most wisely, for in all the middle field there are no better or more contented miners than can be found at the Byram-Thorpe works. In one year Skip was pronounced competent to take full charge of the store, and to-day it would be difficult to select a fellow better liked than he. On the Blacktown side of the mountain every one speaks of him in the most flattering terms, and at Farley's he is held up to breaker boys as an example of how one may live down a bad reputation. Chunky still works under Donovan; he could not make up his mind to resign from the regulators, and to-day his record is by no means as good as it should be. Neither Fred nor Sam cared to take him with them, for both knew by bitter experience the aim of his association, and did not wish to introduce anything of the kind at the new mine. Gus Dobson was arrested about a month after Sam had been pronounced innocent. On running away from Mr. Wright's house he hid in the woods near where Tim was found; but four weeks of this kind of a life was sufficient. He presented a most deplorable appearance when he returned home one morning. His clothes were in tatters, the shoes literally hanging from his feet, and the pangs of hunger printed on his face. Imprisonment was a far less severe punishment than starvation, and as he said, "the judge couldn't give him any sentence worse than sneaking around the mountains without food or shelter." The new mine has only been in operation about a year; but that is time enough to show that the vein is much richer than the one at Farley's. Instead of being forced to spend money making a shaft or slope, coal of good quality has been taken out from the first, and already do the original owners consider themselves wealthy. It is true the united amount in bank would not be thought large by many; but their income is considerably in excess of all necessary expenses and, what is better yet, perfect content dwells with them. * * * * * [Illustration] THE YOUNG HUNTERS SERIES BY CAPTAIN RALPH BONEHILL Gun and Sled Young Hunters of Porto Rico PRICE 75C, POSTPAID [Illustration] _The Young Sportsman Series_ _By Captain Ralph Bonehill_ Young Oarsman of Lake View Leo, the Circus Boy Rival Cyclists _PRICE 75c POST PAID_ [Illustration] WORKS OF JAMES OTIS Down the Slope Messenger 48 Teddy Telegraph Tom's Venture PRICE 75 CENTS, POSTPAID. [Illustration] WORKS OF HARRY CASTLEMON The First Capture A Struggle for a Fortune Winged Arrow's Medicine PRICE 75C POSTPAID [Illustration] BRIGHT AND BOLD SERIES BY ARTHUR M. WINFIELD. 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31128	----	[Illustration: BULLDOG FINDS A FRIEND.] FACING DEATH OR, THE HERO OF THE VAUGHAN PIT. A TALE OF THE COAL MINES. BY G. A. HENTY, Author of "With Clive in India;" "In Freedom's Cause;" "By Sheer Pluck;" "Under Drake's Flag;" &c. _WITH EIGHT FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS BY GORDON BROWNE._ LONDON: BLACKIE & SON, LIMITED; NEW YORK: CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS, 743 AND 745 BROADWAY CONTENTS. CHAP. PAGE I. EVIL TIDINGS, 9 II. BULL-DOG, 16 III. THE RESOLUTION, 31 IV. THE VAUGHAN PIT, 39 V. SETTING TO WORK, 49 VI. "THE OLD SHAFT," 54 VII. FRIENDSHIP, 64 VIII. PROGRESS, 74 IX. THE GREAT STRIKE, 80 X. HARD TIMES, 96 XI. THE ATTACK ON THE ENGINE-HOUSE, 105 XII. AFTER THE STRIKE, 117 XIII. A HEAVY LOSS, 124 XIV. THE NIGHT-SCHOOL, 134 XV. THE SEWING-CLASS, 146 XVI. A NEW LIFE, 156 XVII. THE DOG FIGHT, 166 XVIII. STOKEBRIDGE FEAST, 173 XIX. THE GREAT RIOT, 183 XX. THE ARM OF THE LAW, 193 XXI. A KNOTTY QUESTION, 201 XXII. THE SOLUTION, 209 XXIII. THE EXPLOSION AT THE VAUGHAN, 222 XXIV. IN DEADLY PERIL, 235 XXV. THE IMPRISONED MINERS, 239 XXVI. A CRITICAL MOMENT, 253 XXVII. RESCUED, 259 XXVIII. CHANGES, 274 XXIX. THE NEW MANAGER, 283 XXX. RISEN, 289 XXXI. CONCLUSION, 298 ILLUSTRATIONS. PAGE BULLDOG FINDS A FRIEND, _Frontispiece_. IN THE OLD SHAFT--CAN HE BE SAVED? 58 NELLY'S FIRST LESSON, 70 A LIFE OR DEATH STRUGGLE, 113 JACK IS VICTORIOUS, 170 THE NEW SCHOOLMISTRESS, 217 AFTER THE FIRST EXPLOSION--THE SEARCH PARTY, 237 SAVED! 270 FACING DEATH: OR, HOW STOKEBRIDGE WAS CIVILIZED. CHAPTER I. EVIL TIDINGS. A row of brick-built houses with slate roofs, at the edge of a large mining village in Staffordshire. The houses are dingy and colourless, and without relief of any kind. So are those in the next row, so in the street beyond, and throughout the whole village. There is a dreary monotony about the place; and if some giant could come and pick up all the rows of houses, and change their places one with another, it is a question whether the men, now away at work, would notice any difference whatever until they entered the houses standing in the place of those which they had left in the morning. There is a church, and a vicarage half hidden away in the trees in its pretty old-fashioned garden; there are two or three small red-bricked dissenting chapels, and the doctor's house, with a bright brass knocker and plate on the door. There are no other buildings above the common average of mining villages; and it needs not the high chimneys, and engine-houses with winding gear, dotting the surrounding country, to notify the fact that Stokebridge is a mining village. It is a little past noon, and many of the women come to their doors and look curiously after a miner, who, in his working clothes, and black with coal-dust, walks rapidly towards his house, with his head bent down, and his thick felt hat slouched over his eyes. "It's Bill Haden; he works at the 'Vaughan.'" "What brings he up at this hour?" "Summat wrong, I'll be bound." Bill Haden stopped at the door of his house in the row first spoken of, lifted the latch, and went in. He walked along a narrow passage into the back-room. His wife, who was standing at the washing-tub, turned round with a surprised exclamation, and a bull-dog with half-a-dozen round tumbling puppies scrambled out of a basket by the fire, and rushed to greet him. "What is it, Bill? what's brought thee home before time?" For a moment Bill Haden did not answer, but stooped, and, as it were mechanically, lifted the dog and stroked its head. "There's blood on thy hands, Bill. What be wrong with 'ee?" "It bain't none of mine, lass," the man said in an unsteady voice. "It be Jack's. He be gone." "Not Jack Simpson?" "Ay, Jack Simpson; the mate I ha' worked with ever since we were butties together. A fall just came as we worked side by side in the stall, and it broke his neck, and he's dead." The woman dropped into a chair, threw her apron over her head, and cried aloud, partly at the loss of her husband's mate, partly at the thought of the narrow escape he had himself had. "Now, lass," her husband said, "there be no time to lose. It be for thee to go and break it to his wife. I ha' come straight on, a purpose. I thawt to do it, but I feel like a gal myself, and it had best be told her by another woman." Jane Haden took her apron from her face. "Oh, Bill, how can I do it, and she ill, and with a two-month baby? I misdoubt me it will kill her." "Thou'st got to do it," Bill said doggedly, "and thou'd best be quick about it; it won't be many minutes afore they bring him in." When Bill spoke in that way his wife knew, as he said, that she'd got to do it, and without a word she rose and went out, while her husband stood staring into the fire, and still patting the bull-dog in his arms. A tear falling on his hand startled him. He dropped the dog and gave it a kick, passed his sleeve across his eyes, and said angrily: "Blest if I bain't a crying like a gal. Who'd a thawt it? Well, well, poor old Jack! he was a good mate too"--and Bill Haden proceeded to light his pipe. Slowly and reluctantly Mrs. Haden passed along the row. The sad errand on which she was going was one that has often to be discharged in a large colliery village. The women who had seen Bill go in were still at their doors, and had been joined by others. The news that he had come in at this unusual hour had passed about quickly, and there was a general feeling of uneasiness among the women, all of whom had husbands or relatives below ground. When, therefore, Jane Haden came out with signs of tears on her cheeks, her neighbours on either side at once assailed her with questions. "Jack Simpson's killed by a fall," she said, "and I ha' got to break it to his wife." Rapidly the news spread along the row, from door to door, and from group to group. The first feeling was everywhere one of relief that it was not their turn this time; then there was a chorus of pity for the widow. "It will go hard with her," was the general verdict. Then the little groups broke up, and went back to their work of getting ready for the return of their husbands from the pit at two o'clock. One or two only, of those most intimate with the Simpsons, followed Jane Haden slowly down the street to the door of their house, and took up a position a short distance off, talking quietly together, in case they might be wanted, and with the intention of going in after the news was broken, to help comfort the widow, and to make what preparations were needed for the last incoming of the late master of the house. It was but a minute or two that they had to pause, for the door opened again, and Jane Haden beckoned them to come in. It had, as the gossips had predicted, gone hard with the young widow. She was sitting before the fire when Jane entered, working, and rocking the cradle beside with her foot. At the sight of her visitor's pale face, and tear-stained cheeks, and quivering lips, she had dropped her work and stood up, with a terrible presentiment of evil--with that dread which is never altogether absent from the mind of a collier's wife. She did not speak, but stood with wide-open eyes staring at her visitor. "Mary, my poor girl," Mrs. Haden began. That was enough, the whole truth burst upon her. "He is killed?" she gasped. Mrs. Haden gave no answer in words, but her face was sufficient as she made a step forward towards the slight figure which swayed unsteadily before her. Mary Simpson made no sound save a gasping sob, her hand went to her heart, and then she fell in a heap on the ground, before Mrs. Haden, prepared as she was, had time to clasp her. "Thank God," Jane Haden said, as she went to the front door and beckoned the others in, "she has fainted." "Ay, I thawt as much," one of the women said, "and a good job too. It's always best so till he is brought home, and things are straightened up." Between them Mary Simpson was tenderly lifted, and carried upstairs and laid on the bed of a lodger's room there. The cradle was brought up and put beside it, and then Jane Haden took her seat by the bed, one woman went for the doctor, while the others prepared the room below. In a short time all that remained of Jack Simpson was borne home on a stretcher, on the shoulders of six of his fellow-workmen, and laid in the darkened room. The doctor came and went for the next two days, and then his visits ceased. It had gone hard with Mary Simpson. She had passed from one long fainting fit into another, until at last she lay as quiet as did Jack below; and the doctor, murmuring "A weak heart, poor little woman; the shock was too much for her," took his departure for the last time from the house. Then Jane Haden, who had not left her friend's side ever since she was carried upstairs, wrapped the baby in a shawl and went home, a neighbour carrying the cradle. When Bill Haden returned from work he found the room done up, the table laid for tea, and the kettle on the fire. His wife was sitting by it with the baby on her lap. "Well, lass," he said, as he entered the room, "so the poor gal's gone. I heard it as I came along. Thou'st's had a hard two days on't. Hulloa! what's that?" "It's the baby, Bill," his wife said. "What hast brought un here for?" he asked roughly. Jane Haden did not answer directly, but standing in front of her husband, removed the handkerchief which covered the baby's face as he lay on her arm. "Look at him, Bill; he's something like Jack, don't thou see it?" "Not a bit of it," he said gruffly. "Kids don't take after their father, as pups do." "I can see the likeness quite plain, Bill. Now," she went on, laying her hand on his shoulder, "I want to keep him. We ain't got none of our own, Bill, and I can't abear the thought of his going to the House." Bill Haden stood irresolute. "I shouldn't like to think of Jack's kid in the House; still he'll be a heap of trouble--worse nor a dozen pups, and no chance of winning a prize with him nohow, or of selling him, or swopping him if his points don't turn out right. Still, lass, the trouble will be thine, and by the time he's ten he'll begin to earn his grub in the pit; so if thy mind be set on't, there's 'n end o' the matter. Now let's have tea; I ain't had a meal fit for a dog for the last two days, and Juno ain't got her milk regular." So little Jack Simpson became a member of the Haden family, and his father and mother were laid to rest in the burying-ground on the hillside above the village. CHAPTER II. BULL-DOG. A curious group as they sit staring into the fire. Juno and Juno's daughter Bess, brindles both, with their underhanging lower jaws, and their black noses and wrinkled faces, and Jack Simpson, now six years old, sitting between them, as grave and as immovable as his supporters. One dog is on either side of him and his arms are thrown round their broad backs. Mrs. Haden is laying the table for her husband's return; she glances occasionally at the quiet group in front of the fire, and mutters to herself: "I never did see such a child in all my born days." Presently a sudden and simultaneous pricking of the closely-cropped ears of Juno and Bess proclaim that among the many footsteps outside they have detected the tread of their master. Jack accepts the intimation and struggles up to his feet just as Bill Haden lifts the latch and enters. "It's a fine day, Bill," his wife said. "Be it?" the collier replied in return. "I took no note o't. However it doant rain, and that's all I cares for. And how's the dogs? Did you give Juno that physic ball I got for her?" "It's no manner of use, Bill, leaving they messes wi' me. I ha' tould you so scores o' times. She woant take it from me. She sets her jaws that fast that horses could na pull 'em apart, and all the while I'm trying she keeps oop a growl like t' organ at the church. She's a' right wi'out the physic, and well nigh pinned Mrs. Brice when she came in to-day to borrow a flatiron. She was that frighted she skirled out and well nigh fainted off. I had to send Jack round to the "Chequers" for two o' gin before she came round." "Mrs. Brice is a fool and you're another," Bill said. "Now, ooman, just take off my boots for oim main tired. What be you staring at, Jack? Were you nearly pinning Mother Brice too?" "I doant pin folk, I doant," Jack said sturdily. "I kicks 'em, I do, but I caught hold o' Juno's tail, and held on. And look 'ee here, dad, I've been a thinking, doant 'ee lift I oop by my ears no more, not yet. They are boath main sore. I doant believe neither Juno nor Bess would stand bein lifted oop by their ears, not if they were sore. I be game enough, I be, but till my ears be well you must try some other part. I expect the cheek would hurt just as bad, so you can try that." "I do wish, Bill, you would not try these tricks on the boy. He's game enough, and if you'd ha' seen him fighting to-day with Mrs. Jackson's Bill, nigh twice as big as himself, you'd ha' said so too; but it ain't Christian-like to try children the same way as pups, and really his ears are sore, awful sore. I chanced t' notice 'em when I washed his face afore he went to school, and they be main bad, I tell 'ee." "Coom here," the miner said to Jack. "Aye, they be sore surely; why didn't 'ee speak afore, Jack? I doant want to hurt 'ee, lad." "I wa'n't going to speak," Jack said. "Mother found it out, and said she'd tell 'ee o't; but the last two nights I were well nigh yelping when 'ee took me up." "You're a good plucked 'un, Jack," Bill Haden said, "and I owt not t' ha done it, but I didn't think it hurt 'ee, leastways not more nor a boy owt to be hurt, to try if 'ee be game!" "And what's you and t' dogs been doing to-day, Jack?" the miner asked, as he began at his dinner. "We went for a walk, dad, after school, out in the lanes; we saw a big black cat, and t' dogs chased her into a tree, then we got 't a pond, and d'ye know, dad, Bess went in and swam about, she did!" "She did?" the miner said sharply. "Coom here, Bess;" and leaving his meal, he began anxiously to examine the bull-dog's eyes and listened attentively to her breathing. "That were a rum start for a bull too, Jack. She doant seem to ha' taken no harm, but maybe it ain't showed itself. Mother, you give her some hot grub t' night. Doant you let her go in t' water again, Jack. What on airth made her tak it into her head to go into t' water noo, I wonder?" "I can't help it if she wants to," Jack said; "she doant mind I, not when she doant want to mind. I welted her t'other day when she wanted to go a't parson's coo, but she got hold o' t' stick and pulled it out o' my hand." "And quite raight too," Bill Haden said; "don't 'ee try to welt they dogs, or I'll welt thee!" "I doant care," the child said sturdily; "if I goes out in charge o' they dogs, theys got to mind me, and how can I make 'em mind me if I doant welt 'em? What would 'ee say to I if Bess got had up afore the court for pinning t' parson's coo?" As no ready reply occurred to Bill Haden to this question he returned to his meal. Juno and Bess watched him gravely till he had finished, and then, having each received a lump of meat put carefully aside for them, returned to the fire. Jack, curling himself up beside them, lay with his head on Juno's body and slept till Mrs. Haden, having cleared the table and washed up the things, sent him out to play, her husband having at the conclusion of his meal lighted his pipe and strolled over to the "Chequers." Bill Haden had, according to his lights, been a good father to the child of his old mate Simpson. He treated him just as if he had been his own. He spent twopence a day less in beer than before, and gave his wife fourteen pence in addition to her weekly money for household expenses, for milk for the kid, just as he allowed twopence a day each for bones for Juno and Bess. He also when requested by his wife handed over what sum was required for clothing and shoes, not without grumbling, however, and comparisons as to the wants of dorgs and boys, eminently unfavourable to the latter. The weekly twopence for schooling Mrs. Haden had, during the year that Jack had been at school, paid out of her housekeeping money, knowing that the expenses of the dogs afforded no precedent whatever for such a charge. Bill Haden was, however, liberal to the boy in many ways, and when in a good temper would often bestow such halfpence as he might have in his pocket upon him, and now and then taking him with him into town, returned with such clothes and shoes that "mother" held up her hands at the extravagance. Among his young companions Jack was liked but feared. When he had money he would purchase bull's-eyes, and collecting all his acquaintances, distribute them among them; but he was somewhat sedate and old-fashioned in his ways, from his close friendships with such thoughtful and meditative animals as Juno and Bess, and when his wrath was excited he was terrible. Never uttering a cry, however much hurt, he would fight with an obstinacy and determination which generally ended by giving him the victory, for if he once got hold of an antagonist's hair--pinning coming to him naturally--no amount of blows or ill-treatment could force him to leave go until his agonized opponent confessed himself vanquished. It was not often, however, that Jack came in contact with the children of his own age. His duties as guardian of the "dorgs" absorbed the greater part of his time, and as one or both of these animals generally accompanied him when he went beyond the door, few cared about having anything to say to him when so attended; for the guardianship was by no means entirely on his side, and however excellent their qualities and pure their breed, neither Juno nor Bess were animals with whom strangers would have ventured upon familiarity. Jack's reports to his "dad" of Bess's inclination to attack t' parson's coo was not without effect, although Bill Haden had made no remark at the time. That night, however, he observed to his wife: "I've been a thinking it over, Jane, and I be come to the opinion that it's better t' boy should not go out any more wi' t' dorgs. Let 'em bide at home, I'll take 'em oot when they need it. If Bess takes it into her head to pin a coo there might be trouble, an I doan't want trouble. Her last litter o' pups brought me a ten pun note, and if they had her oop at 'a court and swore her life away as a savage brute, which she ain't no way, it would pretty nigh break my heart." The execution of this, as of many other good intentions, however, was postponed until an event happened which led to Jack's being definitely relieved of the care of his canine friends. Two years had passed, when one morning Jack was calmly strolling along the road accompanied by Juno and Bess. A gig came rapidly along containing two young bagmen, as commercial travellers were still called in Stokebridge. The driver, seeing a child with two dogs, conceived that this was a favourable opportunity for a display of that sense of playful humour whose point lies in the infliction of pain on others, without any danger of personal consequences to the inflictor. With a sharp sweep he brought down his whip across Jack's back, managing to include Bess in the stroke. Jack set up a shout of mingled pain and indignation, and stooping for a stone, hurled it after the man who had struck him. Bess's response to the assault upon her was silent, but as prompt and far more effectual. With two springs she was beside the horse, and leaping up caught it by the nostrils and dragged it to the ground. Juno at once joined in the fray, and made desperate attempts to climb into the gig and seize its inmates, who had nearly been thrown out as the horse fell. Recovering himself, the driver, pale with terror, clubbed his whip, and struck at Juno with the butt-end. "Don't 'ee hit her," Jack cried as he arrived on the spot; "if thou dost she'll tear 'ee limb from limb." "Call the brute off, you little rascal," cried the other, "it's killing the horse." "Thou'd best keep a civil tongue in thy head," the child said coolly, "or it will be bad for 'ee. What did 'ee hit I and Bess for? It would serve 'ee roight if she had pinned 'ee instead o' t' horse." "Call them off," the fellow shouted as Juno's teeth met in close proximity to his leg. "It be all very well to say call 'em orf," Jack said, "but they doan't moind I much. Have 'ee got a strap?" The man hastily threw down a strap, and this Jack passed through Juno's collar, she being too absorbed in her efforts to climb into the gig to heed what the child was doing; then he buckled it to the wheel. "Noo," he said, "ye can light down t' other side. She caan't reach 'ee there." The young men leapt down, and ran to the head of the horse; the poor brute was making frantic efforts to rise, but the bull-dog held him down with her whole might. Jack shouted and pulled, but in vain; Bess paid no attention to his voice. "Can you bite his tail?" one of the frightened men said; "I've heard that is good." "Boite her tail!" Jack said in contempt; "doan't yer see she's a full-bred un; ye moight boite her tail off, and she would care nowt about 't. I've got summat here that may do." He drew out a twisted paper from his pocket. "This is snuff," he said; "if owt will make her loose, this will. Now one o' yer take holt by her collar on each side, and hoult tight, yer know, or she'll pin ye when she leaves go o' the horse. Then when she sneezes you pull her orf, and hoult fast." The fear of the men that the horse would be killed overpowered their dread of the dog, and each took a firm grip upon its collar. Then Jack placed a large pinch of snuff to its nostrils. A minute later it took effect, the iron jaws unclosed with a snap, and in an instant Bess was snatched away from the horse, which, delivered from its terrible foe, sank back groaning on the road. Bess made the most furious attempts to free herself from her captors, but in vain, and Juno strained desperately at the strap to come to the assistance of her offspring. "Ha' ye got another strap?" Jack asked. "There's a chain in the box under the seat." Jack with some difficulty and an amount of deliberation for which the men could gladly have slain him, climbed up into the gig, and presently came back with the chain. "Noo tak' her round to t' other side o' gig," he said; "we'll fasten her just as Juno is." When Bess was securely chained to the wheel the men ran to raise the horse, who lay with its head in a pool of blood. "There's a pond in yon field," Jack said, "if 'ee wants water." After Bess was secured Jack had slipped round to Juno, and kept his hand upon the buckle in readiness to loose her should any attempt be made upon his personal safety. The men, however, were for the moment too scared to think of him. It was some time before the horse was got on to its legs, with a wet cloth wrapped round its bleeding wound. Fortunately Bess's grip had included the bit-strap as well as the nostrils, and this had somewhat lessened the serious nature of the hurt. Jack had by this time pacified the dogs, and when the men looked round, after getting the horse on to its legs, they were alarmed to see him standing by quietly holding the dogs by a strap passing through their collar. "Doan't 'ee try to get into that ere cart," he said; "you've got to go wi' me back to Stokebridge to t' lock-oop for hitting I and Bess. Now do you walk quietly back and lead t' horse, and oi'll walk beside 'ee, and if thou mov'st, or tries to get away, oi'll slip t' dogs, you see if I doan't." "You little villain," began one of the men furiously, but a deep growl from Bess in reply to the angry tone at once silenced him; and burning with rage they turned the horse's head back towards the village and walked on, accompanied by Jack and his dogs on guard. The arrival of this procession created much excitement, and a crowd of women and children soon gathered. Jack, however, serenely indifferent to questions and shouts, proceeded coolly on his way until he arrived at the residence of the local constable, who, hearing the din, appeared at his door. "Maister Johnson," the child says, "I give them chaps in charge for saulting I and Bess." "And we give this little ruffian in charge," shouted the men, secure that, in face of the constable and crowd, Jack could not loose his terrible bull-dogs, "for setting his dogs at us, to the risk of our lives and the injury of our horse, which is so much hurt that we believe it will have to be killed." Just at this moment Bill Haden--who had returned from work at the moment that a boy running in reported that there was a row, that a horse was covered wi' blood, and two chaps all bluidy over t' hands and clothes, were agoing along wi' Jack and t' dorgs oop street to lock-oop--arrived upon the spot. "What's oop, lad?" he asked as he came up. "They chaps hit I and Bess, dad, and Bess pinned t' horse, and Juno would ha' pinned 'em boath hadn't I strapped she oop, and then we got Bess orf, and I brought 'em back to t' lock-oop." "How dar 'ee hit my lad?" Bill Haden said angrily, stepping forward threateningly. "Look oot, dad, or t' dogs will be at 'em again," Jack shouted. Bill seized the strap from the child's hand, and with a stern word silenced the dogs. "Well," the constable said, "I can't do nowt but bring both parties afore Mr. Brook i' the morning. I suppose I needn't lock 'ee all oop. Bill, will you bind yourself to produce Jack Simpson t'morrow?" "Ay," said Bill, "oi'll produce him, and he'll produce hisself, I'm thinking; seems to me as Jack be able to take 's own part." This sally was received with laughter and applause, for local feeling was very strong in Stokebridge, and a storm of jeers and rough chaff were poured upon the bagmen for having been brought in prisoners by a child. "Thee'd best get away to th' inn," the constable said, "else they'll be a stoaning thee next. There be only two on us here, and if they takes to 't we sha'n't be able to do much." So the men, leading their horse, went off to the Inn, groaned and hooted at by the crowd on the way. On their arrival a messenger was at once sent off for a veterinary surgeon who resided some four miles away. On the following morning the parties to the quarrel, the two bagmen and the injured horse on the one hand, and Jack Simpson with the two bull-dogs under charge of Bill Haden on the other, appeared before Mr. Brook, owner of the Vaughan pit and a county magistrate. Jack first gave his account of the transaction, clearly and with much decision. "I war a walking along quiet wi' t' dogs," he said, "when I hears a cart a coming from Stokebridge. I looks round and seed they two chaps, but didn't mind no further about it till as they came oop that sandy-haired chap as was a driving lets me and Bess ha' one which made me joomp, I can tell 'ee. Bess she pinned the horse, and Juno she tried to get into t' cart at 'em. They were joost frighted, they hollers, and yawps, and looks as white as may be. I fastens Juno oop wi' a strap and they houlds Bess while I poot some snoof t' her nose." "Put what?" Mr. Brook asked. "Joost a pinch of snoof, sir. I heard feyther say as snoof would make dogs loose, and so I bought a haporth and carried it in my pocket, for th' dogs don't moind oi when they are put oot. And then they gets horse oop and I makes 'em come back to t' lock-oop, but maister Johnson," he said, looking reproachfully at the constable, "wouldn't lock 'em oop as I wanted him." There was some laughter among the audience, and even the magistrate smiled. The young men then gave their story. They denied point blank that either of them had struck Jack, and described him as having set his dog purposely on the horse. Jack had loudly contradicted them, shouting, 'That's a lee;' but had been ordered to silence. Then drawing back he slipped off his jacket and shirt, and when the evidence was closed he marched forward up to the magistrate bare to the waist. "Look at moi back," he said; "that 'ull speak for itself." It did; there was a red weal across the shoulder, and an angry hiss ran through the court at the prisoners, which was with difficulty suppressed. "After what I have seen," Mr. Brook said, "there is no doubt whatever in my mind that the version given by this child is the correct one, and that you committed a cowardly and unprovoked assault upon him. For this you," he said to the man who had driven the horse, "are fined £5 or a month's imprisonment. It is a good thing that cowardly fellows like you should be punished occasionally, and had it not been that your horse had been severely injured I should have committed you to prison without option of a fine. Against you," he said to the other, "there is no evidence of assault. The charge against the child is dismissed, but it is for the father to consider whether he will prosecute you for perjury. At the same time I think that dogs of this powerful and ferocious kind ought not to be allowed to go out under the charge of a child like this." The man paid the fine; but so great was the indignation of the crowd that the constable had to escort them to the railway-station; in spite of this they were so pelted and hustled on the way that they were miserable figures indeed when they arrived there. And so Jack was released from all charge of the "dorgs," and benefited by the change. New friendships for children of his own age took the place of that for the dogs, and he soon took part in their games, and, from the energy and violence with which, when once excited, he threw himself into them, became quite a popular leader. Mrs. Haden rejoiced over the change; for he was now far more lively and more like other children than he had been, although still generally silent except when addressed by her and drawn into talk. He was as fond as ever of the dogs, but that fondness was now a part only instead of the dominating passion of his existence. And so months after months went on and no event of importance occurred to alter the current of Jack Simpson's life. CHAPTER III. THE RESOLUTION. An artist sitting in the shade under a tree, painting a bit of rustic gate and a lane bright with many honeysuckles. Presently he is conscious of a movement behind him, and looking round, sees a sturdily built boy of some ten years of age, with an old bull-dog lying at his feet, and another standing by his side, watching him. "Well, lad, what are you doing?" "Nowt!" said the boy promptly. "I mean," the artist said with a smile, "have you anything to do? if not, I will give you sixpence to sit still on that gate for a quarter of an hour. I want a figure." The boy nodded, took his seat without a word, and remained perfectly quiet while the artist sketched him in. "That will do for the present," the artist said. "You can come and sit down here and look at me at work if you like; but if you have nothing to do for an hour, don't go away, as I shall want you again presently. Here is the sixpence; you will have another if you'll wait. What's your name?" he went on, as the boy threw himself down on the grass, with his head propped up on his elbows. "Bull-dog," the lad said promptly; and then colouring up, added "at least they call me Bull-dog, but my right name be Jack Simpson." "And why do they call you Bull-dog, Jack?" The artist had a sympathetic voice and spoke in tones of interest, and the lad answered frankly: "Mother--that is, my real mother--she died when I were a little kid, and Juno here, she had pups at the time--not that one, she's Flora, three years old she be--and they used to pretend she suckled me. It bain't likely, be it?" he asked, as if after all he was not quite sure about it himself. "Schoolmaster says as how it's writ that there was once two little rum'uns, suckled by a wolf, but he can't say for sure that it's true. Mother says it's all a lie, she fed me from a bottle. But they called me Bull-dog from that, and because Juno and me always went about together; and now they call me so because," and he laughed, "I take a good lot of licking before I gives in." "You've been to school, I suppose, Jack?" "Yes, I've had five years schooling," the boy said carelessly. "And do you like it?" "I liked it well enough; I learnt pretty easy, and so 'scaped many hidings. Dad says it was cos my mother were a schoolmaster's daughter afore she married my father, and so learning's in the blood, and comes natural. But I'm done with school now, and am going down the pit next week." "What are you going to do there? You are too young for work." "Oh, I sha'n't have no work to do int' pit, not hard work--just to open and shut a door when the tubs go through." "You mean the coal-waggons?" "Ay, the tubs," the boy said. "Then in a year or two I shall get to be a butty, that ull be better pay; then I shall help dad in his stall, and at last I shall be on full wages." "And after that?" the artist asked. The lad looked puzzled. "What will you look forward to after that?" "I don't know that there's nowt else," the boy said, "except perhaps some day I might, perhaps--but it ain't likely--but I might get to be a viewer." "But why don't you make up your mind to be something better still, Jack--a manager?" "What!" exclaimed the boy incredulously; "a manager, like Fenton, who lives in that big house on the hill! Why, he's a gentleman." "Jack," the artist said, stopping in his work now, and speaking very earnestly, "there is not a lad of your age in the land, brought up as a miner, or a mechanic, or an artisan, who may not, if he sets it before him, and gives his whole mind to it, end by being a rich man and a gentleman. If a lad from the first makes up his mind to three things--to work, to save, and to learn--he can rise in the world. You won't be able to save out of what you get at first, but you can learn when your work is done. You can read and study of an evening. Then when you get better wages, save something; when, at twenty-one or so, you get man's wages, live on less than half, and lay by the rest. Don't marry till you're thirty; keep away from the public-house; work, study steadily and intelligently; and by the time you are thirty you will have a thousand pounds laid by, and be fit to take a manager's place." "Do'st mean that, sir?" the boy asked quickly. "I do, Jack. My case is something like it. My father was a village schoolmaster. I went when about twelve years old to a pottery at Burslem. My father told me pretty well what I have told you. I determined to try hard at any rate. I worked in every spare hour to improve myself generally, and I went three evenings a week to the art school. I liked it, and the master told me if I stuck to it I might be a painter some day. I did stick to it, and at twenty could paint well enough to go into that branch of pottery. I stuck to it, and at five-and-twenty was getting as high pay as any one in Burslem, except one or two foreign artists. I am thirty now. I still paint at times on china, but I am now getting well known as an artist, and am, I hope, a gentleman." "I'll do it," the boy said, rising slowly to his feet and coming close to the artist. "I'll do it, sir. They call me Bull-dog, and I'll stick to it." "Very well," the artist said, holding out his hand; "that's a bargain, Jack. Now, give me your name and address; here are mine. It's the 1st of June to-day. Now perhaps it will help you a little if I write to you on the 1st of June every year; and you shall answer me, telling me how you are getting on, and whether I can in any way give you help or advice. If I don't get an answer from you, I shall suppose that you have got tired of it and have given it up." "Don't you never go to suppose that, sir," the boy said earnestly. "If thou doesn't get an answer thou'llt know that I've been killed, as father was, in a fall or an explosion. Thank you, sir." And the boy walked quietly off, with the old bull-dog lazily waddling behind him. "There are the makings of a man in that boy," the artist said to himself. "I wish though I had finished his figure before we began to talk about his plans for the future. I shall be very proud of that boy if he ever makes a name for himself." That evening Jack sat on a low stool and gazed into the fire so steadily and silently that Bill Haden, albeit not given to observe his moods, asked: "What ail'st, lad? What be'st thinkin' o'?" Jack's thoughts were so deep that it took him some time to shake them off and to turn upon his stool. "Oi'm thinking o' getting larning." "Thinking o' getting larning!" the miner repeated in astonishment, "why, 'ee be just a dun o' getting larning. 'Ee ha' been at it for the last foive year, lad, and noo thou'st going to be done wi' it and to work in the pit." "Oi'm a going to work in the pit, dad, and oi'm a gwine to get larning too. Oi've made oop my mind, and oi'm gwine to do it." "But bain't 'ee got larning?" the miner said. "Thou canst read and write foine, which is more nor I can do and what dost want more?" "Oi'm a going to get larning," Jack said again, steadily repeating the formula, "and oi'm gwine soom day to be a manager." Bill Haden stared at the boy and then burst into a fit of laughter. "Well, this bangs a'." Mrs. Haden was as surprised but more sympathetic. "Bless the boy, what hast got in your head now?" Jack showed not the slightest sign of discomfiture at his father's laughter. "I met a chap to-day," he said in answer to Mrs. Haden, "as told I that if I made up my moind to work and joost stuck to 't, I could surely make a man o' myself, and might even roise soom day to be a manager; and I'm a going to do it." "Doant 'ee say a word to check the boy, Bill," Mrs. Haden said to her husband, as he was about to burst out into jeering remarks. "I tell 'ee, what Jack says he sticks to, and you oughter know that by this time. What the man, whos'ever he might be, said, was right, Jack," she went on, turning to the boy. "Larning is a great thing. So far you ain't showed any turn for larning, Jack, as I ever see'd, but if you get it you may raise yourself to be an overman or a viewer, though I doan't say a manager; that seems too far away altogether. If you stick to what you say you may do it, Jack. I can't help you in larning, for I ain't got none myself, but if I can help you in any other way I 'ull, and so 'ull feyther, though he does laugh a bit." "He be roight enough to laugh," Jack said, "for I hain't had any turn that way, I doant know as I ha' now, but I'm a going to try, and if trying can do it," he said in his steady tones, "oi'll do it. I think I ha' got some o' the bull-dog strain in me, and I'll hoult on to it as Bess would hoult on to a man's throat if she pinned him." "I know you will, my lad," Mrs. Haden said, while her husband, lighting his pipe and turning to go out, said: "It matters nowt to me one way or t'other, but moind, lad, larning or no larning, thou'st got to go into the pit next week and arn your living." "Jack," Mrs. Haden said presently, "dost know, I wouldn't do nowt wi' this new fancy o' thine, not till arter thou'st a been to work i' the pit for a while; a week or two will make no differ to 'ee, and thou doan't know yet how tired ye'll be when ye coom oop nor how thou'lt long for the air and play wi' lads o' thy own age. I believe, Jack, quite believe that thou be'st in arnest on it, and I know well that when thou dost begin thou'lt stick to 't. But it were better to wait till thou know'st what 'tis thou art undertaking." Jack felt that there was a good deal in what his mother said. "Very well, mother. 'Twant make no differ to me, but oi'll do as th' asks me." CHAPTER IV. THE VAUGHAN PIT. Among the group of men and boys assembled round the mouth of the Vaughan pit on the 7th of June were two little lads, Jack Simpson and Harry Shepherd, who were to make the descent for the first time. The boys were fast friends. Harry was the taller but was slighter than Jack, and far less sturdy and strong. Both were glad that they were to go into the pit, for although the life of a gate-boy is dull and monotonous, yet in the pit villages the boys look forward to it as marking the first step in a man's life, as putting school and lessons behind, and as raising them to a position far in advance of their former associates. Nowadays the law has stepped in, and the employment of such mere children in the mines is forbidden, but at that time it had not been changed, and if a boy was big enough to shut a door he was big enough to go into a mine. "Dost feel skeary, Jack?" Harry asked. "Noa," Jack said; "what be there to be skeary aboot? I bean't afeard of the dark, and they say in time 'ee get used to it, and can see pretty nigh loike a cat. There be dad a calling. Good-bye, Harry, I'll see thee to-night." The yard of the Vaughan resembled that of other large collieries. It was a large space, black and grimy, on which lines of rails were laid down in all directions; on these stood trains of waggons, while here and there were great piles of coal. In the centre rose up a lofty scaffolding of massive beams. At the top of this was the wheel over which a strong wire rope or band ran to the winding engine close by, while from the other end hung the cage, a wooden box some six feet square. At the corner of this box were clips or runners which fitted on to the guides in the shaft and so prevented any motion of swinging or swaying. So smoothly do these cages work that, standing in one as it is lowered or drawn up, only a very slight vibration or tremor tells that you are in motion. Near the square house in which stood the winding engine was another precisely similar occupied by the pumping engine. The Vaughan was worked by a single shaft divided by a strong wooden partition into two, one of these known as the downcast shaft, that is, the shaft through which the air descends into the mine, the other the upcast, through which the current, having made its way through all the windings and turnings of the roadways below, again ascends to the surface. This system of working by a single shaft, however, is very dangerous, as, in the event of an explosion, both shafts may become involved in the disaster and there will be no means of getting at the imprisoned miners. Nowadays all well-regulated mines have two shafts, one at a distance from the other, but this was less common thirty years back, and the Vaughan, like most of its neighbours, was worked with a single shaft. Each miner before descending went to the lamp-room and received a lighted "Davy." As almost every one is aware, the principle of this lamp, and indeed of all that have since been invented, is that flame will not pass through a close wire-gauze. The lamp is surrounded with this gauze, and although, should the air be filled with gas to an explosive point, it will ignite if it comes in contact with flame, the gauze prevents the light of the lamp from exploding the gas-charged air outside. When the air is of a very explosive character even the Davy-lamps have to be extinguished, as the heat caused by the frequent ignitions within the lamp raises the gauze to a red heat, and the gas beyond will take fire. Jack took his place in the cage with Bill Haden and as many others as it could contain. He gave a little start as he felt a sudden sinking; the sides of the shaft seemed to shoot up all round him, wet, shining, and black. A few seconds and the light of day had vanished, and they were in darkness, save that overhead was a square blue patch of sky every moment diminishing in size. "Be'st afeard, Jack?" Bill Haden asked, raising his lamp so as to get a sight of the boy's face. "Noa, why should I?" Jack said; "I heard 'ee say that the ropes were new last month, so there ain't nothin to be afeard on!" "That is the young un they call Bull-dog, ain't it, Bill?" "Ay!" Bill Haden answered; "he's game, he is; you can't make him yelp. I've licked him till I was tired, but he never whimpered. Now then, out you go;" and as the cage stopped the men all stepped out and started for the places in which they were working. "Coom along, Jack; the viewer told me to put you at No. 10 gate." It was ten minutes fast--and as Jack thought very unpleasant--walking. The sleepers on which the rails for the corves, or little waggons, were laid, were very slippery. Pools of water stood between them and often covered them, and blocks of coal of all sizes, which had shaken from the corves, lay in the road. When it was not water it was black mud. Sometimes a line of waggons full or empty stood on the rails, and to pass these they had to squeeze against the damp walls. Before he reached his post the gloss of Jack's new mining clothes had departed for ever. The white jumper was covered with black smears, and two or three falls on the slippery wooden sleepers had effectively blackened his canvas trousers. "There, lad," Bill Haden said at length, holding his lamp high to afford a general view of the situation; "that's your place." "The place" was a hollow like a cupboard, some five feet high, two deep, and a little wider. There was a wooden seat in it, a peg or two had been driven into the rock to hang things from, and a handful or so of hay upon the ground showed that Jack's predecessor had an idea of comfort. "There you are, and not a bad place either, Jack. You see this cord? Now when thou hearst a team of corves coming along, pull yon end and open the door. When they have passed let go the cord and the door shuts o' 'tself, for it's got a weight and pulley. It's thy business to see that it has shut, for if a chunk of coal has happened to fall and stops the door from shutting, the ventilation goes wrong and we all goes to kingdom come in no time. That's all thou'st got to do 'cept to keep awake. Of course you woan't do that; no boy does. So that you larn to wake up when the corves come along, that ull do foine." "But if I doan't?" Jack asked. "Well, if thou doan't thou'lt get waked with a cuff o' th' ear by the driver, and it depends on what sort o' chap he be how hard the cuff thou'lt get. I doan't think thou'lt feel lonely here, for along that side road they bring down other corves and the horse comes and takes 'em on. On this main road the horses go through to the upper end of the mine, half a mile farther." "How do it make a differ whether this door be open or shut, father?" "Well, lad, the air comes up the road we ha come by. Now it's wanted to go round about by the workings on that side road. This door be put to stop it from going by the straight road, so there's nothing for it but for to go round by the workings, maybe for a mile, maybe three miles, till it gets back into the main road again. So when the door is open the ventilation is checked right round the workings; so mind doan't 'ee open the door till the horse is close to it, and shut it directly it's past." When the door closed behind his foster-father, and Jack Simpson remained alone in the dense darkness, a feeling of utter loneliness and desertion stole over him. The blackness was intense and absolute; a low confused murmur, the reverberation of far-off noises in the pit, sounded in his ears. He spoke, and his voice sounded muffled and dull. "This be worse nor I looked for," the boy said to himself; "I suppose I'll get used to it, but I doan't wonder that some young uns who ain't strong as I be are badly frighted at first." Presently the confused noise seemed to get louder, then a distinct rumble was heard, and Jack felt with delight that a train of waggons was approaching. Then he saw far along the gallery a light swinging, as the man who bore it walked ahead of the horse. The water in the little pools between the sleepers reflected it in a score of little lines of light. Now he could hear the hollow splashing sound of the horses' hoofs, and prepared to answer to the shout of "door" by pulling at the string beside him. When the light came within twenty yards it changed its direction; he heard the grating of the wheels against the points, and saw that the waggons were going up the other road. There upon a siding they came to a stop, and a minute or two later a number of full waggons were brought down by another horse. A few words were exchanged by the drivers, but Jack's ear, unaccustomed to the echoes of a mine, could not catch what they said; then the first man hitched his horse on to the full waggons, and started for the shaft, while the other with the empties went up the road to the workings. The incident, slight as it had been, had altogether dissipated the feeling of uneasiness of which Jack had been conscious. Before, he had seemed shut out from the world, as if within a living tomb, but the sight of men engaged at their ordinary work close by him completely restored the balance of his mind, and henceforth he never felt the slightest discomfort at being alone in the dark. A few minutes after the rumbling of the departing train of "tubs" had died in his ear, he again heard it. Again he watched the slowly approaching light, and when it came within a few yards of him he heard the expected shout of "Gate!" He replied by a shout of "All right!" and as the driver came level with him pulled the cord and the door opened. "G'long, Smiler," the driver said, and the horse went forward. The man leaned forward and raised his lamp to Jack's face. "I thawt 'twasn't Jim Brown's voice. Who be'st thou?" "Jack Simpson; I live along wi' Bill Haden." "Ay, ay, I know'st, I knew thy father, a good sort he was too. Be'st thy first day doon the pit?" "Ay," Jack said. "Foind it dark and lonesome, eh? Thou'lt get used to it soon." "How often do the corves come along?" Jack asked as the man prepared to run on after the waggons, the last of which had just passed. "There be a set goes out every ten minutes, maybe, on this road, and every twenty minutes on the other, two o' ours to one o' theirs;" and he moved forward. Jack let the door slam after him, went out and felt that it had shut firmly, and then resumed his seat in his niche. He whistled for a bit, and then his thoughts turned to the learning which he had determined firmly to acquire. "I wish I'd ha' took to it afore," he said to himself. "What a sight o' time I ha' lost! I'll go over in my head all the lessons I can remember; and them as I doant know, and that's the best part, I reckon I'll look up when I get hoame. Every day what I learns fresh I'll go over down here. I shall get it perfect then, and it will pass the time away finely. I'll begin at oncet. Twice two is four;" and so Jack passed the hours of his first day in the pit, recalling his lessons, reproaching himself continually and bitterly with the time he had wasted, breaking off every ten minutes from his rehearsals to open the door for the train of corves going in empty and going out full, exchanging a few words each time with the drivers, all of whom were good-naturedly anxious to cheer up the new boy, who must, as they supposed, be feeling the loneliness of his first day in the pit keenly. Such was by no means the case with Jack, and he was quite taken by surprise when a driver said to him, "This be the last train this shift." "Why, it bean't nigh two o'clock, surely?" he said. "It be," the driver said; "wants ten minutes, that's all." Soon the miners began to come along. "Hullo, Jack!" Bill Haden's voice said. "Be'st still here. Come along of me. Why didst stop, lad? Thou canst always quit thy post when the first man comes through on his way out. Hast felt it lonely, lad?" "Not a bit, dad." "That's strange too," Bill said. "Most young boys finds it awful lonely o' first. I know I thowt that first day were never coming to an end. Weren't frighted at t' dark?" "I thought it was onnatural dark and still the first ten minutes," Jack admitted honestly; "but arter the first set o' corves came along I never thawt no more about the dark." "Here we are at the shaft, joomp in, there's just room for you and me." CHAPTER V. SETTING TO WORK. A week after Jack Simpson had gone to work in the "Vaughan" there was a knock one evening at the door of the schoolmaster of the Stokebridge National School. "Please, Mr. Merton, can I speak to 'ee?" "What, is that you, Jack Simpson!" the schoolmaster said, holding the candle so that its light fell upon the boy before him. "Yes, come in, my boy." The lad followed him into the parlour. "Sit down, Jack. Now what is it? Nothing the matter at home, I hope?" "Noa, sir. I wanted to ask 'ee what books I orter read, so that I may grow up a clever man?" "Bless me, Jack," Mr. Merton said, "why, I never expected this from you." "Noa, sir, but I ha' made up my mind to get on, and I means to work hard. I ha' been told, sir, that if I studies at books in all my spare time, and saves my money, and works well, I may get up high some day;" and the boy looked wistfully up in the master's face for a confirmation of what had been told him. "That's quite right, Jack, whoever told you. Hard work, study, thrift, and intelligence will take any lad from the bottom of the tree to the top. And you are quite in earnest, Jack?" "Quite, sir." The schoolmaster sat in silence for a little time. "Well, my boy, for a bit you must work at ordinary school-books, and get a fair general knowledge, and be careful to observe the way things are expressed--the grammar, I mean; read aloud when you are alone, and try in speaking to get rid of "thees" and "thous," and other mistakes of speech. I can lend you ordinary school-books, fit for you for the next four or five years, and will always explain any difficulties you may meet with. The books you will want afterwards you can buy second-hand at Wolverhampton or Birmingham. But there will be time to talk about that hereafter. What time have you to study? You have gone into the Vaughan pit, have you not?" "Yes, sir. I ha' time enough all day, for I ha' nowt to do but just to open and shut a door when the tubs come along; but I ha' no light." "The time must seem very long in the dark all day." "It do seem long, sir; and it will be wuss when I want to read, and know I am just wasting time. But I can read at home after work, when dad goes out. It's light now, and I could read out o' doors till nine o'clock. Mother would give me a candle now and again; and I should get on first rate in the pit, but the Vaughan is a fiery vein, and they ha' nowt but Daveys." "Well, my boy, here are a few books, which will suit you for a time. Let me know how you are getting on; and when you have mastered the books, let me know. Remember you want to learn them thoroughly, and not just well enough to rub through without getting the strap. But don't overdo it. You are a very small boy yet, and it is of as much importance for your future life that you should grow strong in body as well as in brain. So you must not give up play. If you were to do nothing but sit in the dark, and to study at all other times, you would soon become a fool. So you must give time to play as well as to work. Remember, do not be cast down with difficulties; they will pass by if you face them. There is an old saying, 'God helps those who help themselves.' And look here, Jack, I can tell you the best way to make the time pass quickly while you are in the dark. Set yourself sums to do in your head. You will find it difficult at first, but it will come easier with practice, and as you get on I will give you a book on 'mental arithmetic,' and you will find that there is nothing more useful than being able to make complicated calculations in your head." The next six months passed quickly with Jack Simpson. He started early with his father for the pit, and the hours there, which at first had seemed so long, slipped by rapidly as he multiplied, and added, and subtracted, finding that he could daily master longer lines of figures. Of an afternoon he played with the other pit boys, and after that worked steadily at his books till eleven o'clock, two hours after Bill Haden and his wife had gone to bed. Once a week he went in the evening to Mr. Merton, who was astonished at the progress that the boy was making, and willingly devoted an hour to explaining difficulties and helping him on with his work. Satisfied now that the boy was in earnest, Mr. Merton a few days afterwards took occasion, when Mr. Brook, the owner of the Vaughan mine, called in on school business, to tell him how one of the pit boys was striving to educate himself. "He is really in earnest, Merton; it is not a mere freak?" "No, Mr. Brook, the lad will stick to it, I'm sure. He goes by the nickname of Bull-dog, and I don't think he is badly named; he has both the pluck and the tenacity of one." "Very well, Merton; I am glad you spoke to me about it. I wish a few more boys would try and educate themselves for viewers and underground managers; it is difficult indeed to get men who are anything but working miners. I'll make a note of his name." A few days afterwards Mr. Brook, after going through the books, went over the mine with the underground manager. "Do the waggons often get off the metals along this road, Evans?" he asked, stopping at one of the doors which regulate the ventilation. "Pretty often, sir; the rails are not very true, and the sleepers want renewing." "It would be as well if there were an extra light somewhere here; it would be handy. This is Number Ten door, is it not?" "Yes sir." "Who is this? a new hand, is he not?" raising his lamp so as to have a full look at the lad, who was standing respectfully in the niche in the rock cut for him. "Yes, sir; he is the son of a hand who was killed in the pit some ten years ago--Simpson." "Ah! I remember," Mr. Brooks said. "Well, serve the boy a lamp out when he goes down of a day. You'll be careful with it, lad, and not let it fall?" "Oh yes, sir," Jack said, in a tone of delight; "and, please, sir, may I read when I am not wanted?" "Certainly you may," his master said; "only you must not neglect your work;" and then Mr. Brook went on, leaving Jack so overjoyed that for that afternoon at least his attempts at mental arithmetic were egregious failures. CHAPTER VI. "THE OLD SHAFT." In the corner of a rough piece of ground near the "Vaughan" was situated what was known as the old shaft. It had been made many years before, with a view to working coal there. The owners of the Vaughan, which at the time was just commencing work, had, however, bought up the ground, and as it adjoined their own and could be worked in connection with it, they stopped the sinking here. This was so long ago that the rubbish which had formed a mound round the mouth of the shaft had been long covered with vegetation, and a fence placed round the pit had fallen into decay. The shaft had been sunk some fifty fathoms, but was now full of water, to within forty feet of the surface. Some boards covered the top, and the adventurous spirits among the boys would drop stones through the openings between them, and listen to the splash as they struck the water below, or would light pieces of paper and watch them falling into the darkness, until they disappeared suddenly as they touched the water. The winch used in the process of excavation remained, and round it was a portion of the chain so old and rusty as to be worthless for any purpose whatever. Lengths had from time to time been broken off by boys, who would unwind a portion, and then, three or four pull together until the rust-eaten links gave way; and the boys came to the ground with a crash. It was a dirty game, however, dirty even for pit boys, for the yellow rust would stick to hands and clothes and be very difficult to remove. One Saturday afternoon a group of boys and girls of from ten to fourteen were playing in the field. Presently it was proposed to play king of the castle, or a game akin thereto, half a dozen holding the circular mound round the old pit, while the rest attacked them and endeavoured to storm the position. For some time the game went on with much shouting on the part of the boys and shrill shrieks from the girls, as they were pulled or pushed down the steep bank. "Let us make a charge a' together," said Jack Simpson, who although not thirteen was the leader of the attacking party. Then heading the rush he went at full speed at the castle. Harry Shepherd, who was one of the defenders, was at the top, but Jack had so much impetus that he gained his footing and thrust Harry violently backwards. The top of the bank was but three feet wide, and within sloped down to the mouth of the old pit shaft, fifteen feet below. Harry tottered, and to avoid falling backwards turned and with great strides ran down the bank. He was unable to arrest his course, but went through the rotten fence and on to the boarding of the shaft. There was a crash, a wild cry, and Harry disappeared from the sight of his horror-stricken companions. The rotten wood-work had given way and the boy had fallen into the old shaft. A panic seized the players, some rushed away at the top of their speed shouting, "Harry Shepherd has fallen down the old shaft!" others stood paralysed on the top of the mound; girls screamed and cried. Two only appeared to have possession of their wits. The one was Jack Simpson, the other was a girl of about twelve, Nelly Hardy. Jack did not hesitate an instant, but quickly ran down to the shaft, Nelly more quietly, but with an earnest set face, followed him. Jack threw himself down by the edge and peered down the shaft. "Harry, Harry," he shouted, "bee'st killed?" A sort of low cry came up. "He be alive, he be drowning," Jack exclaimed, "quick, get off them boords." Nelly at once attempted to aid Jack to lift the boards aside. "Coom," Jack shouted to the boys on the top, "what bee'st feared of? Thou art shamed by this lass here. Coom along and help us." Several of the boys hurried down, stung by Jack's taunt, and half the boards were soon pulled off. "What bee'st goin' to do, Jack?" "Go down, to be sure," Jack said. "Catch hold o' th' windlass." "The chain woan't hold you, Jack." "It maun hold me," Jack said. "It woan't hold two, Jack." "Lower away and hold thee jaw," Jack said; "I am going to send him up first if he be alive; lower away, I say." Jack caught hold of the end of the rusty chain, and the boys lowered away as rapidly as they could. Jack held on stoutly, and continued to shout, "Hold on, Harry, I be a-coming; another minute and I'll be with 'ee." The chain held firmly, and Jack swung downward safely. The shaft was of considerable size, and the openings in the planks had enabled the air to circulate freely, consequently there was no bad air. As Jack reached the water he looked eagerly round, and then gave a cry of joy. Above the water he saw a hand grasping a projecting piece of rock. Harry could not swim, but he had grasped the edge of a projecting stone near which he had fallen, and when his strength had failed, and he had sunk below the surface, his hand still retained its grasp. "Lower away," Jack shouted, and the chain was slackened. Jack could swim a little, just enough to cross the Stokebridge Canal where the water was only out of his depth for some fifteen feet in the middle. First he took off his handkerchief from his neck, a strong cotton birdseye, and keeping hold of the chain before him swam to the spot where the hand was above water. He had a terrible fear of its slipping and disappearing below the dark pool, and was careful to make a firm grasp at it. He was surprised to find the body was of no weight. Without a moment's delay he managed to bind the wrist fast to the chain with his handkerchief. "Above there," he shouted. "Ay," came down. "Wind up very steadily, don't jerk it now." Slowly the winch revolved and the body began to rise from the water. Jack clung to the stone which Harry had grasped and looked upwards. He wondered vaguely whether it would ever reach the top; he wondered whether the arm would pull out of the socket, and the body plump down into the water; he wondered how long he could hold on, and why his clothes seemed so heavy. He wondered whether, if his strength went before the chain came down again, his hand would hold on as Harry's had done, or whether he should go down to the bottom of the shaft. How far was it! Fifty fathoms, three hundred feet; he was fifty below the mouth, two hundred and fifty to sink; how long would his body be getting to the bottom? What would his mother and Bill Haden say? Would they ever try to get his body up? [Illustration: IN THE OLD SHAFT--WILL HE BE SAVED?] He was growing very weak. As from another world he had heard the shout from above when the body of Harry Shepherd reached the brink, and afterwards some vague murmurs. Presently his fingers slipped and he went down in the black pool. The chill of the water to his face, the sudden choking sensation, brought his senses back for a moment and he struck to the surface. There, touching the water, he saw the chain, and as he grasped it, heard the shouts of his comrades above calling to him. He was himself again now. The chain being some feet below the surface he managed to pass it round him, and to twist it in front. He was too exhausted to shout. He saw a great piece of paper on fire fluttering down, and heard a shout as its light showed him on the end of the chain; then he felt a jar and felt himself rising from the water; after that he knew nothing more until he opened his eyes and found himself lying on the bank. Nelly Hardy was kneeling by him and his head was in her lap. He felt various hands rubbing him and slapping the palms of his hands; his animation was quickly restored. He had swallowed but little water, and it was the close air of the shaft which had overpowered him. "Hallo!" he said, shaking himself, "let me up, I be all right; how's Harry?" Harry had not yet come round, though some of them, trying to restore him to consciousness, said that they had heard him breathe once. Jack as usual took the command, ordered all but two or three to stand back, told Nelly Hardy to lift Harry's head and undo his shirt, stripped him to the waist, and then set the boys to work to rub vigorously on his chest. Whether the efforts would have been successful is doubtful, but at this moment there was a sound of hurrying feet and of rapid wheels. Those who had started at the first alarm had reached the village and told the news, and most fortunately had met the doctor as he drove in from his rounds. A man with a rope had leaped into the gig, and the doctor as he drove off had shouted that hot blankets were to be prepared. When he reached the spot and heard that Harry had been brought to bank, he leapt out, climbed the mound, wrapped him in his coat, carried him down to his gig, and then drove back at full speed to Stokebridge, where with the aid of hot blankets and stimulants the lad was brought back to consciousness. Jack Simpson was the hero of the hour, and the pitmen, accustomed to face death as they were, yet marvelled at a boy trusting himself to a chain which looked unfit to bear its own weight only, and into the depth of a well where the air might have been unfit to breathe. Jack strenuously, and indeed angrily, disclaimed all credit whatever. "I didn't think nowt about the chain, nor the air, nor the water neither. I thought only o' Harry. It was me as had pushed him down, and I'd got to bring him oop. If I hadn't a gone down Nelly Hardy would ha' gone, though she be a lass and doan't know how to swim or to hold on by a chain, or nowt; but she'd ha' gone, I tell e'e, if I hadn't; I saw it in her face. She didn't say nowt, but she was ready to go. If she hadn't gone down to th' shaft none of them would ha gone. She's a rare plucked 'un, she is, I tell e'e." But in spite of Jack's indignant repudiation of any credit, the brave action was the talk of Stokebridge and of the neighbouring pit villages for some time. There are no men appreciate bravery more keenly than pitmen, for they themselves are ever ready to risk their lives to save those of others. Consequently a subscription, the limit of which was sixpence and the minimum a penny, was set on foot, and a fortnight later Jack was presented with a gold watch with an inscription. This was presented in the school-room, and Mr. Brook, who presided at the meeting, added on his own account a chain to match. It needed almost force on the part of Bill Haden to compel Jack to be present on this occasion. When he was led up, flushed with confusion, to Mr. Brook, amid the cheers of the crowd of those in the room, he listened with head hung down to the remarks of his employer. When that gentleman finished and held out the watch and chain, Jack drew back and held up his head. "I doan't loike it, sir; I pushed Harry in, and in course I went down to pick him out; besides, Harry's my chum, he be; was it loikely I should stand by and he drowning? I tell 'ee, sir, that you ain't said a word about the lass Nelly Hardy; she had pluck, she had. The boys ran away or stood and stared, but she came down as quiet as may be. I tell 'ee, sir, her face was pale, but she was as steady and as still as a man could ha' been, and did as I told her wi'out stopping for a moment and wi'out as much as saying a word. She'd ha' gone down if I'd told her to. Where be ye, Nelly Hardy? coom oot and let me show ye to Mr. Brook." But Nelly, who was indeed in the building, had shrunk away when Jack began to speak, and having gained the door, was on the point of flying, when she was seized and brought forward, looking shamefaced and sullen. "That be her, sir," Jack said triumphantly, "and I say this watch and chain ought to be hers, for she did much more for a lass than I did for a boy, and had no call to do't as I had." "I cannot give them to her, Jack," Mr. Brook said, "for the watch has been subscribed for you; but as a token of my appreciation of the bravery and presence of mind she has shown, I will myself present her with a silver watch and chain, with an inscription saying why it was given to her, and this she will, I am sure, value all her life." Perhaps she would, but at present her only thought was to get away. Her hair was all rough, she had on a tattered dress, and had only slipped in when those in charge of the door were intent upon hearing Mr. Brook's address. Without a word of thanks, the instant the hands restraining her were loosed she dived into the crowd and escaped like a bird from a snare. Satisfied that justice had been done, Jack now said a few words of thanks to his employer and the subscribers to his present, and the meeting then broke up, Jack returning with Bill Haden and his mother, both beaming with delight. "I be roight down glad, lad, I doan't know as I've been so glad since Juno's dam won the first prize for pure-bred bull-dogs at the Birmingham show. It seems joost the same sort o' thing, doan't it, Jane?" CHAPTER VII. FRIENDSHIP. Nelly Hardy had been unfortunate in her parents, for both drank, and she had grown up without care or supervision. She had neither brother nor sister. At school she was always either at the top or bottom of her class according as a fit of diligence or idleness seized her. She was a wild passionate child, feeling bitterly the neglect with which she was treated, her ragged clothes, her unkempt appearance. She was feared and yet liked by the girls of her own age, for she was generous, always ready to do a service, and good-tempered except when excited to passion. She was fonder of joining with the boys, when they would let her, in their games, and, when angered, was ready to hold her own against them with tooth and nail. So wild were her bursts of passion that they were sources of amusement to some of the boys, until Jack upon one occasion took her part, and fought and conquered the boy who had excited her. This was on the Saturday before the accident had taken place. For some days after the presentation no one saw her; she kept herself shut up in the house or wandered far away. Then she appeared suddenly before Jack Simpson and Harry Shepherd as they were out together. "I hate you, Jack Simpson," she said, "I hate you, I hate you;" and then dashed through the gap in the hedge by which she had come. "Well," Harry exclaimed in astonishment, "only to think!" "It be nat'ral enough," Jack said, "and I bain't surprised one bit. I orter ha' known better. I had only to ha' joodged her by myself and I should ha' seen it. I hated being dragged forward and talked at; it was bad enough though I had been made decent and clean scrubbed all over, and got my Soonday clothes on, but of course it would be worse for a lass anyway, and she was all anyhow, not expecting it. I ought to ha' known better; I thawt only o' my own feelings and not o' hers, and I'd beg her pardon a hundred times, but 'taint likely she'd forgive me. What is she a doing now?" The lads peered through the hedge. Far across the field, on the bank, the other side, lay what looked like a bundle of clothes. "She be a crying, I expect," Jack said remorsefully. "I do wish some big chap would a come along and give I a hiding; I wouldn't fight, or kick, or do nowt, I would just take it, it would serve me roight. I wonder whether it would do her any good to let her thrash me. If it would she'd be welcome. Look here, Harry, she bain't angry wi' you. Do thou go across to her and tell her how main sorry I be, and that I know I am a selfish brute and thought o' myself and not o' her, and say that if she likes I will cut her a stick any size she likes and let her welt me just as long as she likes wi'out saying a word." Harry was rather loath to go on such an errand, but being imperatively ordered by Jack he, as usual, did as his comrade wished. When he approached Nelly Hardy he saw that the girl was crying bitterly, her sobs shaking her whole body. "I be coom wi' a message," he began in a tone of apprehension, for he regarded Nelly as resembling a wild cat in her dangerous and unexpected attacks. The girl leapt to her feet and turned her flushed tear-stained cheeks and eyes, flashing with anger through the tears, upon him. "What dost want, Harry Shepherd? Get thee gone, or I'll tear the eyes from thy head." "I doan't coom o' my own accord," Harry said steadily, though he recoiled a little before her fierce outburst. "I came on the part o' Jack Simpson, and I've got to gi' you his message even if you do fly at me. I've got to tell you that he be main sorry, and that he feels he were a selfish brute in a thinking o' his own feelings instead o' thine. He says he be so sorry that if 'ee like he'll cut a stick o' any size you choose and ull let you welt him as long as you like wi'out saying a word. And when Jack says a thing he means it, so if you wants to wop him, come on." To Harry's intense surprise the girl's mood changed. She dropped on the ground again, and again began to cry. After standing still for some time and seeing no abatement in her sobs, or any sign of her carrying out the invitation of which he had been the bearer, Jack's emissary returned to him. "I guv her your message, Jack, and she said nowt, but there she be a crying still." "Perhaps she didn't believe you," Jack said; "I'd best go myself." First, with great deliberation, Jack chose a hazel stick from the hedge and tried it critically. When fully assured that it was at once lissom and tough, and admirably adapted for his purpose, he told Harry to go on home. "Maybe," Jack said, "she mayn't loike to use it and you a looking on. Doan't 'ee say a word to no un. If she likes to boast as she ha' welted me she ha' a roight to do so, but doan't you say nowt." Jack walked slowly across the field till he was close to the figure on the ground. Then he quietly removed his jacket and waistcoat and laid them down. Then he said: "Now, Nelly, I be ready for a welting, I ha' deserved it if ever a chap did, and I'll take it. Here's the stick, and he's a good un and will sting rare, I warrant." The girl sat up and looked at him through her tears. "Oh, Jack, and didst really think I wanted to welt thee?" "I didn't know whether thou didst or no, Nelly, but thou said thou hate'st me, and wi' good reason, so if thou likest to welt me here's the stick." The girl laughed through her tears. "Ah! Jack, thou must think that I am a wild cat, as John Dobson called me t'other day. Throw away that stick, Jack. I would rather a thousand times that thou laidst it on my shoulders than I on thine." Jack threw away the stick, put on his coat and waistcoat, and sat down on the bank. "What is it then, lass? I know I were cruel to have thee called forward, but I didn't think o't; but I had rather that thou beat me as I orter be beaten, than that thou should go on hating me." "I doan't hate thee, Jack, though I said so; I hate myself; but I like thee better nor all, thou art so brave and good." "No braver than thou, Nelly," Jack said earnestly; "I doan't understand why thou should first say thou hates me and then that thou doan't; but if thou are in earnest, that thou likest me, we'll be friends. I don't mean that we go for walks together, and such like, as some boys and girls do, for I ha' no time for such things, and I shouldn't like it even if I had; but I'll take thy part if anyone says owt to thee, and thou shalt tell me when thou art very bad at hoam"--for the failings of Nelly's parents were public property. "Thou shalt be a friend to me, not as a lass would be, but as Harry is, and thou woan't mind if I blow thee up, and tells 'ee of things. Thou stook to me by the side o' the shaft, and I'll stick to thee." "I'll do that," the girl said, laying her hand in his. "I'll be thy friend if thou'lt let me, not as lasses are, but as lads." And so the friendship was ratified, and they walked back together to the village. When he came to think it over, Jack was inclined to repent his bargain, for he feared that she would attach herself to him, and that he would have much laughter to endure, and many battles to fight. To his surprise Nelly did nothing of the sort. She would be at her door every morning as he went by to the pit and give him a nod, and again as he returned. Whenever other girls and boys were playing or sitting together, Nelly would make one of the group. If he said, as he often did say, "You, Nell Hardy come and sit by me," she came gladly, but she never claimed the place. She was ready to come or to go, to run messages and to do him good in any way. Jack had promised she should be his friend as Harry was, and as he got to like her more he would ask her or tell her to accompany them in their walks, or to sit on a low wall in some quiet corner and talk. Harry, stirred by his friend's example, had begun to spend half an hour a day over his old school-books. "Why dost like larning so much, Jack?" Nelly asked, as Jack was severely reproaching his friend with not having looked at a book for some days; "what good do it do?" "It raises folk in the world, Nell, helps 'em make their way up." "And dost thou mean to get oop i' the world?" "Ay, lass," Jack said, "if hard work can do it, I will; but it does more nor that. If a man knows things and loves reading it makes him different like, he's got summat to think about and talk about and care for beside public-houses and dorgs. Canst read, Nell?" "No, Jack," she said, colouring. "It bain't my fault; mother never had the pence to spare for schooling, and I was kept at hoam to help." Jack sat thoughtful for some time. "Wouldst like to learn?" "Ay." "Well, I'll teach thee." "Oh, Jack!" and she leapt up with flashing eyes; "how good thou be'est!" "Doan't," Jack said crossly; "what be there good in teaching a lass to spell? There's twopence, run down to the corner shop and buy a spelling-book; we'll begin at once." And so Nelly had her first lesson. [Illustration: NELLY'S FIRST LESSON.] After that, every afternoon, as Jack came home from work, the girl would meet him in a quiet corner off the general line, and for five minutes he would teach her, not hearing her say what she had learned, but telling her fresh sounds and combinations of letters. Five or six times he would go over them, and expected--for Jack was tyrannical in his ways--that she would carry them away with her and learn them by heart, and go through them again and again, so that when he questioned her during their longer talks she would be perfect. Then, the five minutes over, Jack would run on to make up for lost time, and be in as soon as Bill Haden. But however accurately Jack expected his pupil to learn, his expectations were surpassed. The girl beyond clearing up the room had nothing to do, and she devoted herself with enthusiasm to this work. Once she had mastered simple words and felt her own progress, her shyness as to her ignorance left her. She always carried her book in her pocket, and took to asking girls the pronunciation of larger words, and begging them to read a few lines to her; and sitting on the door-step poring over her book, she would salute any passer-by with: "Please tell us what is that word." When she could read easily, which she learned to do in two or three months, she borrowed left-off school-books from the girls, and worked slowly on, and two years later had made up for all her early deficiencies, and knew as much as any of those who had passed through the school. From the day of her compact of friendship with Jack her appearance and demeanour had been gradually changing. From the first her wild unkempt hair had been smoothly combed and braided, though none but herself knew what hours of pain and trouble it took her with a bit of a comb with three teeth alone remaining, to reduce the tangled mass of hair to order. Her companions stared indeed with wonder on the first afternoon, when, thus transformed and with clean face, she came among them, with a new feeling of shyness. "Why, it be Nelly Hardy!" "Why, Nell, what ha' done to t'yself? I shouldn't ha' known ye." "Well, ye be cleaned up surely." The girl was half inclined to flame out at their greetings, but she knew that the surprise was natural, and laughed good-humouredly. She was rewarded for her pains when Jack and some other boys, passing on their way to play, Jack stopped a moment and said to her quietly, "Well done, lass, thou lookst rarely, who'd ha' thought thou wert so comely!" As time went on Nelly Hardy grew altogether out of her old self. Sometimes, indeed, bursts of temper, such as those which had gained her the name of the "Wild Cat," would flare out, but these were very rare now. She was still very poorly dressed, for her house was as wretched as of old, but there was an attempt at tidiness. Her manner, too, was softer, and it became more and more quiet as things went on, and her playmates wondered again and again what had come over Nell Hardy; she had got to be as quiet as a mouse. The boys at first were disposed to joke Jack upon this strange friendship, but Jack soon let it be understood that upon that subject joking was unacceptable. "She stood by me," he said, "and I'm a-going to stand by her. She ain't got no friends, and I'm going to be her friend. She's quiet enough and doan't bother, no more nor if she were a dorg. She doan't get in no one's way, she doan't want to play, and sits quiet and looks on, so if any of you doan't like her near ye, you can go away to t' other side o' field. I wish she'd been a boy, 'twould ha' been fitter all ways, but she can't help that. She's got the sense o' one. and the pluck, and I like her. There!" CHAPTER VIII. PROGRESS. "Bless me, lad, another poond o' candles! I never did hear o' sich waste," Mrs. Haden exclaimed as Jack entered the cottage on a winter's afternoon, two years and a half after he had gone into the pit. "Another poond o' candles, and it was only last Monday as you bought the last--nigh two candles a night. Thou wilt kill thyself sitting up reading o' nights, and thy eyes will sink i' thy head, and thou'lt be as blind as a bat afore thou'rt forty." "I only read up to eleven, mother, that gives me six hours abed, and as thou know, six for a man, seven for a woman, is all that is needful; and as to the expense, as dad lets me keep all my earnings save five bob a week--and very good o' him it is; I doan't know no man in the pit as does as much--why, I ha' plenty o' money for my candles and books, and to lay by summat for a rainy day." "Aye, aye, lad, I know thou be'st not wasteful save in candles; it's thy health I thinks o'." "Health!" Jack laughed; "why, there ain't a lad in the pit as strong as I am of my age, and I ha' never ailed a day yet, and doan't mean to." "What ha' ye been doing all the arternoon, Jack?" "I ha' been sliding in the big pond wi' Harry Shepherd and a lot o' others. Then Dick Somers, he knocked down Harry's little sister Fan, as she came running across th' ice, and larfed out when she cried--a great brute--so I licked he till he couldn't see out o' his eyes." "He's bigger nor thee, too," Mrs. Haden said admiringly. "Aye, he's bigger," Jack said carelessly, "but he ain't game, Dick ain't; loses his temper, he does, and a chap as does that when he's fighting ain't o' no account. But I must not stand a clappeting here; it's past six, and six is my time." "Have your tea first, Jack, it's a' ready; but I do believe thou'dst go wi'out eating wi'out noticing it, when thou'st got thy books in thy head." Jack sat down and drank the tea his mother poured out for him, and devoured bread and butter with a zest that showed that his appetite was unimpaired by study. As soon as he had finished he caught up his candle, and with a nod to Mrs. Haden ran upstairs to his room. Jack Simpson's craze for learning, as it was regarded by the other lads of Stokebridge, was the subject of much joking and chaff among them. Had he been a shy and retiring boy, holding himself aloof from the sports of his mates, ridicule would have taken the place of joking, and persecution of chaff. But Jack was so much one of themselves, a leader in their games, a good fellow all round, equally ready to play or to fight, that the fact that after six o'clock he shut himself up in his room and studied, was regarded as something in the nature of a humorous joke. When he had first begun, his comrades all predicted that the fit would not last, and that a few weeks would see the end of it; but weeks and months and years had gone by, and Jack kept on steadily at the work he had set himself to do. Amusement had long died away, and there grew up an unspoken respect for their comrade. "He be a rum 'un, be Jack," they would say; "he looves games, and can lick any chap his age anywhere round, and yet he shoots himself oop and reads and reads hours and hours every day, and he knows a heap, Bull-dog does." Not that Jack was in the habit of parading his acquirements; indeed he took the greatest pains to conceal them and to show that in no respect did he differ from his playfellows. The two hours which he now spent twice a week with Mr. Merton, and his extensive reading, had modified his rough Staffordshire dialect, and when with his master he spoke correct English almost free of provincialisms, although with his comrades of the pit he spoke as they spoke, and never introduced any allusion to his studies. All questions as to his object in spending his evenings with his books were turned aside with joking answers, but his comrades had accidentally discovered that he possessed extraordinary powers of calculation. One of the lads had vaguely said that he wondered how many buckets of water there were in the canal between Stokebridge and Birmingham, a distance of eighteen miles, and Jack, without seeming to think of what he was doing, almost instantaneously gave the answer to the question. For a moment all were silent with surprise. "I suppose that be a guess, Jack, eh?" Fred Orme asked. "Noa," Jack said, "that's aboot roight, though I be sorry I said it; I joost reckoned it in my head." "But how didst do that, Jack?" his questioner asked, astonished, while the boys standing round stared in silent wonder. "Oh! in my head," Jack said carelessly; "it be easy enough to reckon in your head if you practise a little." "And canst do any sum in thy head, Jack, as quick as that?" "Not any sum, but anything easy, say up to the multiplication or division by eight figures." "Let's try him," one boy said. "All right, try away," Jack said. "Do it first on a bit of paper, and then ask me." The boys drew off in a body, and a sum was fixed upon and worked out with a great deal of discussion. At last, after a quarter of an hour's work, when all had gone through it and agreed that it was correct, they returned and said to him, "Multiply 324,683 by 459,852." Jack thought for a few seconds and then taking the pencil and paper wrote down the answer: 149,306,126,916. "Why, Jack, thou be'est a conjurer," one exclaimed, while the others broke out into a shout of astonishment. From that time it became an acknowledged fact that Jack Simpson was a wonder, and that there was some use in studying after all; and after their games were over they would sit round and ask him questions which they had laboriously prepared, and the speed and accuracy of his answers were a never-failing source of wonder to them. As to his other studies they never inquired; it was enough for them that he could do this, and the fact that he could do it made them proud of him in a way, and when put upon by the pitmen it became a common retort among them, "Don't thou talk, there's Jack Simpson, he knows as much as thee and thy mates put together. Why, he can do a soom as long as a slaate as quick as thou'd ask it." Jack himself laughed at his calculating powers, and told the boys that they could do the same if they would practise, believing what he said; but in point of fact this was not so, for the lad had an extraordinary natural faculty for calculation, and his schoolmaster was often astonished by the rapidity with which he could prepare in his brain long and complex calculations, and that in a space of time little beyond that which it would take to write the question upon paper. So abnormal altogether was his power in this respect that Mr. Merton begged him to discontinue the practice of difficult calculation when at work. "It is a bad thing, Jack, to give undue prominence to one description of mental labour, and I fear that you will injure your brain if you are always exercising it in one direction. Therefore when in the pit think over other subjects, history, geography, what you will, but leave calculations alone except when you have your books before you." CHAPTER IX. THE GREAT STRIKE. It was Saturday afternoon, a time at which Stokebridge was generally lively. The men, (dinner over, and the great weekly wash done,) usually crowded the public-houses, or played bowls and quoits on a piece of waste land known as "the common," or set off upon a spree to Birmingham or Wolverhampton, or sat on low walls or other handy seats, and smoked and talked. But upon this special Saturday afternoon no one settled down to his ordinary pursuits, for the men stood talking in groups in the street, until, as the hour of four approached, there was a general move towards the common. Hither, too, came numbers of men from the colliery villages round, until some four or five thousand were gathered in front of an old "waste tip" at one corner of the common. Presently a group of some five or six men came up together, made their way through the throng, and took their stand on the edge of the tip, some twenty feet above the crowd. These were the delegates, the men sent by the union to persuade the colliers of Stokebridge and its neighbourhood to join in a general strike for a rise of wages. The women of the village stand at their doors, and watch the men go off to the meeting, and then comment to each other concerning it. "I ain't no patience wi' 'em, Mrs. Haden," said one of a group of neighbours who had gathered in front of her house; "I don't hold by strikes. I have gone through three of 'em, bad un's, besides a score of small un's, and I never knowed good come on 'em. I lost my little Peg in the last--low fever, the doctor called it, but it was starvation and nothing more." "If I had my way," said Mrs. Haden, "I'd just wring the heads off they delegates. They come here and 'suades our men to go out and clem rather than take a shilling a week less, just a glass o' beer a day, and they gets their pay and lives in comfort, and dunna care nowt if us and th' childer all dies off together." "Talk o' woman's rights, as one hears about, and woman's having a vote; we ought to have a vote as to strikes. It's us as bears the worse o't, and we ought to have a say on't; if we did there wouldn't be another strike in the country." "It's a burning shame," another chimed in; "here us and the childer will have to starve for weeks, months may be, and all the homes will be broke up, and the furniture, which has took so long to get together, put away, just because the men won't do with one glass of beer less a day." "The union's the curse of us a'," Mrs. Haden said. "I know what it'll be--fifteen bob a week for the first fortnight, and then twelve for a week, and then ten, and then eight, and then six, and then after we've clemmed on that for a month or two, the union'll say as the funds is dry, and the men had best go to work on the reduction. I knows their ways, and they're a cuss to us women." "Here be'st thy Jack. He grows a proper lad that." "Ay," Jane Haden agreed, "he's a good lad, none better; and as for learning, the books that boy knows is awesome; there's shelves upon shelves on 'em upstairs, and I do believe he's read 'em all a dozen times. Well, Jack, have ee cum from meeting?" "Ay, mother; I heard them talk nonsense till I was nigh sick, and then I comed away." "And will they go for the strike, Jack?" "Ay, they'll go, like sheep through a gate. There's half a dozen or so would go t'other way, but the rest won't listen to them. So for the sake of a shilling a week we're going to lose thirty shillings a week for perhaps twenty weeks; so if we win we sha'n't get the money we've throw'd away for twenty times thirty weeks, mother, and that makes eleven years and twenty-eight weeks." Jack Simpson was now sixteen years old, not very tall for his age, but square and set. His face was a pleasant one, in spite of his closely cropped hair. He had a bright fearless eye and a pleasant smile; but the square chin, and the firm determined lines of the mouth when in rest, showed that his old appellation of Bull-dog still suited him well. After working for four years as a gate-boy and two years with the waggons, he had just gone in to work with his adopted father in the stall, filling the coal in the waggon as it was got down, helping to drive the wedges, and at times to use the pick. As the getters--as the colliers working at bringing down the coal are called--are paid by the ton, many of the men have a strong lad working with them as assistant. "Is t' dad like to be at home soon, Jack?" Mrs. Haden asked, as she followed him into the house. "Not he, mother. They pretty well all will be getting themselves in order for earning nothing by getting drunk to-night, and dad's not slack at that. Have you got tea ready, mother?" "Ay, lad." "I've made up my mind, mother," the boy said, as he ate his slice of bacon and bread, "that I shall go over to Birmingham to-morrow, and try to get work there. John Ratcliffe, the engineman, is going to write a letter for me to some mates of his there. The last two years, when I've been on the night-shift, I have gone in and helped him a bit pretty often in the day, so as to get to know something about an engine, and to be able to do a job of smith's work; anyhow, he thinks I can get a berth as a striker or something of that sort. I'd rather go at once, for there will be plenty of hands looking out for a job before long, when the pinch begins, and I don't want to be idle here at home." "They've promised to give some sort o' allowance to non-unionists, Jack." "Yes, mother, but I'd rather earn it honestly. I'm too young to join the union yet, but I have made up my mind long ago never to do it. I mean to be my own master, and I ain't going to be told by a pack of fellows at Stafford or Birmingham whether I am to work or not, and how much I am to do, and how many tubs I am to fill. No, mother, I wasn't born a slave that I know of, and certainly don't mean to become one voluntarily." "Lor, how thou dost talk, Jack! Who'd take 'ee to be a pitman?" "I don't want to be taken for anything that I am not, mother. What with reading and with going two hours twice a week of an evening for six years, to talk and work with Mr. Merton, I hope I can express myself properly when I choose. As you know, when I'm away from you I talk as others do, for I hate any one to make remarks. If the time ever comes when I am to take a step up, it will be time enough for them to talk; at present, all that the other lads think of me is, that I am fond of reading, and that I can lick any fellow of my own age in the mine," and he laughed lightly. "And now, mother, I shall go in and tell Mr. Merton what I have made up my mind to do." Mr. Merton listened to Jack's report of his plans in silence, and then after a long pause said: "I have been for some time intending to talk seriously to you, Jack, about your future, and the present is a good time for broaching the subject. You see, my boy, you have worked very hard, and have thrown your whole strength into it for six years. You have given no time to the classics or modern languages, but have put your whole heart into mathematics; you have a natural talent for it, and you have had the advantage of a good teacher. I may say so," he said, "for I was third wrangler at Cambridge." "You, sir!" Jack exclaimed in astonishment. "Yes, lad, you may well be surprised at seeing a third wrangler a village schoolmaster, but you might find, if you searched, many men who took as high a degree, in even more humble positions. I took a fellowship, and lived for many years quietly upon it; then I married, and forfeited my fellowship. I thought, like many other men, that because I had taken a good degree I could earn my living. There is no greater mistake. I had absolutely no knowledge that was useful that way. I tried to write; I tried to get pupils: I failed all round. Thirteen years ago, after two years of marriage, my wife died; and in despair of otherwise earning my bread, and sick of the struggle I had gone through, I applied for this little mastership, obtained it, and came down with Alice, then a baby of a year old. I chafed at first, but I am contented now, and no one knows that Mr. Merton is an ex-fellow of St. John's. I had still a little property remaining, just enough to have kept Alice always at a good school. I do not think I shall stay here much longer. I shall try to get a larger school, in some town where I may find a few young men to teach of an evening. I am content for myself; but Alice is growing up, and I should wish, for her sake, to get a step up in the world again. I need not say, my lad, that I don't want this mentioned. Alice and you alone know my story. So you see," he went on more lightly, "I may say you have had a good teacher. Now, Jack, you are very high up in mathematics. Far higher than I was at your age; and I have not the slightest doubt that you will in a couple of years be able to take the best open scholarship of the year at Cambridge, if you try for it. That would keep you at college, and you might hope confidently to come out at least as high as I did, and to secure a fellowship, which means three or four hundred a year, till you marry. But to go through the university you must have a certain amount of Latin and Greek. You have a good two years, before you have to go up, and if you devote yourself as steadily to classics as you have to mathematics, you could get up enough to scrape through with. Don't give me any answer now, Jack. The idea is, of course, new to you. Think it very quietly over, and we can talk about it next time you come over from Birmingham." "Yes, sir, thank you very much," Jack said, quietly; "only, please tell me, do you yourself recommend it?" The schoolmaster was silent for a while. "I do not recommend one way or the other, Jack. I would rather leave it entirely to you. You would be certain to do well in one way there. You are, I believe, equally certain to do well here, but your advance may be very much slower. And now, Jack, let us lay it aside for to-night. I am just going to have tea, I hope you will take a cup with us." Jack coloured with pleasure. It was the first time that such an invitation had been given to him, and he felt it as the first recognition yet made that he was something more than an ordinary pit-boy; but for all that he felt, when he followed his master into the next room, that he would have rather been anywhere else. It was a tiny room, but daintily furnished--a room such as Jack had never seen before; and by the fire sat a girl reading. She put down her book as her father entered with a bright smile; but her eyes opened a little wider in surprise as Jack followed him in. "My dear Alice, this is my pupil, Jack Simpson, who is going to do me great credit, and make a figure in the world some day. Jack, this is my daughter, Miss Merton." Alice held out her hand. "I have heard papa speak of you so often," she said, "and of course I have seen you come in and out sometimes when I have been home for the holidays." "I have seen you in church," Jack said, making a tremendous effort to shake off his awkwardness. Jack Simpson will to the end of his life look back upon that hour as the most uncomfortable he ever spent. Then for the first time he discovered that his boots were very heavy and thick; then for the first time did his hands and feet seem to get in his way, and to require thought as to what was to be done with them; and at the time he concluded that white lace curtains, and a pretty carpet, and tea poured out by a chatty and decidedly pretty young lady, were by no means such comfortable institutions as might have been expected. It was two months from the commencement of the strike before Jack Simpson returned from Birmingham, coming home to stay from Saturday till Monday. Nothing can be more discouraging than the appearance of a colliery village where the hands are on strike. For the first week or two there is much bravado, and anticipation of early victory; and as money is still plentiful, the public-houses do a great trade. But as the stern reality of the struggle becomes felt, a gloom falls over the place. The men hang about listlessly, and from time to time straggle down to the committee-room, to hear the last news from the other places to which the strike extends, and to try to gather a little confidence therefrom. At first things always look well. Meetings are held in other centres, and promises of support flow in. For a time money arrives freely, and the union committee make an allowance to each member, which, far below his regular pay as it is, is still amply sufficient for his absolute wants. But by the end of two months the enthusiasm which the strike excited elsewhere dies out, the levies fall off, and the weekly money scarce enables life to be kept together. It is distinctive of almost all strikes, that the women, beforehand averse to the movement, when it has once begun, throw themselves heartily into the struggle. From the time it is fairly entered upon until its termination it is rare indeed to hear a collier's wife speak a word against it. When the hardest pinch comes, and the children's faces grow thin and white, and the rooms are stripped of furniture, much as the women may long for an end of it, they never grumble, never pray their husbands to give in. This patient submission to their husbands' wills--this silent bearing of the greatest of suffering, namely, to see children suffer and to be unable to relieve them--is one of the most marked features of all great strikes in the coal districts. "Well, mother, and how goes it?" Jack asked cheerfully after the first greetings. "We be all right, Jack; if we ain't we ought to be, when we've got no children to keep, and get nigh as much as them as has." "Eight shillings a week now, ain't it?" Mrs. Haden nodded. Jack looked round. "Holloa!" he said, "the clock's gone, and the new carpet!" "Well, you see, my boy," Mrs. Haden said, hesitatingly, "Bill is down-hearted sometimes, and he wants a drop of comfort." "I understand," Jack said significantly. "Jack,"--and she again spoke hesitatingly--"I wish ee'd carry off all they books out o' thy little room. There's scores of 'em, and the smallest would fetch a glass o' beer. I've kept the door locked, but it might tempt him, my boy--not when he's in his right senses, you know, he'd scorn to do such a thing; but when he gets half on, and has no more money, and credit stopped, the craving's too much for him, and he'd sell the bed from under him--anything he's got, I do believe, except his pups;" and she pointed to some of Juno's great grandchildren, which were, as usual, lying before the fire, a mere handful of coal now, in comparison with past times. "I'll pick out a parcel of them that will be useful to me," Jack said, "and take them away. The rest may go. And now look here, mother. After paying you for my board, I have had for a long time now some eight shillings a week over. I have spent some in books, but second-hand books are very cheap--as dad will find when he tries to sell them. So I've got some money put by. It don't matter how much, but plenty to keep the wolf away while the strike lasts. But I don't mean, mother, to have my savings drunk away. I'm getting sixteen bob a week, and I can live on ten or eleven, so I'll send you five shillings a week. But dad mustn't know it. I'll be home in a month again, and I'll leave you a pound, so that you can get food in. If he thinks about it at all, which ain't likely, you can make out you get it on tick. Well, dad, how are you?" he asked, as Bill Haden entered the cottage. "Ah, Jack, lad, how be it with 'ee?" "All right, dad; getting on well. And how are things here?" "Bad, Jack. Those scoundrels, the masters, they won't give in; but we're bound to beat 'em--bound to. If they don't come to our terms we mean to call the engine-men, and the hands they've got to keep the ways clear, out of the pits. That'll bring 'em to their senses quick enough. I've been for it all along." "Call off the engine-hands!" Jack said, in tones of alarm; "you ain't going to do such a mad thing as that! Why, if the water gains, and the mines get flooded, it'll be weeks, and maybe months, before the mines can be cleared and put in working order; and what will you all be doing while that's being done?" "It'll bring 'em to their senses, lad," Bill Haden said, bringing his hand down on the table with a thump. "They mean to starve us; we'll ruin them. There, let's have the price of a quart, Jack; I'm dry." Jack saw that argument against this mad scheme would be of no use, for his foster-father was already half-drunk, so he handed him a shilling, and with a shrug of his shoulders walked off to Mr. Merton's. He had long since written to his master, saying that he preferred working his way up slowly in mining, to entering upon a new life, in which, however successful he might be at college, the after course was not clear to him; and his teacher had answered in a tone of approval of his choice. On his way he stopped at the houses of many of his boy friends, and was shocked at the misery which already prevailed in some of them. Harry Shepherd's home was no better than the others. "Why, Harry, I should scarce have known you," he said, as the lad came to the door when he opened it and called him. "You look bad, surely." "We're a big family, Jack; and the extra children's allowance was dropped last week. There's eight of us, and food's scarce. Little Annie's going fast, I think. The doctor came this morning, and said she wanted strengthening food. He might as well ha' ordered her a coach-and-four. Baby died last week, and mother's ailing. You were right, Jack; what fools we were to strike! I've been miles round looking for a job, but it's no use; there's fifty asking for every place open." The tears came into Jack's eyes as he looked at the pinched face of his friend. "Why did you not write to me?" he asked, almost angrily. "I told you where a letter would find me; and here are you all clemming, and me know nought of it. It's too bad. Now look here, Harry, I must lend you some money--you know I've got some put by, and you and your father can pay me when good times come again. Your dad gets his eight shillings from the union, I suppose?" "Yes," the lad answered. "Well, with fifteen shillings a week you could make a shift to get on. So I'll send you ten shillings a week for a bit; that'll be seven shillings to add to the eight, and the other three will get meat to make broth for Annie. The strike can't last much over another month, and that won't hurt me one way or the other. Here's the first ten shillings; put it in your pocket, and then come round with me to the butcher and I'll get a few pounds of meat just to start you all. There, don't cry, and don't say anything, else I'll lick you." But when Jack himself entered the schoolmaster's house, and was alone with Mr. Merton, he threw himself in a chair and burst into tears. "It is awful, sir, awful. To see those little children, who were so noisy and bright when I went away, so pale, and thin, and quiet now. Poor little things! poor little things! As to the men, they are starving because they don't choose to work, and if they like it, let them; even the women I don't pity so much, for if they did right they would take broomsticks and drive the men to work; but the children, it's dreadful!" "It is dreadful, Jack, and it makes me feel sick and ill when I go into the infant-school. The clergyman's wife has opened a sort of soup-kitchen, and a hundred children get a bowl of soup and a piece of bread at dinner-time every day, and they sell soup under cost price to the women. Mr. Brook has given fifty pounds towards it." "Look here, sir," Jack said; "you know I've over fifty pounds laid by--and money can't be better spent than for the children. The strike can't last over a month, or six weeks at the outside, and maybe not that. I'll give you three pounds a week, if you will kindly hand it over to Mrs. Street, and say it's been sent you. But it's to go to feeding children. Let me see; the soup don't cost above a penny a bowl, and say a halfpenny for a hunch of bread. So that will give a good many of 'em a dinner every day. Will you do that for me, sir?" "I will, my boy," Mr. Merton said heartily. "You may save many a young life." "Well, sir, and what do you think of things?" "I fear we shall have trouble, Jack. Last night there was rioting over at Crawfurd; a manager's house was burnt down, and some policemen badly hurt. There is angry talk all over the district, and I fear we shall have it here." When Jack started on Sunday evening for Birmingham, his last words to his mother were: "Mind, mother, the very first word you hear about violence or assault, you post this envelope I have directed, to me. I will come straight back. I'll keep father out of it somehow; and I'll do all I can to save Mr. Brook's property. He's a good master, and he's been specially kind to me, and I won't have him or his property injured." "Why, lauk a' mercy, Jack, you ain't going to fight the whole place all by yourself, are you?" "I don't know what I am going to do yet," Jack said; "but you may be quite sure I shall do something." And as his mother looked at the set bull-dog expression of his mouth and jaw, she felt that Jack was thoroughly in earnest. CHAPTER X. HARD TIMES. It was when the pinch came, the subscriptions fell off, and the weekly payments by the union dwindled to a few shillings for the support of a whole family, that the rough virtues of the people of the mining districts came strongly into prominence. Starvation was doing its work, and told first upon the women and children. Little faces, awhile since so rosy and bright, grew thin and pinched, chubby arms shrank until the bone could almost be seen through the skin, and low fever, a sure accompaniment of want, made its appearance. No more tender and devoted nurses could be found than the rough women, who hushed their voices, and stole with quiet feet around the little beds, letting fall many a silent tear when the sufferer asked for little things, for tea or lemonade, which there were no means to purchase, or when the doctor shook his head and said that good food and not medicine was needed. The pitmen themselves would saunter aimlessly in and out of the houses, so changed from the cottages well stocked with furniture, with gay-coloured pictures on the wall, an eight-day clock, and many another little valuable, and all gone one after another. Very many of them lived upon the scantiest allowance of dry bread which would keep life together, in order that the allowance might all go for the children, retaining as their sole luxury a penny or two a week for the purchase of a pipe or two of tobacco daily. Had it not been for the soup-kitchen scores of children would have died, but the pint of soup and the slice of bread enabled them to live. There was no talk of surrender yet, although compromises, which would at first have been indignantly rejected, were now discussed, and a deputation had waited upon Mr. Brook, but the owner refused to enter into any compromise. "No, never," he said; "you have chosen to join the hands of the other pits in an endeavour to force your employers into giving you a higher rate of wages than they can afford to pay. I, therefore, have joined the other employers. We know, what you cannot know, what are our expenses, and what we can afford to pay, and we will accept no dictation whatever from the men as to their rate of wages. If I prefer, as I do prefer, that the colliery should stand idle, to raising your rate of wages, it is a clear proof that I should lose money if I agreed to your demand. If needs be I would rather that the pit was closed for a year, or for ten years. We have bound ourselves together to make no advance, just as you have bound yourselves not to go to work at the old rate. When you choose to go in at that rate there are your places ready for you, but I will give way in no single point, I will not pay a halfpenny a ton more than before. You best know how long you can hold out. Don't let it be too long, lads, for the sake of your wives and children; remember that the time may come, when, thinking over some empty chair, recalling some little face you will never see again, you will curse your folly and obstinacy in ruining your homes, and destroying those dependent upon you in a struggle in which it was from the first certain that you could not win, and in which, even if you won, the amount at stake is not worth one day of the suffering which you are inflicting upon those you love." Left to themselves the men would have much sooner given in, would indeed never have embarked on the strike, but the influence of the union being over them, they feared to be called "black sheep," and to be taunted with deserting the general cause, and so the strike went on. The tale of the suffering over the wide district affected by the strike was told through the land, and the subscriptions of the benevolent flowed in. Public opinion was, however, strongly opposed to the strike, and for the most part the money was subscribed wholly for soup-kitchen, for children, and for relief of the sick. But the area was wide, there were scores of villages as badly off as Stokebridge, and the share of each of the general fund was very small. A local committee was formed, of which the vicar was at the head, for the management of the funds, and for organizing a body of nurses. All the women who had no children of their own were enrolled upon its lists, and many of the girls of the sewing-class volunteered their services. No one during this sad time devoted herself more untiringly and devotedly than Nelly Hardy. The quiet manner, the steady and resolute face, rendered her an excellent nurse, and as her father and mother were, perforce, sober, she could devote her whole time to the work. A portion of the funds was devoted to the preparation of the articles of food and drink necessary for the sick, and the kitchen of the schoolroom was freely employed in making milk-puddings, barley-water, and other things which brought pleasure and alleviation to the parched little lips for which they were intended. The distress grew daily more intense. The small traders could no longer give credit; the pawnbrokers were so overburdened with household goods that they were obliged absolutely to decline to receive more; the doctors were worn out with work; the guardians of the poor were nearly beside themselves in their efforts to face the frightful distress prevailing; and the charitable committee, aided as they were by subscriptions from without, could still do but little in comparison to the great need. Jane Haden and the other women without families, did their best to help nurse in the houses where sickness was rife. The children were mere shadows, and the men and women, although far less reduced, were yet worn and wasted by want of food. And still the strike went on, still the men held out against the reduction. Some of the masters had brought men from other parts, and these had to be guarded to and from their work by strong bodies of police, and several serious encounters had taken place. Some of the hands were wavering now, but the party of resistance grew more and more violent, and the waverers dared not raise their voices. The delegates of the union went about holding meetings, and assuring their hearers that the masters were on the point of being beaten, and must give way; but they were listened to in sullen and gloomy silence by the men. Then came muttered threats and secret gatherings; and then Jane Haden, obedient to her promise, but very doubtful as to its wisdom, posted the letter Jack had left with her. It was three o'clock next day before he arrived, for he had not received the letter until he went out for his breakfast, and he had to go back to his work and ask to be allowed to go away for the afternoon on particular business, for which he was wanted at home. "Well, mother, what is it?" was his first question on entering. "I oughtn't to tell 'ee, Jack; and I do believe Bill would kill me if he knew." "He won't know, mother, and you must tell me," Jack said quietly. "Well, my boy, yesterday afternoon Bill came in here with eight or ten others. I were upstairs, but I suppose they thought I were out, and as I did not want to disturb 'em, and was pretty nigh worn out--I had been up three nights with Betsy Mullin's girl--I sat down and nigh dozed off. The door was open, and I could hear what they said downstairs when they spoke loud. At first they talked low, and I didn't heed what they were saying; then I heard a word or two which frighted me, and then I got up and went quiet to my door and listened. Jack, they are going to wreck the engines, so as to stop the pumping and drown the mines. They are going to do for the 'Vaughan,' and the 'Hill Side,' and 'Thorns,' and the 'Little Shaft,' and 'Vale.' It's to be done to-night, and they begin with the 'Vaughan' at ten o'clock, 'cause it's closest, I suppose." "They are mad," Jack said sternly. "How are they to earn bread if they flood the mines? and it will end by a lot of them being sent to jail for years. But I'll stop it if it costs me my life." "Oh, Jack! don't 'ee do anything rash," Mrs. Haden said piteously. "What can one lad do against two or three hundred men?" "Now, mother," Jack said promptly, not heeding her appeal, "what police are there within reach?" "The police were all sent away yesterday to Bampton. There were riots there, I heard say. That's why they chose to-night." "Now the first thing, mother, is to prevent dad from going out to-night. He must be kept out of it, whatever others do. I've brought a bottle of gin from Birmingham. Tell him I've come over for an hour or two to see schoolmaster, and I'm going back again afterwards, but I've brought him this as a present. Get the cork out; he's sure to drink a glass or two anyhow, perhaps more, but it will send him off to sleep, sure enough. It's the strongest I could get, and he's out of the way of drink now. I don't suppose they'll miss him when they start; but if any one comes round for him, you tell 'em I brought him some Old Tom over, and that he's so dead sleepy he can't move. Later on, if you can, get some woman or child to come in, and let them see him, so that there'll be a witness he was at home when the thing came off, that'll make him safe. I've thought it all over." "But what be'est thou going to do, Jack?" "Don't mind me, mother. I'm going to save the Vaughan colliery. Don't you fret about me; all you've got to do is to make dad drink, which ain't a difficult job, and to stick to the story that I have been over for an hour to see schoolmaster. Good-bye, mother. Don't fret; it will all come out right." As Jack went down the street he tapped at the door of his friend's house. "Is Harry in?" Harry was in, and came out at once. "How's Annie?" was Jack's first question. "Better, much better, Jack; the doctor thinks she'll do now. The broth put fresh life into her; we're all better, Jack, thanks to you." "That's all right, Harry. Put on your cap and walk with me to the schoolroom. Now," he went on, as his friend rejoined him, and they turned up the street, "will you do a job for me?" "Anything in the world, Jack--leastways, anything I can." "You may risk your life, Harry." "All right, Jack, I'll risk it willing for you. You risked yours for me at the old shaft." "Dost know what's going to be done to-night Harry?" "I've heard summat about it." "It must be stopped, Harry, if it costs you and me our lives. What's that when the whole district depends upon it? If they wreck the engines and flood the mines there will be no work for months; and what's to become of the women and children then? I'm going to Mr. Merton to tell him, and to get him to write a letter to Sir John Butler--Brook's place would be watched--he's the nearest magistrate, and the most active about here, and won't let the grass grow under his feet by all accounts. The letter must tell him of the attack that is to be made to-night, and ask him to send for the soldiers, if no police can be had. I want you to take the letter, Harry. Go out the other side of the village and make a long sweep round. Don't get into the road till you get a full mile out of the place. Then go as hard as you can till you get to Butler's. Insist on seeing him yourself; say it's a question of life and death. If he's out, you must go on to Hooper--he's the next magistrate. When you have delivered the letter, slip off home and go to bed, and never let out all your life that you took that letter." "All right, Jack; but what be'est thou going to do?" "I'm going another way, lad; I've got my work too. You'd best stop here, Harry; I will bring the letter to you. It may get out some day that Merton wrote it, and it's as well you shouldn't be seen near his place." CHAPTER XI. THE ATTACK ON THE ENGINE-HOUSE. No sooner did Mr. Merton hear of the resolution of the miners to destroy the engines, than he sat down and wrote an urgent letter to Sir John Butler. "Is there anything else, Jack?" "I don't know, sir. If the masters could be warned of the attack they might get a few viewers and firemen and make a sort of defence; but if the men's blood's up it might go hard with them; and it would go hard with you if you were known to have taken the news of it." "I will take the risk of that," Mr. Merton said. "Directly it is dark I will set out. What are you going to do, Jack?" "I've got my work marked out," Jack said. "I'd rather not tell you till it's all over. Good-bye, sir; Harry is waiting for the letter." Mr. Merton did not carry out his plans. As soon as it was dark he left the village, but a hundred yards out he came upon a party of men, evidently posted as sentries. These roughly told him that if he didn't want to be chucked into the canal he'd best go home to bed; and this, after trying another road with the same result, he did. Jack walked with Harry as far as the railway-station, mentioning to several friends he met that he was off again. The lads crossed the line, went out of the opposite booking-office, and set off--for it was now past five, and already dark--at the top of their speed in different directions. Jack did not stop till he reached the engine-house of the Vaughan mine. The pumps were still clanking inside, and the water streaming down the shoot. Peeping carefully in, to see that his friend, John Ratcliffe, was alone, Jack entered. "Well, John," he said, "the engine's still going." "Ay, Jack; but if what's more nor one has told me to-day be true, it be for the last time." "Look here, John; Mr. Brook has been a good master, will you do him a good turn?" "Ay, lad, if I can; I've held on here, though they've threatened to chuck me down the shaft; but I'm a married man, and can't throw away my life." "I don't ask you to, John. I want you to work hard here with me till six o'clock strikes, and then go home as usual." "What dost want done, lad?" "What steam is there in the boiler?" "Only about fifteen pounds. I'm just knocking off, and have banked the fire up." "All right, John. I want you to help me fix the fire hose, the short length, to that blow-off cock at the bottom of the boiler. We can unscrew the pipe down to the drain, and can fasten the hose to it with a union, I expect. You've got some unions, haven't you?" "Yes, lad; and what then?" "That's my business, John. I'm going to hold this place till the soldiers come; and I think that with twenty pounds of steam in the boiler, and the hose, I can keep all the miners of Stokebridge out. At any rate, I'll try. Now, John, set to work. I want thee to go straight home, and then no one will suspect thee of having a hand in the matter. I'll go out when thou dost, and thou canst swear, if thou art asked, that there was not a soul in the house when thou camest away." "Thou wilt lose thy life, Jack." "That be my business," Jack said. "I think not. Now set to work, John; give me a spanner, and let's get the pipe off the cock at once." John Ratcliffe set to work with a will, and in twenty minutes the unions were screwed on and the hose attached, a length of thirty feet, which was quite sufficient to reach to the window, some eight feet above the ground. Along by this window ran a platform. There was another, and a smaller window, on the other side. While they were working, John Ratcliffe tried to dissuade Jack from carrying out his plan. "It's no use, John. I mean to save the engines, and so the pit. They'll never get in; and no one knows I am here, and no one will suspect me. None of 'em will know my voice, for they won't bring boys with them, and dad won't be here. There, it's striking six. Let me just drop a rope out of the window to climb in again with. Now we'll go out together; do thou lock the door, take the key, and go off home. Like enough they'll ask thee for the key, or they may bring their sledges to break it in. Anyhow it will make no difference, for there are a couple of bolts inside, and I shall make it fast with bars. There, that's right. Good-night, John. Remember, whatever comes of it, thou knowest nought of it. Thou camest away and left the place empty, as usual, and no one there." "Good-bye, lad, I'd stop with 'ee and share thy risk, but they'd know I was here, and my life wouldn't be worth the price of a pot o' beer. Don't forget, lad, if thou lowerst the water, to damp down the fire, and open the valves." Jack, left to himself, clambered up to the window and entered the engine-house again, threw some fresh coal on the fire, heaped a quantity of coal against the door, and jammed several long iron bars against it. Then he lighted his pipe and sat listening, occasionally getting up to hold a lantern to the steam-gauge, as it crept gradually up. "Twenty-five pounds," he said; "that will be enough to throw the water fifty or sixty yards on a level, and the door of the winding-engine's not more than thirty, so I can hold them both if they try to break in there." He again banked up the fires, and sat thinking. Harry would be at the magistrate's by a quarter to six. By six o'clock Sir John could be on his way to Birmingham for troops; fifteen miles to drive--say an hour and a half. Another hour for the soldiers to start, and three hours to do the nineteen miles to the Vaughan, half-past eleven--perhaps half an hour earlier, perhaps half an hour later. There was no fear but there was plenty of water. The boiler was a large one, and was built partly into, partly out of the engine-house. That is to say, while the furnace-door, the gauges, and the safety-valve were inside, the main portion of the boiler was outside the walls. The blow-off cock was two inches in diameter, and the nozzle of the hose an inch and a half. It would take some minutes then, even with the steam at a pressure of twenty-five pounds to the inch, to blow the water out, and a minute would, he was certain, do all that was needed. Not even when, upon the first day of his life in the pit, Jack sat hour after hour alone in the darkness, did the time seem to go so slowly as it did that evening. Once or twice he thought he heard footsteps, and crept cautiously up to the window to listen; but each time, convinced of his error, he returned to his place on a bench near the furnace. He heard the hours strike, one after another, on the Stokebridge church clock--eight, nine, ten--and then he took his post by the window and listened. A quarter of an hour passed, and then there was a faint, confused sound. Nearer it came, and nearer, until it swelled into the trampling of a crowd of many hundreds of men. They came along with laughter and rough jests, for they had no thought of opposition--no thought that anyone was near them. The crowd moved forward until they were within a few yards of the engine-house, and then one, who seemed to be in command, said, "Smash the door in with your sledges, lads." Jack had, as they approached, gone down to the boiler, and had turned the blow-off cock, and the boiling water swelled the strong leathern hose almost to bursting. Then he went back to the window, threw it open, and stood with the nozzle in his hand. "Hold!" he shouted out in loud, clear tones. "Let no man move a step nearer for his life." The mob stood silent, paralyzed with surprise. Jack had spoken without a tinge of the local accent, and as none of the boys were there, his voice was quite unrecognized. "Who be he?" "It's a stranger!" and other sentences, were muttered through the throng. "Who be you?" the leader asked, recovering from his surprise. "Never mind who I am," Jack said, standing well back from the window, lest the light from the lanterns which some of the men carried might fall on his face. "I am here in the name of the law. I warn you to desist from your evil design. Go to your homes; the soldiers are on their way, and may be here any minute. Moreover, I have means here of destroying any man who attempts to enter." There was a movement in the crowd. "The soldiers be coming" ran from mouth to mouth, and the more timid began to move towards the outside of the crowd. "Stand firm, lads, it be a lie," shouted the leader. "Thee baint to be frighted by one man, be'est 'ee? What! five hundred Staffordshire miners afeard o' one? Why, ye'll be the laughing-stock of the country! Now, lads, break in the door; we'll soon see who be yon chap that talks so big." There was a rush to the door, and a thundering clatter as the heavy blows of the sledge-hammers fell on the wood; while another party began an assault upon the door of the winding-engine house. Then Jack, with closely pressed lips and set face, turned the cock of the nozzle. With a hiss the scalding water leaped out in a stream. Jack stood well forward now and with the hose swept the crowd, as a fireman might sweep a burning building. Driven by the tremendous force of the internal steam, the boiling water knocked the men in front headlong over; then, as he raised the nozzle and scattered the water broadcast over the crowd, wild yells, screams, and curses broke on the night air. Another move, and the column of boiling fluid fell on those engaged on the other engine-house door, and smote them down. Then Jack turned the cock again, and the stream of water ceased. It was but a minute since he had turned it on, but it had done its terrible work. A score of men lay on the ground, rolling in agony; others danced, screamed, and yelled in pain; others, less severely scalded, filled the air with curses; while all able to move made a wild rush back from the terrible building. When the wild cries had a little subsided, Jack called out,-- "Now, lads, you can come back safely. I have plenty more hot water, and I could have scalded the whole of you as badly as those in front had I wanted to. Now I promise, on my oath, not to turn it on again if you will come and carry off your mates who are here. Take them off home as quick as you can, before the soldiers come. I don't want to do you harm. You'd all best be in bed as soon as you can." The men hesitated, but it was clear to them all that it had been in the power of their unknown foe to have inflicted a far heavier punishment upon them than he had done, and there was a ring of truth and honesty in his voice which they could not doubt. So after a little hesitation a number of them came forward, and lifting the men who had fallen near the engine-house, carried them off; and in a few minutes there was a deep silence where, just before, a very pandemonium had seemed let loose. Then Jack, the strain over, sat down, and cried like a child. Half an hour later, listening intently, he heard a deep sound in the distance. "Here come the soldiers," he muttered, "it is time for me to be off." He glanced at the steam-gauge, and saw that the steam was falling, while the water-gauge showed that there was still sufficient water for safety, and he then opened the window at the back of the building, and dropped to the ground. In an instant he was seized in a powerful grasp. "I thought ye'd be coming out here, and now I've got ye," growled a deep voice, which Jack recognized as that of Roger Hawking, the terror of Stokebridge. For an instant his heart seemed to stand still at the extent of his peril; then, with a sudden wrench, he swung round and faced his captor, twisted his hands in his handkerchief, and drove his knuckles into his throat. Then came a crashing blow in his face--another, and another. With head bent down, Jack held on his grip with the gameness and tenacity of a bull-dog, while the blows rained on his head, and his assailant, in his desperate effort to free himself, swung his body hither and thither in the air, as a bull might swing a dog which had pinned him. Jack felt his senses going--a dull dazed feeling came over him. Then he felt a crash, as his adversary reeled and fell--and then all was dark. [Illustration: A LIFE OR DEATH STRUGGLE.] It could have been but a few minutes that he lay thus, for he awoke with the sound of a thunder of horses' hoofs, and a clatter of swords in the yard on the other side of the engine-house. Rousing himself, he found that he still grasped the throat of the man beneath him. With a vague sense of wonder whether his foe was dead, he rose to his feet and staggered off, the desire to avoid the troops dispersing all other ideas in his brain. For a few hundred yards he staggered along, swaying like a drunken man, and knowing nothing of where he was going; then he stumbled, and fell again, and lay for hours insensible. It was just the faint break of day when he came to, the cold air of the morning having brought him to himself. It took him a few minutes to recall what had happened and his whereabouts. Then he made his way to the canal, which was close by, washed the blood from his face, and set out to walk to Birmingham. He was too shaken and bruised to make much progress, and after walking for a while crept into the shelter of a haystack, and went off to sleep for many hours. After it was dusk in the evening he started again, and made his way to his lodgings at ten o'clock that night. It was a fortnight before he could leave his room, so bruised and cut was his face, and a month before the last sign of the struggle was obliterated, and he felt that he could return to Stokebridge without his appearance being noticed. There, great changes had taken place. The military had found the splintered door, the hose, and the still steaming water in the yard, and the particulars of the occurrence which had taken place had been pretty accurately judged. They were indeed soon made public by the stories of the scalded men, a great number of whom were forced to place themselves in the hands of the doctor, many of them having had very narrow escapes of their lives, but none of them had actually succumbed. In searching round the engine-house the soldiers had found a man, apparently dead, his tongue projecting from his mouth. A surgeon had accompanied them, and a vein having been opened and water dashed in his face, he gave signs of recovery. He had been taken off to jail as being concerned in the attack on the engine-house; but no evidence could be obtained against him, and he would have been released had he not been recognized as a man who had, five years before, effected a daring escape from Portland, where he was undergoing a life sentence for a brutal manslaughter. The defeat of the attempt to destroy the Vaughan engines was the death-blow of the strike. Among the foremost in the attack, and therefore so terribly scalded that they were disabled for weeks, were most of the leaders of the strike in the pits of the district, and their voices silenced, and their counsel discredited, the men two days after the attack had a great meeting, at which it was resolved almost unanimously to go to work on the masters' terms. Great excitement was caused throughout the district by the publication of the details of the defence of the engine-house, and the most strenuous efforts were made by Mr. Brook to discover the person to whom he was so indebted. The miners were unanimous in describing him as a stranger, and as speaking like a gentleman; and there was great wonder why any one who had done so great a service to the mine-owners should conceal his identity. Jack's secret was, however, well kept by the three or four who alone knew it, and who knew too that his life would not be safe for a day did the colliers, groaning and smarting over their terrible injuries, discover to whom they were indebted for them. CHAPTER XII. AFTER THE STRIKE. "Well, Jack, so you're back again," Nelly Hardy said as she met Jack Simpson on his way home from work on the first day after his return. "Ay, Nelly, and glad to see you. How have things gone on?" and he nodded towards her home. "Better than I ever knew them," the girl said. "When father could not afford to buy drink we had better times than I have ever known. It was a thousand times better to starve than as 'twas before. He's laid up still; you nigh scalded him to death, Jack, and I doubt he'll never be fit for work again." "I," Jack exclaimed, astounded, for he believed that the secret was known only to his mother, Harry, John Ratcliffe, Mr. Merton and perhaps the schoolmaster's daughter. "Has Harry--" "No, Harry has not said a word. Oh, Jack, I didn't think it of you. You call me a friend and keep this a secret, you let Harry know it and say nowt to me. I did not think it of you," and the dark eyes filled with tears. "But if Harry did not tell you, how--" "As if I wanted telling," she said indignantly. "Who would have dared do it but you? Didn't I know you were here an hour or two before, and you think I needed telling who it was as faced all the pitmen? and to think you hid it from me! Didn't you think I could be trusted? couldn't I have gone to fetch the redcoats for you? couldn't I have sat by you in the engine-house, and waited and held your hand when you stood against them all? oh, Jack!" and for the first time since their friendship had been pledged, nearly four years before, Jack saw Nelly burst into tears. "I didn't mean unkind, Nell, I didn't, indeed, and if I had wanted another messenger I would have come to you. Don't I know you are as true as steel? Come, lass, don't take on. I would have sent thee instead o' Harry only I thought he could run fastest. Girls' wind ain't as good as lads'." "And you didn't doubt I'd do it, Jack?" "Not for a moment," Jack said. "I would have trusted thee as much as Harry." "Well then, I forgive you, Jack, but if ever you get in danger again, and doant let me know, I'll never speak a word to you again." In the years which had passed since this friendship began Nelly Hardy had greatly changed. The companionship of two quiet lads like Jack and Harry had tamed her down, and her love of reading and her study of all the books on history and travel on Jack's book-shelves had softened her speech. When alone the three spoke with but little of the dialect of the place, Jack having insisted on improvement in this respect. With Nelly his task had been easy, for she was an apt pupil, but Harry still retained some of his roughness of speech. Nelly was fifteen now, and was nearly as tall as Jack, who was square and somewhat stout for his age. With these two friends Jack would talk sometimes of his hopes of rising and making a way for himself. Harry, who believed devoutly in his friend, entered most warmly into his hopes, but Nelly on this subject alone was not sympathetic. "You don't say anything," Jack remarked one day; "do you think my castles in the air will never come true?" "I know they will come true, Jack," she said earnestly; "but don't ask me to be glad. I can't; I try to but I can't. It's selfish, but, but--" and her voice quivered. "Every step thou takest will carry you farther up from me, and I can't be glad on it, Jack!" "Nonsense, Nelly," Jack said angrily, "dos't think so little of me as to think that I shall not be as true to my two friends, Harry and you, as I am now?" The girl shook her head. "You will try, Jack, you will try. Don't think I doubt you, but--" and turning round she fled away at full speed. "I believe she ran away because she was going to cry," Harry said. "Lasses are strange things, and though in some things Nell's half a lad, yet she's soft you see on some points. Curious, isn't it, Jack?" "Very curious," Jack said; "I thought I understood Nell as well as I did you or myself, but I begin to think I doant understand her as much as I thought. It comes of her being a lass, of course, but it's queer too," and Jack shook his head over the mysterious nature of lasses. "You can't understand 'em," he went on again, thoughtfully. "Now, if you wanted some clothes, Harry, and you were out of work, I should just buy you a set as a matter of course, and you'd take 'em the same. It would be only natural like friends, wouldn't it?" Harry assented. "Now, I've been wanting to give Nelly a gown, and a jacket, and hat for the last two years. I want her to look nice, and hold her own with the other lasses of the place--she's as good looking as any--but I daren't do it. No, I daren't, downright. I know, as well as if I see it, how she'd flash up, and how angry she'd be." "Why should she?" Harry asked. "That's what I doan't know, lad, but I know she would be. I suppose it comes of her being a lass, but it beats me altogether. Why shouldn't she take it? other lasses take presents from their lads, why shouldn't Nell take one from her friend? But she wouldn't, I'd bet my life she wouldn't, and she wouldn't say, 'No, and thank you,' but she'd treat it as if I'd insulted her. No, it can't be done, lad; but it's a pity, for I should ha' liked to see her look nice for once." Not satisfied with his inability to solve the question Jack took his mother into his confidence. Jane Haden smiled. "Noa, Jack, I don't think as how thou canst give Nell Hardy a dress. She is a good quiet girl and keeps herself respectable, which, taking into account them she comes from, is a credit to her, but I don't think thou could'st gi' her a gown." "But why not, mother?" Jack persisted. "I might gi' her a pair o' earrings or a brooch, I suppose, which would cost as much as the gown." "Yes, thou might'st do that, Jack." "Then if she could take the thing which would be no manner o' use to her, why couldn't she take the thing that would?" "I doant know as I can rightly tell you, Jack, but there's a difference." "But can't you tell me what is the difference?" Jack insisted. "Noa, Jack, I can't, but there be a difference." Jack seized his candle with a cry of despair, and ran upstairs. He had solved many a tough problem, but this was beyond him altogether. He was not, however, accustomed to be baffled, and the next day he renewed the subject, this time to Nelly herself. "Look here, Nell," he said, "I want to ask you a question. It is a supposition, you know, only a supposition, but it bothers me." "What is it, Jack?" she said, looking up from the ground, upon which as was her custom she was sitting with a book while Jack sat on a gate. "If I was to offer you a pair of gold earrings." "I wouldn't take 'em," the girl said rising, "you know I wouldn't, Jack; you know I never take presents from you." "I know, lass, I know. We'll suppose you wouldn't take it, but you wouldn't be angered, would you?" "I should be angered that you had spent money foolishly," the girl said after a pause, "when you knew I shouldn't take it, but I couldn't be angered any other way." "Well, but if I were to buy you a hat and a jacket and a gown." "You dare not," the girl said passionately, her face flushed scarlet; "you dare not, Jack." "No," Jack said consciously, "I know I dare not, though I should like to; but why don't I dare?" "Because it would be an insult, a gross insult, Jack, and you dare not insult me." "No lass, I darena; but why should it be an insult? that's what I canna make out; why wouldn't it be an insult to offer you a gold brooch worth three or four pounds, and yet be an insult to offer you the other things? what's the difference?" Nelly had calmed down now when she saw that the question was a hypothetical one, and that Jack had not, as she at first supposed, bought clothes for her. She thought for some time. "I suppose, Jack, the difference is this. It's the duty of a girl's father and mother to buy fit clothes for her, and if they don't it's either their fault, or it's because they are too poor. So to give clothes is an interference and a sort of reproach. A brooch is not necessary; it's a pretty ornament, and so a lad may give it to his lass wi'out shame." "Yes, I suppose it must be that," Jack said thoughtfully. "I'm glad I've got some sort of answer." CHAPTER XIII. A HEAVY LOSS. "I thought, sir, that you promised to say nothing about that soup-kitchen money," Jack said rather indignantly one evening a fortnight after he had gone to work again. "Here all the women of the place seem to know about it, and as I was coming home from work to-day, there was Mrs. Thompson run out and shook me by the hand and would ha' kissed me if I'd let her, and said I'd saved her children's lives. I ha' been thinking of going away; I can't stand this; and I thought you promised to say nowt about it." "'Nothing,' Jack," corrected Mr. Merton. "It is a long time since I heard you say 'nowt.' No, Jack, I did not promise; you told me to say nothing about it, but I was careful not to promise. Sit down, lad, you're a little hot now, and I am not surprised, but I am sure that you will credit me for having acted for the best." Jack sat down with a little grunt, and with the expression of dissatisfaction on his face in no way mollified. "In the first place, Jack, you will, I know, be sorry to hear that I am going away." "Going away!" Jack exclaimed, leaping to his feet, all thought of his grievance gone at once. "Oh! Mr. Merton." "I told you, you will remember, Jack, when the strike first began, that for the sake of my daughter I should make an effort to obtain a superior position, and I am glad to say that I have done so. I have obtained the post of mathematical master at the Foundation School at Birmingham, with a salary of three hundred a year, and this, Jack, I partly owe to you." "To me!" Jack exclaimed in astonishment; "how could that be, sir?" "Well, Jack, you got me to write that letter to Sir John Butler, that was the means of bringing the troops over from Birmingham. As we know, they arrived too late, for in point of fact the hot water from the Vaughan boiler put an end to the riot and the strike together. However, Sir John Butler mentioned to Mr. Brook, and the other owners whose mines were threatened, that it was I who at some risk to myself sent the message which brought down the troops. I can assure you that I disclaimed any merit in the affair; however, they chose to consider themselves under an obligation, and when I applied for the vacant mastership, sending in, of course, my college testimonials, they were good enough to exert all their influence with the governors in my favour, and I was elected unanimously. The salary is an increasing one, and I am to be allowed to coach private pupils for the university. So, Jack, you may congratulate me." "I do, sir, most heartily, most heartily," Jack said as he grasped the hand which Mr. Merton held out, but his voice quivered a little and tears stood in his eyes. "I am glad, indeed, although I shall miss you so terribly, you have been so good to me," and Jack fairly broke down now, and cried silently. Mr. Merton put his hand on his shoulder: "Jack, my work is nearly done, so far as you are concerned. You have worked nearly as far as can be of any use to you in pure mathematics. For the next few months you may go on; but then you had better turn your attention to the useful application of what you have learned. You want to fit yourself to be an engineer, especially, of course, a mining engineer; still the more general your knowledge the better. You will have, therefore, to devote yourself to the various strains and stresses in iron bridges, and the calculation of the strength of the various forms of these structures. Then all calculations as to the expenditure of heat and force in steam engines will be quite material for you to master. In fact, there is work before you for another four or five years. But for much of this you will not require a master. You will find the practical part easy to you when you have a thorough knowledge of mathematics. At the same time if you will once a week send me your papers, noting all difficulties that you may meet with, I will go through them and answer you, and will also give you papers to work out." "You are very, very kind, sir," Jack said; "but it will not be the same thing as you being here." "No, not quite the same, Jack; still we can hardly help that." "Oh, no, sir!" Jack said eagerly, "and please do not think that I am not glad to hear that you have got a place more worthy of you. It was a blow to me just at first, and I was selfish to think of myself even for a moment." "Well, Jack, and now about this question of the soup dinner?" "Oh! it does not matter, sir. I had forgot all about it." "It matters a little, Jack, because, although I did not promise to keep silence, I should certainly have respected your wish, had it not been that it seemed to be a far more important matter that the truth should be known." "More important, sir?" Jack repeated in a puzzled tone. "More important, Jack. My successor has been chosen. He is just the man for this place--earnest, well trained, a good disciplinarian. He will be no help to you, Jack. He is simply taught and trained as the master of a national school, but he is thoroughly in earnest. I have told him that his most efficient assistant here will be yourself." "I?" Jack exclaimed in extreme astonishment. "You, Jack, not as a teacher, but as an example. You have immense power of doing good, Jack, if you do but choose to exert it." Jack was altogether too surprised to speak for some time. "A power of good," he said at last. "The only good I can do, sir, and that is not much, is to thrash chaps I see bullying smaller boys, but that's nothing." "Well, that's something, Jack; and indeed I fear you are fond of fighting." "I am not fond of it," Jack said. "I don't care about it, one way or the other. It doesn't hurt me; I am as hard as nails, you see, so I don't think more about fighting than I do about eating my dinner." "I don't like fighting, Jack, when it can be avoided, and I don't think that you are quarrelsome though you do get into so many fights." "Indeed I am not quarrelsome, Mr. Merton; I never quarrel with anyone. If any of the big chaps interfere with us and want to fight, of course I am ready, or if chaps from the other pits think that they can knock our chaps about, of course I show them that the Vaughans can fight, or if I see any fellow pitching in to a young one--" "Or, in fact, Jack, on any pretext whatever. Well, if it were anyone else but yourself I should speak very strongly against it; but in your case I avow that I am glad that you have fought, and fought until, as I know, no one anywhere near your age will fight with you, because it now makes you more useful for my purpose." Jack looked astonished again. "You don't want me to thrash anyone, Mr. Merton?" he said; "because if you do--" "No, no, Jack, nothing is further from my thoughts. I want you to get the lads of your own age to join a night-school, and to become a more decent Christian set of young fellows than they are now. It is just because you can fight well, and are looked up to by the lads as their natural leader, that you can do this. Were anyone else to try it he would fail. He would be regarded as a milksop, and be called a girl, and a Molly, and all sorts of names, and no one would join him. Now with you they can't say this, and boys joining would say to those who made fun of them, 'There's Jack Simpson, he's one of us; you go and call him Molly and see what you'll get.' Now you can talk to your comrades, and point out to them the advantages of learning and decent manners. Show that not only will they become happier men, but that in a worldly point of view they will benefit, for that the mine-owners have difficulty in getting men with sufficient education to act as overmen and viewers. Get them to agree to keep from drink and from the foul language which makes the streets horrible to a decent person. You can work a revolution in the place. You won't get them to do all this at present, but the first step is to get them to attend a night-school. I have for the last year been thinking over the matter, and was intending to speak to you about it when the strike began, and everything else was put aside. Now, I have spoken to my successor, and he is willing, and indeed anxious, to open such a school if the young fellows can be induced to come." Jack sat for some time in silence. He was always slow at coming to a conclusion, and liked to think over every side of a question. "How often would it be held, sir?" he asked presently. "Two or three nights a week, Jack. Those who are anxious to get on can do as you did, and work between times." "Two nights would be enough at first," Jack said; "but I think, yes, I think I could get some of them to give that. Harry Shepherd would, I'm sure, and Bill Cummings, and Fred Wood, and I think five or six others. Yes, sir, I think we could start it, and all I can do I will. It would do a sight--I mean a great deal of good. I'll come myself at first, sir, and then if any of them make a noise or play games with the schoolmaster I'll lick 'em next day." "No, Jack, I don't think that would do, but your presence would no doubt aid the master at first. And you'll think of the other things, Jack, the drinking, and the bad language, and so on." "I'll do what I can, Mr. Merton," Jack said, simply, "but it must be bit by bit." "That's right, Jack, I knew that I could rely upon you; and now come in to tea, and there was one thing I wanted to say, I want you once a month to come over to me at Birmingham on Saturday afternoon and stay till Sunday evening. It will be a great pleasure to me; I shall see how you are getting on, and shall hear all the news of Stokebridge." "I am very very much obliged to you, sir," Jack said, colouring with pleasure, "but I am afraid I am not, not fit--" "You are fit to associate with anyone, Jack, and it is good for you that you should occasionally have other association than that of your comrades of the pit. You will associate with people of higher rank than mine, if you live, and it is well that you should become accustomed to it. And now, Jack, I know you will not take it amiss, but clothes do go for something, and I should advise you to go to a good tailor's at Birmingham the first time you come over--I will obtain the address of such a one--and order yourself a suit of well made clothes. As you get on in life you will learn that first impressions go a long way, and that the cut of the clothes have not a little to do with first impressions. I shall introduce you to my friends there, simply as a friend; not that either you or I are ashamed of your working in a pit--indeed, that is your highest credit--but it would spare you the comments and silly questions which would be put to you. Now let us go into the next room, Alice will be expecting us." Jack had taken tea with Mr. Merton more than once since that first evening before the strike, and was now much more at his ease with Miss Merton, who, having heard from her father that it was he who saved the Vaughan pit, viewed him with a constant feeling of astonishment. It seemed so strange to her that this quiet lad, who certainly stood in awe of her, although he was a year her senior, should have done such a daring action; equally wonderful to think that in spite of his well chosen words and the attainments her father thought so highly of, he was yet a pit boy, like the rough noisy lads of the village. A week later Mr. Merton and his daughter left Stokebridge, and upon the following day his successor arrived, and Jack, at Mr. Merton's request, called upon him the same evening. He was a tall man of some forty years old, with a face expressive of quiet power. Jack felt at once that he should like him. He received the lad very kindly. "I have heard so much of you from Mr. Merton," he said, "and I am sure that you will be a great help to me. Harriet," he said to his wife, a bright-looking woman of about thirty-five years old, who came into the room, "this is Mr. Simpson, of whom Mr. Merton spoke so highly to me. My wife is going to have the girls' school, have you heard?" "No, indeed," Jack said; "Mr. Merton did not mention it." "It was only settled yesterday; the managers heard that my wife was a trained mistress, and as they were going to pension off the present mistress they offered it to her." "I am very glad," Jack said, "for Mrs. White has long been past her work, and the girls did pretty well as they liked." "I expect to have some trouble with them at first," Mrs. Dodgson said cheerfully. "I often tell my husband girls are ever so much more troublesome than boys, but I daresay I shall manage; and now, Mr. Simpson, we are just going to have supper, will you join us? It will be our first regular meal in the house." "Thank you very much," Jack said, colouring and hesitating, "but I think, perhaps, you don't know that I am only a lad in the pit." "Stuff and nonsense," Mrs. Dodgson said, "what has that to do with it? Why, Mr. Merton says that you will be John's right hand. Besides, you will be able to tell us all about the people we shall have to do with." In another moment Jack was seated at table, and really enjoyed the meal, lightened, as it was, by the pleasant talk of his hostess, and the grave but not less kindly conversation of her husband. CHAPTER XIV. THE NIGHT-SCHOOL. Jack found that, as he expected, his friends Harry Shepherd, Bill Cummings, and Fred Wood, would be glad to attend a night-school, and to work in earnest; for the example of what Jack had done for himself, even so far as they knew, had excited a strong desire for improvement among them. They, however, were doubtful as to others, and agreed that it would not do to propose it in a straightforward manner, but that a good deal of careful management would be necessary. Jack, it was arranged, should open the subject after leading up to it carefully. Harry should be the first to consent, Bill Cummings was to give in his adhesion when he saw signs of wavering among the others, and Fred Wood to delay his until a moment when his coming forward would be useful. The following Saturday, when many of them were always together, should be the occasion, and Fred Wood was to lead up to the matter by asking Jack some questions as to the relative bigness of the earth and the sun. Saturday came, the lads gathered in a field which belonged to the Vaughan, and upon which a great tip of rubbish and shale was gradually encroaching. Here choosing sides they played at rounders for a couple of hours, and then flung themselves down on the grass. Some of them lighted pipes, and all enjoyed the quiet of the fine autumn evening. Presently Fred Wood artfully fired off the questions he had prepared, which Jack answered. "What a sight o' things thou know'st, Jack!" Bill Cummings said. "I don't know much yet, Bill, but I hopes to know a goodish deal some day." "And thou really lik'st reading, Jack? I hate it," John Jordan said. "I didn't like it ower much at first," Jack answered, "but as I got on I liked it more and more. I wish you chaps had the chances I had. It isn't every one who would take the pains wi' a fellow as Merton took wi' me." "What ud be t' good o't?" John Jordan asked. "I doan't see no good in knowing that t' sun be a hundred thousand times as big as t' world." "There's use in a great deal o' what one gets to know, though," Jack said; "not so much now as some day, maybe. A chap as has some sort o' edication has chances over another o' being chosen as a viewer or an oversman." "Oh! that's what thou be'est looking forward to, Jack, eh? Well there's summat in that, and I shouldna' wonder if we see thee that some day; but we can't all be oversmen." "Not in the Vaughan," Jack said; "but there's plenty o' other pits, and a chap as has got his head screwed on straight, and can write well and figure a bit, and have read up his work, may always look forward to getting a step up wherever he goes. Besides, look at the difference it makes to the pleasures o' life. What has a man got to do who ain't learnt to be fond o' reading? Nowt but to go to t' public to spend his evenings and drink away his earnings. So 'ee goes on, and his woife doan't care about taking pains about a house when t' maister ain't never at home but to his meals, and his children get to look for him coming home drunk and smashing the things, and when he gets old he's just a broken-down drunkard, wi'out a penny saved, and nowt but the poorhouse before him. Now, that's the sort o' life o' a man who can't read, or can't read well enough to take pleasure in it, has before him. That is so, bean't it?" There was a long silence; all the lads knew that the picture was a true one. "Now look at t'other side," Jack went on; "look at Merton. He didn't get moore pay a week than a pitman does; look how he lived, how comfortable everything was! What a home that ud be for a man to go back to after his work was done! Noice furniture, a wife looking forward neat and tidy to your coming hoam for the evening. Your food all comfortable, the kids clean and neat, and delighted to see feyther home." There was again a long silence. "Where be the girls to make the tidy wife a' cooming from, I wonder?" John Jordan said; "not in Stokebridge, I reckon!" "The lasses take mostly after the lads," Jack said. "If we became better they'd be ashamed to lag behind. Mrs. Dodgson, the new schoolmaister's wife, told me t'other day she thought o' opening a sort o' night class for big girls, to teach 'em sewing, and making their own clothes, and summat about cooking, and such like." "That would be summat like," said Harry Shepherd, who saw that his opportunity had come. "I wonder whether t' maister would open a night-school for us; I'd go for one, quick enough. I doan't know as I've rightly thought it over before, but now ye puts it in that way, Jack, there be no doubt i' my moind that I should; it would be a heap better to get some larning, and to live like a decent kind o' chap." "I doan't know," John Jordan said; "it moight be better, but look what a lot o' work one ud have to do." "Well, John, I always finds plenty o' time for play," Jack said. "You could give an hour a day to it, and now the winter's coming on you'd be main glad sometimes as you'd got summat to do. I should ha' to talk to the schoolmaister a bit. I doan't know as he'd be willing to give up his time of an evening two or three evenings a week, say two, when he's been at work all day. It be a good deal to ask a man, that is." "It be, surely," Harry said; "but what a sight o' good it would do, and if his woife be willing to give oop her time to the girls, maybe he would do as much for us." There was a pause again. Several of the lads looked irresolute. "Well," Bill Cummings said, "I be ready for another if some more of 'ee will join't." The example was contagious. Four others agreed to join. "Come," Harry Shepherd said, "it bean't no use if Jack can't tell schoolmaister that a dozen o' us will come in ef he will open a school two nights a week. You'll join, woan't you, Fred Wood?" "Oi allers hated my books," Fred said, "and used to be bottom o' class. It ain't as I doan't believe what Jack Simpson says; there be no doubt as it would be a sight better look-out if one got to be fond o' books, and such loike. I doan't believe as ever I shall be, but I doan't mind giving it a trial for six months, and if at the end o' that time I doan't like it, why I jacks it oop." The adhesion of this seemingly reluctant recruit settled the matter. Even John Jordan yielded upon the same terms, and the whole party, fifteen in number, put down their names, and Jack Simpson undertook to speak to Mr Dodgson. "See how we shall get laughed at," John Jordan said. "Why, we shall get made fun o' by the whole place." "Let 'em laugh," Jack said, "they won't laugh long. I never was laughed at, and why should you be? They canna call us Jennies, for we sixteen will play any sixteen wi'in five miles round, at any game they like, or fight 'em if it comes to that. We has only got to stick together. I sha'n't be one of the night-school, but I am one wi' you, and we'll just stick together. Don't let us mind if they do laugh; if they go on at it, and I doubt they will, just offer to fight anyone your own size, and if he be bigger than you like I'll take him in hand." "That's it," Harry Shepherd said enthusiastically; "we'll stick together, and you see how we'll get on; and look here, I vote we each pay threepence a week, that will get us a room at two bob, and candles. Then we can work a' night wi'out being disturbed." "This be a good idea o' thine, Harry. I'll give my threepence a week as well as the rest, and I'll come in on the nights when you don't go to school and help any that wants it." "Yes," Bill Cummings said, "and we'll send round challenges to the other pits to play football and rounders. I vote we call ourselves the 'Bull-dogs,' and Jack shall be our captain." The proposition was carried with unanimity, and the "Bull-dogs" became a body from that time. Harry was appointed treasurer, and the first week's subscriptions were paid forthwith, and an hour later a room was hired. "Hullo!" Fred Wood said, as they poured in and took possession; "we forgot furniture. We must have a table and some benches." "It is the captain's duty to provide furniture," Jack said. "I will get a big table and some benches on Monday, and then we'll draw up rules and get 'em framed and hung over the fireplace, then we shall be all in order." Nothing could have been more happy than this plan of starting a club; it gave all the members a lively interest in the matter, and united them by a bond which would keep the lazy and careless from hanging back, and it was quite with a sense of excitement that they met on the Monday evening. Jack had got a large table and some benches. Inkstands, slates, paper, and pencils were on the table, and four candles were burning. He took the place of honour at the head of the table, and the others, much pleased with the appearance of the room, took their seats round the table. "In the first place," Jack said, striking the table with his fist to call for order, "I have to report to you that I ha' seen the schoolmaister, and he says that he will willingly give two hours two nights a week to teaching the 'Bull-dogs.'" This announcement was received with great applause, for the lads had all become deeply interested in the matter. "He says Tuesdays and Fridays will suit him, from seven till nine; and I have, in your name, accepted with very many thanks his offer; for, lads, it be no light thing that a man who has been all day teaching, should give up two evenings a week to help us on, and that wi'out charge or payment." "That's so, Jack!" Fred Wood said. "I voate we pass a vote o' thanks to Mr. Dodgson." There was a chorus of approval. "Someone ha' got to second that proposal," Jack said; "we must do things in the proper form." "I second it," John Jordan said. "Very well," Jack said, "are you all agreed?" "All." "Very well, then, I'll write that out neatly in this book I ha' bought to keep the records o' the club, and I'll send a copy to Mr. Dodgson; I'm sure he will be pleased. I had best act as secretary as well as captain at present, till one o' you gets on wi' his writing and can take it off my hands. Now we must draw out our rules. First, we must put down that the following are the original members of the Bull-dog Club. Then, that the objects of the club are to improve ourselves, and to make decent men o' ourselves. Next, to stick together in a body and to play all sorts o' games against any other set. All that's been agreed, ain't it?" There were cries of "Ay, ay," and Jack wrote down the items on the sheet o' paper before him. "Now about new members. Do we mean to keep it to ourselves, or to let in other chaps?" "Keep it to ourselves," shouted several. "Well, I dunno," Harry Shepherd said; "if this is going to do us as much good as we hopes, and think it is, would it be right to keep the chaps o' the place out? O' course we wouldn't go beyond Stokebridge, but we might keep it to that." The point was hotly debated, the majority being in favour of confining the club to its present members; some saying that if it were opened the original members would be swamped by numbers, and that their bond of union would be broken. When all had spoken Jack Simpson said: "I think we might go between both opinions. If we were to limit the club to twenty-four members, this room would just about hold 'em. We would only elect one each week, so as to have time to make a good choice. Any member who broke the rules or made himself unpleasant would be expelled, and so we should see in a while all the young chaps o' t' village wanting to join, and it would get to be looked upon as a feather in a chap's cap to belong to it." This proposal was agreed to unanimously. "Now the next rule I propose," Jack said, "is that this room is to be used from seven to nine for work. No talking to be allowed. Arter nine, books to be put away and pipes to be lit by them as smoke, and to talk till ten. I ha' been talking to the woman o' the house, and she will supply cups o' coffee or tea at a penny a piece between nine and ten." This rule was agreed to without a dissentient voice. "Now," Jack said, "I doan't know as you'll all like the next rule I ha' to propose, but I do think it is a needful one. That is that no swearing or bad language be used in this room. A fine of a penny being inflicted for each time the rule be broken." There was a dead silence. "You see," Jack said, "you will all be fined a few times at first, but this money will go to the club fund, and will help up to get fires i' winter. You'll soon break yourselves of it, it be only a trick. I did. Mr. Merton told me that it was a bad habit and horrible to decent people. I said I could never break myself o't. He said if I fined myself a penny every time I did it, and put it in the poor box o' Sunday, I should soon get out o' t'way. Well, the first day cost me thirteen pence, the next fourpence, and afterwards it was only a penny now and then. First and last it didn't cost me half a crown, and you never hear me swear or use bad language now. Come, Bull-dogs, this will be the first step toward improving yourselves, and when you find how easy it be to do wi'out it here, you will soon do wi'out it outside." The rule was finally agreed to, but during the first week it carried a good deal of heart-burning in the club. One of the members left altogether, but the rest soon found that the fines, which had been so alarming for the first day or two, dwindled down. It cost the Bull-dogs collectively over three pounds to cure themselves of using bad language, and the fines kept them in firing, paper, pens, and ink all the winter. On the evening after the opening of the club-room the whole party accompanied by Jack went to the night-school. They looked rather shamefaced as they tramped in, but Jack introduced them one by one to the master, who with a few cordial words put them at their ease. For the first night he contented himself by finding out how much each knew, how much he remembered of what he had formerly heard. For the last half hour he gave them a short lecture on geography, drawing a map on the black-board, taking a traveller from place to place, and telling them what he saw there. Then he set them each a task to be learned and a few sums to be done by the following Friday, and they returned to the club-room greatly pleased with the first night's lessons. It was not always so light, but the lads were in earnest and really worked hard. Jack visited the room on the off nights, explained questions they did not understand, and after nine o'clock generally read aloud for half an hour while they smoked; that is to say, he read short sentences and then one or other read them after him, Jack correcting mistakes in dialect and pronunciation. Mr. Merton had indeed been a friend to Jack Simpson, but there was another friend to whom, according to his promise, Jack reported his doings, not telling everything, perhaps, for Jack was not very apt to talk or write about himself; but once a year he sent a letter in reply to a long and wise one which he received from his friend the artist, according to their agreement, for Jack had not "given up." Before the end of a month Mr. Dodgson wrote to Mr. Merton, saying that, thanks to Jack, the night-school was a great success, that the lads all behaved extremely well, and were making really surprising efforts to improve themselves. He augured great things for the village from the movement. CHAPTER XV. THE SEWING CLASS. Stokebridge contained altogether a population of some three thousand souls, of whom more than half consisted of the men and boys of the Vaughan mine, and the families dependent upon them. It was a place where, except as to accidents at one or other of the pits, news was scarce, and a small thing therefore created much interest. Thus the news that the new schoolmaster had opened a night school, and that some sixteen or eighteen of the lads belonging to the Vaughan had joined it, created quite an excitement. At first the statement was received with positive disbelief. There was no precedent for such a thing, and in its ways at least Stokebridge was strictly conservative. When the tale was confirmed wonder took the place of unbelief. The women were unanimous in the opinion that if the school only kept the lads from drink it would be a blessing to the place. Drink was indeed the grand test by which they viewed all things. To anything which led lads to avoid this curse of their homes their approval was certain and complete. Whether the acquisition of learning was likely to improve their prospects in life, or to make them better men, was not considered, the great point about the new organization was that it would keep them from the public-houses, the curses of the working men, and still more of the working men's wives and families, of this country. Among the men, who were, however, disposed to view the matter as a boys' fancy which would soon die away, the movement met with slight approval. Newfangled notions were held in but low estimation among the miners of Stokebridge. They had got on wi'out larning, and saw no reason why t' lads could not do as they had done. "They'll be a cocking they noses oop aboove their feythers, joost acause they know moore reading and writing, but what good ul it do they I wonder?" an elderly pitman asked a circle of workmen at the "Chequers;" and a general affirmatory grunt betokened assent with the spirit of his words. Among the young men, those of from eighteen to three or four and twenty, the opposition was still stronger, for here a strong feeling of jealousy was aroused at the thought that their juniors were, as they considered, stealing a march upon them. Gibes and jeers were showered upon the "Bull-dogs," and two of them were ducked in the canal by a party of five or six of their elders. On scrambling out, however, they ran back to the village, and the rest of the party, headed by Jack, at once started on the war-path. Coming up to the band who had assaulted their comrades they fell upon them with fury, and in spite of the latter's superior individual strength, thrashed them soundly, and then gave them a ducking in the canal, similar to that which they had inflicted. After that it came to be understood in Stokebridge that it was best to leave the bull-dogs alone, or at least to be content with verbal assaults, at which indeed the lads were able to hold their own. But it was among the girls of Stokebridge, those of from fourteen to seventeen years old, that this movement upon the part of the boys excited the greatest discussion and the widest divergence of opinion. Up to the time of the strike Jack Simpson had been by no means popular among their class. It was an anomaly in Stokebridge that a lad should have no avowed favourite of his own age among the lasses. These adhesions were not often of a permanent character, although later on sometimes marriages came of them, but for a time, and until the almost inevitable quarrel came, they were regarded as binding. The lad would sometimes buy a ribbon or neckerchief for the lass, and she and two or three others would accompany him as with some of his comrades he strolled in the lanes on Sunday, or would sit by him on a wall or a balk of timber as he smoked and talked with his friends. Jack's rigid seclusion after his hour of play was over, his apparent indifference to the lasses of the place, was felt as a general slight, and resented accordingly; although the girls were not insensible to his prowess in battle and in sports, to his quiet steadiness of character, or to the frankness and good temper of his face. The general opinion, therefore, among the young girls of Stokebridge was that he was "stuck up," although in fact few boys in the place had less of conceit and self-glorification than he had. "Did 'ee ever hear of such a tale," asked one of a group of girls sitting together on a bank, while the little ones, of whom they were supposed to be in charge, played and rolled on the grass, "as for a lot o' boys to go to school again o' their own free-will." "I don't see no good in it," another said, "not for the schooling they'll get. But if it teaches them to keep out o' the publics, it will be good for their wives some day." "It will that," put in another earnestly; "my! how feyther did beat mother last night; he were as drunk as could be, and he went on awful." "I think sometimes men are worse nor beasts," another said. "Do 'ee know I've heard," Sarah Shepherd said, "that the new schoolmistress be a-going to open a night-school for girls, to teach sewing, and cutting out, and summat o' cooking." There was a general exclamation of astonishment, and so strange was the news that it was some time before any one ventured a comment on it. "What dost think o't?" Sarah questioned at last. "Only sewing and cutting out and cooking and such like, and not lessons?" Bess Thompson asked doubtfully. "Not reg'lar lessons I mean. She'll read out while the girls work, and perhaps they will read out by turns; not lessons, you know, but stories and tales, and travels, and that kind o' book. What dost think o't?" "'Twould be a good thing to know how to make dresses," Fanny Jones, who was fond of finery, remarked. "And other things too," put in Peggy Martin, "and to cook too. Mother ain't a good hand at cooking and it puts feyther in such tempers, and sometimes I hardly wonder. I shall go if some others go. But be'est sure it be true, Sally?" "Harry told me," she said, "and I think Jack Simpson told him as the schoolmaster said so." The news was too important to be kept to themselves, and there was soon a general move homewards. There Sally Shepherd's story received confirmation. The schoolmistress had been going from house to house, asking all the women who had daughters between the ages of fifteen and eighteen, to let them attend a working class in the schoolroom two evenings a week, and the answer she almost always received was, "Well, I ha' no objection to my lass going if she be willing; and I think it would be very good for her to know how to make her clothes; I can hardly do a stitch myself." Mrs. Dodgson had also informed the women that any of them who liked to supply the material for undergarments or for children's dresses, could have them for the present made up without charge by the class. "But suppose they spiles 'em?" "They wont spoil them. The work may not be very neat at first, but the things will be well cut out and strongly put together. I will see to that." In a short time the class was opened, and forty girls at once attended. So pleased were these with their teacher, and with the pleasant books that Mr. Dodgson read to them--for his wife was far too much occupied to read, and too wise to give the girls a distaste for the class by asking them to do so--that the number of applicants for admission soon far exceeded the number who could be received. Mr. Brook heard shortly afterwards from Mr. Dodgson of the success of the scheme and the great benefit which was likely to accrue from it, and at once offered to contribute twenty pounds a year to secure the services of a young woman capable of assisting in the girls' school by day and of teaching needlework. Thenceforth the number of class evenings was raised to three a week, and sixty girls in all were admitted. The books chosen for reading were not always tales, but for a portion of each evening books treating on domestic matters, the care of a house, the management of illness, cottage gardening, &c., were read; and these were found greatly to interest the hearers. The book on gardening was a special favourite, and soon the pitmen were astonished to see changes in the tiny plots of ground behind their houses. The men in charge of the pit horses were coaxed for baskets of manure, pennies were saved and devoted to the purchase of seed, and the boys found that the most acceptable present was no longer a gay handkerchief or ribbon, but a pot of flowers. Revolutions are not made in a day, but as month passed after month the change in Stokebridge became marked. The place assumed a smarter and brighter aspect; it was rare to hear bad language from lads or girls in the streets, for the young ones naturally followed the fashion set by their elder brothers and sisters, and as a foul expression not unfrequently cost its utterer a cuff on the head, they soon became rare. The girls became more quiet in demeanour, neater in dress, the boys less noisy and aggressive. The boys' night-school had increased greatly in number. The Bull-dogs, after much deliberation, had declined to increase their numbers, but at Jack Simpson's suggestion it had been agreed that any of them might join other similar associations, in order that these might be conducted on the same lines as their own, and the benefits of which they were conscious be thus distributed more widely. Four other "clubs" were in consequence established, all looking upon the Bull-dogs as their central association. The vicar of the parish aided the efforts of the school master and mistress for the improvement of the rising generation of Stokebridge. Hitherto all efforts that way had failed, but he now got over a magic lantern from Birmingham, hiring sets of slides of scenery in foreign countries, astronomical subjects, &c., and gave lectures once a fortnight. These were well attended, and the quiet attention with which he was listened to by the younger portion of his audience, contrasted so strongly with the indifference or uproar with which a similar attempt had been met some two years before, that he told Mr. Brook something like a miracle was being wrought in the parish. Mr. Brook warmly congratulated Mr. and Mrs. Dodgson on the change, but these frankly said that although they had done their best, the change was in no slight degree due to the influence of one of the pit lads, with whom Mr. Merton had taken great pains, and who was certainly a remarkable lad. "Ah, indeed," Mr. Brook said. "I have a faint recollection of his speaking to me some years ago of one of the boys; and, now I think of it, he is the same boy who behaved so bravely in going down that old shaft to save another boy's life. The men gave him a gold watch; of course, I remember all about it now. I am glad to hear that he is turning out so well. In a few years I must see what I can do for him." Mr. Dodgson would have said much more, but Mr. Merton had impressed upon him that Jack would object, above all things, to be brought forward, and that it was better to let him work his way steadily and bide his time. It was not for some months after the sewing classes had been instituted that those for cooking were established. The difficulty was not as to the necessary outlay for stoves and utensils, for these Mr. Brook at once offered to provide, but as to the food to be cooked. The experiments began on a small scale. At first Mrs. Dodgson sent round to say that in all cases of illness, she would have broths, puddings, and cooling drinks prepared at the schools free of charge, upon the necessary materials being sent to her. This was followed by the plan of buying the materials for food for invalids, which was to be supplied at a price that just paid the cost. Then little steak puddings and pies were made, and these commanded a ready sale; excellent soups from cheap materials were also provided, and for this in winter the demand was greater than they could supply; and so the work was extended until the two stoves were fully occupied for three days a week. Eight girls at a time were instructed in cookery, doing the whole work under the supervision of the mistress. Two fresh hands came as two left each week; thus each received a month's teaching. On the first week the new-comers simply cleaned and washed the utensils, stoves, &c., during the remaining three weeks they learned to make simple soups, puddings, and pies, to cook meat and vegetables. The time was short for the purpose, but the girls were delighted with their lessons, and took the greatest pride in keeping up the reputation of the school kitchens, and learned at any rate sufficient to enable them to assist their mothers at home with such effect, that the pitmen of Stokebridge were astonished at the variety and improvement of their fare. CHAPTER XVI. A NEW LIFE. Jack Simpson did not forget the advice Mr. Merton had given him about clothes, and a fortnight after his master had gone to Birmingham Jack went over on Saturday afternoon, and his kind friend accompanied him to one of the leading tailors there, and he was measured for two suits of clothes. He went to other shops and bought such articles as Mr. Merton recommended--hats, gloves, boots, &c. Mr. Merton smiled to himself at the grave attention which Jack paid to all he said upon the subject; but Jack was always earnest in all he undertook, and he had quite appreciated what his friend had told him as to the advantage of being dressed so as to excite no attention upon the part of those whom he would meet at Mr. Merton's. The following Saturday he went over again, and went again to the tailor's to try his things on. "Do you want a dress suit, sir?" the foreman asked with suppressed merriment. "What is a dress suit?" Jack said simply. "I am ignorant about these matters." "A dress suit," the foreman said, struck with the young fellow's freedom from all sort of pretence or assumption, "is the dress gentlemen wear of an evening at dinner parties or other gatherings. This is it," and he showed Jack an engraving. Jack looked at it--he had never seen anyone so attired. "He looks very affected," he said. "Oh, that is the fault of the artist," the foreman answered. "Gentlemen look just as natural in these clothes as in any other. They are quite simple, you see--all black, with open vest, white shirt, white tie and gloves, and patent leather boots." A quiet smile stole over Jack's face. Humour was by no means a strong point in his character, but he was not altogether deficient in it. "I had better have them," he said; "it would look strange, I suppose, not to be dressed so when others are?" "It would be a little marked in the event of a dinner or evening party," the foreman answered, and so Jack gave the order. It was two weeks later before he paid his first visit to Mr. Merton; for the pretty little house which the latter had taken a mile out of the town had been in the hands of the workmen and furnishers, Mr. Merton having drawn on his little capital to decorate and fit up the house, so as to be a pretty home for his daughter. It was, indeed, a larger house than, from the mere salary attached to his post, he could be able to afford, but he reckoned upon considerably increasing this by preparing young men for the university, and he was wise enough to know that a good establishment and a liberal table go very far in establishing and widening a connection, and in rendering people sensible to a man's merits, either in business or otherwise. As Mr. Merton, M.A., late of St. John's, Cambridge, and third wrangler of his year, he had already been received with great cordiality by his colleagues, and at their houses had made the acquaintance of many of the best, if not the wealthiest men in Birmingham, for at Birmingham the terms were by no means more synonymous than they are elsewhere. Jack had ordered his clothes to be sent to a small hotel near the railway station, and had arranged with the landlord that his portmanteau should be kept there, and a room be placed at his service on Saturday afternoon and Monday morning once a month for him to change his things. He had walked with Mr. Merton and seen the house, and had determined that he would always change before going there on a Saturday, in order to avoid comments by servants and others who might be visiting them. In thus acting Jack had no personal thoughts in the matter; much as he always shrank from being put forward as being in any way different from others, he had otherwise no self-consciousness whatever. No lad on the pits thought less of his personal appearance or attire, and his friend Nelly had many times taken him to task for his indifference in this respect. Mr. Merton perceived advantages in Jack's position in life not being generally known, and Jack at once fell into the arrangement, and carried it out, as described, to the best of his ability. But even he could not help seeing, when he had attired himself for his first visit to Mr. Merton's house, how complete had been the change in his appearance. "Who would have thought that just a little difference in the make of a coat would have made such an alteration in one's look?" he said to himself. "I feel different altogether; but that is nonsense, except that these boots are so much lighter than mine, that it seems as if I were in my stockings. Well, I suppose I shall soon be accustomed to it." Packing a black coat and a few other articles in a hand-bag, and locking up the clothes he had taken off in his portmanteau, Jack started for Mr. Merton's. He was dressed in a well-fitting suit of dark tweed, with a claret-coloured neckerchief with plain gold scarf-ring. Jack's life of exercise had given him the free use of his limbs--he walked erect, and his head was well set back on his shoulders; altogether, with his crisp short waving hair, his good-humoured but resolute face, and his steadfast look, he was, although not handsome, yet a very pleasant-looking young fellow. He soon forgot the fact of his new clothes, except that he was conscious of walking with a lightness and elasticity strange to him, and in half an hour rang at the visitors' bell of Mr. Merton's villa. "A visitor, papa," said Alice, who was sitting near the window of the drawing-room. "How tiresome, just as we were expecting Jack Simpson. It is a gentleman. Why, papa!" and she clapped her hands, "it is Jack himself. I did not know him at first, he looks like a gentleman." "He is a gentleman," Mr. Merton said; "a true gentleman in thought, feeling, and speech, and will soon adapt himself to the society he will meet here. Do not remark upon his dress unless he says something about it himself." "Oh, papa, I should not think of such a thing. I am not so thoughtless as that." The door was opened and Jack was shown in. "How are you, Jack? I am glad to see you." "Thank you, sir, I am always well," Jack said. Then turning to Miss Merton he asked her how she liked Birmingham. He had seen her often since the time when he first met her at the commencement of the strike, as he had helped them in their preparations for removing from Stokebridge, and had entirely got over the embarrassment which he had felt on the first evening spent there. After talking for a few minutes, Jack said gravely to Mr. Merton, "I hope that these clothes will do, Mr. Merton?" "Excellently well, Jack," he answered smiling; "they have made just the difference I expected; my daughter hardly knew you when you rang at the bell." "I hardly knew myself when I saw myself in a glass," Jack said. "Now, on what principle do you explain the fact that a slight alteration in the cutting and sewing together of pieces of cloth should make such a difference?" "I do not know that I ever gave the philosophy of the question a moment's thought, Jack," said Mr. Merton smiling. "I can only explain it by the remark that the better cut clothes set off the natural curve of the neck, shoulders, and figure generally, and in the second place, being associated in our minds with the peculiar garb worn by gentlemen, they give what, for want of a better word, I may call style. A high black hat is the ugliest, most shapeless, and most unnatural article ever invented, but still a high hat, good and of the shape in vogue, certainly has a more gentlemanly effect, to use a word I hate, than any other. And now, my boy, you I know dined early, so did we. We shall have tea at seven, so we have three hours for work, and there are nearly six weeks' arrears, so do not let us waste any more time." After this first visit Jack went out regularly once every four weeks. He fell very naturally into the ways of the house, and although his manner often amused Alice Merton greatly, and caused even her father to smile, he was never awkward or boorish. As Alice came to know him more thoroughly, and their conversations ceased to be of a formal character, she surprised and sometimes quite puzzled him. The girl was full of fun and had a keen sense of humour, and her playful attacks upon his earnestness, her light way of parrying the problems which Jack, ever on the alert for information, was constantly putting, and the cheerful tone which her talk imparted to the general conversation when she was present, were all wholly new to the lad. Often he did not know whether she was in earnest or not, and was sometimes so overwhelmed by her light attacks as to be unable to answer. Mr. Merton looked on, amused at their wordy conflicts; he knew that nothing does a boy so much good and so softens his manner as friendly intercourse with a well-read girl of about his own age, and undoubtedly Alice did almost as much towards preparing Jack's manner for his future career as her father had done towards preparing his mind. As time went on Jack often met Mr. Merton's colleagues, and other gentlemen who came in in the evening. He was always introduced as "my young friend Simpson," with the aside, "a remarkably clever young fellow," and most of those who met him supposed him to be a pupil of the professor's. Mr. Merton had, within a few months of his arrival at Birmingham, five or six young men to prepare for Cambridge. None of them resided in the house, but after Jack had become thoroughly accustomed to the position, Mr. Merton invited them, as well as a party of ladies and gentlemen, to the house on one of Jack's Saturday evenings. Jack, upon hearing that a number of friends were coming in the evening, made an excuse to go into the town, and took his black bag with him. Alice had already wondered over the matter. "They will all be in dress, papa. Jack will feel awkward among them." "He is only eighteen, my dear, and it will not matter his not being in evening dress. Jack will not feel awkward." Alice, was, however, very pleased as well as surprised when, upon coming down dressed into the drawing-room, she found him in full evening dress chatting quietly with her father and two newly arrived guests. Jack would not have been awkward, but he would certainly have been uncomfortable had he not been dressed as were the others, for of all things he hated being different to other people. He looked at Alice in a pretty pink muslin dress of fashionable make with a surprise as great as that with which she had glanced at him, for he had never before seen a lady in full evening dress. Presently he said to her quietly, "I know I never say the right thing, Miss Merton, and I daresay it is quite wrong for me to express any personal opinions, but you do look--" "No, Jack; that is quite the wrong thing to say. You may say, Miss Merton, your dress is a most becoming one, although even that you could not be allowed to say except to some one with whom you are very intimate. There are as many various shades of compliment as there are of intimacy. A brother may say to a sister, You look stunning to-night--that is a very slang word, Jack--and she will like it. A stranger or a new acquaintance may not say a word which would show that he observes a lady is not attired in a black walking dress." "And what is the exact degree of intimacy in which one may say as you denoted, 'Miss Merton, your dress is a most becoming one?'" "I should say," the girl said gravely, "it might be used by a cousin or by an old gentleman, a friend of the family." Then with a laugh she went off to receive the guests, now beginning to arrive in earnest. After this Mr. Merton made a point of having an "at home" every fourth Saturday, and these soon became known as among the most pleasant and sociable gatherings in the literary and scientific world of Birmingham. So young Jack Simpson led a dual life, spending twenty-six days of each month as a pit lad, speaking a dialect nearly as broad as that of his fellows, and two as a quiet and unobtrusive young student in the pleasant home of Mr. Merton. Before a year had passed the one life seemed as natural to him as the other. Even with his friends he kept them separate, seldom speaking of Stokebridge when at Birmingham, save to answer Mr. Merton's questions as to old pupils; and giving accounts, which to Nelly Hardy appeared ridiculously meagre, of his Birmingham experience to his friends at home. This was not from any desire to be reticent, but simply because the details appeared to him to be altogether uninteresting to his friends. "You need not trouble to tell me any more, Jack," Nelly Hardy said indignantly. "I know it all by heart. You worked three hours with Mr. Merton; dinner at six; some people came at eight, no one in particular; they talked, and there was some playing on the piano; they went away at twelve. Next morning after breakfast you went to church, had dinner at two, took a walk afterwards, had tea at half-past six, supper at nine, then to bed. I won't ask you any more questions, Jack; if anything out of the way takes place you will tell me, no doubt." CHAPTER XVII. THE DOG FIGHT. Saturday afternoon walks, when there were no special games on hand, became an institution among what may be called Jack Simpson's set at Stokebridge. The young fellows had followed his lead with all seriousness, and a stranger passing would have been astonished at the talk, so grave and serious was it. In colliery villages, as at school, the lad who is alike the head of the school and the champion at all games, is looked up to and admired and imitated, and his power for good or for evil is almost unlimited among his fellows. Thus the Saturday afternoon walks became supplements to the evening classes, and questions of all kinds were propounded to Jack, whose attainments they regarded as prodigious. On such an afternoon, as Jack was giving his friends a brief sketch of the sun and its satellites, and of the wonders of the telescope, they heard bursts of applause by many voices, and a low, deep growling of dogs. "It is a dog fight," one of the lads exclaimed. "It is a brutal sport," Jack said. "Let us go another way." One of the young fellows had, however, climbed a gate to see what was going on beyond the hedge. "Jack," he exclaimed, "there is Bill Haden fighting his old bitch Flora against Tom Walker's Jess, and I think the pup is a-killing the old dorg." With a bound Jack Simpson sprang into the field, where some twenty or thirty men were standing looking at a dog fight. One dog had got the other down and was evidently killing it. "Throw up the sponge, Bill," the miners shouted. "The old dorg's no good agin the purp." Jack dashed into the ring, with a kick he sent the young dog flying across the ring, and picked up Flora, who, game to the last, struggled to get at her foe. A burst of indignation and anger broke from the men. "Let un be." "Put her down." "Dang thee, how dare'st meddle here?" "I'll knock thee head off," and other shouts sounded loudly and threateningly. "For shame!" Jack said indignantly. "Be ye men! For shame, Bill Haden, to match thy old dog, twelve year old, wi' a young un. She's been a good dorg, and hast brought thee many a ten-pun note. If be'est tired of her, gi' her poison, but I woant stand by and see her mangled." "How dare 'ee kick my dorg?" a miner said coming angrily forward; "how dare 'ee come here and hinder sport?" "Sport!" Jack said indignantly, "there be no sport in it. It is brutal cruelty." "The match be got to be fought out," another said, "unless Bill Haden throws up the sponge for his dog." "Come," Tom Walker said putting his hand on Jack's shoulder, "get out o' this; if it warn't for Bill Haden I'd knock thee head off. We be coom to see spoort, and we mean to see it." "Spoort!" Jack said passionately. "If it's spoort thee want'st I'll give it thee. Flora sha'n't go into the ring agin, but oi ull. I'll fight the best man among ye, be he which he will." A chorus of wonder broke from the colliers. "Then thou'st get to fight me," Tom Walker said. "I b'liev'," he went on looking round, "there bean't no man here ull question that. Thou'st wanted a leathering for soom time, Jack Simpson, wi' thy larning and thy ways, and I'm not sorry to be the man to gi' it thee." "No, no," Bill Haden said, and the men round for the most part echoed his words. "'Taint fair for thee to take t' lad at his word. He be roight. I hadn't ought to ha' matched Flora no more. She ha' been a good bitch in her time, but she be past it, and I'll own up that thy pup ha' beaten her, and pay thee the two pounds I lay on her, if ee'll let this matter be." "Noa," Tom Walker said, "the young 'un ha' challenged the best man here, and I be a-goaing to lick him if he doant draw back." "I shall not draw back," Jack said divesting himself of his coat, waistcoat, and shirt. "Flora got licked a'cause she was too old, maybe I'll be licked a'cause I be too young; but she made a good foight, and so'll oi. No, dad, I won't ha' you to back me. Harry here shall do that." The ring was formed again. The lads stood on one side, the men on the other. It was understood now that there was to be a fight, and no one had another word to say. "I'll lay a fi'-pound note to a shilling on the old un," a miner said. "I'll take 'ee," Bill Haden answered. "It hain't a great risk to run, and Jack is as game as Flora." Several other bets were made at similar odds, the lads, although they deemed the conflict hopeless, yet supporting their champion. Tom Walker stood but little taller than Jack, who was about five feet six, and would probably grow two inches more; but he was three stone heavier, Jack being a pound or two only over ten while the pitman reached thirteen. The latter was the acknowledged champion of the Vaughan pits, as Jack was incontestably the leader among the lads. The disproportion in weight and muscle was enormous; but Jack had not a spare ounce of flesh on his bones, while the pitman was fleshy and out of condition. It is not necessary to give the details of the fight, which lasted over an hour. In the earlier portion Jack was knocked down again and again, and was several times barely able to come up to the call of time; but his bull-dog strain, as he called it, gradually told, while intemperate habits and want of condition did so as surely upon his opponent. The derisive shouts with which the men had hailed every knock-down blow early in the fight soon subsided, and exclamations of admiration at the pluck with which Jack, reeling and confused, came up time after time took their place. "It be a foight arter all," one of them said at the end of the first ten minutes. "I wouldn't lay more nor ten to one now." "I'll take as many tens to one as any o' ye like to lay," Bill Haden said, but no one cared to lay even these odds. At the end of half an hour the betting was only two to one. Jack, who had always "given his head," that is, had always ducked so as to receive the blows on the top of his head, where they were supposed to do less harm, was as strong as he was after the first five minutes. Tom Walker was panting with fatigue, wild and furious at his want of success over an adversary he had despised. The cheers of the lads, silent at first, rose louder with each round, and culminated in a yell of triumph when, at the end of fifty-five minutes, Tom Walker, having for the third time in succession been knocked down, was absolutely unable to rise at the call of "time" to renew the fight. [Illustration: JACK IS VICTORIOUS.] Never had an event created such a sensation in Stokebridge. At first the news was received with absolute incredulity, but when it became thoroughly understood that Bill Haden's boy, Jack Simpson, had licked Tom Walker, the wonder knew no bounds. So struck were some of the men with Jack's courage and endurance, that the offer was made to him that, if he liked to go to Birmingham and put himself under that noted pugilist the "Chicken," his expenses would be paid, and £50 be forthcoming for his first match. Jack, knowing that this offer was made in good faith and with good intentions, and was in accordance with the custom of mining villages, declined it courteously and thankfully, but firmly, to the surprise and disappointment of his would-be backers, who had flattered themselves that Stokebridge was going to produce a champion middle-weight. He had not come unscathed from the fight, for it proved that one of his ribs had been broken by a heavy body hit; and he was for some weeks in the hands of the doctor, and was longer still before he could again take his place in the pit. Bill Haden's pride in him was unbounded, and during his illness poor old Flora, who seemed to recognize in him her champion, lay on his bed with her black muzzle in the hand not occupied with a book. The victory which Jack had won gave the finishing stroke to his popularity and influence among his companions, and silenced definitely and for ever the sneers of the minority who had held out against the change which he had brought about. He himself felt no elation at his victory, and objected to the subject even being alluded to. "It was just a question of wind and last," he said. "I was nigh being done for at the end o' the first three rounds. I just managed to hold on, and then it was a certainty. If Tom Walker had been in condition he would have finished me in ten minutes. If he had come on working as a getter, I should ha' been nowhere; he's a weigher now and makes fat, and his muscles are flabby. The best dorg can't fight when he's out o' condition." But in spite of that, the lads knew that it was only bull-dog courage that had enabled Jack to hold out over these bad ten minutes. As for Jane Haden, her reproaches to her husband for in the first place matching Flora against a young dog, and in the second for allowing Jack to fight so noted a man as Tom Walker, were so fierce and vehement, that until Jack was able to leave his bed and take his place by the fire, Bill was but little at home; spending all his time, even at meals, in that place of refuge from his wife's tongue,--"the Chequers." CHAPTER XVIII. STOKEBRIDGE FEAST. Even among the mining villages of the Black Country Stokebridge had a reputation for roughness; and hardened topers of the place would boast that in no village in the county was there so much beer drunk per head. Stokebridge feast was frequented by the dwellers of the mining villages for miles round, and the place was for the day a scene of disgraceful drunkenness and riot. Crowds of young men and women came in, the public-houses were crowded, there was a shouting of songs and a scraping of fiddles from each tap-room, and dancing went on in temporary booths. One of these feasts had taken place just after the establishment of the night classes, and had been marked by even greater drunkenness and more riotous scenes than usual. For years the vicar in the church and the dissenting ministers in their meeting-houses had preached in vain against the evil. Their congregations were small, and in this respect their words fell upon ears closed to exhortation. During the year which had elapsed, however, there was a perceptible change in Stokebridge, a change from which those interested in it hoped for great results. The Bull-dogs and their kindred societies had set the fashion, and the demeanour and bearing of the young men and boys was quiet and orderly. In every match which they had played at rounders, football, and quoits, with the surrounding villages Stokebridge had won easily, and never were the games entered into with more zest than now. The absence of bad language in the streets was surprising. The habit of restraint upon the tongue acquired in the club-rooms had spread, and two months after Jack's first proposal had been so coldly received, the proposition to extend the fines to swearing outside the walls as well as in was unanimously agreed to. The change in the demeanour of the girls was even greater. Besides the influence of Mrs. Dodgson and her assistant, aided perhaps by the desire to stand well in the eyes of lads of the place, their boisterous habits had been toned down, dark neatly made dresses took the place of bright-coloured and flimsy ones; hair, faces, and hands showed more care and self-respect. The example of the young people had not been without its influence upon the elders. Not indeed upon the regular drinking set, but upon those who only occasionally gave way. The tidier and more comfortable homes, the better cooked meals, all had their effect; and all but brutalized men shrank from becoming objects of shame to their children. As to the women of Stokebridge they were for the most part delighted with the change. Some indeed grumbled at the new-fangled ways, and complained that their daughters were getting above them, but as the lesson taught in the night-classes was that the first duty of a girl or woman was to make her home bright and happy, to bear patiently the tempers of others, to be a peacemaker and a help, to bear with children, and to respect elders, even the grumblers gave way at last. The very appearance of the village was changing. Pots of bright flowers stood in the windows, creepers and roses climbed over the walls, patches full of straggling weeds were now well-kept gardens; in fact, as Mr. Brook said one day to the vicar, one would hardly know the place. "There has indeed been a strange movement for good," the clergyman said, "and I cannot take any share of it to myself. It has been going on for some time invisibly, and the night schools and classes for girls have given it an extraordinary impulse. It is a changed place altogether. I am sorry that the feast is at hand. It always does an immense deal of mischief, and is a time of quarrel, drunkenness, and license. I wish that something could be done to counteract its influence." "So do I," Mr. Brook said. "Can you advise anything?" "I cannot," the vicar said; "but I will put on my hat and walk with you down to the schoolhouse. To Dodgson and his wife is due the real credit of the change; they are indefatigable, and their influence is very great. Let us put the question to them." The schoolmaster had his evening class in; Mrs. Dodgson had ten girls working and reading in her parlour, as she invited that number of the neatest and most quiet of her pupils to tea on each evening that her husband was engaged with his night-school. These evenings were greatly enjoyed by the girls, and the hope of being included among the list of invited had done much towards producing a change of manners. It was a fine evening, and the schoolmaster and his wife joined Mr. Brook out of doors, and apologizing for the room being full asked them to sit down in the rose-covered arbour at the end of the garden. The vicar explained the object of the visit. "My wife and I have been talking the matter over, Mr. Brook," the schoolmaster said, "and we deplore these feasts, which are the bane of the place. They demoralize the village; all sorts of good resolutions give way under temptation, and then those who have given way are ashamed to rejoin their better companions. It cannot be put down, I suppose?" "No," Mr. Brook said. "It is held in a field belonging to "The Chequers," and even did I succeed in getting it closed--which of course would be out of the question--they would find some other site for the booths." "Would you be prepared to go to some expense to neutralize the bad effects of this feast, Mr. Brook?" "Certainly; any expense in reason." "What I was thinking, sir, is that if upon the afternoon of the feast you could give a fête in your grounds, beginning with say a cricket-match, followed by a tea, with conjuring or some such amusement afterwards--for I do not think that they would care for dancing--winding up with sandwiches and cakes, and would invite the girls of my wife's sewing-classes with any other girls they may choose to bring with them, and the lads of my evening class, with similar permission to bring friends, we should keep all those who are really the moving spirits of the improvement which has taken place here out of reach of temptation." "Your idea is excellent," Mr. Brook said. "I will get the band of the regiment at Birmingham over, and we will wind up with a display of fireworks, and any other attraction which, after thinking the matter over, you can suggest, shall be adopted. I have greatly at heart the interests of my pitmen, and the fact that last year they were led away to play me a scurvy trick is all forgotten now. A good work has been set on foot here, and if we can foster it and keep it going, Stokebridge will in future years be a very different place to what it has been." Mr. Dodgson consulted Jack Simpson the next day as to the amusements likely to be most popular; but Jack suggested that Fred Wood and Bill Cummings should be called into consultation, for, as he said, he knew nothing of girls' ways, and his opinions were worth nothing. His two friends were sent for and soon arrived. They agreed that a cricket-match would be the greatest attraction, and that the band of the soldiers would delight the girls. It was arranged that a challenge should be sent to Batterbury, which lay thirteen miles off, and would therefore know nothing of the feast. The Stokebridge team had visited them the summer before and beaten them, therefore they would no doubt come to Stokebridge. They thought that a good conjuror would be an immense attraction, as such a thing had never been seen in Stokebridge, and that the fireworks would be a splendid wind up. Mr. Brook had proposed that a dinner for the contending cricket teams should be served in a marquee, but to this the lads objected, as not only would the girls be left out, but also the lads not engaged in the match. It would be better, they thought, for there to be a table with sandwiches, buns, lemonade, and tea, from which all could help themselves. The arrangements were all made privately, as it was possible that the publicans might, were they aware of the intended counter attraction, change the day of the feast, although this was unlikely, seeing that it had from time immemorial taken place on the 3rd of September except only when that day fell on a Sunday; still it was better to run no risk. A meeting of the "Bull-dogs" was called for the 27th of August, and at this Jack announced the invitation which had been received from Mr. Brook. A few were inclined to demur at giving up the jollity of the feast, but by this time the majority of the lads had gone heart and soul into the movement for improvement. The progress made had already been so great, the difficulties at first met had been so easily overcome, that they were eager to carry on the work. One or two of those most doubtful as to their own resolution were the most ready to accept the invitation of their employer, for it was morally certain that everyone would be drunk on the night of the feast, and it was an inexorable law of the "Bull-dogs" that any of the members getting drunk were expelled from that body. The invitation was at last accepted without a dissenting voice, the challenge to Batterbury written, and then the members went off to the associated clubs of which they were members to obtain the adhesion of these also to the fête at Mr. Brook's. Mrs. Dodgson had harder work with the sewing-class. The attraction of the dancing and display of finery at the feast was greater to many of the girls than to the boys. Many eagerly accepted the invitation; but it was not until Mr. Dodgson came in late in the evening and announced in an audible tone to his wife that he was glad to say that the whole of the young fellows of the night-school had accepted the invitation, that the girls all gave way and agreed to go to the fête. Accordingly on the 3rd of September, just as the people from the pit villages round were flocking in to Stokebridge, a hundred and fifty of the young people of that place, with a score or two of young married couples and steady men and women, set out in their Sunday suits for Mr. Brook's. It was a glorious day. The cricket-match was a great success, the military band was delightful, and Mr. Brook had placed it on the lawn, so that those of the young people who chose could dance to the inspiring strains. Piles of sandwiches disappeared during the afternoon, and the tea, coffee, and lemonade were pronounced excellent. There was, too, a plentiful supply of beer for such of the lads as preferred it; as Mr. Brook thought that it would look like a want of confidence in his visitors did he not provide them with beer. Batterbury was beaten soundly; and when it was dark the party assembled in a large marquee. There a conjuror first performed, and after giving all the usual wonders, produced from an inexhaustible box such pretty presents in the way of well-furnished work-bags and other useful articles for the girls that these were delighted. But the surprise of the evening was yet to come. It was not nine o'clock when the conjuror finished, and Mr. Dodgson was thinking anxiously that the party would be back in Stokebridge long before the feast was over. Suddenly a great pair of curtains across the end of the tent drew aside and a regular stage was seen. Mr. Brook had obtained the services of five or six actors and actresses from the Birmingham theatre, together with scenery and all accessories; and for two hours and a half the audience was kept in a roar of laughter by some well-acted farces. When the curtain fell at last, Mr. Brook himself came in front of it. So long and hearty was the cheering that it was a long time before he could obtain a hearing. At last silence was restored. "I am very glad, my friends," he said, "that you have had a happy afternoon and evening, and I hope that another year I shall see you all here again. I should like to say a few words before we separate. You young men, lads and lasses, will in a few years have a paramount influence in Stokebridge; upon you it depends whether that place is to be, as it used to be, like other colliery villages in Staffordshire, or to be a place inhabited by decent and civilized people. I am delighted to observe that a great change has lately come over it, due in a great measure to your good and kind friends Mr. and Mrs. Dodgson, who have devoted their whole time and efforts to your welfare." The cheering at this point was as great as that which had greeted Mr. Brook himself, but was even surpassed by that which burst out when a young fellow shouted out, "and Jack Simpson." During this Jack Simpson savagely made his way out of the tent, and remained outside, muttering threats about punching heads, till the proceedings were over. "And Jack Simpson," Mr. Brook went on, smiling, after the cheering had subsided. "I feel sure that the improvement will be maintained. When you see the comfort of homes in which the wives are cleanly, tidy, and intelligent, able to make the dresses of themselves and their children, and to serve their husbands with decently cooked food; and in which the husbands spend their evenings and their wages at home, treating their wives as rational beings, reading aloud, or engaged in cheerful conversation, and compare their homes with those of the drunkard and the slattern, it would seem impossible for any reasonable human being to hesitate in his or her choice between them. It is in your power, my friends, each and all, which of these homes shall be yours. I have thought that some active amusement is necessary, and have arranged, after consultation with your vicar and with Mr. and Mrs. Dodgson, that a choir-master from Birmingham shall come over twice a week, to train such of you as may wish and may have voices, in choir-singing. As the lads of Stokebridge can beat those of any of the surrounding villages at cricket, so I hope in time the choir of the lads and lasses of this place will be able to hold its own against any other." Again the speaker had to pause, for the cheering was enthusiastic. "And now, good-night; and may I say that I hope and trust that when the fireworks, which will now be displayed, are over, you will all go home and straight to bed, without being tempted to join in the doings at the feast. If so, it will be a satisfaction to me to think that for the first time since the feast was first inaugurated, neither lad nor lass of Stokebridge will have cause to look back upon the feast-day with regret or shame." CHAPTER XIX. THE GREAT RIOT. Stokebridge feast had not gone off with its usual spirit. The number of young pitmen and lads from the surrounding villages were as large as ever, and there was no lack of lasses in gay bonnets and bright dresses. The fact, however, that almost the whole of the lads and girls of Stokebridge between the ages of fifteen and eighteen had left the village and gone to a rival fête elsewhere, cast a damper on the proceedings. There were plenty of young women and young men in Stokebridge who were as ready as ever to dance and to drink, and who were, perhaps, even gaudier in attire and more boisterous in manner than usual, as a protest against the recession of their juniors; for Stokebridge was divided into two very hostile camps, and, as was perhaps not unnatural, those over the age of the girls and lads at the night-schools resented the changes which had been made, and rebelled against the, as they asserted, airs of superiority of younger sisters and brothers. In some cases no doubt there was ground for the feeling. The girls and lads, eager to introduce the new lessons of order and neatness which they had learned, may have gone too fast and acted with too much zeal, although their teacher had specially warned them against so doing. Hence the feeling of hostility to the movement was strong among a small section of Stokebridge, and the feeling was heightened by the secession in a body of the young people from the feast. As the day went on the public-houses were as full as ever, indeed it was said that never before had so much liquor been consumed; the fiddles played and the dancing and boisterous romping went on as usual, but there was less real fun and enjoyment. As evening came on the young fellows talked together in angry groups. Whether the proposal emanated from some of the Stokebridge men or from the visitors from other villages was afterwards a matter of much dispute, but it gradually became whispered about among the dancing booths and public-houses that there was an intention to give the party from Brook's a warm reception when they arrived. Volleys of mud and earth were prepared, and some of the overdressed young women tossed their heads, and said that a spattering with mud would do the stuck-up girls no harm. The older pitmen, who would have certainly opposed any such design being carried out, were kept in ignorance of what was intended; the greater portion were indeed drunk long before the time came when the party would be returning from the fête. At a quarter before twelve Jane Haden, who had been sitting quietly at home, went up to the "Chequers" to look after her husband, and to see about his being brought home should he be incapable of walking. The music was still playing in the dancing booths, but the dancing was kept up without spirit, for a number of young men and lads were gathered outside. As she passed she caught a few words which were sufficient to inform her of what was going on. "Get some sticks oot o' hedges." "Fill your pockets oop wi' stones." "We'll larn 'em to spoil the feast." Jane saw that an attack was going to be made upon the party, and hesitated for a moment what to do. The rockets were going up in Mr. Brook's grounds, and she knew she had a few minutes yet. First she ran to the house of James Shepherd. The pitman, who was a sturdy man, had been asleep for the last three hours. She knocked at the door, unlocked it, and went in. "Jim," she called in a loud voice. "Aye, what be't?" said a sleepy voice upstairs; "be't thou, Harry and Sally?" "No, it be I, Jane Haden; get up quickly, Jim; quick, man, there be bad doings, and thy lad and lass are like to have their heads broke if no worse." Alarmed by the words and the urgent manner of his neighbour, Jim and his wife slipped on a few clothes and came down. Jane at once told them what she had heard. "There be between two and three hundred of 'em," she said, "as far as I could see the wust lot out o' Stokebridge, and a lot o' roughs from t' other villages. Quick, Jim, do you and Ann go round quick to the houses o' all the old hands who ha' kept away from the feast or who went home drunk early, they may ha' slept 't off by this, and get 'un together. Let 'em take pick-helves, and if there's only twenty of ye and ye fall upon this crowd ye'll drive 'em. If ye doan't it will go bad wi' all our lads and lasses. I'll go an' warn 'em, and tell 'em to stop a few minutes on t' road to give 'ee time to coom up. My Jack and the lads will foight, no fear o' that, but they can't make head agin so many armed wi' sticks and stones too; but if ye come up behind and fall on 'em when it begins ye'll do, even though they be stronger." Fully awake now to the danger which threatened the young people, for the pitman and his wife knew that when blows were exchanged and blood heated things would go much further than was at first intended, they hurried off to get a few men together, while Jane Haden started for the hall. Already the riotous crowd had gone on and she had to make a detour, but she regained the road, and burst breathless and panting into the midst of the throng of young people coming along the lane chatting gaily of the scenes of the evening. "Stop, stop!" she cried; "don't go a foot further--where be my Jack?" "It's Mrs. Haden," Nelly Hardy said. "Jack, it's your mother." "What is it?" Jack said in astonishment. "Anything wrong wi' dad?" "Stop!" Mrs. Haden gasped again; "there's three hundred and more young chaps and boys wi' sticks and stones joost awaiting on this side t'village, awaiting to pay you all oot." Ejaculations of alarm were heard all round, and several of the girls began to whimper. "Hush!" Mr. Dodgson said, coming forward. "Let all keep silence, there may be no occasion for alarm; let us hear all about it, Mrs. Haden." Mrs. Haden repeated her story, and said that Harry's father and mother were getting a body of pitmen to help them. "I think, Mr. Dodgson," said Jack, "the girls had best go back to Mr. Brook's as quickly as possible; we will come and fetch them when it's all over." "I think so too," said Mr. Dodgson, "they might be injured by stones. My dear, do you lead the girls back to Mr. Brook's. The house will hardly be shut up yet, and even if it is, Mr. Brook will gladly receive you. There is no chance of any of the ruffians pursuing them, do you think, Jack, when they find they have only us to deal with?" "I don't know, sir. If three or four of us were to put on their cloaks, something light to show in the dark, they will think the girls are among us." "Quick! here they come," Mr. Dodgson said, "go back silently, girls, not a word." Two or three cloaks and shawls were hastily borrowed and the lads then turned up the road, where the sound of suppressed laughter and coarse oaths could be heard, while the young women went off at a rapid pace towards the hall. "There are four of the clubs, nigh twenty in each," Jack said; "let each club keep together and go right at 'em. Stick together whatever ye do." "I'll take my place by you, Jack," Mr. Dodgson said; "you are our captain now." Talking in a careless voice the party went forward. The road here was only divided from the fields on either side by a newly planted hedge of a foot or so in height. Jack had arranged that he, with the few married pitmen, Mr. Dodgson, and the eight Bull-dogs who did not belong to the other associations, should hold the road; that two of the other clubs should go on each side, fight their way as far as they could, and then close in on the road to take the assailants there on both flanks. The spirit of association did wonders; many of the lads were but fourteen or fifteen, yet all gathered under their respective leaders and prepared for what they felt would be a desperate struggle. Presently they saw a dark mass gathered in the road. As soon as the light shawls were seen there was a cry of "Here they be, give it 'em well, lads;" and a volley of what were, in the majority of cases, clods of earth, but among which were many stones, was poured in. Without an instant's pause the party attacked separated, two bands leapt into the field on either side, and then the whole rushed at the assailants. No such charge as this had been anticipated. The cowardly ruffians had expected to give a complete surprise, to hear the shrieks of the girls, and perhaps some slight resistance from a few of the older lads; the suddenness of this attack astonished them. In an instant Jack and his supporters were in their midst, and the fury which animated them at this cowardly attack, and the unity of their action, bore all before them; and in spite of their sticks the leaders of the assailants were beaten to the ground. Then the sheer weight of the mass behind stopped the advance and the conflict became a general one. In the crowd and confusion it was difficult to distinguish friend from foe, and this prevented the assailants from making full use of their stakes, rails, and other implements with which they were armed. They were, however, getting the best of it, Mr. Dodgson had been knocked down with a heavy stake and several others were badly hurt, when the strong bands in the field who had driven back the scattered assailants there, fell upon the flanks of the main body in the road. For five minutes the fight was a desperate one, and then, just as numbers and weapons were telling, there was a shout in the rear, and fifteen pitmen, headed by Jim Shepherd and armed with pick handles, as formidable weapons as could be desired in the hands of strong men, fell upon the rear of the assailants. Yells, shouts, and heavy crashing blows told the tale to those engaged in front; and at once the assailants broke and scattered in flight. "Catch 'em and bring 'em down," Jack shouted; "they shall pay for this night's work." Such of the lads as were not disabled started off, and being fleet of foot, those of the assailants nearest to them had little chance of escape. Two or three lads together sprung upon one and pulled him down, and so when the pursuit ended twenty-nine of the assailants had fallen into their hands. In addition to this a score of them lay or sat by the road with broken heads and bones, the work of the pitmen's weapons. Of the lads the greater part had been badly knocked about, and some lay insensible in the road. The prisoners were brought together, five of the pitmen with twenty of the lads marched with those able to walk, to the village, where they shut them up in the school-room. The other pitmen remained in charge of the wounded of both sides, and the rest of the party were sent back to Mr. Brook's to fetch the women and girls. Near the house they met Mr. Brook, accompanied by his two men-servants and gardener, armed with spades, hurrying forward; and he expressed his delight at the issue of the conflict, but shook his head at the number of serious injuries on both sides. In a shed near the house were a number of hurdles, and twenty of these were at once sent forward with the men to carry those unable to walk into the village. Mrs. Dodgson turned pale as her husband, his face covered with blood, entered the dining-room, where, huddled together, the frightened girls were standing; Mrs. Dodgson, aided by Nelly Hardy, having done her utmost to allay their fears. "I am not hurt," Mr. Dodgson said heartily, "at least not seriously; but I fear that some are. It is all over now, and those ruffians have fled. Jack Simpson and a party are outside to escort you home. We don't know who are hurt yet, but they will be carried to the girls' school-room and attended there. Harry Shepherd has gone on to get the doctor up, and Mr. Brook is sending off a man on horseback to Birmingham for some more medical aid and a body of police to take charge of the fellows we have captured; they will be in by the early train." Everything was quiet in Stokebridge when the party with the prisoners arrived. The pitmen, before starting, had gone into the public-house to get any sober enough to walk to join them; and the few who had kept up the dancing, alarmed at the serious nature of the affair, of which they had tacitly approved, scattered to their homes. The news of the conflict, however, quickly circulated, lights appeared in windows, and the women who had sons or daughters at the fête flocked out into the streets to hear the news. Many other pitmen, whom there had not been time enough to summon, soon joined them, and deep indeed was the wrath with which the news of the assault was received. Most of the men at once hurried away to the scene of conflict to see who were hurt, and to assist to carry them in; and the sole ground for satisfaction was that the women and girls had all escaped injury. CHAPTER XX. THE ARM OF THE LAW. That was a sad night at Stokebridge. Seven of the lads were terribly injured, and in two cases the doctors gave no hope of recovery. Thirteen of the other party were also grievously hurt by the blows of the pitmen's helves, some had limbs broken, and three lay unconscious all night. Most of the boys had scalp wounds, inflicted by stones or sticks, which required dressing. Worst of all was the news that among the twenty-five uninjured prisoners were eight who belonged to Stokebridge, besides five among the wounded. Very few in the village closed an eye that night. Mothers went down and implored the pitmen on guard to release their sons, but the pitmen were firm; moreover Mr. Brook as a magistrate had placed the two constables of the place at the door, with the strictest order to allow none of the prisoners to escape. The six o'clock train brought twenty policemen from Birmingham, and these at once took charge of the schoolhouse, and relieved the pitmen of their charge. The working of the mine was suspended for the day, and large numbers of visitors poured into the place. So desperate a riot had never occurred in that neighbourhood before, for even the attack upon the machinery of the mine was considered a less serious affair than this. Not only did curiosity to learn the facts of the case attract a crowd of visitors, but there were many people who came from the pit villages near to inquire after missing husbands and sons, and loud were the wailings of women when it was found that these were either prisoners or were lying injured in the temporary hospital. Strangers entering the village would have supposed that a great explosion had taken place in some neighbouring pit. Blinds were down, women stood at the doors with their aprons to their eyes, children went about in an awed and silent way, as if afraid of the sound of their own voice, many of the young men and lads had their heads enveloped in surgical bandages, and a strange and unnatural calm pervaded the village. The "Chequers" and other public-houses, however, did a roaring trade, for the sight-seer in the black country is the thirstiest of men. It was soon known that the magistrates would sit at Mr. Brook's at one o'clock, and a policeman went round the village with a list of names given him by Mr. Dodgson, to summon witnesses to attend. Jack Simpson had strongly urged that his name might not be included, in the first place because above all things he hated being put forward, and in the second, as he pointed out to the schoolmaster, it might excite a feeling against him, and hinder his power for good, if he, the leader of the young men, was to appear as a witness against the elders, especially as among the prisoners was Tom Walker, with whom he had fought. As Jack could give no more testimony than his companions, and as generally it was considered an important and responsible privilege to appear as witness, Mr. Dodgson omitted Jack's name from the list. There was some groaning in the crowd when the uninjured prisoners were marched out under escort of the police, for the attack upon young women was so contrary to all the traditions of the country that the liveliest indignation prevailed against all concerned in it. The marquee used the night before for the theatricals had been hastily converted into a justice room. At a table sat Mr. Brook with four other magistrates, with a clerk to take notes; the prisoners were ranged in a space railed off for the purpose, and the general public filled the rest of the space. Jane Haden was the first witness called. She gave her evidence clearly, but with an evident wish to screen some of the accused, and was once or twice sharply reproved by the bench. She could not say who were among the men she saw gathered, nor recognize any of those who had used the threatening expressions which had so alarmed her that she went round to arouse the elder men, and then ran off to warn the returning party. "Mrs. Haden," Sir John Butler, who was the chairman of the magistrates, said, "very great praise is due to you for your quickness and decision; had it not been for this there can be no doubt that the riot would have led to results even more disastrous than those which have taken place. At the same time it is the feeling of the court that you are now trying to screen the accused, for it can hardly be, that passing so close you could fail to recognize some of those whom you heard speak." Mr. Dodgson then gave his evidence, as did several of the lads, who proved the share that the accused had taken in the fray, and that they were captured on the spot; while two of the pitmen proved that when they arrived upon the spot a desperate riot was going on, and that they joined in the fray to assist the party attacked. The examination lasted for four hours, at the end of which the whole of the prisoners were remanded to prison, the case being adjourned for two days. Before these were passed, both the lads whose cases had been thought hopeless from the first, died, and the matter assumed even a more serious appearance. Before the next hearing several of the prisoners offered to turn king's evidence, and stated that they had been incited by the young women at the feast. Great excitement was caused in the village when ten or twelve young women were served with warrants to appear on the following day. They were placed in the dock with the other prisoners, but no direct evidence was taken against them. The number of the accused were further swelled by two men belonging to other villages, who had been arrested on the sworn evidence of some of the lads that they had been active in the fray. At the conclusion of the case the whole of the male prisoners were committed for trial on the charges of manslaughter and riot. After these had been removed in custody, Sir John Butler addressed a severe admonition to the women. It had, he said, been decided not to press the charge against them of inciting to riot, but that they had used expressions calculated to stir the men up to their foul and dastardly attack upon a number of young women and girls there could be no doubt. The magistrates, however, had decided to discharge them, and hoped that the inward reproach which they could not but feel at having a hand in this disgraceful and fatal outrage would be a lesson to them through life. Trembling and abashed, the women made their way home, many of the crowd hissing them as they passed along. When, six weeks later, the assizes were held, four of the prisoners, including Tom Walker, who was proved to be the leader, were sentenced to seven years penal servitude. Ten men had terms of imprisonment varying from two to five years, and the rest were let off with sentences of from six to eighteen months. Very long did the remembrance of "The Black Feast," as it came to be called, linger in the memories of the people of Stokebridge and the surrounding district. Great as was the grief and suffering caused alike to the friends of those injured and of those upon whom fell punishment and disgrace, the ultimate effect of the riot was, however, most beneficial to Stokebridge. Many of the young men who had most strongly opposed and derided the efforts of their juniors to improve themselves, were now removed, for in addition to those captured and sentenced, several of those who had taken part in the riot hastily left the place upon the following day, fearing arrest and punishment for their share in the night's proceedings. Few of them returned after the conclusion of the trial, nor did the prisoners after the termination of their sentences, for the feeling against them in the district was so strong that they preferred obtaining work in distant parts of the country. A similar effect was produced upon the young women. The narrow escape which they had had of being sent to prison, the disgrace of being arrested and publicly censured, the averted looks of their neighbours, and the removal from the place of the young men with whom they had been used to associate, combined to produce a great effect upon them. Some profited by the lesson and adapted themselves to the altered ways of the place; others, after trying to brave it out, left Stokebridge and obtained employment in the factories of Birmingham; while others again, previously engaged to some of the young men who had left the village, were sooner or later married to them, and were heard of no more in Stokebridge. This removal by one means or another of some forty or fifty of the young men and women of the place most opposed to the spirit of improvement, produced an excellent effect. Other miners came of course to the village to take the places of those who had left, but as Mr. Brook instructed his manager to fill up the vacant stalls as far as possible with middle-aged men with families, and not with young men, the new-comers were not an element of disturbance. The price of coal was at this time high, and Mr. Brook informed the clergyman that, as he was drawing a larger income than usual from the mines, he was willing to give a sum for any purpose which he might recommend as generally useful to the families of his work-people. The vicar as usual consulted his valued assistants the Dodgsons, and after much deliberation it was agreed that if a building were to be erected the lower story of which should be fitted up as a laundry and wash-house upon the plan which was then being introduced in some large towns, it would be an immense boon to the place. The upper story was to be furnished as a reading-room with a few papers and a small library of useful and entertaining books for reading upon the spot or lending. Plans were obtained and estimates given, and Mr. Brook expressed his willingness to contribute the sum of eighteen hundred pounds for which a contractor offered to complete the work. CHAPTER XXI. A KNOTTY QUESTION. It has not been mentioned that at the fête at Mr. Brook's on the memorable occasion of the Black Feast, Mr. Merton and his daughter were staying as guests with Mr. Brook. Mr. Merton was much struck with the extraordinary improvement which had taken place in the bearing and appearance of the young people. "Yes," Mr. Dodgson, whom he congratulated upon the change, said; "it is entirely due to the suggestion which you made upon my arrival here. The night-schools for lads and the sewing and cooking classes for the girls have done wonders, and I have found in the lad you recommended to my attention, Jack Simpson, an invaluable ally. Without him, indeed, I think that our plan would have been a failure. He is a singular young fellow, so quiet yet so determined; the influence he has over the lads of his own age is immense." "He is more than singular," Mr. Merton said warmly; "he is extraordinary. You only see one side of his character, I see both. As a scholar he is altogether remarkable. He could carry off any open scholarship at Cambridge, and could take away the highest honours; he could pass high up among the wranglers even now, and has a broad and solid knowledge of other subjects." "Indeed!" Mr. Dodgson said, surprised; "this is quite new to me. I know that he studies hard privately, and that he went over to see you once a month, but I had no idea that his acquirements were anything exceptional, and, indeed, although his speech is often superior to that of the other young fellows, he often makes mistakes in grammar and pronunciation." Mr. Merton laughed. "That is one of his peculiarities; he does not wish to be thought above his fellows: look at his dress, now! But if you saw him with me, and heard him talking with the first men of education and science in Birmingham you would share the astonishment they often express to me, and would take him not only for a young gentleman, but for one of singular and exceptionally cultured mind." Jack's attire, indeed--it was after the conclusion of the cricket-match, and he had changed his clothes--was that of the ordinary pitman in his Sunday suit. A black cutaway coat, badly fitting, and made by the village tailor, a black waistcoat and trousers, with thick high-low shoes. His appearance had attracted the attention of Miss Merton, who, as he approached her, held out her hand. "How are you, Jack? What on earth have you been doing to yourself? You look a complete guy in these clothes. I was half tempted to cut you downright." Jack laughed. "This is my Sunday suit, Miss Merton, it is just the same as other people's." "Perhaps it is," the girl said, laughing, and looking round with just a little curl of her lip; "but you know better, Jack: why should you make such a figure of yourself?" "I dress here like what I am," Jack said simply, "a pitman. At your house I dress as one of your father's guests." "I suppose you please yourself, and that you always do, Mr. Jack Simpson; you are the most obstinate, incorrigible--" "Ruffian," Jack put in laughing. "Well, I don't know about ruffian," the girl said, laughing too; "but, Jack, who is that girl watching us, the quiet-looking girl in a dark brown dress and straw bonnet?" "That is my friend Nelly Hardy," Jack said seriously. "Yes, you have often spoken to me about her and I have wanted to see her; what a nice face she has, and handsome too, with her great dark eyes! Jack, you must introduce me to her, I should like to know her." "Certainly," Jack said with a pleased look; and accompanied by Alice he walked across the lawn towards her. Nelly turned the instant that they moved, and walking away joined some other girls. Jack, however, followed. "Nelly," he said, when he reached her, "this is Miss Merton, who wants to know you. Miss Merton, this is my friend Nelly Hardy." Nelly bent her head silently, but Alice held out her hand frankly. "Jack has told me so much about you," she said, "that I wanted, above all things, to see you." Nelly looked steadily up into her face. It was a face any one might look at with pleasure, frank, joyous, and kindly. It was an earnest face too, less marked and earnest than that now looking at her, but with lines of character and firmness. Nelly's expression softened as she gazed. "You are very good, Miss Merton; I have often heard of you too, and wanted to see you as much as you could have done to see me." "I hope you like me now you do see me," Miss Merton laughed; "you won't be angry when I say that I like you, though you did turn away when you saw us coming. "You are accustomed to meet people and be introduced," Nelly said quietly; "I am not, you see." "I don't think you are shy," Miss Merton said smiling, "but you had a reason; perhaps some day when we know each other better you will tell me. I have been scolding Jack for making such a figure of himself. You are his friend and should not let him do it." Jack laughed, while Nelly looked in surprise at him. "What is the matter with him?" she asked; "I don't see that there is anything wrong." "Not wrong," Miss Merton said, "only singular to me. He has got on clothes just like all the rest, which don't fit him at all, and look as if they had been made to put on to a wooden figure in a shop window, while when we see him he is always properly dressed." Nelly flashed a quiet look of inquiry at Jack. "You never told me, Jack," she said, with an aggrieved ring in her voice, "that you dressed differently at Birmingham to what you do here." "There was nothing to tell really," he said quietly. "I told you that I had had some clothes made there, and always wore them at Mr. Merton's; but I don't know," and he smiled, "that I did enter into any particulars about their cut, indeed I never thought of this myself." "I don't suppose you did, Jack," the girl said gently, for she knew how absolutely truthful he was; "but you ought to have told me. But see, they are getting ready to go into the tent, and I must help look after the young ones." "What a fine face she has!" Alice said; "but I don't think she quite likes me, Jack." "Not like you!" Jack said astonished, "what makes you think that? she was sure to like you; why, even if nobody else liked you Nelly would, because you have been so kind to me." * * * * * For the next few days the serious events of the night absorbed all thought; indeed, it was not until the following Sunday afternoon that Jack and Nelly Hardy met. Harry Shepherd, who generally accompanied them in their walks upon this day, was still suffering from the effects of the injuries he had received in the riot. Jack and his companion talked over that event until they turned to come back. Then after a pause the girl asked suddenly, "How do you like Alice Merton, Jack?" Jack was in no way taken by surprise, but, ignorant that the black eyes were keenly watching him, he replied: "Oh, I like her very much, I have often told you so, Nelly." "Do you like her better than me, Jack?" Jack looked surprised this time. "What should put such a thought in your head, lass? You know I like you and Harry better than any one in the world. We are like three brothers. It is not likely I should like Alice Merton, whom I only see once a month, better than you. She is very kind, very pleasant, very bright. She treats me as an equal and I would do anything for her, but she couldn't be the same as you are, no one can. Perhaps," he said, "years on--for you know that I have always said that I should not marry till I'm thirty, that's what my good friend told me more than ten years ago--I shall find some one I shall like as well as you, but that will be in a different way, and you will be married years and years before that. Let me think, you are nearly seventeen, Nelly?" The girl nodded, her face was turned the other way. "Yes, you are above a year younger than I am. Some girls marry by seventeen; I wonder no one has been after you already, Nelly; there is no girl in the village to compare with you." But Nelly, without a word, darted away at full speed up the lane towards home, leaving Jack speechless with astonishment. "She hasn't done that for years," he said; "it's just the way she used to do when we were first friends. If she got in a temper about anything she would rush away and hide herself and cry for hours. What could I have said to vex her, about her marrying, or having some one courting her; there couldn't be anything in that to vex her." Jack thought for some time, sitting upon a stile the better to give his mind to it. Finally he gave up the problem in despair, grumbling to himself, "One never gets to understand girls; here I've known Nelly for the last seven years like a sister, and there she flies away crying--I am sure she was crying, because she always used to cry when she ran away--and what it is about I have not the least idea. Now I mustn't say anything about it when I meet her next, I know that of old, unless she does first, but as likely as not she will never allude to it." In fact no allusion ever was made to the circumstance, for before the following Sunday came round John Hardy had died. He had been sinking for months, and his death had been looked for for some time. It was not a blow to his daughter, and could hardly be a great grief, for he had been a drunken, worthless man, caring nothing for his child, and frequently brutally assaulting her in his drunken fits. She had attended him patiently and assiduously for months, but no word of thanks had ever issued from his lip. His character was so well known that no one regarded his death as an event for which his daughter should be pitied. It would, however, effect a change in her circumstances. Hardy had, ever since the attack upon the Vaughan, received an allowance from the union, as well as from the sick club to which he belonged, but this would now cease; and it was conjectured by the neighbours that "th' old ooman would have to go into the house, and Nelly would go into a factory at Birmingham or Wolverhampton, or would go into service." Nelly's mother was a broken woman; years of intemperance had prematurely aged her, and her enforced temperance during the last few months had apparently broken her spirit altogether, and the coarse, violent woman had almost sunk into quiet imbecility. CHAPTER XXII. THE SOLUTION. Among others who talked over Nelly Hardy's future were Mr. and Mrs. Dodgson. They were very fond of her, for from the first she had been the steadiest and most industrious of the young girls of the place, and by diligent study had raised herself far in advance of the rest. She had too been always so willing and ready to oblige and help that she was a great favourite with both. "I have been thinking," Mrs. Dodgson said to her husband on the evening of the day of John Hardy's death, "whether, as Miss Bolton, the assistant mistress, is going to leave at the end of the month, to be married, Nelly Hardy would not make an excellent successor for her. There is no doubt she is fully capable of filling the situation; her manners are all that could be wished, and she has great influence with the younger children. The only drawback was her disreputable old father. It would hardly have done for my assistant to appear in school in the morning with a black eye, and for all the children to know that her drunken father had been beating her. Now he is gone that objection is at an end. She and her mother, who has been as bad as the father, but is now, I believe, almost imbecile, could live in the little cottage Miss Bolton occupies." "I think it would be an excellent plan, my dear, excellent; we could have no one we should like better, or who could be a more trustworthy and helpful assistant to you. By all means let it be Nelly Hardy. I will go up and speak to Mr. Brook to-morrow. As he is our patron I must consult him, but he will agree to anything we propose. Let us say nothing about it until you tell her yourself after the funeral." Mrs. Dodgson saw Nelly Hardy several times in the next few days, and went in and sat with her as she worked at her mourning; but it was not until John Hardy was laid in the churchyard that she opened the subject. "Come up in the morning, my dear," she had said that day; "I want to have a talk with you." On the following morning Nelly, in her neatly-fitting black mourning dress, made her appearance at the school-house, after breakfast, a quarter of an hour before school began. "Sit down, my dear," Mrs. Dodgson said, "I have some news to give you which will, I think, please you. Of course you have been thinking what to do?" "Yes, 'm; I have made up my mind to try and get work in a factory." "Indeed! Nelly," Mrs. Dodgson said, surprised; "I should have thought that was the last thing that you would like." "It is not what I like," Nelly said quietly, "but what is best. I would rather go into service, and as I am fond of children and used to them, I might, with your kind recommendation, get a comfortable situation; but in that case mother must go to the house, and I could not bear to think of her there. She is very helpless, and of late she has come to look to me, and would be miserable among strangers. I could earn enough at a factory to keep us both, living very closely." "Well, Nelly, your decision does you honour, but I think my plan is better. Have you heard that Miss Bolton is going to leave us?" "I have heard she was engaged to be married some day, 'm, but I did not know the time was fixed." "She leaves at the end of this month, that is in a fortnight, and her place has already been filled up. Upon the recommendation of myself and Mr. Dodgson, Mr. Brook has appointed Miss Nelly Hardy as her successor." "Me!" exclaimed Nelly, rising with a bewildered air. "Oh, Mrs. Dodgson, you cannot mean it?" "I do, indeed, Nelly. Your conduct here has been most satisfactory in every way, you have a great influence with the children, and your attainments and knowledge are amply sufficient for the post of my assistant. You will, of course, have Miss Bolton's cottage, and can watch over your mother. You will have opportunities for studying to fit yourself to take another step upwards, and become a head-mistress some day." Mrs. Dodgson had continued talking, for she saw that Nelly was too much agitated and overcome to speak. "Oh, Mrs. Dodgson," she sobbed, "how can I thank you enough?" "There are no thanks due, my dear. Of course I want the best assistant I can get, and I know of no one upon whom I can rely more thoroughly than yourself. You have no one but yourself to thank, for it is your good conduct and industry alone which have made you what you are, and that under circumstances of the most unfavourable kind. But there is the bell ringing for school. I suppose I may tell Mr. Brook that you accept the situation; the pay, thirty pounds a year and the cottage, is not larger, perhaps, than you might earn at a factory, but I think--" "Oh, Mrs. Dodgson," Nelly said, smiling through her tears, "I accept, I accept. I would rather live on a crust of bread here than work in a factory, and if I had had the choice of everything I should prefer this." Mr. Dodgson here came in, shook Nelly's hand and congratulated her, and with a happy heart the girl took her way home. Jack, upon his return from the pit, found Nelly awaiting him at the corner where for years she had stood. He had seen her once since her father's death, and had pressed her hand warmly to express his sympathy, but he was too honest to condole with her on a loss which was, he knew, a relief. He and Harry had in the intervening time talked much of Nelly's prospects. Jack was averse in the extreme to her going into service, still more averse to her going into a factory, but could suggest no alternative plan. "If she were a boy," he said, "it would be easy enough. I am getting eighteen shillings a week now, and could let her have five easily, and she might take in dressmaking. There are plenty of people in the villages round would be glad to get their dresses made; but she would have to live till she got known a bit, and you know she wouldn't take my five shillings. I wouldn't dare offer it to her. Now if it was you there would be no trouble at all; you would take it, of course, just as I should take it of you, but she wouldn't, because she's a lass--it beats me altogether. I might get mother to offer her the money, but Nelly would know it was me sharp enough, and it would be all the same." "I really think that Nelly might do well wi' dressmaking," Harry said after a pause. "Here all the lasses ha' learnt to work, but, as you say, in the other villages they know no more than we did here three years back; if we got some bills printed and sent 'em round, I should say she might do. There are other things you don't seem to ha' thought on, Jack," he said hesitatingly. "You're only eighteen yet, but you are earning near a pound a week, and in another two or three years will be getting man's pay, and you are sure to rise. Have you never thought of marrying Nelly?" Jack jumped as if he had trodden on a snake. "I marry Nelly!" he said in astonishment. "What! I marry Nelly! are you mad, Harry? You know I have made up my mind not to marry for years, not till I'm thirty and have made my way; and as to Nelly, why I never thought of her, nor of any other lass in that way; her least of all; why, she is like my sister. What ever put such a ridiculous idea in your head? Why, at eighteen boys haven't left school and are looking forward to going to college; those boy and girl marriages among our class are the cause of half our troubles. Thirty is quite time enough to marry. How Nelly would laugh if she knew what you'd said!" "I should advise you not to tell her," Harry said dryly; "I greatly mistake if she would regard it as a laughing matter at all." "No, lasses are strange things," Jack meditated again. "But, Harry, you are as old as I am, and are earning the same wage; why don't you marry her?" "I would," Harry said earnestly, "to-morrow if she'd have me." "You would!" Jack exclaimed, as much astonished as by his friend's first proposition. "To think of that now! Why, you have always been with her just as I have. You have never shown that you cared for her, never given her presents, nor walked with her, nor anything. And do you really care for her, Harry?" "Aye," Harry said shortly, "I have cared for her for years." "And to think that I have never seen that!" Jack said. "Why didn't you tell me? Why, you are as difficult to understand as she is, and I thought I knew you so well!" "What would have been the use?" Harry said. "Nelly likes me as a friend, that's all." "That's it," Jack said. "Of course when people are friends they don't think of each other in any other way. Still, Harry, she may get to in time. Nelly's pretty well a woman, she's seventeen now, but she has no one else after her that I know of." "Well, Jack, I fancy she could have plenty after her, for she's the prettiest and best girl o' the place; but you see, you are always about wi' her, and I think that most people think it will be a match some day." "People are fools," Jack burst out wrathfully. "Who says so? just tell me who says so?" "People say so, Jack. When a young chap and a lass walk together people suppose there is something in it, and you and Nelly ha' been walking together for the last five years." "Walking together!" Jack repeated angrily; "we have been going about together of course, and you have generally been with us, and often enough half-a-dozen others; that is not like walking together. Nelly knew, and every one knew, that we agreed to be friends from the day we stood on the edge of the old shaft when you were in the water below, and we have never changed since." "I know you have never changed, Jack, never thought of Nelly but as a true friend. I did not know whether now you might think differently. I wanted to hear from your own lips. Now I know you don't, that you have no thought of ever being more than a true friend to her, I shall try if I cannot win her." "Do," Jack said, shaking his friend's hand. "I am sure I wish you success. Nothing in the world would please me so much as to see my two friends marry, and though I do think, yes, I really do, Harry, that young marriages are bad, yet I am quite sure that you and Nelly would be happy together anyhow. And when do you mean to ask her?" "What an impatient fellow you are, Jack!" Harry said smiling. "Nelly has no more idea that I care for her than you had, and I am not going to tell her so all at once. I don't think," he said gravely, "mark me, Jack, I don't think Nelly will ever have me, but if patience and love can win her I shall succeed in the end." Jack looked greatly surprised again. "Don't say any more about it, Jack," Harry went on. "It 'ull be a long job o' work, but I can bide my time; but above all, if you wish me well, do not even breathe a word to Nelly of what I have said." From this interview Jack departed much mystified. "It seems to me," he muttered to himself, "lads when they're in love get to be like lasses, there's no understanding them. I know nowt of love myself, and what I've read in books didn't seem natural, but I suppose it must be true, for even Harry, who I thought I knew as well as myself, turned as mysterious as--well as a ghost. What does he mean by he's got to be patient, and to wait, and it will be a long job. If he likes Nelly and Nelly likes him--and why shouldn't she?--I don't know why they shouldn't marry in a year or two, though I do hate young marriages. Anyhow I'll talk to her about the dressmaking idea. If Harry's got to make love to her, it will be far better for him to do it here than to have to go walking her out o' Sundays at Birmingham. If she would but let me help her a bit till she's got into business it would be as easy as possible." Jack, however, soon had the opportunity of laying his scheme fully before Nelly Hardy, and when she had turned off from the road with him she broke out: "Oh, Jack, I have such a piece of news; but perhaps you know it, do you?" she asked jealously. "No, I don't know any particular piece of news." "Not anything likely to interest me, Jack?" "No," Jack said puzzled. "Honour, you haven't the least idea what it is?" "Honour, I haven't," Jack said. "I'm going to be a schoolmistress in place of Miss Bolton." [Illustration: THE NEW SCHOOLMISTRESS.] "No!" Jack shouted delightedly; "I am glad, Nelly, I am glad. Why, it is just the thing for you; Harry and I have been puzzling our heads all the week as to what you should do!" "And what did your united wisdom arrive at?" Nelly laughed. "We thought you might do here at dressmaking," Jack said, "after a bit, you know." "The thought was not a bad one," she said; "it never occurred to me, and had this great good fortune not have come to me I might perhaps have tried. It was good of you to think of it. And so you never heard a whisper about the schoolmistress? I thought you might perhaps have suggested it somehow, you know you always do suggest things here." "No, indeed, Nelly, I did not hear Miss Bolton was going." "I am glad," the girl said. "Are you?" Jack replied in surprise. "Why, Nelly, wouldn't you have liked me to have helped you?" "Yes and no, Jack; but no more than yes. I do owe everything to you. It was you who made me your friend, you who taught me, you who urged me on, you who have made me what I am. No, Jack, dear," she said, seeing that Jack looked pained at her thanks; "I have never thanked you before, and I must do it now. I owe everything to you, and in one way I should have been pleased to owe this to you also, but in another way I am pleased not to do so because my gaining it by, if I may say so, my own merits, show that I have done my best to prove worthy of your kindness and friendship." Tears of earnestness stood in her eyes, and Jack felt that disclaimer would be ungracious. "I am glad," he said again after a pause. "And now, Miss Hardy," and he touched his hat laughing, "that you have risen in the world, I hope you are not going to take airs upon yourself." Nelly laughed. "It is strange," she said, "that I should be the first to take a step upwards, for Mrs. Dodgson is going to help me to go in and qualify for a head-schoolmistress-ship some day; but, Jack, it is only for a little time. You laugh and call me Miss Hardy to-day, but the time will come when I shall say 'sir' to you; you are longer beginning, but you will rise far higher; but we shall always be friends; shall we not, Jack?" "Always, Nelly," Jack said earnestly. "Wherever or whatever Jack Simpson may be, he will ever be your true and faithful friend, and nothing which may ever happen to me, no rise I may ever make, will give me the pleasure which this good fortune which has befallen you has done. If I ever rise it will make me happy to help Harry, but I know you would never have let me help you, and this thought would have marred my life. Now that I see you in a position in which I am sure you will be successful, and which is an honourable and pleasant one, I shall the more enjoy my rise when it comes.--Does any one else know of it?" he asked as they went on their way. "No one," she said. "Who should know it before you?" "Harry will be as glad as I am," he said, remembering his friend's late assertion. "Yes, Harry will be very glad too," Nelly said; but Jack felt that Harry's opinion was of comparatively little importance in her eyes. "He is a good honest fellow is Harry, and I am sure he will be pleased, and so I hope will everyone." Jack felt that the present moment was not a propitious one for putting in a word for his friend. * * * * * Harry Shepherd carried out his purpose. For two years he waited, and then told his love to Nelly Hardy, one bright Sunday afternoon when they were walking in the lane. "No, Harry, no," she said humbly and sadly; "it can never be, do not ask me, I am so, so sorry." "Can it never be?" Harry asked. "Never," the girl said; "you know yourself, Harry, it can never be. I have seen this coming on for two years now, and it has grieved me so; but you know, I am sure you know, why it cannot be." "I know," the young fellow said. "I have always known that you cared for Jack a thousand times more than for me, and it's quite natural, for he is worth a thousand of me; but then, then--" and he hesitated. "But then," she went on. "Jack does not love me, and you do. That is so, Harry; but since I was a child I have loved him. I know, none better, that he never thought of me except as a friend, that he scarcely considered me as a girl. I have never thought that it would be otherwise. I could hardly wish that it were. Jack will rise to be a great man, and must marry a lady, but," she said steadfastly, "I can go on loving him till I die." "I have not hoped much, Nelly, but remember always, that I have always cared for you. Since you first became Jack's friend I have cared for you. If he had loved you I could even stand aside and be glad to see you both happy, but I have known always that this could never be. Jack's mind was ever so much given up to study, he is not like us, and does not dream of a house and love till he has made his mark in the world. Remember only that I love you as you love Jack, and shall love as faithfully. Some day, perhaps, long hence," he added as Nelly shook her head, "you may not think differently, but may come to see that it is better to make one man's life happy than to cling for ever to the remembrance of another. At any rate you will always think of me as your true friend, Nelly, always trust me?" "Always, Harry, in the future more than lately, for I have seen this coming. Now that we understand each other we can be quite friends again." CHAPTER XXIII. THE EXPLOSION AT THE VAUGHAN. At twelve o'clock on a bright summer day Mr. Brook drove up in his dog-cart, with two gentlemen, to the Vaughan mine. One was the government inspector of the district; the other, a newly-appointed deputy inspector, whom he was taking his rounds with him, to instruct in his duties. "I am very sorry that Thompson, my manager, is away to-day," Mr. Brook said as they alighted. "Had I known you were coming I would of course have had him in readiness to go round with you. Is Williams, the underground manager, in the pit?" he asked the bankman, whose duty it was to look after the ascending and descending cage. "No, sir; he came up about half an hour ago. Watkins, the viewer, is below." "He must do, then," Mr. Brook said, "but I wish Mr. Thompson had been here. Perhaps you would like to look at the plan of the pit before you go down? Is Williams's office open?" "Yes, sir," the bankman answered. Mr. Brook led the way into the office. "Hullo!" he said, seeing a young man at work making a copy of a mining plan; "who are you?" The young man rose-- "Jack Simpson, sir. I work below, but when it's my night-shift Mr. Williams allows me to help him here by day." "Ah! I remember you now," Mr. Brook said. "Let me see what you are doing. That's a creditable piece of work for a working collier, is it not?" he said, holding up a beautifully executed plan. Mr. Hardinge looked with surprise at the draughtsman, a young man of some one or two-and-twenty, with a frank, open, pleasant face. "Why, you don't look or talk like a miner," he said. "Mr. Merton, the schoolmaster here, was kind enough to take a great deal of pains with me, sir." "Have you been doing this sort of work long?" Mr. Hardinge asked, pointing to the plan. "About three or four years," Mr. Brook said promptly. Jack looked immensely surprised. Mr. Brook smiled. "I noticed an extraordinary change in Williams's reports, both in the handwriting and expression. Now I understand it. You work the same stall as Haden, do you not?" "Yes, sir, but not the same shift; he had a mate he has worked with ever since my father was killed, so I work the other shift with Harvey." "Now let us look at the plans of the pit," Mr. Hardinge said. The two inspectors bent over the table and examined the plans, asking a question of Mr. Brook now and then. Jack had turned to leave when his employer ceased to speak to him, but Mr. Brook made a motion to him to stay. "What is the size of your furnace, Mr. Brook?" asked Mr. Hardinge. "It's an eight-foot furnace," Mr. Brook replied. "Do you know how many thousand cubic feet of air a minute you pass?" Mr. Brook shook his head: he left the management of the mine entirely in the hands of his manager. Mr. Hardinge had happened to look at Jack as he spoke; and the latter, thinking the question was addressed to him, answered: "About eight thousand feet a minute, sir." "How do you know?" Mr. Hardinge asked. "By taking the velocity of the air, sir, and the area of the downcast shaft." "How would you measure the velocity, theoretically?" Mr. Hardinge asked, curious to see how much the young collier knew. "I should require to know the temperature of the shafts respectively, and the height of the upcast shaft." "How could you do it then?" "The formula, sir, is M = h(t'-t)/480+x, h being the height of the upcast, t' its temperature, t the temperature of the exterior air, and x = t'-32 degrees." "You are a strange young fellow," Mr. Hardinge said. "May I ask you a question or two?" "Certainly, sir." "Could you work out the cube-root of say 999,888,777?" Jack closed his eyes for a minute and then gave the correct answer to five places of decimals. The three gentlemen gave an exclamation of surprise. "How on earth did you do that?" Mr. Hardinge exclaimed. "It would take me ten minutes to work it out on paper." "I accustomed myself to calculate while I was in the dark, or working," Jack said quietly. "Why, you would rival Bidder himself," Mr. Hardinge said; "and how far have you worked up in figures?" "I did the differential calculus, sir, and then Mr. Merton said that I had better stick to the mechanical application of mathematics instead of going on any farther; that was two years ago." The surprise of the three gentlemen at this simple avowal from a young pitman was unbounded. Then Mr. Hardinge said: "We must talk of this again later on. Now let us go down the pit; this young man will do excellently well for a guide. But I am afraid, Mr. Brook, that I shall have to trouble you a good deal. As far as I can see from the plan the mine is very badly laid out, and the ventilation altogether defective. What is your opinion?" he asked, turning abruptly to Jack, and wishing to see whether his practical knowledge at all corresponded with his theoretical acquirements. "I would rather not say, sir," Jack said. "It is not for me to express an opinion as to Mr. Thompson's plan." "Let us have your ideas," Mr. Brook said. "Just tell us frankly what you would do if you were manager of the Vaughan?" Jack turned to the plan. "I should widen the airways, and split the current; that would raise the number of cubic feet of air to about twelve thousand a minute. It is too far for a single current to travel, especially as the airways are not wide; the friction is altogether too great. I should put a split in here, take a current round through the old workings to keep them clear, widen these passages, split the current again here, and then make a cut through this new ground so as to take a strong current to sweep the face of the main workings, and carry it off straight to the upcast. But that current ought not to pass through the furnace, but be let in above, for the gas comes off very thick sometimes, and might not be diluted enough with air, going straight to the furnaces." "Your ideas are very good," Mr. Hardinge said quietly. "Now we will get into our clothes and go below." So saying, he opened a bag and took out two mining suits of clothes, which, first taking off their coats, he and his companion proceeded to put on over their other garments. Mr. Brook went into his office, and similarly prepared himself; while Jack, who was not dressed for mining, went to the closet where a few suits were hung up for the use of visitors and others, and prepared to go down. Then he went to the lamp-room and fetched four Davy-lamps. While he was away Mr. Brook joined the inspectors. "That young pitman is as steady as he is clever," he said; "he has come several times under my attention. In the first place, the schoolmaster has spoken to me of the lad's efforts to educate himself. Then he saved another boy's life at the risk of his own, and of late years his steadiness and good conduct have given him a great influence over his comrades of the same age, and have effected great things for the place. The vicar and schoolmaster now are never tired of praising him." "He is clearly an extraordinary young fellow," Mr Hardinge said. "Do you know his suggestions are exactly what I had intended to offer to you myself? You will have some terrible explosion here unless you make some radical changes." That evening the inspectors stayed for the night at Mr. Brook's, and the next day that gentleman went over with them to Birmingham, where he had some business. His principal object, however, was to take them to see Mr. Merton, to question him farther with regard to Jack Simpson. Mr. Merton related to his visitors the history of Jack's efforts to educate himself, and gave them the opinion he had given the lad himself, that he might, had he chosen, have taken a scholarship and then the highest mathematical honours. "He has been working lately at engineering, and calculating the strains and stresses of iron bridges," he said. "And now, Mr. Brook, I will tell you--and I am sure that you and these gentlemen will give me your promise of secrecy upon the subject--what I have never yet told to a soul. It was that lad who brought me word of the intended attack on the engines, and got me to write the letter to Sir John Butler. But that is not all, sir. It was that boy--for he was but seventeen then--who defended your engine-house against the mob of five hundred men!" "Bless my heart, Merton, why did you not tell me before? Why, I've puzzled over that ever since. And to think that it was one of my own pit-boys who did that gallant action, and I have done nothing for him!" "He would not have it told, sir. He wanted to go on as a working miner, and learn his business from the bottom. Besides, his life wouldn't have been safe in this district for a day if it had been known. But I think you ought to be told of it now. The lad is as modest as he is brave and clever, and would go to his grave without ever letting out that he saved the Vaughan, and indeed all the pits in the district. But now that he is a man, it is right you should know; but pray do not let him imagine that you are aware of it. He is very young yet, and will rise on his own merits, and would dislike nothing so much as thinking that he owed anything to what he did that night. I may tell you too that he is able to mix as a gentleman with gentlemen. Ever since I have been over here he has come over once a month to stay with me from Saturday to Monday, he has mixed with what I may call the best society in the town here, and has won the liking and esteem of all my friends, not one of whom has so much as a suspicion that he is not of the same rank of life as themselves." "What am I to do, Mr. Hardinge?" Mr. Brook asked in perplexity. "What would you advise?" "I should give him his first lift at once," Mr. Hardinge said decidedly. "It will be many months before you have carried out the new scheme for the ventilation of the mine; and, believe me, it will not be safe, if there come a sudden influx of gas, till the alterations are made. Make this young fellow deputy viewer, with special charge to look after the ventilation. In that way he will not have to give instruction to the men as to their work, but will confine his attention to the ventilation, the state of the air, the doors, and so on. Even then his position will for a time be difficult; but the lad has plenty of self-control, and will be able to tide over it, and the men will get to see that he really understands his business. You will of course order the underground manager and viewers to give him every support. The underground manager, at any rate, must be perfectly aware of his capabilities, as he seems to have done all his paper work for some time." Never were a body of men more astonished than were the pitmen of the Vaughan when they heard that young Jack Simpson was appointed a deputy viewer, with the special charge of the ventilation of the mine. A deputy viewer is not a position of great honour; the pay is scarcely more than that which a getter will earn, and the rank is scarcely higher. This kind of post, indeed, is generally given to a miner of experience, getting past his work--as care, attention, and knowledge are required, rather than hard work. That a young man should be appointed was an anomaly which simply astonished the colliers of the Vaughan. The affair was first known on the surface, and as the men came up in the cages the news was told them, and the majority, instead of at once hurrying home, stopped to talk it over. "It be the rummest start I ever heard on," one said. "Ah! here comes Bill Haden. Hast heard t' news, Bill?" "What news?" "Why, your Jack's made a deputy. What dost think o' that, right over heads o' us all? Did'st e'er hear tell o' such a thing?" "No, I didn't," Bill Haden said emphatically. "It's t' first time as e'er I heard o' t' right man being picked out wi'out a question o' age. I know him, and I tell 'ee, he mayn't know t' best place for putting in a prop, or of timbering in loose ground, as well as us as is old enough to be his fathers; but he knows as much about t' book learning of a mine as one of the government inspector chaps. You mightn't think it pleasant for me, as has stood in t' place o' his father, to see him put over my head, but I know how t' boy has worked, and I know what he is, and I tell 'ee I'll work under him willing. Jack Simpson will go far; you as live will see it." Bill Haden was an authority in the Vaughan pit, and his dictum reconciled many who might otherwise have resented the appointment of such a lad. The enthusiastic approval of Harry Shepherd and of the rest of the other young hands in the mine who had grown up with Jack Simpson, and knew something of how hard he had worked, and who had acknowledged his leadership in all things, also had its effect; and the new deputy entered upon his duties without anything like the discontent which might have been looked for, being excited. The most important part of Jack's duties consisted in going round the pit before the men went down in the morning, to see that there was no accumulation of gas in the night, and that the ventilation was going on properly. The deputy usually takes a helper with him, and Jack had chosen his friend Harry for the post--as in the event of finding gas, it has to be dispersed by beating it with an empty sack, so as to cause a disturbance of the air, or, if the accumulation be important, by putting up a temporary bratticing, or partition, formed of cotton cloth stretched on a framework, in such a way as to turn a strong current of air across the spot where the gas is accumulating, or from which it is issuing. The gas is visible to the eye as a sort of dull fog or smoke. If the accumulation is serious, the main body of miners are not allowed to descend into the mine until the viewer has, with assistance, succeeded in completely dispersing it. "It's a lonesome feeling," Harry said the first morning that he entered upon his duties with Jack Simpson, "to think that we be the only two down here." "It's no more lonesome than sitting in the dark waiting for the tubs to come along, Harry, and it's far safer. There is not the slightest risk of an explosion now, for there are only our safety-lamps down here, while in the day the men will open their lamps to light their pipes; make what regulations the master may, the men will break them to get a smoke." Upon the receipt of Mr. Hardinge's official report, strongly condemning the arrangements in the Vaughan, Mr. Brook at once appointed a new manager in the place of Mr. Thompson, and upon his arrival he made him acquainted with the extent of Jack's knowledge and ability, and requested him to keep his eye specially upon him, and to employ him, as far as possible, as his right-hand man in carrying out his orders. "I wish that main wind drift were through," Jack said one day, six months after his appointment, as he was sitting over his tea with Bill Haden. "The gas is coming in very bad in the new workings." "Wuss nor I ever knew't, Jack. It's a main good job that the furnace was made bigger, and some o' th' airways widened, for it does come out sharp surely. In th' old part where I be, a' don't notice it; but when I went down yesterday where Peter Jones be working, the gas were just whistling out of a blower close by." "Another fortnight, and the airway will be through, dad; and that will make a great change. I shall be very glad, for the pit's in a bad state now." "Ah! thou think'st a good deal of it, Jack, because thou'st got part of the 'sponsibility of it. It don't fret me." "I wish the men wouldn't smoke, dad; I don't want to get a bad name for reporting them, but it's just playing with their lives." Bill Haden was silent; he was given to indulge in a quiet smoke himself, as Jack, working with him for five years, well knew. "Well, Jack, thou know'st there's a craving for a draw or two of bacca." "So there is for a great many other things that we have to do without," Jack said. "If it were only a question of a man blowing himself to pieces I should say nought about it; but it is whether he is willing to make five hundred widows and two thousand orphans rather than go for a few hours without smoking. What is the use of Davy-lamps? what is the use of all our care as to the ventilation, if at any moment the gas may be fired at a lamp opened for lighting a pipe? I like my pipe, but if I thought there was ever any chance of its becoming my master I would never touch tobacco again." Three days later, when Jack came up from his rounds at ten o'clock, to eat his breakfast and write up his journal of the state of the mine, he saw Mr. Brook and the manager draw up to the pit mouth. Jack shrank back from the little window of the office where he was writing, and did not look out again until he knew that they had descended the mine, as he did not wish to have any appearance of thrusting himself forward. For another hour he wrote; and then the window of the office flew in pieces, the chairs danced, and the walls rocked, while a dull heavy roar, like distant thunder, burst upon his ears. He leaped to his feet and rushed to the door. Black smoke was pouring up from the pit's mouth, sticks and pieces of wood and coal were falling in a shower in the yard; and Jack saw that his worst anticipation had been realized, and that a terrible explosion had taken place in the Vaughan pit. CHAPTER XXIV. IN DEADLY PERIL. For a moment Jack stood stunned by the calamity. There were, he knew, over three hundred men and boys in the pit, and he turned faint and sick as the thought of their fate came across him. Then he ran towards the top of the shaft. The bankman lay insensible at a distance of some yards from the pit, where he had been thrown by the force of the explosion. Two or three men came running up with white scared faces. The smoke had nearly ceased already; the damage was done, and a deadly stillness seemed to reign. Jack ran into the engine-house. The engine-man was leaning against a wall, scared and almost fainting. "Are you hurt, John?" "No!" "Pull yourself round, man. The first thing is to see if the lift is all right. I see one of the cages is at bank, and the force of the explosion is in the upcast shaft. Just give a turn or two to the engine and see if the winding gear's all right. Slowly." The engineman turned on the steam; there was a slight movement, and then the engine stopped. "A little more steam," Jack said. "The cage has caught, but it may come." There was a jerk, and then the engine began to work. "That is all right," Jack said, "whether the lower cage is on or not. Stop now, and wind it back, and get the cage up again. Does the bell act, I wonder?" Jack pulled the wire which, when in order, struck a bell at the bottom of the shaft, and then looked at a bell hanging over his head for the answer. None came. "I expect the wire's broke," Jack said, and went out to the pit's mouth again. The surface-men were all gathered round now, the tip-men, and the yard-men, and those from the coke-ovens, all looking wild and pale. "I am going down," Jack said; "we may find some poor fellows near the bottom, and can't wait till some headman comes on the ground. Who will go with me? I don't want any married men, for you know, lads, there may be another blow at any moment." "I will go with you," one of the yard-men said, stepping forward; "there's no one dependent on me." "I, too," said another; "it's no odds to any one but myself whether I come up again or not. Here's with you, whatever comes of it." [Illustration: AFTER THE FIRST EXPLOSION--THE SEARCH PARTY.] Jack brought three safety-lamps from the lamp-room, and took his place in the cage with the two volunteers. "Lower away," he shouted, "but go very slow when we get near the bottom, and look out for our signal." It was but three minutes from the moment that the cage began to sink to that when it touched the bottom of the shaft, but it seemed an age to those in it. They knew that at any moment a second explosion might come, and that they might be driven far up into the air above the top of the shaft, mere scorched fragments of flesh. Not a word was spoken during the descent, and there was a general exclamation of "Thank God!" when they felt the cage touch the bottom. Jack, as an official of the mine, and by virtue of superior energy, at once took the lead. "Now," he said, "let us push straight up the main road." Just as they stepped out they came across the bodies of two men, and stooped over them with their lamps. "Both dead," Jack said; "we can do nought for them." A little way on, and in a heap, were some waggons, thrown together and broken up, the body of a pony, and that of the lad, his driver. Then they came to the first door--a door no longer, not a fragment of it remaining. In the door-boy's niche the lad lay in a heap. They bent over him. "He is alive," Jack said. "Will you two carry him to the cage? I will look round and see if there is any one else about here; beyond, this way, there is no hope. Make haste! Look how the gas is catching inside the lamps, the place is full of fire-damp." The men took up the lad, and turned to go to the bottom of the shaft. Jack looked a few yards down a cross-road, and then followed them. He was in the act of turning into the next road to glance at that also, when he felt a suck of air. "Down on your faces!" he shouted, and, springing a couple of paces farther up the cross-road, threw himself on his face. CHAPTER XXV. THE IMPRISONED MINERS. There was a mighty roar--a thundering sound, as of an express train--a blinding light, and a scorching heat. Jack felt himself lifted from the ground by the force of the blast, and dashed down again. Then he knew it was over, and staggered to his feet. The force of the explosion had passed along the main road, and so up the shaft, and he owed his life to the fact that he had been in the road off the course. He returned into the main road, but near the bottom of the shaft he was brought to a standstill. The roof had fallen, and the passage was blocked with fragments of rock and broken waggons. He knew that the bottom of the shaft must be partly filled up, that his comrades were killed, and that there was no hope of escape in that direction. For a moment he paused to consider; then, turning up the side road to the left, he ran at full speed from the shaft. He knew that the danger now was not so much from the fire-damp--the explosive gas--as from the even more dreaded choke-damp, which surely follows after an explosion and the cessation of ventilation. Many more miners are killed by this choke-damp, as they hasten to the bottom of the shaft after an explosion, than by the fire itself. Choke-damp, which is carbonic acid gas, is heavier than ordinary air, and thus the lowest parts of a colliery become first filled with it, as they would with water. In all coal-mines there is a slight, sometimes a considerable, inclination, or "dip" as it is called, of the otherwise flat bed of coal. The shaft is almost always sunk at the lower end of the area owned by the proprietors of the mine, as by this means the whole pit naturally drains to the "sump," or well, at the bottom of the shaft, whence it is pumped up by the engine above; the loaded waggons, too, are run down from the workings to the bottom of the shaft with comparative ease. The explosion had, as Jack well knew, destroyed all the doors which direct the currents of the air, and the ventilation had entirely ceased. The lower part of the mine, where the explosion had been strongest, would soon be filled with choke-damp, the product of the explosion, and Jack was making for the old workings, near the upper boundary line of the pit. There the air would remain pure long after it had been vitiated elsewhere. It was in this quarter of the mine that Bill Haden and some twenty other colliers worked. Presently Jack saw lights ahead, and heard a clattering of steps. It was clear that, as he had hoped, the miners working there had escaped the force of the explosion, which had, without doubt, played awful havoc in the parts of the mine where the greater part of the men were at work. "Stop! stop!" Jack shouted, as they came up to him. "Is it fire, Jack?" Bill Haden, who was one of the first, asked. "Yes, Bill; didn't you feel it?" "Some of us thought we felt a suck of air a quarter hour since, but we weren't sure; and then came another, which blew out the lights. Come along, lad; there is no time for talking." "It's of no use going on," Jack said; "the shaft's choked up. I came down after the first blow, and I fear there's no living soul in the new workings. By this time they must be full of the choke-damp." The men looked at each other with blank faces. "Hast seen Brook?" Jack asked eagerly. "Ay, he passed our stall with Johnstone ten minutes ago, just before the blast came." "We may catch him in time to stop him yet," Jack said, "if he has gone round to look at the walling of the old goafs. There are three men at work there." "I'll go with you, Jack," Bill Haden said. "Our best place is my stall, lads," he went on, turning to the others; "that is pretty well the highest ground in the pit, and the air will keep good there as long as anywhere--may be till help comes. You come along of us, mate," he said, turning to the man who worked with him in his stall. As they hurried along, Jack, in a few words, told what had taken place, as far as he knew it. Five minutes' run brought them to the place where the masons were at work walling up the entrance to some old workings. They looked astonished at the new-comers. "Have you seen the gaffers?" "Ay, they ha' just gone on. There, don't you see their lights down the heading? No; well I saw 'em a moment since." "Come along," Jack said. "Quick! I expect they've met it." At full speed they hurried along. Presently they all stopped short; the lights burnt low, and a choking sensation came on them. "Back, Jack, for your life!" gasped Bill Haden; but at that moment Jack's feet struck something, which he knew was a body. "Down at my feet; help!" he cried. He stooped and tried to raise the body. Then the last gleam of his light went out--his lungs seemed to cease acting, and he saw no more. When he came to himself again he was being carried on Bill Haden's shoulder. "All right, dad," he said. "I am coming round now; put me down." "That's a good job, Jack. I thought thou'd'st scarce come round again." "Have you got either of the others?" "We've got Brook; you'd your arm round him so tight that Ned and I lifted you together. He's on ahead; the masons are carrying him, and Ned's showing the way. Canst walk now?" "Yes, I'm better now. How did you manage to breathe, dad?" "We didn't breathe, Jack; we're too old hands for that. When we saw you fall we just drew back, took a breath, and then shut our mouths, and went down for you just the same as if we'd been a groping for you under water. We got hold of you both, lifted you up, and carried you along as far as we could before we drew a breath again. You're sharp, Jack, but you don't know everything yet." And Bill Haden chuckled to find that for once his practical experience taught him something that Jack had not learned from his books. Jack now hurried along after Bill Haden, and in a few minutes reached the place fixed upon. Here the miners were engaged in restoring consciousness to Mr. Brook, who, under the influence of water dashed on his face and artificial respiration set up by alternately pressing upon the chest and allowing it to rise again, was just beginning to show signs of life. Their interest in their employment was so great that it was not until Mr. Brook was able to sit up that they began to talk about the future. Jack's account of the state of things near the shaft was listened to gravely. The fact that the whole of the system of ventilation had been deranged, and the proof given by the second explosion that the mine was somewhere on fire, needed no comment to these experienced men. It sounded their death-knell. Gallant and unceasing as would be the efforts made under any other circumstance to rescue them, the fact that the pit was on fire, and that fresh explosions might at any moment take place, would render it an act of simple madness for their friends above to endeavour to clear the shaft and headings, and to restore the ventilation. The fact was further impressed upon them by a sudden and simultaneous flicker of the lamps, and a faint shake, followed by a distant rumble. "Another blast," Bill Haden said. "That settles us, lads. We may as well turn out all the lamps but two, so as to have light as long as we last out." "Is there no hope?" Mr. Brook asked presently, coming forward after he had heard from Haden's mate the manner in which he had been so far saved. "Not a scrap, master," said Bill Haden. "We are like rats in a trap; and it would ha' been kinder of us if we'd a let you lay as you was." "Your intention was equally kind," Mr. Brook said. "But is there nothing that we can do?" "Nowt," Bill Haden said. "We have got our dinners wi' us, and might make 'em last, a mouthful at a time, to keep life in us for a week or more. But what 'ud be th' use of it? It may be weeks--ay, or months--before they can stifle the fire and make their way here." "Can you suggest nothing, Jack?" Mr. Brook asked. "You are the only officer of the pit left now," he added with a faint smile. Jack had not spoken since he reached the stall, but had sat down on a block of coal, with his elbows on his knees and his chin on his hands--a favourite attitude of his when thinking deeply. The other colliers had thrown themselves down on the ground; some sobbed occasionally as they thought of their loved ones above, some lay in silence. Jack answered the appeal by rising to his feet. "Yes, sir, I think we may do something." The men raised themselves in surprise. "In the first place, sir, I should send men in each direction to see how near the choke-damp has got. There are four roads by which it could come up. I would shut the doors on this side of the place it has got to, roll blocks of coal and rubbish to keep 'em tight, and stop up the chinks with wet mud. That will keep the gas from coming up, and there is air enough in the stalls and headings to last us a long time." "But that would only prolong our lives for a few hours, Jack, and I don't know that that would be any advantage. Better to be choked by the gas than to die of starvation," Mr. Brook said, and a murmur from the men showed that they agreed with him. "I vote for lighting our pipes," one of the miners said. "If there is fiery gas here, it would be better to finish with it at once." There was a general expression of approval. "Wait!" Jack said authoritatively; "wait till I have done. You know, Mr. Brook, we are close to our north boundary here, in some places within a very few yards. Now the 'Logan,' which lies next to us, has been worked out years ago. Of course it is full of water, and it was from fear of tapping that water that the works were stopped here. A good deal comes in through the crevices in No. 15 stall, which I expect is nearest to it. Now if we could work into the 'Logan,' the water would rush down into our workings, and as our pit is a good deal bigger than the 'Logan' ever was it will fill the lower workings and put out the fire, but won't reach here. Then we can get up through the 'Logan,' where the air is sure to be all right, as the water will bring good air down with it. We may not do it in time, but it is a chance. What do you say, sir?" "It is worth trying, at any rate," Mr. Brook said. "Bravo, my lad! your clear head may save us yet." "By gum, Jack! but you're a good un!" Bill Haden said, bringing down his hand upon Jack's shoulder with a force that almost knocked him down; while the men, with revived hope, leaped to their feet, and crowding round, shook Jack's hands with exclamations of approval and delight. "Now, lads," Mr. Brook said, "Jack Simpson is master now, and we will all work under his orders. But before we begin, boys, let us say a prayer. We are in God's hands; let us ask his protection." Every head was bared, and the men stood reverently while, in a few words, Mr. Brook prayed for strength and protection, and rescue from their danger. "Now, Jack," he said, when he had finished, "give your orders." Jack at once sent off two men along each of the roads to find how near the choke-damp had approached, and to block up and seal the doors. It was necessary to strike a light to relight some of the lamps, but this was a danger that could not be avoided. The rest of the men were sent round to all the places where work had been going on to bring in the tools and dinners to No. 15 stall, to which Jack himself, Bill Haden, and Mr. Brook proceeded at once. No work had been done there for years. The floor was covered with a black mud, and a close examination of the face showed tiny streamlets of water trickling down in several places. An examination of the stalls, or working places, on either side, showed similar appearances, but in a less marked degree. It was therefore determined to begin work in No. 15. "You don't mean to use powder, Jack?" Bill Haden asked. "No, dad; without any ventilation we should be choked with the smoke, and there would be the danger from the gas. When we think we are getting near the water we will put in a big shot, so as to blow in the face." When the men returned with the tools and the dinners, the latter done up in handkerchiefs, Jack asked Mr. Brook to take charge of the food. "There are just twenty of us, sir, without you, and nineteen dinners. So if you divide among us four dinners a day, it will last for five days, and by that time I hope we shall be free." Four men only could work at the face of the stall together, and Jack divided the twenty into five sets. "We will work in quarter-of-an-hour shifts at first," he said; "that will give an hour's rest to a quarter of an hour's work, and a man can work well, we know, for a quarter of an hour. When we get done up, we will have half-hour shifts, which will give two hours for a sleep in between." The men of the first shift, stripped as usual to the waist, set to work without an instant's delay; and the vigour and swiftness with which the blows fell upon the face of the rock would have told experienced miners that the men who struck them were working for life or death. Those unemployed, Jack took into the adjacent stalls and set them to work to clear a narrow strip of the floor next to the upper wall, then to cut a little groove in the rocky floor to intercept the water as it slowly trickled in, and lead it to small hollows which they were to make in the solid rock. The water coming through the two stalls would, thus collected, be ample for their wants. Jack then started to see how the men at work at the doors were getting on. These had already nearly finished their tasks. On the road leading to the main workings choke-damp had been met with at a distance of fifty yards from the stall; but upon the upper road it was several hundred yards before it was found. On the other two roads it was over a hundred yards. The men had torn strips off their flannel jackets and had thrust them into the crevices of the doors, and had then plastered mud from the roadway on thickly, and there was no reason to fear any irruption of choke-damp, unless, indeed, an explosion should take place so violent as to blow in the doors. This, however, was unlikely, as, with a fire burning, the gas would ignite as it came out; and although there might be many minor explosions, there would scarcely be one so serious as the first two which had taken place. The work at the doors and the water being over, the men all gathered in the stall. Then Jack insisted on an equal division of the tobacco, of which almost all the miners possessed some--for colliers, forbidden to smoke, often chew tobacco, and the tobacco might therefore be regarded both as a luxury, and as being very valuable in assisting the men to keep down the pangs of hunger. This had to be divided only into twenty shares, as Mr. Brook said that he could not use it in that way, and that he had, moreover, a couple of cigars in his pocket, which he could suck if hard driven to it. Now that they were together again, all the lamps were extinguished save the two required by the men employed. With work to be done, and a hope of ultimate release, the men's spirits rose, and between their spells they talked, and now and then even a laugh was heard. Mr. Brook, although unable to do a share of the work, was very valuable in aiding to keep up their spirits, by his hopeful talk, and by anecdotes of people who had been in great danger in many ways in different parts of the world, but who had finally escaped. Sometimes one or other of the men would propose a hymn--for among miners, as among sailors, there is at heart a deep religious feeling, consequent upon a life which may at any moment be cut short--and then their deep voices would rise together, while the blows of the sledges and picks would keep time to the swing of the tune. On the advice of Mr. Brook the men divided their portions of food, small as they were, into two parts, to be eaten twelve hours apart; for as the work would proceed without interruption night and day, it was better to eat, however little, every twelve hours, than to go twenty-four without food. The first twenty-four hours over, the stall--or rather the heading, for it was now driven as narrow as it was possible for four men to work simultaneously--had greatly advanced; indeed it would have been difficult even for a miner to believe that so much work had been done in the time. There was, however, no change in the appearances; the water still trickled in, but they could not perceive that it came faster than before. As fast as the coal fell--for fortunately the seam was over four feet thick, so that they did not have to work upon the rock--it was removed by the set of men who were next for work, so that there was not a minute lost from this cause. During the next twenty-four hours almost as much work was done as during the first; but upon the third there was a decided falling off. The scanty food was telling upon them now. The shifts were lengthened to an hour to allow longer time for sleep between each spell of work, and each set of men, when relieved, threw themselves down exhausted, and slept for three hours, until it was their turn to wake up and remove the coal as the set at work got it down. At the end of seventy-two hours the water was coming through the face much faster than at first, and the old miners, accustomed to judge by sound, were of opinion that the wall in front sounded less solid, and that they were approaching the old workings of the Logan pit. In the three days and nights they had driven the heading nearly fifteen yards from the point where they had begun. Upon the fourth day they worked cautiously, driving a borer three feet ahead of them into the coal, as in case of the water bursting through suddenly they would be all drowned. At the end of ninety hours from the time of striking the first blow the drill which, Jack holding it, Bill Haden was just driving in deeper with a sledge, suddenly went forward, and as suddenly flew out as if shot from a gun, followed by a jet of water driven with tremendous force. A plug, which had been prepared in readiness, was with difficulty driven into the hole; two men who had been knocked down by the force of the water were picked up, much bruised and hurt; and with thankful hearts that the end of their labour was at hand all prepared for the last and most critical portion of their task. CHAPTER XXVI. A CRITICAL MOMENT. After an earnest thanksgiving by Mr. Brook for their success thus far, the whole party partook of what was a heartier meal than usual, consisting of the whole of the remaining food. Then choosing the largest of the drills, a hole was driven in the coal two feet in depth, and in this an unusually heavy charge was placed. "We're done for after all," Bill Haden suddenly exclaimed. "Look at the lamp." Every one present felt his heart sink at what he saw. A light flame seemed to fill the whole interior of the lamp. To strike a match to light the fuse would be to cause an instant explosion of the gas. The place where they were working being the highest part of the mine, the fiery gas, which made its way out of the coal at all points above the closed doors, had, being lighter than air, mounted there. "Put the lamps out," Jack said quickly, "the gauze is nearly red hot." In a moment they were in darkness. "What is to be done now?" Mr. Brook asked after a pause. There was silence for a while--the case seemed desperate. "Mr. Brook," Jack said after a time, "it is agreed, is it not, that all here will obey my orders?" "Yes, certainly, Jack," Mr. Brook answered. "Whatever they are?" "Yes, whatever they are." "Very well," Jack said, "you will all take your coats off and soak them in water, then all set to work to beat the gas out of this heading as far as possible. When that is done as far as can be done, all go into the next stall, and lie down at the upper end, you will be out of the way of the explosion there. Cover your heads with your wet coats, and, Bill, wrap something wet round those cans of powder." "What then, Jack?" "That's all," Jack said; "I will fire the train. If the gas explodes at the match it will light the fuse, so that the wall will blow in anyhow." "No, no," a chorus of voices said; "you will be killed." "I will light it, Jack," Bill Haden said; "I am getting on now, it's no great odds about me." "No, Dad," Jack said, "I am in charge, and it is for me to do it. You have all promised to obey orders, so set about it at once. Bill, take Mr. Brook up first into the other stall; he won't be able to find his way about in the dark." Without a word Bill did as he was told, Mr. Brook giving one hearty squeeze to the lad's hand as he was led away. The others, accustomed to the darkness from boyhood, proceeded at once to carry out Jack's instructions, wetting their flannel jackets and then beating the roof with them towards the entrance to the stall; for five minutes they continued this, and then Jack said: "Now, lads, off to the stall as quick as you can; cover your heads well over; lie down. I will be with you in a minute, or--" or, as Jack knew well, he would be dashed to pieces by the explosion of the gas. He listened until the sound of the last footstep died away--waited a couple of minutes, to allow them to get safely in position at the other end of the next stall--and then, holding the end of the fuse in one hand and the match in the other, he murmured a prayer, and, stooping to the ground, struck the match. No explosion followed; he applied it to the fuse, and ran for his life, down the narrow heading, down the stall, along the horse road, and up the next stall. "It's alight," he said as he rushed in. A cheer of congratulation and gladness burst from the men. "Cover your heads close," Jack said as he threw himself down; "the explosion is nigh sure to fire the gas." For a minute a silence as of death reigned in the mine; then there was a sharp cracking explosion, followed--or rather, prolonged--by another like thunder, and, while a flash of fire seemed to surround them, filling the air, firing their clothes, and scorching their limbs, the whole mine shook with a deep continuous roaring. The men knew that the danger was at an end, threw off the covering from their heads, and struck out the fire from their garments. Some were badly burned about the legs, but any word or cry they may have uttered was drowned in the tremendous roar which continued. It was the water from the Logan pit rushing into the Vaughan. For five minutes the noise was like thunder, then, as the pressure from behind decreased, the sound gradually diminished, until, in another five minutes, all was quiet. Then the party rose to their feet. The air in the next stall was clear and fresh, for as the Logan pit had emptied of water, fresh air had of course come down from the surface to take its place. "We can light our lamps again safely now," Bill Haden said. "We shall want our tools, lads, and the powder; there may be some heavy falls in our way, and we may have hard work yet before we get to the shaft, but the roof rock is strong, so I believe we shall win our way." "It lies to our right," Jack said. "Like our own, it is at the lower end of the pit, so, as long as we don't mount, we are going right for it." There were, as Haden had anticipated, many heavy falls of the roof, but the water had swept passages in them, and it was found easier to get along than the colliers had expected. Still it was hard work for men weakened by famine; and it took them five hours of labour clearing away masses of rock, and floundering through black mud, often three feet deep, before they made their way to the bottom of the Logan shaft, and saw the light far above them--the light that at one time they had never expected to see again. "What o'clock is it now, sir?" Bill Haden asked Mr. Brook, who had from the beginning been the timekeeper of the party. "Twelve o'clock exactly," he replied. "It is four days and an hour since the pit fired." "What day is it, sir? for I've lost all count of time." "Sunday," Mr. Brook said after a moment's thought. "It could not be better," Bill Haden said; "for there will be thousands of people from all round to visit the mine." "How much powder have you, Bill?" Jack asked. "Four twenty-pound cans." "Let us let off ten pounds at a time," Jack said. "Just damp it enough to prevent it from flashing off too suddenly; break up fine some of this damp wood and mix with it, it will add to the smoke." In a few minutes the "devil" was ready, and a light applied; it blazed furiously for half a minute, sending volumes of light smoke up the shaft. "Flash off a couple of pounds of dry powder," Bill Haden said; "there is very little draught up the shaft, and it will drive the air up." For twenty minutes they continued letting off "devils" and flashing powder. Then they determined to stop, and allow the shaft to clear altogether of the smoke. Presently a small stone fell among them--another--and another, and they knew that some one had noticed the smoke. CHAPTER XXVII. RESCUED. A stranger arriving at Stokebridge on that Sunday morning might have thought that a fair or some similar festivity was going on, so great was the number of people who passed out of the station as each train came in. For the day Stokebridge was the great point of attraction for excursionists from all parts of Staffordshire. Not that there was anything to see. The Vaughan mine looked still and deserted; no smoke issued from its chimneys; and a strong body of police kept all, except those who had business there, from approaching within a certain distance of the shaft. Still less was there to see in Stokebridge itself. Every blind was down--for scarce a house but had lost at least one of its members; and in the darkened room women sat, silently weeping for the dead far below. For the last four days work had been entirely suspended through the district; and the men of the other collieries, as well as those of the Vaughan who, belonging to the other shift, had escaped, hung about the pit yard, in the vague hope of being able in some way to be useful. Within an hour of the explosion the managers of the surrounding pits had assembled; and in spite of the fact that the three volunteers who had first descended were, without doubt, killed, plenty of other brave fellows volunteered their services, and would have gone down if permitted. But the repeated explosions, and the fact that the lower part of the shaft was now blocked up, decided the experienced men who had assembled that such a course would be madness--an opinion which was thoroughly endorsed by Mr. Hardinge and other government inspectors and mining authorities, who arrived within a few hours of the accident. It was unanimously agreed that the pit was on fire, for a light smoke curled up from the pit mouth, and some already began to whisper that it would have to be closed up. There are few things more painful than to come to the conclusion that nothing can be done, when women, half mad with sorrow and anxiety, are imploring men to make an effort to save those below. Jane Haden, quiet and tearless, sat gazing at the fatal shaft, when she was touched on the shoulder. She looked up, and saw Harry. "Thou art not down with them then, Harry?" "No; I almost wish I was," Harry said. "I came up with Jack, and hurried away to get breakfast. When I heard the blow I ran up, and found Jack had just gone down. If I had only been near I might have gone with him;" and the young man spoke in regret at not having shared his friend's fate rather than in gladness at his own escape. "Dost think there's any hope, Harry?" "It's no use lying, and there's no hope for Jack, mother," Harry said; "but if any one's saved it's like to be your Bill. He was up in the old workings, a long way off from the part where the strength of the blow would come." "It's no use telling me, Harry; I ask, but I know how it is. There ain't a chance--not a chance at all. If the pit's afire they'll have to flood it, and then it will be weeks before they pump it out again; and when they bring Jack and Bill up I sha'n't know 'em. That's what I feel, I sha'n't even know 'em." "Don't wait here, Mrs. Haden; nought can be done now; the inspectors and managers will meet this evening, and consult what is best to be done." "Is your father down, Harry? I can't think of aught but my own, or I'd have asked afore." "No; he is in the other shift. My brother Willy is down. Come, mother, let me take you home." But Mrs. Haden would not move, but sat with scores of other women, watching the mouth of the pit, and the smoke curling up, till night fell. The news spread round Stokebridge late in the evening that the managers had determined to shut up the mouth of the pit, if there was still smoke in the morning. Then, as is always the case when such a determination is arrived at, there was a cry of grief and anger throughout the village, and all who had friends below protested that it would be nothing short of murder to cut off the supply of air. Women went down to the inn where the meeting was held, and raved like wild creatures; but the miners of the district could not but own the step was necessary, for that the only chance to extinguish the fire was by cutting off the air, unless the dreadful alternative of drowning the pit was resorted to. In the morning the smoke still curled up, and the pit's mouth was closed. Boards were placed over both the shafts, and earth was heaped upon them, so as to cut off altogether the supply of air, and so stifle the fire. This was on Thursday morning. Nothing was done on Friday; and on Saturday afternoon the mining authorities met again in council. There were experts there now from all parts of the kingdom--for the extent of the catastrophe had sent a thrill of horror through the land. It was agreed that the earth and staging should be removed next morning early, and that if smoke still came up, water should be turned in from the canal. At six in the morning a number of the leading authorities met at the mine. Men had during the night removed the greater part of the earth, and the rest was now taken off, and the planks withdrawn. At once a volume of smoke poured out. This was in any case expected; and it was not for another half-hour, when the accumulated smoke had cleared off, and a straight but unbroken column began to rise as before, that the conviction that the pit was still on fire seized all present. "I fear that there is no alternative," Mr. Hardinge said; "the pit must be flooded." There was not a dissentient voice; and the party moved towards the canal to see what would be the best method of letting in the water, when a cry from the men standing round caused them to turn, and they saw a dense white column rise from the shaft. "Steam!" every one cried in astonishment. A low rumbling sound came from the pit. "What can have happened?" Mr. Hardinge exclaimed, in surprise. "This is most extraordinary!" All crowded round the pit mouth, and could distinctly hear a distant roaring sound. Presently this died away. Gradually the steam ceased to rise, and the air above the pit mouth was clear. "There is no smoke rising," one of the inspectors said. "What on earth can have happened? Let us lower a light down." Hoisting gear and rope had been prepared on the first day, in case it should be necessary to lower any one, for the wire rope had snapped when the attempt had been made to draw up the cage after the second explosion, and the sudden release from the strain had caused the engine to fly round, breaking some gear, and for the time disabling it from further work. A hundred and forty fathoms of rope, the depth of the shaft being a hundred and twenty, had been prepared, and was in readiness to be passed over a pulley suspended above the shaft. A lighted candle in a candlestick was placed on a sort of tray, which was fastened to the rope, and then it was lowered gradually down. Eagerly those above watched it as it descended--down--down, till it became a mere speck below. Then it suddenly disappeared. "Stop," Mr. Hardinge, who was directing the operations, said. "There are six more fathoms yet, sir--nigh seven--before it gets to the hundred-and-twenty fathom mark." "Draw up carefully, lads. What can have put the light out forty feet from the bottom of the shaft? Choke-damp, I suppose; but it's very singular." When the candle came up to the surface there was a cry of astonishment; the tray and the candle were wet! The whole of those present were astounded, and Mr. Hardinge at once determined to descend himself and verify this extraordinary occurrence. There was no fear of an explosion now. Taking a miner's lamp, he took his seat in a sling, and was lowered down. Just before the rope had run out to the point at which the light was extinguished he gave the signal to stop by jerking a thin rope which he held in his hands. There was a pause, and in a minute or two came two jerks, the signal to haul up. "It is so," he said, when he gained the surface; "there are forty feet of water in the shaft, but where it came from is more than I can tell." Much astonished at this singular occurrence, the group of mining engineers walked back to breakfast at Stokebridge, where the population were greatly excited at the news that the pit was flooded. To the miners it was a subject of the greatest surprise, while the friends of those in the pit received the news as the death-blow of their last hopes. It was now impossible that any one could be alive in the pit. At ten o'clock the mining authorities went again to discuss the curious phenomenon. All agreed that it was out of the question that so large a quantity of water had accumulated in any old workings, for the plan of the pit had been repeatedly inspected by them all. Some inclined to the belief that there must have been some immense natural cavern above the workings, and that when the fire in the pit burned away the pillars left to support the roof, this must have fallen in, and let the water in the cavern into the mine; others pointed out that there was no example whatever of a cavern of such dimensions as this must have been, being found in the coal formation, and pointed to the worked-out Logan pit, which was known to be full of water, as the probable source of supply. During the previous four days the plan had been discussed of cutting through from the Logan, which was known to have been worked nearly up to the Vaughan boundary. This would enable them to enter the pit and rescue any miners who might be alive, but the fact that to erect pumping gear and get out the water would be an affair of many weeks, if not months, had caused the idea to be abandoned as soon as broached. To those who argued that the water had come from the Logan, it was pointed out that there were certainly several yards of solid coal between the Vaughan and the Logan still standing, and that as the force of the explosion was evidently near the Vaughan shaft it was incredible that this barrier between the pits should have been shattered. However, it was decided to solve the question one way or the other by an immediate visit to the top of the old Logan shaft. They were just starting when they heard a movement in the street, and men setting off to run. A moment later a miner entered the room hurriedly. "There be a big smoke coming up from the old Logan shaft; it be too light for coal smoke, and I don't think it be steam either." With exclamations of surprise the whole party seized their hats and hurried off. It was twenty minutes' sharp walking to the shaft, where, by the time they reached it, a large crowd of miners and others were already assembled. As they approached, eager men ran forward to meet them. "It be gunpowder smoke, sir!" There was indeed no mistaking the sulphurous smell. "It's one of two things," Mr. Hardinge said; "either the fire has spread to the upper workings, some powder bags have exploded, and the shock has brought down the dividing wall, in which case the powder smoke might possibly find its way out when the water from the Logan drained in; or else, in some miraculous way some of the men have made their escape, and are letting off powder to call our attention. At any rate let us drop a small stone or two down. If any one be below he will know he is noticed." Then he turned to the miners standing round: "I want the pulley and rope that we were using at the Vaughan, and that small cage that was put together to work with it. I want two or three strong poles, to form a tripod over the pit here, and a few long planks to make a stage." Fifty willing men hurried off to fetch the required materials. "The smoke is getting thinner, a good deal," one of the managers said. "Now if you'll hold me, I will give a shout down." The mouth of the pit was surrounded by a wooden fencing, to prevent any one from falling down it. The speaker got over this and lay down on his face, working nearer to the edge, which sloped dangerously down, while others, following in the same way, held his legs, and were in their turn held by others. When his head and shoulders were fairly over the pit he gave a loud shout. There was a death-like silence on the part of the crowd standing round, and all of those close could hear a faint murmur come from below. Then arose a cheer, echoed again and again, and then half-a-dozen fleet-footed boys started for Stokebridge with the news that some of the imprisoned pitmen were still alive. Mr. Hardinge wrote on a piece of paper, "Keep up your courage; in an hour's time the cage will come down;" wrapped it round a stone, and dropped it down. A messenger was despatched to the Vaughan, for the police force stationed there to come up at once to keep back the excited crowd, and with orders that the stretchers and blankets in readiness should be brought on; while another went into Stokebridge for a surgeon, and for a supply of wine, brandy, and food, and two or three vehicles. No sooner were the men sent off than Mr. Hardinge said, in a loud tone: "Every moment must be of consequence; they must be starving. Will any one here who has food give it for them?" The word was passed through the crowd, and a score of picnic baskets were at once offered. Filling one of them full with sandwiches from the rest, Mr. Hardinge tied the lid securely on, and threw it down the shaft. "There is no fear of their standing under the shaft," he said; "they will know we shall be working here, and that stones might fall." In less than an hour, thanks to the willing work of many hands, a platform was constructed across the mouth of the Logan shaft, and a tripod of strong poles fixed in its place. The police kept the crowd, by this time very many thousands strong, back in a wide circle round the shaft, none being allowed inside save those who had near relatives in the Vaughan. These were for the most part women, who had rushed wildly up without bonnets or shawls--just as they stood when the report reached them that there were yet some survivors of the explosion. At full speed they had hurried along the road--some pale and still despairing, refusing to allow hope to rise again, but unable to stay away from the fatal pit; others crying as they ran; some even laughing in hysterical excitement. Most excited, because most hopeful, were those whose husbands had stalls in the old workings, for it had from the first been believed that while all in the main workings were probably killed at once by the first explosion, those in the old workings might have survived for days. Jane Haden walked steadily along the road, accompanied by Harry Shepherd, who had brought her the news, and by Nelly Hardy. "I will go," she said, "but it is of no use; they are both gone, and I shall never see them again." Then she had put on her bonnet and shawl, deliberately and slowly, and had started at her ordinary pace, protesting all along against its being supposed that she entertained the slightest hope; but when she neared the spot, her quivering lips and twitching fingers belied her words. Nelly remained outside the crowd, but Harry made a way for Jane Haden through the outside circle of spectators. A smaller circle, of some thirty yards in diameter, was kept round the shaft, and within this only those directing the operations were allowed to enter. Mr. Hardinge and one of the local managers took their places in the cage. The rope was held by twenty men, who at first stood at its full length from the shaft, and then advanced at a walk towards it, thus allowing the cage to descend steadily and easily, without jerks. As they came close to the shaft the signal rope was shaken; another step or two, slowly and carefully taken, and the rope was seen to sway slightly. The cage was at the bottom of the shaft. Three minutes' pause, the signal rope shook, and the men with the end of the rope, started again to walk from the shaft. As they increased their distance, the excitement in the great crowd grew; and when the cage showed above the surface, and it was seen that it contained three miners, a hoarse cheer arose. The men were assisted from the cage, and surrounded for a moment by those in authority; and one of the head men raised his hand for silence, and then shouted: "Mr. Brook and twenty others are saved!" An announcement which was received with another and even more hearty cheer. [Illustration: SAVED!] Passing on, the rescued men moved forward to where the women stood, anxiously gazing. Blackened as they were with coal-dust, they were recognizable, and with wild screams of joy three women burst from the rest and threw themselves in their arms. But only for a moment could they indulge in this burst of happiness, for the other women crowded round. "Who is alive? For God's sake tell us! who is alive?" Then one by one the names were told, each greeted with cries of joy, till the last name was spoken; and then came a burst of wailing and lamentation from those who had listened in vain for the names of those they loved. Jane Haden had not risen from the seat she had taken on a block of broken brickwork. "No, no!" she said to Harry; "I will not hope! I will not hope!" and while Harry moved closer to the group, to hear the names of the saved, she sat with her face buried in her hands. The very first names given were those of Jack Simpson and Bill Haden, and with a shout of joy he rushed back. The step told its tale, and Jane Haden looked up, rose as if with a hidden spring, and looked at him. "Both saved!" he exclaimed; and with a strange cry Jane Haden swayed, and fell insensible. An hour later, and the last survivor of those who were below in the Vaughan pit stood on the surface, the last cage load being Mr. Brook, Jack Simpson, and Mr. Hardinge. By this time the mourners had left the scene, and there was nothing to check the delight felt at the recovery from the tomb, as it was considered, of so many of those deemed lost. When Mr. Brook--who was a popular employer, and whose popularity was now increased by his having, although involuntarily, shared the dangers of his men--stepped from the cage, the enthusiasm was tremendous. The crowd broke the cordon of police and rushed forward, cheering loudly. Mr. Hardinge, after a minute or two, held up his hand for silence, and helped Mr. Brook on to a heap of stones. Although Mr. Brook, as well as the rest, had already recovered much, thanks to the basket of food thrown down to them, and to the supply of weak brandy and water, and of soup, which those who had first descended had carried with them, he was yet so weakened by his long fast that he was unable to speak. He could only wave his hand in token of his thanks, and sobs of emotion choked his words. Mr. Hardinge, however, who had, during the hour below, learned all that had taken place, and had spoken for some time apart with Mr. Brook, now stood up beside him. "My friends," he said, in a loud clear voice, which was heard over the whole crowd, "Mr. Brook is too much shaken by what he has gone through to speak, but he desires me to thank you most heartily in his name for your kind greeting. He wishes to say that, under God, his life, and the lives of those with him, have been saved by the skill, courage, and science of his under-viewer, Jack Simpson. Mr. Brook has consulted me on the subject, and I thoroughly agree with what he intends to do, and can certify to Jack Simpson's ability, young as he is, to fill any post to which he may be appointed. In a short time I hope that the Vaughan pit will be pumped out and at work again, and when it is, Mr. Jack Simpson will be its manager!" The story of the escape from death had already been told briefly by the miners as they came to the surface, and had passed from mouth to mouth among the crowd, and Mr. Hardinge's announcement was greeted with a storm of enthusiasm. Jack was seized by a score of sturdy pitmen, and would have been carried in triumph, were it not that the startling announcement, coming after such a long and intense strain, proved too much for him, and he fainted in the arms of his admirers. CHAPTER XXVIII. CHANGES. Beyond the body of the crowd, outside the ring kept by the police, stood Nelly Hardy, watching, without a vestige of colour in her face, for the news from below. She had given a gasping sigh of relief as the names, passed from mouth to mouth by the crowd, met her ear, and had leaned for support against the wall behind her. So great was her faith in Jack's resources and in Jack's destiny that she had all along hoped, and the assertion that those who had first gone down to rescue the pitmen must have fallen victims to the second explosion had fallen dead upon her ears. The school had been closed from the date of the accident, and had it not been so, she felt that she could not have performed her duties. Hour after hour she had sat in her cottage alone--for her mother had died a year before--except when Mrs. Dodgson, who had long suspected her secret, came to sit awhile with her, or Harry brought the latest news. During this time she had not shed a tear, and, save for her white face and hard unnatural voice, none could have told how she suffered. Harry had brought her the news of the smoke being seen from the shaft of the Logan pit before he carried it to Mrs. Haden, and she had at once thrown on her bonnet and jacket and joined them as they started from the village. When she reached the pit she had not attempted to approach, but had taken her place at a distance. Several of her pupils, with whom she was a great favourite, had come up to speak to her, but her hoarse, "Not now, dear; please go away," had sufficed to send them off. But deeply agitated as she was, she was hopeful; and deep as was her joy at the news of Jack's safety she was hardly surprised. Dropping her veil to hide the tears of joy which streamed down her cheeks, she turned to go home; but she was more shaken than she had thought, and she had to grasp at the wall for support. So she waited until the last of the miners arrived at the surface, and heard the speech of the government inspector. Then when she heard Jack's elevation announced, the news shook her even more than that of his safety had done, and she fainted. When she recovered the crowd was gone, and Harry only stood beside her. He had felt that she would rather stand and watch alone, and had avoided going near her, but when Jack was driven off he had hastened to her side. He knew how she would object to her emotion becoming known, and had contented himself with lifting her veil, untying her bonnet strings, putting her in a sitting attitude against the wall, and waiting patiently till she came round. "Are you better now?" he inquired anxiously when she opened her eyes. "Yes, I am well now," she said, glancing hastily round to see if others beside himself had noticed her situation; "I am quite well." "Don't try to get up; sit still a few minutes longer," he said. "Don't try to talk." "He has got his rise at last," she said smiling faintly and looking up; "he has gone right away from us at a bound." "I am glad," Harry said simply. "He has earned it. He is a grand, a glorious fellow, is Jack. Of course I shall never be to him now what I have been, but I know that he will be as true a friend as ever, though I may not see so much of him." "You are more unselfish than I, Harry; but as he was to rise, it was better that it should be at a bound far above me. Now I am better; let me go home." Jack Simpson's fainting fit had been but of short duration. His sturdy organization soon recovered from the shock which the fresh air and Mr. Hardinge's announcement had made upon a frame exhausted by privation, fatigue, and excitement. None the less was he astonished and indignant with himself at what he considered a girlish weakness. His thoughts were, however, speedily diverted from himself by a pitman telling him that Jane Haden was in a second faint close by. Mr. Brook's carriage had been sent for in readiness, immediately the possibility of his being found alive had appeared; and that gentleman insisted upon Mrs. Haden being lifted into it, and upon Jack taking his seat beside her to support her. He then followed, and, amidst the cheers of the crowd, started for Stokebridge. Mrs. Haden recovered before reaching the village; and leaving her and Jack at their home, with an intimation that the carriage would come at an early hour next morning to fetch the latter up to the hall, Mr. Brook drove off alone. That afternoon was a proud day for Bill Haden and his wife, but a trying one for Jack. Every one in the place who had the slightest knowledge of him called to shake his hand and congratulate him on his promotion, his friends of boyhood first among them. Harry was one of the earliest comers, and tears fell down the cheeks of both as they clasped hands in silent joy at their reunion. Not a word was spoken or needed. "Go round to Nelly," Jack said in an undertone as other visitors arrived; "tell her I will come in and see her at seven o'clock. Come again yourself before that, let us three meet together again." So quickly did the callers press in that the little room could not hold them; and Jack had to go to the front door, there to shake hands and say a word to all who wanted to see him. It was quite a levée, and it was only the fact that the gloom of a terrible calamity hung over Stokebridge that prevented the demonstration being noisy as well as enthusiastic. By six o'clock all his friends had seen him, and Jack sat down with Bill Haden and his wife. Then Jane Haden's feelings relieved themselves by a copious flood of tears; and Bill himself, though he reproached her for crying on such an occasion, did so in a husky voice. "Thou art going to leave us, Jack," Jane Haden said; "and though we shall miss thee sorely, thou mustn't go to think that Bill or me be sorry at the good fortune that be come upon you. Thou hast been a son, and a good son to us, and ha' never given so much as a day's trouble. I know'd as how you'd leave us sooner or later. There was sure to be a time when all the larning thou hast worked so hard to get would bring thee to fortune, but I didn't think 'twould come so soon." Bill Haden removed from his lips the pipe--which, in his endeavour to make up for loss of time, he had smoked without ceasing from the moment of his rescue--and grunted an acquiescence with his wife's speech. "My dear mother and dad," Jack said, "there must be no talk of parting between us. As yet, of course, it is too soon to form plans for the future; but be assured that there will be no parting. You took me when I was a helpless baby; but for you I should have been a workhouse child, and might now be coming out of my apprenticeship to a tinker or a tailor. I owe all I have, all I am, to you; and whatever fortune befall me you will still be dad and mother. For a short time I must go to the hall, as Mr. Brook has invited me; and we shall have much to arrange and talk over. Afterwards I suppose I shall have to go to the manager's house, but, of course, arrangements will have to be made as to Mr. Fletcher's widow and children; and when I go there, of course you will come too." "Thee'st a good un, lad," Bill Haden said, for Mrs. Haden's tears prevented her speech; "but I doubt what thou say'st can be; but we needn't talk that over now. But t' old 'ooman and I be none the less glad o' thy words, Jack; though the bit and sup that thou had'st here till you went into th' pit and began to pay your way ain't worth the speaking o'. Thou beats me a'together, Jack. When un see's a good pup un looks to his breed, and un finds it pure; but where thou get'st thy points from beats me a'together. Thy mother were a schoolmaster's daughter, but she had not the name o' being fond o' larning, and was a'ways weak and ailing; thy dad, my mate Jack Simpson, was as true a mate as ever man had; but he were in no ways uncommon. The old 'ooman and I ha' reared ye; but, arter all, pups don't follow their foster-mother, for the best bull pup ain't noways injured by having a half-bred un, or for the matter o' that one wi' no breed at all, as a foster-mother; besides the old 'ooman and me has no points at all, 'cept on my part, such as are bad uns; so it beats me fairly. It downright shakes un's faith in breeding." Here Harry's tap was heard at the door, and Jack, leaving Bill Haden to ponder over his egregious failure in proving true to blood, joined his friend outside. Scarce a word was spoken between the two young men as they walked across to Nelly Hardy's little cottage by the schoolhouse. The candles were already lighted, and Nelly rose as they entered. "My dear Nelly." "My dear Jack," she said, throwing her arms round his neck as a sister might have done, and kissing him, for the first time in her life; and crying, "My dear Jack, thank God you are restored alive to us." "Thank God indeed," Jack said reverently; "it has been almost a miracle, Nelly, and I am indeed thankful. We prayed nearly as hard as we worked, and God was with us; otherwise assuredly we had never passed through such danger uninjured. I thought many a time of you and Harry, and what you would be doing and thinking. "I never gave up hope, did I, Harry?" she said; "I thought that somehow such a useful life as yours would be spared." "Many other useful lives have been lost, Nelly," Jack said sadly; "but it was not my time." "And now," Nelly said changing her tone, "there are other things to talk of. Will you please take a chair, sir," and she dropped a curtsy. "Didn't I tell you, Jack," she said, laughing at the astonishment in Jack's face, "that when you congratulated me on getting my post here and called me Miss Hardy, that the time would come when I should say, Sir to you. It has come, Jack, sooner than we expected, but I knew it would come." Then changing her tone again, as they sat looking at the fire, she went on, "You know we are glad, Jack, Harry and I, more glad than we can say, that needs no telling between us, does it?" "None," Jack said. "We are one, we three, and no need to say we are glad at each other's success." "We have had happy days," Nelly said, "but they will never be quite the same again. We shall always be friends, Jack, always--true and dear friends, but we cannot be all in all to each other. I know, dear Jack," she said as she saw he was about to speak vehemently, "that you will be as much our friend in one way as ever, but you cannot be our companion. It is impossible, Jack. We have trod the same path together, but your path leaves ours here. We shall be within sound of each other's voices, we shall never lose sight of each other, but we are no longer together." "I have not thought it over yet," Jack said quietly. "It is all too new and too strange to me to see yet how things will work; but it is true, Nelly, and it is the one drawback to my good fortune, that there must be some little change between us. But in the friendship which began when you stood by me at the old shaft and helped me to save Harry, there will be no change. I have risen as I always had determined to rise; I have worked for this from the day when Mr. Pastor, my artist friend, told me it was possible I might reach it, but I never dreamed it would come so soon; and I have always hoped and thought that I should keep you both with me. How things will turn out we do not know, but, dear friends," and he held out a hand to each, "believe me, that I shall always be as I am now, and that I shall care little for my good fortune unless I can retain you both as my dearest friends." CHAPTER XXIX. THE NEW MANAGER. The next day preparations for pumping out the Vaughan commenced; but it took weeks to get rid of the water which had flowed in in five minutes. Then the work of clearing the mine and bringing up the bodies commenced. This was a sad business. A number of coffins, equal to that of the men known to be below at the time of the explosion, were in readiness in a shed near the pit mouth. These were sent down, and the bodies as they were found were placed in them to be carried above. In scarcely any instances could the dead be identified by the relatives, six weeks in the water having changed them beyond all recognition; only by the clothes could a clue be obtained. Then the funerals began. A great grave a hundred feet long by twelve wide had been dug in the churchyard, and in this the coffins were laid two deep. Some days ten, some fifteen, some twenty bodies were laid there, and at each funeral the whole village attended. Who could know whether those dearest to them were not among the shapeless forms each day consigned to their last resting-place? At last the tale was complete; the last of the victims of the great explosion at the Vaughan was laid to rest, the blinds were drawn up, and save that the whole of the people seemed to be in mourning, Stokebridge assumed its usual aspect. Upon the day before the renewal of regular work, Jack Simpson, accompanied by Mr. Brook appeared upon the ground, and signified that none were to descend until he had spoken to them. He had already won their respect by his indefatigable attention to the work of clearing the mine, and by the care he had evinced for the recovery of the bodies. Few, however, of the hands had spoken to him since his accession to his new dignity; now they had time to observe him, and all wondered at the change which had been wrought in his appearance. Clothes do not make a man, but they greatly alter his appearance, and there was not one but felt that Jack looked every inch a gentleman. When he began to speak their wonder increased. Except to Mr. Dodgson, Harry, Nelly Hardy, and some of his young comrades, Jack had always spoken in the dialect of the place, and the surprise of the colliers when he spoke in perfect English without a trace of accent or dialect was great indeed. Standing up in the gig in which he had driven up with Mr. Brook he spoke in a loud, clear voice heard easily throughout the yard. "My friends," he said, "my position here is a new and difficult one, so difficult that did I not feel sure that you would help me to make it as easy as possible I should shrink from undertaking it. I am a very young man. I have grown up among you, and of you, and now in a strange way, due in a great measure to the kindness of your employers, and in a small degree to my own exertions to improve myself, I have come to be put over you. Now it is only by your helping me that I can maintain this position here. You will find in me a true friend. I know your difficulties and your wants, and I will do all in my power to render your lives comfortable. Those among you who were my friends from boyhood can believe this, the rest of you will find it to be so. Any of you who are in trouble or in difficulty will, if you come to me, obtain advice and assistance. But while I will try to be your friend, and will do all in my power for your welfare, it is absolutely necessary that you should treat me with the respect due to Mr. Brook's manager. Without proper discipline proper work is impossible. A captain must be captain of his own ship though many of his men know the work as well as he does. And I am glad to be able to tell you that Mr. Brook has given me full power to make such regulations and to carry out such improvements as may be conducive to your comfort and welfare. He wants, and I want, the Vaughan to be a model mine and Stokebridge a model village, and we will do all in our power to carry out our wishes. We hope that no dispute will ever again arise here on the question of wages. There was one occasion when the miners of the Vaughan were led away by strangers and paid dearly for it. We hope that such a thing will never occur again. Mr. Brook expects a fair return, and no more than a fair return, for the capital he has sunk in the mine. When times are good you will share his prosperity, when times are bad you, like he, must submit to sacrifices. If disputes arise elsewhere, they need not affect us here, for you may be sure that your wages will never be below those paid elsewhere. And now I have said my say. Let us conclude by trusting that we shall be as warm friends as ever although our relations towards each other are necessarily changed." Three rousing cheers greeted the conclusion of Jack's speech, after which he drove off with Mr. Brook. As the men gathered round the top of the shaft, an old miner exclaimed: "Dang it all, I ha' it now. I was wondering all the time he was speaking where I had heard his voice before. I know now. As sure as I'm a living man it was Jack Simpson as beat us back from that there engine-house when we were going to stop the pumps in the strike." Now that the clue was given a dozen others of those who had been present agreed with the speaker. The event was now an old one, and all bitterness had passed. Had it been known at the time, or within a few months afterwards, Jack's life would probably have paid the penalty, but now the predominant feeling was one of admiration. Those who had, during the last few weeks, wearily watched the pumping out of the Vaughan, felt how fatal would have been the delay had it occurred when the strike ended and they were penniless and without resources, and no feeling of ill-will remained. "He be a game 'un; to think o' that boy standing alone agin' us a', and not a soul as much as suspected it! Did'st know o't, Bill Haden?" "Noa," Bill said, "never so much as dream't o't, but now I thinks it over, it be loikely enoo'. I often thought what wonderful luck it were as he gave me that 'ere bottle o' old Tom, and made me as drunk as a loord joost at th' roight time, and I ha' thought it were curious too, seeing as never before or since has he giv'd me a bottle o' liquor, but now it all comes natural enough. Well, to be sure, and to think that lad should ha' done all that by hisself, and ne'er a soul the wiser! You may be sure the gaffer didn't know no more than we, or he'd a done summat for the lad at the time. He offered rewards, too, for the finding out who 't were as had done it, and to think 'twas my Jack! Well, well, he be a good plucked un too, they didn't ca' him Bull-dog for nowt, for it would ha' gone hard wi' him had 't been found out. I'm main proud o' that lad." And so the discovery that Jack had so wished to avoid, when it was at last made, added much to the respect with which he was held in the Vaughan pit. If when a boy he would dare to carry out such a scheme as this, it was clear that as a man he was not to be trifled with. The reputation which he had gained by his courage in descending into the mine, in his battle with Tom Walker, and by the clear-headedness and quickness of decision which had saved the lives of the survivors of the explosion, was immensely increased; and any who had before felt sore at the thought of so young a hand being placed above them in command of the pit, felt that in all that constitutes a man, in energy, courage, and ability, Jack Simpson was worthy the post of manager of the Vaughan mine. Bill Haden was astonished upon his return home that night to find that his wife had all along known that it was Jack who had defended the Vaughan, and was inclined to feel greatly aggrieved at having been kept in the dark. "Did ye think as I wasn't to be trusted not to split on my own lad?" he exclaimed indignantly. "We knew well enough that thou mightest be trusted when thou wer't sober, Bill," his wife said gently; "but as about four nights a week at that time thou wast drunk, and might ha' blabbed it out, and had known nowt in the morning o' what thou'dst said, Jack and I were of a mind that less said soonest mended." "May be you were right," Bill Haden said after a pause; "a man has got a loose tongue when he's in drink, and I should never ha' forgiven myself had I harmed t' lad." CHAPTER XXX. RISEN. It was not until the pit was cleared of water and about to go to work again, that the question of Bill Haden and his wife removing from their cottage came forward for decision. Jack had been staying with Mr. Brook, who had ordered that the house in which the late manager had lived should be put in good order and furnished from top to bottom, and had arranged for his widow and children to remove at once to friends living at a distance. Feeling as he did that he owed his life to the young man, he was eager to do everything in his power to promote his comfort and prosperity, and as he was, apart from the colliery, a wealthy man and a bachelor, he did not care to what expense he went. The house, "the great house on the hill," as Jack had described it when speaking to his artist friend Pastor years before, was a far larger and more important building than the houses of managers of mines in general. It had, indeed, been originally the residence of a family owning a good deal of land in the neighbourhood, but they, when coal was discovered and work began, sold this property and went to live in London, and as none cared to take a house so close to the coal-pits and village of Stokebridge, it was sold for a nominal sum to the owner of the Vaughan, and was by him used as a residence for his manager. Now, with the garden nicely laid out, redecorated and repaired outside and in, and handsomely furnished, it resumed its former appearance of a gentleman's country seat. Mr. Brook begged Jack as a favour not to go near the house until the place was put in order, and although the young man heard that a Birmingham contractor had taken it in hand, and that a large number of men were at work there, he had no idea of the extensive changes which were taking place. A few days before work began again at the Vaughan Jack went down as usual to the Hadens', for he had looked in every day to say a few words to them on his way back from the pit-mouth. "Now, dad," he said, "we must not put the matter off any longer. I am to go into the manager's house in a fortnight's time. I hear they have been painting and cleaning it up, and Mr. Brook tells me he has put new furniture in, and that I shall only have to go in and hang up my hat. Now I want for you to arrange to come up on the same day." "We ha' been talking the matter over in every mortal way, the old woman and me, Jack, and I'll tell 'ee what we've aboot concluded. On one side thou really wan't t' have us oop wi' 'ee." "Yes, indeed, dad," Jack said earnestly. "I know thou dost, lad; me and Jane both feels that. Well that's an argiment that way. Then there's the argiment that naturally thou would'st not like the man who hast brought thee oop to be working in the pit o' which thou wast manager. That's two reasons that way; on the other side there be two, and the old 'ooman and me think they are stronger than t'others. First, we should be out o' place at the house oop there. Thou wilt be getting to know all kinds o' people, and whatever thou may'st say, Jack, your mother and me would be oot o' place. That's one argiment. The next argiment is that we shouldn't like it, Jack, we should feel we were out o' place and that our ways were out o' place; and we should be joost miserable. Instead o' doing us a kindness you'd joost make our lives a burden, and I know 'ee don't want to do that. We's getting on in loife and be too old to change our ways, and nothing thou could'st say could persuade us to live a'ways dressed up in our Sunday clothes in your house." "Well, dad, I might put you both in a comfortable cottage, without work to do." "What should I do wi'out my work, Jack? noa, lad, I must work as long as I can, or I should die o' pure idleness. But I needn't work at a stall. I'm fifty now, and although I ha' got another fifteen years' work in me, I hope, my bones bean't as liss as they was. Thou might give me the job as underground viewer. I can put in a prop or see to the firing o' a shot wi' any man. Oi've told my mates you want to have me and the old woman oop at th' house, and they'll know that if I stop underground it be o' my own choice. I know, lad, it wouldn't be roight for me to be a getting droonk at the "Chequers" and thou manager; but I ha' told t' old 'ooman that I will swear off liquor altogether." "No, no, dad!" Jack said, affected at this proof of Bill Haden's desire to do what he could towards maintaining his dignity. "I wouldn't think o't. If you and mother feel that you'd be more happy and comfortable here--and maybe you are right, I didn't think over the matter from thy side as well as my own, as I ought to have done--of course you shall stay here; and, of course, you shall have a berth as under-viewer. As for swearing off drink altogether, I wouldn't ask it of you, though I do wish you could resolve never to drink too much again. You ha' been used to go to the "Chequers" every night for nigh forty years, and you couldn't give it up now. You would pine away without somewhere to go to. However, this must be understood, whenever you like to come up to me I shall be glad to see you, and I shall expect you on Sundays to dinner if on no other day; and whenever the time shall come when you feel, dad, that you'd rather give up work, there will be a cottage for you and mother somewhere handy to me, and enough to live comfortably and free from care." "That's a bargain, lad, and I'm roight glad it be off my mind, for I ha' been bothering over't ever since thee spoke to me last." The same evening Jack had a long talk with Harry. His friend, although healthy, was by no means physically strong, and found the work of a miner almost beyond him. He had never taken to the life as Jack had done, and his friend knew that for the last year or two he had been turning his thoughts in other directions, and that of all things he would like to be a schoolmaster. He had for years read and studied a good deal, and Mr. Dodgson said that with a year in a training college he would be able to pass. He had often talked the matter over with Jack, and the latter told him now that he had entered his name in St. Mark's College, Chelsea, had paid his fees six months in advance, his savings amply sufficing for this without drawing upon his salary, and that he was to present himself there in a week's time. The announcement took away Harry's breath, but as soon as he recovered himself he accepted Jack's offer as frankly as it was made. It had always been natural for Jack to lend him a hand, and it seemed to him, as to Jack, natural that it should be so now. "Have you told Nelly?" "No, I left it for you to tell, Harry. I know, of course, one reason why you want to be a schoolmaster, and she will know it too. She is a strange girl, is Nelly; I never did quite understand her, and I never shall; why on earth she should refuse you I can't make out. She's had lots o' other offers these last four years, but it's all the same. There's no one she cares for, why shouldn't she take you?" "I can wait," Harry said quietly, "there's plenty of time; perhaps some day I shall win her, and I think--yes, I think now--that I shall." "Well," Jack said cheerfully, "as you say there's plenty of time; I've always said thirty was the right age to marry, and you want eight years of that, and Nelly won't get old faster than you do, so if she don't fall in love with any one else it must come right; she has stood out for nearly four years, and though I don't pretend to know anything of women, I should think no woman could go on saying no for twelve years." Harry, although not given to loud mirth, laughed heartily at Jack's views over love-making, and the two then walked across to Nelly Hardy's cottage. Jack told her what Bill Haden and his wife had decided, and she approved their determination. Then Harry said what Jack had arranged for him. Nelly shook her head as if in answer to her own thoughts while Harry was speaking, but when he ceased she congratulated him warmly. "You were never fit for pit-work, Harry, and a schoolmaster's life will suit you well. It is curious that Jack's two friends should both have taken to the same life." Jack's surprise was unbounded when, a month after the reopening of the Vaughan, Mr. Brook took him over to his new abode. His bewilderment at the size and completeness of the house and its fittings was even greater than his pleasure. "But what am I to do alone in this great place, Mr. Brook?" he asked; "I shall be lost here. I am indeed deeply grateful to you, but it is much too big for me altogether." "It is no bigger now than it has always been," Mr. Brook said, "and you will never be lost as long as you have your study there," and he pointed to a room snugly fitted up as a library and study. "You will be no more lonely than I or other men without wives and families; besides you know these may come some day." "Ah! but that will be many years on," Jack said; "I always made up my mind not to marry till I was thirty, because a wife prevents you making your way." "Yes; but now that you have made your way so far, Jack, a wife will aid rather than hinder you. But it will be time to think of that in another three or four years. You will not find it so dull as you imagine, Jack. There is your work, which will occupy the greater part of your day. There is your study for the evening. You will speedily know all the people worth knowing round here; I have already introduced you to a good many, and they will be sure to call as soon as you are settled here. In the stable, my dear boy, you will find a couple of horses, and a saddle, and a dog-cart, so that you will be able to take exercise and call about. I shall keep the horses. I consider them necessary for my manager. My men will keep the garden in order, and I think that you will find that your salary of £350 a year to begin with ample for your other expenses." Jack was completely overpowered by the kindness of his employer, but the latter would not hear of thanks. "Why, man, I owe you my life," he said; "what are these little things in comparison?" Jack found fewer difficulties than he had anticipated in his new position. His speech at the opening of the mine added to the favour with which he was held for his conduct at the time of the explosion, and further heightened the respect due to him for his defence of the Vaughan. As he went through the mine he had ever a cheery "Good morning, Bob," "Good morning, Jack," for his old comrades, and the word "sir" was now universally added to the answered "Good morning," a concession not always made by colliers to their employers. The miners soon felt the advantages of the new manager's energy, backed as he was in every respect by the owner. The work as laid down by the government inspector was carried out, and Mr. Brook having bought up for a small sum the disused Logan mine, in which several of the lower seams of coal were still unworked, the opening between the pits was made permanent, and the Logan shaft became the upcast to the Vaughan, thus greatly simplifying the work of ventilation, lessening the danger of explosion, and giving a means of escape for the miners should such a catastrophe recur in spite of all precautions. As nearly half the old workers at the pit had perished in the explosion, an equal number of new hands had to be taken on. Jack, sharing the anxiety of the vicar and Mr. Dodgson, that all the good work should not be checked by the ingress of a fresh population, directed that all vacancies should be filled up by such colliers of good character as resided at Stokebridge, working for other pits in the neighbourhood. As the Vaughan promised to be the most comfortable and well-worked pit in the country, these were only too glad to change service, and more names were given in than vacancies could be found for. As all the inhabitants of Stokebridge had participated in the benefits of the night schools and classes, and in the improvements which had taken place, the advance of the village suffered no serious check from the catastrophe at the Vaughan. CHAPTER XXXI. CONCLUSION. Three years more of progress and Stokebridge had become the model village of the Black Country. The chief employer of labour, his manager, the vicar, and schoolmaster all worked together for this end. The library had been a great success, and it was rare, indeed, for a drunken man to be seen in the streets even of a Saturday night. Many of the public-houses had closed their doors altogether; and in addition to the library a large and comfortable club-house had been built. The men of an evening could smoke their pipes, play at bagatelle, chess, draughts, or cards, and take such beer as they required, any man getting drunk or even noisy to be expelled the club. This, however, was a rule never requiring to be called into force. The building was conducted on the principle of a regimental canteen. The beer was good and cheap but not strong, no spirits were sold, but excellent tea, coffee, and chocolate could be had at the lowest prices. The building was closed during the day, but beer was sent out both for dinners and suppers to those who required it. There was a comfortable room where women could sew, knit, and talk as they pleased, or they could, if they liked, sit in the general room with their husbands. Entertainments and lectures were of frequent occurrence, and the establishment, supplemented by the library and wash-house, did wonders for Stokebridge. The promise made by Mr. Brook at the fête had been carried out. A choir-master came over twice a week from Birmingham, and the young people entered into the scheme with such zest that the choir had carried away the prize three years in succession at Birmingham. The night-school was now carried on on a larger scale than ever, and the school for cooking and sewing was so well attended that Mrs. Dodgson had now a second assistant. To encourage the children and young people an annual show was held at which many prizes were given for gardening, needlework, dressmaking, carpentering, and a variety of other subjects. It was seldom, indeed, that an untidy dress was to be seen, still more uncommon that a foul word was heard in the streets of Stokebridge. Nothing could make the rows of cottages picturesque as are those of a rural village; but from tubs, placed in front, creepers and roses climbed over the houses, while the gardens behind were gay with flowers. No young woman needed to remain single in Stokebridge longer than she chose, for so noteworthy were they for their housewifely qualities that the young pitmen of the villages round thought themselves fortunate indeed if they could get a wife from Stokebridge. Bill Cummings, Fred Wood, and several others of Jack's boy friends, were viewers or under-managers of the Vaughan, and many had left to take similar situations elsewhere. Jack Simpson was popular with all classes. With the upper class his simple straightforwardness, his cheerfulness and good temper, made him a great favourite, although they found it hard to understand how so quiet and unassuming a young fellow could be the hero of the two rescues at the Vaughan, for, now when the fact was known, Jack no longer made a secret of his share in the attack by the rioters on the engine-house. Among the pitmen his popularity was unbounded. Of an evening he would sometimes come down to the club-room and chat as unrestrainedly and intimately as of old with the friends of his boyhood, and he never lost an opportunity of pushing their fortunes. Once a week he spent the evening with Bill Haden and his wife, who always came up and passed Sunday with him when he was at home. At this time all ceremony was dispensed with, the servants were sent out of the room, and when the pitman and his wife became accustomed to their surroundings they were far more at their ease than they had at first thought possible. On the evenings when he went down to his mother he always dropped in for an hour's talk with his friend Nelly. There was no shadow of change in their relations. Nelly was his friend firm and fast, to whom he told all his thoughts and plans. Harry was assistant master in a school at Birmingham, and was, as he told Jack, still waiting patiently. Jack was now often over at Birmingham, and one night he said to Nelly: "Nelly, I promised you long ago that I would tell you if I ever fell in love." "And you have come to tell me now?" she asked quietly. "Yes," he said, "if it can be called falling in love; for it has been so gradual that I don't know how it began. Perhaps three years ago, when she refused another man. I was glad of it, and of course asked myself why I was glad. There came no answer but one--I wanted her myself." "I suppose it is Alice Merton?" Nelly said as quietly as before. "Of course," Jack said; "it could be no one else. I suppose I like her because she is the reverse of myself. She is gentle but lively and full of fun, she is made to be the light of a hard working man's home. I am not at all gentle, and I have very little idea of fun. Alice is made to lean on some one. I suppose I am meant to be leant upon. I suppose it is always the case that opposite natures are attracted towards one another, the one forms the complement of the other." Nelly sat thinking. This then was the reason why she had never attracted Jack. Both their natures were strong and firm. Both had full control over themselves, although both of a passionate nature; both had the capability of making great sacrifices, even of life if necessary; both had ambition and a steady power of work. No wonder Jack had thought of her as a comrade rather than as a possible wife; while Harry, gentler and easily led, patient rather than firm, leaned upon her strong nature. "I think, dear Jack," she said, "that Miss Merton is the very woman to make you happy. You have known each other for twelve years, and can make no mistake. I need not say how truly and sincerely I wish you every happiness." There was a quiver in her voice as she spoke, but her face was as firm and steadfast as ever; and Jack Simpson, as he walked homewards, did not dream that Nelly Hardy was weeping as if her heart would break, over this final downfall of her life's dream. It was not that she had for the last seven years ever thought that Jack would ask her to be his wife, but she would have been content to go on to the end of her life as his first and dearest friend. Then she said at last, "That's done with. Jack and I will always be great friends, but not as we have been. Perhaps it is as well. Better now than ten years on." Then her thoughts went to Harry, to whom, indeed, during the last few years they had gone oftener than she would have admitted to herself. "He is very faithful and kind and good, and I suppose one of these days I shall have to give in. He will not expect much, but he deserves all I could give him." In after years, however, Nelly Shepherd learned that she could give her husband very true and earnest love; and the headmaster and mistress of the largest school at Wolverhampton are regarded by all who know them, and by none less than by Jack Simpson and his wife, as a perfectly happy couple. It is ten years since Jack married Alice Merton, who had loved him for years before he asked her to be his wife. Jack is now part proprietor of the Vaughan pit, and is still its real manager, although he has a nominal manager under him. He cannot, however, be always on the spot, as he lives near Birmingham, and is one of the greatest authorities on mining, and the first consulting engineer, in the Black Country. At Mr. Brook's death he will be sole proprietor of the Vaughan, that gentleman having at Jack's marriage settled its reversion upon his wife. Dinner is over, and he is sitting in the garden, surrounded by those he most cares for in the world. It is the 1st of June, a day upon which a small party always assembles at his house. By his side is his wife, and next to her are Harry Shepherd and Nelly. Between the ladies a warm friendship has sprung up of late years, while that between the three friends has never diminished in the slightest. On Jack's other hand sits an artist, bearing one of the most honoured names in England, whose health Jack always proposes at this dinner as "the founder of his fortune." Next to the artist sits Mr. Brook, and beyond him Mrs. Simpson's father, a permanent resident in the house now, but some years back a professor of mathematics in Birmingham. Playing in the garden are six children, two of whom call the young Simpsons cousins, although there is no blood relationship between them; and walking with them are an old couple, who live in the pretty cottage just opposite to the entrance of the grounds, and whom Jack Simpson still affectionately calls "dad" and "mother." THE END. Transcriber's Note Punctuation has been standardized. Inconsistent hyphenation has not been changed. This book includes a lot of dialect, which often looks misspelled but was intentionally written that way. Therefore, some irregularities that might be errors have not been corrected in order to preserve author intent. On page 83, the name Ratcliffe was misspelled in the original text. This has been corrected. In the paragraph beginning "There was a movement in the crowd," the next sentence in the original text is, '"The soldiers be coming" run from mouth to mouth.' As this is likely an error in the text, "run" has been changed to "ran." In the formula given by Jack, the original text has an extraneous 1. This seems to be an error by the author and has been removed. Italics in the original text are indicated by _ in the text version, with one exception: the above-mentioned formula was originally in italics, but the _ characters have been removed for clarity. 
15503	----	THE UNDERWORLD The Story of Robert Sinclair, Miner by JAMES C. WELSH New York Frederick A. Stokes Company Publishers 1920 PREFACE I have tried to write of the life I know, the life I have lived, and of the lives of the people whom, above all others, I love, and of whom I am so proud. My people have been miners for generations, and I myself became a miner at the age of twelve. I have worked since then in the mine at every phase of coal getting until about five years ago, when my fellow workers made me their checkweigher. I say this that those who read my book may know that the things of which I write are the things of which I have firsthand knowledge. JAMES C. WELSH. DOUGLAS WATER, LANARK. CONTENTS CHAPTER I. THE THONG OF POVERTY II. A TURN OF THE SCREW III. THE BLOCK IV. A YOUNG REBEL V. BLACK JOCK'S THREAT VI. THE COMING OF A PROPHET VII. ON THE PIT-HEAD VIII. THE MANTLE OF MANHOOD IX. THE ACCIDENT X. HEROES OF THE UNDERWORLD XI. THE STRIKE XII. THE RIVALS XIII. THE RED HOSE RACE XIV. THE AWAKENING XV. PETER MAKES A DECISION XVI. A STIR IN LOWWOOD XVII. MYSIE RUNS AWAY XVIII. MAG ROBERTSON'S FRENZY XIX. BLACK JOCK'S END XX. THE CONFERENCE XXI. THE MEETING WITH MYSIE XXII. MYSIE'S RETURN XXIII. HOME XXIV. A CALL FOR HELP XXV. A FIGHT WITH DEATH CHAPTER I THE THONG OF POVERTY "Is it not about time you came to your bed, lassie?" "Ay, I'll no' be very long now, Geordie. If I had this heel turned, I'll soon finish the sock, and that will be a pair the day. Is the pain in your back worse the nicht, that you are so restless?" and the clicking of the needles ceased as the woman asked the question. "Oh, I'm no' so bad at all," came the answer. "My back's maybe a wee bit sore; but a body gets tired lying always in the yin position. Forby, the day aye seems long when you are out, and I dinna like to think of you out working all day, and then sitting down to knit at nicht. It must be very tiring for you, Nellie." "Oh, I'm no' that tired," she replied with a show of cheerfulness, as she turned another wire in the sock, and set the balls of wool dancing on the floor with the speed at which she worked. "I've had a real good day to-day, and I'm feeling that I could just sit for a lang while the nicht, if only the paraffin oil wadna' go down so quick. But the longer I sit, it burns the more, and it's getting gey dear to buy now-a-days." "Ay," said the weary voice of the man. "If it's no' clegs it's midges. Folk have always something to contend against. But don't be long till you stop. It's almost twelve o'clock, and you ought to be in your bed." "Oh, I'll no' be very long, Geordie," was the bravely cheerful answer. "Just you try and gang to sleep and I'll soon finish up. I'll have to try and get up early in the morning, for I have to go to Mrs. Rundell and wash. She always gi'es me twa shillings, and that's a good day's pay. The only thing I grudge is being away all day, leaving you and the bairns, for I ken they're no' very easy to put up with. They're steerin' weans, and are no' easy on a body who is ill." "Ay, they're a steerin' lot, lassie," he answered tenderly. "But, poor things, they must hae some freedom, Nellie. I wish I was ready for my work." "Hoot, man," she said with the same show of cheerfulness. "We might have been worse, and you will be better some day, and able to work as well as ever you did." For a time there was silence, broken only by the loud ticking of the clock, the clicking of the needles, and occasionally a low moan from the bed, as the injured miner sank into a restless sleep. There had been an accident some six weeks before, and Geordie Sinclair, badly wounded by a fall of stone, had been brought home from the pit in a cart. It was during the time known to old miners as the "two-and-sixpenny winter," that being the sum of the daily wage then earned by the miners. A financial crisis had come upon the country and the Glasgow City Bank had failed, trade was dull, and the whole industrial system was in chaos. It had been a hard time for Geordie Sinclair's wife, for there were four children to provide for besides her injured husband. Work which was well paid for was not over plentiful, and she had to toil from early morning till far into the night to earn the bare necessities of life. There were times like to-night, when she felt rebellious and bitter at her plight, but her tired eyes and fingers had to get to the end of the task, for that meant bread for the children in the morning. The silence deepened in the little kitchen. No sound came now from the bed, and the lamp threw eerie shadows on the walls, and the chimney smoked incessantly. Her eyes grew watery and smarted with the smoke. She dropped stitches occasionally, as she hurried with her work, which had to be lifted again when she discovered that the pattern was wrong, and sometimes quite a considerable part had to be "ripped out," so that she could correct the mistake. The dismal calling of a cat outside irritated her, and the loud complacent ticking of the clock seemed to mock her misery; but still she worked on, the busy fingers turning the needles, as the wool unwound itself from the balls which danced upon the floor. There was life in those balls of wool as they spun to the tune of the woman's misery. They advanced and retired, like dancers, touching hands when they met, then whirling away in opposite directions again; they side-stepped and wheeled in a mad riot of joyous color, just as they were about to meet: they stood for a little facing each other, feinting from side to side, then were off again, as the music of her misery quickened, in an embracing whirl, as if married in an ecstasy of colored flame, many-shaded, yet one; then, at last, just as the tune seemed to have reached a crescendo of spirit, she dashed her work upon the floor, as she discovered another blunder, and burst into a fit of passionate weeping. Suddenly there was a faint tap at the window, and she raised her head, staying her breath to listen. Soon she heard it again, just a faint but very deliberate tap, which convinced her that someone was outside in the darkness. Softly she stole on tiptoe across the room, so as not to disturb her sleeping husband, and opening the door quietly, craned forward and peered into the darkness to discover the cause of the tap. "It's just me," said a deep voice, in uneasy accents, from the darkness by the window, and she saw then the form of a man edging nearer the door. "And who are you?" she asked a little nervously, but trying to master the alarm in her voice. "Do you not ken me?" replied the voice with an attempt to speak as naturally as possible; yet there was something in the tone that made her more uneasy. Then the figure of the man drew nearer, and he whispered "Are they all sleeping?" alluding to the inmates of the house. "Ay," she answered, drawing back into the shelter of the doorway. "Why do you ask? And what is it you want?" "Oh, I just came along to see how you were all getting on," was the reply. "I ken you must be in very straitened circumstances by this time, and thought I might be able to help you a bit," and there was an ingratiating tone in the words now as he sidled nearer. "You must have a very hard battle just now, and I would like to do something to help you." "Come away in," said the woman, with still an uneasy tremor in her voice, yet feeling more assured. "Geordie is sleeping, but he'll not be hard to waken up. Come away in, and let us see who you are, and tell us what you really want." "No, I'm no' coming in," he whispered hoarsely. "Do you no' ken me? Shut the door and not let any of them hear. I'm wanting you!" and he stepped into the light and reached forward his hand, as if to draw her to him. Mrs. Sinclair gasped and recoiled in horror, as she recognized who it was that stood before her. "No," she cried decisively, stepping further back into the shelter of the house, her voice low and intense with indignation. "No, I have not come to that yet, thank God. Gang home, you dirty brute, that you are! I'll be very ill off when I ask anything, or take anything, from you, Jock Walker!" For it was well known in Lowwood that Jock Walker's errands to people in distress had always in them an ulterior motive. He was the under manager at the pits, and his reputation was of the blackest. There were men in the village of Lowwood who were well aware of this man's relations with their wives, and they openly agreed to the sale of the honor of their women folk in return for what he gave them in the shape of contracts, at which they could make more money than their neighbors, or good "places," where the coal was easier won. In fact, to be a contractor was a synonym for this sort of dealing, for no one ever got a contract from Walker unless his wife, or his daughter, was a woman of easy virtue, and at the service of this man. "Very well," replied Walker with chagrined anger. "Please yourself. But let me tell you that you'll maybe no' ay be so high and mighty; you'll maybe be dam'd glad yet of the chance that I have given you." "No, no," protested Mrs. Sinclair. "Go away--" "Look here, Nellie," he said, his voice changing to a low pleading tone, "you're in a hole. You must be. Be a sensible woman, and you'll never need to be so ill-grippet again. I can put Geordie in a position that he'll make any amount of money as soon as he is able to start. You are not a bit better than anyone else, and for the sake of your bairns you should be sensible. And forby," he went on, as if now more sure of his ground, "what the hell's wrang in it? It's no' what folk do that is wrong. It's in being found out. Now come away and be sensible. You ken what is wanted, and you ken that I can make you well off for it." "No, by heavens," she cried, now tingling with anger at the insult. "Never! Get out of this, you brute! If Geordie Sinclair had been able this nicht, I'd have got him to deal with you. Get out of here, or I'll cleave your rotten body, and let out your rotten heart." And she turned in, and closed and bolted the door, leaving Walker fuming with anger at the repulse of his advances. Nellie Sinclair had never felt so outraged in all her life before. She was trembling with anger at the insult of his proposals. She paced the floor in her stockinged feet, as if a wild spirit were raging within her demanding release; then finally she flung herself into the "big chair," disgust and anger in her heart, and for the second time that night burst into a passionate fit of weeping, which seemed to shake her body almost asunder. For a long time she sat thus, sobbing, her whole being burning with indignation, and her mind in a fury of disgust and rebellion. Then there was a faint stirring in the bed where the children slept, and a little boy's form began to crawl from amongst the rough bedclothes, his eyes gazing in amazement at the bowed figure of his mother. She was crying, he concluded, for her shoulders were heaving and it must be something very bad that made his beautiful mother cry like this. He crept across the bare wooden floor, his bare sturdy legs showing beneath the short and meager shirt, and was soon at her side. "What's wrang wi' you, mother?" he asked, as he put his soft little hand upon her head. "What's wrang wi' you? Will I kiss you held and make it better?" But his mother did not look up--only the big sobs continued to shake her, and the boy becoming alarmed at this, also began to cry, as he placed his little head against hers. "Oh, mother, dinna greet," he sobbed, "and I'll kiss your heid till it's better." At last she lifted her head, and seeing the naked boy, she caught him in her arms and crushed him to her breast, as if she would smother him. This was strange conduct for his usually undemonstrative mother; but it was nice to be hugged like that, even though she did cry. "What made you greet, mother?" he queried, for he had never before, in all his four years, seen his mother cry. For answer she merely caught him closer to her breast, her hair falling soft and warm all over him as she did so. "Was you hungry, mither?" he tried again. "No' very," she answered, choking back her sobs. "Are you often hungry, too, mither?" he persisted, feeling encouraged at getting an answer at last. "Sometimes," she replied. "But dinna bother me, Rob," she continued. "Gang away to your bed like a man." He was silent for a time at this repulse, and lay upon her knee puzzling over the matter. "Do you greet when you are hungry?" he enquired, with: wide-eyed earnestness and surprise. "There noo," she answered, "don't ask so many questions, Daddy'll not be long till he is better again, and when he is at work there'll be plenty of pieces to keep us all from being hungry." "And will there be jeely for the pieces?" pursued the boy, for it seemed to him that there had never been a time when there was plenty to eat. "Yes, we'll get plenty o' jeely too," she replied, drying the remaining tears from her eyes, and hugging him again to her breast. "Oh, my," he said, with a deep sigh. "I wish my father was better!" and the little lips were moistened by his tongue, as if in anticipation of the coming feast. Another silence; and then came the query--"What way do we not get plenty o' pieces when my daddy's no' working? Does folk no' get them then?" "No, Robin," she answered, "but dinna fash your wee noddle with that. You'll find out all about it when you get big. Shut your eyes and mother'll sing, an' you'll go to sleep." And he snuggled in and shut his eyes, while Mrs. Sinclair gathered him softly to her breast and began to croon an old ballad. As she sang it seemed to the boy that there were no such things as "jelly-pieces" to bother about. He liked his mother to sing to him, for he seemed to get rolled up in her soft, warm voice, and become restful and happy. Gradually the low crooning song grew fainter in his ears, the flicker of the fire danced further and further away, until long streaks of golden thready light seemed to reach out, straight from his eyes to the fireplace, and all the comfort that it was possible to have flowed through his soul, and at last he slept. Mrs. Sinclair placed him beside his brothers and sisters in the bed and went back to finish her knitting. The night was far gone before she accomplished her task, and she stood and surveyed her humble home with weariness in her heart. Through the dim smoke which hung like a blue cloud along the roof, and made more seemingly thick by the small lamp upon the table, she looked at her husband lying asleep, and so far free from pain. Then her eyes traveled to the children in the other bed, and they filled with tears as she thought that she had had to put them supperless to bed that night, and again rebellion surged through her blood as she thought of all the misery of her life. Was it worth living and going on in this way? Was it worth while to continue? What had she done to reap all this suffering? She was hungry and weak and exhausted. Perhaps if she could sleep she would forget it, and in the morning the socks she had finished would bring her a few pence, and that would mean food. She decided to go to bed, and in passing by the shelf at the window, her eye caught sight of a plateful of potato skins, the remains of the meager dinner of boiled potatoes which the children had had; and clutching them, she began greedily to devour them, filling her mouth and cramming them in in handfuls, until it seemed as if she would choke herself. Then, licking the plate clean of every crumb, she undressed and slipped quietly into bed, to lie and fret and toss, as she thought of the insult which Black Jock had offered her, and pondered over the unhappy lot of her children and their injured father. CHAPTER II A TURN OF THE SCREW On the Friday following Jock Walker's visit to Mrs. Sinclair, a notice was put up at the pit by Peter Pegg and Andrew Marshall, to the effect that a collection would be taken next day on behalf of Geordie Sinclair. The notice was posted up before Andrew and Peter descended the pit for the day. "Black Jock," as Walker was called by the miners, saw the notice before it had been ten minutes posted, and deliberately tore it down. He then visited Peter Pegg and Andrew Marshall at the coal face. "I suppose you an' Andrew are goin' to gather for Geordie Sinclair the morn?" he said, addressing Peter. "Ay," Peter answered, "we were thinkin' it was aboot time somethin' was done. There's four bairns an' their two selves, an' though times are no' very guid for ony of us now, it maun be a lot worse for them. Geordie has been a guid while off." "Do ye think, Peter, they are in such need?" asked Walker, with a hint in his voice that was meant to convey he knew better. "Lord, they canna be aught else!" decisively returned Peter. "How can they be? I ken for mysel'," he went on, "that if it was me, I wad hae been in starvation lang syne." "Weel, wad ye believe me when I tell ye--an' it's a fact--they're about the best-off family in this place, if ye only kent it." "What!" cried Peter in surprise, "the best-off family in the place! Lord, I canna take that in!" "Maybe no'," said Walker, "but I ken, an' ye're no' the first that's been taken in by Nellie Sinclair. If ye notice, she never tells any thin' to anybody; but she lets ye carry the notion in your mind that she's in great straits. She's a cute one, Nellie." "Weel, Nellie does keep hersel' to hersel'," admitted Peter. "She's no' given to clashin' and claverin' about the doors like some o' the rest o' the women; but I canna' for the life o' me see where she can be onythin' but ill aff at this time." "Weel, I ken when folk are bein' imposed on," said Walker, in a knowing tone, "an' I tore down your notice this mornin'. I didna want to see you mak' a fool o' yersels. I ha'e been considerin' for a while," he went on, speaking quickly, "about puttin' a stop to this collectin' business at the office on pay Saturdays, for it just encourages some men to lie off work when there's no' very muckle wrong wi' them; after they get the collection they soon start work again. Ye had better no' stand the morn, for I might as well begin at once and put a stop to it." Up till now Andrew Marshall had not spoken; he was a silent man, given more to thought than speech, but this was a way of doing things he did not like. "But ye might let us tak' the collection first, and then put up a notice yersel sayin' that a' collections have to be stopped. It wad be best to gi'e the men notice." "No," said Walker, "there's to be nae mair collections taken. I might as well stop it this time as wait. So ye'll no' stand the morn." "Will I no'?" returned Andrew challengingly. "How the hell do ye ken whether I will or no'?" "I ken ye'll no'," replied Walker, with quiet menacing tones; "the ground at the office belongs to the company, and is private. So ye can do it if ye like, but ye'll be weel advised no' to bother." "I don't gi'e a damn," cried Andrew explosively, "whether the ground is private or no'. I'll take that 'gathering' for Geordie Sinclair the morn, though ye ha'e a regiment o' sodgers at the office." "Very well," said Walker, as he departed, "if ye do, ye can look out." Peter took his pipe out of his mouth and spat savagely on the ground; he then replaced it with great deliberation and looked gloomily at the stoop-side. He was a man about thirty-five, tall, bony and angular; his neck was long and thin, and his head seemed always on the point of turning to allow him to look over his shoulder. His right eye was half closed, while his left eye looked big and saucer-like, and never seemed to wink; one eye was ready to laugh and the other to "greet," as his comrades described it. He had been badly disfigured in a burning accident in the pit when he was a young man, and a broken nose added still more to the strangeness of his appearance. Andrew, on the other hand, was stout and broadly built, with a bushy whisker on each cheek, and a clump of tufty hair on his head. "What do ye mak' o' that, Andrew?" enquired Peter, after a few minutes, as he again spat savagely at the stoop-side. "What do I mak' o't?" echoed Andrew, as he glowered across the little bing of dross at his mate, "it's just in keepin' wi' the rest o' his dirty doin's, the dirty black brute that he is!" "I wonder what's wrong wi' him?" mused Peter as he sucked quietly at his snoring pipe. But there was no answer from Andrew, who was sitting silent and glum, gazing at his little lamp. "What are ye goin' to do about it, then?" broke in Peter again. "Just what I said," returned Andrew with quiet firmness. "I'll take that collection the morn, some way or another, if I should be damned for it. Does he mean to say that we can let folk starve?" He lifted his pick and began to hew the coal with an energy that told of the passion raging within him. "Does he mean to think I'm goin' to see decent folk starve afore my e'en?" he asked after a while, pausing to wipe the sweat from his eyes. "No' damned likely! Things ha'e come to a fine pass when folk are compelled to look at other folk starvin' an' no' gi'e them a crust." "Do ye think there's onything in what he said about them bein' weel-aff?" asked Peter cautiously, while his big eye tried to wink. "Nellie is a wee bit inclined to be prood an' independent, ye ken, an' disna say muckle about her affairs. An forby we don't ken very muckle about her; she's an incomer to the place, and she might ha'e been weel-aff afore she married Geordie, for aught we ken." "It disna matter," replied Andrew, "I dinna care though they had thousan's. What I don't like is this 'ye'll-no'-do-this-an'-ye'll-no'-do-that' sort o' thing. What the hell right has ony gaffer wi' what a man does? It's a' one to him what I do. I'm nae slave, an' forby, I dinna believe they are weel-aff. They maun be hard up." "But he'll maybe sack ye," suggested Peter, "if ye take the collection." "Well, let him," cried Andrew, now thoroughly roused, "the bastard! I would see the greyhounds o' hell huntin' him roun' the rocks o' blazes afore I'd give in to him!" Nothing further was said of the matter until well on in the day, when it suddenly occurred to Andrew that Peter, who had a large family, might not care to incur the displeasure of Walker by taking the collection the next day. "Of course, Peter," he said, after he had thought the matter over, "if ye don't care to take the collection wi' me, I won't press ye. I'll no' think ony worse o' ye if ye don't. Ye ha'e a big family, while I ha'e only the wife to look after. Sometimes I think it's lucky we ha'e nae weans; I can flit, and ye might no' be able to rise an' run. But I mean to take the collection onyway, for I don't like a man to order me what I ha'e to do." "Oh, I wasna mindin' that, Andra," replied Peter, trying to make Andrew believe that he had not guessed the truth. "I'll take the collectin wi' ye, an' Black Jock can gang to hell if he likes." "No, Peter, ye'll do naethin' o' the kind. I'll take it mysel'." And Andrew would not move from that decision. Next day everybody was curiously expectant; it had got noised abroad that Walker had defied Andrew Marshall to take a collection at the office, and had threatened him with arrest. There were wild rumors of other penalties, and when pay-day came everybody was surprised to see Andrew draw his pay and walk home. They concluded that Andrew had thought better of it, and had been cowed into submission. When darkness began to fall, however, Andrew sauntered out and visited every home in the village, soliciting aid on behalf of Geordie Sinclair. There were few houses from which he did not get a donation, though the will to give was often greater than the means. In each house Andrew had to give in detail the interview between Black Jock and himself in the pit. "The muckle big, black, dirty brute that he is!" the good-wife would cry in indignation. "It's a pity but he could ken what starvation is himsel'. It might make him a bit mair like a human bein'." "That's true," Andrew would agree. In one or two houses he met with a blank refusal, but in these he was not disappointed, for he knew that the men would not risk Walker's disapproval by contributing. Again, some were wholly hostile. They were the "belly-crawlers," as Geordie Sinclair had once dubbed them at a meeting, those who "kept in" with the management by carrying tales, and generally acting as traitors to the other men. "No, I'll no' gi'e ye onythin'," would be the reply; "he can just be like me an' gang an' work for his bairns. Forby, look at yon stuck-up baggage o' a wife o' his. She can hardly pass the time o' day wi' ye--she thinks hersel' somethin'." "Very well," Andrew would reply, "maybe ye ha'e mair need o't for other things." And he would pass on to the next house. He had gathered between three and four pounds, contributed sometimes even in pennies, and going to Geordie's house, he knocked at the door. This was the most uncomfortable part of his work, and he stood shifting from one foot to the other, wondering what he would say when he entered. Mrs. Sinclair was busy washing the floor and cleaning up, after having been at work all day washing for someone in the village. She wiped her hands and opened the door. "How are ye a' keepin' the night?" inquired Andrew, as he stepped inside at Mrs. Sinclair's invitation, feeling more and more uncomfortable. It was a hard enough matter to go and ask others whom he knew had little to spare, but now, having got the money, he did not know how he was going to hand it over to Nellie. He ruminated for a time as to how he would break into the subject. He knew that Nellie Sinclair must have heard of the collection, and guessed his errand, for he saw that she, too, was uneasy and agitated. "How are ye a' the night?" he again enquired, to break the silence. "Oh, I'm no' so bad at a', Andra," replied Geordie. "I'm feelin' a wee bit easier the night. How's yersel'?" "No' so bad," answered Andrew, putting his hand in his pocket for his pipe. "Dash it! I'm away without my pipe," he said with a show of annoyance. "Can ye len' me yours, Geordie, to get a smoke? I ha'e my tobacco and matches. Ye see," he went on, speaking more rapidly, "I thought I would just slip round to see how ye was keepin'." Andrew knew that Geordie would not have had a smoke for a long time, and this was his way of leaving him with a pipeful of tobacco. "I think my pipe's on the mantelshelf," returned Geordie, "but I doot it's empty." Andrew took down the pipe, filled it generously, set it alight, and sat for a few minutes trying vainly to keep up a connected conversation. After he had puffed a few minutes at Geordie's pipe he laid it down, dived his hand into his trousers pocket as he made for the door. He pulled forth the money, which was in a little bag, and laid it down on the table, saying: "I'm no' guid at this kind of thing, Geordie. There's something for ye from the men. Guid nicht!" and he was off, leaving Nellie in tears and Geordie in glum silence. Mrs. Sinclair's tears were tears of rebellion as well as of gratitude. She was touched by Andrew's delicacy, but her independent spirit was wounded at having to take help from anyone. She thought of the children and of her husband, who needed nourishment, and taking up the little bag she poured its contents into her lap, while her hot tears fell upon the money. Little Robert, who was sitting watching, and who had never in all his life seen so much money, ran to his mother with a cry of delight. "Oh, mammy, will I get sweeties noo?" and the boy danced with glee, as he shouted, "I'll get jeely-pieces noo, hurray!" That night there was happiness in Geordie Sinclair's house, for there was food in plenty, and it seemed as if the children would never be able to appease their hunger. The "jeely-pieces," or slices of bread with jam on them, disappeared with amazing rapidity, and Geordie had some beef-tea, which seemed to improve him almost as soon as he had taken it. For the first time for many months Mrs. Sinclair and the children went to bed with satisfied appetites; and the children's dreams were as the incidents in the life of a god, exalted and happy, and their mother's rest was unbroken and full of comfort. But on Monday morning Andrew Marshall had to pay the price of the happiness he had been instrumental in giving them, for he was informed by one of Walker's henchmen that his place was stopped. The excuse given was that it was too far in advance of the others. Andrew knew what that meant, and as he went home, fierce rebellious feelings stirred within him. Peter Pegg, he was glad to know, had got started on "oncost" work, and Andrew felt he had done right in not allowing Peter to take the collection with him. CHAPTER III THE BLOCK "I see Andra Marshall's back again," observed Sanny Robertson to Peter Pegg one evening three months later. "Ay," said Peter, "he was at Glampy, but his place was stopped, an' there wasna anither for him." "Got the sack again, I suppose," said Sanny. "Weel, he maun learn, Peter, that gaffers are no' gaun to put up wi' his nonsense. If a man will no' do what he's telt, he maun just take the consequences." "Ay," said Peter, very dryly, and as Peter knew his man, no more was said. Later the same night Matthew Maitland observed to Peter, as they sat on their "hunkers" at the corner: "Andra's back again, I suppose." "Ay," was the answer, "he was telt his place was stopped." "Imphm," said Matthew, "it's a damn fine excuse. It's a pity but somethin' could be done." "It's the Block," said Peter. "I'm telt that a' the managers roun' aboot ha'e an understandin' with one another no' to gi'e work to onybody they take a dislike to." "Ay," agreed Matthew, "I ha'e heard aboot it, but I would soon put a stop to it." "Ay, Matthew, it's a union we need up here badly. I'm telt that that chap Smillie has managed to start one down in the West Country, an' it's daein' weel. He's got some o' their wages up a hale shillin' a day since he took it in hand." "Is that a fact, Peter? The sooner we ha'e him up here the better then. Black Jock needs a chap back onyway," and Matthew looked like a man who had suddenly discovered a great truth. Andrew Marshall had never been allowed to forget his action in defying Walker; everywhere he went it was the same story--no work for him. The "Block" system among the managers was in good working order, and could easily starve a man into docility. Andrew became more desperate as time passed, and he knew that he and his wife were nearing the end of their small savings. He returned home one evening from his usual fruitless search for employment, and threw himself into the arm-chair by the fireside. "No work yet, Andra?" asked Katie. "Nane," was the gloomy response. "We have no' very mony shillin's left noo, Andra. I dinna ken what we'll do." Savage, revengeful feelings surged through Andrew, and found vent in a volley of oaths which terrified his wife. "Dinna talk like that, Andra," she pleaded. "It's no' canny, an' forby, the Lord disna like ye to do it." "If the Lord cared He could take Black Jock by the scruff o' the neck an' fling him into hell oot o' the road. It's Black Jock that's at the bottom o' this, an' I could twist his dirty neck for him." "Weel, Andra, it's the Lord's doin', an' maybe things'll soon men'." "If it's the Lord's doin', I dinna think muckle o' His conduct then," and Andrew lapsed into sullen silence. On Monday morning he was up at five o'clock, desperately resolved to lay his case before the men. He walked to the end of the village, knowing the colliery would be idle, for Tam Donaldson was to be "creeled." This was a custom at one time very prevalent in mining villages. When a young man got married, the first day he appeared at his work afterwards he was taken home by his comrades, and was expected to stand them a drink. It generally ended in a collection being made, after they had tasted the newly-married man's whiskey, and a common fund thus being established, a large quantity of beer and whiskey was procured, and all drank to their heart's content. Andrew heard the men calling to each other as they made their way to the pit, the lights from their lamps twinkling in the darkness of the winter morning. "Is Tam away yet, Jamie?" he heard wee Allan ask, as he overtook old Jamie Lauder on his way to the pit. "Ay, I saw to that," replied Lauder, "I chappit him up at five o'clock, so that he wadna sleep in. I hinna missed a creelin' for thirty-five years, an' I wasna' gaun to miss Tam Donaldson's. I heard him goin' oot two or three minutes afore me. We're in for a guid day, for he telt me he had in two bottles for the spree." "That's a' right, then; I was afraid he wad maybe sleep in," and the two trudged on together towards the pit. A group of dark figures stood on the pithead, waiting their turn to go below. The cage rattled up from the depths of the shaft, the men stepped in, and almost immediately disappeared down into the blackness. Arrived at the bottom, they walked along towards the different passages, chaffing and jesting with Tam Donaldson, the newly-married one. "Ye'll be gaun to do something decent the day, Tam, when we take ye hame?" said Jamie Allan. "I hear ye ha'e two bottles ready for the occasion." "Ay, but I'm damned shair there's no a lick gaun unless ye take me hame," answered Donaldson. "If I ha'e to be creeled, I'll be creeled right, an' every one o' ye'll gang hame wi' me afore ye get a taste." "Oh, but we'll see to that, chaps," said old Lauder. "Here's a hutch, get him in an' aff wi' him." The victim pretended to resist, and stoutly maintained that they should not creel him. He was seized by half a dozen pairs of arms, and with much expenditure of energy and breath, deposited in the hutch. Some considerate person had put some straw and old bags in the "carriage" to make it more comfortable, and a few of the wags had chalked inscriptions, the reverse of complimentary, all over it. "There, noo', boys," said old Lauder, who had been busy hanging lighted pit lamps round Tam's cap, "gi'e him a guid run to the bottom, and see that he gets a guid bump in the lye." The men ran the hutch to the "bottom" straight against the full tubs ready to be sent to the surface. "Come on, Sourocks, let us up," called Allan to the old man who acted as "bottomer." "Hell to the up will ye get!" replied the old fellow, "I'm gaun to put on these hutches first." "No, ye'll no', an' if ye do, you'll gang into the 'sump,' an' we'll chap the bell oorsels"--the sump being the lodgment into which the water gathered before pumping operations could start. "Sourocks" thought discretion the better part of valor in this case, and swearing quietly to himself, he signaled to the engineman at the top to draw them up. "He's no gaun to walk hame," said Allan, as they all gathered again on the pit head. "We'll take the hutch hame wi' Tam in it. Put a rope on it, and we'll draw the damned thing through the moor, an' maybe Tam'll mind the day he was creeled as lang as he lives." This proposal was jumped at, especially by the younger men, to whom an idle day did not mean so much worry on pay-day as to their married elders. Andrew Marshall had waited at the end of the village, knowing that the creeling was to take place, and that he would get the men on their way from the pit. Presently old Lauder, who had taken a short cut across the moor, came up, and Andrew accosted him. "Will ye wait here, Jamie, so that I can try an' get a meetin' held wi' the rest o' the men when they come alang?" "I will that, Andra," replied Jamie, taking the lighted lamp from his head, and sitting down at the corner on his "hunkers." "They're a' comin' hame anyway, for we're creelin' Tam Donaldson." Soon the procession appeared, the hutch jolting along the rough street, the men shouting and singing as they came. The village had turned out to see the fun. Andrew and Jamie found themselves in the midst of a crowd of women and children, as the foremost of the men came to a halt at the corner. Andrew quietly stepped out and addressed the men, asking them if they would wait a few minutes--as they were idle in any case--to have a meeting. All were agreed. "Here's Sanny Robertson," said Tam Tate, peering into the breaking light, "he'll no' likely wait, but we'll see what he says aboot it," and all waited in silence until Robertson approached. He seemed to guess what was in the air, and hurriedly tried to pass on, but Andrew stepped out with the usual question. "No," he replied uneasily, "I'll ha'e no part in ony mair strife. Folk just get into bother for nothing. Men'll ha'e to keep mind that gaffers now-a-days'll no' put up wi' disobedience." "Ay, but ye maun mind," said Tam Tate hastily, "that men maun be treated as human bein's, even by a gaffer." "I can aye get on with the gaffer," replied Robertson, "an' I dinna see what way ither folk canna do the same." "That's a' richt," put in old Jamie Lauder, "but a' men are no' just prepared to do as ye do," and there was a hint of something in his voice which the others seemed to understand. "I ha'e no quarrel," sulkily replied Robertson, "an' I dinna see what way I should get into this one. I can get plenty o' work, an' ither folk can get it too, if they like to behave themselves." "Ye're a liar," roared Tam Tate angrily, his usual hasty temper getting the mastery. "It's no' you that gets the work, it's Mag!" The others laughed uproariously, for it was common knowledge that Sanny got his good jobs because of Walker's intimacy with his wife. "Ye leave the best man in the house every mornin' when ye gang oot!" roared another amid coarse laughter, whilst Andrew turned to tackle the next comer. A few refused to wait, but it was generally known that these were the men whose houses were always open to Walker by day or night. When they were all gathered, Andrew Marshall stood up, and for the first time in his life spoke at a meeting. "Weel, men," he began, "ye a' ken the position o' things. Ye ken as weel as me that I got the sack for gatherin' for Geordie Sinclair. Weel, I ha'e been oot o' work three months; the Block is on against me, an' it seems I ha'e to starve. I canna get work onywhere, an' I stopped ye a' the day to ask ye to make my quarrel yours, an' try and put an end to this business." That was the whole speech, but its simple sincerity appealed to all, and many expressed approval and determination to stand by Andrew in his fight. "I think it's a damn'd shame," said old Lauder. "I'll tell ye what it is," said Matthew Maitland, "it's a downricht barefaced murder, an' I would smash this damn'd cantrip o' Black Jock's. I ken that he'll get a' that is said at this meetin', an' maybe I'll get the same dose; but I think it's aboot time somethin' was done to put an end to his capers," and so Matthew floundered on. "Ay, an' let us see what can be done for Geordie, too," put in Peter Pegg, and his long neck seemed to get longer at every syllable, while his big eye made a great attempt to wink and to look backward, as if he expected to see someone coming from behind. "We a' ken," continued Peter, "that Geordie is ready for work noo', this fower week syne, but Black Jock says he has no places, an' forby two strangers got jobs just yesterday." "I ken for yae thing that there's fower places staunin' in Millar's Level," said Jamie Lauder, "an' I'm telt there's five or six staunin' in the Black Horse Dook. It's a' a bit of humbug, an' I think we should try an' put an end to it." "Weel, I think we're a' agreed on that," said Tam Tate. "Has ony o' you onything to suggest?" For a few minutes there was silence, while they sat or stood deep in thought, trying to find a solution. It was an eerie gathering, with the gray dawn just beginning to break, while on every head the indispensable lamp burned and flickered. Men expectorated savagely upon the ground, staring hard at the stones at their feet, thinking and wondering how they might serve their comrades. "It's about time we had a union," said one. "Ay," replied another, "so that some bigmouthed idiot can pocket the money an' get a guid saft job oot o' it." "We've had plenty of unions," put in another. "The last yin we started here--ye mind Bob Ritchie gaed aff to America wi' a' the money. It was a fine go for him!" "Oh, ay, but let us see what can be done wi' this case," said Jamie Lauder. "Hoo' wad it do if we appointed a deputation to gang an' lay the hale thing afore Mr. Rundell?" Jamie was always listened to with the respect due to his proved good sense, for everyone knew that he was a man who would not intentionally hurt a fellow creature by word or deed. "I believe it wad be a guid plan," agreed Tam Tate. "He maybe disna ken the hauf that gangs on. What do ye a' think o' it, men?" This was before the days of limited companies and coal syndicates, and the proprietor of the pits in Lowwood, Mr. Rundell, lived about two miles out of the village. He was not a bad man, as men go; he was fiery and quick-tempered, but had a not ungenerous nature withal, and was usually susceptible to a reasoned statement. Just as they were about to decide on a course of action, Andrew spoke: "I dinna want ony mair o' ye than can be helped to get into bother, so, if ye like, Jamie Lauder--if he's agreeable--could gang wi' me and Geordie Sinclair, and we'll put the hale case afore him an' see what he mak's o't." This was received with approval, and it was agreed that Andrew, Jamie and Geordie should form the deputation. But Black Jock soon heard of the decision, and, as usual, acted with alacrity; for, had the men only known it, they had decided on a course which he did not want them to adopt. He visited Jamie Lauder, and told him that the day before Rundell and he had agreed that the places in the Black Horse Dook should be started at once, and that he was angry at the course taken by the men. He believed that Mr. Rundell would also be very angry, and if only Andrew and Geordie had come to him the night before, they could have been working that day. He represented Rundell as being in an explosive mood, and that he was furious at the men taking the idle day, and that he had threatened that if they were not at work next day, he would lock them out. So plausibly did he speak, and so sincere did his concern appear, that Jamie, who was withal a simple man, and aware that the circumstances of his comrades would not admit of a very long fight, began to think it might be as Black Jock had said. "I think ye'd better ca' a meetin' o' the men, Jamie, and put the hale case afore them. Let them ken that Rundell decided just yesterday to start the places, and that Andra and Geordie can start the morn. I ha'e no ill wull at ony o' the twa o' them, and I'm vexed that things ha'e been as bad as they've been, but I couldna get the boss to start the places, and what could I do? They can a' be back at their work the morn if they like to look at it reasonably. Of course, ye can please yersel'," he went on, "it's a' yin to me; but if Rundell tak's it into his head to ha'e a fight, well--ye ken what it means, an' I wouldna like to ha'e ony strife the noo', for times are very hard for us a'." Simple and honest as Jamie was, Black Jock's plausibility appealed to him, and he began to think that Walker perhaps was not so bad as he was made to appear. Again, Jamie knew that Rundell was a man of hasty temper and impulsive judgments, and could not brook trouble, and he began to think that perhaps it might be better to hold the meeting as suggested and tell the men what he had heard, and appeal to them to go back to work. "All right," he said to Walker, "I'll call a meeting to-night and put the case as you have said, and ask them to go back. But mind, you've not to go back on your promise. You'll have to start Andrew and Geordie within twa days, or the men will no' continue to work. Mind, I'm taking a lot on myself to do this, and you'll have to carry out your part and start them." "I'll fill my part, never fear," was the answer, and there was relief in Walker's voice. "See, there's my hand," he said, extending a big black limb as he spoke, first spitting on his palm to ensure due solemnity. "There's no dryness about that, Jamie. I mean it. I'll start Geordie and Andrew all right. You get the men to go back to work to-morrow, for I'm afraid Rundell will make trouble if you remain idle anither day. Noo' I promise." And Jamie took the extended hand in token of the bargain and returned to summon the meeting, which was duly held, and, as Walker had anticipated, the men were appeased, and returned to work the next day. Sure enough, within two days Andrew Marshall and Geordie Sinclair were both started to work, and matters went smoothly for a time. But though they had had a lesson, it did not stop their activities as agitators for the establishment of a union, for they knew that there was no protection for any of them if they remained unorganized. "Men never were meant to work and live as colliers do," said Geordie, thoughtfully. "Life should be good, and free, and happy, with comfort and enjoyment for all. Look at the birds--they are happy! So are the flowers, or they wouldn't look so pleased. God meant a' men and weemin to be glad, even though they have to work. But hoo' the hell can folk be happy and worship God on two and sixpence a day? It's all wrong, Andrew, an' I'll never believe that men were meant to live as we live." "That's true, Geordie," agreed Andrew soberly. "I only wish we could get everybody to see it as we see it. There's plenty for a' God's creatures--enough to make everybody happy, an' there need be no ill-will in the world, if only common-sense was applied to things; but I'm damn'd if I can see where even the men can be happy who are making their money oot o' our lives. They're bound to ken surely that what comes from misery can not make happiness for them." "True, Andrew, true, and we maun just go on working for it. Sometimes I have the feeling that we are on the point of big changes: just as if the folk would awaken up oot o' their ignorance, with love in their hearts, an' make all things right for everybody. A world o' happiness for everybody is worth workin' for. So we maun gang on." And so they talked of their dreams and felt the better for it. CHAPTER IV A YOUNG REBEL About two years after these events little Robert Sinclair went to school. It was a fine morning in late spring, and Robert trudged the seemingly long road, clasping an elder brother's hand, for the school lay about a mile to the north-west of the village, and that seemed to the boy a very long way. It was a great experience. Robert's clothes had been well patched, his face had been washed and toweled till it shone, his eyes sparkled with excitement, and his heart beat high; yet he was nervous and awed, wondering what he would find there. "By crikey," said wee Alec Johnstone to him, "wait till auld Clapper gie's ye a biff or twa wi' his muckle tawse. Do ye ken what he does to mak' them nippy? He burns them a wee bit in the fire, an' then st'eeps them in whusky. An' they're awful sair." "Oh, but I ken what to do, Rab, if ye want to diddle him," put in another boy. "Just get a horse's hair--a lang yin oot o' its tail--and put it across yer haun', an' it'll cut his tawse in twa, whenever he gie's ye a pammy." "That's what I'm gaun to do, Jamie," replied another. "I'll get some hairs frae Willie Rogerson. He's gettin' me some frae his father's when he's in the stable the morn, an' ye'll see auld Cabbage-heid's tawse gaun in twa, whenever he gie's me yin." And they all looked admiringly at this little hero who was going to do this wonderful thing so simply. "I got four yesterday," said another, "an' I wasna' doin' onything. By criffens! it was sair, an' gin I had only had a horse's hair, I'd soon ha'e putten his tawse oot the road." "I got four yesterday too," said another, "an' a' because I was looking at yon new laddie wha cam to the schule yesterday. By! they were sair. I never heard auld Cabbage-heid till he cam up an' telt me to put oot my haun." "It's Peter Rundell's his name," chimed in another. "He's the Boss's laddie. My! if you just saw what fine claes he has on. A new suit, an' lang stockings, an' a pair o' fine new buits." "Ay, an' a white collar too," said another, "an' hundreds o' pooches in his jacket." "He has a waistcoat wi' three pooches in it--yin for a watch--an' a braw, black, shiny bonnet." "He had a white hankey too, an' sweeties in yin o' his pooches." Robert felt a certain amount of resentment as he listened to the description, and he grudged Peter Rundell his new suit for he himself had never known anything of that kind, but had always worn "make-downs" created by his mother's clever fingers out of the discarded clothes of grown-ups. "Auld Cabbage-heid didna' like me looking at Peter Rundell an' that's the way he gied me four, but I'll get a horse's hair too, an' his tawse 'll soon get wheegh. He's awful cruel, Rab," he said, turning to Robert, "an' ye'd better look oot." Each and all had some fearful story to tell of the cruelty of the headmaster, and all swore they'd get even with him. These stories filled Robert with a certain fear, for he was an imaginative and sensitive boy. Still he knew there was no escape. He must go to school and go through with it whatever the future might hold for him. So far he had grown wild and free, and loved the broad wide moor which began even at the end of the row where he lived. It seemed to him that there never had been a time when he did not know that there was a moor there. Nothing in it surprised him, even as a child. Its varied moods were already understood by him, and its silences and its many voices appealed to and were balm to his soul. The great blue hills which fringed it away in the far distance were for him the ends of the world, and if he could go there some day, he would surely look over and find--what? The thought staggered him, and his imagination would not, or could not, construct for him what was at the other side. All day, often, he had lain stretched full length upon the moor, watching the great white clouds sailing past, seeing himself sometimes sitting astride them, proudly surveying, like God, the whole world. At times it was so real that he bounded to his feet when by some misadventure he slipped from the back of the cloud. He listened to the songs of larks, the cries of curlews and lapwings and all the other moorland birds, and became as familiar with each of them as they were with one another. But this going to school was a break in his freedom, and it stirred him strangely. He felt already that he would rather not go to school. He had always been happy before, and he did not know what lay ahead. In the schoolroom that morning, Robert was called out by the headmistress to her desk, and while she was jotting down in her register particulars as to his age, etc., it happened that Peter Rundell was also on the floor. Robert looked so wonderingly at the white collar and the shining boots, that Rundell, to fill in the blanks and keep himself cheerful, promptly put out his tongue. Robert, not to be behind in respectfulness, just as promptly put out his, at the same time making a grimace, and immediately they were at it, pummeling each other in hearty glee before the teacher could do anything to prevent them. It was their first fight. The whole class was in immediate uproar and cries of--"Go on, Rob!" and "Good Peter!" were ringing out, as the supporters on either side shouted encouragement. Both went at it and for a couple of minutes defied the efforts of the teacher to separate them; but in response to calls for help, Mr. Clapper, the headmaster, came in, and taking hold of Robert soon had him across his knee, and was giving him a taste of the "tawse" he had heard so much about that morning, and Robert went back to his seat very sore, both physically and mentally, and crying in pain and anger. Thus his first day began at school, and the succeeding months were full of many such incidents. Life ran along in the ordinary ruts for three or four years, but always Peter and Robert were antagonists. If Rundell happened to get to the top of the class, Robert never rested till he had excelled and displaced him; and then it was Peter's turn to do likewise till he too succeeded. Robert, when in the mood, was eager and brilliant, and nothing seemed able to stay him. At times, however, he was given to dreaming, and lived through whole days in the classroom quite unconscious of what was going on around him. He worked mechanically, living in a strange world of his own creation, usually waking up to find himself at the foot of the class with Peter smiling at the top. Often he went hungry, for times were still hard, and the family had increased to six. It was a bitter struggle in which Mrs. Sinclair was engaged to try and feed--let alone clothe--her hungry children. Patient, plodding, and terrible self-sacrifices alone enabled her to accomplish what she did. It was always a question of getting sufficient food rather than aiming at any particular kind. It was quantity rather than quality that was her biggest problem, for the children had sharp appetites and could make a feast of the simplest material. A pot of potatoes, boiled with their "jackets" on, tumbled on to the center of the bare, uncovered table and a little salt placed in small heaps at the exact position where each person sat, a large bowl of butter-milk when it could be got, with a tablespoon for each with which to lift a spoonful of the milk, and thus was set the banquet of the miner's family. "Mither, Rob's taken twa sups of milk to yae bite o' tattie," little Mary would say. "Ay, an' what did you do?" Robert would reply. "When you thought naebody was lookin', you took three spoonfu' to yae wee tattie. I was watchin' you." "Now that'll do," the mother would admonish them. "Try and make it gang as far as ye can. Here you!" she would raise her voice to another, "dinna be so greedy on it. The rest maun get some too." At this the guilty child would frown and look ashamed at being caught taking more than his share. Robert's dreams, however, were always satisfying, and even the sordid surroundings of the home were gilded by the warmth and glow of his imagination. Some day, somewhere he seemed to feel, there was a place for him to fill in the hearts of men. Vague stirrings told him of great future events which no one could dominate, save the soul that filled his body. One day, during the dinner hour, when the school children were all at play, Robert and Peter again came into conflict. Some girls were playing at a ring game, and Robert and a few other boys were shamefacedly looking on. He was by this time at the bashful age of ten, and already the sweet, shy face of Mysie Maitland had become familiar in every dream. Mysie's modesty and grace appealed to him and the strange magnetic power of soul for soul was continually drawing them together, even at this early age. No voice was like Mysie's voice, no name like her name to him. If only she chanced shyly to ask if he had a spare piece of pencil Robert was happy; he'd gladly give her his only piece and forthwith proceed to borrow another for himself. He saw that Mysie did certain things, used, for instance, to clean her slate with a bit of rag, and he instantly procured one, and this kept his jacket sleeve clean and whole. "Choose, choose wha' ye'll tak', Wha' ye'll tak', wha' ye'll tak', Choose, choose wha' ye'll tak', A laddie or a lassie." So sang the girls, as with hands joined they walked round in a ring, with Mysie, blushing and sweet, standing in the center--a sweet, shy, little rosebud--a joy in a cheap cotton frock. "Come on, Mysie," urged the girls, who had now come to a standstill with the finish of the song. "Choose an' dinna keep us waiting." But Mysie stood still, her little heart beating at a terrible rate, her breath coming in short, quick gasps, and a soft, glowing light of nervous intensity in her eyes. "Oh, come on, Mysie Maitland," cried one girl in hurt tones, "choose an' dinna spoil the game." "Come on," urged another, "the whistle will be blawn the noo." "She's feart," said one, "an' she disna need, for we a' ken that she wants to choose Bob Sinclair." Something sang uproariously in Bob's ears at this blunt way of stating what they all felt; a hot wave surged over him, and his whole being seemed to fill with the energy of a giant. He shifted uneasily, his senses all acutely alert to pick up even Mysie's faint gasp of shame, as the hot blood suffused her face. Would she choose him before all these others? He hoped she wouldn't, and he tried to summon a smile to hide his uneasiness. Still Mysie hesitated. She wanted to choose Robert, but if she did, perhaps the other boys and girls would tease them afterwards. "Oh, come on, Mysie. It's no' fair," cried one of the girls, getting more and more impatient. "Choose an' be done wi' it. It's only a game." Thus urged Mysie stepped forward, and, excited out of all judgment, her face covered with shame, her heart thumping and galloping, she grabbed the first hand she saw, which happened to be Peter Rundell's, and something seemed to darken the day for all. Robert, now that he had not been chosen, felt murder in his heart. His body felt charged with energy, a flood of passion poured over him and he lost all discretion. He saw only Peter's shining collar, his fine boots and good clothes, and above all the smile, half of shame, half of triumph, upon his face. In passing Peter staggered against Robert, who let drive with his fist, and there was a fight before anyone really knew what had happened. "What are ye shovin' at? Can ye no' watch folk's toes?" And he was on Peter like a whirlwind. There was the hatred of years between them, and they pummeled each other heartily. "A fight, boys!" yelled the others. "Here's a fight!" and a crowd rapidly gathered to watch operations, while little Mysie, who had been the cause of it all, shrank back into a quiet corner, the tears running from her eyes and a sore pain at her heart. "Go on, Bob! Gi'e him a jelly yin," cried Bob's supporters. "Watch for his nose, Peter," cried those who pinned their faith to the coal-owner's son. Amid a chorus of such encouragement, both boys belabored each other and fought like barbarians. "Let up, Peter," cried Bob's admirers, "an' gi'e him fair doo," as the two rolled upon the ground, with Peter, who was much the bigger boy, on top. "Come on now, he let you up when you was doon," and so they kept the balance of fair play. But the fight raged on in a terrible fury of battle, sometimes one boy on top, sometimes the other. Bob was the more active of the two, and hardier, and what he lacked in weight he made up in speed. One of Peter's eyes was bruised, while Robert's lip was swelling, and each strained to plant the decisive blow that would end the fight. "Nae kickin', Peter! Ye're bate," yelled one watchful supporter of Bob, as he noticed the former's booted foot come into violent contact with Bobbie's bare leg. "Big cowardie!" cried another, as Peter, crying now with rage and vexation, hit out with his foot. "Fight fair an' nae kickin'!" Bob managed to dodge the kick, and flinging himself in before Peter recovered his balance, planted a heavy blow upon his opponent's nose. "Ho! a jelly yin! a jelly yin!" roared the crowd in admiration. "Gi'e him anither yin," and even Peter's supporters began to desert him. Bob, thus encouraged, laid about him with all the strengthened "morale" of a conscious victor, finding it comparatively easy now to hit hard--and often. Peter, blinded by tears and choking with passion, could not see, but struck aimlessly, till one resounding smack upon his already injured nose brought the eagerly looked for crimson blood from it, and that of course, in schoolboy etiquette, meant the end of the fight. Peter was now lying upon the ground, his handkerchief at his nose, and roaring like a bull, not so much because of his injured nose, as because of the hurt to his pride and vanity. "Haud back yer held," advised one boy, "an' put something cauld doon yer back." Suddenly there was silence, and everyone looked awed and shamefaced as Mr. Clapper, the headmaster, strode into the midst of them. He had heard the noise of the fight, and had stolen up unobserved just in time to see Peter get the knockout blow. "What is the meaning of this?" he demanded sternly, his eyes traveling all over the children, till they rested finally on Robert. No one answered, and so he proceeded to question Peter, who had struggled to his feet. Peter, like many other boys in similar circumstances, poured forth a great indictment of his adversary, and Mr. Clapper then turned to Robert. "What have you to say, Sinclair?" he asked. "Speak out, and give me your side." But Robert said nothing. His rebellious spirit was roused, and he resented the tone of the headmaster's voice. Again Mr. Clapper tried, but Robert remained silent. "Come now, tell me what led to the fight? Why were you fighting with Peter?" Robert would not speak, and Mr. Clapper, being of an explosive temperament, with little tact, was fast losing his temper. He turned to question some of the other boys, finally calling them all into the school, and putting Robert into the teacher's room, so that he might "get to the bottom of it." Mr. Clapper, whatever good points he may have possessed, was not at all fitted for the teaching profession, for he lacked the sympathy necessary in dealing with children, and he was a rigid believer in the doctrine of punishment. After a time he came into the room where Robert sat, and began once more to question him. But Robert was still obdurate, and stolidly kept silent. Mr. Clapper recognized at once that this was a clear case of a dour nature in the wrong. It needed correction, and that of a severe kind. That spirit he felt must be broken, or there would be trouble ahead in after years for Robert Sinclair. Mr. Clapper was determined to do his duty, and he believed that Robert in later life would probably feel grateful for this thrashing. He thrashed the boy soundly and severely upon the most sensitive parts of his body, so that the pain would help to break his spirit. He saw no indignity heaped upon a high-spirited, sensitive soul. It was all for the boy's own good, and so the blows fell thick and heavy upon the little back and hips. Robert bit his lip to repress the roar of pain that wanted to escape. He would not cry, and this was another spur to the efforts of Mr. Clapper. The boy's flesh twitched and quivered at every blow, yet never a cry came from him. It but served to feed his rebellion, and he struggled and fought with fury until completely exhausted. "There now," declared Mr. Clapper, flinging down the "tawse" upon the table, panting from his exertions and wiping his brow, "I shall leave you for a time until you decide to speak. If you will not speak when I return, I shall thrash you again," and he went out, locking the door, leaving the boy, still proud and unsubdued, but aching in every muscle and bone of his little body. Left to himself, Robert very nearly cried, but he dashed the gathering tears from his eyes, angry at the weakness, and resolved, as he adjusted his garments, that he would die rather than speak now. He looked round, and seeing the window raised a little from the bottom, sprang to it, a sudden resolve in his heart to run away. Just as he got astride the sill he spied a piece of chalk and the "tawse" on the table, so turning back he put the "tawse" in his pocket, and with the chalk wrote on the table:-- "You are an ould pig and I'll not speak, and you'll never put your hands on your tawse again." Then he was out of the window, dropped easily to the ground, and was away to the moors. He ran a long way, until finding that he had not been detected, he skirted a small wood, dug a hole in the soft moss, put in the "tawse," and covered them up. There they may be lying to this day, for no one ever learned from him where they were buried. The spell of the moor took possession of him, and his wounded soul was soon wrapped in the soft folds of its silence. The balm of its peace comforted him, and brought ease and calmed the rebellion in his blood. He was happy, forgetting that there ever had existed a schoolmaster, or anything else unpleasant. Here he was free, and no one ever misunderstood him. He gave pain to no one, and nothing ever hurt him here. He flung himself down among the rank gray grass and heather, while the moor cock called to his mate in an agony of pleading passion, the lapwing crooned upon a tuft of grass as she prepared a place for her eggs, the whaup wheepled and twirled and cried in eerie alarm, the plover sighed to a low white cloud wandering past; while the snipe and the lark, the "mossie," the heather lintie, and the wandering, sighing winds among the reeds and rushes of the swampy moss, all added their notes to soothe and satisfy the little wounded spirit lying there on the soft moorland. Already he was away upon the wings of fancy in a world of his own--a world full of dreams and joys unspeakable; a world of calm comfort, where there was no pain, no hunger, no unpleasantness; a world of smiles and warm delights and love. Thus he dreamed as he watched the white clouds trailing their draperies along the sky, till the shadows creeping over the hills, and the cries of the heron returning to his haunts in the moor, woke him to a realization of the fact that the school was long since out, and probably another thrashing awaited him when he got home. Sadly and regretfully he dragged his little aching body from its soft mossy bed, felt that his limbs were still sore, and that he was very, very hungry. Rebellion again surging within him as he remembered all, he trudged home, fearful yet proud, resolved to go through with the inevitable. CHAPTER V BLACK JOCK'S THREAT That same day Walker intimated to Geordie, when he was at work underground, that a reduction was to be imposed on his ton rate, which meant for Sinclair that it would be more difficult to earn a decent wage. Geordie had always had it in his head to confront Walker about his very unfair treatment of him, and on this occasion he decided to do so. "What way are you breakin' my rate?" he asked, when Walker told him of the reduction. "Oh, it's no' me," replied Walker. "It's Rundell. He thinks it can be worked for less than it's takin', and, of course, I've just to do as I am tell'd." "Weel, I don't ken," said Geordie. "But I've thocht for a lang while back that you had a hand in it. Have I done anything to ye, for I don't ken o' it?" "Ye've never done me any harm, Geordie," replied Walker with a show of sincerity. "What mak's ye think that?" "Weel, for a lang time noo', I've ay been kept in hard places, or places wi' nae air, or where there was water to contend wi'. There's ay been something, an' I ha'e come to the conclusion that there's mair design than accident in it." "I dinna think so," was the reply. "But maybe it's because you're ay agitatin' to have a union started." "An' what about it," enquired Geordie, getting a bit heated. "If I ha'e been advocatin' the startin' o' a union? It seems to me to be muckle needed." "Oh, I've nothing to say aboot it," replied Walker. "It's the boss, an' I was merely givin' ye a hint for yer ain guid." "It's a' richt," exclaimed Geordie, getting still more heated. "I can see as far through a brick wall as you can see through a whin dyke. The boss has naething to do wi' it. It's you, an' I'm quite pleased to get the chance to tell ye to yer face. Ye could, many a time, ha'e given me a better place, if you had cared. But let me tell you, if there was a union here, it would soon put an end to you an' yer damn'd cantraips." "Very weel. Gang on an' start yin. Man, though ye were a' in a union the morn, I could buy an' sell the majority of them for the promise of a guid place, or a bottle of whisky--Ay, if they jist thocht they were in wi' the gaffer, I'd get all I wanted frae the maist o' them. A clap on the shoulder, a smile, or even a word would do it. The one hauf o' the men can ay be got to sell the ither. Ye daurna' cheep, man, but I hear of it." "Damn'd fine I ken that," replied Geordie, "an' it's mair the peety. But that's no' to say that men'll ay be like that. If they'd be true an' stick to yin anither, they'd damn'd soon put an end to sic gaffers as you." "Maybe ye'll be the first to be put an end to," said Walker, rising to leave. "I might ha'e something to say to--" "You rotten pestilence o' hell," cried Geordie, now fairly roused, and jumping over the coals on the "roadhead" after him. "I'll cleave the rotten heart o' ye if I get my fingers on ye, you an' yer fancy women, yer gamblin' an' yer shebeens!" But Walker was off; he did not like to hear these matters of his private life mentioned, and so Geordie, left to himself, lit his pipe, and sat down to cool his temper. A few minutes later Matthew Maitland came round to borrow a shot of powder, and Geordie unburdened his mind to him. "He's a dirty brute," said Matthew, "an' it's time we had a union started. I hear great stories aboot how Bob Smillie's gettin' on wi' the union that he started doon the west country." "I ken Bob fine," said Geordie. "He's a fine fellow. I worked next wall to him doon there a while, an' a better chap ye couldna' get." "I hear that he's gotten as muckle as tippence on the ton to some o' the miners who ha'e joined. I'm gaun to join whenever it can be started." Geordie agreed that it would be good to have a union, but he knew that whoever led in the matter would very likely have to pay for his courage. There was the "Block" to consider, and he could not see how they might start a union just then in such hard times. He sat and thought after Matthew had gone away, and was still sitting when Matthew's shot went off. His lot, he knew, was hard. He could not afford to "flit," even though he did find work somewhere else. His six children depended upon his readiness to swallow insult and injustice, and he could see no way but to submit. If only his first boy were ready for work, it would soon make a difference in the house. It was only a few months now till that time would come, and perhaps things might change. All day he was sullen and angry, and he tore at his work like some imprisoned fiend, a great rebellion in his heart, and a fury of anger consuming him. Everything seemed to go wrong that day, and at last when "knock-off" time came, he felt a little easier, though still silent and angry. His last shot, however, missed fire, just as he was coming away home; and that, added to all the other things that day, made him feel that his whole life was clouded, and was one long trial. On the way home from the pit he heard the story of Robert's rebellious outburst at school, and when he came into the house his wife saw by his face that something had upset him. She proceeded to get him water to wash himself, and brought in the tub, while he divested himself of his clothes, flinging each garment savagely into the corner, until he stood naked save for his trousers. Most miners are sensitive to the presence of strangers during this operation, and it so happened at that particular time the minister chose to pay one of his rare visits among his flock in the village. "Wha the hell's this noo?" asked Geordie, when he heard the tap at the door, as he looked up through soapy eyes, his head all lathered with the black suds. "Dammit, they micht let folk get washed," he said angrily. When he heard the voice of the minister, he plunged his head into the tub, and began splashing and rubbing, and lifting the water over his head. "Oh, you are busy washing, I see, Mr. Sinclair," observed the minister, looking at the naked collier. "Ay," said Geordie shortly, "an' I dinna think you'd ha'e thankit me for comin' in on the tap o' you, when you were washin' yerself," he said bluntly--a remark which his wife felt to be a bit ill-natured, though she said nothing. "Oh, I am sorry," replied the minister. "I did not mean to intrude. I'll not stay, but will call back some other time," and his voice was apologetic and ill at ease. "I think sae," retorted Geordie, splashing away and spitting the soap from his mouth. "Yer room's mair to my taste than yer company the noo." "My! that was an awfu' way to talk to the meenister," said Mrs. Sinclair when the door was again closed. "You micht aye try to be civil to folk," and there was resentment in her voice. "Ach, dammit, wha can be bothered wi' thae kind o' folk yapping roun' about when yer washin' yerself. He micht ken no' to come at this time, when men are comin' hame frae their work," and he went on with his splashing. "Here, gi'e my back a rub," and he lay over the tub while she washed his back from the shoulders downward, making it clean and free from the coal dust and grime. Then she proceeded to dry him all over with a rough towel, after which he put on a clean shirt, and taking off his pit trousers, stepped into the tub and began to wash his lower limbs and make them as clean as the upper part of the body. "Ach, folk should ha'e a place to wash in anyway," he grumbled, as if to justify his outburst, for secretly he was beginning to feel ashamed of it. "The folk that ha'e the maist need o' a bath are the folk wha never get the chance o' yin," he went on. "Look at that chap wha was in the noo. He never needs to dirty a finger, an' look at the hoose he has to bide in, wi' its fine bathroom an' a' things that he needs. Och, but we are a silly lot o' blockheads!" And so he raved on till he sat down to his frugal dinner of potatoes and buttermilk, after which he relapsed into silence again, and sat reading a newspaper. It was in this mood that Robert found him when he returned from the moors. Nellie had noticed that something was worrying her husband, and she suspected some fresh trouble at the pit, though she asked no questions. "Where hae ye been?" asked Geordie very calmly, as Robert entered furtively, and sat down on a chair near to the door. The boy did not answer. He dreaded that calmness. He seemed to feel there was something strong, cruel and relentless behind it. But he had something of his father's nature in him, so he sat in silence. "What kind o' conduct's this I hear ye've been up to?" was the next question, with the same studied calm, seemingly passionless and pliable. Still no answer from the boy, though when he looked at his father he felt afraid. He turned his eyes appealingly to his mother, but her face betrayed nothing, and a feeling of hopelessness entered Robert's heart. There was nothing else but to go through with it. "Tak' aff yer claes," quietly commanded the father, and the boy reluctantly began to peel off his scanty garments one by one, till he stood naked on the bare floor. He was glad that no one except the baby was in to see his humiliation, his brothers and sisters being all out at play. The father rose and went to the corner where his working clothes lay in a heap. Selecting the belt he wore round his waist at his work, he grasped it firmly, and with the other hand took the boy by one arm, saying:-- "Are ye going to answer my question noo', and tell me where ye ha'e been?" But Robert did not answer, so down came the hard leather belt with a horrible crack across the naked little hips, and a thick red mark appeared where the blow had fallen. A roar of pain broke from the boy's lips, in spite of his resolution not to cry, as lash after lash fell upon his limbs and across the little white back. Horribly, cruelly, relentlessly the belt fell with sickening regularity, while the tender flesh quivered at every blow, and an ugly series of red stripes appeared along the back and down across the sturdy legs. "Oh, dinna' hit me ony mair, faither," he pleaded at last, the firm resolution breaking because of the pain of the blows. "Oh, dinna hit me!" and he jumped as the blows fell without slackening. "Oh, oh, oh! Mother, dinna' let him hit me ony mair!" roared the boy, while the grim, set face of the parent never relaxed, and the belt continued to lash the quivering flesh. Mrs. Sinclair, who by this time was crying too, feeling every blow in her mother-heart, began to fear this grim, cruel look on her husband's face. He was mad, she felt, and there was murder in his eyes; and at last, spurred to desperation, she jumped forward, tore at the belt with desperate strength, and flung it into the corner, crying, as she gripped the boy in her arms. "In the name of Heaven, Geordie, are ye gaun to kill my bairn afore my een?" She tore the boy fiercely from his father's grasp and shielded him from her husband, exclaiming at the same time with indignation, "Ha'e ye nae humanity aboot ye at a'? Hit me if ye are goin' to hit any more. It's murder, an' I'll no' stand ony longer an' let ye do it." Geordie, surprised and amazed at her action, and the fierceness in her voice, looked up, and immediately reason seemed to steal back into his mind. A flush of shame overspread his face, and he sat down, burying his face in his hands. "Wheesht, sonny. Wheesht, my wee man," crooned the mother soothingly, as she began to help Robert to get on his clothes, the tears falling still from her own eyes, as she saw the ugly stripes and bruises upon his back beginning to discolor. "Wheesht, sonny! Dinna' greet ony mair. There noo', my wee son. Daddy's no' weel the nicht," she excused, "an' didna' ken what he was doin'." Then breaking into a louder tone: "I wonder what in Heaven's name puir folk are born for at a'. There noo'. There noo'. Dinna greet, my wee man, an' mither'll gi'e ye yer denner." Sinclair could stand it no longer, so slipping on his boots and reaching for his cap, he went out, never in all his life feeling more ashamed of himself. Left to themselves--for all the other children were still out at play--Nellie soon had Robert quietened and sitting at his dinner of cold potatoes and buttermilk. Bit by bit she drew from him the story of the fight at school; divining for herself the reason for Robert's attack upon Peter Rundell, she soon was in possession of the whole story with its termination of revolt against the headmaster and even the confession of what he had written on the table. "An' what did ye do wi' the tawse, son?" she enquired, her dark eyes showing pride in the revolt of her laddie. She was proud to know that he had sufficient character to stand up to a bully, even though he were a headmaster. "I buried them in the muir," he replied simply, "but I dinna' want to tell naebody where they are. I'll never gi'e them back." "Oh, weel, if ye dinna' want to tell me, dinna' do it," she said. "I'll gang with ye to the school the morn, an' I'll see that ye're no' meddled wi'. But, Robin, while I like to see ye staunin' up against what is wrong, I dinna want ye to dae wrang yerself. An' I think ye was in the wrang to strike Peter. He staggered against ye, an' I dinna think he wad try to tramp on yer taes. An' always when ye're in the wrang, own up to it, an' make what amends ye can." Robin did not reply to this, but she could see that he knew she was right. Before he could say anything she added, "Come awa' noo', if ye ha'e gotten yer denner, son, I think ye should gang awa' to yer bed. Ye'll be the better o' a lang sleep. Dinna' think hard o' yer faither; he's feelin' ashamed o' hittin' ye. There must be something botherin' him, for I dinna' mind o' him ever leatherin' one o' ye like that." This was true, for Geordie Sinclair was rather a "cannie" man, and had never been given to beating his children before. She felt that something had happened in the pit, and whatever it was it had made her husband angry. Robert again stripped off his clothes and crept into bed, while his mother seemed to feel every pain once more as she looked upon the soft little body with the ugly black stripes upon it. She placed him under the rough blankets as snugly as possible, telling him to lie well over near to the wall, for there were five of them now who lay abreast, and there was never too much room. He was soon asleep, and Mrs. Sinclair put fresh coals on the fire, and began to tidy up, so as to have everything as cheerful as possible when her husband should return. It was no easy matter to keep a house clean, with only a single apartment, and eight individuals living in it. The housing conditions in most mining villages of Scotland are an outrage on decency. In Lowwood there were no sanitary conveniences of any kind, and it was a difficult matter for the women folk to keep a tidy house under these circumstances. But it was wonderful, the homeliness and comfort found in those single apartment houses. It was home, and that made it tolerable. In such homes fine men and women were bred and reared, but the credit was due entirely to our womenfolk; for they had the fashioning of the spirit of the homes, and the spirit of the homes is always the spirit of the people. CHAPTER VI THE COMING OF A PROPHET Another year passed, and Robert was now eleven years of age. Though full of hardship, hunger and poverty, yet they were not altogether unhappy years for him. There were joys which he would not have liked to have missed, and in later life he looked back upon them always through a mist of memory that sometimes bordered on tears. He had grown "in wisdom and stature," and gave promise of being a fine sturdy boy; but lately it had been borne in upon him that no one seemed just to look at things from his point of view. He was alluded to as "a strange laddie," and the gulf of misunderstanding seemed to grow wider every day. Old Granny Frame, the "howdie-wife" of the village, always declared that he would be a great man, but others just took it for granted that he would never see things as they saw them. He was already too serious for a boy, and his joys were not the joys of other children. Sensitive, and in a measure proudly reserved, he took more and more to the moors and the hills. All day sometimes he roved over them, and at other times he would lie motionless but happy, for the moor always understood. If he were hurt at anything which happened, the moor brought him solace; if he grieved, it gave him relief; and if he were happy, it too rejoiced. He loved it in all moods, and he could not understand how its loving silence was dreaded by others. His parents now found that their battle, though not much easier, certainly was no worse, and hope shone bright for them in the future. The oldest boy was already at work and one girl was away "in service." Robert, too, would soon be ready, and in quick succession behind him there were three other boys. Geordie Sinclair was often told by his workmates that he would "soon ha'e naethin' to do but put in wicks in the pit lamps." But Geordie merely smiled. How often before had he heard that said of others who had families like his own and he knew that he would never see them all working. Fifty years was a long time to live for a collier in those days of badly ventilated and poorly inspected pits and many men were in their graves at forty. Walker still indulged in petty persecution, whilst Geordie agitated for the starting of a union, and many a battle the two had, until the enmity between them developed into keen hatred. "I wonder what Black Jock really has against me," he had said over and over again, unable to understand his persistent hostility, but his wife had never dared tell him. One night, however, after he had been out of work a week, because, as Black Jock had said, "there was nae places," she decided to tell him the real reason of Walker's antipathy. "Man, it's no' you, Geordie, that Black Jock has the ill will at," she ventured to say, "it's me, an' he hits me an' the bairns through you." "You," said Geordie in some surprise, "hoo' can that be?" Bit by bit, though with great reluctance, she told her husband how and when Black Jock had attempted to degrade her. When she had ended, he sat in grim silence, while the ticking of the clock seemed to have gained in loudness, and so, too, the purring of the cat, as it rubbed itself against his leg, first on one side and then the other, drawing its sleek, furry side along his ankle, turning back again, and occasionally looking up into his face for the recognition which it vainly tried to win. The fire burned low in the grate as Nellie busied herself with washing the dishes; while outside the loud cries of the children, playing on the green, mingled occasionally with a clink, as the steel quoits fell upon each other, telling of some enthusiastic players, who were practicing for the local games. Loud cries of encouragement broke from the supporters, and Geordie and Nellie heard all these--even the plaintive wail of a child crying in a house a few doors farther up the "row," and the mother's attempts to soothe it into forgetfulness of its temporary pain or disappointment. The little apartment seemed to have become suddenly cheerless. Nellie felt the silence most oppressive, for she was wondering how he was taking it all. Soon, however, he rose and reached for his cap. Looking at his wife with eyes that set all her fears at rest--for she saw pride in them, pride in her and the way she had acted--he said:-- "Thank ye, Nellie; ye are a' the woman I always thocht ye was, an' I'll see that nae dirty brute ever again gets the chance to insult ye," and he was out of the door before she could question him further. Geordie went straight to where Walker lived and knocked at the door. A girl of fourteen came in answer to his knock, for Walker was a widower, his wife having died shortly after the birth of their only child. "Is yer faither in?" enquired Geordie quietly, hardly able to control the raging anger in his heart. "No, he's no' in," replied the girl. "Oh, is that you, Geordie?" she asked, recognizing him in the darkness. "My father said when he went oot that if ye cam' to the door, I was to tell ye he had nae places yet." "That's a' richt," said Geordie, still very quietly. "Do ye ken onything aboot where he is this nicht?" "No, unless he's up in Sanny Robertson's, or maybe in Peter Fleming's." "Thank ye," said Geordie, turning away, "I'll go up an' see if he is there." He knew that Peter Fleming was working that night, and had stopped on an extra shift to repair a road, by special instructions from Walker; so Geordie went direct to Fleming's house and knocked at the door. After an interval a woman's voice enquired, "Wha's that?" and Geordie thought there was anxiety in it. "Open the door," said Geordie quietly. "What the hell are ye afert for?" and the woman, thinking it was her husband returned from work, immediately opened the door. "You're shairly early," she said; then suddenly recognizing who the intruder was, she tried to shut the door. "Na, na," said Geordie, now well in the doorway, "I want to see Black Jock." "He's no' here," she lied readily enough, but with some agitation in her voice. "You're a liar, Jean," replied Geordie, "that's him gaun oot at the room door," and Geordie withdrew hurriedly, determined that Black Jock should not escape him. He hurried to the end of the "row," and waited with all the passion of long years raging through his whole being. He stepped out as Walker advanced, and said: "Is that you, Walker?" "Ay," came the answer, "what do ye want?" as he came to a halt. "Just a meenit," said Geordie, placing himself in front of Walker, barring his way. "I want to warm yer dirty hide. It ought to have been done years ago, but I never kent till the nicht, and I'm gaun to dae it the noo," and the tones of his voice indicated that he meant what he said. "Oh! What's wrang?" asked Walker in affected surprise. "I'll get ye a place," he went on hurriedly, "just as soon as I can--in fac' there's yin that'll be ready by the morn." "I'm no gi'ein' a damn for yer place. It's you I'm efter the nicht. Come on, face up," and Sinclair squared himself for battle. Thus challenged, Walker, who was like all bullies a coward at heart, tried to temporize, but Sinclair was in no mood for delay. "Come on, pit them up, or I'll break yer jaw for you," he said threateningly. "Man, Geordie, what ails ye the nicht?" asked Walker in hurried alarm, wondering wildly how he could stave off the chastisement which he knew from Geordie's voice he might expect. "Talk sensibly, man. Try an' ha'e some sense. What's the matter wi' ye?" "Matter," echoed Geordie, "jist this. The wife has jist telt me a' aboot the nicht ye cam' chappin' to the door when I was lyin' hurt. She kent I'd break yer neck for it, and she was feart to tell me. So put up yer fists, ye black-hearted brute that ye are. I'm gaun to gi'e ye what we should hae gotten seven years syne, an' it'll maybe put ye frae preyin' on decent women. Come on." "Awa', man, Geordie, an' behave yersel'," began Walker, trying to evade him. "Tak' that, then, ye dirty brute!" and Geordie smashed his fist straight between Walker's eyes. Roused at last, Walker showed fight and swung at Sinclair. He was the younger man by about two years, and had not had the hard work and bad conditions of the other, but Sinclair was a strong man, and was now roused to a great pitch, so he struck out with terrific force. Then the two closed and swayed about, struggling, cursing and punching each other with brutal might. Sinclair's extra weight and more powerful build soon began to tell, and he was able to send home one or two heavy blows on Black Jock's face and body. Panting and blowing, they separated, and as they did so, Sinclair caught his opponent a straight hard crash on the jaw that sent him rolling to the muddy road, and feeling as if a thousand fists had struck him all at once. Walker lay for a short time, then gathering himself together, he rose to his feet and set off at a quick pace in the direction of his house, whilst Geordie, too, turned homewards, feeling that it was useless to follow him. Mrs. Sinclair did not hear what had happened till a week later, when Geordie, being in a communicative mood, told her of the affair in simple, unaffected terms. Shortly afterwards a great event happened in Lowwood, which made the deepest impression on Robert's mind. His father still being out of work, had sent a letter to Robert Smillie, who was then beginning to be heard of more and more in mining circles. In the letter Geordie explained, to the best of his ability, the local circumstances, and he mentioned his own case of persecution, and his agitation for the starting of a union. Smillie sent word in reply that he would come in two days, and Geordie enthusiastically set to work to organize a meeting, going round every house in the district, telling the folks that Smillie was coming, and exhorting them to turn out and hear him. "I dinna think it'll do any guid," said old Tam Smith, when Geordie called upon him. "It's a' richt talkin' about a union, but the mair ye fecht the mair ye're oppressed. The bosses ha'e the siller, an' they can ay buy the brains to serve them." Geordie made no reply, for he knew from experience that it was only too true. "Just look at young Jamie Soutar," continued Tam. "He is yin o' the cleverest men i' the country. He wrocht wi' me as a laddie when he went into the pit, an' noo' he's travelin' manager for that big company doon the west country, an' I'm telt he's organizin' an' advocatin' the formin' o' what he calls a Coal Combine." "That's a' richt, Tam. I admit it a', though I dinna jist ken what a Coal Combine means; but I ken that Bob Smillie is makin' great wark wi' the union he has formed. I ken he has gotten rises in wages for a' the men who ha'e joined, an' that he is advocatin' an eight hours day. If that can be done doon there, it can be done here; for there's naebody has ony mair need o' a eight hours day than miners." "Oh, I'll turn oot a' richt at the meetin'," said Tam, who was always credited with seeing farther than most of his workmates, "an' I'll join the union, too, if it's formed; but ye'll see if ye live lang enough that the union'll no' be a' ye think it. The ither side will organize to bate ye every time." And with this encouraging prophecy, Geordie went on to the next house. "No, I'm no' comin' to nae meetin'. I want naethin' to dae wi' yer unions. I can get on weel enough without them," curtly said Dan Sellars, the inmate. He was what Geordie somewhat expressively called a "belly-crawler," a talebearer, and one who drank and gambled along with Walker, Fleming, Robertson and a few others. "Man, it'll no' do muckle guid," said another, "ye mind hoo' big Geordie Ritchie ran awa' wi' the money o' the last union we started? It'll gi'e a wheen bigmouths a guid job and an easy time. That's a' it will do." "Oh, ay," answered Sinclair, "but that's no' to say that the union'll ay fail. Folks are no' a' Geordie Ritchies, an' they're no' a' bigmouths either. We're bound to succeed if we care to be solid thegither." "I'll come to the meetin', Geordie, although I was sayin' that, but I'll no' promise to join yer union," was the answer, and Sinclair had to be content with that. Thus went Geordie from house to house, meeting with much discouragement, and even downright opposition, but he was always good-humored, and so he seldom failed to extract a promise to attend the meeting. The night of the meeting arrived, and the hall--an old, badly lit and ill-ventilated wooden erection--was packed to its utmost. There were eager faces, and dull, listless ones among the audience; there were eyes glad with expectancy, and eyes dulled with long years of privations and brutal labor; limbs young and supple and full of energy, and limbs stiff and sore, crooked and maimed. Geordie Sinclair was chairman, and when he rose to open the meeting and introduce Smillie, he felt as if the whole world were looking on and listening. "Weel, men," he began, halting and hesitating in his utterance, "for a lang time now there has been much cryin' for a union here. There has been a lot of persecution gaun' on, an' it has been lang felt that something should be done. We ha'e heard of how other men in other places ha'e managed to start a union, and how it has been a guid thing in risin' wages. Mr. Smillie has come here the nicht to tell us how the other districts ha'e made a start, and what thae other districts has gotten. If it can be done there, it can be done here. I ha'e wrocht aside Bob Smillie, an' I ken what kind of man he is. He has done great wark doon in the west country, an' he is weel fitted and able to be the spokesman for the miners o' Scotlan'. I'm no gaun' to say ony mair, but I can say that it gie's me great pleasure to ask Mr. Smillie to address ye." A round of applause greeted Smillie as he rose to address them. Tall and manly, he dominated his audience from the very first sentence, rousing them to a great pitch of enthusiasm, as he proceeded to tell of all the many hardships which miners had to endure, of the "Block" system of persecution, and to point to the only means of successfully curing them by organizing into one solid body, so that they might become powerful enough to enforce their demands for a fuller, freer, and a happier life. Never in all his life did he speak with more passion than he did that night in Lowwood. Little Robert was present in the hall--the only child there; and as Smillie spoke in passionate denunciation of the tyrannies and persecutions of the mine-owners and their officials, his little heart leapt in generous indignation. Many things which he had but dimly understood before, began to be plain to him, as he sat with eyes riveted upon Smillie's face, drinking in every word as the speaker plead with the men to unite and defend themselves. Then, as his father's wrongs were poured forth from the platform, and as Smillie appealed to them in powerful sentences to stand loyally by their comrade, the boy felt he could have followed Smillie anywhere, and that he could have slain every man who refused to answer that call. Away beyond the speaker the boy had already glimpsed something of the ideal which Smillie sketched, and his soul throbbed and ached to see how simple and how easy it was for life to be made comfortable and good and pleasant for all. Bob Smillie never won a truer heart than he did that night in winning this barefooted, ragged boy's. Round after round of applause greeted the speaker when he had finished, and in response to his appeal to them to organize, a branch of the union was formed, with Geordie Sinclair as its first president. At the request of the meeting Smillie interviewed Black Jock next morning, and as a result Sinclair got started on the following day. Smillie stayed overnight with Geordie. They were certainly somewhat cramped for room, though Geordie had just lately got another apartment "broken through," which gave them a room and kitchen. The two men sat late into the night, discussing their hopes and plans, and the trade union movement generally. "It's a great work, Bob, you ha'e set yersel', an' it'll mean thenklessness an' opposition frae the very men you want maist to help," said Sinclair as they talked. "Ay, it will," was the reply, spoken in a half dreamy tone, as if the speaker saw into the future. "I ken what it'll mean, but it must be done. I have long had it in me to set myself this work, for no opposition ought to stand in the way of the uplifting of the workers. I ... It's the system, Geordie!" he cried, as if bringing his mind back to the present. "It is the system that is wrong. It is immoral and evil in its foundations, and it forces the employers to do the things they do. Competition compels them to do things they would not have to do if there were a cooperative system of industry. Our people have to suffer for it all--they pay the price in hunger, misery and suffering." "Ay," said Geordie, "that's true, Bob. But what a lang time it'll tak' afore the workers will realize what you are oot for. They'll look on your work wi' suspicion, and a wheen o' them'll even oppose you." "Ay," was the reply, "I know that. It will mean the slow building up of our own county first, bit by bit, organizing, now here, now there, and fighting the other class interests all the time. It will divide our energies and retard our work, and the greatest fight will be to get our own people to recognize what is wanted and how to get it. Then through the county we'll have to work to consolidate the whole of Scotland; from that to work in the English and Welsh miners, while at the same time seeking to permeate other branches of industrial workers with our ideas. And then, when we have got that length, and raised the mental vision of our people, and strengthened their moral outlook, we can appeal to the workers of other lands to join us in bringing about the time when we'll be able to regard each other, not as enemies, but as members of one great Humanity, working for each other's welfare as we work for our own." "That's it, Bob," agreed Geordie, completely carried away with Smillie's enthusiasm. "That's it, Bob. If we can only get them to see hoo' simple and easy it a' is ... Oh, they maun be made to see it that way!" he burst out. "We'll work nicht an' day but in the end we'll get them to see it that way yet." "Yes, but it won't be easy, Geordie," he replied. "Our people's lives have been stunted and warped so long, they've been held in bondage and poverty to such an extent, that it will take years--generations, maybe--before they come to realize it. But we must go on, undeterred by opposition, rousing them from their apathy, and continually holding before them the vision of the time we are working to establish. Ay, Geordie,"--and a quieter note came into his voice, "I hope I shall be strong enough to go on, and never to give heed to the discouragements I shall undoubtedly meet with in the work; but I've made up my mind, and I'll see it through or dee." The talk of the two men worked like magic upon the impressionable mind of young Robert, who sat listening. Long after all had retired for the night he lay awake, his little mind away in the future, living in the earthly paradise which had been conjured up before him by the warm, inspiring sentences of this miners' leader, and joyful in the contemplation of this paradise of happy humanity, he fell asleep. Could he have foreseen the terrible, heartbreaking ordeals through which Smillie often had to pass, still clinging with tenacity to the gleam that led him on, praying sometimes that strength would be given to keep him from turning back; of the strenuous battle he had, not only with those he fought against, but of the greater and more bitter fights he too often had with those of his own class whom he was trying to save; and of the fights even with himself, it would have raised Smillie still more in the estimation of this sensitive-hearted collier laddie. CHAPTER VII ON THE PIT-HEAD "Hooray, mither, I've passed the examination, an' I can leave the school noo!" cried Robert one day, breaking in upon his mother, as she was busily preparing the dinner. She stopped peeling the potatoes to look up and smile, as she replied: "Passed the fifth standard, Robin?" she said, lovingly. "Ay," said the boy proudly, his face beaming with smiles. "It was quite easy. Oh, if you had just seen the sums we got; they were easy as winking. I clinked them like onything." "My, ye maun hae been real clever," said Mrs. Sinclair encouragingly. "Sammy Grierson failed," broke in Robert again, too full of his success to contain himself. "He couldna' tell what was the capital of Switzerland! Then the inspector asked him what was the largest river in Europe, an' he said the Thames. He forgot that the Thames was just the biggest in England. I was sittin' next him an' had to answer baith times, an' the inspector said I was a credit to the school. My, it was great fun!" and he rattled on, full of importance at his success. "Ay, but maybe Sammy was just nervous," said his mother, continuing her operations upon the potatoes, and trying to let him see that there might have been a cause for the failure of the other boy to answer correctly. "Ach, but he's a dunce onyway," said the boy. "He canna spell an easy word like 'examination,' an' he had twenty-two mistakes in his dictation test," he went on, and she was quick to note the air of priggish importance in his utterance. "Ay, an' you're left the school now," said Mrs. Sinclair, after a pause, during which her busy fingers handled the potatoes with great skill. "Your faither will be gey pleased when he comes hame the day," she said, giving the conversation a new turn. "Ay, I'll get leavin' the school when I like, an' gaun to the pit when I like." "Would ye no' raither gang to the school a while langer?" observed the mother after a pause, and looking at him with searching eyes. "No," was the decisive reply. "I'd raither gang to work. I'm ready for leaving the school and forby, all the other laddies are gaun to the pit to work." "But look at the things ye micht be if ye gaed to the school a while langer, Robin," she went on. "The life of a miner's no' a very great thing. There's naething but hard work, an' dangerous work at that, an' no' very muckle for it." And there was an anxious desire in her voice, as if trying to convince him. "Ay, but I'd raither leave the school," he answered, though with less decision this time. "Besides, it'll mean more money for you," he concluded. "Then, look how quick a miner turns auld, Rob. He's done at forty years auld," she said, as if she did not wish to heed what he said, "but meenisters an' schoolmaisters, an' folk o' that kin', leeve a gey lang while. Look at the easy time they hae to what a collier has. They dinna get up at five o'clock in the mornin' like your faither. They rise aboot eight, an' start work at nine. Meenisters only work yae day a week, an' only aboot two hoors at that. They hae clean claes to wear, a fine white collar every day, an' sae mony claes that they can put on a different rig-oot every day. Their work is no' hard, an' look at the pay they get; no' like your faither wi' his two or three shillin's a day. They hae the best o' it," she concluded, as she rested her elbows on her knees and again searched his face keenly to see if her arguments had had any effect upon him. "Ay, but I'd raither work," reiterated the boy stubbornly. "Then they hae plenty o' books," continued the temptress, loth to give up and keen to draw as rosy a picture as possible, "and a braw hoose, an' a piano in it. They get a lang holiday every year, and occasional days besides, an' their pay for it. But a collier gets nae pay when he's idle. It's the same auld grind awa' at hard work, among damp, an' gas, an' bad air, an' aye the chance o' being killed wi' falls of stone or something else. It's no' a nice life. It's gey ill paid, an' forby naebody ever respects them." "Ay, mither; but do you no' mind what Bob Smillie said?" chipped in the boy readily, glad that he could quote such an authority to back his view. "It's because they dinna respect themselves. They just need to do things richt, an' things wadna' be sae bad as they are," and he felt as if he clinched his argument by quoting Smillie against her. "Ay, Robin," she replied, "that's true; but for it a', you maun admit that the schoolmaister an' the meenister hae the best o' it." But she felt that her counter was not very effective. "My faither says meenisters are nae guid to the world, but schoolmaisters are," said the boy, with a grudging admission for the teaching profession. "But I dinna care. I'd raither gang to work. I dinna want to gang ony langer to the school. I'm tired o' it, an' I want to leave it," and there was more decision in his voice this time than ever. "A' richt, Robin," said Mrs. Sinclair resignedly, as she emptied the peeled potatoes into a pot and put them on the fire. There were now seven of a family, and she knew that Robert was needed to increase the earnings, and that meant there was nothing but the pit for him. "You maun hae been real clever, though, to pass," she said again, after a pause. "How many failed?" "Four, mither," he cried, again waxing enthusiastic over the examination. "Mysie Maitland passed, too. She was first among the lasses, and I was first in the laddies." "Eh, man, Bob, learnin' is a gran' thing to hae," she said wistfully, looking at him very tenderly. "Ay, but I'm gaun to the pit," he said decisively, fearing that she was again going to enlarge upon the schoolmaster's life. "Very weel," she said after a bit, "I suppose ye'll be lookin' for a job. Your faither was saying last nicht that ye're too young to gang into the pit. Ye maun be twelve years auld afore ye get doon the pit noo, ye ken. So I suppose it'll be the pithead for ye for a while." She had often dreamed her dream, even though she knew it was an impossible one, that she would like to see her laddie go right on through the Secondary School in the county town to the University. She knew he had talents above the ordinary, and, besides, her soul rebelled at the thought of her boy having to endure the things that his father had to go through with. She was an intelligent woman, and though she had had little education, she saw things differently from most of the women of her class. She had character, and her influence was easily traced in her children, but more especially in Robert, who was always her favorite bairn. She was wise, too, and had fathomed some secrets of psychology which many women with a university training had never even glimpsed. She often maintained that her children's minds were molded before she gave them birth, and that it depended upon the state of mind she was in herself during those nine months, as to what kind of soul her child would be born possessing. It may have been merely a whim on her part, but she held tenaciously to her belief, acted in accordance with it, and no one could dissuade her from it. Robert was her child of song, her sunny offspring, stung into revolt against tyranny of all kinds. His soul, strong and true as steel, she knew would stand whatever test was put upon it. Incorruptible and sincere, nothing could break him. Generous and forgiving, he could never be bought. "I'll gang the nicht, mither, an' see if I can get a job. I micht get started the morn," he said breaking in upon her thought. "A' richt, Robin," she replied with a sigh of resignation. "I suppose it'll hae to be done. It'll be yer first start in life, an' I hope ye'll aye be found doin' what's richt; for guid never comes o' ill thinkin' or ill doin." "If I get a job, mither, maybe I'll get one-an'-tippence a day like Dick Tamson. If I do it'll be a big help to you, mither. My! I'll soon mak' a poun' at that rate," and he laughed enthusiastically at the thought of it. A pound seemed to represent riches to his boyish mind. What might his mother not do with a pound? Ever so many things could be bought. And that was merely a start. His wages would soon increase with experience, and when he went down the pit, which would be soon, he'd earn more, and his mother would maybe be able to buy new clothes for all the family. He wondered what it would be like to have a new suit of clothes--real new ones out of a shop. Hitherto he had only enjoyed "make downs," as they were called--new ones made out of some one's cast-off clothing. But a real new suit, such as he had seen the schoolmaster's boy sometimes wearing! That would be a great experience! And so, lost in contemplation of the things big wages might do, the day wore on, and he was happy in his dreams. That same night Robert went to call on the "gaffer," Black Jock, and as he neared the door he met Mysie Maitland. "Where are ye goin', Rab?" she enquired shyly. "To look for a job," he replied proudly, feeling that now he was left school, and about to start work, he could be patronizing to a girl. "Where are you gaun?" he asked, as Mysie joined him in the direction of Walker's house. "I'm gaun to look for a job, too," she replied. "I'm no' gaun back to the school, an' my mither thinks I'll be as weel on the pit-head as at service. An' forby, I'll be able to help my mither at nichts when I come hame, an' I couldna' do that if I gaed to service," she finished by way of explanation. As Mysie was the oldest of a family of six, her parents would be glad to have even her small earnings, and so she, too, was looking for a job. When Walker came to the door, Robert took the matter in hand, and became spokesman for both himself and Mysie. "We've left the school the day, Mr. Walker, an' Mysie an' me want to ken if ye can gie us a job on the pitheid?" and Walker noted with amusement the manly swagger in the boy's voice and bearing. "We dinna' usually start lasses as wee as Mysie," replied Walker, eyeing the children with an amused smile, "but we need twa or three laddies to the tables to help the women to pick stones." Mysie's face showed her keen disappointment. She knew that it was not customary for girls to be employed as young as she was; and Robert noted her disappointed look as well. "Could ye no' try Mysie, too?" he asked, breaking in anxiously. "She's a guid worker, an' she'll be able to pick as many stanes as the weemen. Willn't ye, Mysie?" And he turned to the girl for corroboration with assurance. As Mysie nodded, Walker saw a hint of tears in the girl's eyes, and the quivering of the tiny mouth; and as there is a soft spot in all men's hearts, even he had sympathy, for he understood what refusal meant. "Weel, I micht gie her a trial," he said, "but she'll hae to work awfu' hard," and he spoke as one conferring an especial concession upon the girl. "Oh, she'll work hard enough," said Robert. "Mysie's a guid worker, an' you'll see ..." "Oh, then," said Walker hurriedly breaking in upon Robert's outburst of agreement, "ye can both come oot the morn, and I'll try and put ye both up." "How muckle pay will we get?" asked Robert, who was now feeling his importance, and felt that this was after all the main point to be considered. "Well, we gie laddies one an' a penny," replied Walker, still smiling amusedly at the boy's eagerness, "an' lasses are aye paid less than callants. But it's all big lasses we hae, an' they get one an' tippence. I'll gie Mysie a shillin' to begin wi'," and he turned away as if that settled the matter, and was about to close the door. "But if she picks as many stanes as a laddie, will ye gie her the same pay as me?" interrupted Robert, not wishing the interview to end without a definite promise of payment. "She's gey wee," replied Walker, "an' she canna' expect as much as a laddie," and he looked at Mysie, as if measuring her with a critical eye to assess her value. "But if she does as muckle work, would ye gie her the same money?" eagerly questioned the boy, and Mysie felt that there was no one surely so brave as Robert, nor so good, and she looked at him with gratitude in her eyes. "Very weel," said Walker, not desiring to prolong the interview. "Come oot the morn, an' I'll gie ye both one an' a penny." "Six an' sixpence a week," said Mysie, as they tramped home. "My, that's a lot o' money, Rab, isn't it?" "Ay, it's a guid lot, Mysie," he replied, "but we'll hae to work awfu' hard, or we'll no' get it. Guid nicht!" And so the children parted, feeling that the world was about to be good to them, and all their thought of care was bounded by six and sixpence a week. Mysie was glad to tell the result of the whole interview to her parents. She was full of it, and could talk of nothing else as she worked about the house that night. Her mother had been in delicate health for a long time, and so Mysie had most of the housework to do. Matthew Maitland and his wife, Jenny, were pleased at the result, and gave Robert due credit for his part--a credit that Mysie was delighted to hear from them. The next morning the two children went to work, when children of their years ought to have been still in bed dreaming their little dreams. The great wheels at the pithead seemed terrible in their never-ending revolutions, as they flew round to bring up the loads of coal. The big yawning chasm, with the swinging steel rope, running away down into the great black hole, was awesome to look at, as the rope wriggled and swayed with its sinister movements; and the roar and whir of wheels, when the tables started, bewildered them. These crashed and roared and crunched and groaned; they would squeal and shriek as if in pain, then they would moan a little, as if gathering strength to break out in indignant protest; and finally, roar out in rebellious anger, giving Robert the idea of an imprisoned monster of gigantic strength which had been harnessed whilst it slept, but had wakened at last to find itself impotent against its Lilliputian captor--man. An old man instructed them in their duties. "You'll staun here," he panted, indicating a little platform about two feet broad, and running along the full length of the "scree." "You'll watch for every bit stane that comes doon, an' dinna' let any past. Pick them oot as soon as you see them, an' fling them owre there, an' Dickie Tamson'll fill them into the hutch, an' get them taken to the dirt bing." "A' richt," said Robert, as he looked at the narrow platform, with its weak, inadequate railing, which could hardly prevent anyone from falling down on to the wagon track, some fifteen or twenty feet below on one side, or on to the moving "scree" on the other. "Weel, mind an' no' let any stanes gang past, for there are aye complaints comin' in aboot dirty coals. If ye dinna work an' keep oot the stanes, you'll get the sack," and he said this as if he meant to convey to them that he was the sole authority on the matter. He was an old man, and Robert, as he looked at him, wondered if he had ever laughed. "Auld Girnie" they called him, because of his habit of always finding fault with everything and everybody, for no one could please him. His mouth seemed to be one long slit extending across his face, showing one or two stumps sticking in the otherwise toothless gums, and giving him the appearance of always "grinning." The women workers' appearance jarred upon Robert. So far women to him had always been beings of a higher order, because he had always thought of them as being like his mother. But here they were rough and untidy, dressed like goblins in dirty torn clothes, with an old dirty sack hanging from the waist for an overall. Instinctively Robert felt that this was no place for women. One of them, who worked on the opposite side of the scree from Robert--a big, strong, heavily-built young woman of perhaps twenty-five--in moving forward tore her petticoat, which caught in the machinery, and made a rent right up above her knee. "Ach, to hell wi' it," she cried in exasperation, as she turned up the torn petticoat, displaying a leg all covered with coal grime, which seemed never to have been washed. "Is that no' awfu'? Damn my soul, I'll hae to gang hame the nicht in my sark tail," and she laughed loudly at her sally. "I'll put a pin in it, it'll do till I gang hame," she added, and she started to pin the torn edges together. But all day the bare leg shone through the torn petticoat, and rough jokes were made by the men who worked near by--jokes which she seemed to enjoy, for she would hold up the torn garment and laugh with the others. The women and boys never seemed to heed the things that filled Robert and Mysie with so much amazement. The two children bent over the swinging tables as the coal passed before them. They eagerly grabbed at the stones, flinging them to the side with a zeal that greatly amused the older hands. "Ye'll no' keep up that pace lang," said one woman. "Ye'll soon tire, so ye'd better take it easy." "Let them alone," broke in the old man, who had a penny a day more for acting as a sort of gaffer. "Get on wi' yer own work, an' never mind them." "Gang you to hell, auld wheezie bellows," replied one woman coarsely, adding a rough jest at his breathlessness, whilst the others laughed loudly, adding, each one, another sally to torment the old man. But after a time Robert felt his back begin to ache, and a strange dizzy feeling came into his head, as a result of his bent position and the swinging and crashing of the tables. He straightened himself and felt as if he were going to break in two. He glanced at Mysie, wondering how she felt, and he thought she looked white and ill. "Take a wee rest, Mysie," he said. "Are ye no' awfu' dizzy?" Mysie heard, but "six and sixpence a week" was still ringing in her head. Indeed, the monotonous swing of the tables ground out the refrain in their harsh clamor, as they swung backwards and forwards. "Six and sixpence a week," with every leap forwards; "six and sixpence a week" as they receded. "Six and sixpence" with every shake and roar, and with each pulsing throb of the engine; and "six and sixpence a week" her little hands, already cut and bleeding, kept time with regular beat, as she lifted the stones and flung them aside. She was part of the refrain--a note in the fortissimo of industry. The engines roared and crashed and hissed to it. They beat the air regularly as the pistons rose and fell back and forth, thump, thud, hiss, groan, up and down, out and in: "Six and sixpence a week!" Mysie tried to straighten herself, as Robert had advised, and immediately a pain shot through her back which seemed to snap it in two. The whole place seemed to be rushing round in a mad whirl, the roof of the shed coming down, and the floor rushing up, when with a stagger Mysie fell full length upon a "bing" of stones, bruising her cheek, and cutting her little hands worse than ever. This was what usually happened to all beginners at "pickin' sklits." One of the women raised Mysie up, gave her a drink from a flask containing cold tea, and sat her aside to rest a short time. "Just sit there a wee, my dochter," she said with rough kindness, "an' you'll soon be a' richt. They mostly a' feel that way when they first start on the scree." Mysie was feeling sick, and already the thought was shaping in her mind that she would never be able to continue. She had only worked an hour as yet, but it seemed to her a whole day. "Six and sixpence a week" sang the tables as they swung; "six and sixpence a week" whirred the engines; "six and sixpence a week" crashed the screes; and her head began to throb with the roar of it all. "Six and sixpence a week" as the coal tumbled down the chutes into the wagons; "six and sixpence" crunched the wheels, until it seemed as if everything about a pit were done to the tune of "six and sixpence a week." It was thundered about her from one corner, it squealed at her from another, roared at her from behind, groaned at her in front; it wheezed from the roof, and the very shed in which they stood swayed and shivered to its monotonous song. "Six and sixpence a week" was working into every fiber of her being. She had been born to it, was living it, and it seemed that the very wheels of eternity were grinding out her destiny to its roar and its crash, and its terrible regular throb and swing. She grew still more sick, and vomited; so one of the women took her by the hand and led her down the narrow rickety wooden stair out across the dirt "bing" into the pure air. In a quarter of an hour she brought her back almost well, except for the pain in her head. "Where the hell hae ye been, Mag?" wheezed the old gaffer, addressing the woman with irritated authority. "Awa' an' boil yer can, auld belly-crawler," was the elegant response, as she bent to her work, taking as little notice of him as if he were a piece of coal. "Ye're awa' faur owre much," he returned. This was an allusion to clandestine meetings which were sometimes arranged between some of the men in authority--"penny gaffers," as they were called--and some of the girls who took their fancy. After all, gaffers had certain powers of advancement, and could increase wages to those who found favor in their eyes, to the extent of a penny or twopence per day, and justified it by representing that these girls were value for it, because they were better workers. Again, matters were always easier to these girls of easy virtue, for they got better jobs, and could even flout the authority of lesser gaffers, if their relations with the higher ones were as indicated. Mag replied with a coarse jest, and the others laughed roughly, and Mysie and Robert, not understanding, wondered why the old man got angry. Thus the day wore on, men and women cursed while familiarities took place which were barely hidden from the children. Talk was coarse and obscenely suggestive, and the whole atmosphere was brutalizing. Long, however, before the day was ended, Robert and Mysie were feeling as if every bone in their little bodies would break. "Just take anither wee rest, Mysie," said Robert. "I'll keep pickin' as hard as I can, an' ye'll no' be sae muckle missed." "Oh, I'll hae to keep on, too," she replied, almost despairingly, with a hint of tears in her voice. "Ye mind I promised to work hard, an' ye said I was a guid worker, too. If I dinna' keep on I micht only get a shillin' a day." "But I'll pick as much as the twa o' us can do," pursued Robert, with persuasive voice. "I'll gang harder, until ye can get a wee rest." So Mysie, in sheer exhaustion, stopped for a little, and the dizzy feeling was soon gone again. Yet the horrible pain in the back troubled them all day, and the dizziness returned frequently, but the others assured them that they'd soon get used to it. Their hands were cut, bruised and dirty, and poor little Mysie felt often that she would like to cry, but "six and sixpence a week" kept time in her heart to all her troubles, and seemed to drive her onward with relentless force. With rough kindness the women encouraged the two children, and did much to make their lot easier. But it was a trying day--a hard, heartbreaking day, a day of tears and pains and discouragement, a horrible Gethsemane of sweat and agony, whose memory not even "six and sixpence a week" would ever eradicate from their minds, though it made the day bearable. The great wheels groaned and swished like the imprisoned monster of Robert's imaginings, and at last came to a halt at the end of the shift; but in the pattern which they had that day woven into the web of industry, there were two bright threads--threads of great beauty and high worth--threads which the very gods seemed proud of seeing there, twisted and twined, and lending color of richest hue to the whole design--threads of glorious fiber and rare quality, which sparkled and shone like the neck of a pigeon in the sunshine. These threads in the web of industry, which had shone that day for the first time, were the lives of two little children. CHAPTER VIII THE MANTLE OF MANHOOD Months passed, and Robert still worked on the pithead. Much of the novelty had passed, and he was accustomed to the noise and clamor, though he never lost the feeling that he was working with, or, indeed, was part of, some giant monster, imprisoned and harnessed, it is true, but capable of titanic labors and fall of unexpectedness. It was ever-present, implacable and sinister, yet so long as its fetters held, easily controlled. The warm weather had come, and the lure of the moors called to him at his work. Away out over there--somewhere--there were strange wonders awaiting him. He watched the trains, long, fast, and so inevitable-looking, rushing across the moor about a mile and a half from where he worked, and often, he thought that perhaps some day one of those flying monsters would bear him away from Lowwood across the moors into the Big City. What was a city like? And the sea? How big would it be? It was a staggering thought to imagine a stretch of water that ended on the sky-line--no land to be seen on the other side! What a wonderful world it must be! But a touch of bitterness was creeping into his character, and for this his mother's teaching was responsible. Nellie was always jealous of the welfare of the working class, and was ever vigilant as to its interests. She did not know how matters could be rectified, but she did know that she and her like suffered unnecessarily. "There's no reason," she would say, "for decent folk bein' in poverty. Look at the conditions that puir folk live in!" "Hoot ay! Nellie, but we canna' help it," a neighbor would reply. "It's no' for us to be better." "What way is it no'?" she would demand indignantly. "Do you think we couldna' be better folk if we had no poverty?" "Ay, but the like o' us ken no better, an' it wadna' do if we had mair. We micht waste it," and the tone of resignation always maddened her to greater wrath. "There's mair wasted on fancy fal-lals among the gentry than wad keep many a braw family goin'. Look at the hooses we live in; the gentry wadna' keep their dogs in them. The auld Earl has better stables for his horses than the hooses puir folk live in!" "That's maybe a' richt, Nellie, but you maun mind that we're no' gentry. We havena' been brocht up to anything else. Somebody has got to work, an' we canna' help it," and the fatalistic resignation but added fuel to her anger. "Ay, we could help it fine, if we'd only try it. It's no' richt that folk should hae to slave a' their days, an' be always in hardships, while ither folk who work nane hae the best o' everything. I want a decent hoose to live in; I want to see my man hae some leisure, an' my weans hae a chance in life for something better than just work and trouble," and her voice quivering with anger at the wrongs inflicted upon her, she would rattle away on her favorite topic. "There you go again. You are aye herp, herpin' at the big folk, or aboot the union. I wonder you never turn tired, woman," the reply would come, for sometimes these women were unable to understand her at all. "I'll never turn tired o' that," she would reply. "If only the men wad keep thegither an' no' be divided, they'd soon let the big folk see wha' was the maist importance to the country. Do you think onybody ever made a lot o' money by their ain work? My man an' your man hae wrocht hard a' their days. They've never wasted ony o' their hard-earned money, an' yet they hae naething." "No, because it takes it a' to keep us," would be the reply, as if that were a conclusive answer, difficult to counter. "Well, how do ye think other folk mak' a fortune? Do ye think they work harder than your man does? No! It's because our men work so hard that other folk get it aff their labor. Do they live a better life than your man or mine? They waste mair in yae day, whiles, than wad keep your family or mine for a whole year. Is it because they are honester than us? No. You ken fine your man or yoursel' wadna' hae the name o' stealin'. But they steal every day o' their lives, only they ca' it business. That's the difference. It's business wi' them, but it wad be dishonest on oor pairt. Awa', woman! It's disgraceful to think aboot. Naebody should eat wha disna work, an' I dinna care wha hears me say it," and the flashing eyes and the indignant voice gave token of her righteous wrath. "That's a' richt, Nellie, but it has aye been, an' I doot it'll aye be. We just canna help it," would come the reply. "I tell you it's everybody's duty to work for better times. We've no richt to allow the things that gang on. There's nae guid in poverty and disease an' ill-health, an' we should a' try to change it; and we could if only you'd get some sense into your held, an' no' stand and speak as if you felt that God meant it." "Ay, Nellie, that's a' richt, but it's the Lord's will, an' we maun put up wi' it." At this juncture Mrs. Sinclair's patience would become exhausted, and she would flare up, while the neighbor would suddenly break off the discussion and go off home. Her children were taught that it was a disgrace not to resent a wrong, and Robert, though only a boy, was always sturdily standing up against the things he considered wrong at the pit-head. Robert dreamed and built his future castles. There was great work ahead to do. He never mentioned his longings and visions to anyone, yet Mysie's sweet, shy face was creeping into them always, and already he was conscious of something in her that thrilled him. He was awkward, and his speech did not come readily, in her presence. Whole days he dreamed, only waking up to find it was "knocking-off" time. There was an hour's break in the middle of the day, and then he wandered out on the moor. Its silence soothed him, and he would lie and dream among the rough yellow grass and the hard tough heather, bathing his soul in the brooding quietness of it all. He was now twelve years of age, and longing to get at work down the pit. It was for him the advent of manhood, and represented the beginning of his real work. One night in the late summer, after the pit had knocked off and the "day-shift" was returning home, he and Mysie were walking as usual behind the women. He had meant to tell her the great news all day, but somehow she was so different now, and besides a man should always keep something to himself as long as possible. It showed strength, he thought. "I'm goin' doon the pit the morn, Mysie," he said, now that he had come to the point of telling her, and speaking as casually as he could. "Oh, are you?" said Mysie, and stopped, disappointingly, and remained silent. "Ay. I'm twelve now, you ken, an' I can get into the pit," feeling a bit nettled that she was silent in the face of such a happening. "Oh!" and again Mysie stopped. "My faither has got a place a week syne that'll fit John an' him an' me. The three o' us are a' goin' to work thegither. If he could have gotten yin sooner, I'd hae been doon a month syne. But he's aye been waitin' to get a place that wad suit us a'," he said, volunteering this information to see if it would loosen her tongue to express the regret he wanted her to speak. But again Mysie did not answer. She only hung her head and did not look up with any interest in his news. "It's aboot time I was in the pit now, ye ken. You used to get doon the pit at ten. My faither was in it when he was nine, but you're no' allowed to gang doon now till you are twelve year auld. I'm going to draw aff my faither and John," and he was feeling more and more exasperated at her continued silence. Yet still Mysie did not speak, and merely nodded to this further enlightenment. "I've never telt onybody except yoursel'," he said, hurt at her seeming want of interest, and feeling that what he was going to say was less manly than he intended it to be. Indeed he was aware that it was decidedly childish of him to say it, but, like many wiser and older, he could not keep his dignity, and took pleasure in hurting her; for there is a pleasure sometimes in hurting a loved one, because they are loved, and will not speak the things one wants them to say, which if said might add to one's vanity and sense of importance. "So ye'll just be by yoursel' the morn, unless they put Dicky Tamson owre aside you," he added viciously. "I dinna want Dicky Tamson aside me," she said with some heat, and a hint of anxiety in her voice, which pleased him a little. "He's an impudent thing," and again she relapsed into silence, just when he thought his pleasure was going to be complete. "Oh, they'll maybe put Aggie Lowrieson on your side o' the table," he volunteered, glad that at last she had shown some feeling. "They can keep Aggie Lowrieson too," she said shortly. "I dinna' want her. I'll get on fine mysel'," and she said no more. He talked of his new venture all the way home, and he felt more and more hurt because she did not reply as eagerly and volubly as he wished. "It'll be great goin' doon the pit," he said, again feeling that he was going to be priggish. "Pickin' stanes is a' guid enough for a laddie for a wee while, an' for women, but you're the better to gang into the pit when you're the age. You get mair money for it. Of course, it's hard work, but I'll be earnin' as much as twa shillin's a day in the pit, and that'll be twelve shillin's a week." But Mysie could not be drawn to look at his rosy prospects, and still kept silent, so that the last few hundred yards were covered in silence. At the end of the row where they always parted, he could not resist adding a thrust to his usual "good-night." "Guid nicht then, Mysie. I thocht may be ye'd be vexed, seem' that Dickie Tamson can torment you as muckle as he likes now." And so he went home feeling that Mysie didn't care much. But Mysie had a sore heart that night. She knew only too well that Dick Tamson would torment her, and would be egged on by the other women to kiss and tease her, and they would laugh at it all. Robert had always been her champion, and kept Dick, who was a mischievous boy, at a distance. She was sorry that Robert was going down the pit, and it seemed to her that she'd rather go to service now. The harsh clamor and the dirty disagreeable work were bearable before, but it would not be the same with Robert away. She knew that she would miss him very much. She thought long of it when she lay down in her bed that night. He had no right to think that she was not vexed, and she cried quietly beneath the blankets. "Here's Mysie greetin'," cried her little brother, who lay beside her. "Mither, Mysie's greetin'." "What's wrang wi' her?" called the mother anxiously from the other bed. "I dinna' ken," answered the boy, "she'll no' tell me." "What is't that's wrang with you, Mysie?" again called the mother more sharply. "I've a sore tooth," she answered, glad to get any excuse, and lying with promptitude. "Well, hap the blankets owre your head," the mother advised, "and it'll soon be better. Dinna' greet, like a woman." But Mysie still continued to cry softly, choking back the sobs, and keeping her face to the wall, so as not to disturb the other sleeper beside her--cried for a long hour, until exhaustion overcame her, and at last she fell asleep, her last thought being that Robert had no right to misjudge her so. Robert, on the other hand, as is the prerogative of the man, soon forgot all about his disappointment at Mysie's seeming want of interest in his affairs, and was busy with his preparations for the next day. He had a lamp to buy, for Lowwood was an open-light pit, and was soon busy on the instructions of his father learning the art of "putting in a wick" to the exact thickness, testing his tea flask, and doing all the little things that count in preparing for the first descent into a coal mine. He was very much excited over it all, and babbled all the evening, asking questions regarding the work he would be called upon to do, and generally boring his father with his talk. But his father understood it all, and was patient with him, answering his enquiries and advising him on many things, until latterly he pleaded for a "wink o' peace," and told the boy "for any sake" to be quiet. Geordie Sinclair knew that this enthusiasm would soon evaporate. Only too well he knew the stages of disappointment which the boy would experience, and for this reason he was kindly with him. He was now looking forward with better prospects. Robert was the second boy now started, and already matters were somewhat easier; but he shuddered to think of the lot of the man who was battling away unaided, with four or five children to support, and depending on a meager three and sixpence or four shillings of a daily wage to keep the house together. For himself the prospect was now better, and in looking back he realized what a terrible time it had been--especially for his wife; for hers was the more difficult task in laying out the scanty wages he earned. It never had seemed to strike him with such force before, even when matters were at their worst, what it had meant to her; and as he looked at her, sitting knitting at the opposite side of the fire, he was filled with compassion for her, and a new beauty seemed to be upon her lined face, and in the firm set of her mouth. Thus he sat reviewing all the terrible struggle, when she had slaved to keep him and the children, during the time he was injured, and a pang shot through, as the conviction came to him, that perhaps he had not been as helpful as he might have been to her, when a little praise even might have made it easier for her. Impulsively he rose to his feet and crossed to where she sat, taking her in his arms and kissing her. "Losh, Geordie, what's wrong with you!" she enquired, looking up with a pleased sparkle in her eyes, for he was usually very undemonstrative. "Oh, just this, Nellie," he said with embarrassment in every feature of his face, "I've been thinking over things, and I feel that I havena' given you encouragement as I should have done, for all that you have done for me and the bairns." "You fair took my breath away," said Nellie with a pleased little laugh; then, as she looked at his glowing face, something came into her throat, and the tears started. "There now, lassie," he said, again gathering her into his arms, and kissing her tenderly, "it's all past now, my lass, and you'll get it easier from this time forth. God knows, Nellie, you are worth all that I can ever do for you to help," and the happy tears fell from her eyes, as she patted his rough, hairy cheek, and fondled him again, as she had done in their courting days. "I'll wash the floor for you, lass," he said impulsively, almost beside himself with happiness, as he realized that this little act of his had made them both so happy. "You've been in the washing tub all day, and I ken you'll be scrubbin' on the floor first thing in the morning, as soon as we are away to the pit. But I'll do it for you the nicht. The bairns are all in bed, and I'll no' be long. You sit an' tak' a rest," and he was off for the pail and a scrubbing brush, and was back at the fireside pouring water from the kettle before his wife realized it. "Oh, never mind, Geordie," she said remonstratingly, "I'll do it myself in the morning. You've had your own work to do in the pit, an' you need all the rest you can get." "No," he said decisively. "You sit doon, lass. I'll no' be lang. Just you sing a bit sang to me, just as you used to sing, Nellie, an' I'll wash out the floor," and he was soon on his knees, scrubbing away as if it were a daily occurrence with him. And Nellie, pleased and happy beyond expression, sat in the big chair by the fireside and sang his favorite ballad, "Kirkconnel Lea." Oh, that I were where Helen lies, For nicht and day on me she cries, Oh, that I were where Helen lies On fair Kirkconnel Lea. Oh, Helen fair, beyond compare, I'll mak' a garland o' your hair Shall bind my heart for evermair Until the day I dee. And Nellie Sinclair never in all her life sang that song so well as she did that night; and she never sang it again. Robert, who was lying in the room, heard her glorious voice, and marveled at the complete mastery she showed over the plaintive old tune. It was as if her very soul reveled in it, as the notes rose and fell; and it stirred the boy into tremendous emotional excitement, as the tragedy was unfolded in the beautiful words and the sadness of the old tune. It was a memorable night of quiet happiness for all, and there was so much of tragedy lying behind it unseen and unknown. But so often are the sweetest moments of life followed by its sadness and its sorrow. CHAPTER IX THE ACCIDENT 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. Arrived at the pit-head, they found a number of miners there squatting on their "hunkers," waiting the time for descending the shaft. As each newcomer came forward, the man who arrived immediately before him called out: "I'm last." By this means--"crying the benns,"--as it was called--the order of descent was regulated on the principle of "First come, first served." Much chaffing was leveled at little Robert by some of the younger men regarding his work and the things which would have to be done by and to him that day. At last came the all important moment, and Robert, his father and two men stepped on to the cage. After the signal was given, it seemed to the boy as if heaven and earth were passing away in the sudden sheer drop, as the cage plunged down into the yawning hole, out of which came evil smells and shadows cast from the flickering lamps upon the heads of the miners. The rattling of the cage sent a shiver of fear through Robert, and with that first sudden plunge he felt as if his heart were going to leap out of his mouth. But by the time he reached the "bottom," he had consoled and encouraged himself with the thought that these things were all in the first day's experience of all miners. That morning Robert Sinclair was initiated into the art of "drawing" by his brother John. The road was fairly level, to push the loaded "tubs," thus leaving his father to be helped with the pick at the coal "face." After an hour or two, Robert, though getting fairly well acquainted with the work, was feeling tired. The strange damp smell, which had greeted his nostrils when the cage began to descend with him that morning, was still strong, though not so overpowering as it had been at first. The subtle shifting shadows cast from his little lamp were becoming familiar, and his nervousness was not now so pronounced, though he was still easily startled if anything unusual took place. The sound of the first shot in the pit nearly frightened him out of his wits, and he listened nervously to every dull report with a strange uneasiness. About one o'clock his father called to him. "Dinna tak' that hutch oot the noo, Robert. Just let it staun', an' sit doon an' tak' yir piece. Ye'll be hungry, an' John an' me will be out the noo if we had this shot stemmed." "A' richt," cheerfully replied the boy, withdrawing down to the end of the road, where his clothes hung upon a tree, and taking his bread from one of his pockets, he sat down tired and hungry to await his father and John. Geordie's "place" was being worked over the old workings of another mine which had exhausted most of the coal of a lower seam many years previously, except for the "stoops" or pillars, which had been left in. This was supposed to be the barrier beyond which Rundell's lease did not go. It would be too dangerous to work the upper seam with the ground hollow underneath, so the "places" had all been stopped as they came up, with the exception of Geordie Sinclair's. Sinclair was puzzled at this, and he often wondered why his place had not been stopped with the others. He was more uneasy, too, when he began to find large cracks or fissures in the metals, and spoke of this to Andrew Marshall a few nights before; but he did not like to seem to make too much of it, and the matter was passed over, till the day before, when Walker visited the place for a few minutes, when Geordie accosted him. "What way is my place going on?" he asked, and was told that it was a corner in the barrier, which extended for one hundred yards and must go on for that distance, and that there was really no danger, as the ground below was solid. So, busily working away, and finding still more rents in the floor and roof, Sinclair thought it must just be as he had seen it in other places of a like kind, the weight of the upper metals which were breaking over the solid ground by reason of the hollow beneath between the stoops, though in this case it did not amount to much as yet. The coal was easy to get; he had one boy "forrit to the pick," with Robert as "drawer," and his prospects seemed good, he thought, as he was busily preparing a shot, ramming in the powder, and "stemming" up the hole. He was busy ramming the powder in the prepared hole, while the elder boy prepared clay, with which to stem or seal it up after the powder had been pressed back, leaving only the fuse protruding. "Here's a tree cracking," said the boy, drawing his father's attention to a breaking prop; but as this is a common occurrence in all mines where there is extra weight after development, Geordie thought nothing of it at the time, intending merely, before he lighted his shot, to put in a fresh prop. "Bring in another prop, sonny," he said to the boy, "and I'll put it in when I have stemmed this hole," and the boy turned to obey his order. But suddenly a low crackling sound, caused by the breaking of more props, was heard, then a roar and a crash as of thunder, followed by a long rumbling noise, which left not a moment for the two trapped human beings to stir even a limb or utter a cry. The immensity of the fall created a wind, which put out little Robert's lamp; the great rumbling noise filled him with a dreadful fear, and he sprang involuntarily to his feet. "Faither! Faither!" he called, terror in his voice and anxiety in his little heart, but there was no reassuring answer. He felt his breathing getting difficult; the air was thick with dust and heavy with the smell of rotting wood and damp decaying matter. "Faither! Faither!" he called again louder in his agony, darting forward, thinking to go to their assistance, and knocking his head against a boulder. "John! Faither! I'm feart," and he began to cry. Afraid to move, unable to see, he staggered from one side to another, bruising his face and arms against the jagged sides, the blood already streaming from his bruises, and his heart frantic with fear. "Oh, faither! faither! Where are ye?" and he began to crawl up the incline, in desperate fear, while still the rumbling and crashing went on in long rolling thunder. "Oh! oh!" he moaned, now almost mad with terror. "Faither! John! Where are ye! Oh! oh!" and he fell back stunned by striking his head against a low part of the roof. Again he scrambled to his feet, certain now that some disaster had happened, since there was no response to his appeals, and again he was knocked to the ground by striking his head against the side of the roadway. But always he rose again, frantically dashing from side to side, as a caged lark, when first caught, dashes itself against the bars of its prison; until finally, stunned beyond recovery, he lay in a semi-conscious condition, helpless and inert, his bruises smarting but unfelt, and the blood oozing from his nose and mouth. Andrew Marshall, working about fifty yards away, heard the roar and the crash, and the boy's cries, and at once ran to Geordie's place. In his haste and anxiety he nearly stumbled over the prostrate boy, who lay unconscious in the roadway. "Good God! What has happened?" he exclaimed, anxiously bending over the boy and raising him up, then dashing some cold tea from Robert's flask upon him, and forcing some between his lips. Then, when the boy showed signs of recovery, he plied him with anxious questions. "Where's yir faither? What's wrang?" But the boy only clung to him in wild terror, and nothing connected could be got from him. Andrew lighted the boy's lamp and tore up the brae, leaving Robert shrieking in nervous fright. "Great Christ! It has fa'en in!" he cried, when he had got as far as he could go. "Geordie! Geordie! Are ye in there?" and as no answer came, he began tearing at the great blocks of stone, flinging them like pebbles in his desperation, until another warning rumble drove him back. Immediately he realized how helpless he was alone, so he went back to the boy and hurried him down the brae and out to where some other men were at work. A few hasty words, and Robert was passed on, and Andrew went back with the men, only to find how hopeless it all was; for occasionally huge falls continued to come away, and it seemed useless to attempt anything till more help was procured. Andrew hurried off to the bottom and overtook Robert, sending back others to help, and he ascended the shaft and was off to break the news to Mrs. Sinclair; after which he returned to the pit, determined to get out all that remained of Geordie and the boy John. CHAPTER X HEROES OF THE UNDERWORLD Matters were now much easier and more comfortable for Geordie Sinclair and his wife. They had long since added another apartment to their house, and the "room" was the special pride of Nellie, who was gradually "getting a bit thing for it" just as her means permitted. They had two beds in each apartment, and the room was furnished. Mrs. Sinclair had long set her mind upon a "chest of drawers," and now that that particular piece of furniture stood proudly in her room, much of her day was given to polishing it and the half-dozen stuffed bottomed chairs, which were the envy of every housewife in the village. A large oval mirror stood upon the top of the drawers, and was draped with a piece of cheap curtain cloth, bleached to the whiteness of new fallen snow. This mirror was a much-prized possession, for no other like it had ever been known in the village. The floor was covered with oilcloth, and a sheepskin rug lay upon the hearthstone, while white starched curtains draped the window. The getting of the waxcloth had been a wonderful event, and dozens of women had come from all over the village to stand in gaping admiration of its beauty. This was always where Mrs. Sinclair felt a thrill of great pride. "Ye see," she would explain, "it's awfu' easy to wash, and a bit wipe owre wi' soap an' watter is a' it needs." "My, how weel aff ye are!" one woman would exclaim, "I'm telt that ye maunna use a scrubbin' brush on't, or the pattern will rub off." "Oh, ay," Nellie would laugh with a hint of superior wisdom in it. "Ye'll soon waste it gin ye took a scrubber to it. An' ye maunna use owre hot water to it either," she would add. "Oh my!" would come in genuine surprise. "Do you tell me that. Eh, but you're the weel-aff woman now, to hae a room like that, an' rale waxcloth on the floor!" "I thocht it was a fine, cheerie bit thing," Nellie would say. "It mak's the hoose ever so much mair heartsome." "So it is," would come the reply. "It's a fine, but cheerie thing. You're a rale weel-aff woman, I can tell ye," and the woman would go home to dream of one day having a room like Mrs. Sinclair's, and to tell her neighbors of the great "grandeur" that the Sinclair's possessed, whilst Nellie would set to, and rub and polish those drawers and that mirror, and the stuff-bottomed chairs till they shone like the sun upon a moorland tarn, and she herself felt like dropping from sheer exhaustion. She even took to telling the neighbors sometimes, when they came on those visits that "working folk should a' hae coal-houses, for coal kept ablow the beds makes an awfu' mess o' the ticks." "Oh, weel," would be the reply, made with the usual sigh of resignation, "I hae had a house a gey lang while now, an' I dinna think I've ever wanted ony sic newfangled things as that." "That's what's wrang," Mrs. Sinclair would reply. "We dinna want them. If we did, we'd soon get them. What way would the gentry hae a' thae things, an' us hae nane?" "That's a' richt, Nellie," would be the reply. "We wadna ken what to do wi' what the gentry has got. They're rich an' can afford it, an' forby they need them an' we don't. I think I'm fine as I am." "Fine as ye are!" with bitter scorn in her tones. "Ye'll never be fine wi' a mind like that." "Wheesht, woman Nellie! You're no feart. Dinna talk like that. We micht a' be strucken doon dead!" This usually ended the discussion, for Scots people generally--and the workers especially--are always on very intimate terms with the Deity, and know the pains and penalties of too intimate allusions to His power. Yet, with all her discontent, Mrs. Sinclair found life very much easier than it had been, for now that she had some of the boys started to work, she had made her house "respectable," and added many little comforts, besides having a "bit pound or twa lyin' in the store." So she looked ahead with more hope and a more serene heart. Her children were well-fed and clothed, and the old days of hunger and struggling were over, she thought. Geordie was now taking a day off in the middle of the week to rest, as there was no need for him to slave and toil every day as he had done in the past. After all it would only be a very few years till he would no longer be able to work at all. Rosy looked the future then, as Mrs. Sinclair, on the day on which young Robert went down the pit, showed off her room "grandeur" to an admiring neighbor. "My, what braw paper ye hae, Nellie. Wha put it on for ye? Was it yirsel'?" asked the visitor with breath bated in admiration. "Ay, it was that. I just got the chance o' the bargain, an' I thocht I'd tak' it," she replied, with subdued pride. "Oh, my! it's awful braw, an' sae weel matched too! I never saw anything sae well done. You're rale weel-off, do ye ken." "My God! What's wrang?" cried Nellie suddenly, gazing from the window with blanched cheeks. "I doot there's been an accident. I heard the bell gang for men three tows a' rinnin', an' I see a lot o' men comin' up the brae. I doot the pit's lowsed." Both of them hurried to the door, and found that already a crowd of women had flocked to the end of the row, and were standing waiting anxiously on the men, in order to learn what had happened. They did not talk, but gazed down the hill, each heart anxious to know if the unfortunate one belonged to her. The sickening fear which grips the heart of every miner's wife, when she sees that procession from the pit before the proper quitting hour, lay heavy upon each one. The white drawn faces, the set firm lips, and the deep troubled breathing told how much the women were moved. Wives and mothers, sweethearts and sisters, oh, what a hell of torture they suffered in those few tense moments whilst waiting for the news, which, though to a great extent it may relieve many, must break at least one heart. No man, having once seen this, ever wants to witness it again. Concentrated hell and torture with every moment, stabbing and pulling at each heart and then--then the sad, mournful face of Andrew Marshall as he steps forward slowly past Mag Robertson, past Jean Fleming, past Jenny Maitland, past them all, and at last putting a kindly hand on the shoulder of Nellie Sinclair, he says, with a catch in his voice that would break a heart of granite: "Come awa' hame, Nellie. Come awa' hame. Ye'll need to bear up." Then it is whispered round: "It's Geordie Sinclair killed wi' a fa'." And hope has died, and dreams have fled, and the world will never again look bonnie and fresh and sweet and full of happiness, nor the blood dance so joyously, nor the eyes ever again sparkle with the same soft loving glance. No more happy evenings, such as the night before had been, when the glamor and romance of courtship days had come back, and they had found a new beauty of love and the glory of life, in the easier circumstances and rosy hopes ahead. Misery and suffering, and the long keen pain, the sad cheerless prospect, and over all the empty life and the broken heart. Lowwood was plunged into gloom when the news of the accident was known, and every heart went out in sympathy to Nellie Sinclair and her young family. It was indeed a terrible blow to lose at one and the same time her husband and her eldest boy. It was two days later, and the bodies had not yet been recovered. Men toiled night and day, working as only miners fighting for life can work, risking life among the continually falling débris to recover all that remained of their comrades. "It couldna ha'e been worse," said Jenny Maitland sorrowfully to her next door neighbor. "It's an awfu' blow." "Ay," rejoined her neighbor, applying the corner of her apron to her eyes. "It mak's it worse them no' bein' gotten yet. I think I'd gae wrang in the mind if that happened to our yin," and then, completely overcome, she sat down on the doorstep and sobbed in real sorrow. "I suppose it's an awfu' big fall. He had been workin' on the top o' some auld workin's, an' I suppose they wadna ken, an' it fell in. It maun hae been an awfu' trial for wee Rob, poor wee man. His first day in the pit, an' his father an' brither killed afore his een!" "Hoo has Nellie taken it, Jenny?" enquired the neighbor, after a little, when her sobs had subsided. "Ye'd break yir heart if ye could see her," replied Jenny sorrowfully. "I gaed owre when oor yin gaed out wi' the pieces--he cam' hame at fower o'clock to get mair pieces, for they're goin' to work on to ten the nicht--an' I never saw onything sae sad-lookin' as her face. She has never cried the least thing yet. Never a tear has come frae her, but she'd be better if she could greet." "Do ye tell me that! Puir Nellie! It's an awfu' hand fu' she is left wi', too," commented the neighbor. "Ay, she jist looks at ye sae sad-like wi' her big black een; never a word nor a tear, but just stares, an' she's that thin an' white lookin'. I look for her breakin' doon a'thegither, an' when she does I wadna like to see her. The bits o' weans gang aboot the hoose wonderin' at her, and she looks to them too, but ye'd think she'd nae interest in onything. She jist looks out o' the window an' doon the brae to the pit. It's awesome to look at her." "Oh, puir body!" and again the kindly neighbor was overcome, and Jenny joined her tears too in silent sympathy. "The minister was owre last nicht," said Jenny after a little, "but I dinna think she ever spoke to him. He cam' in just when I was comin' oot, an' I dinna like to leave her. He talked away a wee while an' then put up a prayer; but there was nae consolation in't for onybody. I think the sicht o' her face maun hae been too muckle for him. He didna stay very lang, and gaed awa' saying he'd come back again. Nellie has everything ready--the bed a' made, wi' clean sheets an' blankets on them--an' there she stan's always at that window, lookin' doon the brae. It would break yer heart to see her, Leezie, she's that vexed lookin'." So they wept and sorrowed together. * * * * * Down in the pit, Andrew Marshall, Matthew Maitland, Peter Pegg, and a number of others toiled like giants possessed. Their naked bodies streamed with sweat and glistened in the light of their lamps. Timber was placed in position, and driven tight with desperation in every blow from their hammers; blocks of rock were tossed aside, and smashed into fragments, ere being filled into the tubs which were ever waiting ready to convey the débris to the pit-head. Few words were spoken, except when a warning shout was given, when some loose rubble poured down from the great gaping cavern in the roof, and then men jumped and sprang to safety with the agility of desperation, to wait till the rumbling had ceased, only to leap back again into the yawning hell, tearing at the stones, and trying to work their way into the place where they knew Geordie and the boy were lying. It seemed impossible that human efforts would ever be able to clear that mountain away. "Wait a minute, callans," said Andrew, almost dropping with exhaustion, and drawing his hands across his eyes to wipe the sweat from them, whilst he "hunkered" down, his back against a broken tree which stood jutting out from the building, supporting a broken "baton" (cross-tree), which bent down in the center, making the roadway low and unsafe. "Let us tak a minute's thocht, and see if we can get a way o' chokin' up that stuff fear fallin' doon. We'll never get it redd up goin' like this." So they sat down, tired but still desperate, to listen to each one suggesting a way of stopping the débris from continuing to fall. Baffled and at their wits' end, they could think of nothing. At last in came a number of other men to relieve them--men equally anxious and desperate as they, burning with the desire to get to grips with this calamity which had come upon two of their comrades. "I'm no' goin' hame," said Andrew decisively, "till I see Geordie out." He was almost dropping with exhaustion, but he could not think of leaving his dead friend in there. So at last it was agreed that he should stay, and at least give the benefit of his advice. The others, more tired than ever they had been before in all their experience of the mines, where hard work is the rule, trudged wearily home, to be met by the waiting groups of women and children, who at all times stood at the corners of the village eagerly asking for news, "If they'd been gotten yet." After a few minutes' deliberation a plan was decided on by Andrew and his comrades of trying to choke up the hole in the roof with timber, and the work went on desperately, silently, heroically. Time and again their efforts were baffled by new falls, but always the same persistent eager spirit drove them back to their toil. So they worked, risking and daring things of which no man who never saw a like calamity has any conception, and which would have appalled themselves at any other time. "Look out, boys," called Tam Donaldson, springing back to the road as the warning noise again began, and great masses of rock came hurtling down, filling the place with dust and noise. A cry of pain and horror broke upon them as they ran, and brought them back while the crumbling mass was still falling. "Great God! It's wee Jamie Allan," roared one man above the din. "He's catched by the leg! Here, boys, hurry up! Try an' get this block broken afore ony mair comes doon. God Almichty! Are we a' goin' to be buried thegither? This bit, boys! Quick!" And they tore at the great masses of stone, the sweat streaming from every pore of their bodies, cursing their impotence as they smashed with big hammers the rock which lay upon Jamie's leg. "Mind yersel's, laddies!" warned Jamie, as again the trickling noise began, heralding another fall. "Leave me, for God's sake, an' get back!" But not one heeded. Desperate and strong with the strength of giants, they toiled on, the sight of suffering so manifest in Jamie's eyes, as he strove not to cry out, spurring them onward. "Ye'll never lift that bit, Tam," said Jamie, as four of them tore at the block which lay upon his leg. "It's faur too big. Take an ax an' hack the leg off. I doot it'll be wasted anyway. Oh, dear! Oh, dear!" And unable longer to endure the pain, he roared aloud in agony, and tore at the stone himself with his fingers, like an imprisoned beast in a trap. "Here, boys, quick!" cried Andrew, getting his long pinch in below the stone, upon a fine leverage. "Put yir weight on this, Tam, an' Jock an' Sanny'll try an' pull Jamie out. Hurry up, for she's working for anither collapse. A'thegither!" and so they tugged and tore, and strained and pulled, while the roars of the imprisoned man were deafening. "A'thegither again, laddies!" encouraged Andrew. "This time!" and with a tremendous effort the stone gave way, and Jamie was pulled clear, his leg a crushed mass of pulpy blood and shattered bones. They dragged him back clear of any further falls, and improvised a stretcher on which to carry home his now unconscious body. "That was a hell o' a narrow shave," quietly observed Tam Donaldson, as they panted together, and tried to collect themselves. "His leg's wasted, I doot, an' will need to come off." When they had their stretcher ready, the wounded man was tenderly placed upon it, carefully covered up with the jackets of the others; whilst half-a-dozen of them carried him to the pit bottom, and finally bore him home, where the doctor was ready waiting to attend to him. Andrew and a few others worked away, and at last managed to get the running sore in the roof choked up with long bars of timber, and even though it continued to rumble away above them, the heavy blocks of wood held, and so allowed them to work away in comparative safety. Peter Pegg and Matthew Maitland returned at six o'clock next morning, bringing with them another band of workers to relieve those who had worked all night, but still Andrew Marshall would not leave the scene of the disaster. He worked and rested by turns, advising and guiding the younger men, who never spared themselves. They performed mighty epics of work down there in the darkness amid the rumbling, falling roof. It was a great task they were set, but they never shirked the consequences. They never turned back. Risks were taken and accepted without a thought; tasks were eagerly jumped to, and the whole job accepted as if it were just what ordinarily they were asked to do. Crash went the hammers; thump went the great blocks of material into the tubs, and the men quietly got away the tubs as they were filled. Night and day the great work went on, never ceasing, persistent, relentless. If one man dropped out a minute to breathe and rest when exhausted, another sprang into his place, and toiled and strove like an engine. There was something great and inspiring even to look on at those mighty efforts--something exhilarating and elevating in the play of muscles like great long shooting serpents under the glistening skins of the men. Arms shot out, tugged and tore, jerked and wrenched, then doubled up and the muscles became knots, bulging out as if they would break through the skin, as the great blocks were lifted; and then the blocks were cast into the tub, the knots untied themselves, and slipped elastically back into their places, and the serpents were momentarily at rest until the body bent again to another block. Out and in they flew, supple and silent, quick as lightning playing in the heavens; they zig-zagged and shot this way and that, tying and untying themselves, darting out and doubling back, advancing and retiring in rhythmic action, graceful and easy, powerful and inevitable. Bending and rising, the swaying bodies gleamed and glistened with greasy dust and sweat, catching the gleams from the lamps and reflecting them in every streaming pore. Straining and tearing, the muscles, at every slightest wish, seemed to exude energy and health, glowing strength and power. It was all so natural and apparently easy--an epic in moleskin and human flesh, with only the little glimmer of oil-lamps, which darted from side to side in a mad mazurka of toil, crossing and recrossing, swinging and halting, the flames flattening out with every heave of their owners' bodies, then abruptly being brought to the steady again. Looked at from the road-foot, it was like a carnival of fireflies engaged in trying how quickly they could dart from side to side, and cross each other's path, without coming into collision. Who shall sing in lyrical language the exhilaration of such splendid men's work? Who shall catch that glow of strength and health, and work it into deathless song? The ring of the hammers on the stone, the dull regular thud upon the timber, the crash of breaking rock, and the strong, warm-blooded, generous-hearted men; the passionate glowing bodies, and above all, the great big heroic souls, fighting, working, striving in a hell of hunger and death, toiling till one felt they were gods instead of humans--gods of succor and power, gods of helpfulness and strength. So the work went on hour after hour, and now their efforts were beginning to tell. No more came the rumbling, treacherous falls; but perceptibly, irresistibly was the passage gradually cleared, and the way opened up, until it seemed as if these men were literally eating their way into that rock-filled passage. "Can ye tell me where Black Jock is a' this time?" enquired Andrew, as Peter and Matthew and he sat back the road, resting while the others worked. "Rundell has been here twa or three times, for hours at a time, but I hae never seen Walker yet." "I hae never seen him either, an' I was hearin' that he was badly," returned Peter, and his big eye seemed to turn as if it were looking for and expecting some one to slip up behind him. "Ay," broke in Matthew, "badly! I wadna say, but it micht be that he's badly; but maybe he's not." "Do ye ken, boys," said Andrew quietly, taking his pipe out of his mouth, and speaking with slow deliberation, "I'm beginnin' to think Black Jock is guilty o' Geordie's death. Geordie, as we a' ken, had ay something against Walker. There was something he kent aboot the black brute that lately kept him gey quiet; for, if ye noticed, whenever Geordie went to him about anybody's complaint, the men aye won. I ken Walker hated him, an' I'm inclined to think that he has deliberately put Geordie into this place, kennin' that the lower seam had been worked out lang, lang syne. His plans wad tell him as muckle about the workin's, and I ken, at least, he's never been in Geordie's place since it was started, an' there's nae ither places drivin' up sae far as this. They're a' stoppit afore they come this length; an' forby, frae what Rundell has let drap the day, he never kent that the coal was being worked as far up as this. By ----! Peter, gin I could prove what I suspect, I'd murder the dirty brute this nicht! I would that!" "Would Nellie no' ken, think ye, what it was that Geordie had against Black Jock that kept him sae quiet?" enquired Peter. "I couldna' say," answered Andrew, "but some day when I get the chance I'll maybe ask her, an' if it is as I think, then there'll be rows." "Let me ken, Andrew," broke in Matthew. "Let me ken if ever ye discover onything; an' ye can count on me sharin' the penalties o' hell alang wi' ye for the murder o' the big black brute." "I heard," said Peter, "that he was boozin' wi' Mag Robertson and Sanny. But we'll no' be long in kennin', for ill-doin' canna hide." * * * * * After three frantic days of fighting against calamity, during which Andrew never left the fight except for that brief journey to tell Nellie the news, at last they came upon the crushed mass of bloody pulp and rags, smashed together so that the one could not be told from the other--father and son, a heap of broken bones and flesh and blood.... And no pen can describe accurately the scene. The light had gone out from one woman's heart, the hope had been crushed from her life. The rainbow which had promised so much vanished. The lust and urge had gone out of eager life. Never again would the world seem fair and beautiful. Instead, all the weary fight and desperate battle with poverty and privation over again; the dull misery and the drab gray existence, and always the pain--the heavy, dragging pain of a broken life. With a woman's "Oh! my God!" the world for one heart stood still, and the blind fate of things triumphed, crushing a woman's soul in the process. CHAPTER XI THE STRIKE A week had passed, and Geordie Sinclair and his boy, or at least all that could be gathered up of them, had been laid to rest. Nellie was very ill, and was now in bed. The reaction had been too much for her. But, as Jenny Maitland had said: "She's never cried yet, an' it would hae been better gin she had. She jist looked at ye wi' her big black e'en sae vexed-like and faraway lookin', an' never spoke hardly. When they carried out the coffins, she sprang up gin she wad follow them, but was putten back to bed again. It was heart-vexin' to look at her." Robert suffered, too. The sympathy of everyone went out to him. At night when he went to bed the whole scene was reënacted before him in all its horror. Those tense moments of tragedy had so powerfully impressed his boyish mind that he could never forget them. At the end of the week Andrew Marshall visited them to talk over matters. A collection had been made at the pay-office by the men employed at the pit, and a beautiful wreath purchased and placed upon the grave. A substantial balance had been handed over to Mrs. Sinclair, and this defrayed the expenses of the funeral. After Andrew had spoken of various things, he broke on to the object of his errand that night. "I hae been thinkin', Nellie," he began nervously, "that I could tak' Rob in wi' me. Ye see, I ha'e no callans o' my ain, and I ha'e aye to get yin to draw off me. So, gin ye're agreeable, I could tak' Rob, an' I'll be guid to him. He can come an' be my neighbor, an' as he'll hae to get work in ony case, he micht as weel work wi' me as wi' ony ither body. Forby I'll maybe be able to pay him mair than plenty ithers could pay him, an' that is efter a' the point to be maist considered. What do ye think?" But Mrs. Sinclair could not think; she merely indicated to him that he might please himself and make his own arrangements with the boy, which Andrew did, and Robert went to work with him the following week. He was a mass of nerves and was horribly afraid--indeed, this fear never left him for years--but, young as he was, he recognized his responsibility, to his mother and the rest of the family. He was now its head, and had to shoulder the burden of providing for it, and so his will drove him to work in the pit, when his soul revolted at the very thought of it. Always the horror of the tragedy was with him, down to its smallest detail; and sometimes, even at work, when his mind wandered for a moment from his immediate task, he would start up in terror, almost crying out again as he had done on the day of the accident. Andrew kept his word and was good to the boy now in his care. Indeed, he took, as some said, more care of the boy than if Robert had been his own, for he tried to save him from every little detail that might remind him of the accident. "That's yours, Robin," he said, when pay-day came, as he handed to the boy the half of the pay earned. "Na, I canna' tak' that, Andrew," replied Robert, looking up into the broad, kindly, honest face of the man. "My mither wouldna' let me." "Would she no'?" replied Andrew. "But you are the heid o' the hoose, Robin, sae just tak' it hame, an' lay it down on the dresser-head. We are doin' gey weel the noo, an' forby, ye're workin' for it. Noo run awa' hame wi't, an' dinna say ocht to yir mither, but just put it doon on the dresser-head." And so the partnership began which was to last for many years. About this time there happened one of those tremendous upheavals, long remembered in the industrial world, the great Scottish Miners' Strike of 1894. The trade union movement was growing and fighting, and every tendency pointed to the fact that a clash of forces was inevitable. The previous year had seen the English miners beaten after a protracted struggle. They had come out for an increase in wages, and whilst it was recognized that they had been beaten and forced to go back to work suffering wholesale reductions, yet a newer perspective was beginning to appear to the miners of Scotland. "We'll never be able to beat the maisters," said Tam Donaldson, when the cloud first appeared upon the industrial horizon. "The English strike gied us a lesson we shouldna forget." "How's that?" enquired Peter Pegg, as he sat down on his hunkers one night at the end of the row, while they discussed the prospects of the coming fight. "Weel, ye saw how the Englishmen fought unitedly, an' yet they were beaten, an' had to gang back on a reduction. We'll very likely be the same, for the maisters are a' weel organized. What we should do is to ha'e England an' Scotland coming out together, an' let the pits stan' then till the grass was growin' owre the whorles. That would be my way o' it, and I think it would soon bring the country to see what was in the wind." "That's richt, Tam. It would soon bring the hale country to its senses; for nae matter what oor fight is, we are aye in the wrang wi' some folk; so the shock o' the hale country comin' out would mak' them tak' notice, an' would work the cure." So they talked of newer plans, while Smillie toiled like a giant to educate and organize the miners. He had taken hold of them as crude material, and was slowly shaping them into something like unity. A few more years and he would win; but the forces against him knew it, too, and so followed the great fight which lasted for seventeen weeks. Singularly enough, while there was undoubtedly much privation, there was not very much real misery, as the strike had started early in a warm, dry summer. Communal kitchens were at once established throughout the country. Everybody did his best, and the womenfolk especially toiled early and late. A committee was appointed in each village to gather in materials. Beef at a reasonable price was supplied by a local butcher. A horse and cart were borrowed, which went round the district gathering a cabbage or two here; a few carrots or turnips there, parsley at another, and so on, returning at night invariably laden with vegetables for the next day's dinner. Sometimes a farmer would give a sheep, and the local cooperative society provided the bread at half the cost of production. Those farmers who were hostile gave nothing, but it would have paid them better had they concealed their hostility, for sometimes, even in a single night, large portions of a field of potatoes would disappear as by magic. Robert worked in this fight like a man. He helped to cut down trees and saw them into logs, to cook the food at the soup kitchen. Everything and anything he tried, running errands, and even going with the van to solicit material for the following day's meals. All were cheerful, and no one seemed to take the fight bitterly. Sports were organized. Quoiting tournaments were got up, football matches arranged, games at rounders and hand-ball--every conceivable game was indulged in, with sometimes a few coppers as prizes but more often a few ounces of tobacco or tea or a packet of sugar. Dances in the evenings were started at the corner of the row to the strains of a melodeon, and were carried on to the early hours of the morning. It was from these gatherings that the young lads generally raided the fields and hen runs of the hostile farmers, returning with eggs, butter, potatoes, and even cheese--everything on which they could lay their hands. At one of these gatherings Robert related his experience with "auld Hairyfithill." Robert had been round with the van that day, and calling at Wilson's, or Hairyfithill Farm, to ask if they had any cabbage to give, he heard the old man calling to the servant lass: "Mag! Mag! Where are ye? Rin an' bring in the hens' meat; there's thae colliers coming." Nothing daunted, Robert had gone into the kitchen to ask if they had anything to give the strikers. "Get awa' back to yer work, ye lazy loons, ye!" was the reply from old Mr. Wilson. "Gie ye something for your soup kitchen! Na, na! Ye can gang an' work, an' pay for your meat. Gang awa' oot owre, and leave the town, an' dinna come back again." And so they had drawn blank at Hairyfithill. "It wad serve him richt, if every tattie in his fields was ta'en awa'," said Matthew Maitland, after the story had been told and laughed over. "It wad that," agreed a score of voices; but nothing was done nor anything further said, so the dancing proceeded. About two o'clock in the morning while the dancing was still going on and a fire had been kindled at the corner in which some of the strikers were roasting potatoes and onions a great commotion was suddenly caused, when Dickie Tamson and two other boys drove in among them old Hairyfithill's sow which he was fattening for the market. Some proposed that the pig be killed at once. "Oh no, dinna kill it," said Matthew Maitland, with real alarm in his voice. "Ye'd get into a row for that. Ye'd better tak' it back, or there may be fun." "Kill the damn'd thing," said Tam Donaldson callously, "an' it'll maybe a lesson to the auld sot. Him an' his hens' meat! I'd let him ken that it's no' hens' meat the collier eats--at least no' so lang as he can get pork." "That's jist what I think, too, Tam," put in another voice. "I'd mak' sure work that the collier ate pork for yince. Come on, boys, an' mum's the word," and he proceeded to drive the pig further along the village, followed by a few enthusiastic backers. They drove it into Granny Fleming's hen-house in the middle of the square, put out the hens, who protested loudly against this rude and incomprehensible interruption of their slumbers, and then they proceeded to slaughter the pig. It was a horrible orgy, and the pig made a valiant protest, but encountered by hammers and picks, knives and such-like weapons, the poor animal was soon vanquished, and the men proceeded to cut up its carcass. It was a long and trying ordeal for men who had no experience of the work; yet they made up in enthusiasm what they lacked in science, and by five o'clock the pig was cut up and distributed through a score of homes. Every trace of the slaughter was removed, and the refuse buried in the village midden, and pork was the principal article on the breakfast table that morning in Lowwood. "I hear that auld Hairyfithill has offered five pound reward for information about his pig," said Tam Donaldson a few mornings later. "Ay, an' it's a gran' price for onybody wha kens aboot it," said auld Jamie Lauder. "Pork maun hae risen in price this last twa-three days, for I'm telt it was gaun cheap enough then." "That is true," said Tam, "but it was a damn'd shame to tak' the auld man's pig awa', whaever did it. But I hear them saying that the polisman is gaun to the farm the nicht to watch, so that the tatties 'll no' be stolen," he went on, as some of the younger men joined them, "an' I suppose that the puir polisman hasna' a bit o' coal left in his coal-house. It's no' richt, ye ken, laddies, that a polisman, who is the representative o' law and order in this place, should sit without a fire. He has a wife an' weans to worry aboot, an' they need a fire to mak' meat. Maybe if he had a fire an' plenty o' coal it wad mak' him comfortable, an' then he'd no' be sae ready to leave the hoose at nicht an' lie in a tattie pit to watch thievin' colliers. If a man hasna' peace in his mind it'll mak' him nasty, an' we canna' allow sic a thing as a nasty polisman in this district!" "That's richt, Tam," said one of the younger men. "It would be a shame to see a woman an' twa-three weans sittin' withoot a fire an' a great big bing o' coal lyin' doon there at the pit. We maun try an' keep the polisman comfortable." That night the policeman without in any way trying to conceal his purpose walked down through the village and across the strip of moor and took up his position at the end of Hairyfithill's potato field. At once a group of young men led by Tam Donaldson set off with bags under their arms after it was dark for the pit at the other end of the village and were soon engaged in carrying coal as if their lives depended on it. "Noo, lads, the first bag gangs to the polisman, mind," said Tam, shouldering his load and walking off. "A' richt, Tam. If we a' gang wi' the first bag to him that'll be nine bags, then we can get two or three bags for hame. Dinna hurry; we ha'e a' nicht to carry, an' we can get in a fine lot afore daylicht breaks." "That's richt," said Tam, "but mind an' no' tire yersels too much, for ye've a nicht at the tatties the morn. The polis'll be at the bing the morn's nicht efter this carry-on, an' when he is busy watchin' for coal thieves, we maun see that we get in a denner or twa o' tatties. I heard him sayin' he could not be everywhere at yince, an' couldna' both watch coal thieves an' tattie stealin' at yin an' the same time." * * * * * All this time matters went very smoothly. The men were very firm, having great trust in Smillie. After about six weeks, however, from various causes a suspicious atmosphere began to be created. Hints had been appearing from time to time in the newspapers that matters were not altogether as the miners thought they were. Then vague rumors got afloat in many districts and spread with great rapidity, and these began to undermine the confidence of the strikers. "What think ye o' the fecht noo, Tam?" enquired Matthew Maitland one night as they sat among the others at the "Lazy Corner," as the village forum was called. "I dinna ken what to think o' it," replied Tam glumly. "Do ye think there's any truth in that story aboot Smillie havin' sell't us?" "It wad be hard to ken," replied Matthew Maitland, taking his pipe out of his mouth and spitting savagely upon the ground. "But I heard it for a fact, and that a guid wheen o' men doon the country hae gaen back to their work through it. An' yet, mind ye, Smillie seemed to me to be a straight-forret man an' yin that was sincere. Still, ye can never tell; an' twa-three hunner pound's a big temptation to a man." "Ay," said Tam dryly, "we hae been diddled sae often wi' bigmoothed men on the make, that it mak's a body ay suspicious when yin hears thae stories. I heard Wiston, the coal-maister, had gien him five hunner pounds on the quiet." "I heard that too," replied Matthew, "but, like you, I'm loth to think it o' Smillie. I'd believe it quicker aboot yon ither chiel, Charlie Rogerson. He comes oot to speak to us ay dressed in a black dress-suit, wi' white cuffs doon to his finger nebs, his gold ring, his lum hat, an' a' his fal-de-lals." "Weel, I dinna believe a word o' this story aboot Bob," said Robert quietly, who had "hunkered" down beside the two men who sat so earnestly discussing matters while the others went on with their games and dancing. "Do ye no', Rob?" said Tam. "No, I do not," was the firm reply, "for nae matter what happens in a fight, it's ay the opeenion o' some folk that the men ha'e been sell't." Robert, though young, took a keen interest in the fight. While other lads of his age looked upon it as a fine holiday, the heavy responsibilities he had to face gave him a different outlook, and so the men seemed to recognize that he was different from the other boys, and more sober in his view-point. "This story is set aboot for the purpose o' breakin' oup the men," he continued. "We hear o' Smillie haein hale rows o' cottages bought, an' a lot ither rubbish, but I wouldna believe it. It's a' to get the men to gang back to their work; an' if they do that, it'll no' only break the strike, but it'll break up the union, an' that's what's wanted mair than anything else. I've heard Smillie an' my faither talkin' aboot a' thae things lang syne, an' Smillie says that's what the stories are set aboot for. We should ha'e sense enough no' to heed them, for I dinna think Smillie has sell't us at a'." There was a fine, firm ring in the boy's voice as he spoke which moved the two older men, and made them feel a little ashamed that they had been so ready to doubt. "Ah, weel, Rob," said Tam, "maybe you are richt, but a lot o' men ha'e gaen back to their work already, an' it'll break up the strike if it spreads. But we'll ha'e to get some tatties in the nicht; the polisman's goin' to be watchin' auld Burnfoot's hen-hoose, sae it'll be a grand chance for some tatties," and the talk drifted on to another subject. About the eighth week of the strike the news went round the village that Sanny Robertson and Peter Fleming were "oot at the pit." "I wad smash every bone in their dirty bodies if I had my way o' it. I would," said Matthew Maitland, with emphasis. Matthew was always emphatic in all he said, though seldom so in what he did. "But we'll ha'e to watch hoo we act," said Andrew Marshall more cautiously. "It's agin the law, ye ken, to use force." "I wadna' gi'e a damn," said Peter Pegg, his big eye making frantic efforts to wink. "I wad see that they blacklegged nae mair." "Sae wad I," promptly exclaimed half a dozen of the younger men. "We maun see that they don't do it ony mair." "Ay, an' I hope we'll mak' sure work that they sleep in for twa-three mornin's." "I'll tell ye what," said old Lauder, "let us get a few weemin' and weans thegither, an' we'll gang doon to the pit an' wait on them comin' up frae their shift. The bairns can get tin cans an' a stane for a drumstick, an' we'll ha'e a loonie band. We can sing twa or three o' thae blackleg sangs o' Tam Donaldson's, an' play them hame." "That's the plan, Jamie," replied Tam, who had suddenly seen himself immortalized through his parodies of certain popular songs. "Let us get as mony women an' callans as possible, and we can mak' a damn'd guid turnout. We'll sing like linties, an' drum like thunder, an' the blacklegs'll feel as if they were goin' through Purgatory to the tune o':" Tattie Wullie, Tattie Wullie, Tattie Wullie Shaw, Where's the sense o' workin', Wullie?-- Faith, ye're lookin' braw. or Peter Fleming, Peter Fleming, Peter, man, I say, Ye've been workin', ye've been workin', Ye've been workin' the day. Peter Fleming, Peter Fleming, If ye work ony mair, Peter Fleming, Peter Fleming, Your heart will be sair. With little difficulty a band of men, women and children was organized and proceeded to the pit to await the coming up of the culprits. Hour after hour they waited patiently, determined not to miss them, and the time was spent in light jesting and singing ribald songs. "I wadna' like if my faither was a blackleg," observed Mysie Maitland to the girl next her. "No, nor me, either!" quickly agreed the other. "It wad be awfu' to hear folk cryin' 'Blackleg' after yir faither, wadna' it, Mysie?" "Ay," was the reply. "I wadna' like it." "They should a' be hunted oot o' the place," put in Robert, who was standing near. "They are just sellin' the rest o' the men, an' helpin' to break up the strike. So ye mind, Mysie, hoo Tam Graham's lass aye clashed on the rest o' us on the pit-head? She's just like her faither, ay ready to do onything agin the rest, if it would gi'e her a wee bit favor." "Ay, fine I mind o' it, Rob," Mysie replied eagerly. "Do ye mind the day she was goin' to tell aboot you takin' hame the bit auld stick for firewood? When I telt her if she did, I'd tell on her stealin' the tallow frae the engine-house an' the paraffin ile ay when she got the chance. She didna say she'd tell then." "Ay, Mysie. Maybe I'd ha'e gotten the sack if she had telt. But she was aye a clashbag. But here they come!" he shouted animatedly, as the bell signaled for the cage to rise, and presently the wheels began to revolve, as the cage ascended. "May the tow break, an' land the dirty scums in hell," prayed one man. "Ay, an' may the coals they howkit the day roast them forever," added another. Though they prayed thus, yet once again they found that the "prayer of the wicked availeth naught." Buckets of water, however, and even bits of stone and scrap iron were surreptitiously flung down the shaft; and when the blacklegs did appear, they were nearly frightened out of their senses. It would have gone hard with them as they left the cage, but someone whispered, "Here's the polis!" and so the crowd had to be content with beating their tin cans; and keeping time to the songs improvised by Tam Donaldson, they escorted the blacklegs to their homes. Next morning a large number of the strikers gathered at the Lazy Corner, enjoying themselves greatly. "They tell me," said Tam Donaldson, "that our fren's ha'e slept in this morning." A laugh greeted this sally, which seemed to indicate that most of them knew about the sleeping-in and the reason for it. "Ay, they'd be tired oot efter their hard day's work yesterday," replied another. "Ay, an' they dinna seem to be up yet," said a third, "for I see the doors are still shut, an' the bairns are no' awa' to the school. They maun ha'e been awfu' tired to ha'e slept sae lang." "Let's gang doon and gi'e them a bit sang to help to keep their dreams pleasant," suggested Tam Donaldson, as they moved off down the row and stopped before Jock Graham's door. Tam, clearing his throat, led of: Hey, Johnnie Graham, are ye wauken yet, Or is yer fire no' ken'lt yet? If you're no wauken we will wait, An' tak' ye to the pit in the mornin'. Black Jock sent a message in the dark, Sayin': Johnny Graham, come to your wark, For tho' ye've been locked in for a lark, Ye maun come to the pit in the mornin'. You an' Fleeming, an' Robertson tae, Had better a' gang doon the brae, An' you'll get your pay for ilka day That ye gang to your work in the mornin'. Then, leading off on to another, Tam, with great gusto, swung into a song that carried the others along uproariously: O' a' the airts the win' can blaw, It canna blaw me free, For I am high an' dry in bed, When workin' I should be; But ropes are stronger faur than is Desire for work wi' me, An' sae I lie, baith high an' dry-- I'll hae to bide a wee. I canna say on whatna day I'll gang again to work, For sticks an' stanes may break my banes, As sure's my name's McGurk. Gie me the best place in the pit, Then happy I shall be, Just wi' yae wife to licht oor life, Big dirty Jock an' me! After a round or two of applause and some shouts from the children, Tam broke out in a new air: This is no' my ain lassie, Kin' though the lassie be, There's a man ca'd Black Jock Walker, Shares this bonnie lass wi' me. She's sweet, she's kin', her ways are fine, An' whiles she gies her love to me. She's ta'en my name, but, oh, the shame, That Walker shares the lass wi' me. This is no' my ain lassie, She is changefu' as the sea, Whiles I get a' her sweet kisses, Whiles Black Jock shares them wi' me. She's fat and fair, she's het and rare, She's no' that trig, but ay she's free, It pays us baith, as sure as daith, That Walker shares the lass wi' me. This sent the crowd wild with delight, and cries of "Good auld Tam!" were raised. "Damn'd guid, Tam! Ye're as guid as Burns." All of which made Tam feel that at last his genius was being recognized. The explanation of the joke was to be found in the fact, as one song had hinted, that the strikers had securely fastened the doors of all the blacklegs' houses with ropes, and jammed the windows with sticks, so that the inmates could not get out. Even the children could not get out to go to school. It was late in the afternoon before the police heard of it, and came and cut the ropes, and so relieved the imprisoned inmates. This happened for a morning or two, and then the practice stopped, for the police watched the doors throughout the whole night. This preoccupation of the police was taken advantage of to raid again old Hairyfithill's potato field, and also to pay a visit to the bing for coal, and a very profitable time was thus spent by the strikers, even though the blacklegs were at their work in a few days. What was happening in Lowwood was typical of almost all other mining villages throughout the country. Everywhere high spirits and cheerfulness prevailed among the men. As for the leaders, the situation proved too big for some of them to cope with it, the responsibility was too great; and so they failed at the critical moment. The demand of an increase of a shilling a day, for which the men had struck, had been conceded by some of the owners, whilst others had offered sixpence. Some of the leaders were in favor of accepting these concessions, and allowing the men at the collieries concerned to resume work, and so be able to contribute considerably to help keep out those whose demands had not been met. Others of the leaders refused to agree to this, and insisted that as all had struck together, they should fight together to the end, until the increase was conceded to all. This difference of opinion was readily perceived and welcomed by the coalmasters, and stiffened their resolution, for they saw that disagreement and divisions would soon weaken the morale of the men, and such proved to be the case. No one can imagine what Smillie suffered at this time, as he saw his splendid effort going to pieces; but being a big man, he knew that it was impossible to turn back. His plans might for the moment miscarry; but that was merely a necessary, yet passing, phase in the great evolution of Industrialism, and his ideals must yet triumph. As the result of the differences among the leaders, the strike collapsed at the end of seventeen weeks. The men were forced to return to work on the old terms. In some cases a reduction was imposed, making their condition worse than at the start. The masters sought to drive home their victory in order to break the union. In many parts of the country they succeeded, while in others the spirit of the men resisted it. Generally it ended in compromise; but, so far as the Union was concerned, it was a broken organization; branches went down, and it was many years afterwards before it was again reestablished in some of the districts. Though at the time it might have seemed all loss, yet it had its advantages, and especially demonstrated the fact that there was a fine discipline and the necessary unity among the rank and file. The next great work was to find out how that unity could be guided and that discipline perfected--how to find a common ideal for the men. This was Robert Smillie's task, and who shall say, looking at the rank and file to-day, that he has failed? CHAPTER XII THE RIVALS Eight years passed, and Robert grew into young manhood. One of his younger brothers had joined him and Andrew Marshall in the partnership. It had been a long, stiff struggle, and his mother knew all the hardness and cruelty of it. In after years Robert loved his mother more for the fight she put up, though it never seemed to him that he himself had done anything extraordinary. He was always thoughtful, and planned to save her worry. On "pay-nights," once a fortnight, when other boys of his age were getting a sixpence, or perhaps even a shilling, as pocket-money, so that they could spend a few coppers on the things that delight a boy's heart, Robert resolutely refused to take a penny. For years he continued thus, always solacing himself with the thought that it was a "shilling's worth less of worry" his mother would have. Yet, riches were his in that the enchantment of literature held him captive, and his imagination gained for him treasures incomparably greater than the solid wealth prized by worldly minds. His father had possessed about a dozen good books, among others such familiar Scottish household favorites as "Wilson's Tales of the Borders," "Mansie Waugh," by "Delta," "Scots Worthies," Allan Ramsay's "Gentle Shepherd," Scott's "Rob Roy" and "Old Mortality," and the well-thumbed and dog-eared copy of Robert Burns' Poems. "Gae awa', man Robin," his mother would say sometimes to him, as he sat devouring Wilson's "Tales" or weeping over the tragic end of Wallace's wife Marion as recounted in Jean Porter's entrancing "Scottish Chiefs." "Gang awa' oot an' tak' a walk. Ither laddies are a' oot playin' at something, an' forby it's no' healthy to sit too long aye readin'." "Ach. I canna' be bothered," he would answer. "I'd raither read." "What is't you're readin' noo?" she would enquire. "Oh, it's the 'Scottish Chiefs,' an' I'm jist at the bit aboot Wallace's wife being murdered by Hazelrig. My! It's awfu' vexin'." "Ay, it's a fine book, Robin. Ye might read that bit oot to me." "A' richt," and he would start to read while Nellie sat down to listen. Soon both were engrossed in the sad story, so powerfully told, and the tears would be running from the mother's eyes as her fancy pictured the sorrows of Wallace, while Robert's voice would break, and a sob come into his throat, as he proceeded. When finally the passage was reached where the brutal blow was struck, the book would have to be put down, while mother and son both cried as if the grief depicted were their own. "It's an awfu' gran' book, Rob," she would say after a time, while she strove to subdue the sobs in her breast. "Puir Wallace! It maun ha'e been an awfu' blow to him, when he heard that Marion was killed. But you maun read on a bit far'er, for I'm no' gaun tae work ony mair till I see that dirty beast Hazelrig get his deserts. He has wrocht for it, sae jist gang on noo till you feenish the bit aboot him gettin' killed wi' Wallace. He deserves it for killin' a woman." Thus Robert would have to go on, until the incident in question had been reached in the story, and as it unfolded itself his voice would grow firmer and stronger as he became infected with the narrative, while his mother's eyes would glow, and her body be tense with interest, and an expectant expression would creep over her face, betraying her excitement. In the interview between Wallace and Hazelrig in the house in the Wellgate in Lanark, when Wallace dramatically draws his sword in answer to the supplication for mercy, and says: "Ay, the same mercy as you showed my Marion," Robert's voice would thunder forth the words with terrible sternness, while Nellie would gasp and catch her breath in a quick little sob of excitement, as the feeling of satisfied justice filled her heart. And when the blow fell that laid the English governor low, she would burst out: "Serves him richt, the dirty tyrant. He's got what he deserved, an' it serves him right!" On another occasion Robert would suddenly burst out laughing, when reading Delta's chronicle of the adventures of Mansie Waugh, the Scottish "Handy Andy." "What are you laughing at, Robin?" Nellie would enquire, a smile breaking over her face also. "Oh, it's Mansie Waugh, mither. Oh, but it's a gran' bit. Listen to this," and he would begin to read the passage, where Mansie, simple soul that he was, was described as going into the byre in the morning to learn if the cow had calved during the night, and finding, on opening the door, the donkey of a traveling tinker, he turned and ran into the house, crying: "Mither! Mither! The coo has calved, an' it's a cuddy!" Whenever he reached this part of the story, his mother would go off into a fit of uncontrollable laughter which left her helpless and crumpled up in a heap upon the nearest chair. Her laugh was very infectious; it began with a low, mirthful ripple, well down in the throat, and rose in rapid leaps of musical joy till it had traveled a whole octave of bubbling happy sounds, when it culminated in a peal of double forte shakes and trills, that made it a joy to hear, and finally it died out in an "Oh, dear me! What a callan Mansie was!" As Robert approached manhood, he took more and more to the moors, wandering alone among the haunts of the whaup and other moor birds, wrestling with problems to which older heads never gave a thought, trying to understand life and to build from his heart and experience something that would be satisfying. Silent, thoughtful, "strange" to the neighbors, a problem to everyone, but a bigger one to himself, life staggered him and appalled his soul. Earnestly he worked and tested his thought against the thought of others, sturdily refusing everything which did not ring true and meet his standard. Old religious conceptions, the orthodoxy of his kith and kin, were fast tested in the crucible of his mind and flung aside as worthless. The idea of Hell and the old Morrisonian notion of the Hereafter appeared crude and barbarous. His father's fate and the condition of the family left to welter in poverty, the cruelty of life as it presented itself to the great mass of the working class, could not be reconciled with the Church's teaching of an all-loving and omniscient Father. With the audacity of youth, he felt that he could easily have constructed a better universe. He felt that Hell could have no terrors for people condemned to such hardship and suffering as he saw around him. Life was colorless for them; stinted of pleasure and beauty, with merely the joys of the "gill-stoup" on a Saturday night at the local "store" to look forward to, there was in it no real satisfaction either for the body or the mind. Would he, indeed, have to wait till after death before knowing anything of real happiness or comfort? His mind refused to accept this doctrine so frequently expounded to working class congregations by ministers, who were themselves comparatively well endowed with "treasures upon earth." Life was good, life was glorious if only it could be made as he dreamed it. This fair earth need be no vale of tears. There were the blue skies, the white tapestry of cloudland ever varying; there was the wind upon his face and the sweet rain; there was the purl of mountain brook, the graceful sweep of the river, the smile of the flowers, the songs of the birds; the golden splendor of the day and the silver radiance of the night. But above and beyond all there was an ever-increasing love of his fellows, there were noble women like his mother to reverence, and there were sweet children to cherish. Surely life was good, and never was meant to be the mean, sordid thing that too often was the lot of people like himself. Heaven could and should be realized here and now. At twenty, he finished by accepting Humanity as it is, to be understood and loved, to be served, and, if necessary, to die for it. Though thus naturally reserved and meditative, yet he was not unloved. There was no more popular lad in the village. Everyone in a tight corner came to him for help and advice. He was private secretary to half the village and father confessor to the other half. He served everyone, and in return all loved him more or less. In the course of time he came to occupy the place his father had held before him as president of the local branch of the Union, which had been recently revived. His duties as a Union official forced him more and more into mixing with others, and into taking a larger interest in the affairs of the locality. Gradually with the activities of public life his moodiness gave place to a healthy cheerfulness, and his enthusiasm soon led him into taking part in nearly every form of sport which gave life more zest. His interest being roused, he was wholehearted in his application, whether as a member of the executive of any local sports association, or as a participant in the game itself. He was elected to the committee responsible for organizing the Lowwood Annual Games, but resigned because having taken up racing as his pet pastime for the time being, he wanted to compete in some of the items. At last the "Sports" day arrived. The pits were idle, for this was one of the recognized holidays. Everyone looked forward eagerly to this day, and prepared for it, each in his or her own way. For weeks before it the children practiced racing, and trained themselves in jumping, football, quoiting and such sports. Young men stole away to secret places in the moor to train and harden themselves, timing their performances and concentrating on the strenuous day ahead when they would compete with one another in fair tests of speed, strength, skill and endurance. One event was always a special attraction, even to professional racers all over the country. This was known as the "Red Hose Race," about which many legends were told. The most popular of these was to the effect that the stockings were knitted each year by the Laird's wife, and if no one entered for the race, the Laird must run it himself, or forfeit his extensive estate to the Crown. In addition to the Red Hose, there was a substantial money prize. To win the race was looked upon as the greatest achievement of the year, for it was one of the oldest sporting events and had been run for so many years that its origin seemed lost in the mists of antiquity. Robert made up his mind to win the Red Hose in this particular year. Mrs. Graydon, of Graydon House, had intimated that she herself would be present and would hand over the stockings to the proud winner in person, but it was not by any means on this account that Robert was so keen to win. It was the older lure that brought every year athletes of fame to run in the historic race. "So you are going to run in the Red Hose," said a voice behind Robert while the people were all gathering to watch the preliminary races of the boys and girls. Robert turned from the group of young men who had been discussing the event with him, and met the smiling face of Peter Rundell, dressed in immaculate style and looking as fresh and fine a specimen of young manhood as anyone could wish to see. "Yes," he said with a smile, "and I intend to win it." "Do you?" returned Peter light-heartedly. "I have also entered for it, though I had no intention of doing so when I came over; but Mr. Walker, who, as you know, is on the committee, pressed me to go in, and so I consented." "Oh!" said Robert, in surprise, "I thought after last year's success you were not going to run again." Then, in a bantering tone, and with a smile upon his lips, "I suppose we'll be rivals in this, then; but I gi'e you fair warning that I'm gaun to lift the Red Hose if I get a decent chance at all." "Well, I have set my mind on winning it, too," replied Peter. "I'd like to lift it, just to be able to say in after years that I had done so." "That's just hoo I feel aboot the matter too," lightly answered Robert. "I'd like jist to be able to say that I had won the Red Hose. I feel in good form for it, so you'd better be on your mettle." "Well, I shall give you the race of your life for it," said Peter, entering into the same light spirited boasting. "I hear Mair and Todd and Semple are also entered, but with a decent handicap I won't mind these, even with their international reputation." "All right," said Robert. "I suppose I shall have the greater pleasure in romping home before you all. Are the handicaps out yet?" "Yes, I saw the list just before I spoke to you. Semple and Mair are scratch, with Todd at five yards. You start at twenty-five, and I get off at the limit forty.' "Oh!" said Robert, a note of surprise in his voice. "Walker has surely forgotten who are the runners! Why, last year you won nearly all the confined events, and you were second in the Red Hose with twenty-five yards. He means you to romp home this year!" and there was heat in Robert's voice as he finished. "Well, I daresay it is a decent handicap," said Peter, "and even though Semple is among the crowd, I should manage, I think, to pull it off with anything like luck." "I should think so," said Robert. "Walker has just made you a present of the race. But I suppose it can't be helped, though it isn't fair. Anyhow, I'll give you a chase for it." "All right. Half an hour and we shall be on," and Peter went on round the field, exchanging greetings with most of the villagers. He was finishing his education at a Technical College in Edinburgh, and at present was home on holidays. He was a well set up young man, and though popular with most people, yet he brought with him an air of another world among the villagers, which made them feel uncomfortable. They recognized that his life was very different from their own, and while they talked to him when he spoke to them, and were agreeable enough to him, they felt awed and could not break down the natural reserve they always had towards people of another station of life. He was perhaps a little too thoughtless and impulsive, though generous-hearted enough. He drifted into things, rather than shaped them to his own ideas, and was often not sufficiently careful of the positions in which he found himself as a consequence of thoughtless acts. The week before he had caught and kissed Mysie Maitland, who was now serving at Rundell House, merely because he was taken with her pretty face. From that Peter already believed himself in love with her, because she had not resented his action. He had even walked over with her from the village, when she had been home visiting her parents one night, and had felt more and more the witchery of her pretty face and the lure of her fine little figure. Up to this time Mysie had always believed herself in love with Robert--Robert who was always so strange from the rest of young men. He had always been her hero, her protector; but there was something about him for which she could not account and which she could not have defined. Such was her admiration that she believed it was in his power to do anything he cared to attempt; it was just possible that it was this strange sense of unknown power which fascinated her. They had never been lovers in the accepted sense of the word. They had never "walked out" as young people in their social station usually do, but yet had always felt that they were meant for one another. Only once had Robert kissed her, and that moment ever lived with her a glowing memory. She had been home and was returning through a moorland pass, when she came across him lying upon the rough heather, his thoughts doubtless full of her, for he had seen her in the village, and knew she must return that way. "Oh, Rob!" she cried, her face flushing with excitement as she saw him. "Ye nearly frichted me oot o' my wits the noo." "Did I, Mysie?" he answered, springing to his feet. "I didna mean to dae that. Ye'll be getting back, I suppose." "Ay," she returned simply, and a silence fell upon them, in which both seemed to lose the power of speaking. Robert looked at her as she stood there, her full, curved breasts rising and falling with the excitement of the unexpected meeting, the long lashes of her eyes sweeping her flushed cheeks, as she stood with downcast eyes before him. The last rays of the setting sun falling upon her brown hair touched it with a rare strange beauty. Her red lips like dew-drenched roses--luscious, pure, alluring, were parted a little in a half smile. But it was the fascinating movement of the breast, full, round and sensuous, that stirred and made an overpowering appeal to every pulse within him. It seemed so soft, so tender, so wonderfully alluring. At the moment he could not understand himself or her. There was a strange, surging impetus raging through him that he felt absolutely powerless to subdue, and he swayed a little as he stood. "Oh, Mysie!" he cried, leaping forward and clasping her in his strong, young arms, and crushing her against him, holding her there, gasping, powerless but happy. "You are mine, Mysie. Mine!" and he kissed her budded lips in an ecstasy of passion and warm-blooded feeling, while a thousand fevers seemed to course through him as he felt the contact of her body and her warm, eager lips on his. Blinded and delirious, he kissed her again and again in an impassioned burst of fervor, passion scorching his blood and filling his whole heart with the enjoyment of possession. She closed her eyes, and her head touched his shoulder, while the faint scent of her hair and its soft caressing touch upon his cheek maddened him to a fury of love. "Say you are mine, Mysie! Say you are mine!" he cried, and his voice was strange and hoarse and dry with the desire within him. He felt her body yielding as it relaxed in his arms, as if in answer to some unspoken demand, and in a moment he realized himself and started back, hot shame surging over his face and conquering the passion in his blood. In that strange mad moment he had felt capable of anything--powerful, overmastering, relentless in his desires; and now--weak, shame-stricken and helpless. Ere he could say anything, Mysie had come to herself with a shock, and started away over the moor as if possessed by something that was mysterious and terrible. That had happened a year ago, and though Robert sought to learn when she was in the village, and often watched her from a safe place where he was not seen, delighting his eyes with the sight of her figure, and feeling again the same hot shame come over him, as he had known that day on the moor, yet he had never met her near enough to speak to her, but had worshiped her at a distance and grown to love and desire her more and more with every day that passed. He dreamed dreams around her, but was afraid to encounter her again. This strange mad love burned in his blood, until at times he was almost sick with desire and love. Every moor-bird called her name; every flower held the shyness of her face; the clouds of peaceful sunsets showed the glory of her hair, and the quiet, steadfast stars possessed the wonder of her eyes. The madness of the passionate moment of possession on the moor was at once his most treasured memory and his intensest shame. As for Mysie, since she had not heard any more from Robert nor even seen him for almost a year, she felt quite flattered by the attentions of Peter Rundell. It was not that she was in love with either of the young men. Her nature was of the kind that is in love with love itself, and was not perhaps capable of a great love, such as had frightened her, when Robert, taken off his guard, had let her glimpse a strong, overmastering passion and a soul capable of great things. Already she dreamed of a grand house of which she would be mistress as Peter's wife, as she stood in the silence of her own room, pirouetting and smirking, and drawing pictures of herself in fine garments and stately carriage, playing the Lady Bountiful of the district. CHAPTER XIII THE RED HOSE RACE "All competitors for the Red Hose, get ready!" called the bell-man, who announced the events at the sports, and immediately all was stir and bustle and excitement. "Wha's gaun to win the day, Andrew?" enquired Matthew Maitland, as they stood waiting for the runners to emerge from the dressing tent. "I dinna ken," answered Andrew Marshall. "That's a damn'd unfair handicap anyway. My neighbor is no' meant to lift it seemingly. Look at the start they've gi'en him, an' young Rundell starts at the limit." "Ay!" said Matthew. "It's no' fair. It's some o' Black Jock's doings. He's meanin' young Rundell to wun it." "Ay, it looks like it; but it's fashious kennin' what may happen. Rab's a braw runner," and Andrew spoke as one who knew, for he was the only person who had seen Robert train. "Weel, it's harder for him to be a rinner than for young Rundell, a man wha never wrocht a day's work in a' his life, while Rab's had to slave hard and sair a' his days.... Though Rundell can rin too," he added, with ungrudged admiration. "Ay, he ran weel last year, but they tell me he'd like to get the Red Hose to his credit, though for my pairt they'd been far better to ha'e presented it to him, than to gi'e him it that way. Man, he's a dirty brute o' a man, Black Jock!" and there was disgust in his voice. "Jist look at Mag Robertson there, flittering aboot quite shameless, and gecking and smirking at him, an' naebody daur say a word to her. She's a fair scunner!" "If she belonged to me, I'd let her ken a different way o't." "Ay, Andra," was the reply. "But ye maun mind that Mag mak's mair money than Sanny does. Jist look at her, the glaikit tinkler that she is. Black Jock's no' ill to please when that pleases him." Mag Robertson, the subject of their talk, was quite oblivious, apparently, of the many remarks that were being passed about her, and she continued to follow Walker, who as a committee member, was busily arranging matters for the race. "She's gie weel smeekit, Andra!" observed Matthew in a whisper, as Mag passed close by. "Did ye fin the smell o" her breath?" "Ay!" replied Andrew. "She can haud a guid lot before ye see it on her. She's--" but a shout from the crowd cut his further revelations short. "Here they come!" cried Matthew excitedly, as the tent opened, and young Rundell came out with confident bearing, leading the other half-dozen athletes to the starting place. "Let's gae roon' to the wunnin' post so as to see the feenish." The competitors lined up, each on his separate mark, ready for the signal to start. Rundell, in a bright-colored costume of fine texture, showed well beside the other racer who started along with him at forty yards. Peter was slimly built, but there were energy and activity in his every movement; his legs especially, being finely developed, showed no superfluous flesh; his chest alone indicated any weakness, but withal he looked a likely winner. Robert, on the other hand, while not carrying a great amount of flesh, was well built. The chest was broad and deep, the shoulders square and the head held well up, his nose being finely adapted for good respiration. The legs, by reason of heavy work in early life, were a little bent at the brawn, but were as hard as nails; they showed wonderfully developed muscles, and gave the impression of strength rather than speed. They presented a fine picture of eager, determined young manhood, clean and healthy, and full of life and mettle. Each face betrayed how the mind was concentrated on, the work ahead, every thought directed with great intensity towards the goal, as they bent their bodies in preparation for the start. The pistol cracked and rang out upon the midday air with startling suddenness, and immediately they were off on a fine start to the accompaniment of the cheering of the crowd which lined the whole track in a great circle. The first round ended with the runners much as they had started, the interval between each being fairly equally maintained. Semple, however, dropped out, not caring to overstrain himself as he had some heavy racing next day at another gathering, where a much higher money prize was the allurement. Round the others went, the excitement growing among the crowd, who kept shouting encouraging remarks to the racers as they passed. "Keep it up, Robin!" cried Andrew Marshall. "Keep it up, my lad. Ye're daein' fine." "Come away, Rundell, the race is yer ain," shouted an enthusiastic supporter of Peter. "Nae wonner!" answered Matthew Maitland, heatedly. "They've gi'en him the race in a present. Look at the handikep!" "An' what aboot it?" enquired the other, not knowing what to answer. "Plenty aboot it," replied Matthew. "If it hadna' been he was Peter Rundell, he wadna' ha'e gotten sic a start. Black Jock means him to get the race, an' it's no' fair. I wadna' ha'e the damn'd thing in that way, an' if he does win it he'll hae nae honor in it." "But Rab's runnin' weel," Matthew continued, as he followed the runners with eager eyes, and stuck the head of his pipe in his mouth in his excitement, burning his lips in the process. "Dammit, I've burned my mooth," he ejaculated, spluttering, spitting and wiping his mouth. "But the laddie can rin. He's a fair dandie o' a rinner." "He couldna' rin to catch the cauld," broke in Rundell's admirer, glad to get in a word. "Look at him. Dammit, ye could wheel a barrow oot through his legs. He jist rummles alang like a chained tame earthquake." "What's that?" asked Matthew, somewhat nettled at this manner of describing Robert's slightly bent legs. "He canna rin, ye say! Weel, if he couldna' rin better than Peter Rundell, he should never try it. Look at Rundell!" he went on scathingly, "doubled up like a fancy canary, and a hump on his back like a greyhound licking a pot. Rinnin'! He's mair like an exhibition o' a rin-a-way toy rainbow. He's aboot as souple as a stookie Christ on a Christmas tree!" And Matthew glared at the other, as if he would devour him at a gulp. "Look at him noo," he cried, as Robert began to overtake the young miner who had started equal with Rundell. "He's passed young Paterson noo, an' ye'll soon see him get on level terms wi' Rundell. Go on, Rob!" he yelled in delight, as Robert shot past. "Go on, my lad, you're daein' fine!" Excitement was rousing the crowd to a great pitch, and yells and shouts of encouragement went up, and cheers rang out as the favored one went past the various groups of supporters. All during the race as the competitors circled the course, excitement grew, until the last round was reached, when every one seemed to go mad. Only three remained to compete now for the prize, the others having given up. But the shouts and cheers of the crowd seemed strangely far away to the racers, as each rounded the last corner for the final stretch of about one hundred yards. They were both spent, but will power kept them at it. They were not breathing, they were tearing their lungs out in great gulping efforts, and their hearts as well. Tense, determined, inevitability seemed to rest upon them. Louder roared the crowd, hoarser and deeper the cheers, closer and closer the multitude surged to the winning post, yelling, shouting, crying and gesticulating incoherently as the two men sprinted along with great leaping strides, panting and almost breaking down under the terrible strain of the mile race. Nearer and nearer they came, still running level, with hardly an inch to tell the difference; but in a pace like this Robert's greater strength and hard training were bound to tell. Fifty yards to go, and they came on like streaks of color, fleeting images of some fevered brain, and one girl's smile each knew was waiting there at the far end. The prize for which both were now striving was that for which men at all times strive, which keeps the world young and sends the zest of creation wandering through the blood--a pair of dancing eyes, lit by the happy smile of love; for Mysie Maitland had smiled to them, each claiming the smile for himself, just before the race started. And now the last ounce of energy was called up, but the mine-owner's son failed to respond. Dazed and stupid, his mind in a mad whirl, his legs almost doubling under him, he found his powers weaken and his strength desert him, and he staggered just as Robert was about to shoot past him; but in staggering he planted his spiked shoe right upon Robert's foot, and both men went down completely exhausted, Rundell unable to rise for want of strength and Sinclair powerless because of his lacerated foot. "Guid God! He's spiked him!" roared Andrew in a terrible rage. "The dirty lump that he is--spiked him just when he was gaun to win, too!" A howl of execration went up from Sinclair's supporters as he lay and writhed in agony, while Rundell lay still except for the heaving of his chest. For one tense moment they lay and the crowd was silent, whilst each man's heart was almost thumping itself out of place in his body, stretched upon the rough cinder track. Then a low murmur broke from the crowd as they saw young Paterson coming round the track, almost staggering under the strain, but keenly intent on finishing now that his two formidable opponents were lying helpless. He had kept running during the last round merely to take the third prize. Now here was his chance of the coveted Red Hose, and he sprinted and tore along as fast as he was able, calling up every particle of effort he could muster, and intent on getting past before the two men could gather strength to rise. "Come on, Rob!" roared Andrew Marshall, "get up an' feenish, my wee cock! Paterson's comin' along, an' he'll win. Get up an' try an' feenish it!" Stirred by the warning, Robert tried to rise. He raised himself to his knees, but the pain in his injured foot was too great, and he fell forward on his face unconscious, and the race ended with Paterson as winner. It was an ironical situation, and soon the crowd were over the ropes, and the two opponents were carried to the dressing tent, where restoratives were applied under which they soon came round. It was a poor ending to such a fine exhibition. A terrible anger smoldered in Robert's breast against the mine-owner's son for his unconscious action, an action which Robert, blinded by anger at losing, was now firmly convinced was deliberate, and he felt he would just like to smash Rundell's face for it. Robert went home to have his injured foot attended to. He was too disgusted to feel any more interest in the games that day, and so he remained in the house, nursing his foot for the rest of the day, which passed as such days usually do. Everyone talked about his misfortune and regretted in a casual way the accident which had deprived him of the coveted honor. It was in late June, and that night Peter Rundell, as he was returning from the games after every event had been decided, overtook Mysie on her way to Rundell House, after having spent the evening at her parents' home. "It's a lovely evening, Mysie," he said, as he walked along by her side. "What did you think of the games to-day?" "Oh, no' bad," replied Mysie, not knowing what else to say. "It was a gran' day, an' kept up fine," she continued, alluding to the weather. "Yes. Didn't I make a horrible mess of things in the Red Hose?" he asked. Then, without waiting, he went on: "I was sorry for Sinclair. He's a fine chap, and ought to have won. It was purely an accident, and I couldn't help myself. I was beaten and done for, and it was hard lines for him to be knocked out in the way he was, just as he was on the point of winning, too." "Oh, but ye couldna' help it," Mysie returned. "It was an accident." "Yes; and I would rather Sinclair had got in, though. It was a good race, and Sinclair ought to have got the prize. It was rotten luck. I'm sorry, and I hope the poor beggar does not blame me. We seem always to be fated to be rivals," he continued, his voice dropping into reminiscent tones. "Do you remember how we used to fight at school? I've liked Sinclair always since for the way he stood up for the things he thought were right. I believe you were the cause of our hardest battle, and that also was an accident." "Yes," replied Mysie, her face flushing slightly as she remembered the incident, and how Peter had been chosen, when her heart told her to choose Robert. "Oh, well," said Peter, "I suppose we can't help these things. Fate wills it. Let's forget all about such unpleasant things. It's a lovely night. We might go round by the wood. It's not so late yet," and putting Mysie's arm in his, he turned off into the little pathway that skirted the wood, and she, caught by the glamor of the gloaming, as well as flattered by his attentions, acquiesced. Plaintive and eerie the moor-birds protested against this invasion of their haunts. The moon came slowly up over the eastern end of the moor, flinging a silver radiance abroad, and softening the shadows cast by the hills. A strange, dank smell rose from the mossy ground--the scent of rotting heather and withered grass, mixed with the beautiful perfume from beds of wild thyme. A low call came from a brooding curlew, a faint sigh from a plover, and the wild rasping cry of a lapwing greeted them overhead. Yet there was a silence, a silence broken for a moment by the cries of the birds, but a silence thick and heavy. Between the calls of the birds Mysie could almost hear her heart's quickened beat. Blood found an eager response, and the magic of the moonlight and the beauty of the night soon wrought upon the excited minds of the pair. Mysie looked in Peter's eyes more desirable than ever. The moonlight on her face, the soft light within her eyes, her shy, downcast look, and the touch of her arm on his charmed him. "There are some things, Mysie, more desirable than the winning of the Red Hose," he said after a time, looking sideways at her, and placing his hand upon hers, which had been resting upon his arm. "Don't you think so?" "I dinna ken," she answered simply, a strange little quiver running through her as she spoke. "Isn't this better than anything else, just to be happy with everything so peaceful? Just you and I together, happy in each other's company." "Ay," she answered again, a faint little catch in her voice, her heart a-tremble, and her eyes moist and shining. Then silence again, while they slowly strayed through the heather towards the little wooded copse, and Mysie felt that every thump of her heart must be heard at the farthest ends of the earth. Chased by the winds of passion raging within him, discretion was fast departing from Peter, leaving him more and more a prey to impulse and the unwearying persistence of the fever of love that was consuming him. "Listen, Mysie, I read a song yesterday. It's the sort of thing I'd have written about you: "In the passionate heart of the rose, Which from life its deep ardor is feeing. And lifts its proud head to disclose Its immaculate beauty and being. I can see your fine soul in repose, With an eye lit with love and all-seeing, In the passionate heart of the rose, All athrob with its beauty of being." He quoted, and Mysie's pulse leapt with every word, as the low soothing wooing of his voice came in soft tones like a gentle breeze among clumps of briars. "Isn't it a beautiful song, Mysie?" he said. "The man who wrote that must have been thinking of someone very like you," and as he said this, he gave her hand a tender squeeze. Mysie thrilled to his touch and her heart leapt and fluttered like a bird in a snare, her breath coming in short little gasps, which were at once a pain and a joy. "Dinna say that," she said, a note of alarm in her voice as she tried to withdraw her hand. But he only held it closer, and bent his lips over it, his manner gentle but firm. "Ay, it is true, Mysie; but I am so stupid I can't do anything of that kind. I'm merely an ordinary sort of chap." Mysie did not answer, and once again silence fell between them, broken only occasionally by the cry of the birds or the bleating of a sheep. "I believe I'm in love with you, Mysie," he said at last. "You've grown very beautiful. Could you care for me, Mysie?" he asked, looking at her in the soft moonlight, a smile on his lips, his voice keeping its seductive wooing tone, and his eyes kindling. Mysie's experience of life had been gleaned from the love stories of earls and lords marrying governesses and ladies' maids after a swift and very eventful courtship. Already she saw herself Peter's wife, her carriage coming at her order, everyone serving her and she the queen of all the district. Illiterate but romantic, she was swept off her feet at the first touch of passion, and the flattery of being recognized! She did not answer. She did not know what to say; and Peter stole his arm about her waist, so tempting, so sweet to touch, and they passed beneath the shadow of the trees as they entered the little wooded copse. The moonlight filtered down through the trees, working silvery patterns upon the pathway. The silence, heavy and scented, was broken only by the far-away wheepling of a wakeful whaup and the grumbling of the burn near by, which bickered and hurried to be out in the open again on its way to the river. Mysie heard the sounds, felt the fragrance of young briars and hawthorn mingled with the smell of last year's decaying leaves which carpeted the pathway. She noted the beauty of the foliage against the moon, heard the swift scurry of a frightened rabbit and the faint snort of a hedge-hog on the prowl for food. "What have you to say to me, Mysie?" Peter persisted, his hot breath against her cheek, his blood coursing through his veins in red-hot passion. "Could you care for me, Mysie? I want you to be mine!" "I dinna ken what to say," she at last answered, distress in her voice, yet pleased to be wooed by this young man. "Wad it no' be wrang to ha'e onything to dae wi' me? I'm only your mither's servant." She felt it was her duty to put it this way. "No, you are my sweetheart," he cried, discretion all gone now in his eager furtherance of his pleading. "I want you--only you, Mysie," and he caught her in his arms in a strong burst of desire for her. "Mine, Mysie, mine!" he cried, his lips upon hers and hers responding now, his hot eyes greedily devouring her as he held her there in his strong young arms. "Say, Mysie, that you are mine, that I am yours, body and soul belonging to each other," and so he raved on in eager burning language, which was the sweetest music in Mysie's ears. His arms about her, he made her sit down, she still unresisting and flattered by his words, he fondling and kissing her, his hands caressing her face, her ears, her hair, her neck, his head sometimes resting upon her breast. Maddened and scorched by the passion raging within him, lured by the magic of the night, and impelled by the invitation of the sweet dewy lips that seemed to cry for kisses, he strained her to his breast. He praised her eyes, her hair, her voice, whilst he poured kisses upon her, his fire kindling her whole being into response. Then a thick cloud came over the face of the moon, darkening the dell, blotting out the silvery patterns on the ground, chasing the light shadows into dark corners; and a far-off protest of a whaup shouting to the hills was heard in a shriller and more anxious note that had something of alarm in it; the burn seemed to bicker more loudly in its anxiety to hurry on out into the open moor; and the scents and perfumes of the wood sank into pale ghosts of far-off memories. When passion, red-eyed and fierce for conquest, had driven innocence from the throne of virtue the guardian angels wept; and all their tears, however bitter, could not obliterate the stains which marked the progress of destruction. At the end of the copse, when Mysie and Peter emerged, they neither spoke nor laughed. There was shame in their downcast faces, and their feet dragged heavily. His arm no longer encircled her waist, he did not now praise her eyes, her hair, her figure. Lonely each felt, afraid to look up, as if something walked between them. And far away the whaup wheepled in protest, the burn still grumbled, and the perfumes, and the sounds of the glen and all its beauty were as if they had never existed, and the thick cloud grew blacker over the face of the moon. CHAPTER XIV THE AWAKENING Night after night for a week afterwards, Mysie lay awake till far on into the morning. She seemed to be face to face with life's realities at last. The silly, shallow love stories held no fascination for her. The love affairs of "Jean the Mill Girl" could not rouse her interest. Often she cried for hours, till exhaustion brought sleep, troubled and unrefreshing. She grew silent and avoided company. She sang no more at her work, and she avoided Peter, and kept out of his way. She often compared Robert with him now, and loved to let her mind linger on that one mad moment of delirious joy a year ago, when he had crushed her to his breast, and cried to her to be his. Thus womanhood dawned for her, and its great responsibilities frightened her. Robert, on the other hand, spent a week nursing his injured foot, but apart from the week's idle time, he suffered very little. He felt sore at losing the race, but was able now to look upon it as an unfortunate accident. But that smile which he had seen on the face of Mysie made him strangely happy, and it helped him to get over his disappointment. He was impatient to be out upon the moor again. He would wait for Mysie some night, he concluded, and tell her calmly that he wanted her to marry him. His mother's prospects were fairly good now. The youngest boy would soon be working; besides, two other brothers were at work, while Jennie, his eldest sister, was in service, and Annie, the younger one, was helping in the house. He waited, night after night, after his injured foot was better--lingering on the moor by the path which Mysie must travel. He lay among the heather and read books, or dreamed of a rosy future, with her the center of his dreams; but no Mysie came along, and he began to grow anxious. He wanted to make enquiries about her, but feared to arouse suspicion of having too keen an interest in her. By various ways he sought information, but never heard anything definite. "I see Matthew Maitland's ither lassie has started on the pit-head," he said to his mother, as one night they sat by the fire before retiring. "Ay," answered Mrs. Sinclair. "Matthew has the worst o' it by noo. Wi' his twa bits o' laddies workin', an' Mysie in service, an' Mary gaun to the pit-head, it should mak' his burden a wee easier." "I dinna like the idea o' lasses gaun to work on the pithead," he said simply. "I aye mind of the time that Mysie an' me wrocht on it. It's no' a very nice place for lasses or women." "No," his mother said. "I dinna like it either. Nae guid ever comes o' lasses gaun there. They lose a' sense o' modesty an' decency, after a while, an' are no' like women at a' when they grow aulder. Besides, it mak's them awfu' coorse." "I wad hardly say that aboot them a'," he ventured cautiously. "Mysie's no' coorse, an' she worked on the pithead." "No, Mysie's no' coorse," admitted his mother; "but Mysie didna work very lang on the pit-head. An' forby, we dinna ken but what Mysie micht hae been better if she had never been near it, or worse if she had stayed langer. Just look at Susan Morton, an' that Mag Lindsay. What are they but shameless lumps who dinna ken what modesty is?" and there was a spark of the old scorn in her voice as she finished. "Oh, but I wadna gang as faur as you, mither," he said, "wi' your condemnations. I ken that baith Susan Morton an' Mag Lindsay are guid-hearted women. They may be coarse in their talk, an' a' that sort o' thing; but they are as kind-hearted as onybody else, an' kinder than some." "Oh; I hae nae doot," she answered relentingly. "I didna mean that at a'; but the pit-head doesna make them ony better, an' it's no' wark for them at a'." "I mind," said Robert reminiscently, "when Mysie an' me started on the pit-head, Mag Lindsay was awfu' guid to Mysie; an' I've kent her often sharin' her piece wi' wee Dicky Tamson, whiles when he had nane, if his mother happened to be on the fuddle for a day or twa. There's no a kinderhearted woman in Lowwood, mither, than Mag Lindsay. She'd swear at Dicky a' the time she was stappin' her piece into him. It was jist her wye, an' I think she couldna help it." "Oh, ay, Mag's bark is waur then her bite. I ken that," was the reply. "An' wi' a' her fauts a body canna help likin' her." "Speakin' of Mysie," said Robert with caution, "I hinna seen her owre for a while surely. Wull there be onything wrang?" and then, to hide the agitation he felt, "she used to come owre hame aboot twice a week, an' I hinna seen her for a while." "Oh, there canna be onything wrang," replied Nellie, "or we wad hae heard tell o' it. But t' is time we were awa' to oor beds, or we'll no' be able to rise in time the morn," and rising as she spoke, she began to make preparations for retiring, and he withdrew to his room also. Still, day after day, he hung about the moorland path, but no Mysie, so far as he knew, ever came past. She had visited her parents only once since the games and her mother was struck by her subdued and thoughtful demeanor. But nothing was said at the time. Robert grew impatient, and began to roam nearer to Rundell House, in the hope of seeing her. Always his thoughts were full of Mysie and the raging passion in his blood for her gave him no rest. He loved to trace her name linked with his own, and then to obliterate it again, in case anyone would see it. All day his thoughts were of her; and her sweet, shy smile that day of the games was nursed in memory till it grew to be a solace to his heart and its hunger. He saw likenesses to her in everything, and even the call of the moor-birds awakened some memory of an incident of childhood, when Mysie and he had, with other children, played together on the moors. Even the very words which she had spoken, or the way she had acted, or how she had looked, in cheap cotton frock and pinafore, were recalled by a familiar cry, or by the sudden discovery of a bog-flower in bloom. It was a glorious afternoon in late July. The hum of insect life seemed to flood the whole moor; the scent of mown hay and wild thyme, and late hawthorn blossom from the trees on the edge of the moor, was heavy in the air, and the sun was very hot, and still high in the heavens. The hills that bordered the moor drowsed and brooded, like ancient gods, clothed in a lordly radiance that was slowly consuming them as they meditated upon their coming oblivion. The heather gave promise, in the tiny purple buds that sprouted from the strong, rough stems, of the blaze of purple glory that would carpet the moors with magic in the coming days of autumn. Yet there was a vague hint, in the too deep silence, and in the great clouds that were slowly drifting along the sky, of pent-up force merely awaiting the time to be set free to gallop across the moor in anger and destruction. The clouds, too, were deeply red, with orange touches here and there, trailing into dark inky ragged edges. Far away, at the foot of the hills a crofter's cow lowed lazily, calling forth a summons to be taken in and relieved of its burden of milk. The sheep came nearer to the "bughts," and the lambs burrowed for nourishment, with tails wagging, as they drew their sustenance, prodding and punching the patient mothers in the operation of feeding. Robert, noting all, with leisured enjoyment strolled lazily into the little copse, and lay down beneath the cool, grateful shelter of the trees. Drugged by the sweetness and the solitude, he fell asleep, and the sun was low on the horizon when he awoke, the whole copse ringing with the evening songs of merle and mavis, and other less musical birds, and, as he looked down the glade, he saw, out on the moorland path, coming straight for the grove, the form of Mysie--the form of which he had dreamed, and for which he had longed so much. The hot blood mounted to his face and raced through his frame, while his heart thumped at the thought that now, in the quietness of the dell, he would meet her and speak to her. He would speak calmly, and not frighten her, as he had done on that former occasion; and he braced himself to meet her. Impatiently he waited, and then, as he saw her about to enter the grove, he rose as unconcernedly as he could, trying hard to assume the air of one who had met her by accident, and stepped on to the path when Mysie was within ten yards or so of him. The color left her face, and her limbs felt weak beneath her, as she recognized him, and he was quick to note the change in her whole appearance. She was paler, he thought, and thinner, and the bloom of a few weeks ago was gone. Her eyes were listless, and the soft, shy look had been replaced by an averted shame-stricken one. She was plainly flurried by the meeting, and looking about trying to find if there were not, even yet, a way of evading it. "It's a fine nicht, Mysie," he began, stammering and halting before her, "though I think it is gaun to work to rain." "Ay," she responded hurriedly, her agitation growing, as she was forced to halt before him. "I've come oot on the muir a wheen o' nichts noo, to try an' meet you," he began, getting into the business right away, "an' I had begun to think you had stopped comin' owre." But Mysie answered never a word. Her face grew paler, and her agitation became more evident. "Mysie," he began, now fully braced for the important matter in view, "I want you to marry me. I want you to be my wife. You've kenned me a' my life. We gaed to the school together, and we gaed to work together, an' I hae aye looked on you as my lass. I canna keep it ony langer noo. I hae wanted to tell you a lang time aboot it, an' to ask you to be my wife. My place at hame is easier noo. My mother has the rest o' the family comin' on to take my place, and her battle is gey weel owre, an' I can see prospects o' settin' up a hoose o' my ain, if you'll agree to share it with me. I haven't muckle to offer you, but I think you'll ken by this time that I'll be guid to you. Mysie, I want you. Will you come?" For answer, Mysie burst into tears, her shoulders heaving with the sobs of her grief, her breast surging and falling, while her little hands covered her eyes, as she stood with bent head, a pitiable little figure. "What is it, Mysie?" he enquired, his hands at once going tenderly over her bent head, and caressing it as he spoke, "What is it, Mysie? Tell me. Hae I vexed you by speakin' like that? Dinna greet, Mysie," he went on soothingly, his voice soft and tender, and vibrant with sympathy and love. "Dinna greet. But tell me what's wrang. I'm sorry if it's me that has done it, Mysie. Maybe I hae frightened you; but, there now, dinna greet. I didna mean ony harm!" and he stroked and caressed her hair softly with his hands, or patted her shoulders at every word, as a mother does with a fretful child. "There noo, Mysie, dinna greet," he said again, the soft, soothing note of vexation in his voice growing more tender and husky with emotion. "Look up, Mysie, for I dinna like to see you greetin'. It maun be something gey bad, surely, to mak' you greet like this," and his hands seemed to stab her with every tender touch, and his soft words but added more pain to her grief. But still Mysie never answered. Her tears instead flowed faster, and her sobs grew heavier, until finally she moaned like a stricken animal in pain. "Mysie! Mysie! my dochter, what is it?" unable to control himself longer. "Surely you can tell me what ails you? What is it, Mysie? Look up, my dear! Look up an' tell me what ails you!" "Oh, dear! Oh, dear!" moaned Mysie, the floodgates of her grief now wide, and her soul in torture. "Mysie," he cried, taking her head between his hands and raising it up, "what is it that's wrang with you? Is it me that is the cause o' you being vexed?" "Oh, no, no," she moaned, trying to avert her face. "Oh, dinna, Rob!" she pleaded, and the old familiar name smote him and thrilled him as of old. "Tell me what is the matter," he said, a stronger note in his voice, the old masterful spirit asserting itself again. "What is wrang wi' you? I can't understand it, an' I wish to try an' help you." But still she sobbed and there was no answer. "Look here," he said. "Tell me plainly if I have been the cause of this." "No; oh, no," she sobbed, again hiding her eyes with her hands. "Very weel, then," he went on. "Will you no' tell me what is wrong? I canna understand it unless you tell me. Are you in ony trouble o' ony kind? Speak, Mysie." Then, his voice becoming more pleading in its tones, "Wad you be feart to be my wife, Mysie? I aye thocht you cared for me. I hae loved you a' my days. You maun ken that, I think. Speak up, Mysie, an' tell me if you care for me. I want you, an' I maun ken what you think o' it. Come, Mysie, tell me!" "Oh, dinna ask me, Rob," she pleaded. "Dinna ask me!" "What is the matter then?" he cried. "There's something wrong, an' you'll no' tell me. Very well, tell me what you mean to do. I hae asked you a fair question. Are you going to marry me? I want yes or no to that," and there was a touch of impatience creeping into his voice. "Come on," he urged, after a short silence, broken only by Mysie's sobs, "gie me an answer. Or, if you wad raither wait a wee while, till this trouble has blawn by that is bothering you, I'm quite agreeable to wait." "It'll never blaw by, Rob," she sobbed. "Oh, dinna ask me ony mair. I canna be your wife noo, an' I jist want to be left alane!" The pain and despair in her voice alarmed him. It was so keen and poignant, and went to his heart like a knife. "Oh!" he gasped in surprise, as he strove to call his pride to his assistance. It was so unlike what he had anticipated that it amazed him to have such a disappointing reply. Then, recovering somewhat:--"Very well!" with great deliberation, while his voice sounded unnaturally strained. Then the effort failing, and his pride breaking down: "Oh, Mysie, Mysie," he burst out in poignant agony again relapsing into the pleading wooing tones that were so difficult to withstand, "How I hae loved you! I thocht you cared for me. I hae built mysel' up in you, an' I'll never, never be able to forget you! Oh, think what it is! You hae been life itsel' to me, Mysie, an' I canna think that you dinna care! Oh, Mysie!" He turned away, his heart sore and his soul wounded, and strode from the copse out on to the moor, a thousand thoughts driving him on, a thousand regrets pursuing, and a load of pain in his heart that was bearing his spirit down. "Oh, dear God!" moaned Mysie, kneeling down, her legs unable to support her longer, "Oh, dear God, my heart'll break!" and a wild burst of sobbing shook her frame, and her grief overpowering flowed through the tears--a picture of utter despair and terrible hopelessness. Robert tore away from the dell, his whole calculation of things upset. To think that Mysie could not love him had never entered his head. What was wrong with her? What was the nature of her terrible grief? He kicked savagely at a thistle which grew upon the edge of the pathway, his pride wounded, but now in possession of the citadel of his heart; and on he strode, still driven by the terrible passion raging within him; resolving already, as many have done under like circumstances, that his life was finished. Hope had gone, dreams were unreal and vanishing as the mist that crawled along the bog-pools at night. At the crest of the little hill, just where it sloped down to the village, he stood and looked back. Good God! Was he seeing aright! The figure of a man, who in the gray gloaming looked well-dressed, was approaching Mysie, and she was slowly moving to meet him. A few steps more, and the man had the girl, he thought, in his arms, and was kissing her where they stood. Was he dreaming? What was the meaning of all this? "Oh, Christ!" he groaned. "What does it all mean?" and he rubbed his eyes and looked again, then sat down, all his pride and anger raging within him as he watched, kindling the jungle instinct within him into a raging fire, to fight for his mate--his by right of class and association. He doubled back, as the two figures turned in the direction of the copse--the resolve in his mind to go back and forcibly tear Mysie from this unknown stranger. He would fight for her. She was his, and he was prepared to assert his right of possession before all the world. In a mad fury he started forward, a raging anger in his heart, striding along in quick, determined, relentless steps, his blood jumping and his energy roused, and all the madness of a strong nature coursing through him; but after a few yards he hesitated, stopped, and then turned back. After all, Mysie must have made an appointment with this man. She evidently wanted him, and that was her reason for asking to be left alone. "Oh, God!" he groaned again, sitting down. "This is hellish!" and he began to turn over the whole business in his mind once more. Long he sat, and the darkness fell over the moor, matching the darkness that brooded over his heart and mind. He heard the moor-birds crying in restlessness, and saw the clouds piling themselves up, and come creeping darkly over the higher ground, bringing a threat of rain in their wake. The moan in the wind became louder, presaging a storm; but still he sat or lay upon the rough, withered grass, fighting out his battle, meeting the demons of despair and gloom, and the legions of pain and misery, in greater armies than ever he had met them before. Again he groaned, as his ear caught the plaintive note of a widowed partridge, which sat behind him upon a grassy knoll of turf, crying out on the night air, an ache in every cry, the grief and sorrow of his wounded, breaking heart. It seemed to Robert that there was a strange sort of kinship between him and the bird--a kinship and understanding which touched a chord of ready feeling in his heart. The ominous hoot of an owl in the wood startled him, and he rose to his feet. He could not sit still. Idleness would drive him mad. He strode off on to the moor, away from the track, his whole being burning in torture, and his mind a mass of unconnected fancies and pains. Over the bogs and through the marshes, the madness of despair within him, he heeded not the deep ditches and the bog-pools. They were the pits of darkness, the sty-pools, which his soul must either cross, or in which he must perish. He tore up the hills into the mists and the rising storm, the thick clouds, full of rain, enveloping him, and matching the terrible fury of his breast. On, ever on, in the darkness and the mire, through clumps of whin and stray bushes of wild briar. On, always on, driven and lashed into action by the resistless desire to get away from himself. He knew not the direction he had taken. He had lost his bearings on the moor; the darkness had completely hidden the landmarks, and even had he been conscious of his actions, he could not have told in which part of the moor he was. "Oh, God!" he groaned again, almost falling over a bush of broom; and sitting down, he buried his face in his hands, and, forgetful of the wind and the rain, which now drove down in torrents, sat and brooded and thought, his mind seeking to understand the chaos of despair. What was the meaning of life? What was beyond it after death? Would immortality, if such there were, be worth having? Men in countless, unthinkable millions, had lived, and loved, and lost, and passed on. Did immortality carry with it pain and suffering for them? If not, did it carry happiness and balm? To hell with religions and philosophies, he thought; they were all a parcel of fairy tales to drug men's minds and keep them tame; and he glared impotently at the pitiless heavens, as if he would defy gods, and devils, and men. He would be free--free in mind, in thought, and unhampered by unrealities! No. Men had the shaping of their own lives. Pride would be his ally. He would lock up this episode in his heart, and at the end of time for him, there would be an end of the pain and the regret, when he was laid among the myriad millions of men of all the countless ages since man had being. This was immortality; to be forever robed in the dreamless draperies of eternal oblivion, rather than have eternal life, with all its torments--mingling with the legions of the past, and with mother earth--the dust of success and happiness indistinguishable from the dust of failure and despair. Time alone would be his relief--the great physician that healed all wounds. The wind blew stronger and the rain fell heavier, the one chasing, the other in raging gusts, and both tearing round and lashing the form of the man who sat motionless and unaware of all this fury. The wind god tried to shake him up by rushing and roaring at him; but still there was no response. Then, gathering re-inforcements, he came on in a mad charge, driving a cloud of rain in front of him as a sort of spear-head to break the defense of fearlessness and unconcern of this unhappy mortal. Yet the figure moved not. Baffled and still more angry, the wind god retired behind the hills again to rest; then, driving a larger rain-cloud before him, with a roar and a crash he tore down the slope, raging and tearing in a wild tumult of anger, straight against the lonely figure which sat there never moving, his head sunk upon his breast. Beaten and sullen, the god again retired to re-collect his strength. He moaned and growled as he retired, frightening the moor-birds and the hares, which lay closer to earth, their little hearts quivering with fear. Young birds were tucked safely under the parent wing, as terror strode across the moor, striking dread into every fluttering little heart and shivering body. Low growled the wind, as he ran around his broken forces, gathering again new forces in greater and greater multitudes. Just then, with an oath, the figure rose and faced the storm, striding again up the slope, as if determined to carry the war into the camp of the enemy. A low growl came rumbling from the hills, as the wind god rushed along, encouraging his legions, threatening, coaxing, pleading, commanding them to fight, and so to overcome this figure who now boldly faced his great army. The advance guard of the storm broke upon him in wild desperation, rushing and thundering, howling and yelling, sputtering and hissing, spitting and hitting at him, and then the main body struck him full in the face, all the bulk and the force of it hurled upon him with terrible impetuous abandon, and Robert's foot striking a tuft at the moment, he went down, down into a bog-pool among the slush and moss, and decaying heather-roots, down before the mad rush of the wind-god's army, who roared and shouted in glee, with a voice that shook the hills and called upon the elements to laugh and rejoice. And the widowed partridge out upon the moor, creeping closer to the lee side of his tuft of moss, cried out in his pain, not because of the fury of the blast, but because of the heart that was breaking under the little shivering body for the dead mate, who had meant so much of life and happiness to him--cried with an ache in every cry, and the heart of the man responded in his great, overpowering grief. CHAPTER XV PETER MAKES A DECISION Peter Rundell often wondered what had become of Mysie. For a day or two after the evening of the day of the games, he had shunned the possibility of meeting her, because of the shame that filled his heart. His face burned when his thoughts went back to the evening in the grove on the moor. He wondered how it had all happened. He had not meant anything wrong when he suggested the walk. He could not account for what had occurred, and so he pondered and his shame rankled. Then an uneasy feeling took possession of him and he felt he would like to see Mysie. A week slipped away and he tried to find a way of coming in contact with her, but no real chance ever presented itself. A fortnight passed and he grew still more uneasy. He grew anxious and there was a hot fear pricking at his heart. Then at last, one day he caught a glimpse of her, and his heart was smitten with dread. She was changed. Her appearance was altered. She was thinner, much thinner and very white and listless. The old air of gayety and bubbling spirits was gone. Her step seemed to drag, instead of the bright patter her feet used to make; and his anxiety increased and finally he decided that he must talk with her. There was something wrong and he wanted to know what it was. He tried to make an excuse for seeing her alone but no chance presented itself, and another week went past and he grew desperate. Then luck almost threw her into his arms one day in the hall. "Mysie," he whispered, "there is something I want to discuss with you. Meet me in the grove to-night about ten. I must see you. Will you come?" She nodded and passed on, not daring to raise her eyes, her face flaming suddenly into shame, and the color leaving it again, gave her a deeper pallor; and so he had to be content with that. All day he was fidgety and ill at ease, torn by a thousand dreads, and consumed by anxiety, waiting impatiently for the evening, and puzzling over what could be the matter. He felt that for one moment of mad indiscretion, when allowing himself to be cast adrift upon the sea of passion, the frail bark of his life had set out upon an adventure from which he could not now turn back. He was out upon the great ocean current of circumstances, where everything was unknown and uncharted, so far as he was concerned. What rocks lay in his track, he did not know; but his heart guessed, and sought in many ways of finding a course that would bring his voyage to an end in the haven of comfort and respectability. Respectability was his god, as he knew it was the god of his parents. Money might save him; but there was something repugnant in the thought of leaving the whole burden of disgrace upon Mysie. For, after all, the fault was wholly his, and it was his duty to face the consequences. Still if a way could be found of getting over it in an easy way it would be better. But he would leave that till the evening when he had learned from Mysie, whether his fears were correct or not, and then a way might be found out of the difficulty. But the day seemed long in passing, and by the time the clock chimed nine he was in a fever of excitement, and pained and ill with dread. Yet he was late when it came the hour, and Mysie was there first and had already met Robert before he reached the grove. When Robert had gone away, and she sat crying upon the moor, she felt indeed as if the whole world was slipping from her and that her life was finished. Only ruin, black, unutterable, stared her in the face. Oh, if only Robert had spoken sooner, she thought. If only that terrible beautiful night with its moonlight witchery had not been lived as it had been! If only something had intervened to prevent what had happened! And she sobbed in her despair, knowing what was before her and learning all too late, that Robert was the man she loved and wanted. Then when her passionate grief had spent itself, she rose as she saw Peter coming hurriedly to meet her. "What is the matter, Mysie?" he asked with real concern in his voice, noting the tear-stained face and her over-wrought condition. "What is it, Mysie?" But Mysie did not answer just then, and they both turned and passed into the grove, walking separately, as if afraid of each other's touch, and something repellent keeping them apart. They sat down, carefully avoiding the place where they had sat on that other fateful occasion, nearly a month before, and a long silence elapsed before words were again spoken. "Now, Mysie," said Peter at last breaking the silence, and bracing himself to hear unpleasant news, "I want to know what is wrong. What is the matter?" and he feared to hear her tell her trouble. But again only tears--tears and sobs, terrible in their intensity as if the frail little body would break completely under the strain of her grief. "Mysie," he said, and his voice had a note of tender anxiety in it, "what is it, dear? Tell me." "You shouldn't need to ask," she replied between her sobs. "You shouldn't need to ask when you should ken." Again a long silence, and Peter felt he had got a heavy blow. A sickening feeling of shame smote his heart at the knowledge hinted at--a knowledge he had feared to learn. "Is it--is it--am I the cause of it, Mysie? Is--is it--?" and his voice was hoarse and dry and pained. She nodded, and Peter knew beyond all doubt that he was the cause of the misery. Again a long silence fell between them, in which both seemed to live an eternity of silence and pain. Then clearing his throat, Peter spoke. "Mysie," he said, "there is only one thing to be done then," and there was decision in his voice and a desire which meant that he was going to rise to a height to which neither he nor Mysie ever expected he would rise. "We must get married." She looked at him, with eyes still wet, but searching his face keenly. "Ay. It's a' richt sayin' that now, efter the thing's done," she said bitterly. "But it is the only thing, Mysie, that can be done," he replied quickly. "I can't think of anything else." "You should hae thought aboot that afore. It's nae use now," she said bluntly. "Why, Mysie," he asked in surprise. "Why is it no use? Wouldn't you like to marry me?" "No," she replied firmly. "I would not! Do you think I have no thought o' mysel'? If nothing had happened, you would never hae thought aboot me for your wife. But now that you've done something you canna get oot o' you'd like to mak' me believe you want to help me bear the disgrace, while a' the time you don't want to. But it's no' my disgrace," and there was heat creeping into her voice. "It is yours, an' you should hae thocht aboot a' that afore," and her voice was very angry as she finished. "You are wrong, Mysie," he replied mollifyingly. "I love, you and I told you that before it happened, and I also hinted that I wanted to marry you." "Ay, but that was just at the time. Maybe if nothing had happened, an' I had never been in your company again, you'd soon hae forgotten." "No, Mysie, you are wrong. I love you, and I've brought you to this, for which I am sorry, so we must be married," he said decisively. "Why?" she asked, and her eyes met his honestly and fairly. "Because it is the right thing to do," he replied quietly. "Is that a'?" she asked. "Is it not enough? What else is there to do?" Mysie was silent, and after a while Peter went on;--"It is a duty, dear, but I am going to face it, and shoulder the responsibility. It is the right thing to do, and it must be done." "Ay, an' you are gaun to dae it, just as a bairn tak's medicine; because you are forced. I asked if that was a', and it seems to be. But what if I don't have onything mair to dae with you?" "You would not do that, Mysie," he said hurriedly, and incredulously. It had never entered his mind that she would refuse to marry him, and he looked upon his offer as a great service which he was doing her. "Why, what could you do otherwise?" he asked looking blankly at her. "I could work as I hae always done," she said sharply. "You surely think you are a catch. Man, efter what has happened I feel that I wudna care than I never saw you again. You hae little o' rale manliness in you. You thocht it was gran' to carry on wi' a workin' lassie, maybe," and there was bitter scorn in her voice, "an' now when you hae landed yourself into a mess you are grinning like a bear with the branks an' wantin' to dae what is richt as you call it," and Mysie was now really in a temper. "Mysie, you must not speak like that," he broke in, in earnest tones. "You know I love you, and loving you as I do, I want to shield you as much--" "Ay, but you want to shield yourself first," she said. "No, dear, it is only of you I am thinking. I love you very much and want to do what is right. Even although this had not happened, I was going to ask you to be my wife. Will you marry me, Mysie?" "What'll your folks say?" she asked bluntly. "You ken that I'm no' the wife you would have gotten nor the yin your folk would like you to get," she said, searching his face with a keen look. "I'm no' born in your class. I'm ignorant an' have not the fine manners your wife should have, an' I doot neither your faither nor your mither wad consent to such a thing." "But I won't ask them," he replied. "I am a man for myself, and do not see why they should be asked to approve my actions in this." "Ay, that's a' richt; but what aboot your ain feelings in the matter? Am I the lass you wad hae ta'en, Peter, if this hadna happened?" and there was a world of hungry appeal in her voice as she finished. It was as if she wanted to be assured that it was for herself alone that he really wanted to marry her. "Why should you not?" he enquired. "That's no' the question," she said, noting the evasion. "You ken as weel as I dae that it wad be an ill match for you. You've been brought up differently. You've had eddication, an' an easy life. You've been trained faur differently, an' you canna say that you'd no' tire o' me. I have not as muckle learning as wad make me spell my ain name, an' I could never fill the position o' your wife with the folk I'd have to mix with." "That's all right, Mysie," he said, ready to counter her argument. "You have not been educated, that is true, but it is only a question of having you trained. If one woman can be educated and trained so can another. This is what I propose to do: I go back to Edinburgh in a fortnight to finish my last year. My father has put the colliery into a company, and he has a large part of the management on his shoulders. He expects when I come home next year to gradually retire. I shall be the controlling power then, and he will slip out of the business and end his days in leisure." "Ay, but you are thinking a' the time aboot the disgrace," she said. "Your whole thought is about your position, an' you hae never a real thought aboot me." She was somewhat mollified; but there was still a hard note in her voice, and not a little distrust too. "Are you sure you are no' proposin' this just because o' the trouble? I don't want peety! I am pairtly to blame too," this with a softer note creeping into her voice, and making it more resigned. "If it's no' oot o' peety for me, I could bear it better. But I'll no' hae peety. I can look after mysel' an' face the whole thing, even though I ken it'll break my mither's heart." "I know what it is for you, Mysie," he said. "I am trying to look at the whole thing from your point of view. That's why I have planned to give you some sort of a training, and make it as easy for you as possible. It is for your position I am worrying and when I come into my father's place I will be able to put all things right for you, and make you really happy." "But you have not faced the main bit yet," she said as he ceased speaking. "Where do I come in? You hae got this to face now, an' it'll no' wait a' that time." "Yes, I know," he replied, "I'm just coming to that. At first it won't perhaps look too nice to you, but remember, Mysie, I want to face the matter honestly and you'll have to help me. Very well," he went on. "As I said, I go back to Edinburgh in three weeks at most--I'll try and go in a fortnight, and you must go with me--not traveling together. We must keep all our affairs to ourselves, and not even your parents or mine must know. When I go away you'll come the day after. You can travel over the moor to Greyrigg station, take the 4:30 train from there and I can meet you at Edinburgh. I'll get a house next week when I go to arrange for my term. I shall tell no one. You can live in the house I get and I can continue perhaps in lodgings, and I shall come and visit you as often as I can." He stopped for a little and then resumed:--"I shall buy books for you and come and teach you the things you'll need to learn, or I can get someone to do it, if you'd like that better. Then when you are thoroughly trained, I can bring you home to Rundell House and all will be well." "An' what aboot--what aboot--" she paused, averting her face. "Are you no' forgettin' that it'll tak' a lang time for me to learn a' I'll need; for I'm gey ill to learn." "No, Mysie," he replied reassuringly. "When you arrive in Edinburgh, we can go next day to be married before the Sheriff. It's all right, Mysie dear," he assured her as he saw the questioning look in her eyes. "Don't think I'm trying to trap you. I want to make what amends I can for what has happened. You'll be my wife just as surely as if the minister married us. If you are not content with that we can easily get married with a minister after we decide to come back here." "But wad that be a true marriage?" she asked, scarcely able to credit what he told her. "Wad I get marriage lines?" "Oh, yes. It would be legal, and you'd get marriage lines. Now what do you say?" "I dinna like the thocht o' no' tellin' my mither. Will I hae to gang away, an' no' tell her?" "Oh, you must not tell anyone," he replied quickly. "No one must know or all our plans will go crash, and we'll both be left to face the shame of the whole thing. So you must not tell." "Mither will break her heart," she broke in again with a hint of a sob. "She'll wonder where I am, an' worry aboot me, wi' nae word o' me! Am I just to disappear oot o' everybody's kennin' altogether? Oh, dear! It'll break my mither's heart," and she cried again at the thought of the pain and anxiety which her parents would experience. So they sat and talked, he trying to soothe and allay her anxiety and she, at first openly skeptical, and then by and by allowing herself to be persuaded. All this time they had been too engrossed in their own affairs to notice how the wind had risen and that a storm was already breaking over the moor. Then suddenly realizing it, they started for home. It was nearing midnight, and the clouds being thick and low made the mossy ground very dark. The rain was coming down heavily and everything pointed to a wild night. "I'm sorry I did not bring a coat with me," said Peter, taking the windward side of Mysie, so as to break the storm for her. "I had no idea that it was going so rain when I came away," and they plowed their way through the long rough grass, plashing through the little pools they were unable to see, while the wind raged and tore across the moor in a high gale. He had a key in his pocket and when they arrived at Rundell House he noiselessly opened the door, and they entered, slipping along like burglars. When Mysie reached her room, she sat down to think matters over for herself, forgetful of the fact that she was wet. She sat a long time pondering in her slow untrained way over the arrangements which had been come to, her mind trying to get accustomed to the thought that she was going to be Peter's wife and to leave Lowwood. But somehow the thought of being his wife did not appeal to her now, as it had done when she had pictured herself the lady of the district with her dreams of everything she desired, and fancying herself the envy of every woman who knew her. The secrecy of the business she did not like; but she told herself it would all come right; that it was necessary under the circumstances and that afterwards when she had been taught and trained in the ways of his people she would come back and all would be well. Then in the midst of all this looking into the future with its doubts and promises, came the thought of Robert, and her pulses thrilled and her blood quickened; but it had come too late. Would she rather be at Rundell House as Peter's wife or sitting in a one-roomed apartment sewing pit clothes perhaps, or washing and scrubbing in the slavery in which the women folk of her class generally lived? Ah, yes, as Robert's wife that would have been happiness. But it was all too late now. She had turned aside--and she must pay the penalty of it all. Long she sat, and cried, and at last realizing that she was cold and shivering, she took off her clothes and crawled off to bed, her last thought of Robert as he had left her, the pain in his eyes and the awful agony in his voice: "Oh, Mysie, how I hae loved you! An' I thocht you cared for me!" rang in her ears as she lay and tossed in sleepless misery. In the morning she was in a high fever and unable to rise out of her bed. She had a headache and felt wretched and ill. In her exhausted state, weakened by worry and her resistance gone, the drenching, the chill and the long sitting in her lonely room had overmastered her completely. She raved about Robert, crying to him in her fevered excitement, and he, all unconscious, was at that time at his work, tired also and exhausted by his terrible night upon the moor. When he stumbled and fell into the mossy pool, his mind became more collected and, scrambling out, he stood to consider where he was, trying to find his bearings in the thick darkness. The low whinnying of a horse near by gave him a clew and he started in the direction of the cry, concluding that it was some of the horses sheltering behind a dyke which ran across the moor from the end of the village. He crawled and scrambled along, and after going about twenty yards he came to the dyke, at the other side of which stood the cowering horses. "Whoa, Bob," he said soothingly, and one of them whinnied back in response as if glad to know that a human being was near. He moved nearer to them, and began to stroke their manes and clap their necks, to which they responded by rubbing their faces against him and cuddling an affectionate return for the sympathy in his voice. "Puir Bob," he said, tenderly, as he patted the neck of the animal which rubbed its soft nose against his arm. It seemed so glad of the companionship and reached nearer as Robert put out his other hand to stroke sympathetically the nose of the other horse, as he also drew near. "Puir Rosy," he said. "Was you feart for the wind and the rain? Poor lass! It's an awfu' nicht to be oot in!" and they rubbed themselves against him and whinnied with a low pleased gurgle, grateful for his kindness and company as he patted and stroked the soft velvet skins, and they rubbed themselves against him as if each were jealous lest his attentions be not equally divided. He stood for a short time, thus fondling and patting them, then keeping to the dyke, he made his way along it and he thus came out right at the end of the village, and knowing his way now with confidence, he was soon at the door of his home. Cautiously opening it, afraid he would awaken the inmates, whom he concluded must all be asleep, he slipped in quietly, bolting the door behind him, and reached the fire. "Dear me, Rob," said his mother. "Where in the name o' goodness hae you been the nicht! I sat up till after midnight aye expectin' you'd be in, sae I gaed awa' to my bed to lie wauken till you should come in. You are awfu' late." He did not answer but stooped to take off his boots, and Mrs. Sinclair was soon out of bed and upon the floor. "Michty me, laddie! You are wringin' wet! Where have you been? Rain and glaur to the e'en holes! Get thae wet claes off you at yince, an' I'll get dry shirts for you, an' then awa' till your bed!" she rattled on, running to the chest in the room and coming back with dry clothes in her arms. "My, I never kent you oot o' the hoose as late as this in a' your life! Have you been oot in a' that rain?" "Ay," he answered, but venturing nothing more, as he went on changing. "It's been an awfu' nicht o' wind and rain," she again observed, glancing at his dripping clothes, and conveying a hint that explanations were desirable. "I canna understand at a' what way you hae bidden oot in a' that rain, Lod's sake? It's enough to gie you your daeth o' cauld. You are wet to the skin, an' there's no a dry steek on you? Hae you been oot in it a'?" and her curiosity she felt was too crudely put to be answered. Robert knew that she was bent on having an explanation, and that if he gave her any encouragement at all she'd soon have the whole story out of him. "Yes," he said curtly, "but I'm no' gaun to talk ony the nicht. I'm gaun to my bed for an oor before risin' time." "You'll never gaun till your work the day," she said in warm concern. "You'll never be able. You'd better tak' a rest, my laddie. A day will no' mak' muckle difference noo. We're no sae ill aff, an' I wadna like to hae onything gaun wrang. Gang away till your bed, an' dinna bother aboot your work. A guid rest'll maybe keep you frae getting the cauld." "I'm a' richt, mither," he replied as airily as he could. "Dinna worry; an' be sure an' wauken me for my work. I'm na gaun to bide in when there is naething wrang. You gang awa' to your bed," and she knowing that was the last word, did not speak further, and as he withdrew to his room, she went back to bed wondering more and more at the mystery of it all. But he did not sleep. Torn by worry and in spite of his earlier resolution to think no more about it he lay and thought and wondered about Mysie, and the man he saw, joining her at the end of the grove; and when Nellie opened the door to call him that it was "rising time," Robert answered to the first cry, and his mother was more amazed than ever; for he generally took a good many cries, being a heavy sleeper. But being sensible she kept her wonder to herself, knowing if it were anything which she had a right to know he'd tell her in his own good time. CHAPTER XVI A STIR IN LOWWOOD "My! Div you ken what has happened?" asked Mrs. Johnstone, bursting in upon Mrs. Sinclair one day about two weeks later. "My, it's awfu'!" she continued in breathless excitement, her head wagging and nodding with every word, as if to emphasize it, her eyes almost jumping out with excitement, and her whole appearance showing that she had got hold of a piece of information which was of the first importance. "My, it's awfu'," she repeated again lifting her hands up to a level with her breast, and then letting them fall again, "Mysie Maitland has ran away frae her place, an' naebidy kens where she has gane to. An' Mrs. Rundell, mind you, has been that guid to her too, givin' her her caps an' aprons, an' whiles buyin' her a bit dress length forby, an' she gi'ed her boots and slippers, an' a whole lot o' ither things to tak' hame for the bairns--things that were owre wee for the weans at Rundell Hoose but were quite guid to wear. My, it's awfu'! Isn't it?" "Mysie Maitland!" exclaimed Mrs. Sinclair in astonishment. "When did this happen? Where has she gane? Are you sure you hinna made a mistake?" and Mrs. Sinclair was all excitement, hanging in breathless anxiety upon the tidings her neighbor brought. "I hae made nae mistake, Nellie Sinclair," returned Leezie, "for it was her ain mother wha telt me the noo. I was at the store, an' when I was comin' hame I met Jenny hersel' gaun awa' tae Rundell Hoose. She was greetin' an' I couldna' get oot o' spierin' at her what was wrang, an' she telt me her ain self." "You dinna mean tae tell me that Mysie Maitland has disappeared? In the name o' a' that's guid, what has happened to bring aboot sic news?" "Aye, it's true, Nellie," replied Mrs. Johnstone, feeling very important now that she knew Mrs. Sinclair had not heard the news. "When did this happen?" asked the latter, still incredulous. "Are you sure that's true? Dear me! I dinna ken what the world's comin' to at a'!" "Ay, it's awfu'! But it's true. You never ken what thae quate kin' o' modest folk will dae. They look that bashfu' that butter wadna' melt in their mouths; an' a' the time they are just as like to gang wrang as ither folk." "But wha said Mysie Maitland has gang wrang?" enquired Mrs. Sinclair, flaring up in Mysie's defense. "I wadna' believe it, though you went down on your bended knees to tell me. A modester, weel-doin' lassie never lived in this place!" "Weel, I dinna ken whether she has gane wrang or not; but she has ran awa', an' it is gey suspeecious conduct that for ony lassie that is weel-doin'. She is jist like the rest of folk." "It canna' be true," said Mrs. Sinclair, still unable to believe the news. "I canna' take it in." "Ay, but it is true," persisted her neighbor with assurance. "For I tell you, it was her ain mother what telt me hersel'. It seems she has been missing since the day afore yesterday. She gaed awa' in the afternoon to see her mither, an' as she hadna been keepin' very weel for a day or two an' no comin' back that night, Mrs. Rundell jist thought that Jenny had keepit her at home for a holiday. But she didna turn up yesterday, an' thinkin' maybe that the lassie had turned worse, Mrs. Rundell sent owre word jist the noo, to ask how she was keepin'; an' Jenny was fair thunder-struck when the man came to the door to ask. Puir body! Jenny's awfu' puttin' aboot owre the matter. I hope," she added, with the first show of sympathy, "that naething has happened to the lassie. That wad be awfu'!" "Dear keep us!" exclaimed Nellie. "I hope nothing has happened to her." "God knows!" replied Mrs. Johnstone piously, for want of something else to say. "It's awfu'!" "Do they ken naething at a' aboot her at Rundells'?" again enquired Mrs. Sinclair. "No' a thing they ken, ony mair than you or me. She left her bits o' claes, jist as if she meant to come back. Her new frock was in her drawer jist as she had put it by efter tryin' it on. An' a braw frock it is. She has nothing except what she was wearin' at the time she gaed oot. Her guid boots jist yince on her feet are in her room, a' cleaned jist as she took them off the last time she had them on. I canna' believe it yet. My! it's awfu'! It'll be a sair, sair heart her faither'll hae when he hears about it. He had aye an' awfu' wark wi' Mysie, an' thought the world o' her. If he got Mysie richt he ay seemed to think that a' else was richt. I hope nae harm has come to her. I dinna ken what the world's comin' to at a', I'm sure? My, it's awfu', isn't it?" and Mrs. Johnstone went out to spread the news, leaving Mrs. Sinclair more mystified and astonished than ever she had been in her life. Mysie missing! She could not understand it, and always she tried to crush back the suggestion which was plainly evident in Leezie's statement that Mysie had "gang wrang." It could not be that, for Mysie was never known to have dealings with anyone likely to betray her like that. It was a hopeless puzzle altogether, and she could not account for it. It was nearing "lousing time" and Mrs. Sinclair was busy getting the dinner ready, and water boiled to wash the men coming in from the pit, and she wondered how Robert would take the news. She knew, having guessed, as most mothers do guess, that Mysie held a sacred corner in Robert's heart; though noticing the silence during the last two weeks, and his renewed attention to books and study, she wondered if anything had come between Mysie and himself. Had he at last spoken to her and been discouraged? She could hardly harbor that thought, for she felt also that Mysie's heart enshrined but one man, and that was Robert. Yet what could be the meaning of all this mystery? It was true Mysie and Robert had never walked out as young men and women of their class do; but she knew in their hearts each regarded the other with very warm affection, and thinking thus she worked about the house preparing things and running occasionally over to Maitland's house, to see that the dinner was cooking all right, and giving little attentions wherever they were needed, in Mrs. Maitland's absence. She did not mention the news to Robert when he came in, but she watched him furtively as she worked about the house getting the water into the tub for him to wash, before placing the dinner on the table; but she guessed from his face that he must have already heard of it on his way home. He was silent as he pulled off his rough blue flannel shirt and stooping over the well-filled tub of hot water, he began to lave the water over his arms, and the upper part of his body. At last, Mrs. Sinclair could hold herself in no longer, and looking keenly at the half-naked young man as he straightened himself, having washed the coal-dust from his hands and arms, he began to rub his breast and as much of his back as he could reach, she said, "Did you hear aboot Mysie, Rob?" "Ay," he returned simply, trying to hide his agitation and his blanching face. "I heard that she had disappeared frae her place, an' that nae news o' her could be got. Is it true, mither?" "Ay, it's true, Rob," she replied. "But I hinna got ony richt waye o' it yet. Jenny's awa' owre to Rundell Hoose, an' we'll no' ken onything till she comes back. It's an awfu' business, an' will pit her faither an' mither a guid lot aboot. I wonder what'll hae ta'en her." "It's hard to ken," he replied in a non-committal voice. "Hae you ony idea, mither, as to what has brought this aboot?" "No, Rob, I canna' say; but folks' tongues will soon be busy, I hae nae doot, an' there will be a lot o' clip-clash, an' everybody kennin' nothing, will ken the right way o't, an' every yin will hae a different story to tell." "Ay, I hae nae doot," he said, again stooping over the tub flinging some water over his head, and beginning to rub the soap into a fine lather upon his hair. "Everybody will ken the right wye o' it, and will claver and gossip, when they wad 'a be better to mind their ain affairs, an' let ither folk alane." His mother did not speak for a little, but went on with her work. There was something on her mind about which she wanted to speak, and she bustled about and washed, and clattered the dishes; and every plate and spoon, as they were laid dripping from the basin of warm water, plainly indicated that something troubled her. Finally, when the last steaming dish had been laid upon the table, and she had begun to wipe them dry, she cleared her throat, and in a somewhat strained sort of voice asked, "Dae you ken, Rob, onything aboot Mysie?" "No, mither," he replied at once, as he ceased rubbing the white foaming lather on his hair, and again straightened himself up to look at her, as she spoke; his head looking as if a three inch fall of snow had settled upon it, giving the black dirty face and the clean eyes shining through the dust, a weird strange appearance. "What makes you ask that?" "Oh, I dinna ken, Rob, but jist thought you micht hae kent something," she answered evasively. "No, I dinna ken onything at all aboot her, mither," he said. "If I had kent onything, dae you think I'd hae kept quiet?" "Oh, I dinna mean that, Rob," she replied with relief in her voice, "but I thought that you might hae heard something. That Leezie Johnstone was in here the day, an' you ken hoo she talks. She was makin' oot that Mysie had gane wrang, and had ran awa' tae hide it." "Leezie Johnstone had little to do sayin' onything o' the kind," he said with some heat in his voice. "There never was a dirty coo in the byre but it liket a neighbor. I suppose she'll be thinkin' that a' lasses were like her. These kind of folk hae dam'd strange ideas aboot things. They get it into their heads it is wrang to do certain things when folk are no married, but the cloak of marriage flung aboot them mak's the same things richt. They hinna the brains o' a sewer rat in their noddles, the dam'd hypocrites that they are!" "Dinna swear, Rob!" said Mrs. Sinclair, interrupting him. "Do you ken," she went on, her astonishment plainly evident in her face and voice, "that is the first time I ever heard you swear in a' my life!" "Well, mither, I am sorry; but I couldna' help it. Folk like that get my temper up gey quick; because they get it into their heids that marriage makes them virtuous, even though they may be guilty o' greater excesses after than they were before marriage." "Ay, that's true, Rob!" she agreed. "But it is a sad business a' thegether. I wonder what has come owre the bit lassie. God knows where she may be?" But Robert was silent, and no matter how much she tried to get him to speak, he would not be drawn into conversation, but answered merely in short grunts; but she could see that he was very much disturbed at what had happened. After a few days the sensation seemed to pass from the minds of most of the villagers, who soon found something new to occupy them, in connection with their own affairs. About this time much interest was being manifested in mining circles. The labor movement was beginning to shape itself into solidarity towards political as well as industrial activity. Robert Smillie and the late J. Keir Hardie, and many other tireless spirits, had succeeded in molding together the newly created labor party, infecting it with an idealism which had hitherto not been so apparent, and this work was making a deep impression upon the minds of the workers, especially among the younger men. The Miners' Union had been linked up into national organizations; and a consolidating influence was at work molding the workers generally, and the miners particularly, imbuing them with a newer hope, a greater enthusiasm and a wider vision. About a fortnight after the news of Mysie's disappearance, Keir Hardie paid a visit to Lowwood, and a large crowd gathered to hear him in the village hall. Smillie also was advertised to speak, and great interest was manifested, and much criticism passed by the miners. "I don't give in wi' this dam'd political business," said Tam Donaldson, who was frankly critical. "I've aye stood up for Smillie, but I dinna' like being dragged intae this Socialist movement. A dam'd fine nest o' robbers an' work-shy vermin. Trade Union officials should attend tae Trade Union affairs. That's what we pay them for. But it looks to me as if they were a' that dam'd busy trying to get intae Parliament, thet they hinna time to look after oor affairs." "I'm kind o' suspeecious aboot it mysel', Tam," said Robert quietly, as they made their way to the hall that night. "I'm no' sure jist yet as to what this Socialism is, it looks frae the papers to be a rotten kind o' thing an' I'm no' on wi' it. But I'll wait an' hear what Hardie an' Smillie say aboot it, afore a' make up my mind." "To hell wi' them an' their Socialism," said Tam with some heat. "I want a shillin' or twa on my day. It's a' yin damn to me hoo mony wives they gie me. I canna' keep the yin I hae. What the hell wad a workin' man dae wi' three wives? An' they tell me they're goin' to abolish religion too. Not that I'm a religious man mysel', but I'm damn'd if I'd let them interfere wi' it. If I want religion I've a guid richt to hae it; an' forby, if they abolish religion, hoo wad folk do wi' the funerals? I can see hoo they'll do wi' marriages, for there's to be nane. You've to get your wife changed every two-three years, an' the weans brought up by the State as they call it. But the puirhouse is a dam'd cauld step-mother, an' I'd be up against that." Thus discussing the subject, they reached the hall to find it packed, everyone being keen to see and hear this man, who was making such an uproar in the country with his advocacy of Socialism. Robert was chairman, and had labored hard to prepare a few remarks with which to open the meeting. He wanted to be non-committal, and his reading and self-teaching had been of immense service to him. His mother's influence in the molding of his character, unconsciously to himself, had made his mind just the sort of soil for the quick rooting of the seed to be sown that night. It was certainly a great occasion. Robert thought as he looked at this man, that he had never seen anyone who so typefied the spirit of independence in his bearing. His figure was straight, the eyes fearless, yet kindly and gentle; but the proud erect head, the straight stiff back which seemed to say "I bend to no one" impressed Robert more than anything else in all his make up. Yet there was nothing aggressive about him with it all; but on the contrary, an atmosphere of kindliness exuded from him, creating a wonderful effect upon those with whom he came in contact. The wild stories of this turbulent agitator, which everyone seemed to hear, and be acquainted with, made the audience hostile to begin with. It was not a demonstrable hostility; but one felt it was there, ready to break out, and overwhelm this stormy petrel of the political world. Yet they patiently waited for Hardie to begin, tolerating Smillie, and even applauding his ringing denunciations of the wrongs they suffered, but critically waiting on his attempts to switch them on to Socialism. Then came Hardie, halting and stammering a little as he began his address. The audience thinking this was due to his searching for a way to delude them, became more suspicious and critical, and ready to stop him, if he tried any tricks upon them; but broad-minded enough and fair enough to give him a hearing, until he trespassed upon them too much. So it was in this atmosphere that Socialism first was heard in Lowwood; but soon the speaker became less halting as he warmed to his subject, until not only was he fluent, but eloquent, and powerful, winning his audience in spite of themselves. They sat and listened, and were soon under his sway, watching his every gesture and thawing under his spell, as they watched the fine head thrown back with its inimitable poise, the back straight and stiff, the eyes aglow with the light of the seer, and the hands gracefully rising and falling to emphasize some point. What a change soon came over them! Gradually as the speaker developed his subject the faces changed, and they were soon responsive to his every demand upon them. The clear ringing voice, insistent, strong, yet catching a cadence of gentleness and winsomeness that moved them to approval of everything he said. There was deep humanity about him, that was strangely in contrast with the monster he had been to their fancy before they saw and heard him. This was not the politics of the vulgar kind, of which the newspapers had told; on the contrary, every man in the hall felt this was the politics to which every reasonable man subscribed. It was the politics of the fireside, of sweetness and light, of justice and truth, of humanity and God. In burning words he denounced the wrongs under which the people suffered, winning them by his warm-blooded championship of their cause, appealing to them to forsake the other parties, form an independent party for themselves; and sketching in glowing words the picture of the world as it might be, if only a saner and more human view were taken by those who ruled. It made an indelible impression on Robert's mind. The way was so simple, so clear, so sure, that if only men like Hardie could go round every town and village in the land, he believed that a Utopia might be brought into being in a very few years; that even the rich people, the usurpers, would agree that this state of affairs might be brought about, and that they'd gladly give up all they had of power over the lives of others, to work cooperatively for the good of all; and already he was deciding in youth's way, he would give his life, every moment of it, to help Hardie and Smillie, and all those other great spirits to win the world to this state of affairs. Body and soul he would devote to it, and so help to make the world a brighter and happier place for all human beings. His was the temperament that having found an ideal would storm the gates of Heaven to realize it; or wade through hell, suffering all its penalties to gaze upon the face of that he sought. So the meeting ended in great enthusiasm, and the audience was amazed and pleased to find that this man Hardie was not the vulgar-minded, loud-mouthed ignorant agitator of which the press had told them; but was just one of themselves, burning with a sense of their wrongs, with ability to express their thoughts in their own words, and with an uncompromising hatred of the system which bred these wrongs in their lives. Tam Donaldson and Robert compared notes after the meeting was over in the following conversation: "What do you think o' it, Tam?" "Christ! but it was great," was the reply. "What aboot the three wives noo, Tam?" "Oh, for ony sake, dinna rub it in, Rob. I feel that small that I could hide myself in the hole of my back tooth. Man, do you ken, I jist felt as if we were a' back in the Bible times again, wi' auld Isaiah thundering oot his charges and tellin' the oppressors o' the people what he thought of them. The white heid o' Hardie maun hae been gey like Isaiah's. Or sometimes it was like John the Baptist, comin' to tell us o' the new world that was ready to dawn for the folk! Man, it was hellish guid, and frae this day I'm a Socialist. I've always been fightin' the oppressors o' the workers, an' only wish I had a tongue like Hardie, so that I could gang roon' the hale country tellin' folk the rale God's truth aboot things. Guid God! Rob, it was better than goin' to the kirk!" "Ay, it was gran', Tam. I'm goin' to read up this Socialism; for it seems to me to be worth it." "So will I. I hae got twa or three bits o' books that I bought, an' I'll swallow them as quick as I can. Lod! It seems as if a new world had opened up a' thegether the night. I'm that dam'd happy, I could rin roon' an' tell everybody aboot it! But I suppose we maun gang awa' hame to bed; for we'll hae to gang to oor work the morn, though it's dam'd cauld comfort to think o' gaun oot to the pit, when we could hae better conditions to work in if only folk had the sense to do right." Thus they parted, full of the subject which had stirred them so much that night. Robert went home, full of vision of an emancipated world, his whole heart kindled and aglow with the desire to be a spokesman like Hardie on behalf of the workers, and thoroughly determined to devote the rest of his life to it. "There's nae word o' Mysie yet," said Nellie, when he came in, and her words seemed to shock him with their unexpectedness. "Is there no'?" he replied, trying hard to bring his mind back to the realities. "What kind o' word did Jenny get frae the polis?" "Oh, they ken naething aboot her," said Nellie. "A' that is kenned is jist what we heard already. The polis hae been searchin' noo for a fortnight an' nae trace o' her can be got. Mr. Rundell has pit it in the papers; but I hae my doots aboot ever seeing her again. Mysie wasna' the lassie that wad keep her folk in suspense. She wad ken fine that they'd be anxious. Matthew an' Jenny are in an awfu' way." "Ay. I believe they will," he replied, and a deep silence followed. After a time, as the silence seemed to become oppressive, and for the sake of saying something, Mrs. Sinclair said: "What kin o' a meetin' had you the night?" "My! we had an awfu' meeting, mither," he said in reply, his eyes kindling with enthusiasm at the memory of it. "Smillie was askin' for you, an' he's comin' owre to see you the morn afore he goes awa'." "Oh, he had mind o' me then," she said, pleased at this information. "Ay, an' he talked rale kindly aboot my faither to Hardie, mither. Smillie's a fine man, an' I like him," he said with simple enthusiasm. "He is that, Rob. I've aye liked Bob for the way he has had to fecht. Lod, I dinna ken hoo he has managed to come through it a'. He's been a gran' frien' to the miners. What kin' o' a man is Hardie?" "He's yin o' the finest men I ever met," he answered in quick enthusiasm. "You would hae enjoyed hearin' him, mither. It's an awfu' peety that the weemin dinna gang to the meetin's. I'm shair there's no' a woman in the place but wad hae liket him. My! if you had jist heard him, strong, sturdy, and independent. Efter hearin' him, it fair knocked the stories on the heid aboot him bein' oot to smash the hame, an' religion an' sic like. He's clean and staunch, an' a rale man. Nae sham aboot him, but a rale human bein', an' after listenin' to him tellin' what Socialism is, it mak's you feel ashamed that you ever believed things that you did believe aboot it. It's that simple an' Tam Donaldson is fair carried awa' wi' it the night." "I'm glad you had a guid meetin'," she said, her interest kindled too. "Tell me a' aboot it," and Robert told her, sketching the fine picture which Hardie had given to his memory to carry, as long as life lasted for him. "I've been appointed delegate to the Miners' Council," he said after a while. "I'll hae to gang to Hamilton once a month to attend the conferences." "Oh!" she said in surprise, and with pride in her voice. "What way hae they sent you?" "I don't ken," he answered, "but I was a wee bit feart to take it. It's only the very best men that should be sent there to represent the branches, an' I thought they might hae sent an older man, wi' mair kind o' thought about him, an' mair experience." "Oh, weel, Rob," she said with pride, "ye are maybe as guid as ony o' them, and a hantle better than some o' them. I hope you'll dae well and aye act fair." "I'll dae my best," he said simply. "Mony a time we hae been selt wi' place-seekers, an' maybe there are some still at it," he went on, "but I can say this, mither, if ever I get an inklin' o' it, I'll expose them to every honest man. We want men who can look at things withoot seem' themsel's as the center o' a' things. My, if you had only seen Hardie," he broke off. "He was grand." Thus they talked for an hour before retiring, but all the time Robert's mind occasionally kept wondering about Mysie, and he went to bed, his heart troubled and aching to know the fate that had overtaken the girl he had loved and lost. All night long he tossed unable to sleep, as he tried to think what had happened to her, his mind and heart pained at the thought of something that boded no good to her. He again lived over in his mind all that had happened that night upon the moor, when he saw the man going to meet her after his own meeting with Mysie. He was pained and puzzled what to do. Had the stranger any connection with her disappearance, he asked himself? Should he tell of that? And yet she had been to her father's house since then, so that it would be of little value to mention it, he thought. Perhaps she had run away with the man. That was quite a likely thing to happen, and if Mysie wanted him no one else had anything to do with it. Still, she might have told her people, he thought. But perhaps she might do that later on. But Mysie and her fate would not be banished from his mind, and he lay and tumbled and tossed, a terrible anxiety within him, for youth is apt to pity its own sufferings, and give them a heroic touch under the spell of unrequited love. Thus the night passed and morning came, and he had not slept, and he went to his work debating as to whether he should inform the police or not about the man he had seen in the company of Mysie. But no decision was ever come to. CHAPTER XVII MYSIE RUNS AWAY It was a gray, sultry summer night, with one small patch of red near the western horizon when Mysie, making the excuse of going to the village to visit her parents, had stolen over the moorland path on her way to join the evening train for Edinburgh at a neighboring village station. She had left early, so as to have plenty of time on the way, and also because she was really ill, and could not hurry. She had forced herself to work, so as not to attract attention to her weak state during the past few weeks. Peter, who had already gone some days before, had now everything ready for her, and this was her final break with the old life. She knew she was ill, but thought that when she got to Edinburgh, with good medical attention and treatment, she would soon be all right again. Perhaps a rest and the change would help her as much as anything; and she'd soon get well and strong, and she would work hard to fit herself for the position she was to occupy as Peter's wife. But her legs did feel tired, as she trudged over the moor, and her steps dragged heavily. She sank down for a few moments upon a thyme-strewn bank to rest; the scent of the wild moorland bloom brought back the memory of that evening in the copse. She shut her eyes for a moment, and heard again the alarmed protest of the whaup, and the grumble of the burn; saw again the moonlight patterns upon the ground, as it flittered through the trees, like streams of fairy radiance cast from the magic wand of night and, above all, heard Peter's voice, praising her eyes, her hair, her figure. Her cheeks burned again, and her heart throbbed anew--she heard his tones, hoarse, vibrant and warm, as his breath scorched her cheek. She felt his arms about her, the contact of his burning lips upon her own. Then the calm which follows the wake of the storm, the consciously averted eyes, and the very conscious breathing, which had in it something of shame; the almost aversion to speak or touch again, and over all, the deep silence of the moor, broken only by the burn and the whaup, and the thick cloud, kindly dark, that came over the moon. But, behind it all, the remorse and the agony that would never die; the anxiety and uncertainty, and the secret knowledge for which each had paid so high a price. She rose from the bank and went slowly along the lovely moorland path. Her breath was labored and the cough troubled her. She was hot, and besides the tired sensation in her limbs, there was a griping feeling about her chest that made breathing difficult. She reached the station just a minute before the train was due, and entered an almost empty compartment, glad to be seated and at rest. The train soon moved out of the station, and an intense desire took hold of her to go back. The full consciousness of her action only seemed to strike her now that she had cut the last tie that bound her to the old life, and involuntarily she rose to her feet, as if to get out. A man sitting in the opposite corner, thinking she was going to close the carriage window, laid a restraining hand upon her. "Don't close it," he said, "fresh air is what we all need, though we may not in our ignorance think so. But you take it from me, miss, that you can't get too much fresh air. Let it play about you, and keep it always passing through your room, or the railway carriage when traveling, and you'll never be ill. Look at me," he continued aggressively, almost fiercely, and very pompously, "the very picture of health--never had a day's illness in my life. And what is the reason? Why, fresh air. It is the grand life-giver. No, miss, leave the window open. You can't get too much of it. Let it play about you, draw it deeply into your lungs like this," and he took a great deep draught, until Mysie thought he was going to expand so much that he might fall out of the carriage window, or burst open its sides. Then, he let it out in a long, loud blast, like a miniature cyclone, making a noise like escaping steam; while his eyes seemed as if they had made up their minds to jump out, had the blast and the pressure not eased them at the last critical moment. Then he stood panting, his shoulders going up and down, and his chest going out and in, like a pair of bellows in a country blacksmith's shop. "Nothing like fresh air, miss," he panted. "You take my tip on that. I've proved it. Just look at me. I'm health itself, and might make a fortune by sitting as an advertisement for somebody's patent pills, only I feel too honorable for that; for it is fresh air that has done it. Fresh air, and plenty of it!" and he turned his nose again in the direction of the window, as if he would gulp the air down in gallons--a veritable glutton of Boreas. Mysie could not speak. She was overwhelmed by the blast of oratory upon air, and a woman who sat on the far side of a closed window, with tight-drawn lips and smoldering eyes, looked challengingly at this fresh air fanatic, observing with quiet sarcasm: "A complexion like that might make a fortune, if done with colors to the life, in advertising some one's 'Old Highland'!" The fresh air apostle gasped a little, looking across at the grim set mouth and the quiet, steady eyes, as if he would like to retort; but, finding no ready words, he merely wiped his forehead, and then subsided helplessly in his corner seat, as the lady rose, and, going over to the window, said to Mysie, as she closed it: "It is a little cold to-night, after the scorching heat of the daytime, and one is apt to catch cold very readily in a draught at an open carriage window. There, we'll all feel more comfortable now, I fancy. It is a little chilly." The poor worm who had always lived and thrived upon fresh air felt himself shriveling up in the corner, and growing so small that he might easily slip through the seam at the hinges of the carriage door. Mysie merely lay back in her corner without speaking. She had never traveled much in the train; and this journey, apart from its eventfulness, was sufficient in itself to stupefy her with its newness and immensity. She had never before had a longer journey than to the county town, which cost sixpence; and here she was going to Edinburgh! a great city, of which she had all the dread of the inexperienced, unsophisticated country girl. A slight shiver soon began to creep down her back, and gradually she became cold; but she sat never speaking, and the other two occupants were so engrossed in thinking out maledictions against each other, that they had no thoughts to bestow upon her. The wild, bleak moors rolled past, as the train rushed onward, and the telegraph poles seemed to scamper along, as if frightened by the noise of the train. She gazed away to the far horizon, where the sun had left a faint glow upon the western clouds, and she tried to think of something that would not betray her nervousness, but her mind was all chaos and excitement, and strange expectation. What would be waiting for her at the end of the journey? Suppose Peter failed to be at the station, what would she do in a strange city? What if he were ill, and would not come? Or if he was doing this deliberately, and did not mean to meet her? Thus, torn by anxiety, and worried almost to death by nameless other fears, she spent the hour-long journey which seemed like a day, making herself ill, so that she could scarcely leave the carriage when the train steamed into Princes Street Station. "Have you any luggage that I can assist you with?" asked the fresh air man, as Mysie seemed reluctant to get out, now that she had arrived at her destination. "No," she replied simply, forgetting to thank him for his kind consideration, and rising slowly to her feet, she followed the stream of passengers down the platform, keeping a keen look-out for Peter. "Here we are, Mysie," he said cheerily, striding towards her, with real welcome in his voice, and she clung to him like a child, so glad that he had been true to his word. "I have a cab waiting," he rattled on brightly. "Just come along, and we'll soon be at your digs, and we'll talk as we drive along," and he piloted her to a waiting cab; and getting in beside her, it moved off, as she heard him say "Grassmarket" to the driver. But she had little interest in anything, now that Peter was here. She felt a sense of security in his company that she had never felt before. She trusted him, now that all her bearings were lost. The fear of the city, and the strangeness of her experiences, made her turn to him as her only prop upon which she could lean; and she clung to his arm as they drove along, the cab rattling over the stones and through what seemed to Mysie interminable streets of houses. "Did you manage to get away all right, without anyone knowing?" he asked, as he felt her trembling hands upon his arm. "Yes, I think sae," she replied. "I never saw onybody. I jist let on that I was gaun hame, an' gaed owre the muir, an' got the train. I didna see onybody that I kent." "That was right, Mysie," he said. "I was afraid you might decide at the last moment not to come." "I did feel awfu' frightened," she confessed, "an' I could fain hae bidden at hame; but I can never gang hame noo," she added with a slight tremor in her voice, at the realization of all it meant. "I can never gang hame noo!" and the tears gathered in her eyes as she spoke. What a noise, and what a multitude of houses, she thought. She would never be able to go out and find her way back. She would get lost in all this noise and hurry and confusion. "I have taken a little house for you, Mysie," said Peter, in explanation of his plans. "I have also a woman engaged to help you for a time, to look after you till you get acquainted with the place; and I'll come home to you every evening, and spend as much of my time with you as I can, superintending your lessons. I am going to teach you myself for a while, and we'll live together and be as happy as we can. But first of all, you must get better," he said, as a fit of coughing seized her. "You've got a bad cold. Luckily, the old man allows me plenty of money, so that we need not worry." Mysie sat lost in wonder at it all, and presently the cab stopped, and Peter helped her out, paid the fare and, taking her arm, led her up a long flight of stairs--stairs that seemed to wind up and up till she felt dizzy, before he came to a halt at one of the many doors opening on the landing, entering which she found herself in a neat little room and kitchen, simply furnished, but clean and tidy. "This is Mrs. Ramsay, my landlady," he said as they entered, leading Mysie forward to where a middle-aged woman of kindly demeanor stood with a smile of welcome for them. Mrs. Ramsay stepped forward and began to help Mysie to take off her hat. With a few words she soon made the girl feel more at ease, and then left them to get tea ready. "Is that the woman you stay wi'?" asked Mysie, as Mrs. Ramsay went to the other room. "Yes, she's my landlady," he replied. "An' does she bide here too?" "Well, she'll stay just as long as you think necessary. Whenever you think you can get on without her, let me know. Her daughter is looking after her own house till she returns. She's a good, kindly soul, and will do anything to help you." "Are you gaun to stay here now, too?" "Well, that is for you to say, Mysie," he said seriously. "Certainly I should like to stay with my wife, for we'll be married to-morrow. But if you would rather stay alone, I can easily remain in my digs, and just attend to your lessons In the evening." "If you stay here, will she need to stay too?" "Of course that will all lie with you, Mysie," he replied. "Perhaps it might be better for her to stay and help you for a few weeks, and by that time your cold may be better. But you can think it over to-night and tell me your decision in the morning." Mrs. Ramsay's return cut short any further conversation, and they all sat down to tea, a strange little party. Mysie did not eat much. She was too tired, and felt that she would rather go to bed. She looked ill and very wretched, and at last Peter went out, leaving the women together. "I'll be round for you by half-past ten in the morning, Mysie," he said, as he was going. "So you must be up, and be as bright as you can. So take a good long sleep, and you'll feel ever so much better in the morning. Mrs. Ramsay will see you all right," and he was off before Mysie realized he was going. It was all so strange for Mysie. She was lost in wonder at it all, as she sat quietly pondering the matter while Mrs. Ramsay washed the dishes and cleared the table. The noises outside; the glare of the street, lamps, the tier upon tier of houses, piled on top of each other, as she looked from the window at the tall buildings, and the Castle Rock, grim and gray, looking down in silence upon the whole city, but added to Mysie's confusion of mind. Shouts from a drunken brawl ascended from the street; the curses of the men, and the screams of women, were plainly audible; while over all a woman's voice, further down the street, broke into a bonnie old Scots air which Mysie knew, and she could not help feeling that this was the most beautiful thing she had heard so far. The voice was clear, and to Mysie very sweet, but it was the words that set her heart awandering among her own moors and heather hills. Ca' the yowes tae the knowes, Ca' them where the heather grows, Ca' them where the burnie rows, My kind dearie, O! This was always the song her father sang, if on a Saturday night he had been taking a glass. It was not that he was given to drinking; but sometimes, on the pay night, he would indulge in a glass with Andrew Marshall or Peter Pegg--just a round each; sufficient to make them happy and forgetful of their hard lot for a time. She had seen her father drunk on very few occasions, as he was a very careful man; but sometimes, maybe at New Year's time, if things were going more than usually well, he might, in company with his two cronies, indulge in an extra glass, and then he was seen at his best. On such occasions Mysie's mother would remonstrate with him, reminding him with wifely wisdom of his family responsibilities; but under all her admonishings Matthew's only reply was: As I gaed doon the water side, There I met my bonnie lad, An' he rowed me sweetly in his plaid, An' ca'd me his dearie, O! and as he sang, he would fling his arms around Mysie's mother and turn her round upon the floor, in an awkward dance, to the tune of the song, and finally stopping her flow of words with a hug and a kiss, as he repeated the chorus: Ca' the yowes tae the knowes, Ca' them where the heather grows, Ca' them where the burnie rows, My kind dearie, O! So that, when the words of the old song floated up through the noise of the street, Mysie's heart filled, and her eyes brimmed with tears; for she saw again the old home, and all it meant to her. "There now," said Mrs. Ramsay, noticing her tears, and stroking her hair with a kindly hand. "Mr. Rundell has told me all about it, and I am your friend and his. I deeply sympathize with you, my dear, for I know how much you must feel your position; but Mr. Rundell is a good-hearted young man, and he'll be good to you, I know that. Don't cry, dearie. It is all right." Thus the words of an old song, sung by a drunken street singer, brought a stronger and deeper stab to the heart of this lonely girl, than to the exile in the back-blocks of Maori-land, or on the edge of the golden West, eating his heart out over a period of years for a glint of the heather hills of home, or the sound of the little brook that had been his lullaby in young days, when all the world was full of dreams and fair romance. In a sudden burst of impulsiveness, Mysie flung her arms round the neck of the older woman, pouring out her young heart and all its troubles in an incoherent flood of sorrow and vexation. "There now, dearie," said Mrs. Ramsay, again stroking Mysie's hair and her soft burning cheek. "Don't be frightened. You must go to your bed, for you are tired and upset, and will make yourself ill. Come now, like a good lass, and go to your bed." "Oh, dear, I wonner what my mither will say aboot it," wailed the girl, sobbing. "She'll hae a sair, sair heart the nicht, an' my faither'll break his heart. Oh, if only something could tell them I am a' richt, an' safe, it would mak' things easier." "There now. Don't worry about that any more, dearie. You'll only make yourself ill. Try and keep your mind off it, and go away to bed and rest." "But it'll kill my mither!" cried Mysie wildly. "Her no' kennin' where I am! If she could only ken that I am a' richt! She'll be worryin', an' she'll be lyin' waken at nicht wonderin' aboot me, an' thinkin' o' every wild thing that has happened to me. Oh, dear, but it'll break her heart and kill my faither." It needed all Mrs. Ramsay's tact and patience to quieten and allay her fears; but gradually the girl was prevailed upon to go to bed, and Mrs. Ramsay retired to the next room. But all night she heard Mysie tossing and turning, and quietly weeping, and she knew that despair was torturing and tearing her frightened little heart, and trying her beyond endurance. Mysie lay wondering how the village gossips at home would discuss her disappearance. She knew how Mag Robertson, and Jean Fleming, and Leezie Johnstone and all the other "clash-bags," as they were locally called, would talk, and what stories they would tell. But her mother would be different--her mother who had always loved her--crude, primitive love it was, but mother love just the same, and she felt that she would never be able again to go back and take up her old life--the old life which seemed so alluring, now that it was left forever behind. Thus she tossed and worried, and finally in the gray hours of the morning her thoughts turned to Robert, who had loved her so well, and had always been her champion. She saw him looking at her with sad eyes, eyes which held something of accusation in them and were heavy with pain--eyes that told he had trusted her, had loved her, and that he had always hoped she would be his--eyes that told of all they had been to each other from the earliest remembered days, and which plainly said, as they looked at her from the foot of her bed: "Mysie! Oh, Mysie! What way did you do this!" Unable to bear it any longer, she screamed out in anguish, a scream which brought good Mrs. Ramsay running to her bedside, to find Mysie raving in a high fever, her eyes wildly glowing, and her skin all afire. The good lady sat with her and tried to soothe her, but Mysie kept calling on Robert and her mother, and raving about matters of which Mrs. Ramsay knew nothing; and in the morning, when Peter arrived expecting to find his bride ready, he found her very ill, and his good landlady very much frightened about the whole matter. CHAPTER XVIII MAG ROBERTSON'S FRENZY "I want to ken what has gone wrong with you?" said Mag Robertson, speaking to Black Jock, whom she had called into her house one morning as he returned from the pit for his breakfast. "There's naething wrang wi' me," he said with cool reserve. "What dae you think is wrang?" "Ay, it's a' right, Jock," she said, speaking as one who knew he understood her question better than he pretended. "I can see as far through a brick wall as you can see through a whinstone dyke." "Maybe a bit farther, Mag," he said with a forced laugh, eyeing her coolly. "But what are you driving at?" "You'll no' ken, I suppose?" she retorted. "Sanny has told me a' aboot it this morning afore he gaed to his work. My! I'd hardly hae looked for this frae you," she went on, her voice suddenly becoming softer and more soothing as if she meant to appeal to his sense of gratitude if any remained within him. "Efter what we've been to yin anither, I never expected you'd dae this. I aye thocht that you'd be loyal as we hae been tae you. We hae made oursel's the outcasts o' the district for you, an' noo you wad turn on us like this. No, I never thocht it o' you at a'!" "What are you ravin' at this morning?" he asked, in a quiet voice, as if he meant to force her into being more definite. "I don't ken I'm sure what you are drivin' at." "Dae you no?" she broke in quickly, loosing hold of herself as she saw that her method of attack was not going to succeed. "I hae been suspectin' something for a while. You hinna been in owre my door for three weeks an' that's no your ordinar. But I have seen you gaun in tae Tam Granger's nearly every nicht in that time. An' I can put twa an' twa together. Dae you think we dinna ken the reason that Sanny has lost his contracts an' the reason why Tam Granger has stepped into them? Oh, ay," she cried, her voice rising as she continued. "I can see hoo things are workin'! I ken a' aboot it. Wee Leebie, I suppose, will be afore some o' us noo. The stuck-up limmer that she is. She gangs by folk as brazened as you like, wi' her head in the air, as if she was somebody. You wad think she never had heard o' Willie Broonclod, the packman, that she sloped when she left doon the country. Nae wonder she has braw claes to glaik aboot in; for they were gey easy paid. The dirty glaiket limmer that she is. I wonder she disna think shame o' hersel'." "What the hell's a' this to me?" asked Walker abruptly breaking in upon her tirade. "I suppose it'll no' mean onything to you," she returned. "But I just wanted to tell you, that you're no her first, for Willie Broonclod gaed to her lang afore she cam' here, an' she's left him wi' a guid penny that he'll never get. But her man's a contractor noo, makin' big money, an' Jock Walker ca's in to see her whenever he's needfu' an' there's naething sae low as a packman noo for her. The brazen-faced stuck-up baggage that she is. Does she think I dinna ken her? Her, with her hair stuck up in a 'bun' an' her fancy blouses an' buckled shoon, an' a'!" Mag was now very much enraged and she shouted and swore in her anger. "Ach, gang to hell," he said with brutal callousness. "You're no' hauf a woman like Leebie. She's a tippy wee lass, an' has a way wi' her. She has some spirit, an' is aye snod and nate," and there was a tantalizing smile about his lips that was plainly meant to irritate Mag. "I was guid enough a gey lang while, an'--" "Ay, but you've haen a damn'd guid innins," he interrupted. "A dam'd guid innins, an' I canna see what the hell you hae to yowl at." "A guid innins, you muckle black-hearted brute!" she cried. "By heavens, an' I'll see that you get yours afore I hae done wi' you. Dinna think though I hae been saft wi' you a' along, that I'll ay be like that. Oh, no, I can stand a lot; but you'll find oot that Mag Robertson hasna selt her a' tae you, without driving a hard bargain afore she lets you alone. You can gang back to your tippy wee baggage! Gang to hell, baith you an' her, an' joy be wi' you baith! But I'll put a sprag in your wheel afore you gang far. Mind that! By ---- I will! She'll nae toss her heid as she gangs past me as if I was dirt. Her, an' her fine dresses that she never payed for wi' money an' her fal-lals. By heaven! But you hae a fine taste!" She finished up exasperated beyond all control by his coolness. "Ay, it wad seem so," he laughed brutally. "When I look at you, I begin to wonder what the hell I was lookin' at. You're like a damnationed big lump o' creesh," and he laughed in her face, knowing this would rouse her more than ever. Then as she choked and spluttered in her anger he said: "But what the hell odds is't to you, you baggage?" and his eyes and voice were cold and brutal beyond expression. "Leebie Granger is young," he went on insultingly, in a collected even voice which he strove to make jaunty in tone. "She's as fresh an' young. An' you're auld, an' fat an' as ugly as hell, an' if I dae gang to Leebie you hae damn all to dae wi' it. As I said, you've had your innin's, an' been gey well paid for it, an' I dinna gie a damn for you." "Dae you no'?" she cried now livid with anger and losing all control over her words and actions, her eyes flashing with maddened rage and the froth working from her lips. "I'll let you ken or no'. I'll tear the pented face off your new doll; and I'll sort you too, you dirty black brute that you are." "Gang to hell!" he shouted, starting out of the door so suddenly that he almost ran into the next door neighbor who hearing the noise had crept noiselessly on tiptoe to the door the better to hear all that was going on. "What the hell's wrang wi' you?" he demanded turning in rage upon the eavesdropper. "Have you naething else to dae than that? Gang in an' get your dirty midden o' a hoose cleaned an' I'll see that you don't stay lang in Lowwood to spy on ony mair folk!" and cowering in shame the poor woman backed into the door and shut it, making up her mind that her man would be sacked that day, and wondering where they would flit to, so as to find work and a house. Walker strode up the row with Mag Robertson shouting behind him and the neighbors all coming to the doors as they passed, and craning their necks, while keeping their bodies safe hidden within the doorways of their homes. "We're surely gettin' an entertainment the day," observed one fat old woman to another woman two doors away, as they both looked after Mag as she followed Walker up the row, shouting her worst names at him, and vowing what she'd do with Leebie Granger, when she got hands on her. "Ay," replied the other woman stealing along the wall to the doorway of the older woman, and slipping inside as if she were afraid of being detected. "It's a hell o' a business when blackguards cast oot." "Wheest, Annie, dinna swear," remonstrated the old woman. "I dinna like to hear folk swearin' at a'. I wonner the Lord disna open the grun' to swallow the half o' the folk noo-a-days; for I never heard sic swearin' a' my life." "Och, there's nae harm meant," returned Annie, taken aback by the old woman's admonition. "It's jist a habit that folk get into an' they canna help it. But listen to her," she broke off, alluding to Mag Robertson again. "She micht think shame o' hersel', the shameless lump that she is. She'd hae been faur better to hae keepit her mouth shut, Phemie." "That's true, Annie," replied Phemie. "Listen to her. My, she's no' canny an' she's fairly givin' him a bellyfu'. But they're a' yae swine's pick an' no' yin o' them decent. I wadna be in her shoon for a' the money that ever was made in Lowwood. She micht hae kent hoo it wad end. Hark at her. My, but it's awfu'." "Keep in, Annie," Phemie admonished as they both craned their necks to look up the row as she saw Walker turning to face Mag. "Dinna let him see you or your man will get the sack. My! but she's layin' it in tae' him. What a tongue." "Lord bless us! He's strucken her, Phemie," said Annie, clutching her neighbor's shoulder as she spoke. "My, he's gaen her an awfu' blow on the mouth an' knocket her doon. Come inside for as sure as daith it'll end in a coort case, an' I'm no wanting to be mixed up in it," and they went inside and shut the door, looking at each other with frightened eyes. Then Annie, stealing to the window and lifting the curtain a little at the side, gazed sideways up the row, reporting to Phemie everything that happened. "He's kicking her, Phemie. Eh, the muckle beast that he is. My God, he'll kill her afore he's finished wi' her. He's hitting her on the face every time she tries to rise an' gaein' her anither kick aye when she fa's doon again. Oh! my God, will naebody interfere. He'll kill her as sure as death," and she stepped back with blanched face sickened at the spectacle she had described. "Here she comes, Annie," said her neighbor after a few moments. "My! what a face. Dinna look you at her," cried Phemie in alarm pushing back Annie who had moved near to the window to get a better view. "In God's name, woman, dinna you look at her. You shouldna ha' looked at onything that has taken place. If onything is wrang wi' your bairn when it is born I'll never forgi'e' mysel' for lettin' you look at this business at a'. Gang awa' back an' sit down an' try an' forget a' aboot what you hae seen. Dinna look up till she gangs back intae the hoose," and the old woman kept Annie sitting back at the bedside in the corner farthest from the window until Mag staggered to her home, her face streaming with blood. Not a soul was in sight as Mag returned; but many a pair of eyes watched her from behind curtained windows, and expressions of sympathy were common even though her relations with Walker were common knowledge in the village, and had been censured by everyone in consequence for her misdeeds. They all knew why Mag had "opened out" on Walker that morning and the reason she had been set aside for another who pleased his fancy. Tam Granger and his wife had recently come into the district from a neighboring village, where Leebie's name had been coupled with a local draper's or packman's in some scandal. Black Jock had soon got into contact with them and finding them willing tools he had deserted Sanny and Mag Robertson. All the contracts were taken from Sanny and given to Tam, and it was this that had made Mag watch for Walker coming in for his breakfast, determined to have it out with him, with the result which is chronicled above. The encounter between Mag and Black Jock was the talk of the village. Mag was mad with rage, and having washed her bruised face, she ramped out and in all day, washing the floor, clattering among dishes and scouring pots and pans. She was working off her anger and swearing and threatening, until most of the other women in the row grew afraid, and kept as much as possible within doors the rest of the day. When the men returned from work the whole episode had to be gone through and described to them by their wives. When Sanny Robertson came home that afternoon, he found Mag with swollen lips and half closed eyes and a face bruised all over. He did not have to wait long for explanations. She railed and swore and raged until one wondered from where she got all the energy, and all the strength. It was amazing why she did not collapse altogether. Sanny sat quietly listening without comment, then washed himself and sat smoking by the fire for a time. He was a quiet go-as-you-please man, not given much to talking. But finally he could stand it no longer, and he took hold of his wife by the shoulder, saying. "Noo, jist you listen, an' for God's sake shut your mooth. It'll no dae a bit o' guid ravin' like that. We are in a bigger hole noo than ever we hae been in a' oor lives, an' mind that. I've made up my mind what I am gaun tae dae. Sae listen. I'm gaun straucht awa' ower to Rundell's the morn, at the time when Mr. Rundell gangs hame frae the office for his breakfast, an' I'll tell him everything aboot the contracts. Then I'm gaun awa' doon the country tae look for work, an' I'll flit oot o' here an' tae hell wi't. Noo shut up an' gae me peace and quateness for an hoor, so that I can think oot things. You get awa' tae bed. Maybe by richt I should gang doon tae Black Jock an' stap a knife in him--if for nae ither thing than the way he has treated you the day, I should dae that. But I'm no gaun to dae it the noo. I'm no' blaming you for what has happened; for I'm mair to blame than you are. But I'll be even wi' that black beast, an' put an end to his rotten career, someway or another. Sae aff you gang to your bed, an' gie me a quate hoor tae mysel'," and there was such a quiet authoritative ring in his voice that Mag dared not disobey it, and she went quietly off to bed while he sat by the fireside smoking and thinking, and feeling that his home that night must surely be the most unhappy place on God's earth. About midnight he knocked the ashes from his pipe, and placing it on the mantelpiece, went to bed and soon fell asleep, but Mag, an insane decision taking shape in her brain, lay and brooded and tossed till well on in the morning, when she rose, kindled the fire, "redd up" the house, prepared the breakfast and awoke her husband to partake of the meal she had prepared. Never a word was spoken between them, and at last Sanny, after washing and dressing, walked out without a word, but fully determined in his heart to get equal with Walker before the day was over. He went straight to Rundell House, and ringing the bell asked to see the mine owner. He was shown into a room and Mr. Rundell came to him almost before he had been comfortably seated. "Well, Sanny," he began genially. "What brings you here this morning?" "A business that I'd rather no' been comin' on," replied Sanny uneasily shifting on his chair. "Oh, nothing serious, I hope, is it?" "Ay, it's serious enough," returned Sanny. "Mair serious than you think, Mr. Rundell; an' I dinna ken what you'll think o' me after I hae telt you." "Oh, well, in that case," said the mine owner, becoming serious, and speaking with slow deliberation. "Just let me hear what it is all about, and we'll see how matters stand after you have told me," and he sat down in a chair opposite Robertson as he spoke. "I hae lost my contracts, sir," began Sanny, not knowing how else to open up the subject. "But I'm gaun to tell you the hale story just in my ain way, so I want you to sit quate and no' interrupt me; for I hinna jist the knack of puttin' things maybe as they should be put. But I'll tell you the hale story an' then leave you to do as you like, an' think what you like." "Very well, Sanny. Just go on. I did not know you had lost them. But just let me hear about the trouble in your own way." "For gey near twenty year," began Sanny, "I've had maist feck o' the contracts in your pits back and forrit--me an' Tam Fleming. Walker an' us were aye gey thick, an' though it maybe was putten doon to you that oor offer to work ony special job was the cheapest, I may tell you that I never put in an offer in my life for yin o' them. Walker an'--an'" here Sanny stammered a little, "Walker an' oor Mag were gey thick, an' I'm ashamed o' this part o' the story; for I should hae been man enough to protect her frae him. But the money was the thing that did it, Mr. Rundell, an' I'm no' gaun to mak' excuses noo aboot it. But every bargain I had, I had to share the pay, efter the men was payed, penny aboot, wi' Walker. That was ay the bargain. He gaed us the job at his ain feegure, an' we shared the profits wi' him. "Noo, jist keep yoursel' cool a bit," he said, holding up his hand as Rundell made to speak. "We did gey well," he resumed in his even monotone, like a man who was repeating something he had learned by heart. "But gey soon I found that I was expected to spend a good share o' my pay in drink, while Walker took a', an' never spent a penny. So it was, that for a' the money we made we've been gey little the better o't, an' very much the worse o' it. Without exception we shared penny aboot with Walker on every bargain we got, an' I ken he has a guid bank balance, while I hae nane. "Noo, this is a rotten story frae end to end o't," he went on after a short pause to wipe his face with a handkerchief. "I allowed him to ruin my wife's character. I kent it was gaun on a' the time; but like mony mair I hae kent, a manager's favor was mair to me than the honor o' a wife. I let him tak' a share o' the money I made, an' spent my ain to keep him up on drink. But noo it's ended a'. A wheen o' weeks syne, a man ca'd Tam Granger came to the place and his wife being young an' fresh, an' guid-looking, besides being free, Walker's fancy was ta'en wi' her. So you ken what it means, when a gaffer carries on like that, an' the man is saft enough as weel as the woman being willin'. Tam got my contracts this week, an' I have to gang back into a common place and howk coals. "Weel, the wife couldna' stand being slighted like thet, an' Granger's wife had been tantalizin' her too, you ken hoo women rave when they are slighted. So she opened oot on Walker yesterday mornin' an' followed him up the row, the hale place being turned oot to hear her exposure o' him. She fair gaed mad wi' anger I think, an' lost a' control o' hersel' an' she followed him shouting so that a' the neighbors could hear her tauntin' an' jibin' at him, till he could staun it nae langer, an' he turned an' struck her, knockin' her doon on the green, an' then kickin' her, till she's a' bruised ower the body. She has an' awfu' lookin' face too, an' she came in bleeding like a sheep. "So that's the hale ugly story, Mr. Rundell. As I said I'm gaun to mak' nae excuses. There's nane tae mak'; an' I'm cheap served for it a'. I should hae stood by the wife and protected her. But I'll dae it noo. She's mine, an' if she's no guid it is me that is to blame. I'm leavin', an' I'm gaun awa' doon the country the morn to look for work; but I thocht I'd tell you the whole rotten story first, then I'll get Walker, an' hae a reckonin' wi' him an' be off the morn. I'll pay off that black-hearted brute this day afore I leave Lowwood an' then my conscience will be easier." Mr. Rundell sat stupefied and amazed at the story just told him by Robertson, and just as both men sat staring at each other and before another word could be said, a miner burst into the room, almost exploding with excitement, crying:-- "Oh, Mr. Rundell, you've to come to the pit at once. A woman has flung herself doon the shaft." "Guid God! That'll be oor Mag," cried Sanny, starting up and out at the door, running in the direction of the pit and stumbling every few yards in his excitement. When Sanny had left the house that morning to go and interview Mr. Rundell, Mag, with the insane decision she had made overnight still holding her mind, dressed herself in her best clothes, and without hesitation set off to the pit. On her way down the row she stepped into Leebie Granger's house very excited though she had been fairly quiet all morning; so quiet in fact that Phemie Grey and Annie Watson could not help remarking upon it. "She's been awfu' quate a' mornin', Phemie," said Annie, going into her neighbor's house. "She has worked away there as if she was gaun to clean the hale place, scrubbing oot the floor, although she washed yesterday; an' noo, she has on her Sunday best, wi' her new hat on too, an' she's awa' into Leebie Granger's. I wonner what'll hae ta'en her noo." "Guid kens," replied Phemie, "but she's fair off her heid. Dae ye ken she's just like a daft body. Did you see the look in her e'en?" and so they discussed poor Mag, who had drawn their attention by the strangeness of her behavior. "Oh, dinna be feart, Leebie," began Mag as she saw Leebie's apprehensive look. "I'm no' gaun to meddle wi' you, although I swore yesterday that I would. You've only done what I did before you. You are young, an' mair pleasin' than I am noo, an', as he said, I hae had a good innins. But, Leebie, you'll hae to look for another fancy man. He'll no' be lang yours. I'll see to that. Him an' me will gang oot thegither, if I can manage it. We've baith been rotten, an' it's richt that we should gang baith at once, an' rid the place o' a dam'd bad sore. Guid day, Leebie. It's a dam'd puir life to leave, an' while it maybe is a woman's lot in life to sell hersel' for ease and comfort, it's a' bad for her when she does it in a way that the world says is a wrang way; for she soon finds that her life isna worth a tinker's curse. She sells hersel' an' it's no worth while complainin' if the bargain turns oot a rotten yin. "If every woman had plenty of honest work, there wad be nae fancy women, for they wadna ned do it. Guid day, Leebie. Maybe you'll think I'm strange a wee an' maybe so I am. You micht think I'm daft; an' maybe so I am. But after a while when you get time to think, you'll maybe feel that you hae heard mair soond sense oot o' Mag Robertson when she was mad than ever she spoke when she was supposed to be wise. Guid day, Leebie. Think ower a' I have said. I'm no gaun to hurt you; but I'm gaun to tak' Black Jock oot o' your clutches as shair as daith. You've had your innins too; but it has been a dam'd short yin. I've had mine, an' the game is feenished noo. It's time the hale thing was totaled up so that we can see wha is the winner. I've been maybe playin' a losin' game, Leebie, but noo we'll ken afore lang. Guid day, Leebie. I'm off," and she was out of the door leaving Leebie speechless with fear and amazement. Mag flew down the brae to the pit almost running, while Leebie and other neighbors looked after her with a strange dread at their hearts. When Mag arrived at the pit she asked a boy if Walker was up the pit yet for his breakfast. "I dinna' think so," replied the boy. "He's kind o' late this mornin'; but there's the bell chappit three," he said as the signal was made from the bottom that men were about to come up. "That'll likely be him coming up." The boy had no sooner spoken, than with a mad rush Mag darted forward, and opening the gates at the "low scaffold," where no one was near, being situated below the pit-head proper, with a loud scream she hurled herself down the shaft. "God Almichty!" roared the engineman who saw all from the engine house, as he rushed out of the door, calling to the pit-head workers. "Mag Robertson has flung hersel' doon the shank!" and immediately all was consternation. The engine keeper had just been in the act of signaling down to Walker, who was ready to ascend when he saw the flying figure dart forward and fling herself into the yawning abyss. Walker, standing at the foot of the shaft waiting for the answering signal from above, heard the noise and the rush of Mag's body as it bumped from side to side in its mad descent, and starting back, he was just in time to get clear as the mangled mass of rags and blood and pulpy flesh fell with a loud splashy thud at the bottom, the blood spattering and "jauping" him and the bottomer, and blinding their eyes as it flew all over them. "In the name o' Heavens what's that?" yelled Walker, screaming in terror and jumping aside from the bloody upturned face, with the wide, staring eyes, which he seemed to recognize, as the other parts of the body lay about, still quivering and twitching, and a horrible sickness came over him and terror flooded his mind. "Bell, three, quick!" cried Walker, frantic with desperation in his voice. "Bell three, dammit. An' let us up out o' here. Hurry up, hell to you," and he drew the bell himself, and without waiting on the signal back from above, jumped into the cage, averting his face from those horrible eyes, which lay staring at him out of the darkness. "Chap it awa', man!" he yelled at the bottomer, his voice rising to a scream. "Chap it, an' let us up to hell oot o' this," and the bottomer, no less frightened than he, tore at the bell, and jumping in himself just as the cage began slowly to ascend, clung to the bar, shivering with terror. CHAPTER XIX BLACK JOCK'S END When Walker reached the surface, he was like a madman. He raved and swore and frothed like a churn, running here, there and everywhere nearly collapsing with rage, which sprang from terror. Usually cool and calculating, steady and active-minded, he seemed to have lost all grip upon himself. He had been drinking heavily the night before and was none too sober in the morning when he was called upon to go to work. Mag Robertson's attack the night before had sent him to the drink, and being a heavy drinker he was in a bad state the following morning. Mr. Rundell found him swearing and raving in a great passion, sacking men and behaving like a maniac. "Look here, Walker," he began at once, his quick temper rising anew as he thought of the story Sanny Robertson had told him. "I'll give you twenty-four hours to get out of here and away from the place; and if you are not gone in that time I shall inform the police. I know the whole story regarding the setting of the contracts. Sanny has told me, and if I was doing right I would not give you a single minute." Walker seemed to calm down all at once, and his eyes became cringing as those of a kicked cur as he stood before the angry mine-owner. "But I hinna telt you a' he has done," said Sanny Robertson, who came up just then in time to hear Mr. Rundell's words. "The dirty black-hearted brute murdered Geordie Sinclair. He telt me himsel' one nicht at the time when we were drinkin' together. He kent a' aboot Geordie workin' on the boss ground an' sent him to his death to get rid of him because in a soft moment I had telt Geordie hoo the contracts were set. He was feart Geordie wad tell you. He's a black-hearted murderer, an' noo he has added Mag's death to his list o' damnation. Tak' that! an' that! you dirty villain! I'll save the hangman the bother o' feenishin' you!" and Sanny was upon Walker tearing at him like a cat, and clawing his face with his nails, punching, biting and kicking him as hard as he could drive his hands and feet. The attack was so sudden that Walker went down, and Sanny was on top of him before anyone could intervene. "I'll tear the thrapple oot o' you, you dirty swine!" he squealed, as he tugged at Black Jock's throat. Mr. Rundell and a couple of laborers soon pulled Sanny up, though he struggled to maintain his hold upon the throat of his adversary. "Let me at him," he yelled, striving to get free. "Let me at him, an' I'll save the hangman a guid lot o' bother stretchin' his dirty neck! Oh, you swine! You dirty murderin' beast!" he shrieked, as he tried to break away from the restraining hands which held him. But Sanny was soon overpowered, and Walker, bounding to his feet, was off up the railway towards his home, terror filling his heart, and his mind reeling with fear. Mr. Rundell quickly organized a band of men to descend the shaft and recover Mag's body, and soon the whole village was in possession of the news, and the excitement was intense. They gathered her up, a mass of dirty, pulpy flesh, scraping the remains together and shoveling them into a rude improvised box, the head and eyes being the only part of the body that resembled anything like a human being. "Hell to my sowl, but this is the warst job that ever I got," said Archie Braidhurst, as he scraped a mass of blood and bones, mud and rags, together. "It's a hell o' a daith to dee." "Ay, puir lassie," replied Adam Lindsay. "She's made a splash at the hinner end. Mag ay cried that it was best to mak' a splash aboot the things you did; but, by sirs, she has made yin this time. What an awfu' mess!" "Splash!" echoed Archie with a grim laugh. "She's gane a' into jaups. She maun hae thocht she was a juck-pool. I would like to dee like a Christian when I dee, and no' shuffle oot like a scattered explosion, or a humplick o' mince." "Oh, for Heaven's sake shut your mooth, an' let us get her gathered up an' get oot o' here. Dammit, hae ye nae common sense, swearin' an' jokin' about sic a thing! It's enough to tempt Providence, an' had it no' been for the tumblerful o' whisky that Mr. Rundell gied us I dinna think I could hae faced it. It's awfu'!" "What the hell are ye girnin' at?" asked Archie, turning round on him. "Are ye feart Mag bites ye? Man, she's got a' her bitin' by noo, although I admit she's made a hell o' a mess at the end. Pit your shovel in here an' lift this pickle, an' no' stand there gapin' like a grisly ghost at the door o' hell! Fling it into her gapin' mouth, if you think she's goin' to bite you!" and the others laughed uneasily at Archie's sardonic humor. It was a nerve-trying experience for most of them, and they felt sick with horror of it, in spite of the whisky and their grim jokes. The pit was put idle, and the men went home. A gloom brooded over the whole place. Black Jock saw Mag Robertson's eyes staring at him, as he hurried over the moor. He had not even stopped to wash himself, but merely stowing some money into his pocket, was off, not deigning to answer his daughter's enquiries as to what was wrong, or where he was going. Every wild bird upon the moor seemed to shout at him in accusation; every living thing seemed to scream out in terror as he approached. He laughed a harsh laugh, like the cry of a wild beast, and the sheep scampered away in fear. The wind moaned out of the gray clouds, which lay thick upon the hidden hills, and there was an early iciness in its breath as it groaned past; A soft, slushy sound rose from the moor at every step, until it seemed that even earth protested. Eerie and sad the moor was, gray and threatening the hills. Laughing at intervals that low gurgle which sprang from fear, as some wild bird would start up at his approach, he plodded on. He did not know where he was going. He had no particular objective. He did not know what line he would pursue. He only wanted to get away from the scene of the tragedy, and those terrible eyes staring, which seemed to follow him from behind every bush or clump of heather, till in the gray mist it seemed as if the moor were alive with them. Eyes everywhere. Eyes that never winked or moved. Eyes that never trembled with recognition or glimmered with life. Dead eyes, cold eyes, immovable and clear--horribly clear they were--eyes that simply stared, neither showing accusation nor denunciation; but there they were at every tuft of yellow grass, behind every moss-hag, and staring like pools of clear silent death, which struck horror to his heart. He bounded sideways as a partridge on whirring wing flew away at his approach, and almost dropped dead with fright as a muircock, with loud protesting voice, seemed to scream: "'way back! 'way back! 'way back!" and then, drawing out into a low grumbling command, as it came to earth a few hundred yards away, still muttering its orders to him, as he momentarily stood to recover from his fright. The whinny of a horse upon the hillside, the low cry of a young cow, the bleat of a sheep, all added to his feeling of dread, until the sweat streamed down his body, as he swung along the moor. At last he came to a little village, about six miles from Lowwood, and, entering the inn, he called for a supply of whisky. "It's kind o' cauld the day," the landlady said in an affable way, as he stepped into the bar. "Warm enough where I have been," he replied bluntly. "Gie's something to drink in whusky!" "So it wad seem," she said in reply, noting his beaded forehead, as he wiped it with a colored handkerchief. "You've surely been gey hard ca'd wherever you hae been," and there was a note of curiosity in her voice. "I want a drink," he broke in abruptly, "an' it doesna matter a damn to you whether I hae been hard ca'd or no'. You're surely hellish keen to hae news. Dis a' your customers get the Catechism when they come in here?" he queried. "If they do, I may as well tell you to begin with, that I came in for whusky, an' no' to staun' an examination." She saw at once that he resented her leisurely way and her attempt at affability, and she hastened to apologize. "Look dam'd sharp," he growled, as she attended to his order. "I want whusky and plenty o' it." "You are in an unco' hurry," she replied, getting nettled, as she filled a glass. "It doesna' do to be so snottery as a' that." "Well, dammit, look alive. I'm dying for a drink. Bring in a bottle," as she placed a glass before him filled with whisky, "an' tak' the price o' your dam'd poison aff that!" and he flung down a sovereign upon the table. "Look here," said the landlady, "I'll tak' nane o' your snash, so mind that. If folk come in here to be served, they've got to be ceevil." "Oh, there's nae harm," he said apologetically, with a forced laugh, "but I'm in a hurry, and I want a drink." "Weel, I maun hae ceevility. So if you don't gi'e the yin, you'll no' get the ither." "That's all right," he said. "Keep the sovereign. I may need more. Tell me when it is all spent," and he filled a bumper and drained it without a halt. "Weel, ye may be dirty at many a thing," she observed, as she noted his action, "but you're a gey clean drinker o' whusky anyway," and she left him with his bottle to fuddle alone. "A gey queer body that," she mused, as she returned to the bar. "Lod! he's like a wannert thunder-storm, growlin' and grumblin', as if he had got lost frae the rest o' his company. But he seems to hae plenty o' siller anyway," she concluded, "an' he can drink whusky wi' anybody I ever seen try it." By and by a village worthy came in, and he was at once hailed by Black Jock, and invited to have a glass. "What are you drinkin', chappie?" he enquired. "Same as you," was the reply, while a smile of pleased anticipation hovered round the worthy's face at this unexpected good fortune. "I jist ay tak' a moothfu' o' whusky. As a maitter o' fact, I was brocht up on the bottle, and I hae never been spained yet." "Right you are, cocky! Drink up! You're the man I am lookin' for to help me to spend an hour or twa." "That'll suit me a' to bits," was the reply, "an' you are jist the man I hae been lookin' for. It's a guid thing we hae met, or we'd baith hae been unhappy." So the hours passed, and each newcomer was invited to join the company, until it grew so large that the "big room" was requisitioned, and it soon held a laughing, joking, drinking, good-natured set of as drouthy individuals as ever met together in company. Every worthy for miles around seemed to get the news of the free drinks, and whisky and beer flowed like water, and the company grew more and more cheerful and happy. Bottle after bottle of drink was consumed, and as the company got hilarious, a song was sung or a story was told, until the whole place had the air of a fair day about it. Jock spent his money freely, and his company drank his health as freely as he paid for the drinks. So the merry hours went past, and the darkness came on. Yet for all the whisky that Walker consumed, he never seemed to get drunk. He was certainly a bit intoxicated, but was in that condition described by one of the company next day as being "sensibly drunk." "Come on, damn you, you son of a tinkler," he urged. "Drink up, an' let us mak' a nicht o't," and thus urged they drained their glasses, and had them refilled again and again. "Gie's a sang, Geordie," cried one of the company across the room to an old shaggy-faced individual, who sat and laughed and drank with happy demeanor, rubbing his bristly chin, which resembled the back of a hedgehog, with dirty gnarled fingers which seemed made for lifting glasses, having a natural crook in them, into which the glass as naturally fitted. "You hinna sung anything yet. Gie's yin o' your ain makin'." "Lodsake, I canna sing," said Geordie, with the air of a man who wanted to be told he could sing. "Ach, you can sing fine," was the chorused reply from nearly everyone in the company. "Come on, Geordie, you ken you can sing fine. Man, there's no' a better singer in the place, auld and a' as ye are." "Och, I canna sing noo, Charlie," replied Geordie, clearing his throat, "but I'll confess that I hae seen the day when I could lilt it wi' the best o' them." "Oh, but we a' ken fine that you can sing. Man, it's a treat to hear him," said Charlie, turning to Black Jock. "He could wile the bird aff the bush. Gie's yin o' your ain, Geordie. It's aye best to hear you at yin o' your ain." "Oh, weel," said Geordie with a show of reluctance, as he rose to his feet, making a noise in his throat, like the exhaust pipe of an engine, "seein' that you are all so pressin' on the maitter, I'll gi'e ye a bit verse or twa." A roar of applause greeted Geordie as he sat down, and words of appreciation broke from everyone in the room. "Dam'd guid, Geordie! Fill up your glass. That deserves a richt guid dram!" cried Black Jock, as he reached across the table and poured a bumper for Geordie. "Wha's gaun to sing next? Come on, chaps; let us mak' a nicht o't!" "Hear, hear," said Geordie. "I'm just feelin' in gran' fettle for a nicht. Tammas Fairly will gie's a bit verse maybe. He can sing a fair guid song." "Me sing!" exclaimed Tam. "Gae awa'! Ye ken fine I canna sing like you, Geordie," and there was a hint of assumed bashfulness in Tam's voice as he spoke. "Come on, Tam. There's to be nae jookin' oot o' it. It's to be a sang roon' aboot, so you micht as weel begin noo, an' get your turn by." "Ay, come on," chimed in Walker. "Let us enjoy oorsel' the nicht, when we are in a mood for it. Guid kens when we may ever spend a nicht thegither again. Come on, Tam, get up!" "Oh, weel," said Tam with bashful reluctance, "I'll do my best," and clearing his throat, Tam sang. "Hear, hear!" roared Black Jock. "That deserves a bumper too, Tammas. Fill up your glass. An honest dram's afore a' the simperin' Judies that ever held up their gabs to be kissed!" and filling another round, they drank, and roared, and cried their appreciation. The fun waxed fast and furious, as song after song was sung, which sometimes were capped by a rough story or a questionable joke from someone in the company. "But you havena gi'en us a sang yoursel'!" observed Charlie, turning to Black Jock, after most of the company had obliged with an effort. "No, I havena gi'en you a sang," he replied with a coarse laugh, "but I hae paid for a' the drinks, an' I suppose that'll please the maist o' you better than a dizzen sangs frae me." "Quite true," said Geordie. "You're a gentleman, an' I never met a better. I only hope we'll hae the pleesure o' meetin' you here again afore lang. It's been yin o' the best nichts I hae spent for a lang time." "That's true, Geordie," said Charlie. "He has gi'en us yin o' the best nichts I hae ever spent. In fact I never min' o' haein' a better, an' to celebrate it, if nane of you hae ony objections, I'll sing anither sang." "Hear, hear," cried Walker heartily. "Order for the sang," and he tapped the table loudly with a bottle, as he called for quietness amid the din. "Order for the sang, boys!" bawled Geordie, "Charlie is gaun to favor the company," and as the noise immediately ceased, Charlie sang a song about the fascinating women. "That's a guid yin, Charlie," roared Walker, thumping the table as he roared. "I hae had a lang experience o' weemin' bodies," and he winked across to Geordie as he spoke, "an' I can say they are rale blood-suckers. They're like whisky, gran' at the time, but you sing sorry next day, an' fin' oot what a fool you hae been. They hing on to you like leeches, an' mak' a mess o' things at the en'. Though you had a face like a crocodile as long as you had plenty of cash, they'd lick your feet; when your money's done, they're awa' like swallows at the first nip o' autumn frost!" "Ay, it's a dam'd funny world," he went on in a lower tone, as if half speaking to himself. "A fu' purse an' you've plenty o' frien's, an' a woman when you need her, but if your purse is toom, your heart may grien a hell o' a lang while afore yin wad ever come near you." Thus the evening passed till some were lying below the table, unable to sit up and take their round; and finally the closing hour arrived, and all had to disperse. Black Jock, again left to himself, deserted by all his company, and in spite of all the drink he had consumed walking fairly steadily, stepped out upon the country road, neither caring nor knowing in which direction he went. His head bent forward upon his breast, or rolling occasionally from side to side, seemed too heavy for his neck to support, as he swayed from the center of the road to its margin. The horrible staring eyes began again to infest his journey, and seemed to accompany him wherever he went. He could not get away from them. Out in the lonely night, the whole sky merry with stars, was alive with staring eyes, that glared down upon him from above with a cold sinister light. They looked at him from the hedgerows; they glared at him from behind every bush or knoll by the wayside; they glowered at him from behind the trees; and they even perched upon his shoulders and peeped at him in accusation. "Damn you!" he growled, striking at them as if he would brush them from his sight; but still they followed and accused no matter where he turned. He grew more and more irritated and alarmed, as they seemed to multiply with every minute that passed; and he quickened his pace, but in spite of his speed, they still pursued and multiplied. Driven mad by the persistence of their stare, he rushed from side to side of the road, striking at them, hitting out with his hands, and kicking with his feet; but still they grew in numbers and in immensity. He shook himself as if to free his body from them; he rushed ahead, swearing and muttering; he growled and shouted, sometimes pleading to be let alone, and sometimes roaring defiance to the night air; but still the eyes held him relentlessly, implacably, and ever growing in numbers, until it seemed as if the whole countryside were alive with them. They came nearer and receded again; they swarmed round him in legions, then withdrew behind the hedges to stare at him with wide-open lids. They drew him onward, and he advanced cautiously. Then they rushed at him, and retired again, as if driven back; but still they were there, just round the bend of the road, just behind that bush, just over that hedge, and behind that tree, glaring and looking at him, and ready to rush forth again as soon as they thought he was sufficiently off his guard. "Back!" he roared again, striking out with his fist as they rose only a couple of yards ahead. "Back! an' be damned to you," as a whole swarm larger and larger, so that they lighted up the night, came rushing round him. They were hissing and roaring at him this time. They had hitherto been silent, and he seemed to hear at first a low murmuring whisper, as if they consulted together as to the best way to attack him. Then the whisper grew to a louder swishing sound like the noise Mag had made as her body hurtled from side to side on falling down the shaft. It grew louder and louder, like the wind coming through far-off trees, gradually swelling to a roar. The eyes grew in numbers and got larger with the noise; and finally, with terror clutching at his heart and an oath upon his lips, he turned to run back, only to find that they had all merged into two wide, horribly glaring fiery eyes which were bearing down upon him with the speed and noise of an express train. They were on him before he could turn, as if they now realized that he was fully at their mercy, and with the courage of desperation he flung himself bodily upon them and went down crushed beneath the heavy mass of a motor driven with reckless speed by a young man rushing to catch a train. Walker was down before the young man realized what had happened and the hoot of the horn had merely spurred Black Jock to the last desperate leap to death, the lights of the motor having taken on the shape of all the pursuing eyes that had followed him that night. When he was taken from beneath the wheels, his neck broken and his body smashed, Black Jock had paid the last penalty, and the eyes which destroyed him flashed out accompaniment to his departing soul. And the winking skies, still merry with the stars of night, looked down unmoved, while the night-birds on the moor answered one another in their flight, and called a last farewell to the spirit of Black Jock. CHAPTER XX THE CONFERENCE The storm which had been brewing in the industrial firmament grew more threatening and the clouds grew blacker until it seemed as if nothing could prevent a commotion on a big scale. The demand for a fuller life and more security was being made by the miners all over the country. Organization was proceeding apace, and a new idea was being glimpsed by the younger men especially, which filled their hearts and fired their imagination. "Do you think the time has come now, Bob?" asked Robert Sinclair, speaking to Smillie one day, as they proceeded by rail to a conference together, "when the whole Federation can try its power in a demand for something real?" "What do you mean by something real, Robert?" asked Smillie, with a keen look at the young, eager face turned towards him. "Some guarantee of comfort in our lives," was the reply. "You know that we have none now. You and others of us have been teaching the miners to work towards the day when a standard of ease and comfort will be assured to all. We have worked for it, and the miners now are looking for something tangible." "Yes, I know; but do you think, Robert, that the time has come to put it to the test?" and Smillie had gone on to tell of some of the difficulties they were faced with. So they talked and discussed, exchanging opinions and hopes; and all over the mining world their dreams were being voiced, and had helped to make the coming crisis. Conferences were held, and the whole matter threshed out from every angle. The miners were united as they had never been before and the whole of the British miners were determined to use their organization to enforce their demands. It was a triumph for Smillie's genius, the climax of his dream, to have them united as one body to fight what he called their real enemies. One federation linked together by common ideals, with common interests bound by common ties, united by traditions, by creed, by class, by common tastes shared, by suffering and hardship. It was his monument, and perhaps he regarded it with no little pride. When Robert was appointed delegate to the council of his Union from his branch, he set himself to master thoroughly, in every detail, its machinery, and very soon his voice was raised in the debates, and it amazed even himself to find what a power he seemed to possess over his fellows. He soon learned to state his case in simple unaffected language which took a marvelous hold upon his hearers, while at times his warm glowing imagination would conjure up a living picture that hit with irresistible force, and made a lasting impression upon those who listened. He gradually became more fluent, and studied how best to impress his comrades. His earnestness and enthusiasm were unquestioned, and sometimes were even found to be a serious obstacle to the older type of leader, men for the most part lacking imagination, and whose older and more prosaic outlook could not understand the younger man, whose zeal they regarded with impatience. But Smillie soon recognized Robert's talent and his worth, and gave him more scope than he otherwise might have done. Robert's admiration for his chief was unbounded, though it did not keep him from differing from Smillie at times on matters of detail. On principles they were generally at one with each other and while it was rarely that they differed, the occasions upon which they did so were remembered by all who heard. Smillie soon realized that there was an unshakable will behind the young man, and watched him under every difficult occasion with a certain amount of pride, as he grew in individuality and resource. Robert was not a frequent speaker, but was always listened to with respect when he did speak. An industrial crisis was upon the country and everyone was expectant, and wondering how it would all end. Keir Hardie's preaching of the working class gospel was a big factor in Robert's development and the latter was soon in demand for platform lectures, stirring up the workers and pleading with them to organize, and teaching them economics through historical allusion and industrial evolution until he soon became recognized as one of the coming forces in the working-class movement. He was as yet very impulsive, and while such a trait had generally a powerful appeal on the average audience of the working class type, it often put him into somewhat compromising situations, when dealing with the more sober and serious work of the organization. Still he was showing up well, and only time and experience were needed to cure his defects. So the year ended, and the cloud grew more and more threatening. January brought the crisis to a head, and the Government, recognizing that nothing could avert a strike and as the foreign situation was passing through a critical period, requested that a conference should be called in London, and invited the miners and the mine-owners to come together so that the Prime Minister and other statesmen could be present to try and adjust the grievance. It was a historic gathering and one that marked an epoch in the history of the industrial movement. Delegates were present from almost every Miners' Lodge in Great Britain, while the owners were also fully represented. The Prime Minister acted as chairman of the gathering and he was supported on the platform by other members of the Government, while Smillie and other well-known leaders represented the men and a number of the owners represented the Coal Masters' Association. The platform party was an imposing one. Men of big reputation were there, and Robert felt himself wondering, as he looked at them, how ordinary they looked after all, and he began to speculate as to the qualities they possessed which had given them such importance. "That's the Chancellor o' the Exchequer," said one of the delegates to Robert, pointing out the individual named. "He's a wee eatin'-an'-spued' lookin' thing when you see him sittin' there, isn't he?" "Ay," answered Robert casually, as he surveyed the group. "I was just wondering how it was they had a' gained such reputations. In appearance they are not much to boast about." "Ach, they're jist a lot o' oily tongued wheedlers," was the reply, "an' that wee ferrit-eyed yin is the worst o' them a'. Just wait till he begins to speak, an' you'll think he's a showman. He can fairly pit on the butter, an' he'll send us a' away hame in the belief that we're the finest set o' men he ever met, an' mak' us feel that if we decide to do anything against what he recommends, the hale country will gang to ruin." "Oh," said Robert, as his fellow delegate paused, "I've read aboot him." "Ay, but wait till you hear him. We can a' come up here as angry as hell, ready to string him up to the nearest lamp-post; but after he has spoken an' slaivered ower us for a while, we begin to feel differently, an' finally gang awa hame wi' our minds made up that we are the salt o' the earth. Man, it tak's a' the sting oot o' bein' dune, to be dune sae well an' sae completely." "Yes, but when you know that why do you allow yourselves to be wheedled?" "Ach, man; it's a' right askin' that question; but efter thae chaps get round aboot you, wi' their greasy tongues, an' their flatterin' ways, you jist begin to think that it's nae use to bother ony mair aboot resistin'. Look at that auld fermer-collier lookin' chiel, wi' his white heid an' his snipe-nose an' a smile on his face that wad mak' you believe he was gaun to dae you some big service. That's the smile that has made him Prime Minister. You'd think frae his face that he was just a solid easy-gaun kindly auld fermer, who took a constant joy in givin' jeelie-pieces to hungry weans. But when he speaks, and gets a grip o' you, he's yin o' the sooplest lawyers that ever danced roun' the rim o' hell withoot fallin' in. He'd do his faither, that yin. He wad that." Robert looked at the various individuals as they were described, keenly interested and feeling that this comrade of his was describing much of what he himself had felt about these men, and wondered more and more as to what it was that had given them their power. "They're a fine rogues' gallery when you see them a' sittin' there," went on the other. "They ken we are up here the day determined to demand our terms, an' that's the way they are a' turned out. Just you wait till they begin, an' you'll see a fine bit o' play actin'. They'll play us aboot as auld Tom Tervit wad play a trout in the Clyde. They hae ony amount o' patience, an' they'll gae you onything but the thing you want. They'd promise us the kingdom o' Heaven; an' they'll give us plenty o' line to run wi'; but a' the time they'll be lookin' for a chance to land us. An' they'll do it. Jist you wait." "Well, it will be our own fault if we let them," said Robert, shortly, as he listened. "I would not let any of them do that. If we have our minds made up on what we want, I can't see why we should be wheedled like that." "Neither do I," was the reply. "But it is aye done for all that. Then there's that ither chiel--I think he's on the Local Government Board or something. He's a corker, wi' a face like yin o' they pented cupids that the lasses send to the young men on picture postcards. Look at his nice wee baby's mooth, an' the smile on it too. It wad dazzle a hungry crocodile lookin' for its denner. His e'en are aye brighter than ony I ever saw--an' speak! Guid God! He could speak for a hale June day. He's gran' at makin' your flesh creep. He blinds you wi' sparks, an' fire-works, his words are that hot an' glowin', an' he fair dumbfounders you wi' fine soundin' sentences an' lang words. He's a corker I can tell you! But here, they are gaun to begin," he broke off hurriedly as the Prime Minister rose to his feet. Then in a sly whisper, he added:--"Just you pay attention, an' tell me after if you can tell how we hae been dune. They are here to do us the day, as sure as daith." The Prime Minister's speech was a masterly plea for compromise; but through it all, it seemed as if he was laying the blame upon the miners for the critical stage which had been reached. He appealed and cajoled, asked them to take long views, and talked fine platitudes about self-sacrifice, and the spirit of brotherhood, which could alone bring peace and contentment. The country was in danger, and it would be a terrible crime if the miners forced a strike; for only upon the great white solitudes of self-sacrifice and mutual help, whose peaks towered away into the realms of eternity, could real satisfaction be gained, and much more of a like kind. Then followed other ministers, who took their cue from their chief; but there was no hint that any of them had ever made a serious attempt to understand the problem which has arisen to confront them so seriously. They talked, or so at least it seemed to Robert, who sat in the body of the hall with the rest of the delegates, to the miners as if they were children, naughty and spoilt; and of course such an attitude could never bring about any form of agreement to sensible men, who deal every day with the life at the rough, raw edges of things. So it was, when four of them had spoken after the Prime Minister, and none of them had shown any attempt to grapple with the subject under dispute, Robert felt more and more the truth of his fellow-delegates' description. It was all a masterly bit of wheedling and the Chancellor's effort especially was designed to win them over to a compromise settlement. He began jocularly with a broad jest which set the delegates all rocking with laughter, telling how glad he was to be there to talk over with them the difficulties which had arisen. It always gave him pleasure to meet them and to get to know their point of view; because usually their good sense and their large stock of prudence made them amenable to listening to a reasoned argument. He was glad they always recognized there were two sides to most disputes, and he felt sure whatever the outcome of this conference might be they would not allow their good sense to stand in the way of a possible settlement. Gradually he worked into more serious lines, and with vivid language, putting the case for the opposite side, gently bringing their minds by degrees further and further away from the point--the real point of issue. Then finally when sufficiently developed, he gathered all the threads together, and in a great burst of poetic eloquence and fiery fervor he swept along like a tornado in a grand burst of superb oratory, his eyes rolling and flashing, his hands and head poised into beautifully effective gesture, and appealed to them in great rolling, fiery sentences that completely swept the conference like a whirlwind, and sat down amid a great burst of applause which broke with splendid spontaneity from the assembled delegates, and the winning golden smile upon his face which Robert's companion had described earlier in the day. Robert could hardly analyze his feelings. He felt he did not know whether to admire or condemn, but all the time he felt a slow rising indignation within him, and that the Conference was being swung away from what they had met to discuss. Perhaps it was his companions' conversation that did it. He could not tell; but unable to contain himself longer his impulsive nature getting the upper hand, he bounced to his feet, pale and excited, though trying hard to curb and control himself, and in a low tense voice, which at first halted a little, electrified the gathering by a speech wrung from his very soul. "Mr. Chairman," he began, in this unexpected incident, "I have listened very attentively to the speeches just delivered by yourself and the other honorable gentlemen." Here some of the other delegates intervened to tell him that he was not expected to speak, but the Prime Minister, for some reason unknown, told him to go on and so he proceeded. Then Robert proceeded to pour out his soul, stating the miners' grievances and their rights as men. How they were always put off with promises, and defeated in dialectics and the game of wits. As he spoke he felt the assembly gradually thaw, then become liquid, finally it seemed to join the torrent of his eloquence, and sweep on, blotting out all resistance. When at last he sat down a wild burst of applause rent the air, as he sat down pale and excited; but glad that he had got the chance at last of speaking what he felt to the enemies of his class. For fully five minutes the delegates went wild in their cheering and applause. Again and again it broke out afresh, when it had spent itself a little, and seemed to be dying down, but the memory of it always stirred them to fresh outbursts until at last, taking advantage of a lull, the Prime Minister suggested that he and his colleagues would prefer that the conference should stand adjourned till the next day, and this was agreed to by the delegates, who were not averse to the holiday. Congratulations were showered upon Robert from all sides. Even men who differed from him on most things grasped his hand and shook it, and told him how proud they were of his little speech. Robert heard and saw all their pleased enjoyment but was vaguely troubled in his heart, wondering how Smillie would have taken it, and this pained him more than the pleasant things the other delegates said to him. "Man, Sinclair," said the one who had sat next to Robert in the Conference, when they got out on to the street, "you've fairly upset the hale jing bang o' them the day. Lod! But I was like a balloon in a high wind, fair carried away wi' you. I never thocht you could have done that. I was in the opinion that Smillie was the only yin that could stand up to that set o' rogues. It was great. It was that." Robert laughed uneasily and bashfully as he answered, "I couldn't help it, Davie," then adding as an afterthought, "Maybe I hae put my fit in it. I wonder how Smillie took it a'." "Ach, well, it disna matter a damn, onyway. You did fine, an' I canna see how Smillie has onything ado wi' it. However, we hae a hale day to oorsel's now, what dae you say to gaun to the length of Kew Gardens? It's a gran' place, an' I hae a sister oot there in service." "Oh, I don't mind. I don't know onything aboot London and as you are nae stranger, I might as well gang wi' you, as bother onybody else to show me roun'." "There's some of thae chaps'll fairly enjoy this," said Davie, nodding in the direction of some of the delegates. "That's the way they agreed to adjourn sae already. They jist leeve for the conferences. It's the time they like. They booze and get their horns oot for a day or two, an' I can tell you, Rab, it's maybe jist as well that they dinna bring their weemin folks wi' them. However, it tak's a' kinds of folk to mak' a world, I suppose, so let's off, and see as muckle o' London as possible," and they set off and were soon swallowed up in the great Metropolis. CHAPTER XXI THE MEETING WITH MYSIE When the London Conference ended, the delegates hurried back to put the terms of the suggested agreement before the men, and as they journeyed the whole topic of conversation was of the Conference, and of the terms which had been suggested as a basis for settlement of the dispute. "Well, you can a' say what you like," put in Davie Donaldson, who had sat beside Robert in the Conference, "but in my opinion we hae been diddled again. The wee showman wi' the ferret een was too mony for us, an' he jist twisted us round his wee finger as he liked." "Ach, but you are never content," replied another who was of an opposite opinion. "It doesna matter what kind o' terms you get, you're never content." "I'm no' content wi' thae terms ony way," persisted Davie stubbornly. "What the hell's the use o' makin' a demand for something, an' sayin' afore you gang that you mean to hae it, an' then to tamely tak' the hauf o' it, an' gang awa' hame as pleased as a wheen weans wha have been promised a penny to tak' castor oil? I'd be dam'd afore I'd tak' that." "You're owre ill to please," said the other. "You're never satisfied wi' a fair thing. Didn't you hear as weel as me that there was a danger o' war breakin' oot at the present time, an' we couldna possibly hae a strike at a time like this." "War!" retorted Davie, heatedly. "They'll aye hae a war or something else to fricht you wi', when you show that you mean business. Wha the hell hae we to quarrel wi' onyway, I'd like to ken?" "Oh, it micht be France, or Germany, or Russia, or some ither o' thae cut-throat foreign nations." "An' what are you gaun to quarrel aboot?" yelled Davie still more heatedly. "What the hell do I ken?" was the answer. "Then, if you don't ken, why the damn should you quarrel? It's a dam'd silly thing to fecht at ony time, but it's a dam'd sicht sillier to fecht withoot haein' a quarrel at a'," cried Davie, now fairly roused. "That's jist hoo they diddle us. They diddle the workers o' France an' ither countries in the same way. Maybe the French Government is telling the French colliers that there is a danger o' a war wi' Britain at this minute, to keep them quate; an' if they are, do you an' me ken anything aboot what the war will be for? No' a thing does yin o' us ken. Wars are no' made by workin' folk at all! They are made wi' the ither crowd, an' they laugh in their sleeves when they hae sent us awa' back to our work an' oor hames as quate as mice," and Davie looked round in triumph, asking with his eyes, and in the tones of his voice, for confirmation of his views from the others. Thus they talked and discussed, exchanging opinions about all things in strong but expressive language, as the train sped northwards bearing them home. District meetings were organized, and the leaders put persuasively the arguments for the acceptance of the terms laid down. All through the crisis the men had behaved admirably, for they had learned to trust Smillie, even when they felt doubtful of his policy. Robert took a big share in the organizing of these meetings and in addressing them. He flung himself into this work whole-heartedly. The terms certainly did not please him; but, as the majority at the London Conference had decided to recommend them to the men, he thought it his duty to sink his personal opinions, and in the interests of discipline and the unity of the organization--as he had already had his say and had been found in the minority--he put all his efforts into trying to get the men to accept the suggested terms, and go forward as one united body. His persuasive powers of appeal, and his straight, direct way of argument, commended him to his comrades. By the time that the ballot had been carried through in the various districts, it was mid-February, and the Scottish delegates met in Edinburgh to give the result of the voting among the rank and file. Robert attended the Conference, and while he had appealed to the men to accept the terms of the London Conference, he secretly hoped that the ballot vote of the men would decide to fight; for, like Davie Donaldson, he believed they had again been side-tracked. He wondered how Smillie regarded the matter. He had not had an opportunity of talking with Smillie to learn his opinion, but he felt sure that his leaders did not like the terms either. If, however, the men had agreed on acceptance, he could not help matters; but a direct refusal from the rank and file would, he thought, be an intimation to the more reactionary leaders that the spirit of revolt was growing, and would give the rebels the chance for which they were looking. But he would soon know, he thought, as he hastened to the Synod Hall, where the Conference was to be held; for the result of the ballot was to be announced at the end of the first part of the Conference. There was some routine business to get over when it opened, and after a while the President rose and gave the result of the ballot, which showed a considerable majority for acceptance, and this brought the adjournment for dinner. Robert felt that he wanted to spend a quiet five minutes or so before the Conference resumed; so he hurried through with his dinner and then strolled out into Princes Street Gardens, which attracted him very much. His mind seemed to want peace and quietness, and as he walked along, turning over the situation and examining it from all points of view, the fluttering of early mating birds among the shrubs soon shifted his thoughts to other things; and, as they romped and courted, and fought among the bushes, his thoughts went back to the moor at home, and the little wood, and the memories of other things. The vague stirrings of power within him had become more pronounced during the last six months, and he felt conscious of a growing sense of importance. It was not that he was conceited, but his mental muscles, as it were, seemed to have gained in power from the strenuous exertions which they had lately undertaken. He knew that he possessed talents far above the average of his class. He was sensible of a certain superiority, yet it was not from the contemplation of this that he drew his elation. He saw the issue quite clearly and knew the pathway which must be trodden. He was not personally ambitious for the sake of making an impression or gaining power. He knew that in too many cases men had in the past made their position a sinecure in the Labor Movement and he condemned their action. The Movement must be served and not lived on. Not personal betterment, but the betterment of the whole lot. Whatever it demanded of service from anyone should be given willingly, no matter in what direction the call were made. Musing thus, he strolled along among his hopes of the future. His life's work lay here, working for his own class--for humanity. There was nothing else to win him; for like most young men in like circumstances he had already concluded that now, since Mysie was not to be his, there was nothing else to which he could better devote his life. Where was Mysie, he wondered? What had happened to her? She had completely gone out of everybody's knowledge, and no one seemed to know anything about her. He moved slowly along and at the thought of Mysie his former decision seemed a cold one and he felt that she still held a big place in his life. Moving towards a seat a little way ahead so that he might enjoy this mood, the figure of a girl started up as if to go, and immediately he rushed forward, all his pulses afire, and his whole being stirred beyond words. "Mysie!" he exclaimed, jumping forward, "Guid God! where have you come from? Where have you been?" and his hands were holding hers, and his eyes greedily scanning her face as if he would look into her very soul, and read the story of the last few months. "Oh, Rob," she said, with a gasp, "I didna think I wad meet you here." "Sit down," he said hurriedly, as he recovered himself. "Sit down and rest. You're ill. What's the matter? Where have you been? Tell me all about it!" There were tears in Mysie's eyes too, as she weakly sat down, unable to do anything else. She had recognized him as he approached, and had started up to get away; but he had also recognized her, and she was too late. "Hoo is my mither an' my faither?" she enquired, after a short silence, as she tried to recover herself. "Hoo are they a' at hame?" the greedy heart hunger for loved ones drove her to the impatient enquiry. "Did they miss me muckle, Rob? Were they awfu' vexed at what I did? Tell me a' aboot it then, I want to ken." "But you must tell me first aboot yoursel', Mysie," he replied evasively, searching in his mind the best way to adopt in telling her of the things he knew would wound her. "Come, Mysie," he urged, "you surely can trust me. I have always been your friend, and I only wish now to hear all about you. Why did you go away?" She saw him look at her, and a quick flush overspread her thin, pale cheeks as she detected his look. He had no need to ask further. "Oh, Rob, I wish--I wish I had died a year syne!" and a wild burst of sobbing came over her as she spoke. "Dinna greet, Mysie," he said, as his hand reached out and began to stroke her hair tenderly. Then after a short pause, "Wha was he, Mysie? Tell me, an' I'll tear the black heart oot o' him!" But Mysie only cried, uncontrollably, and hid her face in her hands; for the homely doric on Robert's tongue touched her and it came readier to him in moments like these, and the tender touch of his hand upon her head gave her comfort, soothing her, and staying her grief, as a child is quieted by the loving hand of a mother. "I'll tell you a' aboot it, Rob," she said at last after a short time. "An' I hope you'll no' tell onybody. There's naebody to blame but mysel' for a' that has happened, an' I maun bear the punishment if there is punishment gaun," and bit by bit, with many an effort to compose herself as she spoke, she told him the whole sad story from beginning to end. "There was naebody to blame, Rob--naebody but mysel'! I should hae kent better. But I never thocht it wad hae turned oot as it has done. I hae been gey ill, an' I maun say that Peter has been awful guid to me. He's done his best to get me better, so that he can marry me afore it happens. I lay for nearly six months, an' I wasna carin' whether I died or no'! I was fair heartbroken, an' didna mind what happened. This is the first day I hae been oot. He cam' this mornin' frae his lodgings tae ask me tae gang oot a wee while in the sunshine, seein' that it was sic a guid day, and Mrs. Ramsay brocht me oot here, and warned me to sit till she cam' back. When I saw you comin' I got up to run awa', but I dinna ken whaur to run to; for this big toon is a' strange to me, an' I'm feart." "Oh, if I had only kent! You maun keep yoursel' as free frae worry as possible, an' try an' get better," he went on, trying to speak as lightly as possible. "Keep up your spirits, an' you'll maybe soon be a' better." "Aye, Rob," she said, "but it's no' easy. An' I hae been gettin' waur instead o' better. I ken mysel' that I'm no' improvin', an' I often think it wad hae been better if I had died. When folk don't want to live--when they've nothing to be happy aboot they are better to dee!" "But you maunna talk like that, Mysie," he said again. "You'll get better yet, an' be as happy as ever you were. It is only because you are ill noo an' you sae weak, that mak's you talk like that. An' forby you maun mind that there are ither folk wha'll be vexed if you dinna get better. Your faither and your mither wad like to see you weel an' happy, an' oh, Mysie, Mysie, I want you to get weel!" he broke out passionately--pleadingly, the misery in his voice going to her heart as it cried to her, ached for her, and suffered for her. "Wad you hae married me, Mysie, if I had asked you afore you went awa'?" and his hands were again stroking tenderly the brown hair and patting the thin cheeks as he spoke and plead. "Ay, Rob," she answered simply, "I wad hae married you. I sometimes think yet that I'll never marry onybody else. As a lassie I aye dreamed in my ain mind that I'd be your wife. It's awfu' hoo the things that folk want maist are aye the things they never get!" "Mysie, wad you marry me yet?" he asked, impulsively. "Jist this minute? An' I'll tak' you hame, an' naebody will ken onything. I'll take a' the blame, an' you can say that it was me. I'll nurse you back to health again wi' my mither's help an' naebody need ken the richt wye o' it!" "No, Rob," she said after a short pause. "I couldna dae that. It wad neither be fair to you or me, nor to onybody else." "But, Mysie," he went on in the low tender voice that was so difficult to withstand, "you don't like Peter weel enough to be his wife. You say you never intended to be onybody's wife but mine; an' what wye should you no' do as I propose? You ken I'll never do onything else but love you. You ken that, Mysie!" "Ay, Rob," she answered, "I ken a' that. Naebody kens it better than me noo; and that's what mak's it sae awfu' hard to refuse. But it wadna be richt at a', an' that's a' that can be thocht aboot it. You maunna ask me ony mair." "But I will ask you," he cried in another burst of passion, "an' I'll keep on askin' you. You ken you are mine, an' naebody else has a richt to you. I love you, Mysie! Oh, can you no' see, lassie, that it wad be a' richt if you'd do as I want you?" "No, no, Rob. Dinna say that. It wadna be richt at a', an' I'd be doin' anither wrang thing if I did." "But you said jist the noo, that you sometimes thocht you wadna marry onybody else?" "Yes, I ken I said that," she replied. Then with pain in her voice as it grew more pitiful, "Dinna ask me, Rob, to do that. I ken it wadna be richt, an' you munna ask me ony mair; for though I said that I sometimes thocht I wadna marry onybody else, I canna marry you noo. Oh! if only my mither kent, it would break her heart, an' my faither wad dee o' the disgrace! What do they think o' me, Rob? Tell me a'--hoo are they, an' if they miss me very much." "Your faither and mither nearly broke their hearts," he said simply, "an' at nicht your mother lies an' thinks an' wonders what has come owre you. You ken hoo a mither grieves an' worries aboot her bairns. She never thocht o' sic a thing happening in her family. She was aye sae prood o' them a'. I heard her say ane day to my mither that she dootit you maun be deid, or you wad hae sent her word; and that you wadna hae gane wrang. She never, she said, kent o' you takin' up wi' men, an' was sure that naething o' that kind had happened." "Did she really think that, Rob?" asked Mysie, glad to know that her mother had believed in her virtue, yet pained. "Rob, if only mithers wad be mair open wi' their lassies an' tell them o' the things they shouldna' do, an' the dangers that lie afore them. But tell me aboot them a'. What did my faither say aboot it? How are they a' keepin'?" This was the question which Robert had feared most, for although Matthew Maitland had said very little, everybody knew that he grieved sorely over his daughter's disappearance, and at the time was lying very ill. He was fast nearing the end, which most colliers of the day reached--cut off in middle life, made old by bad ventilation in the mines, and black damp. His condition was almost despaired of by the doctor, and when Robert left Lowwood that evening for Edinburgh, he was in a very critical state. Two months before, the oldest boy, who was some two years younger than Mysie, had been taken suddenly ill, and had died after a few days' illness. How was he to tell Mysie of this? How tell her that John was dead, and her father perhaps dying? How tell of her mother eating out her heart in the hungry longing for news of the missing girl, and killing herself with work and worry? "Your faither's no' very weel, Mysie," he began evasively, his eyes turned away from her, in an attempt at hiding what he felt. "What's wrang wi' him, Rob?" she asked, the quick alarm in her voice cutting his heart as she spoke. "He hasna been workin' for fully a fortnicht," he replied. "But what's wrang?" she persisted. "Is he ill?" "Mysie, I'd raither onything than be the means o' painin' you, for you are no' in a fit state to be worried." "You maun tell me, Rob," she cried fiercely, her face showing excitement. "What is it that is wrang? Is he awfu' ill?" "He's lyin' gey bad, Mysie, an' when I cam' awa' this mornin', I didna like the look o' him at a'. He was kind o' wanderin' in his mind, an' speakin' to you an' John, jist as he used to speak when we were a' bairns thegither. He was liltin' some o' thae auld sangs he used to sing to us. But dinna greet, Mysie, you'll mak' yoursel' waur. You are no very strong, you ken, an' if you worry it'll mak' you waur. You should raither try an' bear up, an' get strong, an' maybe gang an' see him. He'd be awfu' prood to see you, an' so wad your mither." "No, no," she cried. "I canna gang. It wad kill them to see me noo, an' I couldna bear't, if they should be angry wi' me. I couldna face their anger, Rob." "Weel, Mysie," he said, drawing a long breath, as if to face a stiff proposition, "there is no other way out of it, but that you'll hae to marry me now--just this minute, an' gang back wi' me. If you do that, I can tak' you back wi' me, an' gang to your faither an' say that it was me that was responsible. It can be done, Mysie, if only you'll agree to it. Come, Mysie!" he cried in a burst of passionate pleading. "I want you. Mysie, Mysie! Say that you'll come." Robert looked at her pale, thin, emaciated face with greedy pleading in his eyes. He saw the thin-looking, hungry body as it shook with her sobs, and that terrible cough, which seemed as if it would carry her away before his eyes. "Say you'll come, Mysie!" he pleaded, his hands held out appealingly. "Say you'll come, an' it'll be so easy." "No, no," she sobbed vehemently, "I canna do that. Dinna ask me ony mair, Rob, I canna do that. It wadna be fair." A hopeless look came into his eyes as he listened to her words, for he knew that Mysie could never consent to his proposal. Frail as she was, and torn by her wish to agree, yet he knew she meant it, when she said no. "Where do you live, Mysie?" he enquired at last, thinking to find some way of helping her. "Wad you gie me your address, so that I'll ken where you bide?" "No, I dinna want to tell you, Rob. You'd better gang awa' noo. Mrs. Ramsay will soon be comin' for me. Gang awa' an' leave me. I want to be a wee while by mysel'. Oh, dear! Oh, dear! I wish I could dee an' leave it a'!" Robert stole away on tiptoe, as if he were afraid longer to intrude upon her grief--his mind in a whirl, and his heart heavy with sorrow. He returned to the Conference to find that the debate was in full swing, and that Davie Donaldson, was laying about him in vigorous style, denouncing the leaders for recommending the terms to the men, and telling them that the "wee chocolate-moothed Chancellor had again diddled them." But he felt no interest in Davie's denunciation, and could not smile at his picturesque language. His mind would revert to the gardens in Princes Street, and he saw the thin white figure on the seat, the picture of hopeless misery, her frail form torn with sobs; and heard the wail in her voice as she moaned, "Oh, dear! Oh, dear! I wish I could dee an' leave it a'!" Some of the young delegates wondered why Sinclair remained silent in such an important debate. They had succeeded in raising a question which at any other time would have brought him to his feet; but he sat impassive and silent, and above all the clash and glamor, above the applause and the interruptions, above all the witty sallies which brought unexpected laughter, he saw only the thin, white lonely figure--the dejected and outcast, the poor plaything of fate, and heard the heart-breaking cry, "Oh, dear! I wish I could dee an' leave it a'!" and in every syllable there was a stab of pain. The Conference ended, and the delegates made homeward. The terms had been agreed to, so far as Scotland was concerned, and all pointed to peace. "You didna speak the day, Sinclair, and I fairly thocht you wad hae been into the fecht," said one delegate to Robert, as the train moved away from the station. "No, I wasna feelin' up to the mark," he returned, in a tone that hinted that he did not want to be troubled, and he sat back in his corner in silence. In the gray quick gloaming the moors and the hills, viewed from the train, seemed to him a country without hope. There was sadness in it, and pain, and the gray wintry sky brooded of sorrows to come. Occasionally a few sheep would start away from where they had been grazing close to the railway, startled by the noise of the train. Thin wisps of gray ragged clouds hung low, as if softly descending upon the hills, in fateful sinister storms, and a fiery flash of yellow left a strip of anger on the western horizon, where the sun had gone down a short time ago. Gray mists and grayer moors, with occasionally a solitary tree standing out in the distance, as if to accentuate the loneliness and the sorrow of the world in their ragged branches, which seemed ready to pierce the sky in defiance of the anger of the, as yet, unleashed storm. On rushed the train, and through the mists there kept coming before his eyes the white lonely figure, moaning in fatal grief--grief inexorable and unrelenting, while the flying wheels groaned and sobbed and clicked, with the regular beat of a breaking heart, as if they were beating out the sorrows of the world, and over all they sang the dirge of the broken life of a maid. "Oh, dear! Oh, dear! I wish I could dee an' leave it a'!" CHAPTER XXII MYSIE'S RETURN When Mrs. Ramsay returned she found Mysie in a fainting condition, thoroughly exhausted, and on the point of collapse. Mrs. Ramsay saw, by her red swollen eyes, that she had been weeping. With the help of her daughter the kind woman, who had done so much for Mysie during the past few months, got her to the street, and procuring a cab, got her back to the house, much alarmed by the patient's condition. All night Mysie tossed and raved in a high fever and delirium, while Mrs. Ramsay sat by her bedside, trying to soothe and quieten the stricken girl. As she seemed to get no better the older woman grew more alarmed. "Oh, my puir faither!" moaned the girl. "Oh, mither, I am vexed at what has happened. Oh, dear, I wonder what I'll do!" "There now, dearie!" said Mrs. Ramsay in warm sympathetic tones, as she stroked the burning hands and brow. "Try and quieten down and go to sleep. You were getting on very well, you know, and making fine progress, but you'll make yourself worse than ever if you carry on like that. There now, dearie! Try and get to sleep, and you'll soon be better again!" But Mysie was silent only for a moment, and the low moan soon broke from her lips again, like the wail of some stricken thing at night upon the moor, and still she tossed and tumbled feverishly in her bed. In the morning the doctor came and shook his head. Mysie was ill, very ill. Her condition was serious, and it was little he could do. Only care and good nursing and try to keep her from worrying. He left a prescription, and Peter soon had the necessary medicine, and later the patient grew calmer, and finally sank into a deep sleep; and so the old fight had to be fought over again, to get her strength restored and her vitality increased. Mysie did not mention another word of home. She lay quiet, hardly even moving and seldom speaking; but the burning fire that consumed her was apparent in her hectic cheeks and glowing eyes, and one could see that her mind was away, never dwelling upon her surroundings, but was wandering among the heather hills and quiet valleys, where the call of the curlew and the shout of the lapwing stir the primitive impulses of those who love the haunts of the moorland life, and weave so much romance into the lives and souls of the country bred people, who never grow to love the ugly towns, but whose hearts remain with their first love--the moors, and the hills, and the mountain brooks for ever. She seemed to grow a little stronger as the days passed. She took her medicines regularly and without protest; but deep down in her heart she felt that she would never get better, and her only desire, that had been shaping itself ever since Robert had told her of her father's condition, was to be strong enough, to go home to Lowwood, just to see her parents, her brothers and sisters, once more; then she could die in peace. If only she could do that, she would not care what happened. Nothing else mattered; but she must get home. Nothing would prevent her from doing that. It was the instinct of the wounded animal, dragging itself home to die--home to its home in the kindly earth, away from contact with other things--just to be alone, to nurse its suffering and its misery, till the last shred of strength had gone, and the limbs stiffened out, while the glazing eyes looked forward as the pain increased, across the barriers of other worlds to a land of plenty--a land of green shrubs, and sweet waters bubbling from scented hillsides, overhung with blue skies which never brewed storms. A land of bud and bloom and blossom, scented and sweet, with every desirable weed and tasty herb--a land of life full and beautiful, of warm suns, calling up dreams from a blossoming mist of bluebells, creating the freshness and the happiness of youthfulness in every living thing. A land where far vistas and wide horizons, bounded by green hills, brought visions from the inner self, with joyous abundance through lusty life, and glorious passionate being--a land sweet and fruitful, and never-ending in its beauty and its means of happiness! Slowly the days passed, and her strength gradually increased little by little, until a month had gone past, and she was able to be about the house again; but this determination in her heart to go home grew stronger with every day that passed, and it seemed to give her strength and vitality, and her hope became more definite and more sure. She pictured her home again, as she had known it; the little kitchen, with its white scrubbed floor and a few newspapers spread over its newly washed surface to keep it clean from muddy feet; the white-washed jambs of the fireside, and the grate polished with blacklead; the clear-topped fender, with its inscription done in brass in the center, "Oor ain fireside"; the half-dozen strong sturdy, well-washed chairs; the whitewood dresser, with its array of dog ornaments and cheap vases, and white crocheted cover; and the curtains over the two beds in the kitchen. All these things she loved to think about, and she saw them pictured in her mind as real as they'd ever been to her when her own life was centered in them, and her fancy took delight in these secret joys. It was her home she saw always, the humble "but and ben" with the primitive conditions of life, the crude amenities, the sweet joys of simple unaffected people; but it was her home. One day, Mrs. Ramsay had gone out on an errand that detained her some time, Mysie seized suddenly again in a more intense form by her desire to go home, feverishly dressed herself, and hastily scribbling a note of thanks to her good friend and nurse, she stole out on to the street, a poor, forlorn, weak girl, but thoroughly determined to go home to where her heart called her. Out upon the street, she grew frightened. She did not know anything about the city, nor in which direction to turn. She had no idea how far it was to the station. She was helpless and alone, and very much excited. A boy passed her, whistling as she had often heard her own brothers whistling, and hastily calling to him she accosted him thus: "Could you tell me hoo far it is to the station?" "Whit station?" asked the boy, and she suddenly remembered it was Princes Street, and mentioned it. "Oh, ay; it's no' faur," he said airily, as he pointed in the direction of it. "Jist gang alang that way," and he turned away as if to leave her. "Wad you tak' me to it, an' I'll gie you a shillin'?" she asked, and he eagerly turned at once to close the bargain. "Oh, ay," he agreed, "I'll soon tak' you there," and the two set off; and guided by the boy, whose knowledge of the city seemed to her wonderful in one so young, they arrived at the station, with Mysie very tired and half-fainting with excitement. "Hae you a ticket?" asked the boy, judging from her appearance that she needed to be reminded of such things. "No, I forgot I hadna got yin," replied Mysie. "I wonder where I'll hae to gang to get yin. Hoo much will it be, think you?" "Oh, I dinna ken," said the boy. "Come alang here to the bookin' office, an' ask a ticket for the place you want to gang to, an' the clerk will soon tell you the price o't." Luckily Mysie had a few pounds in a purse which Peter had given her some time ago, in case she might want to go out, he said, and buy something she might want. Going to the booking office, and guided by her little friend, she timorously made known her wants, and a ticket was given her; and she returned under her youthful escort, who enquired the time of the trains leaving of a porter, and conducted her to the platform, and helped her into the train, which soon started off on the homeward journey. "Thenk you," said the boy, his eyes glowing with pleasure at the two shining half-crowns which Mysie had given him, and he waved his hand to her as the train steamed out of the platform. "Going home, going home," sang the wheels as the train rushed along. "Going home," with every beat of her heart they answered her with their cheery monotone. "Going home," they gurgled, as they freely ran down the gradients. "Going home, going home," as they ran along the flat moor. "Going home, going home," they panted up the inclines, but still joyous in the thought of getting there. Home, aye, home, they were taking her. Home to the cheery fireside, with the homely fare and the warm hearts! To the cosy corner by the fender at her father's feet, to the music of her mother's clicking needles as she knitted; to the sweet comfort of the love and kindness of brothers and sisters; to the warmth of glowing smiles and loving hearts. Home! Home! Oh, God! Comfort of weary and battered humanity, dragging its wounded and broken life to the shelter and the sanctity of love. So rose her hopes, and her heart sang as the brooding night lowered and the wind rose, bringing the rain lashing from the spring clouds to burnish the moor with storms. Home to the hearts that loved her first, and would love her to the end. At last the train steamed into the little station from which she had first gone to the great city, and everything looked just the same as upon that night, when she had stolen across the moor to run away where she expected to hide her shame, and try and redeem that one mistaken impulse, which had been so thoughtlessly indulged, and so terribly paid for in suffering and tears. The station-master looked at her keenly as she passed. She seemed so frail and weak looking to be abroad in such a night; but she passed on and out upon the country road that ran across the moor, where the darkness always lay thickest, and where the terrors of the timid were greatest, and the storms raged fiercest. On she battled, already feeling weak and tired; but always the thought of home waiting for her impelled her onward. Home was waiting over there--waiting just two miles off, where she could see the twinkling of the lights from the pithead at which she had worked, and where she had been so happy at the dreams conjured by six and sixpence per week. Down rushed the wind from the hills, careering along the wide moor, driving the rain and hail in front, as if he would burst the barriers of the world and go free. She halted and turned her back upon the blows, as if she would fall; but there were light and warmth, and love and cheerfulness over there, if only she could hold out till she reached them. She turned again, and a sheep scampered across the moorland path just in front, and the soft bleat of an early lamb soothed the quick excited leap in her heart. The rain ceased, and a pale glitter of the rim of a moon, like the paring of a giant's nail in the sky, glinted from behind the dark cloud, and flung a silver radiance over the bog-pools around, which glittered like patches of fairy silver upon a land of romance. She was wet, but not cold. The fever in her blood raged and she staggered forward again, slowly and tottering. A smile was playing about her lips and eyes. Her lips were parted, and her breast rose and fell like the heaving beat of an engine. But home beckoned and lured her onward, and the hope of a long dream filled her soul. Again a sharp scurry in front drove her heart to her mouth, as two hares battled and tore at each other for the love of the female which sat close by, watching the contest. The sharp swish of the wings of lapwings, as they dived towards her, filling the moors with their hard rasping double note, and also battling for possession of a mate, stirred her frightened blood; and at every step some new terror thrilled her, and kept her continually in a state of fear. Still she plodded on, and another squall of rain and hail followed, giving place soon to the glory of the cold moon, and again obscuring it in a quick succession of showers and calm moonshine. But there was home in front, and she was always drawing nearer. Just a little while now, a few hundred yards or so, and she would be there. Weak and exhausted, stumbling and rising again, driven by that unrelenting, irresistible desire, this poor waif of humanity, impelled by sheer force of will, staggered and crawled towards its hope, forward to its dream, and at last stood by the window of the home it had sought. Panting and utterly worn out, she stood holding on to the window ledge, her will now weakened, her strength of mind gone, and her desire forsaking her now that she was there. The wind fell to a mere whisper, and she stooped to look in at a chink in the shutter, the tears running in hot, scalding streams from her eyes and blinding her vision. The soft stirring of little limbs beneath her heart brought back the old desire to hide herself from everyone she had known. Oh, God! It was terrible thus to be torn; for she had sung the song of all motherhood in her own simple way--the song of the love that recreates the world. The same song that enables motherhood to commune with God. "I will walk in the pure air of the uplands, so that your life shall be sweet and clean. I shall bathe my body in the sweet waters of the earth, so that you shall be pure; I shall walk in meditation and solitude, so that your thoughts shall be worthy thoughts; I shall dwell on the hillsides, so that your mind shall be lofty; I shall love all living things, so that you shall be godly in the love of your kind; I shall be humble, so that you shall not be proud; I shall be tender, wandering among the sweet flowers, so that you shall never be rough or unkindly; I shall serve, so that you shall be kingly in your service to others. "Down in the valleys I shall linger, drinking in the music of sweet streams; and the songs of the morning and the eventide shall make you gentle and happy. The tender grass shall be my couch upon the moor, so that you can know the restfulness and comfort of love. The grateful trees shall shade me from the fierce heat of the sun, so that you shall be restful, yet active in kind deeds. Oh, I shall clothe me in the sweetest thoughts, and sing the sweetest songs, speak the kindliest words, and do the friendliest deeds--I shall lie down in gratitude for all that has ever been rendered to me, and shall keep faith with love, so that you--you who are me, you who are my heart and mind, my body and soul shall be ushered into the world as a savior of the race; and the lyrics of the dawn and the dayfall, of the golden, glorious day, and the silver radiant night, shall all be thine to interpret, in spirit and in word and service." Thus had motherhood sung in all ages, weaving the dreams of hope about the soul which she had called from eternity, after having gone upon that long perilous journey into the land of Everywhere to bring back a new life to the world. Mysie dashed the warm tears from her eyes, and looked again through the chink in the shutter. She had a full view of the kitchen. It was the same cosy, bright place it had always been, when she had sat there on the corner of the fender o' nights, her head against her father's knee, as he read out the news from the evening paper, while her mother sewed, or darned, or knitted. Her father sat in the easy chair, pale and thin and weak. He looked ill, and it seemed as if he were merely out of his bed, so that her mother might change the linen, for she was busy pulling off pillow-cases and putting clean ones on, and turning the chaff-filled tick to make it easier for his poor bones to lie on. He lay back in his chair, his eyes half closed, as if tired. "The wind has surely gane doon noo," Mysie heard her mother observe, as she spread out the clean white sheet upon the bed. "Ay, it seems to hae quietened," returned Matthew weakly. "It has been an awfu' nicht, and gey wild." "Ay, it has that. Peety ony puir body that has been oot in it," said her mother, with a deep sigh, as she folded back the blankets. "It's an awfu' nicht for the homeless to be oot in." Silence reigned for a short time, and only the whisper of the wind outside prevented the sobs of the poor waif at the window being heard. "You are lookin' a wee better the nicht, Matthew," said Mrs. Maitland after a long thoughtful pause, as she drew in her chair beside his. "Ay, I'm feelin' no' sae bad," he answered feebly. Then, as if having made up his mind about something, he went on, as he looked into the glowing fire, "Do you ken, wife, I hae been thinkin' a lot aboot oor Mysie a' day. I wonder what'll be the cause o't? But a' day she has been in my mind, an' I only hope naething has come to her." "I dinna ken, Matthew," she said; for this was the first time he had spoken about their missing daughter since the day they had learned of her disappearance. He had always remained silent when she had given expression to her thoughts regarding Mysie; but thinking this an encouragement, she spoke about her, and he too, in a way that made her wonder; for he was never talkative at any time, and it seemed as if his heart was hungering to talk of their bairn. "I wonder what wad hae come owre her, that nae spierin's o' her could be got. Puir Mysie! I liket that wean, wife--liket her maybe owre weel; an' my heart has been sair for her mony a time, wonderin' what has come o' her!" Mrs. Maitland lifted a corner of her rough apron and wiped her eyes, as she cried softly at hearing her husband thus speak of their missing daughter. "Do you think she'll be living, Matthew?" she asked looking through her tears at her husband anxiously. "That's hard to say, wife," he replied, a break in his voice. "Sometimes I think she maun be deid, or she wad hae come back to us in some way. I think we liket her weel enough, an' she kent it, and she was ay a guid lassie at a' times." "Ay, she was," replied the mother, "a guid bairn, an' a clever yin aboot the hoose; an' I never had an angry word frae her a' my days. Oh, Matthew," she cried out, again bursting into tears, and sobbing pitifully, "what is't we hae done to be tried like this? Mysie gane, an' guid kens where she is, an' John ta'en awa' jist when oor battle was beginnin' to get easier. Noo you hae been laid aside yoursel', an' God kens hoo we are to do, for hinna a penny left in the hoose! Oh, dear, but it's a hard lot we hae to suffer!" and she sobbed in silence, while her husband stroked her pale, thin, toil-worn hands that hid her weeping eyes. "Wheesht, lassie!" he said brokenly. "Dinna you break doon noo, for you hae been the mainstay o' us a', when we wad hae lost heart often. I used to think that oor lot couldna be harder, when the bairns were a' wee, an' we were struggling frae haun' to mooth, to see them fed an' cled. But wi' a' the hardships, thae days were happy. We were baith young, an' I was aye fairly healthy an' when we locked the door at nicht, we were satisfied that a' that belanged to us were inside, an' in safety, even though their wee stomachs maybe werena' ower fu'. But noo we canna do that, wife. Some hae gane to where want an' poverty canna hurt them, an' that is a consolation; but where will oor lassie be, that never gi'ed us a wrang word a' her days? Is she in want this nicht, the same as we are oorsels? Will she be hungry an' homeless, ill clad, an' oot in the storm? If she is, then God peety her. If only we had her aside us, hunger wad be easier tholed for us a'," and Matthew, unable to control himself longer, completely broke down and wept, mingling his tears with those of his wife, because of their misery and poverty and suffering. The girl outside could hardly restrain herself at thus hearing her parents speak. She sobbed and held on to the window ledge, her eyes fixed greedily upon the open chink in the shutter, listening to, and looking at her parents in their misery, as they sat and talked so kindly and anxiously about her--talked so that every word was a stab at her heart; for she had never heard them open their hearts like this before. "Ay, wife," he said after a time, "it was a sair blow to me. I could hae fain dee'd at the time; I was fair heartbroken. It's a gey queer world that brings the keenest pangs frae them that yin likes best. I could hae dee'd gladly to hae saved that bairn frae the slightest hurt!" "Matthew," said the mother, speaking with all her soul in her eyes, as she looked at him, "if by ony chance it should turn oot that Mysie gaed wrang an' fell into disgrace, wad ye tak' her back, if she should come hame again?" and there was a world of pleading in the mother's voice as she spoke. "Tak' her back! Oh, God, I'd dae onything to hae her here at this meenit, nae matter though it should be proved that she was guilty o' the warst sin under the sun. Tak' her back! Oh, wife! my heart is breakin' for her!" and he lifted his thin worn hand to his eyes and sobbed in his grief. "Weel, Matthew," returned the wife, "if ever she does come back, nae matter when it may be, or hoo it may be, I'm glad you'll no be harsh wi' her. You'll just speak to her as if naething had happened; for I ken she'll be mair feart to face you than onybody else. Jist try an' mak' her believe, when you speak, that she had gane awa' to the store a message, or to the well for watter, an' that she had bidden owre lang, as she an' ither weans used to do when they got started the play, an' forget to come hame. Jist speak to her that way, Matthew, an' the hame-comin', if ever it comes, will no' be sae hard for the puir bairn. For God knows, it micht be hard enough for her!" The girl outside, listening eagerly to every word, tried to cry out with the pain of all this talk by her parents, but her tongue clove to her parched mouth, and her lips were stiff and dry. "I'll never be harsh wi' a bairn o' mine, wife," he replied brokenly. "I liket Mysie owre weel ever to be harsh wi' her. Oh, if only I could see her afore me this nicht, I wad gie a' I ever had in the world. To hae her sittin' here, as she used to sit, her wee heid wi' its soft hair against my knee, an' my haun clappin' it, an' her bonnie een lookin' up at me, as if I was something she aye looket up to, as bein' better than ony living being she ever kenned, wad be mair pleasure for me this minute than if I got a' the money in the world. I'd swap heaven and my chances o' salvation, wife, jist to hae her sittin' here on the fender, as she used to sit. Hunger an' a' the rest wad be easy borne for that." There was a soft rustling sound at the window as he spoke, and a slow step was heard, which seemed to drag along towards the door, then a fumbling at the sneck, the handle lifted, and the door opened slowly inwards, as if reluctant to reveal its secret. It was a tense poignant moment for all; for both the father and mother, weak as the former was, rose to their feet expectantly, their eyes searching the slowly opening door, as a thin pale draggled figure entered and staggered forward with a low pitiful cry of "Faither! Mother! I've come hame!" and tottering forward, fell at Matthew's feet, clasping his knees with the thin fragile hands, while the tears of a heart-breaking sorrow flowed from the appealing eyes, upturned to the amazed parents. "Mysie! Mysie!" he sobbed, clasping her to his thin worn knees, and kissing the bent head, as she sobbed and cried. "Oh, Mysie! Mysie! but you hae been a lang time at the store!" CHAPTER XXIII HOME "Oh my puir wean! My bonnie bairn!" crooned Mrs. Maitland, as she bent over the figure of her daughter who, clinging to Matthew's knees, was looking up into his face, as he lay back in his chair where he had fallen, when Mysie fell at his feet. "Oh, my puir lamb, you're wet to the skin, an' fair done; for God knows its an' awfu' mess you hae cam' hame in." "Puir thing," she wailed and crooned, again breaking out after having kissed and fondled Mysie's wet face. "We hae lang hungered for you--hungered for you for a gey lang time, an' noo you hae cam' hame, near to daith's door. But we'll nurse you back. We'll mak' you strong and healthy again. Oh, Mysie, my puir lassie. What ails you? Where hae you been? What has happened to you a' this time? But what am I thinking aboot," she broke off, "sitting here, when I should be gettin' some dry claes for you, an' a bed ready." She rose and began to busy herself shaking up a bed and diving into drawers, bringing clean clothes forth and hanging them over a piece of rope which stretched across the fireplace, so as to air and heat them, the tears streaming from her eyes and occasionally a low moan breaking from her as if forced by some inward pain; while Matthew, nearly overcome with excitement, could only lie back in his chair, his eyes closed and his hands stroking tenderly the wet young head that lay against his knee. "Faither," murmured Mysie, brokenly and weakly, "oh, faither, I've come back. Jist let me lie here near you. I jist want you to clap my held, to lean against you, an' gang to sleep. Are you angry wi' me, faither? Are you--" and Mysie's eyes closed in a faint, as she lay limp against his knee. Just then the door opened and Mrs. Sinclair came in. She always came in, after she had got everyone in the house to bed, to see how Matthew felt. It was her first errand in the morning and her last before retiring at night. She was generally the last visitor, and the door was always locked and barred when she went away. "Oh, Nellie, come awa' in," said Matthew. "You're a God's send this nicht. I'm glad to see you. Mysie's jist cam' back, an' she has fented. Gie's a bit haun' wi' her to get her into bed. Puir thing. She's fair done up," and Matthew tried to raise up the prostrate figure of his bairn; but sank back too weak, and too overcome to do anything. "Dinna you trouble yourself, Matthew," said Mrs. Sinclair, gathering the prostrate girl in her arms and raising her up on her knee like a child. "Bring some dry claes. Jenny, an' get some warm watter bottles in the bed. Puir thing, she's in an awfu' state. She's a' tremblin' an' maun hae been awfu' ill," and she worked with and stripped the wet clothes from the girl and soon had her in bed, but in spite of all her efforts Mysie remained unconscious. She then left to get the doctor summoned, leaving the sorrowing parents to look after the girl till she returned. When she did come back, Matthew was in bed and his condition very much worse. The excitement had been too much for him in his weakened state and he lay exhausted, crying like a child. Soon the doctor came and did all in his power. At the end of an hour Mysie's eyes opened and she looked about her. "Where's my faither?" she asked weakly. "Oh, I'm gled I'm hame." "He's in bed," answered Mrs. Sinclair. "An' you're no' to talk the nicht, Mysie. Jist lie still, like a good lass, an' drink this, an' in the mornin' you'll may be a bit better." And Mysie drank, and with a sigh of happy contentment, she turned her face to the wall, glad she was now at home--home with her wounded spirit and broken life. The soft easy chaff bed gave her more of rest and satisfaction than if it had been eiderdown. She traced as of old the roses upon the cheap paper with which the box bed was papered, and which had been her mother's pride when it was put on. Mysie watched the twining and intertwining of the roses, as they reached upward toward the ceiling through a maze of woodbine and red carnations, and noted that the curtains upon the bed were the same as they were when she had last slept there. The old wag-at-the-wa' clock which had belonged to her grandfather, wheezed wearily from the corner and the shrill eerie call of a courting cat outside broke familiarly upon her ear. Thus surrounded by the sights and sounds of old, a glad contentment in her heart, she soon dozed off into a deep sleep. When Mrs. Sinclair went home just as midnight was striking she found Robert sitting by the fire wondering at her absence. He had just returned from a meeting at a neighboring village, and finding his brothers and sisters all in bed and his mother not in the house with his tea ready for him as usual, he wondered what was the matter. "I was owre at Matthew's," she replied in answer to the question she knew he was going to ask. "Is he waur the nicht?" he asked quickly. "Weel, it's no' him, although he's gey upset too; but Mysie has cam' hame the nicht, an' puir lassie she is in an awfu' state," and she was quick to note the soft blanching of his cheek as she spoke. "Mysie hame," he echoed with quick interest. "Ay, puir lassie; but I doot if I'm no' cheated that Mysie'll no' be lang anywhere. The doctor says she's to be keepit quate; for she's gey low. In fact he felt me at the door that he dinna think she could last a week." Robert sat a long time looking into the fire, while his mother got ready his tea, and described to him all that she knew of Mysie's return and of her sad condition. "You'd hardly ken her," she went on. "She's that thin and white and faur gane lookin', forby havin' a boast that wad fricht you. Puir lassie, I was vexed for her an' Matthew too is gey upset aboot it. Dae you ken, Rob, I believe they mun be gey hard gruppit. Wi' Matthew being off work, and John deein' an' a' the ither troubles they had this while, I think they canna be ower weel off." "Ay," he said, "they canna be ower weel off; for they hae had a lot to dae this while. You micht look to them, mither. We are no sae ill off noo, an' we can afford tae help them." "Weel, Rob, I've been aye givin' them a bit hand, buying beef for soup an' that' an' daein' a' I could. But I'm awfu' puttin' aboot ower puir Mysie. She's gey faur gane, an' wherever she has been she's been haein a bad time of it." "I saw her at Edinburgh," he said quietly, as she paused to pour out the tea. "In Edinburgh?" "Ay," he replied. "Last month when I was at the conference," and Robert told his mother the whole story of his meeting with Mysie and of her disappearance and all that had happened to her from the time she had gone away. "But you never telt yin o' us, Rob," she said after he had come to the end of the story. "No, I never telt ony o' you; for Mysie made me promise no' to tell; an' forby she wadna' gi'e me her address. But I was that upset that day that I couldn't collect mysel' an' I minded o' a lot o' things I should hae done an' said after I left her. It was terrible," and he relapsed into silence again, as he went on with his supper. His mother saw all the pain in his heart that night, though neither spoke much of the state of his feelings for Mysie; but it was evident to her who saw all the cross currents of fate, perhaps more clearly than Robert knew. She looked at him with furtive pride. There was no showy parading of what he felt, but only the set of the mouth was a little firmer perhaps than usual and the eyes a little softer and glistening. That was all. "Ay, Robin," she said brokenly, unable to hide her pride and weakness. "I ken a' that you hinna telt me. I guessed it years syne; but I'm sure noo. An' I'm awfu' vexed, laddie; ay, I'm awfu' vexed," and with that he withdrew to his room, more touched with her simple words of sympathy than anything she had ever said to him in all her previous life. Mrs. Sinclair went to bed, but she knew her laddie had not done so. She heard him in his room and knew that in the silence of the night and in the privacy and secrecy of his own room he was fighting out his battle with fate, and she knew that no one could help him--that only the fiber of his own soul could help him through. In the morning he rose early and went for a walk, for it was Sunday. Returning, he found his mother with the latest news of Mysie's condition. She waited until the other members of the house had gone out, and then with a sigh observed very quietly but with a world of tender sympathy in her voice: "Mysie's sinkin' fast, Robin. I think you should gang ower and see her. She canna' last very lang, puir thing, an' she was askin' aboot you when I was ower. I think she wad like to see you. You'll gang ower and see her, Rob," she entreated, a sob in her throat as she spoke. "She'll be awfu' pleased to see you." "Ay, I'll gang ower, mither," he replied simply. "I'll gang ower efter a wee while." But it was drawing near to the darkness when he managed to summon sufficient resolution to face the ordeal. Mysie was lying in the room and he went in to see her--her whom he would have given his own life to restore to activity and health again. A low moan occasionally escaped her as she panted and battled for breath and the color came and faded from her cheeks in quick fleeting waves. Oh God! Was this Mysie--this faint apparition of the girl whom he had loved? Even in the short month when he had seen her in Edinburgh a very great change had been wrought upon her. The eyes, softly glowing with a quiet radiance as they rested upon his face, were sunk, and the voice faint and weak. A thin white hand lay upon the coverlet and the great waves of brown hair which had been his pride, were tumbled about the thin face framing it in a tangled oak brown frame of deepest beauty. She lifted her hand as he approached, a sweet smile breaking through her pain, caught him in radiance of love. "I'm glad you've come, Rob," she panted. "I jist wanted to see you again--an'--an' tak' good-by wi' you," and the quick catch in her words gripped his heart as he knelt beside the bed, taking the thin hand between his while the tears started from his eyes and fell upon the white bed cover. "Oh, Mysie," he said brokenly. His voice refused to go further and he bent his head upon the bed, trying hard to control himself and keep from breaking down before her. "I'm awfu' vexed, Rob," she said, after a while. "It was a' a mistak' an' naebody's to blame. I ought to hae kent better mysel'," and she paused again for breath. "I--I should hae kent better, that nae guid could come--oot o' it--I was just carried awa'. Dinna ever blame lasses--nor men either, when things happen. They--they canna help themsel's--" and here again she paused for breath, gasping and fighting at every word. "It's a' a mistake, Rob, an' I think it's a' in the way folk look at thae things." Another pause, while her chest heaved and panted. "Maybe we dinna look at thae things richt," she again resumed. "We--we mak' mistak's and canna help oorsel's; but God dinna mean it as--as a mistak'. It's a' because we think it is. Everything's richt--but we mak' them wrang in the way we look at them. It wad hae--been a' richt--in oor mind, if I had been married afore--afore it happened--but because we werena married--it was wrang. It's a' a mistak' Rob, a' a--" and a burst of coughing nearly choked her and a flood of blood began to gurgle in her mouth. Robert grew alarmed and lifting a cloth began to wipe the blood from her mouth, looking on her so concerned and anxious that she tried to smile to him to reassure him. Presently she lay back with eyes closed and her hand limp in his. A wild fear took possession of him as he looked upon the scarcely moving breast, a fear which seemed to communicate itself to the sufferer, and she opened her eyes again, but the voice was weak and very far away. "Dinna be angry wi' onybody, Rob. It was you I liket, it was you I wanted--but it was a' a mistake." "I'm no' angry, Mysie," he said stifling his sobs, his tears falling upon the white thin face. "Oh, Mysie, I'm only vexed. I'm only vexed aboot the hale sad business. There now, dearie," he said bending low over her and kissing and stroking the pallid brow and caressing the face so dear to him. "There noo, I'm no' angry. You're mine, Mysie. You've always been mine, an' I'm no' angry. But oh, I love you, Mysie, an' it's breaking my heart to part frae you. Oh, God!" he groaned in agony. "What does it a' mean? I canna' bear it,--I canna' bear't," and a wild burst of grief swept over him as he flung his head and arms upon the bed in a vain attempt to control his sobbing sorrow. A long pause--then the white hand was raised and crept slowly over his shoulder, working its way among the thick shaggy hair of his head as the fingers strayed from curl to curl, patting him and soothing him as a child is soothed by a mother's hand. It rested upon his bent head and the eyes opened again. "Ay, Rob, I'm vexed for your sake--but it was a' a mistake." She went on halting and very weak. "It was a' a mistak'--an' naebody is to blame. We are just--driven alang, an'--we canna help oorsel's--it's awfu' to hae--sic feelin's--an'--an' no' hae any poo'er--to guide them richt--it's ay the things we want maist--that we dinna get. Kiss me, Rob--kiss me, as you kissed me--yon--nicht on the muir. Haud me like you--an' I think I can--gang content. Oh, Rob,--ay liket you--it was you I wanted a' the time!" He clasped her tenderly in his arms as he kissed her mouth, her eyes, her brow, her hair, stroking her and fondling the dear face, catching hungrily the smile that came to the pale lips, and lingered there like a blink of sun upon a hillside after the rest of the landscape is clothed in shadow. Again there was a pause while he searched the pale face with the lingering smile, noting the veined, almost discolored eyelids, transparent and closed over the tired suffering eyes. Then a burst of coughing again and the blood in thick clots gurgled up from the throat. Then after a little she spoke again. "Oh, Rob, you hae made me very happy. But I'm vexed aboot you--an'--an' Peter. He tried to dae what was richt; but it wasna to be--I hope you'll--no'--be angry wi' him. He was like me--he couldna' help it." "Oh, Mysie, I'm no' angry wi' him," he replied brokenly, trying hard to make his voice sound dearly. "I'm no' angry wi' onybody." "I'm glad o' that, Rob," she said, her hand caressing his head. "You was ay a guid hearted laddie--I'm awfu' glad." Then her mind began to wander and she was back in Edinburgh speaking of her father and John. "Oh, faither," she rambled on. "Dinna be angry wi' me. There's naebody to blame. Dinna be angry." Then Robert was conscious that others were in the room, and looking up he beheld his mother and Jenny Maitland and behind them with anxious face and frightened eyes stood Peter Rundell, the picture of misery and despair. "She's kind o' wanderin', puir thing," he heard the mother say in explanation to the others. "She's kind o' wanderin' in her mind." It was a sad little group which stood round the dying girl, all anxious and alarmed and watchful. Then after a while she opened her eyes again and there was a look of startled surprise as if she were looking at something in the distance. Then she began to recognize each and all of them in turn, first Robert, who still held her hand, then her mother and Nellie, and Peter. A faint smile came into her eyes and he stepped forward. Her lips moved slowly and a faint sound came falteringly from them. "Dinna be angry wi' onybody," she panted. "It was a'--a--mistake." Then raising her hand she held it out to Peter, who advanced towards the bedside and placing his hand on Robert's she clasped them together in her own. "There noo--dinna be angry--it was a' a mistake. It was Rob I liket--it was him--I wanted. But it--was--a' a mistak'. Dinna be--" and the glazed sunken eyes closed forever, never to open again, a faint noise gurgled in her throat, and the dews of death stood out in beads upon the pale brow. A tiny quiver of the eyelids, and a tremor through the thin hands and Mysie--poor ruined broken waif of the world--was gone. "Oh, my God! She's deid," gasped Robert, clasping the thin dead hands in a frenzy of passionate grief. "Oh, Mysie! Mysie! Oh God! She's deid," and his head bent low over the bed while great sobs tore through him, and shook his young frame, as the storm shakes the young firs of the woods. Then suddenly recollecting himself as his mother put her hand upon his bent head saying: "Rise up, Robin, like a man. You maun gang oot noo." He rose and with tears in his eyes that blinded him so that he hardly saw where he was going, he stumbled out into the darkness under the pale stars--out into the night to the open moor, his grief so burdening that he felt as if the whole world had gone from his reckoning. "Oh, my poor Mysie," he groaned. "It was all a horrible mistake," and the darkness came down in thick heavy folds as if the whole world were mourning for the loss of the young girl's soul, but it brought no comfort to him. CHAPTER XXIV A CALL FOR HELP It was a quiet night in early April, full of the hush which seems to gather all the creative forces together, before the wild outburst of prodigal creation begins in wild flower and weed and moorland grasses, and Robert Sinclair, who had walked and tramped over the moors for hours, until he was nearly exhausted, his heart torn and his mind in an agony of suffering, sat down upon a little hillock, his elbows on his knees and his hands against his cheeks. The moor-birds screamed and circled in restless flight around him. They were plainly protesting against his intrusion into their domain. They shrilled and dived in their flight, almost touching the bent head, with swooping wing, to rise again, cleaving the air and sheering round again; but still the lonely figure sat looking into darkness, becoming numbed with cold, and all unconscious of the passage of time. Gradually the cold began to tell upon him, and he started to his feet, plodding up the hill, through the soft mossy yielding soil. Back again he came after a time, his limbs aching with the long night's tramping; but yet he never thought of going home or turning towards the village. "Oh, Mysie!" he groaned again and again, and all night long only these two words escaped his lips. They came in a low sad tone, like the wind coming through far-off trees; but they were vibrant with suffering, and only the moor-birds cried in answer. "Oh, Mysie!" and the winds sighed it again and again, as they came wandering down out of the stillness between the hills, to pass on into the silence of the night again, like lost souls wandering through an uncreative world, proclaiming to other spheres the doom that had settled upon earth. "Oh, Mysie!" groaned a moorland brook close by, which grumbled at some obstruction in its pathway, and then sighed over its mossy bed, like a tired child emerging exhausted from a long fever, to fall asleep as deeply as if the seal of death had been planted upon the little lips. Occasionally he shifted his position, as his limbs grew cramped, or rose to pace the moor again to bring himself more exhaustion; but always he came back to the little knoll, and sat down again, groaning out the sad plaintive words, that were at once an appeal and a cry, a defiance and a submission. By and by the first gray streaks of dawn came filtering through the curtains of the cloudy east, touching the low hills with gray nimble fingers, or weaving a tapestry of magic, as they brightened and grew clearer, over the gray face of the morn. Soon the birds leapt again from every corner, climbing upon the ladders of light and tumbling ecstasies of mad joy to welcome the day, as if they feared to be left in the darkness with this strange figure, which merely sat and groaned softly, and looked before it with silent agony in its eyes; and now that the light had again come, they shouted their protest in a louder, shriller note; they mounted upon the waves of light and swooped down into the trough of the semi-darkness, expostulating and crying, not so much in alarm now, as in anger. For with the light comes courage to birds as well as men, and fear, the offspring of ignorance, which is bred in darkness, loses its power when its mystery is revealed. But even with the coming of the day the still silent figure did not move. It continued to sit until the birds grew tired of protesting, and even the mountain hare wandered close by, sniffing the breeze in his direction, and cocking its ears and listening, as it sat upon its hind legs, only to resume its leisurely wandering again, feeling assured that there was nothing to fear in the direction of this quiet, bent figure of sorrow, that sat merely staring at the hills, and saw naught of anything before him. The things he saw were not the things around him. He was moving in a multitude again. He was walking among them with pity in his heart--a great pity for their ignorance, their lack of vision; and he was giving them knowledge and restoring light to their eyes, to widen their range of vision, so that they could take things in their true perspective. He was full of a great sympathy for their shortcomings, recognizing to the full that only by sowing love could love be reaped, only in service could happiness be found--that he who gave his life would save it. The great dumb mass of humanity needed serving--needed love. It passed on blindly, wounding itself as it staggered against its barriers, bruising its heart and soul in the darkness, and never learning its lessons. Saviors in all ages had lifted the darkness a bit, and given knowledge, and sometimes it had profited for a while till false prophets arose to mislead. It was a seething feverish mass, stamping and surging towards every blatant voice which cried the false message to it, rousing it to anger, and again misleading, until it often rose to rend its saviors instead of those who had duped it so shamelessly. All the tragic procession filed past, and he gave them peace and knowledge. By and by they grew to a long thin stream, feverish and agitated, seemingly all converging towards a point--pain and anxiety in every quick movement, and suffering in every gesture. He looked with still more and more compassion upon them, with a greater love in his breast, but it did not calm them as before, and at last in desperation he stretched out his hands in appealing pity for them, his whole being aglow with the desire to help and pity and love, and he found that the scene changed. He was on the moor, and there was the discomfort of cold in his limbs; but--yes, he was looking at the pit, and there was a long stream of men, women and children, principally women and children, running frantically across the moor towards the pit, and he could hear the faint sound of their voices, which clearly betokened suffering, anxiety and alarm. Something had happened. He must have been looking at that procession for a long time, he realized, and pulling himself together, he bounded to his feet and was off in a long striding race through the moor towards the pit, his heart telling him that something had happened which was out of the ordinary kind of accident that regularly happened at a coal mine. He bounded along, knowing as he went that there was something more of sorrow for his mother in this, whatever it was. He felt so, but could not account for the feeling, and as this thought grew in intensity in his mind, he changed his course a bit, and made for home, to ascertain what had really happened. It was something big, he felt, but whatever it was, his mother must again be called upon to suffer, and his alarm grew with his pace, until he arrived breathless at the house. One look at her face, and he knew his instincts had told him the truth. She was white and strained, though tearless, but her eyes were full of an awful suffering. "What has happened, mother?" he demanded, as if he could hardly wait for her to answer. "The moss has broken in, an' twenty-three men are lost. Jamie an' Andra are among them. They gaed oot themselves this morning, telling me they could work fine, even though you werena there. Oh, Rob! What will I do! Oh, dear! Oh, dear! My bonnie laddies!" and with a sob in her voice she turned away, and Robert was again out of the house, and running through the moor to the pit, as hard as desperation could drive him. His two brothers were down there, and they must be got out. Even as he ran he wondered what strange freak of fate it was, that had kept him out there on the moor all night and so saved him from this terrible fate. He could understand how his brothers would feel at the chance of working one day by themselves. He had always been their guide and protector. They had gone into the pit with him when they left school, and had just continued working with him since, learning their trade from his greater experience, and trusting always to his better judgment when there was danger to avoid. They would go out that day with the intention of working like slaves to produce an extra turn of coal. Even though it were but one extra hutch, they would fill it, and slave all day with never a rest, so that they could have the satisfaction of seeing approval in his eyes, when they told him at night how many they had turned out, and how well things had gone generally with them in his absence. He reached the pit, to find that the moss was already rising in the shaft, and that there was no possibility of getting down to try and save these twenty-three men and boys who were imprisoned in the darkness beneath. He came across Tam Donaldson, who was the last to get up. "Tell me aboot it, Tam," he said. "Is there no chance of getting down? Do you think any of them will be safe so far?" and a whole lot of other anxious questions were rattled off, while Tam, dripping wet from having to wade and fight the last fifty fathoms toward the pit bottom, through the silent, sinister, creeping moss that filled the roadways and tunnels, stood to give him an account of what had taken place. "They were a' sitting at their piece, Rob--a' but James and Andra. They were keen to get as muckle work done as possible, an' they had some coal to get to fill oot a hutch, when a' at yince we heard Andra crying on us to rin. Had they a' ran doon the brae we'd a' hae been safe, for we could hae gotten to the bottom afore the moss; but some ran into the inside heading, an' hadna time to realize that their outlet was cut off, an' there they are; for the moss was comin' doon the full height of the road when I ran back to try an' cry on them to come back. So I had to rin for't too, an' jist got oot by the skin o' my teeth. "I kent fine it wad happen," he went on, as Robert stood, the tears in his eyes, as he realized how hopeless the position was of ever being able to restore these men and boys again to their homes. There was anger in Tam's voice as he spoke. "It's a' to get cheap coal, an' they ought to hae known, for they were telt, that to open oot that seam into long well workings so near the surface, an' wi' sic a rotten roof, was invitin' disaster, wi' as muckle rain as we hae had lately. They are a lot o' murderers--that's what they are! But what the hell do they care, sae lang as they get cheap coal!" Robert turned away sick at heart. It was certainly a foolish thing, he had thought at the time, for the management to change their method of working the coal; for even though the seam had grown thinner, he felt that it could have still been worked at a profit under the old system. He knew also that the men were all upset at the time by this change, but the management had assured them that there was no danger, and that it would mean more money for the men, as they would be enabled to produce more coal. This certainly had happened for a week or two, but the rates were soon broken, because they were making too high wages; and the men found, as usual, that their increased output had merely meant increased work for them, and increased profits for the owners. Was there nothing to be done? Robert wondered, as he paced restlessly back and forth, his mind busy, as the mind of every man present, and anxious to make any sacrifice, to take any risk, if by so doing they might save those imprisoned in the mine. Even while his mind was working, he could not help listening to the talk of those around him. There were strange opinions expressed, and wild plans of rescue were suggested and discussed and disputed. Everyone condemned the coal company for what had happened, but over all there were the white-faced women and the silent children; the muffled sobs, the tears, and the agony of silent wet eyes that spoke more pain than all the tragedies that had ever been written. Robert could not help listening to one man--a big, raw, loosely-built fellow, who stood in the midst of a group of women laying off his idea of a rescue. "I'm rale glad to be out of it," he said, "for Jean's sake, an' the bairns; but for a' that I'd gang doon again an' try an' get them oot if there was ony chance o' doin' it." "Hoo is Jean?" one woman interposed to enquire about his wife, who had been ill a long time. "Oh, she's gettin' on fine noo, an' the doctor has a hopeful word o' her," he answered. "In fact, I was just feeding the birds the last time he was in, an' asked him hoo she was doin'." This man, Dugald McIntosh, had one god--his canaries. He read all he could get to read about them, and studied the best conditions under which to rear them, sacrificed everything he could to breed better birds, and this was always a topic for him to discourse upon. "I was just busy feedin' them when he cam' in, and after he had examined her, I asked him hoo she was gettin' on." "Fine," he said, "gi'e her plenty o' sweet milk noo, and fresh eggs, an' she'll sune be on her feet again. Fresh eggs! mind you, an' me canna get yin for my canaries! I thocht it was a guid yin!" Robert turned away; but there was working in his mind an idea, and he ran round to the colliery office to the manager, who was nearly mad with grief and anxiety at what had happened. "Come in, Sinclair," he said simply. "Can you suggest anything to help us? Whatever is done, it can only be done quickly; for the moss is rising rapidly in the shaft, and even though some of the men are safe in the upper workings, it is only a question of a very short time till the moss will rise and suffocate them, or until the black damp does so. If you have any idea that can help, out with it and let us make a trial, for the inactivity is killing me." "I have been thinking, Mr. Anderson," replied Robert, "that we might go down the old air-shaft over in the moss there, and run along the top level, which is not far from the surface, and try and blast it through on the heading into which the moss broke." It might be full of moss too, for no one knew the extent of the breakage in the metals, and even though it were clear, the damp would be lying in it; but surely they might make an attempt on it. Robert remembered working this level to within about nine feet from going through on the heading. If he had plenty of hands, just to go down and drill a hole in anywhere, and blast out the coal with a shot or two wherever he could best place them, he might succeed in getting through to the men. It might be that after the first rush filling the roadways, the flood of moss had drained off, and was not now running so thickly down the heading. "Let me go and try, sir," he pleaded eagerly. "I think I can manage, if the level is still unbroken. We can work in short turns, so as not to be overcome with the damp. Will you let me have a try? I believe it's the only chance we have, and if we do succeed, look what it will mean to the women in the village. Will you let me try?" "Yes," replied Anderson, reaching for his lamp, "and I shall be one of the triers too. Go out and pick seven or eight men. I'll get the necessary tools and get off over the moor to the old air shaft. It may still be open. It is a pity we let it go out of repair, but we can have a trial." Robert ran out, a hope filling his heart, telling his news to those round about, and the first man to step forth, before he had finished, was Dugald McIntosh, the man who had put more value on his canaries than on his wife's health, who quietly lifted up the drills the manager had brought, and slinging them lightly over his shoulder, was off across the moor at a run, with a dozen men at his heels, all eager to get to grips with the danger, and try to rescue their imprisoned comrades. CHAPTER XXV A FIGHT WITH DEATH Robert Sinclair seemed to be the one man who knew what to do--at least, he seemed to be the only one who had a definite aim in view and as if by some natural instinct everyone was just ready to do his bidding. He was the leader of the herd towards whom everyone looked ready for a new order to meet any new situation which might arise. Initiative and resource were a monopoly in his hands. He was silent, and worked to get ready to descend the old air-shaft, with grim set lips. Yet there seemed to be no sense of bustle, only the work was done quickly and orderly, his orders being issued as much by signs as by speech, and soon a windlass was erected with ropes and swing chair fastened, into which he at once leaped, followed by another man. Tools and explosives were packed in and lamps lit and the order given to lower the chair. Robert felt a queer sort of feeling as he stood waiting on the first motion of the little drum round which the rope wound. He was cool and clear brained--in fact he wondered why he was so collected. He felt he was standing out of all this maelstrom of suffering and terror. Not that he was impervious to anxiety for the men below, not that he was unmoved by all that it meant to those standing round; but after that first wild throb of terror that had clutched at his heart when his mother had told him the dread news and that his two brothers were imprisoned in the mine, something seemed suddenly to snap within him, the load and the intensity of the pain lifted, and from that moment he had been master of the situation. He glanced round him as he waited quietly in his swinging seat. He felt as he looked, no sense of fear or impending doom. He knew that black damp probably lay in dense quantities down in that yawning gulf below him, he knew that the sides of the shaft were in a bad state of disrepair, and that they might give way at any time as the swinging rope must inevitably touch them, and bring the whole thing in upon him, with hundreds of tons of débris and moss. Yet it was not of these things he thought. Perhaps he did not think of anything particularly, but a far-off lilt of a children's game which was played at school, kept iterating and reiterating through his brain, and everything seemed done to that tune. "Don't take a laddie, oh, Laddie oh, laddie oh, Don't take a laddie oh, Take a bonnie wee lassie." It sang continually within him and men seemed to move to its regular beat, as they hurried to get ready. He looked at the hills, and noted how quiet everything seemed, their curving outlines gave such a sense of eternal rest. There was a patch of lovely blue sky above him, he noticed where the clouds opened up and a glint of golden glorious sunshine came through; but it looked garish and it closed again and the white clouds trailed away, their lower fringes clinging to the hill tops like veils of gossamer woven by time to deck the bride of Spring. A lark rose at the edge of the crowd of weeping women and children as if unmindful of the tragedy over which it sang so rapturously, and he noted its fluttering wings and swelling throat as it soared in circles of glad song. All these things and more he noted though it was but a momentary pause. "Are you right?" came the question from the men at the windlass, far away it seemed and unconnected with the scene. "Right," he answered with a start, and looking round he seemed to become aware of the white-faced, red-eyed women among whom his mother's face seemed to stand out. She was not weeping, he noticed, but oh God! her face seemed to turn him with the intensity of the suffering in her eyes. He realized that he had not noticed her before, and now with a wild throb of pity he stretched out his hands towards her, a look of suffering in his eyes, as if he were feeling the pains of humanity crucified anew, and the chair began to drop slowly below the surface, swinging down into the darkness and the evil dangers that lurked below. Her face was the last thing he saw--a face full of agony yet calm with a great renunciation coming to birth in her eyes, her lips drawn thin like a slit in her face and all the color gone from them, the head bent a little as if a great blow had fallen upon her--an island of agony set in a sea of despair. A wild impulse seized him to go back. It was too much to ask of a woman, he felt. Too great a burden of tragedy to heap upon one soul, as he cast his mind back through the suffering years and viewed all the pain she had borne, and the terrible Gethsemane which her life had been; but as the chair swung round he clutched the swaying rope and with the other hand steadied it from crashing against the side of the shaft as they slowly dropped lower and lower into the darkness and the evil smells which hung around. "Things look bad here," said his comrade as they passed down where at some time a huge portion from the side had fallen out and down into the bottom of the old shaft. "Ay," answered Robert, "everything seems just ready to collapse," and they dropped lower and lower, swaying from side to side, cautiously guiding their swinging chair from the moss-oozing side, their nerves strained as they listened to the creeking rope as it was paid out from above. "Holy God," cried his mate, "that was a near thing," as a huge mass of rocks and slimy moss lunged out a little below them and hurtled away in a loud rumbling noise. Robert pulled the signal cord to stop and looked up to see the white clouds passing over the narrow funnel-like shaft in which they hung. Then he gave the signal to let out again noting how thick with damp the atmosphere was becoming, and having difficulty with his light. Lower and lower they swung and dropped down into the old shaft and as the rope creaked and crazed above them it lilted: "Choose, choose, wha' you'll tak', Wha' you'll tak', wha' you'll tak', Choose, choose wha' you'll tak', A laddie or a lassie." And the memory of the old lilt brought back other scenes again and he found himself guiding the chair from the shaft side steering it off with his hand at every rhythmic beat of the child song. Soon they reached the bottom of the shaft, for it was not very deep, and found a mass of débris, almost choking up the roadways on either side of the bottom. But they got out of their chair and soon began to "redd" away the stones though they found very great difficulty in getting the lamps to burn. Occasionally, as they worked, little pieces came tumbling from the side of the shaft, telling its own tale, and as soon as Robert got a decent sized kind of opening made through the rocks which blocked the roadway he sent up the other man to bring down more help and to get others started to repair the old shaft by putting in stays and batons to preserve the sides and so prevent them from caving in altogether. He found his way along the level which had been driven to within nine feet of going through on the heading in which the inbreak of moss had taken place. He noticed the roof was broken in many places and that the timber which had been put in years before was rotten. Strange noises seemed to assail his senses, and stranger smells, yet the lilt of that old childish game was ever humming in his brain and he saw himself with other boys and girls with clasped hands linked in a circle and going round in a ring as they sang the old ditty. "Three breakings should dae it," he said as he looked at the face of the coal dripping with water from the cracks in the roof. "If only they were here to put up the props. I could soon blow it through," and he began to prepare a place for batons and props, pending the arrival of more help from those who were only too eager to come down to his aid. It was almost an hour before help came in the shape of two men carrying some props. Then came another two and soon more timber began to arrive regularly and the swinging blows of their hammers as they drove in the fresh props were soon echoing through the tunnels, and Robert set up his boring machine and soon the rickety noise of it drowned all others. He paused to change a drill when a faint hullo was heard from the other side. "Hullo," he yelled, then held his breath in tense silence to hear the response which came immediately. "Are you all safe?" he roared, his voice carrying easily through the open coal. "Ay," came the faint answer; "but the moss is rising in the heading and you'll have to hurry up." Robert knew this, and one of his helpers had gone down an old heading to explore and had returned to say that it was rising steadily and was now within two hundred feet from the old shaft down which he had descended. "Where away did the roof break?" roared Robert as he changed his second drill. "Half way doon the cousie brae," came the answer, "an' we're all shut in like rats. Hurry up and get us oot," and again the rickety, rackety noise of the boring machine began and drowned all other noises. He soon drilled his holes and he could hear them on the other side singing now some ribald song to keep up their courage, while others who were religiously inclined chanted hymns and psalms, but all were wondering whether Robert and his men would be able to break through the barrier in time to save them before the persistently rising moss claimed them. He charged his shots and called them to go back, telling them the number of his charges, then lit his fuse and ran out of the old level to wait in a place of safety while the explosion took place. Soon they boomed out and the concussion put them all in darkness; but they soon had the lamps re-lit and were back in among the thick volumes of powder smoke, groping about and shading their lamps and peering in to see what their shots had done to lessen the barrier between them and their imprisoned comrades. Then the shovels set to work and tossed the coal which the shots had dislodged back into the roadway and soon the boring machines were busy again, eating into the coal; for those tireless arms of Robert's never halted. He swung the handle or wielded the pick or shovel, never taking a, rest, while the sweat streamed from his body working like some mechanical product for always in his mind he was calculating his chances for being able to blast it through the barrier before the moss rose. "It has only a stoop length an' a half to rise now," reported one of the men. "It's creeping up like the doom o' the day o' judgment. But I think we'll manage. If these shots do as well as the last ones we should be within two feet of them, an' surely to God we can bite the rest of it, if we canna blaw it. Let me stem the shots, Rob, an' you take a rest." "You go to hell," was the unexpectedly astounding reply; for no one had ever heard Robert Sinclair use language like this before. "As soon as thae shots are off an' if they blaw as well as the others we'll turn out the coal an' then you can gang up the pit, every yin o' you. I'll soon blow through the rest of it, and if you are all up by then it will make for speed in getting the others out. We're going to have a race for it even though we manage as I'm thinking to. So get out of the way and don't talk. Again the air's getting too dam'd thick for you all remaining here. There's hardly as muckle as would keep a canary living," and again he called to those on the other side to beware of the shots, and again ran out to a place of safety while the explosions took place. Once more the result of the shots was good; but the smoke choked and blinded them and one man was overcome by the fumes. They carried him out the road a bit and after he showed signs of coming round, Robert gave instructions for him to be taken to the surface. "Oh, Lod, but it's nippin' my e'en," said one as he rubbed his eyes and blew his nose, sneezed and finally expectorated. "It's as thick as soor milk, be dam'd!" "Well, get him up, and I'll away back and redd out the shots and try and get it through again. The moss is rising quicker noo an' it has only aboot eighty feet to come." So back he went among the thick choking volume of smoke, tripping and stumbling and staggering from side to side as he scrambled on. Would he be in time to blast the barrier down before the steadily creeping moss rose to cut off his only avenue of escape? "My God! What's that?" he asked himself as he paused while a rumble and crash behind him told him that the old shaft had caved in burying his comrades in rocks and moss and water. He ran back but could get no further than within a stoop length of the old shaft. There were hundreds of tons of débris and all was finally lost. For the first time terror seized him and he tore desperately at the bowlders of stone, cutting his fingers and lacerating his body all over with cuts and bruises. He raved and swore and shouted in desperation, the sweat streaming from every pore, his eyes wild and glaring, but he was soon driven back by the moss which was oozing and percolating through the broken mass of bowlders and gradually it forced him back with a rush as it burst through with a sudden slushing sound as if suddenly relieved from a barrier which held it. Back he rushed, his light again becoming extinguished, the flood pursuing him relentlessly, the air now so heavy that he could hardly breathe, but groping his way he reached the first end roadway down which for the moment the flood ran to meet the rising moss creeping up relentlessly from below. Choking and only half conscious he staggered on with all sense of disaster gone from his mind, with no thought of his comrades on the other side waiting so impatiently to be released, and singing their frothy songs in the hope that all was well, his legs doubling below him, and his lungs heaving to expel the poison which the thick air contained. Down at last he fell, his head striking against the side of the roadway, and he lay still. The moss might rise hungrily over him now, the rotten roof might fall upon him, all the dangers of the mine might conspire together against him; but nothing they might do could ever again strike terror into the young heart that lay there, feebly throbbing its last as it was being overcome with the deadly poison of the black damp. He was proof against all their terrors now, the spirit could evade them yet; for though the old shaft might collapse and imprison his body and claim it as a sacrifice to the King Terror of the Underworld, no prison was ever created that could contain the indomitable spirit of man as God. He was free--free, and was happy and could cry defiance to the dangers of the mine, to the terrors of time itself. He could clutch the corners of the earth, and play with it as a toy of time, among the Gods of Eternity. "Choose, choose wha' you'll tak'," throbbed the young heart and a smile of triumph played upon the lips as the pictures of bygone times flitted across his dying brain. He was again the happy infant, hungry it may be, and ill-clad, but Heaven contained no happier soul. The little stomach might not be filled with sufficient food; but the spirit of him as it was in younger years knew no material limits to its laughter in the childish ring games of youth. Again he was waiting in the dark wintry mornings on Mysie, so that she would not be afraid to go to work on the pit-head; ay, and he was happy to take the windward side of her in the storm, and shield her from the winter's blast, tying her little shawl about her ears and making her believe he did not feel the cold at all. He was back again at his mother's knee, listening to her glorious voice singing some pitiful old ballad, as she crooned him to sleep; or lying trying to forget the hunger he felt as the glorious old tune seemed to drown his senses while he waited to say his prayer at night. "Jesus, tender shepherd, hear me, Bless Thy little lamb to-night, In the darkness be Thou near me, Keep me safe till morning light." Then there was the "good-night" to everyone and the fond kiss of the best of all mothers, the sinking into sleep that billowed and rocked the weary young spirit of him, crushed and bruised by the forces of the world, and finally the sweet shy smile of a young girl blushing and awkward, but flooding his soul with happiness and thrilling every fiber of him with her magic as she stood upon the hill crest, outlined against the sunset with a soft breeze blowing, kissing the gray hill side, bringing perfumes from every corner of the moor and beckoning him as she rose upward, he followed higher and higher, the picture taking shape and becoming more real until it merged into spirit. And the creeping moss moved upward, hungry for its prey and greedy to devour the fine young body so fresh and strong and lusty; but it was balked, for it claimed only the empty shell. The prize had gone on the wings of an everlasting happiness and the spirit of the moor, because there is no forgetting, triumphed over the spirit of destruction, so that in the records of the spirit he shall say: "I shall remember when the red sun glowing Sinks in the west, a gorgeous flare of fire; How then you looked with the soft breeze blowing Cool through your hair, a heaving living pyre Fired by the sun for the sweet day's ending; I still shall hear the whirring harsh moor-hen, Roused from her rest among the rushes bending I shall remember then. "I shall remember every well-loved feature, How, on the hill crest when the day was done, Just how you looked, dear, God's most glorious creature, Heaven's silhouette outlined against the sun; I shall remember just how you the fairest, Dearest and brightest thing that God e'er made, Warmed all my soul with holy fire the rarest, That vision shall not fade." But pain and tragedy forever seem to have no limit to their hunger; and in the clear spring air above the place where the bodies of her boys lay, Mrs. Sinclair's heart was again the food upon which the tragedy of life fed. All the years of her existence were bound up in the production of coal, and the spirits of her husband and of her sons call to-day to the world of men--men who have wives, men who have mothers, men who have sweethearts and sisters and daughters, stand firm together; and preserve your women folk from these tragedies, if you would justify your manhood in the world of men. 
10449	----	Mike Greene and the Little Greene Schoolhouse (http://www.users.nac.net/mgreene/Homer_Greene_Museum.html) for supplying missing pages for this rare book. BURNHAM BREAKER BY HOMER GREENE AUTHOR OF "THE BLIND BROTHER" TO MY FATHER, WHOSE GRAY HAIRS I HONOR, AND WHOSE PERFECT MANHOOD I REVERE, THIS VOLUME IS AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED BY THE AUTHOR. HONESDALE, PENN., SEPT. 29, 1887. CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. A SURPRISE IN THE SCREEN-ROOM II. A STRANGE VISITOR III. A BRILLIANT SCHEME IV. A SET OF RESOLUTIONS V. IN SEARCH OF A MOTHER VI. BREAKING THE NEWS VII. RHYMING JOE VIII. A FRIEND IN NEED IX. A FRIEND INDEED X. AT THE BAR OF THE COURT XI. THE EVIDENCE IN THE CASE XII. AT THE GATES OF PARADISE XIII. THE PURCHASE OF A LIE XIV. THE ANGEL WITH THE SWORD XV. AN EVENTFUL JOURNEY XVI. A BLOCK IN THE WHEEL XVII. GENTLEMEN OF THE JURY XVIII. A WRIT OF HABEAS CORPUS XIX. BACK TO THE BREAKER XX. THE FIRE IN THE SHAFT XXI. A PERILOUS PASSAGE XXII. IN THE POWER OF DARKNESS XXIII. A STROKE OF LIGHTNING XXIV. AT THE DAWN OF DAY CHAPTER I. A SURPRISE IN THE SCREEN-ROOM. The city of Scranton lies in the centre of the Lackawanna coal-field, in the State of Pennsylvania. Year by year the suburbs of the city creep up the sides of the surrounding hills, like the waters of a rising lake. Standing at any point on this shore line of human habitations, you can look out across the wide landscape and count a score of coal-breakers within the limits of your first glance. These breakers are huge, dark buildings that remind you of castles of the olden time. They are many-winged and many-windowed, and their shaft-towers rise high up toward the clouds and the stars. About the feet of those in the valley the waves of the out-reaching city beat and break, and out on the hill-sides they stand like mighty fortresses built to guard the lives and fortunes of the multitudes who toil beneath them. But they are not long-lived. Like human beings, they rise, they flourish, they die and are forgotten. Not one in hundreds of the people who walk the streets of Scranton to-day, or who dig the coal from its surrounding hills, can tell you where Burnham Breaker stood a quarter of a century ago. Yet there are men still living, and boys who have grown to manhood, scores of them, who toiled for years in the black dust breathed out from its throats of iron, and listened to the thunder of its grinding jaws from dawn to dark of many and many a day. These will surely tell you where the breaker stood. They are proud to have labored there in other years. They will speak to you of that time with pleasant memories. It was thought to be a stroke of fortune to obtain work at Burnham Breaker. It was just beyond the suburbs of the city as they then were, and near to the homes of all the workmen. The vein of coal at this point was of more than ordinary thickness, and of excellent quality, and these were matters of much moment to the miners who worked there. Then, the wages were always paid according to the highest rate, promptly and in full. But there was something more, and more important than all this, to be considered. Robert Burnham, the chief power in the company, and the manager of its interests, was a man whose energetic business qualities and methods did not interfere with his concern for the welfare of his employees. He was not only just, but liberal and kind. He held not only the confidence but the good-will, even the affection, of those who labored under him. There were never any strikes at the Burnham mines. The men would have considered it high treason in any one to advocate a strike against the interests of Robert Burnham. Yet it was no place for idling. There were, no laggards there. Men had to work, and work hard too, for the wages that bought their daily bread. Even the boys in the screen-room were held as closely to their tasks as care and vigilance could hold them. Theirs were no light tasks, either. They sat all day on their little benches, high up in the great black building, with their eyes fixed always on the shallow streams of broken coal passing down the iron-sheathed chutes, and falling out of sight below them; and it was their duty to pick the particles of slate and stone from out these moving masses, bending constantly above them as they worked. It was not the physical exertion that made their task a hard one; there was not much straining of the joints or muscles, not even in the constant bending of the body to that one position. Neither was it that their tender hands were often cut and bruised by the sharp pieces of the coal or the heavy ones of slate. But it was hard because they were boys; young boys, with bounding pulses, chafing at restraint, full to the brim with life and spirit, longing for the fresh air, the bright sunlight, the fields, the woods, the waters, the birds, the flowers, all things beautiful and wonderful that nature spreads upon the earth to make of it a paradise for boys. To think of all these things, to catch brief glimpses of the happiness of children who were not born to toil, and then to sit, from dawn to mid-day and from mid-day till the sun went down, and listen to the ceaseless thunder of moving wheels and the constant sliding of the streams of coal across their iron beds,--it was this that wearied them. To know that in the woods the brooks were singing over pebbly bottoms, that in the fields the air was filled with the fragrance of blossoming flowers, that everywhere the free wind rioted at will, and then to sit in such a prison-house as this all day, and breathe an atmosphere so thick with dust that even the bits of blue sky framed in by the open windows in the summer time were like strips of some dark thunder-cloud,--it was this, this dull monotony of dizzy sight and doleful sound and changeless post of duty, that made their task a hard one. There came a certain summer day at Burnham Breaker when the labor and confinement fell with double weight upon the slate-pickers in the screen-room. It was circus day. The dead-walls and bill-boards of the city had been gorgeous for weeks and weeks with pictures heralding the wonders of the coming show. By the turnpike road, not forty rods from where the breaker stood, there was a wide barn the whole side of which had been covered with brightly colored prints of beasts and birds, of long processions, of men turning marvellous somersaults, of ladies riding, poised on one foot, on the backs of flying horses, of a hundred other things to charm the eyes and rouse anticipation in the breasts of boys. Every day, when the whistle blew at noon, the boys ran, shouting, from the breaker, and hurried, with their dinner-pails, to the roadside barn, to eat and gaze alternately, and discuss the pictured wonders. And now it was all here; beasts, birds, vaulting men, flying women, racing horses and all. They had seen the great white tents gleaming in the sunlight up in the open fields, a mile away, and had heard the distant music of the band and caught glimpses of the long procession as it wound through the city streets below them. This was at the noon hour, while they were waiting for the signal that should call them back into the dust and din of the screen-room, where they might dream, indeed, of circus joys while bending to their tasks, but that was all. There was much wishing and longing. There was some murmuring. There was even a rash suggestion from one boy that they should go, in spite of the breaker and the bosses, and revel for a good half-day in the pleasures of the show. But this treasonable proposition was frowned down without delay. These boys had caught the spirit of loyalty from the men who worked at Burnham Breaker, and not even so great a temptation as this could keep them from the path of duty. When the bell rang for them to return to work, not one was missing, each bench had its accustomed occupant, and the coal that was poured into the cars at the loading-place was never more free from slate and stone than it was that afternoon. But it was hot up in the screen-room. The air was close and stifling, and heavy with the choking dust. The noise of the iron-teethed rollers crunching the lumps of coal, and the bang and rattle of ponderous machinery were never before so loud and discordant, and the black streams moving down their narrow channels never passed beneath these dizzy boys in monotony quite so dull and ceaseless as they were passing this day. Suddenly the machinery stopped. The grinding and the roaring ceased. The frame-work of the giant building was quiet from its trembling. The iron gates that held back the broken coal were quickly shut and the long chutes were empty. The unexpected stillness was almost startling. The boys looked up in mute astonishment. Through the dust, in the door-way at the end of the room, they saw the breaker boss and the screen-room boss talking with Robert Burnham. Then Mr. Burnham advanced a step or two and said:-- "Boys, Mr. Curtis tells me you are all here. I am pleased with your loyalty. I had rather have the good-will and confidence of the boys who work for me than to have the money that they earn. Now, I intend that you shall see the circus if you wish to, and you will be provided with the means of admission to it. Mr. Curtis will dismiss you for the rest of the day, and as you pass out you will each receive a silver quarter as a gift for good behavior." For a minute the boys were silent. It was too sudden a vision of happiness to be realized at once. Then one little fellow stood up on his bench and shouted:-- "Hooray for Mr. Burnham!" The next moment the air was filled with shouts and hurrahs so loud and vigorous that they went echoing through every dust-laden apartment of the huge building from head to loading-place. Then the boys filed out. One by one they went through the door-way, each, as he passed, receiving from Mr. Burnham's own hand the shining piece of silver that should admit him to the wonders of the "greatest show on earth." They spoke their thanks, rudely indeed, and in voices that were almost too much burdened with happiness for quiet speech. But their eyes were sparkling with anticipation; their lips were parted in smiles, their white teeth were gleaming from their dust-black faces, each look and action was eloquent with thoughts of coming pleasure. And the one who enjoyed it more than all the others was Robert Burnham. It is so old that it was trite and tiresome centuries ago, that saying about one finding one's greatest happiness in making others happy. But it has never ceased to be true; it never will cease to be true; it is one of those primal principles of humanity that no use nor law nor logic can ever hope to falsify. The last boy in the line differed apparently in no respect from those who had preceded him. The faces of all of them were black with coal-dust, and their clothes were patched and soiled. But this one had just cut his hand, and, as he held it up to let the blood drip from it you noticed that it was small and delicate in shape. "Why, my boy!" exclaimed Mr. Burnham, "you have cut your hand. Let me see." "'Taint much, sir," the lad replied; "I often cut 'em a little. You're apt to, a-handlin' the coal that way." The man had the little hand in his and bent to examine the wound. "That's quite a cut," he said, "as clean as though it had been made with a knife. Come, let's wash it off and fix it up a little." He led the way to the corner of the room, uncovered the water-pail, dipped out a cup of water, and began to bathe the bleeding hand. "That shows it's good coal, sir," said the boy, "Poor coal wouldn't make such a clean cut as that. The better the coal the sharper 'tis." "Thank you," said Mr. Burnham, smiling. "Taking the circumstances into consideration, I regard that as the best compliment for our coal that I have ever received." The hand had been washed off as well as water without soap could do it. "I guess that's as clean as it'll come," said the boy. "It's pirty hard work to git 'em real clean. The dirt gits into the corners so, an' into the chaps an' cuts, an' you can't git it all out, not even for Sunday." The man was looking around for something to bind up the wound with. "Have you a handkerchief?" he asked. The boy drew from an inner pocket what had once been a red bandanna handkerchief of the old style, but alas! it was sadly soiled, it was worn beyond repair and crumpled beyond belief. "'Taint very clean," he said, apologetically. "You can't keep a han'kerchy very clean a-workin' in the breaker, it's so dusty here." "Oh! it's good enough," replied the man, noticing the boy's embarrassment, and trying to reassure him, "it's plenty good enough, but it's red you see, and red won't do. Here, I have a white one. This is just the thing," he added, tearing his own handkerchief into strips and binding them carefully about the wounded hand. "There!" giving the bandage a final adjustment; "that will be better for it. Now, then, you're off to the circus; good-by." The lad took a step or two forward, hesitated a moment, and then turned back. The breaker boss and the screen-room boss were already gone and he was alone with Mr. Burnham. "Would it make any dif'rence to you," he asked, holding up the silver coin, "if I spent this money for sumpthin' else, an' didn't go to the circus with it?" "Why, no!" said the man, wonderingly, "I suppose not; but I thought you boys would rather spend your money at the circus than to spend it in almost any other way." "Oh! I'd like to go well enough. I al'ays did like a circus, an' I wanted to go to this one, 'cause it's a big one; but they's sumpthin' else I want worse'n that, an' I'm a-tryin' to save up a little money for it." Robert Burnham's curiosity was aroused. Here was a boy who was willing to forego the pleasures of the circus that he might gratify some greater desire; a strong and noble one, the man felt sure, to call for such a sacrifice. Visions of a worn-out mother, an invalid sister, a mortgaged home, passed through his mind as he said: "And what is it you are saving your money for, my boy, if I am at liberty to ask?" "To'stablish my'dentity, sir." "To do what?" "To'stablish my'dentity; that's what Uncle Billy calls it." "Why, what's the matter with your identity?" "I ain't got any; I'm a stranger; I don't know who my 'lations are." "Don't know--who--your relations are! Why, what's your name?" "Ralph, that's all; I ain't got any other name. They call me Ralph Buckley sometimes, 'cause I live with Uncle Billy; but he ain't my uncle, you know,--I only call him Uncle Billy 'cause I live with him, an'--an' he's good to me, that's all." At the name "Ralph," coming so suddenly from the lad's lips, the man had started, turned pale, and then his face flushed deeply. He drew the boy down tenderly on the bench beside him, and said:-- "Tell me about yourself, Ralph; where do you say you live?" "With Uncle Billy,--Bachelor Billy they call him; him that dumps at the head, pushes the cars out from the carriage an' dumps 'em; don't you know Billy Buckley?" The man nodded assent and the boy went on:-- "He's been awful good to me, Uncle Billy has; you don't know how good he's been to me; but he ain't my uncle, he ain't no 'lation to me; I ain't got no 'lations 'at I know of; I wish't I had." The lad looked wistfully out through the open window to the far line of hills with their summits veiled in a delicate mist of blue. "But where did Billy get you?" asked Mr. Burnham. "He foun' me; he foun' me on the road, an' he took me in an' took care o' me, and he didn't know me at all; that's where he's so good. I was sick, an' he hired Widow Maloney to tend me while he was a-workin', and when I got well he got me this place a-pickin' slate in the breaker." "But, Ralph, where had you come from when Billy found you?" "Well, now, I'll tell you all I know about it. The first thing 'at I 'member is 'at I was a-livin' with Gran'pa Simon in Philadelphy. He wasn't my gran'pa, though; if he had 'a' been he wouldn't 'a' 'bused me so. I don't know where he got me, but he treated me very bad; an' when I wouldn't do bad things for him, he whipped me, he whipped me awful, an' he shet me up in the dark all day an' all night, 'an didn't give me nothin' to eat; an' I'm dreadful 'fraid o' the dark; an' I wasn't more'n jest about so high, neither. Well, you see, I couldn't stan' it, an' one day I run away. I wouldn't 'a' run away if I could 'a' stood it, but I _couldn't_ stan' it no longer. Gran'pa Simon wasn't there when I run away. He used to go off an' leave me with Ole Sally, an' she wasn't much better'n him, only she couldn't see very well, an' she couldn't follow me. I slep' with Buck the bootblack that night, an' nex' mornin', early, I started out in the country. I was 'fraid they'd find me if I stayed aroun' the city. It was pirty near afternoon 'fore I got out where the fields is, an' then a woman, she give me sumpthin' to eat. I wanted to git away from the city fur's I could, an' day-times I walked fast, an' nights I slep' under the big trees, an' folks in the houses along the road, they give me things to eat. An' then a circus came along, an' the man on the tiger wagon he give me a ride, an' then I went everywhere with the circus, an' I worked for 'em, oh! for a good many days; I worked real hard too, a-doin' everything, an' they never let me go into their show but once, only jest once. Well, w'en we got here to Scranton I got sick, an' they wouldn't take me no furder 'cause I wasn't any good to 'em, an' they went off an' lef me, an' nex' mornin' I laid down up there along the road a-cryin' an' a-feelin' awful bad, an' then Uncle Billy, he happened to come that way, an' he foun' me an' took me home with him. He lives in part o' Widow Maloney's house, you know, an' he ain't got nobody but me, an' I ain't got nobody but him, an' we live together. That's why they call him Bachelor Billy, 'cause he ain't never got married. Oh! he's been awful good to me, Uncle Billy has, awful good!" And the boy looked out again musingly into the blue distance. The man had not once stirred during this recital. His eyes had been fixed on the boy's face, and he had listened with intense interest. "Well, Ralph," he said, "that is indeed a strange story. And is that all you know about yourself? Have you no clew to your parentage or birthplace?" "No, sir; not any. That's what I want to find out when I git money enough." "How much money have you now?" "About nine dollars, countin' what I'll save from nex' pay day." "And how do you propose to proceed when you have money enough?" "Hire a lawyer to 'vestigate. The lawyer he keeps half the money, an' gives the other half of it to a 'tective, an' then the 'tective, he finds out all about you. Uncle Billy says that's the way. He says if you git a good smart lawyer you can find out 'most anything." "And suppose you should find your parents, and they should be rich and give you a great deal of money, how would you spend it?" "Well, I don't know; I'd give a lot of it to Uncle Billy, I guess, an' some to Widow Maloney, an'--an' I'd go to the circus, an'--but I wouldn't care so much about the money, sir, if I could have folks like other boys have. If I could only have a mother, that's what I want worst, a mother to kiss me every day, an' be good to me that way, like mothers are, you know; if I could only jest have that, I wouldn't want nothin' else, not never any more." The man turned his face away. "And wouldn't you like to have a father too?" he asked. "Oh, yes, I would; but I _could_ git along without a father, a real father. Uncle Billy's been a kind o' father to me; but I ain't never had no mother, nor no sister; an' that's what I want now, an" I want 'em very bad. Seems, sometimes, jes' as if I _couldn't_ wait; jes' as if I couldn't stan' it no longer 'thout 'em. Don't--don't you s'pose the things we can't have is the things we want worst?" "Yes, my boy: yes. You've spoken a truth as old as the ages. That which I myself would give my fortune for I can never have. I mean my little boy who--who died. I cannot have him back. His name too was Ralph." For a few moments there was silence in the screen-room. The child was awed by the man's effort to suppress his deep emotion. At last Ralph said, rising:-- "Well, I mus' go now an' tell Uncle Billy." Mr. Burnham rose in his turn. "Yes," he said, "you'll be late for the circus if you don't hurry. What! you're not going? Oh! yes, you _must_ go. Here, here's a silver dollar to add to your identity fund; now you can afford to spend the quarter. Yes," as the boy hesitated to accept the proffered money, "yes, you _must_ take it; you can pay it back, you know, when--when you come to your own. And wait! I want to help you in that matter of establishing your identity. Come to my office, and we'll talk it over. Let me see; to-day is Tuesday. Friday we shall shut down the screens a half-day for repairs. Come on Friday afternoon." "Thank you, sir; yes, sir, I will." "All right; good-by!" "Good-by, sir!" When Ralph reached the circus grounds the crowds were still pushing in through the gate at the front of the big tent, and he had to take his place far back in the line and move slowly along with the others. Leaning wearily against a post near the entrance, and watching the people as they passed in, stood an old man. He was shabbily dressed, his clothes' were very dusty, and an old felt hat was pulled low on his forehead. He was pale and gaunt, and an occasional hollow cough gave conclusive evidence of his disease. But 'he had a pair of sharp gray eyes that looked out from under the brim of his hat, and gave close scrutiny to every one who passed by. The breaker boys, who had gone into the tent in a body some minutes earlier, had attracted his attention and aroused his interest. By and by his eyes rested upon Ralph, who stood back in the line, awaiting the forward movement of the crowd. The old man started perceptibly at sight of the boy, and uttered an ejaculation of surprise, which ended in a cough. He moved forward as if to meet him; then, apparently on second thought, he retreated to his post. But he kept his eyes fixed on the lad, who was coming slowly nearer, and his thin face took on an expression of the deepest satisfaction. He turned partly aside, however, as the boy approached him, and stood with averted countenance until the lad had passed through the gate. Ralph was just in time. He had no sooner got in and found a seat, with the other breaker boys, away up under the edge of the tent, than the grand procession made its entrance. There were golden chariots, there were ladies in elegant riding habits and men in knightly costumes, there were prancing steeds and gorgeous banners, elephants, camels, monkeys, clowns, a moving mass of dazzling beauty and bright colors that almost made one dizzy to look upon it; and through it all the great band across the arena poured its stirring music in a way to make the pulses leap and the hands and feet keep time to its sounding rhythm. Then came the athletes and the jugglers, the tight-rope walkers and the trapeze performers, the trained dogs and horses, the clowns and the monkeys, the riding and the races; all of it too wonderful, too mirthful, too complete to be adequately described. At least, this was what the breaker boys thought. After the performance was ended, they went out to the menagerie tent, in a body, to look at the animals. One of the boys became separated from the others, and stood watching the antics of the monkeys, and laughing gleefully at each comical trick performed by the grave-faced little creatures. Looking up, he saw an old man standing by him; an old man with sharp gray eyes and dusty clothes, who leaned heavily upon a cane. "Curious things, these monkeys," said the old man. "Ain't they, though!" replied the boy. "Luk at that un, now!--don't he beat all? ain't he funny?" "Very!" responded the old man, gazing across the open space to where Ralph stood chattering with his companions. "Sonny," said he, "can you tell me who that boy is, over yonder, with his hand done up in a white cloth?" "That boy w'ats a-talkin' to Jimmy Dooley, you mean?" "Yes, the one there by the lion's cage." "You mean that boy there with the blue patch on his pants?" "Yes, yes! the one with his hand bandaged; don't you see?" "Oh, that's Ralph." "Ralph who?" "Ralph nobody. He ain't got no other name. He lives with Bachelor Billy." "Is--is Bachelor Billy his father?" "Naw; he ain't got no father." "Does he work with you in the mines?" "In the mines? naw; we don't work in the mines; we work in the screen-room up t' the breaker, a-pickin' slate. He sets nex' to me." "How long has he been working there?" "Oh, I donno; couple o' years, I guess. You want to see 'im? I'll go call 'im." "No; I don't care to see him. Don't call him; he isn't the boy I'm looking for, any way." "There! he's a-turnin' this way now. I'll have 'im here in a minute; hey, Ralph! Ralph! here he comes." But the old man was gone. He had disappeared suddenly and mysteriously. A little later he was trudging slowly along the dusty road, through the crowds of people, up toward the city. He was smiling, and muttering to himself. "Found him at last!" he exclaimed, in a whisper, "found him at last! It'll be all right now; only be cautious, Simon! be cautious!" CHAPTER II. A STRANGE VISITOR. It was the day after the circus. Robert Burnham sat in his office on Lackawanna Avenue, busy with his afternoon mail. As he laid the last letter aside the incidents of the previous day recurred to him, and he saw again, in imagination, the long line of breaker-boys, with happy, dusty faces, filing slowly by him, grateful for his gifts, eager for the joys to come. The pleasure he had found in his generous deed stayed with him, as such pleasures always do, and was manifest even now in the light of his kindly face. He had pondered, too, upon the strange story of the boy Ralph. It had awakened his interest and aroused his sympathy. He had spoken to his wife about the lad when he went home at night; and he had taken his little daughter on his knee and told to her the story of the boy who worked all day in the breaker, who had no father and no mother, and whose name was--Ralph! Both wife and daughter had listened eagerly to the tale, and had made him promise to look carefully to the lad and help him to some better occupation than the drudgery of the screen-room. But he had already resolved to do this, and more. The mystery surrounding the child's life should be unravelled. Obscure and humble though his origin might be, he should, at least, bear the name to which his parentage entitled him. The more he thought on this subject, the wider grew his intentions concerning the child. His fatherly nature was aroused and eager for action. There was something about the lad, too, that reminded him, not so much of what his own child had been as of what he might have been had he lived to this boy's age. It was not alone in the name, but something also in the tone of voice, in the turn of the head, in the look of the brown eyes; something which struck a chord of memory or hope, and brought no unfamiliar sound. The thought pleased him, and he dwelt upon it, and, turning away from his table with its accumulation of letters and papers, he looked absently out into the busy street and laid plans for the future of this boy who had dropped so suddenly into the current of his life. By and by he heard some one in the outer office inquiring for him. Then his door was opened, and a stranger entered, an old man in shabby clothes, leaning on a cane. He was breathing heavily, apparently from the exertion of climbing the steps at the entrance, and he was no sooner in the room than he fell into a violent fit of coughing. He seated himself carefully in a chair at the other side of the table from Mr. Burnham, placed a well worn leather satchel on the floor by his side, and laid his cane across it. When he had recovered somewhat from his shortness of breath, he said: "Excuse me. A little unusual exertion always brings on a fit of coughing. This is Mr. Robert Burnham, I suppose?" "That is my name," answered Burnham, regarding his visitor with some curiosity. "Ah! just so; you don't know me, I presume?" "No, I don't remember to have met you before." "It's not likely that you have, not at all likely. My name is Craft, Simon Craft. I live in Philadelphia when I'm at home." "Ah! Philadelphia is a fine city. What can I do for you, Mr. Craft?" "That isn't the question, sir. The question is, what can _I_ do for _you_?" The old man looked carefully around the room, rose, went to the door, which had been left ajar, closed it noiselessly, and resumed his seat. "Well," said Mr. Burnham, calmly, "what can you do for me?" "Much," responded the old man, resting his elbows on the table in front of him; "very much if you will give me your time and attention for a few moments." "My time is at your disposal," replied Burnham, smiling, and leaning back in his chair somewhat wearily, "and I am all attention; proceed." Thus far the old man had succeeded in arousing in his listener only a languid curiosity. This coal magnate was accustomed to being interrupted by "cranks" of all kinds, as are most rich men, and often enjoyed short interviews with them. This one had opened the conversation in much the usual manner, and the probability seemed to be that he would now go on to unfold the usual scheme by which his listener's thousands could be converted into millions in an incredibly short time, under the skilful management of the schemer. But his very next words dispelled this idea and aroused Robert Burnham to serious attention. "Do you remember," the old man asked, "the Cherry Brook bridge disaster that occurred near Philadelphia some eight years ago?" "Yes," replied Burnham, straightening up in his chair, "I do; I have good reason to remember it. Were you on that train?" "I was on that train. Terrible accident, wasn't it?" "Terrible; yes, it was terrible indeed." "Wouldn't have been quite so bad if the cars hadn't taken fire and burned up after they went down, would it?" "The fire was the most distressing part of it; but why do you ask me these questions?" "You were on board, I believe, you and your wife and your child, and all went down. Isn't that so?" "Yes, it is so. But why, I repeat, are you asking me these questions? It is no pleasure to me to talk about this matter, I assure you." Craft gave no heed to this protest, but kept on:-- "You and your wife were rescued in an unconscious state, were you not, just as the fire was creeping up to you?" The old man seemed to take delight in torturing his hearer by calling up painful memories. Receiving no answer to his question, he continued:-- "But the boy, the boy Ralph, he perished, didn't he? Was burned up in the wreck, wasn't he?" "Stop!" exclaimed Burnham. "You have said enough. If you have any object in repeating this harrowing story, let me know what it is at once; if not, I have no time to listen to you further." "I have an object," replied Craft, deliberately, "a most important object, which I will disclose to you if you will be good enough to answer my question. Your boy Ralph was burned up in the wreck at Cherry Bridge, wasn't he?" "Yes, he was. That is our firm belief; what then?" "Simply this, that you are mistaken." "What do you mean?" "Your boy is not dead." Burnham started to his feet, unable for the moment to speak. His face took on a sudden pallor, then a smile of incredulity settled on his lips. "You are wild," he said; "the child perished; we have abundant proof of it." "I say the child is not dead," persisted the old man; "I saw him--yesterday." "Then, bring him to me. Bring him to me and I will believe you." Burnham had settled down into his chair with a look of weary hopelessness on his face. "You have no faith in me," said Craft. "Mere perversity might make you fail to recognize the child. Suppose I show you further proofs of the truth of what I say." "Very well; produce them." The old man bent down, took his leather hand-bag from the floor, and placed it on the table before him. The exertion brought on a spasm of coughing. When he had recovered from this, he drew an old wallet from his pocket and took from it a key, with which he unlocked the satchel. Then, drawing forth a package and untying and unrolling it, he shook it out and held it up for Robert Burnham to look at. It was a little flannel cloak. It had once been white, but it was sadly stained and soiled now. The delicate ribbons that had ornamented it were completely faded, and out of the front a great hole had been burned, the edges of which were still black and crumbling. "Do you recognize it?" asked the old man. Burnham seized it with both hands. "It is his!" he exclaimed. "It is Ralph's! He wore it that day. Where did you get it? Where did you get it, I say?" Craft did not reply. He was searching in his hand-bag for something else. Finally he drew out a child's cap, a quaint little thing of velvet and lace, and laid it on the table. This, too, was grasped by Burnham with eager fingers, and looked upon with loving eyes. "Do you still think me wild?" said the old man, "or do you believe now that I have some knowledge of what I am talking about?" His listener did not answer the question. His mind seemed to be far away. He said, finally:-- "There--there was a locket, a little gold locket. It had his father's picture in it. Did--did you find that?" The visitor smiled, opened the wallet again, and produced the locket. The father took it in his trembling hands, looked on it very tenderly for a moment, and then his eyes became flooded with tears. "It was his," he said at last, very gently; "they were all his; tell me now--where did you get them?" "I came by them honestly, Mr. Burnham, honestly; and I have kept them faithfully. But I will tell you the whole story. I think you are ready now to hear it with attention, and to consider it fairly." The old man pushed his satchel aside, pulled his chair closer to the table, cleared his throat, and began:-- "It was May 13, 1859. I'd been out in the country at my son's, and was riding into the city in the evening. I was in the smoking-car. Along about nine o'clock there was a sudden jerk, then half a dozen more jerks, and the train came to a dead stop. I got up and went out with the rest, and we then saw that the bridge had broken down, and the three cars behind the smoker had tumbled into the creek. I hurried down the bank and did what I could to help those in the wreck, but it was very dark and the cars were piled up in a heap, and it was hard to do anything. Then the fire broke out and we had to stand back. But I heard a child crying by a broken window, just where the middle car had struck across the rear one, and I climbed up there at the risk of my life and looked in. The fire gave some light by this time, and I saw a young woman lying there, caught between the timbers and perfectly still. A sudden blaze showed me that she was dead. Then the child cried again; I saw where he was, and reached in and pulled him out just as the fire caught in his cloak. I jumped down into the water with him, and put out the fire and saved him. He wasn't hurt much. It was your boy Ralph. By this time the wreck was all ablaze and we had to get up on the bank. "I took the child around among the people there, and tried to find out who he belonged to, but no one seemed to know anything about him. He wasn't old enough to talk distinctly, so he couldn't tell me much about himself; not anything, in fact, except that his name was Ralph. I took him home with me to my lodgings in the city that night, and the next morning I went out to the scene of the accident to try to discover some clew to his identity. But I couldn't find out anything about him; nothing at all. The day after that I was taken sick. The exertion, the exposure, and the wetting I had got in the water of the brook, brought on a severe attack of pneumonia. It was several months before I got around again as usual, and I am still suffering, you see, from the results of that sickness. After that, as my time and means and business would permit, I went out and searched for the boy's friends. It is useless for me to go into the details of that search, but I will say that I made every effort and every sacrifice possible during five years, without the slightest success. In the meantime the child remained with me, and I clothed him and fed him and cared for him the very best I could, considering the circumstances in which I was placed. "About three years ago I happened to be in Scranton on business, and, by the merest chance, I learned that you had been in the Cherry Brook disaster, that you had lost your child there, and that the child's name was Ralph. Following up the clew, I became convinced that this boy was your son. I thought the best way to break the news to you was to bring you the child himself. With that end in view, I returned immediately to Philadelphia, only to find Ralph--missing. He had either run away or been stolen, I could not tell which. I was not able to trace him. Three months later I heard that he had been with a travelling circus company, but had left them after a few days. After that I lost track of him entirely for about three years. Now, however, I have found him. I saw him so lately as yesterday. He is alive and well." Several times during the recital of this narrative, the old man had been interrupted by spasms of coughing, and, now that he was done, he gave himself up to a violent and prolonged fit of it. Robert Burnham had listened intently enough, there was no doubt of that; but he did not yet seem quite ready to believe that his boy was really alive. "Why did you not tell me," he asked, "when the child left you, so that I might have assisted you in the search for him?" Craft hesitated a moment. "I did not dare to," he said. I was afraid you would blame me too severely for not taking better care of him, and I was hoping every day to find him myself." "Well, let that pass. Where is he now? Where is the boy who, you say, is my son?" "Pardon me, sir, but I cannot tell you that just yet. I know where he is. I can bring him to you on two days' notice. But, before I do that, I feel that, in justice to myself, I should receive some compensation, not only for the care of the child through five years of his life, but also for the time, toil, and money spent in restoring him to you." Burnham's brow darkened. "Ah! I see," he said. "This is to be a money transaction. Your object is to get gain from it. Am I right?" "Exactly. My motive is not wholly an unselfish one, I assure you." "Still, you insist upon the absolute truth of your story?" "I do, certainly." "Well, then, what is your proposition? name it." "Yes, sir. After mature consideration, I have concluded that three thousand dollars is not too large a sum." "Well, what then?" "I am to receive that amount when I bring your son to you." "But suppose I should not recognize nor acknowledge as my son the person whom you will bring?" "Then you will pay me no money, and the boy will return home with me." Burnham wheeled suddenly in his chair and rose to his feet. "Listen!" he exclaimed, earnestly. "If you will bring my boy to me, alive, unharmed, my own boy Ralph, I will give you twice three thousand dollars." "In cash?" "In cash." "It's a bargain. You shall see him within two days. But--you may change your mind in the meantime; will you give me a writing to secure me?" "Certainly." Mr. Burnham resumed his seat and wrote hurriedly, the following contract:-- "This agreement, made and executed this thirtieth day of June, 1867, between Simon Craft of the city of Philadelphia, party of the first part, and Robert Burnham of the city of Scranton, party of the second part, both of the state of Pennsylvania, witnesseth that the said Craft agrees to produce to the said Burnham, within two days from this date, the son of the said Robert Burnham, named Ralph, in full life, and in good health of body and mind. And thereupon the said Burnham, provided he recognizes as his said son Ralph the person so produced, agrees to pay to the said Craft, in cash, the sum of six thousand dollars. Witness our hands and seals the day and year aforesaid. "ROBERT BURNHAM." [L.S.] "There!" said Burnham, handing the paper to Craft; "that will secure you in the payment of the money, provided you fulfil your agreement. But let me be plain with you. If you are deceiving me or trying to deceive me, or if you should practise fraud on me, or attempt to do so, you will surely regret it. And if that child be really in life, and you have been guilty of any cruelty toward him, of any kind whatever, you will look upon the world through prison bars, I promise you, in spite of the money you may obtain from me. Now you understand; go bring the boy." The old man did not answer. He was holding the paper close to his eyes, and going over it word by word. "Yes," he said, finally; "I suppose it's all right. I'm not very familiar with written contracts, but I'll venture it." Burnham had risen again from his chair, and was striding up and down the floor. "When will you bring him?" he asked; "to-morrow?" "My dear sir, do not be in too great haste; I am not gifted with miraculous powers. I will bring the boy here or take you to him within two days, as I have agreed." "Well, then, to-day is Tuesday. Will you have him here by Friday? Friday morning?" "By Friday afternoon, at any rate." The old man was carefully wrapping up the articles he had exhibited, and putting them back into his hand-bag. Finally, Burnham's attention was attracted to this proceeding. "Why," he exclaimed, "what are you doing? You have no right to those things; they are mine." "Oh no! they are mine. They shall be given to you some time perhaps; but, for the present, they are mine." "Stop! you shall not have them. Those things are very precious to me. Put them down, I say; put them down!" "Very well. You may have these or--your boy. If you force these things from me, you go without your child. Now take your choice." Old Simon was very calm and firm. He knew his ground, and knew that he could afford to be domineering. His long experience in sharp practice had not failed to teach him that the man who holds his temper, in a contest like this, always has the best of it. And he was too shrewd not to see that his listener was laboring under an excitement that was liable at any moment to break forth in passionate speech. He was, therefore, not surprised nor greatly disturbed when Burnham exclaimed, vehemently:-- "I'll have you arrested, sir! I'll force you to disclose your secret! I'll have you punished by the hand of the law!" "The hand of the law is not laid in punishment on people who are guilty of no crime," responded Craft, coolly; "and there is no criminal charge that you can fairly bring against me. Poverty is my worst crime. I have done nothing except for your benefit. Now, Mr. Burnham you are excited. Calm yourself and listen to reason. Don't you see that if I were to give those things to you I would be putting out of my hands the best evidence I have of the truth of my assertions?" "But I have seen you produce them. I will not deny that you gave them to me." "Ah! very good; but you may die before night! What then?" "Die before night! Absurd! But keep the things; keep them. I can do without them if you will restore the child himself to me. When did you say you would bring him?" "Friday afternoon." "Until Friday afternoon, then, I wait." "Very well, sir; good day!" "Good day!" The old man picked up his cane, rose slowly from his chair, and, with his satchel in his hand, walked softly out, closing the door carefully behind him. Robert Burnham continued his walk up and down the room, his flushed face showing alternately the signs of the hope and the doubt that were striving for the mastery within him. For eight years he had believed his boy to be dead. The terrible wreck at Cherry Brook had yielded up to him from its ashes only a few formless trinkets of all that had once been his child's, only a few unrecognizable bones, to be interred, long afterward, where flowers might bloom above them. The last search had been made, the last clew followed, the last resources of wealth and skill were at an end, and these, these bones and trinkets were all that could be found. Still, the fact of the child's death had not been established beyond all question, and among the millions of remote possibilities that this world always holds in reserve lingered yet the one that he might after all be living. And now came this old man with his strange story, and the cap and the cloak and the locket. Did it mean simply a renewal of the old hope, destined to fade away again into a hopelessness duller than the last? But what if the man's story were true? What if the boy were really in life? What if in two days' time the father should clasp his living child in his arms, and bear him to his mother! Ah! his mother. She would have given her life any time to have had her child restored to her, if only for a day. But she had been taught early to believe that he was dead It was better than to torture her heart with hopes that could only by the rarest possibility be fulfilled. Now, now, if he dared to go home to her this night, and tell her that their son was alive, was found, was coming back to them! Ah! if he only dared! The sunlight, streaming through the western window, fell upon him as he walked. It was that golden light that conies from a sun low in the west, when the days are long, and it illumined his face with a glow that revealed there the hope, the courage, the honor, the manly strength that held mastery in his heart. There was a sudden commotion in the outer office. Men were talking in an excited manner; some one opened the door, and said:-- "There's been an accident in the breaker mine, Mr. Burnham." "What kind of an accident?" "Explosion of fire-damp." "What about the men?" "It is not known yet how many are injured." "Tell James to bring the horses immediately; I will go there." "James is waiting at the door now with the team, sir." Mr. Burnham put away a few papers, wrote a hurried letter to his wife, took his hat and went out and down the steps. "Send Dr. Gunther up to the breaker at once," he said, as he made ready to start. The fleet horses drew him rapidly out through the suburbs and up the hill, and in less than twenty minutes he had reached the breaker, and stopped at the mouth of the shaft. Many people had already assembled, and others were coming from all directions. Women whose husbands and sons worked in the mine were there, with pale faces and beseeching words. There was much confusion. It was difficult to keep the crowd from pressing in against the mouth of the shaft. Men were busy clearing a space about the opening when Robert Burnham arrived. "How did it happen?" he said to the mine boss as he stepped from his wagon. "Where was it?" "Up in the north tier, sir. We don't know how it happened. Some one must 'a' gone in below, where the fire-damp was, with a naked lamp, an' touched it off; an' then, most like, it run along the roof to the chambers where the men was a-workin'. I can't account for it in no other way." "Has any one come out from there?" "Yes, Billy Williams. He was a-comin' out when it went off. We found him up in the headin', senseless. He ain't come to yet." "And the others?" "We've tried to git to 'em, sir, but the after-damp is awful, an' we couldn't stan' it; we had to come out." "How many men are up there?" "Five, as we count 'em; the rest are all out." The carriage came up the shaft, and a half-dozen miners, with dull eyes and drawn faces, staggered from it, out into the sunlight. It was a rescuing party, just come from a vain attempt to save their unfortunate comrades. They were almost choked to death themselves, with the foul air of the mine. One of them recovered sufficiently to speak. "We got a'most there," he gasped; "we could hear 'em a-groanin'; but the after-damp got--so bad--we--" He reeled and fell, speechless and exhausted. The crowd had surged up, trying to hear what the man was saying. People were getting dangerously near to the mouth of the shaft. Women whose husbands were below were wringing their hands and crying out desperately that some one should go down to the rescue. "Stand back, my friends," said Burnham, facing the people, "stand back and give these men air, and leave us room to work. We shall do all in our power to help those who are below. If they can be saved, we shall save them. Trust us and give us opportunity to do it. Now, men, who will go down? I feel that we shall get to them this time and bring them out. Who volunteers?" A dozen miners stepped forward from the crowd; sturdy, strong-limbed men, with courage stamped on their dust-soiled faces, and heroic resolution gleaming from their eyes. "Good! we want but eight. Take the aprons of the women; give us the safety-lamps, the oil, the brandy; there, ready; slack off!" Burnham had stepped on to the carriage with the men who were going down. One of them cried out to him:-- "Don't ye go, sir! don't ye go! it'll be worth the life o' ye!" "I'll not ask men to go where I dare not go myself," he said; "slack off!" For an instant the carriage trembled in the slight rise that preceded its descent, and in that instant a boy, a young slender boy, pushed his way through the encircling crowd, leaped in among the men of the rescuing party, and with them went speeding down into the blackness. It was Ralph. After the first moment of surprise his employer recognized him. "Ralph!" he exclaimed, "Ralph, why have you done this?" "I couldn't help it, sir," replied the boy; "I had to come. Please don't send me back." "But it's a desperate trip. These men are taking their lives in their hands." "I know it, sir; but they ain't one o' them whose life is worth so little as mine. They've all got folks to live an' work for, an' I ain't. I'll go where they don't dare. Please let me help!" The men who were clustered on the carriage looked down on the boy in mute astonishment. His slight figure was drawn up to its full height; his little hands were tightly clenched; out from his brown eyes shone the fire of resolution. Some latent spirit of true knighthood had risen in his breast, had quenched all the coward in his nature, and impelled him, in that one moment that called for sacrifice and courage, to a deed as daring and heroic as any that the knights of old were ever prompted to perform. To those who looked upon him thus, the dust and rags that covered him were blotted out, the marks of pain and poverty and all his childish weaknesses had disappeared, and it seemed to them almost as though a messenger from God were standing in their midst. But Robert Burnham saw something besides this in the child's face; he saw a likeness to himself that startled him. Men see things in moments of sublimity to which at all other times their eyes are blinded. He thought of Craft's story; he thought of the boy's story; he compared them; a sudden hope seized him, a conviction broke upon his mind like a flash of light. This boy was his son. For the moment, all other thoughts, motives, desires were blotted from his mind. His desperate errand was lost to sight. The imperilled miners were forgotten. "Ralph!" he cried, seizing the boy's hand in both of his; "Ralph, I have found you!" But the child looked up in wonder, and the men who stood by did not know what it meant. The carriage struck the floor of the mine and they all stepped off. The shock at stopping brought Burnham to himself. This was no time, no place to recognize the lad and take him to his heart. He would do that--afterward. Duty, with a stern voice, was calling to him now. "Men," he said, "are you ready? Here, soak the aprons; Ralph, take this; now then, come on!" Up the heading, in single file, they walked swiftly, swinging their safety-lamps in their hands, or holding them against their breasts. They knew that up in the chambers their comrades were lying prostrate and in pain. They knew that the spaces through which they must pass to reach them were filled with poisonous gases, and that in those regions death lurked in every "entrance" and behind every "pillar." But they hurried on, saying little, fearing little, hoping much, as they plunged ahead into the blackness, on their humane but desperate errand. A half-hour later the bell in the engine-room tinkled softly once, and then rang savagely again and again to "hoist away." The great wheel turned fast and faster; the piston-rods flew in and out; the iron ropes hummed as they cut the air; and the people at the shaft's mouth waited, breathless with suspense, to see what the blackness would yield up to them. The carriage rose swiftly to the surface. On it four men, tottering and exhausted, were supporting an insensible body in their midst. The body was taken into strong arms, and borne hurriedly to the office of the breaker, a little distance away. Then a boy staggered off the carriage and fell fainting into the outstretched arms of Bachelor Billy. "Ralph!" cried the man, "Ralph, lad! here! brandy for the child! brandy, quick!" After a little the boy opened his eyes, and gazed wonderingly at the people who were looking down on him. Then he remembered what had happened. "Mr. Burnham," he whispered, "is--is he alive?" "Yes, lad; they've took 'im to the office; the doctor's in wi' 'im. Did ye fin' the air bad?" The child lay back with a sigh of relief. "Yes," he said, "very bad. We got to 'em though; we found 'em an' brought 'em out. I carried the things; they couldn't 'a' got along 'ithout me." The carriage had gone down again and brought up a load of those who had suffered from the fire. They were blackened, burned, disfigured, but living. One of them, in the midst of his agony, cried out:-- "Whaur is he? whaur's Robert Burnham? I'll gi' ma life for his, an' ye'll save his to 'im. Ye mus' na let 'im dee. Mon! he done the brawest thing ye ever kenned. He plungit through the belt o' after-damp ahead o' all o' them, an' draggit us back across it, mon by mon, an' did na fa' till he pullit the last one ayont it. Did ye ever hear the like? He's worth a thousan' o' us. I say ye mus' na let 'im dee!" Over at the breaker office there was silence. The doctor and his helpers were there with Robert Burnham, and the door was closed. Every one knew that, inside, a desperate struggle was going on between life and death. The story of Burnham's bravery had gone out through the assembled crowds, and, with one instinct and one hope, all eyes were turned toward the little room wherein he lay. Men spoke in whispers; women were weeping softly; every face was set in pale expectancy. There were hundreds there who would have given all they had on earth to prolong this noble life for just one day. Still, there was silence at the office. It grew ominous. A great hush had fallen on the multitude. The sun dropped down behind the hills, obscured in mist, and the pallor that precedes the twilight overspread the earth. Then the office door was opened, and the white-haired doctor came outside and stood upon the steps. His head was bared and his eyes were filled with tears. He turned to those who stood near by, and whispered, sadly:-- "He is dead." CHAPTER III. A BRILLIANT SCHEME. Lackawanna Avenue is the principal thoroughfare in the city of Scranton. Anthracite Avenue leads from it eastwardly at right angles. Midway in the second block, on the right side of this last named street, there stood, twenty years ago, a small wooden building, but one story in height. It was set well back from the street, and a stone walk led up to the front door. On the door-post, at the left, was a sign, in rusty gilt letters, reading:-- JOHN R. SHARPMAN, ATTORNEY AT LAW. On the morning following his interview with Robert Burnham, Simon Craft turned in from Anthracite Avenue, shuffled along the walk to the office door, and stood for a minute examining the sign, and comparing the name on it with the name on a bit of paper that he held in his hand. "That's the man," he muttered; "he's the one;" and he entered at the half-opened door. Inside, a clerk sat, busily writing. "Mr. Sharpman has not come down yet," he said, in answer to Craft's question. "Take a chair; he'll be here in twenty minutes." The old man seated himself, and the clerk resumed his writing. In less than half an hour Sharpman came in. He was a tall, well-built man, forty years of age, smooth-faced, with a clerical cast of countenance, easy and graceful in manner, and of pleasant address. After a few words relating to a certain matter of business, the clerk said to his employer,-- "This man has been waiting some time to see you, Mr. Sharpman." The lawyer advanced to Craft, and shook hands with him in a very friendly way. "Good-morning, sir," he said. "Will you step into my office, sir?" He ushered the old man into an inner room, and gave him an easy, cushioned chair to sit in. Sharpman was nothing, if not gracious. Rich and poor, alike, were met by him with the utmost cordiality. He had a pleasant word for every one. His success at the bar was due, in no small degree, to his apparent frankness and friendliness toward all men. The fact that these qualities were indeed apparent rather than real, did not seem to matter; the general effect was the same. His personal character, so far as any one knew, was beyond reproach. But his reputation for shrewdness, for sharp practice, for concocting brilliant financial schemes, was general. It was this latter reputation that had brought Simon Graft to him. This morning Sharpman was especially courteous. He regretted that his visitor had been obliged to wait so long. He spoke of the beautiful weather. He noticed that the old man was in ill health, and expressed much sorrow thereat. Finally he said: "Well, my friend, I am at your service for any favor I can do you." Craft was not displeased with the lawyer's manner. On the contrary, he rather liked it. But he was too shrewd and far-sighted to allow himself to be carried away by it. He proceeded at once to business. He took from an inner pocket of his coat the paper that Robert Burnham had given to him the day before, unfolded it slowly, and handed it to Sharpman. "I want your opinion of this paper," he said. "Is it drawn up in legal shape? Is it binding on the man that signed it?" Sharpman took the paper, and read it carefully through; then he looked up at Craft in unfeigned surprise. "My dear sir!" he said, "did you know that Robert Burnham died last night?" The old man started from his chair in sudden amazement. "Died!" he exclaimed. "Robert Burnham--died!" "Yes; suffocated by foul air in his own mine. It was a dreadful thing." Craft dropped into his chair again, his pale face growing each moment more pale and gaunt, and stared at the lawyer in silence. Finally he said: "There must be some mistake. I saw him only yesterday. He signed that paper in my presence as late as four o'clock." "Very likely," responded Sharpman: "he did not die until after six. Oh, no! there is no mistake. It was this Robert Burnham. I know his signature." The old man sat for another minute in silence, keen disappointment written plainly on his face. Then a thought came to him. "Don't that agreement bind his heirs?" he gasped, "or his estate? Don't somebody have to pay me that money, when I bring the boy?" The lawyer took the paper up, and re-read it. "No;" he said. "The agreement was binding only on Burnham himself. It calls for the production of the boy to him personally; you can't produce anything to a dead man." Old Simon settled back in his chair, a perfect picture of gaunt despair. Sharpman continued: "This is a strange case, though. I thought that child of Burnham's was dead. Do you mean to say that the boy is still living?" "Yes; that's it. He wasn't even hurt. Of course he's alive. I know it." "Can you prove it?" "Certainly!" The lawyer gazed at his visitor, apparently in doubt as to the man's veracity or sanity, and again there was silence. Finally Craft spoke. Another thought had come to him. "The boy's mother; she's living, ain't she?" "Burnham's widow? Yes; she's living." "Then I'll go to her! I'll make a new contract with her. The money'll be hers, now. I'll raise on my price! She'll pay it. I'll warrant she'll pay it! May be it's lucky for me, after all, that I've got her to deal with instead of her husband!" Even Sharpman was amazed and disgusted at this exhibition of cruel greed in the face of death. "That's it!" continued the old man in an exulting tone; "that's the plan. I'll go to her. I'll get my money--I'll get it in spite of death!" He rose from his chair, and grasped his cane to go, but the excitement had brought on a severe fit of coughing, and he was obliged to resume his seat until it was over. This delay gave Sharpman time to think. "Wait!" he said, when the old man had finally recovered; "wait a little. I think I have a plan in mind that is better than yours--one that will bring you in more cash." "More cash?" Craft was quiet and attentive in a moment. The word "cash" had a magical influence over him. Sharpman arose, closed the door between the two rooms tightly, and locked it. "Some one might chance to intrude," he explained. Then he came back, sat down in front of his visitor, and assumed an attitude of confidence. "Yes," he said, "more cash; ten times as much." "Well, what's your plan?" asked the old man, somewhat incredulously. "Let me tell you first what I know," replied the lawyer. "I know that Mrs. Burnham believes this boy to be dead; believes it with her whole mind and heart. You would find it exceedingly difficult to convince her to the contrary. She would explain away your proofs: she would fail to recognize the child himself. Such an errand as you propose would be little better than useless." Sharpman paused. "Well, what's your plan?" repeated Craft, impatiently. The lawyer assumed a still more confidential attitude. "Listen! Burnham died rich. His wealth will mount well up into the hundreds of thousands. He leaves a widow and one daughter, a little girl. This boy, if he is really Burnham's son, is entitled to one third of the personal property absolutely, to one third of the real estate at once, and to one fourth of the remainder at his mother's death. Do you understand?" Old Simon nodded. This was worth listening to. He began to think that this shrewd lawyer was going to put him in the way of making a fortune after all. Sharpman continued: "Now, the boy is a minor. He must have a guardian. The mother would be the guardian preferred by law; but if, for any reason, she should fail to recognize the boy as her son, some one else must be appointed. It will be the duty of the guardian to establish his ward's identity in case it should be disputed, to sue for his portion of the estate, if necessary, and to receive and care for it till the boy reaches his majority. The usual guardian's commission is five per cent, retainable out of the funds of the estate. Do you see how the management of such an estate would be a fortune to a guardian, acting within the strict letter of the law?" Craft nodded again, but this time with eagerness and excitement. He saw that a scheme was being opened up to him that outrivalled in splendid opportunities any he had ever thought of. After a pause Sharpman asked, glancing furtively at his client:-- "Do you think, Mr. Craft, that you could take upon your shoulders the duties and responsibilities attendant upon such a trust? In short, could you act as this boy's guardian?" "Yes, no doubt of it"; responded the old man, eagerly. "Why, I would be the very person. I am his nearest friend." "Very well; that's my opinion, too. Now, then, as to the boy's identity. There must be no mistake in proving that. What proof have you? Tell me what you know about it." Thus requested, Craft gave to the lawyer a detailed account of the disaster at the bridge, of the finding and keeping of Ralph, of his mysterious disappearance, and of the prolonged search for him. "Day before yesterday," continued the old man, "I was watching the crowds at the circus,--I knew the boy was fond of circuses,--an who should go by me into the tent but this same Ralph. I made sure he was the identical person, and yesterday I went to Robert Burnham, and got that paper." "Indeed! Where does the boy live? what does he do?" "Why, it seems that he works at picking slate, in Burnham's own breaker, and lives with one Bachelor Billy, a simple-minded old fellow, without a family, who took the boy in when he was abandoned by the circus." "Good!" exclaimed the lawyer; "good! we shall have a capital case. But wait; does Mrs. Burnham know of your interview with her husband, or about this paper?" "I don't know. I left the man at his office, alone." "At what hour?" "Well, about half-past four, as nearly as I can judge." "Then it's not at all probable that she knows. He went from his office directly to the breaker, and died before she could see him." "Well, how shall we begin?" said Craft, impatiently. "What's the first thing to be done?" Visions of golden thousands were already floating before his greedy eyes. "We shall not begin at all, just yet," said Sharpman. "We'll wait till the horror and excitement, consequent upon this disaster, have passed away. It wouldn't do to proceed now; besides, all action should be postponed, at any rate, until an inventory of the estate shall have been filed." A look of disappointment came into old Simon's face. The lawyer noticed it. "You mustn't be in too much of a hurry," he said. "All good things come slowly. Now, I'll tell you what I propose to do. After this excitement has passed over, and the lady's mind has become somewhat settled, I will go to her myself, and say to her frankly that you believe her son to be still alive. Of course, she'll not believe me. Indeed, I shall be very careful to put the matter in such a shape that she will not believe me. I will say to her, however, that you have employed me to prosecute your claim for services to the child, and that it will be necessary to have a guardian appointed against whom such action may be taken. I will suggest to her that if she will acknowledge the boy to be her son, she will be the proper person to act as his guardian. Of course, she will refuse to do either. The rest is easy. We will go into court with a petition setting forth the facts in the case, stating that the boy's mother has refused to act as his guardian, and asking for your appointment as such. Do you see?" "Oh, yes! that's good; that's very good, indeed." "But, let me see, though; you'll have to give bonds. There's the trouble. Got any money, or any rich friends?" "Neither; I'm very poor, very poor indeed, Mr. Sharpman." "Ah! that's awkward. We can do nothing without bondsmen. The court wouldn't let us touch a penny of that fund without first giving good bonds.". The look of disappointment and trouble had returned into the old man's face. "Ain't there some way you could get bonds for me?" he asked, appealingly. "Well, yes, I suppose I might procure bondsmen for you; I suppose I might go on your bond myself. But you see no one cares to risk his fortune in the hands of a total stranger that way. We don't know you; we don't know what you might do." "Oh! I should be honest, Mr. Sharpman, perfectly honest and discreet; and you should not suffer to the value of a cent, not a single cent." "No doubt your intentions are good enough, my dear sir, but it requires great skill to handle so large an estate properly, and a single error in judgment on your part might cost thousands of dollars. Good intentions and promises are well enough in their way, but they are no security against misfortune, you see. I guess we'll have to drop the scheme, after all." Sharpman arose and walked the floor in apparent perplexity, while Craft, resting his hands on his cane, and staring silently at the lawyer, tried to conceive some plan to prevent this golden opportunity from eluding his grasp. Finally Sharpman stopped. "Craft," he said, "I'll tell you what I'll do. If you will give me a power of attorney to hold and manage all the funds of the trust until the boy shall have attained his majority, I'll get the necessary bonds for you." Craft thought a moment. The proposition did not strike him favorably. "That would be putting the whole thing out of my hands into yours," he said. "Ah! but you would still be the boy's guardian, with right to use all the money that in your judgment should be necessary, to maintain and educate him according to his proper station in life. For this purpose I would agree to pay you three thousand dollars on receipt of the funds, and three thousand dollars each year thereafter, besides your guardian's commission, which would amount to eight or ten thousand dollars at least. I would also agree to pay you a liberal sum for past services, say two or three thousand dollars. You would have no responsibility whatever in the matter. I would be liable for any mistakes you might make. You could use the money as you saw fit. What do you say?" The scheme appeared to Simon Craft to be a very brilliant one. He saw a great fortune in it for himself, if he could only depend on the lawyer's promises. "Will you give me a writing to this effect?" he asked. "Certainly; we shall have a mutual agreement." "Then I'll do it. You'll get the lion's share I can see that easy enough; but if you'll do what you say you will, I shan't complain. Then will I have a right to take the boy again?" "Yes, after your appointment; but I don't think I would, if I were you. If he is contented and well off, you had better let him stay where he is. He might give you the slip again. How old is he now?" "I don't know exactly; somewhere between ten and twelve, I think." "Well, his consent to the choice of a guardian is not necessary; but I think it would be better, under the circumstances, if he would go into court with us, and agree to your appointment. Do you think he will?" Old Simon frowned savagely. "Yes, he will," he exclaimed. "I'll make him do it. I've made him do harder things than that; it's a pity if I can't make him do what's for his own benefit now!" He struck the floor viciously with his cane. "Easy," said the lawyer, soothingly, "easy; I fear the boy has been his own master too long to be bullied. We shall have to work him in a different way now. I think I can manage it, though. I'll have him come down here some day, after we get Mrs. Burnham's refusal to acknowledge him, and I'll explain matters to him, and show him why it's necessary that you should take hold of the case. I'll use logic with him, and I'll wager that he'll come around all right. You must treat boys as though they were men, Craft. They will listen to reason, and yield to persuasion, but they won't be bullied, not even into a fortune. By the way, I don't quite understand how it was, if Burnham was searching energetically for the boy, and you were searching with as much energy for the boy's father all those years, that you didn't meet each other sooner." Craft looked up slyly from under his shaggy eyebrows. "May I speak confidentially?" he asked. "Certainly." "Well, then, I didn't wear myself out hunting for the boy's friends, for the first year or two. Time increases the value of some things, you know--lost children, particularly. I knew there was money back of the boy by the looks of his clothes. I kept matters pretty well covered up for a while; allowed that he was my grandson; made him call me 'Grandpa'; carried the scheme a little too far, and came near losing everything. Now, do you see?" Sharpman nodded, and smiled knowingly. "You're a shrewd man, Craft," he said. But the old man's thought had returned to the wealth he believed to be in store for him. "What's to be done now?" he asked. "Ain't there something we can start on?" "No; we can do nothing until after I have seen the widow, and that will be a couple of months yet at least. In the meantime, you must not say a word to any one about this matter. The boy, especially, must not know that you have been here. Come again about the first of September. In the meantime, get together the evidence necessary to establish the boy's identity. We mustn't fail in that when it comes to an issue." "I'll have proof enough, no fear of that. The only thing I don't like about the business is this waiting. I'm pretty bad here," placing his bony hand on his chest; "no knowing how long I'll last." "Oh! you're good for twenty years yet," said Sharpman, heartily, taking him by the hand, and walking with him to the door. "A--are you pretty well off for money? Would trifling loan be of any benefit to you?" "Why, if you can spare it," said the old man, trying to suppress his evident pleasure at the offer; "if you can spare it, it would come in very handy indeed." Sharpman drew a well-filled wallet from his pocket, took two bills from it, folded them together, and placed them into Craft's trembling fingers. "There," he said, "that's all right; we won't say anything about that till we come into our fortune." Old Simon pocketed the money, mumbling his thanks as he did so. The two men shook hands again at the outer door, and Craft trudged down the avenue, toward the railroad station, his mind filled with visions of enormous wealth, but his patience sorely tried by the long delay that he must suffer before his fingers should close upon the promised money. Sharpman returned to his office to congratulate himself upon the happy chance that had placed so rich an opportunity within his grasp. If the old man's story were true--he proposed to take steps immediately to satisfy himself upon that point--then he saw no reason why he should not have the management of a large estate. Of course there would be opposition, but if he could succeed so far as to get the funds and the property into his hands, he felt sure that, in one way or another, he could make a fortune out of the estate before he should be compelled to relinquish his hold. As for Simon Craft, he should use him so far as such use was necessary for the accomplishment of his object. After that he would or would not keep faith with him, as he chose. And as for Ralph, if he were really Robert Burnham's son, he would be rich enough at any rate, and if he were not that son he would not be entitled to wealth. There was no use, therefore, in being over-conscientious on his account. It was a brilliant scheme, worth risking a great deal on, both of money and reputation, Sharpman resolved to make the most of it. CHAPTER IV. A SET OF RESOLUTIONS. It was the morning of the third day after the disaster at Burnham Shaft. The breaker boys were to go that morning, in a body, to the mansion of their dead employer to look for the last time on his face. They had asked that they might be permitted to do this, and the privilege had been granted. Grief holds short reign in young hearts, it is true; but the sorrow in the hearts of these children of toil was none the less sincere. Had there been any tendency to forget their loss, the solemn faces and tearful eyes of those who were older than they would have been a constant reminder. As Robert Burnham had been universally beloved, so his death was universally mourned. The miners at Burnham Shaft felt that they had especial cause for grief. He had a way of coming to the mines and looking after them and their labor, personally, that they liked. He knew the names of all the men who worked there, and he had a word of kindly greeting for each one whom he met. When he came among them out of the darkness of heading or chamber, there seemed, somehow, to be more light in the mines, more light and better air, and a sense of cheeriness and comfort. And, after he had gone, you could hear these men whistling and singing at their tasks for hours; the mere fact of his presence had so lightened their labors. The bosses caught this spirit of friendliness, and there was always harmony at Burnham Breaker and in the Burnham mines, among all who labored there in any way whatever. But the screen-room boys had, somehow, come to look upon this man as their especial friend. He sympathized with them. He seemed to understand how hard it was for boys like they were to bend all day above those moving streams of coal. He always had kind words for them, and devised means to lessen, at times, the rigid monotony of their tasks. They regarded him with something of that affection which a child has for a firm, kind parent. Moreover, they looked upon him as a type of that perfect manhood toward which each, to the extent of his poor ability, should strive to climb. Even in his death he had set for them a shining mark of manly bravery. He had died to rescue others. If he had been a father to them before, he was a hero to them now. But he was dead. They had heard his gentle voice and seen his kindly smile and felt the searching tenderness of his brown eyes for the last time. They would see his face once more; it would not be like him as he was, but--they would see it. They had gathered on the grass-plot, on the hill east of the breaker, under the shadow of a great oak-tree. There were forty of them. They were dressed in their best clothes; not very rich apparel to be sure, patched and worn and faded most of it was, but it was their very best. There was no loud talking among them. There were no tricks being played; there was no shouting, no laughter. They were all sober-faced, earnest, and sorrowful. One of the boys spoke up and said: "Tell you what I think, fellows; I think we ought to pass res'lutions like what the miners they done." "Res'lutions," said another, "w'at's them?" "W'y," said a third, "it's a little piece o' black cloth, like a veil, w'at you wear on your arm w'en you go to a fun'al." Then some one proposed that the meeting should first be duly organized. Many of the boys had attended the miners' meetings and knew something about parliamentary organization. "I move't Ralph Buckley, he be chairman," said one. "I second the move," said another. The motion was put, and Ralph was unanimously elected as chairman. "They ain't no time to make any speech," he said, backing up against the tree in order to face the assemblage. "We got jest time to 'lect a sec'etary and draw out some res'lutions." "I move't Jimmie Donnelly be sec'etary." "I second Jimmie Donnelly." "All you who want Jimmie Donnelly for sec'etary, hol' up your right han's an' say yi." There was a chorus of yi's. "I move't Ed. Williams be treasher." Then the objector rose. "Aw!" he said, "we don't want no treasher. W'at we want a treasher for? we ain't goin' to spen' no money." "You got to have a treasher," broke in a youthful Gushing, "you got to have one, or less your meetin' won't be legal, nor your res'lutions, neither!" The discussion was ended abruptly by some one seconding the nomination of Ed. Williams, and the motion was immediately put and carried. "Now," said another young parliamentarian, "I move't the chairman pint out a committee of three fellows to write the res'lutions." This motion was also seconded, put, and carried, and Ralph designated three boys in the company, one of whom, Joe Foster, had more than an ordinary reputation for learning, as a committee on resolutions; and, while they went down to the breaker office for pen, ink, and paper, the meeting took a recess. It was, indeed, a task for those three unlearned boys to express in writing, their grief consequent upon the death of their employer, and their sympathy for his living loved ones, but they performed it. There was some discussion concerning a proper form for beginning. One thought they should begin by saying, "Know all men by these presents." "But we ain't got no presents to give 'em," said another, "an' if we had it ain't no time to give any presents." Joe Foster had attended the meeting at which the resolutions by the miners were adopted, and after recalling, as nearly as possible, the language in which they were drawn, it was decided to begin:--"We, the breaker boys, of Burnham Breaker, in mass meeting met"-- After that, with the exception of an occasional dispute concerning the spelling of a word, they got on very well, and came, finally, to the end. "You two write your names on to it," said Jack Murphy; "I won't put mine down; two's enough." "Oh! we've all got to sign it," said Joe Foster; "a majoriky ain't enough to make a paper like this stan' law." "Well, I don't b'lieve I'll sign it," responded Jack; "I don't like the res'lutions very well, anyway." "Why not? they're jest as you wanted 'em--oh, I know! you can't write your name. "Well, I guess I could, maybe, if I wanted to, but I don't want to; I'm 'fraid I'd spile the looks o' the paper. You's fellows go ahead an' sign it." "I'll tell you what to do," said Joe; "I'll write your name jest as good as I can, an' then you can put your solemn cross on top of it, an' that'll make it jest as legal as it can be got." So they arranged it in that way. Joe signed Jack Murphy's name in his very best style, and then Jack took the pen and under Joe's explicit directions, drew one line horizontally through the name and another line perpendicularly between the two words of it, and Joe wrote above it: "his solem mark." This completed the resolutions, and the committee hurried back with them to the impatient assembly. The meeting was called to order again, and Joe Foster read the resolutions. "That's jest the way I feel about it," said Ralph, "jest the way that paper reads. He couldn't 'a' been no better to us, no way. Boys," he continued, earnestly, forgetting for the time being his position, "do you 'member 'bout his comin' into the screen-room last Tuesday an' givin' us each a quarter to go t' the circus with? Well, I'd cut my han' that day on a piece o' coal, an' it was a-bleedin' bad, an' he see it, an' he asked me what was the matter with it, an' I told 'im, an' he took it an' washed it off, he did, jest as nice an' careful; an' then what d'ye think he done? W'y he took 'is own han'kerchy, his own han'kerchy, mind ye, an' tore it into strips an' wrapped it roun' my han' jest as nice--jest as nice--" And here the memory of this kindness became so vivid in Ralph's mind that he broke down and cried outright. "It was jes' like 'im," said one in the crowd; "he was always a-doin' sumpthin' jes' like that. D'ye 'member that time w'en I froze my ear, an' he give me money to buy a new cap with ear-laps on to it?" The recital of this incident called from another the statement of some generous deed, and, in the fund of kindly reminiscence thus aroused, the resolutions came near to being wholly forgotten. But they were remembered, finally, and were called up and adopted, and it was agreed that the chairman should carry them and present them to whoever should be found in charge at the house. Then, with Ralph and Joe Foster leading the procession, they started toward the city. Reaching Laburnum Avenue, they marched down that street in twos until they came to the Burnham residence. There was a short consultation there, and then they all passed in through the gate to the lawn, and Ralph and Joe went up the broad stone steps to the door. A kind-faced woman met them there, and Ralph said: "We've come, if you please, the breaker boys have come to--to--" The woman smiled sweetly, and said: "Yes, we've been expecting you; wait a moment and I will see what arrangements have been made for you." Joe Foster nudged Ralph with his elbow, and whispered:-- "The res'lutions, Ralph, the res'lutions; now's the time; give 'em to her." But Ralph did not hear him. His mind was elsewhere. As his eyes grew accustomed to the dim light in the hall, and he saw the winding staircase with its richly carved posts, the beauty of the stained-glass windows, the graceful hangings, the broad doors, the pictures, and the flowers, there came upon him a sense of strange familiarity with the scene. It seemed to him as though sometime, somewhere, he had seen it, known it all before. The feeling was so sudden and so strong that it made him faint and dizzy. The kind-featured woman saw the pallor on his face and the tremor on his lips, and led him to a chair. She ascribed his weakness to sorrow and excitement, and the dread of looking on a dead face. "Poor boy!" she said. "I don't wonder at it; he was more than generous to us all." But Joe, afraid that the resolutions he had labored on with so much diligence would be forgotten, spoke of them again to Ralph. "Oh, yes," said Ralph, with a wan smile, "oh, yes! here's the res'lutions. That's the way the breaker boys feel--the way it says in this paper; an' we want Mrs. Burnham to know." "I'll take it to her," said the woman, receiving from Ralph's hands the awkwardly folded and now sadly soiled paper. "You will wait here a moment, please." She passed up the broad staircase, by the richly colored window at the landing, and was lost to sight; while the two boys, sitting in the spacious hall, gazed, with wondering eyes, upon the beauty which surrounded them. The widow of Robert Burnham sat in the morning-room of her desolated home, talking calmly with her friends. After the first shock incident upon her husband's death had passed away, she had made no outcry, she grew quiet and self-possessed, she was ready for any consultation, gave all necessary orders, spoke of her dead husband's goodness to her with a smile on her face, and looked calmly forth into the future. The shock of that terrible message from the mines, two days ago, had paralyzed her emotional nature, and left her white-faced and tearless. She had a smile and a kind word for every one as before; she had eaten mechanically; but she had lain with wide-open eyes all night, and still no one had seen a single tear upon her cheeks. This was why they feared for her; they said, "She must weep, or she will die." Some one came into the room and spoke to her. "The breaker boys, who asked to come this morning, are here." "Let them come in," she said, "and pass through the parlors and look upon him; and let them be treated with all kindness and courtesy." "They have brought this paper, containing resolutions passed by them, which they would like to have you read." Mrs. Burnham took the paper, and asked the woman to wait while she read it. There was something in the fact that these boys had passed resolutions of sympathy that touched her heart. She unfolded the soiled paper and read:-- Wee, the braker Boys of burnham braker in mass meeting met Did pass thease res'lutions. first the braker Boys is all vary sory indede Cause mister Burnham dide. second Wee have A grate dele of sympathy for his wife and his little girl, what has got to get along now without him. third wee are vary Proud of him cause he dide a trying to save John Welshes life and pat Morys life and the other mens lifes. fourth he was vary Good indede to us Boys, and they ain't one of us but what liked him vary mutch and feel vary bad. fift Wee dont none of us ixpect to have no moar sutch good Times at the braker as wee did Befoar. sixt Wee aint scollers enougth to rite it down just what wee feel, but wee feel a hunderd times more an what weave got rote down. JOE FOSTER, comity, PAT DONNELLY, comity, his solem mark JACK + MURFY comity. The widow laid aside the paper, put her face in her hands, and began to weep. There was something in the honest, unskilled way in which these boys had laid their hearts open before her in this time of general sorrow, that brought the tears into her eyes at last, and for many minutes they flowed without restraint. Those who were with her knew that the danger that had menaced her was passed. After a little she lifted her head. "I will see the boys," she said. "I will thank them in person. Tell them to assemble in the hall." The message was given, and the boys filed into the broad hall, and stood waiting, hats in hand, in silence and in awe. Down the wide staircase the lady came, holding her little girl by the hand, and at the last step they halted. As Ralph looked up and saw her face, pallid but beautiful, and felt the influence of her gracious yet commanding presence, there came over him again that strange sensation as of beholding some familiar sight. It seemed to him that sometime, somewhere, he had not only seen her and known her, but that she had been very close to him. He felt an almost uncontrollable impulse to cry out to her for some word, some look of recognition. Then she began to speak. He held himself firmly by the back of a chair, and listened as to a voice that had been familiar to him in some state of being prior to his life on earth. "Boys," said the lady, "I come to thank you in person for your assurances of sympathy for me and for my little daughter, and for your veneration for the dead. I know that his feeling toward you was very kind, that he tried to lighten your labors as he could, that he hoped for you that you would all grow into strong, good men. I do not wonder that you sorrow at his loss. This honest, simple tribute to his memory that you have given to me has touched me deeply. "I cannot hope to be as close to you as he was, but from this time forth I shall be twice your friend. I want to take each one of you by the hand as you pass by, in token of our friendship, and of my faith in you, and my gratitude toward you." So, one by one, as they passed into the room beyond, she held each boy's hand for a moment and spoke to him some kind word, and every heart in her presence went out to her in sympathy and love. Last of all came Ralph. As leader of the party he had thought it proper to give precedence to the rest. The lady took his hand as he came by, the same hand that had received her husband's tender care; but there was something in his pallid, grief-marked face, in the brown eyes filled with tears, in the sensitive trembling of the delicate lips, as she looked down on him, that brought swift tenderness for him to her heart. She bent over and lifted up his face to hers, and kissed his lips, and then, unable longer to restrain her emotion, she turned and hastened up the stairway, and was lost to sight. For many minutes Ralph stood still, in gratified amazement. It was the first time in all his life, so far as memory served him, that any one had kissed him. And that this grief-stricken lady should be the first--it was very strange, but very beautiful, indeed. He felt that by that kiss he had been lifted to a higher level, to a clearer, purer atmosphere, to a station where better things than he had ever done before would be expected of him now; he felt, indeed, as though it were the first long reach ahead to attain to such a manhood as was Robert Burnham's. The repetition of this name in his mind brought him to himself, and he turned into the parlor just as the last one of the other boys was passing out. He hurried across the room to look upon the face of his friend and employer. It was not the unpleasant sight that he had feared it might be. The dead man's features were relaxed and calm. A smile seemed to be playing about the lips. The face had all its wonted color and fulness, and one might well have thought, looking on the closed eye-lids, that he lay asleep. Standing thus in the presence of death, the boy had no fear. His only feeling was one of tenderness and of deep sorrow. The man had been so kind to him in life, so very kind. It seemed almost as though the lips might part and speak to him. But he was dead; this was his face, this his body; but he, himself, was not here. Dead! The word struck harshly on his mind and roused him from his reverie. He looked up; the boys had all gone, only the kind-faced woman stood there with a puzzled expression in her eyes. She had chanced to mark the strong resemblance between the face of the dead man and that of the boy who looked upon it; a resemblance so striking that it startled her. In the countenance of Robert Burnham as he had looked in life, one might not have noticed it, but-- "Sometimes, in a dead man's face, To those that watch it more and more, A likeness, hardly seen before, Comes out, to some one of his race." It was so here. The faces of the dead man and of the living boy were the faces of father and son. Ralph turned away, at last, from the lifeless presence before him, from the searching eyes of the woman, from the hall with its dim suggestions of something in the long ago, and went out into the street, into the sunlight, into the busy world around him; but from that time forth a shadow rested on his young life that had never darkened it before,--a shadow whose cause he could not fathom and whose gloom he could not dispel. CHAPTER V. IN SEARCH OF A MOTHER. Three months had gone by since the accident at Burnham Shaft. They were summer months, full of sunshine and green landscapes and singing birds and blossoming flowers and all things beautiful. But in the house from which the body of Robert Burnham had been carried to the grave there were still tears and desolation. Not, indeed, as an outward show; Margaret Burnham was very brave, and hid her grief under a calm exterior, but there were times, in the quiet of her own chamber, when loneliness and sorrow came down upon her as a burden too great for her woman's heart to bear. Still, she had her daughter Mildred, and the child's sweet ways and ceaseless chatter and fond devotion charmed her, now and then, into something almost like forgetfulness. She often sighed, and said: "If only Ralph had lived, that I might have both my children with me now!" One morning, toward the middle of September, Lawyer John H. Sharpman rang the bell at the door of the Burnham mansion, sent his card up to Mrs. Burnham, and seated himself gracefully in an easy-chair by the parlor window to wait for her appearance. She came soon and greeted him with gracious dignity. He was very courteous to her; he apologized for coming, in this way, without previous announcement, but said that the nature of his errand seemed to render it necessary. "I am sure no apology is required," she replied; "I shall be pleased to listen to you." "Then I will proceed directly to the matter in hand. You remember, of course, the Cherry Brook disaster and what occurred there?" "I shall never forget it," she said. "I have a strange thing to tell you about that, an almost incredible thing. An old man has visited me at my office, within the last few days, who claims to have saved your child from that wreck, to have taken him to his own home and cared for him, and to know that he is living to-day." The woman rose from her chair, with a sudden pallor on her face, too greatly startled, for the moment, to reply. "I beg you to be calm, madam," the lawyer said; "I will try to speak of the matter as gently as possible." "Ralph!" she exclaimed, "my Ralph! did you say that he is living?" "So this old man says. I am simply telling you his story. He seems to be very much in earnest, though I am bound to say that his appearance is somewhat against him." "Who is he? Bring him here! I will question him myself. Bring the child to me also; why did you not bring the child?" "My dear lady, I beg that you will be calm; if you will allow me I will explain it all, so far as lies in my power." "But if my boy is living I must see him; I cannot wait! It is cruel to keep him from me!" Sharpman began to fear that he had injured his cause by presenting the case too strongly. At this rate the lady would soon believe, fully, that her son had been saved and could be restored to her. With such a belief in her mind the success of his scheme would be impossible. It would never do to let her go on in this way; he began to remonstrate. "But, madam, I am telling to you only what this man has told to me. I have no means of proving his veracity, and his appearance, as I have said, is against him. I have agreed to assist him only in case he is able to establish, beyond question, the boy's identity. Thus far his statements have not been wholly satisfactory." Mrs. Burnham had grown more calm. The startling suddenness of the proposition that Ralph was living had, for the time being, overmastered her. Now she sank back into her chair, with pale face, controlling her emotion with an effort, trying to give way to reason. "What does he say?" she asked. "What is this old man's story?" Sharpman repeated, in substance, old Simon's account of the rescue, giving to it, however, an air of lightness and improbability that it had not had before. "It is possible," he added, "that the evidence you have of the child's death is sufficient to refute this man's story completely. On what facts do you rest your belief, if I am at liberty to ask?" "The proofs," she replied, "have seemed to us to be abundant. Neither Mr. Burnham nor myself were in a condition to make personal investigation until some days had elapsed from the time of the accident, and then the wreck had been cleared away. But we learned beyond doubt that there was but one other child in the car, a bright, pretty boy of Ralph's age, travelling with his grandfather, and that this child was saved. No one had seen Ralph after the crash; no article of clothing that he wore has ever been found; there were only a few trinkets, fireproof, that he carried in the pocket of his skirt, discovered in the ashes of the wreck." The lady put her hands to her eyes as if to shut out the memory of some dread sight. "And I presume you made diligent inquiry afterward?" questioned the lawyer. "Oh, yes! of the most searching nature, but no trace could be found of our child's existence. We came to the firm belief, long ago, that he died that night. The most that we have dared to hope is that his sufferings were not great nor prolonged." "It seems incredible," said Sharpman, "that the child could have been saved and cared for, without your knowledge, through so long a period. But the man appears to be in earnest, his story is a straightforward one, and I feel it to be my duty to examine into it. Of course, his object is to get gain. He wants compensation for his services in the matter of rescuing and caring for the child. He seems also to be very desirous that the boy's rights should be established and maintained, and has asked me to take the matter in hand in that respect as well. Are you prepared to say, definitely, that no evidence would induce you to believe your child to be living?" "Oh, no! not that. But I should want something very strong in the way of proof. Let this man come and relate his story to me. If it is false, I think I should be able to detect it." "I advised him to do so, but, aside from his appearance, which is hardly in harmony with these surroundings, I think he would prefer not to hold a personal conference with the boy's friends. I may as well give you my reason for that belief. The old man says that the boy ran away from him two or three years ago, and I have inferred that the flight was due, partially, at least, to unkind treatment on Craft's part. I believe he is now afraid to talk the matter over with you personally, lest you should rebuke him too severely for his conduct toward the child and his failure to take proper care of him. He is anxious that all negotiations should be conducted through his attorney. Rather sensitive, he is, for a man of his general stamp." "And did the child return to him?" asked the lady, anxiously, not heeding the lawyer's last remark. "Oh, no! The old man searched the country over for him. He did not find him until this summer." "And where was he found?" "Here, in Scranton." "In Scranton! That is strange. Is the boy here still?" "He is." "Where does he live? who cares for him?" Sharpman had not intended to give quite so much information, but he could not well evade these questions and at the same time appear to be perfectly honest in the matter, so he answered her frankly: "He lives with one William Buckley, better known as 'Bachelor Billy.' He works in the screen-room at Burnham Breaker." "Indeed! by what name is he known?" "By your son's name--Ralph." "Ralph, the slate-picker! Do you mean that boy?" It was Sharpman's turn to be surprised. "Do you know him?" he asked, quickly. "I do," she replied. "My husband first told me of him; I have seen him frequently; I have talked with him so lately as yesterday." "Ah, indeed! I am very glad you know the boy. We can talk more intelligently concerning him." "Do I understand you, then, to claim that Ralph, the slate-picker, is my son? this boy and no other?" "That is my client's statement, madam." The lady leaned back wearily in her chair. "Then I fear you have come upon a futile errand, Mr. Sharpman," she said. But, from the lawyer's stand-point, it began to look as if the errand was to be successful. He felt that he could speak a little more strongly now of Ralph's identity with Mrs. Burnham's son without endangering his cause. "Can you remember," he said, "nothing about the lad's appearance that impressed you--now that you know the claim set up for hi--that impressed you with a sense of his relationship to you?" "Nothing, sir, nothing whatever. The boy is a bright, frank, manly fellow; I have taken much interest in him from the first. His sorrow at the time of my husband's death touched me very deeply. I have been several times since then to look after his comfort and happiness. I saw and talked with him yesterday, as I have already told you. But he is not my son, sir, he is not my son." "Pardon me, madam! but you must remember that time works wonders in a child's appearance; from three to eleven is a long stretch." "I appreciate that fact, but I recall no resemblance whatever. My baby had light, curling hair, large eyes, full round cheeks and chin, a glow of health and happiness in his face. This lad is different, very different. There could not have been so great a change. Oh, no, sir! your client is mistaken; the boy is not my son; I am sure he is not." Sharpman was rejoiced. Everything was working now exactly according to his plan. He thought it safe to push his scheme more rapidly. "But my client," he said, "appears to be perfectly sincere in his belief. He will doubtless desire me to institute legal proceedings to recover for the boy his portion of Robert Burnham's estate." "If you can recover it," she said, calmly, "I shall transfer it to the child most cheerfully. I take it, however, that you must first establish his identity as an heir?" "Certainly." "And do you think this can be done against my positive testimony?" "Perhaps not; that remains to be seen. But I do not desire to contemplate such a contingency. My object, my sole object, is to obtain a harmonious settlement of this matter outside of the courts. That is why I am here in person. I had hoped that I might induce you to acknowledge the boy as your son, to agree to set off his interest in his father's estate, and to reimburse my client, to some extent, for his care and services. This is my only wish in the matter, I assure you." "Why, as to that," she replied, "I am willing to recognize services performed for any one; and if this old man has rescued and cared for the boy, even though he is not my son--I have enough; if the man is in want, I will help him, I will give him money. But wait! did you say he had been cruel to the child? Then I withdraw my offer. I have no pity for the harsh task-masters of young children. Something to eat, to drink, to wear,--I will give him that,--nothing more." "I am to understand, then, that you positively decline to acknowledge this boy as your son?" asked the lawyer, rising. "With the evidence that I now have," she said, "I do. I should be glad to assist him; I have it in mind to do so; he is a brave, good boy, and I love him. But I can do nothing more, sir,--nothing more." "I regret exceedingly, madam, the failure of my visit," said Sharpman, bowing himself toward the door. "I trust, I sincerely trust, that whatever I may find it in my heart and conscience to do in behalf of this boy, through the medium of the courts, will meet with no bitterness of feeling on your part." "Certainly not," she replied, standing in matronly dignity. "You could do me no greater favor than to prove to me that this boy is Ralph Burnham. If I could believe that he is really my son, I would take him to my heart with inexpressible joy. Without that belief I should be false to my daughter's interest to compel her to share with a stranger not only her father's estate but also her mother's affection." "Madam, I have the most profound respect for your conscience and your judgment. I trust that no meeting between us will be less pleasant than this one has been. I wish you good-morning!" "Good-morning, sir!" Sharpman bowed himself gracefully out, and walked briskly down the street, with a smile on his face. The execution of his scheme had met, thus far, with a success which he had hardly anticipated. * * * * * Every one about Burnham Breaker knew Bachelor Billy. No one ever knew any ill of him. He was simple and unlearned, but his heart was very large, and he was honest and manly to the marrow of his bones. He had no ties of family or of kin, but every one who knew him was his friend; every child who saw him smiled up instinctively into his face; he was a brother to all men. Gray spots were coming in his hair, his shoulders were bowed with toil, and his limbs were bent with disease, but the kind look never vanished from his rugged face, and the kind word never faltered on his lips. He went to his task at Burnham Breaker in the early morning, he toiled all day, and came home at night, happy and contented with his lot. His work was at the head of the shaft, at the very topmost part of the towering breaker. When a mine car came up, loaded with coal, it was his duty to push it to the dump, some forty feet away, to tip it till the load ran out, and then to push it back to the waiting carriage. Michael Maloney had been Billy's assistant here, in other years; but, one day, Michael stepped back, inadvertently, into the open mouth of the shaft, and, three minutes later, his mangled remains were gathered up at the foot. Billy knew that Michael's widow was poor, with a family of small children to care for, so he came and hired from her a part of her cottage to live in, and took his meals with her, and paid her generously. To this house he had taken Ralph. It was not an elegant home, to be sure, but it was a home where no harsh word was spoken from year's end to year's end; and to Ralph, fresh from his dreadful life with Simon Craft, this was much, oh! very much, indeed. The boy was very fond of "Uncle Billy," as he called him, and the days and nights he spent with him were not unhappy ones. But since the day when Mrs. Burnham turned his face to hers, and kissed him on his lips, there had been a longing in his heart for something more; a longing which, at first, he could not quite define, but which grew and crystallized, at last, into a strong desire to merit and possess the fond affection, and to live in the sweet presence, of a kind and loving mother. He had always wanted a mother, ever since he could remember. The thought of one had always brought a picture of perfect happiness to his mind. But never, until now, had that want reached so great proportions. It had come to be the leading motive and ambition of his life. He yearned for mother-love and home affection, with an intensity as passionate, a desire as deep, as ever stirred within the heart of man. He had not revealed his longing to Bachelor Billy. He feared that he might think he was discontented and unhappy, and he would not have hurt his Uncle Billy's feelings for the world. So the summer days went by, and he kept his thought in this matter, as much as possible, to himself. It had come to be the middle of September. There had been a three days rain, which had so freshened the parched grass and checked the fading of the leaves, that one might readily have thought the summer had returned to bring new foliage and flowers, and to deck the earth for still another season with its covering of green. But it had cleared off cold. "It'd be nice to have a fire to-night, Uncle Billy," said Ralph, as the two were walking home together in the twilight, from their day's work at the breaker. "Wull, lad," was the reply, "ye ha' the wood choppit for it, ye can mak' un oop." So, after supper, Ralph built a wood fire in the little rude grate, and Billy lighted his clay pipe, and they both drew their chairs up before the comfortable blaze, and watched it while they talked. It was the first fire of the season, and they enjoyed it. It seemed to bring not only warmth but cheer. "Ain't this nice, Uncle Billy?" said Ralph, after quite a long silence. "Seems kind o' home-like an' happy, don't it?" "Ye're richt, lad! Gin a mon has a guid fire to sit to, an' a guid pipe o' 'bacca to pull awa' on, what more wull ye? eh, Ralph!" "A comfortable room like this to stay in, Uncle Billy," replied the boy, looking around on the four bare walls, the uncarpeted floor, and the rude furniture of the room, all bright and glowing now in the light of the cheerful fire. "Oh! the room's guid enook, guid enook," responded the man, without removing the pipe from his mouth. "An' a nice bed, like ours, to sleep in." "True for ye lad; tired bones rest well in a saft bed." "An' plenty to eat, too, Uncle Billy; that's a good thing to have." "Richt again, Ralph! richt again!" exclaimed Billy, enthusiastically, pushing the burning tobacco down in the bowl of his pipe. "An' the Widow Maloney, she do gi' us 'mazin' proper food, now, don't she? D'ye min' that opple pie we had for sooper, lad?" "Yes, that was good," said Ralph, gazing absently into the fire. "They's only one thing more we need, Uncle Billy, an' that's somebody to love us. Not but what you an' me cares a good deal for each other," added Ralph, apprehensively, as the man puffed vigorously away at his pipe, "but that ain't it. I mean somebody, some woman, you know, 'at'd kiss us an' comfort us an' be nice to us that way." Billy turned and gazed contemplatively at Ralph. "Been readin' some more o' them love-stories?" he asked, smiling behind a cloud of smoke. "No, I ain't, an' I don't mean that kind. I mean your mother or your sister or your wife--it'd be jes' like as though you had a wife, you know, Uncle Billy." Again, the man puffed savagely at his pipe before replying. "Wull," he said at last, "na doot it'd be comfortin' to have a guid weef to care for ye; but they're an awfu' trooble, Ralph, women is,--an awfu' trooble." "But you don't know, Uncle Billy; you ain't had no 'xperience." "No more am I like to have. I'm a gittin' too auld now. I could na get me a weef an' I wanted one. Hoot, lad! think o' your Uncle Billy wi' a weef to look after; it's no' sensiba, no' sensiba," and the man took his pipe from his mouth and indulged in a hearty burst of laughter at the mental vision of himself in matrimonial chains. "But then," persisted Ralph, "you'd have such a nice home, you know; an' somebody to look glad an' smile an' say nice things to you w'en you come home from work o' nights. Uncle Billy, I'd give a good deal if I had it, jes' to have a home like other boys has, an' mothers an' fathers an' sisters an' all that." "Wull, lad, I've done the bes' I could for ye, I've--" "Oh, Uncle Billy!" interrupted the boy, rising and laying his hand on the man's shoulder affectionately, "you know I don't mean that; I don't mean but what you've been awful good to me; jes' as good as any one ever could be; but it's sumpthin' dif'rent from that 'at I mean. I'm thinkin' about a home with pirty things in it, books, an' pictures, an' cushions, the way women fix 'em you know, an'--an' a mother; I want a mother very much; I think it'd be the mos' beautiful thing in the world to have a mother. You've had one, ain't you, Uncle Billy?" The man's face had taken on a pleased expression when Ralph began with his expostulation, but, as the boy continued, the look changed into one of sadness. "Yes, lad," he said, "an' a guid mither she waur too. She died an' went to heaven it's mony a year sin', but I still min' the sweet way she had wi' me. Ye're richt, laddie, there's naught like a blessed mither to care for ye--an' ye never had the good o' one yoursel'"--turning and looking at the boy, with an expression of wondering pity on his face, as though that thought had occurred to him now for the first time. "No, I never had, you know; that's the worst of it. If I could only remember jest the least bit about my mother, it wouldn't seem so bad, but I can't remember nothing, not nothing." "Puir lad! puir lad! I had na thocht o' that afoor. But, patience, Ralph, patience; mayhap we'll find a mither for ye yet." "Oh, Uncle Billy! if we could, if we only could! Do you know, sometimes w'en I go down town, an' walk along the street, an' see the ladies there, I look at ev'ry one I meet, an' w'en a real nice beautiful one comes along, I say to myself, 'I wisht that lady was my mother,' an' w'en some other one goes by, I say, 'I wonder if that ain't my mother.' It don't do no good, you know, but it's kind o' comfortin'." "Puir lad!" repeated Billy, putting his arm around the boy and drawing him up closer to his chair, "Puir lad!" "You 'member that night I come home a-cryin', an' I couldn't tell w'at the matter was? Well, it wasn't nothin' but that. I come by a house down there in the city, w'ere they had it all lighted up, an' they wasn't no curtains acrost the windows, an' you could look right in. They was a havin' a little party there; they was a father an' a mother an' sisters and brothers an' all; an' they was all a-laughin' an' a-playin' an' jest as happy as they could be. An' they was a boy there 'at wasn't no bigger'n me, an' his mother come an' put her arms aroun' his neck an' kissed him. It didn't seem as though I could stan' it, Uncle Billy, I wanted to go in so bad an' be one of 'em. An' then it begun to rain, an' I had to come away, an' I walked up here in the dark all alone, an' w'en I got here they wasn't nothin' but jest one room, an' nobody but you a-waitin' for me, an'--no! now, Uncle Billy, don't! I don't mean nothin' like that--you've been jest as good to me as you could be; you've been awful good to me, al'ays! but it ain't like, you know; it ain't like havin' a home with your own mother." "Never min', laddie; never min'; ye s'all have a hame, an' a mither too some day, I mak' na doot,--some day." There was silence for a time, then Bachelor Billy continued:-- "Gin ye had your choice, lad, what kin' o' a mither would ye choose for yoursel'?" "Oh! I don't know--yes, I do too!--it's wild, I know it's wild, an' I hadn't ought to think of it; but if I could have jest the mother I want, it'd be--it'd be Mrs. Burnham. There! now, don't laugh, Uncle Billy; I know it's out o' all reason; she's very rich, an' beautiful, an' everything; but if I could be her boy for jest one week--jest one week, Uncle Billy, I'd--well, I'd be willin' to die." "Ye mak' high choice, Ralph, high choice; but why not? ye're as like to find the mither in high places as in low, an' liker too fra my way o' thinkin'. Choose the bes', lad, choose the bes'!" "But she's so good to us," continued the boy, "an' she talks so nice to us. You 'member the time I told you 'bout, w'en we breaker boys went down there, all of us, an' she cried kin' o' soft, an' stooped down an' kissed me? I shouldn't never forgit that if I live to be a thousan' years old. An' jes' think of her kissin' me that way ev'ry night,--think of it Uncle Billy! an' ev'ry mornin' too, maybe; wouldn't that be--be--" and Ralph, at a loss for a fitting wor to represent such bliss as that, simply clasped his hands together and gazed wistfully into the fire. After a minute or two he went on: "She 'membered it, too. I was 'fraid she'd never know which boy it was she kissed, they was so many of us there; but she did, you know, an' she's been to see me, an' brought me things, ain't she? an' promised to help me find out about myself jest the same as Mr. Burnham did. Oh dear! I hope she won't die now, like he did--Uncle Billy! oh, Uncle Billy!" as a sudden thought struck in on the boy's mind, "if she was--if Mrs. Burnham _was_ my mother, then Mr. Burnham would 'a' been my father wouldn't he?" "Na doot, lad, na doot." "Robert Burnham--would 'a' been--my father. Oh!" The boy drew himself up to his full height and stood gazing into the fire in proud contemplation of such overwhelming happiness and honor. There was a knock at the door. Ralph went and opened it, and a young man stepped in. "Ah! good evening!" he said. "Does a man by the name of Buckley live here? William Buckley?" "That's my name," responded Billy, rising from his chair. "And are you Ralph?" asked the young man, turning to the boy. "Yes, sir, that's my name, too," was the quick reply. "Well, Ralph, can you take a little walk with me this evening, as far as Lawyer Sharpman's office?" "Wha' for do ye want the lad?" asked Billy, advancing and placing a chair for the stranger to sit in. "Well, to speak confidentially, I believe it's something about his parentage." "Who his father an' mother waur?" "Yes." "Then he s'all go wi' ye if he like. Ralph, ye can put on the new jacket an' go wi' the mon." The boy's heart beat tumultuously as he hurried on his best clothes. At last! at last he was to know. Some one had found him out. He was no longer "nobody's child." He struggled into his Sunday coat, pulled his cap on his head, and, in less than ten minutes he was out on the road with the messenger, hurrying through the frosty air and the bright moonlight, toward Sharpman's office. CHAPTER VI. BREAKING THE NEWS. Simon Craft and Lawyer Sharpman were sitting together in the rear room of the latter's law office. The window-shades were closely drawn, shutting out the mellow light of the full moon, which rested brightly and beautifully on all objects out of doors. The gas jet, shaded by a powerful reflector, threw a disk of light on the round table beneath it, but the corners of the room were in shadow. It was in a shaded corner that Craft was sitting, resting his folded arms on his cane, while Sharpman, seated carelessly by the table, was toying with a pencil. There were pleased looks on the faces of both men; but old Simon seemed to have grown thinner and feebler during the summer months, and his cough troubled him greatly. Sharpman was saying: "If we can succeed in managing the boy, now, as well as we have managed the mother, I think we are all right. I somewhat fear the effect of your presence on him, Craft, but he may as well see you to-night as later. You must keep cool, and be gentle; don't let him think you are here for any purpose but his good." "Oh! you may trust me, Mr. Sharpman," responded the old man, "you may trust me. I shall get into the spirit of the scheme very nicely." "What kind of a boy is he, any way? Pretty clear-headed?" "Well, yes, middling; but as obstinate as a mule. When he gets his mind set on a thing, it's no use to try to budge him. I've whipped him till he was black and blue, and it didn't do a penny's worth of good." "You should have used moral suasion, Craft; that's the way to treat boys. Get their confidence, and then you can handle them. Well, we'll get Ralph's mind fixed on the fact that he is Mrs. Burnham's son, and see how he'll stick to that. Hark! There they come now. Sooner than I expected." The outer door of the office was opened, and Ralph and the young man entered. The messenger disappeared into the inner room, but after a minute or two he came out and ushered Ralph into the presence of the lawyer. Sharpman arose, greeted the boy pleasantly and shook hands with him, and Ralph thought that lawyers were not such forbidding people after all. "Do you recognize this gentleman?" said Sharpman, turning, with a wave of his hand, toward old Simon. The old man was sitting there with his hands crossed on his cane, and with a grim smile on his gaunt face. Ralph looked intently, for a moment, into the shadow, and then, with an exclamation of surprise and fear on his lips, he stepped back toward the door. "I won't go!" he cried; "don't make me go back with him, sir!" turning his distressed face to the lawyer, as he spoke. Sharpman advanced and took the boy by the hand and led him to a chair. "Don't be afraid," he said, gently, "there's no cause for alarm. You shall not go back with him. He is not here to take you back, but to establish your identity." Then a new fear dawned upon Ralph's mind. "He ain't my grandfather!" he exclaimed. "Simon Craft ain't my grandfather. He wouldn't never 'a' whipped me the way he done if he'd a-been truly my grandfather." Craft looked up at Sharpman with a little nod. The boy had identified him pretty plainly, and proved the truth of his story to that extent at least. "Oh, no!" said the lawyer, "oh, no! Mr. Craft is not your grandfather; he doesn't claim to be. He has come here only to do you good. Now, be calm and reasonable, and listen to what we have to tell you, and, my word for it, you will go back to Billy Buckley's to-night with a heart as light as a feather. Now, you'll take my advice, and do that much, won't you?" "Yes, I will," said Ralph, settling himself into his chair, "I will, if I can only find out about my father 'n' mother. But I won't go back to live with him; I won't never go back there!" "Oh, no!" replied Sharpman, "we'll find a better home for you than Mr. Craft could ever give you. Now, if you will sit still and listen to us, and take our advice, we will tell you more things about yourself than you have ever thought of knowing. You want to hear them, don't you?" "Well, yes," replied Ralph, smiling and rapidly regaining his composure; "yes, of course." "I thought so. Now I want to ask you one or two questions. In the first place, what do you remember about yourself before you went to live with Mr. Craft?" "I don't remember anything, sir,--not anything." "Haven't you a faint recollection of having been in a big accident sometime; say, for instance, a railroad disaster?" "No--I don't think I have. I think I must 'a' dreamed sumpthin' like that once, but I guess it never happened to me, or I'd 'member more about it." "Well, Ralph, it did happen to you. You were riding in a railroad car with your father and mother, and the train went through a bridge. A good many people were killed, and a good many more were wounded; but you were saved. Do you know how?" Ralph did not answer the question. His face had suddenly paled. "Were my father an' mother killed?" he exclaimed. "No, Ralph, they were not killed. They were injured, but they recovered in good time." "Are they alive now? where are they?" asked the boy, rising suddenly from his chair. "Be patient, Ralph! be patient! we will get to that in time. Be seated and answer my question. Do you know how you were saved?" "No, sir; I don't." "Well, my boy," said the lawyer, impressively, pointing his finger toward Craft, "there is the man who saved you. He was on the train. He rushed into the wreck at the risk of his life, and drew you from the car window. In another minute it would have been too late. He fell back into the river holding you in his arms, but he saved you from both fire and water. The effort and exposure of that night brought on the illness that has resulted in the permanent loss of his health, and left him in the condition in which you now see him." Ralph looked earnestly at old Simon, who still sat, quiet and speechless, chuckling to himself, and wishing, in his heart, that he could tell a story as smoothly and impressively as Lawyer Sharpman. "An' do I owe my life to him?" asked the boy. "Wouldn't I 'a' been saved if he hadn't 'a' saved me?" "It is not at all probable," replied Sharpman. "The flames had already reached you, and your clothing was on fire when you were drawn from the car." It was hard for Ralph to believe in any heroic or unselfish conduct on the part of Simon Craft; but as he felt the force of the story, and thought of the horrors of a death by fire, he began to relent toward the old man, and was ready to condone the harsh treatment that he had suffered at his hands. "I'm sure I'm much obliged to 'im," he said, "I'm much obliged to 'im, even if he did use me very bad afterwards." "But you must remember, Ralph, that Mr. Craft was very poor, and he was ill and irritable, and your high temper and stubborn ways annoyed him greatly. But he never ceased to have your best interests at heart, and he was in constant search of your parents, in order to restore you to them. Do you remember that he used often to be away from home?" "Yes, sir, he used to go an' leave me with ole Sally." "Well, he was away searching for your friends. He continued the search for five years, and at last he found your father and mother. He hurried back to Philadelphia to get you and bring you to your parents, as the best means of breaking to them the glad news; and when he reached his home, what do you suppose he found?" Ralph smiled sheepishly, and said: "I 'xpect, maybe, I'd run away." "Yes, my boy, you had. You had left his sheltering roof and his fostering care, without his knowledge or consent. Most men would have left you, then, to struggle on by yourself, as best you could; and would have rewarded your ingratitude by forgetfulness. Not so with Mr. Craft. He swallowed his pain and disappointment, and went out to search for you. He had your welfare too deeply at heart to neglect you, even then. His mind had been too long set on restoring you to loving parents and a happy home. After years of unremitting toil he found you, and is here to-night to act as your best and nearest friend." Ralph had sat during this recital, with astonishment plainly depicted on his face. He could scarcely believe what he heard. The idea that Simon Craft could be kind or good to any one had never occurred to him before. "I hope," he said, slowly, "I hope you'll forgive me, Gran'pa Simon, if I've thought wrong of you. I didn't know 'at you was a-doin' all that for me, an' I thought I was a-havin' a pirty hard time with you." "Well," said Craft, speaking for the first time since Ralph's entrance. "Well, we won't say anything more about your bad behavior; it's all past and gone now, and I'm here to help you, not to scold you. I'm going to put you, now, in the way of getting back into your own home and family, if you'll let me. What do you say?" "I'm sure that's very good in you, an' of course I'd like it. You couldn't do anything for me 'at I'd like better. I'm sorry if I've ever hurt your feelin's, but--" "How do you think you would like to belong to a nice family, Ralph?" interrupted Sharpman. "I think it'd make me very happy, sir." "And have a home, a beautiful home, with books, pictures, horses, fine clothes, everything that wealth could furnish?" "That'd be lovely, very lovely; but I don't quite 'xpect that, an' what I want most is a good mother, a real, nice, good mother. Haven't you got one for me? say, haven't you got one?" The boy had risen to his feet and stood with clasped hands, gazing anxiously at Sharpman. "Yes, my boy, yes," said the lawyer, "we've found a good mother for you, the best in the city of Scranton, and the sweetest little sister you ever saw. Now what do you think?" "I think--I think 'at it's most too good to be true. But you wouldn't tell me a lie about it, would you? you wouldn't do that, would you?" "Oh, no! Ralph; good lawyers never lie, and I'm a good lawyer." "An' when can I see 'em? Can I go to 'em to-night? I don't b'lieve I can wait,--I don't b'lieve I can!" "Ralph! Ralph! you promised to be quiet and reasonable. There, be seated and wait till you hear us through. There is something better yet for you to know. Now, who do you suppose your mother is? She lives in Scranton." Ralph sat, for a moment, in stupid wonder, staring at Sharpman. Then a brilliant thought, borne on by instinct, impulse, strong desire, flashed like a ray of sunlight, into his mind, and he started to his feet again, exclaiming:-- "Mrs. Burnham! it can't be! oh, it can't be! tell me, is it Mrs. Burnham?" Craft and Sharpman exchanged quick glances of amazement, and the latter said, impressively:-- "Yes, Ralph, Mrs. Burnham is your mother." The boy stood for another moment, as if lost in thought; then he cried out, suddenly: "And Mr. Burnham, he--he was my--my father!" and he sank back into his chair, with a sudden weakness in his limbs, and a mist before his eyes. For many minutes no one spoke. Then Ralph asked, quietly,-- "Does--does she know?" "Now, Ralph," said Sharpman, "now comes the strangest part of the story. Your mother believes you to be dead. She believes that you perished in the accident at Cherry Brook, and has mourned for you ever since the time of that disaster." "Am I the boy--am I the Ralph she lost?" "The very one, but we cannot make her think so. I went to her, myself, this morning, and told her that you are alive. I told her who you are, and all about you. She knows you, but she will not believe that you are her son. She wants better evidence than we can give to her, outside of the courts." "An' won't she never believe it? won't she never take me?" The boy's voice and look revealed the sudden clashing of his hope. "Oh, yes, Ralph! in time; I do not doubt that in good time she will recognize you and take you to her home. She has so long believed you to be dead that it is hard for her to overcome the prejudice of that belief." Then another fear came into the lad's mind. "Are you sure," he cried out, "that I am her boy? are you sure I'm the right one?" "Oh, yes!" said the lawyer, assuringly, "oh, yes! there's no mistake about that, there isn't the shadow of a doubt about that. We shall establish your identity beyond question; but we shall have to do it in the courts. When it is once done no one can prevent you from taking the name and the property to which you are entitled and using them as you see fit." "But my mother!" said Ralph, anxiously, "my mother; she's all I care about; I don't want the property if I can't have her." "And you shall have her, my boy. Mrs. Burnham said to me this morning, that, until your claim was duly proved in a court of law, she would have no legal right to accept you as her son; but that, when your identity is once established in that way, she will receive you into her home and her heart with much joy." Ralph looked up with brightening eyes. "Did she say that?" he exclaimed, "an' will she do it?" "I have no doubt of it, none whatever." "Then let's get at it right away," said the boy, impatiently, "it won't take very long, will it?" "Oh! some little time; several months, may be; may be longer." Ralph's face fell again. "I can't wait that long!" he exclaimed; "I'll go to her myself; I'll tell her ev'rything; I'll beg her to take me. Do you think she would? do you?" "Oh, Ralph! now be reasonable. That would never do. In the first place, it would be useless. She has seen you, she knows you; she says you are not her son; you can't prove it to her. Besides that, she has no legal right to take you as her son until the courts have passed upon the question of your identity. If she should attempt to do so, the other heirs of Robert Burnham would come in and contest your claim, and you would be in a far worse position to maintain your rights than you are now,--oh! far worse. No, you must not go to Mrs. Burnham, you must not go to her at all, until your sonship is fully established. You must keep cool, and wait patiently, or you will destroy every chance you have." "Well, then, I'll try to; I'll try to wait an' do what you tell me to; what shall I do first?" "The first thing to be done, Ralph, is to have the court appoint a guardian for you. You can't do anything for yourself, legally, you know, till you are twenty-one years old; and whatever action is taken in your behalf, must be taken by a guardian. It will be his place to establish your identity, to restore you to your mother, and to take care of your property. Now, who would you prefer to have act in that capacity?" "Well, I don't know; there's Uncle Billy, he's the best friend I've got; wouldn't he do?" "Do you mean William Buckley, with whom you are living?" "Yes, sir." "Why, he would do if he were rich, or had rich friends who would go on his bond. You see, the guardian would have to give a bond to the extent of a great many thousand dollars for the faithful performance of his duties. Could Buckley do that?" "I'm afraid not, sir. He ain't rich, himself, an' I never heard of his havin' any rich friends." "Whom else can you think of?" "Won't Mrs. Burnham do?" "Oh, no! it might be necessary for the guardian to bring suit against her." "There ain't anybody else that I can think of," said Ralph, despairingly, after a moment's pause. "Well, then, I don't know what we shall do. If you can't find some one who is able to qualify for this trust, we may as well stop right here. I guess we've done all we can for the boy, Mr. Craft?" Craft nodded and smiled. He was enjoying the lawyer's diplomacy with Ralph, exceedingly. The lad was again in the depths of anxiety. He looked from one to the other of the men with appealing eyes. "Ain't they some way to fix it, Mr. Sharpman?" he said. "Can't you do sumpthin' for me?" "Oh! I couldn't be your guardian, my boy, the law wouldn't allow that; and Mr. Craft, here, hasn't money enough. I guess we'll have to give up the idea of restoring you to your mother, and let you go back to work in the breaker again." "That'd be too bad," said the boy. "Don't do that; I couldn't stan' that--now. Can't you see my mother again, Mr. Sharpman, an' get her to take me--some way?" "It can't be done, Ralph. There's only one way to fix it, and that is to get a guardian for you. If we can't do that, we may as well give it all up." The anxiety and disappointment expressed in the lad's face was pitiful to look upon. Then Craft spoke up. "Ralph has been very unkind and ungrateful to me," he said, "but I have always been his best friend. I saved his life; and I've spent time and money and lost my health on his account. But I'm willing to do him a favor yet, if he thinks he can appreciate it. I'll act as his guardian and take care of his property for him, if he'll be a good boy and do as we tell him." "I'll do everything I can," said Ralph, eagerly, "'ceptin' to go back an' live with you; everything--but Mr. Sharpman said you wasn't rich enough." "No, I ain't," responded the old man; "and I don't know how to get around that difficulty, unless Mr. Sharpman will help me and be my bondsman." Ralph turned his face pleadingly to Sharpman. "Oh, now, Craft!" said the lawyer, smiling, and shaking his head, "don't you think you are presuming a little too much on my friendship? If you were the only one to be trusted, why, I might do it; but in this case I would have to depend on the boy as well, and there's no knowing how he would misbehave. According to your own story, he is a wilful, wrong-headed lad, who has already rewarded your kindness to him with base ingratitude. Oh, no! I could trust you, but not him." "Mr. Sharpman!" pleaded the boy, "Mr. Sharpman, I never meant to be mean or unkind to Gran'pa Simon. I never knew't he saved my life, never. I thought he abused me, I did; I was sure of it; that's the reason I run away from 'im. But, you see, I'm older now; I'd be more reason'ble; I'll do anything you tell me to, Mr. Sharpman,--anything, if you'll only fix it for Gran'pa Simon so's't he can help me get back to my mother." The lawyer sat for a few moments as if lost in thought. Finally, he raised his head and said:-- "I've a great mind to try you, Ralph. Do you think I can really place full confidence in you?" "Yes, sir; oh, yes, sir!" "And will you follow my advice to the letter, and do just what I tell you to do in this matter?" "Yes, sir; I will." "Well, then," said Sharpman, turning to Craft, "I think I'll trust the boy, and I'll assist you in your bonds. I know that we both have his interest at heart, and I believe that, together, we can restore his rights to him, and place him in the way of acceptance by his family. Ralph," turning again to the boy, "you ought to be very thankful to have found two such good friends as Mr. Craft and myself." "Yes, sir, I am. You'll do everything you can for me, won't you? as quick as you can?" "Oh, yes! Mr. Craft will be your guardian, and I will be his bondsman and lawyer. Now, I think we understand each other, and I guess that's all for to-night." "When do you want me to come again?" "Well, I shall want you to go to Wilkesbarre with me in a few days, to have the appointment of guardian made; but I will send for you. In the meantime you will keep on with your work as usual, and say nothing to any person about what we have told you. You'll do that, won't you?" "Yes, sir, I will. But, Uncle Billy--can't I tell him? he'll be awful glad to know." "Well, yes, you may tell Billy, but charge him to keep it a profound secret." "Oh! he will, he will; he'll do anything like that 'at I ask 'im to." Ralph picked up his cap and turned to go; he hesitated a moment, then he crossed the room to where old Simon still sat, and, standing before him, he said:-- "I'm sorry you're sick, Gran'pa Simon. I never meant to do wrong by you. I'll try to do w'at's right, after this, anyway." The old man, taken by surprise, had no answer ready; and Sharpman, seeing that the situation was likely to become awkward, stepped forward and said: "Oh! I've no doubt he'll be all we can desire now." He took the boy's hand, and led him toward the door. "I see my clerk has gone," he said; "are you afraid to go home alone?" "Oh, no! It's moonlight; an' besides, I've gone home alone lot's o' nights." "Well, good luck to you! Good-night!" "Good-night!" The office door closed behind the boy, and he went out into the street and turned toward home. The moon was bright and full, and a delicate mist hung close to the earth. It was a very beautiful night. Ralph thought he had never seen so beautiful a night before. His own footsteps had a musical sound in his ears, as he hurried along, impatient to reach Bachelor Billy, and to tell to him the wonderful news,--news so wonderful that he could scarcely realize or comprehend it. Mr. Sharpman said he would be going back home to-night with a heart as light as a feather. And so he was, was he not? He asked his heart the question, but, somehow, it would not say yes. There was a vague uneasiness within him that he could not quite define. It was not because he doubted that he was Mrs. Burnham's son; he believed that fact implicitly. It was not so much, either, that he could not go to her at once; he could wait for that if the end would only surely bring it. But it seemed to him that he was being set up in a kind of opposition to her; that he was being placed in a position which might lead to an estrangement between them: and that would be a very sad result, indeed, of this effort to establish his identity. But Mr. Sharpman had assured him that Mrs. Burnham approved of the action that was about to be taken in his behalf. Why, then, should he fear? Was it not absurd to cloud his happiness with the dread of something which would never come? Away with doubts! away with fears! he would revel, for to-night at least, in the joy of his new knowledge. Mrs. Burnham was his mother; was not that beautiful, beautiful? Could he, in his wildest flight of fancy or desire, have ever hoped for more than that? But there was something more, and that something was that Robert Burnham was his father. Ah! that was, beyond all question, the highest honor that could ever rest upon a boy,--to be the son of a hero! Ralph threw back his head and shoulders with instinctive, honest pride as this thought filled his mind and heart, and his quick step grew more elastic and more firm as he hurried on along the moonlit path. He was out beyond the city limits now, climbing the long hill toward home. He could see Burnham Breaker, standing out in majestic proportions, black and clear-cut against the moon-illumined sky. By and by the little mining village came into view, and the row of cottages, in one of which the Widow Maloney lived; and finally the light in Bachelor Billy's window. When Ralph saw this he broke into a run, and sped swiftly along the deserted street, with the whole glad story of his parentage and his prospects crowding to his tongue. Billy was still sitting by the fire when the boy burst into the room; but he had fallen asleep, and his clay pipe had dropped from his fingers and lay broken on the hearth. "Uncle Billy! oh, Uncle Billy! what do you think?" "Why, Ralph, lad, is that yo'? I mus' 'a' been asleep. Whaur ye been, eh?" "W'y don't you 'member? I went to Lawyer Sharpman's office." "True for ye, so ye did. I forgot; an' did ye--" "Oh, Uncle Billy! what _do_ you think? Guess who I am; guess!" "Why, lad, don't frighten a mon like that. Ye'll wake the neeborhood. Who be ye, then?" "Guess! guess! Oh, you'd never guess! I'm Ralph Burnham; I'm Mrs. Burnham's son!" Bachelor Billy's hands dropped lifelessly to his knees, his mouth and eyes came wide open with unfeigned astonishment, and, for the moment, he was speechless. Finally he found breath to exclaim: "Why, Ralph, lad; Ralph, ye're crazy,--or a-jokin'! Don't joke wi' a mon that way, Ralph; it ain't richt!" "No, but, Uncle Billy, it's true; it's all true! Ain't it splendid?" "Be ye sure o' that, Ralph? be ye sure o' it?" "Oh! they ain't no mistake about it; they couldn't be." "Well, the guid Lord save ye, lad!" and Billy looked the boy over carefully from head to foot, apparently to see if he had undergone any change during his absence. Then he continued: "Coom, sit ye, then; sit ye, an' tell us aboot it a'; how happenit it, eh?" Again they drew their chairs up before the replenished fire, and Ralph gave a full account of all that had occurred at the lawyer's office. By virtue of his own faith he inspired Bachelor Billy with equal confidence in the truth of the story; and, by virtue of his own enthusiasm, he kindled a blaze of enthusiasm in the man's heart that glowed with hardly less of brightness than that in his own. Very late that night they sat there, these two, talking of what the future held for Ralph; building bright castles for him, and high hopes, with happiness beyond measure. It was only when the fire burned out and left its charred coals in the iron grate-bars and on the hearth that they went to bed, the one to rest in the dreamless sleep that follows in the path of honest toil, and the other to wake often from his feverish slumber and stare down into the block of moonlight that fell across his bed through the half-curtained window of the room, and wonder whether he had just dreamed it all, or whether he had, indeed, at last, a birthright and a name. CHAPTER VII. RHYMING JOE. Ten days after the evening interview at Sharpman's office, Ralph received a message from the lawyer instructing him to be at the railroad station on the following morning, prepared to go to Wilkesbarre. So Bachelor Billy went alone that day to the breaker, and Ralph stayed behind to make ready for his journey. He dressed himself in his best clothes, brushed them carefully, put a little money in his pocket, and, long before the appointed hour, he was at the station, waiting for Sharpman. The lawyer did not come until it was nearly time for the train to start. He greeted Ralph very pleasantly, and they took a seat together in the car. It was a beautiful autumn morning, and the nature-loving boy enjoyed greatly the changing views from the car window, as the train bore them swiftly on through the picturesque valley of the Lackawanna. After reaching, at Pittston, the junction with the Susquehanna River, the scenery was grander; and, as they passed down through the far-famed Wyoming Valley, Ralph thought he had never before seen anything quite so beautiful. On the whole it was a delightful journey. Sharpman was in excellent spirits and made himself very agreeable indeed. He seemed to enjoy answering the boy's bright questions, and listening to his shrewd remarks and frank opinions. It was not until they were nearing Wilkesbarre that the special object of their trip was mentioned; then the lawyer informed Ralph that they would go directly to court, and instructed him that if the judge should ask him whom he wished for his guardian, Ralph was to reply that he desired the appointment of Simon Craft. That matter being thoroughly understood, they went on to talk of what they should do in the future. "It will be necessary, eventually," said Sharpman, "to bring a formal suit against Mrs. Burnham, as administrator, to recover your interest in the estate; but, judging from what she has intimated to me, I don't anticipate any serious opposition on her part." "I'm sorry, though," responded Ralph, "that they's got to be a law-suit. Couldn't we make it so plain to her, some way, 'at I'm her son that we needn't have any suit?" "I am afraid not. Even though she, herself, were convinced, she would have no right to distribute a portion of the estate to you against the objection of her daughter's guardian. There is no way but to get a judgment of the court in the matter." "Well, why couldn't she jes' take my part, an' give it to her daughter's guarden, an' then take me home to live with her without any propaty? Wouldn't that do? I'd a good deal ruther do that than have a law-suit. A man hates to go to law with his own mother, you know." Sharpman smiled and replied: "That would be a very generous offer, indeed; but I am afraid even that would not do. You would have no right to make such an agreement before you are twenty-one years old. Oh, no! we must have a law-suit, there is no other way; but it will be a mere matter of form; you need have no fear concerning it." The train reached Wilkesbarre, and Ralph and the lawyer went directly from the station to the court-house. There were very few people in the court-room when they entered it, and there seemed to be no especial business before the court. Sharpman went down into the bar and shook hands with several of the attorneys there. The judge was writing busily at his desk. After a few moments he laid his pen aside and read a long opinion he had prepared in the matter of some decedent's estate. Ralph could not understand it at all, and his mind soon wandered to other subjects. After the reading was finished and one or two of the lawyers had made short speeches, there was a pause. Then Sharpman arose, and, drawing a bundle of papers from his pocket, he read to the court from one of them as follows:-- "TO THE HONORABLE, THE JUDGE OF THE ORPHANS' COURT OF LUZERNE COUNTY:-- "The petition of Ralph Burnham, by his next friend Simon Craft, respectfully represents that the petitioner is a minor child of Robert Burnham, late of the city of Scranton in said county, deceased, under the age of fourteen years; that he is resident within the said county and has no guardian to take care of his estate. He therefore prays the court to appoint a guardian for that purpose. "RALPH BURNHAM. By his next friend, SIMON CRAFT. Dated, Sept. 26, 1867." "Your Honor will notice that the petition is duly sworn to," said Sharpman, handing the paper to the clerk, who, in turn, handed it to the judge. There was a minute of silence. The lawyers were all staring at Sharpman in astonishment. Then, the judge spoke. "Mr. Sharpman, I was not aware that Robert Burnham left more than one child living; a girl, for whom we have already made appointment of a guardian." "I was not aware of that fact either," rejoined Sharpman, "until very recently; but it is a fact, nevertheless; and we are here now, asking that a way be prepared by which this heir may come into his rightful portion of his father's estate." "This is a peculiar case," responded the judge; "and I think we should have some other basis than this on which to act; some affidavit of facts." "I came prepared to meet that objection," said Sharpman. "I will now read, if the court please, a statement of the facts in the case." He unfolded another paper and read a long and detailed account of the wreck, of Ralph's rescue by Simon Craft, of the old man's care and keeping of the boy, of the finding of Ralph's parents, the lad's desertion, the recent discovery of his whereabouts, of Craft's toil and sacrifice in the matter, and of Ralph's desire to be restored to his family. This was signed and sworn to by Simon Craft. The judge sat for a moment in silence, as if studying the effect of this affidavit. "Has the mother been notified," he said finally, "that this child is living, and, if so, why does not she appear here to make this application?" "I will answer that question, your Honor, by reading the following affidavit," replied Sharpman. "LUZERNE COUNTY, SS.: "John H. Sharpman, attorney at law of said county, being duly sworn according to law, deposes, and says: that, on the fifteenth day of September, A.D. 1867, he called upon Mrs. Margaret Burnham, the widow of Robert Burnham, late of the city of Scranton, deceased, and administrator of the said Robert Burnham's estate, and informed her of the facts set forth in the foregoing affidavit of Simon Craft. She acknowledged her acquaintance with the boy Ralph, herein mentioned, but refused to acknowledge him as the son of Robert Burnham, or to grant him any legal interest in the estate of the said Robert Burnham. A notice, a copy of which is hereto attached, has been served on the said Margaret Burnham, warning her that application will be made to the Orphans' Court, on this day, at this hour, for the appointment of a guardian for the boy Ralph. "JOHN H. SHARPMAN. Sworn and subscribed before me, Sept. 26, 1867. ISRAEL DURHAM, _Justice of the Peace_." "Does any one appear for Mrs. Burnham in this matter?" inquired the judge, addressing the assembly of lawyers. An elderly man, short and thick-set, with gray hair and moustache, arose, and said:-- "I have been informed, as Mrs. Burnham's attorney, that such a proceeding as this was in contemplation. I appreciate your Honor's careful scrutiny of the matter before making an appointment; but, so long as we do not recognize the boy as Robert Burnham's son, it would hardly be justifiable for us to interfere in the simple appointment of a guardian for him. Inasmuch, however, as the avowed purpose is to make an attack on the Burnham estates, we shall insist that the guardian enter into a bond of sufficient amount and value to cover any damages which may accrue from any action he may see fit to take." "Have you prepared a bond, Mr. Sharpman?" inquired the judge. "We have," replied Sharpman, producing still another paper. "Mr. Goodlaw," continued the judge, addressing Mrs. Burnham's attorney, "will you look at the bond and see if it is satisfactory to you?" Mr. Goodlaw took the bond, examined it, and returned it to the clerk. "I have no objection to make to it," he said. "Then we will approve the bond, Mr. Sharpman, and make the appointment. You have named Simon Craft as guardian. We are wholly unacquainted with him. Have you consulted with the boy in this matter? What does he say?" "I have brought the boy into court, so that, notwithstanding his legal inability to make choice for himself, your Honor might be satisfied as to his wish in the matter. This is the boy," as Ralph, obedient to the lawyer's summons, came into the bar and stood beside him. The judge scrutinized the lad closely, and the lawyers leaned forward in their chairs, or came nearer for the purpose of better observation. Ralph felt somewhat embarrassed, standing there to be stared at so, but the voice of the judge soon reassured him. "Ralph," he said, "is this application for a guardian made according to your desire?" "Yes, sir," replied the boy; "Mr. Sharpman says I ought to have one." "And whom do you choose for your guardian?" "Gran'pa Simon, sir." Sharpman looked annoyed, and whispered something to Ralph. "I mean Simon Craft," said the boy, correcting himself. "Is Simon Craft your grandfather?" asked the judge, sternly. "Oh, no! I guess not. He made me call 'im that. I never had no grandfather; but Mr. Sharpman says that Robert Burnham was my father--and--and he's dead." The judge looked down at the lad somewhat uncertainly, then he said: "Well, Ralph, that will do; we'll make the appointment, but," turning to Sharpman, "we shall watch this matter closely. We shall see that justice is done to the child in any event." "It is my earnest wish," responded Sharpman, "that your Honor shall do so. My only object in the matter is to see that this boy, whom I firmly believe to be Robert Burnham's son, is restored to his family and estates, and that this old man, who has saved the lad's life, and has spent and endured much for him through many years, is adequately rewarded in his old age." The judge endorsed the papers and handed them to the clerk, and Sharpman walked up the aisle with Ralph to the door of the court-room. "I have business," said the lawyer, "which will keep me here the rest of the day. Can you find your way back to the station?" "Oh, yes!" "Here is something to pay your fare with;" offering a piece of money to the boy. "I've got enough," said Ralph, declining to accept it, "plenty; I'll get home all right." "Well, the train will leave at noon. I'll send for you when we want you again. Good-by!" "Good-by!" Ralph went down the steps, out at the door, and across the court-house yard. He was not sure that he struck into the right street to go to the station, there were so many streets radiating from the court-house square. But it did not much matter; there was plenty of time before the train would start, and he thought he would like to walk about a little, and see something of the city. He felt like walking off, too, a feeling of dissatisfaction concerning what had just been done in court. It was too much in the nature of an adverse proceeding to seem quite right to him; he was fearful that, somehow, it would estrange his mother from him. He thought there ought to be some simpler way to restore him to his family, some way in which he and his mother could act jointly and in undoubted harmony. He hoped it would all come out right, though. He did not know what better he could do, at any rate, than to follow the advice of his lawyer; and, besides that, he had promised to obey him implicitly in this matter, and he must keep his promise. He had no thought that he was being used merely as an instrument in the hands of designing men. It was with this vague feeling of unrest at his heart, and with his mind occupied by uneasy thought, that he walked leisurely down the street of this strange city, paying little attention to his course, or to what was going on around him. Finally he thought it was time he should have reached the station, or at least made some attempt to find it; so he quickened his steps a little, and looked out ahead of him. There was a man standing on the next corner, and Ralph stopped and asked him if he was on the right road to get to the station. The man laughed good-naturedly, and told him he was on the right road to get away from it, and advised him to retrace his steps for four blocks, then to go two blocks to the left, and there he would find a street running diagonally across the town, which, if he would follow it, would take him very near to the station. He would have to hurry, too, the man said, if he wanted to catch the noon train. So Ralph turned back, counting the blocks as he went, turning at the right place, and coming, at last, to the street described. But, instead of one street running diagonally from this point there were two or three; and Ralph did not know which one to follow. He asked a boy, who was passing by with a basket on his shoulder, where the station was, and the boy, bending his neck and looking at him, said,-- "I guess this's the way you want to go, sonny," pointing down one of the streets, as he spoke, and then whistling a merry tune as he trudged on with his burden. Ralph turned into the street designated, and hurried down it, block after block; but he did not reach the station, nor did he see any place that looked like it. He seemed to be in the suburbs, too, in a locality the surroundings of which impressed him unpleasantly. The buildings were small and dilapidated, there was a good deal of rubbish on the sidewalks and in the streets, a few ragged children were playing in the gutter near by, shivering with cold as they ran about in bare, dirty feet, and a drunken man, leaning against a post on the opposite corner, was talking affectionately to some imaginary person in the vicinity. Ralph thought that this, certainly, was not where he ought to be. He walked more slowly, trying to find some one who would give him reliable directions. At the corner of the block there was a house that looked somewhat better than its neighbors. It had a show-window projecting a few inches into the street, and in the window was a display of wine-bottles, and a very dirty placard announcing that oysters would be served to customers, in every style. On the ground-glass comprising the upper part of the door, the words "Sample Room" were elaborately lettered. Ralph heard some one talking inside, and, after a moment of hesitation, concluded to go in there and make his inquiry, as the need of finding his way had come to be very pressing. Coming in, as he did, from the street, the room was quite dark to his eyes, and he could not well make out, at first, who were in it. But he soon discovered a man standing, in his shirt-sleeves, behind a bar, and he went up to him and said:-- "Will you please tell me, sir, which is the nearest way to the railroad station?" "Which station d'ye want to go to, bub?" inquired the man, leaning over the bar to look at him. "The one you take the train for Scranton from." "Which train for Scranton d'ye want to take?" "The one't leaves at noon." "Why that train goes in just five minutes. You couldn't catch that train now, my little cupid, if you should spread your wings and fly to the station." It was not the bar-tender who spoke this time; it was a young man who had left his chair by the stove and had come up closer to get a better look at the boy. He was just slipping a silver watch back into his vest pocket. It was a black silk vest, dotted with little red figures. Below the vest, encasing the wearer's legs very tightly, were a pair of much soiled corduroy pantaloons that had once been of a lavender shade. Over the vest was a short, dark, double-breasted sack coat, now unbuttoned. A large gaudy, flowing cravat, and an ill-used silk hat, set well back on the wearer's head, completed this somewhat noticeable costume. There was a good-natured looking face under the hat though, smooth and freckled; but the eyes were red and heavy, and the tip of the straight nose was of quite a vermilion hue. "No, my dear boy," he continued,-- "You can't catch it, And I can't fetch it, "so you may as well take it easy and wait for the next one." "When does the next one go?" inquired Ralph, looking up at the strange young man, but with his eyes still unaccustomed to the darkness of the room. "Four o'clock, my cherub; not till four o'clock. Going up on that train myself, and I'll see you right through:-- "Oh, sonny! if you'll wait and go with me, How happy and delighted I should be." Then the young man did a strange thing; he took hold of Ralph's arm, led him to the window, turned his face to the light and scrutinized it closely. "Well, I'll be kicked to death by grasshoppers!" he exclaimed, at last, "have I found--do I behold--is this indeed the long lost Ralph?" The boy had broken away from him, and stood with frightened, wondering face, gazing steadily on the young man, as if trying to call something to memory. Then a light of recognition came into his eyes, and a smile to his lips. "Why!" he exclaimed, "it's Joe; it's Rhymin' Joe!" "A happy meeting," said the young man, "and a mutual remembrance. Heart speaks to heart. "The hand of friendship, ever true, Brings you to me and me to you. "Mr. Bummerton," turning to the bar-tender, "allow me to introduce my esteemed young friend, Mr. Ralph Craft, the worthy grandson of an old acquaintance." Mr. Bummerton reached a burly hand over the bar and shook hands cordially with Ralph. "Glad to meet your young friend," he said. "Well," continued Rhyming Joe, "isn't it strange how and under what circumstances old cronies sometimes meet? I cast my eyes on you and I said to myself, 'that young man has a familiar look to me.' I listened to your voice and I remarked to my inner consciousness, 'that voice lingers somewhere in the depths of of memory.' I turn your face to the light, and lo and behold! I reveal to my astonished gaze the features of my old friend, Ralph. "No tongue can tell my great delight, At seeing you again to-night. "Of course it isn't night yet, you know, but the pressing exigencies of rhyme often demand the elimination, as it were, of a small portion of time." Ralph was glancing uneasily about the room. "Gran'pa Simon ain't anywheres around is he?" he asked, letting his eyes rest, with careful scrutiny, on a drunken man asleep in a chair in a dark corner. "No, my boy," answered Joe, "he isn't. I haven't seen the dear old saint, for, lo, these many moons. Ah!--let me see! did you not leave the patriarch's sweet home circle, somewhat prematurely, eh? "Gave the good old man the slip Ere the cup could touch the lip?" "Yes," said Ralph, "I did. I run away. He didn't use me right." "No, he didn't, that's so. Come, be seated--tell me about it. Oh! you needn't fear. I'll not give it away. Your affectionate grandpa and I are not on speaking terms. The unpleasant bitterness of our estrangement is sapping the juices of my young life and dragging the roses from my cheeks. "How sad when lack of faith doth part The tender from the toughened heart!" Rhyming Joe had drawn two chairs near to the stove, and had playfully forced Ralph into one of them, while he, himself, took the other. The bar-tender came out from behind his bar and approached the couple. "Oh, by the way," he asked, "did ye have a ticket for your passage up, or was ye goin' to pay your fare?" "Oh, no!" said Ralph, "I ain't got any ticket. Mr. Sharpman paid my fare down, but I was goin' to pay it back, myself." The man stood, for a few minutes, listening to the reminiscences of their Philadelphia life which Ralph and Joe were recalling, then he interrupted again:-- "How'd ye like to have some dinner, me boy? Ain't ye gittin' a little hungry? it's after noon now." "Well, I am a bit hungry," responded Ralph, "that's a fact. Do you get dinners here for people?" "Oh, certainly! jest as good a dinner as ye'll git anywhere. Don't charge ye for nothing more'n ye actially eat, neither. Have some?" "Well, yes," said the boy, "I guess so; I won't have no better chance to get any, 'fore I get home." "I think," said Rhyming Joe, as the man shuffled away, "that my young friend would like a dish of soup, then a bit of tenderloin, and a little chicken-salad, and some quail on toast, with the vegetables and accessories. For dessert we will have some ices, a few chocolate eclairs and lady-fingers, and a cup of black coffee. You had better bring the iced champagne with the dinner, and don't forget the finger-bowls." Before the last words were out of the speaker's mouth, the bar-tender had disappeared through a door behind the bar, with a wicked smile on his face. It seemed a long time, to Ralph, before the man came back, but when he did come, he carried in his hands a tray, on which were bowls of oyster soup, very thin, a few crackers, and two little plates of dirty butter. He placed them on a round table at one side of the room, and Ralph and Joe drew up their chairs and began to eat. The man came again, a few minutes afterward, with bread, and pork, and cabbage, and coffee. On the whole, it was much better than no dinner, and Ralph's hunger prevented him from being very critical. The warm food seemed to have the effect of making him more communicative, and he was allowing his companion to draw out from him, little by little, as they sat and ate, the whole story of his life since leaving Simon Craft. Rhyming Joe appeared to be deeply interested and very sympathetic. "Well, you did have a hard time, my dear lad," he said, "out on the road with that circus company. I travelled with a circus company once, myself, in the capacity of special entertainer of country people and inspector of watches and jewelry, but it brings tears to my eyes now, to remember how ungratefully they treated me." "That's jes' like they did me," said Ralph; "w'en I got sick up there at Scranton, they hadn't no furder use for me, an' they went away an' lef' me there alone." "That was a sad plight to be in. How did you meet that emergency?" "I didn't meet it at all. Bachelor Billy, he met it; he foun' me, an' cured me, an' I live with him now, an' work in the breaker." "Ah, indeed! at work. _Laborarium est honorarium_, as the Latin poet has it. How often have I wished that it were possible for me to earn my bread by the sweat of my brow; but, alas!--" "Ain't it?" interrupted Ralph. "No, my dear boy, it isn't. I have been afflicted, from my youth up, with a chronic disease which the best physicians of both continents have pronounced imminently dangerous to both life and happiness, if physical exercise be immoderately indulged in." "What is it?" asked Ralph, innocently. "Indolentia, my dear boy, indolentia; a terrible affliction. But how about Grandpa Simon? Has he discovered your retreat? "Has the bald, bad eagle of the plain Swooped down upon his prey again?" "Well, not hardly that," responded Ralph, "but he's foun' me." "Indeed! And what is his state of mind concerning you now?" "He ain't my grandfather," said the boy, abruptly. "Ain't your grandfather! You startle me." "No, he ain't no relation to me." "You take my breath away! Who are you, then?" "I'm Ralph Burnham. I'm Robert Burnham's son." Ralph had not meant to disclose so much, in this place, to this fellow, but the words came out before he thought. It did not matter much anyway,--every one would soon know it. "Robert Burnham's son? You don't mean the rich coal proprietor who died at his mine in Scranton last spring?" "Yes, he's the one I mean. I'm his son." Rhyming Joe leaned across the table, lifted up the boy's chin, and looked into his eyes. "My dear young friend," he said, "I fear you have fallen into evil ways since you passed out of the range of my beneficent influence. But you should not try to impose so glittering a romance on the verdant credulity of an old acquaintance at the first meeting in many weary years." "To your faithful friend and true, Tell the truth, whate'er you do." "Tis true!" asserted Ralph, stoutly. "Gran'pa Simon says so, an' Lawyer Sharpman says so, an' Mrs. Burnham, she--she--she almost believes it, too, I guess." The bar-tender approached again and asked what else they would have. "A little something to wash the dinner down with, Bummerton," said Joe, turning again quickly to Ralph. "Then why don't you live in the Burnham mansion?" he asked, "and leave rude toil for others?" "'Cause my mother ain't able to reco'nize me yet; she can't do it till the suit's ended. They's other heirs, you know." "Suit! what suit? are you going to have a suit over it?" The bar-tender brought a bottle, a pitcher of water, two glasses, and a bowl of sugar. "Yes," replied the boy, sadly, "I s'pose we've got to. Gran'pa Simon, he's been 'pointed my garden. He ain't so bad a man as he used to be, Gran'pa Simon ain't. He's been sick a good deal lately, I guess." Rhyming Joe paid no attention to these last remarks, but he seemed to be deeply interested in the law-suit mentioned. He took time to pour some of the contents of the bottle into each glass, then he filled the glasses up with water and stirred a goodly quantity of sugar into the one he pushed toward Ralph. "What is it?" asked the boy. "Uncle Billy an' me's temperance; we don't drink nothin' much but water." "Oh!" responded Joe, "this is purely a temperance drink; it's made up from wheat, just the same as you get in your white bread. They have to drink it here in Wilkesbarre, the water is so bad. "When man and water both are ill, A little wheat-juice fills the bill. "Try some, you'll find it good." Ralph was thirsty, and he sipped a little of the mixture; but he did not like it very well, and he drank no more of it. "Who is going to carry on the suit for you?" continued Rhyming Joe; "have you got a lawyer?" "Oh, yes! Lawyer Sharpman; he's very smart, too. He's goin' to manage it." "And when will the trial come off? Perhaps I may be of some assistance to you and to my quondam friend, your sometime grandfather. I would drop all bitterness of feeling, all vain enmity, if I might do the revered patriarch a favor. "My motto has been, and my motto is yet, That it frequently pays to forgive and forget." "Oh! I don't know," Ralph replied; "it'll be two or three months yet, anyway, I guess." Rhyming Joe gazed thoughtfully at the stove. Bummerton came and began to take away the dishes. "What's your bill, landlord?" inquired Joe. "D'ye want the bill for both of ye?" "Certainly. My young friend here, if I remember rightly, invited me to dine with him. I am his guest, and he foots the bills. See?" Ralph did not remember to have asked Rhyming Joe to dine with him, but he did not want to appear mean, so he said:-- "Yes, I'll foot the bill; how much is it?" taking out his little leather wallet as he spoke. "It'll be three dollars," said Bummerton; "a dollar an' a quarter apiece for the dinner, an' a quarter apiece for the drinks." Ralph looked up in amazement. He had never before heard of a dinner being worth so much money. "Oh! it's all right," said Joe. "This is rather a high-priced hotel; but they get up everything in first-class style, do you see? "If in style you drink and eat, Lofty bills you'll have to meet." "But I ain't got that much money," said Ralph, unstrapping his wallet. "How much have ye got?" inquired the bar-tender. "I've only got a dollar'n eighty-two cents." "Well, you see, sonny," said Bummerton, "that ain't more'n half enough. Ye shouldn't order such a fancy dinner 'nless ye've got money to pay for it." "But I didn't know it was goin' to cost so much," protested Ralph. "Uncle Billy an' me got jest as good a dinner last Fourth o' July at a place in Scranton, an' it didn't cost both of us but seventy cents. Besides, I don't b'lieve--" "Look here, Bummerton!" said Joe, rising and leading the bar-tender aside. They whispered together for a few moments and then returned. "It's all right," said Joe. "You're to pay him what money you have, and he's to charge the remainder on my bill. I'll stand the rest of it for you. "I'll be that precious 'friend in need,' Who proves himself a friend indeed." "Then," said Ralph, "I won't have any money left to pay my fare back home." "Oh, I'll see to that!" exclaimed Joe. "I invited you to ride up with me, didn't I? and of course I'll pay your fare; _das verstekt sich_; that goes without saying. "I'll never desert you, oh, never! he spake, We'll stand by each other, asleep or awake." It was not without much misgiving that Ralph gave the dollar and eighty-two cents to the bar-tender, and returned the empty wallet to his pocket. But Rhyming Joe soon engaged him again in conversation. The young man seemed to be deeply interested in the movement to restore the boy to his family rights and possessions. He asked many questions about it, about Craft, about Sharpman, about Ralph's knowledge of himself; the whole ground, indeed, was gone over carefully from the beginning to the present; even the probabilities of the future were fully discussed. In the meantime, the liquor in the bottle was steadily diminishing in quantity, as a result of Rhyming Joe's constant attention to it, and Ralph thought he began to detect evidences of intoxication in the speech and conduct of his friend. His nose appeared to be getting redder, his eyelids were drooping, he was sinking lower into his chair, his utterance was growing thick, and his voice had a sleepy tone. Ralph, too, felt sleepy. The excitement and exercise of the morning, the hearty dinner, the warm, close room, and the fumes of alcohol in the atmosphere, were all having their effect on his senses. He saw, dimly, that Joe's chin was resting on his breast and that his eyes were closed; he heard him mutter in a voice that seemed to come from some distant room:-- "Of all 'e bowls I s-s-smell or see, The wassail bowl's 'e bowl f-f-for me," and the next moment both man and boy were fast asleep. CHAPTER VIII. A FRIEND IN NEED. When Ralph awoke, it was quite dark in the room. He was still sitting at the round table, but Rhyming Joe had disappeared from the other side of it. He looked around the room, and saw that an oil-lamp was burning behind the bar, and that two or three rough-looking men stood there with the bar-tender, talking and drinking. But the young man who had dined with him was nowhere to be seen. Ralph arose, and went over to the bar. "Can you tell me where Joe is, please?" he asked of the bar-tender. "Joe? Oh, he went out a half-an-hour ago. I don't know where he went, sonny." And the man went on filling the glasses, and talking to the other men. Ralph stood for a moment, in deep thought, then he asked:-- "Did Joe say when he would be back?" The bar-tender paid no attention to him, and, after a few moments, the boy repeated the question. "Mr. Bummerton, did Joe say when he would be back?" "No, he didn't," responded the man, in a surly tone; "I don't know nothing about him." Ralph went back, and stood by the stove to consider the matter. He thought it was very strange. He could hardly believe that Rhyming Toe had intended to desert him in this way. He preferred to think that the fellow had become helpless, and that Bummerton had dragged him into some other room. He knew that Joe used to get that way, years before, in Philadelphia. He had seen much of him during the wretched period of his life with Simon Craft. Joe and the old man were together a great deal during that time. They were engaged jointly in an occupation which was not strictly within the limit of the law, and which, therefore, required mutual confidence. The young fellow had, apparently, taken a great liking to Ralph, had made much of him in a jovial way, and, indeed, in several instances, had successfully defended him against the results of Old Simon's wrath. The child had come to regard him as a friend, and had not been displeased to meet him, after all these years, in this unexpected manner. He had had a general idea that the young man's character was not good, and that his life was not moral, but he had not expected to be badly treated by him. Now, however, he felt compelled to believe that Joe had abused the privileges of friendship. The more he thought of it, the more sure he became that he had been deceived and deserted. He was alone in a strange city, without money or friends. What was to be done? Perhaps the bar-tender, understanding the difficulty, would help him out of it. He resolved to apply to him. "Mr. Bummerton," he said, approaching the bar again, "now't Joe's gone, an' I ain't got no money, I don't see how I'm goin' to git home. Could--could you lend me enough to pay my fare up? I'll send it back to you right away. I will,--honest!" The man pushed both his hands into the pockets of his pantaloons, and stood for a minute staring at the boy, in feigned astonishment. "Why, my little innocent!" he exclaimed, "what do ye take me for; a reg'lar home for the friendless? No, I ain't in the charitable business jist now. By the way, did ye know that the law don't allow hotel-keepers to let boys stay in the bar-room? Fust thing I know they'll be a constable a-swoopin' down on me here with a warrant. Don't ye think ye'd better excuse yourself? That's the door over yonder, young feller." Ralph turned, without a word, went to the door, opened it, and stepped into the street. It was very dark outside, and a cold wind was blowing up. He stood, for a few minutes, on the corner, shivering, and wondering which way to go. He felt very wretched indeed; not so much because he was penniless and lost, as because he had been deceived, abused, and mocked. He saw through the whole scheme now, and wondered how he had fallen so easily into it. On a distant corner there was a street-lamp, burning dimly, and, without much thought of where he was going, the boy started toward it. There were other drinking-saloons along the street, and he could hear loud talking and quarrelling in them as he passed by. A man came out from one of them and hailed him gruffly. It frightened him, and he started to run. The man followed him for a little way, shouting savagely, and then turned back; but Ralph ran on. He stumbled, finally, on the uneven pavement, and fell headlong, bruising his side and hurting his wrist. His cap had rolled off, and it took him a long time to find it. Then he crossed the street to avoid a party of drunken revellers, and limped along until he came to the lamp that he had seen from the distance. Down another street there were a number of lights, and it looked more inviting; so he turned in that way. After he had gone two or three blocks in this direction, avoiding carefully the few persons whom he met, he turned again. The streets were growing lighter and wider now, and there were more people on them, and that was something to be thankful for. Finally he reached a busy, well-lighted thoroughfare, and turned into it, with a sigh of relief. He had not walked very far along it before he saw, over to the right, surrounded by lights, a long, low building, in the middle of an open square. It occurred to him, suddenly, that this was the railroad station, and he hurried toward it. When he reached the door he remembered that he was without money, but he thought he would go in at any rate. He was very tired, and he knew of no better place in which to stop and rest. So he went into the waiting-room, and sat down on a bench, and looked around him. There were not many people there, but they began to come very soon, and kept coming until the room was nearly full. Finally, there was a puffing of a locomotive out on the track, and a ringing of an engine bell, and the door-keeper called out:-- "All aboard for Pittston, Scranton, and Carbondale!" The people crowded toward the door, and just then a carriage drove up to the other side of the station, and a gentleman and a lady and a little girl came into the waiting-room from the street entrance. The lady was in deep mourning; but, as she threw aside her veil for a moment, Ralph recognized her as Mrs. Burnham, and the little girl as her child. His heart gave a great throb, and he started to his feet. The gentleman was saying: "I trust you will reach home safely and comfortably." And Mrs. Burnham replied: "Oh, there is no doubt of it, Mr. Goodlaw! I have telegraphed to James to meet us at the station; we shall be there before nine o'clock." "I will see that you are comfortably settled," he said, as they crossed the room toward the waiting train. For a moment Ralph stood, wondering and uncertain. Then there came into his mind a sudden resolution to speak to them, to tell them who he was, and why and how he was here, and ask them to help him. He started forward, but they were already passing out at the door. He pushed hurriedly by several people in his effort to overtake them, but the man who stood there punching tickets stopped him. "Where's your ticket, sonny?" he asked. "I ain't got any," replied Ralph. "Then you can't get out here." "But I want to find Mrs. Burnham." "Who's Mrs. Burnham?" "The lady't just went out." "Has she got a ticket for you?" "No, but she'd give me money to get one--I think." "Well, I can't help that; you can't go out Come, stand aside! you're blocking up the way." The people, crowding by, pushed Ralph back, and he went and sat down on the bench again. The bell rang, the conductor shouted "All aboard!" and the train moved off. Ralph's eyes were full of tears, and his heart was very heavy. It was not so much because he was friendless and without money that he grieved, but because his mother,--his own mother,--had passed him by in his distress and had not helped him. She had been so close to him that he could almost have put out his hand and touched her dress, and yet she had swept by, in her haste, oblivious of his presence. He knew, of course, that, if he had spoken to her, or if she had seen and known him, she would gladly have befriended him. But it was not her assistance that he wanted so much as it was her love. It was the absence of that sympathy, that devotion, that watchful care over every step he might take, that motherly instinct that ought to have felt his presence though her eyes had been blinded; it was the absence of all this that filled his heart with heaviness. But he did not linger long in despair; he dashed the tears from his eyes, and began to consider what he should do. He thought it probable that there would be a later train; and it was barely possible that some one whom he knew might be going up on it. It occurred to him that Sharpman had said he would be busy in Wilkesbarre all day. Perhaps he had not gone home yet; if not, he might go on the next train, if there was one. It was worth while to inquire, at any rate. "Yes," said the door-keeper, in answer to Ralph's question, "there'll be another train going up at eleven thirty-five." "Do you know Mr. Sharpman?" asked the boy, timidly. "Mr. who?" "Mr. Sharpman, the lawyer from Scranton." "No, I don't know him,--why?" "Oh, I didn't know but you might know w'ether he'd gone home or not; but, of course, if you don't know 'im you couldn't tell." "No, I don't know anything about him," said the man, stretching himself on the bench for a nap. Ralph thought he would wait. Indeed, there was nothing better for him to do. It was warm here, and he had a seat, and he knew of no other place in the city where he could be so comfortable. The clock on the wall informed him that it was eight in the evening. He began to feel hungry. He could see, through a half-opened door, the tempting array of food on the lunch-counter in another room; but he knew that he could get none, and he tried not to think of eating. It was very quiet now in the waiting-room, and it was not very long before Ralph fell to dozing and dreaming. He dreamed that he was somewhere in deep distress, and that his mother came, looking for him, but unable to see him; that she passed so close to him he put out his hand and touched her; that he tried to speak to her and could not, and so, unaware of his presence, she went on, leaving him alone in his misery. The noise of persons coming into the room awoke him, finally, and he sat up and rubbed his eyes and looked around him. He saw, by the clock on the wall, that it was nearly train time. The escaping steam from the waiting engine could already be heard outside. People were buying tickets and making their way hurriedly to the platform; but, among all those who came in and went out, Ralph could not discover the familiar face and figure of Sharpman, nor, indeed, could he see any one whom he knew. After the passengers had all gone out, the door-keeper called Ralph to him. "Find your man?" he asked. "Do you mean Mr. Sharpman?" "Yes." "No, he didn't come in. I guess he went home before." The door-keeper paused and looked thoughtful. Finally he said:-- "You want to go to Scranton?" "Yes, that's where I live." "Well, I'll tell you what you do. You git onto that train, and when Jim Coleman--he's the conductor--when he comes around to punch your ticket, you tell him I said you were to be passed. Now you'll have to hurry; run!" The kind-hearted door-keeper saw Ralph leap on to the train as it moved slowly out, and then he turned back into the waiting-room. "Might as well give the lad a lift," he said to a man who stood by, smiling; "he looked awful solemn when the last train before went and left him. Jim won't put him off till he gits to Pittston, anyway." Ralph found a vacant seat in the car and dropped into it, breathless and excited. His good luck had come to him all in a moment so, that it had quite upset him. He did not just understand why the door-keeper's word should be good for his passage, but the conductor would know, and doubtless it was all right. The train went rumbling on through the darkness; the lamps, hanging from the ceiling, swayed back and forth; the people in the car were very quiet,--some of them, indeed, were already asleep. By and by, the conductor came in, a slender, young-looking man, with a good-natured face. He greeted several of the passengers pleasantly, and came down the aisle, punching tickets to the right and left, till he reached the seat where Ralph was. "Ticket?" he asked. "I ain't got any," said the boy. "What's the reason?" "W'y, I lost all my money, an' I couldn't buy one, an' I couldn't see nobody't I knew, an' the man't tended door, he said tell you to pass me up." The conductor smiled, as he recognized a familiar scheme of the kind-hearted door-keeper, but he said, trying to speak sternly:-- "The man had no right to tell you that. Our rules are very strict. No one can ride without a ticket or a pass. Where do you want to go?" "To Scranton; I live there," said Ralph, his voice faltering with apprehension. "Well, I suppose I ought to stop the train and put you off." Ralph looked out through the car window, at the blackness outside, and his face took on a look of fear. "I'm very sorry," he said, "I'm awful sorry. I wouldn't 'a' got on if I'd 'a' known it. Do you think you've _got_ to put me off--right away?" The conductor looked out through the window, too. "Well," he said, "it's pretty dark, and I hate to stop the train between stations. I guess I'll have to let you ride to Pittston, anyway. You'll get out there, won't you? it's the first stop." "Oh, yes! I'll get out there," said Ralph, much relieved, settling back into his seat as the conductor left. The train dashed on through the night, rumbling, rocking, waking the echoes now and then with its screaming whistle, and finally it pulled into the station at Pittston. True to his bargain, Ralph stepped from the train. Two or three other people left it at the same time and hurried away up the street; then the puffing engine pulled the cars out again into the darkness. The boy stood, for a moment or two, wondering what he should do now. The chill night air made him shiver, and he turned toward the waiting-room. But the lights were already out there, and the station-master had locked himself into his office. Off to the left he saw the street lamps of West Pittston, dotting the blackness here and there like dim, round stars; and between them and him the dark water of the river reflected the few lights that shone on it. Finally, Ralph walked down the length of the platform and turned up the street at the end of it. In a minute or two he had reached Main Street, and stood looking up and down it, trying to decide which way to go. On the other side, and a little to the right, he saw a man standing on the corner, under a street lamp, and looking at him. He was an honest-looking man, Ralph thought; may be he would tell him what to do. He crossed over and went down to where the man stood. "Please, mister," he said, "I'd like to find a place to stay all night." The man looked down on him wonderingly, but not unkindly. "Is it a hotel ye're after?" he asked. "Well, not hardly. I ain't got any money. I only want a place to stay where I won't be in the dark an' cold alone all night." "Do ye belong in Pittston, I don' no'?" "No, I live in Scranton." "Sure, the train jist wint for there. Why didn't ye go with it?" "Well, you see, I didn't have any ticket, an' the conductor, he told me to--to--he asked me if I wouldn't jest as lieve git off here." The man gave a low whistle. "Come along with me," he said, "it's little I can do for yez, but it's better nor the strate." He led the way up the pavement of the side street a few steps, unlocked a door and entered a building, and Ralph followed him. They seemed to be in a sort of retiring room for the use of the adjoining offices. A gas light was burning dimly. There was a table in the room, and there were some chairs. Some engineering tools stood in one corner, some mining tools in another; caps were hanging on the wall, and odds and ends of many kinds were scattered about. The man took down a heavy overcoat, and spread it on the table. "There," he said, "ye can slape on that." "That'll be very nice," said Ralph; "it'll be a sight better'n stayin' out in the street all night." "Right ye are, me lad! Compose yoursilf now. Good-night, an' swate drames to yez! I'm the watchman; I'll be out an' in; it's nothing here that'll hurt ye, sure; good-night!" and the man went out, and locked the door after him. It was warm in the room, and very comfortable, and it was not long after the boy laid down on the improvised bed before he was sound asleep. He did not wake until the day began to dawn, and the watchman came in and shook him; and it was some moments after he was roused before he could make out just where he was. But he remembered the situation, finally, and jumped down on to the floor. "I've had a good sleep," he said. "I'm a great deal obliged to you." "Don't shpake of it, lad," said the man; "don't shpake of it. Will ye wash up a bit?" "Yes, I would like to," replied Ralph, "very much." He was shown the way to the basin and water, and after a few moments he came back fresh and clean. "Ye wouldn't like a bit to ate now, would ye?" asked the watchman, who had been busying himself about the room. "Oh, I can get along very well without it," replied the boy; "you've done enough for me." "Whin did ye ate last?" "Well, it must 'a' been some after noon yestaday." The man went to a closet and took down a dinner-pail. "I've a bit left o' me last-night's dinner," said he; "an' av ye're the laste bit hungry ye'll not be makin' me carry it home with me." He had spread a newspaper on the table, and had laid out the pieces of food upon it. "Oh, I am hungry!" responded Ralph, looking eagerly over the tempting array. "I'm very hungry; but you've been too good to me already, an' you don't know me, either." The man turned his face toward the door, and stood for a minute without speaking. Then he said, huskily:-- "Ate it lad, ate it. Bless your sowl, there's a plinty more where that come from." The boy needed no further urging. He ate the food with great relish, while the watchman stood by and looked on approvingly. When the meal was finished, Ralph said:-- "Now, I'll be a-goin'. I can't never thank you enough. Maybe I can do sumpthin' for you, some time, but--" "Howld your tongue, now! Didn't I tell ye not to shpake of it?" The boy opened the door and looked out upon the dawning day. "Ain't it nice!" he said. "I can git along splendid in the daylight. I ain't afraid, but it's awful lonesome in the dark, 'specially when you're away from home this way." "An' where do ye be goin' now?" inquired the watchman. "Home; to Scranton. I can walk there, so long as it's daylight. Oh! I can git along beautiful now. Which is the bes' way to go?" The man looked down at him wonderingly for a moment. "Well, ye do bate the--the--the prisidint!" he said, going with him to the corner of the street. "Now, thin, go up the strate straight,--I mean straight up the strate,--turn nayther to the right nor the lift, an whin the strate inds, follow the road up the river, an' be it soon or late ye'll come to Scranton." "Thank you! Good-by. I'll al'ays remember you." "Good-by, me lad! an' the saints attind ye!" They shook hands cordially, and Ralph started up the street on his long journey toward home, while the watchman turned back to his duties, with his heart full of kindness and his eyes full of tears. But he never, never forgot the homeless lad whom he fed and sheltered that autumn night. CHAPTER IX. A FRIEND INDEED. It had been understood, when Ralph went to Wilkesbarre that morning, that he should return in the afternoon. Bachelor Billy was very much surprised, therefore, when he returned from his work, not to find the boy waiting for him. Indeed, he had more than half expected that Ralph would come up to the breaker to walk home with him, or would, at least, meet him on the way. The Widow Maloney had not seen him, she said; and when supper was ready she sent her little girl down the road to look for him, and to tell him to hurry home. Before they had finished eating, the child came back, saying that she could not find him. They were not worried about him, though; they thought he had been delayed at court, and would come in on one of the later trains. So, after supper, Billy lighted his pipe and walked down toward the city, hoping to meet the lad. He went on until he reached the railroad station. They told him there that the next train would be in from Wilkesbarre in about an hour. He concluded to wait for it, so he sat on one of the benches, and watched the people coming and going, and smoked his clay-pipe in comparative comfort. The train came at last, and the passengers from it crowded through the hall-way, and out into the street. But among them all Bachelor Billy could not discover Ralph. He saw Mrs. Burnham coming from the cars, though, and it occurred to him that possibly she might know something about the boy. She had doubtless come from Wilkesbarre; indeed it was not unlikely that she had been in court. He did not hesitate to inquire of her; she knew him very well, and always had a kind word for him when she came to see Ralph. He took off his cap and approached her. "Beggin' your pardon, Mistress Burnham," he said, "but ha' ye seen aught o' Ralph?" The lady stopped in surprise, but in a moment she recognized the man, and, throwing aside her veil, she replied: "Oh, Billy, is that you? Ralph, did you say? I have not seen him. Why?" "He went to Wilkesbarre the day, ma'am, an' he s'ould 'a' comit hame sooner, an' I thocht mayhap ye might 'a' rin across the lad, d'ye see. Pardon me for a-stoppin' o' ye." The lady still stood, holding her child by the hand. "Did he go alone?" she asked. "No, he went doon wi' Muster Sharpman." "And has Mr. Sharpman returned?" "I did na thenk to ask; that was fulish in me,--I s'ould 'a' gone there first." "I think Mr. Sharpman will look after him. I do not think you need to worry; perhaps it was necessary for them to remain overnight. But, if Ralph does not come in the morning, you must let me know, and I shall assist you in searching for him." "Thank ye, Mistress Burnham, thank ye, kindly! I canna feel greatly concernit ower the lad, sin' he's verra gude at carin' for himsel'. But, gin he does na come i' the mornin', I s'all mak' search for 'im. Here's James a-waitin' for ye"; going ahead, as he spoke, to stand by the fretting horses while James held open the carriage door. "Good-night, Billy!" came from inside the coach as it rolled away; and "Good-night, Billy!" echoed the sweet voice of the child. "Good-nicht to both o' ye!" he shouted, standing to watch them until the carriage disappeared into the darkness. "She's verra kin'," he said to himself, as he walked up the street toward home, "verra kin', but it's no' sic a care as the lad's ane mither s'ould ha' ower 'im, an' he awa' fra hame i' the darkness o' the nicht so. But she dinna ken, she dinna ken as he be her son. Coom a day when that's plain to her, an' she'd spare naught to save 'im fra the ghost o' danger." When Bachelor Billy reached home, Mrs. Maloney was at the door to ask about Ralph. The man told her what Mrs. Burnham had said, and expressed an earnest hope that the boy would come safely back in the morning. Then' he went to his room, started a fire in the grate, and sat down, by it to smoke. It was already past his customary bed-time, but he could not quite make up his mind to go to bed without Ralph. It seemed a very lonely and awkward thing for him to do. They had gone to bed together every night for nearly three years, and it is not easy to break in upon such a habit as that. So Billy sat by the fire and smoked his pipe and thought about the boy. He was thoroughly convinced that the child was Robert Burnham's son, and all of his hopes and plans and ambitions, during these days, were centred in the effort to have Ralph restored his family, and to his rights as a member of that family. It would be such a fine thing for the boy, he thought. In the first place, he could have an education. Bachelor Billy reverenced an education. To him, it was almost a personality. He held that, with an education, a man could do anything short of performing miracles; that all possibilities of goodness or greatness that the world holds were open to him. The very first thing he would choose for Ralph would be an education. Then the child would have wealth; that, too, would be a great thing for him and, through him, for society. The poor would be fed, and the homeless would be sheltered. He was so sure of the boy's honest heart and moral firmness that he knew wealth would be a blessing to him and not a curse. And a beautiful home! Once he had been in Robert Burnham's house; and, for days thereafter, its richness and beauty and its homelike air had haunted him wherever he went. Yes, the boy would have a beautiful home. He looked around on the bare walls and scanty furniture of his own poor dwelling-place as if comparing them with the comforts and luxuries of the Burnham mansion. The contrast was a sharp one, the change would be great. But Ralph was so delicate in taste and fancy, so high-minded, so pure-souled, that nothing would be too beautiful for him, no luxury would seem strange, no life would be so exalted that he could not hold himself at its level. The home that had haunted Bachelor Billy's fancy was the home for Ralph, and there he should dwell. But then--and the thought came suddenly and for the first time into the man's mind--when the boy went there to live, he, Billy, would be alone, _alone_. He would have no one to chatter brightly to him at the dawn of day, no one to walk with him to their daily tasks at Burnham Breaker, to eat from the same pail with him the dinner that had been prepared for both, to come home with him at night, and fill the bare room in which they lived with light and cheer enough to flood a palace. Instead of that, every day would be like this day had been, every night would be as dull and lonely as the night now passing. How could he ever endure them? He was staring intently into the fire, clutching his pipe in his hand, and spilling from it the tobacco he had forgotten to smoke. The lad would have a mother, too,--a kind, good, beautiful mother to love him, to caress him, to do a million more things for him than his Uncle Billy had ever done or ever could do. And the boy would love his mother, he would love her very tenderly; he ought to; it was right that he should; but in the beauty and sweetness of such a life as that would Ralph remember him? How could he hope it? Yet, how could he bear to be forgotten by the child? How could he ever bear it? In his intensity of thought the man had risen to his feet, grasping his clay pipe so closely that it broke and fell in fragments to the hearth. He looked around again on the bare walls of his home, down on his own bent form, on his patched, soiled clothing and his clumsy shoes, then he sank back into his chair, covered his face with his hands, and gave way to tears. He had lived in this world too long not to know that prosperity breeds forgetfulness, and he felt already in his heart a foretaste of the bitterness that should overwhelm him when this boy, whom he loved as his own child, should leave him alone, forgotten. But after a time he looked up again. Pleasanter thoughts were in his mind. They were thoughts of the days and nights that he and the boy had spent together, from the time when he had found him, sick, helpless, and alone, on the dusty highway, in the heat of the midsummer sun, to these days that were now passing, with their strange revelations, their bright hopes, their shadowy fears. But in all his thought there was no touch of disappointment, no trace of regret. It was worth it all, he told himself,--worth all the care he had given to the boy, all the money he had spent to restore him to health, worth all he had ever done or ever could do for him, just to have had the lad with him for a year, a month, a week: why it was worth it all and more, yes, vastly more, just to have felt the small hand laid once on his arm, to have seen the loving eyes look up once into his, and to have heard the clear voice say, "Dear Uncle Billy" in the confiding way he knew so well. It was nearly midnight when Bachelor Billy went to bed, and long after that hour before he fell asleep. He awoke several times during the night with a sense of loneliness and desolation pressing down upon him, and he arose early to prepare for his day's work. It was arranged at the breakfast-table that Mrs. Maloney's oldest girl should go down to Lawyer Sharpman's office to inquire about Ralph, and Billy was to come home at noon, contrary to his custom, to hear her report. Daylight is a great promoter of natural cheer, and the man went away to his work with a strong hope in his heart of Ralph's speedy return; and when the long morning had passed and he hurried back to his home, he half expected that the boy would meet him on the way. But he was disappointed; even Mrs. Maloney's girl had no news for him. She had been to Sharpman's office twice, she said, and had not found him in, though the clerk had told her that Mr. Sharpman had returned from Wilkesbarre the day before. Billy decided then that it was time to make active search for the boy, and when he had finished a hurried dinner, he put on his best clothes and started for the city. He thought it would be wise for him to go first to Sharpman's office and learn what he could there. The lawyer had not yet returned from lunch, but the clerk said he would positively be in at half-past one, so Billy took the proffered chair, and waited. Sharpman came promptly at the time, greeted his visitor cordially, and took him into his private office. "Well, my friend; what can I do for you?" he asked. "I cam' to see aboot Ralph, sir; Ralph as lives wi' me." "Oh! are you Buckley? William Buckley?" "I am, sir. I want to know when saw ye the lad last?" "Why, about eleven o'clock yesterday. He came up on the noon train, didn't he?" "I ha' no' seen 'im." "Haven't seen him!" exclaimed Sharpman, in a voice expressive of much alarm. "Haven't seen him since when, man?" "Not sin' yester-mornin', when I said 'good-by' till the lad, an' went t' the breaker. I got scared aboot 'im, an' cam' to look 'im oop." Bachelor Billy had become infected with Sharpman's alarm. "Well, we _must_ look him up," said the lawyer, putting on his hat, which he had just laid aside, and taking up a light overcoat. "Come, we'll go down to the station and see if we can learn anything of him there." Sharpman was really very anxious about the boy; it would interfere sadly with his scheme to have Ralph disappear again, now. The two men went out from the door together and down the street at a rapid pace. But they had not taken two steps around the corner into Lackawanna Avenue, when they came face to face with the missing boy. He was a sorry sight, limping slowly along, covered with dust, exhausted from his journey. He was no less surprised to meet Bachelor Billy and the lawyer, than they were to meet him, and all three stood speechless, for a moment, with astonishment. "Why, Ralph!" exclaimed Billy, "Ralph, lad, whaur ye been?" But Ralph did not know what to say. An overwhelming sense of shame at his unfortunate adventure and at his wretched condition had come suddenly to him, and the lawyer's sharp eyes, fixed steadily upon him, increased his embarrassment not a little. "Why don' ye speak, lad? Tell Uncle Billy what's happenit to ye; coom noo!" and the man took the child's hands affectionately into his. Then Ralph spoke. From a full heart, poor lad, he made his confession. "Well, Uncle Billy, I got lost in Wilkesbarre; I wasn't used to it, an' I went into a saloon there, an' they got all my money, an' I got onto the train 'ithout a ticket, an' the conductor put me off, an' I had to walk the rest o' the way home; an' I'm pirty tired, an' dirty, an' 'shamed." Sharpman laughed aloud. "Ah! that's Wilkesbarre charity," he said; "you were a stranger, and they took you in. But come, let's go back to my office and talk it over." Secluded in the lawyer's private room Ralph told the whole story of his adventures from the time he left Sharpman at the court-house door. When he had finished, Bachelor Billy said, "Puir lad!" then, turning to Sharpman, "it was no' his fau't, thenk ye?" "Oh, no!" said the lawyer, smiling, "any one might have met with the same fate: dreadful town, Wilkesbarre is, dreadful! Have you had any dinner, Ralph?" "No, sir," said Ralph, "I haven't." "Well, come into my wash-room and brighten yourself up a little. You're somewhat travel-stained, as it were." In ten minutes Ralph reappeared, looking clean and comparatively fresh. "Now," said Sharpman, "you don't resemble quite so strongly the man who went down from Jerusalem to Jericho. Here, take this," reaching out some money, "and go down to the restaurant on the corner and surprise yourself with the best dinner you can buy. Oh, you can pay it back," as the boy hesitated about accepting the money; "we'll call it a loan if you like. Come, you agreed to obey my instructions, you know. Buckley will wait here for you till you get back. Now, don't hurry!" he said, as Ralph passed out at the door, "there's plenty of time." For some minutes after the boy's departure, Sharpman and Bachelor Billy sat talking over Ralph's recent adventure. Then the conversation turned to the prospect for the future, and they agreed that it was very bright. Finally, the lawyer said:-- "He was pretty sick when you first found him, wasn't he?" "He was that, verra bad indeed." "Called a doctor for him, didn't you?" "Oh, yes! Dr. Gunther. He comed every day for a for'night, an' often he comed twice i' the same day. He was awfu' sick, the chil' was." "Footed the doctor's bill, I suppose, didn't you?" "Oh, yes, yes; but I did na min' that so long's the lad got well." "Had to pay the woman to nurse him and look after him, I take it?" "Oh! well, yes; but she needit the money, mon, an' the lad he needit the noorsin', an' it was doin' a bit double good wi' ma siller, do ye see?" "Well, you've housed and clothed and fed the boy for a matter of three years or thereabouts, haven't you?" "Why, the lad's lived wi' me; he had a right to't. He's the same as my own son'd be, min' ye." "You collect his wages, I presume?" "Oh, now! what'd I be doin' wi' the wee bit money that a baby like him'd earn? He's a-savin' o' it. It ain't much, but mayhap it'll buy a bit o' schoolin' for the lad some day. Ye s'ould see the braw way he'll read an' write now, sir." Sharpman sat for some time as if in deep thought. Finally, he said:-- "Look here, Buckley! You're a poor man; you can't afford to throw away what little money you earn, nor to let an opportunity slip for turning an honest penny. You have done a good deal for the boy; I don't see why you shouldn't be rewarded." "I've had ma reward, sir, i' the blessin' o' the lad's company." "Yes, that's all very true, but a man must not rob himself; it's not right. You are getting along in years; you should have a little something to lay by for old age. We are sure to establish Ralph's identity, and to recover his interest in his father's estate. I know that the boy would be delighted to have you paid out of the funds that would come into our hands, and I am very certain that Mrs. Burnham would be proud to have your services acknowledged in that way. The basis of compensation would not be so much the time, labor, and money actually expended by you, as it would be the value of the property rescued and cared for. That would figure into a very nice sum. I think you had better let me manage it, and secure for you something to lay by for a rainy day, or for old age that is sure to fall on you. What do you say?" But Bachelor Billy had risen to his feet, excited, and in earnest. "I'm a poor mon, Muster Sharpman," he said, "an' money's worth a deal to me, but I could na tak' it for a-doin' what I ha' for Ralph." "Why, I am sure your services have been of infinite value, both to the boy and to his mother." "Mayhap! mayhap! that's no' for me to say. But I canna do it. I could na look ony mon i' the eye wi' a cent o' the lad's money i' ma purse. It'd seem as though I'd been a-doin' for 'im a' these years wi' a purpose to get it back in siller some day, an' I never did; I never thocht o' it, sir. The chil's been as free an' welcome as the sunshine wi' me. The bit money I ha' spent, the bit care I ha' had wi' 'im, why that was paid back wi' dooble interest the first week he could sit oop i' the bed an' talk. It's a blessin' to hear the lad talk to ye. Na, na! do what ye can for Ralph. Spare naught to get his rightfu' dues; but me, there's not a penny comin' to me. I've had ma pay, an' that lang sin', lang sin', do ye mind." The lawyer waved his hand, as much as to say: "Very well, you're a fool, but it's not my fault. I have placed the opportunity within your reach; if you do not choose to grasp it, you're the loser, not I." But Sharpman felt that he was the loser, nevertheless. He knew that his shrewd scheme to use this honest man as a tool for the furtherance of his own ends had fallen through, and that the modest sum which he had expected to gain for himself in this way would never be his. He was not quite so cordial when Ralph returned from his dinner; and, after a few words of admonition to the boy, he dismissed the pair, and set himself diligently to the task of preparing a new scheme to take the place of the one that had just vanished. CHAPTER X. AT THE BAR OF THE COURT. When Ralph went to his work at the breaker on the morning after his return from Wilkesbarre, he was met with curious glances from the men, and wondering looks and abrupt questions from the boys. It had become generally known that he claimed to be Robert Burnham's son, and that he was about to institute proceedings, through his guardian, to recover possession of his share of the estate. There was but little opportunity to interrogate him through the morning hours: the flow of coal through the chutes was too rapid and constant, and the grinding and crunching of the rollers, and the rumbling and hammering of the machinery, were too loud and incessant. Ralph worked very diligently too; he was in the mood for work. He was glad to be at home again and able to work. It was much better than wandering through the streets of strange towns, without money or friends. Nor were his hands and eyes less vigilant because of the bright future that lay before him. He was so certain of the promised luxuries, the beautiful home, the love of mother and sister, the means for education,--so sure of them all that he felt he could well afford to wait, and to work while waiting. This toil and poverty would last but a few weeks, or a few months at the longest; after that there would be a lifetime of pleasure and of peace and of satisfied ambitions. So hope nerved his muscles, and anticipation brought color to his cheeks and fire to his eyes, and the thought of his mother's kiss lent inspiration to his labor, and no boy that ever worked in Burnham Breaker performed his task with more skill and diligence than he. When the noon hour came the boys took their dinner-pails and ran down out of the building and over on the hill-side, where they could lie on the clean grass in the warm September sunshine, and eat and talk until the bell should call them again to work. Here, before the recess was over, Ralph joined them, feeling very conscious, indeed, of his embarrassing position, but determined to brave it out. Joe Foster set the, ball rolling by asking Ralph how much he had to pay his lawyer. Some one else followed it up with a question relating to his expectations for the future, and in a very few minutes the boy was the object of a perfect broadside of interrogations. "Will you have a hoss of your own?" asked Patsey Welch. "I don't know," was the reply; "that depen's on what my mother'll think." "Oh! she'll give you one if you want 'im, Mrs. Burnham will," said another boy; "she'll give you everything you want; she's ter'ble good that way, they say." "Will you own the breaker, an' boss us boys?" came a query from another quarter. Before Ralph could reply to this startling and embarrassing question, some one else asked:-- "How'd you find out who you was, anyway?" "Why, my lawyer told me," was the reply. "How'd he find out?" "Well, a man told him." "What man?" "Now, look here, fellows!" said Ralph, "I ain't goin' to tell you everything. It'd predujuice my case too much. I can't do it, I got no right to." Then a doubting Thomas arose. "I ain't got nothin' agin him," he began, referring to Ralph, "he's a good enough feller--for a slate-picker, for w'at I know; but that's all he is; he ain't a Burnham, no more'n I be, if he was he wouldn't be a-workin' here in the dirt; it ain't reason'ble." Before Ralph could reply, some one took up the cudgel for him. "Yes, he is too,--a Burnham. My father says he is, an' Lawyer Sharpman says he is, an' you don't know nothin' 'bout it." Whereupon a great confusion of voices arose, some of the boys denying Ralph's claim of a right to participate in the privileges allotted to the Burnham family, while most of them vigorously upheld it. Finally, Ralph made his voice heard above the uproar:-- "Boys," he said, "they ain't no use o' quarrellin'; we'll all find out the truth about it 'fore very long. I'm a-goin' to stay here an' work in the breaker till the thing's settled, an' I want you boys to use me jest as well as ever you did, an' I'll treat you jest the same as I al'ays have; now, ain't that fair?" "Yes, that's fair!" shouted a dozen boys at a time. "Hooray for Ralph Burnham!" added another; "hooray!" The cheers were given with a will, then the breaker bell rang, and the boys flocked back to their work. Ralph was as good as his word. Every morning he came and took his place on the bench, and picked slate ten hours a day, just as the other boys did; and though the subject of his coming prosperity was often discussed among them, there was never again any malice or bitterness in the discussion. But the days and weeks and months went by. The snows of winter came, and the north winds howled furiously about the towering heights of Burnham Breaker. Morning after morning, before it was fairly light, Ralph and Bachelor Billy trudged through the deep snow on their way to their work, or faced the driving storms as they plodded home at night. And still, so far as these two could see, and they talked the matter over very often, no progress was being made toward the restoration of Ralph to his family and family rights. Sharpman had explained why the delay was expedient, not to say necessary; and, though the boy tried to be patient, and was very patient indeed, yet the unquiet feeling remained in his heart, and grew. But at last there was progress. A petition had been presented to the Orphans' Court, asking for a citation to Margaret Burnham, as administrator of her husband's estate, to appear and show cause why she should not pay over to Ralph's guardian a sufficient sum of money to educate and maintain the boy in a manner befitting his proper station in life. An answer had been put in by Mrs. Burnham's attorney, denying that Ralph was the son of Robert Burnham, and an issue had been asked for to try that disputed fact. The issue had been awarded, and the case certified to the Common Pleas for trial, and placed on the trial list for the May term of court. As the time for the hearing approached, the preparations for it grew more active and incessant about Sharpman's office. Old Simon had taken up his abode in Scranton for the time being, and was on hand frequently to inform and advise. Witnesses from distant points had been subpoenaed, and Ralph, himself, had been called on several occasions to the lawyer's office to be interrogated about matters lying within his knowledge or memory. The question of the boy's identity had become one of the general topics of conversation in the city, and, as the time for the trial approached, public interest in the matter ran high. In those days the courts were held at Wilkesbarre for the entire district. Lackawanna County had not yet been erected out of the northern part of Luzerne, with Scranton as its county seat. There were several suits on the list for the May term that were to be tried before the Burnham case would come on, so that Ralph did not find it necessary to go to Wilkesbarre until Thursday of the first week of court. Bachelor Billy accompanied him. He had been subpoenaed as a witness, and he was glad to be able to go and to have an opportunity to care for the boy during the time of the trial. Spring comes early in the valley of the Susquehanna; and, as the train dashed along, Ralph, looking from the open window of the car, saw the whole country white with the blossoms of fruit-bearing trees. The rains had been frequent and warm, and the springing vegetation, rich and abundant, reflected its bright green in the waters of the river along all the miles of their journey. The spring air was warm and sweet, white clouds were floating in the sky, birds were darting here and there among the branches of the trees, wild flowers were unfolding their modest beauty in the very shadow of the iron rails. Ralph saw and felt it all, his spirit rose into accord with nature, and hope filled his heart more abundantly than it ever had before. When he and Bachelor Billy went into the court-room that afternoon, Sharpman met them and told them that their case would probably not be reached that day, the one immediately preceding it having already taken much more time in the trial than had been expected. But he advised them not to leave the city. So they went out and walked about the streets a little, then they wandered down along the river bank, and sat there looking out upon the water and discussing the method and probable outcome of the trial. When supper-time came, they went to their boarding-house, a cottage in the suburbs, kept by a man who had formerly known Bachelor Billy in Scranton. The next morning when they went into court the lawyers were making their addresses to the jury in the case that had been heard on the previous day, and Ralph and Billy listened to the speeches with much interest. The judge's charge was a long one, and before it was concluded the noon-hour had come. But it was known, when court adjourned, that the Burnham case would be taken up at two o'clock. Long before that time, however, the benches in the court-room were filled with people, and even the precincts of the bar were invaded. The suit had aroused so much interest and excitement that hundreds of people came simply to see the parties and hear the evidence in the case. At two o'clock Mr. Goodlaw entered, accompanied by Mrs. Burnham and her little daughter, and all three took seats by a table inside the bar. Sharpman came in a few minutes later, and Simon Craft arose from his place near the railing and went with him to another table. Ralph, who was with Bachelor Billy down on a front bench, scarcely recognized the old man at first, there was so marked a change in his appearance. He had on a clean new suit of black broadcloth, his linen was white and well arranged, and he had been freshly shaven. Probably he had not presented so attractive an appearance before in many years. It was all due to Sharpman's money and wit. He knew how much it is worth to have a client look well in the eyes of a jury, and he had acted according to his knowledge. So Old Simon had a very grandfatherly air as he took his seat by the side of his counsel and laid his cane on the floor beside him. After arranging his papers on the table, Sharpman arose and looked back over the crowded court-room. Finally, catching sight of Ralph, he motioned to him to come inside the bar. The boy obeyed, but not without embarrassment. He saw that the eyes of all the people in the room were fixed on him as he crossed the open space and dropped into a chair by the side of Craft. But he had passed Mrs. Burnham on his way, and she had reached out her gloved hand and grasped his little one and held him by her for a moment to look searchingly and longingly into his face; and she had said to him some kind words to put him at his ease, so that the situation was not so very trying, after all. The clerk began to call a jury into the box. One by one they answered to their names, and were scrutinized closely by the lawyers as they took their places. Then Sharpman examined, carefully, the list of jurors that was handed to him, and drew his pen through one of the names. It was that of a man who had once suffered by reason of the lawyer's shrewdness, and he thought it best to challenge him. "Call another juror," he said, passing the list to Goodlaw, who also struck a name from it, added a new one, and passed it back. The jury was finally settled, the challenged men were excused, and the remaining twelve were duly sworn. Then Sharpman arose to open his case. With rapid detail he went over the history of Ralph's life from the time of the railroad accident to the day of the trial. He dwelt upon Simon Craft's kindness to the child, upon his energetic search for the unknown parents, and, later, for the boy himself; of his final success, of his constant effort in Ralph's behalf, and his great desire, now, to help him into the family and fortune to which his birth entitled him. "We shall show to you all of these facts, gentlemen of the jury," said Sharpman, in conclusion. "We shall prove to you, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that this boy is Margaret Burnham's son and an heir to Robert Burnham's estates; and, having done so, we shall expect a verdict at your hands." The lawyer resumed his seat, spent a few moments looking over his papers, and then said, in a tone of mingled respect and firmness:-- "We desire, if your Honor please, to call Mrs. Burnham for the purpose of cross-examination." "That is your privilege under the law," said the judge. "Mrs. Burnham," continued Sharpman, "will you kindly take the stand?" "Certainly," replied the lady. She arose, advanced to the witness-stand, received the oath, and took her chair with a matronly dignity and kindly grace that aroused the sympathy and admiration of all who saw her. She gave her name, the date of her marriage to Robert Burnham, the fact of his death, and the names and ages of her children. In the course of the examination, she was asked to describe the railway journey which ended in the disaster at Cherry Brook, and to give the details of that disaster as she remembered them. "Can you not spare me that recital, sir?" she said. "No one would be more willing or glad to do so, madam," responded Sharpman, "than I, but the whole future of this fatherless boy is hanging upon this examination, and I dare not do it. I will try to make it easier for you, however, by interrogation." She had hidden her face in her hands a moment before; now she raised it, pallid, but fixed with strong determination. "Go on," she said, "I will answer you." Sharpman stood for a moment as if collecting his thoughts, then he asked: "Did you and your husband, accompanied by your child Ralph and his nurse, leave your home in Scranton on the thirteenth day of May, 1859, to go by rail to the city of Philadelphia?" "We did." "Was the car in which you were riding well filled?" "It was not; no, sir." "How many children were in that car besides your son?" "Only one." "A boy?" "Yes, sir." "About how old?" "About Ralph's age, I should think." "With whom was he travelling?" "With an elderly gentleman whom he called, 'Grandpa.'" "Before you reached Philadelphia, did the bridge over Cherry Creek give way and precipitate the car in which you were riding into the bed of the stream?" "It did; yes, sir." "Immediately before that occurred where was your child?" "He was sitting with his nurse in the second seat ahead of us." "And the other child, where was he?" "Just across the aisle." "Did you see that other child after the accident?" "I did not; I only know that he survived it." "How do you know it?" "We learned, on inquiry, that the same old gentleman and little child went on to the city in the train which carried the rescued passengers." "You and your husband were both injured in the disaster, were you not?" "We were." "And the nurse lost her life?" "Yes, sir." "How long was it after the accident before you began the search for your child?" "It was nearly three days afterward before we were sufficiently recovered to be able to do anything." "Did you find any trace of him?" "None whatever." "Any clothing or jewelry?" "Only a few trinkets in the ashes of the wreck." "Is it your belief that Ralph perished in that disaster?" "It is; yes, sir." "Would it take strong evidence to convince you to the contrary?" "I think it would." "Ralph," said Sharpman, turning to the boy, "stand up!" The lad arose. "Have you seen this boy before?" continued the lawyer, addressing the witness again. "I have," she replied, "on several occasions." "Are you familiar with his face, his expression, his manner?" "To a great extent--yes, sir." "Do you recognize him as your son Ralph?" She looked down, long and searchingly, into the boy's face, and then replied, deliberately, "No, sir, I do not." "That is all, Mrs. Burnham." Ralph was surprised and disappointed. He had not quite expected this. He had thought she would say, perhaps, that she would receive him as her son when his claim was duly proven. He would not have wondered at that, but that she should positively, under oath, deny their relationship to each other, had not been to him, before, within the range of possibility. His brightness and enthusiasm were quenched in a moment, and a chill crept up to his heart, as he saw the lady come down from the witness-stand, throw her widow's veil across her face, and resume her seat at the table. The case had taken on a new, strange, harsh aspect in his sight. It seemed to him that a barrier had been suddenly erected between him and the lady whom he had learned to love as his mother; a barrier which no verdict of the jury or judgment of the court, even though he should receive them, would help him to surmount. Of what use were these things, if motherly recognition was to be denied him? He began to feel that it would be almost better to go back at once to the not unpleasant home with Bachelor Billy, than to try to grasp something which, it now seemed, was lying beyond his reach. He was just considering the advisability of crossing over to Sharpman and suggesting to him that he was willing to drop the proceedings, when that person called another witness to the stand. This was a heavily built man, with close-cropped beard, bronzed face, and one sleeve empty of its arm. He gave his name as William B. Merrick, and said that he was conductor of the train that broke through the Cherry Brook bridge, on the night of May 13, 1859. "Did you see, on your train that night," asked Sharpman, "the witness who has just left the stand?" "I cannot be positive," the man replied, "but, to the best of my recollection, the lady was a passenger in the rear car." "With whom was she travelling?" "With a gentleman whom I afterward learned was her husband, a little boy some two or three years of age, and the child's nurse." "Were there any other children on the train?" "Yes, one, a boy of about the same age, riding in the same car in company with an elderly gentleman." "Did you see either of these children after the disaster?" "I saw one of them." "Which one?" "I supposed, at the time, that it was the one who accompanied the old gentleman." "Why did you suppose so?" "Because I saw a child who bore marks of having been in the wreck riding in the car which carried the rescued passengers to the city, and he was in company with an elderly man." "Was he the same elderly man whom you saw with the child before the accident?" "I cannot say; my attention was not particularly called to him before the accident; but I supposed he was the one, from the fact of his having the child with him." "Could you, at this time, recognize the man whom you saw with the child after the accident?" "I think so. I took especial notice of him then." "Look at this old gentleman, sitting by me," said Sharpman, waving his hand toward Craft, "and tell me whether he is the one." The man turned his eyes on Old Simon, and looked at him closely for a full minute. "Yes," he replied, "I believe he is the one. He has grown older and thinner, but I do not think I am mistaken." Craft nodded his head mildly in assent, and Sharpman continued:-- "Did you take particular notice of the child's clothing as you saw it after the accident; could you recognize, at this time, the principal articles of outside wear that he had on?" "I think I could." Sharpman paused as if in thought. After he had whispered for a moment with Craft, he said to the witness:-- "That is all, for the present, Mr. Merrick." Then he turned to the opposing counsel and said:-- "Mr. Goodlaw, you may take the witness." Goodlaw fixed his glasses more firmly on his nose, consulted briefly with his client, and then began his cross-examination. After drawing out much of the personal history of the witness, he went with him into the details of the Cherry Brook disaster. Finally he asked:-- "Did you know Robert Burnham in his lifetime?" "A gentleman by that name called on me a week after the accident to make inquiries about his son." "Did you say to him, at that time, that the child must have perished in the wreck?" "I think I did; yes, sir." "On what did you base your opinion?" "On several circumstances. The nurse with whom he was sitting was killed outright; it would seem to have been impossible for any one occupying that seat to have escaped instant death, since the other car struck and rested at just that point. Again, there were but two children on the train. It took it for granted that the old man and child whom I saw together after the accident were the same ones whom I had seen together before it occurred." "Did you tell Mr. Burnham of seeing this old man and child after the accident?" "I did; yes, sir." "Did you not say to him positively, at that time, that they were the same persons who were sitting together across the aisle from him before the crash came?" "It may be that I did." "And did you not assure him that the child who went to the city, on the train that night after the accident was not his son?" "I may have done so. I felt quite positive of it at that time." "Has your opinion in that matter changed since then?" "Not as to the facts; no, sir; but I feel that I may have taken too much for granted at that time, and have given Mr. Burnham a wrong impression." "At which time, sir, would you be better able to form an opinion,--one week after this accident occurred, or ten years afterward?" "My opinion is formed on the facts; and I assure you that they were not weighted with such light consequences for me that I have easily forgotten them. If there were any tendency to do so, I have here a constant reminder," holding up his empty sleeve as he spoke. "My judgment is better, to-day, than it was ten years ago. I have learned more; and, looking carefully over the facts in this case in the light I now have, I believe it possible that this son of Robert Burnham's may have been saved." "That will do," said Goodlaw. The witness left the stand, and the judge, looking up at the clock on the wall, and then consulting his watch, said:-- "Gentlemen, it is nearly time to adjourn court. Mr. Sharpman, can you close your case before adjourning time?" "That will be impossible, your Honor." "Then, crier, you may adjourn the court until to-morrow morning at nine o'clock." The crier made due proclamation, the spectators began to crowd out of the room, the judge left the bench, and the lawyers gathered up their papers. Ralph, on his way out, again passed by Mrs. Burnham, and she had for him a smile and a kind word. Bachelor Billy stood waiting at the door, and the boy went down with him to their humble lodgings in the suburbs, his mind filled with conflicting thoughts, and his heart with conflicting emotions. CHAPTER XI. THE EVIDENCE IN THE CASE. When court opened on Saturday morning, all the persons interested in the Burnham suit were present, and the court-room was crowded to even a greater extent than it had been on the previous day. Sharpman began the proceedings by offering in evidence the files of the Register's court, showing the date of Robert Burnham's death, the issuing of letters of administration to his widow, and the inventory and appraisement of his personal estate. Then he called Simon Craft to the witness-stand. There was a stir of excitement in the room; every one was curious to see this witness and to hear his evidence. The old man did not present an unfavorable appearance, as he sat, leaning on his cane, dressed in his new black suit, waiting for the examination to begin. He looked across the bar into the faces of the people with the utmost calmness. He was perfectly at his ease. He knew that what he was about to tell was absolutely true in all material respects, and this fact inspired him with confidence in his ability to tell it effectually. It relieved him, also, of the necessity for that constant evasion and watchfulness which had characterized his efforts as a witness in other cases. The formal questions relating to his residence, age, occupation, etc., were answered with alacrity. Then Sharpman, pointing to Ralph, asked the witness:-- "Do you know this boy?" "I do," answered Craft, unhesitatingly. "What is his name?" "Ralph Burnham." "When did you first see him?" "On the night of May 13, 1859." "Under what circumstances?" This question, as by previous arrangement between attorney and witness, opened up the way for a narration of facts, and old Simon, clearing his throat, leaned across the railing of the witness-box and began. He related in detail, and with much dramatic effect, the scenes at the accident, his rescue of the boy, his effort at the time to find some one to whom he belonged, and the ride into the city afterward. He corroborated conductor Merrick's story of the meeting on the train which carried the rescued passengers, and related the conversation which passed between them, as nearly as he could remember it. He told of his attempts to find the child's friends during the few days that followed, then of the long and desperate illness from which he suffered as a result of his exertion and exposure on the night of the accident. From that point, he went on with an account of his continued care for the child, of his incessant search for clews to the lad's identity, of his final success, of Ralph's unaccountable disappearance, and of his own regret and disappointment thereat. He said that the lad had grown into his affections to so great an extent, and his sympathy for the child's parents was such, that he could not let him go in that way, and so he started out to find him. He told how he traced him from one point to another, until he was taken up by the circus wagon, how the scent was then lost, and how the boy's whereabouts remained a mystery to him, until the happy discovery at the tent in Scranton. "Well," said Sharpman, "when you had found the boy, what did you do?" "I went, the very next day," was the reply, "to Robert Burnham to tell him that his son was living." "What conversation did you have with him?" "I object," interposed Goodlaw, "to evidence of any alleged conversation between this witness and Robert Burnham. Counsel should know better than to ask for it." "The question is not a proper one," said the judge. "Well," continued Sharpman, "as a result of that meeting what were you to do?" "I was to bring his son to him the following day." "Did you bring him?" "I did not." "Why not?" "Mr. Burnham died that night." "What did you do then?" "I went to you for advice." "In pursuance of that advice, did you have an interview with the boy Ralph?" "I did." "Where?" "At your office." "Did you explain to him the facts concerning his parentage and history?" "They were explained to him." "What did he say he wished you to do for him?" Goodlaw interrupted again, to object to the testimony offered as incompetent and thereupon ensued an argument between counsel, which was cut short by the judge ordering the testimony to be excluded, and directing a bill of exceptions to be sealed for the plaintiff. The hour for the noon recess had now come, and court was adjourned to meet again at two o'clock. When the afternoon session was called, Sharpman announced that he was through with the direct examination of Craft. Then Goodlaw took the witness in hand. He asked many questions about Craft's personal history, about the wreck, and about the rescue of the child. He demanded a full account of the way in which Robert Burnham had been discovered, by the witness and found to be Ralph's father. He called for the explicit reason for every opinion given, but Old Simon was on safe ground, and his testimony remained unshaken. Finally, Goodlaw asked:-- "What is your occupation, Mr. Craft?" and Craft answered: "I have no occupation at present, except to see that this boy gets his rights." "What was your occupation during the time that this boy lived with you?" "I was a travelling salesman." "What did you sell?" "Jewelry, mostly." "For whom did you sell the jewelry?" "For myself, and others who employed me." "Where did you obtain the goods you sold?" "Some of it I bought, some of it I sold on commission." "Of whom did you buy it?" "Sometimes I bought it at auction, or at sheriff's sales; sometimes of private parties; sometimes of manufacturers and wholesalers." Goodlaw rose to his feet. "Now, as a matter of fact, sir," he said, sternly, "did not you retail goods through the country that had been furnished to you by your confederates in crime? and was not your house in the city a place for the reception of stolen wares?" Craft's cane came to the floor with a sharp rap. "No, sir!" he replied, with much indignation; "I have never harbored thieves, nor sold stolen goods to my knowledge. You insult me, sir!" Goodlaw resumed his seat, looked at some notes in pencil on a slip of paper, and then resumed the examination. "Did you send this boy out on the streets to beg?" he asked. "Well, you see, we had pretty hard work sometimes to get along and get enough to eat, and--" "I say, did you send this boy out on the streets to beg?" "Well, I'm telling you that sometimes we had either to beg or to starve. Then the boy went out and asked aid from wealthy people." "Did you send him?" "Yes, I did; but not against his will." "Did you sometimes whip him for not bringing back money to you from his begging excursions?" "I punished him once or twice for telling falsehoods to me." "Did you beat him for not bringing money to you when you sent him out to beg?" "He came home once or twice when I had reason to believe that he had made no effort to procure assistance for us, and--" Goodlaw rose to his feet again. "Answer my question!" he exclaimed. "Did you beat this boy for not bringing back money to you when you had sent him out to beg?" "Yes, I did," replied Craft, now thoroughly aroused, "and I'd do it again, too, under the same circumstances." Then he was seized with a fit of coughing that racked his feeble body from head to foot. A tipstaff brought him a glass of water, and he finally recovered. Goodlaw continued, sarcastically,-- "When you found it necessary to correct this boy by the gentle persuasion of force, what kind of a weapon did you use?" The witness answered, mildly enough, "I had a little strip of leather that I used when it was unavoidably necessary." "A rawhide, was it?" "I said a little strip of leather. You can call it what you choose." "Was it the kind of a strip of leather commonly known as a rawhide?" "It was." "What other mode of punishment did you practise on this child besides rawhiding him?" "I can't recall any." "Did you pull his ears?" "Probably." "Pinch his flesh?" "Sometimes." "Pull his hair?" "Oh, I shouldn't wonder." "Knock him down with your fist?" "No, sir! never, never!" "Did you never strike him with the palm of your hand?" "Well, I have slapped him when my patience with him has been exhausted." "Did any of these slaps ever happen to push him over?" "Why, he used to tumble onto the floor sometimes, to cry and pretend he was hurt." "Well, what other means of grandfatherly persuasion did you use in correcting the child?" "I don't know of any." "Did you ever lock him up in a dark closet?" "I think I did, once or twice; yes." "For how long at a time?" "Oh, not more than an hour or two." "Now, didn't you lock him up that way once, and keep him locked up all day and all night?" "I think not so long as that. He was unusually stubborn. I told him he could come out as soon as he would promise obedience. He remained in there of his own accord." "Appeared to like it, did he?" "I can't say as to that." "For how long a time did you say he stayed there?" "Oh, I think from one afternoon till the next." "Did he have anything to eat during that time?" "I promised him abundance if he would do as I told him." "Did he have anything to eat?" emphatically. "No!" just as emphatically. "What was it he refused to do?" "Simply to go on a little errand for me." "Where?" "To the house of a friend." "For what purpose?" "To get some jewelry." "Was the jewelry yours?" "I expected to purchase it." "Had it been stolen?" "Not to my knowledge." "Did the boy think it had been stolen?" "He pretended to." "Was that the reason he would not go?" "It was the reason he gave." "Have the city police found stolen goods on your premises?" "They have confiscated goods that were innocently purchased by me; they have robbed me." "Did you compel this boy to lie to the officers when they came?" "I made him hold his tongue." "Did you make him lie?" "I ordered him not to tell where certain goods were stored in the house, on pain of being thrashed within an inch of his life. The goods were mine, bought with my money, and it was none of their business where they were." "Did you not command the boy to say that there were no such goods in the house?" "I don't know--perhaps; I was exasperated at the outrage they were perpetrating in the name of law." "Then you did make him lie?" "Yes, if you call it lying to protect your own property from robbers, I did make him lie!" "More than once?" "I don't know." "Did you make him steal?" "I made him take what belonged to us." "Did you make him _steal_, I say!" "Call it what you like!" shouted the angered and excited old man. He had become so annoyed and harassed by this persistent, searching cross-examination that he was growing reckless and telling the truth in spite of himself. Besides, it seemed to him that Goodlaw must know all about Ralph's life with him, and he dared not go far astray in his answers. But the lawyer knew only what Craft himself was disclosing. He based each question on the answers that had preceded it, long practice having enabled him to estimate closely what was lying in the mind of the witness. "And so," continued Goodlaw, "when you returned from one of your trips into the country you found that the boy had disappeared?" "He had." "Were you surprised at that?" "Yes, I was." "Had you any idea why he went away?" "None whatever. He was well fed and clothed and cared for." "Did it ever occur to you that the Almighty made some boys with hearts so honest that they had rather starve and die by the roadside than be made to lie and steal at home?" The old man did not answer, he was too greatly surprised and angered to reply. "Well," said Sharpman, calmly, "I don't know, if your Honor please, that the witness is bound to be sufficiently versed in the subject of Christian ethics to answer questions of that kind." "He need not answer it," said the judge. Then Sharpman continued, more vehemently: "The cross-examination, as conducted by the eminent counsel, has, thus far, been simply an outrage on professional courtesy. I ask now that the gentleman be confined to questions which are germane to the issue and decently put." "I have but a few more questions to ask," said Goodlaw. Turning to the witness again, he continued: "If you succeed in establishing this boy's identity, you will have a bill to present for care and moneys expended and services performed on his account, will you not?" "I expect so; yes, sir." "As the service continued through a period of years, the bill will amount now to quite a large sum, I presume?" "Yes, I nave done a good deal for the boy." "You expect to retain the usual commission for your services as guardian, do you not?" "I do." "And to control the moneys and properties that may come into your hands?" "Well--yes." "About how much money, all together, do you expect to make out of this estate?" "I do not look on it in that light, sir; I am taking these proceedings simply to compel you and your client to give that boy his rights." This impudent assertion angered Goodlaw, who well knew the object of the plot, and he rose from his chair, saying deliberately:-- "Do you mean to swear that this is not a deep-laid scheme on the part of you and your attorney to wrest from this estate enough to make a fortune for you both? Do you mean to say mat you care as much for this boy's rights as you do for the dust in your path?" Craft's face paled, and Sharpman started to his feet, red with passion. "This is the last straw!" he exclaimed, hoarsely; "now I intend"-- But the judge, fearing an uncontrollable outbreak of temper, interrupted him, saying:-- "Your witness need not answer the question in that form, Mr. Sharpman. Mr. Goodlaw, do you desire to cross-examine the witness further?" Goodlaw had resumed his seat and was turning over his papers. "I do not care to take up the time of the court any longer," he said, "with this witness." "Then, Mr. Sharpman, you may proceed with further evidence." But Sharpman was still smarting from the blow inflicted by his opponent. "I desire, first," he said, "that the court shall take measures to protect me and my client from the unfounded and insulting charges of counsel for the defence." "We will see," said the judge, "that no harm comes to you or to your cause from irrelevant matter interjected by counsel. But let us get on with the case. We are taking too much time." Sharpman turned again to his papers and called the name of "Anthony Henderson." An old man arose in the audience, and made his way feebly to the witness-stand, which had just been vacated by Craft. After he had been sworn, he said, in reply to questions by Sharpman, that he was a resident of St. Louis; that in May, 1859, he was on his way east with his little grandson, and went down with the train that broke through the bridge at Cherry Brook. He said that before the crash came he had noticed a lady and gentleman sitting across the aisle from him, and a nurse and child a few seats further ahead; that his attention had been called to the child particularly, because he was a boy and about the age of his own little grandson. He said he was on the train that carried the rescued passengers to Philadelphia after the accident, and that, passing through the car, he had seen the same child who had been with the nurse now sitting with an old man; he was sure the child was the same, as he stopped and looked at him closely. The features of the old man he could not remember. For two days he searched for his grandson, but being met, on every hand, by indisputable proof that the child had perished in the wreck, he then started on his return journey to St. Louis, and had not since been east until the week before the trial. "How did the plaintiff in this case find you out?" asked Goodlaw, on cross-examination. "I found him out," replied the witness. "I learned, from the newspapers, that the trial was to take place; and, seeing that it related to the Cherry Brook disaster, I came here to learn what little else I might in connection with my grandchild's death. I went, first, to see the counsel for the plaintiff and his client." "Have you learned anything new about your grandson?" "No, sir; nothing." "Have you heard from him since the accident?" "I have not." "Are you sure he is dead?" "I have no doubt of it." "Can you recognize this boy," pointing to Ralph, "as the one whom you saw with the nurse and afterward with the old man on the night of the accident?" "Oh, no! he was a mere baby at that time." "Are you positive that the boy in court is not your grandson?" "Perfectly positive, there is not the slightest resemblance." "That will do." The cross-examination had done little more than to strengthen the direct testimony. Mrs. Burnham had thrown aside her veil and gazed intently at the witness from the moment he went on the stand. She recognized him as the man who sat across the aisle from her, with his grandchild, on the night of the disaster, and she knew that he was telling the truth. There seemed to be no escape from the conclusion that it was her child who went down to the city that night with Simon Craft. Was it her child who escaped from him, and wandered, sick and destitute, almost to her own door? Her thought was interrupted by the voice of Sharpman, who had faced the crowded court-room and was calling the name of another witness: "Richard Lyon!" A young man in short jacket and plaid trousers took the witness-stand. "What is your occupation?" asked Sharpman, after the man had given his name and residence. "I'm a driver for Farnum an' Furkison." "Who are Farnum and Furkison?" "They run the Great European Circus an' Menagerie." "Have you ever seen this boy before?" pointing to Ralph. "Yes, sir." "When?" "Three years ago this summer." "Where?" "Down in Pennsylvania. It was after we left Bloomsburg, I think, I picked 'im up along the road an' give 'im a ride on the tiger wagon." "How long did he stay with you?" "Oh, I don't remember; four or five days, maybe." "What did he do?" "Well, not much; chored around a little." "Did he tell you where he came from?" "No, nor he wouldn't tell his name. Seemed to be afraid somebody'd ketch 'im; I couldn't make out who. He talked about some one he called Gran'pa Craft two or three times w'en he was off his guard, an' I reckoned from what he said that he come from Philadelphy." "Where did he leave you?" "Didn't leave us at all. We left him; played the desertion act on 'im." "Where?" "At Scranton." "Why?" "Well, he wasn't much use to us, an' he got sick an' couldn't do anything, an' the boss wouldn't let us take 'im no further, so we left 'im there." "Are you sure this is the boy?" "Oh, yes! positive. He's bigger, an' looks better now, but he's the same boy, I know he is." "Cross-examine." This last remark was addressed to the defendant's attorney. "I have no questions to ask," said Goodlaw, "I have no doubt the witness tells the truth." "That's all," said Sharpman, quickly; then, turning again toward the court-room, he called: "William Buckley!" Bachelor Billy arose from among the crowds on the front benches, and made his way awkwardly around the aisle and up to the witness-stand. After the usual preliminary questions had been asked and answered, he waited, looking out over the multitude of faces turned toward him, while Sharpman consulted his notes. "Do you know this boy?" the lawyer asked, pointing to Ralph. "Do I know that boy?" repeated Billy, pointing also to Ralph, "'deed I do that. I ken 'im weel." "When did you first see him?" "An he's the son o' Robert Burnham, I seen 'im first i' the arms o' 'is mither a matter o' ten year back or so. She cam' t' the breaker on a day wi' her gude mon, an' she had the bairnie in her arms. Ye'll remember it, na doot, Mistress Burnham," turning to that lady as he spoke, "how ye said to me 'Billy,' said ye, 'saw ye ever so fine a baby as'"-- "Well, never mind that," interrupted Sharpman; "when did you next see the boy?" "Never till I pickit 'im up o' the road." "And when was that?" "It'll be three year come the middle o' June. I canna tell ye the day." "On what road was it?" "I'll tell ye how it cam' aboot. It was the mornin' after the circus. I was a-comin' doon fra Providence, an' when I got along the ither side o' whaur the tents was I see a bit lad a-layin' by the roadside, sick. It was him," pointing to Ralph and smiling kindly on him, "it was Ralph yonner. I says to 'im, 'What's the matter wi' ye, laddie?' says I. 'I'm sick,' says 'e, 'an' they've goned an' lef me.' 'Who's lef' ye?' says I. 'The circus,' says he. 'An' ha' ye no place to go?' says I. 'No,' says 'e, 'I ain't; not any.' So I said t' the lad as he s'ould come along wi' me. He could na walk, he was too sick, I carried 'im, but he was no' much o' a load. I took 'im hame wi' me an' pit 'im i' the bed. He got warse, an' I bringit the doctor. Oh! but he was awfu' sick, the lad was, but he pullit through as cheerfu' as ye please. An' the Widow Maloney she 'tended 'im like a mither, she did." "Did you find out where he came from?" "Wull, he said little aboot 'imsel' at the first, he was a bit afraid to talk wi' strangers, but he tellit, later on, that he cam' fra Philadelphy. He tellit me, in fact," said Billy, in a burst of confidence, "that 'e rin awa' fra th'auld mon, Simon Craft, him that's a-settin' yonner. But it's small blame to the lad; ye s'ould na lay that up again' 'im. He _had_ to do it, look ye! had ye not, eh, Ralph?" Before Ralph could reply, Sharpman interrupted: "And has the boy been with you ever since?" "He has that, an' I could na think o' his goin' awa' noo, an it would na be for his gret good." "In your intercourse with the boy through three years, have you noticed in him any indications of higher birth than is usually found among the boys who work about the mines? I mean, do his manners, modes of thought, impulses, expressions, indicate, to your mind, better blood than ordinary?" "Why, yes," replied the witness, slowly grasping the idea, "yes. He has a way wi' 'im, the lad has, that ye'd think he did na belong amang such as we. He's as gentle as a lass, an' that lovin', why, he's that lovin' that ye could na speak sharp till 'im an ye had need to. But ye'll no' need to, Mistress Burnham, ye'll no' need to." The lady was sitting with her veil across her face, smiling now and then, wiping away a tear or two, listening carefully to catch every word. Then the witness was turned over to the counsel for the defence, for cross-examination. "What else has the boy done or said to make you think he is of gentler birth than his companions in the breaker?" asked Goodlaw, somewhat sarcastically. "Why, the lad does na swear nor say bad words." "What else?" "He's tidy wi' the clothes, an' he _wull_ be clean." "What else?" "What else? wull, they be times when he says things to ye so quick like, so bright like, so lofty like, 'at ye'd mos' think he was na human like the rest o' us. An' 'e fears naught, ye canna mak' 'im afeard o' doin' what's richt. D'ye min' the time 'e jumpit on the carriage an' went doon wi' the rest o' them to bring oot the burnit uns? an' cam' up alive when Robert Burnham met his death? Ah, mon! no coward chiel 'd 'a' done like that." "Might not a child of very lowly birth do all the things you speak of under proper training and certain influences?" "Mayhap, but it's no' likely, no' likely. Hold! wait a bit! I dinna mean but that a poor mon's childer can be bright, braw, guid boys an' girls; they be, I ken mony o' them mysel'. But gin the father an' the mither think high an' act gentle an' do noble, ye'll fin' it i' the blood an' bone o' the childer, sure as they're born. Now, look ye! I kenned Robert Burnham, I kenned 'im weel. He was kind an' gentle an' braw, a-thinkin' bright things an' a-doin' gret deeds. The lad's like 'im, mind ye; he thinks like 'im, he says like 'im, he does like 'im. Truth, I daur say, i' the face o' all o' ye, that no son was ever more like the father than the lad a-settin' yonner is like Robert Burnham was afoor the guid Lord took 'im to 'imsel'." Bachelor Billy was leaning forward across the railing of the witness-stand, speaking in a voice that could be heard in the remotest corner of the room, emphasizing his words with forceful gesticulation. No one could for a moment doubt his candor and earnestness. "You are very anxious that the plaintiff should succeed in this suit, are you not?" asked Goodlaw. "I dinna unnerstan' ye, sir." "You would like to have this boy declared to be a son of Robert Burnham, would you not?" "For the lad's sake, yes. But I canna tell ye how it'll hurt me to lose 'im fra ma bit hame. He's verra dear to me, the lad is." "Have you presented any bill to Ralph's guardian for services to the boy?" "Bill! I ha' no bill." "Do you not propose to present such a bill in case the plaintiff is successful in this suit?" "I tell ye, mon, I ha' no bill. The child's richt welcome to all that I 'a' ever done for 'im. It's little eneuch to be sure, but he's welcome to it, an' so's 'is father an' 'is mother an' 'is gardeen; an' that's what I tellit Muster Sharpman 'imsel'. An the lad's as guid to them as 'e has been wi' me, they'll unnerstan' as how his company's a thing ye canna balance wi' gold an' siller." Mrs. Burnham leaned over to Goodlaw and whispered something to him. He nodded, smiled and said to the witness: "That's all, Mr. Buckley," and Bachelor Billy came down from the stand and pushed his way back to a seat among the people. There was a whispered conversation for a few moments between Sharpman and his client, and then the lawyer said:-- "We desire to recall Mrs. Burnham for one or two more questions. Will you be kind enough to take the stand, Mrs. Burnham?" The lady arose and went again to the witness-stand. Craft was busy with his leather hand-bag. He had taken a parcel therefrom, unwrapped it and laid it on the table. It was the cloak that Old Simon had shown to Robert Burnham on the day of the mine disaster. Sharpman took it up, shook it out, carried it to Mrs. Burnham, and placed it in her hands. "Do you recognize this cloak?" he asked. A sudden pallor overspread her face. She could not speak. She was holding the cloak up before her eyes, gazing on it in mute astonishment. "Do you recognize it, madam?" repeated Sharpman. "Why, sir!" she said, at last, "it is--it was Ralph's. He wore it the night of the disaster." She was caressing the faded ribbons with her hand; the color was returning to her face. "And this, Mrs. Burnham, do you recognize this?" inquired the lawyer, advancing with the cap. "It was Ralph's!" she exclaimed, holding out her hands eagerly to grasp it. "It was his cap. May I have it, sir? May I have them both? I have nothing, you know, that he wore that night." She was bending forward, looking eagerly at Sharpman, with flushed face and eyes swimming in tears. "Perhaps so, madam," he said, "perhaps; they go with the boy. If we succeed in restoring your son to you, we shall give you these things also." "What else have you that he wore?" she asked, impatiently. "Oh! did you find the locket, a little gold locket? He wore it with a chain round his neck; it had his--his father's portrait in it." Without a word, Sharpman placed the locket in her hands. Her fingers trembled so that she could hardly open it. Then the gold covers parted and revealed to her the pictured face of her dead husband. The eyes looked up at her kindly, gently, lovingly, as they had always looked on her in life. After a moment her lips trembled, her eyes filled with tears, she drew the veil across her face, and her frame grew tremulous with deep emotion. "I do not think it is necessary," said Sharpman, courteously, "to pain the witness with other questions. I regard the identification of these articles, by her, as sufficiently complete. We will excuse her from further examination." The lady left the stand with bowed head and veiled face, and Conductor Merrick was recalled. "Look at that cloak and the cap," said Sharpman, "and tell me if they are the articles worn by the child who was going to the city with this old man after the accident." "To the best of my recollection," said the witness, "they are the same. I noticed the cloak particularly on account of the hole burned out of the front of it. I considered it an indication of a very narrow escape." The witness was turned over to the defence for cross-examination. "No questions," said Goodlaw, shortly, gathering up his papers as if his defeat was already an accomplished fact. "Mr. Craft," said Sharpman, "stand up right where you are. I want to ask you one question. Did the child whom you rescued from the wreck have on, when you found him, this cap, cloak, and locket?" "He did." "And is the child whom you rescued that night from the burning car this boy who is sitting beside you here to-day?" "They are one and the same." Mrs. Burnham threw back her veil, looked steadily across at Ralph, then started to her feet, and moved slightly toward him as if to clasp him in her arms. For a moment it seemed as though there was to be a scene. The people in the audience bent forward eagerly to look into the bar, those in the rear of the room rising to their feet. The noise seemed to startle her, and she sank back into her chair and sat there white and motionless during the remainder of the session. Sharpman arose. "I believe that is our case," he said. "Then you rest here?" asked the judge. "We rest." His Honor continued: "It is now adjourning time and Saturday night. I think it would be impossible to conclude this case, even by holding an evening session; but perhaps we can get through with the testimony so that witnesses may be excused. What do you say, Mr. Goodlaw?" Goodlaw arose. "It may have been apparent to the court," he said, "that the only effort being put forth by the defence in this case is an effort to learn as much of the truth as possible. We have called no witnesses to contradict the testimony offered, and we expect to call none. But, lest something should occur of which we might wish to take advantage, we ask that the evidence be not closed until the meeting of court on Monday next." "Is that agreeable to you, Mr. Sharpman?" inquired the judge. "Perfectly," replied that lawyer, his face beaming with good nature. He knew that Goodlaw had given up the case and that his path was now clear. "Then, crier," said the judge, "you may adjourn the court until Monday next, at two o'clock in the afternoon." CHAPTER XII. AT THE GATES OF PARADISE. The result of the trial seemed to be a foregone conclusion. Every one said there was no doubt, now, that Ralph was really Robert Burnham's son. People even wondered why Mrs. Burnham did not end the matter by acknowledging the boy and taking him to her home. And, indeed, this was her impulse and inclination, but Goodlaw, in whose wisdom she put much confidence, had advised her not to be in haste. They had had a long consultation after the adjournment of court on Saturday evening, and had agreed that the evidence pointed, almost conclusively, to the fact that Ralph was Mrs. Burnham's son. But the lawyer said that the only safe way was to wait until the verdict of the jury should fix the status of the boy beyond question. It would be but a day or two at the most. Then Ralph might be taken by his mother, and proceedings could be at once begun to have Simon Craft dismissed from the post of guardian. Indeed, it had been with this end in view that Goodlaw had made his cross-examination of Craft so thorough and severe. He had shown, as he intended to, from the man's own lips that he was unfit to have possession either of the child or of his property. This danger was now making itself more and more apparent to Sharpman. In the excitement of the trial, he had not fully realized the probable effect which the testimony elicited from his client by the opposing counsel might have. Now he saw what it could lead to; but he had sufficient confidence in himself to believe that, in the time before action in that phase of the case should become necessary, he could perfect a plan by which to avert disaster. The first and best thing to be done, however, under any circumstances, was to keep the confidence and friendship of Ralph. With this thought in mind, he occupied a seat with the boy as they rode up from Wilkesbarre on the train that night, and kept him interested and amused until they reached the station at Scranton. He said to him that he, Sharpman, should go down to Wilkesbarre early on Monday morning, and that, as it might be necessary to see Ralph before going, the boy had better call at his office for a few moments on Sunday evening. Ralph promised to do so, and, with a cordial handshake, the lawyer hurried away. It is seldom that the probable outcome of a suit at law gives so great satisfaction to all the parties concerned in it as this had done. Simon Craft was jubilant. At last his watching and waiting, his hoping and scheming, were about to be rewarded. It came in the evening of his life to be sure, but--better late than never. He had remained in Wilkesbarre Saturday night. He thought it useless to go up to Scranton simply to come back again on Monday morning. He spent the entire day on Sunday planning for the investment of the money he should receive, counting it over and over again in anticipation, chuckling with true miserly glee at the prospect of coming wealth. But Ralph was the happiest one of all. He knew that on the coming Monday the jury would declare him to be Robert Burnham's son. After that, there would be nothing to prevent his mother from taking him to her home, and that she would do so there was no longer any doubt. When he awoke Sunday morning and thought it all over, it seemed to him that he had never been so near to perfect happiness in all his life before. The little birds that came and sang in the elm-tree by his window repeated in their songs the story of his fortune. The kind old sun beamed in upon him with warmest greeting and heartiest approval. Out-of-doors, the very atmosphere of the May day was redolent with all good cheer, and Ralph took great draughts of it into his lungs as he walked with Bachelor Billy to the little chapel at the foot of the hill, where they were used to going to attend the Sunday morning service. In the afternoon they went, these two, out by the long way to the breaker. Ralph looked up at the grim, black monster, and thought of the days gone by; the days of watchfulness, of weariness, of hopeless toil that he had spent shut up within its jarring walls. But they were over now. He should never again climb the narrow steps to the screen-room in the darkness of the early morning. He should never again take his seat on the black bench to bend above the stream of flowing coal, to breathe the thick dust, and listen to the rattling and the roaring all day long. That time had passed, there was to be no more grinding toil, no more harsh confinement in the heat and dust, no more longing for the bright sunlight and the open air, nor for the things of life that lay beyond his reach. The night was gone, the morning was come, the May day of his life was dawning, wealth was lying at his feet, rich love was overshadowing him; why should he not be happy? "Seems jest as though I hadn't never had any trouble, Uncle Billy," he said, "as though I'd been kind o' waitin' an' waitin' all along for jest this, an' now it's here, ain't it?" "Yes, lad." "An' some way it's all so quiet an' smooth like, so peaceful, don't you know. She--she seems to be so glad 'at she needn't keep me away from her no longer after the trial's over. I think she wants me to come, don't you? It ain't like most law-suits, is it?" "She's a lovin' lady, an' I'm a-thinkin' they're a-meanin' to deal rightly by ye, Ralph." There was a pause. They were sitting on the bank in the shadow of the breaker, and the soft wind was bringing up to them the perfume of apple-blossoms from the orchard down by the road-side. Silence, indeed, was the only means of giving fitting expression to such quiet joy as pervaded the boy's heart. A man, driving along the turnpike with a horse and buggy, turned up the road to the breaker, and stopped in front of Bachelor Billy and the boy. "Is this Ralph?" he asked. "Yes," said the boy, "that's me." "Well, Mrs. Burnham would like to see you. She sent me over to bring you. I went to your house, and they said most likely I'd find you up here. Just jump in and we'll drive right down." Ralph looked up inquiringly at Bachelor Billy. "Go on, lad," he said; "when the mither sen's for ye, ye mus' go." Ralph climbed up into the buggy. "Good-by, Uncle Billy," he called out, as they started away down the hill. Bachelor Billy did not answer. A sudden thought had come to him; a sudden fear had seized him. He stood for a moment motionless; then he started to run after the retreating carriage, calling as he ran. They heard him and stopped. In a minute he had reached them. "Ralph," he said, hastily, "ye're not goin' now for gude? Ye'll coom back the nicht, won't ye, Ralph? I couldn't--I couldn't abide to have ye go this way, not for gude. It's--it's too sudden, d'ye see." His voice was trembling with emotion, and the pallor about his lips was heightened by the forced smile that parted them. Ralph reached out from the buggy and grasped the man's rough hand. "I ain't leavin' you for good, Uncle Billy," he said. "I'm comin' back agin, sure; I promise I will. Would you ruther I wouldn't go, Uncle Billy?" "Oh, no! ye mus' go. I shouldn't 'a' stoppit ye. It was verra fulish in me. But ye see," turning to the driver apologetically, "the lad's been so long wi' me it's hard to part wi' 'im. An' it cam' ower me so sudden like, that mayhap he'd not be a-comin' back, that I--that I--wull, wull! it's a' richt, ye need na min' me go on; go on, lad, an' rich blessin's go wi' ye!" and Bachelor Billy turned and walked rapidly away. This was the only cloud in the otherwise clear sky of Ralph's happiness. He would have to leave Bachelor Billy alone. But he had fully resolved that the man who had so befriended him in the dark days of his adversity should not fail of sharing in the blessings that were now at hand. His mind was full of plans for his Uncle Billy's happiness and welfare, as they rode along through the green suburban streets, with the Sunday quiet resting on them, to the House where Ralph's mother waited, with a full heart, to receive and welcome her son. She had promised Goodlaw that she would not take the boy to her home until after the conclusion of the trial. He had explained to her that to anticipate the verdict of the jury in this way might, in a certain event, prejudice not only her interests but her son's also. And the time would be so short now that she thought surely she could wait. She had resolved, indeed, not to see nor to speak to the lad, out of court, until full permission had been granted to her to do so. Then, when the time came, she would revel in the brightness of his presence. That there still lingered in her mind a doubt as to his identity was nothing. She would not think of that. It was only a prejudice fixed by long years of belief in her child's death, a prejudice so firmly rooted now that it required an effort to cast it out. But it would not greatly matter, she thought, if it should chance that Ralph was not her son. He was a brave, good boy, worthy of the best that could come to him, and she loved him. Indeed, during these last few days her heart had gone out to him with an affection so strange and a desire so strong that she felt that only his presence could satisfy it. She could not be glad enough that the trial, now so nearly to its close, would result in giving to her a son. It was a strange defeat, indeed, to cause her such rejoicing. On this peaceful Sunday morning her mind was full with plans for the lad's comfort, for his happiness and his education. But the more she thought upon him the greater grew her longing to have him with her, the harder it became to repress her strong desire to see him, to speak to him, to kiss his face, to hold him in her arms. In the quiet of the afternoon this longing became more intense. She tried to put it away from her, but it would not go; she tried to reason it down, but the boy's face, rising always in her thought, refuted all her logic. She felt that he must come to her, that she must see him, if only long enough to look into his eyes, to touch his hand, to welcome him and say good-by. She called the coachmen then, and sent him for the boy, and waited at the window to catch the first glimpse of him when he should appear. He came at last, and she met him in the hall. It was a welcome such as he had never dreamed of. They went into a beautiful room, and she drew his chair so close to hers that she could hold his hands, and smooth his hair back now and then, and look down into his eyes as she talked with him. She made him repeat to her the whole story of his life from the time he could remember, and when he told about Bachelor Billy and all his kindness and goodness, he saw that her eyes were filled with tears. "We'll remember him," she said; "we'll be very good to him always." "Mrs. Burnham," asked Ralph, "do you really an' truly believe 'at I'm your son?" She evaded the question skilfully. "I'm not Mrs. Burnham to you any more," she said. "You are my little boy now and I am your mother. But wait! no; you must not call me 'mother' yet, not until the trial is over, then we shall call each other the names we like best, shall we not?" "Yes; an' will the trial be over to-morrow, do you think?" "I hope so. I shall be glad to have it done; shall not you?" "Oh, yes; but so long as it's comin' out so nice, I don't care so very much. It's all so good now 'at it couldn't be much better. I could stan' it another day or two, I guess." "Well, my dear, we will be patient. It cannot but come out right. Are you glad you are coming here to live with me, Ralph?" "Yes, ma'am, I am; I'm very much delighted. I've always wanted a mother; you don't know how much I've wanted a mother; but I never 'xpected--not till Gran'pa Simon come--I never 'xpected to get such a lovely one. You don't know; I wisht I could tell you; I wisht I could do sumpthin' so 'at you'd know how glad I am." She leaned over and kissed him. "There's only one thing you can do, Ralph, to show me that; you can come back here when the trial is over and be my boy and live with me always." "Oh, I'll come!" "And then we'll see what you shall do. Would you like to go to school and study?" "Oh, may I?" "Certainly! what would you like to study?" "Readin'. If I could only study readin' so as to learn to read real good. I can read some now; but you know they's such lots o' things to read 'at I can't do it fast enough." "Yes, you shall learn to read fast, and you shall read to me. You shall read books to me." "What! whole books?--through?" "Yes, would you like that?" "Oh!" and the boy clasped his hands together in unspeakable delight. "Yes, and you shall read stories to Mildred, your little sister. I wonder where she is; wouldn't you like to see her?" "Yes, ma'am, I would, very much." "I'll send for her." "You'll have books of your own, you know," continued the lady, as she returned across the room, "and playthings of your own, and a room of your own, near mine, and every night you'll kiss me good-night, will you not, and every morning you will kiss me good-morning?" "Oh, indeed I will! indeed!" In through the curtained door-way came little Mildred, her blond curls tossing about her face, her cheeks rosy with health, her eyes sparkling with anticipation. She had seen Ralph and knew him, but as yet she had not understood that he was her brother. She could not comprehend it at once, there were many explanations to be made, and Ralph's story was retold; but when the fact of his relation to her became fixed in her mind, it was to her a truth that could never afterward be shaken. "And will you come to live with us?" she asked him. "Yes," said Ralph, "I 'xpect to." "And will you play with me?" "Well, I--I don't know how to play girl's plays, but I guess I can learn," he said, looking inquiringly up into his mother's face. "You shall both learn whatever you like that is innocent and healthful and pretty to play, my children." The house-maid, at the door, announced dinner. "Come," said the lady, placing an arm about each child, "come, let us eat together and see how it seems." She drew them gently to the dining-room and placed them at the table, and sat where she could look from one to the other and drink in the joy of their presence. But Ralph had grown more quiet. It was all so new and strange to him and so very beautiful that he could do little more than eat his food, and answer questions, and look about him in admiring wonder. When dinner was finished the afternoon had grown late, and Ralph, remembering Bachelor Billy's fear, said that he ought to go. They did not try to detain him; but, with many kind words and good-wishes and bright hopes for the morrow, they kissed him good-night and he went his way. The sky was still cloudless; the cool of the coming evening refreshed the air, the birds that sing at twilight were already breaking forth into melody as if impatient for the night, and Ralph walked out through it all like one in a dream. It was so much sweeter than anything he had ever heard of or thought of, this taste of home, so much, so very much! His heart was like a thistle bloom floating in the air, his feet seemed not to touch the ground; he was walking as a spirit might have walked, buoyed up by thoughts of all things beautiful. He reached the cottage that for years had been his home, and entered it with a cry of gladness on his lips. "Oh, Uncle Billy! it was--it was just like heaven!" He had thrown himself upon a stool at the man's feet, and sat looking up into the kindly face. Bachelor Billy did not answer. He only placed his hand tenderly on the boy's head, and they both sat, in silence, looking out through the open door, until the pink clouds in the western sky had faded into gray, and the deepening twilight wrapped the landscape, fold on fold, in an ever thickening veil. By and by Ralph's tongue was loosened, and he told the story of his visit to Mrs. Burnham. He gave it with all fulness; he dwelt long and lovingly on his mother's beauty and affection, on his sister's pretty ways, on the splendors of their home, on the plans marked out for him. "An' just to think of it!" he exclaimed, "after to-morrow, I'll be there ev'ry day, _ev'ry day_. It's too beautiful to think of, Uncle Billy; I can't help lookin' at myself an' wonderin' if it's me." "It's verra fine, but ye've a richt to it, lad, an' ye desarve it, an' it's a blessin' to all o' ye." Again they fell into silence. The blue smoke from Billy's pipe went floating into the darkness, and up to their ears came the sound of distant church bells ringing out their music to the night. Finally, Ralph thought of the appointed meeting at Sharpman's office, and started to his feet. "I mus' hurry now," he said, "or he'll think I ain't a-comin'." The proposed visit seemed to worry Bachelor Billy somewhat. He did not like Sharpman. He had not had full confidence in him from the beginning. And since the interview on the day of Ralph's return from Wilkesbarre, his faith in the pureness of the lawyer's motives had been greatly shaken. He had watched the proceedings in Ralph's case as well as his limited knowledge of the law would allow, and, though he had discovered nothing, thus far, that would injure or compromise the boy, he was in constant fear lest some plan should be developed by which Ralph would be wronged, either in reputation or estate. He hesitated, therefore, to have the lad fulfil this appointment. "I guess I'd better go wi' ye," he said, "mayhap an' ye'll be afeared a-comin' hame i' the dark." "Oh, no, Uncle Billy!" exclaimed the boy, "they ain't no use in your walkin' way down there. I ain't a bit afraid, an' I'll get home early. Mr. Sharpman said maybe it wouldn't be any use for me to go to Wilkesbarre to-morrow at all, and he'd let me know to-night. No, don't you go! I'm a-goin' to run down the hill so's to get there quicker; good-by!" The boy started off at a rapid pace, and broke into a run as he reached the brow of the hill, while Bachelor Billy unwillingly resumed his seat, and watched the retreating form of the lad until it was swallowed up in the darkness. Ralph thought that the night air was very sweet, and he slackened his pace at the foot of the hill, in order to enjoy breathing it. He was passing along a street lined with pretty, suburban dwellings. Out from one yard floated the rich perfume of some early flowering shrub. The delicious odor lingered in the air along the whole length of the block, and Ralph pleased his fancy by saying that it was following him. Farther on there was a little family group gathered on the porch, parents and children, talking and laughing, but gently as became the day. Very happy they seemed, very peaceful, untroubled and content. It was beautiful, Ralph thought, very beautiful, this picture of home, but he was no longer envious, his heart did not now grow bitter nor his eyes fill full with tears. His own exceeding hope was too great for that to-night, his own home joys too near and dear. Still farther on there was music. He could look into the lighted parlor and see the peaceful faces of those who stood or sat there. A girl was at the piano playing; a young, fair girl with a face like the faces of the pictured angels. They were all singing, a familiar sacred song, and the words came floating out so sweetly to the boy's ears that he stopped to listen:-- "O Paradise! O Paradise! Who doth not crave for rest? Who would not seek the happy land, Where they that loved are blest; Where loyal hearts and true Stand ever in the light, All rapture through and through, In God's most holy sight?" Oh, it was all so beautiful! so peaceful! so calm and holy! Ralph tried to think, as he started on, whether there was anything that he could have, or see, or do, that would increase his happiness. But there was nothing in the whole world now, nothing more, he said to himself, that he could think to ask for. "Where loyal hearts and true, Stand ever in the light." The words came faintly from the distance to his ears as the music died away, the gentle wind brought perfumed air from out the shadows of the night to touch his face. The quiet stars looked down in peace upon him, the heart that beat within his breast was full with hope, with happiness, with calm content. CHAPTER XIII. THE PURCHASE OF A LIE. Lawyer Sharpman sat in his office on Sunday evening, meditating on his success in the Burnham suit and planning to avert the dangers that still lay in his path. Old Simon's disclosures in court were a source of much anxiety to him. Goodlaw's design in bringing them out was apparent, and he felt that it must in some way be thwarted. Of what use was it to establish the boy's identity if he could not control the boy's fortune? He was glad he had asked Ralph to call. He intended, when he should come, to have a long talk with him concerning his guardian. He hoped to be able to work into the boy's mind a theory that he had been as well treated during his stay with Simon Craft as circumstances would permit. He would remind him, in the most persuasive manner possible, that Craft was old and ill and easily annoyed, that he was poor and unable to work, that his care for and maintenance of Ralph were deeds of the purest generosity, and that the old man's entire connection with the matter was very creditable to him, when all the adverse circumstances against which he had to struggle were taken into account. If he could impress this view of the case strongly enough upon Ralph's mind, he should not greatly fear the result of possible proceedings for the dismissal of the guardian. This, at any rate, was the first thing to be done, and to-night was the time to do it. He had been lying back in his chair, with his hands locked behind his head. He now straightened himself, drew closer to the table, turned up the gas, looked over some notes of evidence, and began to mark out a plan for his address to the jury on the morrow. He was sitting in the inner room, the door between that and the outer room being open, but the street door closed. After a little he heard some one enter and walk across the floor. He thought it must be Ralph, and he looked up to welcome him. But it was dark in the outer office, and he could not see who came, until his visitor was fairly standing in the door-way of his room. It was not Ralph. It was a young man, a stranger. He wore a pair of light corduroy pantaloons, a checked vest, a double-breasted sack coat, and a flowing red cravat. He bowed low and said:-- "Have I the honor of addressing Mr. Sharpman, attorney at law?" "That is my name," said the lawyer, regarding his visitor with some curiosity, "will you walk in?" "With pleasure, sir." The young man entered the room, removed his high silk hat from his head, and laid it on the table, top down. Then he drew a card case from an inner pocket, and produced and handed to the lawyer a soiled card on which was printed in elaborate letters the following name and address:-- L. JOSEPH CHEEKERTON, PHILADELPHIA. "_Rhyming Joe_." While Sharpman was examining the card, his visitor was forming in his mind a plan of procedure. He had come there with a carefully concocted lie on his tongue to swindle the sharpest lawyer in Scranton out of enough money to fill an empty purse. "Will you be seated, Mr. Cheekerton?" said the lawyer, looking up from the card. "Thank you, sir!" The young man drew the chair indicated by Sharpman closer to the table, and settled himself comfortably into it. "It is somewhat unusual, I presume," he said, "for attorneys to receive calls on Sunday evening:-- "But this motto I hold as a part of my creed, The better the day, why, the better the deed. "Excuse me! Oh, no; it doesn't hurt. I've been composing extemporaneous verse like that for fifteen years. Philosophy and rhyme are my forte. I've had some narrow escapes to be sure, but I've never been deserted by the muses. Now, as to my Sunday evening call. It seemed to be somewhat of a necessity, as I understand that the evidence will be closed in the Burnham case at the opening of court to-morrow. Am I right?" "It may be, and it may not be," said Sharpman, somewhat curtly. "I am not acquainted with the plans of the defence. Are you interested in the case?" "Indirectly, yes. You see, Craft and I have been friends for a good many years, we have exchanged confidences, and have matured plans together. I am pretty well acquainted with the history of his successes and his failures." "Then it will please you to know that he is pretty certain to meet with success in the Burnham suit." "Yes? I am quite delighted to hear it:-- "Glad to know that wit and pluck Bring their owner such good-luck. "But, between you and me, the old gentleman has brought some faculties to bear on this case besides wit and pluck." "Ah, indeed?" "Yes, indeed! You see, I knew all about this matter up to the time the boy ran away. To tell the truth, the old man didn't treat the lad just right, and I gave the little fellow a pointer on getting off. Old Simon hasn't been so friendly to me since, for some reason. "Strange what trifles oft will tend To cool the friendship of a friend. "In fact, I was not aware that the boy had been found, until I heard that fact from his own lips one day last fall, in Wilkesbarre. We met by a happy chance, and I entertained him on account of old acquaintance's sake." In a moment the story of Ralph's adventure in Wilkesbarre returned to Sharpman, and he recognized Rhyming Joe as the person who had swindled the lad out of his money. He looked at the young man sternly, and said:-- "Yes; I have heard the story of that chance meeting. You were very liberal on account of old acquaintance's sake, were you not? entertained the boy till his pocket was empty, didn't you?" and the lawyer cast a look of withering contempt on his visitor. But Rhyming Joe did not wither. On the contrary, he broke into a merry fit of laughter. "Good joke on the lad, wasn't it?" he replied. "A little rough, perhaps, but you see I was pretty hard up just then; hadn't had a square meal before in two days. I'll not forget the boy's generosity, though; I'll call and see him when he comes into his fortune; he'll be delighted to receive me, I've no doubt. "For a trifle like that he'll remember no more, In the calm contemplation of favors of yore." But, let that pass. That's a pretty shrewd scheme Old Simon has on foot just now, isn't it? Did he get that up alone or did he have a little legal advice? I wouldn't have said that he was quite up to it all, himself. It's a big thing. "A man may work hard with his hands and his feet And find but poor lodging and little to eat. But if he would gather the princeliest gains He must smother his conscience and cudgel his brains." Sharpman looked sternly across at his visitor. "Have you any business with me?" he said; "if not, my time is very valuable, and I desire to utilize it." "I beg pardon, sir, if I have occupied time that is precious to you. I had no particular object in calling except to gratify a slight curiosity. I had a desire to know whether it was really understood between you--that is whether the old man had enlightened you as to who this boy actually is--that's all." "There's no doubt as to who the boy is. If you've come here to give me any information on that point, your visit will have been useless. His identity is well established." "Yes? Well, now I have the good-fortune to know all about that child, and if you are laboring under the impression that he is a son of Robert Burnham, you are very greatly mistaken. He is not a Burnham at all." Sharpman looked at the young man incredulously. "You do not expect me to believe that?" he said. "You certainly do not mean what you are saying?" There was a noise in the outer room as of some one entering from the street. Sharpman did not hear it; he was too busily engaged in thinking. Rhyming Joe gave a quick glance at the room door, which stood slightly ajar, then, turning in his chair to face the lawyer, he said deliberately and with emphasis:-- "I say the boy Ralph is not Robert Burnham's son." For a moment Sharpman sat quietly staring at his visitor; then, in a voice which betrayed his effort to remain calm, he said:-- "What right have you to make such a statement as this? How can you prove it?" "Well, in the first place I knew the boy's father, and he was not Robert Burnham, I assure you." "Who was he?" "Simon Craft's son." "Then Ralph is--?" "Old Simon's grandchild." "How do you happen to know all this?" "Well, I saw the child frequently before he was taken into the country, and I saw him the night Old Simon brought him back. He was the same child. The young fellow and his wife separated, and the old man had to take the baby. I was on confidential terms with the old fellow at that time, and he told me all about it." "Then he probably deceived you. The evidence concerning the railroad disaster and the rescue of Robert Burnham's child from the wreck is too well established by the testimony to be upset now by such a story as yours." "Ah! let me explain that matter to you. The train that went through the bridge was the express. The local was twenty minutes behind it. Old Simon and his grandchild were on the local to the bridge. An hour later they came down to the city on the train which brought the wounded passengers. I had this that night from the old man's own lips. I repeat to you, sir, the boy Ralph is Simon Craft's grandson, and I know it." In the outer room there was a slight noise as of some person drawing in his breath sharply and with pain. Neither of the men heard it. Rhyming Joe was too intent on giving due weight to his pretended disclosure; Lawyer Sharpman was too busy studying the chances of that disclosure being true. It was evident that the young man was acquainted with his subject. If his story were false he had it too well learned to admit of successful contradiction. It was therefore of no use to argue with him, but Sharpman thought he would see what was lying back of this. "Well," he said, calmly, "I don't see how this affects our case. Suppose you can prove your story to be true; what then?" The young man did not answer immediately. He took a package of cigarettes from his pocket and offered one to Sharpman. It was declined. He lighted one for himself, leaned back in his chair, crossed his legs, and began to study the ceiling through the rings of blue smoke which came curling from his nostrils. Finally he said: "What would you consider my silence on this subject worth, for a period of say twenty-four hours?" "I do not know that your silence will be of material benefit to us." "Well, perhaps not. My knowledge, however, may be of material injury to you." "In what way?" "By the disclosure of it to your opponent." "What would he do with it?" "Use it as evidence in this case." "Well, had you not better go to him?" Rhyming Joe laid his cigarette aside, straightened up in his chair, and again faced the lawyer squarely. "Look here, Mr. Sharpman," he said, "you know, as well as I do, that the knowledge I hold is extremely dangerous to you. I can back up my assertion by any amount of corroborative detail. I am thoroughly familiar with the facts, and if I were to go on the witness-stand to-morrow for the defendant in this suit, your hopes and schemes would vanish into thin air. Now, I have no great desire to do this; I have still a friendly feeling left for Old Simon, and as for the boy, he is a nice fellow, and I would like to see him prosper. But in my circumstances, as they are at present, I do not feel that I can afford to let slip an opportunity to turn an honest penny. "If a penny saved is a penny earned, Then a penny found is a penny turned." Sharpman was still looking calmly at his visitor. "Well?" he said, inquiringly. "Well, to make a long story short, if I get two hundred dollars to-night, I keep my knowledge of Simon Craft and his grandson to myself. If I don't get two hundred dollars to-night, I go to Goodlaw the first thing to-morrow morning and offer my services to the defence. I propose to make the amount of a witness fee out of this case, at any rate." "You are attempting a game that will hardly work here," said Sharpman, severely. "You will find yourself earning two hundred dollars for the state in the penitentiary of your native city if you persist in that course." "Very well, sir; you have heard my story, you have my ultimatum. You are at liberty to act or not to act as you see fit. If you do not choose to act it will be unnecessary for me to prolong my visit. I will have to rise early in the morning, in order to get the first Wilkesbarre train, and I must retire without delay. "The adage of the early bird, My soul from infancy has stirred, And since the worm I sorely need I'll practise, now, that thrifty creed." Rhyming Joe reached for his hat. Sharpman was growing anxious. There was no doubt that the fellow might hurt them greatly if he chose to do so. His story was not an improbable one. Indeed, there was good reason to believe that it might be true. His manner tended to impress one with its truth. But, true or false, it would not do to have the statement get before that jury. The man must be detained, to give time for further thought. "Don't be in a hurry," said Sharpman, mildly; "let's talk this matter over a little more. Perhaps we can reach an amicable understanding." Rhyming Joe detected, in an instant, the weakening on the lawyer's part, and increased his audacity accordingly. "You have heard my proposition, Mr. Sharpman," he said; "it is the only one I shall make, and I must decline to discuss the matter further. My time, as I have already intimated, is of considerable value to me." "But how can you expect me to decide on your proposition without first consulting my client? He is in Wilkesbarre. Give us time. Wait until morning; I'll go down on the first train with you." "No, I don't care to have Old Simon consulted in this matter; if I had cared to, I should have consulted him myself; I know where he is. Besides, his interest in the case is very small compared with yours. You are to get the lion's share, that is apparent, and you, of course, are the one to pay the cost. It is necessary that I should have the money to-night; after to-night it will be too late." Sharpman arose and began pacing up and down the room. He was inclined to yield to the man's demand. The Burnham suit was drawing rapidly to a successful close. If this fellow should go on the witness-stand and tell his plausible story, the entire scheme might be wrecked beyond retrieval. But it was very annoying to be bulldozed into a thing in this way. The lawyer's stubborn nature rebelled against it powerfully. It would be a great pleasure, he thought, to defy the fellow and turn him into the street. Then a new fear came to him. What would be the effect of this man's story, with its air of genuineness, on the mind of so conscientious a boy as Ralph? He surely could not afford to have Ralph's faith interfered with; that would be certain to bring disaster. He made up his mind at once. Turning quickly on his heel to face his visitor, he said:-- "I want you to understand that I'm not afraid of you nor of your story, but I don't want to be bothered with you. Now, I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll give you one hundred dollars in cash to-night, on condition that you will leave this town by the first train in the morning, that you'll not go to Wilkesbarre, that you'll not come back here inside of a year, and that you'll not mention a word of this matter to any one so long as you shall live." The lawyer spoke with determined earnestness. Rhyming Joe looked up at the ceiling as if in doubt. Finally, he said:-- "Split the difference and call it even, A hundred and fifty and I'll be leavin'." Sharpman was whirling the knob of his safe back and forth. At last he flung open the safe-door. "I don't care," he said, looking around at his visitor, "whether your story is true or false. We'll call it true if that will please you. But if I ever hear of your lisping it again to any living person, I give you my word for it you shall be sorry. I pay you your own price for your silence; now I want you to understand that I've bought it and it's mine." He had taken a package of bank-notes from a drawer in his safe, had counted out a portion of them, and now handed them to Rhyming Joe. "Certainly," said the young man, "certainly; no one can say that I have ever failed to keep an honest obligation; and between you and me there shall be the utmost confidence and good faith. "Though woman's vain, and man deceives, There's always honor among--gentlemen. "I beg your pardon! it's the first time in fifteen years that I have failed to find an appropriate rhyming word; but the exigencies of a moment, you will understand, may destroy both rhyme and reason." He was folding the bills carefully and placing them in a shabby purse while Sharpman looked down on him with undisguised ill will. "Now," said the lawyer, "I expect that you will leave the city on the first train in the morning, and that you will not stop until you have gone at least a hundred miles. Here! here's enough more money to pay your fare that far, and buy your dinner"; and he held out, scornfully, toward the young man, another bank-bill. Rhyming Joe declined it with a courteous wave of his hand, and, rising, began, with much dignity, to button his coat. "I have already received," he said, "the _quid pro quo_ of the bargain. I do not sue for charity nor accept it. Reserve your financial favors for the poor and needy. "Go find the beggar crawling in the sun, Or him that's worse; But don't inflict your charity on one With well filled purse." Sharpman looked amused and put the money back into his pocket. Then a bit of his customary politeness returned to him. "I shall not expect to see you in Scranton again for some time, Mr. Cheekerton," he said, "but when you do come this way, I trust you will honor me with a visit." "Thank you, sir. When I return I shall expect to find that your brilliant scheme has met with deserved success; that old Craft has chuckled himself to death over his riches; and that my young friend Ralph is happy in his new home, and contented with such slight remnant of his fortune as may be left to him after you two are through with it. By the way, let me ask just one favor of you on leaving, and that is that the boy may never know what a narrow escape he has had to-night, and may never know that he is not really the son of Robert Burnham. It would be an awful blow to him to know that Old Simon is actually his grandfather; and there's no need, now, to tell him. "'Where ignorance is bliss,' you know the rest, And a still tongue is generally the best." "Oh, no, indeed! the boy shall hear nothing of the kind from me. I am very much obliged to you, however, for the true story of the matter." Under the circumstances Sharpman was outdoing himself in politeness, but he could not well outdo Rhyming Joe. The young man extended his hand to the lawyer with a respectful bow. "I shall long remember your extreme kindness and courtesy," he said. "Henceforth the spider of a friendship true, Shall weave its silken web twixt me and you." My dear sir, I wish you a very good night!" "Good-night!" The young man placed his silk hat jauntily on his head, and passed through the outer office, whistling a low tune; out at the street door and down the walk; out into the gay world of dissipation, down into the treacherous depths of crime; one more of the many who have chained bright intellects to the chariot wheels of vice, and have been dragged through dust and mire to final and to irretrievable disaster. A moment later a boy arose from a chair in the outer office and staggered out into the street. It was Ralph. He had heard it all. CHAPTER XIV. THE ANGEL WITH THE SWORD. Ralph had entered the office just as Rhyming Joe reached the point of his disclosure. He had heard him declare, in emphatic tones: "I say the boy Ralph is not Robert Burnham's son." It was as though some one had struck him. He dropped into a chair and sat as if under a spell, listening to every word that was uttered. He was powerless to move or to speak until the man who had told the cruel story had passed by him in the dark and gone down the walk into the street. Then he arose and followed him; he did not know just why, but it seemed as if he must see him, if only to beg him to declare that the story he had just heard him tell was all a lie. And yet Ralph believed that Rhyming Joe had told the truth. Why should he not believe him when Sharpman himself had put such faith in the tale as to purchase the man's silence with money. But if the story were true, if it _were_ true, then it should be known; Mrs. Burnham should know it, Mr. Goodlaw should know it, Mr. Sharpman should not conceal it, Rhyming Joe must not be allowed to depart until he had told it on the witness-stand, in open court. He must see him, Ralph thought; he must find him, he must, in some way, compel him to remain. The sound of the man's footsteps had not yet died away as the boy ran after him along the street, but half-way down the block his breath grew short, his heart began to pound against his breast, he pressed his hand to his side as if in pain, and staggered up to a lamp-post for support. When he recovered sufficiently to start on, Rhyming Joe had passed out of both sight and hearing. Ralph hurried down the street until he reached Lackawanna Avenue, and there he stopped, wondering which way to turn. But there was no time to lose. If the man should escape him now he might never see him again, he might never hear from his lips whether the dreadful story was really and positively true. He felt that Rhyming Joe would not lie to him to-night, nor deceive him, nor deny his request to make the truth known to those who ought to know it, if he could only find him and speak to him, and if the man could only see how utterly miserable he was. He plunged in among the Sunday evening saunterers, and hurried up the street, looking to the right and to the left, before and behind him, hastening on as he could. Once he thought he saw, just ahead, the object of his search. He ran up to speak to him, looked into his face, and--it was some one else. Finally he reached the head of the avenue and turned up toward the Dunmore road. Then he came back, crossed over, and went down on the other side of the street. Block after block he traversed, looking into the face of every man he met, glancing into doorways and dark corners, making short excursions into side streets; block after block, until he reached the Hyde Park bridge. He was tired and disheartened as he turned back and wondered what he should do next. Then it occurred to him that he had promised to meet Mr. Sharpman that night. Perhaps the lawyer was still waiting for him. Perhaps, if he should appeal to him, the lawyer would help him to find Rhyming Joe, and to make the truth known before injustice should be done. He turned his steps in the direction of Sharpman's office, reached it finally, went up the little walk, tried to open the door, and found it locked. The lights were out, the lawyer had gone. Ralph was very tired, and he sat down on the door-step to rest and to try to think. He felt that he had made every effort to find Rhyming Joe and had failed. To-morrow the man would be gone. Sharpman would go to Wilkesbarre. The evidence in the Burnham case would be closed. The jury would come into court and declare that he, Ralph, was Robert Burnham's son--and it would be all a lie. Oh, no! he could not let that be done. His whole moral nature cried out against it. He must see Sharpman to-night and beg him to put a stop to so unjust a cause. To-morrow it might be too late. He rose and started down the walk to find the lawyer's dwelling. But he did not know in which direction to turn. A man was passing along the street, and Ralph accosted him:-- "Please, can you tell me where Mr. Sharpman lives?" he asked. "I don't know anything about him," replied the man gruffly, starting on. In a minute another man came by, and Ralph repeated his question. "I don't know where he does live, sonny," said the man, "but I know where he would live if I had my choice as to his dwelling-place; he'd reside in the county jail," and this man, too, passed on. Ralph went back and sat down on the steps again. The sky had become covered with clouds, no stars were visible, and it was very dark. What was to be done now? He had failed to find Rhyming Joe, he had failed to find Lawyer Sharpman. The early morning train would carry both of them beyond his reach. Suppose it should? Suppose the case at Wilkesbarre should go on to its predicted end, and the jury should bring in their expected verdict, what then? Why, then the law would declare him to be Robert Burnham's son; the title, the position, the fortune would all be his; Mrs. Burnham would take him to her home, and lavish love and care upon him; all this unless--unless he should tell what he had heard. Ah! there was a thought. Suppose he should not tell, suppose he should let the case go on just as though he had not known the truth, just as though he had stayed at home that night instead of coming to the city; who would ever be the wiser? who would ever suspect him of knowing that the verdict was unjust? He might yet have it all, all, if only he would hold his tongue. His heart beat wildly with the thought, his breath came in gasps, something in his throat seemed choking him. But that would be wrong--he knew it would be wrong, and wicked; a sense of shame came over him, and he cast the tempting thought aside. No, there was but one thing for him, as an honest boy, to do, and that was to tell what he had heard. If he could tell it soon enough to hold the verdict back, so much the better, if he could not, still he had no right to keep his knowledge to himself--the story must be known. And then farewell to all his hopes, his plans, his high ambition. No beautiful home for him now, no loving mother nor winsome sister nor taste of any joy that he had thought to know. It was hard to give them up, it was terrible, but it must be done. He fell to thinking of his visit to his mother. It seemed to him as though it were something that had taken place very long ago. It was like a sweet dream that he had dreamed as a little boy. He wondered if it was indeed only that afternoon that it had all occurred. It had been so beautiful, so very beautiful; and now! Could it be that this boy, sitting weak, wretched, disconsolate, on the steps of this deserted office, in the night-time, was the same boy whose feet had scarcely touched the ground that afternoon for buoyant happiness? Oh, it was dreadful! dreadful! He began to wonder why he did not cry. He put up his hands to see if there were any tears on his cheeks, but he found none. Did only people cry who had some gentler cause for tears? But the thought of what would happen if he should keep his knowledge to himself came back again into his mind. He drove it out, but it returned. It had a fascination about it that was difficult to resist. It would be so easy simply to say nothing. And who would ever know that he was not Mrs. Burnham's son? Why, Old Simon would know, but he would not dare to tell; Lawyer Sharpman would know, but he would not dare to tell; Rhyming Joe would know, but he would not dare to tell, at least, not for a long time. And suppose it should be known after a year, after two years or longer, who would blame him? he would be supposed to have been ignorant of it all; he would be so established by that time in his new home that he would not have to leave it. They might take his property, his money, all things else, but he knew that if he could but live with Mrs. Burnham for a year she would never let him leave her, and that was all he cared for at any rate. But then, he himself would know that he had no right there; he would have to live with this knowledge always with him, he would have to walk about with an ever present lie on his mind and in his heart. He could not do that, he would not do it; he must disclose his knowledge, and make some effort to see that justice was not mocked. But it was too late to do anything to-night. He wondered how late it was. He thought of Bachelor Billy waiting for him at home. He feared that the good man would be worried on account of his long absence. A clock in a church tower not far away struck ten. Ralph started to his feet, went out into the street again, and up toward home. But Uncle Billy! what would Uncle Billy say when he should tell him what he had heard? Would he counsel him to hold his tongue? Ah, no! the boy knew well the course that Uncle Billy would mark out for him. But it would be a great blow to the man; he would grieve much on account of the lad's misfortune; he would feel the pangs of disappointment as deeply as did Ralph himself. Ought he not to be spared this pain? And then, a person holding the position of Robert Burnham's son could give much comfort to the man who had been his dearest friend, could place him beyond the reach of possible want, could provide well for the old age that was rapidly approaching, could make happy and peaceful the remnant of his days. Was it not the duty of a boy to do it? But, ah! he would not have the good man look into his heart and see the lie there, not for worlds. Ralph was passing along the same streets that he had traversed in coming to the city two hours before; but now the doors of the houses were closed, the curtains were drawn, the lights were out, there was no longer any sound of sweet voices at the steps, nor any laughter, nor any music in the air. A rising wind was stirring the foliage of the trees into a noise like the subdued sobbing of many people; the streets were deserted, a fine rain had begun to fall, and out on the road, after the lad had left the suburbs, it was very dark. Indeed, it was only by reason of long familiarity with the route that he could find his way at all. But the storm and darkness outside were not to be compared with the tempest in his heart; that was terrible. He had about made up his mind to tell Bachelor Billy everything and to follow his advice when he chanced to think of Mrs. Burnham, and how great her pain and disappointment would be when she should know the truth. He knew that she believed him now to be her son; that she was ready to take him to her home, that she counted very greatly on his coming, and was impatient to bestow on him all the care and devotion that her mother's heart could conceive. It would be a bitter blow to her, oh, a very bitter blow. It would be like raising her son from the dead only to lay him back into his grave after the first day. What right had he to inflict such torture as this on a lady who had been so kind to him? What right? Did not her love for him and his love for her demand that he should keep silence? But, oh! to hear the sound of loving words from her lips and know that he did not deserve them, to feel her mother's kisses on his cheek and know that his heart was dark with deep deceit. Could he endure that? could he? As Ralph turned the corner of the village street, he saw the light from Bachelor Billy's window shining out into the darkness. There were no other lights to be seen. People went early to bed there; they must rise early in the morning. The boy knew that his Uncle Billy was waiting for him, doubtless with much anxiety, but, now that he had reached the cottage, he stood motionless by the door. He was trying to decide what he should do and say on entering. To tell Uncle Billy or not to tell him, that was the question. He had never kept anything from him before; this would be the first secret he had not shared with him. And Uncle Billy had been so good to him, too, so very good! Yes, he thought he had better tell him; he would do it now, before his resolution failed. He raised his hand to lift the latch. Again he hesitated. If he should tell him, that would end it all. The good man would never allow him to act a falsehood. He would have to bid farewell to all his sweet dreams of home, and his high plans for life, and step back into the old routine of helpless poverty and hopeless toil. He felt that he was not quite ready to do that yet; heart, mind, body, all rebelled against it. He would wait and hope for some way out, without the sacrifice of all that he had longed for. His hand fell nerveless to his side. He still stood waiting on the step in the beating rain. But then, it was wrong to keep silent, wrong! wrong! wrong! The word went echoing through his mind like the stern sentence of some high court; conscience again pushed her way to the front, and the struggle in the boy's heart went on with a fierceness that was terrible. Suddenly the door was opened from the inside, and Bachelor Billy stood there, shading his eyes with his hand and peering out into the darkness. "Ralph," he said, "is that yo' a-stannin' there i' the rain? Coom in, lad; coom in wi' ye! Why!" he exclaimed, as the boy entered the room, "ye're a' drippin' wet!" "Yes, Uncle Billy, it's a-rainin' pirty hard; I believe I--I believe I did git wet." The boy's voice sounded strange and hard even to himself. Bachelor Billy looked down into his face questioningly. "What's the matter wi' ye, Ralph? Soun's like as if ye'd been a-cryin'. Anything gone wrong?" "Oh, no. Only I'm tired, that's all, an'--an' wet." "Ye look bad i' the face. Mayhap an' ye're a bit sick?" "No, I ain't sick." "Wull, then, off wi' the wet duddies, an' we'll be a-creepin' awa' to bed." As Ralph proceeded to remove his wet clothing, Bachelor Billy watched him with increasing concern. The boy's face was white and haggard, there were dark crescents under his eyes, his movements were heavy and confused, he seemed hardly to know what he was about. "Has the lawyer said aught to mak' ye unhappy, Ralph?" inquired Billy at last. "No, I ain't seen Mr. Sharpman. He wasn't in. He was in when I first went there, but somebody else was there a-talkin' to 'im, an' I went out to wait, an' w'en I got back again the office was locked, so I didn't see 'im." "Ye've been a lang time gone, lad?" "Yes, I waited aroun', thinkin' maybe he'd come back, but he didn't. I didn't git started for home" till just before it begun to rain." "Mayhap ye got a bit frightened a-comin' up i' the dark?" "No--well, I did git just a little scared a-comin' by old No. 10 shaft; I thought I heard a funny noise in there." "Ye s'ould na be oot so late alone. Nex' time I'll go wi' ye mysel'!" Ralph finished the removal of his wet clothing, and went to bed, glad to get where Bachelor Billy could not see his face, and where he need not talk. "I'll wait up a bit an' finish ma pipe," said the man, and he leaned back in his chair and began again his slow puffing. He knew that something had gone wrong with Ralph. He feared that he was either sick or in deep trouble. He did not like to question him too closely, but he thought he would wait a little before going to bed and see if there were any further developments. Ralph could not sleep, but he tried to lie very still. A half-hour went by, and then Bachelor Billy stole softly to the bed and looked down into the lad's face. He was still awake. "Have you got your pipe smoked out, Uncle Billy?" he asked. "Yes, lad; I ha' just finished it." "Then are you comin' to bed now?" "I thocht to. Do ye want for anything?" "Oh, no! I'm all right." The man began to prepare for bed. After a while Ralph spoke. "Uncle Billy!" "What is it, lad?" "I've been thinkin', s'pose this suit should go against us, do you b'lieve Mrs. Burnham would do anything more for me?" "She's a gude woman, Ralph. Na doot she'd care for ye; but ye could na hope to have her tak' ye to her hame, an they proved ye waur no' her son." "An' then--an' then I'd stay right along with you, wouldn't I?" "I hope so, lad, I hope so. I want ye s'ould stay wi' me till ye find a better place." "Oh, I couldn't find a better place to stay, I know I couldn't, 'xcept with my--'xcept with Mrs. Burnham." "Wull, ye need na worry aboot the matter. Ye'll ha' naught to fear fra the trial, I'm thinkin'. Gae to sleep noo; ye'll feel better i' the mornin', na doot." Ralph was silent, but only for a minute. A new thought was working slowly into his mind. "But, Uncle Billy," he said, "s'pose they should prove, to-morrow, 'at Simon Craft is my own gran'father, would I have to--Oh! Uncle Billy!" The lad started up in bed, sat there for a moment with wildly staring eyes, and then sprang to the floor trembling with excitement and fear. "Oh, don't!" he cried; "Uncle Billy, don't let him take me back there to live with him! I couldn't stan' it! I couldn't! I'd die! I can't go, Uncle Billy! I can't!" "There, there, lad! ha' no fear; ye'll no' go back, I'll no' let ye." The man had Ralph in his arms trying to quiet him. "But," persisted the boy, "he'll come for me, he'll, make me go. If they find out I'm his gran'son there at the court, they'll tell him to take me, I know they will!" "But ye're no' his gran'son, Ralph, ye've naught to do wi' 'im. Ye're Robert Burnham's son." "Oh, no, Uncle Billy, I ain't, I--" He stopped suddenly. The certain result of disclosing his knowledge to his Uncle Billy flashed warningly across his mind. If Bachelor Billy knew it, Mrs. Burnham must know it; if Mrs. Burnham knew it, Goodlaw and the court must know it, the verdict would be against him, Simon Craft would come to take him back to the terrors of his wretched home, and he would have to go. The law that would deny his claim as Robert Burnham's son would stamp him as the grandson of Simon Craft, and place him again in his cruel keeping. Oh, no! he must not tell. If there were reasons for keeping silence before, they were increased a hundred-fold by the shadow of this last danger. He felt that he had rather die than go back to live with Simon Craft. Bachelor Billy was rocking the boy in his arms as he would have rocked a baby. "There, noo, there, noo, quiet yoursel'," he said, and his voice was very soothing, "quiet yoursel'; ye've naught to dread; it'll a' coom oot richt. What's happenit to ye, Ralph, that ye s'ould be so fearfu'?" "N--nothin'; I'm tired, that's all. I guess I'll go to bed again." He went back to bed, but not to sleep. Hot and feverish, and with his mind in a tumult, he tossed about, restlessly, through the long hours of the night. He had decided at last that he could not tell what he had heard at Sharpman's office. The thought of having to return to Simon Craft had settled the matter in his mind. The other reasons for his silence he had lost sight of now; this last one outweighed them all, and placed a seal upon his tongue that he felt must not be broken. Toward morning he fell into a troubled sleep and dreamed that Old Simon was holding him over the mouth of Burnham Shaft, threatening to drop him down into it, while Sharpman stood by, with his hands in his pockets, laughing heartily at his terror. He managed to cry out, and awoke both himself and Bachelor Billy. He started up in bed, clutching at the coverings in an attempt, to save himself from apparent disaster, trembling from head to foot, moaning hoarsely in his fright. "What is it, Ralph, lad, what's ailin' ye?" "Oh, don't! don't let him throw me--Uncle Billy, is that you?" "It's me, Ralph. Waur ye dreamin'? There, never mind; no one s'all harm ye, ye're safe i' the bed at hame. Gae to sleep, lad, gae to sleep." "I thought they was goin' to throw me down the shaft. I must 'a' been a-dreamin'." "Yes, ye waur dreamin'. Gae to sleep." But Ralph did not go to sleep again that night, and when the first gray light of the dawning day came in at the cottage window he arose. Bachelor Billy was still wrapped in heavy slumber, and the boy moved about cautiously so as not to waken him. When he was dressed he went out and sat on a bench by the door. The storm of the night before had left the air cool and sweet, and it refreshed him to sit there and breathe it, and watch the sun as it came up from behind the long slanting roof of Burnham Breaker. But he was very miserable, very miserable indeed. It was not so much the sense of fear, of pain, of disappointment that disturbed him now, it was the misery of a fettered conscience, the shadow of an ever present shame. Finally the door was opened and Bachelor Billy stepped out. "Good mornin', Uncle Billy," said the boy, trying to speak cheerfully. "Gude mornin' till ye, Ralph! Ye're up airly the mornin'. I mak' free to say ye're a-feelin' better." "Yes, I am. I didn't sleep very well, but I'm better this mornin'. I wisht it was all over with--the trial I mean; you see it's a-makin' me kind o' nervous an'--an' tired. I can't stan' much 'xcitement, some way." "Wull, ye'll no' ha' lang to wait I'm a-thinkin'. It'll be ower the day. What aboot you're gaein' to Wilkesbarre?" "I don't know. I guess I'll go down to Mr. Sharpman's office after a while, an' see if he's left any word for me." Mrs. Maloney appeared at her door. "The top o' the mornin' to yez!" she cried, cheerily. "It's a fine mornin' this!" Both Bachelor Billy and Ralph responded to the woman's hearty greeting. She continued: "Ye'll be afther gettin' out in the air, I mind, to sharpen up the appetites; an' a-boardin' with a widdy, too, bad 'cess to ye!" Mrs. Maloney was inclined to be jovial, as well as kind-hearted. "Well, I've a bite on the table for yez, an ye don't come an' ate it, the griddle-cakes'll burn an' the coffee'll be cowld, an'--why, Ralph, is it sick ye are? sure, ye're not lookin' right well." "I wasn't feelin' very good las' night, Mrs. Maloney, but I'm better this mornin'." The sympathetic woman took the boy's hand and rubbed it gently, and, with many inquiries and much advice, she led him to the table. He forced himself to eat a little food and to drink something that the good woman had prepared for him, which, she declared emphatically, would drive off the "wakeness." Bachelor Billy did not take his dinner with him that morning as usual. He said he would come back at noon to learn whether anything new had occurred in the matter of the lawsuit, and whether it would be necessary for Ralph to go to Wilkesbarre. He was really much concerned about the boy. Ralph's conduct since the evening before had been a mystery to him. He knew that something was troubling the lad greatly; but, whatever it was, he had faith that Ralph would meet it manfully, the more manfully, perhaps, without his help. So he went away with cheering predictions concerning the suit, and with kindly admonition to the boy to remain as quiet as possible and try to sleep. But Ralph could not sleep, nor could he rest. He was laboring under too much excitement still to do either. He walked nervously about the cottage for a while, then he started down toward the city. He went first to Sharpman's office, and the clerk told him that Mr. Sharpman had left word that Ralph need not go to Wilkesbarre that day. Then he went on to the heart of the city. He was trying to divert himself, trying to drown his thought, as people try who are suffering from the reproaches of conscience. He walked down to the railroad station. He wondered if Rhyming Joe had gone. He supposed he had. He did not care to see him now, at any rate. He sat on a bench in the waiting-room for a few minutes to rest, then he went out into the street again. But he was very wretched. It seemed to him as though all persons whom he met looked down on him disdainfully, as if they knew of his proposed deceit, and despised him for it. A lady coming toward him crossed to the other side of the walk before she reached him. He wondered if she saw disgrace in his face and was trying to avoid him. After that he left the busy streets and walked back, by a less frequented route, toward home. The day was very bright and warm, but the brightness had a cold glare in Ralph's eyes, and he actually shivered as he walked on in the shade of the trees. He crossed to the sunny side of the street, and hurried along through the suburbs and up the hill. Widow Maloney called to him as he reached the cottage door, to ask after his health; but he told her he was feeling better, and went on into his own room. He closed the door behind him, locked it, and threw himself down upon the bed. He was very wretched. Oh, very wretched, indeed. He had decided to keep silent, and to let the case at Wilkesbarre go on to its expected end, but the decision had brought to him no peace; it had only made him more unhappy than he was before. But why should it do this? Was he not doing what was best? Would it not be better for Uncle Billy, for Mrs. Burnham, for himself? Must he, for the sake of some farfetched moral principle, throw himself into the merciless clutch of Simon Craft? Thus the fight began again, and the battle in the boy's heart went on with renewed earnestness. He gave to his conscience, one by one, the reasons that he had for acting the part of Robert Burnham's son; good reasons they were too, overwhelmingly convincing they seemed to him; but his conscience, like an angel with a flaming sword, rejected all of them, declaring constantly that what he thought to do would be a grievous wrong. But whom would it wrong? Not Ralph Burnham, for he was dead, and it could be no wrong to him; not Mrs. Burnham, for she would rejoice to have this boy with her, even though she knew he was not her son; not Bachelor Billy, for he would be helped to comfort and to happiness. And yet there stood the angel with the flaming sword crying out always that it was wrong. But whom would it wrong? himself? Ah! there was a thought--would it be wronging himself? Well, would it not? Had it not already made a coward of him? Was it not degrading him in his own eyes? Was it not trying to stifle the voice of conscience in his breast? Would it not make of him a living, walking lie? a thing to be shunned and scorned? Had he a right to place a burden so appalling on himself? Would it not be better to face the toil, the pain, the poverty, the fear? Would it not be better even to die than to live a life like that? He sprang from the bed with clenched hands and flashing eyes and swelling nostrils. A fire of moral courage had blazed up suddenly in his breast. His better nature rose to the help of the angel with the flaming sword, and together they fought, as the giants of old fought the dragons in their path. Then hope came back, and courage grew, and resolution found new footing. He stood there as he stood that day on the carriage that bore Robert Burnham to his death, the light of heroism in his eyes, the glow of splendid faith illuming his face. He could not help but conquer. He drove the spirit of temptation from his breast, and enthroned in its stead the principle of everlasting right. There was no thought now of yielding; he felt brave and strong to meet every trial, yes, every terror that might lie in his path, without flinching one hair's breadth from the stern line of duty. But now that his decision was made, he must act, and that promptly. What was the first thing to be done? Why, the first thing always was to confide in Uncle Billy, and to ask for his advice. He seized his hat and started up the village street and across the hill to Burnham Breaker There was no lagging now, no indecision in his step, no doubt within his mind. He was once more brave, hopeful, free-hearted, ready to do anything or all things, that justice might be done and truth become established. The sun shone down upon him tenderly, the birds sang carols to him on the way, the blossoming trees cast white flowers at his feet; but he never stayed his steps nor turned his thought until the black heights of Burnham Breaker threw their shadows on his head. CHAPTER XV. AN EVENTFUL JOURNEY. The shaft-tower of Burnham Breaker reached up so high from the surface of the earth that it seemed, sometimes, as if the low-hanging clouds were only a foot or two above its head. In the winter time the wind swept wildly against it, the flying snow drifted in through the wide cracks and broken windows, and the men who worked there suffered from the piercing cold. But when summer came, and the cool breeze floated across through the open places at the head, and one could look down always on the green fields far below, and the blossoming gardens, and the gray-roofed city, and the shining waters of the Lackawanna, winding southward, and the wooded hills rising like green waves to touch the far blue line of mountain peaks, ah, then it was a pleasant place to work in. So Bachelor Billy thought, these warm spring days, as he pushed the dripping cars from the carriage, and dumped each load of coal into the slide, to be carried down between the iron-teethed rollers, to be crushed and divided and screened and re-screened, till it should pass beneath the sharp eyes and nimble fingers of the boys who cleansed it from its slate and stone. Billy often thought, as he dumped a carload into the slide, and saw a huge lump of coal that glistened brightly, or glowed with iridescent tints, or was veined with fossil-marked or twisted slate, that perhaps, down below in the screen-room, Ralph's eyes would see the brightness of the broken lump, or Ralph's fingers pick the curious bits of slate from out the moving mass. And as he fastened up the swing-board and pushed the empty car to the carriage, he imagined how the boy's face would light up with pleasure, or his brown eyes gleam with wonder and delight in looking on these strange specimens of nature's handiwork. But to-day Ralph was not there. In all probability he would never be there again to work. Another boy was sitting on his bench in the screen-room, another boy was watching rainbow coal and fern-marked slate. This thought in Bachelor Billy's mind was a sad one. He pushed the empty car on the carriage, and sat down on a bench by the window to consider the subject of Ralph's absence. Something had gone wrong at the foot of the shaft. There were no cars ready for hoisting, and Billy and his co-laborer, Andy Gilgallon, were able to rest for many minutes from their toil. As they sat looking down upon the green landscape below them, Bachelor Billy's attention was attracted to a boy who was hurrying along the turnpike road a quarter of a mile away. He came to the foot of the hill and turned up the path to the breaker, looking up to the men in the shaft-tower as he hastened on, and waving his hand to them. "I believe it's Ralph," said Billy, "it surely is. An ye'll mind both carriages for a bit when they start up, Andy, I'll go t' the lad," and he hurried across the tracks and down the dark and devious way that led to the surface of the earth. At the door of the pump-room he met Ralph. "Uncle Billy!" shouted the boy, "I want to see you; I've got sumpthin' to tell you." Two or three men were standing by, watching the pair curiously, and Ralph continued: "Come up to the tree where they ain't so much noise; 'twon't take long." He led the way across the level space, up the bank, and into the shadow of the tree beneath which the breaker boys had gathered a year before to pass resolutions of sympathy for Robert Burnham's widow; They were no sooner seated on the rude bench than Ralph began:-- "I ought to 'a' told you before, I done very wrong not to tell you, but I couldn't raise the courage to do it till this mornin'. Here's what I want you to know." Then Ralph told, with full detail, of his visit to Sharpman's office on Sunday evening, of what he had heard there, of his subsequent journey through the streets of the city, of his night of agony, of his morning of shame, of his final victory over himself. Bachelor Billy listened with intense interest, and when he had heard the boy's story to the end he dashed the tears from his eyes and said: "Gie's your han' Ralph; gie's your twa han's! Ye're a braw lad. Son or no son o' Robert Burnham, ye're fit to stan' ony day in his shoes!" He was looking down with strong admiration into the boy's pale face, holding the small hands affectionately in both of his. "I come just as quick as I could," continued the boy, "after I got over thinkin' I'd keep still about it, just as quick as I could, to tell you an' ask you what to do. I'll do anything 'at you tell me it's right to do, Uncle Billy, anything. If you'll only say I must do it, I will. But it's awful hard to do it all alone, to let 'em know who I am, to give up everything so, an' not to have any mother any more, nor no sister, nor no home, nor no learnin', nor nothing; not anything at all, never, any more; it's terrible! Oh, Uncle Billy, it's terrible!" Then, for the first time since the dreadful words of Rhyming Joe fell on his ears in the darkness of Sharpman's office, Ralph gave way to tears. He wept till his whole frame shook with the deep force of his sobs. Bachelor Billy put his arm around the boy and drew him to his side. He smoothed back the tangled hair from the child's hot forehead and spoke rude words of comfort into his ears, and after a time Ralph grew quiet. "Do you think, Uncle Billy," asked Ralph, "'at Rhymin' Joe was a-tellin' the truth? He used to lie, I know he did, I've heard 'im lie myself." "It looks verra like, Ralph, as though he might 'a' been a-tellin' o' the truth; he must 'a' been knowin' to it all, or he could na tell it so plain." "Oh! he was; he knew all about it. I remember him about the first thing. He was there most all the time. But I didn't know but he might just 'a' been lyin' to get that money." "It's no' unlikely. But atween the twa, I'd sooner think it was the auld mon was a-tellin' o' the lee. He has more to make out o' it, do ye see?" "Well, there's the evidence in court." "True, but Lawyer Sharpman kens the worth o' that as well as ony o' us. An he was na fearfu' that the truth would owerbalance it, he wadna gi' a mon a hunderd an' fifty dollars to hold his tongue. I'm doubtfu' for ye, Ralph, I'm verra doubtfu'." Ralph had believed Rhyming Joe's story from the beginning, but he felt that this belief must be confirmed by Uncle Billy in order to put it beyond question. Now he was satisfied. It only remained to act. "It's all true," he said; "I know it's all true, an' sumpthin's got to be done. What shall I do, Uncle Billy?" The troubled look deepened on the man's face. "Whether it's fause or true," he replied, "ye s'ould na keep it to yoursel'. She ought to know. It's only fair to go an' tell the tale to her an' let her do what she thenks bes'." "Must I tell Mrs. Burnham? Must I go an' tell her 'at I ain't her son, an' 'at I can't live with her, an' 'at we can't never be happy together the way we talked? Oh, Uncle Billy, I can't do that, I can't!" He looked up beseechingly into the man's face. Something that he saw there--pain, disappointment, affection, something, inspired him with fresh courage, and he started to his feet and dashed the tears from his eyes. "Yes, I can do it too!" he exclaimed. "I can do anything 'at's right, an' that's right. I won't wait; I'll go now." "Don't haste, lad; wait a bit; listen! If the lady should be gone to court ye mus' gae there too. If ye canna find her, ye mus' find her lawyer. One or the ither ye s'ould tell, afoor the verdict comes; afterwards it might be too late." "Yes, I'll do it, I'll do it just like that." "Mos' like ye'll have to go to Wilkesbarre. An ye do I'll go mysel'. But dinna wait for me. I'll coom when I can get awa'. Ye s'ould go on the first train that leaves." "Yes, I unnerstan'. I'll go now." "Wait a bit! Keep up your courage, Ralph. Ye've done a braw thing, an' ye're through the worst o' it; but ye'll find a hard path yet, an' ye'll need a stout hert. Ralph," he had taken both the boy's hands into his again, and was looking tenderly into his haggard face and bloodshot eyes; the traces of the struggle were so very plain--"Ralph, I fear I'd cry ower ye a bit an we had the time, ye've sufferit so. An' it's gude for ye, I'm thinkin', that ye mus' go quick. I'd make ye weak, an' ye need to be strang. I canna fear for ye, laddie; ye ken the right an' ye'll do it. Good-by till ye; it'll not be lang till I s'all go to ye; good-by!" He bent down and kissed the boy's forehead and turned him to face toward the city; and when Ralph had disappeared below the brow of the hill, the rough-handed, warm-hearted toiler of the breaker's head wiped the tears from his face, and climbed back up the steep steps, and the long walks of cleated plank, to engage in his accustomed task. There was no shrinking on Ralph's part now. He was on fire with the determination to do the duty that lay so plainly in his sight. He did not stop to argue with himself, he scarcely saw a person or a thing along his path; he never rested from his rapid journey till he reached the door of Mrs. Burnham's house. A servant came in answer to his ring at the bell, and gave him pleasant greeting. She said that Mrs. Burnham had gone to Wilkesbarre, that she had started an hour before, that she had said she would come back in the early evening and would doubtless bring her son with her. Ralph looked up into the woman's face, and his eyes grew dim. "Thank you," he said, repressing a sob, and he went down the steps with a choking in his throat and a pain at his heart. He turned at the gate, and looked back through the half-opened door into the rich shadows that lay beyond it, with a ray of crimson light from the stained glass window cleaving them across, and then his eyes were blinded with tears, and he could see no more. The gates of his Eden were closed behind him; he felt that he should never enter them again. But this was no time for sorrow and regret. He wiped the tears from his eyes and turned his face resolutely toward the heart of the city. At the railroad station he was told that the next train would leave for Wilkesbarre at twelve o'clock. It lacked half an hour of that time now. There was nothing to do but to wait. He began to mark out in his mind the course he should pursue on reaching Wilkesbarre. He thought he would inquire the way to Mr. Goodlaw's office, and go directly to it and tell the whole story to him. Perhaps Mrs. Burnham would be there too, that would be better yet, more painful but better. Then he should follow their advice as to the course to be pursued. It was more than likely that they would want him to testify as a witness. That would be strange, too, that he should give such evidence voluntarily as would deprive him of a beautiful home, of a loving mother, and of an honored name. But he was ready to do it; he was ready to do anything now that seemed right and best, anything that would meet the approval of his Uncle Billy and of his own conscience. When the train was ready he found a seat in the cars and waited impatiently for them to start. For some reason they were late in getting away, but, once started, they seemed to be going fast enough to make up for lost time. In the seats behind Ralph was a merry party of young girls. Their incessant chatter and musical laughter came to his ears as from a long distance. At any former time he would have listened to them with great pleasure; such sounds had an unspeakable charm for him; but to-day his brain was busied with weightier matters. He looked from the car window and saw the river glancing in the sunlight, winding under shaded banks, rippling over stony bottoms. He saw the wooded hill-sides, with the delicate green of spring upon them fast deepening into the darker tints of summer. He saw the giant breakers looming up, black and massive, in the foreground of almost every scene. And yet it was all scarcely more to him than a shadowy dream. The strong reality in his mind was the trying task that lay before him yet, and the bitter outcome, so soon to be, of all his hopes and fancies. At Pittston Junction there was another long delay. Ralph grew very nervous and impatient. If the train could have reached Wilkesbarre on time he would have had only an hour to spare before the sitting of the court. Now he could hope for only a half-hour at the best. And if anything should happen to deprive him of that time; if anything _should_ happen so that he should not get to court until after the case was closed, until after the verdict of the jury had been rendered, until after the law had declared him to be Robert Burnham's son; if anything _should_ happen! His face flushed, his heart began to beat wildly, his breath came in gasps. If such a thing were to occur, without his fault, against his will and effort, what then? It was only for a moment that he gave way to this insidious and undermining thought. Then he fought it back, crushed it, trampled on it, and set his face again sternly to the front. At last the train came, the impatient passengers entered it, and they were once more on their way. It was a relief at least to be going, and for the moment Ralph had a faint sense of enjoyment in looking out across the placid bosom of the Susquehanna, over into the tree-girt, garden-decked expanse of the valley of Wyoming. Off the nearer shore of a green-walled island in the river, a group of cattle stood knee-deep in the shaded water, a picture of perfect comfort and content. Then the train swept around a curve, away from the shore, and back among the low hills to the east. Suddenly there was a bumping together of the cars, an apparently powerful effort to check their impetus, a grinding of the brakes on the wheels, a rapid slowing of the train, and a slight shock at stopping. The party of girls had grown silent, and their eyes were wide and their faces blanched with fear. The men in the car arose from their seats and went out to discover the cause of the alarm. Ralph went also. The train had narrowly escaped plunging into a mass of wrecked coal cars, thrown together by a collision which had just occurred, and half buried in the scattered coal. To make the matter still worse the collision had taken place in a deep and narrow cut, and had filled it from side to side with twisted and splintered wreckage. What was to be done? the passengers asked. The conductor replied that a man would be sent back to the next station, a few miles away, to telegraph for a special train from Wilkesbarre, and that the passengers would take the train from the other side of the wreck. And how long would they be obliged to wait here? "Well, an hour at any rate, perhaps longer." "That means two hours," said an impatient traveller, bitterly. Ralph heard it all. An hour would make him very late, two hours would be fatal to his mission. He went up to the conductor and asked,-- "How long'd it take to walk to Wilkesbarre?" "That depends on how fast you can walk, sonny. Some men might do it in half or three quarters of an hour: you couldn't." And the man looked down, slightingly, on the boyish figure beside him. Ralph turned away in deep thought. If he could walk it in three-quarters of an hour, he might yet be in time; time to do something at least. Should he try? But this accident, this delay, might it not be providential? Must he always be striving against fate? against every circumstance that would tend to relieve him? against every obstacle thrown into his path to prevent him from bringing calamity on his own head? Must he?--but the query went no further. The angel with the flaming sword came back to guard the gates of thought, and conscience still was king. He would do all that lay in his human power, with every moment and every muscle that he had, to fulfil the stern command of duty, and then if he should fail, it would be with no shame in his heart, no blot upon his soul. Already he was making his way through the thick underbrush along the steep hill-side above the wreck, stumbling, falling, bruising his hands and knees, and finally leaping down into the railroad track on the other side of the piled-up cars. From there he ran along smoothly on the ties, turning out once for a train of coal cars to pass him, but stopping for nothing. A man at work in a field by the track asked him what the matter was up the line; the boy answered him in as few words as possible, walking while he talked, and then ran on again. After he had gone a mile or more he came to a wagon-road crossing, and wondered if, by following it, he would not sooner reach his journey's end. He could see, in the distance, the smoke arising from a hundred chimneys where the city lay, and the road looked as though it would take him more directly there. He did not stop long to consider. He plunged ahead down a little hill, and then along on a foot-path by the side of the wagon-track. The day had grown to be very warm, and Ralph removed his jacket and carried it on his arm or across his shoulder. He became thirsty after a while, but he dared not stop at the houses along the way to ask for water; it would take too much time. He met many wagons coming toward him, but there seemed to be few going in to the city. He had hoped to get a ride. He had overtaken a farmer with a wagon-load of produce going to the town and had passed him. Two or three fast teams whirled by, leaving a cloud of dust to envelop him. Then a man, riding in a buggy, drove slowly down the road. Ralph shouted at him as he passed:-- "Please, sir, may I have a ride? I'm in a desp'ate hurry!" But the man looked back at him contemptuously. "I don't run a stage for the benefit of tramps," he said, and drove on. Ralph was discouraged and did not dare to ask any one else for a ride, though there seemed to be several opportunities to get one. But he came to a place, at last, where a little creek crossed the road, a cool spring run, and he knelt down by it and quenched his thirst, and considered that if he had been in a wagon he would have missed the drink. The road was somewhat disappointing to him, too. It seemed to turn away, after a little distance, from the direct line to the city, and to bear to the west, toward the river. He feared that he had made a mistake in leaving the railroad, but he only walked the faster. Now and then he would break into a run and keep running until his breath gave out, then he would drop back into a walk. His feet began to hurt him. One shoe rubbed his heel until the pain became so intense that he could not bear it, and he sat down by the roadside and removed his shoes and stockings, and then ran on in his bare feet. The sunlight grew hotter; no air was stirring; the dust hung above the road in clouds. Deep thirst came back upon the boy; his limbs grew weak and tired; his bared feet were bruised upon the stones. But he scarcely thought of these things; his only anxiety was that the moments were passing, that the road was long, that unless he reached his journey's end in time injustice would be done and wrong prevail. So he pressed on; abating not one jot of his swiftness, falling not one hair's breadth from his height of resolution, on and on, foot-sore, thirsty, in deep distress; but with a heart unyielding as the flint, with a purpose strong as steel, with a heroism more magnificent than that which meets the points of glittering bayonets or the mouths of belching cannon. CHAPTER XVI. A BLOCK IN THE WHEEL. At half-past one o'clock people began to loiter into the court-house at Wilkesbarre; at two the court-room was full. They were there, the most of them, to hear the close of the now celebrated Burnham case. The judge came in from a side door and took his seat on the bench. Beneath him the prothonotary was busy writing in a big book. Down in the bar the attorneys sat chatting familiarly and pleasantly with one another. Sharpman was there, and Craft was at his elbow. Goodlaw was there, and Mrs. Burnham sat in her accustomed place. The crier opened court in a voice that could be heard to the farthest end of the room, though few of the listeners understood what his "Oyez! oyez! oyez!" was all about. Some opinions of the court were read and handed down by the judge. The prothonotary called the jury list for the week. Two or three jurors presented applications for discharge which were patiently considered and acted on by the court. The sheriff arose and acknowledged a bunch of deeds, the title-pages of which had been read aloud by the judge. An attorney stepped up to the railing and presented a petition to the court; another attorney arose and objected to it, and quite a little discussion ensued over the matter. It finally ended by a rule being granted to show cause why the petition should not be allowed. Then there were several motions made by as many lawyers. All this took much time; a good half-hour at least, perhaps longer. Finally there was a lull. The judge was busily engaged in writing. The attorneys seemed to have exhausted their topics for conversation and to be waiting for new ones. The jury in the Burnham case sat listlessly in their chairs, glad that their work in the matter at issue was nearly done, yet regretful that a case had not been made out which might have called for the exercise of that large intelligence, that critical acumen, that capacity for close reasoning, of which the members of the average jury feel themselves to be severally and collectively possessed. As it was, there would be little for them to do. The case was extremely one-sided, "like the handle on a jug," as one of them sententiously and somewhat scornfully remarked. The judge looked up from his writing. "Well, gentlemen," he said, "are you ready to proceed in the case of 'Craft against Burnham'?" "We are ready on the part of the plaintiff," replied Sharpman. Goodlaw arose. "If it please the court," he said, "we are in the same position to-day that we were in on Saturday night at the adjournment. This matter has been, with us, one of investigation rather than of defence. "Though we hesitate to accept a statement of fact from a man of Simon Craft's self-confessed character, yet the corroborative evidence seems to warrant a belief in the general truth of his story. "We do not wish to offer any further contradictory evidence than that already elicited from the plaintiff's witnesses. I may say, however, that this decision on our part is due not so much to my own sense of the legal barrenness of our case as to my client's deep conviction that the boy Ralph is her son, and to her great desire that justice shall be done to him." "In that case," said the judge, "I presume you will have nothing further to offer on the part of the plaintiff, Mr. Sharpman?" "Nothing," replied that gentleman, with an involuntary, smile of satisfaction on his lips. "Then," said Goodlaw, who was still standing, "I suppose the evidence may be declared closed. I know of no--" He stopped and turned to see what the noise and confusion back by the entrance was about. The eyes of every one else in the room were turned in that direction also. A tipstaff was trying to detain Ralph at the door; he had not recognized him. But the boy broke away from him and hurried down the central aisle to the railing of the bar. In the struggle with the officer he had lost his hat, and his hair was tumbled over his forehead. His face was grimy and streaked with perspiration; his clothes were torn and dusty, and in his hand he still carried his shoes and stockings. "Mr. Goodlaw!" he exclaimed in a loud whisper as he hastened across the bar, "Mr. Goodlaw, wait a minute! I ain't Robert Burnham's son! I didn't know it till yestaday; but I ain't--I ain't his son!" The boy dropped, panting, into a chair. Goodlaw looked down on him in astonishment. Old Simon clutched his cane and leaned forward with his eyes flashing fire. Mrs. Burnham, her face pale with surprise and compassion, began to smooth back the hair from the lad's wet forehead. The people back in the court-room had risen to their feet, to look down into the bar, and the constables were trying to restore order. It all took place in a minute. Then Ralph began to talk again:-- "Rhymin' Joe said so; he said I was Simon Craft's grandson; he told--" Sharpman interrupted him. "Come with me, Ralph," he said, "I want to speak with you a minute." He reached out his hand, as if to lead him away; but Goodlaw stepped between them, saying, sternly:-- "He shall not go! The boy shall tell his story unhampered; you shall not crowd it back down his throat in private!" "I say the boy shall go," replied Sharpman, angrily. "He is my client, and I have a right to consult with him." This was true. For a moment Goodlaw was at his wit's end. Then, a bright idea came to him. "Ralph," he said, "take the witness-stand." Sharpman saw that he was foiled. He turned to the court, white with passion. "I protest," he exclaimed, "against this proceeding! It is contrary to both law and courtesy. I demand the privilege of consulting with my client!" "Counsel has a right to call the boy as a witness," said the judge, dispassionately, "and to put him on the stand at once. Let him be sworn." Ralph pushed his way up to the witness-stand, and the officer administered the oath. He was a sorry-looking witness indeed. At any other time or in any other place, his appearance would have been ludicrous. But now no one laughed. The people in the court-room began to whisper, "Hush!" fearing lest the noise of moving bodies might cause them to lose the boy's words. To Goodlaw it was all a mystery. He did not know how to begin the examination. He started at a venture. "Are you Robert Burnham's son?" "No, sir," replied Ralph, firmly. "I ain't." There was a buzz of excitement in the room. Old Simon sat staring at the boy incredulously. His anger had changed for the moment into wonder. He could not understand the cause of Ralph's action. Sharpman had not told him of the interview with Rhyming Joe--he had not thought it advisable. "Who are you, then?" inquired Goodlaw. "I'm Simon Craft's grandson." The excitement in the room ran higher. Craft raised himself on his cane to lean toward Sharpman. "He lies!" whispered the old man, hoarsely; "the boy lies!" Sharpman paid no attention to him. "When did you first learn that you are Mr. Craft's grandson?" continued the counsel for the defence. "Last night," responded Ralph. "Where?" "At Mr. Sharpman's office." The blood rushed suddenly into Sharpman's face. He understood it all now; Ralph had overheard. "Who told you?" asked Goodlaw. "No one told me, I heard Rhymin' Joe--" Sharpman interrupted him. "I don't know," he said, "if the court please, what this boy is trying to tell nor what wild idea has found lodgement in his brain; but I certainly object to the introduction of such hearsay evidence as counsel seems trying to bring out. Let us at least know whether the responsible plaintiff in this case was present or was a party to this alleged conversation." "Was Mr. Craft present?" asked Goodlaw of the witness. "No, sir; I guess not, I didn't hear 'im, any way." "Did you see him?" "No, sir; I didn't see 'im. I didn't see either of 'em." "Where were you?" "In the room nex' to the street." "Where did this conversation take place?" "In the back room." "Was the door open?" "Just a little." "Who were in the back room?" "Mr. Sharpman an' Rhymin' Joe." "Who is Rhyming Joe?" "He's a man I used to know in Philadelphy." "When you lived with Craft?" "Yes, sir." "What was his business?" "I don't know as anything. He used to bring things to the house sometimes, watches an' things." "How long have you known Rhyming Joe?" "Ever since I can remember." "Was he at Craft's house frequently?" "Yes, sir; most all the time." An idea of the true situation of affairs was dawning upon Goodlaw's mind. That Ralph had overheard Rhyming Joe say to Sharpman that the boy was Simon Craft's grandson was evident. But how to get that fact before the jury in the face of the rules of evidence--that was the question. It seemed to him that there should be some way to do it, and he kept on with the examination in order to gain time for thought and to lead up to the point. "Did Mr. Sharpman know that you were in his office when this conversation took place?" "No, sir; I guess not." "Did Rhyming Joe know you were there?" "No, sir; I don't believe he did." "From the conversation overheard by you, have you reason to believe that Rhyming Joe is acquainted with the facts relating to your parentage?" "Yes, sir; he must know." "And, from hearing that conversation, did you become convinced that you are Simon Craft's grandson and not Robert Burnham's son?" "Yes, sir, I did. Rhymin' Joe said so, an' he knows." "Did you see Rhyming Joe last night?" "No, sir. Only as he passed by me in the dark." "Have you seen him to-day?" "No, sir; he promised to go away this mornin'." "To whom did he make that promise?" Sharpman was on his feet in an instant, calling on Ralph to stop, and appealing to the court to have the counsel and witness restricted to a line of evidence that was legal and proper. He saw open before him the pit of bribery, and this fearless boy was pushing him dangerously close to the brink of it. The judge admonished the defendant's attorney to hold the witness within proper bounds and to proceed with the examination. In the meantime, Goodlaw had been thinking. He felt that it was of the highest importance that this occurrence in Sharpman's office should be made known to the court and the jury, and that without delay. There was but one theory, however, on which he could hope to introduce evidence of all that had taken place there, and he feared that that was not a sound one. But he determined to put on a bold face and make the effort. "Ralph," he said, calmly, "you may go on now and give the entire conversation as you heard it last night between Mr. Sharpman and Rhyming Joe." The very boldness of the question brought a smile to Sharpman's face as he arose and objected to the legality of the evidence asked for. "We contend," said Goodlaw, in support of his offer, "that neither the trustee-plaintiff nor his attorney are persons whom the law recognizes as having any vital interest in this suit. The witness on the stand is the real plaintiff here, his are the interests that are at stake, and if he chooses to give evidence adverse to those interests, evidence relevant to the matter at issue, although it may be hearsay evidence, he has a perfect right to do so. His privilege as a witness is as high as that of any other plaintiff." But Sharpman was on the alert. He arose to reply. "Counsel forgets," he said, "or else is ignorant of the fact, that the very object of the appointment of a guardian is because the law considers that a minor is incapable of acting for himself. He has no discretionary power in connection with his estate. He has no more right to go on the witness-stand and give voluntary hearsay evidence which shall be adverse to his own interests than he has to give away any part of his estate which may be under the control of his trustee. A guardian who will allow him to do either of these things without objection will be liable for damages at the hands of his ward when that ward shall have reached his majority. We insist on the rejection of the offer." The judge sat for a minute in silence, as if weighing the matter carefully. Finally he said:-- "We do not think the testimony is competent, Mr. Goodlaw. Although the point is a new one to us, we are inclined to look upon the law of the case as Mr. Sharpman looks on it. We shall be obliged to refuse your offer. We will seal you a bill of exceptions." Goodlaw had hardly dared to expect anything else. There was nothing for him to do but to acquiesce in the ruling of the court. Ralph turned to face him with a question on his lips. "Mr. Goodlaw," he said, "ain't they goin' to let me tell what I heard Rhymin' Joe say?" "I am afraid not, Ralph; the court has ruled that conversation out." "But they won't never know the right of it unless I tell that. I've got to tell it; that's what I come here for." The judge turned to the witness and spoke to him, not unkindly:-- "Ralph, suppose you refrain from interrogating your counsel, and let him ask questions of you; that is the way we do here." "Yes, sir, I will," said the boy, innocently, "only it seems too bad 'at I can't tell what Rhymin' Joe said." The lawyers in the bar were smiling, Sharpman had recovered his apparent good-nature, and Goodlaw began again to interrogate the witness. "Are you aware, Ralph," he asked, "that your testimony here to-day may have the effect of excluding you from all rights in the estate of Robert Burnham?" "Yes, sir, I know it." "And do you know that you are probably denying yourself the right to bear one of the most honored names, and to live in one of the most beautiful homes in this community?" "Yes, sir, I know it all. I wouldn't mind all that so much though if it wasn't for my mother. I've got to give her up now, that's the worst of it; I don't know how I'm goin' to stan' that." Mrs. Burnham, sitting by her counsel, bent her head above the table and wept silently. "Was your decision to disclose your knowledge reached with a fair understanding of the probable result of such a disclosure?" "Yes, sir, it was. I knew what the end of it'd be, an' I had a pirty hard time to bring myself to it, but I done it, an' I'm glad now 'at I did." "Did you reach this decision alone or did some one help you to it?" "Well, I'll tell you how that was. All't I decided in the first place was to tell Uncle Billy,--he's the man't I live with. So I told him, an' he said I ought to tell Mrs. Burnham right away. But she wasn't home when I got to her house, so I started right down here; an' they was an accident up on the road, an' the train couldn't go no further, an' so I walked in--I was afraid I wouldn't get here in time 'less I did." "Your long walk accounts for your dusty and shoeless condition, I suppose?" "Yes, sir; it was pirty dusty an' hot, an' I had to walk a good ways, an' my shoes hurt me so't I had to take 'em off, an' I didn't have time to put 'em on again after I got here. Besides," continued the boy, looking down apologetically at his bruised and dusty feet, "I hurt my feet a-knockin' 'em against the stones when I was a-runnin', an' they've got swelled up so 'at I don't believe I could git my shoes on now, any way." Many people in the room besides Mrs. Burnham had tears in their eyes at the conclusion of this simple statement. Then Ralph grew white about the lips and looked around him uneasily. The judge saw that the lad was faint, and ordered a tipstaff to bring him a glass of water. Ralph drank the water and it refreshed him. "You may cross-examine the witness," said Goodlaw to the plaintiff's attorney. Sharpman hardly knew how to begin. But he felt that he must make an effort to break in some way the force of Ralph's testimony. He knew that from a strictly legal point of view, the evidence was of little value, but he feared that the boy's apparent honesty, coupled with his dramatic entrance, would create an impression on the minds of the jury which might carry them to a disastrous verdict. He leaned back in his chair with an assumed calmness, placed the tips of his fingers against each other, and cast his eyes toward the ceiling. "Ralph," he said, "you considered up to yesterday that Mr. Craft and I were acting in your interest in this case, did you not?" "Yes, sir; I thought so." "And you have consulted with us and followed our advice until yesterday, have you not?" "Yes, sir." "And last night you came to the conclusion that we were deceiving you?" "Yes, sir; I did." "Have you any reason for this opinion aside from the conversation you allege that you heard?" "I don't know as I have." "At what hour did you reach my office last evening?" "I don't know, I guess it must 'a' been after eight o'clock." "Was it dark?" "It was jest dark." "Was there a light in the office when you came in?" "They was in the back room where you an' Rhymin' Joe were." "Did you think that I knew when you came into the office?" "I don't believe you did." "Why did you not make your presence known?" "Well, I--I--" "Come, out with it! If you had any reason for playing the spy, let's hear what it was." "I didn't play the spy. I didn't think o' bein' mean that way, but when I heard Rhymin' Joe tell you 'at I wasn't Robert Burnham's son, I was so s'prised, an' scart-like 'at I couldn't speak." This was a little more than Sharpman wanted, but he kept on:-- "How long were you under the control of this spirit of muteness?" "Sir?" "How long was it before the power to speak returned to you?" "Oh! not till Rhymin' Joe went out, I guess. I felt so bad I didn't want to speak to anybody." "Did you see this person whom you call Rhyming Joe?" "Only in the dark." "Not so as to recognize him by sight?" "No, sir." "How did you know it was he?" "By the way he talked." "How long is it since you have been accustomed to hearing him talk?" "About three years." "Did you see me last night?" "I caught a glimpse of you jest once." "When?" "When you went across the room an' gave Rhymin' Joe the money." Sharpman flushed angrily. He felt that he was treading on dangerous ground in this line of examination. He went on more cautiously. "At what time did you leave my office last night?" "Right after Rhymin' Joe did. I went out to find him." "Then you went away without letting me know of your presence there, did you?" "Yes, sir." "Did you find this Rhyming Joe?" "No, sir, I couldn't find 'im." "Now, Ralph, when you left me at the Scranton station on Saturday night, did you go straight home?" "Yes, sir." "Did you see any one to talk with except Bachelor Billy that night after you left me?" "No, sir." "Where did you go on Sunday morning?" "Uncle Billy an' me went down to the chapel to meetin'." "From there where did you go?" "Back home." "And had your dinner?" "Yes, sir." "What did you do after that?" "Me an' Uncle Billy went up to the breaker." "What breaker?" "Burnham Breaker." "Why did you go there?" "Jest for a walk, an' to see how it looked." "How long did you stay there?" "Oh, we hadn't been there more'n fifteen or twenty minutes 'fore Mrs. Burnham's man came for me an' took me to her house." Sharpman straightened up in his chair. His drag-net had brought up something at last. It might be of value to him and it might not be. "Ah!" he said, "so you spent a portion of yesterday afternoon at Mrs. Burnham's house, did you?" "Yes, sir, I did." "How long did you stay there?" "Oh! I shouldn't wonder if it was two or three hours." "Did you see Mrs. Burnham alone?" "Yes, sir." "Have a long talk together?" "Yes, sir, a very nice long talk." Sharpman thought that if he could only lead the jury, by inference, to the presumption that what had taken place to-day was understood between Ralph and Mrs. Burnham yesterday it would be a strong point, but he knew that he must go cautiously. "She was very kind to you, wasn't she?" "Yes, sir; she was lovely. I never had so good a time before in all my life." "You took dinner with her, I suppose?" "Yes, sir." "Have a good dinner?" "It was splendid." "Did you eat a good deal?" "Yes, sir, I think I eat a great deal." "Had a good many things that were new to you, I presume?" "Yes, sir, quite a good many." "Did you think you would like to go there to live?" "Oh, yes! I did. It's beautiful there, it's very beautiful. You don't know how lovely it is till you get there. I couldn't help bein' happy in a home like that, an' they couldn't be no nicer mother'n Mrs. Burnham is, nor no pirtier little sister. An' everybody was jest as good to me there! Why, you don't know what a--" The glow suddenly left the boy's face, and the rapture fled from his eyes. In the enthusiasm of his description he had forgotten, for the moment, that it was not all to be his, and when the memory of his loss came back to him, it was like a plunge into outer darkness. He stopped so unexpectedly, and in such apparent mental distress that people stared at him in astonishment, wondering what had happened. After a moment of silence he spoke again: "But it ain't mine any longer; I can't have any of it now; I've got no right to go there at all any more." The sadness in his broken voice was pitiful. Those who were looking on him saw his under lip tremble and his eyes fill with tears. But it was only for a moment. Then he drew himself up until he sat rigidly in his chair, his little hands were tightly clenched, his lips were set in desperate firmness, every muscle of his face grew tense and hard with sudden resolution. It was a magnificently successful effort of the will to hold back almost overpowering emotion, and to keep both mind and body strong and steady for any ordeal through which he might have yet to pass. It came upon those who saw it like an electric flash, and in another moment the crowded room was ringing with applause. CHAPTER XVII. GENTLEMEN OF THE JURY. Sharpman had not seen Ralph's expression and did not know what the noise was all about. He looked around at the audience uneasily, whispered to Craft for a moment, and then announced that he was done with the witness. He was really afraid to carry the examination further; there were too many pit-falls along the way. Goodlaw, too, was wise enough to ask no additional questions. He did not care to lay grounds for the possible reversal of a judgment in favor of the defendant, by introducing questionable evidence. But he felt that the case, in its present aspect, needed farther investigation, and he moved for a continuance of the cause for two days. He desired, he said, to find the person known as Rhyming Joe, and to produce such other evidence as this new and startling turn of affairs might make necessary. Craft whispered to Sharpman that the request should be agreed to, saying that he could bring plenty of witnesses to prove that Rhyming Joe was a worthless adventurer, notorious for his habits of lying; and stoutly asserting that the boy was positively Ralph Burnham. But Sharpman's great fear was that if Rhyming Joe should be brought back, the story of the bribery could no longer be hushed; and he therefore opposed the application for a continuance with all his energy. The court ruled that the reasons presented were not sufficient to warrant the holding of a jury at this stage of the case for so long a time, but intimated that in the event of a verdict for the plaintiff a motion for a new trial might be favorably considered by the court. "Then we have nothing further to offer," said Goodlaw. Sharpman resumed his seat with an air of satisfaction, and sat for full five minutes, with his face in his hand, in deep thought. "I think," he said, finally, looking up, "that we shall present nothing in rebuttal. The case, as it now stands, doesn't seem to call for it." He had been considering whether it would be safe and wise for him to go on the witness-stand and deny any portion of Ralph's story. He had reached the conclusion that it would not. The risk was too great. "Very well," said the judge, taking up his pen, "then the evidence is closed. Mr. Goodlaw, are you ready to go to the jury?" Goodlaw, who had been, during this time, holding a whispered conversation with Ralph, arose, bowed to the court, and turned to face the jurors. He began his speech by saying that, until the recent testimony given by the boy Ralph had been produced in court, he had not expected to address the jury at all; but that that testimony had so changed the whole tenor of the case as to make a brief argument for the defence an apparent necessity. Fortified by the knowledge of the story that Rhyming Joe had told, as Ralph had just whispered it to him, Goodlaw was able to dissipate, greatly, the force of the plaintiff's evidence, and to show how Craft's whole story might easily be a cleverly concocted falsehood built upon a foundation of truth. He opened up to the wondering minds of the jurors the probable scheme which had been originated by these two plotters, Craft and Sharpman, to raise up an heir to the estates of Robert Burnham, an heir of whom Craft could be guardian, and a guardian of whom Sharpman could be attorney. He explained how the property and the funds that would thus come into their hands could be so managed as to leave a fortune in the pocket of each of them before they should have done with the estate. "The scheme was a clever one," he said, "and worked well, and no obstacle stood in the way of these conspirators until a person known as Rhyming Joe came on the scene. This person knew the history of Ralph's parentage and saw through Craft's duplicity; and, in an unguarded moment, the attorney for the plaintiff closed this man's mouth by means which we can only guess at, and sent him forth to hide among the moral and the social wrecks that constitute the flotsam and the jetsam of society. But his words, declaring Simon Craft's bold scheme a fabric built upon a lie, had already struck upon the ears and pierced into the heart of one whose tender conscience would not let him rest with the burden of this knowledge weighing down upon it. What was it that he heard, gentlemen? We can only conjecture. The laws of evidence drop down upon us here and forbid that we should fully know. But that it was a tale that brought conviction to the mind of this brave boy you cannot doubt. It is for no light cause that he comes here to publicly renounce his right and title to the name, the wealth, the high maternal love that yesterday was lying at his feet and smiling in his face. The counsel for the plaintiff tries to throw upon him the mantle of the eavesdropper, but the breath of this boy's lightest word lifts such a covering from him, and reveals his purity of purpose and his agony of mind in listening to the revelation that was made. I do not wonder that he should lose the power to move on hearing it. I do not wonder that he should be compelled, as if by some strange force, to sit and listen quietly to every piercing word. I can well conceive how terrible the shock would be to one who came, as he did, fresh from a home where love had made the hours so sweet to him that he thought them fairer than any he had ever known before. I can well conceive what bitter disappointment and what deep emotion filled his breast. But the struggle that began there then between his boyish sense of honor and his desire for home, for wealth, for fond affection, I cannot fathom that;--it is too deep, too high, too terrible for me to fully understand. I only know that honor was triumphant; that he bade farewell to love, to hope, to home, to the brightest, sweetest things in all this world of beauty, and turned his face manfully, steadfastly, unflinchingly to the right. With the help and counsel of one honest man, he set about to check the progress of a mighty wrong. No disappointment discouraged him, no fear found place in his heart, no distance was too great for him to traverse. He knew that here, to-day, without his presence, injustice would be done, dishonesty would be rewarded, and shameless fraud prevail. It was for him, and him alone, to stop it, and he set out upon his journey hither. The powers of darkness were arrayed against him, fate scowled savagely upon him, disaster blocked his path, the iron horse refused to draw him, but he remained undaunted and determined. He had no time to lose; he left the conquered power of steam behind him, and started out alone through heat and dust to reach the place of justice. With bared, bruised feet and aching limbs and parched tongue he hurried, on, walking, running, as he could, dragging himself at last into the presence of the court at the very moment when the scales of justice were trembling for the downward plunge, and spoke the words that checked the course of legal crime, that placed the chains of hopeless toil upon his own weak limbs, but that gave the world--another hero! "Gentlemen of the jury, I have labored at the bar of this court for more than thirty years, but I never saw before a specimen of moral courage fit to bear comparison with this; I never in my life before saw such a lofty deed of heroism so magnificently done. And do you think that such a boy as this would lie? Do you think that such a boy as this would say to you one word that did not rise from the deep conviction of an honest heart? "I leave the case in your hands, gentlemen; you are to choose between selfish greed and honest sacrifice, between the force of cunning craft and the mighty power of truth. See to it that you choose rightly and well." The rumble of applause from the court-room as Goodlaw resumed his seat was quickly suppressed by the officers, and Sharpman arose to speak. He was calm and courteous, and seemed sanguine of success. But his mind was filled with the darkness of disappointment and the dread of disaster; and his heart was heavy with its bitterness toward those who had blocked his path. He knew that Ralph's testimony ought to bear but lightly on the case, but he feared that it would weigh heavily with the jury, and that his own character would not come out stainless. He hardly hoped to save both case and character, but he determined to make the strongest effort of which he was capable. He reviewed the testimony given by Mrs. Burnham concerning her child and his supposed tragic death; he recalled all the circumstances connected with the railroad accident, and repeated the statements of the witnesses concerning the old man and the child; he gave again the history of Ralph's life, and of Simon Craft's searching and failures and success; he contended, with all the powers of logic and oratory at his command, that Ralph Burnham was saved from the wreck at Cherry Brook, and Was that moment sitting by his mother before the faces and eyes of the court and jury. "Until to-day," he said, "every one who has heard this evidence, and taken interest in this case, has believed, as I do, that this boy is Robert Burnham's son. The boy's mother believed it, the counsel for the defence believed it, the lad himself believed it, his Honor on the bench, and you, gentlemen in the jury-box, I doubt not, all believed it; indeed it was agreed by all parties that nothing remained to be done but to take your verdict for the plaintiff. But, lo! this child makes his dramatic entrance into the presence of the court, and, under the inspired guidance of defendant's counsel, tells his story of eavesdropping, and when it is done my learned friend has the temerity to ask you to throw away your reason, to dismiss logic from your minds, to trample law under your feet, to scatter the evidence to the four winds of heaven, and to believe what? Why, a boy's silly story of an absurd and palpable lie? "I did not go upon the witness-stand to contradict this fairy tale; it did not seem to be worth the while. "Consider it for a moment. This youth says he came to my office last night and found me in the inner room in conversation with another person. I shall not deny that. Supposing it to be true, there was nothing strange or wrong in it, was there? But what does this boy whom my learned friend has lauded to the skies for his manliness and honor do next? Why, according to his own story, he steals into the darkness of the outer office and seats himself to listen to the conversation in the inner room, and hears--what? No good of himself certainly. Eavesdroppers never do hear good of themselves. But he thinks he hears the voice of a person whom no one in this court-room ever heard of or thought of before, nor has seen or heard of since--a person who, I daresay, has existence only in this child's imagination; he thinks he hears this person declare that he, Ralph, is not Robert Burnham's son, and, by way of embellishing his tale, he adds statements which are still more absurd, statements on the strength of which my learned friend hopes to darken in your eyes the character of the counsel for the plaintiff. I trust, gentlemen, that I am too well known at the bar of this court and in this community to have my moral standing swept away by such a flimsy falsehood as you see this to be. And so, to-day, this child comes into court and declares, with solemn asseveration, that the evidence fixing his identity beyond dispute or question is all a lie; and what is this declaration worth? His Honor will tell you, in his charge, I have no doubt, that this boy's statement, founded, as he himself says, on hearsay, is valueless in law, and should have no weight in your minds. But I do not ask you to base your judgment on technicalities of law. I ask you to base it simply on the reasonable evidence in this case. "What explanation there can be of this lad's conduct, I have not, as yet, been ably, fully, to determine. "I have tried, in my own mind, to throw the mantle of charity across him. I have tried to think that, coming from an unaccustomed meal, his stomach loaded with rich food, he no sooner sank into the office chair than he fell asleep and dreamed. It is not improbable. The power of dreams is great on children's minds, as all of you may know. But in the face of these developments I can hardly bring myself to accept this theory. There is too much method in the child's madness. It looks more like the outcome of some desperate move on the part of this defence to win the game which they have seen slipping from their control. It looks like a deep-laid plan to rob my aged and honored client of the credit to which he is entitled for rescuing this boy at the risk of his life, for caring for him through poverty and disease, for finding him when his own mother had given him up for dead, and restoring him to the bosom of his family. It looks as though they feared that this old man, already trembling on the brink of the grave, would snatch some comfort for his remaining days out of the pittance that he might hope to collect from this vast estate for services that ought to be beyond price. It looks as though hatred and jealousy were combined in a desperate effort to crush the counsel for the plaintiff. The counsel for the plaintiff can afford to laugh at their animosity toward himself, but he cannot help his indignation at their plot. Now, let us see. "It is acknowledged that the boy Ralph spent the larger part of yesterday afternoon at the house of this defendant, and was fed and flattered till he nearly lost his head in telling of it. That is a strange circumstance, to begin with. How many private consultations he has had with counsel for defence, I know not. Neither do I know what tempting inducements have been held out to him to turn traitor to those who have been his truest friends. These things I can only imagine. But that fine promises have been made to him, that pictures of plenty have been unfolded to his gaze, that the glitter of gold and the sheen of silver have dazzled his young eyes, there can be little doubt. So he has seen visions and dreamed dreams, at will; he has endured terrible temptations, and fought great moral battles, by special request, and has come off more than victor, in the counsel's mind. To-day everything is ready for the carrying-out of their skilful scheme. At the right moment the counsel gives the signal, and the boy darts in, hatless, shoeless, ragged, and dusty, for the occasion, and tragic to the counsel's heart's content, and is put at once upon the stand to tell his made-up tale, and--" Sharpman heard a slight noise behind him, and some one exclaimed:-- "He has fainted!" The lawyer stopped in his harangue and turned in time to see Ralph lying in a heap on the floor, just as he had slipped that moment from his chair. The boy had listened to Goodlaw's praises of his conduct with a vague feeling that he was undeserving of so much credit for it. But when Sharpman, advancing in his speech, charged him with having dreamed his story, he was astounded. He thought it was the strangest thing he had ever heard of. For was not Mr. Sharpman there, himself? and did not he know that it was all real and true? He could not understand the lawyer's allegation. Later on, when Sharpman declared boldly that Ralph's statement on the witness-stand was a carefully concocted falsehood, the bluntness of the charge was like a cruel blow, and the boy's sensitive nerves shrank and quivered beneath it; then his lips grew pale, his breath came in gasps, the room went swimming round him, darkness came before his eyes, and his weak body, enfeebled by prolonged fasting and excitement, slipped down to the floor. The people in the court-room scrambled to their feet again to look over into the bar. A man who had entered the room in time to hear Sharpman's brutal speech pushed his way through the crowd, and hurried down to the place where Ralph was lying. It was Bachelor Billy. In a moment he was down on his knees by the boy's side, chafing the small cold hands and wrists, while Mrs. Burnham, kneeling on the other side, was dipping her handkerchief into a glass of water, and bathing the lad's face. Bachelor Billy turned on his knees and looked up angrily at Sharpman. "Mayhap an' ye've killet 'im," he said, "wi' your traish an' your lees!" Then he rose to his feet and continued: "Can ye no' tell when a lad speaks the truth? Mon! he's as honest as the day is lang! But what's the use o' tellin' ye? ye ken it yoursel'. Ye _wull_ be fause to 'im!" His lips were white with passion as he knelt again by the side of the unconscious boy. "Ye're verra gude to the lad, ma'am," he said to Mrs. Burnham, who had raised Ralph's head in her arms and was pressing her wet handkerchief against it; "ye're verra gude, but ma mind is to tak' 'im hame an' ten' till 'im mysel'. He was ower-tired, d'ye see, wi' the trooble an' the toil, an' noo I fear me an they've broke the hert o' 'im." Then Bachelor Billy, lifting the boy up in his arms, set his face toward the door. The people pressed back and made way for him as he passed up the aisle holding the drooping body very tenderly, looking down at times with great compassion into the white face that lay against his breast; and the eyes that watched his sturdy back until it disappeared from view were wet with sympathetic tears. When the doors had closed behind him, Sharpman turned again to the jury, with a bitterly sarcastic smile upon his face. "Another chapter in the made-up tragedy," he said, "performed with marvellous skill as you can see. My learned friend has drilled his people well. He has made consummate actors of them all. And yet he would have you think that one is but an honest fool, and that the other is as innocent as a babe in arms." Up among the people some one hissed, then some one else joined in, and, before the judge and officers could restore order in the room, the indignant crowd had greeted Sharpman's words with a perfect torrent of groans and hisses. Then the wily lawyer realized that he was making a mistake. He knew that he could not afford to gain the ill-will of the populace, and accordingly he changed the tenor of his speech. He spoke generally of law and justice, and particularly of the weight of evidence in the case at bar. He dwelt with much emphasis on Simon Craft's bravery, self-sacrifice, poverty, toil, and suffering; and, with a burst of oratory that made the walls re-echo with the sound of his resonant voice, he closed his address and resumed his seat. Then the judge delivered the charge in a calm, dispassionate way. He reviewed the evidence very briefly, warning the jury to reject from their minds all improper declarations of any witness or other person, and directing them to rest their decision only on the legal evidence in the case. He instructed them that although the boy Ralph's declaration that he was not Robert Burnham's son might be regarded by them, yet they must also take into consideration the fact that his opinion was founded partly, if not wholly, on hearsay, and, for that reason, would be of little value to them in making up their decision. Any evidence of the alleged conversation at Mr. Sharpman's office, he said, must be rejected wholly. He warned them to dismiss from their minds all prejudice or sympathy that might have been aroused by the speeches of counsel, or the appearance of witnesses in court, and to take into consideration and decide upon but one question, namely: whether the boy Ralph is or is not the son of the late Robert Burnham: that, laying aside all other questions, matters, and things, they must decide that and that alone, according to the law and the evidence. When the judge had finished his charge a constable was sworn, and, followed by the twelve jurors, he marched from the court-room. It was already after six o'clock, so the crier was directed to adjourn the court, and, a few minutes later, the judge, the lawyers, the witnesses, and the spectators had all disappeared, and the room was empty. CHAPTER XVIII. A WRIT OF HABEAS CORPUS. Every one expected that the jury would come into court with a verdict at the opening of the session on Tuesday morning. There was much difference of opinion, however, as to what that verdict would be. But the morning hours went by and the jury still remained in their room. The constable who watched at the door shook his head and smiled when asked about the probability of an early agreement. No one seemed to know just how the jury stood. Sharpman and his client had been greatly disheartened on Monday night, and had confessed as much to each other; but the longer the jury remained out the more hope they gathered. It was apparent that the verdict would not be rendered under the impulses of the moment; and that the jury were applying the principles of cold law and stern logic to the case, there seemed to be little doubt. But, as a matter of fact, the jury were doing no such thing. They believed, to a man, that Ralph had told the truth, and that such an event as he had described had actually taken place in Sharpman's office; and, notwithstanding the judge's charge, they were trying to harmonize Ralph's statement with the evidence of the witnesses who had corroborated Simon Craft's story. This led them into so many difficulties that they finally abandoned the effort, and the questions before them were gradually reduced to just one. That question was not whether Ralph was the son of Robert Burnham; but it was: which would be better for the boy, to decide in favor of the plaintiff or of the defendant. If they found for the plaintiff, they would throw the boy's fortune into the hands of Craft and Sharpman, where they feared the greater part of it would finally remain. If they found for the defendant, they would practically consign the lad to a life of homelessness and toil. It was to discuss and settle this question, therefore, that the jury remained locked up in their room through so many hours. The day wore on and no verdict was rendered. Sharpman's spirits continued to rise, and Goodlaw feared that his case was lost. At four o'clock the jury sent in word that they had agreed, and a few minutes later they filed into the court-room. When their verdict had been inspected by the judge it was given to the prothonotary to read. He faced the jury, saying:-- "Gentlemen of the jury, listen to your verdict as the court has it recorded. In the case wherein Simon Craft, guardian of the estate of Ralph Burnham, a minor, is plaintiff, and Margaret Burnham, administrator of the estate of Robert Burnham, deceased, is defendant, you say you find for the defendant, and that the boy Ralph is _not_ the son of Robert Burnham. So say you all?" The jury nodded assent, and the verdict was filed. That settled it. Craft and Sharpman were beaten. It was very strange that a solid truth, backed up by abundant and irreproachable evidence, presented under the strict rules of law and the solemn sanction of an oath, should be upset and shattered by a flimsy falsehood told by an unknown adventurer, heard unawares by a listening child, and denied a proper entrance into court. It was strange but it was very true. Yet in that ruin was involved one of the boldest schemes for legal plunder that was ever carried into the courts of Luzerne County. Sharpman felt that a fortune had slipped from his grasp, and that he had lost it by reason of his own credulity and fear. He saw now the mistake he had made in not defying Rhyming Joe. He knew now that the fellow never would have dared to appear in court as a witness. He felt that he had not only lost his money, but that he had come dangerously near to losing what character he had, also. He knew that it was all due to his own fault, and he was humiliated and angry with himself, and bitter toward every one who had sided with the defendant. But if Sharpman's disappointment was great, that of his client was tenfold greater. Simon Craft was in a most unenviable mood. At times, indeed, he grew fairly desperate. The golden bubble that he had been chasing for eight years had burst and vanished. He had told the truth, he had been honest in his statements, he had sought to do the boy and the boy's mother a great favor, and they had turned against him, and the verdict of the jury had placed upon him the stigma of perjury. This was the burden of his complaint. But aside from this he was filled with bitter regret. If he had only closed his bargain with Robert Burnham on the day it had been made! If he had only made his proposition to Mrs. Burnham as he had intended doing, instead of going into this wild scheme with this visionary lawyer! This was his silent sorrow. His misery was deep and apparent. He had grown to be ten years older in a day. This misfortune, he said, bitterly, was the result of trying to be honest and to do good. This was the reward of virtue, these the wages of charity. Tired, at last, of railing at abstract principles of right, he turned his attention to those who had been instrumental in his downfall. The judge, the jury, and the attorney for the defence, all came in for a share of his malignant hatred and abuse. For Mrs. Burnham he had only silent contempt. Her honest desire to have right done had been too apparent from the start. The only fault he had to find with her was that she did not come to his rescue when the tide was turning against him. But against Ralph the old man's wrath and indignation were intense. Had he not saved the child from death? Had he not fed and clothed and cared for him during five years? Had he not rescued him from oblivion, and made every effort to endow him with wealth and position and an honored name? And then, to think that in the very moment when these efforts were about to meet with just success, this boy had turned against him, and brought ruin and disgrace upon him. Oh, it was too much, too much! If he could only have the lad in his possession for a week, he thought, for a day, for an hour even, he would teach him the cost of turning traitor to his friends. Oh, he would teach him! Then it occurred to him that perhaps he might get possession of the boy, and permanent possession at that. Had not Ralph sworn that he was Simon Craft's grandson? Had not the jury accepted Ralph's testimony as true? And had not the court ordered judgment to be entered on the jury's verdict? Well, if the court had declared the boy to be his grandson, he was entitled to him, was he not? If the boy was able to earn anything, he was entitled to his earnings, was he not? If he was the child's grandfather, then he had authority to take him, to govern him, to punish him for disobedience--was not that true? Old Simon rose from his chair and began to walk up and down the room, hammering his cane upon the floor at every step. The idea was a good one, a very good one, and he resolved to act upon it without delay. He would go the very next day and get the boy and take him to Philadelphia. But suppose Ralph should refuse to go, and suppose Bachelor Billy, with his strong arms, should stand by to protect the lad from force, what then? Well, there was a law to meet just such a case as that. He knew of an instance where a child had been taken by its grandfather by virtue of a writ of _habeas corpus_. He would get such a writ, the sheriff should go with him, they would bring Ralph to court again; and since the law had declared the boy to be Simon Craft's grandson, the law could do nothing else than to place him in Simon Craft's custody. Then the old man went to bed, thinking that in the morning he would get Sharpman to prepare for him the papers that would be necessary to carry his plan into execution. He derived much pleasure from his dreams that night, for he dreamed of torturing poor Ralph to his heart's content. When Bachelor Billy left the court-room that Monday evening with his unconscious burden in his arms, he remained only long enough in the court-house square to revive the boy, then he took him to the railway station, and they went together, by the earliest train, to Scranton. The next morning Ralph felt very weak and miserable, and did not leave the house; and Bachelor Billy came home at noon to see him and to learn what news, if any, had been received from Wilkesbarre. Both he and Ralph expected that a verdict would be rendered for the defendant, in accordance with Ralph's testimony, and neither of them were surprised, therefore, when Andy Gilgallon came up from the city after supper and informed them that the jury had so found. That settled the matter, at any rate. It was a relief to Ralph to know that it was at an end; that he was through with courts and lawyers and judges and juries, and that there need be no further effort on his part to escape from unmerited fortune. The tumult that had raged in his mind through many hours was at last stilled, and that night he slept. He wanted to go back the next morning to his work at the breaker, but Bachelor Billy would not allow him to do so. He still looked very pale and weak, and the anxious man resolved to come home at noon again that day to see to the lad's health. Indeed, as the morning wore on, Ralph acknowledged to himself that he did not feel so well. His head was very heavy, and there was a bruised feeling over the entire surface of his body. It was a dull day, too; it rained a little now and then, and was cloudy all the morning. He sat indoors the most of the time, reading a little, sleeping a little, and thinking a great deal. The sense of his loss was coming back upon him very strongly. It was not so much the loss of wealth, or of name, or of the power to do other and better things than he had ever done before that grieved him now. But it was that the dear and gentle lady who was to have been his mother, who had verily been a mother to him for one sweet day, was a mother to him no longer. To feel that he was nothing to her now, no more, indeed, than any other ragged, dust-black boy in Burnham Breaker, this was what brought pain and sorrow to his heart, and made the hot tears come into his eyes in spite of his determined effort to hold them back. He was sitting in his accustomed chair, facing the dying embers of a little wood fire that he had built, for the morning was a chilly one. Behind him the door was opened and some one entered the room from the street. He thought it was Bachelor Billy, just come from work, and he straightened up in his chair and tried to wipe away the traces of tears from his face before he should turn to give him greeting. "Is that you, Uncle Billy?" he said; "ain't you home early?" He was still rubbing industriously at his eyes. Receiving no answer he looked around. It was not Uncle Billy. It was Simon Craft. Ralph uttered a cry of surprise and terror, and retreated into a corner of the room. Old Simon, looking at him maliciously from under his bushy brows, gradually extended his thin lips into a wicked smile. "What!" he exclaimed, "is it possible that you are afraid of your affectionate old grandfather? Why, I thought you desired nothing so much as to go and live with him and be his pet." The boy's worst fears were realized. Old Simon had come for him. "I won't go back with you!" he cried. "I won't! I won't!" Then, changing his tone to one of appealing, he continued: "You didn't come for me, did you, gran'pa? you won't make me go back with you, will you?" "I'm afraid I can't do without you any longer," said Craft, coming nearer and looking Ralph over carefully. "I'm getting old and sick, and your presence will be a great comfort to me in my declining years. Besides, my affection for you is so great that I feel that I couldn't do without you; oh, I couldn't, I couldn't possibly!" And the old man actually chuckled himself into a fit of coughing at his grim sarcasm. "But I don't want to go," persisted the boy. "I'm very happy here. Uncle Billy's very good to me, an' I'd ruther stay, a good deal ruther." At the mention of Uncle Billy's name Old Simon's smile vanished and he advanced threateningly toward the boy, striking his cane repeatedly on the floor. "It don't matter what you want," he said, harshly; "you were crazy to be my grandson; now the law says you are, and the law gives me the right to take you and do what I choose with you. Oh, you've got to go! so get your hat and come along, and don't let's have any more nonsense about it!" "Gran'pa--Gran'pa Simon!" exclaimed the terrified boy, shrinking still farther away, "I can't go back to Philadelphy, I can't! I couldn't live, I'd die if I went back there! I'd--" Craft interrupted him: "Well, if you do die, it won't be because you're killed with kindness, I warrant you. You've cheated me out of a living and yourself out of a fortune; you've made your own bed, now you've got to lie in it. Come on, I say! get your hat and come along!" The old man was working himself into a passion. There was danger in his eyes. Ralph knew it, too, but the thought of going back to live with Simon Craft was such a dreadful one to him that he could not refrain from further pleading. "I know I belong to you, Gran'pa Simon," he said, "an' I know I've got to mind you; but please don't make me go back to live with you; please don't! I'll do anything else in the world you want me to; I'll give you ev'ry dollar I earn if you'll let me stay here, ev'ry dollar; an' I'll work hard, too, ev'ry day. I'll--I'll give you--I'll give you-- "Well, what'll you give me? Out with it!" It was a desperate chance; it called for sacrifice, but Ralph felt that he would offer it gladly if he could thereby be saved. "I'll give you," he said, "all the money I've got saved up." "How much money have you got saved up?" The light of hatred in the man's eyes gave place, for the time being, to the light of greed. "About thirty-two dollars." "Well, give it to me, then, and be quick about it!" Ralph went to a small closet built into the wall over the chimney, and took from it a little box. That box contained his accumulated savings. With a large portion of the money he had thought to buy new clothing for himself. He had determined that he would not go to live with Mrs. Burnham, dressed like a beggar. He would have clothes befitting his station in life. Indeed, he and Uncle Billy were to have gone out the day before to make the necessary purchases; but since the change came the matter had not been thought of. Now he should pay it to Simon Craft as the price of his freedom. He was willing and more than willing to do so. He would have given all he ever hoped to earn to save himself from that man's custody, and would have considered it a cheap release. He took the money from the box,--it was all paper money,--and counted it carefully out into Old Simon's trembling hand. There were just thirty-two dollars. "Is that all?" said Craft, folding the bills and putting them into an inside pocket as he spoke. "Yes, that's all." "You haven't got any more hidden around the house anywhere, have you? Don't lie to me, now!" "Oh, no! I've given you ev'ry cent I had, ev'ry single cent." "Well, then, get your hat and come along." "Wh--what?" Ralph was staring at the man in astonishment. He thought he had just bought his freedom, and that he need not go. "Get your hat and come along, I say; and be quick about it? I can't wait here all day." "Where--where to?" "Why, home with me, of course. Where would I take you?" "But I gave you the money to let me stay here with Uncle Billy; you said you would take it for that." "No, I didn't. I told you to give it to me. The money belongs to me the same as you do. Now, are you coming, or do you want me to help you?" Ralph's face was white with indignation. He had been willing to do what was right. He thought he had made a fair bargain; but now, this--this was an outrage. His spirit rose against it. The old sense of fearlessness took possession of him. He looked the man squarely in the eyes. His voice was firm and his hands were clenched with resolution. "I will not go with you," he said. "What's that?" Craft looked down on the boy in astonishment. "I say I will not go with you," repeated Ralph; "that's all--I won't go." Then the old man's wrath was let loose. "You beggar!" he shouted, "how dare you disobey me! I'll teach you!" He raised his cane threateningly as he spoke. "Hit me," said Ralph, "kill me if you want to; I'd ruther die than go back to live with you." Old Simon grasped his cane by its foot and raised it above his head. In another instant it would have descended on the body of the unfortunate boy; but in that instant some one seized it from behind, wrenched it from Craft's weak grasp, and flung it into the street. It was Bachelor Billy; He had entered at the open door unseen. He seized Craft's shoulders and whirled him around till the two men stood face to face. "Mon!" he exclaimed, "mon! an' yon steck had a-fallen o' the lad's head, I dinna ken what I s'ould 'a' done till ye. Ye're lucky to be auld an' sick, or ye s'ould feel the weight o' ma han' as it is." But Craft was not subdued. On the contrary his rage grew more fierce. "What's the boy to you?" he shouted, savagely. "You leave us alone. He belongs to me; he shall go with me." It was a full half-minute before Bachelor Billy's dull mind grasped the situation. Meanwhile he was looking down into Ralph's white face. Then he turned again to Craft. "Never!" he said, solemnly. "Ye s'all never tak' 'im. I'll see the lad in his grave first." After a moment he continued, "It's no' safe for ye to stay longer wi' us; it's better ye s'ould go." Then another man entered at the open door. It was the sheriff of Luzerne County. He held the writ of _habeas corpus_ in his hand. "Why didn't you wait for me," he said, turning angrily to Craft, "instead of coming here to pick a quarrel with these people?" "That's none of your business," replied the old man. "You've got your writ, now do your duty or I'll--" A fit of coughing attacked him, and he dropped into a chair to give way to it. The sheriff looked at him contemptuously for a moment, then he turned to Bachelor Billy. "This miserable old man," he said, "has had a writ of _habeas corpus_ issued, commanding you to produce immediately before the judge at Wilkesbarre the body of the boy Ralph. It is my place to see that the writ is properly executed. There's no help for it, so I think you had better get ready, and we will go as soon as possible." And he handed to Bachelor Billy a copy of the writ. "I ha' no time to read it," said Billy, "but if the judge says as the lad s'ould gae to court again, he s'all gae. We mus' obey the law. An' I s'all gae wi' 'im. Whaur the lad gae's I s'all gae. I s'all stay by 'im nicht an' day. If the law says he mus' live wi' Seemon Craft, then I s'all live wi' Seemon Craft also. I ha' nursit 'im too long, an' lovit 'im too weel to turn 'im alone into the wolfs den noo." In a minute or two Craft recovered, but the coughing had left him very weak. He rose unsteadily to his feet and looked around for his cane. He had grown calm. He thought that the game was his at any rate, and that it was of no use for him to lose strength over it. "You'll walk faster than I," he said, "so I'll be going. If I miss this train I can't get started to Philadelphia with the boy before to-morrow." He tottered out into the road, picked up his cane, and trudged on down the hill toward the city. It was not long before the two men and the boy were ready to go also. "Keep up your courage, my son," said the sheriff kindly, for the sight of Ralph's face aroused his sympathy. "Keep up your courage; the court has got to pass on this matter yet. You don't have to go with the old man till the judge says so." "Tak' heart," added Bachelor Billy, "tak' heart, laddie. It's not all ower wi' us yet. I canna thenk as any law'd put a lamb i' the wolf's teeth." "I don't know," said the sheriff, as they stood on the step for a moment before leaving the house. "I don't know how you'll make it. I suppose, as far as the law's concerned, the old man's on the right track. As near as I can make out, the way the law-suit turned, he has a legal right to the custody of the child and to his earnings. But, if I was the lad, he'd no sooner get me to Philadelphia than I'd give him the slip. You've done it once, Ralph, you can do it again, can't you?" "I don't know," answered the boy, weakly; "I don't believe I'd try. If I have to go back with him I wouldn't live very long any way, an' it wouldn't pay to run away again. It don't make much difference; I ain't got anybody left now but Uncle Billy, an', if he goes with me, I guess I can stan' it till it's through with." It was the first time in his life that Ralph had ever spoken in so despondent a way, and Bachelor Billy was alarmed. "Bear up, lad," he said, "bear up. We'll mak' the best o' it; an' they canna do much harm till ye wi' Uncle Billy a-stannin' by." Mrs. Maloney had come to her door and stood there, looking at the trio in sorrowful surprise. "Good-by, Mrs. Maloney!" said Ralph going up to her. "It ain't likely I'll ever come back here any more, an' you've been very good to me, Mrs. Maloney, very good indeed, an'--an'--good-by!" "An' where do ye be goin' Ralphy?" "Back to Gran'pa Simon's, I s'pose. He's come for me and he's got a right to take me." The sheriff was looking uneasily at his watch. "Come," he said, "we'll have to hurry to catch the train." The good woman bent down and kissed the boy tenderly. "Good-by to ye, darlin'," she said, "an' the saints protict ye." Then she burst into tears, and, throwing her apron up before her face, she held it against her eyes and went, backward, into the house. Ralph laid hold of Bachelor Billy's rough hand affectionately, and they walked rapidly away. At the bend in the street, the boy turned to look back for the last time upon the cottage which had been his home. A happy home it had been to him, a very happy home indeed. He never knew before how dear the old place was to him. The brow of the hill which they were now descending hid the house at last from sight, and, with tear-blinded eyes, Ralph turned his face again toward the city, toward the misery of the court-room, toward the desolate and dreadful prospect of a life with Simon Craft. CHAPTER XIX. BACK TO THE BREAKER. It was a dull day in the court-room at Wilkesbarre. The jury trials had all been disposed of, and for the last hour or more the court had been listening to an argument on a rule for a new trial in an ejectment case. It was a very uninteresting matter. Every one had left the court-room with the exception of the court officers, a few lawyers, and a half-dozen spectators who seemed to be there for the purpose of resting on the benches rather than with any desire to hear the proceedings before the court. The lawyers on both sides had concluded their arguments, and the judge was bundling together the papers in the case and trying to encircle the bulky package with a heavy rubber band. Then the court-room door was opened, and the sheriff came down the aisle, accompanied by Ralph and Bachelor Billy. A moment later, Simon Craft followed them to the bar. Sharpman, who was sitting inside the railing by a table, looked up with disgust plainly marked on his face as the old man entered and sat down beside him. He had prepared the petition for a writ of _habeas corpus_, at Craft's request, and had agreed to appear in his behalf when the writ should be returned. He shared, in some small degree, the old man's desire for revenge on those who had been instrumental in destroying their scheme. But, as the day wore on, the matter took on a slightly different aspect in his mind. In the first place, he doubted whether the court would order Ralph to be returned into Craft's custody. In the next place, he had no love for his client. He had been using him simply as a tool; it was time now to cast him aside since he could be of no further benefit to him. Besides, the old man had come to be annoying and repulsive, and he had no money to pay for legal services. Then, there was still an opportunity to recover some of the personal prestige he had lost in his bitter advocacy of Craft's cause before the jury. In short, he had deliberately resolved to desert his client at the first opportunity. The sheriff endorsed his return on the writ and filed it. The judge looked at the papers, and then he called Bachelor Billy before him. "I see," he said, "that you have produced the body of the boy Ralph as you were directed to do. Have you a lawyer?" "I ha' none," answered the man. "I did na ken as I needit ony." "We do not think you do, either, as we understand the case. The prothonotary will endorse a simple return on the writ, setting forth the production of the boy, and you may sign it. We think that is all that will be necessary on your part. Now you may be seated." The judge turned to Sharpman. "Well, Mr. Sharpman," he said, "what have you to offer on the part of your client?" Sharpman arose. "If the court please," he responded, "I would respectfully ask to be allowed, at this juncture, to withdraw from the case. I prepared and presented the petition as a matter of duty to a client. I do not conceive it to be my duty to render any further assistance. That client, either through ignorance or deception, has been the means of placing me in a false and unenviable light before the court and before this community, in the suit which has just closed. I have neither the desire nor the opportunity to set myself right in that matter, but I do wish and I have fully determined to wash my hands of the whole affair. From this time forth I shall have nothing to do with it." Sharpman resumed his seat, while Craft stared at him in astonishment and with growing anger. He could hardly believe that the man who had led him into this scheme, and whose unpardonable blunder had brought disaster on them both, was now not only deserting him, but heaping ignominy on his head. Every moment was adding to his bitterness and rage. "Well, Mr. Craft," said the judge, "what have you to offer in this matter? Your attorney seems to have left you to handle the case for yourself; we will hear you." "My attorney is a rascal," said Craft, white with passion, as he arose. "His part and presence in that trial was a curse on it from the beginning. He wasn't satisfied to ruin me, but he must now seek to disgrace me as well. He is--" The judge interrupted him:-- "We do not care to hear your opinion of Mr. Sharpman; we have neither the time nor the disposition to listen to it. You caused this defendant to produce before us the body of the boy Ralph. They are both here; what further do you desire?" "I desire to take the boy home with me. The judgment of this court is that he is my grandson. In the absence of other persons legally entitled to take charge of him, I claim that right. I ask the court to order him into my custody." The old man resumed his seat, and immediately fell into his customary fit of coughing. When he had recovered, the judge, who had in the meantime been writing rapidly, said:-- "We cannot agree with you, Mr. Craft, as to the law. Although the presumption may be that the jury based their verdict on the boy's testimony that he is your grandson, yet their verdict does not state that fact specifically, and we have nothing on the record to show it. It would be necessary for you to prove that relation here and now, by new and independent evidence, before we could place the boy in your custody under any circumstances. But we shall save you the trouble of doing so by deciding the matter on other grounds. The court has heard from your own lips, within a few days, that you are, or have been, engaged in a business such as to make thieving and lying a common occurrence in your life. The court has also heard from your own lips that during the time this child was in your custody, you not only treated him inhumanly as regarded his body, but that you put forth every effort to destroy what has since proved itself to be a pure and steadfast soul. A kind providence placed it in the child's power to escape from you, and the same providence led him to the door of a man whose tenderness, whose honor, and whose nobility of character, no matter how humble his station in life, marks him as one eminently worthy to care for the body and to minister to the spirit of a boy like this. "We feel that to take this lad now from his charge and to place him in yours, would be to do an act so utterly repugnant to justice, to humanity, and to law, that, if done, it ought to drag us from this bench in disgrace. We have marked your petition dismissed; we have ordered you to pay the cost of this proceeding, and we have remanded the boy Ralph to the custody of William Buckley." Simon Craft said not a word. He rose from his chair, steadied himself for a moment on his cane, then shuffled up the aisle, out at the door and down the hall into the street. Disappointment, anger, bitter hatred, raged in his heart and distorted his face. The weight of years, of disease, of a criminal life, sat heavily upon him as he dragged himself miserably along the crowded thoroughfare, looking neither to the right nor the left, thinking only of the evil burden of his own misfortunes. Now and then some one who recognized him stopped, turned, looked at him scornfully for a moment, and passed on. Then he was lost to view. He was never seen in the city of Wilkesbarre again. He left no friends behind him there. He was first ridiculed, then despised, and then--forgotten. * * * * * It was two weeks after this before Ralph was able to return to his work. So much excitement, so much mental distress and bodily fatigue in so short a time, had occasioned a severe shock to his system, and he rallied from it but slowly. One Monday morning, however, he went back to his accustomed work at the breaker. He had thought that perhaps he might be ridiculed by the screen-room boys as one who had tried to soar above his fellows and had fallen ignominiously back to the earth. He expected to be greeted with jeering words and with cutting remarks, not so much in the way of malice as of fun. He resolved to take it calmly, however, and to give way to no show of feeling, hoping that thus the boys would soon forget to tease him. But when he came among them that morning, looking so thin, and pale, and old, there was not a boy in all the waiting crowd who had the heart or hardihood to say an unpleasant word to him or to give utterance to a jest at his expense. They all spoke kindly to him, and welcomed him back. Some of them did it very awkwardly indeed, and with much embarrassment, but they made him to understand, somehow, that they were glad to see him, and that he still held his place among them as a companion and a friend. It was very good in them, Ralph thought, very good indeed; he could scarcely keep the tears back for gratitude. He took his accustomed bench in the screen-room, and bent to his task in the old way; but not with the old, light heart and willing fingers. He had thought never to do this again. He had thought that life held for him some higher, brighter, less laborious work. He had thought to gain knowledge, to win fame, to satisfy ambition. But the storm came with its fierce blasts of disappointment and despair, and when it had passed, hope and joy were engulfed in the ruins it left behind it. Henceforth there remained nothing but this, this toilsome bending over streams of flowing coal, to-day, to-morrow, next week, next year. And in the remote future nothing better; nothing but the laborer's pick and shovel, or, at best, the miner's drill and powder-can and fuse. In all the coming years there was not one bright spot to which he could look, this day, with hope. The day itself seemed very long to him, very long indeed and very tiresome. The heat grew burdensome; the black dust filled his throat and lungs, the ceaseless noise became almost unendurable; the stream of coal ran down and down in a dull monotony that made him faint and dizzy, and the bits of blue sky seen from the open windows never yet had seemed to him to be so far and far away. But the day had an end at last, as all days must have, and Ralph came down from his seat in the dingy castle to walk with Bachelor Billy to their home. They went by a path that led through green fields, where the light of the setting sun, falling on the grass and daisies, changed them to a golden yellow as one looked on them from the distance. When they turned the corner of the village street, they were surprised to see horses and a carriage standing in front of Mrs. Maloney's cottage. It was an unaccustomed sight. There was a lady there talking to Mrs. Maloney, and she had a little girl by her side. At the second look, Ralph recognized them as Mrs. Burnham and Mildred. Then the lady descended from her carriage and stood at the door waiting for Bachelor Billy and the boy to come to her. But Ralph, looking down at his black hands and soiled clothing, hesitated and stopped in the middle of the road. He knew that his face, too, was so covered with coal-dust as to be almost unrecognizable. He felt that he ought not to appear before Mrs. Burnham in this guise. But she saw his embarrassment and called to him. "I came to see you, Ralph," she said. "I want to talk to you both. May I go into your house and find a chair?" Both boy and man hurried forward then with kindly greetings, and Bachelor Billy unlocked the door and bade her enter. She went in and sat in the big rocking-chair, looking pale and weak, while Ralph hurried away to wash the black dust from his face and hands. "Ye were verra kind, Mistress Burnham," said the man, "to sen' Ralph the gude things to eat when he waur sick. An' the perty roses ye gie'd 'im,--he never tired o' watchin' 'em." "I should have come myself to see him," she replied, "only that I too have been ill. I thought to send such little delicacies as might tempt his appetite. I knew that he must be quite exhausted after so great a strain upon his nervous system. The excitement wore me out, and I had no such struggle as he had. I am glad he has rallied from the shock." "He's not ower strang yet; ye ken that by lukin' at 'im; but he's a braw lad, a braw lad." The lady turned and looked earnestly into Bachelor Billy's face. "He's the bravest boy," she said, "the very bravest boy I ever knew or heard, of, and the very best. I want him, Billy; I have come here to-night to ask you if I may have him. Son or no son, he is very dear to me, and I feel that I cannot do without him." For a minute the man was silent. Down deep in his heart there had been a spark of rejoicing at the probability that Ralph would stay with him now indefinitely. He had pushed it as far out of sight as possible, because it was a selfish rejoicing, and he felt that it was not right since it came as a result of the boy's misfortune. And now suddenly the fear of loss had quenched it entirely, and the dread of being left alone came back upon him in full force. He bit his lip before replying, to help hold back his mingled feeling of pleasure at the bright prospect opening for Ralph, and of pain for the separation which must follow. "I dinna ken," he said at last, "how aught could be better for the lad than bein' wi' ye. Ye're ower kin' to think o' it. It'll be hard partin' wi' im, but, if the lad wishes it, he s'all gae. I ha' no claim on 'im only to do what's best for 'im as I ken it. He's a-comin'; he'll speak for 'imsel'." Ralph came back into the room with face and hands as clean as a hurried washing could make them. "What thenk ye," said Bachelor Billy to him, "that the lady wants for ye to do?" "I don't know," replied the boy, looking uneasily from one to the other; "but she's been very good to me, an', whatever it is, I'll try to do it." "I want you to go home with me, Ralph," said Mrs. Burnham, "and live with me and be my son. I am not sure yet that you are not my child. We shall find that out. With the new light we have we shall make a new search for proofs of your identity, but that may take weeks, perhaps months. In the meantime I cannot do without you. I want you to come to me now, and, whatever the result of this new investigation may be, I want you to stay with me and be my son. Will you come?" She had taken both the boy's hands and had drawn him to her, and was looking up into his face with tenderness and longing. Ralph could not speak. He was dumb with the joy of hearing her kindly earnest words. A light of great gladness broke in upon his mind. The world had become bright and beautiful once more. He was not to be without home and love and learning after all. Then came second thoughts, bringing doubt, hesitancy, mental struggling. Still he was silent, looking out through the open door to the eastern hills, where the sunlight lingered lovingly with golden radiance. On the boy's face the lights and shadows, coming and going, marked the progress of the conflict in his mind. The lady put her arm around him and drew him closer to her, regardless of his soiled and dusty clothing. She was still looking into his eyes. "You will come, will you not, Ralph? We want you so much, so very much; do we not, Mildred?" she asked, turning to her little daughter, who stood at the other side of her chair. "Indeed we do," answered the child. "Mamma wants you an' I want you. I don't have anybody to play wiv me half the time, 'cept Towser; an' yeste'day I asked Towser if he wanted you, an' Towser said 'bow,' an' that means 'yes.'" "There! you see we all want you, Ralph," said Mrs. Burnham, smiling; "the entire family wants you. Now, you will come, won't you?" The boy had looked across to the little girl, over to Bachelor Billy, who stood leaning against the mantel, and then down again into the lady's eyes. It was almost pitiful to look into his face and see the strong emotion outlined there, marking the fierceness of the conflict in his mind between a great desire for honest happiness and a stern and manly sense of the right and proper thing for him to do. At last he spoke. "Mrs. Burnham," he said, in a sharp voice, "I can't, I can't!" A look of surprise and pain came into the lady's face. "Why, Ralph!" she exclaimed, "I thought,--I hoped you would be glad to go. We would be very good to you; we would try to make you very happy." "An' I'll give you half of ev'ry nice thing I have!" spoke out the girl, impetuously. "I know, I know!" responded Ralph, "it'd be beautiful, just as it was that Sunday I was there; an' I'd like to go,--you don't know how I'd like to,--but I can't! Oh, no! I can't!" Bachelor Billy was leaning forward, watching the boy intently, surprise and admiration marking his soiled face. "Then, why will you not come?" persisted the lady. "What reason have you, if we can all be happy?" Ralph stood for a moment in deep thought. "I can't tell you," he said, at last. "I don't know just how to explain it, but, some way, after all this that's happened, it don't seem to me as though I'd ought to go, it don't seem to me as though it'd be just right; as though it'd be a-doin' what--what--Oh! I can't tell you. I can't explain it to you so'st you can understand. But I mus'n't go; indeed, I mus'n't!" At last, however, the lady understood and was silent. She had not thought before how this proposal, well meant though it was, might jar upon the lad's fine sense of honor and of the fitness of things. She had not realized, until this moment, how a boy, possessing so delicate a nature as Ralph's, might feel to take a position now, to which a court and jury had declared he was not entitled, to which he himself had acknowledged, and to which every one knew he was not entitled. He had tried to gain the place by virtue of a suit at law, he had called upon the highest power in the land to put him into it, and his effort had not only ended in ignominious failure, but had left him stamped as a lineal descendant of one whose very name had become a by-word and a reproach. How could he now, with the remotest sense of honor or of pride, step into the place that should have been occupied by Robert Burnham's son? The lady could not urge him any more, knowing what his thought was. She could only say:-- "Yes, Ralph; I understand. I am very, very sorry. I love you just the same, but I cannot ask you now to go with me. I can only hope for a day when we shall know, and the world shall know, that you are my son. You would come to me then, would you not, Ralph?" "Indeed I would!" he said. "Oh, _indeed_ I would!" She drew his head down upon her bosom and kissed his lips again and again; then she released him and rose to go. She inquired very tenderly about his health, about his work, about his likes in the way of books and food and clothing; and one could see that, notwithstanding her resolution to leave Ralph with Bachelor Billy, she still had many plans in her mind, for his comfort and happiness. She charged Billy to be very careful of the boy; she kissed him again, and Mildred kissed him, and then they stepped into the carriage and the restless brown horses drew them rapidly away. CHAPTER XX. THE FIRE IN THE SHAFT. A boy with Ralph's natural courage and spirit could not remain long despondent. Ambition came back to him with the summer days, and hope found an abiding place in his breast once more. It was not, indeed, the old ambition to be rich and learned and famous, nor the hope that he should yet be surrounded with beauty in a home made bright by a mother's love. All these things, though they had not faded from his mind, were thought of only as sweet dreams of the past. His future, as he looked out upon it now, did not hold them; yet it was a future that had in it no disappointment, no desolation, no despair. The path before him was a very humble one, indeed, but he resolved to tread it royally. Because the high places and the beautiful things of earth were not for him was no reason why he should sit and mourn his fate in cheerless inactivity. He determined to be up and doing, with the light and energy that he had, looking constantly ahead for more. He knew that in America there is always something better for the very humblest toiler to anticipate, and that, with courage, hope, and high endeavor to assist him, he is sure to reach his goal. Ralph resolved, at any rate, to do all that lay in his power toward the attainment of useful and honorable manhood. He did not set his mark so very high, but the way to it was rough with obstacles and bordered with daily toil. His plan was, simply to find better places for himself about the breaker and the mines, as his age and strength would permit, and so to do his work as to gain the confidence of his employers. When he should become old enough, he would be a miner's laborer, then a miner, and perhaps, eventually, he might rise to the position of a mine boss. He would improve his leisure with self study, get what schooling he could, and, finally, as the height of his ambition, he hoped that, some day, he might become a mining engineer; able to sink shafts, to direct headings, to map out the devious courses of the mine, or to build great breakers like the one in which he spent his days. Having marked out his course he began to follow it. He labored earnestly and with a will. The breaker boss said that no cleaner coal was emptied into the cars at the loading place than that which came down through Ralph's chute. His plan was successful as it was bound to be, and it was not long before a better place was offered to him. It was that of a driver boy in the mine below the breaker. He accepted it; the wages were much better than those he was now receiving, and it was a long step ahead toward the end he had in view. But the work was new and strange to him. He did not like it. He did not think, at first, that he ever could like it. It was so dark in the mines, so desolate, so lonely. He grew accustomed to the place, however, as the days went by, and then he began not to mind it so much after all. He had more responsibility here, but the work was not so tiresome and monotonous as it had been in the screen-room, and he could be in motion all the time. He went down the shaft every morning with a load of miners and laborers, carrying his whip and his dinner-pail, and a lighted lamp fastened to the front of his cap. When he reached the bottom of the shaft he hurried to the inside plane, and up the slope to the stables to get his mule. The mule's name was Jasper. Nobody knew why he had been named Jasper, but when Ralph called him by that name he always came to him. He was a very intelligent animal, but he had an exceedingly bad habit of kicking. It was Ralph's duty to take the mule from the stable, to fasten him to a trip of empty mine cars, and to make him draw them to the little cluster of chambers at the end of the branch that turned off from the upper-level heading. This was the farthest point from the shaft in the entire mine. The distance from the head of the plane alone was more than a mile, and it was from the head of the plane that Ralph took the cars. When he reached the end of his route he left one car of his trip at the foot of each chamber in which it was needed, gathered together into a new trip the loaded cars that had been pushed down to the main track for him, and started back with them to the head of the plane. He usually made from eight to ten round trips a day; stopping at noon, or thereabouts, to eat the dinner with which the Widow Maloney had filled his pail. All the driver boys on that level gathered at the head of the plane to eat their dinners, and, during the noon-hour, the place was alive with shouts and songs and pranks and chattering without limit. These boys were older, stronger, ruder than those in the screen-room; but they were no less human and good-hearted; only one needed to look beneath the rough exterior into their real natures. There were eight of them who took trips in by Ralph's heading, but, for the last half-mile of his route, he was the only driver boy. It was a lonesome half-mile too, with no working chambers along it, and Ralph was always glad when he reached the end of it. There was, usually, plenty of life, though, up in the workings to which he distributed his cars. One could look up from the air-way and see the lights dancing in the darkness at the breast of every chamber. There was always the sharp tap, tap of the drill, the noise of the sledge falling heavily on the huge lumps of coal, sometimes a sudden rush of air against one's face, followed by a dull report and crash that told of the firing of a blast, and now and then a miner's laborer would come running a loaded car down to the heading or go pushing an empty one back up the chamber. There was a laborer up in one of these chambers with whom Ralph had formed quite a friendship. His name was Michael Conway. He was young and strong-limbed, with huge hairy arms, a kind face, and a warm heart. He had promised to teach Ralph the art of breaking and loading coal. He expected, he said, to have a chamber himself after a while, and then he would take the boy on as a laborer. Indeed, Ralph had already learned many things from him about the use of tools and the handling of coal and the setting of props. But he did not often have an opportunity to see Conway at work. The chamber in which the young man was laboring was the longest one in the tier, and the loaded car was usually at the foot of it when Ralph arrived with his trip of lights; so that he had only to run the empty car up into the air-way a few feet, take on the loaded one, and start back toward the plane. But one afternoon, when he came up with his last trip for the day, he found no load at the foot of Conway's chamber, and, after waiting a few minutes, he went up to the face to investigate. He found Conway there alone. The miner for whom the young man worked had fallen sick and had gone out earlier than usual, so his laborer had finished the blast at which the employer had been at work. It was a blast of top-coal, and therefore it took longer to get it down and break it up. This accounted for the delay. "Come up here with ye," said Conway to the boy; "I want to show ye something." Ralph climbed up on to the shelf of coal at the breast of the chamber, and the man, tearing away a few pieces of slate and a few handfuls of dirt from a spot in the upper face, disclosed an opening in the wall scarcely larger than one's head. A strong current of air coursed through it, and when Conway put his lamp against it the flame was extinguished in a moment. "Where does it go to?" asked Ralph. "I don't just know, but I think it must go somewhere into the workin's from old No. 1 slope. The boss, he was in this mornin', and he said he thought we must be a-gettin' perty close to them old chambers." "Does anybody work in there?" "Oh, bless ye, no! They robbed the pillars tin years ago an' more; I doubt an ye could get through it at all now. It's one o' the oldest places in the valley, I'm thinkin'. D'ye mind the old openin' ye can see in the side-hill when ye're goin' up by Tom Ballard's to the Dunmore road?" "Yes, that's where Uncle Billy worked when he was a miner." "Did he, thin! Well, that's where they wint in. It's a long way from here though, I'm thinkin'." "Awful strong wind goin' in there, ain't they?" "Yes, I must block it up again, or it'll take all our air away." "What'll your miner do to-morrow when he finds this place?" "Oh, he'll have to get another chamber, I guess." The man was fastening up the opening again with pieces of slate and coal, and plastering it over with loose wet dirt. "Well," said Ralph, "I'll have to go now. Jasper's gettin' in a hurry. Don't you hear 'im?" Conway helped the boy to push the loaded car down the chamber and fasten it to his trip. "I'll not be here long," said the man as he turned back into the air-way, "I'll take this light in, an' pick things up a bit, an' quit. Maybe I'll catch ye before ye get to the plane." "All right! I'll go slow. Hurry up; everybody else has gone out, you know." After a moment Ralph heard Conway pushing the empty car up the chamber, then he climbed up on his trip, took the reins, said, "giddep" to Jasper, and they started on the long journey out. For some reason it seemed longer than usual this night. But Ralph did not urge his beast. He went slowly, hoping that Conway would overtake him before he reached the plane. He looked back frequently, but Mike, as every one called him, was not yet in sight. The last curve was reached, and, as the little trip rounded it, Ralph's attention was attracted by a light which was being waved rapidly in the distance ahead of him. Some one was shouting, too. He stopped the mule, and held the cars back to listen, but the sound was so broken by intervening pillars and openings that all he could catch was: "Hurry! hurry--up!" He laid the whip on Jasper's back energetically, and they went swiftly to the head of the plane. There was no one there when he reached it, but half-way down the incline he saw the light again, and up the broad, straight gallery came the cry of danger distinctly to his ears. "Hurry! hurry! The breaker's afire! The shaft's a-burnin'!--run!" Instinctively Ralph unhitched the mule, dropped the trace-chains, and ran down the long incline of the plane. He reached the foot, rounded the curve, and came into sight of the bottom of the shaft. A half-dozen or more of men and boys were there, crowding in toward the carriage-way, with fear stamped on their soiled faces, looking anxiously up for the descending carriage. "Ralph, ye're lucky!" shouted some one to the boy as he stepped breathless and excited into the group. "Ye're just in time for the last carriage. It'll not come down but this once, again. It's a-gettin' too hot up there to run it Ye're the last one from the end chambers, too. Here, step closer!" Then Ralph thought of Conway. "Did Mike come out?" he asked. "Mike Conway?" As he spoke a huge fire-brand fell from the shaft at their feet, scattering sparks and throwing out smoke. The men drew back a little, and no one answered Ralph's question. "Has Mike Conway come out yet?" he repeated. "Yes, long ago; didn't he, Jimmy?" replied some one, turning to the footman. "Mike Conway? no it was Mike Corcoran that went out. Is Conway back yet?" "He is!" exclaimed Ralph, "he is just a-comin'. I'll tell 'im to hurry." Another blazing stick fell as the lad darted out from among the men and ran toward the foot of the plane. "Come back, Ralph!" shouted some one, "come back; ye've no time; the carriage is here!" "Hold it a minute!" answered the boy, "just a minute; I'll see 'im on the plane." The carriage struck the floor of the mine heavily and threw a shower of blazing fragments from its iron roof. At the same moment a man appeared from a lower entrance and hurried toward the group. "It's Conway!" cried some one; "he's come across by the sump. Ralph! ho, Ralph!" "Why, where's Ralph?" asked Conway, as he crowded on to the carriage. "Gone to the plane to warn ye," was the answer." "Wait the hoisting bell, then, till I get 'im." But the carriage was already moving slowly upward. "You can't do it!" shouted some one. "Then I'll stay with 'im!" cried Conway, trying to push his way off. "Ralph, oh, Ralph!" But the man was held to his place by strong arms, and the next moment the smoking, burning carriage was speeding up the shaft for the last time. Ralph reached the foot of the plane and looked up it, but he saw no light in the darkness there. Before he had time to think what he should do next, he heard a shout from the direction of the shaft:-- "Ralph! oh, Ralph!" It was Conway's voice. He recognized it. He had often heard that voice coming from the breast of Mike's chamber, in kindly greeting. Quick as thought he turned on his heel and started back. He flew around the curve like a shadow. "Wait!" he cried, "wait a minute; I'm a-comin'!" At the foot of the shaft there was a pile of blazing sticks, but there was no carriage there, nor were there any men. He stumbled into the very flames in his eagerness, and called wildly up the dark opening: "Wait! come back! oh, wait!" But the whirring, thumping noise of a falling body was the only answer that came to him, and he darted back in time to escape destruction from a huge flaming piece of timber that struck the floor of the mine with a great noise, and sent out a perfect shower of sparks. But they might send the carriage down again if he rang for it. He ran across and seized the handle of the bell wire and pulled it with all his might. The wire gave way somewhere above him and came coiling down upon his head. He threw it from him and turned again toward the opening of the shaft. Then the carriage did descend. It came down the shaft for the last time in its brief existence, came like a thunderbolt, struck the floor of the mine with a great shock and--collapsed. It was just a mass of fragments covered by an iron roof--that was all. On top of it fell a storm of blazing sticks and timbers, filling up the space at the foot, piling a mass of wreckage high into the narrow confines of the shaft. Ralph retreated to the footman's bench, and sat there looking vaguely at the burning heap and listening to the crash of falling bodies, and the deep roar of the flames that coursed upward out of sight. He could hardly realize the danger of his situation, it had all come upon him so suddenly. He knew, however, that he was probably the only human being in the mine, that the only way of escape was by the shaft, and that that was blocked. But he did not doubt for a moment that he would be rescued in time. They would come down and get him, he knew, as soon as the shaft could be cleared out. The crashing still continued, but it was not so loud now, indicating, probably, that the burning wreckage had reached to a great height in the shaft. The rubbish at the foot had become so tightly wedged to the floor of the mine that it had no chance to burn, and by and by the glow from the burning wood was entirely extinguished, the sparks sputtered and went out, and darkness settled slowly down again upon the place. Ralph still sat there, because that was the spot nearest to where human beings were, and that was the way of approach when they should come to rescue him. At last there was only the faint glimmer from his own little lamp to light up the gloom, and the noises in the shaft had died almost entirely away. Then came a sense of loneliness and desolation to be added to his fear. Silence and darkness are great promoters of despondency. But he still hoped for the best. After a time he became aware that he was sitting in an atmosphere growing dense with smoke. The air current had become reversed, at intervals, and had sent the smoke pouring out from among the charred timbers in dense volumes. It choked the boy, and he was obliged to move. Instinctively he made his way along the passage to which he was most accustomed toward the foot of the plane. Here he stopped and seated himself again, but he did not stay long. The smoke soon reached him, surrounded him, and choked him again. He walked slowly up the plane. When he reached the head he was tired and his limbs were trembling. He went across to the bench by the wheel and sat down on it. He thought to wait here until help should come. He felt sure that he would be rescued; miners never did these things by halves, and he knew that, sooner or later, he should leave the mine alive. The most that he dreaded now was the waiting, the loneliness, the darkness, the hunger perhaps, the suffering it might be, from smoke and foul air. In the darkness back of him he heard a noise. It sounded like heavy irregular stepping. He was startled at first, but it soon occurred to him that the sounds were made by the mule which he had left there untied. He was right. In another moment Jasper appeared with his head stretched forward, sniffing the air curiously, and looking in a frightened way at Ralph. "Hello, Jasper!" The boy spoke cheerily, because he was relieved from sudden fright, and because he was glad to see in the mine a living being whom he knew, even though it was only a mule. The beast came forward and pushed his nose against Ralph's breast as if seeking sympathy, and the boy put up his hand and rubbed the animal's face. "We're shut in, Jasper," he said, "the breaker's burned, an' things afire have tumbled down the shaft an' we can't get out till they clean it up an' come for us." The mule raised his head and looked around him, then he rested his nose against Ralph's shoulder again. "We'll stay together, won't we, old fellow? We'll keep each other company till they come for us. I'm glad I found you, Jasper; I'm very glad." He patted the beast's neck affectionately; then he removed the bridle from his head, unbuckled the harness and slipped it down to the ground, and tried to get the collar off; but it would not come. He turned it and twisted it and pulled it, but he could not get it over the animal's ears. He gave up trying at last, and after laying the remainder of the harness up against the wheel-frame, he sat down on the bench again. Except the occasional quick stamping of Jasper's feet, there was no sound, and Ralph sat for a long time immersed in thought. The mule had been gazing contemplatively down the plane into the darkness; finally he turned and faced toward the interior of the mine. It was evident that he did not like the contaminated air that was creeping up the slope. Ralph, too, soon felt the effect of it; it made his head light and dizzy, and the smoke with which it was laden brought back the choking sensation into his throat. He knew that he must go farther in. He rose and went slowly along the heading, over his accustomed route, until he reached a bench by a door that opened into the air-way. Here he sat down again. He was tired and was breathing heavily. A little exertion seemed to exhaust him so. He could not quite understand it. He remembered when he had run all the way from the plane to the north chambers with only a quickening of the breath as the result. He was not familiar with the action of vitiated air upon the system. Jasper had followed him; so closely indeed that the beast's nose had often touched the boy's shoulder as they walked. Ralph's lamp seemed to weigh heavily on his head, and he unfastened it from his cap and placed it on the bench beside him. Then he fell to thinking again. He thought how anxious Bachelor Billy would be about him, and how he would make every effort to accomplish his rescue. He hoped that his Uncle Billy would be the first one to reach him when the way was opened; that would be very pleasant for them both. Mrs. Burnham would be anxious about him too. He knew that she would; she had been very kind to him of late, very kind indeed, and she came often to see him. Then the memory of Robert Burnham came back to him. He thought of the way he looked and talked, of his kind manner and his gentle words. He remembered how, long ago, he had resolved to strive toward the perfect manhood exemplified in this man's life. He wondered if he had done the best he could. The scenes and incidents of the day on which this good man died recurred to him. Why, it was at this very door that the little rescuing party had turned off to go up into the easterly tier of chambers. Ralph had not been up there since. He had often thought to go over again the route taken on that day, but he had never found the time to do so. He had time enough at his disposal now, however; why not make the trip up there? it would be better than sitting here in idleness to wait for some sign of rescue. He arose and opened the door. The mule made as if to follow him. "You stay here, Jasper," he said, "I won't be gone long." He shut the door in the animal's face and started off up the side-heading. There had not been much travel on this road during the last year. Most of the chambers in this part of the mine had been worked out and abandoned. As the boy passed on he recalled the incidents of the former journey. He came to a place where the explosion at that time had blown out the props and shaken down the roof until the passage was entirely blocked. He remembered that they had turned there and had gone up into a chamber to try to get in through the entrances. But they had found the entrances all blocked, and the men had set to work to make an opening through one of them. Ralph recalled the scene very distinctly. With what desperate energy those men worked, tearing away the stones and dirt with their hands in order to get in the sooner to their unfortunate comrades. He remembered that while they were doing this Robert Burnham had seated himself on a fallen prop, had torn a leaf from his memorandum book and had asked Ralph to hold his lamp near by, so that he could see to write. He filled one side of the leaf, half of the other side, folded it, addressed it, and placed it in the pocket of his vest. Then he went up and directed the enlargement of the opening and crawled through with the rest. Here was the entrance, and here was the opening, just as it had been left. Ralph clambered through it and went down to the fall. The piled-up rocks were before him, as he had seen them that day. Nothing had been disturbed. On the floor of the mine was something that attracted his attention. He stooped and picked it up. It was a piece of paper. There was writing on it in pencil, much faded now, but still distinct enough to be read. He held his lamp to it and examined it more closely. He could read writing very well, and this was written plainly. He began to read it aloud:-- "My DEAR WIFE,--I desire to supplement the letter sent to you from the office with this note written in the mine during a minute of waiting. I want to tell you that our Ralph is living; that he is here with me, standing this moment at my side." The paper dropped from the boy's trembling fingers, and he stood for a minute awe-struck and breathless. Then he picked up the note and examined it again. It was the very one that Robert Burnham had written on the day of his death. Ralph recognized it by the crossed lines of red and blue marking the page into squares. Without thinking that there might be any impropriety in doing so, he continued to read the letter as fast as his wildly beating heart and his eyes clouded with mist would let him. "I have not time to tell you why and how I know, but, believe me, Margaret, there is no mistake. He is Ralph, the slate-picker, of whom I told you, who lives with Bachelor Billy. If he should survive this trying journey, take him immediately and bring him up as our son; if he should die, give him proper burial. We have set out on a perilous undertaking and some of us may not live through it. I write this note in case I should not see you again. It will be found on my person. Do not allow any one to persuade you that this boy is not our son. I _know_ he is. I send love and greeting to you. I pray for God's mercy and blessing on you and on our children. "ROBERT." CHAPTER XXI. A PERILOUS PASSAGE. For many minutes Ralph stood, like one in a dream, holding the slip of paper tightly in his grasp. Then there came upon him, not suddenly, but very gently and sweetly, as the morning sunlight breaks into a western valley, the broad assurance that he was Robert Burnham's son. Here was the declaration of that fact over the man's own signature. That was enough; there was no need for him to question the writer's sources of knowledge. Robert Burnham had been his ideal of truth and honor; he would have believed his lightest word against the solemn asseveration of thousands. The flimsy lie coined by Rhyming Joe no longer had place in his mind. He cared nothing now for the weakness of Sharpman, for the cunning of Craft, for the verdict of the jury, for the judgment of the court; he _knew_, at last, that he was Robert Burnham's son, and no power on earth could have shaken that belief by the breadth of a single hair. The scene on the descending carriage the day his father died came back into his mind. He thought how the man had grasped his hands, crying, in a voice deep and earnest with conviction:-- "Ralph! Ralph! I have found you!" He had not understood it then; he knew now what it meant. He raised the paper to the level of his eyes, and read, again and again, the convincing words:-- "Do not allow any one to persuade you that this boy is not our son. I _know_ he is." Then Ralph felt again that honest pride in his blood and in his name, and that high ambition to be worthy of his parentage, that had inspired him in the days gone by. Again he looked forward into the bright future, to the large fulfilment of all his hopes and desires, to learning, culture, influence, the power to do good; above all, to the sweetness of a life with his own mother, in the home where he had spent one beautiful day. He had drawn himself to his full height; every muscle was tense, his head was erect with proud knowledge, high hope flashed from his eyes, gladness dwelt in every feature of his face. Then, suddenly, the light went out from his countenance, and the old look of pain came back there. His face had changed with his changing thought as it did that day in the court-room at Wilkesbarre. The fact of his imprisonment had returned into his mind, and for the moment it overcame him. He sat down on a jutting rock to consider it. Of what use was it to be Robert Burnham's son, with two hundred feet of solid rock between him and the outside world, and the only passage through it blocked with burned and broken timbers? For a time despondency darkened his mind and despair sat heavily upon him. He even wished that the joy of this new knowledge had not come to him. It made the depth of his present misfortune seem so much greater. But, after a while, he took heart again; courage came back to him; the belief that he would be finally saved grew stronger in his mind; hope burned up brightly in his breast, and the pride of parentage within him filled him with ambition to do what lay in his power to accomplish his own deliverance. It was little he could do, indeed, save to wait with patience and in hope until outside help should come, but this little, he resolved, should be done with a will, as befitted his birth and position. He folded the precious bit of paper he had found and fastened it in his waistcoat pocket so that he should not lose it as Robert Burnham had lost it; then he took up his lamp and went back through the half-walled entrance, down the chamber and along the side-heading to the air-way door where Jasper had been left. There was a small can of oil sitting just inside the door-way. It was the joint property of Ralph and the door-boy. It was fortunate, he thought, that he had selected that place for it, as he was now in great need of it. He filled his lamp, from which the oil had become nearly exhausted, and then passed out through the door. The mule was still there and uttered a hoarse sound of welcome when he saw the boy. "I found somethin' up there, Jasper," said Ralph, as he sat down on the bench and began to pat the beast's neck again, "somethin' wonderful; I wish I could tell you so you could understand it; it's too bad you can't, Jasper; I know you'd be glad." The mule seemed to recognize the pleasantness of the lad's voice and to enjoy it, and for a long time Ralph sat there petting him and talking to him. Finally, he became aware that the air about him was growing to be very bad. It made him feel sick and dizzy, and caused his heart to beat rapidly. He knew that he must go farther in. He thought, however, to make an attempt to get out toward the shaft first. It might be that it had grown clearer out there, it might be that the rescuers were already working down toward him. He started rapidly down the heading, but before he had gone half-way to the head of the plane, the smoke and the foul air were so dense and deadly that he had to stop and to crawl away from it on his hands and knees. He was greatly exhausted when he reached the air-way door again, and he sat on the bench for a long time to rest and to recover. But he knew that it was dangerous to remain there now, and, taking the can of oil with him, he started slowly up the heading. He did not know how soon he should get back here, and when the oil in his lamp should give out again he desired to be able to renew it. The mule was following closely behind him. It was a great comfort, too, to have a living being with him for company. He might have been shut up here alone, and that would have been infinitely worse. At the point where the branch leading to the new chambers left the main heading, Ralph turned in, following his accustomed route. It seemed to him that he ought to go to places with which he was familiar. He trudged along through the half-mile of gang-way that he had always found so lonely when he was at work, stopping now and then to rest. For, although he walked very slowly, he grew tired very easily. He felt that he was not getting into a purer atmosphere either. The air around him seemed to lack strength and vitality; and when, at last, he reached the tier of chambers that it had been his duty to supply with cars, he was suffering from dizziness, from shortness of breath, and from rapid beating of the heart. At the foot of Conway's chamber Ralph found a seat. He was very weak and tired and his whole frame was in a tremor. He began to recall all that he had heard and read about people being suffocated in the mines; all the stories that had ever been told to him about miners being shut in by accident and poisoned with foul air, or rescued at the point of death. He knew that his own situation was a critical one. He knew that, with the shaft crowded full of wreckage and giving no passage to the air, the entire mine would eventually become filled with poisonous gases. He knew that his present physical condition was due to the foulness of the atmosphere he was breathing. He felt that the situation was becoming rapidly more alarming. The only question now was as to how long this vitiated air would support life. Still, his courage did not give way. He had strong hope that he would yet be rescued, and he struggled to hold fast to his hope. The flame of his lamp burned round and dim, so dim that he could scarcely see across the heading. The mule came up to him and put out his nose to touch the boy's hand. "I guess we may as well stay here. Jasper," he said. "This is the furthest place away from the shaft, an' if we can't stan' it here we can't stan' it nowhere." The beast seemed to understand him, for he lay down then, with his head resting on Ralph's knee. They remained for a long time in that position, and Ralph listened anxiously for some sound from the direction of the shaft. He began to think finally that it was foolish to expect help as yet. No human being could get through the gas and smoke to him. The mine would first need to be ventilated. But he felt that the air was growing constantly more foul and heavy. His head was aching, he labored greatly in breathing, and he seemed to be confused and sleepy. He arose and tried to walk a little to keep awake. He knew that sleep was dangerous. But he was too tired to walk and he soon came back and sat down again by the mule. "I'm a-tryin', Jasper," he said, "I'm a-tryin' my best to hold out; but I'm afraid it ain't a-goin' to do much good; I can't see much chance"-- He stopped suddenly. A thought had struck him. He seized his lamp and oil-can and pushed ahead across the air-way and up into Conway's chamber. The mule arose with much difficulty and staggered weakly after him. A new hope had arisen in the boy's heart, an inspiration toward life had put strength into his limbs. At the breast of the chamber he set down his lamp and can, climbed up on to the shelf of coal, and began tearing out the slate and rubbish from the little opening in the wall that Conway had that day shown to him. If he could once get through into the old mine he knew that he should find pure air and--life. The opening was too small to admit his body, but that was nothing; there were tools here, and he still had strength enough to work. He dragged the drill up to the face but it was too heavy for him to handle, and the stroke he was able to make with it was wholly without effect. His work with the clumsy sledge was still less useful, and before he had struck the third blow the instrument fell from his nerveless hands. He was exhausted by the effort and lay down on the bed of coal to rest, gasping for breath. He thought if only the air current would come from the other mine into this what a blessing it would be; but, alas! the draft was the other way. The poisoned air was being drawn swiftly into the old mine, making a whistling noise as it crossed the sharp edges of the aperture. Ralph knew that very soon the strong current would bring in smoke and fouler air, and he rose to make still another effort. He went down and brought up the pick. It was worn and light and he could handle it more easily. He began picking away at the edges of coal to enlarge the opening. But the labor soon exhausted him, and he sat down with his back against the aperture to intercept the passage of air while he recovered his breath. He was soon at work again. The hope of escape put energy into his weak muscles. Once, a block as large as his two hands broke away and fell down on the other side. That was a great help. But he had to stop and rest again. Indeed, after that he had very frequently to stop and rest. The space was widening steadily, but very, very slowly. After a time he threw down the pick and passed his head through the opening, but it was not yet large enough to receive his body. The air that was now coming up the chamber was very bad, and it was blue with smoke, besides. The boy bent to his task with renewed energy; but every blow exhausted him, and he had to wait before striking another. He was chipping the coal away, though, piece by piece, inch by inch. By and by, by a stroke of rare good-fortune, a blow that drew the pick from the lad's weak hands and sent it rattling down upon the other side, loosened a large block at the top of the opening, and it fell with a crash. Now he could get through, and it would be none too soon either. He dropped his oil-can down on the other side, then his lamp, and then, after a single moment's rest, he crawled into the aperture, and tumbled heavily to the floor of the old mine. It was not a great fall; he fell from a height of only a few feet, but in his exhausted condition it stunned him, and he lay for some minutes in a state of unconsciousness. The air was better in here, he was below the line of the poisoned current, and he soon revived, sat up, picked up his lamp, and looked around him. He was evidently in a worked-out chamber. Over his head in the side-wall was the opening through which he had fallen, and he knew that the first thing to be done was to close it up and prevent the entrance of any more foul air. There was plenty of slate and of coal and of dirt near by, but he could not reach up so high and work easily, and he had first to build a platform against the wall, on which to stand. It took a long time to do this, but when it was completed he stood up on it to put the first stone in place. On the other side of the opening he heard a hoarse sound of distress, then a scrambling noise, and then Jasper's nose was pushed through against his hand. The mule had stood patiently and watched Ralph while he was at work, but when the boy disappeared he had become frightened, and had clambered up on the shelf of coal at the face to try to follow him. He was down on his knees now, with his head wedged into the aperture, drawing in his breath with long, forced gasps, looking piteously into the boy's face. "Poor Jasper!" said Ralph, "poor fellow! I didn't think of you. I'd get you in here too if I could." He looked around him, as if contemplating the possibility of such a scheme; but he knew that it could not be accomplished. "I can't do it, Jasper," he said, rubbing the animal's face as he spoke. "I can't do it. Don't you see the hole ain't big enough? an' I couldn't never make it big enough for you, never." But the look in Jasper's eyes was very beseeching, and he tried to push his head in so that he might lay his nose against Ralph's breast. The boy put his arms about the beast's neck. "I can't do it, Jasper," he repeated, sobbing. "Don't you see I can't? I wisht I could, oh, I wisht I could!" The animal drew his head back. His position was uncomfortable, and it choked him to stretch his neck out that way. Ralph knew that he must proceed with the building of his wall. One after another he laid up the pieces of slate and coal, chinking in the crevices with dirt, keeping his head as much as possible out of the foul current, stopping often to rest, talking affectionately to Jasper, and trying, in a childish way, to console him. At last his work was nearly completed, but the gruff sounds of distress from the frightened mule had ceased. Ralph held his lamp up out of the current, so that the light would fall through the little opening, and looked in. Jasper lay there on his side, his head resting on the coal bottom, a long, convulsive respiration at intervals the only movement of his body. He was unconscious, and dying. The boy drew back with tears in his eyes and with sorrow at his heart. The beast had been his friend and companion, not only in his daily toil, but here also, in the loneliness and peril of the poisoned mine. For the time being, he forgot his own misfortunes in his sympathy for Jasper. He put his face once more to the opening. "Good-by, Jasper!" he said, "good-by, old fellow! I couldn't help it, you know, an'--an' it won't hurt you any more--good-by!" He drew back his head, put the few remaining stones in place, chinked the crevices with dirt and culm, and then, trembling and faint, he fell to the floor of the old mine, and lay there, panting and exhausted, for a long time in silent thought. But it was not of himself he was thinking; it was of poor old Jasper, dying on the other side of the black wall, deserted, barred out, alone. Finally it occurred to him that he should go to some other place in the mine. The poisonous gases must still be entering through the crevices of his imperfectly built and rudely plastered wall, and it would be wise for him to get farther away. His oil had nearly burned out again, and he refilled his lamp from the can. Then he arose and went down the chamber. It was a very long chamber. When he reached the foot of it he found the entrances into the heading walled up, and he turned and went along the air-way for a little distance, and then sat down to rest. For the first time he noticed that he had cut his hands badly, on the sharp pieces of coal he had been handling, and he felt that there was a bruise on his side, doubtless made when he fell through the opening. Hitherto he had not had a clear idea as to the course he should pursue when he should have obtained entrance into the old mine. His principal object had been to get into pure air. Now, however, he began to consider the matter of his escape. It was obvious that two methods were open to him. He could either try to make his way out alone to the old slope near the Dunmore road, or he could remain in the vicinity of Conway's chamber till help should reach him from the Burnham mine. But it might be many hours before assistance would come. The shaft would have first to be cleared out, and that he knew would be no easy matter. After that the mine would need to be ventilated before men could make their way through it. All this could not be done in a day, indeed it might take many days, and when they should finally come in to search for him, they would not find him in the Burnham mine; he would not be there. If he could discover the way to the old slope, and the path should be unobstructed, he would be in the open air within half an hour. In the open air! The very thought of such a possibility decided the question for him. And when he should reach the surface he would go straight to Mrs. Burnham, straight to his mother, and place in her hands the letter he had found. She would be glad to read it; she would be very, very glad to know that Ralph was her son. Sitting there in the darkness and the desolation he could almost see her look of great delight, he could almost feel her kisses on his lips as she gave him tender greeting. Oh! it would be beautiful, so beautiful! But, then, there was Uncle Billy. He had come near to forgetting him. He would go first to Uncle Billy, that would be better, and then they would go together to his mother's house and would both enjoy her words of welcome. But if he was going he must be about it. It would not do to sit there all night. All night? Ralph wondered what time it had come to be. Whether hours or days had passed since his imprisonment he could hardly tell. He picked up his lamp and can and started on. At no great distance he found an old door-way opening into the heading. He passed through it and began to trudge along the narrow, winding passage. He had often to stop and rest, he felt so very weak. A long time he walked, slowly, unsteadily, but without much pain. Then, suddenly, he came to the end of the heading. The black, solid wall faced him before he was hardly aware of it. He had taken the wrong direction when he entered the gallery, that was all. He had followed the heading in instead of out. His journey had not been without its use, however, for it settled definitely the course he ought to take to reach the slope, and that, he thought, was a matter of no little importance. He sat down for a few minutes to rest, and then started on his return. It seemed to be taking so much more time to get back that he feared he had passed the door-way by which he had entered the heading. But he came to it at last and stopped there. He began to feel hungry. He wondered why he had not thought to look for some one's dinner pail, before he came over into the old mine. He knew that his own still had fragments of food in it; he wished that he had them now. But wishing was of no use, the only thing for him to do was to push ahead toward the surface. When he should reach his mother's house his craving would be satisfied with all that could tempt the palate. He started on again. The course of the heading was far from straight, and his progress was very slow. At last he came to a place where there had been a fall. They had robbed the pillars till they had become too weak to support the roof, and it had tumbled in. Ralph turned back a little, crossed the air-way and went up into the chambers, thinking to get around the area of the fall. He went a long way up before he found an unblocked opening. Then, striking across through the entrances, he came out again, suddenly, to a heading. He thought it must have curved very rapidly to the right that he should find it so soon, if it were the one he had been on before. But he followed it as best he could, stopping very often to catch a few moments of rest, finding even his light oil-can a heavy burden in his hands, trying constantly to give strength to his heart and his limbs by thoughts of the fond greeting that awaited him when once he should escape from the gloomy passages of the mine. The heading grew to be very devious. It wound here and there, with entrances on both sides, it crossed chambers and turned corners till the boy became so bewildered that he gave up trying to trace it. He pushed on, however, through the openings that seemed most likely to lead outward, looking for pathways and trackways, hungering, thirsting, faint in both body and spirit, till he reached a solid wall at the side of a long, broad chamber, and there he stopped to consider which way to turn. He struck some object at his feet. It was a pick. He looked up at the wall in front of him, and he saw in it the filled-up entrance through which he had made his way from the Burnham mine. It came upon him like a blow, and he sank to the floor in sudden despair. This was worse than anything that had happened to him since the time when he ran back to the shaft to find the carriage gone and its place filled with firebrands. His journey had been such a mournful waste of time, of energy, and of hopeful anticipation. But, after a little, he began to think that it was not quite so bad as it might have been after all. He had his lamp and his oil-can, and he was in a place where the air was fit to breathe. That was better, certainly, than to be lying on the other side of the wall with poor old Jasper. He forced new courage into his heart, he whipped his flagging spirits into fresh activity, and resolved to try once more to find a passage to the outside world. But he needed rest; that was apparent. He thought that if he could lie down and be quiet and contented for fifteen or twenty minutes he would gain strength and vigor enough to sustain him through a long journey. He arose and moved up the chamber a little way, out of the current of poisoned air that still sifted in through the crevices of his rudely built wall. Here he lay down on a place soft with culm, to take his contemplated rest, and, before he was aware of it, sleep had descended on him, overpowered him, and bound him fast. But it was a gracious victor. It put away his sufferings from him; it allayed his hunger and assuaged his thirst, it hid his loneliness and dispelled his fear, and it brought sweet peace for a little time to his troubled mind. He was alone and in peril, and far from the pure air and the bright sunlight of the upper world; but the angel of sleep touched his eyelids just as gently in the darkness of this dreadful place as though he had been lying on beds of fragrant flowers, with white clouds or peaceful stars above him to look upon his slumber. CHAPTER XXII. IN THE POWER OF DARKNESS. Ralph slept, hour after hour. He dreamed, and moved his hands uneasily at intervals, but still he slept. There were no noises there to disturb him, and he had been very tired. When he finally awoke the waking was as gentle as though he had been lying on his own bed at home. He thought, at first, that he was at home; and he wondered why it was so very dark. Then he remembered that he was shut up in the mines. It was a cruel remembrance, but it was a fact and he must make the best of it. While he slept his oil had burned out, and he was in total darkness. He felt for his oil-can and found it. Then he found his lamp, filled it by the sense of touch, and lighted it. He always carried matches; they had done him good service in the mines before this. He was very thankful too, that he had thought to bring the oil-can. Without it he would have been long ago in the power of darkness. He was still hungry, and thirsty too, very thirsty now, indeed. He arose and tried to walk, but he was so dizzy that he had to sit down again. He felt better after a little, though, very much better than before he had taken his rest. He wondered how long he had slept, and what progress was being made, if any, toward his rescue. He went down to the opening in the wall, and held his lamp up to it. Threads of smoke were still curling in through the slate and culm, and the air that crept in was very bad. Then, for a little time, Ralph sat there and listened. He thought that possibly he might hear some distant sound of rescue. But there was no noise; the silence was burdensome. His thirst increased and he was hot and feverish. At last he rose with the determination to carry out his plan of searching for the old slope. He knew that it would be worse than useless to stay here. Besides, he hoped that he might find a stream of water on the way at which to quench his thirst. He thought of the letter in his pocket, and the desire grew strong within him to read it again. He took it out, unfolded it, and held it close to the light, but there seemed to be a mist before his eyes and he could not distinguish the words. He knew what it contained, though, and that was sufficient for him. He was Robert Burnham's son. His father had been brave and manly; so would he be. His father would have kept up heart and courage to the end, no matter what fate faced him. He determined that the son should do no less. He would be worthy of his parentage, he would do all that lay in his power to accomplish his own safety; if he failed, the fault should not be his. He folded and replaced the letter, picked up his oil-can, fastened his lamp to his cap and started down the chamber. He felt that he was strong with the strength of inspiration. It seemed to him, too, that he was very light in body. It seemed almost as though he were treading on air, and he thought that he was moving very fast. In reality his steps were heavy and halting, and his way down the long chamber was devious and erratic. His fancied strength and elasticity were born of the fever in his blood. He came to the heading. He knew, now, which way to turn, and he passed down it in what he thought was rapid flight. But here was the fall again. What was to be done now? His last attempt to get around it had been disastrous. He would not try that plan again. He would work his way through it this time and keep to the heading. He climbed slowly up over the fallen rock and coal and let himself down upon the other side. But it took his breath away, this climbing, and he had to wait there a little while to recover it. There was a clear space before him, though, and he made good progress through it till he came again to the fall. In this place the rock was piled higher and it was more difficult of ascent. But he clambered bravely up, dragging his oil-can with him; then he moved out along the smooth, sloping surfaces of fallen slate, keeping as close as possible to the wall of the heading, climbing higher and higher, very slowly now, and with much labor, stopping often to rest. He came, at last, to a place where the space between the fallen rock and the roof above it was so narrow that he could scarcely squeeze his slender body through it. When he had done so he found himself on the edge of a precipice, a place where a solid mass had fallen like a wall, and had made a shelf so high that the feeble rays of Ralph's lamp would not reach to the bottom of it. The boy crawled, trembling, along the edge of this cliff, trying to find some place for descent. The oil-can that he carried made his movements cumbersome; the surface of the rock was smooth and hard to cling to; his limbs were weak and his fingers nerveless. He slipped, the can fell from his hand, he tried to recover it, slipped further, made a desperate effort to save himself, failed, and went toppling over into the darkness. The height was not very great, and he was not seriously injured by the fall; but it stunned him, and he lay for some time in a state of unconsciousness. When he came to himself, he knew what had happened and where he was. He tried to rise, but the effort pained him and he lay back again. He was in total darkness. His lamp had fallen from his cap and become extinguished. He reached out to try and find it and his hand came in contact with a little stream of water. The very touch of it refreshed him. He rolled over, put his mouth to it and drank. It was running water, cool and delicious, and he was very, very thankful for it. In the stream he found his lamp. The lid had flown open, the oil was spilled out, and the water had entered. The can was not within reach of him as he lay. He raised himself to his hands and knees and groped around for it. He began to despair of ever finding it. It would be terrible, he thought, to lose it now, and be left alone in the dark. But at last he came upon it and picked it up. It was very light; he felt for the plug, it was gone; he turned the can upside down, it was empty. For the moment his heart stopped beating; he could almost feel the pallor in his face, he could almost see the look of horror in his own eyes. From this time forth he would be in darkness. It was not enough that he was weak, sick, lost and alone in the mysterious depths of this old mine, but now darkness had come, thick darkness to crown his suffering and bar his path to freedom. His self-imposed courage had almost given way. It required matchless bravery to face a peril such as this without a murmur, and still find room for hope. But he did his best. He fought valiantly against despair. It occurred to him that he still had matches. He drew them from his pocket and counted them. There were seven. He poured the water from the chamber of his lamp and pulled out the wick and pressed it. He thought that possibly he might make it burn a little longer without oil. He selected one of the matches and struck it against the rock at his side. It did not light. The rock was wet and the match was spoiled. The next one he lighted by drawing it swiftly across the sleeve of his jacket. But the light was wasted; the cotton wick was still too wet to ignite. There was nothing left to him, then, save the matches, and they would not light him far. But it was better to go even a little way than to remain here. He rose to his feet and struck a match on his sleeve, but it broke short off at the head, and the sputtering sulphur dropped into the stream and was quenched. He struck another, this time with success. He saw the heading; the way was clear; and he started on, holding one hand out before him, touching at frequent intervals the lower wall of the passage with the other. But his side pained him when he tried to walk: he had struck it heavily in his last fall; and he had to stop in order to relieve it. After a time he arose again, but in the intense darkness and with that strange confusion in his brain, he could not tell in which direction to go. He lighted another match; it sputtered and went out. He had two matches left. To what better use could he put them than to make them light him as far as possible on his way? He struck one of them, it blazed up, and with it he lighted the stick of the imperfect one which he had not thrown away. He held them up before him, and, shielding the blaze with his hand, he moved rapidly down the narrow passage. He knew that he was still in the heading and that if he could but follow it he would, in time, reach the slope. His light soon gave out; darkness surrounded him again, but he kept on. He moved from side to side of the passage, feeling his way. His journey was slow, very slow and painful, but it was better to keep going, he knew that. He had one match left but he dared not light it. He wanted to reserve that for a case of greater need. The emergency that called for its use soon arose. The heading seemed to have grown suddenly wider. He went back and forth across it and touched all the pillars carefully. The way was divided. One branch of the gallery bore to the right and another to the left. Straight ahead was a solid wall. Ralph did not know which passage to enter. To go into one would be to go still farther and deeper into the recesses of the old mine; to go into the other would be to go toward the slope, toward the outer world, toward his mother and his home. If he could only see he could choose more wisely. Had the necessity arisen for the use of his last match? He hesitated. He sat down to rest and to consider the question. It was hard to think, though, with all that whirling and buzzing in his fever-stricken brain. Then a scheme entered his mind, a brilliant scheme by which he should get more light. He resolved to act upon it without delay. He transferred everything from the pockets of his jacket to those of his waistcoat. Then he removed this outer garment, tore a portion of it into strips, and held it in one hand while he made ready to light his last match. He held his breath while he struck it. It did not light. He waited a minute to think. Then he struck it again, this time with success. He touched it to the rags of his coat, and the oil-soaked cloth flashed brightly into flame. He held the blazing jacket in his hand, looked around him for one moment to choose his way, and then began to run. It was a travesty on running, to be sure, but it was the best he could do. He staggered and stumbled; he lurched rapidly ahead for a little space and then moved with halting steps. His limbs grew weak, his breath came in gasps, and the pain in his side was cutting him like a knife. But he thought he was going very rapidly. He could see so nicely too. The flames, fanned by the motion, curled up and licked his hand and wrist, but he scarcely knew it. Then his foot struck some obstacle in the way and he fell. For a moment he lay there panting and helpless, while the burning cloth, thrown from him in his fall, lighted up the narrow space around him till it grew as clear as day. But all this splendid glow should not be wasted; it would never do; he must make it light him on his journey till the last ray was gone. He staggered to his feet again and ran on into the ever growing darkness. Behind him the flames flared, flickered, and died slowly out, and when the last vestige of light was wholly gone he sank, utterly exhausted, to the floor of the mine, and thick darkness settled on him like a pall. A long time he lay there wondering vaguely at his strange misfortunes. The fever in his blood was running high, and, instead of harboring sober thought, his mind was filled with fleeting fancies. It was very still here, so still that he thought he heard the throbbing in his head. He wondered if it could be heard by others who might thus find where he lay. Then fear came on him, fear like an icy hand clutching at his breast, fear that would not let him rest, but that brought him to his feet again and urged him onward. To die, that was nothing; he could die if need be; but to be shut up here alone, with strange and unseen things hovering about him in the blackness, that was quite beyond endurance. He was striving to get away from them. He had not much thought, now, which way he went, he cared little for direction, he wished only to keep in motion. He had to stop at times to get breath and to rest his limbs, they ached so. But, whenever he stood still or sat down to rest, the darkness seemed to close in upon him and around him so tightly as to give him pain. He would not have cared so much for that, though, if it had not been filled with strange creatures who crept close to him to hear the throbbing in his head. He could not bear that; it compelled him to move on. He went a long way like this, with his hands before him, stumbling, falling, rising again, stopping for a moment's rest, moaning as he walked, crying softly to himself at times like the sick child that he was. Once he felt that he was going down an inclined way, like a long chamber; there had been no prop or pillar on either side of him for many minutes. Finally, his feet touched water. It grew to be ankle deep. He pushed on, and it reached half-way to his knees. This would never do. He turned in his tracks to retreat, just saved himself from falling, and then climbed slowly back up the long slope of the chamber. When he had reached the top of it he thought he would lie down and try not to move again, he was so very tired and sick. In the midst of all his fancies he realized his danger. He knew that death had ceased to be a possibility for him, and had come to be more than probable. He felt that it would be very sad indeed to die in this way, alone, in the dark, in the galleries of this old mine; it was not the way Robert Burnham's son should have died. It was not that he minded death so much; he would not have greatly cared for that, if he could only have died in his mother's arms, with the sweet sunlight and the fresh air and the perfume of flowers in the room. That, he thought, would have been beautiful, very beautiful indeed. But this, this was so different. "It is very sad," he said; "poor Ralph, poor boy." He was talking to himself. It seemed to him that he was some one else, some one who stood by trying to pity and console this child who was dying here alone in the awful darkness. "It's hard on you," he said, "I know it's hard on you, an' you've just got to where life'd be worth a good deal to you too. You had your bitter an' the sweet was just a-comin'; but never mind, my boy, never mind; your Uncle Billy says 'at heaven's a great sight better place 'an any you could ever find on earth. An', then, you're Robert Burnham's son, you know, an' that's a good deal to think of; you're--Robert Burnham's--son." For a long time after this there was silence, and the boy did not move. Then fear came back to him. He thought that the darkness was closing in again upon him, that it pressed him from above, from right and left, that it crowded back his breath and crushed his body. He felt that he must escape from it. He was too weak now to rise and walk, so he lifted himself to his hands and knees and began to move away like a creeping child. There were many obstacles in his path, some of them imaginary, most of them real. There were old mine caps, piles of dirt, pieces of slate, and great lumps of coal on' which he cut his hands and bruised his knees. But he met and passed them all. He was intent only on getting away from these dreadful powers of darkness, they tortured him so. And he did get away from them. He came to a place where the space about him seemed large, where the floor was smooth, and the air so clear and pure that he could breathe it freely. Utter darkness, indeed, surrounded him, but it was a darkness not peopled with evil beings; it was more like the sweet darkness of a summer night, with the fragrance of dew-wet flowers in the air. He leaned against a pillar to rest. He thought to stay here until the end should come. He was not suffering from any pain now; he was glad of that. And he should die peacefully, leaving no wrong behind him, with no guilt upon his conscience, no sin upon his soul. He was glad of that too. He wondered if they would know, when they found his body, that he was Robert Burnham's son. Suppose they should never find it out. Suppose the days and months and years should pass away, and no one ever know what high honor came to him while yet he lived on earth. That would be sad, very, very sad; worse even than death itself. But there was a way for him to make it known. He thought that some sweet voice was telling him what to do. He took from his waistcoat pocket the paper that declared his birth, unfolded it once, pressed it to his lips once, took pins from the edge of the collar of his vest, and pinned the letter fast upon the bosom of his flannel shirt. It took him a long time to do this in the darkness, his hands were so very weak and tremulous, but, when it was done, he smoothed the paper over carefully and was content. "They'll know it now," he said gently to himself, "they'll surely know it now. They'll no sooner find me here than they'll know who I am, an' who my mother is, an' where to take me. It's just the same, just the same as though I was alive myself to tell 'em." He leaned back then, and closed his eyes and lay quite still. He felt no pain from his cut and bleeding hands and knees, nor from his burned wrist, nor from his bruised body. He was not hungry any more, nor thirsty, nor suffering for breath. He was thinking, but he thought only of pleasant things. He remembered no evil, neither any person who had done him evil. Off somewhere in the distance he could see blue sky, and the tips of waves glancing in the sunlight, and green fields, and long stretches of yellow grain. It seemed very real to him, so real that he wondered if he was still lying there in the darkness. He opened his eyes to see. Yes, it was dark, very dark. The faint noise of dripping water came to his ears from somewhere in the mine below him. It reminded him of a tiny waterfall he had once seen under the shadow of a great rock on the bank of Roaring Brook. It was where a little stream, like a silver thread, ran down across the mossy covering of the edge and went drip, dripping into the stone-walled basin far below. He wondered if the stream was running there this day, if the tall rock-oak was bending yet above it, if the birds sang there as gayly as they sang that happy day when first he saw it. For a little time he thought that he was indeed there. He found it hard to make himself believe that he was still in the mine, alone. But he was not alone; he knew that he was not alone. He felt that friends were somewhere near him. They were staying back in the shadow so that they should not disturb him. They would come to him soon, when--when he should waken. He did not move any more, his eyes were closed and he seemed to be sleeping. His breath came gently, in long respirations. The precious letter rose and fell with the slow heaving of his breast. Down in the darkness the water dripped as placidly as pulses beat. For the rest there was no sound, no motion. Once the boy stirred a little and opened his eyes. "Is that you, Uncle Billy?" he said. "Come an' sit down an' rest a little, an' then we'll go out. I think I got lost or--or somethin'." His Uncle Billy was not there. The darkness about him held no human being save himself, but the vision was just as real to him, and the coming was just as welcome as though it had all been true. "Why, how strange you look, Uncle Billy; an' you're a-laughin' at me--what! does she? Well, I'll go to her just as soon as I get out, just as soon. How did she find it out? I was goin' to be the first to tell her. I'm glad she knows it, though." After a moment he continued:-- "Oh, no, Uncle Billy; I shouldn't ever do that, I couldn't. You've been too good to me. You've been awful good to me, Uncle Billy--awful good." Again silence fell. Thick darkness, like a veil, wrapped the unconscious child in its folds. Black walls and winding galleries surrounded him, the "valley of the shadow" lay beyond him, but on his breast he bore the declaration of his birth, and in his heart he felt that "peace of God which passeth understanding." Down in the darkness the water dripped; up in the earth's sky the stars were out and the moon was shining. CHAPTER XXIII. A STROKE OF LIGHTNING. It was a hot day at Burnham Breaker. The sun of midsummer beat fiercely upon the long and sloping roofs and against the coal-black sides of the giant building. Down in the engine-room, where there was no air stirring, and the vapor of steam hung heavily in the atmosphere, the heat was almost insupportable. The engineer, clothed lightly as he was, fairly dripped with perspiration. The fireman, with face and neck like a lobster, went out, at intervals, and plunged his hands and his head too into the stream of cool water sent out from the mine by the laboring pumps. Up in the screen-room, the boys were sweltering above their chutes, choking with the thick dust, wondering if the afternoon would never be at an end. Bachelor Billy, pushing the cars out from the head, said to himself that he was glad Ralph was no longer picking slate. It was better that he should work in the mines. It was cool there in summer and warm in winter, and it was altogether more comfortable for the boy than it could be in the breaker; neither was it any more dangerous, in his opinion, than it was among the wheels and rollers of the screen-room. He had labored in the mines himself, until the rheumatism came and put a stop to his under-ground toil. He mourned greatly the necessity that compelled him to give up this kind of work. It is hard for a miner to leave his pillars and his chambers, his drill and powder-can and fuse, and to seek other occupation on the surface of the earth. The very darkness and danger that surround him at his task hold him to it with an unaccountable fascination. But Bachelor Billy had a good place here at the breaker. It was not hard work that he was doing. Robert Burnham had given him the position ten years and more ago. Even on this hot mid-summer day, the heat was less where he was than in any other part of the building. A cool current came up the shaft and kept the air stirring about the head, and the loaded mine-cars rose to the platform, dripping cold water from their sides, and that was very refreshing to the eye as well as to the touch. It was well along in the afternoon that Billy, looking out to the north-west, saw a dark cloud rising slowly above the horizon, and said to Andy Gilgallon, his assistant, that he hoped it would not go away without leaving some rain behind it. Looking at it again, a few minutes later, he told Andy that he felt sure there would be water enough to lay the dust, at any rate. The cloud increased rapidly in size, rolling up the sky in dark volumes, and emitting flashes of forked lightning in quick succession. By and by the face of the sun was covered, and the deep rumbling of the thunder was almost continuous. There was a dead calm. Not even at the head of the shaft could a particle of moving air be felt. "Faith! I don't like the looks o' it, Billy," said Andy Gilgallon, as a sharp flash cut the cloud surface from zenith to horizon, and a burst of thunder followed that made the breaker tremble. "No more do I," replied Bachelor Billy; "but we'll no' git scart afoor we're hurt. It's no' likely the buildin' 'll be washit awa'." "Thrue for ye! but this bit o' a steeple ud be a foine risting-place for the lightnin's fut, an' a moighty hot fut it has, too--bad 'cess to it!" The man had been interrupted by another vivid flash and a sharp crack of thunder. The mountains to the north and west were now entirely hidden, and the near hills were disappearing rapidly behind the on-coming storm of rain. Already the first drops were rattling sharply on the breaker's roof, and warning puffs of wind were beating gently against the side of the shaft-tower. "I'm glad Ralph's no' workin' i' the screen-room," said Bachelor Billy, as he put up his hand to shield his eyes from the blinding glare. "It'd be a fearfu' thing to ha' the breaker hit." The fury of the storm was on them at last. It was as though the heavens were shattered. Billy looked out upon the dreadful onslaught of the elements with awe and wonder on his face. His companion crouched against the timbers of the shaft in terror. Then--lightning struck the breaker. People who sat in their houses a mile away started up in sudden fright at the fierce flash and terrible report. A man who was running toward the engine-room for shelter was blinded and stunned by the glare and crash, and fell to his knees. When he rose again and could use his eyes, he saw men and boys crowding from the building out into the pouring rain. But the breaker was on fire. Already the shaft-tower was wrapped in smoke and lighted with flame. Some one in authority stood in the door of the engine-room giving orders. The carriage was descending the shaft. When it came up it was loaded with men. It went down again, almost with the rapidity of lightning itself. The engineer was crowding his servant of iron and steel to the utmost. The men of the next load that came up had hardly time to push each other from the carriage before it darted down again into the blackness. The flames were creeping lower on the shaft timbers, and were rioting among the screens. The engine-room was hot and stifling. The engineer said he was hoisting the last load that could be brought out. When it reached the surface Conway leaped from among the men and stood in the door of the engine-room. "Let it down again!" he shouted. "Ralph is below yet, the boy. I'll go down myself an' git 'im." He heard a crash behind him, and he turned in time to see the iron roof of the carriage disappear into the mouth of the shaft. The burning frame-work at the head had ceased to support it, and it had fallen down, dragging a mass of flaming timbers with it. Conway went out into the rain and sat down and cried like a child. Afterward, when the storm had partially subsided, a wagon was stopped at the door of the office near the burning breaker, the limp body of Bachelor Billy was brought out and placed in it, and it was driven rapidly away. They had found him lying on the track at the head with the flames creeping dangerously near. He was unconscious when they came to him, he was unconscious still. They took him to his room at Mrs. Maloney's cottage, and put him in his bed. The doctor came soon, and under his vigorous treatment the man lost that deathly pallor about his face, but he did not yet recover consciousness. The doctor said he would come out of it in time, and went away to see to the others who had been injured. The men who had brought the invalid were gone, and Mrs. Maloney was sitting by him alone. The storm had passed, the sun had come out just long enough to bid a reassuring "good-night" to the lately frightened dwellers on the earth, and was now dropping down behind the western hills. A carriage stopped at Bachelor Billy's door and a moment later Mrs. Burnham knocked and entered. "I heard that he had suffered from the stroke," she said, looking at the still form on the bed, "and I came to see him. Is he better?" "He ain't come out of it yet, ma'am," responded Mrs. Maloney, "but the doctor's been a-rubbin' of im' an' a-givin' 'im stimmylants, an' he says it's all right he'll be in the course of a few hours. Will ye have a chair, ma'am?" "Thank you. I'll sit here by him a while with the fan and relieve you. Where is Ralph?" "He's not come yet, ma'am." "Why, Mrs. Maloney, are you sure? Is it possible that anything has happened to him?" "To shpake the trut', ma'am, I'm a bit worried about 'im meself. But they said to me partic'ler, as how ivery man o' thim got out o' the mine befoor the carriage fell. Most like he's a-watchin' the fire an' doesn't know his Uncle Billy's hurted. Ye'll see 'im comin' quick enough when he hears that, I'm thinkin'." Mrs. Burnham had seated herself at the bedside with the fan in her hand. "I'll wait for him," she said; "perhaps he'll be here soon." "I'll be lookin' afther the supper, thin," said Mrs. Maloney, "the lad'll be hungry whin he comes," and she left the room. Bachelor Billy lay very quiet, as if asleep, breathing regularly, his face somewhat pale and his lips blue, but he had not the appearance of one who is in danger. A few minutes later there came a gentle knock at the street door. Mrs. Burnham arose and opened it. Lawyer Goodlaw stood on the step. She gave him as courteous greeting as though she had been under the roof of her own mansion. "I called at your home," he said, as he entered, "and, learning that you had come here, I concluded to follow you." He went up to the bed and looked at Bachelor Billy, bending over him with kind scrutiny. "I heard that the shock had affected him seriously," he said, "but he does not appear to be greatly the worse for it; I think he'll come through all right. He's an honest, warm-hearted man. I learned the other day of a proposition that Sharpman made to him before the trial; a tempting one to offer to a poor man, but he rejected it with scorn. I'll tell you of it sometime; it shows forth the nobility of the man's character." Goodlaw had crossed the room and had taken a seat by the window. "But I came to bring you news," he continued. "Our detective returned this morning and presented a full report of his investigation and its result. You will be pleased with it." "Oh, Mr. Goodlaw! is Ralph--is Ralph--" She was leaning toward him with clasped hands. "Ralph is your son," he said. She bowed her head, and her lips moved in silence. When she looked up, there were tears in her eyes, but her face was radiant with happiness. "Is there any, any doubt about it now?" she asked. "None whatever," he replied. "And what of Rhyming Joe's story?" "It was a pure falsehood. He does not tire of telling how he swindled the sharpest lawyer in Scranton out of a hundred and fifty dollars, by a plausible lie. He takes much credit to himself for the successful execution of so bold a scheme. But the money got him into trouble. He had too much, he spent it too freely, and, as a consequence, he is serving a short term of imprisonment in the Alleghany county jail for some petty offence." The tears would keep coming into the lady's eyes; but they were tears of joy, not of sorrow. "I have the detective's report here in writing," continued Goodlaw; "I will give it to you that you may read it at your leisure. Craft's story was true enough in its material parts, but a gigantic scheme was based on it to rob both you and your son. The odium of that, however, should rest where the expense of the venture rested, on Craft's attorney. It is a matter for sincere congratulation that Ralph's identity was not established by them at that time. He has been delivered out of the hands of sharpers, and his property is wholly saved to him. "I learn that Craft is dying miserably in his wretched lodgings in Philadelphia. With enough of ill-gotten gain to live on comfortably, his miserly instincts are causing him to suffer for the very necessities of life." "I am sorry for him," said the lady; "very sorry." "He is not deserving of your sympathy, madam; he treated your son with great cruelty while he had him." "But he saved Ralph's life." "That is no doubt true, yet he stole the jewelry from the child's person and kept him only for the sake of obtaining ransom. "This reminds me that it is also true that he had an interview with your husband on the day of Mr. Burnham's death. What took place between them I cannot ascertain, but I have learned that afterward, while the rescuing party were descending into the mine, your husband recognized Ralph in a way that those who saw and heard him could not at the time understand. Recent events, however, prove beyond a doubt that your husband knew, on the day he died, that this boy was his son." Mrs. Burnham had been weeping silently. "You are bringing me too much good and comforting news," she said; "I am not quite able to bear it all, you see." She was smiling through her tears, but a look of anxiety crossed her face as she continued:-- "I am worried about Ralph. He has not yet come from the breaker." She glanced up at the little clock on the shelf, and then went to look out from the window. The man on the bed moved and moaned, and she went back to him. "Perhaps we had better send some one to look for the boy," said Goodlaw. "I will go myself--" He was interrupted by the opening of the door. Andy Gilgallon stood on the threshold and looked in with amazement. He had not expected to find the lady and the lawyer there. "I come to see Bachelor Billy," he said. "Me an' him work togither at the head. He got it worse nor I did. I'm over it, only I'm wake yit. The likes o' it was niver seen afoor." He looked curiously in at the bed where his comrade was lying. "Come in," said Mrs. Burnham, "come in and look at him. He's not conscious yet, but I think he'll soon come to himself." The man entered the room, walking on the toes of his clumsy shoes. "Have you seen anything of Ralph since the fire?" continued the lady. Andy stopped and looked incredulously at his questioner. "An' have ye not heard?" he asked. "Heard what, Andy?" she replied, her face paling as she noted the man's strange look. "Why, they didn't get 'im out," he said. "It's in the mine he is, sure, mum." She stood for a moment in silence, her face as white as the wall behind her. Then she clasped her hands tightly together and all the muscles of her body grew rigid in the desperate effort to remain calm for the sake of the unconscious man on the bed, for the sake of the lost boy in the mine, for the sake of her own ability to think and to act. Goodlaw saw the struggle and rose from his chair. "It's a dangerous imprisonment," he said, "but not, of necessity, a fatal one." She still stood staring silently at the messenger who had brought to her these dreadful tidings. "They're a-thryin' to get to the mouth o' the shaft now," said Andy. "They're a-dhraggin' the timbers away; timbers wid the fire in 'em yit. Ye'd be shtartled to see 'em, mum." Then the lady spoke. "I will go to the shaft," she said. Her carriage was already at the door; she started toward it, throwing a light wrap across her arm as she went. Again the man on the bed moved and moaned. "Stay with him," she said to Andy, "until I come myself, or send some one to relieve you. See that he has everything he needs. He is my charge." Goodlaw helped her to the carriage. "Will you come with me?" she asked. He seated himself beside her and they were driven away. There was little that he could say to comfort and assure her. The shock was too recent. The situation of her son was too perilous. Darkness was coming on when they reached the scene of the disaster; one or two stars were already out, and the crescent of the new moon was hanging in the west. Great clouds of white smoke were floating away to the east, and where the breaker had that morning stood there was now only a mass of charred and glowing ruins. There were many people there, people who talked in low tones and who looked on with solemn faces. But there were no outcries nor lamentations; there was but one person, a boy, shut up in the mine, and he was kin to no one there. Up at the south-west corner of the pile they were throwing water on the ruins. An engine had been brought up from the city and was pouring a steady stream on the spot where the shaft was thought to be. Many men were engaged in cutting and pulling away the burned timbers, handling them while they were yet glowing with fire, so eager were they to forward the work of rescue. The superintendent of the mines was there, directing, encouraging, and giving a helping hand. He saw Mrs. Burnham and came up to her carriage. "It was a very disastrous lightning stroke," he said; "the property of the company is in ruins, but as yet no lives have been lost. There is but one person in the mine, the boy Ralph; you both know him. We are clearing away the wreckage from the mouth of the shaft as rapidly as possible, in the hope that we may get down there in time to save his life. Our people have directed me to spare no effort in this matter. One life, even though it is that of an unknown boy, is not too poor a thing for us to try, by every possible means, to save." "That boy," said Goodlaw, "is Mrs. Burnham's son." "Is it possible! Has he been identified, then, since the trial?" "Fully, fully! My dear sir, I beg that you will do all that lies in your power to save this life for your company's sake, then double your effort for this lady's sake. She has no such fortune as this boy is to her." Mrs. Burnham had sat there pale-faced and eager-eyed. Now she spoke:-- "What is the prospect? What are the chances? Can you surely save him? Tell me truly, Mr. Martin?" "We cannot say certainly," replied the superintendent; "there are too many factors in the problem of which we are yet ignorant. We do not know how badly the shaft is choked up; we do not know the condition of the air in the mine. To be frank with you, I think the chances are against rescuing the boy alive. The mine soon fills with poisonous gases when the air supply is cut off." "Are you doing all that can be done?" she asked. "Will more men, more money, more of anything, help you in your work?" "We are doing all that can be done," he answered her. "The men are working bravely. We need nothing." "How soon will you be able to go down and begin the search?" The man thought for a moment before replying. "To-morrow," he said, uncertainly. "I think surely by to-morrow." She sank back into the carriage-seat, appalled by the length of time named. She had hoped that an hour or two at the farthest would enable them to reach the bottom of the shaft. "We will push the work to the utmost," said Martin, as he hurried away. "Possibly we shall be able to get in sooner." Goodlaw and Mrs. Burnham sat for a long time in silence, watching the men at their labor. Word had been passed among the workers that the missing boy was Mrs. Burnham's son, and their energetic efforts were put forth now for her sake as well as for the lad's. For both mother and son held warm places in the hearts of these toiling men. The mouth of the shaft had been finally uncovered, a space cleared around it, and the frame of a rude windlass erected. They were preparing to remove the debris from the opening. Conway came to the carriage, and, in a voice broken with emotion, told the story of Ralph's heroic effort to save a human life at the risk of his own. He had little hope, he said, that Ralph could live till they should reach him; but he should be the first, he declared, to go into the mine in search of the gallant boy. At this recital Mrs. Burnham wept; she could restrain her tears no longer. At last Goodlaw persuaded her to leave the scene. He feared the effect that continued gazing on it might have upon her delicate nerves. The flashing of the lanterns, the huge torches lighting up the darkness, the forms of men moving back and forth in the smoky atmosphere, the muscular and mental energy exhibited, the deep earnestness displayed,--all this made up a picture too dramatic and appalling for one whose heart was in it to look at undismayed. Arrangements were made for a messenger service to keep Mrs. Burnham constantly informed of the progress of the work, and, with a parting appeal to those in charge to hasten the hour of rescue, the grief-stricken mother departed. They drove first to Bachelor Billy's room. Andy was still there and said he would remain during the night. He said that Billy had spoken once or twice, apparently in his right mind, and was now sleeping quietly. Then Mrs. Burnham went to her home. She passed the long night in sleepless anxiety, waiting for the messages from the mine, which followed each other in slow succession. They brought to her no good news. The work was going on; the opening was full with wreckage; the air was very bad, even in the shaft. These were the tidings. It was hardly possible, they wrote, that the boy could still be living. Long before the last star had paled and faded in the western sky, or the first rays of the morning sun had shot across the hills, despair had taken in her heart the place of hope. She could only say: "Well, he died as his father died, trying to save the lives of others. I have two lost heroes now to mourn for and be proud of, instead of one." But even yet there crossed her mind at times the thought that possibly, possibly the one chance for life as against thousands and thousands for death might fall to her boy; and the further and deeper thought that the range of God's mercy was very wide, oh, very wide! CHAPTER XXIV. AT THE DAWN OF DAY. It was not until very late on the morning following the storm that Bachelor Billy came fully to his senses and realized what had happened. He was told that the breaker had been struck by lightning and burned to the ground, and that his own illness was due to the severity of the electric shock. He asked where Ralph was, and they told him that Ralph was up at the mine. They thought it wiser that he should not know the truth about the boy just yet. He thought to get up and dress himself, but he felt so weak and bruised, and the strong metallic taste in his mouth nauseated him so, that he yielded to the advice of those who were with him and lay down again. He looked up anxiously at the clock, at intervals, and seemed to be impatient for the noon hour to arrive. He thought Ralph would come then to his dinner. He wondered that the boy should go away and leave him for so long a time alone in his illness. The noon hour came, but Ralph did not come. Andy Gilgallon returned and tried to divert the man's mind with stories of the fire, but the attempt was in vain. At one o'clock they made a pretence of sending Mrs. Maloney's little girl to look for Ralph, in order to quiet Bachelor Billy's growing apprehension. But he remained very anxious and ill at ease. It struck him that there was something peculiar about the conduct of the people who were with him when Ralph's name was mentioned or his absence discussed. A growing fear had taken possession of his mind that something was wrong, and so terribly wrong that they dared not tell it to him. When the clock struck two, he sat up in the bed and looked at Andy Gilgallon with a sternness in his face that was seldom seen there. "Andy," he said, "tha's summat ye're a-keepin' fra me. If aught's happenit to the lad I want ye s'ould tell me. Be he hurt, be he dead, I wull know it. Coom noo, oot wi' it, mon! D'ye hear me?" Andy could not resist an appeal and a command like this. There was something in the man's eyes, he said afterwards, that drew the truth right out of him. Bachelor Billy heard the story calmly, asked about the means being taken for the boy's rescue, and then sat for a few moments in quiet thought. Finally he said: "Andy, gi' me ma clothes." Andy did not dare to disobey him. He gave his clothes to him, and helped him to dress. The man was so sick and dizzy still that he could hardly stand. He crossed the room, took his cap from its hook and put it on his head. "An' where do yez be goin' to I donno?" inquired Andy, anxiously. "I'm a-goin' to the breaker," replied Bachelor Billy. "Ah, man! but ye're foolish. Ye'll be losin' your own life, I warrant, an' ye'll be doin' no good to the boy." But Billy had already started from the door. "I might be able to do a bit toward savin' 'im," he said. "An' if he's beyon' that, as mos' like he is, I s'ould want to get the lad's body an' care for it mysel'. I kenned 'im best." The two men were walking up through the narrow street of the village. "I hear now that it's Mrs. Burnham's son he is," said Andy. "Lawyer Goodlaw came yesterday wid the news." Billy did not seem surprised. He trudged on, saying simply:-- "Then he's worthy of his mither, the lad is, an' of his father. I'm thankfu' that he's got some one at last, besides his Uncle Billy, happen it's only to bury 'im." The fresh, cool air seemed to have revived and strengthened the invalid, and he went on at a more rapid pace. But he was weak enough still. He wavered from side to side as he walked, and his face was very pale. When the two men reached the site of the burned breaker, they went directly to the opening to learn the latest news concerning the search. There was not much, however, for them to hear. The shaft was entirely cleaned out and men had been down into the mine, but they had not been able to get far from the foot, the air was so very bad. A rough partition was being built now, down the entire depth of the opening, a cover had been erected over the mouth of the shaft, and a fan had been put up temporarily, to drive fresh air into the mine and create an atmosphere there that would support life. It was not long after the arrival of the two men before another party of miners stepped into the bucket to be lowered into the mine. Bachelor Billy asked to be allowed to go with them, but his request was denied. They feared that, in his present condition, the foul air below would be fatal to him. The party could not go far from the foot of the shaft, no farther, indeed, than the inside plane. But they found nothing, no sign whatever of the missing boy. Others went down afterward, and pushed the exploration farther, and still others. It seemed probable that the lad, driven back by the smoke and gas, had taken refuge in some remote portion of the mine; and the portion that he would be apt to choose, they thought, would be the portion with which he had been most familiar. They therefore extended the search mainly in that direction. But it was night before they reached those chambers which Ralph had been accustomed to serve with cars. They looked them over thoroughly; every entrance and every corner was scrutinized, but no trace of the imprisoned boy could be found. Bachelor Billy had not left the place. He had been the first to hear the report of each returning squad, but his hope for the lad's safety had disappeared long before the sun went down. When night came on he went up on the bank and sat under the tree on the bench; the same bench on which he had sat that day in May to listen to the story of Ralph's temptation. His only anxiety now was that the child's body should be brought speedily from the foul air, so that the face might be kept as fair as possible for the mother's sake. Conway, who had gone down into the mine with the first searching party, had been overcome by the foul air, and had been brought out insensible and taken to his home. But he had recovered, and was now back again at the shaft. It seemed to him, he said, as though he was compelled to return; as though there was something to be done here that only he could do. He was sitting on the bench now with Bachelor Billy, and they were discussing the lad's heroic sacrifice, and wondering to what part of the mine he could have gone that the search of half a day should fail to disclose his whereabouts. A man who had just come out from the shaft, exhausted, was assisted up the bank by two companions, and laid down on the grass near the bench, in the moonlight, to breathe the fresh air that was stirring there. After a little, he revived, and began to tell of the search. "It's very strange," he said, "where the lad could have gone. We thought to find him in the north tier, and we went up one chamber and down the next, and looked into every entrance, but never a track of him could we get." He turned to Conway, who was standing by, and continued:-- "Up at the face o' your chamber we found a dead mule with his collar on. The poor creature had gone there, no doubt, to find good air. He'd climbed up on the very shelf o' coal at the breast to get the farthest he could. Did ye ever hear the like?" But Conway did not answer. A vague solution of the mystery of Ralph's disappearance was dawning on him. He turned suddenly to the man, and asked:-- "Did ye see the hole in the face when ye were there; a hole the size o' your head walled up with stone-coal?" "I took no note o' such a thing. What for had ye such a hole there, an' where to?" "Into the old mine," said Conway, earnestly, "into old No. 1. The boy saw it yisterday. I told 'im where it wint. He's broke it in, and crawled through, he has, I'll bet he has. Come on; we'll find 'im yet!" and he started rapidly down the hill toward the mouth of the shaft. Bachelor Billy rose from the bench and stumbled slowly after him; while the man who had told them about the mule lifted himself to his elbows, and looked down on them in astonishment. He could not quite understand what Conway meant. The superintendent of the mine had gone. The foreman in charge of the windlass and fan stood leaning against a post, with the light of a torch flaring across his swarthy face. "Let me down!" cried Conway, hastening to the opening. "I know where the boy is; I can find 'im." The man smiled. "It's against orders," he responded. "Wait till Martin comes back an' the next gang goes in; then ye can go." "But I say I know where the boy is. I can find 'im in half an hour. Five minutes delay might cost 'im his life."-- The man looked at Conway in doubt and wonder; he was hesitating between obedience and inclination. Then Bachelor Billy spoke up, "Why, mon!" he exclaimed, "what's orders when a life's at stake? We _mus'_ go doon, I tell ye! An ye hold us back ye'll be guilty o' the lad's daith!" His voice had a ring of earnestness in it that the man could not resist. He moved to the windlass and told his helpers to lower the bucket. Conway entreated Bachelor Billy not to go down, and the foreman joined in the protest. They might as well have talked to the stars. "Why, men!" said Billy, "tha's a chance as how the lad's alive. An that be so no ither body can do for 'im like me w'en he's foond. I wull go doon, I tell ye; I _mus'_ go doon!" He stepped carefully into the bucket, Conway leaped in after him, and they were lowered away. At the bottom of the shaft they found no one but the footman, whose duty it was to remain steadily at his post. He listened somewhat incredulously to their hasty explanations, he gave to them another lighted lamp, and wished them good-luck as they started away into the heading. In spite of his determination and self-will, Bachelor Billy's strength gave out before they had reached the head of the plane, and he was obliged to stop and rest. Indeed, he was compelled often to do this during the remainder of the journey, but he would not listen to any suggestion that he should turn back. The air was still very impure, although they could at times feel the fresh current from the shaft at their backs. They met no one. The searching parties were all south of the shaft now, this part of the mine having been thoroughly examined. By the time the two men had reached the foot of Conway's chamber, they were nearly prostrated by the foul air they had been compelled to breathe. Both were still feeble from recent illnesses and were without the power to resist successfully the effects of the poisoned atmosphere. They made their way up the chamber in silence, their limbs unsteady, their heads swimming, their hearts beating violently. At the breast Conway clambered up over the body of the mule and thrust his lighted lamp against the walled-up aperture. "He's gone through here!" he cried. "He's opened up the hole an' gone through." The next moment he was tearing away the blocks of slate and coal with both hands. But his fingers were stiff and numb, and the work progressed too slowly. Then he braced himself against the body of the mule, pushed with his feet against Ralph's rude wall, and the next moment it fell back into the old mine. He brushed away the bottom stones and called to his companion. "Come!" he said, "the way's clear an' we'll find better air in there." But Bachelor Billy did not respond. He had fallen against the lower face of coal, unconscious. Conway saw that he must do quick work. He reached over, grasped the man by his shoulders, and with superhuman effort drew him up to the shelf and across the body of the mule. Then, creeping into the opening, he pulled the helpless man through with him into the old mine, and dragged him up the chamber out of reach of the poisoned current. He loosened his collar and chafed his wrists and the better air in there did the rest. Bachelor Billy soon returned to consciousness, and learned where he was. "That was fulish in me," he said, "to weaken like that; but I'm no' used to that white damp. Gi' me a minute to catch ma breath an' I'll go wi' ye." Conway went down and walled up the opening again. When he came back Bachelor Billy was on his feet, walking slowly down the chamber, throwing the light of his lamp into the entrances on the way. "Did he go far fra the openin,' thenk ye?" he asked. "Would he no' most like stay near whaur he cam' through?" Then he tried to lift up his voice and call to the boy; but he was too weak, he could hardly have been heard across the chamber. "Call 'im yoursel', Mike," he said; "I ha' no power i' my throat, some way." Conway called, loudly and repeatedly. There was no answer; the echoes came rattling back to their ears, and that was all that they heard. "Mayhap he's gone to the headin'," said Billy, "an" tried to get oot by the auld slope." "That's just what he's done," replied Conway, earnestly; "I told 'im where the old openin' was; he's tried to get to it." "Then we'll find 'im atween here an' there." The two men had been moving slowly down the chamber. When they came to the foot of it, they turned into the air-way, and from that they went through the entrance into the heading. At this place the dirt on the floor was soft and damp, and they saw in it the print of a boy's shoe. "He's gone in," said Bachelor Billy, examining the foot-prints, "he's gone in toward the face. I ken the place richt well, it's mony's the time I ha' travelled it." They hurried in along the heading, not stopping to look for other tracks, but expecting to find the boy's body ahead of them at every step they took. When they reached the face, they turned and looked at each other in surprise. "He's no' here," said Billy. "It's strange, too," replied Conway. "He couldn't 'a' got off o' the headin'!" He stooped and examined the floor of the passage carefully, holding his lamp very low. "Billy," he said, "I believe he's come in an' gone out again. Here's tracks a-pointin' the other way." "So he has, Mike, so he has; the puir lad!" Bachelor Billy was thinking of the disappointment Ralph must have felt when he saw the face of the heading before him, and knew that his journey in had been in vain. Already the two men had turned and were walking back. At the point where they had entered the heading they found foot-prints leading out toward the slope. They had not noticed them at first. They followed them hastily, and came, as Ralph had come, to the fall. "He's no' climbit it," said Billy. "He's gone up an' around it. The lad knew eneuch aboot the mines for that." They passed up into the chambers, but the floor was too dry to take the impress of footsteps, and they found no trace of the boy. When they reached the upper limit of the fall, Billy said:-- "We mus' turn sharp to the left here, or we'll no' get back. It's a tarrible windin' headin'." But Conway had discovered tracks, faintly discernible, leading across into a passage used by men and mules to shorten the distance to the inner workings. "He's a-goin' stret back," said Billy, sorrowfully, as they slowly followed these traces, "he's a-goin' stret back to whaur he cam' through." Surely enough the prints of the child's feet soon led the tired searchers back to the opening from Conway's chamber. They looked at each other in silent disappointment, and sat down for a few moments to rest and to try to think. Bachelor Billy was the first to rise to his feet. "Mike," he said, "the lad's i' this auld mine. Be it soon or late I s'all find 'im. I s'all search the place fra slope to headin'-face. I s'all no' gae oot till I gae wi' the boy or wi' 'is body; what say ye? wull ye help?" Conway grasped the man's hand with a pressure that meant more than words, and they started immediately to follow their last track back. They passed up and down all the chambers in the tier till they reached the point, at the upper limit of the fall, where Ralph had turned into the foot-way. Their search had been a long and tiresome one and had yielded to them no results. They began to appreciate the fact that a thorough exploration of the mine could not be made in a short time by two worn-out men. Billy blamed himself for not having thought sooner to send for other and fresher help. "Ye mus' go now, Mike," he said. "Mayhap it'd take days wi' us twa here alone, an' the lad's been a-wanderin' aroun' so." But Conway demurred. "You're the one to go," he said. "You can't stan' it in here much longer, an' I can. You're here at the risk o' your life. Go on out with ye an' get a bit o' the fresh air. I'll stay and hunt for the boy till the new men comes." But Bachelor Billy was in earnest. "I canna do it," he said. "I would na get farther fra the lad for warlds, an' him lost an' a-dyin' mayhap. I'll stan' it. Never ye fear for me! Go on, Mike, go on quick!" Conway turned reluctantly to go. "Hold out for an hour," he shouted back, "an' we'll be with ye!" Before the sound of his footsteps had died away, Billy had picked up his lamp again and started down on the easterly side of the fall, making little side excursions as he went, hunting for foot-prints on the floor of the mine. When he came to the heading, he turned to go back to the face of the fall. It was but a few steps. There was a little stream of water running down one side of the passage and he lay down by it to drink. Half hidden in the stream he espied a miner's lamp. He reached for it in sudden surprise. He saw that it had been lately in use. He started to his feet and moved up closer to the fall, looking into the dark places under the rock. His foot struck something; it was the oil-can. He picked it up and examined it. There was blood on it; and both can and lamp were empty. He looked up at the face of the fall and then the truth came slowly into his mind. The boy had attempted to climb through that wilderness of rock, had reached the precipice, had fallen to the floor, had spilled his oil, and had wandered off into the dreadful darkness, hurt and helpless. "Oh, the puir lad!" he said, aloud. "Oh, the puir dear lad! He canna be far fra here," he continued, "not far. Ralph! Ralph!" He waited a moment in silence, but there was no answer. Then, hastily examining the passage as he went, he hurried down along the heading. At one place he found a burned match. The boy had gone this way, then. He hastened on. He came to a point where two headings met, and stopped in indecision. Which route had Ralph taken? He decided to try the one that led to the slope. He went in that way, but he had not gone ten rods before he came upon a little heap of charred rags in the middle of the passage. He could not understand it at first; but he was not long in discovering what it meant. Ralph had burned his jacket to light up the path. "Ah! the sufferin' child!" he murmured; "the dear sufferin' child!" A little further along he saw a boy's cap lying in the way. He picked it up and placed it in his bosom. He brushed away a tear or two from his eyes and hastened on. It was no time to weep over the lad's sufferings when he expected to find his body at every step he took. But he went a long distance and saw no other sign of the boy's passage. He came to a place at last where the dirt on the floor of the heading was wet. He bent down and made careful scrutiny from side to side, but there were no foot-prints there save his own. He had, in his haste gone too far. He turned back with a desperate longing at his heart. He knew that the lad must be somewhere near. At one point, an unblocked entrance opened from the heading into the air-way at an acute angle. He thought the boy might have turned into that, and he passed up through it and so into the chambers. He stopped at times to call Ralph's name, but no answer ever came. He wandered back, finally, toward the fall, and down into the heading where the burned coat was. After a few moments of rest, he started again, examining every inch of the ground as he went. This time he found where Ralph had turned off into the air-way. He traced his foot-prints up through an entrance into the chambers and there they were again lost. But he passed on through the open places, calling as he went, and came finally to the sump near the foot of the slope. He held his lamp high and looked out over the black surface of the water. Not far away the roof came down to meet it. A dreadful apprehension entered the man's mind. Perhaps Ralph had wandered unconsciously into this black pool and been drowned. But that was too terrible; he would not allow himself to think of it. He turned away, went back up the chamber, and crossed over again to the air-way. Moving back a little to search for foot-prints, he came to an old door-way and sat clown by it to rest--yes, and to weep. He could no longer think of the torture the child must have endured in his wanderings through the old mine and keep the tears from his eyes. He almost hoped that death had long ago come to the boy's relief. "Oh, puir lad!" he sobbed, "puir, puir lad!" Below him, in the darkness, he heard the drip of water from the roof. Aside from that, the place was very, very still. Then, for a moment, his heart stopped beating and he could not move. He had heard a voice somewhere near him saying:-- "Good-night, Uncle Billy! If I wake first in the mornin', I'll call you--good-night!" It was what Ralph was used to saying when he went to bed at home. But it was not Ralph's voice sounding through the darkness; it was only the ghost of Ralph's voice. In the next moment the man's strength returned to him; he seized his lamp and leaped through the old door-way, and there at his feet lay Ralph. The boy was living, breathing, talking. Billy fell on his knees beside him and began to push the hair back from his damp forehead, kissing it tenderly as he did so. "Ralph," he said, "Ralph, lad, dinna ye see me? It's your Uncle Billy, Ralph, your Uncle Billy." The boy did not open his eyes, but his lips moved. "Did you call me, Uncle Billy?" he asked. "Is it mornin'? Is it daylight?" "It'll soon be daylight, lad, verra soon noo, verra soon." He had fastened his lamp in his cap, placed his arms gently under the child's body, and lifted him to his breast. He stood for a moment then, questioning with himself. But the slope was the nearest and the way to it was the safest, and there was no time to wait. He started down the air-way on his journey to the outer world, bearing his burden as tenderly as a mother would have borne her babe, looking down at times into the still face, letting the tears drop now and then on the paper pinned to the boy's breast. He stopped to rest after a little, holding the child on his knees as he sat, and looking curiously at the letter, on which his tears had fallen. He read it slowly by the light of his lamp, bending back the fold to do so. He did not wonder at it. He knew what it meant and why the boy had fastened it there. "Ye s'all gae to her, lad," he said, "ye s'all gae to the mither. I'm thankfu', verra thankfu', that the father kenned the truth afoor he deed." He raised his precious burden to his heart and began again his journey. The water in the old sump had risen and flowed across the heading and the air-way and far up into the chambers, and he was compelled to go around it. The way was long and devious; it was blocked and barred; he had often to lay his burden down and make an opening through some walled-up entrance to give them room for passage. There were falls in his course, and he clambered across rough hills of rock and squeezed through narrow openings; but every step brought him nearer to the slope, and this thought nerved him to still greater effort. Yet he could not wholly escape the water of the sump. He had still to pass through it. It was cold and black. It came to his ankles as he trudged along. By and by it reached to his knees. When it grew to be waist-deep he lifted the child to his shoulder, steadied himself against the side wall of the passage and pushed on. He slipped often, he became dizzy at times, there were horrible moments when he thought surely that the dark water would close over him and his precious burden forever. But he came through it at last, dripping, gasping, staggering on till he reached the foot of the old slope. There he sat down to rest. From away back in the mine the echoing shouts of the rescuing party came faintly to his ears. Conway had returned with help. He tried to answer their call, but the cry stuck in his throat. He knew that it would be folly for him to attempt to reach them; he knew also that they would never trace his course across that dreadful waste of water. There was but one thing to do; he must go on, he must climb the slope. He gave one look up the long incline, gathered his burden to his breast and started upward. The slope was not a steep one. There were many in that region that were steeper; but to a man in the last stage of physical exhaustion, forcing his tired muscles and his pain-racked body to carry him and his helpless charge up its slippery way, it was little less than precipitous. It was long too, very long, and in many places it was rough with dislodged props and caps and fallen rock. Many and many a time Bachelor Billy fell prone upon the sloping floor, but, though he was powerless to save himself, though he met in his own body the force of every blow, he always held the child out of harm's way. He began to wonder, at last, if he could ever get the lad to the surface; if, within fifty rods of the blessed outer air, he would not after all have to lie down and die with Ralph in his arms. But as soon as such thoughts came to him he brought his tremendous will and magnificent courage to the rescue, and arose and struggled on. The boy had not spoken since the journey began, nor had he opened his eyes. He was still unconscious, but he was breathing; his heart was beating, there was life in his body, and that was all that could be asked or hoped for. At last! oh, at last! The straight, steep, dreadful half mile of slope was at Bachelor Billy's back. He stood out once more in the free and open air. Under his feet were the grass and flowers and yielding soil; over his head were the shining stars, now paling in the east; below him lay the fair valley and the sleeping town clothed lightly in the morning mist; and in his arms he still held the child who had thought never again to draw breath under the starry sky or in the dewy air. There came a faint breeze, laden with all the fragrance of the young morning, and it swept Ralph's cheek so gently that the very sweetness of it made his eyes to open. He looked at the reddening east, at the setting stars still glowing in the western sky, at the city church spires rising out of the sea of silver mist far down below him, and then at last up into the dear old face and the tear-wet eyes above him, and he said: "Uncle Billy, oh, Uncle Billy! don't you think it's beautiful? I wish--I wish my mother could see it." "Aye, lad! she s'all look upon it wi' ye, mony's the sweet mornin' yet, an it please the good God." The effort to look and to speak had overpowered the weary child, and he sank back again into unconsciousness. Then began the journey home. Not to the old cottage; that was Ralph's home no longer, but to the home of wealth and beauty now, to the mansion yonder in the city where the mother was waiting for her boy. Aye! the mother was waiting for her boy. They had sent a messenger on horseback shortly after midnight to tell her that the lad's tracks had been found in the old mine, that all the men at hand had started in there to make the search more thorough, that by daylight the child would be in her arms, that possibly, oh! by the merest possibility, he might still be living. So through the long hours she had waited, had waited and watched, listening for a footfall in the street, for a step on the porch, for a sound at her door; yet no one came. The darkness that lay upon the earth seemed, also, to lie heavily on her spirit. But now, at last, with the gray light that told of coming day, there crept into her heart a hope, a confidence, a serenity of faith that set it quite at rest. She drew back the curtains and threw open the windows to let in the morning air. The sky above the eastern hilltops was aglow with crimson; in the zenith it was like the color of the sweet pale rose. She felt and knew that her boy was living and that very soon he would be with her. Doubt had disappeared wholly from her mind. She threw open the great hall doors that he might have a gracious and a fitting welcome to his home. She went up once more to the room in which he was to lie until health should return to him, to see that it was ready to receive him. When she again descended the stairs she saw the poor, bent figure of a man, carrying a burden in his arms, staggering weakly up the walk, laboring with awful effort at the steps of the porch. He was wet and wretched, he was hatless and ragged, but on his soiled face was a smile befitting one of God's angels. He kissed his burden tenderly, and gave it into the lady's arms. He said:-- "I've brought 'im to ye fra the edge o' daith. His title to your luve is pinnit on 'is breast. I'm thankfu'--thankfu' for ye--both." Bachelor Billy's work was done. He had lived to place his dearest treasure in the safest place on earth; there was nothing left for him to do. He sank down gently to the floor of the broad hall. The first sunlight of the new day flashed its rays against the stained-glass windows, and the windows caught them and laid them in coverlets of blue and gold across the prostrate form of this humblest of earth's heroes. Under them was no stain visible, no mark of poverty, no line of pain; he lay like a king in state with the cloth of gold across his body, and a crown of gold upon his head; but his soul, his brave, pure, noble soul, ah! that was looking down from the serene and lofty heights of everlasting life. * * * * * Yes, he lived, Ralph lived and became well and strong. He took his name and his estates and chose his mother for his guardian; and life for him was very, very beautiful. The summer passed and the singing birds grew silent in the woods and fields. The grain stood golden, and the ripe fruit dropped from vine and tree. October came, with her frosty nights and smoky days. She dashed the hill-sides with her red and yellow, and then she held her veil of mist for the sun's rays to shine through, lest the gorgeous coloring should daze the eyes of men. On one of these most beautiful autumnal days, Ralph and his mother went driving through the country roads, gathering golden-rod and purple aster and the fleecy immortelle. When they returned they passed through the cemetery gates and drove to one spot where art and nature had combined to make pleasant to the living eye the resting-places of the dead, and they laid their offering of fresh wild-flowers upon the grave of one who had nobly lived and had not ignobly died. Above the mound, a block of rugged granite rose, bearing on its face the name and age and day of death of William Buckley, and also this inscription:-- "Having finished his work, by the will of God he fell asleep." As they drove back toward the glowing west, toward the pink clouds that lay above the mountain-tops behind which the sun had just now disappeared, toward the bustling city and the dear, dear home, Ralph lifted up his face and kissed his mother on her lips. But he did not speak; the happiness and peace within him were too great for words. 
21726	----	DEEP DOWN, A TALE OF THE CORNISH MINES, BY R.M. BALLANTYNE. CHAPTER ONE. BEGINS THE STORY WITH A PECULIAR MEETING. Necessity is the mother of invention. This is undoubtedly true, but it is equally true that invention is not the only member of necessity's large family. Change of scene and circumstance are also among her children. It was necessity that gave birth to the resolve to travel to the end of the earth--of English earth at all events--in search of fortune, which swelled the bosom of yonder tall, well-favoured youth, who, seated uncomfortably on the top of that clumsy public conveyance, drives up Market-Jew Street in the ancient town of Penzance. Yes, necessity--stern necessity, as she is sometimes called--drove that youth into Cornwall, and thus was the originating cause of that wonderful series of events which ultimately led to his attaining--but hold! Let us begin at the beginning. It was a beautiful morning in June, in that period of the world's history which is ambiguously styled "Once-upon-a-time," when the "Kittereen"--the clumsy vehicle above referred to--rumbled up to the Star Inn and stopped there. The tall, well-favoured youth leapt at once to the ground, and entered the inn with the air of a man who owned at least the half of the county, although his much-worn grey shooting costume and single unpretentious portmanteau did not indicate either unusual wealth or exalted station. In an off-hand hearty way, he announced to landlord, waiters, chambermaids, and hangers-on, to all, indeed, who might choose to listen, that the weather was glorious, that coaches of all kinds, especially Kittereens, were detestable machines of torture, and that he meant to perform the remainder of his journey on foot. He inquired the way to the town of St. Just, ordered his luggage to be forwarded by coach or cart, and, with nothing but a stout oaken cudgel to encumber him, set out on his walk of about seven miles, with the determination of compensating himself for previous hours of forced inaction and constraint by ignoring roads and crossing the country like an Irish fox-hunter. Acting on the presumptuous belief that he could find his way to any part of the world with the smallest amount of direction, he naturally missed the right road at the outset, and instead of taking the road to St. Just, pursued that which leads to the Land's End. The youth, as we have observed, was well-favoured. Tall, broad-shouldered, deep-chested, and athletic, with an active step, erect gait, and clear laughing eye, he was one whom a recruiting-sergeant in the Guards would have looked upon with a covetous sigh. Smooth fair cheeks and chin told that boyhood was scarce out of sight behind, and an undeniable _some thing_ on the upper lip declared that manhood was not far in advance. Like most people in what may be termed an uncertain stage of existence, our hero exhibited a variety of apparent contradictions. His great size and muscular strength and deep bass voice were those of a man, while the smooth skin, the soft curling hair, and the rollicking gladsome look were all indicative of the boy. His countenance, too, might have perplexed a fortune-teller. Sometimes it was grave almost to sternness, at other times it sparkled with delight, exhibiting now an expression that would have befitted a sage on whose decisions hung the fate of kingdoms, and anon displaying a dash of mischief worthy of the wildest boy in a village school. Some of the youth's varied, not to say extravagant, actions and expressions, were perhaps due to the exhilarating brilliancy of the morning, or to the appearance of those splendid castles which his mind was actively engaged in building in the air. The country through which he travelled was at first varied with trees and bushes clothed in rich foliage; but soon its aspect changed, and ere long he pursued a path which led over a wide extent of wild moorland covered with purple heath and gorse in golden-yellow bloom. The ground, too, became so rough that the youth was fain to confine himself to the highroad; but being of an explorative disposition, he quickly diverged into the lanes, which in that part of Cornwall were, and still are, sufficiently serpentine and intricate to mislead a more experienced traveller. It soon began to dawn upon the youth's mind that he was wandering in a wrong direction, and when he suddenly discovered a solitary cottage on the right hand, which he had previously observed on the left, he made up his mind to sacrifice his independence and condescend to ask for guidance. Lightly leaping a wall with this intent, he crossed two fields, and stooped as he looked in at the low doorway of the cottage, from the interior of which there issued the loud cries of a child either in great pain or passion. A sturdy little boy seated on a stool, and roaring like a young bull, while an elderly woman tried to comfort him, was the sight which met his gaze. "Can you show me the road to St. Just?" inquired our adventurer. "St. Just, sur?" said the woman, stepping out in front of the door, "why, you're on the way to St. Buryan, sure. Ef you do keep on the right of the hill over theere, you'll see the St. Just road." A yell of unparalleled ferocity issued at this moment from the cottage, and it was found that the noisy urchin within, overcome by curiosity, had risen to ascertain who the stranger outside could be, and had been arrested by a pang of agony. "Aw dear, aw dear, my poor booy," exclaimed the woman, endeavouring gently to press the boy down again on the stool, amid furious roaring. "What's wrong with him?" asked our traveller, entering the apartment. "He's tumbled off the wall, dear booy, an' semen to me he's scat un shoulder very bad." "Let me have a look at him," said the youth, sitting down on the edge of a bed which stood at one end of the room, and drawing the child between his knees. "Come, little man, don't shout so loud; I'll put it all right for you. Let me feel your shoulder." To judge from the immediate result, the young man seemed to put it all wrong instead of "all right," for his somewhat rough manipulation of the boy's shoulder produced such a torrent of screams that the pitying woman had much ado to restrain herself from rushing to the rescue. "Ah!" exclaimed the youth in grey, releasing his victim; "I thought so; he has broken his collar-bone, my good woman; not a serious matter, by any means, but it will worry him for some time to come. Have you got anything to make a bandage of?" "Sur?" said the woman. "Have you a bit of rag--an old shirt or apron?--anything will do." The woman promptly produced a cotton shirt, which the youth tore up into long strips. Making a pad of one of these, he placed it under the boy's arm-pit despite of sobs and resistance. This pad acted as a fulcrum on which the arm rested as a lever. Pressing the elbow close to the boy's side he thus forced the shoulder outwards, and, with his left hand, set the bone with its two broken ends together. To secure it in this position he bound the arm pretty firmly to the boy's body, so that he could not move a muscle of the left arm or shoulder. "There," said the youth, assisting his patient to put on his shirt, "that will keep all straight. You must not on any account remove the bandage for some weeks." "How long, sur?" exclaimed the woman in surprise. "For some weeks; but that will depend on how the little fellow gets on. He may go about and use his right arm as he pleases, but no more climbing on walls for some time to come. Do you hear, little man?" The urchin, whose pain was somewhat relieved, and who had moderated down to an occasional deep sob, said "Iss." "You're a doctor, sur, I think?" said the woman. "Yes, I am; and I'll come to see you again, so be careful to attend to my directions. Good-morning." "Good mornin', sur, an' thank 'ee!" exclaimed the grateful dame as the youth left the house, and, leaping the low enclosure in front of it, sped over the moor in the direction which had been pointed out to him. His resolution to ignore roads cost our traveller more trouble than he had anticipated, for the moor was very rugged, the brambles vexatious, and the spines of the gorse uncommonly sharp. Impediments of every kind were more numerous than he had been accustomed to meet with even on the heath-clad hills of Scotland, with which--although "the land of the mountain and the flood" was not that of his birth--he had from childhood been familiar. After a good deal of vigorous leaping and resolute scrambling, he reached one of those peculiar Cornish lanes which are so deeply sunk in the ground, and edged with such high solid walls, that the wayfarer cannot in many places see the nature of the country through which he is passing. The point at which he reached the lane was so overgrown with gorse and brambles that it was necessary to search for a passage through them. This not being readily found, he gave way to the impetuosity of his disposition, stepped back a few paces, cleared the obstacles with a light bound, and alighted on the edge of the bank, which gave way under his weight, and he descended into the lane in a shower of stones and dust, landing on his feet more by chance than by dexterity. A shout of indignation greeted the traveller, and, turning abruptly round, he beheld a stout old gentleman stamping with rage, covered from head to foot with dust, and sputtering out epithets of opprobrium on the hapless wight who had thus unintentionally bespattered him. "Ugh! hah! you young jackanapes--you blind dumbledory--ugh! What mean you by galloping over the country thus like a wild ass--eh?" A fit of coughing here interrupted the choleric old gentleman, in the midst of which our hero, with much humility of demeanour, many apologies, and protestations of innocence of intention to injure, picked up the old gentleman's hat, assisted him to brush his clothes with a bunch of ferns, and in various other ways sought to pacify him. The old man grumbled a good deal at first, but was finally so far mollified as to say less testily, while he put on his hat, "I warrant me, young man, you are come on some wild-goose chase to this out-o'-the-way region of the land in search of the picturesque--eh?--a dauber on canvas?" "No, sir," replied the youth, "I profess not to wield the pencil or brush, although I admit to having made feeble efforts as an amateur. The scalpel is more to my taste, and my object in coming here is to visit a relative. I am on my way to St. Just; but, having wandered somewhat out of my road, have been obliged to strike into bypaths, as you see." "As I _see_, young man!--yes, and as I _feel_," replied the old gentleman, with some remains of asperity. "I have already expressed regret for the mischance that has befallen you," said the youth in grey somewhat sternly, for his impulsive spirit fired a little at the continued ill-humour of the old gentleman. "Perhaps you will return good for evil by pointing out the way to St. Just. May I venture to ask this favour of you?" "You may venture, and you _have_ ventured; and it is my belief, young man, that you'll venture many a thing before this world has done with you; however, as you are a stranger in these parts, and have expressed due penitence for your misdeed, though I more than half doubt your sincerity, I can do no less than point out the road to St. Just, whither I will accompany you at least part of the way; and, young sir, as you have taken pretty free liberty with _me_ this morning, may I take the liberty of asking _you_ the name of your relative in St. Just? I am well acquainted with most of the inhabitants of that town." "Certainly," replied the youth. "The gentleman whom I am going to visit is my uncle. His name is Donnithorne." "What! Tom Donnithorne?" exclaimed the old gentleman, in a tone of surprise, as he darted a keen glance from under his bushy eyebrows at his companion. "Hah! then from that fact I gather that you are Oliver Trembath, the young doctor whom he has been expecting the last day or two. H'm--so old Tom Donnithorne is your uncle, is he?" The youth in grey did not relish the free and easy, not to say patronising, tone of his companion, and felt inclined to give a sharp answer, but he restrained his feelings and replied,--"He is, and you are correct in your supposition regarding myself. Do you happen to know my uncle personally?" "Know him personally!" cried the old gentleman with a sardonic laugh; "Oh yes, I know him intimately--intimately; some people say he's a very good fellow." "I am glad to hear that, for to say truth--" He paused abruptly. "Ha! I suppose you were going to say that you have heard a different account of him--eh?" "Well, I _was_ going to observe," replied Oliver, with a laugh, "that my uncle is rather a wild man for his years--addicted to smuggling, I am told, and somewhat given to the bottle; but it is well known that tattlers give false reports, and I am delighted to hear that the old boy is not such a bad fellow after all." "Humph!" ejaculated the other. "Then you have never seen him, I suppose?" "No, never; although I am a Cornishman I have seen little of my native county, having left it when a little boy--before my uncle came to live in this part of the country." "H'm--well, young man, I would advise you to beware of that same uncle of yours." "How!" exclaimed the youth in surprise; "did you not tell me just now that he is a very good fellow?" "No, sir, I did not. I told you that _some_ people say he is a very good fellow, but for myself I think him an uncommonly bad man, a man who has done me great injury in his day--" "It grieves me to hear you say so," interrupted Oliver, whose ire was again roused by the tone and manner of his companion. "A decidedly bad man," continued the old gentleman, not noticing the interruption, "a thorough rascal, a smuggler, and a drunkard, and--" "Hold, sir!" cried the youth sternly, as he stopped and faced the old gentleman, "remember that you speak of my relative. Had you been a younger man, sir--" Again the youth paused abruptly. "Go on, sir," said the old gentleman ironically, "you would have pommelled me to a jelly with your cudgel, I suppose; is that it?--acting somewhat in the spirit of your kinsman, that same smuggling and tippling old scoundrel, who--" "Enough, sir," interrupted the young man angrily; "we part company here." So saying, he vaulted over the wall that separated the road from the moor, and hurried away. "Take the first turn to the left, and keep straight on, else you'll lose yourself aga-a-a-in," roared the old gentleman, "and my compliments to the rascally old smugg-le-e-r-r!" "The old scoundrel!" muttered the youth as he hurried away. "The young puppy!" growled the old gentleman as he jogged along. "Given to smuggling and the bottle indeed--humph! the excitable jackanapes! But I've given him a turn in the wrong direction that will cool his blood somewhat, and give me leisure to cool mine too, before we meet again." Here the old gentleman's red countenance relaxed into a broad grin, and he chuckled a good deal, in the midst of a running commentary on the conduct and appearance of his late companion, from the disjointed sentences of which it might have been gathered that although his introduction to the young doctor had been unfortunate, and the succeeding intercourse stormy, his opinion of him was not altogether unfavourable. CHAPTER TWO. SHOWS WHAT ASTONISHING RESULTS MAY FOLLOW FROM TAKING THE WRONG ROAD. Before Oliver Trembath had advanced half a mile on his path, he had cooled sufficiently to experience some regret at having been so quick to take offence at one who, being evidently an eccentric character, should not, he thought, have been broken with so summarily. Regrets, however, had come too late, so he endeavoured to shake off the disagreeable feelings that depressed him, and, the more effectually to accomplish this, burst forth into a bravura song with so much emphasis as utterly to drown, and no doubt to confound, two larks, which, up to that time, had been pouring their melodious souls out of their little bodies in the bright blue sky above. Presently he came to a part of the moor where two roads diverged--one to the right and the other to the left. Recalling the shout of advice which the old gentleman had given him in parting, he took that which led to the left, and was gratified, on gaining an eminence a short distance in advance, to see in the far distance a square turret, which he concluded was that of the church of St. Just. Keeping this turret in view, the youth stepped out so vigorously that he soon reached the small town that clustered round the church, and going up to the first man he met, said, "This is the town of St. Just, I suppose, is it not?" "No, et is'n; thee's come the wrang road, sur," replied the rustic. "This es Sennen church-town. St. Just es up over th' hill theere." Oliver Trembath's first feeling was one of surprise; this was followed by annoyance, which quickly degenerated into anger as it flashed into his mind that the old gentleman might possibly have led him wrong on purpose. "How far is it to St. Just?" he inquired. "'Bout six miles, sur." "Then I suppose I am not far from the Land's End?" said Oliver after a pause. "No, not fur," replied the man. "Et do lie straight before 'ee." Thanking the man, Oliver started off at a smart pace, resolving, before proceeding to St. Just, to visit this extreme western point of England-- a visit to which he had often looked forward with pleasant anticipation. During the last hour of his walk the sun had been obscured by clouds, but, just as he approached the cliffs, the clouds separated, and a golden flood rushed over the broad Atlantic, which now lay spread out before him in all its wide majesty as far as the eye could see. "A good omen!" cried the youth with a shout, as he hurried towards the shore, intending to fling off his garments and bathe in the mighty ocean, which, from the place where he first beheld it, appeared to be smooth and still as a mill-pond. But Oliver was compelled to restrain his ardour, for on nearing the sea he found that he stood on the summit of high cliffs, beyond which the Land's End stretched in a succession of broken masses of granite, so chafed and shattered by the action of the sea, and so curiously split, as to resemble basaltic columns. To reach the outermost of those weather-worn sentinels of Old England, required some caution on the part of our traveller, even although well used to scaling the rocky heights of Scottish mountains, and when he did at last plant his foot on the veritable Land's End, he found that it was a precipice apparently sixty feet high, which descended perpendicularly into deep water. His meditated bathe was therefore an impossibility, for those glassy undulations, which appeared so harmless at a distance, gathered slow and gradual height as they approached the land, and at last, assuming the form of majestic waves, flung themselves with a grand roar on the stern cliffs which they have battered so long in vain, and round which--always repulsed but never conquered--they seethed in milky foam. With glistening eye, and heaving breast, and mantling colour, the young doctor stood long and motionless on this extreme point of land--absorbed in admiration of the glorious scene before him. Often had he beheld the sea in the firths and estuaries of the North, but never till now had he conceived the grandeur of the great Atlantic. It seemed to him as if the waves of those inland seas, when tossed by wild storms, were but rough miniature copies of the huge billows which arose before him, without apparent cause, and, advancing without rush or agitation, fell successively with solemn roar at his feet, awakening irresistibly within him deep and new thoughts of the Almighty Creator of earth and sea. For many minutes he stood entranced, his mind wandering in a species of calm delight over the grand scene, but incapable of fixing itself definitely on any special feature--now sweeping out to where the Scilly Isles could be seen resting on the liquid horizon, anon following the flight of circling seagulls, or busy counting the innumerable ships and boats that rested on the sea, but ever and anon recurring, as if under the influence of fascination, to that rich turmoil of foam which boiled, leaped, and churned, around, beneath, and above the mighty breakers. Awaking at last from his trance, Oliver tore himself from the spot, and hastened away to seek the nearest strip of sand where he might throw off his clothes and plunge into the boiling surf. He proceeded in a southerly direction, impatiently expecting at every step to discover some spot suitable for his purpose, but he had taken a long and rapid walk before he found a break in those wild cliffs which afforded him the opportunity of descending to the water's edge. Here, on a narrow strip of sand, he undressed and leaped into the waves. Well was it for Oliver that day that he had been trained in all manly exercises, that his "wind" was good, that his muscles were hard, his nerves well strung, and, above all, that in earliest youth he had learned to swim. Misjudging, in his ignorance, the tremendous power of the surf into which he sprang, and daring to recklessness in the conscious possession of unusual strength and courage, he did not pause to look or consider, but at once struck out to sea. He was soon beyond the influence of the breaking waves, and for some time sported in the full enjoyment of the briny Atlantic waters. Then turning towards the shore he swam in and was speedily tossing among the breakers. As he neared the sandy beach and felt the full power of the water on his partially exhausted frame, he experienced a slight feeling of anxiety, for the thunder of each wave as it fell and rushed up before him in seething foam, seemed to indicate a degree of force which he had not realised in his first vigorous plunge into the sea. A moment more and a wave caught him in its curling crest, and swept him onwards. For the first time in his life, Oliver Trembath's massive strength was of no avail to him. He felt like a helpless infant. In another instant the breaker fell and swept him with irresistible violence up the beach amid a turmoil of hissing foam. No sooner did he touch the ground than he sprang to his feet, and staggered forward a few paces but the returning rush of water swept sand and stones from beneath his feet, carried his legs from under him, and hurled him back into the hollow of the succeeding wave, which again rolled him on the sand. Although somewhat stunned, Oliver did not lose consciousness or self-possession. He now fully realised the extreme danger of his position, and the thought flashed through his brain that, at the farthest, his fate must be decided in two or three minutes. Acting on a brave spirit, this thought nerved him to desperate effort. The instant he could plant his feet firmly he bounded forwards, and then, before the backward rush of water had gathered strength, fell on his knees, and dug his fingers and toes deep into the sand. Had the grasp been on something firm he could easily have held on, but the treacherous sand crumbled out of his grasp, and a second time he was carried back into the sea. The next time he was cast on the beach he felt that his strength was failing; he staggered forward as soon as he touched bottom, with all the energy of one who avails himself of his last chance, but the angry water was too strong for him. Feeling that he was being overpowered, he cast his arms up in the air, and gave utterance to a loud cry. It was not like a cry of despair, but sounded more like what one might suppose would be the shout of a brave soldier when compelled to give way-- fighting--before the might of overwhelming force. At that moment a hand caught the young man's wrist, and held it for a few seconds in a powerful grasp. The wave retreated, a staggering effort followed, and the next moment Oliver stood panting on the beach grasping the rough hand of his deliverer. "Semen to me you was pretty nigh gone, sur," said the man, who had come thus opportunely to the rescue, as he wrung the sea-water from his garments. He was a man of middle height, but of extremely powerful frame, and was habited in the garb of a fisherman. "Truly I had been gone altogether but for your timely assistance; may God reward you for it!" said Oliver earnestly. "Well, I don't think you would be so ready to thank me if you did knaw I had half made up my mind to lev 'ee go." Oliver looked at the man in some surprise, for he spoke gruffly, almost angrily, and was evidently in earnest. "You are jesting," said he incredulously. "Jestin'; no I ain't, maister. Do 'ee see the boat out over?" he said, pointing to a small craft full of men which was being rowed swiftly round a point not more than half a mile distant; "the villains are after me. They might as well have tried to kitch a cunger by the tail as nab Jim Cuttance in one of his dens, if he hadn't bin forced by the softness of his 'art to pull a young fool out o' the say. You'll have to help me to fight, lad, as I've saved your life. Come, follow me to the cave." "But--my clothes--" said Oliver, glancing round him in search of his garments. "They're all safe up here; come along, sur, an' look sharp." At any other time, and in other circumstances, Oliver Trembath's fiery spirit would have resented the tone and manner of this man's address, but the feeling that he owed his life to him, and that in some way he appeared to be the innocent cause of bringing misfortune on him, induced him to restrain his feelings and obey without question the mandate of his rescuer. Jim Cuttance led the way to a cave in the rugged cliffs, the low entrance to which was concealed by a huge mass of granite. The moment they entered several voices burst forth in abuse of the fisherman for his folly in exposing himself; but the latter only replied with a sarcastic laugh, and advised his comrades to get ready for action, for he had been seen by the enemy, who would be down on them directly. At the same time he pointed to Oliver's clothes, which lay in a recess in the side of the cavern. The youth dressed himself rapidly, and, while thus engaged, observed that there were five men in the cavern, besides his guide, with whom they retired into the farthest recess of the place, and entered into animated and apparently angry, though low-toned, conversation. At length their leader, for such he evidently was, swung away from them, exclaiming, with a laugh, "Well, well, he's a good recruit, and if he should peach on we--us can--" He concluded the sentence with a significant grunt. "Now, sur," he said, advancing with his comrade towards Oliver, who was completing his toilet, "they'll be here in ten minutes, an' it is expected that you will lend we a hand. Here's a weapon for you." So saying, he handed a large pistol to Oliver, who received it with some hesitation. "I trust that your cause is a good one," he said. "You cannot expect me to fight for you, even though I am indebted to you for my life, without knowing against whom I fight, and why." At this a tall thick-set man suddenly cocked his pistol, and uttering a fierce oath swore that if the stranger would not fight, he'd shoot him through the head. "Silence, Joe Tonkin!" cried Jim Cuttance, in a tone that at once subdued the man. Oliver, whose eyes had flashed like those of a tiger, drew himself up, and said--"Look at me, lads; I have no desire to boast of what I can or will do, but I assure you it would be as easy to turn back the rising tide as to force me to fight against my will--except, indeed, with yourselves. As I have said, I owe my life to your leader, and apparently have been the innocent means of drawing his enemies upon him. Gratitude tells me to help him if I can, and help him will if the cause be not a bad one." "Well spoken, sur," said the leader, with an approving nod; "see to the weapons, Maggot, and I'll explain it all to the gentleman." So saying, he too Oliver aside, told him hurriedly that the men who ere expected to attack them were fishermen belonging to a neighbouring cove, whose mackerel nets had been accidentally cut by his boat some weeks ago, and who were bent on revenge, not believing that the thing had been done by accident. "But surely you don't mean to use fire-arms against them in such a quarrel?" said Oliver. A sort of humorous smile crossed the swarthy countenance of the man as he replied-- "They will use pistols against we." "Be that as it may," said Oliver; "I will never consent to risk taking the life of a countryman in such a cause." "But you can't fight without a weapon," said the man; "and sure, if 'ee don't shut them they'll shut you." "No matter, I'll take my chance," said Oliver; "my good cudgel would have served me well enough, but it seems to have been swept away by the sea. Here, however, is a weapon that will suit me admirably," he added, picking up a heavy piece of driftwood that lay at his feet. "Well, if you scat their heads with that, they won't want powder and lead," observed the other with a grin, as he rose and returned to the entrance of the cave, where he warned his comrades to keep as quiet as mice. The boat which had caused so much angry discussion among the men of the cave had by this time neared the beach, and one of the crew stood up in the bow to guide her into the narrow cove, which formed but a slight protection, even in calm weather, against the violence of that surf which never ceases to grind at the hard rocks of West Cornwall. At length they effected a landing, and the crew, consisting of nine men armed with pistols and cutlasses, hurried up to the cliffs and searched for the entrance to the cavern. While the events which have been related were taking place, the shades of evening had been gradually creeping over land and sea, and the light was at that time scarcely sufficient to permit of things being distinguished clearly beyond a few yards. The men in the cavern hid themselves in the dark recesses on each side of the entrance, ready for the approaching struggle. Oliver crouched beside his rescuer with the piece of driftwood by his side. Turning suddenly to his companion, he said, in an almost inaudible whisper-- "Friend, it did not occur to me before, but the men we are about to fight with will recognise me again if we should ever chance to meet; could I not manage to disguise myself in some way?" "If you get shut," replied his companion in the same low tone, "it won't matter much; but see here--shut your eyes." Without further remark the man took a handful of wet earth and smeared it over Oliver's face, then, clapping his own "sou'-wester" on his head, he said, with a soft chuckle, "There, your own mother wouldn't knaw 'ee!" Just then footsteps were heard approaching, and the shadow of a man was seen to rest for a moment on the gravel without. The mouth of the cave was so well hidden, however, that he failed to observe it, and passed on, followed by several of his comrades. Suddenly one of them stopped and said-- "Hold on, lads, it can't be far off, I'm sartin' sure; I seed 'em disappear hereabouts." "You're right," cried Jim Cuttance, with a fierce roar, as he rushed from the cavern and fired full at the man who had spoken. The others followed, and a volley of shots succeeded, while shouts of defiance and anger burst forth on all sides. Oliver sprang out at the same moment with the leader, and rushed on one of the boat's crew with such violence that his foot slipped on a piece of seaweed and precipitated him to the ground at the man's feet; the other, having sprung forward to meet him was unable to check himself, tripped over his shoulders, and fell on the top of him. The man named Maggot, having been in full career close behind Oliver, tumbled over both, followed by another man named John Cock. The others, observing them down, rushed with a shout to the rescue, just as Oliver, making a superhuman effort, flung the two men off his back and leaped to his feet. Maggot and the boatman also sprang up, and the latter turned and made for the boat at full speed, seeing that his comrades, overcome by the suddenness of the onset, were in retreat, fighting as they went. All of them succeeded in getting into the boat unharmed, and were in the act of pushing off, when Jim Cuttance, burning with indignation, leaped into the water, grasped the bow of the boat, and was about to plunge his cutlass into the back of the man nearest him, when he was seized by a strong hand from behind and held back. Next moment the boat was beyond his reach. Turning round fiercely, the man saw that it was Oliver Trembath who had interfered. He uttered a terrible oath, and sprang on him like a tiger; Oliver stood firm, parried with the piece of driftwood the savage cut which was made at his head, and with his clenched left hand hit his opponent such a blow on the chest as laid him flat on the sand. The man sprang up in an instant, but instead of renewing the attack, to Oliver's surprise he came forward and held out his hand, which the youth was not unwilling to grasp. "Thank 'ee, sur," he said, somewhat sternly, "you've done me a sarvice; you've prevented me committin' two murders, an' taught me a lesson I never knaw'd afore--that Jim Cuttance an't invulnerable. I don't mind the blow, sur--not I. It wor gov'n in feer fight, an' I was wrang." "I'm glad to find that you view the matter in that light," said Oliver with a smile, "and, truly, the blow was given in self-defence by one who will never forget that he owes you his life." A groan here turned the attention of the party to one of their number who had seated himself on a rock during the foregoing dialogue. "What! not hurt, are 'ee, Dan?" said his leader, going towards him. To this Dan replied with another groan, and placed his hand on his hip. His comrades crowded round him, and, finding that he was wounded and suffering great pain, raised him in their arms and bore him into the cavern, where they laid him on the ground, and, lighting a candle, proceeded to examine him. "You had better let me look at him, lads," said Oliver, pushing the men gently aside, "I am a surgeon." They gave place at once, and Oliver soon found that the man had received a pistol-ball in his thigh. Fortunately it had been turned aside in its course, and lay only a little way beneath the skin, so that it was easily extracted by means of a penknife. "Now, friends," said Oliver, after completing the dressing of the wound, "before I met with you I had missed my way while travelling to St. Just. Will one of you direct me to the right road, and I shall bid you good-night, as I think you have no further need of my services." The men looked at their leader, whom they evidently expected to be their spokesman. "Well, sur, you have rendered we some help this hevenin', both in the way o' pickin' out the ball an' helpin' to break skulls as well as preventin' worse, so we can do no less than show 'ee the road; but hark 'ee, sur," here the man became very impressive, "ef you do chance to come across any of us in your travels, you had better not knaw us, 'xcept in an or'nary way, d'ye understand? an' us will do the same by thee." "Of course I will act as you wish," said Oliver with a smile, "although I do not see why we should be ashamed of this affair, seeing that we were the party attacked. There is only one person to whom I would wish to explain the reason of my not appearing sooner, because he will probably know of the arrival in Penzance this morning of the conveyance that brought me to Cornwall." "And who may that be?" demanded Jim Cuttance. "My uncle, Thomas Donnithorne of St. Just," said Oliver. "Whew!" whistled the fisherman in surprise, while all the others burst into a hearty fit of laughter. "Why do you laugh?" asked Oliver. "Oh, never mind, sur, it's all right," said the man with a chuckle. "Iss, you may tell Thomas Donnithorne; there won't be no harm in tellin' he--oh, dear no!" Again the men laughed loud and long, and Oliver felt his powers of forbearance giving way, when Cuttance said to him: "An' you may tell all his friends too, for they're the right sort. Come now, Maggot here will show 'ee the way up to St. Just." So saying, the stout fisherman conducted the young surgeon to the mouth of the cavern, and shaking hands with him left him to the guidance of the man named Maggot, who led him through several lanes, until he reached the highroad between Sennen church-town and St. Just. Here he paused; told his companion to proceed straight on for about four miles or so, when he would reach the town, and bade him good-night. "And mind 'ee, don't go off the road, sur," shouted Maggot, a few seconds after the young man had left him, "if 'ee don't want to fall down a shaft and scat your skull." Oliver, not having any desire to scat his skull, whatever that might be, assured the man that he would keep to the road carefully. The moon shone clear in a cloudless sky, covering the wide moor and the broad Atlantic with a flood of silver light, and rendering the road quite distinct, so that our traveller experienced no further difficulty in pursuing his way. He hurried forward at a rapid pace, yet could not resist the temptation to pause frequently and gaze in admiration on the scene of desolate grandeur around him. On such occasions he found it difficult to believe that the stirring events of the last few hours were real. Indeed, if it had not been that there were certain uneasy portions of his frame--the result of his recent encounter on the beach-- which afforded constant and convincing evidence that he was awake, he would have been tempted to believe that the adventures of that day were nothing more than a vivid dream. CHAPTER THREE. INTRODUCES A FEW MORE CHARACTERS AND HOMELY INCIDENTS. It was late when our hero entered the little town of St. Just, and inquired for the residence of his uncle, Thomas Donnithorne. He was directed to one of the most respectable of the group of old houses that stood close to the venerable parish church from which St. Just derives its title of "Church-town." He tapped at the door, which was opened by an elderly female. "Does Mr Thomas Donnithorne live here?" asked Oliver. "Iss, sur, he do," answered the woman; "walk in, sur." She ushered him into a small parlour, in which was seated a pretty, little, dark-eyed, rosy-cheeked girl, still in, or only just out of, her teens. Oliver was so taken aback by the unexpected sight that he stood gazing for a moment or two in rather stupid silence. "Your name is Oliver Trembath, I presume," said the girl, rising and laying down the piece of needlework with which she was occupied. "It is," replied Oliver, in some surprise, as he blundered out an apology for his rudeness. "Pray sit down, sir," said the girl; "we have been expecting you for some time, and my uncle told me to act the part of hostess till his return." "Your uncle!" exclaimed Oliver, whose self-possession, not to say impudence, returned immediately; "if Thomas Donnithorne be indeed your uncle, then, fair maid, you and I must needs be cousins, the which, I confess, fills me with satisfaction and also with somewhat of surprise, for up to this hour I have been ignorant of my good fortune in being related to so--so--" "I made a mistake, sir," said the girl, interrupting a speech which was evidently verging towards impropriety, "in calling Mr Donnithorne uncle to you, who are not aware, it seems, that I am only an adopted niece." "Not aware of it! Of course not," said Oliver, throwing himself into a large armchair, while his fair companion busied herself in spreading the board for a substantial meal. "I could not be aware of much that has occurred in this distant part of the kingdom, seeing that my worthy uncle has vouchsafed to write me only two letters in the course of my life; once, many years ago, to condole with me--in about ten lines, address and signature included--on the death of my dear mother; and once again to tell me he had procured an appointment for me as assistant-surgeon in the mining district of St. Just. He must have been equally uncommunicative to my mother, for she never mentioned your existence. However, since I have now made the agreeable discovery, I trust that you will dispense with ceremony, and allow me at once to call you cousin. By the way, you have not yet told me your name." The maiden, who was charmingly unsophisticated, replied that her name was Rose Ellis, and that she had no objection whatever to being called cousin without delay. "Well, cousin Rose," said Oliver, "if it be not prying into secrets, I should like to know how long it is since my uncle adopted you." "About nineteen years ago," replied Rose. "Oh!" said Oliver remonstratively, "before you were born? impossible!" Rose laughed--a short, clear, little laugh which she nipped in the bud abruptly, and replied-- "Well, it was only a short time after I was born. I was wrecked on this coast"--the expressive face here became very grave--"and all on board our ship perished except myself." Oliver saw at once that he had touched on a tender subject, and hastened to change it by asking a number of questions about his uncle, from which he gradually diverged to the recent events in his own history, which he began to relate with much animation. His companion was greatly interested and amused. She laughed often and heartily in a melodious undertone, and Oliver liked her laugh, for it was peculiar, and had the effect of displaying a double row of pretty little teeth, and of almost entirely shutting up her eyes. She seemed to enjoy a laugh so much that he exerted all his powers to tickle her risible faculties, and dwelt long and graphically on his meeting with the irascible old gentleman in the lane. He was still busy with this part of the discourse when a heavy step was heard outside. "There's my uncle," exclaimed Rose, springing up. A moment after the door opened, and in walked the identical irascible old gentleman himself! If a petrified impersonation of astonishment had been a possibility, Oliver Trembath would, on that occasion, have presented the phenomenon. He sat, or rather lay, extended for at least half a minute with his eyes wide and his mouth partly open, bereft alike of the powers of speech and motion. "Heyday, young man!" exclaimed the old gentleman, planting his sturdy frame in the middle of the floor as if he meant then and there to demand and exact an ample apology, or to inflict condign and terrible chastisement, for past misdeeds; "you appear to be making yourself quite at home--eh?" "My _dear_ sir!" exclaimed Oliver, leaping up with a look of dismay; "how can I express my--my--but is it, _can_ it be possible that you are Mr Donnithorne--m-my--uncle?" Oliver's expression, and the look of amazement on the countenance of Rose Ellis, who could not account for such a strange reception of her newly-found cousin, proved almost too much for the old gentleman, whose eyes had already begun to twinkle. "Ay, young man, I am Tom Donnithorne, your uncle, the vile, old, smuggling, brandy-loving rascal, who met his respectful nephew on the road to St. Just"--at this point Rose suddenly pressed her hand over her mouth, darted to her own apartment in a distant corner of the house, and there, seated on her little bed, went into what is not inaptly styled fits of laughter--"and who now," continued the old gentleman, relaxing into a genial smile, and grasping his nephew's hand, "welcomes Oliver Trembath to his house, with all his heart and soul; there, who will say after that, that old Donnithorne does not know how to return good for evil?" "But, my dear uncle," began Oliver, "allow me to explain--" "Now, now, look at that--kept me hours too late for supper already, and he's going to take up more time with explanations," cried the old gentleman, flinging himself on the chair from which Oliver had risen, and wiping his bald pate with a red silk handkerchief. "What can you explain, boy, except that you met an angry old fellow in a lane who called your uncle such hard names that you couldn't help giving him a bit of your mind--there, there, sit down, sit down.--Hallo!" he shouted, starting up impulsively and thrusting his head into the passage, "Rose, Rose, I say, where are you?--hallo!" "Coming, uncle--I'm here." The words came back like an echo, and in another minute Rose appeared with a much-flushed countenance. "Come along, lass, let's have supper without delay. Where is aunty? Rout her out, and tell that jade of a cook that if she don't dish up in five minutes I'll--I'll--. Well, Oliver, talking of explanations, how comes it that you are so late?" "Because I took the wrong road after leaving you in the lane," replied the youth, with a significant glance at his uncle, whose eyes were at the moment fixed gravely on the ground. "The wrong road--eh?" said Mr Donnithorne, looking up with a sly glance, and then laughing. "Well, well, it was only _quid pro quo_, boy; you put a good deal of unnecessary earth and stones over my head, so I thought it was but fair that I should put a good deal more of the same under your feet, besides giving you the advantage of seeing the Land's End, which, of course, every youth of intelligence must take a deep interest in beholding. But, sure, a walk thither, and thence to St. Just, could not have detained you so long?" "Truly no," replied Oliver; "I had a rencontre--a sort of adventure with fishermen, which--" "Fishermen!" exclaimed Mr Donnithorne in surprise; "are ye sure they were not smugglers--eh?" "They said they were fishermen, and they looked like such," replied Oliver; "but my adventure with them, whatever they were, was the cause of my detention, and I can only express my grief that the circumstance has incommoded your household, but, you see, it took some time to beat off the boat's crew, and then I had to examine a wound and extract--" "What say you, boy!" exclaimed Mr Donnithorne, frowning, "beat off a boat's crew--examine a wound! Why, Rose, Molly, come hither. Here we have a young gallant who hath begun life in the far west in good style; but hold, here comes my excellent friend Captain Dan, who is no friend to the smugglers; he is to sup with us to-night; so we will repress our curiosity till after supper. Let me introduce you, Oliver to my wife, your Aunt Molly, or, if you choose to be respectful, Aunt Mary." As he spoke, a fat, fair, motherly-looking lady of about five-and-forty entered the room, greeting her husband with a rebuke, and her nephew with a smile. "Never mind him, Oliver," said the good lady; "he is a vile old creature. I have heard all about your meeting with him this forenoon, and only wish I had been there to see it." "Listen to that now, Captain Dan," cried Mr Donnithorne, as the individual addressed entered the room; "my wife calls me--me, a staid, sober man of fifty-five--calls me a vile old creature. Is it not too bad? really one gets no credit nowadays for devoting oneself entirely to one's better half; but I forget: allow me to introduce you to my nephew, Oliver Trembath, just come from one of the Northern Universities to fight the smugglers of St. Just--of which more anon. Oliver, Captain Hoskin of Botallack, better known as Captain Dan. Now, sit down and let's have a bit of supper." With hospitable urgency Mr Donnithorne and his good dame pressed their guests to do justice to the fare set before them, and, during the course of the meal, the former kept up a running fire of question, comment, and reply on every conceivable subject, so that his auditors required to do little more than eat and listen. After supper, however, and when tumblers and glasses were being put down, he gave the others an opportunity of leading the conversation. "Now, Oliver," he said, "fill your glass and let us hear your adventures. What will you have--brandy, gin, or rum? My friend, Captain Dan here, is one of those remarkable men who don't drink anything stronger than ginger-beer. Of course you won't join _him_." "Thank you," said Oliver. "If you will allow me, I will join your good lady in a glass of wine. Permit me, Aunt Mary, to fill--" "No, I thank you, Oliver," said Mrs Donnithorne good-humouredly but firmly, "I side with Captain Dan; but I'll be glad to see you fill your own." "Ha!" exclaimed Mr Donnithorne, "Molly's sure to side with the opponent of her lawful lord, no matter who or what he be. Fill your own glass, boy, with what you like--cold water, an it please you--and let us drink the good old Cornish toast, `Fish, tin, and copper,' our three staples, Oliver--the bone, muscle, and fat of the county." "Fish, tin, and copper," echoed Captain Dan. "In good sooth," continued Mr Donnithorne, "I have often thought of turning teetotaller myself, but feared to do so lest my wife should take to drinking, just out of opposition. However, let that pass--and now, Oliver, open thy mouth, lad, and relate those surprising adventures of which you have given me a hint." "Indeed, uncle, I do not say they are very surprising, although, doubtless, somewhat new to one who has been bred, if not born, in comparatively quiet regions of the earth." Here Oliver related circumstantially to his wondering auditors the events which befell him after the time when he left his uncle in the lane--being interrupted only with an occasional exclamation--until he reached the part when he knocked down the man who had rescued him from the waves, when Mr Donnithorne interrupted him with an uncontrollable burst. "Ha!" shouted the old gentleman; "what! knocked down the man who saved your life, nephew? Fie, fie! But you have not told us his name yet. What was it?" "His comrades called him Jim, as I have said; and I think that he once referred to himself as Jim Cuttance, or something like that." "What say you, boy?" exclaimed Mr Donnithorne, pushing back his chair and gazing at his nephew in amazement. "Hast fought side by side with Jim Cuttance, and then knocked him down?" "Indeed I have," said Oliver, not quite sure whether his uncle regarded him as a hero or a fool. The roar of laughter which his answer drew from Captain Dan and his uncle did not tend to enlighten him much. "Oh! Oliver, Oliver," said the old gentleman, on recovering some degree of composure, "you should have lived in the days of good King Arthur, and been one of the Knights of the Round Table. Knocked down Jim Cuttance! What think'ee, Captain Dan?" "I think," said the captain, still chuckling quietly, "that the less our friend says about the matter the better for himself." "Why so?" inquired Oliver quickly. "Because," replied his uncle, with some return of gravity, "you have assisted one of the most notorious smugglers that ever lived, to fight his Majesty's coastguard--that's all. What say you, Molly--shall we convict Oliver on his own confession?" The good lady thus appealed to admitted that it was a serious matter, but urged that as Oliver did the thing in ignorance and out of gratitude, he ought to be forgiven. "_I_ think he ought to be forgiven for having knocked down Jim Cuttance," said Captain Dan. "Is he then so notorious?" asked Oliver. "Why, he is the most daring smuggler on the coast," replied Captain Dan, "and has given the preventive men more trouble than all the others put together. In fact, he is a man who deserves to be hanged, and will probably come to his proper end ere long, if not shot in a brawl beforehand." "I fear he stands some chance of it now," said Mr Donnithorne, with a sigh, "for he has been talking of erecting a battery near his den at Prussia Cove, and openly defying the Government men." "You seem to differ from Captain Dan, uncle, in reference to this man," said Oliver, with a smile. "Truly, I do, for although I condemn smuggling,--ahem!" (the old gentleman cast a peculiar glance at the captain), "I don't like to see a sturdy man hanged or shot--and Jim Cuttance is a stout fellow. I question much whether you could find his match, Captain Dan, amongst all your men?" "That I could, easily," said the captain with a quiet smile. "Pardon me, captain," said Oliver, "my uncle has not yet informed me on the point. May I ask what corps you belong to?" "To a sturdy corps of tough lads," answered the captain, with another of his quiet smiles--"men who have smelt powder, most of 'em, since they were little boys--live on the battlefield, I may say, almost night and day--spring more mines in a year than all the soldiers in the world put together--and shorten their lives by the stern labour they undergo; but they burn powder to raise, not to waste, metal. Their uniform is red, too, though not quite so red, nor yet so elegant, as that of the men in his Majesty's service. I am one of the underground captains, sir, of Botallack mine." Captain Dan's colour heightened a very little, and the tones of his voice became a little more powerful as he concluded this reply; but there was no other indication that the enthusiastic soul of one of the "captains" of the most celebrated mine in Cornwall was moved. Oliver felt, however, the contact with a kindred spirit, and, expressing much interest in the mines, proceeded to ask many questions of the captain, who, nothing loath, answered all his queries, and explained to him that he was one of the "captains," or "agents," whose duty it was to superintend the men and the works below the surface--hence the title of "underground;" while those who super-intended the works above ground were styled "grass, or surface captains." He also made an appointment to conduct the young doctor underground, and go over the mine with him at an early date. While the party in old Mr Donnithorne's dwelling were thus enjoying themselves, a great storm was gathering, and two events, very different from each other in character, were taking place--the one quiet, and apparently unimportant, the other tremendous and fatal--both bearing on and seriously influencing the subjects of our tale. CHAPTER FOUR. AT WORK UNDER THE SEA. Chip, chip, chip--down in the dusky mine! Oh, but the rock at which the miner chipped was hard, and the bit of rock on which he sat was hard, and the muscles with which he toiled were hard from prolonged labour; and the lot of the man seemed hard, as he sat there in the hot, heavy atmosphere, hour after hour, from morn till eve, with the sweat pouring down his brow and over his naked shoulders, toiling and moiling with hammer and chisel. But stout David Trevarrow did not think his lot peculiarly hard. His workshop was a low narrow tunnel deep down under the surface of the earth--ay, and deep under the bottom of the sea! His daily sun was a tallow candle, which rose regularly at seven in the morning and set at three in the afternoon. His atmosphere was sadly deficient in life-giving oxygen, and much vitiated by gunpowder smoke. His working costume consisted only of a pair of linen trousers; his colour from top to toe was red as brick-dust, owing to the iron ore around him; his food was a slice of bread, with, perchance, when he was unusually luxurious, the addition of a Cornish pasty; and his drink was water. To an inexperienced eye the man's work would have appeared not only hard but hopeless, for although his hammer was heavy, his arm strong, and his chisel sharp and tempered well, each blow produced an apparently insignificant effect on the flinty rock. Frequently a spark of fire was all that resulted from a blow, and seldom did more than a series of little chips fly off, although the man was of herculean mould, and worked "with a will," as was evident from the kind of gasp or stern expulsion of the breath with which each blow was accompanied. Unaided human strength he knew could not achieve much in such a process, so he directed his energies chiefly to the boring of blast-holes, and left it to the mighty power of gunpowder to do the hard work of rending the rich ore from the bowels of the unwilling earth. Yes, the work was very hard, probably the hardest that human muscles are ever called on to perform in this toiling world; but again we say that David Trevarrow did not think so, for he had been born to the work and bred to it, and was blissfully ignorant of work of a lighter kind, so that, although his brows frowned at the obstinate rock, his compressed lips smiled, for his thoughts were pleasant and far away. The unfettered mind was above ground roaming in fields of light, basking in sunshine, and holding converse with the birds, as he sat there chip, chip, chipping, down in the dusky mine. Stopping at last, the miner wiped his brow, and, rising, stood for a few moments silently regarding the result of his day's work. "Now, David," said he to himself, "the question is, what shall us do-- shall us keep on, or shall us knack?" He paused, as if unable to answer the question. After a time he muttered, "Keep on; it don't look promisin', sure 'nuff, an' it's poor pay; but it won't do to give in yet." Poor pay it was indeed, for the man's earnings during the past month had been barely ten shillings. But David Trevarrow had neither wife, child, nor mother to support, so he could afford to toil for poor pay, and, being of a remarkably hopeful and cheery disposition, he returned home that afternoon resolved to persevere in his unproductive toil, in the hope that at last he should discover a good "bunch of copper," or a "keenly lode of tin." David was what his friends and the world styled unfortunate. In early manhood he had been a somewhat wild and reckless fellow--a noted wrestler, and an adept in all manly sports and games. But a disappointment in love had taught him very bitterly that life is not all sunshine; and this, coupled with a physical injury which was the result of his own folly, crushed his spirit so much that his comrades believed him to be a "lost man." The injury referred to was the bursting of a blood-vessel in the lungs. It was, and still is, the custom of the youthful miners of Cornwall to test their strength by racing up the almost interminable ladders by which the mines are reached. This tremendous exertion after a day of severe toil affected them of course very severely, and in some cases seriously. Many an able-bodied man has by this means brought himself to a premature end. Among others, David Trevarrow excelled and suffered. No one could beat him in running up the ladders; but one day, on reaching the surface, blood issued from his mouth, and thenceforth his racing and wrestling days were ended, and his spirit was broken. A long illness succeeded. Then he began to mend. Slowly and by degrees his strength returned, but not his joyous spirit. Still it was some comfort to feel able for work again, and he "went underground" with some degree of his old vigour, though not with the light heart or light step of former days; but bad fortune seemed to follow him everywhere. When others among his comrades were fortunate in finding copper or tin, David was most unaccountably unsuccessful. Accidents, too, from falls and explosions, laid him up more than once, and he not only acquired the character of an unlucky man from his friends, but despite a naturally sanguine temperament, he began himself to believe that he was one of the unluckiest fellows in the world. About this time the followers of that noble Christian, John Wesley, began to make an impression on Cornwall, and to exert an influence which created a mighty change in the hearts and manners of the people, and the blessed effects of which are abundantly evident at the present day--to the rejoicing of every Christian soul. One of those ministers of our Lord happened to meet with David Trevarrow, and was the means of opening his eyes to many great and previously unknown truths. Among others, he convinced him that "God's ways are not as man's ways;" that He often, though not always, leads His people by thorny paths that they know not of, but does it in love and with His own glory in their happiness as the end in view; that the Lord Jesus Christ must be to a man "the chiefest among ten thousand, and altogether lovely," else He is to him nothing at all, and that he could be convinced of all these truths only by the Holy Spirit. It were vain to attempt to tell all that this good man said to the unhappy miner, but certain it is that from that time forth David became himself again--and yet not himself. The desire to wrestle and fight and race returned in a new form. He began to wrestle with principalities and powers, to fight the good fight of faith, and to run the race set before him in the gospel. The old hearty smile and laugh and cheery disposition also returned, and the hopeful spirit, and so much of the old robust health and strength, that it seemed as if none of the evil effects of the ruptured blood-vessel remained. So David Trevarrow went, as of old, daily to the mine. It is true that riches did not flow in upon him any faster than before, but he did not mind that much, for he had discovered another mine, in which he toiled at nights after the day's toil was over, and whence he extracted treasure of greater value than copper or tin, or even gold--treasure which he scattered in a Sabbath school with liberal hand, and found himself all the richer for his prodigality. Occasionally, after prolonged labour in confined and bad air, a faint trace of the old complaint showed itself when he reached the top of the ladders, but he was not now depressed by that circumstance as he used to be. He was past his prime at the period of which we write, and a confirmed bachelor. To return from this digression: David Trevarrow made up his mind, as we have said, to "go on," and, being a man of resolute purpose, he went on; seized his hammer and chisel, and continued perseveringly to smite the flinty rock, surrounded by thick darkness, which was not dispelled but only rendered visible by the feeble light of the tallow candle that flared at his side. Over his head rolled the billows of the Atlantic; the whistling wind howled among the wild cliffs of the Cornish coast, but they did not break the deep silence of the miner's place of midnight toil. Heaven's artillery was rending the sky, and causing the hearts of men to beat slow with awe. The great boulders ground the pebbles into sand as they crashed to and fro above him, but he heard them not--or if he did, the sound reached him as a deep-toned mysterious murmur, for, being in one of the low levels, with many fathoms of solid rock between him and the bottom of the superincumbent sea, he was beyond the reach of such disturbing influences, tremendous though they were. The miner was making a final effort at his unproductive piece of rock, and had prolonged his toil far into the night. Hour after hour he wrought almost without a moment's respite, save for the purpose, now and then, of trimming his candle. When his right arm grew tired, he passed the hammer swiftly to his left hand, and, turning the borer with his right, continued to work with renewed vigour. At last he paused, and looking over his shoulder called out--"Zackey, booy." The sound died away in a hollow echo through the retiring galleries of the mine, but there was no reply. "Zackey, booy, are 'ee slaipin'?" he repeated. A small reddish-coloured bundle, which lay in a recess close at hand, uncoiled itself like a hedgehog, and, yawning vociferously, sat up, revealing the fact that the bundle was a boy. "Ded 'ee call, uncle?" asked the boy in a sleepy tone. "Iss did I," said the man; "fetch me the powder an' fuse, my son." The lad rose, and, fetching out of a dark corner the articles required, assisted in charging the hole which his uncle had just finished boring. This was the last hole which the man intended to blast that night. For weeks past he had laboured day after day--sometimes, as on the present occasion, at night--and had removed many tons of rock, without procuring either tin or copper sufficient to repay him for his toil, so that he resolved to give it up and remove to a more hopeful part of the mine, or betake himself to another mine altogether. He had now bored his last hole, and was about to blast it. Applying his candle to the end of the fuse, he hastened along the level to a sufficient distance to afford security, warning his nephew as he passed. Zackey leaped up, and, scrambling over the debris with which the bottom of the level was covered, made good his retreat. About a minute they waited in expectancy. Suddenly there was a bright blinding flash, which lit up the rugged sides of the mine, and revealed its cavernous ramifications and black depths. This was accompanied by a dull smothered report and a crash of falling rock, together with a shower of debris. Instantly the whole place was in profound darkness. "Aw, booy," exclaimed the miner; "we was too near. It have knacked us in the dark." "So't have, uncle; I'll go an' search for the box." "Do, my son," said David. In those days lucifer matches had not been invented, and light had to be struck by means of flint, steel, and tinder. The process was tedious compared with the rapid action of congreves and vestas in the present day. The man chipped away for full three minutes before he succeeded in relighting his candle. This done, the rock was examined. "Bad still, Uncle David?" inquired the boy. "Iss, Zackey Maggot, so we'll knack'n, and try the higher mine to-morrow." Having come to this conclusion Uncle David threw down the mass of rock which he held in his brawny hands, and, picking up his implements, said, "Get the tools, booy, and lev us go to grass." Zackey, who had been in the mine all day, and was tired, tied his tools at each end of a rope, so that they might be slung over his shoulder and leave his hands free. Trevarrow treated his in the same way, and, removing his candle from the wall, fixed it on the front of his hat by the simple process of sticking thereto the lump of clay to which it was attached. Zackey having fixed his candle in the same manner, both of them put on their red-stained flannel shirts and linen coats, and traversed the level until they reached the bottom of the ladder-shaft. Here they paused for a few moments before commencing the long wearisome ascent of almost perpendicular ladders by which the miners descended to their work or returned "to grass," as they termed the act of returning to the surface. It cost them more than half an hour of steady climbing before they reached the upper part of the shaft and became aware that a storm was raging in the regions above. On emerging from the mouth of the shaft or "ladder road," man and boy were in a profuse perspiration, and the sharp gale warned them to hasten to the moor-house at full speed. Moor-houses were little buildings in which miners were wont to change their wet underground garments for dry clothes. Some of these used to be at a considerable distance from the shafts, and the men were often injured while going to them from the mine, by being exposed in an overheated state to cutting winds. Many a stout able-bodied miner has had a chill given him in this way which has resulted in premature death. Moor-houses have now been replaced by large drying-houses, near the mouths of shafts, where every convenience is provided for the men drying their wet garments and washing their persons on coming to the surface. Having changed their clothes, uncle and nephew hastened to St. Just, where they dwelt in the cottage of Maggot, the blacksmith. This man, who has already been introduced to the reader, was brother-in-law to David, and father to Zackey. When David Trevarrow entered his brother-in-law's cottage, and told him of his bad fortune, and of his resolution to try his luck next day in the higher mine, little did he imagine that his change of purpose was to be the first step in a succession of causes which were destined to result, at no very distant period, in great changes of fortune to some of his friends in St. Just, as well as to many others in the county. CHAPTER FIVE. DESCRIBES A WRECK AND SOME OF ITS CONSEQUENCES. While the miner had been pursuing his toilsome work in the solitude and silence of the level under the sea, as already described, a noble ship was leaping over the Atlantic waves--homeward bound--to Old England. She was an East-Indiaman, under close-reefed sails, and although she bent low before the gale so that the waves almost curled over her lee bulwarks, she rose buoyantly like a seagull, for she was a good ship, stout of plank and sound of timber, with sails and cordage to match. Naturally, in such a storm, those on board were anxious, for they knew that they were drawing near to land, and that "dear Old England" had an ugly seaboard in these parts--a coast not to be too closely hugged in what the captain styled "dirty weather, with a whole gale from the west'ard," so a good lookout was kept. Sharp eyes were in the foretop looking out for the guiding rays of the Long-ships lighthouse, which illumine that part of our rocky shores to warn the mariner of danger and direct him to a safe harbour. The captain stood on the "foge's'l" with stern gaze and compressed lip. The chart had been consulted, the bearings correctly noted, calculations made, and leeway allowed for. Everything in fact that could be done by a commander who knew his duty had been done for the safety of the ship--so would the captain have said probably, had he lived to be questioned as to the management of his vessel. But everything had _not_ been done. The lead, strange to say, had not been hove. It was ready to heave, but the order was delayed. Unaccountable fatality! The only safe guide that remained to the good ship on that wild night was held in abeyance. It was deemed unnecessary to heave it yet, or it was troublesome, and they would wait till nearer the land. No one now can tell the reasons that influenced the captain, but _the lead was not used_. Owing to similar delay or neglect, hundreds upon hundreds of ships have been lost, and thousands of human lives have been sacrificed! The ship passed like a dark phantom over the very head of the miner who was at work many fathoms below the bottom of the sea. "Land, ho!" came suddenly in a fierce, quick shout from the mast-head. "Starboard! starboard--hard!" cried the captain, as the roar of breakers ahead rose above the yelling of the storm. Before the order was obeyed or another word spoken the ship struck, and a shriek of human terror followed, as the foremast went by the board with a fearful crash. The waves burst over the stern, sweeping the decks fore and aft. Wave after wave lifted the great ship as though it had been a child's toy, and dashed her down upon the rocks. Her bottom was stove in, her planks and timbers were riven like matchwood. Far down below man was destroying the flinty rock, while overhead the rock was destroying the handiwork of man! But the destruction in the one case was slow, in the other swift. A desperate but futile effort was made by the crew to get out the boats, and the passengers, many of whom were women and children, rushed frantically from the cabin to the deck, and clung to anything they could lay hold of, until strength failed, and the waves tore them away. One man there was in the midst of all the terror-stricken crew who retained his self-possession in that dread hour. He was a tall, stern old man with silver locks--an Indian merchant, one who had spent his youth and manhood in the wealthy land collecting gold--"making a fortune," he was wont to say--and who was returning to his fatherland to spend it. He was a thinking and calculating man, and in the anticipation of some such catastrophe as had actually overtaken him, he had secured some of his most costly jewels in a linen belt. This belt, while others were rushing to the boats, the old man secured round his waist, and then sprang on deck, to be swept, with a dozen of his fellow-passengers, into the sea by the next wave that struck the doomed vessel. There was no one on that rugged coast to lend a helping hand. Lifeboats did not then, as now, nestle in little nooks on every part of our dangerous coasts. No eye was there to see nor ear to hear, when, twenty minutes after she struck, the East-Indiaman went to pieces, and those of her crew and passengers who had retained their hold of her uttered their last despairing cry, and their souls returned to God who gave them. It is a solemn thought that man may with such awful suddenness, and so unexpectedly, be summoned into the presence of his Maker. Thrice happy they who, when their hearts grow chill and their grasps relax as the last plank is rending, can say, "Neither death, nor life, nor any other creature, is able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." The scene we have described was soon over, and the rich cargo of the East-Indiaman was cast upon the sea and strewn upon the shore, affording much work for many days to the coastguard, and greatly exciting the people of the district--most of whom appeared to entertain an earnest belief in the doctrine that everything cast by storms upon their coast ought to be considered public property. Portions of the wreck had the name "Trident" painted on them, and letters found in several chests which were washed ashore proved that the ship had sailed from Calcutta, and was bound for the port of London. One little boy alone escaped the waves. He was found in a crevice of the cliffs the following day, with just enough vitality left to give a few details of the wreck. Although all possible care was bestowed on him, he died before night. Thus sudden and complete was the end of as fine a ship as ever spread her canvas to the breeze. At night she had been full of life--full of wealth; in the morning she was gone--only a few bales and casks and broken spars to represent the wealth, and stiffened corpses to tell of the life departed. So she came and went, and in a short time all remnants of her were carried away. One morning, a few weeks after the night of the storm, Maggot the smith turned himself in his bed at an early hour, and, feeling disinclined to slumber, got up to look at the state of the weather. The sun was just rising, and there was an inviting look about the morning which induced the man to dress hastily and go out. Maggot was a powerfully-built man, rough in his outer aspect as well as in his inner man, but by no means what is usually termed a bad man, although, morally speaking, he could not claim to be considered a good one. In fact, he was a hearty, jolly, reckless fisherman, with warm feelings, enthusiastic temperament, and no principle; a man who, though very ready to do a kind act, had no particular objection to do one that was decidedly objectionable when it suited his purpose or served his present interest. He was regarded by his comrades as one of the greatest madcaps in the district. Old Maggot was, as we have said, a blacksmith to trade, but he had also been bred a miner, and was something of a fisherman as well, besides being (like most of his companions) an inveterate smuggler. He could turn his hand to almost anything, and was "everything by turns, but nothing long." Sauntering down to Priests Cove, on the south of Cape Cornwall, with his hands in his pockets and his sou'-wester stuck carelessly on his shaggy head, he fell in with a comrade, whom he hailed by the name of John Cock. This man was also a fisherman, _et cetera_, and the bosom friend and admirer of Maggot. "Where bound to this mornin', Jack?" inquired Maggot. "To fish," replied John. "I go with 'ee, booy," said Maggot. This was the extent of the conversation at that time. They were not communicative, but walked side by side in silence to the beach, where they launched their little boat and rowed out to sea. Presently John Cock looked over his shoulder and exclaimed--"Maggot, I see summat." "Do 'ee?" "Iss do I." "What do un look like?" "Like a dead corp." "Aw, my dear," said Maggot, "lev us keep away. It can do no good to we." Acting on this opinion the men rowed past the object that was floating on the sea, and soon after began to fish; but they had not fished long when the dead body, drifted probably by some cross-current, appeared close to them again. Seeing this they changed their position, but ere long the body again appeared. "P'raps," observed Maggot, "there's somethin' in its pockets." As the same idea had occurred to John Cock, the men resolved to examine the body, so they rowed up to it and found it to be that of an elderly man, much decomposed, and nearly naked. A very short examination sufficed to show that the pockets of such garments as were still upon it were empty, and the men were about to let it go again, when Maggot exclaimed-- "Hold fast, Jack, I see somethin' tied round the waist of he; a sort o' belt it do seem." The belt was quickly removed and the body released, when it sank with a heavy plunge, but ere long reappeared on the surface. The fishermen rowed a considerable distance away from it, and then shipped their oars and examined the belt, which was made of linen. Maggot sliced it up as he would have ripped up a fish, and laid bare, to the astonished gaze of himself and his friend, a number of glittering gems of various colours, neatly and firmly embedded in cotton, besides a variety of rings and small brooches set with precious stones. "Now, I tell 'ee," said Maggot, "'tis like as this here will make our fortin', or else git we into trouble." "Why, whatever shud we git into trouble 'bout it for?" said John Cock. "'Tis like as not they ain't real--only painted glass, scarce wuth the trouble o' car'in' ashore." "Hould thy tongue, thee g'eat chucklehead," replied Maggot; "a man wouldn't go for to tie such stuff round his waist to drown hisself with, I do know, if they worn't real. Lev us car' 'em to Maister Donnithorne." John Cock replied with a nod, and the two men, packing up the jewels, pulled in-shore as fast as possible. Hauling their boat beyond the reach of the surf, they hastened to St. Just, and requested a private audience of Mr Donnithorne. [See note 1.] That excellent gentleman was not unaccustomed to give private audiences to fishermen, and, as has been already hinted at the beginning of this tale, was reported to have private dealings with them also--of a very questionable nature. He received the two men, however, with the hearty air of a man who knows that the suspicions entertained of him by the calumnious world are false. "Well, Maggot," said Mr Donnithorne, "what is your business with me? You are not wont to be astir so early, if all be true that is reported of 'ee." "Plaise, sur," said Maggot, with a glance at Rose Ellis, who sat sewing near the window, "I'm come to talk 'bout private matters--if--" "Leave us, Rose dear, for a little," said the old gentleman. As soon as she was out of the room Maggot locked the door, a proceeding which surprised Mr Donnithorne not a little, but his surprise was much greater when the man drew a small parcel from the breast of his rough coat, and, unrolling it, displayed the glittering jewels of which he had so unexpectedly become possessed. "Where got you these?" inquired Mr Donnithorne, turning them over carefully. "Got 'em in the say--catched 'em, sure 'nough," said Maggot. "Not with a baited hook, I warrant," said the old gentleman. "Come, my son, let's hear all about it." Maggot explained how he had obtained the jewels, and then asked what they were worth. "I can't tell that," said Mr Donnithorne, shaking his head gravely. "Some of them are undoubtedly of value; the others, for all I know, may not be worth much." "Come now, sur," said Maggot, with a confidential leer, "it's not the fust time we have done a bit o' business. I 'spose I cud claim salvage on 'em?" "I don't know that," said the old gentleman; "you cannot tell whom they belonged to, and I suspect Government would claim them, if--But, by the way, I suppose you found no letters--nothing in the shape of writing on the body?" "Nothin' whatsomever." "Well, then, I fear that--" "Come now, sur," said Maggot boldly; "'spose you gives John and me ten pounds apaice an' kape 'em to yourself to make what 'ee can of 'em?" Mr Donnithorne shook his head and hesitated. Often before had he defrauded the revenue by knowingly purchasing smuggled brandy and tobacco, and by providing the funds to enable others to smuggle them; but then the morality of that day in regard to smuggling was very lax, and there were men who, although in all other matters truly honest and upright, could not be convinced of the sinfulness of smuggling, and smiled when they were charged with the practice, but who, nevertheless, would have scorned to steal or tell a downright lie. This, however, was a very different matter from smuggling. The old gentleman shrank from it at first, and could not meet the gaze of the smuggler with his usual bold frank look. But the temptation was great. The jewels he suspected were of immense value, and his heart readily replied to the objections raised by his conscience, that after all there was no one left to claim them, and he had a much better right to them, in equity if not in law, than Government; and as to the fellows who found them--why, the sum they asked would be a great and rich windfall to them, besides freeing them from all further trouble, as well as transferring any risk that might accrue from their shoulders to his own. While the old gentleman was reasoning thus with himself, Maggot stood anxiously watching his countenance and twisting the cloth that had enclosed the jewellery into a tight rope, as he shifted his position uneasily. At length old Mr Donnithorne said-- "Leave the jewels with me, and call again in an hour from this time. You shall then have my answer." Maggot and his friend consented to this delay, and left the room. No sooner were they gone than the old gentleman called his wife, who naturally exclaimed in great surprise on beholding the table covered with such costly trinkets-- "Where _ever_ did you get these, Tom?" Mr Donnithorne explained, and then asked what she thought of Maggot's proposal. "Refuse it," said she firmly. "But, my dear--" "Don't `but' about it, Tom. Whenever a man begins to `but' with sin, it is sure to butt him over on his back. Have nothing to do with it, _I_ say." "But, my dear, it is not dishonest--" "I don't know that," interrupted Mrs Donnithorne vigorously; "you think that smuggling is not dishonest, but I do, and so does the minister." "What care _I_ for the minister?" cried the old gentleman, losing his temper; "who made _him a_ judge of my doings?" "He is an expounder of God's Word," said Mrs Donnithorne firmly, "and holds that `Thou shalt not steal' is one of the Ten Commandments." "Well, well, he and I don't agree, that's all; besides, has he never expounded to you that obedience to your husband is a virtue? a commandment, I may say, which you are--" "Mr Donnithorne," said the lady with dignity, "I am here at your request, and am now complying with your wishes in giving my opinion." "There, there, Molly," said the subdued husband, giving his better half a kiss, "don't be so sharp. You ought to have been a lawyer with your powerful reasoning capacity. However, let me tell you that you don't understand these matters--" "Then why ask my advice, Tom?" "Why, woman, because an inexplicable fatality leads me to consult you, although I know well enough what the upshot will be. But I'm resolved to close with Maggot." "I knew you would," said Mrs Donnithorne quietly. The last remark was the turning-point. Had the good lady condescended to be _earnest_ in her entreaties that the bargain should not be concluded, it is highly probable her husband would have given in; but her last observation nettled him so much that he immediately hoisted a flag of defiance, nailed it to the mast, and went out in great indignation to search for Maggot. That individual was not far off. The bargain was completed, the jewels were locked up in one of the old gentleman's secret repositories, and the fishermen, with ten pounds apiece in their pockets, returned home. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Note 1. It may be well here to inform the reader that the finding of the jewels as here described, and the consequences which followed, are founded on fact. CHAPTER SIX. TREATS OF THE MINER'S COTTAGE, WORK, AND COSTUME. Maggot's home was a disordered one when he reached it, for his youngest baby, a fat little boy, had been seized with convulsions, and his wife and little daughter Grace, and son Zackey, and brother-in-law David Trevarrow, besides his next neighbour Mrs Penrose, with her sixteen children, were all in the room, doing their best by means of useless or hurtful applications, equally useless advice, and intolerable noise and confusion, to cure, if not to kill, the baby. Maggot's cottage was a poor one, his furniture was mean, and there was not much of it; nevertheless its inmates were proud of it, for they lived in comparative comfort there. Mrs Maggot was a kind-hearted, active woman, and her husband--despite his smuggling propensities--was an affectionate father. Usually the cottage was kept in a most orderly condition; but on the present occasion it was, as we have said, in a state of great confusion. "Fetch me a bit of rag, Grace," cried Mrs Maggot, just as her husband entered. "Here's a bit, old 'ooman," said Maggot, handing her the linen cloth in which the jewels had been wrapped up, and which he had unconsciously retained in his hands on quitting Mr Donnithorne--"Run, my dear man," he added, turning to John Cock, "an' fetch the noo doctor." John darted away, and in a quarter of an hour returned with Oliver Trembath, who found that the baby had weathered the storm by the force of its own constitution, despite the adverse influences that were around it. He therefore contented himself with clearing the place of intruders, and prescribing some simple medicine. "Are you going to work?" inquired Oliver of David Trevarrow, observing that the man was about to quit the cottage. "Iss, sur--to Botallack." "Then I will accompany you. Captain Dan is going to show me over part of the mine to-day. Good-morning, Mrs Maggot, and remember my directions if this should happen to the little fellow again." Leaving the cottage the two proceeded through the town to the north end of it, accompanied by Maggot, who said he was going to the forge to do a bit of work, and who parted from them at the outskirts of the town. "Times are bad with you at the mines just now, I find," said Oliver as they walked along. "Iss sur, they are," replied Trevarrow, in the quiet tone that was peculiar to him; "but, thank God, we do manage to live, though there are some of us with a lot o' child'n as finds it hard work. The Bal [The mine] ain't so good as she once was." "I suppose that you have frequent changes of fortune?" said Oliver. The miner admitted that this was the case, for that sometimes a man worked underground for several weeks without getting enough to keep his family, while at other times he might come on a bunch of copper or tin which would enable him to clear 50 pounds or more in a month. "If report says truly," observed Oliver, "you have hit upon a `keenly lode,' as you call it, not many days ago." "A do look very well now, sur," replied the miner, "but wan can never tell. I did work for weeks in the level under the say without success, so I guv it up an went to Wheal Hazard, and on the back o' the fifty-fathom level I did strike 'pon a small lode of tin 'bout so thick as my finger. It may get better, or it may take the bit in its teeth and disappear; we cannot tell." "Well, I wish you good luck," said Oliver; "and here comes Captain Dan, so I'll bid you good-morning." "Good-morning, sur," said the stout-limbed and stout-hearted man, with a smile and a nod, as he turned off towards the moor-house to put on his mining garments. Towards this house a number of men had been converging while Oliver and his companion approached it, and the former observed, that whatever colour the men might be on entering it, they invariably came out light red, like lobsters emerging from a boiling pot. In Botallack mine a large quantity of iron is mingled with the tin ore. This colours everything in and around the mine, including men's clothes, hands, and faces, with a light rusty-red. The streams, of course, are also coloured with it, and the various pits and ponds for collecting the fluid mud of tin ore seem as if filled with that nauseous compound known by the name of "Gregory's Mixture." In the moor-house there were rows of pegs with red garments hung thereon to dry, and there were numerous broad-shouldered men dressing and undressing--in every stage of the process; while in a corner two or three were washing their bodies in a tank of water. These last were men who had been at work all night, and were cleansing themselves before putting on what we may term their home-going clothes. The mining dress is a very simple, and often a very ragged affair. It consists of a flannel shirt, a pair of linen trousers, a short coat of the same, and a hat in the form of a stiff wide-awake, but made so thick as to serve the purpose of a helmet to guard the head from the rocks, etcetera. Clumsy ankle-boots complete the costume. As each man issued from the house, he went to a group of wooden chests which lay scattered about outside, and, opening his own, took from it a bag of powder, some blasting fuse, several iron tools, which he tied to a rope so as to be slung over his shoulder, a small wooden canteen of water, and a bunch of tallow candles. These last he fastened to a button on his breast, having previously affixed one of them to the front of his hat. Thus accoutred, they proceeded to a small platform close at hand, with a square hole in it, out of which protruded the head of a ladder. This was the "ladder road." Through the hole these red men descended one by one, chatting and laughing as they went, and disappeared, leaving the moor-house and all around it a place of solitude. Captain Dan now prepared to descend this ladder road with Oliver Trembath. CHAPTER SEVEN. TELLS OF THE GREAT MINE AND OF A ROYAL DIVE UNDER THE SEA. Botallack, to the dark depths of which we are now about to descend, is the most celebrated mine in the great mining county of Cornwall. It stands on the sea coast, a little more than a mile to the north of St. Just. The region around it is somewhat bleak and almost destitute of trees. In approaching it, the eyes of the traveller are presented with a view of engine-houses, and piles of stones and rubbish, in the midst of which stand a number of uncouth yet picturesque objects, composed of boards and timber, wheels, ropes, pulleys, chains, and suchlike gear. These last are the winding erections of the shafts which lead to the various mines, for the whole region is undermined, and Botallack is only one of several in St. Just parish. Wherever the eye turns, there, in the midst of green fields, where rocks and rocky fences abound, may be seen, rising prominently, the labouring arms, or "bobs," of the pump and skip engines, and the other machinery required in mining operations; while the ear is assailed by the perpetual clatter of the "stamps," or ore-crushing machines, which never cease their din, day or night, except on Sundays. Botallack, like all the other mines, has several "shafts" or entrances to the works below, such as Boscawen Shaft, Wheal Button, Wheal Hazard, Chicornish Shaft, Davis Shaft, Wheal Cock, etcetera, the most interesting of which are situated among the steep rugged cliffs that front and bid defiance to the utmost fury of the Atlantic Ocean. From whatever point viewed, the aspect of Botallack mine is grand in the extreme. On the rocky point that stretches out into the sea, engines with all their fantastic machinery and buildings have been erected. On the very summit of the cliff is seen a complication of timbers, wheels, and chains sharply defined against the sky, with apparently scarce any hold of the cliff, while down below, on rocky ledges and in black chasms, are other engines and beams and rods and wheels and chains, fastened and perched in fantastic forms in dangerous-looking places. Here, amid the most savage gorges of the sea and riven rocks--half clinging to the land, half suspended over the water--is perched the machinery of, and entrance to, the most singular shaft of the mine, named the "Boscawen Diagonal Shaft." This shaft descends under the sea at a steep incline. It is traversed, on rails, by an iron carriage called the "gig," which is lowered and drawn up by steam power. Starting as it does from an elevated position in the rocks that are close to the edge of the sea, and slanting down through the cape, _outward_ or seaward, this vehicle descends only a few fathoms when it is _under the ocean's bed_, and then its further course is far out and deep down--about two-thirds of a mile out, and full 245 fathoms down! The gig conveys the men to and from their work--the ore being drawn up by another iron carriage. There is (or rather there was, before the self-acting brake was added) danger attending the descent of this shaft, for the rope, although good and strong, is not immaculate, as was proved terribly in the year 1864--when it broke, and the gig flew down to the bottom like lightning, dashing itself to pieces, and instantly killing the nine unfortunate men who were descending at the time. Nevertheless, the Prince and Princess of Wales did not shrink from descending this deep burrow under the sea in the year 1865. It was a great day for St. Just and Botallack that 24th of July on which the royal visit was paid. Great were the expectation and preparation on all hands to give a hearty welcome to the royal pair. The ladies arrayed themselves in their best to do fitting honour to the Princess; the balmaidens donned their holiday-attire, and Johnny Fortnight [see note 1] took care, by supplying the poor mine-girls with the latest fashions, that their appearance should be, if we may be allowed the word, _splendiferous_! The volunteers, too, turned out in force, and no one, looking at their trim, soldierly aspect, could have believed them to be the same miners who were wont to emerge each evening through a hole in the earth, red as lobsters, wet, ragged, and befouled--in a word, surrounded by a halo of dishevelment, indicative of their rugged toils in the regions below. Everywhere the people turned out to line the roads, and worthily receive the expected visitors, and great was the cheering when they arrived, accompanied by the Duke and Duchess of Sutherland, the Earl of Mount Edgecumbe, Lady de Grey, Lord and Lady Vivian, General Knollys, and others, but louder still was the cheer when the Princess rode down the steep descent to the cliffs in a donkey-carriage. The Botallack cliffs themselves, however, were the central point, not only of the interest, but of the grandeur of the scene, for here were presented such a view and combination as are not often witnessed--nature in one of her wildest aspects, combined with innumerable multitudes of human beings swayed by one feeling of enthusiastic loyalty. Above, on every attainable point, projection, and eminence, men and women clustered like gay flies on the giant cliffs, leaving immense gaps here and there, where no foot might venture save that of a bird. Midway, on the face of the precipice, clung the great beams and supports of the Boscawen Diagonal Shaft, with the little gig perched on them and the royal party seated therein, facing the entrance to the black abyss--the Princess arrayed in a white flannel cloak trimmed with blue, and a straw hat with a blue ribbon round it, and the Prince clad in miner's costume. Underneath, a dizzy depth to gaze down, lay the rugged boulders of the shore, with the spray of the Atlantic springing over them. Deafening was the cheer when the gig at last entered the shaft and disappeared, and intense the anxiety of the vast multitude as they watched the descent--in imagination, of course, for nothing could be seen but the tight wire-rope uncoiling its endless length, and disappearing like a thin snake down the jaws of some awful sea-monster that had climbed so far up the cliffs to meet and devour it! Now they are at the shore; now passing under the sea; fairly under it by this time; a few minutes more and they have reached the spot where yonder seagull is now wheeling above the waves, wondering what new species of bird has taken possession of its native cliffs. Five minutes are passed--yet still descending rapidly! They must be half a mile out from the land now--half of a mile out on the first part of a submarine tunnel to America! "Old England is on the lee," but they are very much the reverse of afloat; solid rock is above, on either side and below--so close to them that the elbows must not be allowed to protrude over the edge of their car, nor the head be held too high. Here even royalty must stoop--not that we would be understood to imply that royalty cannot stoop elsewhere. Those who dwell in Highland cottages could contradict us if we did! Presently the rope "slows"--the lower depths are reached, and now for some time there is patient waiting, for it is understood that they are examining the "levels," where the stout men of Cornwall tear out the solid rock in quest of copper and tin. After a time the thin snake begins to ascend; they are coming up now, but not so fast as they went down. It is about ten minutes before the gig emerges from that black hole and bears the Prince and Princess once more into the light of day. Yes, it was a great day for Botallack, and it will dwell long in the memories of those who witnessed it--especially of that fortunate captain of the mine who had the honour of conducting the Princess on the occasion, and of whose enthusiasm in recalling the event, and in commenting on her intelligence and condescension, we can speak from personal observation. But, reader, you will say, What has all this to do with our story? Nothing--we admit it frankly--nothing whatever in a direct way; nevertheless, indirectly, the narrative may possibly arouse in you greater interest in the mine down which we are about to conduct you--not by the same route as that taken by the Prince and Princess (for the Boscawen Shaft did not exist at the period of our tale), but by one much more difficult and dangerous, as you shall see. Before we go, however, permit us to add to the offence of digression, by wandering still further out of our direct road. There are a few facts regarding Botallack and mining operations, without a knowledge of which you will be apt at times to misunderstand your position. Let us suppose that a mine has been already opened; that a "lode"--that is, a vein of quartz with metal in it--has been discovered cropping out of the earth, and that it has been dug down upon from above, and dug in upon from the sea-cliffs. A shaft has been sunk--in other words, a hole excavated--let us say, two or three hundred yards inland, to a depth of some forty or fifty fathoms,--near the sea-level. This shaft is perhaps nine feet by six wide. The lode, being a layer of quartz, sometimes slopes one way, sometimes another, and is occasionally perpendicular. It also varies in its run or direction a little here and there, like a wildish horse, being sometimes met by other lodes, which, like bad companions, divert it from the straight course. Unlike bad companions, however, they increase its value at the point of meeting by thickening it. Whatever course the lode takes, the miner conscientiously follows suit. His shaft slopes much, little, or not at all, according to the "lie of the lode." It is an ancient truism that water must find its level. Owing to this law, much water accumulates in the shaft, obliging the miner to erect an engine-house and provide a powerful pumping-engine with all its gear, at immense cost, to keep the works dry as he proceeds. He then goes to the shore, and there, in the face of the perpendicular cliff, a little above the sea-level, he cuts a horizontal tunnel about six feet high by three broad, and continues to chisel and blast away the solid rock until he "drives" his tunnel a quarter of a mile inland, which he will do at a rate varying from two to six feet per week, according to the hardness of the rock, until he reaches the shaft and thus provides an easy and inexpensive passage for the water without pumping. This tunnel or level he calls the "Adit level." But his pumping-engine is by no means rendered useless, for it has much to do in hauling ore to the surface, etcetera. In process of time, the miner works away all the lode down to the sea-level, and must sink the shaft deeper--perhaps ten or twenty fathoms--where new levels are driven horizontally "on the lode," and water accumulates which must be pumped up to the Adit level, whence it escapes to the sea. Thus down, down, he goes, sinking his shaft and driving his levels on-- that is, always following the lode _ad infinitum_. Of course he must stop before reaching the other side of the world! At the present time Botallack has progressed in that direction to a depth of 245 fathoms. To those who find a difficulty in realising what depth that really is, we would observe that it is equal to more than three and a half times the height of St. Paul's Cathedral in London, nearly four times the height of St. Rollox chimney in Glasgow, and considerably more than twice the height, from the plain, of Arthur's Seat, near Edinburgh. When the levels have been driven a considerable distance from the shaft, the air naturally becomes bad from want of circulation. To remedy this evil, holes, or short shafts, called "winzes," are sunk at intervals from the upper to the lower levels. These winzes are dangerous traps for the unwary or careless, extending frequently to a depth of ten or fifteen fathoms, and being bridged across by one or two loose planks. Ladders are fixed in many of them to facilitate progress through the mine. When a miner drives the end of his level so far that the air will not circulate, a new winze is usually sunk down to him from the level above. The circulation is thus extended, and the levels progress further and further right and left until they occupy miles of ground. The levels and shafts of Botallack, if put together, would extend to not less than forty miles, and the superficial space of ground, on and beneath which the mine lies, is above 260 acres. When the lode is rich, and extends upwards or downwards, it is cut away from between levels, in a regular systematic manner, strong beams being placed to support temporary platforms, on which the miners may stand and work as they ascend. When they have cut all the lode away up to the level above them, a false timber bottom is made to replace the rocky bottom of the level which is being removed. Thus, in traversing the old workings of a mine one suddenly comes to great caverns, very narrow, but of such immense height above and depth below that the rays of your candle cannot penetrate the darkness. In such places the thick short beams that were used by the old miners are seen extending from side to side of the empty space, disappearing in dim perspective. Woe betide the man who stumbles off his narrow plank, or sets his foot on an insecure beam in such places! Where such workings are in progress, the positions of the miners appear singularly wild and insecure. The men stand in the narrow chasm between the granite walls above each others' heads, slight temporary platforms alone preserving them from certain death, and the candles of those highest above you twinkling like stars in a black sky. In these underground regions of Botallack, above three hundred men and boys are employed, some of whom work occasionally by night as well as by day. On the surface about two hundred men, women, and boys are employed "dressing" the ore, etcetera. Other mines there are in the great mining centres of Cornwall--Redruth, St. Just, St. Austell, and Helston, which are well worthy of note--some of them a little deeper, and some richer than Botallack. But we profess not to treat of all the Cornish mines; our object is to describe one as a type of many, if not all, and as this one runs farthest out beneath the sea, is deeper than most of the others, and richer than many, besides having interesting associations, and being of venerable antiquity, we hold it to be the one most worthy of selection. With a few briefly stated facts we shall take final leave of statistics. As we have said, the Boscawen shaft measures 245 fathoms. The ladder-way by which the men ascend and descend daily extends to 205 fathoms. It takes a man half an hour to reach the bottom, and fully an hour to climb to the surface. There are three pumping and seven winding engines at work--the largest being of 70 horse-power. The tin raised is from 33 to 35 tons a month. The price of tin has varied from 55 pounds to 90 pounds per ton. In time past, when Botallack was more of a copper than a tin-mine, a fathom has been known to yield 100 pounds worth of ore, and a miner has sometimes broken out as much as 300 pounds worth in one month. The mine has been worked from time immemorial. It is known to have been wrought a hundred years before it was taken by the present company, who have had it between thirty and forty years, and, under the able direction of the present manager and purser, Mr Stephen Harvey James, it has paid the shareholders more than 100,000 pounds. The profit in the year 1844 was 24,000 pounds. At the termination of one period of working it left a profit of 300,000 pounds. It has experienced many vicissitudes of fortune. Formerly it was worked for tin, and at one period (1841) was doing so badly that it was about to be abandoned, when an unlooked for discovery of copper was made, and a period of great prosperity again set in, during which many shareholders and miners made their fortunes out of Botallack. Thus much, with a humble apology, we present to the reader, and now resume the thread of our narrative. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Note 1. The packmen are so styled because of their visits being paid fortnightly. CHAPTER EIGHT. DOWN, DOWN, DOWN. Before descending the mine Captain Dan led Oliver to the counting-house, where he bade him undress and put on miner's clothing. "I'll need a biggish suit," observed Oliver. "True," said Captain Dan; "we are obliged usually to give visitors our smallest suits. You are an exception to the rule. Indeed, I'm not sure that I have a pair of trousers big enough for--ah yes, by the way, here is a pair belonging to one of our captains who is unusually stout and tall; I dare say you'll be able to squeeze into 'em." "All right," said Oliver, laughing, as he pulled on the red garments; "they are wide enough round the waist, at all events. Now for a hat." "There," said the captain, handing him a white cotton skull-cap, "put that on." "Why, what's this for?" said Oliver. "To keep _that_ from dirtying your head," replied the other, as he handed his companion a thick felt hat, which was extremely dirty, on the front especially, where the candle was wont to be fixed with wet clay. "Now, then, attach these two candles to that button in your breast, and you are complete.--Not a bad miner to look at," said Captain Dan with a smile of approval. The captain was already equipped in underground costume, and the dirty disreputable appearance he presented was, thought Oliver, a wonderful contrast to his sober and gentlemanly aspect on the evening of their first meeting at his uncle's table. "I'll strike a light after we get down a bit--so come along," said Captain Dan, leaving the office and leading the way. On reaching the entrance to the shaft, Oliver Trembath looked down and observed a small speck of bright light in the black depths. "A man coming up--wait a bit," said the captain in explanation. Presently a faint sound of slow footsteps was heard; they grew gradually more distinct, and ere long the head and shoulders of a man emerged from the hole. Perspiration was trickling down his face, and painting him, streakily, with iron rust and mud. All his garments were soaking. He sighed heavily on reaching the surface, and appeared to inhale the fresh air with great satisfaction. "Any more coming?" "No, Captain Dan," replied the man, glancing with some curiosity at the tall stranger. "Now, sir, we shall descend," said the captain, entering the shaft. Oliver followed, and at once plunged out of bright sunshine into subdued light. A descent of a few fathoms brought them to the bottom of the first ladder. It was a short one; most of the others, the captain told him, were long ones. The width of the shaft was about six feet by nine. It was nearly perpendicular, and the slope of the ladders corresponded with its width--the head of each resting against one side of it, and the foot against the other, thus forming a zigzag of ladders all the way down. At the foot of the first ladder the light was that of deep twilight. Here was a wooden platform, and a hole cut through it, out of which protruded the head of the second ladder. The Captain struck a light, and, applying it to one of the candles, affixed the same to the front of Oliver's hat. Arranging his own hat in a similar way, he continued the descent, and, in a few minutes, both were beyond the region of daylight. When they had got a short way down, probably the distance of an ordinary church-steeple's height below the surface, Oliver looked up and saw the little opening far above him, shining brightly like a star. A few steps more and it vanished from view; he felt that he had for the first time in his life reached the regions of eternal night. The shaft varied in width here and there; in most places it was very narrow--about six feet wide--but, what with cross-beams to support the sides, and prevent soft parts from falling in, and other obstructions, the space available for descent was often not more than enough to permit of a man squeezing past. A damp smell pervaded the air, and there was a strange sense of contraction and confinement, so to speak, which had at first an unpleasant effect on Oliver. The silence, when both men paused at a ladder-foot to trim candles or to rest a minute, was most profound, and there came over the young doctor a sensation of being buried alive, and of having bid a final farewell to the upper earth, the free air, and the sunshine, as they went down, down, down to the depths below. At last they reached a "level" or gallery, by which the ladder-shaft communicated with the pump-shaft. Here Captain Dan paused and trimmed Oliver's candle, which he had thrust inadvertently against a beam, and broken in two. "You have to mind your head here, sir," said the captain, with a quiet smile; "'tis a good place to learn humility." Oliver could scarce help laughing aloud as he gazed at his guide, for, standing as he did with the candle close to his face, his cheeks, nose, chin, forehead, and part of the brim of his hat and shoulders were brought into brilliant light, while the rest of him was lost in the profound darkness of the level behind, and the flame of his candle rested above his head like the diadem of some aristocratic gnome. "How far down have we come?" inquired Oliver. "About eighty fathoms," said the captain; "we shall now go along this level and get into the pump-shaft, by which we can descend to the bottom. Take care of your feet and head as you go, for you'll be apt to run against the rocks that hang down, and the winzes are dangerous." "And pray what are winzes?" asked Oliver as he stumbled along in the footsteps of his guide, over uneven ground covered with debris.--"Ah! hallo! stop!" "What's wrong?" said the captain, looking back, and holding up his candle to Oliver's face. "Candle gone again, captain; I've run my head on that rock. Lucky for me that your mining hats are so thick and hard, for I gave it a butt that might have done credit to an ox." "I told you to mind your head," said Captain Dan, relighting the candle; "you had better carry it in your hand in the levels, it will light your path better. Look out now--here is a winze." The captain pointed to a black yawning hole, about six or seven feet in diameter, which was bridged across by a single plank. "How deep does it go?" asked the youth, holding up his candle and peering in; "I can't see the bottom." "I dare say not," said the captain, "for the bottom is ten fathoms down, at the next level." "And are all the winzes bridged with a single plank in this way?" "Why, no, some of 'em have two or three planks, but they're quite safe if you go steady." "And, pray, how many such winzes are there in the mine?" asked Oliver. "Couldn't say exactly, without thinkin' a bit," replied the captain; "but there are a great number of 'em--little short of a hundred, I should say--for we have a good many miles of levels in Botallack, which possesses an underground geography as carefully measured and mapped out as that of the surface." "And what would happen," asked Oliver, with an expression of half-simulated anxiety, "if you were to fall down a winze and break your neck, and my candle were to get knocked or blown out, leaving me to find my way out of a labyrinth of levels pierced with holes sixty feet deep?" "Well, it's hard to say," replied Captain Dan with much simplicity. "Go on," said Oliver, pursing his lips with a grim smile, as he followed his leader across the narrow bridge. Captain Dan continued his progress until he reached the pump-shaft, the proximity of which was audibly announced by the slow ascent and descent of a great wooden beam, which was styled the "pump-rod." Alongside, and almost touching it, for space was valuable there, and had to be economised, was the iron pipe--nearly a foot in diameter--which conveyed the water from the mine to the "Adit level." The slow-heaving plunge, of about ten feet in extent, and the sough or sigh of the great beam, with the accompanying gurgle of water in the huge pipe, were sounds that seemed horribly appropriate to the subterranean scene. One could have imagined the mine to be a living giant in the last throes of death by drowning. But these were only one half of the peculiarities of the place. On the other side of the shaft an arrangement of beams and partially broken boards formed the traversing "ways" or tube, up which were drawn the kibbles--these last being large iron buckets used for lifting ore to the surface. In the present day, machinery being more perfect, the ancient kibble has been to some extent supplanted by skips, or small trucks with wheels (in some cases iron boxes with guiding-rods), which are drawn up smoothly, and without much tear and wear; but in the rough times of which we write, the sturdy kibble used to go rattling up the shaft with deafening noise, dinting its thick sides, and travelling with a jovial free-and-easy swing that must have added considerably to the debit side of the account of working expenses. Between the pump-rod and the kibble-way there was just room for the ladders upon which Captain Dan, followed by Oliver, now stepped. This shaft was very wet, water dropped and spirted about in fine spray everywhere, and the rounds of the ladders were wet and greasy with much-squeezed slime. It would seem as though the kibbles had known that a stranger was about to descend and had waited for him, for no sooner did Oliver get on the ladder than they began to move--the one to ascend full, and the other to descend empty. "What's that?" exclaimed Oliver. "It's only the kibbles," replied Captain Dan. Before the captain could explain what kibbles were, these reckless buckets met, with a bang, close to Oliver's cheek, and rebounded on the beams that protected him from their fury. Naturally the young man shrank a little from a noise so loud and so near. He was at once scraped down on the other side by the pump-rod! Drawing himself together as much as possible, and feeling for once the disadvantage of being a large man, he followed his leader down, down, ever down, into the profounder depths below. All this time they had not met with a miner, or with any sign of human life--unless the pump and kibbles could be regarded as such--for they had been hitherto traversing the old levels and workings of the mine, but at last, during one of their pauses, they heard the faint sound of chip, chip, chip, in the far distance. "Miners?" inquired Oliver. Captain Dan nodded, and said they would now leave the shaft and go to where the men were at work. He cautioned his companion again to have regard to his head, and to mind his feet. As they proceeded, he stopped ever and anon to point out some object of peculiar interest. "There's a considerable space above and below you here, sir," said the captain, stopping suddenly in a level which was not more than three feet wide. Oliver had been so intent on his feet, and mindful of the winzes, that he had failed to observe the immense black opening overhead. It extended so high above him, and so far forward and backward in the direction of the level, that its boundaries were lost in an immensity of profoundly dark space. The rocky path was also lost to view, both before and behind them, so that the glare of their lights on the metallic walls rendered the spot on which they stood a point of brilliancy in the midst of darkness. Only part of a great beam was visible here and there above them, as if suspended in the gloom to render its profundity more apparent. This, Captain Dan explained, was the space that had once been occupied by a rich lode of ore, all of which had been removed years ago, to the great commercial advantage of a past generation. Soon after passing this the captain paused at a deep cutting in the rock, and, looking sadly at it for a few minutes, said,--"It was here that poor Trevool lost his life. He was a good lad, but careless, and used to go rattling along the levels with his light in his hat and his thoughts among the stars, instead of carrying the light in his hand and looking to his feet. He fell down that winze and broke his back. When we got him up to grass he was alive, but he never spoke another word, and died the same night." "Poor fellow!" said Oliver; "I suppose your men have narrow escapes sometimes." "They have, sir, but it's most always owin' to carelessness. There was a cousin of that very lad Trevool who was buried with a comrade by the falling in of a shaft and came out alive. I was there at the time and helped to dig him out." Captain Dan here stopped, and, sticking his candle against the wet wall of the mine, sat down on a piece of rock, while our hero stood beside him. "You see," said he, "we were sinking a shaft, or rather reopening an old one, at the time, and Harvey, that was the man's name, was down working with a comrade. They came to a soft bit o' ground, an' as they cut through it they boarded it up with timbers across to prevent it slipping, but they did the work hastily. After they had cut down some fathoms below it, the boarding gave way, and down the whole thing went, boards, timbers, stones, and rubbish, on their heads. We made sure they were dead, but set to, nevertheless, to dig them out as fast as possible--turning as many hands to the work as could get at it. At last we came on them, and both were alive, and not very much hurt! The timbers and planks had fallen over them in such a way as to keep the stones and rubbish off. I had a talk with old Harvey the other day on this very subject. He told me that he was squeezed flat against the side of the shaft by the rubbish which buried him, and that he did not lose consciousness for a moment. A large stone had stuck right above his head, and this probably saved him. He heard us digging down to him, he said, and when we got close he sang out to hold on, as the shovel was touching him. Sure enough this was the case, for the next shovelful of rubbish that was lifted revealed the top of his head! We cleared the way to his mouth as carefully as we could, and then gave him a drop of brandy before going on with the work of excavation. His comrade was found in a stooping position, and was more severely bruised than old Harvey, but both of them lived to tell the tale of their burial, and to thank God for their deliverance. Yes," continued the captain, detaching his candle from the wall and resuming his walk, "we have narrow escapes sometimes.--Look here, doctor, did you ever see a rock like that?" Captain Dan pointed to a place in the side of the rocky wall which was grooved and cut as if with a huge gouge or chisel, and highly polished. "It was never cut by man in that fashion; we found it as you see it, and there's many of 'em in the mine. We call 'em slinking slides." "The marks must have been caused when the rocks were in a state of partial fusion," observed Oliver, examining the place with much curiosity. "I don't know as to that, sir," said the captain, moving on, "but there they are, and some of 'em polished to that extent you could almost see your face in 'em." On turning the corner of a jutting rock a light suddenly appeared, revealing a pair of large eyes and a double row of teeth, as it were gleaming out of the darkness. On drawing nearer, this was discovered to be a miner, whose candle was at some little distance, and only shone on him partially. "Well, Jack, what's doing?" asked the captain. The man cast a disconsolate look on a large mass of rock which lay in the middle of the path at his feet. He had been only too successful in his last blasting, and had detached a mass so large that he could not move it. "It's too hard for to break, Captain Dan." "Better get it into the truck," said the captain. "Can't lift it, sur," said the man, who grudged to go through the tedious process of boring it for a second blast. "You must get it out o' that, Jack, at all events. It won't do to let it lie there," said the captain, passing on, and leaving the miner to get out of his difficulty as best he might. A few minutes more and they came on a "pare" of men (in other words, a band of two or more men working together) who were "stopeing-in the back of the level," as they termed the process of cutting upwards into the roof. "There's a fellow in a curious place!" said Oliver, peering up through an irregular hole, in which a man was seen at work standing on a plank supported by a ladder. He was chiselling with great vigour at the rock over his head, and immediately beyond him another man stood on a plank supported by a beam of timber, and busily engaged in a similar occupation. Both men were stripped to the waist, and panted at their toil. The little chamber or cavern in which they worked was brilliantly illuminated by their two candles, and their athletic figures stood out, dark and picturesque, against the light glistering walls. "A curious place, and a singular man!" observed the captain; "that fellow's family is not a small one.--Hallo! James Martin." "Hallo! Captain Dan," replied the miner, looking down. "How many children have you had?" "How many child'n say 'ee?" "Ay, how many?" "I've had nineteen, sur, an' there's eight of 'em alive. Seven of 'em came in three year an six months, sur--three doubles an' a single, but them uns are all gone dead, sur." "How old are you, Jim?" "Forty-seven, sur." "Your brother Tom is at work here, isn't he?" "Iss, in the south level, drivin' the end." "How many children has Tom had, Jim?" "Seventeen, sur, an' seven of 'em's alive; but Tom's only thirty-eight years old, sur." [See note 1.] "Good-morning, Jim." "Good-morning, Captain Dan," replied the sturdy miner, resuming his work. "Good specimens of men these," said the captain, with a quiet smile, to Oliver. "Of course I don't mean to say that all the miners hereabouts are possessed of such large families--nevertheless there are, as I dare say you have observed, a good many children in and about St. Just!" Proceeding onward they diverged into a branch level, where a number of men were working overhead; boring holes into the roof and burrowing upwards. They all drove onwards through flinty rock by the same slow and toilsome process that has already been described--namely, by chipping with the pick, driving holes with the borer, and blasting with gunpowder. As the Captain and Oliver traversed this part of the mine they had occasionally to squeeze past small iron trucks which stood below holes in the sides of the level, down which ever and anon masses of ore and debris came from the workings above with a hard crashing noise. The ore was rich with tin, but the metal was invisible to any but trained eyes. To Oliver Trembath the whole stuff appeared like wet rubbish. Suddenly a low muffled report echoed through the cavernous place. It was followed by five or six similar reports in succession. "They are blasting," said Captain Dan. As he spoke, the thick muddy shoes and brick-dust legs of a man appeared coming down the hole that had previously discharged ore. The man himself followed his legs, and, alighting thereon, saluted Captain Dan with a free-and-easy "Good-morning." Another man followed him; from a different part of the surrounding darkness a third made his appearance, and others came trooping in, until upwards of a dozen of them were collected in the narrow tunnel, each with his tallow candle in his hand or hat, so that the place was lighted brilliantly. They were all clad in loose, patched, and ragged clothes. All were of a uniform rusty-red colour, each with his broad bosom bared, and perspiration trickling down his besmeared countenance. Here, however, the uniformity of their appearance ended, for they were of all sizes and characters. Some were robust and muscular; some were lean and wiry; some were just entering on manhood, with the ruddy hue of health shining through the slime on their smooth faces; some were in the prime of life, pale from long working underground, but strong, and almost as hard as the iron with which they chiselled the rocks. Others were growing old, and an occasional cough told that the "miners' complaint" had begun its fatal undermining of the long-enduring, too-long-tried human body. There were one or two whose iron constitutions had resisted the evil influences of wet garments, bad air, and chills, and who, with much of the strength of manhood, and some of the colour of youth, were still plying their hammers in old age. But these were rare specimens of vigour and longevity; not many such are to be found in Botallack mine. The miner's working life is a short one, and comparatively few of those who begin it live to a healthy old age. Little boys were there, too, diminutive but sturdy urchins, miniature copies of their seniors, though somewhat dirtier; proud as peacocks because of being permitted at so early an age to accompany their fathers or brothers underground, and their bosoms swelling with that stern Cornish spirit of determination to face and overcome great difficulties, which has doubtless much to do with the excessive development of chest and shoulder for which Cornish miners, especially those of St. Just, are celebrated. [See note 2.] It turned out that the men had all arranged to fire their holes at the same hour, and assemble in a lower level to take lunch, or, as they term it, "kroust," while the smoke should clear away. This rendered it impossible for the captain to take his young companion further into the workings at that part of the mine, so they contented themselves with a chat with the men. These sat down in a row, and, each man unrolling a parcel containing a pasty or a thick lump of cake with currants in it, commenced the demolition thereof with as much zeal as had previously been displayed in the demolition of the rock. This frugal fare was washed down with water drawn from little flat barrels or canteens, while they commented lightly, grumblingly, or laughingly, according to temperament, on the poor condition of the lode at which they wrought. We have already said that in mining, as in other things, fortune fluctuates, and it was "hard times" with the men of Botallack at that period. Before they had proceeded far with their meal, one of the pale-faced men began to cough. "Smoke's a-coming down," he said. "We shall 'ave to move, then," observed another. The pouring in of gunpowder smoke here set two or three more a-coughing, and obliged them all to rise and seek for purer--perhaps it were better to say less impure--air in another part of the level, where the draught kept the smoke away. Here, squatting down on heaps of wet rubbish, and sticking their candles against the damp walls, they continued their meal, and here the captain and Oliver left them, retraced their steps to the foot of the shaft, and began the ascent to the surface, or, in mining parlance, began to "return to grass." Up, up, up--the process now was reversed, and the labour increased tenfold. Up they went on these nearly perpendicular and interminable ladders, slowly, for they had a long journey before them; cautiously, for Oliver had a tendency to butt his head against beams, and knock his candle out of shape; carefully, for the rounds of the ladders were wet and slimy and a slip of foot or hand might in a moment have precipitated them into the black gulf below; and pantingly, for strength of limb and lung could not altogether defy the influence of such a prolonged and upright climb. If Oliver Trembath felt, while descending, as though he should _never_ reach the bottom, he felt far more powerfully as if reaching the top were an event of the distant future--all the more that the muscles of his arms and legs, unused to the peculiar process, were beginning to feel rather stiff. This feeling, however, soon passed away, and when he began to grow warm to the work, his strength seemed to return and to increase with each step--a species of revival of vigour in the midst of hard toil with which probably all strong men are acquainted. Up they went, ladder after ladder, squeezing through narrow places, rubbing against wet rocks and beams, scraping against the boarding of the kibble-shaft, and being scraped by the pump-rods until both of them were as wet and red and dirty as any miner below. As he advanced, Oliver began to take note of the places he had passed on the way down, and so much had he seen and thought during his sojourn underground, that, when he reached the level where he first came upon the noisy kibbles, and made acquaintance with the labouring pump-rod, he almost hailed the spot as an old familiar landmark of other days! A circumstance occurred just then which surprised him not a little, and tended to fix this locality still more deeply on his memory. While he was standing in the level, waiting until the captain should relight and trim his much and oft bruised candle, the kibbles began their noisy motion. This was nothing new now, but at the same time the shout of distant voices was heard, as if the gnomes held revelry in their dreary vaults. They drew gradually nearer, and Oliver could distinguish laughter mingled with the sound of rapidly approaching footsteps. "Foolish lads!" ejaculated Captain Dan with a smile, and an expression that proved he took some interest in the folly, whatever it might be. "What is it?" inquired Oliver. "They are racing to the kibble. Look and you shall see," replied the other. Just then a man who had outrun his comrades appeared at the place where the level joined the shaft, just opposite. Almost at the same moment the kibble appeared flying upwards. The miner leaped upon it, caught and clung to the chain as it passed, and shouted a defiant adieu to his less fortunate comrades, who arrived just in time to witness him disappear upwards in this rapid manner "to grass." "That's the way the young ones risk their lives," said the captain, shaking his head remonstratively; "if that young fellow had missed the kibble he would have been dashed to pieces at the bottom of the shaft." Again Captain Dan said "Foolish lads," and shook his head so gravely that Oliver could not help regarding him with the respect due to a sedate, fatherly sort of man; but Oliver was young and unsophisticated, and did not know at the time that the captain had himself been noted in his youth as an extremely reckless and daring fellow, and that a considerable spice of the daring remained in him still! Diverging to the right at this point Captain Dan led Oliver to an old part of the mine, where there were a couple of men opening up and extending one of the old levels. Their progress here was very different from what it had been. Evidently the former miners had not thought it worth their while to open up a wide passage for themselves, and Oliver found it necessary to twist his broad shoulders into all sorts of positions to get them through. The first level they came to in this part was not more than three feet high at the entrance. "A man can't hold his head very high here, sir," said his guide. "Truly no, it is scarce high enough for my legs to walk in without any body above them," said Oliver. "However, lead the way, and I will follow." The captain stooped and made his way through a winding passage where the roof was so low in many places that they were obliged to bend quite double, and the back and neck of the young doctor began to feel the strain very severely. There were, however, a few spots where the roof rose a little, affording temporary relief. Presently they came to the place where the men were at work. The ground was very soft here; the men were cutting through _soft_ granite!--a condition of the stone which Oliver confessed he had never expected to see. Here the lights burned very badly. "What can be the matter with it?" said Oliver, stopping for the third time to trim the wick of his candle. Captain Dan smiled as he said, "You asked me, last night, to take you into one of the levels where the air was bad--now here you are, with the air so bad that the candle will hardly burn. It will be worse before night." "But I feel no disagreeable sensation," said Oliver. "Possibly not, because you are not quite so sensitive as the flame of a candle, but if you remain here a few hours it will tell upon you. Here are the men-- you can ask them." The two men were resting when they approached. One was old, the other middle-aged. Both were hearty fellows, and communicative. The old one, especially, was ruddy in complexion and pretty strong. "You look well for an old miner," said Oliver; "what may be your age?" "About sixty, sur." "Indeed! you are a notable exception to the rule. How comes it that you look so fresh?" "Can't say, sur," replied the old man with a peculiar smile; "few miners live to my time of life, much less do they go underground. P'raps it's because I neither drink nor smoke. Tom there, now," he added, pointing to his comrade with his thumb, "he ain't forty yit, but he's so pale as a ghost; though he is strong 'nuff." "And do you neither drink nor smoke, Tom?" inquired Oliver. "Well, sur, I both smokes and drinks, but I do take 'em in moderation," said Tom. "Are you married?" asked Oliver, turning again to the old man. "Iss, got a wife at hum, an' had six child'n." "Don't you find this bad air tell on your health?" he continued. "Iss, sur. After six or seven hours I do feel my head like to split, an' my stummik as if it wor on fire; but what can us do? we must live, you knaw." Bidding these men goodbye, the captain and Oliver went down to another level, and then along a series of low galleries, in some of which they had to advance on their hands and knees, and in one of them, particularly, the accumulation of rubbish was so great, and the roof so low, that they could only force a passage through by wriggling along at full length like snakes. Beyond this they found a miner and a little boy at work; and here Captain Dan pointed out to his companion that the lodes of copper and tin were rich. Glittering particles on the walls and drops of water hanging from points and crevices, with the green, purple, and yellow colours around, combined to give the place a brilliant metallic aspect. "You'd better break off a piece of ore here," said Captain Dan. Oliver took a chisel and hammer from the miner, and applying them to the rock, spent five minutes in belabouring it with scarcely any result. "If it were not that I fear to miss the chisel and hit my knuckles," he said, "I think I could work more effectively." As he spoke he struck with all his force, and brought down a large piece, a chip of which he carried away as a memorial of his underground ramble. "The man is going to fire the hole," said Captain Dan; "you'd better wait and see it." The hole was sunk nearly two feet deep diagonally behind a large mass of rock that projected from the side of the level. It was charged with gunpowder, and filled up with "tamping" or pounded granite, Then the miner lighted the fuse and hastened away, giving the usual signal, "Fire!" The others followed him to a safe distance, and awaited the result. In a few minutes there was a loud report, a bright blinding flash, and a concussion of the air which extinguished two of the candles. Immediately a crash followed, as the heavy mass of rock was torn from its bed and hurled to the ground. "That's the way we raise tin and copper," said Captain Dan; "now, doctor, we had better return, if you would not be left in darkness, for our candles are getting low." "Did you ever travel underground in the dark?" inquired Oliver. "Not often, but I have done it occasionally. Once, in particular, I went down the main shaft in the dark, and gave a miner an awful fright. I had to go down in haste at the time, and, not having a candle at hand, besides being well acquainted with the way, I hurried down in the dark. It so chanced that a man named Sampy had got his light put out when about to ascend the shaft, and, as he also was well acquainted with the way, he did not take the trouble to relight. There was a good deal of noise in consequence of the pump being at work. When I had got about half-way down I put my foot on something that felt soft. Instantly there was uttered a tremendous yell, and my legs at the same moment were seized by something from below. My heart almost jumped out of my mouth at this, but as the yell was repeated it flashed across me I must have trod on some one's fingers, so I lifted my foot at once, and then a voice, which I knew to be that of Sampy, began to wail and lament miserably. "`Hope I haven't hurt 'ee, Sampy?' said I. "`Aw dear! aw dear! aw, my dear!' was all that poor Sampy could reply. "`Let us go up, my son,' said I, `and we'll strike a light.' "So up we went to the next level, where I got hold of the poor lad's candle and lighted it. "`Aw, my dear!' said Sampy, looking at his fingers with a rueful countenance; `thee have scat 'em all in jowds.'" "Pray," interrupted Oliver, "what may be the meaning of `scat 'em all in jowds'? "Broke 'em all in pieces," replied Captain Dan; "but he was wrong, for no bones were broken, and the fingers were all right again in the course of a few days. Sampy got a tremendous fright, however, and he was never known to travel underground without a light after that." Continuing to retrace their steps, Captain Dan and Oliver made for the main shaft. On the way they came to another of those immense empty spaces where a large lode had been worked away, and nothing left in the dark narrow void but the short beams which had supported the working stages of the men. Here Oliver, looking down through a hole at his feet, saw several men far below him. They were at work on the "end" in three successive tiers--above each other's heads. "You've seen two of these men before," said Captain Dan. "Have I?" "Yes, they are local preachers. The last time you saw the upper one," said Captain Dan with a smile, "you were seated in the Wesleyan chapel, and he was in the pulpit dressed like a gentleman, and preaching as eloquently as if he had been educated at college and trained for the ministry." "I should like very much to go down and visit them," said Oliver. "'Tis a difficult descent. There are no ladders. Will your head stand stepping from beam to beam, and can you lower yourself by a chain?" "I'll try," said Oliver. Without more words Captain Dan left the platform on which they had been walking, and, descending through a hole, led his companion by the most rugged way he had yet attempted. Sometimes they slid on their heels down places that Oliver would not have dreamed of attempting without a guide; at other times they stepped from beam to beam, with unknown depths below them. "Have a care here, sir," said the captain, pausing before a very steep place. "I will go first and wait for you." So saying, he seized a piece of old rusty chain that was fastened into the rock, and swung himself down. Then, looking up, he called to Oliver to follow. The young doctor did so, and, having cautiously lowered himself a few yards, he reached a beam, where he found the captain holding up his candle, and regarding him with some anxiety. Captain Dan appeared as if suspended in mid-air. Opposite to him, in the distance, the two "local preachers" were hard at work with hammer and chisel, while far below, a miner could be seen coming along the next level, and pushing an iron truck full of ore before him. A few more steps and slides, and then a short ascent, and Oliver stood beside the man who had preached the previous Sunday. He worked with another miner, and was red, ragged, and half-clad, like all the rest, and the perspiration was pouring over his face, which was streaked with slime. Very unlike was he at that time to the gentlemanly youth who had held forth from the pulpit. Oliver had a long chat with him, and found that he aspired to enter the ministry, and had already passed some severe examinations. He was self-taught, having procured the loan of books from his minister and some friends who were interested in him. His language and manners were those of a gentleman, yet he had had no advantages beyond his fellows. "My friend there, sir, also hopes to enter the ministry," said the miner, pointing, as he spoke, to a gap between the boards on which he stood. Oliver looked down, and there beheld a stalwart young man, about a couple of yards under his feet, wielding a hammer with tremendous vigour. His light linen coat was open, displaying his bared and muscular bosom. "What! is _he_ a local preacher also?" "He is, sir," said the miner, with a smile. Oliver immediately descended to the stage below, and had a chat with this man also, after which he left them at their work, wondering very much at the intelligence and learning displayed by them; for he remembered that in their sermons they had, without notes, without hesitation, and without a grammatical error, entered into the most subtle metaphysical reasoning (rather too much of it indeed!), and had preached with impassioned (perhaps too impassioned) eloquence, quoting poets and prose writers, ancient and modern, with the facility of good scholars--while they urged men and women to repent and flee to Christ, with all the fervour of men thoroughly in earnest. On the other hand, he knew that their opportunities for self-education were not great, and that they had to toil in the meantime for daily bread, at the rate of about 3 pounds a month! Following Captain Dan, Oliver soon reached the ladder-way. While slowly and in silence ascending the ladders; they heard a sound of music above them. "Men coming down to work, singing," said the captain, as they stood on a cross-beam to listen. The sounds at first were very faint and inexpressibly sweet. By degrees they became more distinct, and Oliver could distinguish several voices singing in harmony, keeping time to the slow measured tread of their descending steps. There seemed a novelty, and yet a strange familiarity, in the strains as they were wafted softly down upon his ear, until they drew near, and the star-like candles of the miners became visible. Their manly voices then poured forth in full strength the glorious psalm-tune called "French," which is usually sung in Scotland to the beautiful psalm beginning, "I to the hills will lift mine eyes." The men stopped abruptly on encountering their captain and the stranger. Exchanging a few words with the former, they stood aside on the beams to let them pass. A little boy came last. His small limbs were as active as those of his more stalwart comrades, and he exhibited no signs of fatigue. His treble voice, too, was heard high and tuneful among the others as they continued their descent and resumed the psalm. The sweet strains retired gradually, and faded in the depths below as they had first stolen on the senses from above; and the pleasant memory of them still remained with the young doctor when he emerged from the mine through the hole at the head of the shaft, and stood once more in the blessed sunshine! ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Note 1. Reader, allow us to remark that this is a fact. Indeed, we may say here, once for all, that all the _important_ statements and incidents in this tale are facts, or founded on facts, with considerable modification, but without intentional exaggeration. Note 2. It has been stated to us recently by a volunteer officer, that at battalion parade, when companies were equalised in numbers, the companies formed by the men of St. Just required about four paces more space to stand upon than the other volunteers. No one who visits a St. Just miner at his underground toil will require to ask the reason why. CHAPTER NINE. TREATS OF DIFFICULTIES TO BE OVERCOME. One afternoon a council--we may appropriately say of war--was held in St. Just. The scene of the council was the shop of Maggot, the blacksmith, and the members of it were a number of miners, the president being the worthy smith himself, who, with a sledge-hammer under his arm in the position of a short crutch, occupied the chair, if we may be allowed so to designate the raised hearth of the forge. The war with poverty had not been very successfully waged of late, and, at the time of which we write, the enemy had apparently given the miners a severe check, in the way of putting what appeared to be an insuperable obstacle in their path. "Now, lads," said Maggot, with a slap on the leathern apron that covered his knees, "this is the way on it, an' do 'ee be quiet and hould yer tongues while I do spaik." The other men, of whom there were nearly a dozen, nodded and said, "Go on, booy; thee's knaw tin, sure;" by which expression they affirmed their belief that the blacksmith was a very knowing fellow. "You do tell me that you've come so close to water that you're 'fraid to go on? Is that so?" "Iss, iss," responded the others. "Well, I'll hole into the house, ef you do agree to give un a good pitch," said Maggot. "Agreed, one and all," cried the miners. In order that the reader may understand the drift of this conversation, it is necessary to explain that the indefatigable miner, David Trevarrow, whom we have already introduced in his submarine workshop, had, according to his plan, changed his ground, and transferred his labour to a more hopeful part of the mine. For some time previous the men had been at work on a lode which was very promising, but they were compelled to cease following it, because it approached the workings of an old part of the mine which was known to be full of water. To tap this old part, or as the miners expressed it, to "hole into this house of water," was, they were well aware, an exceedingly dangerous operation. The part of the mine to which we allude was not under the sea, but back a little from the shore, and was not very deep at that time. The "adit"--or water-conducting--level by which the spot was reached commenced at the cliffs, on a level with the seashore, and ran into the interior until it reached the old mine, about a quarter of a mile inland. Here was situated the "house," which was neither more nor less than a number of old shafts and levels filled with water. As they had approached the old mine its near proximity was made disagreeably evident by the quantity of moisture that oozed through the crevices in the rocks--moisture which ere long took the form of a number of tiny rills--and at last began to spirt out from roof and sides in such a way that the miners became alarmed, and hesitated to continue to work in a place where they ran the most imminent risk of being suddenly drowned and swept into the sea, by the bursting of the rocks that still withstood the immense pressure of the confined water. It was at this point in the undertaking that David Trevarrow went to examine the place, and made the discovery of a seam--a "keenly lode"-- which had such a promising appearance that the anxiety of the miners to get rid of this obstructive "house" was redoubled. It was at this point, too, that the council of which we write was held, in order to settle who should have the undesirable privilege of constituting the "forlorn hope" in their subterranean assault. Maggot, who was known to be one of the boldest, and, at the same time, one of the most utterly reckless, men in St. Just, was appealed to in the emergency, and, as we have seen, offered to attack the enemy single-handed, on condition that the miners should give him a "pitch" of the good lode they had found--that is, give him the right to work out a certain number of fathoms of ore for himself. They agreed to this, but one of them expressed some doubt as to Maggot's courage being equal to the occasion. To this remark Maggot vouchsafed no other reply than a frown, but his friend and admirer John Cock exclaimed in supreme contempt,--"What! Maggot afear'd to do it! aw, my dear, hould tha tongue." "But he haven't bin to see the place," urged the previous speaker. "No, my son," said Maggot, turning on the man with a look of pity, "but he can go an' see it. Come, lads, lev us go an' see this place of danger." The miners rose at once as Maggot threw his forehammer on a heap of coals, put on his hat, and strode out of the forge with a reckless fling. A few minutes sufficed to bring them to the beach at the mouth of the adit. It was a singularly wild spot, close under those precipitous cliffs on which some of the picturesque buildings of Botallack mine are perched--a sort of narrow inlet or gorge which from its form is named the Narrow Zawn. There was nothing worthy of the name of a beach at the place, save a little piece of rugged ground near the adit mouth, which could be reached only by a zigzag path on the face of the almost perpendicular precipice. Arrived here, each man lighted a candle, wrapped the customary piece of wet clay round the middle of it, and entered the narrow tunnel. They advanced in single file, James Penrose leading. The height of the adit permitted of their walking almost upright, but the irregularity of the cuttings rendered it necessary that they should advance carefully, with special regard to their heads. In about a quarter of an hour they reached a comparatively open space--that is to say, there were several extensions of the cutting in various directions, which gave the place the appearance of being a small cavern, instead of a narrow tunnel. Here the water, which in other parts of the adit flowed along the bottom, ran down the walls and spirted in fine streams from the almost invisible crevices of the rock, thus betraying at once the proximity and the power of the pent-up water. "What think'ee now, my son?" asked an elderly man who stood at Maggot's elbow. After a short pause, during which he sternly regarded the rocks before him, the smith replied, "_I'll do it_," in the tone and with the air of a man who knows that what he has made up his mind to do is not child's play. The question being thus settled, the miners retraced their steps and went to their several homes. Entering his cottage, the smith found his little girl Grace busily engaged in the interesting process of nursing the baby. He seated himself in a chair by the fireside, smoked his pipe, and watched the process, while his wife busied herself in preparing the evening meal. Oh! but the little Maggot was a big baby--a worthy representative of his father--a true chip of the old block, for he was not only fat, riotous, and muscular, but very reckless, and extremely positive. His little nurse, on the contrary, was gentle and delicate; not much bigger than the baby, although a good deal older, and she had a dreadful business of it to keep him in order. All her efforts at lifting and restraining him were somewhat akin to the exertion made by wrestlers to throw each other by main force, and her intense desire to make baby Maggot "be good" was repaid by severe kicks on the shins, and sundry dabs in the face with, luckily, a soft, fat pair of fists. "Sit 'ee quiet, now, or I'll scat oo nose," said the little nurse suddenly, with a terrible frown. It need scarcely be said that she had not the remotest; intention of carrying out this dreadful threat to smash the little Maggot's nose. She accompanied it, however, with a twist that suddenly placed the urchin in a sitting posture, much to his own surprise, for he opened his eyes very wide, drew his breath sharply, and appeared to meditate a roar. He thought better of it, however, and relapsed into goodness just as the door opened, and David Trevarrow entered. "Oh, uncle David," cried little Grace, jumping up and running towards him, "do help me nuss baby." "What's the matter with the cheeld--bad, eh? Fetch un to me and I'll cure him." There was no necessity to fetch baby, for that obstreperous individual entertained an immense regard for "Unkil Day," and was already on his fat legs staggering across the floor to him with outstretched arms. Thereafter he only required a pair of wings to make him a complete cherub. Little Grace, relieved of her charge, at once set to work to assist her mother in household matters. She was one of those dear little earnest creatures who of their own accord act in a motherly and wifely way from their early years. To look at little Grace's serious thoroughgoing face, when she chanced to pause in the midst of work, and meditate what was to be done next, one might imagine that the entire care of the household had suddenly devolved upon her shoulders. In the matter of housewifery little Grace was almost equal to big Grace, her respected mother; in downright honesty and truthfulness she greatly excelled her. The description of Maggot's household, on that evening, would be very incomplete were we to omit mention of Zackey Maggot. That young man-- for man he deemed himself, and man he was, in all respects, except the trifling matters of years, size, and whiskers--that young man entered the room with his uncle, and, without deigning to change his wet red garments, sat him down at his father's feet and caught hold of a small black kitten, which, at the time, lay sound asleep on the hearth, and began to play with it in a grave patronising way, as though his taking notice of it at all were a condescension. That black kitten, or Chet, as it was usually styled, was accustomed to be strangled the greater part of the morning by the baby. Most of the afternoon it was worried by Zackey, and, during the intervals of torment, it experienced an unusually large measure of the vicissitudes incident to kitten life--such as being kicked out of the way by Maggot senior, or thrown or terrified out of the way by Mrs Maggot, or dashed at by stray dogs, or yelled at by passing boys. The only sunshine of its life (which was at all times liable to be suddenly clouded) was when it slept, or when little Grace put it on her soft neck, tickled its chin, and otherwise soothed its ruffled spirit, as only a loving heart knows how. A bad memory seemed to be that kitten's chief blessing. A horror of any kind was no sooner past than it was straightway forgotten, and the facetious animal would advance with arched back and glaring eyes in defiance of an incursive hen, or twirl in mad hopeless career after its own miserable tail! "'Tis a keenly lode," said Maggot, puffing his pipe thoughtfully. "Iss," assented David Trevarrow, also puffing his pipe, at the clouds issuing from which baby gazed with endless amazement and admiration; "it's worth much, but it isn't worth your life." "Sure, I ain't goin' to give my life for't," replied Maggot. "But you're goin' to risk it," said David, "an' you shouldn't, for you've a wife an' child'n to provide for. Now, I tell 'ee what it is: you lev it to me. _I'll_ hole to the house. It don't matter much what happens to me." "No, 'ee won't," said Maggot stoutly; "what I do promise to do I _will_ do." "But if you die?" said David. "Well, what if I do? we have all to come to that some day, sooner or later." "Are you prepared to die?" asked Trevarrow earnestly. "Now, David, don't 'ee trouble me with that. 'Tis all very well for the women an' child'n, but it don't suit me, it don't, so lev us have no more of it, booy. I'll do it to-morrow, that's fixed, so now we'll have a bit supper." The tone in which Maggot said this assured David that further conversation would be useless, so he dropped the subject and sat down with the rest of the family to their evening meal. CHAPTER TEN. SHOWS HOW MAGGOT MADE A DESPERATE VENTURE, AND WHAT FLOWED FROM IT. "A wilful man must have his way" is a proverb the truth of which was illustrated by the blacksmith on the following day. David Trevarrow again attempted to dissuade him from his purpose, and reiterated his offer to go in his stead, but he failed to move him. Mrs Maggot essayed, and added tears to her suasion, as also did little Grace; but they failed too--the obdurate man would not give way. The only one of his household who did not attempt to dissuade him (excepting, of course, the baby, who cared nothing whatever about the matter) was Zackey. That urchin not only rejoiced in the failure of the others to turn his father from his purpose, but pleaded hard to be allowed to go with him, and share his danger as well as glory. This, however, was peremptorily denied to the young aspirant to fame and a premature death by drowning in a dark hole. Early in the forenoon Maggot and his friends proceeded to the shore, where they found a number of miners and others assembled near the adit mouth--among them our hero Oliver Trembath, Mr Donnithorne, and Mr Cornish, at that time the purser and manager of Botallack mine. The latter gentleman accosted Maggot as he came forward, and advised him to be cautious. Of course the smith gave every assurance that was required of him, and immediately prepared himself to make the dangerous experiment. Supplying himself with a number of tallow candles, a mining hammer, and other tools, Maggot stripped to the waist, and jestingly bidding his friends farewell, entered the mouth of the tunnel, and disappeared. The adit level, or tunnel, through which he had to pass to the scene of his operations, was, as we have said, about a quarter of a mile in length, about six feet high, and two and a half feet wide. It varied in dimensions here and there, however, and was rough and irregular throughout. For the first hundred yards or so Maggot could see well enough to grope his way by the daylight which streamed in at the entrance of the adit, but beyond this point all was intense darkness; so here he stopped, and, striking a light by means of flint, steel, and tinder, lit one of his candles. This he attached to a piece of wet clay in the usual fashion, except that he placed the clay at the lower end of the candle instead of round the middle of it. He then stuck it against the rock a little above the level of his head. Lighting another candle he advanced with it in his hand. Walking, or rather wading onward (for the stream was ankle-deep) far enough to be almost beyond the influence of the first candle, he stopped again and stuck up another. Thus, at intervals, he placed candles along the entire length of the adit, so that he might have light to guide him in his race from the water which he hoped to set free. This precaution was necessary, because, although he meant to carry a candle in his hat all the time, there was a possibility--nay, a strong probability--that it would be blown or drowned out. Little more than a quarter of an hour brought him to the scene of his intended adventure. Here he found the water spirting out all round, much more violently than it had been the day before. He did not waste much time in consideration, having made up his mind on the previous visit as to which part of the rock he would drive the hole through. Sticking his last candle, therefore, against the driest part of the wall that could be found, he seized his tools and commenced work. We have already said that Maggot was a strong man. As he stood there, naked to the waist, holding the borer with his left hand, and plying the hammer with all his might with the other, his great breadth of shoulder and development of muscle were finely displayed by the candlelight, which fell in brilliant gleams on parts of his frame, while the rest of him was thrown into shadow, so deep that it would have appeared black, but for the deeper shade by which it was surrounded--the whole scene presenting a grand Rembrandt effect. It is unnecessary to say that Maggot wrought with might and main. Excited somewhat by the novelty and danger of his undertaking, he felt relieved by the violence of his exertion. He knew, besides, that the candles which were to light him on his return were slowly but surely burning down. Blow after blow resounded through the place incessantly. When the smith's right arm felt a very little wearied--it was too powerful to be soon or greatly exhausted--he shifted the hammer to his left hand, and so the work went on. Suddenly and unexpectedly the borer was driven to its head into the hole by a tremendous blow. The rock behind it had given way. Almost at the same instant a large mass of rock burst outwards, followed by a stream of water so thick and violent that it went straight at the opposite side of the cavern, against which it burst in white foam. This, rebounding back and around, rushed against roof and sides with such force that the whole place was at once deluged. Maggot was knocked down at the first gush, but leaped up and turned to fly. Of course both candles--that in his hat as well as that which he had affixed to the wall--were extinguished, and he was at once plunged in total darkness, for the rays of the next light, although visible, were too feeble to penetrate with any effect to the extremity of the adit. Blinded by rushing water and confused by his fall, the smith mistook his direction, and ran against the side of the level with such violence that he fell again, but his sturdy frame withstood the shock, and once more he sprang to his feet and leaped along the narrow tunnel with all the energy of desperation. Well was it for Maggot at that hour that his heart was bold and his faculties cool and collected, else then and there his career had ended. Bending forward and stooping low, he bounded away like a hunted deer, but the rush of water was so great that it rapidly gained on him, and, by concealing the uneven places in the path, caused him to stumble. His relay of candles served him in good stead; nevertheless, despite their light and his own caution, he more than once narrowly missed dashing out his brains on the low roof. On came the water after the fugitive, a mighty, hissing, vaulting torrent, filling the level behind, and leaping up on the man higher and higher as he struggled and floundered on for life. Quickly, and before quarter of the distance to the adit mouth was traversed, it gurgled up to his waist, swept him off his legs, and hurled him against projecting rocks. Once and again did he succeed in regaining his foothold, but in a moment or two the rising flood swept him down and hurled him violently onward, sporting with him on its foaming crest until it disgorged him at last, and cast him, stunned, bruised, and bleeding, on the seashore. Of course the unfortunate man's friends had waited for him with some impatience, and great was their anxiety when the first of the flood made its appearance. When, immediately after, the battered form of their comrade was flung on the beach, they ran forward and bore him out of the stream. Oliver Trembath being on the spot, Maggot wae at once attended to, and his wounds bound up. "He'll do; he's all right," said Oliver, on completing the work--"only got a few cuts and bruises, and lost a little blood, but that won't harm him." The expression of anxiety that had appeared on the faces of those who stood around at once vanished on hearing these reassuring words. "I knaw'd it," said John Cock energetically. "I knaw'd he couldn't be killed--not he." "I trust that you may be right, Oliver," said old Mr Donnithorne, looking with much concern on the pale countenance of the poor smith, who still lay stretched out, with only a slight motion of the chest to prove that the vital spark had not been altogether extinguished. "No fear of him, he's sure to come round," replied Oliver; "come, lads, up with him on your backs." He raised the smith's shoulder as he spoke. Three tall and powerful miners promptly lent their aid, and Maggot was raised shoulder-high, and conveyed up the steep, winding path that led to the top of the cliff. "It would never do to lose Maggot," murmured Mr Donnithorne, as if speaking to himself while he followed the procession beside Mr Cornish; "he's far too good a--" "A smuggler--eh?" interrupted the purser, with a laugh. "Eh, ah! did I say smuggler?" cried Mr Donnithorne; "surely not, for of all vices that of smuggling is one of the worst, unless it be an overfondness for the bottle. I meant to have said that he is too valuable a man for St. Just to lose--in many ways; and you know, Mr Cornish, that he is a famous wrestler--a man of whom St. Just may be justly proud." Mr Donnithorne cast a sly glance at his companion, whom he knew to be partial to the ancient Cornish pastime of wrestling. Indeed, if report said truly, the worthy purser had himself in his youthful days been a celebrated amateur wrestler, one who had never been thrown, even although he had on more than one occasion been induced in a frolic to enter the public ring and measure his strength with the best men that could be brought against him. He was long past the time of life when men indulge in such rough play, but his tall commanding figure and huge chest and shoulders were quite sufficient to warrant the belief that what was said of him was possible, while the expression of his fine massive countenance, and the humorous glance of his clear, black eye, bore evidence that it was highly probable. "'Twould be foul injustice," said the purser with a quiet laugh, "if I were to deny that Maggot is a good man and true, in the matter of wrestling; nevertheless he is an arrant rogue, and defrauds the revenue woefully. But, after all he is only the cat's-paw; those who employ him are the real sinners--eh, Mr Donnithorne?" "Surely, surely," replied the old gentleman with much gravity; "and it is to be hoped that this accident will have the effect of turning Maggot from his evil ways." The purser could not refrain from a laugh at the hypocritical solemnity of the old gentleman, who was, he well knew, one of the very sinners whom he condemned with such righteous indignation, but their arrival at Maggot's cottage prevented further conversation on the subject at that time. Mrs Maggot, although a good deal agitated when her husband's almost inanimate and bloody form was carried in and laid on the bed, was by no means overcome with alarm. She, like the wives of St. Just miners generally, was too well accustomed to hear of accidents and to see their results, to give way to wild fears before she had learned the extent of her calamity; so, when she found that it was not serious, she dried her eyes, and busied herself in attending to all the little duties which the occasion required. Little Grace, too, although terribly frightened, and very pale, was quite self-possessed, and went about the house assisting her mother ably, despite the tendency to sob, which she found it very difficult to overcome. But the baby behaved in the most shameful and outrageous manner. His naughtiness is almost indescribable. The instant the door opened, and his father's bloody face was presented to view, baby set up a roar so tremendous that a number of dogs in the neighbourhood struck in with a loud chorus, and the black kitten, startled out of an innocent slumber, rushed incontinently under the bed, faced about, and fuffed in impotent dismay! But not only did baby roar--he also fell on the floor and kicked, thereby rendering his noise exasperating, besides exposing his fat person to the risk of being trod upon. Zackey was therefore told off as a detachment to keep this enemy in check, a duty which he performed nobly, until his worthy father was comfortably put to bed, after which the friends retired, and left the smith to the tender care of his own family. "He has done good service anyhow," observed Mr Donnithorne to his nephew, as he parted from him that evening; "for he has cleared the mine of water that it would have cost hundreds of pounds and many months to pump out." CHAPTER ELEVEN. SHOWS THAT MUSIC HATH CHARMS, AND ALSO THAT IT SOMETIMES HAS DISADVANTAGES. One morning, not long after his arrival at St. Just, the young doctor went out to make a round of professional visits. He had on his way to pass the cottage of his uncle, which stood a little apart from the chief square or triangle of the town, and had a small piece of ground in front. Here Rose was wont to cultivate her namesakes, and other flowers, with her own fair hands, and here Mr Thomas Donnithorne refreshed himself each evening with a pipe of tobacco, the flavour of which was inexpressibly enhanced to him by the knowledge that it had been smuggled. He was in the habit of washing the taste of the same away each night, before retiring to rest, with a glass of brandy and water, hot, which was likewise improved in flavour by the same interesting association. The windows of the cottage were wide open, for no Atlantic fog dimmed the glory of the summer sun that morning, and the light air that came up from the mighty sea was fresh and agreeably cool. As Oliver approached the end of the cottage he observed that Rose was not at her accustomed work in the garden, and he was about to pass the door when the tones of a guitar struck his ear and arrested his step. He was surprised, for at that period the instrument was not much used, and the out-of-the-way town of St. Just was naturally the last place in the land where he would have expected to meet with one. No air was played--only a few chords were lightly touched by fingers which were evidently expert. Presently a female voice was heard to sing in rich contralto tones. The air was extremely simple, and very beautiful--at least, so thought Oliver, as he leaned against a wall and listened to the words. These, also, were simple enough, but sounded both sweet and sensible to the listener, coming as they did from a woman's lips so tunefully, and sounding the praises of the sea, of which he was passionately fond:-- SONG. "I love the land where acres broad Are clothed in yellow grain; Where cot of thrall and lordly hall Lie scattered o'er the plain. Oh! I have trod the velvet sod Beneath the beechwood tree; And roamed the brake by stream and lake Where peace and plenty be. But more than plain, Or rich domain, I love the bright blue sea! "I love the land where bracken grows And heath-clad mountains rise; Where peaks still fringed with winter snows Tower in the summer skies. Oh! I have seen the red and green Of fir and rowan tree, And heard the din of flooded linn, With bleating on the lea. But better still Than heath-clad hill I love the stormy sea!" The air ceased, and Oliver, stepping in at the open door, found Rose Ellis with a Spanish guitar resting on her knee. She neither blushed nor started up nor looked confused--which was, of course, very strange of her in the circumstances, seeing that she is the heroine of this tale--but, rising with a smile on her pretty mouth, shook hands with the youth. "Why, cousin," said Oliver, "I had no idea you could sing so charmingly." "I am fond of singing," said Rose. "So am I, especially when I hear such singing as yours; and the song, too--I like it much, for it praises the sea. Where did you pick it up?" "I got it from the composer, a young midshipman," said Rose sadly; at the same time a slight blush tinged her brow. Oliver felt a peculiar sensation which he could not account for, and was about to make further inquiries into the authorship of the song, when it occurred to him that this would be impolite, and might be awkward, so he asked instead how she had become possessed of so fine a guitar. Before she could reply Mr Donnithorne entered. "How d'ee do, Oliver lad; going your rounds--eh?--Come, Rose, let's have breakfast, lass, you were not wont to be behind with it. I'll be bound this gay gallant--this hedge-jumper with his eyes shut--has been praising your voice and puffing up your heart, but don't believe him, Rose; it's the fashion of these fellows to tell lies on such matters." "You do me injustice, uncle," said Oliver with a laugh; "but even if it were true that I am addicted to falsehood in praising women, it were impossible, in the present instance, to give way to my propensity, for Truth herself would find it difficult to select an expression sufficiently appropriate to apply to the beautiful voice of Rose Ellis!" "Hey-day, young man," exclaimed Mr Donnithorne, as he carefully filled his pipe with precious weed, "your oratorical powers are uncommon! Surely thy talents had been better bestowed in the Church or at the Bar than in the sickroom or the hospital. Demosthenes himself would have paled before thee, lad--though, if truth must be told, there is a dash more sound than sense in thine eloquence." "Sense, uncle! Surely your own good sense must compel you to admit that Rose sings splendidly?" "Well, I won't gainsay it," replied Mr Donnithorne, "now that Rose has left the room, for I don't much care to bespatter folk with too much praise to their faces. The child has indeed a sweet pipe of her own. By the way, you were asking about her guitar when I came in; I'll tell you about that. "Its history is somewhat curious," said Mr Donnithorne, passing his fingers through the bunch of gay ribbons that hung from the head of the instrument. "You have heard, I dare say, of the burning of Penzance by the Spaniards more than two hundred years ago; in the year 1595, I think it was?" "I have," answered Oliver, "but I know nothing beyond the fact that such an event took place. I should like to hear the details of it exceedingly." "Well," continued the old gentleman, "our country was, as you know, at war with Spain at the time; but it no more entered into the heads of Cornishmen that the Spaniards would dare to land on our shores than that the giants would rise from their graves. There was, indeed, an old prediction that such an event would happen, but the prediction was either forgotten or not believed, so that when several Spanish galleys suddenly made their appearance in Mounts Bay, and landed about two hundred men near Mousehole, the inhabitants were taken by surprise. Before they could arm and defend themselves, the Spaniards effected a landing, began to devastate the country, and set fire to the adjacent houses. "It is false," continued the old man sternly, "to say, as has been said by some, that the men of Mousehole were seized with panic, and that those of Newlyn and Penzance deserted their houses terror-stricken. The truth is, that the suddenness of the attack, and their unprepared condition to repel it, threw the people into temporary confusion, and forced them to retreat, as, all history shows us, the best and bravest will do at times. In Mousehole, the principal inhabitant was killed by a cannon-ball, so that, deprived of their leading spirit at the critical moment when a leader was necessary, it is no wonder that at _first_ the fishermen were driven back by well-armed men trained to act in concert. To fire the houses was the work of a few minutes. The Spaniards then rushed on to Newlyn and Penzance, and fired these places also, after which they returned to their ships, intending to land the next day and renew their work of destruction. "But that night was well spent by the enraged townsmen. They organised themselves as well as they could in the circumstances, and, when day came, attacked the Spaniards with guns and bows, and that so effectively, that the Dons were glad to hoist their sails and run out of the bay. "Well, you must know there was one of the Spaniards, who, it has been said, either from bravado, or vanity, or a desire to insult the English, or from all three motives together, brought a guitar on shore with him at Mousehole, and sang and played to his comrades while they were burning the houses. This man left his guitar with those who were left to guard the boats, and accompanied the others to Penzance. On his return he again took his guitar, and, going up to a high point of the cliff, so that he might be seen by his companions and heard by any of the English who chanced to be in hiding near the place, sang several songs of defiance at the top of his voice, and even went the length of performing a Spanish dance, to the great amusement of his comrades below, who were embarking in their boats. "While the half-crazed Spaniard was going on thus he little knew that, not three yards distant from him, a gigantic Mousehole fisherman, who went by the name of Gurnet, lay concealed among some low bushes, watching his proceedings with an expression of anger on his big stern countenance. When the boats were nearly ready to start the Spaniard descended from the rocky ledge on which he had been performing, intending to rejoin his comrades. He had to pass round the bush where Gurnet lay concealed, and in doing so was for a few seconds hid from his comrades, who immediately forgot him in the bustle of departure, or, if they thought of him at all, each boat's crew imagined, no doubt, that he was with one of the others. "But he never reached the boats. As he passed the bush Gurnet sprang on him like a tiger and seized him round the throat with both hands, choking a shout that was coming up, and causing his eyes to start almost out of his head. Without uttering a word, and only giving now and then a terrible hiss through his clenched teeth, Gurnet pushed the Spaniard before him, keeping carefully out of sight of the beach, and holding him fast by the nape of the neck, so that when he perceived the slightest symptom of a tendency to cry out he had only to press his strong fingers and effectually nip it in the bud. "He led him to a secluded place among the rocks, far beyond earshot of the shore, and there, setting him free, pointed to a flat rock and to his guitar, and hissed, rather than said, in tones that could neither be misunderstood nor gainsaid-- "`There, dance and sing, will 'ee, till 'ee bu'st!' "Gurnet clenched his huge fist as he spoke, and, as the Spaniard grew pale, and hesitated, he shook it close to his face--so close that he tapped the prominent bridge of the man's nose, and hissed again, more fiercely than before-- "`Ye haaf saved bucca, ye mazed totle, that can only frighten women an' child'n, an burn housen; thee'rt fond o' singin' an' dancin'--dance now, will 'ee, ye gurt bufflehead, or ef ye waant I'll scat thee head in jowds, an' send 'ee scrougin' over cliffs, I will.'" In justice to the narrator it is right to say that these words are not so bad as they sound. "The fisherman's look and action were so terrible whilst he poured forth his wrath, which was kept alive by the thought of the smouldering embers of his own cottage, that the Spaniard could not but obey. With a ludicrous compound of fun and terror he began to dance and sing, or rather to leap and wail, while Gurnet stood before him with a look of grim ferocity that never for a moment relaxed. "Whenever the Spaniard stopped from exhaustion Gurnet shouted `Go on,' in a voice of thunder, and the poor man, being thoroughly terrified, went on until he fell to the ground incapable of further exertion. "Up to this point Gurnet had kept saying to himself, `He is fond o' dancin' an' singin', let un have it, then,' but when the poor man fell his heart relented. He picked him up, threw him across his shoulder as if he had been a bolster, and bore him away. At first the men of the place wanted to hang him on the spot, but Gurnet claimed him as his prisoner, and would not allow this. He gave him his liberty, and the poor wretch maintained himself for many a day as a wandering minstrel. At last he managed to get on board of a Spanish vessel, and was never more heard of, but he left his guitar behind him. It was picked up on the shore, where he left it, probably, in his haste to get away. "The truth of this story, of course, I cannot vouch for," concluded Mr Donnithorne, with a smile, "but I have told it to you as nearly as possible in the words in which I have often heard my grandfather give it--and as for the guitar, why, here it is, having been sold to me by a descendant of the man who found it on the seashore." "A wonderful story indeed," said Oliver--"_if true_." "The guitar you must admit is at least a fact," said the old gentleman. Oliver not only admitted this, but said it was a sweet-sounding fact, and was proceeding to comment further on the subject when Mr Donnithorne interrupted him-- "By the way, talking of sweet sounds, have you heard what that gruff-voiced scoundrel Maggot--that roaring bull of Bashan--has been about lately?" "No, I have not," said Oliver, who saw that the old gentleman's ire was rising. "Ha! lad, that man ought to be hanged. He is an arrant knave, a smuggler--a--an ungrateful rascal. Why, sir, you'll scarcely believe it: he has come to me and demanded more money for the jewels which he and his comrade sold me in fair and open bargain, and because I refused, and called him a few well-merited names, he has actually gone and given information against me as possessor of treasure, which of right, so they say, belongs to Government, and last night I had a letter which tells me that the treasure, as they call it, must be delivered up without delay, on pain of I don't know what penalties. Penalties, forsooth! as if I hadn't been punished enough already by the harassing curtain-lectures of my over-scrupulous wife, ever since the unlucky day when the baubles were found, not to mention the uneasy probings of my own conscience, which, to say truth, I had feared was dead altogether owing to the villainous moral atmosphere of this smuggling place, but which I find quite lively and strong yet--a matter of some consolation too, for although I do have a weakness for cheap 'baccy and brandy, being of an economical turn of mind, I don't like the notion of getting rid of my conscience altogether. But, man, 'tis hard to bear!" Poor Mr Donnithorne stopped here, partly owing to shortness of breath, and partly because he had excited himself to a pitch that rendered coherent speech difficult. "Would it not be well at once to relieve your conscience, sir," suggested Oliver respectfully, "by giving up the things that cause it pain? In my profession we always try to get at the root of a disease, and apply our remedies there." "Ha!" exclaimed the old gentleman, wiping his heated brow, "and lose twenty pounds as a sort of fee to Doctor Maggot, who, like other doctors I wot of, created the disease himself, and who will certainly never attempt to alleviate it by returning the fee." "Still, the disease may be cured by the remedy I recommend," said Oliver. "No, man, it can't," cried the old gentleman with a perplexed expression, "because the dirty things are already sold and the money is invested in Botallack shares, to sell which and pay back the cash in the present depressed state of things would be utter madness. But hush! here comes my better half, and although she _is_ a dear good soul, with an unusual amount of wisdom for her size, it would be injudicious to prolong the lectures of the night into the early hours of morning." As he spoke little Mrs Donnithorne's round good-looking face appeared like the rising sun in the doorway, and her cheery voice welcomed Oliver to breakfast. "Thank you, aunt," said Oliver, "but I have already breakfasted more than an hour ago, and am on my way to visit my patients. Indeed, I have to blame myself for calling at so early an hour, and would not have done so but for the irresistible attraction of a newly discovered voice, which--" "Come, come, youngster," interrupted Mr Donnithorne, "be pleased to bear in remembrance that the voice is connected with a pair of capital ears, remarkable for their sharpness, if not their length, and at no great distance off, I warrant." "You do Rose injustice," observed Mrs Donnithorne, as the voice at that moment broke out into a lively carol in the region of the kitchen, whither its owner had gone to superintend culinary matters. "But tell me, Oliver, have you heard of the accident to poor Batten?" "Yes, I saw him yesterday," replied the doctor, "just after the accident happened, and I am anxious about him. I fear, though I am not quite certain, that his eyesight is destroyed." "Dear! dear!--oh, poor man," said Mrs Donnithorne, whose sympathetic heart swelled, while her blue eyes instantly filled with tears. "It is so very sad, Oliver, for his delicate wife and four young children are entirely dependent upon him and his two sons--and they found it difficult enough to make the two ends meet, even when they were all in health; for it is hard times among the miners at present, as you know, Oliver; and now--dear, dear, it is very, _very_ sad." Little Mrs Donnithorne said nothing more at that time, but her mind instantly reverted to a portly basket which she was much in the habit of carrying with her on her frequent visits to the poor and the sick--for the good lady was one of those whose inclinations as well as principles lead them to "consider the poor." It must not be imagined, however, that the poor formed a large class of the community in St. Just. The miners of that district, and indeed all over Cornwall, were, and still are, a self-reliant, independent, hard-working race, and as long as tough thews and sinews, and stout and willing hearts, could accomplish anything, they never failed to wrench a subsistence out of the stubborn rocks which contain the wealth of the land. Begging goes very much against the grain of a Cornishman, and the lowest depth to which he can sink socially, in his own esteem, is that of being dependent on charity. In some cases this sentiment is carried too far, and has degenerated into pride; for, when God in His wisdom sees fit, by means of disabling accident or declining health, to incapacitate a man from labour, it is as honourable in him to receive charity as it is (although not always sufficiently esteemed so) a high privilege and luxury of the more fortunate to give. Worthy Mrs Donnithorne's charities were always bestowed with such delicacy that she managed, in some mysterious way, to make the recipients feel as though they had done her a favour in accepting them. And yet she was not a soft piece of indiscriminating amiability, whose chief delight in giving lay in the sensations which the act created within her own breast. By no means. None knew better than she when and where to give money, and when to give blankets, bread, or tea. She was equally sharp to perceive the spirit that rendered it advisable for her to say, "I want you to do me a favour--there's a good woman now, you won't refuse me, etcetera," and to detect the spirit that called forth the sharp remark, accompanied with a dubious smile and a shake of her fat forefinger, "There now, see that you make better use of it _this_ time, else I shall have to scold you." Having received a message for poor Mrs Batten, the miner's wife, the doctor left the cottage, and proceeded to pay his visits. Let us accompany him. CHAPTER TWELVE. IN WHICH OLIVER GETS "A FALL," AND SEES SOME OF THE SHADOWS OF THE MINER'S LIFE. In crossing a hayfield, Oliver Trembath encountered the tall, bluff figure, and the grave, sedate smile of Mr Cornish, the manager. "Good-morning, doctor," said the old gentleman, extending his hand and giving the youth a grasp worthy of one of the old Cornish giants; "do you know I was thinking, as I saw you leap over the stile, that you would make a pretty fair miner?" "Thanks, sir, for your good opinion of me," said Oliver, with a smile, "but I would rather work above than below ground. Living the half of one's life beyond the reach of sunlight is not conducive to health." "Nevertheless, the miners keep their health pretty well, considering the nature of their work," replied Mr Cornish; "and you must admit that many of them are stout fellows. You would find them so if you got one of their Cornish hugs." "Perhaps," said Oliver, with a modest look, for he had been a noted wrestler at school, "I might give them a pretty fair hug in return, for Cornish blood flows in my veins." "A fig for blood, doctor; it is of no avail without knowledge and practice, as well as muscle. _With_ these, however, I do acknowledge that it makes weight--if by `blood' you mean high spirit." "By the way, how comes it, sir," said Oliver, "that Cornishmen are so much more addicted to wrestling than other Englishmen?" "It were hard to tell, doctor, unless it be that they feel themselves stronger than other Englishmen, and being accustomed to violent exertion more than others, they take greater pleasure in it. Undoubtedly the Greeks introduced it among us, but whether they practised it as we now do cannot be certainly ascertained." Here Mr Cornish entered into an enthusiastic account of the art of wrestling; related many anecdotes of his own prowess in days gone by, and explained the peculiar method of performing the throw by the heel, the toe, and the hip; the heave forward, the back-heave, and the Cornish hug, to all of which the youth listened with deep interest. "I should like much to witness one of your wrestling-matches," he said, when the old gentleman concluded; "for I cannot imagine that any of your peculiar Cornish hugs or twists can be so potent as to overturn a stout fellow who is accustomed to wrestle in another fashion. Can you show me one of the particular grips or twists that are said to be so effective?" "I think I can," replied the old gentleman, with a smile, and a twinkle in his eye; "of course the style of grip and throw will vary according to the size of the man one has to deal with. Give me hold of your wrist, and plant yourself firmly on your legs. Now, you see, you must turn the arm--so, and use your toe--thus, so as to lift your man, and with a sudden twist--there! That's the way to do it!" said the old gentleman, with a chuckle, as he threw Oliver head foremost into the middle of a haycock that lay opportunely near. It is hard to say whether Mr Cornish or Oliver was most surprised at the result of the effort--the one, that so much of his ancient prowess should remain, and the other, that he should have been so easily overthrown by one who, although fully as large a man as himself, had his joints and muscles somewhat stiffened by age. Oliver burst into a fit of laughter on rising, and exclaimed, "Well done, sir! You have effectually convinced me that there is something worth knowing in the Cornish mode of wrestling; although, had I known what you were about to do, it might not perhaps have been done so easily." "I doubt it not," said Mr Cornish with a laugh; "but that shows the value of `science' in such matters. Good-morning, doctor. Hope you'll find your patients getting on well." He waved his hand as he turned off, while Oliver pursued his way to the miners' cottages. The first he entered belonged to a man whose chest was slightly affected for the first time. He was a stout man, about thirty-five years of age, and of temperate habits--took a little beer occasionally, but never exceeded; had a good appetite, but had caught cold frequently in consequence of having to go a considerable distance from the shaft's mouth to the changing-house while exhausted with hard work underground and covered with profuse perspiration. Often he had to do this in wet weather and when bitterly cold winds were blowing--of late he had begun to spit blood. It is necessary here to remind the reader that matters in this respect-- and in reference to the condition of the miner generally--are now much improved. The changing-houses, besides being placed as near to the several shafts as is convenient, are now warmed with fires, and supplied with water-troughs, so that the men have a comfortable place in which to wash themselves on coming "to grass," and find their clothes thoroughly dried when they return in the morning to put them on before going underground. This renders them less liable to catch cold, but of course does not protect them from the evil influences of climbing the ladders, and of bad air. Few men have to undergo such severe toil as the Cornish miner, because of the extreme hardness of the rock with which he has to deal. To be bathed in perspiration, and engaged in almost unremitting and violent muscular exertion during at least eight hours of each day, may be said to be his normal condition. Oliver advised this man to give up underground work for some time, and, having prescribed for him and spoken encouragingly to his wife, left the cottage to continue his rounds. Several cases, more or less similar to the above, followed each other in succession; also one or two cases of slight illness among the children, which caused more alarm to the anxious mothers than there was any occasion for. These latter were quickly but good-naturedly disposed of, and the young doctor generally left a good impression behind him, for he had a hearty, though prompt, manner and a sympathetic spirit. At one cottage he found a young man in the last stage of consumption. He lay on his lowly bed pale and restless--almost wishing for death to relieve him of his pains. His young wife sat by his bedside wiping the perspiration from his brow, while a ruddy-cheeked little boy romped about the room unnoticed--ignorant that the hour was drawing near which would render him fatherless, and his young mother a widow. This young man had been a daring, high-spirited fellow, whose animal spirits led him into many a reckless deed. His complaint had been brought on by racing up the ladders--a blood-vessel had given way, and he had never rallied after. Just as Oliver was leaving him a Wesleyan minister entered the dwelling. "He won't be long with us, doctor, I fear," he said in passing. "Not long, sir," replied Oliver. "His release will be a happy one," said the minister, "for his soul rests on Jesus; but, alas! for his young wife and child." He passed into the sickroom, and the doctor went on. The next case was also a bad one, though different from the preceding. The patient was between forty and fifty years of age, and had been unable to go underground for several years. He was a staid, sober man, and an abstemious liver, but it was evident that his life on earth was drawing to a close. He had been employed chiefly in driving levels, and had worked a great deal in very bad air, where the candles could not be made to burn unless placed nine or ten feet behind the spot where he was at work. Indeed, he often got no fresh air except what was blown to him, and only a puff now and then. When he first went to work in the morning the candle would not keep alight, so that he had to take his coat and beat the air about before going into the level, and, after a time, went in when the candles could be got to burn by holding them on one side, and teasing out the wick very much. This used to create a great deal of smoke, which tended still further to vitiate the air. When he returned "to grass" his saliva used to be as black as ink. About five years before giving up underground work he had had inflammation of the lungs, followed by blood-spitting, which used to come on when he was at work in what he called "poor air," or in "cold-damp," and he had never been well since. Oliver's last visit that day was to the man John Batten; who had exploded a blast-hole in his face the day before. This man dwelt in a cottage in the small hamlet of Botallack, close to the mine of the same name. The room in which the miner lay was very small, and its furniture scanty; nevertheless it was clean and neatly arranged. Everything in and about the place bore evidence of the presence of a thrifty hand. The cotton curtain on the window was thin and worn, but it was well darned, and pure as the driven snow. The two chairs were old, as was also the table, but they were not rickety; it was obvious that they owed their stability to a hand skilled in mending and in patching pieces of things together. Even the squat little stool in the side of the chimney corner displayed a leg, the whiteness of which, compared with the other two, told of attention to small things. There was a peg for everything, and everything seemed to be on its peg. Nothing littered the well-scrubbed floor or defiled the well-brushed hearthstone, and it did not require a second thought on the part of the beholder to ascribe all this to the tidy little middle-aged woman, who, with an expression of deep anxiety on her good-looking countenance, attended to the wants of her injured husband. As Oliver approached the door of this cottage two stout youths, of about sixteen and seventeen respectively, opened it and issued forth. "Good-morning, lads! Going to work, I suppose?" said Oliver. "Iss, sur," replied the elder, a fair-haired ruddy youth, who, like his brother, had not yet sacrificed his colour to the evil influence of the mines; "we do work in the night corps, brother and me. Father is worse to-day, sur." "Sorry to hear that," said the doctor, as he passed them and entered the cottage, while the lads shouldered their tools and walked smartly down the lane that led to Botallack mine. "Your husband is not quite so well to-day, I hear," said the doctor, going to the side of the bed on which the stalwart form of the miner lay. "No, sur," replied the poor woman; "he has much pain in his eyes to-day, but his heart is braave, sur; I never do hear a complaint from he." This was true. The man lay perfectly still, the compressed lip and the perspiration that moistened his face alone giving evidence of the agony he endured. "Do you suffer much?" inquired the doctor, as he undid the bandages which covered the upper part of the man's face. "Iss, sur, I do," was the reply. No more was said, but a low groan escaped the miner when the bandage was removed, and the frightful effects of the accident were exposed to view. With intense anxiety Mrs Batten watched the doctor's countenance, but found no comfort there. A very brief examination was sufficient to convince Oliver that the eyes were utterly destroyed, for the miner had been so close to the hole when it exploded that the orbs were singed by the flame, and portions of unburnt powder had been blown right into them. "Will he see--a _little_, sur?" whispered Mrs Batten. Oliver shook his head. "I fear not," he said in a low tone. "Speak out, doctor," said the miner in firm tones, "I ain't afeard to knaw it." "It would be unkind to deceive you," replied Oliver sadly; "your eyes are destroyed." No word was spoken for a few minutes, but the poor woman knelt by her husband's side, and nestled close to him. Batten raised his large brown hand, which bore the marks and scars of many a year of manly toil, and laid it gently on his wife's head. "I'll never see thee again, Annie," he murmured in a low deep tone; "but I see thee face now, lass, as I _last_ saw it, wi' the smile of an angel on't--an' I'll see it so till the day I die; bless the Lord for that." Mrs Batten rose and went softly but quickly out of the room that she might relieve her bursting heart without distressing her husband, but he knew her too well to doubt the reason of her sudden movement, and a faint smile was on his lips for a moment as he said to Oliver,--"She's gone to weep a bit, sur, and pray. It will do her good, dear lass." "Your loss is a heavy one--very heavy," said Oliver, with hesitation in his tone, for he felt some difficulty in attempting to comfort one in so hopeless a condition. "True, sur, true," replied the man in a tone of cheerful resignation that surprised the doctor, "but it might have been worse; `the Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away, blessed be the name of the Lord!'" Mrs Batten returned in a few minutes, and Oliver left them, after administering as much comfort as he could in the circumstances, but to say truth, although well skilled in alleviating bodily pains, he was incapable of doing much in the way of ministering to the mind diseased. Oliver Trembath was not a medical missionary. His mother, though a good, amiable woman, had been a weak, easy-going creature--one of those good-tempered, listless ladies who may be regarded as human vegetables, who float through life as comfortably as they can, giving as little trouble as possible, and doing as little good as is compatible with the presence of even nominal Christianity. She performed the duties of life in the smallest possible circle, the centre of which was herself, and the extremity of the radii extending to the walls of her garden. She went to church at the regulation hours; "said her prayers" in the regulation tone of voice; gave her charities in the stated way, at stated periods, with a hazy perception as to the objects for which they were given, and an easy indifference as to the success of these objects--the whole end and aim of her wishes being attained in, and her conscience satisfied by, the act of giving. Hence her son Oliver was not much impressed in youth with the power or value of religion, and hence he found himself rather put out when his common sense told him, as it not unfrequently did, that it was his duty sometimes to administer a dose to the mind as well as to the body. But Oliver was not like his mother in any respect. His fire, his energy, his intellectual activity, and his impulsive generosity he inherited from his father. Amiability alone descended to him from his mother--an inheritance, by the way, not to be lightly esteemed, for by it all his other qualities were immeasurably enhanced in value. His heart had beat in sympathy with the mourners he had just left, and his manly disposition made him feel ashamed that the lips which could give advice glibly enough in regard to bandages and physic, and which could speak in cheery, comforting tones when there was hope for his patient, were sealed and absolutely incapable of utterance when death approached or hopeless despair took possession of the sufferer. Oliver had felt something of this even in his student life, when the solemnities of sickness and death were new to him; but it was pressed home upon him with peculiar power, and his manhood was often put to the blush when he was brought into contact with the Wesleyan Methodism of West Cornwall, where multitudes of men and women of all grades drew comfort from the Scriptures as readily and as earnestly as they drew water from their wells--where religion was mingled with everyday and household duties--and where many of the miners and fishermen preached and prayed, and comforted one another with God's Word, as vigorously, as simply, and as naturally as they hewed a livelihood from the rocks or drew sustenance from the sea. CHAPTER THIRTEEN. TREATS OF SPIRITS AND OF SUNDRY SPIRITED MATTERS AND INCIDENTS. One sunny afternoon Mrs Maggot found herself in the happy position of having so thoroughly completed her round of household work that she felt at leisure to sit down and sew, while little Grace sat beside her, near the open door, rocking the cradle. Baby, in blissful unconsciousness of its own existence, lay sound asleep with a thumb in its mouth; the resolute sucking of that thumb having been its most recent act of disobedience. Little Grace was flushed, and rather dishevelled, for it had cost her half an hour's hard wrestling to get baby placed in recumbent somnolence. She now sought to soothe her feelings by tickling the chin of the black kitten--a process to which that active creature submitted with purring satisfaction. "Faither's long of coming hum, mother," said little Grace, looking up. "Iss," replied Mrs Maggot. "D'ee knaw where he is?" inquired Grace. "No, I doan't," replied her mother. It was evident that Mrs Maggot was not in the humour for conversation, so Grace relapsed into silence, and devoted herself to the kitten. "Is that faither?" said Grace, after a few minutes, pointing to the figure of a man who was seen coming over the distant moor or waste land which at that period surrounded the town of St. Just, though the greater part of it is now cultivated fields. "It isn' like un," said Mrs Maggot, shading her eyes with her hand; "sure, it do look like a boatsman." [The men of the coastguard were called "boatsmen" at that time.] "Iss, I do see his cutlash," said little Grace; "and there's another man comin' down road to meet un." "Haste 'ee, Grace," cried Mrs Maggot, leaping up and plucking her last-born out of the cradle, "take the cheeld in to Mrs Penrose, an' bide theer till I send for 'ee--dost a hear?" Plucked thus unceremoniously from gentle slumber to be plunged headlong and without preparation into fierce infantine war, was too much for baby Maggot; he uttered one yell of rage and defiance, which was succeeded by a lull--a sort of pause for the recovery of breath--so prolonged that the obedient Grace had time to fling down the horror-struck Chet, catch baby in her arms, and bear him into the neighbouring cottage before the next roar came forth. The youthful Maggot was at once received into the bosom of the Penrose family, and succeeding yells were smothered by eight out of the sixteen Penroses who chanced to be at home at the time. That Mrs Maggot had a guilty conscience might have been inferred from her future proceedings, which, to one unacquainted with the habits of her husband, would have appeared strange, if not quite unaccountable. When baby was borne off, as related, she seized a small keg, which stood in a corner near the door and smelt strongly of brandy, and, placing it with great care in the vacant cradle, covered it over with blankets. She next rolled a pair of stockings into a ball and tied on it a little frilled night-cap, which she disposed on the pillow, with the face pretty well down, and the back of the head pretty well up, and so judiciously and cleverly covered it with bedclothes that even Maggot himself might have failed to miss his son, or to recognise the outlines of a keg. A bottle half full of brandy, with the cork out, was next placed on the table to account for the odour in the room, and then Mrs Maggot sat down to her sewing, and rocked the cradle gently with her foot, singing a sweet lullaby the while. Ten minutes later, two stout men of the coastguard, armed with cutlasses and pistols, entered the cottage. Mrs Maggot observed that they were also armed with a pick and shovel. "Good-hevenin', missus; how dost do?" said the man who walked foremost, in a hearty voice. "Good-hevenin', Eben Trezise; how are _you_?" said Mrs Maggot. "Braave, thank 'ee," said Trezise; "we've come for a drop o' brandy, missus, havin' heard that you've got some here, an' sure us can smell it--eh?" "Why, iss, we've got wan small drop," said Mrs Maggot, gently arranging the clothes on the cradle, "that the doctor have order for the cheeld. You're welcome to a taste of it, but plaise don't make so much noise, for the poor cheeld's slaipin'." "He'll be smothered, I do think, if you don't turn his head up a bit, missus," said the man; "hows'ever you've no objection to let Jim and me have a look round the place, I dessay?" Mrs Maggot said they were welcome to do as they pleased, if they would only do it quietly for the sake of the "cheeld;" so without more ado they commenced a thorough investigation of the premises, outside and in. Then they went to the smithy, where Mrs Maggot knew her husband had concealed two large kegs of smuggled liquor on the hearth under a heap of ashes and iron debris, but these had been so cleverly, yet carelessly, hidden that the men sat down on the heap under which they lay, to rest and wipe their heated brows after their fruitless search. "Hast 'ee found the brandy?" inquired Mrs Maggot, with a look of innocence, when the two men returned. "Not yet," replied Eben Trezise; "but we've not done. There's a certain shaft near by that has got a bad name for drinkin', missus; p'raps you may have heard on it? Its breath do smell dreadful bad sometimes." Both men laughed at this, and winked to each other, while Mrs Maggot smiled, and, with a look of surprise, vowed that she had not heard of the disreputable shaft referred to. Despite her unconcerned look, however, Mrs Maggot felt anxious, for she was aware that her husband had recently obtained an unusually large quantity of French brandy and tobacco from the Scilly Islands, between which and the coasts of Cornwall smuggling was carried on in a most daring and extensive manner at the time of our story, and she knew that the whole of the smuggled goods lay concealed in one of those numerous disused shafts of old mines which lie scattered thickly over that part of the country. Maggot's absence rendered her position still more perplexing, but she was a woman of ready wit and self-reliance, and she comforted herself with the knowledge that the brandy lay buried far down in the shaft, and that it would take the boatsmen some time to dig to it--that possibly they might give up in despair before reaching it. While the men went off to search for the shaft, and while Mrs Maggot was calmly nursing her spirited little baby, Maggot himself, in company with his bosom friend John Cock, was sauntering slowly homeward along the cliffs near Kenidjack Castle, the ruins of which occupy a bold promontory a little to the north of Cape Cornwall. They had just come in sight of the tin-mine and works which cover Nancharrow valley from the shore to a considerable distance inland, where stand the tall chimneys and engine-houses, the whims and varied machinery of the extensive and prolific old tin-mine named Wheal Owles. The cliffs on which the two men stood are very precipitous and rugged-- rising in some places to a height of about 300 feet above the rocks where the waters of the Atlantic roll dark and deep, fringing the coast with a milky foam that is carried away by the tide in long streaks, to be defiled by the red waters which flow from Nancharrow valley into Porth Ledden Cove. This cove is a small one, with a narrow strip of sand on its shore. At its northern extremity is a deep narrow gorge, into which the waves rush, even in calm weather, with a peculiar sound. In reference to this it is said that the waves "buzz-and-go-in," hence the place has been named Zawn Buzzangein. The sides of the Zawn are about sixty feet high, and quite precipitous. In one part, especially, they overhang their base. It was here that Maggot and his friend stopped on their way home, and turned to look out upon the sea. "No sign o' pilchers yet," observed Maggot, referring to the immense shoals of pilchards which visit the Cornish coasts in the autumn of each year, and form a large portion of the wealth of the county. "Too soon," replied John Cock. "By the way, Jack," said Maggot, "wasn't it hereabouts that the schooner went ashore last winter?" "Iss, 'twor down theer, close by Pullandeese," replied the other, pointing to a deep pool in the rocks round which the swell of the Atlantic broke in white foam. "I was theere myself. I had come down 'bout daylight--before others were stirring, an' sure 'nuff there she lay, on the rocks, bottom up, an' all the crew lost. We seed wan o' them knackin' on the rocks to the north, so we got ropes an' let a man down to fetch un up, but of coorse it was gone dead." "That minds me, Jack," said Maggot, "that I seed a daw's nest here the last time I come along, so lev us go an' stroob that daw's nest." "Thee cusn't do it," said John Cock. Maggot laughed, and said he not only could but would, so he ran down to the neighbouring works and returned with a stout rope, which he fixed firmly to a rock at the edge of the overhanging cliff. We have already said that Maggot was a noted madcap, who stuck at nothing, and appeared to derive positive pleasure from the mere act of putting his life in danger. No human foot could, by climbing, have reached the spot where the nest of the daw, or Cornish chough, was fixed--for the precipice, besides being perpendicular and nearly flat, projected a little near the top, where the nest lay in a crevice overhanging the surf that boiled and raged in Zawn Buzzangein. Indeed, the nest was not visible from the spot where the two men stood, and it could only be seen by going round to the cliffs on the opposite side of the gorge. Without a moment's hesitation Maggot swung himself over the edge of the precipice, merely cautioning his comrade, as he did so, to hold on to the rope and prevent it from slipping. He slid down about two yards, and then found that the rock overhung so much that he was at least six feet off from the crevice in which the young daws nestled comfortably together, and no stretch that he could make with his legs, long though they were, was sufficient to enable him to get on the narrow ledge just below the nest. Several times he tried to gain a footing, and at each effort the juvenile daws--as yet ignorant of the desperate nature of man--opened their little eyes to the utmost in undisguised amazement. For full five minutes Maggot wriggled and the daws gazed, and the anxious comrade above watched the vibrations and jerks of the part of the rope that was visible to him while he listened intently. The bubbles on Zawn Buzzangein, like millions of watery eyes, danced and twinkled sixty feet below, as if in wonder at the object which swung wildly to and fro in mid-air. At last Maggot managed to touch the rock with the extreme point of his toe. A slight push gave him swing sufficient to enable him to give one or two vigorous shoves, by which means he swung close to the side of the cliff. Watching his opportunity, he planted both feet on the narrow ledge before referred to, stretched out his hands, pressed himself flat against the rock, let go the rope, and remained fast, like a fly sticking to a wall. This state of comparative safety he announced to his anxious friend above by exclaiming,--"All right, _John--I've_ got the daws." This statement was, however, not literally true, for it cost him several minutes of slow and careful struggling to enable him so to fix his person as to admit of his hands being used for "stroobing" purposes. At length he gained the object of his ambition, and transferred the horrified daws from their native home to his own warm but unnatural bosom, in which he buttoned them up tight. A qualm now shot through Maggot's heart, for he discovered that in his anxiety to secure the daws he had let go the rope, which hung at a distance of full six feet from him, and, of course, far beyond his reach. "Hullo! John," he cried. "Hullo!" shouted John in reply. "I've got the _daws_," said Maggot, "but I've lost the _rope_!" "Aw! my dear," gasped John; "have 'ee lost th' rope?" It need scarcely be said that poor John Cock was dreadfully alarmed at this, and that he eagerly tendered much useless advice--stretching his neck the while as far as was safe over the cliff. "I say, John," shouted Maggot again. "Hullo!" answered John. "I tell 'ee what: I'm goin' to jump for th' rope. If I do miss th' rope, run thee round to Porth Ledden Cove, an' tak' my shoes weth 'ee; I'll be theere before 'ee." Having made this somewhat bold prediction, Maggot collected all his energies, and sprang from his narrow perch into the air, with arms and hands wildly extended. His effort was well and bravely made, but his position had been too constrained, and his foothold too insecure, to admit of a good jump. He missed the rope, and, with a loud cry, shot like an arrow into the boiling flood below. John Cock heard the cry and the plunge, and stood for nearly a minute gazing in horror into Zawn Buzzangein. Presently he drew a deep sigh of relief, for Maggot made his appearance, manfully buffeting the waves. John watched him with anxiety while he swam out towards the sea, escaped the perpendicular sides of the Zawn, towards which the breakers more than once swept him, doubled the point, and turned in towards the cove. The opposite cliffs of the gorge now shut the swimmer out from John's view, so he drew another deep sigh, and picking up his comrade's shoes, ran round with all his might to Porth Ledden Cove, where, true to his word, having been helped both by wind and tide, Maggot had arrived before him. "Are 'ee safe, my dear man?" was John's first question. "Iss," replied Maggot, shaking himself, "safe enough, an' the daws too, but semmen to me they've gone dead." This was too true. The poor birds had perished in their captor's bosom. CHAPTER FOURTEEN. CONTINUES TO TREAT OF SPIRITS, AND SHOWS THE VALUE OF HOSPITALITY. Having accomplished the feat narrated in the last chapter Maggot proceeded with his friend towards the town. On their way they had to pass the mouth of an old shaft in which both of them chanced to be much interested at that time, inasmuch as it contained the produce of a recent smuggling expedition on a large scale, consisting of nearly a hundred tubs of brandy. The liquor had been successfully brought ashore and concealed in the mine, and that night had been fixed on for its removal. Mules had been provided, and about fifty men were appointed to meet at a certain spot, at a fixed hour, to carry the whole away into the neighbouring towns. Maggot and his comrade began to converse about the subject that was uppermost in their minds, and the former increased his pace, when John Cock drew his attention to the fact that the sun was getting low. "The boys will be mustering now," said John, "an' them theere daws have kep' us late enough already." "They do say that the boatsmen are informed about the toobs," observed Maggot. "More need to look alive," said John. "Hallo!" exclaimed Maggot suddenly; "there's some wan in the shaft!" He pointed to a neighbouring mound of rubbish, on which, just as he spoke, a man made his appearance. Without uttering a word the smugglers sauntered towards the mound, assuming a careless air, as though they were passing that way by chance. On drawing near they recognised Ebenezer Trezise, the coastguard-man. "Good-hevening, sur," said Maggot; "semmen as if you'd found a keenly lode." "Why, iss, we've diskivered a noo vein," said Trezise with a sly smile, "and we're sinkin' a shaft here in the hope o' raisin' tin, or _somethin'_." "Ha! hope you'll let John an' me have a pitch in the noo bal, won't 'ee?" said Maggot with a laugh. "Oh, cer'nly, cer'nly," replied the boatsman; "if you'll lend us a hand to sink the shaft. You appear to have been in the water, and 'twill warm 'ee." "No, thank 'ee," replied Maggot; "I've bin stroobin' a daw's nest under cliff, an' I fell into the say, so I'm goin' hum to dry myself, as I'm afeared o' kitchin' cold, being of a delikit constitootion. But I'll p'raps lend thee a hand afterwards." Maggot nodded as he spoke, and left the place at a slow saunter with his comrade, followed by the thanks and good-wishes of the boatsman, who immediately returned to the laborious task of clearing out the old shaft. "They've got the scent," said Maggot when out of earshot; "but we'll do 'em yet. Whenever thee gets on the leeside o' that hedge, John, do 'ee clap on all sail for Balaswidden, where the boys are waitin', an' tell 'em to be ready for a call. I'll send Zackey, or wan o' the child'n to 'ee." John went off on his errand the moment he was out of sight of the boatsmen, and Maggot walked smartly to his cottage. "Owld ooman," he said, commencing to unbutton his wet garments, "do 'ee git ready a cup o' tay, as fast as you can, lass; we shall have company to-night." "Company!" exclaimed Mrs Maggot in surprise; "what sort o' company?" "Oh! the best, the best," said Maggot with a laugh; "boatsmen no less-- so look sharp. Zackey booy, come here." Zackey put down the unfortunate black kitten (which immediately sought comfort in repose) and obeyed his father's summons, while his mother, knowing that her husband had some plot in his wise head, set about preparing a sumptuous meal, which consisted of bread and butter, tea and fried mackerel, and Cornish pasty. "Zackey, my son," said Maggot while he continued his toilet. "Iss, father." "I want 'ee to come down to the owld shaft with me, an' when I give 'ee the ward cut away as hard as thee legs can spank to Balaswidden, an' fetch the lads that are theere to the owld shaft. They knaw what to do, but tell 'em to make so little noise as they can. Dost a hear, my son?" "Iss, faither," replied Zackey, with a wink of such profound meaning that his sire felt quite satisfied he was equal to the duty assigned him. "Now, doan't 'ee wag tongue more than enough," continued Maggot; "and go play with the chet till I'm ready." The urchin at once descended like a thunderbolt on the black kitten, but that marvellous animal had succeeded in snatching five minutes' repose, which seemed to be amply sufficient to recruit its energies, for it began instantly to play--in other words to worry and scratch the boy's hand--with the utmost glee and good-humour. In a few minutes Maggot and his son went out and hastened to the old shaft, where they found the boatsmen still hard at work with pick and shovel clearing away the rubbish. "You haven't found a bunch o' copper yet, I dessay?" said Maggot with a grin. "No, not yet, but we shan't be long," replied Eben Trezise with a knowing smile. "It's warm work," observed Maggot, as he looked down the hole, and saw that what the boatsman said was true, and that they would not be long of reaching the spot where the liquor had been concealed. Trezise admitted that it _was_ warm work, and paused to wipe his heated brow. "I wish we had a drop o' water here," he said, looking up. "Ha!" exclaimed Maggot; "not much chance o' findin' water in _that_ hole, I do think--no, nor brandy nuther." "Not so sure o' that," said Trezise, resuming his work. "Now, et _is_ a shame to let 'ee die here for want of a drop o' water," said Maggot in a compassionate tone; "I'll send my booy hum for some." The boatsmen thanked him, and Zackey was ordered off to fetch a jug of water; but his father's voice arrested him before he had gone a hundred yards. "Hold on a bit, my son.--P'raps," he said, turning to Trezise, "you'd come up hum with me and have a dish o' tay? Missus have got it all ready." The invitation appeared to gratify the boatsmen, who smiled and winked at each other, as though they thought themselves very clever fellows to have discovered the whereabouts of a hidden treasure, and to be refreshed in the midst of their toil by one whom they knew to be a noted smuggler, and whom they strongly suspected of being concerned in the job they were at that time endeavouring to frustrate. Throwing down their tools they laughingly accepted the invitation, and clambered out of the shaft. "Now's your time," whispered Maggot with a nod to his hopeful son, and then added aloud-- "Cut away, Zackey booy, an' tell mother to get the tay ready. Run, my son, let us knaw what thee legs are made of." "He's a smart lad," observed Trezise, as Zackey gave his father an intelligent look, and dashed away at the top of his speed. "Iss, a clever cheeld," assented Maggot. "Bin down in the mines, I dessay?" said Trezise. "Iss, oh iss; he do knaw tin," replied Maggot with much gravity. In a few minutes the two coastguard-men were seated at Mrs Maggot's well-supplied board, enjoying the most comfortable meal they had eaten for many a day. It was seasoned, too, with such racy talk, abounding in anecdote, from Maggot, and such importunate hospitality on the part of his better half, that the men felt no disposition to cut it short. Little Grace, too, was charmingly attentive, for she, poor child, being utterly ignorant of the double parts which her parents were playing, rejoiced, in the native kindliness of her heart, to see them all so happy. Even the "chet" seemed to enter into the spirit of what was going on, for, regardless of the splendid opportunity that now presented itself of obtaining repose to its heart's content, that black ball of concentrated essence of mischief dashed wildly about the floor and up the bed-curtains, with its back up and its tail thickened, and its green eyes glaring defiance at everything animate, inanimate, or otherwise, insomuch that Maggot made sundry efforts to quell it with the three-legged stool--and Mrs Maggot followed suit with a dish-clout--but in vain! Meanwhile, men and mules and horses were converging by many paths and lanes towards the old shaft, and the shaft itself was apparently endued with the properties of a volcano, for out of its mouth issued a continuous shower of dust and stones, while many stalwart arms laid bare the mine beneath, and tossed up the precious "tubs" of brandy. Before the pleasant little tea-party in Maggot's cottage broke up the whole were scattered abroad, and men and mules and horses sped with their ill-gotten gains across the furze-clad moors. "Sure it's early to break up," said Maggot, when the boatsmen at last rose to take their leave; "there's no fear o' the bunches o' copper melting down there, or flyin' away." "There's no saying," replied Eben Trezise; "you've heerd as well as we of lodes takin' the bit in their teeth an' disappearing--eh?" "Well, iss, so they do sometimes; I'll not keep 'ee longer; good-hevenin' to 'ee," said Maggot, going outside the door and wishing them all manner of success as they returned to the old shaft. Reader, shall we follow the two knowing fellows to that shaft? Shall we mark the bewildered expression of amazement with which they gazed into it, and listen to the wild fiendish laugh of mingled amusement and wrath that bursts from them in fitful explosions as the truth flashes into their unwilling minds? No; vice had triumphed over virtue, and we deem it a kindness to your sensitive nature to draw a veil over the scene of her discomfiture. CHAPTER FIFTEEN. INTRODUCES A STRANGER, DESCRIBES A PICNIC, AND REVEALS SOME SECRETS OF MINING. Somewhere in the vicinity of that magnificent piece of coast scenery in West Cornwall, known by the name of Gurnard's Head, there sauntered, one fine afternoon, a gentleman of tall, commanding aspect. All the parts of this gentleman were, if we may so speak, _prononce_. Everything about him savoured of the superlative degree. His head and face were handsome and large, but their size was not apparent because of the capacity of his broad shoulders and wide chest. His waist was slender, hair curly and very black, only to be excelled by the intense blackness of his eyes. His nose was prominent; mouth large and well shaped; forehead high and broad; whiskers enormous; and nostrils so large as to appear dilated. He was a bony man, a powerful man--also tall and straight, and a little beyond forty. He was to all appearance a hero of romance, and his mind seemed to be filled with romantic thoughts, for he smiled frequently as he gazed around him from the top of the cliffs on the beautiful landscape which lay spread out at his feet. Above him there were wild undulating slopes covered with rich green gorse; below were the cliffs of Gurnard's Cove, with rocky projections that resemble the castellated work of man's hand, and intermingled therewith much of the _materiel_ connected with the pilchard fishery, with masses of masonry so heavy and picturesque as to resemble Nature's handiwork. Beyond lay the blue waters of the Atlantic, which at that time were calm almost as a mill-pond, studded with a hundred sails, and glittering in sunshine. The spot appeared a beautiful solitude, for no living thing was visible save the romantic gentleman and a few seagulls and sheep. The pilchard fishery had not yet commenced, and the three or four fishermen who pitched and repaired their boats on the one little spot of sand that could be seen far below on that rugged coast appeared like mice, and were too far distant to break the feeling of solitude--a feeling which was not a little enhanced by the appearance, on a spot not far distant, of the ruined engine-house of a deserted mine. It was indeed a lovely afternoon, and a beautiful scene--a very misanthrope would have gazed on it with an approach at least to benignity. No wonder that George Augustus Clearemout smiled on it so joyously, and whisked his walking-cane vigorously in the exuberance of his delight. But, strange to say, his smile was always brightest, and the cane flourished most energetically, when he turned his eyes on the ruined mine! He even laughed once or twice, and muttered to himself as he looked at the picturesque object; yet there seemed nothing in its appearance calculated to produce laughter. On the contrary, there were those alive whom the sight of it might have reduced to tears, for, in its brief existence, it had raised uncommonly little tin or copper, although it had succeeded in sinking an immense amount of gold! Nevertheless Mr Clearemout chuckled every time he looked at the ruin, and appeared very much tickled with the thoughts to which it gave rise. "Yes! the very thing! capital!" he muttered to himself, turning again and again to the object of his admiration, "couldn't be better--ha! ha! most suitable; yes, it will do for 'em, probably it will _do_ 'em--do 'em," (he repeated the phrase two or three times with a greater display of white teeth at each utterance of it), "a most superb name--Wheal Do-em--ha! ha! Spell it with two o's to make it look more natural, and ensure correct pronunciation--Wheal Dooem--nothing could be finer, quite candid and above-board--no one can call it a swindle." This last idea caused Mr Clearemout to break into the loudest laugh in which he had hitherto indulged, and he was about to repeat it, when the appearance of a phaeton at a turn of the carriage road reduced him to gravity. The vehicle contained a party of ladies and gentlemen from St. Just, among whom were Rose Ellis, Mrs Donnithorne and her husband, Oliver Trembath, and Mr William Grenfell, a gentleman of property in the neighbourhood. As it approached the spot where Mr Clearemout stood, the horse swerved at a sheep which started out from behind a furze bush, and then backed so rapidly that the hind-wheels were on the point of passing over the edge of the road, when the tall stranger sprang to its head, and led it gently forward. The danger was not great, for the road at the place was elevated little above the sward, but it was sufficiently so to warrant a profusion of thanks from the occupants of the vehicle, and a pressing invitation to Mr Clearemout to join the picnic party then and there assembling. "You see, we're not all here," said Mr Donnithorne, bustling about energetically, as he pulled baskets and bottles from the body of the vehicle, while Oliver assisted the ladies to alight; "there's another machineful coming, but we have lots of grub for all, and will only be too glad of your company, Mr--Mr--what did you say?" "Clearemout," interposed that gentleman, with a bow and a bland smile that quite took Mr Donnithorne by storm. "Ah, yes, glad to have you, Mr Clearemout; why, our necks might all have been broken but for you. Rose, my dear, do look after this basket. There--thanks--how hot it is, to be sure! Mr Clearemout--Mr Grenfell; no introduction--only to let you know his name--my wife-- niece, Rose--Oliver Trembath, and all the rest; there, dispense with ceremony on a picnic always. That's the chief fun of it." While the lively old gentleman ran on thus, and collected the baskets together, Mr Grenfell, who was a tall, gentlemanly man of about sixty, with a grave, aristocratic countenance and polite manner, assured Mr Clearemout that he was happy to make the acquaintance of a man who had rendered them such opportune service, whereupon Mr Clearemout declared himself to be fortunate in being present at such a juncture, and protested that his service was a trifle in itself, although it had led to an introduction which was most gratifying. Then, turning with much urbanity of manner to the ladies, he entered into conversation with them. "Here they come!" shouted old Mr Donnithorne, as another carriage drove up. "The rest of our party," said Mr Grenfell, turning to Mr Clearemout; "friends from St. Just." The carriage stopped as he spoke, and a number of ladies and gentlemen descended therefrom, and mingled their congratulations at the narrow escape which had just been made, with thanks to the dark stranger, and with orders, questions, counter-orders, and explanations innumerable, about baskets to be carried and places to be selected. The picnic, we need scarcely say, very much resembled picnics in general. All were in good spirits--elated with the splendour of the day, the beauty of the views, and the freshness of the sea-breeze that sprang up soon after their arrival. The only one whose feelings were not absolutely unruffled was Oliver Trembath. That youth was afflicted with an unaccountable dislike to the dark stranger which rendered him somewhat uncomfortable. As for the stranger, he made himself extremely agreeable--told anecdotes, sang songs, and became an immaculate waiter on the whole company, handing about plates, glasses, knives, etcetera, etcetera, as deftly as if he were dealing a pack of cards. Above all, he was a good listener, and not only heard other people's stories out to the end, but commented on them as one who had been interested. With all this, he was particularly attentive to Rose Ellis, but so guarded was he that no one noticed the attentions as being peculiar except Rose herself, and Oliver Trembath, who, for the first time in his life, to his great surprise and displeasure, felt the demon of jealousy tormenting his breast. But in the midst of all this, Mr George Augustus Clearemout displayed an insatiable curiosity in regard to mines and miners. Whatever might be the subject of conversation for the time, he invariably took the first opportunity of returning to his favourite theme with one or another of the party, as occasion served. Ashamed of the feelings which troubled him, Oliver Trembath resolved to take the bold and manly step of stifling them, by making himself agreeable to the object of his dislike. Accordingly, he availed himself of an opportunity when the party broke up into groups to saunter about the cliffs, and entered into converse with the stranger on the subject of mines. "You appear to take much interest in mining, I think," said he, as they walked out on the promontory together. "I do indeed," replied Clearemout; "the mines of Cornwall have ever been a subject of deep interest to me, and the miners I regard as a race of men singularly endowed with courage and perseverance." "Your opinion of them is correct," said Oliver. "Have you ever seen them at work?" "No, I have only just arrived in the county, but I hope to visit the mines ere long." "When you do," said Oliver with enthusiasm, "your opinion of them will be strengthened, for their endurance underground, and their perseverance in a species of labour which taxes their muscular power as well as their patience to the uttermost, surpasses anything I have either seen or heard of. England does not fully appreciate, because she is not minutely acquainted with, the endurance and courage of her Cornish miners. The rocks through which they have to cut are so hard and unyielding that men who had not been trained from childhood to subdue them would lose heart altogether at the weight of toil and the small return for it. Sometimes, indeed, miners are fortunate, and here, as elsewhere, lucky hits are made, but for the most part their gains are barely sufficient for their wants; and whether they are lucky or unlucky in that respect, the toil is always hard--so hard that few of them retain health or strength sufficient to go underground beyond the age of forty-five, while hundreds of them find an early grave, owing to disease resulting from their peculiar work, or to accidents. These last are usually occasioned by the bursting out of collections of water which flood the mines, or the fall of masses of timber, or the premature explosion of blast-holes. At other times the men lose hold of the ladders--`fall away' from them, as they express it--or stumble into a winze, which is a small shaft connecting level with level, in which latter case death is almost certain to ensue, many of the winzes being sixty feet deep. In St. Just you will see many poor fellows who have been blinded or maimed in the mines. Nevertheless Cornish miners are a contented, uncomplaining race of men, and Cornwall is justly proud of them." "I am much interested in what you tell me," said Clearemout; "in fact I have come here for the purpose of making inquiry into mines and mining concerns." "Then you will find this to be the very place for you," said Oliver. "My uncle, Mr Donnithorne, and Mr Grenfell, and Mr Cornish are intimately acquainted with mining in all its phases, and will, I am certain, be happy to give you all the information in their power. As to the people of St. Just and its neighbourhood, you will find them most agreeable and hospitable. I can speak from personal experience, although I have only been a short time among them." "I doubt it not," replied Mr Clearemout with a bland smile; "my own limited experience goes far to corroborate what you say, and I hope to have the pleasure of still further testing the truth of your observations." And Mr George Augustus Clearemout did test their truth for several weeks after the picnic. He was received with kindness and hospitality everywhere; he was taken down into the mines by obliging agents, and was invited to several of the periodical business dinners, called "account-dinners," at which he met shareholders in the mines, and had an opportunity of conversing with men of note and wealth from various parts of the county. He dwelt, during his stay, with old Mr Donnithorne, and, much to the surprise if not pleasure of Rose, proved himself to be a proficient on the guitar and a good musician. At length the dark gentleman took his departure for London, whither we shall follow him, and watch his proceedings for a very short time, before returning to the principal scene of our tale. Almost immediately on his arrival in the great city, he betook himself to the West End, and there, in a fashionable square, solicited an interview with an old lady, whose principal noteworthy points were that she had much gold and not much brains. She was a confiding old lady, and had, on a previous occasion, been quite won by the insinuating address of the "charming Mr Clearemout," who had been introduced to her by a noble lord. To this confiding old lady George Augustus painted Cornish mines and mining in the most glowing colours, and recommended her to invest in a mine a portion of her surplus funds. The confiding old lady had no taste for speculation, and was rather partial to the three per cent consols, but George Augustus was so charmingly persuasive that she could not help giving in--so George proposed little plans, and opened up little prospects, and the confiding old lady agreed to all the little plans without paying much regard to the little prospects. After this Mr Clearemout paid another visit in another West End square--this time to a gentleman. The gentleman was young and noble, for Clearemout styled him "My lord." Strange to say he also was of a confiding nature--very much so indeed--and appeared to be even more completely under the influence of George Augustus than the confiding old lady herself. For the benefit of this young gentleman Mr Clearemout painted the same picture in the same glowing colours, which colours seemed to grow warmer as the sun of success rose upon it. He added something about the value of a name, and referred to money as being a matter of small consequence in comparison. The young lord, like the old lady, agreed to everything that was proposed to him, except the proposal to advance money. On that point he was resolute, but Clearemout did not care much about obtaining money from the confiding young gentleman. His name was as good as gold, and would enable him to screw money out of others. After this the dark man paid a visit to several other friends at the West End, all of whom were more or less confiding--some with selfish, others with unselfish, dispositions--but all, without exception, a little weak intellectually. These had the same glowing pictures of a Cornish mine laid before them, and most of them swallowed the bait whole, only one or two being content to nibble. When afternoon began to merge into evening Mr Clearemout paid a last visit for the day--but not in the West End, rather nearer to the City-- to a gentleman somewhat like himself, though less prepossessing, for whose benefit he painted no glowing picture of a mine, but to whom he said, "Come, Jack, I've made a pretty good job of it; let's go and have a chop. If your luck has equalled mine the thing is done, and Wheal Dooem, as I have named the sweet little thing, will be going full swing in a couple of weeks--costing, perhaps, a few hundreds to put it in working order, with a trifle thereafter in the shape of wages to a man and a boy to coal the fire, and keep the thing moving with as much noise as possible to make a show, and leaving a pretty little balance of some twenty or thirty thousand at the credit of the Company, for you and me to enjoy in the meantime--_minus_ a small sum for rent of office, clerk's salary, gas and coal, etcetera, as long as the bubble lasts." Thus did this polite scoundrel go about from house to house getting up a Cornish Mining Company on false pretences (as other polite scoundrels have done before, and doubtless as others will do again), bringing into unmerited disrepute those genuine and grand old mines of Cornwall which have yielded stores of tin and copper, to the enriching of the English nation, ever since those old-world days when the Phoenicians sailed their adventurous barks to the "Cassiterides" in quest of tin. While these things were being done in London, a terrible catastrophe happened in Botallack mine, which threw a dark cloud for some time over more than one lowly cottage in St. Just. CHAPTER SIXTEEN. DESCRIBES "HOLING TO A HOUSE OF WATER" AND ITS TERRIBLE CONSEQUENCES. One morning, about seven o'clock, George and James, the two fair-haired sons of poor John Batten of Botallack, started for their work as usual. They were in high spirits, having obtained a good "pitch" on last setting-day, and things were looking well. They put on their underground clothing at the changing-house, and with several spare candles attached to buttons on the breasts of their coats, and their tools slung over their shoulders, walked towards the head of the ladder-shaft. At the mouth of the shaft they paused for a moment and glanced round. The sky was bright, the landscape green, and the sun lit up many a distant sail on the Atlantic. "I do wish," said the younger with a slight sigh, "that our work was more in the sunshine?" "You'll never be a true miner, Jimmy, if 'ee go hankerin' after the sun like that," said his brother with a laugh, as he stepped on the ladder and began to descend. Jimmy took a last look at the rising sun, and followed him close without replying. The lads were soon beyond the reach of daylight. This was the last they ever saw of earthly sunshine. In a few minutes there came a low soft sound up the shaft; it was the lads singing one of Wesley's beautiful hymns. They had been taught to sing these by their mother from their infancy, and usually beguiled the tedium of the long descent of the ladders by singing one or two of them. Arrived at their place of work the brothers threw down their tools, fixed their candles against the walls of the level, and began the labour of the day. Other men were in that part of the mine at the time, and the brothers found that a message had been sent to one of the captains requesting him to come and examine the place, as the men were becoming uneasy at the increasing flow of water from the walls. One miner, named John Nicols, was "driving an end," that is, extending the level lengthwise, and two others were "stopeing," or cutting up into the roof in pursuit of a promising little lode. They were using hammer and pick in soft ground when the water trickled through to them. It was well known that they were approaching an old part of the mine which had not been worked for thirty years. The drainage of the ground was not, however, accurately known, therefore questions had been put to experienced miners as to the probable condition of this "untapped land." The answer was that, as far as was known, the old mine was full of "deads," that is, of rubbish, and that there was therefore, in all probability, no gathering of water in it. Just at that moment one of the captains entered the level, accompanied by Oliver Trembath. The latter had been called to see a patient near the mine, and chanced to be with the captain when he was summoned. Being anxious to see the place, and the nature of the danger that threatened, he had descended along with him. Before the captain had time to put a question, and while the men were still picking cautiously at the soft ground, the flow of water suddenly increased. Recognising probable danger, a lad named Oats called to his father, who was at the "end" of the level with Nicols. At the same moment the water forced a gap in the wall three feet long by about half a foot wide, and burst in upon them with terrific violence. All turned and fled. Oats and his son, with the captain and Nicols, made for the nearest shaft--which was about eighty yards distant--and escaped, but the brothers Batten and Oliver were thrown down and swept away. One desperate effort was made by Oliver to outstrip the rushing stream; but the candles had been blown out, and, not stooping sufficiently low, he dashed his head against an overhanging rock, and fell. He retained sufficient consciousness, however, to be aware that a desperate struggle for life must be made, and, without knowing what he did, or at what he aimed, he fought with the strength of a giant in thick darkness against the chaotic flood; but his strength soon gave way, and in a few seconds he became insensible. That a terrible catastrophe had occurred was at once known to all the men in the mine by the roar of the rushing water. In order that the reader may clearly understand the situation, it is necessary to explain that the accident occurred in one of the _upper_ levels, at or near its extremity. At the same depth there were many of these underground passages, running in various directions, and several miles in extent, some of them being worked, but most of them old and used up--all the ore having been extracted from them. At various depths below this level other levels had been cut--also running in various directions, and of several miles' extent. These successive levels were not only connected and communicated with by the main shafts of the mine, but by "winzes" or smaller shafts which connected level with level in many places. Some of these were used as ladder-ways, but others had been cut merely for the purpose of securing ventilation. In many parts of these lower levels miners were at work--some, in following the course of promising lodes, "stopeing," or cutting overhead, some cutting downwards, some "driving ends" or extending the levels, and others sinking winzes to keep up the ventilation as they pushed further and further from the shafts or throats, down which flowed the life-giving air. By all of these men the dreaded sounds above--which reached the profounder depths with the muffled but deep-toned roar of a distant storm--were well understood and well heard, for the pent-up waters, in their irresistible fury, carried before them the pent-up atmosphere, and sent it through the low and narrow levels as if through the circling tubes of a monster trumpet, which, mingled with the crash of hurling timbers, rocks, and debris, created a mighty roar that excelled in hideous grandeur the prolonged peals of loud thunder. Every man dropped his tools, and ran to the nearest shaft for his life. It was not, indeed, probable that the flood would fill all the wide-extended ramifications of the vast mine, but no one knew for certain where the catastrophe had occurred, or how near the danger might be to the spot where he laboured. Enough for each that death was dealing terrible destruction somewhere _overhead_, and that, unless every muscle were strained to the uttermost, the pathway might be filled up, and his retreat cut off. The rush was swiftly but not easily made. Those who have never traversed the levels of a Cornish mine may perhaps fancy, on hearing of levels six feet high, and about two and a half feet broad, on the average, that the flight might resemble the rush of men through the windings and turnings of the intricate passages in a stupendous old castle. But it was far otherwise. The roofs, walls, and floors of these levels were irregular, not only in direction, but in height and form. There was no levelling or polishing-off anywhere. It was tunnelling of the roughest kind. Angles and projections remained as the chisel, the pick, and the blasting-powder had left them. Here, the foot tripped over a lump, or plunged into a hollow; there, the head narrowly missed a depending mass of rock, or the shoulder grazed a projecting one. Elsewhere, pools of water lay in the path, and at intervals the yawning chasm of a winze appeared, with one or two broken planks to bridge the gulf, of twenty, forty, or sixty feet, that descended to the levels below. Sometimes it was possible to run with the head stooped a little; generally the back had to be bent low--often double; and occasionally progress could only be made on hands and knees,--this, too, with a candle to be guarded from blasts of air or dripping water, and trimmed, lest it should go out and leave the place in total darkness. But long-continued habit and practice had made the men so familiar with the place, and so nimble in their movements, that they traversed the levels with wonderful rapidity, and most of them ascended the shaft of the mine in safety. Some, however, escaped with the utmost difficulty, and a few there were--chiefly among those who had been near to or immediately below the scene of the outbreak--who perished miserably. At the first rush the water had almost filled the level where it occurred, and, sweeping onward about eight fathoms to a winze, plunged down and partly over it. The greater part, however, went down to the eighty-five fathom level. East of this a man named Anguin, with his two sons, William and James--youths of about twenty years of age--were at work. They heard the roar of the approaching torrent, and the father and younger son James rushed towards the winze, intending to ascend the ladder. Before they reached it the flood was pouring down with deafening noise. The least harmful part of the cataract was the water, for the current now carried along with it stones, pieces of timber, and rubbish. To encounter all this might have caused the stoutest hearts to quail, but miners can never calculate the probable extent of an inundation. They might, indeed, by remaining in the roof of the level, escape; but, on the other hand, if the flood should be great enough to fill the place, they would certainly be drowned. Father and son, therefore, preferred to make a desperate effort to save their lives. They dashed into the flood and made a grasp at the ladder, but before their hands touched the first round they were beaten down and swept away dead corpses. William, on the other hand, climbed to a cross-piece of timber, where he remained until the water abated, which it did in a very short time, for events of this kind are for the most part awfully sudden and brief as well as fatal. Then, descending, he groped his way in the dark over the very spot where his father and brother lay dead--fearfully mutilated and covered with rubbish--and escaped up the shaft. In a still lower level two brothers were at work. Miners usually work in couples--sometimes in larger numbers--and brothers frequently go together. They were in a winze about thirty fathoms from the engine-shaft. Being overtaken by the flood they were washed _down_, to the next level, and along it nearly to the shaft. As the torrent tore past this place, bearing splintered timber, stones, and rubbish along with it, an iron wagon was caught up and flung across the level. This formed a barricade, against which the brothers were dashed. The elder of these brothers was afterwards found alive here, and carried to the surface; but he was speechless, and died twenty minutes after being brought up. When the dead body of the younger and weaker brother was recovered, it was found to be dreadfully shattered, nearly every bone being crushed. In the same level, two men--John Paul and Andrew Teague--hearing the rush of the advancing torrent above their head, made for a shaft, went up it against a heavy fall of water, and escaped. A man named Richard--a powerful man and a cool experienced miner, who had faced death in almost every form--was at work in one of the lowest levels with his son William, a youth of twenty-one, and his nephew, a lad of seventeen, who was the sole support of a widowed mother with six children. They were thirty fathoms from one of the winzes down which the water streamed. On hearing the roar Richard cautioned the younger men to be prompt, but collected. No time was to be lost, but rash haste might prove as fatal as delay. He sent them on in front of him, and they rushed under and past the winze, where they were nearly crushed by the falling water, and where, of course, their candles were extinguished, leaving them in midnight darkness. This last was not so serious a matter to the elder Richard as, at first sight, it might appear. He knew every foot of the ground they had to traverse, with all its turnings, yawning chasms, and plank bridges, and could have led the way blindfold almost as easily as with a light. As they neared the shaft he passed the younger men, and led the way to prevent them falling into it. At this time the water raged round them as high as their waists. The nephew, who was weak, in consequence of a fever from which he had not quite recovered, fell, and, passing the others unobserved, went down the shaft and was lost. The escape of Richard and his son was most wonderful. William was a stout fellow, but the father much more so. They were driven at first into the shaft, but there the fall of water was so great that they could do nothing more than cling to the ladder. By this cataract they were beaten back into the level, but here the water rose around them so quickly and with such force as to oblige them to make another effort to ascend. There was a crevice in the roof of the level here, in which the father had left part of his supply of candles and a tinder-box. He succeeded in reaching these, and in striking a light, which revealed to them the full horrors of their situation. It was with difficulty that the candle could be kept burning by holding it close to the roof under a projecting piece of rock which sheltered it partially from the dashing spray. "Let us try again!" shouted the father. The noise was so great that it was with difficulty they could make each other hear. "It's all over with we," cried the son; "let us pray, faither." The father urged his son, however, to make another effort, as the water had risen nearly to their waists, and prevailed on him to do so, getting on the ladder himself first, in order to bear the brunt of the falling water and thus break its force to his son. As the water below was now rising swiftly William only held the light long enough to enable his father to obtain a secure footing on the ladder, when he dropped it and followed him. So anxious was the youth to escape from the danger that menaced him from below, that he pressed eagerly up against his father. In doing so, he over-reached the rounds of the ladder on which his father trod, and, almost at every step, the latter unwittingly planted his heavy-nailed boots on the son's hands, lacerating them terribly. To avoid this was impossible. So heavy was the descending flood, that it was only his unusually great strength which enabled the father to advance slowly up against it. The son, being partially sheltered by his father's body, knew not the power against which he had to contend, and, being anxious to go up faster, pressed too closely on him, regardless, in his alarm, of the painful consequences. Masses of stone, wood, and rubbish, dashed down the shaft and grazed their shoulders, but providentially none struck them severely. Thus, slowly and painfully, did they ascend to a height of eighty-four feet, and were saved. In another part of the mine, below the level where the accident occurred, James Penrose, whom we have already introduced to the reader, was at work with John Cock. The latter having taken a fancy to try mining for a time instead of smuggling--just by way of a change--had joined the former in working a "pitch" in Botallack mine. These men were peculiarly situated. They were in a level which the water entered, not by flowing along or descending, but, by rising up through a winze. On hearing the noise they ran to this winze, and, looking down, saw the water boiling and roaring far below. They were about to pass on to the shaft when Penrose observed a dark object moving on the ladder. It came slowly up. "Hallo! John," cried Penrose, "stay a bit; here's some one on the ladder." John Cock returned, and they both stooped to afford help. In another moment Oliver Trembath, drenched and bleeding, and covered with mud, stood, or rather reeled, before them. It was evident that he was only half conscious, and scarcely able to stand. But they had no time to speak--scarcely to think--for the water was already boiling up through the winze like a huge fountain, and filling the level. They seized Oliver by the arms and dragged him hastily towards the nearest winze that led upward. Here they found water pouring down like rain, and heard its thunders above them, but the stream was not sufficient to retard their progress up the winze, which they ascended with comparative ease. Penrose and Cock were surprised at this, but the small quantity of water was soon accounted for by the fact that the hatch or trap-door of the winze had been closed; and thus, while it prevented the great body of water above from descending, also effectually shut off the only way of escape. They were therefore compelled to descend again to the level, in which the water was now rising rapidly. Oliver leaned against the rock, and stood in apathetic silence. Penrose tried to rouse him, but failed. His injuries had rendered him almost in capable of coherent speech, and his replies showed that his mind was rambling on the necessity of making haste and struggling hard. James Penrose, who was a "class-leader" and a local preacher among the Wesleyans, and mentally much superior to his comrades, now proved beyond a doubt that his God was to him "a very present help in trouble." Both he and Cock knew, or at least believed, that death was certain to overtake them in a few minutes, for both before and behind retreat was cut off, and the water was increasing with frightful rapidity. Observing that Cock looked anxious, Penrose turned and said earnestly,--"John, you and I shall be dead in a few minutes. "For myself I have no fear, for my peace is already made with God, through Jesus Christ--blessed be His name--but, oh! John, you do know that it is not so with you. Turn, John, turn, even now, to the Lord, who tells you that `though thy sins be as scarlet they shall be as white as snow,' and that `_now_ is the day of salvation,' if you will only repent, and believe on Him!" "Pray for un, James," said Cock, whose face betrayed his fears. Penrose at once clasped his hands, and, closing his eyes, prayed for his comrade with such fervour that his voice rose loud and strong above the turmoil of the flood. He was still engaged in prayer when the water drove them from the level, and compelled them to re-ascend the winze. Here John Cock began to pray for himself in agonising tones. By this time Oliver had partially recovered, and suggested that they should ascend the winze to the top. Penrose assured him that it was useless to do so; but, while he was still speaking, he observed that the water ceased to rise, and began quickly to abate. In fact, all that we have taken so long to describe--from the outburst to the termination of the great rush--took place within half an hour. The noise overhead now grew less and less, until it almost ceased. They then ascended to the trap-door and tried to force it open, but failed. They shouted, however, and were heard, ere long, by those who had escaped and had returned to the mine to search for their less fortunate companions. The trap-door was opened, strong and willing hands were thrust down the dark winze to the rescue, and in a few seconds the three men were saved. The danger was past--but several lives had been lost in the terrible catastrophe. CHAPTER SEVENTEEN. TOUCHES ON THE CAUSES OF ACCIDENTS: OLIVER IN A NEW LIGHT AND HIS UNCLE IN A SAD ONE. That was a sad day in St. Just which followed the event related in the last chapter. Many a heart-broken wail was heard round the mouths of the shafts, as the remains of those who perished were brought to the surface, and conveyed to their former homes. Saddest of all perhaps was the procession that marched slowly to the cottage of blind John Batten, and laid the two fair-haired lads before their stricken parents. Tears were wrung from the strongest men there when they beheld the agonised but tearless mother guide her husband's hand to their faces that he might for the last time feel the loved ones whom, she said in the bitterness of her grief, "he should never see more." "Never see more, dear lass!" he replied with a sad smile, "how can thee say so? Shall we not behold their dear faces again when we see our blessed Lord face to face?" Thus the Christian miner comforted himself and his sorrowing family. It is right to add that such catastrophes are not of frequent occurrence in the mines. The danger of "holing to a house of water," is so great and so well known that the operation is usually conducted with great care, and accident is well guarded against. Nevertheless, an occasional act of carelessness will now and then result in a terrible disaster. A catastrophe, similar in all its chief features to that which has been related in the last chapter, happened in North Levant mine many years ago, and in the burying-ground of the Wesleyan Chapel of St. Just may be seen a tombstone, which bears record of the sad event as follows:-- _Sacred to the memory of_ JAMES, _aged_ 20, _and_ JOHN, _aged_ 15 _years, sons of James and Nanny Thomas of Bollowall, in this Parish, who were drowned (with three others) by the holing to a house of water in North Levant Mine on the first of April_ 1867. A "house" of much larger dimensions, and containing a much greater body of water than that which caused the latest destruction of life in North Levant mine, was cleared of water not long ago in Botallack. The agents knew of its existence, for, the whole region both above and below ground being measured off and planned, they could lay their finger on the exact spot where they knew that an old mine existed. They kept a large borer, six feet long, going constantly before them as they cut their way towards the point of danger. The result was that when the borer at last pierced through to the old mine, there were six feet of solid rock between them and the water. Through the small hole the water flowed, and thus the mine was slowly but safely drained. In the other case, the ground happened to be soft, and had been somewhat recklessly cut away. Of course, there are occasions--proving the truth of the proverb that "accidents will happen in the best regulated families"--in which neither foresight nor precaution can prevent evil; but these are comparatively few. Sometimes the cupidity of a miner will lead him, for the sake of following a rich lode, to approach too near and too recklessly to danger, despite the vigilance of captains, and cause considerable risk to the mine as well as to themselves. Such was the case once long ago at Botallack, when the miners below the sea cut away the rock to within three or four feet of the water, and actually made a small hole through so that they had to plug it up with a piece of wood. This is a fact which we can vouch for, having seen the plug, and heard the boulders rattling loudly over our head with each successive wave; but there is no danger here, because the cutting under the sea is narrow, and the rock solid and intensely hard. Such also was the case, not many years since, at Levant mine, where the men working in the levels under the sea drove upwards until the salt water began to trickle through to them in alarming quantities--insomuch that the other miners struck work, and refused to go again into the mine, unless the workings in that part were stopped, and the place made secure. This was accordingly done, and the men returned to the mine. The danger here was really great, because the cutting that had been made was wide, and the ground overhead comparatively soft. But, to return to our tale. For many days after the catastrophe Oliver Trembath lay in his bed suffering from severe cuts and bruises, as well as from what must have been, as nearly as possible, concussion of the brain, for he had certainly been washed down one of the winzes, although he himself retained only a confused recollection of the events of that terrible day, and could not tell what had befallen him. At length, however, he became convalescent, and a good deal of his old vigour returned. During this period of illness and convalescence Oliver had been constrained by old Mr Donnithorne to take up his abode in his house, and the young doctor could not have experienced more attention and kindness from the old couple if he had been their son. Rose Ellis, too, did her best to cheer him, and, as we need scarcely add, was wonderfully successful in her efforts! It was during this period that Oliver made the acquaintance of a young man of St. Just, named Charles Tregarthen--a congenial spirit--and one who was, besides, a thorough gentleman and an earnest Christian. With this youth he formed a sincere friendship, and although the subject of religion was never obtrusively thrust upon him by young Tregarthen, it entered so obviously into all his thoughts, and shone so clearly in his words and conduct, that Oliver's heart was touched, and he received impressions at that time which never left him. Oliver and his friend were sitting one forenoon in Mr Donnithorne's dining-room, which commanded an extensive view of green fields and grass-covered stone walls, with the beams and machinery of mines on the horizon, and the blue sea beyond. They were planning a short walking tour, which it was thought would be of great benefit to Oliver in that stage of his recovery, when old Mr Donnithorne entered the room with a somewhat perturbed expression of countenance. "How are you, Charlie my boy?" he said. "Oliver, I want to have a few minutes' talk with you in my room on business; I know Charlie will excuse you." "I was on the point of taking leave at any rate," said Tregarthen with a smile, as he grasped Oliver's hand; "think over our plan, like a good fellow; I am sure Mr Donnithorne will approve of it, and I'll look in to-morrow forenoon to hear what decision you come to." "Oliver," said Mr Donnithorne, sitting down opposite the invalid when his friend had left, and frowning portentously, "d'you know I'm a ruined man?" "I trust not, uncle," replied Oliver with an incredulous smile, supposing that the old gentleman was jesting. "Yes, but I am," he repeated with tremendous gravity. "At all events, I shall be ere long. These--these--vile jewels will be the death of me." Having thus broken the ice Mr Donnithorne went on with much volubility of utterance and exasperation of tone to explain that legal proceedings had been instituted for the recovery of the jewels which he had purchased from the fishermen; that things seemed almost certain to go against him; and that in all probability he should be compelled to sell his estate in order to refund the money. "But can you not sell your shares in Botallack and refund with the proceeds?" said Oliver. "No, I cannot," replied the old gentleman. "You know that at present these shares are scarcely saleable except at a ruinous discount, and it would be a pity to part with them just now, seeing that there is some hope of improvement at this time. There is nothing for it but to sell my estate, and I don't think there will be enough left to buy butter to my bread after this unhappy affair is settled, for it amounts to some thousands of pounds." "Indeed, uncle! how comes it that they found out the value of them?" "Oh, simply enough, Oliver, but strangely too. You must know that Maggot, the scoundrel (and yet not such a scoundrel either, for the fellow informed on me in a passion, without having any idea of the severity of the consequences that would follow),--Maggot, it seems, kept the cloth belt in which the jewels were found tied round the owner's waist, and there happened to be a piece of parchment sewed up in the folds of it, in which the number and value of the jewels were enumerated. This belt was ferreted out by the lawyers, and the result is that, as I said before, I shall be a ruined man. Verily," added Mr Donnithorne, with a look of vexation, as he stumped up and down the room with his hands thrust deep into his breeches pockets, "verily, my wife was a true prophetess when she told me that my sin would be sure to find me out, and that honesty was the best policy. 'Pon my conscience, I'm half inclined to haul down my colours and let her manage me after all!" "I am much concerned at what you tell me," said Oliver, "and I regret now very deeply that the few hundreds which I possessed when I came here--and which you know are all my fortune--have also been invested in Botallack shares, for they should have been heartily at your service, uncle." "Don't trouble yourself about your hundreds, lad," said the old gentleman testily; "I didn't come here to ask assistance from you in that way, but to tell you the facts of the case, and ask you to do me the favour to carry a letter to my lawyer in Penzance, and inquire into the condition of a mine I have something to do with there--a somewhat singular mine, which I think will surprise as well as interest you; will you do this, for me, lad?" "Most willingly," replied Oliver. "You heard my friend Charlie Tregarthen speak of our intention to go on a walking tour for a couple of days; now, if you have no objection, he and I will set off together without delay, and make Penzance our goal, going round by the Land's End and the coast." "So be it, Oliver, and don't hurry yourselves, for the business will wait well enough for a day or two. But take care of yourself, lad; don't go swimming off the Land's End again, and above all things avoid smugglers. The scoundrels! they have been the ruin of me, Oliver. Not bad fellows in their way either, but unprincipled characters-- desperately regardless of the national laws; and--and--keep clear of 'em, I advise you strongly--have nothing to do with 'em, Oliver, my son." So saying the old gentleman left the room, shaking his head with profound gravity. CHAPTER EIGHTEEN. TELLS OF KING ARTHUR AND OTHER MORE OR LESS FABULOUS MATTERS. Next day Oliver Trembath and his friend Charles Tregarthen, before the sun had mounted his own height above the horizon, were on their way to the Land's End. The young men were admirably suited to each other. Both were well educated, and possessed similar tastes, though their temperaments were dissimilar, and both were strong athletic youths--Oliver's superiority in this latter respect being at that time counterbalanced by his recent illness, which reduced him nearly to a level with his less robust companion. Their converse was general and desultory until they reached the Land's End, on the point of which they had resolved to breakfast. "Now, Oliver, we have purchased an appetite," said Tregarthen, throwing down a wallet in which he carried some provisions; "let us to work." "Stay, Charlie, not here," said Oliver; "let us get out on the point, where we shall have a better view of the cliffs on either side of the Land's End. I love a wide, unobstructed view." "As you will, Oliver; I leave you to select our table, but I pray you to remember that however steady your head may have been in days of yore when you scaled the Scottish mountains, the rough reception it has met with in our Cornish mines has given it a shake that renders caution necessary." "Pshaw! Charlie, don't talk to me of caution, as if I were a timid old woman." "Nay, then, I talk of it because you are _not_ a timid old woman, but a reckless young man who seems bent on committing suicide. Yonder is a grassy spot which I think will suit you well." He pointed to a level patch of sward on the neck of land that connects the outlying and rugged promontory which forms the extreme Land's End with the cliffs of the mainland. Here they spread their meal, and from this point they could see the cliffs and bays of the iron-bound shore extending on the one hand towards Cape Cornwall, and on the other towards that most romantic part of the coast known by the somewhat curious name of Tolpedenpenwith, where rocks and caverns are found in such fantastic fashion that the spot has become justly celebrated for picturesque grandeur. At their feet, far below, the great waves (caused by the swell, for there was no wind) boomed in solemn majesty, encircling the cliffs with a lace-work of foam, while on the horizon the Scilly Islands could be seen shimmering faintly. A bright sun shone on the unruffled sea, and hundreds of ships and boats lay becalmed on its breast. "'Tis a splendid scene!" said Oliver, sitting down beside his friend. "It is indeed, and reminds me of the sea of glass before the great white throne that we read of in Revelation. It is difficult to imagine or to believe that the peaceful water before us, lying between this spot and the Scilly Islands yonder, was once a land full of verdure and life--yet such tradition tells us was the case." "You mean, I suppose, the fabled land of Lionesse?" said Oliver. "Yes; you have heard the story of its destruction, I suppose?" "Not I," said Oliver, "so if you have a mind to tell it me while I satisfy the cravings of an unusually sharp appetite I'll consider you a most obliging fellow. Pass me the knuckle of ham--thanks--and the bread; now go ahead." "'Tis a romantic story," said Tregarthen. "All the better," replied Oliver. "And terrible," added Tregarthen. "It won't spoil my appetite," said his friend. "Well, then, I'll tell it--to the best of my ability." The youth then began the following legend, pausing ever and anon during the narration to swallow a piece of bread or a mouthful of cold tea, which constituted the principal elements of their frugal meal. "You must know that, once upon a time, long, long ago, in those ancient days before Norman or Dane had invaded this land, while Britain still belonged to the British, and King Arthur held his court in Tintagel's halls, there was a goodly land, named Lethowsow or the Lionesse, extending a distance of thirty miles between this cape and yonder shadowy islets which seem to float like cirrus clouds on the horizon. It is said that this land of Lionesse was rich and fertile, supporting many hundreds of families, with large flocks and herds. There were no fewer than forty churches upon it, from which it follows that there must have been a considerable population of well-doing people there. "About the time of the events which I am going to narrate, King Arthur's reign was drawing to a close. Treason had thinned the ranks of the once united and famous knights of the Round Table. It is true that Sir Kaye, the seneschal, remained true, and Sir Ector de Mans, and Sir Caradoc, and Sir Tristram, and Sir Lancelot of the Lake, of whom it was said that `he was the kindest man that ever struck with sword; and he was the goodliest person that ever rode among the throng of knights; and he was the meekest man, and the gentlest, that did ever eat in hall among ladies; and he was the sternest knight to his mortal foe that ever laid lance in rest.' But many seats at the Round Table that once were filled by brave warriors had become empty, and among these, that of Prince Mordred, who, it was rumoured, meant to declare open war against his royal cousin and benefactor. "One night King Arthur sat at the Round Table in Tintagel Castle with his knights gathered round him, and Queen Guenever with her maidens by his side. At the beginning of the feast the king's brow was clouded, for, although there was no lack of merriment or song, there was a want of the free-hearted courtesy and confidence of former days. Still the semblance of unabated good-fellowship was kept up, and the evening passed in gaiety until its close, when the king rose to retire. Taking in his hand a golden cup to pledge his guests, he was about to drink, when a shudder passed through his frame, and he cast the goblet away, exclaiming, `It is not wine, but blood! My father Merlin is among us, and there is evil in the coming days. Break we up our court, my peers! It is no time for feasting, but rather for fasting and for prayer.' "The king glanced with a dark frown at the chair of his kinsman Mordred, but it was not empty! A strange, indistinct, shadowy form rested on it. It had no human shape, but a dreadful outline of something unearthly. Awe-struck and silent, the company at once broke up. "On the following day, news of Mordred's revolt arrived at Tintagel Castle, and day after day fresh rumours reached it of foes flocking in numbers to the rebel standard. The army increased as it advanced, but, strange to say, King Arthur showed no disposition to sally forth and meet the traitor. It seemed as if his brave heart had quailed at last, and his good sword Excalibur had lost its magic virtue. Some thought that he doubted the fidelity of those who still remained around him. But, whatever the cause might have been, King Arthur made no preparation, and indicated no feeling or intention. He lay still in his castle until the rebels had approached to the very gates. There was something terrible in this mysterious silence of the king, which had a tendency to overawe the rebels as they drew near, and remembered that they were about to match themselves against warriors who had grown old in fellowship with victory. "When the main body of the invaders appeared, the great bell of the fortress at last rang out a stirring peal, and before the barbican the trumpets sounded to horse. King Arthur then with his knights and men-at-arms, the best warriors of Britain, arose and sallied forth to fight in their last battle. "Next evening a broken band of horsemen alone remained to tell of the death of their king and the destruction of all their hopes. They numbered several hundreds, but their hacked armour, jaded steeds, and gaping wounds told that they were unfit to offer battle to any foe. They were in full flight, bearing a torn banner, still wet with the blood of King Arthur; yet they fled unwillingly, as men who were unused to retreat, and scarce knew how to comport them in the novel circumstances. Their course was in the direction of the Lionesse, the tract of country called in the Cornish tongue Lethowsow. On they dashed, without uttering a word, over the bleak moors before them. Sometimes they halted to drink at a spring or tighten their girths, and occasionally a man fell behind from sheer exhaustion. At night they encamped, after a hard ride of thirty miles. Next morning the flight was resumed, but the vindictive Mordred still thundered on in pursuit. Ere long they heard a trumpet sounding in their rear, and King Arthur's men halted for a few minutes, with the half-formed design of facing the foe and selling their lives dearly. While they paused in gloomy irresolution, gazing sternly on the advancing host, whose arms flashed back the rays of the morning sun, a mist rose up between them and their foes. It was a strange shadowy mist, without distinct form, yet not without resemblance to something ghostly. The knights at once recognised it as the shade of Merlin, the Great Wizard! Slowly the cloud uprose between the pursuers and pursued, effectually protecting the latter; nevertheless, although baffled, the former did not give up the chase. "At last Mordred reached a lofty slope, from the top of which he descried his enemies retreating across the land of Lionesse. Mad with rage, he descended to the plain, where soft sunlight shone through luxuriant glades and across the green pastures, gladdening the hearts of man and beast. Nature was all peaceful, and gloriously beautiful, but Mordred's eyes saw it not, his heart felt not the sweet influences. The bitterness induced by hatred and an evil conscience reigned within, as he urged his steed furiously onward. "Suddenly a terrible change occurred in the atmosphere, which became oppressively sultry and horrible, while low muttering thunders were heard, and heavings of the earth felt. At the same time the cloud gradually condensed in front of Mordred, and, assuming a distinct form, stood before him in the person of Merlin the Wizard. For a few seconds they stood face to face, frowning on each other in awful silence. Then Merlin raised his arm, and immediately the thunders and confused mutterings increased, until the earth began to undulate and rend as if the foundations of the world were destroyed. Great fissures appeared, and the rocks welled up like the waves of the sea. With a cry of agony the pursuers turned to fly. But it was too late. Already the earth was rent into fragments; it upheaved convulsively for a few seconds; then sank beneath the level of the deep, and the ocean rushed wildly over the land, leaving nothing behind to mark the spot where land had been, save the peaked and barren rocks you see before you, with the surge beating continually around them." "A most extraordinary tale, truly," said Oliver. "Do you believe it has any foundation?" "I believe not the supernatural parts of it, of course," replied Tregarthen; "but there is _something_ in the fact that the land of Cornwall has unquestionably given up part of its soil to the sea. You are aware, I suppose, that St. Michael's Mount, the most beautiful and prominent object in Mounts Bay, has been described as `a hoare rock in a wood,' about six miles from the sea, although it now stands in the bay; and this idea of a sunken land is borne out by the unquestionable fact that if we dig down a few feet into the sand of the shore near Penzance, we shall come on a black vegetable mould, full of woodland _detritus_, such as branches, leaves of coppice wood, and nuts, together with carbonised roots and trunks of forest trees of larger growth; and these have been found as far out as the lowest tide would permit men to dig! In addition to this, portions of land have been overwhelmed by the sea near Penzance, in the memory of men now alive." "Hum!" said Oliver, stretching out his huge limbs like a giant basking in the sunshine, "I dare say you are correct in your suppositions, but I do not profess to be an antiquary, so that I won't dispute the subject with you. At the same time, I may observe that it does seem to me as if there were a screw loose somewhere in the historical part of your narrative, for methinks I have read, heard, or dreamt, that King Arthur was Mordred's uncle, not his cousin, and that Mordred was slain, and that the king was the victor, at the fatal field of Camelford, although the victory was purchased dearly--Arthur having been mortally wounded and carried back to Tintagel to die there. But, of course, I won't pretend to doubt the truth of your narrative because of such trifling discrepancies. As to the encroachment of the sea on the Cornish coast, and the evidences thereof in Mounts Bay, I raise no objection thereto, but I cannot help thinking that we want stronger proof of the existence of the land of Lionesse." "Why, Oliver," said Tregarthen, laughing, "you began by saying that you would not dispute the subject with me, and in two minutes you have said enough to have justified a regular attack on my part, had I been so disposed. However, we have a long road before us, so I must protest against a passage of arms just now." Having finished breakfast, the two friends proceeded along the coast a few miles to Tolpedenpenwith. Here, in the midst of the finest scenery on the coast, they spent the greater part of the day, and then proceeded to Penberth Cove, intending to secure a lodging for the night, order supper, and, while that was in preparation, pay a visit to the famous Logan Rock. Penberth Cove is one of the prettiest little vales in the west of Cornwall. It is enriched with groups of trees and picturesque cottages, and possesses a luxuriant growth of shrubs and underwood, that almost conceals from view the streamlet, which is the chief cause of its fertility. There were also, at the time we write of, one or two houses which, although not public inns, were open for the entertainment of travellers in a semi-private fashion. Here, therefore, our excursionists determined to put up for the night, with the widow of a fisherman who had perished in a storm while engaged in the herring fishery off the Irish coast. This good woman's chief physical characteristic was rotundity, and her prominent mental attribute good-humour. She at once received the gentlemen hospitably, and promised to prepare supper for them while they went to visit the far-famed Logan or Logging Rock, which lay in the vicinity. This rock is one of those freaks of nature which furnish food for antiquaries, points of interest to strangers, and occupation to guides. Every one who goes to the Land's End must needs visit the Logan Rock, if he would "do" the country properly; and if our book were a "Guide to Cornwall," we should feel bound to describe it with much particularity, referring to its size, form, weight, and rocking quality, besides enlarging on the memorable incident in its career, when a wild officer of the navy displaced it from its pivot by means of seamen and crowbars, and was thereafter ordered to replace it (a herculean task, which he accomplished at great cost) on pain of we know not what penalties. But, as we make no pretensions to the important office of a guide, we pass this lion by, with the remark that Oliver and his friend visited it and rocked it, and then went back to Penberth Cove to sup on pilchards, after which followed a chat, then bed, sound sleep, daybreak and breakfast, and, finally, the road to Penzance, with bright sunshine, light hearts, and the music of a hundred larks ringing in the sky. CHAPTER NINETEEN. SMALL TALK AND SOME ACCOUNT OF CORNISH FAIRIES. "What a splendid country for a painter of cliffs!" observed Oliver, as the friends walked briskly along; "I wonder much that our artists do not visit it more frequently." "Perhaps they find metal more attractive nearer home," replied Tregarthen; "all the world has not fallen so violently in love with furze-clad moorland and rugged sea-cliffs as you seem to have done. Besides, the country is somewhat remote. Mayhap when a railway runs into it, which will doubtless be the case before many years pass by, we shall see knights of the brush pitching their white tents on the Land's End; meanwhile we have a few promising young men of our own who bid fair to rival the great Opie himself. You have heard of him, of course?" "I have heard of him indeed, and seen some of his works, but I'm ashamed to confess that, having left Cornwall when very young, and been a dweller in the far north of the kingdom ever since, I have only known the facts that he was a celebrated Cornish artist, and became the President of the Royal Academy. Can you tell me anything of his personal history?" "Not much, but I can give you a brief outline of his career. John Opie was the son of a carpenter of St. Agnes, near Truro, and was discovered and extracted, like a `bunch' of rich ore, from the midst of the tin-mines, by Dr Wolcot--who was celebrated under the name of Peter Pindar. The doctor first observed and appreciated Opie's talent, and, resolving to bring him into notice, wrote about him until he became celebrated as the `Cornish Wonder.' He also introduced people of note to the artist's studio in London, many of whom sat for their portraits. These gave so much satisfaction that the reputation of the `Cornish Wonder' spread far and wide, and orders came pouring in upon him, insomuch that he became a rich man and a Royal Academician, and ultimately President of the Academy. He married an authoress, and his remains were deposited in St. Paul's Cathedral, near to those of Sir Joshua Reynolds. I have heard my grandfather say that he met him once in the town of Helston, and he described him as somewhat rough and unpolished, but a sterling, kind-hearted man." "Did he paint landscape at all?" inquired Oliver. "Not much, I believe. He devoted himself chiefly to portraits." "Well, now," said Oliver, looking round him; "it strikes me that this is just the country for a landscape painter. There is nowhere else such fine cliff scenery, and the wild moors, which remind me much of Scotland, are worthy of being sketched by an able brush." "People have curiously different opinions in reference to the moors which you admire so much," said Tregarthen. "A clergyman who lived and wrote not very long ago, came to Cornwall in search of the picturesque, and he was so disappointed with what he termed a barren, desolate region, that he stopped suddenly on the road between Launceston and Bodmin, and turned his back on Cornwall for ever. As might be expected, such a man gave a very false idea of the country. On the other hand, a more recent writer, commenting on the first, speaks of his delight-- after having grown somewhat tired of the almost too rich and over-cultivated scenery of Kent--on coming to what he styled `a sombre apparition of the desert in a corner of green England,' and dwells with enthusiasm on `these solitudes, and hills crowned with rugged rocks, classical heaths and savage ravines, possessing a character of desolate grandeur.' But this writer did more. He travelled through the country, and discovered that it possessed other and not less beautiful features; that there were richly clothed vales and beautiful rivulets, cultivated fields and prolific gardens, in close proximity to our grand cliffs and moors." "He might have added," said Oliver, "that plants and flowers flourish in the open air here, and attain to a size, and luxuriance which are rare in other parts of England. Why, I have seen myrtles, laurels, fuchsias, pomegranates, and hortensias forming hedges and growing on the windows and walls of many houses. To my mind Cornwall is one of the finest counties in England--of which Flora herself has reason to be proud, and in which fairies as well as giants might dwell with much delight." "Spoken like a true Cornishman!" said Tregarthen, laughing; "and in regard to the fairies I may tell you that we are not without a few of them, although giants confessedly preponderate." "Indeed!" said Oliver; "pray whereabouts do they dwell?" "You have heard of the Gump, I suppose?" "What! the barren plain near Carn Kenidjack, to the north of St. Just?" "The same. Well, this is said to be a celebrated haunt of the pixies, who have often led benighted travellers astray, and shown them wonderful sights. Of course one never meets with any individual who has actually seen them, but I have frequently met with those who have assured me they had known others who had conversed with persons who had seen fairies. One old man, in particular, I have heard of, who was quite convinced of the reality of a fairy scene which he once witnessed. "This old fellow was crossing the Gump one evening, by one of the numerous paths which intersect it. It was summer-time. The sun had gone down beyond the sea-line, and the golden mists of evening were merging into the quiet grey that hung over the Atlantic. Not a breath of wind passed over land or sea. To the northward Chun Castle stood darkly on the summit of the neighbouring hill, and the cromlech loomed huge and mysterious; southward were traces of mystic circles and upright stones, and other of those inexplicable pieces of antiquity which are usually saddled on the overladen shoulders of the Druids. Everything, in fact--in the scene, the season, and the weather--contributed to fill the mind of the old man with romantic musings as he wended his way over the barren moor. Suddenly there arose on the air a sound of sweet, soft music, like the gentle breathings of an Aeolian harp. He stopped and gazed around with looks of mingled curiosity and surprise, but could see nothing unusual. The mysterious sounds continued, and a feeling of alarm stole over him, for twilight was deepening, and home was still far distant. He attempted to advance, but the music had such a charm for him that he could not quit the spot, so he turned aside to discover, if possible, whence it came. Presently he came to a spot where the turf was smoother and greener than elsewhere, and here the most wonderful and enchanting scene met his gaze. Fairies innumerable were before him; real live fairies, and no mistake. Lying down on the grass, the old man crept cautiously towards them, and watched their proceedings with deep interest. They were evidently engaged in the pleasant occupation of holding a fair. There were stalls, tastefully laid out and decorated with garlands of flowers. On these were spread most temptingly all the little articles of fairy costume. To be sure the said costume was very scanty, and to all appearance more picturesque than useful; nevertheless there was great variety. Some wore heath-bells jauntily stuck on their heads; some were helmeted with golden blossoms of the furze, and looked warlike; others had nothing but their own luxuriant hair to cover them. A few of the lady fairies struck the old man as being remarkably beautiful, and one of these, who wore an inverted tulip for a skirt, with a small forget-me-not in her golden hair, seemed to him the very picture of what his old Molly had been fifty years before. It was particularly noticeable that the stalls were chiefly patronised by the fairy fair sex, with the exception of one or two which were much frequented by the men. At these latter, articles were sold which marvellously resembled cigars and brandy, and the old man declared that he saw them smoke the former, and that he smelt the latter; but as he had himself been indulging a little that evening in smuggled spirits and tobacco, we must regard this as a somewhat ungenerous statement on his part, for it is ridiculous to suppose that fairies could be such senseless creatures as to smoke or drink! They danced and sang, however, and it was observed that one young man, with a yellow night-cap and a bad cold, was particularly conspicuous for his anxiety to be permitted to sing. "The music was naturally the great attraction of the evening. It consisted of a large band, and although some of the performers used instruments made of reeds, and straws, and other hollow substances, cut into various forms and lengths, most of them had noses which served the purpose of musical instruments admirably. Indeed, the leader of the band had a prolongation of the nose so like to a flesh-coloured clarionet, that it might easily have been mistaken for the real thing, and on this he discoursed the most seraphic music. Another fairy beside him had a much longer nose, which he used as a trombone with great effect. This fellow was quite a character, and played with such tremendous energy that, on more than one occasion, he brought on a fit of sneezing, which of course interrupted the music, and put the clarionet in a passion. A stout old misshapen gnome, or some such creature, with an enormous head, served for the big drum. Four fairies held him down, and a fifth belaboured his head with a drumstick. It sounded wonderfully hollow, and convinced the old man that it was destitute of brains, and not subject to headache. "All the time that the old man gazed at them, troops of fairies continued to arrive, some on the backs of bats, from which they slipped as they whirred past; others descending, apparently, on moonbeams. The old man even fancied that he saw one attempting to descend by a starbeam, which, being apparently too weak to support his weight, broke, and let him down with a crash into the midst of a party who were very busy round a refreshment stall, where a liberal supply of mountain dew was being served out; but the old man never felt quite sure upon this point, for, at sight of the mountain dew, he felt so thirsty that he determined to taste it. Fixing his eyes on the stall, he suddenly threw his hat into the midst of the party, and made a dash at it; but, to his intense disappointment, the vision was instantly dispelled, and nothing was to be seen on the spot but a few snails creeping over the wet grass, and gossamer threads bespangled with dewdrops." "A very pretty little vision," exclaimed Oliver, "and not the first that has been prematurely dispelled by too ardent a pursuit of strong drink! And now, Charlie, as you appear to be in the vein, and we have still some distance to go, will you tell me something about the giants, and how it came to pass that they were so fond of roaming about Cornwall?" "Their fondness for it, Oliver, must be ascribed to the same cause as your own--just because it is a lovable place," said Tregarthen; "moreover, being a thinly-peopled county, they were probably not much disturbed in their enjoyment of it. To recount their surprising deeds would require a longer space of time than is just now at our disposal, but you have only to look round, in passing through the country, to understand what a mighty race of men they were. There are `giants' quoits,' as you know, without end, some of which have the marks of the fingers and thumbs with which they grasped them. Their strength may be estimated by the fact that one of these quoits is no less than forty feet long and twenty wide, and weighs some hundreds of tons. It would puzzle even your strong arm to toss such a quoit! One of these giants was a very notable fellow. He was named `Wrath,' and is said to have been in the habit of quenching his thirst at the Holy Well under St. Agnes's Beacon, where the marks of his hands, made in the solid granite while he stooped to drink, may still be seen. This rascal, who was well named, is said to have compelled poor St. Agnes, in revenge for her refusing to listen to his addresses, to carry in her apron to the top of Beacon Hill the pile of stones which lies there. But here we are at Penzance, so we shall have done with fiction for the present, and revert to matters of fact. You have business with a lawyer, I believe, and I have business for a short time with a friend. Let us appoint a time and place of meeting." "What say you to the Wherry Mine at two o'clock?" said Oliver. "It is probable that my business will be concluded by that time, when we can go and see this mine together. My uncle seems to set great store by it, because of an old prophecy to the effect that some day or other it will enrich somebody!" "Why, that prophecy has been fulfilled long ago," said Tregarthen, with a laugh. "The mine was a bold undertaking, and at one time paid well, but I fear it won't do so again. However, let us meet there; so farewell, old boy, till two." CHAPTER TWENTY. THE MINE IN THE SEA. True to their appointment, young Tregarthen and Oliver Trembath met at the western end of the town of Penzance, close to the sea-beach, where a mass of buildings and a chimney indicated the position of the Wherry Mine. Oliver's countenance betrayed anxiety as he came forward. "Nothing wrong, I hope?" said Tregarthen. "Well, I can't say exactly that things are wrong; but, at the same time, I don't know that they are altogether right." "Much the same thing," said Tregarthen, smiling; "come, Oliver, unbosom yourself, as novelists say. It will do you good, and two heads, you know, are better than one." "It's not easy to unbosom myself, old fellow," returned Oliver, with a troubled look; "for my poor uncle's affairs are in a perplexed condition, and I hate explanations, especially when I don't understand the nature of what I attempt to explain, so we'll not talk about it, please, till after our visit to the mine. Let it suffice to say that that notorious smuggler Jim Cuttance is concerned in it, and that we must go to Newlyn this afternoon on a piece of business which I shall afterwards disclose. Meanwhile, where is this mine?" "Lift up your eyes and behold," said Tregarthen, pointing to an object which was surrounded by the sea, and stood above two hundred yards from the beach. "What! that martello-tower-like object?" exclaimed Oliver in much surprise. "Even so," replied Tregarthen, who thereupon proceeded to give his friend a history and description of the mine--of which the following is the substance:-- At the western extremity of the sea-beach at Penzance there is a reef of sunken rocks which shows its black crest above water at low tide. It was discovered that this reef contained tin, and the people of the town attacked it with hammers and chisels, when each receding tide left it exposed, as long as the seasons would permit, until the depth became unmanageable. After having been excavated a few fathoms the work was abandoned. Fortunately for the progress of this world there exist a few enterprising men whom nothing can discourage, who seem to be spurred on by opposition, and to gather additional vigour and resolution from increasing difficulties. These men are not numerous, but the world is seldom without a few of them; and one made his appearance in Penzance about the end of last century, in the person of a poor miner named Thomas Curtis. This man conceived the bold design of sinking a shaft through this water-covered rock, and thus creating a mine not only _under_, but _in_ the sea. With the energy peculiar to his class he set to work. The distance of the rock from the beach was about two hundred and forty yards; the depth of water above it at spring tides about nineteen feet. Being exposed to the open sea, a considerable surf is raised on it at times by the prevailing winds, even in summer; while in winter the sea bursts over with such force as to render all operations on it impossible. That Curtis was a man of no common force of character is obvious from the fact that, apart from the difficulties of the undertaking, he could not expect to derive any profit whatever from his labour for several years. As the work could only be carried on during the short period of time in which the rock was above water, and part of this brief period must necessarily be consumed each tide in pumping out the water in the excavation, it of course progressed slowly. Three summers were consumed in sinking the pump-shaft. After this a framework, or caisson, of stout timber and boards, was built round the mouth of the shaft, and rendered watertight with pitch and oakum. It rose to a height of about twelve feet above the surface of the sea, and was strengthened and supported by stout bars, or buttresses of timber. A platform was placed on the top, and a windlass, at which four men could work, was fixed thereon. This erection was connected with the shore by a stage or "wherry" erected on piles. The water was cleared out; the men went "underground," and, with the sea rolling over their heads, and lashing wildly round the turret which was their only safeguard from terrible and instant destruction, they hewed daily from the submarine rock a considerable portion of tin. These first workers, however, had committed an error in carrying on their operations too near the surface, so that water permeated freely through the rock, and the risk of the pressure above being too great, for it rendered the introduction of immense supporting timbers necessary. The water, too, forced its way through the shaft during the winter months, so that the regular working of the mine could not be carried on except in summer; nevertheless, this short interval was sufficient to enable the projector to raise so much ore that his mine got the reputation of being a profitable adventure, and it was wrought successfully for many years. About the end of the century the depth of the pump-shaft was about four fathoms, and the roof had been cut away to the thinness of three feet in some places. Twelve men were employed for two hours at the windlass in hauling the water, while six others were "teaming" from the bottom into the pump. When sufficient water had been cleared away the men laboured at the rock for six hours--in all, eight hours at a time. The prolific nature of the mine may be gathered from the fact that in the space of six months ten men, working about one tenth of that time--less than three weeks--broke about 600 pounds worth of ore. During one summer 3,000 pounds worth of tin was raised! A steam-engine was ultimately attached to the works, and the mine was sunk to a depth of sixteen fathoms, but the expense of working it at length became so great that it was abandoned--not, however, before ore to the amount of 70,000 pounds had been raised from under the sea! At the time of our tale another effort had been made to work the Wherry Mine, and great expectations had been raised, but these expectations were being disappointed. Our unfortunate friend Mr Donnithorne was among the number of those who had cause to regret having ventured to invest in the undertaking, and it was to make inquiries in regard to certain unfavourable rumours touching the mine that Oliver Trembath had been sent to Penzance. After inspecting Wherry Mine the two friends walked along the shore together, and Oliver explained the nature of the difficulties in which his uncle was involved. "The fact is, Charlie," he said, "an old fish-purchaser of Newlyn named Hitchin is one of the principal shareholders in this concern. He is as rich, they say, as Croesus, and if we could only prevail on him to be amiable the thing might be carried on for some time longer with every hope of a favourable result, for there can be no doubt whatever that there is plenty of tin in the mine yet, and the getting of it out is only a question of time and capital." "A pretty serious question--as most speculators find," said Tregarthen, laughing; "you appear to think lightly of it." "Well, I don't pretend to know much about such matters," replied Oliver, "but whatever may be the truth of the case, old Hitchin refuses to come forward. He says that he is low in funds just now, which nobody seems to believe, and that he owes an immense sum of money to Jim Cuttance, the smuggler, for what, of course, he will not tell, but we can have no difficulty in guessing. He says that Cuttance is pressing him just now, and that, therefore, he cannot afford to advance anything on the mine. This being the case it must go down, and, if it does, one of the last few gleams of prosperity that remain to my poor uncle will have fluttered away. This must be prevented, if possible, and it is with that end in view that I purpose going to Newlyn this afternoon to see Hitchin and bring my persuasive powers to bear on him." "H'm, not of much use, I fear," said Tregarthen. "Hitchin is a tough old rascal, with a hard heart and a miserly disposition. However, it may be worth while to make the attempt, for you have a very oily tongue, Oliver." "And you have an extremely impudent one, Charlie. But can you tell me at what time the mackerel boats may be expected this evening, for it seems the old fellow is not often to be found at home during the day, and we shall be pretty sure to find him on the beach when the boats arrive?" Thus appealed to, Tregarthen cast a long look at the sea and sky. "Well, I should say, considering the state of the tide and the threatening appearance of the sky, we may expect to see them at six o'clock, or thereabouts." "That leaves us nearly a couple of hours to spare; how shall we spend it?" said Oliver. "Go and have a look at this fine old town," suggested Tregarthen. "It is worth going over, I assure you. Besides the town hall, market, museum, etcetera, there are, from many points of the surrounding eminences, most superb views of the town and bay with our noble St. Michael's Mount. The view from some of the heights has been said by some visitors to equal that of the far-famed Bay of Naples itself." "Part of this I have already seen," said Oliver, "the rest I hope to live to see, but in the meantime tin is uppermost in my mind; so if you have no objection I should like to have a look at the tin-smelting works. What say you?" "Agreed, by all means," cried Tregarthen; "poor indeed would be the spirit of the Cornishman who did not feel an interest in tin!" CHAPTER TWENTY ONE. TREATS OF TIN-SMELTING AND OTHER MATTERS. There is something grand in the progress of a mechanical process, from its commencement to its termination. Especially is this the case in the production of metals, nearly every step in the course of which is marked by the hard, unyielding spirit of _vis inertiae_ on the one hand, and the tremendous power of intelligence, machinery, and manual dexterity on the other. Take, for example, the progress of a mass of tin from Botallack. Watch yonder stalwart miner at work, deep in the bowels of the mine. Slowly, with powerful blows, he bores a hole in the hard rock. After one, two, or three hours of incessant toil, it is ready for the powder. It is charged; the match is applied; the man takes shelter behind a projection; the mass is rent from its ancient bed, and the miner goes off to lunch while the smoke is clearing away. He returns to his work at length, coughing, and rubbing his eyes, for smoke still lingers there, unable, it would seem, to find its way out; and no wonder, lost as it is in intricate ramifications at the depth of about one thousand five hundred feet below the green grass! He finds but a small piece of ore--perhaps it is twice the size of his head, it may be much larger, but, in any case, it is an apparently poor return for the labour expended. He adds it, however, to the pile at his side, and when that is sufficiently large fills a little iron wagon, and sends it up "to grass" through the shaft, by means of the iron "kibble." Here the large pieces of ore are broken into smaller ones by a man with a hammer; as far as the inexperienced eye can distinguish he might be breaking ordinary stones to repair the road! These are then taken to the "stamps." Those who have delicate nerves would do well to keep as far as possible from the stamps of a tin-mine! Enormous hammers or pounders they are, with shanks as well as heads of malleable-iron, each weighing, shank and head together, seven hundredweight. They are fearful things, these stamps; iron in spirit as well as in body, for they go on for ever-- night and day--wrought by a steam-engine of one hundred horse-power, as enduring as themselves. The stamps are so arranged as to be self-feeders, by means of huge wooden troughs with sloping bottoms, into which the ore is thrown in quantities sufficient to keep them constantly at work without requiring much or constant attendance. Small streams of water trickle over the ore to keep it slowly sliding down towards the jaws, where the stamps thunder up and down alternately. A dread power of pounding have they, truly; and woe be to the toe that should chance to get beneath them! The rock they have to deal with is, as we have said, uncommonly hard, and it enters the insatiable mouth of the stamps about the size of a man's fist, on the average, but it comes out from these iron jaws so exceeding fine as to be incapable of thickening the stream of reddish-yellow water that carries it away. The colour of the stream is the result of iron, with which the tin is mingled. The particles of tin are indeed set free by the stamps from solid bondage, but they are so fine as to be scarcely visible, and so commingled with other substances, such as iron, copper, sulphur, etcetera, that a tedious process of separation has yet to be undergone before the bright metal can be seen or handled. At the present time the stream containing it is poured continuously on several huge wooden tables. These tables are each slightly raised in the centre where the stream falls, so that all the water runs off, leaving the various substances it contains deposited on the table, and these substances are spread over it regularly, while being deposited, by revolving washers or brushes. Tin, being the heaviest of all the ingredients contained in the stream, falls at once to the bottom, and is therefore, deposited on the head or centre of the table; iron, being a shade lighter, is found to lodge in a circle beyond; while all other substances are either spread over the outer rim or washed entirely away. When the tables are full--that is, coated with what appears to be an earthy substance up wards of a foot in depth--the rich tin in the centre is carefully cut out with shovels and placed in tubs, while the rest is rewashed in order that the tin still mingled with it may be captured--a process involving much difficulty, for tin is so very little heavier than iron that the lighter particles can scarcely be separated even after repeated and careful washings. In old times the tin was collected in large pits, whence it was transferred to the hands of balmaidens (or mine-girls) to be washed by them in wooden troughs called "frames," which somewhat resembled a billiard table in form. Indeed, the frames are still largely employed in the mines, but these and the modern table perform exactly the same office--they wash the refuse from the tin. Being finally cleansed from all its impurities, our mass of tin bears more resemblance to brown snuff than to metal. An ignorant man would suppose it to be an ordinary earthy substance, until he took some of it in his hand and felt its weight. It contains, however, comparatively little foreign substance. About seventy per cent of it is pure tin, but this seventy per cent is still locked up in the tight embrace of thirty per cent, of refuse, from which nothing but intense fire can set it free. At this point in the process, our mass of tin leaves the rough hand of the miner. In former days it was divided among the shareholders in this form--each receiving, instead of cash, so many sacks of tin ore, according to the number of his shares or "doles," and carrying it off on mule or horse back from the mine, to be smelted where or by whom he pleased. But whether treated in this way, or, as in the present day, sold by the manager at the market value, it all comes at last to the tin-smelter, whose further proceedings we shall now follow, in company with Oliver and his friend. The agent of the smelting company--a stout, intelligent man, who evidently did "knaw tin"--conducted them first to the furnaces, in the neighbourhood of which were ranged a number of large wooden troughs or bins, all more or less filled with tin ore. The ore got from different mines, he said, differed in quality, as well as in the percentage of tin which it contained. Some had much iron mixed with it, in spite of all the washings it had undergone; some had a little copper and other substances; while some was very pure. By mixing the tin of different mines, better metal could be procured than by simply smelting the produce of each mine separately. Pointing to one of the bins, about three yards square, he told them it contained tin worth 1,000 pounds. There was a large quantity of black sand in one of the bins, which, the agent said, was got by the process of "streaming." It is the richest and best kind of tin ore, and used to be procured in large quantities in Cornwall--especially in ancient times--being found near the surface, but, as a matter of course, not much of that is to be found now, the land having been turned over three times in search of it. This black sand is now imported in large quantities from Singapore. The agent then conducted his visitors to the testing-house, where he showed them the process of testing the various qualities of tin ore offered, to the House for sale. First he weighed out twenty parts of the ore, which, as we have said, resembled snuff. This, he remarked, contained about five-sixths of pure tin, the remaining one-sixth being dross. He mixed it with four parts of fine coal dust, or culm, and added a little borax--these last ingredients being intended to expedite the smelting process. This compound was put into a crucible, and subjected to the intense heat of a small furnace for about twenty minutes. At the end of that time, the agent seized the crucible with a pair of tongs, poured the metal into an iron mould, and threw away the dross. The little mass of tin thus produced was about four inches long, by half an inch broad, and of a dull bluish-grey colour. It was then put into an iron ladle and melted, as one would melt lead when about to cast bullets, but it was particularly noteworthy here, that a very slight heat was required. To extract the metal from the tin ore, a fierce heat, long applied, was necessary, but a slight heat, continued for a few minutes, sufficed to melt the metal. This remelted metal was poured into a stone mould, where it lay like a bright little pool of liquid silver. In a few seconds it solidified, retaining its clear purity in all its parts. "That," said the agent, "is tin of the very best quality. We sell it chiefly to dyers, who use it for colouring purposes, and for whom no tin but the best is of any use. I will now show you two other qualities-- namely, second and inferior." He went to a small cupboard as he spoke, and took therefrom a small piece of tin which had already gone through the smelting process in the crucible above described. Melting this in the ladle, he poured it into the mould, where it lay for a few moments, quite bright and pure, but the instant it solidified, a slight dimness clouded its centre. "That," explained the agent, "is caused by a little copper which they have failed to extract from the tin. Such tin would not do for the dyers, but it is good for the tin-plate makers, who, by dipping thin sheets of iron into molten tin, produce the well-known tin-plates of which our pot-lids and pans, etcetera, are manufactured. This last bit, gentlemen," he added, taking a third piece of tin from the cupboard, "is our worst quality." Having melted it, he poured it into the mould, where it assumed a dull, half-solid appearance, as if it were a liquid only half frozen--or, if you prefer it, a solid in a half molten state. "This is only fit to mix with copper and make brass," said the agent, throwing down the mould. "We test the tin ore twice--once to find out the quantity of metal it contains, and again to ascertain its quality. The latter process you have seen--the former is just the same, with this difference, that I am much more careful in weighing, measuring, etcetera. Every particle of dross I would have collected and carefully separated from any metal it might contain; the whole should then have been reweighed, and its reduction in the smelting process ascertained. Thus, if twenty parts had been the weight of tin ore, the result might perhaps have been fourteen parts of metal and six parts of dross. And now, gentlemen, having explained to you the testing process, if you will follow me, I will show you the opening of one of our furnaces. The smelting-furnace just shows the testing process on a large scale. Into this furnace, six hours ago," he said, pointing to a brick erection in the building to which he led them, "we threw a large quantity of tin ore, mingled with a certain proportion of culm. It is smelted and ready to be run off now." Here he gave an order to a sturdy man, who, with brawny arms bared to the shoulders, stood close at hand. He was begrimed and hairy--like a very Vulcan. Seizing an iron poker, Vulcan probed the orifice of the furnace, and forthwith there ran out a stream of liquid fire, which was caught in an iron bowl nearly four feet in diameter. The intense heat of this pool caused the visitors to step back a few paces, and the ruddy glow shone with a fierce glare on the swart, frowning countenance of Vulcan, who appeared to take a stern delight in braving it. Oliver's attention was at once attracted to this man, for he felt convinced that he had seen his face before, but it was not until he had taxed his memory for several minutes that the scene of his adventure with the smugglers near the Land's End flashed upon him, when he at once recognised him as the man named Joe Tonkin, who had threatened his life in the cavern. From a peculiar look that the man gave him, he saw that he also was recognised. Oliver took no further notice of him at the time, however, but turned to watch the flow of the molten tin. When the iron cauldron was almost full, "slag," or molten refuse began to flow and cover the top of the metal. The hole was immediately plugged up by Vulcan, and the furnace cleared out for the reception of another supply of ore. The surface of the tin was now cleared of slag, after which it was ladled into moulds and allowed to cool. This was the first process completed; but the tin was still full of impurities, and had to undergo another melting and stirring in a huge cauldron. This latter was a severe and protracted operation, which Vulcan performed with tremendous power and energy. In reference to this, it may interest the reader to mention a valuable discovery which was the result of laziness! A man who was employed in a tin-smelting establishment at this laborious work of stirring the molten metal in order to purify it, accidentally discovered that a piece of green wood dropped into it had the effect of causing it to bubble as if it were boiling. To ease himself of some of his toil, he availed himself of the discovery, and, by stirring the metal with a piece of green wood, caused such a commotion that the end in view was accomplished much more effectually and speedily than by the old process. The lazy man's plan, we need scarcely add, is now universally adopted. The last operation was to run the metal into moulds with the smelter's name on them, and these ingots, being of portable size, were ready for sale. While the agent was busily engaged in explaining to Charles Tregarthen some portions of the work, Oliver stepped aside and accosted Joe Tonkin. "So, friend," he said, with a smile, "it seems that smuggling is not your only business?" "No, sur, it ain't," replied Joe, with a grin. "I'm a jack-of-all-trades--a smelter, as you do see, an' a miner _also_, when it suits me." "I'm glad to hear it, my man, for it gives you a chance of coming in contact with better men than smugglers--although I'm free to confess that there _is_ some good among them too. I don't forget that your comrade Jim Cuttance hauled me out of the sea. Where is he?" "Don't knaw, sur," replied Tonkin, with an angry frown; "he and I don't pull well together. We've parted now." Oliver glanced at the man, and as he observed his stern, proud expression of face, and his huge, powerful frame, he came to the conclusion that Cuttance had met a man of equal power and force of character with himself, and was glad to get rid of him. "But I have not gi'n up smuggling," added the man, with a smile. "It do pay pretty well, and is more hearty-like than this sort o' thing." "I'd advise you to fall back on mining," said Oliver. "It is hard work, I know, but it is honest labour, and as far as I have seen, there does not appear to be a more free, hearty, and independent race under the sun than Cornish miners." Joe Tonkin shook his head and smiled dubiously. "You do think so, sur, but you haven't tried it. I don't like it. It don't suit me, it don't. No, no; there's nothin' like a good boat and the open sea." "Things are looking a little better at Botallack just now, Joe," said Oliver, after a pause. "I'd strongly advise you to try it again." The man remained silent for a few minutes, then he said,--"Well, Mr Trembath, I don't mind if I do. I'm tired o' this work, and as my time is up this very day, I'll go over to-morrow and see 'bout it. There's a man at Newlyn as I've got somethin' to say to; I'll go see him to-night, and then--" "Come along, Oliver," shouted Tregarthen at that moment; "it's time to go." Oliver bade Tonkin good-afternoon, and, turning hastily away, followed his friend. The two proceeded arm in arm up Market-Jew Street, and turning down towards the shore, walked briskly along in the direction of the picturesque fishing village of Newlyn, which lies little more than a mile to the westward of Penzance. CHAPTER TWENTY TWO. SHOWS HOW OLIVER AND HIS FRIEND WENT TO NEWLYN AND SAW THE MACKEREL MARKET, AND FOUND SOME DIFFICULTIES AND MYSTERIES AWAITING THEM THERE. The beach opposite Newlyn presented a busy scene when Oliver Trembath and his friend Charlie Tregarthen reached it. Although the zenith of the season was over, mackerel fishing was still going on there in full vigour, and immense crowds of men, women, and children covered the sands. The village lies on the heights above, and crowds of people were leaning over the iron rails which guard the unwary or unsteady passenger from falling into the sea below. A steep causeway connects the main street above with the shore beneath; and up and down it horses, carts, and people were hurrying continuously. True, there was not at that time quite as much bustle as may be witnessed there at the present day. The railway has penetrated these remote regions of the west, and now men work with a degree of feverish haste that was unknown then. While hundreds of little boats (tenders to the large ones) crowd in on the beach, auctioneers with long heavy boots wade knee-deep into the water, followed and surrounded by purchasers, and, ringing a bell as each boat comes in, shout,--"Now, then, five hundred, more or less, in this boat; who bids? Twenty shillings a hundred for five hundred--twenty shillings--say nineteen--I'm bid nineteen--nineteen-and-six--say nineteen-an--twenty--twenty shillings I'm bid--say twenty-one--shall I make it twenty-one shillings for any person?" etcetera. The bells and voices of these auctioneers, loud though they be, are mild compared with the shouts of men, women, and children, as the fish are packed in baskets, with hot haste, to be in time for the train; and horses with laden carts gallop away over the sands at furious speed, while others come dashing back for more fish. And there is need for all this furious haste, for trains, like time and tide, wait for no man, and prices vary according to trains. Just before the starting of one, you will hear the auctioneers put the fish up at 20 shillings, 25 shillings, and even 30 shillings a hundred, and in the next half-hour, after the train is gone, and no chance remains of any more of the fish being got into the London market by the following morning, the price suddenly falls to 8 shillings a hundred, sometimes even less. There is need for haste, too, because the quantity of fish is very great, for there are sometimes two hundred boats at anchor in the bay, each with four thousand fish on the average, which must all be washed and packed in four or five hours. Yes, the old days cannot be compared with the present times, when, between the months of April and June, the three hundred boats of Mounts Bay will land little short of three thousand tons of mackerel, and the railway, for the mere carriage of these to London, Manchester, Birmingham, etcetera, will clear above 20,000 pounds! Nevertheless, the busy, bustling, hearty nature of the scene on Newlyn beach in days of yore was not so very different as one might suppose from that of the present time. The men were not less energetic then than now; the women were not less eager; the children were quite as wild and mischievous, and the bustle and noise apparently, if not really, as great. "What interests you?" asked Charlie Tregarthen, observing that his companion gazed pointedly at some object in the midst of the crowd. "That old woman," said Oliver; "see how demurely she sits on yonder upturned basket, knitting with all her might." "In the midst of chaos," observed Tregarthen, laughing; "and she looks as placidly indifferent to the noise around her as if it were only the murmuring of a summer breeze, although there are two boys yelling at her very ear at this moment." "Perhaps she's deaf," suggested Oliver. Tregarthen said he thought this highly probable, and the two remained silent for some time, watching, from an elevated position on the road leading down to the sands, the ever-changing and amusing scene below. Talk of a pantomime, indeed! No Christmas pantomime ever got up in the great metropolis was half so amusing or so grand as that summer pantomime that was performed daily on Newlyn sands, with admission to all parts of the house--the stage included--for nothing! The scenery was painted with gorgeous splendour by nature, and embraced the picturesque village of Newlyn, with its irregular gables, variously tinted roofs, and whitewashed fronts; the little pier with its modest harbour, perfectly dry because of the tide being out, but which, even if the tide had been in, and itself full to overflowing, could not apparently have held more than a dozen of the larger fishing-boats; the calm bay crowded with boats of all sizes, their brown and yellow sails reflected in the clear water, and each boat resting on its own image. On the far-off horizon might be seen the Lizard Point and the open sea, over which hung red and lurid clouds, which betokened the approach of a storm, although, at the time, all nature was quiet and peaceful. Yes, the scenery was admirably painted, and nothing could exceed the perfection of the acting. It was so _very_ true to nature! Right in front of the spot where the two friends stood, a fisherman sat astride of an upturned basket, enjoying a cup of tea which had been brought to him by a little girl who sat on another upturned basket at his side, gazing with a pleased expression into his rugged countenance, one cheek of which was distended with a preposterously large bite of bread and butter. The great Mathews himself never acted his part so well. What admirable devotion to the one engrossing object in hand! What a perfect and convincing display of a hearty appetite! What obvious unconsciousness of being looked at, and what a genuine and sudden burst of indignation when, owing to a touch of carelessness, he capsized the cup, and poured the precious tea upon the thirsty sand. At the distance from which Oliver and his friend observed him, no words were audible, but none were necessary. The man's acting was so perfect that they knew he was scolding the little girl for the deed which he himself had perpetrated. Then there was something peculiarly touching in the way in which he suddenly broke into a short laugh, and patted the child's head while she wiped out the cup, and refilled it from the little brown broken-nosed teapot hitherto concealed under her ragged shawl to keep it warm. No wizard was needed to tell, however, that this was quite an unnecessary piece of carefulness on the little girl's part, for any brown teapot in the world, possessing the smallest amount of feeling, would have instantly made hot and strong tea out of cold water on being pressed against the bosom of that sunny child! Just beyond this couple, three tired men, in blue flannel shirts, long boots, and sou'-westers, grouped themselves round a bundle of straw to enjoy a pipe: one stretched himself almost at full length on it, in lazy nonchalance; another sat down on it, and, resting his elbows on his knees, gazed pensively at his pipe as he filled it; while the third thrust his hands into his pockets, and stood for a few seconds with a grand bend at the small of his back (as if he felt that his muscles worked easily), and gazed out to sea. The greatest of the old masters could have painted nothing finer. Away to the right, an old man might be seen tying up the lid of a basket full of fish beside his cart, and dividing his attention between the basket and the horse, which latter, much to his surprise, was unwontedly restive that evening, and required an unusual number of cautions to remain still, and of threats as to the punishment that would follow continued disobedience, all of which afforded the most intense and unutterable delight to a very small precocious boy, who, standing concealed on the off side of the animal, tickled its ear with a straw every time it bent its head towards the bundle of hay which lay at its feet. No clown or pantaloon was there to inflict condign punishment, because none was needed. A brother carter standing by performed the part, extempore. His eye suddenly lit on the culprit; his whip sprang into the air and descended on the urchin's breech. Horror-struck, his mouth opened responsive to the crack, and a yell came forth that rose high above the surrounding din, while his little legs carried him away over the sands like a ragged leaf driven before the wind. To the left of this scene (and ignorant of it, for the stage was so large, the actors were so numerous, and the play so grand, that few could do more than attend to their own part) a cripple might be seen with a crutch hopping actively about. He was a young man; had lost his leg, by an accident probably, and was looking about for a cast-away fish for his own supper. He soon found one. Whether it was that one had been dropped accidentally, or that some generous-hearted fish-dealer had dropped one on purpose, we cannot tell, but he did get one--a large fat one, too--and hobbled away as quickly as he could, evidently rejoicing. The cripple was not the only one who crossed the stage thus lightly burdened. There were several halt and maimed, and some blind and aged ones there, whose desires in regard to piscatorial wealth extended only to one, or perhaps two, and they all got what they wanted. That was sufficient for the evening's supper--for the morrow there was no need to care; they could return to get a fresh supply evening after evening for many a day to come, for it was a splendid mackerel season--such as had not been for many years--so said the sages of the village. There were other groups, and other incidents that would have drawn laughter as well as tears from sympathetic hearts, but we must forbear. The play was long of being acted out--it was no common play; besides, it is time for _our_ actors to come upon the stage themselves. "I see old Hitchin," exclaimed Oliver Trembath, starting suddenly out of a reverie, and pointing into the thickest of the crowd. "How can you tell? you don't know him," said his companion. "Know him! Of course I do; who could fail to know him after the graphic description the lawyer gave of him? See--look yonder, beside the cart with the big man in it arranging baskets. D'you see?" "Which? the one painted green, and a scraggy horse with a bag hanging to its nose?" "No, no; a little further to the left, man--the one with the broken rail and the high-spirited horse. There, there he is! a thin, dried-up, wrinkled, old shabby--" "Ah! that's the man," exclaimed Tregarthen, laughing. "Come along, and let's try to keep our eyes on him, for there is nothing so difficult as finding any one in a crowd." The difficulty referred to was speedily illustrated by the fact that the two friends threaded their way to the spot where the cart had stood, and found not only that it was gone, but that Hitchin had also moved away, and although they pushed through the crowd for more than a quarter of an hour they failed to find him. As they were wandering about thus, they observed a very tall broad-shouldered man talking earnestly in undertones to a sailor-like fellow who was still broader across the shoulders, but not quite so tall. It is probable that Oliver would have paid no attention to them, had not the name of Hitchin struck his ear. Glancing round at the men he observed that the taller of the two was Joe Tonkin, and the other his friend of the Land's End, the famous Jim Cuttance. Oliver plucked his companion by the sleeve, and whispered him to stand still. Only a few words and phrases reached them, but these were sufficient to create surprise and arouse suspicion. Once, in particular, Tonkin, who appeared to be losing his temper, raised his voice a little, exclaiming,--"I tell 'ee what it is, Cuttance, I do knaw what you're up to, an' I'll hinder 'ee ef I can." The man confirmed this statement with a savage oath, to which Cuttance replied in kind; nevertheless he was evidently anxious to conciliate his companion, and spoke so low as to be nearly inaudible. Only the words, "Not to-night; I won't do it to-night," reached the ears of the listeners. At this point Tonkin turned from the smuggler with a fling, muttering in an undertone as he went, "I don't b'lieve 'ee, Cuttance, for thee'rt a liard, so I'll watch 'ee, booy." Oliver was about to follow Tonkin, when he observed Hitchin himself slowly wending his way through the crowd. He had evidently heard nothing of the conversation that appeared to have reference to himself, for he sauntered along with a careless air, and his hands in his pockets, as though he were an uninterested spectator of the busy scene. Oliver at once accosted him, "Pray, sir, is your name Hitchin?" "It is," replied the old man, eyeing his interrogator suspiciously. "Allow me to introduce myself, sir--Oliver Trembath, nephew to Mr Thomas Donnithorne of St. Just." Mr Hitchin held out his hand, and said that he was happy to meet with a nephew of his old friend, in the tone of a man who would much rather not meet either nephew or uncle. Oliver felt this, so he put on his most insinuating air, and requested Mr Hitchin to walk with him a little aside from the crowd, as he had something of a private nature to say to him. The old man agreed, and the two walked slowly along the sands to the outskirts of the crowd, where young Tregarthen discreetly left them. The moment Oliver broached the subject of the advance of money, Hitchin frowned, and the colour in his face betrayed suppressed anger. "Sir," said he, "I know all that you would say to me. It has already been said oftener than there is any occasion for. No one appears to believe me when I assert that I have met with heavy losses of late, and have no cash to spare--not even enough to pay my debts." "Indeed, sir," replied Oliver, "I regret to hear you say so, and I can only apologise for having troubled you on the subject. I assure you nothing would have induced me to do so but regard for my uncle, to whom the continuance of this mine for some time would appear to be a matter of considerable importance; but since you will not--" "_Wilt_ not!" interrupted Hitchin angrily, "have I not said _can not_? I tell you, young man, that there is a scoundrel to whom I owe a large sum for--for--well, no matter what it's for, but the blackguard threatens that if I don't--pshaw!--" The old man seemed unable to contain himself at this point, for he turned angrily away from Oliver, and, hastening back towards the town, was soon lost again in the crowd. Oliver was so taken by surprise, that he stood still gazing dreamily at the point where Hitchin had disappeared, until he was roused by a touch on the shoulder from Charlie Tregarthen. "Well," said he, smiling, "how fares your suit?" Oliver replied by a burst of laughter. "How fares my suit?" he repeated; "badly, very badly indeed; why, the old fellow's monkey got up the moment I broached the subject, and I was just in the middle of what I meant to be a most conciliating speech, when he flung off as you have seen." "Odd, very odd," said Tregarthen, "to see how some men cling to their money, as if it were their life. After all, it _is_ life to some--at least all the life they have got." "Come now, don't moralise, Charlie, for we must act just now." "I'm ready to act in any way you propose, Oliver; what do you intend to do? Issue your commands, and I'll obey. Shall we attack the village of Newlyn single-handed, and set fire to it, as did the Spaniards of old, or shall we swim off to the fleet of boats, cut the cables, bind the men in charge, and set sail for the mackerel fishing?" "Neither, my chum, and especially not the latter, seeing that a thundercloud is about to break over the sea ere long, if I do not greatly misjudge appearances in the sky; but, man, we must see this testy old fellow again, and warn him of the danger which threatens him. I feel assured that that rascal Cuttance means him harm, for he let something fall in his anger, which, coupled with what we have already heard from the smuggler himself, and from Tonkin, convinces me that evil is in the wind. Now the question is, how are we to find him, for searching in that crowd is almost useless?" "Let us go to his house," suggested Tregarthen, "and if he is not at home, wait for him." "Do you know where his house is?" "No, not I." "Then we must inquire, so come along." Pushing once more through the throng of busy men and women, the friends ascended the sloping causeway that led to the village, and here asked the first man they met where Mr Hitchin lived. "Right over top o' hill," replied the man. "Thank you. That'll do, Charlie, come along," said Oliver, turning into one of the narrow passages that diverged from the main street of Newlyn, and ascending the hill with giant strides; "one should never be particular in their inquiries after a place. When I'm told to turn to the right after the second turning to the left, and that if I go right on till I come to some other turning, that will conduct me point blank to the street that enters the square near to which lies the spot I wish to reach, I'm apt to get confused. Get a general direction if possible, the position indicated by compass is almost enough, and _ask again_. That's my plan, and I never found it fail." CHAPTER TWENTY THREE. IN WHICH IS RECORDED A VISIT TO AN INFANT-SCHOOL; A WARNING TO A THANKLESS OLD GENTLEMAN; ALSO A STORM, AND A SUDDEN AS WELL AS SURPRISING END OF A MINE, BESIDES DARK DESIGNS. Oliver Trembath's plan of "asking again" had to be put in practice sooner than had been anticipated, for the back alleys and lanes of Newlyn were a little perplexing to a stranger. "Let us inquire here," said Tregarthen, seeing the half-open door of a very small cottage, with part of a woman's back visible in the interior. "By all means," said Oliver, pushing open the door and stooping low as he entered. The visitors were instantly transfixed by thirty pair of eyes--all of them bright blue, or bright black--few of them elevated much more than two feet from the ground, and not one of them dimmed by the smallest approach to a wink. Nay, on the contrary, they all opened so wide when the strangers entered that it seemed as if either winking or shutting were in future out of the question, and that to sleep with eyes wide open was the sad prospect of the owners thereof in all time coming. "An infant-school," murmured Tregarthen. The very smallest boy in the school--an infant with legs about five inches long, who sat on a stool not more than three inches high-- appeared to understand what he said, and to regard it as a personal insult, for he at once began to cry. A little girl with bright red hair, a lovely complexion, and a body so small as to be scarce worth mentioning, immediately embraced the small boy, whereupon he dried his eyes without delay. "You have a nice little school here," said Oliver. "Iss, sur; we do feel proud of it," said the good-looking motherly dame in charge, with a little twitch of her shoulders, which revealed the horrible fact that both her arms had been taken off above the elbows, "the child'n are very good, and they do sing bootiful. Now then, let the gentlemen hear you--`O that'll be'--come." Instantly, and in every possible pitch, the thirty mouths belonging to the thirty pair of eyes opened, and "O that will be joyful," etcetera, burst forth with thrilling power. A few leading voices gradually turned the torrent into a united channel, and before the second verse was reached the hymn was tunefully sung, the sweet voice of the little girl with the bright hair being particularly distinguishable, and the shrill pipe of the smallest boy sounding high above the rest as he sang, "O that will be doyful, doyful, doyful, doyful," with all his might and main. When this was finished Tregarthen asked the schoolmistress what misfortune had caused the loss of her arms, to which she replied that she had lost them in a coach accident. As she was beginning to relate the history of this sad affair, Oliver broke in with a question as to where old Mr Hitchin's house was. Being directed to it they took leave of the infant-school, and soon found themselves before the door of a small cottage. They were at once admitted to the presence of the testy old Hitchin, who chanced to be smoking a pipe at the time. He did not by any means bestow a welcome look on his visitors, but Oliver, nevertheless, advanced and sat down in a chair before him. "I have called, Mr Hitchin," he began, "not to trouble you about the matter which displeased you when we conversed together on the beach, but to warn you of a danger which I fear threatens yourself." "What danger may that be?" inquired Hitchin, in the tone of a man who held all danger in contempt. "What it is I cannot tell, but--" "Cannot tell!" interrupted the old man; "then what's the use of troubling me about it?" "Neither can I tell of what use my troubling you may be," retorted Oliver with provoking coolness, "but I heard the man speak of you on the beach less than an hour ago, and as you referred to him yourself I thought it right to call--" At this point Hitchin again broke in,--"Heard a man speak of me--what man? Really, Mr Trembath, your conduct appears strange to me. Will you explain yourself?" "Certainly. I was going to have added, if your irascible temper would have allowed me, that the notorious smuggler, Jim Cuttance--" Oliver stopped, for at the mention of the smuggler's name the pipe dropped from the old man's mouth, and his face grew pale. "Jim Cuttance!" he exclaimed after a moment's pause; "the villain, the scoundrel--what of him? what of him? No good, I warrant. There is not a rogue unhanged who deserves more richly to swing at the yard-arm than Jim Cuttance. What said he about me?" When he finished this sentence the old man's composure was somewhat restored. He took a new pipe from the chimney-piece and began to fill it, while Oliver related all that he knew of the conversation between the two smugglers. When he had finished Hitchin smoked for some minutes in silence. "Do you really think," he said at length, "that the man means to do me bodily harm?" "I cannot tell," replied Oliver; "you can form your own judgment of the matter more correctly than I can, but I would advise you to be on your guard." "What says your friend?" asked Hitchin, turning towards Tregarthen, of whom, up to that point, he had taken no notice. Thus appealed to, the youth echoed Oliver's opinion, and added that the remark of Cuttance about his intention not to do something unknown _that_ night, and Joe Tonkin's muttered expressions of disbelief and an intention to watch, seemed to him sufficient to warrant unusual caution in the matter of locks, bolts, and bars. As he spoke there came a blinding flash of lightning, followed by a loud and prolonged peal of thunder. Oliver sprang up. "We must bid you good-night," he said, "for we have to walk to St. Just, and don't wish to get more of the storm than we can avoid." "But you cannot escape it," said Hitchin. "Nevertheless we can go as far as possible before it begins, and then take shelter under a bush or hedge, or in a house if we chance to be near one. I would rather talk in rain any day than drive in a kittereen!" "Pray be persuaded to stop where you are, gentlemen," said the old man in a tone of voice that was marvellously altered for the better. "I can offer you comfortable quarters for the night, and good, though plain fare, with smuggled brandy of the best, and tobacco to match." Still Oliver and Tregarthen persisted in their resolution to leave, until Hitchin began to plead in a tone that showed he was anxious to have their presence in the house as protectors. Then their resolution began to waver, and when the old man hinted that they might thus find time to reconsider the matter of the Wherry Mine, they finally gave in, and made up their minds to stay all night. According to the opinion of a celebrated poet, the best-laid plans of men as well as mice are apt to miscarry. That night the elements contrived to throw men's calculations out of joint, and to render their cupidity, villainy, and wisdom alike ineffectual. A storm, the fiercest that had visited them for many years, burst that night on the southern shores of England, and strewed her rocks and sands with wrecks and dead bodies. Nothing new in this, alas! as all know who dwell upon our shores, or who take an interest in, and read the records of, our royal and noble Lifeboat Institution. But with this great subject we have not to do just now, further than to observe, as we have said before, that in those days there were no lifeboats on the coast. Under the shelter of an old house on the shore at Penzance were gathered together a huge concourse of townspeople and seafaring men watching the storm. It was a grand and awful sight--one fitted to irresistibly solemnise the mind, and incline it, unless the heart be utterly hardened, to think of the great Creator and of the unseen world, which seems at such a season to be brought impressively near. The night was extremely dark, and the lightning, by contrast, peculiarly vivid. Each flash appeared to fill the world for a moment with lambent fire, leaving the painful impression on observers of having been struck with total blindness for a few seconds after, and each thunderclap came like the bursting of artillery, with scarcely an interval between the flash and crash, while the wind blew with almost tropical fury. The terrible turmoil and noise were enhanced tenfold by the raging surf, which flew up over the roadway, and sent the spray high above and beyond the tops of the houses nearest to the shore. The old house creaked and groaned in the blast as if it would come down, and the men taking shelter there looked out to sea in silence. The bronzed veterans there knew full well that at that hour many a despairing cry was being uttered, many a hand was stretched wildly, helplessly, and hopelessly from the midst of the boiling surf, and many a soul was passing into eternity. They would have been ready then, as well as now, to have risked life and limb to save fellow-creatures from the sea, but ordinary boats they knew could not live in such a storm. Among the watchers there stood Jim Cuttance. He had been drinking at a public-house in Penzance, and was at the time, to use his own expression, "three sheets in the wind"--that is, about half-drunk. What his business was nobody knew, and we shall not inquire, but he was the first to express his belief that the turret and bridge of the Wherry Mine would give way. As he spoke a vivid flash of lightning revealed the stout timbers of the mine standing bravely in the storm, each beam and chain painted black and sharp against the illumined sky and the foaming sea. "She have stud out many a gale," observed a weather-beaten old seaman; "p'raps she won't go down yet." "I do hope she won't," observed another. "She haven't got a chance," said Cuttance. Just then another flash came, and there arose a sharp cry of alarm from the crowd, for a ship was seen driving before the gale close in upon the land, so close that she seemed to have risen there by magic, and appeared to tower almost over the heads of the people. The moments of darkness that succeeded were spent in breathless, intense anxiety. The flashes, which had been fast enough before, seemed to have ceased altogether now; but again the lightning gleamed--bright as full moonlight, and again the ship was seen, nearer than before--close on the bridge of the mine. "'Tis the Yankee ship broken from her anchors in Gwavus Lake," exclaimed a voice. The thunder-peal that followed was succeeded by a crash of rending timber and flying bolts that almost emulated the thunder. Certainly it told with greater power on the nerves of those who heard it. Once again the lightning flashed, and for a moment the American vessel was seen driving away before the wind, but no vestige of Wherry Mine remained. The bridge and all connected with it had been completely carried away, and its shattered remnants were engulfed in the foaming sea. It deserved a better fate; but its course was run, and its hour had come. It passed away that stormy night, and now nothing remains but a few indications of its shaft-mouth, visible at low water, to tell of one of the boldest and most singular of mining enterprises ever undertaken and carried out by man. There was one spectator of this imposing scene who was not very deeply impressed by it. Jim Cuttance cared not a straw for storms or wrecks, so long as he himself was safe from their influence. Besides, he had other work in hand that night, so he left the watchers on the beach soon after the destruction of the bridge. Buttoning his coat up to the neck, and pulling his sou'-wester tight over his brows, he walked smartly along the road to Newlyn, while many of the fishermen ran down to the beach to render help to the vessel. Between the town of Penzance and the village of Newlyn several old boats lay on the grass above high-water mark. Here the smuggler stopped and gave a loud whistle. He listened a moment and than repeated it still louder. He was answered by a similar signal, and four men in sailor's garb, issuing from behind one of the boats, advanced to meet him. "All right, Bill?" inquired Cuttance. "All right, sur," was the reply. "Didn't I tell 'ee to leave them things behind?" said Cuttance sternly, as he pointed to the butt of a pistol which protruded from the breast-pocket of one of the men; "sure we don't require powder and lead to overcome an old man!" "No more do we need a party o' five to do it," replied the man doggedly. To this Cuttance vouchsafed no reply, but, plucking the weapon from the man, he tossed it far into the sea, and, without further remark, walked towards the fishing village, followed by his men. By this time the thunder and rain had abated considerably, but the gale blew with increased violence, and, as there were neither moon nor stars, the darkness was so intense that men less acquainted with the locality would have been obliged to proceed with caution. But the smugglers knew every foot of the ground between the Lizard and the Land's End, and they advanced with rapid strides until they reached the low wall that encompassed, but could not be said to guard, old Mr Hitchin's garden-plot. The hour was suited for deeds of darkness, being a little after midnight, and the noise of the gale favoured the burglars, who leaped the wall with ease and approached the back of the cottage. In ordinary circumstances Hitchin would have been in bed, and Cuttance knew his habits sufficiently to be aware of this; his surprise, therefore, was great when he found lights burning, and greater still when, peeping through a chink of the window-shutter, he observed two stout fellows seated at the old man's table. Charles Tregarthen he had never seen before, and, as Oliver Trembath sat with his back to the window, he could not recognise him. "There's company wi' the owld man," said Cuttance, returning to his comrades; "two men, young and stout, but we do knaw how to manage they!" This was said by way of an appeal, and was received with a grin by the others, and a brief recommendation to go to work without delay. For a few minutes they whispered together as to the plan of attack, and then, having agreed on that point, they separated. Cuttance and the man whom he had called Bill, went to the window of the room in which Hitchin and his guests were seated, and stationed themselves on either side of it. The sill was not more than breast high. The other three men quickly returned, bearing a heavy boat's-mast, which they meant to use as a battering-ram. It had been arranged that Cuttance should throw up the window, and, at the same moment, his comrades should rush at the shutter with the mast. The leader could not see their faces, but there was light sufficient to enable him to distinguish their dark forms standing in the attitude of readiness. He therefore stepped forward and made a powerful effort to force up the window, but it resisted him, although it shook violently. Those inside sprang up at the sound, and the smugglers sank down, as if by mutual consent, among the bushes which grew thickly near the window. "I told you it was only the wind," said Oliver Trembath, who had opened the shutter and gazed through the window for some time into the darkness, where, of course, he saw nothing. Well was it for him that Cuttance refused to follow Bill's advice, which was to charge him through the window with the mast. The former knew that, with the window fastened, it would be impossible to force an entrance in the face of such a youth as Tregarthen, even although they succeeded in rendering the other _hors de combat_, so he restrained Bill, and awaited his opportunity. Oliver's remark appeared to be corroborated by a gust of wind which came while he was speaking, and shook the window-frame violently. "There it is again," he said, turning to his host with a smile. "Depend upon it, they won't trouble you on such a night as this." He closed and refastened the shutter as he spoke, and they all returned to their places at the table. Unfortunately Oliver had not thought of examining the fastening of the window itself. Had he done so, he would have seen that it was almost wrenched away. Cuttance saw this, however, and resolved to make sure work of it next time. When the men with the battering-ram were again in position, he and Bill applied their united strength to the window, and it instantly flew up to the top. At same moment, bolts and bars gave way, and the shutter went in with a crash. Making use of the mast as a rest, Cuttance sprang on the window-sill and leaped into the room. The whole thing was done with such speed, and, if we may so express it, with such simultaneity of action, that the bold smuggler stood before the astonished inmates almost as soon as they could leap from their chairs. Cuttance ducked to evade a terrific blow which Oliver aimed at him with his fist, and in another instant grappled with him. Tregarthen rushed to the window in time to meet Bill, on whose forehead he planted a blow so effectual that that worthy fell back into the arms of his friends, who considerately let him drop to the ground, and made a united assault on Charlie. Had Oliver Trembath possessed his wonted vigour, he would speedily have overcome his adversary despite his great strength, but his recent illness had weakened him a little, so that the two were pretty equally matched. The consequence was that, neither daring to loosen his hold in order to strike an effective blow, each had to devote all his energies to throw the other, in which effort they wrenched, thrust, and swung each other so violently round the room that chairs and tables were overturned and smashed, and poor old Hitchin had enough to do to avoid being floored in the _melee_, and to preserve from destruction the candle which lighted the scene of the combat. At first Oliver had tried to free his right hand in order to strike, but, finding this impossible, he attempted to throw the smuggler, and, with this end in view, lifted him bodily in the air and dashed him down, but Cuttance managed to throw out a leg and meet the ground with his foot, which saved him. He was a noted wrestler. He could give the famous Cornish hug with the fervour of a black bear, and knew all the mysteries of the science. Often had he displayed his great muscular power and skill in the ring, where "wrestlers" were wont to engage in those combats of which the poet writes:-- "They rush, impetuous, with a shock Their arms implicit, rigid, lock; They twist; they trip; their limbs are mixed; As one they move, as one stand fixed. Now plant their feet in wider space, And stand like statues on their base." But never before had Jim Cuttance had to deal with such a man as Oliver Trembath, who swung him about among the chairs, and crashed him through the tables, until, seizing a sudden opportunity, he succeeded in flinging him flat on the floor, where he held him down, and planted his knee on his chest with such force that he nearly squeezed all the breath out of him. No word did Jim Cuttance utter, for he was incapable of speech, but the colour of his face and his protruding tongue induced Oliver to remove his knee. Meanwhile Charlie Tregarthen had enough to do at the window. After he had tumbled Bill out, as we have described, two of the other men sprang at him, and, seizing him by the collar of his coat, attempted to drag him out. One of these he succeeded in overthrowing by a kick on the chest, but his place was instantly taken by the third of the bearers of the battering-ram, and for a few minutes the struggle was fierce but undecided. Suddenly there arose a great shout, and all three tumbled head over heels into the shrubbery. It was at this moment that Oliver rose from his prostrate foe. He at once sprang to the rescue; leaped out of the window, and was in the act of launching a blow at the head of the first man he encountered, when a voice shouted,--"Hold on, sur." It is certain that Oliver would have declined to hold on, had not the voice sounded familiar. He held his hand, and next moment Charlie appeared in the light of the window dragging a struggling man after him by the nape of the neck. At the same time Joe Tonkin came forward trailing another man by the hair of the head. "Has Cuttance got off?" inquired Tonkin. "No," replied Oliver, leaping back into the room, just in time to prevent Jim, who had recovered, from making his escape. "Now, my man, keep quiet," said Oliver, thrusting him down into a chair. "You and I have met before, and you know that it is useless to attempt resistance." Cuttance vouchsafed no reply, but sat still with a dogged expression on his weather-beaten visage. Hitchin, whose nerves were much shaken by the scene of which he had been a trembling spectator, soon produced ropes, with which the prisoners were bound, and then they were conducted to a place of safe keeping-- each of the victors leading the man he had secured, and old Hitchin going before--an excited advance-guard. The two men whom Tregarthen knocked down had recovered, and made their escape just before the fight closed. Oliver Trembath walked first in the procession, leading Jim Cuttance. "I gave you credit for a more manly spirit than this," said Oliver, as he walked along. "How could you make so cowardly an attack on an old man?" Cuttance made no reply, and Oliver felt sorry that he had spoken, for the remembrance of the incident at the Land's End was strong upon him, and he would have given all he possessed to have had no hand in delivering the smuggler up to justice. At the same time he felt that the attempt of Cuttance was a dastardly one, and that duty required him to act as he did. It seemed to Oliver as if Joe Tonkin had divined his thoughts, for at that moment he pushed close to him and whispered in his ear, "Jim Cuttance didn't mean to rob th' owld man, sur. He only wanted to give he a fright, an' make un pay what he did owe un." This was a new light on the subject to Oliver, who at once formed his resolution and acted on it. "Cuttance," he said, "it is not unlikely that, if brought to justice, you will swing for this night's adventure." He paused and glanced at the face of his prisoner, who still maintained rigid silence. "Well," continued our hero, "I believe that your intentions against Mr Hitchin were not so bad as they would appear to be--" "Who told 'ee that?" asked the smuggler sternly. "No matter," replied Oliver, drawing a knife from his pocket, with which he deliberately cut the cords that bound his prisoner. "There--you are free. I hope that you will make better use of your freedom in time to come than you have in time past, although I doubt it much; but remember that I have repaid the debt I owe you." "Nay," replied Cuttance, still continuing to walk close to his companion's side. "I did give you life. You have but given me liberty." "I'd advise you to take advantage of that liberty without delay," said Oliver, somewhat nettled by the man's remark, as well as by his cool composure, "else your liberty may be again taken from you, in which case I would not give much for your life." "If you do not assist, there is no one here who can take me _now_," replied Cuttance, with a smile. "However, I'm not ungrateful-- good-night." As he said this, the smuggler turned sharp to the right into one of the numerous narrow passages which divide the dwellings of Newlyn, and disappeared. Charles Tregarthen, who was as sharp as a needle, observed this, and, leaving his man in charge of Tonkin, darted after the fugitive. He soon returned, however, wiping the perspiration from his brow, and declaring that he had well-nigh lost himself in his vain endeavours to find the smuggler. "How in all the world did you manage to let him go?" he demanded somewhat sharply of Oliver. "Why, Charlie," replied his friend, with a laugh, "you know I have not been trained to the duties of a policeman, and it has always been said that Jim Cuttance was a slippery eel. However, he's gone now, so we had better have the others placed in safe custody as soon as possible." Saying this he passed his arm through that of old Mr Hitchin, and soon after the smugglers were duly incarcerated in the lock-up of Penzance. CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR. EXHIBITS THE MANAGING DIRECTOR AND THE SECRETARY OF WHEAL DOOEM IN CONFIDENTIAL CIRCUMSTANCES, AND INTRODUCES THE SUBJECT OF "LOCALS." About this time that energetic promoter of mining operations, Mr George Augustus Clearemout, found it necessary to revisit Cornwall. He was seated in an easy-chair in a snug little back-office, or board-room, in one of the airiest little streets of the City of London, when this necessity became apparent to him. Mr Clearemout did not appear to have much to do at that particular time, for he contented himself with tapping the arm of his easy-chair with the knuckles of his right hand, while he twirled his gold watch-key with his left, and smiled occasionally. To judge from appearances it seemed that things in general were prospering with George Augustus. Everything about him was new, and, we might almost say, gorgeous. His coat and vest and pantaloons had a look and a cut about them that told of an extremely fashionable tailor, and a correspondingly fashionable price. His rings, of which he wore several, were massive, one of them being a diamond ring of considerable value. His boots were faultlessly made, quite new, and polished so highly that it dazzled one to look at them, while his linen, of which he displayed a large quantity on the breast, was as white as snow--not London snow, of course! Altogether Mr G.A. Clearemout was a most imposing personage. "Come in," he said, in a voice that sounded like the deep soft whisper of a trombone. The individual who had occasioned the command by tapping at the door, opened it just enough to admit his head, which he thrust into the room. It was a shaggy red head belonging to a lad of apparently eighteen; its chief characteristics being a prolonged nose and a retracted chin, with a gash for a mouth, and two blue holes for eyes. "Please, sir, Mr Muddle," said the youth. "Admit Mr Muddle." The head disappeared, and immediately after a gentleman sauntered into the room, and flung himself lazily into the empty armchair which stood at the fireplace _vis-a-vis_ to the one in which Mr Clearemout sat, explaining that he would not have been so ceremonious had he not fancied that his friend was engaged with some one on business. "How are you, Jack?" said George Augustus. "Pretty bobbish," replied Jack. (He was the same Jack whom we have already introduced as being Mr Clearemout's friend and kindred spirit.) "Any news?" inquired Mr Clearemout. "No, nothing moving," said Jack languidly. "H'm, I see it is time to stir now, Jack, for the wheel of fortune is apt to get stiff and creaky if we don't grease her now and then and give her a jog. Here is a little pot of grease which I have been concocting and intend to lay on immediately." He took a slip of paper from a large pocket-book which lay at his elbow on the new green cloth-covered table, and handed it to his friend, who slowly opened and read it in a slovenly way, mumbling the most of it as he went on:-- "`WHEAL DOOEM, in St. Just, Cornwall--mumble--m--m--in 10,000 shares. An old mine, m--m--every reason to believe--m--m--splendid lodes visible from--m--m. Depth of Adit fifty fathoms--m--depth below Adit ninety fathoms. Pumps, whims, engines, etcetera, in good working order--m-- little expense--Landowners, Messrs.--m--Manager at the Mine, Captain Trembleforem--m--thirteen men, four females, and two boys--m--water-- wheels--stamps--m--Managing Director, George Augustus Clearemout, Esquire, 99 New Gull Street, London--m--Secretary, John Muddle, Esquire--ahem--'" "But, I say, it won't do to publish anything of this sort just yet, you know," said Secretary Jack in a remonstrative tone, "for there's nothing doing at all, I believe." "I beg your pardon," replied the managing director, "there is a good deal doing. I have written to St. Just appointing the local manager, and it is probable that things are really under way by this time; besides, I shall set out for Cornwall to-morrow to superintend matters, leaving my able secretary in charge here in the meantime, and when he hears from me this paper may be completed and advertised." "I say, it looks awful real-like, don't it?" said Jack, with a grin. "Only fancy if it should turn out to be a good mine after all--what a lark _that_ would be! and it might, you know, for it _was_ a real one once, wasn't it? And if you set a few fellows to sink the what-d'ye-call-'ems and drive the thingumbobs, it is possible they may come upon tin and copper, or something of that sort--wouldn't it be jolly?" "Of course it would, and that is the very thing that gives zest to it. It's a speculation, not a swindle by any means, and admirably suits our easy consciences. But, I say, Jack, you _must_ break yourself off talking slang. It will never do to have the secretary of the Great Wheal Dooem Mining Company talk like a street boy. Besides, I hate slang even in a blackguard--not to mention a black-leg--so you must give it up, Jack, you really must, else you'll ruin the concern at the very beginning." Secretary Jack started into animation at this. "Why, George," he said, drawing himself up, "I can throw it off when I please. Look here--suppose yourself an inquiring speculator--ahem! I assure you, sir, that the prospects of this mine are most brilliant, and the discoveries that have been made in it since we commenced operations are incredible--absolutely incredible, sir. Some of the lodes (that's the word, isn't it?) are immensely rich, and upwards of a hundred feet thick, while the part that runs under the sea, or _is_ to run under the sea, at a depth of three thousand fathoms, is probably as rich in copper ore as the celebrated Botallack, whose majestic headland, bristling with machinery, overhangs the raging billows of the wide Atlantic, etcetera, etcetera. O George, it's a great lark entirely!" "You'll have to learn your lesson a little better, else you'll make a great mess of it," said Clearemout. "A muddle of it--according to my name and destiny, George," said the secretary; "a muddle of it, and a fortune _by_ it." Here the secretary threw himself back in the easy-chair, and grinned at the opposite wall, where his eye fell on a large picture, which changed the grin into a stare of surprise. "What have we here, George," he said, rising, and fitting a gold glass in his eye--"not a portrait of Wheal Dooem, is it?" "You have guessed right," replied the other. "I made a few sketches on the spot, and got a celebrated artist to put them together, which he has done, you see, with considerable effect. Here, in the foreground, you observe," continued the managing director, taking up a new white pointer, "stands Wheal Dooem, on a prominent crag overlooking the Atlantic, with Gurnard's Head just beyond. Farther over, we have the celebrated Levant Mine, and the famous Botallack, and the great Wheal Owles, and a crowd of other more or less noted mines, with Cape Cornwall, and the Land's End, and Tolpedenpenwith in the middle-distance, and the celebrated Logan Rock behind them, while we have Mounts Bay, with the beautiful town of Penzance, and St. Michael's Mount, and the Lizard in the background, with France in the remote distance." "Dear, _dear_ me! quite a geographical study, I declare," exclaimed Secretary Jack, examining the painting with some care. "Can you really see all these places at once from Wheal Dooem?" "Not exactly from Wheal Dooem, Jack, but if you were to go up in a balloon a few hundred yards above the spot where it stands, you might see 'em all on a very clear day, if your eyes were good. The fact is, that I regard this picture as a triumph of art, exhibiting powerfully what is by artists termed `bringing together' and great `breadth,' united with exceedingly minute detail. The colouring too, is high--very high indeed, and the _chiaroscuro_ is perfect--" "Ha!" interposed Jack, "all the _chiar_ being on the surface, and the _oscuro_ down in the mine, eh?" "Exactly so," replied Clearemout. "It is a splendid picture. The artist regards it as his _chef_ _d'oeuvre_, and you must explain it to all who come to the office, as well as those magnificent geological sections rolled-up in the corner, which it would be well, by the way, to have hung up without delay. They arrived only this morning. And now, Jack, having explained these matters, I will leave you, to study them at your leisure, while I prepare for my journey to Cornwall, where, by the way, I have my eye upon a sweet little girl, whose uncle, I believe, has lots of tin, both in the real and figurative sense of the word. Something may come of it--who knows?" Next morning saw the managing director on the road, and in due time he found his way by coach, kittereen, and gig to St. Just, where, as before, he was hospitably received by old Mr Donnithorne. That gentleman's buoyancy of spirit, however, was not quite so great as it had been a few months before, but that did not much affect the spirits of Clearemout, who found good Mrs Donnithorne as motherly, and Rose Ellis as sweet, as ever. It happened at this time that Oliver Trembath had occasion to go to London about some matter relating to his deceased mother's affairs, so the managing director had the field all to himself. He therefore spent his time agreeably in looking after the affairs of Wheal Dooem during the day, and making love to Rose Ellis in the evening. Poor Rose was by no means a flirt, but she was an innocent, straightforward girl, ignorant of many of the world's ways, and of a trusting disposition. She found the conversation of Mr Clearemout agreeable, and did not attempt to conceal the fact. Mr Clearemout's vanity induced him to set this down to a tender feeling, although Rose never consciously gave him, by word or look, the slightest reason to come to such a conclusion. One forenoon Mr Clearemout was sitting in Mr Donnithorne's dining-room conversing with Rose and Mrs Donnithorne, when the old gentleman entered and sat down beside them. "I had almost forgotten the original object of my visit this morning," said the managing director, with a smile, and a glance at Rose; "the fact is that I am in want of a man to work at Wheal Dooem, a steady, trustworthy man, who would be fit to take charge--become a sort of overseer; can you recommend one?" Mr Donnithorne paused for a moment to reflect, but Mrs Donnithorne deeming reflection quite unnecessary, at once replied,--"Why, there are many such men in St. Just. There's John Cock, as good a man as you could find in all the parish, and David Trevarrow, and James Penrose-- he's a first-rate man; You remember him, my dear?" (turning to her worse half)--"one of our locals, you know." "Yes, my dear, I remember him perfectly.--You could not, Mr Clearemout, get a better man, I should say." "I think you observed, madam," said Mr Clearemout, "that this man is a `local.' Pray, what is a local?" Rose gave one of her little laughs at this point, and her worthy aunt exclaimed,--"La! Mr Clearemout, don't you know what a local preacher is?" "Oh! a _preacher_? Connected with the Methodist body, I presume?" "Yes, and a first-rate man, I assure you." "But," said Mr Clearemout, with a smile, "I want a miner, not a preacher." "Well, he is a miner, and a good one too--" "Allow _me_ to explain, my dear," said Mr Donnithorne, interrupting his spouse. "You may not be aware, sir, that many of our miners are men of considerable mental ability, and some of them possess such power of speech, and so earnest a spirit, that the Wesleyan body have appointed them to the office of local preaching. They do not become ministers, however, nor are they liable to be sent out of the district like them. They don't give up their ordinary calling, but are appointed to preach in the various chapels of the district in which they reside, and thus we accomplish an amount of work which could not possibly be overtaken by the ordinary ministry." "Indeed! but are they not untrained men, liable to teach erroneous doctrine?" asked Mr Clearemout. "They are not altogether untrained men," replied Mr Donnithorne. "They are subjected to a searching examination, and must give full proof of their Christianity, knowledge, and ability before being appointed." "And good, excellent Christian men many of them are," observed Mrs Donnithorne, with much fervour. "Quite true," said her husband. "This James Penrose is one of our best local preachers, and sometimes officiates in our principal chapel. I confess, however, that those who have the management of this matter are not always very judicious in their appointments. Some of our young men are sorely tempted to show off their acquirements, and preach _themselves_ instead of the gospel, and there are one or two whom I could mention whose hearts are all right, but whose brains are so muddled and empty that they are utterly unfit to teach their fellows. We must not, however, look for perfection in this world, Mr Clearemout. A little chaff will always remain among the wheat. There is no system without some imperfection, and I am convinced that upon the whole our system of appointing local preachers is a first-rate one. At all events it works well, which is one of the best proofs of its excellence." "Perhaps so," said Mr Clearemout, with the air of a man who did not choose to express an opinion on the subject; "nevertheless I had rather have a man who was _not_ a local preacher." "You can see and hear him, and judge for yourself," said Mr Donnithorne; "for he is, I believe, to preach in our chapel to-morrow, and if you will accept of a seat in our pew it will afford my wife and myself much--" "Thank you," interrupted Mr Clearemout; "I shall be very glad to take advantage of your kind offer. Service, you say, begins at--" "Ten precisely," said Mr Donnithorne. CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE. SHOWS THE MINER IN HIS SUNDAY GARB, AND ASTONISHES CLEAREMOUT, BESIDES RELATING SOME INCIDENTS OF AN ACCIDENT. The sun rose bright and hot on Sunday morning, but the little birds were up before the great luminary, singing their morning hymn with noisy delight. It was a peaceful day. The wind was at rest and the sea was calm. In the ancient town of St. Just it was peculiarly peaceful, for the numerous and untiring "stamps"--which all the week had continued their clang and clatter, morning, noon, and night, without intermission--found rest on that hallowed day, and the great engines ceased to bow their massive heads, with the exception of those that worked the pumps. Even these, however, were required to do as little work as was compatible with the due drainage of the mines, and as their huge pulsations were intermittent--few and far between--they did not succeed in disturbing the universal serenity of the morning. If there are in this country men who, more than any other, need repose, we should say they are the miners of Cornwall, for their week's work is exhausting far beyond that of most other labourers in the kingdom. Perhaps the herculean men employed in malleable-iron works toil as severely, but, besides the cheering consciousness of being well paid for their labour, these men exert their powers in the midst of sunlight and fresh air, while the miners toil in bad air, and get little pay in hard times. Sunday is indeed to them the Sabbath-day--it is literally what that word signifies, a day of much-required rest for body, soul, and spirit. Pity that the good old word which God gave us is not more universally used among Christians! Would it not have been better that the translation Rest-day had been adopted, so that even ignorant men might have understood its true signification, than that we should have saddled it with a heathen name, to be an apple of discord in all generations? However, Sunday it is, so Sunday it will stand, we suppose, as long as the world lasts. After all, despite its faulty origin, that word is invested with old and hallowed associations in the minds of many, so we enter our protest against the folly of our forefathers very humbly, beseeching those who are prone to become nettled on this subject to excuse our audacity! Well, as we have said, the Sunday morning to which we refer was peaceful; so would have been Maggot's household had Maggot's youngest baby never been born; but, having been born, that robust cherub asserted his right to freedom of action more violently than ever did the most rabid Radical or tyrannical Tory. He "swarmed" about the house, and kicked and yelled his uttermost, to the great distress of poor little Grace, whose anxiety to get him ready for chapel was gradually becoming feverish. But baby Maggot had as much objection to go to chapel as his wicked father, who was at that time enjoying a pipe on the cliffs, and intended to leave his family to the escort of David Trevarrow. Fortunately, baby gave in about half-past nine, so that little Grace had him washed and dressed, and on his way to chapel in pretty good time, all things considered. No one who entered the Wesleyan Chapel of St. Just that morning for the first time could have imagined that a large proportion of the well-dressed people who filled the pews were miners and balmaidens. Some of the latter were elegantly, we might almost say gorgeously, attired, insomuch that, but for their hands and speech, they might almost have passed for ladies of fashion. The very latest thing in bonnets, and the newest mantles, were to be seen on their pretty heads and shapely shoulders. As we have said before, and now repeat, this circumstance arose from the frequency of the visits of the individual styled "Johnny Fortnight," whose great aim and end in life is to supply miners, chiefly the females among them, with the necessaries, and unnecessaries, of wearing apparel. When the managing director entered Mr Donnithorne's pew and sat down beside his buxom hostess, he felt, but of course was much too well bred to express astonishment; for his host had told him that a large number of the people who attended the chapel were miners, and for a time he failed to see any of the class whom he had hitherto been accustomed to associate with rusty-red and torn garbs, and dirty hands and faces. But he soon observed that many of the stalwart, serious-looking men with black coats and white linen, had strong, muscular hands, with hard-looking knuckles, which, in some instances, exhibited old or recent cuts and bruises. It was a new sight for the managing director to behold the large and apparently well-off families filing into the pews, for, to say truth, Mr Clearemout was not much in the habit of attending church, and he had never before entered a Methodist chapel. He watched with much curiosity the gradual filling of the seats, and the grave, quiet demeanour of the people. Especially interesting was it when Maggot's family came in and sat down, with the baby Maggot in charge of little Grace. Mr Clearemout had met Maggot, and had seen his family; but interest gave place to astonishment when Mrs Penrose walked into the church, backed by her sixteen children, the eldest males among whom were miners, and the eldest females tin-dressers, while the little males and females aspired to be miners and tin-dressers in the course of time. "That's Penrose's family," whispered Mr Donnithorne to his guest. "What! the local's family?" Mr Donnithorne nodded. Soon after, a tall, gentlemanly man ascended the pulpit. The managing director was disappointed. He had come there to hear a miner preach, and behold, a clergyman! "Who is he?" inquired Clearemout. But Mr Donnithorne did not answer. He was looking up the hymn for Mrs D, who, being short-sighted, claimed exemption from the duty of "looking up" anything. Besides, he was a kind, good man at heart--though rather fond of smuggling and given to the bottle, according to Oliver Trembath's account of him--and liked to pay his wife little attentions. But there were still greater novelties in store for the London man that morning. It was new to him to hear John Wesley's beautiful hymns sung to equally beautiful tunes, which were not, however, unfamiliar to his ear, and sung with a degree of fervour that quite drowned his own voice, powerful and deep though it was. It was a new and impressive thing to hear the thrilling, earnest tones of the preacher as he offered up an eloquent extempore prayer--to the petitions in which many of the people in the congregation gave utterance at times to startlingly fervent and loud responses--not in set phraseology, but in words that were called forth by the nature of each petition, such as "Glory to God," "Amen," "Thanks be to Him"--showing that the worshippers followed and sympathised with their spokesman, thus making his prayer their own. But the newest thing of all was to hear the preacher deliver an eloquent, earnest, able, and well-digested sermon, without book or note, in the same natural tone of voice with which a man might address his fellow in the street--a style of address which riveted the attention of the hearers, induced them to expect that he had really something important to say to them, and that he thoroughly believed in the truth of what he said. "A powerful man," observed the managing director as they went out; "your clergyman, I suppose?" "No, sir," replied Mr Donnithorne with a chuckle, "our minister is preaching elsewhere to-day. That was James Penrose." "What! the miner?" exclaimed Clearemout in astonishment. "Ay, the local preacher too." "Why, the man spoke like Demosthenes, and quoted Bacon, Locke, Milton, and I know not whom all--you amaze me," said Mr Clearemout. "Surely all your local preachers are not equal to this one." "Alas, no! some of the young ones are indeed able enough to spout poetry and quote old authors, and too fond they are of doing so; nevertheless, as I have said to you before, most of the local preachers are sober-minded, sterling Christian men, and a few of them have eminent capabilities. Had Penrose been a younger man, he would probably have entered the ministry, but being above forty, with an uncommonly large family, he thinks it his duty to remain as he is, and do as much good as he can." "But surely he might find employment better suited to his talents?" said Clearemout. "There is not much scope in St. Just," replied Mr Donnithorne, with a smile, "and it is a serious thing for a man in his circumstances to change his abode and vocation. No, no, I think he is right to remain a miner." "Well, I confess that I admire his talents," returned Clearemout, "but I still think that an ordinary miner would suit me better." "Well, I know of one who will suit you admirably. He is common enough to look at, and if you will accompany me into the mine to-morrow I'll introduce you to him. I'm not fond of descending the ladders nowadays, though I could do it very well when a youth, but as the man I speak of works in one of the levels near the surface, I'll be glad to go down with you, and Captain Dan shall lead us." True to his word, the old gentleman met Mr Clearemout the following morning at nine o'clock, and accompanied him down into the mine. Their descent was unmarked by anything particular at first. They wore the usual suit of underground clothing, and each carried a lighted candle attached to his hat. After descending about thirty fathoms they left the main shaft and traversed the windings of a level until they came to a place where the sound of voices and hammers indicated that the miners were working. In a few seconds they reached the end of the level. Here two men were "driving" the level, and another--a very tall, powerful man--was standing in a hole driven up slanting-ways into the roof, and cutting the rock above his head. His attitude and aspect were extremely picturesque, standing as he did on a raised platform with his legs firmly planted, his muscular arms raised above him to cut the rock overhead, and the candle so placed as to cause his figure to appear almost black and unnaturally gigantic. "Stay a minute, Captain Dan," said Mr Donnithorne. "That, Mr Clearemout, is the man I spoke of--what think you of his personal appearance?" Clearemout did not reply for a few minutes, but stood silently watching the man as he continued to wield his heavy hammer with powerful strokes--delivering each with a species of gasp which indicated not exhaustion, but the stern vigour with which it was given. "He'll do," said Clearemout in a decided tone. "Hallo! James," shouted Mr Donnithorne. "Hallo! sir," answered the man looking back over his shoulder. "There's a gentleman here who wants to speak to you." The miner flung down his tools, which clattered loudly on the hard rock, as he leaped from his perch with the agility of one whose muscles are all in full and constant exercise. "What! not the local--" Before the managing director could finish his sentence Mr Donnithorne introduced him to James Penrose, and left the two for a time to talk together. It need scarcely be added that Clearemout was quite willing to avail himself of the services of the "local," but the local did not meet his proposals so readily as he would have wished. Penrose was a cautious man, and said he would call on Mr Clearemout in the evening after he had had time to consider the matter. With this reply the other was fain to rest satisfied, and shortly after he returned to the bottom of the shaft with his friends, leaving the hardy miner to pursue his work. At the bottom of the shaft they were accosted by a sturdy little man, who told them that a large piece of timber was being sent down the shaft, and it would be advisable to wait until it reached the bottom. "Is it on the way, Spankey?" asked Captain Dan. "Iss, sur, if it haven't walked into the thirty-fathom level in passin'." Spankey was a humorous individual addicted to joking. "Are you married, Spankey?" asked Clearemout, looking down with a grin at the dirty little fellow beside him. "Iss, sur. Had, two wives, an' the third wan is waitin' for me, 'spose." "Any children, Spankey?" "Iss, six, countin' the wan that died before it could spaik." At this point the beam was heard coming down. In a few seconds it made its appearance, and was hauled a little to one side by Spankey, who proceeded to unwind the chain that had supported it. "I'll give 'em the signal, Captain Dan, to haul up the chain before thee do go on the ladders." The signal was given accordingly, and the engine immediately began to draw up the chain by which the beam had been lowered. This chain had a hook at one end of it, and, as ill-luck would have it, the hook caught Spankey by the right leg of his trousers, and whisked him off his feet. Almost before those beside him could conceive what had happened, the unfortunate man went up the shaft feet foremost, with a succession of dreadful yells, in the midst of which could be heard a fearful rending of strong linen. Fortunately for Spankey, his nether garments were not only strong, but new, so that when the rend came to the seam at the foot, it held on, else had that facetious miner come down the shaft much faster than he went up, and left his brains at the bottom as a memorial of the shocking event! With palpitating hearts, Captain Dan, Clearemout, and old Donnithorne ran up the ladders as fast as they could. In a few minutes they reached the thirty-fathom level, and here, to their great relief, they found Spankey supported in the arms of stout Joe Tonkin. That worthy, true to his promise to Oliver Trembath, had gone to work in Botallack Mine, and had that very day commenced operations in the thirty-fathom level referred to. Hearing the terrible screams of Spankey, he rushed to the end of the level just as the unfortunate man was passing it. The risk was great, but Tonkin was accustomed to risks, and prompt to act. He flung his arms round Spankey, drew him forcibly into the level, and held on for life. There was a terrible rend; the leg of the trousers gave way at the hip, and went flapping up to grass, leaving the horrified miner behind. "Not gone dead yet, sur, but goin' fast," was Spankey's pathetic reply to Captain Dan's anxious inquiries. It was found, however, that, beyond the fright, the man had received no damage whatever. The only other noteworthy fact in reference to this incident is, that when Captain Dan and his companions reached the surface, they were met by the lander, who, with a face as pale as a ghost, held up the torn garment. Great was this man's relief, and loud the fit of laughter with which he expressed it, when Spankey, issuing from the mouth of the shaft, presented his naked limb, and claimed the leg of his trousers! CHAPTER TWENTY SIX. TELLS OF A DISCOVERY AND A DISASTER. That afternoon another accident occurred in the mine, which was of a much more serious nature than the one just recorded, and which interfered somewhat with the plans of the managing director of the Great Wheal Dooem Mining Company. Not long after his interview with Clearemout, James Penrose finished a blast-hole, and called to Zackey Maggot to fetch the fuse. Zackey had been working for a week past in connection with Penrose, and, at the time he was called, was engaged in his wonted occupation of pounding "tamping" wherewith to fill the hole. Wherever Zackey chanced to be at work, he always made himself as comfortable as circumstances would admit of. At the present time he had discovered a little hollow or recess in the wall of the level, which he had converted into a private chamber for the nonce. There was a piece of flat rock on the floor of this recess, which Zackey used as his anvil, and in front of which he kneeled. At his side was a candle, stuck against the wall, where it poured a flood of light on objects in its immediate neighbourhood, and threw the boy's magnified shadow over the floor and against the opposite wall of the level. Above his head was a small shelf, which he had ingeniously fixed in a narrow part of the cell, and on this lay a few candles, a stone bottle of water, a blasting fuse, and part of his lunch, which he had been unable to consume, wrapped in a piece of paper. A small wooden box on the floor, and a couple of pick-hilts, leaning against the wall, completed the furniture of this subterranean grotto. Zackey, besides being a searcher after metals, possessed an unusual amount of metal in himself. He was one of those earnest, hard-working, strong-hearted boys who pass into a state of full manhood, do the work of men, and are looked upon as being men, before they have passed out of their "teens." The boy's manhood, which was even at that early period of his life beginning to show itself, consisted not in his looks or his gait, although both were creditable, but in his firmness of purpose and force of character. What Zackey undertook to do he always did. He never left any work in a half-finished state, and he always employed time diligently. In the mine he commenced to labour the moment he entered, and he never ceased, except during a short period for "kroust," until it was time to shoulder his tools, and mount to the regions of light. Above ground, he was as ready to skylark as the most volatile of his companions, but underground he was a pattern of perseverance--a true Cornish miner in miniature. His energy of character was doubtless due to his reckless father, but his steadiness was the result of "Uncle Davy's" counsel and example. "Are you coming, Zackey?" shouted Penrose, from the end of the level. "Iss, I'm comin'," replied the boy, taking the fuse from the shelf, and hastening towards his companion. Penrose had a peculiar and pleased expression on his countenance, which Zackey observed at once. "What do 'ee grizzle like that for?" inquired the boy. "I've come on a splendid bunch of copper, Zackey," replied the man; "you and I shall make money soon. Run away to your work, lad, and come back when you hear the shot go off." Zackey expressed a hope that the prophecy might come true, and returned to his cell, where he continued pounding diligently--thinking the while of rich ore and a rapid fortune. There was more reason in these thoughts than one might suppose, for Cornish miners experience variety of fortune. Sometimes a man will labour for weeks and months in unproductive ground, following up a small vein in the hope of its leading into a good lode, and making so little by his hard toil that on pay day of each month he is compelled to ask his employer for "subsist"--or a small advance of money--to enable him to live and go on with his work. Often he is obliged to give up in despair, and change to a more promising part of the mine, or to go to another mine altogether; but, not unfrequently, he is rewarded for his perseverance by coming at last to a rich "lode," or mass, or "bunch" of copper or tin ore, out of which he will rend, in a single month, as much as will entitle him to thirty or forty, or even a hundred pounds, next pay day. Such pieces of good fortune are not of rare occurrence. Many of the substantial new cottages to be seen in St. Just at the present day have been built by miners who became suddenly fortunate in this way, so that, although the miner of Cornwall always works hard, and often suffers severe privation, he works on with a well-grounded expectation of a sudden burst of temporal sunshine in his otherwise hard lot. Zackey Maggot was dreaming of some such gleam of good fortune, and patiently pounding away at the tamping, when he heard the explosion of the blast. At the same moment a loud cry rang through the underground caverns. It was one of those terrible, unmistakable cries which chill the blood and thrill the hearts of those who hear them, telling of some awful catastrophe. The boy leaped up and ran swiftly towards the end of the level, where he called to his companion, but received no answer. The smoke which filled the place was so dense that he could not see, and could scarcely breathe. He ran forward, however, and stumbled over the prostrate form of Penrose. Zackey guessed correctly what had occurred, for the accident was, and alas! still is, too common in the mines. The shot had apparently missed fire. Penrose had gone forward to examine it, and it exploded in his face. To lift his companion was beyond Zackey's power, to leave him lying in such dense smoke for any length of time would, he knew, ensure his suffocation, so he attempted to drag him away, but the man was too heavy for him. In his extremity the poor boy uttered a wild cry for help, but he shouted in vain, for there was no one else at work in the level. But Zackey was not the boy to give way to despair, or to act thoughtlessly, or in wild haste in this emergency. He suddenly recollected that there was a rope somewhere about the level. He sought for and found it. Fastening an end of it round the body of the man, under the armpits, he so arranged that the knot of the loop should reach a few inches beyond his head, and on this part of the loop he spread a coat, which thus formed a support to the head, and prevented it being dragged along the ground. While engaged in this operation the poor boy was well-nigh suffocated with smoke, and had to run back once to where the air was purer in order to catch a breath or two. Then, returning, he seized the rope, passed it over his shoulder, and bending forward with all his might and main dragged the man slowly but steadily along the floor of the level to a place where the air was comparatively pure. Leaving him there he quickly fixed a candle in his hat, and carrying another in his hand, to avoid the risk of being left in darkness by an accidental stumble or gust of air, Zackey darted swiftly along the level and ran up the ladders at his utmost speed. Panting for breath, and with eyes almost starting from their sockets, he rushed into the engine-house, and told the man in charge what had occurred; then he dashed away to the counting-house and gave the alarm there, so that, in a very few minutes, a number of men descended the shaft and gathered round the prostrate miner. The doctor who had taken Oliver Trembath's place during his absence was soon in attendance, and found that although no bones had been broken, Penrose's face was badly injured, how deep the injury extended could not at that time be ascertained, but he feared that his eyes had been altogether destroyed. After the application of some cordial the unfortunate man began to revive, and the first words he uttered were, "Praise the Lord"-- evidently in reference to his life having been spared. "Is that you, Zackey?" he inquired after a few moments. "No, it is the doctor, my man. Do you feel much pain in your head?" he asked as he knelt beside him. "Not much; there is a stunned feeling about it, but little pain. You'd better light a candle." "There are candles burning round you," said the doctor. "Do you not see them? There is one close to your face at this moment." Penrose made no answer on hearing this, but an expression of deep gravity seemed to settle on the blackened features. "We must get him up as soon as possible," said the doctor, turning to Captain Dan, who stood at his elbow. "We're all ready, sir," replied the captain, who had quietly procured ropes and a blanket, while the doctor was examining the wounds. With great labour and difficulty the injured man was half hauled, half carried, and pushed up the shaft, and laid on the grass. "Is the sun shining?" he asked in a low voice. "Iss, it do shine right in thee face, Jim," said one of the miners, brushing away a tear with the back of his hand. Again the gravity of Penrose's countenance appeared to deepen, but he uttered no other word; so they brought an old door and laid him on it. Six strong men raised it gently on their shoulders, and, with slow steps and downcast faces, they carried the wounded miner home. CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN. INDICATES THAT "WE LITTLE KNOW WHAT GREAT THINGS FROM LITTLE THINGS MAY RISE." Soon after this accident to James Penrose, the current of events at the mines was diverted from its course by several incidents, which, like the obstructing rocks in a rapid, created some eddies and whirlpools in the lives of those personages with whom this chronicle has to do. As the beginning of a mighty inundation is oft-times an insignificant-looking leak, and as the cause of a series of great events is not unfrequently a trifling incident, so the noteworthy circumstances which we have still to lay before our readers were brought about by a very small matter--by a baby--_the_ baby Maggot! One morning that cherubical creature opened its eyes at a much earlier hour than usual, and stared at the ceiling of its father's cottage. The sun was rising, and sent its unobstructed rays through the window of Maggot's cottage, where it danced on the ceiling as if its sole purpose in rising had been to amuse the Maggot baby. If so, it was pre-eminently successful in its attempts, for the baby lay and smiled for a long time in silent ecstasy. Of course, we do not mean to say that the sun itself, or its direct rays, actually danced. No, it was too dignified a luminary for that, but its rays went straight at a small looking-glass which was suspended on the wall opposite to the window, and this being hung so as to slope forward, projected the rays obliquely into a tub of water which was destined for family washing purposes; and from its gently moving surface they were transmitted to the ceiling, where, as aforesaid, they danced, to the immense delight of Maggot junior. The door of the cottage had been carelessly closed the previous night when the family retired to rest, and a chink of it was open, through which a light draught of summer air came in. This will account for the ripple on the water, which (as every observant reader will note) ought, according to the laws of gravitation, to have lain perfectly still. The inconstancy of baby Maggot's nature was presently exhibited in his becoming tired of the sun, and the restlessness of his disposition displayed itself in his frantic efforts to get out of bed. Being boxed in with a board, this was not an easy matter, but the urchin's limbs were powerful, and he finally got over the obstruction, sufficiently far to lose his balance, and fall with a sounding flop on the floor. It is interesting to notice how soon deceit creeps into the hearts of some children! Of course the urchin fell sitting-wise--babies always do so, as surely as cats fall on their feet. In ordinary circumstances he would have intimated the painful mishap with a dreadful yell; but on this particular occasion young Maggot was bent on mischief. Of what sort, he probably had no idea, but there must have been a latent feeling of an intention to be "bad" in some way or other, because, on reaching the ground, he pursed his mouth, opened his eyes very wide, and looked cautiously round to make sure that the noise had awakened no one. His father, he observed, with a feeling of relief, was absent from home--not a matter of uncommon occurrence, for that worthy man's avocations often called him out at untimeous hours. Mrs Maggot was in bed snoring, and wrinkling up her nose in consequence of a fly having perched itself obstinately on the point thereof. Zackey, with the red earth of the mine still streaking his manly countenance, was rolled-up like a ball in his own bed in a dark recess of the room, and little Grace Maggot could be seen in the dim perspective of a closet, also sound asleep, in her own neat little bed, with her hair streaming over the pillow, and the "chet" reposing happily on her neck. But that easily satisfied chet had long ago had more than enough of rest. Its repose was light, and the sound of baby Maggot falling out of bed caused it to rise, yawn, arch its back and tail, and prepare itself for the mingled joys and torments of the opening day. Observing that the urchin rose and staggered with a gleeful expression towards the door, the volatile chet made a dash at him sidewise, and gave him such a fright that he fell over the door step into the road. Again was that tender babe's deceitfulness of character displayed, for, instead of howling, as he would have done on other occasions, he exercised severe self-restraint, made light of a bruised shin, and, gathering himself up, made off as fast as his fat legs could carry him. There was something deeply interesting--worthy of the study of a philosopher--in the subsequent actions of that precocious urchin. His powers in the way of walking were not much greater than those of a very tipsy man, and he swayed his arms about a good deal to maintain his balance, especially at the outset of the journey, when he imagined that he heard the maternal voice in anger and the maternal footsteps in pursuit in every puff of wind, grunt of pig, or bark of early-rising cur. His entire soul was engrossed in the one grand, vital, absorbing idea of escape! By degrees, as distance from the paternal roof increased, his fluttering spirit grew calmer and his gait more steady, and the flush of victory gathered on his brow and sparkled in his eye, as the conviction was pressed home upon him that, for the first time in his life, he was _free_! free as the wind of heaven to go where he pleased--to do what he liked--to be _as bad as possible_, without let or hindrance! Not that baby Maggot had any stronger desire to be absolutely wicked than most other children of his years; but, having learnt from experience that the attempt to gratify any of his desires was usually checked and termed "bad," he naturally felt that a state of delight so intense as that to which he had at last attained, must necessarily be the very quintessence of iniquity. Being resolved to go through with it at all hazards, he felt proportionately wild and reckless. Such a state of commotion was there in his heaving bosom, owing to contradictory and conflicting elements, that he felt at one moment inclined to lie down and shout for joy, and the next, to sink into the earth with terror. Time, which proverbially works wonderful changes, at length subdued the urchin to a condition of calm goodness and felicity, that would have rejoiced his mother's heart, had it only been brought on in ordinary circumstances at home. There is a piece of waste ground lying between St. Just and the sea--a sort of common, covered with heath and furze--on which the ancient Britons have left their indelible mark, in the shape of pits and hollows and trenches, with their relative mounds and hillocks. Here, in the days of old, our worthy but illiterate forefathers had grubbed and dug and turned up every square foot of the soil, like a colony of gigantic rabbits, in order to supply the precious metal of the country to the Phoenicians, Jews, and Greeks. The ground on this common is so riddled with holes of all sizes and shapes, utterly unguarded by any kind of fence, that it requires care on the part of the pedestrian who traverses the place even in daylight. Hence the mothers of St. Just are naturally anxious that the younger members of their families should not go near the common, and the younger members are as naturally anxious that they should visit it. Thither, in the course of time--for it was not far distant--the baby Maggot naturally trended; proceeding on the principle of "short stages and long rests." Never in his life--so he thought--had he seen such bright and beautiful flowers, such green grass, and such lovely yellow sand, as that which appeared here and there at the mouths of the holes and old shafts, or such a delicious balmy and sweet-scented breeze as that which came off the Atlantic and swept across the common. No wonder that his eyes drank in the beautiful sights, for they had seen little of earth hitherto, save the four walls of his father's cottage and the dead garden wall in front of it; no wonder that his nostrils dilated to receive the sweet odours, for they had up to that date lived upon air which had to cross a noisome and stagnant pool of filth before it entered his father's dwelling; and no wonder that his ears thrilled to hear the carol of the birds, for they had previously been accustomed chiefly to the voices of poultry and pigs, and to the caterwauling of the "chet." But as every joy has its alloy, so our youthful traveller's feelings began to be modified by a gnawing sensation of hunger, as his usual hour for breakfast approached. Still he wandered on manfully, looking into various dark and deep holes with much interest and a good deal of awe. Some of the old shafts were so deep that no bottom could be seen; others were partially filled up, and varied from five to twenty feet in depth. Some were nearly perpendicular, others were sloped and irregular in form; but all were more or less fringed with gorse bushes in full bloom. In a few cases the old pits were concealed by these bushes. It is almost unnecessary to say that baby Maggot's progress, on that eventful morn, was--unknown to himself--a series of narrow escapes from beginning to end--no not exactly to the end, for his last adventure could scarcely be deemed an escape. He was standing on the edge of a hole, which was partially concealed by bushes. Endeavouring to peer into it he lost his balance and fell forward. His ready hands grasped the gorse and received innumerable punctures, which drew forth a loud cry. Head foremost he went in, and head foremost he went down full ten feet, when a small bush caught him, and lowered him gently to the ground, but the spot on which he was landed was steep; it sloped towards the bottom of the hole, which turned inwards and became a sort of cavern. Struggling to regain his footing, he slipped and rolled violently to the bottom, where he lay for a few minutes either stunned or too much astonished to move. Then he recovered a little and began to whimper. After which he felt so much better that he arose and attempted to get out of the hole, but slipped and fell back again, whereupon he set up a hideous roar which continued without intermission for a quarter of an hour, when he fell sound asleep, and remained in happy unconsciousness for several hours. Meanwhile the Maggot family was, as may well be believed, thrown into a state of tremendous agitation. Mrs Maggot, on making the discovery that baby had succeeded in scaling the barricade, huddled on her garments and roused her progeny to assist in the search. At first she was not alarmed, believing that she should certainly find the self-willed urchin near the house, perhaps in the cottage of the Penroses. But when the cottages in the immediate neighbourhood had been called at, and all the known places of danger round the house examined, without success, the poor woman became frantic with terror, and roused the whole neighbourhood. Every place of possible and impossible concealment was searched, and at last the unhappy mother allowed the terrible thought to enter her mind that baby had actually accomplished the unheard-of feat of reaching the dreaded common, and was perhaps at that moment lying maimed or dead at the bottom of an ancient British shaft! Immediately a body of volunteers, consisting of men, women, and children, and headed by Mrs Maggot, hastened to the common to institute a thorough search; but they searched in vain, for the holes were innumerable, and the one in which the baby lay was well concealed by bushes. Besides, the search was somewhat wildly and hastily made, so that some spots were over-searched, while others were almost overlooked. All that day did Mrs Maggot and her friends wander to and fro over the common, and never, since the days when Phoenician galleys were moored by St. Michael's Mount, did the eyes of human beings pry so earnestly into these pits and holes. Had tin been their object, they could not have been more eager. Evening came, night drew on apace, and at last the forlorn mother sat down in the centre of a furze bush, and began to weep. But her friends comforted her. They urged her to go home and "'ave a dish o' tay" to strengthen her for the renewal of the search by torch-light. They assured her that the child could easily exist longer than a day without food, and they reminded her that her baby was an exceptional baby, a peculiar baby--like its father, uncommonly strong, and, like its mother, unusually obstinate. The latter sentiment, however, was _thought_, not expressed. Under the influence of these assurances and persuasions, Mrs Maggot went home, and, for a short time, the common was deserted. Now it chanced, curiously enough, that at this identical point of time, Maggot senior was enjoying a pipe and a glass of grog in a celebrated kiddle-e-wink, with his friend Joe Tonkin. This kiddle-e-wink, or low public-house, was known as Un (or Aunt) Jilly's brandy-shop at Bosarne. It was a favourite resort of smugglers, and many a gallon of spirit, free of duty, had been consumed on the premises. Maggot and his friend were alone in the house at the time, and their conversation had taken a dolorous turn, for many things had occurred of late to disturb the equanimity of the friends. Several ventures in the smuggling way had proved unsuccessful, and the mines did not offer a tempting prospect just then. There had, no doubt, been one or two hopeful veins opened up, and some good "pitches" had been wrought, but these were only small successes, and the luck had not fallen to either of themselves. The recent discovery of a good bunch by poor Penrose had not been fully appreciated, for the wounded man had as yet said nothing about it, and little Zackey had either forgotten all about it in the excitement of the accident, or was keeping his own counsel. Maggot talked gloomily about the advisability of emigration to America, as he sent clouds of tobacco smoke up Un Jilly's chimney, and Tonkin said he would try the mines for a short time, and if things didn't improve he would go to sea. He did not, however, look at things in quite the same light with his friend. Perhaps he was of a more hopeful disposition, perhaps had met with fewer disappointments. At all events, he so wrought on Maggot's mind that he half induced him to deny his smuggling propensities for a time, and try legitimate work in the mines. Not that Joe Tonkin wanted to reform him by any means, but he was himself a little out of humour with his old profession, and sought to set his friend against it also. "Try your luck in Botallack," said Joe Tonkin, knocking the ashes out of his pipe, preparatory to quitting the place, "that's my advice to 'ee, booy." "I've half a mind to," replied Maggot, rising; "if that theere cargo I run on Saturday do go the way the last did, I'll ha' done with it, so I will. Good-hevenin', Un Jilly." "Good-hevenin', an' don't 'ee go tumblin' down the owld shafts," said the worthy hostess, observing that her potent brandy had rendered the gait of the men unsteady. They laughed as they received the caution, and walked together towards St. Just. "Lev us go see if the toobs are all safe," said Maggot, on reaching the common. Tonkin agreed, and they turned aside into a narrow track, which led across the waste land, where the search for the baby had been so diligently carried on all that day. Night had set in, as we have said, and the searchers had gone up to the town to partake of much-needed refreshment, and obtain torches, so that the place was bleak and silent, as well as dark, when the friends crossed it, but they knew every foot of the ground so thoroughly, that there was no fear of their stumbling into old holes. Maggot led the way, and he walked straight to the old shaft where his hopeful son lay. There were three noteworthy points of coincidence here to which we would draw attention. It was just because this old shaft was so well concealed that Maggot had chosen it as a place in which to hide his tubs of smuggled brandy; it was owing to the same reason that the town's-people had failed to discover it while searching for the baby; and it was--at least we think it must have been--just because of the same reason that baby Maggot had found it, for that amiable child had a peculiar talent, a sort of vocation, for ferreting out things and places hidden and secret, especially if forbidden. Having succeeded in falling into the hole, the urchin naturally discovered his father's tubs. After crying himself to sleep as before mentioned, and again awakening, his curiosity in respect to these tubs afforded him amusement, and kept him quiet for a time; perhaps the fact that one of the tubs had leaked and filled the lower part of the old shaft with spirituous fumes, may account for the baby continuing to keep quiet, and falling into a sleep which lasted the greater part of the day; at all events, it is certain that he did not howl, as might have been expected of him in the circumstances. Towards evening, however, he began to move about among the tubs, and to sigh and whimper in a subdued way, for his stomach, unused to such prolonged fasting, felt very uncomfortable. When darkness came on baby Maggot became alarmed, but, just about the time of his father's approach, the moon shone out and cast a cheering ray down the shaft, which relieved his mind a little. "Joe," said Maggot in a whisper, and with a serious look, "some one have bin here." "D'ee think so?" said Tonkin. "Iss I do; the bushes are broken a bit. Hush! what's that?" The two men paused and looked at each other with awe depicted on their faces, while they listened intently, but, in the words of the touching old song, "the beating of their own hearts was all the sound they heard." "It wor the wind," said Maggot. "Iss, that's what it wor," replied Tonkin; "come, lev us go down. The wind can't do no harm to we." But although he proposed to advance he did not move, and Maggot did not seem inclined to lead the way, for just then something like a sigh came from below, and a dark cloud passed over the moon. It is no uncommon thing to find that men who are physically brave as lions become nervous as children when anything bordering on what they deem supernatural meets them. Maggot was about the most reckless man in the parish of St. Just, and Tonkin was not far behind him in the quality of courage, yet these two stood there with palpitating hearts undecided what to do. Ashamed of being thought afraid of anything, Maggot at last cleared his throat, and, in a husky voice, said,--"Come, then, lev us go down." So saying he slid down the shaft, closely followed by Tonkin, who was nearly as much afraid to be left alone on the bleak moor as he was to enter the old mine. Now, while the friends were consulting with palpitating hearts above, baby Maggot, wide-awake and trembling with terror, listened with bated breath below, and when the two men came scrambling down the sides of the shaft his heart seemed to fill up his breast and throat, and his blood began to creep in his veins. Maggot could see nothing in the gloomy interior as he advanced, but baby could see his father's dark form clearly. Still, no sound escaped from him, for horror had bereft him of power. Just then the dark cloud passed off the moon, and a bright beam shone full on the upper half of the baby's face as he peeped over the edge of one of the tubs. Maggot saw two glaring eyeballs, and felt frozen alive instantly. Tonkin, looking over his comrade's shoulder, also saw the eyes, and was petrified on the spot. Suddenly baby Maggot found his voice and uttered a most awful yell. Maggot senior found his limbs, and turned to fly. So did Tonkin, but he slipped and fell at the first step. Maggot fell over him. Both rose and dashed up the shaft, scraping elbows, shins, and knuckles as they went, and, followed by a torrent of hideous cries, that sounded in their ears like the screaming of fiends, they gained the surface, and, without exchanging a word, fled in different directions on the wings of terror! Maggot did not halt until he burst into his house, and flung himself into his own chair by the chimney corner, whence he gazed on what was calculated to alarm as well as to perplex him. This was the spectacle of his own wife taking tea in floods of tears, and being encouraged in her difficult task by Mrs Penrose and a few sympathising friends. With some difficulty he got them to explain this mystery. "What! baby gone lost?" he exclaimed; "where away?" When it was told him what had occurred, Maggot's eyes gradually opened, and his lips gradually closed, until the latter produced a low whistle. "I think that I do knaw where the cheeld is," he said; "come along, an' I'll show un to 'ee." So saying, the wily smith, assuming an air of importance and profound wisdom, arose and led his wife and her friends, with a large band of men who had prepared torches, straight to the old shaft. Going down, but sternly forbidding any one to follow he speedily returned with the baby in his arms, to the surprise of all, and to the unutterable joy of the child's mother. In one sense, however, the result was disastrous. Curious persons were there who could not rest until they had investigated the matter further, and the tubs were not only discovered, but carried off by those who had no title to them whatever! The misfortune created such a tumult of indignation in the breast of Maggot, that he was heard in his wrath to declare he "would have nothin' more to do with un, but would go into the bal the next settin' day." This was the commencement of that series of events which, as we have stated at the beginning of this chapter, were brought about by that wonderful baby--the baby Maggot. CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT. DESCRIBES SETTING-DAY AT THE MINE, ETCETERA. That very evening, while Maggot was smoking his pipe by the fireside, his son Zackey referred to the bunch of copper which Penrose had discovered in the mine. After a short conversation, Maggot senior went to the wounded man to talk about it. "'Twas a keenly lode, did 'ee say?" asked Maggot, after he had inquired as to the health of his friend. "Yes, and as I shall not be able to work there again," said Penrose sadly, "I would advise you to try it. Zackey is entitled to get the benefit of the discovery, for he was with me at the time, and, but for his aid, dear boy, I should have been suffocated." Maggot said no more on that occasion about the mine, being a man of few words, but, after conversing a short time with the wounded man, and ascertaining that no hope was held out to him of the recovery of his sight, he went his way to the forge to work and meditate. Setting-day came--being the first Saturday in the month, and no work was done on that day in Botallack, for the men were all above ground to have their "pitches" for the next month fixed, and to receive their wages-- setting-day being also pay day. Some time before the business of the day commenced, the miners began to assemble in considerable numbers in the neighbourhood of the account-house. Very different was their appearance on that occasion from the rusty-red fellows who were wont to toil in the dark chambers far down in the depths below the spot where they stood. Their underground dresses were laid aside, and they now appeared in the costume of well-off tradesmen. There was a free-and-easy swing about the movements of most of these men that must have been the result of their occupation, which brings every muscle of the body into play, and does not--as is too much the case in some trades--over-tax the powers of a certain set of muscles to the detriment of others. Some there were, however, even among the young men, whose hollow cheeks and bloodless lips, accompanied with a short cough, told of evil resulting from bad air and frequent chills; while, on the other hand, a few old men were to be seen with bright eyes and ruddy cheeks which indicated constitutions of iron. Not a few were mere lads, whose broad shoulders and deep chests and resolute wills enabled them to claim the title, and do the work, of men. There were some among them, both young and old, who showed traces of having suffered in their dangerous employment. Several were minus an eye, and one or two were nearly blind, owing to blast-holes exploding in their faces. One man in particular, a tall and very powerful fellow, had a visage which was quite blue, and one of his eyes was closed--the blue colour resulting from unburnt grains of powder having been blown into his flesh. He had been tattooed, in fact, by a summary and effective process. This man's family history was peculiar. His father, also a miner, had lived in a lonely cottage on a moor near St. Just, and worked in Balaswidden Mine. One night he was carried home and laid at his wife's feet, dead--almost dashed to pieces by a fall. Not long afterwards the son was carried to the same cottage with his right eye destroyed. Some time later a brother dislocated his foot twice within the year in the mine; and a few months after that another brother fell from a beam, descended about twenty-four feet perpendicularly, where he struck the side of the mine with his head, and had six or seven of his teeth knocked out; glancing off to one side, he fell twenty feet more on the hard rock, where he was picked up insensible. This man recovered, however, under the careful nursing of his oft and sorely tried mother. Maggot was present on this setting-day, with a new cap and a new blue cloth coat, looking altogether a surprisingly respectable character. A good deal of undertoned chaffing commenced when he appeared. "Hallo!" exclaimed one, "goin' to become an honest man, Maggot?" "Thinkin' 'bout it," replied the smith, with a good-humoured smile. "Why, if I didn't knaw that the old wuman's alive," said another, "I'd say he was agoin' to get married again!" "Never fear," exclaimed a third, "Maggot's far too 'cute a cunger to be caught twice." "I say, my dear man," asked another, "have 'ee bin takin' a waalk 'pon the clifts lately?" "Iss, aw iss," replied the smith with much gravity. "Did 'ee find any more daws 'pon clift?" asked the other, with a leer. There was a general laugh at this, but Maggot replied with good-humour,--"No, Billy, no--took 'em all away last time. But I'm towld there's some more eggs in the nest, so thee'll have a chance some day, booy." "I hope the daws ain't the worse of their ducking?" asked Billy, with an expression of anxious interest. "Aw, my dear," said Maggot, looking very sad, and shaking his head slowly, "didn't 'ee hear the noos?" "No, not I." "They did catch the noo complaint the doctor do spaik of--bronkeetis I think it is--and although I did tie 'em up wi' flannel round their necks, an' water-gruel, besides 'ot bottles to their feet, they're all gone dead. I mean to have 'em buried on Monday. Will 'ee come to the berryin, Billy?" "P'raps I will," replied Billy, "but see that the gravedigger do berry 'em deep, else he'll catch a blowin' up like the gravedigger did in Cambourne last week." "What was that, booy? Let us hear about it, Billy," exclaimed several voices. "Well, this is the way of it," said Billy: "the owld gravedigger in Cambourne was standin' about, after mittin' was over, a-readin' of the tombstones, for he'd got a good edjication, had owld Tom. His name was Tom--the same man as put a straw rope to the bell which the cows did eat away, so that he cudn't ring the people to mittin'. Well, when he was studdyin' the morials on the stones out comes Captain Rowe. He was wan o' the churchwardens, or somethin' o' that sort, but I don't knaw nothin' 'bout the church, so I ain't sure--an' he calls owld Tom into the vestry. "`Now look here, Tom,' says the captain, very stern, `they tell me thee 'rt gettin' lazy, Tom, an' that thee do dig the graves only four fut deep. Now, Tom, I was over to St. Just t'other day to a berryin', and I see that they do dig their graves six fut or more deeper than you do. That won't do, Tom, I tell 'ee. What's the meanin' of it?' "This came somewhat suddent on owld Tom, but he wor noways put out. "`Well, you do see, Cap'n Rowe,' says he, `I do it apurpose, for I do look at the thing in two lights.'" "`How so?' asked the captain. "`Why, the people of St. Just only think of the berryin', but _I_ do think of the resurrection; the consekince is that they do dig too deep, an' afore the St. Just folk are well out of their graves, _ours_ will be a braave way up to heaven!'" The laugh with which this anecdote was received had scarcely subsided when the upper half of one of the account-house windows opened, and the fine-looking head and shoulders of old Mr Cornish appeared. The manager laid an open book on the window-sill, and from this elevated position, as from a pulpit, he read out the names, positions, etcetera, of the various "pitches" that were to be "sett" for the following month. One of the mine captains stood at his elbow to give any required information--he and his three brother captains being the men who had gone all over the mine during the previous month, examined the work, measured what had been done by each man or "pare" of men, knew the capabilities of all the miners, and fixed the portion that ought to be offered to each for acceptance or refusal. The men assembled in a cluster round the window, and looked up while Mr Cornish read off as follows:-- "John Thomas's pitch at back of the hundred and five. By two men. To extend from the end of tram-hole, four fathom west, and from back of level, five fathom above." For the enlightenment of the reader, we may paraphrase the above sentence thus:-- "The pitch or portion of rock wrought last month by John Thomas is now offered anew--in the first place, to John Thomas himself if he chooses to continue working it at our rate of pay, or, if he declines, to any other man who pleases to offer for it. The pitch is in the back (or roof) of the level, which lies one hundred and five fathoms deep. It must be wrought by two men, and must be excavated lengthwise to an extent of four fathoms in a westerly direction from a spot called the tram-hole. In an upward direction, it may be excavated from the roof of the level to an extent of five fathoms." John Thomas, being present, at once offered "ten shillings," by which he meant that, knowing the labour to be undergone, and the probable value of the ore that would have to be excavated, he thought it worth while to continue at that piece of work, or that "pitch," if the manager would give him ten shillings for every twenty shillings' worth of mineral sent to the surface by him; but the captain also knew the ground and the labour that would be required, and his estimate was that eight shillings would be quite sufficient remuneration, a fact which was announced by Mr Cornish simply uttering the words, "At eight shillings." "Put her down, s'pose," said John Thomas after a moment's consideration. Perhaps John knew that eight shillings was really sufficient, although he wanted ten. At all events he knew that it was against the rules to dispute the point at that time, as it delayed business; that if he did not accept the offer, another man might do so; and that he might not get so good a pitch if he were to change. The pitch was therefore sett to John Thomas, and another read off:--"Jim Hocking's pitch at back of the hundred and ten. By one man. To extend," etcetera. "Won't have nothin' to do with her," said Jim Hocking. Jim had evidently found the work too hard, and was dissatisfied with the remuneration, so he declined, resolving to try his chance in a more promising part of the mine. "Will any one offer for this pitch?" inquired Mr Cornish. Eight and six shillings were sums immediately named by men who thought the pitch looked more promising than Jim did. "Any one offer more for this pitch?" asked the manager, taking up a pebble from a little pile that lay at his elbow, and casting it into the air. While that pebble was in its flight, any one might offer for the pitch, but the instant it touched the ground, the bargain was held to be concluded with the last bidder. A man named Oats, who had been in a hesitating state of mind, here exclaimed "Five shillings" (that is, offered to work the pitch for five shillings on every twenty shillings' worth sent to grass); next instant the stone fell, and the pitch was sett to Oats. Poor James Penrose's pitch was the next sett. "James Penrose's _late_ pitch," read the manager, giving the details of it in terms somewhat similar to those already sett, and stating that the required "pare," or force to be put on it, was two men and a boy. "Put me down for it," said Maggot. "Have you got your pare?" asked Mr Cornish. "Iss, sur." "Their names?" "David Trevarrow and my son Zackey." The pitch was allocated in due form at the rate of fifteen shillings per twenty shillings' worth of mineral sent up--this large sum being given because it was not known to be an unusually good pitch--Penrose having been too ill to speak of his discovery since his accident, and the captain having failed to notice it. When a place is poor looking, a higher sum is given to the miner to induce him to work it. When it is rich, a lower sum is given, because he can make more out of it. Thus the work went on, the sums named varying according to the nature of the ground, and each man saying "Naw," or "Put me down," or "That won't do," or "I won't have her," according to circumstances. While this was going on at the window, another and perhaps more interesting scene was taking place in the office. This apartment presented a singular appearances. There was a large table in the centre of it, which, with every available inch of surface on a side-table, and on a board at the window, was completely covered with banknotes and piles of gold, silver, and copper. Each pile was placed on a little square piece of paper containing the account-current for the month of the man or men to whom it belonged. Very few men laboured singly. Many worked in couples, and some in bands of three, five, or more. So much hard cash gave the place a wealthy appearance, and in truth there was a goodly sum spread out, amounting to several hundreds of pounds. The piles varied very much in size, and conveyed a rough outline of the financial history of the men they belonged to. Some large heaps of silver, with a few coppers and a pile of sovereigns more than an inch high, lying on two or more five-pound notes indicated successful labour. Nevertheless, the evidence was not absolutely conclusive, because the large piles had in most cases to be divided between several men who had banded together; but the little square account-papers, with a couple of crowns on them, told of hard work and little pay, while yonder square with two shillings in the centre of it betokened utter failure, only to be excelled by another square, on which lay _nothing_. You will probably exclaim in your heart, reader, "What! do miners sometimes work for a month, and receive only two shillings, or _nothing_ as wages?" Ay, sometimes; but it is their own seeking if they do; it is not forced upon them. There are three classes of miners--those who work on the surface, dressing ore, etcetera, who are paid a weekly wage; those who work on "tribute," and those who work at "tut-work." Of the first we say nothing, except that they consist chiefly of balmaidens and children-- the former receiving about 18 shillings a month, and the latter from 8 shillings to 20 shillings, according to age and capacity. In regard to "tributers" and "tut-workers," we may remark that the work of both is identical in one respect--namely, that of hewing, picking, boring, and blasting the hard rock. In this matter they share equal toils and dangers, but they are not subjected to the same remunerative vicissitudes. When a man works on "tribute" he receives so many shillings for every twenty shillings' worth of ore that he raises during the month, as already explained. If his "pitch" turns out to be rich in ore, his earnings are proportionably high; if it be poor, he remains poor also. Sometimes a part of the mineral lode becomes so poor that it will not pay for working, and has to be abandoned. So little as a shilling may be the result of a "tributer's" work for a month at one time, while at another time he may get a good pitch, and make 100 pounds or 200 pounds in the same period. The "tutman" (or piecework man), on the other hand, cuts out the rock at so much per fathom, and obtains wages at the rate of from 2 pounds, 10 shillings to 3 pounds a month. He can never hope to make a fortune, but so long as health and strength last, he may count on steady work and wages. Of course there is a great deal of the work in a mine which is not directly remunerative, such as "sinking" shafts, opening up and "driving" (or lengthening) levels, and sinking "winzes." On such work tutmen are employed. The man who works on "tribute" is a speculator; he who chooses "tut-work" is a steady labourer. The tributer experiences all the excitement of uncertainty, and enjoys the pleasures of hope. He knows something, too, about "hope deferred;" also can tell of hope disappointed; has his wits sharpened, and, generally, is a smart fellow. The tut-worker knows nothing of this, his pay being safe and regular, though small. Many quiet-going, plodding men prefer and stick to tut-work. In and about the counting-room the men who had settled the matter of their next month's work were assembled. These--the cashier having previously made all ready--were paid in a prompt and businesslike manner. First, there came forward a middle-aged man. It was scarcely necessary for him to speak, for the cashier knew every man on the mine by name, and also how much was due to him, and the hundreds of little square accounts-current were so arranged that he could lay his hands on any one in an instant. Nevertheless, being a hearty and amiable man, he generally had a word to say to every one. "How's your son, Matthew?" he inquired of the middle-aged man, putting the square paper with its contents into his hand. "He's braave, sir. The doctor do say he'll be about again in a week." Matthew crumpled up his account-current--notes, gold, silver, copper and all--in his huge brown hand, and, thrusting the whole into his breeches pocket, said "Thank 'ee," and walked away. Next, there came forward a young man with one eye, an explosion having shut up the other one for ever. He received his money along with that of the three men who worked in the same "pare" with him. He crumpled it up in the same reckless way as Matthew had done, also thrust it into his pocket, and walked off with an independent swagger. Truly, in the sweat, not only of his brow, but, of every pore in his body, had he earned it, and he was entitled to swagger a little just then. There was little enough room or inducement to do so down in the mine! After this young man a little boy came forward saying that his "faither" had sent him for his money. It was observable that the boys and lads among those who presented themselves in the counting-room, were, as a rule, hearty and hopeful. With them it was as with the young in all walks of life. Everything looked bright and promising. The young men were stern, yet free-and-easy--as though they had already found life a pretty tough battle, but felt quite equal to it. And so they were, every one of them! With tough sinews, hard muscles, and indomitable energy, they were assuredly equal to any work that man could undertake; and many of them, having the fear of God in their hearts, were fitted to endure manfully the trials of life as well. The elderly men were sedate, and had careworn faces; they knew what it was to suffer. Many of them had carried little ones to the grave; they had often seen strong men like themselves go forth in the morning hale and hearty, and be carried to their homes at evening with blinded eyes or shattered limbs. Life had lost its gloss to them, but it had not lost its charms. There were loving hearts to work for, and a glorious end for which to live, or, if need be, to die--so, although their countenances were sedate they were not sad. The old men--of whom there were but two or three--were jolly old souls. They seemed to have successfully defied the tear and wear of life, to have outlived its sorrows, and renewed their youth. Certainly they had not reached their second childhood, for they stepped forth and held out their hands for their pay as steadily as the best of the young ones. When about one-half of the number had been paid, a woman in widow's weeds came forward to take up the pay due to her son--her "wretched Harry," as she styled him. All that was due was seven-and-sixpence. It was inexpressibly sad to see her retire with this small sum--the last that her unsettled boy was entitled to draw from the mines. He had worked previously in the neighbouring mine, Wheal Owles, and had gone to Botallack the month before. He was now off to sea, leaving his mother, who to some extent depended on him, to look out for herself. The next who came forward was a blind man. He had worked long in the mine--so long that he could find his way through the labyrinth of levels as easily in his blind state as he did formerly with his eyesight. When his eyes were destroyed (in the usual way, by the explosion of a hole), he was only off work during the period of convalescence. Afterwards he returned to his familiar haunts underground; and although he could no longer labour in the old way, he was quite able to work a windlass, and draw up the bucket at a winze. For this he now pocketed two pounds sterling, and walked off as vigorously as if he had possessed both his eyes! Among others, a wife appeared to claim her husband's pay, and she was followed by Zackey Maggot, who came to receive his own and Penrose's money. "How does Penrose get on?" inquired the cashier, as he handed over the sum due. "Slowly, sur," said Zackey. "It is a bad case," said one of the captains, who sat close by; "the doctor thinks there is little or no chance for his eyesight." Poor Zackey received his pay and retired without any demonstration of his wonted buoyancy of spirit, for he was fond of Penrose, almost as much so as he was of uncle David Trevarrow. The varied fortune experienced in the mine was exhibited in one or two instances on this occasion. One man and a boy, working together, had, in their own phraseology, "got a sturt"--they had come unexpectedly on a piece of rich ground, which yielded so much tin that at the end of the month they received 25 pounds between them. The man had been receiving "subsist," that is, drawing advances monthly for nearly a year, and, having a wife and children to support, had almost lost heart. It was said that he had even contemplated suicide, but this little piece of good fortune enabled him to pay off his debt and left something over. Another man and boy had 20 pounds to receive. On the other hand, one man had only 2 shillings due to him, while a couple of men who had worked in poor ground found themselves 2 shillings in debt, and had to ask for "subsist." Some time previous to this, two men had discovered a "bunch of copper," and in the course of two months they cleared 260 pounds. At a later period a man in Levant Mine, who was one of the Wesleyan local preachers, cleared 200 pounds within a year. He gave a hundred pounds to his mother, and with the other hundred went off to seek his fortune in Australia! After all the men had been paid, those who wished for "subsist," or advances, were desired to come forward. About a dozen of them did so, and among these were representatives of all classes--the diligent and strong, the old and feeble, and the young. Of course, in mining operations as in other work, the weak, lazy, and idle will ever be up to the lips in trouble, and in need of help. But in mining the best of men may be obliged to demand assistance, because, when tributers work on hopefully day after day and week after week on bad ground, they must have advances to enable them to persevere--not being able to subsist on air! This is no hardship, the mine being at all times open to their inspection, and they are allowed to select their own ground. Hence the demand for "subsist" is not necessarily a sign of absolute but only of temporary poverty. The managers make large or small advances according to their knowledge of the men. There was a good deal of chaffing at this point in the proceedings--the lazy men giving occasion for a slight administration of rebuke, and the able men affording scope for good-humoured pleasantry and badinage. In Botallack, at the present time, about forty or fifty men per month find it necessary to ask for "subsist." Before the wages were paid, several small deductions had to be made. First, there was sixpence to be deducted from each man for "the club." This club consisted of those who chose to pay sixpence a month to a fund for the temporary support of those who were damaged by accidents in the mine. A similar sum per month was deducted from each man for "the doctor," who was bound, in consideration of this, to attend the miners free of charge. In addition to this a shilling was deducted from each man, to be given to the widow and family of a comrade who had died that month. At the present time from 18 pounds to 20 pounds are raised in this way when a death occurs, to be given to the friends of the deceased. It should be remarked that these deductions are made with the consent of the men. Any one may refuse to give to those objects, but, if he do so, he or his will lose the benefit in the event of his disablement or death. Men who are totally disabled receive a pension from the club fund. Not long ago a miner, blind of one eye, left another mine and engaged in Botallack. Before his first month was out he exploded a blast-hole in his face, which destroyed the other eye. From that day he received a pension of 1 pound a month, which will continue till his death--or, at least as long as Botallack shall flourish--and that miner may be seen daily going through the streets of St. Just with his little daughter, in a cart, shouting "Pilchards, fresh pilcha-a-rds, breem, pullock, fresh pullock, _pil-cha-a-rds_"--at the top of his stentorian voice--a living example of the value of "the club," and of the principle of insurance! At length the business of the day came to a close. The wages were paid, the men's work for another month was fixed, the cases of difficulty and distress were heard and alleviated, and then the managers and agents wound up the day by dining together in the account-house, the most noteworthy point in the event being the fact that the dinner was eaten off plates made of pure Botallack tin. Once a quarter this dinner, styled the "account-dinner," is partaken of by any of the shareholders who may wish to be present, on which occasion the manager and agents lay before the company the condition and prospects of the mine, and a quarterly dividend (if any) is paid. There is a matter-of-fact and Spartan-like air about this feast which commands respect. The room in which it is held is uncarpeted, and its walls are graced by no higher works of art than the plans and sections of the mine. The food is excellent and substantial, but simple. There is abundance of it, but there are no courses--either preliminary or successive--no soup or fish to annoy one who wants meat; no ridiculous _entremets_ to tantalise one who wants something solid; no puddings, pies, or tarts to tempt men to gluttony. All set to work at the same time, and enjoy their meal _together_, which is more than can be said of most dinners. All is grandly simple, like the celebrated mine on which the whole is founded. But there is one luxury at this feast which it would be unpardonable not to mention--namely the punch. Whoever tastes this beverage can never forget it! Description were useless to convey an idea of it. Imagination were impotent to form a conception of it. Taste alone will avail, so that our readers must either go to Cornwall to drink it, or for ever remain unsatisfied. We can only remark, in reference to it, that it is potent as well as pleasant, and that it is also dangerous, being of an insinuating nature, so that those who partake freely have a tendency to wish for more, and are apt to dream (not unreasonably, but too wildly) of Botallack tin being transformed into silver and gold. CHAPTER TWENTY NINE. DETAILS, AMONG OTHER THINGS, A DEED OF HEROISM. To work went Maggot and Trevarrow and Zackey on their new pitch next day like true Britons. Indeed, we question whether true Britons of the ancient time ever did go to work with half the energy or perseverance of the men of the present day. Those men of old were mere grubbers on the surface. They knew nothing of deep levels under the ocean. However, to do them justice, they made wonderfully extensive tunnels in mother earth, with implements much inferior to those now in use. But, be that as it may, our trio went to work "with a will." Maggot was keen to get up as much of the rich mineral as possible during the month--knowing that he would not get the place next month on such good terms. Trevarrow, besides having no objections to make money when he could for its own sake, was anxious to have a little to spare to James Penrose, whose large family found it pinching work to subsist on the poor fellow's allowance from the club. As to Zackey, he was ready for anything where Uncle Davy was leader. So these three resolved to work night and day. Maggot took his turn in the daytime and slept at night; Trevarrow slept in the daytime and worked at night; while the boy worked as long as he could at whatever time suited him best. As they advanced on the lode it became larger and richer, and in a day or two it assumed such proportions as to throw the fortunate workers into a state of great excitement, and they tore out and blasted away the precious mineral like Titans. One day, about kroust-time, having fired two holes, they came out of the "end" in which they wrought and sat down to lunch while the smoke was clearing away. "'Tes a brave lode," said Maggot. "It is," responded Trevarrow, taking a long draught of water from the canteen. "What shall us do?" said Maggot; "go to grass to slaip, or slaip in the bal?" "In the bal, if you do like it," said Trevarrow. So it was agreed that the men should sleep in the mine on boards, or on any dry part of the level, in order to save the time and energy lost in ascending and descending the long ladders, and thus make the most of their opportunity. It was further resolved that Zackey should be sent up for dry clothes, and bring them their meals regularly. Trevarrow did not forget to have his Bible brought to him, for he was too serious a man to shut his eyes to the danger of a sudden run of good fortune, and thought that the best way to guard against evil would be to devote nearly all his short periods of leisure time to the reading of "the Word." You may be sure that Maggot afterwards laughed at him for this, but he did not concern himself much about it at the time, because he was usually too hungry to talk at meal-times, and too sleepy to do so after work was over. They were still busily discussing the matter of remaining in the mine all night, when they heard the kibble descending the shaft, near the bottom of which they sat, and next moment a man came to the ground with considerable violence. "Why, Frankey, is that thee, booy?" said Maggot, starting up to assist him. "Aw dear, iss; I'm gone dead a'most! aw dear! aw dear!" "Why, whatever brought 'ee here?" said Trevarrow. "The kibble, sure," replied the man, exhibiting his knuckles, which were cut and bleeding a good deal. "I did come by the chain, anyhow." This was indeed true. Frankey, as his mates called him, was at that time the "lander" in charge of the kibbles at the surface. It was his duty to receive each kibble as it was drawn up to the mouth of the shaft full of ore, empty it, and send it down again. Several coils of chain passing round the large drum of a great horse-windlass, called by the miners a "whim," was the means by which the kibbles were hoisted and lowered. The chain was so arranged that one kibble was lowered by it while the other was being drawn up. Frankey had emptied one of the kibbles, and had given the signal to the boy attending the horse to "lower away," when he inadvertently stepped into the shaft. With ready presence of mind the man caught the chain and clung to it, but the boy, being prevented by a pile of rubbish from seeing what had occurred, eased him down, supposing him to be the kibble! This "easing down" a great number of fathoms was by no means an easy process, as those know well who have seen a pair of kibbles go banging up and down a shaft. It was all that poor Frankey could do to keep his head from being smashed against rocks and beams; but, by energetic use of arms and legs, he did so, and reached the bottom of the shaft without further damage than a little skin rubbed off his knees and elbows, and a few cuts on his hands. The man thought so little of it, indeed, that he at once returned to grass by the ladder-way, to the unutterable surprise and no little consternation of the boy who had "eased him down." The air at the "end" of the level in which Maggot and Trevarrow worked was very bad, and, for some time past, men had been engaged in sinking a winze from the level above to connect the two, and send in a supply of fresh air by creating a new channel of circulation. This winze was almost completed, but one of the men employed at it had suddenly become unwell that day, and no other had been appointed to the work. As it was a matter of great importance to have fresh air, now that they had resolved to remain day and night in the mine for some time, Maggot and Trevarrow determined to complete the work, believing that one or two shots would do it. Accordingly, they mounted to the level above, and were lowered one at a time to the bottom of the unfinished winze by a windlass, which was turned by the man whose comrade had become unwell. For nearly two hours they laboured diligently, scarce taking time to wipe the perspiration from their heated brows. At the end of that time the hole was sufficiently deep to blast, so Maggot called out,--"Zackey, my son, fetch the fuse and powder." The boy was quickly lowered with these materials, and then drawn up. Meanwhile Maggot proceeded to charge the hole, and his comrade sat down to rest. He put in the powder and tamping, and asked the other to hand him the tamping-bar. "Zackey has forgot it," said Trevarrow, looking round. "It don't matter; hand me the borer." "No, I won't," said Trevarrow decidedly, as he grasped the iron tool in question. "Ho! Zackey booy, throw down the tampin'-bar." This was done, and the operation of filling the hole continued, while Trevarrow commented somewhat severely on his companion's recklessness. "That's just how the most o' the reckless men in the bal do get blaw'd up," he said; "they're always picking away at the holes, and tamping with iron tools; why, thee might as well put a lighted match down the muzzle of a loaded gun as tamp with an iron borer." "Come, now," said Maggot, looking up from his work with a leer, "it warn't that as made old Kimber nearly blow hisself up last week." "No, but it was carelessness, anyhow," retorted Trevarrow; "and lucky for him that he was a smart man, else he'd bin gone dead by this time." Maggot soon completed the filling of the hole, and then perpetrated as reckless a deed as any of his mining comrades had ever been guilty of. Trevarrow was preparing to ascend by the windlass, intending to leave his comrade to light the fuse and come up after him. Meanwhile Maggot found that the fuse was too long. He discovered this after it was fixed in the hole, and, unobserved by his companion, proceeded to cut it by means of an iron tool and a flat stone. Fire was struck at the last blow by the meeting of the iron and the stone, and the fuse ignited. To extinguish it was impossible; to cut it in the same way, without striking fire, was equally so. Of course there was plenty of time to ascend by the windlass, but _only one_ at a time could do so. The men knew this, and looked at each other with terrible meaning in their eyes as they rushed at the bucket, and shouted to the man above to haul them up. He attempted to do so, but in vain. He had not strength to haul up two at once. One could escape, both could not, and to delay would be death to both. In this extremity David Trevarrow looked at his comrade, and said calmly,--"Escape, my brother; a minute more and I shall be in heaven." He stepped back while he spoke--the bucket went rapidly upwards, and Trevarrow, sitting down in the bottom of the shaft, covered his eyes with a piece of rock and awaited the issue. The rumbling explosion immediately followed, and the shaft was filled with smoke and flame and hurling stones. One of these latter, shooting upwards, struck and cut the ascending miner on his forehead as he looked down to observe the fate of his self-sacrificing comrade! Maggot was saved, but he was of too bold and kindly a nature to remain for a moment inactive after the explosion was over. At once he descended, and, groping about among the debris, soon found his friend-- alive, and almost unhurt! A mass of rock had arched him over--or, rather, the hand of God, as if by miracle, had delivered the Christian miner. After he was got up in safety to the level above they asked him why he had been so ready to give up his life to save his friend. "Why," said David quietly, "I did think upon his wife and the child'n, and little Grace seemed to say to me, `Take care o' faither'--besides, there are none to weep if I was taken away, so the Lord gave me grace to do it." That night there were glad and grateful hearts in Maggot's cottage--and never in this world was a more flat and emphatic contradiction given to any statement, than that which was given to David Trevarrow's assertion--"There are none to weep if I was taken away." [A short but beautiful account of the above incident will be found in a little volume of poems, entitled _Lays from the Mine, the Moor, and the Mountain_, written by John Harris, a Cornish miner.] CHAPTER THIRTY. REVEALS SOME ASTONISHING FACTS AND THEIR CONSEQUENCES. Sorrow and trouble now began to descend upon Mr Thomas Donnithorne like a thick cloud. Reduced from a state of affluence to one bordering on absolute poverty, the old man's naturally buoyant spirit almost gave way, and it needed all the attentions and the cheering influence of his good wife and sweet Rose Ellis to keep him from going (as he often half-jestingly threatened) to the end of Cape Cornwall and jumping into the sea. "It's all over with me, Oliver," said he one morning, after the return of his nephew from London. "A young fellow like you may face up against such difficulties, but what is an old man to do? I can't begin the world over again; and as for the shares I have in the various mines, they're not worth the paper they're writ upon." "But things may take a turn," suggested Oliver; "this is not the first time the mines have been in a poor condition, and the price of tin low. When things get very bad they are likely to get better, you know. Even now there seems to be some talk among the miners of an improved state of things. I met Maggot yesterday, and he was boasting of having found a monstrous bunch, which, according to him, is to be the making of all our fortunes." Mr Donnithorne shook his head. "Maggot's geese are always swans," he said; "no, no, Oliver, I have lost all hope of improvement. There are so many of these deceptive mines around us just now--some already gone down, and some going--that the public are losing confidence in us, and, somewhat unfairly, judging that, because a few among us are scoundrels, we are altogether a bad lot." "What do you think of Mr Clearemout's new mine?" asked Oliver. "I believe it to be a genuine one," said the old gentleman, turning a somewhat sharp glance on his nephew. "Why do you ask?" "Because I doubt it," replied Oliver. "You are too sceptical," said Mr Donnithorne almost testily; "too much given to judging things at first sight." "Nay, uncle; you are unfair. Had I judged of you at first sight, I should have thought you a--" "Well, what? a smuggling old brandy-loving rascal--eh? and not far wrong after all." "At all events," said Oliver, laughing, "I have lived to form a better opinion of you than that. But, in reference to Clearemout, I cannot shut my eyes to the fact that the work doing at the new mine is very like a sham, for they have only two men and a boy working her, with a captain to superintend; and it is said, for I made inquiries while in London, that thirty thousand pounds have been called up from the shareholders, and there are several highly paid directors, with an office-staff in the City drawing large salaries." "Nonsense, Oliver," said Mr Donnithorne more testily than before; "you know very well that things must have a beginning, and that caution is necessary at first in all speculations. Besides, I feel convinced that Mr Clearemout is a most respectable man, and an uncommonly clever fellow to boot. It is quite plain that you don't like him--that's what prejudices you, Oliver. You're jealous of the impression he has made on the people here." This last remark was made jestingly, but it caused the young doctor to wince, having hit nearer the truth than the old gentleman had any idea of, for although Oliver envied not the handsome stranger's popularity, he was, almost unknown to himself, very jealous of the impression he seemed to have made on Rose Ellis. A feeling of shame induced him to change the subject of conversation, with a laughing observation that he hoped such an unworthy motive did not influence him. Now, while this conversation was going on in the parlour of Mr Donnithorne's cottage, another dialogue was taking place in a small wooden erection at the end of the garden, which bore the dignified name of "Rose's Bower." The parties concerned in it were George Augustus Clearemout and Rose Ellis. A day or two previous to the conversation to which we are about to draw attention, the managing director had undergone a change in his sentiments and intentions. When he first saw Rose he thought her an uncommonly sweet and pretty girl. A short acquaintance with her convinced him that she was even sweeter and prettier than at first he had thought her. This, coupled with the discovery that her uncle was very rich, and that he meant to leave a large portion of his wealth, if not all of it, to Rose, decided Clearemout, and he resolved to marry her. Afterwards he became aware of the fact that old Mr Donnithorne had met with losses, but he was ignorant of their extent, and still deemed it worth while to carry out his intentions. George Augustus had been a "managing director" in various ways from his earliest infancy, and had never experienced much opposition to his will, so that he had acquired a habit of settling in his own mind whatever he meant to do, and forthwith doing it. On this occasion he resolved to sacrifice himself to Rose, in consideration of her prospective fortune-- cash being, of course, Mr Clearemout's god. Great, then, was the managing director's surprise, and astonishing the condition of his feelings, when, on venturing to express his wishes to Rose, he was kindly, but firmly, rejected! Mr Clearemout was so thunderstruck--having construed the unsophisticated girl's candour and simplicity of manner into direct encouragement--that he could make no reply, but, with a profound bow, retired hastily from her presence, went to his lodgings, and sat down with his elbows on the table, and his face buried in his large hands, the fingers of which appeared to be crushing in his forehead, as if to stifle the thoughts that burned there. After sitting thus for half an hour he suddenly rose, with his face somewhat paler, and his lips a little more firmly compressed than usual. It was an epoch in his existence. The man who had so often and so successfully deceived others had made the wonderful discovery that he had deceived himself. He had imagined that money was his sole object in wishing to marry Rose. He now discovered that love, or something like it, had so much to do with his wishes that he resolved to have her without money, and also without her consent. Something within the man told him that Rose's refusal was an unalterable one. He did not think it worth while to waste time in a second attempt. His plans, though hastily formed, required a good deal of preliminary arrangement, so he commenced to carry them out with the single exclamation, "I'll do it!" accompanied with a blow from his heavy fist on the table, which, being a weak lodging-house one, was split from end to end. But the managing director had a soul above furniture at that moment. He hastily put on his hat and strode out of the house. Making good use of a good horse, he paid sundry mysterious visits to various smuggling characters, to all of whom he was particularly agreeable and liberal in the bestowal of portions of the thirty thousand pounds with which a too confiding public had intrusted him. Among other places, he went to a cottage on a moor between St. Just and Penzance, and had a confidential interview with a man named Hicks, who was noted for his capacity to adapt himself to circumstances (when well paid) without being troubled by conscientious scruples. This man had a son who had once suffered from a broken collar-bone, and whose ears were particularly sharp. He chanced to overhear the conversation at the interview referred to, and dutifully reported the same to his mother, who happened to be a great gossip, and knew much about the private affairs of nearly everybody living within six miles of her. The good woman resolved to make some use of her information, but Mr Clearemout left the cottage in ignorance, of course, of her resolution. Having transacted these little pieces of business, the managing director returned home, and, on the day following, sought and obtained an interview with Rose Ellis in her bower. Recollecting the subject of their last conversation, Rose blushed, as much with indignation as confusion, at being intruded upon, but Mr Clearemout at once dispersed her angry feelings by assuring her in tones of deferential urbanity that he would not have presumed to intrude upon her but for the fact that he was about to quit Cornwall without delay, and he wished to talk with her for only a few minutes on business connected with Mr Donnithorne. There was something so manly and straightforward in his tone and manner that she could not choose but allow him to sit down beside her, although she did falter out something about the propriety of talking on her uncle's business affairs with Mr Donnithorne himself. "Your observation is most just," said Mr Clearemout earnestly; "but you are aware that your uncle's nature is a delicate, sensitive one, and I feel that he would shrink from proposals coming from me, that he might listen to if made to him through you. I need not conceal from you, Miss Ellis, that I am acquainted with the losses which your uncle has recently sustained, and no one can appreciate more keenly than I do the harshness with which the world, in its ignorance of details, is apt to judge of the circumstances which brought about this sad state of things. I cannot help feeling deeply the kindness which has been shown me by Mr Donnithorne during my residence here, and I would, if I could, show him some kindness in return." Mr Clearemout paused here a few moments as if to reflect. He resolved to assume that Mr Donnithorne's losses were ruinous, little imagining that in this assumption he was so very near the truth! Rose felt grateful to him for the kind and delicate way in which he referred to her uncle's altered circumstances. "Of course," continued the managing director, "I need not say to _you_, that his independent spirit would never permit him to accept of assistance in the form which would be most immediately beneficial to him. Indeed, I could not bring myself to offer money even as a loan. But it happens that I have the power, just now, of disposing of the shares which he has taken in Wheal Dooem Mine at a very large profit; and as my hope of the success of that enterprise is very small, I--" "Very small!" echoed Rose in surprise. "You astonish me, Mr Clearemout. Did I not hear you, only a few nights ago, say that you had the utmost confidence in the success of your undertaking?" "Most true," replied the managing director with a smile; "but in the world of business a few hours work wonderful changes, sometimes, in one's opinion of things--witness the vacillations and variations `on 'Change'--if I may venture to allude before a lady to such an incomprehensible subject." Rose felt her vigorous little spirit rise, and she was about to return a smart reply in defence of woman's intelligence even in business matters, but the recollection of the altered relative position in which they now stood restrained her. "Yes," continued Mr Clearemout, with a sigh, "the confidence which I felt in Wheal Dooem has been much shaken of late, and the sooner your uncle sells out the better." "But would it be right," said Rose earnestly, "to sell our shares at a high profit if things be as you say?" "Quite right," replied Clearemout, with a bland smile of honesty; "_I_ believe the mine to be a bad speculation; my friend, we shall suppose, believes it to be a good one. Believing as I do, I choose to sell out; believing as he does, he chooses to buy in. The simplest thing in the world, Miss Ellis. Done every day with eyes open, I assure you; but it is not every day that a chance occurs so opportunely as the present, and I felt it to be a duty to give my friend the benefit of my knowledge before quitting this place--for ever!" There was something so kind and touching in the tone of the managing director that Rose was quite drawn towards him, and felt as if she had actually done him an unkindness in refusing him. "But," continued her companion, "I can do nothing, Miss Ellis, without your assistance." "You shall have it," said Rose earnestly; "for I would do anything that a woman might venture, to benefit my dear, dear uncle, and I feel assured that you would not ask me to do anything wrong or unwomanly." "I would not indeed," answered Clearemout with emotion; "but the world is apt to misjudge in matters of delicacy. To ask you to meet me on the cliffs near Priest's Cove, close to Cape Cornwall, to-night, would appear wrong in the eyes of the world." "And with justice," said Rose quickly, with a look of mingled dignity and surprise. "Nevertheless, this is absolutely needful, if we would accomplish the object in view. A friend, whom I know to be desirous of purchasing shares in the mine is to pass round the cape in his yacht this evening. The idea of offering these shares to him had not occurred to me when I wrote to say that I would meet him there. He cannot come up here, I know, but the stroke of a pen, with one of the family to witness it, will be sufficient." It was a bold stroke of fancy in the managing director to put the matter in such a ridiculously unbusinesslike light, but he counted much on Rose's ignorance. As for poor Rose herself, she, knew not what to say or do at first, but when Clearemout heaved a sigh, and, with an expression of deep sadness on his countenance, rose to take leave, she allowed a generous impulse to sway her. "Your answer, then, is--No," said Clearemout, with deep pathos in his tone. Now, it chanced that at this critical point in the conversation, Oliver Trembath, having left the cottage, walked over the grass towards a small gate, near which the bower stood. He unavoidably heard the question, and also the quick, earnest reply,--"My answer, Mr Clearemout, is--Yes. I will meet you this evening on the cliff." She frankly gave him her hand as she spoke, and he gallantly pressed it to his lips, an act which took Rose by surprise, and caused her to pull it away suddenly. She then turned and ran out at the side of the bower to seek the solitude of her own apartment, while Clearemout left it by the other side, and stood face to face with the spellbound Oliver. To say that both gentlemen turned pale as their eyes met would not give an adequate idea of their appearance. Oliver's heart, as well as his body, when he heard the question and reply, stood still as if he had been paralysed. This, then, he thought, was the end of all his hopes-- hopes hardly admitted to himself, and never revealed to Rose, except in unstudied looks and tones. For a few moments his face grew absolutely livid, while he glared at his rival. On the other hand, Mr Clearemout, believing that the whole of his conversation had been overheard, supposed that he had discovered all his villainy to one who was thoroughly able, as well as willing, to thwart him. For a moment he felt an almost irresistible impulse to spring on and slay his enemy; his face became dark with suppressed emotion; and it is quite possible that in the fury of his disappointed malice he might have attempted violence,--had not Oliver spoken. His voice was husky as he said,--"Chance, sir--unfortunate, miserable chance--led me to overhear the last few words that passed between you and--" He paused, unable to say more. Instantly the truth flashed across Clearemout's quick mind. He drew himself up boldly, and the blood returned to his face as he replied,--"If so, sir, you cannot but be aware that the lady's choice is free, and that your aspect and attitude towards me are unworthy of a gentleman." A wonderful influence for weal or woe oft-times results from the selection of a phrase or a word. Had Clearemout charged Oliver with insolence or presumption, he would certainly have struck him to the ground; but the words "unworthy of a gentleman" created a revulsion in his feelings. Thought is swifter than light. He saw himself in the position of a disappointed man scowling on a successful rival who had done him no injury. "Thank you, Clearemout. Your rebuke is merited," he said bitterly; and, turning on his heel, he bounded over the low stone wall of the garden, and hastened away. Whither he went he knew not. A fierce fire seemed to rage in his breast and burn in his brain. At first he walked at full speed, but as he cleared the town he ran--ran as he had never run before. For the time being he was absolutely mad. Over marsh and moor he sped, clearing all obstacles with a bound, and making straight for the Land's End, with no definite purpose in view, for, after a time, he appeared to change his intention, if he had any. He turned sharp to the left, and ran straight to Penzance, never pausing in his mad career until he neared the town. The few labourers he chanced to pass on the way gazed after him in surprise, but he heeded not. At the cottage on the moor where he had bandaged the shoulder of the little boy a woman's voice called loudly, anxiously after him, but he paid no attention. At last he came to a full stop, and, pressing both hands tightly over his forehead, made a terrible effort to collect his thoughts. He was partially successful, and, with somewhat of his wonted composure, walked rapidly into the town. CHAPTER THIRTY ONE. DESCRIBES A MARRED PLOT, AND TELLS OF RETRIBUTIVE JUSTICE. Meanwhile the gossiping woman of the cottage on the moor, whose grateful heart had never forgotten the little kindness done to her boy by the young doctor, and who knew that the doctor loved Rose Ellis, more surely, perhaps, than Rose did herself, went off in a state of deep anxiety to St. Just, and, by dint of diligent inquiries and piecing of things together, coupled with her knowledge of Clearemout's intentions, came to a pretty correct conclusion as to the state of affairs. She then went to the abode of young Charles Tregarthen, whom she knew to be Oliver's friend, and unbosomed herself. Charlie repaid her with more than thanks, and almost hugged her in his gratitude for her prompt activity. "And now, Mrs Hicks," said he, "you shall see how we will thwart this scoundrel. As for Oliver Trembath, I cannot imagine what could take him into Penzance in the wild state that you describe. Of course this affair has to do with it, and he evidently has learned something of this, and must have misunderstood the matter, else assuredly he had not been absent at such a time. But why go to Penzance? However, he will clear up the mystery ere long, no doubt. Meanwhile we shall proceed to thwart your schemes, good Mr Clearemout!" So saying, Charlie Tregarthen set about laying his counter-plans. He also, as the managing director had done, visited several men, some of whom were miners and some smugglers, and arranged a meeting that evening near Cape Cornwall. When evening drew on apace, four separate parties converged towards Priest's Cove. First, a boat crept along shore propelled by four men and steered by Jim Cuttance. Secondly, six stout men crept stealthily down to the cove, led by Charlie Tregarthen, with Maggot as his second in command. Thirdly, Rose Ellis wended her way to the rendezvous with trembling step and beating heart; and, fourthly, George Augustus Clearemout moved in the same direction. But the managing director moved faster than the others, having a longer way to travel, for, having had to pay a last visit to Wheal Dooem, he rode thence to St. Just. On the way he was particularly interested in a water-wheel which worked a pump, beside which a man in mining costume was seated smoking his pipe. "Good-evening," said Clearemout, reining up. "Good-hevenin', sur." "What does that pump?" asked the managing director, pointing to the wheel. "That, sur?" said the miner, drawing a few whiffs from his pipe; "why, that do pump gold out o' the Londoners, that do." The managing director chuckled very much, and said, "Indeed!" "Iss, sur," continued the miner, pointing to Wheal Dooem, "an' that wan theere, up over hill, do the same thing." The managing director chuckled much more at this, and displayed his teeth largely as he nodded to the man and rode on. Before his arrival at the rendezvous, the boat was run ashore not far from the spot where Tregarthen and his men were concealed. As soon as the men had landed, Charlie walked down to them alone and accosted their leader. "Well, Cuttance, you're a pretty fellow to put your finger in such a dirty pie as this." Cuttance had seen the approach of Tregarthen with surprise and some alarm. "Well, sur," said he, without any of the bold expression that usually characterised him, "what can a man do when he's to be well paid for the job? I do confess that I don't half like it, but, after all, what have we got to do weth the opinions of owld aunts or uncles? If a gurl do choose to go off wi' the man she likes, that's no matter to we, an' if I be well paid for lendin' a hand, why shouldn't I? But it do puzzle me, Mr Tregarthen, to guess how yow did come to knaw of it." "That don't signify," said Tregarthen sternly. "Do you know who the girl is?" "I don't knaw, an' I don't care," said Jim doggedly. "What would you say if I told you it was Miss Rose Ellis?" said Charlie. "I'd say thee was a liard," replied Cuttance. "Then I do tell you so." "Thee don't mean that!" exclaimed the smuggler, with a blaze of amazement and wrath in his face. "Indeed I do." "Whew!" whistled Jim, "then that do explain the reason why that smooth-tongued feller said he would car' her to the boat close veiled up for fear the men should see her." A rapid consultation was now held by the two as to the proper mode of proceeding. Cuttance counselled an immediate capture of the culprit, and pitching him off the end of Cape Cornwall; but Tregarthen advised that they should wait until Clearemout seized his victim, otherwise they could not convict him, because he would deny any intention of evil against Rose, and pretend that some other girl, who had been scared away by their impetuosity, was concerned, for they might depend on it he'd get up a plausible story and defeat them. Tregarthen's plan was finally agreed to, and he returned to his men and explained matters. Soon afterwards the managing director appeared coming down the road. "Is all right?" he inquired of Cuttance, who went forward to meet him. "All right, sur." "Go down to the boat then and wait," he said, turning away. Ere long he was joined by Rose, with whom he entered into conversation, leading her over the cape so as to get out of sight of the men, but young Tregarthen crept among the rocks and never for a moment lost sight of them. He saw Clearemout suddenly place a kerchief on Rose's mouth, and, despite the poor girl's struggles, tie it firmly so as to prevent her screaming, then he threw a large shawl over her, and catching her in his arms bore her swiftly towards the boat. Tregarthen sprang up and confronted him. Clearemout, astonished and maddened by this unexpected interference, shouted,--"Stand aside, sir! _You_ have no interest in this matter, or right to interfere." Charlie made no reply, but sprang on him like a tiger. Clearemout dropped his burden and grappled with the youth, who threw him in an instant, big though he was, for Tregarthen was a practised wrestler, and the managing director was not. His great strength, however, enabled him to get on his knees, and there is no saying how the struggle might have terminated had not Cuttance come forward, and, putting his hard hands round Clearemout's throat, caused that gentleman's face to grow black, and his tongue and eyes to protrude. Having thus induced him to submit, he eased off the necklace, and assisted him to rise, while the men of both parties crowded round. "Now, then, boys," cried Jim Cuttance, "bear a hand, one and all, and into the say with him." The managing director was at once knocked off his legs, and borne shoulder-high down to the beach by as many hands as could lay hold of him. Here they paused:-- "All together, boys--one--two--ho!" At the word the unfortunate man was shot, by strong and willing arms, into the air like a bombshell, and fell into the water with a splash that was not unlike an explosion. Clearemout was a good swimmer. When he came to the surface he raised himself, and, clearing the water from his eyes, glanced round. Even in that extremity the quickness and self-possession of the man did not forsake him. He perceived, at a glance, that the boat which, in the excitement of the capture, had been left by all the men, had floated off with the receding tide, and now lay a short distance from the shore. At once he struck out for it. There was a shout of consternation and a rush to the water's edge. Maggot shot far ahead of the others, plunged into the sea, and swam off. Observing this, and knowing well the courage and daring of the man, the rest stopped on the shore to witness the result. Clearemout reached the boat first, but, owing to exhaustion, was unable to raise himself into it. Maggot soon came up and grasped him by the throat, both men managed to get their arms over the gunwale, but in their struggle upset the boat and were separated. Clearemout then made for the shore with the intention of giving himself up, and Maggot followed, but he was not equal in swimming to the managing director, whose long steady strokes easily took him beyond the reach of his pursuer. He reached the shore, and stalked slowly out of the water. At the same moment Maggot sank and disappeared. The consternation of his comrades was so great that in the confusion their prisoner was unheeded. Some sprang into the sea and dived after Maggot; others swam to the boat, intending to right it and get the boat-hooks. Suddenly those who had remained on the beach observed something creep out of the sea near to some rocks a little to the right of the place where they stood. They ran towards it. "Hallo! is that you, old Maggot?" they cried. It was indeed the valiant smith himself! How he got there no one ever knew, nor could himself tell. It was conjectured that he must have become partially exhausted, and, after sinking, had crept along the bottom to the shore! However, be that as it may, there he was, lying with his arm lovingly round a rock, and the first thing he said on looking up was,--"Aw! my dear men, has any of 'ee got a chaw of baccy about 'ee?" This was of course received with a shout of laughter, and unlimited offers of quids while they assisted him to rise. Meanwhile Tregarthen was attending to Rose, who had swooned when Clearemout dropped her. He also kept a watch over the prisoner, who, however, showed no intention of attempting to escape, but sat on a stone with his face buried in his hands. The men soon turned their attention to him again, and some of the more violent were advancing to seize him, with many terrible threats of further vengeance, when Rose ran between them, and entreated them to spare him. Tregarthen seconded the proposal, and urged that as he had got pretty severe punishment already, they should set him free. This being agreed to, Charlie turned to the managing director, and said, with a look of pity, "You may go, sir, but, be assured, it is not for your own sake that we let you off. You know pretty well what the result would be if we chose to deliver you up to justice; we care more, however, for the feelings of this lady--whose name would be unavoidably and disagreeably brought before the public at the trial--than we care for your getting your merited reward. But, mark me, if you ever open your lips on the subject, you shall not escape us." "Iss," added Jim Cuttance, "ann remember, you chucklehead, that if you do write or utter wan word 'bout it, after gettin' back to London, there are here twelve Cornish men who will never rest till they have flayed thee alive!" "You need have no fear," said Clearemout with a bitter smile, as he turned and walked away, followed by a groan from the whole party. "Now, lads," said Cuttance after he was gone, "not wan word of this must ever be breathed, and we'll howld 'ee responsible, David Hicks, for t' wife's tongue; dost a hear?" This was agreed to by all, and, to the credit of these honest smugglers, and of Mrs Hicks, be it said, that not a syllable about the incident was ever heard of in the parish of St. Just from that day to this! CHAPTER THIRTY TWO. TOUCHES ON LOVE AND ON PILCHARD FISHING. There can be no doubt that "Fortune favours the brave," and Maggot was one of those braves whom, about this time, she took special delight in favouring. Wild and apparently reckless though he was, Maggot had long cherished an ambitious hope, and had for some time past been laying by money for the purpose of accomplishing his object, which was the procuring of a seine-net and boats for the pilchard fishery. The recent successes he had met with in Botallack enabled him to achieve his aim more rapidly than he had anticipated, and on the day following that in which Clearemout received his deserts, he went to Penberth Cove to see that all was in readiness, for pilchards had recently appeared off the coast in small shoals. That same day Oliver Trembath, having spent a night of misery in Penzance, made up his mind to return to St. Just and face his fate like a man; but he found it so difficult to carry this resolve into effect that he diverged from the highroad--as he had done on his first memorable visit to that region--and, without knowing very well why, sauntered in a very unenviable frame of mind towards Penberth Cove. Old Mr Donnithorne possessed a pretty villa near the cove, to which he was wont to migrate when Mrs D felt a desire for change of air, and in which he frequently entertained large parties of friends in the summer season. In his heart poor Mr Donnithorne had condemned this villa "to the hammer," but the improved appearance of things in the mines had induced him to suspend the execution of the sentence. News of the appearance of pilchards, and a desire to give Rose a change after her late adventure, induced Mr Donnithorne to hire a phaeton (he had recently parted with his own) and drive over to Penberth. Arrived there, he sauntered down to the cove to look after his nets--for he dabbled in pilchard fishing as well as in other matters--and Rose went off to have a quiet, solitary walk. Thus it came to pass that she and Oliver Trembath suddenly met in a lonely part of the road between Penberth and Penzance. Ah, those sudden and unexpected meetings! How pleasant they are, and how well every one who has had them remembers them! "Miss Ellis!" exclaimed Oliver in surprise. "Mr Trembath!" exclaimed Rose in amazement. You see, reader, how polite they were, but you can neither see nor conceive how great was the effort made by each to conceal the tumult that agitated the breast and flushed the countenance, while the tongue was thus ably controlled. It did not last long, however. Oliver, being thrown off his guard, asked a number of confused questions, and Rose, in her somewhat irrelevant replies, happened to make some reference to "that villain Clearemout." "Villain?" echoed Oliver in undisguised amazement. "The villain," repeated Rose, with a flushed face and flashing eye. "What? why? how?--really, excuse me, Miss Ellis--I--I--the villain-- Clearemout--you don't--" There is no saying how many more ridiculous exclamations Oliver might have made had not Rose suddenly said,--"Surely, Mr Trembath, you have heard of his villainy?" "No, never; not a word. Pray do tell me, Miss Ellis." Rose at once related the circumstances of her late adventure, with much indignation in her tone and many a blush on her brow. Before she had half done, Oliver's powers of restraint gave way. "Then you never loved him?" he exclaimed. "Loved him, sir! I do not understand--" "Forgive me, Rose; I mean--I didn't imagine--that is to say--oh! Rose, can it be--is it possible--my _dear_ girl!" He seized her hand at this point, and--but really, reader, why should we go on? Is it not something like a violation of good taste to be too particular here? Is it not sufficient to say that old Mr Donnithorne came suddenly, and of course unexpectedly, on them at that critical juncture, rendering it necessary for Rose to burst away and hide her blushing face on her uncle's shoulder, while Oliver, utterly overwhelmed, turned and walked (we won't say fled) at full speed in the direction of the cove. Here he found things in a condition that was admirably suited to the state of his feelings. The fishermen of the cove were in a state of wild excitement, for an enormous shoal of pilchards had been enclosed in the seine-nets, and Maggot with his men, as well as the people employed by Mr Donnithorne, were as much over head and ears in fishing as Oliver was in love. Do you ask, "Why all this excitement?" We will tell you. The pilchard fishing is to the Cornish fisherman what the harvest is to the husbandman, but this harvest of the sea is not the result of prolonged labour, care, and wisdom. It comes to him in a night. It may last only a few days, or weeks. Sometimes it fails altogether. During these days of sunshine he must toil with unwonted energy. There is no rest for him while the season lasts if he would not miss his opportunity. The pilchard is a little fish resembling a small herring. It visits the southern coasts of England in autumn and winter, and the shoals are so enormous as to defy calculation or description. When they arrive on the coast, "huers"--sharp-sighted men--are stationed on the cliffs to direct the boatmen when to go out and where to shoot their seine-nets. When these are shot, millions of pilchards are often enclosed in a single net. To give an idea of the numbers of fish and the extent of the fishing, in a few words, we may state the fact that, in 1834, one shoal of great depth, and nearly a mile broad, extended from Hayle River to St. Ives, a distance of two and a half miles. A seine was shot into this mass, and 3,600 hogsheads were carried to the curing cellars. As there are 3,000 pilchards in each hogshead, the catch amounted to nearly eleven million fish! The value of these might be 3 pounds a hogshead, and the clear profit about 1 pound a hogshead, so that it is no wonder we hear of fortunes having been made in a few hauls of the pilchard seines. At the same time, losses are sometimes very heavy, owing to gales arising and breaking or carrying away the nets. Such facts, combined with the uncertainty of the arrival or continuance of the fish on any particular part of the coast, tend to induce that spirit of eager, anxious excitement to which we have referred as being so congenial to Oliver Trembath's state of mind at the time of which we write. On the beach the young doctor found Maggot and his men launching their boats, and of course he lent them a hand. "Pilchards been seen?" he inquired. "Iss, iss, doctor," was the smith's curt reply; "jump in, an' go 'long with us." Oliver accepted the invitation, and was rowed towards a part of the bay where the sea appeared to be boiling. The boat was a large one, attended by several others of smaller dimensions. The boiling spot being reached, Maggot, whose whole being was in a blaze of enthusiasm, leaped up and seized the end of a seine-net--three hundred fathoms long by fourteen deep--which he began to throw overboard with the utmost energy, while the boat was rowed swiftly round the mass of fish. David Trevarrow assisted him, and in less than four minutes the whole net was in the sea. One of the other boats, meanwhile, had fastened another net to the first, and, rowing in an opposite direction from it, progressed in a circular course, dropping its net as it went, until the two met-- and thus an immense shoal of pilchards were enclosed. The nets being floated on the surface with corks, and their lower ends sunk to the bottom with leads, the fish were thus securely imprisoned. But the security was not great; a gale might arise which would sweep away the whole concern, or the pilchards might take a fancy to make a dash in one particular direction, in the event of which they would certainly burst the net, and no human power could save a single fin. In order to prevent this, the men in the smaller boats rowed round the seine, beat the sea with their oars, hallooed, and otherwise exerted themselves to keep the fish in the centre of the enclosure. Meanwhile a little boat entered within the circle, having a small net, named a "tuck-net," which was spread round the seine, inside, and gradually drawn together, until the fish were raised towards the surface in a solid, sweltering mass. The excitement at this point became tremendous. Thousands of silvery fish leaped, vaulted, and fluttered in a seething mass on the sea. Maggot roared and yelled his orders like a Stentor. Even mild David Trevarrow lost self-command, and shouted vociferously. "Hand the basket!" cried Maggot. A large basket, with a rope attached to one handle, was produced. Maggot seized the other handle, and thrust it down among the wriggling pilchards. Trevarrow hauled on the rope, lifted the basket out of the sea, and a cataract of living silver was shot into the boat, accompanied by a mighty cheer. Basketful after basketful followed, until the men stood leg-deep in fish. "Hold on a bit!" cried Maggot, as, with rolled-up sleeves, dishevelled hair, and glaring eyes, he threw one leg over the side of the boat, the more easily to continue his work. "Have a care," cried Oliver at that moment, stretching out his hand; but he was too late. The excitable smith had overbalanced himself, and was already head and shoulders deep down among the pilchards, which sprang high over him, as if in triumph! To catch him by the legs, and pull him back into the boat, was the work of a moment, but the proceedings were not interrupted by the mishap. A laugh greeted the smith as he was turned head up, and immediately he braced himself to his arduous labour with renewed energy. The boat filled, it was rowed to the shore, and here was received by eager and noisy men, women, and children, by whom the precious contents were carried to the "cellars," or salting-houses, where they were packed in the neatest possible piles, layer on layer, heads and tails, with a sprinkling of salt between. Maggot's family had followed him to Penberth. Mrs M was there, busy as a bee--so was Zackey, so was little Grace, and so was the baby. They all worked like Trojans, the only difference between baby Maggot and the others being, that, while they did as much work as in them lay, he undid as much as possible; was in every one's way; fell over and into everything, including the sea, and, generally, fulfilled his mission of mischief-maker with credit. The chet was there too! Baby Maggot had decreed that it should accompany him, so there it was, living on pilchards, and dragging out its harassed existence in the usual way. What between salt food, and play, kicks, cuffs, capers, and gluttony, its aspect at that time was more demoniacal, perhaps, than that of any other chet between John o' Groat's and the Land's End. Volumes would scarcely contain all that might be written about this wonderful scene, but enough has been said to indicate the process whereby Maggot secured and salted some hundreds of thousands of pilchards. The enclosing of the fish was the result of a few minutes' work, but the salting and packing were not ended for many days. The result, however, was that the lucky smith sent many hogsheads of pilchards the way of most Cornish fish--namely, to the Mediterranean, for consumption by Roman Catholics, and in due course he received the proceeds, to the extent of three thousand pounds. Thus did Maggot auspiciously begin the making of his fortune--which was originated and finally completed by his successful mining operations at Botallack. And let it be observed here, that he was neither the first nor the last poor man who became prosperous and wealthy by similar means. There are men, not a few, now alive in Cornwall, who began with hammer and pick, and who now can afford to drink in champagne, out of a golden flagon, the good old Cornish toast--"Fish, tin, and copper." CHAPTER THIRTY THREE. THE LAST. Many others as well as Maggot made money by the pilchards at that time. All round the coast of Cornwall millions of these little fish were taken, salted, and exported. No fewer than one thousand hogsheads were taken at St. Ives in the first three seine-nets cast into the sea. In Mounts Bay, Fowey Bay, Mevagissey, and other fishing grounds, immense quantities were caught, and the total catch of the county was little if at all short of thirty thousand hogsheads. Among others, old Mr Donnithorne was so successful that his broken fortunes were almost re-established; and a small sum which our friend Oliver Trembath had ventured to invest in the fishing was more than quadrupled before the end of the year. But this was not all. At the next Botallack account-dinner, Mr Cornish gladdened the hearts of the adventurers by telling them that the lodes which had been "promising" for such a length of time had at last got the length of "performance," and that he had now the pleasure of announcing a large dividend, which he paid there and then. A considerable share of this fell to old Mr Donnithorne, who, in the enthusiasm of the occasion, observed confidentially to Captain Dan that he was convinced "honesty was the best policy after all"--a sentiment which the captain heartily agreed with, although he failed to detect the precise connection between it and the old gentleman's sudden influx of good fortune. But, then, the captain did not drink Botallack punch, while old Mr Donnithorne did, which may to some extent account for the difference in their powers of vision. Captain Dan, however, possessed wonderful powers of vision in reference to the underground workings of Botallack, which were displayed to advantage--and to the great gratification of the shareholders--when, at the request of Mr Cornish, he stood up and gave a detailed and graphic account of the prospects of the mine; telling them that the appearance of the lodes in several parts of the mine was very promising indeed, and that some ground was returning a rich harvest for the labour that had been bestowed on it; that in the 105, which was driving north by six men, they had taken down the copper for fourteen fathoms long, nearly the whole of which had turned out to be worth 100 pounds per fathom; that a splice had been formed in the lode about two fathoms behind the present end, which had disordered it, but he was glad to say it was again improving, and was at that time about fifteen inches wide of rich copper, and, as far as he could judge, they were going through to the top part of the "bunch" of copper; that these facts, he thought, were very satisfactory, but that it was still more gratifying to know that the lode on the bottom of the 105 was far more valuable than that in the back; that in the "Crowns," especially in the various levels under the sea, the lodes were not only "promising," but performing great things, two men and a boy (he referred to Maggot, Trevarrow, and Zackey here) having broken an immense quantity of copper during the last quarter, which was paying splendidly. At this point, Mr Grenfell, who sat on Mr Cornish's right hand, exclaimed, "Hear! hear!" and a little bald-headed man, with a red nose and blue spectacles, near the foot of the table, echoed "Hear!" with genuine enthusiasm (for he had been bordering on bankruptcy for some months past), and swigged off a full glass of punch without winking. Thus encouraged, Captain Dan went on to remark that there were six men driving in Wheal Hazzard (which statement caused a "stranger" who chanced to be at the dinner to observe, in an undertone, that he was not aware they had horses or vehicles of any kind in the mines!), that one cross-cut was also being driven, and three winzes were sinking, and one rise--several of which were opening up tin of first-rate quality, while in the Narrow shaft, Chicornish, Higher Mine, and Wheal Cock, a great deal to the same effect was being done--all of which we leave to the imagination of the reader, merely remarking that however incomprehensible these things may appear to him (or her), they created feelings of profound joy in the assembled guests, especially in the breast of the almost bankrupt one with the bald, red, and blue headpiece. Mr Cornish afterwards congratulated the adventurers on the success of the mine, and the splendid prospects which were opening up to them-- prospects which, he had no doubt, would be fully realised ere long. He referred also to the condition of the miners of the neighbourhood, and alluded to the fact that the neighbouring mines, Wheal Owles and Levant, were also in a flourishing condition; a matter, he said, for which they had reason to be profoundly thankful, for the distress in the district had been severe and prolonged. The manager's voice deepened at this point, and he spoke with pathos, for he had a kindly heart, and his thoughts were at the moment with many a poor miner, in whose little cottages the effects of gaunt poverty could be traced in scanty furniture, meagre fare, and careworn brows. He remembered, too, that only the week before he had seen poor blind John Batten carried to his grave, and had heard the sobs of the bereaved widow, as she attempted to tell him how the brave man had forgotten himself to the very last, when he put his wasted hand on her head, and said, "I'm goin' to leave thee, Mary, for a time; but cheer up, dear lass, I'll be with Jesus soon, an' have my sight restored, and look wance more 'pon the faces of the dear boys, an' 'pon your own sweet face too, dear lass, when we meet again in heaven." There was one of the miners and shareholders of Botallack who did not die, but who lived to enjoy the fruit of his labour and the sunshine of prosperity. James Penrose recovered--not only his health, but also, in some degree, his sight. One of his eyes had indeed been entirely destroyed by the explosion which had so nearly killed him, but the other was partially restored. A long period elapsed, however, ere he was able to go about. Then he found his circumstances so much improved that it was not necessary to resume work underground. Botallack, in which all his savings had been invested, continued steadily to improve, and from the income derived from this source alone he was enabled to live without labouring. But Penrose was not the man to sit down in idleness. Wesley never had a more earnest follower than this miner of St. Just. Thenceforth he devoted himself to preaching, teaching, and doing good as his hand found opportunity, and, being an active man as well as conscientious, he laboured to the end of his days in the service of his Lord more energetically than he had ever toiled in the mines. Penrose and David Trevarrow had always been staunch friends. After the accident to the former, they became more closely united than before. Trevarrow did not give up underground work; he possessed no shares in any of the mines, but, in common with the rest of the mining community, he benefited by the sunshine of prosperity that became so bright at that period, and found leisure, when above ground, to join his friend in his labours of love. They both agreed to make an earnest effort to convince Maggot and John Cock of the error of their ways--with what amount of success it is not easy to state, for these worthies were made of stubborn metal, that required a furnace of unusually fierce heat to melt it. However, we are warranted in concluding that some good was done, from the fact that both of them gave up smuggling, and, in various other ways, showed indication of an improved state of mind. Maggot especially gave a signal and unexpected proof of a softened spirit, when, one Sunday morning, as he was getting ready for chapel, he said to his wife that it was "high time to send that little chucklehead the baby to Sunday school, for he was no better than a small heathen!" The "baby," be it observed, was about six years old at the time when this speech was made, and his _protege_ the "chet" was a great-grandmother, with innumerable chets of her own. It is right to add that, in accordance with this opinion of his father, the baby was carried off to school that very morning by Zackey and Grace, the first having grown to be a strapping youth, and the other a lovely girl, for whose sake there were scores of young miners in St. Just who would gladly have walked ten miles on their bare knees, or dived head foremost into Wheal Hazzard shaft, or jumped over the cliffs into Zawn Buzzangein, or done any other insane act or desperate deed, if, by so doing, they could have caused one thrill of pleasure to pass through her dear little heart! It is not necessary, we should think, to say that in the midst of so much sunshine Oliver Trembath and Rose Ellis thought it advisable to "make hay." Old Mr Donnithorne and his excellent wife (of whose goodness and wisdom, by the way, he became more and more convinced every day of his life) saw no objection whatever to this hay-making--so the young couple were wed at the Wesleyan Chapel of St. Just--Charlie Tregarthen, of course, being groomsman--and the only vehicle in the town was hired to drive them over to Penberth Cove and bliss! As to George Augustus Clearemout, Esquire--that able managing director, despite his ducking at St. Just, continued to fill his chair and to fulfil his destiny in the airy little street in London, where, for many years, he represented Wheal Dooem, and "did" a too confiding public. In this work he was ably assisted by Secretary Jack Muddle, who became quite celebrated as a clear expounder and explainer of veins, lodes, ores, cross-cuts, shafts, levels, winzes, minerals, metals, and mines-- insomuch that he was regarded by many of the confiding public who frequented his office as a more thoroughly learned and scientific man than George Augustus himself. It is interesting, how ever, to have to record the curious fact that the too confiding public changed their opinion at last on this head, and came to regard Secretary Jack as a humbug, and the managing director as a scoundrel. Unfortunately this change of opinion did not take place until the whole of the too confiding public (the T.C.P., as Clearemout styled them) had lost large sums of money, and a few of them become bankrupt. When affairs had reached this crisis, one of the T.C.P.--an irascible old gentleman, whose fiery nature seemed to have singed all the hair off his head, leaving it completely bald--went down to Cornwall in a passion to sift the thing for himself. There he found the Great Wheal Dooem pump-engine going full swing, day and night, under the superintendence of one man, while the vast works underground (on which depended the "enormous" dividends promised to and expected by the T.C.P.) were carried on by another man and a boy. On making this discovery the fiery old gentleman with the denuded head left Cornwall--still in a passion--and exploded in the face of a meeting of the members of the T.C.P., who immediately exploded in each other's faces, and appointed an indignation committee to go and explode, with unexampled fury, in the faces of the managing director and Secretary Jack. But these knowing gentlemen, being aware that the explosion was coming, had wisely betaken themselves to the retirement and seclusion of the Continent. Without troubling the reader with further particulars, we may say, in conclusion, that the result was the stoppage of Wheal Dooem mining operations, and the summary dismissal of the two men and the boy. At the present day the ruins of that great concern may be seen standing on the wild sea-cliffs of west Cornwall, solitary, gaunt, and grey, with the iron "bob" of the pump-engine motionless and pointing up obliquely to the sky, as if the giant arm of the mine were upraised to protest for ever against the villainy and the too confiding folly that had left it standing there--a monument of wasted and misdirected energy--a caution to all speculators--a deserted mine--in the language of miners, a "knacked bal." There are many such "knacked bals" in Cornwall, with their iron "bobs"-- horizontal, depressed, or raised aloft, according to the attitude in which they expired--holding forth similar firm, silent, and perpetual protests and cautions. Many Wheal Dooems (which having accomplished their ends may now be termed Wheal Donems) are to be seen all over the country on gorse-clad hills and on bold headlands; but, alongside of these, may be seen their venerable ancestors, still alive and working; subject, indeed, at times, to fits of depression, when, as their indomitable and unconquerable managers will tell you, "the price of tin is low," and subject also to seasons of revival, when they are getting a "little better price for tin," but still working on with untiring persistency whether the price of tin be high or low. Chief among these, our chosen type, Botallack, may be seen bristling on the grey cliffs of the "far west" with the Atlantic winds and spray revelling amongst its machinery, and the thunder of its stamps giving constant token that hundreds of stout-hearted, strong-limbed Cornishmen are still hewing out tin and copper from its gloomy depths, as they did in days gone by, and as they will, doubtless, continue to do in time to come--steadily, sternly, manfully doing their work of sinking and extending the mine deeper down under the sod and further out under the sea. THE END. 
56528	----	GERMINAL BY ÉMILE ZOLA Translated and Introduced By Havelock Ellis Translated and Introduced by Havelock Ellis J. M. DENT & SONS LTD. Aldine House--Bedford St.--London 1885 Introduction By Havelock Ellis 'GERMINAL' was published in 1885, after occupying Zola during the previous year. In accordance with his usual custom--but to a greater extent than with any other of his books except _La Débâcle_--he accumulated material beforehand. For six months he travelled about the coal-mining district in northern France and Belgium, especially the Borinage around Mons, note-book in hand. 'He was inquisitive, was that gentleman', miner told Sherard who visited the neighbourhood at a later period and found that the miners in every village knew _Germinal_. That was a tribute of admiration the book deserved, but it was never one of Zola's most popular novels; it was neither amusing enough nor outrageous enough to attract the multitude. Yet _Germinal_ occupies a place among Zola's works which is constantly becoming more assured, so that to some critics it even begins to seem the only book of his that in the end may survive. In his own time, as we know, the accredited critics of the day could find no condemnation severe enough for Zola. Brunetière attacked him perpetually with a fury that seemed inexhaustible; Schérer could not even bear to hear his name mentioned; Anatole France, though he lived to relent, thought it would have been better if he had never been born. Even at that time, however, there were critics who inclined to view Germinal more favourably. Thus Faguet, who was the recognized academic critic of the end of the last century, while he held that posterity would be unable to understand how Zola could ever have been popular, yet recognized him as in Germinal the heroic representative of democracy, incomparable in his power of describing crowds, and he realized how marvellous is the conclusion of this book. To-day, when critics view Zola In the main with indifference rather than with horror, although he still retains his popular favour, the distinction of _Germinal_ is yet more clearly recognized. Seillière, while regarding the capitalistic conditions presented as now of an ancient and almost extinct type, yet sees _Germinal_ standing out as 'the poem of social mysticism', while André Gide, a completely modern critic who has left a deep mark on the present generation, observes somewhere that it may nowadays cause surprise that he should refer with admiration to _Germinal_, but it is a masterly book that fills him with astonishment; he can hardly believe that it was written in French and still less that it should have been written in any other language; it seems that it should have been created in some international tongue. The high place thus claimed for _Germinal_ will hardly seem exaggerated. The book was produced when Zola had at length achieved the full mastery of his art and before his hand had, as in his latest novels, begun to lose its firm grasp. The subject lent itself, moreover, to his special aptitude for presenting in vivid outline great human groups, and to his special sympathy with the collective emotions and social aspirations of such groups. We do not, as so often in Zola's work, become painfully conscious that he is seeking to reproduce aspects of life with which he is imperfectly acquainted, or fitting them into scientific formulas which he has imperfectly understood. He shows a masterly grip of each separate group, and each represents some essential element of the whole; they are harmoniously balanced, and their mutual action and reaction leads on inevitably to the splendid tragic dose, with yet its great promise for the future. I will not here discuss Zola's literary art (I have done so in my book of _Affirmations_); it is enough to say that, though he was not a great master of style, Zola never again wrote so finely as here. A word may be added to explain how this translation fell to the lot of one whose work has been in other fields. In 1893 the late A. Texeira de Mattos was arranging for private issue a series of complete versions of some of Zola's chief novels and offered to assign _Germinal_ to me. My time was taken up with preliminary but as yet unfruitful preparation for what I regarded as my own special task in life, and I felt that I must not neglect the opportunity of spending my spare time in making a modest addition to my income. My wife readily fell into the project and agreed, on the understanding that we shared the proceeds, to act as my amanuensis. So, in the little Cornish cottage over the sea we then occupied, the evenings of the early months of 1894 were spent over _Germinal_, I translating aloud, and she with swift efficient untiring pen following, now and then bettering my English dialogue with her pungent wit. In this way I was able to gain a more minute insight into the details of Zola's work, and a more impressive vision of the massive structure he here raised, than can easily be acquired by the mere reader. That joint task has remained an abidingly pleasant memory. It is, moreover, a satisfaction to me to know that I have been responsible, however inadequately, for the only complete English version of this wonderful book, 'a great fresco,' as Zola himself called it, a great prose epic, as it has seemed to some, worthy to compare with the great verse epics of old. PART ONE CHAPTER I Over the open plain, beneath a starless sky as dark and thick as ink, a man walked alone along the highway from Marchiennes to Montsou, a straight paved road ten kilometres in length, intersecting the beetroot fields. He could not even see the black soil before him, and only felt the immense flat horizon by the gusts of March wind, squalls as strong as on the sea, and frozen from sweeping leagues of marsh and naked earth. No tree could be seen against the sky, and the road unrolled as straight as a pier in the midst of the blinding spray of darkness. The man had set out from Marchiennes about two o'clock. He walked with long strides, shivering beneath his worn cotton jacket and corduroy breeches. A small parcel tied in a check handkerchief troubled him much, and he pressed it against his side, sometimes with one elbow, sometimes with the other, so that he could slip to the bottom of his pockets both the benumbed hands that bled beneath the lashes of the wind. A single idea occupied his head--the empty head of a workman without work and without lodging--the hope that the cold would be less keen after sunrise. For an hour he went on thus, when on the left, two kilometres from Montsou, he saw red flames, three fires burning in the open air and apparently suspended. At first he hesitated, half afraid. Then he could not resist the painful need to warm his hands for a moment. The steep road led downwards, and everything disappeared. The man saw on his right a paling, a wall of coarse planks shutting in a line of rails, while a grassy slope rose on the left surmounted by confused gables, a vision of a village with low uniform roofs. He went on some two hundred paces. Suddenly, at a bend in the road, the fires reappeared close to him, though he could not understand how they burnt so high in the dead sky, like smoky moons. But on the level soil another sight had struck him. It was a heavy mass, a low pile of buildings from which rose the silhouette of a factory chimney; occasional gleams appeared from dirty windows, five or six melancholy lanterns were hung outside to frames of blackened wood, which vaguely outlined the profiles of gigantic stages; and from this fantastic apparition, drowned in night and smoke, a single voice arose, the thick, long breathing of a steam escapement that could not be seen. Then the man recognized a pit. His despair returned. What was the good? There would be no work. Instead of turning towards the buildings he decided at last to ascend the pit bank, on which burnt in iron baskets the three coal fires which gave light and warmth for work. The labourers in the cutting must have been working late; they were still throwing out the useless rubbish. Now he heard the landers push the wagons on the stages. He could distinguish living shadows tipping over the trams or tubs near each fire. "Good day," he said, approaching one of the baskets. Turning his back to the fire, the carman stood upright. He was an old man, dressed in knitted violet wool with a rabbit-skin cap on his head; while his horse, a great yellow horse, waited with the immobility of stone while they emptied the six trains he drew. The workman employed at the tipping-cradle, a red-haired lean fellow, did not hurry himself; he pressed on the lever with a sleepy hand. And above, the wind grew stronger--an icy north wind--and its great, regular breaths passed by like the strokes of a scythe. "Good day," replied the old man. There was silence. The man, who felt that he was being looked at suspiciously, at once told his name. "I am called Étienne Lantier. I am an engine-man. Any work here?" The flames lit him up. He might be about twenty-one years of age, a very dark, handsome man, who looked strong in spite of his thin limbs. The carman, thus reassured, shook his head. "Work for an engine-man? No, no! There were two came yesterday. There's nothing." A gust cut short their speech. Then Étienne asked, pointing to the sombre pile of buildings at the foot of the platform: "A pit, isn't it?" The old man this time could not reply: he was strangled by a violent cough. At last he expectorated, and his expectoration left a black patch on the purple soil. "Yes, a pit. The Voreux. There! The settlement is quite near." In his turn, and with extended arm, he pointed out in the night the village of which the young man had vaguely seen the roofs. But the six trams were empty, and he followed them without cracking his whip, his legs stiffened by rheumatism; while the great yellow horse went on of itself, pulling heavily between the rails beneath a new gust which bristled its coat. The Voreux was now emerging from the gloom. Étienne, who forgot himself before the stove, warming his poor bleeding hands, looked round and could see each part of the pit: the shed tarred with siftings, the pit-frame, the vast chamber of the winding machine, the square turret of the exhaustion pump. This pit, piled up in the bottom of a hollow, with its squat brick buildings, raising its chimney like a threatening horn, seemed to him to have the evil air of a gluttonous beast crouching there to devour the earth. While examining it, he thought of himself, of his vagabond existence these eight days he had been seeking work. He saw himself again at his workshop at the railway, delivering a blow at his foreman, driven from Lille, driven from everywhere. On Saturday he had arrived at Marchiennes, where they said that work was to be had at the Forges, and there was nothing, neither at the Forges nor at Sonneville's. He had been obliged to pass the Sunday hidden beneath the wood of a cartwright's yard, from which the watchman had just turned him out at two o'clock in the morning. He had nothing, not a penny, not even a crust; what should he do, wandering along the roads without aim, not knowing where to shelter himself from the wind? Yes, it was certainly a pit; the occasional lanterns lighted up the square; a door, suddenly opened, had enabled him to catch sight of the furnaces in a clear light. He could explain even the escapement of the pump, that thick, long breathing that went on without ceasing, and which seemed to be the monster's congested respiration. The workman, expanding his back at the tipping-cradle, had not even lifted his eyes on Étienne, and the latter was about to pick up his little bundle, which had fallen to the earth, when a spasm of coughing announced the carman's return. Slowly he emerged from the darkness, followed by the yellow horse drawing six more laden trams. "Are there factories at Montsou?" asked the young man. The old man expectorated, then replied in the wind: "Oh, it isn't factories that are lacking. Should have seen it three or four years ago. Everything was roaring then. There were not men enough; there never were such wages. And now they are tightening their bellies again. Nothing but misery in the country; every one is being sent away; workshops closing one after the other. It is not the Emperor's fault, perhaps; but why should he go and fight in America? without counting that the beasts are dying from cholera, like the people." Then, in short sentences and with broken breath, the two continued to complain. Étienne narrated his vain wanderings of the past week: must one, then, die of hunger? Soon the roads would be full of beggars. "Yes," said the old man, "this will turn out badly, for God does not allow so many Christians to be thrown on the street." "We don't have meat every day." "But if one had bread!" "True, if one only had bread." Their voices were lost, gusts of wind carrying away the words in a melancholy howl. "Here!" began the carman again very loudly, turning towards the south. "Montsou is over there." And stretching out his hand again he pointed out invisible spots in the darkness as he named them. Below, at Montsou, the Fauvelle sugar works were still going, but the Hoton sugar works had just been dismissing hands; there were only the Dutilleul flour mill and the Bleuze rope walk for mine-cables which kept up. Then, with a large gesture he indicated the north half of the horizon: the Sonneville workshops had not received two-thirds of their usual orders; only two of the three blast furnaces of the Marchiennes Forges were alight; finally, at the Gagebois glass works a strike was threatening, for there was talk of a reduction of wages. "I know, I know," replied the young man at each indication. "I have been there." "With us here things are going on at present," added the carman; "but the pits have lowered their output. And see opposite, at the Victoire, there are also only two batteries of coke furnaces alight." He expectorated, and set out behind his sleepy horse, after harnessing it to the empty trams. Now Étienne could oversee the entire country. The darkness remained profound, but the old man's hand had, as it were, filled it with great miseries, which the young man unconsciously felt at this moment around him everywhere in the limitless tract. Was it not a cry of famine that the March wind rolled up across this naked plain? The squalls were furious: they seemed to bring the death of labour, a famine which would kill many men. And with wandering eyes he tried to pierce shades, tormented at once by the desire and by the fear of seeing. Everything was hidden in the unknown depths of the gloomy night. He only perceived, very far off, the blast furnaces and the coke ovens. The latter, with their hundreds of chimneys, planted obliquely, made lines of red flame; while the two towers, more to the left, burnt blue against the blank sky, like giant torches. It resembled a melancholy conflagration. No other stars rose on the threatening horizon except these nocturnal fires in a land of coal and iron. "You belong to Belgium, perhaps?" began again the carman, who had returned behind Étienne. This time he only brought three trams. Those at least could be tipped over; an accident which had happened to the cage, a broken screw nut, would stop work for a good quarter of an hour. At the bottom of the pit bank there was silence; the landers no longer shook the stages with a prolonged vibration. One only heard from the pit the distant sound of a hammer tapping on an iron plate. "No, I come from the South," replied the young man. The workman, after having emptied the trams, had seated himself on the earth, glad of the accident, maintaining his savage silence; he had simply lifted his large, dim eyes to the carman, as if annoyed by so many words. The latter, indeed, did not usually talk at such length. The unknown man's face must have pleased him that he should have been taken by one of these itchings for confidence which sometimes make old people talk aloud even when alone. "I belong to Montsou," he said, "I am called Bonnemort." "Is it a nickname?" asked Étienne, astonished. The old man made a grimace of satisfaction and pointed to the Voreux: "Yes, yes; they have pulled me three times out of that, torn to pieces, once with all my hair scorched, once with my gizzard full of earth, and another time with my belly swollen with water, like a frog. And then, when they saw that nothing would kill me, they called me Bonnemort for a joke." His cheerfulness increased, like the creaking of an ill-greased pulley, and ended by degenerating into a terrible spasm of coughing. The fire basket now clearly lit up his large head, with its scanty white hair and flat, livid face, spotted with bluish patches. He was short, with an enormous neck, projecting calves and heels, and long arms, with massive hands falling to his knees. For the rest, like his horse, which stood immovable, without suffering from the wind, he seemed to be made of stone; he had no appearance of feeling either the cold or the gusts that whistled at his ears. When he coughed his throat was torn by a deep rasping; he spat at the foot of the basket and the earth was blackened. Étienne looked at him and at the ground which he had thus stained. "Have you been working long at the mine?" Bonnemort flung open both arms. "Long? I should think so. I was not eight when I went down into the Voreux and I am now fifty-eight. Reckon that up! I have been everything down there; at first trammer, then putter, when I had the strength to wheel, then pikeman for eighteen years. Then, because of my cursed legs, they put me into the earth cutting, to bank up and patch, until they had to bring me up, because the doctor said I should stay there for good. Then, after five years of that, they made me carman. Eh? that's fine--fifty years at the mine, forty-five down below." While he was speaking, fragments of burning coal, which now and then fell from the basket, lit up his pale face with their red reflection. "They tell me to rest," he went on, "but I'm not going to; I'm not such a fool. I can get on for two years longer, to my sixtieth, so as to get the pension of one hundred and eighty francs. If I wished them good evening to-day they would give me a hundred and fifty at once. They are cunning, the beggars. Besides, I am sound, except my legs. You see, it's the water which has got under my skin through being always wet in the cuttings. There are days when I can't move a paw without screaming." A spasm of coughing interrupted him again. "And that makes you cough so?" said Étienne. But he vigorously shook his head. Then, when he could speak: "No, no! I caught cold a month ago. I never used to cough; now I can't get rid of it. And the queer thing is that I spit, that I spit----" The rasping was again heard in his throat, followed by the black expectoration. "Is it blood?" asked Étienne, at last venturing to question him. Bonnemort slowly wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. "It's coal. I've got enough in my carcass to warm me till I die. And it's five years since I put a foot down below. I stored it up, it seems, without knowing it; it keeps you alive!" There was silence. The distant hammer struck regular blows in the pit, and the wind passed by with its moan, like a cry of hunger and weariness coming out of the depths of the night. Before the flames which grew low, the old man went on in lower tones, chewing over again his old recollections. Ah, certainly: it was not yesterday that he and his began hammering at the seam. The family had worked for the Montsou Mining Company since it started, and that was long ago, a hundred and six years already. His grandfather, Guillaume Maheu, an urchin of fifteen then, had found the rich coal at Réquillart, the Company's first pit, an old abandoned pit to-day down below near the Fauvelle sugar works. All the country knew it, and as a proof, the discovered seam was called the Guillaume, after his grandfather. He had not known him--a big fellow, it was said, very strong, who died of old age at sixty. Then his father, Nicolas Maheu, called Le Rouge, when hardly forty years of age had died in the pit, which was being excavated at that time: a landslip, a complete slide, and the rock drank his blood and swallowed his bones. Two of his uncles and his three brothers, later on, also left their skins there. He, Vincent Maheu, who had come out almost whole, except that his legs were rather shaky, was looked upon as a knowing fellow. But what could one do? One must work; one worked here from father to son, as one would work at anything else. His son, Toussaint Maheu, was being worked to death there now, and his grandsons, and all his people, who lived opposite in the settlement. A hundred and six years of mining, the youngsters after the old ones, for the same master. Eh? there were many bourgeois that could not give their history so well! "Anyhow, when one has got enough to eat!" murmured Étienne again. "That is what I say. As long as one has bread to eat one can live." Bonnemort was silent; and his eyes turned towards the settlement, where lights were appearing one by one. Four o'clock struck in the Montsou tower and the cold became keener. "And is your company rich?" asked Étienne. The old man shrugged his shoulders, and then let them fall as if overwhelmed beneath an avalanche of gold. "Ah, yes! Ah, yes! Not perhaps so rich as its neighbour, the Anzin Company. But millions and millions all the same. They can't count it. Nineteen pits, thirteen at work, the Voreux, the Victoire, Crévecoeur, Mirou, St. Thomas, Madeleine, Feutry-Cantel, and still more, and six for pumping or ventilation, like Réquillart. Ten thousand workers, concessions reaching over sixty-seven communes, an output of five thousand tons a day, a railway joining all the pits, and workshops, and factories! Ah, yes! ah, yes! there's money there!" The rolling of trams on the stages made the big yellow horse prick his ears. The cage was evidently repaired below, and the landers had got to work again. While he was harnessing his beast to re-descend, the carman added gently, addressing himself to the horse: "Won't do to chatter, lazy good-for-nothing! If Monsieur Hennebeau knew how you waste your time!" Étienne looked thoughtfully into the night. He asked: "Then Monsieur Hennebeau owns the mine?" "No," explained the old man, "Monsieur Hennebeau is only the general manager; he is paid just the same as us." With a gesture the young man pointed into the darkness. "Who does it all belong to, then?" But Bonnemort was for a moment so suffocated by a new and violent spasm that he could not get his breath. Then, when he had expectorated and wiped the black froth from his lips, he replied in the rising wind: "Eh? all that belong to? Nobody knows. To people." And with his hand he pointed in the darkness to a vague spot, an unknown and remote place, inhabited by those people for whom the Maheus had been hammering at the seam for more than a century. His voice assumed a tone of religious awe; it was as if he were speaking of an inaccessible tabernacle containing a sated and crouching god to whom they had given all their flesh and whom they had never seen. "At all events, if one can get enough bread to eat," repeated Étienne, for the third time, without any apparent transition. "Indeed, yes; if we could always get bread, it would be too good." The horse had started; the carman, in his turn, disappeared, with the trailing step of an invalid. Near the tipping-cradle the workman had not stirred, gathered up in a ball, burying his chin between his knees, with his great dim eyes fixed on emptiness. When he had picked up his bundle, Étienne still remained at the same spot. He felt the gusts freezing his back, while his chest was burning before the large fire. Perhaps, all the same, it would be as well to inquire at the pit, the old man might not know. Then he resigned himself; he would accept any work. Where should he go, and what was to become of him in this country famished for lack of work? Must he leave his carcass behind a wall, like a strayed dog? But one doubt troubled him, a fear of the Voreux in the middle of this flat plain, drowned in so thick a night. At every gust the wind seemed to rise as if it blew from an ever-broadening horizon. No dawn whitened the dead sky. The blast furnaces alone flamed, and the coke ovens, making the darkness redder without illuminating the unknown. And the Voreux, at the bottom of its hole, with its posture as of an evil beast, continued to crunch, breathing with a heavier and slower respiration, troubled by its painful digestion of human flesh. CHAPTER II In the middle of the fields of wheat and beetroot, the Deux-Cent-Quarante settlement slept beneath the black night. One could vaguely distinguish four immense blocks of small houses, back to back, barracks or hospital blocks, geometric and parallel, separated by three large avenues which were divided into gardens of equal size. And over the desert plain one heard only the moan of squalls through the broken trellises of the enclosures. In the Maheus' house, No. 16 in the second block, nothing was stirring. The single room that occupied the first floor was drowned in a thick darkness which seemed to overwhelm with its weight the sleep of the beings whom one felt to be there in a mass, with open mouths, overcome by weariness. In spite of the keen cold outside, there was a living heat in the heavy air, that hot stuffiness of even the best kept bedrooms, the smell of human cattle. Four o'clock had struck from the clock in the room on the ground floor, but nothing yet stirred; one heard the piping of slender respirations, accompanied by two series of sonorous snores. And suddenly Catherine got up. In her weariness she had, as usual, counted the four strokes through the floor without the strength to arouse herself completely. Then, throwing her legs from under the bedclothes, she felt about, at last struck a match and lighted the candle. But she remained seated, her head so heavy that it fell back between her shoulders, seeking to return to the bolster. Now the candle lighted up the room, a square room with two windows, and filled with three beds. There could be seen a cupboard, a table, and two old walnut chairs, whose smoky tone made hard, dark patches against the walls, which were painted a light yellow. And nothing else, only clothes hung to nails, a jug placed on the floor, and a red pan which served as a basin. In the bed on the left, Zacharie, the eldest, a youth of one-and-twenty, was asleep with his brother Jeanlin, who had completed his eleventh year; in the right-hand bed two urchins, Lénore and Henri, the first six years old, the second four, slept in each other's arms, while Catherine shared the third bed with her sister Alzire, so small for her nine years that Catherine would not have felt her near her if it were not for the little invalid's humpback, which pressed into her side. The glass door was open; one could perceive the lobby of a landing, a sort of recess in which the father and the mother occupied a fourth bed, against which they had been obliged to install the cradle of the latest comer, Estelle, aged scarcely three months. However, Catherine made a desperate effort. She stretched herself, she fidgeted her two hands in the red hair which covered her forehead and neck. Slender for her fifteen years, all that showed of her limbs outside the narrow sheath of her chemise were her bluish feet, as it were tattooed with coal, and her slight arms, the milky whiteness of which contrasted with the sallow tint of her face, already spoilt by constant washing with black soap. A final yawn opened her rather large mouth with splendid teeth against the chlorotic pallor of her gums; while her grey eyes were crying in her fight with sleep, with a look of painful distress and weariness which seemed to spread over the whole of her naked body. But a growl came from the landing, and Maheu's thick voice stammered; "Devil take it! It's time. Is it you lighting up, Catherine?" "Yes, father; it has just struck downstairs." "Quick then, lazy. If you had danced less on Sunday you would have woke us earlier. A fine lazy life!" And he went on grumbling, but sleep returned to him also. His reproaches became confused, and were extinguished in fresh snoring. The young girl, in her chemise, with her naked feet on the floor, moved about in the room. As she passed by the bed of Henri and Lénore, she replaced the coverlet which had slipped down. They did not wake, lost in the strong sleep of childhood. Alzire, with open eyes, had turned to take the warm place of her big sister without speaking. "I say, now, Zacharie--and you, Jeanlin; I say, now!" repeated Catherine, standing before her two brothers, who were still wallowing with their noses in the bolster. She had to seize the elder by the shoulder and shake him; then, while he was muttering abuse, it came into her head to uncover them by snatching away the sheet. That seemed funny to her, and she began to laugh when she saw the two boys struggling with naked legs. "Stupid, leave me alone," growled Zacharie in ill-temper, sitting up. "I don't like tricks. Good Lord! Say it's time to get up?" He was lean and ill-made, with a long face and a chin which showed signs of a sprouting beard, yellow hair, and the anaemic pallor which belonged to his whole family. His shirt had rolled up to his belly, and he lowered it, not from modesty but because he was not warm. "It has struck downstairs," repeated Catherine; "come! up! father's angry." Jeanlin, who had rolled himself up, closed his eyes, saying: "Go and hang yourself; I'm going to sleep." She laughed again, the laugh of a good-natured girl. He was so small, his limbs so thin, with enormous joints, enlarged by scrofula, that she took him up in her arms. But he kicked about, his apish face, pale and wrinkled, with its green eyes and great ears, grew pale with the rage of weakness. He said nothing, he bit her right breast. "Beastly fellow!" she murmured, keeping back a cry and putting him on the floor. Alzire was silent, with the sheet tucked under her chin, but she had not gone to sleep again. With her intelligent invalid's eyes she followed her sister and her two brothers, who were now dressing. Another quarrel broke out around the pan, the boys hustled the young girl because she was so long washing herself. Shirts flew about: and, while still half-asleep, they eased themselves without shame, with the tranquil satisfaction of a litter of puppies that have grown up together. Catherine was ready first. She put on her miner's breeches, then her canvas jacket, and fastened the blue cap on her knotted hair; in these clean Monday clothes she had the appearance of a little man; nothing remained to indicate her sex except the slight roll of her hips. "When the old man comes back," said Zacharie, mischievously, "he'll like to find the bed unmade. You know I shall tell him it's you." The old man was the grandfather, Bonnemort, who, as he worked during the night, slept by day, so that the bed was never cold; there was always someone snoring there. Without replying, Catherine set herself to arrange the bed-clothes and tuck them in. But during the last moments sounds had been heard behind the wall in the next house. These brick buildings, economically put up by the Company, were so thin that the least breath could be heard through them. The inmates lived there, elbow to elbow, from one end to the other; and no fact of family life remained hidden, even from the youngsters. A heavy step had tramped up the staircase; then there was a kind of soft fall, followed by a sigh of satisfaction. "Good!" said Catherine. "Levaque has gone down, and here is Bouteloup come to join the Levaque woman." Jeanlin grinned; even Alzire's eyes shone. Every morning they made fun of the household of three next door, a pikeman who lodged a worker in the cutting, an arrangement which gave the woman two men, one by night, the other by day. "Philoméne is coughing," began Catherine again, after listening. She was speaking of the eldest Levaque, a big girl of nineteen, and the mistress of Zacharie, by whom she had already had two children; her chest was so delicate that she was only a sifter at the pit, never having been able to work below. "Pooh! Philoméne!" replied Zacharie, "she cares a lot, she's asleep. It's hoggish to sleep till six." He was putting on his breeches when an idea occurred to him, and he opened the window. Outside in the darkness the settlement was awaking, lights were dawning one by one between the laths of the shutters. And there was another dispute: he leant out to watch if he could not see, coming out of Pierron's opposite, the captain of the Voreux, who was accused of sleeping with the Pierron woman, while his sister called to him that since the day before the husband had taken day duty at the pit-eye, and that certainly Dansaert could not have slept there that night. Whilst the air entered in icy whiffs, both of them, becoming angry, maintained the truth of their own information, until cries and tears broke out. It was Estelle, in her cradle, vexed by the cold. Maheu woke up suddenly. What had he got in his bones, then? Here he was going to sleep again like a good-for-nothing. And he swore so vigorously that the children became still. Zacharie and Jeanlin finished washing with slow weariness. Alzire, with her large, open eyes, continually stared. The two youngsters, Lénore and Henri, in each other's arms, had not stirred, breathing in the same quiet way in spite of the noise. "Catherine, give me the candle," called out Maheu. She finished buttoning her jacket, and carried the candle into the closet, leaving her brothers to look for their clothes by what light came through the door. Her father jumped out of bed. She did not stop, but went downstairs in her coarse woollen stockings, feeling her way, and lighted another candle in the parlour, to prepare the coffee. All the sabots of the family were beneath the sideboard. "Will you be still, vermin?" began Maheu, again, exasperated by Estelle's cries which still went on. He was short, like old Bonnemort, and resembled him, with his strong head, his flat, livid face, beneath yellow hair cut very short. The child screamed more than ever, frightened by those great knotted arms which were held above her. "Leave her alone; you know that she won't be still," said his wife, stretching herself in the middle of the bed. She also had just awakened and was complaining how disgusting it was never to be able to finish the night. Could they not go away quietly? Buried in the clothes she only showed her long face with large features of a heavy beauty, already disfigured at thirty-nine by her life of wretchedness and the seven children she had borne. With her eyes on the ceiling she spoke slowly, while her man dressed himself. They both ceased to hear the little one, who was strangling herself with screaming. "Eh? You know I haven't a penny and this is only Monday: still six days before the fortnight's out. This can't go on. You, all of you, only bring in nine francs. How do you expect me to go on? We are ten in the house." "Oh! nine francs!" exclaimed Maheu. "I and Zacharie three: that makes six, Catherine and the father, two: that makes four: four and six, ten, and Jeanlin one, that makes eleven." "Yes, eleven, but there are Sundays and the off-days. Never more than nine, you know." He did not reply, being occupied in looking on the ground for his leather belt. Then he said, on getting up: "Mustn't complain. I am sound all the same. There's more than one at forty-two who are put to the patching." "Maybe, old man, but that does not give us bread. Where am I to get it from, eh? Have you got nothing?" "I've got two coppers." "Keep them for a half-pint. Good Lord! where am I to get it from? Six days! it will never end. We owe sixty francs to Maigrat, who turned me out of doors day before yesterday. That won't prevent me from going to see him again. But if he goes on refusing----" And Maheude continued in her melancholy voice, without moving her head, only closing her eyes now and then beneath the dim light of the candle. She said the cupboard was empty, the little ones asking for bread and butter, even the coffee was done, and the water caused colic, and the long days passed in deceiving hunger with boiled cabbage leaves. Little by little she had been obliged to raise her voice, for Estelle's screams drowned her words. These cries became unbearable. Maheu seemed all at once to hear them, and, in a fury, snatched the little one up from the cradle and threw it on the mother's bed, stammering with rage: "Here, take her; I'll do for her! Damn the child! It wants for nothing: it sucks, and it complains louder than all the rest!" Estelle began, in fact, to suck. Hidden beneath the clothes and soothed by the warmth of the bed, her cries subsided into the greedy little sound of her lips. "Haven't the Piolaine people told you to go and see them?" asked the father, after a period of silence. The mother bit her lip with an air of discouraged doubt. "Yes, they met me; they were carrying clothes for poor children. Yes, I'll take Lénore and Henri to them this morning. If they only give me a few pence!" There was silence again. Maheu was ready. He remained a moment motionless, then added, in his hollow voice: "What is it that you want? Let things be, and see about the soup. It's no good talking, better be at work down below." "True enough," replied Maheude. "Blow out the candle: I don't need to see the colour of my thoughts." He blew out the candle. Zacharie and Jeanlin were already going down; he followed them, and the wooden staircase creaked beneath their heavy feet, clad in wool. Behind them the closet and the room were again dark. The children slept; even Alzire's eyelids were closed; but the mother now remained with her eyes open in the darkness, while, pulling at her breast, the pendent breast of an exhausted woman, Estelle was purring like a kitten. Down below, Catherine had at first occupied herself with the fire, which was burning in the iron grate, flanked by two ovens. The Company distributed every month, to each family, eight hectolitres of a hard slaty coal, gathered in the passages. It burnt slowly, and the young girl, who piled up the fire every night, only had to stir it in the morning, adding a few fragments of soft coal, carefully picked out. Then, after having placed a kettle on the grate, she sat down before the sideboard. It was a fairly large room, occupying all the ground floor, painted an apple green, and of Flemish cleanliness, with its flags well washed and covered with white sand. Besides the sideboard of varnished deal the furniture consisted of a table and chairs of the same wood. Stuck on to the walls were some violently-coloured prints, portraits of the Emperor and the Empress, given by the Company, of soldiers and of saints speckled with gold, contrasting crudely with the simple nudity of the room; and there was no other ornament except a box of rose-coloured pasteboard on the sideboard, and the clock with its daubed face and loud tick-tack, which seemed to fill the emptiness of the place. Near the staircase door another door led to the cellar. In spite of the cleanliness, an odour of cooked onion, shut up since the night before, poisoned the hot, heavy air, always laden with an acrid flavour of coal. Catherine, in front of the sideboard, was reflecting. There only remained the end of a loaf, cheese in fair abundance, but hardly a morsel of butter; and she had to provide bread and butter for four. At last she decided, cut the slices, took one and covered it with cheese, spread another with butter, and stuck them together; that was the "brick," the bread-and-butter sandwich taken to the pit every morning. The four bricks were soon on the table, in a row, cut with severe justice, from the big one for the father down to the little one for Jeanlin. Catherine, who appeared absorbed in her household duties, must, however, have been thinking of the stories told by Zacharie about the head captain and the Pierron woman, for she half opened the front door and glanced outside. The wind was still whistling. There were numerous spots of light on the low fronts of the settlement, from which arose a vague tremor of awakening. Already doors were being closed, and black files of workers passed into the night. It was stupid of her to get cold, since the porter at the pit-eye was certainly asleep, waiting to take his duties at six. Yet she remained and looked at the house on the other side of the gardens. The door opened, and her curiosity was aroused. But it could only be one of the little Pierrons, Lydie, setting out for the pit. The hissing sound of steam made her turn. She shut the door, and hastened back; the water was boiling over, and putting out the fire. There was no more coffee. She had to be content to add the water to last night's dregs; then she sugared the coffee-pot with brown sugar. At that moment her father and two brothers came downstairs. "Faith!" exclaimed Zacharie, when he had put his nose into his bowl, "here's something that won't get into our heads." Maheu shrugged his shoulders with an air of resignation. "Bah! It's hot! It's good all the same." Jeanlin had gathered up the fragments of bread and made a sop of them. After having drunk, Catherine finished by emptying the coffee-pot into the tin-jacks. All four, standing up in the smoky light of the candle, swallowed their meals hastily. "Are we at the end?" said the father; "one would say we were people of property." But a voice came from the staircase, of which they had left the door open. It was Maheude, who called out: "Take all the bread: I have some vermicelli for the children." "Yes, yes," replied Catherine. She had piled up the fire, wedging the pot that held the remains of the soup into a corner of the grate, so that the grandfather might find it warm when he came in at six. Each took his sabots from under the sideboard, passed the strings of his tin over his shoulder and placed his brick at his back, between shirt and jacket. And they went out, the men first, the girl, who came last, blowing out the candle and turning the key. The house became dark again. "Ah! we're off together," said a man who was closing the door of the next house. It was Levaque, with his son Bébert, an urchin of twelve, a great friend of Jeanlin's. Catherine, in surprise, stifled a laugh in Zacharie's ear: "Why! Bouteloup didn't even wait until the husband had gone!" Now the lights in the settlement were extinguished, and the last door banged. All again fell asleep; the women and the little ones resuming their slumber in the midst of wider beds. And from the extinguished village to the roaring Voreux a slow filing of shadows took place beneath the squalls, the departure of the colliers to their work, bending their shoulders and incommoded by their arms, crossed on their breasts, while the brick behind formed a hump on each back. Clothed in their thin jackets they shivered with cold, but without hastening, straggling along the road with the tramp of a flock. CHAPTER III Étienne had at last descended from the platform and entered the Voreux; he spoke to men whom he met, asking if there was work to be had, but all shook their heads, telling him to wait for the captain. They left him free to roam through the ill-lighted buildings, full of black holes, confusing with their complicated stories and rooms. After having mounted a dark and half-destroyed staircase, he found himself on a shaky foot-bridge; then he crossed the screening-shed, which was plunged in such profound darkness that he walked with his hands before him for protection. Suddenly two enormous yellow eyes pierced the darkness in front of him. He was beneath the pit-frame in the receiving-room, at the very mouth of the shaft. A captain, Father Richomme, a big man with the face of a good-natured gendarme, and with a straight grey moustache, was at that moment going towards the receiver's office. "Do they want a hand here for any kind of work?" asked Étienne again. Richomme was about to say no, but he changed his mind and replied like the others, as he went away: "Wait for Monsieur Dansaert, the head captain." Four lanterns were placed there, and the reflectors which threw all the light on to the shaft vividly illuminated the iron rail, the levers of the signals and bars, the joists of the guides along which slid the two cages. The rest of the vast room, like the nave of a church, was obscure, and peopled by great floating shadows. Only the lamp-cabin shone at the far end, while in the receiver's office a small lamp looked like a fading star. Work was about to be resumed, and on the iron pavement there was a continual thunder, trams of coal being wheeled without ceasing, while the landers, with their long, bent backs, could be distinguished amid the movement of all these black and noisy things, in perpetual agitation. For a moment Étienne stood motionless, deafened and blinded. He felt frozen by the currents of air which entered from every side. Then he moved on a few paces, attracted by the winding engine, of which he could now see the glistening steel and copper. It was twenty-five metres beyond the shaft, in a loftier chamber, and placed so solidly on its brick foundation that though it worked at full speed, with all its four hundred horse power, the movement of its enormous crank, emerging and plunging with oily softness, imparted no quiver to the walls. The engine-man, standing at his post, listened to the ringing of the signals, and his eye never moved from the indicator where the shaft was figured, with its different levels, by a vertical groove traversed by shot hanging to strings, which represented the cages; and at each departure, when the machine was put in motion, the drums--two immense wheels, five metres in radius, by means of which the two steel cables were rolled and unrolled--turned with such rapidity that they became like grey powder. "Look out, there!" cried three landers, who were dragging an immense ladder. Étienne just escaped being crushed; his eyes were soon more at home, and he watched the cables moving in the air, more than thirty metres of steel ribbon, which flew up into the pit-frame where they passed over pulleys to descend perpendicularly into the shaft, where they were attached to the cages. An iron frame, like the high scaffolding of a belfry, supported the pulleys. It was like the gliding of a bird, noiseless, without a jar, this rapid flight, the continual come and go of a thread of enormous weight, capable of lifting twelve thousand kilograms at the rate of ten metres a second. "Attention there, for God's sake!" cried again the landers, pushing the ladder to the other side in order to climb to the left-hand rowel. Slowly Étienne returned to the receiving-room. This giant flight over his head took away his breath. Shivering in the currents of air, he watched the movement of the cages, his ears deafened by the rumblings of the trams. Near the shaft the signal was working, a heavy-levered hammer drawn by a cord from below and allowed to strike against a block. One blow to stop, two to go down, three to go up; it was unceasing, like blows of a club dominating the tumult, accompanied by the clear sound of the bell; while the lander, directing the work, increased the noise still more by shouting orders to the engine-man through a trumpet. The cages in the middle of the clear space appeared and disappeared, were filled and emptied, without Étienne being at all able to understand the complicated proceeding. He only understood one thing well: the shaft swallowed men by mouthfuls of twenty or thirty, and with so easy a gulp that it seemed to feel nothing go down. Since four o'clock the descent of the workmen had been going on. They came to the shed with naked feet and their lamps in their hands, waiting in little groups until a sufficient number had arrived. Without a sound, with the soft bound of a nocturnal beast, the iron cage arose from the night, wedged itself on the bolts with its four decks, each containing two trams full of coal. Landers on different platforms took out the trams and replaced them by others, either empty or already laden with trimmed wooden props; and it was into the empty trams that the workmen crowded, five at a time, up to forty. When they filled all the compartments, an order came from the trumpet--a hollow indistinct roar--while the signal cord was pulled four times from below, "ringing meat," to give warning of this burden of human flesh. Then, after a slight leap, the cage plunged silently, falling like a stone, only leaving behind it the vibrating flight of a cable. "Is it deep?" asked Étienne of a miner, who waited near him with a sleepy air. "Five hundred and fifty-four metres," replied the man. "But there are four levels, the first at three hundred and twenty." Both were silent, with their eyes on the returning cable. Étienne said again: "And if it breaks?" "Ah! if it breaks----" The miner ended with a gesture. His turn had arrived; the cage had reappeared with its easy, unfatigued movement. He squatted in it with some comrades; it plunged down, then flew up again in less then four minutes to swallow down another load of men. For half an hour the shaft went on devouring in this fashion, with more or less greedy gulps, according to the depth of the level to which the men went down, but without stopping, always hungry, with its giant intestines capable of digesting a nation. It went on filling and still filling, and the darkness remained dead. The cage mounted from the void with the same voracious silence. Étienne was at last seized again by the same depression which he had experienced on the pit bank. What was the good of persisting? This head captain would send him off like the others. A vague fear suddenly decided him: he went away, only stopping before the building of the engine room. The wide-open door showed seven boilers with two furnaces. In the midst of the white steam and the whistling of the escapes a stoker was occupied in piling up one of the furnaces, the heat of which could be felt as far as the threshold; and the young man was approaching, glad of the warmth, when he met a new band of colliers who had just arrived at the pit. It was the Maheu and Levaque set. When he saw Catherine at the head, with her gentle boyish air, a superstitious idea caused him to risk another question. "I say there, mate! do they want a hand here for any kind of work?" She looked at him surprised, rather frightened at this sudden voice coming out of the shadow. But Maheu, behind her, had heard and replied, talking with Étienne for a moment. No, no one was wanted. This poor devil of a man who had lost his way here interested him. When he left him he said to the others: "Eh! one might easily be like that. Mustn't complain: every one hasn't the chance to work himself to death." The band entered and went straight to the shed, a vast hall roughly boarded and surrounded by cupboards shut by padlocks. In the centre an iron fireplace, a sort of closed stove without a door, glowed red and was so stuffed with burning coal that fragments flew out and rolled on to the trodden soil. The hall was only lighted by this stove, from which sanguine reflections danced along the greasy woodwork up to the ceiling, stained with black dust. As the Maheus went into the heat there was a sound of laughter. Some thirty workmen were standing upright with their backs to the fire, roasting themselves with an air of enjoyment. Before going down, they all came here to get a little warmth in their skins, so that they could face the dampness of the pit. But this morning there was much amusement: they were joking Mouquette, a putter girl of eighteen, whose enormous breasts and flanks were bursting through her old jacket and breeches. She lived at Réquillart with her father old Mouque, a groom, and Mouquet, her brother, a lander; but their hours of work were not the same; she went to the pit by herself, and in the middle of the wheatfields in summer, or against a wall in winter, she took her pleasure with her lover of the week. All in the mine had their turn; it was a perpetual round of comrades without further consequences. One day, when reproached about a Marchiennes nail-maker, she was furiously angry, exclaiming that she respected herself far too much, that she would cut her arm off if any one could boast that he had seen her with any one but a collier. "It isn't that big Chaval now?" said a miner grinning; "did that little fellow have you? he must have needed a ladder. I saw you behind Réquillart, a token that he got up on a milestone." "Well," replied Mouquette, in a good humour, "what's that to do with you? You were not asked to push." And this gross good-natured joke increased the laughter of the men, who expanded their shoulders, half cooked by the stove, while she herself, shaken by laughter, was displaying in the midst of them the indecency of her costume, embarrassingly comical, with her masses of flesh exaggerated almost to disease. But the gaiety ceased; Mouquette told Maheu that Fleurance, big Fleurance, would never come again; she had been found the night before stiff in her bed; some said it was her heart, others that it was a pint of gin she had drunk too quickly. And Maheu was in despair; another piece of ill-luck; one of the best of his putters gone without any chance of replacing her at once. He was working in a set; there were four pikemen associated in his cutting, himself, Zacharie, Levaque, and Chaval. If they had Catherine alone to wheel, the work would suffer. Suddenly he called out: "I have it! there was that man looking for work!" At that moment Dansaert passed before the shed. Maheu told him the story, and asked for his authority to engage the man; he emphasized the desire of the Company to substitute men for women, as at Anzin. The head captain smiled at first; for the scheme of excluding women from the pit was not usually well received by the miners, who were troubled about placing their daughters, and not much affected by questions of morality and health. But after some hesitation he gave his permission, reserving its ratification for Monsieur Négrel, the engineer. "All very well!" exclaimed Zacharie; "the man must be away by this time." "No," said Catherine. "I saw him stop at the boilers." "After him, then, lazy," cried Maheu. The young girl ran forward; while a crowd of miners proceeded to the shaft, yielding the fire to others. Jeanlin, without waiting for his father, went also to take his lamp, together with Bébert, a big, stupid boy, and Lydie, a small child of ten. Mouquette, who was in front of them, called out in the black passage they were dirty brats, and threatened to box their ears if they pinched her. Étienne was, in fact, in the boiler building, talking with a stoker, who was charging the furnaces with coal. He felt very cold at the thought of the night into which he must return. But he was deciding to set out, when he felt a hand placed on his shoulder. "Come," said Catherine; "there's something for you." At first he could not understand. Then he felt a spasm of joy, and vigorously squeezed the young girl's hands. "Thanks, mate. Ah! you're a good chap, you are!" She began to laugh, looking at him in the red light of the furnaces, which lit them up. It amused her that he should take her for a boy, still slender, with her knot of hair hidden beneath the cap. He also was laughing, with satisfaction, and they remained, for a moment, both laughing in each other's faces with radiant cheeks. Maheu, squatting down before his box in the shed, was taking off his sabots and his coarse woollen stockings. When Étienne arrived everything was settled in three or four words: thirty sous a day, hard work, but work that he would easily learn. The pikeman advised him to keep his shoes, and lent him an old cap, a leather hat for the protection of his skull, a precaution which the father and his children disdained. The tools were taken out of the chest, where also was found Fleurance's shovel. Then, when Maheu had shut up their sabots, their stockings, as well as Étienne's bundle, he suddenly became impatient. "What is that lazy Chaval up to? Another girl given a tumble on a pile of stones? We are half an hour late to-day." Zacharie and Levaque were quietly roasting their shoulders. The former said at last: "Is it Chaval you're waiting for? He came before us, and went down at once." "What! you knew that, and said nothing? Come, come, look sharp!" Catherine, who was warming her hands, had to follow the band. Étienne allowed her to pass, and went behind her. Again he journeyed through a maze of staircases and obscure corridors in which their naked feet produced the soft sound of old slippers. But the lamp-cabin was glittering--a glass house, full of hooks in rows, holding hundreds of Davy lamps, examined and washed the night before, and lighted like candles in a mortuary chapel. At the barrier each workman took his own, stamped with his number; then he examined it and shut it himself, while the marker, seated at a table, inscribed on the registers the hour of descent. Maheu had to intervene to obtain a lamp for his new putter, and there was still another precaution: the workers defiled before an examiner, who assured himself that all the lamps were properly closed. "Golly! It's not warm here," murmured Catherine, shivering. Étienne contented himself with nodding his head. He was in front of the shaft, in the midst of a vast hall swept by currents of air. He certainly considered himself brave, but he felt a disagreeable emotion at his chest amid this thunder of trams, the hollow blows of the signals, the stifled howling of the trumpet, the continual flight of those cables, unrolled and rolled at full speed by the drums of the engine. The cages rose and sank with the gliding movement of a nocturnal beast, always engulfing men, whom the throat of the hole seemed to drink. It was his turn now. He felt very cold, and preserved a nervous silence which made Zacharie and Levaque grin; for both of them disapproved of the hiring of this unknown man, especially Levaque, who was offended that he had not been consulted. So Catherine was glad to hear her father explain things to the young man. "Look! above the cage there is a parachute with iron grapnels to catch into the guides in case of breakage. Does it work? Oh, not always. Yes, the shaft is divided into three compartments, closed by planking from top to bottom; in the middle the cages, on the left the passage for the ladders----" But he interrupted himself to grumble, though taking care not to raise his voice much. "What are we stuck here for, blast it? What right have they to freeze us in this way?" The captain, Richomme, who was going down himself, with his naked lamp fixed by a nail into the leather of his cap, heard him. "Careful! Look out for ears," he murmured paternally, as an old miner with a affectionate feeling for comrades. "Workmen must do what they can. Hold on! here we are; get in with your fellows." The cage, provided with iron bands and a small-meshed lattice work, was in fact awaiting them on the bars. Maheu, Zacharie, and Catherine slid into a tram below, and as all five had to enter, Étienne in his turn went in, but the good places were taken; he had to squeeze himself near the young girl, whose elbow pressed into his belly. His lamp embarrassed him; they advised him to fasten it to the button-hole of his jacket. Not hearing, he awkwardly kept it in his hand. The embarkation continued, above and below, a confused packing of cattle. They did not, however, set out. What, then, was happening? It seemed to him that his impatience lasted for many minutes. At last he felt a shock, and the light grew dim, everything around him seemed to fly, while he experienced the dizzy anxiety of a fall contracting his bowels. This lasted as long as he could see light, through the two reception stories, in the midst of the whirling by of the scaffolding. Then, having fallen into the blackness of the pit, he became stunned, no longer having any clear perception of his sensations. "Now we are off," said Maheu quietly. They were all at their ease. He asked himself at times if he was going up or down. Now and then, when the cage went straight without touching the guides, there seemed to be no motion, but rough shocks were afterwards produced, a sort of dancing amid the joists, which made him fear a catastrophe. For the rest he could not distinguish the walls of the shaft behind the lattice work, to which he pressed his face. The lamps feebly lighted the mass of bodies at his feet. Only the captain's naked light, in the neighbouring tram, shone like a lighthouse. "This is four metres in diameter," continued Maheu, to instruct him. "The tubbing wants doing over again, for the water comes in everywhere. Stop! we are reaching the bottom: do you hear?" Étienne was, in fact, now asking himself the meaning of this noise of falling rain. A few large drops had at first sounded on the roof of the cage, like the beginning of a shower, and now the rain increased, streaming down, becoming at last a deluge. The roof must be full of holes, for a thread of water was flowing on to his shoulder and wetting him to the skin. The cold became icy and they were buried in black humidity, when they passed through a sudden flash of light, the vision of a cavern in which men were moving. But already they had fallen back into darkness. Maheu said: "That is the first main level. We are at three hundred and twenty metres. See the speed." Raising his lamp he lighted up a joist of the guides which fled by like a rail beneath a train going at full speed; and beyond, as before, nothing could be seen. They passed three other levels in flashes of light. The deafening rain continued to strike through the darkness. "How deep it is!" murmured Étienne. This fall seemed to last for hours. He was suffering for the cramped position he had taken, not daring to move, and especially tortured by Catherine's elbow. She did not speak a word; he only felt her against him and it warmed him. When the cage at last stopped at the bottom, at five hundred and fifty-four metres, he was astonished to learn that the descent had lasted exactly one minute. But the noise of the bolts fixing themselves, the sensation of solidity beneath, suddenly cheered him; and he was joking when he said to Catherine: "What have you got under your skin to be so warm? I've got your elbow in my belly, sure enough." Then she also burst out laughing. Stupid of him, still to take her for a boy! Were his eyes out? "It's in your eye that you've got my elbow!" she replied, in the midst of a storm of laughter which the astonished young man could not account for. The cage voided its burden of workers, who crossed the pit-eye hall, a chamber cut in the rock, vaulted with masonry, and lighted up by three large lamps. Over the iron flooring the porters were violently rolling laden trams. A cavernous odour exhaled from the walls, a freshness of saltpetre in which mingled hot breaths from the neighbouring stable. The openings of four galleries yawned here. "This way," said Maheu to Étienne. "You're not there yet. It is still two kilometres." The workmen separated, and were lost in groups in the depths of these black holes. Some fifteen went off into that on the left, and Étienne walked last, behind Maheu, who was preceded by Catherine, Zacharie, and Levaque. It was a large gallery for wagons, through a bed of solid rock, which had only needed walling here and there. In single file they still went on without a word, by the tiny flame of the lamps. The young man stumbled at every step, and entangled his feet in the rails. For a moment a hollow sound disturbed him, the sound of a distant storm, the violence of which seemed to increase and to come from the bowels of the earth. Was it the thunder of a landslip bringing on to their heads the enormous mass which separated them from the light? A gleam pierced the night, he felt the rock tremble, and when he had placed himself close to the wall, like his comrades, he saw a large white horse close to his face, harnessed to a train of wagons. On the first, and holding the reins, was seated Bébert, while Jeanlin, with his hands leaning on the edge of the last, was running barefooted behind. They again began their walk. Farther on they reached crossways, where two new galleries opened, and the band divided again, the workers gradually entering all the stalls of the mine. Now the wagon-gallery was constructed of wood; props of timber supported the roof, and made for the crumbly rock a screen of scaffolding, behind which one could see the plates of schist glimmering with mica, and the coarse masses of dull, rough sandstone. Trains of tubs, full or empty, continually passed, crossing each other with their thunder, borne into the shadow by vague beasts trotting by like phantoms. On the double way of a shunting line a long, black serpent slept, a train at standstill, with a snorting horse, whose crupper looked like a block fallen from the roof. Doors for ventilation were slowly opening and shutting. And as they advanced the gallery became more narrow and lower, and the roof irregular, forcing them to bend their backs constantly. Étienne struck his head hard; without his leather cap he would have broken his skull. However, he attentively followed the slightest gestures of Maheu, whose sombre profile was seen against the glimmer of the lamps. None of the workmen knocked themselves; they evidently knew each boss, each knot of wood or swelling in the rock. The young man also suffered from the slippery soil, which became damper and damper. At times he went through actual puddles, only revealed by the muddy splash of his feet. But what especially astonished him were the sudden changes of temperature. At the bottom of the shaft it was very chilly, and in the wagon-gallery, through which all the air of the mine passed, an icy breeze was blowing, with the violence of a tempest, between the narrow walls. Afterwards, as they penetrated more deeply along other passages which only received a meagre share of air, the wind fell and the heat increased, a suffocating heat as heavy as lead. Maheu had not again opened his mouth. He turned down another gallery to the right, simply saying to Étienne, without looking round: "The Guillaume seam." It was the seam which contained their cutting. At the first step, Étienne hurt his head and elbows. The sloping roof descended so low that, for twenty or thirty metres at a time, he had to walk bent double. The water came up to his ankles. After two hundred metres of this, he saw Levaque, Zacharie, and Catherine disappear, as though they had flown through a narrow fissure which was open in front of him. "We must climb," said Maheu. "Fasten your lamp to a button-hole and hang on to the wood." He himself disappeared, and Étienne had to follow him. This chimney-passage left in the seam was reserved for miners, and led to all the secondary passages. It was about the thickness of the coal-bed, hardly sixty centimetres. Fortunately the young man was thin, for, as he was still awkward, he hoisted himself up with a useless expense of muscle, flattening his shoulders and hips, advancing by the strength of his wrists, clinging to the planks. Fifteen metres higher they came on the first secondary passage, but they had to continue, as the cutting of Maheu and his mates was in the sixth passage, in hell, as they said; every fifteen metres the passages were placed over each other in never-ending succession through this cleft, which scraped back and chest. Étienne groaned as if the weight of the rocks had pounded his limbs; with torn hands and bruised legs, he also suffered from lack of air, so that he seemed to feel the blood bursting through his skin. He vaguely saw in one passage two squatting beasts, a big one and a little one, pushing trams: they were Lydie and Mouquette already at work. And he had still to climb the height of two cuttings! He was blinded by sweat, and he despaired of catching up the others, whose agile limbs he heard brushing against the rock with a long gliding movement. "Cheer up! here we are!" said Catherine's voice. He had, in fact, arrived, and another voice cried from the bottom of the cutting: "Well, is this the way to treat people? I have two kilometres to walk from Montsou and I am here first." It was Chaval, a tall, lean, bony fellow of twenty-five, with strongly marked features, who was in a bad humour at having to wait. When he saw Étienne he asked, with contemptuous surprise: "What's that?" And when Maheu had told him the story he added between his teeth: "These men are eating the bread of girls." The two men exchanged a look, lighted up by one of those instinctive hatreds which suddenly flame up. Étienne had felt the insult without yet understanding it. There was silence, and they got to work. At last all the seams were gradually filled, and the cuttings were in movement at every level and at the end of every passage. The devouring shaft had swallowed its daily ration of men: nearly seven hundred hands, who were now at work in this giant ant-hill, everywhere making holes in the earth, drilling it like an old worm-eaten piece of wood. And in the middle of the heavy silence and crushing weight of the strata one could hear, by placing one's ear to the rock, the movement of these human insects at work, from the flight of the cable which moved the cage up and down, to the biting of the tools cutting out the coal at the end of the stalls. Étienne, on turning round, found himself again pressed close to Catherine. But this time he caught a glimpse of the developing curves of her breast: he suddenly understood the warmth which had penetrated him. "You are a girl, then!" he exclaimed, stupefied. She replied in her cheerful way, without blushing: "Of course. You've taken your time to find it out!" CHAPTER IV The four pikemen had spread themselves one above the other over the whole face of the cutting. Separated by planks, hooked on to retain the fallen coal, they each occupied about four metres of the seam, and this seam was so thin, scarcely more than fifty centimetres thick at this spot, that they seemed to be flattened between the roof and the wall, dragging themselves along by their knees and elbows, and unable to turn without crushing their shoulders. In order to attack the coal, they had to lie on their sides with their necks twisted and arms raised, brandishing, in a sloping direction, their short-handled picks. Below there was, first, Zacharie; Levaque and Chaval were on the stages above, and at the very top was Maheu. Each worked at the slaty bed, which he dug out with blows of the pick; then he made two vertical cuttings in the bed and detached the block by burying an iron wedge in its upper part. The coal was rich; the block broke and rolled in fragments along their bellies and thighs. When these fragments, retained by the plank, had collected round them, the pikemen disappeared, buried in the narrow cleft. Maheu suffered most. At the top the temperature rose to thirty-five degrees, and the air was stagnant, so that in the long run it became lethal. In order to see, he had been obliged to fix his lamp to a nail near his head, and this lamp, close to his skull, still further heated his blood. But his torment was especially aggravated by the moisture. The rock above him, a few centimetres from his face, streamed with water, which fell in large continuous rapid drops with a sort of obstinate rhythm, always at the same spot. It was vain for him to twist his head or bend back his neck. They fell on his face, dropping unceasingly. In a quarter of an hour he was soaked, and at the same time covered with sweat, smoking as with the hot steam of a laundry. This morning a drop beating upon his eye made him swear. He would not leave his picking, he dealt great strokes which shook him violently between the two rocks, like a fly caught between two leaves of a book and in danger of being completely flattened. Not a word was exchanged. They all hammered; one only heard these irregular blows, which seemed veiled and remote. The sounds had a sonorous hoarseness, without any echo in the dead air. And it seemed that the darkness was an unknown blackness, thickened by the floating coal dust, made heavy by the gas which weighed on the eyes. The wicks of the lamps beneath their caps of metallic tissue only showed as reddish points. One could distinguish nothing. The cutting opened out above like a large chimney, flat and oblique, in which the soot of ten years had amassed a profound night. Spectral figures were moving in it, the gleams of light enabled one to catch a glimpse of a rounded hip, a knotty arm, a vigorous head, besmeared as if for a crime. Sometimes, blocks of coal shone suddenly as they became detached, illuminated by a crystalline reflection. Then everything fell back into darkness, pickaxes struck great hollow blows; one only heard panting chests, the grunting of discomfort and weariness beneath the weight of the air and the rain of the springs. Zacharie, with arms weakened by a spree of the night before, soon left his work on the pretence that more timbering was necessary. This allowed him to forget himself in quiet whistling, his eyes vaguely resting in the shade. Behind the pikemen nearly three metres of the seam were clear, and they had not yet taken the precaution of supporting the rock, having grown careless of danger and miserly of their time. "Here, you swell," cried the young man to Étienne, "hand up some wood." Étienne, who was learning from Catherine how to manage his shovel, had to raise the wood in the cutting. A small supply had remained over from yesterday. It was usually sent down every morning ready cut to fit the bed. "Hurry up there, damn it!" shouted Zacharie, seeing the new putter hoist himself up awkwardly in the midst of the coal, his arms embarrassed by four pieces of oak. He made a hole in the roof with his pickaxe, and then another in the wall, and wedged in the two ends of the wood, which thus supported the rock. In the afternoon the workers in the earth cutting took the rubbish left at the bottom of the gallery by the pikemen, and cleared out the exhausted section of the seam, in which they destroyed the wood, being only careful about the lower and upper roads for the haulage. Maheu ceased to groan. At last he had detached his block, and he wiped his streaming face on his sleeve. He was worried about what Zacharie was doing behind him. "Let it be," he said, "we will see after breakfast. Better go on hewing, if we want to make up our share of trams." "It's because it's sinking," replied the young man. "Look, there's a crack. It may slip." But the father shrugged his shoulders. Ah! nonsense! Slip! And if it did, it would not be the first time; they would get out of it all right. He grew angry at last, and sent his son to the front of the cutting. All of them, however, were now stretching themselves. Levaque, resting on his back, was swearing as he examined his left thumb which had been grazed by the fall of a piece of sandstone. Chaval had taken off his shirt in a fury, and was working with bare chest and back for the sake of coolness. They were already black with coal, soaked in a fine dust diluted with sweat which ran down in streams and pools. Maheu first began again to hammer, lower down, with his head level with the rock. Now the drop struck his forehead so obstinately that he seemed to feel it piercing a hole in the bone of his skull. "You mustn't mind," explained Catherine to Étienne, "they are always howling." And like a good-natured girl she went on with her lesson. Every laden tram arrived at the top in the same condition as it left the cutting, marked with a special metal token so that the receiver might put it to the reckoning of the stall. It was necessary, therefore, to be very careful to fill it, and only to take clean coal, otherwise it was refused at the receiving office. The young man, whose eyes were now becoming accustomed to the darkness, looked at her, still white with her chlorotic complexion, and he could not have told her age; he thought she must be twelve, she seemed to him so slight. However, he felt she must be older, with her boyish freedom, a simple audacity which confused him a little; she did not please him: he thought her too roguish with her pale Pierrot head, framed at the temples by the cap. But what astonished him was the strength of this child, a nervous strength which was blended with a good deal of skill. She filled her tram faster than he could, with quick small regular strokes of the shovel; she afterwards pushed it to the inclined way with a single slow push, without a hitch, easily passing under the low rocks. He tore himself to pieces, got off the rails, and was reduced to despair. It was certainly not a convenient road. It was sixty metres from the cutting to the upbrow, and the passage, which the miners in the earth cutting had not yet enlarged, was a mere tube with a very irregular roof swollen by innumerable bosses; at certain spots the laden tram could only just pass; the putter had to flatten himself, to push on his knees, in order not to break his head, and besides this the wood was already bending and yielding. One could see it broken in the middle in long pale rents like an over-weak crutch. One had to be careful not to graze oneself in these fractures; and beneath the slow crushing, which caused the splitting of billets of oak as large as the thigh, one had to glide almost on one's belly with a secret fear of suddenly hearing one's back break. "Again!" said Catherine, laughing. Étienne's tram had gone off the rails at the most difficult spot. He could not roll straight on these rails which sank in the damp earth, and he swore, became angry, and fought furiously with the wheels, which he could not get back into place in spite of exaggerated efforts. "Wait a bit," said the young girl. "If you get angry it will never go." Skilfully she had glided down and thrust her buttocks beneath the tram, and by putting the weight on her loins she raised it and replaced it. The weight was seven hundred kilograms. Surprised and ashamed, he stammered excuses. She was obliged to show him how to straddle his legs and brace his feet against the planking on both sides of the gallery, in order to give himself a more solid fulcrum. The body had to be bent, the arms made stiff so as to push with all the muscles of the shoulders and hips. During the journey he followed her and watched her proceed with tense back, her fists so low that she seemed trotting on all fours, like one of those dwarf beasts that perform at circuses. She sweated, panted, her joints cracked, but without a complaint, with the indifference of custom, as if it were the common wretchedness of all to live thus bent double. But he could not succeed in doing as much; his shoes troubled him, his body seemed broken by walking in this way with lowered head. At the end of a few minutes the position became a torture, an intolerable anguish, so painful that he got on his knees for a moment to straighten himself and breathe. Then at the upbrow there was more labour. She taught him to fill his tram quickly. At the top and bottom of this inclined plane, which served all the cuttings from one level to the other, there was a trammer--the brakesman above, the receiver below. These scamps of twelve to fifteen years shouted abominable words to each other, and to warn them it was necessary to yell still more violently. Then, as soon as there was an empty tram to send back, the receiver gave the signal and the putter embarked her full tram, the weight of which made the other ascend when the brakesman loosened his brake. Below, in the bottom gallery, were formed the trains which the horses drew to the shaft. "Here, you confounded rascals," cried Catherine in the inclined way, which was wood-lined, about a hundred metres long, and resounded like a gigantic trumpet. The trammers must have been resting, for neither of them replied. On all the levels haulage had stopped. A shrill girl's voice said at last: "One of them must be on Mouquette, sure enough!" There was a roar of laughter, and the putters of the whole seam held their sides. "Who is that?" asked Étienne of Catherine. The latter named little Lydie, a scamp who knew more than she ought, and who pushed her tram as stoutly as a woman in spite of her doll's arms. As to Mouquette, she was quite capable of being with both the trammers at once. But the voice of the receiver arose, shouting out to load. Doubtless a captain was passing beneath. Haulage began again on the nine levels, and one only heard the regular calls of the trammers, and the snorting of the putters arriving at the upbrow and steaming like over-laden mares. It was the element of bestiality which breathed in the pit, the sudden desire of the male, when a miner met one of these girls on all fours, with her flanks in the air and her hips bursting through her boy's breeches. And on each journey Étienne found again at the bottom the stuffiness of the cutting, the hollow and broken cadence of the axes, the deep painful sighs of the pikemen persisting in their work. All four were naked, mixed up with the coal, soaked with black mud up to the cap. At one moment it had been necessary to free Maheu, who was gasping, and to remove the planks so that the coal could fall into the passage. Zacharie and Levaque became enraged with the seam, which was now hard, they said, and which would make the condition of their account disastrous. Chaval turned, lying for a moment on his back, abusing Étienne, whose presence decidedly exasperated him. "A sort of worm; hasn't the strength of a girl! Are you going to fill your tub? It's to spare your arms, eh? Damned if I don't keep back the ten sous if you get us one refused!" The young man avoided replying, too happy at present to have found this convict's labour and accepting the brutal rule of the worker by master worker. But he could no longer walk, his feet were bleeding, his limbs torn by horrible cramps, his body confined in an iron girdle. Fortunately it was ten o'clock, and the stall decided to have breakfast. Maheu had a watch, but he did not even look at it. At the bottom of this starless night he was never five minutes out. All put on their shirts and jackets. Then, descending from the cutting they squatted down, their elbows to their sides, their buttocks on their heels, in that posture so habitual with miners that they keep it even when out of the mine, without feeling the need of a stone or a beam to sit on. And each, having taken out his brick, bit seriously at the thick slice, uttering occasional words on the morning's work. Catherine, who remained standing, at last joined Étienne, who had stretched himself out farther along, across the rails, with his back against the planking. There was a place there almost dry. "You don't eat?" she said to him, with her mouth full and her brick in her hand. Then she remembered that this youth, wandering about at night without a sou, perhaps had not a bit of bread. "Will you share with me?" And as he refused, declaring that he was not hungry, while his voice trembled with the gnawing in his stomach, she went on cheerfully: "Ah! if you are fastidious! But here, I've only bitten on that side. I'll give you this." She had already broken the bread and butter into two pieces. The young man, taking his half, restrained himself from devouring it all at once, and placed his arms on his thighs, so that she should not see how he trembled. With her quiet air of good comradeship she lay beside him, at full length on her stomach, with her chin in one hand, slowly eating with the other. Their lamps, placed between them, lit up their faces. Catherine looked at him a moment in silence. She must have found him handsome, with his delicate face and black moustache. She vaguely smiled with pleasure. "Then you are an engine-driver, and they sent you away from your railway. Why?" "Because I struck my chief." She remained stupefied, overwhelmed, with her hereditary ideas of subordination and passive obedience. "I ought to say that I had been drinking," he went on, and when I drink I get mad--I could devour myself, and I could devour other people. Yes; I can't swallow two small glasses without wanting to kill someone. Then I am ill for two days." "You mustn't drink," she said, seriously. "Ah, don't be afraid. I know myself." And he shook his head. He hated brandy with the hatred of the last child of a race of drunkards, who suffered in his flesh from all those ancestors, soaked and driven mad by alcohol to such a point that the least drop had become poison to him. "It is because of mother that I didn't like being turned into the street," he said, after having swallowed a mouthful. "Mother is not happy, and I used to send her a five-franc piece now and then." "Where is she, then, your mother?" "At Paris. Laundress, Rue de la Goutte-d'or." There was silence. When he thought of these things a tremor dimmed his dark eyes, the sudden anguish of the injury he brooded over in his fine youthful strength. For a moment he remained with his looks buried in the darkness of the mine; and at that depth, beneath the weight and suffocation of the earth, he saw his childhood again, his mother still beautiful and strong, forsaken by his father, then taken up again after having married another man, living with the two men who ruined her, rolling with them in the gutter in drink and ordure. It was down there, he recalled the street, the details came back to him; the dirty linen in the middle of the shop, the drunken carousals that made the house stink, and the jaw-breaking blows. "Now," he began again, in a slow voice, "I haven't even thirty sous to make her presents with. She will die of misery, sure enough." He shrugged his shoulders with despair, and again bit at his bread and butter. "Will you drink?" asked Catherine, uncorking her tin. "Oh, it's coffee, it won't hurt you. One gets dry when one eats like that." But he refused; it was quite enough to have taken half her bread. However, she insisted good-naturedly, and said at last: "Well, I will drink before you since you are so polite. Only you can't refuse now, it would be rude." She held out her tin to him. She had got on to her knees and he saw her quite close to him, lit up by the two lamps. Why had he found her ugly? Now that she was black, her face powdered with fine charcoal, she seemed to him singularly charming. In this face surrounded by shadow, the teeth in the broad mouth shone with whiteness, while the eyes looked large and gleamed with a greenish reflection, like a cat's eyes. A lock of red hair which had escaped from her cap tickled her ear and made her laugh. She no longer seemed so young, she might be quite fourteen. "To please you," he said, drinking and giving her back the tin. She swallowed a second mouthful and forced him to take one too, wishing to share, she said; and that little tin that went from one mouth to the other amused them. He suddenly asked himself if he should not take her in his arms and kiss her lips. She had large lips of a pale rose colour, made vivid by the coal, which tormented him with increasing desire. But he did not dare, intimidated before her, only having known girls on the streets at Lille of the lowest order, and not realizing how one ought to behave with a work-girl still living with her family. "You must be about fourteen then?" he asked, after having gone back to his bread. She was astonished, almost angry. "What? fourteen! But I am fifteen! It's true I'm not big. Girls don't grow quick with us." He went on questioning her and she told everything without boldness or shame. For the rest she was not ignorant concerning man and woman, although he felt that her body was virginal, with the virginity of a child delayed in her sexual maturity by the environment of bad air and weariness in which she lived. When he spoke of Mouquette, in order to embarrass her, she told some horrible stories in a quiet voice, with much amusement. Ah! she did some fine things! And as he asked if she herself had no lovers, she replied jokingly that she did not wish to vex her mother, but that it must happen some day. Her shoulders were bent. She shivered a little from the coldness of her garments soaked in sweat, with a gentle resigned air, ready to submit to things and men. "People can find lovers when they all live together, can't they?" "Sure enough!" "And then it doesn't hurt any one. One doesn't tell the priest." "Oh! the priest! I don't care for him! But there is the Black Man." "What do you mean, the Black Man?" "The old miner who comes back into the pit and wrings naughty girls' necks." He looked at her, afraid that she was making fun of him. "You believe in those stupid things? Then you don't know anything." "Yes, I do. I can read and write. That is useful among us; in father and mother's time they learnt nothing." She was certainly very charming. When she had finished her bread and butter, he would take her and kiss her on her large rosy lips. It was the resolution of timidity, a thought of violence which choked his voice. These boy's clothes--this jacket and these breeches--on the girl's flesh excited and troubled him. He had swallowed his last mouthful. He drank from the tin and gave it back for her to empty. Now the moment for action had come, and he cast a restless glance at the miners farther on. But a shadow blocked the gallery. For a moment Chaval stood and looked at them from afar. He came forward, having assured himself that Maheu could not see him; and as Catherine was seated on the earth he seized her by the shoulders, drew her head back, and tranquilly crushed her mouth beneath a brutal kiss, affecting not to notice Étienne. There was in that kiss an act of possession, a sort of jealous resolution. However, the young girl was offended. "Let me go, do you hear?" He kept hold of her head and looked into her eyes. His moustache and small red beard flamed in his black face with its large eagle nose. He let her go at last, and went away without speaking a word. A shudder had frozen Étienne. It was stupid to have waited. He could certainly not kiss her now, for she would, perhaps, think that he wished to behave like the other. In his wounded vanity he experienced real despair. "Why did you lie?" he said, in a low voice. "He's your lover." "But no, I swear," she cried. "There is not that between us. Sometimes he likes a joke; he doesn't even belong here; it's six months since he came from the Pas-de-Calais." Both rose; work was about to be resumed. When she saw him so cold she seemed annoyed. Doubtless she found him handsomer than the other; she would have preferred him perhaps. The idea of some amiable, consoling relationship disturbed her; and when the young man saw with surprise that his lamp was burning blue with a large pale ring, she tried at least to amuse him. "Come, I will show you something," she said, in a friendly way. When she had led him to the bottom of the cutting, she pointed out to him a crevice in the coal. A slight bubbling escaped from it, a little noise like the warbling of a bird. "Put your hand there; you'll feel the wind. It's fire-damp." He was surprised. Was that all? Was that the terrible thing which blew everything up? She laughed, she said there was a good deal of it to-day to make the flame of the lamps so blue. "Now, if you've done chattering, lazy louts!" cried Maheu's rough voice. Catherine and Étienne hastened to fill their trams, and pushed them to the upbrow with stiffened back, crawling beneath the bossy roof of the passage. Even after the second journey, the sweat ran off them and their joints began to crack. The pikemen had resumed work in the cutting. The men often shortened their breakfast to avoid getting cold; and their bricks, eaten in this way, far from the sun, with silent voracity, loaded their stomachs with lead. Stretched on their sides they hammered more loudly, with the one fixed idea of filling a large number of trams. Every thought disappeared in this rage for gain which was so hard to earn. They no longer felt the water which streamed on them and swelled their limbs, the cramps of forced attitudes, the suffocation of the darkness in which they grew pale, like plants put in a cellar. Yet, as the day advanced, the air became more poisoned and heated with the smoke of the lamps, with the pestilence of their breaths, with the asphyxia of the fire-damp--blinding to the eyes like spiders' webs--which only the aeration of the night could sweep away. At the bottom of their mole-hill, beneath the weight of the earth, with no more breath in their inflamed lungs, they went on hammering. CHAPTER V Maheu, without looking at his watch which he had left in his jacket, stopped and said: "One o'clock directly. Zacharie, is it done?" The young man had just been at the planking. In the midst of his labour he had been lying on his back, with dreamy eyes, thinking over a game of hockey of the night before. He woke up and replied: "Yes, it will do; we shall see to-morrow." And he came back to take his place at the cutting. Levaque and Chaval had also dropped their picks. They were all resting. They wiped their faces on their naked arms and looked at the roof, in which slaty masses were cracking. They only spoke about their work. "Another chance," murmured Chaval, "of getting into loose earth. They didn't take account of that in the bargain." "Rascals!" growled Levaque. "They only want to bury us in it." Zacharie began to laugh. He cared little for the work and the rest, but it amused him to hear the Company abused. In his placid way Maheu explained that the nature of the soil changed every twenty metres. One must be just; they could not foresee everything. Then, when the two others went on talking against the masters, he became restless, and looked around him. "Hush! that's enough." "You're right," said Levaque, also lowering his voice; "it isn't wholesome." A morbid dread of spies haunted them, even at this depth, as if the shareholders' coal, while still in the seam, might have ears. "That won't prevent me," added Chaval loudly, in a defiant manner, "from lodging a brick in the belly of that damned Dansaert, if he talks to me as he did the other day. I won't prevent him, I won't, from buying pretty girls with a white skin." This time Zacharie burst out laughing. The head captain's love for Pierronne was a constant joke in the pit. Even Catherine rested on her shovel at the bottom of the cutting, holding her sides, and in a few words told Étienne the joke; while Maheu became angry, seized by a fear which he could not conceal. "Will you hold your tongue, eh? Wait till you're alone if you want to get into trouble." He was still speaking when the sound of steps was heard in the upper gallery. Almost immediately the engineer of the mine, little Négrel, as the workmen called him among themselves, appeared at the top of the cutting, accompanied by Dansaert, the head captain. "Didn't I say so?" muttered Maheu. "There's always someone there, rising out of the ground." Paul Négrel, M. Hennebeau's nephew, was a young man of twenty-six, refined and handsome, with curly hair and brown moustache. His pointed nose and sparkling eyes gave him the air of an amiable ferret of sceptical intelligence, which changed into an abrupt authoritative manner in his relations with the workmen. He was dressed like them, and like them smeared with coal; to make them respect him he exhibited a dare-devil courage, passing through the most difficult spots and always first when landslips or fire-damp explosions occurred. "Here we are, are we not, Dansaert?" he asked. The head captain, a coarse-faced Belgian, with a large sensual nose, replied with exaggerated politeness: "Yes, Monsieur Négrel. Here is the man who was taken on this morning." Both of them had slid down into the middle of the cutting. They made Étienne come up. The engineer raised his lamp and looked at him without asking any questions. "Good," he said at last. "But I don't like unknown men to be picked up from the road. Don't do it again." He did not listen to the explanations given to him, the necessities of work, the desire to replace women by men for the haulage. He had begun to examine the roof while the pikemen had taken up their picks again. Suddenly he called out: "I say there, Maheu; have you no care for life? By heavens! you will all be buried here!" "Oh! it's solid," replied the workman tranquilly. "What! solid! but the rock is giving already, and you are planting props at more than two metres, as if you grudged it! Ah! you are all alike. You will let your skull be flattened rather than leave the seam to give the necessary time to the timbering! I must ask you to prop that immediately. Double the timbering--do you understand?" And in face of the unwillingness of the miners who disputed the point, saying that they were good judges of their safety, he became angry. "Go along! when your heads are smashed, is it you who will have to bear the consequences? Not at all! it will be the Company which will have to pay you pensions, you or your wives. I tell you again that we know you; in order to get two extra trams by evening you would sell your skins." Maheu, in spite of the anger which was gradually mastering him, still answered steadily: "If they paid us enough we should prop it better." The engineer shrugged his shoulders without replying. He had descended the cutting, and only said in conclusion, from below: "You have an hour. Set to work, all of you; and I give you notice that the stall is fined three francs." A low growl from the pikemen greeted these words. The force of the system alone restrained them, that military system which, from the trammer to the head captain, ground one beneath the other. Chaval and Levaque, however, made a furious gesture, while Maheu restrained them by a glance, and Zacharie shrugged his shoulders chaffingly. But Étienne was, perhaps, most affected. Since he had found himself at the bottom of this hell a slow rebellion was rising within him. He looked at the resigned Catherine, with her lowered back. Was it possible to kill oneself at this hard toil, in this deadly darkness, and not even to gain the few pence to buy one's daily bread? However, Négrel went off with Dansaert, who was content to approve by a continual movement of his head. And their voices again rose; they had just stopped once more, and were examining the timbering in the gallery, which the pikemen were obliged to look after for a length of ten metres behind the cutting. "Didn't I tell you that they care nothing?" cried the engineer. "And you! why, in the devil's name, don't you watch them?" "But I do--I do," stammered the head captain. "One gets tired of repeating things." Négrel called loudly: "Maheu! Maheu!" They all came down. He went on: "Do you see that? Will that hold? It's a twopenny-halfpenny construction! Here is a beam which the posts don't carry already, it was done so hastily. By Jove! I understand how it is that the mending costs us so much. It'll do, won't it? if it lasts as long as you have the care of it; and then it may go smash, and the Company is obliged to have an army of repairers. Look at it down there; it is mere botching!" Chaval wished to speak, but he silenced him. "No! I know what you are going to say. Let them pay you more, eh? Very well! I warn you that you will force the managers to do something: they will pay you the planking separately, and proportionately reduce the price of the trams. We shall see if you will gain that way! Meanwhile, prop that over again, at once; I shall pass to-morrow." Amid the dismay caused by this threat he went away. Dansaert, who had been so humble, remained behind a few moments, to say brutally to the men: "You get me into a row, you here. I'll give you something more than three francs fine, I will. Look out!" Then, when he had gone, Maheu broke out in his turn: "By God! what's fair is fair! I like people to be calm, because that's the only way of getting along, but at last they make you mad. Did you hear? The tram lowered, and the planking separately! Another way of paying us less. By God it is!" He looked for someone upon whom to vent his anger, and saw Catherine and Étienne swinging their arms. "Will you just fetch me some wood! What does it matter to you? I'll put my foot into you somewhere!" Étienne went to carry it without rancour for this rough speech, so furious himself against the masters that he thought the miners too good-natured. As for the others, Levaque and Chaval had found relief in strong language. All of them, even Zacharie, were timbering furiously. For nearly half an hour one only heard the creaking of wood wedged in by blows of the hammer. They no longer spoke, they snorted, became enraged with the rock, which they would have hustled and driven back by the force of their shoulders if they had been able. "That's enough," said Maheu at last, worn out with anger and fatigue. "An hour and a half! A fine day's work! We shan't get fifty sous! I'm off. This disgusts me." Though there was still half an hour of work left he dressed himself. The others imitated him. The mere sight of the cutting enraged them. As the putter had gone back to the haulage they called her, irritated at her zeal: let the coal take care of itself. And the six, their tools under their arms, set out to walk the two kilometres back, returning to the shaft by the road of the morning. At the chimney Catherine and Étienne were delayed while the pikemen slid down. They met little Lydie, who stopped in a gallery to let them pass, and told them of the disappearance of Mouquette, whose nose had been bleeding so much that she had been away an hour, bathing her face somewhere, no one knew where. Then, when they left her, the child began again to push her tram, weary and muddy, stiffening her insect-like arms and legs like a lean black ant struggling with a load that was too heavy for it. They let themselves down on their backs, flattening their shoulders for fear of scratching the skin on their foreheads, and they walked so close to the polished rock at the back of the stalls that they were obliged from time to time to hold on to the woodwork, so that their backsides should not catch fire, as they said jokingly. Below they found themselves alone. Red stars disappeared afar at a bend in the passage. Their cheerfulness fell, they began to walk with the heavy step of fatigue, she in front, he behind. Their lamps were blackened. He could scarcely see her, drowned in a sort of smoky mist; and the idea that she was a girl disturbed him because he felt that it was stupid not to embrace her, and yet the recollection of the other man prevented him. Certainly she had lied to him: the other was her lover, they lay together on all those heaps of slaty coal, for she had a loose woman's gait. He sulked without reason, as if she had deceived him. She, however, every moment turned round, warned him of obstacles, and seemed to invite him to be affectionate. They were so lost here, it would have been so easy to laugh together like good friends! At last they entered the large haulage gallery; it was a relief to the indecision from which he was suffering; while she once more had a saddened look, the regret for a happiness which they would not find again. Now the subterranean life rumbled around them with a continual passing of captains, the come and go of the trams drawn by trotting horses. Lamps starred the night everywhere. They had to efface themselves against the rock to leave the path free to shadowy men and beasts, whose breath came against their faces. Jeanlin, running barefooted behind his tram, cried out some naughtiness to them which they could not hear amid the thunder of the wheels. They still went on, she now silent, he not recognizing the turnings and roads of the morning, and fancying that she was leading him deeper and deeper into the earth; and what specially troubled him was the cold, an increasing cold which he had felt on emerging from the cutting, and which caused him to shiver the more the nearer they approached the shaft. Between the narrow walls the column of air now blew like a tempest. He despaired of ever coming to the end, when suddenly they found themselves in the pit-eye hall. Chaval cast a sidelong glance at them, his mouth drawn with suspicion. The others were there, covered with sweat in the icy current, silent like himself, swallowing their grunts of rage. They had arrived too soon and could not be taken to the top for half an hour, more especially since some complicated manoeuvres were going on for lowering a horse. The porters were still rolling the trams with the deafening sound of old iron in movement, and the cages were flying up, disappearing in the rain which fell from the black hole. Below, the sump, a cesspool ten metres deep, filled with this streaming water, also exhaled its muddy moisture. Men were constantly moving around the shaft, pulling the signal cords, pressing on the arms of levers, in the midst of this spray in which their garments were soaked. The reddish light of three open lamps cut out great moving shadows and gave to this subterranean hall the air of a villainous cavern, some bandits' forge near a torrent. Maheu made one last effort. He approached Pierron, who had gone on duty at six o'clock. "Here! you might as well let us go up." But the porter, a handsome fellow with strong limbs and a gentle face, refused with a frightened gesture. "Impossible: ask the captain. They would fine me." Fresh growls were stifled. Catherine bent forward and said in Étienne's ear: "Come and see the stable, then. That's a comfortable place!" And they had to escape without being seen, for it was forbidden to go there. It was on the left, at the end of a short gallery. Twenty-five metres in length and nearly four high, cut in the rock and vaulted with bricks, it could contain twenty horses. It was, in fact, comfortable there. There was a pleasant warmth of living beasts, the good odour of fresh and well-kept litter. The only lamp threw out the calm rays of a night-light. There were horses there, at rest, who turned their heads, with their large infantine eyes, then went back to their hay, without haste, like fat well-kept workers, loved by everybody. But as Catherine was reading aloud their names, written on zinc plates over the mangers, she uttered a slight cry, seeing something suddenly rise before her. It was Mouquette, who emerged in fright from a pile of straw in which she was sleeping. On Monday, when she was overtired with her Sunday's spree, she gave herself a violent blow on the nose, and left her cutting under the pretence of seeking water, to bury herself here with the horses in the warm litter. Her father, being weak with her, allowed it, at the risk of getting into trouble. Just then, Mouque, the father, entered, a short, bald, worn-out looking man, but still stout, which is rare in an old miner of fifty. Since he had been made a groom, he chewed to such a degree that his gums bled in his black mouth. On seeing the two with his daughter, he became angry. "What are you up to there, all of you? Come! up! The jades, bringing a man here! It's a fine thing to come and do your dirty tricks in my straw." Mouquette thought it funny, and held her sides. But Étienne, feeling awkward, moved away, while Catherine smiled at him. As all three returned to the pit-eye, Bébert and Jeanlin arrived there also with a train of tubs. There was a stoppage for the manoeuvring of the cages, and the young girl approached their horse, caressed it with her hand, and talked about it to her companion. It was Bataille, the _doyen_ of the mine, a white horse who had lived below for ten years. These ten years he had lived in this hole, occupying the same corner of the stable, doing the same task along the black galleries without ever seeing daylight. Very fat, with shining coat and a good-natured air, he seemed to lead the existence of a sage, sheltered from the evils of the world above. In this darkness, too, he had become very cunning. The passage in which he worked had grown so familiar to him that he could open the ventilation doors with his head, and he lowered himself to avoid knocks at the narrow spots. Without doubt, also, he counted his turns, for when he had made the regulation number of journeys he refused to do any more, and had to be led back to his manger. Now that old age was coming on, his cat's eyes were sometimes dimmed with melancholy. Perhaps he vaguely saw again, in the depths of his obscure dreams, the mill at which he was born, near Marchiennes, a mill placed on the edge of the Scarpe, surrounded by large fields over which the wind always blew. Something burnt in the air--an enormous lamp, the exact appearance of which escaped his beast's memory--and he stood with lowered head, trembling on his old feet, making useless efforts to recall the sun. Meanwhile, the manoeuvres went on in the shaft, the signal hammer had struck four blows, and the horse was being lowered; there was always excitement at such a time, for it sometimes happened that the beast was seized by such terror that it was landed dead. When put into a net at the top it struggled fiercely; then, when it felt the ground no longer beneath it, it remained as if petrified and disappeared without a quiver of the skin, with enlarged and fixed eyes. This animal being too big to pass between the guides, it had been necessary, when hooking it beneath the cage, to pull down the head and attach it to the flanks. The descent lasted nearly three minutes, the engine being slowed as a precaution. Below, the excitement was increasing. What then? Was he going to be left on the road, hanging in the blackness? At last he appeared in his stony immobility, his eye fixed and dilated with terror. It was a bay horse hardly three years of age, called Trompette. "Attention!" cried Father Mouque, whose duty it was to receive it. "Bring him here, don't undo him yet." Trompette was soon placed on the metal floor in a mass. Still he did not move: he seemed in a nightmare in this obscure infinite hole, this deep hall echoing with tumult. They were beginning to unfasten him when Bataille, who had just been unharnessed, approached and stretched out his neck to smell this companion who lay on the earth. The workmen jokingly enlarged the circle. Well! what pleasant odour did he find in him? But Bataille, deaf to mockery, became animated. He probably found in him the good odour of the open air, the forgotten odour of the sun on the grass. And he suddenly broke out into a sonorous neigh, full of musical gladness, in which there seemed to be the emotion of a sob. It was a greeting, the joy of those ancient things of which a gust had reached him, the melancholy of one more prisoner who would not ascend again until death. "Ah! that animal Bataille!" shouted the workmen, amused at the antics of their favourite, "he's talking with his mate." Trompette was unbound, but still did not move. He remained on his flank, as if he still felt the net restraining him, garrotted by fear. At last they got him up with a lash of the whip, dazed and his limbs quivering. And Father Mouque led away the two beasts, fraternizing together. "Here! Is it ready yet?" asked Maheu. It was necessary to clear the cages, and besides it was yet ten minutes before the hour for ascending. Little by little the stalls emptied, and the miners returned from all the galleries. There were already some fifty men there, damp and shivering, their inflamed chests panting on every side. Pierron, in spite of his mawkish face, struck his daughter Lydie, because she had left the cutting before time. Zacharie slyly pinched Mouquette, with a joke about warming himself. But the discontent increased; Chaval and Levaque narrated the engineer's threat, the tram to be lowered in price, and the planking paid separately. And exclamations greeted this scheme, a rebellion was germinating in this little corner, nearly six hundred metres beneath the earth. Soon they could not restrain their voices; these men, soiled by coal, and frozen by the delay, accused the Company of killing half their workers at the bottom, and starving the other half to death. Étienne listened, trembling. "Quick, quick!" repeated the captain, Richomme, to the porters. He hastened the preparations for the ascent, not wishing to be hard, pretending not to hear. However, the murmurs became so loud that he was obliged to notice them. They were calling out behind him that this would not last always, and that one fine day the whole affair would be smashed up. "You're sensible," he said to Maheu; "make them hold their tongues. When one hasn't got power one must have sense." But Maheu, who was getting calm, and had at last become anxious, did not interfere. Suddenly the voices fell; Négrel and Dansaert, returning from their inspection, entered from a gallery, both of them sweating. The habit of discipline made the men stand in rows while the engineer passed through the group without a word. He got into one tram, and the head captain into another, the signal was sounded five times, ringing for the butcher's meat, as they said for the masters; and the cage flew up in the air in the midst of a gloomy silence. CHAPTER VI As he ascended in the cage heaped up with four others, Étienne resolved to continue his famished course along the roads. One might as well die at once as go down to the bottom of that hell, where it was not even possible to earn one's bread. Catherine, in the tram above him, was no longer at his side with her pleasant enervating warmth; and he preferred to avoid foolish thoughts and to go away, for with his wider education he felt nothing of the resignation of this flock; he would end by strangling one of the masters. Suddenly he was blinded. The ascent had been so rapid that he was stunned by the daylight, and his eyelids quivered in the brightness to which he had already grown unaccustomed. It was none the less a relief to him to feel the cage settle on to the bars. A lander opened the door, and a flood of workmen leapt out of the trams. "I say, Mouquet," whispered Zacharie in the lander's ear, "are we off to the Volcan to-night?" The Volcan was a café-concert at Montsou. Mouquet winked his left eye with a silent laugh which made his jaws gape. Short and stout like his father, he had the impudent face of a fellow who devours everything without care for the morrow. Just then Mouquette came out in her turn, and he gave her a formidable smack on the flank by way of fraternal tenderness. Étienne hardly recognized the lofty nave of the receiving-hall, which had before looked imposing in the ambiguous light of the lanterns. It was simply bare and dirty; a dull light entered through the dusty windows. The engine alone shone at the end with its copper; the well-greased steel cables moved like ribbons soaked in ink, and the pulleys above, the enormous scaffold which supported them, the cages, the trams, all this prodigality of metal made the hall look sombre with their hard grey tones of old iron. Without ceasing, the rumbling of the wheels shook the metal floor; while from the coal thus put in motion there arose a fine charcoal powder which powdered black the soil, the walls, even the joists of the steeple. But Chaval, after glancing at the table of counters in the receiver's little glass office, came back furious. He had discovered that two of their trams had been rejected, one because it did not contain the regulation amount, the other because the coal was not clean. "This finishes the day," he cried. "Twenty sous less again! This is because we take on lazy rascals who use their arms as a pig does his tail!" And his sidelong look at Étienne completed his thought. The latter was tempted to reply by a blow. Then he asked himself what would be the use since he was going away. This decided him absolutely. "It's not possible to do it right the first day," said Maheu, to restore peace; "he'll do better to-morrow." They were all none the less soured, and disturbed by the need to quarrel. As they passed to the lamp cabin to give up their lamps, Levaque began to abuse the lamp-man, whom he accused of not properly cleaning his lamp. They only slackened down a little in the shed where the fire was still burning. It had even been too heavily piled up, for the stove was red and the vast room, without a window, seemed to be in flames, to such a degree did the reflection make bloody the walls. And there were grunts of joy, all the backs were roasted at a distance till they smoked like soup. When their flanks were burning they cooked their bellies. Mouquette had tranquilly let down her breeches to dry her chemise. Some lads were making fun of her; they burst out laughing because she suddenly showed them her posterior, a gesture which in her was the extreme expression of contempt. "I'm off," said Chaval, who had shut up his tools in his box. No one moved. Only Mouquette hastened, and went out behind him on the pretext that they were both going back to Montsou. But the others went on joking; they knew that he would have no more to do with her. Catherine, however, who seemed preoccupied, was speaking in a low voice to her father. The latter was surprised; then he agreed with a nod; and calling Étienne to give him back his bundle: "Listen," he said: "you haven't a sou; you will have time to starve before the fortnight's out. Shall I try and get you credit somewhere?" The young man stood for a moment confused. He had been just about to claim his thirty sous and go. But shame restrained him before the young girl. She looked at him fixedly; perhaps she would think he was shirking the work. "You know I can promise you nothing," Maheu went on. "They can but refuse us." Then Étienne consented. They would refuse. Besides, it would bind him to nothing, he could still go away after having eaten something. Then he was dissatisfied at not having refused, seeing Catherine's joy, a pretty laugh, a look of friendship, happy at having been useful to him. What was the good of it all? When they had put on their sabots and shut their boxes, the Maheus left the shed, following their comrades, who were leaving one by one after they had warmed themselves. Étienne went behind. Levaque and his urchin joined the band. But as they crossed the screening place a scene of violence stopped them. It was in a vast shed, with beams blackened by the powder, and large shutters, through which blew a constant current of air. The coal trams arrived straight from the receiving-room, and were then overturned by the tipping-cradles on to hoppers, long iron slides; and to right and to left of these the screeners, mounted on steps and armed with shovels and rakes, separated the stone and swept together the clean coal, which afterwards fell through funnels into the railway wagons beneath the shed. Philoméne Levaque was there, thin and pale, with the sheep-like face of a girl who spat blood. With head protected by a fragment of blue wool, and hands and arms black to the elbows, she was screening beneath an old witch, the mother of Pierronne, the Brulé, as she was called, with terrible owl's eyes, and a mouth drawn in like a miser's purse. They were abusing each other, the young one accusing the elder of raking her stones so that she could not get a basketful in ten minutes. They were paid by the basket, and these quarrels were constantly arising. Hair was flying, and hands were making black marks on red faces. "Give it her bloody well!" cried Zacharie, from above, to his mistress. All the screeners laughed. But the Brulé turned snappishly on the young man. "Now, then, dirty beast! You'd better to own the two kids you have filled her with. Fancy that, a slip of eighteen, who can't stand straight!" Maheu had to prevent his son from descending to see, as he said, the colour of this carcass's skin. A foreman came up and the rakes again began to move the coal. One could only see, all along the hoppers, the round backs of women squabbling incessantly over the stones. Outside, the wind had suddenly quieted; a moist cold was falling from a grey sky. The colliers thrust out their shoulders, folded their arms, and set forth irregularly, with a rolling gait which made their large bones stand out beneath their thin garments. In the daylight they looked like a band of Negroes thrown into the mud. Some of them had not finished their bricks; and the remains of the bread carried between the shirt and the jacket made them humpbacked. "Hallo! there's Bouteloup." said Zacharie, grinning. Levaque without stopping exchanged two sentences with his lodger, a big dark fellow of thirty-five with a placid, honest air: "Is the soup ready, Louis?" "I believe it is." "Then the wife is good-humoured to-day." "Yes, I believe she is." Other miners bound for the earth-cutting came up, new bands which one by one were engulfed in the pit. It was the three o'clock descent, more men for the pit to devour, the gangs who would replace the sets of the pikemen at the bottom of the passages. The mine never rested; day and night human insects were digging out the rock six hundred metres below the beetroot fields. However, the youngsters went ahead. Jeanlin confided to Bébert a complicated plan for getting four sous' worth of tobacco on credit, while Lydie followed respectfully at a distance. Catherine came with Zacharie and Étienne. None of them spoke. And it was only in front of the Avantage inn that Maheu and Levaque rejoined them. "Here we are," said the former to Étienne; "will you come in?" They separated. Catherine had stood a moment motionless, gazing once more at the young man with her large eyes full of greenish limpidity like spring water, the crystal deepened the more by her black face. She smiled and disappeared with the others on the road that led up to the settlement. The inn was situated between the village and the mine, at the crossing of two roads. It was a two-storied brick house, whitewashed from top to bottom, enlivened around the windows by a broad pale-blue border. On a square sign-board nailed above the door, one read in yellow letters: _A l'Avantage, licensed to Rasseneur._ Behind stretched a skittle-ground enclosed by a hedge. The Company, who had done everything to buy up the property placed within its vast territory, was in despair over this inn in the open fields, at the very entrance of the Voreux. "Go in," said Maheu to Étienne. The little parlour was quite bare with its white walls, its three tables and its dozen chairs, its deal counter about the size of a kitchen dresser. There were a dozen glasses at most, three bottles of liqueur, a decanter, a small zinc tank with a pewter tap to hold the beer; and nothing else--not a figure, not a little table, not a game. In the metal fireplace, which was bright and polished, a coal fire was burning quietly. On the flags a thin layer of white sand drank up the constant moisture of this water-soaked land. "A glass," ordered Maheu of a big fair girl, a neighbour's daughter who sometimes took charge of the place. "Is Rasseneur in?" The girl turned the tap, replying that the master would soon return. In a long, slow gulp, the miner emptied half his glass to sweep away the dust which filled his throat. He offered nothing to his companion. One other customer, a damp and besmeared miner, was seated before the table, drinking his beer in silence, with an air of deep meditation. A third entered, was served in response to a gesture, paid and went away without uttering a word. But a stout man of thirty-eight, with a round shaven face and a good-natured smile, now appeared. It was Rasseneur, a former pikeman whom the Company had dismissed three years ago, after a strike. A very good workman, he could speak well, put himself at the head of every opposition, and had at last become the chief of the discontented. His wife already held a license, like many miners' wives; and when he was thrown on to the street he became an innkeeper himself; having found the money, he placed his inn in front of the Voreux as a provocation to the Company. Now his house had prospered; it had become a centre, and he was enriched by the animosity he had gradually fostered in the hearts of his old comrades. "This is a lad I hired this morning," said Maheu at once. "Have you got one of your two rooms free, and will you give him credit for a fortnight?" Rasseneur's broad face suddenly expressed great suspicion. He examined Étienne with a glance, and replied, without giving himself the trouble to express any regret: "My two rooms are taken. Can't do it." The young man expected this refusal; but it hurt him nevertheless, and he was surprised at the sudden grief he experienced in going. No matter; he would go when he had received his thirty sous. The miner who was drinking at a table had left. Others, one by one, continued to come in to clear their throats, then went on their road with the same slouching gait. It was a simple swilling without joy or passion, the silent satisfaction of a need. "Then, there's no news?" Rasseneur asked in a peculiar tone of Maheu, who was finishing his beer in small gulps. The latter turned his head, and saw that only Étienne was near. "There's been more squabbling. Yes, about the timbering." He told the story. The innkeeper's face reddened, swelling with emotion, which flamed in his skin and eyes. At last he broke out: "Well, well! if they decide to lower the price they are done for." Étienne constrained him. However he went on, throwing sidelong glances in his direction. And there were reticences, and implications; he was talking of the manager, M. Hennebeau, of his wife, of his nephew, the little Négrel, without naming them, repeating that this could not go on, that things were bound to smash up one of these fine days. The misery was too great; and he spoke of the workshops that were closing, the workers who were going away. During the last month he had given more than six pounds of bread a day. He had heard the day before, that M. Deneulin, the owner of a neighbouring pit, could scarcely keep going. He had also received a letter from Lille full of disturbing details. "You know," he whispered, "it comes from that person you saw here one evening." But he was interrupted. His wife entered in her turn, a tall woman, lean and keen, with a long nose and violet cheeks. She was a much more radical politician than her husband. "Pluchart's letter," she said. "Ah! if that fellow was master things would soon go better." Étienne had been listening for a moment; he understood and became excited over these ideas of misery and revenge. This name, suddenly uttered, caused him to start. He said aloud, as if in spite of himself: "I know him--Pluchart." They looked at him. He had to add: "Yes, I am an engine-man: he was my foreman at Lille. A capable man. I have often talked with him." Rasseneur examined him afresh; and there was a rapid change on his face, a sudden sympathy. At last he said to his wife: "It's Maheu who brings me this gentleman, one of his putters, to see if there is a room for him upstairs, and if we can give him credit for a fortnight." Then the matter was settled in four words. There was a room; the lodger had left that morning. And the innkeeper, who was very excited, talked more freely, repeating that he only asked possibilities from the masters, without demanding, like so many others, things that were too hard to get. His wife shrugged her shoulders and demanded justice, absolutely. "Good evening," interrupted Maheu. "All that won't prevent men from going down, and as long as they go there will be people working themselves to death. Look how fresh you are, these three years that you've been out of it." "Yes, I'm very much better," declared Rasseneur, complacently. Étienne went as far as the door, thanking the miner, who was leaving; but the latter nodded his head without adding a word, and the young man watched him painfully climb up the road to the settlement. Madame Rasseneur, occupied with serving customers, asked him to wait a minute, when she would show him his room, where he could clean himself. Should he remain? He again felt hesitation, a discomfort which made him regret the freedom of the open road, the hunger beneath the sun, endured with the joy of being one's own master. It seemed to him that he had lived years from his arrival on the pit-bank, in the midst of squalls, to those hours passed under the earth on his belly in the black passages. And he shrank from beginning again; it was unjust and too hard. His man's pride revolted at the idea of becoming a crushed and blinded beast. While Étienne was thus debating with himself, his eyes, wandering over the immense plain, gradually began to see it clearly. He was surprised; he had not imagined the horizon was like this, when old Bonnemort had pointed it out to him in the darkness. Before him he plainly saw the Voreux in a fold of the earth, with its wood and brick buildings, the tarred screening-shed, the slate-covered steeple, the engine-room and the tall, pale red chimney, all massed together with that evil air. But around these buildings the space extended, and he had not imagined it so large, changed into an inky sea by the ascending waves of coal soot, bristling with high trestles which carried the rails of the foot-bridges, encumbered in one corner with the timber supply, which looked like the harvest of a mown forest. Towards the right the pit-bank hid the view, colossal as a barricade of giants, already covered with grass in its older part, consumed at the other end by an interior fire which had been burning for a year with a thick smoke, leaving at the surface in the midst of the pale grey of the slates and sandstones long trails of bleeding rust. Then the fields unrolled, the endless fields of wheat and beetroot, naked at this season of the year, marshes with scanty vegetation, cut by a few stunted willows, distant meadows separated by slender rows of poplars. Very far away little pale patches indicated towns, Marchiennes to the north, Montsou to the south; while the forest of Vandame to the east bordered the horizon with the violet line of its leafless trees. And beneath the livid sky, in the faint daylight of this winter afternoon, it seemed as if all the blackness of the Voreux, and all its flying coal dust, had fallen upon the plain, powdering the trees, sanding the roads, sowing the earth. Étienne looked, and what especially surprised him was a canal, the canalized stream of the Scarpe, which he had not seen in the night. From the Voreux to Marchiennes this canal ran straight, like a dull silver ribbon two leagues long, an avenue lined by large trees, raised above the low earth, threading into space with the perspective of its green banks, its pale water into which glided the vermilion of the boats. Near one pit there was a wharf with moored vessels which were laden directly from the trams at the foot-bridges. Afterwards the canal made a curve, sloping by the marshes; and the whole soul of that smooth plain appeared to lie in this geometrical stream, which traversed it like a great road, carting coal and iron. Étienne's glance went up from the canal to the settlement built on the height, of which he could only distinguish the red tiles. Then his eyes rested again at the bottom of the clay slope, towards the Voreux, on two enormous masses of bricks made and burnt on the spot. A branch of the Company's railroad passed behind a paling, for the use of the pit. They must be sending down the last miners to the earth-cutting. Only one shrill note came from a truck pushed by men. One felt no longer the unknown darkness, the inexplicable thunder, the flaming of mysterious stars. Afar, the blast furnaces and the coke kilns had paled with the dawn. There only remained, unceasingly, the escapement of the pump, always breathing with the same thick, long breath, the ogre's breath of which he could now see the grey steam, and which nothing could satiate. Then Étienne suddenly made up his mind. Perhaps he seemed to see again Catherine's clear eyes, up there, at the entrance to the settlement. Perhaps, rather, it was the wind of revolt which came from the Voreux. He did not know, but he wished to go down again to the mine, to suffer and to fight. And he thought fiercely of those people Bonnemort had talked of, the crouching and sated god, to whom ten thousand starving men gave their flesh without knowing it. PART TWO CHAPTER I The Grégoires' property, Piolaine, was situated two kilometres to the east of Montsou, on the Joiselle road. The house was a large square building, without style, dating from the beginning of the last century. Of all the land that once belonged to it there only remained some thirty hectares, enclosed by walls, and easy to keep up. The orchard and kitchen garden especially were everywhere spoken of, being famous for the finest fruit and vegetables in the country. For the rest, there was no park, only a small wood. The avenue of old limes, a vault of foliage three hundred metres long, reaching from the gate to the porch, was one of the curiosities of this bare plain, on which one could count the large trees between Marchiennes and Beaugnies. On that morning the Grégoires got up at eight o'clock. Usually they never stirred until an hour later, being heavy sleepers; but last night's tempest had disturbed them. And while her husband had gone at once to see if the wind had made any havoc, Madame Grégoire went down to the kitchen in her slippers and flannel dressing-gown. She was short and stout, about fifty-eight years of age, and retained a broad, surprised, dollish face beneath the dazzling whiteness of her hair. "Mélanie," she said to the cook, "suppose you were to make the brioche this morning, since the dough is ready. Mademoiselle will not get up for half an hour yet, and she can eat it with her chocolate. Eh? It will be a surprise." The cook, a lean old woman who had served them for thirty years, laughed. "That's true! it will be a famous surprise. My stove is alight, and the oven must be hot; and then Honorine can help me a bit." Honorine, a girl of some twenty years, who had been taken in as a child and brought up in the house, now acted as housemaid. Besides these two women, the only other servant was the coachman, Francis, who undertook the heavy work. A gardener and his wife were occupied with the vegetables, the fruit, the flowers, and the poultry-yard. And as service here was patriarchal, this little world lived together, like one large family, on very good terms. Madame Grégoire, who had planned this surprise of the brioche in bed, waited to see the dough put in the oven. The kitchen was very large, and one guessed it was the most important room in the house by its extreme cleanliness and by the arsenal of saucepans, utensils, and pots which filled it. It gave an impression of good feeding. Provisions abounded, hanging from hooks or in cupboards. "And let it be well glazed, won't you?" Madame Grégoire said as she passed into the dining-room. In spite of the hot-air stove which warmed the whole house, a coal fire enlivened this room. In other respects it exhibited no luxury; a large table, chairs, a mahogany sideboard; only two deep easy-chairs betrayed a love of comfort, long happy hours of digestion. They never went into the drawing-room, they remained here in a family circle. Just then M. Grégoire came back dressed in a thick fustian jacket; he also was ruddy for his sixty years, with large, good-natured, honest features beneath the snow of his curly hair. He had seen the coachman and the gardener; there had been no damage of importance, nothing but a fallen chimney-pot. Every morning he liked to give a glance round Piolaine, which was not large enough to cause him anxiety, and from which he derived all the happiness of ownership. "And Cécile?" he asked, "isn't she up yet then?" "I can't make it out," replied his wife. "I thought I heard her moving." The table was set; there were three cups on the white cloth. They sent Honorine to see what had become of mademoiselle. But she came back immediately, restraining her laughter, stifling her voice, as if she were still upstairs in the bedroom. "Oh! if monsieur and madame could see mademoiselle! She sleeps; oh! she sleeps like an angel. One can't imagine it! It's a pleasure to look at her." The father and mother exchanged tender looks. He said, smiling: "Will you come and see?" "The poor little darling!" she murmured. "I'll come." And they went up together. The room was the only luxurious one in the house. It was draped in blue silk, and the furniture was lacquered white, with blue tracery--a spoilt child's whim, which her parents had gratified. In the vague whiteness of the bed, beneath the half-light which came through a curtain that was drawn back, the young girl was sleeping with her cheek resting on her naked arm. She was not pretty, too healthy, in too vigorous condition, fully developed at eighteen; but she had superb flesh, the freshness of milk, with her chestnut hair, her round face, and little willful nose lost between her cheeks. The coverlet had slipped down, and she was breathing so softly that her respiration did not even lift her already well-developed bosom. "That horrible wind must have prevented her from closing her eyes," said the mother softly. The father imposed silence with a gesture. Both of them leant down and gazed with adoration on this girl, in her virgin nakedness, whom they had desired so long, and who had come so late, when they had no longer hoped for her. They found her perfect, not at all too fat, and could never feed her sufficiently. And she went on sleeping, without feeling them near her, with their faces against hers. However, a slight movement disturbed her motionless face. They feared that they would wake her, and went out on tiptoe. "Hush!" said M. Grégoire, at the door. "If she has not slept we must leave her sleeping." "As long as she likes, the darling!" agreed Madame Grégoire. "We will wait." They went down and seated themselves in the easy-chairs in the dining-room; while the servants, laughing at mademoiselle's sound sleep, kept the chocolate on the stove without grumbling. He took up a newspaper; she knitted at a large woollen quilt. It was very hot, and not a sound was heard in the silent house. The Grégoires' fortune, about forty thousand francs a year, was entirely invested in a share of the Montsou mines. They would complacently narrate its origin, which dated from the very formation of the Company. Towards the beginning of the last century, there had been a mad search for coal between Lille and Valenciennes. The success of those who held the concession, which was afterwards to become the Anzin Company, had turned all heads. In every commune the ground was tested; and societies were formed and concessions grew up in a night. But among all the obstinate seekers of that epoch, Baron Desrumaux had certainly left the reputation for the most heroic intelligence. For forty years he had struggled without yielding, in the midst of continual obstacles: early searches unsuccessful, new pits abandoned at the end of long months of work, landslips which filled up borings, sudden inundations which drowned the workmen, hundreds of thousands of francs thrown into the earth; then the squabbles of the management, the panics of the shareholders, the struggle with the lords of the soil, who were resolved not to recognize royal concessions if no treaty was first made with themselves. He had at last founded the association of Desrumaux, Fauquenoix and Co. to exploit the Montsou concession, and the pits began to yield a small profit when two neighbouring concessions, that of Cougny, belonging to the Comte de Cougny, and that of Joiselle, belonging to the Cornille and Jenard Company, had nearly overwhelmed him beneath the terrible assault of their competition. Happily, on the 25th August 1760, a treaty was made between the three concessions, uniting them into a single one. The Montsou Mining Company was created, such as it still exists to-day. In the distribution they had divided the total property, according to the standard of the money of the time, into twenty-four sous, of which each was subdivided into twelve deniers, which made two hundred and eighty-eight deniers; and as the denier was worth ten thousand francs the capital represented a sum of nearly three millions. Desrumaux, dying but triumphant, received in this division six sous and three deniers. In those days the baron possessed Piolaine, which had three hundred hectares belonging to it, and he had in his service as steward Honoré Grégoire, a Picardy lad, the great-grandfather of Léon Grégoire, Cécile's father. When the Montsou treaty was made, Honoré, who had laid up savings to the amount of some fifty thousand francs, yielded tremblingly to his master's unshakable faith. He took out ten thousand francs in fine crowns, and took a denier, though with the fear of robbing his children of that sum. His son Eugéne, in fact, received very small dividends; and as he had become a bourgeois and had been foolish enough to throw away the other forty thousand francs of the paternal inheritance in a company that came to grief, he lived meanly enough. But the interest of the denier gradually increased. The fortune began with Félicien, who was able to realize a dream with which his grandfather, the old steward, had nursed his childhood--the purchase of dismembered Piolaine, which he acquired as national property for a ludicrous sum. However, bad years followed. It was necessary to await the conclusion of the revolutionary catastrophes, and afterwards Napoleon's bloody fall; and it was Léon Grégoire who profited at a stupefying rate of progress by the timid and uneasy investment of his great-grandfather. Those poor ten thousand francs grew and multiplied with the Company's prosperity. From 1820 they had brought in one hundred per cent, ten thousand francs. In 1844 they had produced twenty thousand; in 1850, forty. During two years the dividend had reached the prodigious figure of fifty thousand francs; the value of the denier, quoted at the Lille bourse at a million, had centupled in a century. M. Grégoire, who had been advised to sell out when this figure of a million was reached, had refused with his smiling paternal air. Six months later an industrial crisis broke out; the denier fell to six hundred thousand francs. But he still smiled; he regretted nothing, for the Grégoires had maintained an obstinate faith in their mine. It would rise again: God Himself was not so solid. Then with his religious faith was mixed profound gratitude towards an investment which for a century had supported the family in doing nothing. It was like a divinity of their own, whom their egoism surrounded with a kind of worship, the benefactor of the hearth, lulling them in their great bed of idleness, fattening them at their gluttonous table. From father to son it had gone on. Why risk displeasing fate by doubting it? And at the bottom of their fidelity there was a superstitious terror, a fear lest the million of the denier might suddenly melt away if they were to realize it and to put it in a drawer. It seemed to them more sheltered in the earth, from which a race of miners, generations of starving people, extracted it for them, a little every day, as they needed it. For the rest, happiness rained on this house. M. Grégoire, when very young, had married the daughter of a Marchiennes druggist, a plain, penniless girl, whom he adored, and who repaid him with happiness. She shut herself up in her household, and worshipped her husband, having no other will but his. No difference of tastes separated them, their desires were mingled in one idea of comfort; and they had thus lived for forty years, in affection and little mutual services. It was a well-regulated existence; the forty thousand francs were spent quietly, and the savings expended on Cécile, whose tardy birth had for a moment disturbed the budget. They still satisfied all her whims--a second horse, two more carriages, toilets sent from Paris. But they tasted in this one more joy; they thought nothing too good for their daughter, although they had such a horror of display that they had preserved the fashions of their youth. Every unprofitable expense seemed foolish to them. Suddenly the door opened, and a loud voice called out: "Hallo! What now? Having breakfast without me!" It was Cécile, just come from her bed, her eyes heavy with sleep. She had simply put up her hair and flung on a white woollen dressing-gown. "No, no!" said the mother; "you see we are all waiting. Eh? has the wind prevented you from sleeping, poor darling?" The young girl looked at her in great surprise. "Has it been windy? I didn't know anything about it. I haven't moved all night." Then they thought this funny, and all three began to laugh; the servants who were bringing in the breakfast also broke out laughing, so amused was the household at the idea that mademoiselle had been sleeping for twelve hours right off. The sight of the brioche completed the expansion of their faces. "What! Is it cooked, then?" said Cécile; "that must be a surprise for me! That'll be good now, hot, with the chocolate!" They sat down to table at last with the smoking chocolate in their cups, and for a long time talked of nothing but the brioche. Mélanie and Honorine remained to give details about the cooking and watched them stuffing themselves with greasy lips, saying that it was a pleasure to make a cake when one saw the masters enjoying it so much. But the dogs began to bark loudly; perhaps they announced the music mistress, who came from Marchiennes on Mondays and Fridays. A professor of literature also came. All the young girl's education was thus carried on at Piolaine in happy ignorance, with her childish whims, throwing the book out of the window as soon as anything wearied her. "It is M. Deneulin," said Honorine, returning. Behind her, Deneulin, a cousin of M. Grégoire's, appeared without ceremony; with his loud voice, his quick gestures, he had the appearance of an old cavalry officer. Although over fifty, his short hair and thick moustache were as black as ink. "Yes! It is I. Good day! Don't disturb yourselves." He had sat down amid the family's exclamations. They turned back at last to their chocolate. "Have you anything to tell me?" asked M. Grégoire. "No! nothing at all," Deneulin hastened to reply. "I came out on horseback to rub off the rust a bit, and as I passed your door I thought I would just look in." Cécile questioned him about Jeanne and Lucie, his daughters. They were perfectly well, the first was always at her painting, while the other, the elder, was training her voice at the piano from morning till night. And there was a slight quiver in his voice, a disquiet which he concealed beneath bursts of gaiety. M. Grégoire began again: "And everything goes well at the pit?" "Well, I am upset over this dirty crisis. Ah! we are paying for the prosperous years! They have built too many workshops, put down too many railways, invested too much capital with a view to a large return, and today the money is asleep. They can't get any more to make the whole thing work. Luckily things are not desperate; I shall get out of it somehow." Like his cousin he had inherited a denier in the Montsou mines. But being an enterprising engineer, tormented by the desire for a royal fortune, he had hastened to sell out when the denier had reached a million. For some months he had been maturing a scheme. His wife possessed, through an uncle, the little concession of Vandame, where only two pits were open--Jean-Bart and Gaston-Marie--in an abandoned state, and with such defective material that the output hardly covered the cost. Now he was meditating the repair of Jean-Bart, the renewal of the engine, and the enlargement of the shaft so as to facilitate the descent, keeping Gaston-Marie only for exhaustion purposes. They ought to be able to shovel up gold there, he said. The idea was sound. Only the million had been spent over it, and this damnable industrial crisis broke out at the moment when large profits would have shown that he was right. Besides, he was a bad manager, with a rough kindness towards his workmen, and since his wife's death he allowed himself to be pillaged, and also gave the rein to his daughters, the elder of whom talked of going on the stage, while the younger had already had three landscapes refused at the Salon, both of them joyous amid the downfall, and exhibiting in poverty their capacity for good household management. "You see, Léon," he went on, in a hesitating voice, "you were wrong not to sell out at the same time as I did; now everything is going down. You run risk, and if you had confided your money to me you would have seen what we should have done at Vandame in our mine!" M. Grégoire finished his chocolate without haste. He replied peacefully: "Never! You know that I don't want to speculate. I live quietly, and it would be too foolish to worry my head over business affairs. And as for Montsou, it may continue to go down, we shall always get our living out of it. It doesn't do to be so diabolically greedy! Then, listen, it is you who will bite your fingers one day, for Montsou will rise again and Cécile's grandchildren will still get their white bread out of it." Deneulin listened with a constrained smile. "Then," he murmured, "if I were to ask you to put a hundred thousand francs in my affair you would refuse?" But seeing the Grégoires' disturbed faces he regretted having gone so far; he put off his idea of a loan, reserving it until the case was desperate. "Oh! I have not got to that! it is a joke. Good heavens! Perhaps you are right; the money that other people earn for you is the best to fatten on." They changed the conversation. Cécile spoke again of her cousins, whose tastes interested, while at the same time they shocked her. Madame Grégoire promised to take her daughter to see those dear little ones on the first fine day. M. Grégoire, however, with a distracted air, did not follow the conversation. He added aloud: "If I were in your place I wouldn't persist any more; I would treat with Montsou. They want it, and you will get your money back." He alluded to an old hatred which existed between the concession of Montsou and that of Vandame. In spite of the latter's slight importance, its powerful neighbour was enraged at seeing, enclosed within its own sixty-seven communes, this square league which did not belong to it, and after having vainly tried to kill it had plotted to buy it at a low price when in a failing condition. The war continued without truce. Each party stopped its galleries at two hundred metres from the other; it was a duel to the last drop of blood, although the managers and engineers maintained polite relations with each other. Deneulin's eyes had flamed up. "Never!" he cried, in his turn. "Montsou shall never have Vandame as long as I am alive. I dined on Thursday at Hennebeau's, and I saw him fluttering around me. Last autumn, when the big men came to the administration building, they made me all sorts of advances. Yes, yes, I know them--those marquises, and dukes, and generals, and ministers! Brigands who would take away even your shirt at the corner of a wood." He could not cease. Besides, M. Grégoire did not defend the administration of Montsou--the six stewards established by the treaty of 1760, who governed the Company despotically, and the five survivors of whom on every death chose the new member among the powerful and rich shareholders. The opinion of the owner of Piolaine, with his reasonable ideas, was that these gentlemen were sometimes rather immoderate in their exaggerated love of money. Mélanie had come to clear away the table. Outside the dogs were again barking, and Honorine was going to the door, when Cécile, who was stifled by heat and food, left the table. "No, never mind! it must be for my lesson." Deneulin had also risen. He watched the young girl go out, and asked, smiling: "Well! and the marriage with little Négrel?" "Nothing has been settled," said Madame Grégoire; "it is only an idea. We must reflect." "No doubt!" he went on, with a gay laugh. "I believe that the nephew and the aunt-- What baffles me is that Madame Hennebeau should throw herself so on Cécile's neck." But M. Grégoire was indignant. So distinguished a lady, and fourteen years older than the young man! It was monstrous; he did not like joking on such subjects. Deneulin, still laughing, shook hands with him and left. "Not yet," said Cécile, coming back. "It is that woman with the two children. You know, mamma, the miner's wife whom we met. Are they to come in here?" They hesitated. Were they very dirty? No, not very; and they would leave their sabots in the porch. Already the father and mother had stretched themselves out in the depths of their large easy-chairs. They were digesting there. The fear of change of air decided them. "Let them come in, Honorine." Then Maheude and her little ones entered, frozen and hungry, seized by fright on finding themselves in this room, which was so warm and smelled so nicely of the brioche. CHAPTER II The room remained shut up and the shutters had allowed gradual streaks of daylight to form a fan on the ceiling. The confined air stupefied them so that they continued their night's slumber: Lénore and Henri in each other's arms, Alzire with her head back, lying on her hump; while Father Bonnemort, having the bed of Zacharie and Jeanlin to himself, snored with open mouth. No sound came from the closet where Maheude had gone to sleep again while suckling Estelle, her breast hanging to one side, the child lying across her belly, stuffed with milk, overcome also and stifling in the soft flesh of the bosom. The clock below struck six. Along the front of the settlement one heard the sound of doors, then the clatter of sabots along the pavements; the screening women were going to the pit. And silence again fell until seven o'clock. Then shutters were drawn back, yawns and coughs were heard through the walls. For a long time a coffee-mill scraped, but no one awoke in the room. Suddenly a sound of blows and shouts, far away, made Alzire sit up. She was conscious of the time, and ran barefooted to shake her mother. "Mother, mother, it is late! you have to go out. Take care, you are crushing Estelle." And she saved the child, half-stifled beneath the enormous mass of the breasts. "Good gracious!" stammered Maheude, rubbing her eyes, "I'm so knocked up I could sleep all day. Dress Lénore and Henri, I'll take them with me; and you can take care of Estelle; I don't want to drag her along for fear of hurting her, this dog's weather." She hastily washed herself and put on an old blue skirt, her cleanest, and a loose jacket of grey wool in which she had made two patches the evening before. "And the soup! Good gracious!" she muttered again. When her mother had gone down, upsetting everything, Alzire went back into the room taking with her Estelle, who had begun screaming. But she was used to the little one's rages; at eight she had all a woman's tender cunning in soothing and amusing her. She gently placed her in her still warm bed, and put her to sleep again, giving her a finger to suck. It was time, for now another disturbance broke out, and she had to make peace between Lénore and Henri, who at last awoke. These children could never get on together; it was only when they were asleep that they put their arms round one another's necks. The girl, who was six years old, as soon as she was awake set on the boy, her junior by two years, who received her blows without returning them. Both of them had the same kind of head, which was too large for them, as if blown out, with disorderly yellow hair. Alzire had to pull her sister by the legs, threatening to take the skin off her bottom. Then there was stamping over the washing, and over every garment that she put on to them. The shutters remained closed so as not to disturb Father Bonnemort's sleep. He went on snoring amid the children's frightful clatter. "It's ready. Are you coming, up there?" shouted Maheude. She had put back the blinds, and stirred up the fire, adding some coal to it. Her hope was that the old man had not swallowed all the soup. But she found the saucepan dry, and cooked a handful of vermicelli which she had been keeping for three days in reserve. They could swallow it with water, without butter, as there could not be any remaining from the day before, and she was surprised to find that Catherine in preparing the bricks had performed the miracle of leaving a piece as large as a nut. But this time the cupboard was indeed empty: nothing, not a crust, not an odd fragment, not a bone to gnaw. What was to become of them if Maigrat persisted in cutting short their credit, and if the Piolaine people would not give them the five francs? When the men and the girl returned from the pit they would want to eat, for unfortunately it had not yet been found out how to live without eating. "Come down, will you?" she cried out, getting angry. "I ought to be gone by this!" When Alzire and the children were there she divided the vermicelli in three small portions. She herself was not hungry, she said. Although Catherine had already poured water on the coffee-dregs of the day before, she did so over again, and swallowed two large glasses of coffee so weak that it looked like rusty water. That would keep her up all the same. "Listen!" she repeated to Alzire. "You must let your grandfather sleep; you must watch that Estelle does not knock her head; and if she wakes, or if she howls too much, here! take this bit of sugar and melt it and give it her in spoonfuls. I know that you are sensible and won't eat it yourself." "And school, mother?" "School! well, that must be left for another day: I want you." "And the soup? would you like me to make it if you come back late?" "Soup, soup: no, wait till I come." Alzire, with the precocious intelligence of a little invalid girl, could make soup very well. She must have understood, for she did not insist. Now the whole settlement was awake, bands of children were going to school, and one heard the trailing noise of their clogs. Eight o'clock struck, and a growing murmur of chatter arose on the left, among the Levaque people. The women were commencing their day around the coffee-pots, with their fists on their hips, their tongues turning without ceasing, like millstones. A faded head, with thick lips and flattened nose, was pressed against a window-pane, calling out: "Got some news. Stop a bit." "No, no! later on," replied Maheude. "I have to go out." And for fear of giving way to the offer of a glass of hot coffee she pushed Lénore and Henri, and set out with them. Up above, Father Bonnemort was still snoring with a rhythmic snore which rocked the house. Outside, Maheude was surprised to find that the wind was no longer blowing. There had been a sudden thaw; the sky was earth-coloured, the walls were sticky with greenish moisture, and the roads were covered with pitch-like mud, a special kind of mud peculiar to the coal country, as black as diluted soot, thick and tenacious enough to pull off her sabots. Suddenly she boxed Lénore's ears, because the little one amused herself by piling the mud on her clogs as on the end of a shovel. On leaving the settlement she had gone along by the pit-bank and followed the road of the canal, making a short cut through broken-up paths, across rough country shut in by mossy palings. Sheds succeeded one another, long workshop buildings, tall chimneys spitting out soot, and soiling this ravaged suburb of an industrial district. Behind a clump of poplars the old Réquillart pit exhibited its crumbling steeple, of which the large skeleton alone stood upright. And turning to the right, Maheude found herself on the high road. "Stop, stop, dirty pig! I'll teach you to make mincemeat." Now it was Henri, who had taken a handful of mud and was moulding it. The two children had their ears impartially boxed, and were brought into good order, looking out of the corner of their eyes at the mud pies they had made. They draggled along, already exhausted by their efforts to unstick their shoes at every step. On the Marchiennes side the road unrolled its two leagues of pavement, which stretched straight as a ribbon soaked in cart grease between the reddish fields. But on the other side it went winding down through Montsou, which was built on the slope of a large undulation in the plain. These roads in the Nord, drawn like a string between manufacturing towns, with their slight curves, their slow ascents, gradually get lined with houses and tend to make the department one laborious city. The little brick houses, daubed over to enliven the climate, some yellow, others blue, others black--the last, no doubt, in order to reach at once their final shade--went serpentining down to right and to left to the bottom of the slope. A few large two-storied villas, the dwellings of the heads of the workshops, made gaps in the serried line of narrow facades. A church, also of brick, looked like a new model of a large furnace, with its square tower already stained by the floating coal dust. And amid the sugar works, the rope works, and the flour mills, there stood out ballrooms, restaurants, and beershops, which were so numerous that to every thousand houses there were more than five hundred inns. As she approached the Company's Yards, a vast series of storehouses and workshops, Maheude decided to take Henri and Lénore by the hand, one on the right, the other on the left. Beyond was situated the house of the director, M. Hennebeau, a sort of vast chalet, separated from the road by a grating, and then a garden in which some lean trees vegetated. Just then, a carriage had stopped before the door and a gentleman with decorations and a lady in a fur cloak alighted: visitors just arrived from Paris at the Marchiennes station, for Madame Hennebeau, who appeared in the shadow of the porch, was uttering exclamations of surprise and joy. "Come along, then, dawdlers!" growled Maheude, pulling the two little ones, who were standing in the mud. When she arrived at Maigrat's, she was quite excited. Maigrat lived close to the manager; only a wall separated the latter's ground from his own small house, and he had there a warehouse, a long building which opened on to the road as a shop without a front. He kept everything there, grocery, cooked meats, fruit, and sold bread, beer, and saucepans. Formerly an overseer at the Voreux, he had started with a small canteen; then, thanks to the protection of his superiors, his business had enlarged, gradually killing the Montsou retail trade. He centralized merchandise, and the considerable custom of the settlements enabled him to sell more cheaply and to give longer credit. Besides, he had remained in the Company's hands, and they had built his small house and his shop. "Here I am again, Monsieur Maigrat," said Maheude humbly, finding him standing in front of his door. He looked at her without replying. He was a stout, cold, polite man, and he prided himself on never changing his mind. "Now you won't send me away again, like yesterday. We must have bread from now to Saturday. Sure enough, we owe you sixty francs these two years." She explained in short, painful phrases. It was an old debt contracted during the last strike. Twenty times over they had promised to settle it, but they had not been able; they could not even give him forty sous a fortnight. And then a misfortune had happened two days before; she had been obliged to pay twenty francs to a shoemaker who threatened to seize their things. And that was why they were without a sou. Otherwise they would have been able to go on until Saturday, like the others. Maigrat, with protruded belly and folded arms, shook his head at every supplication. "Only two loaves, Monsieur Maigrat. I am reasonable, I don't ask for coffee. Only two three-pound loaves a day." "No," he shouted at last, at the top of his voice. His wife had appeared, a pitiful creature who passed all her days over a ledger, without even daring to lift her head. She moved away, frightened at seeing this unfortunate woman turning her ardent, beseeching eyes towards her. It was said that she yielded the conjugal bed to the putters among the customers. It was a known fact that when a miner wished to prolong his credit, he had only to send his daughter or his wife, plain or pretty, it mattered not, provided they were complaisant. Maheude, still imploring Maigrat with her look, felt herself uncomfortable under the pale keenness of his small eyes, which seemed to undress her. It made her angry; she would have understood before she had had seven children, when she was young. And she went off, violently dragging Lénore and Henri who were occupied in picking up nut-shells from the gutter where they were making investigations. "This won't bring you luck, Monsieur Maigrat, remember!" Now there only remained the Piolaine people. If these would not throw her a five-franc piece she might as well lie down and die. She had taken the Joiselle road on the left. The administration building was there at the corner of the road, a veritable brick palace, where the great people from Paris, princes and generals and members of the Government, came every autumn to give large dinners. As she walked she was already spending the five francs, first bread, then coffee, afterwards a quarter of butter, a bushel of potatoes for the morning soup and the evening stew; finally, perhaps, a bit of pig's chitterlings, for the father needed meat. The Curé of Montsou, Abbé Joire, was passing, holding up his cassock, with the delicate air of a fat, well-nourished cat afraid of wetting its fur. He was a mild man who pretended not to interest himself in anything, so as not to vex either the workers or the masters. "Good day, Monsieur le Curé." Without stopping he smiled at the children, and left her planted in the middle of the road. She was not religious, but she had suddenly imagined that this priest would give her something. And the journey began again through the black, sticky mud. There were still two kilometres to walk, and the little ones dragged behind more than ever, for they were frightened, and no longer amused themselves. To right and to left of the path the same vague landscape unrolled, enclosed within mossy palings, the same factory buildings, dirty with smoke, bristling with tall chimneys. Then the flat land was spread out in immense open fields, like an ocean of brown clods, without a tree-trunk, as far as the purplish line of the forest of Vandame. "Carry me, mother." She carried them one after the other. Puddles made holes in the pathway, and she pulled up her clothes, fearful of arriving too dirty. Three times she nearly fell, so sticky was that confounded pavement. And as they at last arrived before the porch, two enormous dogs threw themselves upon them, barking so loudly that the little ones yelled with terror. The coachman was obliged to take a whip to them. "Leave your sabots, and come in," repeated Honorine. In the dining-room the mother and children stood motionless, dazed by the sudden heat, and very constrained beneath the gaze of this old lady and gentleman, who were stretched out in their easy-chairs. "Cécile," said the old lady, "fulfil your little duties." The Grégoires charged Cécile with their charities. It was part of their idea of a good education. One must be charitable. They said themselves that their house was the house of God. Besides, they flattered themselves that they performed their charity with intelligence, and they were exercised by a constant fear lest they should be deceived, and so encourage vice. So they never gave money, never! Not ten sous, not two sous, for it is a well-known fact that as soon as a poor man gets two sous he drinks them. Their alms were, therefore, always in kind, especially in warm clothing, distributed during the winter to needy children. "Oh! the poor dears!" exclaimed Cécile, '"how pale they are from the cold! Honorine, go and look for the parcel in the cupboard." The servants were also gazing at these miserable creatures with the pity and vague uneasiness of girls who are in no difficulty about their own dinners. While the housemaid went upstairs, the cook forgot her duties, leaving the rest of the brioche on the table, and stood there swinging her empty hands. "I still have two woollen dresses and some comforters," Cécile went on; "you will see how warm they will be, the poor dears!" Then Maheude found her tongue, and stammered: "Thank you so much, mademoiselle. You are all too good." Tears had filled her eyes, she thought herself sure of the five francs, and was only preoccupied by the way in which she would ask for them if they were not offered to her. The housemaid did not reappear, and there was a moment of embarrassed silence. From their mother's skirts the little ones opened their eyes wide and gazed at the brioche. "You only have these two?" asked Madame Grégoire, in order to break the silence. "Oh, madame! I have seven." M. Grégoire, who had gone back to his newspaper, sat up indignantly. "Seven children! But why? good God!" "It is imprudent," murmured the old lady. Maheude made a vague gesture of apology. What would you have? One doesn't think about it at all, they come quite naturally. And then, when they grow up they bring something in, and that makes the household go. Take their case, they could get on, if it was not for the grandfather who was getting quite stiff, and if it was not that among the lot only two of her sons and her eldest daughter were old enough to go down into the pit. It was necessary, all the same, to feed the little ones who brought nothing in. "Then," said Madame Grégoire, "you have worked for a long time at the mines?" A silent laugh lit up Maheude's pale face. "Ah, yes! ah, yes! I went down till I was twenty. The doctor said that I should stay down for good after I had been confined the second time, because it seems that made something go wrong in my inside. Besides, then I got married, and I had enough to do in the house. But on my husband's side, you see, they have been down there for ages. It goes up from grandfather to grandfather, one doesn't know how far back, quite to the beginning when they first took the pick down there at Réquillart." M. Grégoire thoughtfully contemplated this woman and these pitiful children, with their waxy flesh, their discoloured hair, the degeneration which stunted them, gnawed by anaemia, and with the melancholy ugliness of starvelings. There was silence again, and one only heard the burning coal as it gave out a jet of gas. The moist room had that heavy air of comfort in which our middle-class nooks of happiness slumber. "What is she doing, then?" exclaimed Cécile impatiently. "Mélanie, go up and tell her that the parcel is at the bottom of the cupboard, on the left." In the meanwhile, M. Grégoire repeated aloud the reflections inspired by the sight of these starving ones. "There is evil in this world, it is quite true; but, my good woman, it must also be said that workpeople are never prudent. Thus, instead of putting aside a few sous like our peasants, miners drink, get into debt, and end by not having enough to support their families." "Monsieur is right," replied Maheude sturdily. "They don't always keep to the right path. That's what I'm always saying to the ne'er-do-wells when they complain. Now, I have been lucky; my husband doesn't drink. All the same, on feast Sundays he sometimes takes a drop too much; but it never goes farther. It is all the nicer of him, since before our marriage he drank like a hog, begging your pardon. And yet, you know, it doesn't help us much that he is so sensible. There are days like to-day when you might turn out all the drawers in the house and not find a farthing." She wished to suggest to them the idea of the five-franc piece, and went on in her low voice, explaining the fatal debt, small at first, then large and overwhelming. They paid regularly for many fortnights. But one day they got behind, and then it was all up. They could never catch up again. The gulf widened, and the men became disgusted with work which did not even allow them to pay their way. Do what they could, there was nothing but difficulties until death. Besides, it must be understood that a collier needed a glass to wash away the dust. It began there, and then he was always in the inn when worries came. Without complaining of any one it might be that the workmen did not earn as much as they ought to. "I thought," said Madame Grégoire, "that the Company gave you lodging and firing?" Maheude glanced sideways at the flaming coal in the fireplace. "Yes, yes, they give us coal, not very grand, but it burns. As to lodging, it only costs six francs a month; that sounds like nothing, but it is often pretty hard to pay. To-day they might cut me up into bits without getting two sous out of me. Where there's nothing, there's nothing." The lady and gentleman were silent, softly stretched out, and gradually wearied and disquieted by the exhibition of this wretchedness. She feared she had wounded them, and added, with the stolid and just air of a practical woman: "Oh! I didn't want to complain. Things are like this, and one has to put up with them; all the more that it's no good struggling, perhaps we shouldn't change anything. The best is, is it not, to try and live honestly in the place in which the good God has put us?" M. Grégoire approved this emphatically. "With such sentiments, my good woman, one is above misfortune." Honorine and Mélanie at last brought the parcel. Cécile unfastened it and took out the two dresses. She added comforters, even stockings and mittens. They would all fit beautifully; she hastened and made the servants wrap up the chosen garments; for her music mistress had just arrived; and she pushed the mother and children towards the door. "We are very short," stammered Maheude; "if we only had a five-franc piece--" The phrase was stifled, for the Maheus were proud and never begged. Cécile looked uneasily at her father; but the latter refused decisively, with an air of duty. "No, it is not our custom. We cannot do it." Then the young girl, moved by the mother's overwhelmed face, wished to do all she could for the children. They were still looking fixedly at the brioche; she cut it in two and gave it to them. "Here! this is for you." Then, taking the pieces back, she asked for an old newspaper: "Wait, you must share with your brothers and sisters." And beneath the tender gaze of her parents she finally pushed them out of the room. The poor starving urchins went off, holding the brioche respectfully in their benumbed little hands. Maheude dragged her children along the road, seeing neither the desert fields, nor the black mud, nor the great livid sky. As she passed through Montsou she resolutely entered Maigrat's shop, and begged so persistently that at last she carried away two loaves, coffee, butter, and even her five-franc piece, for the man also lent money by the week. It was not her that he wanted, it was Catherine; she understood that when he advised her to send her daughter for provisions. They would see about that. Catherine would box his ears if he came too close under her nose. CHAPTER III Eleven o'clock struck at the little church in the Deux-Cent-Quarante settlement, a brick chapel to which Abbé Joire came to say mass on Sundays. In the school beside it, also of brick, one heard the faltering voices of the children, in spite of windows closed against the outside cold. The wide passages, divided into little gardens, back to back, between the four large blocks of uniform houses, were deserted; and these gardens, devastated by the winter, exhibited the destitution of their marly soil, lumped and spotted by the last vegetables. They were making soup, chimneys were smoking, a woman appeared at distant intervals along the fronts, opened a door and disappeared. From one end to the other, on the pavement, the pipes dripped into tubs, although it was no longer raining, so charged was this grey sky with moistness. And the village, built altogether in the midst of the vast plain, and edged by its black roads as by a mourning border, had no touch of joyousness about it save the regular bands of its red tiles, constantly washed by showers. When Maheude returned, she went out of her way to buy potatoes from an overseer's wife whose crop was not yet exhausted. Behind a curtain of sickly poplars, the only trees in these flat regions, was a group of isolated buildings, houses placed four together, and surrounded by their gardens. As the Company reserved this new experiment for the captains, the workpeople called this corner of the hamlet the settlement of the Bas-de-Soie, just as they called their own settlement Paie-tes-Dettes, in good-humoured irony of their wretchedness. "Eh! Here we are," said Maheude, laden with parcels, pushing in Lénore and Henri, covered with mud and quite tired out. In front of the fire Estelle was screaming, cradled in Alzire's arms. The latter, having no more sugar and not knowing how to soothe her, had decided to pretend to give her the breast. This ruse often succeeded. But this time it was in vain for her to open her dress, and to press the mouth against the lean breast of an eight-year-old invalid; the child was enraged at biting the skin and drawing nothing. "Pass her to me," cried the mother as soon as she found herself free; "she won't let us say a word." When she had taken from her bodice a breast as heavy as a leather bottle, to the neck of which the brawler hung, suddenly silent, they were at last able to talk. Otherwise everything was going on well; the little housekeeper had kept up the fire and had swept and arranged the room. And in the silence they heard upstairs the grandfather's snoring, the same rhythmic snoring which had not stopped for a moment. "What a lot of things!" murmured Alzire, smiling at the provisions. "If you like, mother, I'll make the soup." The table was encumbered: a parcel of clothes, two loaves, potatoes, butter, coffee, chicory, and half a pound of pig's chitterlings. "Oh! the soup!" said Maheude with an air of fatigue. "We must gather some sorrel and pull up some leeks. No! I will make some for the men afterwards. Put some potatoes on to boil; we'll eat them with a little butter and some coffee, eh? Don't forget the coffee!" But suddenly she thought of the brioche. She looked at the empty hands of Lénore and Henri who were fighting on the floor, already rested and lively. These gluttons had slyly eaten the brioche on the road. She boxed their ears, while Alzire, who was putting the saucepan on the fire, tried to appease her. "Let them be, mother. If the brioche was for me, you know I don't mind a bit. They were hungry, walking so far." Midday struck; they heard the clogs of the children coming out of school. The potatoes were cooked, and the coffee, thickened by a good half of chicory, was passing through the percolator with a singing noise of large drops. One corner of the table was free; but the mother only was eating there. The three children were satisfied with their knees; and all the time the little boy with silent voracity looked, without saying anything, at the chitterlings, excited by the greasy paper. Maheude was drinking her coffee in little sips, with her hands round the glass to warm them, when Father Bonnemort came down. Usually he rose late, and his breakfast waited for him on the fire. But to-day he began to grumble because there was no soup. Then, when his daughter-in-law said to him that one cannot always do what one likes, he ate his potatoes in silence. From time to time he got up to spit in the ashes for cleanliness, and, settled in his chair, he rolled his food round in his mouth, with lowered head and dull eyes. "Ah! I forgot, mother," said Alzire. "The neighbour came--" Her mother interrupted her. "She bothers me!" There was a deep rancour against the Levaque woman, who had pleaded poverty the day before to avoid lending her anything; while she knew that she was just then in comfort, since her lodger, Bouteloup, had paid his fortnight in advance. In the settlement they did not usually lend from household to household. "Here! you remind me," said Maheude. "Wrap up a millful of coffee. I will take it to Pierronne; I owe it her from the day before yesterday." And when her daughter had prepared the packet she added that she would come back immediately to put the men's soup on the fire. Then she went out with Estelle in her arms, leaving old Bonnemort to chew his potatoes leisurely, while Lénore and Henri fought for the fallen parings. Instead of going round, Maheude went straight across through the gardens, for fear lest Levaque's wife should call her. Her garden was just next to that of the Pierrons, and in the dilapidated trellis-work which separated them there was a hole through which they fraternized. The common well was there, serving four households. Beside it, behind a clump of feeble lilacs, was situated the shed, a low building full of old tools, in which were brought up the rabbits which were eaten on feast days. One o'clock struck; it was the hour for coffee, and not a soul was to be seen at the doors or windows. Only a workman belonging to the earth-cutting, waiting the hour for descent, was digging up his patch of vegetable ground without raising his head. But as Maheude arrived opposite the other block of buildings, she was surprised to see a gentleman and two ladies in front of the church. She stopped a moment and recognized them; it was Madame Hennebeau bringing her guests, the decorated gentleman and the lady in the fur mantle, to see the settlement. "Oh! why did you take this trouble?" exclaimed Pierronne, when Maheude had returned the coffee. "There was no hurry." She was twenty-eight, and was considered the beauty of the settlement, dark, with a low forehead, large eyes, straight mouth, and coquettish as well; with the neatness of a cat, and with a good figure, for she had had no children. Her mother, Brulé, the widow of a pikeman who died in the mine, after having sent her daughter to work in a factory, swearing that she should never marry a collier, had never ceased to be angry since she had married, somewhat late, Pierron, a widower with a girl of eight. However, the household lived very happily, in the midst of chatter, of scandals which circulated concerning the husband's complaisance and the wife's lovers. No debts, meat twice a week, a house kept so clean that one could see oneself in the saucepans. As an additional piece of luck, thanks to favours, the Company had authorized her to sell bon-bons and biscuits, jars of which she exhibited, on two boards, behind the window-panes. This was six or seven sous profit a day, and sometimes twelve on Sundays. The only drawback to all this happiness was Mother Brulé, who screamed with all the rage of an old revolutionary, having to avenge the death of her man on the masters, and little Lydie, who pocketed, in the shape of frequent blows, the passions of the family. "How big she is already!" said Pierronne, simpering at Estelle. "Oh! the trouble that it gives! Don't talk of it!" said Maheude. "You are lucky not to have any. At least you can keep clean." Although everything was in order in her house, and she scrubbed every Saturday, she glanced with a jealous housekeeper's eye over this clean room, in which there was even a certain coquetry, gilt vases on the sideboard, a mirror, three framed prints. Pierronne was about to drink her coffee alone, all her people being at the pit. "You'll have a glass with me?" she said. "No, thanks; I've just swallowed mine." "What does that matter?" In fact, it mattered nothing. And both began drinking slowly. Between the jars of biscuits and bon-bons their eyes rested on the opposite houses, of which the little curtains in the windows formed a row, revealing by their greater or less whiteness the virtues of the housekeepers. Those of the Levaques were very dirty, veritable kitchen clouts, which seemed to have wiped the bottoms of the saucepans. "How can they live in such dirt?" murmured Pierronne. Then Maheude began and did not stop. Ah! if she had had a lodger like that Bouteloup she would have made the household go. When one knew how to do it, a lodger was an excellent thing. Only one ought not to sleep with him. And then the husband had taken to drink, beat his wife, and ran after the singers at the Montsou café-concerts. Pierronne assumed an air of profound disgust. These singers gave all sort of diseases. There was one at Joiselle who had infected a whole pit. "What surprises me is that you let your son go with their girl." "Ah, yes! but just stop it then! Their garden is next to ours. Zacharie was always there in summer with Philoméne behind the lilacs, and they didn't put themselves out on the shed; one couldn't draw water at the well without surprising them." It was the usual history of the promiscuities of the settlement; boys and girls became corrupted together, throwing themselves on their backsides, as they said, on the low, sloping roof of the shed when twilight came on. All the putters got their first child there when they did not take the trouble to go to Réquillart or into the cornfields. It was of no consequence; they married afterwards, only the mothers were angry when their lads began too soon, for a lad who married no longer brought anything into the family. "In your place I would have done with it," said Pierronne, sensibly. "Your Zacharie has already filled her twice, and they will go on and get spliced. Anyhow, the money is gone." Maheude was furious and raised her hands. "Listen to this: I will curse them if they get spliced. Doesn't Zacharie owe us any respect? He has cost us something, hasn't he? Very well. He must return it before getting a wife to hang on him. What will become of us, eh, if our children begin at once to work for others? Might as well die!" However, she grew calm. "I'm speaking in a general way; we shall see later. It is fine and strong, your coffee; you make it proper." And after a quarter of an hour spent over other stories, she ran off, exclaiming that the men's soup was not yet made. Outside, the children were going back to school; a few women were showing themselves at their doors, looking at Madame Hennebeau, who, with lifted finger, was explaining the settlement to her guests. This visit began to stir up the village. The earth-cutting man stopped digging for a moment, and two disturbed fowls took fright in the gardens. As Maheude returned, she ran against the Levaque woman who had come out to stop Dr. Vanderhaghen, a doctor of the Company, a small hurried man, overwhelmed by work, who gave his advice as he walked. "Sir," she said, "I can't sleep; I feel ill everywhere. I must tell you about it." He spoke to them all familiarly, and replied without stopping: "Just leave me alone; you drink too much coffee." "And my husband, sir," said Maheude in her turn, "you must come and see him. He always has those pains in his legs." "It is you who take too much out of him. Just leave me alone!" The two women were left to gaze at the doctor's retreating back. "Come in, then," said the Levaque woman, when she had exchanged a despairing shrug with her neighbour. "You know, there is something new. And you will take a little coffee. It is quite fresh." Maheude refused, but without energy. Well! a drop, at all events, not to disoblige. And she entered. The room was black with dirt, the floor and the walls spotted with grease, the sideboard and the table sticky with filth; and the stink of a badly kept house took you by the throat. Near the fire, with his elbows on the table and his nose in his plate, Bouteloup, a broad stout placid man, still young for thirty-five, was finishing the remains of his boiled beef, while standing in front of him, little Achille, Philoméne's first-born, who was already in his third year, was looking at him in the silent, supplicating way of a gluttonous animal. The lodger, very kind behind his big brown beard, from time to time stuffed a piece of meat into his mouth. "Wait till I sugar it," said the Levaque woman, putting some brown sugar beforehand into the coffee-pot. Six years older than he was, she was hideous and worn out, with her bosom hanging on her belly, and her belly on her thighs, with a flattened muzzle, and greyish hair always uncombed. He had taken her naturally, without choosing, the same as he did his soup in which he found hairs, or his bed of which the sheets lasted for three months. She was part of the lodging; the husband liked repeating that good reckonings make good friends. "I was going to tell you," she went on, "that Pierronne was seen yesterday prowling about on the Bas-de-Soie side. The gentleman you know of was waiting for her behind Rasseneur's, and they went off together along the canal. Eh! that's nice, isn't it? A married woman!" "Gracious!" said Maheude; "Pierron, before marrying her, used to give the captain rabbits; now it costs him less to lend his wife." Bouteloup began to laugh enormously, and threw a fragment of sauced bread into Achille's mouth. The two women went on relieving themselves with regard to Pierronne--a flirt, no prettier than any one else, but always occupied in looking after every freckle of her skin, in washing herself, and putting on pomade. Anyhow, it was the husband's affair, if he liked that sort of thing. There were men so ambitious that they would wipe the masters' behinds to hear them say thank you. And they were only interrupted by the arrival of a neighbour bringing in a little urchin of nine months, Désirée, Philoméne's youngest; Philoméne, taking her breakfast at the screening-shed, had arranged that they should bring her little one down there, where she suckled it, seated for a moment in the coal. "I can't leave mine for a moment, she screams directly," said Maheude, looking at Estelle, who was asleep in her arms. But she did not succeed in avoiding the domestic affair which she had read in the other's eyes. "I say, now we ought to get that settled." At first the two mothers, without need for talking about it, had agreed not to conclude the marriage. If Zacharie's mother wished to get her son's wages as long as possible, Philoméne's mother was enraged at the idea of abandoning her daughter's wages. There was no hurry; the second mother had even preferred to keep the little one, as long as there was only one; but when it began to grow and eat and another one came, she found that she was losing, and furiously pushed on the marriage, like a woman who does not care to throw away her money. "Zacharie has drawn his lot," she went on, "and there's nothing in the way. When shall it be?" "Wait till the fine weather," replied Maheude, constrainedly. "They are a nuisance, these affairs! As if they couldn't wait to be married before going together! My word! I would strangle Catherine if I knew that she had done that." The other woman shrugged her shoulders. "Let be! she'll do like the others." Bouteloup, with the tranquillity of a man who is at home, searched about on the dresser for bread. Vegetables for Levaque's soup, potatoes and leeks, lay about on a corner of the table, half-peeled, taken up and dropped a dozen times in the midst of continual gossiping. The woman was about to go on with them again when she dropped them anew and planted herself before the window. "What's that there? Why, there's Madame Hennebeau with some people. They are going into Pierronne's." At once both of them started again on the subject of Pierronne. Oh! whenever the Company brought any visitors to the settlement they never failed to go straight to her place, because it was clean. No doubt they never told them stories about the head captain. One can afford to be clean when one has lovers who earn three thousand francs, and are lodged and warmed, without counting presents. If it was clean above it was not clean underneath. And all the time that the visitors remained opposite, they went on chattering. "There, they are coming out," said the Levaque woman at last. "They are going all around. Why, look, my dear--I believe they are going into your place." Maheude was seized with fear. Who knows whether Alzire had sponged over the table? And her soup, also, which was not yet ready! She stammered a good-day, and ran off home without a single glance aside. But everything was bright. Alzire, very seriously, with a cloth in front of her, had set about making the soup, seeing that her mother did not return. She had pulled up the last leeks from the garden, gathered the sorrel, and was just then cleaning the vegetables, while a large kettle on the fire was heating the water for the men's baths when they should return. Henri and Lénore were good for once, being absorbed in tearing up an old almanac. Father Bonnemort was smoking his pipe in silence. As Maheude was getting her breath Madame Hennebeau knocked. "You will allow me, will you not, my good woman?" Tall and fair, a little heavy in her superb maturity of forty years, she smiled with an effort of affability, without showing too prominently her fear of soiling her bronze silk dress and black velvet mantle. "Come in, come in," she said to her guests. "We are not disturbing any one. Now, isn't this clean again! And this good woman has seven children! All our households are like this. I ought to explain to you that the Company rents them the house at six francs a month. A large room on the ground floor, two rooms above, a cellar, and a garden." The decorated gentleman and the lady in the fur cloak, arrived that morning by train from Paris, opened their eyes vaguely, exhibiting on their faces their astonishment at all these new things which took them out of their element. "And a garden!" repeated the lady. "One could live here! It is charming!" "We give them more coal than they can burn," went on Madame Hennebeau. "A doctor visits them twice a week; and when they are old they receive pensions, although nothing is held back from their wages." "A Thebaid! a real land of milk and honey!" murmured the gentleman in delight. Maheude had hastened to offer chairs. The ladies refused. Madame Hennebeau was already getting tired, happy for a moment to amuse herself in the weariness of her exile by playing the part of exhibiting the beasts, but immediately disgusted by the sickly odour of wretchedness, in spite of the special cleanliness of the houses into which she ventured. Besides, she was only repeating odd phrases which she had overheard, without ever troubling herself further about this race of workpeople who were labouring and suffering beside her. "What beautiful children!" murmured the lady, who thought them hideous, with their large heads beneath their bushy, straw-coloured hair. And Maheude had to tell their ages; they also asked her questions about Estelle, out of politeness. Father Bonnemort respectfully took his pipe out of his mouth; but he was not the less a subject of uneasiness, so worn out by his forty years underground, with his stiff limbs, deformed body, and earthy face; and as a violent spasm of coughing took him he preferred to go and spit outside, with the idea that his black expectoration would make people uncomfortable. Alzire received all the compliments. What an excellent little housekeeper, with her cloth! They congratulated the mother on having a little daughter so sensible for her age. And none spoke of the hump, though looks of uneasy compassion were constantly turned towards the poor little invalid. "Now!" concluded Madame Hennebeau, "if they ask you about our settlements at Paris you will know what to reply. Never more noise than this, patriarchal manners, all happy and well off as you see, a place where you might come to recruit a little, on account of the good air and the tranquillity." "It is marvellous, marvellous!" exclaimed the gentleman, in a final outburst of enthusiasm. They left with that enchanted air with which people leave a booth in a fair, and Maheude, who accompanied them, remained on the threshold while they went away slowly, talking very loudly. The streets were full of people, and they had to pass through several groups of women, attracted by the news of their visit, which was hawked from house to house. Just then, Levaque, in front of her door, had stopped Pierronne, who was drawn by curiosity. Both of them affected a painful surprise. What now? Were these people going to bed at the Maheus'? But it was not so very delightful a place. "Always without a sou, with all that they earn! Lord! when people have vices!" "I have just heard that she went this morning to beg at Piolaine, and Maigrat, who had refused them bread, has given them something. We know how Maigrat pays himself!" "On her? Oh, no! that would need some courage. It's Catherine that he's after." "Why, didn't she have the cheek to say just now that she would strangle Catherine if she were to come to that? As if big Chaval for ever so long had not put her backside on the shed!" "Hush! here they are!" Then Levaque and Pierronne, with a peaceful air and without impolite curiosity, contented themselves with watching the visitors out of the corners of their eyes. Then by a gesture they quickly called Maheude, who was still carrying Estelle in her arms. And all three, motionless, watched the well-clad backs of Madame Hennebeau and her guests slowly disappear. When they were some thirty paces off, the gossiping recommenced with redoubled vigour. "They carry plenty of money on their skins; worth more than themselves, perhaps." "Ah, sure! I don't know the other, but the one that belongs here, I wouldn't give four sous for her, big as she is. They do tell stories--" "Eh? What stories?" "Why, she has men! First, the engineer." "That lean, little creature! Oh, he's too small! She would lose him in the sheets." "What does that matter, if it amuses her? I don't trust a woman who puts on such proud airs and never seems to be pleased where she is. Just look how she wags her rump, as if she felt contempt for us all. Is that nice?" The visitors went along at the same slow pace, still talking, when a carriage stopped in the road, before the church. A gentleman of about forty-eight got out of it, dressed in a black frock-coat, and with a very dark complexion and an authoritative, correct expression. "The husband," murmured Levaque, lowering her voice, as if he could hear her, seized by that hierarchical fear which the manager inspired in his ten thousand workpeople. "It's true, though, that he has a cuckold's head, that man." Now the whole settlement was out of doors. The curiosity of the women increased. The groups approached each other, and were melted into one crowd; while bands of urchins, with unwiped noses and gaping mouths, dawdled along the pavements. For a moment the schoolmaster's pale head was also seen behind the school-house hedge. Among the gardens, the man who was digging stood with one foot on his spade, and with rounded eyes. And the murmur of gossiping gradually increased, with a sound of rattles, like a gust of wind among dry leaves. It was especially before the Levaques' door that the crowd was thickest. Two women had come forward, then ten, then twenty. Pierronne was prudently silent now that there were too many ears about. Maheude, one of the more reasonable, also contented herself with looking on; and to calm Estelle, who was awake and screaming, she had tranquilly drawn out her suckling animal's breast, which hung swaying as if pulled down by the continual running of its milk. When M. Hennebeau had seated the ladies in the carriage, which went off in the direction of Marchiennes, there was a final explosion of clattering voices, all the women gesticulating and talking in each other's faces in the midst of a tumult as of an ant-hill in revolution. But three o'clock struck. The workers of the earth-cutting, Bouteloup and the others, had set out. Suddenly around the church appeared the first colliers returning from the pit with black faces and damp garments, folding their arms and expanding their backs. Then there was confusion among the women: they all began to run home with the terror of housekeepers who had been led astray by too much coffee and too much tattle, and one heard nothing more than this restless cry, pregnant with quarrels: "Good Lord, and my soup! and my soup which isn't ready!" CHAPTER IV When Maheu came in after having left Étienne at Rasseneur's, he found Catherine, Zacharie, and Jeanlin seated at the table finishing their soup. On returning from the pit they were always so hungry that they ate in their damp clothes, without even cleaning themselves; and no one was waited for, the table was laid from morning to night; there was always someone there swallowing his portion, according to the chances of work. As he entered the door Maheu saw the provisions. He said nothing, but his uneasy face lighted up. All the morning the emptiness of the cupboard, the thought of the house without coffee and without butter, had been troubling him; the recollection came to him painfully while he was hammering at the seam, stifled at the bottom of the cutting. What would his wife do, and what would become of them if she were to return with empty hands? And now, here was everything! She would tell him about it later on. He laughed with satisfaction. Catherine and Jeanlin had risen, and were taking their coffee standing; while Zacharie, not filled with the soup, cut himself a large slice of bread and covered it with butter. Although he saw the chitterlings on a plate he did not touch them, for meat was for the father, when there was only enough for one. All of them had washed down their soup with a big bumper of fresh water, the good, clear drink of the fortnight's end. "I have no beer," said Maheude, when the father had seated himself in his turn. "I wanted to keep a little money. But if you would like some the little one can go and fetch a pint." He looked at her in astonishment. What! she had money, too! "No, no," he said, "I've had a glass, it's all right." And Maheu began to swallow by slow spoonfuls the paste of bread, potatoes, leeks, and sorrel piled up in the bowl which served him as a plate. Maheude, without putting Estelle down, helped Alzire to give him all that he required, pushed near him the butter and the meat, and put his coffee on the fire to keep it quite hot. In the meanwhile, beside the fire, they began to wash themselves in the half of a barrel transformed into a tub. Catherine, whose turn came first, had filled it with warm water; and she undressed herself tranquilly, took off her cap, her jacket, her breeches, and even her chemise, habituated to this since the age of eight, having grown up without seeing any harm in it. She only turned with her stomach to the fire, then rubbed herself vigorously with black soap. No one looked at her, even Lénore and Henri were no longer inquisitive to see how she was made. When she was clean she went up the stairs quite naked, leaving her damp chemise and other garments in a heap on the floor. But a quarrel broke out between the two brothers: Jeanlin had hastened to jump into the tub under the pretence that Zacharie was still eating; and the latter hustled him, claiming his turn, and calling out that he was polite enough to allow Catherine to wash herself first, but he did not wish to have the rinsings of the young urchins, all the less since, when Jeanlin had been in, it would do to fill the school ink-pots. They ended by washing themselves together, also turning towards the fire, and they even helped each other, rubbing one another's backs. Then, like their sister, they disappeared up the staircase naked. "What a slop they do make!" murmured Maheude, taking up their garments from the floor to put them to dry. "Alzire, just sponge up a bit." But a disturbance on the other side of the wall cut short her speech. One heard a man's oaths, a woman's crying, a whole stampede of battle, with hollow blows that sounded like the shock of an empty gourd. "Levaque's wife is catching it," Maheu peacefully stated as he scraped the bottom of his bowl with the spoon. "It's queer; Bouteloup made out that the soup was ready." "Ah, yes! ready," said Maheude. "I saw the vegetables on the table, not even cleaned." The cries redoubled, and there was a terrible push which shook the wall, followed by complete silence. Then the miner, swallowing the last spoonful, concluded, with an air of calm justice: "If the soup is not ready, one can understand." And after having drunk a glassful of water, he attacked the chitterlings. He cut square pieces, stuck the point of his knife into them and ate them on his bread without a fork. There was no talking when the father was eating. He himself was hungry in silence; he did not recognize the usual taste of Maigrat's provisions; this must come from somewhere else; however, he put no question to his wife. He only asked if the old man was still sleeping upstairs. No, the grandfather had gone out for his usual walk. And there was silence again. But the odour of the meat made Lénore and Henri lift up their heads from the floor, where they were amusing themselves with making rivulets with the spilt water. Both of them came and planted themselves near their father, the little one in front. Their eyes followed each morsel, full of hope when it set out from the plate and with an air of consternation when it was engulfed in the mouth. At last the father noticed the gluttonous desire which made their faces pale and their lips moist. "Have the children had any of it?" he asked. And as his wife hesitated: "You know I don't like injustice. It takes away my appetite when I see them there, begging for bits." "But they've had some of it," she exclaimed, angrily. "If you were to listen to them you might give them your share and the others', too; they would fill themselves till they burst. Isn't it true, Alzire, that we have all had some?" "Sure enough, mother," replied the little humpback, who under such circumstances could tell lies with the self-possession of a grown-up person. Lénore and Henri stood motionless, shocked and rebellious at such lying, when they themselves were whipped if they did not tell the truth. Their little hearts began to swell, and they longed to protest, and to say that they, at all events, were not there when the others had some. "Get along with you," said the mother, driving them to the other end of the room. "You ought to be ashamed of being always in your father's plate; and even if he was the only one to have any, doesn't he work, while all you, a lot of good-for-nothings, can't do anything but spend! Yes, and the more the bigger you are." Maheu called them back. He seated Lénore on his left thigh, Henri on the right; then he finished the chitterlings by playing at dinner with them. He cut small pieces, and each had his share. The children devoured with delight. When he had finished, he said to his wife: "No, don't give me my coffee. I'm going to wash first; and just give me a hand to throw away this dirty water." They took hold of the handles of the tub and emptied it into the gutter before the door, when Jeanlin came down in dry garments, breeches and a woollen blouse, too large for him, which were weary of fading on his brother's back. Seeing him slinking out through the open door, his mother stopped him. "Where are you off to?" "Over there." "Over where? Listen to me. You go and gather a dandelion salad for this evening. Eh, do you hear? If you don't bring a salad back you'll have to deal with me." "All right!" Jeanlin set out with hands in his pockets, trailing his sabots and slouching along, with his slender loins of a ten-year-old urchin, like an old miner. In his turn, Zacharie came down, more carefully dressed, his body covered by a black woollen knitted jacket with blue stripes. His father called out to him not to return late; and he left, nodding his head with his pipe between his teeth, without replying. Again the tub was filled with warm water. Maheu was already slowly taking off his jacket. At a look, Alzire led Lénore and Henri outside to play. The father did not like washing _en famille_, as was practised in many houses in the settlement. He blamed no one, however; he simply said that it was good for the children to dabble together. "What are you doing up there?" cried Maheude, up the staircase. "I'm mending my dress that I tore yesterday," replied Catherine. "All right. Don't come down, your father is washing." Then Maheu and Maheude were left alone. The latter decided to place Estelle on a chair, and by a miracle, finding herself near the fire the child did not scream, but turned towards her parents the vague eyes of a little creature without intelligence. He was crouching before the tub quite naked, having first plunged his head into it, well rubbed with that black soap the constant use of which discoloured and made yellow the hair of the race. Afterwards he got into the water, lathered his chest, belly, arms, and thighs, scraping them energetically with both fists. His wife, standing by, watched him. "Well, then," she began, "I saw your eyes when you came in. You were bothered, eh? and it eased you, those provisions. Fancy! those Piolaine people didn't give me a sou! Oh! they are kind enough; they have dressed the little ones and I was ashamed to ask them, for it crosses me to ask for things." She interrupted herself a moment to wedge Estelle into the chair lest she should tip over. The father continued to work away at his skin, without hastening by a question this story which interested him, patiently waiting for light. "I must tell you that Maigrat had refused me, oh! straight! like one kicks a dog out of doors. Guess if I was on a spree! They keep you warm, woollen garments, but they don't put anything into your stomach, eh!" He lifted his head, still silent. Nothing at Piolaine, nothing at Maigrat's: then where? But, as usual, she was pulling up her sleeves to wash his back and those parts which he could not himself easily reach. Besides, he liked her to soap him, to rub him everywhere till she almost broke her wrists. She took soap and worked away at his shoulders while he held himself stiff so as to resist the shock. "Then I returned to Maigrat's, and said to him, ah, I said something to him! And that it didn't do to have no heart, and that evil would happen to him if there were any justice. That bothered him; he turned his eyes and would like to have got away." From the back she had got down to the buttocks and was pushing into the folds, not leaving any part of the body without passing over it, making him shine like her three saucepans on Saturdays after a big clean. Only she began to sweat with this tremendous exertion of her arms, so exhausted and out of breath that her words were choked. "At last he called me an old nuisance. We shall have bread until Saturday, and the best is that he has lent me five francs. I have got butter, coffee, and chicory from him. I was even going to get the meat and potatoes there, only I saw that he was grumbling. Seven sous for the chitterlings, eighteen for the potatoes, and I've got three francs seventy-five left for a ragout and a meat soup. Eh, I don't think I've wasted my morning!" Now she began to wipe him, plugging with a towel the parts that would not dry. Feeling happy and without thinking of the future debt, he burst out laughing and took her in his arms. "Leave me alone, stupid! You are damp, and wetting me. Only I'm afraid Maigrat has ideas----" She was about to speak of Catherine, but she stopped. What was the good of disturbing him? It would only lead to endless discussion. "What ideas?" he asked. "Why, ideas of robbing us. Catherine will have to examine the bill carefully." He took her in his arms again, and this time did not let her go. The bath always finished in this way: she enlivened him by the hard rubbing, and then by the towels which tickled the hairs of his arms and chest. Besides, among all his mates of the settlement it was the hour for stupidities, when more children were planted than were wanted. At night all the family were about. He pushed her towards the table, jesting like a worthy man who was enjoying the only good moment of the day, calling that taking his dessert, and a dessert which cost him nothing. She, with her loose figure and breast, struggled a little for fun. "You are stupid! My Lord! you are stupid! And there's Estelle looking at us. Wait till I turn her head." "Oh, bosh! at three months; as if she understood!" When he got up Maheu simply put on a dry pair of breeches. He liked, when he was clean and had taken his pleasure with his wife, to remain naked for a while. On his white skin, the whiteness of an anaemic girl, the scratches and gashes of the coal left tattoo-marks, grafts as the miners called them; and he was proud of them, and exhibited his big arms and broad chest shining like veined marble. In summer all the miners could be seen in this condition at their doors. He even went there for a moment now, in spite of the wet weather, and shouted out a rough joke to a comrade, whose breast was also naked, on the other side of the gardens. Others also appeared. And the children, trailing along the pathways, raised their heads and also laughed with delight at all this weary flesh of workers displayed in the open air. While drinking his coffee, without yet putting on a shirt, Maheu told his wife about the engineer's anger over the planking. He was calm and unbent, and listened with a nod of approval to the sensible advice of Maheude, who showed much common sense in such affairs. She always repeated to him that nothing was gained by struggling against the Company. She afterwards told him about Madame Hennebeau's visit. Without saying so, both of them were proud of this. "Can I come down yet?" asked Catherine, from the top of the staircase. "Yes, yes; your father is drying himself." The young girl had put on her Sunday dress, an old frock of rough blue poplin, already faded and worn in the folds. She had on a very simple bonnet of black tulle. "Hallo! you're dressed. Where are you going to?" "I'm going to Montsou to buy a ribbon for my bonnet. I've taken off the old one; it was too dirty." "Have you got money, then?" "No! but Mouquette promised to lend me half a franc." The mother let her go. But at the door she called her back. "Here! don't go and buy that ribbon at Maigrat's. He will rob you, and he will think that we are rolling in wealth." The father, who was crouching down before the fire to dry his neck and shoulders more quickly, contented himself with adding: "Try not to dawdle about at night on the road." In the afternoon, Maheu worked in his garden. Already he had sown potatoes, beans, and peas; and he now set about replanting cabbage and lettuce plants, which he had kept fresh from the night before. This bit of garden furnished them with vegetables, except potatoes of which they never had enough. He understood gardening very well, and could even grow artichokes, which was treated as sheer display by the neighbours. As he was preparing the bed, Levaque just then came out to smoke a pipe in his own square, looking at the cos lettuces which Bouteloup had planted in the morning; for without the lodger's energy in digging nothing would have grown there but nettles. And a conversation arose over the trellis. Levaque, refreshed and excited by thrashing his wife, vainly tried to take Maheu off to Rasseneur's. Why, was he afraid of a glass? They could have a game at skittles, lounge about for a while with the mates, and then come back to dinner. That was the way of life after leaving the pit. No doubt there was no harm in that, but Maheu was obstinate; if he did not replant his lettuces they would be faded by to-morrow. In reality he refused out of good sense, not wishing to ask a farthing from his wife out of the change of the five-franc piece. Five o'clock was striking when Pierronne came to know if it was with Jeanlin that her Lydie had gone off. Levaque replied that it must be something of that sort, for Bébert had also disappeared, and those rascals always went prowling about together. When Maheu had quieted them by speaking of the dandelion salad, he and his comrade set about joking the young woman with the coarseness of good-natured devils. She was angry, but did not go away, in reality tickled by the strong words which made her scream with her hands to her sides. A lean woman came to her aid, stammering with anger like a clucking hen. Others in the distance on their doorsteps confided their alarms. Now the school was closed; and all the children were running about, there was a swarm of little creatures shouting and tumbling and fighting; while those fathers who were not at the public-house were resting in groups of three or four, crouching on their heels as they did in the mine, smoking their pipes with an occasional word in the shelter of a wall. Pierronne went off in a fury when Levaque wanted to feel if her thighs were firm; and he himself decided to go alone to Rasseneur's, since Maheu was still planting. Twilight suddenly came on; Maheude lit the lamp, irritated because neither her daughter nor the boys had come back. She could have guessed as much; they never succeeded in taking together the only meal of the day at which it was possible for them to be all round the table. Then she was waiting for the dandelion salad. What could he be gathering at this hour, in this blackness of an oven, that nuisance of a child! A salad would go so well with the stew which was simmering on the fire--potatoes, leeks, sorrel, fricasseed with fried onion. The whole house smelt of that fried onion, that good odour which gets rank so soon, and which penetrates the bricks of the settlements with such infection that one perceives it far off in the country, the violent flavour of the poor man's kitchen. Maheu, when he left the garden at nightfall, at once fell into a chair with his head against the wall. As soon as he sat down in the evening he went to sleep. The clock struck seven; Henri and Lénore had just broken a plate in persisting in helping Alzire, who was laying the table, when Father Bonnemort came in first, in a hurry to dine and go back to the pit. Then Maheude woke up Maheu. "Come and eat! So much the worse! They are big enough to find the house. The nuisance is the salad!" CHAPTER V At Rasseneur's, after having eaten his soup, Étienne went back into the small chamber beneath the roof and facing the Voreux, which he was to occupy, and fell on to his bed dressed as he was, overcome with fatigue. In two days he had not slept four hours. When he awoke in the twilight he was dazed for a moment, not recognizing his surroundings; and he felt such uneasiness and his head was so heavy that he rose, painfully, with the idea of getting some fresh air before having his dinner and going to bed for the night. Outside, the weather was becoming milder: the sooty sky was growing copper-coloured, laden with one of those warm rains of the Nord, the approach of which one feels by the moist warmth of the air, and the night was coming on in great mists which drowned the distant landscape of the plain. Over this immense sea of reddish earth the low sky seemed to melt into black dust, without a breath of wind now to animate the darkness. It was the wan and deathly melancholy of a funeral. Étienne walked straight ahead at random, with no other aim but to shake off his fever. When he passed before the Voreux, already growing gloomy at the bottom of its hole and with no lantern yet shining from it, he stopped a moment to watch the departure of the day-workers. No doubt six o'clock had struck; landers, porters from the pit-eye, and grooms were going away in bands, mixed with the vague and laughing figures of the screening girls in the shade. At first it was Brulé and her son-in-law, Pierron. She was abusing him because he had not supported her in a quarrel with an overseer over her reckoning of stones. "Get along! damned good-for-nothing! Do you call yourself a man to lower yourself like that before one of these beasts who devour us?" Pierron followed her peacefully, without replying. At last he said: "I suppose I ought to jump on the boss? Thanks for showing me how to get into a mess!" "Bend your backside to him, then," she shouted. "By God! if my daughter had listened to me! It's not enough for them to kill the father. Perhaps you'd like me to say 'thank you.' No, I'll have their skins first!" Their voices were lost. Étienne saw her disappear, with her eagle nose, her flying white hair, her long, lean arms that gesticulated furiously. But the conversation of two young people behind caused him to listen. He had recognized Zacharie, who was waiting there, and who had just been addressed by his friend Mouquet. "Are you here?" said the latter. "We will have something to eat, and then off to the Volcan." "Directly. I've something to attend to." "What, then?" The lander turned and saw Philoméne coming out of the screening-shed. He thought he understood. "Very well, if it's that. Then I go ahead." "Yes, I'll catch you up." As he went away, Mouquet met his father, old Mouque, who was also coming out of the Voreux. The two men simply wished each other good evening, the son taking the main road while the father went along by the canal. Zacharie was already pushing Philoméne in spite of her resistance into the same solitary path. She was in a hurry, another time; and the two wrangled like old housemates. There was no fun in only seeing one another out of doors, especially in winter, when the earth is moist and there are no wheatfields to lie in. "No, no, it's not that," he whispered impatiently. "I've something to say to you." He led her gently with his arm round her waist. Then, when they were in the shadow of the pit-bank, he asked if she had any money. "What for?" she demanded. Then he became confused, spoke of a debt of two francs which had reduced his family to despair. "Hold your tongue! I've seen Mouquet; you're going again to the Volcan with him, where those dirty singer-women are." He defended himself, struck his chest, gave his word of honour. Then, as she shrugged her shoulders, he said suddenly: "Come with us if it will amuse you. You see that you don't put me out. What do I want to do with the singers? Will you come?" "And the little one?" she replied. "How can one stir with a child that's always screaming? Let me go back, I guess they're not getting on at the house." But he held her and entreated. See! it was only not to look foolish before Mouquet to whom he had promised. A man could not go to bed every evening like the fowls. She was overcome, and pulled up the skirt of her gown; with her nail she cut the thread and drew out some half-franc pieces from a corner of the hem. For fear of being robbed by her mother she hid there the profit of the overtime work she did at the pit. "I've got five, you see," she said, "I'll give you three. Only you must swear that you'll make your mother decide to let us marry. We've had enough of this life in the open air. And mother reproaches me for every mouthful I eat. Swear first." She spoke with the soft voice of a big, delicate girl, without passion, simply tired of her life. He swore, exclaimed that it was a sacred promise; then, when he had got the three pieces, he kissed her, tickled her, made her laugh, and would have pushed things to an extreme in this corner of the pit-bank, which was the winter chamber of their household, if she had not again refused, saying that it would not give her any pleasure. She went back to the settlement alone, while he cut across the fields to rejoin his companion. Étienne had followed them mechanically, from afar, without understanding, regarding it as a simple rendezvous. The girls were precocious in the pits; and he recalled the Lille work-girls whom he had waited for behind the factories, those bands of girls, corrupted at fourteen, in the abandonment of their wretchedness. But another meeting surprised him more. He stopped. At the bottom of the pit-bank, in a hollow into which some large stones had slipped, little Jeanlin was violently snubbing Lydie and Bébert, seated one at his right, the other at his left. "What do you say? Eh? I'll slap each of you if you want more. Who thought of it first, eh?" In fact, Jeanlin had had an idea. After having roamed about in the meadows, along the canal, for an hour, gathering dandelions with the two others, it had occurred to him, before this pile of salad, that they would never eat all that at home; and instead of going back to the settlement he had gone to Montsou, keeping Bébert to watch, and making Lydie ring at the houses and offer the dandelions. He was experienced enough to know that, as he said, girls could sell what they liked. In the ardour of business, the entire pile had disappeared; but the girl had gained eleven sous. And now, with empty hands, the three were dividing the profits. "That's not fair!" Bébert declared. "Must divide into three. If you keep seven sous we shall only have two each." "What? not fair!" replied Jeanlin furiously. "I gathered more first of all." The other usually submitted with timid admiration and a credulity which always made him the dupe. Though older and stronger, he even allowed himself to be struck. But this time the sight of all that money excited him to rebellion. "He's robbing us, Lydie, isn't he? If he doesn't share, we'll tell his mother." Jeanlin at once thrust his fist beneath the other's nose. "Say that again! I'll go and say at your house that you sold my mother's salad. And then, you silly beast, how can I divide eleven sous into three? Just try and see, if you're so clever. Here are your two sous each. Just look sharp and take them, or I'll put them in my pocket." Bébert was vanquished and accepted the two sous. Lydie, who was trembling, had said nothing, for with Jeanlin she experienced the fear and the tenderness of a little beaten woman. When he held out the two sous to her she advanced her hand with a submissive laugh. But he suddenly changed his mind. "Eh! what will you do with all that? Your mother will nab them, sure enough, if you don't know how to hide them from her. I'd better keep them for you. When you want money you can ask me for it." And the nine sous disappeared. To shut her mouth he had put his arms around her laughingly and was rolling with her over the pit-bank. She was his little wife, and in the dark corners they used to try together the love which they heard and saw in their homes behind partitions, through the cracks of doors. They knew everything, but they were able to do nothing, being too young, fumbling and playing for hours at the games of vicious puppies. He called that playing at papa and mama; and when he chased her she ran away and let herself be caught with the delicious trembling of instinct, often angry, but always yielding, in the expectation of something which never came. As Bébert was not admitted to these games and received a cuffing whenever he wanted to touch Lydie, he was always constrained, agitated by anger and uneasiness when the other two were amusing themselves, which they did not hesitate to do in his presence. His one idea, therefore, was to frighten them and disturb them, calling out that someone could see them. "It's all up! There's a man looking." This time he told the truth; it was Étienne, who had decided to continue his walk. The children jumped up and ran away, and he passed by round the bank, following the canal, amused at the terror of these little rascals. No doubt it was too early at their age, but they saw and heard so much that one would have to tie them up to restrain them. Yet Étienne became sad. A hundred paces farther on he came across more couples. He had arrived at Réquillart, and there, around the old ruined mine, all the girls of Montsou prowled about with their lovers. It was the common rendezvous, the remote and deserted spot to which the putters came to get their first child when they dared not risk the shed. The broken palings opened to every one the old yard, now become a nondescript piece of ground, obstructed by the ruins of the two sheds which had fallen in, and by the skeletons of the large buttresses which were still standing. Derelict trams were lying about, and piles of old rotting wood, while a dense vegetation was reconquering this corner of ground, displaying itself in thick grass, and springing up in young trees that were already vigorous. Every girl found herself at home here; there were concealed holes for all; their lovers placed them over beams, behind the timber, in the trams; they even lay elbow to elbow without troubling about their neighbours. And it seemed that around this extinguished engine, near this shaft weary of disgorging coal, there was a revenge of creation in the free love which, beneath the lash of instinct, planted children in the bellies of these girls who were yet hardly women. Yet a caretaker lived there, old Mouque, to whom the Company had given up, almost beneath the destroyed tower, two rooms which were constantly threatened by destruction from the expected fall of the last walls. He had even been obliged to shore up a part of the roof, and he lived there very comfortably with his family, he and Mouquet in one room, Mouquette in the other. As the windows no longer possessed a single pane, he had decided to close them by nailing up boards; one could not see well, but it was warm. For the rest, this caretaker cared for nothing: he went to look after his horses at the Voreux, and never troubled himself about the ruins of Réquillart, of which the shaft only was preserved, in order to serve as a chimney for a fire which ventilated the neighbouring pit. It was thus that Father Mouque was ending his old age in the midst of love. Ever since she was ten Mouquette had been lying about in all the corners of the ruins, not as a timid and still green little urchin like Lydie, but as a girl who was already big, and a mate for bearded lads. The father had nothing to say, for she was considerate, and never introduced a lover into the house. Then he was used to this sort of accident. When he went to the Voreux, when he came back, whenever he came out of his hole, he could scarcely put a foot down without treading on a couple in the grass; and it was worse if he wanted to gather wood to heat his soup or look for burdocks for his rabbit at the other end of the enclosure. Then he saw one by one the voluptuous noses of all the girls of Montsou rising up around him, while he had to be careful not to knock against the limbs stretched out level with the paths. Besides, these meetings had gradually ceased to disturb either him who was simply taking care not to stumble, or the girls whom he allowed to finish their affairs, going away with discreet little steps like a worthy man who was at peace with the ways of nature. Only just as they now knew him he at last also knew them, as one knows the rascally magpies who become corrupted in the pear-trees in the garden. Ah! youth! youth! how it goes on, how wild it is! Sometimes he wagged his chin with silent regret, turning away from the noisy wantons who were breathing too loudly in the darkness. Only one thing put him out of temper: two lovers had acquired the bad habit of embracing outside his wall. It was not that it prevented him from sleeping, but they leaned against the wall so heavily that at last they damaged it. Every evening old Mouque received a visit from his friend, Father Bonnemort, who regularly before dinner took the same walk. The two old men spoke little, scarcely exchanging ten words during the half-hour that they spent together. But it cheered them thus to think over the days of old, to chew their recollections over again without need to talk of them. At Réquillart they sat on a beam side by side, saying a word and then sinking into their dreams, with faces bent towards the earth. No doubt they were becoming young again. Around them lovers were turning over their sweethearts; there was a murmur of kisses and laughter; the warm odour of the girls arose in the freshness of the trodden grass. It was now forty-three years since Father Bonnemort had taken his wife behind the pit; she was a putter, so slight that he had placed her on a tram to embrace her at ease. Ah! those were fine days. And the two old men, shaking their heads, at last left each other, often without saying good night. That evening, however, as Étienne arrived, Father Bonnemort, who was getting up from the beam to return to the settlement, said to Mouque: "Good night, old man. I say, you knew Roussie?" Mouque was silent for a moment, rocked his shoulders; then, returning to the house: "Good night, good night, old man." Étienne came and sat on the beam, in his turn. His sadness was increasing, though he could not tell why. The old man, whose disappearing back he watched, recalled his arrival in the morning, and the flood of words which the piercing wind had dragged from his silence. What wretchedness! And all these girls, worn out with fatigue, who were still stupid enough in the evening to fabricate little ones, to yield flesh for labour and suffering! It would never come to an end if they were always filling themselves with starvelings. Would it not be better if they were to shut up their bellies, and press their thighs together, as at the approach of misfortune? Perhaps these gloomy ideas only stirred confusedly in him because he was alone, while all the others at this hour were going about taking their pleasure in couples. The mild weather stifled him a little, occasional drops of rain fell on his feverish hands. Yes, they all came to it; it was something stronger than reason. Just then, as Étienne remained seated motionless in the shadow, a couple who came down from Montsou rustled against him without seeing him as they entered the uneven Réquillart ground. The girl, certainly a virgin, was struggling and resisting with low whispered supplications, while the lad in silence was pushing her towards the darkness of a corner of the shed, still upright, under which there were piles of old mouldy rope. It was Catherine and big Chaval. But Étienne had not recognized them in passing, and his eyes followed them; he was watching for the end of the story, touched by a sensuality which changed the course of his thoughts. Why should he interfere? When girls refuse it is because they like first to be forced. On leaving the settlement of the Deux-Cent-Quarante Catherine had gone to Montsou along the road. From the age of ten, since she had earned her living at the pit, she went about the country alone in the complete liberty of the colliers' families; and if no man had possessed her at fifteen it was owing to the tardy awakening of her puberty, the crisis of which had not yet arrived. When she was in front of the Company's Yards she crossed the road and entered a laundress's where she was certain to find Mouquette; for the latter stayed there from morning till night, among women who treated each other with coffee all round. But she was disappointed; Mouquette had just then been regaling them in her turn so thoroughly that she was not able to lend the half-franc she had promised. To console her they vainly offered a glass of hot coffee. She was not even willing that her companion should borrow from another woman. An idea of economy had come to her, a sort of superstitious fear, the certainty that that ribbon would bring her bad luck if she were to buy it now. She hastened to regain the road to the settlement, and had reached the last houses of Montsou when a man at the door of the Piquette Estaminet called her: "Eh! Catherine! where are you off to so quick?" It was lanky Chaval. She was vexed, not because he displeased her, but because she was not inclined to joke. "Come in and have a drink. A little glass of sweet, won't you?" She refused politely; the night was coming on, they were expecting her at home. He had advanced, and was entreating her in a low voice in the middle of the road. It had been his idea for a long time to persuade her to come up to the room which he occupied on the first story of the Estaminet Piquette, a fine room for a household, with a large bed. Did he frighten her, that she always refused? She laughed good-naturedly, and said that she would come up some day when children didn't grow. Then, one thing leading to another, she told him, without knowing how, about the blue ribbon which she had not been able to buy. "But I'll pay for it," he exclaimed. She blushed, feeling that it would be best to refuse again, but possessed by a strong desire to have the ribbon. The idea of a loan came back to her, and at last she accepted on condition that she should return to him what he spent on her. They began to joke again: it was agreed that if she did not sleep with him she should return him the money. But there was another difficulty when he talked of going to Maigrat's. "No, not Maigrat's; mother won't let me." "Why? is there any need to say where one goes? He has the best ribbons in Montsou." When Maigrat saw lanky Chaval and Catherine coming to his shop like two lovers who are buying their engagement gifts, he became very red, and exhibited his pieces of blue ribbon with the rage of a man who is being made fun of. Then, when he had served the young people, he planted himself at the door to watch them disappear in the twilight; and when his wife came to ask him a question in a timid voice, he fell on her, abusing her, and exclaiming that he would make them repent some day, the filthy creatures, who had no gratitude, when they ought all to be on the ground licking his feet. Lanky Chaval accompanied Catherine along the road. He walked beside her, swinging his arms; only he pushed her by the hip, conducting her without seeming to do so. She suddenly perceived that he had made her leave the pavement and that they were taking the narrow Réquillart road. But she had no time to be angry; his arm was already round her waist, and he was dazing her with a constant caress of words. How stupid she was to be afraid! Did he want to hurt such a little darling, who was as soft as silk, so tender that he could have devoured her? And he breathed behind her ear, in her neck, so that a shudder passed over the skin of her whole body. She felt stifled, and had nothing to reply. It was true that he seemed to love her. On Saturday evenings, after having blown out the candle, she had asked herself what would happen if he were to take her in this way; then, on going to sleep, she had dreamed that she would no longer refuse, quite overcome by pleasure. Why, then, at the same idea to-day did she feel repugnance and something like regret? While he was tickling her neck with his moustache so softly that she closed her eyes, the shadow of another man, of the lad she had seen that morning, passed over the darkness of her closed eyelids. Catherine suddenly looked around her. Chaval had conducted her into the ruins of Réquillart and she recoiled, shuddering, from the darkness of the fallen shed. "Oh! no! oh, no!" she murmured, "please let me go!" The fear of the male had taken hold of her, that fear which stiffens the muscles in an impulse of defence, even when girls are willing, and feel the conquering approach of man. Her virginity which had nothing to learn took fright as at a threatening blow, a wound of which she feared the unknown pain. "No, no! I don't want to! I tell you that I am too young. It's true! Another time, when I am quite grown up." He growled in a low voice: "Stupid! There's nothing to fear. What does that matter?" But without speaking more he had seized her firmly and pushed her beneath the shed. And she fell on her back on the old ropes; she ceased to protest, yielding to the male before her time, with that hereditary submission which from childhood had thrown down in the open air all the girls of her race. Her frightened stammering grew faint, and only the ardent breath of the man was heard. Étienne, however, had listened without moving. Another who was taking the leap! And now that he had seen the comedy he got up, overcome by uneasiness, by a kind of jealous excitement in which there was a touch of anger. He no longer restrained himself; he stepped over the beams, for those two were too much occupied now to be disturbed. He was surprised, therefore, when he had gone a hundred paces along the path, to find that they were already standing up, and that they appeared, like himself, to be returning to the settlement. The man again had his arm round the girl's waist, and was squeezing her, with an air of gratitude, still speaking in her neck; and it was she who seemed in a hurry, anxious to return quickly, and annoyed at the delay. Then Étienne was tormented by the desire to see their faces. It was foolish, and he hastened his steps, so as not to yield to it; but his feet slackened of their own accord, and at the first lamppost he concealed himself in the shade. He was petrified by horror when he recognized Catherine and lanky Chaval. He hesitated at first: was it indeed she, that young girl in the coarse blue dress, with that bonnet? Was that the urchin whom he had seen in breeches, with her head in the canvas cap? That was why she could pass so near him without his recognizing her. But he no longer doubted; he had seen her eyes again, with their greenish limpidity of spring water, so clear and so deep. What a wench! And he experienced a furious desire to avenge himself on her with contempt, without any motive. Besides, he did not like her as a girl: she was frightful. Catherine and Chaval had passed him slowly. They did not know that they were watched. He held her to kiss her behind the ear, and she began to slacken her steps beneath his caresses, which made her laugh. Left behind, Étienne was obliged to follow them, irritated because they barred the road and because in spite of himself he had to witness these things which exasperated him. It was true, then, what she had sworn to him in the morning: she was not any one's mistress; and he, who had not believed her, who had deprived himself of her in order not to act like the other! and who had let her be taken beneath his nose, pushing his stupidity so far as to be dirtily amused at seeing them! It made him mad! he clenched his hands, he could have devoured that man in one of those impulses to kill in which he saw everything red. The walk lasted for half an hour. When Chaval and Catherine approached the Voreux they slackened their pace still more; they stopped twice beside the canal, three times along the pit-bank, very cheerful now and occupied with little tender games. Étienne was obliged to stop also when they stopped, for fear of being perceived. He endeavoured to feel nothing but a brutal regret: that would teach him to treat girls with consideration through being well brought up! Then, after passing the Voreux, and at last free to go and dine at Rasseneur's, he continued to follow them, accompanying them to the settlement, where he remained standing in the shade for a quarter of an hour, waiting until Chaval left Catherine to enter her home. And when he was quite sure that they were no longer together, he set off walking afresh, going very far along the Marchiennes road, stamping, and thinking of nothing, too stifled and too sad to shut himself up in a room. It was not until an hour later, towards nine o'clock, that Étienne again passed the settlement, saying to himself that he must eat and sleep, if he was to be up again at four o'clock in the morning. The village was already asleep, and looked quite black in the night. Not a gleam shone from the closed shutters, the house fronts slept, with the heavy sleep of snoring barracks. Only a cat escaped through the empty gardens. It was the end of the day, the collapse of workers falling from the table to the bed, overcome with weariness and food. At Rasseneur's, in the lighted room, an engine-man and two day-workers were drinking. But before going in Étienne stopped to throw one last glance into the darkness. He saw again the same black immensity as in the morning when he had arrived in the wind. Before him the Voreux was crouching, with its air of an evil beast, its dimness pricked with a few lantern lights. The three braziers of the bank were burning in the air, like bloody moons, now and then showing the vast silhouettes of Father Bonnemort and his yellow horse. And beyond, in the flat plain, shade had submerged everything, Montsou, Marchiennes, the forest of Vandame, the immense sea of beetroot and of wheat, in which there only shone, like distant lighthouses, the blue fires of the blast furnaces, and the red fires of the coke ovens. Gradually the night came on, the rain was now falling slowly, continuously, burying this void in its monotonous streaming. Only one voice was still heard, the thick, slow respiration of the pumping engine, breathing both by day and by night. PART THREE CHAPTER I On the next day, and the days that followed, Étienne continued his work at the pit. He grew accustomed to it; his existence became regulated by this labour and to these new habits which had seemed so hard to him at first. Only one episode interrupted the monotony of the first fortnight: a slight fever which kept him in bed for forty-eight hours with aching limbs and throbbing head, dreaming in a state of semi-delirium that he was pushing his tram in a passage that was so narrow that his body would not pass through. It was simply the exhaustion of his apprenticeship, an excess of fatigue from which he quickly recovered. And days followed days, until weeks and months had slipped by. Now, like his mates, he got up at three o'clock, drank his coffee, and carried off the double slice of bread and butter which Madame Rasseneur had prepared for him the evening before. Regularly as he went every morning to the pit, he met old Bonnemort who was going home to sleep, and on leaving in the afternoon he crossed Bouteloup who was going to his task. He had his cap, his breeches and canvas jacket, and he shivered and warmed his back in the shed before the large fire. Then came the waiting with naked feet in the receiving-room, swept by furious currents of air. But the engine, with its great steel limbs starred with copper shining up above in the shade, no longer attracted his attention, nor the cables which flew by with the black and silent motion of a nocturnal bird, nor the cages rising and plunging unceasingly in the midst of the noise of signals, of shouted orders, of trams shaking the metal floor. His lamp burnt badly, that confounded lamp-man could not have cleaned it; and he only woke up when Mouquet bundled them all off, roguishly smacking the girls' flanks. The cage was unfastened, and fell like a stone to the bottom of a hole without causing him even to lift his head to see the daylight vanish. He never thought of a possible fall; he felt himself at home as he sank into the darkness beneath the falling rain. Below at the pit-eye, when Pierron had unloaded them with his air of hypocritical mildness, there was always the same tramping as of a flock, the yard-men each going away to his cutting with trailing steps. He now knew the mine galleries better than the streets of Montsou; he knew where he had to turn, where he had to stoop, and where he had to avoid a puddle. He had grown so accustomed to these two kilometres beneath the earth, that he could have traversed them without a lamp, with his hands in his pockets. And every time the same meetings took place: a captain lighting up the faces of the passing workmen, Father Mouque leading a horse, Bébert conducting the snorting Bataille, Jeanlin running behind the tram to close the ventilation doors, and big Mouquette and lean Lydie pushing their trams. After a time, also, Étienne suffered much less from the damp and closeness of the cutting. The chimney or ascending passage seemed to him more convenient for climbing up, as if he had melted and could pass through cracks where before he would not have risked a hand. He breathed the coal-dust without difficulty, saw clearly in the obscurity, and sweated tranquilly, having grown accustomed to the sensation of wet garments on his body from morning to night. Besides, he no longer spent his energy recklessly; he had gained skill so rapidly that he astonished the whole stall. In three weeks he was named among the best putters in the pit; no one pushed a tram more rapidly to the upbrow, nor loaded it afterwards so correctly. His small figure allowed him to slip about everywhere, and though his arms were as delicate and white as a woman's, they seemed to be made of iron beneath the smooth skin, so vigorously did they perform their task. He never complained, out of pride no doubt, even when he was panting with fatigue. The only thing they had against him was that he could not take a joke, and grew angry as soon as any one trod on his toes. In all other respects he was accepted and looked upon as a real miner, reduced beneath this pressure of habit, little by little, to a machine. Maheu regarded Étienne with special friendship, for he respected work that was well done. Then, like the others, he felt that this lad had more education than himself; he saw him read, write, and draw little plans; he heard him talking of things of which he himself did not know even the existence. This caused him no astonishment, for miners are rough fellows who have thicker heads than engine-men; but he was surprised at the courage of this little chap, and at the cheerful way he had bitten into the coal to avoid dying of hunger. He had never met a workman who grew accustomed to it so quickly. So when hewing was urgent, and he did not wish to disturb a pikeman, he gave the timbering over to the young man, being sure of the neatness and solidity of his work. The bosses were always bothering him about the damned planking question; he feared every hour the appearance of the engineer Négrel, followed by Dansaert, shouting, discussing, ordering everything to be done over again, and he remarked that his putter's timbering gave greater satisfaction to these gentlemen, in spite of their air of never being pleased with anything, and their repeated assertions that the Company would one day or another take radical measures. Things dragged on; a deep discontent was fomenting in the pit, and Maheu himself, in spite of his calmness, was beginning to clench his fists. There was at first some rivalry between Zacharie and Étienne. One evening they were even coming to blows. But the former, a good lad though careless of everything but his own pleasure, was quickly appeased by the friendly offer of a glass, and soon yielded to the superiority of the new-comer. Levaque was also on good terms with him, talking politics with the putter, who, as he said, had his own ideas. The only one of the men in whom he felt a deep hostility was lanky Chaval: not that they were cool towards each other, for, on the contrary, they had become companions; only when they joked their eyes seemed to devour each other. Catherine continued to move among them as a tired, resigned girl, bending her back, pushing her tram, always good-natured with her companion in the putting, who aided her in his turn, and submissive to the wishes of her lover, whose caresses she now received openly. It was an accepted situation, a recognized domestic arrangement to which the family itself closed its eyes to such a degree that Chaval every evening led away the putter behind the pit-bank, then brought her back to her parents' door, where he finally embraced her before the whole settlement. Étienne, who believed that he had reconciled himself to the situation, often teased her about these walks, making crude remarks by way of joke, as lads and girls will at the bottom of the cuttings; and she replied in the same tone, telling in a swaggering way what her lover had done to her, yet disturbed and growing pale when the young man's eyes chanced to meet hers. Then both would turn away their heads, not speaking again, perhaps, for an hour, looking as if they hated each other because of something buried within them and which they could never explain to each other. The spring had come. On emerging from the pit one day Étienne had received in his face a warm April breeze, a good odour of young earth, of tender greenness, of large open air; and now, every time he came up the spring smelt sweeter, warmed him more, after his ten hours of labour in the eternal winter at the bottom, in the midst of that damp darkness which no summer had ever dissipated. The days grew longer and longer; at last, in May, he went down at sunrise when a vermilion sky lit up the Voreux with a mist of dawn in which the white vapour of the pumping-engine became rose-coloured. There was no more shivering, a warm breath blew across the plain, while the larks sang far above. Then at three o'clock he was dazzled by the now burning sun which set fire to the horizon, and reddened the bricks beneath the filth of the coal. In June the wheat was already high, of a blue green, which contrasted with the black green of the beetroots. It was an endless vista undulating beneath the slightest breeze; and he saw it spread and grow from day to day, and was sometimes surprised, as if he had found it in the evening more swollen with verdure than it had been in the morning. The poplars along the canal were putting on their plumes of leaves. Grass was invading the pit-bank, flowers were covering the meadows, a whole life was germinating and pushing up from this earth beneath which he was groaning in misery and fatigue. When Étienne now went for a walk in the evening he no longer startled lovers behind the pit-bank. He could follow their track in the wheat and divine their wanton birds' nests by eddies among the yellowing blades and the great red poppies. Zacharie and Philoméne came back to it out of old domestic habit; Mother Brulé, always on Lydie's heels, was constantly hunting her out with Jeanlin, buried so deeply together that one had to tread on them before they made up their minds to get up; and as to Mouquette, she lay about everywhere--one could not cross a field without seeing her head plunge down while only her feet emerged as she lay at full length. But all these were quite free; the young man found nothing guilty there except on the evenings when he met Catherine and Chaval. Twice he saw them on his approach tumble down in the midst of a field, where the motionless stalks afterwards remained dead. Another time, as he was going along a narrow path, Catherine's clear eyes appeared before him, level with the wheat, and immediately sank. Then the immense plain seemed to him too small, and he preferred to pass the evening at Rasseneur's, in the Avantage. "Give me a glass, Madame Rasseneur. No, I'm not going out to-night; my legs are too stiff." And he turned towards a comrade, who always sat at the bottom table with his head against the wall. "Souvarine, won't you have one?" "No, thanks; nothing." Étienne had become acquainted with Souvarine through living there side by side. He was an engine-man at the Voreux, and occupied the furnished room upstairs next to his own. He must have been about thirty years old, fair and slender, with a delicate face framed by thick hair and a slight beard. His white pointed teeth, his thin mouth and nose, with his rosy complexion, gave him a girlish appearance, an air of obstinate gentleness, across which the grey reflection of his steely eyes threw savage gleams. In his poor workman's room there was nothing but a box of papers and books. He was a Russian, and never spoke of himself, so that many stories were afloat concerning him. The colliers, who are very suspicious with strangers, guessing from his small middle-class hands that he belonged to another caste, had at first imagined a romance, some assassination, and that he was escaping punishment. But then he had behaved in such a fraternal way with them, without any pride, distributing to the youngsters of the settlement all the sous in his pockets, that they now accepted him, reassured by the term "political refugee" which circulated about him--a vague term, in which they saw an excuse even for crime, and, as it were, a companionship in suffering. During the first weeks, Étienne had found him timid and reserved, so that he only discovered his history later on. Souvarine was the latest born of a noble family in the Government of Tula. At St. Petersburg, where he studied medicine, the socialistic enthusiasm which then carried away all the youth in Russia had decided him to learn a manual trade, that of a mechanic, so that he could mix with the people, in order to know them and help them as a brother. And it was by this trade that he was now living after having fled, in consequence of an unsuccessful attempt against the tsar's life: for a month he had lived in a fruiterer's cellar, hollowing out a mine underneath the road, and charging bombs, with the constant risk of being blown up with the house. Renounced by his family, without money, expelled from the French workshops as a foreigner who was regarded as a spy, he was dying of starvation when the Montsou Company had at last taken him on at a moment of pressure. For a year he had laboured there as a good, sober, silent workman, doing day-work one week and night-work the next week, so regularly that the masters referred to him as an example to the others. "Are you never thirsty?" said Étienne to him, laughing. And he replied with his gentle voice, almost without an accent: "I am thirsty when I eat." His companion also joked him about the girls, declaring that he had seen him with a putter in the wheat on the Bas-de-Soie side. Then he shrugged his shoulders with tranquil indifference. What should he do with a putter? Woman was for him a boy, a comrade, when she had the fraternal feeling and the courage of a man. What was the good of having a possible act of cowardice on one's conscience? He desired no bond, either woman or friend; he would be master of his own life and those of others. Every evening towards nine o'clock, when the inn was emptying, Étienne remained thus talking with Souvarine. He drank his beer in small sips, while the engine-man smoked constant cigarettes, of which the tobacco had at last stained his slender fingers. His vague mystic's eyes followed the smoke in the midst of a dream; his left hand sought occupation by nervously twitching; and he usually ended by installing a tame rabbit on his knees, a large doe with young, who lived at liberty in the house. This rabbit, which he had named Poland, had grown to worship him; she would come and smell his trousers, fawn on him and scratch him with her paws until he took her up like a child. Then, lying in a heap against him, her ears laid back, she would close her eyes; and without growing tired, with an unconscious caressing gesture, he would pass his hand over her grey silky fur, calmed by that warm living softness. "You know I have had a letter from Pluchart," said Étienne one evening. Only Rasseneur was there. The last client had departed for the settlement, which was now going to bed. "Ah!" exclaimed the innkeeper, standing up before his two lodgers. "How are things going with Pluchart?" During the last two months, Étienne had kept up a constant correspondence with the Lille mechanician, whom he had told of his Montsou engagement, and who was now indoctrinating him, having been struck by the propaganda which he might carry on among the miners. "The association is getting on very well. It seems that they are coming in from all sides." "What have you got to say, eh, about their society?" asked Rasseneur of Souvarine. The latter, who was softly scratching Poland's head, blew out a puff of smoke and muttered, with his tranquil air: "More foolery!" But Étienne grew enthusiastic. A predisposition for revolt was throwing him, in the first illusions of his ignorance, into the struggle of labour against capital. It was the International Working Men's Association that they were concerned with, that famous International which had just been founded in London. Was not that a superb effort, a campaign in which justice would at last triumph? No more frontiers; the workers of the whole world rising and uniting to assure to the labourer the bread that he has earned. And what a simple and great organization! Below, the section which represents the commune; then the federation which groups the sections of the same province; then the nation; and then, at last, humanity incarnated in a general council in which each nation was represented by a corresponding secretary. In six months it would conquer the world, and would be able to dictate laws to the masters should they prove obstinate. "Foolery!" repeated Souvarine. "Your Karl Marx is still only thinking about letting natural forces act. No politics, no conspiracies, is it not so? Everything in the light of day, and simply to raise wages. Don't bother me with your evolution! Set fire to the four corners of the town, mow down the people, level everything, and when there is nothing more of this rotten world left standing, perhaps a better one will grow up in its place." Étienne began to laugh. He did not always take in his comrade's sayings; this theory of destruction seemed to him an affectation. Rasseneur, who was still more practical, like a man of solid common sense did not condescend to get angry. He only wanted to have things clear. "Then, what? Are you going to try and create a section at Montsou?" This was what was desired by Pluchart, who was secretary to the Federation of the Nord. He insisted especially on the services which the association would render to the miners should they go out on strike. Étienne believed that a strike was imminent: this timbering business would turn out badly; any further demands on the part of the Company would cause rebellion in all the pits. "It's the subscriptions that are the nuisance," Rasseneur declared, in a judicial tone. "Half a franc a year for the general fund, two francs for the section; it looks like nothing, but I bet that many will refuse to give it." "All the more," added Étienne, "because we must first have here a Provident Fund, which we can use if need be as an emergency fund. No matter, it is time to think about these things. I am ready if the others are." There was silence. The petroleum lamp smoked on the counter. Through the large open door they could distinctly hear the shovel of a stoker at the Voreux stoking the engine. "Everything is so dear!" began Madame Rasseneur, who had entered and was listening with a gloomy air as if she had grown up in her everlasting black dress. "When I tell you that I've paid twenty-two sous for eggs! It will have to burst up." All three men this time were of the same opinion. They spoke one after the other in a despairing voice, giving expression to their complaints. The workers could not hold out; the Revolution had only aggravated their wretchedness; only the bourgeois had grown fat since '89, so greedily that they had not even left the bottom of the plates to lick. Who could say that the workers had had their reasonable share in the extraordinary increase of wealth and comfort during the last hundred years? They had made fun of them by declaring them free. Yes, free to starve, a freedom of which they fully availed themselves. It put no bread into your cupboard to go and vote for fine fellows who went away and enjoyed themselves, thinking no more of the wretched voters than of their old boots. No! one way or another it would have to come to an end, either quietly by laws, by an understanding in good fellowship, or like savages by burning everything and devouring one another. Even if they never saw it, their children would certainly see it, for the century could not come to an end without another revolution, that of the workers this time, a general hustling which would cleanse society from top to bottom, and rebuild it with more cleanliness and justice. "It will have to burst up," Madame Rasseneur repeated energetically. "Yes, yes," they all three cried. "It will have to burst up." Souvarine was now tickling Poland's ears, and her nose was curling with pleasure. He said in a low voice, with abstracted gaze, as if to himself: "Raise wages--how can you? They're fixed by an iron law to the smallest possible sum, just the sum necessary to allow the workers to eat dry bread and get children. If they fall too low, the workers die, and the demand for new men makes them rise. If they rise too high, more men come, and they fall. It is the balance of empty bellies, a sentence to a perpetual prison of hunger." When he thus forgot himself, entering into the questions that stir an educated socialist, Étienne and Rasseneur became restless, disturbed by his despairing statements which they were unable to answer. "Do you understand?" he said again, gazing at them with his habitual calmness; "we must destroy everything, or hunger will reappear. Yes, anarchy and nothing more; the earth washed in blood and purified by fire! Then we shall see!" "Monsieur is quite right," said Madame Rasseneur, who, in her revolutionary violence, was always very polite. Étienne, in despair at his ignorance, would argue no longer. He rose, remarking: "Let's go to bed. All this won't save one from getting up at three o'clock." Souvarine, having blown away the cigarette-end which was sticking to his lips, was already gently lifting the big rabbit beneath the belly to place it on the ground. Rasseneur was shutting up the house. They separated in silence with buzzing ears, as if their heads had swollen with the grave questions they had been discussing. And every evening there were similar conversations in the bare room around the single glass which Étienne took an hour to empty. A crowd of obscure ideas, asleep within him, were stirring and expanding. Especially consumed by the need of knowledge, he had long hesitated to borrow books from his neighbour, who unfortunately had hardly any but German and Russian works. At last he had borrowed a French book on Co-operative Societies--mere foolery, said Souvarine; and he also regularly read a newspaper which the latter received, the Combat, an Anarchist journal published at Geneva. In other respects, notwithstanding their daily relations, he found him as reserved as ever, with his air of camping in life, without interests or feelings or possessions of any kind. Towards the first days of July, Étienne's situation began to improve. In the midst of this monotonous life, always beginning over again, an accident had occurred. The stalls in the Guillaume seam had come across a shifting of the strata, a general disturbance in the layers, which certainly announced that they were approaching a fault; and, in fact, they soon came across this fault which the engineers, in spite of considerable knowledge of the soil, were still ignorant of. This upset the pit; nothing was talked of but the lost seam, which was to be found, no doubt, lower down on the other side of the fault. The old miners were already expanding their nostrils, like good dogs, in a chase for coal. But, meanwhile, the hewers could not stand with folded arms, and placards announced that the Company would put up new workings to auction. Maheu, on coming out one day, accompanied Étienne and offered to take him on as a pikeman in his working, in place of Levaque who had gone to another yard. The matter had already been arranged with the head captain and the engineer, who were very pleased with the young man. So Étienne merely had to accept this rapid promotion, glad of the growing esteem in which Maheu held him. In the evening they returned together to the pit to take note of the placards. The cuttings put up to auction were in the Filonniére seam in the north gallery of the Voreux. They did not seem very advantageous, and the miner shook his head when the young man read out the conditions. On the following day when they had gone down, he took him to see the seam, and showed him how far away it was from the pit-eye, the crumbly nature of the earth, the thinness and hardness of the coal. But if they were to eat they would have to work. So on the following Sunday they went to the auction, which took place in the shed and was presided over by the engineer of the pit, assisted by the head captain, in the absence of the divisional engineer. From five to six hundred miners were there in front of the little platform, which was placed in the corner, and the bidding went on so rapidly that one only heard a deep tumult of voices, of shouted figures drowned by other figures. For a moment Maheu feared that he would not be able to obtain one of the forty workings offered by the Company. All the rivals went lower, disquieted by the rumours of a crisis and the panic of a lock-out. Négrel, the engineer, did not hurry in the face of this panic, and allowed the offers to fall to the lowest possible figures, while Dansaert, anxious to push matters still further, lied with regard to the quality of the workings. In order to get his fifty metres, Maheu struggled with a comrade who was also obstinate; in turn they each took off a centime from the tram; and if he conquered in the end it was only by lowering the wage to such an extent, that the captain Richomme, who was standing behind him, muttered between his teeth, and nudged him with his elbow, growling angrily that he could never do it at that price. When they came out Étienne was swearing. And he broke out before Chaval, who was returning from the wheatfields in company with Catherine, amusing himself while his father-in-law was absorbed in serious business. "By God!" he exclaimed, "it's simply slaughter! Today it is the worker who is forced to devour the worker!" Chaval was furious. He would never have lowered it, he wouldn't. And Zacharie, who had come out of curiosity, declared that it was disgusting. But Étienne with a violent gesture silenced them. "It will end some day, we shall be the masters!" Maheu, who had been mute since the auction, appeared to wake up. He repeated: "Masters! Ah! bad luck! it can't be too soon!" CHAPTER II It was Montsou feast-day, the last Sunday in July. Since Saturday evening the good housekeepers of the settlement had deluged their parlours with water, throwing bucketfuls over the flags and against the walls; and the floor was not yet dry, in spite of the white sand which had been strewn over it, an expensive luxury for the purses of the poor. But the day promised to be very warm; it was one of those heavy skies threatening storm, which in summer stifle this flat bare country of the Nord. Sunday upset the hours for rising, even among the Maheus. While the father, after five o'clock, grew weary of his bed and dressed himself, the children lay in bed until nine. On this day Maheu went to smoke a pipe in the garden, and then came back to eat his bread and butter alone, while waiting. He thus passed the morning in a random manner; he mended the tub, which leaked; stuck up beneath the clock a portrait of the prince imperial which had been given to the little ones. However, the others came down one by one. Father Bonnemort had taken a chair outside, to sit in the sun, while the mother and Alzire had at once set about cooking. Catherine appeared, pushing before her Lénore and Henri, whom she had just dressed. Eleven o'clock struck, and the odour of the rabbit, which was boiling with potatoes, was already filling the house when Zacharie and Jeanlin came down last, still yawning and with their swollen eyes. The settlement was now in a flutter, excited by the feast-day, and in expectation of dinner, which was being hastened for the departure in bands to Montsou. Troops of children were rushing about. Men in their shirt-sleeves were trailing their old shoes with the lazy gait of days of rest. Windows and doors, opened wide in the fine weather, gave glimpses of rows of parlours which were filled with movement and shouts and the chatter of families. And from one end to the other of the frontages, there was a smell of rabbit, a rich kitchen smell which on this day struggled with the inveterate odour of fried onion. The Maheus dined at midday. They made little noise in the midst of the chatter from door to door, in the coming and going of women in a constant uproar of calls and replies, of objects borrowed, of youngsters hunted away or brought back with a slap. Besides, they had not been on good terms during the last three weeks with their neighbours, the Levaques, on the subject of the marriage of Zacharie and Philoméne. The men passed the time of day, but the women pretended not to know each other. This quarrel had strengthened the relations with Pierronne, only Pierronne had left Pierron and Lydie with her mother, and set out early in the morning to spend the day with a cousin at Marchiennes; and they joked, for they knew this cousin; she had a moustache, and was head captain at the Voreux. Maheude declared that it was not proper to leave one's family on a feast-day Sunday. Beside the rabbit with potatoes, a rabbit which had been fattening in the shed for a month, the Maheus had meat soup and beef. The fortnight's wages had just fallen due the day before. They could not recollect such a spread. Even at the last St. Barbara's Day, the fete of the miners when they do nothing for three days, the rabbit had not been so fat nor so tender. So the ten pairs of jaws, from little Estelle, whose teeth were beginning to appear, to old Bonnemort, who was losing his, worked so heartily that the bones themselves disappeared. The meat was good, but they could not digest it well; they saw it too seldom. Everything disappeared; there only remained a piece of boiled beef for the evening. They could add bread and butter if they were hungry. Jeanlin went out first. Bébert was waiting for him behind the school, and they prowled about for a long time before they were able to entice away Lydie, whom Brulé, who had decided not to go out, was trying to keep with her. When she perceived that the child had fled, she shouted and brandished her lean arms, while Pierron, annoyed at the disturbance, strolled quietly away with the air of a husband who can amuse himself with a good conscience, knowing that his wife also has her little amusements. Old Bonnemort set out at last, and Maheu decided to have a little fresh air after asking Maheude if she would come and join him down below. No, she couldn't at all, it was nothing but drudgery with the little ones; but perhaps she would, all the same; she would think about it: they could easily find each other. When he got outside he hesitated, then he went into the neighbours' to see if Levaque was ready. There he found Zacharie, who was waiting for Philoméne, and the Levaque woman started again on that everlasting subject of marriage, saying that she was being made fun of and that she would have an explanation with Maheude once and for all. Was life worth living when one had to keep one's daughter's fatherless children while she went off with her lover? Philoméne quietly finished putting on her bonnet, and Zacharie took her off, saying that he was quite willing if his mother was willing. As Levaque had already gone, Maheu referred his angry neighbour to his wife and hastened to depart. Bouteloup, who was finishing a fragment of cheese with both elbows on the table, obstinately refused the friendly offer of a glass. He would stay in the house like a good husband. Gradually the settlement was emptied; all the men went off one behind the other, while the girls, watching at the doors, set out in the opposite direction on the arms of their lovers. As her father turned the corner of the church, Catherine perceived Chaval, and, hastening to join him, they took together the Montsou road. And the mother remained alone, in the midst of her scattered children, without strength to leave her chair, where she was pouring out a second glass of boiling coffee, which she drank in little sips. In the settlement there were only the women left, inviting each other to finish the dregs of the coffee-pots, around tables that were still warm and greasy with the dinner. Maheu had guessed that Levaque was at the Avantage, and he slowly went down to Rasseneur's. In fact, behind the bar, in the little garden shut in by a hedge, Levaque was having a game of skittles with some mates. Standing by, and not playing, Father Bonnemort and old Mouque were following the ball, so absorbed that they even forgot to nudge each other with their elbows. A burning sun struck down on them perpendicularly; there was only one streak of shade by the side of the inn; and Étienne was there drinking his glass before a table, annoyed because Souvarine had just left him to go up to his room. Nearly every Sunday the engine-man shut himself up to write or to read. "Will you have a game?" asked Levaque of Maheu. But he refused: it was too hot, he was already dying of thirst. "Rasseneur," called Étienne, "bring a glass, will you?" And turning towards Maheu: "I'll stand it, you know." They now all treated each other familiarly. Rasseneur did not hurry himself, he had to be called three times; and Madame Rasseneur at last brought some lukewarm beer. The young man had lowered his voice to complain about the house: they were worthy people, certainly, people with good ideas, but the beer was worthless and the soup abominable! He would have changed his lodgings ten times over, only the thought of the walk from Montsou held him back. One day or another he would go and live with some family at the settlement. "Sure enough!" said Maheu in his slow voice, "sure enough, you would be better in a family." But shouts now broke out. Levaque had overthrown all the skittles at one stroke. Mouque and Bonnemort, with their faces towards the ground, in the midst of the tumult preserved a silence of profound approbation. And the joy at this stroke found vent in jokes, especially when the players perceived Mouquette's radiant face behind the hedge. She had been prowling about there for an hour, and at last ventured to come near on hearing the laughter. "What! are you alone?" shouted Levaque. "Where are your sweethearts?" "My sweethearts! I've stabled them," she replied, with a fine impudent gaiety. "I'm looking for one." They all offered themselves, throwing coarse chaff at her. She refused with a gesture and laughed louder, playing the fine lady. Besides, her father was watching the game without even taking his eyes from the fallen skittles. "Ah!" Levaque went on, throwing a look towards Étienne: "one can tell where you're casting sheep's eyes, my girl! You'll have to take him by force." Then Étienne brightened up. It was in fact around him that the putter was revolving. And he refused, amused indeed, but without having the least desire for her. She remained planted behind the hedge for some minutes longer, looking at him with large fixed eyes; then she slowly went away, and her face suddenly became serious as if she were overcome by the powerful sun. In a low voice Étienne was again giving long explanations to Maheu regarding the necessity for the Montsou miners to establish a Provident Fund. "Since the Company professes to leave us free," he repeated, "what is there to fear? We only have their pensions and they distribute them according to their own idea, since they don't hold back any of our pay. Well, it will be prudent to form, outside their good pleasure, an association of mutual help on which we can count at least in cases of immediate need." And he gave details, and discussed the organization, promising to undertake the labour of it. "I am willing enough," said Maheu, at last convinced. "But there are the others; get them to make up their minds." Levaque had won, and they left the skittles to empty their glasses. But Maheu refused to drink a second glass; he would see later on, the day was not yet done. He was thinking about Pierron. Where could he be? No doubt at the Lenfant Estaminet. And, having persuaded Étienne and Levaque, the three set out for Montsou, at the same moment that a new band took possession of the skittles at the Avantage. On the road they had to pause at the Casimir Bar, and then at the Estaminet du Progrés. Comrades called them through the open doors, and there was no way of refusing. Each time it was a glass, two if they were polite enough to return the invitation. They remained there ten minutes, exchanging a few words, and then began again, a little farther on, knowing the beer, with which they could fill themselves without any other discomfort than having to piss it out again in the same measure, as clear as rock water. At the Estaminet Lenfant they came right upon Pierron, who was finishing his second glass, and who, in order not to refuse to touch glasses, swallowed a third. They naturally drank theirs also. Now there were four of them, and they set out to see if Zacharie was not at the Estaminet Tison. It was empty, and they called for a glass, in order to wait for him a moment. Then they thought of the Estaminet Saint-Éloi and accepted there a round from Captain Richomme. Then they rambled from bar to bar, without any pretext, simply saying that they were having a stroll. "We must go to the Volcan!" suddenly said Levaque, who was getting excited. The others began to laugh, and hesitated. Then they accompanied their comrade in the midst of the growing crowd. In the long narrow room of the Volcan, on a platform raised at the end, five singers, the scum of the Lille prostitutes, were walking about, low-necked and with monstrous gestures, and the customers gave ten sous when they desired to have one behind the stage. There was especially a number of putters and landers, even trammers of fourteen, all the youth of the pit, drinking more gin than beer. A few old miners also ventured there, and the worst husbands of the settlements, those whose households were falling into ruin. As soon as the band was seated round a little table, Étienne took possession of Levaque to explain to him his idea of the Provident Fund. Like all new converts who have found a mission, he had become an obstinate propagandist. "Every member," he repeated, "could easily pay in twenty sous a month. As these twenty sous accumulated they would form a nice little sum in four or five years, and when one has money one is ready, eh, for anything that turns up? Eh, what do you say to it?" "I've nothing to say against it," replied Levaque, with an abstracted air. "We will talk about it." He was excited by an enormous blonde, and determined to remain behind when Maheu and Pierron, after drinking their glasses, set out without waiting for a second song. Outside, Étienne who had gone with them found Mouquette, who seemed to be following them. She was always there, looking at him with her large fixed eyes, laughing her good-natured laugh, as if to say: "Are you willing?" The young man joked and shrugged his shoulders. Then, with a gesture of anger, she was lost in the crowd. "Where, then, is Chaval?" asked Pierron. "True!" said Maheu. "He must surely be at Piquette's. Let us go to Piquette's." But as they all three arrived at the Estaminet Piquette, sounds of a quarrel arrested them at the door; Zacharie with his fist was threatening a thick-set phlegmatic Walloon nail-maker, while Chaval, with his hands in his pockets, was looking on. "Hullo! there's Chaval," said Maheu quietly; "he is with Catherine." For five long hours the putter and her lover had been walking about the fair. All along the Montsou road, that wide road with low bedaubed houses winding downhill, a crowd of people wandered up and down in the sun, like a trail of ants, lost in the flat, bare plain. The eternal black mud had dried, a black dust was rising and floating about like a storm-cloud. On both sides the public-houses were crowded; there were rows of tables to the street, where stood a double rank of hucksters at stalls in the open air, selling neck-handkerchiefs and looking-glasses for the girls, knives and caps for the lads; to say nothing of sweetmeats, sugar-plums, and biscuits. In front of the church archery was going on. Opposite the Yards they were playing at bowls. At the corner of the Joiselle road, beside the Administration buildings, in a spot enclosed by fences, crowds were watching a cock-fight, two large red cocks, armed with steel spurs, their breasts torn and bleeding. Farther on, at Maigrat's, aprons and trousers were being won at billiards. And there were long silences; the crowd drank and stuffed itself without a sound; a mute indigestion of beer and fried potatoes was expanding in the great heat, still further increased by the frying-pans bubbling in the open air. Chaval bought a looking-glass for nineteen sous and a handkerchief for three francs, to give to Catherine. At every turn they met Mouque and Bonnemort, who had come to the fair and, in meditative mood, were plodding heavily through it side by side. Another meeting made them angry; they caught sight of Jeanlin inciting Bébert and Lydie to steal bottles of gin from an extemporized bar installed at the edge of an open piece of ground. Catherine succeeded in boxing her brother's ears; the little girl had already run away with a bottle. These imps of Satan would certainly end in a prison. Then, as they arrived before another bar, the Tête-Coupée, it occurred to Chaval to take his sweetheart in to a competition of chaffinches which had been announced on the door for the past week. Fifteen nail-makers from the Marchiennes nail works had responded to the appeal, each with a dozen cages; and the gloomy little cages in which the blinded finches sat motionless were already hung upon a paling in the inn yard. It was a question as to which, in the course of an hour, should repeat the phrase of its song the greatest number of times. Each nail-maker with a slate stood near his cages to mark, watching his neighbours and watched by them. And the chaffinches had begun, the _chichouïeux_ with the deeper note, the _batisecouics_ with their shriller note, all at first timid, and only risking a rare phrase, then, excited by each other's songs, increasing the pace; then at last carried away by such a rage of rivalry that they would even fall dead. The nail-makers violently whipped them on with their voices, shouting out to them in Walloon to sing more, still more, yet a little more, while the spectators, about a hundred people, stood by in mute fascination in the midst of this infernal music of a hundred and eighty chaffinches all repeating the same cadence out of time. It was a _batisecouic_ which gained the first prize, a metal coffee-pot. Catherine and Chaval were there when Zacharie and Philoméne entered. They shook hands, and all stayed together. But suddenly Zacharie became angry, for he discovered that a nail-maker, who had come in with his mates out of curiosity, was pinching his sister's thigh. She blushed and tried to make him be silent, trembling at the idea that all these nail-makers would throw themselves on Chaval and kill him if he objected to her being pinched. She had felt the pinch, but said nothing out of prudence. Her lover, however, merely made a grimace, and as they all four now went out the affair seemed to be finished. But hardly had they entered Piquette's to drink a glass, when the nail-maker reappeared, making fun of them and coming close up to them with an air of provocation. Zacharie, insulted in his good family feelings, threw himself on the insolent intruder. "That's my sister, you swine! Just wait a bit, and I'm damned if I don't make you respect her." The two men were separated, while Chaval, who was quite calm, only repeated: "Let be! it's my concern. I tell you I don't care a damn for him." Maheu now arrived with his party, and quieted Catherine and Philoméne who were in tears. The nail-maker had disappeared, and there was laughter in the crowd. To bring the episode to an end, Chaval, who was at home at the Estaminet Piquette, called for drinks. Étienne had touched glasses with Catherine, and all drank together--the father, the daughter and her lover, the son and his mistress--saying politely: "To your good health!" Pierron afterwards persisted in paying for more drinks. And they were all in good humour, when Zacharie grew wild again at the sight of his comrade Mouquet, and called him, as he said, to go and finish his affair with the nail-maker. "I shall have to go and do for him! Here, Chaval, keep Philoméne with Catherine. I'm coming back." Maheu offered drinks in his turn. After all, if the lad wished to avenge his sister it was not a bad example. But as soon as she had seen Mouquet, Philoméne felt at rest, and nodded her head. Sure enough the two chaps would be off to the Volcan! On the evenings of feast-days the fair was terminated in the ball-room of the Bon-Joyeux. It was a widow, Madame Désir, who kept this ball-room, a fat matron of fifty, as round as a tub, but so fresh that she still had six lovers, one for every day of the week, she said, and the six together for Sunday. She called all the miners her children; and grew tender at the thought of the flood of beer which she had poured out for them during the last thirty years; and she boasted also that a putter never became pregnant without having first stretched her legs at her establishment. There were two rooms in the Bon-Joyeux: the bar which contained the counter and tables; then, communicating with it on the same floor by a large arch, was the ball-room, a large hall only planked in the middle, being paved with bricks round the sides. It was decorated with two garlands of paper flowers which crossed one another, and were united in the middle by a crown of the same flowers; while along the walls were rows of gilt shields bearing the names of saints--St. Éloi, patron of the iron-workers; St. Crispin, patron of the shoemakers; St. Barbara, patron of the miners; the whole calendar of corporations. The ceiling was so low that the three musicians on their platform, which was about the size of a pulpit, knocked their heads against it. When it became dark four petroleum lamps were fastened to the four corners of the room. On this Sunday there was dancing from five o'clock with the full daylight through the windows, but it was not until towards seven that the rooms began to fill. Outside, a gale was rising, blowing great black showers of dust which blinded people and sleeted into the frying-pans. Maheu, Étienne, and Pierron, having come in to sit down, had found Chaval at the Bon-Joyeux dancing with Catherine, while Philoméne by herself was looking on. Neither Levaque nor Zacharie had reappeared. As there were no benches around the ball-room, Catherine came after each dance to rest at her father's table. They called Philoméne, but she preferred to stand up. The twilight was coming on; the three musicians played furiously; one could only see in the hall the movement of hips and breasts in the midst of a confusion of arms. The appearance of the four lamps was greeted noisily, and suddenly everything was lit up--the red faces, the dishevelled hair sticking to the skin, the flying skirts spreading abroad the strong odour of perspiring couples. Maheu pointed out Mouquette to Étienne: she was as round and greasy as a bladder of lard, revolving violently in the arms of a tall, lean lander. She had been obliged to console herself and take a man. At last, at eight o'clock, Maheude appeared with Estelle at her breast, followed by Alzire, Henri, and Lénore. She had come there straight to her husband without fear of missing him. They could sup later on; as yet nobody was hungry, with their stomachs soaked in coffee and thickened with beer. Other women came in, and they whispered together when they saw, behind Maheude, the Levaque woman enter with Bouteloup, who led in by the hand Achille and Désirée, Philoméne's little ones. The two neighbours seemed to be getting on well together, one turning round to chat with the other. On the way there had been a great explanation, and Maheude had resigned herself to Zacharie's marriage, in despair at the loss of her eldest son's wages, but overcome by the thought that she could not hold it back any longer without injustice. She was trying, therefore, to put a good face on it, though with an anxious heart, as a housekeeper who was asking herself how she could make both ends meet now that the best part of her purse was going. "Place yourself there, neighbour," she said, pointing to a table near that where Maheu was drinking with Étienne and Pierron. "Is not my husband with you?" asked the Levaque woman. The others told her that he would soon come. They were all seated together in a heap, Bouteloup and the youngsters so tightly squeezed among the drinkers that the two tables only formed one. There was a call for drinks. Seeing her mother and her children Philoméne had decided to come near. She accepted a chair, and seemed pleased to hear that she was at last to be married; then, as they were looking for Zacharie, she replied in her soft voice: "I am waiting for him; he is over there." Maheu had exchanged a look with his wife. She had then consented? He became serious and smoked in silence. He also felt anxiety for the morrow in face of the ingratitude of these children, who got married one by one leaving their parents in wretchedness. The dancing still went on, and the end of a quadrille drowned the ball-room in red dust; the walls cracked, a cornet produced shrill whistling sounds like a locomotive in distress; and when the dancers stopped they were smoking like horses. "Do you remember?" said the Levaque woman, bending towards Maheude's ear; "you talked of strangling Catherine if she did anything foolish!" Chaval brought Catherine back to the family table, and both of them standing behind the father finished their glasses. "Bah!" murmured Maheude, with an air of resignation, "one says things like that--. But what quiets me is that she will not have a child; I feel sure of that. You see if she is confined, and obliged to marry, what shall we do for a living then?" Now the cornet was whistling a polka, and as the deafening noise began again, Maheu, in a low voice, communicated an idea to his wife. Why should they not take a lodger? Étienne, for example, who was looking out for quarters? They would have room since Zacharie was going to leave them, and the money that they would lose in that direction would be in part regained in the other. Maheude's face brightened; certainly it was a good idea, it must be arranged. She seemed to be saved from starvation once more, and her good humour returned so quickly that she ordered a new round of drinks. Étienne, meanwhile, was seeking to indoctrinate Pierron, to whom he was explaining his plan of a Provident Fund. He had made him promise to subscribe, when he was imprudent enough to reveal his real aim. "And if we go out on strike you can see how useful that fund will be. We can snap our fingers at the Company, we shall have there a fund to fight against them. Eh? don't you think so?" Pierron lowered his eyes and grew pale; he stammered: "I'll think over it. Good conduct, that's the best Provident Fund." Then Maheu took possession of Étienne, and squarely, like a good man, proposed to take him as a lodger. The young man accepted at once, anxious to live in the settlement with the idea of being nearer to his mates. The matter was settled in three words, Maheude declaring that they would wait for the marriage of the children. Just then, Zacharie at last came back, with Mouquet and Levaque. The three brought in the odours of the Volcan, a breath of gin, a musky acidity of ill-kept girls. They were very tipsy and seemed well pleased with themselves, digging their elbows into each other and grinning. When he knew that he was at last to be married Zacharie began to laugh so loudly that he choked. Philoméne peacefully declared that she would rather see him laugh than cry. As there were no more chairs, Bouteloup had moved so as to give up half of his to Levaque. And the latter, suddenly much affected by realizing that the whole family party was there, once more had beer served out. "By the Lord! we don't amuse ourselves so often!" he roared. They remained there till ten o'clock. Women continued to arrive, either to join or to take away their men; bands of children followed in rows, and the mothers no longer troubled themselves, pulling out their long pale breasts, like sacks of oats, and smearing their chubby babies with milk; while the little ones who were already able to walk, gorged with beer and on all fours beneath the table, relieved themselves without shame. It was a rising sea of beer, from Madame Désir's disembowelled barrels, the beer enlarged every belly, flowing from noses, eyes, and everywhere. So puffed out was the crowd that every one had a shoulder or knee poking into his neighbour; all were cheerful and merry in thus feeling each other's elbows. A continuous laugh kept their mouths open from ear to ear. The heat was like an oven; they were roasting and felt themselves at ease with glistening skin, gilded in a thick smoke from the pipes; the only discomfort was when one had to move away; from time to time a girl rose, went to the other end, near the pump, lifted her clothes, and then came back. Beneath the garlands of painted paper the dancers could no longer see each other, they perspired so much; this encouraged the trammers to tumble the putters over, catching them at random by the hips. But where a girl tumbled with a man over her, the cornet covered their fall with its furious music; the swirl of feet wrapped them round as if the ball had collapsed upon them. Someone who was passing warned Pierron that his daughter Lydie was sleeping at the door, across the pavement. She had drunk her share of the stolen bottle and was tipsy. He had to carry her away in his arms while Jeanlin and Bébert, who were more sober, followed him behind, thinking it a great joke. This was the signal for departure, and several families came out of the Bon-Joyeux, the Maheus and the Levaques deciding to return to the settlement. At the same moment Father Bonnemort and old Mouque also left Montsou, walking in the same somnambulistic manner, preserving the obstinate silence of their recollections. And they all went back together, passing for the last time through the fair, where the frying-pans were coagulating, and by the estaminets, from which the last glasses were flowing in a stream towards the middle of the road. The storm was still threatening, and sounds of laughter arose as they left the lighted houses to lose themselves in the dark country around. Panting breaths arose from the ripe wheat; many children must have been made on that night. They arrived in confusion at the settlement. Neither the Levaques nor the Maheus supped with appetite, and the latter kept on dropping off to sleep while finishing their morning's boiled beef. Étienne had led away Chaval for one more drink at Rasseneur's. "I am with you!" said Chaval, when his mate had explained the matter of the Provident Fund. "Put it there! you're a fine fellow!" The beginning of drunkenness was flaming in Étienne's eyes. He exclaimed: "Yes, let's join hands. As for me, you know I would give up everything for the sake of justice, both drink and girls. There's only one thing that warms my heart, and that is the thought that we are going to sweep away these bourgeois." CHAPTER III Towards the middle of August, Étienne settled with the Maheus, Zacharie having married and obtained from the Company a vacant house in the settlement for Philoméne and the two children. During the first days, the young man experienced some constraint in the presence of Catherine. There was a constant intimacy, as he everywhere replaced the elder brother, sharing Jeanlin's bed over against the big sister's. Going to bed and getting up he had to dress and undress near her, and see her take off and put on her garments. When the last skirt fell from her, she appeared of pallid whiteness, that transparent snow of anaemic blondes; and he experienced a constant emotion in finding her, with hands and face already spoilt, as white as if dipped in milk from her heels to her neck, where the line of tan stood out sharply like a necklace of amber. He pretended to turn away; but little by little he knew her: the feet at first which his lowered eyes met; then a glimpse of a knee when she slid beneath the coverlet; then her bosom with little rigid breasts as she leant over the bowl in the morning. She would hasten without looking at him, and in ten seconds was undressed and stretched beside Alzire, with so supple and snake-like a movement that he had scarcely taken off his shoes when she disappeared, turning her back and only showing her heavy knot of hair. She never had any reason to be angry with him. If a sort of obsession made him watch her in spite of himself at the moment when she lay down, he avoided all practical jokes or dangerous pastimes. The parents were there, and besides he still had for her a feeling, half of friendship and half of spite, which prevented him from treating her as a girl to be desired, in the midst of the abandonment of their now common life in dressing, at meals, during work, where nothing of them remained secret, not even their most intimate needs. All the modesty of the family had taken refuge in the daily bath, for which the young girl now went upstairs alone, while the men bathed below one after the other. At the end of the first month, Étienne and Catherine seemed no longer to see each other when in the evening, before extinguishing the candle, they moved about the room, undressed. She had ceased to hasten, and resumed her old custom of doing up her hair at the edge of her bed, while her arms, raised in the air, lifted her chemise to her thighs, and he, without his trousers, sometimes helped her, looking for the hairpins that she had lost. Custom killed the shame of being naked; they found it natural to be like this, for they were doing no harm, and it was not their fault if there was only one room for so many people. Sometimes, however, a trouble came over them suddenly, at moments when they had no guilty thought. After some nights when he had not seen her pale body, he suddenly saw her white all over, with a whiteness which shook him with a shiver, which obliged him to turn away for fear of yielding to the desire to take her. On other evenings, without any apparent reason, she would be overcome by a panic of modesty and hasten to slip between the sheets as if she felt the hands of this lad seizing her. Then, when the candle was out, they both knew that they were not sleeping but were thinking of each other in spite of their weariness. This made them restless and sulky all the following day; they liked best the tranquil evenings when they could behave together like comrades. Étienne only complained of Jeanlin, who slept curled up. Alzire slept lightly, and Lénore and Henri were found in the morning, in each other's arms, exactly as they had gone to sleep. In the dark house there was no other sound than the snoring of Maheu and Maheude, rolling out at regular intervals like a forge bellows. On the whole, Étienne was better off than at Rasseneur's; the bed was tolerable and the sheets were changed every month. He had better soup, too, and only suffered from the rarity of meat. But they were all in the same condition, and for forty-five francs he could not demand rabbit to every meal. These forty-five francs helped the family and enabled them to make both ends meet, though always leaving some small debts and arrears; so the Maheus were grateful to their lodger; his linen was washed and mended, his buttons sewn on, and his affairs kept in order; in fact he felt all around him a woman's neatness and care. It was at this time that Étienne began to understand the ideas that were buzzing in his brain. Up till then he had only felt an instinctive revolt in the midst of the inarticulate fermentation among his mates. All sorts of confused questions came before him: Why are some miserable? why are others rich? why are the former beneath the heel of the latter without hope of ever taking their place? And his first stage was to understand his ignorance. A secret shame, a hidden annoyance, gnawed him from that time; he knew nothing, he dared not talk about these things which were working in him like a passion--the equality of all men, and the equity which demanded a fair division of the earth's wealth. He thus took to the methodless study of those who in ignorance feel the fascination of knowledge. He now kept up a regular correspondence with Pluchart, who was better educated than himself and more advanced in the Socialist movement. He had books sent to him, and his ill-digested reading still further excited his brain, especially a medical book entitled _Hygiéne du Mineur_, in which a Belgian doctor had summed up the evils of which the people in coal mines were dying; without counting treatises on political economy, incomprehensible in their technical dryness, Anarchist pamphlets which upset his ideas, and old numbers of newspapers which he preserved as irrefutable arguments for possible discussions. Souvarine also lent him books, and the work on Co-operative Societies had made him dream for a month of a universal exchange association abolishing money and basing the whole social life on work. The shame of his ignorance left him, and a certain pride came to him now that he felt himself thinking. During these first months Étienne retained the ecstasy of a novice; his heart was bursting with generous indignation against the oppressors, and looking forward to the approaching triumph of the oppressed. He had not yet manufactured a system, his reading had been too vague. Rasseneur's practical demands were mixed up in his mind with Souvarine's violent and destructive methods, and when he came out of the Avantage, where he was to be found nearly every day railing with them against the Company, he walked as if in a dream, assisting at a radical regeneration of nations to be effected without one broken window or a single drop of blood. The methods of execution remained obscure; he preferred to think that things would go very well, for he lost his head as soon as he tried to formulate a programme of reconstruction. He even showed himself full of illogical moderation; he often said that we must banish politics from the social question, a phrase which he had read and which seemed a useful one to repeat among the phlegmatic colliers with whom he lived. Every evening now, at the Maheus', they delayed half an hour before going up to bed. Étienne always introduced the same subject. As his nature became more refined he found himself wounded by the promiscuity of the settlement. Were they beasts to be thus penned together in the midst of the fields, so tightly packed that one could not change one's shirt without exhibiting one's backside to the neighbours? And how bad it was for health; and boys and girls were forced to grow corrupt together. "Lord!" replied Maheu, "if there were more money there would be more comfort. All the same it's true enough that it's good for no one to live piled up like that. It always ends with making the men drunk and the girls big-bellied." And the family began to talk, each having his say, while the petroleum lamp vitiated the air of the room, already stinking of fried onion. No, life was certainly not a joke. One had to work like a brute at labour which was once a punishment for convicts; one left one's skin there oftener than was one's turn, all that without even getting meat on the table in the evening. No doubt one had one's feed; one ate, indeed, but so little, just enough to suffer without dying, overcome with debts and pursued as if one had stolen the bread. When Sunday came one slept from weariness. The only pleasures were to get drunk and to get a child with one's wife; then the beer swelled the belly, and the child, later on, left you to go to the dogs. No, it was certainly not a joke. Then Maheude joined in. "The bother is, you see, when you have to say to yourself that it won't change. When you're young you think that happiness will come some time, you hope for things; and then the wretchedness begins always over again, and you get shut up in it. Now, I don't wish harm to any one, but there are times when this injustice makes me mad." There was silence; they were all breathing with the vague discomfort of this closed-in horizon. Father Bonnemort only, if he was there, opened his eyes with surprise, for in his time people used not to worry about things; they were born in the coal and they hammered at the seam, without asking for more; while now there was an air stirring which made the colliers ambitious. "It don't do to spit at anything," he murmured. "A good glass is a good glass. As to the masters, they're often rascals; but there always will be masters, won't there? What's the use of racking your brains over those things?" Étienne at once became animated. What! The worker was to be forbidden to think! Why! that was just it; things would change now because the worker had begun to think. In the old man's time the miner lived in the mine like a brute, like a machine for extracting coal, always under the earth, with ears and eyes stopped to outward events. So the rich, who governed, found it easy to sell him and buy him, and to devour his flesh; he did not even know what was going on. But now the miner was waking up down there, germinating in the earth just as a grain germinates; and some fine day he would spring up in the midst of the fields: yes, men would spring up, an army of men who would re-establish justice. Is it not true that all citizens are equal since the Revolution, because they vote together? Why should the worker remain the slave of the master who pays him? The big companies with their machines were crushing everything, and one no longer had against them the ancient guarantees when people of the same trade, united in a body, were able to defend themselves. It was for that, by God, and for no other reason, that all would burst up one day, thanks to education. One had only to look into the settlement itself: the grandfathers could not sign their names, the fathers could do so, and as for the sons, they read and wrote like schoolmasters. Ah! it was springing up, it was springing up, little by little, a rough harvest of men who would ripen in the sun! From the moment when they were no longer each of them stuck to his place for his whole existence, and when they had the ambition to take a neighbour's place, why should they not hit out with their fists and try for the mastery? Maheu was shaken but remained full of doubts. "As soon as you move they give you back your certificate," he said. "The old man is right; it will always be the miner who gets all the trouble, without a chance of a leg of mutton now and then as a reward." Maheude, who had been silent for a while, awoke as from a dream. "But if what the priests tell is true, if the poor people in this world become the rich ones in the next!" A burst of laughter interrupted her; even the children shrugged their shoulders, being incredulous in the open air, keeping a secret fear of ghosts in the pit, but glad of the empty sky. "Ah! bosh! the priests!" exclaimed Maheu. "If they believed that, they'd eat less and work more, so as to reserve a better place for themselves up there. No, when one's dead, one's dead." Maheude sighed deeply. "Oh, Lord, Lord!" Then her hands fell on to her knees with a gesture of immense dejection: "Then if that's true, we are done for, we are." They all looked at one another. Father Bonnemort spat into his handkerchief, while Maheu sat with his extinguished pipe, which he had forgotten, in his mouth. Alzire listened between Lénore and Henri, who were sleeping on the edge of the table. But Catherine, with her chin in her hand, never took her large clear eyes off Étienne while he was protesting, declaring his faith, and opening out the enchanting future of his social dream. Around them the settlement was asleep; one only heard the stray cries of a child or the complaints of a belated drunkard. In the parlour the clock ticked slowly, and a damp freshness arose from the sanded floor in spite of the stuffy air. "Fine ideas!" said the young man; "why do you need a good God and his paradise to make you happy? Haven't you got it in your own power to make yourselves happy on earth?" With his enthusiastic voice he spoke on and on. The closed horizon was bursting out; a gap of light was opening in the sombre lives of these poor people. The eternal wretchedness, beginning over and over again, the brutalizing labour, the fate of a beast who gives his wool and has his throat cut, all the misfortune disappeared, as though swept away by a great flood of sunlight; and beneath the dazzling gleam of fairyland justice descended from heaven. Since the good God was dead, justice would assure the happiness of men, and equality and brotherhood would reign. A new society would spring up in a day just as in dreams, an immense town with the splendour of a mirage, in which each citizen lived by his work, and took his share in the common joys. The old rotten world had fallen to dust; a young humanity purged from its crimes formed but a single nation of workers, having for their motto: "To each according to his deserts, and to each desert according to its performance." And this dream grew continually larger and more beautiful and more seductive as it mounted higher in the impossible. At first Maheude refused to listen, possessed by a deep dread. No, no, it was too beautiful; it would not do to embark upon these ideas, for they made life seem abominable afterwards, and one would have destroyed everything in the effort to be happy. When she saw Maheu's eyes shine, and that he was troubled and won over, she became restless, and exclaimed, interrupting Étienne: "Don't listen, my man! You can see he's only telling us fairy-tales. Do you think the bourgeois would ever consent to work as we do?" But little by little the charm worked on her also. Her imagination was aroused and she smiled at last, entering his marvellous world of hope. It was so sweet to forget for a while the sad reality! When one lives like the beasts with face bent towards the earth, one needs a corner of falsehood where one can amuse oneself by regaling on the things one will never possess. And what made her enthusiastic and brought her into agreement with the young man was the idea of justice. "Now, there you're right!" she exclaimed. "When a thing's just I don't mind being cut to pieces for it. And it's true enough! it would be just for us to have a turn." Then Maheu ventured to become excited. "Blast it all! I am not rich, but I would give five francs to keep alive to see that. What a hustling, eh? Will it be soon? And how can we set about it?" Étienne began talking again. The old social system was cracking; it could not last more than a few months, he affirmed roundly. As to the methods of execution, he spoke more vaguely, mixing up his reading, and fearing before ignorant hearers to enter on explanations where he might lose himself. All the systems had their share in it, softened by the certainty of easy triumph, a universal kiss which would bring to an end all class misunderstandings; without taking count, however, of the thick-heads among the masters and bourgeois whom it would perhaps be necessary to bring to reason by force. And the Maheus looked as if they understood, approving and accepting miraculous solutions with the blind faith of new believers, like those Christians of the early days of the Church, who awaited the coming of a perfect society on the dunghill of the ancient world. Little Alzire picked up a few words, and imagined happiness under the form of a very warm house, where children could play and eat as long as they liked. Catherine, without moving, her chin always resting in her hand, kept her eyes fixed on Étienne, and when he stopped a slight shudder passed over her, and she was quite pale as if she felt the cold. But Maheude looked at the clock. "Past nine! Can it be possible? We shall never get up to-morrow." And the Maheus left the table with hearts ill at ease and in despair. It seemed to them that they had just been rich and that they had now suddenly fallen back into the mud. Father Bonnemort, who was setting out for the pit, growled that those sort of stories wouldn't make the soup better; while the others went upstairs in single file, noticing the dampness of the walls and the pestiferous stuffiness of the air. Upstairs, amid the heavy slumber of the settlement when Catherine had got into bed last and blown out the candle, Étienne heard her tossing feverishly before getting to sleep. Often at these conversations the neighbours came in: Levaque, who grew excited at the idea of a general sharing; Pierron, who prudently went to bed as soon as they attacked the Company. At long intervals Zacharie came in for a moment; but politics bored him, he preferred to go off and drink a glass at the Avantage. As to Chaval, he would go to extremes and wanted to draw blood. Nearly every evening he passed an hour with the Maheus; in this assiduity there was a certain unconfessed jealousy, the fear that he would be robbed of Catherine. This girl, of whom he was already growing tired, had become precious to him now that a man slept near her and could take her at night. Étienne's influence increased; he gradually revolutionized the settlement. His propaganda was unseen, and all the more sure since he was growing in the estimation of all. Maheude, notwithstanding the caution of a prudent housekeeper, treated him with consideration, as a young man who paid regularly and neither drank nor gambled, with his nose always in a book; she spread abroad his reputation among the neighbours as an educated lad, a reputation which they abused by asking him to write their letters. He was a sort of business man, charged with correspondence and consulted by households in affairs of difficulty. Since September he had thus at last been able to establish his famous Provident Fund, which was still very precarious, only including the inhabitants of the settlement; but he hoped to be able to obtain the adhesion of the miners at all the pits, especially if the Company, which had remained passive, continued not to interfere. He had been made secretary of the association and he even received a small salary for the clerking. This made him almost rich. If a married miner can with difficulty make both ends meet, a sober lad who has no burdens can even manage to save. From this time a slow transformation took place in Étienne. Certain instincts of refinement and comfort which had slept during his poverty were now revealed. He began to buy cloth garments; he also bought a pair of elegant boots; he became a big man. The whole settlement grouped round him. The satisfaction of his self-love was delicious; he became intoxicated with this first enjoyment of popularity; to be at the head of others, to command, he who was so young, and but the day before had been a mere labourer, this filled him with pride, and enlarged his dream of an approaching revolution in which he was to play a part. His face changed: he became serious and put on airs, while his growing ambition inflamed his theories and pushed him to ideas of violence. But autumn was advancing, and the October cold had blighted the little gardens of the settlement. Behind the thin lilacs the trammers no longer tumbled the putters over on the shed, and only the winter vegetables remained, the cabbages pearled with white frost, the leeks and the salads. Once more the rains were beating down on the red tiles and flowing down into the tubs beneath the gutters with the sound of a torrent. In every house the stove piled up with coal was never cold, and poisoned the close parlours. It was the season of wretchedness beginning once more. In October, on one of the first frosty nights, Étienne, feverish after his conversation below, could not sleep. He had seen Catherine glide beneath the coverlet and then blow out the candle. She also appeared to be quite overcome, and tormented by one of those fits of modesty which still made her hasten sometimes, and so awkwardly that she only uncovered herself more. In the darkness she lay as though dead; but he knew that she also was awake, and he felt that she was thinking of him just as he was thinking of her: this mute exchange of their beings had never before filled them with such trouble. The minutes went by and neither he nor she moved, only their breathing was embarrassed in spite of their efforts to retain it. Twice over he was on the point of rising and taking her. It was idiotic to have such a strong desire for each other and never to satisfy it. Why should they thus sulk against what they desired? The children were asleep, she was quite willing; he was certain that she was waiting for him, stifling, and that she would close her arms round him in silence with clenched teeth. Nearly an hour passed. He did not go to take her, and she did not turn round for fear of calling him. The more they lived side by side, the more a barrier was raised of shames, repugnancies, delicacies of friendship, which they could not explain even to themselves. CHAPTER IV "Listen," said Maheude to her man, "when you go to Montsou for the pay, just bring me back a pound of coffee and a kilo of sugar." He was sewing one of his shoes, in order to spare the cobbling. "Good!" he murmured, without leaving his task. "I should like you to go to the butcher's too. A bit of veal, eh? It's so long since we saw it." This time he raised his head. "Do you think, then, that I've got thousands coming in? The fortnight's pay is too little as it is, with their confounded idea of always stopping work." They were both silent. It was after breakfast, one Saturday, at the end of October. The Company, under the pretext of the derangement caused by payment, had on this day once more suspended output in all their pits. Seized by panic at the growing industrial crisis, and not wishing to augment their already considerable stock, they profited by the smallest pretexts to force their ten thousand workers to rest. "You know that Étienne is waiting for you at Rasseneur's," began Maheude again. "Take him with you; he'll be more clever than you are in clearing up matters if they haven't counted all your hours." Maheu nodded approval. "And just talk to those gentlemen about your father's affair. The doctor's on good terms with the directors. It's true, isn't it, old un, that the doctor's mistaken, and that you can still work?" For ten days Father Bonnemort, with benumbed paws, as he said, had remained nailed to his chair. She had to repeat her question, and he growled: "Sure enough, I can work. One isn't done for because one's legs are bad. All that is just stories they make up, so as not to give the hundred-and-eighty-franc pension." Maheude thought of the old man's forty sous, which he would, perhaps, never bring in any more, and she uttered a cry of anguish: "My God! we shall soon be all dead if this goes on." "When one is dead," said Maheu, "one doesn't get hungry." He put some nails into his shoes, and decided to set out. The Deux-Cent-Quarante settlement would not be paid till towards four o'clock. The men did not hurry, therefore, but waited about, going off one by one, beset by the women, who implored them to come back at once. Many gave them commissions, to prevent them forgetting themselves in public-houses. At Rasseneur's Étienne had received news. Disquieting rumours were flying about; it was said that the Company were more and more discontented over the timbering. They were overwhelming the workmen with fines, and a conflict appeared inevitable. That was, however, only the avowed dispute; beneath it there were grave and secret causes of complication. Just as Étienne arrived, a comrade, who was drinking a glass on his return from Montsou, was telling that an announcement had been stuck up at the cashier's; but he did not quite know what was on the announcement. A second entered, then a third, and each brought a different story. It seemed certain, however, that the Company had taken a resolution. "What do you say about it, eh?" asked Étienne, sitting down near Souvarine at a table where nothing was to be seen but a packet of tobacco. The engine-man did not hurry, but finished rolling his cigarette. "I say that it was easy to foresee. They want to push you to extremes." He alone had a sufficiently keen intelligence to analyse the situation. He explained it in his quiet way. The Company, suffering from the crisis, had been forced to reduce their expenses if they were not to succumb, and it was naturally the workers who would have to tighten their bellies; under some pretext or another the Company would nibble at their wages. For two months the coal had been remaining at the surface of their pits, and nearly all the workshops were resting. As the Company did not dare to rest in this way, terrified at the ruinous inaction, they were meditating a middle course, perhaps a strike, from which the miners would come out crushed and worse paid. Then the new Provident Fund was disturbing them, as it was a threat for the future, while a strike would relieve them of it, by exhausting it when it was still small. Rasseneur had seated himself beside Étienne, and both of them were listening in consternation. They could talk aloud, because there was no one there but Madame Rasseneur, seated at the counter. "What an idea!" murmured the innkeeper; "what's the good of it? The Company has no interest in a strike, nor the men either. It would be best to come to an understanding." This was very sensible. He was always on the side of reasonable demands. Since the rapid popularity of his old lodger, he had even exaggerated this system of possible progress, saying they would obtain nothing if they wished to have everything at once. In his fat, good-humoured nature, nourished on beer, a secret jealousy was forming, increased by the desertion of his bar, into which the workmen from the Voreux now came more rarely to drink and to listen; and he thus sometimes even began to defend the Company, forgetting the rancour of an old miner who had been turned off. "Then you are against the strike?" cried Madame Rasseneur, without leaving the counter. And as he energetically replied, "Yes!" she made him hold his tongue. "Bah! you have no courage; let these gentlemen speak." Étienne was meditating, with his eyes fixed on the glass which she had served to him. At last he raised his head. "I dare say it's all true what our mate tells us, and we must get resigned to this strike if they force it on us. Pluchart has just written me some very sensible things on this matter. He's against the strike too, for the men would suffer as much as the masters, and it wouldn't come to anything decisive. Only it seems to him a capital chance to get our men to make up their minds to go into his big machine. Here's his letter." In fact, Pluchart, in despair at the suspicion which the International aroused among the miners at Montsou, was hoping to see them enter in a mass if they were forced to fight against the Company. In spite of his efforts, Étienne had not been able to place a single member's card, and he had given his best efforts to his Provident Fund, which was much better received. But this fund was still so small that it would be quickly exhausted, as Souvarine said, and the strikers would then inevitably throw themselves into the Working Men's Association so that their brothers in every country could come to their aid. "How much have you in the fund?" asked Rasseneur. "Hardly three thousand francs," replied Étienne, "and you know that the directors sent for me yesterday. Oh! they were very polite; they repeated that they wouldn't prevent their men from forming a reserve fund. But I quite understood that they wanted to control it. We are bound to have a struggle over that." The innkeeper was walking up and down, whistling contemptuously. "Three thousand francs! what can you do with that! It wouldn't yield six days' bread; and if we counted on foreigners, such as the people in England, one might go to bed at once and turn up one's toes. No, it was too foolish, this strike!" Then for the first time bitter words passed between these two men who usually agreed together at last, in their common hatred of capital. "We shall see! and you, what do you say about it?" repeated Étienne, turning towards Souvarine. The latter replied with his usual phrase of habitual contempt. "A strike? Foolery!" Then, in the midst of the angry silence, he added gently: "On the whole, I shouldn't say no if it amuses you; it ruins the one side and kills the other, and that is always so much cleared away. Only in that way it will take quite a thousand years to renew the world. Just begin by blowing up this prison in which you are all being done to death!" With his delicate hand he pointed out the Voreux, the buildings of which could be seen through the open door. But an unforeseen drama interrupted him: Poland, the big tame rabbit, which had ventured outside, came bounding back, fleeing from the stones of a band of trammers; and in her terror, with fallen ears and raised tail, she took refuge against his legs, scratching and imploring him to take her up. When he had placed her on his knees, he sheltered her with both hands, and fell into that kind of dreamy somnolence into which the caress of this soft warm fur always plunged him. Almost at the same time Maheu came in. He would drink nothing, in spite of the polite insistence of Madame Rasseneur, who sold her beer as though she made a present of it. Étienne had risen, and both of them set out for Montsou. On pay-day at the Company's Yards, Montsou seemed to be in the midst of a fete as on fine Sunday feast-days. Bands of miners arrived from all the settlements. The cashier's office being very small, they preferred to wait at the door, stationed in groups on the pavement, barring the way in a crowd that was constantly renewed. Hucksters profited by the occasion and installed themselves with their movable stalls that sold even pottery and cooked meats. But it was especially the estaminets and the bars which did a good trade, for the miners before being paid went to the counters to get patience, and returned to them to wet their pay as soon as they had it in their pockets. But they were very sensible, except when they finished it at the Volcan. As Maheu and Étienne advanced among the groups they felt that on that day a deep exasperation was rising up. It was not the ordinary indifference with which the money was taken and spent at the publics. Fists were clenched and violent words were passing from mouth to mouth. "Is it true, then," asked Maheu of Chaval, whom he met before the Estaminet Piquette, "that they've played the dirty trick?" But Chaval contented himself by replying with a furious growl, throwing a sidelong look on Étienne. Since the working had been renewed he had hired himself on with others, more and more bitten by envy against this comrade, the new-comer who posed as a boss and whose boots, as he said, were licked by the whole settlement. This was complicated by a lover's jealousy. He never took Catherine to Réquillart now or behind the pit-bank without accusing her in abominable language of sleeping with her mother's lodger; then, seized by savage desire, he would stifle her with caresses. Maheu asked him another question: "Is it the Voreux's turn now?" And when he turned his back after nodding affirmatively, both men decided to enter the Yards. The counting-house was a small rectangular room, divided in two by a grating. On the forms along the wall five or six miners were waiting; while the cashier assisted by a clerk was paying another who stood before the wicket with his cap in his hand. Above the form on the left, a yellow placard was stuck up, quite fresh against the smoky grey of the plaster, and it was in front of this that the men had been constantly passing all the morning. They entered two or three at a time, stood in front of it, and then went away without a word, shrugging their shoulders as if their backs were crushed. Two colliers were just then standing in front of the announcement, a young one with a square brutish head and a very thin old one, his face dull with age. Neither of them could read; the young one spelt, moving his lips, the old one contented himself with gazing stupidly. Many came in thus to look, without understanding. "Read us that there!" said Maheu, who was not very strong either in reading, to his companion. Then Étienne began to read him the announcement. It was a notice from the Company to the miners of all the pits, informing them that in consequence of the lack of care bestowed on the timbering, and being weary of inflicting useless fines, the Company had resolved to apply a new method of payment for the extraction of coal. Henceforward they would pay for the timbering separately, by the cubic metre of wood taken down and used, based on the quantity necessary for good work. The price of the tub of coal extracted would naturally be lowered, in the proportion of fifty centimes to forty, according to the nature and distance of the cuttings, and a somewhat obscure calculation endeavoured to show that this diminution of ten centimes would be exactly compensated by the price of the timbering. The Company added also that, wishing to leave every one time to convince himself of the advantages presented by this new scheme, they did not propose to apply it till Monday, the 1st of December. "Don't read so loud over there," shouted the cashier. "We can't hear what we are saying." Étienne finished reading without paying attention to this observation. His voice trembled, and when he had reached the end they all continued to gaze steadily at the placard. The old miner and the young one looked as though they expected something more; then they went away with depressed shoulders. "Good God!" muttered Maheu. He and his companions sat down absorbed, with lowered heads, and while files of men continued to pass before the yellow paper they made calculations. Were they being made fun of? They could never make up with the timbering for the ten centimes taken off the tram. At most they could only get to eight centimes, so the Company would be robbing them of two centimes, without counting the time taken by careful work. This, then, was what this disguised lowering of wages really came to. The Company was economizing out of the miners' pockets. "Good Lord! Good Lord!" repeated Maheu, raising his head. "We should be bloody fools if we took that." But the wicket being free he went up to be paid. The heads only of the workings presented themselves at the desk and then divided the money between their men to save time. "Maheu and associates," said the clerk, "Filonniére seam, cutting No. 7." He searched through the lists which were prepared from the inspection of the tickets on which the captains stated every day for each stall the number of trams extracted. Then he repeated: "Maheu and associates, Filonniére seam, cutting No. 7. One hundred and thirty-five francs." The cashier paid. "Beg pardon, sir," stammered the pikeman in surprise. "Are you sure you have not made a mistake?" He looked at this small sum of money without picking it up, frozen by a shudder which went to his heart. It was true he was expecting bad payment, but it could not come to so little or he must have calculated wrong. When he had given their shares to Zacharie, Étienne, and the other mate who replaced Chaval, there would remain at most fifty francs for himself, his father, Catherine, and Jeanlin. "No, no, I've made no mistake," replied the clerk. "There are two Sundays and four rest days to be taken off; that makes nine days of work." Maheu followed this calculation in a low voice: nine days gave him about thirty francs, eighteen to Catherine, nine to Jeanlin. As to Father Bonnemort, he only had three days. No matter, by adding the ninety francs of Zacharie and the two mates, that would surely make more. "And don't forget the fines," added the clerk. "Twenty francs for fines for defective timbering." The pikeman made a gesture of despair. Twenty francs of fines, four days of rest! That made out the account. To think that he had once brought back a fortnight's pay of full a hundred and fifty francs when Father Bonnemort was working and Zacharie had not yet set up house for himself! "Well, are you going to take it?" cried the cashier impatiently. "You can see there's someone else waiting. If you don't want it, say so." As Maheu decided to pick up the money with his large trembling hand the clerk stopped him. "Wait: I have your name here. Toussaint Maheu, is it not? The general secretary wishes to speak to you. Go in, he is alone." The dazed workman found himself in an office furnished with old mahogany, upholstered with faded green rep. And he listened for five minutes to the general secretary, a tall sallow gentleman, who spoke to him over the papers of his bureau without rising. But the buzzing in his ears prevented him from hearing. He understood vaguely that the question of his father's retirement would be taken into consideration with the pension of a hundred and fifty francs, fifty years of age and forty years' service. Then it seemed to him that the secretary's voice became harder. There was a reprimand; he was accused of occupying himself with politics; an allusion was made to his lodger and the Provident Fund; finally he was advised not to compromise himself with these follies, he, who was one of the best workmen in the mine. He wished to protest, but could only pronounce words at random, twisting his cap between his feverish fingers, and he retired, stuttering: "Certainly, sir--I can assure you, sir----" Outside, when he had found Étienne who waiting for him, he broke out: "Well, I am a bloody fool, I ought to have replied! Not enough money to get bread, and insults as well! Yes, he has been talking against you; he told me the settlement was being poisoned. And what's to be done? Good God! bend one's back and say thank you. He's right, that's the wisest plan." Maheu fell silent, overcome at once by rage and fear. Étienne was gloomily thinking. Once more they traversed the groups who blocked the road. The exasperation was growing, the exasperation of a calm race, the muttered warning of a storm, without violent gestures, terrible to see above this solid mass. A few men understanding accounts had made calculations, and the two centimes gained by the Company over the wood were rumoured about, and excited the hardest heads. But it was especially the rage over this disastrous pay, the rebellion of hunger against the rest days and the fines. Already there was not enough to eat, and what would happen if wages were still further lowered? In the estaminets the anger grew loud, and fury so dried their throats that the little money taken went over the counters. From Montsou to the settlement Étienne and Maheu never exchanged a word. When the latter entered, Maheude, who was alone with the children, noticed immediately that his hands were empty. "Well, you're a nice one!" she said. "Where's my coffee and my sugar and the meat? A bit of veal wouldn't have ruined you." He made no reply, stifled by the emotion he had been keeping back. Then the coarse face of this man hardened to work in the mines became swollen with despair, and large tears broke from his eyes and fell in a warm rain. He had thrown himself into a chair, weeping like a child, and throwing fifty francs on the table: "Here," he stammered. "That's what I've brought you back. That's our work for all of us." Maheude looked at Étienne, and saw that he was silent and overwhelmed. Then she also wept. How were nine people to live for a fortnight on fifty francs? Her eldest son had left them, the old man could no longer move his legs: it would soon mean death. Alzire threw herself round her mother's neck, overcome on hearing her weep. Estelle was howling, Lénore and Henri were sobbing. And from the entire settlement there soon arose the same cry of wretchedness. The men had come back, and each household was lamenting the disaster of this bad pay. The doors opened, women appeared, crying aloud outside, as if their complaints could not be held beneath the ceilings of these small houses. A fine rain was falling, but they did not feel it, they called one another from the pavements, they showed one another in the hollow of their hands the money they had received. "Look! they've given him this. Do they want to make fools of people?" "As for me, see, I haven't got enough to pay for the fortnight's bread with." "And just count mine! I should have to sell my shifts!" Maheude had come out like the others. A group had formed around the Levaque woman, who was shouting loudest of all, for her drunkard of a husband had not even turned up, and she knew that, large or small, the pay would melt away at the Volcan. Philoméne watched Maheu so that Zacharie should not get hold of the money. Pierronne was the only one who seemed fairly calm, for that sneak of a Pierron always arranged things, no one knew how, so as to have more hours on the captain's ticket than his mates. But Mother Brulé thought this cowardly of her son-in-law; she was among the enraged, lean and erect in the midst of the group, with her fists stretched towards Montsou. "To think," she cried, without naming the Hennebeaus, "that this morning I saw their servant go by in a carriage! Yes, the cook in a carriage with two horses, going to Marchiennes to get fish, sure enough!" A clamour arose, and the abuse began again. That servant in a white apron taken to the market of the neighbouring town in her master's carriage aroused indignation. While the workers were dying of hunger they must have their fish, at all costs! Perhaps they would not always be able to eat their fish: the turn of the poor people would come. And the ideas sown by Étienne sprang up and expanded in this cry of revolt. It was impatience before the promised age of gold, a haste to get a share of the happiness beyond this horizon of misery, closed in like the grave. The injustice was becoming too great; at last they would demand their rights, since the bread was being taken out of their mouths. The women especially would have liked at once to take by assault this ideal city of progress, in which there was to be no more wretchedness. It was almost night, and the rain increased while they were still filling the settlement with their tears in the midst of the screaming helter-skelter of the children. That evening at the Avantage the strike was decided on. Rasseneur no longer struggled against it, and Souvarine accepted it as a first step. Étienne summed up the situation in a word: if the Company really wanted a strike then the Company should have a strike. CHAPTER V A week passed, and work went on suspiciously and mournfully in expectation of the conflict. Among the Maheus the fortnight threatened to be more meagre than ever. Maheude grew bitter, in spite of her moderation and good sense. Her daughter Catherine, too, had taken it into her head to stay out one night. On the following morning she came back so weary and ill after this adventure that she was not able to go to the pit; and she told with tears how it was not her fault, for Chaval had kept her, threatening to beat her if she ran away. He was becoming mad with jealousy, and wished to prevent her from returning to Étienne's bed, where he well knew, he said, that the family made her sleep. Maheude was furious, and, after forbidding her daughter ever to see such a brute again, talked of going to Montsou to box his ears. But, all the same, it was a day lost, and the girl, now that she had this lover, preferred not to change him. Two days after there was another incident. On Monday and Tuesday Jeanlin, who was supposed to be quietly engaged on his task at the Voreux, had escaped, to run away into the marshes and the forest of Vandame with Bébert and Lydie. He had seduced them; no one knew to what plunder or to what games of precocious children they had all three given themselves up. He received a vigorous punishment, a whipping which his mother applied to him on the pavement outside before the terrified children of the settlement. Who could have thought such a thing of children belonging to her, who had cost so much since their birth, and who ought now to be bringing something in? And in this cry there was the remembrance of her own hard youth, of the hereditary misery which made of each little one in the brood a bread-winner later on. That morning, when the men and the girl set out for the pit, Maheude sat up in her bed to say to Jeanlin: "You know that if you begin that game again, you little beast, I'll take the skin off your bottom!" In Maheu's new stall the work was hard. This part of the Filonniére seam was so thin that the pikemen, squeezed between the wall and the roof, grazed their elbows at their work. It was, too, becoming very damp; from hour to hour they feared a rush of water, one of those sudden torrents which burst through rocks and carry away men. The day before, as Étienne was violently driving in his pick and drawing it out, he had received a jet of water in his face; but this was only an alarm; the cutting simply became damper and more unwholesome. Besides, he now thought nothing of possible accidents; he forgot himself there with his mates, careless of peril. They lived in fire-damp without even feeling its weight on their eyelids, the spider's-web veil which it left on the eyelashes. Sometimes when the flame of the lamps grew paler and bluer than usual it attracted attention, and a miner would put his head against the seam to listen to the low noise of the gas, a noise of air-bubbles escaping from each crack. But the constant threat was of landslips; for, besides the insufficiency of the timbering, always patched up too quickly, the soil, soaked with water, would not hold. Three times during the day Maheu had been obliged to add to the planking. It was half-past two, and the men would soon have to ascend. Lying on his side, Étienne was finishing the cutting of a block, when a distant growl of thunder shook the whole mine. "What's that, then?" he cried, putting down his axe to listen. He had at first thought that the gallery was falling in behind his back. But Maheu had already glided along the slope of the cutting, saying: "It's a fall! Quick, quick!" All tumbled down and hastened, carried away by an impulse of anxious fraternity. Their lamps danced at their wrists in the deathly silence which had fallen; they rushed in single file along the passages with bent backs, as though they were galloping on all fours; and without slowing this gallop they asked each other questions and threw brief replies. Where was it, then? In the cuttings, perhaps. No, it came from below; no, from the haulage. When they arrived at the chimney passage, they threw themselves into it, tumbling one over the other without troubling about bruises. Jeanlin, with skin still red from the whipping of the day before, had not run away from the pit on this day. He was trotting with naked feet behind his tram, closing the ventilation doors one by one; when he was not afraid of meeting a captain he jumped on to the last tram, which he was not allowed to do for fear he should go to sleep. But his great amusement was, whenever the tram was shunted to let another one pass, to go and join Bébert, who was holding the reins in front. He would come up slyly without his lamp and vigorously pinch his companion, inventing mischievous monkey tricks, with his yellow hair, his large ears, his lean muzzle, lit up by little green eyes shining in the darkness. With morbid precocity, he seemed to have the obscure intelligence and the quick skill of a human abortion which had returned to its animal ways. In the afternoon, Mouque brought Bataille, whose turn it was, to the trammers; and as the horse was snuffing in the shunting, Jeanlin, who had glided up to Bébert, asked him: "What's the matter with the old hack to stop short like that? He'll break my legs." Bébert could not reply; he had to hold in Bataille, who was growing lively at the approach of the other tram. The horse had smelled from afar his comrade, Trompette, for whom he had felt great tenderness ever since the day when he had seen him disembarked in the pit. One might say that it was the affectionate pity of an old philosopher anxious to console a young friend by imparting to him his own resignation and patience; for Trompette did not become reconciled, drawing his trams without any taste for the work, standing with lowered head blinded by the darkness, and for ever regretting the sun. So every time that Bataille met him he put out his head snorting, and moistened him with an encouraging caress. "By God!" swore Bébert, "there they are, licking each other's skins again!" Then, when Trompette had passed, he replied, on the subject of Bataille: "Oh, he's a cunning old beast! When he stops like that it's because he guesses there's something in the way, a stone or a hole, and he takes care of himself; he doesn't want to break his bones. To-day I don't know what was the matter with him down there after the door. He pushed it, and stood stock-still. Did you see anything?" "No," said Jeanlin. "There's water, I've got it up to my knees." The tram set out again. And, on the following journey, when he had opened the ventilation door with a blow from his head, Bataille again refused to advance, neighing and trembling. At last he made up his mind, and set off with a bound. Jeanlin, who closed the door, had remained behind. He bent down and looked at the mud through which he was paddling, then, raising his lamp, he saw that the wood had given way beneath the continual bleeding of a spring. Just then a pikeman, one Berloque, who was called Chicot, had arrived from his cutting, in a hurry to go to his wife who had just been confined. He also stopped and examined the planking. And suddenly, as the boy was starting to rejoin his train, a tremendous cracking sound was heard, and a landslip engulfed the man and the child. There was deep silence. A thick dust raised by the wind of the fall passed through the passages. Blinded and choked, the miners came from every part, even from the farthest stalls, with their dancing lamps which feebly lighted up this gallop of black men at the bottom of these molehills. When the first men tumbled against the landslip, they shouted out and called their mates. A second band, come from the cutting below, found themselves on the other side of the mass of earth which stopped up the gallery. It was at once seen that the roof had fallen in for a dozen metres at most. The damage was not serious. But all hearts were contracted when a death-rattle was heard from the ruins. Bébert, leaving his tram, ran up, repeating: "Jeanlin is underneath! Jeanlin is underneath!" Maheu, at this very moment, had come out of the passage with Zacharie and Étienne. He was seized with the fury of despair, and could only utter oaths: "My God! my God! my God!" Catherine, Lydie, and Mouquette, who had also rushed up, began to sob and shriek with terror in the midst of the fearful disorder, which was increased by the darkness. The men tried to make them be silent, but they shrieked louder as each groan was heard. The captain, Richomme, had come up running, in despair that neither Négrel, the engineer, nor Dansaert was at the pit. With his ear pressed against the rocks he listened; and, at last, said those sounds could not come from a child. A man must certainly be there. Maheu had already called Jeanlin twenty times over. Not a breath was heard. The little one must have been smashed up. And still the groans continued monotonously. They spoke to the agonized man, asking him his name. The groaning alone replied. "Look sharp!" repeated Richomme, who had already organized a rescue, "we can talk afterwards." From each end the miners attacked the landslip with pick and shovel. Chaval worked without a word beside Maheu and Étienne, while Zacharie superintended the removal of the earth. The hour for ascent had come, and no one had touched food; but they could not go up for their soup while their mates were in peril. They realized, however, that the settlement would be disturbed if no one came back, and it was proposed to send off the women. But neither Catherine nor Mouquette, nor even Lydie, would move, nailed to the spot with a desire to know what had happened, and to help. Levaque then accepted the commission of announcing the landslip up above--a simple accident, which was being repaired. It was nearly four o'clock; in less than an hour the men had done a day's work; half the earth would have already been removed if more rocks had not slid from the roof. Maheu persisted with such energy that he refused, with a furious gesture, when another man approached to relieve him for a moment. "Gently!" said Richomme at last, "we are getting near. We must not finish them off." In fact the groaning was becoming more and more distinct. It was a continuous rattling which guided the workers; and now it seemed to be beneath their very picks. Suddenly it stopped. In silence they all looked at one another, and shuddered as they felt the coldness of death pass in the darkness. They dug on, soaked in sweat, their muscles tense to breaking. They came upon a foot, and then began to remove the earth with their hands, freeing the limbs one by one. The head was not hurt. They turned their lamps on it, and Chicot's name went round. He was quite warm, with his spinal column broken by a rock. "Wrap him up in a covering, and put him in a tram," ordered the captain. "Now for the lad; look sharp." Maheu gave a last blow, and an opening was made, communicating with the men who were clearing away the soil from the other side. They shouted out that they had just found Jeanlin, unconscious, with both legs broken, still breathing. It was the father who took up the little one in his arms, with clenched jaws constantly uttering "My God!" to express his grief, while Catherine and the other women again began to shriek. A procession was quickly formed. Bébert had brought back Bataille, who was harnessed to the trams. In the first lay Chicot's corpse, supported by Étienne; in the second, Maheu was seated with Jeanlin, still unconscious, on his knees, covered by a strip of wool torn from the ventilation door. They started at a walking pace. On each tram was a lamp like a red star. Then behind followed the row of miners, some fifty shadows in single file. Now that they were overcome by fatigue, they trailed their feet, slipping in the mud, with the mournful melancholy of a flock stricken by an epidemic. It took them nearly half an hour to reach the pit-eye. This procession beneath the earth, in the midst of deep darkness, seemed never to end through galleries which bifurcated and turned and unrolled. At the pit-eye Richomme, who had gone on before, had ordered an empty cage to be reserved. Pierron immediately loaded the two trams. In the first Maheu remained with his wounded little one on his knees, while in the other Étienne kept Chicot's corpse between his arms to hold it up. When the men had piled themselves up in the other decks the cage rose. It took two minutes. The rain from the tubbing fell very cold, and the men looked up towards the air impatient to see daylight. Fortunately a trammer sent to Dr. Vanderhaghen's had found him and brought him back. Jeanlin and the dead man were placed in the captains' room, where, from year's end to year's end, a large fire burnt. A row of buckets with warm water was ready for washing feet; and, two mattresses having been spread on the floor, the man and the child were placed on them. Maheu and Étienne alone entered. Outside, putters, miners, and boys were running about, forming groups and talking in a low voice. As soon as the doctor had glanced at Chicot: "Done for! You can wash him." Two overseers undressed and then washed with a sponge this corpse blackened with coal and still dirty with the sweat of work. "Nothing wrong with the head," said the doctor again, kneeling on Jeanlin's mattress. "Nor the chest either. Ah! it's the legs which have given." He himself undressed the child, unfastening the cap, taking off the jacket, drawing off the breeches and shirt with the skill of a nurse. And the poor little body appeared, as lean as an insect, stained with black dust and yellow earth, marbled by bloody patches. Nothing could be made out, and they had to wash him also. He seemed to grow leaner beneath the sponge, the flesh so pallid and transparent that one could see the bones. It was a pity to look on this last degeneration of a wretched race, this mere nothing that was suffering and half crushed by the falling of the rocks. When he was clean they perceived the bruises on the thighs, two red patches on the white skin. Jeanlin, awaking from his faint, moaned. Standing up at the foot of the mattress with hands hanging down, Maheu was looking at him and large tears rolled from his eyes. "Eh, are you the father?" said the doctor, raising his eyes; "no need to cry then, you can see he is not dead. Help me instead." He found two simple fractures. But the right leg gave him some anxiety, it would probably have to be cut off. At this moment the engineer, Négrel, and Dansaert, who had been informed, came up with Richomme. The first listened to the captain's narrative with an exasperated air. He broke out: Always this cursed timbering! Had he not repeated a hundred times that they would leave their men down there! and those brutes who talked about going out on strike if they were forced to timber more solidly. The worst was that now the Company would have to pay for the broken pots. M. Hennebeau would be pleased! "Who is it?" he asked of Dansaert, who was standing in silence before the corpse which was being wrapped up in a sheet. "Chicot! one of our good workers," replied the chief captain. "He has three children. Poor chap!" Dr. Vanderhaghen ordered Jeanlin's immediate removal to his parents'. Six o'clock struck, twilight was already coming on, and they would do well to remove the corpse also; the engineer gave orders to harness the van and to bring a stretcher. The wounded child was placed on the stretcher while the mattress and the dead body were put into the van. Some putters were still standing at the door talking with some miners who were waiting about to look on. When the door reopened there was silence in the group. A new procession was then formed, the van in front, then the stretcher, and then the train of people. They left the mine square and went slowly up the road to the settlement. The first November cold had denuded the immense plain; the night was now slowly burying it like a shroud fallen from the livid sky. Étienne then in a low voice advised Maheu to send Catherine on to warn Maheude so as to soften the blow. The overwhelmed father, who was following the stretcher, agreed with a nod; and the young girl set out running, for they were now near. But the van, that gloomy well-known box, was already signalled. Women ran out wildly on to the paths; three or four rushed about in anguish, without their bonnets. Soon there were thirty of them, then fifty, all choking with the same terror. Then someone was dead? Who was it? The story told by Levaque after first reassuring them, now exaggerated their nightmare: it was not one man, it was ten who had perished, and who were now being brought back in the van one by one. Catherine found her mother agitated by a presentiment; and after hearing the first stammered words Maheude cried: "The father's dead!" The young girl protested in vain, speaking of Jeanlin. Without hearing her, Maheude had rushed forward. And on seeing the van, which was passing before the church, she grew faint and pale. The women at their doors, mute with terror, were stretching out their necks, while others followed, trembling as they wondered before whose house the procession would stop. The vehicle passed; and behind it Maheude saw Maheu, who was accompanying the stretcher. Then, when they had placed the stretcher at her door and when she saw Jeanlin alive with his legs broken, there was so sudden a reaction in her that she choked with anger, stammering, without tears: "Is this it? They cripple our little ones now! Both legs! My God! What do they want me to do with him?" "Be still, then," said Dr. Vanderhaghen, who had followed to attend to Jeanlin. "Would you rather he had remained below?" But Maheude grew more furious, while Alzire, Lénore, and Henri were crying around her. As she helped to carry up the wounded boy and to give the doctor what he needed, she cursed fate, and asked where she was to find money to feed invalids. The old man was not then enough, now this rascal too had lost his legs! And she never ceased; while other cries, more heart-breaking lamentations, were heard from a neighbouring house: Chicot's wife and children were weeping over the body. It was now quite night, the exhausted miners were at last eating their soup, and the settlement had fallen into a melancholy silence, only disturbed by these loud outcries. Three weeks passed. It was found possible to avoid amputation; Jeanlin kept both his legs, but he remained lame. On investigation the Company had resigned itself to giving a donation of fifty francs. It had also promised to find employment for the little cripple at the surface as soon as he was well. All the same their misery was aggravated, for the father had received such a shock that he was seriously ill with fever. Since Thursday Maheu had been back at the pit and it was now Sunday. In the evening Étienne talked of the approaching date of the 1st of December, preoccupied in wondering if the Company would execute its threat. They sat up till ten o'clock waiting for Catherine, who must have been delaying with Chaval. But she did not return. Maheude furiously bolted the door without a word. Étienne was long in going to sleep, restless at the thought of that empty bed in which Alzire occupied so little room. Next morning she was still absent; and it was only in the afternoon, on returning from the pit, that the Maheus learnt that Chaval was keeping Catherine. He created such abominable scenes with her that she had decided to stay with him. To avoid reproaches he had suddenly left the Voreux and had been taken on at Jean-Bart, M. Deneulin's mine, and she had followed him as a putter. The new household still lived at Montsou, at Piquette's. Maheu at first talked of going to fight the man and of bringing his daughter back with a kick in the backside. Then he made a gesture of resignation: what was the good? It always turned out like that; one could not prevent a girl from sticking to a man when she wanted to. It was much better to wait quietly for the marriage. But Maheude did not take things so easily. "Did I beat her when she took this Chaval?" she cried to Étienne, who listened in silence, very pale. "See now, tell me! you, who are a sensible man. We have left her free, haven't we? because, my God! they all come to it. Now, I was in the family way when the father married me. But I didn't run away from my parents, and I should never have done so dirty a trick as to carry the money I earned to a man who had no want of it before the proper age. Ah! it's disgusting, you know. People will leave off getting children!" And as Étienne still replied only by nodding his head, she insisted: "A girl who went out every evening where she wanted to! What has she got in her skin, then, not to be able to wait till I married her after she had helped to get us out of difficulties? Eh? it's natural, one has a daughter to work. But there! we have been too good, we ought not to let her go and amuse herself with a man. Give them an inch and they take an ell." Alzire nodded approvingly. Lénore and Henri, overcome by this storm, cried quietly, while the mother now enumerated their misfortunes: first Zacharie who had had to get married; then old Bonnemort who was there on his chair with his twisted feet; then Jeanlin who could not leave the room for ten days with his badly-united bones; and now, as a last blow, this jade Catherine, who had gone away with a man! The whole family was breaking up. There was only the father left at the pit. How were they to live, seven persons without counting Estelle, on his three francs? They might as well jump into the canal in a band. "It won't do any good to worry yourself," said Maheu in a low voice, "perhaps we have not got to the end." Étienne, who was looking fixedly at the flags on the floor, raised his head, and murmured with eyes lost in a vision of the future: "Ah! it is time! it is time!" PART FOUR CHAPTER I On that Monday the Hennebeaus had invited the Grégoires and their daughter Cécile to lunch. They had formed their plans: on rising from table, Paul Négrel was to take the ladies to a mine, Saint-Thomas, which had been luxuriously reinstalled. But this was only an amiable pretext; this party was an invention of Madame Hennebeau's to hasten the marriage of Cécile and Paul. Suddenly, on this very Monday, at four o'clock in the morning, the strike broke out. When, on the 1st of December, the Company had adopted the new wage system, the miners remained calm. At the end of the fortnight not one made the least protest on pay-day. Everybody, from the manager down to the last overseer, considered the tariff as accepted; and great was their surprise in the morning at this declaration of war, made with a tactical unity which seemed to indicate energetic leadership. At five o'clock Dansaert woke M. Hennebeau to inform him that not a single man had gone down at the Voreux. The settlement of the Deux-Cent-Quarante, which he had passed through, was sleeping deeply, with closed windows and doors. And as soon as the manager had jumped out of bed, his eyes still swollen with sleep, he was overwhelmed. Every quarter of an hour messengers came in, and dispatches fell on his desk as thick as hail. At first he hoped that the revolt was limited to the Voreux; but the news became more serious every minute. There was the Mirou, the Crévecoeur, the Madeleine, where only the grooms had appeared; the Victoire and Feutry-Cantel, the two best disciplined pits, where the men had been reduced by a third; Saint-Thomas alone numbered all its people, and seemed to be outside the movement. Up to nine o'clock he dictated dispatches, telegraphing in all directions, to the prefect of Lille, to the directors of the Company, warning the authorities and asking for orders. He had sent Négrel to go round the neighbouring pits to obtain precise information. Suddenly M. Hennebeau recollected the lunch; and he was about to send the coachman to tell the Grégoires that the party had been put off, when a certain hesitation and lack of will stopped him--the man who in a few brief phrases had just made military preparations for a field of battle. He went up to Madame Hennebeau, whose hair had just been done by her lady's maid, in her dressing-room. "Ah! they are on strike," she said quietly, when he had told her. "Well, what has that to do with us? We are not going to leave off eating, I suppose?" And she was obstinate; it was vain to tell her that the lunch would be disturbed, and that the visit to Saint-Thomas could not take place. She found an answer to everything. Why lose a lunch that was already cooking? And as to visiting the pit, they could give that up afterwards if the walk was really imprudent. "Besides," she added, when the maid had gone out, "you know that I am anxious to receive these good people. This marriage ought to affect you more than the follies of your men. I want to have it, don't contradict me." He looked at her, agitated by a slight trembling, and the hard firm face of the man of discipline expressed the secret grief of a wounded heart. She had remained with naked shoulders, already over-mature, but still imposing and desirable, with the broad bust of a Ceres gilded by the autumn. For a moment he felt a brutal desire to seize her, and to roll his head between the breasts she was exposing in this warm room, which exhibited the private luxury of a sensual woman and had about it an irritating perfume of musk, but he recoiled; for ten years they had occupied separate rooms. "Good!" he said, leaving her. "Do not make any alterations." M. Hennebeau had been born in the Ardennes. In his early life he had undergone the hardships of a poor boy thrown as an orphan on the Paris streets. After having painfully followed the courses of the École des Mines, at the age of twenty-four he had gone to the Grand' Combe as engineer to the Sainte-Barbe mine. Three years later he became divisional engineer in the Pas-de-Calais, at the Marles mines. It was there that he married, wedding, by one of those strokes of fortune which are the rule among the Corps des Mines, the daughter of the rich owner of a spinning factory at Arras. For fifteen years they lived in the same small provincial town, and no event broke the monotony of existence, not even the birth of a child. An increasing irritation detached Madame Hennebeau, who had been brought up to respect money, and was disdainful of this husband who gained a small salary with such difficulty, and who enabled her to gratify none of the satisfactions of vanity which she had dreamed of at school. He was a man of strict honesty, who never speculated, but stood at his post like a soldier. The lack of harmony had only increased, aggravated by one of those curious misunderstandings of the flesh which freeze the most ardent; he adored his wife, she had the sensuality of a greedy blonde, and already they slept apart, ill at ease and wounded. From that time she had a lover of whom he was ignorant. At last he left the Pas-de-Calais to occupy a situation in an office at Paris, with the idea that she would be grateful to him. But Paris only completed their separation, that Paris which she had desired since her first doll, and where she washed away her provincialism in a week, becoming a woman of fashion at once, and throwing herself into all the luxurious follies of the period. The ten years which she spent there were filled by a great passion, a public intrigue with a man whose desertion nearly killed her. This time the husband had not been able to keep his ignorance, and after some abominable scenes he resigned himself, disarmed by the quiet unconsciousness of this woman who took her happiness where she found it. It was after the rupture, and when he saw that she was ill with grief, that he had accepted the management of the Montsou mines, still hoping also that she would reform down there in that desolate black country. The Hennebeaus, since they had lived at Montsou, returned to the irritated boredom of their early married days. At first she seemed consoled by the great quiet, soothed by the flat monotony of the immense plain; she buried herself in it as a woman who has done with the world; she affected a dead heart, so detached from life that she did not even mind growing stout. Then, beneath this indifference a final fever declared itself, the need to live once more, and she deluded herself for six months by organizing and furnishing to her taste the little villa belonging to the management. She said it was frightful, and filled it with upholstery, bric-a-brac, and all sorts of artistic luxuries which were talked of as far as Lille. Now the country exasperated her, those stupid fields spread out to infinity, those eternal black roads without a tree, swarming with a horrid population which disgusted and frightened her. Complaints of exile began; she accused her husband of having sacrificed her to a salary of forty thousand francs, a trifle which hardly sufficed to keep the house up. Why could he not imitate others, demand a part for himself, obtain shares, succeed in something at last? And she insisted with the cruelty of an heiress who had brought her own fortune. He, always restrained, and taking refuge in the deceptive coldness of a man of business, was torn by desire for this creature, one of those late desires which are so violent and which increase with age. He had never possessed her as a lover; he was haunted by a continual image, to have her once to himself as she had given herself to another. Every morning he dreamed of winning her in the evening; then, when she looked at him with her cold eyes, and when he felt that everything within her denied itself to him, he even avoided touching her hand. It was a suffering without possible cure, hidden beneath the stiffness of his attitude, the suffering of a tender nature in secret anguish at the lack of domestic happiness. At the end of six months, when the house, being definitely furnished, no longer occupied Madame Hennebeau, she fell into the languor of boredom, a victim who was being killed by exile, and who said that she was glad to die of it. Just then Paul Négrel arrived at Montsou. His mother, the widow of a Provence captain, living at Avignon on a slender income, had had to content herself with bread and water to enable him to reach the École Polytechnique. He had come out low in rank, and his uncle, M. Hennebeau, had enabled him to leave by offering to take him as engineer at the Voreux. From that time he was treated as one of the family; he even had his room there, his meals there, lived there, and was thus enabled to send to his mother half his salary of three thousand francs. To disguise this kindness M. Hennebeau spoke of the embarrassment to a young man of setting up a household in one of those little villas reserved for the mine engineers. Madame Hennebeau had at once taken the part of a good aunt, treating her nephew with familiarity and watching over his comfort. During the first months, especially, she exhibited an overwhelming maternity with her advice regarding the smallest subjects. But she remained a woman, however, and slid into personal confidences. This lad, so young and so practical, with his unscrupulous intelligence, professing a philosopher's theory of love, amused her with the vivacity of the pessimism which had sharpened his thin face and pointed nose. One evening he naturally found himself in her arms, and she seemed to give herself up out of kindness, while saying to him that she had no heart left, and wished only to be his friend. In fact, she was not jealous; she joked him about the putters, whom he declared to be abominable, and she almost sulked because he had no young man's pranks to narrate to her. Then she was carried away by the idea of getting him married; she dreamed of sacrificing herself and of finding a rich girl for him. Their relations continued a plaything, a recreation, in which she felt the last tenderness of a lazy woman who had done with the world. Two years had passed by. One night M. Hennebeau had a suspicion when he heard naked feet passing his door. But this new adventure revolted him, in his own house, between this mother and this son! And besides, on the following day his wife spoke to him about the choice of Cécile Grégoire which she had made for her nephew. She occupied herself over this marriage with such ardour that he blushed at his own monstrous imagination. He only felt gratitude towards the young man who, since his arrival, had made the house less melancholy. As he came down from the dressing-room, M. Hennebeau found that Paul, who had just returned, was in the vestibule. He seemed to be quite amused by the story of this strike. "Well?" asked his uncle. "Well, I've been round the settlements. They seem to be quite sensible in there. I think they will first send you a deputation." But at that moment Madame Hennebeau's voice called from the first story: "Is that you, Paul? Come up, then, and tell me the news. How queer they are to make such a fuss, these people who are so happy!" And the manager had to renounce further information, since his wife had taken his messenger. He returned and sat before his desk, on which a new packet of dispatches was placed. At eleven o'clock the Grégoires arrived, and were astonished when Hippolyte, the footman, who was placed as sentinel, hustled them in after an anxious glance at the two ends of the road. The drawing-room curtains were drawn, and they were taken at once into the study, where M. Hennebeau apologized for their reception; but the drawing-room looked over the street and it was undesirable to seem to offer provocations. "What! you don't know?" he went on, seeing their surprise. M. Grégoire, when he heard that the strike had at last broken out, shrugged his shoulders in his placid way. Bah! it would be nothing, the people were honest. With a movement of her chin, Madame Grégoire approved his confidence in the everlasting resignation of the colliers; while Cécile, who was very cheerful that day, feeling that she looked well in her capuchin cloth costume, smiled at the word "strike," which reminded her of visits to the settlements and the distribution of charities. Madame Hennebeau now appeared in black silk, followed by Négrel. "Ah! isn't it annoying!" she said, at the door. "As if they couldn't wait, those men! You know that Paul refuses to take us to Saint-Thomas." "We can stay here," said M. Grégoire, obligingly. "We shall be quite pleased." Paul had contented himself with formally saluting Cécile and her mother. Angry at this lack of demonstrativeness, his aunt sent him with a look to the young girl; and when she heard them laughing together she enveloped them in a maternal glance. M. Hennebeau, however, finished reading his dispatches and prepared a few replies. They talked near him; his wife explained that she had not done anything to this study, which, in fact, retained its faded old red paper, its heavy mahogany furniture, its cardboard files, scratched by use. Three-quarters of an hour passed and they were about to seat themselves at table when the footman announced M. Deneulin. He entered in an excited way and bowed to Madame Hennebeau. "Ah! you here!" he said, seeing the Grégoires. And he quickly spoke to the manager: "It has come, then? I've just heard of it through my engineer. With me, all the men went down this morning. But the thing may spread. I'm not at all at ease. How is it with you?" He had arrived on horseback, and his anxiety betrayed itself in his loud speech and abrupt gestures, which made him resemble a retired cavalry officer. M. Hennebeau was beginning to inform him regarding the precise situation, when Hippolyte opened the dining-room door. Then he interrupted himself to say: "Lunch with us. I will tell you more at dessert." "Yes, as you please," replied Deneulin, so full of his thoughts that he accepted without ceremony. He was, however, conscious of his impoliteness and turned towards Madame Hennebeau with apologies. She was very charming, however. When she had had a seventh plate laid she placed her guests: Madame Grégoire and Cécile by her husband, then M. Grégoire and Deneulin at her own right and left; then Paul, whom she put between the young girl and her father. As they attacked the _hors-d'oeuvre_ she said, with a smile: "You must excuse me; I wanted to give you oysters. On Monday, you know, there was an arrival of Ostend oysters at Marchiennes, and I meant to send the cook with the carriage. But she was afraid of being stoned--" They all interrupted her with a great burst of gaiety. They thought the story very funny. "Hush!" said M. Hennebeau, vexed, looking at the window, through which the road could be seen. "We need not tell the whole country that we have company this morning." "Well, here is a slice of sausage which they shan't have," M. Grégoire declared. The laughter began again, but with greater restraint. Each guest made himself comfortable, in this room upholstered with Flemish tapestry and furnished with old oak chests. The silver shone behind the panes of the sideboards; and there was a large hanging lamp of red copper, whose polished surfaces reflected a palm and an aspidistra growing in majolica pots. Outside, the December day was frozen by a keen north-east wind. But not a breath of it entered; a green-house warmth developed the delicate odour of the pineapple, sliced in a crystal bowl. "Suppose we were to draw the curtains," proposed Négrel, who was amused at the idea of frightening the Grégoires. The housemaid, who was helping the footman, treated this as an order and went and closed one of the curtains. This led to interminable jokes: not a glass or a plate could be put down without precaution; every dish was hailed as a waif escaped from the pillage in a conquered town; and behind this forced gaiety there was a certain fear which betrayed itself in involuntary glances towards the road, as though a band of starvelings were watching the table from outside. After the scrambled eggs with truffles, trout came on. The conversation then turned to the industrial crisis, which had become aggravated during the last eighteen months. "It was inevitable," said Deneulin, "the excessive prosperity of recent years was bound to bring us to it. Think of the enormous capital which has been sunk, the railways, harbours, and canals, all the money buried in the maddest speculations. Among us alone sugar works have been set up as if the department could furnish three beetroot harvests. Good heavens! and to-day money is scarce, and we have to wait to catch up the interest of the expended millions; so there is a mortal congestion and a final stagnation of business." M. Hennebeau disputed this theory, but he agreed that the fortunate years had spoilt the men. "When I think," he exclaimed, "that these chaps in our pits used to gain six francs a day, double what they gain now! And they lived well, too, and acquired luxurious tastes. To-day, naturally, it seems hard to them to go back to their old frugality." "Monsieur Grégoire," interrupted Madame Hennebeau, "let me persuade you, a little more trout. They are delicious, are they not?" The manager went on: "But, as a matter of fact, is it our fault? We, too, are cruelly struck. Since the factories have closed, one by one, we have had a deuce of a difficulty in getting rid of our stock; and in face of the growing reduction in demand we have been forced to lower our net prices. It is just this that the men won't understand." There was silence. The footman presented roast partridge, while the housemaid began to pour out Chambertin for the guests. "There has been a famine in India," said Deneulin in a low voice, as though he were speaking to himself. "America, by ceasing to order iron, has struck a heavy blow at our furnaces. Everything holds together; a distant shock is enough to disturb the world. And the empire, which was so proud of this hot fever of industry!" He attacked his partridge wing. Then, raising his voice: "The worst is that to lower the net prices we ought logically to produce more; otherwise the reduction bears on wages, and the worker is right in saying that he has to pay the damage." This confession, the outcome of his frankness, raised a discussion. The ladies were not at all interested. Besides, all were occupied with their plates, in the first zest of appetite. When the footman came back, he seemed about to speak, then he hesitated. "What is it?" asked M. Hennebeau. "If there are letters, give them to me. I am expecting replies." "No, sir. It is Monsieur Dansaert, who is in the hall. But he doesn't wish to disturb you." The manager excused himself, and had the head captain brought in. The latter stood upright, a few paces from the table, while all turned to look at him, huge, out of breath with the news he was bringing. The settlements were quiet; only it had now been decided to send a deputation. It would, perhaps, be there in a few minutes. "Very well; thank you," said M. Hennebeau. "I want a report morning and evening, you understand." And as soon as Dansaert had gone, they began to joke again, and hastened to attack the Russian salad, declaring that not a moment was to be lost if they wished to finish it. The mirth was unbounded when Négrel, having asked the housemaid for bread, she replied, "Yes, sir," in a voice as low and terrified as if she had behind her a troop ready for murder and rape. "You may speak," said Madame Hennebeau complacently. "They are not here yet." The manager, who now received a packet of letters and dispatches, wished to read one of his letters aloud. It was from Pierron, who, in respectful phrases, gave notice that he was obliged to go out on strike with his comrades, in order to avoid ill-treatment; and he added that he had not even been able to avoid taking part in the deputation, although he blamed that step. "So much for liberty of work!" exclaimed M. Hennebeau. Then they returned to the strike, and asked him his opinion. "Oh!" he replied, "we have had them before. It will be a week, or, at most, a fortnight, of idleness, as it was last time. They will go and wallow in the public-houses, and then, when they are hungry, they will go back to the pits." Deneulin shook his head: "I'm not so satisfied; this time they appear to be better organized. Have they not a Provident Fund?" "Yes, scarcely three thousand francs. What do you think they can do with that? I suspect a man called Étienne Lantier of being their leader. He is a good workman; it would vex me to have to give him his certificate back, as we did of old to the famous Rasseneur, who still poisons the Voreux with his ideas and his beer. No matter, in a week half the men will have gone down, and in a fortnight the ten thousand will be below." He was convinced. His only anxiety was concerning his own possible disgrace should the directors put the responsibility of the strike on him. For some time he had felt that he was diminishing in favour. So leaving the spoonful of Russian salad which he had taken, he read over again the dispatches received from Paris, endeavouring to penetrate every word. His guests excused him; the meal was becoming a military lunch, eaten on the field of battle before the first shots were fired. The ladies then joined in the conversation. Madame Grégoire expressed pity for the poor people who would suffer from hunger; and Cécile was already making plans for distributing gifts of bread and meat. But Madame Hennebeau was astonished at hearing of the wretchedness of the Montsou colliers. Were they not very fortunate? People who were lodged and warmed and cared for at the expense of the Company! In her indifference for the herd, she only knew the lessons she had learnt, and with which she had surprised the Parisians who came on a visit. She believed them at last, and was indignant at the ingratitude of the people. Négrel, meanwhile, continued to frighten M. Grégoire. Cécile did not displease him, and he was quite willing to marry her to be agreeable to his aunt, but he showed no amorous fever; like a youth of experience, who, he said, was not easily carried away now. He professed to be a Republican, which did not prevent him from treating his men with extreme severity, or from making fun of them in the company of the ladies. "Nor have I my uncle's optimism, either," he continued. "I fear there will be serious disturbances. So I should advise you, Monsieur Grégoire, to lock up Piolaine. They may pillage you." Just then, still retaining the smile which illuminated his good-natured face, M. Grégoire was going beyond his wife in paternal sentiments with regard to the miners. "Pillage me!" he cried, stupefied. "And why pillage me?" "Are you not a shareholder in Montsou! You do nothing; you live on the work of others. In fact you are an infamous capitalist, and that is enough. You may be sure that if the revolution triumphs, it will force you to restore your fortune as stolen money." At once he lost his child-like tranquillity, his serene unconsciousness. He stammered: "Stolen money, my fortune! Did not my great-grandfather gain, and hardly, too, the sum originally invested? Have we not run all the risks of the enterprise, and do I today make a bad use of my income?" Madame Hennebeau, alarmed at seeing the mother and daughter also white with fear, hastened to intervene, saying: "Paul is joking, my dear sir." But M. Grégoire was carried out of himself. As the servant was passing round the crayfish he took three of them without knowing what he was doing and began to break their claws with his teeth. "Ah! I don't say but what there are shareholders who abuse their position. For instance, I have been told that ministers have received shares in Montsou for services rendered to the Company. It is like a nobleman whom I will not name, a duke, the biggest of our shareholders, whose life is a scandal of prodigality, millions thrown into the street on women, feasting, and useless luxury. But we who live quietly, like good citizens as we are, who do not speculate, who are content to live wholesomely on what we have, giving a part to the poor: Come, now! your men must be mere brigands if they came and stole a pin from us!" Négrel himself had to calm him, though amused at his anger. The crayfish were still going round; the little crackling sound of their carapaces could be heard, while the conversation turned to politics, M. Grégoire, in spite of everything and though still trembling, called himself a Liberal and regretted Louis Philippe. As for Deneulin, he was for a strong Government; he declared that the Emperor was gliding down the slope of dangerous concessions. "Remember '89," he said. "It was the nobility who made the Revolution possible, by their complicity and taste for philosophic novelties. Very well! the middle class to-day are playing the same silly game with their furious Liberalism, their rage for destruction, their flattery of the people. Yes, yes, you are sharpening the teeth of the monster that will devour us. It will devour us, rest assured!" The ladies bade him be silent, and tried to change the conversation by asking him news of his daughters. Lucie was at Marchiennes, where she was singing with a friend; Jeanne was painting an old beggar's head. But he said these things in a distracted way; he constantly looked at the manager, who was absorbed in the reading of his dispatches and forgetful of his guests. Behind those thin leaves he felt Paris and the directors' orders, which would decide the strike. At last he could not help yielding to his preoccupation. "Well, what are you going to do?" he asked suddenly. M. Hennebeau started; then turned off the question with a vague phrase. "We shall see." "No doubt you are solidly placed, you can wait," Deneulin began to think aloud. "But as for me, I shall be done for if the strike reaches Vandame. I shall have reinstalled Jean-Bart in vain; with a single pit, I can only get along by constant production. Ah! I am not in a very pleasant situation, I can assure you!" This involuntary confession seemed to strike M. Hennebeau. He listened and a plan formed within him: in case the strike turned out badly, why not utilize it by letting things run down until his neighbour was ruined, and then buy up his concession at a low price? That would be the surest way of regaining the good graces of the directors, who for years had dreamed of possessing Vandame. "If Jean-Bart bothers you as much as that," said he, laughing, "why don't you give it up to us?" But Deneulin was already regretting his complaints. He exclaimed: "Never, never!" They were amused at his vigour and had already forgotten the strike by the time the dessert appeared. An apple-charlotte meringue was overwhelmed with praise. Afterwards the ladies discussed a recipe with respect to the pineapple which was declared equally exquisite. The grapes and pears completed their happy abandonment at the end of this copious lunch. All talked excitedly at the same time, while the servant poured out Rhine wine in place of champagne which was looked upon as commonplace. And the marriage of Paul and Cécile certainly made a forward step in the sympathy produced by the dessert. His aunt had thrown such urgent looks in his direction, that the young man showed himself very amiable, and in his wheedling way reconquered the Grégoires, who had been cast down by his stories of pillage. For a moment M. Hennebeau, seeing the close understanding between his wife and his nephew, felt that abominable suspicion again revive, as if in this exchange of looks he had surprised a physical contact. But again the idea of the marriage, made here before his face, reassured him. Hippolyte was serving the coffee when the housemaid entered in a fright. "Sir, sir, they are here!" It was the delegates. Doors banged; a breath of terror was passing through the neighbouring rooms. Around the table the guests were looking at one another with uneasy indecision. There was silence. Then they tried to resume their jokes: they pretended to put the rest of the sugar in their pockets, and talked of hiding the plate. But the manager remained grave; and the laughter fell and their voices sank to a whisper, while the heavy feet of the delegates who were being shown in tramped over the carpet of the next room. Madame Hennebeau said to her husband, lowering her voice: "I hope you will drink your coffee." "Certainly," he replied. "Let them wait." He was nervous, listening to every sound, though apparently occupied with his cup. Paul and Cécile got up, and he made her venture an eye to the keyhole. They were stifling their laughter and talking in a low voice. "Do you see them?" "Yes, I see a big man and two small ones behind." "Haven't they ugly faces?" "Not at all; they are very nice." Suddenly M. Hennebeau left his chair, saying the coffee was too hot and he would drink it afterwards. As he went out he put a finger to his lips to recommend prudence. They all sat down again and remained at table in silence, no longer daring to move, listening from afar with intent ears jarred by these coarse male voices. CHAPTER II The previous day, at a meeting held at Rasseneur's, Étienne and some comrades had chosen the delegates who were to proceed on the following day to the manager's house. When, in the evening, Maheude learnt that her man was one of them, she was in despair, and asked him if he wanted them to be thrown on the street. Maheu himself had agreed with reluctance. Both of them, when the moment of action came, in spite of the injustice of their wretchedness fell back on the resignation of their race, trembling before the morrow, preferring still to bend their backs to the yoke. In the management of affairs he usually gave way to his wife, whose advice was sound. This time, however, he grew angry at last, all the more so since he secretly shared her fears. "Just leave me alone, will you?" he said, going to bed and turning his back. "A fine thing to leave the mates now! I'm doing my duty." She went to bed in her turn. Neither of them spoke. Then, after a long silence, she replied: "You're right; go. Only, poor old man, we are done for." Midday struck while they were at lunch, for the rendezvous was at one o'clock at the Avantage, from which they were to go together to M. Hennebeau's. They were eating potatoes. As there was only a small morsel of butter left, no one touched it. They would have bread and butter in the evening. "You know that we reckon on you to speak," said Étienne suddenly to Maheu. The latter was so overcome that he was silent from emotion. "No, no! that's too much," cried Maheude. "I'm quite willing he should go there, but I don't allow him to go at the head. Why him, more than any one else?" Then Étienne, with his fiery eloquence, began to explain. Maheu was the best worker in the pit, the most liked, and the most respected; whose good sense was always spoken of. In his mouth the miners' claims would carry decisive weight. At first Étienne had arranged to speak, but he had been at Montsou for too short a time. One who belonged to the country would be better listened to. In fact, the comrades were confiding their interests to the most worthy; he could not refuse, it would be cowardly. Maheude made a gesture of despair. "Go, go, my man; go and be killed for the others. I'm willing, after all!" "But I could never do it," stammered Maheu. "I should say something stupid." Étienne, glad to have persuaded him, struck him on the shoulder. "Say what you feel, and you won't go wrong." Father Bonnemort, whose legs were now less swollen, was listening with his mouth full, shaking his head. There was silence. When potatoes were being eaten, the children were subdued and behaved well. Then, having swallowed his mouthful, the old man muttered slowly: "You can say what you like, and it will be all the same as if you said nothing. Ah! I've seen these affairs, I've seen them! Forty years ago they drove us out of the manager's house, and with sabres too! Now they may receive you, perhaps, but they won't answer you any more than that wall. Lord! they have money, why should they care?" There was silence again; Maheu and Étienne rose, and left the family in gloom before the empty plates. On going out they called for Pierron and Levaque, and then all four went to Rasseneur's, where the delegates from the neighbouring settlements were arriving in little groups. When the twenty members of the deputation had assembled there, they settled on the terms to be opposed to the Company's, and then set out for Montsou. The keen north-east wind was sweeping the street. As they arrived, it struck two. At first the servant told them to wait, and shut the door on them; then, when he came back, he introduced them into the drawing-room, and opened the curtains. A soft daylight entered, sifted through the lace. And the miners, when left alone, in their embarrassment did not dare to sit; all of them very clean, dressed in cloth, shaven that morning, with their yellow hair and moustaches. They twisted their caps between their fingers, and looked sideways at the furniture, which was in every variety of style, as a result of the taste for the old-fashioned: Henry II easy-chairs, Louis XV chairs, an Italian cabinet of the seventeenth century, a Spanish contador of the fifteenth century, with an altar-front serving as a chimney-piece, and ancient chasuble trimming reapplied to the curtains. This old gold and these old silks, with their tawny tones, all this luxurious church furniture, had overwhelmed them with respectful discomfort. The eastern carpets with their long wool seemed to bind their feet. But what especially suffocated them was the heat, heat like that of a hot-air stove, which surprised them as they felt it with cheeks frozen from the wind of the road. Five minutes passed by and their awkwardness increased in the comfort of this rich room, so pleasantly warm. At last M. Hennebeau entered, buttoned up in a military manner and wearing on his frock-coat the correct little bow of his decoration. He spoke first. "Ah! here you are! You are in rebellion, it seems." He interrupted himself to add with polite stiffness: "Sit down, I desire nothing better than to talk things over." The miners turned round looking for seats. A few of them ventured to place themselves on chairs, while the others, disturbed by the embroidered silks, preferred to remain standing. There was a period of silence. M. Hennebeau, who had drawn his easy-chair up to the fireplace, was rapidly looking them over and endeavouring to recall their faces. He had recognized Pierron, who was hidden in the last row, and his eyes rested on Étienne who was seated in front of him. "Well," he asked, "what have you to say to me?" He had expected to hear the young man speak and he was so surprised to see Maheu come forward that he could not avoid adding: "What! you, a good workman who have always been so sensible, one of the old Montsou people whose family has worked in the mine since the first stroke of the axe! Ah! it's a pity, I'm sorry that you are at the head of the discontented." Maheu listened with his eyes down. Then he began, at first in a low and hesitating voice. "It is just because I am a quiet man, sir, whom no one has anything against, that my mates have chosen me. That ought to show you that it isn't just a rebellion of blusterers, badly-disposed men who want to create disorder. We only want justice, we are tired of starving, and it seems to us that the time has come when things ought to be arranged so that we can at least have bread every day." His voice grew stronger. He lifted his eyes and went on, while looking at the manager. "You know quite well that we cannot agree to your new system. They accuse us of bad timbering. It's true we don't give the necessary time to the work. But if we gave it, our day's work would be still smaller, and as it doesn't give us enough food at present, that would mean the end of everything, the sweep of the clout that would wipe off all your men. Pay us more and we will timber better, we will give the necessary hours to the timbering instead of putting all our strength into the picking, which is the only work that pays. There's no other arrangement possible; if the work is to be done it must be paid for. And what have you invented instead? A thing which we can't get into our heads, don't you see? You lower the price of the tram and then you pretend to make up for it by paying for all timbering separately. If that was true we should be robbed all the same, for the timbering would still take us more time. But what makes us mad is that it isn't even true; the Company compensates for nothing at all, it simply puts two centimes a tram into its pocket, that's all." "Yes, yes, that's it," murmured the other deputies, noticing M. Hennebeau make a violent movement as if to interrupt. But Maheu cut the manager short. Now that he had set out his words came by themselves. At times he listened to himself with surprise as though a stranger were speaking within him. It was the things amassed within his breast, things he did not even know were there, and which came out in an expansion of his heart. He described the wretchedness that was common to all of them, the hard toil, the brutal life, the wife and little ones crying from hunger in the house. He quoted the recent disastrous payments, the absurd fortnightly wages, eaten up by fines and rest days and brought back to their families in tears. Was it resolved to destroy them? "Then, sir," he concluded, "we have come to tell you that if we've got to starve we would rather starve doing nothing. It will be a little less trouble. We have left the pits and we don't go down again unless the Company agrees to our terms. The Company wants to lower the price of the tram and to pay for the timbering separately. We ask for things to be left as they were, and we also ask for five centimes more the tram. Now it is for you to see if you are on the side of justice and work." Voices rose among the miners. "That's it--he has said what we all feel--we only ask what's reason." Others, without speaking, showed their approval by nodding their heads. The luxurious room had disappeared, with its gold and its embroideries, its mysterious piling up of ancient things; and they no longer even felt the carpet which they crushed beneath their heavy boots. "Let me reply, then," at last exclaimed M. Hennebeau, who was growing angry. "First of all, it is not true that the Company gains two centimes the tram. Let us look at the figures." A confused discussion followed. The manager, trying to divide them, appealed to Pierron, who hid himself, stammering. Levaque, on the contrary, was at the head of the more aggressive, muddling up things and affirming facts of which he was ignorant. The loud murmurs of their voices were stifled beneath the hangings in the hot-house atmosphere. "If you all talk at the same time," said M. Hennebeau, "we shall never come to an understanding." He had regained his calmness, the rough politeness, without bitterness, of an agent who has received his instructions, and means that they shall be respected. From the first word he never took his eye off Étienne, and manoeuvred to draw the young man out of his obstinate silence. Leaving the discussion about the two centimes, he suddenly enlarged the question. "No, acknowledge the truth: you are yielding to abominable incitations. It is a plague which is now blowing over the workers everywhere, and corrupting the best. Oh! I have no need for any one to confess. I can see well that you have been changed, you who used to be so quiet. Is it not so? You have been promised more butter than bread, and you have been told that now your turn has come to be masters. In fact, you have been enrolled in that famous International, that army of brigands who dream of destroying society." Then Étienne interrupted him. "You are mistaken, sir. Not a single Montsou collier has yet enrolled. But if they are driven to it, all the pits will enroll themselves. That depends on the Company." From that moment the struggle went on between M. Hennebeau and Étienne as though the other miners were no longer there. "The Company is a Providence for the men, and you are wrong to threaten it. This year it has spent three hundred thousand francs in building settlements which only return two per cent, and I say nothing of the pensions which it pays, nor of the coals and medicines which it gives. You who seem to be intelligent, and who have become in a few months one of our most skilful workmen, would it not be better if you were to spread these truths, rather than ruin yourself by associating with people of bad reputation? Yes, I mean Rasseneur, whom we had to turn off in order to save our pits from socialistic corruption. You are constantly seen with him, and it is certainly he who has induced you to form this Provident Fund, which we would willingly tolerate if it were merely a means of saving, but which we feel to be a weapon turned against us, a reserve fund to pay the expenses of the war. And in this connection I ought to add that the Company means to control that fund." Étienne allowed him to continue, fixing his eyes on him, while a slight nervous quiver moved his lips. He smiled at the last remark, and simply replied: "Then that is a new demand, for until now, sir, you have neglected to claim that control. Unfortunately, we wish the Company to occupy itself less with us, and instead of playing the part of Providence to be merely just with us, giving us our due, the profits which it appropriates. Is it honest, whenever a crisis comes, to leave the workers to die with hunger in order to save the shareholders' dividends? Whatever you may say, sir, the new system is a disguised reduction of wages, and that is what we are rebelling against, for if the Company wants to economize it acts very badly by only economizing on the men." "Ah! there we are!" cried M. Hennebeau. "I was expecting that--the accusation of starving the people and living by their sweat. How can you talk such folly, you who ought to know the enormous risks which capital runs in industry--in the mines, for example? A well-equipped pit today costs from fifteen hundred thousand francs to two millions; and it is difficult enough to get a moderate interest on the vast sum that is thus swallowed. Nearly half the mining companies in France are bankrupt. Besides, it is stupid to accuse those who succeed of cruelty. When their workers suffer, they suffer themselves. Can you believe that the Company has not as much to lose as you have in the present crisis? It does not govern wages; it obeys competition under pain of ruin. Blame the facts, not the Company. But you don't wish to hear, you don't wish to understand." "Yes," said the young man, "we understand very well that our lot will never be bettered as long as things go on as they are going; and that is the reason why some day or another the workers will end by arranging that things shall go differently." This sentence, so moderate in form, was pronounced in a low voice, but with such conviction, tremulous in its menace, that a deep silence followed. A certain constraint, a breath of fear passed through the polite drawing-room. The other delegates, though scarcely understanding, felt that their comrade had been demanding their share of this comfort; and they began to cast sidelong looks over the warm hangings, the comfortable seats, all this luxury of which the least knick-knack would have bought them soup for a month. At last M. Hennebeau, who had remained thoughtful, rose as a sign for them to depart. All imitated him. Étienne had lightly pushed Maheu's elbow, and the latter, his tongue once more thick and awkward, again spoke. "Then, sir, that is all that you reply? We must tell the others that you reject our terms." "I, my good fellow!" exclaimed the manager, "I reject nothing. I am paid just as you are. I have no more power in the matter than the smallest of your trammers. I receive my orders, and my only duty is to see that they are executed. I have told you what I thought I ought to tell you, but it is not for me to decide. You have brought me your demands. I will make them known to the directors, then I will tell you their reply." He spoke with the correct air of a high official avoiding any passionate interest in the matter, with the courteous dryness of a simple instrument of authority. And the miners now looked at him with distrust, asking themselves what interest he might have in lying, and what he would get by thus putting himself between them and the real masters. A schemer, perhaps, this man who was paid like a worker, and who lived so well! Étienne ventured to intervene again. "You see, sir, how unfortunate it is that we cannot plead our cause in person. We could explain many things, and bring forward many reasons of which you could know nothing, if we only knew where we ought to go." M. Hennebeau was not at all angry. He even smiled. "Ah! it gets complicated as soon as you have no confidence in me; you will have to go over there." The delegates had followed the vague gesture of his hand toward one of the windows. Where was it, over there? Paris, no doubt. But they did not know exactly; it seemed to fall back into a terrible distance, in an inaccessible religious country, where an unknown god sat on his throne, crouching down at the far end of his tabernacle. They would never see him; they only felt him as a force far off, which weighed on the ten thousand colliers of Montsou. And when the director spoke he had that hidden force behind him delivering oracles. They were overwhelmed with discouragement; Étienne himself signified by a shrug of the shoulders that it would be best to go; while M. Hennebeau touched Maheu's arm in a friendly way and asked after Jeanlin. "That is a severe lesson now, and it is you who defend bad timbering. You must reflect, my friends; you must realize that a strike would be a disaster for everybody. Before a week you would die of hunger. What would you do? I count on your good sense, anyhow; and I am convinced that you will go down on Monday, at the latest." They all left, going out of the drawing-room with the tramping of a flock and rounded backs, without replying a word to this hope of submission. The manager, who accompanied them, was obliged to continue the conversation. The Company, on the one side, had its new tariff; the workers, on the other, their demand for an increase of five centimes the tram. In order that they might have no illusions, he felt he ought to warn them that their terms would certainly be rejected by the directors. "Reflect before committing any follies," he repeated, disturbed at their silence. In the porch Pierron bowed very low, while Levaque pretended to adjust his cap. Maheu was trying to find something to say before leaving, when Étienne again touched his elbow. And they all left in the midst of this threatening silence. The door closed with a loud bang. When M. Hennebeau re-entered the dining-room he found his guests motionless and silent before the liqueurs. In two words he told his story to Deneulin, whose face grew still more gloomy. Then, as he drank his cold coffee, they tried to speak of other things. But the Grégoires themselves returned to the subject of the strike, expressing their astonishment that no laws existed to prevent workmen from leaving their work. Paul reassured Cécile, stating that they were expecting the police. At last Madame Hennebeau called the servant: "Hippolyte, before we go into the drawing-room just open the windows and let in a little air." CHAPTER III A fortnight had passed, and on the Monday of the third week the lists sent up to the managers showed a fresh decrease in the number of the miners who had gone down. It was expected that on that morning work would be resumed, but the obstinacy of the directors in not yielding exasperated the miners. The Voreux, Crévecoeur, Mirou, and Madeleine were not the only pits resting; at the Victoire and at Feutry-Cantel only about a quarter of the men had gone down; even Saint-Thomas was affected. The strike was gradually becoming general. At the Voreux a heavy silence hung over the pit-mouth. It was a dead workshop, these great empty abandoned Yards where work was sleeping. In the grey December sky, along the high foot-bridges three or four empty trams bore witness to the mute sadness of things. Underneath, between the slender posts of the platforms, the stock of coal was diminishing, leaving the earth bare and black; while the supplies of wood were mouldering beneath the rain. At the quay on the canal a barge was moored, half-laden, lying drowsily in the murky water; and on the deserted pit-bank, in which the decomposed sulphates smoked in spite of the rain, a melancholy cart showed its shafts erect. But the buildings especially were growing torpid, the screening-shed with closed shutters, the steeple in which the rumbling of the receiving-room no more arose, and the machine-room grown cold, and the giant chimney too large for the occasional smoke. The winding-engine was only heated in the morning. The grooms sent down fodder for the horses, and the captains worked alone at the bottom, having become labourers again, watching over the damages that took place in the passages as soon as they ceased to be repaired; then, after nine o'clock the rest of the service was carried on by the ladders. And above these dead buildings, buried in their garment of black dust, there was only heard the escapement of the pumping-engine, breathing with its thick, long breath all that was left of the life of the pit, which the water would destroy if that breathing should cease. On the plain opposite, the settlement of the Deux-Cent-Quarante seemed also to be dead. The prefect of Lille had come in haste and the police had tramped all the roads; but in face of the calmness of the strikers, prefect and police had decided to go home again. Never had the settlement given so splendid an example in the vast plain. The men, to avoid going to the public-house, slept all day long; the women while dividing the coffee became reasonable, less anxious to gossip and quarrel; and even the troops of children seemed to understand it all, and were so good that they ran about with naked feet, smacking each other silently. The word of command had been repeated and circulated from mouth to mouth; they wished to be sensible. There was, however, a continuous coming and going of people in the Maheus' house. Étienne, as secretary, had divided the three thousand francs of the Provident Fund among the needy families; afterwards from various sides several hundred francs had arrived, yielded by subscriptions and collections. But now all their resources were exhausted; the miners had no more money to keep up the strike, and hunger was there, threatening them. Maigrat, after having promised credit for a fortnight, had suddenly altered his mind at the end of a week and cut off provisions. He usually took his orders from the Company; perhaps the latter wished to bring the matter to an end by starving the settlements. He acted besides like a capricious tyrant, giving or refusing bread according to the look of the girl who was sent by her parents for provisions; and he especially closed his door spitefully to Maheude, wishing to punish her because he had not been able to get Catherine. To complete their misery it was freezing very hard, and the women watched their piles of coal diminish, thinking anxiously that they could no longer renew them at the pits now that the men were not going down. It was not enough to die of hunger, they must also die of cold. Among the Maheus everything was already running short. The Levaques could still eat on the strength of a twenty-franc piece lent by Bouteloup. As to the Pierrons, they always had money; but in order to appear as needy as the others, for fear of loans, they got their supplies on credit from Maigrat, who would have thrown his shop at Pierronne if she had held out her petticoat to him. Since Saturday many families had gone to bed without supper, and in face of the terrible days that were beginning not a complaint was heard, all obeyed the word of command with quiet courage. There was an absolute confidence in spite of everything, a religious faith, the blind gift of a population of believers. Since an era of justice had been promised to them they were willing to suffer for the conquest of universal happiness. Hunger exalted their heads; never had the low horizon opened a larger beyond to these people in the hallucination of their misery. They saw again over there, when their eyes were dimmed by weakness, the ideal city of their dream, but now growing near and seeming to be real, with its population of brothers, its golden age of labour and meals in common. Nothing overcame their conviction that they were at last entering it. The fund was exhausted; the Company would not yield; every day must aggravate the situation; and they preserved their hope and showed a smiling contempt for facts. If the earth opened beneath them a miracle would save them. This faith replaced bread and warmed their stomachs. When the Maheus and the others had too quickly digested their soup, made with clear water, they thus rose into a state of semi-vertigo, that ecstasy of a better life which has flung martyrs to the wild beasts. Étienne was henceforth the unquestioned leader. In the evening conversations he gave forth oracles, in the degree to which study had refined him and made him able to enter into difficult matters. He spent the nights reading, and received a large number of letters; he even subscribed to the _Vengeur_, a Belgian Socialist paper, and this journal, the first to enter the settlement, gained for him extraordinary consideration among his mates. His growing popularity excited him more every day. To carry on an extensive correspondence, to discuss the fate of the workers in the four corners of the province, to give advice to the Voreux miners, especially to become a centre and to feel the world rolling round him--continually swelled the vanity of the former engine-man, the pikeman with greasy black hands. He was climbing a ladder, he was entering this execrated middle class, with a satisfaction to his intelligence and comfort which he did not confess to himself. He had only one trouble, the consciousness of his lack of education, which made him embarrassed and timid as soon as he was in the presence of a gentleman in a frock-coat. If he went on instructing himself, devouring everything, the lack of method would render assimilation very slow, and would produce such confusion that at last he would know much more than he could understand. So at certain hours of good sense he experienced a restlessness with regard to his mission--a fear that he was not the man for the task. Perhaps it required a lawyer, a learned man, able to speak and act without compromising the mates? But an outcry soon restored his assurance. No, no; no lawyers! They are all rascals; they profit by their knowledge to fatten on the people. Let things turn out how they will, the workers must manage their own affairs. And his dream of popular leadership again soothed him: Montsou at his feet, Paris in the misty distance, who knows? The elections some day, the tribune in a gorgeous hall, where he could thunder against the middle class in the first speech pronounced by a workman in a parliament. During the last few days Étienne had been perplexed. Pluchart wrote letter after letter, offering to come to Montsou to quicken the zeal of the strikers. It was a question of organizing a private meeting over which the mechanic would preside; and beneath this plan lay the idea of exploiting the strike, to gain over to the International these miners who so far had shown themselves suspicious. Étienne feared a disturbance, but he would, however, have allowed Pluchart to come if Rasseneur had not violently blamed this proceeding. In spite of his power, the young man had to reckon with the innkeeper, whose services were of older date, and who had faithful followers among his clients. So he still hesitated, not knowing what to reply. On this very Monday, towards four o'clock, a new letter came from Lille as Étienne was alone with Maheude in the lower room. Maheu, weary of idleness, had gone fishing; if he had the luck to catch a fine fish under the sluice of the canal, they could sell it to buy bread. Old Bonnemort and little Jeanlin had just gone off to try their legs, which were now restored; while the children had departed with Alzire, who spent hours on the pit-bank collecting cinders. Seated near the miserable fire, which they no longer dared to keep up, Maheude, with her dress unbuttoned and one breast hanging out of her dress and falling to her belly, was suckling Estelle. When the young man had folded the letter, she questioned him: "Is the news good? Are they going to send us any money?" He shook his head, and she went on: "I don't know what we shall do this week. However, we'll hold on all the same. When one has right on one's side, don't you think it gives you heart, and one ends always by being the strongest?" At the present time she was, to a reasonable extent, in favour of the strike. It would have been better to force the Company to be just without leaving off work. But since they had left it they ought not to go back to it without obtaining justice. On this point she was relentless. Better to die than to show oneself in the wrong when one was right! "Ah!" exclaimed Étienne, "if a fine old cholera was to break out, that would free us of all these Company exploiters." "No, no," she replied, "we must not wish any one dead. That wouldn't help us at all; plenty more would spring up. Now I only ask that they should get sensible ideas, and I expect they will, for there are worthy people everywhere. You know I'm not at all for your politics." In fact she always blamed his violent language, and thought him aggressive. It was good that they should want their work paid for at what it was worth, but why occupy oneself with such things as the bourgeois and Government? Why mix oneself up with other people's affairs, when one would get nothing out of it but hard knocks? And she kept her esteem for him because he did not get drunk, and regularly paid his forty-five francs for board and lodging. When a man behaves well one can forgive him the rest. Étienne then talked about the Republic, which would give bread to everybody. But Maheude shook her head, for she remembered 1848, an awful year, which had left them as bare as worms, her and her man, in their early housekeeping years. She forgot herself in describing its horrors, in a mournful voice, her eyes lost in space, her breast open; while her infant, Estelle, without letting it go, had fallen asleep on her knees. And Étienne, also absorbed in thought, had his eyes fixed on this enormous breast, of which the soft whiteness contrasted with the muddy yellowish complexion of her face. "Not a farthing," she murmured, "nothing to put between one's teeth, and all the pits stopped. Just the same destruction of poor people as to-day." But at that moment the door opened, and they remained mute with surprise before Catherine, who then came in. Since her flight with Chaval she had not reappeared at the settlement. Her emotion was so great that, trembling and silent, she forgot to shut the door. She expected to find her mother alone, and the sight of the young man put out of her head the phrases she had prepared on the way. "What on earth have you come here for?" cried Maheude, without even moving from her chair. "I don't want to have anything more to do with you; get along." Then Catherine tried to find words: "Mother, it's some coffee and sugar; yes, for the children. I've been thinking of them and done overtime." She drew out of her pockets a pound of coffee and a pound of sugar, and took courage to place them on the table. The strike at the Voreux troubled her while she was working at Jean-Bart, and she had only been able to think of this way of helping her parents a little, under the pretext of caring for the little ones. But her good nature did not disarm her mother, who replied: "Instead of bringing us sweets, you would have done better to stay and earn bread for us." She overwhelmed her with abuse, relieving herself by throwing in her daughter's face all that she had been saying against her for the past month. To go off with a man, to hang on to him at sixteen, when the family was in want! Only the most degraded of unnatural children could do it. One could forgive a folly, but a mother never forgot a trick like that. There might have been some excuse if they had been strict with her. Not at all; she was as free as air, and they only asked her to come in to sleep. "Tell me, what have you got in your skin, at your age?" Catherine, standing beside the table, listened with lowered head. A quiver shook her thin under-developed girlish body, and she tried to reply in broken words: "Oh! if it was only me, and the amusement that I get! It's him. What he wants I'm obliged to want too, aren't I? because, you see, he's the strongest. How can one tell how things are going to turn out? Anyhow it's done and can't be undone; it may as well be him as another now. He'll have to marry me." She defended herself without a struggle, with the passive resignation of a girl who has submitted to the male at an early age. Was it not the common lot? She had never dreamed of anything else; violence behind the pit-bank, a child at sixteen, and then a wretched household if her lover married her. And she did not blush with shame; she only quivered like this at being treated like a slut before this lad, whose presence oppressed her to despair. Étienne had risen, however, and was pretending to stir up the nearly extinct fire in order not to interrupt the explanation. But their looks met; he found her pale and exhausted; pretty, indeed, with her clear eyes in the face which had grown tanned, and he experienced a singular feeling; his spite had vanished; he simply desired that she should be happy with this man whom she had preferred to him. He felt the need to occupy himself with her still, a longing to go to Montsou and force the other man to his duty. But she only saw pity in his constant tenderness; he must feel contempt for her to gaze at her like that. Then her heart contracted so that she choked, without being able to stammer any more words of excuse. "That's it, you'd best hold your tongue," began the implacable Maheude. "If you come back to stay, come in; else get along with you at once, and think yourself lucky that I'm not free just now, or I should have put my foot into you somewhere before now." As if this threat had suddenly been realized, Catherine received a vigorous kick right behind, so violent that she was stupefied with surprise and pain. It was Chaval who had leapt in through the open door to give her this lunge of a vicious beast. For a moment he had watched her from outside. "Ah! slut," he yelled, "I've followed you. I knew well enough you were coming back here to get him to fill you. And it's you that pay him, eh? You pour coffee down him with my money!" Maheude and Étienne were stupefied, and did not stir. With a furious movement Chaval chased Catherine towards the door. "Out you go, by God!" And as she took refuge in a corner he turned on her mother. "A nice business, keeping watch while your whore of a daughter is kicking her legs upstairs!" At last he caught Catherine's wrist, shaking her and dragging her out. At the door he again turned towards Maheude, who was nailed to her chair. She had forgotten to fasten up her breast. Estelle had gone to sleep, and her face had slipped down into the woollen petticoat; the enormous breast was hanging free and naked like the udder of a great cow. "When the daughter is not at it, it's the mother who gets herself plugged," cried Chaval. "Go on, show him your meat! He isn't disgusted--your dirty lodger!" At this Étienne was about to strike his mate. The fear of arousing the settlement by a fight had kept him back from snatching Catherine from Chaval's hands. But rage was now carrying him away, and the two men were face to face with inflamed eyes. It was an old hatred, a jealousy long unacknowledged, which was breaking out. One of them now must do for the other. "Take care!" stammered Étienne, with clenched teeth. "I'll do for you." "Try!" replied Chaval. They looked at one another for some seconds longer, so close that their hot breaths burnt each other's faces. And it was Catherine who suppliantly took her lover's hand again to lead him away. She dragged him out of the settlement, fleeing without turning her head. "What a brute!" muttered Étienne, banging the door, and so shaken by anger that he was obliged to sit down. Maheude, in front of him, had not stirred. She made a vague gesture, and there was silence, a silence which was painful and heavy with unspoken things. In spite of an effort his gaze again returned to her breast, that expanse of white flesh, the brilliance of which now made him uncomfortable. No doubt she was forty, and had lost her shape, like a good female who had produced too much; but many would still desire her, strong and solid, with the large long face of a woman who had once been beautiful. Slowly and quietly she was putting back her breast with both hands. A rosy corner was still obstinate, and she pushed it back with her finger, and then buttoned herself up, and was now quite black and shapeless in her old gown. "He's a filthy beast," she said at last. "Only a filthy beast could have such nasty ideas. I don't care a hang what he says; it isn't worth notice." Then in a frank voice she added, fixing her eyes on the young man: "I have my faults, sure enough, but not that one. Only two men have touched me--a putter, long ago, when I was fifteen, and then Maheu. If he had left me like the other, Lord! I don't quite know what would have happened; and I don't pride myself either on my good conduct with him since our marriage, because, when one hasn't gone wrong, it's often because one hasn't the chance. Only I say things as they are, and I know neighbours who couldn't say as much, don't you think?" "That's true enough," replied Étienne. And he rose and went out, while she decided to light the fire again, after having placed the sleeping Estelle on two chairs. If the father caught and sold a fish they could manage to have some soup. Outside, night was already coming on, a frosty night; and with lowered head Étienne walked along, sunk in dark melancholy. It was no longer anger against the man, or pity for the poor ill-treated girl. The brutal scene was effaced and lost, and he was thrown back on to the sufferings of all, the abominations of wretchedness. He thought of the settlement without bread, these women and little ones who would not eat that evening, all this struggling race with empty bellies. And the doubt which sometimes touched him awoke again in the frightful melancholy of the twilight, and tortured him with a discomfort which he had never felt so strongly before. With what a terrible responsibility he had burdened himself! Must he still push them on in obstinate resistance, now that there was neither money nor credit? And what would be the end of it all if no help arrived, and starvation came to beat down their courage? He had a sudden vision of disaster; of dying children and sobbing mothers, while the men, lean and pale, went down once more into the pits. He went on walking, his feet stumbling against the stones, and the thought that the Company would be found strongest, and that he would have brought misfortune on his comrades, filled him with insupportable anguish. When he raised his head he saw that he was in front of the Voreux. The gloomy mass of buildings looked sombre beneath the growing darkness. The deserted square, obstructed by great motionless shadows, seemed like the corner of an abandoned fortress. As soon as the winding-engine stopped, the soul left the place. At this hour of the night nothing was alive, not a lantern, not a voice; and the sound of the pump itself was only a distant moan, coming one could not say whence, in this annihilation of the whole pit. As Étienne gazed the blood flowed back to his heart. If the workers were suffering hunger, the Company was encroaching on its millions. Why should it prove the stronger in this war of labour against gold? In any case, the victory would cost it dear. They would have their corpses to count. He felt the fury of battle again, the fierce desire to have done with misery, even at the price of death. It would be as well for the settlement to die at one stroke as to go on dying in detail of famine and injustice. His ill-digested reading came back to him, examples of nations who had burnt their towns to arrest the enemy, vague histories of mothers who had saved their children from slavery by crushing their heads against the pavement, of men who had died of want rather than eat the bread of tyrants. His head became exalted, a red gaiety arose out of his crisis of black sadness, chasing away doubt, and making him ashamed of this passing cowardice of an hour. And in this revival of his faith, gusts of pride reappeared and carried him still higher; the joy of being leader, of seeing himself obeyed, even to sacrifice, the enlarged dream of his power, the evening of triumph. Already he imagined a scene of simple grandeur, his refusal of power, authority placed in the hands of the people, when it would be master. But he awoke and started at the voice of Maheu, who was narrating his luck, a superb trout which he had fished up and sold for three francs. They would have their soup. Then he left his mate to return alone to the settlement, saying that he would follow him; and he entered and sat down in the Avantage, awaiting the departure of a client to tell Rasseneur decisively that he should write to Pluchart to come at once. His resolution was taken; he would organize a private meeting, for victory seemed to him certain if the Montsou colliers adhered in a mass to the International. CHAPTER IV It was at the Bon-Joyeux, Widow Désir's, that the private meeting was organized for Thursday at two o'clock. The widow, incensed at the miseries inflicted on her children the colliers, was in a constant state of anger, especially as her inn was emptying. Never had there been a less thirsty strike; the drunkards had shut themselves up at home for fear of disobeying the sober word of command. Thus Montsou, which swarmed with people on feast-days, now exhibited its wide street in mute and melancholy desolation. No beer flowed from counters or bellies, the gutters were dry. On the pavement at the Casimir Bar and the Estaminet du Progrés one only saw the pale faces of the landladies, looking inquiringly into the street; then in Montsou itself the deserted doors extended from the Estaminet Lenfant to the Estaminet Tison, passing by the Estaminet Piquette and the Tête-Coupée Bar; only the Estaminet Saint-Éloi, which was frequented by captains, still drew occasional glasses; the solitude even extended to the Volcan, where the ladies were resting for lack of admirers, although they had lowered their price from ten sous to five in view of the hard times. A deep mourning was breaking the heart of the entire country. "By God!" exclaimed Widow Désir, slapping her thighs with both hands, "it's the fault of the gendarmes! Let them run me in, devil take them, if they like, but I must plague them." For her, all authorities and masters were gendarmes; it was a term of general contempt in which she enveloped all the enemies of the people. She had greeted Étienne's request with transport; her whole house belonged to the miners, she would lend her ball-room gratuitously, and would herself issue the invitations since the law required it. Besides, if the law was not pleased, so much the better! She would give them a bit of her mind. Since yesterday the young man had brought her some fifty letters to sign; he had them copied by neighbours in the settlement who knew how to write, and these letters were sent around among the pits to delegates and to men of whom they were sure. The avowed order of the day was a discussion regarding the continuation of the strike; but in reality they were expecting Pluchart, and reckoning on a discourse from him which would cause a general adhesion to the International. On Thursday morning Étienne was disquieted by the non-appearance of his old foreman, who had promised by letter to arrive on Wednesday evening. What, then, was happening? He was annoyed that he would not be able to come to an understanding with him before the meeting. At nine o'clock he went to Montsou, with the idea that the mechanic had, perhaps, gone there direct without stopping at the Voreux. "No, I've not seen your friend," replied Widow Désir. "But everything is ready. Come and see." She led him into the ball-room. The decorations were the same, the garlands which supported at the ceiling a crown of painted paper flowers, and the gilt cardboard shields in a line along the wall with the names of saints, male and female. Only the musicians' platform had been replaced by a table and three chairs in one corner; and the room was furnished with forms ranged along the floor. "It's perfect," Étienne declared. "And you know," said the widow, "that you're at home here. Yell as much as you like. The gendarmes will have to pass over my body if they do come!" In spite of his anxiety, he could not help smiling when he looked at her, so vast did she appear, with a pair of breasts so huge that one alone would require a man to embrace it, which now led to the saying that of her six weekday lovers she had to take two every evening on account of the work. But Étienne was astonished to see Rasseneur and Souvarine enter; and as the widow left them all three in the large empty hall he exclaimed: "What! you here already!" Souvarine, who had worked all night at the Voreux, the engine-men not being on strike, had merely come out of curiosity. As to Rasseneur, he had seemed constrained during the last two days, and his fat round face had lost its good-natured laugh. "Pluchart has not arrived, and I am very anxious," added Étienne. The innkeeper turned away his eyes, and replied between his teeth: "I'm not surprised; I don't expect him." "What!" Then he made up his mind, and looking the other man in the face bravely: "I, too, have sent him a letter, if you want me to tell you; and in that letter I have begged him not to come. Yes, I think we ought to manage our own affairs ourselves, without turning to strangers." Étienne, losing his self-possession and trembling with anger, turned his eyes on his mate's and stammered: "You've done that, you've done that?" "I have done that, certainly! and you know that I trust Pluchart; he's a knowing fellow and reliable, one can get on with him. But you see I don't care a damn for your ideas, I don't! Politics, Government, and all that, I don't care a damn for it! What I want is for the miner to be better treated. I have worked down below for twenty years, I've sweated down there with fatigue and misery, and I've sworn to make it easier for the poor beggars who are there still; and I know well enough you'll never get anything with all your ideas, you'll only make the men's fate more miserable still. When they are forced by hunger to go down again, they will be more crushed than ever; the Company will pay them with strokes of the stick, like a runaway dog who is brought back to his kennel. That's what I want to prevent, do you see!" He raised his voice, protruding his belly and squarely planted on his big legs. The man's whole patient, reasonable nature was revealed in clear phrases, which flowed abundantly without an effort. Was it not absurd to believe that with one stroke one could change the world, putting the workers in the place of the masters and dividing gold as one divides an apple? It would, perhaps, take thousands and thousands of years for that to be realized. There, hold your tongue, with your miracles! The most sensible plan was, if one did not wish to break one's nose, to go straight forward, to demand possible reforms, in short, to improve the lot of the workers on every occasion. He did his best, so far as he occupied himself with it, to bring the Company to better terms; if not, damn it all! they would only starve by being obstinate. Étienne had let him speak, his own speech cut short by indignation. Then he cried: "Haven't you got any blood in your veins, by God?" At one moment he would have struck him, and to resist the temptation he rushed about the hall with long strides, venting his fury on the benches through which he made a passage. "Shut the door, at all events," Souvarine remarked. "There is no need to be heard." Having himself gone to shut it, he quietly sat down in one of the office chairs. He had rolled a cigarette, and was looking at the other two men with his mild subtle eye, his lips drawn by a slight smile. "You won't get any farther by being angry," said Rasseneur judiciously. "I believed at first that you had good sense. It was sensible to recommend calmness to the mates, to force them to keep indoors, and to use your power to maintain order. And now you want to get them into a mess!" At each turn in his walks among the benches, Étienne returned towards the innkeeper, seizing him by the shoulders, shaking him, and shouting out his replies in his face. "But, blast it all! I mean to be calm. Yes, I have imposed order on them! Yes, I do advise them still not to stir! only it doesn't do to be made a joke of after all! You are lucky to remain cool. Now there are hours when I feel that I am losing my head." This was a confession on his part. He railed at his illusions of a novice, his religious dream of a city in which justice would soon reign among the men who had become brothers. A fine method truly! to cross one's arms and wait, if one wished to see men eating each other to the end of the world like wolves. No! one must interfere, or injustice would be eternal, and the rich would for ever suck the blood of the poor. Therefore he could not forgive himself the stupidity of having said formerly that politics ought to be banished from the social question. He knew nothing then; now he had read and studied, his ideas were ripe, and he boasted that he had a system. He explained it badly, however, in confused phrases which contained a little of all the theories he had successively passed through and abandoned. At the summit Karl Marx's idea remained standing: capital was the result of spoliation, it was the duty and the privilege of labour to reconquer that stolen wealth. In practice he had at first, with Proudhon, been captured by the chimera of a mutual credit, a vast bank of exchange which suppressed middlemen; then Lassalle's cooperative societies, endowed by the state, gradually transforming the earth into a single industrial town, had aroused his enthusiasm until he grew disgusted in face of the difficulty of controlling them; and he had arrived recently at collectivism, demanding that all the instruments of production should be restored to the community. But this remained vague; he knew not how to realize this new dream, still hindered by scruples of reason and good sense, not daring to risk the secretary's absolute affirmations. He simply said that it was a question of getting possession of the government first of all. Afterwards they would see. "But what has taken you? Why are you going over to the bourgeois?" he continued violently, again planting himself before the innkeeper. "You said yourself it would have to burst up!" Rasseneur blushed slightly. "Yes, I said so. And if it does burst up, you will see that I am no more of a coward than any one else. Only I refuse to be among those who increase the mess in order to fish out a position for themselves." Étienne blushed in his turn. The two men no longer shouted, having become bitter and spiteful, conquered by the coldness of their rivalry. It was at bottom that which always strains systems, making one man revolutionary in the extreme, pushing the other to an affectation of prudence, carrying them, in spite of themselves, beyond their true ideas into those fatal parts which men do not choose for themselves. And Souvarine, who was listening, exhibited on his pale, girlish face a silent contempt--the crushing contempt of the man who was willing to yield his life in obscurity without even gaining the splendour of martyrdom. "Then it's to me that you're saying that?" asked Étienne; "you're jealous!" "Jealous of what?" replied Rasseneur. "I don't pose as a big man; I'm not trying to create a section at Montsou for the sake of being made secretary." The other man wanted to interrupt him, but he added: "Why don't you be frank? You don't care a damn for the International; you're only burning to be at our head, the gentleman who corresponds with the famous Federal Council of the Nord!" There was silence. Étienne replied, quivering: "Good! I don't think I have anything to reproach myself with. I always asked your advice, for I knew that you had fought here long before me. But since you can't endure any one by your side, I'll act alone in future. And first I warn you that the meeting will take place even if Pluchart does not come, and the mates will join in spite of you." "Oh! join!" muttered the innkeeper; "that's not enough. You'll have to get them to pay their subscriptions." "Not at all. The International grants time to workers on strike. It will at once come to our help, and we shall pay later on." Rasseneur was carried beyond himself. "Well, we shall see. I belong to this meeting of yours, and I shall speak. I shall not let you turn our friends' heads, I shall let them know where their real interests lie. We shall see whom they mean to follow--me, whom they have known for thirty years, or you, who have turned everything upside down among us in less than a year. No, no! damn it all! We shall see which of us is going to crush the other." And he went out, banging the door. The garlands of flowers swayed from the ceiling, and the gilt shields jumped against the walls. Then the great room fell back into its heavy calm. Souvarine was smoking in his quiet way, seated before the table. After having paced for a moment in silence, Étienne began to relieve his feelings at length. Was it his fault if they had left that fat lazy fellow to come to him? And he defended himself from having ought popularity. He knew not even how it had happened, this friendliness of the settlement, the confidence of the miners, the power which he now had over them. He was indignant at being accused of wishing to bring everything to confusion out of ambition; he struck his chest, protesting his brotherly feelings. Suddenly he stopped before Souvarine and exclaimed: "Do you know, if I thought I should cost a drop of blood to a friend, I would go off at once to America!" The engine-man shrugged his shoulders, and a smile again came on his lips. "Oh! blood!" he murmured. "What does that matter? The earth has need of it." Étienne, growing calm, took a chair, and put his elbows on the other side of the table. This fair face, with the dreamy eyes, which sometimes grew savage with a red light, disturbed him, and exercised a singular power over his will. In spite of his comrade's silence, conquered even by that silence, he felt himself gradually absorbed. "Well," he asked, "what would you do in my place? Am I not right to act as I do? Isn't it best for us to join this association?" Souvarine, after having slowly ejected a jet of smoke, replied by his favourite word: "Oh, foolery! but meanwhile it's always so. Besides, their International will soon begin to move. He has taken it up." "Who, then?" "He!" He had pronounced this word in a whisper, with religious fervour, casting a glance towards the east. He was speaking of the master, Bakunin the destroyer. "He alone can give the thunderclap," he went on, "while your learned men, with their evolution, are mere cowards. Before three years are past, the International, under his orders, will crush the old world." Étienne pricked up his ears in attention. He was burning to gain knowledge, to understand this worship of destruction, regarding which the engine-man only uttered occasional obscure words, as though he kept certain mysteries to himself. "Well, but explain to me. What is your aim?" "To destroy everything. No more nations, no more governments, no more property, no more God nor worship." "I quite understand. Only what will that lead you to?" "To the primitive formless commune, to a new world, to the renewal of everything." "And the means of execution? How do you reckon to set about it?" "By fire, by poison, by the dagger. The brigand is the true hero, the popular avenger, the revolutionary in action, with no phrases drawn out of books. We need a series of tremendous outrages to frighten the powerful and to arouse the people." As he talked, Souvarine grew terrible. An ecstasy raised him on his chair, a mystic flame darted from his pale eyes, and his delicate hands gripped the edge of the table almost to breaking. The other man looked at him in fear, and thought of the stories of which he had received vague intimation, of mines charged beneath the tsar's palace, of chiefs of police struck down by knives like wild boars, of his mistress, the only woman he had loved, hanged at Moscow one rainy morning, while in the crowd he kissed her with his eyes for the last time. "No! no!" murmured Étienne, as with a gesture he pushed away these abominable visions, "we haven't got to that yet over here. Murder and fire, never! It is monstrous, unjust, all the mates would rise and strangle the guilty one!" And besides, he could not understand; the instincts of his race refused to accept this sombre dream of the extermination of the world, mown level like a rye-field. Then what would they do afterwards? How would the nations spring up again? He demanded a reply. "Tell me your programme. We like to know where we are going to." Then Souvarine concluded peacefully, with his gaze fixed on space: "All reasoning about the future is criminal, because it prevents pure destruction, and interferes with the progress of revolution." This made Étienne laugh, in spite of the cold shiver which passed over his flesh. Besides, he willingly acknowledged that there was something in these ideas, which attracted him by their fearful simplicity. Only it would be playing into Rasseneur's hands if he were to repeat such things to his comrades. It was necessary to be practical. Widow Désir proposed that they should have lunch. They agreed, and went into the inn parlour, which was separated from the ball-room on weekdays by a movable partition. When they had finished their omelette and cheese, the engine-man proposed to depart, and as the other tried to detain him: "What for? To listen to you talking useless foolery? I've seen enough of it. Good day." He went off in his gentle, obstinate way, with a cigarette between his lips. Étienne's anxiety increased. It was one o'clock, and Pluchart was decidedly breaking his promise. Towards half-past one the delegates began to appear, and he had to receive them, for he wished to see who entered, for fear that the Company might send its usual spies. He examined every letter of invitation, and took note of those who entered; many came in without a letter, as they were admitted provided he knew them. As two o'clock struck Rasseneur entered, finishing his pipe at the counter, and chatting without haste. This provoking calmness still further disturbed Étienne, all the more as many had come merely for fun--Zacharie, Mouquet, and others. These cared little about the strike, and found it a great joke to do nothing. Seated at tables, and spending their last two sous on drink, they grinned and bantered their mates, the serious ones, who had come to make fools of themselves. Another quarter of an hour passed; there was impatience in the hall. Then Étienne, in despair, made a gesture of resolution. And he decided to enter, when Widow Désir, who was putting her head outside, exclaimed: "But here he is, your gentleman!" It was, in fact, Pluchart. He came in a cab drawn by a broken-winded horse. He jumped at once on to the pavement, a thin, insipidly handsome man, with a large square head;--in his black cloth frock-coat he had the Sunday air of a well-to-do workman. For five years he had not done a stroke with the file, and he took care of his appearance, especially combing his hair in a correct manner, vain of his successes on the platform; but his limbs were still stiff, and the nails of his large hands, eaten by the iron, had not grown again. Very active, he worked out his ambitions, scouring the province unceasingly in order to place his ideas. "Ah! don't be angry with me," he said, anticipating questions and reproaches. "Yesterday, lecture at Preuilly in the morning, meeting in the evening at Valencay. Today, lunch at Marchiennes with Sauvagnat. Then I had to take a cab. I'm worn out; you can tell by my voice. But that's nothing; I shall speak all the same." He was on the threshold of the Bon-Joyeux, when he bethought himself. "By jingo! I'm forgetting the tickets. We should have been in a fine fix!" He went back to the cab, which the cabman drew up again, and he pulled out a little black wooden box, which he carried off under his arm. Étienne walked radiantly in his shadow, while Rasseneur, in consternation, did not dare to offer his hand. But the other was already pressing it, and saying a rapid word or two about the letter. What a rum idea! Why not hold this meeting? One should always hold a meeting when possible. Widow Désir asked if he would take anything, but he refused. No need; he spoke without drinking. Only he was in a hurry, because in the evening he reckoned on pushing as far as Joiselle, where he wished to come to an understanding with Legoujeux. Then they all entered the ball-room together. Maheu and Levaque, who had arrived late, followed them. The door was then locked, in order to be in privacy. This made the jokers laugh even more, Zacharie shouting to Mouquet that perhaps they were going to get them all with child in there. About a hundred miners were waiting on the benches in the close air of the room, with the warm odours of the last ball rising from the floor. Whispers ran round and all heads turned, while the new-comers sat down in the empty places. They gazed at the Lille gentleman, and the black frock-coat caused a certain surprise and discomfort. But on Étienne's proposition the meeting was at once constituted. He gave out the names, while the others approved by lifting their hands. Pluchart was nominated chairman, and Maheu and Étienne himself were voted stewards. There was a movement of chairs and the officers were installed; for a moment they watched the chairman disappear beneath the table under which he slid the box, which he had not let go. When he reappeared he struck lightly with his fist to call for attention; then he began in a hoarse voice: "Citizens!" A little door opened and he had to stop. It was Widow Désir who, coming round by the kitchen, brought in six glasses on a tray. "Don't put yourselves out," she said. "When one talks one gets thirsty." Maheu relieved her of the tray and Pluchart was able to go on. He said how very touched he was at his reception by the Montsou workers, he excused himself for his delay, mentioning his fatigue and his sore throat, then he gave place to Citizen Rasseneur, who wished to speak. Rasseneur had already planted himself beside the table near the glasses. The back of a chair served him as a rostrum. He seemed very moved, and coughed before starting in a loud voice: "Mates!" What gave him his influence over the workers at the pit was the facility of his speech, the good-natured way in which he could go on talking to them by the hour without ever growing weary. He never ventured to gesticulate, but stood stolid and smiling, drowning them and dazing them, until they all shouted: "Yes, yes, that's true enough, you're right!" However, on this day, from the first word, he felt that there was a sullen opposition. This made him advance prudently. He only discussed the continuation of the strike, and waited for applause before attacking the International. Certainly honour prevented them from yielding to the Company's demands; but how much misery! what a terrible future if it was necessary to persist much longer! and without declaring for submission he damped their courage, he showed them the settlements dying of hunger, he asked on what resources the partisans of resistance were counting. Three or four friends tried to applaud him, but this accentuated the cold silence of the majority, and the gradually rising disapprobation which greeted his phrases. Then, despairing of winning them over, he was carried away by anger, he foretold misfortune if they allowed their heads to be turned at the instigation of strangers. Two-thirds of the audience had risen indignantly, trying to silence him, since he insulted them by treating them like children unable to act for themselves. But he went on speaking in spite of the tumult, taking repeated gulps of beer, and shouting violently that the man was not born who would prevent him from doing his duty. Pluchart had risen. As he had no bell he struck his fist on the table, repeating in his hoarse voice: "Citizens, citizens!" At last he obtained a little quiet and the meeting, when consulted, brought Rasseneur's speech to an end. The delegates who had represented the pits in the interview with the manager led the others, all enraged by starvation and agitated by new ideas. The voting was decided in advance. "You don't care a damn, you don't! you can eat!" yelled Levaque, thrusting out his fist at Rasseneur. Étienne leaned over behind the chairman's back to appease Maheu, who was very red, and carried out of himself by this hypocritical discourse. "Citizens!" said Pluchart, "allow me to speak!" There was deep silence. He spoke. His voice sounded painful and hoarse; but he was used to it on his journeys, and took his laryngitis about with him like his programme. Gradually his voice expanded and he produced pathetic effects with it. With open arms and accompanying his periods with a swaying of his shoulders, he had an eloquence which recalled the pulpit, a religious fashion of sinking the ends of his sentences whose monotonous roll at last carried conviction. His discourse centred on the greatness and the advantages of the International; it was that with which he always started in every new locality. He explained its aim, the emancipation of the workers; he showed its imposing structure--below the commune, higher the province, still higher the nation, and at the summit humanity. His arms moved slowly, piling up the stages, preparing the immense cathedral of the future world. Then there was the internal administration: he read the statutes, spoke of the congresses, pointed out the growing importance of the work, the enlargement of the programme, which, starting from the discussion of wages, was now working towards a social liquidation, to have done with the wage system. No more nationalities. The workers of the whole world would be united by a common need for justice, sweeping away the middle-class corruption, founding, at last, a free society, in which he who did not work should not reap! He roared; his breath startled the flowers of painted paper beneath the low smoky ceiling which sent back the sound of his voice. A wave passed through the audience. Some of them cried: "That's it! We're with you." He went on. The world would be conquered before three years. And he enumerated the nations already conquered. From all sides adhesions were raining in. Never had a young religion counted so many disciples. Then, when they had the upper hand they would dictate terms to the masters, who, in their turn, would have a fist at their throats. "Yes, yes! they'll have to go down!" With a gesture he enforced silence. Now he was entering on the strike question. In principle he disapproved of strikes; it was a slow method, which aggravated the sufferings of the worker. But before better things arrived, and when they were inevitable, one must make up one's mind to them, for they had the advantage of disorganizing capital. And in this case he showed the International as providence for strikers, and quoted examples: in Paris, during the strike of the bronze-workers, the masters had granted everything at once, terrified at the news that the International was sending help; in London it had saved the miners at a colliery, by sending back, at its own expense, a ship-load of Belgians who had been brought over by the coal-owner. It was sufficient to join and the companies trembled, for the men entered the great army of workers who were resolved to die for one another rather than to remain the slaves of a capitalistic society. Applause interrupted him. He wiped his forehead with his handkerchief, at the same time refusing a glass which Maheu passed to him. When he was about to continue fresh applause cut short his speech. "It's all right," he said rapidly to Étienne. "They've had enough. Quick! the cards!" He had plunged beneath the table, and reappeared with the little black wooden box. "Citizens!" he shouted, dominating the disturbance, "here are the cards of membership. Let your delegates come up, and I will give them to them to be distributed. Later on we can arrange everything." Rasseneur rushed forward and again protested. Étienne was also agitated; having to make a speech. Extreme confusion followed. Levaque jumped up with his fists out, as if to fight. Maheu was up and speaking, but nobody could distinguish a single word. In the growing tumult the dust rose from the floor, a floating dust of former balls, poisoning the air with a strong odour of putters and trammers. Suddenly the little door opened, and Widow Désir filled it with her belly and breast, shouting in a thundering voice: "For God's sake, silence! The gendarmes!" It was the commissioner of the district, who had arrived rather late to prepare a report and to break up the meeting. Four gendarmes accompanied him. For five minutes the widow had delayed them at the door, replying that she was at home, and that she had a perfect right to entertain her friends. But they had hustled her away, and she had rushed in to warn her children. "Must clear out through here," she said again. "There's a dirty gendarme guarding the court. It doesn't matter; my little wood-house opens into the alley. Quick, then!" The commissioner was already knocking with his fist, and as the door was not opened, he threatened to force it. A spy must have talked, for he cried that the meeting was illegal, a large number of miners being there without any letter of invitation. In the hall the trouble was growing. They could not escape thus; they had not even voted either for adhesion or for the continuation of the strike. All persisted in talking at the same time. At last the chairman suggested a vote by acclamation. Arms were raised, and the delegates declared hastily that they would join in the name of their absent mates. And it was thus that the ten thousand colliers of Montsou became members of the International. Meanwhile, the retreat began. In order to cover it, Widow Désir had propped herself up against the door, which the butt-ends of the gendarmes' muskets were forcing at her back. The miners jumped over the benches, and escaped, one by one, through the kitchen and the wood-yard. Rasseneur disappeared among the first, and Levaque followed him, forgetful of his abuse, and planning how he could get an offer of a glass to pull himself together. Étienne, after having seized the little box, waited with Pluchart and Maheu, who considered it a point of honour to emerge last. As they disappeared the lock gave, and the commissioner found himself in the presence of the widow, whose breast and belly still formed a barricade. "It doesn't help you much to smash everything in my house," she said. "You can see there's nobody here." The commissioner, a slow man who did not care for scenes, simply threatened to take her off to prison. And he then went away with his four gendarmes to prepare a report, beneath the jeers of Zacharie and Mouquet, who were full of admiration for the way in which their mates had humbugged this armed force, for which they themselves did not care a hang. In the alley outside, Étienne, embarrassed by the box, was rushing along, followed by the others. He suddenly thought of Pierron, and asked why he had not turned up. Maheu, also running, replied that he was ill--a convenient illness, the fear of compromising himself. They wished to retain Pluchart, but, without stopping, he declared that he must set out at once for Joiselle, where Legoujeux was awaiting orders. Then, as they ran, they shouted out to him their wishes for a pleasant journey, and rushed through Montsou with their heels in the air. A few words were exchanged, broken by the panting of their chests. Étienne and Maheu were laughing confidently, henceforth certain of victory. When the International had sent help, it would be the Company that would beg them to resume work. And in this burst of hope, in this gallop of big boots sounding over the pavement of the streets, there was something else also, something sombre and fierce, a gust of violence which would inflame the settlements in the four corners of the country. CHAPTER V Another fortnight had passed by. It was the beginning of January and cold mists benumbed the immense plain. The misery had grown still greater, and the settlements were in agony from hour to hour beneath the increasing famine. Four thousand francs sent by the International from London had scarcely supplied bread for three days, and then nothing had come. This great dead hope was beating down their courage. On what were they to count now since even their brothers had abandoned them? They felt themselves separated from the world and lost in the midst of this deep winter. On Tuesday no resources were left in the Deux-Cent-Quarante settlement. Étienne and the delegates had multiplied their energies. New subscriptions were opened in the neighbouring towns, and even in Paris; collections were made and lectures organized. These efforts came to nothing. Public opinion, which had at first been moved, grew indifferent now that the strike dragged on for ever, and so quietly, without any dramatic incidents. Small charities scarcely sufficed to maintain the poorer families. The others lived by pawning their clothes and selling up the household piece by piece. Everything went to the brokers, the wool of the mattresses, the kitchen utensils, even the furniture. For a moment they thought themselves saved, for the small retail shopkeepers of Montsou, killed out by Maigrat, had offered credit to try and get back their custom; and for a week Verdonck, the grocer, and the two bakers, Carouble and Smelten, kept open shop, but when their advances were exhausted all three stopped. The bailiffs were rejoicing; there only resulted a piling up of debts which would for a long time weigh upon the miners. There was no more credit to be had anywhere and not an old saucepan to sell; they might lie down in a corner to die like mangy dogs. Étienne would have sold his flesh. He had given up his salary and had gone to Marchiennes to pawn his trousers and cloth coat, happy to set the Maheus' pot boiling once more. His boots alone remained, and he retained these to keep a firm foothold, he said. His grief was that the strike had come on too early, before the Provident Fund had had time to swell. He regarded this as the only cause of the disaster, for the workers would surely triumph over the masters on the day when they had saved enough money to resist. And he recalled Souvarine's words accusing the Company of pushing forward the strike to destroy the fund at the beginning. The sight of the settlement and of these poor people without bread or fire overcame him. He preferred to go out and to weary himself with distant walks. One evening, as he was coming back and passing near Réquillart, he perceived an old woman who had fainted by the roadside. No doubt she was dying of hunger; and having raised her he began to shout to a girl whom he saw on the other side of the paling. "Why! is it you?" he said, recognizing Mouquette. "Come and help me then, we must give her something to drink." Mouquette, moved to tears, quickly went into the shaky hovel which her father had set up in the midst of the ruins. She came back at once with gin and a loaf. The gin revived the old woman, who without speaking bit greedily into the bread. She was the mother of a miner who lived at a settlement on the Cougny side, and she had fallen there on returning from Joiselle, where she had in vain attempted to borrow half a franc from a sister. When she had eaten she went away dazed. Étienne stood in the open field of Réquillart, where the crumbling sheds were disappearing beneath the brambles. "Well, won't you come in and drink a little glass?" asked Mouquette merrily. And as he hesitated: "Then you're still afraid of me?" He followed her, won by her laughter. This bread, which she had given so willingly, moved him. She would not take him into her father's room, but led him into her own room, where she at once poured out two little glasses of gin. The room was very neat and he complimented her on it. Besides, the family seemed to want for nothing; the father continued his duties as a groom at the Voreux while she, saying that she could not live with folded arms, had become a laundress, which brought her in thirty sous a day. One may amuse oneself with men but one isn't lazy for all that. "I say," she murmured, all at once coming and putting her arms round him prettily, "why don't you like me?" He could not help laughing, she had done this in so charming a way. "But I like you very much," he replied. "No, no, not like I mean. You know that I am dying of longing. Come, it would give me so much pleasure." It was true, she had desired him for six months. He still looked at her as she clung to him, pressing him with her two tremulous arms, her face raised with such supplicating love that he was deeply moved. There was nothing beautiful in her large round face, with its yellow complexion eaten by the coal; but her eyes shone with flame, a charm rose from her skin, a trembling of desire which made her rosy and young. In face of this gift which was so humble and so ardent he no longer dared to refuse. "Oh! you are willing," she stammered, delighted. "Oh! you are willing!" And she gave herself up with the fainting awkwardness of a virgin, as if it was for the first time, and she had never before known a man. Then when he left her, it was she who was overcome with gratitude; she thanked him and kissed his hands. Étienne remained rather ashamed of this good fortune. Nobody boasted of having had Mouquette. As he went away he swore that it should not occur again, but he preserved a friendly remembrance of her; she was a capital girl. When he got back to the settlement, he found serious news which made him forget the adventure. The rumour was circulating that the Company would, perhaps, agree to make a concession if the delegates made a fresh attempt with the manager. At all events some captains had spread this rumour. The truth was, that in this struggle the mine was suffering even more than the miners. On both sides obstinacy was piling up ruin: while labour was dying of hunger, capital was being destroyed. Every day of rest carried away hundreds of thousands of francs. Every machine which stops is a dead machine. Tools and material are impaired, the money that is sunk melts away like water drunk by the sand. Since the small stock of coal at the surface of the pits was exhausted, customers talked of going to Belgium, so that in future they would be threatened from that quarter. But what especially frightened the Company, although the matter was carefully concealed, was the increasing damage to the galleries and workings. The captains could not cope with the repairs, the timber was falling everywhere, and landslips were constantly taking place. Soon the disasters became so serious that long months would be needed for repairs before hewing could be resumed. Already stories were going about the country: at Crévecoeur three hundred metres of road had subsided in a mass, stopping up access to the Cinq-Paumes; at Madeleine the Maugrétout seam was crumbling away and filling with water. The management refused to admit this, but suddenly two accidents, one after the other, had forced them to avow it. One morning, near Piolaine, the ground was found cracked above the north gallery of Mirou which had fallen in the day before; and on the following day the ground subsided within the Voreux, shaking a corner of a suburb to such an extent that two houses nearly disappeared. Étienne and the delegates hesitated to risk any steps without knowing the directors' intentions. Dansaert, whom they questioned, avoided replying: certainly, the misunderstanding was deplored, and everything would be done to bring about an agreement; but he could say nothing definitely. At last, they decided that they would go to M. Hennebeau in order to have reason on their side; for they did not wish to be accused, later on, of having refused the Company an opportunity of acknowledging that it had been in the wrong. Only they vowed to yield nothing and to maintain, in spite of everything, their terms, which were alone just. The interview took place on Tuesday morning, when the settlement was sinking into desperate wretchedness. It was less cordial than the first interview. Maheu was still the speaker, and he explained that their mates had sent them to ask if these gentlemen had anything new to say. At first M. Hennebeau affected surprise: no order had reached him, nothing could be changed so long as the miners persisted in their detestable rebellion; and this official stiffness produced the worst effects, so that if the delegates had gone out of their way to offer conciliation, the way in which they were received would only have served to make them more obstinate. Afterwards the manager tried to seek a basis of mutual concession; thus, if the men would accept the separate payment for timbering, the Company would raise that payment by the two centimes which they were accused of profiting by. Besides, he added that he would take the offer on himself, that nothing was settled, but that he flattered himself he could obtain this concession from Paris. But the delegates refused, and repeated their demands: the retention of the old system, with a rise of five centimes a tram. Then he acknowledged that he could treat with them at once, and urged them to accept in the name of their wives and little ones dying of hunger. And with eyes on the ground and stiff heads they said no, always no, with fierce vigour. They separated curtly. M. Hennebeau banged the doors. Étienne, Maheu, and the others went off stamping with their great heels on the pavement in the mute rage of the vanquished pushed to extremes. Towards two o'clock the women of the settlement, on their side, made an application to Maigrat. There was only this hope left, to bend this man and to wrench from him another week's credit. The idea originated with Maheude, who often counted too much on people's good-nature. She persuaded the Brulé and the Levaque to accompany her; as to Pierronne, she excused herself, saying that she could not leave Pierron, whose illness still continued. Other women joined the band till they numbered quite twenty. When the inhabitants of Montsou saw them arrive, gloomy and wretched, occupying the whole width of the road, they shook their heads anxiously. Doors were closed, and one lady hid her plate. It was the first time they had been seen thus, and there could not be a worse sign: usually everything was going to ruin when the women thus took to the roads. At Maigrat's there was a violent scene. At first, he had made them go in, jeering and pretending to believe that they had come to pay their debts: that was nice of them to have agreed to come and bring the money all at once. Then, as soon as Maheude began to speak he pretended to be enraged. Were they making fun of people? More credit! Then they wanted to turn him into the street? No, not a single potato, not a single crumb of bread! And he told them to be off to the grocer Verdonck, and to the bakers Carouble and Smelten, since they now dealt with them. The women listened with timid humility, apologizing, and watching his eyes to see if he would relent. He began to joke, offering his shop to the Brulé if she would have him as a lover. They were all so cowardly that they laughed at this; and the Levaque improved on it, declaring that she was willing, she was. But he at once became abusive, and pushed them towards the door. As they insisted, suppliantly, he treated one brutally. The others on the pavement shouted that he had sold himself to the Company, while Maheude, with her arms in the air, in a burst of avenging indignation, cried out for his death, exclaiming that such a man did not deserve to eat. The return to the settlement was melancholy. When the women came back with empty hands, the men looked at them and then lowered their heads. There was nothing more to be done, the day would end without a spoonful of soup; and the other days extended in an icy shadow, without a ray of hope. They had made up their minds to it, and no one spoke of surrender. This excess of misery made them still more obstinate, mute as tracked beasts, resolved to die at the bottom of their hole rather than come out. Who would dare to be first to speak of submission? They had sworn with their mates to hold together, and hold together they would, as they held together at the pit when one of them was beneath a landslip. It was as it ought to be; it was a good school for resignation down there. They might well tighten their belts for a week, when they had been swallowing fire and water ever since they were twelve years of age; and their devotion was thus augmented by the pride of soldiers, of men proud of their profession, who in their daily struggle with death had gained a pride in sacrifice. With the Maheus it was a terrible evening. They were all silent, seated before the dying fire in which the last cinders were smoking. After having emptied the mattresses, handful by handful, they had decided the day before to sell the clock for three francs and the room seemed bare and dead now that the familiar tick-tack no longer filled it with sound. The only object of luxury now, in the middle of the sideboard, was the rose cardboard box, an old present from Maheu, which Maheude treasured like a jewel. The two good chairs had gone; Father Bonnemort and the children were squeezed together on an old mossy bench brought in from the garden. And the livid twilight now coming on seemed to increase the cold. "What's to be done?" repeated Maheude, crouching down in the corner by the oven. Étienne stood up, looking at the portraits of the Emperor and Empress stuck against the wall. He would have torn them down long since if the family had not preserved them for ornament. So he murmured, with clenched teeth: "And to think that we can't get two sous out of these damned idiots, who are watching us starve!" "If I were to take the box?" said the woman, very pale, after some hesitation. Maheu, seated on the edge of the table, with his legs dangling and his head on his chest, sat up. "No! I won't have it!" Maheude painfully rose and walked round the room. Good God! was it possible that they were reduced to such misery? The cupboard without a crumb, nothing more to sell, no notion where to get a loaf! And the fire, which was nearly out! She became angry with Alzire, whom she had sent in the morning to glean on the pit-bank, and who had come back with empty hands, saying that the Company would not allow gleaning. Did it matter a hang what the Company wanted? As if they were robbing any one by picking up the bits of lost coal! The little girl, in despair, told how a man had threatened to hit her; then she promised to go back next day, even if she was beaten. "And that imp, Jeanlin," cried the mother; "where is he now, I should like to know? He ought to have brought the salad; we can browse on that like beasts, at all events! You will see, he won't come back. Yesterday, too, he slept out. I don't know what he's up to; the rascal always looks as though his belly were full." "Perhaps," said Étienne, "he picks up sous on the road." She suddenly lifted both fists furiously. "If I knew that! My children beg! I'd rather kill them and myself too." Maheu had again sunk down on the edge of the table. Lénore and Henri, astonished that they had nothing to eat, began to moan; while old Bonnemort, in silence, philosophically rolled his tongue in his mouth to deceive his hunger. No one spoke any more; all were becoming benumbed beneath this aggravation of their evils; the grandfather, coughing and spitting out the black phlegm, taken again by rheumatism which was turning to dropsy; the father asthmatic, and with knees swollen with water; the mother and the little ones scarred by scrofula and hereditary anaemia. No doubt their work made this inevitable; they only complained when the lack of food killed them off; and already they were falling like flies in the settlement. But something must be found for supper. My God! where was it to be found, what was to be done? Then, in the twilight, which made the room more and more gloomy with its dark melancholy, Étienne, who had been hesitating for a moment, at last decided with aching heart. "Wait for me," he said. "I'll go and see somewhere." And he went out. The idea of Mouquette had occurred to him. She would certainly have a loaf, and would give it willingly. It annoyed him to be thus forced to return to Réquillart; this girl would kiss his hands with her air of an amorous servant; but one did not leave one's friends in trouble; he would still be kind with her if need be. "I will go and look round, too," said Maheude, in her turn. "It's too stupid." She reopened the door after the young man and closed it violently, leaving the others motionless and mute in the faint light of a candle-end which Alzire had just lighted. Outside she stopped and thought for a moment. Then she entered the Levaque's house. "Tell me: I lent you a loaf the other day. Could you give it me back?" But she stopped herself. What she saw was far from encouraging; the house spoke of misery even more than her own. The Levaque woman, with fixed eyes, was gazing into her burnt-out fire, while Levaque, made drunk on his empty stomach by some nail-makers, was sleeping on the table. With his back to the wall, Bouteloup was mechanically rubbing his shoulders with the amazement of a good-natured fellow who has eaten up his savings, and is astonished at having to tighten his belt. "A loaf! ah! my dear," replied the Levaque woman, "I wanted to borrow another from you!" Then, as her husband groaned with pain in his sleep, she pushed his face against the table. "Hold your row, bloody beast! So much the better if it burns your guts! Instead of getting people to pay for your drinks, you ought to have asked twenty sous from a friend." She went on relieving herself by swearing, in the midst of this dirty household, already abandoned so long that an unbearable smell was exhaling from the floor. Everything might smash up, she didn't care a hang! Her son, that rascal Bébert, had also disappeared since morning, and she shouted that it would be a good riddance if he never came back. Then she said that she would go to bed. At least she could get warm. She hustled Bouteloup. "Come along, up we go. The fire's out. No need to light the candle to see the empty plates. Well, are you coming, Louis? I tell you that we must go to bed. We can cuddle up together there, that's a comfort. And let this damned drunkard die here of cold by himself!" When she found herself outside again, Maheude struck resolutely across the gardens towards Pierron's house. She heard laughter. As she knocked there was sudden silence. It was a full minute before the door was opened. "What! is it you?" exclaimed Pierronne with affected surprise. "I thought it was the doctor." Without allowing her to speak, she went on, pointing to Pierron, who was seated before a large coal fire: "Ah! he makes no progress, he makes no progress at all. His face looks all right; it's in his belly that it takes him. Then he must have warmth. We burn all that we've got." Pierron, in fact, looked very well; his complexion was good and his flesh fat. It was in vain that he breathed hard in order to play the sick man. Besides, as Maheude came in she perceived a strong smell of rabbit; they had certainly put the dish out of the way. There were crumbs strewed over the table, and in the very midst she saw a forgotten bottle of wine. "Mother has gone to Montsou to try and get a loaf," said Pierronne again. "We are cooling our heels waiting for her." But her voice choked; she had followed her neighbour's glance, and her eyes also fell on the bottle. Immediately she began again, and narrated the story. Yes, it was wine; the Piolaine people had brought her that bottle for her man, who had been ordered by the doctor to take claret. And her thankfulness poured forth in a stream. What good people they were! The young lady especially; she was not proud, going into workpeople's houses and distributing her charities herself. "I see," said Maheude; "I know them." Her heart ached at the idea that the good things always go to the least poor. It was always so, and these Piolaine people had carried water to the river. Why had she not seen them in the settlement? Perhaps, all the same, she might have got something out of them. "I came," she confessed at last, "to know if there was more going with you than with us. Have you just a little vermicelli by way of loan?" Pierronne expressed her grief noisily. "Nothing at all, my dear. Not what you can call a grain of semolina. If mother hasn't come back, it's because she hasn't succeeded. We must go to bed supperless." At this moment crying was heard from the cellar, and she grew angry and struck her fist against the door. It was that gadabout Lydie, whom she had shut up, she said, to punish her for not having returned until five o'clock, after having been roaming about the whole day. One could no longer keep her in order; she was constantly disappearing. Maheude, however, remained standing; she could not make up her mind to leave. This large fire filled her with a painful sensation of comfort; the thought that they were eating there enlarged the void in her stomach. Evidently they had sent away the old woman and shut up the child, to blow themselves out with their rabbit. Ah! whatever people might say, when a woman behaved ill, that brought luck to her house. "Good night," she said, suddenly. Outside night had come on, and the moon behind the clouds was lighting up the earth with a dubious glow. Instead of traversing the gardens again, Maheude went round, despairing, afraid to go home again. But along the dead frontages all the doors smelled of famine and sounded hollow. What was the good of knocking? There was wretchedness everywhere. For weeks since they had had nothing to eat. Even the odour of onion had gone, that strong odour which revealed the settlement from afar across the country; now there was nothing but the smell of old vaults, the dampness of holes in which nothing lives. Vague sounds were dying out, stifled tears, lost oaths; and in the silence which slowly grew heavier one could hear the sleep of hunger coming on, the collapse of bodies thrown across beds in the nightmares of empty bellies. As she passed before the church she saw a shadow slip rapidly by. A gleam of hope made her hasten, for she had recognized the Montsou priest, Abbé Joire, who said mass on Sundays at the settlement chapel. No doubt he had just come out of the sacristy, where he had been called to settle some affair. With rounded back he moved quickly on, a fat meek man, anxious to live at peace with everybody. If he had come at night it must have been in order not to compromise himself among the miners. It was said, too, that he had just obtained promotion. He had even been seen walking about with his successor, a lean man, with eyes like live coals. "Sir, sir!" stammered Maheude. But he would not stop. "Good night, good night, my good woman." She found herself before her own door. Her legs would no longer carry her, and she went in. No one had stirred. Maheu still sat dejected on the edge of the table. Old Bonnemort and the little ones were huddled together on the bench for the sake of warmth. And they had not said a word, and the candle had burnt so low that even light would soon fail them. At the sound of the door the children turned their heads; but seeing that their mother brought nothing back, they looked down on the ground again, repressing the longing to cry, for fear of being scolded. Maheude fell back into her place near the dying fire. They asked her no questions, and the silence continued. All had understood, and they thought it useless to weary themselves more by talking; they were now waiting, despairing and without courage, in the last expectation that perhaps Étienne would unearth help somewhere. The minutes went by, and at last they no longer reckoned on this. When Étienne reappeared, he held a cloth containing a dozen potatoes, cooked but cold. "That's all that I've found," he said. With Mouquette also bread was wanting; it was her dinner which she had forced him to take in this cloth, kissing him with all her heart. "Thanks," he said to Maheude, who offered him his share; "I've eaten over there." It was not true, and he gloomily watched the children throw themselves on the food. The father and mother also restrained themselves, in order to leave more; but the old man greedily swallowed everything. They had to take a potato away from him for Alzire. Then Étienne said that he had heard news. The Company, irritated by the obstinacy of the strikers, talked of giving back their certificates to the compromised miners. Certainly, the Company was for war. And a more serious rumour circulated: they boasted of having persuaded a large number of men to go down again. On the next day the Victoire and Feutry-Cantel would be complete; even at Madeleine and Mirou there would be a third of the men. The Maheus were furious. "By God!" shouted the father, "if there are traitors, we must settle their account." And standing up, yielding to the fury of his suffering: "To-morrow evening, to the forest! Since they won't let us come to an understanding at the Bon-Joyeux, we can be at home in the forest!" This cry had aroused old Bonnemort, who had grown drowsy after his gluttony. It was the old rallying-cry, the rendezvous where the miners of old days used to plot their resistance to the king's soldiers. "Yes, yes, to Vandame! I'm with you if you go there!" Maheude made an energetic gesture. "We will all go. That will finish these injustices and treacheries." Étienne decided that the rendezvous should be announced to all the settlements for the following evening. But the fire was dead, as with the Levaques, and the candle suddenly went out. There was no more coal and no more oil; they had to feel their way to bed in the intense cold which contracted the skin. The little ones were crying. CHAPTER VI Jeanlin was now well and able to walk; but his legs had united so badly that he limped on both the right and left sides, and moved with the gait of a duck, though running as fast as formerly with the skill of a mischievous and thieving animal. On this evening, in the dusk on the Réquillart road, Jeanlin, accompanied by his inseparable friends, Bébert and Lydie, was on the watch. He had taken ambush in a vacant space, behind a paling opposite an obscure grocery shop, situated at the corner of a lane. An old woman who was nearly blind displayed there three or four sacks of lentils and haricots, black with dust; and it was an ancient dried codfish, hanging by the door and stained with fly-blows, to which his eyes were directed. Twice already he had sent Bébert to unhook it. But each time someone had appeared at the bend in the road. Always intruders in the way, one could not attend to one's affairs. A gentleman went by on horseback, and the children flattened themselves at the bottom of the paling, for they recognized M. Hennebeau. Since the strike he was often thus seen along the roads, riding alone amid the rebellious settlements, ascertaining, with quiet courage, the condition of the country. And never had a stone whistled by his ears; he only met men who were silent and slow to salute him; most often he came upon lovers, who cared nothing for politics and took their fill of pleasure in holes and corners. He passed by on his trotting mare with head directed straight forward, so as to disturb nobody, while his heart was swelling with an unappeased desire amid this gormandizing of free love. He distinctly saw these small rascals, the little boys on the little girl in a heap. Even the youngsters were already amusing themselves in their misery! His eyes grew moist, and he disappeared, sitting stiffly on his saddle, with his frock-coat buttoned up in a military manner. "Damned luck!" said Jeanlin. "This will never finish. Go on, Bébert! Hang on to its tail!" But two men once more appeared, and the child again stifled an oath when he heard the voice of his brother Zacharie narrating to Mouquet how he had discovered a two-franc piece sewn into one of his wife's petticoats. They both grinned with satisfaction, slapping each other on the shoulder. Mouquet proposed a game of crosse for the next day; they would leave the Avantage at two o'clock, and go to the Montoire side, near Marchiennes. Zacharie agreed. What was the good of bothering over the strike? as well amuse oneself, since there's nothing to do. And they turned the corner of the road, when Étienne, who was coming along the canal, stopped them and began to talk. "Are they going to bed here?" said Jeanlin, in exasperation. "Nearly night; the old woman will be taking in her sacks." Another miner came down towards Réquillart. Étienne went off with him, and as they passed the paling the child heard them speak of the forest; they had been obliged to put off the rendezvous to the following day, for fear of not being able to announce it in one day to all the settlements. "I say, there," he whispered to his two mates, "the big affair is for to-morrow. We'll go, eh? We can get off in the afternoon." And the road being at last free, he sent Bébert off. "Courage! hang on to its tail. And look out! the old woman's got her broom." Fortunately the night had grown dark. Bébert, with a leap, hung on to the cod so that the string broke. He ran away, waving it like a kite, followed by the two others, all three galloping. The woman came out of her shop in astonishment, without understanding or being able to distinguish this band now lost in the darkness. These scoundrels had become the terror of the country. They gradually spread themselves over it like a horde of savages. At first they had been satisfied with the yard at the Voreux, tumbling into the stock of coal, from which they would emerge looking like Negroes, playing at hide-and-seek amid the supply of wood, in which they lost themselves as in the depths of a virgin forest. Then they had taken the pit-bank by assault; they would seat themselves on it and slide down the bare portions still boiling with interior fires; they glided among the briers in the older parts, hiding for the whole day, occupied in the quiet little games of mischievous mice. And they were constantly enlarging their conquests, scuffling among the piles of bricks until blood came, running about the fields and eating without bread all sorts of milky herbs, searching the banks of the canals to take fish from the mud and swallow them raw and pushing still farther, they travelled for kilometres as far as the thickets of Vandame, under which they gorged themselves with strawberries in the spring, with nuts and bilberries in summer. Soon the immense plain belonged to them. What drove them thus from Montsou to Marchiennes, constantly on the roads with the eyes of young wolves, was the growing love of plunder. Jeanlin remained the captain of these expeditions, leading the troop on to all sorts of prey, ravaging the onion fields, pillaging the orchards, attacking shop windows. In the country, people accused the miners on strike, and talked of a vast organized band. One day, even, he had forced Lydie to steal from her mother, and made her bring him two dozen sticks of barley-sugar, which Pierronne kept in a bottle on one of the boards in her window; and the little girl, who was well beaten, had not betrayed him because she trembled so before his authority. The worst was that he always gave himself the lion's share. Bébert also had to bring him the booty, happy if the captain did not hit him and keep it all. For some time Jeanlin had abused his authority. He would beat Lydie as one beats one's lawful wife, and he profited by Bébert's credulity to send him on unpleasant adventures, amused at making a fool of this big boy, who was stronger than himself, and could have knocked him over with a blow of his fist. He felt contempt for both of them and treated them as slaves, telling them that he had a princess for his mistress and that they were unworthy to appear before her. And, in fact, during the past week he would suddenly disappear at the end of a road or a turning in a path, no matter where it might be, after having ordered them with a terrible air to go back to the settlement. But first he would pocket the booty. This was what happened on the present occasion. "Give it up," he said, snatching the cod from his mate's hands when they stopped, all three, at a bend in the road near Réquillart. Bébert protested. "I want some, you know. I took it." "Eh! what!" he cried. "You'll have some if I give you some. Not to-night, sure enough; to-morrow, if there's any left." He pushed Lydie, and placed both of them in line like soldiers shouldering arms. Then, passing behind them: "Now, you must stay there five minutes without turning. By God! if you do turn, there will be beasts that will eat you up. And then you will go straight back, and if Bébert touches Lydie on the way, I shall know it and I shall hit you." Then he disappeared in the shadow, so lightly that the sound of his naked feet could not be heard. The two children remained motionless for the five minutes without looking round, for fear of receiving a blow from the invisible. Slowly a great affection had grown up between them in their common terror. He was always thinking of taking her and pressing her very tight between his arms, as he had seen others do and she, too, would have liked it, for it would have been a change for her to be so nicely caressed. But neither of them would have allowed themselves to disobey. When they went away, although the night was very dark, they did not even kiss each other; they walked side by side, tender and despairing, certain that if they touched one another the captain would strike them from behind. Étienne, at the same hour, had entered Réquillart. The evening before Mouquette had begged him to return, and he returned, ashamed, feeling an inclination which he refused to acknowledge, for this girl who adored him like a Christ. It was, besides, with the intention of breaking it off. He would see her, he would explain to her that she ought no longer to pursue him, on account of the mates. It was not a time for pleasure; it was dishonest to amuse oneself thus when people were dying of hunger. And not having found her at home, he had decided to wait and watch the shadows of the passers-by. Beneath the ruined steeple the old shaft opened, half blocked up. Above the black hole a beam stood erect, and with a fragment of roof at the top it had the profile of a gallows; in the broken walling of the curbs stood two trees--a mountain ash and a plane--which seemed to grow from the depths of the earth. It was a corner of abandoned wildness, the grassy and fibrous entry of a gulf, embarrassed with old wood, planted with hawthorns and sloe-trees, which were peopled in the spring by warblers in their nests. Wishing to avoid the great expense of keeping it up, the Company, for the last ten years, had proposed to fill up this dead pit; but they were waiting to install an air-shaft in the Voreux, for the ventilation furnace of the two pits, which communicated, was placed at the foot of Réquillart, of which the former winding-shaft served as a conduit. They were content to consolidate the tubbing by beams placed across, preventing extraction, and they had neglected the upper galleries to watch only over the lower gallery, in which blazed the furnace, the enormous coal fire, with so powerful a draught that the rush of air produced the wind of a tempest from one end to the other of the neighbouring mine. As a precaution, in order that they could still go up and down, the order had been given to furnish the shaft with ladders; only, as no one took charge of them, the ladders were rotting with dampness, and in some places had already given way. Above, a large brier stopped the entry of the passage, and, as the first ladder had lost some rungs, it was necessary, in order to reach it, to hang on to a root of the mountain ash, and then to take one's chance and drop into the blackness. Étienne was waiting patiently, hidden behind a bush, when he heard a long rustling among the branches. He thought at first that it was the scared flight of a snake. But the sudden gleam of a match astonished him, and he was stupefied on recognizing Jeanlin, who was lighting a candle and burying himself in the earth. He was seized with curiosity, and approached the hole; the child had disappeared, and a faint gleam came from the second ladder. Étienne hesitated a moment, and then let himself go, holding on to the roots. He thought for a moment that he was about to fall down the whole five hundred and eighty metres of the mine, but at last he felt a rung, and descended gently. Jeanlin had evidently heard nothing. Étienne constantly saw the light sinking beneath him, while the little one's shadow, colossal and disturbing, danced with the deformed gait of his distorted limbs. He kicked his legs about with the skill of a monkey, catching on with hands, feet, or chin where the rungs were wanting. Ladders, seven metres in length, followed one another, some still firm, others shaky, yielding and almost broken; the steps were narrow and green, so rotten that one seemed to walk in moss; and as one went down the heat grew suffocating, the heat of an oven proceeding from the air-shaft which was, fortunately, not very active now the strike was on, or when the furnace devoured its five thousand kilograms of coal a day, one could not have risked oneself here without scorching one's hair. "What a dammed little toad!" exclaimed Étienne in a stifled voice; "where the devil is he going to?" Twice he had nearly fallen. His feet slid on the damp wood. If he had only had a candle like the child! but he struck himself every minute; he was only guided by the vague gleam that fled beneath him. He had already reached the twentieth ladder, and the descent still continued. Then he counted them: twenty-one, twenty-two, twenty-three, and he still went down and down. His head seemed to be swelling with the heat, and he thought that he was falling into a furnace. At last he reached a landing-place, and he saw the candle going off along a gallery. Thirty ladders, that made about two hundred and ten metres. "Is he going to drag me about long?" he thought. "He must be going to bury himself in the stable." But on the left, the path which led to the stable was closed by a landslip. The journey began again, now more painful and more dangerous. Frightened bats flew about and clung to the roof of the gallery. He had to hasten so as not to lose sight of the light; only where the child passed with ease, with the suppleness of a serpent, he could not glide through without bruising his limbs. This gallery, like all the older passages, was narrow, and grew narrower every day from the constant fall of soil; at certain places it was a mere tube which would eventually be effaced. In this strangling labour the torn and broken wood became a peril, threatening to saw into his flesh, or to run him through with the points of splinters, sharp as swords. He could only advance with precaution, on his knees or belly, feeling in the darkness before him. Suddenly a band of rats stamped over him, running from his neck to his feet in their galloping flight. "Blast it all! haven't we got to the end yet?" he grumbled, with aching back and out of breath. They were there. At the end of a kilometre the tube enlarged, they reached a part of the gallery which was admirably preserved. It was the end of the old haulage passage cut across the bed like a natural grotto. He was obliged to stop, he saw the child afar, placing his candle between two stones, and putting himself at ease with the quiet and relieved air of a man who is glad to be at home again. This gallery-end was completely changed into a comfortable dwelling. In a corner on the ground a pile of hay made a soft couch; on some old planks, placed like a table, there were bread, potatoes, and bottles of gin already opened; it was a real brigand's cavern, with booty piled up for weeks, even useless booty like soap and blacking, stolen for the pleasure of stealing. And the child, quite alone in the midst of this plunder, was enjoying it like a selfish brigand. "I say, then, is this how you make fun of people?" cried Étienne, when he had breathed for a moment. "You come and gorge yourself here, when we are dying of hunger up above?" Jeanlin, astounded, was trembling. But recognizing the young man, he quickly grew calm. "Will you come and dine with me?" he said at last. "Eh? a bit of grilled cod? You shall see." He had not let go his cod, and he began to scrape off the fly-blows properly with a fine new knife, one of those little dagger knives, with bone handles, on which mottoes are inscribed. This one simply bore the word "Amour." "You have a fine knife," remarked Étienne. "It's a present from Lydie," replied Jeanlin, who neglected to add that Lydie had stolen it, by his orders, from a huckster at Montsou, stationed before the Tête-Coupée Bar. Then, as he still scraped, he added proudly: "Isn't it comfortable in my house? It's a bit warmer than up above, and it feels a lot better!" Étienne had seated himself, and was amused in making him talk. He was no longer angry, he felt interested in this debauched child, who was so brave and so industrious in his vices. And, in fact, he tasted a certain comfort in the bottom of this hole; the heat was not too great, an equal temperature reigned here at all seasons, the warmth of a bath, while the rough December wind was chapping the skins of the miserable people on the earth. As they grew old, the galleries became purified from noxious gases, all the fire-damp had gone, and one only smelled now the odour of old fermented wood, a subtle ethereal odour, as if sharpened with a dash of cloves. This wood, besides, had become curious to look at, with a yellowish pallor of marble, fringed with whitish thread lace, flaky vegetations which seemed to drape it with an embroidery of silk and pearls. In other places the timber was bristling with toadstools. And there were flights of white butterflies, snowy flies and spiders, a decolorized population for ever ignorant of the sun. "Then you're not afraid?" asked Étienne. Jeanlin looked at him in astonishment. "Afraid of what? I am quite alone." But the cod was at last scraped. He lighted a little fire of wood, brought out the pan and grilled it. Then he cut a loaf into two. It was a terribly salt feast, but exquisite all the same for strong stomachs. Étienne had accepted his share. "I am not astonished you get fat, while we are all growing lean. Do you know that it is beastly to stuff yourself like this? And the others? you don't think of them!" "Oh! why are the others such fools?" "Well, you're right to hide yourself, for if your father knew you stole he would settle you." "What! when the bourgeois are stealing from us! It's you who are always saying so. If I nabbed this loaf at Maigrat's you may be pretty sure it's a loaf he owed us." The young man was silent, with his mouth full, and felt troubled. He looked at him, with his muzzle, his green eyes, his large ears, a degenerate abortion, with an obscure intelligence and savage cunning, slowly slipping back into the animality of old. The mine which had made him had just finished him by breaking his legs. "And Lydie?" asked Étienne again; "do you bring her here sometimes?" Jeanlin laughed contemptuously. "The little one? Ah, no, not I; women blab." And he went on laughing, filled with immense disdain for Lydie and Bébert. Who had ever seen such boobies? To think that they swallowed all his humbug, and went away with empty hands while he ate the cod in this warm place, tickled his sides with amusement. Then he concluded, with the gravity of a little philosopher: "Much better be alone, then there's no falling out." Étienne had finished his bread. He drank a gulp of the gin. For a moment he asked himself if he ought not to make a bad return for Jeanlin's hospitality by bringing him up to daylight by the ear, and forbidding him to plunder any more by the threat of telling everything to his father. But as he examined this deep retreat, an idea occurred to him. Who knows if there might not be need for it, either for mates or for himself, in case things should come to the worst up above! He made the child swear not to sleep out, as had sometimes happened when he forgot himself in his hay, and taking a candle-end, he went away first, leaving him to pursue quietly his domestic affairs. Mouquette, seated on a beam in spite of the great cold, had grown desperate in waiting for him. When she saw him she leapt on to his neck; and it was as though he had plunged a knife into her heart when he said that he wished to see her no more. Good God! why? Did she not love him enough? Fearing to yield to the desire to enter with her, he drew her towards the road, and explained to her as gently as possible that she was compromising him in the eyes of his mates, that she was compromising the political cause. She was astonished; what had that got to do with politics? At last the thought occurred to her that he blushed at being seen with her. She was not wounded, however; it was quite natural; and she proposed that he should rebuff her before people, so as to seem to have broken with her. But he would see her just once sometimes. In distraction she implored him; she swore to keep out of sight; she would not keep him five minutes. He was touched, but still refused. It was necessary. Then, as he left her, he wished at least to kiss her. They had gradually reached the first houses of Montsou, and were standing with their arms round one another beneath a large round moon, when a woman passed near them with a sudden start, as though she had knocked against a stone. "Who is that?" asked Étienne, anxiously. "It's Catherine," replied Mouquette. "She's coming back from Jean-Bart." The woman now was going away, with lowered head and feeble limbs, looking very tired. And the young man gazed at her, in despair at having been seen by her, his heart aching with an unreasonable remorse. Had she not been with a man? Had she not made him suffer with the same suffering here, on this Réquillart road, when she had given herself to that man? But, all the same, he was grieved to have done the like to her. "Shall I tell you what it is?" whispered Mouquette, in tears, as she left him. "If you don't want me it's because you want someone else." On the next day the weather was superb; it was one of those clear frosty days, the beautiful winter days when the hard earth rings like crystal beneath the feet. Jeanlin had gone off at one o'clock, but he had to wait for Bébert behind the church, and they nearly set out without Lydie, whose mother had again shut her up in the cellar, and only now liberated her to put a basket on her arm, telling her that if she did not bring it back full of dandelions she should be shut up with the rats all night long. She was frightened, therefore, and wished to go at once for salad. Jeanlin dissuaded her; they would see later on. For a long time Poland, Rasseneur's big rabbit, had attracted his attention. He was passing before the Avantage when, just then, the rabbit came out on to the road. With a leap he seized her by the ears, stuffed her into the little girl's basket, and all three rushed away. They would amuse themselves finely by making her run like a dog as far as the forest. But they stopped to gaze at Zacharie and Mouquet, who, after having drunk a glass with two other mates, had begun their big game of crosse. The stake was a new cap and a red handkerchief, deposited with Rasseneur. The four players, two against two, were bidding for the first turn from the Voreux to the Paillot farm, nearly three kilometres; and it was Zacharie who won, with seven strokes, while Mouquet required eight. They had placed the ball, the little boxwood egg, on the pavement with one end up. Each was holding his crosse, the mallet with its bent iron, long handle, and tight-strung network. Two o'clock struck as they set out. Zacharie, in a masterly manner, at his first stroke, composed of a series of three, sent the ball more than four hundred yards across the beetroot fields; for it was forbidden to play in the villages and on the streets, where people might be killed. Mouquet, who was also a good player, sent off the ball with so vigorous an arm that his single stroke brought the ball a hundred and fifty metres behind. And the game went on, backwards and forwards, always running, their feet bruised by the frozen ridges of the ploughed fields. At first Jeanlin, Bébert, and Lydie had trotted behind the players, delighted with their vigorous strokes. Then they remembered Poland, whom they were shaking up in the basket; and, leaving the game in the open country, they took out the rabbit, inquisitive to see how fast she could run. She went off, and they fled after her; it was a chase lasting an hour at full speed, with constant turns, with shouts to frighten her, and arms opened and closed on emptiness. If she had not been at the beginning of pregnancy they would never have caught her again. As they were panting the sound of oaths made them turn their heads. They had just come upon the crosse party again, and Zacharie had nearly split open his brother's skull. The players were now at their fourth turn. From the Paillot farm they had gone off to the Quatre-Chemins, then from the Quatre-Chemins to Montoire; and now they were going in six strokes from Montoire to Pré-des-Vaches. That made two leagues and a half in an hour; and, besides, they had had drinks at the Estaminet Vincent and at the Trois-Sages Bar. Mouquet this time was ahead. He had two more strokes to play, and his victory was certain, when Zacharie, grinning as he availed himself of his privilege, played with so much skill that the ball rolled into a deep pit. Mouquet's partner could not get it out; it was a disaster. All four shouted; the party was excited, for they were neck to neck; it was necessary to begin again. From the Pré-des-Vaches it was not two kilometres to the point of Herbes-Rousses, in five strokes. There they would refresh themselves at Lerenard's. But Jeanlin had an idea. He let them go on, and pulled out of his pocket a piece of string which he tied to one of Poland's legs, the left hind leg. And it was very amusing. The rabbit ran before the three young rascals, waddling along in such an extraordinary manner that they had never laughed so much before. Afterwards they fastened it round her neck, and let her run off; and, as she grew tired, they dragged her on her belly or on her back, just like a little carriage. That lasted for more than an hour. She was moaning when they quickly put her back into the basket, near the wood at Cruchot, on hearing the players whose game they had once more came across. Zacharie, Mouquet, and the two others were getting over the kilometres, with no other rest than the time for a drink at all the inns which they had fixed on as their goals. From the Herbes-Rousses they had gone on to Buchy, then to Croix-de-Pierre, then to Chamblay. The earth rang beneath the helter-skelter of their feet, rushing untiringly after the ball, which bounded over the ice; the weather was good, they did not fall in, they only ran the risk of breaking their legs. In the dry air the great crosse blows exploded like firearms. Their muscular hands grasped the strung handle; their entire bodies were bent forward, as though to slay an ox. And this went on for hours, from one end of the plain to the other, over ditches and hedges and the slopes of the road, the low walls of the enclosures. One needed to have good bellows in one's chest and iron hinges in one's knees. The pikemen thus rubbed off the rust of the mine with impassioned zeal. There were some so enthusiastic at twenty-five that they could do ten leagues. At forty they played no more; they were too heavy. Five o'clock struck; the twilight was already coming on. One more turn to the Forest of Vandame, to decide who had gained the cap and the handkerchief. And Zacharie joked, with his chaffing indifference for politics; it would be fine to tumble down over there in the midst of the mates. As to Jeanlin, ever since leaving the settlement he had been aiming at the forest, though apparently only scouring the fields. With an indignant gesture he threatened Lydie, who was full of remorse and fear, and talked of going back to the Voreux to gather dandelions. Were they going to abandon the meeting? he wanted to know what the old people would say. He pushed Bébert, and proposed to enliven the end of the journey as far as the trees by detaching Poland and pursuing her with stones. His real idea was to kill her; he wanted to take her off and eat her at the bottom of his hole at Réquillart. The rabbit ran ahead, with nose in the air and ears back; a stone grazed her back, another cut her tail, and, in spite of the growing darkness, she would have been done for if the young rogues had not noticed Étienne and Maheu standing in the middle of a glade. They threw themselves on the animal in desperation, and put her back in the basket. Almost at the same minute Zacharie, Mouquet, and the two others, with their last blow at crosse, drove the ball within a few metres of the glade. They all came into the midst of the rendezvous. Through the whole country, by the roads and pathways of the flat plain, ever since twilight, there had been a long procession, a rustling of silent shadows, moving separately or in groups towards the violet thickets of the forest. Every settlement was emptied, the women and children themselves set out as if for a walk beneath the great clear sky. Now the roads were growing dark; this walking crowd, all gliding towards the same goal, could no longer be distinguished. But one felt it, the confused tramping moved by one soul. Between the hedges, among the bushes, there was only a light rustling, a vague rumour of the voices of the night. M. Hennebeau, who was at this hour returning home mounted on his mare, listened to these vague sounds. He had met couples, long rows of strollers, on this beautiful winter night. More lovers, who were going to take their pleasure, mouth to mouth, behind the walls. Was it not what he always met, girls tumbled over at the bottom of every ditch, beggars who crammed themselves with the only joy that cost nothing? And these fools complained of life, when they could take their supreme fill of this happiness of love! Willingly would he have starved as they did if he could begin life again with a woman who would give herself to him on a heap of stones, with all her strength and all her heart. His misfortune was without consolation, and he envied these wretches. With lowered head he went back, riding his horse at a slackened pace, rendered desperate by these long sounds, lost in the depth of the black country, in which he heard only kisses. CHAPTER VII It was the Plan-des-Dames, that vast glade just opened up by the felling of trees. It spread out in a gentle slope, surrounded by tall thickets and superb beeches with straight regular trunks, which formed a white colonnade patched with green lichens; fallen giants were also lying in the grass, while on the left a mass of logs formed a geometrical cube. The cold was sharpening with the twilight and the frozen moss crackled beneath the feet. There was black darkness on the earth while the tall branches showed against the pale sky, where a full moon coming above the horizon would soon extinguish the stars. Nearly three thousand colliers had come to the rendezvous, a swarming crowd of men, women, and children, gradually filling the glade and spreading out afar beneath the trees. Late arrivals were still coming up, a flood of heads drowned in shadow and stretching as far as the neighbouring copses. A rumbling arose from them, like that of a storm, in this motionless and frozen forest. At the top, dominating the slope, Étienne stood with Rasseneur and Maheu. A quarrel had broken out, one could hear their voices in sudden bursts. Near them some men were listening: Levaque, with clenched fists; Pierron, turning his back and much annoyed that he had no longer been able to feign a fever. There were also Father Bonnemort and old Mouque, seated side by side on a stump, lost in deep meditation. Then behind were the chaffers, Zacharie, Mouquet, and others who had come to make fun of the thing; while gathered together in a very different spirit the women in a group were as serious as if at church. Maheude silently shook her head at the Levaque woman's muttered oaths. Philoméne was coughing, her bronchitis having come back with the winter. Only Mouquette was showing her teeth with laughter, amused at the way in which Mother Brulé was abusing her daughter, an unnatural creature who had sent her away that she might gorge herself with rabbit, a creature who had sold herself and who fattened on her man's cowardice. And Jeanlin had planted himself on the pile of wood, hoisting up Lydie and making Bébert follow him, all three higher up in the air than any one else. The quarrel was raised by Rasseneur, who wished to proceed formally to the election of officers. He was enraged by his defeat at the Bon-Joyeux, and had sworn to have his revenge, for he flattered himself that he could regain his old authority when he was once face to face, not with the delegates, but with the miners themselves. Étienne was disgusted, and thought the idea of officers was ridiculous in this forest. They ought to act in a revolutionary fashion, like savages, since they were tracked like wolves. As the dispute threatened to drag on, he took possession of the crowd at once by jumping on to the trunk of a tree and shouting: "Comrades! comrades!" The confused roar of the crowd died down into a long sigh, while Maheu stifled Rasseneur's protestations. Étienne went on in a loud voice. "Comrades, since they forbid us to speak, since they send the police after us as if we were robbers, we have come to talk here! Here we are free, we are at home. No one can silence us any more than they can silence the birds and beasts!" A thunder of cries and exclamations responded to him. "Yes, yes! the forest is ours, we can talk here. Go on." Then Étienne stood for a moment motionless on the tree-trunk. The moon, still beneath the horizon, only lit up the topmost branches, and the crowd, remaining in the darkness, stood above it at the top of the slope like a bar of shadow. He raised his arm with a slow movement and began. But his voice was not fierce; he spoke in the cold tones of a simple envoy of the people, who was rendering his account. He was delivering the discourse which the commissioner of police had cut short at the Bon-Joyeux; and he began by a rapid history of the strike, affecting a certain scientific eloquence--facts, nothing but facts. At first he spoke of his dislike to the strike; the miners had not desired it, it was the management which had provoked it with the new timbering tariff. Then he recalled the first step taken by the delegates in going to the manager, the bad faith of the directors; and, later on, the second step, the tardy concession, the ten centimes given up, after the attempt to rob them. Now he showed by figures the exhaustion of the Provident Fund, and pointed out the use that had been made of the help sent, briefly excusing the International, Pluchart and the others, for not being able to do more for them in the midst of the cares of their conquest of the world. So the situation was getting worse every day; the Company was giving back certificates and threatening to hire men from Belgium; besides, it was intimidating the weak, and had forced a certain number of miners to go down again. He preserved his monotonous voice, as if to insist on the bad news; he said that hunger was victorious, that hope was dead, and that the struggle had reached the last feverish efforts of courage. And then he suddenly concluded, without raising his voice: "It is in these circumstances, mates, that you have to take a decision to-night. Do you want the strike to go on? and if so, what do you expect to do to beat the Company?" A deep silence fell from the starry sky. The crowd, which could not be seen, was silent in the night beneath these words which choked every heart, and a sigh of despair could be heard through the trees. But Étienne was already continuing, with a change in his voice. It was no longer the secretary of the association who was speaking; it was the chief of a band, the apostle who was bringing truth. Could it be that any were cowardly enough to go back on their word? What! They were to suffer in vain for a month, and then to go back to the pits, with lowered heads, so that the everlasting wretchedness might begin over again! Would it not be better to die at once in the effort to destroy this tyranny of capital, which was starving the worker? Always to submit to hunger up to the moment when hunger will again throw the calmest into revolt, was it not a foolish game which could not go on for ever? And he pointed to the exploited miners, bearing alone the disasters of every crisis, reduced to go without food as soon as the necessities of competition lowered net prices. No, the timbering tariff could not be accepted; it was only a disguised effort to economize on the Company's part; they wanted to rob every man of an hour's work a day. It was too much this time; the day was coming when the miserable, pushed to extremity, would deal justice. He stood with his arms in the air. At the word "justice" the crowd, shaken by a long shudder, broke out into applause which rolled along with the sound of dry leaves. Voices cried: "Justice! it is time! Justice!" Gradually Étienne grew heated. He had not Rasseneur's easy flowing abundance. Words often failed him, he had to force his phrases, bringing them out with an effort which he emphasized by a movement of his shoulders. Only in these continual shocks he came upon familiar images which seized on his audience by their energy; while his workman's gestures, his elbows in and then extended, with his fists thrust out, his jaw suddenly advanced as if to bite, had also an extraordinary effect on his mates. They all said that if he was not big he made himself heard. "The wage system is a new form of slavery," he began again, in a more sonorous voice. "The mine ought to belong to the miner, as the sea belongs to the fisherman, and the earth to the peasant. Do you see? The mine belongs to you, to all of you who, for a century, have paid for it with so much blood and misery!" He boldly entered on obscure questions of law, and lost himself in the difficulties of the special regulations concerning mines. The subsoil, like the soil, belonged to the nation: only an odious privilege gave the monopoly of it to the Companies; all the more since, at Montsou, the pretended legality of the concession was complicated by treaties formerly made with the owners of the old fiefs, according to the ancient custom of Hainault. The miners, then, had only to reconquer their property; and with extended hands he indicated the whole country beyond the forest. At this moment the moon, which had risen above the horizon, lit him up as it glided from behind the high branches. When the crowd, which was still in shadow, saw him thus, white with light, distributing fortune with his open hands, they applauded anew by prolonged clapping. "Yes, yes, he's right. Bravo!" Then Étienne trotted out his favourite subject, the assumption of the instruments of production by the collectivity, as he kept on saying in a phrase the pedantry of which greatly pleased him. At the present time his evolution was completed. Having set out with the sentimental fraternity of the novice and the need for reforming the wage system, he had reached the political idea of its suppression. Since the meeting at the Bon-Joyeux his collectivism, still humanitarian and without a formula, had stiffened into a complicated programme which he discussed scientifically, article by article. First, he affirmed that freedom could only be obtained by the destruction of the state. Then, when the people had obtained possession of the government, reforms would begin: return to the primitive commune, substitution of an equal and free family for the moral and oppressive family; absolute equality, civil, political, and economic; individual independence guaranteed, thanks to the possession of the integral product of the instruments of work; finally, free vocational education, paid for by the collectivity. This led to the total reconstruction of the old rotten society; he attacked marriage, the right of bequest, he regulated every one's fortune, he threw down the iniquitous monument of the dead centuries with a great movement of his arm, always the same movement, the movement of the reaper who is cutting down a ripe harvest. And then with the other hand he reconstructed; he built up the future humanity, the edifice of truth and justice rising in the dawn of the twentieth century. In this state of mental tension reason trembled, and only the sectarian's fixed idea was left. The scruples of sensibility and of good sense were lost; nothing seemed easier than the realization of this new world. He had foreseen everything; he spoke of it as of a machine which he could put together in two hours, and he stuck at neither fire nor blood. "Our turn is come," he broke out for the last time. "Now it is for us to have power and wealth!" The cheering rolled up to him from the depths of the forest. The moon now whitened the whole of the glade, and cut into living waves the sea of heads, as far as the dimly visible copses in the distance between the great grey trunks. And in the icy air there was a fury of faces, of gleaming eyes, of open mouths, a rut of famishing men, women, and children, let loose on the just pillage of the ancient wealth they had been deprived of. They no longer felt the cold, these burning words had warmed them to the bone. Religious exaltation raised them from the earth, a fever of hope like that of the Christians of the early Church awaiting the near coming of justice. Many obscure phrases had escaped them, they could not properly understand this technical and abstract reasoning; but the very obscurity and abstraction still further enlarged the field of promises and lifted them into a dazzling region. What a dream! to be masters, to suffer no more, to enjoy at last! "That's it, by God! it's our turn now! Down with the exploiters." The women were delirious; Maheude, losing her calmness, was seized with the vertigo of hunger, the Levaque woman shouted, old Brulé, carried out of herself, was brandishing her witch-like arms, Philoméne was shaken by a spasm of coughing, and Mouquette was so excited that she cried out words of tenderness to the orator. Among the men, Maheu was won over and shouted with anger, between Pierron who was trembling and Levaque who was talking too much; while the chaffers, Zacharie and Mouquet, though trying to make fun of things, were feeling uncomfortable and were surprised that their mate could talk on so long without having a drink. But on top of the pile of wood, Jeanlin was making more noise than any one, egging on Bébert and Lydie and shaking the basket in which Poland lay. The clamour began again. Étienne was enjoying the intoxication of his popularity. He held power, as it were, materialized in these three thousand breasts, whose hearts he could move with a word. Souvarine, if he had cared to come, would have applauded his ideas so far as he recognized them, pleased with his pupil's progress in anarchism and satisfied with the programme, except the article on education, a relic of silly sentimentality, for men needed to be dipped in a bath of holy and salutary ignorance. As to Rasseneur, he shrugged his shoulders with contempt and anger. "You shall let me speak," he shouted to Étienne. The latter jumped from the tree-trunk. "Speak, we shall see if they'll hear you." Already Rasseneur had replaced him, and with a gesture demanded silence. But the noise did not cease; his name went round from the first ranks, who had recognized him, to the last, lost beneath the beeches, and they refused to hear him; he was an overturned idol, the mere sight of him angered his old disciples. His facile elocution, his flowing, good-natured speech, which had so long charmed them, was now treated like warm gruel made to put cowards to sleep. In vain he talked through the noise, trying to take up again his discourse of conciliation, the impossibility of changing the world by a stroke of law, the necessity of allowing the social evolution time to accomplish itself; they joked him, they hissed him; his defeat at the Bon-Joyeux was now beyond repair. At last they threw handfuls of frozen moss at him, and a woman cried in a shrill voice: "Down with the traitor!" He explained that the miner could not be the proprietor of the mine, as the weaver is of his loom, and he said that he preferred sharing in the benefits, the interested worker becoming the child of the house. "Down with the traitor!" repeated a thousand voices, while stones began to whistle by. Then he turned pale, and despair filled his eyes with tears. His whole existence was crumbling down; twenty years of ambitious comradeship were breaking down beneath the ingratitude of the crowd. He came down from the tree-trunk, with no strength to go on, struck to the heart. "That makes you laugh," he stammered, addressing the triumphant Étienne. "Good! I hope your turn will come. It will come, I tell you!" And as if to reject all responsibility for the evils which he foresaw, he made a large gesture, and went away alone across the country, pale and silent. Hoots arose, and then they were surprised to see Father Bonnemort standing on the trunk and about to speak in the midst of the tumult. Up till now Mouque and he had remained absorbed, with that air that they always had of reflecting on former things. No doubt he was yielding to one of those sudden crises of garrulity which sometimes made the past stir in him so violently that recollections rose and flowed from his lips for hours at a time. There was deep silence, and they listened to this old man, who was like a pale spectre beneath the moon, and as he narrated things without any immediate relation with the discussion--long histories which no one could understand--the impression was increased. He was talking of his youth; he described the death of his two uncles who were crushed at the Voreux; then he turned to the inflammation of the lungs which had carried off his wife. He kept to his main idea, however: things had never gone well and never would go well. Thus in the forest five hundred of them had come together because the king would not lessen the hours of work; but he stopped short, and began to tell of another strike--he had seen so many! They all broke out under these trees, here at the Plan-des-Dames, lower down at the Charbonnerie, still farther towards the Saut-du-Loup. Sometimes it froze, sometimes it was hot. One evening it had rained so much that they had gone back again without being able to say anything, and the king's soldiers came up and it finished with volleys of musketry. "We raised our hands like this, and we swore not to go back again. Ah! I have sworn; yes, I have sworn!" The crowd listened gapingly, feeling disturbed, when Étienne, who had watched the scene, jumped on to the fallen tree, keeping the old man at his side. He had just recognized Chaval among their friends in the first row. The idea that Catherine must be there had roused a new ardour within him, the desire to be applauded in her presence. "Mates, you have heard; this is one of our old men, and this is what he has suffered, and what our children will suffer if we don't have done with the robbers and butchers." He was terrible; never had he spoken so violently. With one arm he supported old Bonnemort, exhibiting him as a banner of misery and mourning, and crying for vengeance. In a few rapid phrases he went back to the first Maheu. He showed the whole family used up at the mine, devoured by the Company, hungrier than ever after a hundred years of work; and contrasting with the Maheus he pointed to the big bellies of the directors sweating gold, a whole band of shareholders, going on for a century like kept women, doing nothing but enjoy with their bodies. Was it not fearful? a race of men dying down below, from father to son, so that bribes of wine could be given to ministers, and generations of great lords and bourgeois could give feasts or fatten by their firesides! He had studied the diseases of the miners. He made them all march past with their awful details: anaemia, scrofula, black bronchitis, the asthma which chokes, and the rheumatism which paralyses. These wretches were thrown as food to the engines and penned up like beasts in the settlements. The great companies absorbed them, regulating their slavery, threatening to enrol all the workers of the nation, millions of hands, to bring fortune to a thousand idlers. But the miner was no longer an ignorant brute, crushed within the bowels of the earth. An army was springing up from the depths of the pits, a harvest of citizens whose seed would germinate and burst through the earth some sunny day. And they would see then if, after forty years of service, any one would dare to offer a pension of a hundred and fifty francs to an old man of sixty who spat out coal and whose legs were swollen with the water from the cuttings. Yes! labour would demand an account from capital: that impersonal god, unknown to the worker, crouching down somewhere in his mysterious sanctuary, where he sucked the life out of the starvelings who nourished him! They would go down there; they would at last succeed in seeing his face by the gleam of incendiary fires, they would drown him in blood, that filthy swine, that monstrous idol, gorged with human flesh! He was silent, but his arm, still extended in space, indicated the enemy, down there, he knew not where, from one end of the earth to the other. This time the clamour of the crowd was so great that people at Montsou heard it, and looked towards Vandame, seized with anxiety at the thought that some terrible landslip had occurred. Night-birds rose above the trees in the clear open sky. He now concluded his speech. "Mates, what is your decision? Do you vote for the strike to go on?" Their voices yelled, "Yes! yes!" "And what steps do you decide on? We are sure of defeat if cowards go down to-morrow." Their voices rose again with the sound of a tempest: "Kill the cowards!" "Then you decide to call them back to duty and to their sworn word. This is what we could do: present ourselves at the pits, bring back the traitors by our presence, show the Company that we are all agreed, and that we are going to die rather than yield." "That's it. To the pits! to the pits!" While he was speaking Étienne had looked for Catherine among the pale shouting heads before him. She was certainly not there, but he still saw Chaval, affecting to jeer, shrugging his shoulders, but devoured by jealousy and ready to sell himself for a little of this popularity. "And if there are any spies among us, mates," Étienne went on, "let them look out; they're known. Yes, I can see Vandame colliers here who have not left their pit." "Is that meant for me?" asked Chaval, with an air of bravado. "For you, or for any one else. But, since you speak, you ought to understand that those who eat have nothing to do with those who are starving. You work at Jean-Bart." A chaffing voice interrupted: "Oh! he work! he's got a wife who works for him." Chaval swore, while the blood rose to his face. "By God! is it forbidden to work, then?" "Yes!" said Étienne, "when your mates are enduring misery for the good of all, it is forbidden to go over, like a selfish sneaking coward, to the masters' side. If the strike had been general we should have got the best of it long ago. Not a single man at Vandame ought to have gone down when Montsou is resting. To accomplish the great stroke, work should be stopped in the entire country, at Monsieur Deneulin's as well as here. Do you understand? there are only traitors in the Jean Bart cuttings; you're all traitors!" The crowd around Chaval grew threatening, and fists were raised and cries of "Kill him! kill him!" began to be uttered. He had grown pale. But, in his infuriated desire to triumph over Étienne, an idea restored him. "Listen to me, then! come to-morrow to Jean-Bart, and you shall see if I'm working! We're on your side; they've sent me to tell you so. The fires must be extinguished, and the engine-men, too, must go on strike. All the better if the pumps do stop! the water will destroy the pits and everything will be done for!" He was furiously applauded in his turn, and now Étienne himself was outflanked. Other orators succeeded each other from the tree-trunk, gesticulating amid the tumult, and throwing out wild propositions. It was a mad outburst of faith, the impatience of a religious sect which, tired of hoping for the expected miracle, had at last decided to provoke it. These heads, emptied by famine, saw everything red, and dreamed of fire and blood in the midst of a glorious apotheosis from which would arise universal happiness. And the tranquil moon bathed this surging sea, the deep forest encircled with its vast silence this cry of massacre. The frozen moss crackled beneath the heels of the crowd, while the beeches, erect in their strength, with the delicate tracery of their black branches against the white sky, neither saw nor heard the miserable beings who writhed at their feet. There was some pushing, and Maheude found herself near Maheu. Both of them, driven out of their ordinary good sense, and carried away by the slow exasperation which had been working within them for months, approved Levaque, who went to extremes by demanding the heads of the engineers. Pierron had disappeared. Bonnemort and Mouque were both talking together, saying vague violent things which nobody heard. For a joke Zacharie demanded the demolition of the churches, while Mouquet, with his crosse in his hand, was beating it against the ground for the sake of increasing the row. The women were furious. The Levaque, with her fists to her hips, was setting to with Philoméne, whom she accused of having laughed; Mouquette talked of attacking the gendarmes by kicking them somewhere; Mother Brulé, who had just slapped Lydie on finding her without either basket or salad, went on launching blows into space against all the masters whom she would like to have got at. For a moment Jeanlin was in terror, Bébert having learned through a trammer that Madame Rasseneur had seen them steal Poland; but when he had decided to go back and quietly release the beast at the door of the Avantage, he shouted louder than ever, and opened his new knife, brandishing the blade and proud of its glitter. "Mates! mates!" repeated the exhausted Étienne, hoarse with the effort to obtain a moment's silence for a definite understanding. At last they listened. "Mates! to-morrow morning at Jean-Bart, is it agreed?" "Yes! yes! at Jean-Bart! death to the traitors!" The tempest of these three thousand voices filled the sky, and died away in the pure brightness of the moon. PART FIVE CHAPTER I At four o'clock the moon had set, and the night was very dark. Everything was still asleep at Deneulin's; the old brick house stood mute and gloomy, with closed doors and windows, at the end of the large ill-kept garden which separated it from the Jean-Bart mine. The other frontage faced the deserted road to Vandame, a large country town, about three kilometres off, hidden behind the forest. Deneulin, tired after a day spent in part below, was snoring with his face toward the wall, when he dreamt that he had been called. At last he awoke, and really hearing a voice, got out and opened the window. One of his captains was in the garden. "What is it, then?" he asked. "There's a rebellion, sir; half the men will not work, and are preventing the others from going down." He scarcely understood, with head heavy and dazed with sleep, and the great cold struck him like an icy douche. "Then make them go down, by George!" he stammered. "It's been going on an hour," said the captain. "Then we thought it best to come for you. Perhaps you will be able to persuade them." "Very good; I'll go." He quickly dressed himself, his mind quite clear now, and very anxious. The house might have been pillaged; neither the cook nor the man-servant had stirred. But from the other side of the staircase alarmed voices were whispering; and when he came out he saw his daughters' door open, and they both appeared in white dressing-gowns, slipped on in haste. "Father, what is it?" Lucie, the elder, was already twenty-two, a tall dark girl, with a haughty air; while Jeanne, the younger, as yet scarcely nineteen years old, was small, with golden hair and a certain caressing grace. "Nothing serious," he replied, to reassure them. "It seems that some blusterers are making a disturbance down there. I am going to see." But they exclaimed that they would not let him go before he had taken something warm. If not, he would come back ill, with his stomach out of order, as he always did. He struggled, gave his word of honour that he was too much in a hurry. "Listen!" said Jeanne, at last, hanging to his neck, "you must drink a little glass of rum and eat two biscuits, or I shall remain like this, and you'll have to take me with you." He resigned himself, declaring that the biscuits would choke him. They had already gone down before him, each with her candlestick. In the dining-room below they hastened to serve him, one pouring out the rum, the other running to the pantry for the biscuits. Having lost their mother when very young, they had been rather badly brought up alone, spoilt by their father, the elder haunted by the dream of singing on the stage, the younger mad over painting in which she showed a singular boldness of taste. But when they had to retrench after the embarrassment in their affairs, these apparently extravagant girls had suddenly developed into very sensible and shrewd managers, with an eye for errors of centimes in accounts. Today, with their boyish and artistic demeanour, they kept the purse, were careful over sous, haggled with the tradesmen, renovated their dresses unceasingly, and in fact, succeeded in rendering decent the growing embarrassment of the house. "Eat, papa," repeated Lucie. Then, remarking his silent gloomy preoccupation, she was again frightened. "Is it serious, then, that you look at us like this? Tell us; we will stay with you, and they can do without us at that lunch." She was speaking of a party which had been planned for the morning, Madame Hennebeau was to go in her carriage, first for Cécile, at the Grégoires', then to call for them, so that they could all go to Marchiennes to lunch at the Forges, where the manager's wife had invited them. It was an opportunity to visit the workshops, the blast furnaces, and the coke ovens. "We will certainly remain," declared Jeanne, in her turn. But he grew angry. "A fine idea! I tell you that it is nothing. Just be so good as to get back into your beds again, and dress yourselves for nine o'clock, as was arranged." He kissed them and hastened to leave. They heard the noise of his boots vanishing over the frozen earth in the garden. Jeanne carefully placed the stopper in the rum bottle, while Lucie locked up the biscuits. The room had the cold neatness of dining-rooms where the table is but meagrely supplied. And both of them took advantage of this early descent to see if anything had been left uncared for the evening before. A serviette lay about, the servant should be scolded. At last they were upstairs again. While he was taking the shortest cut through the narrow paths of his kitchen garden, Deneulin was thinking of his compromised fortune, this Montsou denier, this million which he had realized, dreaming to multiply it tenfold, and which was to-day running such great risks. It was an uninterrupted course of ill-luck, enormous and unforeseen repairs, ruinous conditions of exploitation, then the disaster of this industrial crisis, just when the profits were beginning to come in. If the strike broke out here, he would be overthrown. He pushed a little door: the buildings of the pit could be divined in the black night, by the deepening of the shadow, starred by a few lanterns. Jean-Bart was not so important as the Voreux, but its renewed installation made it a pretty pit, as the engineers say. They had not been contented by enlarging the shaft one metre and a half, and deepening it to seven hundred and eight metres, they had equipped it afresh with a new engine, new cages, entirely new material, all set up according to the latest scientific improvements; and even a certain seeking for elegance was visible in the constructions, a screening-shed with carved frieze, a steeple adorned with a clock, a receiving-room and an engine-room both rounded into an apse like a Renaissance chapel, and surmounted by a chimney with a mosaic spiral made of black bricks and red bricks. The pump was placed on the other shaft of the concession, the old Gaston-Marie pit, reserved solely for this purpose. Jean-Bart, to right and left of the winding-shaft, only had two conduits, that for the steam ventilator and that for the ladders. In the morning, ever since three o'clock, Chaval, who had arrived first, had been seducing his comrades, convincing them that they ought to imitate those at Montsou, and demand an increase of five centimes a tram. Soon four hundred workmen had passed from the shed into the receiving-room, in the midst of a tumult of gesticulation and shouting. Those who wished to work stood with their lamps, barefooted, with shovel or pick beneath their arms; while the others, still in their sabots, with their overcoats on their shoulders because of the great cold, were barring the shaft; and the captains were growing hoarse in the effort to restore order, begging them to be reasonable and not to prevent those who wanted from going down. But Chaval was furious when he saw Catherine in her trousers and jacket, her head tied up in the blue cap. On getting up, he had roughly told her to stay in bed. In despair at this arrest of work she had followed him all the same, for he never gave her any money; she often had to pay both for herself and him; and what was to become of her if she earned nothing? She was overcome by fear, the fear of a brothel at Marchiennes, which was the end of putter-girls without bread and without lodging. "By God!" cried Chaval, "what the devil have you come here for?" She stammered that she had no income to live on and that she wanted to work. "Then you put yourself against me, wench? Back you go at once, or I'll go back with you and kick my sabots into your backside." She recoiled timidly but she did not leave, resolved to see how things would turn out. Deneulin had arrived by the screening-stairs. In spite of the weak light of the lanterns, with a quick look he took in the scene, with this rabble wrapt in shadow; he knew every face--the pikemen, the porters, the landers, the putters, even the trammers. In the nave, still new and clean, the arrested task was waiting; the steam in the engine, under pressure, made slight whistling sounds; the cages were hanging motionless to the cables; the trams, abandoned on the way, were encumbering the metal floors. Scarcely eighty lamps had been taken; the others were flaming in the lamp cabin. But no doubt a word from him would suffice, and the whole life of labour would begin again. "Well, what's going on then, my lads?" he asked in a loud voice. "What are you angry about? Just explain to me and we will see if we can agree." He usually behaved in a paternal way towards his men, while at the same time demanding hard work. With an authoritative, rough manner, he had tried to conquer them by a good nature which had its outbursts of passion, and he often gained their love; the men especially respected in him his courage, always in the cuttings with them, the first in danger whenever an accident terrified the pit. Twice, after fire-damp explosions, he had been let down, fastened by a rope under his armpits, when the bravest drew back. "Now," he began again, "you are not going to make me repent of having trusted you. You know that I have refused police protection. Talk quietly and I will hear you." All were now silent and awkward, moving away from him; and it was Chaval who at last said: "Well, Monsieur Deneulin, we can't go on working; we must have five centimes more the tram." He seemed surprised. "What! five centimes! and why this demand? I don't complain about your timbering, I don't want to impose a new tariff on you like the Montsou directors." "Maybe! but the Montsou mates are right, all the same. They won't have the tariff, and they want a rise of five centimes because it is not possible to work properly at the present rates. We want five centimes more, don't we, you others?" Voices approved, and the noise began again in the midst of violent gesticulation. Gradually they drew near, forming a small circle. A flame came into Deneulin's eyes, and his fist, that of a man who liked strong government, was clenched, for fear of yielding to the temptation of seizing one of them by the neck. He preferred to discuss on the basis of reason. "You want five centimes, and I agree that the work is worth it. Only I can't give it. If I gave it I should simply be done for. You must understand that I have to live first in order for you to live, and I've got to the end, the least rise in net prices will upset me. Two years ago, you remember, at the time of the last strike, I yielded, I was able to then. But that rise of wages was not the less ruinous, for these two years have been a struggle. To-day I would rather let the whole thing go than not be able to tell next month where to get the money to pay you." Chaval laughed roughly in the face of this master who told them his affairs so frankly. The others lowered their faces, obstinate and incredulous, refusing to take into their heads the idea that a master did not gain millions out of his men. Then Deneulin, persisting, explained his struggle with Montsou, always on the watch and ready to devour him if, some day, he had the stupidity to come to grief. It was a savage competition which forced him to economize, the more so since the great depth of Jean-Bart increased the price of extraction, an unfavourable condition hardly compensated by the great thickness of the coal-beds. He would never have raised wages after the last strike if it had not been necessary for him to imitate Montsou, for fear of seeing his men leave him. And he threatened them with the morrow; a fine result it would be for them, if they obliged him to sell, to pass beneath the terrible yoke of the directors! He did not sit on a throne far away in an unknown sanctuary; he was not one of those shareholders who pay agents to skin the miner who has never seen them; he was a master, he risked something besides his money, he risked his intelligence, his health, his life. Stoppage of work would simply mean death, for he had no stock, and he must fulfil orders. Besides, his standing capital could not sleep. How could he keep his engagements? Who would pay the interest on the sums his friends had confided to him? It would mean bankruptcy. "That's where we are, my good fellows," he said, in conclusion. "I want to convince you. We don't ask a man to cut his own throat, do we? and if I give you your five centimes, or if I let you go out on strike, it's the same as if I cut my throat." He was silent. Grunts went round. A party among the miners seemed to hesitate. Several went back towards the shaft. "At least," said a captain, "let every one be free. Who are those who want to work?" Catherine had advanced among the first. But Chaval fiercely pushed her back, shouting: "We are all agreed; it's only bloody rogues who'll leave their mates!" After that, conciliation appeared impossible. The cries began again, and men were hustled away from the shaft, at the risk of being crushed against the walls. For a moment the manager, in despair, tried to struggle alone, to reduce the crowd by violence; but it was useless madness, and he retired. For a few minutes he rested, out of breath, on a chair in the receiver's office, so overcome by his powerlessness that no ideas came to him. At last he grew calm, and told an inspector to go and bring Chaval; then, when the latter had agreed to the interview, he motioned the others away. "Leave us." Deneulin's idea was to see what this fellow was after. At the first words he felt that he was vain, and was devoured by passionate jealousy. Then he attacked him by flattery, affecting surprise that a workman of his merit should so compromise his future. It seemed as though he had long had his eyes on him for rapid advancement; and he ended by squarely offering to make him captain later on. Chaval listened in silence, with his fists at first clenched, but then gradually unbent. Something was working in the depths of his skull; if he persisted in the strike he would be nothing more than Étienne's lieutenant, while now another ambition opened, that of passing into the ranks of the bosses. The heat of pride rose to his face and intoxicated him. Besides, the band of strikers whom he had expected since the morning had not arrived; some obstacle must have stopped them, perhaps the police; it was time to submit. But all the same he shook his head; he acted the incorruptible man, striking his breast indignantly. Then, without mentioning to the master the rendezvous he had given to the Montsou men, he promised to calm his mates, and to persuade them to go down. Deneulin remained hidden, and the captains themselves stood aside. For an hour they heard Chaval orating and discussing, standing on a tram in the receiving-room. Some of the men hooted him; a hundred and twenty went off exasperated, persisting in the resolution which he had made them take. It was already past seven. The sun was rising brilliantly; it was a bright day of hard frost; and all at once movement began in the pit, and the arrested labour went on. First the crank of the engine plunged, rolling and unrolling the cables on the drums. Then, in the midst of the tumult of the signals, the descent took place. The cages filled and were engulfed, and rose again, the shaft swallowing its ration of trammers and putters and pikemen; while on the metal floors the landers pushed the trams with a sound of thunder. "By God! What the devil are you doing there?" cried Chaval to Catherine, who was awaiting her turn. "Will you just go down and not laze about!" At nine o'clock, when Madame Hennebeau arrived in her carriage with Cécile, she found Lucie and Jeanne quite ready and very elegant, in spite of their dresses having been renovated for the twentieth time. But Deneulin was surprised to see Négrel accompanying the carriage on horseback. What! were the men also in the party? Then Madame Hennebeau explained in her maternal way that they had frightened her by saying that the streets were full of evil faces, and so she preferred to bring a defender. Négrel laughed and reassured them: nothing to cause anxiety, threats of brawlers as usual, but not one of them would dare to throw a stone at a window-pane. Still pleased with his success, Deneulin related the checked rebellion at Jean-Bart. He said that he was now quite at rest. And on the Vandame road, while the young ladies got into the carriage, all congratulated themselves on the superb day, oblivious of the long swelling shudder of the marching people afar off in the country, though they might have heard the sound of it if they had pressed their ears against the earth. "Well! it is agreed," repeated Madame Hennebeau. "This evening you will call for the young ladies and dine with us. Madame Grégoire has also promised to come for Cécile." "You may reckon on me," replied Deneulin. The carriage went off towards Vandame, Jeanne and Lucie leaning down to laugh once more to their father, who was standing by the roadside; while Négrel gallantly trotted behind the fleeing wheels. They crossed the forest, taking the road from Vandame to Marchiennes. As they approached Tartaret, Jeanne asked Madame Hennebeau if she knew Côte-Verte, and the latter, in spite of her stay of five years in the country, acknowledged that she had never been on that side. Then they made a detour. Tartaret, on the outskirts of the forest, was an uncultivated moor, of volcanic sterility, under which for ages a coal mine had been burning. Its history was lost in legend. The miners of the place said that fire from heaven had fallen on this Sodom in the bowels of the earth, where the putter-girls had committed abominations together, so that they had not even had the time to come to the surface, and today were still burning at the bottom of this hell. The calcined rocks, of a sombre red, were covered by an efflorescence of alum as by a leprosy. Sulphur grew like a yellow flower at the edge of the fissures. At night, those who were brave enough to venture to look into these holes declared that they saw flames there, sinful souls shrivelling in the furnace within. Wandering lights moved over the soil, and hot vapours, the poisons from the devil's ordure and his dirty kitchen, were constantly smoking. And like a miracle of eternal spring, in the midst of this accursed moor of Tartaret, Côte-Verte appeared, with its meadows for ever green, its beeches with leaves unceasingly renewed, its fields where three harvests ripened. It was a natural hot-house, warmed by the fire in the deep strata beneath. The snow never lay on it. The enormous bouquet of verdure, beside the leafless forest trees, blossomed on this December day, and the frost had not even scorched the edge of it. Soon the carriage was passing over the plain. Négrel joked over the legend, and explained that a fire often occurred at the bottom of a mine from the fermentation of the coal dust; if not mastered it would burn on for ever, and he mentioned a Belgian pit which had been flooded by diverting a river and running it into the pit. But he became silent. For the last few minutes groups of miners had been constantly passing the carriage; they went by in silence, with sidelong looks at the luxurious equipage which forced them to stand aside. Their number went on increasing. The horses were obliged to cross the little bridge over the Scarpe at walking pace. What was going on, then, to bring all these people into the roads? The young ladies became frightened, and Négrel began to smell out some fray in the excited country; it was a relief when they at last arrived at Marchiennes. The batteries of coke ovens and the chimneys of the blast furnaces, beneath a sun which seemed to extinguish them, were belching out smoke and raining their everlasting soot through the air. CHAPTER II At Jean-Bart, Catherine had already been at work for an hour, pushing trams as far as the relays; and she was soaked in such a bath of perspiration that she stopped a moment to wipe her face. At the bottom of the cutting, where he was hammering at the seam with his mates, Chaval was astonished when he no longer heard the rumble of the wheels. The lamps burnt badly, and the coal dust made it impossible to see. "What's up?" he shouted. When she answered that she was sure she would melt, and that her heart was going to stop, he replied furiously: "Do like us, stupid! Take off your shift." They were seven hundred and eight metres to the north in the first passage of the Désirée seam, which was at a distance of three kilometres from the pit-eye. When they spoke of this part of the pit, the miners of the region grew pale, and lowered their voices, as if they had spoken of hell; and most often they were content to shake their heads as men who would rather not speak of these depths of fiery furnace. As the galleries sank towards the north, they approached Tartaret, penetrating to that interior fire which calcined the rocks above. The cuttings at the point at which they had arrived had an average temperature of forty-five degrees. They were there in the accursed city, in the midst of the flames which the passers-by on the plain could see through the fissures, spitting out sulphur and poisonous vapours. Catherine, who had already taken off her jacket, hesitated, then took off her trousers also; and with naked arms and naked thighs, her chemise tied round her hips by a cord like a blouse, she began to push again. "Anyhow, that's better," she said aloud. In the stifling heat she still felt a vague fear. Ever since they began working here, five days ago, she had thought of the stories told her in childhood, of those putter-girls of the days of old who were burning beneath Tartaret, as a punishment for things which no one dared to repeat. No doubt she was too big now to believe such silly stories; but still, what would she do if she were suddenly to see coming out of the wall a girl as red as a stove, with eyes like live coals? The idea made her perspire still more. At the relay, eighty metres from the cutting, another putter took the tram and pushed it eighty metres farther to the upbrow, so that the receiver could forward it with the others which came down from the upper galleries. "Gracious! you're making yourself comfortable!" said this woman, a lean widow of thirty, when she saw Catherine in her chemise. "I can't do it, the trammers at the brow bother me with their dirty tricks." "Ah, well!" replied the young girl. "I don't care about the men! I feel too bad." She went off again, pushing an empty tram. The worst was that in this bottom passage another cause joined with the neighbourhood of Tartaret to make the heat unbearable. They were by the side of old workings, a very deep abandoned gallery of Gaston-Marie, where, ten years earlier, an explosion of fire-damp had set the seam alight; and it was still burning behind the clay wall which had been built there and was kept constantly repaired, in order to limit the disaster. Deprived of air, the fire ought to have become extinct, but no doubt unknown currents kept it alive; it had gone on for ten years, and heated the clay wall like the bricks of an oven, so that those who passed felt half-roasted. It was along this wall, for a length of more than a hundred metres, that the haulage was carried on, in a temperature of sixty degrees. After two journeys, Catherine again felt stifled. Fortunately, the passage was large and convenient in this Désirée seam, one of the thickest in the district. The bed was one metre ninety in height, and the men could work standing. But they would rather have worked with twisted necks and a little fresh air. "Hallo, there! are you asleep?" said Chaval again, roughly, as soon as he no longer heard Catherine moving. "How the devil did I come to get such a jade? Will you just fill your tram and push?" She was at the bottom of the cutting, leaning on her shovel; she was feeling ill, and she looked at them all with a foolish air without obeying. She scarcely saw them by the reddish gleam of the lamps, entirely naked like animals, so black, so encrusted in sweat and coal, that their nakedness did not frighten her. It was a confused task, the bending of ape-like backs, an infernal vision of scorched limbs, spending their strength amid dull blows and groans. But they could see her better, no doubt, for the picks left off hammering, and they joked her about taking off her trousers. "Eh! you'll catch cold; look out!" "It's because she's got such fine legs! I say, Chaval, there's enough there for two." "Oh! we must see. Lift up! Higher! higher!" Then Chaval, without growing angry at these jokes, turned on her. "That's it, by God! Ah! she likes dirty jokes. She'd stay there to listen till to-morrow." Catherine had painfully decided to fill her tram, then she pushed it. The gallery was too wide for her to get a purchase on the timber on both sides; her naked feet were twisted in the rails where they sought a point of support, while she slowly moved on, her arms stiffened in front, and her back breaking. As soon as she came up to the clay wall, the fiery torture again began, and the sweat fell from her whole body in enormous drops as from a storm-cloud. She had scarcely got a third of the way before she streamed, blinded, soiled also by the black mud. Her narrow chemise, as though dipped in ink, was sticking to her skin, and rising up to her waist with the movement of her thighs; it hurt her so that she had once more to stop her task. What was the matter with her, then, today? Never before had she felt as if there were wool in her bones. It must be the bad air. The ventilation did not reach to the bottom of this distant passage. One breathed there all sorts of vapours, which came out of the coal with the low bubbling sound of a spring, so abundantly sometimes that the lamps would not burn; to say nothing of fire-damp, which nobody noticed, for from one week's end to the other the men were always breathing it into their noses throughout the seam. She knew that bad air well; dead air the miners called it; the heavy asphyxiating gases below, above them the light gases which catch fire and blow up all the stalls of a pit, with hundreds of men, in a single burst of thunder. From her childhood she had swallowed so much that she was surprised she bore it so badly, with buzzing ears and burning throat. Unable to go farther, she felt the need of taking off her chemise. It was beginning to torture her, this garment of which the least folds cut and burnt her. She resisted the longing, and tried to push again, but was forced to stand upright. Then quickly, saying to herself that she would cover herself at the relay, she took off everything, the cord and the chemise, so feverishly that she would have torn off her skin if she could. And now, naked and pitiful, brought down to the level of the female animal seeking its living in the mire of the streets, covered with soot and mud up to the belly, she laboured on like a cab-hack. On all fours she pushed onwards. But despair came; it gave her no relief to be naked. What more could she take off? The buzzing in her ears deafened her, she seemed to feel a vice gripping her temples. She fell on her knees. The lamp, wedged into the coal in the tram, seemed to her to be going out. The intention to turn up the wick alone survived in the midst of her confused ideas. Twice she tried to examine it, and both times when she placed it before her on the earth she saw it turn pale, as though it also lacked breath. Suddenly the lamp went out. Then everything whirled around her in the darkness; a millstone turned in her head, her heart grew weak and left off beating, numbed in its turn by the immense weariness which was putting her limbs to sleep. She had fallen back in anguish amid the asphyxiating air close to the ground. "By God! I believe she's lazing again," growled Chaval's voice. He listened from the top of the cutting, and could hear no sound of wheels. "Eh, Catherine! you damned worm!" His voice was lost afar in the black gallery, and not a breath replied. "I'll come and make you move, I will!" Nothing stirred, there was only the same silence, as of death. He came down furiously, rushing along with his lamp so violently that he nearly fell over the putter's body which barred the way. He looked at her in stupefaction. What was the matter, then? was it humbug, a pretence of going to sleep? But the lamp which he had lowered to light up her face threatened to go out. He lifted it and lowered it afresh, and at last understood; it must be a gust of bad air. His violence disappeared; the devotion of the miner in face of a comrade's peril was awaking within him. He shouted for her chemise to be brought, and seized the naked and unconscious girl in his arms, holding her as high as possible. When their garments had been thrown over her shoulders he set out running, supporting his burden with one hand, and carrying the two lamps with the other. The deep galleries unrolled before him as he rushed along, turning to the right, then to the left, seeking life in the frozen air of the plain which blew down the air-shaft. At last the sound of a spring stopped him, the trickle of water flowing from the rock. He was at a square in the great haulage gallery which formerly led to Gaston-Marie. The air here blew in like a tempest, and was so fresh that a shudder went through him as he seated himself on the earth against the props; his mistress was still unconscious, with closed eyes. "Catherine, come now, by God! no humbug. Hold yourself up a bit while I dip this in the water." He was frightened to find her so limp. However, he was able to dip her chemise in the spring, and to bathe her face with it. She was like a corpse, already buried in the depth of the earth, with her slender girlish body which seemed to be still hesitating before swelling to the form of puberty. Then a shudder ran over her childish breast, over the belly and thighs of the poor little creature deflowered before her time. She opened her eyes and stammered: "I'm cold." "Ah! that's better now!" cried Chaval, relieved. He dressed her, slipped on the chemise easily, but swore over the difficulty he had in getting on the trousers, for she could not help much. She remained dazed, not understanding where she was, nor why she was naked. When she remembered she was ashamed. How had she dared to take everything off! And she questioned him; had she been seen so, without even a handkerchief around her waist to cover her? He joked, and made up stories, saying that he had just brought her there in the midst of all the mates standing in a row. What an idea, to have taken his advice and exhibited her bum! Afterwards he declared that the mates could not even know whether it was round or square, he had rushed along so swiftly. "The deuce! but I'm dying of cold," he said, dressing himself in turn. Never had she seen him so kind. Usually, for one good word that he said to her she received at once two bullying ones. It would have been so pleasant to live in agreement; a feeling of tenderness went through her in the languor of her fatigue. She smiled at him, and murmured: "Kiss me." He embraced her, and lay down beside her, waiting till she was able to walk. "You know," she said again, "you were wrong to shout at me over there, for I couldn't do more, really! Even in the cutting you're not so hot; if you only knew how it roasts you at the bottom of the passage!" "Sure enough," he replied, "it would be better under the trees. You feel bad in that stall, I'm afraid, my poor girl." She was so touched at hearing him agree with her that she tried to be brave. "Oh! it's a bad place. Then, to-day the air is poisoned. But you shall see soon if I'm a worm. When one has to work, one works; isn't it true? I'd die rather than stop." There was silence. He held her with one arm round her waist, pressing her against his breast to keep her from harm. Although she already felt strong enough to go back to the stall, she forgot everything in her delight. "Only," she went on in a very low voice, "I should like it so much if you were kinder. Yes, it is so good when we love each other a little." And she began to cry softly. "But I do love you," he cried, "for I've taken you with me." She only replied by shaking her head. There are often men who take women just in order to have them, caring mighty little about their happiness. Her tears flowed more hotly; it made her despair now to think of the happy life she would have led if she had chanced to fall to another lad, whose arm she would always have felt thus round her waist. Another? and the vague image of that other arose from the depth of her emotion. But it was done with; she only desired now to live to the end with this one, if he would not hustle her about too much. "Then," she said, "try to be like this sometimes." Sobs cut short her words, and he embraced her again. "You're a stupid! There, I swear to be kind. I'm not worse than any one else, go on!" She looked at him, and began to smile through her tears. Perhaps he was right; one never met women who were happy. Then, although she distrusted his oath, she gave herself up to the joy of seeing him affectionate. Good God! if only that could last! They had both embraced again, and as they were pressing each other in a long clasp they heard steps, which made them get up. Three mates who had seen them pass had come up to know how she was. They set out together. It was nearly ten o'clock, and they took their lunch into a cool corner before going back to sweat at the bottom of the cutting. They were finishing the double slice of bread-and-butter, their brick, and were about to drink the coffee from their tin, when they were disturbed by a noise coming from stalls in the distance. What then? was it another accident? They got up and ran. Pikemen, putters, trammers crossed them at every step; no one knew anything; all were shouting; it must be some great misfortune. Gradually the whole mine was in terror, frightened shadows emerged from the galleries, lanterns danced and flew away in the darkness. Where was it? Why could no one say? All at once a captain passed, shouting: "They are cutting the cables! they are cutting the cables!" Then the panic increased. It was a furious gallop through the gloomy passages. Their heads were confused. Why cut the cables? And who was cutting them, when the men were below? It seemed monstrous. But the voice of another captain was heard and then lost: "The Montsou men are cutting the cables! Let every one go up!" When he had understood, Chaval stopped Catherine short. The idea that he would meet the Montsou men up above, should he get out, paralysed his legs. It had come, then, that band which he thought had got into the hands of the police. For a moment he thought of retracing his path and ascending through Gaston-Marie, but that was no longer possible. He swore, hesitating, hiding his fear, repeating that it was stupid to run like that. They would not, surely, leave them at the bottom. The captain's voice echoed anew, now approaching them: "Let every one go up! To the ladders! to the ladders!" And Chaval was carried away with his mates. He pushed Catherine and accused her of not running fast enough. Did she want, then, to remain in the pit to die of hunger? For those Montsou brigands were capable of breaking the ladders without waiting for people to come up. This abominable suggestion ended by driving them wild. Along the galleries there was only a furious rush, helter-skelter; a race of madmen, each striving to arrive first and mount before the others. Some men shouted that the ladders were broken and that no one could get out. And then in frightened groups they began to reach the pit-eye, where they were all engulfed. They threw themselves toward the shaft, they crushed through the narrow door to the ladder passage; while an old groom who had prudently led back the horses to the stable, looked at them with an air of contemptuous indifference, accustomed to spend nights in the pit and certain that he could eventually be drawn out of it. "By God! will you climb up in front of me?" said Chaval to Catherine. "At least I can hold you if you fall." Out of breath, and suffocated by this race of three kilometres which had once more bathed her in sweat, she gave herself up, without understanding, to the eddies of the crowd. Then he pulled her by the arm, almost breaking it; and she cried with pain, her tears bursting out. Already he was forgetting his oath, never would she be happy. "Go on, then!" he roared. But he frightened her too much. If she went first he would bully her the whole time. So she resisted, while the wild flood of their comrades pushed them to one side. The water that filtered from the shaft was falling in great drops, and the floor of the pit-eye, shaken by this tramping, was trembling over the sump, the muddy cesspool ten metres deep. At Jean-Bart, two years earlier, a terrible accident had happened just here; the breaking of a cable had precipitated the cage to the bottom of the sump, in which two men had been drowned. And they all thought of this; every one would be left down there if they all crowded on to the planks. "Confounded dunderhead!" shouted Chaval. "Die then; I shall be rid of you!" He climbed up and she followed. From the bottom to daylight there were a hundred and two ladders, about seven metres in length, each placed on a narrow landing which occupied the breadth of the passage and in which a square hole scarcely allowed the shoulders to pass. It was like a flat chimney, seven hundred metres in height, between the wall of the shaft and the brattice of the winding-cage, a damp pipe, black and endless, in which the ladders were placed one above the other, almost straight, in regular stages. It took a strong man twenty-five minutes to climb up this giant column. The passage, however, was no longer used except in cases of accident. Catherine at first climbed bravely. Her naked feet were used to the hard coal on the floors of the passages, and did not suffer from the square rungs, covered with iron rods to prevent them from wearing away. Her hands, hardened by the haulage, grasped without fatigue the uprights that were too big for her. And it even interested her and took her out of her grief, this unforeseen ascent, this long serpent of men flowing on and hoisting themselves up three on a ladder, so that even when the head should emerge in daylight the tail would still be trailing over the sump. They were not there yet, the first could hardly have ascended a third of the shaft. No one spoke now, only their feet moved with a low sound; while the lamps, like travelling stars, spaced out from below upward, formed a continually increasing line. Catherine heard a trammer behind her counting the ladders. It gave her the idea of counting them also. They had already mounted fifteen, and were arriving at a landing-place. But at that moment she collided with Chaval's legs. He swore, shouting to her to look out. Gradually the whole column stopped and became motionless. What then? had something happened? and every one recovered his voice to ask questions and to express fear. Their anxiety had increased since leaving the bottom; their ignorance as to what was going on above oppressed them more as they approached daylight. Someone announced that they would have to go down again, that the ladders were broken. That was the thought that preoccupied them all, the fear of finding themselves face to face with space. Another explanation came down from mouth to mouth; there had been an accident, a pikeman slipped from a rung. No one knew exactly, the shouts made it impossible to hear; were they going to bed there? At last, without any precise information being obtained, the ascent began again, with the same slow, painful movement, in the midst of the tread of feet and the dancing of lamps. It must certainly be higher up that the ladders were broken. At the thirty-second ladder, as they passed a third landing-stage, Catherine felt her legs and arms grow stiff. At first she had felt a slight tingling in her skin. Now she lost the sensation of the iron and the wood beneath her feet and in her hands. A vague pain, which gradually became burning, heated her muscles. And in the dizziness which came over her, she recalled her grandfather Bonnemort's stories of the days when there was no passage, and little girls of ten used to take out the coal on their shoulders up bare ladders; so that if one of them slipped, or a fragment of coal simply rolled out of a basket, three or four children would fall down head first from the blow. The cramp in her limbs became unbearable, she would never reach the end. Fresh stoppages allowed her to breathe. But the terror which was communicated every time from above dazed her still more. Above and below her, respiration became more difficult. This interminable ascent was causing giddiness, and the nausea affected her with the others. She was suffocating, intoxicated with the darkness, exasperated with the walls which crushed against her flesh, and shuddering also with the dampness, her body perspiring beneath the great drops which fell on her. They were approaching a level where so thick a rain fell that it threatened to extinguish their lamps. Chaval twice spoke to Catherine without obtaining any reply. What the devil was she doing down there? Had she let her tongue fall? She might just tell him if she was all right. They had been climbing for half an hour, but so heavily that he had only reached the fifty-ninth ladder; there were still forty-three. Catherine at last stammered that she was getting on all right. He would have treated her as a worm if she had acknowledged her weariness. The iron of the rungs must have cut her feet; it seemed to her that it was sawing in up to the bone. After every grip she expected to see her hands leave the uprights; they were so peeled and stiff she could not close her fingers, and she feared she would fall backward with torn shoulders and dislocated thighs in this continual effort. It was especially the defective slope of the ladders from which she suffered, the almost perpendicular position which obliged her to hoist herself up by the strength of her wrists, with her belly against the wood. The panting of many breaths now drowned the sound of the feet, forming an enormous moan, multiplied tenfold by the partition of the passage, arising from the depths and expiring towards the light. There was a groan; word ran along that a trammer had just cut his head open against the edge of a stair. And Catherine went on climbing. They had passed the level. The rain had ceased; a mist made heavy the cellar-like air, poisoned with the odour of old iron and damp wood. Mechanically she continued to count in a low voice--eighty-one, eighty-two, eighty-three; still nineteen. The repetition of these figures supported her merely by their rhythmic balance; she had no further consciousness of her movements. When she lifted her eyes the lamps turned in a spiral. Her blood was flowing; she felt that she was dying; the least breath would have knocked her over. The worst was that those below were now pushing, and that the entire column was stampeding, yielding to the growing anger of its fatigue, the furious need to see the sun again. The first mates had emerged; there were, then, no broken ladders; but the idea that they might yet be broken to prevent the last from coming up, when others were already breathing up above, nearly drove them mad. And when a new stoppage occurred oaths broke out, and all went on climbing, hustling each other, passing over each other's bodies to arrive at all costs. Then Catherine fell. She had cried Chaval's name in despairing appeal. He did not hear; he was struggling, digging his heels into a comrade's ribs to get before him. And she was rolled down and trampled over. As she fainted she dreamed. It seemed to her that she was one of the little putter-girls of old days, and that a fragment of coal, fallen from the basket above her, had thrown her to the bottom of the shaft, like a sparrow struck by a flint. Five ladders only remained to climb. It had taken nearly an hour. She never knew how she reached daylight, carried up on people's shoulders, supported by the throttling narrowness of the passage. Suddenly she found herself in the dazzling sunlight, in the midst of a yelling crowd who were hooting her. CHAPTER III From early morning, before daylight, a tremor had agitated the settlements, and that tremor was now swelling through the roads and over the whole country. But the departure had not taken place as arranged, for the news had spread that cavalry and police were scouring the plain. It was said that they had arrived from Douai during the night, and Rasseneur was accused of having betrayed his mates by warning M. Hennebeau; a putter even swore that she had seen the servant taking a dispatch to the telegraph office. The miners clenched their fists and watched the soldiers from behind their shutters by the pale light of the early morning. Towards half-past seven, as the sun was rising, another rumour circulated, reassuring the impatient. It was a false alarm, a simple military promenade, such as the general occasionally ordered since the strike had broken out, at the desire of the prefect of Lille. The strikers detested this official; they reproached him with deceiving them by the promise of a conciliatory intervention, which was limited to a march of troops into Montsou every week, to overawe them. So when the cavalry and police quietly took the road back to Marchiennes, after contenting themselves with deafening the settlements by the stamping of their horses over the hard earth, the miners jeered at this innocent prefect and his soldiers who turned on their heels when things were beginning to get hot. Up till nine o'clock they stood peacefully about, in good humour, before their houses, following with their eyes up the streets the meek backs of the last gendarmes. In the depths of their large beds the good people of Montsou were still sleeping, with their heads among the feathers. At the manager's house, Madame Hennebeau had just been seen setting out in the carriage, leaving M. Hennebeau at work, no doubt, for the closed and silent villa seemed dead. Not one of the pits had any military guard; it was a fatal lack of foresight in the hour of danger, the natural stupidity which accompanies catastrophes, the fault which a government commits whenever there is need of precise knowledge of the facts. And nine o'clock was striking when the colliers at last took the Vandame road, to repair to the rendezvous decided on the day before in the forest. Étienne had very quickly perceived that he would certainly not find over at Jean-Bart the three thousand comrades on whom he was counting. Many believed that the demonstration was put off, and the worst was that two or three bands, already on the way, would compromise the cause if he did not at all costs put himself at their head. Almost a hundred, who had set out before daylight, were taking refuge beneath the forest beeches, waiting for the others. Souvarine, whom the young man went up to consult, shrugged his shoulders; ten resolute fellows could do more work than a crowd; and he turned back to the open book before him, refusing to join in. The thing threatened to turn into sentiment when it would have been enough to adopt the simple method of burning Montsou. As Étienne left the house he saw Rasseneur, seated before the metal stove and looking very pale, while his wife, in her everlasting black dress, was abusing him in polite and cutting terms. Maheu was of opinion that they ought to keep their promise. A rendezvous like this was sacred. However, the night had calmed their fever; he was now fearing misfortune, and he explained that it was their duty to go over there to maintain their mates in the right path. Maheude approved with a nod. Étienne repeated complacently that it was necessary to adopt revolutionary methods, without attempting any person's life. Before setting out he refused his share of a loaf that had been given him the evening before, together with a bottle of gin; but he drank three little glasses, one after the other, saying that he wanted to keep out the cold; he even carried away a tinful. Alzire would look after the children. Old Bonnemort, whose legs were suffering from yesterday's walk, remained in bed. They did not go away together, from motives of prudence. Jeanlin had disappeared long ago. Maheu and Maheude went off on the side sloping towards Montsou; while Étienne turned towards the forest, where he proposed to join his mates. On the way he caught up a band of women among whom he recognized Mother Brulé and the Levaque woman; as they walked they were eating chestnuts which Mouquette had brought; they swallowed the skins so as to feel more in their stomachs. But in the forest he found no one; the men were already at Jean-Bart. He took the same course, and arrived at the pit at the moment when Levaque and some hundreds others were penetrating into the square. Miners were coming up from every direction--the men by the main road, the women by the fields, all at random, without leaders, without weapons, flowing naturally thither like water which runs down a slope. Étienne perceived Jeanlin, who had climbed up on a foot-bridge, installed as though at a theatre. He ran faster, and entered among the first. There were scarcely three hundred of them. There was some hesitation when Deneulin showed himself at the top of the staircase which led to the receiving-room. "What do you want?" he asked in a loud voice. After having watched the disappearance of the carriage, from which his daughters were still laughing towards him, he had returned to the pit overtaken by a strange anxiety. Everything, however, was found in good order. The men had gone down; the cage was working, and he became reassured again, and was talking to the head captain when the approach of the strikers was announced to him. He had placed himself at a window of the screening-shed; and in the face of this increasing flood which filled the square, he at once felt his impotence. How could he defend these buildings, open on every side? he could scarcely group some twenty of his workmen round himself. He was lost. "What do you want?" he repeated, pale with repressed anger, making an effort to accept his disaster courageously. There were pushes and growls amid the crowd. Étienne at last came forward, saying: "We do not come to injure you, sir, but work must cease everywhere." Deneulin frankly treated him as an idiot. "Do you think you will benefit me if you stop work at my place? You might just as well fire a gun off into my back. Yes, my men are below, and they shall not come up, unless you mean to murder me first!" These rough words raised a clamour. Maheu had to hold back Levaque, who was pushing forward in a threatening manner, while Étienne went on discussing, and tried to convince Deneulin of the lawfulness of their revolutionary conduct. But the latter replied by the right to work. Besides, he refused to discuss such folly; he meant to be master in his own place. His only regret was that he had not four gendarmes here to sweep away this mob. "To be sure, it is my fault; I deserve what has happened to me. With fellows of your sort force is the only argument. The Government thinks to buy you by concessions. You will throw it down, that's all, when it has given you weapons." Étienne was quivering, but still held himself in. He lowered his voice. "I beg you, sir, give the order for your men to come up. I cannot answer for my mates. You may avoid a disaster." "No! be good enough to let me alone! Do I know you? You do not belong to my works, you have no quarrel with me. It is only brigands who thus scour the country to pillage houses." Loud vociferations now drowned his voice, the women especially abused him. But he continued to hold his own, experiencing a certain relief in this frankness with which he expressed his disciplinarian nature. Since he was ruined in any case, he thought platitudes a useless cowardice. But their numbers went on increasing; nearly five hundred were pushing towards the door, and he might have been torn to pieces if his head captain had not pulled him violently back. "For mercy's sake, sir! There will be a massacre. What is the good of letting men be killed for nothing?" He struggled and protested in one last cry thrown at the crowd: "You set of brigands, you will know what, when we are strongest again!" They led him away; the hustling of the crowd had thrown the first ranks against the staircase so that the rail was twisted. It was the women who pushed and screamed and urged on the men. The door yielded at once; it was a door without a lock, simply closed by a latch. But the staircase was too narrow for the pushing crowd, which would have taken long to get in if the rear of the besiegers had not gone off to enter by other openings. Then they poured in on all sides--by the shed, the screening-place, the boiler buildings. In less than five minutes the whole pit belonged to them; they swarmed at every story in the midst of furious gestures and cries, carried away by their victory over this master who resisted. Maheu, in terror, had rushed forward among the first, saying to Étienne: "They must not kill him!" The latter was already running; then, when Étienne understood that Deneulin had barricaded himself in the captains' room, he replied: "Well, would it be our fault? such a madman!" He was feeling anxious, however, being still too calm to yield to this outburst of anger. His pride of leadership also suffered on seeing the band escape from his authority and become enraged, going beyond the cold execution of the will of the people, such as he had anticipated. In vain he called for coolness, shouting that they must not put right on their enemies' side by acts of useless destruction. "To the boilers!" shouted Mother Brulé. "Put out the fires!" Levaque, who had found a file, was brandishing it like a dagger, dominating the tumult with a terrible cry: "Cut the cables! cut the cables!" Soon they all repeated this; only Étienne and Maheu continued to protest, dazed, and talking in the tumult without obtaining silence. At last the former was able to say: "But there are men below, mates!" The noise redoubled and voices arose from all sides: "So much the worse!--Ought not to go down!--Serve the traitors right!--Yes, yes, let them stay there!--And then, they have the ladders!" Then, when this idea of the ladders had made them still more obstinate, Étienne saw that he would have to yield. For fear of a greater disaster he hastened towards the engine, wishing at all events to bring the cages up, so that the cables, being cut above the shaft, should not smash them by falling down with their enormous weight. The engine-man had disappeared as well as the few daylight workers; and he took hold of the starting lever, manipulating it while Levaque and two other climbed up the metal scaffold which supported the pulleys. The cages were hardly fixed on the keeps when the strident sound was heard of the file biting into the steel. There was deep silence, and this noise seemed to fill the whole pit; all raised their heads, looking and listening, seized by emotion. In the first rank Maheu felt a fierce joy possess him, as if the teeth of the file would deliver them from misfortune by eating into the cable of one of these dens of wretchedness, into which they would never descend again. But Mother Brulé had disappeared by the shed stairs still shouting: "The fires must be put out! To the boilers! to the boilers!" Some women followed her. Maheude hastened to prevent them from smashing everything, just as her husband had tried to reason with the men. She was the calmest of them; one could demand one's rights without making a mess in people's places. When she entered the boiler building the women were already chasing away the two stokers, and the Brulé, armed with a large shovel, and crouching down before one of the stoves, was violently emptying it, throwing the red-hot coke on to the brick floor, where it continued to burn with black smoke. There were ten stoves for the five boilers. Soon the women warmed to the work, the Levaque manipulating her shovel with both hands, Mouquette raising her clothes up to her thighs so as not to catch fire, all looking red in the reflection of the flames, sweating and dishevelled in this witch's kitchen. The piles of coal increased, and the burning heat cracked the ceiling of the vast hall. "Enough, now!" cried Maheude; "the store-room is afire." "So much the better," replied Mother Brulé. "That will do the work. Ah, by God! haven't I said that I would pay them out for the death of my man!" At this moment Jeanlin's shrill voice was heard: "Look out! I'll put it out, I will! I'll let it all off!" He had come in among the first, and had kicked his legs about among the crowd, delighted at the fray and seeking out what mischief he could do; the idea had occurred to him to turn on the discharge taps and let off the steam. The jets came out with the violence of volleys; the five boilers were emptied with the sound of a tempest, whistling in such a roar of thunder that one's ears seemed to bleed. Everything had disappeared in the midst of the vapour, the hot coal grew pale, and the women were nothing more than shadows with broken gestures. The child alone appeared mounted on the gallery, behind the whirlwinds of white steam, filled with delight and grinning broadly in the joy of unchaining this hurricane. This lasted nearly a quarter of an hour. A few buckets of water had been thrown over the heaps to complete their extinction; all danger of a fire had gone by, but the anger of the crowd had not subsided; on the contrary, it had been whipped up. Men went down with hammers, even the women armed themselves with iron bars; and they talked of smashing boilers, of breaking engines, and of demolishing the mine. Étienne, forewarned, hastened to come up with Maheu. He himself was becoming intoxicated and carried away by this hot fever of revenge. He struggled, however, and entreated them to be calm, now that, with cut cables, extinguished fires, and empty boilers, work was impossible. He was not always listened to; and was again about to be carried away by the crowd, when hoots arose outside at a little low door where the ladder passage emerged. "Down with the traitors!--Oh! the dirty chops of the cowards!--Down with them! down with them!" The men were beginning to come up from below. The first arrivals, blinded by the daylight, stood there with quivering eyelids. Then they moved away, trying to gain the road and flee. "Down with the cowards! down with the traitors!" The whole band of strikers had run up. In less than three minutes there was not a man left in the buildings; the five hundred Montsou men were ranged in two rows, and the Vandame men, who had had the treachery to go down, were forced to pass between this double hedge. And as every fresh miner appeared at the door of the passage, covered with the black mud of work and with garments in rags, the hooting redoubled, and ferocious jokes arose. Oh! look at that one!--three inches of legs and then his arse! and this one with his nose eaten by those Volcan girls! and this other, with eyes pissing out enough wax to furnish ten cathedrals! and this other, the tall fellow without a rump and as long as Lent! An enormous putter-woman, who rolled out with her breast to her belly and her belly to her backside, raised a furious laugh. They wanted to handle them, the joking increased and was turning to cruelty, blows would soon have rained; while the row of poor devils came out shivering and silent beneath the abuse, with sidelong looks in expectation of blows, glad when they could at last rush away out of the mine. "Hallo! how many are there in there?" asked Étienne. He was astonished to see them still coming out, and irritated at the idea that it was not a mere handful of workers, urged by hunger, terrorized by the captains. They had lied to him, then, in the forest; nearly all Jean-Bart had gone down. But a cry escaped from him and he rushed forward when he saw Chaval standing on the threshold. "By God! is this the rendezvous you called us to?" Imprecations broke out and there was a movement of the crowd towards the traitor. What! he had sworn with them the day before, and now they found him down below with the others! Was he, then, making fools of people? "Off with him! To the shaft! to the shaft!" Chaval, white with fear, stammered and tried to explain. But Étienne cut him short, carried out of himself and sharing the fury of the band. "You wanted to be in it, and you shall be in it. Come on! take your damned snout along!" Another clamour covered his voice. Catherine, in her turn, had just appeared, dazzled by the bright sunlight, and frightened at falling into the midst of these savages. She was panting, with legs aching from the hundred and two ladders, and with bleeding palms, when Maheude, seeing her, rushed forward with her hand up. "Ah! slut! you, too! When your mother is dying of hunger you betray her for your bully!" Maheu held back her arm, and stopped the blow. But he shook his daughter; he was enraged, like his wife; he threw her conduct in her face, and both lost their heads, shouting louder than their mates. The sight of Catherine had completed Étienne's exasperation. He repeated: "On we go to the other pits, and you come with us, you dirty devil!" Chaval had scarcely time to get his sabots from the shed and to throw his woollen jacket over his frozen shoulders. They all dragged him on, forcing him to run in the midst of them. Catherine, bewildered, also put on her sabots, buttoning at her neck her man's old jacket, with which she kept off the cold; and she ran behind her lover, she would not leave him, for surely they were going to murder him. Then in two minutes Jean-Bart was emptied. Jeanlin had found a horn and was blowing it, producing hoarse sounds, as though he were gathering oxen together. The women--Mother Brulé, the Levaque, and Mouquette--raised their skirts to run, while Levaque, with an axe in his hand, manipulated it like a drum-major's stick. Other men continued to arrive; they were nearly a thousand, without order, again flowing on to the road like a torrent let loose. The gates were too narrow, and the palings were broken down. "To the pits!--Down with the traitors!--No more work!" And Jean-Bart fell suddenly into a great silence. Not a man was left, not a breath was heard. Deneulin came out of the captains' room, and quite alone, with a gesture forbidding any one to follow him, he went over the pit. He was pale and very calm. At first he stopped before the shaft, lifting his eyes to look at the cut cables; the steel ends hung useless, the bite of the file had left a living scar, a fresh wound which gleamed in the black grease. Afterwards he went up to the engine, and looked at the crank, which was motionless, like the joint of a colossal limb struck by paralysis. He touched the metal, which had already cooled, and the cold made him shudder as though he had touched a corpse. Then he went down to the boiler-room, walked slowly before the extinguished stoves, yawning and inundated, and struck his foot against the boilers, which sounded hollow. Well! it was quite finished; his ruin was complete. Even if he mended the cables and lit the fires, where would he find men? Another fortnight's strike and he would be bankrupt. And in this certainty of disaster he no longer felt any hatred of the Montsou brigands; he felt that all had a complicity in it, that it was a general agelong fault. They were brutes, no doubt, but brutes who could not read, and who were dying of hunger. CHAPTER IV And the troop went off over the flat plain, white with frost beneath the pale winter sun, and overflowed the path as they passed through the beetroot fields. From the Fourche-aux-Boeufs, Étienne had assumed command. He cried his orders while the crowd moved on, and organized the march. Jeanlin galloped at the head, performing barbarous music on his horn. Then the women came in the first ranks, some of them armed with sticks: Maheude, with wild eyes seemed to be seeking afar for the promised city of justice, Mother Brulé, the Levaque woman, Mouquette, striding along beneath their rags, like soldiers setting out for the seat of war. If they had any encounters, we should see if the police dared to strike women. And the men followed in a confused flock, a stream that grew larger and larger, bristling with iron bars and dominated by Levaque's single axe, with its blade glistening in the sun. Étienne, in the middle, kept Chaval in sight, forcing him to walk before him; while Maheu, behind, gloomily kept an eye on Catherine, the only woman among these men, obstinately trotting near her lover for fear that he would be hurt. Bare heads were dishevelled in the air; only the clank of sabots could be heard, like the movement of released cattle, carried away by Jeanlin's wild trumpeting. But suddenly a new cry arose: "Bread! bread! bread!" It was midday; the hunger of six weeks on strike was awaking in these empty stomachs, whipped up by this race across the fields. The few crusts of the morning and Mouquette's chestnuts had long been forgotten; their stomachs were crying out, and this suffering was added to their fury against the traitors. "To the pits! No more work! Bread!" Étienne, who had refused to eat his share at the settlement, felt an unbearable tearing sensation in his chest. He made no complaint, but mechanically took his tin from time to time and swallowed a gulp of gin, shaking so much that he thought he needed it to carry him to the end. His cheeks were heated and his eyes inflamed. He kept his head, however, and still wished to avoid needless destruction. As they arrived at the Joiselle road a Vandame pikeman, who had joined the band for revenge on his master, impelled the men towards the right, shouting: "To Gaston-Marie! Must stop the pump! Let the water ruin Jean-Bart!" The mob was already turning, in spite of the protests of Étienne, who begged them to let the pumping continue. What was the good of destroying the galleries? It offended his workman's heart, in spite of his resentment. Maheu also thought it unjust to take revenge on a machine. But the pikeman still shouted his cry of vengeance, and Étienne had to cry still louder: "To Mirou! There are traitors down there! To Mirou! to Mirou!" With a gesture, he had turned the crowd towards the left road; while Jeanlin, going ahead, was blowing louder than ever. An eddy was produced in the crowd; this time Gaston-Marie was saved. And the four kilometres which separated them from Mirou were traversed in half an hour, almost at running pace, across the interminable plain. The canal on this side cut it with a long icy ribbon. The leafless trees on the banks, changed by the frost into giant candelabra, alone broke this pale uniformity, prolonged and lost in the sky at the horizon as in a sea. An undulation of the ground hid Montsou and Marchiennes; there was nothing but bare immensity. They reached the pit, and found a captain standing on a foot-bridge at the screening-shed to receive them. They all well knew Father Quandieu, the _doyen_ of the Montsou captains, an old man whose skin and hair were quite white, and who was in his seventies, a miracle of fine health in the mines. "What have you come after here, you pack of meddlers?" he shouted. The band stopped. It was no longer a master, it was a mate; and a certain respect held them back before this old workman. "There are men down below," said Étienne. "Make them come up." "Yes, there are men there," said Father Quandieu, "some six dozen; the others were afraid of you evil beggars! But I warn you that not one comes up, or you will have to deal with me!" Exclamations arose, the men pushed, the women advanced. Quickly coming down from the foot-bridge, the captain now barred the door. Then Maheu tried to interfere. "It is our right, old man. How can we make the strike general if we don't force all the mates to be on our side?" The old man was silent a moment. Evidently his ignorance on the subject of coalition equalled the pikeman's. At last he replied: "It may be your right, I don't say. But I only know my orders. I am alone here; the men are down till three, and they shall stay there till three." The last words were lost in hooting. Fists were threateningly advanced, the women deafened him, and their hot breath blew in his face. But he still held out, his head erect, and his beard and hair white as snow; his courage had so swollen his voice that he could be heard distinctly over the tumult. "By God! you shall not pass! As true as the sun shines, I would rather die than let you touch the cables. Don't push any more, or I'm damned if I don't fling myself down the shaft before you!" The crowd drew back shuddering and impressed. He went on: "Where is the beast who does not understand that? I am only a workman like you others. I have been told to guard here, and I'm guarding." That was as far as Father Quandieu's intelligence went, stiffened by his obstinacy of military duty, his narrow skull, and eyes dimmed by the black melancholy of half a century spent underground. The men looked at him moved, feeling within them an echo of what he said, this military obedience, the sense of fraternity and resignation in danger. He saw that they were hesitating still, and repeated: "I'm damned if I don't fling myself down the shaft before you!" A great recoil carried away the mob. They all turned, and in the rush took the right-hand road, which stretched far away through the fields. Again cries arose: "To Madeleine! To Crévecoeur! no more work! Bread! bread!" But in the centre, as they went on, there was hustling. It was Chaval, they said, who was trying to take advantage of an opportunity to escape. Étienne had seized him by the arm, threatening to do for him if he was planning some treachery. And the other struggled and protested furiously: "What's all this for? Isn't a man free? I've been freezing the last hour. I want to clean myself. Let me go!" He was, in fact, suffering from the coal glued to his skin by sweat, and his woollen garment was no protection. "On you go, or we'll clean you," replied Étienne. "Don't expect to get your life at a bargain." They were still running, and he turned towards Catherine, who was keeping up well. It annoyed him to feel her so near him, so miserable, shivering beneath her man's old jacket and her muddy trousers. She must be nearly dead of fatigue, she was running all the same. "You can go off, you can," he said at last. Catherine seemed not to hear. Her eyes, on meeting Étienne's, only flamed with reproach for a moment. She did not stop. Why did he want her to leave her man? Chaval was not at all kind, it was true; he would even beat her sometimes. But he was her man, the one who had had her first; and it enraged her that they should throw themselves on him--more than a thousand of them. She would have defended him without any tenderness at all, out of pride. "Off you go!" repeated Maheu, violently. Her father's order slackened her course for a moment. She trembled, and her eyelids swelled with tears. Then, in spite of her fear, she came back to the same place again, still running. Then they let her be. The mob crossed the Joiselle road, went a short distance up the Cron road and then mounted towards Cougny. On this side, factory chimneys striped the flat horizon; wooden sheds, brick workshops with large dusty windows, appeared along the street. They passed one after another the low buildings of two settlements--that of the Cent-Quatre-Vingts, then that of the Soixante-Seize; and from each of them, at the sound of the horn and the clamour arising from every mouth, whole families came out--men, women, and children--running to join their mates in the rear. When they came up to Madeleine there were at least fifteen hundred. The road descended in a gentle slope; the rumbling flood of strikers had to turn round the pit-bank before they could spread over the mine square. It was now not more than two o'clock. But the captains had been warned and were hastening the ascent as the band arrived. The men were all up, only some twenty remained and were now disembarking from the cage. They fled and were pursued with stones. Two were struck, another left the sleeve of his jacket behind. This man-hunt saved the material, and neither the cables nor the boilers were touched. The flood was already moving away, rolling on towards the next pit. This one, Crévecoeur, was only five hundred metres away from Madeleine. There, also, the mob arrived in the midst of the ascent. A putter-girl was taken and whipped by the women with her breeches split open and her buttocks exposed before the laughing men. The trammer-boys had their ears boxed, the pikemen got away, their sides blue from blows and their noses bleeding. And in this growing ferocity, in this old need of revenge which was turning every head with madness, the choked cries went on, death to traitors, hatred against ill-paid work, the roaring of bellies after bread. They began to cut the cables, but the file would not bite, and the task was too long now that the fever was on them for moving onward, for ever onward. At the boilers a tap was broken; while the water, thrown by bucketsful into the stoves, made the metal gratings burst. Outside they were talking of marching on Saint-Thomas. This was the best disciplined pit. The strike had not touched it, nearly seven hundred men must have gone down there. This exasperated them; they would wait for these men with sticks, ranged for battle, just to see who would get the best of it. But the rumour ran along that there were gendarmes at Saint-Thomas, the gendarmes of the morning whom they had made fun of. How was this known? nobody could say. No matter! they were seized by fear and decided on Feutry-Cantel. Their giddiness carried them on, all were on the road, clanking their sabots, rushing forward. To Feutry-Cantel! to Feutry-Cantel! The cowards there were certainly four hundred in number and there would be fun! Situated three kilometres away, this pit lay in a fold of the ground near the Scarpe. They were already climbing the slope of the Platriéres, beyond the road to Beaugnies, when a voice, no one knew from whom, threw out the idea that the soldiers were, perhaps, down there at Feutry-Cantel. Then from one to the other of the column it was repeated that the soldiers were down there. They slackened their march, panic gradually spread in the country, idle without work, which they had been scouring for hours. Why had they not come across any soldiers? This impunity troubled them, at the thought of the repression which they felt to be coming. Without any one knowing where it came from, a new word of command turned them towards another pit. "To the Victoire! to the Victoire!" Were there, then, neither soldiers nor police at the Victoire? Nobody knew. All seemed reassured. And turning round they descended from the Beaumont side and cut across the fields to reach the Joiselle road. The railway line barred their passage, and they crossed it, pulling down the palings. Now they were approaching Montsou, the gradual undulation of the landscape grew less, the sea of beetroot fields enlarged, reaching far away to the black houses at Marchiennes. This time it was a march of five good kilometres. So strong an impulse pushed them on that they had no feeling of their terrible fatigue, or of their bruised and wounded feet. The rear continued to lengthen, increased by mates enlisted on the roads and in the settlements. When they had passed the canal at the Magache bridge, and appeared before the Victoire, there were two thousand of them. But three o'clock had struck, the ascent was completed, not a man remained below. Their disappointment was spent in vain threats; they could only heave broken bricks at the workmen who had arrived to take their duty at the earth-cutting. There was a rush, and the deserted pit belonged to them. And in their rage at not finding a traitor's face to strike, they attacked things. A rankling abscess was bursting within them, a poisoned boil of slow growth. Years and years of hunger tortured them with a thirst for massacre and destruction. Behind a shed Étienne saw some porters filling a wagon with coal. "Will you just clear out of the bloody place!" he shouted. "Not a bit of coal goes out!" At his orders some hundred strikers ran up, and the porters only had time to escape. Men unharnessed the horses, which were frightened and set off, struck in the haunches; while others, overturning the wagon, broke the shafts. Levaque, with violent blows of his axe, had thrown himself on the platforms to break down the foot-bridges. They resisted, and it occurred to him to tear up the rails, destroying the line from one end of the square to the other. Soon the whole band set to this task. Maheu made the metal chairs leap up, armed with his iron bar which he used as a lever. During this time Mother Brulé led away the women and invaded the lamp cabin, where their sticks covered the soil with a carnage of lamps. Maheude, carried out of herself, was laying about her as vigorously as the Levaque woman. All were soaked in oil, and Mouquette dried her hands on her skirt, laughing to find herself so dirty. Jeanlin for a joke, had emptied a lamp down her neck. But all this revenge produced nothing to eat. Stomachs were crying out louder than ever. And the great lamentation dominated still: "Bread! bread! bread!" A former captain at the Victoire kept a stall near by. No doubt he had fled in fear, for his shed was abandoned. When the women came back, and the men had finished destroying the railway, they besieged the stall, the shutters of which yielded at once. They found no bread there; there were only two pieces of raw flesh and a sack of potatoes. But in the pillage they discovered some fifty bottles of gin, which disappeared like a drop of water drunk up by the sand. Étienne, having emptied his tin, was able to refill it. Little by little a terrible drunkenness, the drunkenness of the starved, was inflaming his eyes and baring his teeth like a wolf's between his pallid lips. Suddenly he perceived that Chaval had gone off in the midst of the tumult. He swore, and men ran to seize the fugitive, who was hiding with Catherine behind the timber supply. "Ah! you dirty swine; you are afraid of getting into trouble!" shouted Étienne. "It was you in the forest who called for a strike of the engine-men, to stop the pumps, and now you want to play us a filthy trick! Very well! By God! we will go back to Gaston-Marie. I will have you smash the pump; yes, by God! you shall smash it!" He was drunk; he was urging his men against this pump which he had saved a few hours earlier. "To Gaston-Marie! to Gaston-Marie!" They all cheered, and rushed on, while Chaval, seized by the shoulders, was drawn and pushed violently along, while he constantly asked to be allowed to wash. "Will you take yourself off, then?" cried Maheu to Catherine who had also begun to run again. This time she did not even draw back, but turned her burning eyes on her father, and went on running. Once more the mob ploughed through the flat plain. They were retracing their steps over the long straight paths, by the fields endlessly spread out. It was four o'clock; the sun which approached the horizon, lengthened the shadows of this horde with their furious gestures over the frozen soil. They avoided Montsou, and farther on rejoined the Joiselle road; to spare the journey round Fourche-aux-Boeufs, they passed beneath the walls of Piolaine. The Grégoires had just gone out, having to visit a lawyer before going to dine with the Hennebeaus, where they would find Cécile. The estate seemed asleep, with its avenue of deserted limes, its kitchen garden and its orchard bared by the winter. Nothing was stirring in the house, and the closed windows were dulled by the warm steam within. Out of the profound silence an impression of good-natured comfort arose, the patriarchal sensation of good beds and a good table, the wise happiness of the proprietor's existence. Without stopping, the band cast gloomy looks through the grating and at the length of protecting walls, bristling with broken bottles. The cry arose again: "Bread! bread! bread!" The dogs alone replied, by barking ferociously, a pair of Great Danes, with rough coats, who stood with open jaws. And behind the closed blind there were only the servants. Mélanie the cook and Honorine the housemaid, attracted by this cry, pale and perspiring with fear at seeing these savages go by. They fell on their knees, and thought themselves killed on hearing a single stone breaking a pane of a neighbouring window. It was a joke of Jeanlin's; he had manufactured a sling with a piece of cord, and had just sent a little passing greeting to the Grégoires. Already he was again blowing his horn, the band was lost in the distance, and the cry grew fainter: "Bread! bread! bread!" They arrived at Gaston-Marie in still greater numbers, more than two thousand five hundred madmen, breaking everything, sweeping away everything, with the force of a torrent which gains strength as it moves. The police had passed here an hour earlier, and had gone off towards Saint-Thomas, led astray by some peasants; in their haste they had not even taken the precaution of leaving a few men behind to guard the pit. In less than a quarter of an hour the fires were overturned, the boilers emptied, the buildings torn down and devastated. But it was the pump which they specially threatened. It was not enough to stop it in the last expiring breath of its steam; they threw themselves on it as on a living person whose life they required. "The first blow is yours!" repeated Étienne, putting a hammer into Chaval's hand. "Come! you have sworn with the others!" Chaval drew back trembling, and in the hustling the hammer fell; while other men, without waiting, battered the pump with blows from iron bars, blows from bricks, blows from anything they could lay their hands on. Some even broke sticks over it. The nuts leapt off, the pieces of steel and copper were dislocated like torn limbs. The blow of a shovel, delivered with full force, fractured the metal body; the water escaped and emptied itself, and there was a supreme gurgle like an agonizing death-rattle. That was the end, and the mob found themselves outside again, madly pushing on behind Étienne, who would not let Chaval go. "Kill him! the traitor! To the shaft! to the shaft!" The livid wretch, clinging with imbecile obstinacy to his fixed idea, continued to stammer his need of cleaning himself. "Wait, if that bothers you, said the Levaque woman. "Here! here's a bucket!" There was a pond there, an infiltration of the water from the pump. It was white with a thick layer of ice; and they struck it and broke the ice, forcing him to dip his head in this cold water. "Duck then," repeated Mother Brulé. "By God! if you don't duck we'll shove you in. And now you shall have a drink of it; yes, yes, like a beast, with your jaws in the trough!" He had to drink on all fours. They all laughed, with cruel laughter. One woman pulled his ears, another woman threw in his face a handful of dung found fresh on the road. His old woollen jacket in tatters no longer held together. He was haggard, stumbling, and with struggling movements of his hips he tried to flee. Maheu had pushed him, and Maheude was among those who grew furious, both of them satisfying their old spite; even Mouquette, who generally remained such good friends with her old lovers, was wild with this one, treating him as a good-for-nothing, and talking of taking his breeches down to see if he was still a man. Étienne made her hold her tongue. "That's enough. There's no need for all to set to it. If you like, you, we will just settle it together." His fists closed and his eyes were lit up with homicidal fury; his intoxication was turning into the desire to kill. "Are you ready? One of us must stay here. Give him a knife; I've got mine." Catherine, exhausted and terrified, gazed at him. She remembered his confidences, his desire to devour a man when he had drunk, poisoned after the third glass, to such an extent had his drunkards of parents put this beastliness into his body. Suddenly she leapt forward, struck him with both her woman's hands, and choking with indignation shouted into his face: "Coward! coward! coward! Isn't it enough, then, all these abominations? You want to kill him now that he can't stand upright any longer!" She turned towards her father and her mother; she turned towards the others. "You are cowards! cowards! Kill me, then, with him! I will tear your eyes out, I will, if you touch him again. Oh! the cowards!" And she planted herself before her man to defend him, forgetting the blows, forgetting the life of misery, lifted up by the idea that she belonged to him since he had taken her, and that it was a shame for her when they so crushed him. Étienne had grown pale beneath this girl's blows. At first he had been about to knock her down; then, after having wiped his face with the movement of a man who is recovering from intoxication, he said to Chaval, in the midst of deep silence: "She is right; that's enough. Off you go." Immediately Chaval was away, and Catherine galloped behind him. The crowd gazed at them as they disappeared round a corner of the road; but Maheude muttered: "You were wrong; ought to have kept him. He is sure to be after some treachery." But the mob began to march on again. Five o'clock was about to strike. The sun, as red as a furnace on the edge of the horizon, seemed to set fire to the whole plain. A pedlar who was passing informed them that the military were descending from the Crévecoeur side. Then they turned. An order ran: "To Montsou! To the manager!--Bread! bread! bread!" CHAPTER V M. Hennebeau had placed himself in front of his study window to watch the departure of the carriage which was taking away his wife to lunch at Marchiennes. His eyes followed Négrel for a moment, as he trotted beside the carriage door. Then he quietly returned and seated himself at his desk. When neither his wife nor his nephew animated the place with their presence the house seemed empty. On this day the coachman was driving his wife; Rose, the new housemaid, had leave to go out till five o'clock; there only remained Hippolyte, the valet de chambre, trailing about the rooms in slippers, and the cook, who had been occupied since dawn in struggling with her saucepans, entirely absorbed in the dinner which was to be given in the evening. So M. Hennebeau promised himself a day of serious work in this deep calm of the deserted house. Towards nine o'clock, although he had received orders to send every one away, Hippolyte took the liberty of announcing Dansaert, who was bringing news. The manager then heard, for the first time, of the meeting in the forest the evening before; the details were very precise, and he listened while thinking of the intrigue with Pierronne, so well known that two or three anonymous letters every week denounced the licentiousness of the head captain. Evidently the husband had talked, and no doubt the wife had, too. He even took advantage of the occasion; he let the head captain know that he was aware of everything, contenting himself with recommending prudence for fear of a scandal. Startled by these reproaches in the midst of his report, Dansaert denied, stammered excuses, while his great nose confessed the crime by its sudden redness. He did not insist, however, glad to get off so easily; for, as a rule, the manager displayed the implacable severity of the virtuous man whenever an employee allowed himself the indulgence of a pretty girl in the pit. The conversation continued concerning the strike; that meeting in the forest was only the swagger of blusterers; nothing serious threatened. In any case, the settlements would surely not stir for some days, beneath the impression of respectful fear which must have been produced by the military promenade of the morning. When M. Hennebeau was alone again he was, however, on the point of sending a telegram to the prefect. Only the fear of uselessly showing a sign of anxiety held him back. Already he could not forgive himself his lack of insight in saying everywhere, and even writing to the directors, that the strike would last at most a fortnight. It had been going on and on for nearly two months, to his great surprise, and he was in despair over it; he felt himself every day lowered and compromised, and was forced to imagine some brilliant achievement which would bring him back into favour with the directors. He had just asked them for orders in the case of a skirmish. There was delay over the reply, and he was expecting it by the afternoon post. He said to himself that there would be time then to send out telegrams, and to obtain the military occupation of the pits, if such was the desire of those gentlemen. In his own opinion there would certainly be a battle and an expenditure of blood. This responsibility troubled him in spite of his habitual energy. Up to eleven o'clock he worked peacefully; there was no sound in the dead house except Hippolyte's waxing-stick, which was rubbing a floor far away on the first floor. Then, one after the other, he received two messages, the first announcing the attack on Jean-Bart by the Montsou band, the second telling of the cut cables, the overturned fires, and all the destruction. He could not understand. Why had the strikers gone to Deneulin instead of attacking one of the Company's pits? Besides, they were quite welcome to sack Vandame; that would merely ripen the plan of conquest which he was meditating. And at midday he lunched alone in the large dining-room, served so quietly by the servant that he could not even hear his slippers. This solitude rendered his preoccupations more gloomy; he was feeling cold at the heart when a captain, who had arrived running, was shown in, and told him of the mob's march on Mirou. Almost immediately, as he was finishing his coffee, a telegram informed him that Madeleine and Crévecoeur were in their turn threatened. Then his perplexity became extreme. He was expecting the postman at two o'clock; ought he at once to ask for troops? or would it be better to wait patiently, and not to act until he had received the directors' orders? He went back into his study; he wished to read a report which he had asked Négrel to prepare the day before for the prefect. But he could not put his hand on it; he reflected that perhaps the young man had left it in his room, where he often wrote at night, and without taking any decision, pursued by the idea of this report, he went upstairs to look for it in the room. As he entered, M. Hennebeau was surprised: the room had not been done, no doubt through Hippolyte's forgetfulness or laziness. There was a moist heat there, the close heat of the past night, made heavier from the mouth of the hot-air stove being left open; and he was suffocated, too, with a penetrating perfume, which he thought must be the odour of the toilet waters with which the basin was full. There was great disorder in the room--garments scattered about, damp towels thrown on the backs of chairs, the bed yawning, with a sheet drawn back and draggling on the carpet. But at first he only glanced round with an abstracted look as he went towards a table covered with papers to look for the missing report. Twice he examined the papers one by one, but it was certainly not there. Where the devil could that madcap Paul have stuffed it? And as M. Hennebeau went back into the middle of the room, giving a glance at each article of furniture, he noticed in the open bed a bright point which shone like a star. He approached mechanically and put out his hand. It was a little gold scent-bottle lying between two folds of the sheet. He at once recognized a scent-bottle belonging to Madame Hennebeau, the little ether bottle which was always with her. But he could not understand its presence here: how could it have got into Paul's bed? And suddenly he grew terribly pale. His wife had slept there. "Beg your pardon, sir," murmured Hippolyte's voice through the door. "I saw you going up." The servant entered and was thrown into consternation by the disorder. "Lord! Why, the room is not done! So Rose has gone out, leaving all the house on my shoulders!" M. Hennebeau had hidden the bottle in his hand and was pressing it almost to breaking. "What do you want?" "It's another man, sir; he has come from Crévecoeur with a letter." "Good! Leave me alone; tell him to wait." His wife had slept there! When he had bolted the door he opened his hand again and looked at the little bottle which had left its image in red on his flesh. Suddenly he saw and understood; this filthiness had been going on in his house for months. He recalled his old suspicion, the rustling against the doors, the naked feet at night through the silent house. Yes, it was his wife who went up to sleep there! Falling into a chair opposite the bed, which he gazed at fixedly, he remained some minutes as though crushed. A noise aroused him; someone was knocking at the door, trying to open it. He recognized the servant's voice. "Sir--Ah! you are shut in, sir." "What is it now?" "There seems to be a hurry; the men are breaking everything. There are two more messengers below. There are also some telegrams." "You just leave me alone! I am coming directly." The idea that Hippolyte would himself have discovered the scent-bottle, had he done the room in the morning, had just frozen him. And besides, this man must know; he must have found the bed still hot with adultery twenty times over, with madame's hairs trailing on the pillow, and abominable traces staining the linen. The man kept interrupting him, and it could only be out of inquisitiveness. Perhaps he had stayed with his ear stuck to the door, excited by the debauchery of his masters. M. Hennebeau did not move. He still gazed at the bed. His long past of suffering unrolled before him: his marriage with this woman, their immediate misunderstanding of the heart and of the flesh, the lovers whom she had had unknown to him, and the lover whom he had tolerated for ten years, as one tolerates an impure taste in a sick woman. Then came their arrival at Montsou, the mad hope of curing her, months of languor, of sleepy exile, the approach of old age which would, perhaps, at last give her back to him. Then their nephew arrived, this Paul to whom she became a mother, and to whom she spoke of her dead heart buried for ever beneath the ashes. And he, the imbecile husband, foresaw nothing; he adored this woman who was his wife, whom other men had possessed, but whom he alone could not possess! He adored her with shameful passion, so that he would have fallen on his knees if she would but have given him the leavings of other men! The leavings of the others she gave to this child. The sound of a distant gong at this moment made M. Hennebeau start. He recognized it; it was struck, by his orders, when the postman arrived. He rose and spoke aloud, breaking into the flood of coarseness with which his parched throat was bursting in spite of himself. "Ah! I don't care a bloody hang for their telegrams and their letters! not a bloody hang!" Now he was carried away by rage, the need of some sewer in which to stamp down all this filthiness with his heels. This woman was a vulgar drab; he sought for crude words and buffeted her image with them. The sudden idea of the marriage between Cécile and Paul, which she was arranging with so quiet a smile, completed his exasperation. There was, then, not even passion, not even jealousy at the bottom of this persistent sensuality? It was now a perverse plaything, the habit of the woman, a recreation taken like an accustomed dessert. And he put all the responsibility on her, he regarded as almost innocent the lad at whom she had bitten in this reawakening of appetite, just as one bites at an early green fruit, stolen by the wayside. Whom would she devour, on whom would she fall, when she no longer had complaisant nephews, sufficiently practical to accept in their own family the table, the bed, and the wife? There was a timid scratch at the door, and Hippolyte allowed himself to whisper through the keyhole: "The postman, sir. And Monsieur Dansaert, too, has come back, saying that they are killing one another." "I'm coming down, good God!" What should he do to them? Chase them away on their return from Marchiennes, like stinking animals whom he would no longer have beneath his roof? He would take a cudgel, and would tell them to carry elsewhere their poisonous coupling. It was with their sighs, with their mixed breaths, that the damp warmth of this room had grown heavy; the penetrating odour which had suffocated him was the odour of musk which his wife's skin exhaled, another perverse taste, a fleshly need of violent perfumes; and he seemed to feel also the heat and odour of fornication, of living adultery, in the pots which lay about, in the basins still full, in the disorder of the linen, of the furniture, of the entire room tainted with vice. The fury of impotence threw him on to the bed, which he struck with his fists, belabouring the places where he saw the imprint of their two bodies, enraged with the disordered coverlets and the crumpled sheets, soft and inert beneath his blows, as though exhausted themselves by the embraces of the whole night. But suddenly he thought he heard Hippolyte coming up again. He was arrested by shame. For a moment he stood panting, wiping his forehead, calming the bounds of his heart. Standing before a mirror he looked at his face, so changed that he did not recognize himself. Then, when he had watched it gradually grow calmer by an effort of supreme will, he went downstairs. Five messengers were standing below, not counting Dansaert. All brought him news of increasing gravity concerning the march of the strikers among the pits: and the chief captain told him at length what had gone on at Mirou and the fine behaviour of Father Quandieu. He listened, nodding his head, but he did not hear; his thoughts were in the room upstairs. At last he sent them away, saying that he would take due measures. When he was alone again, seated before his desk, he seemed to grow drowsy, with his head between his hands, covering his eyes. His mail was there, and he decided to look for the expected letter, the directors' reply. The lines at first danced before him, but he understood at last that these gentlemen desired a skirmish; certainly they did not order him to make things worse, but they allowed it to be seen that disturbances would hasten the conclusion of the strike by provoking energetic repression. After this, he no longer hesitated, but sent off telegrams on all sides--to the prefect of Lille, to the corps of soldiery at Douai, to the police at Marchiennes. It was a relief; he had nothing to do but shut himself in; he even spread the report that he was suffering from gout. And all the afternoon he hid himself in his study, receiving no one, contenting himself with reading the telegrams and letters which continued to rain in. He thus followed the mob from afar, from Madeleine to Crévecoeur, from Crévecoeur to the Victoire, from the Victoire to Gaston-Marie. Information also reached him of the bewilderment of the police and the troops, wandering along the roads, and always with their backs to the pit attacked. They might kill one another, and destroy everything! He put his head between his hands again, with his fingers over his eyes, and buried himself in the deep silence of the empty house, where he only heard now and then the noise of the cook's saucepans as she bustled about preparing the evening's dinner. The twilight was already darkening the room; it was five o'clock when a disturbance made M. Hennebeau jump, as he sat dazed and inert with his elbows in his papers. He thought that it was the two wretches coming back. But the tumult increased, and a terrible cry broke out just as he was going to the window: "Bread! bread! bread!" It was the strikers, now invading Montsou, while the police, expecting an attack on the Voreux, were galloping off in the opposite direction to occupy that pit. Just then, two kilometres away from the first houses, a little beyond the crossways where the main road cut the Vandame road, Madame Hennebeau and the young ladies had witnessed the passing of the mob. The day had been spent pleasantly at Marchiennes; there had been a delightful lunch with the manager of the Forges, then an interesting visit to the workshops and to the neighbouring glass works to occupy the afternoon; and as they were now going home in the limpid decline of the beautiful winter day, Cécile had had the whim to drink a glass of milk, as she noticed a little farm near the edge of the road. They all then got down from the carriage, and Négrel gallantly leapt off his horse; while the peasant-woman, alarmed by all these fine people, rushed about, and spoke of laying a cloth before serving the milk. But Lucie and Jeanne wanted to see the cow milked, and they went into the cattle-shed with their cups, making a little rural party, and laughing greatly at the litter in which one sank. Madame Hennebeau, with her complacent maternal air, was drinking with the edge of her lips, when a strange roaring noise from without disturbed her. "What is that, then?" The cattle-shed, built at the edge of the road, had a large door for carts, for it was also used as a barn for hay. The young girls, who had put out their heads, were astonished to see on the left a black flood, a shouting band which was moving along the Vandame road. "The deuce!" muttered Négrel, who had also gone out. "Are our brawlers getting angry at last?" "It is perhaps the colliers again," said the peasant-woman. "This is twice they've passed. Seems things are not going well; they're masters of the country." She uttered every word prudently, watching the effect on their faces; and when she noticed the fright of all of them, and their deep anxiety at this encounter, she hastened to conclude: "Oh, the rascals! the rascals!" Négrel, seeing that it was too late to get into their carriage and reach Montsou, ordered the coachman to bring the vehicle into the farmyard, where it would remain hidden behind a shed. He himself fastened his horse, which a lad had been holding, beneath the shed. When he came back he found his aunt and the young girls distracted, and ready to follow the peasant-woman, who proposed that they should take refuge in her house. But he was of opinion that they would be safer where they were, for certainly no one would come and look for them in the hay. The door, however, shut very badly, and had such large chinks in it, that the road could be seen between the worm-eaten planks. "Come, courage!" he said. "We will sell our lives dearly." This joke increased their fear. The noise grew louder, but nothing could yet be seen; along the vacant road the wind of a tempest seemed to be blowing, like those sudden gusts which precede great storms. "No, no! I don't want to look," said Cécile, going to hide herself in the hay. Madame Hennebeau, who was very pale and felt angry with these people who had spoilt her pleasure, stood in the background with a sidelong look of repugnance; while Lucie and Jeanne, though trembling, had placed their eyes at a crack, anxious to lose nothing of the spectacle. A sound of thunder came near, the earth was shaken, and Jeanlin galloped up first, blowing into his horn. "Take out your scent-bottles, the sweat of the people is passing by!" murmured Négrel, who, in spite of his republican convictions, liked to make fun of the populace when he was with ladies. But this witticism was carried away in the hurricane of gestures and cries. The women had appeared, nearly a thousand of them, with outspread hair dishevelled by running, the naked skin appearing through their rags, the nakedness of females weary with giving birth to starvelings. A few held their little ones in their arms, raising them and shaking them like banners of mourning and vengeance. Others, who were younger with the swollen breasts of amazons, brandished sticks; while frightful old women were yelling so loudly that the cords of their fleshless necks seemed to be breaking. And then the men came up, two thousand madmen--trammers, pikemen, menders--a compact mass which rolled along like a single block in confused serried rank so that it was impossible to distinguish their faded trousers or ragged woollen jackets, all effaced in the same earthy uniformity. Their eyes were burning, and one only distinguished the holes of black mouths singing the _Marseillaise_; the stanzas were lost in a confused roar, accompanied by the clang of sabots over the hard earth. Above their heads, amid the bristling iron bars, an axe passed by, carried erect; and this single axe, which seemed to be the standard of the band, showed in the clear air the sharp profile of a guillotine-blade. "What atrocious faces!" stammered Madame Hennebeau. Négrel said between his teeth: "Devil take me if I can recognize one of them! Where do the bandits spring from?" And in fact anger, hunger, these two months of suffering and this enraged helter-skelter through the pits had lengthened the placid faces of the Montsou colliers into the muzzles of wild beasts. At this moment the sun was setting; its last rays of sombre purple cast a gleam of blood over the plain. The road seemed to be full of blood; men and women continued to rush by, bloody as butchers in the midst of slaughter. "Oh! superb!" whispered Lucie and Jeanne, stirred in their artistic tastes by the beautiful horror of it. They were frightened, however, and drew back close to Madame Hennebeau, who was leaning on a trough. She was frozen at the thought that a glance between the planks of that disjointed door might suffice to murder them. Négrel also, who was usually very brave, felt himself grow pale, seized by a terror that was superior to his will, the terror which comes from the unknown. Cécile, in the hay, no longer stirred; and the others, in spite of the wish to turn away their eyes, could not do so: they were compelled to gaze. It was the red vision of the revolution, which would one day inevitably carry them all away, on some bloody evening at the end of the century. Yes, some evening the people, unbridled at last, would thus gallop along the roads, making the blood of the middle class flow, parading severed heads and sprinkling gold from disembowelled coffers. The women would yell, the men would have those wolf-like jaws open to bite. Yes, the same rags, the same thunder of great sabots, the same terrible troop, with dirty skins and tainted breath, sweeping away the old world beneath an overflowing flood of barbarians. Fires would flame; they would not leave standing one stone of the towns; they would return to the savage life of the woods, after the great rut, the great feast-day, when the poor in one night would emaciate the wives and empty the cellars of the rich. There would be nothing left, not a sou of the great fortunes, not a title-deed of properties acquired; until the day dawned when a new earth would perhaps spring up once more. Yes, it was these things which were passing along the road; it was the force of nature herself, and they were receiving the terrible wind of it in their faces. A great cry arose, dominating the _Marseillaise_: "Bread! bread! bread!" Lucie and Jeanne pressed themselves against Madame Hennebeau, who was almost fainting; while Négrel placed himself before them as though to protect them by his body. Was the old social order cracking this very evening? And what they saw immediately after completed their stupefaction. The band had nearly passed by, there were only a few stragglers left, when Mouquette came up. She was delaying, watching the bourgeois at their garden gates or the windows of their houses; and whenever she saw them, as she was not able to spit in their faces, she showed them what for her was the climax of contempt. Doubtless she perceived someone now, for suddenly she raised her skirts, bent her back, and showed her enormous buttocks, naked beneath the last rays of the sun. There was nothing obscene in those fierce buttocks, and nobody laughed. Everything disappeared: the flood rolled on to Montsou along the turns of the road, between the low houses streaked with bright colours. The carriage was drawn out of the yard, but the coachman would not take it upon him to convey back madame and the young ladies without delay; the strikers occupied the street. And the worst was, there was no other road. "We must go back, however, for dinner will be ready," said Madame Hennebeau, exasperated by annoyance and fear. "These dirty workpeople have again chosen a day when I have visitors. How can you do good to such creatures?" Lucie and Jeanne were occupied in pulling Cécile out of the hay. She was struggling, believing that those savages were still passing by, and repeating that she did not want to see them. At last they all took their places in the carriage again. It then occurred to Négrel, who had remounted, that they might go through the Réquillart lanes. "Go gently," he said to the coachman, "for the road is atrocious. If any groups prevent you from returning to the road over there, you can stop behind the old pit, and we will return on foot through the little garden door, while you can put up the carriage and horses anywhere, in some inn outhouse." They set out. The band, far away, was streaming into Montsou. As they had twice seen police and military, the inhabitants were agitated and seized by panic. Abominable stories were circulating; it was said that written placards had been set up threatening to rip open the bellies of the bourgeois. Nobody had read them, but all the same they were able to quote the exact words. At the lawyer's especially the terror was at its height, for he had just received by post an anonymous letter warning him that a barrel of powder was buried in his cellar, and that it would be blown up if he did not declare himself on the side of the people. Just then the Grégoires, prolonging their visit on the arrival of this letter, were discussing it, and decided that it must be the work of a joker, when the invasion of the mob completed the terror of the house. They, however, smiled, drawing back a corner of the curtain to look out, and refused to admit that there was any danger, certain, they said, that all would finish up well. Five o'clock struck, and they had time to wait until the street was free for them to cross the road to dine with the Hennebeaus, where Cécile, who had surely returned, must be waiting for them. But no one in Montsou seemed to share their confidence. People were wildly running about; doors and windows were banged to. They saw Maigrat, on the other side of the road, barricading his shop with a large supply of iron bars, and looking so pale and trembling that his feeble little wife was obliged to fasten the screws. The band had come to a halt before the manager's villa, and the cry echoed: "Bread! bread! bread!" M. Hennebeau was standing at the window when Hippolyte came in to close the shutters, for fear the windows should be broken by stones. He closed all on the ground floor, and then went up to the first floor; the creak of the window-fasteners was heard and the clack of the shutters one by one. Unfortunately, it was not possible to shut the kitchen window in the area in the same way, a window made disquietingly ruddy by the gleams from the saucepans and the spit. Mechanically, M. Hennebeau, who wished to look out, went up to Paul's room on the second floor: it was on the left, the best situated, for it commanded the road as far as the Company's Yards. And he stood behind the blinds overlooking the crowd. But this room had again overcome him, the toilet table sponged and in order, the cold bed with neat and well-drawn sheets. All his rage of the afternoon, that furious battle in the depths of his silent solitude, had now turned to an immense fatigue. His whole being was now like this room, grown cold, swept of the filth of the morning, returned to its habitual correctness. What was the good of a scandal? had anything really changed in his house? His wife had simply taken another lover; that she had chosen him in the family scarcely aggravated the fact; perhaps even it was an advantage, for she thus preserved appearances. He pitied himself when he thought of his mad jealousy. How ridiculous to have struck that bed with his fists! Since he had tolerated another man, he could certainly tolerate this one. It was only a matter of a little more contempt. A terrible bitterness was poisoning his mouth, the uselessness of everything, the eternal pain of existence, shame for himself who always adored and desired this woman in the dirt in which he had abandoned her. Beneath the window the yells broke out with increased violence: "Bread! bread! bread!" "Idiots!" said M. Hennebeau between his clenched teeth. He heard them abusing him for his large salary, calling him a bloated idler, a bloody beast who stuffed himself to indigestion with good things, while the worker was dying of hunger. The women had noticed the kitchen, and there was a tempest of imprecations against the pheasant roasting there, against the sauces that with fat odours irritated their empty stomachs. Ah! the stinking bourgeois, they should be stuffed with champagne and truffles till their guts burst. "Bread! bread! bread!" "Idiots!" repeated M. Hennebeau; "am I happy?" Anger arose in him against these people who could not understand. He would willingly have made them a present of his large salary to possess their hard skin and their facility of coupling without regret. Why could he not seat them at his table and stuff them with his pheasant, while he went to fornicate behind the hedges, to tumble the girls over, making fun of those who had tumbled them over before him! He would have given everything, his education, his comfort, his luxury, his power as manager, if he could be for one day the vilest of the wretches who obeyed him, free of his flesh, enough of a blackguard to beat his wife and to take his pleasure with his neighbours' wives. And he longed also to be dying of hunger, to have an empty belly, a stomach twisted by cramps that would make his head turn with giddiness: perhaps that would have killed the eternal pain. Ah! to live like a brute, to possess nothing, to scour the fields with the ugliest and dirtiest putter, and to be able to be happy! "Bread! bread! bread!" Then he grew angry and shouted furiously in the tumult: "Bread! is that enough, idiots!" He could eat, and all the same he was groaning with torment. His desolate household, his whole wounded life, choked him at the throat like a death agony. Things were not all for the best because one had bread. Who was the fool who placed earthly happiness in the partition of wealth? These revolutionary dreamers might demolish society and rebuilt another society; they would not add one joy to humanity, they would not take away one pain, by cutting bread-and-butter for everybody. They would even enlarge the unhappiness of the earth; they would one day make the very dogs howl with despair when they had taken them out of the tranquil satisfaction of instinct, to raise them to the unappeasable suffering of passion. No, the one good thing was not to exist, and if one existed, to be a tree, a stone, less still, a grain of sand, which cannot bleed beneath the heels of the passer-by. And in this exasperation of his torment, tears swelled in M. Hennebeau's eyes, and broke in burning drops on his cheeks. The twilight was drowning the road when stones began to riddle the front of the villa. With no anger now against these starving people, only enraged by the burning wound at his heart he continued to stammer in the midst of his tears: "Idiots! idiots!" But the cry of the belly dominated, and a roar blew like a tempest, sweeping everything before it: "Bread! bread! bread!" CHAPTER VI Sobered by Catherine's blows, Étienne had remained at the head of his mates. But while he was hoarsely urging them on to Montsou, he heard another voice within him, the voice of reason, asking, in astonishment, the meaning of all this. He had not intended any of these things; how had it happened that, having set out for Jean-Bart with the object of acting calmly and preventing disaster, he had finished this day of increasing violence by besieging the manager's villa? He it certainly was, however, who had just cried, "Halt!" Only at first his sole idea had been to protect the Company's Yards, which there had been talk of sacking. And now that stones were already grazing the facade of the villa, he sought in vain for some lawful prey on which to throw the band, so as to avoid greater misfortunes. As he thus stood alone, powerless, in the middle of the road, he was called by a man standing on the threshold of the Estaminet Tison, where the landlady had just put up the shutters in haste, leaving only the door free. "Yes, it's me. Will you listen?" It was Rasseneur. Some thirty men and women, nearly all belonging to the settlement of the Deux-Cent-Quarante, who had remained at home in the morning and had come in the evening for news, had invaded this estaminet on the approach of the strikers. Zacharie occupied a table with his wife, Philoméne. Farther on, Pierron and Pierronne, with their backs turned, were hiding their faces. No one was drinking, they had simply taken shelter. Étienne recognized Rasseneur and was turning away, when the latter added: "You don't want to see me, eh? I warned you, things are getting awkward. Now you may ask for bread, they'll give you lead." Then Étienne came back and replied: "What troubles me is, the cowards who fold their arms and watch us risking our skins." "Your notion, then, is to pillage over there?" asked Rasseneur. "My notion is to remain to the last with our friends, quit by dying together." In despair, Étienne went back into the crowd, ready to die. On the road, three children were throwing stones, and he gave them a good kick, shouting out to his comrades that it was no good breaking windows. Bébert and Lydie, who had rejoined Jeanlin, were learning from him how to work the sling. They each sent a flint, playing at who could do the most damage. Lydie had awkwardly cracked the head of a woman in the crowd, and the two boys were loudly laughing. Bonnemort and Mouque, seated on a bench, were gazing at them behind. Bonnemort's swollen legs bore him so badly, that he had great difficulty in dragging himself so far; no one knew what curiosity impelled him, for his face had the earthy look of those days when he never spoke a word. Nobody, however, any longer obeyed Étienne. The stones, in spite of his orders, went on hailing, and he was astonished and terrified by these brutes he had unmuzzled, who were so slow to move and then so terrible, so ferociously tenacious in their rage. All the old Flemish blood was there, heavy and placid, taking months to get heated, and then giving itself up to abominable savagery, listening to nothing until the beast was glutted by atrocities. In his southern land crowds flamed up more quickly, but they did not effect so much. He had to struggle with Levaque to obtain possession of his axe, and he knew not how to keep back the Maheus, who were throwing flints with both hands. The women, especially, terrified him--the Levaque, Mouquette, and the others--who were agitated by murderous fury, with teeth and nails out, barking like bitches, and driven on by Mother Brulé, whose lean figure dominated them. But there was a sudden stop; a moment's surprise brought a little of that calmness which Étienne's supplications could not obtain. It was simply the Grégoires, who had decided to bid farewell to the lawyer, and to cross the road to the manager's house; and they seemed so peaceful, they so clearly had the air of believing that the whole thing was a joke on the part of their worthy miners, whose resignation had nourished them for a century, that the latter, in fact, left off throwing stones, for fear of hitting this old gentleman and old lady who had fallen from the sky. They allowed them to enter the garden, mount the steps, and ring at the barricaded door, which was by no means opened in a hurry. Just then, Rose, the housemaid, was returning, laughing at the furious workmen, all of whom she knew, for she belonged to Montsou. And it was she who, by striking her fists against the door, at last forced Hippolyte to set it ajar. It was time, for as the Grégoires disappeared, the hail of stones began again. Recovering from its astonishment, the crowd was shouting louder than ever: "Death to the bourgeois! Hurrah for the people!" Rose went on laughing, in the hall of the villa, as though amused by the adventure, and repeated to the terrified man-servant: "They're not bad-hearted; I know them." M. Grégoire methodically hung up his hat. Then, when he had assisted Madame Grégoire to draw off her thick cloth mantle, he said, in his turn: "Certainly, they have no malice at bottom. When they have shouted well they will go home to supper with more appetite." At this moment M. Hennebeau came down from the second floor. He had seen the scene, and came to receive his guests in his usual cold and polite manner. The pallor of his face alone revealed the grief which had shaken him. The man was tamed; there only remained in him the correct administrator resolved to do his duty. "You know," he said, "the ladies have not yet come back." For the first time some anxiety disturbed the Grégoires. Cécile not come back! How could she come back now if the miners were to prolong their joking? "I thought of having the place cleared," added M. Hennebeau. "But the misfortune is that I'm alone here, and, besides, I do not know where to send my servant to bring me four men and a corporal to clear away this mob." Rose, who had remained there, ventured to murmur anew: "Oh, sir! they are not bad-hearted!" The manager shook his head, while the tumult increased outside, and they could hear the dull crash of the stones against the house. "I don't wish to be hard on them, I can even excuse them; one must be as foolish as they are to believe that we are anxious to injure them. But it is my duty to prevent disturbance. To think that there are police all along the roads, as I am told, and that I have not been able to see a single man since the morning!" He interrupted himself, and drew back before Madame Grégoire, saying: "Let me beg you, madame, do not stay here, come into the drawing-room." But the cook, coming up from below in exasperation, kept them in the hall a few minutes longer. She declared that she could no longer accept any responsibility for the dinner, for she was expecting from the Marchiennes pastrycook some _vol-au-vent_ crusts which she had ordered for four o'clock. The pastrycook had evidently turned aside on the road for fear of these bandits. Perhaps they had even pillaged his hampers. She saw the _vol-au-vent_ blockaded behind a bush, besieged, going to swell the bellies of the three thousand wretches who were asking for bread. In any case, monsieur was warned; she would rather pitch her dinner into the fire if it was to be spoilt because of the revolt. "Patience, patience," said M. Hennebeau. "All is not lost, the pastrycook may come." And as he turned toward Madame Grégoire, opening the drawing-room door himself, he was much surprised to observe, seated on the hall bench, a man whom he had not distinguished before in the deepening shade. "What! you, Maigrat! what is it, then?" Maigrat arose; his fat, pale face was changed by terror. He no longer possessed his usual calm stolidity; he humbly explained that he had slipped into the manager's house to ask for aid and protection should the brigands attack his shop. "You see that I am threatened myself, and that I have no one," replied M. Hennebeau. "You would have done better to stay at home and guard your property." "Oh! I have put up iron bars and left my wife there." The manager showed impatience, and did not conceal his contempt. A fine guard, that poor creature worn out by blows! "Well, I can do nothing; you must try to defend yourself. I advise you to go back at once, for there they are again demanding bread. Listen!" In fact, the tumult began again, and Maigrat thought he heard his own name in the midst of the cries. To go back was no longer possible, they would have torn him to pieces. Besides, the idea of his ruin overcame him. He pressed his face to the glass panel of the door, perspiring and trembling in anticipation of disaster, while the Grégoires decided to go into the drawing-room. M. Hennebeau quietly endeavoured to do the honours of his house. But in vain he begged his guests to sit down; the close, barricaded room, lighted by two lamps in the daytime, was filled with terror at each new clamour from without. Amid the stuffy hangings the fury of the mob rolled more disturbingly, with vague and terrible menace. They talked, however, constantly brought back to this inconceivable revolt. He was astonished at having foreseen nothing; and his information was so defective that he specially talked against Rasseneur, whose detestable influence, he said, he was able to recognize. Besides, the gendarmes would come; it was impossible that he should be thus abandoned. As to the Grégoires, they only thought about their daughter, the poor darling who was so quickly frightened! Perhaps, in face of the peril, the carriage had returned to Marchiennes. They waited on for another quarter of an hour, worn out by the noise in the street, and by the sound of the stones from time to time striking the closed shutters which rang out like gongs. The situation was no longer bearable. M. Hennebeau spoke of going out to chase away the brawlers by himself, and to meet the carriage, when Hippolyte appeared, exclaiming: "Sir! sir, here is madame! They are killing madame!" The carriage had not been able to pass through the threatening groups in the Réquillart lane. Négrel had carried out his idea, walking the hundred metres which separated them from the house, and knocking at the little door which led to the garden, near the common. The gardener would hear them, for there was always someone there to open. And, at first, things had gone perfectly; Madame Hennebeau and the young ladies were already knocking when some women, who had been warned, rushed into the lane. Then everything was spoilt. The door was not opened, and Négrel in vain sought to burst it open with his shoulder. The rush of women increased, and fearing they would be carried away, he adopted the desperate method of pushing his aunt and the girls before him, in order to reach the front steps, by passing through the besiegers. But this manoeuvre led to a hustling. They were not left free, a shouting band followed them, while the crowd floated up to right and to left, without understanding, simply astonished at these dressed-up ladies lost in the midst of the battle. At this moment the confusion was so great that it led to one of those curious mistakes which can never be explained. Lucie and Jeanne reached the steps, and slipped in through the door, which the housemaid opened; Madame Hennebeau had succeeded in following them, and behind them Négrel at last came in, and then bolted the door, feeling sure that he had seen Cécile go in first. She was no longer there, having disappeared on the way, so carried away by fear, that she had turned her back to the house, and had moved of her own accord into the thick of danger. At once the cry arose: "Hurrah for the people! Death to the bourgeois! To death with them!" A few of those in the distance, beneath the veil which hid her face, mistook her for Madame Hennebeau; others said she was a friend of the manager's wife, the young wife of a neighbouring manufacturer who was execrated by his men. And besides it mattered little, it was her silk dress, her fur mantle, even the white feather in her hat, which exasperated them. She smelled of perfume, she wore a watch, she had the delicate skin of a lazy woman who had never touched coal. "Stop!" shouted Mother Brulé, "we'll put it on your arse, that lace!" "The lazy sluts steal it from us," said the Levaque. "They stick fur on to their skins while we are dying of cold. Just strip her naked, to show her how to live!" At once Mouquette rushed forward. "Yes, yes! whip her!" And the women, in this savage rivalry, struggled and stretched out their rags, as though each were trying to get a morsel of this rich girl. No doubt her backside was not better made than any one else's. More than one of them were rotten beneath their gewgaws. This injustice had lasted quite long enough; they should be forced to dress themselves like workwomen, these harlots who dared to spend fifty sous on the washing of a single petticoat. In the midst of these furies Cécile was shaking with paralysed legs, stammering over and over again the same phrase: "Ladies! please! please! Ladies, please don't hurt me!" But she suddenly uttered a shrill cry; cold hands had seized her by the neck. The rush had brought her near old Bonnemort, who had taken hold of her. He seemed drunk from hunger, stupefied by his long misery, suddenly arousing himself from the resignation of half a century, under the influence of no one knew what malicious impulse. After having in the course of his life saved a dozen mates from death, risking his bones in fire-damps and landslips, he was yielding to things which he would not have been able to express, compelled to do thus, fascinated by this young girl's white neck. And as on this day he had lost his tongue, he clenched his fingers, with his air of an old infirm animal ruminating over his recollections. "No! no!" yelled the women. "Uncover her arse! out with her arse!" In the villa, as soon as they had realized the mishap, Négrel and M. Hennebeau bravely reopened the door to run to Cécile's help. But the crowd was now pressing against the garden railings, and it was not easy to go out. A struggle took place here, while the Grégoires in terror stood on the steps. "Let her be then, old man! It's the Piolaine young lady," cried Maheude to the grandfather, recognizing Cécile, whose veil had been torn off by one of the women. On his side, Étienne, overwhelmed at this retaliation on a child, was trying to force the band to let go their prey. An inspiration came to him; he brandished the axe, which he had snatched from Levaque's hands. "To Maigrat's house, by God! there's bread in there! Down to the earth with Maigrat's damned shed!" And at random he gave the first blow of the axe against the shop door. Some comrades had followed him--Levaque, Maheu, and a few others. But the women were furious, and Cécile had fallen from Bonnemort's fingers into Mother Brulé's hands. Lydie and Bébert, led by Jeanlin, had slipped on all fours between her petticoats to see the lady's bottom. Already the women were pulling her about; her clothes were beginning to split, when a man on horseback appeared, pushing on his animal, and using his riding-whip on those who would not stand back quick enough. "Ah! rascals! You are going to flog our daughters, are you?" It was Deneulin who had come to the rendezvous for dinner. He quickly jumped on to the road, took Cécile by the waist, and, with the other hand manipulating his horse with remarkable skill and strength, he used it as a living wedge to split the crowd, which drew back before the onset. At the railing the battle continued. He passed through, however, with some bruises. This unforeseen assistance delivered Négrel and M. Hennebeau, who were in great danger amid the oaths and blows. And while the young man at last led in the fainting Cécile, Deneulin protected the manager with his tall body, and at the top of the steps received a stone which nearly put his shoulder out. "That's it," he cried; "break my bones now you've broken my engines!" He promptly pushed the door to, and a volley of flints fell against it. "What madmen!" he exclaimed. "Two seconds more, and they would have broken my skull like an empty gourd. There is nothing to say to them; what could you do? They know nothing, you can only knock them down." In the drawing-room, the Grégoires were weeping as they watched Cécile recover. She was not hurt, there was not even a scratch to be seen, only her veil was lost. But their fright increased when they saw before them their cook, Mélanie, who described how the mob had demolished Piolaine. Mad with fear she had run to warn her masters. She had come in when the door was ajar at the moment of the fray, without any one noticing her; and in her endless narrative the single stone with which Jeanlin had broken one window-pane became a regular cannonade which had crushed through the walls. Then M. Grégoire's ideas were altogether upset: they were murdering his daughter, they were razing his house to the ground; it was, then, true that these miners could bear him ill will, because he lived like a worthy man on their labour? The housemaid, who had brought in a towel and some eau-de-Cologne, repeated: "All the same it's queer, they're not bad-hearted." Madame Hennebeau, seated and very pale, had not recovered from the shock to her feelings; and she was only able to find a smile when Négrel was complimented. Cécile's parents especially thanked the young man, and the marriage might now be regarded as settled. M. Hennebeau looked on in silence, turning from his wife to this lover whom in the morning he had been swearing to kill, then to this young girl by whom he would, no doubt, soon be freed from him. There was no haste, only the fear remained with him of seeing his wife fall lower, perhaps to some lackey. "And you, my little darlings," asked Deneulin of his daughters; "have they broken any of your bones?" Lucie and Jeanne had been much afraid, but they were pleased to have seen it all. They were now laughing. "By George!" the father went on, "we've had a fine day! If you want a dowry, you would do well to earn it yourselves, and you may also expect to have to support me." He was joking, but his voice trembled. His eyes swelled with tears as his two daughters threw themselves into his arms. M. Hennebeau had heard this confession of ruin. A quick thought lit up his face. Vandame would now belong to Montsou; this was the hoped-for compensation, the stroke of fortune which would bring him back to favour with the gentlemen on the directorate. At every crisis of his existence, he took refuge in the strict execution of the orders he had received; in the military discipline in which he lived he found his small share of happiness. But they grew calm; the drawing-room fell back into a weary peacefulness, with the quiet light of its two lamps, and the warm stuffiness of the hangings. What, then, was going on outside? The brawlers were silent, and stones no longer struck the house; one only heard deep, full blows, those blows of the hatchet which one hears in distant woods. They wished to find out, and went back into the hall to venture a glance through the glass panel of the door. Even the ladies went upstairs to post themselves behind the blinds on the first floor. "Do you see that scoundrel, Rasseneur, over there on the threshold of the public-house?" said M. Hennebeau to Deneulin. "I had guessed as much; he must be in it." It was not Rasseneur, however, it was Étienne, who was dealing blows from his axe at Maigrat's shop. And he went on calling to the men; did not the goods in there belong to the colliers? Had they not the right to take back their property from this thief who had exploited them so long, who was starving them at a hint from the Company? Gradually they all left the manager's house, and ran up to pillage the neighbouring shop. The cry, "Bread! bread! bread!" broke out anew. They would find bread behind that door. The rage of hunger carried them away, as if they suddenly felt that they could wait no longer without expiring on the road. Such furious thrusts were made at the door that at every stroke of the axe Étienne feared to wound someone. Meanwhile Maigrat, who had left the hall of the manager's house, had at first taken refuge in the kitchen; but, hearing nothing there, he imagined some abominable attempt against his shop, and came up again to hide behind the pump outside, when he distinctly heard the cracking of the door and shouts of pillage in which his own name was mixed. It was not a nightmare, then. If he could not see, he could now hear, and he followed the attack with ringing ears; every blow struck him in the heart. A hinge must have given way; five minutes more and the shop would be taken. The thing was stamped on his brain in real and terrible images--the brigands rushing forward, then the drawers broken open, the sacks emptied, everything eaten, everything drunk, the house itself carried away, nothing left, not even a stick with which he might go and beg through the villages. No, he would never allow them to complete his ruin; he would rather leave his life there. Since he had been here he noticed at a window of his house his wife's thin silhouette, pale and confused, behind the panes; no doubt she was watching the blows with her usual silent air of a poor beaten creature. Beneath there was a shed, so placed that from the villa garden one could climb it from the palings; then it was easy to get on to the tiles up to the window. And the idea of thus returning home now pursued him in his remorse at having left. Perhaps he would have time to barricade the shop with furniture; he even invented other and more heroic defences--boiling oil, lighted petroleum, poured out from above. But this love of his property struggled against his fear, and he groaned in the battle with cowardice. Suddenly, on hearing a deeper blow of the axe, he made up his mind. Avarice conquered; he and his wife would cover the sacks with their bodies rather than abandon a single loaf. Almost immediately hooting broke out: "Look! look!--The tom-cat's up there! After the cat! after the cat!" The mob had just seen Maigrat on the roof of the shed. In his fever of anxiety he had climbed the palings with agility in spite of his weight, and without troubling over the breaking wood; and now he was flattening himself along the tiles, and endeavouring to reach the window. But the slope was very steep; he was incommoded by his stoutness, and his nails were torn. He would have dragged himself up, however, if he had not begun to tremble with the fear of stones; for the crowd, which he could not see, continued to cry beneath him: "After the cat! after the cat!--Do for him!" And suddenly both his hands let go at once, and he rolled down like a ball, leapt at the gutter, and fell across the middle wall in such a way that, by ill-chance, he rebounded on the side of the road, where his skull was broken open on the corner of a stone pillar. His brain had spurted out. He was dead. His wife up above, pale and confused behind the window-panes, still looked out. They were stupefied at first. Étienne stopped short, and the axe slipped from his hands. Maheu, Levaque, and the others forgot the shop, with their eyes fixed on the wall along which a thin red streak was slowly flowing down. And the cries ceased, and silence spread over the growing darkness. All at once the hooting began again. It was the women, who rushed forward overcome by the drunkenness of blood. "Then there is a good God, after all! Ah! the bloody beast, he's done for!" They surrounded the still warm body. They insulted it with laughter, abusing his fractured head, the dirty chops, hurling in the dead man's face the long venom of their starved lives. "I owed you sixty francs, now you're paid, thief!" said Maheude, enraged like the others. "You won't refuse me credit any more. Wait! wait! I must fatten you once more!" With her fingers she scratched up some earth, took two handfuls and stuffed it violently into his mouth. "There! eat that! There! eat! eat! you used to eat us!" The abuse increased, while the dead man, stretched on his back, gazed motionless with his large fixed eyes at the immense sky from which the night was falling. This earth heaped in his mouth was the bread he had refused to give. And henceforth he would eat of no other bread. It had not brought him luck to starve poor people. But the women had another revenge to wreak on him. They moved round, smelling him like she-wolves. They were all seeking for some outrage, some savagery that would relieve them. Mother Brulé's shrill voice was heard: "Cut him like a tom-cat!" "Yes, yes, after the cat! after the cat! He's done too much, the dirty beast!" Mouquette was already unfastening and drawing off the trousers, while the Levaque woman raised the legs. And Mother Brulé with her dry old hands separated the naked thighs and seized this dead virility. She took hold of everything, tearing with an effort which bent her lean spine and made her long arms crack. The soft skin resisted; she had to try again, and at last carried away the fragment, a lump of hairy and bleeding flesh, which she brandished with a laugh of triumph. "I've got it! I've got it!" Shrill voices saluted with curses the abominable trophy. "Ah! swine! you won't fill our daughters any more!" "Yes! we've done with paying on your beastly body; we shan't any more have to offer a backside in return for a loaf." "Here, I owe you six francs; would you like to settle it? I'm quite willing, if you can do it still!" This joke shook them all with terrible gaiety. They showed each other the bleeding fragment as an evil beast from which each of them had suffered, and which they had at last crushed, and saw before them there, inert, in their power. They spat on it, they thrust out their jaws, saying over and over again, with furious bursts of contempt: "He can do no more! he can do no more!--It's no longer a man that they'll put away in the earth. Go and rot then, good-for-nothing!" Mother Brulé then planted the whole lump on the end of her stick, and holding it in the air, bore it about like a banner, rushing along the road, followed, helter-skelter, by the yelling troop of women. Drops of blood rained down, and that pitiful flesh hung like a waste piece of meat on a butcher's stall. Up above, at the window, Madame Maigrat still stood motionless; but beneath the last gleams of the setting sun, the confused flaws of the window-panes distorted her white face which looked as though it were laughing. Beaten and deceived at every hour, with shoulders bent from morning to night over a ledger, perhaps she was laughing, while the band of women rushed along with that evil beast, that crushed beast, at the end of the stick. This frightful mutilation was accomplished in frozen horror. Neither Étienne nor Maheu nor the others had had time to interfere; they stood motionless before this gallop of furies. At the door of the Estaminet Tison a few heads were grouped--Rasseneur pale with disgust, Zacharie and Philoméne stupefied at what they had seen. The two old men, Bonnemort and Mouque, were gravely shaking their heads. Only Jeanlin was making fun, pushing Bébert with his elbow, and forcing Lydie to look up. But the women were already coming back, turning round and passing beneath the manager's windows. Behind the blinds the ladies were stretching out their necks. They had not been able to observe the scene, which was hidden from them by the wall, and they could not distinguish well in the growing darkness. "What is it they have at the end of that stick?" asked Cécile, who had grown bold enough to look out. Lucie and Jeanne declared that it must be a rabbit-skin. "No, no," murmured Madame Hennebeau, "they must have been pillaging a pork butcher's, it seems to be a remnant of a pig." At this moment she shuddered and was silent. Madame Grégoire had nudged her with her knee. They both remained stupefied. The young ladies, who were very pale, asked no more questions, but with large eyes followed this red vision through the darkness. Étienne once more brandished the axe. But the feeling of anxiety did not disappear; this corpse now barred the road and protected the shop. Many had drawn back. Satiety seemed to have appeased them all. Maheu was standing by gloomily, when he heard a voice whisper in his ear to escape. He turned round and recognized Catherine, still in her old overcoat, black and panting. With a movement he repelled her. He would not listen to her, he threatened to strike her. With a gesture of despair she hesitated, and then ran towards Étienne. "Save yourself! save yourself! the gendarmes are coming!" He also pushed her away and abused her, feeling the blood of the blows she had given him mounting to his cheeks. But she would not be repelled; she forced him to throw down the axe, and drew him away by both arms, with irresistible strength. "Don't I tell you the gendarmes are coming! Listen to me. It's Chaval who has gone for them and is bringing them, if you want to know. It's too much for me, and I've come. Save yourself, I don't want them to take you." And Catherine drew him away, while, at the same instant, a heavy gallop shook the street from afar. Immediately a voice arose: "The gendarmes! the gendarmes!" There was a general breaking up, so mad a rush for life that in two minutes the road was free, absolutely clear, as though swept by a hurricane. Maigrat's corpse alone made a patch of shadow on the white earth. Before the Estaminet Tison, Rasseneur only remained, feeling relieved, and with open face applauding the easy victory of the sabres; while in dim and deserted Montsou, in the silence of the closed houses, the bourgeois remained with perspiring skins and chattering teeth, not daring to look out. The plain was drowned beneath the thick night, only the blast furnaces and the coke furnaces were burning against the tragic sky. The gallop of the gendarmes heavily approached; they came up in an indistinguishable sombre mass. And behind them the Marchiennes pastrycook's vehicle, a little covered cart which had been confided to their care, at last arrived, and a small drudge of a boy jumped down and quietly unpacked the crusts for the _vol-au-vent_. PART SIX CHAPTER I The first fortnight of February passed and a black cold prolonged the hard winter without pity for the poor. Once more the authorities had scoured the roads; the prefect of Lille, an attorney, a general, and the police were not sufficient, the military had come to occupy Montsou; a whole regiment of men were camped between Beaugnies and Marchiennes. Armed pickets guarded the pits, and there were soldiers before every engine. The manager's villa, the Company's Yards, even the houses of certain residents, were bristling with bayonets. Nothing was heard along the streets but the slow movement of patrols. On the pit-bank of the Voreux a sentinel was always placed in the frozen wind that blew up there, like a look-out man above the flat plain; and every two hours, as though in an enemy's country, were heard the sentry's cries: "_Qui vive?_--Advance and give the password!" Nowhere had work been resumed. On the contrary, the strike had spread; Crévecoeur, Mirou, Madeleine, like the Voreux, were producing nothing; at Feutry-Cantel and the Victoire there were fewer men every morning; even at Saint-Thomas, which had been hitherto exempt, men were wanting. There was now a silent persistence in the face of this exhibition of force which exasperated the miners' pride. The settlements looked deserted in the midst of the beetroot fields. Not a workman stirred, only at rare intervals was one to be met by chance, isolated, with sidelong look, lowering his head before the red trousers. And in this deep melancholy calm, in this passive opposition to the guns, there was a deceptive gentleness, a forced and patient obedience of wild beasts in a cage, with their eyes on the tamer, ready to spring on his neck if he turned his back. The Company, who were being ruined by this death of work, talked of hiring miners from the Borinage, on the Belgian frontier, but did not dare; so that the battle continued as before between the colliers, who were shut up at home, and the dead pits guarded by soldiery. On the morrow of that terrible day this calm had come about at once, hiding such a panic that the greatest silence possible was kept concerning the damage and the atrocities. The inquiry which had been opened showed that Maigrat had died from his fall, and the frightful mutilation of the corpse remained uncertain, already surrounded by a legend. On its side, the Company did not acknowledge the disasters it had suffered, any more than the Grégoires cared to compromise their daughter in the scandal of a trial in which she would have to give evidence. However, some arrests took place, mere supernumeraries as usual, silly and frightened, knowing nothing. By mistake, Pierron was taken off with handcuffs on his wrists as far as Marchiennes, to the great amusement of his mates. Rasseneur, also, was nearly arrested by two gendarmes. The management was content with preparing lists of names and giving back certificates in large numbers. Maheu had received his, Levaque also, as well as thirty-four of their mates in the settlement of the Deux-Cent-Quarante alone. And all the severity was directed against Étienne, who had disappeared on the evening of the fray, and who was being sought, although no trace of him could be found. Chaval, in his hatred, had denounced him, refusing to name the others at Catherine's appeal, for she wished to save her parents. The days passed, every one felt that nothing was yet concluded; and with oppressed hearts every one was awaiting the end. At Montsou, during this period, the inhabitants awoke with a start every night, their ears buzzing with an imaginary alarm-bell and their nostrils haunted by the smell of powder. But what completed their discomfiture was a sermon by the new curé, Abbé Ranvier, that lean priest with eyes like red-hot coals who had succeeded Abbé Joire. He was indeed unlike the smiling discreet man, so fat and gentle, whose only anxiety was to live at peace with everybody. Abbé Ranvier went so far as to defend these abominable brigands who had dishonoured the district. He found excuses for the atrocities of the strikers; he violently attacked the middle class, throwing on them the whole of the responsibility. It was the middle class which, by dispossessing the Church of its ancient liberties in order to misuse them itself, had turned this world into a cursed place of injustice and suffering; it was the middle class which prolonged misunderstandings, which was pushing on towards a terrible catastrophe by its atheism, by its refusal to return to the old beliefs, to the fraternity of the early Christians. And he dared to threaten the rich. He warned them that if they obstinately persisted in refusing to listen to the voice of God, God would surely put Himself on the side of the poor. He would take back their fortunes from those who faithlessly enjoyed them, and would distribute them to the humble of the earth for the triumph of His glory. The devout trembled at this; the lawyer declared that it was Socialism of the worst kind; all saw the curé at the head of a band, brandishing a cross, and with vigorous blows demolishing the bourgeois society of '89. M. Hennebeau, when informed, contented himself with saying, as he shrugged his shoulders: "If he troubles us too much the bishop will free us from him." And while the breath of panic was thus blowing from one end of the plain to the other, Étienne was dwelling beneath the earth, in Jeanlin's burrow at the bottom of Réquillart. It was there that he was in hiding; no one believed him so near; the quiet audacity of that refuge, in the very mine, in that abandoned passage of the old pit, had baffled search. Above, the sloes and hawthorns growing among the fallen scaffolding of the belfry filled up the mouth of the hole. No one ventured down; it was necessary to know the trick--how to hang on to the roots of the mountain ash and to let go fearlessly, to catch hold of the rungs that were still solid. Other obstacles also protected him, the suffocating heat of the passage, a hundred and twenty metres of dangerous descent, then the painful gliding on all fours for a quarter of a league between the narrowed walls of the gallery before discovering the brigand's cave full of plunder. He lived there in the midst of abundance, finding gin there, the rest of the dried cod, and provisions of all sorts. The large hay bed was excellent, and not a current of air could be felt in this equal temperature, as warm as a bath. Light, however, threatened to fail. Jeanlin, who had made himself purveyor, with the prudence and discretion of a savage and delighted to make fun of the police, had even brought him pomatum, but could not succeed in putting his hands on a packet of candles. After the fifth day Étienne never lighted up except to eat. He could not swallow in the dark. This complete and interminable night, always of the same blackness, was his chief torment. It was in vain that he was able to sleep in safety, that he was warm and provided with bread, the night had never weighed so heavily on his brain. It seemed to him even to crush his thoughts. Now he was living on thefts. In spite of his communistic theories, old scruples of education arose, and he contented himself with gnawing his share of dry bread. But what was to be done? One must live, and his task was not yet accomplished. Another shame overcame him: remorse for that savage drunkenness from the gin, drunk in the great cold on an empty stomach, which had thrown him, armed with a knife, on Chaval. This stirred in him the whole of that unknown terror, the hereditary ill, the long ancestry of drunkenness, no longer tolerating a drop of alcohol without falling into homicidal mania. Would he then end as a murderer? When he found himself in shelter, in this profound calm of the earth, seized by satiety of violence, he had slept for two days the sleep of a brute, gorged and overcome; and the depression continued, he lived in a bruised state with bitter mouth and aching head, as after some tremendous spree. A week passed by; the Maheus, who had been warned, were not able to send a candle; he had to give up the enjoyment of light, even when eating. Now Étienne remained for hours stretched out on his hay. Vague ideas were working within him for the first time: a feeling of superiority, which placed him apart from his mates, an exaltation of his person as he grew more instructed. Never had he reflected so much; he asked himself the why of his disgust on the morrow of that furious course among the pits; and he did not dare to reply to himself, his recollections were repulsive to him, the ignoble desires, the coarse instincts, the odour of all that wretchedness shaken out to the wind. In spite of the torment of the darkness, he would come to hate the hour for returning to the settlement. How nauseous were all these wretches in a heap, living at the common bucket! There was not one with whom he could seriously talk politics; it was a bestial existence, always the same air tainted by onion, in which one choked! He wished to enlarge their horizon, to raise them to the comfort and good manners of the middle class, by making them masters; but how long it would take! and he no longer felt the courage to await victory, in this prison of hunger. By slow degrees his vanity of leadership, his constant preoccupation of thinking in their place, left him free, breathing into him the soul of one of those bourgeois whom he execrated. Jeanlin one evening brought a candle-end, stolen from a carter's lantern, and this was a great relief for Étienne. When the darkness began to stupefy him, weighing on his skull almost to madness, he would light up for a moment; then, as soon as he had chased away the nightmare, he extinguished the candle, miserly of this brightness which was as necessary to his life as bread. The silence buzzed in his ears, he only heard the flight of a band of rats, the cracking of the old timber, the tiny sound of a spider weaving her web. And with eyes open, in this warm nothingness, he returned to his fixed idea--the thought of what his mates were doing above. Desertion on his part would have seemed to him the worst cowardice. If he thus hid himself, it was to remain free, to give counsel or to act. His long meditations had fixed his ambition. While awaiting something better he would like to be Pluchart, leaving manual work in order to work only at politics, but alone, in a clean room, under the pretext that brain labour absorbs the entire life and needs quiet. At the beginning of the second week, the child having told him that the police supposed he had gone over to Belgium, Étienne ventured out of his hole at nightfall. He wished to ascertain the situation, and to decide if it was still well to persist. He himself considered the game doubtful. Before the strike he felt uncertain of the result, and had simply yielded to facts; and now, after having been intoxicated with rebellion, he came back to this first doubt, despairing of making the Company yield. But he would not yet confess this to himself; he was tortured when he thought of the miseries of defeat, and the heavy responsibility of suffering which would weigh upon him. The end of the strike: was it not the end of his part, the overthrow of his ambition, his life falling back into the brutishness of the mine and the horrors of the settlement? And honestly, without any base calculation or falsehood, he endeavoured to find his faith again, to prove to himself that resistance was still possible, that Capital was about to destroy itself in face of the heroic suicide of Labour. Throughout the entire country, in fact, there was nothing but a long echo of ruin. At night, when he wandered through the black country, like a wolf who has come out of his forest, he seemed to hear the crash of bankruptcies from one end of the plain to the other. He now passed by the roadside nothing but closed dead workshops, becoming rotten beneath the dull sky. The sugar works had especially suffered: the Hoton sugar works, the Fauvelle works, after having reduced the number of their hands, had come to grief one after the other. At the Dutilleul flour works the last mill had stopped on the second Saturday of the month, and the Bleuze rope works, for mine cables, had been quite ruined by the strike. On the Marchiennes side the situation was growing worse every day. All the fires were out at the Gagebois glass works, men were continually being sent away from the Sonneville workshops, only one of the three blast furnaces of the Forges was alight, and not one battery of coke ovens was burning on the horizon. The strike of the Montsou colliers, born of the industrial crisis which had been growing worse for two years, had increased it and precipitated the downfall. To the other causes of suffering--the stoppage of orders from America, and the engorgement of invested capital in excessive production--was now added the unforeseen lack of coal for the few furnaces which were still kept up; and that was the supreme agony, this engine bread which the pits no longer furnished. Frightened by the general anxiety, the Company, by diminishing its output and starving its miners, inevitably found itself at the end of December without a fragment of coal at the surface of its pits. Everything held together, the plague blew from afar, one fall led to another; the industries tumbled each other over as they fell, in so rapid a series of catastrophes that the shocks echoed in the midst of the neighbouring cities, Lille, Douai, Valenciennes, where absconding bankers were bringing ruin on whole families. At the turn of a road Étienne often stopped in the frozen night to hear the rubbish raining down. He breathed deeply in the darkness, the joy of annihilation seized him, the hope that day would dawn on the extermination of the old world, with not a single fortune left standing, the scythe of equality levelling everything to the ground. But in this massacre it was the Company's pits that especially interested him. He would continue his walk, blinded by the darkness, visiting them one after the other, glad to discover some new disaster. Landslips of increasing gravity continued to occur on account of the prolonged abandonment of the passages. Above the north gallery of Mirou the ground sank in to such an extent, that the Joiselle road, for the distance of a hundred metres, had been swallowed up as though by the shock of an earthquake; and the Company, disturbed at the rumours raised by these accidents, paid the owners for their vanished fields without bargaining. Crévecoeur and Madeleine, which lay in very shifting rock, were becoming stopped up more and more. It was said that two captains had been buried at the Victoire; there was an inundation at Feutry-Cantel, it had been necessary to wall up a gallery for the length of a kilometre at Saint-Thomas, where the ill-kept timbering was breaking down everywhere. Thus every hour enormous sums were spent, making great breaches in the shareholders' dividends; a rapid destruction of the pits was going on, which must end at last by eating up the famous Montsou deniers which had been centupled in a century. In the face of these repeated blows, hope was again born in Étienne; he came to believe that a third month of resistance would crush the monster--the weary, sated beast, crouching down there like an idol in his unknown tabernacle. He knew that after the Montsou troubles there had been great excitement in the Paris journals, quite a violent controversy between the official newspapers and the opposition newspapers, terrible narratives, which were especially directed against the International, of which the empire was becoming afraid after having first encouraged it; and the directors not daring to turn a deaf ear any longer, two of them had condescended to come and hold an inquiry, but with an air of regret, not appearing to care about the upshot; so disinterested, that in three days they went away again, declaring that everything was going on as well as possible. He was told, however, from other quarters that during their stay these gentlemen sat permanently, displaying feverish activity, and absorbed in transactions of which no one about them uttered a word. And he charged them with affecting confidence they did not feel, and came to look upon their departure as a nervous flight, feeling now certain of triumph since these terrible men were letting everything go. But on the following night Étienne despaired again. The Company's back was too robust to be so easily broken; they might lose millions, but later on they would get them back again by gnawing at their men's bread. On that night, having pushed as far as Jean-Bart, he guessed the truth when an overseer told him that there was talk of yielding Vandame to Montsou. At Deneulin's house, it was said, the wretchedness was pitiful, the wretchedness of the rich; the father ill in his powerlessness, aged by his anxiety over money, the daughters struggling in the midst of tradesmen, trying to save their shifts. There was less suffering in the famished settlements than in this middle-class house where they shut themselves up to drink water. Work had not been resumed at Jean-Bart, and it had been necessary to replace the pump at Gaston-Marie; while, in spite of all haste, an inundation had already begun which made great expenses necessary. Deneulin had at last risked his request for a loan of one hundred thousand francs from the Grégoires, and the refusal, though he had expected it, completed his dejection: if they refused, it was for his sake, in order to save him from an impossible struggle; and they advised him to sell. He, as usual, violently refused. It enraged him to have to pay the expenses of the strike; he hoped at first to die of it, with the blood at his head, strangled by apoplexy. Then what was to be done? He had listened to the directors' offers. They wrangled with him, they depreciated this superb prey, this repaired pit, equipped anew, where the lack of capital alone paralysed the output. He would be lucky if he got enough out of it to satisfy his creditors. For two days he had struggled against the directors at Montsou, furious at the quiet way with which they took advantage of his embarrassment and shouting his refusals at them in his loud voice. And there the affair remained, and they had returned to Paris to await patiently his last groans. Étienne smelled out this compensation for the disasters, and was again seized by discouragement before the invincible power of the great capitalists, so strong in battle that they fattened in defeat by eating the corpses of the small capitalists who fell at their side. The next day, fortunately, Jeanlin brought him a piece of good news. At the Voreux the tubbing of the shaft was threatening to break, and the water was filtering in from all the joints; in great haste a gang of carpenters had been set on to repair it. Up to now Étienne had avoided the Voreux, warned by the everlasting black silhouette of the sentinel stationed on the pit-bank above the plain. He could not be avoided, he dominated in the air, like the flag of the regiment. Towards three o'clock in the morning the sky became overcast, and he went to the pit, where some mates explained to him the bad condition of the tubbing; they even thought that it would have to be done entirely over again, which would stop the output of coal for three months. For a long time he prowled round, listening to the carpenters' mallets hammering in the shaft. That wound which had to be dressed rejoiced his heart. As he went back in the early daylight, he saw the sentinel still on the pit-bank. This time he would certainly be seen. As he walked he thought about those soldiers who were taken from the people, to be armed against the people. How easy the triumph of the revolution would be if the army were suddenly to declare for it! It would be enough if the workman and the peasant in the barracks were to remember their origin. That was the supreme peril, the great terror, which made the teeth of the middle class chatter when they thought of a possible defection of the troops. In two hours they would be swept away and exterminated with all the delights and abominations of their iniquitous life. It was already said that whole regiments were tainted with Socialism. Was it true? When justice came, would it be thanks to the cartridges distributed by the middle class? And snatching at another hope, the young man dreamed that the regiment, with its posts, now guarding the pits, would come over to the side of the strikers, shoot down the Company to a man, and at last give the mine to the miners. He then noticed that he was ascending the pit-bank, his head filled with these reflections. Why should he not talk with this soldier? He would get to know what his ideas were. With an air of indifference, he continued to come nearer, as though he were gleaning old wood among the rubbish. The sentinel remained motionless. "Eh! mate! damned weather," said Étienne, at last. "I think we shall have snow." He was a small soldier, very fair, with a pale, gentle face covered with red freckles. He wore his military great-coat with the awkwardness of a recruit. "Yes, perhaps we shall, I think," he murmured. And with his blue eyes he gazed at the livid sky, the smoky dawn, with soot weighing like lead afar over the plain. "What idiots they are to put you here to freeze!" Étienne went on. "One would think the Cossacks were coming! And then there's always wind here." The little soldier shivered without complaining. There was certainly a little cabin of dry stones there, where old Bonnemort used to take shelter when it blew a hurricane, but the order being not to leave the summit of the pit-bank, the soldier did not stir from it, his hands so stiffened by cold that he could no longer feel his weapon. He belonged to the guard of sixty men who were protecting the Voreux, and as this cruel sentry-duty frequently came round, he had before nearly stayed there for good with his dead feet. His work demanded it; a passive obedience finished the benumbing process, and he replied to these questions with the stammered words of a sleepy child. Étienne in vain endeavoured during a quarter of an hour to make him talk about politics. He replied "yes" or "no" without seeming to understand. Some of his comrades said that the captain was a republican; as to him, he had no idea--it was all the same to him. If he was ordered to fire, he would fire, so as not to be punished. The workman listened, seized with the popular hatred against the army--against these brothers whose hearts were changed by sticking a pair of red pantaloons on to their buttocks. "Then what's your name?" "Jules." "And where do you come from?" "From Plogof, over there." He stretched out his arm at random. It was in Brittany, he knew no more. His small pale face grew animated. He began to laugh, and felt warmer. "I have a mother and a sister. They are waiting for me, sure enough. Ah! it won't be for to-morrow. When I left, they came with me as far as Pont-l'Abbé. We had to take the horse to Lepalmec: it nearly broke its legs at the bottom of the Audierne Hill. Cousin Charles was waiting for us with sausages, but the women were crying too much, and it stuck in our throats. Good Lord! what a long way off our home is!" His eyes grew moist, though he was still laughing. The desert moorland of Plogof, that wild storm-beaten point of the Raz, appeared to him beneath a dazzling sun in the rosy season of heather. "Do you think," he asked, "if I'm not punished, that they'll give me a month's leave in two years?" Then Étienne talked about Provence, which he had left when he was quite small. The daylight was growing, and flakes of snow began to fly in the earthy sky. And at last he felt anxious on noticing Jeanlin, who was prowling about in the midst of the bushes, stupefied to see him up there. The child was beckoning to him. What was the good of this dream of fraternizing with the soldiers? It would take years and years, and his useless attempt cast him down as though he had expected to succeed. But suddenly he understood Jeanlin's gesture. The sentinel was about to be relieved, and he went away, running off to bury himself at Réquillart, his heart crushed once more by the certainty of defeat; while the little scamp who ran beside him was accusing that dirty beast of a trooper of having called out the guard to fire at them. On the summit of the pit-bank Jules stood motionless, with eyes vacantly gazing at the falling snow. The sergeant was approaching with his men, and the regulation cries were exchanged. "_Qui vive?_--Advance and give the password!" And they heard the heavy steps begin again, ringing as though on a conquered country. In spite of the growing daylight, nothing stirred in the settlements; the colliers remained in silent rage beneath the military boot. CHAPTER II Snow had been falling for two days; since the morning it had ceased, and an intense frost had frozen the immense sheet. This black country, with its inky roads and walls and trees powdered with coal dust, was now white, a single whiteness stretching out without end. The Deux-Cent-Quarante settlement lay beneath the snow as though it had disappeared. No smoke came out of the chimneys; the houses, without fire and as cold as the stones in the street, did not melt the thick layer on the tiles. It was nothing more than a quarry of white slabs in the white plain, a vision of a dead village wound in its shroud. Along the roads the passing patrols alone made a muddy mess with their stamping. Among the Maheus the last shovelful of cinders had been burnt the evening before, and it was no use any longer to think of gleaning on the pit-bank in this terrible weather, when the sparrows themselves could not find a blade of grass. Alzire, from the obstinacy with which her poor hands had dug in the snow, was dying. Maheude had to wrap her up in the fragment of a coverlet while waiting for Dr. Vanderhaghen, for whom she had twice gone out without being able to find him. The servant had, however, promised that he would come to the settlement before night, and the mother was standing at the window watching, while the little invalid, who had wished to be downstairs, was shivering on a chair, having the illusion that it was better there near the cold grate. Old Bonnemort opposite, his legs bad once more, seemed to be sleeping; neither Lénore nor Henri had come back from scouring the roads, in company with Jeanlin, to ask for sous. Maheu alone was walking heavily up and down the bare room, stumbling against the wall at every turn, with the stupid air of an animal which can no longer see its cage. The petroleum also was finished; but the reflection of the snow from outside was so bright that it vaguely lit up the room, in spite of the deepening night. There was a noise of sabots, and the Levaque woman pushed open the door like a gale of wind, beside herself, shouting furiously from the threshold at Maheude: "Then it's you who have said that I forced my lodger to give me twenty sous when he sleeps with me?" The other shrugged her shoulders. "Don't bother me. I said nothing; and who told you so?" "They tell me you said so; it doesn't concern you who it was. You even said you could hear us at our dirty tricks behind the wall, and that the filth gets into our house because I'm always on my back. Just tell me you didn't say so, eh?" Every day quarrels broke out as a result of the constant gossiping of the women. Especially between those households which lived door to door, squabbles and reconciliations took place every day. But never before had such bitterness thrown them one against the other. Since the strike hunger exasperated their rancour, so that they felt the need of blows; an altercation between two gossiping women finished by a murderous onset between their two men. Just then Levaque arrived in his turn, dragging Bouteloup. "Here's our mate; let him just say if he has given twenty sous to my wife to sleep with her." The lodger, hiding his timid gentleness in his great beard, protested and stammered: "Oh, that? No! Never anything! never!" At once Levaque became threatening, and thrust his fist beneath Maheu's nose. "You know that won't do for me. If a man's got a wife like that, he ought to knock her ribs in. If not, then you believe what she says." "By God!" exclaimed Maheu, furious at being dragged out of his dejection, "what is all this clatter again? Haven't we got enough to do with our misery? Just leave me alone, damn you! or I'll let you know it! And first, who says that my wife said so?" "Who says so? Pierronne said so." Maheude broke into a sharp laugh, and turning towards the Levaque woman: "An! Pierronne, is it? Well! I can tell you what she told me. Yes, she told me that you sleep with both your men--the one underneath and the other on top!" After that it was no longer possible to come to an understanding. They all grew angry, and the Levaques, as a reply to the Maheus, asserted that Pierronne had said a good many other things on their account; that they had sold Catherine, that they were all rotten together, even to the little ones, with a dirty disease caught by Étienne at the Volcan. "She said that! She said that!" yelled Maheu. "Good! I'll go to her, I will, and if she says that she said that, she shall feel my hand on her chops!" He was carried out of himself, and the Levaques followed him to see what would happen, while Bouteloup, having a horror of disputes, furtively returned home. Excited by the altercation, Maheude was also going out, when a complaint from Alzire held her back. She crossed the ends of the coverlet over the little one's quivering body, and placed herself before the window, looking out vaguely. And that doctor, who still delayed! At the Pierrons' door Maheu and the Levaques met Lydie, who was stamping in the snow. The house was closed, and a thread of light came though a crack in a shutter. The child replied at first to their questions with constraint: no, her father was not there, he had gone to the washhouse to join Mother Brulé and bring back the bundle of linen. Then she was confused, and would not say what her mother was doing. At last she let out everything with a sly, spiteful laugh: her mother had pushed her out of the door because M. Dansaert was there, and she prevented them from talking. Since the morning he had been going about the settlement with two policemen, trying to pick up workmen, imposing on the weak, and announcing everywhere that if the descent did not take place on Monday at the Voreux, the Company had decided to hire men from the Borinage. And as the night came on he sent away the policemen, finding Pierronne alone; then he had remained with her to drink a glass of gin before a good fire. "Hush! hold your tongue! We must see them," said Levaque, with a lewd laugh. "We'll explain everything directly. Get off with you, youngster." Lydie drew back a few steps while he put his eye to a crack in the shutter. He stifled a low cry and his back bent with a quiver. In her turn his wife looked through, but she said, as though taken by the colic, that it was disgusting. Maheu, who had pushed her, wishing also to see, then declared that he had had enough for his money. And they began again, in a row, each taking his glance as at a peep-show. The parlour, glittering with cleanliness, was enlivened by a large fire; there were cakes on the table with a bottle and glasses, in fact quite a feast. What they saw going on in there at last exasperated the two men, who under other circumstances would have laughed over it for six months. That she should let herself be stuffed up to the neck, with her skirts in the air, was funny. But, good God! was it not disgusting to do that in front of a great fire, and to get up one's strength with biscuits, when the mates had neither a slice of bread nor a fragment of coal? "Here's father!" cried Lydie, running away. Pierron was quietly coming back from the washhouse with the bundle of linen on his shoulder. Maheu immediately addressed him: "Here! they tell me that your wife says that I sold Catherine, and that we are all rotten at home. And what do they pay you in your house, your wife and the gentleman who is this minute wearing out her skin?" The astonished Pierron could not understand, and Pierronne, seized with fear on hearing the tumult of voices, lost her head and set the door ajar to see what was the matter. They could see her, looking very red, with her dress open and her skirt tucked up at her waist; while Dansaert, in the background, was wildly buttoning himself up. The head captain rushed away and disappeared trembling with fear that this story would reach the manager's ears. Then there would be an awful scandal, laughter, and hooting and abuse. "You, who are always saying that other people are dirty!" shouted the Levaque woman to Pierronne; "it's not surprising that you're clean when you get the bosses to scour you." "Ah! it's fine for her to talk!" said Levaque again. "Here's a trollop who says that my wife sleeps with me and the lodger, one below and the other above! Yes! yes! that's what they tell me you say." But Pierronne, grown calm, held her own against this abuse, very contemptuous in the assurance that she was the best looking and the richest. "I've said what I've said; just leave me alone, will you! What have my affairs got to do with you, a pack of jealous creatures who want to get over us because we are able to save up money! Get along! get along! You can say what you like; my husband knows well enough why Monsieur Dansaert was here." Pierron, in fact, was furiously defending his wife. The quarrel turned. They accused him of having sold himself, of being a spy, the Company's dog; they charged him with shutting himself up, to gorge himself with the good things with which the bosses paid him for his treachery. In defence, he pretended that Maheu had slipped beneath his door a threatening paper with two cross-bones and a dagger above. And this necessarily ended in a struggle between the men, as the quarrels of the women always did now that famine was enraging the mildest. Maheu and Levaque rushed on Pierron with their fists, and had to be pulled off. Blood was flowing from her son-in-law's nose, when Mother Brulé, in her turn, arrived from the washhouse. When informed of what had been going on, she merely said: "The damned beast dishonours me!" The road was becoming deserted, not a shadow spotted the naked whiteness of the snow, and the settlement, falling back into its death-like immobility, went on starving beneath the intense cold. "And the doctor?" asked Maheu, as he shut the door. "Not come," replied Maheude, still standing before the window. "Are the little ones back?" "No, not back." Maheu again began his heavy walk from one wall to the other, looking like a stricken ox. Father Bonnemort, seated stiffly on his chair, had not even lifted his head. Alzire also had said nothing, and was trying not to shiver, so as to avoid giving them pain; but in spite of her courage in suffering, she sometimes trembled so much that one could hear against the coverlet the quivering of the little invalid girl's lean body, while with her large open eyes she stared at the ceiling, from which the pale reflection of the white gardens lit up the room like moonshine. The emptied house was now in its last agony, having reached a final stage of nakedness. The mattress ticks had followed the wool to the dealers; then the sheets had gone, the linen, everything that could be sold. One evening they had sold a handkerchief of the grandfather's for two sous. Tears fell over each object of the poor household which had to go, and the mother was still lamenting that one day she had carried away in her skirt the pink cardboard box, her man's old present, as one would carry away a child to get rid of it on some doorstep. They were bare; they had only their skins left to sell, so worn-out and injured that no one would have given a farthing for them. They no longer even took the trouble to search, they knew that there was nothing left, that they had come to the end of everything, that they must not hope even for a candle, or a fragment of coal, or a potato, and they were waiting to die, only grieved about the children, and revolted by the useless cruelty that gave the little one a disease before starving it. "At last! here he is!" said Maheude. A black figure passed before the window. The door opened. But it was not Dr. Vanderhaghen; they recognized the new curé, Abbé Ranvier, who did not seem surprised at coming on this dead house, without light, without fire, without bread. He had already been to three neighbouring houses, going from family to family, seeking willing listeners, like Dansaert with his two policemen; and at once he exclaimed, in his feverish fanatic's voice: "Why were you not at mass on Sunday, my children? You are wrong, the Church alone can save you. Now promise me to come next Sunday." Maheu, after staring at him, went on pacing heavily, without a word. It was Maheude who replied: "To mass, sir? What for? Isn't the good God making fun of us? Look here! what has my little girl there done to Him, to be shaking with fever? Hadn't we enough misery, that He had to make her ill too, just when I can't even give her a cup of warm gruel?" Then the priest stood and talked at length. He spoke of the strike, this terrible wretchedness, this exasperated rancour of famine, with the ardour of a missionary who is preaching to savages for the glory of religion. He said that the Church was with the poor, that she would one day cause justice to triumph by calling down the anger of God on the iniquities of the rich. And that day would come soon, for the rich had taken the place of God, and were governing without God, in their impious theft of power. But if the workers desired the fair division of the goods of the earth, they ought at once to put themselves in the hands of the priests, just as on the death of Jesus the poor and the humble grouped themselves around the apostles. What strength the pope would have, what an army the clergy would have under them, when they were able to command the numberless crowd of workers! In one week they would purge the world of the wicked, they would chase away the unworthy masters. Then, indeed, there would be a real kingdom of God, every one recompensed according to his merits, and the law of labour as the foundation for universal happiness. Maheude, who was listening to him, seemed to hear Étienne, in those autumn evenings when he announced to them the end of their evils. Only she had always distrusted the cloth. "That's very well, what you say there, sir," she replied, "but that's because you no longer agree with the bourgeois. All our other curés dined at the manager's, and threatened us with the devil as soon as we asked for bread." He began again, and spoke of the deplorable misunderstanding between the Church and the people. Now, in veiled phrases, he hit at the town curés, at the bishops, at the highly placed clergy, sated with enjoyment, gorged with domination, making pacts with the liberal middle class, in the imbecility of their blindness, not seeing that it was this middle class which had dispossessed them of the empire of the world. Deliverance would come from the country priests, who would all rise to re-establish the kingdom of Christ, with the help of the poor; and already he seemed to be at their head; he raised his bony form like the chief of a band, a revolutionary of the gospel, his eyes so filled with light that they illuminated the gloomy room. This enthusiastic sermon lifted him to mystic heights, and the poor people had long ceased to understand him. "No need for so many words," growled Maheu suddenly. "You'd best begin by bringing us a loaf." "Come on Sunday to mass," cried the priest. "God will provide for everything." And he went off to catechize the Levaques in their turn, so carried away by his dream of the final triumph of the Church, and so contemptuous of facts, that he would thus go through the settlements without charities, with empty hands amid this army dying of hunger, being a poor devil himself who looked upon suffering as the spur to salvation. Maheu continued his pacing, and nothing was heard but his regular tramp which made the floor tremble. There was the sound of a rust-eaten pulley; old Bonnemort was spitting into the cold grate. Then the rhythm of the feet began again. Alzire, weakened by fever, was rambling in a low voice, laughing, thinking that it was warm and that she was playing in the sun. "Good gracious!" muttered Maheude, after having touched her cheeks, "how she burns! I don't expect that damned beast now, the brigands must have stopped him from coming." She meant the doctor and the Company. She uttered a joyous exclamation, however, when the door once more opened. But her arms fell back and she remained standing still with gloomy face. "Good evening," whispered Étienne, when he had carefully closed the door. He often came thus at night-time. The Maheus learnt his retreat after the second day. But they kept the secret and no one in the settlement knew exactly what had become of the young man. A legend had grown up around him. People still believed in him and mysterious rumours circulated: he would reappear with an army and chests full of gold; and there was always the religious expectation of a miracle, the realized ideal, a sudden entry into that city of justice which he had promised them. Some said they had seen him lying back in a carriage, with three other gentlemen, on the Marchiennes road; others affirmed that he was in England for a few days. At length, however, suspicions began to arise and jokers accused him of hiding in a cellar, where Mouquette kept him warm; for this relationship, when known, had done him harm. There was a growing disaffection in the midst of his popularity, a gradual increase of the despairing among the faithful, and their number was certain, little by little, to grow. "What brutal weather!" he added. "And you--nothing new, always from bad to worse? They tell me that little Négrel has been to Belgium to get Borains. Good God! we are done for if that is true!" He shuddered as he entered this dark icy room, where it was some time before his eyes were able to see the unfortunate people whose presence he guessed by the deepening of the shade. He was experiencing the repugnance and discomfort of the workman who has risen above his class, refined by study and stimulated by ambition. What wretchedness! and odours! and the bodies in a heap! And a terrible pity caught him by the throat. The spectacle of this agony so overcame him that he tried to find words to advise submission. But Maheu came violently up to him, shouting: "Borains! They won't dare, the bloody fools! Let the Borains go down, then, if they want us to destroy the pits!" With an air of constraint, Étienne explained that it was not possible to move, that the soldiers who guarded the pits would protect the descent of the Belgian workmen. And Maheu clenched his fists, irritated especially, as he said, by having bayonets in his back. Then the colliers were no longer masters in their own place? They were treated, then, like convicts, forced to work by a loaded musket! He loved his pit, it was a great grief to him not to have been down for two months. He was driven wild, therefore, at the idea of this insult, these strangers whom they threatened to introduce. Then the recollection that his certificate had been given back to him struck him to the heart. "I don't know why I'm angry," he muttered. "I don't belong to their shop any longer. When they have hunted me away from here, I may as well die on the road." "As to that," said Étienne, "if you like, they'll take your certificate back to-morrow. People don't send away good workmen." He interrupted himself, surprised to hear Alzire, who was laughing softly in the delirium of her fever. So far he had only made out Father Bonnemort's stiff shadow, and this gaiety of the sick child frightened him. It was indeed too much if the little ones were going to die of it. With trembling voice he made up his mind. "Look here! this can't go on, we are done for. We must give it up." Maheude, who had been motionless and silent up to now, suddenly broke out, and treating him familiarly and swearing like a man, she shouted in his face: "What's that you say? It's you who say that, by God!" He was about to give reasons, but she would not let him speak. "Don't repeat that, by God! or, woman as I am, I'll put my fist into your face. Then we have been dying for two months, and I have sold my household, and my little ones have fallen ill of it, and there is to be nothing done, and the injustice is to begin again! Ah! do you know! when I think of that my blood stands still. No, no, I would burn everything, I would kill everything, rather than give up." She pointed at Maheu in the darkness, with a vague, threatening gesture. "Listen to this! If any man goes back to the pit, he'll find me waiting for him on the road to spit in his face and cry coward! Étienne could not see her, but he felt a heat like the breath of a barking animal. He had drawn back, astonished at this fury which was his work. She was so changed that he could no longer recognize the woman who was once so sensible, reproving his violent schemes, saying that we ought not to wish any one dead, and who was now refusing to listen to reason and talking of killing people. It was not he now, it was she, who talked politics, who dreamed of sweeping away the bourgeois at a stroke, who demanded the republic and the guillotine to free the earth of these rich robbers who fattened on the labour of starvelings. "Yes, I could flay them with my fingers. We've had enough of them! Our turn is come now; you used to say so yourself. When I think of the father, the grandfather, the grandfather's father, what all of them who went before have suffered, what we are suffering, and that our sons and our sons' sons will suffer it over again, it makes me mad--I could take a knife. The other day we didn't do enough at Montsou; we ought to have pulled the bloody place to the ground, down to the last brick. And do you know I've only one regret, that we didn't let the old man strangle the Piolaine girl. Hunger may strangle my little ones for all they care!" Her words fell like the blows of an axe in the night. The closed horizon would not open, and the impossible ideal was turning to poison in the depths of this skull which had been crushed by grief. "You have misunderstood," Étienne was able to say at last, beating a retreat. "We ought to come to an understanding with the Company. I know that the pits are suffering much, so that it would probably consent to an arrangement." "No, never!" she shouted. Just then Lénore and Henri came back with their hands empty. A gentleman had certainly given them two sous, but the girl kept kicking her little brother, and the two sous fell into the snow, and as Jeanlin had joined in the search they had not been able to find them. "Where is Jeanlin?" "He's gone away, mother; he said he had business." Étienne was listening with an aching heart. Once she had threatened to kill them if they ever held out their hands to beg. Now she sent them herself on to the roads, and proposed that all of them--the ten thousand colliers of Montsou--should take stick and wallet, like beggars of old, and scour the terrified country. The anguish continued to increase in the black room. The little urchins came back hungry, they wanted to eat; why could they not have something to eat? And they grumbled, flung themselves about, and at last trod on the feet of their dying sister, who groaned. The mother furiously boxed their ears in the darkness at random. Then, as they cried still louder, asking for bread, she burst into tears, and dropped on to the floor, seizing them in one embrace with the little invalid; then, for a long time, her tears fell in a nervous outbreak which left her limp and worn out, stammering over and over again the same phrase, calling for death: "O God! why do you not take us? O God! in pity take us, to have done with it!" The grandfather preserved his immobility, like an old tree twisted by the rain and wind; while the father continued walking between the fireplace and the cupboard, without turning his head. But the door opened, and this time it was Doctor Vanderhaghen. "The devil!" he said. "This light won't spoil your eyes. Look sharp! I'm in a hurry." As usual, he scolded, knocked up by work. Fortunately, he had matches with him, and the father had to strike six, one by one, and to hold them while he examined the invalid. Unwound from her coverlet, she shivered beneath this flickering light, as lean as a bird dying in the snow, so small that one only saw her hump. But she smiled with the wandering smile of the dying, and her eyes were very large; while her poor hands contracted over her hollow breast. And as the half-choked mother asked if it was right to take away from her the only child who helped in the household, so intelligent and gentle, the doctor grew vexed. "Ah! she is going. Dead of hunger, your blessed child. And not the only one, either; I've just seen another one over there. You all send for me, but I can't do anything; it's meat that you want to cure you." Maheu, with burnt fingers, had dropped the match, and the darkness closed over the little corpse, which was still warm. The doctor had gone away in a hurry. Étienne heard nothing more in the black room but Maheude's sobs, repeating her cry for death, that melancholy and endless lamentation: "O God! it is my turn, take me! O God! take my man, take the others, out of pity, to have done with it!" CHAPTER III On that Sunday, ever since eight o'clock, Souvarine had been sitting alone in the parlour of the Avantage, at his accustomed place, with his head against the wall. Not a single collier knew where to get two sous for a drink, and never had the bars had fewer customers. So Madame Rasseneur, motionless at the counter, preserved an irritated silence; while Rasseneur, standing before the iron fireplace, seemed to be gazing with a reflective air at the brown smoke from the coal. Suddenly, in this heavy silence of an over-heated room, three light quick blows struck against one of the window-panes made Souvarine turn his head. He rose, for he recognized the signal which Étienne had already used several times before, in order to call him, when he saw him from without, smoking his cigarette at an empty table. But before the engine-man could reach the door, Rasseneur had opened it, and, recognizing the man who stood there in the light from the window, he said to him: "Are you afraid that I shall sell you? You can talk better here than on the road." Étienne entered. Madame Rasseneur politely offered him a glass, which he refused, with a gesture. The innkeeper added: "I guessed long ago where you hide yourself. If I was a spy, as your friends say, I should have sent the police after you a week ago." "There is no need for you to defend yourself," replied the young man. "I know that you have never eaten that sort of bread. People may have different ideas and esteem each other all the same." And there was silence once more. Souvarine had gone back to his chair, with his back to the wall and his eyes fixed on the smoke from his cigarette, but his feverish fingers were moving restlessly, and he ran them over his knees, seeking the warm fur of Poland, who was absent this evening; it was an unconscious discomfort, something that was lacking, he could not exactly say what. Seated on the other side of the table, Étienne at last said: "To-morrow work begins again at the Voreux. The Belgians have come with little Négrel." "Yes, they landed them at nightfall," muttered Rasseneur, who remained standing. "As long as they don't kill each other after all!" Then raising his voice: "No, you know, I don't want to begin our disputes over again, but this will end badly if you hold out any longer. Why, your story is just like that of your International. I met Pluchart the day before yesterday, at Lille, where I went on business. It's going wrong, that machine of his." He gave details. The association, after having conquered the workers of the whole world, in an outburst of propaganda which had left the middle class still shuddering, was now being devoured and slowly destroyed by an internal struggle between vanities and ambitions. Since the anarchists had triumphed in it, chasing out the earlier evolutionists, everything was breaking up; the original aim, the reform of the wage-system, was lost in the midst of the squabbling of sects; the scientific framework was disorganized by the hatred of discipline. And already it was possible to foresee the final miscarriage of this general revolt which for a moment had threatened to carry away in a breath the old rotten society. "Pluchart is ill over it," Rasseneur went on. "And he has no voice at all now. All the same, he talks on in spite of everything and wants to go to Paris. And he told me three times over that our strike was done for." Étienne with his eyes on the ground let him talk on without interruption. The evening before he had chatted with some mates, and he felt that breaths of spite and suspicion were passing over him, those first breaths of unpopularity which forerun defeat. And he remained gloomy, he would not confess dejection in the presence of a man who had foretold to him that the crowd would hoot him in his turn on the day when they had to avenge themselves for a miscalculation. "No doubt the strike is done for, I know that as well as Pluchart," he said. "But we foresaw that. We accepted this strike against our wishes, we didn't count on finishing up with the Company. Only one gets carried away, one begins to expect things, and when it turns out badly one forgets that one ought to have expected that, instead of lamenting and quarrelling as if it were a catastrophe tumbled down from heaven." "Then if you think the game's lost," asked Rasseneur, "why don't you make the mates listen to reason?" The young man looked at him fixedly. "Listen! enough of this. You have your ideas, I have mine. I came in here to show you that I feel esteem for you in spite of everything. But I still think that if we come to grief over this trouble, our starved carcasses will do more for the people's cause than all your common-sense politics. Ah! if one of those bloody soldiers would just put a bullet in my heart, that would be a fine way of ending!" His eyes were moist, as in this cry there broke out the secret desire of the vanquished, the refuge in which he desired to lose his torment for ever. "Well said!" declared Madame Rasseneur, casting on her husband a look which was full of all the contempt of her radical opinions. Souvarine, with a vague gaze, feeling about with his nervous hands, did not appear to hear. His fair girlish face, with the thin nose and small pointed teeth, seemed to be growing savage in some mystic dream full of bloody visions. And he began to dream aloud, replying to a remark of Rasseneur's about the International which had been let fall in the course of the conversation. "They are all cowards; there is only one man who can make their machine into a terrible instrument of destruction. It requires will, and none of them have will; and that's why the revolution will miscarry once more." He went on in a voice of disgust, lamenting the imbecility of men, while the other two were disturbed by these somnambulistic confidences made in the darkness. In Russia there was nothing going on well, and he was in despair over the news he had received. His old companions were all turning to the politicians; the famous Nihilists who made Europe tremble--sons of village priests, of the lower middle class, of tradesmen--could not rise above the idea of national liberation, and seemed to believe that the world would be delivered--when they had killed their despot. As soon as he spoke to them of razing society to the ground like a ripe harvest--as soon as he even pronounced the infantile word "republic"--he felt that he was misunderstood and a disturber, henceforth unclassed, enrolled among the lost leaders of cosmopolitan revolution. His patriotic heart struggled, however, and it was with painful bitterness that he repeated his favourite expression: "Foolery! They'll never get out of it with their foolery." Then, lowering his voice still more, in a few bitter words he described his old dream of fraternity. He had renounced his rank and his fortune; he had gone among workmen, only in the hope of seeing at last the foundation of a new society of labour in common. All the sous in his pockets had long gone to the urchins of the settlement; he had been as tender as a brother with the colliers, smiling at their suspicion, winning them over by his quiet workmanlike ways and his dislike of chattering. But decidedly the fusion had not taken place; he remained a stranger, with his contempt of all bonds, his desire to keep himself free of all petty vanities and enjoyments. And since this morning he had been especially exasperated by reading an incident in the newspapers. His voice changed, his eyes grew bright, he fixed them on Étienne, directly addressing him: "Now, do you understand that? These hatworkers at Marseilles who have won the great lottery prize of a hundred thousand francs have gone off at once and invested it, declaring that they are going to live without doing anything! Yes, that is your idea, all of you French workmen; you want to unearth a treasure in order to devour it alone afterwards in some lazy, selfish corner. You may cry out as much as you like against the rich, you haven't got courage enough to give back to the poor the money that luck brings you. You will never be worthy of happiness as long as you own anything, and your hatred of the bourgeois proceeds solely from an angry desire to be bourgeois yourselves in their place." Rasseneur burst out laughing. The idea that the two Marseilles workmen ought to renounce the big prize seemed to him absurd. But Souvarine grew pale; his face changed and became terrible in one of those religious rages which exterminate nations. He cried: "You will all be mown down, overthrown, cast on the dung-heap. Someone will be born who will annihilate your race of cowards and pleasure-seekers. And look here! you see my hands; if my hands were able they would take up the earth, like that, and shake it until it was smashed to fragments, and you were all buried beneath the rubbish." "Well said," declared Madame Rasseneur, with her polite and convinced air. There was silence again. Then Étienne spoke once more of the Borinage men. He questioned Souvarine concerning the steps that had been taken at the Voreux. But the engine-man was still preoccupied, and scarcely replied. He only knew that cartridges would be distributed to the soldiers who were guarding the pit; and the nervous restlessness of his fingers over his knees increased to such an extent that, at last, he became conscious of what was lacking--the soft and soothing fur of the tame rabbit. "Where is Poland, then?" he asked. The innkeeper laughed again as he looked at his wife. After an awkward silence he made up his mind: "Poland? She is in the pot." Since her adventure with Jeanlin, the pregnant rabbit, no doubt wounded, had only brought forth dead young ones; and to avoid feeding a useless mouth they had resigned themselves that very day to serve her up with potatoes. "Yes, you ate one of her legs this evening. Eh! You licked your fingers after it!" Souvarine had not understood at first. Then he became very pale, and his face contracted with nausea; while, in spite of his stoicism, two large tears were swelling beneath his eyelids. But no one had time to notice this emotion, for the door had opened roughly and Chaval had appeared, pushing Catherine before him. After having made himself drunk with beer and bluster in all the public-houses of Montsou, the idea had occurred to him to go to the Avantage to show his old friends that he was not afraid. As he came in, he said to his mistress: "By God! I tell you you shall drink a glass in here; I'll break the jaws of the first man who looks askance at me!" Catherine, moved at the sight of Étienne, had become very pale. When Chaval in his turn perceived him, he grinned in his evil fashion. "Two glasses, Madame Rasseneur! We're wetting the new start of work." Without a word she poured out, as a woman who never refused her beer to any one. There was silence, and neither the landlord nor the two others stirred from their places. "I know people who've said that I was a spy," Chaval went on swaggeringly, "and I'm waiting for them just to say it again to my face, so that we can have a bit of explanation." No one replied, and the men turned their heads and gazed vaguely at the walls. "There are some who sham, and there are some who don't sham," he went on louder. "I've nothing to hide. I've left Deneulin's dirty shop, and to-morrow I'm going down to the Voreux with a dozen Belgians, who have been given me to lead because I'm held in esteem; and if any one doesn't like that, he can just say so, and we'll talk it over." Then, as the same contemptuous silence greeted his provocations, he turned furiously on Catherine. "Will you drink, by God? Drink with me to the confusion of all the dirty beasts who refuse to work." She drank, but with so trembling a hand that the two glasses struck together with a tinkling sound. He had now pulled out of his pocket a handful of silver, which he exhibited with drunken ostentation, saying that he had earned that with his sweat, and that he defied the shammers to show ten sous. The attitude of his mates exasperated him, and he began to come to direct insults. "Then it is at night that the moles come out? The police have to go to sleep before we meet the brigands." Étienne had risen, very calm and resolute. "Listen! You annoy me. Yes, you are a spy; your money still stinks of some treachery. You've sold yourself, and it disgusts me to touch your skin. No matter; I'm your man. It is quite time that one of us did for the other." Chaval clenched his fists. "Come along, then, cowardly dog! I must call you so to warm you up. You all alone--I'm quite willing; and you shall pay for all the bloody tricks that have been played on me." With suppliant arms Catherine advanced between them. But they had no need to repel her; she felt the necessity of the battle, and slowly drew back of her own accord. Standing against the wall, she remained silent, so paralysed with anguish that she no longer shivered, her large eyes gazing at these two men who were going to kill each other over her. Madame Rasseneur simply removed the glasses from the counter for fear that they might be broken. Then she sat down again on the bench, without showing any improper curiosity. But two old mates could not be left to murder each other like this. Rasseneur persisted in interfering, and Souvarine had to take him by the shoulder and lead him back to the table, saying: "It doesn't concern you. There is one of them too many, and the strongest must live." Without waiting for the attack, Chaval's fists were already dealing blows at space. He was the taller of the two, and his blows swung about aiming at the face, with furious cutting movements of both arms one after the other, as though he were handling a couple of sabres. And he went on talking, playing to the gallery with volleys of abuse, which served to excite him. "Ah! you damned devil, I'll have your nose! I'll do for your bloody nose! Just let me get at your chops, you whore's looking-glass; I'll make a hash for the bloody swine, and then we shall see if the strumpets will run after you!" In silence, and with clenched teeth, Étienne gathered up his small figure, according to the rules of the game, protecting his chest and face by both fists; and he watched and let them fly like springs released, with terrible straight blows. At first they did each other little damage. The whirling and blustering blows of the one, the cool watchfulness of the other, prolonged the struggle. A chair was overthrown; their heavy boots crushed the white sand scattered on the floor. But at last they were out of breath, their panting respiration was heard, while their faces became red and swollen as from an interior fire which flamed out from the clear holes of their eyes. "Played!" yelled Chaval; "trumps on your carcass!" In fact his fist, working like a flail, had struck his adversary's shoulder. Étienne restrained a groan of pain and the only sound that was heard was the dull bruising of the muscles. Étienne replied with a straight blow to Chaval's chest, which would have knocked him out, had he had not saved himself by one of his constant goat-like leaps. The blow, however, caught him on the left flank with such effect that he tottered, momentarily winded. He became furious on feeling his arm grow limp with pain, and kicked out like a wild beast, aiming at his adversary's belly with his heel. "Have at your guts!" he stammered in a choked voice. "I'll pull them out and unwind them for you!" Étienne avoided the blow, so indignant at this infraction of the laws of fair fighting that he broke silence. "Hold your tongue, brute! And no feet, by God! or I take a chair and bash you with it!" Then the struggle became serious. Rasseneur was disgusted, and would again have interfered, but a severe look from his wife held him back: had not two customers a right to settle an affair in the house? He simply placed himself before the fireplace, for fear lest they should tumble over into it. Souvarine, in his quiet way, had rolled a cigarette, but he forgot to light it. Catherine was motionless against the wall; only her hands had unconsciously risen to her waist, and with constant fidgeting movements were twisting and tearing at the stuff of her dress. She was striving as hard as possible not to cry out, and so, perhaps, kill one of them by declaring her preference; but she was, too, so distracted that she did not even know which she preferred. Chaval, who was bathed in sweat and striking at random, soon became exhausted. In spite of his anger, Étienne continued to cover himself, parrying nearly all the blows, a few of which grazed him. His ear was split, a finger nail had torn away a piece of his neck, and this so smarted that he swore in his turn as he drove out one of his terrible straight blows. Once more Chaval saved his chest by a leap, but he had lowered himself, and the fist reached his face, smashing his nose and crushing one eye. Immediately a jet of blood came from his nostrils, and his eye became swollen and bluish. Blinded by this red flood, and dazed by the shock to his skull, the wretch was beating the air with his arms at random, when another blow, striking him at last full in the chest, finished him. There was a crunching sound; he fell on his back with a heavy thud, as when a sack of plaster is emptied. Étienne waited. "Get up! if you want some more, we'll begin again." Without replying, Chaval, after a few minutes' stupefaction, moved on the ground and stretched his limbs. He picked himself up with difficulty, resting for a moment curled up on his knees, doing something with his hand in the bottom of his pocket which could not be observed. Then, when he was up, he rushed forward again, his throat swelling with a savage yell. But Catherine had seen; and in spite of herself a loud cry came from her heart, astonishing her like the avowal of a preference she had herself been ignorant of: "Take care! he's got his knife!" Étienne had only time to parry the first blow with his arm. His woollen jacket was cut by the thick blade, one of those blades fastened by a copper ferrule into a boxwood handle. He had already seized Chaval's wrist, and a terrible struggle began; for he felt that he would be lost if he let go, while the other shook his arm in the effort to free it and strike. The weapon was gradually lowered as their stiffened limbs grew fatigued. Étienne twice felt the cold sensation of the steel against his skin; and he had to make a supreme effort, so crushing the other's wrist that the knife slipped from his hand. Both of them had fallen to the earth, and it was Étienne who snatched it up, brandishing it in his turn. He held Chaval down beneath his knee and threatened to slit his throat open. "Ah, traitor! by God! you've got it coming to you now!" He felt an awful voice within, deafening him. It arose from his bowels and was beating in his head like a hammer, a sudden mania of murder, a need to taste blood. Never before had the crisis so shaken him. He was not drunk, however, and he struggled against the hereditary disease with the despairing shudder of a man who is mad with lust and struggles on the verge of rape. At last he conquered himself; he threw the knife behind him, stammering in a hoarse voice: "Get up--off you go!" This time Rasseneur had rushed forward, but without quite daring to venture between them, for fear of catching a nasty blow. He did not want any one to be murdered in his house, and was so angry that his wife, sitting erect at the counter, remarked to him that he always cried out too soon. Souvarine, who had nearly caught the knife in his legs, decided to light his cigarette. Was it, then, all over? Catherine was looking on stupidly at the two men, who were unexpectedly both living. "Off you go!" repeated Étienne. "Off you go, or I'll do for you!" Chaval arose, and with the back of his hand wiped away the blood which continued to flow from his nose; with jaw smeared red and bruised eye, he went away trailing his feet, furious at his defeat. Catherine mechanically followed him. Then he turned round, and his hatred broke out in a flood of filth. "No, no! since you want him, sleep with him, dirty jade! and don't put your bloody feet in my place again if you value your skin!" He violently banged the door. There was deep silence in the warm room, the low crackling of the coal was alone heard. On the ground there only remained the overturned chair and a rain of blood which the sand on the floor was drinking up. CHAPTER IV When they came out of Rasseneur's, Étienne and Catherine walked on in silence. The thaw was beginning, a slow cold thaw which stained the snow without melting it. In the livid sky a full moon could be faintly seen behind great clouds, black rags driven furiously by a tempestuous wind far above; and on the earth no breath was stirring, nothing could be heard but drippings from the roofs, the falling of white lumps with a soft thud. Étienne was embarrassed by this woman who had been given to him, and in his disquiet he could find nothing to say. The idea of taking her with him to hide at Réquillart seemed absurd. He had proposed to lead her back to the settlement, to her parents' house, but she had refused in terror. No, no! anything rather than be a burden on them once more after having behaved so badly to them! And neither of them spoke any more; they tramped on at random through the roads which were becoming rivers of mud. At first they went down towards the Voreux; then they turned to the right and passed between the pit-bank and the canal. "But you'll have to sleep somewhere," he said at last. "Now, if I only had a room, I could easily take you----" But a curious spasm of timidity interrupted him. The past came back to him, their old longings for each other, and the delicacies and the shames which had prevented them from coming together. Did he still desire her, that he felt so troubled, gradually warmed at the heart by a fresh longing? The recollection of the blows she had dealt him at Gaston-Marie now attracted him instead of filling him with spite. And he was surprised; the idea of taking her to Réquillart was becoming quite natural and easy to execute. "Now, come, decide; where would you like me to take you? You must hate me very much to refuse to come with me!" She was following him slowly, delayed by the painful slipping of her sabots into the ruts; and without raising her head she murmured: "I have enough trouble, good God! don't give me any more. What good would it do us, what you ask, now that I have a lover and you have a woman yourself?" She meant Mouquette. She believed that he still went with this girl, as the rumour ran for the last fortnight; and when he swore to her that it was not so she shook her head, for she remembered the evening when she had seen them eagerly kissing each other. "Isn't it a pity, all this nonsense?" he whispered, stopping. "We might understand each other so well." She shuddered slightly and replied: "Never mind, you've nothing to be sorry for; you don't lose much. If you knew what a trumpery thing I am--no bigger than two ha'porth of butter, so ill made that I shall never become a woman, sure enough!" And she went on freely accusing herself, as though the long delay of her puberty had been her own fault. In spite of the man whom she had had, this lessened her, placed her among the urchins. One has some excuse, at any rate, when one can produce a child. "My poor little one!" said Étienne, with deep pity, in a very low voice. They were at the foot of the pit-bank, hidden in the shadow of the enormous pile. An inky cloud was just then passing over the moon; they could no longer even distinguish their faces, their breaths were mingled, their lips were seeking each other for that kiss which had tormented them with desire for months. But suddenly the moon reappeared, and they saw the sentinel above them, at the top of the rocks white with light, standing out erect on the Voreux. And before they had kissed an emotion of modesty separated them, that old modesty in which there was something of anger, a vague repugnance, and much friendship. They set out again heavily, up to their ankles in mud. "Then it's settled. You don't want to have anything to do with me?" asked Étienne. "No," she said. "You after Chaval; and after you another, eh? No, that disgusts me; it doesn't give me any pleasure. What's the use of doing it?" They were silent, and walked some hundred paces without exchanging a word. "But, anyhow, do you know where to go to?" he said again. "I can't leave you out in a night like this." She replied, simply: "I'm going back. Chaval is my man. I have nowhere else to sleep but with him." "But he will beat you to death." There was silence again. She had shrugged her shoulders in resignation. He would beat her, and when he was tired of beating her he would stop. Was not that better than to roam the streets like a vagabond? Then she was used to blows; she said, to console herself, that eight out of ten girls were no better off than she was. If her lover married her some day it would, all the same, be very nice of him. Étienne and Catherine were moving mechanically towards Montsou, and as they came nearer their silences grew longer. It was as though they had never before been together. He could find no argument to convince her, in spite of the deep vexation which he felt at seeing her go back to Chaval. His heart was breaking, he had nothing better to offer than an existence of wretchedness and flight, a night with no to-morrow should a soldier's bullet go through his head. Perhaps, after all, it was wiser to suffer what he was suffering rather than risk a fresh suffering. So he led her back to her lover's, with sunken head, and made no protest when she stopped him on the main road, at the corner of the Yards, twenty metres from the Estaminet Piquette, saying: "Don't come any farther. If he sees you it will only make things worse." Eleven o'clock struck at the church. The estaminet was closed, but gleams came through the cracks. "Good-bye," she murmured. She had given him her hand; he kept it, and she had to draw it away painfully, with a slow effort, to leave him. Without turning her head, she went in through the little latched door. But he did not turn away, standing at the same place with his eyes on the house, anxious as to what was passing within. He listened, trembling lest he should hear the cries of a beaten woman. The house remained black and silent; he only saw a light appear at a first-floor window, and as this window opened, and he recognized the thin shadow that was leaning over the road, he came near. Catherine then whispered very low: "He's not come back. I'm going to bed. Please go away." Étienne went off. The thaw was increasing; a regular shower was falling from the roofs, a moist sweat flowed down the walls, the palings, the whole confused mass of this industrial district lost in night. At first he turned towards Réquillart, sick with fatigue and sadness, having no other desire except to disappear under the earth and to be annihilated there. Then the idea of the Voreux occurred to him again. He thought of the Belgian workmen who were going down, of his mates at the settlement, exasperated against the soldiers and resolved not to tolerate strangers in their pit. And he passed again along the canal through the puddles of melted snow. As he stood once more near the pit-bank the moon was shining brightly. He raised his eyes and gazed at the sky. The clouds were galloping by, whipped on by the strong wind which was blowing up there; but they were growing white, and ravelling out thinly with the misty transparency of troubled water over the moon's face. They succeeded each other so rapidly that the moon, veiled at moments, constantly reappeared in limpid clearness. With gaze full of this pure brightness, Étienne was lowering his head, when a spectacle on the summit of the pit-bank attracted his attention. The sentinel, stiffened by cold, was walking up and down, taking twenty-five paces towards Marchiennes, and then returning towards Montsou. The white glitter of his bayonet could be seen above his black silhouette, which stood out clearly against the pale sky. But what interested the young man, behind the cabin where Bonnemort used to take shelter on tempestuous nights, was a moving shadow--a crouching beast in ambush--which he immediately recognized as Jeanlin, with his long flexible spine like a marten's. The sentinel could not see him. That brigand of a child was certainly preparing some practical joke, for he was still furious against the soldiers, and asking when they were going to be freed from these murderers who had been sent here with guns to kill people. For a moment Étienne thought of calling him to prevent the execution of some stupid trick. The moon was hidden. He had seen him draw himself up ready to spring; but the moon reappeared, and the child remained crouching. At every turn the sentinel came as far as the cabin, then turned his back and walked in the opposite direction. And suddenly, as a cloud threw its shadow, Jeanlin leapt on to the soldier's shoulders with the great bound of a wild cat, and gripping him with his claws buried his large open knife in his throat. The horse-hair collar resisted; he had to apply both hands to the handle and hang on with all the weight of his body. He had often bled fowls which he had found behind farms. It was so rapid that there was only a stifled cry in the night, while the musket fell with the sound of old iron. Already the moon was shining again. Motionless with stupor, Étienne was still gazing. A shout had been choked in his chest. Above, the pit-bank was vacant; no shadow was any longer visible against the wild flight of clouds. He ran up and found Jeanlin on all fours before the corpse, which was lying back with extended arms. Beneath the limpid light the red trousers and grey overcoat contrasted harshly with the snow. Not a drop of blood had flowed, the knife was still in the throat up to the handle. With a furious, unreasoning blow of the fist he knocked the child down beside the body. "What have you done that for?" he stammered wildly. Jeanlin picked himself up and rested on his hands, with a feline movement of his thin spine; his large ears, his green eyes, his prominent jaws were quivering and aflame with the shock of his deadly blow. "By God! why have you done this?" "I don't know; I wanted to." He persisted in this reply. For three days he had wanted to. It tormented him, it made his head ache behind his ears, because he thought about it so much. Need one be so particular with these damned soldiers who were worrying the colliers in their own homes? Of the violent speeches he had heard in the forest, the cries of destruction and death shouted among the pits, five or six words had remained with him, and these he repeated like a street urchin playing at revolution. And he knew no more; no one had urged him on, it had come to him of itself, just as the desire to steal onions from a field came to him. Startled at this obscure growth of crime in the recesses of this childish brain, Étienne again pushed him away with a kick, like an unconscious animal. He trembled lest the guard at the Voreux had heard the sentinel's stifled cry, and looked towards the pit every time the moon was uncovered. But nothing stirred, and he bent down, felt the hands that were gradually becoming icy, and listened to the heart, which had stopped beneath the overcoat. Only the bone handle of the knife could be seen with the motto on it, the simple word "Amour," engraved in black letters. His eyes went from the throat to the face. Suddenly he recognized the little soldier; it was Jules, the recruit with whom he had talked one morning. And deep pity came over him in front of this fair gentle face, marked with freckles. The blue eyes, wide open, were gazing at the sky with that fixed gaze with which he had before seen him searching the horizon for the country of his birth. Where was it, that Plogof which had appeared to him beneath the dazzling sun? Over there, over there! The sea was moaning afar on this tempestuous night. That wind passing above had perhaps swept over the moors. Two women perhaps were standing there, the mother and the sister, clutching their wind-blown coifs, gazing as if they could see what was now happening to the little fellow through the leagues which separated them. They would always wait for him now. What an abominable thing it is for poor devils to kill each other for the sake of the rich! But this corpse had to be disposed of. Étienne at first thought of throwing it into the canal, but was deterred from this by the certainty that it would be found there. His anxiety became extreme, every minute was of importance; what decision should he take? He had a sudden inspiration: if he could carry the body as far as Réquillart, he would be able to bury it there for ever. "Come here," he said to Jeanlin. The child was suspicious. "No, you want to beat me. And then I have business. Good night." In fact, he had given a rendezvous to Bébert and Lydie in a hiding-place, a hole arranged under the wood supply at the Voreux. It had been arranged to sleep out, so as to be there if the Belgians' bones were to be broken by stoning when they went down the pit. "Listen!" repeated Étienne. "Come here, or I shall call the soldiers, who will cut your head off." And as Jeanlin was making up his mind, he rolled his handkerchief, and bound the soldier's neck tightly, without drawing out the knife, so as to prevent the blood from flowing. The snow was melting; on the soil there was neither a red patch nor the footmarks of a struggle. "Take the legs!" Jeanlin took the legs, while Étienne seized the shoulders, after having fastened the gun behind his back, and then they both slowly descended the pit-bank, trying to avoid rolling any rocks down. Fortunately the moon was hidden. But as they passed along the canal it reappeared brightly, and it was a miracle that the guard did not see them. Silently they hastened on, hindered by the swinging of the corpse, and obliged to place it on the ground every hundred metres. At the corner of the Réquillart lane they heard a sound which froze them with terror, and they only had time to hide behind a wall to avoid a patrol. Farther on, a man came across them, but he was drunk, and moved away abusing them. At last they reached the old pit, bathed in perspiration, and so exhausted that their teeth were chattering. Étienne had guessed that it would not be easy to get the soldier down the ladder shaft. It was an awful task. First of all Jeanlin, standing above, had to let the body slide down, while Étienne, hanging on to the bushes, had to accompany it to enable it to pass the first two ladders where the rungs were broken. Afterwards, at every ladder, he had to perform the same manoeuvre over again, going down first, then receiving the body in his arms; and he had thus, down thirty ladders, two hundred and ten metres, to feel it constantly falling over him. The gun scraped his spine; he had not allowed the child to go for the candle-end, which he preserved avariciously. What was the use? The light would only embarrass them in this narrow tube. When they arrived at the pit-eye, however, out of breath, he sent the youngster for the candle. He then sat down and waited for him in the darkness, near the body, with heart beating violently. As soon as Jeanlin reappeared with the light, Étienne consulted with him, for the child had explored these old workings, even to the cracks through which men could not pass. They set out again, dragging the dead body for nearly a kilometre, through a maze of ruinous galleries. At last the roof became low, and they found themselves kneeling beneath a sandy rock supported by half-broken planks. It was a sort of long chest in which they laid the little soldier as in a coffin; they placed his gun by his side; then with vigorous blows of their heels they broke the timber at the risk of being buried themselves. Immediately the rock gave way, and they scarcely had time to crawl back on their elbows and knees. When Étienne returned, seized by the desire to look once more, the roof was still falling in, slowly crushing the body beneath its enormous weight. And then there was nothing more left, nothing but the vast mass of the earth. Jeanlin, having returned to his own corner, his little cavern of villainy, was stretching himself out on the hay, overcome by weariness, and murmuring: "Heigho! the brats must wait for me; I'm going to have an hour's sleep." Étienne had blown out the candle, of which there was only a small end left. He also was worn out, but he was not sleepy; painful nightmare thoughts were beating like hammers in his skull. Only one at last remained, torturing him and fatiguing him with a question to which he could not reply: Why had he not struck Chaval when he held him beneath the knife? and why had this child just killed a soldier whose very name he did not know? It shook his revolutionary beliefs, the courage to kill, the right to kill. Was he, then, a coward? In the hay the child had begun snoring, the snoring of a drunken man, as if he were sleeping off the intoxication of his murder. Étienne was disgusted and irritated; it hurt him to know that the boy was there and to hear him. Suddenly he started, a breath of fear passed over his face. A light rustling, a sob, seemed to him to have come out of the depths of the earth. The image of the little soldier, lying over there with his gun beneath the rocks, froze his back and made his hair stand up. It was idiotic, the whole mine seemed to be filled with voices; he had to light the candle again, and only grew calm on seeing the emptiness of the galleries by this pale light. For another quarter of an hour he reflected, still absorbed in the same struggle, his eyes fixed on the burning wick. But there was a spluttering, the wick was going out, and everything fell back into darkness. He shuddered again; he could have boxed Jeanlin's ears, to keep him from snoring so loudly. The neighbourhood of the child became so unbearable that he escaped, tormented by the need for fresh air, hastening through the galleries and up the passage, as though he could hear a shadow, panting, at his heels. Up above, in the midst of the ruins of Réquillart, Étienne was at last able to breathe freely. Since he dared not kill, it was for him to die; and this idea of death, which had already touched him, came again and fixed itself in his head, as a last hope. To die bravely, to die for the revolution, that would end everything, would settle his account, good or bad, and prevent him from thinking more. If the men attacked the Borains, he would be in the first rank, and would have a good chance of getting a bad blow. It was with firmer step that he returned to prowl around the Voreux. Two o'clock struck, and the loud noise of voices was coming from the captains' room, where the guards who watched over the pit were posted. The disappearance of the sentinel had overcome the guards with surprise; they had gone to arouse the captain, and after a careful examination of the place, they concluded that it must be a case of desertion. Hiding in the shade, Étienne recollected this republican captain of whom the little soldier had spoken. Who knows if he might not be persuaded to pass over to the people's side! The troop would raise their rifles, and that would be the signal for a massacre of the bourgeois. A new dream took possession of him; he thought no more of dying, but remained for hours with his feet in the mud, and a drizzle from the thaw falling on his shoulders, filled by the feverish hope that victory was still possible. Up to five o'clock he watched for the Borains. Then he perceived that the Company had cunningly arranged that they should sleep at the Voreux. The descent had begun, and the few strikers from the Deux-Cent-Quarante settlement who had been posted as scouts had not yet warned their mates. It was he who told them of the trick, and they set out running, while he waited behind the pit-bank, on the towing-path. Six o'clock struck, and the earthy sky was growing pale and lighting up with a reddish dawn, when the Abbé Ranvier came along a path, holding up his cassock above his thin legs. Every Monday he went to say an early mass at a convent chapel on the other side of the pit. "Good morning, my friend," he shouted in a loud voice, after staring at the young man with his flaming eyes. But Étienne did not reply. Far away between the Voreux platforms he had just seen a woman pass, and he rushed forward anxiously, for he thought he recognized Catherine. Since midnight, Catherine had been walking about the thawing roads. Chaval, on coming back and finding her in bed, had knocked her out with a blow. He shouted to her to go at once by the door if she did not wish to go by the window; and scarcely dressed, in tears, and bruised by kicks in her legs, she had been obliged to go down, pushed outside by a final thrust. This sudden separation dazed her, and she sat down on a stone, looking up at the house, still expecting that he would call her back. It was not possible; he would surely look for her and tell her to come back when he saw her thus shivering and abandoned, with no one to take her in. At the end of two hours she made up her mind, dying of cold and as motionless as a dog thrown into the street. She left Montsou, then retraced her steps, but dared neither to call from the pathway nor to knock at the door. At last she went off by the main road to the right with the idea of going to the settlement, to her parents' house. But when she reached it she was seized by such shame that she rushed away along the gardens for fear of being recognized by someone, in spite of the heavy sleep which weighed on all eyes behind the closed shutters. And after that she wandered about, frightened at the slightest noise, trembling lest she should be seized and led away as a strumpet to that house at Marchiennes, the threat of which had haunted her like nightmare for months. Twice she stumbled against the Voreux, but terrified at the loud voices of the guard, she ran away out of breath, looking behind her to see if she was being pursued. The Réquillart lane was always full of drunken men; she went back to it, however, with the vague hope of meeting there him she had repelled a few hours earlier. Chaval had to go down that morning, and this thought brought Catherine again towards the pit, though she felt that it would be useless to speak to him: all was over between them. There was no work going on at Jean-Bart, and he had sworn to kill her if she worked again at the Voreux, where he feared that she would compromise him. So what was to be done?--to go elsewhere, to die of hunger, to yield beneath the blows of every man who might pass? She dragged herself along, tottering amid the ruts, with aching legs and mud up to her spine. The thaw had now filled the streets with a flood of mire. She waded through it, still walking, not daring to look for a stone to sit on. Day appeared. Catherine had just recognized the back of Chaval, who was cautiously going round the pit-bank, when she noticed Lydie and Bébert putting their noses out of their hiding-place beneath the wood supply. They had passed the night there in ambush, without going home, since Jeanlin's order was to await him; and while this latter was sleeping off the drunkenness of his murder at Réquillart, the two children were lying in each other's arms to keep warm. The wind blew between the planks of chestnut and oak, and they rolled themselves up as in some wood-cutter's abandoned hut. Lydie did not dare to speak aloud the sufferings of a small beaten woman, any more than Bébert found courage to complain of the captain's blows which made his cheeks swell; but the captain was really abusing his power, risking their bones in mad marauding expeditions while refusing to share the booty. Their hearts rose in revolt, and they had at last embraced each other in spite of his orders, careless of that box of the ears from the invisible with which he had threatened them. It never came, so they went on kissing each other softly, with no idea of anything else, putting into that caress the passion they had long struggled against--the whole of their martyred and tender natures. All night through they had thus kept each other warm, so happy, at the bottom of this secret hole, that they could not remember that they had ever been so happy before--not even on St. Barbara's day, when they had eaten fritters and drunk wine. The sudden sound of a bugle made Catherine start. She raised herself, and saw the Voreux guards taking up their arms. Étienne arrived running; Bébert and Lydie jumped out of their hiding-place with a leap. And over there, beneath the growing daylight, a band of men and women were coming from the settlement, gesticulating wildly with anger. CHAPTER V All the entrances to the Voreux had been closed, and the sixty soldiers, with grounded arms, were barring the only door left free, that leading to the receiving-room by a narrow staircase into which opened the captains' room and the shed. The men had been drawn up in two lines against the brick wall, so that they could not be attacked from behind. At first the band of miners from the settlement kept at a distance. They were some thirty at most, and talked together in a violent and confused way. Maheude, who had arrived first with dishevelled hair beneath a handkerchief knotted on in haste, and having Estelle asleep in her arms, repeated in feverish tones: "Don't let any one in or any one out! Shut them all in there!" Maheu approved, and just then Father Mouque arrived from Réquillart. They wanted to prevent him from passing. But he protested; he said that his horses ate their hay all the same, and cared precious little about a revolution. Besides, there was a horse dead, and they were waiting for him to draw it up. Étienne freed the old groom, and the soldiers allowed him to go to the shaft. A quarter of an hour later, as the band of strikers, which had gradually enlarged, was becoming threatening, a large door opened on the ground floor and some men appeared drawing out the dead beast, a miserable mass of flesh still fastened in the rope net; they left it in the midst of the puddles of melting snow. The surprise was so great that no one prevented the men from returning and barricading the door afresh. They all recognized the horse, with his head bent back and stiff against the plank. Whispers ran around: "It's Trompette, isn't it? it's Trompette." It was, in fact, Trompette. Since his descent he had never become acclimatized. He remained melancholy, with no taste for his task, as though tortured by regret for the light. In vain Bataille, the _doyen_ of the mine, would rub him with his ribs in his friendly way, softly biting his neck to impart to him a little of the resignation gained in his ten years beneath the earth. These caresses increased his melancholy, his skin quivered beneath the confidences of the comrade who had grown old in darkness; and both of them, whenever they met and snorted together, seemed to be grieving, the old one that he could no longer remember, the young one that he could not forget. At the stable they were neighbours at the manger, and lived with lowered heads, breathing in each other's nostrils, exchanging a constant dream of daylight, visions of green grass, of white roads, of infinite yellow light. Then, when Trompette, bathed in sweat, lay in agony in his litter, Bataille had smelled at him despairingly with short sniffs like sobs. He felt that he was growing cold, the mine was taking from him his last joy, that friend fallen from above, fresh with good odours, who recalled to him his youth in the open air. And he had broken his tether, neighing with fear, when he perceived that the other no longer stirred. Mouque had indeed warned the head captain a week ago. But much they troubled about a sick horse at such time as this! These gentlemen did not at all like moving the horses. Now, however, they had to make up their minds to take him out. The evening before the groom had spent an hour with two men tying up Trompette. They harnessed Bataille to bring him to the shaft. The old horse slowly pulled, dragging his dead comrade through so narrow a gallery that he could only shake himself at the risk of taking the skin off. And he tossed his head, listening to the grazing sound of the carcass as it went to the knacker's yard. At the pit-eye, when he was unharnessed, he followed with his melancholy eye the preparations for the ascent--the body pushed on to the cross-bars over the sump, the net fastened beneath a cage. At last the porters rang meat; he lifted his neck to see it go up, at first softly, then at once lost in the darkness, flown up for ever to the top of that black hole. And he remained with neck stretched out, his vague beast's memory perhaps recalling the things of the earth. But it was all over; he would never see his comrade again, and he himself would thus be tied up in a pitiful bundle on the day when he would ascend up there. His legs began to tremble, the fresh air which came from the distant country choked him, and he seemed intoxicated when he went heavily back to the stable. At the surface the colliers stood gloomily before Trompette's carcass. A woman said in a low voice: "Another man; that may go down if it likes!" But a new flood arrived from the settlement, and Levaque, who was at the head followed by his wife and Bouteloup, shouted: "Kill them, those Borains! No blacklegs here! Kill them! Kill them!" All rushed forward, and Étienne had to stop them. He went up to the captain, a tall thin young man of scarcely twenty-eight years, with a despairing, resolute face. He explained things to him; he tried to win him over, watching the effect of his words. What was the good of risking a useless massacre? Was not justice on the side of the miners? They were all brothers, and they ought to understand one another. When he came to use the world "republic" the captain made a nervous movement; but he preserved his military stiffness, and said suddenly: "Keep off! Do not force me to do my duty." Three times over Étienne tried again. Behind him his mates were growling. The report ran that M. Hennebeau was at the pit, and they talked of letting him down by the neck, to see if he would hew his coal himself. But it was a false report; only Négrel and Dansaert were there. They both showed themselves for a moment at a window of the receiving-room; the head captain stood in the background, rather out of countenance since his adventure with Pierronne, while the engineer bravely looked round on the crowd with his bright little eyes, smiling with that sneering contempt in which he enveloped men and things generally. Hooting arose, and they disappeared. And in their place only Souvarine's pale face was seen. He was just then on duty; he had not left his engine for a single day since the strike began, no longer talking, more and more absorbed by a fixed idea, which seemed to be shining like steel in the depths of his pale eyes. "Keep off!" repeated the captain loudly. "I wish to hear nothing. My orders are to guard the pit, and I shall guard it. And do not press on to my men, or I shall know how to drive you back." In spite of his firm voice, he was growing pale with increasing anxiety, as the flood of miners continued to swell. He would be relieved at midday; but fearing that he would not be able to hold out until then, he had sent a trammer from the pit to Montsou to ask for reinforcements. Shouts had replied to him: "Kill the blacklegs! Kill the Borains! We mean to be masters in our own place!" Étienne drew back in despair. The end had come; there was nothing more except to fight and to die. And he ceased to hold back his mates. The mob moved up to the little troop. There were nearly four hundred of them, and the people from the neighbouring settlements were all running up. They all shouted the same cry. Maheu and Levaque said furiously to the soldiers: "Get off with you! We have nothing against you! Get off with you!" "This doesn't concern you," said Maheude. "Let us attend to our own affairs." And from behind, the Levaque woman added, more violently: "Must we eat you to get through? Just clear out of the bloody place!" Even Lydie's shrill voice was heard. She had crammed herself in more closely, with Bébert, and was saying, in a high voice: "Oh, the pale-livered pigs!" Catherine, a few paces off, was gazing and listening, stupefied by new scenes of violence, into the midst of which ill luck seemed to be always throwing her. Had she not suffered too much already? What fault had she committed, then, that misfortune would never give her any rest? The day before she had understood nothing of the fury of the strike; she thought that when one has one's share of blows it is useless to go and seek for more. And now her heart was swelling with hatred; she remembered what Étienne had often told her when they used to sit up; she tried to hear what he was now saying to the soldiers. He was treating them as mates; he reminded them that they also belonged to the people, and that they ought to be on the side of the people against those who took advantage of their wretchedness. But a tremor ran through the crowd, and an old woman rushed up. It was Mother Brulé, terrible in her leanness, with her neck and arms in the air, coming up at such a pace that the wisps of her grey hair blinded her. "Ah! by God! here I am," she stammered, out of breath; "that traitor Pierron, who shut me up in the cellar!" And without waiting she fell on the soldiers, her black mouth belching abuse. "Pack of scoundrels! dirty scum! ready to lick their masters' boots, and only brave against poor people!" Then the others joined her, and there were volleys of insults. A few, indeed, cried: "Hurrah for the soldiers! to the shaft with the officer!" but soon there was only one clamour: "Down with the red breeches!" These men, who had listened quietly, with motionless mute faces, to the fraternal appeals and the friendly attempts to win them over, preserved the same stiff passivity beneath this hail of abuse. Behind them the captain had drawn his sword, and as the crowd pressed in on them more and more, threatening to crush them against the wall, he ordered them to present bayonets. They obeyed, and a double row of steel points was placed in front of the strikers' breasts. "Ah! the bloody swine!" yelled Mother Brulé, drawing back. But already they were coming on again, in excited contempt of death. The women were throwing themselves forward, Maheude and the Levaque shouting: "Kill us! Kill us, then! We want our rights!" Levaque, at the risk of getting cut, had seized three bayonets in his hands, shaking and pulling them in the effort to snatch them away. He twisted them in the strength of his fury; while Bouteloup, standing aside, and annoyed at having followed his mate, quietly watched him. "Just come and look here," said Maheu; "just look a bit if you are good chaps!" And he opened his jacket and drew aside his shirt, showing his naked breast, with his hairy skin tattooed by coal. He pressed on the bayonets, compelling the soldiers to draw back, terrible in his insolence and bravado. One of them had pricked him in the chest, and he became like a madman, trying to make it enter deeper and to hear his ribs crack. "Cowards, you don't dare! There are ten thousand behind us. Yes, you can kill us; there are ten thousand more of us to kill yet." The position of the soldiers was becoming critical, for they had received strict orders not to make use of their weapons until the last extremity. And how were they to prevent these furious people from impaling themselves? Besides, the space was getting less; they were now pushed back against the wall, and it was impossible to draw further back. Their little troop--a mere handful of men--opposed to the rising flood of miners, still held its own, however, and calmly executed the brief orders given by the captain. The latter, with keen eyes and nervously compressed lips, only feared lest they should be carried away by this abuse. Already a young sergeant, a tall lean fellow whose thin moustache was bristling up, was blinking his eyes in a disquieting manner. Near him an old soldier, with tanned skin and stripes won in twenty campaigns, had grown pale when he saw his bayonet twisted like a straw. Another, doubtless a recruit still smelling the fields, became very red every time he heard himself called "scum" and "riff-raff." And the violence did not cease, the outstretched fists, the abominable words, the shovelfuls of accusations and threats which buffeted their faces. It required all the force of order to keep them thus, with mute faces, in the proud, gloomy silence of military discipline. A collision seemed inevitable, when Captain Richomme appeared from behind the troop with his benevolent white head, overwhelmed by emotion. He spoke out loudly: "By God! this is idiotic! such tomfoolery can't go on!" And he threw himself between the bayonets and the miners. "Mates, listen to me. You know that I am an old workman, and that I have always been one of you. Well, by God! I promise you, that if they're not just with you, I'm the man to go and say to the bosses how things lie. But this is too much, it does no good at all to howl bad names at these good fellows, and try and get your bellies ripped up." They listened, hesitating. But up above, unfortunately, little Négrel's short profile reappeared. He feared, no doubt, that he would be accused of sending a captain in place of venturing out himself; and he tried to speak. But his voice was lost in the midst of so frightful a tumult that he had to leave the window again, simply shrugging his shoulders. Richomme then found it vain to entreat them in his own name, and to repeat that the thing must be arranged between mates; they repelled him, suspecting him. But he was obstinate and remained amongst them. "By God! let them break my head as well as yours, for I don't leave you while you are so foolish!" Étienne, whom he begged to help him in making them hear reason, made a gesture of powerlessness. It was too late, there were now more than five hundred of them. And besides the madmen who were rushing up to chase away the Borains, some came out of inquisitiveness, or to joke and amuse themselves over the battle. In the midst of one group, at some distance, Zacharie and Philoméne were looking on as at a theatre so peacefully that they had brought their two children, Achille and Désirée. Another stream was arriving from Réquillart, including Mouquet and Mouquette. The former at once went on, grinning, to slap his friend Zacharie on the back; while Mouquette, in a very excited condition, rushed to the first rank of the evil-disposed. Every minute, however, the captain looked down the Montsou road. The desired reinforcements had not arrived, and his sixty men could hold out no longer. At last it occurred to him to strike the imagination of the crowd, and he ordered his men to load. The soldiers executed the order, but the disturbance increased, the blustering, and the mockery. "Ah! these shammers, they're going off to the target!" jeered the women, the Brulé, the Levaque, and the others. Maheude, with her breast covered by the little body of Estelle, who was awake and crying, came so near that the sergeant asked her what she was going to do with that poor little brat. "What the devil's that to do with you?" she replied. "Fire at it if you dare!" The men shook their heads with contempt. None believed that they would fire on them. "There are no balls in their cartridges," said Levaque. "Are we Cossacks?" cried Maheu. "You don't fire against Frenchmen, by God!" Others said that when people had been through the Crimean campaign they were not afraid of lead. And all continued to thrust themselves on to the rifles. If firing had begun at this moment the crowd would have been mown down. In the front rank Mouquette was choking with fury, thinking that the soldiers were going to gash the women's skins. She had spat out all her coarse words at them, and could find no vulgarity low enough, when suddenly, having nothing left but that mortal offence with which to bombard the faces of the troop, she exhibited her backside. With both hands she raised her skirts, bent her back, and expanded the enormous rotundity. "Here, that's for you! and it's a lot too clean, you dirty blackguards!" She ducked and butted so that each might have his share, repeating after each thrust: "There's for the officer! there's for the sergeant! there's for the soldiers!" A tempest of laughter arose; Bébert and Lydie were in convulsions; Étienne himself, in spite of his sombre expectation, applauded this insulting nudity. All of them, the banterers as well as the infuriated, were now hooting the soldiers as though they had seen them stained by a splash of filth; Catherine only, standing aside on some old timber, remained silent with the blood at her heart, slowly carried away by the hatred that was rising within her. But a hustling took place. To calm the excitement of his men, the captain decided to make prisoners. With a leap Mouquette escaped, saving herself between the legs of her comrades. Three miners, Levaque and two others, were seized among the more violent, and kept in sight at the other end of the captains' room. Négrel and Dansaert, above, were shouting to the captain to come in and take refuge with them. He refused; he felt that these buildings with their doors without locks would be carried by assault, and that he would undergo the shame of being disarmed. His little troop was already growling with impatience; it was impossible to flee before these wretches in sabots. The sixty, with their backs to the wall and their rifles loaded, again faced the mob. At first there was a recoil, followed by deep silence; the strikers were astonished at this energetic stroke. Then a cry arose calling for the prisoners, demanding their immediate release. Some voices said that they were being murdered in there. And without any attempt at concerted action, carried away by the same impulse, by the same desire for revenge, they all ran to the piles of bricks which stood near, those bricks for which the marly soil supplied the clay, and which were baked on the spot. The children brought them one by one, and the women filled their skirts with them. Every one soon had her ammunition at her feet, and the battle of stones began. It was Mother Brulé who set to first. She broke the bricks on the sharp edge of her knee, and with both hands she discharged the two fragments. The Levaque woman was almost putting her shoulders out, being so large and soft that she had to come near to get her aim, in spite of Bouteloup's entreaties, and he dragged her back in the hope of being able to lead her away now that her husband had been taken off. They all grew excited, and Mouquette, tired of making herself bleed by breaking the bricks on her overfat thighs, preferred to throw them whole. Even the youngsters came into line, and Bébert showed Lydie how the brick ought to be sent from under the elbow. It was a shower of enormous hailstones, producing low thuds. And suddenly, in the midst of these furies, Catherine was observed with her fists in the air also brandishing half-bricks and throwing them with all the force of her little arms. She could not have said why, she was suffocating, she was dying of the desire to kill everybody. Would it not soon be done with, this cursed life of misfortune? She had had enough of it, beaten and driven away by her man, wandering about like a lost dog in the mud of the roads, without being able to ask a crust from her father, who was starving like herself. Things never seemed to get better; they were getting worse ever since she could remember. And she broke the bricks and threw them before her with the one idea of sweeping everything away, her eyes so blinded that she could not even see whose jaws she might be crushing. Étienne, who had remained in front of the soldiers, nearly had his skull broken. His ear was grazed, and turning round he started when he realized that the brick had come from Catherine's feverish hands; but at the risk of being killed he remained where he was, gazing at her. Many others also forgot themselves there, absorbed in the battle, with empty hands. Mouquet criticized the blows as though he were looking on at a game of _bouchon_. Oh, that was well struck! and that other, no luck! He joked, and with his elbow pushed Zacharie, who was squabbling with Philoméne because he had boxed Achille's and Désirée's ears, refusing to put them on his back so that they could see. There were spectators crowded all along the road. And at the top of the slope near the entrance to the settlement, old Bonnemort appeared, resting on his stick, motionless against the rust-coloured sky. As soon as the first bricks were thrown, Captain Richomme had again placed himself between the soldiers and the miners. He was entreating the one party, exhorting the other party, careless of danger, in such despair that large tears were flowing from his eyes. It was impossible to hear his words in the midst of the tumult; only his large grey moustache could be seen moving. But the hail of bricks came faster; the men were joining in, following the example of the women. Then Maheude noticed that Maheu was standing behind with empty hands and sombre air. "What's up with you?" she shouted. "Are you a coward? Are you going to let your mates be carried off to prison? Ah! if only I hadn't got this child, you should see!" Estelle, who was clinging to her neck, screaming, prevented her from joining Mother Brulé and the others. And as her man did not seem to hear, she kicked some bricks against his legs. "By God! will you take that? Must I spit in your face before people to get your spirits up?" Becoming very red, he broke some bricks and threw them. She lashed him on, dazing him, shouting behind him cries of death, stifling her daughter against her breast with the spasm of her arms; and he still moved forward until he was opposite the guns. Beneath this shower of stones the little troop was disappearing. Fortunately they struck too high, and the wall was riddled. What was to be done? The idea of going in, of turning their backs for a moment turned the captain's pale face purple; but it was no longer possible, they would be torn to pieces at the least movement. A brick had just broken the peak of his cap, drops of blood were running down his forehead. Several of his men were wounded; and he felt that they were losing self-control in that unbridled instinct of self-defence when obedience to leaders ceases. The sergeant had uttered a "By God!" for his left shoulder had nearly been put out, and his flesh bruised by a shock like the blow of a washerwoman's beetle against linen. Grazed twice over, the recruit had his thumb smashed, while his right knee was grazed. Were they to let themselves be worried much longer? A stone having bounded back and struck the old soldier with the stripes beneath the belly, his cheeks turned green, and his weapon trembled as he stretched it out at the end of his lean arms. Three times the captain was on the point of ordering them to fire. He was choked by anguish; an endless struggle for several seconds set at odds in his mind all ideas and duties, all his beliefs as a man and as a soldier. The rain of bricks increased, and he opened his mouth and was about to shout "Fire!" when the guns went off of themselves three shots at first, then five, then the roll of a volley, then one by itself, some time afterwards, in the deep silence. There was stupefaction on all sides. They had fired, and the gaping crowd stood motionless, as yet unable to believe it. But heart-rending cries arose while the bugle was sounding to cease firing. And here was a mad panic, the rush of cattle filled with grapeshot, a wild flight through the mud. Bébert and Lydie had fallen one on top of the other at the first three shots, the little girl struck in the face, the boy wounded beneath the left shoulder. She was crushed, and never stirred again. But he moved, seized her with both arms in the convulsion of his agony, as if he wanted to take her again, as he had taken her at the bottom of the black hiding-place where they had spent the past night. And Jeanlin, who just then ran up from Réquillart still half asleep, kicking about in the midst of the smoke, saw him embrace his little wife and die. The five other shots had brought down Mother Brulé and Captain Richomme. Struck in the back as he was entreating his mates, he had fallen on to his knees, and slipping on to one hip he was groaning on the ground with eyes still full of tears. The old woman, whose breast had been opened, had fallen back stiff and crackling, like a bundle of dry faggots, stammering one last oath in the gurgling of blood. But then the volley swept the field, mowing down the inquisitive groups who were laughing at the battle a hundred paces off. A ball entered Mouquet's mouth and threw him down with fractured skull at the feet of Zacharie and Philoméne, whose two youngsters were splashed with red drops. At the same moment Mouquette received two balls in the belly. She had seen the soldiers take aim, and in an instinctive movement of her good nature she had thrown herself in front of Catherine, shouting out to her to take care; she uttered a loud cry and fell on to her back overturned by the shock. Étienne ran up, wishing to raise her and take her away; but with a gesture she said it was all over. Then she groaned, but without ceasing to smile at both of them, as though she were glad to see them together now that she was going away. All seemed to be over, and the hurricane of balls was lost in the distance as far as the frontages of the settlement, when the last shot, isolated and delayed, was fired. Maheu, struck in the heart, turned round and fell with his face down into a puddle black with coal. Maheude leant down in stupefaction. "Eh! old man, get up. It's nothing, is it?" Her hands were engaged with Estelle, whom she had to put under one arm in order to turn her man's head. "Say something! where are you hurt?" His eyes were vacant, and his mouth was slavered with bloody foam. She understood: he was dead. Then she remained seated in the mud with her daughter under her arm like a bundle, gazing at her old man with a besotted air. The pit was free. With a nervous movement the captain had taken off and then put on his cap, struck by a stone; he preserved his pallid stiffness in face of the disaster of his life, while his men with mute faces were reloading. The frightened faces of Négrel and Dansaert could be seen at the window of the receiving-room. Souvarine was behind them with a deep wrinkle on his forehead, as though the nail of his fixed idea had printed itself there threateningly. On the other side of the horizon, at the edge of the plain, Bonnemort had not moved, supported by one hand on his stick, the other hand up to his brows to see better the murder of his people below. The wounded were howling, the dead were growing cold, in twisted postures, muddy with the liquid mud of the thaw, here and there forming puddles among the inky patches of coal which reappeared beneath the tattered snow. And in the midst of these human corpses, all small, poor and lean in their wretchedness, lay Trompette's carcass, a monstrous and pitiful mass of dead flesh. Étienne had not been killed. He was still waiting beside Catherine, who had fallen from fatigue and anguish, when a sonorous voice made him start. It was Abbé Ranvier, who was coming back after saying mass, and who, with both arms in the air, with the inspired fury of a prophet, was calling the wrath of God down on the murderers. He foretold the era of justice, the approaching extermination of the middle class by fire from heaven, since it was bringing its crimes to a climax by massacring the workers and the disinherited of the world. PART SEVEN CHAPTER I The shots fired at Montsou had reached as far as Paris with a formidable echo. For four days all the opposition journals had been indignant, displaying atrocious narratives on their front pages: twenty-five wounded, fourteen dead, including three women and two children. And there were prisoners taken as well; Levaque had become a sort of hero, and was credited with a reply of antique sublimity to the examining magistrate. The empire, hit in mid career by these few balls, affected the calm of omnipotence, without itself realizing the gravity of its wound. It was simply an unfortunate collision, something lost over there in the black country, very far from the Parisian boulevards which formed public opinion; it would soon be forgotten. The Company had received official intimation to hush up the affair, and to put an end to a strike which from its irritating duration was becoming a social danger. So on Wednesday morning three of the directors appeared at Montsou. The little town, sick at heart, which had not dared hitherto to rejoice over the massacre, now breathed again, and tasted the joy of being saved. The weather, too, had become fine; there was a bright sun--one of those first February days which, with their moist warmth, tip the lilac shoots with green. All the shutters had been flung back at the administration building, the vast structure seemed alive again. And cheering rumours were circulating; it was said that the directors, deeply affected by the catastrophe, had rushed down to open their paternal arms to the wanderers from the settlements. Now that the blow had fallen--a more vigorous one doubtless than they had wished for--they were prodigal in their task of relief, and decreed measures that were excellent though tardy. First of all they sent away the Borains, and made much of this extreme concession to their workmen. Then they put an end to the military occupation of the pits, which were no longer threatened by the crushed strikers. They also obtained silence regarding the sentinel who had disappeared from the Voreux; the district had been searched without finding either the gun or the corpse, and although there was a suspicion of crime, it was decided to consider the soldier a deserter. In every way they thus tried to attenuate matters, trembling with fear for the morrow, judging it dangerous to acknowledge the irresistible savagery of a crowd set free amid the falling structure of the old world. And besides, this work of conciliation did not prevent them from bringing purely administrative affairs to a satisfactory conclusion; for Deneulin had been seen to return to the administration buildings, where he met M. Hennebeau. The negotiations for the purchase of Vandame continued, and it was considered certain that Deneulin would accept the Company's offers. But what particularly stirred the country were the great yellow posters which the directors had stuck up in profusion on the walls. On them were to be read these few lines, in very large letters: "Workers of Montsou! We do not wish that the errors of which you have lately seen the sad effects should deprive sensible and willing workmen of their livelihood. We shall therefore reopen all the pits on Monday morning, and when work is resumed we shall examine with care and consideration those cases in which there may be room for improvement. We shall, in fact, do all that is just or possible to do." In one morning the ten thousand colliers passed before these placards. Not one of them spoke, many shook their heads, others went away with trailing steps, without changing one line in their motionless faces. Up till now the settlement of the Deux-Cent-Quarante had persisted in its fierce resistance. It seemed that the blood of their mates, which had reddened the mud of the pit, was barricading the road against the others. Scarcely a dozen had gone down, merely Pierron and some sneaks of his sort, whose departure and arrival were gloomily watched without a gesture or a threat. Therefore a deep suspicion greeted the placard stuck on to the church. Nothing was said about the returned certificates in that. Would the Company refuse to take them on again? and the fear of retaliations, the fraternal idea of protesting against the dismissal of the more compromised men, made them all obstinate still. It was dubious; they would see. They would return to the pit when these gentlemen were good enough to put things plainly. Silence crushed the low houses. Hunger itself seemed nothing; all might die now that violent death had passed over their roofs. But one house, that of the Maheus, remained especially black and mute in its overwhelming grief. Since she had followed her man to the cemetery, Maheude kept her teeth clenched. After the battle, she had allowed Étienne to bring back Catherine muddy and half dead; and as she was undressing her, before the young man, in order to put her to bed, she thought for a moment that her daughter also had received a ball in the belly, for the chemise was marked with large patches of blood. But she soon understood that it was the flood of puberty, which was at last breaking out in the shock of this abominable day. Ah! another piece of luck, that wound! A fine present, to be able to make children for the gendarmes to kill; and she never spoke to Catherine, nor did she, indeed, talk to Étienne. The latter slept with Jeanlin, at the risk of being arrested, seized by such horror at the idea of going back to the darkness of Réquillart that he would have preferred a prison. A shudder shook him, the horror of the night after all those deaths, an unacknowledged fear of the little soldier who slept down there underneath the rocks. Besides, he dreamed of a prison as of a refuge in the midst of the torment of his defeat; but they did not trouble him, and he dragged on his wretched hours, not knowing how to weary out his body. Only at times Maheude looked at both of them, at him and her daughter, with a spiteful air, as though she were asking them what they were doing in her house. Once more they were all snoring in a heap. Father Bonnemort occupied the former bed of the two youngsters, who slept with Catherine now that poor Alzire no longer dug her hump into her big sister's ribs. It was when going to bed that the mother felt the emptiness of the house by the coldness of her bed, which was now too large. In vain she took Estelle to fill the vacancy; that did not replace her man, and she wept quietly for hours. Then the days began to pass by as before, always without bread, but without the luck to die outright; things picked up here and there rendered to the wretches the poor service of keeping them alive. Nothing had changed in their existence, only her man was gone. On the afternoon of the fifth day, Étienne, made miserable by the sight of this silent woman, left the room, and walked slowly along the paved street of the settlement. The inaction which weighed on him impelled him to take constant walks, with arms swinging idly and lowered head, always tortured by the same thought. He tramped thus for half an hour, when he felt, by an increase in his discomfort, that his mates were coming to their doors to look at him. His little remaining popularity had been driven to the winds by that fusillade, and he never passed now without meeting fiery looks which pursued him. When he raised his head there were threatening men there, women drawing aside the curtains from their windows; and beneath this still silent accusation and the restrained anger of these eyes, enlarged by hunger and tears, he became awkward and could scarcely walk straight. These dumb reproaches seemed to be always increasing behind him. He became so terrified, lest he should hear the entire settlement come out to shout its wretchedness at him, that he returned shuddering. But at the Maheus' the scene which met him still further agitated him. Old Bonnemort was near the cold fireplace, nailed to his chair ever since two neighbours, on the day of the slaughter, had found him on the ground, with his stick broken, struck down like an old thunder-stricken tree. And while Lénore and Henri, to beguile their hunger, were scraping, with deafening noise, an old saucepan in which cabbages had been boiled the day before, Maheude, after having placed Estelle on the table, was standing up threatening Catherine with her fist. "Say that again, by God! Just dare to say that again!" Catherine had declared her intention to go back to the Voreux. The idea of not gaining her bread, of being thus tolerated in her mother's house, like a useless animal that is in the way, was becoming every day more unbearable; and if it had not been for the fear of Chaval she would have gone down on Tuesday. She said again, stammering: "What would you have? We can't go on doing nothing. We should get bread, anyhow." Maheude interrupted her. "Listen to me: the first one of you who goes to work, I'll do for you. No, that would be too much, to kill the father and go on taking it out of the children! I've had enough of it; I'd rather see you all put in your coffins, like him that's gone already." And her long silence broke out into a furious flood of words. A fine sum Catherine would bring her! hardly thirty sous, to which they might add twenty sous if the bosses were good enough to find work for that brigand Jeanlin. Fifty sous, and seven mouths to feed! The brats were only good to swallow soup. As to the grandfather, he must have broken something in his brain when he fell, for he seemed imbecile; unless it had turned his blood to see the soldiers firing at his mates. "That's it, old man, isn't it? They've quite done for you. It's no good having your hands still strong; you're done for." Bonnemort looked at her with his dim eyes without understanding. He remained for hours with fixed gaze, having no intelligence now except to spit into a plate filled with ashes, which was put beside him for cleanliness. "And they've not settled his pension, either," she went on. "And I'm sure they won't give it, because of our ideas. No! I tell you that we've had too much to do with those people who bring ill luck." "But," Catherine ventured to say, "they promise on the placard--" "Just let me alone with your damned placard! More birdlime for catching us and eating us. They can be mighty kind now that they have ripped us open." "But where shall we go, mother? They won't keep us at the settlement, sure enough." Maheude made a vague, terrified gesture. Where should they go to? She did not know at all; she avoided thinking, it made her mad. They would go elsewhere--somewhere. And as the noise of the saucepan was becoming unbearable, she turned round on Lénore and Henri and boxed their ears. The fall of Estelle, who had been crawling on all fours, increased the disturbance. The mother quieted her with a push--a good thing if it had killed her! She spoke of Alzire; she wished the others might have that child's luck. Then suddenly she burst out into loud sobs, with her head against the wall. Étienne, who was standing by, did not dare to interfere. He no longer counted for anything in the house, and even the children drew back from him suspiciously. But the unfortunate woman's tears went to his heart, and he murmured: "Come, come! courage! we must try to get out of it." She did not seem to hear him, and was bemoaning herself now in a low continuous complaint. "Ah! the wretchedness! is it possible? Things did go on before these horrors. We ate our bread dry, but we were all together; and what has happened, good God! What have we done, then, that we should have such troubles--some under the earth, and the others with nothing left but to long to get there too? It's true enough that they harnessed us like horses to work, and it's not at all a just sharing of things to be always getting the stick and making rich people's fortunes bigger without hope of ever tasting the good things. There's no pleasure in life when hope goes. Yes, that couldn't have gone on longer; we had to breathe a bit. If we had only known! Is it possible to make oneself so wretched through wanting justice?" Sighs swelled her breast, and her voice choked with immense sadness. "Then there are always some clever people there who promise you that everything can be arranged by just taking a little trouble. Then one loses one's head, and one suffers so much from things as they are that one asks for things that can't be. Now, I was dreaming like a fool; I seemed to see a life of good friendship with everybody; I went off into the air, my faith! into the clouds. And then one breaks one's back when one tumbles down into the mud again. It's not true; there's nothing over there of the things that people tell of. What there is, is only wretchedness, ah! wretchedness, as much as you like of it, and bullets into the bargain." Étienne listened to this lamentation, and every tear struck him with remorse. He knew not what to say to calm Maheude, broken by her terrible fall from the heights of the ideal. She had come back to the middle of the room, and was now looking at him; she addressed him with contemptuous familiarity in a last cry of rage: "And you, do you talk of going back to the pit, too, after driving us out of the bloody place! I've nothing to reproach you with; but if I were in your shoes I should be dead of grief by now after causing such harm to the mates." He was about to reply, but then shrugged his shoulders in despair. What was the good of explaining, for she would not understand in her grief? And he went away, for he was suffering too much, and resumed his wild walk outside. There again he found the settlement apparently waiting for him, the men at the doors, the women at the windows. As soon as he appeared growls were heard, and the crowd increased. The breath of gossip, which had been swelling for four days, was breaking out in a universal malediction. Fists were stretched towards him, mothers spitefully pointed him out to their boys, old men spat as they looked at him. It was the change which follows on the morrow of defeat, the fatal reverse of popularity, an execration exasperated by all the suffering endured without result. He had to pay for famine and death. Zacharie, who came up with Philoméne, hustled Étienne as he went out, grinning maliciously. "Well, he gets fat. It's filling, then, to live on other people's deaths?" The Levaque woman had already come to her door with Bouteloup. She spoke of Bébert, her youngster, killed by a bullet, and cried: "Yes, there are cowards who get children murdered! Let him go and look for mine in the earth if he wants to give it me back!" She was forgetting her man in prison, for the household was going on since Bouteloup remained; but she thought of him, however, and went on in a shrill voice: "Get along! rascals may walk about while good people are put away!" In avoiding her, Étienne tumbled on to Pierronne, who was running up across the gardens. She had regarded her mother's death as a deliverance, for the old woman's violence threatened to get them hanged; nor did she weep over Pierron's little girl, that street-walker Lydie--a good riddance. But she joined in with her neighbours with the idea of getting reconciled with them. "And my mother, eh, and the little girl? You were seen; you were hiding yourself behind them when they caught the lead instead of you!" What was to be done? Strangle Pierronne and the others, and fight the whole settlement? Étienne wanted to do so for a moment. The blood was throbbing in his head, he now looked upon his mates as brutes, he was irritated to see them so unintelligent and barbarous that they wanted to revenge themselves on him for the logic of facts. How stupid it all was! and he felt disgust at his powerlessness to tame them again; and satisfied himself with hastening his steps as though he were deaf to abuse. Soon it became a flight; every house hooted him as he passed, they hastened on his heels, it was a whole nation cursing him with a voice that was becoming like thunder in its overwhelming hatred. It was he, the exploiter, the murderer, who was the sole cause of their misfortune. He rushed out of the settlement, pale and terrified, with this yelling crowd behind his back. When he at last reached the main road most of them left him; but a few persisted, until at the bottom of the slope before the Avantage he met another group coming from the Voreux. Old Mouque and Chaval were there. Since the death of his daughter Mouquette, and of his son Mouquet, the old man had continued to act as groom without a word of regret or complaint. Suddenly, when he saw Étienne, he was shaken by fury, tears broke out from his eyes, and a flood of coarse words burst from his mouth, black and bleeding from his habit of chewing tobacco. "You devil! you bloody swine! you filthy snout! Wait, you've got to pay me for my poor children; you'll have to come to it!" He picked up a brick, broke it, and threw both pieces. "Yes! yes! clear him off!" shouted Chaval, who was grinning in excitement, delighted at this vengeance. "Every one gets his turn; now you're up against the wall, you dirty hound!" And he also attacked Étienne with stones. A savage clamour arose; they all took up bricks, broke them, and threw them, to rip him open, as they would like to have done to the soldiers. He was dazed and could not flee; he faced them, trying to calm them with phrases. His old speeches, once so warmly received, came back to his lips. He repeated the words with which he had intoxicated them at the time when he could keep them in hand like a faithful flock; but his power was dead, and only stones replied to him. He had just been struck on the left arm, and was drawing back, in great peril, when he found himself hemmed in against the front of the Avantage. For the last few moments Rasseneur had been at his door. "Come in," he said simply. Étienne hesitated; it choked him to take refuge there. "Come in; then I'll speak to them." He resigned himself, and took refuge at the other end of the parlour, while the innkeeper filled up the doorway with his broad shoulders. "Look here, my friends, just be reasonable. You know very well that I've never deceived you. I've always been in favour of quietness, and if you had listened to me, you certainly wouldn't be where you are now." Rolling his shoulders and belly, he went on at length, allowing his facile eloquence to flow with the lulling gentleness of warm water. And all his old success came back; he regained his popularity, naturally and without an effort, as if he had never been hooted and called a coward a month before. Voices arose in approval: "Very good! we are with you! that is the way to put it!" Thundering applause broke out. Étienne, in the background, grew faint, and there was bitterness at his heart. He recalled Rasseneur's prediction in the forest, threatening him with the ingratitude of the mob. What imbecile brutality! What an abominable forgetfulness of old services! It was a blind force which constantly devoured itself. And beneath his anger at seeing these brutes spoil their own cause, there was despair at his own fall and the tragic end of his ambition. What! was it already done for! He remembered hearing beneath the beeches three thousand hearts beating to the echo of his own. On that day he had held his popularity in both hands. Those people belonged to him; he felt that he was their master. Mad dreams had then intoxicated him. Montsou at his feet, Paris beyond, becoming a deputy perhaps, crushing the middle class in a speech, the first speech ever pronounced by a workman in a parliament. And it was all over! He awakened, miserable and detested; his people were dismissing him by flinging bricks. Rasseneur's voice rose higher: "Never will violence succeed; the world can't be remade in a day. Those who have promised you to change it all at one stroke are either making fun of you or they are rascals!" "Bravo! bravo!" shouted the crowd. Who then was the guilty one? And this question which Étienne put to himself overwhelmed him more than ever. Was it in fact his fault, this misfortune which was making him bleed, the wretchedness of some, the murder of others, these women, these children, lean, and without bread? He had had that lamentable vision one evening before the catastrophe. But then a force was lifting him, he was carried away with his mates. Besides, he had never led them, it was they who led him, who obliged him to do things which he would never have done if it were not for the shock of that crowd pushing behind him. At each new violence he had been stupefied by the course of events, for he had neither foreseen nor desired any of them. Could he anticipate, for instance, that his followers in the settlement would one day stone him? These infuriated people lied when they accused him of having promised them an existence all fodder and laziness. And in this justification, in this reasoning, in which he tried to fight against his remorse, was hidden the anxiety that he had not risen to the height of his task; it was the doubt of the half-cultured man still perplexing him. But he felt himself at the end of his courage, he was no longer at heart with his mates; he feared this enormous mass of the people, blind and irresistible, moving like a force of nature, sweeping away everything, outside rules and theories. A certain repugnance was detaching him from them--the discomfort of his new tastes, the slow movement of all his being towards a superior class. At this moment Rasseneur's voice was lost in the midst of enthusiastic shouts: "Hurrah for Rasseneur! he's the fellow! Bravo, bravo!" The innkeeper shut the door, while the band dispersed; and the two men looked at each other in silence. They both shrugged their shoulders. They finished up by having a drink together. On the same day there was a great dinner at Piolaine; they were celebrating the betrothal of Négrel and Cécile. Since the previous evening the Grégoires had had the dining-room waxed and the drawing-room dusted. Mélanie reigned in the kitchen, watching over the roasts and stirring the sauces, the odour of which ascended to the attics. It had been decided that Francis, the coachman, should help Honorine to wait. The gardener's wife would wash up, and the gardener would open the gate. Never had the substantial, patriarchal old house been in such a state of gaiety. Everything went off beautifully, Madame Hennebeau was charming with Cécile, and she smiled at Négrel when the Montsou lawyer gallantly proposed the health of the future household. M. Hennebeau was also very amiable. His smiling face struck the guests. The report circulated that he was rising in favour with the directors, and that he would soon be made an officer of the Legion of Honour, on account of the energetic manner in which he had put down the strike. Nothing was said about recent events; but there was an air of triumph in the general joy, and the dinner became the official celebration of a victory. At last, then, they were saved, and once more they could begin to eat and sleep in peace. A discreet allusion was made to those dead whose blood the Voreux mud had yet scarcely drunk up. It was a necessary lesson: and they were all affected when the Grégoires added that it was now the duty of all to go and heal the wounds in the settlements. They had regained their benevolent placidity, excusing their brave miners, whom they could already see again at the bottom of the mines, giving a good example of everlasting resignation. The Montsou notables, who had now left off trembling, agreed that this question of the wage system ought to be studied, cautiously. The roasts came on; and the victory became complete when M. Hennebeau read a letter from the bishop announcing Abbé Ranvier's removal. The middle class throughout the province had been roused to anger by the story of this priest who treated the soldiers as murderers. And when the dessert appeared the lawyer resolutely declared that he was a free-thinker. Deneulin was there with his two daughters. In the midst of the joy, he forced himself to hide the melancholy of his ruin. That very morning he had signed the sale of his Vandame concession to the Montsou Company. With the knife at his throat he had submitted to the directors' demands, at last giving up to them that prey they had been on the watch for so long, scarcely obtaining from them the money necessary to pay off his creditors. He had even accepted, as a lucky chance, at the last moment, their offer to keep him as divisional engineer, thus resigning himself to watch, as a simple salaried servant, over that pit which had swallowed up his fortune. It was the knell of small personal enterprises, the approaching disappearance of the masters, eaten up, one by one, by the ever-hungry ogre of capital, drowned in the rising flood of great companies. He alone paid the expenses of the strike; he understood that they were drinking to his disaster when they drank to M. Hennebeau's rosette. And he only consoled himself a little when he saw the fine courage of Lucie and Jeanne, who looked charming in their done-up toilettes, laughing at the downfall, like happy tomboys disdainful of money. When they passed into the drawing-room for coffee, M. Grégoire drew his cousin aside and congratulated him on the courage of his decision. "What would you have? Your real mistake was to risk the million of your Montsou denier over Vandame. You gave yourself a terrible wound, and it has melted away in that dog's labour, while mine, which has not stirred from my drawer, still keeps me comfortably doing nothing, as it will keep my grandchildren's children." CHAPTER II On Sunday Étienne escaped from the settlement at nightfall. A very clear sky, sprinkled with stars, lit up the earth with the blue haze of twilight. He went down towards the canal, and followed the bank slowly, in the direction of Marchiennes. It was his favourite walk, a grass-covered path two leagues long, passing straight beside this geometrical water-way, which unrolled itself like an endless ingot of molten silver. He never met any one there. But on this day he was vexed to see a man come up to him. Beneath the pale starlight, the two solitary walkers only recognized each other when they were face to face. "What! is it you?" said Étienne. Souvarine nodded his head without replying. For a moment they remained motionless, then side by side they set out towards Marchiennes. Each of them seemed to be continuing his own reflections, as though they were far away from each other. "Have you seen in the paper about Pluchart's success at Paris?" asked Étienne, at length. "After that meeting at Belleville, they waited for him on the pavement, and gave him an ovation. Oh! he's afloat now, in spite of his sore throat. He can do what he likes in the future." The engine-man shrugged his shoulders. He felt contempt for fine talkers, fellows who go into politics as one goes to the bar, to get an income out of phrases. Étienne was now studying Darwin. He had read fragments, summarized and popularized in a five-sou volume; and out of this ill-understood reading he had gained for himself a revolutionary idea of the struggle for existence, the lean eating the fat, the strong people devouring the pallid middle class. But Souvarine furiously attacked the stupidity of the Socialists who accept Darwin, that apostle of scientific inequality, whose famous selection was only good for aristocratic philosophers. His mate persisted, however, wishing to reason out the matter, and expressing his doubts by an hypothesis: supposing the old society were no longer to exist, swept away to the crumbs; well, was it not to be feared that the new world would grow up again, slowly spoilt by the same injustices, some sick and others flourishing, some more skilful and intelligent, fattening on everything, and others imbecile and lazy, becoming slaves again? But before this vision of eternal wretchedness, the engine-man shouted out fiercely that if justice was not possible with man, then man must disappear. For every rotten society there must be a massacre, until the last creature was exterminated. And there was silence again. For a long time, with sunken head, Souvarine walked over the short grass, so absorbed that he kept to the extreme edge, by the water, with the quiet certainty of a sleep-walker on a roof. Then he shuddered causelessly, as though he had stumbled against a shadow. His eyes lifted and his face was very pale; he said softly to his companion: "Did I ever tell you how she died?" "Whom do you mean?" "My wife, over there, in Russia." Étienne made a vague gesture, astonished at the tremor in his voice and at the sudden desire for confidence in this lad, who was usually so impassive in his stoical detachment from others and from himself. He only knew that the woman was his mistress, and that she had been hanged at Moscow. "The affair hadn't gone off," Souvarine said, with eyes still vacantly following the white stream of the canal between the bluish colonnades of tall trees. "We had been a fortnight at the bottom of a hole undermining the railway, and it was not the imperial train that was blown up, it was a passenger train. Then they arrested Annutchka. She brought us bread every evening, disguised as a peasant woman. She lit the fuse, too, because a man might have attracted attention. I followed the trial, hidden in the crowd, for six days." His voice became thick, and he coughed as though he were choking. "Twice I wanted to cry out, and to rush over the people's heads to join her. But what was the good? One man less would be one soldier less; and I could see that she was telling me not to come, when her large eyes met mine." He coughed again. "On the last day in the square I was there. It was raining; they stupidly lost their heads, put out by the falling rain. It took twenty minutes to hang the other four; the cord broke, they could not finish the fourth. Annutchka was standing up waiting. She could not see me, she was looking for me in the crowd. I got on to a post and she saw me, and our eyes never turned from each other. When she was dead she was still looking at me. I waved my hat; I came away." There was silence again. The white road of the canal unrolled to the far distance, and they both walked with the same quiet step as though each had fallen back into his isolation. At the horizon, the pale water seemed to open the sky with a little hole of light. "It was our punishment," Souvarine went on roughly. "We were guilty to love each other. Yes, it is well that she is dead; heroes will be born from her blood, and I no longer have any cowardice at my heart. Ah! nothing, neither parents, nor wife, nor friend! Nothing to make my hand tremble on the day when I must take others' lives or give up my own." Étienne had stopped, shuddering in the cool night. He discussed no more, he simply said: "We have gone far; shall we go back?" They went back towards the Voreux slowly, and he added, after a few paces: "Have you seen the new placards?" The Company had that morning put up some more large yellow posters. They were clearer and more conciliatory, and the Company undertook to take back the certificates of those miners who went down on the following day. Everything would be forgotten, and pardon was offered even to those who were most implicated. "Yes, I've seen," replied the engine-man. "Well, what do you think of it?" "I think that it's all up. The flock will go down again. You are all too cowardly." Étienne feverishly excused his mates: a man may be brave, a mob which is dying of hunger has no strength. Step by step they were returning to the Voreux; and before the black mass of the pit he continued swearing that he, at least, would never go down; but he could forgive those who did. Then, as the rumour ran that the carpenters had not had time to repair the tubbing, he asked for information. Was it true? Had the weight of the soil against the timber which formed the internal skirt of scaffolding to the shaft so pushed it in that the winding-cages rubbed as they went down for a length of over fifty metres? Souvarine, who once more became uncommunicative, replied briefly. He had been working the day before, and the cage did, in fact, jar; the engine-men had even had to double the speed to pass that spot. But all the bosses received any observations with the same irritating remark: it was coal they wanted; that could be repaired later on. "You see that will smash up!" Étienne murmured. "It will be a fine time!" With eyes vaguely fixed on the pit in the shadow, Souvarine quietly concluded: "If it does smash up, the mates will know it, since you advise them to go down again." Nine o'clock struck at the Montsou steeple; and his companion having said that he was going to bed, he added, without putting out his hand: "Well, good-bye. I'm going away." "What! you're going away?" "Yes, I've asked for my certificate back. I'm going elsewhere." Étienne, stupefied and affected, looked at him. After walking for two hours he said that to him! And in so calm a voice, while the mere announcement of this sudden separation made his own heart ache. They had got to know each other, they had toiled together; that always makes one sad, the idea of not seeing a person again. "You're going away! And where do you go?" "Over there--I don't know at all." "But I shall see you again?" "No, I think not." They were silent and remained for a moment facing each other without finding anything to say. "Then good-bye." "Good-bye." While Étienne ascended toward the settlement, Souvarine turned and again went along the canal bank; and there, now alone, he continued to walk, with sunken head, so lost in the darkness that he seemed merely a moving shadow of the night. Now and then he stopped, he counted the hours that struck afar. When he heard midnight strike he left the bank and turned towards the Voreux. At that time the pit was empty, and he only met a sleepy-eyed captain. It was not until two o'clock that they would begin to get up steam to resume work. First he went to take from a cupboard a jacket which he pretended to have forgotten. Various tools--a drill armed with its screw, a small but very strong saw, a hammer, and a chisel--were rolled up in this jacket. Then he left. But instead of going out through the shed he passed through the narrow corridor which led to the ladder passage. With his jacket under his arm he quietly went down without a lamp, measuring the depth by counting the ladders. He knew that the cage jarred at three hundred and seventy-four metres against the fifth row of the lower tubbing. When he had counted fifty-four ladders he put out his hand and was able to feel the swelling of the planking. It was there. Then, with the skill and coolness of a good workman who has been reflecting over his task for a long time, he set to work. He began by sawing a panel in the brattice so as to communicate with the winding-shaft. With the help of matches, quickly lighted and blown out, he was then able to ascertain the condition of the tubbing and of the recent repairs. Between Calais and Valenciennes the sinking of mine shafts was surrounded by immense difficulties on account of the masses of subterranean water in great sheets at the level of the lowest valleys. Only the construction of tubbings, frameworks jointed like the stays of a barrel, could keep out the springs which flow in and isolate the shafts in the midst of the lakes, which with deep obscure waves beat against the walls. It had been necessary in sinking the Voreux to establish two tubbings: that of the upper level, in the shifting sands and white clays bordering the chalky stratum, and fissured in every part, swollen with water like a sponge; then that of the lower level, immediately above the coal stratum, in a yellow sand as fine as flour, flowing with liquid fluidity; it was here that the Torrent was to be found, that subterranean sea so dreaded in the coal pits of the Nord, a sea with its storms and its shipwrecks, an unknown and unfathomable sea, rolling its dark floods more than three hundred metres beneath the daylight. Usually the tubbings resisted the enormous pressure; the only thing to be dreaded was the piling up of the neighbouring soil, shaken by the constant movement of the old galleries which were filling up. In this descent of the rocks lines of fracture were sometimes produced which slowly extended as far as the scaffolding, at last perforating it and pushing it into the shaft; and there was the great danger of a landslip and a flood filling the pit with an avalanche of earth and a deluge of springs. Souvarine, sitting astride in the opening he had made, discovered a very serious defect in the fifth row of tubbing. The wood was bellied out from the framework; several planks had even come out of their shoulder-pieces. Abundant filtrations, _pichoux_ the miners call them, were jetting out of the joints through the tarred oakum with which they were caulked. The carpenters, pressed for time, had been content to place iron squares at the angles, so carelessly that not all the screws were put in. A considerable movement was evidently going on behind in the sand of the Torrent. Then with his wimble he unscrewed the squares so that another push would tear them all off. It was a foolhardy task, during which he frequently only just escaped from falling headlong down the hundred and eighty metres which separated him from the bottom. He had been obliged to seize the oak guides, the joists along which the cages slid; and suspended over the void he traversed the length of the cross-beams with which they were joined from point to point, slipping along, sitting down, turning over, simply buttressing himself on an elbow or a knee, with tranquil contempt of death. A breath would have sent him over, and three times he caught himself up without a shudder. First he felt with his hand and then worked, only lighting a match when he lost himself in the midst of these slimy beams. After loosening the screws he attacked the wood itself, and the peril became still greater. He had sought for the key, the piece which held the others; he attacked it furiously, making holes in it, sawing it, thinning it so that it lost its resistance; while through the holes and the cracks the water which escaped in small jets blinded him and soaked him in icy rain. Two matches were extinguished. They all became damp and then there was night, the bottomless depth of darkness. From this moment he was seized by rage. The breath of the invisible intoxicated him, the black horror of this rain-beaten hole urged him to mad destruction. He wreaked his fury at random against the tubbing, striking where he could with his wimble, with his saw, seized by the desire to bring the whole thing at once down on his head. He brought as much ferocity to the task as though he had been digging a knife into the skin of some execrated living creature. He would kill the Voreux at last, that evil beast with ever-open jaws which had swallowed so much human flesh! The bite of his tools could be heard, his spine lengthened, he crawled, climbed down, then up again, holding on by a miracle, in continual movement, the flight of a nocturnal bird amid the scaffolding of a belfry. But he grew calm, dissatisfied with himself. Why could not things be done coolly? Without haste he took breath, and then went back into the ladder passage, stopping up the hole by replacing the panel which he had sawn. That was enough; he did not wish to raise the alarm by excessive damage which would have been repaired immediately. The beast was wounded in the belly; we should see if it was still alive at night. And he had left his mark; the frightened world would know that the beast had not died a natural death. He took his time in methodically rolling up his tools in his jacket, and slowly climbed up the ladders. Then, when he had emerged from the pit without being seen, it did not even occur to him to go and change his clothes. Three o'clock struck. He remained standing on the road waiting. At the same hour Étienne, who was not asleep, was disturbed by a slight sound in the thick night of the room. He distinguished the low breath of the children, and the snoring of Bonnemort and Maheude; while Jeanlin near him was breathing with a prolonged flute-like whistle. No doubt he had dreamed, and he was turning back when the noise began again. It was the creaking of a palliasse, the stifled effort of someone who is getting up. Then he imagined that Catherine must be ill. "I say, is it you? What is the matter?" he asked in a low voice. No one replied, and the snoring of the others continued. For five minutes nothing stirred. Then there was fresh creaking. Feeling certain this time that he was not mistaken, he crossed the room, putting his hands out into the darkness to feel the opposite bed. He was surprised to find the young girl sitting up, holding in her breath, awake and on the watch. "Well! why don't you reply? What are you doing, then?" At last she said: "I'm getting up." "Getting up at this hour?" "Yes, I'm going back to work at the pit." Étienne felt deeply moved, and sat down on the edge of the palliasse, while Catherine explained her reasons to him. She suffered too much by living thus in idleness, feeling continual looks of reproach weighing on her; she would rather run the risk of being knocked about down there by Chaval. And if her mother refused to take her money when she brought it, well! she was big enough to act for herself and make her own soup. "Go away; I want to dress. And don't say anything, will you, if you want to be kind?" But he remained near her; he had put his arms round her waist in a caress of grief and pity. Pressed one against the other in their shirts, they could feel the warmth of each other's naked flesh, at the edge of this bed, still moist with the night's sleep. She had at first tried to free herself; then she began to cry quietly, in her turn taking him by the neck to press him against her in a despairing clasp. And they remained, without any further desires, with the past of their unfortunate love, which they had not been able to satisfy. Was it, then, done with for ever? Would they never dare to love each other some day, now that they were free? It only needed a little happiness to dissipate their shame--that awkwardness which prevented them from coming together because of all sorts of ideas which they themselves could not read clearly. "Go to bed again," she whispered. "I don't want to light up, it would wake mother. It is time; leave me." He could not hear; he was pressing her wildly, with a heart drowned in immense sadness. The need for peace, an irresistible need for happiness, was carrying him away; and he saw himself married, in a neat little house, with no other ambition than to live and to die there, both of them together. He would be satisfied with bread; and if there were only enough for one, she should have it. What was the good of anything else? Was there anything in life worth more? But she was unfolding her naked arms. "Please, leave me." Then, in a sudden impulse, he said in her ear: "Wait, I'm coming with you." And he was himself surprised at what he had said. He had sworn never to go down again; whence then came this sudden decision, arising from his lips without thought of his, without even a moment's discussion? There was now such calm within him, so complete a cure of his doubts, that he persisted like a man saved by chance, who has at last found the only harbour from his torment. So he refused to listen to her when she became alarmed, understanding that he was devoting himself for her and fearing the ill words which would greet him at the pit. He laughed at everything; the placards promised pardon and that was enough. "I want to work; that's my idea. Let us dress and make no noise." They dressed themselves in the darkness, with a thousand precautions. She had secretly prepared her miner's clothes the evening before; he took a jacket and breeches from the cupboard; and they did not wash themselves for fear of knocking the bowl. All were asleep, but they had to cross the narrow passage where the mother slept. When they started, as ill luck would have it, they stumbled against a chair. She woke and asked drowsily: "Eh! what is it?" Catherine had stopped, trembling, and violently pressing Étienne's hand. "It's me; don't trouble yourself," he said. "I feel stifled and am going outside to breathe a bit." "Very well." And Maheude fell asleep again. Catherine dared not stir. At last she went down into the parlour and divided a slice of bread-and-butter which she had reserved from a loaf given by a Montsou lady. Then they softly closed the door and went away. Souvarine had remained standing near the Avantage, at the corner of the road. For half an hour he had been looking at the colliers who were returning to work in the darkness, passing by with the dull tramp of a herd. He was counting them, as a butcher counts his beasts at the entrance to the slaughter-house, and he was surprised at their number; even his pessimism had not foreseen that the number of cowards would have been so great. The stream continued to pass by, and he grew stiff, very cold, with clenched teeth and bright eyes. But he started. Among the men passing by, whose faces he could not distinguish, he had just recognized one by his walk. He came forward and stopped him. "Where are you going to?" Étienne, in surprise, instead of replying, stammered: "What! you've not set out yet!" Then he confessed he was going back to the pit. No doubt he had sworn; only it could not be called life to wait with folded arms for things which would perhaps happen in a hundred years; and, besides, reasons of his own had decided him. Souvarine had listened to him, shuddering. He seized him by the shoulder, and pushed him towards the settlement. "Go home again; I want you to. Do you understand?" But Catherine having approached, he recognized her also. Étienne protested, declaring that he allowed no one to judge his conduct. And the engine-man's eyes went from the young girl to her companion, while he stepped back with a sudden, relinquishing movement. When there was a woman in a man's heart, that man was done for; he might die. Perhaps he saw again in a rapid vision his mistress hanging over there at Moscow, that last link cut from his flesh, which had rendered him free of the lives of others and of his own life. He said simply: "Go." Étienne, feeling awkward, was delaying, and trying to find some friendly word, so as not to separate in this manner. "Then you're still going?" "Yes." "Well, give me your hand, old chap. A pleasant journey, and no ill feeling." The other stretched out an icy hand. Neither friend nor wife. "Good-bye for good this time." "Yes, good-bye." And Souvarine, standing motionless in the darkness, watched Étienne and Catherine entering the Voreux. CHAPTER III At four o'clock the descent began. Dansaert, who was personally installed at the marker's office in the lamp cabin, wrote down the name of each worker who presented himself and had a lamp given to him. He took them all, without remark, keeping to the promise of the placards. When, however, he noticed Étienne and Catherine at the wicket, he started and became very red, and was opening his mouth to refuse their names; then, he contented himself with the triumph, and a jeer. Ah! ah! so the strong man was thrown? The Company was, then, in luck since the terrible Montsou wrestler had come back to it to ask for bread? Étienne silently took his lamp and went towards the shaft with the putter. But it was there, in the receiving-room, that Catherine feared the mates' bad words. At the very entrance she recognized Chaval, in the midst of some twenty miners, waiting till a cage was free. He came furiously towards her, but the sight of Étienne stopped him. Then he affected to sneer with an offensive shrug of the shoulders. Very good! he didn't care a hang, since the other had come to occupy the place that was still warm; good riddance! It only concerned the gentleman if he liked the leavings; and beneath the exhibition of this contempt he was again seized by a tremor of jealousy, and his eyes flamed. For the rest, the mates did not stir, standing silent, with eyes lowered. They contented themselves with casting a sidelong look at the new-comers; then, dejected and without anger, they again stared fixedly at the mouth of the shaft, with their lamps in their hands, shivering beneath their thin jackets, in the constant draughts of this large room. At last the cage was wedged on to the keeps, and they were ordered to get in. Catherine and Étienne were squeezed in one tram, already containing Pierron and two pikemen. Beside them, in the other tram, Chaval was loudly saying to Father Mouque that the directors had made a mistake in not taking advantage of the opportunity to free the pits of the blackguards who were corrupting them; but the old groom, who had already fallen back into the dog-like resignation of his existence, no longer grew angry over the death of his children, and simply replied by a gesture of conciliation. The cage freed itself and slipped down into the darkness. No one spoke. Suddenly, when they were in the middle third of the descent, there was a terrible jarring. The iron creaked, and the men were thrown on to each other. "By God!" growled Étienne, "are they going to flatten us? We shall end by being left here for good, with their confounded tubbing. And they talk about having repaired it!" The cage had, however, cleared the obstacle. It was now descending beneath so violent a rain, like a storm, that the workmen anxiously listened to the pouring. A number of leaks must then have appeared in the caulking of the joints. Pierron, who had been working for several days, when asked about it did not like to show his fear, which might be considered as an attack on the management, so he only replied: "Oh, no danger! it's always like that. No doubt they've not had time to caulk the leaks." The torrent was roaring over their heads, and they at last reached the pit-eye beneath a veritable waterspout. Not one of the captains had thought of climbing up the ladders to investigate the matter. The pump would be enough, the carpenters would examine the joints the following night. The reorganization of work in the galleries gave considerable trouble. Before allowing the pikemen to return to their hewing cells, the engineer had decided that for the first five days all the men should execute certain works of consolidation which were extremely urgent. Landslips were threatening everywhere; the passages had suffered to such an extent that the timbering had to be repaired along a length of several hundred metres. Gangs of ten men were therefore formed below, each beneath the control of a captain. Then they were set to work at the most damaged spots. When the descent was complete, it was found that three hundred and twenty-two miners had gone down, about half of those who worked there when the pit was in full swing. Chaval belonged to the same gang as Catherine and Étienne. This was not by chance; he had at first hidden behind his mates, and had then forced the captain's hand. This gang went to the end of the north gallery, nearly three kilometres away, to clear out a landslip which was stopping up a gallery in the Dix-Huit-Pouces seam. They attacked the fallen rocks with shovel and pick. Étienne, Chaval, and five others cleared away the rubbish while Catherine, with two trammers, wheeled the earth up to the upbrow. They seldom spoke, and the captain never left them. The putter's two lovers, however, were on the point of coming to blows. While growling that he had had enough of this trollop, Chaval was still thinking of her, and slyly hustling her about, so that Étienne had threatened to settle him if he did not leave her alone. They eyed each other fiercely, and had to be separated. Towards eight o'clock Dansaert passed to give a glance at the work. He appeared to be in a very bad humour, and was furious with the captain; nothing had gone well, what was the meaning of such work, the planking would everywhere have to be done over again! And he went away declaring that he would come back with the engineer. He had been waiting for Négrel since morning, and could not understand the cause of this delay. Another hour passed by. The captain had stopped the removal of the rubbish to employ all his people in supporting the roof. Even the putter and the two trammers left off wheeling to prepare and bring pieces of timber. At this end of the gallery the gang formed a sort of advance guard at the very extremity of the mine, now without communication with the other stalls. Three or four times strange noises, distant rushes, made the workers turn their heads to listen. What was it, then? One would have said that the passages were being emptied and the mates already returning at a running pace. But the sound was lost in the deep silence, and they set to wedging their wood again, dazed by the loud blows of the hammer. At last they returned to the rubbish, and the wheeling began once more. Catherine came back from her first journey in terror, saying that no one was to be found at the upbrow. "I called, but there was no reply. They've all cleared out of the place." The bewilderment was so great that the ten men threw down their tools to rush away. The idea that they were abandoned, left alone at the bottom of the mine, so far from the pit-eye, drove them wild. They only kept their lamps and ran in single file--the men, the boys, the putter; the captain himself lost his head and shouted out appeals, more and more frightened at the silence in this endless desert of galleries. What then had happened that they did not meet a soul? What accident could thus have driven away their mates? Their terror was increased by the uncertainty of the danger, this threat which they felt there without knowing what it was. When they at last came near the pit-eye, a torrent barred their road. They were at once in water to the knees, and were no longer able to run, laboriously fording the flood with the thought that one minute's delay might mean death. "By God! it's the tubbing that's given way," cried Étienne. "I said we should be left here for good." Since the descent Pierron had anxiously observed the increase of the deluge which fell from the shaft. As with two others he loaded the trams he raised his head, his face covered with large drops, and his ears ringing with the roar of the tempest above. But he trembled especially when he noticed that the sump beneath him, that pit ten metres deep, was filling; the water was already spurting through the floor and covering the metal plates. This showed that the pump was no longer sufficient to fight against the leaks. He heard it panting with the groan of fatigue. Then he warned Dansaert, who swore angrily, replying that they must wait for the engineer. Twice he returned to the charge without extracting anything else but exasperated shrugs of the shoulder. Well! the water was rising; what could he do? Mouque appeared with Bataille, whom he was leading to work, and he had to hold him with both hands, for the sleepy old horse had suddenly reared up, and, with a shrill neigh, was stretching his head towards the shaft. "Well, philosopher, what troubles you? Ah! it's because it rains. Come along, that doesn't concern you." But the beast quivered all over his skin, and Mouque forcibly drew him to the haulage gallery. Almost at the same moment as Mouque and Bataille were disappearing at the end of a gallery, there was a crackling in the air, followed by the prolonged noise of a fall. It was a piece of tubbing which had got loose and was falling a hundred and eighty metres down, rebounding against the walls. Pierron and the other porters were able to get out of the way, and the oak plank only smashed an empty tram. At the same time, a mass of water, the leaping flood of a broken dyke, rushed down. Dansaert proposed to go up and examine; but, while he was still speaking, another piece rolled down. And in terror before the threatening catastrophe, he no longer hesitated, but gave the order to go up, sending captains to warn the men in their stalls. Then a terrible hustling began. From every gallery rows of workers came rushing up, trying to take the cages by assault. They crushed madly against each other in order to be taken up at once. Some who had thought of trying the ladder passage came down again shouting that it was already stopped up. That was the terror they all felt each time that the cage rose; this time it was able to pass, but who knew if it would be able to pass again in the midst of the obstacles obstructing the shaft? The downfall must be continuing above, for a series of low detonations was heard, the planks were splitting and bursting amid the continuous and increasing roar of a storm. One cage soon became useless, broken in and no longer sliding between the guides, which were doubtless broken. The other jarred to such a degree that the cable would certainly break soon. And there remained a hundred men to be taken up, all panting, clinging to one another, bleeding and half-drowned. Two were killed by falls of planking. A third, who had seized the cage, fell back fifty metres up and disappeared in the sump. Dansaert, however, was trying to arrange matters in an orderly manner. Armed with a pick he threatened to open the skull of the first man who refused to obey; and he tried to arrange them in file, shouting that the porters were to go up last after having sent up their mates. He was not listened to, and he had to prevent the pale and cowardly Pierron from entering among the first. At each departure he pushed him aside with a blow. But his own teeth were chattering, a minute more and he would be swallowed up; everything was smashing up there, a flood had broken loose, a murderous rain of scaffolding. A few men were still running up when, mad with fear, he jumped into a tram, allowing Pierron to jump in behind him. The cage rose. At this moment the gang to which Étienne and Chaval belonged had just reached the pit-eye. They saw the cage disappear and rushed forward, but they had to draw back from the final downfall of the tubbing; the shaft was stopped up and the cage would not come down again. Catherine was sobbing, and Chaval was choked with shouting oaths. There were twenty of them; were those bloody bosses going to abandon them thus? Father Mouque, who had brought back Bataille without hurrying, was still holding him by the bridle, both of them stupefied, the man and the beast, in the face of this rapid flow of the inundation. The water was already rising to their thighs. Étienne in silence, with clenched teeth, supported Catherine between his arms. And the twenty yelled with their faces turned up, obstinately gazing at the shaft like imbeciles, that shifting hole which was belching out a flood and from which no help could henceforth come to them. At the surface, Dansaert, on arriving, perceived Négrel running up. By some fatality, Madame Hennebeau had that morning delayed him on rising, turning over the leaves of catalogues for the purchase of wedding presents. It was ten o'clock. "Well! what's happening, then?" he shouted from afar. "The pit is ruined," replied the head captain. And he described the catastrophe in a few stammered words, while the engineer incredulously shrugged his shoulders. What! could tubbing be demolished like that? They were exaggerating; he would make an examination. "I suppose no one has been left at the bottom?" Dansaert was confused. No, no one; at least, so he hoped. But some of the men might have been delayed. "But," said Négrel, "what in the name of creation have you come up for, then? You can't leave your men!" He immediately gave orders to count the lamps. In the morning three hundred and twenty-two had been distributed, and now only two hundred and fifty-five could be found; but several men acknowledged that in the hustling and panic they had dropped theirs and left them behind. An attempt was made to call over the men, but it was impossible to establish the exact number. Some of the miners had gone away, others did not hear their names. No one was agreed as to the number of the missing mates. It might be twenty, perhaps forty. And the engineer could only make out one thing with certainty: there were men down below, for their yells could be distinguished through the sound of the water and the fallen scaffolding, on leaning over the mouth of the shaft. Négrel's first care was to send for M. Hennebeau, and to try to close the pit; but it was already too late. The colliers who had rushed to the Deux-Cent-Quarante settlement, as though pursued by the cracking tubbing, had frightened the families; and bands of women, old men, and little ones came running up, shaken by cries and sobs. They had to be pushed back, and a line of overseers was formed to keep them off, for they would have interfered with the operations. Many of the men who had come up from the shaft remained there stupidly without thinking of changing their clothes, riveted by fear before this terrible hole in which they had nearly remained for ever. The women, rushing wildly around them, implored them for names. Was So-and-so among them? and that one? and this one? They did not know, they stammered; they shuddered terribly, and made gestures like madmen, gestures which seemed to be pushing away some abominable vision which was always present to them. The crowd rapidly increased, and lamentations arose from the roads. And up there on the pit-bank, in Bonnemort's cabin, on the ground was seated a man, Souvarine, who had not gone away, who was looking on. "The names! the names!" cried the women, with voices choked by tears. Négrel appeared for a moment, and said hurriedly: "As soon as we know the names they shall be given out, but nothing is lost so far: every one will be saved. I am going down." Then, silent with anguish, the crowd waited. The engineer, in fact, with quiet courage was preparing to go down. He had had the cage unfastened, giving orders to replace it at the end of the cable by a tub; and as he feared that the water would extinguish his lamp, he had another fastened beneath the tub, which would protect it. Several captains, trembling and with white, disturbed faces, assisted in these preparations. "You will come with me, Dansaert," said Négrel, abruptly. Then, when he saw them all without courage, and that the head captain was tottering, giddy with terror, he pushed him aside with a movement of contempt. "No, you will be in my way. I would rather go alone." He was already in the narrow bucket, which swayed at the end of the cable; and holding his lamp in one hand and the signal-cord in the other, he shouted to the engine-man: "Gently!" The engine set the drums in movement, and Négrel disappeared in the gulf, from which the yells of the wretches below still arose. At the upper part nothing had moved. He found that the tubbing here was in good condition. Balanced in the middle of the shaft he lighted up the walls as he turned round; the leaks between the joints were so slight that his lamp did not suffer. But at three hundred metres, when he reached the lower tubbing, the lamp was extinguished, as he expected, for a jet had filled the tub. After that he was only able to see by the hanging lamp which preceded him in the darkness, and, in spite of his courage, he shuddered and turned pale in the face of the horror of the disaster. A few pieces of timber alone remained; the others had fallen in with their frames. Behind, enormous cavities had been hollowed out, and the yellow sand, as fine as flour, was flowing in considerable masses; while the waters of the Torrent, that subterranean sea with its unknown tempests and shipwrecks, were discharging in a flow like a weir. He went down lower, lost in the midst of these chasms which continued to multiply, beaten and turned round by the waterspout of the springs, so badly lighted by the red star of the lamp moving on below, that he seemed to distinguish the roads and squares of some destroyed town far away in the play of the great moving shadows. No human work was any longer possible. His only remaining hope was to attempt to save the men in peril. As he sank down he heard the cries becoming louder, and he was obliged to stop; an impassable obstacle barred the shaft--a mass of scaffolding, the broken joists of the guides, the split brattices entangled with the metal-work torn from the pump. As he looked on for a long time with aching heart, the yelling suddenly ceased. No doubt, the rapid rise of the water had forced the wretches to flee into the galleries, if, indeed, the flood had not already filled their mouths. Négrel resigned himself to pulling the signal-cord as a sign to draw up. Then he had himself stopped again. He could not conceive the cause of this sudden accident. He wished to investigate it, and examined those pieces of the tubbing which were still in place. At a distance the tears and cuts in the wood had surprised him. His lamp, drowned in dampness, was going out, and, touching with his fingers, he clearly recognized the marks of the saw and of the wimble--the whole abominable labour of destruction. Evidently this catastrophe had been intentionally produced. He was stupefied, and the pieces of timber, cracking and falling down with their frames in a last slide, nearly carried him with them. His courage fled. The thought of the man who had done that made his hair stand on end, and froze him with a supernatural fear of evil, as though, mixed with the darkness, the men were still there paying for his immeasurable crime. He shouted and shook the cord furiously; and it was, indeed, time, for he perceived that the upper tubbing, a hundred metres higher, was in its turn beginning to move. The joints were opening, losing their oakum caulking, and streams were rushing through. It was now only a question of hours before the tubbing would all fall down. At the surface M. Hennebeau was anxiously waiting for Négrel. "Well, what?" he asked. But the engineer was choked, and could not speak; he felt faint. "It is not possible; such a thing was never seen. Have you examined?" He nodded with a cautious look. He refused to talk in the presence of some captains who were listening, and led his uncle ten metres away, and not thinking this far enough, drew still farther back; then, in a low whisper, he at last told of the outrage, the torn and sawn planks, the pit bleeding at the neck and groaning. Turning pale, the manager also lowered his voice, with that instinctive need of silence in face of the monstrosity of great orgies and great crimes. It was useless to look as though they were trembling before the ten thousand Montsou men; later on they would see. And they both continued whispering, overcome at the thought that a man had had the courage to go down, to hang in the midst of space, to risk his life twenty times over in his terrible task. They could not even understand this mad courage in destruction; they refused to believe, in spite of the evidence, just as we doubt those stories of celebrated escapes of prisoners who fly through windows thirty metres above the ground. When M. Hennebeau came back to the captains a nervous spasm was drawing his face. He made a gesture of despair, and gave orders that the mine should be evacuated at once. It was a kind of funeral procession, in silent abandonment, with glances thrown back at those great masses of bricks, empty and still standing, but which nothing henceforth could save. And as the manager and the engineer came down last from the receiving-room, the crowd met them with its clamour, repeating obstinately: "The names! the names! Tell us the names!" Maheude was now there, among the women. She recollected the noise in the night; her daughter and the lodger must have gone away together, and they were certainly down at the bottom. And after having cried that it was a good thing, that they deserved to stay there, the heartless cowards, she had run up, and was standing in the first row, trembling with anguish. Besides, she no longer dared to doubt; the discussion going on around her informed her as to the names of those who were down. Yes, yes, Catherine was among them, Étienne also--a mate had seen them. But there was not always agreement with regard to the others. No, not this one; on the contrary, that one, perhaps Chaval, with whom, however, a trammer declared that he had ascended. The Levaque and Pierronne, although none of their people were in danger, cried out and lamented as loudly as the others. Zacharie, who had come up among the first, in spite of his inclination to make fun of everything had weepingly kissed his wife and mother, and remained near the latter, quivering, and showing an unexpected degree of affection for his sister, refusing to believe that she was below so long as the bosses made no authoritative statement. "The names! the names! For pity's sake, the names!" Négrel, who was exhausted, shouted to the overseers: "Can't you make them be still? It's enough to kill one with vexation! We don't know the names!" Two hours passed away in this manner. In the first terror no one had thought of the other shaft at the old Réquillart mine, M. Hennebeau was about to announce that the rescue would be attempted from that side, when a rumour ran round: five men had just escaped the inundation by climbing up the rotten ladders of the old unused passage, and Father Mouque was named. This caused surprise, for no one knew he was below. But the narrative of the five who had escaped increased the weeping; fifteen mates had not been able to follow them, having gone astray, and been walled up by falls. And it was no longer possible to assist them, for there were already ten metres of water in Réquillart. All the names were known, and the air was filled with the groans of a slaughtered multitude. "Will you make them be still?" Négrel repeated furiously. "Make them draw back! Yes, yes, to a hundred metres! There is danger; push them back, push them back!" It was necessary to struggle against these poor people. They were imagining all sorts of misfortunes, and they had to be driven away so that the deaths might be concealed; the captains explained to them that the shaft would destroy the whole mine. This idea rendered them mute with terror, and they at last allowed themselves to be driven back step by step; the guards, however, who kept them back had to be doubled, for they were fascinated by the spot and continually returned. Thousands of people were hustling each other along the road; they were running up from all the settlements, and even from Montsou. And the man above, on the pit-bank, the fair man with the girlish face, smoked cigarettes to occupy himself, keeping his clear eyes fixed on the pit. Then the wait began. It was midday; no one had eaten, but no one moved away. In the misty sky, of a dirty grey colour, rusty clouds were slowly passing by. A big dog, behind Rasseneur's hedge, was barking furiously without cessation, irritated by the living breath of the crowd. And the crowd had gradually spread over the neighbouring ground, forming a circle at a hundred metres round the pit. The Voreux arose in the centre of the great space. There was not a soul there, not a sound; it was a desert. The windows and the doors, left open, showed the abandonment within; a forgotten ginger cat, divining the peril in this solitude, jumped from a staircase and disappeared. No doubt the stoves of the boilers were scarcely extinguished, for the tall brick chimney gave out a light smoke beneath the dark clouds; while the weathercock on the steeple creaked in the wind with a short, shrill cry, the only melancholy voice of these vast buildings which were about to die. At two o'clock nothing had moved, M. Hennebeau, Négrel, and other engineers who had hastened up, formed a group in black coats and hats standing in front of the crowd; and they, too, did not move away, though their legs were aching with fatigue, and they were feverish and ill at their impotence in the face of such a disaster, only whispering occasional words as though at a dying person's bedside. The upper tubbing must nearly all have fallen in, for sudden echoing sounds could be heard as of deep broken falls, succeeded by silence. The wound was constantly enlarging; the landslip which had begun below was rising and approaching the surface. Négrel was seized by nervous impatience; he wanted to see, and he was already advancing alone into this awful void when he was seized by the shoulders. What was the good? he could prevent nothing. An old miner, however, circumventing the overseers, rushed into the shed; but he quietly reappeared, he had gone for his sabots. Three o'clock struck. Still nothing. A falling shower had soaked the crowd, but they had not withdrawn a step. Rasseneur's dog had begun to bark again. And it was at twenty minutes past three only that the first shock was felt. The Voreux trembled, but continued solid and upright. Then a second shock followed immediately, and a long cry came from open mouths; the tarred screening-shed, after having tottered twice, had fallen down with a terrible crash. Beneath the enormous pressure the structures broke and jarred each other so powerfully that sparks leapt out. From this moment the earth continued to tremble, the shocks succeeded one another, subterranean downfalls, the rumbling of a volcano in eruption. Afar the dog was no longer barking, but he howled plaintively as though announcing the oscillations which he felt coming; and the women, the children, all these people who were looking on, could not keep back a clamour of distress at each of these blows which shook them. In less than ten minutes the slate roof of the steeple fell in, the receiving-room and the engine-rooms were split open, leaving a considerable breach. Then the sounds ceased, the downfall stopped, and there was again deep silence. For an hour the Voreux remained thus, broken into, as though bombarded by an army of barbarians. There was no more crying out; the enlarged circle of spectators merely looked on. Beneath the piled-up beams of the sifting-shed, fractured tipping cradles could be made out with broken and twisted hoppers. But the rubbish had especially accumulated at the receiving-room, where there had been a rain of bricks, and large portions of wall and masses of plaster had fallen in. The iron scaffold which bore the pulleys had bent, half-buried in the pit; a cage was still suspended, a torn cable-end was hanging; then there was a hash of trams, metal plates, and ladders. By some chance the lamp cabin remained standing, exhibiting on the left its bright rows of little lamps. And at the end of its disembowelled chamber, the engine could be seen seated squarely on its massive foundation of masonry; its copper was shining and its huge steel limbs seemed to possess indestructible muscles. The enormous crank, bent in the air, looked like the powerful knee of some giant quietly reposing in his strength. After this hour of respite, M. Hennebeau's hopes began to rise. The movement of the soil must have come to an end, and there would be some chance of saving the engine and the remainder of the buildings. But he would not yet allow any one to approach, considering another half-hour's patience desirable. This waiting became unbearable; the hope increased the anguish and all hearts were beating quickly. A dark cloud, growing large at the horizon, hastened the twilight, a sinister dayfall over this wreck of earth's tempests. Since seven o'clock they had been there without moving or eating. And suddenly, as the engineers were cautiously advancing, a supreme convulsion of the soil put them to flight. Subterranean detonations broke out; a whole monstrous artillery was cannonading in the gulf. At the surface, the last buildings were tipped over and crushed. At first a sort of whirlpool carried away the rubbish from the sifting-shed and the receiving-room. Next, the boiler building burst and disappeared. Then it was the low square tower, where the pumping-engine was groaning, which fell on its face like a man mown down by a bullet. And then a terrible thing was seen; the engine, dislocated from its massive foundation, with broken limbs was struggling against death; it moved, it straightened its crank, its giant's knee, as though to rise; but, crushed and swallowed up, it was dying. The chimney alone, thirty metres high, still remained standing, though shaken, like a mast in the tempest. It was thought that it would be crushed to fragments and fly to powder, when suddenly it sank in one block, drunk down by the earth, melted like a colossal candle; and nothing was left, not even the point of the lightning conductor. It was done for; the evil beast crouching in this hole, gorged with human flesh, was no longer breathing with its thick, long respiration. The Voreux had been swallowed whole by the abyss. The crowd rushed away yelling. The women hid their eyes as they ran. Terror drove the men along like a pile of dry leaves. They wished not to shout and they shouted, with swollen breasts, and arms in the air, before the immense hole which had been hollowed out. This crater, as of an extinct volcano, fifteen metres deep, extended from the road to the canal for a space of at least forty metres. The whole square of the mine had followed the buildings, the gigantic platforms, the foot-bridges with their rails, a complete train of trams, three wagons; without counting the wood supply, a forest of cut timber, gulped down like straw. At the bottom it was only possible to distinguish a confused mass of beams, bricks, iron, plaster, frightful remains, piled up, entangled, soiled in the fury of the catastrophe. And the hole became larger, cracks started from the edges, reaching afar, across the fields. A fissure ascended as far as Rasseneur's bar, and his front wall had cracked. Would the settlement itself pass into it? How far ought they to flee to reach shelter at the end of this abominable day, beneath this leaden cloud which also seemed about to crush the earth? A cry of pain escaped Négrel. M. Hennebeau, who had drawn back, was in tears. The disaster was not complete; one bank of the canal gave way, and the canal emptied itself like one bubbling sheet through one of the cracks. It disappeared there, falling like a cataract down a deep valley. The mine drank down this river; the galleries would now be submerged for years. Soon the crater was filled and a lake of muddy water occupied the place where once stood the Voreux, like one of those lakes beneath which sleep accursed towns. There was a terrified silence, and nothing now could be heard but the fall of this water rumbling in the bowels of the earth. Then on the shaken pit-bank Souvarine rose up. He had recognized Maheude and Zacharie sobbing before this downfall, the weight of which was so heavy on the heads of the wretches who were in agony beneath. And he threw down his last cigarette; he went away, without looking back, into the now dark night. Afar his shadow diminished and mingled with the darkness. He was going over there, to the unknown. He was going tranquilly to extermination, wherever there might be dynamite to blow up towns and men. He will be there, without doubt, when the middle class in agony shall hear the pavement of the streets bursting up beneath their feet. CHAPTER IV On the night that followed the collapse of the Voreux M. Hennebeau started for Paris, wishing to inform the directors in person before the newspapers published the news. And when he returned on the following day he appeared to be quite calm, with his usual correct administrative air. He had evidently freed himself from responsibility; he did not appear to have decreased in favour. On the contrary, the decree appointing him officer of the Legion of Honour was signed twenty-four hours afterwards. But if the manager remained safe, the Company was tottering beneath the terrible blow. It was not the few million francs that had been lost, it was the wound in the flank, the deep incessant fear of the morrow in face of this massacre of one of their mines. The Company was so impressed that once more it felt the need of silence. What was the good of stirring up this abomination? If the villain were discovered, why make a martyr of him in order that his awful heroism might turn other heads, and give birth to a long line of incendiaries and murderers? Besides, the real culprit was not suspected. The Company came to think that there was an army of accomplices, not being able to believe that a single man could have had courage and strength for such a task; and it was precisely this thought which weighed on them, this thought of an ever-increasing threat to the existence of their mines. The manager had received orders to organize a vast system of espionage, and then to dismiss quietly, one by one, the dangerous men who were suspected of having had a hand in the crime. They contented themselves with this method of purification--a prudent and politic method. There was only one immediate dismissal, that of Dansaert, the head captain. Ever since the scandal at Pierronne's house he had become impossible. A pretext was made of his attitude in danger, the cowardice of a captain abandoning his men. This was also a prudent sop thrown to the miners, who hated him. Among the public, however, many rumours had circulated, and the directors had to send a letter of correction to one newspaper, contradicting a story in which mention was made of a barrel of powder lighted by the strikers. After a rapid inquiry the Government inspector had concluded that there had been a natural rupture of the tubbing, occasioned by the piling up of the soil; and the Company had preferred to be silent, and to accept the blame of a lack of superintendence. In the Paris press, after the third day, the catastrophe had served to increase the stock of general news; nothing was talked of but the men perishing at the bottom of the mine, and the telegrams published every morning were eagerly read. At Montsou people grew pale and speechless at the very name of the Voreux, and a legend had formed which made the boldest tremble as they whispered it. The whole country showed great pity for the victims; visits were organized to the destroyed pit, and whole families hastened up to shudder at the ruins which lay so heavily over the heads of the buried wretches. Deneulin, who had been appointed divisional engineer, came into the midst of the disaster on beginning his duties; and his first care was to turn the canal back into its bed, for this torrent increased the damage every hour. Extensive works were necessary, and he at once set a hundred men to construct a dyke. Twice over the impetuosity of the stream carried away the first dams. Now pumps were set up and a furious struggle was going on; step by step the vanished soil was being violently reconquered. But the rescue of the engulfed miners was a still more absorbing work. Négrel was appointed to attempt a supreme effort, and arms were not lacking to help him; all the colliers rushed to offer themselves in an outburst of brotherhood. They forgot the strike, they did not trouble themselves at all about payment; they might get nothing, they only asked to risk their lives as soon as there were mates in danger of death. They were all there with their tools, quivering as they waited to know where they ought to strike. Many of them, sick with fright after the accident, shaken by nervous tremors, soaked in cold sweats, and the prey of continual nightmares, got up in spite of everything, and were as eager as any in their desire to fight against the earth, as though they had a revenge to take on it. Unfortunately, the difficulty began when the question arose, What could be done? how could they go down? from what side could they attack the rocks? Négrel's opinion was that not one of the unfortunate people was alive; the fifteen had surely perished, drowned or suffocated. But in these mine catastrophes the rule is always to assume that buried men are alive, and he acted on this supposition. The first problem which he proposed to himself was to decide where they could have taken refuge. The captains and old miners whom he consulted were agreed on one point: in the face of the rising water the men had certainly come up from gallery to gallery to the highest cuttings, so that they were, without doubt, driven to the end of some upper passages. This agreed with Father Mouque's information, and his confused narrative even gave reason to suppose that in the wild flight the band had separated into smaller groups, leaving fugitives on the road at every level. But the captains were not unanimous when the discussion of possible attempts at rescue arose. As the passages nearest to the surface were a hundred and fifty metres down, there could be no question of sinking a shaft. Réquillart remained the one means of access, the only point by which they could approach. The worst was that the old pit, now also inundated, no longer communicated with the Voreux; and above the level of the water only a few ends of galleries belonging to the first level were left free. The pumping process would require years, and the best plan would be to visit these galleries and ascertain if any of them approached the submerged passages at the end of which the distressed miners were suspected to be. Before logically arriving at this point, much discussion had been necessary to dispose of a crowd of impracticable plans. Négrel now began to stir up the dust of the archives; he discovered the old plans of the two pits, studied them, and decided on the points at which their investigations ought to be carried on. Gradually this hunt excited him; he was, in his turn, seized by a fever of devotion, in spite of his ironical indifference to men and things. The first difficulty was in going down at Réquillart; it was necessary to clear out the rubbish from the mouth of the shaft, to cut down the mountain ash, and raze the sloes and the hawthorns; they had also to repair the ladders. Then they began to feel around. The engineer, having gone down with ten workmen, made them strike the iron of their tools against certain parts of the seam which he pointed out to them; and in deep silence they each placed an ear to the coal, listening for any distant blows to reply. But they went in vain through every practicable gallery; no echo returned to them. Their embarrassment increased. At what spot should they cut into the bed? Towards whom should they go, since no once appeared to be there? They persisted in seeking, however, notwithstanding the exhaustion produced by their growing anxiety. On the first day, Maheude came in the morning to Réquillart. She sat down on a beam in front of the shaft, and did not stir from it till evening. When a man came up, she rose and questioned him with her eyes: Nothing? No, nothing! And she sat down again, and waited still, without a word, with hard, fixed face. Jeanlin also, seeing that his den was invaded, prowled around with the frightened air of a beast of prey whose burrow will betray his booty. He thought of the little soldier lying beneath the rocks, fearing lest they should trouble his sound sleep; but that side of the mine was beneath the water, and, besides, their investigations were directed more to the left, in the west gallery. At first, Philoméne had also come, accompanying Zacharie, who was one of the gang; then she became wearied at catching cold, without need or result, and went back to the settlement, dragging through her days, a limp, indifferent woman, occupied from morning to night in coughing. Zacharie on the contrary, lived for nothing else; he would have devoured the soil to get back his sister. At night he shouted out that he saw, her, he heard her, very lean from hunger, her chest sore with calling for help. Twice he had tried to dig without orders, saying that it was there, that he was sure of it. The engineer would not let him go down any more, and he would not go away from the pit, from which he was driven off; he could not even sit down and wait near his mother, he was so deeply stirred by the need to act, which drove him constantly on. It was the third day. Négrel, in despair, had resolved to abandon the attempt in the evening. At midday, after lunch, when he came back with his men to make one last effort, he was surprised to see Zacharie, red and gesticulating, come out of the mine shouting: "She's there! She's replied to me! Come along, quickly!" He had slid down the ladders, in spite of the watchman, and was declaring that he had heard hammering over there, in the first passage of the Guillaume seam. "But we have already been twice in that direction," Négrel observed, sceptically. "Anyhow, we'll go and see." Maheude had risen, and had to be prevented from going down. She waited, standing at the edge of the shaft, gazing down into the darkness of the hole. Négrel, down below, himself struck three blows, at long intervals. He then applied his ear to the coal, cautioning the workers to be very silent. Not a sound reached him, and he shook his head; evidently the poor lad was dreaming. In a fury, Zacharie struck in his turn, and listened anew with bright eyes, and limbs trembling with joy. Then the other workmen tried the experiment, one after the other, and all grew animated, hearing the distant reply quite clearly. The engineer was astonished; he again applied his ear, and was at last able to catch a sound of aerial softness, a rhythmical roll scarcely to be distinguished, the well-known cadence beaten by the miners when they are fighting against the coal in the midst of danger. The coal transmits the sound with crystalline limpidity for a very great distance. A captain who was there estimated that the thickness of the block which separated them from their mates could not be less than fifty metres. But it seemed as if they could already stretch out a hand to them, and general gladness broke out. Négrel decided to begin at once the work of approach. When Zacharie, up above, saw Maheude again, they embraced each other. "It won't do to get excited," Pierronne, who had come for a visit of inquisitiveness, was cruel enough to say. "If Catherine isn't there, it would be such a grief afterwards!" That was true; Catherine might be somewhere else. "Just leave me alone, will you? Damn it!" cried Zacharie in a rage. "She's there; I know it!" Maheude sat down again in silence, with motionless face, continuing to wait. As soon as the story was spread at Montsou, a new crowd arrived. Nothing was to be seen; but they remained there all the same, and had to be kept at a distance. Down below, the work went on day and night. For fear of meeting an obstacle, the engineer had had three descending galleries opened in the seam, converging to the point where the enclosed miners were supposed to be. Only one pikeman could hew at the coal on the narrow face of the tube; he was relieved every two hours, and the coal piled in baskets was passed up, from hand to hand, by a chain of men, increased as the hole was hollowed out. The work at first proceeded very quickly; they did six metres a day. Zacharie had secured a place among the workers chosen for the hewing. It was a post of honour which was disputed over, and he became furious when they wished to relieve him after his regulation two hours of labour. He robbed his mates of their turn, and refused to let go the pick. His gallery was soon in advance of the others. He fought against the coal so fiercely that his breath could be heard coming from the tube like the roar of a forge within his breast. When he came out, black and muddy, dizzy with fatigue, he fell to the ground and had to be wrapped up in a covering. Then, still tottering, he plunged back again, and the struggle began anew--the low, deep blows, the stifled groans, the victorious fury of massacre. The worst was that the coal now became hard; he twice broke his tool, and was exasperated that he could not get on so fast. He suffered also from the heat, which increased with every metre of advance, and was unbearable at the end of this narrow hole where the air could not circulate. A hand ventilator worked well, but aeration was so inadequate that on three occasions it was necessary to take out fainting hewers who were being asphyxiated. Négrel lived below with his men. His meals were sent down to him, and he sometimes slept for a couple of hours on a truss of straw, rolled in a cloak. The one thing that kept them up was the supplication of the wretches beyond, the call which was sounded ever more distinctly to hasten on the rescue. It now rang very clearly with a musical sonority, as though struck on the plates of a harmonica. It led them on; they advanced to this crystalline sound as men advance to the sound of cannon in battle. Every time that a pikeman was relieved, Négrel went down and struck, then applied his ear; and every time, so far, the reply had come, rapid and urgent. He had no doubt remaining; they were advancing in the right direction, but with what fatal slowness! They would never arrive soon enough. On the first two days they had indeed hewn through thirteen metres; but on the third day they fell to five, and then on the fourth to three. The coal was becoming closer and harder, to such an extent that they now with difficulty struck through two metres. On the ninth day, after superhuman efforts, they had advanced thirty-two metres, and calculated that some twenty must still be left before them. For the prisoners it was the beginning of the twelfth day; twelve times over had they passed twenty-four hours without bread, without fire, in that icy darkness! This awful idea moistened the eyelids and stiffened the arm of the workers. It seemed impossible that Christians could live longer. The distant blows had become weaker since the previous day, and every moment they trembled lest they should stop. Maheude came regularly every morning to sit at the mouth of the shaft. In her arms she brought Estelle, who could not remain alone from morning to night. Hour by hour she followed the workers, sharing their hopes and fears. There was feverish expectation among the groups standing around, and even as far as Montsou, with endless discussion. Every heart in the district was beating down there beneath the earth. On the ninth day, at the breakfast hour, no reply came from Zacharie when he was called for the relay. He was like a madman, working on furiously with oaths. Négrel, who had come up for a moment, was not there to make him obey, and only a captain and three miners were below. No doubt Zacharie, infuriated with the feeble vacillating light, which delayed his work, committed the imprudence of opening his lamp, although severe orders had been given, for leakages of fire-damp had taken place, and the gas remained in enormous masses in these narrow, unventilated passages. Suddenly, a roar of thunder was heard, and a spout of fire darted out of the tube as from the mouth of a cannon charged with grapeshot. Everything flamed up and the air caught fire like powder, from one end of the galleries to the other. This torrent of flame carried away the captain and three workers, ascended the pit, and leapt up to the daylight in an eruption which split the rocks and the ruins around. The inquisitive fled, and Maheude arose, pressing the frightened Estelle to her breast. When Négrel and the men came back they were seized by a terrible rage. They struck their heels on the earth as on a stepmother who was killing her children at random in the imbecile whims of her cruelty. They were devoting themselves, they were coming to the help of their mates, and still they must lose some of their men! After three long hours of effort and danger they reached the galleries once more, and the melancholy ascent of the victims took place. Neither the captain nor the workers were dead, but they were covered by awful wounds which gave out an odour of grilled flesh; they had drunk of fire, the burns had got into their throats, and they constantly moaned and prayed to be finished off. One of the three miners was the man who had smashed the pump at Gaston-Marie with a final blow of the shovel during the strike; the two others still had scars on their hands, and grazed, torn fingers from the energy with which they had thrown bricks at the soldiers. The pale and shuddering crowd took off their hats when they were carried by. Maheude stood waiting. Zacharie's body at last appeared. The clothes were burnt, the body was nothing but black charcoal, calcined and unrecognizable. The head had been smashed by the explosion and no longer existed. And when these awful remains were placed on a stretcher, Maheude followed them mechanically, her burning eyelids without a tear. With Estelle drowsily lying in her arms, she went along, a tragic figure, her hair lashed by the wind. At the settlement Philoméne seemed stupid; her eyes were turned into fountains and she was quickly relieved. But the mother had already returned with the same step to Réquillart; she had accompanied her son, she was returning to wait for her daughter. Three more days passed by. The rescue work had been resumed amid incredible difficulties. The galleries of approach had fortunately not fallen after the fire-damp explosion; but the air was so heavy and so vitiated that more ventilators had to be installed. Every twenty minutes the pikemen relieved one another. They were advancing; scarcely two metres separated them from their mates. But now they worked feeling cold at their hearts, striking hard only out of vengeance; for the noises had ceased, and the low, clear cadence of the call no longer sounded. It was the twelfth day of their labours, the fifteenth since the catastrophe; and since the morning there had been a death-like silence. The new accident increased the curiosity at Montsou, and the inhabitants organized excursions with such spirit that the Grégoires decided to follow the fashion. They arranged a party, and it was agreed that they should go to the Voreux in their carriage, while Madame Hennebeau took Lucie and Jeanne there in hers. Deneulin would show them over his yards and then they would return by Réquillart, where Négrel would tell them the exact state of things in the galleries, and if there was still hope. Finally, they would dine together in the evening. When the Grégoires and their daughter Cécile arrived at the ruined mine, toward three o'clock, they found Madame Hennebeau already there, in a sea-blue dress, protecting herself under her parasol from the pale February sun. The warmth of spring was in the clear sky. M. Hennebeau was there with Deneulin, and she was listening, with listless ear, to the account which the latter gave her of the efforts which had been made to dam up the canal. Jeanne, who always carried a sketch-book with her, began to draw, carried away by the horror of the subject; while Lucie, seated beside her on the remains of a wagon, was crying out with pleasure, and finding it awfully jolly. The incomplete dam allowed numerous leaks, and frothy streams fell in a cascade down the enormous hole of the engulfed mine. The crater was being emptied, however, and the water, drunk by the earth, was sinking, and revealing the fearful ruin at the bottom. Beneath the tender azure of this beautiful day there lay a sewer, the ruins of a town drowned and melted in mud. "And people come out of their way to see that!" exclaimed M. Grégoire, disillusioned. Cécile, rosy with health and glad to breathe so pure an air, was cheerfully joking, while Madame Hennebeau made a little grimace of repugnance as she murmured: "The fact is, this is not pretty at all." The two engineers laughed. They tried to interest the visitors, taking them round and explaining to them the working of the pumps and the manipulation of the stamper which drove in the piles. But the ladies became anxious. They shuddered when they knew that the pumps would have to work for six or seven years before the shaft was reconstructed and all the water exhausted from the mine. No, they would rather think of something else; this destruction was only good to give bad dreams. "Let us go," said Madame Hennebeau, turning towards her carriage. Lucie and Jeanne protested. What! so soon! and the drawing which was not finished. They wanted to remain; their father would bring them to dinner in the evening. M. Hennebeau alone took his place with his wife in the carriage, for he wished to question Négrel. "Very well! go on before," said M. Grégoire. "We will follow you; we have a little visit of five minutes to make over there at the settlement. Go on, go on! we shall be at Réquillart as soon as you." He got up behind Madame Grégoire and Cécile, and while the other carriage went along by the canal, theirs gently ascended the slope. Their excursion was to be completed by a visit of charity. Zacharie's death had filled them with pity for this tragical Maheu family, about whom the whole country was talking. They had no pity for the father, that brigand, that slayer of soldiers, who had to be struck down like a wolf. But the mother touched them, that poor woman who had just lost her son after having lost her husband, and whose daughter was perhaps a corpse beneath the earth; to say nothing of an invalid grandfather, a child who was lame as the result of a landslip, and a little girl who died of starvation during the strike. So that, though this family had in part deserved its misfortunes by the detestable spirit it had shown, they had resolved to assert the breadth of their charity, their desire for forgetfulness and conciliation, by themselves bringing on alms. Two parcels, carefully wrapped up, had been placed beneath a seat of the carriage. An old woman pointed out to the coachman Maheude's house, No. 16 in the second block. But when the Grégoires alighted with the parcels, they knocked in vain; at last they struck their fists against the door, still without reply; the house echoed mournfully, like a house emptied by grief, frozen and dark, long since abandoned. "There's no one there," said Cécile, disappointed. "What a nuisance! What shall we do with all this?" Suddenly the door of the next house opened, and the Levaque woman appeared. "Oh, sir! I beg pardon, ma'am. Excuse me, miss. It's the neighbour that you want? She's not there; she's at Réquillart." With a flow of words she told them the story, repeating to them that people must help one another, and that she was keeping Lénore and Henri in her house to allow the mother to go and wait over there. Her eyes had fallen on the parcels, and she began to talk about her poor daughter, who had become a widow, displaying her own wretchedness, while her eyes shone with covetousness. Then, in a hesitating way, she muttered: "I've got the key. If the lady and gentleman would really like---- The grandfather is there." The Grégoires looked at her in stupefaction. What! The grandfather was there! But no one had replied. He was sleeping, then? And when the Levaque made up her mind to open the door, what they saw stopped them on the threshold. Bonnemort was there alone, with large fixed eyes, nailed to his chair in front of the cold fireplace. Around him the room appeared larger without the clock or the polished deal furniture which formerly animated it; there only remained against the green crudity of the walls the portraits of the Emperor and Empress, whose rosy lips were smiling with official benevolence. The old man did not stir nor wink his eyelids beneath the sudden light from the door; he seemed imbecile, as though he had not seen all these people come in. At his feet lay his plate, garnished with ashes, such as is placed for cats for ordure. "Don't mind if he's not very polite," said the Levaque woman, obligingly. "Seems he's broken something in his brain. It's a fortnight since he left off speaking." But Bonnemort was shaken by some agitation, a deep scraping which seemed to arise from his belly, and he expectorated into the plate a thick black expectoration. The ashes were soaked into a coaly mud, all the coal of the mine which he drew from his chest. He had already resumed his immobility. He stirred no more, except at intervals, to spit. Uneasy, and with stomachs turned, the Grégoires endeavoured to utter a few friendly and encouraging words. "Well, my good man," said the father, "you have a cold, then?" The old man, with his eyes to the wall, did not turn his head. And a heavy silence fell once more. "They ought to make you a little gruel," added the mother. He preserved his mute stiffness. "I say, papa," murmured Cécile, "they certainly told us he was an invalid; only we did not think of it afterwards--" She interrupted herself, much embarrassed. After having placed on the table a _pot-au-feu_ and two bottles of wine, she undid the second parcel and drew from it a pair of enormous boots. It was the present intended for the grandfather, and she held one boot in each hand, in confusion, contemplating the poor man's swollen feet, which would never walk again. "Eh! they come a little late, don't they, my worthy fellow?" said M. Grégoire again, to enliven the situation. "It doesn't matter, they're always useful." Bonnemort neither heard nor replied, with his terrible face as cold and as hard as a stone. Then Cécile furtively placed the boots against the wall. But in spite of her precautions the nails clanked; and those enormous boots stood oppressively in the room. "He won't say thank you," said the Levaque woman, who had cast a look of deep envy on the boots. "Might as well give a pair of spectacles to a duck, asking your pardon." She went on; she was trying to draw the Grégoires into her own house, where she hoped to gain their pity. At last she thought of a pretext; she praised Henri and Lénore, who were so good, so gentle, and so intelligent, answering like angels the questions that they were asked. They would tell the lady and gentleman all that they wished to know. "Will you come for a moment, my child?" asked the father, glad to get away. "Yes, I'll follow you," she replied. Cécile remained alone with Bonnemort. What kept her there trembling and fascinated, was the thought that she seemed to recognize this old man: where then had she met this square livid face, tattooed with coal? Suddenly she remembered; she saw again a mob of shouting people who surrounded her, and she felt cold hands pressing her neck. It was he; she saw the man again; she looked at his hands placed on his knees, the hands of an invalid workman whose whole strength is in his wrists, still firm in spite of age. Gradually Bonnemort seemed to awake, he perceived her and examined her in his turn. A flame mounted to his cheeks, a nervous spasm drew his mouth, from which flowed a thin streak of black saliva. Fascinated, they remained opposite each other--she flourishing, plump, and fresh from the long idleness and sated comfort of her race; he swollen with water, with the pitiful ugliness of a foundered beast, destroyed from father to son by a century of work and hunger. At the end of ten minutes, when the Grégoires, surprised at not seeing Cécile, came back into the Maheus' house, they uttered a terrible cry. Their daughter was lying on the ground, with livid face, strangled. At her neck fingers had left the red imprint of a giant's hand. Bonnemort, tottering on his dead legs, had fallen beside her without power to rise. His hands were still hooked, and he looked round with his imbecile air and large open eyes. In his fall he had broken his plate, the ashes were spread round, the mud of the black expectoration had stained the floor; while the great pair of boots, safe and sound, stood side by side against the wall. It was never possible to establish the exact facts. Why had Cécile come near? How could Bonnemort, nailed to his chair, have been able to seize her throat? Evidently, when he held her, he must have become furious, constantly pressing, overthrown with her, and stifling her cries to the last groan. Not a sound, not a moan had traversed the thin partition to the neighbouring house. It seemed to be an outbreak of sudden madness, a longing to murder before this white young neck. Such savagery was stupefying in an old invalid, who had lived like a worthy man, an obedient brute, opposed to new ideas. What rancour, unknown to himself, by some slow process of poisoning, had risen from his bowels to his brain? The horror of it led to the conclusion that he was unconscious, that it was the crime of an idiot. The Grégoires, meanwhile, on their knees, were sobbing, choked with grief. Their idolized daughter, that daughter desired so long, on whom they had lavished all their goods, whom they used to watch sleeping, on tiptoe, whom they never thought sufficiently well nourished, never sufficiently plump! It was the downfall of their very life; what was the good of living, now that they would have to live without her? The Levaque woman in distraction cried: "Ah, the old beggar! what's he done there? Who would have expected such a thing? And Maheude, who won't come back till evening! Shall I go and fetch her?" The father and mother were crushed, and did not reply. "Eh? It will be better. I'll go." But, before going, the Levaque woman looked at the boots. The whole settlement was excited, and a crowd was already hustling around. Perhaps they would get stolen. And then the Maheus had no man, now, to put them on. She quietly carried them away. They would just fit Bouteloup's feet. At Réquillart the Hennebeaus, with Négrel, waited a long time for the Grégoires. Négrel, who had come up from the pit, gave details. They hoped to communicate that very evening with the prisoners, but they would certainly find nothing but corpses, for the death-like silence continued. Behind the engineer, Maheude, seated on the beam, was listening with white face, when the Levaque woman came up and told her the old man's strange deed. And she only made a sweeping gesture of impatience and irritation. She followed her, however. Madame Hennebeau was much affected. What an abomination! That poor Cécile, so merry that very day, so full of life an hour before! M. Hennebeau had to lead his wife for a moment into old Mouque's hovel. With his awkward hands he unfastened her dress, troubled by the odour of musk which her open bodice exhaled. And as with streaming tears she clasped Négrel, terrified at this death which cut short the marriage, the husband watched them lamenting together, and was delivered from one anxiety. This misfortune would arrange everything; he preferred to keep his nephew for fear of his coachman. CHAPTER V At the bottom of the shaft the abandoned wretches were yelling with terror. The water now came up to their hips. The noise of the torrent dazed them, the final falling in of the tubbing sounded like the last crack of doom; and their bewilderment was completed by the neighing of the horses shut up in the stable, the terrible, unforgettable death-cry of an animal that is being slaughtered. Mouque had let go Bataille. The old horse was there, trembling, with its dilated eye fixed on this water which was constantly rising. The pit-eye was rapidly filling; the greenish flood slowly enlarged under the red gleam of the three lamps which were still burning under the roof. And suddenly, when he felt this ice soaking his coat, he set out in a furious gallop, and was engulfed and lost at the end of one of the haulage galleries. Then there was a general rush, the men following the beast. "Nothing more to be done in this damned hole!" shouted Mouque. "We must try at Réquillart." The idea that they might get out by the old neighbouring pit if they arrived before the passage was cut off, now carried them away. The twenty hustled one another as they went in single file, holding their lamps in the air so that the water should not extinguish them. Fortunately, the gallery rose with an imperceptible slope, and they proceeded for two hundred metres, struggling against the flood, which was not now gaining on them. Sleeping beliefs reawakened in these distracted souls; they invoked the earth, for it was the earth that was avenging herself, discharging the blood from the vein because they had cut one of her arteries. An old man stammered forgotten prayers, bending his thumbs backwards to appease the evil spirits of the mine. But at the first turning disagreement broke out; the groom proposed turning to the left, others declared that they could make a short cut by going to the right. A minute was lost. "Well, die there! what the devil does it matter to me?" Chaval brutally exclaimed. "I go this way." He turned to the right, and two mates followed him. The others continued to rush behind Father Mouque, who had grown up at the bottom of Réquillart. He himself hesitated, however, not knowing where to turn. They lost their heads; even the old men could no longer recognize the passages, which lay like a tangled skein before them. At every bifurcation they were pulled up short by uncertainty, and yet they had to decide. Étienne was running last, delayed by Catherine, who was paralysed by fatigue and fear. He would have gone to the right with Chaval, for he thought that the better road; but he had not, preferring to part from Chaval. The rush continued, however; some of the mates had gone from their side, and only seven were left behind old Mouque. "Hang on to my neck and I will carry you," said Étienne to the young girl, seeing her grow weak. "No, let me be," she murmured. "I can't do more; I would rather die at once." They delayed and were left fifty metres behind; he was lifting her, in spite of her resistance, when the gallery was suddenly stopped up; an enormous block fell in and separated them from the others. The inundation was already soaking the soil, which was shifting on every side. They had to retrace their steps; then they no longer knew in what direction they were going. There was an end of all hope of escaping by Réquillart. Their only remaining hope was to gain the upper workings, from which they might perhaps be delivered if the water sank. Étienne at last recognized the Guillaume seam. "Good!" he exclaimed. "Now I know where we are. By God! we were in the right road; but we may go to the devil now! Here, let us go straight on; we will climb up the passage." The flood was beating against their breasts, and they walked very slowly. As long as they had light they did not despair, and they blew out one of the lamps to economize the oil, meaning to empty it into the other lamp. They had reached the chimney passage, when a noise behind made them turn. Was it some mates, then, who had also found the road barred and were returning? A roaring sound came from afar; they could not understand this tempest which approached them, spattering foam. And they cried out when they saw a gigantic whitish mass coming out of the shadow and trying to rejoin them between the narrow timbering in which it was being crushed. It was Bataille. On leaving the pit-eye he had wildly galloped along the dark galleries. He seemed to know his road in this subterranean town which he had inhabited for eleven years, and his eyes saw clearly in the depths of the eternal night in which he had lived. He galloped on and on, bending his head, drawing up his feet, passing through these narrow tubes in the earth, filled by his great body. Road succeeded to road, and the forked turnings were passed without any hesitation. Where was he going? Over there, perhaps, towards that vision of his youth, to the mill where he had been born on the bank of the Scarpe, to the confused recollection of the sun burning in the air like a great lamp. He desired to live, his beast's memory awoke; the longing to breathe once more the air of the plains drove him straight onwards to the discovery of that hole, the exit beneath the warm sun into light. Rebellion carried away his ancient resignation; this pit was murdering him after having blinded him. The water which pursued him was lashing him on the flanks and biting him on the crupper. But as he went deeper in, the galleries became narrower, the roofs lower, and the walls protruded. He galloped on in spite of everything, grazing himself, leaving shreds of his limbs on the timber. From every side the mine seemed to be pressing on to him to take him and to stifle him. Then Étienne and Catherine, as he came near them, perceived that he was strangling between the rocks. He had stumbled and broken his two front legs. With a last effort, he dragged himself a few metres, but his flanks could not pass; he remained hemmed in and garrotted by the earth. With his bleeding head stretched out, he still sought for some crack with his great troubled eyes. The water was rapidly covering him; he began to neigh with that terrible prolonged death-rattle with which the other horses had already died in the stable. It was a sight of fearful agony, this old beast shattered and motionless, struggling at this depth, far from the daylight. The flood was drowning his mane, and his cry of distress never ceased; he uttered it more hoarsely, with his large open mouth stretched out. There was a last rumble, the hollow sound of a cask which is being filled; then deep silence fell. "Oh, my God! take me away!" Catherine sobbed. "Ah, my God! I'm afraid; I don't want to die. Take me away! take me away!" She had seen death. The fallen shaft, the inundated mine, nothing had seized her with such terror as this clamour of Bataille in agony. And she constantly heard it; her ears were ringing with it; all her flesh was shuddering with it. "Take me away! take me away!" Étienne had seized her and lifted her; it was, indeed, time. They ascended the chimney passage, soaked to the shoulders. He was obliged to help her, for she had no strength to cling to the timber. Three times over he thought that she was slipping from him and falling back into that deep sea of which the tide was roaring beneath them. However, they were able to breathe for a few minutes when they reached the first gallery, which was still free. The water reappeared, and they had to hoist themselves up again. And for hours this ascent continued, the flood chasing them from passage to passage, and constantly forcing them to ascend. At the sixth level a respite rendered them feverish with hope, and it seemed that the waters were becoming stationary. But a more rapid rise took place, and they had to climb to the seventh and then to the eighth level. Only one remained, and when they had reached it they anxiously watched each centimetre by which the water gained on them. If it did not stop they would then die like the old horse, crushed against the roof, and their chests filled by the flood. Landslips echoed every moment. The whole mine was shaken, and its distended bowels burst with the enormous flood which gorged them. At the end of the galleries the air, driven back, pressed together and crushed, exploded terribly amid split rocks and overthrown soil. It was a terrifying uproar of interior cataclysms, a remnant of the ancient battle when deluges overthrew the earth, burying the mountains beneath the plains. And Catherine, shaken and dazed by this continuous downfall, joined her hands, stammering the same words without cessation: "I don't want to die! I don't want to die!" To reassure her, Étienne declared that the water was not now moving. Their flight had lasted for fully six hours, and they would soon be rescued. He said six hours without knowing, for they had lost all count of time. In reality, a whole day had already passed in their climb up through the Guillaume seam. Drenched and shivering, they settled themselves down. She undressed herself without shame and wrung out her clothes, then she put on again the jacket and breeches, and let them finish drying on her. As her feet were bare, he made her take his own sabots. They could wait patiently now; they had lowered the wick of the lamp, leaving only the feeble gleam of a night-light. But their stomachs were torn by cramp, and they both realized that they were dying of hunger. Up till now they had not felt that they were living. The catastrophe had occurred before breakfast, and now they found their bread-and-butter swollen by the water and changed into sop. She had to become angry before he would accept his share. As soon as she had eaten she fell asleep from weariness, on the cold earth. He was devoured by insomnia, and watched over her with fixed eyes and forehead between his hands. How many hours passed by thus? He would have been unable to say. All that he knew was that before him, through the hole they had ascended, he had seen the flood reappear, black and moving, the beast whose back was ceaselessly swelling out to reach them. At first it was only a thin line, a supple serpent stretching itself out; then it enlarged into a crawling, crouching flank; and soon it reached them, and the sleeping girl's feet were touched by it. In his anxiety he yet hesitated to wake her. Was it not cruel to snatch her from this repose of unconscious ignorance, which was, perhaps, lulling her with a dream of the open air and of life beneath the sun? Besides, where could they fly? And he thought and remembered that the upbrow established at this part of the seam communicated end to end with that which served the upper level. That would be a way out. He let her sleep as long as possible, watching the flood gain on them, waiting for it to chase them away. At last he lifted her gently, and a great shudder passed over her. "Ah, my God! it's true! it's beginning again, my God!" She remembered, she cried out, again finding death so near. "No! calm yourself," he whispered. "We can pass, upon my word!" To reach the upbrow they had to walk doubled up, again wetted to the shoulders. And the climbing began anew, now more dangerous, through this hole entirely of timber, a hundred metres long. At first they wished to pull the cable so as to fix one of the carts at the bottom, for if the other should come down during their ascent, they would be crushed. But nothing moved, some obstacle interfered with the mechanism. They ventured in, not daring to make use of the cable which was in their way, and tearing their nails against the smooth framework. He came behind, supporting her by his head when she slipped with torn hands. Suddenly they came across the splinters of a beam which barred the way. A portion of the soil had fallen down and prevented them from going any higher. Fortunately a door opened here and they passed into a passage. They were stupefied to see the flicker of a lamp in front of them. A man cried wildly to them: "More clever people as big fools as I am!" They recognized Chaval, who had found himself blocked by the landslip which filled the upbrow; his two mates who had set out with him had been left on the way with fractured skulls. He was wounded in the elbow, but had had the courage to go back on his knees, take their lamps, and search them to steal their bread-and-butter. As he escaped, a final downfall behind his back had closed the gallery. He immediately swore that he would not share his victuals with these people who came up out of the earth. He would sooner knock their brains out. Then he, too, recognized them; his anger fell, and he began to laugh with a laugh of evil joy. "Ah! it's you, Catherine! you've broken your nose, and you want to join your man again. Well, well! we'll play out the game together." He pretended not to see Étienne. The latter, overwhelmed by this encounter, made a gesture as though to protect the putter, who was pressing herself against him. He must, however, accept the situation. Speaking as though they had left each other good friends an hour before, he simply asked: "Have you looked down below? We can't pass through the cuttings, then?" Chaval still grinned. "Ah, bosh! the cuttings! They've fallen in too; we are between two walls, a real mousetrap. But you can go back by the brow if you are a good diver." The water, in fact, was rising; they could hear it rippling. Their retreat was already cut off. And he was right; it was a mousetrap, a gallery-end obstructed before and behind by considerable falls of earth. There was not one issue; all three were walled up. "Then you'll stay?" Chaval added, jeeringly. "Well, it's the best you can do, and if you'll just leave me alone, I shan't even speak to you. There's still room here for two men. We shall soon see which will die first, provided they don't come to us, which seems a tough job." The young man said: "If we were to hammer, they would hear us, perhaps." "I'm tired of hammering. Here, try yourself with this stone." Étienne picked up the fragment of sandstone which the other had already broken off, and against the seam at the end he struck the miner's call, the prolonged roll by which workmen in peril signal their presence. Then he placed his ear to listen. Twenty times over he persisted; no sound replied. During this time Chaval affected to be coolly attending to his little household. First he arranged the three lamps against the wall; only one was burning, the others could be used later on. Afterwards, he placed on a piece of timber the two slices of bread-and-butter which were still left. That was the sideboard; he could last quite two days with that, if he were careful. He turned round saying: "You know, Catherine, there will be half for you when you are famished." The young girl was silent. It completed her unhappiness to find herself again between these two men. And their awful life began. Neither Chaval nor Étienne opened their mouths, seated on the earth a few paces from each other. At a hint from the former the latter extinguished his lamp, a piece of useless luxury; then they sank back into silence. Catherine was lying down near Étienne, restless under the glances of her former lover. The hours passed by; they heard the low murmur of the water for ever rising; while from time to time deep shocks and distant echoes announced the final settling down of the mine. When the lamp was empty and they had to open another to light it, they were, for a moment, disturbed by the fear of fire-damp; but they would rather have been blown up at once than live on in darkness. Nothing exploded, however; there was no fire-damp. They stretched themselves out again, and the hours continued to pass by. A noise aroused Étienne and Catherine, and they raised their heads. Chaval had decided to eat; he had cut off half a slice of bread-and-butter, and was chewing it slowly, to avoid the temptation of swallowing it all. They gazed at him, tortured by hunger. "Well, do you refuse?" he said to the putter, in his provoking way. "You're wrong." She had lowered her eyes, fearing to yield; her stomach was torn by such cramps that tears were swelling beneath her eyelids. But she understood what he was asking; in the morning he had breathed over her neck; he was seized again by one of his old furies of desire on seeing her near the other man. The glances with which he called her had a flame in them which she knew well, the flame of his crises of jealousy when he would fall on her with his fists, accusing her of committing abominations with her mother's lodger. And she was not willing; she trembled lest, by returning to him, she should throw these two men on to each other in this narrow cave, where they were all in agony together. Good God! why could they not end together in comradeship! Étienne would have died of inanition rather than beg a mouthful of bread from Chaval. The silence became heavy; an eternity seemed to be prolonging itself with the slowness of monotonous minutes which passed by, one by one, without hope. They had now been shut up together for a day. The second lamp was growing pale, and they lighted the third. Chaval started on his second slice of bread-and-butter, and growled: "Come then, stupid!" Catherine shivered. Étienne had turned away in order to leave her free. Then, as she did not stir, he said to her in a low voice: "Go, my child." The tears which she was stifling then rushed forth. She wept for a long time, without even strength to rise, no longer knowing if she was hungry, suffering with pain which she felt all over her body. He was standing up, going backward and forwards, vainly beating the miners call, enraged at this remainder of life which he was obliged to live here tied to a rival whom he detested. Not even enough space to die away from each other! As soon as he had gone ten paces he must come back and knock up against this man. And she, this sorrowful girl whom they were disputing over even in the earth! She would belong to the one who lived longest; that man would steal her from him should he go first. There was no end to it; the hours followed the hours; the revolting promiscuity became worse, with the poison of their breaths and the ordure of their necessities satisfied in common. Twice he rushed against the rocks as though to open them with his fists. Another day was done, and Chaval had seated himself near Catherine, sharing with her his last half-slice. She was chewing the mouthfuls painfully; he made her pay for each with a caress, in his jealous obstinacy not willing to die until he had had her again in the other man's presence. She abandoned herself in exhaustion. But when he tried to take her she complained. "Oh, leave me! you're breaking my bones." Étienne, with a shudder, had placed his forehead against the timber so as not to see. He came back with a wild leap. "Leave her, by God!" "Does it concern you?" said Chaval. "She's my woman; I suppose she belongs to me!" And he took her again and pressed her, out of bravado, crushing his red moustache against her mouth, and continuing: "Will you leave us alone, eh? Will you be good enough to look over there if we are at it?" But Étienne, with white lips, shouted: "If you don't let her go, I'll do for you!" The other quickly stood up, for he had understood by the hiss of the voice that his mate was in earnest. Death seemed to them too slow; it was necessary that one of them should immediately yield his place. It was the old battle beginning over again, down in the earth where they would soon sleep side by side; and they had so little room that they could not swing their fists without grazing them. "Look out!" growled Chaval. "This time I'll have you." From that moment Étienne became mad. His eyes seemed drowned in red vapour, his chest was congested by the flow of blood. The need to kill seized him irresistibly, a physical need, like the irritation of mucus which causes a violent spasm of coughing. It rose and broke out beyond his will, beneath the pressure of the hereditary disease. He had seized a sheet of slate in the wall and he shook it and tore it out, a very large, heavy piece. Then with both hands and with tenfold strength he brought it down on Chaval's skull. The latter had not time to jump backwards. He fell, his face crushed, his skull broken. The brains had bespattered the roof of the gallery, and a purple jet flowed from the wound, like the continuous jet of a spring. Immediately there was a pool, which reflected the smoky star of the lamp. Darkness was invading the walled-up cave, and this body, lying on the earth, looked like the black boss of a mass of rough coal. Leaning over, with wide eyes, Étienne looked at him. It was done, then; he had killed. All his struggles came back to his memory confusedly, that useless fight against the poison which slept in his muscles, the slowly accumulated alcohol of his race. He was, however, only intoxicated by hunger; the remote intoxication of his parents had been enough. His hair stood up before the horror of this murder; and yet, in spite of the revolt which came from his education, a certain gladness made his heart beat, the animal joy of an appetite at length satisfied. He felt pride, too, the pride of the stronger man. The little soldier appeared before him, with his throat opened by a knife, killed by a child. Now he, too, had killed. But Catherine, standing erect, uttered a loud cry: "My God! he is dead!" "Are you sorry?" asked Étienne, fiercely. She was choking, she stammered. Then, tottering, she threw herself into his arms. "Ah, kill me too! Ah, let us both die!" She clasped him, hanging to his shoulders, and he clasped her; and they hoped that they would die. But death was in no hurry, and they unlocked their arms. Then, while she hid her eyes, he dragged away the wretch, and threw him down the upbrow, to remove him from the narrow space in which they still had to live. Life would no longer have been possible with that corpse beneath their feet. And they were terrified when they heard it plunge into the midst of the foam which leapt up. The water had already filled that hole, then? They saw it; it was entering the gallery. Then there was a new struggle. They had lighted the last lamp; it was becoming exhausted in illuminating this flood, with its regular, obstinate rise which never ceased. At first the water came up to their ankles; then it wetted their knees. The passage sloped up, and they took refuge at the end. This gave them a respite for some hours. But the flood caught them up, and bathed them to the waist. Standing up, brought to bay, with their spines close against the rock, they watched it ever and ever increasing. When it reached their mouths, all would be over. The lamp, which they had fastened up, threw a yellow light on the rapid surge of the little waves. It was becoming pale; they could distinguish no more than a constantly diminishing semicircle, as though eaten away by the darkness which seemed to grow with the flood; and suddenly the darkness enveloped them. The lamp had gone out, after having spat forth its last drop of oil. There was now complete and absolute night, that night of the earth which they would have to sleep through without ever again opening their eyes to the brightness of the sun. "By God!" Étienne swore, in a low voice. Catherine, as though she had felt the darkness seize her, sheltered herself against him. She repeated, in a whisper, the miner's saying: "Death is blowing out the lamp." Yet in the face of this threat their instincts struggled, the fever for life animated them. He violently set himself to hollow out the slate with the hook of the lamp, while she helped him with her nails. They formed a sort of elevated bench, and when they had both hoisted themselves up to it, they found themselves seated with hanging legs and bent backs, for the vault forced them to lower their heads. They now only felt the icy water at their heels; but before long the cold was at their ankles, their calves, their knees, with its invincible, truceless movement. The bench, not properly smoothed, was soaked in moisture, and so slippery that they had to hold themselves on vigorously to avoid slipping off. It was the end; what could they expect, reduced to this niche where they dared not move, exhausted, starving, having neither bread nor light? and they suffered especially from the darkness, which would not allow them to see the coming of death. There was deep silence; the mine, being gorged with water, no longer stirred. They had nothing beneath them now but the sensation of that sea, swelling out its silent tide from the depths of the galleries. The hours succeeded one another, all equally black; but they were not able to measure their exact duration, becoming more and more vague in their calculation of time. Their tortures, which might have been expected to lengthen the minutes, rapidly bore them away. They thought that they had only been shut up for two days and a night, when in reality the third day had already come to an end. All hope of help had gone; no one knew they were there, no one could come down to them. And hunger would finish them off if the inundation spared them. For one last time it occurred to them to beat the call, but the stone was lying beneath the water. Besides, who would hear them? Catherine was leaning her aching head against the seam, when she sat up with a start. "Listen!" she said. At first Étienne thought she was speaking of the low noise of the ever-rising water. He lied in order to quiet her. "It's me you hear; I'm moving my legs." "No, no; not that! Over there, listen!" And she placed her ear to the coal. He understood, and did likewise. They waited for some seconds, with stifled breath. Then, very far away and very weak, they heard three blows at long intervals. But they still doubted; their ears were ringing; perhaps it was the cracking of the soil. And they knew not what to strike with in answer. Étienne had an idea. "You have the sabots. Take them off and strike with the heels." She struck, beating the miner's call; and they listened and again distinguished the three blows far off. Twenty times over they did it, and twenty times the blows replied. They wept and embraced each other, at the risk of losing their balance. At last the mates were there, they were coming. An overflowing joy and love carried away the torments of expectation and the rage of their vain appeals, as though their rescuers had only to split the rock with a finger to deliver them. "Eh!" she cried merrily; "wasn't it lucky that I leant my head?" "Oh, you've got an ear!" he said in his turn. "Now, _I_ heard nothing." From that moment they relieved each other, one of them always listening, ready to answer at the least signal. They soon caught the sounds of the pick; the work of approaching them was beginning, a gallery was being opened. Not a sound escaped them. But their joy sank. In vain they laughed to deceive each other; despair was gradually seizing them. At first they entered into long explanations; evidently they were being approached from Réquillart. The gallery descended in the bed; perhaps several were being opened, for there were always three men hewing. Then they talked less, and were at last silent when they came to calculate the enormous mass which separated them from their mates. They continued their reflections in silence, counting the days and days that a workman would take to penetrate such a block. They would never be reached soon enough; they would have time to die twenty times over. And no longer venturing to exchange a word in this redoubled anguish, they gloomily replied to the appeals by a roll of the sabots, without hope, only retaining the mechanical need to tell the others that they were still alive. Thus passed a day, two days. They had been at the bottom six days. The water had stopped at their knees, neither rising nor falling, and their legs seemed to be melting away in this icy bath. They could certainly keep them out for an hour or so, but their position then became so uncomfortable that they were twisted by horrible cramps, and were obliged to let their feet fall in again. Every ten minutes they hoisted themselves back by a jerk on the slippery rock. The fractures of the coal struck into their spines, and they felt at the back of their necks a fixed intense pain, through having to keep constantly bent in order to avoid striking their heads. And their suffocation increased; the air, driven back by the water, was compressed into a sort of bell in which they were shut up. Their voices were muffled, and seemed to come from afar. Their ears began to buzz, they heard the peals of a furious tocsin, the tramp of a flock beneath a storm of hail, going on unceasingly. At first Catherine suffered horribly from hunger. She pressed her poor shrivelled hands against her breasts, her breathing was deep and hollow, a continuous tearing moan, as though tongs were tearing her stomach. Étienne, choked by the same torture, was feeling feverishly round him in the darkness, when his fingers came upon a half-rotten piece of timber, which his nails could crumble. He gave a handful of it to the putter, who swallowed it greedily. For two days they lived on this worm-eaten wood, devouring it all, in despair when it was finished, grazing their hands in the effort to crush the other planks which were still solid with resisting fibres. Their torture increased, and they were enraged that they could not chew the cloth of their clothes. A leather belt, which he wore round the waist, relieved them a little. He bit small pieces from it with his teeth, and she chewed them, and endeavoured to swallow them. This occupied their jaws, and gave them the illusion of eating. Then, when the belt was finished, they went back to their clothes, sucking them for hours. But soon these violent crises subsided; hunger became only a low deep ache with the slow progressive languor of their strength. No doubt they would have succumbed if they had not had as much water as they desired. They merely bent down and drank from the hollow of the hand, and that very frequently, parched by a thirst which all this water could not quench. On the seventh day Catherine was bending down to drink, when her hand struck some floating body before her. "I say, look! What's this?" Étienne felt in the darkness. "I can't make out; it seems like the cover of a ventilation door." She drank, but as she was drawing up a second mouthful the body came back, striking her hand. And she uttered a terrible cry. "My God! it's he!" "Whom do you mean?" "Him! You know well enough. I felt his moustache." It was Chaval's corpse, risen from the upbrow and pushed on to them by the flow. Étienne stretched out his arm; he, too, felt the moustache and the crushed nose, and shuddered with disgust and fear. Seized by horrible nausea, Catherine had spat out the water which was still in her mouth. It seemed to her that she had been drinking blood, and that all the deep water before her was now that man's blood. "Wait!" stammered Étienne. "I'll push him off!" He kicked the corpse, which moved off. But soon they felt it again striking against their legs. "By God! Get off!" And the third time Étienne had to leave it. Some current always brought it back. Chaval would not go; he desired to be with them, against them. It was an awful companion, at last poisoning the air. All that day they never drank, struggling, preferring to die. It was not until the next day that their suffering decided them: they pushed away the body at each mouthful and drank in spite of it. It had not been worth while to knock his brains out, for he came back between him and her, obstinate in his jealousy. To the very end he would be there, even though he was dead, preventing them from coming together. A day passed, and again another day. At every shiver of the water Étienne perceived a slight blow from the man he had killed, the simple elbowing of a neighbour who is reminding you of his presence. And every time it came he shuddered. He continually saw it there, swollen, greenish, with the red moustache and the crushed face. Then he no longer remembered; he had not killed him; the other man was swimming and trying to bite him. Catherine was now shaken by long endless fits of crying, after which she was completely prostrated. She fell at last into a condition of irresistible drowsiness. He would arouse her, but she stammered a few words and at once fell asleep again without even raising her eyelids; and fearing lest she should be drowned, he put his arm round her waist. It was he now who replied to the mates. The blows of the pick were now approaching, he could hear them behind his back. But his strength, too, was diminishing; he had lost all courage to strike. They were known to be there; why weary oneself more? It no longer interested him whether they came or not. In the stupefaction of waiting he would forget for hours at a time what he was waiting for. One relief comforted them a little: the water sank, and Chaval's body moved off. For nine days the work of their deliverance had been going on, and they were for the first time taking a few steps in the gallery when a fearful commotion threw them to the ground. They felt for each other and remained in each other's arms like mad people, not understanding, thinking the catastrophe was beginning over again. Nothing more stirred, the sound of the picks had ceased. In the corner where they were seated holding each other, side by side, a low laugh came from Catherine. "It must be good outside. Come, let's go out of here." Étienne at first struggled against this madness. But the contagion was shaking his stronger head, and he lost the exact sensation of reality. All their senses seemed to go astray, especially Catherine's. She was shaken by fever, tormented now by the need to talk and move. The ringing in her ears had become the murmur of flowing water, the song of birds; she smelled the strong odour of crushed grass, and could see clearly great yellow patches floating before her eyes, so large that she thought she was out of doors, near the canal, in the meadows on a fine summer day. "Eh? how warm it is! Take me, then; let us keep together. Oh, always, always!" He pressed her, and she rubbed herself against him for a long time, continuing to chatter like a happy girl: "How silly we have been to wait so long! I would have liked you at once, and you did not understand; you sulked. Then, do you remember, at our house at night, when we could not sleep, with our faces out listening to each other's breathing, with such a longing to come together?" He was won by her gaiety, and joked over the recollection of their silent tenderness. "You struck me once. Yes, yes, blows on both cheeks!" "It was because I loved you," she murmured. "You see, I prevented myself from thinking of you. I said to myself that it was quite done with, and all the time I knew that one day or another we should get together. It only wanted an opportunity--some lucky chance. Wasn't it so?" A shudder froze him. He tried to shake off this dream; then he repeated slowly: "Nothing is ever done with; a little happiness is enough to make everything begin again." "Then you'll keep me, and it will be all right this time?" And she slipped down fainting. She was so weak that her low voice died out. In terror he kept her against his heart. "Are you in pain?" She sat up surprised. "No, not at all. Why?" But this question aroused her from her dream. She gazed at the darkness with distraction, wringing her hands in another fit of sobbing. "My God, my God, how black it is!" It was no longer the meadows, the odour of the grass, the song of larks, the great yellow sun; it was the fallen, inundated mine, the stinking gloom, the melancholy dripping of this cellar where they had been groaning for so many days. Her perverted senses now increased the horror of it; her childish superstitions came back to her; she saw the Black Man, the old dead miner who returns to the pit to twist naughty girls' necks. "Listen! did you hear?" "No, nothing; I heard nothing." "Yes, the Man--you know? Look! he is there. The earth has let all the blood out of the vein to revenge itself for being cut into; and he is there--you can see him--look! blacker than night. Oh, I'm so afraid, I'm so afraid!" She became silent, shivering. Then in a very low voice she whispered: "No, it's always the other one." "What other one?" "Him who is with us; who is not alive." The image of Chaval haunted her, she talked of him confusedly, she described the dog's life she led with him, the only day when he had been kind to her at Jean-Bart, the other days of follies and blows, when he would kill her with caresses after having covered her with kicks. "I tell you that he's coming, that he will still keep us from being together! His jealousy is coming on him again. Oh, push him off! Oh, keep me close!" With a sudden impulse she hung on to him, seeking his mouth and pressing her own passionately to it. The darkness lighted up, she saw the sun again, and she laughed a quiet laugh of love. He shuddered to feel her thus against his flesh, half naked beneath the tattered jacket and trousers, and he seized her with a reawakening of his virility. It was at length their wedding night, at the bottom of this tomb, on this bed of mud, the longing not to die before they had had their happiness, the obstinate longing to live and make life one last time. They loved each other in despair of everything, in death. After that there was nothing more. Étienne was seated on the ground, always in the same corner, and Catherine was lying motionless on his knees. Hours and hours passed by. For a long time he thought she was sleeping; then he touched her; she was very cold, she was dead. He did not move, however, for fear of arousing her. The idea that he was the first who had possessed her as a woman, and that she might be pregnant, filled him with tenderness. Other ideas, the desire to go away with her, joy at what they would both do later on, came to him at moments, but so vaguely that it seemed only as though his forehead had been touched by a breath of sleep. He grew weaker, he only had strength to make a little gesture, a slow movement of the hand, to assure himself that she was certainly there, like a sleeping child in her frozen stiffness. Everything was being annihilated; the night itself had disappeared, and he was nowhere, out of space, out of time. Something was certainly striking beside his head, violent blows were approaching him; but he had been too lazy to reply, benumbed by immense fatigue; and now he knew nothing, he only dreamed that she was walking before him, and that he heard the slight clank of her sabots. Two days passed; she had not stirred; he touched her with his mechanical gesture, reassured to find her so quiet. Étienne felt a shock. Voices were sounding, rocks were rolling to his feet. When he perceived a lamp he wept. His blinking eyes followed the light, he was never tired of looking at it, enraptured by this reddish point which scarcely stained the darkness. But some mates carried him away, and he allowed them to introduce some spoonfuls of soup between his clenched teeth. It was only in the Réquillart gallery that he recognized someone standing before him, the engineer, Négrel; and these two men, with their contempt for each other--the rebellious workman and the sceptical master--threw themselves on each other's necks, sobbing loudly in the deep upheaval of all the humanity within them. It was an immense sadness, the misery of generations, the extremity of grief into which life can fall. At the surface, Maheude, stricken down near dead Catherine, uttered a cry, then another, then another--very long, deep, incessant moans. Several corpses had already been brought up, and placed in a row on the ground: Chaval, who was thought to have been crushed beneath a landslip, a trammer, and two hewers, also crushed, with brainless skulls and bellies swollen with water. Women in the crowd went out of their minds, tearing their skirts and scratching their faces. When Étienne was at last taken out, after having been accustomed to the lamps and fed a little, he appeared fleshless, and his hair was quite white. People turned away and shuddered at this old man. Maheude left off crying to stare at him stupidly with her large fixed eyes. CHAPTER VI It was four o'clock in the morning, and the fresh April night was growing warm at the approach of day. In the limpid sky the stars were twinkling out, while the east grew purple with dawn. And a slight shudder passed over the drowsy black country, the vague rumour which precedes awakening. Étienne, with long strides, was following the Vandame road. He had just passed six weeks at Montsou, in bed at the hospital. Though very thin and yellow, he felt strength to go, and he went. The Company, still trembling for its pits, was constantly sending men away, and had given him notice that he could not be kept on. He was offered the sum of one hundred francs, with the paternal advice to leave off working in mines, as it would now be too severe for him. But he refused the hundred francs. He had already received a letter from Pluchart, calling him to Paris, and enclosing money for the journey. His old dream would be realized. The night before, on leaving the hospital, he had slept at the Bon-Joyeux, Widow Désir's. And he rose early; only one desire was left, to bid his mates farewell before taking the eight o'clock train at Marchiennes. For a moment Étienne stopped on the road, which was now becoming rose-coloured. It was good to breathe that pure air of the precocious spring. It would turn out a superb day. The sun was slowly rising, and the life of the earth was rising with it. And he set out walking again, vigorously striking with his brier stick, watching the plain afar, as it rose from the vapours of the night. He had seen no one; Maheude had come once to the hospital, and, probably, had not been able to come again. But he knew that the whole settlement of the Deux-Cent-Quarante was now going down at Jean-Bart, and that she too had taken work there. Little by little the deserted roads were peopled, and colliers constantly passed Étienne with pallid, silent faces. The Company, people said, was abusing its victory. After two and a half months of strike, when they had returned to the pits, conquered by hunger, they had been obliged to accept the timbering tariff, that disguised decrease in wages, now the more hateful because stained with the blood of their mates. They were being robbed of an hour's work, they were being made false to their oath never to submit; and this imposed perjury stuck in their throats like gall. Work was beginning again everywhere, at Mirou, at Madeleine, at Crévecoeur, at the Victoire. Everywhere, in the morning haze, along the roads lost in darkness, the flock was tramping on, rows of men trotting with faces bent towards the earth, like cattle led to the slaughter-house. They shivered beneath their thin garments, folding their arms, rolling their hips, expanding their backs with the humps formed by the brick between the shirt and the jacket. And in this wholesale return to work, in these mute shadows, all black, without a laugh, without a look aside, one felt the teeth clenched with rage, the hearts swollen with hatred, a simple resignation to the necessity of the belly. The nearer Étienne approached the pit the more their number increased. They nearly all walked alone; those who came in groups were in single file, already exhausted, tired of one another and of themselves. He noticed one who was very old, with eyes that shone like hot coals beneath his livid forehead. Another, a young man, was panting with the restrained fury of a storm. Many had their sabots in their hands; one could scarcely hear the soft sound of their coarse woollen stockings on the ground. It was an endless rustling, a general downfall, the forced march of a beaten army, moving on with lowered heads, sullenly absorbed in the desire to renew the struggle and achieve revenge. When Étienne arrived, Jean-Bart was emerging from the shade; the lanterns, hooked on to the platform, were still burning in the growing dawn. Above the obscure buildings a trail of steam arose like a white plume delicately tinted with carmine. He passed up the sifting-staircase to go to the receiving-room. The descent was beginning, and the men were coming from the shed. For a moment he stood by, motionless amid the noise and movement. The rolling of the trams shook the metal floor, the drums were turning, unrolling the cables in the midst of cries from the trumpet, the ringing of bells, blows of the mallet on the signal block; he found the monster again swallowing his daily ration of human flesh, the cages rising and plunging, engulfing their burden of men, without ceasing, with the facile gulp of a voracious giant. Since his accident he had a nervous horror of the mine. The cages, as they sank down, tore his bowels. He had to turn away his head; the pit exasperated him. But in the vast and still sombre hall, feebly lighted up by the exhausted lanterns, he could perceive no friendly face. The miners, who were waiting there with bare feet and their lamps in their hands, looked at him with large restless eyes, and then lowered their faces, drawing back with an air of shame. No doubt they knew him and no longer had any spite against him; they seemed, on the contrary, to fear him, blushing at the thought that he would reproach them with cowardice. This attitude made his heart swell; he forgot that these wretches had stoned him, he again began to dream of changing them into heroes, of directing a whole people, this force of nature which was devouring itself. A cage was embarking its men, and the batch disappeared; as others arrived he saw at last one of his lieutenants in the strike, a worthy fellow who had sworn to die. "You too!" he murmured, with aching heart. The other turned pale and his lips trembled; then, with a movement of excuse: "What would you have? I've got a wife." Now in the new crowd coming from the shed he recognized them all. "You too!--you too!--you too!" And all shrank back, stammering in choked voices: "I have a mother."--"I have children."--"One must get bread." The cage did not reappear; they waited for it mournfully, with such sorrow at their defeat that they avoided meeting each other's eyes, obstinately gazing at the shaft. "And Maheude?" Étienne asked. They made no reply. One made a sign that she was coming. Others raised their arms, trembling with pity. Ah, poor woman! what wretchedness! The silence continued, and when Étienne stretched out his hand to bid them farewell, they all pressed it vigorously, putting into that mute squeeze their rage at having yielded, their feverish hope of revenge. The cage was there; they got into it and sank, devoured by the gulf. Pierron had appeared with his naked captain's lamp fixed into the leather of his cap. For the past week he had been chief of the gang at the pit-eye, and the men moved away, for promotion had rendered him bossy. The sight of Étienne annoyed him; he came up, however, and was at last reassured when the young man announced his departure. They talked. His wife now kept the Estaminet du Progrés, thanks to the support of all those gentlemen, who had been so good to her. But he interrupted himself and turned furiously on to Father Mouque, whom he accused of not sending up the dung-heap from his stable at the regulation hour. The old man listened with bent shoulders. Then, before going down, suffering from this reprimand, he, too, gave his hand to Étienne, with the same long pressure as the others, warm with restrained anger and quivering with future rebellion. And this old hand which trembled in his, this old man who was forgiving him for the loss of his dead children, affected Étienne to such a degree that he watched him disappear without saying a word. "Then Maheude is not coming this morning?" he asked Pierron after a time. At first the latter pretended not to understand, for there was ill luck even in speaking of her. Then, as he moved away, under the pretext of giving an order, he said at last: "Eh! Maheude? There she is." In fact, Maheude had reached the shed with her lamp in her hand, dressed in trousers and jacket, with her head confined in the cap. It was by a charitable exception that the Company, pitying the fate of this unhappy woman, so cruelly afflicted, had allowed her to go down again at the age of forty; and as it seemed difficult to set her again at haulage work, she was employed to manipulate a small ventilator which had been installed in the north gallery, in those infernal regions beneath Tartaret, where there was no movement of air. For ten hours, with aching back, she turned her wheel at the bottom of a burning tube, baked by forty degrees of heat. She earned thirty sous. When Étienne saw her, a pitiful sight in her male garments--her breast and belly seeming to be swollen by the dampness of the cuttings--he stammered with surprise, trying to find words to explain that he was going away and that he wished to say good-bye to her. She looked at him without listening, and said at last, speaking familiarly: "Eh? it surprises you to see me. It's true enough that I threatened to wring the neck of the first of my children who went down again; and now that I'm going down I ought to wring my own, ought I not? Ah, well! I should have done it by now if it hadn't been for the old man and the little ones at the house." And she went on in her low, fatigued voice. She did not excuse herself, she simply narrated things--that they had been nearly starved, and that she had made up her mind to it, so that they might not be sent away from the settlement. "How is the old man?" asked Étienne. "He is always very gentle and very clean. But he is quite off his nut. He was not brought up for that affair, you know. There was talk of shutting him up with the madmen, but I was not willing; they would have done for him in his soup. His story has, all the same, been very bad for us, for he'll never get his pension; one of those gentlemen told me that it would be immoral to give him one." "Is Jeanlin working?" "Yes, those gentlemen found something for him to do at the top. He gets twenty sous. Oh! I don't complain; the bosses have been very good, as they told me themselves. The brat's twenty sous and my thirty, that makes fifty. If there were not six of us we should get enough to eat. Estelle devours now, and the worst is that it will be four or five years before Lénore and Henri are old enough to come to the pit." Étienne could not restrain a movement of pain. "They, too!" Maheude's pale cheeks turned red, and her eyes flamed. But her shoulders sank as if beneath the weight of destiny. "What would you have? They after the others. They have all been done for there; now it's their turn." She was silent; some landers, who were rolling trams, disturbed them. Through the large dusty windows the early sun was entering, drowning the lanterns in grey light; and the engine moved every three minutes, the cables unrolled, the cages continued to swallow down men. "Come along, you loungers, look sharp!" shouted Pierron. "Get in; we shall never have done with it today." Maheude, whom he was looking at, did not stir. She had already allowed three cages to pass, and she said, as though arousing herself and remembering Étienne's first words: "Then you're going away?" "Yes, this morning." "You're right; better be somewhere else if one can. And I'm glad to have seen you, because you can know now, anyhow, that I've nothing on my mind against you. For a moment I could have killed you, after all that slaughter. But one thinks, doesn't one? One sees that when all's reckoned up it's nobody's fault. No, no! it's not your fault; it's the fault of everybody." Now she talked with tranquillity of her dead, of her man, of Zacharie, of Catherine; and tears only came into her eyes when she uttered Alzire's name. She had resumed her calm reasonableness, and judged things sensibly. It would bring no luck to the middle class to have killed so many poor people. Sure enough, they would be punished for it one day, for everything has to be paid for. There would even be no need to interfere; the whole thing would explode by itself. The soldiers would fire on the masters just as they had fired on the men. And in her everlasting resignation, in that hereditary discipline under which she was again bowing, a conviction had established itself, the certainty that injustice could not last longer, and that, if there were no good God left, another would spring up to avenge the wretched. She spoke in a low voice, with suspicious glances round. Then, as Pierron was coming up, she added, aloud: "Well, if you're going, you must take your things from our house. There are still two shirts, three handkerchiefs, and an old pair of trousers." Étienne, with a gesture, refused these few things saved from the dealers. "No, it's not worth while; they can be for the children. At Paris I can arrange for myself." Two more cages had gone down, and Pierron decided to speak straight to Maheude. "I say now, over there, they are waiting for you! Is that little chat nearly done?" But she turned her back. Why should he be so zealous, this man who had sold himself? The descent didn't concern him. His men hated him enough already on his level. And she persisted, with her lamp in her hand, frozen amid the draughts in spite of the mildness of the season. Neither Étienne nor she found anything more to say. They remained facing each other with hearts so full that they would have liked to speak once more. At last she spoke for the sake of speaking. "The Levaque is in the family way. Levaque is still in prison; Bouteloup is taking his place meanwhile." "Ah, yes! Bouteloup." "And, listen! did I tell you? Philoméne has gone away." "What! gone away?" "Yes, gone away with a Pas-de-Calais miner. I was afraid she would leave the two brats on me. But no, she took them with her. Eh? A woman who spits blood and always looks as if she were on the point of death!" She mused for a moment, and then went on in a slow voice: "There's been talk on my account. You remember they said I slept with you. Lord! After my man's death that might very well have happened if I had been younger. But now I'm glad it wasn't so, for we should have regretted it, sure enough." "Yes, we should have regretted it," Étienne repeated, simply. That was all; they spoke no more. A cage was waiting for her; she was being called angrily, threatened with a fine. Then she made up her mind, and pressed his hand. Deeply moved, he still looked at her, so worn and worked out, with her livid face, her discoloured hair escaping from the blue cap, her body as of a good over-fruitful beast, deformed beneath the jacket and trousers. And in this last pressure of the hands he felt again the long, silent pressure of his mates, giving him a rendezvous for the day when they would begin again. He understood perfectly. There was a tranquil faith in the depths of her eyes. It would be soon, and this time it would be the final blow. "What a damned shammer!" exclaimed Pierron. Pushed and hustled, Maheude squeezed into a tram with four others. The signal-cord was drawn to strike for meat, the cage was unhooked and fell into the night, and there was nothing more but the rapid flight of the cable. Then Étienne left the pit. Below, beneath the screening-shed, he noticed a creature seated on the earth, with legs stretched out, in the midst of a thick pile of coal. It was Jeanlin, who was employed there to clean the large coal. He held a block of coal between his thighs, and freed it with a hammer from the fragments of slate. A fine powder drowned him in such a flood of soot that the young man would never have recognized him if the child had not lifted his ape-like face, with the protruding ears and small greenish eyes. He laughed, with a joking air, and, giving a final blow to the block, disappeared in the black dust which arose. Outside, Étienne followed the road for a while, absorbed in his thoughts. All sorts of ideas were buzzing in his head. But he felt the open air, the free sky, and he breathed deeply. The sun was appearing in glory at the horizon, there was a reawakening of gladness over the whole country. A flood of gold rolled from the east to the west on the immense plain. This heat of life was expanding and extending in a tremor of youth, in which vibrated the sighs of the earth, the song of birds, all the murmuring sounds of the waters and the woods. It was good to live, and the old world wanted to live through one more spring. And penetrated by that hope, Étienne slackened his walk, his eyes wandering to right and to left amid the gaiety of the new season. He thought about himself, he felt himself strong, seasoned by his hard experiences at the bottom of the mine. His education was complete, he was going away armed, a rational soldier of the revolution, having declared war against society as he saw it and as he condemned it. The joy of rejoining Pluchart and of being, like Pluchart, a leader who was listened to, inspired him with speeches, and he began to arrange the phrases. He was meditating an enlarged programme; that middle-class refinement, which had raised him above his class, had deepened his hatred of the middle class. He felt the need of glorifying these workers, whose odour of wretchedness was now unpleasant to him; he would show that they alone were great and stainless, the only nobility and the only strength in which humanity could be dipped afresh. He already saw himself in the tribune, triumphing with the people, if the people did not devour him. The loud song of a lark made him look up towards the sky. Little red clouds, the last vapours of the night, were melting in the limpid blue; and the vague faces of Souvarine and Rasseneur came to his memory. Decidedly, all was spoilt when each man tried to get power for himself. Thus that famous International which was to have renewed the world had impotently miscarried, and its formidable army had been cut up and crumbled away from internal dissensions. Was Darwin right, then, and the world only a battlefield, where the strong ate the weak for the sake of the beauty and continuance of the race? This question troubled him, although he settled it like a man who is satisfied with his knowledge. But one idea dissipated his doubts and enchanted him--that of taking up his old explanation of the theory the first time that he should speak. If any class must be devoured, would not the people, still new and full of life, devour the middle class, exhausted by enjoyment? The new society would arise from new blood. And in this expectation of an invasion of barbarians, regenerating the old decayed nations, reappeared his absolute faith in an approaching revolution, the real one--that of the workers--the fire of which would inflame this century's end with that purple of the rising sun which he saw like blood on the sky. He still walked, dreaming, striking his brier stick against the flints on the road, and when he glanced around him he recognized the various places. Just there, at the Fourche-aux-Boeufs, he remembered that he had taken command of the band that morning when the pits were sacked. Today the brutish, deathly, ill-paid work was beginning over again. Beneath the earth, down there at seven hundred metres, it seemed to him he heard low, regular, continuous blows; it was the men he had just seen go down, the black workers, who were hammering in their silent rage. No doubt they were beaten. They had left their dead and their money on the field; but Paris would not forget the volleys fired at the Voreux, and the blood of the empire, too, would flow from that incurable wound. And if the industrial crisis was drawing to an end, if the workshops were opening again one by one, a state of war was no less declared, and peace was henceforth impossible. The colliers had reckoned up their men; they had tried their strength, with their cry for justice arousing the workers all over France. Their defeat, therefore, reassured no one. The Montsou bourgeois, in their victory, felt the vague uneasiness that arises on the morrow of a strike, looking behind them to see if their end did not lie inevitably over there, in spite of all beyond that great silence. They understood that the revolution would be born again unceasingly, perhaps to-morrow, with a general strike--the common understanding of all workers having general funds, and so able to hold out for months, eating their own bread. This time a push only had been given to a ruinous society, but they had heard the rumbling beneath their feet, and they felt more shocks arising, and still more, until the old edifice would be crushed, fallen in and swallowed, going down like the Voreux to the abyss. Étienne took the Joiselle road, to the left. He remembered that he had prevented the band from rushing on to Gaston-Marie. Afar, in the clear sky he saw the steeples of several pits--Mirou to the right, Madeleine and Crévecoeur side by side. Work was going on everywhere; he seemed to be able to catch the blows of the pick at the bottom of the earth, striking now from one end of the plain to the other, one blow, and another blow, and yet more blows, beneath the fields and roads and villages which were laughing in the light, all the obscure labour of the underground prison, so crushed by the enormous mass of the rocks that one had to know it was underneath there to distinguish its great painful sigh. And he now thought that, perhaps, violence would not hasten things. Cutting cables, tearing up rails, breaking lamps, what a useless task it was! It was not worth while for three thousand men to rush about in a devastating band doing that. He vaguely divined that lawful methods might one day be more terrible. His reason was ripening, he had sown the wild oats of his spite. Yes, Maheude had well said, with her good sense, that that would be the great blow--to organize quietly, to know one another, to unite in associations when the laws would permit it; then, on the morning when they felt their strength, and millions of workers would be face to face with a few thousand idlers, to take the power into their own hands and become the masters. Ah! what a reawakening of truth and justice! The sated and crouching god would at once get his death-blow, the monstrous idol hidden in the depths of his sanctuary, in that unknown distance where poor wretches fed him with their flesh without ever having seen him. But Étienne, leaving the Vandame road, now came on to the paved street. On the right he saw Montsou, which was lost in the valley. Opposite were the ruins of the Voreux, the accursed hole where three pumps worked unceasingly. Then there were the other pits at the horizon, the Victoire, Saint-Thomas, Feutry-Cantel; while, towards the north, the tall chimneys of the blast furnaces, and the batteries of coke ovens, were smoking in the transparent morning air. If he was not to lose the eight o'clock train he must hasten, for he had still six kilometres before him. And beneath his feet, the deep blows, those obstinate blows of the pick, continued. The mates were all there; he heard them following him at every stride. Was not that Maheude beneath the beetroots, with bent back and hoarse respiration accompanying the rumble of the ventilator? To left, to right, farther on, he seemed to recognize others beneath the wheatfields, the hedges, the young trees. Now the April sun, in the open sky, was shining in his glory, and warming the pregnant earth. From its fertile flanks life was leaping out, buds were bursting into green leaves, and the fields were quivering with the growth of the grass. On every side seeds were swelling, stretching out, cracking the plain, filled by the need of heat and light. An overflow of sap was mixed with whispering voices, the sound of the germs expanding in a great kiss. Again and again, more and more distinctly, as though they were approaching the soil, the mates were hammering. In the fiery rays of the sun on this youthful morning the country seemed full of that sound. Men were springing forth, a black avenging army, germinating slowly in the furrows, growing towards the harvests of the next century, and their germination would soon overturn the earth. 
4240	----	Further corrections by Menno de Leeuw. Women in Love by D. H. Lawrence CONTENTS CHAPTER I. Sisters CHAPTER II. Shortlands CHAPTER III. Class-room CHAPTER IV. Diver CHAPTER V. In the Train CHAPTER VI. Crème de Menthe CHAPTER VII. Fetish CHAPTER VIII. Breadalby CHAPTER IX. Coal-dust CHAPTER X. Sketch-book CHAPTER XI. An Island CHAPTER XII. Carpeting CHAPTER XIII. Mino CHAPTER XIV. Water-party CHAPTER XV. Sunday Evening CHAPTER XVI. Man to Man CHAPTER XVII. The Industrial Magnate CHAPTER XVIII. Rabbit CHAPTER XIX. Moony CHAPTER XX. Gladiatorial CHAPTER XXI. Threshold CHAPTER XXII. Woman to Woman CHAPTER XXIII. Excurse CHAPTER XXIV. Death and Love CHAPTER XXV. Marriage or Not CHAPTER XXVI. A Chair CHAPTER XXVII. Flitting CHAPTER XXVIII. Gudrun in the Pompadour CHAPTER XXIX. Continental CHAPTER XXX. Snowed Up CHAPTER XXXI. Exeunt CHAPTER I. SISTERS Ursula and Gudrun Brangwen sat one morning in the window-bay of their father�s house in Beldover, working and talking. Ursula was stitching a piece of brightly-coloured embroidery, and Gudrun was drawing upon a board which she held on her knee. They were mostly silent, talking as their thoughts strayed through their minds. �Ursula,� said Gudrun, �don�t you _really want_ to get married?� Ursula laid her embroidery in her lap and looked up. Her face was calm and considerate. �I don�t know,� she replied. �It depends how you mean.� Gudrun was slightly taken aback. She watched her sister for some moments. �Well,� she said, ironically, �it usually means one thing! But don�t you think anyhow, you�d be�� she darkened slightly��in a better position than you are in now.� A shadow came over Ursula�s face. �I might,� she said. �But I�m not sure.� Again Gudrun paused, slightly irritated. She wanted to be quite definite. �You don�t think one needs the _experience_ of having been married?� she asked. �Do you think it need _be_ an experience?� replied Ursula. �Bound to be, in some way or other,� said Gudrun, coolly. �Possibly undesirable, but bound to be an experience of some sort.� �Not really,� said Ursula. �More likely to be the end of experience.� Gudrun sat very still, to attend to this. �Of course,� she said, �there�s _that_ to consider.� This brought the conversation to a close. Gudrun, almost angrily, took up her rubber and began to rub out part of her drawing. Ursula stitched absorbedly. �You wouldn�t consider a good offer?� asked Gudrun. �I think I�ve rejected several,� said Ursula. �_Really!_� Gudrun flushed dark��But anything really worth while? Have you _really?_� �A thousand a year, and an awfully nice man. I liked him awfully,� said Ursula. �Really! But weren�t you fearfully tempted?� �In the abstract but not in the concrete,� said Ursula. �When it comes to the point, one isn�t even tempted�oh, if I were tempted, I�d marry like a shot. I�m only tempted _not_ to.� The faces of both sisters suddenly lit up with amusement. �Isn�t it an amazing thing,� cried Gudrun, �how strong the temptation is, not to!� They both laughed, looking at each other. In their hearts they were frightened. There was a long pause, whilst Ursula stitched and Gudrun went on with her sketch. The sisters were women, Ursula twenty-six, and Gudrun twenty-five. But both had the remote, virgin look of modern girls, sisters of Artemis rather than of Hebe. Gudrun was very beautiful, passive, soft-skinned, soft-limbed. She wore a dress of dark-blue silky stuff, with ruches of blue and green linen lace in the neck and sleeves; and she had emerald-green stockings. Her look of confidence and diffidence contrasted with Ursula�s sensitive expectancy. The provincial people, intimidated by Gudrun�s perfect _sang-froid_ and exclusive bareness of manner, said of her: �She is a smart woman.� She had just come back from London, where she had spent several years, working at an art-school, as a student, and living a studio life. �I was hoping now for a man to come along,� Gudrun said, suddenly catching her underlip between her teeth, and making a strange grimace, half sly smiling, half anguish. Ursula was afraid. �So you have come home, expecting him here?� she laughed. �Oh my dear,� cried Gudrun, strident, �I wouldn�t go out of my way to look for him. But if there did happen to come along a highly attractive individual of sufficient means�well�� she tailed off ironically. Then she looked searchingly at Ursula, as if to probe her. �Don�t you find yourself getting bored?� she asked of her sister. �Don�t you find, that things fail to materialize? _Nothing materializes!_ Everything withers in the bud.� �What withers in the bud?� asked Ursula. �Oh, everything�oneself�things in general.� There was a pause, whilst each sister vaguely considered her fate. �It does frighten one,� said Ursula, and again there was a pause. �But do you hope to get anywhere by just marrying?� �It seems to be the inevitable next step,� said Gudrun. Ursula pondered this, with a little bitterness. She was a class mistress herself, in Willey Green Grammar School, as she had been for some years. �I know,� she said, �it seems like that when one thinks in the abstract. But really imagine it: imagine any man one knows, imagine him coming home to one every evening, and saying �Hello,� and giving one a kiss�� There was a blank pause. �Yes,� said Gudrun, in a narrowed voice. �It�s just impossible. The man makes it impossible.� �Of course there�s children�� said Ursula doubtfully. Gudrun�s face hardened. �Do you _really_ want children, Ursula?� she asked coldly. A dazzled, baffled look came on Ursula�s face. �One feels it is still beyond one,� she said. �_Do_ you feel like that?� asked Gudrun. �I get no feeling whatever from the thought of bearing children.� Gudrun looked at Ursula with a masklike, expressionless face. Ursula knitted her brows. �Perhaps it isn�t genuine,� she faltered. �Perhaps one doesn�t really want them, in one�s soul�only superficially.� A hardness came over Gudrun�s face. She did not want to be too definite. �When one thinks of other people�s children�� said Ursula. Again Gudrun looked at her sister, almost hostile. �Exactly,� she said, to close the conversation. The two sisters worked on in silence, Ursula having always that strange brightness of an essential flame that is caught, meshed, contravened. She lived a good deal by herself, to herself, working, passing on from day to day, and always thinking, trying to lay hold on life, to grasp it in her own understanding. Her active living was suspended, but underneath, in the darkness, something was coming to pass. If only she could break through the last integuments! She seemed to try and put her hands out, like an infant in the womb, and she could not, not yet. Still she had a strange prescience, an intimation of something yet to come. She laid down her work and looked at her sister. She thought Gudrun so _charming_, so infinitely charming, in her softness and her fine, exquisite richness of texture and delicacy of line. There was a certain playfulness about her too, such a piquancy or ironic suggestion, such an untouched reserve. Ursula admired her with all her soul. �Why did you come home, Prune?� she asked. Gudrun knew she was being admired. She sat back from her drawing and looked at Ursula, from under her finely-curved lashes. �Why did I come back, Ursula?� she repeated. �I have asked myself a thousand times.� �And don�t you know?� �Yes, I think I do. I think my coming back home was just _reculer pour mieux sauter_.� And she looked with a long, slow look of knowledge at Ursula. �I know!� cried Ursula, looking slightly dazzled and falsified, and as if she did _not_ know. �But where can one jump to?� �Oh, it doesn�t matter,� said Gudrun, somewhat superbly. �If one jumps over the edge, one is bound to land somewhere.� �But isn�t it very risky?� asked Ursula. A slow mocking smile dawned on Gudrun�s face. �Ah!� she said laughing. �What is it all but words!� And so again she closed the conversation. But Ursula was still brooding. �And how do you find home, now you have come back to it?� she asked. Gudrun paused for some moments, coldly, before answering. Then, in a cold truthful voice, she said: �I find myself completely out of it.� �And father?� Gudrun looked at Ursula, almost with resentment, as if brought to bay. �I haven�t thought about him: I�ve refrained,� she said coldly. �Yes,� wavered Ursula; and the conversation was really at an end. The sisters found themselves confronted by a void, a terrifying chasm, as if they had looked over the edge. They worked on in silence for some time, Gudrun�s cheek was flushed with repressed emotion. She resented its having been called into being. �Shall we go out and look at that wedding?� she asked at length, in a voice that was too casual. �Yes!� cried Ursula, too eagerly, throwing aside her sewing and leaping up, as if to escape something, thus betraying the tension of the situation and causing a friction of dislike to go over Gudrun�s nerves. As she went upstairs, Ursula was aware of the house, of her home round about her. And she loathed it, the sordid, too-familiar place! She was afraid at the depth of her feeling against the home, the milieu, the whole atmosphere and condition of this obsolete life. Her feeling frightened her. The two girls were soon walking swiftly down the main road of Beldover, a wide street, part shops, part dwelling-houses, utterly formless and sordid, without poverty. Gudrun, new from her life in Chelsea and Sussex, shrank cruelly from this amorphous ugliness of a small colliery town in the Midlands. Yet forward she went, through the whole sordid gamut of pettiness, the long amorphous, gritty street. She was exposed to every stare, she passed on through a stretch of torment. It was strange that she should have chosen to come back and test the full effect of this shapeless, barren ugliness upon herself. Why had she wanted to submit herself to it, did she still want to submit herself to it, the insufferable torture of these ugly, meaningless people, this defaced countryside? She felt like a beetle toiling in the dust. She was filled with repulsion. They turned off the main road, past a black patch of common-garden, where sooty cabbage stumps stood shameless. No one thought to be ashamed. No one was ashamed of it all. �It is like a country in an underworld,� said Gudrun. �The colliers bring it above-ground with them, shovel it up. Ursula, it�s marvellous, it�s really marvellous�it�s really wonderful, another world. The people are all ghouls, and everything is ghostly. Everything is a ghoulish replica of the real world, a replica, a ghoul, all soiled, everything sordid. It�s like being mad, Ursula.� The sisters were crossing a black path through a dark, soiled field. On the left was a large landscape, a valley with collieries, and opposite hills with cornfields and woods, all blackened with distance, as if seen through a veil of crape. White and black smoke rose up in steady columns, magic within the dark air. Near at hand came the long rows of dwellings, approaching curved up the hill-slope, in straight lines along the brow of the hill. They were of darkened red brick, brittle, with dark slate roofs. The path on which the sisters walked was black, trodden-in by the feet of the recurrent colliers, and bounded from the field by iron fences; the stile that led again into the road was rubbed shiny by the moleskins of the passing miners. Now the two girls were going between some rows of dwellings, of the poorer sort. Women, their arms folded over their coarse aprons, standing gossiping at the end of their block, stared after the Brangwen sisters with that long, unwearying stare of aborigines; children called out names. Gudrun went on her way half dazed. If this were human life, if these were human beings, living in a complete world, then what was her own world, outside? She was aware of her grass-green stockings, her large grass-green velour hat, her full soft coat, of a strong blue colour. And she felt as if she were treading in the air, quite unstable, her heart was contracted, as if at any minute she might be precipitated to the ground. She was afraid. She clung to Ursula, who, through long usage was inured to this violation of a dark, uncreated, hostile world. But all the time her heart was crying, as if in the midst of some ordeal: �I want to go back, I want to go away, I want not to know it, not to know that this exists.� Yet she must go forward. Ursula could feel her suffering. �You hate this, don�t you?� she asked. �It bewilders me,� stammered Gudrun. �You won�t stay long,� replied Ursula. And Gudrun went along, grasping at release. They drew away from the colliery region, over the curve of the hill, into the purer country of the other side, towards Willey Green. Still the faint glamour of blackness persisted over the fields and the wooded hills, and seemed darkly to gleam in the air. It was a spring day, chill, with snatches of sunshine. Yellow celandines showed out from the hedge-bottoms, and in the cottage gardens of Willey Green, currant-bushes were breaking into leaf, and little flowers were coming white on the grey alyssum that hung over the stone walls. Turning, they passed down the high-road, that went between high banks towards the church. There, in the lowest bend of the road, low under the trees, stood a little group of expectant people, waiting to see the wedding. The daughter of the chief mine-owner of the district, Thomas Crich, was getting married to a naval officer. �Let us go back,� said Gudrun, swerving away. �There are all those people.� And she hung wavering in the road. �Never mind them,� said Ursula, �they�re all right. They all know me, they don�t matter.� �But must we go through them?� asked Gudrun. �They�re quite all right, really,� said Ursula, going forward. And together the two sisters approached the group of uneasy, watchful common people. They were chiefly women, colliers� wives of the more shiftless sort. They had watchful, underworld faces. The two sisters held themselves tense, and went straight towards the gate. The women made way for them, but barely sufficient, as if grudging to yield ground. The sisters passed in silence through the stone gateway and up the steps, on the red carpet, a policeman estimating their progress. �What price the stockings!� said a voice at the back of Gudrun. A sudden fierce anger swept over the girl, violent and murderous. She would have liked them all annihilated, cleared away, so that the world was left clear for her. How she hated walking up the churchyard path, along the red carpet, continuing in motion, in their sight. �I won�t go into the church,� she said suddenly, with such final decision that Ursula immediately halted, turned round, and branched off up a small side path which led to the little private gate of the Grammar School, whose grounds adjoined those of the church. Just inside the gate of the school shrubbery, outside the churchyard, Ursula sat down for a moment on the low stone wall under the laurel bushes, to rest. Behind her, the large red building of the school rose up peacefully, the windows all open for the holiday. Over the shrubs, before her, were the pale roofs and tower of the old church. The sisters were hidden by the foliage. Gudrun sat down in silence. Her mouth was shut close, her face averted. She was regretting bitterly that she had ever come back. Ursula looked at her, and thought how amazingly beautiful she was, flushed with discomfiture. But she caused a constraint over Ursula�s nature, a certain weariness. Ursula wished to be alone, freed from the tightness, the enclosure of Gudrun�s presence. �Are we going to stay here?� asked Gudrun. �I was only resting a minute,� said Ursula, getting up as if rebuked. �We will stand in the corner by the fives-court, we shall see everything from there.� For the moment, the sunshine fell brightly into the churchyard, there was a vague scent of sap and of spring, perhaps of violets from off the graves. Some white daisies were out, bright as angels. In the air, the unfolding leaves of a copper-beech were blood-red. Punctually at eleven o�clock, the carriages began to arrive. There was a stir in the crowd at the gate, a concentration as a carriage drove up, wedding guests were mounting up the steps and passing along the red carpet to the church. They were all gay and excited because the sun was shining. Gudrun watched them closely, with objective curiosity. She saw each one as a complete figure, like a character in a book, or a subject in a picture, or a marionette in a theatre, a finished creation. She loved to recognise their various characteristics, to place them in their true light, give them their own surroundings, settle them for ever as they passed before her along the path to the church. She knew them, they were finished, sealed and stamped and finished with, for her. There was none that had anything unknown, unresolved, until the Criches themselves began to appear. Then her interest was piqued. Here was something not quite so preconcluded. There came the mother, Mrs Crich, with her eldest son Gerald. She was a queer unkempt figure, in spite of the attempts that had obviously been made to bring her into line for the day. Her face was pale, yellowish, with a clear, transparent skin, she leaned forward rather, her features were strongly marked, handsome, with a tense, unseeing, predative look. Her colourless hair was untidy, wisps floating down on to her sac coat of dark blue silk, from under her blue silk hat. She looked like a woman with a monomania, furtive almost, but heavily proud. Her son was of a fair, sun-tanned type, rather above middle height, well-made, and almost exaggeratedly well-dressed. But about him also was the strange, guarded look, the unconscious glisten, as if he did not belong to the same creation as the people about him. Gudrun lighted on him at once. There was something northern about him that magnetised her. In his clear northern flesh and his fair hair was a glisten like sunshine refracted through crystals of ice. And he looked so new, unbroached, pure as an arctic thing. Perhaps he was thirty years old, perhaps more. His gleaming beauty, maleness, like a young, good-humoured, smiling wolf, did not blind her to the significant, sinister stillness in his bearing, the lurking danger of his unsubdued temper. �His totem is the wolf,� she repeated to herself. �His mother is an old, unbroken wolf.� And then she experienced a keen paroxyism, a transport, as if she had made some incredible discovery, known to nobody else on earth. A strange transport took possession of her, all her veins were in a paroxysm of violent sensation. �Good God!� she exclaimed to herself, �what is this?� And then, a moment after, she was saying assuredly, �I shall know more of that man.� She was tortured with desire to see him again, a nostalgia, a necessity to see him again, to make sure it was not all a mistake, that she was not deluding herself, that she really felt this strange and overwhelming sensation on his account, this knowledge of him in her essence, this powerful apprehension of him. �Am I _really_ singled out for him in some way, is there really some pale gold, arctic light that envelopes only us two?� she asked herself. And she could not believe it, she remained in a muse, scarcely conscious of what was going on around. The bridesmaids were here, and yet the bridegroom had not come. Ursula wondered if something was amiss, and if the wedding would yet all go wrong. She felt troubled, as if it rested upon her. The chief bridesmaids had arrived. Ursula watched them come up the steps. One of them she knew, a tall, slow, reluctant woman with a weight of fair hair and a pale, long face. This was Hermione Roddice, a friend of the Criches. Now she came along, with her head held up, balancing an enormous flat hat of pale yellow velvet, on which were streaks of ostrich feathers, natural and grey. She drifted forward as if scarcely conscious, her long blanched face lifted up, not to see the world. She was rich. She wore a dress of silky, frail velvet, of pale yellow colour, and she carried a lot of small rose-coloured cyclamens. Her shoes and stockings were of brownish grey, like the feathers on her hat, her hair was heavy, she drifted along with a peculiar fixity of the hips, a strange unwilling motion. She was impressive, in her lovely pale-yellow and brownish-rose, yet macabre, something repulsive. People were silent when she passed, impressed, roused, wanting to jeer, yet for some reason silenced. Her long, pale face, that she carried lifted up, somewhat in the Rossetti fashion, seemed almost drugged, as if a strange mass of thoughts coiled in the darkness within her, and she was never allowed to escape. Ursula watched her with fascination. She knew her a little. She was the most remarkable woman in the Midlands. Her father was a Derbyshire Baronet of the old school, she was a woman of the new school, full of intellectuality, and heavy, nerve-worn with consciousness. She was passionately interested in reform, her soul was given up to the public cause. But she was a man�s woman, it was the manly world that held her. She had various intimacies of mind and soul with various men of capacity. Ursula knew, among these men, only Rupert Birkin, who was one of the school-inspectors of the county. But Gudrun had met others, in London. Moving with her artist friends in different kinds of society, Gudrun had already come to know a good many people of repute and standing. She had met Hermione twice, but they did not take to each other. It would be queer to meet again down here in the Midlands, where their social standing was so diverse, after they had known each other on terms of equality in the houses of sundry acquaintances in town. For Gudrun had been a social success, and had her friends among the slack aristocracy that keeps touch with the arts. Hermione knew herself to be well-dressed; she knew herself to be the social equal, if not far the superior, of anyone she was likely to meet in Willey Green. She knew she was accepted in the world of culture and of intellect. She was a _Kulturträger_, a medium for the culture of ideas. With all that was highest, whether in society or in thought or in public action, or even in art, she was at one, she moved among the foremost, at home with them. No one could put her down, no one could make mock of her, because she stood among the first, and those that were against her were below her, either in rank, or in wealth, or in high association of thought and progress and understanding. So, she was invulnerable. All her life, she had sought to make herself invulnerable, unassailable, beyond reach of the world�s judgment. And yet her soul was tortured, exposed. Even walking up the path to the church, confident as she was that in every respect she stood beyond all vulgar judgment, knowing perfectly that her appearance was complete and perfect, according to the first standards, yet she suffered a torture, under her confidence and her pride, feeling herself exposed to wounds and to mockery and to despite. She always felt vulnerable, vulnerable, there was always a secret chink in her armour. She did not know herself what it was. It was a lack of robust self, she had no natural sufficiency, there was a terrible void, a lack, a deficiency of being within her. And she wanted someone to close up this deficiency, to close it up for ever. She craved for Rupert Birkin. When he was there, she felt complete, she was sufficient, whole. For the rest of time she was established on the sand, built over a chasm, and, in spite of all her vanity and securities, any common maid-servant of positive, robust temper could fling her down this bottomless pit of insufficiency, by the slightest movement of jeering or contempt. And all the while the pensive, tortured woman piled up her own defences of æsthetic knowledge, and culture, and world-visions, and disinterestedness. Yet she could never stop up the terrible gap of insufficiency. If only Birkin would form a close and abiding connection with her, she would be safe during this fretful voyage of life. He could make her sound and triumphant, triumphant over the very angels of heaven. If only he would do it! But she was tortured with fear, with misgiving. She made herself beautiful, she strove so hard to come to that degree of beauty and advantage, when he should be convinced. But always there was a deficiency. He was perverse too. He fought her off, he always fought her off. The more she strove to bring him to her, the more he battled her back. And they had been lovers now, for years. Oh, it was so wearying, so aching; she was so tired. But still she believed in herself. She knew he was trying to leave her. She knew he was trying to break away from her finally, to be free. But still she believed in her strength to keep him, she believed in her own higher knowledge. His own knowledge was high, she was the central touchstone of truth. She only needed his conjunction with her. And this, this conjunction with her, which was his highest fulfilment also, with the perverseness of a wilful child he wanted to deny. With the wilfulness of an obstinate child, he wanted to break the holy connection that was between them. He would be at this wedding; he was to be groom�s man. He would be in the church, waiting. He would know when she came. She shuddered with nervous apprehension and desire as she went through the church-door. He would be there, surely he would see how beautiful her dress was, surely he would see how she had made herself beautiful for him. He would understand, he would be able to see how she was made for him, the first, how she was, for him, the highest. Surely at last he would be able to accept his highest fate, he would not deny her. In a little convulsion of too-tired yearning, she entered the church and looked slowly along her cheeks for him, her slender body convulsed with agitation. As best man, he would be standing beside the altar. She looked slowly, deferring in her certainty. And then, he was not there. A terrible storm came over her, as if she were drowning. She was possessed by a devastating hopelessness. And she approached mechanically to the altar. Never had she known such a pang of utter and final hopelessness. It was beyond death, so utterly null, desert. The bridegroom and the groom�s man had not yet come. There was a growing consternation outside. Ursula felt almost responsible. She could not bear it that the bride should arrive, and no groom. The wedding must not be a fiasco, it must not. But here was the bride�s carriage, adorned with ribbons and cockades. Gaily the grey horses curvetted to their destination at the church-gate, a laughter in the whole movement. Here was the quick of all laughter and pleasure. The door of the carriage was thrown open, to let out the very blossom of the day. The people on the roadway murmured faintly with the discontented murmuring of a crowd. The father stepped out first into the air of the morning, like a shadow. He was a tall, thin, careworn man, with a thin black beard that was touched with grey. He waited at the door of the carriage patiently, self-obliterated. In the opening of the doorway was a shower of fine foliage and flowers, a whiteness of satin and lace, and a sound of a gay voice saying: �How do I get out?� A ripple of satisfaction ran through the expectant people. They pressed near to receive her, looking with zest at the stooping blond head with its flower buds, and at the delicate, white, tentative foot that was reaching down to the step of the carriage. There was a sudden foaming rush, and the bride like a sudden surf-rush, floating all white beside her father in the morning shadow of trees, her veil flowing with laughter. �That�s done it!� she said. She put her hand on the arm of her care-worn, sallow father, and frothing her light draperies, proceeded over the eternal red carpet. Her father, mute and yellowish, his black beard making him look more careworn, mounted the steps stiffly, as if his spirit were absent; but the laughing mist of the bride went along with him undiminished. And no bridegroom had arrived! It was intolerable for her. Ursula, her heart strained with anxiety, was watching the hill beyond; the white, descending road, that should give sight of him. There was a carriage. It was running. It had just come into sight. Yes, it was he. Ursula turned towards the bride and the people, and, from her place of vantage, gave an inarticulate cry. She wanted to warn them that he was coming. But her cry was inarticulate and inaudible, and she flushed deeply, between her desire and her wincing confusion. The carriage rattled down the hill, and drew near. There was a shout from the people. The bride, who had just reached the top of the steps, turned round gaily to see what was the commotion. She saw a confusion among the people, a cab pulling up, and her lover dropping out of the carriage, and dodging among the horses and into the crowd. �Tibs! Tibs!� she cried in her sudden, mocking excitement, standing high on the path in the sunlight and waving her bouquet. He, dodging with his hat in his hand, had not heard. �Tibs!� she cried again, looking down to him. He glanced up, unaware, and saw the bride and her father standing on the path above him. A queer, startled look went over his face. He hesitated for a moment. Then he gathered himself together for a leap, to overtake her. �Ah-h-h!� came her strange, intaken cry, as, on the reflex, she started, turned and fled, scudding with an unthinkable swift beating of her white feet and fraying of her white garments, towards the church. Like a hound the young man was after her, leaping the steps and swinging past her father, his supple haunches working like those of a hound that bears down on the quarry. �Ay, after her!� cried the vulgar women below, carried suddenly into the sport. She, her flowers shaken from her like froth, was steadying herself to turn the angle of the church. She glanced behind, and with a wild cry of laughter and challenge, veered, poised, and was gone beyond the grey stone buttress. In another instant the bridegroom, bent forward as he ran, had caught the angle of the silent stone with his hand, and had swung himself out of sight, his supple, strong loins vanishing in pursuit. Instantly cries and exclamations of excitement burst from the crowd at the gate. And then Ursula noticed again the dark, rather stooping figure of Mr Crich, waiting suspended on the path, watching with expressionless face the flight to the church. It was over, and he turned round to look behind him, at the figure of Rupert Birkin, who at once came forward and joined him. �We�ll bring up the rear,� said Birkin, a faint smile on his face. �Ay!� replied the father laconically. And the two men turned together up the path. Birkin was as thin as Mr Crich, pale and ill-looking. His figure was narrow but nicely made. He went with a slight trail of one foot, which came only from self-consciousness. Although he was dressed correctly for his part, yet there was an innate incongruity which caused a slight ridiculousness in his appearance. His nature was clever and separate, he did not fit at all in the conventional occasion. Yet he subordinated himself to the common idea, travestied himself. He affected to be quite ordinary, perfectly and marvellously commonplace. And he did it so well, taking the tone of his surroundings, adjusting himself quickly to his interlocutor and his circumstance, that he achieved a verisimilitude of ordinary commonplaceness that usually propitiated his onlookers for the moment, disarmed them from attacking his singleness. Now he spoke quite easily and pleasantly to Mr Crich, as they walked along the path; he played with situations like a man on a tight-rope: but always on a tight-rope, pretending nothing but ease. �I�m sorry we are so late,� he was saying. �We couldn�t find a button-hook, so it took us a long time to button our boots. But you were to the moment.� �We are usually to time,� said Mr Crich. �And I�m always late,� said Birkin. �But today I was _really_ punctual, only accidentally not so. I�m sorry.� The two men were gone, there was nothing more to see, for the time. Ursula was left thinking about Birkin. He piqued her, attracted her, and annoyed her. She wanted to know him more. She had spoken with him once or twice, but only in his official capacity as inspector. She thought he seemed to acknowledge some kinship between her and him, a natural, tacit understanding, a using of the same language. But there had been no time for the understanding to develop. And something kept her from him, as well as attracted her to him. There was a certain hostility, a hidden ultimate reserve in him, cold and inaccessible. Yet she wanted to know him. �What do you think of Rupert Birkin?� she asked, a little reluctantly, of Gudrun. She did not want to discuss him. �What do I think of Rupert Birkin?� repeated Gudrun. �I think he�s attractive�decidedly attractive. What I can�t stand about him is his way with other people�his way of treating any little fool as if she were his greatest consideration. One feels so awfully sold, oneself.� �Why does he do it?� said Ursula. �Because he has no real critical faculty�of people, at all events,� said Gudrun. �I tell you, he treats any little fool as he treats me or you�and it�s such an insult.� �Oh, it is,� said Ursula. �One must discriminate.� �One _must_ discriminate,� repeated Gudrun. �But he�s a wonderful chap, in other respects�a marvellous personality. But you can�t trust him.� �Yes,� said Ursula vaguely. She was always forced to assent to Gudrun�s pronouncements, even when she was not in accord altogether. The sisters sat silent, waiting for the wedding party to come out. Gudrun was impatient of talk. She wanted to think about Gerald Crich. She wanted to see if the strong feeling she had got from him was real. She wanted to have herself ready. Inside the church, the wedding was going on. Hermione Roddice was thinking only of Birkin. He stood near her. She seemed to gravitate physically towards him. She wanted to stand touching him. She could hardly be sure he was near her, if she did not touch him. Yet she stood subjected through the wedding service. She had suffered so bitterly when he did not come, that still she was dazed. Still she was gnawed as by a neuralgia, tormented by his potential absence from her. She had awaited him in a faint delirium of nervous torture. As she stood bearing herself pensively, the rapt look on her face, that seemed spiritual, like the angels, but which came from torture, gave her a certain poignancy that tore his heart with pity. He saw her bowed head, her rapt face, the face of an almost demoniacal ecstatic. Feeling him looking, she lifted her face and sought his eyes, her own beautiful grey eyes flaring him a great signal. But he avoided her look, she sank her head in torment and shame, the gnawing at her heart going on. And he too was tortured with shame, and ultimate dislike, and with acute pity for her, because he did not want to meet her eyes, he did not want to receive her flare of recognition. The bride and bridegroom were married, the party went into the vestry. Hermione crowded involuntarily up against Birkin, to touch him. And he endured it. Outside, Gudrun and Ursula listened for their father�s playing on the organ. He would enjoy playing a wedding march. Now the married pair were coming! The bells were ringing, making the air shake. Ursula wondered if the trees and the flowers could feel the vibration, and what they thought of it, this strange motion in the air. The bride was quite demure on the arm of the bridegroom, who stared up into the sky before him, shutting and opening his eyes unconsciously, as if he were neither here nor there. He looked rather comical, blinking and trying to be in the scene, when emotionally he was violated by his exposure to a crowd. He looked a typical naval officer, manly, and up to his duty. Birkin came with Hermione. She had a rapt, triumphant look, like the fallen angels restored, yet still subtly demoniacal, now she held Birkin by the arm. And he was expressionless, neutralised, possessed by her as if it were his fate, without question. Gerald Crich came, fair, good-looking, healthy, with a great reserve of energy. He was erect and complete, there was a strange stealth glistening through his amiable, almost happy appearance. Gudrun rose sharply and went away. She could not bear it. She wanted to be alone, to know this strange, sharp inoculation that had changed the whole temper of her blood. CHAPTER II. SHORTLANDS The Brangwens went home to Beldover, the wedding-party gathered at Shortlands, the Criches� home. It was a long, low old house, a sort of manor farm, that spread along the top of a slope just beyond the narrow little lake of Willey Water. Shortlands looked across a sloping meadow that might be a park, because of the large, solitary trees that stood here and there, across the water of the narrow lake, at the wooded hill that successfully hid the colliery valley beyond, but did not quite hide the rising smoke. Nevertheless, the scene was rural and picturesque, very peaceful, and the house had a charm of its own. It was crowded now with the family and the wedding guests. The father, who was not well, withdrew to rest. Gerald was host. He stood in the homely entrance hall, friendly and easy, attending to the men. He seemed to take pleasure in his social functions, he smiled, and was abundant in hospitality. The women wandered about in a little confusion, chased hither and thither by the three married daughters of the house. All the while there could be heard the characteristic, imperious voice of one Crich woman or another calling �Helen, come here a minute,� �Marjory, I want you�here.� �Oh, I say, Mrs Witham�.� There was a great rustling of skirts, swift glimpses of smartly-dressed women, a child danced through the hall and back again, a maidservant came and went hurriedly. Meanwhile the men stood in calm little groups, chatting, smoking, pretending to pay no heed to the rustling animation of the women�s world. But they could not really talk, because of the glassy ravel of women�s excited, cold laughter and running voices. They waited, uneasy, suspended, rather bored. But Gerald remained as if genial and happy, unaware that he was waiting or unoccupied, knowing himself the very pivot of the occasion. Suddenly Mrs Crich came noiselessly into the room, peering about with her strong, clear face. She was still wearing her hat, and her sac coat of blue silk. �What is it, mother?� said Gerald. �Nothing, nothing!� she answered vaguely. And she went straight towards Birkin, who was talking to a Crich brother-in-law. �How do you do, Mr Birkin,� she said, in her low voice, that seemed to take no count of her guests. She held out her hand to him. �Oh Mrs Crich,� replied Birkin, in his readily-changing voice, �I couldn�t come to you before.� �I don�t know half the people here,� she said, in her low voice. Her son-in-law moved uneasily away. �And you don�t like strangers?� laughed Birkin. �I myself can never see why one should take account of people, just because they happen to be in the room with one: why _should_ I know they are there?� �Why indeed, why indeed!� said Mrs Crich, in her low, tense voice. �Except that they _are_ there. _I_ don�t know people whom I find in the house. The children introduce them to me��Mother, this is Mr So-and-so.� I am no further. What has Mr So-and-so to do with his own name?�and what have I to do with either him or his name?� She looked up at Birkin. She startled him. He was flattered too that she came to talk to him, for she took hardly any notice of anybody. He looked down at her tense clear face, with its heavy features, but he was afraid to look into her heavy-seeing blue eyes. He noticed instead how her hair looped in slack, slovenly strands over her rather beautiful ears, which were not quite clean. Neither was her neck perfectly clean. Even in that he seemed to belong to her, rather than to the rest of the company; though, he thought to himself, he was always well washed, at any rate at the neck and ears. He smiled faintly, thinking these things. Yet he was tense, feeling that he and the elderly, estranged woman were conferring together like traitors, like enemies within the camp of the other people. He resembled a deer, that throws one ear back upon the trail behind, and one ear forward, to know what is ahead. �People don�t really matter,� he said, rather unwilling to continue. The mother looked up at him with sudden, dark interrogation, as if doubting his sincerity. �How do you mean, _matter?_� she asked sharply. �Not many people are anything at all,� he answered, forced to go deeper than he wanted to. �They jingle and giggle. It would be much better if they were just wiped out. Essentially, they don�t exist, they aren�t there.� She watched him steadily while he spoke. �But we didn�t imagine them,� she said sharply. �There�s nothing to imagine, that�s why they don�t exist.� �Well,� she said, �I would hardly go as far as that. There they are, whether they exist or no. It doesn�t rest with me to decide on their existence. I only know that I can�t be expected to take count of them all. You can�t expect me to know them, just because they happen to be there. As far as _I_ go they might as well not be there.� �Exactly,� he replied. �Mightn�t they?� she asked again. �Just as well,� he repeated. And there was a little pause. �Except that they _are_ there, and that�s a nuisance,� she said. �There are my sons-in-law,� she went on, in a sort of monologue. �Now Laura�s got married, there�s another. And I really don�t know John from James yet. They come up to me and call me mother. I know what they will say��how are you, mother?� I ought to say, �I am not your mother, in any sense.� But what is the use? There they are. I have had children of my own. I suppose I know them from another woman�s children.� �One would suppose so,� he said. She looked at him, somewhat surprised, forgetting perhaps that she was talking to him. And she lost her thread. She looked round the room, vaguely. Birkin could not guess what she was looking for, nor what she was thinking. Evidently she noticed her sons. �Are my children all there?� she asked him abruptly. He laughed, startled, afraid perhaps. �I scarcely know them, except Gerald,� he replied. �Gerald!� she exclaimed. �He�s the most wanting of them all. You�d never think it, to look at him now, would you?� �No,� said Birkin. The mother looked across at her eldest son, stared at him heavily for some time. �Ay,� she said, in an incomprehensible monosyllable, that sounded profoundly cynical. Birkin felt afraid, as if he dared not realise. And Mrs Crich moved away, forgetting him. But she returned on her traces. �I should like him to have a friend,� she said. �He has never had a friend.� Birkin looked down into her eyes, which were blue, and watching heavily. He could not understand them. �Am I my brother�s keeper?� he said to himself, almost flippantly. Then he remembered, with a slight shock, that that was Cain�s cry. And Gerald was Cain, if anybody. Not that he was Cain, either, although he had slain his brother. There was such a thing as pure accident, and the consequences did not attach to one, even though one had killed one�s brother in such wise. Gerald as a boy had accidentally killed his brother. What then? Why seek to draw a brand and a curse across the life that had caused the accident? A man can live by accident, and die by accident. Or can he not? Is every man�s life subject to pure accident, is it only the race, the genus, the species, that has a universal reference? Or is this not true, is there no such thing as pure accident? Has _everything_ that happens a universal significance? Has it? Birkin, pondering as he stood there, had forgotten Mrs Crich, as she had forgotten him. He did not believe that there was any such thing as accident. It all hung together, in the deepest sense. Just as he had decided this, one of the Crich daughters came up, saying: �Won�t you come and take your hat off, mother dear? We shall be sitting down to eat in a minute, and it�s a formal occasion, darling, isn�t it?� She drew her arm through her mother�s, and they went away. Birkin immediately went to talk to the nearest man. The gong sounded for the luncheon. The men looked up, but no move was made to the dining-room. The women of the house seemed not to feel that the sound had meaning for them. Five minutes passed by. The elderly manservant, Crowther, appeared in the doorway exasperatedly. He looked with appeal at Gerald. The latter took up a large, curved conch shell, that lay on a shelf, and without reference to anybody, blew a shattering blast. It was a strange rousing noise, that made the heart beat. The summons was almost magical. Everybody came running, as if at a signal. And then the crowd in one impulse moved to the dining-room. Gerald waited a moment, for his sister to play hostess. He knew his mother would pay no attention to her duties. But his sister merely crowded to her seat. Therefore the young man, slightly too dictatorial, directed the guests to their places. There was a moment�s lull, as everybody looked at the _hors d�oeuvres_ that were being handed round. And out of this lull, a girl of thirteen or fourteen, with her long hair down her back, said in a calm, self-possessed voice: �Gerald, you forget father, when you make that unearthly noise.� �Do I?� he answered. And then, to the company, �Father is lying down, he is not quite well.� �How is he, really?� called one of the married daughters, peeping round the immense wedding cake that towered up in the middle of the table shedding its artificial flowers. �He has no pain, but he feels tired,� replied Winifred, the girl with the hair down her back. The wine was filled, and everybody was talking boisterously. At the far end of the table sat the mother, with her loosely-looped hair. She had Birkin for a neighbour. Sometimes she glanced fiercely down the rows of faces, bending forwards and staring unceremoniously. And she would say in a low voice to Birkin: �Who is that young man?� �I don�t know,� Birkin answered discreetly. �Have I seen him before?� she asked. �I don�t think so. _I_ haven�t,� he replied. And she was satisfied. Her eyes closed wearily, a peace came over her face, she looked like a queen in repose. Then she started, a little social smile came on her face, for a moment she looked the pleasant hostess. For a moment she bent graciously, as if everyone were welcome and delightful. And then immediately the shadow came back, a sullen, eagle look was on her face, she glanced from under her brows like a sinister creature at bay, hating them all. �Mother,� called Diana, a handsome girl a little older than Winifred, �I may have wine, mayn�t I?� �Yes, you may have wine,� replied the mother automatically, for she was perfectly indifferent to the question. And Diana beckoned to the footman to fill her glass. �Gerald shouldn�t forbid me,� she said calmly, to the company at large. �All right, Di,� said her brother amiably. And she glanced challenge at him as she drank from her glass. There was a strange freedom, that almost amounted to anarchy, in the house. It was rather a resistance to authority, than liberty. Gerald had some command, by mere force of personality, not because of any granted position. There was a quality in his voice, amiable but dominant, that cowed the others, who were all younger than he. Hermione was having a discussion with the bridegroom about nationality. �No,� she said, �I think that the appeal to patriotism is a mistake. It is like one house of business rivalling another house of business.� �Well you can hardly say that, can you?� exclaimed Gerald, who had a real _passion_ for discussion. �You couldn�t call a race a business concern, could you?�and nationality roughly corresponds to race, I think. I think it is _meant_ to.� There was a moment�s pause. Gerald and Hermione were always strangely but politely and evenly inimical. �_Do_ you think race corresponds with nationality?� she asked musingly, with expressionless indecision. Birkin knew she was waiting for him to participate. And dutifully he spoke up. �I think Gerald is right�race is the essential element in nationality, in Europe at least,� he said. Again Hermione paused, as if to allow this statement to cool. Then she said with strange assumption of authority: �Yes, but even so, is the patriotic appeal an appeal to the racial instinct? Is it not rather an appeal to the proprietory instinct, the _commercial_ instinct? And isn�t this what we mean by nationality?� �Probably,� said Birkin, who felt that such a discussion was out of place and out of time. But Gerald was now on the scent of argument. �A race may have its commercial aspect,� he said. �In fact it must. It is like a family. You _must_ make provision. And to make provision you have got to strive against other families, other nations. I don�t see why you shouldn�t.� Again Hermione made a pause, domineering and cold, before she replied: �Yes, I think it is always wrong to provoke a spirit of rivalry. It makes bad blood. And bad blood accumulates.� �But you can�t do away with the spirit of emulation altogether?� said Gerald. �It is one of the necessary incentives to production and improvement.� �Yes,� came Hermione�s sauntering response. �I think you can do away with it.� �I must say,� said Birkin, �I detest the spirit of emulation.� Hermione was biting a piece of bread, pulling it from between her teeth with her fingers, in a slow, slightly derisive movement. She turned to Birkin. �You do hate it, yes,� she said, intimate and gratified. �Detest it,� he repeated. �Yes,� she murmured, assured and satisfied. �But,� Gerald insisted, �you don�t allow one man to take away his neighbour�s living, so why should you allow one nation to take away the living from another nation?� There was a long slow murmur from Hermione before she broke into speech, saying with a laconic indifference: �It is not always a question of possessions, is it? It is not all a question of goods?� Gerald was nettled by this implication of vulgar materialism. �Yes, more or less,� he retorted. �If I go and take a man�s hat from off his head, that hat becomes a symbol of that man�s liberty. When he fights me for his hat, he is fighting me for his liberty.� Hermione was nonplussed. �Yes,� she said, irritated. �But that way of arguing by imaginary instances is not supposed to be genuine, is it? A man does _not_ come and take my hat from off my head, does he?� �Only because the law prevents him,� said Gerald. �Not only,� said Birkin. �Ninety-nine men out of a hundred don�t want my hat.� �That�s a matter of opinion,� said Gerald. �Or the hat,� laughed the bridegroom. �And if he does want my hat, such as it is,� said Birkin, �why, surely it is open to me to decide, which is a greater loss to me, my hat, or my liberty as a free and indifferent man. If I am compelled to offer fight, I lose the latter. It is a question which is worth more to me, my pleasant liberty of conduct, or my hat.� �Yes,� said Hermione, watching Birkin strangely. �Yes.� �But would you let somebody come and snatch your hat off your head?� the bride asked of Hermione. The face of the tall straight woman turned slowly and as if drugged to this new speaker. �No,� she replied, in a low inhuman tone, that seemed to contain a chuckle. �No, I shouldn�t let anybody take my hat off my head.� �How would you prevent it?� asked Gerald. �I don�t know,� replied Hermione slowly. �Probably I should kill him.� There was a strange chuckle in her tone, a dangerous and convincing humour in her bearing. �Of course,� said Gerald, �I can see Rupert�s point. It is a question to him whether his hat or his peace of mind is more important.� �Peace of body,� said Birkin. �Well, as you like there,� replied Gerald. �But how are you going to decide this for a nation?� �Heaven preserve me,� laughed Birkin. �Yes, but suppose you have to?� Gerald persisted. �Then it is the same. If the national crown-piece is an old hat, then the thieving gent may have it.� �But _can_ the national or racial hat be an old hat?� insisted Gerald. �Pretty well bound to be, I believe,� said Birkin. �I�m not so sure,� said Gerald. �I don�t agree, Rupert,� said Hermione. �All right,� said Birkin. �I�m all for the old national hat,� laughed Gerald. �And a fool you look in it,� cried Diana, his pert sister who was just in her teens. �Oh, we�re quite out of our depths with these old hats,� cried Laura Crich. �Dry up now, Gerald. We�re going to drink toasts. Let us drink toasts. Toasts�glasses, glasses�now then, toasts! Speech! Speech!� Birkin, thinking about race or national death, watched his glass being filled with champagne. The bubbles broke at the rim, the man withdrew, and feeling a sudden thirst at the sight of the fresh wine, Birkin drank up his glass. A queer little tension in the room roused him. He felt a sharp constraint. �Did I do it by accident, or on purpose?� he asked himself. And he decided that, according to the vulgar phrase, he had done it �accidentally on purpose.� He looked round at the hired footman. And the hired footman came, with a silent step of cold servant-like disapprobation. Birkin decided that he detested toasts, and footmen, and assemblies, and mankind altogether, in most of its aspects. Then he rose to make a speech. But he was somehow disgusted. At length it was over, the meal. Several men strolled out into the garden. There was a lawn, and flower-beds, and at the boundary an iron fence shutting off the little field or park. The view was pleasant; a highroad curving round the edge of a low lake, under the trees. In the spring air, the water gleamed and the opposite woods were purplish with new life. Charming Jersey cattle came to the fence, breathing hoarsely from their velvet muzzles at the human beings, expecting perhaps a crust. Birkin leaned on the fence. A cow was breathing wet hotness on his hand. �Pretty cattle, very pretty,� said Marshall, one of the brothers-in-law. �They give the best milk you can have.� �Yes,� said Birkin. �Eh, my little beauty, eh, my beauty!� said Marshall, in a queer high falsetto voice, that caused the other man to have convulsions of laughter in his stomach. �Who won the race, Lupton?� he called to the bridegroom, to hide the fact that he was laughing. The bridegroom took his cigar from his mouth. �The race?� he exclaimed. Then a rather thin smile came over his face. He did not want to say anything about the flight to the church door. �We got there together. At least she touched first, but I had my hand on her shoulder.� �What�s this?� asked Gerald. Birkin told him about the race of the bride and the bridegroom. �H�m!� said Gerald, in disapproval. �What made you late then?� �Lupton would talk about the immortality of the soul,� said Birkin, �and then he hadn�t got a button-hook.� �Oh God!� cried Marshall. �The immortality of the soul on your wedding day! Hadn�t you got anything better to occupy your mind?� �What�s wrong with it?� asked the bridegroom, a clean-shaven naval man, flushing sensitively. �Sounds as if you were going to be executed instead of married. _The immortality of the soul!_� repeated the brother-in-law, with most killing emphasis. But he fell quite flat. �And what did you decide?� asked Gerald, at once pricking up his ears at the thought of a metaphysical discussion. �You don�t want a soul today, my boy,� said Marshall. �It�d be in your road.� �Christ! Marshall, go and talk to somebody else,� cried Gerald, with sudden impatience. �By God, I�m willing,� said Marshall, in a temper. �Too much bloody soul and talk altogether�� He withdrew in a dudgeon, Gerald staring after him with angry eyes, that grew gradually calm and amiable as the stoutly-built form of the other man passed into the distance. �There�s one thing, Lupton,� said Gerald, turning suddenly to the bridegroom. �Laura won�t have brought such a fool into the family as Lottie did.� �Comfort yourself with that,� laughed Birkin. �I take no notice of them,� laughed the bridegroom. �What about this race then�who began it?� Gerald asked. �We were late. Laura was at the top of the churchyard steps when our cab came up. She saw Lupton bolting towards her. And she fled. But why do you look so cross? Does it hurt your sense of the family dignity?� �It does, rather,� said Gerald. �If you�re doing a thing, do it properly, and if you�re not going to do it properly, leave it alone.� �Very nice aphorism,� said Birkin. �Don�t you agree?� asked Gerald. �Quite,� said Birkin. �Only it bores me rather, when you become aphoristic.� �Damn you, Rupert, you want all the aphorisms your own way,� said Gerald. �No. I want them out of the way, and you�re always shoving them in it.� Gerald smiled grimly at this humorism. Then he made a little gesture of dismissal, with his eyebrows. �You don�t believe in having any standard of behaviour at all, do you?� he challenged Birkin, censoriously. �Standard�no. I hate standards. But they�re necessary for the common ruck. Anybody who is anything can just be himself and do as he likes.� �But what do you mean by being himself?� said Gerald. �Is that an aphorism or a cliché?� �I mean just doing what you want to do. I think it was perfect good form in Laura to bolt from Lupton to the church door. It was almost a masterpiece in good form. It�s the hardest thing in the world to act spontaneously on one�s impulses�and it�s the only really gentlemanly thing to do�provided you�re fit to do it.� �You don�t expect me to take you seriously, do you?� asked Gerald. �Yes, Gerald, you�re one of the very few people I do expect that of.� �Then I�m afraid I can�t come up to your expectations here, at any rate. You think people should just do as they like.� �I think they always do. But I should like them to like the purely individual thing in themselves, which makes them act in singleness. And they only like to do the collective thing.� �And I,� said Gerald grimly, �shouldn�t like to be in a world of people who acted individually and spontaneously, as you call it. We should have everybody cutting everybody else�s throat in five minutes.� �That means _you_ would like to be cutting everybody�s throat,� said Birkin. �How does that follow?� asked Gerald crossly. �No man,� said Birkin, �cuts another man�s throat unless he wants to cut it, and unless the other man wants it cutting. This is a complete truth. It takes two people to make a murder: a murderer and a murderee. And a murderee is a man who is murderable. And a man who is murderable is a man who in a profound if hidden lust desires to be murdered.� �Sometimes you talk pure nonsense,� said Gerald to Birkin. �As a matter of fact, none of us wants our throat cut, and most other people would like to cut it for us�some time or other�� �It�s a nasty view of things, Gerald,� said Birkin, �and no wonder you are afraid of yourself and your own unhappiness.� �How am I afraid of myself?� said Gerald; �and I don�t think I am unhappy.� �You seem to have a lurking desire to have your gizzard slit, and imagine every man has his knife up his sleeve for you,� Birkin said. �How do you make that out?� said Gerald. �From you,� said Birkin. There was a pause of strange enmity between the two men, that was very near to love. It was always the same between them; always their talk brought them into a deadly nearness of contact, a strange, perilous intimacy which was either hate or love, or both. They parted with apparent unconcern, as if their going apart were a trivial occurrence. And they really kept it to the level of trivial occurrence. Yet the heart of each burned from the other. They burned with each other, inwardly. This they would never admit. They intended to keep their relationship a casual free-and-easy friendship, they were not going to be so unmanly and unnatural as to allow any heart-burning between them. They had not the faintest belief in deep relationship between men and men, and their disbelief prevented any development of their powerful but suppressed friendliness. CHAPTER III. CLASS-ROOM A school-day was drawing to a close. In the class-room the last lesson was in progress, peaceful and still. It was elementary botany. The desks were littered with catkins, hazel and willow, which the children had been sketching. But the sky had come overdark, as the end of the afternoon approached: there was scarcely light to draw any more. Ursula stood in front of the class, leading the children by questions to understand the structure and the meaning of the catkins. A heavy, copper-coloured beam of light came in at the west window, gilding the outlines of the children�s heads with red gold, and falling on the wall opposite in a rich, ruddy illumination. Ursula, however, was scarcely conscious of it. She was busy, the end of the day was here, the work went on as a peaceful tide that is at flood, hushed to retire. This day had gone by like so many more, in an activity that was like a trance. At the end there was a little haste, to finish what was in hand. She was pressing the children with questions, so that they should know all they were to know, by the time the gong went. She stood in shadow in front of the class, with catkins in her hand, and she leaned towards the children, absorbed in the passion of instruction. She heard, but did not notice the click of the door. Suddenly she started. She saw, in the shaft of ruddy, copper-coloured light near her, the face of a man. It was gleaming like fire, watching her, waiting for her to be aware. It startled her terribly. She thought she was going to faint. All her suppressed, subconscious fear sprang into being, with anguish. �Did I startle you?� said Birkin, shaking hands with her. �I thought you had heard me come in.� �No,� she faltered, scarcely able to speak. He laughed, saying he was sorry. She wondered why it amused him. �It is so dark,� he said. �Shall we have the light?� And moving aside, he switched on the strong electric lights. The class-room was distinct and hard, a strange place after the soft dim magic that filled it before he came. Birkin turned curiously to look at Ursula. Her eyes were round and wondering, bewildered, her mouth quivered slightly. She looked like one who is suddenly wakened. There was a living, tender beauty, like a tender light of dawn shining from her face. He looked at her with a new pleasure, feeling gay in his heart, irresponsible. �You are doing catkins?� he asked, picking up a piece of hazel from a scholar�s desk in front of him. �Are they as far out as this? I hadn�t noticed them this year.� He looked absorbedly at the tassel of hazel in his hand. �The red ones too!� he said, looking at the flickers of crimson that came from the female bud. Then he went in among the desks, to see the scholars� books. Ursula watched his intent progress. There was a stillness in his motion that hushed the activities of her heart. She seemed to be standing aside in arrested silence, watching him move in another, concentrated world. His presence was so quiet, almost like a vacancy in the corporate air. Suddenly he lifted his face to her, and her heart quickened at the flicker of his voice. �Give them some crayons, won�t you?� he said, �so that they can make the gynaecious flowers red, and the androgynous yellow. I�d chalk them in plain, chalk in nothing else, merely the red and the yellow. Outline scarcely matters in this case. There is just the one fact to emphasise.� �I haven�t any crayons,� said Ursula. �There will be some somewhere�red and yellow, that�s all you want.� Ursula sent out a boy on a quest. �It will make the books untidy,� she said to Birkin, flushing deeply. �Not very,� he said. �You must mark in these things obviously. It�s the fact you want to emphasise, not the subjective impression to record. What�s the fact?�red little spiky stigmas of the female flower, dangling yellow male catkin, yellow pollen flying from one to the other. Make a pictorial record of the fact, as a child does when drawing a face�two eyes, one nose, mouth with teeth�so�� And he drew a figure on the blackboard. At that moment another vision was seen through the glass panels of the door. It was Hermione Roddice. Birkin went and opened to her. �I saw your car,� she said to him. �Do you mind my coming to find you? I wanted to see you when you were on duty.� She looked at him for a long time, intimate and playful, then she gave a short little laugh. And then only she turned to Ursula, who, with all the class, had been watching the little scene between the lovers. �How do you do, Miss Brangwen,� sang Hermione, in her low, odd, singing fashion, that sounded almost as if she were poking fun. �Do you mind my coming in?� Her grey, almost sardonic eyes rested all the while on Ursula, as if summing her up. �Oh no,� said Ursula. �Are you _sure?_� repeated Hermione, with complete _sang-froid_, and an odd, half-bullying effrontery. �Oh no, I like it awfully,� laughed Ursula, a little bit excited and bewildered, because Hermione seemed to be compelling her, coming very close to her, as if intimate with her; and yet, how could she be intimate? This was the answer Hermione wanted. She turned satisfied to Birkin. �What are you doing?� she sang, in her casual, inquisitive fashion. �Catkins,� he replied. �Really!� she said. �And what do you learn about them?� She spoke all the while in a mocking, half teasing fashion, as if making game of the whole business. She picked up a twig of the catkin, piqued by Birkin�s attention to it. She was a strange figure in the class-room, wearing a large, old cloak of greenish cloth, on which was a raised pattern of dull gold. The high collar, and the inside of the cloak, was lined with dark fur. Beneath she had a dress of fine lavender-coloured cloth, trimmed with fur, and her hat was close-fitting, made of fur and of the dull, green-and-gold figured stuff. She was tall and strange, she looked as if she had come out of some new, bizarre picture. �Do you know the little red ovary flowers, that produce the nuts? Have you ever noticed them?� he asked her. And he came close and pointed them out to her, on the sprig she held. �No,� she replied. �What are they?� �Those are the little seed-producing flowers, and the long catkins, they only produce pollen, to fertilise them.� �Do they, do they!� repeated Hermione, looking closely. �From those little red bits, the nuts come; if they receive pollen from the long danglers.� �Little red flames, little red flames,� murmured Hermione to herself. And she remained for some moments looking only at the small buds out of which the red flickers of the stigma issued. �Aren�t they beautiful? I think they�re so beautiful,� she said, moving close to Birkin, and pointing to the red filaments with her long, white finger. �Had you never noticed them before?� he asked. �No, never before,� she replied. �And now you will always see them,� he said. �Now I shall always see them,� she repeated. �Thank you so much for showing me. I think they�re so beautiful�little red flames�� Her absorption was strange, almost rhapsodic. Both Birkin and Ursula were suspended. The little red pistillate flowers had some strange, almost mystic-passionate attraction for her. The lesson was finished, the books were put away, at last the class was dismissed. And still Hermione sat at the table, with her chin in her hand, her elbow on the table, her long white face pushed up, not attending to anything. Birkin had gone to the window, and was looking from the brilliantly-lighted room on to the grey, colourless outside, where rain was noiselessly falling. Ursula put away her things in the cupboard. At length Hermione rose and came near to her. �Your sister has come home?� she said. �Yes,� said Ursula. �And does she like being back in Beldover?� �No,� said Ursula. �No, I wonder she can bear it. It takes all my strength, to bear the ugliness of this district, when I stay here. Won�t you come and see me? Won�t you come with your sister to stay at Breadalby for a few days?�do�� �Thank you very much,� said Ursula. �Then I will write to you,� said Hermione. �You think your sister will come? I should be so glad. I think she is wonderful. I think some of her work is really wonderful. I have two water-wagtails, carved in wood, and painted�perhaps you have seen it?� �No,� said Ursula. �I think it is perfectly wonderful�like a flash of instinct.� �Her little carvings _are_ strange,� said Ursula. �Perfectly beautiful�full of primitive passion�� �Isn�t it queer that she always likes little things?�she must always work small things, that one can put between one�s hands, birds and tiny animals. She likes to look through the wrong end of the opera glasses, and see the world that way�why is it, do you think?� Hermione looked down at Ursula with that long, detached scrutinising gaze that excited the younger woman. �Yes,� said Hermione at length. �It is curious. The little things seem to be more subtle to her�� �But they aren�t, are they? A mouse isn�t any more subtle than a lion, is it?� Again Hermione looked down at Ursula with that long scrutiny, as if she were following some train of thought of her own, and barely attending to the other�s speech. �I don�t know,� she replied. �Rupert, Rupert,� she sang mildly, calling him to her. He approached in silence. �Are little things more subtle than big things?� she asked, with the odd grunt of laughter in her voice, as if she were making game of him in the question. �Dunno,� he said. �I hate subtleties,� said Ursula. Hermione looked at her slowly. �Do you?� she said. �I always think they are a sign of weakness,� said Ursula, up in arms, as if her prestige were threatened. Hermione took no notice. Suddenly her face puckered, her brow was knit with thought, she seemed twisted in troublesome effort for utterance. �Do you really think, Rupert,� she asked, as if Ursula were not present, �do you really think it is worth while? Do you really think the children are better for being roused to consciousness?� A dark flash went over his face, a silent fury. He was hollow-cheeked and pale, almost unearthly. And the woman, with her serious, conscience-harrowing question tortured him on the quick. �They are not roused to consciousness,� he said. �Consciousness comes to them, willy-nilly.� �But do you think they are better for having it quickened, stimulated? Isn�t it better that they should remain unconscious of the hazel, isn�t it better that they should see as a whole, without all this pulling to pieces, all this knowledge?� �Would you rather, for yourself, know or not know, that the little red flowers are there, putting out for the pollen?� he asked harshly. His voice was brutal, scornful, cruel. Hermione remained with her face lifted up, abstracted. He hung silent in irritation. �I don�t know,� she replied, balancing mildly. �I don�t know.� �But knowing is everything to you, it is all your life,� he broke out. She slowly looked at him. �Is it?� she said. �To know, that is your all, that is your life�you have only this, this knowledge,� he cried. �There is only one tree, there is only one fruit, in your mouth.� Again she was some time silent. �Is there?� she said at last, with the same untouched calm. And then in a tone of whimsical inquisitiveness: �What fruit, Rupert?� �The eternal apple,� he replied in exasperation, hating his own metaphors. �Yes,� she said. There was a look of exhaustion about her. For some moments there was silence. Then, pulling herself together with a convulsed movement, Hermione resumed, in a sing-song, casual voice: �But leaving me apart, Rupert; do you think the children are better, richer, happier, for all this knowledge; do you really think they are? Or is it better to leave them untouched, spontaneous. Hadn�t they better be animals, simple animals, crude, violent, _anything_, rather than this self-consciousness, this incapacity to be spontaneous.� They thought she had finished. But with a queer rumbling in her throat she resumed, �Hadn�t they better be anything than grow up crippled, crippled in their souls, crippled in their feelings�so thrown back�so turned back on themselves�incapable�� Hermione clenched her fist like one in a trance��of any spontaneous action, always deliberate, always burdened with choice, never carried away.� Again they thought she had finished. But just as he was going to reply, she resumed her queer rhapsody��never carried away, out of themselves, always conscious, always self-conscious, always aware of themselves. Isn�t _anything_ better than this? Better be animals, mere animals with no mind at all, than this, this _nothingness_�� �But do you think it is knowledge that makes us unliving and self-conscious?� he asked irritably. She opened her eyes and looked at him slowly. �Yes,� she said. She paused, watching him all the while, her eyes vague. Then she wiped her fingers across her brow, with a vague weariness. It irritated him bitterly. �It is the mind,� she said, �and that is death.� She raised her eyes slowly to him: �Isn�t the mind�� she said, with the convulsed movement of her body, �isn�t it our death? Doesn�t it destroy all our spontaneity, all our instincts? Are not the young people growing up today, really dead before they have a chance to live?� �Not because they have too much mind, but too little,� he said brutally. �Are you _sure?_� she cried. �It seems to me the reverse. They are over-conscious, burdened to death with consciousness.� �Imprisoned within a limited, false set of concepts,� he cried. But she took no notice of this, only went on with her own rhapsodic interrogation. �When we have knowledge, don�t we lose everything but knowledge?� she asked pathetically. �If I know about the flower, don�t I lose the flower and have only the knowledge? Aren�t we exchanging the substance for the shadow, aren�t we forfeiting life for this dead quality of knowledge? And what does it mean to me, after all? What does all this knowing mean to me? It means nothing.� �You are merely making words,� he said; �knowledge means everything to you. Even your animalism, you want it in your head. You don�t want to _be_ an animal, you want to observe your own animal functions, to get a mental thrill out of them. It is all purely secondary�and more decadent than the most hide-bound intellectualism. What is it but the worst and last form of intellectualism, this love of yours for passion and the animal instincts? Passion and the instincts�you want them hard enough, but through your head, in your consciousness. It all takes place in your head, under that skull of yours. Only you won�t be conscious of what _actually_ is: you want the lie that will match the rest of your furniture.� Hermione set hard and poisonous against this attack. Ursula stood covered with wonder and shame. It frightened her, to see how they hated each other. �It�s all that Lady of Shalott business,� he said, in his strong abstract voice. He seemed to be charging her before the unseeing air. �You�ve got that mirror, your own fixed will, your immortal understanding, your own tight conscious world, and there is nothing beyond it. There, in the mirror, you must have everything. But now you have come to all your conclusions, you want to go back and be like a savage, without knowledge. You want a life of pure sensation and �passion.�� He quoted the last word satirically against her. She sat convulsed with fury and violation, speechless, like a stricken pythoness of the Greek oracle. �But your passion is a lie,� he went on violently. �It isn�t passion at all, it is your _will_. It�s your bullying will. You want to clutch things and have them in your power. You want to have things in your power. And why? Because you haven�t got any real body, any dark sensual body of life. You have no sensuality. You have only your will and your conceit of consciousness, and your lust for power, to _know_.� He looked at her in mingled hate and contempt, also in pain because she suffered, and in shame because he knew he tortured her. He had an impulse to kneel and plead for forgiveness. But a bitterer red anger burned up to fury in him. He became unconscious of her, he was only a passionate voice speaking. �Spontaneous!� he cried. �You and spontaneity! You, the most deliberate thing that ever walked or crawled! You�d be verily deliberately spontaneous�that�s you. Because you want to have everything in your own volition, your deliberate voluntary consciousness. You want it all in that loathsome little skull of yours, that ought to be cracked like a nut. For you�ll be the same till it is cracked, like an insect in its skin. If one cracked your skull perhaps one might get a spontaneous, passionate woman out of you, with real sensuality. As it is, what you want is pornography�looking at yourself in mirrors, watching your naked animal actions in mirrors, so that you can have it all in your consciousness, make it all mental.� There was a sense of violation in the air, as if too much was said, the unforgivable. Yet Ursula was concerned now only with solving her own problems, in the light of his words. She was pale and abstracted. �But do you really _want_ sensuality?� she asked, puzzled. Birkin looked at her, and became intent in his explanation. �Yes,� he said, �that and nothing else, at this point. It is a fulfilment�the great dark knowledge you can�t have in your head�the dark involuntary being. It is death to one�s self�but it is the coming into being of another.� �But how? How can you have knowledge not in your head?� she asked, quite unable to interpret his phrases. �In the blood,� he answered; �when the mind and the known world is drowned in darkness everything must go�there must be the deluge. Then you find yourself a palpable body of darkness, a demon�� �But why should I be a demon�?� she asked. ��_Woman wailing for her demon lover_��� he quoted��why, I don�t know.� Hermione roused herself as from a death�annihilation. �He is such a _dreadful_ satanist, isn�t he?� she drawled to Ursula, in a queer resonant voice, that ended on a shrill little laugh of pure ridicule. The two women were jeering at him, jeering him into nothingness. The laugh of the shrill, triumphant female sounded from Hermione, jeering him as if he were a neuter. �No,� he said. �You are the real devil who won�t let life exist.� She looked at him with a long, slow look, malevolent, supercilious. �You know all about it, don�t you?� she said, with slow, cold, cunning mockery. �Enough,� he replied, his face fixing fine and clear like steel. A horrible despair, and at the same time a sense of release, liberation, came over Hermione. She turned with a pleasant intimacy to Ursula. �You are sure you will come to Breadalby?� she said, urging. �Yes, I should like to very much,� replied Ursula. Hermione looked down at her, gratified, reflecting, and strangely absent, as if possessed, as if not quite there. �I�m so glad,� she said, pulling herself together. �Some time in about a fortnight. Yes? I will write to you here, at the school, shall I? Yes. And you�ll be sure to come? Yes. I shall be so glad. Good-bye! Good-bye!� Hermione held out her hand and looked into the eyes of the other woman. She knew Ursula as an immediate rival, and the knowledge strangely exhilarated her. Also she was taking leave. It always gave her a sense of strength, advantage, to be departing and leaving the other behind. Moreover she was taking the man with her, if only in hate. Birkin stood aside, fixed and unreal. But now, when it was his turn to bid good-bye, he began to speak again. �There�s the whole difference in the world,� he said, �between the actual sensual being, and the vicious mental-deliberate profligacy our lot goes in for. In our night-time, there�s always the electricity switched on, we watch ourselves, we get it all in the head, really. You�ve got to lapse out before you can know what sensual reality is, lapse into unknowingness, and give up your volition. You�ve got to do it. You�ve got to learn not-to-be, before you can come into being. �But we have got such a conceit of ourselves�that�s where it is. We are so conceited, and so unproud. We�ve got no pride, we�re all conceit, so conceited in our own papier-maché realised selves. We�d rather die than give up our little self-righteous self-opinionated self-will.� There was silence in the room. Both women were hostile and resentful. He sounded as if he were addressing a meeting. Hermione merely paid no attention, stood with her shoulders tight in a shrug of dislike. Ursula was watching him as if furtively, not really aware of what she was seeing. There was a great physical attractiveness in him�a curious hidden richness, that came through his thinness and his pallor like another voice, conveying another knowledge of him. It was in the curves of his brows and his chin, rich, fine, exquisite curves, the powerful beauty of life itself. She could not say what it was. But there was a sense of richness and of liberty. �But we are sensual enough, without making ourselves so, aren�t we?� she asked, turning to him with a certain golden laughter flickering under her greenish eyes, like a challenge. And immediately the queer, careless, terribly attractive smile came over his eyes and brows, though his mouth did not relax. �No,� he said, �we aren�t. We�re too full of ourselves.� �Surely it isn�t a matter of conceit,� she cried. �That and nothing else.� She was frankly puzzled. �Don�t you think that people are most conceited of all about their sensual powers?� she asked. �That�s why they aren�t sensual�only sensuous�which is another matter. They�re _always_ aware of themselves�and they�re so conceited, that rather than release themselves, and live in another world, from another centre, they�d�� �You want your tea, don�t you,� said Hermione, turning to Ursula with a gracious kindliness. �You�ve worked all day�� Birkin stopped short. A spasm of anger and chagrin went over Ursula. His face set. And he bade good-bye, as if he had ceased to notice her. They were gone. Ursula stood looking at the door for some moments. Then she put out the lights. And having done so, she sat down again in her chair, absorbed and lost. And then she began to cry, bitterly, bitterly weeping: but whether for misery or joy, she never knew. CHAPTER IV. DIVER The week passed away. On the Saturday it rained, a soft drizzling rain that held off at times. In one of the intervals Gudrun and Ursula set out for a walk, going towards Willey Water. The atmosphere was grey and translucent, the birds sang sharply on the young twigs, the earth would be quickening and hastening in growth. The two girls walked swiftly, gladly, because of the soft, subtle rush of morning that filled the wet haze. By the road the black-thorn was in blossom, white and wet, its tiny amber grains burning faintly in the white smoke of blossom. Purple twigs were darkly luminous in the grey air, high hedges glowed like living shadows, hovering nearer, coming into creation. The morning was full of a new creation. When the sisters came to Willey Water, the lake lay all grey and visionary, stretching into the moist, translucent vista of trees and meadow. Fine electric activity in sound came from the dumbles below the road, the birds piping one against the other, and water mysteriously plashing, issuing from the lake. The two girls drifted swiftly along. In front of them, at the corner of the lake, near the road, was a mossy boat-house under a walnut tree, and a little landing-stage where a boat was moored, wavering like a shadow on the still grey water, below the green, decayed poles. All was shadowy with coming summer. Suddenly, from the boat-house, a white figure ran out, frightening in its swift sharp transit, across the old landing-stage. It launched in a white arc through the air, there was a bursting of the water, and among the smooth ripples a swimmer was making out to space, in a centre of faintly heaving motion. The whole otherworld, wet and remote, he had to himself. He could move into the pure translucency of the grey, uncreated water. Gudrun stood by the stone wall, watching. �How I envy him,� she said, in low, desirous tones. �Ugh!� shivered Ursula. �So cold!� �Yes, but how good, how really fine, to swim out there!� The sisters stood watching the swimmer move further into the grey, moist, full space of the water, pulsing with his own small, invading motion, and arched over with mist and dim woods. �Don�t you wish it were you?� asked Gudrun, looking at Ursula. �I do,� said Ursula. �But I�m not sure�it�s so wet.� �No,� said Gudrun, reluctantly. She stood watching the motion on the bosom of the water, as if fascinated. He, having swum a certain distance, turned round and was swimming on his back, looking along the water at the two girls by the wall. In the faint wash of motion, they could see his ruddy face, and could feel him watching them. �It is Gerald Crich,� said Ursula. �I know,� replied Gudrun. And she stood motionless gazing over the water at the face which washed up and down on the flood, as he swam steadily. From his separate element he saw them and he exulted to himself because of his own advantage, his possession of a world to himself. He was immune and perfect. He loved his own vigorous, thrusting motion, and the violent impulse of the very cold water against his limbs, buoying him up. He could see the girls watching him a way off, outside, and that pleased him. He lifted his arm from the water, in a sign to them. �He is waving,� said Ursula. �Yes,� replied Gudrun. They watched him. He waved again, with a strange movement of recognition across the difference. �Like a Nibelung,� laughed Ursula. Gudrun said nothing, only stood still looking over the water. Gerald suddenly turned, and was swimming away swiftly, with a side stroke. He was alone now, alone and immune in the middle of the waters, which he had all to himself. He exulted in his isolation in the new element, unquestioned and unconditioned. He was happy, thrusting with his legs and all his body, without bond or connection anywhere, just himself in the watery world. Gudrun envied him almost painfully. Even this momentary possession of pure isolation and fluidity seemed to her so terribly desirable that she felt herself as if damned, out there on the high-road. �God, what it is to be a man!� she cried. �What?� exclaimed Ursula in surprise. �The freedom, the liberty, the mobility!� cried Gudrun, strangely flushed and brilliant. �You�re a man, you want to do a thing, you do it. You haven�t the _thousand_ obstacles a woman has in front of her.� Ursula wondered what was in Gudrun�s mind, to occasion this outburst. She could not understand. �What do you want to do?� she asked. �Nothing,� cried Gudrun, in swift refutation. �But supposing I did. Supposing I want to swim up that water. It is impossible, it is one of the impossibilities of life, for me to take my clothes off now and jump in. But isn�t it _ridiculous_, doesn�t it simply prevent our living!� She was so hot, so flushed, so furious, that Ursula was puzzled. The two sisters went on, up the road. They were passing between the trees just below Shortlands. They looked up at the long, low house, dim and glamorous in the wet morning, its cedar trees slanting before the windows. Gudrun seemed to be studying it closely. �Don�t you think it�s attractive, Ursula?� asked Gudrun. �Very,� said Ursula. �Very peaceful and charming.� �It has form, too�it has a period.� �What period?� �Oh, eighteenth century, for certain; Dorothy Wordsworth and Jane Austen, don�t you think?� Ursula laughed. �Don�t you think so?� repeated Gudrun. �Perhaps. But I don�t think the Criches fit the period. I know Gerald is putting in a private electric plant, for lighting the house, and is making all kinds of latest improvements.� Gudrun shrugged her shoulders swiftly. �Of course,� she said, �that�s quite inevitable.� �Quite,� laughed Ursula. �He is several generations of youngness at one go. They hate him for it. He takes them all by the scruff of the neck, and fairly flings them along. He�ll have to die soon, when he�s made every possible improvement, and there will be nothing more to improve. He�s got _go_, anyhow.� �Certainly, he�s got go,� said Gudrun. �In fact I�ve never seen a man that showed signs of so much. The unfortunate thing is, where does his _go_ go to, what becomes of it?� �Oh I know,� said Ursula. �It goes in applying the latest appliances!� �Exactly,� said Gudrun. �You know he shot his brother?� said Ursula. �Shot his brother?� cried Gudrun, frowning as if in disapprobation. �Didn�t you know? Oh yes!�I thought you knew. He and his brother were playing together with a gun. He told his brother to look down the gun, and it was loaded, and blew the top of his head off. Isn�t it a horrible story?� �How fearful!� cried Gudrun. �But it is long ago?� �Oh yes, they were quite boys,� said Ursula. �I think it is one of the most horrible stories I know.� �And he of course did not know that the gun was loaded?� �Yes. You see it was an old thing that had been lying in the stable for years. Nobody dreamed it would ever go off, and of course, no one imagined it was loaded. But isn�t it dreadful, that it should happen?� �Frightful!� cried Gudrun. �And isn�t it horrible too to think of such a thing happening to one, when one was a child, and having to carry the responsibility of it all through one�s life. Imagine it, two boys playing together�then this comes upon them, for no reason whatever�out of the air. Ursula, it�s very frightening! Oh, it�s one of the things I can�t bear. Murder, that is thinkable, because there�s a will behind it. But a thing like that to _happen_ to one�� �Perhaps there _was_ an unconscious will behind it,� said Ursula. �This playing at killing has some primitive _desire_ for killing in it, don�t you think?� �Desire!� said Gudrun, coldly, stiffening a little. �I can�t see that they were even playing at killing. I suppose one boy said to the other, �You look down the barrel while I pull the trigger, and see what happens.� It seems to me the purest form of accident.� �No,� said Ursula. �I couldn�t pull the trigger of the emptiest gun in the world, not if some-one were looking down the barrel. One instinctively doesn�t do it�one can�t.� Gudrun was silent for some moments, in sharp disagreement. �Of course,� she said coldly. �If one is a woman, and grown up, one�s instinct prevents one. But I cannot see how that applies to a couple of boys playing together.� Her voice was cold and angry. �Yes,� persisted Ursula. At that moment they heard a woman�s voice a few yards off say loudly: �Oh damn the thing!� They went forward and saw Laura Crich and Hermione Roddice in the field on the other side of the hedge, and Laura Crich struggling with the gate, to get out. Ursula at once hurried up and helped to lift the gate. �Thanks so much,� said Laura, looking up flushed and amazon-like, yet rather confused. �It isn�t right on the hinges.� �No,� said Ursula. �And they�re so heavy.� �Surprising!� cried Laura. �How do you do,� sang Hermione, from out of the field, the moment she could make her voice heard. �It�s nice now. Are you going for a walk? Yes. Isn�t the young green beautiful? So beautiful�quite burning. Good morning�good morning�you�ll come and see me?�thank you so much�next week�yes�good-bye, g-o-o-d b-y-e.� Gudrun and Ursula stood and watched her slowly waving her head up and down, and waving her hand slowly in dismissal, smiling a strange affected smile, making a tall queer, frightening figure, with her heavy fair hair slipping to her eyes. Then they moved off, as if they had been dismissed like inferiors. The four women parted. As soon as they had gone far enough, Ursula said, her cheeks burning, �I do think she�s impudent.� �Who, Hermione Roddice?� asked Gudrun. �Why?� �The way she treats one�impudence!� �Why, Ursula, what did you notice that was so impudent?� asked Gudrun rather coldly. �Her whole manner. Oh, it�s impossible, the way she tries to bully one. Pure bullying. She�s an impudent woman. �You�ll come and see me,� as if we should be falling over ourselves for the privilege.� �I can�t understand, Ursula, what you are so much put out about,� said Gudrun, in some exasperation. �One knows those women are impudent�these free women who have emancipated themselves from the aristocracy.� �But it is so _unnecessary_�so vulgar,� cried Ursula. �No, I don�t see it. And if I did�pour moi, elle n�existe pas. I don�t grant her the power to be impudent to me.� �Do you think she likes you?� asked Ursula. �Well, no, I shouldn�t think she did.� �Then why does she ask you to go to Breadalby and stay with her?� Gudrun lifted her shoulders in a low shrug. �After all, she�s got the sense to know we�re not just the ordinary run,� said Gudrun. �Whatever she is, she�s not a fool. And I�d rather have somebody I detested, than the ordinary woman who keeps to her own set. Hermione Roddice does risk herself in some respects.� Ursula pondered this for a time. �I doubt it,� she replied. �Really she risks nothing. I suppose we ought to admire her for knowing she _can_ invite us�school teachers�and risk nothing.� �Precisely!� said Gudrun. �Think of the myriads of women that daren�t do it. She makes the most of her privileges�that�s something. I suppose, really, we should do the same, in her place.� �No,� said Ursula. �No. It would bore me. I couldn�t spend my time playing her games. It�s infra dig.� The two sisters were like a pair of scissors, snipping off everything that came athwart them; or like a knife and a whetstone, the one sharpened against the other. �Of course,� cried Ursula suddenly, �she ought to thank her stars if we will go and see her. You are perfectly beautiful, a thousand times more beautiful than ever she is or was, and to my thinking, a thousand times more beautifully dressed, for she never looks fresh and natural, like a flower, always old, thought-out; and we _are_ more intelligent than most people.� �Undoubtedly!� said Gudrun. �And it ought to be admitted, simply,� said Ursula. �Certainly it ought,� said Gudrun. �But you�ll find that the really chic thing is to be so absolutely ordinary, so perfectly commonplace and like the person in the street, that you really are a masterpiece of humanity, not the person in the street actually, but the artistic creation of her�� �How awful!� cried Ursula. �Yes, Ursula, it _is_ awful, in most respects. You daren�t be anything that isn�t amazingly _à terre_, so much _à terre_ that it is the artistic creation of ordinariness.� �It�s very dull to create oneself into nothing better,� laughed Ursula. �Very dull!� retorted Gudrun. �Really Ursula, it is dull, that�s just the word. One longs to be high-flown, and make speeches like Corneille, after it.� Gudrun was becoming flushed and excited over her own cleverness. �Strut,� said Ursula. �One wants to strut, to be a swan among geese.� �Exactly,� cried Gudrun, �a swan among geese.� �They are all so busy playing the ugly duckling,� cried Ursula, with mocking laughter. �And I don�t feel a bit like a humble and pathetic ugly duckling. I do feel like a swan among geese�I can�t help it. They make one feel so. And I don�t care what _they_ think of me. _Je m�en fiche._� Gudrun looked up at Ursula with a queer, uncertain envy and dislike. �Of course, the only thing to do is to despise them all�just all,� she said. The sisters went home again, to read and talk and work, and wait for Monday, for school. Ursula often wondered what else she waited for, besides the beginning and end of the school week, and the beginning and end of the holidays. This was a whole life! Sometimes she had periods of tight horror, when it seemed to her that her life would pass away, and be gone, without having been more than this. But she never really accepted it. Her spirit was active, her life like a shoot that is growing steadily, but which has not yet come above ground. CHAPTER V. IN THE TRAIN One day at this time Birkin was called to London. He was not very fixed in his abode. He had rooms in Nottingham, because his work lay chiefly in that town. But often he was in London, or in Oxford. He moved about a great deal, his life seemed uncertain, without any definite rhythm, any organic meaning. On the platform of the railway station he saw Gerald Crich, reading a newspaper, and evidently waiting for the train. Birkin stood some distance off, among the people. It was against his instinct to approach anybody. From time to time, in a manner characteristic of him, Gerald lifted his head and looked round. Even though he was reading the newspaper closely, he must keep a watchful eye on his external surroundings. There seemed to be a dual consciousness running in him. He was thinking vigorously of something he read in the newspaper, and at the same time his eye ran over the surfaces of the life round him, and he missed nothing. Birkin, who was watching him, was irritated by his duality. He noticed too, that Gerald seemed always to be at bay against everybody, in spite of his queer, genial, social manner when roused. Now Birkin started violently at seeing this genial look flash on to Gerald�s face, at seeing Gerald approaching with hand outstretched. �Hallo, Rupert, where are you going?� �London. So are you, I suppose.� �Yes�� Gerald�s eyes went over Birkin�s face in curiosity. �We�ll travel together if you like,� he said. �Don�t you usually go first?� asked Birkin. �I can�t stand the crowd,� replied Gerald. �But third�ll be all right. There�s a restaurant car, we can have some tea.� The two men looked at the station clock, having nothing further to say. �What were you reading in the paper?� Birkin asked. Gerald looked at him quickly. �Isn�t it funny, what they _do_ put in the newspapers,� he said. �Here are two leaders�� he held out his _Daily Telegraph_, �full of the ordinary newspaper cant�� he scanned the columns down��and then there�s this little�I dunno what you�d call it, essay, almost�appearing with the leaders, and saying there must arise a man who will give new values to things, give us new truths, a new attitude to life, or else we shall be a crumbling nothingness in a few years, a country in ruin�� �I suppose that�s a bit of newspaper cant, as well,� said Birkin. �It sounds as if the man meant it, and quite genuinely,� said Gerald. �Give it to me,� said Birkin, holding out his hand for the paper. The train came, and they went on board, sitting on either side a little table, by the window, in the restaurant car. Birkin glanced over his paper, then looked up at Gerald, who was waiting for him. �I believe the man means it,� he said, �as far as he means anything.� �And do you think it�s true? Do you think we really want a new gospel?� asked Gerald. Birkin shrugged his shoulders. �I think the people who say they want a new religion are the last to accept anything new. They want novelty right enough. But to stare straight at this life that we�ve brought upon ourselves, and reject it, absolutely smash up the old idols of ourselves, that we sh�ll never do. You�ve got very badly to want to get rid of the old, before anything new will appear�even in the self.� Gerald watched him closely. �You think we ought to break up this life, just start and let fly?� he asked. �This life. Yes I do. We�ve got to bust it completely, or shrivel inside it, as in a tight skin. For it won�t expand any more.� There was a queer little smile in Gerald�s eyes, a look of amusement, calm and curious. �And how do you propose to begin? I suppose you mean, reform the whole order of society?� he asked. Birkin had a slight, tense frown between the brows. He too was impatient of the conversation. �I don�t propose at all,� he replied. �When we really want to go for something better, we shall smash the old. Until then, any sort of proposal, or making proposals, is no more than a tiresome game for self-important people.� The little smile began to die out of Gerald�s eyes, and he said, looking with a cool stare at Birkin: �So you really think things are very bad?� �Completely bad.� The smile appeared again. �In what way?� �Every way,� said Birkin. �We are such dreary liars. Our one idea is to lie to ourselves. We have an ideal of a perfect world, clean and straight and sufficient. So we cover the earth with foulness; life is a blotch of labour, like insects scurrying in filth, so that your collier can have a pianoforte in his parlour, and you can have a butler and a motor-car in your up-to-date house, and as a nation we can sport the Ritz, or the Empire, Gaby Deslys and the Sunday newspapers. It is very dreary.� Gerald took a little time to re-adjust himself after this tirade. �Would you have us live without houses�return to nature?� he asked. �I would have nothing at all. People only do what they want to do�and what they are capable of doing. If they were capable of anything else, there would be something else.� Again Gerald pondered. He was not going to take offence at Birkin. �Don�t you think the collier�s _pianoforte_, as you call it, is a symbol for something very real, a real desire for something higher, in the collier�s life?� �Higher!� cried Birkin. �Yes. Amazing heights of upright grandeur. It makes him so much higher in his neighbouring collier�s eyes. He sees himself reflected in the neighbouring opinion, like in a Brocken mist, several feet taller on the strength of the pianoforte, and he is satisfied. He lives for the sake of that Brocken spectre, the reflection of himself in the human opinion. You do the same. If you are of high importance to humanity you are of high importance to yourself. That is why you work so hard at the mines. If you can produce coal to cook five thousand dinners a day, you are five thousand times more important than if you cooked only your own dinner.� �I suppose I am,� laughed Gerald. �Can�t you see,� said Birkin, �that to help my neighbour to eat is no more than eating myself. �I eat, thou eatest, he eats, we eat, you eat, they eat��and what then? Why should every man decline the whole verb. First person singular is enough for me.� �You�ve got to start with material things,� said Gerald. Which statement Birkin ignored. �And we�ve got to live for _something_, we�re not just cattle that can graze and have done with it,� said Gerald. �Tell me,� said Birkin. �What do you live for?� Gerald�s face went baffled. �What do I live for?� he repeated. �I suppose I live to work, to produce something, in so far as I am a purposive being. Apart from that, I live because I am living.� �And what�s your work? Getting so many more thousands of tons of coal out of the earth every day. And when we�ve got all the coal we want, and all the plush furniture, and pianofortes, and the rabbits are all stewed and eaten, and we�re all warm and our bellies are filled and we�re listening to the young lady performing on the pianoforte�what then? What then, when you�ve made a real fair start with your material things?� Gerald sat laughing at the words and the mocking humour of the other man. But he was cogitating too. �We haven�t got there yet,� he replied. �A good many people are still waiting for the rabbit and the fire to cook it.� �So while you get the coal I must chase the rabbit?� said Birkin, mocking at Gerald. �Something like that,� said Gerald. Birkin watched him narrowly. He saw the perfect good-humoured callousness, even strange, glistening malice, in Gerald, glistening through the plausible ethics of productivity. �Gerald,� he said, �I rather hate you.� �I know you do,� said Gerald. �Why do you?� Birkin mused inscrutably for some minutes. �I should like to know if you are conscious of hating me,� he said at last. �Do you ever consciously detest me�hate me with mystic hate? There are odd moments when I hate you starrily.� Gerald was rather taken aback, even a little disconcerted. He did not quite know what to say. �I may, of course, hate you sometimes,� he said. �But I�m not aware of it�never acutely aware of it, that is.� �So much the worse,� said Birkin. Gerald watched him with curious eyes. He could not quite make him out. �So much the worse, is it?� he repeated. There was a silence between the two men for some time, as the train ran on. In Birkin�s face was a little irritable tension, a sharp knitting of the brows, keen and difficult. Gerald watched him warily, carefully, rather calculatingly, for he could not decide what he was after. Suddenly Birkin�s eyes looked straight and overpowering into those of the other man. �What do you think is the aim and object of your life, Gerald?� he asked. Again Gerald was taken aback. He could not think what his friend was getting at. Was he poking fun, or not? �At this moment, I couldn�t say off-hand,� he replied, with faintly ironic humour. �Do you think love is the be-all and the end-all of life?� Birkin asked, with direct, attentive seriousness. �Of my own life?� said Gerald. �Yes.� There was a really puzzled pause. �I can�t say,� said Gerald. �It hasn�t been, so far.� �What has your life been, so far?� �Oh�finding out things for myself�and getting experiences�and making things _go_.� Birkin knitted his brows like sharply moulded steel. �I find,� he said, �that one needs some one _really_ pure single activity�I should call love a single pure activity. But I _don�t_ really love anybody�not now.� �Have you ever really loved anybody?� asked Gerald. �Yes and no,� replied Birkin. �Not finally?� said Gerald. �Finally�finally�no,� said Birkin. �Nor I,� said Gerald. �And do you want to?� said Birkin. Gerald looked with a long, twinkling, almost sardonic look into the eyes of the other man. �I don�t know,� he said. �I do�I want to love,� said Birkin. �You do?� �Yes. I want the finality of love.� �The finality of love,� repeated Gerald. And he waited for a moment. �Just one woman?� he added. The evening light, flooding yellow along the fields, lit up Birkin�s face with a tense, abstract steadfastness. Gerald still could not make it out. �Yes, one woman,� said Birkin. But to Gerald it sounded as if he were insistent rather than confident. �I don�t believe a woman, and nothing but a woman, will ever make my life,� said Gerald. �Not the centre and core of it�the love between you and a woman?� asked Birkin. Gerald�s eyes narrowed with a queer dangerous smile as he watched the other man. �I never quite feel it that way,� he said. �You don�t? Then wherein does life centre, for you?� �I don�t know�that�s what I want somebody to tell me. As far as I can make out, it doesn�t centre at all. It is artificially held _together_ by the social mechanism.� Birkin pondered as if he would crack something. �I know,� he said, �it just doesn�t centre. The old ideals are dead as nails�nothing there. It seems to me there remains only this perfect union with a woman�sort of ultimate marriage�and there isn�t anything else.� �And you mean if there isn�t the woman, there�s nothing?� said Gerald. �Pretty well that�seeing there�s no God.� �Then we�re hard put to it,� said Gerald. And he turned to look out of the window at the flying, golden landscape. Birkin could not help seeing how beautiful and soldierly his face was, with a certain courage to be indifferent. �You think its heavy odds against us?� said Birkin. �If we�ve got to make our life up out of a woman, one woman, woman only, yes, I do,� said Gerald. �I don�t believe I shall ever make up _my_ life, at that rate.� Birkin watched him almost angrily. �You are a born unbeliever,� he said. �I only feel what I feel,� said Gerald. And he looked again at Birkin almost sardonically, with his blue, manly, sharp-lighted eyes. Birkin�s eyes were at the moment full of anger. But swiftly they became troubled, doubtful, then full of a warm, rich affectionateness and laughter. �It troubles me very much, Gerald,� he said, wrinkling his brows. �I can see it does,� said Gerald, uncovering his mouth in a manly, quick, soldierly laugh. Gerald was held unconsciously by the other man. He wanted to be near him, he wanted to be within his sphere of influence. There was something very congenial to him in Birkin. But yet, beyond this, he did not take much notice. He felt that he, himself, Gerald, had harder and more durable truths than any the other man knew. He felt himself older, more knowing. It was the quick-changing warmth and venality and brilliant warm utterance he loved in his friend. It was the rich play of words and quick interchange of feelings he enjoyed. The real content of the words he never really considered: he himself knew better. Birkin knew this. He knew that Gerald wanted to be _fond_ of him without taking him seriously. And this made him go hard and cold. As the train ran on, he sat looking at the land, and Gerald fell away, became as nothing to him. Birkin looked at the land, at the evening, and was thinking: �Well, if mankind is destroyed, if our race is destroyed like Sodom, and there is this beautiful evening with the luminous land and trees, I am satisfied. That which informs it all is there, and can never be lost. After all, what is mankind but just one expression of the incomprehensible. And if mankind passes away, it will only mean that this particular expression is completed and done. That which is expressed, and that which is to be expressed, cannot be diminished. There it is, in the shining evening. Let mankind pass away�time it did. The creative utterances will not cease, they will only be there. Humanity doesn�t embody the utterance of the incomprehensible any more. Humanity is a dead letter. There will be a new embodiment, in a new way. Let humanity disappear as quick as possible.� Gerald interrupted him by asking, �Where are you staying in London?� Birkin looked up. �With a man in Soho. I pay part of the rent of a flat, and stop there when I like.� �Good idea�have a place more or less your own,� said Gerald. �Yes. But I don�t care for it much. I�m tired of the people I am bound to find there.� �What kind of people?� �Art�music�London Bohemia�the most pettifogging calculating Bohemia that ever reckoned its pennies. But there are a few decent people, decent in some respects. They are really very thorough rejecters of the world�perhaps they live only in the gesture of rejection and negation�but negatively something, at any rate.� �What are they?�painters, musicians?� �Painters, musicians, writers�hangers-on, models, advanced young people, anybody who is openly at outs with the conventions, and belongs to nowhere particularly. They are often young fellows down from the University, and girls who are living their own lives, as they say.� �All loose?� said Gerald. Birkin could see his curiosity roused. �In one way. Most bound, in another. For all their shockingness, all on one note.� He looked at Gerald, and saw how his blue eyes were lit up with a little flame of curious desire. He saw too how good-looking he was. Gerald was attractive, his blood seemed fluid and electric. His blue eyes burned with a keen, yet cold light, there was a certain beauty, a beautiful passivity in all his body, his moulding. �We might see something of each other�I am in London for two or three days,� said Gerald. �Yes,� said Birkin, �I don�t want to go to the theatre, or the music hall�you�d better come round to the flat, and see what you can make of Halliday and his crowd.� �Thanks�I should like to,� laughed Gerald. �What are you doing tonight?� �I promised to meet Halliday at the Pompadour. It�s a bad place, but there is nowhere else.� �Where is it?� asked Gerald. �Piccadilly Circus.� �Oh yes�well, shall I come round there?� �By all means, it might amuse you.� The evening was falling. They had passed Bedford. Birkin watched the country, and was filled with a sort of hopelessness. He always felt this, on approaching London. His dislike of mankind, of the mass of mankind, amounted almost to an illness. ��Where the quiet coloured end of evening smiles Miles and miles��� he was murmuring to himself, like a man condemned to death. Gerald, who was very subtly alert, wary in all his senses, leaned forward and asked smilingly: �What were you saying?� Birkin glanced at him, laughed, and repeated: ��Where the quiet coloured end of evening smiles, Miles and miles, Over pastures where the something something sheep Half asleep��� Gerald also looked now at the country. And Birkin, who, for some reason was now tired and dispirited, said to him: �I always feel doomed when the train is running into London. I feel such a despair, so hopeless, as if it were the end of the world.� �Really!� said Gerald. �And does the end of the world frighten you?� Birkin lifted his shoulders in a slow shrug. �I don�t know,� he said. �It does while it hangs imminent and doesn�t fall. But people give me a bad feeling�very bad.� There was a roused glad smile in Gerald�s eyes. �Do they?� he said. And he watched the other man critically. In a few minutes the train was running through the disgrace of outspread London. Everybody in the carriage was on the alert, waiting to escape. At last they were under the huge arch of the station, in the tremendous shadow of the town. Birkin shut himself together�he was in now. The two men went together in a taxi-cab. �Don�t you feel like one of the damned?� asked Birkin, as they sat in a little, swiftly-running enclosure, and watched the hideous great street. �No,� laughed Gerald. �It is real death,� said Birkin. CHAPTER VI. CR�ME DE MENTHE They met again in the café several hours later. Gerald went through the push doors into the large, lofty room where the faces and heads of the drinkers showed dimly through the haze of smoke, reflected more dimly, and repeated ad infinitum in the great mirrors on the walls, so that one seemed to enter a vague, dim world of shadowy drinkers humming within an atmosphere of blue tobacco smoke. There was, however, the red plush of the seats to give substance within the bubble of pleasure. Gerald moved in his slow, observant, glistening-attentive motion down between the tables and the people whose shadowy faces looked up as he passed. He seemed to be entering in some strange element, passing into an illuminated new region, among a host of licentious souls. He was pleased, and entertained. He looked over all the dim, evanescent, strangely illuminated faces that bent across the tables. Then he saw Birkin rise and signal to him. At Birkin�s table was a girl with dark, soft, fluffy hair cut short in the artist fashion, hanging level and full almost like the Egyptian princess�s. She was small and delicately made, with warm colouring and large, dark hostile eyes. There was a delicacy, almost a beauty in all her form, and at the same time a certain attractive grossness of spirit, that made a little spark leap instantly alight in Gerald�s eyes. Birkin, who looked muted, unreal, his presence left out, introduced her as Miss Darrington. She gave her hand with a sudden, unwilling movement, looking all the while at Gerald with a dark, exposed stare. A glow came over him as he sat down. The waiter appeared. Gerald glanced at the glasses of the other two. Birkin was drinking something green, Miss Darrington had a small liqueur glass that was empty save for a tiny drop. �Won�t you have some more�?� �Brandy,� she said, sipping her last drop and putting down the glass. The waiter disappeared. �No,� she said to Birkin. �He doesn�t know I�m back. He�ll be terrified when he sees me here.� She spoke her r�s like w�s, lisping with a slightly babyish pronunciation which was at once affected and true to her character. Her voice was dull and toneless. �Where is he then?� asked Birkin. �He�s doing a private show at Lady Snellgrove�s,� said the girl. �Warens is there too.� There was a pause. �Well, then,� said Birkin, in a dispassionate protective manner, �what do you intend to do?� The girl paused sullenly. She hated the question. �I don�t intend to do anything,� she replied. �I shall look for some sittings tomorrow.� �Who shall you go to?� asked Birkin. �I shall go to Bentley�s first. But I believe he�s angwy with me for running away.� �That is from the Madonna?� �Yes. And then if he doesn�t want me, I know I can get work with Carmarthen.� �Carmarthen?� �Lord Carmarthen�he does photographs.� �Chiffon and shoulders�� �Yes. But he�s awfully decent.� There was a pause. �And what are you going to do about Julius?� he asked. �Nothing,� she said. �I shall just ignore him.� �You�ve done with him altogether?� But she turned aside her face sullenly, and did not answer the question. Another young man came hurrying up to the table. �Hallo Birkin! Hallo _Pussum_, when did you come back?� he said eagerly. �Today.� �Does Halliday know?� �I don�t know. I don�t care either.� �Ha-ha! The wind still sits in that quarter, does it? Do you mind if I come over to this table?� �I�m talking to Wupert, do you mind?� she replied, coolly and yet appealingly, like a child. �Open confession�good for the soul, eh?� said the young man. �Well, so long.� And giving a sharp look at Birkin and at Gerald, the young man moved off, with a swing of his coat skirts. All this time Gerald had been completely ignored. And yet he felt that the girl was physically aware of his proximity. He waited, listened, and tried to piece together the conversation. �Are you staying at the flat?� the girl asked, of Birkin. �For three days,� replied Birkin. �And you?� �I don�t know yet. I can always go to Bertha�s.� There was a silence. Suddenly the girl turned to Gerald, and said, in a rather formal, polite voice, with the distant manner of a woman who accepts her position as a social inferior, yet assumes intimate _camaraderie_ with the male she addresses: �Do you know London well?� �I can hardly say,� he laughed. �I�ve been up a good many times, but I was never in this place before.� �You�re not an artist, then?� she said, in a tone that placed him an outsider. �No,� he replied. �He�s a soldier, and an explorer, and a Napoleon of industry,� said Birkin, giving Gerald his credentials for Bohemia. �Are you a soldier?� asked the girl, with a cold yet lively curiosity. �No, I resigned my commission,� said Gerald, �some years ago.� �He was in the last war,� said Birkin. �Were you really?� said the girl. �And then he explored the Amazon,� said Birkin, �and now he is ruling over coal-mines.� The girl looked at Gerald with steady, calm curiosity. He laughed, hearing himself described. He felt proud too, full of male strength. His blue, keen eyes were lit up with laughter, his ruddy face, with its sharp fair hair, was full of satisfaction, and glowing with life. He piqued her. �How long are you staying?� she asked him. �A day or two,� he replied. �But there is no particular hurry.� Still she stared into his face with that slow, full gaze which was so curious and so exciting to him. He was acutely and delightfully conscious of himself, of his own attractiveness. He felt full of strength, able to give off a sort of electric power. And he was aware of her dark, hot-looking eyes upon him. She had beautiful eyes, dark, fully-opened, hot, naked in their looking at him. And on them there seemed to float a film of disintegration, a sort of misery and sullenness, like oil on water. She wore no hat in the heated café, her loose, simple jumper was strung on a string round her neck. But it was made of rich peach-coloured crêpe-de-chine, that hung heavily and softly from her young throat and her slender wrists. Her appearance was simple and complete, really beautiful, because of her regularity and form, her soft dark hair falling full and level on either side of her head, her straight, small, softened features, Egyptian in the slight fulness of their curves, her slender neck and the simple, rich-coloured smock hanging on her slender shoulders. She was very still, almost null, in her manner, apart and watchful. She appealed to Gerald strongly. He felt an awful, enjoyable power over her, an instinctive cherishing very near to cruelty. For she was a victim. He felt that she was in his power, and he was generous. The electricity was turgid and voluptuously rich, in his limbs. He would be able to destroy her utterly in the strength of his discharge. But she was waiting in her separation, given. They talked banalities for some time. Suddenly Birkin said: �There�s Julius!� and he half rose to his feet, motioning to the newcomer. The girl, with a curious, almost evil motion, looked round over her shoulder without moving her body. Gerald watched her dark, soft hair swing over her ears. He felt her watching intensely the man who was approaching, so he looked too. He saw a pale, full-built young man with rather long, solid fair hair hanging from under his black hat, moving cumbrously down the room, his face lit up with a smile at once naive and warm, and vapid. He approached towards Birkin, with a haste of welcome. It was not till he was quite close that he perceived the girl. He recoiled, went pale, and said, in a high squealing voice: �Pussum, what are _you_ doing here?� The café looked up like animals when they hear a cry. Halliday hung motionless, an almost imbecile smile flickering palely on his face. The girl only stared at him with a black look in which flared an unfathomable hell of knowledge, and a certain impotence. She was limited by him. �Why have you come back?� repeated Halliday, in the same high, hysterical voice. �I told you not to come back.� The girl did not answer, only stared in the same viscous, heavy fashion, straight at him, as he stood recoiled, as if for safety, against the next table. �You know you wanted her to come back�come and sit down,� said Birkin to him. �No I didn�t want her to come back, and I told her not to come back. What have you come for, Pussum?� �For nothing from _you_,� she said in a heavy voice of resentment. �Then why have you come back at _all?_� cried Halliday, his voice rising to a kind of squeal. �She comes as she likes,� said Birkin. �Are you going to sit down, or are you not?� �No, I won�t sit down with Pussum,� cried Halliday. �I won�t hurt you, you needn�t be afraid,� she said to him, very curtly, and yet with a sort of protectiveness towards him, in her voice. Halliday came and sat at the table, putting his hand on his heart, and crying: �Oh, it�s given me such a turn! Pussum, I wish you wouldn�t do these things. Why did you come back?� �Not for anything from you,� she repeated. �You�ve said that before,� he cried in a high voice. She turned completely away from him, to Gerald Crich, whose eyes were shining with a subtle amusement. �Were you ever vewy much afwaid of the savages?� she asked in her calm, dull childish voice. �No�never very much afraid. On the whole they�re harmless�they�re not born yet, you can�t feel really afraid of them. You know you can manage them.� �Do you weally? Aren�t they very fierce?� �Not very. There aren�t many fierce things, as a matter of fact. There aren�t many things, neither people nor animals, that have it in them to be really dangerous.� �Except in herds,� interrupted Birkin. �Aren�t there really?� she said. �Oh, I thought savages were all so dangerous, they�d have your life before you could look round.� �Did you?� he laughed. �They are over-rated, savages. They�re too much like other people, not exciting, after the first acquaintance.� �Oh, it�s not so very wonderfully brave then, to be an explorer?� �No. It�s more a question of hardships than of terrors.� �Oh! And weren�t you ever afraid?� �In my life? I don�t know. Yes, I�m afraid of some things�of being shut up, locked up anywhere�or being fastened. I�m afraid of being bound hand and foot.� She looked at him steadily with her dark eyes, that rested on him and roused him so deeply, that it left his upper self quite calm. It was rather delicious, to feel her drawing his self-revelations from him, as from the very innermost dark marrow of his body. She wanted to know. And her dark eyes seemed to be looking through into his naked organism. He felt, she was compelled to him, she was fated to come into contact with him, must have the seeing him and knowing him. And this roused a curious exultance. Also he felt, she must relinquish herself into his hands, and be subject to him. She was so profane, slave-like, watching him, absorbed by him. It was not that she was interested in what he said; she was absorbed by his self-revelation, by _him_, she wanted the secret of him, the experience of his male being. Gerald�s face was lit up with an uncanny smile, full of light and rousedness, yet unconscious. He sat with his arms on the table, his sunbrowned, rather sinister hands, that were animal and yet very shapely and attractive, pushed forward towards her. And they fascinated her. And she knew, she watched her own fascination. Other men had come to the table, to talk with Birkin and Halliday. Gerald said in a low voice, apart, to Pussum: �Where have you come back from?� �From the country,� replied Pussum, in a very low, yet fully resonant voice. Her face closed hard. Continually she glanced at Halliday, and then a black flare came over her eyes. The heavy, fair young man ignored her completely; he was really afraid of her. For some moments she would be unaware of Gerald. He had not conquered her yet. �And what has Halliday to do with it?� he asked, his voice still muted. She would not answer for some seconds. Then she said, unwillingly: �He made me go and live with him, and now he wants to throw me over. And yet he won�t let me go to anybody else. He wants me to live hidden in the country. And then he says I persecute him, that he can�t get rid of me.� �Doesn�t know his own mind,� said Gerald. �He hasn�t any mind, so he can�t know it,� she said. �He waits for what somebody tells him to do. He never does anything he wants to do himself�because he doesn�t know what he wants. He�s a perfect baby.� Gerald looked at Halliday for some moments, watching the soft, rather degenerate face of the young man. Its very softness was an attraction; it was a soft, warm, corrupt nature, into which one might plunge with gratification. �But he has no hold over you, has he?� Gerald asked. �You see he _made_ me go and live with him, when I didn�t want to,� she replied. �He came and cried to me, tears, you never saw so many, saying _he couldn�t_ bear it unless I went back to him. And he wouldn�t go away, he would have stayed for ever. He made me go back. Then every time he behaves in this fashion. And now I�m going to have a baby, he wants to give me a hundred pounds and send me into the country, so that he would never see me nor hear of me again. But I�m not going to do it, after�� A queer look came over Gerald�s face. �Are you going to have a child?� he asked incredulous. It seemed, to look at her, impossible, she was so young and so far in spirit from any childbearing. She looked full into his face, and her dark, inchoate eyes had now a furtive look, and a look of a knowledge of evil, dark and indomitable. A flame ran secretly to his heart. �Yes,� she said. �Isn�t it beastly?� �Don�t you want it?� he asked. �I don�t,� she replied emphatically. �But�� he said, �how long have you known?� �Ten weeks,� she said. All the time she kept her dark, inchoate eyes full upon him. He remained silent, thinking. Then, switching off and becoming cold, he asked, in a voice full of considerate kindness: �Is there anything we can eat here? Is there anything you would like?� �Yes,� she said, �I should adore some oysters.� �All right,� he said. �We�ll have oysters.� And he beckoned to the waiter. Halliday took no notice, until the little plate was set before her. Then suddenly he cried: �Pussum, you can�t eat oysters when you�re drinking brandy.� �What has it go to do with you?� she asked. �Nothing, nothing,� he cried. �But you can�t eat oysters when you�re drinking brandy.� �I�m not drinking brandy,� she replied, and she sprinkled the last drops of her liqueur over his face. He gave an odd squeal. She sat looking at him, as if indifferent. �Pussum, why do you do that?� he cried in panic. He gave Gerald the impression that he was terrified of her, and that he loved his terror. He seemed to relish his own horror and hatred of her, turn it over and extract every flavour from it, in real panic. Gerald thought him a strange fool, and yet piquant. �But Pussum,� said another man, in a very small, quick Eton voice, �you promised not to hurt him.� �I haven�t hurt him,� she answered. �What will you drink?� the young man asked. He was dark, and smooth-skinned, and full of a stealthy vigour. �I don�t like porter, Maxim,� she replied. �You must ask for champagne,� came the whispering, gentlemanly voice of the other. Gerald suddenly realised that this was a hint to him. �Shall we have champagne?� he asked, laughing. �Yes please, dwy,� she lisped childishly. Gerald watched her eating the oysters. She was delicate and finicking in her eating, her fingers were fine and seemed very sensitive in the tips, so she put her food apart with fine, small motions, she ate carefully, delicately. It pleased him very much to see her, and it irritated Birkin. They were all drinking champagne. Maxim, the prim young Russian with the smooth, warm-coloured face and black, oiled hair was the only one who seemed to be perfectly calm and sober. Birkin was white and abstract, unnatural, Gerald was smiling with a constant bright, amused, cold light in his eyes, leaning a little protectively towards the Pussum, who was very handsome, and soft, unfolded like some red lotus in dreadful flowering nakedness, vainglorious now, flushed with wine and with the excitement of men. Halliday looked foolish. One glass of wine was enough to make him drunk and giggling. Yet there was always a pleasant, warm naïveté about him, that made him attractive. �I�m not afwaid of anything except black-beetles,� said the Pussum, looking up suddenly and staring with her black eyes, on which there seemed an unseeing film of flame, fully upon Gerald. He laughed dangerously, from the blood. Her childish speech caressed his nerves, and her burning, filmed eyes, turned now full upon him, oblivious of all her antecedents, gave him a sort of licence. �I�m not,� she protested. �I�m not afraid of other things. But black-beetles�ugh!� she shuddered convulsively, as if the very thought were too much to bear. �Do you mean,� said Gerald, with the punctiliousness of a man who has been drinking, �that you are afraid of the sight of a black-beetle, or you are afraid of a black-beetle biting you, or doing you some harm?� �Do they bite?� cried the girl. �How perfectly loathsome!� exclaimed Halliday. �I don�t know,� replied Gerald, looking round the table. �Do black-beetles bite? But that isn�t the point. Are you afraid of their biting, or is it a metaphysical antipathy?� The girl was looking full upon him all the time with inchoate eyes. �Oh, I think they�re beastly, they�re horrid,� she cried. �If I see one, it gives me the creeps all over. If one were to crawl on me, I�m _sure_ I should die�I�m sure I should.� �I hope not,� whispered the young Russian. �I�m sure I should, Maxim,� she asseverated. �Then one won�t crawl on you,� said Gerald, smiling and knowing. In some strange way he understood her. �It�s metaphysical, as Gerald says,� Birkin stated. There was a little pause of uneasiness. �And are you afraid of nothing else, Pussum?� asked the young Russian, in his quick, hushed, elegant manner. �Not weally,� she said. �I am afwaid of some things, but not weally the same. I�m not afwaid of _blood_.� �Not afwaid of blood!� exclaimed a young man with a thick, pale, jeering face, who had just come to the table and was drinking whisky. The Pussum turned on him a sulky look of dislike, low and ugly. �Aren�t you really afraid of blud?� the other persisted, a sneer all over his face. �No, I�m not,� she retorted. �Why, have you ever seen blood, except in a dentist�s spittoon?� jeered the young man. �I wasn�t speaking to you,� she replied rather superbly. �You can answer me, can�t you?� he said. For reply, she suddenly jabbed a knife across his thick, pale hand. He started up with a vulgar curse. �Show�s what you are,� said the Pussum in contempt. �Curse you,� said the young man, standing by the table and looking down at her with acrid malevolence. �Stop that,� said Gerald, in quick, instinctive command. The young man stood looking down at her with sardonic contempt, a cowed, self-conscious look on his thick, pale face. The blood began to flow from his hand. �Oh, how horrible, take it away!� squealed Halliday, turning green and averting his face. �D�you feel ill?� asked the sardonic young man, in some concern. �Do you feel ill, Julius? Garn, it�s nothing, man, don�t give her the pleasure of letting her think she�s performed a feat�don�t give her the satisfaction, man�it�s just what she wants.� �Oh!� squealed Halliday. �He�s going to cat, Maxim,� said the Pussum warningly. The suave young Russian rose and took Halliday by the arm, leading him away. Birkin, white and diminished, looked on as if he were displeased. The wounded, sardonic young man moved away, ignoring his bleeding hand in the most conspicuous fashion. �He�s an awful coward, really,� said the Pussum to Gerald. �He�s got such an influence over Julius.� �Who is he?� asked Gerald. �He�s a Jew, really. I can�t bear him.� �Well, he�s quite unimportant. But what�s wrong with Halliday?� �Julius�s the most awful coward you�ve ever seen,� she cried. �He always faints if I lift a knife�he�s tewwified of me.� �H�m!� said Gerald. �They�re all afwaid of me,� she said. �Only the Jew thinks he�s going to show his courage. But he�s the biggest coward of them all, really, because he�s afwaid what people will think about him�and Julius doesn�t care about that.� �They�ve a lot of valour between them,� said Gerald good-humouredly. The Pussum looked at him with a slow, slow smile. She was very handsome, flushed, and confident in dreadful knowledge. Two little points of light glinted on Gerald�s eyes. �Why do they call you Pussum, because you�re like a cat?� he asked her. �I expect so,� she said. The smile grew more intense on his face. �You are, rather; or a young, female panther.� �Oh God, Gerald!� said Birkin, in some disgust. They both looked uneasily at Birkin. �You�re silent tonight, Wupert,� she said to him, with a slight insolence, being safe with the other man. Halliday was coming back, looking forlorn and sick. �Pussum,� he said, �I wish you wouldn�t do these things�Oh!� He sank in his chair with a groan. �You�d better go home,� she said to him. �I _will_ go home,� he said. �But won�t you all come along. Won�t you come round to the flat?� he said to Gerald. �I should be so glad if you would. Do�that�ll be splendid. I say?� He looked round for a waiter. �Get me a taxi.� Then he groaned again. �Oh I do feel�perfectly ghastly! Pussum, you see what you do to me.� �Then why are you such an idiot?� she said with sullen calm. �But I�m not an idiot! Oh, how awful! Do come, everybody, it will be so splendid. Pussum, you are coming. What? Oh but you _must_ come, yes, you must. What? Oh, my dear girl, don�t make a fuss now, I feel perfectly�Oh, it�s so ghastly�Ho!�er! Oh!� �You know you can�t drink,� she said to him, coldly. �I tell you it isn�t drink�it�s your disgusting behaviour, Pussum, it�s nothing else. Oh, how awful! Libidnikov, do let us go.� �He�s only drunk one glass�only one glass,� came the rapid, hushed voice of the young Russian. They all moved off to the door. The girl kept near to Gerald, and seemed to be at one in her motion with him. He was aware of this, and filled with demon-satisfaction that his motion held good for two. He held her in the hollow of his will, and she was soft, secret, invisible in her stirring there. They crowded five of them into the taxi-cab. Halliday lurched in first, and dropped into his seat against the other window. Then the Pussum took her place, and Gerald sat next to her. They heard the young Russian giving orders to the driver, then they were all seated in the dark, crowded close together, Halliday groaning and leaning out of the window. They felt the swift, muffled motion of the car. The Pussum sat near to Gerald, and she seemed to become soft, subtly to infuse herself into his bones, as if she were passing into him in a black, electric flow. Her being suffused into his veins like a magnetic darkness, and concentrated at the base of his spine like a fearful source of power. Meanwhile her voice sounded out reedy and nonchalant, as she talked indifferently with Birkin and with Maxim. Between her and Gerald was this silence and this black, electric comprehension in the darkness. Then she found his hand, and grasped it in her own firm, small clasp. It was so utterly dark, and yet such a naked statement, that rapid vibrations ran through his blood and over his brain, he was no longer responsible. Still her voice rang on like a bell, tinged with a tone of mockery. And as she swung her head, her fine mane of hair just swept his face, and all his nerves were on fire, as with a subtle friction of electricity. But the great centre of his force held steady, a magnificent pride to him, at the base of his spine. They arrived at a large block of buildings, went up in a lift, and presently a door was being opened for them by a Hindu. Gerald looked in surprise, wondering if he were a gentleman, one of the Hindus down from Oxford, perhaps. But no, he was the man-servant. �Make tea, Hasan,� said Halliday. �There is a room for me?� said Birkin. To both of which questions the man grinned, and murmured. He made Gerald uncertain, because, being tall and slender and reticent, he looked like a gentleman. �Who is your servant?� he asked of Halliday. �He looks a swell.� �Oh yes�that�s because he�s dressed in another man�s clothes. He�s anything but a swell, really. We found him in the road, starving. So I took him here, and another man gave him clothes. He�s anything but what he seems to be�his only advantage is that he can�t speak English and can�t understand it, so he�s perfectly safe.� �He�s very dirty,� said the young Russian swiftly and silently. Directly, the man appeared in the doorway. �What is it?� said Halliday. The Hindu grinned, and murmured shyly: �Want to speak to master.� Gerald watched curiously. The fellow in the doorway was goodlooking and clean-limbed, his bearing was calm, he looked elegant, aristocratic. Yet he was half a savage, grinning foolishly. Halliday went out into the corridor to speak with him. �What?� they heard his voice. �What? What do you say? Tell me again. What? Want money? Want _more_ money? But what do you want money for?� There was the confused sound of the Hindu�s talking, then Halliday appeared in the room, smiling also foolishly, and saying: �He says he wants money to buy underclothing. Can anybody lend me a shilling? Oh thanks, a shilling will do to buy all the underclothes he wants.� He took the money from Gerald and went out into the passage again, where they heard him saying, �You can�t want more money, you had three and six yesterday. You mustn�t ask for any more. Bring the tea in quickly.� Gerald looked round the room. It was an ordinary London sitting-room in a flat, evidently taken furnished, rather common and ugly. But there were several negro statues, wood-carvings from West Africa, strange and disturbing, the carved negroes looked almost like the f�tus of a human being. One was a woman sitting naked in a strange posture, and looking tortured, her abdomen stuck out. The young Russian explained that she was sitting in child-birth, clutching the ends of the band that hung from her neck, one in each hand, so that she could bear down, and help labour. The strange, transfixed, rudimentary face of the woman again reminded Gerald of a f�tus, it was also rather wonderful, conveying the suggestion of the extreme of physical sensation, beyond the limits of mental consciousness. �Aren�t they rather obscene?� he asked, disapproving. �I don�t know,� murmured the other rapidly. �I have never defined the obscene. I think they are very good.� Gerald turned away. There were one or two new pictures in the room, in the Futurist manner; there was a large piano. And these, with some ordinary London lodging-house furniture of the better sort, completed the whole. The Pussum had taken off her hat and coat, and was seated on the sofa. She was evidently quite at home in the house, but uncertain, suspended. She did not quite know her position. Her alliance for the time being was with Gerald, and she did not know how far this was admitted by any of the men. She was considering how she should carry off the situation. She was determined to have her experience. Now, at this eleventh hour, she was not to be baulked. Her face was flushed as with battle, her eye was brooding but inevitable. The man came in with tea and a bottle of Kümmel. He set the tray on a little table before the couch. �Pussum,� said Halliday, �pour out the tea.� She did not move. �Won�t you do it?� Halliday repeated, in a state of nervous apprehension. �I�ve not come back here as it was before,� she said. �I only came because the others wanted me to, not for your sake.� �My dear Pussum, you know you are your own mistress. I don�t want you to do anything but use the flat for your own convenience�you know it, I�ve told you so many times.� She did not reply, but silently, reservedly reached for the tea-pot. They all sat round and drank tea. Gerald could feel the electric connection between him and her so strongly, as she sat there quiet and withheld, that another set of conditions altogether had come to pass. Her silence and her immutability perplexed him. _How_ was he going to come to her? And yet he felt it quite inevitable. He trusted completely to the current that held them. His perplexity was only superficial, new conditions reigned, the old were surpassed; here one did as one was possessed to do, no matter what it was. Birkin rose. It was nearly one o�clock. �I�m going to bed,� he said. �Gerald, I�ll ring you up in the morning at your place or you ring me up here.� �Right,� said Gerald, and Birkin went out. When he was well gone, Halliday said in a stimulated voice, to Gerald: �I say, won�t you stay here�oh do!� �You can�t put everybody up,� said Gerald. �Oh but I can, perfectly�there are three more beds besides mine�do stay, won�t you. Everything is quite ready�there is always somebody here�I always put people up�I love having the house crowded.� �But there are only two rooms,� said the Pussum, in a cold, hostile voice, �now Rupert�s here.� �I know there are only two rooms,� said Halliday, in his odd, high way of speaking. �But what does that matter?� He was smiling rather foolishly, and he spoke eagerly, with an insinuating determination. �Julius and I will share one room,� said the Russian in his discreet, precise voice. Halliday and he were friends since Eton. �It�s very simple,� said Gerald, rising and pressing back his arms, stretching himself. Then he went again to look at one of the pictures. Every one of his limbs was turgid with electric force, and his back was tense like a tiger�s, with slumbering fire. He was very proud. The Pussum rose. She gave a black look at Halliday, black and deadly, which brought the rather foolishly pleased smile to that young man�s face. Then she went out of the room, with a cold good-night to them all generally. There was a brief interval, they heard a door close, then Maxim said, in his refined voice: �That�s all right.� He looked significantly at Gerald, and said again, with a silent nod: �That�s all right�you�re all right.� Gerald looked at the smooth, ruddy, comely face, and at the strange, significant eyes, and it seemed as if the voice of the young Russian, so small and perfect, sounded in the blood rather than in the air. �_I�m_ all right then,� said Gerald. �Yes! Yes! You�re all right,� said the Russian. Halliday continued to smile, and to say nothing. Suddenly the Pussum appeared again in the door, her small, childish face looking sullen and vindictive. �I know you want to catch me out,� came her cold, rather resonant voice. �But I don�t care, I don�t care how much you catch me out.� She turned and was gone again. She had been wearing a loose dressing-gown of purple silk, tied round her waist. She looked so small and childish and vulnerable, almost pitiful. And yet the black looks of her eyes made Gerald feel drowned in some potent darkness that almost frightened him. The men lit another cigarette and talked casually. CHAPTER VII. FETISH In the morning Gerald woke late. He had slept heavily. Pussum was still asleep, sleeping childishly and pathetically. There was something small and curled up and defenceless about her, that roused an unsatisfied flame of passion in the young man�s blood, a devouring avid pity. He looked at her again. But it would be too cruel to wake her. He subdued himself, and went away. Hearing voices coming from the sitting-room, Halliday talking to Libidnikov, he went to the door and glanced in. He had on a silk wrap of a beautiful bluish colour, with an amethyst hem. To his surprise he saw the two young men by the fire, stark naked. Halliday looked up, rather pleased. �Good-morning,� he said. �Oh�did you want towels?� And stark naked he went out into the hall, striding a strange, white figure between the unliving furniture. He came back with the towels, and took his former position, crouching seated before the fire on the fender. �Don�t you love to feel the fire on your skin?� he said. �It _is_ rather pleasant,� said Gerald. �How perfectly splendid it must be to be in a climate where one could do without clothing altogether,� said Halliday. �Yes,� said Gerald, �if there weren�t so many things that sting and bite.� �That�s a disadvantage,� murmured Maxim. Gerald looked at him, and with a slight revulsion saw the human animal, golden skinned and bare, somehow humiliating. Halliday was different. He had a rather heavy, slack, broken beauty, white and firm. He was like a Christ in a Pietà. The animal was not there at all, only the heavy, broken beauty. And Gerald realised how Halliday�s eyes were beautiful too, so blue and warm and confused, broken also in their expression. The fireglow fell on his heavy, rather bowed shoulders, he sat slackly crouched on the fender, his face was uplifted, weak, perhaps slightly disintegrate, and yet with a moving beauty of its own. �Of course,� said Maxim, �you�ve been in hot countries where the people go about naked.� �Oh really!� exclaimed Halliday. �Where?� �South America�Amazon,� said Gerald. �Oh but how perfectly splendid! It�s one of the things I want most to do�to live from day to day without _ever_ putting on any sort of clothing whatever. If I could do that, I should feel I had lived.� �But why?� said Gerald. �I can�t see that it makes so much difference.� �Oh, I think it would be perfectly splendid. I�m sure life would be entirely another thing�entirely different, and perfectly wonderful.� �But why?� asked Gerald. �Why should it?� �Oh�one would _feel_ things instead of merely looking at them. I should feel the air move against me, and feel the things I touched, instead of having only to look at them. I�m sure life is all wrong because it has become much too visual�we can neither hear nor feel nor understand, we can only see. I�m sure that is entirely wrong.� �Yes, that is true, that is true,� said the Russian. Gerald glanced at him, and saw him, his suave, golden coloured body with the black hair growing fine and freely, like tendrils, and his limbs like smooth plant-stems. He was so healthy and well-made, why did he make one ashamed, why did one feel repelled? Why should Gerald even dislike it, why did it seem to him to detract from his own dignity. Was that all a human being amounted to? So uninspired! thought Gerald. Birkin suddenly appeared in the doorway, in white pyjamas and wet hair, and a towel over his arm. He was aloof and white, and somehow evanescent. �There�s the bath-room now, if you want it,� he said generally, and was going away again, when Gerald called: �I say, Rupert!� �What?� The single white figure appeared again, a presence in the room. �What do you think of that figure there? I want to know,� Gerald asked. Birkin, white and strangely ghostly, went over to the carved figure of the negro woman in labour. Her nude, protuberant body crouched in a strange, clutching posture, her hands gripping the ends of the band, above her breast. �It is art,� said Birkin. �Very beautiful, it�s very beautiful,� said the Russian. They all drew near to look. Gerald looked at the group of men, the Russian golden and like a water-plant, Halliday tall and heavily, brokenly beautiful, Birkin very white and indefinite, not to be assigned, as he looked closely at the carven woman. Strangely elated, Gerald also lifted his eyes to the face of the wooden figure. And his heart contracted. He saw vividly with his spirit the grey, forward-stretching face of the negro woman, African and tense, abstracted in utter physical stress. It was a terrible face, void, peaked, abstracted almost into meaninglessness by the weight of sensation beneath. He saw the Pussum in it. As in a dream, he knew her. �Why is it art?� Gerald asked, shocked, resentful. �It conveys a complete truth,� said Birkin. �It contains the whole truth of that state, whatever you feel about it.� �But you can�t call it _high_ art,� said Gerald. �High! There are centuries and hundreds of centuries of development in a straight line, behind that carving; it is an awful pitch of culture, of a definite sort.� �What culture?� Gerald asked, in opposition. He hated the sheer African thing. �Pure culture in sensation, culture in the physical consciousness, really ultimate _physical_ consciousness, mindless, utterly sensual. It is so sensual as to be final, supreme.� But Gerald resented it. He wanted to keep certain illusions, certain ideas like clothing. �You like the wrong things, Rupert,� he said, �things against yourself.� �Oh, I know, this isn�t everything,� Birkin replied, moving away. When Gerald went back to his room from the bath, he also carried his clothes. He was so conventional at home, that when he was really away, and on the loose, as now, he enjoyed nothing so much as full outrageousness. So he strode with his blue silk wrap over his arm and felt defiant. The Pussum lay in her bed, motionless, her round, dark eyes like black, unhappy pools. He could only see the black, bottomless pools of her eyes. Perhaps she suffered. The sensation of her inchoate suffering roused the old sharp flame in him, a mordant pity, a passion almost of cruelty. �You are awake now,� he said to her. �What time is it?� came her muted voice. She seemed to flow back, almost like liquid, from his approach, to sink helplessly away from him. Her inchoate look of a violated slave, whose fulfilment lies in her further and further violation, made his nerves quiver with acutely desirable sensation. After all, his was the only will, she was the passive substance of his will. He tingled with the subtle, biting sensation. And then he knew, he must go away from her, there must be pure separation between them. It was a quiet and ordinary breakfast, the four men all looking very clean and bathed. Gerald and the Russian were both correct and _comme il faut_ in appearance and manner, Birkin was gaunt and sick, and looked a failure in his attempt to be a properly dressed man, like Gerald and Maxim. Halliday wore tweeds and a green flannel shirt, and a rag of a tie, which was just right for him. The Hindu brought in a great deal of soft toast, and looked exactly the same as he had looked the night before, statically the same. At the end of the breakfast the Pussum appeared, in a purple silk wrap with a shimmering sash. She had recovered herself somewhat, but was mute and lifeless still. It was a torment to her when anybody spoke to her. Her face was like a small, fine mask, sinister too, masked with unwilling suffering. It was almost midday. Gerald rose and went away to his business, glad to get out. But he had not finished. He was coming back again at evening, they were all dining together, and he had booked seats for the party, excepting Birkin, at a music-hall. At night they came back to the flat very late again, again flushed with drink. Again the man-servant�who invariably disappeared between the hours of ten and twelve at night�came in silently and inscrutably with tea, bending in a slow, strange, leopard-like fashion to put the tray softly on the table. His face was immutable, aristocratic-looking, tinged slightly with grey under the skin; he was young and good-looking. But Birkin felt a slight sickness, looking at him, and feeling the slight greyness as an ash or a corruption, in the aristocratic inscrutability of expression a nauseating, bestial stupidity. Again they talked cordially and rousedly together. But already a certain friability was coming over the party, Birkin was mad with irritation, Halliday was turning in an insane hatred against Gerald, the Pussum was becoming hard and cold, like a flint knife, and Halliday was laying himself out to her. And her intention, ultimately, was to capture Halliday, to have complete power over him. In the morning they all stalked and lounged about again. But Gerald could feel a strange hostility to himself, in the air. It roused his obstinacy, and he stood up against it. He hung on for two more days. The result was a nasty and insane scene with Halliday on the fourth evening. Halliday turned with absurd animosity upon Gerald, in the café. There was a row. Gerald was on the point of knocking-in Halliday�s face; when he was filled with sudden disgust and indifference, and he went away, leaving Halliday in a foolish state of gloating triumph, the Pussum hard and established, and Maxim standing clear. Birkin was absent, he had gone out of town again. Gerald was piqued because he had left without giving the Pussum money. It was true, she did not care whether he gave her money or not, and he knew it. But she would have been glad of ten pounds, and he would have been _very_ glad to give them to her. Now he felt in a false position. He went away chewing his lips to get at the ends of his short clipped moustache. He knew the Pussum was merely glad to be rid of him. She had got her Halliday whom she wanted. She wanted him completely in her power. Then she would marry him. She wanted to marry him. She had set her will on marrying Halliday. She never wanted to hear of Gerald again; unless, perhaps, she were in difficulty; because after all, Gerald was what she called a man, and these others, Halliday, Libidnikov, Birkin, the whole Bohemian set, they were only half men. But it was half men she could deal with. She felt sure of herself with them. The real men, like Gerald, put her in her place too much. Still, she respected Gerald, she really respected him. She had managed to get his address, so that she could appeal to him in time of distress. She knew he wanted to give her money. She would perhaps write to him on that inevitable rainy day. CHAPTER VIII. BREADALBY Breadalby was a Georgian house with Corinthian pillars, standing among the softer, greener hills of Derbyshire, not far from Cromford. In front, it looked over a lawn, over a few trees, down to a string of fish-ponds in the hollow of the silent park. At the back were trees, among which were to be found the stables, and the big kitchen garden, behind which was a wood. It was a very quiet place, some miles from the high-road, back from the Derwent Valley, outside the show scenery. Silent and forsaken, the golden stucco showed between the trees, the house-front looked down the park, unchanged and unchanging. Of late, however, Hermione had lived a good deal at the house. She had turned away from London, away from Oxford, towards the silence of the country. Her father was mostly absent, abroad, she was either alone in the house, with her visitors, of whom there were always several, or she had with her her brother, a bachelor, and a Liberal member of Parliament. He always came down when the House was not sitting, seemed always to be present in Breadalby, although he was most conscientious in his attendance to duty. The summer was just coming in when Ursula and Gudrun went to stay the second time with Hermione. Coming along in the car, after they had entered the park, they looked across the dip, where the fish-ponds lay in silence, at the pillared front of the house, sunny and small like an English drawing of the old school, on the brow of the green hill, against the trees. There were small figures on the green lawn, women in lavender and yellow moving to the shade of the enormous, beautifully balanced cedar tree. �Isn�t it complete!� said Gudrun. �It is as final as an old aquatint.� She spoke with some resentment in her voice, as if she were captivated unwillingly, as if she must admire against her will. �Do you love it?� asked Ursula. �I don�t _love_ it, but in its way, I think it is quite complete.� The motor-car ran down the hill and up again in one breath, and they were curving to the side door. A parlour-maid appeared, and then Hermione, coming forward with her pale face lifted, and her hands outstretched, advancing straight to the newcomers, her voice singing: �Here you are�I�m so glad to see you�� she kissed Gudrun��so glad to see you�� she kissed Ursula and remained with her arm round her. �Are you very tired?� �Not at all tired,� said Ursula. �Are you tired, Gudrun?� �Not at all, thanks,� said Gudrun. �No�� drawled Hermione. And she stood and looked at them. The two girls were embarrassed because she would not move into the house, but must have her little scene of welcome there on the path. The servants waited. �Come in,� said Hermione at last, having fully taken in the pair of them. Gudrun was the more beautiful and attractive, she had decided again, Ursula was more physical, more womanly. She admired Gudrun�s dress more. It was of green poplin, with a loose coat above it, of broad, dark-green and dark-brown stripes. The hat was of a pale, greenish straw, the colour of new hay, and it had a plaited ribbon of black and orange, the stockings were dark green, the shoes black. It was a good get-up, at once fashionable and individual. Ursula, in dark blue, was more ordinary, though she also looked well. Hermione herself wore a dress of prune-coloured silk, with coral beads and coral coloured stockings. But her dress was both shabby and soiled, even rather dirty. �You would like to see your rooms now, wouldn�t you! Yes. We will go up now, shall we?� Ursula was glad when she could be left alone in her room. Hermione lingered so long, made such a stress on one. She stood so near to one, pressing herself near upon one, in a way that was most embarrassing and oppressive. She seemed to hinder one�s workings. Lunch was served on the lawn, under the great tree, whose thick, blackish boughs came down close to the grass. There were present a young Italian woman, slight and fashionable, a young, athletic-looking Miss Bradley, a learned, dry Baronet of fifty, who was always making witticisms and laughing at them heartily in a harsh, horse-laugh, there was Rupert Birkin, and then a woman secretary, a Fräulein März, young and slim and pretty. The food was very good, that was one thing. Gudrun, critical of everything, gave it her full approval. Ursula loved the situation, the white table by the cedar tree, the scent of new sunshine, the little vision of the leafy park, with far-off deer feeding peacefully. There seemed a magic circle drawn about the place, shutting out the present, enclosing the delightful, precious past, trees and deer and silence, like a dream. But in spirit she was unhappy. The talk went on like a rattle of small artillery, always slightly sententious, with a sententiousness that was only emphasised by the continual crackling of a witticism, the continual spatter of verbal jest, designed to give a tone of flippancy to a stream of conversation that was all critical and general, a canal of conversation rather than a stream. The attitude was mental and very wearying. Only the elderly sociologist, whose mental fibre was so tough as to be insentient, seemed to be thoroughly happy. Birkin was down in the mouth. Hermione appeared, with amazing persistence, to wish to ridicule him and make him look ignominious in the eyes of everybody. And it was surprising how she seemed to succeed, how helpless he seemed against her. He looked completely insignificant. Ursula and Gudrun, both very unused, were mostly silent, listening to the slow, rhapsodic sing-song of Hermione, or the verbal sallies of Sir Joshua, or the prattle of Fräulein, or the responses of the other two women. Luncheon was over, coffee was brought out on the grass, the party left the table and sat about in lounge chairs, in the shade or in the sunshine as they wished. Fräulein departed into the house, Hermione took up her embroidery, the little Contessa took a book, Miss Bradley was weaving a basket out of fine grass, and there they all were on the lawn in the early summer afternoon, working leisurely and spattering with half-intellectual, deliberate talk. Suddenly there was the sound of the brakes and the shutting off of a motor-car. �There�s Salsie!� sang Hermione, in her slow, amusing sing-song. And laying down her work, she rose slowly, and slowly passed over the lawn, round the bushes, out of sight. �Who is it?� asked Gudrun. �Mr Roddice�Miss Roddice�s brother�at least, I suppose it�s he,� said Sir Joshua. �Salsie, yes, it is her brother,� said the little Contessa, lifting her head for a moment from her book, and speaking as if to give information, in her slightly deepened, guttural English. They all waited. And then round the bushes came the tall form of Alexander Roddice, striding romantically like a Meredith hero who remembers Disraeli. He was cordial with everybody, he was at once a host, with an easy, offhand hospitality that he had learned for Hermione�s friends. He had just come down from London, from the House. At once the atmosphere of the House of Commons made itself felt over the lawn: the Home Secretary had said such and such a thing, and he, Roddice, on the other hand, thought such and such a thing, and had said so-and-so to the PM. Now Hermione came round the bushes with Gerald Crich. He had come along with Alexander. Gerald was presented to everybody, was kept by Hermione for a few moments in full view, then he was led away, still by Hermione. He was evidently her guest of the moment. There had been a split in the Cabinet; the minister for Education had resigned owing to adverse criticism. This started a conversation on education. �Of course,� said Hermione, lifting her face like a rhapsodist, �there _can_ be no reason, no _excuse_ for education, except the joy and beauty of knowledge in itself.� She seemed to rumble and ruminate with subterranean thoughts for a minute, then she proceeded: �Vocational education _isn�t_ education, it is the close of education.� Gerald, on the brink of discussion, sniffed the air with delight and prepared for action. �Not necessarily,� he said. �But isn�t education really like gymnastics, isn�t the end of education the production of a well-trained, vigorous, energetic mind?� �Just as athletics produce a healthy body, ready for anything,� cried Miss Bradley, in hearty accord. Gudrun looked at her in silent loathing. �Well�� rumbled Hermione, �I don�t know. To me the pleasure of knowing is so great, so _wonderful_�nothing has meant so much to me in all life, as certain knowledge�no, I am sure�nothing.� �What knowledge, for example, Hermione?� asked Alexander. Hermione lifted her face and rumbled� �M�m�m�I don�t know . . . But one thing was the stars, when I really understood something about the stars. One feels so _uplifted_, so _unbounded_ . . .� Birkin looked at her in a white fury. �What do you want to feel unbounded for?� he said sarcastically. �You don�t want to _be_ unbounded.� Hermione recoiled in offence. �Yes, but one does have that limitless feeling,� said Gerald. �It�s like getting on top of the mountain and seeing the Pacific.� �Silent upon a peak in Dariayn,� murmured the Italian, lifting her face for a moment from her book. �Not necessarily in Dariayn,� said Gerald, while Ursula began to laugh. Hermione waited for the dust to settle, and then she said, untouched: �Yes, it is the greatest thing in life�_to know_. It is really to be happy, to be _free_.� �Knowledge is, of course, liberty,� said Mattheson. �In compressed tabloids,� said Birkin, looking at the dry, stiff little body of the Baronet. Immediately Gudrun saw the famous sociologist as a flat bottle, containing tabloids of compressed liberty. That pleased her. Sir Joshua was labelled and placed forever in her mind. �What does that mean, Rupert?� sang Hermione, in a calm snub. �You can only have knowledge, strictly,� he replied, �of things concluded, in the past. It�s like bottling the liberty of last summer in the bottled gooseberries.� �_Can_ one have knowledge only of the past?� asked the Baronet, pointedly. �Could we call our knowledge of the laws of gravitation for instance, knowledge of the past?� �Yes,� said Birkin. �There is a most beautiful thing in my book,� suddenly piped the little Italian woman. �It says the man came to the door and threw his eyes down the street.� There was a general laugh in the company. Miss Bradley went and looked over the shoulder of the Contessa. �See!� said the Contessa. �Bazarov came to the door and threw his eyes hurriedly down the street,� she read. Again there was a loud laugh, the most startling of which was the Baronet�s, which rattled out like a clatter of falling stones. �What is the book?� asked Alexander, promptly. �Fathers and Sons, by Turgenev,� said the little foreigner, pronouncing every syllable distinctly. She looked at the cover, to verify herself. �An old American edition,� said Birkin. �Ha!�of course�translated from the French,� said Alexander, with a fine declamatory voice. �_Bazarov ouvra la porte et jeta les yeux dans la rue._� He looked brightly round the company. �I wonder what the �hurriedly� was,� said Ursula. They all began to guess. And then, to the amazement of everybody, the maid came hurrying with a large tea-tray. The afternoon had passed so swiftly. After tea, they were all gathered for a walk. �Would you like to come for a walk?� said Hermione to each of them, one by one. And they all said yes, feeling somehow like prisoners marshalled for exercise. Birkin only refused. �Will you come for a walk, Rupert?� �No, Hermione.� �But are you _sure?_� �Quite sure.� There was a second�s hesitation. �And why not?� sang Hermione�s question. It made her blood run sharp, to be thwarted in even so trifling a matter. She intended them all to walk with her in the park. �Because I don�t like trooping off in a gang,� he said. Her voice rumbled in her throat for a moment. Then she said, with a curious stray calm: �Then we�ll leave a little boy behind, if he�s sulky.� And she looked really gay, while she insulted him. But it merely made him stiff. She trailed off to the rest of the company, only turning to wave her handkerchief to him, and to chuckle with laughter, singing out: �Good-bye, good-bye, little boy.� �Good-bye, impudent hag,� he said to himself. They all went through the park. Hermione wanted to show them the wild daffodils on a little slope. �This way, this way,� sang her leisurely voice at intervals. And they had all to come this way. The daffodils were pretty, but who could see them? Ursula was stiff all over with resentment by this time, resentment of the whole atmosphere. Gudrun, mocking and objective, watched and registered everything. They looked at the shy deer, and Hermione talked to the stag, as if he too were a boy she wanted to wheedle and fondle. He was male, so she must exert some kind of power over him. They trailed home by the fish-ponds, and Hermione told them about the quarrel of two male swans, who had striven for the love of the one lady. She chuckled and laughed as she told how the ousted lover had sat with his head buried under his wing, on the gravel. When they arrived back at the house, Hermione stood on the lawn and sang out, in a strange, small, high voice that carried very far: �Rupert! Rupert!� The first syllable was high and slow, the second dropped down. �Roo-o-opert.� But there was no answer. A maid appeared. �Where is Mr Birkin, Alice?� asked the mild straying voice of Hermione. But under the straying voice, what a persistent, almost insane _will!_ �I think he�s in his room, madam.� �Is he?� Hermione went slowly up the stairs, along the corridor, singing out in her high, small call: �Ru-oo-pert! Ru-oo pert!� She came to his door, and tapped, still crying: �Roo-pert.� �Yes,� sounded his voice at last. �What are you doing?� The question was mild and curious. There was no answer. Then he opened the door. �We�ve come back,� said Hermione. �The daffodils are _so_ beautiful.� �Yes,� he said, �I�ve seen them.� She looked at him with her long, slow, impassive look, along her cheeks. �Have you?� she echoed. And she remained looking at him. She was stimulated above all things by this conflict with him, when he was like a sulky boy, helpless, and she had him safe at Breadalby. But underneath she knew the split was coming, and her hatred of him was subconscious and intense. �What were you doing?� she reiterated, in her mild, indifferent tone. He did not answer, and she made her way, almost unconsciously into his room. He had taken a Chinese drawing of geese from the boudoir, and was copying it, with much skill and vividness. �You are copying the drawing,� she said, standing near the table, and looking down at his work. �Yes. How beautifully you do it! You like it very much, don�t you?� �It�s a marvellous drawing,� he said. �Is it? I�m so glad you like it, because I�ve always been fond of it. The Chinese Ambassador gave it me.� �I know,� he said. �But why do you copy it?� she asked, casual and sing-song. �Why not do something original?� �I want to know it,� he replied. �One gets more of China, copying this picture, than reading all the books.� �And what do you get?� She was at once roused, she laid as it were violent hands on him, to extract his secrets from him. She _must_ know. It was a dreadful tyranny, an obsession in her, to know all he knew. For some time he was silent, hating to answer her. Then, compelled, he began: �I know what centres they live from�what they perceive and feel�the hot, stinging centrality of a goose in the flux of cold water and mud�the curious bitter stinging heat of a goose�s blood, entering their own blood like an inoculation of corruptive fire�fire of the cold-burning mud�the lotus mystery.� Hermione looked at him along her narrow, pallid cheeks. Her eyes were strange and drugged, heavy under their heavy, drooping lids. Her thin bosom shrugged convulsively. He stared back at her, devilish and unchanging. With another strange, sick convulsion, she turned away, as if she were sick, could feel dissolution setting-in in her body. For with her mind she was unable to attend to his words, he caught her, as it were, beneath all her defences, and destroyed her with some insidious occult potency. �Yes,� she said, as if she did not know what she were saying. �Yes,� and she swallowed, and tried to regain her mind. But she could not, she was witless, decentralised. Use all her will as she might, she could not recover. She suffered the ghastliness of dissolution, broken and gone in a horrible corruption. And he stood and looked at her unmoved. She strayed out, pallid and preyed-upon like a ghost, like one attacked by the tomb-influences which dog us. And she was gone like a corpse, that has no presence, no connection. He remained hard and vindictive. Hermione came down to dinner strange and sepulchral, her eyes heavy and full of sepulchral darkness, strength. She had put on a dress of stiff old greenish brocade, that fitted tight and made her look tall and rather terrible, ghastly. In the gay light of the drawing-room she was uncanny and oppressive. But seated in the half-light of the dining-room, sitting stiffly before the shaded candles on the table, she seemed a power, a presence. She listened and attended with a drugged attention. The party was gay and extravagant in appearance, everybody had put on evening dress except Birkin and Joshua Mattheson. The little Italian Contessa wore a dress of tissue, of orange and gold and black velvet in soft wide stripes, Gudrun was emerald green with strange net-work, Ursula was in yellow with dull silver veiling, Miss Bradley was of grey, crimson and jet, Fräulein März wore pale blue. It gave Hermione a sudden convulsive sensation of pleasure, to see these rich colours under the candle-light. She was aware of the talk going on, ceaselessly, Joshua�s voice dominating; of the ceaseless pitter-patter of women�s light laughter and responses; of the brilliant colours and the white table and the shadow above and below; and she seemed in a swoon of gratification, convulsed with pleasure and yet sick, like a _revenant_. She took very little part in the conversation, yet she heard it all, it was all hers. They all went together into the drawing-room, as if they were one family, easily, without any attention to ceremony. Fräulein handed the coffee, everybody smoked cigarettes, or else long warden pipes of white clay, of which a sheaf was provided. �Will you smoke?�cigarettes or pipe?� asked Fräulein prettily. There was a circle of people, Sir Joshua with his eighteenth-century appearance, Gerald the amused, handsome young Englishman, Alexander tall and the handsome politician, democratic and lucid, Hermione strange like a long Cassandra, and the women lurid with colour, all dutifully smoking their long white pipes, and sitting in a half-moon in the comfortable, soft-lighted drawing-room, round the logs that flickered on the marble hearth. The talk was very often political or sociological, and interesting, curiously anarchistic. There was an accumulation of powerful force in the room, powerful and destructive. Everything seemed to be thrown into the melting pot, and it seemed to Ursula they were all witches, helping the pot to bubble. There was an elation and a satisfaction in it all, but it was cruelly exhausting for the newcomers, this ruthless mental pressure, this powerful, consuming, destructive mentality that emanated from Joshua and Hermione and Birkin and dominated the rest. But a sickness, a fearful nausea gathered possession of Hermione. There was a lull in the talk, as it was arrested by her unconscious but all-powerful will. �Salsie, won�t you play something?� said Hermione, breaking off completely. �Won�t somebody dance? Gudrun, you will dance, won�t you? I wish you would. _Anche tu, Palestra, ballerai?�sì, per piacere._ You too, Ursula.� Hermione rose and slowly pulled the gold-embroidered band that hung by the mantel, clinging to it for a moment, then releasing it suddenly. Like a priestess she looked, unconscious, sunk in a heavy half-trance. A servant came, and soon reappeared with armfuls of silk robes and shawls and scarves, mostly oriental, things that Hermione, with her love for beautiful extravagant dress, had collected gradually. �The three women will dance together,� she said. �What shall it be?� asked Alexander, rising briskly. �_Vergini Delle Rocchette_,� said the Contessa at once. �They are so languid,� said Ursula. �The three witches from Macbeth,� suggested Fräulein usefully. It was finally decided to do Naomi and Ruth and Orpah. Ursula was Naomi, Gudrun was Ruth, the Contessa was Orpah. The idea was to make a little ballet, in the style of the Russian Ballet of Pavlova and Nijinsky. The Contessa was ready first, Alexander went to the piano, a space was cleared. Orpah, in beautiful oriental clothes, began slowly to dance the death of her husband. Then Ruth came, and they wept together, and lamented, then Naomi came to comfort them. It was all done in dumb show, the women danced their emotion in gesture and motion. The little drama went on for a quarter of an hour. Ursula was beautiful as Naomi. All her men were dead, it remained to her only to stand alone in indomitable assertion, demanding nothing. Ruth, woman-loving, loved her. Orpah, a vivid, sensational, subtle widow, would go back to the former life, a repetition. The interplay between the women was real and rather frightening. It was strange to see how Gudrun clung with heavy, desperate passion to Ursula, yet smiled with subtle malevolence against her, how Ursula accepted silently, unable to provide any more either for herself or for the other, but dangerous and indomitable, refuting her grief. Hermione loved to watch. She could see the Contessa�s rapid, stoat-like sensationalism, Gudrun�s ultimate but treacherous cleaving to the woman in her sister, Ursula�s dangerous helplessness, as if she were helplessly weighted, and unreleased. �That was very beautiful,� everybody cried with one accord. But Hermione writhed in her soul, knowing what she could not know. She cried out for more dancing, and it was her will that set the Contessa and Birkin moving mockingly in Malbrouk. Gerald was excited by the desperate cleaving of Gudrun to Naomi. The essence of that female, subterranean recklessness and mockery penetrated his blood. He could not forget Gudrun�s lifted, offered, cleaving, reckless, yet withal mocking weight. And Birkin, watching like a hermit crab from its hole, had seen the brilliant frustration and helplessness of Ursula. She was rich, full of dangerous power. She was like a strange unconscious bud of powerful womanhood. He was unconsciously drawn to her. She was his future. Alexander played some Hungarian music, and they all danced, seized by the spirit. Gerald was marvellously exhilarated at finding himself in motion, moving towards Gudrun, dancing with feet that could not yet escape from the waltz and the two-step, but feeling his force stir along his limbs and his body, out of captivity. He did not know yet how to dance their convulsive, rag-time sort of dancing, but he knew how to begin. Birkin, when he could get free from the weight of the people present, whom he disliked, danced rapidly and with a real gaiety. And how Hermione hated him for this irresponsible gaiety. �Now I see,� cried the Contessa excitedly, watching his purely gay motion, which he had all to himself. �Mr Birkin, he is a changer.� Hermione looked at her slowly, and shuddered, knowing that only a foreigner could have seen and have said this. �_Cosa vuol�dire, Palestra?_� she asked, sing-song. �Look,� said the Contessa, in Italian. �He is not a man, he is a chameleon, a creature of change.� �He is not a man, he is treacherous, not one of us,� said itself over in Hermione�s consciousness. And her soul writhed in the black subjugation to him, because of his power to escape, to exist, other than she did, because he was not consistent, not a man, less than a man. She hated him in a despair that shattered her and broke her down, so that she suffered sheer dissolution like a corpse, and was unconscious of everything save the horrible sickness of dissolution that was taking place within her, body and soul. The house being full, Gerald was given the smaller room, really the dressing-room, communicating with Birkin�s bedroom. When they all took their candles and mounted the stairs, where the lamps were burning subduedly, Hermione captured Ursula and brought her into her own bedroom, to talk to her. A sort of constraint came over Ursula in the big, strange bedroom. Hermione seemed to be bearing down on her, awful and inchoate, making some appeal. They were looking at some Indian silk shirts, gorgeous and sensual in themselves, their shape, their almost corrupt gorgeousness. And Hermione came near, and her bosom writhed, and Ursula was for a moment blank with panic. And for a moment Hermione�s haggard eyes saw the fear on the face of the other, there was again a sort of crash, a crashing down. And Ursula picked up a shirt of rich red and blue silk, made for a young princess of fourteen, and was crying mechanically: �Isn�t it wonderful�who would dare to put those two strong colours together�� Then Hermione�s maid entered silently and Ursula, overcome with dread, escaped, carried away by powerful impulse. Birkin went straight to bed. He was feeling happy, and sleepy. Since he had danced he was happy. But Gerald would talk to him. Gerald, in evening dress, sat on Birkin�s bed when the other lay down, and must talk. �Who are those two Brangwens?� Gerald asked. �They live in Beldover.� �In Beldover! Who are they then?� �Teachers in the Grammar School.� There was a pause. �They are!� exclaimed Gerald at length. �I thought I had seen them before.� �It disappoints you?� said Birkin. �Disappoints me! No�but how is it Hermione has them here?� �She knew Gudrun in London�that�s the younger one, the one with the darker hair�she�s an artist�does sculpture and modelling.� �She�s not a teacher in the Grammar School, then�only the other?� �Both�Gudrun art mistress, Ursula a class mistress.� �And what�s the father?� �Handicraft instructor in the schools.� �Really!� �Class-barriers are breaking down!� Gerald was always uneasy under the slightly jeering tone of the other. �That their father is handicraft instructor in a school! What does it matter to me?� Birkin laughed. Gerald looked at his face, as it lay there laughing and bitter and indifferent on the pillow, and he could not go away. �I don�t suppose you will see very much more of Gudrun, at least. She is a restless bird, she�ll be gone in a week or two,� said Birkin. �Where will she go?� �London, Paris, Rome�heaven knows. I always expect her to sheer off to Damascus or San Francisco; she�s a bird of paradise. God knows what she�s got to do with Beldover. It goes by contraries, like dreams.� Gerald pondered for a few moments. �How do you know her so well?� he asked. �I knew her in London,� he replied, �in the Algernon Strange set. She�ll know about Pussum and Libidnikov and the rest�even if she doesn�t know them personally. She was never quite that set�more conventional, in a way. I�ve known her for two years, I suppose.� �And she makes money, apart from her teaching?� asked Gerald. �Some�irregularly. She can sell her models. She has a certain _réclame_.� �How much for?� �A guinea, ten guineas.� �And are they good? What are they?� �I think sometimes they are marvellously good. That is hers, those two wagtails in Hermione�s boudoir�you�ve seen them�they are carved in wood and painted.� �I thought it was savage carving again.� �No, hers. That�s what they are�animals and birds, sometimes odd small people in everyday dress, really rather wonderful when they come off. They have a sort of funniness that is quite unconscious and subtle.� �She might be a well-known artist one day?� mused Gerald. �She might. But I think she won�t. She drops her art if anything else catches her. Her contrariness prevents her taking it seriously�she must never be too serious, she feels she might give herself away. And she won�t give herself away�she�s always on the defensive. That�s what I can�t stand about her type. By the way, how did things go off with Pussum after I left you? I haven�t heard anything.� �Oh, rather disgusting. Halliday turned objectionable, and I only just saved myself from jumping in his stomach, in a real old-fashioned row.� Birkin was silent. �Of course,� he said, �Julius is somewhat insane. On the one hand he�s had religious mania, and on the other, he is fascinated by obscenity. Either he is a pure servant, washing the feet of Christ, or else he is making obscene drawings of Jesus�action and reaction�and between the two, nothing. He is really insane. He wants a pure lily, another girl, with a baby face, on the one hand, and on the other, he _must_ have the Pussum, just to defile himself with her.� �That�s what I can�t make out,� said Gerald. �Does he love her, the Pussum, or doesn�t he?� �He neither does nor doesn�t. She is the harlot, the actual harlot of adultery to him. And he�s got a craving to throw himself into the filth of her. Then he gets up and calls on the name of the lily of purity, the baby-faced girl, and so enjoys himself all round. It�s the old story�action and reaction, and nothing between.� �I don�t know,� said Gerald, after a pause, �that he does insult the Pussum so very much. She strikes me as being rather foul.� �But I thought you liked her,� exclaimed Birkin. �I always felt fond of her. I never had anything to do with her, personally, that�s true.� �I liked her all right, for a couple of days,� said Gerald. �But a week of her would have turned me over. There�s a certain smell about the skin of those women, that in the end is sickening beyond words�even if you like it at first.� �I know,� said Birkin. Then he added, rather fretfully, �But go to bed, Gerald. God knows what time it is.� Gerald looked at his watch, and at length rose off the bed, and went to his room. But he returned in a few minutes, in his shirt. �One thing,� he said, seating himself on the bed again. �We finished up rather stormily, and I never had time to give her anything.� �Money?� said Birkin. �She�ll get what she wants from Halliday or from one of her acquaintances.� �But then,� said Gerald, �I�d rather give her her dues and settle the account.� �She doesn�t care.� �No, perhaps not. But one feels the account is left open, and one would rather it were closed.� �Would you?� said Birkin. He was looking at the white legs of Gerald, as the latter sat on the side of the bed in his shirt. They were white-skinned, full, muscular legs, handsome and decided. Yet they moved Birkin with a sort of pathos, tenderness, as if they were childish. �I think I�d rather close the account,� said Gerald, repeating himself vaguely. �It doesn�t matter one way or another,� said Birkin. �You always say it doesn�t matter,� said Gerald, a little puzzled, looking down at the face of the other man affectionately. �Neither does it,� said Birkin. �But she was a decent sort, really�� �Render unto Cæsarina the things that are Cæsarina�s,� said Birkin, turning aside. It seemed to him Gerald was talking for the sake of talking. �Go away, it wearies me�it�s too late at night,� he said. �I wish you�d tell me something that _did_ matter,� said Gerald, looking down all the time at the face of the other man, waiting for something. But Birkin turned his face aside. �All right then, go to sleep,� said Gerald, and he laid his hand affectionately on the other man�s shoulder, and went away. In the morning when Gerald awoke and heard Birkin move, he called out: �I still think I ought to give the Pussum ten pounds.� �Oh God!� said Birkin, �don�t be so matter-of-fact. Close the account in your own soul, if you like. It is there you can�t close it.� �How do you know I can�t?� �Knowing you.� Gerald meditated for some moments. �It seems to me the right thing to do, you know, with the Pussums, is to pay them.� �And the right thing for mistresses: keep them. And the right thing for wives: live under the same roof with them. _Integer vitae scelerisque purus_�� said Birkin. �There�s no need to be nasty about it,� said Gerald. �It bores me. I�m not interested in your peccadilloes.� �And I don�t care whether you are or not�I am.� The morning was again sunny. The maid had been in and brought the water, and had drawn the curtains. Birkin, sitting up in bed, looked lazily and pleasantly out on the park, that was so green and deserted, romantic, belonging to the past. He was thinking how lovely, how sure, how formed, how final all the things of the past were�the lovely accomplished past�this house, so still and golden, the park slumbering its centuries of peace. And then, what a snare and a delusion, this beauty of static things�what a horrible, dead prison Breadalby really was, what an intolerable confinement, the peace! Yet it was better than the sordid scrambling conflict of the present. If only one might create the future after one�s own heart�for a little pure truth, a little unflinching application of simple truth to life, the heart cried out ceaselessly. �I can�t see what you will leave me at all, to be interested in,� came Gerald�s voice from the lower room. �Neither the Pussums, nor the mines, nor anything else.� �You be interested in what you can, Gerald. Only I�m not interested myself,� said Birkin. �What am I to do at all, then?� came Gerald�s voice. �What you like. What am I to do myself?� In the silence Birkin could feel Gerald musing this fact. �I�m blest if I know,� came the good-humoured answer. �You see,� said Birkin, �part of you wants the Pussum, and nothing but the Pussum, part of you wants the mines, the business, and nothing but the business�and there you are�all in bits�� �And part of me wants something else,� said Gerald, in a queer, quiet, real voice. �What?� said Birkin, rather surprised. �That�s what I hoped you could tell me,� said Gerald. There was a silence for some time. �I can�t tell you�I can�t find my own way, let alone yours. You might marry,� Birkin replied. �Who�the Pussum?� asked Gerald. �Perhaps,� said Birkin. And he rose and went to the window. �That is your panacea,� said Gerald. �But you haven�t even tried it on yourself yet, and you are sick enough.� �I am,� said Birkin. �Still, I shall come right.� �Through marriage?� �Yes,� Birkin answered obstinately. �And no,� added Gerald. �No, no, no, my boy.� There was a silence between them, and a strange tension of hostility. They always kept a gap, a distance between them, they wanted always to be free each of the other. Yet there was a curious heart-straining towards each other. �_Salvator femininus_,� said Gerald, satirically. �Why not?� said Birkin. �No reason at all,� said Gerald, �if it really works. But whom will you marry?� �A woman,� said Birkin. �Good,� said Gerald. Birkin and Gerald were the last to come down to breakfast. Hermione liked everybody to be early. She suffered when she felt her day was diminished, she felt she had missed her life. She seemed to grip the hours by the throat, to force her life from them. She was rather pale and ghastly, as if left behind, in the morning. Yet she had her power, her will was strangely pervasive. With the entrance of the two young men a sudden tension was felt. She lifted her face, and said, in her amused sing-song: �Good morning! Did you sleep well? I�m so glad.� And she turned away, ignoring them. Birkin, who knew her well, saw that she intended to discount his existence. �Will you take what you want from the sideboard?� said Alexander, in a voice slightly suggesting disapprobation. �I hope the things aren�t cold. Oh no! Do you mind putting out the flame under the chafing-dish, Rupert? Thank you.� Even Alexander was rather authoritative where Hermione was cool. He took his tone from her, inevitably. Birkin sat down and looked at the table. He was so used to this house, to this room, to this atmosphere, through years of intimacy, and now he felt in complete opposition to it all, it had nothing to do with him. How well he knew Hermione, as she sat there, erect and silent and somewhat bemused, and yet so potent, so powerful! He knew her statically, so finally, that it was almost like a madness. It was difficult to believe one was not mad, that one was not a figure in the hall of kings in some Egyptian tomb, where the dead all sat immemorial and tremendous. How utterly he knew Joshua Mattheson, who was talking in his harsh, yet rather mincing voice, endlessly, endlessly, always with a strong mentality working, always interesting, and yet always known, everything he said known beforehand, however novel it was, and clever. Alexander the up-to-date host, so bloodlessly free-and-easy, Fräulein so prettily chiming in just as she should, the little Italian Countess taking notice of everybody, only playing her little game, objective and cold, like a weasel watching everything, and extracting her own amusement, never giving herself in the slightest; then Miss Bradley, heavy and rather subservient, treated with cool, almost amused contempt by Hermione, and therefore slighted by everybody�how known it all was, like a game with the figures set out, the same figures, the Queen of chess, the knights, the pawns, the same now as they were hundreds of years ago, the same figures moving round in one of the innumerable permutations that make up the game. But the game is known, its going on is like a madness, it is so exhausted. There was Gerald, an amused look on his face; the game pleased him. There was Gudrun, watching with steady, large, hostile eyes; the game fascinated her, and she loathed it. There was Ursula, with a slightly startled look on her face, as if she were hurt, and the pain were just outside her consciousness. Suddenly Birkin got up and went out. �That�s enough,� he said to himself involuntarily. Hermione knew his motion, though not in her consciousness. She lifted her heavy eyes and saw him lapse suddenly away, on a sudden, unknown tide, and the waves broke over her. Only her indomitable will remained static and mechanical, she sat at the table making her musing, stray remarks. But the darkness had covered her, she was like a ship that has gone down. It was finished for her too, she was wrecked in the darkness. Yet the unfailing mechanism of her will worked on, she had that activity. �Shall we bathe this morning?� she said, suddenly looking at them all. �Splendid,� said Joshua. �It is a perfect morning.� �Oh, it is beautiful,� said Fräulein. �Yes, let us bathe,� said the Italian woman. �We have no bathing suits,� said Gerald. �Have mine,� said Alexander. �I must go to church and read the lessons. They expect me.� �Are you a Christian?� asked the Italian Countess, with sudden interest. �No,� said Alexander. �I�m not. But I believe in keeping up the old institutions.� �They are so beautiful,� said Fräulein daintily. �Oh, they are,� cried Miss Bradley. They all trailed out on to the lawn. It was a sunny, soft morning in early summer, when life ran in the world subtly, like a reminiscence. The church bells were ringing a little way off, not a cloud was in the sky, the swans were like lilies on the water below, the peacocks walked with long, prancing steps across the shadow and into the sunshine of the grass. One wanted to swoon into the by-gone perfection of it all. �Good-bye,� called Alexander, waving his gloves cheerily, and he disappeared behind the bushes, on his way to church. �Now,� said Hermione, �shall we all bathe?� �I won�t,� said Ursula. �You don�t want to?� said Hermione, looking at her slowly. �No. I don�t want to,� said Ursula. �Nor I,� said Gudrun. �What about my suit?� asked Gerald. �I don�t know,� laughed Hermione, with an odd, amused intonation. �Will a handkerchief do�a large handkerchief?� �That will do,� said Gerald. �Come along then,� sang Hermione. The first to run across the lawn was the little Italian, small and like a cat, her white legs twinkling as she went, ducking slightly her head, that was tied in a gold silk kerchief. She tripped through the gate and down the grass, and stood, like a tiny figure of ivory and bronze, at the water�s edge, having dropped off her towelling, watching the swans, which came up in surprise. Then out ran Miss Bradley, like a large, soft plum in her dark-blue suit. Then Gerald came, a scarlet silk kerchief round his loins, his towels over his arms. He seemed to flaunt himself a little in the sun, lingering and laughing, strolling easily, looking white but natural in his nakedness. Then came Sir Joshua, in an overcoat, and lastly Hermione, striding with stiff grace from out of a great mantle of purple silk, her head tied up in purple and gold. Handsome was her stiff, long body, her straight-stepping white legs, there was a static magnificence about her as she let the cloak float loosely away from her striding. She crossed the lawn like some strange memory, and passed slowly and statelily towards the water. There were three ponds, in terraces descending the valley, large and smooth and beautiful, lying in the sun. The water ran over a little stone wall, over small rocks, splashing down from one pond to the level below. The swans had gone out on to the opposite bank, the reeds smelled sweet, a faint breeze touched the skin. Gerald had dived in, after Sir Joshua, and had swum to the end of the pond. There he climbed out and sat on the wall. There was a dive, and the little Countess was swimming like a rat, to join him. They both sat in the sun, laughing and crossing their arms on their breasts. Sir Joshua swam up to them, and stood near them, up to his arm-pits in the water. Then Hermione and Miss Bradley swam over, and they sat in a row on the embankment. �Aren�t they terrifying? Aren�t they really terrifying?� said Gudrun. �Don�t they look saurian? They are just like great lizards. Did you ever see anything like Sir Joshua? But really, Ursula, he belongs to the primeval world, when great lizards crawled about.� Gudrun looked in dismay on Sir Joshua, who stood up to the breast in the water, his long, greyish hair washed down into his eyes, his neck set into thick, crude shoulders. He was talking to Miss Bradley, who, seated on the bank above, plump and big and wet, looked as if she might roll and slither in the water almost like one of the slithering sealions in the Zoo. Ursula watched in silence. Gerald was laughing happily, between Hermione and the Italian. He reminded her of Dionysos, because his hair was really yellow, his figure so full and laughing. Hermione, in her large, stiff, sinister grace, leaned near him, frightening, as if she were not responsible for what she might do. He knew a certain danger in her, a convulsive madness. But he only laughed the more, turning often to the little Countess, who was flashing up her face at him. They all dropped into the water, and were swimming together like a shoal of seals. Hermione was powerful and unconscious in the water, large and slow and powerful. Palestra was quick and silent as a water rat, Gerald wavered and flickered, a white natural shadow. Then, one after the other, they waded out, and went up to the house. But Gerald lingered a moment to speak to Gudrun. �You don�t like the water?� he said. She looked at him with a long, slow inscrutable look, as he stood before her negligently, the water standing in beads all over his skin. �I like it very much,� she replied. He paused, expecting some sort of explanation. �And you swim?� �Yes, I swim.� Still he would not ask her why she would not go in then. He could feel something ironic in her. He walked away, piqued for the first time. �Why wouldn�t you bathe?� he asked her again, later, when he was once more the properly-dressed young Englishman. She hesitated a moment before answering, opposing his persistence. �Because I didn�t like the crowd,� she replied. He laughed, her phrase seemed to re-echo in his consciousness. The flavour of her slang was piquant to him. Whether he would or not, she signified the real world to him. He wanted to come up to her standards, fulfil her expectations. He knew that her criterion was the only one that mattered. The others were all outsiders, instinctively, whatever they might be socially. And Gerald could not help it, he was bound to strive to come up to her criterion, fulfil her idea of a man and a human-being. After lunch, when all the others had withdrawn, Hermione and Gerald and Birkin lingered, finishing their talk. There had been some discussion, on the whole quite intellectual and artificial, about a new state, a new world of man. Supposing this old social state _were_ broken and destroyed, then, out of the chaos, what then? The great social idea, said Sir Joshua, was the _social_ equality of man. No, said Gerald, the idea was, that every man was fit for his own little bit of a task�let him do that, and then please himself. The unifying principle was the work in hand. Only work, the business of production, held men together. It was mechanical, but then society _was_ a mechanism. Apart from work they were isolated, free to do as they liked. �Oh!� cried Gudrun. �Then we shan�t have names any more�we shall be like the Germans, nothing but Herr Obermeister and Herr Untermeister. I can imagine it��I am Mrs Colliery-Manager Crich�I am Mrs Member-of-Parliament Roddice. I am Miss Art-Teacher Brangwen.� Very pretty that.� �Things would work very much better, Miss Art-Teacher Brangwen,� said Gerald. �What things, Mr Colliery-Manager Crich? The relation between you and me, _par exemple?_� �Yes, for example,� cried the Italian. �That which is between men and women�!� �That is non-social,� said Birkin, sarcastically. �Exactly,� said Gerald. �Between me and a woman, the social question does not enter. It is my own affair.� �A ten-pound note on it,� said Birkin. �You don�t admit that a woman is a social being?� asked Ursula of Gerald. �She is both,� said Gerald. �She is a social being, as far as society is concerned. But for her own private self, she is a free agent, it is her own affair, what she does.� �But won�t it be rather difficult to arrange the two halves?� asked Ursula. �Oh no,� replied Gerald. �They arrange themselves naturally�we see it now, everywhere.� �Don�t you laugh so pleasantly till you�re out of the wood,� said Birkin. Gerald knitted his brows in momentary irritation. �Was I laughing?� he said. �_If_,� said Hermione at last, �we could only realise, that in the _spirit_ we are all one, all equal in the spirit, all brothers there�the rest wouldn�t matter, there would be no more of this carping and envy and this struggle for power, which destroys, only destroys.� This speech was received in silence, and almost immediately the party rose from the table. But when the others had gone, Birkin turned round in bitter declamation, saying: �It is just the opposite, just the contrary, Hermione. We are all different and unequal in spirit�it is only the _social_ differences that are based on accidental material conditions. We are all abstractly or mathematically equal, if you like. Every man has hunger and thirst, two eyes, one nose and two legs. We�re all the same in point of number. But spiritually, there is pure difference and neither equality nor inequality counts. It is upon these two bits of knowledge that you must found a state. Your democracy is an absolute lie�your brotherhood of man is a pure falsity, if you apply it further than the mathematical abstraction. We all drank milk first, we all eat bread and meat, we all want to ride in motor-cars�therein lies the beginning and the end of the brotherhood of man. But no equality. �But I, myself, who am myself, what have I to do with equality with any other man or woman? In the spirit, I am as separate as one star is from another, as different in quality and quantity. Establish a state on _that_. One man isn�t any better than another, not because they are equal, but because they are intrinsically _other_, that there is no term of comparison. The minute you begin to compare, one man is seen to be far better than another, all the inequality you can imagine is there by nature. I want every man to have his share in the world�s goods, so that I am rid of his importunity, so that I can tell him: �Now you�ve got what you want�you�ve got your fair share of the world�s gear. Now, you one-mouthed fool, mind yourself and don�t obstruct me.�� Hermione was looking at him with leering eyes, along her cheeks. He could feel violent waves of hatred and loathing of all he said, coming out of her. It was dynamic hatred and loathing, coming strong and black out of the unconsciousness. She heard his words in her unconscious self, _consciously_ she was as if deafened, she paid no heed to them. �It _sounds_ like megalomania, Rupert,� said Gerald, genially. Hermione gave a queer, grunting sound. Birkin stood back. �Yes, let it,� he said suddenly, the whole tone gone out of his voice, that had been so insistent, bearing everybody down. And he went away. But he felt, later, a little compunction. He had been violent, cruel with poor Hermione. He wanted to recompense her, to make it up. He had hurt her, he had been vindictive. He wanted to be on good terms with her again. He went into her boudoir, a remote and very cushiony place. She was sitting at her table writing letters. She lifted her face abstractedly when he entered, watched him go to the sofa, and sit down. Then she looked down at her paper again. He took up a large volume which he had been reading before, and became minutely attentive to his author. His back was towards Hermione. She could not go on with her writing. Her whole mind was a chaos, darkness breaking in upon it, and herself struggling to gain control with her will, as a swimmer struggles with the swirling water. But in spite of her efforts she was borne down, darkness seemed to break over her, she felt as if her heart was bursting. The terrible tension grew stronger and stronger, it was most fearful agony, like being walled up. And then she realised that his presence was the wall, his presence was destroying her. Unless she could break out, she must die most fearfully, walled up in horror. And he was the wall. She must break down the wall�she must break him down before her, the awful obstruction of him who obstructed her life to the last. It must be done, or she must perish most horribly. Terrible shocks ran over her body, like shocks of electricity, as if many volts of electricity suddenly struck her down. She was aware of him sitting silently there, an unthinkable evil obstruction. Only this blotted out her mind, pressed out her very breathing, his silent, stooping back, the back of his head. A terrible voluptuous thrill ran down her arms�she was going to know her voluptuous consummation. Her arms quivered and were strong, immeasurably and irresistibly strong. What delight, what delight in strength, what delirium of pleasure! She was going to have her consummation of voluptuous ecstasy at last. It was coming! In utmost terror and agony, she knew it was upon her now, in extremity of bliss. Her hand closed on a blue, beautiful ball of lapis lazuli that stood on her desk for a paper-weight. She rolled it round in her hand as she rose silently. Her heart was a pure flame in her breast, she was purely unconscious in ecstasy. She moved towards him and stood behind him for a moment in ecstasy. He, closed within the spell, remained motionless and unconscious. Then swiftly, in a flame that drenched down her body like fluid lightning and gave her a perfect, unutterable consummation, unutterable satisfaction, she brought down the ball of jewel stone with all her force, crash on his head. But her fingers were in the way and deadened the blow. Nevertheless, down went his head on the table on which his book lay, the stone slid aside and over his ear, it was one convulsion of pure bliss for her, lit up by the crushed pain of her fingers. But it was not somehow complete. She lifted her arm high to aim once more, straight down on the head that lay dazed on the table. She must smash it, it must be smashed before her ecstasy was consummated, fulfilled for ever. A thousand lives, a thousand deaths mattered nothing now, only the fulfilment of this perfect ecstasy. She was not swift, she could only move slowly. A strong spirit in him woke him and made him lift his face and twist to look at her. Her arm was raised, the hand clasping the ball of lapis lazuli. It was her left hand, he realised again with horror that she was left-handed. Hurriedly, with a burrowing motion, he covered his head under the thick volume of Thucydides, and the blow came down, almost breaking his neck, and shattering his heart. He was shattered, but he was not afraid. Twisting round to face her he pushed the table over and got away from her. He was like a flask that is smashed to atoms, he seemed to himself that he was all fragments, smashed to bits. Yet his movements were perfectly coherent and clear, his soul was entire and unsurprised. �No you don�t, Hermione,� he said in a low voice. �I don�t let you.� He saw her standing tall and livid and attentive, the stone clenched tense in her hand. �Stand away and let me go,� he said, drawing near to her. As if pressed back by some hand, she stood away, watching him all the time without changing, like a neutralised angel confronting him. �It is not good,� he said, when he had gone past her. �It isn�t I who will die. You hear?� He kept his face to her as he went out, lest she should strike again. While he was on his guard, she dared not move. And he was on his guard, she was powerless. So he had gone, and left her standing. She remained perfectly rigid, standing as she was for a long time. Then she staggered to the couch and lay down, and went heavily to sleep. When she awoke, she remembered what she had done, but it seemed to her, she had only hit him, as any woman might do, because he tortured her. She was perfectly right. She knew that, spiritually, she was right. In her own infallible purity, she had done what must be done. She was right, she was pure. A drugged, almost sinister religious expression became permanent on her face. Birkin, barely conscious, and yet perfectly direct in his motion, went out of the house and straight across the park, to the open country, to the hills. The brilliant day had become overcast, spots of rain were falling. He wandered on to a wild valley-side, where were thickets of hazel, many flowers, tufts of heather, and little clumps of young fir-trees, budding with soft paws. It was rather wet everywhere, there was a stream running down at the bottom of the valley, which was gloomy, or seemed gloomy. He was aware that he could not regain his consciousness, that he was moving in a sort of darkness. Yet he wanted something. He was happy in the wet hillside, that was overgrown and obscure with bushes and flowers. He wanted to touch them all, to saturate himself with the touch of them all. He took off his clothes, and sat down naked among the primroses, moving his feet softly among the primroses, his legs, his knees, his arms right up to the arm-pits, lying down and letting them touch his belly, his breasts. It was such a fine, cool, subtle touch all over him, he seemed to saturate himself with their contact. But they were too soft. He went through the long grass to a clump of young fir-trees, that were no higher than a man. The soft sharp boughs beat upon him, as he moved in keen pangs against them, threw little cold showers of drops on his belly, and beat his loins with their clusters of soft-sharp needles. There was a thistle which pricked him vividly, but not too much, because all his movements were too discriminate and soft. To lie down and roll in the sticky, cool young hyacinths, to lie on one�s belly and cover one�s back with handfuls of fine wet grass, soft as a breath, soft and more delicate and more beautiful than the touch of any woman; and then to sting one�s thigh against the living dark bristles of the fir-boughs; and then to feel the light whip of the hazel on one�s shoulders, stinging, and then to clasp the silvery birch-trunk against one�s breast, its smoothness, its hardness, its vital knots and ridges�this was good, this was all very good, very satisfying. Nothing else would do, nothing else would satisfy, except this coolness and subtlety of vegetation travelling into one�s blood. How fortunate he was, that there was this lovely, subtle, responsive vegetation, waiting for him, as he waited for it; how fulfilled he was, how happy! As he dried himself a little with his handkerchief, he thought about Hermione and the blow. He could feel a pain on the side of his head. But after all, what did it matter? What did Hermione matter, what did people matter altogether? There was this perfect cool loneliness, so lovely and fresh and unexplored. Really, what a mistake he had made, thinking he wanted people, thinking he wanted a woman. He did not want a woman�not in the least. The leaves and the primroses and the trees, they were really lovely and cool and desirable, they really came into the blood and were added on to him. He was enrichened now immeasurably, and so glad. It was quite right of Hermione to want to kill him. What had he to do with her? Why should he pretend to have anything to do with human beings at all? Here was his world, he wanted nobody and nothing but the lovely, subtle, responsive vegetation, and himself, his own living self. It was necessary to go back into the world. That was true. But that did not matter, so one knew where one belonged. He knew now where he belonged. This was his place, his marriage place. The world was extraneous. He climbed out of the valley, wondering if he were mad. But if so, he preferred his own madness, to the regular sanity. He rejoiced in his own madness, he was free. He did not want that old sanity of the world, which was become so repulsive. He rejoiced in the new-found world of his madness. It was so fresh and delicate and so satisfying. As for the certain grief he felt at the same time, in his soul, that was only the remains of an old ethic, that bade a human being adhere to humanity. But he was weary of the old ethic, of the human being, and of humanity. He loved now the soft, delicate vegetation, that was so cool and perfect. He would overlook the old grief, he would put away the old ethic, he would be free in his new state. He was aware of the pain in his head becoming more and more difficult every minute. He was walking now along the road to the nearest station. It was raining and he had no hat. But then plenty of cranks went out nowadays without hats, in the rain. He wondered again how much of his heaviness of heart, a certain depression, was due to fear, fear lest anybody should have seen him naked lying against the vegetation. What a dread he had of mankind, of other people! It amounted almost to horror, to a sort of dream terror�his horror of being observed by some other people. If he were on an island, like Alexander Selkirk, with only the creatures and the trees, he would be free and glad, there would be none of this heaviness, this misgiving. He could love the vegetation and be quite happy and unquestioned, by himself. He had better send a note to Hermione: she might trouble about him, and he did not want the onus of this. So at the station, he wrote saying: I will go on to town�I don�t want to come back to Breadalby for the present. But it is quite all right�I don�t want you to mind having biffed me, in the least. Tell the others it is just one of my moods. You were quite right, to biff me�because I know you wanted to. So there�s the end of it. In the train, however, he felt ill. Every motion was insufferable pain, and he was sick. He dragged himself from the station into a cab, feeling his way step by step, like a blind man, and held up only by a dim will. For a week or two he was ill, but he did not let Hermione know, and she thought he was sulking; there was a complete estrangement between them. She became rapt, abstracted in her conviction of exclusive righteousness. She lived in and by her own self-esteem, conviction of her own rightness of spirit. CHAPTER IX. COAL-DUST Going home from school in the afternoon, the Brangwen girls descended the hill between the picturesque cottages of Willey Green till they came to the railway crossing. There they found the gate shut, because the colliery train was rumbling nearer. They could hear the small locomotive panting hoarsely as it advanced with caution between the embankments. The one-legged man in the little signal-hut by the road stared out from his security, like a crab from a snail-shell. Whilst the two girls waited, Gerald Crich trotted up on a red Arab mare. He rode well and softly, pleased with the delicate quivering of the creature between his knees. And he was very picturesque, at least in Gudrun�s eyes, sitting soft and close on the slender red mare, whose long tail flowed on the air. He saluted the two girls, and drew up at the crossing to wait for the gate, looking down the railway for the approaching train. In spite of her ironic smile at his picturesqueness, Gudrun liked to look at him. He was well-set and easy, his face with its warm tan showed up his whitish, coarse moustache, and his blue eyes were full of sharp light as he watched the distance. The locomotive chuffed slowly between the banks, hidden. The mare did not like it. She began to wince away, as if hurt by the unknown noise. But Gerald pulled her back and held her head to the gate. The sharp blasts of the chuffing engine broke with more and more force on her. The repeated sharp blows of unknown, terrifying noise struck through her till she was rocking with terror. She recoiled like a spring let go. But a glistening, half-smiling look came into Gerald�s face. He brought her back again, inevitably. The noise was released, the little locomotive with her clanking steel connecting-rod emerged on the highroad, clanking sharply. The mare rebounded like a drop of water from hot iron. Ursula and Gudrun pressed back into the hedge, in fear. But Gerald was heavy on the mare, and forced her back. It seemed as if he sank into her magnetically, and could thrust her back against herself. �The fool!� cried Ursula loudly. �Why doesn�t he ride away till it�s gone by?� Gudrun was looking at him with black-dilated, spellbound eyes. But he sat glistening and obstinate, forcing the wheeling mare, which spun and swerved like a wind, and yet could not get out of the grasp of his will, nor escape from the mad clamour of terror that resounded through her, as the trucks thumped slowly, heavily, horrifying, one after the other, one pursuing the other, over the rails of the crossing. The locomotive, as if wanting to see what could be done, put on the brakes, and back came the trucks rebounding on the iron buffers, striking like horrible cymbals, clashing nearer and nearer in frightful strident concussions. The mare opened her mouth and rose slowly, as if lifted up on a wind of terror. Then suddenly her fore feet struck out, as she convulsed herself utterly away from the horror. Back she went, and the two girls clung to each other, feeling she must fall backwards on top of him. But he leaned forward, his face shining with fixed amusement, and at last he brought her down, sank her down, and was bearing her back to the mark. But as strong as the pressure of his compulsion was the repulsion of her utter terror, throwing her back away from the railway, so that she spun round and round, on two legs, as if she were in the centre of some whirlwind. It made Gudrun faint with poignant dizziness, which seemed to penetrate to her heart. �No�! No�! Let her go! Let her go, you fool, you _fool_�!� cried Ursula at the top of her voice, completely outside herself. And Gudrun hated her bitterly for being outside herself. It was unendurable that Ursula�s voice was so powerful and naked. A sharpened look came on Gerald�s face. He bit himself down on the mare like a keen edge biting home, and _forced_ her round. She roared as she breathed, her nostrils were two wide, hot holes, her mouth was apart, her eyes frenzied. It was a repulsive sight. But he held on her unrelaxed, with an almost mechanical relentlessness, keen as a sword pressing in to her. Both man and horse were sweating with violence. Yet he seemed calm as a ray of cold sunshine. Meanwhile the eternal trucks were rumbling on, very slowly, treading one after the other, one after the other, like a disgusting dream that has no end. The connecting chains were grinding and squeaking as the tension varied, the mare pawed and struck away mechanically now, her terror fulfilled in her, for now the man encompassed her; her paws were blind and pathetic as she beat the air, the man closed round her, and brought her down, almost as if she were part of his own physique. �And she�s bleeding! She�s bleeding!� cried Ursula, frantic with opposition and hatred of Gerald. She alone understood him perfectly, in pure opposition. Gudrun looked and saw the trickles of blood on the sides of the mare, and she turned white. And then on the very wound the bright spurs came down, pressing relentlessly. The world reeled and passed into nothingness for Gudrun, she could not know any more. When she recovered, her soul was calm and cold, without feeling. The trucks were still rumbling by, and the man and the mare were still fighting. But she herself was cold and separate, she had no more feeling for them. She was quite hard and cold and indifferent. They could see the top of the hooded guard�s-van approaching, the sound of the trucks was diminishing, there was hope of relief from the intolerable noise. The heavy panting of the half-stunned mare sounded automatically, the man seemed to be relaxing confidently, his will bright and unstained. The guard�s-van came up, and passed slowly, the guard staring out in his transition on the spectacle in the road. And, through the man in the closed wagon, Gudrun could see the whole scene spectacularly, isolated and momentary, like a vision isolated in eternity. Lovely, grateful silence seemed to trail behind the receding train. How sweet the silence is! Ursula looked with hatred on the buffers of the diminishing wagon. The gatekeeper stood ready at the door of his hut, to proceed to open the gate. But Gudrun sprang suddenly forward, in front of the struggling horse, threw off the latch and flung the gates asunder, throwing one-half to the keeper, and running with the other half, forwards. Gerald suddenly let go the horse and leaped forwards, almost on to Gudrun. She was not afraid. As he jerked aside the mare�s head, Gudrun cried, in a strange, high voice, like a gull, or like a witch screaming out from the side of the road: �I should think you�re proud.� The words were distinct and formed. The man, twisting aside on his dancing horse, looked at her in some surprise, some wondering interest. Then the mare�s hoofs had danced three times on the drum-like sleepers of the crossing, and man and horse were bounding springily, unequally up the road. The two girls watched them go. The gate-keeper hobbled thudding over the logs of the crossing, with his wooden leg. He had fastened the gate. Then he also turned, and called to the girls: �A masterful young jockey, that; �ll have his own road, if ever anybody would.� �Yes,� cried Ursula, in her hot, overbearing voice. �Why couldn�t he take the horse away, till the trucks had gone by? He�s a fool, and a bully. Does he think it�s manly, to torture a horse? It�s a living thing, why should he bully it and torture it?� There was a pause, then the gate-keeper shook his head, and replied: �Yes, it�s as nice a little mare as you could set eyes on�beautiful little thing, beautiful. Now you couldn�t see his father treat any animal like that�not you. They�re as different as they welly can be, Gerald Crich and his father�two different men, different made.� Then there was a pause. �But why does he do it?� cried Ursula, �why does he? Does he think he�s grand, when he�s bullied a sensitive creature, ten times as sensitive as himself?� Again there was a cautious pause. Then again the man shook his head, as if he would say nothing, but would think the more. �I expect he�s got to train the mare to stand to anything,� he replied. �A pure-bred Harab�not the sort of breed as is used to round here�different sort from our sort altogether. They say as he got her from Constantinople.� �He would!� said Ursula. �He�d better have left her to the Turks, I�m sure they would have had more decency towards her.� The man went in to drink his can of tea, the girls went on down the lane, that was deep in soft black dust. Gudrun was as if numbed in her mind by the sense of indomitable soft weight of the man, bearing down into the living body of the horse: the strong, indomitable thighs of the blond man clenching the palpitating body of the mare into pure control; a sort of soft white magnetic domination from the loins and thighs and calves, enclosing and encompassing the mare heavily into unutterable subordination, soft blood-subordination, terrible. On the left, as the girls walked silently, the coal-mine lifted its great mounds and its patterned head-stocks, the black railway with the trucks at rest looked like a harbour just below, a large bay of railroad with anchored wagons. Near the second level-crossing, that went over many bright rails, was a farm belonging to the collieries, and a great round globe of iron, a disused boiler, huge and rusty and perfectly round, stood silently in a paddock by the road. The hens were pecking round it, some chickens were balanced on the drinking trough, wagtails flew away in among trucks, from the water. On the other side of the wide crossing, by the road-side, was a heap of pale-grey stones for mending the roads, and a cart standing, and a middle-aged man with whiskers round his face was leaning on his shovel, talking to a young man in gaiters, who stood by the horse�s head. Both men were facing the crossing. They saw the two girls appear, small, brilliant figures in the near distance, in the strong light of the late afternoon. Both wore light, gay summer dresses, Ursula had an orange-coloured knitted coat, Gudrun a pale yellow, Ursula wore canary yellow stockings, Gudrun bright rose, the figures of the two women seemed to glitter in progress over the wide bay of the railway crossing, white and orange and yellow and rose glittering in motion across a hot world silted with coal-dust. The two men stood quite still in the heat, watching. The elder was a short, hard-faced energetic man of middle age, the younger a labourer of twenty-three or so. They stood in silence watching the advance of the sisters. They watched whilst the girls drew near, and whilst they passed, and whilst they receded down the dusty road, that had dwellings on one side, and dusty young corn on the other. Then the elder man, with the whiskers round his face, said in a prurient manner to the young man: �What price that, eh? She�ll do, won�t she?� �Which?� asked the young man, eagerly, with a laugh. �Her with the red stockings. What d�you say? I�d give my week�s wages for five minutes; what!�just for five minutes.� Again the young man laughed. �Your missis �ud have summat to say to you,� he replied. Gudrun had turned round and looked at the two men. They were to her sinister creatures, standing watching after her, by the heap of pale grey slag. She loathed the man with whiskers round his face. �You�re first class, you are,� the man said to her, and to the distance. �Do you think it would be worth a week�s wages?� said the younger man, musing. �Do I? I�d put �em bloody-well down this second�� The younger man looked after Gudrun and Ursula objectively, as if he wished to calculate what there might be, that was worth his week�s wages. He shook his head with fatal misgiving. �No,� he said. �It�s not worth that to me.� �Isn�t?� said the old man. �By God, if it isn�t to me!� And he went on shovelling his stones. The girls descended between the houses with slate roofs and blackish brick walls. The heavy gold glamour of approaching sunset lay over all the colliery district, and the ugliness overlaid with beauty was like a narcotic to the senses. On the roads silted with black dust, the rich light fell more warmly, more heavily, over all the amorphous squalor a kind of magic was cast, from the glowing close of day. �It has a foul kind of beauty, this place,� said Gudrun, evidently suffering from fascination. �Can�t you feel in some way, a thick, hot attraction in it? I can. And it quite stupifies me.� They were passing between blocks of miners� dwellings. In the back yards of several dwellings, a miner could be seen washing himself in the open on this hot evening, naked down to the loins, his great trousers of moleskin slipping almost away. Miners already cleaned were sitting on their heels, with their backs near the walls, talking and silent in pure physical well-being, tired, and taking physical rest. Their voices sounded out with strong intonation, and the broad dialect was curiously caressing to the blood. It seemed to envelop Gudrun in a labourer�s caress, there was in the whole atmosphere a resonance of physical men, a glamorous thickness of labour and maleness, surcharged in the air. But it was universal in the district, and therefore unnoticed by the inhabitants. To Gudrun, however, it was potent and half-repulsive. She could never tell why Beldover was so utterly different from London and the south, why one�s whole feelings were different, why one seemed to live in another sphere. Now she realised that this was the world of powerful, underworld men who spent most of their time in the darkness. In their voices she could hear the voluptuous resonance of darkness, the strong, dangerous underworld, mindless, inhuman. They sounded also like strange machines, heavy, oiled. The voluptuousness was like that of machinery, cold and iron. It was the same every evening when she came home, she seemed to move through a wave of disruptive force, that was given off from the presence of thousands of vigorous, underworld, half-automatised colliers, and which went to the brain and the heart, awaking a fatal desire, and a fatal callousness. There came over her a nostalgia for the place. She hated it, she knew how utterly cut off it was, how hideous and how sickeningly mindless. Sometimes she beat her wings like a new Daphne, turning not into a tree but a machine. And yet, she was overcome by the nostalgia. She struggled to get more and more into accord with the atmosphere of the place, she craved to get her satisfaction of it. She felt herself drawn out at evening into the main street of the town, that was uncreated and ugly, and yet surcharged with this same potent atmosphere of intense, dark callousness. There were always miners about. They moved with their strange, distorted dignity, a certain beauty, and unnatural stillness in their bearing, a look of abstraction and half resignation in their pale, often gaunt faces. They belonged to another world, they had a strange glamour, their voices were full of an intolerable deep resonance, like a machine�s burring, a music more maddening than the siren�s long ago. She found herself, with the rest of the common women, drawn out on Friday evenings to the little market. Friday was pay-day for the colliers, and Friday night was market night. Every woman was abroad, every man was out, shopping with his wife, or gathering with his pals. The pavements were dark for miles around with people coming in, the little market-place on the crown of the hill, and the main street of Beldover were black with thickly-crowded men and women. It was dark, the market-place was hot with kerosene flares, which threw a ruddy light on the grave faces of the purchasing wives, and on the pale abstract faces of the men. The air was full of the sound of criers and of people talking, thick streams of people moved on the pavements towards the solid crowd of the market. The shops were blazing and packed with women, in the streets were men, mostly men, miners of all ages. Money was spent with almost lavish freedom. The carts that came could not pass through. They had to wait, the driver calling and shouting, till the dense crowd would make way. Everywhere, young fellows from the outlying districts were making conversation with the girls, standing in the road and at the corners. The doors of the public-houses were open and full of light, men passed in and out in a continual stream, everywhere men were calling out to one another, or crossing to meet one another, or standing in little gangs and circles, discussing, endlessly discussing. The sense of talk, buzzing, jarring, half-secret, the endless mining and political wrangling, vibrated in the air like discordant machinery. And it was their voices which affected Gudrun almost to swooning. They aroused a strange, nostalgic ache of desire, something almost demoniacal, never to be fulfilled. Like any other common girl of the district, Gudrun strolled up and down, up and down the length of the brilliant two-hundred paces of the pavement nearest the market-place. She knew it was a vulgar thing to do; her father and mother could not bear it; but the nostalgia came over her, she must be among the people. Sometimes she sat among the louts in the cinema: rakish-looking, unattractive louts they were. Yet she must be among them. And, like any other common lass, she found her �boy.� It was an electrician, one of the electricians introduced according to Gerald�s new scheme. He was an earnest, clever man, a scientist with a passion for sociology. He lived alone in a cottage, in lodgings, in Willey Green. He was a gentleman, and sufficiently well-to-do. His landlady spread the reports about him; he _would_ have a large wooden tub in his bedroom, and every time he came in from work, he _would_ have pails and pails of water brought up, to bathe in, then he put on clean shirt and under-clothing _every_ day, and clean silk socks; fastidious and exacting he was in these respects, but in every other way, most ordinary and unassuming. Gudrun knew all these things. The Brangwen�s house was one to which the gossip came naturally and inevitably. Palmer was in the first place a friend of Ursula�s. But in his pale, elegant, serious face there showed the same nostalgia that Gudrun felt. He too must walk up and down the street on Friday evening. So he walked with Gudrun, and a friendship was struck up between them. But he was not in love with Gudrun; he _really_ wanted Ursula, but for some strange reason, nothing could happen between her and him. He liked to have Gudrun about, as a fellow-mind�but that was all. And she had no real feeling for him. He was a scientist, he had to have a woman to back him. But he was really impersonal, he had the fineness of an elegant piece of machinery. He was too cold, too destructive to care really for women, too great an egoist. He was polarised by the men. Individually he detested and despised them. In the mass they fascinated him, as machinery fascinated him. They were a new sort of machinery to him�but incalculable, incalculable. So Gudrun strolled the streets with Palmer, or went to the cinema with him. And his long, pale, rather elegant face flickered as he made his sarcastic remarks. There they were, the two of them: two elegants in one sense: in the other sense, two units, absolutely adhering to the people, teeming with the distorted colliers. The same secret seemed to be working in the souls of all alike, Gudrun, Palmer, the rakish young bloods, the gaunt, middle-aged men. All had a secret sense of power, and of inexpressible destructiveness, and of fatal half-heartedness, a sort of rottenness in the will. Sometimes Gudrun would start aside, see it all, see how she was sinking in. And then she was filled with a fury of contempt and anger. She felt she was sinking into one mass with the rest�all so close and intermingled and breathless. It was horrible. She stifled. She prepared for flight, feverishly she flew to her work. But soon she let go. She started off into the country�the darkish, glamorous country. The spell was beginning to work again. CHAPTER X. SKETCH-BOOK One morning the sisters were sketching by the side of Willey Water, at the remote end of the lake. Gudrun had waded out to a gravelly shoal, and was seated like a Buddhist, staring fixedly at the water-plants that rose succulent from the mud of the low shores. What she could see was mud, soft, oozy, watery mud, and from its festering chill, water-plants rose up, thick and cool and fleshy, very straight and turgid, thrusting out their leaves at right angles, and having dark lurid colours, dark green and blotches of black-purple and bronze. But she could feel their turgid fleshy structure as in a sensuous vision, she _knew_ how they rose out of the mud, she _knew_ how they thrust out from themselves, how they stood stiff and succulent against the air. Ursula was watching the butterflies, of which there were dozens near the water, little blue ones suddenly snapping out of nothingness into a jewel-life, a large black-and-red one standing upon a flower and breathing with his soft wings, intoxicatingly, breathing pure, ethereal sunshine; two white ones wrestling in the low air; there was a halo round them; ah, when they came tumbling nearer they were orangetips, and it was the orange that had made the halo. Ursula rose and drifted away, unconscious like the butterflies. Gudrun, absorbed in a stupor of apprehension of surging water-plants, sat crouched on the shoal, drawing, not looking up for a long time, and then staring unconsciously, absorbedly at the rigid, naked, succulent stems. Her feet were bare, her hat lay on the bank opposite. She started out of her trance, hearing the knocking of oars. She looked round. There was a boat with a gaudy Japanese parasol, and a man in white, rowing. The woman was Hermione, and the man was Gerald. She knew it instantly. And instantly she perished in the keen _frisson_ of anticipation, an electric vibration in her veins, intense, much more intense than that which was always humming low in the atmosphere of Beldover. Gerald was her escape from the heavy slough of the pale, underworld, automatic colliers. He started out of the mud. He was master. She saw his back, the movement of his white loins. But not that�it was the whiteness he seemed to enclose as he bent forwards, rowing. He seemed to stoop to something. His glistening, whitish hair seemed like the electricity of the sky. �There�s Gudrun,� came Hermione�s voice floating distinct over the water. �We will go and speak to her. Do you mind?� Gerald looked round and saw the girl standing by the water�s edge, looking at him. He pulled the boat towards her, magnetically, without thinking of her. In his world, his conscious world, she was still nobody. He knew that Hermione had a curious pleasure in treading down all the social differences, at least apparently, and he left it to her. �How do you do, Gudrun?� sang Hermione, using the Christian name in the fashionable manner. �What are you doing?� �How do you do, Hermione? I _was_ sketching.� �Were you?� The boat drifted nearer, till the keel ground on the bank. �May we see? I should like to _so_ much.� It was no use resisting Hermione�s deliberate intention. �Well�� said Gudrun reluctantly, for she always hated to have her unfinished work exposed��there�s nothing in the least interesting.� �Isn�t there? But let me see, will you?� Gudrun reached out the sketch-book, Gerald stretched from the boat to take it. And as he did so, he remembered Gudrun�s last words to him, and her face lifted up to him as he sat on the swerving horse. An intensification of pride went over his nerves, because he felt, in some way she was compelled by him. The exchange of feeling between them was strong and apart from their consciousness. And as if in a spell, Gudrun was aware of his body, stretching and surging like the marsh-fire, stretching towards her, his hand coming straight forward like a stem. Her voluptuous, acute apprehension of him made the blood faint in her veins, her mind went dim and unconscious. And he rocked on the water perfectly, like the rocking of phosphorescence. He looked round at the boat. It was drifting off a little. He lifted the oar to bring it back. And the exquisite pleasure of slowly arresting the boat, in the heavy-soft water, was complete as a swoon. �_That�s_ what you have done,� said Hermione, looking searchingly at the plants on the shore, and comparing with Gudrun�s drawing. Gudrun looked round in the direction of Hermione�s long, pointing finger. �That is it, isn�t it?� repeated Hermione, needing confirmation. �Yes,� said Gudrun automatically, taking no real heed. �Let me look,� said Gerald, reaching forward for the book. But Hermione ignored him, he must not presume, before she had finished. But he, his will as unthwarted and as unflinching as hers, stretched forward till he touched the book. A little shock, a storm of revulsion against him, shook Hermione unconsciously. She released the book when he had not properly got it, and it tumbled against the side of the boat and bounced into the water. �There!� sang Hermione, with a strange ring of malevolent victory. �I�m so sorry, so awfully sorry. Can�t you get it, Gerald?� This last was said in a note of anxious sneering that made Gerald�s veins tingle with fine hate for her. He leaned far out of the boat, reaching down into the water. He could feel his position was ridiculous, his loins exposed behind him. �It is of no importance,� came the strong, clanging voice of Gudrun. She seemed to touch him. But he reached further, the boat swayed violently. Hermione, however, remained unperturbed. He grasped the book, under the water, and brought it up, dripping. �I�m so dreadfully sorry�dreadfully sorry,� repeated Hermione. �I�m afraid it was all my fault.� �It�s of no importance�really, I assure you�it doesn�t matter in the least,� said Gudrun loudly, with emphasis, her face flushed scarlet. And she held out her hand impatiently for the wet book, to have done with the scene. Gerald gave it to her. He was not quite himself. �I�m so dreadfully sorry,� repeated Hermione, till both Gerald and Gudrun were exasperated. �Is there nothing that can be done?� �In what way?� asked Gudrun, with cool irony. �Can�t we save the drawings?� There was a moment�s pause, wherein Gudrun made evident all her refutation of Hermione�s persistence. �I assure you,� said Gudrun, with cutting distinctness, �the drawings are quite as good as ever they were, for my purpose. I want them only for reference.� �But can�t I give you a new book? I wish you�d let me do that. I feel so truly sorry. I feel it was all my fault.� �As far as I saw,� said Gudrun, �it wasn�t your fault at all. If there was any _fault_, it was Mr Crich�s. But the whole thing is _entirely_ trivial, and it really is ridiculous to take any notice of it.� Gerald watched Gudrun closely, whilst she repulsed Hermione. There was a body of cold power in her. He watched her with an insight that amounted to clairvoyance. He saw her a dangerous, hostile spirit, that could stand undiminished and unabated. It was so finished, and of such perfect gesture, moreover. �I�m awfully glad if it doesn�t matter,� he said; �if there�s no real harm done.� She looked back at him, with her fine blue eyes, and signalled full into his spirit, as she said, her voice ringing with intimacy almost caressive now it was addressed to him: �Of course, it doesn�t matter in the _least_.� The bond was established between them, in that look, in her tone. In her tone, she made the understanding clear�they were of the same kind, he and she, a sort of diabolic freemasonry subsisted between them. Henceforward, she knew, she had her power over him. Wherever they met, they would be secretly associated. And he would be helpless in the association with her. Her soul exulted. �Good-bye! I�m so glad you forgive me. Gooood-bye!� Hermione sang her farewell, and waved her hand. Gerald automatically took the oar and pushed off. But he was looking all the time, with a glimmering, subtly-smiling admiration in his eyes, at Gudrun, who stood on the shoal shaking the wet book in her hand. She turned away and ignored the receding boat. But Gerald looked back as he rowed, beholding her, forgetting what he was doing. �Aren�t we going too much to the left?� sang Hermione, as she sat ignored under her coloured parasol. Gerald looked round without replying, the oars balanced and glancing in the sun. �I think it�s all right,� he said good-humouredly, beginning to row again without thinking of what he was doing. And Hermione disliked him extremely for his good-humoured obliviousness, she was nullified, she could not regain ascendancy. CHAPTER XI. AN ISLAND Meanwhile Ursula had wandered on from Willey Water along the course of the bright little stream. The afternoon was full of larks� singing. On the bright hill-sides was a subdued smoulder of gorse. A few forget-me-nots flowered by the water. There was a rousedness and a glancing everywhere. She strayed absorbedly on, over the brooks. She wanted to go to the mill-pond above. The big mill-house was deserted, save for a labourer and his wife who lived in the kitchen. So she passed through the empty farm-yard and through the wilderness of a garden, and mounted the bank by the sluice. When she got to the top, to see the old, velvety surface of the pond before her, she noticed a man on the bank, tinkering with a punt. It was Birkin sawing and hammering away. She stood at the head of the sluice, looking at him. He was unaware of anybody�s presence. He looked very busy, like a wild animal, active and intent. She felt she ought to go away, he would not want her. He seemed to be so much occupied. But she did not want to go away. Therefore she moved along the bank till he would look up. Which he soon did. The moment he saw her, he dropped his tools and came forward, saying: �How do you do? I�m making the punt water-tight. Tell me if you think it is right.� She went along with him. �You are your father�s daughter, so you can tell me if it will do,� he said. She bent to look at the patched punt. �I am sure I am my father�s daughter,� she said, fearful of having to judge. �But I don�t know anything about carpentry. It _looks_ right, don�t you think?� �Yes, I think. I hope it won�t let me to the bottom, that�s all. Though even so, it isn�t a great matter, I should come up again. Help me to get it into the water, will you?� With combined efforts they turned over the heavy punt and set it afloat. �Now,� he said, �I�ll try it and you can watch what happens. Then if it carries, I�ll take you over to the island.� �Do,� she cried, watching anxiously. The pond was large, and had that perfect stillness and the dark lustre of very deep water. There were two small islands overgrown with bushes and a few trees, towards the middle. Birkin pushed himself off, and veered clumsily in the pond. Luckily the punt drifted so that he could catch hold of a willow bough, and pull it to the island. �Rather overgrown,� he said, looking into the interior, �but very nice. I�ll come and fetch you. The boat leaks a little.� In a moment he was with her again, and she stepped into the wet punt. �It�ll float us all right,� he said, and man�uvred again to the island. They landed under a willow tree. She shrank from the little jungle of rank plants before her, evil-smelling figwort and hemlock. But he explored into it. �I shall mow this down,� he said, �and then it will be romantic�like Paul et Virginie.� �Yes, one could have lovely Watteau picnics here,� cried Ursula with enthusiasm. His face darkened. �I don�t want Watteau picnics here,� he said. �Only your Virginie,� she laughed. �Virginie enough,� he smiled wryly. �No, I don�t want her either.� Ursula looked at him closely. She had not seen him since Breadalby. He was very thin and hollow, with a ghastly look in his face. �You have been ill; haven�t you?� she asked, rather repulsed. �Yes,� he replied coldly. They had sat down under the willow tree, and were looking at the pond, from their retreat on the island. �Has it made you frightened?� she asked. �What of?� he asked, turning his eyes to look at her. Something in him, inhuman and unmitigated, disturbed her, and shook her out of her ordinary self. �It _is_ frightening to be very ill, isn�t it?� she said. �It isn�t pleasant,� he said. �Whether one is really afraid of death, or not, I have never decided. In one mood, not a bit, in another, very much.� �But doesn�t it make you feel ashamed? I think it makes one so ashamed, to be ill�illness is so terribly humiliating, don�t you think?� He considered for some minutes. �Maybe,� he said. �Though one knows all the time one�s life isn�t really right, at the source. That�s the humiliation. I don�t see that the illness counts so much, after that. One is ill because one doesn�t live properly�can�t. It�s the failure to live that makes one ill, and humiliates one.� �But do you fail to live?� she asked, almost jeering. �Why yes�I don�t make much of a success of my days. One seems always to be bumping one�s nose against the blank wall ahead.� Ursula laughed. She was frightened, and when she was frightened she always laughed and pretended to be jaunty. �Your poor nose!� she said, looking at that feature of his face. �No wonder it�s ugly,� he replied. She was silent for some minutes, struggling with her own self-deception. It was an instinct in her, to deceive herself. �But _I�m_ happy�I think life is _awfully_ jolly,� she said. �Good,� he answered, with a certain cold indifference. She reached for a bit of paper which had wrapped a small piece of chocolate she had found in her pocket, and began making a boat. He watched her without heeding her. There was something strangely pathetic and tender in her moving, unconscious finger-tips, that were agitated and hurt, really. �I _do_ enjoy things�don�t you?� she asked. �Oh yes! But it infuriates me that I can�t get right, at the really growing part of me. I feel all tangled and messed up, and I _can�t_ get straight anyhow. I don�t know what really to _do_. One must do something somewhere.� �Why should you always be _doing?_� she retorted. �It is so plebeian. I think it is much better to be really patrician, and to do nothing but just be oneself, like a walking flower.� �I quite agree,� he said, �if one has burst into blossom. But I can�t get my flower to blossom anyhow. Either it is blighted in the bud, or has got the smother-fly, or it isn�t nourished. Curse it, it isn�t even a bud. It is a contravened knot.� Again she laughed. He was so very fretful and exasperated. But she was anxious and puzzled. How was one to get out, anyhow. There must be a way out somewhere. There was a silence, wherein she wanted to cry. She reached for another bit of chocolate paper, and began to fold another boat. �And why is it,� she asked at length, �that there is no flowering, no dignity of human life now?� �The whole idea is dead. Humanity itself is dry-rotten, really. There are myriads of human beings hanging on the bush�and they look very nice and rosy, your healthy young men and women. But they are apples of Sodom, as a matter of fact, Dead Sea Fruit, gall-apples. It isn�t true that they have any significance�their insides are full of bitter, corrupt ash.� �But there _are_ good people,� protested Ursula. �Good enough for the life of today. But mankind is a dead tree, covered with fine brilliant galls of people.� Ursula could not help stiffening herself against this, it was too picturesque and final. But neither could she help making him go on. �And if it is so, _why_ is it?� she asked, hostile. They were rousing each other to a fine passion of opposition. �Why, why are people all balls of bitter dust? Because they won�t fall off the tree when they�re ripe. They hang on to their old positions when the position is over-past, till they become infested with little worms and dry-rot.� There was a long pause. His voice had become hot and very sarcastic. Ursula was troubled and bewildered, they were both oblivious of everything but their own immersion. �But even if everybody is wrong�where are _you_ right?� she cried, �where are you any better?� �I?�I�m not right,� he cried back. �At least my only rightness lies in the fact that I know it. I detest what I am, outwardly. I loathe myself as a human being. Humanity is a huge aggregate lie, and a huge lie is less than a small truth. Humanity is less, far less than the individual, because the individual may sometimes be capable of truth, and humanity is a tree of lies. And they say that love is the greatest thing; they persist in _saying_ this, the foul liars, and just look at what they do! Look at all the millions of people who repeat every minute that love is the greatest, and charity is the greatest�and see what they are doing all the time. By their works ye shall know them, for dirty liars and cowards, who daren�t stand by their own actions, much less by their own words.� �But,� said Ursula sadly, �that doesn�t alter the fact that love is the greatest, does it? What they _do_ doesn�t alter the truth of what they say, does it?� �Completely, because if what they say _were_ true, then they couldn�t help fulfilling it. But they maintain a lie, and so they run amok at last. It�s a lie to say that love is the greatest. You might as well say that hate is the greatest, since the opposite of everything balances. What people want is hate�hate and nothing but hate. And in the name of righteousness and love, they get it. They distil themselves with nitroglycerine, all the lot of them, out of very love. It�s the lie that kills. If we want hate, let us have it�death, murder, torture, violent destruction�let us have it: but not in the name of love. But I abhor humanity, I wish it was swept away. It could go, and there would be no _absolute_ loss, if every human being perished tomorrow. The reality would be untouched. Nay, it would be better. The real tree of life would then be rid of the most ghastly, heavy crop of Dead Sea Fruit, the intolerable burden of myriad simulacra of people, an infinite weight of mortal lies.� �So you�d like everybody in the world destroyed?� said Ursula. �I should indeed.� �And the world empty of people?� �Yes truly. You yourself, don�t you find it a beautiful clean thought, a world empty of people, just uninterrupted grass, and a hare sitting up?� The pleasant sincerity of his voice made Ursula pause to consider her own proposition. And really it _was_ attractive: a clean, lovely, humanless world. It was the _really_ desirable. Her heart hesitated, and exulted. But still, she was dissatisfied with _him_. �But,� she objected, �you�d be dead yourself, so what good would it do you?� �I would die like a shot, to know that the earth would really be cleaned of all the people. It is the most beautiful and freeing thought. Then there would _never_ be another foul humanity created, for a universal defilement.� �No,� said Ursula, �there would be nothing.� �What! Nothing? Just because humanity was wiped out? You flatter yourself. There�d be everything.� �But how, if there were no people?� �Do you think that creation depends on _man!_ It merely doesn�t. There are the trees and the grass and birds. I much prefer to think of the lark rising up in the morning upon a humanless world. Man is a mistake, he must go. There is the grass, and hares and adders, and the unseen hosts, actual angels that go about freely when a dirty humanity doesn�t interrupt them�and good pure-tissued demons: very nice.� It pleased Ursula, what he said, pleased her very much, as a phantasy. Of course it was only a pleasant fancy. She herself knew too well the actuality of humanity, its hideous actuality. She knew it could not disappear so cleanly and conveniently. It had a long way to go yet, a long and hideous way. Her subtle, feminine, demoniacal soul knew it well. �If only man was swept off the face of the earth, creation would go on so marvellously, with a new start, non-human. Man is one of the mistakes of creation�like the ichthyosauri. If only he were gone again, think what lovely things would come out of the liberated days;�things straight out of the fire.� �But man will never be gone,� she said, with insidious, diabolical knowledge of the horrors of persistence. �The world will go with him.� �Ah no,� he answered, �not so. I believe in the proud angels and the demons that are our fore-runners. They will destroy us, because we are not proud enough. The ichthyosauri were not proud: they crawled and floundered as we do. And besides, look at elder-flowers and bluebells�they are a sign that pure creation takes place�even the butterfly. But humanity never gets beyond the caterpillar stage�it rots in the chrysalis, it never will have wings. It is anti-creation, like monkeys and baboons.� Ursula watched him as he talked. There seemed a certain impatient fury in him, all the while, and at the same time a great amusement in everything, and a final tolerance. And it was this tolerance she mistrusted, not the fury. She saw that, all the while, in spite of himself, he would have to be trying to save the world. And this knowledge, whilst it comforted her heart somewhere with a little self-satisfaction, stability, yet filled her with a certain sharp contempt and hate of him. She wanted him to herself, she hated the Salvator Mundi touch. It was something diffuse and generalised about him, which she could not stand. He would behave in the same way, say the same things, give himself as completely to anybody who came along, anybody and everybody who liked to appeal to him. It was despicable, a very insidious form of prostitution. �But,� she said, �you believe in individual love, even if you don�t believe in loving humanity�?� �I don�t believe in love at all�that is, any more than I believe in hate, or in grief. Love is one of the emotions like all the others�and so it is all right whilst you feel it. But I can�t see how it becomes an absolute. It is just part of human relationships, no more. And it is only part of _any_ human relationship. And why one should be required _always_ to feel it, any more than one always feels sorrow or distant joy, I cannot conceive. Love isn�t a desideratum�it is an emotion you feel or you don�t feel, according to circumstance.� �Then why do you care about people at all?� she asked, �if you don�t believe in love? Why do you bother about humanity?� �Why do I? Because I can�t get away from it.� �Because you love it,� she persisted. It irritated him. �If I do love it,� he said, �it is my disease.� �But it is a disease you don�t want to be cured of,� she said, with some cold sneering. He was silent now, feeling she wanted to insult him. �And if you don�t believe in love, what _do_ you believe in?� she asked mocking. �Simply in the end of the world, and grass?� He was beginning to feel a fool. �I believe in the unseen hosts,� he said. �And nothing else? You believe in nothing visible, except grass and birds? Your world is a poor show.� �Perhaps it is,� he said, cool and superior now he was offended, assuming a certain insufferable aloof superiority, and withdrawing into his distance. Ursula disliked him. But also she felt she had lost something. She looked at him as he sat crouched on the bank. There was a certain priggish Sunday-school stiffness over him, priggish and detestable. And yet, at the same time, the moulding of him was so quick and attractive, it gave such a great sense of freedom: the moulding of his brows, his chin, his whole physique, something so alive, somewhere, in spite of the look of sickness. And it was this duality in feeling which he created in her, that made a fine hate of him quicken in her bowels. There was his wonderful, desirable life-rapidity, the rare quality of an utterly desirable man: and there was at the same time this ridiculous, mean effacement into a Salvator Mundi and a Sunday-school teacher, a prig of the stiffest type. He looked up at her. He saw her face strangely enkindled, as if suffused from within by a powerful sweet fire. His soul was arrested in wonder. She was enkindled in her own living fire. Arrested in wonder and in pure, perfect attraction, he moved towards her. She sat like a strange queen, almost supernatural in her glowing smiling richness. �The point about love,� he said, his consciousness quickly adjusting itself, �is that we hate the word because we have vulgarised it. It ought to be prescribed, tabooed from utterance, for many years, till we get a new, better idea.� There was a beam of understanding between them. �But it always means the same thing,� she said. �Ah God, no, let it not mean that any more,� he cried. �Let the old meanings go.� �But still it is love,� she persisted. A strange, wicked yellow light shone at him in her eyes. He hesitated, baffled, withdrawing. �No,� he said, �it isn�t. Spoken like that, never in the world. You�ve no business to utter the word.� �I must leave it to you, to take it out of the Ark of the Covenant at the right moment,� she mocked. Again they looked at each other. She suddenly sprang up, turned her back to him, and walked away. He too rose slowly and went to the water�s edge, where, crouching, he began to amuse himself unconsciously. Picking a daisy he dropped it on the pond, so that the stem was a keel, the flower floated like a little water lily, staring with its open face up to the sky. It turned slowly round, in a slow, slow Dervish dance, as it veered away. He watched it, then dropped another daisy into the water, and after that another, and sat watching them with bright, absolved eyes, crouching near on the bank. Ursula turned to look. A strange feeling possessed her, as if something were taking place. But it was all intangible. And some sort of control was being put on her. She could not know. She could only watch the brilliant little discs of the daisies veering slowly in travel on the dark, lustrous water. The little flotilla was drifting into the light, a company of white specks in the distance. �Do let us go to the shore, to follow them,� she said, afraid of being any longer imprisoned on the island. And they pushed off in the punt. She was glad to be on the free land again. She went along the bank towards the sluice. The daisies were scattered broadcast on the pond, tiny radiant things, like an exaltation, points of exaltation here and there. Why did they move her so strongly and mystically? �Look,� he said, �your boat of purple paper is escorting them, and they are a convoy of rafts.� Some of the daisies came slowly towards her, hesitating, making a shy bright little cotillion on the dark clear water. Their gay bright candour moved her so much as they came near, that she was almost in tears. �Why are they so lovely,� she cried. �Why do I think them so lovely?� �They are nice flowers,� he said, her emotional tones putting a constraint on him. �You know that a daisy is a company of florets, a concourse, become individual. Don�t the botanists put it highest in the line of development? I believe they do.� �The compositæ, yes, I think so,� said Ursula, who was never very sure of anything. Things she knew perfectly well, at one moment, seemed to become doubtful the next. �Explain it so, then,� he said. �The daisy is a perfect little democracy, so it�s the highest of flowers, hence its charm.� �No,� she cried, �no�never. It isn�t democratic.� �No,� he admitted. �It�s the golden mob of the proletariat, surrounded by a showy white fence of the idle rich.� �How hateful�your hateful social orders!� she cried. �Quite! It�s a daisy�we�ll leave it alone.� �Do. Let it be a dark horse for once,� she said: �if anything can be a dark horse to you,� she added satirically. They stood aside, forgetful. As if a little stunned, they both were motionless, barely conscious. The little conflict into which they had fallen had torn their consciousness and left them like two impersonal forces, there in contact. He became aware of the lapse. He wanted to say something, to get on to a new more ordinary footing. �You know,� he said, �that I am having rooms here at the mill? Don�t you think we can have some good times?� �Oh are you?� she said, ignoring all his implication of admitted intimacy. He adjusted himself at once, became normally distant. �If I find I can live sufficiently by myself,� he continued, �I shall give up my work altogether. It has become dead to me. I don�t believe in the humanity I pretend to be part of, I don�t care a straw for the social ideals I live by, I hate the dying organic form of social mankind�so it can�t be anything but trumpery, to work at education. I shall drop it as soon as I am clear enough�tomorrow perhaps�and be by myself.� �Have you enough to live on?� asked Ursula. �Yes�I�ve about four hundred a year. That makes it easy for me.� There was a pause. �And what about Hermione?� asked Ursula. �That�s over, finally�a pure failure, and never could have been anything else.� �But you still know each other?� �We could hardly pretend to be strangers, could we?� There was a stubborn pause. �But isn�t that a half-measure?� asked Ursula at length. �I don�t think so,� he said. �You�ll be able to tell me if it is.� Again there was a pause of some minutes� duration. He was thinking. �One must throw everything away, everything�let everything go, to get the one last thing one wants,� he said. �What thing?� she asked in challenge. �I don�t know�freedom together,� he said. She had wanted him to say �love.� There was heard a loud barking of the dogs below. He seemed disturbed by it. She did not notice. Only she thought he seemed uneasy. �As a matter of fact,� he said, in rather a small voice, �I believe that is Hermione come now, with Gerald Crich. She wanted to see the rooms before they are furnished.� �I know,� said Ursula. �She will superintend the furnishing for you.� �Probably. Does it matter?� �Oh no, I should think not,� said Ursula. �Though personally, I can�t bear her. I think she is a lie, if you like, you who are always talking about lies.� Then she ruminated for a moment, when she broke out: �Yes, and I do mind if she furnishes your rooms�I do mind. I mind that you keep her hanging on at all.� He was silent now, frowning. �Perhaps,� he said. �I don�t _want_ her to furnish the rooms here�and I don�t keep her hanging on. Only, I needn�t be churlish to her, need I? At any rate, I shall have to go down and see them now. You�ll come, won�t you?� �I don�t think so,� she said coldly and irresolutely. �Won�t you? Yes do. Come and see the rooms as well. Do come.� CHAPTER XII. CARPETING He set off down the bank, and she went unwillingly with him. Yet she would not have stayed away, either. �We know each other well, you and I, already,� he said. She did not answer. In the large darkish kitchen of the mill, the labourer�s wife was talking shrilly to Hermione and Gerald, who stood, he in white and she in a glistening bluish foulard, strangely luminous in the dusk of the room; whilst from the cages on the walls, a dozen or more canaries sang at the top of their voices. The cages were all placed round a small square window at the back, where the sunshine came in, a beautiful beam, filtering through green leaves of a tree. The voice of Mrs Salmon shrilled against the noise of the birds, which rose ever more wild and triumphant, and the woman�s voice went up and up against them, and the birds replied with wild animation. �Here�s Rupert!� shouted Gerald in the midst of the din. He was suffering badly, being very sensitive in the ear. �O-o-h them birds, they won�t let you speak�!� shrilled the labourer�s wife in disgust. �I�ll cover them up.� And she darted here and there, throwing a duster, an apron, a towel, a table-cloth over the cages of the birds. �Now will you stop it, and let a body speak for your row,� she said, still in a voice that was too high. The party watched her. Soon the cages were covered, they had a strange funereal look. But from under the towels odd defiant trills and bubblings still shook out. �Oh, they won�t go on,� said Mrs Salmon reassuringly. �They�ll go to sleep now.� �Really,� said Hermione, politely. �They will,� said Gerald. �They will go to sleep automatically, now the impression of evening is produced.� �Are they so easily deceived?� cried Ursula. �Oh, yes,� replied Gerald. �Don�t you know the story of Fabre, who, when he was a boy, put a hen�s head under her wing, and she straight away went to sleep? It�s quite true.� �And did that make him a naturalist?� asked Birkin. �Probably,� said Gerald. Meanwhile Ursula was peeping under one of the cloths. There sat the canary in a corner, bunched and fluffed up for sleep. �How ridiculous!� she cried. �It really thinks the night has come! How absurd! Really, how can one have any respect for a creature that is so easily taken in!� �Yes,� sang Hermione, coming also to look. She put her hand on Ursula�s arm and chuckled a low laugh. �Yes, doesn�t he look comical?� she chuckled. �Like a stupid husband.� Then, with her hand still on Ursula�s arm, she drew her away, saying, in her mild sing-song: �How did you come here? We saw Gudrun too.� �I came to look at the pond,� said Ursula, �and I found Mr Birkin there.� �Did you? This is quite a Brangwen land, isn�t it!� �I�m afraid I hoped so,� said Ursula. �I ran here for refuge, when I saw you down the lake, just putting off.� �Did you! And now we�ve run you to earth.� Hermione�s eyelids lifted with an uncanny movement, amused but overwrought. She had always her strange, rapt look, unnatural and irresponsible. �I was going on,� said Ursula. �Mr Birkin wanted me to see the rooms. Isn�t it delightful to live here? It is perfect.� �Yes,� said Hermione, abstractedly. Then she turned right away from Ursula, ceased to know her existence. �How do you feel, Rupert?� she sang in a new, affectionate tone, to Birkin. �Very well,� he replied. �Were you quite comfortable?� The curious, sinister, rapt look was on Hermione�s face, she shrugged her bosom in a convulsed movement, and seemed like one half in a trance. �Quite comfortable,� he replied. There was a long pause, whilst Hermione looked at him for a long time, from under her heavy, drugged eyelids. �And you think you�ll be happy here?� she said at last. �I�m sure I shall.� �I�m sure I shall do anything for him as I can,� said the labourer�s wife. �And I�m sure our master will; so I _hope_ he�ll find himself comfortable.� Hermione turned and looked at her slowly. �Thank you so much,� she said, and then she turned completely away again. She recovered her position, and lifting her face towards him, and addressing him exclusively, she said: �Have you measured the rooms?� �No,� he said, �I�ve been mending the punt.� �Shall we do it now?� she said slowly, balanced and dispassionate. �Have you got a tape measure, Mrs Salmon?� he said, turning to the woman. �Yes sir, I think I can find one,� replied the woman, bustling immediately to a basket. �This is the only one I�ve got, if it will do.� Hermione took it, though it was offered to him. �Thank you so much,� she said. �It will do very nicely. Thank you so much.� Then she turned to Birkin, saying with a little gay movement: �Shall we do it now, Rupert?� �What about the others, they�ll be bored,� he said reluctantly. �Do you mind?� said Hermione, turning to Ursula and Gerald vaguely. �Not in the least,� they replied. �Which room shall we do first?� she said, turning again to Birkin, with the same gaiety, now she was going to _do_ something with him. �We�ll take them as they come,� he said. �Should I be getting your teas ready, while you do that?� said the labourer�s wife, also gay because _she_ had something to do. �Would you?� said Hermione, turning to her with the curious motion of intimacy that seemed to envelop the woman, draw her almost to Hermione�s breast, and which left the others standing apart. �I should be so glad. Where shall we have it?� �Where would you like it? Shall it be in here, or out on the grass?� �Where shall we have tea?� sang Hermione to the company at large. �On the bank by the pond. And _we�ll_ carry the things up, if you�ll just get them ready, Mrs Salmon,� said Birkin. �All right,� said the pleased woman. The party moved down the passage into the front room. It was empty, but clean and sunny. There was a window looking on to the tangled front garden. �This is the dining-room,� said Hermione. �We�ll measure it this way, Rupert�you go down there�� �Can�t I do it for you,� said Gerald, coming to take the end of the tape. �No, thank you,� cried Hermione, stooping to the ground in her bluish, brilliant foulard. It was a great joy to her to _do_ things, and to have the ordering of the job, with Birkin. He obeyed her subduedly. Ursula and Gerald looked on. It was a peculiarity of Hermione�s, that at every moment, she had one intimate, and turned all the rest of those present into onlookers. This raised her into a state of triumph. They measured and discussed in the dining-room, and Hermione decided what the floor coverings must be. It sent her into a strange, convulsed anger, to be thwarted. Birkin always let her have her way, for the moment. Then they moved across, through the hall, to the other front room, that was a little smaller than the first. �This is the study,� said Hermione. �Rupert, I have a rug that I want you to have for here. Will you let me give it to you? Do�I want to give it you.� �What is it like?� he asked ungraciously. �You haven�t seen it. It is chiefly rose red, then blue, a metallic, mid-blue, and a very soft dark blue. I think you would like it. Do you think you would?� �It sounds very nice,� he replied. �What is it? Oriental? With a pile?� �Yes. Persian! It is made of camel�s hair, silky. I think it is called Bergamos�twelve feet by seven�. Do you think it will do?� �It would _do_,� he said. �But why should you give me an expensive rug? I can manage perfectly well with my old Oxford Turkish.� �But may I give it to you? Do let me.� �How much did it cost?� She looked at him, and said: �I don�t remember. It was quite cheap.� He looked at her, his face set. �I don�t want to take it, Hermione,� he said. �Do let me give it to the rooms,� she said, going up to him and putting her hand on his arm lightly, pleadingly. �I shall be so disappointed.� �You know I don�t want you to give me things,� he repeated helplessly. �I don�t want to give you _things_,� she said teasingly. �But will you have this?� �All right,� he said, defeated, and she triumphed. They went upstairs. There were two bedrooms to correspond with the rooms downstairs. One of them was half furnished, and Birkin had evidently slept there. Hermione went round the room carefully, taking in every detail, as if absorbing the evidence of his presence, in all the inanimate things. She felt the bed and examined the coverings. �Are you _sure_ you were quite comfortable?� she said, pressing the pillow. �Perfectly,� he replied coldly. �And were you warm? There is no down quilt. I am sure you need one. You mustn�t have a great pressure of clothes.� �I�ve got one,� he said. �It is coming down.� They measured the rooms, and lingered over every consideration. Ursula stood at the window and watched the woman carrying the tea up the bank to the pond. She hated the palaver Hermione made, she wanted to drink tea, she wanted anything but this fuss and business. At last they all mounted the grassy bank, to the picnic. Hermione poured out tea. She ignored now Ursula�s presence. And Ursula, recovering from her ill-humour, turned to Gerald saying: �Oh, I hated you so much the other day, Mr Crich,� �What for?� said Gerald, wincing slightly away. �For treating your horse so badly. Oh, I hated you so much!� �What did he do?� sang Hermione. �He made his lovely sensitive Arab horse stand with him at the railway-crossing whilst a horrible lot of trucks went by; and the poor thing, she was in a perfect frenzy, a perfect agony. It was the most horrible sight you can imagine.� �Why did you do it, Gerald?� asked Hermione, calm and interrogative. �She must learn to stand�what use is she to me in this country, if she shies and goes off every time an engine whistles.� �But why inflict unnecessary torture?� said Ursula. �Why make her stand all that time at the crossing? You might just as well have ridden back up the road, and saved all that horror. Her sides were bleeding where you had spurred her. It was too horrible�!� Gerald stiffened. �I have to use her,� he replied. �And if I�m going to be sure of her at _all_, she�ll have to learn to stand noises.� �Why should she?� cried Ursula in a passion. �She is a living creature, why should she stand anything, just because you choose to make her? She has as much right to her own being, as you have to yours.� �There I disagree,� said Gerald. �I consider that mare is there for my use. Not because I bought her, but because that is the natural order. It is more natural for a man to take a horse and use it as he likes, than for him to go down on his knees to it, begging it to do as it wishes, and to fulfil its own marvellous nature.� Ursula was just breaking out, when Hermione lifted her face and began, in her musing sing-song: �I do think�I do really think we must have the _courage_ to use the lower animal life for our needs. I do think there is something wrong, when we look on every living creature as if it were ourselves. I do feel, that it is false to project our own feelings on every animate creature. It is a lack of discrimination, a lack of criticism.� �Quite,� said Birkin sharply. �Nothing is so detestable as the maudlin attributing of human feelings and consciousness to animals.� �Yes,� said Hermione, wearily, �we must really take a position. Either we are going to use the animals, or they will use us.� �That�s a fact,� said Gerald. �A horse has got a will like a man, though it has no _mind_ strictly. And if your will isn�t master, then the horse is master of you. And this is a thing I can�t help. I can�t help being master of the horse.� �If only we could learn how to use our will,� said Hermione, �we could do anything. The will can cure anything, and put anything right. That I am convinced of�if only we use the will properly, intelligibly.� �What do you mean by using the will properly?� said Birkin. �A very great doctor taught me,� she said, addressing Ursula and Gerald vaguely. �He told me for instance, that to cure oneself of a bad habit, one should _force_ oneself to do it, when one would not do it�make oneself do it�and then the habit would disappear.� �How do you mean?� said Gerald. �If you bite your nails, for example. Then, when you don�t want to bite your nails, bite them, make yourself bite them. And you would find the habit was broken.� �Is that so?� said Gerald. �Yes. And in so many things, I have _made_ myself well. I was a very queer and nervous girl. And by learning to use my will, simply by using my will, I _made_ myself right.� Ursula looked all the while at Hermione, as she spoke in her slow, dispassionate, and yet strangely tense voice. A curious thrill went over the younger woman. Some strange, dark, convulsive power was in Hermione, fascinating and repelling. �It is fatal to use the will like that,� cried Birkin harshly, �disgusting. Such a will is an obscenity.� Hermione looked at him for a long time, with her shadowed, heavy eyes. Her face was soft and pale and thin, almost phosphorescent, her jaw was lean. �I�m sure it isn�t,� she said at length. There always seemed an interval, a strange split between what she seemed to feel and experience, and what she actually said and thought. She seemed to catch her thoughts at length from off the surface of a maelstrom of chaotic black emotions and reactions, and Birkin was always filled with repulsion, she caught so infallibly, her will never failed her. Her voice was always dispassionate and tense, and perfectly confident. Yet she shuddered with a sense of nausea, a sort of seasickness that always threatened to overwhelm her mind. But her mind remained unbroken, her will was still perfect. It almost sent Birkin mad. But he would never, never dare to break her will, and let loose the maelstrom of her subconsciousness, and see her in her ultimate madness. Yet he was always striking at her. �And of course,� he said to Gerald, �horses _haven�t_ got a complete will, like human beings. A horse has no _one_ will. Every horse, strictly, has two wills. With one will, it wants to put itself in the human power completely�and with the other, it wants to be free, wild. The two wills sometimes lock�you know that, if ever you�ve felt a horse bolt, while you�ve been driving it.� �I have felt a horse bolt while I was driving it,� said Gerald, �but it didn�t make me know it had two wills. I only knew it was frightened.� Hermione had ceased to listen. She simply became oblivious when these subjects were started. �Why should a horse want to put itself in the human power?� asked Ursula. �That is quite incomprehensible to me. I don�t believe it ever wanted it.� �Yes it did. It�s the last, perhaps highest, love-impulse: resign your will to the higher being,� said Birkin. �What curious notions you have of love,� jeered Ursula. �And woman is the same as horses: two wills act in opposition inside her. With one will, she wants to subject herself utterly. With the other she wants to bolt, and pitch her rider to perdition.� �Then I�m a bolter,� said Ursula, with a burst of laughter. �It�s a dangerous thing to domesticate even horses, let alone women,� said Birkin. �The dominant principle has some rare antagonists.� �Good thing too,� said Ursula. �Quite,� said Gerald, with a faint smile. �There�s more fun.� Hermione could bear no more. She rose, saying in her easy sing-song: �Isn�t the evening beautiful! I get filled sometimes with such a great sense of beauty, that I feel I can hardly bear it.� Ursula, to whom she had appealed, rose with her, moved to the last impersonal depths. And Birkin seemed to her almost a monster of hateful arrogance. She went with Hermione along the bank of the pond, talking of beautiful, soothing things, picking the gentle cowslips. �Wouldn�t you like a dress,� said Ursula to Hermione, �of this yellow spotted with orange�a cotton dress?� �Yes,� said Hermione, stopping and looking at the flower, letting the thought come home to her and soothe her. �Wouldn�t it be pretty? I should _love_ it.� And she turned smiling to Ursula, in a feeling of real affection. But Gerald remained with Birkin, wanting to probe him to the bottom, to know what he meant by the dual will in horses. A flicker of excitement danced on Gerald�s face. Hermione and Ursula strayed on together, united in a sudden bond of deep affection and closeness. �I really do not want to be forced into all this criticism and analysis of life. I really _do_ want to see things in their entirety, with their beauty left to them, and their wholeness, their natural holiness. Don�t you feel it, don�t you feel you _can�t_ be tortured into any more knowledge?� said Hermione, stopping in front of Ursula, and turning to her with clenched fists thrust downwards. �Yes,� said Ursula. �I do. I am sick of all this poking and prying.� �I�m so glad you are. Sometimes,� said Hermione, again stopping arrested in her progress and turning to Ursula, �sometimes I wonder if I _ought_ to submit to all this realisation, if I am not being weak in rejecting it. But I feel I _can�t_�I _can�t_. It seems to destroy _everything_. All the beauty and the�and the true holiness is destroyed�and I feel I can�t live without them.� �And it would be simply wrong to live without them,� cried Ursula. �No, it is so _irreverent_ to think that everything must be realised in the head. Really, something must be left to the Lord, there always is and always will be.� �Yes,� said Hermione, reassured like a child, �it should, shouldn�t it? And Rupert�� she lifted her face to the sky, in a muse��he _can_ only tear things to pieces. He really _is_ like a boy who must pull everything to pieces to see how it is made. And I can�t think it is right�it does seem so irreverent, as you say.� �Like tearing open a bud to see what the flower will be like,� said Ursula. �Yes. And that kills everything, doesn�t it? It doesn�t allow any possibility of flowering.� �Of course not,� said Ursula. �It is purely destructive.� �It is, isn�t it!� Hermione looked long and slow at Ursula, seeming to accept confirmation from her. Then the two women were silent. As soon as they were in accord, they began mutually to mistrust each other. In spite of herself, Ursula felt herself recoiling from Hermione. It was all she could do to restrain her revulsion. They returned to the men, like two conspirators who have withdrawn to come to an agreement. Birkin looked up at them. Ursula hated him for his cold watchfulness. But he said nothing. �Shall we be going?� said Hermione. �Rupert, you are coming to Shortlands to dinner? Will you come at once, will you come now, with us?� �I�m not dressed,� replied Birkin. �And you know Gerald stickles for convention.� �I don�t stickle for it,� said Gerald. �But if you�d got as sick as I have of rowdy go-as-you-please in the house, you�d prefer it if people were peaceful and conventional, at least at meals.� �All right,� said Birkin. �But can�t we wait for you while you dress?� persisted Hermione. �If you like.� He rose to go indoors. Ursula said she would take her leave. �Only,� she said, turning to Gerald, �I must say that, however man is lord of the beast and the fowl, I still don�t think he has any right to violate the feelings of the inferior creation. I still think it would have been much more sensible and nice of you if you�d trotted back up the road while the train went by, and been considerate.� �I see,� said Gerald, smiling, but somewhat annoyed. �I must remember another time.� �They all think I�m an interfering female,� thought Ursula to herself, as she went away. But she was in arms against them. She ran home plunged in thought. She had been very much moved by Hermione, she had really come into contact with her, so that there was a sort of league between the two women. And yet she could not bear her. But she put the thought away. �She�s really good,� she said to herself. �She really wants what is right.� And she tried to feel at one with Hermione, and to shut off from Birkin. She was strictly hostile to him. But she was held to him by some bond, some deep principle. This at once irritated her and saved her. Only now and again, violent little shudders would come over her, out of her subconsciousness, and she knew it was the fact that she had stated her challenge to Birkin, and he had, consciously or unconsciously, accepted. It was a fight to the death between them�or to new life: though in what the conflict lay, no one could say. CHAPTER XIII. MINO The days went by, and she received no sign. Was he going to ignore her, was he going to take no further notice of her secret? A dreary weight of anxiety and acrid bitterness settled on her. And yet Ursula knew she was only deceiving herself, and that he _would_ proceed. She said no word to anybody. Then, sure enough, there came a note from him, asking if she would come to tea with Gudrun, to his rooms in town. �Why does he ask Gudrun as well?� she asked herself at once. �Does he want to protect himself, or does he think I would not go alone?� She was tormented by the thought that he wanted to protect himself. But at the end of all, she only said to herself: �I don�t want Gudrun to be there, because I want him to say something more to me. So I shan�t tell Gudrun anything about it, and I shall go alone. Then I shall know.� She found herself sitting on the tram-car, mounting up the hill going out of the town, to the place where he had his lodging. She seemed to have passed into a kind of dream world, absolved from the conditions of actuality. She watched the sordid streets of the town go by beneath her, as if she were a spirit disconnected from the material universe. What had it all to do with her? She was palpitating and formless within the flux of the ghost life. She could not consider any more, what anybody would say of her or think about her. People had passed out of her range, she was absolved. She had fallen strange and dim, out of the sheath of the material life, as a berry falls from the only world it has ever known, down out of the sheath on to the real unknown. Birkin was standing in the middle of the room, when she was shown in by the landlady. He too was moved outside himself. She saw him agitated and shaken, a frail, unsubstantial body silent like the node of some violent force, that came out from him and shook her almost into a swoon. �You are alone?� he said. �Yes�Gudrun could not come.� He instantly guessed why. And they were both seated in silence, in the terrible tension of the room. She was aware that it was a pleasant room, full of light and very restful in its form�aware also of a fuchsia tree, with dangling scarlet and purple flowers. �How nice the fuchsias are!� she said, to break the silence. �Aren�t they! Did you think I had forgotten what I said?� A swoon went over Ursula�s mind. �I don�t want you to remember it�if you don�t want to,� she struggled to say, through the dark mist that covered her. There was silence for some moments. �No,� he said. �It isn�t that. Only�if we are going to know each other, we must pledge ourselves for ever. If we are going to make a relationship, even of friendship, there must be something final and infallible about it.� There was a clang of mistrust and almost anger in his voice. She did not answer. Her heart was too much contracted. She could not have spoken. Seeing she was not going to reply, he continued, almost bitterly, giving himself away: �I can�t say it is love I have to offer�and it isn�t love I want. It is something much more impersonal and harder�and rarer.� There was a silence, out of which she said: �You mean you don�t love me?� She suffered furiously, saying that. �Yes, if you like to put it like that. Though perhaps that isn�t true. I don�t know. At any rate, I don�t feel the emotion of love for you�no, and I don�t want to. Because it gives out in the last issues.� �Love gives out in the last issues?� she asked, feeling numb to the lips. �Yes, it does. At the very last, one is alone, beyond the influence of love. There is a real impersonal me, that is beyond love, beyond any emotional relationship. So it is with you. But we want to delude ourselves that love is the root. It isn�t. It is only the branches. The root is beyond love, a naked kind of isolation, an isolated me, that does _not_ meet and mingle, and never can.� She watched him with wide, troubled eyes. His face was incandescent in its abstract earnestness. �And you mean you can�t love?� she asked, in trepidation. �Yes, if you like. I have loved. But there is a beyond, where there is not love.� She could not submit to this. She felt it swooning over her. But she could not submit. �But how do you know�if you have never _really_ loved?� she asked. �It is true, what I say; there is a beyond, in you, in me, which is further than love, beyond the scope, as stars are beyond the scope of vision, some of them.� �Then there is no love,� cried Ursula. �Ultimately, no, there is something else. But, ultimately, there _is_ no love.� Ursula was given over to this statement for some moments. Then she half rose from her chair, saying, in a final, repellent voice: �Then let me go home�what am I doing here?� �There is the door,� he said. �You are a free agent.� He was suspended finely and perfectly in this extremity. She hung motionless for some seconds, then she sat down again. �If there is no love, what is there?� she cried, almost jeering. �Something,� he said, looking at her, battling with his soul, with all his might. �What?� He was silent for a long time, unable to be in communication with her while she was in this state of opposition. �There is,� he said, in a voice of pure abstraction; �a final me which is stark and impersonal and beyond responsibility. So there is a final you. And it is there I would want to meet you�not in the emotional, loving plane�but there beyond, where there is no speech and no terms of agreement. There we are two stark, unknown beings, two utterly strange creatures, I would want to approach you, and you me. And there could be no obligation, because there is no standard for action there, because no understanding has been reaped from that plane. It is quite inhuman,�so there can be no calling to book, in any form whatsoever�because one is outside the pale of all that is accepted, and nothing known applies. One can only follow the impulse, taking that which lies in front, and responsible for nothing, asked for nothing, giving nothing, only each taking according to the primal desire.� Ursula listened to this speech, her mind dumb and almost senseless, what he said was so unexpected and so untoward. �It is just purely selfish,� she said. �If it is pure, yes. But it isn�t selfish at all. Because I don�t _know_ what I want of you. I deliver _myself_ over to the unknown, in coming to you, I am without reserves or defences, stripped entirely, into the unknown. Only there needs the pledge between us, that we will both cast off everything, cast off ourselves even, and cease to be, so that that which is perfectly ourselves can take place in us.� She pondered along her own line of thought. �But it is because you love me, that you want me?� she persisted. �No it isn�t. It is because I believe in you�if I _do_ believe in you.� �Aren�t you sure?� she laughed, suddenly hurt. He was looking at her steadfastly, scarcely heeding what she said. �Yes, I must believe in you, or else I shouldn�t be here saying this,� he replied. �But that is all the proof I have. I don�t feel any very strong belief at this particular moment.� She disliked him for this sudden relapse into weariness and faithlessness. �But don�t you think me good-looking?� she persisted, in a mocking voice. He looked at her, to see if he felt that she was good-looking. �I don�t _feel_ that you�re good-looking,� he said. �Not even attractive?� she mocked, bitingly. He knitted his brows in sudden exasperation. �Don�t you see that it�s not a question of visual appreciation in the least,� he cried. �I don�t _want_ to see you. I�ve seen plenty of women, I�m sick and weary of seeing them. I want a woman I don�t see.� �I�m sorry I can�t oblige you by being invisible,� she laughed. �Yes,� he said, �you are invisible to me, if you don�t force me to be visually aware of you. But I don�t want to see you or hear you.� �What did you ask me to tea for, then?� she mocked. But he would take no notice of her. He was talking to himself. �I want to find you, where you don�t know your own existence, the you that your common self denies utterly. But I don�t want your good looks, and I don�t want your womanly feelings, and I don�t want your thoughts nor opinions nor your ideas�they are all bagatelles to me.� �You are very conceited, Monsieur,� she mocked. �How do you know what my womanly feelings are, or my thoughts or my ideas? You don�t even know what I think of you now.� �Nor do I care in the slightest.� �I think you are very silly. I think you want to tell me you love me, and you go all this way round to do it.� �All right,� he said, looking up with sudden exasperation. �Now go away then, and leave me alone. I don�t want any more of your meretricious persiflage.� �Is it really persiflage?� she mocked, her face really relaxing into laughter. She interpreted it, that he had made a deep confession of love to her. But he was so absurd in his words, also. They were silent for many minutes, she was pleased and elated like a child. His concentration broke, he began to look at her simply and naturally. �What I want is a strange conjunction with you�� he said quietly; �not meeting and mingling�you are quite right�but an equilibrium, a pure balance of two single beings�as the stars balance each other.� She looked at him. He was very earnest, and earnestness was always rather ridiculous, commonplace, to her. It made her feel unfree and uncomfortable. Yet she liked him so much. But why drag in the stars. �Isn�t this rather sudden?� she mocked. He began to laugh. �Best to read the terms of the contract, before we sign,� he said. A young grey cat that had been sleeping on the sofa jumped down and stretched, rising on its long legs, and arching its slim back. Then it sat considering for a moment, erect and kingly. And then, like a dart, it had shot out of the room, through the open window-doors, and into the garden. �What�s he after?� said Birkin, rising. The young cat trotted lordly down the path, waving his tail. He was an ordinary tabby with white paws, a slender young gentleman. A crouching, fluffy, brownish-grey cat was stealing up the side of the fence. The Mino walked statelily up to her, with manly nonchalance. She crouched before him and pressed herself on the ground in humility, a fluffy soft outcast, looking up at him with wild eyes that were green and lovely as great jewels. He looked casually down on her. So she crept a few inches further, proceeding on her way to the back door, crouching in a wonderful, soft, self-obliterating manner, and moving like a shadow. He, going statelily on his slim legs, walked after her, then suddenly, for pure excess, he gave her a light cuff with his paw on the side of her face. She ran off a few steps, like a blown leaf along the ground, then crouched unobtrusively, in submissive, wild patience. The Mino pretended to take no notice of her. He blinked his eyes superbly at the landscape. In a minute she drew herself together and moved softly, a fleecy brown-grey shadow, a few paces forward. She began to quicken her pace, in a moment she would be gone like a dream, when the young grey lord sprang before her, and gave her a light handsome cuff. She subsided at once, submissively. �She is a wild cat,� said Birkin. �She has come in from the woods.� The eyes of the stray cat flared round for a moment, like great green fires staring at Birkin. Then she had rushed in a soft swift rush, half way down the garden. There she paused to look round. The Mino turned his face in pure superiority to his master, and slowly closed his eyes, standing in statuesque young perfection. The wild cat�s round, green, wondering eyes were staring all the while like uncanny fires. Then again, like a shadow, she slid towards the kitchen. In a lovely springing leap, like a wind, the Mino was upon her, and had boxed her twice, very definitely, with a white, delicate fist. She sank and slid back, unquestioning. He walked after her, and cuffed her once or twice, leisurely, with sudden little blows of his magic white paws. �Now why does he do that?� cried Ursula in indignation. �They are on intimate terms,� said Birkin. �And is that why he hits her?� �Yes,� laughed Birkin, �I think he wants to make it quite obvious to her.� �Isn�t it horrid of him!� she cried; and going out into the garden she called to the Mino: �Stop it, don�t bully. Stop hitting her.� The stray cat vanished like a swift, invisible shadow. The Mino glanced at Ursula, then looked from her disdainfully to his master. �Are you a bully, Mino?� Birkin asked. The young slim cat looked at him, and slowly narrowed its eyes. Then it glanced away at the landscape, looking into the distance as if completely oblivious of the two human beings. �Mino,� said Ursula, �I don�t like you. You are a bully like all males.� �No,� said Birkin, �he is justified. He is not a bully. He is only insisting to the poor stray that she shall acknowledge him as a sort of fate, her own fate: because you can see she is fluffy and promiscuous as the wind. I am with him entirely. He wants superfine stability.� �Yes, I know!� cried Ursula. �He wants his own way�I know what your fine words work down to�bossiness, I call it, bossiness.� The young cat again glanced at Birkin in disdain of the noisy woman. �I quite agree with you, Miciotto,� said Birkin to the cat. �Keep your male dignity, and your higher understanding.� Again the Mino narrowed his eyes as if he were looking at the sun. Then, suddenly affecting to have no connection at all with the two people, he went trotting off, with assumed spontaneity and gaiety, his tail erect, his white feet blithe. �Now he will find the belle sauvage once more, and entertain her with his superior wisdom,� laughed Birkin. Ursula looked at the man who stood in the garden with his hair blowing and his eyes smiling ironically, and she cried: �Oh it makes me so cross, this assumption of male superiority! And it is such a lie! One wouldn�t mind if there were any justification for it.� �The wild cat,� said Birkin, �doesn�t mind. She perceives that it is justified.� �Does she!� cried Ursula. �And tell it to the Horse Marines.� �To them also.� �It is just like Gerald Crich with his horse�a lust for bullying�a real _Wille zur Macht_�so base, so petty.� �I agree that the _Wille zur Macht_ is a base and petty thing. But with the Mino, it is the desire to bring this female cat into a pure stable equilibrium, a transcendent and abiding _rapport_ with the single male. Whereas without him, as you see, she is a mere stray, a fluffy sporadic bit of chaos. It is a _volonté de pouvoir_, if you like, a will to ability, taking _pouvoir_ as a verb.� �Ah�! Sophistries! It�s the old Adam.� �Oh yes. Adam kept Eve in the indestructible paradise, when he kept her single with himself, like a star in its orbit.� �Yes�yes�� cried Ursula, pointing her finger at him. �There you are�a star in its orbit! A satellite�a satellite of Mars�that�s what she is to be! There�there�you�ve given yourself away! You want a satellite, Mars and his satellite! You�ve said it�you�ve said it�you�ve dished yourself!� He stood smiling in frustration and amusement and irritation and admiration and love. She was so quick, and so lambent, like discernible fire, and so vindictive, and so rich in her dangerous flamy sensitiveness. �I�ve not said it at all,� he replied, �if you will give me a chance to speak.� �No, no!� she cried. �I won�t let you speak. You�ve said it, a satellite, you�re not going to wriggle out of it. You�ve said it.� �You�ll never believe now that I _haven�t_ said it,� he answered. �I neither implied nor indicated nor mentioned a satellite, nor intended a satellite, never.� �_You prevaricator!_� she cried, in real indignation. �Tea is ready, sir,� said the landlady from the doorway. They both looked at her, very much as the cats had looked at them, a little while before. �Thank you, Mrs Daykin.� An interrupted silence fell over the two of them, a moment of breach. �Come and have tea,� he said. �Yes, I should love it,� she replied, gathering herself together. They sat facing each other across the tea table. �I did not say, nor imply, a satellite. I meant two single equal stars balanced in conjunction�� �You gave yourself away, you gave away your little game completely,� she cried, beginning at once to eat. He saw that she would take no further heed of his expostulation, so he began to pour the tea. �What _good_ things to eat!� she cried. �Take your own sugar,� he said. He handed her her cup. He had everything so nice, such pretty cups and plates, painted with mauve-lustre and green, also shapely bowls and glass plates, and old spoons, on a woven cloth of pale grey and black and purple. It was very rich and fine. But Ursula could see Hermione�s influence. �Your things are so lovely!� she said, almost angrily. �_I_ like them. It gives me real pleasure to use things that are attractive in themselves�pleasant things. And Mrs Daykin is good. She thinks everything is wonderful, for my sake.� �Really,� said Ursula, �landladies are better than wives, nowadays. They certainly _care_ a great deal more. It is much more beautiful and complete here now, than if you were married.� �But think of the emptiness within,� he laughed. �No,� she said. �I am jealous that men have such perfect landladies and such beautiful lodgings. There is nothing left them to desire.� �In the house-keeping way, we�ll hope not. It is disgusting, people marrying for a home.� �Still,� said Ursula, �a man has very little need for a woman now, has he?� �In outer things, maybe�except to share his bed and bear his children. But essentially, there is just the same need as there ever was. Only nobody takes the trouble to be essential.� �How essential?� she said. �I do think,� he said, �that the world is only held together by the mystic conjunction, the ultimate unison between people�a bond. And the immediate bond is between man and woman.� �But it�s such old hat,� said Ursula. �Why should love be a bond? No, I�m not having any.� �If you are walking westward,� he said, �you forfeit the northern and eastward and southern direction. If you admit a unison, you forfeit all the possibilities of chaos.� �But love is freedom,� she declared. �Don�t cant to me,� he replied. �Love is a direction which excludes all other directions. It�s a freedom _together_, if you like.� �No,� she said, �love includes everything.� �Sentimental cant,� he replied. �You want the state of chaos, that�s all. It is ultimate nihilism, this freedom-in-love business, this freedom which is love and love which is freedom. As a matter of fact, if you enter into a pure unison, it is irrevocable, and it is never pure till it is irrevocable. And when it is irrevocable, it is one way, like the path of a star.� �Ha!� she cried bitterly. �It is the old dead morality.� �No,� he said, �it is the law of creation. One is committed. One must commit oneself to a conjunction with the other�for ever. But it is not selfless�it is a maintaining of the self in mystic balance and integrity�like a star balanced with another star.� �I don�t trust you when you drag in the stars,� she said. �If you were quite true, it wouldn�t be necessary to be so far-fetched.� �Don�t trust me then,� he said, angry. �It is enough that I trust myself.� �And that is where you make another mistake,� she replied. �You _don�t_ trust yourself. You don�t fully believe yourself what you are saying. You don�t really want this conjunction, otherwise you wouldn�t talk so much about it, you�d get it.� He was suspended for a moment, arrested. �How?� he said. �By just loving,� she retorted in defiance. He was still a moment, in anger. Then he said: �I tell you, I don�t believe in love like that. I tell you, you want love to administer to your egoism, to subserve you. Love is a process of subservience with you�and with everybody. I hate it.� �No,� she cried, pressing back her head like a cobra, her eyes flashing. �It is a process of pride�I want to be proud�� �Proud and subservient, proud and subservient, I know you,� he retorted dryly. �Proud and subservient, then subservient to the proud�I know you and your love. It is a tick-tack, tick-tack, a dance of opposites.� �Are you sure?� she mocked wickedly, �what my love is?� �Yes, I am,� he retorted. �So cocksure!� she said. �How can anybody ever be right, who is so cocksure? It shows you are wrong.� He was silent in chagrin. They had talked and struggled till they were both wearied out. �Tell me about yourself and your people,� he said. And she told him about the Brangwens, and about her mother, and about Skrebensky, her first love, and about her later experiences. He sat very still, watching her as she talked. And he seemed to listen with reverence. Her face was beautiful and full of baffled light as she told him all the things that had hurt her or perplexed her so deeply. He seemed to warm and comfort his soul at the beautiful light of her nature. �If she _really_ could pledge herself,� he thought to himself, with passionate insistence but hardly any hope. Yet a curious little irresponsible laughter appeared in his heart. �We have all suffered so much,� he mocked, ironically. She looked up at him, and a flash of wild gaiety went over her face, a strange flash of yellow light coming from her eyes. �Haven�t we!� she cried, in a high, reckless cry. �It is almost absurd, isn�t it?� �Quite absurd,� he said. �Suffering bores me, any more.� �So it does me.� He was almost afraid of the mocking recklessness of her splendid face. Here was one who would go to the whole lengths of heaven or hell, whichever she had to go. And he mistrusted her, he was afraid of a woman capable of such abandon, such dangerous thoroughness of destructivity. Yet he chuckled within himself also. She came over to him and put her hand on his shoulder, looking down at him with strange golden-lighted eyes, very tender, but with a curious devilish look lurking underneath. �Say you love me, say �my love� to me,� she pleaded. He looked back into her eyes, and saw. His face flickered with sardonic comprehension. �I love you right enough,� he said, grimly. �But I want it to be something else.� �But why? But why?� she insisted, bending her wonderful luminous face to him. �Why isn�t it enough?� �Because we can go one better,� he said, putting his arms round her. �No, we can�t,� she said, in a strong, voluptuous voice of yielding. �We can only love each other. Say �my love� to me, say it, say it.� She put her arms round his neck. He enfolded her, and kissed her subtly, murmuring in a subtle voice of love, and irony, and submission: �Yes,�my love, yes,�my love. Let love be enough then. I love you then�I love you. I�m bored by the rest.� �Yes,� she murmured, nestling very sweet and close to him. CHAPTER XIV. WATER-PARTY Every year Mr Crich gave a more or less public water-party on the lake. There was a little pleasure-launch on Willey Water and several rowing boats, and guests could take tea either in the marquee that was set up in the grounds of the house, or they could picnic in the shade of the great walnut tree at the boat-house by the lake. This year the staff of the Grammar-School was invited, along with the chief officials of the firm. Gerald and the younger Criches did not care for this party, but it had become customary now, and it pleased the father, as being the only occasion when he could gather some people of the district together in festivity with him. For he loved to give pleasures to his dependents and to those poorer than himself. But his children preferred the company of their own equals in wealth. They hated their inferiors� humility or gratitude or awkwardness. Nevertheless they were willing to attend at this festival, as they had done almost since they were children, the more so, as they all felt a little guilty now, and unwilling to thwart their father any more, since he was so ill in health. Therefore, quite cheerfully Laura prepared to take her mother�s place as hostess, and Gerald assumed responsibility for the amusements on the water. Birkin had written to Ursula saying he expected to see her at the party, and Gudrun, although she scorned the patronage of the Criches, would nevertheless accompany her mother and father if the weather were fine. The day came blue and full of sunshine, with little wafts of wind. The sisters both wore dresses of white crêpe, and hats of soft grass. But Gudrun had a sash of brilliant black and pink and yellow colour wound broadly round her waist, and she had pink silk stockings, and black and pink and yellow decoration on the brim of her hat, weighing it down a little. She carried also a yellow silk coat over her arm, so that she looked remarkable, like a painting from the Salon. Her appearance was a sore trial to her father, who said angrily: �Don�t you think you might as well get yourself up for a Christmas cracker, an� ha� done with it?� But Gudrun looked handsome and brilliant, and she wore her clothes in pure defiance. When people stared at her, and giggled after her, she made a point of saying loudly, to Ursula: �_Regarde, regarde ces gens-là! Ne sont-ils pas des hiboux incroyables?_� And with the words of French in her mouth, she would look over her shoulder at the giggling party. �No, really, it�s impossible!� Ursula would reply distinctly. And so the two girls took it out of their universal enemy. But their father became more and more enraged. Ursula was all snowy white, save that her hat was pink, and entirely without trimming, and her shoes were dark red, and she carried an orange-coloured coat. And in this guise they were walking all the way to Shortlands, their father and mother going in front. They were laughing at their mother, who, dressed in a summer material of black and purple stripes, and wearing a hat of purple straw, was setting forth with much more of the shyness and trepidation of a young girl than her daughters ever felt, walking demurely beside her husband, who, as usual, looked rather crumpled in his best suit, as if he were the father of a young family and had been holding the baby whilst his wife got dressed. �Look at the young couple in front,� said Gudrun calmly. Ursula looked at her mother and father, and was suddenly seized with uncontrollable laughter. The two girls stood in the road and laughed till the tears ran down their faces, as they caught sight again of the shy, unworldly couple of their parents going on ahead. �We are roaring at you, mother,� called Ursula, helplessly following after her parents. Mrs Brangwen turned round with a slightly puzzled, exasperated look. �Oh indeed!� she said. �What is there so very funny about _me_, I should like to know?� She could not understand that there could be anything amiss with her appearance. She had a perfect calm sufficiency, an easy indifference to any criticism whatsoever, as if she were beyond it. Her clothes were always rather odd, and as a rule slip-shod, yet she wore them with a perfect ease and satisfaction. Whatever she had on, so long as she was barely tidy, she was right, beyond remark; such an aristocrat she was by instinct. �You look so stately, like a country Baroness,� said Ursula, laughing with a little tenderness at her mother�s naive puzzled air. �_Just_ like a country Baroness!� chimed in Gudrun. Now the mother�s natural hauteur became self-conscious, and the girls shrieked again. �Go home, you pair of idiots, great giggling idiots!� cried the father inflamed with irritation. �Mm-m-er!� booed Ursula, pulling a face at his crossness. The yellow lights danced in his eyes, he leaned forward in real rage. �Don�t be so silly as to take any notice of the great gabies,� said Mrs Brangwen, turning on her way. �I�ll see if I�m going to be followed by a pair of giggling yelling jackanapes�� he cried vengefully. The girls stood still, laughing helplessly at his fury, upon the path beside the hedge. �Why you�re as silly as they are, to take any notice,� said Mrs Brangwen also becoming angry now he was really enraged. �There are some people coming, father,� cried Ursula, with mocking warning. He glanced round quickly, and went on to join his wife, walking stiff with rage. And the girls followed, weak with laughter. When the people had passed by, Brangwen cried in a loud, stupid voice: �I�m going back home if there�s any more of this. I�m damned if I�m going to be made a fool of in this fashion, in the public road.� He was really out of temper. At the sound of his blind, vindictive voice, the laughter suddenly left the girls, and their hearts contracted with contempt. They hated his words �in the public road.� What did they care for the public road? But Gudrun was conciliatory. �But we weren�t laughing to _hurt_ you,� she cried, with an uncouth gentleness which made her parents uncomfortable. �We were laughing because we�re fond of you.� �We�ll walk on in front, if they are _so_ touchy,� said Ursula, angry. And in this wise they arrived at Willey Water. The lake was blue and fair, the meadows sloped down in sunshine on one side, the thick dark woods dropped steeply on the other. The little pleasure-launch was fussing out from the shore, twanging its music, crowded with people, flapping its paddles. Near the boat-house was a throng of gaily-dressed persons, small in the distance. And on the high-road, some of the common people were standing along the hedge, looking at the festivity beyond, enviously, like souls not admitted to paradise. �My eye!� said Gudrun, _sotto voce_, looking at the motley of guests, �there�s a pretty crowd if you like! Imagine yourself in the midst of that, my dear.� Gudrun�s apprehensive horror of people in the mass unnerved Ursula. �It looks rather awful,� she said anxiously. �And imagine what they�ll be like�_imagine!_� said Gudrun, still in that unnerving, subdued voice. Yet she advanced determinedly. �I suppose we can get away from them,� said Ursula anxiously. �We�re in a pretty fix if we can�t,� said Gudrun. Her extreme ironic loathing and apprehension was very trying to Ursula. �We needn�t stay,� she said. �I certainly shan�t stay five minutes among that little lot,� said Gudrun. They advanced nearer, till they saw policemen at the gates. �Policemen to keep you in, too!� said Gudrun. �My word, this is a beautiful affair.� �We�d better look after father and mother,� said Ursula anxiously. �Mother�s _perfectly_ capable of getting through this little celebration,� said Gudrun with some contempt. But Ursula knew that her father felt uncouth and angry and unhappy, so she was far from her ease. They waited outside the gate till their parents came up. The tall, thin man in his crumpled clothes was unnerved and irritable as a boy, finding himself on the brink of this social function. He did not feel a gentleman, he did not feel anything except pure exasperation. Ursula took her place at his side, they gave their tickets to the policeman, and passed in on to the grass, four abreast; the tall, hot, ruddy-dark man with his narrow boyish brow drawn with irritation, the fresh-faced, easy woman, perfectly collected though her hair was slipping on one side, then Gudrun, her eyes round and dark and staring, her full soft face impassive, almost sulky, so that she seemed to be backing away in antagonism even whilst she was advancing; and then Ursula, with the odd, brilliant, dazzled look on her face, that always came when she was in some false situation. Birkin was the good angel. He came smiling to them with his affected social grace, that somehow was never _quite_ right. But he took off his hat and smiled at them with a real smile in his eyes, so that Brangwen cried out heartily in relief: �How do you do? You�re better, are you?� �Yes, I�m better. How do you do, Mrs Brangwen? I know Gudrun and Ursula very well.� His eyes smiled full of natural warmth. He had a soft, flattering manner with women, particularly with women who were not young. �Yes,� said Mrs Brangwen, cool but yet gratified. �I have heard them speak of you often enough.� He laughed. Gudrun looked aside, feeling she was being belittled. People were standing about in groups, some women were sitting in the shade of the walnut tree, with cups of tea in their hands, a waiter in evening dress was hurrying round, some girls were simpering with parasols, some young men, who had just come in from rowing, were sitting cross-legged on the grass, coatless, their shirt-sleeves rolled up in manly fashion, their hands resting on their white flannel trousers, their gaudy ties floating about, as they laughed and tried to be witty with the young damsels. �Why,� thought Gudrun churlishly, �don�t they have the manners to put their coats on, and not to assume such intimacy in their appearance.� She abhorred the ordinary young man, with his hair plastered back, and his easy-going chumminess. Hermione Roddice came up, in a handsome gown of white lace, trailing an enormous silk shawl blotched with great embroidered flowers, and balancing an enormous plain hat on her head. She looked striking, astonishing, almost macabre, so tall, with the fringe of her great cream-coloured vividly-blotched shawl trailing on the ground after her, her thick hair coming low over her eyes, her face strange and long and pale, and the blotches of brilliant colour drawn round her. �Doesn�t she look _weird!_� Gudrun heard some girls titter behind her. And she could have killed them. �How do you do!� sang Hermione, coming up very kindly, and glancing slowly over Gudrun�s father and mother. It was a trying moment, exasperating for Gudrun. Hermione was really so strongly entrenched in her class superiority, she could come up and know people out of simple curiosity, as if they were creatures on exhibition. Gudrun would do the same herself. But she resented being in the position when somebody might do it to her. Hermione, very remarkable, and distinguishing the Brangwens very much, led them along to where Laura Crich stood receiving the guests. �This is Mrs Brangwen,� sang Hermione, and Laura, who wore a stiff embroidered linen dress, shook hands and said she was glad to see her. Then Gerald came up, dressed in white, with a black and brown blazer, and looking handsome. He too was introduced to the Brangwen parents, and immediately he spoke to Mrs Brangwen as if she were a lady, and to Brangwen as if he were _not_ a gentleman. Gerald was so obvious in his demeanour. He had to shake hands with his left hand, because he had hurt his right, and carried it, bandaged up, in the pocket of his jacket. Gudrun was _very_ thankful that none of her party asked him what was the matter with the hand. The steam launch was fussing in, all its music jingling, people calling excitedly from on board. Gerald went to see to the debarkation, Birkin was getting tea for Mrs Brangwen, Brangwen had joined a Grammar-School group, Hermione was sitting down by their mother, the girls went to the landing-stage to watch the launch come in. She hooted and tooted gaily, then her paddles were silent, the ropes were thrown ashore, she drifted in with a little bump. Immediately the passengers crowded excitedly to come ashore. �Wait a minute, wait a minute,� shouted Gerald in sharp command. They must wait till the boat was tight on the ropes, till the small gangway was put out. Then they streamed ashore, clamouring as if they had come from America. �Oh it�s _so_ nice!� the young girls were crying. �It�s quite lovely.� The waiters from on board ran out to the boat-house with baskets, the captain lounged on the little bridge. Seeing all safe, Gerald came to Gudrun and Ursula. �You wouldn�t care to go on board for the next trip, and have tea there?� he asked. �No thanks,� said Gudrun coldly. �You don�t care for the water?� �For the water? Yes, I like it very much.� He looked at her, his eyes searching. �You don�t care for going on a launch, then?� She was slow in answering, and then she spoke slowly. �No,� she said. �I can�t say that I do.� Her colour was high, she seemed angry about something. �_Un peu trop de monde_,� said Ursula, explaining. �Eh? _Trop de monde!_� He laughed shortly. �Yes there�s a fair number of �em.� Gudrun turned on him brilliantly. �Have you ever been from Westminster Bridge to Richmond on one of the Thames steamers?� she cried. �No,� he said, �I can�t say I have.� �Well, it�s one of the most _vile_ experiences I�ve ever had.� She spoke rapidly and excitedly, the colour high in her cheeks. �There was absolutely nowhere to sit down, nowhere, a man just above sang �Rocked in the Cradle of the Deep� the _whole_ way; he was blind and he had a small organ, one of those portable organs, and he expected money; so you can imagine what _that_ was like; there came a constant smell of luncheon from below, and puffs of hot oily machinery; the journey took hours and hours and hours; and for miles, literally for miles, dreadful boys ran with us on the shore, in that _awful_ Thames mud, going in _up to the waist_�they had their trousers turned back, and they went up to their hips in that indescribable Thames mud, their faces always turned to us, and screaming, exactly like carrion creatures, screaming ��Ere y�are sir, �ere y�are sir, �ere y�are sir,� exactly like some foul carrion objects, perfectly obscene; and paterfamilias on board, laughing when the boys went right down in that awful mud, occasionally throwing them a ha�penny. And if you�d seen the intent look on the faces of these boys, and the way they darted in the filth when a coin was flung�really, no vulture or jackal could dream of approaching them, for foulness. I _never_ would go on a pleasure boat again�never.� Gerald watched her all the time she spoke, his eyes glittering with faint rousedness. It was not so much what she said; it was she herself who roused him, roused him with a small, vivid pricking. �Of course,� he said, �every civilised body is bound to have its vermin.� �Why?� cried Ursula. �I don�t have vermin.� �And it�s not that�it�s the _quality_ of the whole thing�paterfamilias laughing and thinking it sport, and throwing the ha�pennies, and materfamilias spreading her fat little knees and eating, continually eating�� replied Gudrun. �Yes,� said Ursula. �It isn�t the boys so much who are vermin; it�s the people themselves, the whole body politic, as you call it.� Gerald laughed. �Never mind,� he said. �You shan�t go on the launch.� Gudrun flushed quickly at his rebuke. There were a few moments of silence. Gerald, like a sentinel, was watching the people who were going on to the boat. He was very good-looking and self-contained, but his air of soldierly alertness was rather irritating. �Will you have tea here then, or go across to the house, where there�s a tent on the lawn?� he asked. �Can�t we have a rowing boat, and get out?� asked Ursula, who was always rushing in too fast. �To get out?� smiled Gerald. �You see,� cried Gudrun, flushing at Ursula�s outspoken rudeness, �we don�t know the people, we are almost _complete_ strangers here.� �Oh, I can soon set you up with a few acquaintances,� he said easily. Gudrun looked at him, to see if it were ill-meant. Then she smiled at him. �Ah,� she said, �you know what we mean. Can�t we go up there, and explore that coast?� She pointed to a grove on the hillock of the meadow-side, near the shore half way down the lake. �That looks perfectly lovely. We might even bathe. Isn�t it beautiful in this light. Really, it�s like one of the reaches of the Nile�as one imagines the Nile.� Gerald smiled at her factitious enthusiasm for the distant spot. �You�re sure it�s far enough off?� he asked ironically, adding at once: �Yes, you might go there, if we could get a boat. They seem to be all out.� He looked round the lake and counted the rowing boats on its surface. �How lovely it would be!� cried Ursula wistfully. �And don�t you want tea?� he said. �Oh,� said Gudrun, �we could just drink a cup, and be off.� He looked from one to the other, smiling. He was somewhat offended�yet sporting. �Can you manage a boat pretty well?� he asked. �Yes,� replied Gudrun, coldly, �pretty well.� �Oh yes,� cried Ursula. �We can both of us row like water-spiders.� �You can? There�s a light little canoe of mine, that I didn�t take out for fear somebody should drown themselves. Do you think you�d be safe in that?� �Oh perfectly,� said Gudrun. �What an angel!� cried Ursula. �Don�t, for _my_ sake, have an accident�because I�m responsible for the water.� �Sure,� pledged Gudrun. �Besides, we can both swim quite well,� said Ursula. �Well�then I�ll get them to put you up a tea-basket, and you can picnic all to yourselves,�that�s the idea, isn�t it?� �How fearfully good! How frightfully nice if you could!� cried Gudrun warmly, her colour flushing up again. It made the blood stir in his veins, the subtle way she turned to him and infused her gratitude into his body. �Where�s Birkin?� he said, his eyes twinkling. �He might help me to get it down.� �But what about your hand? Isn�t it hurt?� asked Gudrun, rather muted, as if avoiding the intimacy. This was the first time the hurt had been mentioned. The curious way she skirted round the subject sent a new, subtle caress through his veins. He took his hand out of his pocket. It was bandaged. He looked at it, then put it in his pocket again. Gudrun quivered at the sight of the wrapped up paw. �Oh I can manage with one hand. The canoe is as light as a feather,� he said. �There�s Rupert!�Rupert!� Birkin turned from his social duties and came towards them. �What have you done to it?� asked Ursula, who had been aching to put the question for the last half hour. �To my hand?� said Gerald. �I trapped it in some machinery.� �Ugh!� said Ursula. �And did it hurt much?� �Yes,� he said. �It did at the time. It�s getting better now. It crushed the fingers.� �Oh,� cried Ursula, as if in pain, �I hate people who hurt themselves. I can _feel_ it.� And she shook her hand. �What do you want?� said Birkin. The two men carried down the slim brown boat, and set it on the water. �You�re quite sure you�ll be safe in it?� Gerald asked. �Quite sure,� said Gudrun. �I wouldn�t be so mean as to take it, if there was the slightest doubt. But I�ve had a canoe at Arundel, and I assure you I�m perfectly safe.� So saying, having given her word like a man, she and Ursula entered the frail craft, and pushed gently off. The two men stood watching them. Gudrun was paddling. She knew the men were watching her, and it made her slow and rather clumsy. The colour flew in her face like a flag. �Thanks awfully,� she called back to him, from the water, as the boat slid away. �It�s lovely�like sitting in a leaf.� He laughed at the fancy. Her voice was shrill and strange, calling from the distance. He watched her as she paddled away. There was something childlike about her, trustful and deferential, like a child. He watched her all the while, as she rowed. And to Gudrun it was a real delight, in make-belief, to be the childlike, clinging woman to the man who stood there on the quay, so good-looking and efficient in his white clothes, and moreover the most important man she knew at the moment. She did not take any notice of the wavering, indistinct, lambent Birkin, who stood at his side. One figure at a time occupied the field of her attention. The boat rustled lightly along the water. They passed the bathers whose striped tents stood between the willows of the meadow�s edge, and drew along the open shore, past the meadows that sloped golden in the light of the already late afternoon. Other boats were stealing under the wooded shore opposite, they could hear people�s laughter and voices. But Gudrun rowed on towards the clump of trees that balanced perfect in the distance, in the golden light. The sisters found a little place where a tiny stream flowed into the lake, with reeds and flowery marsh of pink willow herb, and a gravelly bank to the side. Here they ran delicately ashore, with their frail boat, the two girls took off their shoes and stockings and went through the water�s edge to the grass. The tiny ripples of the lake were warm and clear, they lifted their boat on to the bank, and looked round with joy. They were quite alone in a forsaken little stream-mouth, and on the knoll just behind was the clump of trees. �We will bathe just for a moment,� said Ursula, �and then we�ll have tea.� They looked round. Nobody could notice them, or could come up in time to see them. In less than a minute Ursula had thrown off her clothes and had slipped naked into the water, and was swimming out. Quickly, Gudrun joined her. They swam silently and blissfully for a few minutes, circling round their little stream-mouth. Then they slipped ashore and ran into the grove again, like nymphs. �How lovely it is to be free,� said Ursula, running swiftly here and there between the tree trunks, quite naked, her hair blowing loose. The grove was of beech-trees, big and splendid, a steel-grey scaffolding of trunks and boughs, with level sprays of strong green here and there, whilst through the northern side the distance glimmered open as through a window. When they had run and danced themselves dry, the girls quickly dressed and sat down to the fragrant tea. They sat on the northern side of the grove, in the yellow sunshine facing the slope of the grassy hill, alone in a little wild world of their own. The tea was hot and aromatic, there were delicious little sandwiches of cucumber and of caviare, and winy cakes. �Are you happy, Prune?� cried Ursula in delight, looking at her sister. �Ursula, I�m perfectly happy,� replied Gudrun gravely, looking at the westering sun. �So am I.� When they were together, doing the things they enjoyed, the two sisters were quite complete in a perfect world of their own. And this was one of the perfect moments of freedom and delight, such as children alone know, when all seems a perfect and blissful adventure. When they had finished tea, the two girls sat on, silent and serene. Then Ursula, who had a beautiful strong voice, began to sing to herself, softly: ��nnchen von Tharau.� Gudrun listened, as she sat beneath the trees, and the yearning came into her heart. Ursula seemed so peaceful and sufficient unto herself, sitting there unconsciously crooning her song, strong and unquestioned at the centre of her own universe. And Gudrun felt herself outside. Always this desolating, agonised feeling, that she was outside of life, an onlooker, whilst Ursula was a partaker, caused Gudrun to suffer from a sense of her own negation, and made her, that she must always demand the other to be aware of her, to be in connection with her. �Do you mind if I do Dalcroze to that tune, Hurtler?� she asked in a curious muted tone, scarce moving her lips. �What did you say?� asked Ursula, looking up in peaceful surprise. �Will you sing while I do Dalcroze?� said Gudrun, suffering at having to repeat herself. Ursula thought a moment, gathering her straying wits together. �While you do�?� she asked vaguely. �Dalcroze movements,� said Gudrun, suffering tortures of self-consciousness, even because of her sister. �Oh Dalcroze! I couldn�t catch the name. _Do_�I should love to see you,� cried Ursula, with childish surprised brightness. �What shall I sing?� �Sing anything you like, and I�ll take the rhythm from it.� But Ursula could not for her life think of anything to sing. However, she suddenly began, in a laughing, teasing voice: �My love�is a high-born lady�� Gudrun, looking as if some invisible chain weighed on her hands and feet, began slowly to dance in the eurythmic manner, pulsing and fluttering rhythmically with her feet, making slower, regular gestures with her hands and arms, now spreading her arms wide, now raising them above her head, now flinging them softly apart, and lifting her face, her feet all the time beating and running to the measure of the song, as if it were some strange incantation, her white, rapt form drifting here and there in a strange impulsive rhapsody, seeming to be lifted on a breeze of incantation, shuddering with strange little runs. Ursula sat on the grass, her mouth open in her singing, her eyes laughing as if she thought it was a great joke, but a yellow light flashing up in them, as she caught some of the unconscious ritualistic suggestion of the complex shuddering and waving and drifting of her sister�s white form, that was clutched in pure, mindless, tossing rhythm, and a will set powerful in a kind of hypnotic influence. �My love is a high-born lady�She is-s-s�rather dark than shady�� rang out Ursula�s laughing, satiric song, and quicker, fiercer went Gudrun in the dance, stamping as if she were trying to throw off some bond, flinging her hands suddenly and stamping again, then rushing with face uplifted and throat full and beautiful, and eyes half closed, sightless. The sun was low and yellow, sinking down, and in the sky floated a thin, ineffectual moon. Ursula was quite absorbed in her song, when suddenly Gudrun stopped and said mildly, ironically: �Ursula!� �Yes?� said Ursula, opening her eyes out of the trance. Gudrun was standing still and pointing, a mocking smile on her face, towards the side. �Ugh!� cried Ursula in sudden panic, starting to her feet. �They�re quite all right,� rang out Gudrun�s sardonic voice. On the left stood a little cluster of Highland cattle, vividly coloured and fleecy in the evening light, their horns branching into the sky, pushing forward their muzzles inquisitively, to know what it was all about. Their eyes glittered through their tangle of hair, their naked nostrils were full of shadow. �Won�t they do anything?� cried Ursula in fear. Gudrun, who was usually frightened of cattle, now shook her head in a queer, half-doubtful, half-sardonic motion, a faint smile round her mouth. �Don�t they look charming, Ursula?� cried Gudrun, in a high, strident voice, something like the scream of a seagull. �Charming,� cried Ursula in trepidation. �But won�t they do anything to us?� Again Gudrun looked back at her sister with an enigmatic smile, and shook her head. �I�m sure they won�t,� she said, as if she had to convince herself also, and yet, as if she were confident of some secret power in herself, and had to put it to the test. �Sit down and sing again,� she called in her high, strident voice. �I�m frightened,� cried Ursula, in a pathetic voice, watching the group of sturdy short cattle, that stood with their knees planted, and watched with their dark, wicked eyes, through the matted fringe of their hair. Nevertheless, she sank down again, in her former posture. �They are quite safe,� came Gudrun�s high call. �Sing something, you�ve only to sing something.� It was evident she had a strange passion to dance before the sturdy, handsome cattle. Ursula began to sing, in a false quavering voice: �Way down in Tennessee�� She sounded purely anxious. Nevertheless, Gudrun, with her arms outspread and her face uplifted, went in a strange palpitating dance towards the cattle, lifting her body towards them as if in a spell, her feet pulsing as if in some little frenzy of unconscious sensation, her arms, her wrists, her hands stretching and heaving and falling and reaching and reaching and falling, her breasts lifted and shaken towards the cattle, her throat exposed as in some voluptuous ecstasy towards them, whilst she drifted imperceptibly nearer, an uncanny white figure, towards them, carried away in its own rapt trance, ebbing in strange fluctuations upon the cattle, that waited, and ducked their heads a little in sudden contraction from her, watching all the time as if hypnotised, their bare horns branching in the clear light, as the white figure of the woman ebbed upon them, in the slow, hypnotising convulsion of the dance. She could feel them just in front of her, it was as if she had the electric pulse from their breasts running into her hands. Soon she would touch them, actually touch them. A terrible shiver of fear and pleasure went through her. And all the while, Ursula, spell-bound, kept up her high-pitched thin, irrelevant song, which pierced the fading evening like an incantation. Gudrun could hear the cattle breathing heavily with helpless fear and fascination. Oh, they were brave little beasts, these wild Scotch bullocks, wild and fleecy. Suddenly one of them snorted, ducked its head, and backed. �Hue! Hi-eee!� came a sudden loud shout from the edge of the grove. The cattle broke and fell back quite spontaneously, went running up the hill, their fleece waving like fire to their motion. Gudrun stood suspended out on the grass, Ursula rose to her feet. It was Gerald and Birkin come to find them, and Gerald had cried out to frighten off the cattle. �What do you think you�re doing?� he now called, in a high, wondering vexed tone. �Why have you come?� came back Gudrun�s strident cry of anger. �What do you think you were doing?� Gerald repeated, automatically. �We were doing eurythmics,� laughed Ursula, in a shaken voice. Gudrun stood aloof looking at them with large dark eyes of resentment, suspended for a few moments. Then she walked away up the hill, after the cattle, which had gathered in a little, spell-bound cluster higher up. �Where are you going?� Gerald called after her. And he followed her up the hill-side. The sun had gone behind the hill, and shadows were clinging to the earth, the sky above was full of travelling light. �A poor song for a dance,� said Birkin to Ursula, standing before her with a sardonic, flickering laugh on his face. And in another second, he was singing softly to himself, and dancing a grotesque step-dance in front of her, his limbs and body shaking loose, his face flickering palely, a constant thing, whilst his feet beat a rapid mocking tattoo, and his body seemed to hang all loose and quaking in between, like a shadow. �I think we�ve all gone mad,� she said, laughing rather frightened. �Pity we aren�t madder,� he answered, as he kept up the incessant shaking dance. Then suddenly he leaned up to her and kissed her fingers lightly, putting his face to hers and looking into her eyes with a pale grin. She stepped back, affronted. �Offended�?� he asked ironically, suddenly going quite still and reserved again. �I thought you liked the light fantastic.� �Not like that,� she said, confused and bewildered, almost affronted. Yet somewhere inside her she was fascinated by the sight of his loose, vibrating body, perfectly abandoned to its own dropping and swinging, and by the pallid, sardonic-smiling face above. Yet automatically she stiffened herself away, and disapproved. It seemed almost an obscenity, in a man who talked as a rule so very seriously. �Why not like that?� he mocked. And immediately he dropped again into the incredibly rapid, slack-waggling dance, watching her malevolently. And moving in the rapid, stationary dance, he came a little nearer, and reached forward with an incredibly mocking, satiric gleam on his face, and would have kissed her again, had she not started back. �No, don�t!� she cried, really afraid. �Cordelia after all,� he said satirically. She was stung, as if this were an insult. She knew he intended it as such, and it bewildered her. �And you,� she cried in retort, �why do you always take your soul in your mouth, so frightfully full?� �So that I can spit it out the more readily,� he said, pleased by his own retort. Gerald Crich, his face narrowing to an intent gleam, followed up the hill with quick strides, straight after Gudrun. The cattle stood with their noses together on the brow of a slope, watching the scene below, the men in white hovering about the white forms of the women, watching above all Gudrun, who was advancing slowly towards them. She stood a moment, glancing back at Gerald, and then at the cattle. Then in a sudden motion, she lifted her arms and rushed sheer upon the long-horned bullocks, in shuddering irregular runs, pausing for a second and looking at them, then lifting her hands and running forward with a flash, till they ceased pawing the ground, and gave way, snorting with terror, lifting their heads from the ground and flinging themselves away, galloping off into the evening, becoming tiny in the distance, and still not stopping. Gudrun remained staring after them, with a mask-like defiant face. �Why do you want to drive them mad?� asked Gerald, coming up with her. She took no notice of him, only averted her face from him. �It�s not safe, you know,� he persisted. �They�re nasty, when they do turn.� �Turn where? Turn away?� she mocked loudly. �No,� he said, �turn against you.� �Turn against _me?_� she mocked. He could make nothing of this. �Anyway, they gored one of the farmer�s cows to death, the other day,� he said. �What do I care?� she said. �_I_ cared though,� he replied, �seeing that they�re my cattle.� �How are they yours! You haven�t swallowed them. Give me one of them now,� she said, holding out her hand. �You know where they are,� he said, pointing over the hill. �You can have one if you�d like it sent to you later on.� She looked at him inscrutably. �You think I�m afraid of you and your cattle, don�t you?� she asked. His eyes narrowed dangerously. There was a faint domineering smile on his face. �Why should I think that?� he said. She was watching him all the time with her dark, dilated, inchoate eyes. She leaned forward and swung round her arm, catching him a light blow on the face with the back of her hand. �That�s why,� she said, mocking. And she felt in her soul an unconquerable desire for deep violence against him. She shut off the fear and dismay that filled her conscious mind. She wanted to do as she did, she was not going to be afraid. He recoiled from the slight blow on his face. He became deadly pale, and a dangerous flame darkened his eyes. For some seconds he could not speak, his lungs were so suffused with blood, his heart stretched almost to bursting with a great gush of ungovernable emotion. It was as if some reservoir of black emotion had burst within him, and swamped him. �You have struck the first blow,� he said at last, forcing the words from his lungs, in a voice so soft and low, it sounded like a dream within her, not spoken in the outer air. �And I shall strike the last,� she retorted involuntarily, with confident assurance. He was silent, he did not contradict her. She stood negligently, staring away from him, into the distance. On the edge of her consciousness the question was asking itself, automatically: �Why _are_ you behaving in this _impossible_ and ridiculous fashion.� But she was sullen, she half shoved the question out of herself. She could not get it clean away, so she felt self-conscious. Gerald, very pale, was watching her closely. His eyes were lit up with intent lights, absorbed and gleaming. She turned suddenly on him. �It�s you who make me behave like this, you know,� she said, almost suggestive. �I? How?� he said. But she turned away, and set off towards the lake. Below, on the water, lanterns were coming alight, faint ghosts of warm flame floating in the pallor of the first twilight. The earth was spread with darkness, like lacquer, overhead was a pale sky, all primrose, and the lake was pale as milk in one part. Away at the landing stage, tiniest points of coloured rays were stringing themselves in the dusk. The launch was being illuminated. All round, shadow was gathering from the trees. Gerald, white like a presence in his summer clothes, was following down the open grassy slope. Gudrun waited for him to come up. Then she softly put out her hand and touched him, saying softly: �Don�t be angry with me.� A flame flew over him, and he was unconscious. Yet he stammered: �I�m not angry with you. I�m in love with you.� His mind was gone, he grasped for sufficient mechanical control, to save himself. She laughed a silvery little mockery, yet intolerably caressive. �That�s one way of putting it,� she said. The terrible swooning burden on his mind, the awful swooning, the loss of all his control, was too much for him. He grasped her arm in his one hand, as if his hand were iron. �It�s all right, then, is it?� he said, holding her arrested. She looked at the face with the fixed eyes, set before her, and her blood ran cold. �Yes, it�s all right,� she said softly, as if drugged, her voice crooning and witch-like. He walked on beside her, a striding, mindless body. But he recovered a little as he went. He suffered badly. He had killed his brother when a boy, and was set apart, like Cain. They found Birkin and Ursula sitting together by the boats, talking and laughing. Birkin had been teasing Ursula. �Do you smell this little marsh?� he said, sniffing the air. He was very sensitive to scents, and quick in understanding them. �It�s rather nice,� she said. �No,� he replied, �alarming.� �Why alarming?� she laughed. �It seethes and seethes, a river of darkness,� he said, �putting forth lilies and snakes, and the _ignis fatuus_, and rolling all the time onward. That�s what we never take into count�that it rolls onwards.� �What does?� �The other river, the black river. We always consider the silver river of life, rolling on and quickening all the world to a brightness, on and on to heaven, flowing into a bright eternal sea, a heaven of angels thronging. But the other is our real reality�� �But what other? I don�t see any other,� said Ursula. �It is your reality, nevertheless,� he said; �that dark river of dissolution. You see it rolls in us just as the other rolls�the black river of corruption. And our flowers are of this�our sea-born Aphrodite, all our white phosphorescent flowers of sensuous perfection, all our reality, nowadays.� �You mean that Aphrodite is really deathly?� asked Ursula. �I mean she is the flowering mystery of the death-process, yes,� he replied. �When the stream of synthetic creation lapses, we find ourselves part of the inverse process, the blood of destructive creation. Aphrodite is born in the first spasm of universal dissolution�then the snakes and swans and lotus�marsh-flowers�and Gudrun and Gerald�born in the process of destructive creation.� �And you and me�?� she asked. �Probably,� he replied. �In part, certainly. Whether we are that, _in toto_, I don�t yet know.� �You mean we are flowers of dissolution�_fleurs du mal?_ I don�t feel as if I were,� she protested. He was silent for a time. �I don�t feel as if we were, _altogether_,� he replied. �Some people are pure flowers of dark corruption�lilies. But there ought to be some roses, warm and flamy. You know Herakleitos says �a dry soul is best.� I know so well what that means. Do you?� �I�m not sure,� Ursula replied. �But what if people _are_ all flowers of dissolution�when they�re flowers at all�what difference does it make?� �No difference�and all the difference. Dissolution rolls on, just as production does,� he said. �It is a progressive process�and it ends in universal nothing�the end of the world, if you like. But why isn�t the end of the world as good as the beginning?� �I suppose it isn�t,� said Ursula, rather angry. �Oh yes, ultimately,� he said. �It means a new cycle of creation after�but not for us. If it is the end, then we are of the end�_fleurs du mal_ if you like. If we are _fleurs du mal_, we are not roses of happiness, and there you are.� �But I think I am,� said Ursula. �I think I am a rose of happiness.� �Ready-made?� he asked ironically. �No�real,� she said, hurt. �If we are the end, we are not the beginning,� he said. �Yes we are,� she said. �The beginning comes out of the end.� �After it, not out of it. After us, not out of us.� �You are a devil, you know, really,� she said. �You want to destroy our hope. You _want_ us to be deathly.� �No,� he said, �I only want us to _know_ what we are.� �Ha!� she cried in anger. �You only want us to know death.� �You�re quite right,� said the soft voice of Gerald, out of the dusk behind. Birkin rose. Gerald and Gudrun came up. They all began to smoke, in the moments of silence. One after another, Birkin lighted their cigarettes. The match flickered in the twilight, and they were all smoking peacefully by the water-side. The lake was dim, the light dying from off it, in the midst of the dark land. The air all round was intangible, neither here nor there, and there was an unreal noise of banjoes, or suchlike music. As the golden swim of light overhead died out, the moon gained brightness, and seemed to begin to smile forth her ascendancy. The dark woods on the opposite shore melted into universal shadow. And amid this universal under-shadow, there was a scattered intrusion of lights. Far down the lake were fantastic pale strings of colour, like beads of wan fire, green and red and yellow. The music came out in a little puff, as the launch, all illuminated, veered into the great shadow, stirring her outlines of half-living lights, puffing out her music in little drifts. All were lighting up. Here and there, close against the faint water, and at the far end of the lake, where the water lay milky in the last whiteness of the sky, and there was no shadow, solitary, frail flames of lanterns floated from the unseen boats. There was a sound of oars, and a boat passed from the pallor into the darkness under the wood, where her lanterns seemed to kindle into fire, hanging in ruddy lovely globes. And again, in the lake, shadowy red gleams hovered in reflection about the boat. Everywhere were these noiseless ruddy creatures of fire drifting near the surface of the water, caught at by the rarest, scarce visible reflections. Birkin brought the lanterns from the bigger boat, and the four shadowy white figures gathered round, to light them. Ursula held up the first, Birkin lowered the light from the rosy, glowing cup of his hands, into the depths of the lantern. It was kindled, and they all stood back to look at the great blue moon of light that hung from Ursula�s hand, casting a strange gleam on her face. It flickered, and Birkin went bending over the well of light. His face shone out like an apparition, so unconscious, and again, something demoniacal. Ursula was dim and veiled, looming over him. �That is all right,� said his voice softly. She held up the lantern. It had a flight of storks streaming through a turquoise sky of light, over a dark earth. �This is beautiful,� she said. �Lovely,� echoed Gudrun, who wanted to hold one also, and lift it up full of beauty. �Light one for me,� she said. Gerald stood by her, incapacitated. Birkin lit the lantern she held up. Her heart beat with anxiety, to see how beautiful it would be. It was primrose yellow, with tall straight flowers growing darkly from their dark leaves, lifting their heads into the primrose day, while butterflies hovered about them, in the pure clear light. Gudrun gave a little cry of excitement, as if pierced with delight. �Isn�t it beautiful, oh, isn�t it beautiful!� Her soul was really pierced with beauty, she was translated beyond herself. Gerald leaned near to her, into her zone of light, as if to see. He came close to her, and stood touching her, looking with her at the primrose-shining globe. And she turned her face to his, that was faintly bright in the light of the lantern, and they stood together in one luminous union, close together and ringed round with light, all the rest excluded. Birkin looked away, and went to light Ursula�s second lantern. It had a pale ruddy sea-bottom, with black crabs and sea-weed moving sinuously under a transparent sea, that passed into flamy ruddiness above. �You�ve got the heavens above, and the waters under the earth,� said Birkin to her. �Anything but the earth itself,� she laughed, watching his live hands that hovered to attend to the light. �I�m dying to see what my second one is,� cried Gudrun, in a vibrating rather strident voice, that seemed to repel the others from her. Birkin went and kindled it. It was of a lovely deep blue colour, with a red floor, and a great white cuttle-fish flowing in white soft streams all over it. The cuttle-fish had a face that stared straight from the heart of the light, very fixed and coldly intent. �How truly terrifying!� exclaimed Gudrun, in a voice of horror. Gerald, at her side, gave a low laugh. �But isn�t it really fearful!� she cried in dismay. Again he laughed, and said: �Change it with Ursula, for the crabs.� Gudrun was silent for a moment. �Ursula,� she said, �could you bear to have this fearful thing?� �I think the colouring is _lovely_,� said Ursula. �So do I,� said Gudrun. �But could you _bear_ to have it swinging to your boat? Don�t you want to destroy it _at once?_� �Oh no,� said Ursula. �I don�t want to destroy it.� �Well do you mind having it instead of the crabs? Are you sure you don�t mind?� Gudrun came forward to exchange lanterns. �No,� said Ursula, yielding up the crabs and receiving the cuttle-fish. Yet she could not help feeling rather resentful at the way in which Gudrun and Gerald should assume a right over her, a precedence. �Come then,� said Birkin. �I�ll put them on the boats.� He and Ursula were moving away to the big boat. �I suppose you�ll row me back, Rupert,� said Gerald, out of the pale shadow of the evening. �Won�t you go with Gudrun in the canoe?� said Birkin. �It�ll be more interesting.� There was a moment�s pause. Birkin and Ursula stood dimly, with their swinging lanterns, by the water�s edge. The world was all illusive. �Is that all right?� said Gudrun to him. �It�ll suit _me_ very well,� he said. �But what about you, and the rowing? I don�t see why you should pull me.� �Why not?� she said. �I can pull you as well as I could pull Ursula.� By her tone he could tell she wanted to have him in the boat to herself, and that she was subtly gratified that she should have power over them both. He gave himself, in a strange, electric submission. She handed him the lanterns, whilst she went to fix the cane at the end of the canoe. He followed after her, and stood with the lanterns dangling against his white-flannelled thighs, emphasising the shadow around. �Kiss me before we go,� came his voice softly from out of the shadow above. She stopped her work in real, momentary astonishment. �But why?� she exclaimed, in pure surprise. �Why?� he echoed, ironically. And she looked at him fixedly for some moments. Then she leaned forward and kissed him, with a slow, luxurious kiss, lingering on the mouth. And then she took the lanterns from him, while he stood swooning with the perfect fire that burned in all his joints. They lifted the canoe into the water, Gudrun took her place, and Gerald pushed off. �Are you sure you don�t hurt your hand, doing that?� she asked, solicitous. �Because I could have done it _perfectly_.� �I don�t hurt myself,� he said in a low, soft voice, that caressed her with inexpressible beauty. And she watched him as he sat near her, very near to her, in the stern of the canoe, his legs coming towards hers, his feet touching hers. And she paddled softly, lingeringly, longing for him to say something meaningful to her. But he remained silent. �You like this, do you?� she said, in a gentle, solicitous voice. He laughed shortly. �There is a space between us,� he said, in the same low, unconscious voice, as if something were speaking out of him. And she was as if magically aware of their being balanced in separation, in the boat. She swooned with acute comprehension and pleasure. �But I�m very near,� she said caressively, gaily. �Yet distant, distant,� he said. Again she was silent with pleasure, before she answered, speaking with a reedy, thrilled voice: �Yet we cannot very well change, whilst we are on the water.� She caressed him subtly and strangely, having him completely at her mercy. A dozen or more boats on the lake swung their rosy and moon-like lanterns low on the water, that reflected as from a fire. In the distance, the steamer twanged and thrummed and washed with her faintly-splashing paddles, trailing her strings of coloured lights, and occasionally lighting up the whole scene luridly with an effusion of fireworks, Roman candles and sheafs of stars and other simple effects, illuminating the surface of the water, and showing the boats creeping round, low down. Then the lovely darkness fell again, the lanterns and the little threaded lights glimmered softly, there was a muffled knocking of oars and a waving of music. Gudrun paddled almost imperceptibly. Gerald could see, not far ahead, the rich blue and the rose globes of Ursula�s lanterns swaying softly cheek to cheek as Birkin rowed, and iridescent, evanescent gleams chasing in the wake. He was aware, too, of his own delicately coloured lights casting their softness behind him. Gudrun rested her paddle and looked round. The canoe lifted with the lightest ebbing of the water. Gerald�s white knees were very near to her. �Isn�t it beautiful!� she said softly, as if reverently. She looked at him, as he leaned back against the faint crystal of the lantern-light. She could see his face, although it was a pure shadow. But it was a piece of twilight. And her breast was keen with passion for him, he was so beautiful in his male stillness and mystery. It was a certain pure effluence of maleness, like an aroma from his softly, firmly moulded contours, a certain rich perfection of his presence, that touched her with an ecstasy, a thrill of pure intoxication. She loved to look at him. For the present she did not want to touch him, to know the further, satisfying substance of his living body. He was purely intangible, yet so near. Her hands lay on the paddle like slumber, she only wanted to see him, like a crystal shadow, to feel his essential presence. �Yes,� he said vaguely. �It is very beautiful.� He was listening to the faint near sounds, the dropping of water-drops from the oar-blades, the slight drumming of the lanterns behind him, as they rubbed against one another, the occasional rustling of Gudrun�s full skirt, an alien land noise. His mind was almost submerged, he was almost transfused, lapsed out for the first time in his life, into the things about him. For he always kept such a keen attentiveness, concentrated and unyielding in himself. Now he had let go, imperceptibly he was melting into oneness with the whole. It was like pure, perfect sleep, his first great sleep of life. He had been so insistent, so guarded, all his life. But here was sleep, and peace, and perfect lapsing out. �Shall I row to the landing-stage?� asked Gudrun wistfully. �Anywhere,� he answered. �Let it drift.� �Tell me then, if we are running into anything,� she replied, in that very quiet, toneless voice of sheer intimacy. �The lights will show,� he said. So they drifted almost motionless, in silence. He wanted silence, pure and whole. But she was uneasy yet for some word, for some assurance. �Nobody will miss you?� she asked, anxious for some communication. �Miss me?� he echoed. �No! Why?� �I wondered if anybody would be looking for you.� �Why should they look for me?� And then he remembered his manners. �But perhaps you want to get back,� he said, in a changed voice. �No, I don�t want to get back,� she replied. �No, I assure you.� �You�re quite sure it�s all right for you?� �Perfectly all right.� And again they were still. The launch twanged and hooted, somebody was singing. Then as if the night smashed, suddenly there was a great shout, a confusion of shouting, warring on the water, then the horrid noise of paddles reversed and churned violently. Gerald sat up, and Gudrun looked at him in fear. �Somebody in the water,� he said, angrily, and desperately, looking keenly across the dusk. �Can you row up?� �Where, to the launch?� asked Gudrun, in nervous panic. �Yes.� �You�ll tell me if I don�t steer straight,� she said, in nervous apprehension. �You keep pretty level,� he said, and the canoe hastened forward. The shouting and the noise continued, sounding horrid through the dusk, over the surface of the water. �Wasn�t this _bound_ to happen?� said Gudrun, with heavy hateful irony. But he hardly heard, and she glanced over her shoulder to see her way. The half-dark waters were sprinkled with lovely bubbles of swaying lights, the launch did not look far off. She was rocking her lights in the early night. Gudrun rowed as hard as she could. But now that it was a serious matter, she seemed uncertain and clumsy in her stroke, it was difficult to paddle swiftly. She glanced at his face. He was looking fixedly into the darkness, very keen and alert and single in himself, instrumental. Her heart sank, she seemed to die a death. �Of course,� she said to herself, �nobody will be drowned. Of course they won�t. It would be too extravagant and sensational.� But her heart was cold, because of his sharp impersonal face. It was as if he belonged naturally to dread and catastrophe, as if he were himself again. Then there came a child�s voice, a girl�s high, piercing shriek: �Di�Di�Di�Di�Oh Di�Oh Di�Oh Di!� The blood ran cold in Gudrun�s veins. �It�s Diana, is it,� muttered Gerald. �The young monkey, she�d have to be up to some of her tricks.� And he glanced again at the paddle, the boat was not going quickly enough for him. It made Gudrun almost helpless at the rowing, this nervous stress. She kept up with all her might. Still the voices were calling and answering. �Where, where? There you are�that�s it. Which? No�No-o-o. Damn it all, here, _here_�� Boats were hurrying from all directions to the scene, coloured lanterns could be seen waving close to the surface of the lake, reflections swaying after them in uneven haste. The steamer hooted again, for some unknown reason. Gudrun�s boat was travelling quickly, the lanterns were swinging behind Gerald. And then again came the child�s high, screaming voice, with a note of weeping and impatience in it now: �Di�Oh Di�Oh Di�Di�!� It was a terrible sound, coming through the obscure air of the evening. �You�d be better if you were in bed, Winnie,� Gerald muttered to himself. He was stooping unlacing his shoes, pushing them off with the foot. Then he threw his soft hat into the bottom of the boat. �You can�t go into the water with your hurt hand,� said Gudrun, panting, in a low voice of horror. �What? It won�t hurt.� He had struggled out of his jacket, and had dropped it between his feet. He sat bare-headed, all in white now. He felt the belt at his waist. They were nearing the launch, which stood still big above them, her myriad lamps making lovely darts, and sinuous running tongues of ugly red and green and yellow light on the lustrous dark water, under the shadow. �Oh get her out! Oh Di, _darling!_ Oh get her out! Oh Daddy, Oh Daddy!� moaned the child�s voice, in distraction. Somebody was in the water, with a life belt. Two boats paddled near, their lanterns swinging ineffectually, the boats nosing round. �Hi there�Rockley!�hi there!� �Mr Gerald!� came the captain�s terrified voice. �Miss Diana�s in the water.� �Anybody gone in for her?� came Gerald�s sharp voice. �Young Doctor Brindell, sir.� �Where?� �Can�t see no signs of them, sir. Everybody�s looking, but there�s nothing so far.� There was a moment�s ominous pause. �Where did she go in?� �I think�about where that boat is,� came the uncertain answer, �that one with red and green lights.� �Row there,� said Gerald quietly to Gudrun. �Get her out, Gerald, oh get her out,� the child�s voice was crying anxiously. He took no heed. �Lean back that way,� said Gerald to Gudrun, as he stood up in the frail boat. �She won�t upset.� In another moment, he had dropped clean down, soft and plumb, into the water. Gudrun was swaying violently in her boat, the agitated water shook with transient lights, she realised that it was faintly moonlight, and that he was gone. So it was possible to be gone. A terrible sense of fatality robbed her of all feeling and thought. She knew he was gone out of the world, there was merely the same world, and absence, his absence. The night seemed large and vacuous. Lanterns swayed here and there, people were talking in an undertone on the launch and in the boats. She could hear Winifred moaning: �_Oh do find her Gerald, do find her_,� and someone trying to comfort the child. Gudrun paddled aimlessly here and there. The terrible, massive, cold, boundless surface of the water terrified her beyond words. Would he never come back? She felt she must jump into the water too, to know the horror also. She started, hearing someone say: �There he is.� She saw the movement of his swimming, like a water-rat. And she rowed involuntarily to him. But he was near another boat, a bigger one. Still she rowed towards him. She must be very near. She saw him�he looked like a seal. He looked like a seal as he took hold of the side of the boat. His fair hair was washed down on his round head, his face seemed to glisten suavely. She could hear him panting. Then he clambered into the boat. Oh, and the beauty of the subjection of his loins, white and dimly luminous as he climbed over the side of the boat, made her want to die, to die. The beauty of his dim and luminous loins as he climbed into the boat, his back rounded and soft�ah, this was too much for her, too final a vision. She knew it, and it was fatal. The terrible hopelessness of fate, and of beauty, such beauty! He was not like a man to her, he was an incarnation, a great phase of life. She saw him press the water out of his face, and look at the bandage on his hand. And she knew it was all no good, and that she would never go beyond him, he was the final approximation of life to her. �Put the lights out, we shall see better,� came his voice, sudden and mechanical and belonging to the world of man. She could scarcely believe there was a world of man. She leaned round and blew out her lanterns. They were difficult to blow out. Everywhere the lights were gone save the coloured points on the sides of the launch. The bluey-grey, early night spread level around, the moon was overhead, there were shadows of boats here and there. Again there was a splash, and he was gone under. Gudrun sat, sick at heart, frightened of the great, level surface of the water, so heavy and deadly. She was so alone, with the level, unliving field of the water stretching beneath her. It was not a good isolation, it was a terrible, cold separation of suspense. She was suspended upon the surface of the insidious reality until such time as she also should disappear beneath it. Then she knew, by a stirring of voices, that he had climbed out again, into a boat. She sat wanting connection with him. Strenuously she claimed her connection with him, across the invisible space of the water. But round her heart was an isolation unbearable, through which nothing would penetrate. �Take the launch in. It�s no use keeping her there. Get lines for the dragging,� came the decisive, instrumental voice, that was full of the sound of the world. The launch began gradually to beat the waters. �Gerald! Gerald!� came the wild crying voice of Winifred. He did not answer. Slowly the launch drifted round in a pathetic, clumsy circle, and slunk away to the land, retreating into the dimness. The wash of her paddles grew duller. Gudrun rocked in her light boat, and dipped the paddle automatically to steady herself. �Gudrun?� called Ursula�s voice. �Ursula!� The boats of the two sisters pulled together. �Where is Gerald?� said Gudrun. �He�s dived again,� said Ursula plaintively. �And I know he ought not, with his hurt hand and everything.� �I�ll take him in home this time,� said Birkin. The boats swayed again from the wash of steamer. Gudrun and Ursula kept a look-out for Gerald. �There he is!� cried Ursula, who had the sharpest eyes. He had not been long under. Birkin pulled towards him, Gudrun following. He swam slowly, and caught hold of the boat with his wounded hand. It slipped, and he sank back. �Why don�t you help him?� cried Ursula sharply. He came again, and Birkin leaned to help him in to the boat. Gudrun again watched Gerald climb out of the water, but this time slowly, heavily, with the blind clambering motions of an amphibious beast, clumsy. Again the moon shone with faint luminosity on his white wet figure, on the stooping back and the rounded loins. But it looked defeated now, his body, it clambered and fell with slow clumsiness. He was breathing hoarsely too, like an animal that is suffering. He sat slack and motionless in the boat, his head blunt and blind like a seal�s, his whole appearance inhuman, unknowing. Gudrun shuddered as she mechanically followed his boat. Birkin rowed without speaking to the landing-stage. �Where are you going?� Gerald asked suddenly, as if just waking up. �Home,� said Birkin. �Oh no!� said Gerald imperiously. �We can�t go home while they�re in the water. Turn back again, I�m going to find them.� The women were frightened, his voice was so imperative and dangerous, almost mad, not to be opposed. �No!� said Birkin. �You can�t.� There was a strange fluid compulsion in his voice. Gerald was silent in a battle of wills. It was as if he would kill the other man. But Birkin rowed evenly and unswerving, with an inhuman inevitability. �Why should you interfere?� said Gerald, in hate. Birkin did not answer. He rowed towards the land. And Gerald sat mute, like a dumb beast, panting, his teeth chattering, his arms inert, his head like a seal�s head. They came to the landing-stage. Wet and naked-looking, Gerald climbed up the few steps. There stood his father, in the night. �Father!� he said. �Yes my boy? Go home and get those things off.� �We shan�t save them, father,� said Gerald. �There�s hope yet, my boy.� �I�m afraid not. There�s no knowing where they are. You can�t find them. And there�s a current, as cold as hell.� �We�ll let the water out,� said the father. �Go home you and look to yourself. See that he�s looked after, Rupert,� he added in a neutral voice. �Well father, I�m sorry. I�m sorry. I�m afraid it�s my fault. But it can�t be helped; I�ve done what I could for the moment. I could go on diving, of course�not much, though�and not much use�� He moved away barefoot, on the planks of the platform. Then he trod on something sharp. �Of course, you�ve got no shoes on,� said Birkin. �His shoes are here!� cried Gudrun from below. She was making fast her boat. Gerald waited for them to be brought to him. Gudrun came with them. He pulled them on his feet. �If you once die,� he said, �then when it�s over, it�s finished. Why come to life again? There�s room under that water there for thousands.� �Two is enough,� she said murmuring. He dragged on his second shoe. He was shivering violently, and his jaw shook as he spoke. �That�s true,� he said, �maybe. But it�s curious how much room there seems, a whole universe under there; and as cold as hell, you�re as helpless as if your head was cut off.� He could scarcely speak, he shook so violently. �There�s one thing about our family, you know,� he continued. �Once anything goes wrong, it can never be put right again�not with us. I�ve noticed it all my life�you can�t put a thing right, once it has gone wrong.� They were walking across the high-road to the house. �And do you know, when you are down there, it is so cold, actually, and so endless, so different really from what it is on top, so endless�you wonder how it is so many are alive, why we�re up here. Are you going? I shall see you again, shan�t I? Good-night, and thank you. Thank you very much!� The two girls waited a while, to see if there were any hope. The moon shone clearly overhead, with almost impertinent brightness, the small dark boats clustered on the water, there were voices and subdued shouts. But it was all to no purpose. Gudrun went home when Birkin returned. He was commissioned to open the sluice that let out the water from the lake, which was pierced at one end, near the high-road, thus serving as a reservoir to supply with water the distant mines, in case of necessity. �Come with me,� he said to Ursula, �and then I will walk home with you, when I�ve done this.� He called at the water-keeper�s cottage and took the key of the sluice. They went through a little gate from the high-road, to the head of the water, where was a great stone basin which received the overflow, and a flight of stone steps descended into the depths of the water itself. At the head of the steps was the lock of the sluice-gate. The night was silver-grey and perfect, save for the scattered restless sound of voices. The grey sheen of the moonlight caught the stretch of water, dark boats plashed and moved. But Ursula�s mind ceased to be receptive, everything was unimportant and unreal. Birkin fixed the iron handle of the sluice, and turned it with a wrench. The cogs began slowly to rise. He turned and turned, like a slave, his white figure became distinct. Ursula looked away. She could not bear to see him winding heavily and laboriously, bending and rising mechanically like a slave, turning the handle. Then, a real shock to her, there came a loud splashing of water from out of the dark, tree-filled hollow beyond the road, a splashing that deepened rapidly to a harsh roar, and then became a heavy, booming noise of a great body of water falling solidly all the time. It occupied the whole of the night, this great steady booming of water, everything was drowned within it, drowned and lost. Ursula seemed to have to struggle for her life. She put her hands over her ears, and looked at the high bland moon. �Can�t we go now?� she cried to Birkin, who was watching the water on the steps, to see if it would get any lower. It seemed to fascinate him. He looked at her and nodded. The little dark boats had moved nearer, people were crowding curiously along the hedge by the high-road, to see what was to be seen. Birkin and Ursula went to the cottage with the key, then turned their backs on the lake. She was in great haste. She could not bear the terrible crushing boom of the escaping water. �Do you think they are dead?� she cried in a high voice, to make herself heard. �Yes,� he replied. �Isn�t it horrible!� He paid no heed. They walked up the hill, further and further away from the noise. �Do you mind very much?� she asked him. �I don�t mind about the dead,� he said, �once they are dead. The worst of it is, they cling on to the living, and won�t let go.� She pondered for a time. �Yes,� she said. �The _fact_ of death doesn�t really seem to matter much, does it?� �No,� he said. �What does it matter if Diana Crich is alive or dead?� �Doesn�t it?� she said, shocked. �No, why should it? Better she were dead�she�ll be much more real. She�ll be positive in death. In life she was a fretting, negated thing.� �You are rather horrible,� murmured Ursula. �No! I�d rather Diana Crich were dead. Her living somehow, was all wrong. As for the young man, poor devil�he�ll find his way out quickly instead of slowly. Death is all right�nothing better.� �Yet you don�t want to die,� she challenged him. He was silent for a time. Then he said, in a voice that was frightening to her in its change: �I should like to be through with it�I should like to be through with the death process.� �And aren�t you?� asked Ursula nervously. They walked on for some way in silence, under the trees. Then he said, slowly, as if afraid: �There is life which belongs to death, and there is life which isn�t death. One is tired of the life that belongs to death�our kind of life. But whether it is finished, God knows. I want love that is like sleep, like being born again, vulnerable as a baby that just comes into the world.� Ursula listened, half attentive, half avoiding what he said. She seemed to catch the drift of his statement, and then she drew away. She wanted to hear, but she did not want to be implicated. She was reluctant to yield there, where he wanted her, to yield as it were her very identity. �Why should love be like sleep?� she asked sadly. �I don�t know. So that it is like death�I _do_ want to die from this life�and yet it is more than life itself. One is delivered over like a naked infant from the womb, all the old defences and the old body gone, and new air around one, that has never been breathed before.� She listened, making out what he said. She knew, as well as he knew, that words themselves do not convey meaning, that they are but a gesture we make, a dumb show like any other. And she seemed to feel his gesture through her blood, and she drew back, even though her desire sent her forward. �But,� she said gravely, �didn�t you say you wanted something that was _not_ love�something beyond love?� He turned in confusion. There was always confusion in speech. Yet it must be spoken. Whichever way one moved, if one were to move forwards, one must break a way through. And to know, to give utterance, was to break a way through the walls of the prison as the infant in labour strives through the walls of the womb. There is no new movement now, without the breaking through of the old body, deliberately, in knowledge, in the struggle to get out. �I don�t want love,� he said. �I don�t want to know you. I want to be gone out of myself, and you to be lost to yourself, so we are found different. One shouldn�t talk when one is tired and wretched. One Hamletises, and it seems a lie. Only believe me when I show you a bit of healthy pride and insouciance. I hate myself serious.� �Why shouldn�t you be serious?� she said. He thought for a minute, then he said, sulkily: �I don�t know.� Then they walked on in silence, at outs. He was vague and lost. �Isn�t it strange,� she said, suddenly putting her hand on his arm, with a loving impulse, �how we always talk like this! I suppose we do love each other, in some way.� �Oh yes,� he said; �too much.� She laughed almost gaily. �You�d have to have it your own way, wouldn�t you?� she teased. �You could never take it on trust.� He changed, laughed softly, and turned and took her in his arms, in the middle of the road. �Yes,� he said softly. And he kissed her face and brow, slowly, gently, with a sort of delicate happiness which surprised her extremely, and to which she could not respond. They were soft, blind kisses, perfect in their stillness. Yet she held back from them. It was like strange moths, very soft and silent, settling on her from the darkness of her soul. She was uneasy. She drew away. �Isn�t somebody coming?� she said. So they looked down the dark road, then set off again walking towards Beldover. Then suddenly, to show him she was no shallow prude, she stopped and held him tight, hard against her, and covered his face with hard, fierce kisses of passion. In spite of his otherness, the old blood beat up in him. �Not this, not this,� he whimpered to himself, as the first perfect mood of softness and sleep-loveliness ebbed back away from the rushing of passion that came up to his limbs and over his face as she drew him. And soon he was a perfect hard flame of passionate desire for her. Yet in the small core of the flame was an unyielding anguish of another thing. But this also was lost; he only wanted her, with an extreme desire that seemed inevitable as death, beyond question. Then, satisfied and shattered, fulfilled and destroyed, he went home away from her, drifting vaguely through the darkness, lapsed into the old fire of burning passion. Far away, far away, there seemed to be a small lament in the darkness. But what did it matter? What did it matter, what did anything matter save this ultimate and triumphant experience of physical passion, that had blazed up anew like a new spell of life. �I was becoming quite dead-alive, nothing but a word-bag,� he said in triumph, scorning his other self. Yet somewhere far off and small, the other hovered. The men were still dragging the lake when he got back. He stood on the bank and heard Gerald�s voice. The water was still booming in the night, the moon was fair, the hills beyond were elusive. The lake was sinking. There came the raw smell of the banks, in the night air. Up at Shortlands there were lights in the windows, as if nobody had gone to bed. On the landing-stage was the old doctor, the father of the young man who was lost. He stood quite silent, waiting. Birkin also stood and watched, Gerald came up in a boat. �You still here, Rupert?� he said. �We can�t get them. The bottom slopes, you know, very steep. The water lies between two very sharp slopes, with little branch valleys, and God knows where the drift will take you. It isn�t as if it was a level bottom. You never know where you are, with the dragging.� �Is there any need for you to be working?� said Birkin. �Wouldn�t it be much better if you went to bed?� �To bed! Good God, do you think I should sleep? We�ll find �em, before I go away from here.� �But the men would find them just the same without you�why should you insist?� Gerald looked up at him. Then he put his hand affectionately on Birkin�s shoulder, saying: �Don�t you bother about me, Rupert. If there�s anybody�s health to think about, it�s yours, not mine. How do you feel yourself?� �Very well. But you, you spoil your own chance of life�you waste your best self.� Gerald was silent for a moment. Then he said: �Waste it? What else is there to do with it?� �But leave this, won�t you? You force yourself into horrors, and put a mill-stone of beastly memories round your neck. Come away now.� �A mill-stone of beastly memories!� Gerald repeated. Then he put his hand again affectionately on Birkin�s shoulder. �God, you�ve got such a telling way of putting things, Rupert, you have.� Birkin�s heart sank. He was irritated and weary of having a telling way of putting things. �Won�t you leave it? Come over to my place��he urged as one urges a drunken man. �No,� said Gerald coaxingly, his arm across the other man�s shoulder. �Thanks very much, Rupert�I shall be glad to come tomorrow, if that�ll do. You understand, don�t you? I want to see this job through. But I�ll come tomorrow, right enough. Oh, I�d rather come and have a chat with you than�than do anything else, I verily believe. Yes, I would. You mean a lot to me, Rupert, more than you know.� �What do I mean, more than I know?� asked Birkin irritably. He was acutely aware of Gerald�s hand on his shoulder. And he did not want this altercation. He wanted the other man to come out of the ugly misery. �I�ll tell you another time,� said Gerald coaxingly. �Come along with me now�I want you to come,� said Birkin. There was a pause, intense and real. Birkin wondered why his own heart beat so heavily. Then Gerald�s fingers gripped hard and communicative into Birkin�s shoulder, as he said: �No, I�ll see this job through, Rupert. Thank you�I know what you mean. We�re all right, you know, you and me.� �I may be all right, but I�m sure you�re not, mucking about here,� said Birkin. And he went away. The bodies of the dead were not recovered till towards dawn. Diana had her arms tight round the neck of the young man, choking him. �She killed him,� said Gerald. The moon sloped down the sky and sank at last. The lake was sunk to quarter size, it had horrible raw banks of clay, that smelled of raw rottenish water. Dawn roused faintly behind the eastern hill. The water still boomed through the sluice. As the birds were whistling for the first morning, and the hills at the back of the desolate lake stood radiant with the new mists, there was a straggling procession up to Shortlands, men bearing the bodies on a stretcher, Gerald going beside them, the two grey-bearded fathers following in silence. Indoors the family was all sitting up, waiting. Somebody must go to tell the mother, in her room. The doctor in secret struggled to bring back his son, till he himself was exhausted. Over all the outlying district was a hush of dreadful excitement on that Sunday morning. The colliery people felt as if this catastrophe had happened directly to themselves, indeed they were more shocked and frightened than if their own men had been killed. Such a tragedy in Shortlands, the high home of the district! One of the young mistresses, persisting in dancing on the cabin roof of the launch, wilful young madam, drowned in the midst of the festival, with the young doctor! Everywhere on the Sunday morning, the colliers wandered about, discussing the calamity. At all the Sunday dinners of the people, there seemed a strange presence. It was as if the angel of death were very near, there was a sense of the supernatural in the air. The men had excited, startled faces, the women looked solemn, some of them had been crying. The children enjoyed the excitement at first. There was an intensity in the air, almost magical. Did all enjoy it? Did all enjoy the thrill? Gudrun had wild ideas of rushing to comfort Gerald. She was thinking all the time of the perfect comforting, reassuring thing to say to him. She was shocked and frightened, but she put that away, thinking of how she should deport herself with Gerald: act her part. That was the real thrill: how she should act her part. Ursula was deeply and passionately in love with Birkin, and she was capable of nothing. She was perfectly callous about all the talk of the accident, but her estranged air looked like trouble. She merely sat by herself, whenever she could, and longed to see him again. She wanted him to come to the house,�she would not have it otherwise, he must come at once. She was waiting for him. She stayed indoors all day, waiting for him to knock at the door. Every minute, she glanced automatically at the window. He would be there. CHAPTER XV. SUNDAY EVENING As the day wore on, the life-blood seemed to ebb away from Ursula, and within the emptiness a heavy despair gathered. Her passion seemed to bleed to death, and there was nothing. She sat suspended in a state of complete nullity, harder to bear than death. �Unless something happens,� she said to herself, in the perfect lucidity of final suffering, �I shall die. I am at the end of my line of life.� She sat crushed and obliterated in a darkness that was the border of death. She realised how all her life she had been drawing nearer and nearer to this brink, where there was no beyond, from which one had to leap like Sappho into the unknown. The knowledge of the imminence of death was like a drug. Darkly, without thinking at all, she knew that she was near to death. She had travelled all her life along the line of fulfilment, and it was nearly concluded. She knew all she had to know, she had experienced all she had to experience, she was fulfilled in a kind of bitter ripeness, there remained only to fall from the tree into death. And one must fulfil one�s development to the end, must carry the adventure to its conclusion. And the next step was over the border into death. So it was then! There was a certain peace in the knowledge. After all, when one was fulfilled, one was happiest in falling into death, as a bitter fruit plunges in its ripeness downwards. Death is a great consummation, a consummating experience. It is a development from life. That we know, while we are yet living. What then need we think for further? One can never see beyond the consummation. It is enough that death is a great and conclusive experience. Why should we ask what comes after the experience, when the experience is still unknown to us? Let us die, since the great experience is the one that follows now upon all the rest, death, which is the next great crisis in front of which we have arrived. If we wait, if we baulk the issue, we do but hang about the gates in undignified uneasiness. There it is, in front of us, as in front of Sappho, the illimitable space. Thereinto goes the journey. Have we not the courage to go on with our journey, must we cry �I daren�t�? On ahead we will go, into death, and whatever death may mean. If a man can see the next step to be taken, why should he fear the next but one? Why ask about the next but one? Of the next step we are certain. It is the step into death. �I shall die�I shall quickly die,� said Ursula to herself, clear as if in a trance, clear, calm, and certain beyond human certainty. But somewhere behind, in the twilight, there was a bitter weeping and a hopelessness. That must not be attended to. One must go where the unfaltering spirit goes, there must be no baulking the issue, because of fear. No baulking the issue, no listening to the lesser voices. If the deepest desire be now, to go on into the unknown of death, shall one forfeit the deepest truth for one more shallow? �Then let it end,� she said to herself. It was a decision. It was not a question of taking one�s life�she would _never_ kill herself, that was repulsive and violent. It was a question of _knowing_ the nextcstep. And the next step led into the space of death. Did it?�or was there�? Her thoughts drifted into unconsciousness, she sat as if asleep beside the fire. And then the thought came back. The space of death! Could she give herself to it? Ah yes�it was a sleep. She had had enough. So long she had held out; and resisted. Now was the time to relinquish, not to resist any more. In a kind of spiritual trance, she yielded, she gave way, and all was dark. She could feel, within the darkness, the terrible assertion of her body, the unutterable anguish of dissolution, the only anguish that is too much, the far-off, awful nausea of dissolution set in within the body. �Does the body correspond so immediately with the spirit?� she asked herself. And she knew, with the clarity of ultimate knowledge, that the body is only one of the manifestations of the spirit, the transmutation of the integral spirit is the transmutation of the physical body as well. Unless I set my will, unless I absolve myself from the rhythm of life, fix myself and remain static, cut off from living, absolved within my own will. But better die than live mechanically a life that is a repetition of repetitions. To die is to move on with the invisible. To die is also a joy, a joy of submitting to that which is greater than the known, namely, the pure unknown. That is a joy. But to live mechanised and cut off within the motion of the will, to live as an entity absolved from the unknown, that is shameful and ignominious. There is no ignominy in death. There is complete ignominy in an unreplenished, mechanised life. Life indeed may be ignominious, shameful to the soul. But death is never a shame. Death itself, like the illimitable space, is beyond our sullying. Tomorrow was Monday. Monday, the beginning of another school-week! Another shameful, barren school-week, mere routine and mechanical activity. Was not the adventure of death infinitely preferable? Was not death infinitely more lovely and noble than such a life? A life of barren routine, without inner meaning, without any real significance. How sordid life was, how it was a terrible shame to the soul, to live now! How much cleaner and more dignified to be dead! One could not bear any more of this shame of sordid routine and mechanical nullity. One might come to fruit in death. She had had enough. For where was life to be found? No flowers grow upon busy machinery, there is no sky to a routine, there is no space to a rotary motion. And all life was a rotary motion, mechanised, cut off from reality. There was nothing to look for from life�it was the same in all countries and all peoples. The only window was death. One could look out on to the great dark sky of death with elation, as one had looked out of the classroom window as a child, and seen perfect freedom in the outside. Now one was not a child, and one knew that the soul was a prisoner within this sordid vast edifice of life, and there was no escape, save in death. But what a joy! What a gladness to think that whatever humanity did, it could not seize hold of the kingdom of death, to nullify that. The sea they turned into a murderous alley and a soiled road of commerce, disputed like the dirty land of a city every inch of it. The air they claimed too, shared it up, parcelled it out to certain owners, they trespassed in the air to fight for it. Everything was gone, walled in, with spikes on top of the walls, and one must ignominiously creep between the spiky walls through a labyrinth of life. But the great, dark, illimitable kingdom of death, there humanity was put to scorn. So much they could do upon earth, the multifarious little gods that they were. But the kingdom of death put them all to scorn, they dwindled into their true vulgar silliness in face of it. How beautiful, how grand and perfect death was, how good to look forward to. There one would wash off all the lies and ignominy and dirt that had been put upon one here, a perfect bath of cleanness and glad refreshment, and go unknown, unquestioned, unabased. After all, one was rich, if only in the promise of perfect death. It was a gladness above all, that this remained to look forward to, the pure inhuman otherness of death. Whatever life might be, it could not take away death, the inhuman transcendent death. Oh, let us ask no question of it, what it is or is not. To know is human, and in death we do not know, we are not human. And the joy of this compensates for all the bitterness of knowledge and the sordidness of our humanity. In death we shall not be human, and we shall not know. The promise of this is our heritage, we look forward like heirs to their majority. Ursula sat quite still and quite forgotten, alone by the fire in the drawing-room. The children were playing in the kitchen, all the others were gone to church. And she was gone into the ultimate darkness of her own soul. She was startled by hearing the bell ring, away in the kitchen, the children came scudding along the passage in delicious alarm. �Ursula, there�s somebody.� �I know. Don�t be silly,� she replied. She too was startled, almost frightened. She dared hardly go to the door. Birkin stood on the threshold, his rain-coat turned up to his ears. He had come now, now she was gone far away. She was aware of the rainy night behind him. �Oh is it you?� she said. �I am glad you are at home,� he said in a low voice, entering the house. �They are all gone to church.� He took off his coat and hung it up. The children were peeping at him round the corner. �Go and get undressed now, Billy and Dora,� said Ursula. �Mother will be back soon, and she�ll be disappointed if you�re not in bed.� The children, in a sudden angelic mood, retired without a word. Birkin and Ursula went into the drawing-room. The fire burned low. He looked at her and wondered at the luminous delicacy of her beauty, and the wide shining of her eyes. He watched from a distance, with wonder in his heart, she seemed transfigured with light. �What have you been doing all day?� he asked her. �Only sitting about,� she said. He looked at her. There was a change in her. But she was separate from him. She remained apart, in a kind of brightness. They both sat silent in the soft light of the lamp. He felt he ought to go away again, he ought not to have come. Still he did not gather enough resolution to move. But he was _de trop_, her mood was absent and separate. Then there came the voices of the two children calling shyly outside the door, softly, with self-excited timidity: �Ursula! Ursula!� She rose and opened the door. On the threshold stood the two children in their long nightgowns, with wide-eyed, angelic faces. They were being very good for the moment, playing the rôle perfectly of two obedient children. �Shall you take us to bed!� said Billy, in a loud whisper. �Why you _are_ angels tonight,� she said softly. �Won�t you come and say good-night to Mr Birkin?� The children merged shyly into the room, on bare feet. Billy�s face was wide and grinning, but there was a great solemnity of being good in his round blue eyes. Dora, peeping from the floss of her fair hair, hung back like some tiny Dryad, that has no soul. �Will you say good-night to me?� asked Birkin, in a voice that was strangely soft and smooth. Dora drifted away at once, like a leaf lifted on a breath of wind. But Billy went softly forward, slow and willing, lifting his pinched-up mouth implicitly to be kissed. Ursula watched the full, gathered lips of the man gently touch those of the boy, so gently. Then Birkin lifted his fingers and touched the boy�s round, confiding cheek, with a faint touch of love. Neither spoke. Billy seemed angelic like a cherub boy, or like an acolyte, Birkin was a tall, grave angel looking down to him. �Are you going to be kissed?� Ursula broke in, speaking to the little girl. But Dora edged away like a tiny Dryad that will not be touched. �Won�t you say good-night to Mr Birkin? Go, he�s waiting for you,� said Ursula. But the girl-child only made a little motion away from him. �Silly Dora, silly Dora!� said Ursula. Birkin felt some mistrust and antagonism in the small child. He could not understand it. �Come then,� said Ursula. �Let us go before mother comes.� �Who�ll hear us say our prayers?� asked Billy anxiously. �Whom you like.� �Won�t you?� �Yes, I will.� �Ursula?� �Well Billy?� �Is it _whom_ you like?� �That�s it.� �Well what is _whom_?� �It�s the accusative of who.� There was a moment�s contemplative silence, then the confiding: �Is it?� Birkin smiled to himself as he sat by the fire. When Ursula came down he sat motionless, with his arms on his knees. She saw him, how he was motionless and ageless, like some crouching idol, some image of a deathly religion. He looked round at her, and his face, very pale and unreal, seemed to gleam with a whiteness almost phosphorescent. �Don�t you feel well?� she asked, in indefinable repulsion. �I hadn�t thought about it.� �But don�t you know without thinking about it?� He looked at her, his eyes dark and swift, and he saw her revulsion. He did not answer her question. �Don�t you know whether you are unwell or not, without thinking about it?� she persisted. �Not always,� he said coldly. �But don�t you think that�s very wicked?� �Wicked?� �Yes. I think it�s _criminal_ to have so little connection with your own body that you don�t even know when you are ill.� He looked at her darkly. �Yes,� he said. �Why don�t you stay in bed when you are seedy? You look perfectly ghastly.� �Offensively so?� he asked ironically. �Yes, quite offensive. Quite repelling.� �Ah!! Well that�s unfortunate.� �And it�s raining, and it�s a horrible night. Really, you shouldn�t be forgiven for treating your body like it�you _ought_ to suffer, a man who takes as little notice of his body as that.� ��takes as little notice of his body as that,� he echoed mechanically. This cut her short, and there was silence. The others came in from church, and the two had the girls to face, then the mother and Gudrun, and then the father and the boy. �Good-evening,� said Brangwen, faintly surprised. �Came to see me, did you?� �No,� said Birkin, �not about anything, in particular, that is. The day was dismal, and I thought you wouldn�t mind if I called in.� �It _has_ been a depressing day,� said Mrs Brangwen sympathetically. At that moment the voices of the children were heard calling from upstairs: �Mother! Mother!� She lifted her face and answered mildly into the distance: �I shall come up to you in a minute, Doysie.� Then to Birkin: �There is nothing fresh at Shortlands, I suppose? Ah,� she sighed, �no, poor things, I should think not.� �You�ve been over there today, I suppose?� asked the father. �Gerald came round to tea with me, and I walked back with him. The house is overexcited and unwholesome, I thought.� �I should think they were people who hadn�t much restraint,� said Gudrun. �Or too much,� Birkin answered. �Oh yes, I�m sure,� said Gudrun, almost vindictively, �one or the other.� �They all feel they ought to behave in some unnatural fashion,� said Birkin. �When people are in grief, they would do better to cover their faces and keep in retirement, as in the old days.� �Certainly!� cried Gudrun, flushed and inflammable. �What can be worse than this public grief�what is more horrible, more false! If _grief_ is not private, and hidden, what is?� �Exactly,� he said. �I felt ashamed when I was there and they were all going about in a lugubrious false way, feeling they must not be natural or ordinary.� �Well�� said Mrs Brangwen, offended at this criticism, �it isn�t so easy to bear a trouble like that.� And she went upstairs to the children. He remained only a few minutes longer, then took his leave. When he was gone Ursula felt such a poignant hatred of him, that all her brain seemed turned into a sharp crystal of fine hatred. Her whole nature seemed sharpened and intensified into a pure dart of hate. She could not imagine what it was. It merely took hold of her, the most poignant and ultimate hatred, pure and clear and beyond thought. She could not think of it at all, she was translated beyond herself. It was like a possession. She felt she was possessed. And for several days she went about possessed by this exquisite force of hatred against him. It surpassed anything she had ever known before, it seemed to throw her out of the world into some terrible region where nothing of her old life held good. She was quite lost and dazed, really dead to her own life. It was so completely incomprehensible and irrational. She did not know _why_ she hated him, her hate was quite abstract. She had only realised with a shock that stunned her, that she was overcome by this pure transportation. He was the enemy, fine as a diamond, and as hard and jewel-like, the quintessence of all that was inimical. She thought of his face, white and purely wrought, and of his eyes that had such a dark, constant will of assertion, and she touched her own forehead, to feel if she were mad, she was so transfigured in white flame of essential hate. It was not temporal, her hatred, she did not hate him for this or for that; she did not want to do anything to him, to have any connection with him. Her relation was ultimate and utterly beyond words, the hate was so pure and gemlike. It was as if he were a beam of essential enmity, a beam of light that did not only destroy her, but denied her altogether, revoked her whole world. She saw him as a clear stroke of uttermost contradiction, a strange gem-like being whose existence defined her own non-existence. When she heard he was ill again, her hatred only intensified itself a few degrees, if that were possible. It stunned her and annihilated her, but she could not escape it. She could not escape this transfiguration of hatred that had come upon her. CHAPTER XVI. MAN TO MAN He lay sick and unmoved, in pure opposition to everything. He knew how near to breaking was the vessel that held his life. He knew also how strong and durable it was. And he did not care. Better a thousand times take one�s chance with death, than accept a life one did not want. But best of all to persist and persist and persist for ever, till one were satisfied in life. He knew that Ursula was referred back to him. He knew his life rested with her. But he would rather not live than accept the love she proffered. The old way of love seemed a dreadful bondage, a sort of conscription. What it was in him he did not know, but the thought of love, marriage, and children, and a life lived together, in the horrible privacy of domestic and connubial satisfaction, was repulsive. He wanted something clearer, more open, cooler, as it were. The hot narrow intimacy between man and wife was abhorrent. The way they shut their doors, these married people, and shut themselves in to their own exclusive alliance with each other, even in love, disgusted him. It was a whole community of mistrustful couples insulated in private houses or private rooms, always in couples, and no further life, no further immediate, no disinterested relationship admitted: a kaleidoscope of couples, disjoined, separatist, meaningless entities of married couples. True, he hated promiscuity even worse than marriage, and a liaison was only another kind of coupling, reactionary from the legal marriage. Reaction was a greater bore than action. On the whole, he hated sex, it was such a limitation. It was sex that turned a man into a broken half of a couple, the woman into the other broken half. And he wanted to be single in himself, the woman single in herself. He wanted sex to revert to the level of the other appetites, to be regarded as a functional process, not as a fulfilment. He believed in sex marriage. But beyond this, he wanted a further conjunction, where man had being and woman had being, two pure beings, each constituting the freedom of the other, balancing each other like two poles of one force, like two angels, or two demons. He wanted so much to be free, not under the compulsion of any need for unification, or tortured by unsatisfied desire. Desire and aspiration should find their object without all this torture, as now, in a world of plenty of water, simple thirst is inconsiderable, satisfied almost unconsciously. And he wanted to be with Ursula as free as with himself, single and clear and cool, yet balanced, polarised with her. The merging, the clutching, the mingling of love was become madly abhorrent to him. But it seemed to him, woman was always so horrible and clutching, she had such a lust for possession, a greed of self-importance in love. She wanted to have, to own, to control, to be dominant. Everything must be referred back to her, to Woman, the Great Mother of everything, out of whom proceeded everything and to whom everything must finally be rendered up. It filled him with almost insane fury, this calm assumption of the Magna Mater, that all was hers, because she had borne it. Man was hers because she had borne him. A Mater Dolorosa, she had borne him, a Magna Mater, she now claimed him again, soul and body, sex, meaning, and all. He had a horror of the Magna Mater, she was detestable. She was on a very high horse again, was woman, the Great Mother. Did he not know it in Hermione. Hermione, the humble, the subservient, what was she all the while but the Mater Dolorosa, in her subservience, claiming with horrible, insidious arrogance and female tyranny, her own again, claiming back the man she had borne in suffering. By her very suffering and humility she bound her son with chains, she held him her everlasting prisoner. And Ursula, Ursula was the same�or the inverse. She too was the awful, arrogant queen of life, as if she were a queen bee on whom all the rest depended. He saw the yellow flare in her eyes, he knew the unthinkable overweening assumption of primacy in her. She was unconscious of it herself. She was only too ready to knock her head on the ground before a man. But this was only when she was so certain of her man, that she could worship him as a woman worships her own infant, with a worship of perfect possession. It was intolerable, this possession at the hands of woman. Always a man must be considered as the broken off fragment of a woman, and the sex was the still aching scar of the laceration. Man must be added on to a woman, before he had any real place or wholeness. And why? Why should we consider ourselves, men and women, as broken fragments of one whole? It is not true. We are not broken fragments of one whole. Rather we are the singling away into purity and clear being, of things that were mixed. Rather the sex is that which remains in us of the mixed, the unresolved. And passion is the further separating of this mixture, that which is manly being taken into the being of the man, that which is womanly passing to the woman, till the two are clear and whole as angels, the admixture of sex in the highest sense surpassed, leaving two single beings constellated together like two stars. In the old age, before sex was, we were mixed, each one a mixture. The process of singling into individuality resulted into the great polarisation of sex. The womanly drew to one side, the manly to the other. But the separation was imperfect even them. And so our world-cycle passes. There is now to come the new day, when we are beings each of us, fulfilled in difference. The man is pure man, the woman pure woman, they are perfectly polarised. But there is no longer any of the horrible merging, mingling self-abnegation of love. There is only the pure duality of polarisation, each one free from any contamination of the other. In each, the individual is primal, sex is subordinate, but perfectly polarised. Each has a single, separate being, with its own laws. The man has his pure freedom, the woman hers. Each acknowledges the perfection of the polarised sex-circuit. Each admits the different nature in the other. So Birkin meditated whilst he was ill. He liked sometimes to be ill enough to take to his bed. For then he got better very quickly, and things came to him clear and sure. Whilst he was laid up, Gerald came to see him. The two men had a deep, uneasy feeling for each other. Gerald�s eyes were quick and restless, his whole manner tense and impatient, he seemed strung up to some activity. According to conventionality, he wore black clothes, he looked formal, handsome and _comme il faut_. His hair was fair almost to whiteness, sharp like splinters of light, his face was keen and ruddy, his body seemed full of northern energy. Gerald really loved Birkin, though he never quite believed in him. Birkin was too unreal;�clever, whimsical, wonderful, but not practical enough. Gerald felt that his own understanding was much sounder and safer. Birkin was delightful, a wonderful spirit, but after all, not to be taken seriously, not quite to be counted as a man among men. �Why are you laid up again?� he asked kindly, taking the sick man�s hand. It was always Gerald who was protective, offering the warm shelter of his physical strength. �For my sins, I suppose,� Birkin said, smiling a little ironically. �For your sins? Yes, probably that is so. You should sin less, and keep better in health?� �You�d better teach me.� He looked at Gerald with ironic eyes. �How are things with you?� asked Birkin. �With me?� Gerald looked at Birkin, saw he was serious, and a warm light came into his eyes. �I don�t know that they�re any different. I don�t see how they could be. There�s nothing to change.� �I suppose you are conducting the business as successfully as ever, and ignoring the demand of the soul.� �That�s it,� said Gerald. �At least as far as the business is concerned. I couldn�t say about the soul, I�am sure.� �No.� �Surely you don�t expect me to?� laughed Gerald. �No. How are the rest of your affairs progressing, apart from the business?� �The rest of my affairs? What are those? I couldn�t say; I don�t know what you refer to.� �Yes, you do,� said Birkin. �Are you gloomy or cheerful? And what about Gudrun Brangwen?� �What about her?� A confused look came over Gerald. �Well,� he added, �I don�t know. I can only tell you she gave me a hit over the face last time I saw her.� �A hit over the face! What for?� �That I couldn�t tell you, either.� �Really! But when?� �The night of the party�when Diana was drowned. She was driving the cattle up the hill, and I went after her�you remember.� �Yes, I remember. But what made her do that? You didn�t definitely ask her for it, I suppose?� �I? No, not that I know of. I merely said to her, that it was dangerous to drive those Highland bullocks�as it _is_. She turned in such a way, and said��I suppose you think I�m afraid of you and your cattle, don�t you?� So I asked her �why,� and for answer she flung me a back-hander across the face.� Birkin laughed quickly, as if it pleased him. Gerald looked at him, wondering, and began to laugh as well, saying: �I didn�t laugh at the time, I assure you. I was never so taken aback in my life.� �And weren�t you furious?� �Furious? I should think I was. I�d have murdered her for two pins.� �H�m!� ejaculated Birkin. �Poor Gudrun, wouldn�t she suffer afterwards for having given herself away!� He was hugely delighted. �Would she suffer?� asked Gerald, also amused now. Both men smiled in malice and amusement. �Badly, I should think; seeing how self-conscious she is.� �She is self-conscious, is she? Then what made her do it? For I certainly think it was quite uncalled-for, and quite unjustified.� �I suppose it was a sudden impulse.� �Yes, but how do you account for her having such an impulse? I�d done her no harm.� Birkin shook his head. �The Amazon suddenly came up in her, I suppose,� he said. �Well,� replied Gerald, �I�d rather it had been the Orinoco.� They both laughed at the poor joke. Gerald was thinking how Gudrun had said she would strike the last blow too. But some reserve made him keep this back from Birkin. �And you resent it?� Birkin asked. �I don�t resent it. I don�t care a tinker�s curse about it.� He was silent a moment, then he added, laughing. �No, I�ll see it through, that�s all. She seemed sorry afterwards.� �Did she? You�ve not met since that night?� Gerald�s face clouded. �No,� he said. �We�ve been�you can imagine how it�s been, since the accident.� �Yes. Is it calming down?� �I don�t know. It�s a shock, of course. But I don�t believe mother minds. I really don�t believe she takes any notice. And what�s so funny, she used to be all for the children�nothing mattered, nothing whatever mattered but the children. And now, she doesn�t take any more notice than if it was one of the servants.� �No? Did it upset _you_ very much?� �It�s a shock. But I don�t feel it very much, really. I don�t feel any different. We�ve all got to die, and it doesn�t seem to make any great difference, anyhow, whether you die or not. I can�t feel any _grief_, you know. It leaves me cold. I can�t quite account for it.� �You don�t care if you die or not?� asked Birkin. Gerald looked at him with eyes blue as the blue-fibred steel of a weapon. He felt awkward, but indifferent. As a matter of fact, he did care terribly, with a great fear. �Oh,� he said, �I don�t want to die, why should I? But I never trouble. The question doesn�t seem to be on the carpet for me at all. It doesn�t interest me, you know.� �_Timor mortis conturbat me_,� quoted Birkin, adding��No, death doesn�t really seem the point any more. It curiously doesn�t concern one. It�s like an ordinary tomorrow.� Gerald looked closely at his friend. The eyes of the two men met, and an unspoken understanding was exchanged. Gerald narrowed his eyes, his face was cool and unscrupulous as he looked at Birkin, impersonally, with a vision that ended in a point in space, strangely keen-eyed and yet blind. �If death isn�t the point,� he said, in a strangely abstract, cold, fine voice��what is?� He sounded as if he had been found out. �What is?� re-echoed Birkin. And there was a mocking silence. �There�s long way to go, after the point of intrinsic death, before we disappear,� said Birkin. �There is,� said Gerald. �But what sort of way?� He seemed to press the other man for knowledge which he himself knew far better than Birkin did. �Right down the slopes of degeneration�mystic, universal degeneration. There are many stages of pure degradation to go through: agelong. We live on long after our death, and progressively, in progressive devolution.� Gerald listened with a faint, fine smile on his face, all the time, as if, somewhere, he knew so much better than Birkin, all about this: as if his own knowledge were direct and personal, whereas Birkin�s was a matter of observation and inference, not quite hitting the nail on the head:�though aiming near enough at it. But he was not going to give himself away. If Birkin could get at the secrets, let him. Gerald would never help him. Gerald would be a dark horse to the end. �Of course,� he said, with a startling change of conversation, �it is father who really feels it. It will finish him. For him the world collapses. All his care now is for Winnie�he must save Winnie. He says she ought to be sent away to school, but she won�t hear of it, and he�ll never do it. Of course she _is_ in rather a queer way. We�re all of us curiously bad at living. We can do things�but we can�t get on with life at all. It�s curious�a family failing.� �She oughtn�t to be sent away to school,� said Birkin, who was considering a new proposition. �She oughtn�t. Why?� �She�s a queer child�a special child, more special even than you. And in my opinion special children should never be sent away to school. Only moderately ordinary children should be sent to school�so it seems to me.� �I�m inclined to think just the opposite. I think it would probably make her more normal if she went away and mixed with other children.� �She wouldn�t mix, you see. _You_ never really mixed, did you? And she wouldn�t be willing even to pretend to. She�s proud, and solitary, and naturally apart. If she has a single nature, why do you want to make her gregarious?� �No, I don�t want to make her anything. But I think school would be good for her.� �Was it good for you?� Gerald�s eyes narrowed uglily. School had been torture to him. Yet he had not questioned whether one should go through this torture. He seemed to believe in education through subjection and torment. �I hated it at the time, but I can see it was necessary,� he said. �It brought me into line a bit�and you can�t live unless you do come into line somewhere.� �Well,� said Birkin, �I begin to think that you can�t live unless you keep entirely out of the line. It�s no good trying to toe the line, when your one impulse is to smash up the line. Winnie is a special nature, and for special natures you must give a special world.� �Yes, but where�s your special world?� said Gerald. �Make it. Instead of chopping yourself down to fit the world, chop the world down to fit yourself. As a matter of fact, two exceptional people make another world. You and I, we make another, separate world. You don�t _want_ a world same as your brothers-in-law. It�s just the special quality you value. Do you _want_ to be normal or ordinary! It�s a lie. You want to be free and extraordinary, in an extraordinary world of liberty.� Gerald looked at Birkin with subtle eyes of knowledge. But he would never openly admit what he felt. He knew more than Birkin, in one direction�much more. And this gave him his gentle love for the other man, as if Birkin were in some way young, innocent, child-like: so amazingly clever, but incurably innocent. �Yet you are so banal as to consider me chiefly a freak,� said Birkin pointedly. �A freak!� exclaimed Gerald, startled. And his face opened suddenly, as if lighted with simplicity, as when a flower opens out of the cunning bud. �No�I never consider you a freak.� And he watched the other man with strange eyes, that Birkin could not understand. �I feel,� Gerald continued, �that there is always an element of uncertainty about you�perhaps you are uncertain about yourself. But I�m never sure of you. You can go away and change as easily as if you had no soul.� He looked at Birkin with penetrating eyes. Birkin was amazed. He thought he had all the soul in the world. He stared in amazement. And Gerald, watching, saw the amazing attractive goodliness of his eyes, a young, spontaneous goodness that attracted the other man infinitely, yet filled him with bitter chagrin, because he mistrusted it so much. He knew Birkin could do without him�could forget, and not suffer. This was always present in Gerald�s consciousness, filling him with bitter unbelief: this consciousness of the young, animal-like spontaneity of detachment. It seemed almost like hypocrisy and lying, sometimes, oh, often, on Birkin�s part, to talk so deeply and importantly. Quite other things were going through Birkin�s mind. Suddenly he saw himself confronted with another problem�the problem of love and eternal conjunction between two men. Of course this was necessary�it had been a necessity inside himself all his life�to love a man purely and fully. Of course he had been loving Gerald all along, and all along denying it. He lay in the bed and wondered, whilst his friend sat beside him, lost in brooding. Each man was gone in his own thoughts. �You know how the old German knights used to swear a _Blutbruderschaft_,� he said to Gerald, with quite a new happy activity in his eyes. �Make a little wound in their arms, and rub each other�s blood into the cut?� said Gerald. �Yes�and swear to be true to each other, of one blood, all their lives. That is what we ought to do. No wounds, that is obsolete. But we ought to swear to love each other, you and I, implicitly, and perfectly, finally, without any possibility of going back on it.� He looked at Gerald with clear, happy eyes of discovery. Gerald looked down at him, attracted, so deeply bondaged in fascinated attraction, that he was mistrustful, resenting the bondage, hating the attraction. �We will swear to each other, one day, shall we?� pleaded Birkin. �We will swear to stand by each other�be true to each other�ultimately�infallibly�given to each other, organically�without possibility of taking back.� Birkin sought hard to express himself. But Gerald hardly listened. His face shone with a certain luminous pleasure. He was pleased. But he kept his reserve. He held himself back. �Shall we swear to each other, one day?� said Birkin, putting out his hand towards Gerald. Gerald just touched the extended fine, living hand, as if withheld and afraid. �We�ll leave it till I understand it better,� he said, in a voice of excuse. Birkin watched him. A little sharp disappointment, perhaps a touch of contempt came into his heart. �Yes,� he said. �You must tell me what you think, later. You know what I mean? Not sloppy emotionalism. An impersonal union that leaves one free.� They lapsed both into silence. Birkin was looking at Gerald all the time. He seemed now to see, not the physical, animal man, which he usually saw in Gerald, and which usually he liked so much, but the man himself, complete, and as if fated, doomed, limited. This strange sense of fatality in Gerald, as if he were limited to one form of existence, one knowledge, one activity, a sort of fatal halfness, which to himself seemed wholeness, always overcame Birkin after their moments of passionate approach, and filled him with a sort of contempt, or boredom. It was the insistence on the limitation which so bored Birkin in Gerald. Gerald could never fly away from himself, in real indifferent gaiety. He had a clog, a sort of monomania. There was silence for a time. Then Birkin said, in a lighter tone, letting the stress of the contact pass: �Can�t you get a good governess for Winifred?�somebody exceptional?� �Hermione Roddice suggested we should ask Gudrun to teach her to draw and to model in clay. You know Winnie is astonishingly clever with that plasticine stuff. Hermione declares she is an artist.� Gerald spoke in the usual animated, chatty manner, as if nothing unusual had passed. But Birkin�s manner was full of reminder. �Really! I didn�t know that. Oh well then, if Gudrun _would_ teach her, it would be perfect�couldn�t be anything better�if Winifred is an artist. Because Gudrun somewhere is one. And every true artist is the salvation of every other.� �I thought they got on so badly, as a rule.� �Perhaps. But only artists produce for each other the world that is fit to live in. If you can arrange _that_ for Winifred, it is perfect.� �But you think she wouldn�t come?� �I don�t know. Gudrun is rather self-opinionated. She won�t go cheap anywhere. Or if she does, she�ll pretty soon take herself back. So whether she would condescend to do private teaching, particularly here, in Beldover, I don�t know. But it would be just the thing. Winifred has got a special nature. And if you can put into her way the means of being self-sufficient, that is the best thing possible. She�ll never get on with the ordinary life. You find it difficult enough yourself, and she is several skins thinner than you are. It is awful to think what her life will be like unless she does find a means of expression, some way of fulfilment. You can see what mere leaving it to fate brings. You can see how much marriage is to be trusted to�look at your own mother.� �Do you think mother is abnormal?� �No! I think she only wanted something more, or other than the common run of life. And not getting it, she has gone wrong perhaps.� �After producing a brood of wrong children,� said Gerald gloomily. �No more wrong than any of the rest of us,� Birkin replied. �The most normal people have the worst subterranean selves, take them one by one.� �Sometimes I think it is a curse to be alive,� said Gerald with sudden impotent anger. �Well,� said Birkin, �why not! Let it be a curse sometimes to be alive�at other times it is anything but a curse. You�ve got plenty of zest in it really.� �Less than you�d think,� said Gerald, revealing a strange poverty in his look at the other man. There was silence, each thinking his own thoughts. �I don�t see what she has to distinguish between teaching at the Grammar School, and coming to teach Win,� said Gerald. �The difference between a public servant and a private one. The only nobleman today, king and only aristocrat, is the public, the public. You are quite willing to serve the public�but to be a private tutor�� �I don�t want to serve either�� �No! And Gudrun will probably feel the same.� Gerald thought for a few minutes. Then he said: �At all events, father won�t make her feel like a private servant. He will be fussy and greatful enough.� �So he ought. And so ought all of you. Do you think you can hire a woman like Gudrun Brangwen with money? She is your equal like anything�probably your superior.� �Is she?� said Gerald. �Yes, and if you haven�t the guts to know it, I hope she�ll leave you to your own devices.� �Nevertheless,� said Gerald, �if she is my equal, I wish she weren�t a teacher, because I don�t think teachers as a rule are my equal.� �Nor do I, damn them. But am I a teacher because I teach, or a parson because I preach?� Gerald laughed. He was always uneasy on this score. He did not _want_ to claim social superiority, yet he _would_ not claim intrinsic personal superiority, because he would never base his standard of values on pure being. So he wobbled upon a tacit assumption of social standing. No, Birkin wanted him to accept the fact of intrinsic difference between human beings, which he did not intend to accept. It was against his social honour, his principle. He rose to go. �I�ve been neglecting my business all this while,� he said smiling. �I ought to have reminded you before,� Birkin replied, laughing and mocking. �I knew you�d say something like that,� laughed Gerald, rather uneasily. �Did you?� �Yes, Rupert. It wouldn�t do for us all to be like you are�we should soon be in the cart. When I am above the world, I shall ignore all businesses.� �Of course, we�re not in the cart now,� said Birkin, satirically. �Not as much as you make out. At any rate, we have enough to eat and drink�� �And be satisfied,� added Birkin. Gerald came near the bed and stood looking down at Birkin whose throat was exposed, whose tossed hair fell attractively on the warm brow, above the eyes that were so unchallenged and still in the satirical face. Gerald, full-limbed and turgid with energy, stood unwilling to go, he was held by the presence of the other man. He had not the power to go away. �So,� said Birkin. �Good-bye.� And he reached out his hand from under the bed-clothes, smiling with a glimmering look. �Good-bye,� said Gerald, taking the warm hand of his friend in a firm grasp. �I shall come again. I miss you down at the mill.� �I�ll be there in a few days,� said Birkin. The eyes of the two men met again. Gerald�s, that were keen as a hawk�s, were suffused now with warm light and with unadmitted love, Birkin looked back as out of a darkness, unsounded and unknown, yet with a kind of warmth, that seemed to flow over Gerald�s brain like a fertile sleep. �Good-bye then. There�s nothing I can do for you?� �Nothing, thanks.� Birkin watched the black-clothed form of the other man move out of the door, the bright head was gone, he turned over to sleep. CHAPTER XVII. THE INDUSTRIAL MAGNATE In Beldover, there was both for Ursula and for Gudrun an interval. It seemed to Ursula as if Birkin had gone out of her for the time, he had lost his significance, he scarcely mattered in her world. She had her own friends, her own activities, her own life. She turned back to the old ways with zest, away from him. And Gudrun, after feeling every moment in all her veins conscious of Gerald Crich, connected even physically with him, was now almost indifferent to the thought of him. She was nursing new schemes for going away and trying a new form of life. All the time, there was something in her urging her to avoid the final establishing of a relationship with Gerald. She felt it would be wiser and better to have no more than a casual acquaintance with him. She had a scheme for going to St Petersburg, where she had a friend who was a sculptor like herself, and who lived with a wealthy Russian whose hobby was jewel-making. The emotional, rather rootless life of the Russians appealed to her. She did not want to go to Paris. Paris was dry, and essentially boring. She would like to go to Rome, Munich, Vienna, or to St Petersburg or Moscow. She had a friend in St Petersburg and a friend in Munich. To each of these she wrote, asking about rooms. She had a certain amount of money. She had come home partly to save, and now she had sold several pieces of work, she had been praised in various shows. She knew she could become quite the �go� if she went to London. But she knew London, she wanted something else. She had seventy pounds, of which nobody knew anything. She would move soon, as soon as she heard from her friends. Her nature, in spite of her apparent placidity and calm, was profoundly restless. The sisters happened to call in a cottage in Willey Green to buy honey. Mrs Kirk, a stout, pale, sharp-nosed woman, sly, honied, with something shrewish and cat-like beneath, asked the girls into her too cosy, too tidy kitchen. There was a cat-like comfort and cleanliness everywhere. �Yes, Miss Brangwen,� she said, in her slightly whining, insinuating voice, �and how do you like being back in the old place, then?� Gudrun, whom she addressed, hated her at once. �I don�t care for it,� she replied abruptly. �You don�t? Ay, well, I suppose you found a difference from London. You like life, and big, grand places. Some of us has to be content with Willey Green and Beldover. And what do you think of our Grammar School, as there�s so much talk about?� �What do I think of it?� Gudrun looked round at her slowly. �Do you mean, do I think it�s a good school?� �Yes. What is your opinion of it?� �I _do_ think it�s a good school.� Gudrun was very cold and repelling. She knew the common people hated the school. �Ay, you do, then! I�ve heard so much, one way and the other. It�s nice to know what those that�s in it feel. But opinions vary, don�t they? Mr Crich up at Highclose is all for it. Ay, poor man, I�m afraid he�s not long for this world. He�s very poorly.� �Is he worse?� asked Ursula. �Eh, yes�since they lost Miss Diana. He�s gone off to a shadow. Poor man, he�s had a world of trouble.� �Has he?� asked Gudrun, faintly ironic. �He has, a world of trouble. And as nice and kind a gentleman as ever you could wish to meet. His children don�t take after him.� �I suppose they take after their mother?� said Ursula. �In many ways.� Mrs Krik lowered her voice a little. �She was a proud haughty lady when she came into these parts�my word, she was that! She mustn�t be looked at, and it was worth your life to speak to her.� The woman made a dry, sly face. �Did you know her when she was first married?� �Yes, I knew her. I nursed three of her children. And proper little terrors they were, little fiends�that Gerald was a demon if ever there was one, a proper demon, ay, at six months old.� A curious malicious, sly tone came into the woman�s voice. �Really,� said Gudrun. �That wilful, masterful�he�d mastered one nurse at six months. Kick, and scream, and struggle like a demon. Many�s the time I�ve pinched his little bottom for him, when he was a child in arms. Ay, and he�d have been better if he�d had it pinched oftener. But she wouldn�t have them corrected�no-o, wouldn�t hear of it. I can remember the rows she had with Mr Crich, my word. When he�d got worked up, properly worked up till he could stand no more, he�d lock the study door and whip them. But she paced up and down all the while like a tiger outside, like a tiger, with very murder in her face. She had a face that could _look_ death. And when the door was opened, she�d go in with her hands lifted��What have you been doing to _my_ children, you coward.� She was like one out of her mind. I believe he was frightened of her; he had to be driven mad before he�d lift a finger. Didn�t the servants have a life of it! And didn�t we used to be thankful when one of them caught it. They were the torment of your life.� �Really!� said Gudrun. �In every possible way. If you wouldn�t let them smash their pots on the table, if you wouldn�t let them drag the kitten about with a string round its neck, if you wouldn�t give them whatever they asked for, every mortal thing�then there was a shine on, and their mother coming in asking��What�s the matter with him? What have you done to him? What is it, Darling?� And then she�d turn on you as if she�d trample you under her feet. But she didn�t trample on me. I was the only one that could do anything with her demons�for she wasn�t going to be bothered with them herself. No, _she_ took no trouble for them. But they must just have their way, they mustn�t be spoken to. And Master Gerald was the beauty. I left when he was a year and a half, I could stand no more. But I pinched his little bottom for him when he was in arms, I did, when there was no holding him, and I�m not sorry I did�� Gudrun went away in fury and loathing. The phrase, �I pinched his little bottom for him,� sent her into a white, stony fury. She could not bear it, she wanted to have the woman taken out at once and strangled. And yet there the phrase was lodged in her mind for ever, beyond escape. She felt, one day, she would _have_ to tell him, to see how he took it. And she loathed herself for the thought. But at Shortlands the life-long struggle was coming to a close. The father was ill and was going to die. He had bad internal pains, which took away all his attentive life, and left him with only a vestige of his consciousness. More and more a silence came over him, he was less and less acutely aware of his surroundings. The pain seemed to absorb his activity. He knew it was there, he knew it would come again. It was like something lurking in the darkness within him. And he had not the power, or the will, to seek it out and to know it. There it remained in the darkness, the great pain, tearing him at times, and then being silent. And when it tore him he crouched in silent subjection under it, and when it left him alone again, he refused to know of it. It was within the darkness, let it remain unknown. So he never admitted it, except in a secret corner of himself, where all his never-revealed fears and secrets were accumulated. For the rest, he had a pain, it went away, it made no difference. It even stimulated him, excited him. But it gradually absorbed his life. Gradually it drew away all his potentiality, it bled him into the dark, it weaned him of life and drew him away into the darkness. And in this twilight of his life little remained visible to him. The business, his work, that was gone entirely. His public interests had disappeared as if they had never been. Even his family had become extraneous to him, he could only remember, in some slight non-essential part of himself, that such and such were his children. But it was historical fact, not vital to him. He had to make an effort to know their relation to him. Even his wife barely existed. She indeed was like the darkness, like the pain within him. By some strange association, the darkness that contained the pain and the darkness that contained his wife were identical. All his thoughts and understandings became blurred and fused, and now his wife and the consuming pain were the same dark secret power against him, that he never faced. He never drove the dread out of its lair within him. He only knew that there was a dark place, and something inhabiting this darkness which issued from time to time and rent him. But he dared not penetrate and drive the beast into the open. He had rather ignore its existence. Only, in his vague way, the dread was his wife, the destroyer, and it was the pain, the destruction, a darkness which was one and both. He very rarely saw his wife. She kept her room. Only occasionally she came forth, with her head stretched forward, and in her low, possessed voice, she asked him how he was. And he answered her, in the habit of more than thirty years: �Well, I don�t think I�m any the worse, dear.� But he was frightened of her, underneath this safeguard of habit, frightened almost to the verge of death. But all his life, he had been so constant to his lights, he had never broken down. He would die even now without breaking down, without knowing what his feelings were, towards her. All his life, he had said: �Poor Christiana, she has such a strong temper.� With unbroken will, he had stood by this position with regard to her, he had substituted pity for all his hostility, pity had been his shield and his safeguard, and his infallible weapon. And still, in his consciousness, he was sorry for her, her nature was so violent and so impatient. But now his pity, with his life, was wearing thin, and the dread almost amounting to horror, was rising into being. But before the armour of his pity really broke, he would die, as an insect when its shell is cracked. This was his final resource. Others would live on, and know the living death, the ensuing process of hopeless chaos. He would not. He denied death its victory. He had been so constant to his lights, so constant to charity, and to his love for his neighbour. Perhaps he had loved his neighbour even better than himself�which is going one further than the commandment. Always, this flame had burned in his heart, sustaining him through everything, the welfare of the people. He was a large employer of labour, he was a great mine-owner. And he had never lost this from his heart, that in Christ he was one with his workmen. Nay, he had felt inferior to them, as if they through poverty and labour were nearer to God than he. He had always the unacknowledged belief, that it was his workmen, the miners, who held in their hands the means of salvation. To move nearer to God, he must move towards his miners, his life must gravitate towards theirs. They were, unconsciously, his idol, his God made manifest. In them he worshipped the highest, the great, sympathetic, mindless Godhead of humanity. And all the while, his wife had opposed him like one of the great demons of hell. Strange, like a bird of prey, with the fascinating beauty and abstraction of a hawk, she had beat against the bars of his philanthropy, and like a hawk in a cage, she had sunk into silence. By force of circumstance, because all the world combined to make the cage unbreakable, he had been too strong for her, he had kept her prisoner. And because she was his prisoner, his passion for her had always remained keen as death. He had always loved her, loved her with intensity. Within the cage, she was denied nothing, she was given all licence. But she had gone almost mad. Of wild and overweening temper, she could not bear the humiliation of her husband�s soft, half-appealing kindness to everybody. He was not deceived by the poor. He knew they came and sponged on him, and whined to him, the worse sort; the majority, luckily for him, were much too proud to ask for anything, much too independent to come knocking at his door. But in Beldover, as everywhere else, there were the whining, parasitic, foul human beings who come crawling after charity, and feeding on the living body of the public like lice. A kind of fire would go over Christiana Crich�s brain, as she saw two more pale-faced, creeping women in objectionable black clothes, cringing lugubriously up the drive to the door. She wanted to set the dogs on them, �Hi Rip! Hi Ring! Ranger! At �em boys, set �em off.� But Crowther, the butler, with all the rest of the servants, was Mr Crich�s man. Nevertheless, when her husband was away, she would come down like a wolf on the crawling supplicants: �What do you people want? There is nothing for you here. You have no business on the drive at all. Simpson, drive them away and let no more of them through the gate.� The servants had to obey her. And she would stand watching with an eye like the eagle�s, whilst the groom in clumsy confusion drove the lugubrious persons down the drive, as if they were rusty fowls, scuttling before him. But they learned to know, from the lodge-keeper, when Mrs Crich was away, and they timed their visits. How many times, in the first years, would Crowther knock softly at the door: �Person to see you, sir.� �What name?� �Grocock, sir.� �What do they want?� The question was half impatient, half gratified. He liked hearing appeals to his charity. �About a child, sir.� �Show them into the library, and tell them they shouldn�t come after eleven o�clock in the morning.� �Why do you get up from dinner?�send them off,� his wife would say abruptly. �Oh, I can�t do that. It�s no trouble just to hear what they have to say.� �How many more have been here today? Why don�t you establish open house for them? They would soon oust me and the children.� �You know dear, it doesn�t hurt me to hear what they have to say. And if they really are in trouble�well, it is my duty to help them out of it.� �It�s your duty to invite all the rats in the world to gnaw at your bones.� �Come, Christiana, it isn�t like that. Don�t be uncharitable.� But she suddenly swept out of the room, and out to the study. There sat the meagre charity-seekers, looking as if they were at the doctor�s. �Mr Crich can�t see you. He can�t see you at this hour. Do you think he is your property, that you can come whenever you like? You must go away, there is nothing for you here.� The poor people rose in confusion. But Mr Crich, pale and black-bearded and deprecating, came behind her, saying: �Yes, I don�t like you coming as late as this. I�ll hear any of you in the morning part of the day, but I can�t really do with you after. What�s amiss then, Gittens. How is your Missis?� �Why, she�s sunk very low, Mester Crich, she�s a�most gone, she is�� Sometimes, it seemed to Mrs Crich as if her husband were some subtle funeral bird, feeding on the miseries of the people. It seemed to her he was never satisfied unless there was some sordid tale being poured out to him, which he drank in with a sort of mournful, sympathetic satisfaction. He would have no _raison d�être_ if there were no lugubrious miseries in the world, as an undertaker would have no meaning if there were no funerals. Mrs Crich recoiled back upon herself, she recoiled away from this world of creeping democracy. A band of tight, baleful exclusion fastened round her heart, her isolation was fierce and hard, her antagonism was passive but terribly pure, like that of a hawk in a cage. As the years went on, she lost more and more count of the world, she seemed rapt in some glittering abstraction, almost purely unconscious. She would wander about the house and about the surrounding country, staring keenly and seeing nothing. She rarely spoke, she had no connection with the world. And she did not even think. She was consumed in a fierce tension of opposition, like the negative pole of a magnet. And she bore many children. For, as time went on, she never opposed her husband in word or deed. She took no notice of him, externally. She submitted to him, let him take what he wanted and do as he wanted with her. She was like a hawk that sullenly submits to everything. The relation between her and her husband was wordless and unknown, but it was deep, awful, a relation of utter inter-destruction. And he, who triumphed in the world, he became more and more hollow in his vitality, the vitality was bled from within him, as by some hæmorrhage. She was hulked like a hawk in a cage, but her heart was fierce and undiminished within her, though her mind was destroyed. So to the last he would go to her and hold her in his arms sometimes, before his strength was all gone. The terrible white, destructive light that burned in her eyes only excited and roused him. Till he was bled to death, and then he dreaded her more than anything. But he always said to himself, how happy he had been, how he had loved her with a pure and consuming love ever since he had known her. And he thought of her as pure, chaste; the white flame which was known to him alone, the flame of her sex, was a white flower of snow to his mind. She was a wonderful white snow-flower, which he had desired infinitely. And now he was dying with all his ideas and interpretations intact. They would only collapse when the breath left his body. Till then they would be pure truths for him. Only death would show the perfect completeness of the lie. Till death, she was his white snow-flower. He had subdued her, and her subjugation was to him an infinite chastity in her, a virginity which he could never break, and which dominated him as by a spell. She had let go the outer world, but within herself she was unbroken and unimpaired. She only sat in her room like a moping, dishevelled hawk, motionless, mindless. Her children, for whom she had been so fierce in her youth, now meant scarcely anything to her. She had lost all that, she was quite by herself. Only Gerald, the gleaming, had some existence for her. But of late years, since he had become head of the business, he too was forgotten. Whereas the father, now he was dying, turned for compassion to Gerald. There had always been opposition between the two of them. Gerald had feared and despised his father, and to a great extent had avoided him all through boyhood and young manhood. And the father had felt very often a real dislike of his eldest son, which, never wanting to give way to, he had refused to acknowledge. He had ignored Gerald as much as possible, leaving him alone. Since, however, Gerald had come home and assumed responsibility in the firm, and had proved such a wonderful director, the father, tired and weary of all outside concerns, had put all his trust of these things in his son, implicitly, leaving everything to him, and assuming a rather touching dependence on the young enemy. This immediately roused a poignant pity and allegiance in Gerald�s heart, always shadowed by contempt and by unadmitted enmity. For Gerald was in reaction against Charity; and yet he was dominated by it, it assumed supremacy in the inner life, and he could not confute it. So he was partly subject to that which his father stood for, but he was in reaction against it. Now he could not save himself. A certain pity and grief and tenderness for his father overcame him, in spite of the deeper, more sullen hostility. The father won shelter from Gerald through compassion. But for love he had Winifred. She was his youngest child, she was the only one of his children whom he had ever closely loved. And her he loved with all the great, overweening, sheltering love of a dying man. He wanted to shelter her infinitely, infinitely, to wrap her in warmth and love and shelter, perfectly. If he could save her she should never know one pain, one grief, one hurt. He had been so right all his life, so constant in his kindness and his goodness. And this was his last passionate righteousness, his love for the child Winifred. Some things troubled him yet. The world had passed away from him, as his strength ebbed. There were no more poor and injured and humble to protect and succour. These were all lost to him. There were no more sons and daughters to trouble him, and to weigh on him as an unnatural responsibility. These too had faded out of reality. All these things had fallen out of his hands, and left him free. There remained the covert fear and horror of his wife, as she sat mindless and strange in her room, or as she came forth with slow, prowling step, her head bent forward. But this he put away. Even his life-long righteousness, however, would not quite deliver him from the inner horror. Still, he could keep it sufficiently at bay. It would never break forth openly. Death would come first. Then there was Winifred! If only he could be sure about her, if only he could be sure. Since the death of Diana, and the development of his illness, his craving for surety with regard to Winifred amounted almost to obsession. It was as if, even dying, he must have some anxiety, some responsibility of love, of Charity, upon his heart. She was an odd, sensitive, inflammable child, having her father�s dark hair and quiet bearing, but being quite detached, momentaneous. She was like a changeling indeed, as if her feelings did not matter to her, really. She often seemed to be talking and playing like the gayest and most childish of children, she was full of the warmest, most delightful affection for a few things�for her father, and for her animals in particular. But if she heard that her beloved kitten Leo had been run over by the motor-car she put her head on one side, and replied, with a faint contraction like resentment on her face: �Has he?� Then she took no more notice. She only disliked the servant who would force bad news on her, and wanted her to be sorry. She wished not to know, and that seemed her chief motive. She avoided her mother, and most of the members of her family. She _loved_ her Daddy, because he wanted her always to be happy, and because he seemed to become young again, and irresponsible in her presence. She liked Gerald, because he was so self-contained. She loved people who would make life a game for her. She had an amazing instinctive critical faculty, and was a pure anarchist, a pure aristocrat at once. For she accepted her equals wherever she found them, and she ignored with blithe indifference her inferiors, whether they were her brothers and sisters, or whether they were wealthy guests of the house, or whether they were the common people or the servants. She was quite single and by herself, deriving from nobody. It was as if she were cut off from all purpose or continuity, and existed simply moment by moment. The father, as by some strange final illusion, felt as if all his fate depended on his ensuring to Winifred her happiness. She who could never suffer, because she never formed vital connections, she who could lose the dearest things of her life and be just the same the next day, the whole memory dropped out, as if deliberately, she whose will was so strangely and easily free, anarchistic, almost nihilistic, who like a soulless bird flits on its own will, without attachment or responsibility beyond the moment, who in her every motion snapped the threads of serious relationship with blithe, free hands, really nihilistic, because never troubled, she must be the object of her father�s final passionate solicitude. When Mr Crich heard that Gudrun Brangwen might come to help Winifred with her drawing and modelling he saw a road to salvation for his child. He believed that Winifred had talent, he had seen Gudrun, he knew that she was an exceptional person. He could give Winifred into her hands as into the hands of a right being. Here was a direction and a positive force to be lent to his child, he need not leave her directionless and defenceless. If he could but graft the girl on to some tree of utterance before he died, he would have fulfilled his responsibility. And here it could be done. He did not hesitate to appeal to Gudrun. Meanwhile, as the father drifted more and more out of life, Gerald experienced more and more a sense of exposure. His father after all had stood for the living world to him. Whilst his father lived Gerald was not responsible for the world. But now his father was passing away, Gerald found himself left exposed and unready before the storm of living, like the mutinous first mate of a ship that has lost his captain, and who sees only a terrible chaos in front of him. He did not inherit an established order and a living idea. The whole unifying idea of mankind seemed to be dying with his father, the centralising force that had held the whole together seemed to collapse with his father, the parts were ready to go asunder in terrible disintegration. Gerald was as if left on board of a ship that was going asunder beneath his feet, he was in charge of a vessel whose timbers were all coming apart. He knew that all his life he had been wrenching at the frame of life to break it apart. And now, with something of the terror of a destructive child, he saw himself on the point of inheriting his own destruction. And during the last months, under the influence of death, and of Birkin�s talk, and of Gudrun�s penetrating being, he had lost entirely that mechanical certainty that had been his triumph. Sometimes spasms of hatred came over him, against Birkin and Gudrun and that whole set. He wanted to go back to the dullest conservatism, to the most stupid of conventional people. He wanted to revert to the strictest Toryism. But the desire did not last long enough to carry him into action. During his childhood and his boyhood he had wanted a sort of savagedom. The days of Homer were his ideal, when a man was chief of an army of heroes, or spent his years in wonderful Odyssey. He hated remorselessly the circumstances of his own life, so much that he never really saw Beldover and the colliery valley. He turned his face entirely away from the blackened mining region that stretched away on the right hand of Shortlands, he turned entirely to the country and the woods beyond Willey Water. It was true that the panting and rattling of the coal mines could always be heard at Shortlands. But from his earliest childhood, Gerald had paid no heed to this. He had ignored the whole of the industrial sea which surged in coal-blackened tides against the grounds of the house. The world was really a wilderness where one hunted and swam and rode. He rebelled against all authority. Life was a condition of savage freedom. Then he had been sent away to school, which was so much death to him. He refused to go to Oxford, choosing a German university. He had spent a certain time at Bonn, at Berlin, and at Frankfurt. There, a curiosity had been aroused in his mind. He wanted to see and to know, in a curious objective fashion, as if it were an amusement to him. Then he must try war. Then he must travel into the savage regions that had so attracted him. The result was, he found humanity very much alike everywhere, and to a mind like his, curious and cold, the savage was duller, less exciting than the European. So he took hold of all kinds of sociological ideas, and ideas of reform. But they never went more than skin-deep, they were never more than a mental amusement. Their interest lay chiefly in the reaction against the positive order, the destructive reaction. He discovered at last a real adventure in the coal-mines. His father asked him to help in the firm. Gerald had been educated in the science of mining, and it had never interested him. Now, suddenly, with a sort of exultation, he laid hold of the world. There was impressed photographically on his consciousness the great industry. Suddenly, it was real, he was part of it. Down the valley ran the colliery railway, linking mine with mine. Down the railway ran the trains, short trains of heavily laden trucks, long trains of empty wagons, each one bearing in big white letters the initials: �C. B. & Co.� These white letters on all the wagons he had seen since his first childhood, and it was as if he had never seen them, they were so familiar, and so ignored. Now at last he saw his own name written on the wall. Now he had a vision of power. So many wagons, bearing his initial, running all over the country. He saw them as he entered London in the train, he saw them at Dover. So far his power ramified. He looked at Beldover, at Selby, at Whatmore, at Lethley Bank, the great colliery villages which depended entirely on his mines. They were hideous and sordid, during his childhood they had been sores in his consciousness. And now he saw them with pride. Four raw new towns, and many ugly industrial hamlets were crowded under his dependence. He saw the stream of miners flowing along the causeways from the mines at the end of the afternoon, thousands of blackened, slightly distorted human beings with red mouths, all moving subjugate to his will. He pushed slowly in his motor-car through the little market-top on Friday nights in Beldover, through a solid mass of human beings that were making their purchases and doing their weekly spending. They were all subordinate to him. They were ugly and uncouth, but they were his instruments. He was the God of the machine. They made way for his motor-car automatically, slowly. He did not care whether they made way with alacrity, or grudgingly. He did not care what they thought of him. His vision had suddenly crystallised. Suddenly he had conceived the pure instrumentality of mankind. There had been so much humanitarianism, so much talk of sufferings and feelings. It was ridiculous. The sufferings and feelings of individuals did not matter in the least. They were mere conditions, like the weather. What mattered was the pure instrumentality of the individual. As a man as of a knife: does it cut well? Nothing else mattered. Everything in the world has its function, and is good or not good in so far as it fulfils this function more or less perfectly. Was a miner a good miner? Then he was complete. Was a manager a good manager? That was enough. Gerald himself, who was responsible for all this industry, was he a good director? If he were, he had fulfilled his life. The rest was by-play. The mines were there, they were old. They were giving out, it did not pay to work the seams. There was talk of closing down two of them. It was at this point that Gerald arrived on the scene. He looked around. There lay the mines. They were old, obsolete. They were like old lions, no more good. He looked again. Pah! the mines were nothing but the clumsy efforts of impure minds. There they lay, abortions of a half-trained mind. Let the idea of them be swept away. He cleared his brain of them, and thought only of the coal in the under earth. How much was there? There was plenty of coal. The old workings could not get at it, that was all. Then break the neck of the old workings. The coal lay there in its seams, even though the seams were thin. There it lay, inert matter, as it had always lain, since the beginning of time, subject to the will of man. The will of man was the determining factor. Man was the archgod of earth. His mind was obedient to serve his will. Man�s will was the absolute, the only absolute. And it was his will to subjugate Matter to his own ends. The subjugation itself was the point, the fight was the be-all, the fruits of victory were mere results. It was not for the sake of money that Gerald took over the mines. He did not care about money, fundamentally. He was neither ostentatious nor luxurious, neither did he care about social position, not finally. What he wanted was the pure fulfilment of his own will in the struggle with the natural conditions. His will was now, to take the coal out of the earth, profitably. The profit was merely the condition of victory, but the victory itself lay in the feat achieved. He vibrated with zest before the challenge. Every day he was in the mines, examining, testing, he consulted experts, he gradually gathered the whole situation into his mind, as a general grasps the plan of his campaign. Then there was need for a complete break. The mines were run on an old system, an obsolete idea. The initial idea had been, to obtain as much money from the earth as would make the owners comfortably rich, would allow the workmen sufficient wages and good conditions, and would increase the wealth of the country altogether. Gerald�s father, following in the second generation, having a sufficient fortune, had thought only of the men. The mines, for him, were primarily great fields to produce bread and plenty for all the hundreds of human beings gathered about them. He had lived and striven with his fellow owners to benefit the men every time. And the men had been benefited in their fashion. There were few poor, and few needy. All was plenty, because the mines were good and easy to work. And the miners, in those days, finding themselves richer than they might have expected, felt glad and triumphant. They thought themselves well-off, they congratulated themselves on their good-fortune, they remembered how their fathers had starved and suffered, and they felt that better times had come. They were grateful to those others, the pioneers, the new owners, who had opened out the pits, and let forth this stream of plenty. But man is never satisfied, and so the miners, from gratitude to their owners, passed on to murmuring. Their sufficiency decreased with knowledge, they wanted more. Why should the master be so out-of-all-proportion rich? There was a crisis when Gerald was a boy, when the Masters� Federation closed down the mines because the men would not accept a reduction. This lock-out had forced home the new conditions to Thomas Crich. Belonging to the Federation, he had been compelled by his honour to close the pits against his men. He, the father, the Patriarch, was forced to deny the means of life to his sons, his people. He, the rich man who would hardly enter heaven because of his possessions, must now turn upon the poor, upon those who were nearer Christ than himself, those who were humble and despised and closer to perfection, those who were manly and noble in their labours, and must say to them: �Ye shall neither labour nor eat bread.� It was this recognition of the state of war which really broke his heart. He wanted his industry to be run on love. Oh, he wanted love to be the directing power even of the mines. And now, from under the cloak of love, the sword was cynically drawn, the sword of mechanical necessity. This really broke his heart. He must have the illusion and now the illusion was destroyed. The men were not against _him_, but they were against the masters. It was war, and willy nilly he found himself on the wrong side, in his own conscience. Seething masses of miners met daily, carried away by a new religious impulse. The idea flew through them: �All men are equal on earth,� and they would carry the idea to its material fulfilment. After all, is it not the teaching of Christ? And what is an idea, if not the germ of action in the material world. �All men are equal in spirit, they are all sons of God. Whence then this obvious _disquality_?� It was a religious creed pushed to its material conclusion. Thomas Crich at least had no answer. He could but admit, according to his sincere tenets, that the disquality was wrong. But he could not give up his goods, which were the stuff of disquality. So the men would fight for their rights. The last impulses of the last religious passion left on earth, the passion for equality, inspired them. Seething mobs of men marched about, their faces lighted up as for holy war, with a smoke of cupidity. How disentangle the passion for equality from the passion of cupidity, when begins the fight for equality of possessions? But the God was the machine. Each man claimed equality in the Godhead of the great productive machine. Every man equally was part of this Godhead. But somehow, somewhere, Thomas Crich knew this was false. When the machine is the Godhead, and production or work is worship, then the most mechanical mind is purest and highest, the representative of God on earth. And the rest are subordinate, each according to his degree. Riots broke out, Whatmore pit-head was in flames. This was the pit furthest in the country, near the woods. Soldiers came. From the windows of Shortlands, on that fatal day, could be seen the flare of fire in the sky not far off, and now the little colliery train, with the workmen�s carriages which were used to convey the miners to the distant Whatmore, was crossing the valley full of soldiers, full of redcoats. Then there was the far-off sound of firing, then the later news that the mob was dispersed, one man was shot dead, the fire was put out. Gerald, who was a boy, was filled with the wildest excitement and delight. He longed to go with the soldiers to shoot the men. But he was not allowed to go out of the lodge gates. At the gates were stationed sentries with guns. Gerald stood near them in delight, whilst gangs of derisive miners strolled up and down the lanes, calling and jeering: �Now then, three ha�porth o� coppers, let�s see thee shoot thy gun.� Insults were chalked on the walls and the fences, the servants left. And all this while Thomas Crich was breaking his heart, and giving away hundreds of pounds in charity. Everywhere there was free food, a surfeit of free food. Anybody could have bread for asking, and a loaf cost only three-ha�pence. Every day there was a free tea somewhere, the children had never had so many treats in their lives. On Friday afternoon great basketfuls of buns and cakes were taken into the schools, and great pitchers of milk, the schoolchildren had what they wanted. They were sick with eating too much cake and milk. And then it came to an end, and the men went back to work. But it was never the same as before. There was a new situation created, a new idea reigned. Even in the machine, there should be equality. No part should be subordinate to any other part: all should be equal. The instinct for chaos had entered. Mystic equality lies in abstraction, not in having or in doing, which are processes. In function and process, one man, one part, must of necessity be subordinate to another. It is a condition of being. But the desire for chaos had risen, and the idea of mechanical equality was the weapon of disruption which should execute the will of man, the will for chaos. Gerald was a boy at the time of the strike, but he longed to be a man, to fight the colliers. The father however was trapped between two half-truths, and broken. He wanted to be a pure Christian, one and equal with all men. He even wanted to give away all he had, to the poor. Yet he was a great promoter of industry, and he knew perfectly that he must keep his goods and keep his authority. This was as divine a necessity in him, as the need to give away all he possessed�more divine, even, since this was the necessity he acted upon. Yet because he did _not_ act on the other ideal, it dominated him, he was dying of chagrin because he must forfeit it. He wanted to be a father of loving kindness and sacrificial benevolence. The colliers shouted to him about his thousands a year. They would not be deceived. When Gerald grew up in the ways of the world, he shifted the position. He did not care about the equality. The whole Christian attitude of love and self-sacrifice was old hat. He knew that position and authority were the right thing in the world, and it was useless to cant about it. They were the right thing, for the simple reason that they were functionally necessary. They were not the be-all and the end-all. It was like being part of a machine. He himself happened to be a controlling, central part, the masses of men were the parts variously controlled. This was merely as it happened. As well get excited because a central hub drives a hundred outer wheels or because the whole universe wheels round the sun. After all, it would be mere silliness to say that the moon and the earth and Saturn and Jupiter and Venus have just as much right to be the centre of the universe, each of them separately, as the sun. Such an assertion is made merely in the desire of chaos. Without bothering to _think_ to a conclusion, Gerald jumped to a conclusion. He abandoned the whole democratic-equality problem as a problem of silliness. What mattered was the great social productive machine. Let that work perfectly, let it produce a sufficiency of everything, let every man be given a rational portion, greater or less according to his functional degree or magnitude, and then, provision made, let the devil supervene, let every man look after his own amusements and appetites, so long as he interfered with nobody. So Gerald set himself to work, to put the great industry in order. In his travels, and in his accompanying readings, he had come to the conclusion that the essential secret of life was harmony. He did not define to himself at all clearly what harmony was. The word pleased him, he felt he had come to his own conclusions. And he proceeded to put his philosophy into practice by forcing order into the established world, translating the mystic word harmony into the practical word organisation. Immediately he _saw_ the firm, he realised what he could do. He had a fight to fight with Matter, with the earth and the coal it enclosed. This was the sole idea, to turn upon the inanimate matter of the underground, and reduce it to his will. And for this fight with matter, one must have perfect instruments in perfect organisation, a mechanism so subtle and harmonious in its workings that it represents the single mind of man, and by its relentless repetition of given movement, will accomplish a purpose irresistibly, inhumanly. It was this inhuman principle in the mechanism he wanted to construct that inspired Gerald with an almost religious exaltation. He, the man, could interpose a perfect, changeless, godlike medium between himself and the Matter he had to subjugate. There were two opposites, his will and the resistant Matter of the earth. And between these he could establish the very expression of his will, the incarnation of his power, a great and perfect machine, a system, an activity of pure order, pure mechanical repetition, repetition _ad infinitum_, hence eternal and infinite. He found his eternal and his infinite in the pure machine-principle of perfect co-ordination into one pure, complex, infinitely repeated motion, like the spinning of a wheel; but a productive spinning, as the revolving of the universe may be called a productive spinning, a productive repetition through eternity, to infinity. And this is the God-motion, this productive repetition _ad infinitum_. And Gerald was the God of the machine, _Deus ex Machina_. And the whole productive will of man was the Godhead. He had his life-work now, to extend over the earth a great and perfect system in which the will of man ran smooth and unthwarted, timeless, a Godhead in process. He had to begin with the mines. The terms were given: first the resistant Matter of the underground; then the instruments of its subjugation, instruments human and metallic; and finally his own pure will, his own mind. It would need a marvellous adjustment of myriad instruments, human, animal, metallic, kinetic, dynamic, a marvellous casting of myriad tiny wholes into one great perfect entirety. And then, in this case there was perfection attained, the will of the highest was perfectly fulfilled, the will of mankind was perfectly enacted; for was not mankind mystically contra-distinguished against inanimate Matter, was not the history of mankind just the history of the conquest of the one by the other? The miners were overreached. While they were still in the toils of divine equality of man, Gerald had passed on, granted essentially their case, and proceeded in his quality of human being to fulfil the will of mankind as a whole. He merely represented the miners in a higher sense when he perceived that the only way to fulfil perfectly the will of man was to establish the perfect, inhuman machine. But he represented them very essentially, they were far behind, out of date, squabbling for their material equality. The desire had already transmuted into this new and greater desire, for a perfect intervening mechanism between man and Matter, the desire to translate the Godhead into pure mechanism. As soon as Gerald entered the firm, the convulsion of death ran through the old system. He had all his life been tortured by a furious and destructive demon, which possessed him sometimes like an insanity. This temper now entered like a virus into the firm, and there were cruel eruptions. Terrible and inhuman were his examinations into every detail; there was no privacy he would spare, no old sentiment but he would turn it over. The old grey managers, the old grey clerks, the doddering old pensioners, he looked at them, and removed them as so much lumber. The whole concern seemed like a hospital of invalid employees. He had no emotional qualms. He arranged what pensions were necessary, he looked for efficient substitutes, and when these were found, he substituted them for the old hands. �I�ve a pitiful letter here from Letherington,� his father would say, in a tone of deprecation and appeal. �Don�t you think the poor fellow might keep on a little longer. I always fancied he did very well.� �I�ve got a man in his place now, father. He�ll be happier out of it, believe me. You think his allowance is plenty, don�t you?� �It is not the allowance that he wants, poor man. He feels it very much, that he is superannuated. Says he thought he had twenty more years of work in him yet.� �Not of this kind of work I want. He doesn�t understand.� The father sighed. He wanted not to know any more. He believed the pits would have to be overhauled if they were to go on working. And after all, it would be worst in the long run for everybody, if they must close down. So he could make no answer to the appeals of his old and trusty servants, he could only repeat �Gerald says.� So the father drew more and more out of the light. The whole frame of the real life was broken for him. He had been right according to his lights. And his lights had been those of the great religion. Yet they seemed to have become obsolete, to be superseded in the world. He could not understand. He only withdrew with his lights into an inner room, into the silence. The beautiful candles of belief, that would not do to light the world any more, they would still burn sweetly and sufficiently in the inner room of his soul, and in the silence of his retirement. Gerald rushed into the reform of the firm, beginning with the office. It was needful to economise severely, to make possible the great alterations he must introduce. �What are these widows� coals?� he asked. �We have always allowed all widows of men who worked for the firm a load of coals every three months.� �They must pay cost price henceforward. The firm is not a charity institution, as everybody seems to think.� Widows, these stock figures of sentimental humanitarianism, he felt a dislike at the thought of them. They were almost repulsive. Why were they not immolated on the pyre of the husband, like the sati in India? At any rate, let them pay the cost of their coals. In a thousand ways he cut down the expenditure, in ways so fine as to be hardly noticeable to the men. The miners must pay for the cartage of their coals, heavy cartage too; they must pay for their tools, for the sharpening, for the care of lamps, for the many trifling things that made the bill of charges against every man mount up to a shilling or so in the week. It was not grasped very definitely by the miners, though they were sore enough. But it saved hundreds of pounds every week for the firm. Gradually Gerald got hold of everything. And then began the great reform. Expert engineers were introduced in every department. An enormous electric plant was installed, both for lighting and for haulage underground, and for power. The electricity was carried into every mine. New machinery was brought from America, such as the miners had never seen before, great iron men, as the cutting machines were called, and unusual appliances. The working of the pits was thoroughly changed, all the control was taken out of the hands of the miners, the butty system was abolished. Everything was run on the most accurate and delicate scientific method, educated and expert men were in control everywhere, the miners were reduced to mere mechanical instruments. They had to work hard, much harder than before, the work was terrible and heart-breaking in its mechanicalness. But they submitted to it all. The joy went out of their lives, the hope seemed to perish as they became more and more mechanised. And yet they accepted the new conditions. They even got a further satisfaction out of them. At first they hated Gerald Crich, they swore to do something to him, to murder him. But as time went on, they accepted everything with some fatal satisfaction. Gerald was their high priest, he represented the religion they really felt. His father was forgotten already. There was a new world, a new order, strict, terrible, inhuman, but satisfying in its very destructiveness. The men were satisfied to belong to the great and wonderful machine, even whilst it destroyed them. It was what they wanted. It was the highest that man had produced, the most wonderful and superhuman. They were exalted by belonging to this great and superhuman system which was beyond feeling or reason, something really godlike. Their hearts died within them, but their souls were satisfied. It was what they wanted. Otherwise Gerald could never have done what he did. He was just ahead of them in giving them what they wanted, this participation in a great and perfect system that subjected life to pure mathematical principles. This was a sort of freedom, the sort they really wanted. It was the first great step in undoing, the first great phase of chaos, the substitution of the mechanical principle for the organic, the destruction of the organic purpose, the organic unity, and the subordination of every organic unit to the great mechanical purpose. It was pure organic disintegration and pure mechanical organisation. This is the first and finest state of chaos. Gerald was satisfied. He knew the colliers said they hated him. But he had long ceased to hate them. When they streamed past him at evening, their heavy boots slurring on the pavement wearily, their shoulders slightly distorted, they took no notice of him, they gave him no greeting whatever, they passed in a grey-black stream of unemotional acceptance. They were not important to him, save as instruments, nor he to them, save as a supreme instrument of control. As miners they had their being, he had his being as director. He admired their qualities. But as men, personalities, they were just accidents, sporadic little unimportant phenomena. And tacitly, the men agreed to this. For Gerald agreed to it in himself. He had succeeded. He had converted the industry into a new and terrible purity. There was a greater output of coal than ever, the wonderful and delicate system ran almost perfectly. He had a set of really clever engineers, both mining and electrical, and they did not cost much. A highly educated man cost very little more than a workman. His managers, who were all rare men, were no more expensive than the old bungling fools of his father�s days, who were merely colliers promoted. His chief manager, who had twelve hundred a year, saved the firm at least five thousand. The whole system was now so perfect that Gerald was hardly necessary any more. It was so perfect that sometimes a strange fear came over him, and he did not know what to do. He went on for some years in a sort of trance of activity. What he was doing seemed supreme, he was almost like a divinity. He was a pure and exalted activity. But now he had succeeded�he had finally succeeded. And once or twice lately, when he was alone in the evening and had nothing to do, he had suddenly stood up in terror, not knowing what he was. And he went to the mirror and looked long and closely at his own face, at his own eyes, seeking for something. He was afraid, in mortal dry fear, but he knew not what of. He looked at his own face. There it was, shapely and healthy and the same as ever, yet somehow, it was not real, it was a mask. He dared not touch it, for fear it should prove to be only a composition mask. His eyes were blue and keen as ever, and as firm in their sockets. Yet he was not sure that they were not blue false bubbles that would burst in a moment and leave clear annihilation. He could see the darkness in them, as if they were only bubbles of darkness. He was afraid that one day he would break down and be a purely meaningless babble lapping round a darkness. But his will yet held good, he was able to go away and read, and think about things. He liked to read books about the primitive man, books of anthropology, and also works of speculative philosophy. His mind was very active. But it was like a bubble floating in the darkness. At any moment it might burst and leave him in chaos. He would not die. He knew that. He would go on living, but the meaning would have collapsed out of him, his divine reason would be gone. In a strangely indifferent, sterile way, he was frightened. But he could not react even to the fear. It was as if his centres of feeling were drying up. He remained calm, calculative and healthy, and quite freely deliberate, even whilst he felt, with faint, small but final sterile horror, that his mystic reason was breaking, giving way now, at this crisis. And it was a strain. He knew there was no equilibrium. He would have to go in some direction, shortly, to find relief. Only Birkin kept the fear definitely off him, saved him his quick sufficiency in life, by the odd mobility and changeableness which seemed to contain the quintessence of faith. But then Gerald must always come away from Birkin, as from a Church service, back to the outside real world of work and life. There it was, it did not alter, and words were futilities. He had to keep himself in reckoning with the world of work and material life. And it became more and more difficult, such a strange pressure was upon him, as if the very middle of him were a vacuum, and outside were an awful tension. He had found his most satisfactory relief in women. After a debauch with some desperate woman, he went on quite easy and forgetful. The devil of it was, it was so hard to keep up his interest in women nowadays. He didn�t care about them any more. A Pussum was all right in her way, but she was an exceptional case, and even she mattered extremely little. No, women, in that sense, were useless to him any more. He felt that his _mind_ needed acute stimulation, before he could be physically roused. CHAPTER XVIII. RABBIT Gudrun knew that it was a critical thing for her to go to Shortlands. She knew it was equivalent to accepting Gerald Crich as a lover. And though she hung back, disliking the condition, yet she knew she would go on. She equivocated. She said to herself, in torment recalling the blow and the kiss, �after all, what is it? What is a kiss? What even is a blow? It is an instant, vanished at once. I can go to Shortlands just for a time, before I go away, if only to see what it is like.� For she had an insatiable curiosity to see and to know everything. She also wanted to know what Winifred was really like. Having heard the child calling from the steamer in the night, she felt some mysterious connection with her. Gudrun talked with the father in the library. Then he sent for his daughter. She came accompanied by Mademoiselle. �Winnie, this is Miss Brangwen, who will be so kind as to help you with your drawing and making models of your animals,� said the father. The child looked at Gudrun for a moment with interest, before she came forward and with face averted offered her hand. There was a complete _sang-froid_ and indifference under Winifred�s childish reserve, a certain irresponsible callousness. �How do you do?� said the child, not lifting her face. �How do you do?� said Gudrun. Then Winifred stood aside, and Gudrun was introduced to Mademoiselle. �You have a fine day for your walk,� said Mademoiselle, in a bright manner. �_Quite_ fine,� said Gudrun. Winifred was watching from her distance. She was as if amused, but rather unsure as yet what this new person was like. She saw so many new persons, and so few who became real to her. Mademoiselle was of no count whatever, the child merely put up with her, calmly and easily, accepting her little authority with faint scorn, compliant out of childish arrogance of indifference. �Well, Winifred,� said the father, �aren�t you glad Miss Brangwen has come? She makes animals and birds in wood and in clay, that the people in London write about in the papers, praising them to the skies.� Winifred smiled slightly. �Who told you, Daddie?� she asked. �Who told me? Hermione told me, and Rupert Birkin.� �Do you know them?� Winifred asked of Gudrun, turning to her with faint challenge. �Yes,� said Gudrun. Winifred readjusted herself a little. She had been ready to accept Gudrun as a sort of servant. Now she saw it was on terms of friendship they were intended to meet. She was rather glad. She had so many half inferiors, whom she tolerated with perfect good-humour. Gudrun was very calm. She also did not take these things very seriously. A new occasion was mostly spectacular to her. However, Winifred was a detached, ironic child, she would never attach herself. Gudrun liked her and was intrigued by her. The first meetings went off with a certain humiliating clumsiness. Neither Winifred nor her instructress had any social grace. Soon, however, they met in a kind of make-belief world. Winifred did not notice human beings unless they were like herself, playful and slightly mocking. She would accept nothing but the world of amusement, and the serious people of her life were the animals she had for pets. On those she lavished, almost ironically, her affection and her companionship. To the rest of the human scheme she submitted with a faint bored indifference. She had a pekinese dog called Looloo, which she loved. �Let us draw Looloo,� said Gudrun, �and see if we can get his Looliness, shall we?� �Darling!� cried Winifred, rushing to the dog, that sat with contemplative sadness on the hearth, and kissing its bulging brow. �Darling one, will you be drawn? Shall its mummy draw its portrait?� Then she chuckled gleefully, and turning to Gudrun, said: �Oh let�s!� They proceeded to get pencils and paper, and were ready. �Beautifullest,� cried Winifred, hugging the dog, �sit still while its mummy draws its beautiful portrait.� The dog looked up at her with grievous resignation in its large, prominent eyes. She kissed it fervently, and said: �I wonder what mine will be like. It�s sure to be awful.� As she sketched she chuckled to herself, and cried out at times: �Oh darling, you�re so beautiful!� And again chuckling, she rushed to embrace the dog, in penitence, as if she were doing him some subtle injury. He sat all the time with the resignation and fretfulness of ages on his dark velvety face. She drew slowly, with a wicked concentration in her eyes, her head on one side, an intense stillness over her. She was as if working the spell of some enchantment. Suddenly she had finished. She looked at the dog, and then at her drawing, and then cried, with real grief for the dog, and at the same time with a wicked exultation: �My beautiful, why did they?� She took her paper to the dog, and held it under his nose. He turned his head aside as in chagrin and mortification, and she impulsively kissed his velvety bulging forehead. ��s a Loolie, �s a little Loozie! Look at his portrait, darling, look at his portrait, that his mother has done of him.� She looked at her paper and chuckled. Then, kissing the dog once more, she rose and came gravely to Gudrun, offering her the paper. It was a grotesque little diagram of a grotesque little animal, so wicked and so comical, a slow smile came over Gudrun�s face, unconsciously. And at her side Winifred chuckled with glee, and said: �It isn�t like him, is it? He�s much lovelier than that. He�s _so_ beautiful-mmm, Looloo, my sweet darling.� And she flew off to embrace the chagrined little dog. He looked up at her with reproachful, saturnine eyes, vanquished in his extreme agedness of being. Then she flew back to her drawing, and chuckled with satisfaction. �It isn�t like him, is it?� she said to Gudrun. �Yes, it�s very like him,� Gudrun replied. The child treasured her drawing, carried it about with her, and showed it, with a silent embarrassment, to everybody. �Look,� she said, thrusting the paper into her father�s hand. �Why that�s Looloo!� he exclaimed. And he looked down in surprise, hearing the almost inhuman chuckle of the child at his side. Gerald was away from home when Gudrun first came to Shortlands. But the first morning he came back he watched for her. It was a sunny, soft morning, and he lingered in the garden paths, looking at the flowers that had come out during his absence. He was clean and fit as ever, shaven, his fair hair scrupulously parted at the side, bright in the sunshine, his short, fair moustache closely clipped, his eyes with their humorous kind twinkle, which was so deceptive. He was dressed in black, his clothes sat well on his well-nourished body. Yet as he lingered before the flower-beds in the morning sunshine, there was a certain isolation, a fear about him, as of something wanting. Gudrun came up quickly, unseen. She was dressed in blue, with woollen yellow stockings, like the Bluecoat boys. He glanced up in surprise. Her stockings always disconcerted him, the pale-yellow stockings and the heavy heavy black shoes. Winifred, who had been playing about the garden with Mademoiselle and the dogs, came flitting towards Gudrun. The child wore a dress of black-and-white stripes. Her hair was rather short, cut round and hanging level in her neck. �We�re going to do Bismarck, aren�t we?� she said, linking her hand through Gudrun�s arm. �Yes, we�re going to do Bismarck. Do you want to?� �Oh yes-oh I do! I want most awfully to do Bismarck. He looks _so_ splendid this morning, so _fierce_. He�s almost as big as a lion.� And the child chuckled sardonically at her own hyperbole. �He�s a real king, he really is.� �_Bonjour, Mademoiselle,_� said the little French governess, wavering up with a slight bow, a bow of the sort that Gudrun loathed, insolent. �_Winifred veut tant faire le portrait de Bismarck�! Oh, mais toute la matiné_e��We will do Bismarck this morning!��_Bismarck, Bismarck, toujours Bismarck! C�est un lapin, n�est-ce pas, mademoiselle?_� �_Oui, c�est un grand lapin blanc et noir. Vous ne l�avez pas vu?_� said Gudrun in her good, but rather heavy French. �_Non, mademoiselle, Winifred n�a jamais voulu me le faire voir. Tant de fois je le lui ai demandé, �Qu�est ce donc que ce Bismarck, Winifred?� Mais elle n�a pas voulu me le dire. Son Bismarck, c�etait un mystère._� �_Oui, c�est un mystère, vraiment un mystère!_ Miss Brangwen, say that Bismarck is a mystery,� cried Winifred. �Bismarck, is a mystery, _Bismarck, c�est un mystère, der Bismarck, er ist ein Wunder_,� said Gudrun, in mocking incantation. �_Ja, er ist ein Wunder_,� repeated Winifred, with odd seriousness, under which lay a wicked chuckle. �_Ist er auch ein Wunder?_� came the slightly insolent sneering of Mademoiselle. �_Doch!_� said Winifred briefly, indifferent. �_Doch ist er nicht ein König._ Beesmarck, he was not a king, Winifred, as you have said. He was only�_il n�était que chancelier._� �_Qu�est ce qu�un chancelier?_� said Winifred, with slightly contemptuous indifference. �A _chancelier_ is a chancellor, and a chancellor is, I believe, a sort of judge,� said Gerald coming up and shaking hands with Gudrun. �You�ll have made a song of Bismarck soon,� said he. Mademoiselle waited, and discreetly made her inclination, and her greeting. �So they wouldn�t let you see Bismarck, Mademoiselle?� he said. �_Non, Monsieur._� �Ay, very mean of them. What are you going to do to him, Miss Brangwen? I want him sent to the kitchen and cooked.� �Oh no,� cried Winifred. �We�re going to draw him,� said Gudrun. �Draw him and quarter him and dish him up,� he said, being purposely fatuous. �Oh no,� cried Winifred with emphasis, chuckling. Gudrun detected the tang of mockery in him, and she looked up and smiled into his face. He felt his nerves caressed. Their eyes met in knowledge. �How do you like Shortlands?� he asked. �Oh, very much,� she said, with nonchalance. �Glad you do. Have you noticed these flowers?� He led her along the path. She followed intently. Winifred came, and the governess lingered in the rear. They stopped before some veined salpiglossis flowers. �Aren�t they wonderful?� she cried, looking at them absorbedly. Strange how her reverential, almost ecstatic admiration of the flowers caressed his nerves. She stooped down, and touched the trumpets, with infinitely fine and delicate-touching finger-tips. It filled him with ease to see her. When she rose, her eyes, hot with the beauty of the flowers, looked into his. �What are they?� she asked. �Sort of petunia, I suppose,� he answered. �I don�t really know them.� �They are quite strangers to me,� she said. They stood together in a false intimacy, a nervous contact. And he was in love with her. She was aware of Mademoiselle standing near, like a little French beetle, observant and calculating. She moved away with Winifred, saying they would go to find Bismarck. Gerald watched them go, looking all the while at the soft, full, still body of Gudrun, in its silky cashmere. How silky and rich and soft her body must be. An excess of appreciation came over his mind, she was the all-desirable, the all-beautiful. He wanted only to come to her, nothing more. He was only this, this being that should come to her, and be given to her. At the same time he was finely and acutely aware of Mademoiselle�s neat, brittle finality of form. She was like some elegant beetle with thin ankles, perched on her high heels, her glossy black dress perfectly correct, her dark hair done high and admirably. How repulsive her completeness and her finality was! He loathed her. Yet he did admire her. She was perfectly correct. And it did rather annoy him, that Gudrun came dressed in startling colours, like a macaw, when the family was in mourning. Like a macaw she was! He watched the lingering way she took her feet from the ground. And her ankles were pale yellow, and her dress a deep blue. Yet it pleased him. It pleased him very much. He felt the challenge in her very attire�she challenged the whole world. And he smiled as to the note of a trumpet. Gudrun and Winifred went through the house to the back, where were the stables and the out-buildings. Everywhere was still and deserted. Mr Crich had gone out for a short drive, the stableman had just led round Gerald�s horse. The two girls went to the hutch that stood in a corner, and looked at the great black-and-white rabbit. �Isn�t he beautiful! Oh, do look at him listening! Doesn�t he look silly!� she laughed quickly, then added �Oh, do let�s do him listening, do let us, he listens with so much of himself;�don�t you darling Bismarck?� �Can we take him out?� said Gudrun. �He�s very strong. He really is extremely strong.� She looked at Gudrun, her head on one side, in odd calculating mistrust. �But we�ll try, shall we?� �Yes, if you like. But he�s a fearful kicker!� They took the key to unlock the door. The rabbit exploded in a wild rush round the hutch. �He scratches most awfully sometimes,� cried Winifred in excitement. �Oh do look at him, isn�t he wonderful!� The rabbit tore round the hutch in a hurry. �Bismarck!� cried the child, in rousing excitement. �How _dreadful_ you are! You are beastly.� Winifred looked up at Gudrun with some misgiving in her wild excitement. Gudrun smiled sardonically with her mouth. Winifred made a strange crooning noise of unaccountable excitement. �Now he�s still!� she cried, seeing the rabbit settled down in a far corner of the hutch. �Shall we take him now?� she whispered excitedly, mysteriously, looking up at Gudrun and edging very close. �Shall we get him now?�� she chuckled wickedly to herself. They unlocked the door of the hutch. Gudrun thrust in her arm and seized the great, lusty rabbit as it crouched still, she grasped its long ears. It set its four feet flat, and thrust back. There was a long scraping sound as it was hauled forward, and in another instant it was in mid-air, lunging wildly, its body flying like a spring coiled and released, as it lashed out, suspended from the ears. Gudrun held the black-and-white tempest at arms� length, averting her face. But the rabbit was magically strong, it was all she could do to keep her grasp. She almost lost her presence of mind. �Bismarck, Bismarck, you are behaving terribly,� said Winifred in a rather frightened voice, �Oh, do put him down, he�s beastly.� Gudrun stood for a moment astounded by the thunder-storm that had sprung into being in her grip. Then her colour came up, a heavy rage came over her like a cloud. She stood shaken as a house in a storm, and utterly overcome. Her heart was arrested with fury at the mindlessness and the bestial stupidity of this struggle, her wrists were badly scored by the claws of the beast, a heavy cruelty welled up in her. Gerald came round as she was trying to capture the flying rabbit under her arm. He saw, with subtle recognition, her sullen passion of cruelty. �You should let one of the men do that for you,� he said hurrying up. �Oh, he�s _so_ horrid!� cried Winifred, almost frantic. He held out his nervous, sinewy hand and took the rabbit by the ears, from Gudrun. �It�s most _fearfully_ strong,� she cried, in a high voice, like the crying a seagull, strange and vindictive. The rabbit made itself into a ball in the air, and lashed out, flinging itself into a bow. It really seemed demoniacal. Gudrun saw Gerald�s body tighten, saw a sharp blindness come into his eyes. �I know these beggars of old,� he said. The long, demon-like beast lashed out again, spread on the air as if it were flying, looking something like a dragon, then closing up again, inconceivably powerful and explosive. The man�s body, strung to its efforts, vibrated strongly. Then a sudden sharp, white-edged wrath came up in him. Swift as lightning he drew back and brought his free hand down like a hawk on the neck of the rabbit. Simultaneously, there came the unearthly abhorrent scream of a rabbit in the fear of death. It made one immense writhe, tore his wrists and his sleeves in a final convulsion, all its belly flashed white in a whirlwind of paws, and then he had slung it round and had it under his arm, fast. It cowered and skulked. His face was gleaming with a smile. �You wouldn�t think there was all that force in a rabbit,� he said, looking at Gudrun. And he saw her eyes black as night in her pallid face, she looked almost unearthly. The scream of the rabbit, after the violent tussle, seemed to have torn the veil of her consciousness. He looked at her, and the whitish, electric gleam in his face intensified. �I don�t really like him,� Winifred was crooning. �I don�t care for him as I do for Loozie. He�s hateful really.� A smile twisted Gudrun�s face, as she recovered. She knew she was revealed. �Don�t they make the most fearful noise when they scream?� she cried, the high note in her voice, like a seagull�s cry. �Abominable,� he said. �He shouldn�t be so silly when he has to be taken out,� Winifred was saying, putting out her hand and touching the rabbit tentatively, as it skulked under his arm, motionless as if it were dead. �He�s not dead, is he Gerald?� she asked. �No, he ought to be,� he said. �Yes, he ought!� cried the child, with a sudden flush of amusement. And she touched the rabbit with more confidence. �His heart is beating _so_ fast. Isn�t he funny? He really is.� �Where do you want him?� asked Gerald. �In the little green court,� she said. Gudrun looked at Gerald with strange, darkened eyes, strained with underworld knowledge, almost supplicating, like those of a creature which is at his mercy, yet which is his ultimate victor. He did not know what to say to her. He felt the mutual hellish recognition. And he felt he ought to say something, to cover it. He had the power of lightning in his nerves, she seemed like a soft recipient of his magical, hideous white fire. He was unconfident, he had qualms of fear. �Did he hurt you?� he asked. �No,� she said. �He�s an insensible beast,� he said, turning his face away. They came to the little court, which was shut in by old red walls in whose crevices wall-flowers were growing. The grass was soft and fine and old, a level floor carpeting the court, the sky was blue overhead. Gerald tossed the rabbit down. It crouched still and would not move. Gudrun watched it with faint horror. �Why doesn�t it move?� she cried. �It�s skulking,� he said. She looked up at him, and a slight sinister smile contracted her white face. �Isn�t it a _fool!_� she cried. �Isn�t it a sickening _fool?_� The vindictive mockery in her voice made his brain quiver. Glancing up at him, into his eyes, she revealed again the mocking, white-cruel recognition. There was a league between them, abhorrent to them both. They were implicated with each other in abhorrent mysteries. �How many scratches have you?� he asked, showing his hard forearm, white and hard and torn in red gashes. �How really vile!� she cried, flushing with a sinister vision. �Mine is nothing.� She lifted her arm and showed a deep red score down the silken white flesh. �What a devil!� he exclaimed. But it was as if he had had knowledge of her in the long red rent of her forearm, so silken and soft. He did not want to touch her. He would have to make himself touch her, deliberately. The long, shallow red rip seemed torn across his own brain, tearing the surface of his ultimate consciousness, letting through the forever unconscious, unthinkable red ether of the beyond, the obscene beyond. �It doesn�t hurt you very much, does it?� he asked, solicitous. �Not at all,� she cried. And suddenly the rabbit, which had been crouching as if it were a flower, so still and soft, suddenly burst into life. Round and round the court it went, as if shot from a gun, round and round like a furry meteorite, in a tense hard circle that seemed to bind their brains. They all stood in amazement, smiling uncannily, as if the rabbit were obeying some unknown incantation. Round and round it flew, on the grass under the old red walls like a storm. And then quite suddenly it settled down, hobbled among the grass, and sat considering, its nose twitching like a bit of fluff in the wind. After having considered for a few minutes, a soft bunch with a black, open eye, which perhaps was looking at them, perhaps was not, it hobbled calmly forward and began to nibble the grass with that mean motion of a rabbit�s quick eating. �It�s mad,� said Gudrun. �It is most decidedly mad.� He laughed. �The question is,� he said, �what is madness? I don�t suppose it is rabbit-mad.� �Don�t you think it is?� she asked. �No. That�s what it is to be a rabbit.� There was a queer, faint, obscene smile over his face. She looked at him and saw him, and knew that he was initiate as she was initiate. This thwarted her, and contravened her, for the moment. �God be praised we aren�t rabbits,� she said, in a high, shrill voice. The smile intensified a little, on his face. �Not rabbits?� he said, looking at her fixedly. Slowly her face relaxed into a smile of obscene recognition. �Ah Gerald,� she said, in a strong, slow, almost man-like way. ��All that, and more.� Her eyes looked up at him with shocking nonchalance. He felt again as if she had torn him across the breast, dully, finally. He turned aside. �Eat, eat my darling!� Winifred was softly conjuring the rabbit, and creeping forward to touch it. It hobbled away from her. �Let its mother stroke its fur then, darling, because it is so mysterious�� CHAPTER XIX. MOONY After his illness Birkin went to the south of France for a time. He did not write, nobody heard anything of him. Ursula, left alone, felt as if everything were lapsing out. There seemed to be no hope in the world. One was a tiny little rock with the tide of nothingness rising higher and higher She herself was real, and only herself�just like a rock in a wash of flood-water. The rest was all nothingness. She was hard and indifferent, isolated in herself. There was nothing for it now, but contemptuous, resistant indifference. All the world was lapsing into a grey wish-wash of nothingness, she had no contact and no connection anywhere. She despised and detested the whole show. From the bottom of her heart, from the bottom of her soul, she despised and detested people, adult people. She loved only children and animals: children she loved passionately, but coldly. They made her want to hug them, to protect them, to give them life. But this very love, based on pity and despair, was only a bondage and a pain to her. She loved best of all the animals, that were single and unsocial as she herself was. She loved the horses and cows in the field. Each was single and to itself, magical. It was not referred away to some detestable social principle. It was incapable of soulfulness and tragedy, which she detested so profoundly. She could be very pleasant and flattering, almost subservient, to people she met. But no one was taken in. Instinctively each felt her contemptuous mockery of the human being in himself, or herself. She had a profound grudge against the human being. That which the word �human� stood for was despicable and repugnant to her. Mostly her heart was closed in this hidden, unconscious strain of contemptuous ridicule. She thought she loved, she thought she was full of love. This was her idea of herself. But the strange brightness of her presence, a marvellous radiance of intrinsic vitality, was a luminousness of supreme repudiation, nothing but repudiation. Yet, at moments, she yielded and softened, she wanted pure love, only pure love. This other, this state of constant unfailing repudiation, was a strain, a suffering also. A terrible desire for pure love overcame her again. She went out one evening, numbed by this constant essential suffering. Those who are timed for destruction must die now. The knowledge of this reached a finality, a finishing in her. And the finality released her. If fate would carry off in death or downfall all those who were timed to go, why need she trouble, why repudiate any further. She was free of it all, she could seek a new union elsewhere. Ursula set off to Willey Green, towards the mill. She came to Willey Water. It was almost full again, after its period of emptiness. Then she turned off through the woods. The night had fallen, it was dark. But she forgot to be afraid, she who had such great sources of fear. Among the trees, far from any human beings, there was a sort of magic peace. The more one could find a pure loneliness, with no taint of people, the better one felt. She was in reality terrified, horrified in her apprehension of people. She started, noticing something on her right hand, between the tree trunks. It was like a great presence, watching her, dodging her. She started violently. It was only the moon, risen through the thin trees. But it seemed so mysterious, with its white and deathly smile. And there was no avoiding it. Night or day, one could not escape the sinister face, triumphant and radiant like this moon, with a high smile. She hurried on, cowering from the white planet. She would just see the pond at the mill before she went home. Not wanting to go through the yard, because of the dogs, she turned off along the hill-side to descend on the pond from above. The moon was transcendent over the bare, open space, she suffered from being exposed to it. There was a glimmer of nightly rabbits across the ground. The night was as clear as crystal, and very still. She could hear a distant coughing of a sheep. So she swerved down to the steep, tree-hidden bank above the pond, where the alders twisted their roots. She was glad to pass into the shade out of the moon. There she stood, at the top of the fallen-away bank, her hand on the rough trunk of a tree, looking at the water, that was perfect in its stillness, floating the moon upon it. But for some reason she disliked it. It did not give her anything. She listened for the hoarse rustle of the sluice. And she wished for something else out of the night, she wanted another night, not this moon-brilliant hardness. She could feel her soul crying out in her, lamenting desolately. She saw a shadow moving by the water. It would be Birkin. He had come back then, unawares. She accepted it without remark, nothing mattered to her. She sat down among the roots of the alder tree, dim and veiled, hearing the sound of the sluice like dew distilling audibly into the night. The islands were dark and half revealed, the reeds were dark also, only some of them had a little frail fire of reflection. A fish leaped secretly, revealing the light in the pond. This fire of the chill night breaking constantly on to the pure darkness, repelled her. She wished it were perfectly dark, perfectly, and noiseless and without motion. Birkin, small and dark also, his hair tinged with moonlight, wandered nearer. He was quite near, and yet he did not exist in her. He did not know she was there. Supposing he did something he would not wish to be seen doing, thinking he was quite private? But there, what did it matter? What did the small privacies matter? How could it matter, what he did? How can there be any secrets, we are all the same organisms? How can there be any secrecy, when everything is known to all of us? He was touching unconsciously the dead husks of flowers as he passed by, and talking disconnectedly to himself. �You can�t go away,� he was saying. �There _is_ no away. You only withdraw upon yourself.� He threw a dead flower-husk on to the water. �An antiphony�they lie, and you sing back to them. There wouldn�t have to be any truth, if there weren�t any lies. Then one needn�t assert anything�� He stood still, looking at the water, and throwing upon it the husks of the flowers. �Cybele�curse her! The accursed Syria Dea! Does one begrudge it her? What else is there�?� Ursula wanted to laugh loudly and hysterically, hearing his isolated voice speaking out. It was so ridiculous. He stood staring at the water. Then he stooped and picked up a stone, which he threw sharply at the pond. Ursula was aware of the bright moon leaping and swaying, all distorted, in her eyes. It seemed to shoot out arms of fire like a cuttle-fish, like a luminous polyp, palpitating strongly before her. And his shadow on the border of the pond, was watching for a few moments, then he stooped and groped on the ground. Then again there was a burst of sound, and a burst of brilliant light, the moon had exploded on the water, and was flying asunder in flakes of white and dangerous fire. Rapidly, like white birds, the fires all broken rose across the pond, fleeing in clamorous confusion, battling with the flock of dark waves that were forcing their way in. The furthest waves of light, fleeing out, seemed to be clamouring against the shore for escape, the waves of darkness came in heavily, running under towards the centre. But at the centre, the heart of all, was still a vivid, incandescent quivering of a white moon not quite destroyed, a white body of fire writhing and striving and not even now broken open, not yet violated. It seemed to be drawing itself together with strange, violent pangs, in blind effort. It was getting stronger, it was re-asserting itself, the inviolable moon. And the rays were hastening in in thin lines of light, to return to the strengthened moon, that shook upon the water in triumphant reassumption. Birkin stood and watched, motionless, till the pond was almost calm, the moon was almost serene. Then, satisfied of so much, he looked for more stones. She felt his invisible tenacity. And in a moment again, the broken lights scattered in explosion over her face, dazzling her; and then, almost immediately, came the second shot. The moon leapt up white and burst through the air. Darts of bright light shot asunder, darkness swept over the centre. There was no moon, only a battlefield of broken lights and shadows, running close together. Shadows, dark and heavy, struck again and again across the place where the heart of the moon had been, obliterating it altogether. The white fragments pulsed up and down, and could not find where to go, apart and brilliant on the water like the petals of a rose that a wind has blown far and wide. Yet again, they were flickering their way to the centre, finding the path blindly, enviously. And again, all was still, as Birkin and Ursula watched. The waters were loud on the shore. He saw the moon regathering itself insidiously, saw the heart of the rose intertwining vigorously and blindly, calling back the scattered fragments, winning home the fragments, in a pulse and in effort of return. And he was not satisfied. Like a madness, he must go on. He got large stones, and threw them, one after the other, at the white-burning centre of the moon, till there was nothing but a rocking of hollow noise, and a pond surged up, no moon any more, only a few broken flakes tangled and glittering broadcast in the darkness, without aim or meaning, a darkened confusion, like a black and white kaleidoscope tossed at random. The hollow night was rocking and crashing with noise, and from the sluice came sharp, regular flashes of sound. Flakes of light appeared here and there, glittering tormented among the shadows, far off, in strange places; among the dripping shadow of the willow on the island. Birkin stood and listened and was satisfied. Ursula was dazed, her mind was all gone. She felt she had fallen to the ground and was spilled out, like water on the earth. Motionless and spent she remained in the gloom. Though even now she was aware, unseeing, that in the darkness was a little tumult of ebbing flakes of light, a cluster dancing secretly in a round, twining and coming steadily together. They were gathering a heart again, they were coming once more into being. Gradually the fragments caught together re-united, heaving, rocking, dancing, falling back as in panic, but working their way home again persistently, making semblance of fleeing away when they had advanced, but always flickering nearer, a little closer to the mark, the cluster growing mysteriously larger and brighter, as gleam after gleam fell in with the whole, until a ragged rose, a distorted, frayed moon was shaking upon the waters again, re-asserted, renewed, trying to recover from its convulsion, to get over the disfigurement and the agitation, to be whole and composed, at peace. Birkin lingered vaguely by the water. Ursula was afraid that he would stone the moon again. She slipped from her seat and went down to him, saying: �You won�t throw stones at it any more, will you?� �How long have you been there?� �All the time. You won�t throw any more stones, will you?� �I wanted to see if I could make it be quite gone off the pond,� he said. �Yes, it was horrible, really. Why should you hate the moon? It hasn�t done you any harm, has it?� �Was it hate?� he said. And they were silent for a few minutes. �When did you come back?� she said. �Today.� �Why did you never write?� �I could find nothing to say.� �Why was there nothing to say?� �I don�t know. Why are there no daffodils now?� �No.� Again there was a space of silence. Ursula looked at the moon. It had gathered itself together, and was quivering slightly. �Was it good for you, to be alone?� she asked. �Perhaps. Not that I know much. But I got over a good deal. Did you do anything important?� �No. I looked at England, and thought I�d done with it.� �Why England?� he asked in surprise. �I don�t know, it came like that.� �It isn�t a question of nations,� he said. �France is far worse.� �Yes, I know. I felt I�d done with it all.� They went and sat down on the roots of the trees, in the shadow. And being silent, he remembered the beauty of her eyes, which were sometimes filled with light, like spring, suffused with wonderful promise. So he said to her, slowly, with difficulty: �There is a golden light in you, which I wish you would give me.� It was as if he had been thinking of this for some time. She was startled, she seemed to leap clear of him. Yet also she was pleased. �What kind of a light,� she asked. But he was shy, and did not say any more. So the moment passed for this time. And gradually a feeling of sorrow came over her. �My life is unfulfilled,� she said. �Yes,� he answered briefly, not wanting to hear this. �And I feel as if nobody could ever really love me,� she said. But he did not answer. �You think, don�t you,� she said slowly, �that I only want physical things? It isn�t true. I want you to serve my spirit.� �I know you do. I know you don�t want physical things by themselves. But, I want you to give me�to give your spirit to me�that golden light which is you�which you don�t know�give it me�� After a moment�s silence she replied: �But how can I, you don�t love me! You only want your own ends. You don�t want to serve _me_, and yet you want me to serve you. It is so one-sided!� It was a great effort to him to maintain this conversation, and to press for the thing he wanted from her, the surrender of her spirit. �It is different,� he said. �The two kinds of service are so different. I serve you in another way�not through _yourself_�somewhere else. But I want us to be together without bothering about ourselves�to be really together because we _are_ together, as if it were a phenomenon, not a not a thing we have to maintain by our own effort.� �No,� she said, pondering. �You are just egocentric. You never have any enthusiasm, you never come out with any spark towards me. You want yourself, really, and your own affairs. And you want me just to be there, to serve you.� But this only made him shut off from her. �Ah well,� he said, �words make no matter, any way. The thing _is_ between us, or it isn�t.� �You don�t even love me,� she cried. �I do,� he said angrily. �But I want�� His mind saw again the lovely golden light of spring transfused through her eyes, as through some wonderful window. And he wanted her to be with him there, in this world of proud indifference. But what was the good of telling her he wanted this company in proud indifference. What was the good of talking, any way? It must happen beyond the sound of words. It was merely ruinous to try to work her by conviction. This was a paradisal bird that could never be netted, it must fly by itself to the heart. �I always think I am going to be loved�and then I am let down. You _don�t_ love me, you know. You don�t want to serve me. You only want yourself.� A shiver of rage went over his veins, at this repeated: �You don�t want to serve me.� All the paradisal disappeared from him. �No,� he said, irritated, �I don�t want to serve you, because there is nothing there to serve. What you want me to serve, is nothing, mere nothing. It isn�t even you, it is your mere female quality. And I wouldn�t give a straw for your female ego�it�s a rag doll.� �Ha!� she laughed in mockery. �That�s all you think of me, is it? And then you have the impudence to say you love me.� She rose in anger, to go home. You want the paradisal unknowing,� she said, turning round on him as he still sat half-visible in the shadow. �I know what that means, thank you. You want me to be your thing, never to criticise you or to have anything to say for myself. You want me to be a mere _thing_ for you! No thank you! _If_ you want that, there are plenty of women who will give it to you. There are plenty of women who will lie down for you to walk over them�_go_ to them then, if that�s what you want�go to them.� �No,� he said, outspoken with anger. �I want you to drop your assertive _will_, your frightened apprehensive self-insistence, that is what I want. I want you to trust yourself so implicitly, that you can let yourself go.� �Let myself go!� she re-echoed in mockery. �I can let myself go, easily enough. It is you who can�t let yourself go, it is you who hang on to yourself as if it were your only treasure. _You�you_ are the Sunday school teacher�_You_�you preacher.� The amount of truth that was in this made him stiff and unheeding of her. �I don�t mean let yourself go in the Dionysic ecstatic way,� he said. �I know you can do that. But I hate ecstasy, Dionysic or any other. It�s like going round in a squirrel cage. I want you not to care about yourself, just to be there and not to care about yourself, not to insist�be glad and sure and indifferent.� �Who insists?� she mocked. �Who is it that keeps on insisting? It isn�t _me!_� There was a weary, mocking bitterness in her voice. He was silent for some time. �I know,� he said. �While ever either of us insists to the other, we are all wrong. But there we are, the accord doesn�t come.� They sat in stillness under the shadow of the trees by the bank. The night was white around them, they were in the darkness, barely conscious. Gradually, the stillness and peace came over them. She put her hand tentatively on his. Their hands clasped softly and silently, in peace. �Do you really love me?� she said. He laughed. �I call that your war-cry,� he replied, amused. �Why!� she cried, amused and really wondering. �Your insistence�Your war-cry��A Brangwen, A Brangwen��an old battle-cry. Yours is, �Do you love me? Yield knave, or die.�� �No,� she said, pleading, �not like that. Not like that. But I must know that you love me, mustn�t I?� �Well then, know it and have done with it.� �But do you?� �Yes, I do. I love you, and I know it�s final. It is final, so why say any more about it.� She was silent for some moments, in delight and doubt. �Are you sure?� she said, nestling happily near to him. �Quite sure�so now have done�accept it and have done.� She was nestled quite close to him. �Have done with what?� she murmured, happily. �With bothering,� he said. She clung nearer to him. He held her close, and kissed her softly, gently. It was such peace and heavenly freedom, just to fold her and kiss her gently, and not to have any thoughts or any desires or any will, just to be still with her, to be perfectly still and together, in a peace that was not sleep, but content in bliss. To be content in bliss, without desire or insistence anywhere, this was heaven: to be together in happy stillness. For a long time she nestled to him, and he kissed her softly, her hair, her face, her ears, gently, softly, like dew falling. But this warm breath on her ears disturbed her again, kindled the old destructive fires. She cleaved to him, and he could feel his blood changing like quicksilver. �But we�ll be still, shall we?� he said. �Yes,� she said, as if submissively. And she continued to nestle against him. But in a little while she drew away and looked at him. �I must be going home,� she said. �Must you�how sad,� he replied. She leaned forward and put up her mouth to be kissed. �Are you really sad?� she murmured, smiling. �Yes,� he said, �I wish we could stay as we were, always.� �Always! Do you?� she murmured, as he kissed her. And then, out of a full throat, she crooned �Kiss me! Kiss me!� And she cleaved close to him. He kissed her many times. But he too had his idea and his will. He wanted only gentle communion, no other, no passion now. So that soon she drew away, put on her hat and went home. The next day however, he felt wistful and yearning. He thought he had been wrong, perhaps. Perhaps he had been wrong to go to her with an idea of what he wanted. Was it really only an idea, or was it the interpretation of a profound yearning? If the latter, how was it he was always talking about sensual fulfilment? The two did not agree very well. Suddenly he found himself face to face with a situation. It was as simple as this: fatally simple. On the one hand, he knew he did not want a further sensual experience�something deeper, darker, than ordinary life could give. He remembered the African fetishes he had seen at Halliday�s so often. There came back to him one, a statuette about two feet high, a tall, slim, elegant figure from West Africa, in dark wood, glossy and suave. It was a woman, with hair dressed high, like a melon-shaped dome. He remembered her vividly: she was one of his soul�s intimates. Her body was long and elegant, her face was crushed tiny like a beetle�s, she had rows of round heavy collars, like a column of quoits, on her neck. He remembered her: her astonishing cultured elegance, her diminished, beetle face, the astounding long elegant body, on short, ugly legs, with such protuberant buttocks, so weighty and unexpected below her slim long loins. She knew what he himself did not know. She had thousands of years of purely sensual, purely unspiritual knowledge behind her. It must have been thousands of years since her race had died, mystically: that is, since the relation between the senses and the outspoken mind had broken, leaving the experience all in one sort, mystically sensual. Thousands of years ago, that which was imminent in himself must have taken place in these Africans: the goodness, the holiness, the desire for creation and productive happiness must have lapsed, leaving the single impulse for knowledge in one sort, mindless progressive knowledge through the senses, knowledge arrested and ending in the senses, mystic knowledge in disintegration and dissolution, knowledge such as the beetles have, which live purely within the world of corruption and cold dissolution. This was why her face looked like a beetle�s: this was why the Egyptians worshipped the ball-rolling scarab: because of the principle of knowledge in dissolution and corruption. There is a long way we can travel, after the death-break: after that point when the soul in intense suffering breaks, breaks away from its organic hold like a leaf that falls. We fall from the connection with life and hope, we lapse from pure integral being, from creation and liberty, and we fall into the long, long African process of purely sensual understanding, knowledge in the mystery of dissolution. He realised now that this is a long process�thousands of years it takes, after the death of the creative spirit. He realised that there were great mysteries to be unsealed, sensual, mindless, dreadful mysteries, far beyond the phallic cult. How far, in their inverted culture, had these West Africans gone beyond phallic knowledge? Very, very far. Birkin recalled again the female figure: the elongated, long, long body, the curious unexpected heavy buttocks, the long, imprisoned neck, the face with tiny features like a beetle�s. This was far beyond any phallic knowledge, sensual subtle realities far beyond the scope of phallic investigation. There remained this way, this awful African process, to be fulfilled. It would be done differently by the white races. The white races, having the arctic north behind them, the vast abstraction of ice and snow, would fulfil a mystery of ice-destructive knowledge, snow-abstract annihilation. Whereas the West Africans, controlled by the burning death-abstraction of the Sahara, had been fulfilled in sun-destruction, the putrescent mystery of sun-rays. Was this then all that remained? Was there left now nothing but to break off from the happy creative being, was the time up? Is our day of creative life finished? Does there remain to us only the strange, awful afterwards of the knowledge in dissolution, the African knowledge, but different in us, who are blond and blue-eyed from the north? Birkin thought of Gerald. He was one of these strange white wonderful demons from the north, fulfilled in the destructive frost mystery. And was he fated to pass away in this knowledge, this one process of frost-knowledge, death by perfect cold? Was he a messenger, an omen of the universal dissolution into whiteness and snow? Birkin was frightened. He was tired too, when he had reached this length of speculation. Suddenly his strange, strained attention gave way, he could not attend to these mysteries any more. There was another way, the way of freedom. There was the paradisal entry into pure, single being, the individual soul taking precedence over love and desire for union, stronger than any pangs of emotion, a lovely state of free proud singleness, which accepted the obligation of the permanent connection with others, and with the other, submits to the yoke and leash of love, but never forfeits its own proud individual singleness, even while it loves and yields. There was the other way, the remaining way. And he must run to follow it. He thought of Ursula, how sensitive and delicate she really was, her skin so over-fine, as if one skin were wanting. She was really so marvellously gentle and sensitive. Why did he ever forget it? He must go to her at once. He must ask her to marry him. They must marry at once, and so make a definite pledge, enter into a definite communion. He must set out at once and ask her, this moment. There was no moment to spare. He drifted on swiftly to Beldover, half-unconscious of his own movement. He saw the town on the slope of the hill, not straggling, but as if walled-in with the straight, final streets of miners� dwellings, making a great square, and it looked like Jerusalem to his fancy. The world was all strange and transcendent. Rosalind opened the door to him. She started slightly, as a young girl will, and said: �Oh, I�ll tell father.� With which she disappeared, leaving Birkin in the hall, looking at some reproductions from Picasso, lately introduced by Gudrun. He was admiring the almost wizard, sensuous apprehension of the earth, when Will Brangwen appeared, rolling down his shirt sleeves. �Well,� said Brangwen, �I�ll get a coat.� And he too disappeared for a moment. Then he returned, and opened the door of the drawing-room, saying: �You must excuse me, I was just doing a bit of work in the shed. Come inside, will you.� Birkin entered and sat down. He looked at the bright, reddish face of the other man, at the narrow brow and the very bright eyes, and at the rather sensual lips that unrolled wide and expansive under the black cropped moustache. How curious it was that this was a human being! What Brangwen thought himself to be, how meaningless it was, confronted with the reality of him. Birkin could see only a strange, inexplicable, almost patternless collection of passions and desires and suppressions and traditions and mechanical ideas, all cast unfused and disunited into this slender, bright-faced man of nearly fifty, who was as unresolved now as he was at twenty, and as uncreated. How could he be the parent of Ursula, when he was not created himself. He was not a parent. A slip of living flesh had been transmitted through him, but the spirit had not come from him. The spirit had not come from any ancestor, it had come out of the unknown. A child is the child of the mystery, or it is uncreated. �The weather�s not so bad as it has been,� said Brangwen, after waiting a moment. There was no connection between the two men. �No,� said Birkin. �It was full moon two days ago.� �Oh! You believe in the moon then, affecting the weather?� �No, I don�t think I do. I don�t really know enough about it.� �You know what they say? The moon and the weather may change together, but the change of the moon won�t change the weather.� �Is that it?� said Birkin. �I hadn�t heard it.� There was a pause. Then Birkin said: �Am I hindering you? I called to see Ursula, really. Is she at home?� �I don�t believe she is. I believe she�s gone to the library. I�ll just see.� Birkin could hear him enquiring in the dining-room. �No,� he said, coming back. �But she won�t be long. You wanted to speak to her?� Birkin looked across at the other man with curious calm, clear eyes. �As a matter of fact,� he said, �I wanted to ask her to marry me.� A point of light came on the golden-brown eyes of the elder man. �O-oh?� he said, looking at Birkin, then dropping his eyes before the calm, steadily watching look of the other: �Was she expecting you then?� �No,� said Birkin. �No? I didn�t know anything of this sort was on foot�� Brangwen smiled awkwardly. Birkin looked back at him, and said to himself: �I wonder why it should be �on foot�!� Aloud he said: �No, it�s perhaps rather sudden.� At which, thinking of his relationship with Ursula, he added��but I don�t know�� �Quite sudden, is it? Oh!� said Brangwen, rather baffled and annoyed. �In one way,� replied Birkin, ��not in another.� There was a moment�s pause, after which Brangwen said: �Well, she pleases herself�� �Oh yes!� said Birkin, calmly. A vibration came into Brangwen�s strong voice, as he replied: �Though I shouldn�t want her to be in too big a hurry, either. It�s no good looking round afterwards, when it�s too late.� �Oh, it need never be too late,� said Birkin, �as far as that goes.� �How do you mean?� asked the father. �If one repents being married, the marriage is at an end,� said Birkin. �You think so?� �Yes.� �Ay, well that may be your way of looking at it.� Birkin, in silence, thought to himself: �So it may. As for _your_ way of looking at it, William Brangwen, it needs a little explaining.� �I suppose,� said Brangwen, �you know what sort of people we are? What sort of a bringing-up she�s had?� ��She�,� thought Birkin to himself, remembering his childhood�s corrections, �is the cat�s mother.� �Do I know what sort of a bringing-up she�s had?� he said aloud. He seemed to annoy Brangwen intentionally. �Well,� he said, �she�s had everything that�s right for a girl to have�as far as possible, as far as we could give it her.� �I�m sure she has,� said Birkin, which caused a perilous full-stop. The father was becoming exasperated. There was something naturally irritant to him in Birkin�s mere presence. �And I don�t want to see her going back on it all,� he said, in a clanging voice. �Why?� said Birkin. This monosyllable exploded in Brangwen�s brain like a shot. �Why! _I_ don�t believe in your new-fangled ways and new-fangled ideas�in and out like a frog in a gallipot. It would never do for me.� Birkin watched him with steady emotionless eyes. The radical antagnoism in the two men was rousing. �Yes, but are my ways and ideas new-fangled?� asked Birkin. �Are they?� Brangwen caught himself up. �I�m not speaking of you in particular,� he said. �What I mean is that my children have been brought up to think and do according to the religion I was brought up in myself, and I don�t want to see them going away from _that_.� There was a dangerous pause. �And beyond that�?� asked Birkin. The father hesitated, he was in a nasty position. �Eh? What do you mean? All I want to say is that my daughter��he tailed off into silence, overcome by futility. He knew that in some way he was off the track. �Of course,� said Birkin, �I don�t want to hurt anybody or influence anybody. Ursula does exactly as she pleases.� There was a complete silence, because of the utter failure in mutual understanding. Birkin felt bored. Her father was not a coherent human being, he was a roomful of old echoes. The eyes of the younger man rested on the face of the elder. Brangwen looked up, and saw Birkin looking at him. His face was covered with inarticulate anger and humiliation and sense of inferiority in strength. �And as for beliefs, that�s one thing,� he said. �But I�d rather see my daughters dead tomorrow than that they should be at the beck and call of the first man that likes to come and whistle for them.� A queer painful light came into Birkin�s eyes. �As to that,� he said, �I only know that it�s much more likely that it�s I who am at the beck and call of the woman, than she at mine.� Again there was a pause. The father was somewhat bewildered. �I know,� he said, �she�ll please herself�she always has done. I�ve done my best for them, but that doesn�t matter. They�ve got themselves to please, and if they can help it they�ll please nobody _but_ themselves. But she�s a right to consider her mother, and me as well�� Brangwen was thinking his own thoughts. �And I tell you this much, I would rather bury them, than see them getting into a lot of loose ways such as you see everywhere nowadays. I�d rather bury them�� �Yes but, you see,� said Birkin slowly, rather wearily, bored again by this new turn, �they won�t give either you or me the chance to bury them, because they�re not to be buried.� Brangwen looked at him in a sudden flare of impotent anger. �Now, Mr Birkin,� he said, �I don�t know what you�ve come here for, and I don�t know what you�re asking for. But my daughters are my daughters�and it�s my business to look after them while I can.� Birkin�s brows knitted suddenly, his eyes concentrated in mockery. But he remained perfectly stiff and still. There was a pause. �I�ve nothing against your marrying Ursula,� Brangwen began at length. �It�s got nothing to do with me, she�ll do as she likes, me or no me.� Birkin turned away, looking out of the window and letting go his consciousness. After all, what good was this? It was hopeless to keep it up. He would sit on till Ursula came home, then speak to her, then go away. He would not accept trouble at the hands of her father. It was all unnecessary, and he himself need not have provoked it. The two men sat in complete silence, Birkin almost unconscious of his own whereabouts. He had come to ask her to marry him�well then, he would wait on, and ask her. As for what she said, whether she accepted or not, he did not think about it. He would say what he had come to say, and that was all he was conscious of. He accepted the complete insignificance of this household, for him. But everything now was as if fated. He could see one thing ahead, and no more. From the rest, he was absolved entirely for the time being. It had to be left to fate and chance to resolve the issues. At length they heard the gate. They saw her coming up the steps with a bundle of books under her arm. Her face was bright and abstracted as usual, with the abstraction, that look of being not quite _there_, not quite present to the facts of reality, that galled her father so much. She had a maddening faculty of assuming a light of her own, which excluded the reality, and within which she looked radiant as if in sunshine. They heard her go into the dining-room, and drop her armful of books on the table. �Did you bring me that Girl�s Own?� cried Rosalind. �Yes, I brought it. But I forgot which one it was you wanted.� �You would,� cried Rosalind angrily. �It�s right for a wonder.� Then they heard her say something in a lowered tone. �Where?� cried Ursula. Again her sister�s voice was muffled. Brangwen opened the door, and called, in his strong, brazen voice: �Ursula.� She appeared in a moment, wearing her hat. �Oh how do you do!� she cried, seeing Birkin, and all dazzled as if taken by surprise. He wondered at her, knowing she was aware of his presence. She had her queer, radiant, breathless manner, as if confused by the actual world, unreal to it, having a complete bright world of her self alone. �Have I interrupted a conversation?� she asked. �No, only a complete silence,� said Birkin. �Oh,� said Ursula, vaguely, absent. Their presence was not vital to her, she was withheld, she did not take them in. It was a subtle insult that never failed to exasperate her father. �Mr Birkin came to speak to _you_, not to me,� said her father. �Oh, did he!� she exclaimed vaguely, as if it did not concern her. Then, recollecting herself, she turned to him rather radiantly, but still quite superficially, and said: �Was it anything special?� �I hope so,� he said, ironically. ��To propose to you, according to all accounts,� said her father. �Oh,� said Ursula. �Oh,� mocked her father, imitating her. �Have you nothing more to say?� She winced as if violated. �Did you really come to propose to me?� she asked of Birkin, as if it were a joke. �Yes,� he said. �I suppose I came to propose.� He seemed to fight shy of the last word. �Did you?� she cried, with her vague radiance. He might have been saying anything whatsoever. She seemed pleased. �Yes,� he answered. �I wanted to�I wanted you to agree to marry me.� She looked at him. His eyes were flickering with mixed lights, wanting something of her, yet not wanting it. She shrank a little, as if she were exposed to his eyes, and as if it were a pain to her. She darkened, her soul clouded over, she turned aside. She had been driven out of her own radiant, single world. And she dreaded contact, it was almost unnatural to her at these times. �Yes,� she said vaguely, in a doubting, absent voice. Birkin�s heart contracted swiftly, in a sudden fire of bitterness. It all meant nothing to her. He had been mistaken again. She was in some self-satisfied world of her own. He and his hopes were accidentals, violations to her. It drove her father to a pitch of mad exasperation. He had had to put up with this all his life, from her. �Well, what do you say?� he cried. She winced. Then she glanced down at her father, half-frightened, and she said: �I didn�t speak, did I?� as if she were afraid she might have committed herself. �No,� said her father, exasperated. �But you needn�t look like an idiot. You�ve got your wits, haven�t you?� She ebbed away in silent hostility. �I�ve got my wits, what does that mean?� she repeated, in a sullen voice of antagonism. �You heard what was asked you, didn�t you?� cried her father in anger. �Of course I heard.� �Well then, can�t you answer?� thundered her father. �Why should I?� At the impertinence of this retort, he went stiff. But he said nothing. �No,� said Birkin, to help out the occasion, �there�s no need to answer at once. You can say when you like.� Her eyes flashed with a powerful light. �Why should I say anything?� she cried. �You do this off your _own_ bat, it has nothing to do with me. Why do you both want to bully me?� �Bully you! Bully you!� cried her father, in bitter, rancorous anger. �Bully you! Why, it�s a pity you can�t be bullied into some sense and decency. Bully you! _You�ll_ see to that, you self-willed creature.� She stood suspended in the middle of the room, her face glimmering and dangerous. She was set in satisfied defiance. Birkin looked up at her. He too was angry. �But none is bullying you,� he said, in a very soft dangerous voice also. �Oh yes,� she cried. �You both want to force me into something.� �That is an illusion of yours,� he said ironically. �Illusion!� cried her father. �A self-opinionated fool, that�s what she is.� Birkin rose, saying: �However, we�ll leave it for the time being.� And without another word, he walked out of the house. �You fool! You fool!� her father cried to her, with extreme bitterness. She left the room, and went upstairs, singing to herself. But she was terribly fluttered, as after some dreadful fight. From her window, she could see Birkin going up the road. He went in such a blithe drift of rage, that her mind wondered over him. He was ridiculous, but she was afraid of him. She was as if escaped from some danger. Her father sat below, powerless in humiliation and chagrin. It was as if he were possessed with all the devils, after one of these unaccountable conflicts with Ursula. He hated her as if his only reality were in hating her to the last degree. He had all hell in his heart. But he went away, to escape himself. He knew he must despair, yield, give in to despair, and have done. Ursula�s face closed, she completed herself against them all. Recoiling upon herself, she became hard and self-completed, like a jewel. She was bright and invulnerable, quite free and happy, perfectly liberated in her self-possession. Her father had to learn not to see her blithe obliviousness, or it would have sent him mad. She was so radiant with all things, in her possession of perfect hostility. She would go on now for days like this, in this bright frank state of seemingly pure spontaneity, so essentially oblivious of the existence of anything but herself, but so ready and facile in her interest. Ah it was a bitter thing for a man to be near her, and her father cursed his fatherhood. But he must learn not to see her, not to know. She was perfectly stable in resistance when she was in this state: so bright and radiant and attractive in her pure opposition, so very pure, and yet mistrusted by everybody, disliked on every hand. It was her voice, curiously clear and repellent, that gave her away. Only Gudrun was in accord with her. It was at these times that the intimacy between the two sisters was most complete, as if their intelligence were one. They felt a strong, bright bond of understanding between them, surpassing everything else. And during all these days of blind bright abstraction and intimacy of his two daughters, the father seemed to breathe an air of death, as if he were destroyed in his very being. He was irritable to madness, he could not rest, his daughters seemed to be destroying him. But he was inarticulate and helpless against them. He was forced to breathe the air of his own death. He cursed them in his soul, and only wanted, that they should be removed from him. They continued radiant in their easy female transcendancy, beautiful to look at. They exchanged confidences, they were intimate in their revelations to the last degree, giving each other at last every secret. They withheld nothing, they told everything, till they were over the border of evil. And they armed each other with knowledge, they extracted the subtlest flavours from the apple of knowledge. It was curious how their knowledge was complementary, that of each to that of the other. Ursula saw her men as sons, pitied their yearning and admired their courage, and wondered over them as a mother wonders over her child, with a certain delight in their novelty. But to Gudrun, they were the opposite camp. She feared them and despised them, and respected their activities even overmuch. �Of course,� she said easily, �there is a quality of life in Birkin which is quite remarkable. There is an extraordinary rich spring of life in him, really amazing, the way he can give himself to things. But there are so many things in life that he simply doesn�t know. Either he is not aware of their existence at all, or he dismisses them as merely negligible�things which are vital to the other person. In a way, he is not clever enough, he is too intense in spots.� �Yes,� cried Ursula, �too much of a preacher. He is really a priest.� �Exactly! He can�t hear what anybody else has to say�he simply cannot hear. His own voice is so loud.� �Yes. He cries you down.� �He cries you down,� repeated Gudrun. �And by mere force of violence. And of course it is hopeless. Nobody is convinced by violence. It makes talking to him impossible�and living with him I should think would be more than impossible.� �You don�t think one could live with him� asked Ursula. �I think it would be too wearing, too exhausting. One would be shouted down every time, and rushed into his way without any choice. He would want to control you entirely. He cannot allow that there is any other mind than his own. And then the real clumsiness of his mind is its lack of self-criticism. No, I think it would be perfectly intolerable.� �Yes,� assented Ursula vaguely. She only half agreed with Gudrun. �The nuisance is,� she said, �that one would find almost any man intolerable after a fortnight.� �It�s perfectly dreadful,� said Gudrun. �But Birkin�he is too positive. He couldn�t bear it if you called your soul your own. Of him that is strictly true.� �Yes,� said Ursula. �You must have _his_ soul.� �Exactly! And what can you conceive more deadly?� This was all so true, that Ursula felt jarred to the bottom of her soul with ugly distaste. She went on, with the discord jarring and jolting through her, in the most barren of misery. Then there started a revulsion from Gudrun. She finished life off so thoroughly, she made things so ugly and so final. As a matter of fact, even if it were as Gudrun said, about Birkin, other things were true as well. But Gudrun would draw two lines under him and cross him out like an account that is settled. There he was, summed up, paid for, settled, done with. And it was such a lie. This finality of Gudrun�s, this dispatching of people and things in a sentence, it was all such a lie. Ursula began to revolt from her sister. One day as they were walking along the lane, they saw a robin sitting on the top twig of a bush, singing shrilly. The sisters stood to look at him. An ironical smile flickered on Gudrun�s face. �Doesn�t he feel important?� smiled Gudrun. �Doesn�t he!� exclaimed Ursula, with a little ironical grimace. �Isn�t he a little Lloyd George of the air!� �Isn�t he! Little Lloyd George of the air! That�s just what they are,� cried Gudrun in delight. Then for days, Ursula saw the persistent, obtrusive birds as stout, short politicians lifting up their voices from the platform, little men who must make themselves heard at any cost. But even from this there came the revulsion. Some yellowhammers suddenly shot along the road in front of her. And they looked to her so uncanny and inhuman, like flaring yellow barbs shooting through the air on some weird, living errand, that she said to herself: �After all, it is impudence to call them little Lloyd Georges. They are really unknown to us, they are the unknown forces. It is impudence to look at them as if they were the same as human beings. They are of another world. How stupid anthropomorphism is! Gudrun is really impudent, insolent, making herself the measure of everything, making everything come down to human standards. Rupert is quite right, human beings are boring, painting the universe with their own image. The universe is non-human, thank God.� It seemed to her irreverence, destructive of all true life, to make little Lloyd Georges of the birds. It was such a lie towards the robins, and such a defamation. Yet she had done it herself. But under Gudrun�s influence: so she exonerated herself. So she withdrew away from Gudrun and from that which she stood for, she turned in spirit towards Birkin again. She had not seen him since the fiasco of his proposal. She did not want to, because she did not want the question of her acceptance thrust upon her. She knew what Birkin meant when he asked her to marry him; vaguely, without putting it into speech, she knew. She knew what kind of love, what kind of surrender he wanted. And she was not at all sure that this was the kind of love that she herself wanted. She was not at all sure that it was this mutual unison in separateness that she wanted. She wanted unspeakable intimacies. She wanted to have him, utterly, finally to have him as her own, oh, so unspeakably, in intimacy. To drink him down�ah, like a life-draught. She made great professions, to herself, of her willingness to warm his foot-soles between her breasts, after the fashion of the nauseous Meredith poem. But only on condition that he, her lover, loved her absolutely, with complete self-abandon. And subtly enough, she knew he would never abandon himself _finally_ to her. He did not believe in final self-abandonment. He said it openly. It was his challenge. She was prepared to fight him for it. For she believed in an absolute surrender to love. She believed that love far surpassed the individual. He said the individual was _more_ than love, or than any relationship. For him, the bright, single soul accepted love as one of its conditions, a condition of its own equilibrium. She believed that love was _everything_. Man must render himself up to her. He must be quaffed to the dregs by her. Let him be _her man_ utterly, and she in return would be his humble slave�whether she wanted it or not. CHAPTER XX. GLADIATORIAL After the fiasco of the proposal, Birkin had hurried blindly away from Beldover, in a whirl of fury. He felt he had been a complete fool, that the whole scene had been a farce of the first water. But that did not trouble him at all. He was deeply, mockingly angry that Ursula persisted always in this old cry: �Why do you want to bully me?� and in her bright, insolent abstraction. He went straight to Shortlands. There he found Gerald standing with his back to the fire, in the library, as motionless as a man is, who is completely and emptily restless, utterly hollow. He had done all the work he wanted to do�and now there was nothing. He could go out in the car, he could run to town. But he did not want to go out in the car, he did not want to run to town, he did not want to call on the Thirlbys. He was suspended motionless, in an agony of inertia, like a machine that is without power. This was very bitter to Gerald, who had never known what boredom was, who had gone from activity to activity, never at a loss. Now, gradually, everything seemed to be stopping in him. He did not want any more to do the things that offered. Something dead within him just refused to respond to any suggestion. He cast over in his mind, what it would be possible to do, to save himself from this misery of nothingness, relieve the stress of this hollowness. And there were only three things left, that would rouse him, make him live. One was to drink or smoke hashish, the other was to be soothed by Birkin, and the third was women. And there was no one for the moment to drink with. Nor was there a woman. And he knew Birkin was out. So there was nothing to do but to bear the stress of his own emptiness. When he saw Birkin his face lit up in a sudden, wonderful smile. �By God, Rupert,� he said, �I�d just come to the conclusion that nothing in the world mattered except somebody to take the edge off one�s being alone: the right somebody.� The smile in his eyes was very astonishing, as he looked at the other man. It was the pure gleam of relief. His face was pallid and even haggard. �The right woman, I suppose you mean,� said Birkin spitefully. �Of course, for choice. Failing that, an amusing man.� He laughed as he said it. Birkin sat down near the fire. �What were you doing?� he asked. �I? Nothing. I�m in a bad way just now, everything�s on edge, and I can neither work nor play. I don�t know whether it�s a sign of old age, I�m sure.� �You mean you are bored?� �Bored, I don�t know. I can�t apply myself. And I feel the devil is either very present inside me, or dead.� Birkin glanced up and looked in his eyes. �You should try hitting something,� he said. Gerald smiled. �Perhaps,� he said. �So long as it was something worth hitting.� �Quite!� said Birkin, in his soft voice. There was a long pause during which each could feel the presence of the other. �One has to wait,� said Birkin. �Ah God! Waiting! What are we waiting for?� �Some old Johnny says there are three cures for _ennui_, sleep, drink, and travel,� said Birkin. �All cold eggs,� said Gerald. �In sleep, you dream, in drink you curse, and in travel you yell at a porter. No, work and love are the two. When you�re not at work you should be in love.� �Be it then,� said Birkin. �Give me the object,� said Gerald. �The possibilities of love exhaust themselves.� �Do they? And then what?� �Then you die,� said Gerald. �So you ought,� said Birkin. �I don�t see it,� replied Gerald. He took his hands out of his trousers pockets, and reached for a cigarette. He was tense and nervous. He lit the cigarette over a lamp, reaching forward and drawing steadily. He was dressed for dinner, as usual in the evening, although he was alone. �There�s a third one even to your two,� said Birkin. �Work, love, and fighting. You forget the fight.� �I suppose I do,� said Gerald. �Did you ever do any boxing�?� �No, I don�t think I did,� said Birkin. �Ay�� Gerald lifted his head and blew the smoke slowly into the air. �Why?� said Birkin. �Nothing. I thought we might have a round. It is perhaps true, that I want something to hit. It�s a suggestion.� �So you think you might as well hit me?� said Birkin. �You? Well! Perhaps�! In a friendly kind of way, of course.� �Quite!� said Birkin, bitingly. Gerald stood leaning back against the mantel-piece. He looked down at Birkin, and his eyes flashed with a sort of terror like the eyes of a stallion, that are bloodshot and overwrought, turned glancing backwards in a stiff terror. �I fell that if I don�t watch myself, I shall find myself doing something silly,� he said. �Why not do it?� said Birkin coldly. Gerald listened with quick impatience. He kept glancing down at Birkin, as if looking for something from the other man. �I used to do some Japanese wrestling,� said Birkin. �A Jap lived in the same house with me in Heidelberg, and he taught me a little. But I was never much good at it.� �You did!� exclaimed Gerald. �That�s one of the things I�ve never ever seen done. You mean jiu-jitsu, I suppose?� �Yes. But I am no good at those things�they don�t interest me.� �They don�t? They do me. What�s the start?� �I�ll show you what I can, if you like,� said Birkin. �You will?� A queer, smiling look tightened Gerald�s face for a moment, as he said, �Well, I�d like it very much.� �Then we�ll try jiu-jitsu. Only you can�t do much in a starched shirt.� �Then let us strip, and do it properly. Hold a minute�� He rang the bell, and waited for the butler. �Bring a couple of sandwiches and a syphon,� he said to the man, �and then don�t trouble me any more tonight�or let anybody else.� The man went. Gerald turned to Birkin with his eyes lighted. �And you used to wrestle with a Jap?� he said. �Did you strip?� �Sometimes.� �You did! What was he like then, as a wrestler?� �Good, I believe. I am no judge. He was very quick and slippery and full of electric fire. It is a remarkable thing, what a curious sort of fluid force they seem to have in them, those people�not like a human grip�like a polyp�� Gerald nodded. �I should imagine so,� he said, �to look at them. They repel me, rather.� �Repel and attract, both. They are very repulsive when they are cold, and they look grey. But when they are hot and roused, there is a definite attraction�a curious kind of full electric fluid�like eels.� �Well�yes�probably.� The man brought in the tray and set it down. �Don�t come in any more,� said Gerald. The door closed. �Well then,� said Gerald; �shall we strip and begin? Will you have a drink first?� �No, I don�t want one.� �Neither do I.� Gerald fastened the door and pushed the furniture aside. The room was large, there was plenty of space, it was thickly carpeted. Then he quickly threw off his clothes, and waited for Birkin. The latter, white and thin, came over to him. Birkin was more a presence than a visible object, Gerald was aware of him completely, but not really visually. Whereas Gerald himself was concrete and noticeable, a piece of pure final substance. �Now,� said Birkin, �I will show you what I learned, and what I remember. You let me take you so�� And his hands closed on the naked body of the other man. In another moment, he had Gerald swung over lightly and balanced against his knee, head downwards. Relaxed, Gerald sprang to his feet with eyes glittering. �That�s smart,� he said. �Now try again.� So the two men began to struggle together. They were very dissimilar. Birkin was tall and narrow, his bones were very thin and fine. Gerald was much heavier and more plastic. His bones were strong and round, his limbs were rounded, all his contours were beautifully and fully moulded. He seemed to stand with a proper, rich weight on the face of the earth, whilst Birkin seemed to have the centre of gravitation in his own middle. And Gerald had a rich, frictional kind of strength, rather mechanical, but sudden and invincible, whereas Birkin was abstract as to be almost intangible. He impinged invisibly upon the other man, scarcely seeming to touch him, like a garment, and then suddenly piercing in a tense fine grip that seemed to penetrate into the very quick of Gerald�s being. They stopped, they discussed methods, they practised grips and throws, they became accustomed to each other, to each other�s rhythm, they got a kind of mutual physical understanding. And then again they had a real struggle. They seemed to drive their white flesh deeper and deeper against each other, as if they would break into a oneness. Birkin had a great subtle energy, that would press upon the other man with an uncanny force, weigh him like a spell put upon him. Then it would pass, and Gerald would heave free, with white, heaving, dazzling movements. So the two men entwined and wrestled with each other, working nearer and nearer. Both were white and clear, but Gerald flushed smart red where he was touched, and Birkin remained white and tense. He seemed to penetrate into Gerald�s more solid, more diffuse bulk, to interfuse his body through the body of the other, as if to bring it subtly into subjection, always seizing with some rapid necromantic fore-knowledge every motion of the other flesh, converting and counteracting it, playing upon the limbs and trunk of Gerald like some hard wind. It was as if Birkin�s whole physical intelligence interpenetrated into Gerald�s body, as if his fine, sublimated energy entered into the flesh of the fuller man, like some potency, casting a fine net, a prison, through the muscles into the very depths of Gerald�s physical being. So they wrestled swiftly, rapturously, intent and mindless at last, two essential white figures working into a tighter closer oneness of struggle, with a strange, octopus-like knotting and flashing of limbs in the subdued light of the room; a tense white knot of flesh gripped in silence between the walls of old brown books. Now and again came a sharp gasp of breath, or a sound like a sigh, then the rapid thudding of movement on the thickly-carpeted floor, then the strange sound of flesh escaping under flesh. Often, in the white interlaced knot of violent living being that swayed silently, there was no head to be seen, only the swift, tight limbs, the solid white backs, the physical junction of two bodies clinched into oneness. Then would appear the gleaming, ruffled head of Gerald, as the struggle changed, then for a moment the dun-coloured, shadow-like head of the other man would lift up from the conflict, the eyes wide and dreadful and sightless. At length Gerald lay back inert on the carpet, his breast rising in great slow panting, whilst Birkin kneeled over him, almost unconscious. Birkin was much more exhausted. He caught little, short breaths, he could scarcely breathe any more. The earth seemed to tilt and sway, and a complete darkness was coming over his mind. He did not know what happened. He slid forward quite unconscious, over Gerald, and Gerald did not notice. Then he was half-conscious again, aware only of the strange tilting and sliding of the world. The world was sliding, everything was sliding off into the darkness. And he was sliding, endlessly, endlessly away. He came to consciousness again, hearing an immense knocking outside. What could be happening, what was it, the great hammer-stroke resounding through the house? He did not know. And then it came to him that it was his own heart beating. But that seemed impossible, the noise was outside. No, it was inside himself, it was his own heart. And the beating was painful, so strained, surcharged. He wondered if Gerald heard it. He did not know whether he were standing or lying or falling. When he realised that he had fallen prostrate upon Gerald�s body he wondered, he was surprised. But he sat up, steadying himself with his hand and waiting for his heart to become stiller and less painful. It hurt very much, and took away his consciousness. Gerald however was still less conscious than Birkin. They waited dimly, in a sort of not-being, for many uncounted, unknown minutes. �Of course�� panted Gerald, �I didn�t have to be rough�with you�I had to keep back�my force�� Birkin heard the sound as if his own spirit stood behind him, outside him, and listened to it. His body was in a trance of exhaustion, his spirit heard thinly. His body could not answer. Only he knew his heart was getting quieter. He was divided entirely between his spirit, which stood outside, and knew, and his body, that was a plunging, unconscious stroke of blood. �I could have thrown you�using violence�� panted Gerald. �But you beat me right enough.� �Yes,� said Birkin, hardening his throat and producing the words in the tension there, �you�re much stronger than I�you could beat me�easily.� Then he relaxed again to the terrible plunging of his heart and his blood. �It surprised me,� panted Gerald, �what strength you�ve got. Almost supernatural.� �For a moment,� said Birkin. He still heard as if it were his own disembodied spirit hearing, standing at some distance behind him. It drew nearer however, his spirit. And the violent striking of blood in his chest was sinking quieter, allowing his mind to come back. He realised that he was leaning with all his weight on the soft body of the other man. It startled him, because he thought he had withdrawn. He recovered himself, and sat up. But he was still vague and unestablished. He put out his hand to steady himself. It touched the hand of Gerald, that was lying out on the floor. And Gerald�s hand closed warm and sudden over Birkin�s, they remained exhausted and breathless, the one hand clasped closely over the other. It was Birkin whose hand, in swift response, had closed in a strong, warm clasp over the hand of the other. Gerald�s clasp had been sudden and momentaneous. The normal consciousness however was returning, ebbing back. Birkin could breathe almost naturally again. Gerald�s hand slowly withdrew, Birkin slowly, dazedly rose to his feet and went towards the table. He poured out a whiskey and soda. Gerald also came for a drink. �It was a real set-to, wasn�t it?� said Birkin, looking at Gerald with darkened eyes. �God, yes,� said Gerald. He looked at the delicate body of the other man, and added: �It wasn�t too much for you, was it?� �No. One ought to wrestle and strive and be physically close. It makes one sane.� �You do think so?� �I do. Don�t you?� �Yes,� said Gerald. There were long spaces of silence between their words. The wrestling had some deep meaning to them�an unfinished meaning. �We are mentally, spiritually intimate, therefore we should be more or less physically intimate too�it is more whole.� �Certainly it is,� said Gerald. Then he laughed pleasantly, adding: �It�s rather wonderful to me.� He stretched out his arms handsomely. �Yes,� said Birkin. �I don�t know why one should have to justify oneself.� �No.� The two men began to dress. �I think also that you are beautiful,� said Birkin to Gerald, �and that is enjoyable too. One should enjoy what is given.� �You think I am beautiful�how do you mean, physically?� asked Gerald, his eyes glistening. �Yes. You have a northern kind of beauty, like light refracted from snow�and a beautiful, plastic form. Yes, that is there to enjoy as well. We should enjoy everything.� Gerald laughed in his throat, and said: �That�s certainly one way of looking at it. I can say this much, I feel better. It has certainly helped me. Is this the Bruderschaft you wanted?� �Perhaps. Do you think this pledges anything?� �I don�t know,� laughed Gerald. �At any rate, one feels freer and more open now�and that is what we want.� �Certainly,� said Gerald. They drew to the fire, with the decanters and the glasses and the food. �I always eat a little before I go to bed,� said Gerald. �I sleep better.� �I should not sleep so well,� said Birkin. �No? There you are, we are not alike. I�ll put a dressing-gown on.� Birkin remained alone, looking at the fire. His mind had reverted to Ursula. She seemed to return again into his consciousness. Gerald came down wearing a gown of broad-barred, thick black-and-green silk, brilliant and striking. �You are very fine,� said Birkin, looking at the full robe. �It was a caftan in Bokhara,� said Gerald. �I like it.� �I like it too.� Birkin was silent, thinking how scrupulous Gerald was in his attire, how expensive too. He wore silk socks, and studs of fine workmanship, and silk underclothing, and silk braces. Curious! This was another of the differences between them. Birkin was careless and unimaginative about his own appearance. �Of course you,� said Gerald, as if he had been thinking; �there�s something curious about you. You�re curiously strong. One doesn�t expect it, it is rather surprising.� Birkin laughed. He was looking at the handsome figure of the other man, blond and comely in the rich robe, and he was half thinking of the difference between it and himself�so different; as far, perhaps, apart as man from woman, yet in another direction. But really it was Ursula, it was the woman who was gaining ascendance over Birkin�s being, at this moment. Gerald was becoming dim again, lapsing out of him. �Do you know,� he said suddenly, �I went and proposed to Ursula Brangwen tonight, that she should marry me.� He saw the blank shining wonder come over Gerald�s face. �You did?� �Yes. Almost formally�speaking first to her father, as it should be, in the world�though that was accident�or mischief.� Gerald only stared in wonder, as if he did not grasp. �You don�t mean to say that you seriously went and asked her father to let you marry her?� �Yes,� said Birkin, �I did.� �What, had you spoken to her before about it, then?� �No, not a word. I suddenly thought I would go there and ask her�and her father happened to come instead of her�so I asked him first.� �If you could have her?� concluded Gerald. �Ye-es, that.� �And you didn�t speak to her?� �Yes. She came in afterwards. So it was put to her as well.� �It was! And what did she say then? You�re an engaged man?� �No,�she only said she didn�t want to be bullied into answering.� �She what?� �Said she didn�t want to be bullied into answering.� ��Said she didn�t want to be bullied into answering!� Why, what did she mean by that?� Birkin raised his shoulders. �Can�t say,� he answered. �Didn�t want to be bothered just then, I suppose.� �But is this really so? And what did you do then?� �I walked out of the house and came here.� �You came straight here?� �Yes.� Gerald stared in amazement and amusement. He could not take it in. �But is this really true, as you say it now?� �Word for word.� �It is?� He leaned back in his chair, filled with delight and amusement. �Well, that�s good,� he said. �And so you came here to wrestle with your good angel, did you?� �Did I?� said Birkin. �Well, it looks like it. Isn�t that what you did?� Now Birkin could not follow Gerald�s meaning. �And what�s going to happen?� said Gerald. �You�re going to keep open the proposition, so to speak?� �I suppose so. I vowed to myself I would see them all to the devil. But I suppose I shall ask her again, in a little while.� Gerald watched him steadily. �So you�re fond of her then?� he asked. �I think�I love her,� said Birkin, his face going very still and fixed. Gerald glistened for a moment with pleasure, as if it were something done specially to please him. Then his face assumed a fitting gravity, and he nodded his head slowly. �You know,� he said, �I always believed in love�true love. But where does one find it nowadays?� �I don�t know,� said Birkin. �Very rarely,� said Gerald. Then, after a pause, �I�ve never felt it myself�not what I should call love. I�ve gone after women�and been keen enough over some of them. But I�ve never felt _love_. I don�t believe I�ve ever felt as much _love_ for a woman, as I have for you�not _love_. You understand what I mean?� �Yes. I�m sure you�ve never loved a woman.� �You feel that, do you? And do you think I ever shall? You understand what I mean?� He put his hand to his breast, closing his fist there, as if he would draw something out. �I mean that�that I can�t express what it is, but I know it.� �What is it, then?� asked Birkin. �You see, I can�t put it into words. I mean, at any rate, something abiding, something that can�t change�� His eyes were bright and puzzled. �Now do you think I shall ever feel that for a woman?� he said, anxiously. Birkin looked at him, and shook his head. �I don�t know,� he said. �I could not say.� Gerald had been on the _qui vive_, as awaiting his fate. Now he drew back in his chair. �No,� he said, �and neither do I, and neither do I.� �We are different, you and I,� said Birkin. �I can�t tell your life.� �No,� said Gerald, �no more can I. But I tell you�I begin to doubt it!� �That you will ever love a woman?� �Well�yes�what you would truly call love�� �You doubt it?� �Well�I begin to.� There was a long pause. �Life has all kinds of things,� said Birkin. �There isn�t only one road.� �Yes, I believe that too. I believe it. And mind you, I don�t care how it is with me�I don�t care how it is�so long as I don�t feel�� he paused, and a blank, barren look passed over his face, to express his feeling��so long as I feel I�ve _lived_, somehow�and I don�t care how it is�but I want to feel that�� �Fulfilled,� said Birkin. �We-ell, perhaps it is fulfilled; I don�t use the same words as you.� �It is the same.� CHAPTER XXI. THRESHOLD Gudrun was away in London, having a little show of her work, with a friend, and looking round, preparing for flight from Beldover. Come what might she would be on the wing in a very short time. She received a letter from Winifred Crich, ornamented with drawings. �Father also has been to London, to be examined by the doctors. It made him very tired. They say he must rest a very great deal, so he is mostly in bed. He brought me a lovely tropical parrot in faience, of Dresden ware, also a man ploughing, and two mice climbing up a stalk, also in faience. The mice were Copenhagen ware. They are the best, but mice don�t shine so much, otherwise they are very good, their tails are slim and long. They all shine nearly like glass. Of course it is the glaze, but I don�t like it. Gerald likes the man ploughing the best, his trousers are torn, he is ploughing with an ox, being I suppose a German peasant. It is all grey and white, white shirt and grey trousers, but very shiny and clean. Mr Birkin likes the girl best, under the hawthorn blossom, with a lamb, and with daffodils painted on her skirts, in the drawing room. But that is silly, because the lamb is not a real lamb, and she is silly too. �Dear Miss Brangwen, are you coming back soon, you are very much missed here. I enclose a drawing of father sitting up in bed. He says he hopes you are not going to forsake us. Oh dear Miss Brangwen, I am sure you won�t. Do come back and draw the ferrets, they are the most lovely noble darlings in the world. We might carve them in holly-wood, playing against a background of green leaves. Oh do let us, for they are most beautiful. �Father says we might have a studio. Gerald says we could easily have a beautiful one over the stables, it would only need windows to be put in the slant of the roof, which is a simple matter. Then you could stay here all day and work, and we could live in the studio, like two real artists, like the man in the picture in the hall, with the frying-pan and the walls all covered with drawings. I long to be free, to live the free life of an artist. Even Gerald told father that only an artist is free, because he lives in a creative world of his own�� Gudrun caught the drift of the family intentions, in this letter. Gerald wanted her to be attached to the household at Shortlands, he was using Winifred as his stalking-horse. The father thought only of his child, he saw a rock of salvation in Gudrun. And Gudrun admired him for his perspicacity. The child, moreover, was really exceptional. Gudrun was quite content. She was quite willing, given a studio, to spend her days at Shortlands. She disliked the Grammar School already thoroughly, she wanted to be free. If a studio were provided, she would be free to go on with her work, she would await the turn of events with complete serenity. And she was really interested in Winifred, she would be quite glad to understand the girl. So there was quite a little festivity on Winifred�s account, the day Gudrun returned to Shortlands. �You should make a bunch of flowers to give to Miss Brangwen when she arrives,� Gerald said smiling to his sister. �Oh no,� cried Winifred, �it�s silly.� �Not at all. It is a very charming and ordinary attention.� �Oh, it is silly,� protested Winifred, with all the extreme _mauvaise honte_ of her years. Nevertheless, the idea appealed to her. She wanted very much to carry it out. She flitted round the green-houses and the conservatory looking wistfully at the flowers on their stems. And the more she looked, the more she _longed_ to have a bunch of the blossoms she saw, the more fascinated she became with her little vision of ceremony, and the more consumedly shy and self-conscious she grew, till she was almost beside herself. She could not get the idea out of her mind. It was as if some haunting challenge prompted her, and she had not enough courage to take it up. So again she drifted into the green-houses, looking at the lovely roses in their pots, and at the virginal cyclamens, and at the mystic white clusters of a creeper. The beauty, oh the beauty of them, and oh the paradisal bliss, if she should have a perfect bouquet and could give it to Gudrun the next day. Her passion and her complete indecision almost made her ill. At last she slid to her father�s side. �Daddie�� she said. �What, my precious?� But she hung back, the tears almost coming to her eyes, in her sensitive confusion. Her father looked at her, and his heart ran hot with tenderness, an anguish of poignant love. �What do you want to say to me, my love?� �Daddie�!� her eyes smiled laconically��isn�t it silly if I give Miss Brangwen some flowers when she comes?� The sick man looked at the bright, knowing eyes of his child, and his heart burned with love. �No, darling, that�s not silly. It�s what they do to queens.� This was not very reassuring to Winifred. She half suspected that queens in themselves were a silliness. Yet she so wanted her little romantic occasion. �Shall I then?� she asked. �Give Miss Brangwen some flowers? Do, Birdie. Tell Wilson I say you are to have what you want.� The child smiled a small, subtle, unconscious smile to herself, in anticipation of her way. �But I won�t get them till tomorrow,� she said. �Not till tomorrow, Birdie. Give me a kiss then�� Winifred silently kissed the sick man, and drifted out of the room. She again went the round of the green-houses and the conservatory, informing the gardener, in her high, peremptory, simple fashion, of what she wanted, telling him all the blooms she had selected. �What do you want these for?� Wilson asked. �I want them,� she said. She wished servants did not ask questions. �Ay, you�ve said as much. But what do you want them for, for decoration, or to send away, or what?� �I want them for a presentation bouquet.� �A presentation bouquet! Who�s coming then?�the Duchess of Portland?� �No.� �Oh, not her? Well you�ll have a rare poppy-show if you put all the things you�ve mentioned into your bouquet.� �Yes, I want a rare poppy-show.� �You do! Then there�s no more to be said.� The next day Winifred, in a dress of silvery velvet, and holding a gaudy bunch of flowers in her hand, waited with keen impatience in the schoolroom, looking down the drive for Gudrun�s arrival. It was a wet morning. Under her nose was the strange fragrance of hot-house flowers, the bunch was like a little fire to her, she seemed to have a strange new fire in her heart. This slight sense of romance stirred her like an intoxicant. At last she saw Gudrun coming, and she ran downstairs to warn her father and Gerald. They, laughing at her anxiety and gravity, came with her into the hall. The man-servant came hastening to the door, and there he was, relieving Gudrun of her umbrella, and then of her raincoat. The welcoming party hung back till their visitor entered the hall. Gudrun was flushed with the rain, her hair was blown in loose little curls, she was like a flower just opened in the rain, the heart of the blossom just newly visible, seeming to emit a warmth of retained sunshine. Gerald winced in spirit, seeing her so beautiful and unknown. She was wearing a soft blue dress, and her stockings were of dark red. Winifred advanced with odd, stately formality. �We are so glad you�ve come back,� she said. �These are your flowers.� She presented the bouquet. �Mine!� cried Gudrun. She was suspended for a moment, then a vivid flush went over her, she was as if blinded for a moment with a flame of pleasure. Then her eyes, strange and flaming, lifted and looked at the father, and at Gerald. And again Gerald shrank in spirit, as if it would be more than he could bear, as her hot, exposed eyes rested on him. There was something so revealed, she was revealed beyond bearing, to his eyes. He turned his face aside. And he felt he would not be able to avert her. And he writhed under the imprisonment. Gudrun put her face into the flowers. �But how beautiful they are!� she said, in a muffled voice. Then, with a strange, suddenly revealed passion, she stooped and kissed Winifred. Mr Crich went forward with his hand held out to her. �I was afraid you were going to run away from us,� he said, playfully. Gudrun looked up at him with a luminous, roguish, unknown face. �Really!� she replied. �No, I didn�t want to stay in London.� Her voice seemed to imply that she was glad to get back to Shortlands, her tone was warm and subtly caressing. �That is a good thing,� smiled the father. �You see you are very welcome here among us.� Gudrun only looked into his face with dark-blue, warm, shy eyes. She was unconsciously carried away by her own power. �And you look as if you came home in every possible triumph,� Mr Crich continued, holding her hand. �No,� she said, glowing strangely. �I haven�t had any triumph till I came here.� �Ah, come, come! We�re not going to hear any of those tales. Haven�t we read notices in the newspaper, Gerald?� �You came off pretty well,� said Gerald to her, shaking hands. �Did you sell anything?� �No,� she said, �not much.� �Just as well,� he said. She wondered what he meant. But she was all aglow with her reception, carried away by this little flattering ceremonial on her behalf. �Winifred,� said the father, �have you a pair of shoes for Miss Brangwen? You had better change at once�� Gudrun went out with her bouquet in her hand. �Quite a remarkable young woman,� said the father to Gerald, when she had gone. �Yes,� replied Gerald briefly, as if he did not like the observation. Mr Crich liked Gudrun to sit with him for half an hour. Usually he was ashy and wretched, with all the life gnawed out of him. But as soon as he rallied, he liked to make believe that he was just as before, quite well and in the midst of life�not of the outer world, but in the midst of a strong essential life. And to this belief, Gudrun contributed perfectly. With her, he could get by stimulation those precious half-hours of strength and exaltation and pure freedom, when he seemed to live more than he had ever lived. She came to him as he lay propped up in the library. His face was like yellow wax, his eyes darkened, as it were sightless. His black beard, now streaked with grey, seemed to spring out of the waxy flesh of a corpse. Yet the atmosphere about him was energetic and playful. Gudrun subscribed to this, perfectly. To her fancy, he was just an ordinary man. Only his rather terrible appearance was photographed upon her soul, away beneath her consciousness. She knew that, in spite of his playfulness, his eyes could not change from their darkened vacancy, they were the eyes of a man who is dead. �Ah, this is Miss Brangwen,� he said, suddenly rousing as she entered, announced by the man-servant. �Thomas, put Miss Brangwen a chair here�that�s right.� He looked at her soft, fresh face with pleasure. It gave him the illusion of life. �Now, you will have a glass of sherry and a little piece of cake. Thomas�� �No thank you,� said Gudrun. And as soon as she had said it, her heart sank horribly. The sick man seemed to fall into a gap of death, at her contradiction. She ought to play up to him, not to contravene him. In an instant she was smiling her rather roguish smile. �I don�t like sherry very much,� she said. �But I like almost anything else.� The sick man caught at this straw instantly. �Not sherry! No! Something else! What then? What is there, Thomas?� �Port wine�curacçao�� �I would love some curaçao�� said Gudrun, looking at the sick man confidingly. �You would. Well then Thomas, curaçao�and a little cake, or a biscuit?� �A biscuit,� said Gudrun. She did not want anything, but she was wise. �Yes.� He waited till she was settled with her little glass and her biscuit. Then he was satisfied. �You have heard the plan,� he said with some excitement, �for a studio for Winifred, over the stables?� �No!� exclaimed Gudrun, in mock wonder. �Oh!�I thought Winnie wrote it to you, in her letter!� �Oh�yes�of course. But I thought perhaps it was only her own little idea�� Gudrun smiled subtly, indulgently. The sick man smiled also, elated. �Oh no. It is a real project. There is a good room under the roof of the stables�with sloping rafters. We had thought of converting it into a studio.� �How _very_ nice that would be!� cried Gudrun, with excited warmth. The thought of the rafters stirred her. �You think it would? Well, it can be done.� �But how perfectly splendid for Winifred! Of course, it is just what is needed, if she is to work at all seriously. One must have one�s workshop, otherwise one never ceases to be an amateur.� �Is that so? Yes. Of course, I should like you to share it with Winifred.� �Thank you _so_ much.� Gudrun knew all these things already, but she must look shy and very grateful, as if overcome. �Of course, what I should like best, would be if you could give up your work at the Grammar School, and just avail yourself of the studio, and work there�well, as much or as little as you liked�� He looked at Gudrun with dark, vacant eyes. She looked back at him as if full of gratitude. These phrases of a dying man were so complete and natural, coming like echoes through his dead mouth. �And as to your earnings�you don�t mind taking from me what you have taken from the Education Committee, do you? I don�t want you to be a loser.� �Oh,� said Gudrun, �if I can have the studio and work there, I can earn money enough, really I can.� �Well,� he said, pleased to be the benefactor, �we can see about all that. You wouldn�t mind spending your days here?� �If there were a studio to work in,� said Gudrun, �I could ask for nothing better.� �Is that so?� He was really very pleased. But already he was getting tired. She could see the grey, awful semi-consciousness of mere pain and dissolution coming over him again, the torture coming into the vacancy of his darkened eyes. It was not over yet, this process of death. She rose softly saying: �Perhaps you will sleep. I must look for Winifred.� She went out, telling the nurse that she had left him. Day by day the tissue of the sick man was further and further reduced, nearer and nearer the process came, towards the last knot which held the human being in its unity. But this knot was hard and unrelaxed, the will of the dying man never gave way. He might be dead in nine-tenths, yet the remaining tenth remained unchanged, till it too was torn apart. With his will he held the unit of himself firm, but the circle of his power was ever and ever reduced, it would be reduced to a point at last, then swept away. To adhere to life, he must adhere to human relationships, and he caught at every straw. Winifred, the butler, the nurse, Gudrun, these were the people who meant all to him, in these last resources. Gerald, in his father�s presence, stiffened with repulsion. It was so, to a less degree, with all the other children except Winifred. They could not see anything but the death, when they looked at their father. It was as if some subterranean dislike overcame them. They could not see the familiar face, hear the familiar voice. They were overwhelmed by the antipathy of visible and audible death. Gerald could not breathe in his father�s presence. He must get out at once. And so, in the same way, the father could not bear the presence of his son. It sent a final irritation through the soul of the dying man. The studio was made ready, Gudrun and Winifred moved in. They enjoyed so much the ordering and the appointing of it. And now they need hardly be in the house at all. They had their meals in the studio, they lived there safely. For the house was becoming dreadful. There were two nurses in white, flitting silently about, like heralds of death. The father was confined to his bed, there was a come and go of _sotto voce_ sisters and brothers and children. Winifred was her father�s constant visitor. Every morning, after breakfast, she went into his room when he was washed and propped up in bed, to spend half an hour with him. �Are you better, Daddie?� she asked him invariably. And invariably he answered: �Yes, I think I�m a little better, pet.� She held his hand in both her own, lovingly and protectively. And this was very dear to him. She ran in again as a rule at lunch time, to tell him the course of events, and every evening, when the curtains were drawn, and his room was cosy, she spent a long time with him. Gudrun was gone home, Winifred was alone in the house: she liked best to be with her father. They talked and prattled at random, he always as if he were well, just the same as when he was going about. So that Winifred, with a child�s subtle instinct for avoiding the painful things, behaved as if nothing serious was the matter. Instinctively, she withheld her attention, and was happy. Yet in her remoter soul, she knew as well as the adults knew: perhaps better. Her father was quite well in his make-belief with her. But when she went away, he relapsed under the misery of his dissolution. But still there were these bright moments, though as his strength waned, his faculty for attention grew weaker, and the nurse had to send Winifred away, to save him from exhaustion. He never admitted that he was going to die. He knew it was so, he knew it was the end. Yet even to himself he did not admit it. He hated the fact, mortally. His will was rigid. He could not bear being overcome by death. For him, there was no death. And yet, at times, he felt a great need to cry out and to wail and complain. He would have liked to cry aloud to Gerald, so that his son should be horrified out of his composure. Gerald was instinctively aware of this, and he recoiled, to avoid any such thing. This uncleanness of death repelled him too much. One should die quickly, like the Romans, one should be master of one�s fate in dying as in living. He was convulsed in the clasp of this death of his father�s, as in the coils of the great serpent of Laocoön. The great serpent had got the father, and the son was dragged into the embrace of horrifying death along with him. He resisted always. And in some strange way, he was a tower of strength to his father. The last time the dying man asked to see Gudrun he was grey with near death. Yet he must see someone, he must, in the intervals of consciousness, catch into connection with the living world, lest he should have to accept his own situation. Fortunately he was most of his time dazed and half gone. And he spent many hours dimly thinking of the past, as it were, dimly re-living his old experiences. But there were times even to the end when he was capable of realising what was happening to him in the present, the death that was on him. And these were the times when he called in outside help, no matter whose. For to realise this death that he was dying was a death beyond death, never to be borne. It was an admission never to be made. Gudrun was shocked by his appearance, and by the darkened, almost disintegrated eyes, that still were unconquered and firm. �Well,� he said in his weakened voice, �and how are you and Winifred getting on?� �Oh, very well indeed,� replied Gudrun. There were slight dead gaps in the conversation, as if the ideas called up were only elusive straws floating on the dark chaos of the sick man�s dying. �The studio answers all right?� he said. �Splendid. It couldn�t be more beautiful and perfect,� said Gudrun. She waited for what he would say next. �And you think Winifred has the makings of a sculptor?� It was strange how hollow the words were, meaningless. �I�m sure she has. She will do good things one day.� �Ah! Then her life won�t be altogether wasted, you think?� Gudrun was rather surprised. �Sure it won�t!� she exclaimed softly. �That�s right.� Again Gudrun waited for what he would say. �You find life pleasant, it is good to live, isn�t it?� he asked, with a pitiful faint smile that was almost too much for Gudrun. �Yes,� she smiled�she would lie at random��I get a pretty good time I believe.� �That�s right. A happy nature is a great asset.� Again Gudrun smiled, though her soul was dry with repulsion. Did one have to die like this�having the life extracted forcibly from one, whilst one smiled and made conversation to the end? Was there no other way? Must one go through all the horror of this victory over death, the triumph of the integral will, that would not be broken till it disappeared utterly? One must, it was the only way. She admired the self-possession and the control of the dying man exceedingly. But she loathed the death itself. She was glad the everyday world held good, and she need not recognise anything beyond. �You are quite all right here?�nothing we can do for you?�nothing you find wrong in your position?� �Except that you are too good to me,� said Gudrun. �Ah, well, the fault of that lies with yourself,� he said, and he felt a little exultation, that he had made this speech. He was still so strong and living! But the nausea of death began to creep back on him, in reaction. Gudrun went away, back to Winifred. Mademoiselle had left, Gudrun stayed a good deal at Shortlands, and a tutor came in to carry on Winifred�s education. But he did not live in the house, he was connected with the Grammar School. One day, Gudrun was to drive with Winifred and Gerald and Birkin to town, in the car. It was a dark, showery day. Winifred and Gudrun were ready and waiting at the door. Winifred was very quiet, but Gudrun had not noticed. Suddenly the child asked, in a voice of unconcern: �Do you think my father�s going to die, Miss Brangwen?� Gudrun started. �I don�t know,� she replied. �Don�t you truly?� �Nobody knows for certain. He _may_ die, of course.� The child pondered a few moments, then she asked: �But do you _think_ he will die?� It was put almost like a question in geography or science, insistent, as if she would force an admission from the adult. The watchful, slightly triumphant child was almost diabolical. �Do I think he will die?� repeated Gudrun. �Yes, I do.� But Winifred�s large eyes were fixed on her, and the girl did not move. �He is very ill,� said Gudrun. A small smile came over Winifred�s face, subtle and sceptical. �_I_ don�t believe he will,� the child asserted, mockingly, and she moved away into the drive. Gudrun watched the isolated figure, and her heart stood still. Winifred was playing with a little rivulet of water, absorbedly as if nothing had been said. �I�ve made a proper dam,� she said, out of the moist distance. Gerald came to the door from out of the hall behind. �It is just as well she doesn�t choose to believe it,� he said. Gudrun looked at him. Their eyes met; and they exchanged a sardonic understanding. �Just as well,� said Gudrun. He looked at her again, and a fire flickered up in his eyes. �Best to dance while Rome burns, since it must burn, don�t you think?� he said. She was rather taken aback. But, gathering herself together, she replied: �Oh�better dance than wail, certainly.� �So I think.� And they both felt the subterranean desire to let go, to fling away everything, and lapse into a sheer unrestraint, brutal and licentious. A strange black passion surged up pure in Gudrun. She felt strong. She felt her hands so strong, as if she could tear the world asunder with them. She remembered the abandonments of Roman licence, and her heart grew hot. She knew she wanted this herself also�or something, something equivalent. Ah, if that which was unknown and suppressed in her were once let loose, what an orgiastic and satisfying event it would be. And she wanted it, she trembled slightly from the proximity of the man, who stood just behind her, suggestive of the same black licentiousness that rose in herself. She wanted it with him, this unacknowledged frenzy. For a moment the clear perception of this preoccupied her, distinct and perfect in its final reality. Then she shut it off completely, saying: �We might as well go down to the lodge after Winifred�we can get in the car there.� �So we can,� he answered, going with her. They found Winifred at the lodge admiring the litter of purebred white puppies. The girl looked up, and there was a rather ugly, unseeing cast in her eyes as she turned to Gerald and Gudrun. She did not want to see them. �Look!� she cried. �Three new puppies! Marshall says this one seems perfect. Isn�t it a sweetling? But it isn�t so nice as its mother.� She turned to caress the fine white bull-terrier bitch that stood uneasily near her. �My dearest Lady Crich,� she said, �you are beautiful as an angel on earth. Angel�angel�don�t you think she�s good enough and beautiful enough to go to heaven, Gudrun? They will be in heaven, won�t they�and _especially_ my darling Lady Crich! Mrs Marshall, I say!� �Yes, Miss Winifred?� said the woman, appearing at the door. �Oh do call this one Lady Winifred, if she turns out perfect, will you? Do tell Marshall to call it Lady Winifred.� �I�ll tell him�but I�m afraid that�s a gentleman puppy, Miss Winifred.� �Oh _no!_� There was the sound of a car. �There�s Rupert!� cried the child, and she ran to the gate. Birkin, driving his car, pulled up outside the lodge gate. �We�re ready!� cried Winifred. �I want to sit in front with you, Rupert. May I?� �I�m afraid you�ll fidget about and fall out,� he said. �No I won�t. I do want to sit in front next to you. It makes my feet so lovely and warm, from the engines.� Birkin helped her up, amused at sending Gerald to sit by Gudrun in the body of the car. �Have you any news, Rupert?� Gerald called, as they rushed along the lanes. �News?� exclaimed Birkin. �Yes,� Gerald looked at Gudrun, who sat by his side, and he said, his eyes narrowly laughing, �I want to know whether I ought to congratulate him, but I can�t get anything definite out of him.� Gudrun flushed deeply. �Congratulate him on what?� she asked. �There was some mention of an engagement�at least, he said something to me about it.� Gudrun flushed darkly. �You mean with Ursula?� she said, in challenge. �Yes. That is so, isn�t it?� �I don�t think there�s any engagement,� said Gudrun, coldly. �That so? Still no developments, Rupert?� he called. �Where? Matrimonial? No.� �How�s that?� called Gudrun. Birkin glanced quickly round. There was irritation in his eyes also. �Why?� he replied. �What do you think of it, Gudrun?� �Oh,� she cried, determined to fling her stone also into the pool, since they had begun, �I don�t think she wants an engagement. Naturally, she�s a bird that prefers the bush.� Gudrun�s voice was clear and gong-like. It reminded Rupert of her father�s, so strong and vibrant. �And I,� said Birkin, his face playful but yet determined, �I want a binding contract, and am not keen on love, particularly free love.� They were both amused. _Why_ this public avowal? Gerald seemed suspended a moment, in amusement. �Love isn�t good enough for you?� he called. �No!� shouted Birkin. �Ha, well that�s being over-refined,� said Gerald, and the car ran through the mud. �What�s the matter, really?� said Gerald, turning to Gudrun. This was an assumption of a sort of intimacy that irritated Gudrun almost like an affront. It seemed to her that Gerald was deliberately insulting her, and infringing on the decent privacy of them all. �What is it?� she said, in her high, repellent voice. �Don�t ask me!�I know nothing about _ultimate_ marriage, I assure you: or even penultimate.� �Only the ordinary unwarrantable brand!� replied Gerald. �Just so�same here. I am no expert on marriage, and degrees of ultimateness. It seems to be a bee that buzzes loudly in Rupert�s bonnet.� �Exactly! But that is his trouble, exactly! Instead of wanting a woman for herself, he wants his _ideas_ fulfilled. Which, when it comes to actual practice, is not good enough.� �Oh no. Best go slap for what�s womanly in woman, like a bull at a gate.� Then he seemed to glimmer in himself. �You think love is the ticket, do you?� he asked. �Certainly, while it lasts�you only can�t insist on permanency,� came Gudrun�s voice, strident above the noise. �Marriage or no marriage, ultimate or penultimate or just so-so?�take the love as you find it.� �As you please, or as you don�t please,� she echoed. �Marriage is a social arrangement, I take it, and has nothing to do with the question of love.� His eyes were flickering on her all the time. She felt as is he were kissing her freely and malevolently. It made the colour burn in her cheeks, but her heart was quite firm and unfailing. �You think Rupert is off his head a bit?� Gerald asked. Her eyes flashed with acknowledgment. �As regards a woman, yes,� she said, �I do. There _is_ such a thing as two people being in love for the whole of their lives�perhaps. But marriage is neither here nor there, even then. If they are in love, well and good. If not�why break eggs about it!� �Yes,� said Gerald. �That�s how it strikes me. But what about Rupert?� �I can�t make out�neither can he nor anybody. He seems to think that if you marry you can get through marriage into a third heaven, or something�all very vague.� �Very! And who wants a third heaven? As a matter of fact, Rupert has a great yearning to be _safe_�to tie himself to the mast.� �Yes. It seems to me he�s mistaken there too,� said Gudrun. �I�m sure a mistress is more likely to be faithful than a wife�just because she is her _own_ mistress. No�he says he believes that a man and wife can go further than any other two beings�but _where_, is not explained. They can know each other, heavenly and hellish, but particularly hellish, so perfectly that they go beyond heaven and hell�into�there it all breaks down�into nowhere.� �Into Paradise, he says,� laughed Gerald. Gudrun shrugged her shoulders. �_Je m�en fiche_ of your Paradise!� she said. �Not being a Mohammedan,� said Gerald. Birkin sat motionless, driving the car, quite unconscious of what they said. And Gudrun, sitting immediately behind him, felt a sort of ironic pleasure in thus exposing him. �He says,� she added, with a grimace of irony, �that you can find an eternal equilibrium in marriage, if you accept the unison, and still leave yourself separate, don�t try to fuse.� �Doesn�t inspire me,� said Gerald. �That�s just it,� said Gudrun. �I believe in love, in a real _abandon_, if you�re capable of it,� said Gerald. �So do I,� said she. �And so does Rupert, too�though he is always shouting.� �No,� said Gudrun. �He won�t abandon himself to the other person. You can�t be sure of him. That�s the trouble I think.� �Yet he wants marriage! Marriage�_et puis?_� �_Le paradis!_� mocked Gudrun. Birkin, as he drove, felt a creeping of the spine, as if somebody was threatening his neck. But he shrugged with indifference. It began to rain. Here was a change. He stopped the car and got down to put up the hood. CHAPTER XXII. WOMAN TO WOMAN They came to the town, and left Gerald at the railway station. Gudrun and Winifred were to come to tea with Birkin, who expected Ursula also. In the afternoon, however, the first person to turn up was Hermione. Birkin was out, so she went in the drawing-room, looking at his books and papers, and playing on the piano. Then Ursula arrived. She was surprised, unpleasantly so, to see Hermione, of whom she had heard nothing for some time. �It is a surprise to see you,� she said. �Yes,� said Hermione��I�ve been away at Aix�� �Oh, for your health?� �Yes.� The two women looked at each other. Ursula resented Hermione�s long, grave, downward-looking face. There was something of the stupidity and the unenlightened self-esteem of a horse in it. �She�s got a horse-face,� Ursula said to herself, �she runs between blinkers.� It did seem as if Hermione, like the moon, had only one side to her penny. There was no obverse. She stared out all the time on the narrow, but to her, complete world of the extant consciousness. In the darkness, she did not exist. Like the moon, one half of her was lost to life. Her self was all in her head, she did not know what it was spontaneously to run or move, like a fish in the water, or a weasel on the grass. She must always _know_. But Ursula only suffered from Hermione�s one-sidedness. She only felt Hermione�s cool evidence, which seemed to put her down as nothing. Hermione, who brooded and brooded till she was exhausted with the ache of her effort at consciousness, spent and ashen in her body, who gained so slowly and with such effort her final and barren conclusions of knowledge, was apt, in the presence of other women, whom she thought simply female, to wear the conclusions of her bitter assurance like jewels which conferred on her an unquestionable distinction, established her in a higher order of life. She was apt, mentally, to condescend to women such as Ursula, whom she regarded as purely emotional. Poor Hermione, it was her one possession, this aching certainty of hers, it was her only justification. She must be confident here, for God knows, she felt rejected and deficient enough elsewhere. In the life of thought, of the spirit, she was one of the elect. And she wanted to be universal. But there was a devastating cynicism at the bottom of her. She did not believe in her own universals�they were sham. She did not believe in the inner life�it was a trick, not a reality. She did not believe in the spiritual world�it was an affectation. In the last resort, she believed in Mammon, the flesh, and the devil�these at least were not sham. She was a priestess without belief, without conviction, suckled in a creed outworn, and condemned to the reiteration of mysteries that were not divine to her. Yet there was no escape. She was a leaf upon a dying tree. What help was there then, but to fight still for the old, withered truths, to die for the old, outworn belief, to be a sacred and inviolate priestess of desecrated mysteries? The old great truths _had_ been true. And she was a leaf of the old great tree of knowledge that was withering now. To the old and last truth then she must be faithful even though cynicism and mockery took place at the bottom of her soul. �I am so glad to see you,� she said to Ursula, in her slow voice, that was like an incantation. �You and Rupert have become quite friends?� �Oh yes,� said Ursula. �He is always somewhere in the background.� Hermione paused before she answered. She saw perfectly well the other woman�s vaunt: it seemed truly vulgar. �Is he?� she said slowly, and with perfect equanimity. �And do you think you will marry?� The question was so calm and mild, so simple and bare and dispassionate that Ursula was somewhat taken aback, rather attracted. It pleased her almost like a wickedness. There was some delightful naked irony in Hermione. �Well,� replied Ursula, �_He_ wants to, awfully, but I�m not so sure.� Hermione watched her with slow calm eyes. She noted this new expression of vaunting. How she envied Ursula a certain unconscious positivity! even her vulgarity! �Why aren�t you sure?� she asked, in her easy sing song. She was perfectly at her ease, perhaps even rather happy in this conversation. �You don�t really love him?� Ursula flushed a little at the mild impertinence of this question. And yet she could not definitely take offence. Hermione seemed so calmly and sanely candid. After all, it was rather great to be able to be so sane. �He says it isn�t love he wants,� she replied. �What is it then?� Hermione was slow and level. �He wants me really to accept him in marriage.� Hermione was silent for some time, watching Ursula with slow, pensive eyes. �Does he?� she said at length, without expression. Then, rousing, �And what is it you don�t want? You don�t want marriage?� �No�I don�t�not really. I don�t want to give the sort of _submission_ he insists on. He wants me to give myself up�and I simply don�t feel that I _can_ do it.� Again there was a long pause, before Hermione replied: �Not if you don�t want to.� Then again there was silence. Hermione shuddered with a strange desire. Ah, if only he had asked _her_ to subserve him, to be his slave! She shuddered with desire. �You see I can�t�� �But exactly in what does�� They had both begun at once, they both stopped. Then, Hermione, assuming priority of speech, resumed as if wearily: �To what does he want you to submit?� �He says he wants me to accept him non-emotionally, and finally�I really don�t know _what_ he means. He says he wants the demon part of himself to be mated�physically�not the human being. You see he says one thing one day, and another the next�and he always contradicts himself�� �And always thinks about himself, and his own dissatisfaction,� said Hermione slowly. �Yes,� cried Ursula. �As if there were no one but himself concerned. That makes it so impossible.� But immediately she began to retract. �He insists on my accepting God knows what in _him_,� she resumed. �He wants me to accept _him_ as�as an absolute�But it seems to me he doesn�t want to _give_ anything. He doesn�t want real warm intimacy�he won�t have it�he rejects it. He won�t let me think, really, and he won�t let me _feel_�he hates feelings.� There was a long pause, bitter for Hermione. Ah, if only he would have made this demand of her? Her he _drove_ into thought, drove inexorably into knowledge�and then execrated her for it. �He wants me to sink myself,� Ursula resumed, �not to have any being of my own�� �Then why doesn�t he marry an odalisk?� said Hermione in her mild sing-song, �if it is that he wants.� Her long face looked sardonic and amused. �Yes,� said Ursula vaguely. After all, the tiresome thing was, he did not want an odalisk, he did not want a slave. Hermione would have been his slave�there was in her a horrible desire to prostrate herself before a man�a man who worshipped her, however, and admitted her as the supreme thing. He did not want an odalisk. He wanted a woman to _take_ something from him, to give herself up so much that she could take the last realities of him, the last facts, the last physical facts, physical and unbearable. And if she did, would he acknowledge her? Would he be able to acknowledge her through everything, or would he use her just as his instrument, use her for his own private satisfaction, not admitting her? That was what the other men had done. They had wanted their own show, and they would not admit her, they turned all she was into nothingness. Just as Hermione now betrayed herself as a woman. Hermione was like a man, she believed only in men�s things. She betrayed the woman in herself. And Birkin, would he acknowledge, or would he deny her? �Yes,� said Hermione, as each woman came out of her own separate reverie. �It would be a mistake�I think it would be a mistake�� �To marry him?� asked Ursula. �Yes,� said Hermione slowly��I think you need a man�soldierly, strong-willed�� Hermione held out her hand and clenched it with rhapsodic intensity. �You should have a man like the old heroes�you need to stand behind him as he goes into battle, you need to _see_ his strength, and to _hear_ his shout�. You need a man physically strong, and virile in his will, _not_ a sensitive man�.� There was a break, as if the pythoness had uttered the oracle, and now the woman went on, in a rhapsody-wearied voice: �And you see, Rupert isn�t this, he isn�t. He is frail in health and body, he needs great, great care. Then he is so changeable and unsure of himself�it requires the greatest patience and understanding to help him. And I don�t think you are patient. You would have to be prepared to suffer�dreadfully. I can�t _tell_ you how much suffering it would take to make him happy. He lives an _intensely_ spiritual life, at times�too, too wonderful. And then come the reactions. I can�t speak of what I have been through with him. We have been together so long, I really do know him, I _do_ know what he is. And I feel I must say it; I feel it would be perfectly _disastrous_ for you to marry him�for you even more than for him.� Hermione lapsed into bitter reverie. �He is so uncertain, so unstable�he wearies, and then reacts. I couldn�t _tell_ you what his reactions are. I couldn�t _tell_ you the agony of them. That which he affirms and loves one day�a little latter he turns on it in a fury of destruction. He is never constant, always this awful, dreadful reaction. Always the quick change from good to bad, bad to good. And nothing is so devastating, nothing�� �Yes,� said Ursula humbly, �you must have suffered.� An unearthly light came on Hermione�s face. She clenched her hand like one inspired. �And one must be willing to suffer�willing to suffer for him hourly, daily�if you are going to help him, if he is to keep true to anything at all�� �And I don�t _want_ to suffer hourly and daily,� said Ursula. �I don�t, I should be ashamed. I think it is degrading not to be happy.� Hermione stopped and looked at her a long time. �Do you?� she said at last. And this utterance seemed to her a mark of Ursula�s far distance from herself. For to Hermione suffering was the greatest reality, come what might. Yet she too had a creed of happiness. �Yes,� she said. �One _should_ be happy�� But it was a matter of will. �Yes,� said Hermione, listlessly now, �I can only feel that it would be disastrous, disastrous�at least, to marry in a hurry. Can�t you be together without marriage? Can�t you go away and live somewhere without marriage? I do feel that marriage would be fatal, for both of you. I think for you even more than for him�and I think of his health�� �Of course,� said Ursula, �I don�t care about marriage�it isn�t really important to me�it�s he who wants it.� �It is his idea for the moment,� said Hermione, with that weary finality, and a sort of _si jeunesse savait_ infallibility. There was a pause. Then Ursula broke into faltering challenge. �You think I�m merely a physical woman, don�t you?� �No indeed,� said Hermione. �No, indeed! But I think you are vital and young�it isn�t a question of years, or even of experience�it is almost a question of race. Rupert is race-old, he comes of an old race�and you seem to me so young, you come of a young, inexperienced race.� �Do I!� said Ursula. �But I think he is awfully young, on one side.� �Yes, perhaps childish in many respects. Nevertheless�� They both lapsed into silence. Ursula was filled with deep resentment and a touch of hopelessness. �It isn�t true,� she said to herself, silently addressing her adversary. �It isn�t true. And it is _you_ who want a physically strong, bullying man, not I. It is you who want an unsensitive man, not I. You _don�t_ know anything about Rupert, not really, in spite of the years you have had with him. You don�t give him a woman�s love, you give him an ideal love, and that is why he reacts away from you. You don�t know. You only know the dead things. Any kitchen maid would know something about him, you don�t know. What do you think your knowledge is but dead understanding, that doesn�t mean a thing. You are so false, and untrue, how could you know anything? What is the good of your talking about love�you untrue spectre of a woman! How can you know anything, when you don�t believe? You don�t believe in yourself and your own womanhood, so what good is your conceited, shallow cleverness�!� The two women sat on in antagonistic silence. Hermione felt injured, that all her good intention, all her offering, only left the other woman in vulgar antagonism. But then, Ursula could not understand, never would understand, could never be more than the usual jealous and unreasonable female, with a good deal of powerful female emotion, female attraction, and a fair amount of female understanding, but no mind. Hermione had decided long ago that where there was no mind, it was useless to appeal for reason�one had merely to ignore the ignorant. And Rupert�he had now reacted towards the strongly female, healthy, selfish woman�it was his reaction for the time being�there was no helping it all. It was all a foolish backward and forward, a violent oscillation that would at length be too violent for his coherency, and he would smash and be dead. There was no saving him. This violent and directionless reaction between animalism and spiritual truth would go on in him till he tore himself in two between the opposite directions, and disappeared meaninglessly out of life. It was no good�he too was without unity, without _mind_, in the ultimate stages of living; not quite man enough to make a destiny for a woman. They sat on till Birkin came in and found them together. He felt at once the antagonism in the atmosphere, something radical and insuperable, and he bit his lip. But he affected a bluff manner. �Hello, Hermione, are you back again? How do you feel?� �Oh, better. And how are you�you don�t look well�� �Oh!�I believe Gudrun and Winnie Crich are coming in to tea. At least they said they were. We shall be a tea-party. What train did you come by, Ursula?� It was rather annoying to see him trying to placate both women at once. Both women watched him, Hermione with deep resentment and pity for him, Ursula very impatient. He was nervous and apparently in quite good spirits, chattering the conventional commonplaces. Ursula was amazed and indignant at the way he made small-talk; he was adept as any _fat_ in Christendom. She became quite stiff, she would not answer. It all seemed to her so false and so belittling. And still Gudrun did not appear. �I think I shall go to Florence for the winter,� said Hermione at length. �Will you?� he answered. �But it is so cold there.� �Yes, but I shall stay with Palestra. It is quite comfortable.� �What takes you to Florence?� �I don�t know,� said Hermione slowly. Then she looked at him with her slow, heavy gaze. �Barnes is starting his school of æsthetics, and Olandese is going to give a set of discourses on the Italian national policy�� �Both rubbish,� he said. �No, I don�t think so,� said Hermione. �Which do you admire, then?� �I admire both. Barnes is a pioneer. And then I am interested in Italy, in her coming to national consciousness.� �I wish she�d come to something different from national consciousness, then,� said Birkin; �especially as it only means a sort of commercial-industrial consciousness. I hate Italy and her national rant. And I think Barnes is an amateur.� Hermione was silent for some moments, in a state of hostility. But yet, she had got Birkin back again into her world! How subtle her influence was, she seemed to start his irritable attention into her direction exclusively, in one minute. He was her creature. �No,� she said, �you are wrong.� Then a sort of tension came over her, she raised her face like the pythoness inspired with oracles, and went on, in rhapsodic manner: �_Il Sandro mi scrive che ha accolto il più grande entusiasmo, tutti i giovani, e fanciulle e ragazzi, sono tutti_�� She went on in Italian, as if, in thinking of the Italians she thought in their language. He listened with a shade of distaste to her rhapsody, then he said: �For all that, I don�t like it. Their nationalism is just industrialism�that and a shallow jealousy I detest so much.� �I think you are wrong�I think you are wrong�� said Hermione. �It seems to me purely spontaneous and beautiful, the modern Italian�s _passion_, for it is a passion, for Italy, _l�Italia_�� �Do you know Italy well?� Ursula asked of Hermione. Hermione hated to be broken in upon in this manner. Yet she answered mildly: �Yes, pretty well. I spent several years of my girlhood there, with my mother. My mother died in Florence.� �Oh.� There was a pause, painful to Ursula and to Birkin. Hermione however seemed abstracted and calm. Birkin was white, his eyes glowed as if he were in a fever, he was far too over-wrought. How Ursula suffered in this tense atmosphere of strained wills! Her head seemed bound round by iron bands. Birkin rang the bell for tea. They could not wait for Gudrun any longer. When the door was opened, the cat walked in. �Micio! Micio!� called Hermione, in her slow, deliberate sing-song. The young cat turned to look at her, then, with his slow and stately walk he advanced to her side. �_Vieni�vieni quá_,� Hermione was saying, in her strange caressive, protective voice, as if she were always the elder, the mother superior. �_Vieni dire Buon� Giorno alla zia. Mi ricordi, mi ricordi bene�non è vero, piccolo? � vero che mi ricordi? � vero?_� And slowly she rubbed his head, slowly and with ironic indifference. �Does he understand Italian?� said Ursula, who knew nothing of the language. �Yes,� said Hermione at length. �His mother was Italian. She was born in my waste-paper basket in Florence, on the morning of Rupert�s birthday. She was his birthday present.� Tea was brought in. Birkin poured out for them. It was strange how inviolable was the intimacy which existed between him and Hermione. Ursula felt that she was an outsider. The very tea-cups and the old silver was a bond between Hermione and Birkin. It seemed to belong to an old, past world which they had inhabited together, and in which Ursula was a foreigner. She was almost a parvenue in their old cultured milieu. Her convention was not their convention, their standards were not her standards. But theirs were established, they had the sanction and the grace of age. He and she together, Hermione and Birkin, were people of the same old tradition, the same withered deadening culture. And she, Ursula, was an intruder. So they always made her feel. Hermione poured a little cream into a saucer. The simple way she assumed her rights in Birkin�s room maddened and discouraged Ursula. There was a fatality about it, as if it were bound to be. Hermione lifted the cat and put the cream before him. He planted his two paws on the edge of the table and bent his gracious young head to drink. �_Sicuro che capisce italiano_,� sang Hermione, �_non l�avrà dimenticato, la lingua della Mamma._� She lifted the cat�s head with her long, slow, white fingers, not letting him drink, holding him in her power. It was always the same, this joy in power she manifested, peculiarly in power over any male being. He blinked forbearingly, with a male, bored expression, licking his whiskers. Hermione laughed in her short, grunting fashion. �_Ecco, il bravo ragazzo, com� è superbo, questo!_� She made a vivid picture, so calm and strange with the cat. She had a true static impressiveness, she was a social artist in some ways. The cat refused to look at her, indifferently avoided her fingers, and began to drink again, his nose down to the cream, perfectly balanced, as he lapped with his odd little click. �It�s bad for him, teaching him to eat at table,� said Birkin. �Yes,� said Hermione, easily assenting. Then, looking down at the cat, she resumed her old, mocking, humorous sing-song. �_Ti imparano fare brutte cose, brutte cose_�� She lifted the Mino�s white chin on her forefinger, slowly. The young cat looked round with a supremely forbearing air, avoided seeing anything, withdrew his chin, and began to wash his face with his paw. Hermione grunted her laughter, pleased. �_Bel giovanotto_�� she said. The cat reached forward again and put his fine white paw on the edge of the saucer. Hermione lifted it down with delicate slowness. This deliberate, delicate carefulness of movement reminded Ursula of Gudrun. �_No! Non è permesso di mettere il zampino nel tondinetto. Non piace al babbo. Un signor gatto così selvatico�!_� And she kept her finger on the softly planted paw of the cat, and her voice had the same whimsical, humorous note of bullying. Ursula had her nose out of joint. She wanted to go away now. It all seemed no good. Hermione was established for ever, she herself was ephemeral and had not yet even arrived. �I will go now,� she said suddenly. Birkin looked at her almost in fear�he so dreaded her anger. �But there is no need for such hurry,� he said. �Yes,� she answered. �I will go.� And turning to Hermione, before there was time to say any more, she held out her hand and said �Good-bye.� �Good-bye�� sang Hermione, detaining the hand. �Must you really go now?� �Yes, I think I�ll go,� said Ursula, her face set, and averted from Hermione�s eyes. �You think you will�� But Ursula had got her hand free. She turned to Birkin with a quick, almost jeering: �Good-bye,� and she was opening the door before he had time to do it for her. When she got outside the house she ran down the road in fury and agitation. It was strange, the unreasoning rage and violence Hermione roused in her, by her very presence. Ursula knew she gave herself away to the other woman, she knew she looked ill-bred, uncouth, exaggerated. But she did not care. She only ran up the road, lest she should go back and jeer in the faces of the two she had left behind. For they outraged her. CHAPTER XXIII. EXCURSE Next day Birkin sought Ursula out. It happened to be the half-day at the Grammar School. He appeared towards the end of the morning, and asked her, would she drive with him in the afternoon. She consented. But her face was closed and unresponding, and his heart sank. The afternoon was fine and dim. He was driving the motor-car, and she sat beside him. But still her face was closed against him, unresponding. When she became like this, like a wall against him, his heart contracted. His life now seemed so reduced, that he hardly cared any more. At moments it seemed to him he did not care a straw whether Ursula or Hermione or anybody else existed or did not exist. Why bother! Why strive for a coherent, satisfied life? Why not drift on in a series of accidents�like a picaresque novel? Why not? Why bother about human relationships? Why take them seriously-male or female? Why form any serious connections at all? Why not be casual, drifting along, taking all for what it was worth? And yet, still, he was damned and doomed to the old effort at serious living. �Look,� he said, �what I bought.� The car was running along a broad white road, between autumn trees. He gave her a little bit of screwed-up paper. She took it and opened it. �How lovely,� she cried. She examined the gift. �How perfectly lovely!� she cried again. �But why do you give them me?� She put the question offensively. His face flickered with bored irritation. He shrugged his shoulders slightly. �I wanted to,� he said, coolly. �But why? Why should you?� �Am I called on to find reasons?� he asked. There was a silence, whilst she examined the rings that had been screwed up in the paper. �I think they are _beautiful_,� she said, �especially this. This is wonderful�� It was a round opal, red and fiery, set in a circle of tiny rubies. �You like that best?� he said. �I think I do.� �I like the sapphire,� he said. �This?� It was a rose-shaped, beautiful sapphire, with small brilliants. �Yes,� she said, �it is lovely.� She held it in the light. �Yes, perhaps it _is_ the best�� �The blue�� he said. �Yes, wonderful�� He suddenly swung the car out of the way of a farm-cart. It tilted on the bank. He was a careless driver, yet very quick. But Ursula was frightened. There was always that something regardless in him which terrified her. She suddenly felt he might kill her, by making some dreadful accident with the motor-car. For a moment she was stony with fear. �Isn�t it rather dangerous, the way you drive?� she asked him. �No, it isn�t dangerous,� he said. And then, after a pause: �Don�t you like the yellow ring at all?� It was a squarish topaz set in a frame of steel, or some other similar mineral, finely wrought. �Yes,� she said, �I do like it. But why did you buy these rings?� �I wanted them. They are second-hand.� �You bought them for yourself?� �No. Rings look wrong on my hands.� �Why did you buy them then?� �I bought them to give to you.� �But why? Surely you ought to give them to Hermione! You belong to her.� He did not answer. She remained with the jewels shut in her hand. She wanted to try them on her fingers, but something in her would not let her. And moreover, she was afraid her hands were too large, she shrank from the mortification of a failure to put them on any but her little finger. They travelled in silence through the empty lanes. Driving in a motor-car excited her, she forgot his presence even. �Where are we?� she asked suddenly. �Not far from Worksop.� �And where are we going?� �Anywhere.� It was the answer she liked. She opened her hand to look at the rings. They gave her _such_ pleasure, as they lay, the three circles, with their knotted jewels, entangled in her palm. She would have to try them on. She did so secretly, unwilling to let him see, so that he should not know her finger was too large for them. But he saw nevertheless. He always saw, if she wanted him not to. It was another of his hateful, watchful characteristics. Only the opal, with its thin wire loop, would go on her ring finger. And she was superstitious. No, there was ill-portent enough, she would not accept this ring from him in pledge. �Look,� she said, putting forward her hand, that was half-closed and shrinking. �The others don�t fit me.� He looked at the red-glinting, soft stone, on her over-sensitive skin. �Yes,� he said. �But opals are unlucky, aren�t they?� she said wistfully. �No. I prefer unlucky things. Luck is vulgar. Who wants what _luck_ would bring? I don�t.� �But why?� she laughed. And, consumed with a desire to see how the other rings would look on her hand, she put them on her little finger. �They can be made a little bigger,� he said. �Yes,� she replied, doubtfully. And she sighed. She knew that, in accepting the rings, she was accepting a pledge. Yet fate seemed more than herself. She looked again at the jewels. They were very beautiful to her eyes�not as ornament, or wealth, but as tiny fragments of loveliness. �I�m glad you bought them,� she said, putting her hand, half unwillingly, gently on his arm. He smiled, slightly. He wanted her to come to him. But he was angry at the bottom of his soul, and indifferent. He knew she had a passion for him, really. But it was not finally interesting. There were depths of passion when one became impersonal and indifferent, unemotional. Whereas Ursula was still at the emotional personal level�always so abominably personal. He had taken her as he had never been taken himself. He had taken her at the roots of her darkness and shame�like a demon, laughing over the fountain of mystic corruption which was one of the sources of her being, laughing, shrugging, accepting, accepting finally. As for her, when would she so much go beyond herself as to accept him at the quick of death? She now became quite happy. The motor-car ran on, the afternoon was soft and dim. She talked with lively interest, analysing people and their motives�Gudrun, Gerald. He answered vaguely. He was not very much interested any more in personalities and in people�people were all different, but they were all enclosed nowadays in a definite limitation, he said; there were only about two great ideas, two great streams of activity remaining, with various forms of reaction therefrom. The reactions were all varied in various people, but they followed a few great laws, and intrinsically there was no difference. They acted and reacted involuntarily according to a few great laws, and once the laws, the great principles, were known, people were no longer mystically interesting. They were all essentially alike, the differences were only variations on a theme. None of them transcended the given terms. Ursula did not agree�people were still an adventure to her�but�perhaps not as much as she tried to persuade herself. Perhaps there was something mechanical, now, in her interest. Perhaps also her interest was destructive, her analysing was a real tearing to pieces. There was an under-space in her where she did not care for people and their idiosyncracies, even to destroy them. She seemed to touch for a moment this undersilence in herself, she became still, and she turned for a moment purely to Birkin. �Won�t it be lovely to go home in the dark?� she said. �We might have tea rather late�shall we?�and have high tea? Wouldn�t that be rather nice?� �I promised to be at Shortlands for dinner,� he said. �But�it doesn�t matter�you can go tomorrow�� �Hermione is there,� he said, in rather an uneasy voice. �She is going away in two days. I suppose I ought to say good-bye to her. I shall never see her again.� Ursula drew away, closed in a violent silence. He knitted his brows, and his eyes began to sparkle again in anger. �You don�t mind, do you?� he asked irritably. �No, I don�t care. Why should I? Why should I mind?� Her tone was jeering and offensive. �That�s what I ask myself,� he said; �why _should_ you mind! But you seem to.� His brows were tense with violent irritation. �I _assure_ you I don�t, I don�t mind in the least. Go where you belong�it�s what I want you to do.� �Ah you fool!� he cried, �with your �go where you belong.� It�s finished between Hermione and me. She means much more to _you_, if it comes to that, than she does to me. For you can only revolt in pure reaction from her�and to be her opposite is to be her counterpart.� �Ah, opposite!� cried Ursula. �I know your dodges. I am not taken in by your word-twisting. You belong to Hermione and her dead show. Well, if you do, you do. I don�t blame you. But then you�ve nothing to do with me. In his inflamed, overwrought exasperation, he stopped the car, and they sat there, in the middle of the country lane, to have it out. It was a crisis of war between them, so they did not see the ridiculousness of their situation. �If you weren�t a fool, if only you weren�t a fool,� he cried in bitter despair, �you�d see that one could be decent, even when one has been wrong. I _was_ wrong to go on all those years with Hermione�it was a deathly process. But after all, one can have a little human decency. But no, you would tear my soul out with your jealousy at the very mention of Hermione�s name.� �I jealous! _I_�jealous! You _are_ mistaken if you think that. I�m not jealous in the least of Hermione, she is nothing to me, not _that!_� And Ursula snapped her fingers. �No, it�s you who are a liar. It�s you who must return, like a dog to his vomit. It is what Hermione _stands for_ that I _hate_. I _hate_ it. It is lies, it is false, it is death. But you want it, you can�t help it, you can�t help yourself. You belong to that old, deathly way of living�then go back to it. But don�t come to me, for I�ve nothing to do with it.� And in the stress of her violent emotion, she got down from the car and went to the hedgerow, picking unconsciously some flesh-pink spindleberries, some of which were burst, showing their orange seeds. �Ah, you are a fool,� he cried, bitterly, with some contempt. �Yes, I am. I _am_ a fool. And thank God for it. I�m too big a fool to swallow your cleverness. God be praised. You go to your women�go to them�they are your sort�you�ve always had a string of them trailing after you�and you always will. Go to your spiritual brides�but don�t come to me as well, because I�m not having any, thank you. You�re not satisfied, are you? Your spiritual brides can�t give you what you want, they aren�t common and fleshy enough for you, aren�t they? So you come to me, and keep them in the background! You will marry me for daily use. But you�ll keep yourself well provided with spiritual brides in the background. I know your dirty little game.� Suddenly a flame ran over her, and she stamped her foot madly on the road, and he winced, afraid that she would strike him. �And _I, I�m_ not spiritual enough, _I�m_ not as spiritual as that Hermione�!� Her brows knitted, her eyes blazed like a tiger�s. �Then _go_ to her, that�s all I say, _go_ to her, _go_. Ha, she spiritual�_spiritual_, she! A dirty materialist as she is. _She_ spiritual? What does she care for, what is her spirituality? What _is_ it?� Her fury seemed to blaze out and burn his face. He shrank a little. �I tell you it�s _dirt, dirt_, and nothing _but_ dirt. And it�s dirt you want, you crave for it. Spiritual! Is _that_ spiritual, her bullying, her conceit, her sordid materialism? She�s a fishwife, a fishwife, she is such a materialist. And all so sordid. What does she work out to, in the end, with all her social passion, as you call it. Social passion�what social passion has she?�show it me!�where is it? She wants petty, immediate _power_, she wants the illusion that she is a great woman, that is all. In her soul she�s a devilish unbeliever, common as dirt. That�s what she is at the bottom. And all the rest is pretence�but you love it. You love the sham spirituality, it�s your food. And why? Because of the dirt underneath. Do you think I don�t know the foulness of your sex life�and her�s?�I do. And it�s that foulness you want, you liar. Then have it, have it. You�re such a liar.� She turned away, spasmodically tearing the twigs of spindleberry from the hedge, and fastening them, with vibrating fingers, in the bosom of her coat. He stood watching in silence. A wonderful tenderness burned in him, at the sight of her quivering, so sensitive fingers: and at the same time he was full of rage and callousness. �This is a degrading exhibition,� he said coolly. �Yes, degrading indeed,� she said. �But more to me than to you.� �Since you choose to degrade yourself,� he said. Again the flash came over her face, the yellow lights concentrated in her eyes. �_You!_� she cried. �You! You truth-lover! You purity-monger! It _stinks_, your truth and your purity. It stinks of the offal you feed on, you scavenger dog, you eater of corpses. You are foul, _foul_�and you must know it. Your purity, your candour, your goodness�yes, thank you, we�ve had some. What you are is a foul, deathly thing, obscene, that�s what you are, obscene and perverse. You, and love! You may well say, you don�t want love. No, you want _yourself_, and dirt, and death�that�s what you want. You are so _perverse_, so death-eating. And then�� �There�s a bicycle coming,� he said, writhing under her loud denunciation. She glanced down the road. �I don�t care,� she cried. Nevertheless she was silent. The cyclist, having heard the voices raised in altercation, glanced curiously at the man, and the woman, and at the standing motor-car as he passed. ��Afternoon,� he said, cheerfully. �Good-afternoon,� replied Birkin coldly. They were silent as the man passed into the distance. A clearer look had come over Birkin�s face. He knew she was in the main right. He knew he was perverse, so spiritual on the one hand, and in some strange way, degraded, on the other. But was she herself any better? Was anybody any better? �It may all be true, lies and stink and all,� he said. �But Hermione�s spiritual intimacy is no rottener than your emotional-jealous intimacy. One can preserve the decencies, even to one�s enemies: for one�s own sake. Hermione is my enemy�to her last breath! That�s why I must bow her off the field.� �You! You and your enemies and your bows! A pretty picture you make of yourself. But it takes nobody in but yourself. I _jealous! I!_ What I say,� her voice sprang into flame, �I say because it is _true_, do you see, because you are _you_, a foul and false liar, a whited sepulchre. That�s why I say it. And _you_ hear it.� �And be grateful,� he added, with a satirical grimace. �Yes,� she cried, �and if you have a spark of decency in you, be grateful.� �Not having a spark of decency, however�� he retorted. �No,� she cried, �you haven�t a _spark_. And so you can go your way, and I�ll go mine. It�s no good, not the slightest. So you can leave me now, I don�t want to go any further with you�leave me�� �You don�t even know where you are,� he said. �Oh, don�t bother, I assure you I shall be all right. I�ve got ten shillings in my purse, and that will take me back from anywhere _you_ have brought me to.� She hesitated. The rings were still on her fingers, two on her little finger, one on her ring finger. Still she hesitated. �Very good,� he said. �The only hopeless thing is a fool.� �You are quite right,� she said. Still she hesitated. Then an ugly, malevolent look came over her face, she pulled the rings from her fingers, and tossed them at him. One touched his face, the others hit his coat, and they scattered into the mud. �And take your rings,� she said, �and go and buy yourself a female elsewhere�there are plenty to be had, who will be quite glad to share your spiritual mess,�or to have your physical mess, and leave your spiritual mess to Hermione.� With which she walked away, desultorily, up the road. He stood motionless, watching her sullen, rather ugly walk. She was sullenly picking and pulling at the twigs of the hedge as she passed. She grew smaller, she seemed to pass out of his sight. A darkness came over his mind. Only a small, mechanical speck of consciousness hovered near him. He felt tired and weak. Yet also he was relieved. He gave up his old position. He went and sat on the bank. No doubt Ursula was right. It was true, really, what she said. He knew that his spirituality was concomitant of a process of depravity, a sort of pleasure in self-destruction. There really _was_ a certain stimulant in self-destruction, for him�especially when it was translated spiritually. But then he knew it�he knew it, and had done. And was not Ursula�s way of emotional intimacy, emotional and physical, was it not just as dangerous as Hermione�s abstract spiritual intimacy? Fusion, fusion, this horrible fusion of two beings, which every woman and most men insisted on, was it not nauseous and horrible anyhow, whether it was a fusion of the spirit or of the emotional body? Hermione saw herself as the perfect Idea, to which all men must come: And Ursula was the perfect Womb, the bath of birth, to which all men must come! And both were horrible. Why could they not remain individuals, limited by their own limits? Why this dreadful all-comprehensiveness, this hateful tyranny? Why not leave the other being, free, why try to absorb, or melt, or merge? One might abandon oneself utterly to the _moments_, but not to any other being. He could not bear to see the rings lying in the pale mud of the road. He picked them up, and wiped them unconsciously on his hands. They were the little tokens of the reality of beauty, the reality of happiness in warm creation. But he had made his hands all dirty and gritty. There was a darkness over his mind. The terrible knot of consciousness that had persisted there like an obsession was broken, gone, his life was dissolved in darkness over his limbs and his body. But there was a point of anxiety in his heart now. He wanted her to come back. He breathed lightly and regularly like an infant, that breathes innocently, beyond the touch of responsibility. She was coming back. He saw her drifting desultorily under the high hedge, advancing towards him slowly. He did not move, he did not look again. He was as if asleep, at peace, slumbering and utterly relaxed. She came up and stood before him, hanging her head. �See what a flower I found you,� she said, wistfully holding a piece of purple-red bell-heather under his face. He saw the clump of coloured bells, and the tree-like, tiny branch: also her hands, with their over-fine, over-sensitive skin. �Pretty!� he said, looking up at her with a smile, taking the flower. Everything had become simple again, quite simple, the complexity gone into nowhere. But he badly wanted to cry: except that he was weary and bored by emotion. Then a hot passion of tenderness for her filled his heart. He stood up and looked into her face. It was new and oh, so delicate in its luminous wonder and fear. He put his arms round her, and she hid her face on his shoulder. It was peace, just simple peace, as he stood folding her quietly there on the open lane. It was peace at last. The old, detestable world of tension had passed away at last, his soul was strong and at ease. She looked up at him. The wonderful yellow light in her eyes now was soft and yielded, they were at peace with each other. He kissed her, softly, many, many times. A laugh came into her eyes. �Did I abuse you?� she asked. He smiled too, and took her hand, that was so soft and given. �Never mind,� she said, �it is all for the good.� He kissed her again, softly, many times. �Isn�t it?� she said. �Certainly,� he replied. �Wait! I shall have my own back.� She laughed suddenly, with a wild catch in her voice, and flung her arms around him. �You are mine, my love, aren�t you?� she cried straining him close. �Yes,� he said, softly. His voice was so soft and final, she went very still, as if under a fate which had taken her. Yes, she acquiesced�but it was accomplished without her acquiescence. He was kissing her quietly, repeatedly, with a soft, still happiness that almost made her heart stop beating. �My love!� she cried, lifting her face and looking with frightened, gentle wonder of bliss. Was it all real? But his eyes were beautiful and soft and immune from stress or excitement, beautiful and smiling lightly to her, smiling with her. She hid her face on his shoulder, hiding before him, because he could see her so completely. She knew he loved her, and she was afraid, she was in a strange element, a new heaven round about her. She wished he were passionate, because in passion she was at home. But this was so still and frail, as space is more frightening than force. Again, quickly, she lifted her head. �Do you love me?� she said, quickly, impulsively. �Yes,� he replied, not heeding her motion, only her stillness. She knew it was true. She broke away. �So you ought,� she said, turning round to look at the road. �Did you find the rings?� �Yes.� �Where are they?� �In my pocket.� She put her hand into his pocket and took them out. She was restless. �Shall we go?� she said. �Yes,� he answered. And they mounted to the car once more, and left behind them this memorable battle-field. They drifted through the wild, late afternoon, in a beautiful motion that was smiling and transcendent. His mind was sweetly at ease, the life flowed through him as from some new fountain, he was as if born out of the cramp of a womb. �Are you happy?� she asked him, in her strange, delighted way. �Yes,� he said. �So am I,� she cried in sudden ecstacy, putting her arm round him and clutching him violently against her, as he steered the motor-car. �Don�t drive much more,� she said. �I don�t want you to be always doing something.� �No,� he said. �We�ll finish this little trip, and then we�ll be free.� �We will, my love, we will,� she cried in delight, kissing him as he turned to her. He drove on in a strange new wakefulness, the tension of his consciousness broken. He seemed to be conscious all over, all his body awake with a simple, glimmering awareness, as if he had just come awake, like a thing that is born, like a bird when it comes out of an egg, into a new universe. They dropped down a long hill in the dusk, and suddenly Ursula recognised on her right hand, below in the hollow, the form of Southwell Minster. �Are we here!� she cried with pleasure. The rigid, sombre, ugly cathedral was settling under the gloom of the coming night, as they entered the narrow town, the golden lights showed like slabs of revelation, in the shop-windows. �Father came here with mother,� she said, �when they first knew each other. He loves it�he loves the Minster. Do you?� �Yes. It looks like quartz crystals sticking up out of the dark hollow. We�ll have our high tea at the Saracen�s Head.� As they descended, they heard the Minster bells playing a hymn, when the hour had struck six. Glory to thee my God this night For all the blessings of the light� So, to Ursula�s ear, the tune fell out, drop by drop, from the unseen sky on to the dusky town. It was like dim, bygone centuries sounding. It was all so far off. She stood in the old yard of the inn, smelling of straw and stables and petrol. Above, she could see the first stars. What was it all? This was no actual world, it was the dream-world of one�s childhood�a great circumscribed reminiscence. The world had become unreal. She herself was a strange, transcendent reality. They sat together in a little parlour by the fire. �Is it true?� she said, wondering. �What?� �Everything�is everything true?� �The best is true,� he said, grimacing at her. �Is it?� she replied, laughing, but unassured. She looked at him. He seemed still so separate. New eyes were opened in her soul. She saw a strange creature from another world, in him. It was as if she were enchanted, and everything were metamorphosed. She recalled again the old magic of the Book of Genesis, where the sons of God saw the daughters of men, that they were fair. And he was one of these, one of these strange creatures from the beyond, looking down at her, and seeing she was fair. He stood on the hearth-rug looking at her, at her face that was upturned exactly like a flower, a fresh, luminous flower, glinting faintly golden with the dew of the first light. And he was smiling faintly as if there were no speech in the world, save the silent delight of flowers in each other. Smilingly they delighted in each other�s presence, pure presence, not to be thought of, even known. But his eyes had a faintly ironical contraction. And she was drawn to him strangely, as in a spell. Kneeling on the hearth-rug before him, she put her arms round his loins, and put her face against his thigh. Riches! Riches! She was overwhelmed with a sense of a heavenful of riches. �We love each other,� she said in delight. �More than that,� he answered, looking down at her with his glimmering, easy face. Unconsciously, with her sensitive fingertips, she was tracing the back of his thighs, following some mysterious life-flow there. She had discovered something, something more than wonderful, more wonderful than life itself. It was the strange mystery of his life-motion, there, at the back of the thighs, down the flanks. It was a strange reality of his being, the very stuff of being, there in the straight downflow of the thighs. It was here she discovered him one of the sons of God such as were in the beginning of the world, not a man, something other, something more. This was release at last. She had had lovers, she had known passion. But this was neither love nor passion. It was the daughters of men coming back to the sons of God, the strange inhuman sons of God who are in the beginning. Her face was now one dazzle of released, golden light, as she looked up at him, and laid her hands full on his thighs, behind, as he stood before her. He looked down at her with a rich bright brow like a diadem above his eyes. She was beautiful as a new marvellous flower opened at his knees, a paradisal flower she was, beyond womanhood, such a flower of luminousness. Yet something was tight and unfree in him. He did not like this crouching, this radiance�not altogether. It was all achieved, for her. She had found one of the sons of God from the Beginning, and he had found one of the first most luminous daughters of men. She traced with her hands the line of his loins and thighs, at the back, and a living fire ran through her, from him, darkly. It was a dark flood of electric passion she released from him, drew into herself. She had established a rich new circuit, a new current of passional electric energy, between the two of them, released from the darkest poles of the body and established in perfect circuit. It was a dark fire of electricity that rushed from him to her, and flooded them both with rich peace, satisfaction. �My love,� she cried, lifting her face to him, her eyes, her mouth open in transport. �My love,� he answered, bending and kissing her, always kissing her. She closed her hands over the full, rounded body of his loins, as he stooped over her, she seemed to touch the quick of the mystery of darkness that was bodily him. She seemed to faint beneath, and he seemed to faint, stooping over her. It was a perfect passing away for both of them, and at the same time the most intolerable accession into being, the marvellous fullness of immediate gratification, overwhelming, out-flooding from the source of the deepest life-force, the darkest, deepest, strangest life-source of the human body, at the back and base of the loins. After a lapse of stillness, after the rivers of strange dark fluid richness had passed over her, flooding, carrying away her mind and flooding down her spine and down her knees, past her feet, a strange flood, sweeping away everything and leaving her an essential new being, she was left quite free, she was free in complete ease, her complete self. So she rose, stilly and blithe, smiling at him. He stood before her, glimmering, so awfully real, that her heart almost stopped beating. He stood there in his strange, whole body, that had its marvellous fountains, like the bodies of the sons of God who were in the beginning. There were strange fountains of his body, more mysterious and potent than any she had imagined or known, more satisfying, ah, finally, mystically-physically satisfying. She had thought there was no source deeper than the phallic source. And now, behold, from the smitten rock of the man�s body, from the strange marvellous flanks and thighs, deeper, further in mystery than the phallic source, came the floods of ineffable darkness and ineffable riches. They were glad, and they could forget perfectly. They laughed, and went to the meal provided. There was a venison pasty, of all things, a large broad-faced cut ham, eggs and cresses and red beet-root, and medlars and apple-tart, and tea. �What _good_ things!� she cried with pleasure. �How noble it looks!�shall I pour out the tea?�� She was usually nervous and uncertain at performing these public duties, such as giving tea. But today she forgot, she was at her ease, entirely forgetting to have misgivings. The tea-pot poured beautifully from a proud slender spout. Her eyes were warm with smiles as she gave him his tea. She had learned at last to be still and perfect. �Everything is ours,� she said to him. �Everything,� he answered. She gave a queer little crowing sound of triumph. �I�m so glad!� she cried, with unspeakable relief. �So am I,� he said. �But I�m thinking we�d better get out of our responsibilities as quick as we can.� �What responsibilities?� she asked, wondering. �We must drop our jobs, like a shot.� A new understanding dawned into her face. �Of course,� she said, �there�s that.� �We must get out,� he said. �There�s nothing for it but to get out, quick.� She looked at him doubtfully across the table. �But where?� she said. �I don�t know,� he said. �We�ll just wander about for a bit.� Again she looked at him quizzically. �I should be perfectly happy at the Mill,� she said. �It�s very near the old thing,� he said. �Let us wander a bit.� His voice could be so soft and happy-go-lucky, it went through her veins like an exhilaration. Nevertheless she dreamed of a valley, and wild gardens, and peace. She had a desire too for splendour�an aristocratic extravagant splendour. Wandering seemed to her like restlessness, dissatisfaction. �Where will you wander to?� she asked. �I don�t know. I feel as if I would just meet you and we�d set off�just towards the distance.� �But where can one go?� she asked anxiously. �After all, there _is_ only the world, and none of it is very distant.� �Still,� he said, �I should like to go with you�nowhere. It would be rather wandering just to nowhere. That�s the place to get to�nowhere. One wants to wander away from the world�s somewheres, into our own nowhere.� Still she meditated. �You see, my love,� she said, �I�m so afraid that while we are only people, we�ve got to take the world that�s given�because there isn�t any other.� �Yes there is,� he said. �There�s somewhere where we can be free�somewhere where one needn�t wear much clothes�none even�where one meets a few people who have gone through enough, and can take things for granted�where you be yourself, without bothering. There is somewhere�there are one or two people�� �But where�?� she sighed. �Somewhere�anywhere. Let�s wander off. That�s the thing to do�let�s wander off.� �Yes�� she said, thrilled at the thought of travel. But to her it was only travel. �To be free,� he said. �To be free, in a free place, with a few other people!� �Yes,� she said wistfully. Those �few other people� depressed her. �It isn�t really a locality, though,� he said. �It�s a perfected relation between you and me, and others�the perfect relation�so that we are free together.� �It is, my love, isn�t it,� she said. �It�s you and me. It�s you and me, isn�t it?� She stretched out her arms to him. He went across and stooped to kiss her face. Her arms closed round him again, her hands spread upon his shoulders, moving slowly there, moving slowly on his back, down his back slowly, with a strange recurrent, rhythmic motion, yet moving slowly down, pressing mysteriously over his loins, over his flanks. The sense of the awfulness of riches that could never be impaired flooded her mind like a swoon, a death in most marvellous possession, mystic-sure. She possessed him so utterly and intolerably, that she herself lapsed out. And yet she was only sitting still in the chair, with her hands pressed upon him, and lost. Again he softly kissed her. �We shall never go apart again,� he murmured quietly. And she did not speak, but only pressed her hands firmer down upon the source of darkness in him. They decided, when they woke again from the pure swoon, to write their resignations from the world of work there and then. She wanted this. He rang the bell, and ordered note-paper without a printed address. The waiter cleared the table. �Now then,� he said, �yours first. Put your home address, and the date�then �Director of Education, Town Hall�Sir�� Now then!�I don�t know how one really stands�I suppose one could get out of it in less than month�Anyhow �Sir�I beg to resign my post as classmistress in the Willey Green Grammar School. I should be very grateful if you would liberate me as soon as possible, without waiting for the expiration of the month�s notice.� That�ll do. Have you got it? Let me look. �Ursula Brangwen.� Good! Now I�ll write mine. I ought to give them three months, but I can plead health. I can arrange it all right.� He sat and wrote out his formal resignation. �Now,� he said, when the envelopes were sealed and addressed, �shall we post them here, both together? I know Jackie will say, �Here�s a coincidence!� when he receives them in all their identity. Shall we let him say it, or not?� �I don�t care,� she said. �No�?� he said, pondering. �It doesn�t matter, does it?� she said. �Yes,� he replied. �Their imaginations shall not work on us. I�ll post yours here, mine after. I cannot be implicated in their imaginings.� He looked at her with his strange, non-human singleness. �Yes, you are right,� she said. She lifted her face to him, all shining and open. It was as if he might enter straight into the source of her radiance. His face became a little distracted. �Shall we go?� he said. �As you like,� she replied. They were soon out of the little town, and running through the uneven lanes of the country. Ursula nestled near him, into his constant warmth, and watched the pale-lit revelation racing ahead, the visible night. Sometimes it was a wide old road, with grass-spaces on either side, flying magic and elfin in the greenish illumination, sometimes it was trees looming overhead, sometimes it was bramble bushes, sometimes the walls of a crew-yard and the butt of a barn. �Are you going to Shortlands to dinner?� Ursula asked him suddenly. He started. �Good God!� he said. �Shortlands! Never again. Not that. Besides we should be too late.� �Where are we going then�to the Mill?� �If you like. Pity to go anywhere on this good dark night. Pity to come out of it, really. Pity we can�t stop in the good darkness. It is better than anything ever would be�this good immediate darkness.� She sat wondering. The car lurched and swayed. She knew there was no leaving him, the darkness held them both and contained them, it was not to be surpassed. Besides she had a full mystic knowledge of his suave loins of darkness, dark-clad and suave, and in this knowledge there was some of the inevitability and the beauty of fate, fate which one asks for, which one accepts in full. He sat still like an Egyptian Pharoah, driving the car. He felt as if he were seated in immemorial potency, like the great carven statues of real Egypt, as real and as fulfilled with subtle strength, as these are, with a vague inscrutable smile on the lips. He knew what it was to have the strange and magical current of force in his back and loins, and down his legs, force so perfect that it stayed him immobile, and left his face subtly, mindlessly smiling. He knew what it was to be awake and potent in that other basic mind, the deepest physical mind. And from this source he had a pure and magic control, magical, mystical, a force in darkness, like electricity. It was very difficult to speak, it was so perfect to sit in this pure living silence, subtle, full of unthinkable knowledge and unthinkable force, upheld immemorially in timeless force, like the immobile, supremely potent Egyptians, seated forever in their living, subtle silence. �We need not go home,� he said. �This car has seats that let down and make a bed, and we can lift the hood.� She was glad and frightened. She cowered near to him. �But what about them at home?� she said. �Send a telegram.� Nothing more was said. They ran on in silence. But with a sort of second consciousness he steered the car towards a destination. For he had the free intelligence to direct his own ends. His arms and his breast and his head were rounded and living like those of the Greek, he had not the unawakened straight arms of the Egyptian, nor the sealed, slumbering head. A lambent intelligence played secondarily above his pure Egyptian concentration in darkness. They came to a village that lined along the road. The car crept slowly along, until he saw the post-office. Then he pulled up. �I will send a telegram to your father,� he said. �I will merely say �spending the night in town,� shall I?� �Yes,� she answered. She did not want to be disturbed into taking thought. She watched him move into the post-office. It was also a shop, she saw. Strange, he was. Even as he went into the lighted, public place he remained dark and magic, the living silence seemed the body of reality in him, subtle, potent, indiscoverable. There he was! In a strange uplift of elation she saw him, the being never to be revealed, awful in its potency, mystic and real. This dark, subtle reality of him, never to be translated, liberated her into perfection, her own perfected being. She too was dark and fulfilled in silence. He came out, throwing some packages into the car. �There is some bread, and cheese, and raisins, and apples, and hard chocolate,� he said, in his voice that was as if laughing, because of the unblemished stillness and force which was the reality in him. She would have to touch him. To speak, to see, was nothing. It was a travesty to look and to comprehend the man there. Darkness and silence must fall perfectly on her, then she could know mystically, in unrevealed touch. She must lightly, mindlessly connect with him, have the knowledge which is death of knowledge, the reality of surety in not-knowing. Soon they had run on again into the darkness. She did not ask where they were going, she did not care. She sat in a fullness and a pure potency that was like apathy, mindless and immobile. She was next to him, and hung in a pure rest, as a star is hung, balanced unthinkably. Still there remained a dark lambency of anticipation. She would touch him. With perfect fine finger-tips of reality she would touch the reality in him, the suave, pure, untranslatable reality of his loins of darkness. To touch, mindlessly in darkness to come in pure touching upon the living reality of him, his suave perfect loins and thighs of darkness, this was her sustaining anticipation. And he too waited in the magical steadfastness of suspense, for her to take this knowledge of him as he had taken it of her. He knew her darkly, with the fullness of dark knowledge. Now she would know him, and he too would be liberated. He would be night-free, like an Egyptian, steadfast in perfectly suspended equilibrium, pure mystic nodality of physical being. They would give each other this star-equilibrium which alone is freedom. She saw that they were running among trees�great old trees with dying bracken undergrowth. The palish, gnarled trunks showed ghostly, and like old priests in the hovering distance, the fern rose magical and mysterious. It was a night all darkness, with low cloud. The motor-car advanced slowly. �Where are we?� she whispered. �In Sherwood Forest.� It was evident he knew the place. He drove softly, watching. Then they came to a green road between the trees. They turned cautiously round, and were advancing between the oaks of the forest, down a green lane. The green lane widened into a little circle of grass, where there was a small trickle of water at the bottom of a sloping bank. The car stopped. �We will stay here,� he said, �and put out the lights.� He extinguished the lamps at once, and it was pure night, with shadows of trees like realities of other, nightly being. He threw a rug on to the bracken, and they sat in stillness and mindless silence. There were faint sounds from the wood, but no disturbance, no possible disturbance, the world was under a strange ban, a new mystery had supervened. They threw off their clothes, and he gathered her to him, and found her, found the pure lambent reality of her forever invisible flesh. Quenched, inhuman, his fingers upon her unrevealed nudity were the fingers of silence upon silence, the body of mysterious night upon the body of mysterious night, the night masculine and feminine, never to be seen with the eye, or known with the mind, only known as a palpable revelation of living otherness. She had her desire of him, she touched, she received the maximum of unspeakable communication in touch, dark, subtle, positively silent, a magnificent gift and give again, a perfect acceptance and yielding, a mystery, the reality of that which can never be known, vital, sensual reality that can never be transmuted into mind content, but remains outside, living body of darkness and silence and subtlety, the mystic body of reality. She had her desire fulfilled. He had his desire fulfilled. For she was to him what he was to her, the immemorial magnificence of mystic, palpable, real otherness. They slept the chilly night through under the hood of the car, a night of unbroken sleep. It was already high day when he awoke. They looked at each other and laughed, then looked away, filled with darkness and secrecy. Then they kissed and remembered the magnificence of the night. It was so magnificent, such an inheritance of a universe of dark reality, that they were afraid to seem to remember. They hid away the remembrance and the knowledge. CHAPTER XXIV. DEATH AND LOVE Thomas Crich died slowly, terribly slowly. It seemed impossible to everybody that the thread of life could be drawn out so thin, and yet not break. The sick man lay unutterably weak and spent, kept alive by morphia and by drinks, which he sipped slowly. He was only half conscious�a thin strand of consciousness linking the darkness of death with the light of day. Yet his will was unbroken, he was integral, complete. Only he must have perfect stillness about him. Any presence but that of the nurses was a strain and an effort to him now. Every morning Gerald went into the room, hoping to find his father passed away at last. Yet always he saw the same transparent face, the same dread dark hair on the waxen forehead, and the awful, inchoate dark eyes, which seemed to be decomposing into formless darkness, having only a tiny grain of vision within them. And always, as the dark, inchoate eyes turned to him, there passed through Gerald�s bowels a burning stroke of revolt, that seemed to resound through his whole being, threatening to break his mind with its clangour, and making him mad. Every morning, the son stood there, erect and taut with life, gleaming in his blondness. The gleaming blondness of his strange, imminent being put the father into a fever of fretful irritation. He could not bear to meet the uncanny, downward look of Gerald�s blue eyes. But it was only for a moment. Each on the brink of departure, the father and son looked at each other, then parted. For a long time Gerald preserved a perfect _sang-froid_, he remained quite collected. But at last, fear undermined him. He was afraid of some horrible collapse in himself. He had to stay and see this thing through. Some perverse will made him watch his father drawn over the borders of life. And yet, now, every day, the great red-hot stroke of horrified fear through the bowels of the son struck a further inflammation. Gerald went about all day with a tendency to cringe, as if there were the point of a sword of Damocles pricking the nape of his neck. There was no escape�he was bound up with his father, he had to see him through. And the father�s will never relaxed or yielded to death. It would have to snap when death at last snapped it,�if it did not persist after a physical death. In the same way, the will of the son never yielded. He stood firm and immune, he was outside this death and this dying. It was a trial by ordeal. Could he stand and see his father slowly dissolve and disappear in death, without once yielding his will, without once relenting before the omnipotence of death. Like a Red Indian undergoing torture, Gerald would experience the whole process of slow death without wincing or flinching. He even triumphed in it. He somehow _wanted_ this death, even forced it. It was as if he himself were dealing the death, even when he most recoiled in horror. Still, he would deal it, he would triumph through death. But in the stress of this ordeal, Gerald too lost his hold on the outer, daily life. That which was much to him, came to mean nothing. Work, pleasure�it was all left behind. He went on more or less mechanically with his business, but this activity was all extraneous. The real activity was this ghastly wrestling for death in his own soul. And his own will should triumph. Come what might, he would not bow down or submit or acknowledge a master. He had no master in death. But as the fight went on, and all that he had been and was continued to be destroyed, so that life was a hollow shell all round him, roaring and clattering like the sound of the sea, a noise in which he participated externally, and inside this hollow shell was all the darkness and fearful space of death, he knew he would have to find reinforcements, otherwise he would collapse inwards upon the great dark void which circled at the centre of his soul. His will held his outer life, his outer mind, his outer being unbroken and unchanged. But the pressure was too great. He would have to find something to make good the equilibrium. Something must come with him into the hollow void of death in his soul, fill it up, and so equalise the pressure within to the pressure without. For day by day he felt more and more like a bubble filled with darkness, round which whirled the iridescence of his consciousness, and upon which the pressure of the outer world, the outer life, roared vastly. In this extremity his instinct led him to Gudrun. He threw away everything now�he only wanted the relation established with her. He would follow her to the studio, to be near her, to talk to her. He would stand about the room, aimlessly picking up the implements, the lumps of clay, the little figures she had cast�they were whimsical and grotesque�looking at them without perceiving them. And she felt him following her, dogging her heels like a doom. She held away from him, and yet she knew he drew always a little nearer, a little nearer. �I say,� he said to her one evening, in an odd, unthinking, uncertain way, �won�t you stay to dinner tonight? I wish you would.� She started slightly. He spoke to her like a man making a request of another man. �They�ll be expecting me at home,� she said. �Oh, they won�t mind, will they?� he said. �I should be awfully glad if you�d stay.� Her long silence gave consent at last. �I�ll tell Thomas, shall I?� he said. �I must go almost immediately after dinner,� she said. It was a dark, cold evening. There was no fire in the drawing-room, they sat in the library. He was mostly silent, absent, and Winifred talked little. But when Gerald did rouse himself, he smiled and was pleasant and ordinary with her. Then there came over him again the long blanks, of which he was not aware. She was very much attracted by him. He looked so preoccupied, and his strange, blank silences, which she could not read, moved her and made her wonder over him, made her feel reverential towards him. But he was very kind. He gave her the best things at the table, he had a bottle of slightly sweet, delicious golden wine brought out for dinner, knowing she would prefer it to the burgundy. She felt herself esteemed, needed almost. As they took coffee in the library, there was a soft, very soft knocking at the door. He started, and called �Come in.� The timbre of his voice, like something vibrating at high pitch, unnerved Gudrun. A nurse in white entered, half hovering in the doorway like a shadow. She was very good-looking, but strangely enough, shy and self-mistrusting. �The doctor would like to speak to you, Mr Crich,� she said, in her low, discreet voice. �The doctor!� he said, starting up. �Where is he?� �He is in the dining-room.� �Tell him I�m coming.� He drank up his coffee, and followed the nurse, who had dissolved like a shadow. �Which nurse was that?� asked Gudrun. �Miss Inglis�I like her best,� replied Winifred. After a while Gerald came back, looking absorbed by his own thoughts, and having some of that tension and abstraction which is seen in a slightly drunken man. He did not say what the doctor had wanted him for, but stood before the fire, with his hands behind his back, and his face open and as if rapt. Not that he was really thinking�he was only arrested in pure suspense inside himself, and thoughts wafted through his mind without order. �I must go now and see Mama,� said Winifred, �and see Dadda before he goes to sleep.� She bade them both good-night. Gudrun also rose to take her leave. �You needn�t go yet, need you?� said Gerald, glancing quickly at the clock. �It is early yet. I�ll walk down with you when you go. Sit down, don�t hurry away.� Gudrun sat down, as if, absent as he was, his will had power over her. She felt almost mesmerised. He was strange to her, something unknown. What was he thinking, what was he feeling, as he stood there so rapt, saying nothing? He kept her�she could feel that. He would not let her go. She watched him in humble submissiveness. �Had the doctor anything new to tell you?� she asked, softly, at length, with that gentle, timid sympathy which touched a keen fibre in his heart. He lifted his eyebrows with a negligent, indifferent expression. �No�nothing new,� he replied, as if the question were quite casual, trivial. �He says the pulse is very weak indeed, very intermittent�but that doesn�t necessarily mean much, you know.� He looked down at her. Her eyes were dark and soft and unfolded, with a stricken look that roused him. �No,� she murmured at length. �I don�t understand anything about these things.� �Just as well not,� he said. �I say, won�t you have a cigarette?�do!� He quickly fetched the box, and held her a light. Then he stood before her on the hearth again. �No,� he said, �we�ve never had much illness in the house, either�not till father.� He seemed to meditate a while. Then looking down at her, with strangely communicative blue eyes, that filled her with dread, he continued: �It�s something you don�t reckon with, you know, till it is there. And then you realise that it was there all the time�it was always there�you understand what I mean?�the possibility of this incurable illness, this slow death.� He moved his feet uneasily on the marble hearth, and put his cigarette to his mouth, looking up at the ceiling. �I know,� murmured Gudrun: �it is dreadful.� He smoked without knowing. Then he took the cigarette from his lips, bared his teeth, and putting the tip of his tongue between his teeth spat off a grain of tobacco, turning slightly aside, like a man who is alone, or who is lost in thought. �I don�t know what the effect actually _is_, on one,� he said, and again he looked down at her. Her eyes were dark and stricken with knowledge, looking into his. He saw her submerged, and he turned aside his face. �But I absolutely am not the same. There�s nothing left, if you understand what I mean. You seem to be clutching at the void�and at the same time you are void yourself. And so you don�t know what to _do_.� �No,� she murmured. A heavy thrill ran down her nerves, heavy, almost pleasure, almost pain. �What can be done?� she added. He turned, and flipped the ash from his cigarette on to the great marble hearth-stones, that lay bare in the room, without fender or bar. �I don�t know, I�m sure,� he replied. �But I do think you�ve got to find some way of resolving the situation�not because you want to, but because you�ve _got_ to, otherwise you�re done. The whole of everything, and yourself included, is just on the point of caving in, and you are just holding it up with your hands. Well, it�s a situation that obviously can�t continue. You can�t stand holding the roof up with your hands, for ever. You know that sooner or later you�ll _have_ to let go. Do you understand what I mean? And so something�s got to be done, or there�s a universal collapse�as far as you yourself are concerned.� He shifted slightly on the hearth, crunching a cinder under his heel. He looked down at it. Gudrun was aware of the beautiful old marble panels of the fireplace, swelling softly carved, round him and above him. She felt as if she were caught at last by fate, imprisoned in some horrible and fatal trap. �But what _can_ be done?� she murmured humbly. �You must use me if I can be of any help at all�but how can I? I don�t see how I _can_ help you.� He looked down at her critically. �I don�t want you to _help_,� he said, slightly irritated, �because there�s nothing to be _done_. I only want sympathy, do you see: I want somebody I can talk to sympathetically. That eases the strain. And there _is_ nobody to talk to sympathetically. That�s the curious thing. There _is_ nobody. There�s Rupert Birkin. But then he _isn�t_ sympathetic, he wants to _dictate_. And that is no use whatsoever.� She was caught in a strange snare. She looked down at her hands. Then there was the sound of the door softly opening. Gerald started. He was chagrined. It was his starting that really startled Gudrun. Then he went forward, with quick, graceful, intentional courtesy. �Oh, mother!� he said. �How nice of you to come down. How are you?� The elderly woman, loosely and bulkily wrapped in a purple gown, came forward silently, slightly hulked, as usual. Her son was at her side. He pushed her up a chair, saying �You know Miss Brangwen, don�t you?� The mother glanced at Gudrun indifferently. �Yes,� she said. Then she turned her wonderful, forget-me-not blue eyes up to her son, as she slowly sat down in the chair he had brought her. �I came to ask you about your father,� she said, in her rapid, scarcely-audible voice. �I didn�t know you had company.� �No? Didn�t Winifred tell you? Miss Brangwen stayed to dinner, to make us a little more lively�� Mrs Crich turned slowly round to Gudrun, and looked at her, but with unseeing eyes. �I�m afraid it would be no treat to her.� Then she turned again to her son. �Winifred tells me the doctor had something to say about your father. What is it?� �Only that the pulse is very weak�misses altogether a good many times�so that he might not last the night out,� Gerald replied. Mrs Crich sat perfectly impassive, as if she had not heard. Her bulk seemed hunched in the chair, her fair hair hung slack over her ears. But her skin was clear and fine, her hands, as she sat with them forgotten and folded, were quite beautiful, full of potential energy. A great mass of energy seemed decaying up in that silent, hulking form. She looked up at her son, as he stood, keen and soldierly, near to her. Her eyes were most wonderfully blue, bluer than forget-me-nots. She seemed to have a certain confidence in Gerald, and to feel a certain motherly mistrust of him. �How are _you?_� she muttered, in her strangely quiet voice, as if nobody should hear but him. �You�re not getting into a state, are you? You�re not letting it make you hysterical?� The curious challenge in the last words startled Gudrun. �I don�t think so, mother,� he answered, rather coldly cheery. �Somebody�s got to see it through, you know.� �Have they? Have they?� answered his mother rapidly. �Why should _you_ take it on yourself? What have you got to do, seeing it through. It will see itself through. You are not needed.� �No, I don�t suppose I can do any good,� he answered. �It�s just how it affects us, you see.� �You like to be affected�don�t you? It�s quite nuts for you? You would have to be important. You have no need to stop at home. Why don�t you go away!� These sentences, evidently the ripened grain of many dark hours, took Gerald by surprise. �I don�t think it�s any good going away now, mother, at the last minute,� he said, coldly. �You take care,� replied his mother. �You mind _yourself_�that�s your business. You take too much on yourself. You mind _yourself_, or you�ll find yourself in Queer Street, that�s what will happen to you. You�re hysterical, always were.� �I�m all right, mother,� he said. �There�s no need to worry about _me_, I assure you.� �Let the dead bury their dead�don�t go and bury yourself along with them�that�s what I tell you. I know you well enough.� He did not answer this, not knowing what to say. The mother sat bunched up in silence, her beautiful white hands, that had no rings whatsoever, clasping the pommels of her arm-chair. �You can�t do it,� she said, almost bitterly. �You haven�t the nerve. You�re as weak as a cat, really�always were. Is this young woman staying here?� �No,� said Gerald. �She is going home tonight.� �Then she�d better have the dog-cart. Does she go far?� �Only to Beldover.� �Ah!� The elderly woman never looked at Gudrun, yet she seemed to take knowledge of her presence. �You are inclined to take too much on yourself, Gerald,� said the mother, pulling herself to her feet, with a little difficulty. �Will you go, mother?� he asked, politely. �Yes, I�ll go up again,� she replied. Turning to Gudrun, she bade her �Good-night.� Then she went slowly to the door, as if she were unaccustomed to walking. At the door she lifted her face to him, implicitly. He kissed her. �Don�t come any further with me,� she said, in her barely audible voice. �I don�t want you any further.� He bade her good-night, watched her across to the stairs and mount slowly. Then he closed the door and came back to Gudrun. Gudrun rose also, to go. �A queer being, my mother,� he said. �Yes,� replied Gudrun. �She has her own thoughts.� �Yes,� said Gudrun. Then they were silent. �You want to go?� he asked. �Half a minute, I�ll just have a horse put in�� �No,� said Gudrun. �I want to walk.� He had promised to walk with her down the long, lonely mile of drive, and she wanted this. �You might _just_ as well drive,� he said. �I�d _much rather_ walk,� she asserted, with emphasis. �You would! Then I will come along with you. You know where your things are? I�ll put boots on.� He put on a cap, and an overcoat over his evening dress. They went out into the night. �Let us light a cigarette,� he said, stopping in a sheltered angle of the porch. �You have one too.� So, with the scent of tobacco on the night air, they set off down the dark drive that ran between close-cut hedges through sloping meadows. He wanted to put his arm round her. If he could put his arm round her, and draw her against him as they walked, he would equilibriate himself. For now he felt like a pair of scales, the half of which tips down and down into an indefinite void. He must recover some sort of balance. And here was the hope and the perfect recovery. Blind to her, thinking only of himself, he slipped his arm softly round her waist, and drew her to him. Her heart fainted, feeling herself taken. But then, his arm was so strong, she quailed under its powerful close grasp. She died a little death, and was drawn against him as they walked down the stormy darkness. He seemed to balance her perfectly in opposition to himself, in their dual motion of walking. So, suddenly, he was liberated and perfect, strong, heroic. He put his hand to his mouth and threw his cigarette away, a gleaming point, into the unseen hedge. Then he was quite free to balance her. �That�s better,� he said, with exultancy. The exultation in his voice was like a sweetish, poisonous drug to her. Did she then mean so much to him! She sipped the poison. �Are you happier?� she asked, wistfully. �Much better,� he said, in the same exultant voice, �and I was rather far gone.� She nestled against him. He felt her all soft and warm, she was the rich, lovely substance of his being. The warmth and motion of her walk suffused through him wonderfully. �I�m _so_ glad if I help you,� she said. �Yes,� he answered. �There�s nobody else could do it, if you wouldn�t.� �That is true,� she said to herself, with a thrill of strange, fatal elation. As they walked, he seemed to lift her nearer and nearer to himself, till she moved upon the firm vehicle of his body. He was so strong, so sustaining, and he could not be opposed. She drifted along in a wonderful interfusion of physical motion, down the dark, blowy hillside. Far across shone the little yellow lights of Beldover, many of them, spread in a thick patch on another dark hill. But he and she were walking in perfect, isolated darkness, outside the world. �But how much do you care for me!� came her voice, almost querulous. �You see, I don�t know, I don�t understand!� �How much!� His voice rang with a painful elation. �I don�t know either�but everything.� He was startled by his own declaration. It was true. So he stripped himself of every safeguard, in making this admission to her. He cared everything for her�she was everything. �But I can�t believe it,� said her low voice, amazed, trembling. She was trembling with doubt and exultance. This was the thing she wanted to hear, only this. Yet now she heard it, heard the strange clapping vibration of truth in his voice as he said it, she could not believe. She could not believe�she did not believe. Yet she believed, triumphantly, with fatal exultance. �Why not?� he said. �Why don�t you believe it? It�s true. It is true, as we stand at this moment�� he stood still with her in the wind; �I care for nothing on earth, or in heaven, outside this spot where we are. And it isn�t my own presence I care about, it is all yours. I�d sell my soul a hundred times�but I couldn�t bear not to have you here. I couldn�t bear to be alone. My brain would burst. It is true.� He drew her closer to him, with definite movement. �No,� she murmured, afraid. Yet this was what she wanted. Why did she so lose courage? They resumed their strange walk. They were such strangers�and yet they were so frightfully, unthinkably near. It was like a madness. Yet it was what she wanted, it was what she wanted. They had descended the hill, and now they were coming to the square arch where the road passed under the colliery railway. The arch, Gudrun knew, had walls of squared stone, mossy on one side with water that trickled down, dry on the other side. She had stood under it to hear the train rumble thundering over the logs overhead. And she knew that under this dark and lonely bridge the young colliers stood in the darkness with their sweethearts, in rainy weather. And so she wanted to stand under the bridge with _her_ sweetheart, and be kissed under the bridge in the invisible darkness. Her steps dragged as she drew near. So, under the bridge, they came to a standstill, and he lifted her upon his breast. His body vibrated taut and powerful as he closed upon her and crushed her, breathless and dazed and destroyed, crushed her upon his breast. Ah, it was terrible, and perfect. Under this bridge, the colliers pressed their lovers to their breast. And now, under the bridge, the master of them all pressed her to himself! And how much more powerful and terrible was his embrace than theirs, how much more concentrated and supreme his love was, than theirs in the same sort! She felt she would swoon, die, under the vibrating, inhuman tension of his arms and his body�she would pass away. Then the unthinkable high vibration slackened and became more undulating. He slackened and drew her with him to stand with his back to the wall. She was almost unconscious. So the colliers� lovers would stand with their backs to the walls, holding their sweethearts and kissing them as she was being kissed. Ah, but would their kisses be fine and powerful as the kisses of the firm-mouthed master? Even the keen, short-cut moustache�the colliers would not have that. And the colliers� sweethearts would, like herself, hang their heads back limp over their shoulder, and look out from the dark archway, at the close patch of yellow lights on the unseen hill in the distance, or at the vague form of trees, and at the buildings of the colliery wood-yard, in the other direction. His arms were fast around her, he seemed to be gathering her into himself, her warmth, her softness, her adorable weight, drinking in the suffusion of her physical being, avidly. He lifted her, and seemed to pour her into himself, like wine into a cup. �This is worth everything,� he said, in a strange, penetrating voice. So she relaxed, and seemed to melt, to flow into him, as if she were some infinitely warm and precious suffusion filling into his veins, like an intoxicant. Her arms were round his neck, he kissed her and held her perfectly suspended, she was all slack and flowing into him, and he was the firm, strong cup that receives the wine of her life. So she lay cast upon him, stranded, lifted up against him, melting and melting under his kisses, melting into his limbs and bones, as if he were soft iron becoming surcharged with her electric life. Till she seemed to swoon, gradually her mind went, and she passed away, everything in her was melted down and fluid, and she lay still, become contained by him, sleeping in him as lightning sleeps in a pure, soft stone. So she was passed away and gone in him, and he was perfected. When she opened her eyes again, and saw the patch of lights in the distance, it seemed to her strange that the world still existed, that she was standing under the bridge resting her head on Gerald�s breast. Gerald�who was he? He was the exquisite adventure, the desirable unknown to her. She looked up, and in the darkness saw his face above her, his shapely, male face. There seemed a faint, white light emitted from him, a white aura, as if he were visitor from the unseen. She reached up, like Eve reaching to the apples on the tree of knowledge, and she kissed him, though her passion was a transcendent fear of the thing he was, touching his face with her infinitely delicate, encroaching wondering fingers. Her fingers went over the mould of his face, over his features. How perfect and foreign he was�ah how dangerous! Her soul thrilled with complete knowledge. This was the glistening, forbidden apple, this face of a man. She kissed him, putting her fingers over his face, his eyes, his nostrils, over his brows and his ears, to his neck, to know him, to gather him in by touch. He was so firm, and shapely, with such satisfying, inconceivable shapeliness, strange, yet unutterably clear. He was such an unutterable enemy, yet glistening with uncanny white fire. She wanted to touch him and touch him and touch him, till she had him all in her hands, till she had strained him into her knowledge. Ah, if she could have the precious _knowledge_ of him, she would be filled, and nothing could deprive her of this. For he was so unsure, so risky in the common world of day. �You are so _beautiful_,� she murmured in her throat. He wondered, and was suspended. But she felt him quiver, and she came down involuntarily nearer upon him. He could not help himself. Her fingers had him under their power. The fathomless, fathomless desire they could evoke in him was deeper than death, where he had no choice. But she knew now, and it was enough. For the time, her soul was destroyed with the exquisite shock of his invisible fluid lightning. She knew. And this knowledge was a death from which she must recover. How much more of him was there to know? Ah much, much, many days harvesting for her large, yet perfectly subtle and intelligent hands upon the field of his living, radio-active body. Ah, her hands were eager, greedy for knowledge. But for the present it was enough, enough, as much as her soul could bear. Too much, and she would shatter herself, she would fill the fine vial of her soul too quickly, and it would break. Enough now�enough for the time being. There were all the after days when her hands, like birds, could feed upon the fields of him mystical plastic form�till then enough. And even he was glad to be checked, rebuked, held back. For to desire is better than to possess, the finality of the end was dreaded as deeply as it was desired. They walked on towards the town, towards where the lamps threaded singly, at long intervals down the dark high-road of the valley. They came at length to the gate of the drive. �Don�t come any further,� she said. �You�d rather I didn�t?� he asked, relieved. He did not want to go up the public streets with her, his soul all naked and alight as it was. �Much rather�good-night.� She held out her hand. He grasped it, then touched the perilous, potent fingers with his lips. �Good-night,� he said. �Tomorrow.� And they parted. He went home full of the strength and the power of living desire. But the next day, she did not come, she sent a note that she was kept indoors by a cold. Here was a torment! But he possessed his soul in some sort of patience, writing a brief answer, telling her how sorry he was not to see her. The day after this, he stayed at home�it seemed so futile to go down to the office. His father could not live the week out. And he wanted to be at home, suspended. Gerald sat on a chair by the window in his father�s room. The landscape outside was black and winter-sodden. His father lay grey and ashen on the bed, a nurse moved silently in her white dress, neat and elegant, even beautiful. There was a scent of eau-de-Cologne in the room. The nurse went out of the room, Gerald was alone with death, facing the winter-black landscape. �Is there much more water in Denley?� came the faint voice, determined and querulous, from the bed. The dying man was asking about a leakage from Willey Water into one of the pits. �Some more�we shall have to run off the lake,� said Gerald. �Will you?� The faint voice filtered to extinction. There was dead stillness. The grey-faced, sick man lay with eyes closed, more dead than death. Gerald looked away. He felt his heart was seared, it would perish if this went on much longer. Suddenly he heard a strange noise. Turning round, he saw his father�s eyes wide open, strained and rolling in a frenzy of inhuman struggling. Gerald started to his feet, and stood transfixed in horror. �Wha-a-ah-h-h�� came a horrible choking rattle from his father�s throat, the fearful, frenzied eye, rolling awfully in its wild fruitless search for help, passed blindly over Gerald, then up came the dark blood and mess pumping over the face of the agonised being. The tense body relaxed, the head fell aside, down the pillow. Gerald stood transfixed, his soul echoing in horror. He would move, but he could not. He could not move his limbs. His brain seemed to re-echo, like a pulse. The nurse in white softly entered. She glanced at Gerald, then at the bed. �Ah!� came her soft whimpering cry, and she hurried forward to the dead man. �Ah-h!� came the slight sound of her agitated distress, as she stood bending over the bedside. Then she recovered, turned, and came for towel and sponge. She was wiping the dead face carefully, and murmuring, almost whimpering, very softly: �Poor Mr Crich!�Poor Mr Crich! Poor Mr Crich!� �Is he dead?� clanged Gerald�s sharp voice. �Oh yes, he�s gone,� replied the soft, moaning voice of the nurse, as she looked up at Gerald�s face. She was young and beautiful and quivering. A strange sort of grin went over Gerald�s face, over the horror. And he walked out of the room. He was going to tell his mother. On the landing he met his brother Basil. �He�s gone, Basil,� he said, scarcely able to subdue his voice, not to let an unconscious, frightening exultation sound through. �What?� cried Basil, going pale. Gerald nodded. Then he went on to his mother�s room. She was sitting in her purple gown, sewing, very slowly sewing, putting in a stitch then another stitch. She looked up at Gerald with her blue undaunted eyes. �Father�s gone,� he said. �He�s dead? Who says so?� �Oh, you know, mother, if you see him.� She put her sewing down, and slowly rose. �Are you going to see him?� he asked. �Yes,� she said By the bedside the children already stood in a weeping group. �Oh, mother!� cried the daughters, almost in hysterics, weeping loudly. But the mother went forward. The dead man lay in repose, as if gently asleep, so gently, so peacefully, like a young man sleeping in purity. He was still warm. She stood looking at him in gloomy, heavy silence, for some time. �Ay,� she said bitterly, at length, speaking as if to the unseen witnesses of the air. �You�re dead.� She stood for some minutes in silence, looking down. �Beautiful,� she asserted, �beautiful as if life had never touched you�never touched you. God send I look different. I hope I shall look my years, when I am dead. Beautiful, beautiful,� she crooned over him. �You can see him in his teens, with his first beard on his face. A beautiful soul, beautiful�� Then there was a tearing in her voice as she cried: �None of you look like this, when you are dead! Don�t let it happen again.� It was a strange, wild command from out of the unknown. Her children moved unconsciously together, in a nearer group, at the dreadful command in her voice. The colour was flushed bright in her cheek, she looked awful and wonderful. �Blame me, blame me if you like, that he lies there like a lad in his teens, with his first beard on his face. Blame me if you like. But you none of you know.� She was silent in intense silence. Then there came, in a low, tense voice: �If I thought that the children I bore would lie looking like that in death, I�d strangle them when they were infants, yes�� �No, mother,� came the strange, clarion voice of Gerald from the background, �we are different, we don�t blame you.� She turned and looked full in his eyes. Then she lifted her hands in a strange half-gesture of mad despair. �Pray!� she said strongly. �Pray for yourselves to God, for there�s no help for you from your parents.� �Oh mother!� cried her daughters wildly. But she had turned and gone, and they all went quickly away from each other. When Gudrun heard that Mr Crich was dead, she felt rebuked. She had stayed away lest Gerald should think her too easy of winning. And now, he was in the midst of trouble, whilst she was cold. The following day she went up as usual to Winifred, who was glad to see her, glad to get away into the studio. The girl had wept, and then, too frightened, had turned aside to avoid any more tragic eventuality. She and Gudrun resumed work as usual, in the isolation of the studio, and this seemed an immeasurable happiness, a pure world of freedom, after the aimlessness and misery of the house. Gudrun stayed on till evening. She and Winifred had dinner brought up to the studio, where they ate in freedom, away from all the people in the house. After dinner Gerald came up. The great high studio was full of shadow and a fragrance of coffee. Gudrun and Winifred had a little table near the fire at the far end, with a white lamp whose light did not travel far. They were a tiny world to themselves, the two girls surrounded by lovely shadows, the beams and rafters shadowy over-head, the benches and implements shadowy down the studio. �You are cosy enough here,� said Gerald, going up to them. There was a low brick fireplace, full of fire, an old blue Turkish rug, the little oak table with the lamp and the white-and-blue cloth and the dessert, and Gudrun making coffee in an odd brass coffee-maker, and Winifred scalding a little milk in a tiny saucepan. �Have you had coffee?� said Gudrun. �I have, but I�ll have some more with you,� he replied. �Then you must have it in a glass�there are only two cups,� said Winifred. �It is the same to me,� he said, taking a chair and coming into the charmed circle of the girls. How happy they were, how cosy and glamorous it was with them, in a world of lofty shadows! The outside world, in which he had been transacting funeral business all the day was completely wiped out. In an instant he snuffed glamour and magic. They had all their things very dainty, two odd and lovely little cups, scarlet and solid gilt, and a little black jug with scarlet discs, and the curious coffee-machine, whose spirit-flame flowed steadily, almost invisibly. There was the effect of rather sinister richness, in which Gerald at once escaped himself. They all sat down, and Gudrun carefully poured out the coffee. �Will you have milk?� she asked calmly, yet nervously poising the little black jug with its big red dots. She was always so completely controlled, yet so bitterly nervous. �No, I won�t,� he replied. So, with a curious humility, she placed him the little cup of coffee, and herself took the awkward tumbler. She seemed to want to serve him. �Why don�t you give me the glass�it is so clumsy for you,� he said. He would much rather have had it, and seen her daintily served. But she was silent, pleased with the disparity, with her self-abasement. �You are quite _en ménage_,� he said. �Yes. We aren�t really at home to visitors,� said Winifred. �You�re not? Then I�m an intruder?� For once he felt his conventional dress was out of place, he was an outsider. Gudrun was very quiet. She did not feel drawn to talk to him. At this stage, silence was best�or mere light words. It was best to leave serious things aside. So they talked gaily and lightly, till they heard the man below lead out the horse, and call it to �back-back!� into the dog-cart that was to take Gudrun home. So she put on her things, and shook hands with Gerald, without once meeting his eyes. And she was gone. The funeral was detestable. Afterwards, at the tea-table, the daughters kept saying��He was a good father to us�the best father in the world��or else��We shan�t easily find another man as good as father was.� Gerald acquiesced in all this. It was the right conventional attitude, and, as far as the world went, he believed in the conventions. He took it as a matter of course. But Winifred hated everything, and hid in the studio, and cried her heart out, and wished Gudrun would come. Luckily everybody was going away. The Criches never stayed long at home. By dinner-time, Gerald was left quite alone. Even Winifred was carried off to London, for a few days with her sister Laura. But when Gerald was really left alone, he could not bear it. One day passed by, and another. And all the time he was like a man hung in chains over the edge of an abyss. Struggle as he might, he could not turn himself to the solid earth, he could not get footing. He was suspended on the edge of a void, writhing. Whatever he thought of, was the abyss�whether it were friends or strangers, or work or play, it all showed him only the same bottomless void, in which his heart swung perishing. There was no escape, there was nothing to grasp hold of. He must writhe on the edge of the chasm, suspended in chains of invisible physical life. At first he was quiet, he kept still, expecting the extremity to pass away, expecting to find himself released into the world of the living, after this extremity of penance. But it did not pass, and a crisis gained upon him. As the evening of the third day came on, his heart rang with fear. He could not bear another night. Another night was coming on, for another night he was to be suspended in chain of physical life, over the bottomless pit of nothingness. And he could not bear it. He could not bear it. He was frightened deeply, and coldly, frightened in his soul. He did not believe in his own strength any more. He could not fall into this infinite void, and rise again. If he fell, he would be gone for ever. He must withdraw, he must seek reinforcements. He did not believe in his own single self, any further than this. After dinner, faced with the ultimate experience of his own nothingness, he turned aside. He pulled on his boots, put on his coat, and set out to walk in the night. It was dark and misty. He went through the wood, stumbling and feeling his way to the Mill. Birkin was away. Good�he was half glad. He turned up the hill, and stumbled blindly over the wild slopes, having lost the path in the complete darkness. It was boring. Where was he going? No matter. He stumbled on till he came to a path again. Then he went on through another wood. His mind became dark, he went on automatically. Without thought or sensation, he stumbled unevenly on, out into the open again, fumbling for stiles, losing the path, and going along the hedges of the fields till he came to the outlet. And at last he came to the high road. It had distracted him to struggle blindly through the maze of darkness. But now, he must take a direction. And he did not even know where he was. But he must take a direction now. Nothing would be resolved by merely walking, walking away. He had to take a direction. He stood still on the road, that was high in the utterly dark night, and he did not know where he was. It was a strange sensation, his heart beating, and ringed round with the utterly unknown darkness. So he stood for some time. Then he heard footsteps, and saw a small, swinging light. He immediately went towards this. It was a miner. �Can you tell me,� he said, �where this road goes?� �Road? Ay, it goes ter Whatmore.� �Whatmore! Oh thank you, that�s right. I thought I was wrong. Good-night.� �Good-night,� replied the broad voice of the miner. Gerald guessed where he was. At least, when he came to Whatmore, he would know. He was glad to be on a high road. He walked forward as in a sleep of decision. That was Whatmore Village�? Yes, the King�s Head�and there the hall gates. He descended the steep hill almost running. Winding through the hollow, he passed the Grammar School, and came to Willey Green Church. The churchyard! He halted. Then in another moment he had clambered up the wall and was going among the graves. Even in this darkness he could see the heaped pallor of old white flowers at his feet. This then was the grave. He stooped down. The flowers were cold and clammy. There was a raw scent of chrysanthemums and tube-roses, deadened. He felt the clay beneath, and shrank, it was so horribly cold and sticky. He stood away in revulsion. Here was one centre then, here in the complete darkness beside the unseen, raw grave. But there was nothing for him here. No, he had nothing to stay here for. He felt as if some of the clay were sticking cold and unclean, on his heart. No, enough of this. Where then?�home? Never! It was no use going there. That was less than no use. It could not be done. There was somewhere else to go. Where? A dangerous resolve formed in his heart, like a fixed idea. There was Gudrun�she would be safe in her home. But he could get at her�he would get at her. He would not go back tonight till he had come to her, if it cost him his life. He staked his all on this throw. He set off walking straight across the fields towards Beldover. It was so dark, nobody could ever see him. His feet were wet and cold, heavy with clay. But he went on persistently, like a wind, straight forward, as if to his fate. There were great gaps in his consciousness. He was conscious that he was at Winthorpe hamlet, but quite unconscious how he had got there. And then, as in a dream, he was in the long street of Beldover, with its street-lamps. There was a noise of voices, and of a door shutting loudly, and being barred, and of men talking in the night. The �Lord Nelson� had just closed, and the drinkers were going home. He had better ask one of these where she lived�for he did not know the side streets at all. �Can you tell me where Somerset Drive is?� he asked of one of the uneven men. �Where what?� replied the tipsy miner�s voice. �Somerset Drive.� �Somerset Drive!�I�ve heard o� such a place, but I couldn�t for my life say where it is. Who might you be wanting?� �Mr Brangwen�William Brangwen.� �William Brangwen�?�?� �Who teaches at the Grammar School, at Willey Green�his daughter teaches there too.� �O-o-o-oh, Brangwen! _Now_ I�ve got you. Of _course_, William Brangwen! Yes, yes, he�s got two lasses as teachers, aside hisself. Ay, that�s him�that�s him! Why certainly I know where he lives, back your life I do! Yi�_what_ place do they ca� it?� �Somerset Drive,� repeated Gerald patiently. He knew his own colliers fairly well. �Somerset Drive, for certain!� said the collier, swinging his arm as if catching something up. �Somerset Drive�yi! I couldn�t for my life lay hold o� the lercality o� the place. Yis, I know the place, to be sure I do�� He turned unsteadily on his feet, and pointed up the dark, nigh-deserted road. �You go up theer�an� you ta�e th� first�yi, th� first turnin� on your left�o� that side�past Withamses tuffy shop�� �_I_ know,� said Gerald. �Ay! You go down a bit, past wheer th� water-man lives�and then Somerset Drive, as they ca� it, branches off on �t right hand side�an� there�s nowt but three houses in it, no more than three, I believe,�an� I�m a�most certain as theirs is th� last�th� last o� th� three�you see�� �Thank you very much,� said Gerald. �Good-night.� And he started off, leaving the tipsy man there standing rooted. Gerald went past the dark shops and houses, most of them sleeping now, and twisted round to the little blind road that ended on a field of darkness. He slowed down, as he neared his goal, not knowing how he should proceed. What if the house were closed in darkness? But it was not. He saw a big lighted window, and heard voices, then a gate banged. His quick ears caught the sound of Birkin�s voice, his keen eyes made out Birkin, with Ursula standing in a pale dress on the step of the garden path. Then Ursula stepped down, and came along the road, holding Birkin�s arm. Gerald went across into the darkness and they dawdled past him, talking happily, Birkin�s voice low, Ursula�s high and distinct. Gerald went quickly to the house. The blinds were drawn before the big, lighted window of the dining-room. Looking up the path at the side he could see the door left open, shedding a soft, coloured light from the hall lamp. He went quickly and silently up the path, and looked up into the hall. There were pictures on the walls, and the antlers of a stag�and the stairs going up on one side�and just near the foot of the stairs the half opened door of the dining-room. With heart drawn fine, Gerald stepped into the hall, whose floor was of coloured tiles, went quickly and looked into the large, pleasant room. In a chair by the fire, the father sat asleep, his head tilted back against the side of the big oak chimney piece, his ruddy face seen foreshortened, the nostrils open, the mouth fallen a little. It would take the merest sound to wake him. Gerald stood a second suspended. He glanced down the passage behind him. It was all dark. Again he was suspended. Then he went swiftly upstairs. His senses were so finely, almost supernaturally keen, that he seemed to cast his own will over the half-unconscious house. He came to the first landing. There he stood, scarcely breathing. Again, corresponding to the door below, there was a door again. That would be the mother�s room. He could hear her moving about in the candlelight. She would be expecting her husband to come up. He looked along the dark landing. Then, silently, on infinitely careful feet, he went along the passage, feeling the wall with the extreme tips of his fingers. There was a door. He stood and listened. He could hear two people�s breathing. It was not that. He went stealthily forward. There was another door, slightly open. The room was in darkness. Empty. Then there was the bathroom, he could smell the soap and the heat. Then at the end another bedroom�one soft breathing. This was she. With an almost occult carefulness he turned the door handle, and opened the door an inch. It creaked slightly. Then he opened it another inch�then another. His heart did not beat, he seemed to create a silence about himself, an obliviousness. He was in the room. Still the sleeper breathed softly. It was very dark. He felt his way forward inch by inch, with his feet and hands. He touched the bed, he could hear the sleeper. He drew nearer, bending close as if his eyes would disclose whatever there was. And then, very near to his face, to his fear, he saw the round, dark head of a boy. He recovered, turned round, saw the door ajar, a faint light revealed. And he retreated swiftly, drew the door to without fastening it, and passed rapidly down the passage. At the head of the stairs he hesitated. There was still time to flee. But it was unthinkable. He would maintain his will. He turned past the door of the parental bedroom like a shadow, and was climbing the second flight of stairs. They creaked under his weight�it was exasperating. Ah what disaster, if the mother�s door opened just beneath him, and she saw him! It would have to be, if it were so. He held the control still. He was not quite up these stairs when he heard a quick running of feet below, the outer door was closed and locked, he heard Ursula�s voice, then the father�s sleepy exclamation. He pressed on swiftly to the upper landing. Again a door was ajar, a room was empty. Feeling his way forward, with the tips of his fingers, travelling rapidly, like a blind man, anxious lest Ursula should come upstairs, he found another door. There, with his preternaturally fine sense alert, he listened. He heard someone moving in bed. This would be she. Softly now, like one who has only one sense, the tactile sense, he turned the latch. It clicked. He held still. The bed-clothes rustled. His heart did not beat. Then again he drew the latch back, and very gently pushed the door. It made a sticking noise as it gave. �Ursula?� said Gudrun�s voice, frightened. He quickly opened the door and pushed it behind him. �Is it you, Ursula?� came Gudrun�s frightened voice. He heard her sitting up in bed. In another moment she would scream. �No, it�s me,� he said, feeling his way towards her. �It is I, Gerald.� She sat motionless in her bed in sheer astonishment. She was too astonished, too much taken by surprise, even to be afraid. �Gerald!� she echoed, in blank amazement. He had found his way to the bed, and his outstretched hand touched her warm breast blindly. She shrank away. �Let me make a light,� she said, springing out. He stood perfectly motionless. He heard her touch the match-box, he heard her fingers in their movement. Then he saw her in the light of a match, which she held to the candle. The light rose in the room, then sank to a small dimness, as the flame sank down on the candle, before it mounted again. She looked at him, as he stood near the other side of the bed. His cap was pulled low over his brow, his black overcoat was buttoned close up to his chin. His face was strange and luminous. He was inevitable as a supernatural being. When she had seen him, she knew. She knew there was something fatal in the situation, and she must accept it. Yet she must challenge him. �How did you come up?� she asked. �I walked up the stairs�the door was open.� She looked at him. �I haven�t closed this door, either,� he said. She walked swiftly across the room, and closed her door, softly, and locked it. Then she came back. She was wonderful, with startled eyes and flushed cheeks, and her plait of hair rather short and thick down her back, and her long, fine white night-dress falling to her feet. She saw that his boots were all clayey, even his trousers were plastered with clay. And she wondered if he had made footprints all the way up. He was a very strange figure, standing in her bedroom, near the tossed bed. �Why have you come?� she asked, almost querulous. �I wanted to,� he replied. And this she could see from his face. It was fate. �You are so muddy,� she said, in distaste, but gently. He looked down at his feet. �I was walking in the dark,� he replied. But he felt vividly elated. There was a pause. He stood on one side of the tumbled bed, she on the other. He did not even take his cap from his brows. �And what do you want of me,� she challenged. He looked aside, and did not answer. Save for the extreme beauty and mystic attractiveness of this distinct, strange face, she would have sent him away. But his face was too wonderful and undiscovered to her. It fascinated her with the fascination of pure beauty, cast a spell on her, like nostalgia, an ache. �What do you want of me?� she repeated in an estranged voice. He pulled off his cap, in a movement of dream-liberation, and went across to her. But he could not touch her, because she stood barefoot in her night-dress, and he was muddy and damp. Her eyes, wide and large and wondering, watched him, and asked him the ultimate question. �I came�because I must,� he said. �Why do you ask?� She looked at him in doubt and wonder. �I must ask,� she said. He shook his head slightly. �There is no answer,� he replied, with strange vacancy. There was about him a curious, and almost godlike air of simplicity and native directness. He reminded her of an apparition, the young Hermes. �But why did you come to me?� she persisted. �Because�it has to be so. If there weren�t you in the world, then _I_ shouldn�t be in the world, either.� She stood looking at him, with large, wide, wondering, stricken eyes. His eyes were looking steadily into hers all the time, and he seemed fixed in an odd supernatural steadfastness. She sighed. She was lost now. She had no choice. �Won�t you take off your boots,� she said. �They must be wet.� He dropped his cap on a chair, unbuttoned his overcoat, lifting up his chin to unfasten the throat buttons. His short, keen hair was ruffled. He was so beautifully blond, like wheat. He pulled off his overcoat. Quickly he pulled off his jacket, pulled loose his black tie, and was unfastening his studs, which were headed each with a pearl. She listened, watching, hoping no one would hear the starched linen crackle. It seemed to snap like pistol shots. He had come for vindication. She let him hold her in his arms, clasp her close against him. He found in her an infinite relief. Into her he poured all his pent-up darkness and corrosive death, and he was whole again. It was wonderful, marvellous, it was a miracle. This was the ever-recurrent miracle of his life, at the knowledge of which he was lost in an ecstasy of relief and wonder. And she, subject, received him as a vessel filled with his bitter potion of death. She had no power at this crisis to resist. The terrible frictional violence of death filled her, and she received it in an ecstasy of subjection, in throes of acute, violent sensation. As he drew nearer to her, he plunged deeper into her enveloping soft warmth, a wonderful creative heat that penetrated his veins and gave him life again. He felt himself dissolving and sinking to rest in the bath of her living strength. It seemed as if her heart in her breast were a second unconquerable sun, into the glow and creative strength of which he plunged further and further. All his veins, that were murdered and lacerated, healed softly as life came pulsing in, stealing invisibly in to him as if it were the all-powerful effluence of the sun. His blood, which seemed to have been drawn back into death, came ebbing on the return, surely, beautifully, powerfully. He felt his limbs growing fuller and flexible with life, his body gained an unknown strength. He was a man again, strong and rounded. And he was a child, so soothed and restored and full of gratitude. And she, she was the great bath of life, he worshipped her. Mother and substance of all life she was. And he, child and man, received of her and was made whole. His pure body was almost killed. But the miraculous, soft effluence of her breast suffused over him, over his seared, damaged brain, like a healing lymph, like a soft, soothing flow of life itself, perfect as if he were bathed in the womb again. His brain was hurt, seared, the tissue was as if destroyed. He had not known how hurt he was, how his tissue, the very tissue of his brain was damaged by the corrosive flood of death. Now, as the healing lymph of her effluence flowed through him, he knew how destroyed he was, like a plant whose tissue is burst from inwards by a frost. He buried his small, hard head between her breasts, and pressed her breasts against him with his hands. And she with quivering hands pressed his head against her, as he lay suffused out, and she lay fully conscious. The lovely creative warmth flooded through him like a sleep of fecundity within the womb. Ah, if only she would grant him the flow of this living effluence, he would be restored, he would be complete again. He was afraid she would deny him before it was finished. Like a child at the breast, he cleaved intensely to her, and she could not put him away. And his seared, ruined membrane relaxed, softened, that which was seared and stiff and blasted yielded again, became soft and flexible, palpitating with new life. He was infinitely grateful, as to God, or as an infant is at its mother�s breast. He was glad and grateful like a delirium, as he felt his own wholeness come over him again, as he felt the full, unutterable sleep coming over him, the sleep of complete exhaustion and restoration. But Gudrun lay wide awake, destroyed into perfect consciousness. She lay motionless, with wide eyes staring motionless into the darkness, whilst he was sunk away in sleep, his arms round her. She seemed to be hearing waves break on a hidden shore, long, slow, gloomy waves, breaking with the rhythm of fate, so monotonously that it seemed eternal. This endless breaking of slow, sullen waves of fate held her life a possession, whilst she lay with dark, wide eyes looking into the darkness. She could see so far, as far as eternity�yet she saw nothing. She was suspended in perfect consciousness�and of what was she conscious? This mood of extremity, when she lay staring into eternity, utterly suspended, and conscious of everything, to the last limits, passed and left her uneasy. She had lain so long motionless. She moved, she became self-conscious. She wanted to look at him, to see him. But she dared not make a light, because she knew he would wake, and she did not want to break his perfect sleep, that she knew he had got of her. She disengaged herself, softly, and rose up a little to look at him. There was a faint light, it seemed to her, in the room. She could just distinguish his features, as he slept the perfect sleep. In this darkness, she seemed to see him so distinctly. But he was far off, in another world. Ah, she could shriek with torment, he was so far off, and perfected, in another world. She seemed to look at him as at a pebble far away under clear dark water. And here was she, left with all the anguish of consciousness, whilst he was sunk deep into the other element of mindless, remote, living shadow-gleam. He was beautiful, far-off, and perfected. They would never be together. Ah, this awful, inhuman distance which would always be interposed between her and the other being! There was nothing to do but to lie still and endure. She felt an overwhelming tenderness for him, and a dark, under-stirring of jealous hatred, that he should lie so perfect and immune, in an other-world, whilst she was tormented with violent wakefulness, cast out in the outer darkness. She lay in intense and vivid consciousness, an exhausting superconsciousness. The church clock struck the hours, it seemed to her, in quick succession. She heard them distinctly in the tension of her vivid consciousness. And he slept as if time were one moment, unchanging and unmoving. She was exhausted, wearied. Yet she must continue in this state of violent active superconsciousness. She was conscious of everything�her childhood, her girlhood, all the forgotten incidents, all the unrealised influences and all the happenings she had not understood, pertaining to herself, to her family, to her friends, her lovers, her acquaintances, everybody. It was as if she drew a glittering rope of knowledge out of the sea of darkness, drew and drew and drew it out of the fathomless depths of the past, and still it did not come to an end, there was no end to it, she must haul and haul at the rope of glittering consciousness, pull it out phosphorescent from the endless depths of the unconsciousness, till she was weary, aching, exhausted, and fit to break, and yet she had not done. Ah, if only she might wake him! She turned uneasily. When could she rouse him and send him away? When could she disturb him? And she relapsed into her activity of automatic consciousness, that would never end. But the time was drawing near when she could wake him. It was like a release. The clock had struck four, outside in the night. Thank God the night had passed almost away. At five he must go, and she would be released. Then she could relax and fill her own place. Now she was driven up against his perfect sleeping motion like a knife white-hot on a grindstone. There was something monstrous about him, about his juxtaposition against her. The last hour was the longest. And yet, at last it passed. Her heart leapt with relief�yes, there was the slow, strong stroke of the church clock�at last, after this night of eternity. She waited to catch each slow, fatal reverberation. �Three�four�five!� There, it was finished. A weight rolled off her. She raised herself, leaned over him tenderly, and kissed him. She was sad to wake him. After a few moments, she kissed him again. But he did not stir. The darling, he was so deep in sleep! What a shame to take him out of it. She let him lie a little longer. But he must go�he must really go. With full over-tenderness she took his face between her hands, and kissed his eyes. The eyes opened, he remained motionless, looking at her. Her heart stood still. To hide her face from his dreadful opened eyes, in the darkness, she bent down and kissed him, whispering: �You must go, my love.� But she was sick with terror, sick. He put his arms round her. Her heart sank. �But you must go, my love. It�s late.� �What time is it?� he said. Strange, his man�s voice. She quivered. It was an intolerable oppression to her. �Past five o�clock,� she said. But he only closed his arms round her again. Her heart cried within her in torture. She disengaged herself firmly. �You really must go,� she said. �Not for a minute,� he said. She lay still, nestling against him, but unyielding. �Not for a minute,� he repeated, clasping her closer. �Yes,� she said, unyielding, �I�m afraid if you stay any longer.� There was a certain coldness in her voice that made him release her, and she broke away, rose and lit the candle. That then was the end. He got up. He was warm and full of life and desire. Yet he felt a little bit ashamed, humiliated, putting on his clothes before her, in the candle-light. For he felt revealed, exposed to her, at a time when she was in some way against him. It was all very difficult to understand. He dressed himself quickly, without collar or tie. Still he felt full and complete, perfected. She thought it humiliating to see a man dressing: the ridiculous shirt, the ridiculous trousers and braces. But again an idea saved her. �It is like a workman getting up to go to work,� thought Gudrun. �And I am like a workman�s wife.� But an ache like nausea was upon her: a nausea of him. He pushed his collar and tie into his overcoat pocket. Then he sat down and pulled on his boots. They were sodden, as were his socks and trouser-bottoms. But he himself was quick and warm. �Perhaps you ought to have put your boots on downstairs,� she said. At once, without answering, he pulled them off again, and stood holding them in his hand. She had thrust her feet into slippers, and flung a loose robe round her. She was ready. She looked at him as he stood waiting, his black coat buttoned to the chin, his cap pulled down, his boots in his hand. And the passionate almost hateful fascination revived in her for a moment. It was not exhausted. His face was so warm-looking, wide-eyed and full of newness, so perfect. She felt old, old. She went to him heavily, to be kissed. He kissed her quickly. She wished his warm, expressionless beauty did not so fatally put a spell on her, compel her and subjugate her. It was a burden upon her, that she resented, but could not escape. Yet when she looked at his straight man�s brows, and at his rather small, well-shaped nose, and at his blue, indifferent eyes, she knew her passion for him was not yet satisfied, perhaps never could be satisfied. Only now she was weary, with an ache like nausea. She wanted him gone. They went downstairs quickly. It seemed they made a prodigious noise. He followed her as, wrapped in her vivid green wrap, she preceded him with the light. She suffered badly with fear, lest her people should be roused. He hardly cared. He did not care now who knew. And she hated this in him. One _must_ be cautious. One must preserve oneself. She led the way to the kitchen. It was neat and tidy, as the woman had left it. He looked up at the clock�twenty minutes past five Then he sat down on a chair to put on his boots. She waited, watching his every movement. She wanted it to be over, it was a great nervous strain on her. He stood up�she unbolted the back door, and looked out. A cold, raw night, not yet dawn, with a piece of a moon in the vague sky. She was glad she need not go out. �Good-bye then,� he murmured. �I�ll come to the gate,� she said. And again she hurried on in front, to warn him of the steps. And at the gate, once more she stood on the step whilst he stood below her. �Good-bye,� she whispered. He kissed her dutifully, and turned away. She suffered torments hearing his firm tread going so distinctly down the road. Ah, the insensitiveness of that firm tread! She closed the gate, and crept quickly and noiselessly back to bed. When she was in her room, and the door closed, and all safe, she breathed freely, and a great weight fell off her. She nestled down in bed, in the groove his body had made, in the warmth he had left. And excited, worn-out, yet still satisfied, she fell soon into a deep, heavy sleep. Gerald walked quickly through the raw darkness of the coming dawn. He met nobody. His mind was beautifully still and thoughtless, like a still pool, and his body full and warm and rich. He went quickly along towards Shortlands, in a grateful self-sufficiency. CHAPTER XXV. MARRIAGE OR NOT The Brangwen family was going to move from Beldover. It was necessary now for the father to be in town. Birkin had taken out a marriage licence, yet Ursula deferred from day to day. She would not fix any definite time�she still wavered. Her month�s notice to leave the Grammar School was in its third week. Christmas was not far off. Gerald waited for the Ursula-Birkin marriage. It was something crucial to him. �Shall we make it a double-barrelled affair?� he said to Birkin one day. �Who for the second shot?� asked Birkin. �Gudrun and me,� said Gerald, the venturesome twinkle in his eyes. Birkin looked at him steadily, as if somewhat taken aback. �Serious�or joking?� he asked. �Oh, serious. Shall I? Shall Gudrun and I rush in along with you?� �Do by all means,� said Birkin. �I didn�t know you�d got that length.� �What length?� said Gerald, looking at the other man, and laughing. �Oh yes, we�ve gone all the lengths.� �There remains to put it on a broad social basis, and to achieve a high moral purpose,� said Birkin. �Something like that: the length and breadth and height of it,� replied Gerald, smiling. �Oh well,� said Birkin, �it�s a very admirable step to take, I should say.� Gerald looked at him closely. �Why aren�t you enthusiastic?� he asked. �I thought you were such dead nuts on marriage.� Birkin lifted his shoulders. �One might as well be dead nuts on noses. There are all sorts of noses, snub and otherwise�� Gerald laughed. �And all sorts of marriage, also snub and otherwise?� he said. �That�s it.� �And you think if I marry, it will be snub?� asked Gerald quizzically, his head a little on one side. Birkin laughed quickly. �How do I know what it will be!� he said. �Don�t lambaste me with my own parallels�� Gerald pondered a while. �But I should like to know your opinion, exactly,� he said. �On your marriage?�or marrying? Why should you want my opinion? I�ve got no opinions. I�m not interested in legal marriage, one way or another. It�s a mere question of convenience.� Still Gerald watched him closely. �More than that, I think,� he said seriously. �However you may be bored by the ethics of marriage, yet really to marry, in one�s own personal case, is something critical, final�� �You mean there is something final in going to the registrar with a woman?� �If you�re coming back with her, I do,� said Gerald. �It is in some way irrevocable.� �Yes, I agree,� said Birkin. �No matter how one regards legal marriage, yet to enter into the married state, in one�s own personal instance, is final�� �I believe it is,� said Birkin, �somewhere.� �The question remains then, should one do it,� said Gerald. Birkin watched him narrowly, with amused eyes. �You are like Lord Bacon, Gerald,� he said. �You argue it like a lawyer�or like Hamlet�s to-be-or-not-to-be. If I were you I would _not_ marry: but ask Gudrun, not me. You�re not marrying me, are you?� Gerald did not heed the latter part of this speech. �Yes,� he said, �one must consider it coldly. It is something critical. One comes to the point where one must take a step in one direction or another. And marriage is one direction�� �And what is the other?� asked Birkin quickly. Gerald looked up at him with hot, strangely-conscious eyes, that the other man could not understand. �I can�t say,� he replied. �If I knew _that_�� He moved uneasily on his feet, and did not finish. �You mean if you knew the alternative?� asked Birkin. �And since you don�t know it, marriage is a _pis aller._� Gerald looked up at Birkin with the same hot, constrained eyes. �One does have the feeling that marriage is a _pis aller_,� he admitted. �Then don�t do it,� said Birkin. �I tell you,� he went on, �the same as I�ve said before, marriage in the old sense seems to me repulsive. _�goïsme à deux_ is nothing to it. It�s a sort of tacit hunting in couples: the world all in couples, each couple in its own little house, watching its own little interests, and stewing in its own little privacy�it�s the most repulsive thing on earth.� �I quite agree,� said Gerald. �There�s something inferior about it. But as I say, what�s the alternative.� �One should avoid this _home_ instinct. It�s not an instinct, it�s a habit of cowardliness. One should never have a _home_.� �I agree really,� said Gerald. �But there�s no alternative.� �We�ve got to find one. I do believe in a permanent union between a man and a woman. Chopping about is merely an exhaustive process. But a permanent relation between a man and a woman isn�t the last word�it certainly isn�t.� �Quite,� said Gerald. �In fact,� said Birkin, �because the relation between man and woman is made the supreme and exclusive relationship, that�s where all the tightness and meanness and insufficiency comes in.� �Yes, I believe you,� said Gerald. �You�ve got to take down the love-and-marriage ideal from its pedestal. We want something broader. I believe in the _additional_ perfect relationship between man and man�additional to marriage.� �I can never see how they can be the same,� said Gerald. �Not the same�but equally important, equally creative, equally sacred, if you like.� �I know,� said Gerald, �you believe something like that. Only I can�t _feel_ it, you see.� He put his hand on Birkin�s arm, with a sort of deprecating affection. And he smiled as if triumphantly. He was ready to be doomed. Marriage was like a doom to him. He was willing to condemn himself in marriage, to become like a convict condemned to the mines of the underworld, living no life in the sun, but having a dreadful subterranean activity. He was willing to accept this. And marriage was the seal of his condemnation. He was willing to be sealed thus in the underworld, like a soul damned but living forever in damnation. But he would not make any pure relationship with any other soul. He could not. Marriage was not the committing of himself into a relationship with Gudrun. It was a committing of himself in acceptance of the established world, he would accept the established order, in which he did not livingly believe, and then he would retreat to the underworld for his life. This he would do. The other way was to accept Rupert�s offer of alliance, to enter into the bond of pure trust and love with the other man, and then subsequently with the woman. If he pledged himself with the man he would later be able to pledge himself with the woman: not merely in legal marriage, but in absolute, mystic marriage. Yet he could not accept the offer. There was a numbness upon him, a numbness either of unborn, absent volition, or of atrophy. Perhaps it was the absence of volition. For he was strangely elated at Rupert�s offer. Yet he was still more glad to reject it, not to be committed. CHAPTER XXVI. A CHAIR There was a jumble market every Monday afternoon in the old market-place in town. Ursula and Birkin strayed down there one afternoon. They had been talking of furniture, and they wanted to see if there was any fragment they would like to buy, amid the heaps of rubbish collected on the cobble-stones. The old market-square was not very large, a mere bare patch of granite setts, usually with a few fruit-stalls under a wall. It was in a poor quarter of the town. Meagre houses stood down one side, there was a hosiery factory, a great blank with myriad oblong windows, at the end, a street of little shops with flagstone pavement down the other side, and, for a crowning monument, the public baths, of new red brick, with a clock-tower. The people who moved about seemed stumpy and sordid, the air seemed to smell rather dirty, there was a sense of many mean streets ramifying off into warrens of meanness. Now and again a great chocolate-and-yellow tramcar ground round a difficult bend under the hosiery factory. Ursula was superficially thrilled when she found herself out among the common people, in the jumbled place piled with old bedding, heaps of old iron, shabby crockery in pale lots, muffled lots of unthinkable clothing. She and Birkin went unwillingly down the narrow aisle between the rusty wares. He was looking at the goods, she at the people. She excitedly watched a young woman, who was going to have a baby, and who was turning over a mattress and making a young man, down-at-heel and dejected, feel it also. So secretive and active and anxious the young woman seemed, so reluctant, slinking, the young man. He was going to marry her because she was having a child. When they had felt the mattress, the young woman asked the old man seated on a stool among his wares, how much it was. He told her, and she turned to the young man. The latter was ashamed, and selfconscious. He turned his face away, though he left his body standing there, and muttered aside. And again the woman anxiously and actively fingered the mattress and added up in her mind and bargained with the old, unclean man. All the while, the young man stood by, shamefaced and down-at-heel, submitting. �Look,� said Birkin, �there is a pretty chair.� �Charming!� cried Ursula. �Oh, charming.� It was an arm-chair of simple wood, probably birch, but of such fine delicacy of grace, standing there on the sordid stones, it almost brought tears to the eyes. It was square in shape, of the purest, slender lines, and four short lines of wood in the back, that reminded Ursula of harpstrings. �It was once,� said Birkin, �gilded�and it had a cane seat. Somebody has nailed this wooden seat in. Look, here is a trifle of the red that underlay the gilt. The rest is all black, except where the wood is worn pure and glossy. It is the fine unity of the lines that is so attractive. Look, how they run and meet and counteract. But of course the wooden seat is wrong�it destroys the perfect lightness and unity in tension the cane gave. I like it though�� �Ah yes,� said Ursula, �so do I.� �How much is it?� Birkin asked the man. �Ten shillings.� �And you will send it�?� It was bought. �So beautiful, so pure!� Birkin said. �It almost breaks my heart.� They walked along between the heaps of rubbish. �My beloved country�it had something to express even when it made that chair.� �And hasn�t it now?� asked Ursula. She was always angry when he took this tone. �No, it hasn�t. When I see that clear, beautiful chair, and I think of England, even Jane Austen�s England�it had living thoughts to unfold even then, and pure happiness in unfolding them. And now, we can only fish among the rubbish heaps for the remnants of their old expression. There is no production in us now, only sordid and foul mechanicalness.� �It isn�t true,� cried Ursula. �Why must you always praise the past, at the expense of the present? _Really_, I don�t think so much of Jane Austen�s England. It was materialistic enough, if you like�� �It could afford to be materialistic,� said Birkin, �because it had the power to be something other�which we haven�t. We are materialistic because we haven�t the power to be anything else�try as we may, we can�t bring off anything but materialism: mechanism, the very soul of materialism.� Ursula was subdued into angry silence. She did not heed what he said. She was rebelling against something else. �And I hate your past. I�m sick of it,� she cried. �I believe I even hate that old chair, though it _is_ beautiful. It isn�t _my_ sort of beauty. I wish it had been smashed up when its day was over, not left to preach the beloved past to us. I�m sick of the beloved past.� �Not so sick as I am of the accursed present,� he said. �Yes, just the same. I hate the present�but I don�t want the past to take its place�I don�t want that old chair.� He was rather angry for a moment. Then he looked at the sky shining beyond the tower of the public baths, and he seemed to get over it all. He laughed. �All right,� he said, �then let us not have it. I�m sick of it all, too. At any rate one can�t go on living on the old bones of beauty.� �One can�t,� she cried. �I _don�t_ want old things.� �The truth is, we don�t want things at all,� he replied. �The thought of a house and furniture of my own is hateful to me.� This startled her for a moment. Then she replied: �So it is to me. But one must live somewhere.� �Not somewhere�anywhere,� he said. �One should just live anywhere�not have a definite place. I don�t want a definite place. As soon as you get a room, and it is _complete_, you want to run from it. Now my rooms at the Mill are quite complete, I want them at the bottom of the sea. It is a horrible tyranny of a fixed milieu, where each piece of furniture is a commandment-stone.� She clung to his arm as they walked away from the market. �But what are we going to do?� she said. �We must live somehow. And I do want some beauty in my surroundings. I want a sort of natural _grandeur_ even, _splendour_.� �You�ll never get it in houses and furniture�or even clothes. Houses and furniture and clothes, they are all terms of an old base world, a detestable society of man. And if you have a Tudor house and old, beautiful furniture, it is only the past perpetuated on top of you, horrible. And if you have a perfect modern house done for you by Poiret, it is something else perpetuated on top of you. It is all horrible. It is all possessions, possessions, bullying you and turning you into a generalisation. You have to be like Rodin, Michelangelo, and leave a piece of raw rock unfinished to your figure. You must leave your surroundings sketchy, unfinished, so that you are never contained, never confined, never dominated from the outside.� She stood in the street contemplating. �And we are never to have a complete place of our own�never a home?� she said. �Pray God, in this world, no,� he answered. �But there�s only this world,� she objected. He spread out his hands with a gesture of indifference. �Meanwhile, then, we�ll avoid having things of our own,� he said. �But you�ve just bought a chair,� she said. �I can tell the man I don�t want it,� he replied. She pondered again. Then a queer little movement twitched her face. �No,� she said, �we don�t want it. I�m sick of old things.� �New ones as well,� he said. They retraced their steps. There�in front of some furniture, stood the young couple, the woman who was going to have a baby, and the narrow-faced youth. She was fair, rather short, stout. He was of medium height, attractively built. His dark hair fell sideways over his brow, from under his cap, he stood strangely aloof, like one of the damned. �Let us give it to _them_,� whispered Ursula. �Look they are getting a home together.� �_I_ won�t aid abet them in it,� he said petulantly, instantly sympathising with the aloof, furtive youth, against the active, procreant female. �Oh yes,� cried Ursula. �It�s right for them�there�s nothing else for them.� �Very well,� said Birkin, �you offer it to them. I�ll watch.� Ursula went rather nervously to the young couple, who were discussing an iron washstand�or rather, the man was glancing furtively and wonderingly, like a prisoner, at the abominable article, whilst the woman was arguing. �We bought a chair,� said Ursula, �and we don�t want it. Would you have it? We should be glad if you would.� The young couple looked round at her, not believing that she could be addressing them. �Would you care for it?� repeated Ursula. �It�s really _very_ pretty�but�but�� she smiled rather dazzlingly. The young couple only stared at her, and looked significantly at each other, to know what to do. And the man curiously obliterated himself, as if he could make himself invisible, as a rat can. �We wanted to _give_ it to you,� explained Ursula, now overcome with confusion and dread of them. She was attracted by the young man. He was a still, mindless creature, hardly a man at all, a creature that the towns have produced, strangely pure-bred and fine in one sense, furtive, quick, subtle. His lashes were dark and long and fine over his eyes, that had no mind in them, only a dreadful kind of subject, inward consciousness, glazed and dark. His dark brows and all his lines, were finely drawn. He would be a dreadful, but wonderful lover to a woman, so marvellously contributed. His legs would be marvellously subtle and alive, under the shapeless, trousers, he had some of the fineness and stillness and silkiness of a dark-eyed, silent rat. Ursula had apprehended him with a fine _frisson_ of attraction. The full-built woman was staring offensively. Again Ursula forgot him. �Won�t you have the chair?� she said. The man looked at her with a sideways look of appreciation, yet far-off, almost insolent. The woman drew herself up. There was a certain costermonger richness about her. She did not know what Ursula was after, she was on her guard, hostile. Birkin approached, smiling wickedly at seeing Ursula so nonplussed and frightened. �What�s the matter?� he said, smiling. His eyelids had dropped slightly, there was about him the same suggestive, mocking secrecy that was in the bearing of the two city creatures. The man jerked his head a little on one side, indicating Ursula, and said, with curious amiable, jeering warmth: �What she warnt?�eh?� An odd smile writhed his lips. Birkin looked at him from under his slack, ironical eyelids. �To give you a chair�that�with the label on it,� he said, pointing. The man looked at the object indicated. There was a curious hostility in male, outlawed understanding between the two men. �What�s she warnt to give it _us_ for, guvnor,� he replied, in a tone of free intimacy that insulted Ursula. �Thought you�d like it�it�s a pretty chair. We bought it and don�t want it. No need for you to have it, don�t be frightened,� said Birkin, with a wry smile. The man glanced up at him, half inimical, half recognising. �Why don�t you want it for yourselves, if you�ve just bought it?� asked the woman coolly. ��Taint good enough for you, now you�ve had a look at it. Frightened it�s got something in it, eh?� She was looking at Ursula, admiringly, but with some resentment. �I�d never thought of that,� said Birkin. �But no, the wood�s too thin everywhere.� �You see,� said Ursula, her face luminous and pleased. �_We_ are just going to get married, and we thought we�d buy things. Then we decided, just now, that we wouldn�t have furniture, we�d go abroad.� The full-built, slightly blowsy city girl looked at the fine face of the other woman, with appreciation. They appreciated each other. The youth stood aside, his face expressionless and timeless, the thin line of the black moustache drawn strangely suggestive over his rather wide, closed mouth. He was impassive, abstract, like some dark suggestive presence, a gutter-presence. �It�s all right to be some folks,� said the city girl, turning to her own young man. He did not look at her, but he smiled with the lower part of his face, putting his head aside in an odd gesture of assent. His eyes were unchanging, glazed with darkness. �Cawsts something to chynge your mind,� he said, in an incredibly low accent. �Only ten shillings this time,� said Birkin. The man looked up at him with a grimace of a smile, furtive, unsure. �Cheap at �arf a quid, guvnor,� he said. �Not like getting divawced.� �We�re not married yet,� said Birkin. �No, no more aren�t we,� said the young woman loudly. �But we shall be, a Saturday.� Again she looked at the young man with a determined, protective look, at once overbearing and very gentle. He grinned sicklily, turning away his head. She had got his manhood, but Lord, what did he care! He had a strange furtive pride and slinking singleness. �Good luck to you,� said Birkin. �Same to you,� said the young woman. Then, rather tentatively: �When�s yours coming off, then?� Birkin looked round at Ursula. �It�s for the lady to say,� he replied. �We go to the registrar the moment she�s ready.� Ursula laughed, covered with confusion and bewilderment. �No �urry,� said the young man, grinning suggestive. �Oh, don�t break your neck to get there,� said the young woman. ��Slike when you�re dead�you�re long time married.� The young man turned aside as if this hit him. �The longer the better, let us hope,� said Birkin. �That�s it, guvnor,� said the young man admiringly. �Enjoy it while it larsts�niver whip a dead donkey.� �Only when he�s shamming dead,� said the young woman, looking at her young man with caressive tenderness of authority. �Aw, there�s a difference,� he said satirically. �What about the chair?� said Birkin. �Yes, all right,� said the woman. They trailed off to the dealer, the handsome but abject young fellow hanging a little aside. �That�s it,� said Birkin. �Will you take it with you, or have the address altered.� �Oh, Fred can carry it. Make him do what he can for the dear old �ome.� �Mike use of �im,� said Fred, grimly humorous, as he took the chair from the dealer. His movements were graceful, yet curiously abject, slinking. ��Ere�s mother�s cosy chair,� he said. �Warnts a cushion.� And he stood it down on the market stones. �Don�t you think it�s pretty?� laughed Ursula. �Oh, I do,� said the young woman. ��Ave a sit in it, you�ll wish you�d kept it,� said the young man. Ursula promptly sat down in the middle of the market-place. �Awfully comfortable,� she said. �But rather hard. You try it.� She invited the young man to a seat. But he turned uncouthly, awkwardly aside, glancing up at her with quick bright eyes, oddly suggestive, like a quick, live rat. �Don�t spoil him,� said the young woman. �He�s not used to arm-chairs, �e isn�t.� The young man turned away, and said, with averted grin: �Only warnts legs on �is.� The four parted. The young woman thanked them. �Thank you for the chair�it�ll last till it gives way.� �Keep it for an ornyment,� said the young man. �Good afternoon�good afternoon,� said Ursula and Birkin. �Goo�-luck to you,� said the young man, glancing and avoiding Birkin�s eyes, as he turned aside his head. The two couples went asunder, Ursula clinging to Birkin�s arm. When they had gone some distance, she glanced back and saw the young man going beside the full, easy young woman. His trousers sank over his heels, he moved with a sort of slinking evasion, more crushed with odd self-consciousness now he had the slim old arm-chair to carry, his arm over the back, the four fine, square tapering legs swaying perilously near the granite setts of the pavement. And yet he was somewhere indomitable and separate, like a quick, vital rat. He had a queer, subterranean beauty, repulsive too. �How strange they are!� said Ursula. �Children of men,� he said. �They remind me of Jesus: �The meek shall inherit the earth.�� �But they aren�t the meek,� said Ursula. �Yes, I don�t know why, but they are,� he replied. They waited for the tramcar. Ursula sat on top and looked out on the town. The dusk was just dimming the hollows of crowded houses. �And are they going to inherit the earth?� she said. �Yes�they.� �Then what are we going to do?� she asked. �We�re not like them�are we? We�re not the meek?� �No. We�ve got to live in the chinks they leave us.� �How horrible!� cried Ursula. �I don�t want to live in chinks.� �Don�t worry,� he said. �They are the children of men, they like market-places and street-corners best. That leaves plenty of chinks.� �All the world,� she said. �Ah no�but some room.� The tramcar mounted slowly up the hill, where the ugly winter-grey masses of houses looked like a vision of hell that is cold and angular. They sat and looked. Away in the distance was an angry redness of sunset. It was all cold, somehow small, crowded, and like the end of the world. �I don�t mind it even then,� said Ursula, looking at the repulsiveness of it all. �It doesn�t concern me.� �No more it does,� he replied, holding her hand. �One needn�t see. One goes one�s way. In my world it is sunny and spacious�� �It is, my love, isn�t it?� she cried, hugging near to him on the top of the tramcar, so that the other passengers stared at them. �And we will wander about on the face of the earth,� he said, �and we�ll look at the world beyond just this bit.� There was a long silence. Her face was radiant like gold, as she sat thinking. �I don�t want to inherit the earth,� she said. �I don�t want to inherit anything.� He closed his hand over hers. �Neither do I. I want to be disinherited.� She clasped his fingers closely. �We won�t care about _anything_,� she said. He sat still, and laughed. �And we�ll be married, and have done with them,� she added. Again he laughed. �It�s one way of getting rid of everything,� she said, �to get married.� �And one way of accepting the whole world,� he added. �A whole other world, yes,� she said happily. �Perhaps there�s Gerald�and Gudrun�� he said. �If there is there is, you see,� she said. �It�s no good our worrying. We can�t really alter them, can we?� �No,� he said. �One has no right to try�not with the best intentions in the world.� �Do you try to force them?� she asked. �Perhaps,� he said. �Why should I want him to be free, if it isn�t his business?� She paused for a time. �We can�t _make_ him happy, anyhow,� she said. �He�d have to be it of himself.� �I know,� he said. �But we want other people with us, don�t we?� �Why should we?� she asked. �I don�t know,� he said uneasily. �One has a hankering after a sort of further fellowship.� �But why?� she insisted. �Why should you hanker after other people? Why should you need them?� This hit him right on the quick. His brows knitted. �Does it end with just our two selves?� he asked, tense. �Yes�what more do you want? If anybody likes to come along, let them. But why must you run after them?� His face was tense and unsatisfied. �You see,� he said, �I always imagine our being really happy with some few other people�a little freedom with people.� She pondered for a moment. �Yes, one does want that. But it must _happen_. You can�t do anything for it with your will. You always seem to think you can _force_ the flowers to come out. People must love us because they love us�you can�t _make_ them.� �I know,� he said. �But must one take no steps at all? Must one just go as if one were alone in the world�the only creature in the world?� �You�ve got me,� she said. �Why should you _need_ others? Why must you force people to agree with you? Why can�t you be single by yourself, as you are always saying? You try to bully Gerald�as you tried to bully Hermione. You must learn to be alone. And it�s so horrid of you. You�ve got me. And yet you want to force other people to love you as well. You do try to bully them to love you. And even then, you don�t want their love.� His face was full of real perplexity. �Don�t I?� he said. �It�s the problem I can�t solve. I _know_ I want a perfect and complete relationship with you: and we�ve nearly got it�we really have. But beyond that. _Do_ I want a real, ultimate relationship with Gerald? Do I want a final almost extra-human relationship with him�a relationship in the ultimate of me and him�or don�t I?� She looked at him for a long time, with strange bright eyes, but she did not answer. CHAPTER XXVII. FLITTING That evening Ursula returned home very bright-eyed and wondrous�which irritated her people. Her father came home at suppertime, tired after the evening class, and the long journey home. Gudrun was reading, the mother sat in silence. Suddenly Ursula said to the company at large, in a bright voice, �Rupert and I are going to be married tomorrow.� Her father turned round, stiffly. �You what?� he said. �Tomorrow!� echoed Gudrun. �Indeed!� said the mother. But Ursula only smiled wonderfully, and did not reply. �Married tomorrow!� cried her father harshly. �What are you talking about.� �Yes,� said Ursula. �Why not?� Those two words, from her, always drove him mad. �Everything is all right�we shall go to the registrar�s office�� There was a second�s hush in the room, after Ursula�s blithe vagueness. �_Really_, Ursula!� said Gudrun. �Might we ask why there has been all this secrecy?� demanded the mother, rather superbly. �But there hasn�t,� said Ursula. �You knew.� �Who knew?� now cried the father. �Who knew? What do you mean by your �you knew�?� He was in one of his stupid rages, she instantly closed against him. �Of course you knew,� she said coolly. �You knew we were going to get married.� There was a dangerous pause. �We knew you were going to get married, did we? Knew! Why, does anybody know anything about you, you shifty bitch!� �Father!� cried Gudrun, flushing deep in violent remonstrance. Then, in a cold, but gentle voice, as if to remind her sister to be tractable: �But isn�t it a _fearfully_ sudden decision, Ursula?� she asked. �No, not really,� replied Ursula, with the same maddening cheerfulness. �He�s been _wanting_ me to agree for weeks�he�s had the licence ready. Only I�I wasn�t ready in myself. Now I am ready�is there anything to be disagreeable about?� �Certainly not,� said Gudrun, but in a tone of cold reproof. �You are perfectly free to do as you like.� ��Ready in yourself��_yourself_, that�s all that matters, isn�t it! �I wasn�t ready in myself,�� he mimicked her phrase offensively. �You and _yourself_, you�re of some importance, aren�t you?� She drew herself up and set back her throat, her eyes shining yellow and dangerous. �I am to myself,� she said, wounded and mortified. �I know I am not to anybody else. You only wanted to _bully_ me�you never cared for my happiness.� He was leaning forward watching her, his face intense like a spark. �Ursula, what are you saying? Keep your tongue still,� cried her mother. Ursula swung round, and the lights in her eyes flashed. �No, I won�t,� she cried. �I won�t hold my tongue and be bullied. What does it matter which day I get married�what does it _matter!_ It doesn�t affect anybody but myself.� Her father was tense and gathered together like a cat about to spring. �Doesn�t it?� he cried, coming nearer to her. She shrank away. �No, how can it?� she replied, shrinking but stubborn. �It doesn�t matter to _me_ then, what you do�what becomes of you?� he cried, in a strange voice like a cry. The mother and Gudrun stood back as if hypnotised. �No,� stammered Ursula. Her father was very near to her. �You only want to�� She knew it was dangerous, and she stopped. He was gathered together, every muscle ready. �What?� he challenged. �Bully me,� she muttered, and even as her lips were moving, his hand had caught her smack at the side of the face and she was sent up against the door. �Father!� cried Gudrun in a high voice, �it is impossible!� He stood unmoving. Ursula recovered, her hand was on the door handle. She slowly drew herself up. He seemed doubtful now. �It�s true,� she declared, with brilliant tears in her eyes, her head lifted up in defiance. �What has your love meant, what did it ever mean?�bullying, and denial�it did�� He was advancing again with strange, tense movements, and clenched fist, and the face of a murderer. But swift as lightning she had flashed out of the door, and they heard her running upstairs. He stood for a moment looking at the door. Then, like a defeated animal, he turned and went back to his seat by the fire. Gudrun was very white. Out of the intense silence, the mother�s voice was heard saying, cold and angry: �Well, you shouldn�t take so much notice of her.� Again the silence fell, each followed a separate set of emotions and thoughts. Suddenly the door opened again: Ursula, dressed in hat and furs, with a small valise in her hand: �Good-bye!� she said, in her maddening, bright, almost mocking tone. �I�m going.� And in the next instant the door was closed, they heard the outer door, then her quick steps down the garden path, then the gate banged, and her light footfall was gone. There was a silence like death in the house. Ursula went straight to the station, hastening heedlessly on winged feet. There was no train, she must walk on to the junction. As she went through the darkness, she began to cry, and she wept bitterly, with a dumb, heart-broken, child�s anguish, all the way on the road, and in the train. Time passed unheeded and unknown, she did not know where she was, nor what was taking place. Only she wept from fathomless depths of hopeless, hopeless grief, the terrible grief of a child, that knows no extenuation. Yet her voice had the same defensive brightness as she spoke to Birkin�s landlady at the door. �Good evening! Is Mr Birkin in? Can I see him?� �Yes, he�s in. He�s in his study.� Ursula slipped past the woman. His door opened. He had heard her voice. �Hello!� he exclaimed in surprise, seeing her standing there with the valise in her hand, and marks of tears on her face. She was one who wept without showing many traces, like a child. �Do I look a sight?� she said, shrinking. �No�why? Come in,� he took the bag from her hand and they went into the study. There�immediately, her lips began to tremble like those of a child that remembers again, and the tears came rushing up. �What�s the matter?� he asked, taking her in his arms. She sobbed violently on his shoulder, whilst he held her still, waiting. �What�s the matter?� he said again, when she was quieter. But she only pressed her face further into his shoulder, in pain, like a child that cannot tell. �What is it, then?� he asked. Suddenly she broke away, wiped her eyes, regained her composure, and went and sat in a chair. �Father hit me,� she announced, sitting bunched up, rather like a ruffled bird, her eyes very bright. �What for?� he said. She looked away, and would not answer. There was a pitiful redness about her sensitive nostrils, and her quivering lips. �Why?� he repeated, in his strange, soft, penetrating voice. She looked round at him, rather defiantly. �Because I said I was going to be married tomorrow, and he bullied me.� �Why did he bully you?� Her mouth dropped again, she remembered the scene once more, the tears came up. �Because I said he didn�t care�and he doesn�t, it�s only his domineeringness that�s hurt�� she said, her mouth pulled awry by her weeping, all the time she spoke, so that he almost smiled, it seemed so childish. Yet it was not childish, it was a mortal conflict, a deep wound. �It isn�t quite true,� he said. �And even so, you shouldn�t _say_ it.� �It _is_ true�it _is_ true,� she wept, �and I won�t be bullied by his pretending it�s love�when it _isn�t_�he doesn�t care, how can he�no, he can�t�� He sat in silence. She moved him beyond himself. �Then you shouldn�t rouse him, if he can�t,� replied Birkin quietly. �And I _have_ loved him, I have,� she wept. �I�ve loved him always, and he�s always done this to me, he has�� �It�s been a love of opposition, then,� he said. �Never mind�it will be all right. It�s nothing desperate.� �Yes,� she wept, �it is, it is.� �Why?� �I shall never see him again�� �Not immediately. Don�t cry, you had to break with him, it had to be�don�t cry.� He went over to her and kissed her fine, fragile hair, touching her wet cheeks gently. �Don�t cry,� he repeated, �don�t cry any more.� He held her head close against him, very close and quiet. At last she was still. Then she looked up, her eyes wide and frightened. �Don�t you want me?� she asked. �Want you?� His darkened, steady eyes puzzled her and did not give her play. �Do you wish I hadn�t come?� she asked, anxious now again for fear she might be out of place. �No,� he said. �I wish there hadn�t been the violence�so much ugliness�but perhaps it was inevitable.� She watched him in silence. He seemed deadened. �But where shall I stay?� she asked, feeling humiliated. He thought for a moment. �Here, with me,� he said. �We�re married as much today as we shall be tomorrow.� �But�� �I�ll tell Mrs Varley,� he said. �Never mind now.� He sat looking at her. She could feel his darkened steady eyes looking at her all the time. It made her a little bit frightened. She pushed her hair off her forehead nervously. �Do I look ugly?� she said. And she blew her nose again. A small smile came round his eyes. �No,� he said, �fortunately.� And he went across to her, and gathered her like a belonging in his arms. She was so tenderly beautiful, he could not bear to see her, he could only bear to hide her against himself. Now; washed all clean by her tears, she was new and frail like a flower just unfolded, a flower so new, so tender, so made perfect by inner light, that he could not bear to look at her, he must hide her against himself, cover his eyes against her. She had the perfect candour of creation, something translucent and simple, like a radiant, shining flower that moment unfolded in primal blessedness. She was so new, so wonder-clear, so undimmed. And he was so old, so steeped in heavy memories. Her soul was new, undefined and glimmering with the unseen. And his soul was dark and gloomy, it had only one grain of living hope, like a grain of mustard seed. But this one living grain in him matched the perfect youth in her. �I love you,� he whispered as he kissed her, and trembled with pure hope, like a man who is born again to a wonderful, lively hope far exceeding the bounds of death. She could not know how much it meant to him, how much he meant by the few words. Almost childish, she wanted proof, and statement, even over-statement, for everything seemed still uncertain, unfixed to her. But the passion of gratitude with which he received her into his soul, the extreme, unthinkable gladness of knowing himself living and fit to unite with her, he, who was so nearly dead, who was so near to being gone with the rest of his race down the slope of mechanical death, could never be understood by her. He worshipped her as age worships youth, he gloried in her, because, in his one grain of faith, he was young as she, he was her proper mate. This marriage with her was his resurrection and his life. All this she could not know. She wanted to be made much of, to be adored. There were infinite distances of silence between them. How could he tell her of the immanence of her beauty, that was not form, or weight, or colour, but something like a strange, golden light! How could he know himself what her beauty lay in, for him. He said �Your nose is beautiful, your chin is adorable.� But it sounded like lies, and she was disappointed, hurt. Even when he said, whispering with truth, �I love you, I love you,� it was not the real truth. It was something beyond love, such a gladness of having surpassed oneself, of having transcended the old existence. How could he say �I� when he was something new and unknown, not himself at all? This I, this old formula of the age, was a dead letter. In the new, superfine bliss, a peace superseding knowledge, there was no I and you, there was only the third, unrealised wonder, the wonder of existing not as oneself, but in a consummation of my being and of her being in a new one, a new, paradisal unit regained from the duality. Nor can I say �I love you,� when I have ceased to be, and you have ceased to be: we are both caught up and transcended into a new oneness where everything is silent, because there is nothing to answer, all is perfect and at one. Speech travels between the separate parts. But in the perfect One there is perfect silence of bliss. They were married by law on the next day, and she did as he bade her, she wrote to her father and mother. Her mother replied, not her father. She did not go back to school. She stayed with Birkin in his rooms, or at the Mill, moving with him as he moved. But she did not see anybody, save Gudrun and Gerald. She was all strange and wondering as yet, but relieved as by dawn. Gerald sat talking to her one afternoon in the warm study down at the Mill. Rupert had not yet come home. �You are happy?� Gerald asked her, with a smile. �Very happy!� she cried, shrinking a little in her brightness. �Yes, one can see it.� �Can one?� cried Ursula in surprise. He looked up at her with a communicative smile. �Oh yes, plainly.� She was pleased. She meditated a moment. �And can you see that Rupert is happy as well?� He lowered his eyelids, and looked aside. �Oh yes,� he said. �Really!� �Oh yes.� He was very quiet, as if it were something not to be talked about by him. He seemed sad. She was very sensitive to suggestion. She asked the question he wanted her to ask. �Why don�t you be happy as well?� she said. �You could be just the same.� He paused a moment. �With Gudrun?� he asked. �Yes!� she cried, her eyes glowing. But there was a strange tension, an emphasis, as if they were asserting their wishes, against the truth. �You think Gudrun would have me, and we should be happy?� he said. �Yes, I�m _sure!_� she cried. Her eyes were round with delight. Yet underneath she was constrained, she knew her own insistence. �Oh, I�m _so_ glad,� she added. He smiled. �What makes you glad?� he said. �For _her_ sake,� she replied. �I�m sure you�d�you�re the right man for her.� �You are?� he said. �And do you think she would agree with you?� �Oh yes!� she exclaimed hastily. Then, upon reconsideration, very uneasy: �Though Gudrun isn�t so very simple, is she? One doesn�t know her in five minutes, does one? She�s not like me in that.� She laughed at him with her strange, open, dazzled face. �You think she�s not much like you?� Gerald asked. She knitted her brows. �Oh, in many ways she is. But I never know what she will do when anything new comes.� �You don�t?� said Gerald. He was silent for some moments. Then he moved tentatively. �I was going to ask her, in any case, to go away with me at Christmas,� he said, in a very small, cautious voice. �Go away with you? For a time, you mean?� �As long as she likes,� he said, with a deprecating movement. They were both silent for some minutes. �Of course,� said Ursula at last, �she _might_ just be willing to rush into marriage. You can see.� �Yes,� smiled Gerald. �I can see. But in case she won�t�do you think she would go abroad with me for a few days�or for a fortnight?� �Oh yes,� said Ursula. �I�d ask her.� �Do you think we might all go together?� �All of us?� Again Ursula�s face lighted up. �It would be rather fun, don�t you think?� �Great fun,� he said. �And then you could see,� said Ursula. �What?� �How things went. I think it is best to take the honeymoon before the wedding�don�t you?� She was pleased with this _mot_. He laughed. �In certain cases,� he said. �I�d rather it were so in my own case.� �Would you!� exclaimed Ursula. Then doubtingly, �Yes, perhaps you�re right. One should please oneself.� Birkin came in a little later, and Ursula told him what had been said. �Gudrun!� exclaimed Birkin. �She�s a born mistress, just as Gerald is a born lover�_amant en titre_. If as somebody says all women are either wives or mistresses, then Gudrun is a mistress.� �And all men either lovers or husbands,� cried Ursula. �But why not both?� �The one excludes the other,� he laughed. �Then I want a lover,� cried Ursula. �No you don�t,� he said. �But I do,� she wailed. He kissed her, and laughed. It was two days after this that Ursula was to go to fetch her things from the house in Beldover. The removal had taken place, the family had gone. Gudrun had rooms in Willey Green. Ursula had not seen her parents since her marriage. She wept over the rupture, yet what was the good of making it up! Good or not good, she could not go to them. So her things had been left behind and she and Gudrun were to walk over for them, in the afternoon. It was a wintry afternoon, with red in the sky, when they arrived at the house. The windows were dark and blank, already the place was frightening. A stark, void entrance-hall struck a chill to the hearts of the girls. �I don�t believe I dare have come in alone,� said Ursula. �It frightens me.� �Ursula!� cried Gudrun. �Isn�t it amazing! Can you believe you lived in this place and never felt it? How I lived here a day without dying of terror, I cannot conceive!� They looked in the big dining-room. It was a good-sized room, but now a cell would have been lovelier. The large bay windows were naked, the floor was stripped, and a border of dark polish went round the tract of pale boarding. In the faded wallpaper were dark patches where furniture had stood, where pictures had hung. The sense of walls, dry, thin, flimsy-seeming walls, and a flimsy flooring, pale with its artificial black edges, was neutralising to the mind. Everything was null to the senses, there was enclosure without substance, for the walls were dry and papery. Where were they standing, on earth, or suspended in some cardboard box? In the hearth was burnt paper, and scraps of half-burnt paper. �Imagine that we passed our days here!� said Ursula. �I know,� cried Gudrun. �It is too appalling. What must we be like, if we are the contents of _this!_� �Vile!� said Ursula. �It really is.� And she recognised half-burnt covers of �Vogue��half-burnt representations of women in gowns�lying under the grate. They went to the drawing-room. Another piece of shut-in air; without weight or substance, only a sense of intolerable papery imprisonment in nothingness. The kitchen did look more substantial, because of the red-tiled floor and the stove, but it was cold and horrid. The two girls tramped hollowly up the bare stairs. Every sound re-echoed under their hearts. They tramped down the bare corridor. Against the wall of Ursula�s bedroom were her things�a trunk, a work-basket, some books, loose coats, a hat-box, standing desolate in the universal emptiness of the dusk. �A cheerful sight, aren�t they?� said Ursula, looking down at her forsaken possessions. �Very cheerful,� said Gudrun. The two girls set to, carrying everything down to the front door. Again and again they made the hollow, re-echoing transit. The whole place seemed to resound about them with a noise of hollow, empty futility. In the distance the empty, invisible rooms sent forth a vibration almost of obscenity. They almost fled with the last articles, into the out-of-door. But it was cold. They were waiting for Birkin, who was coming with the car. They went indoors again, and upstairs to their parents� front bedroom, whose windows looked down on the road, and across the country at the black-barred sunset, black and red barred, without light. They sat down in the window-seat, to wait. Both girls were looking over the room. It was void, with a meaninglessness that was almost dreadful. �Really,� said Ursula, �this room _couldn�t_ be sacred, could it?� Gudrun looked over it with slow eyes. �Impossible,� she replied. �When I think of their lives�father�s and mother�s, their love, and their marriage, and all of us children, and our bringing-up�would you have such a life, Prune?� �I wouldn�t, Ursula.� �It all seems so _nothing_�their two lives�there�s no meaning in it. Really, if they had _not_ met, and _not_ married, and not lived together�it wouldn�t have mattered, would it?� �Of course�you can�t tell,� said Gudrun. �No. But if I thought my life was going to be like it�Prune,� she caught Gudrun�s arm, �I should run.� Gudrun was silent for a few moments. �As a matter of fact, one cannot contemplate the ordinary life�one cannot contemplate it,� replied Gudrun. �With you, Ursula, it is quite different. You will be out of it all, with Birkin. He�s a special case. But with the ordinary man, who has his life fixed in one place, marriage is just impossible. There may be, and there _are_, thousands of women who want it, and could conceive of nothing else. But the very thought of it sends me _mad_. One must be free, above all, one must be free. One may forfeit everything else, but one must be free�one must not become 7, Pinchbeck Street�or Somerset Drive�or Shortlands. No man will be sufficient to make that good�no man! To marry, one must have a free lance, or nothing, a comrade-in-arms, a Glücksritter. A man with a position in the social world�well, it is just impossible, impossible!� �What a lovely word�a Glücksritter!� said Ursula. �So much nicer than a soldier of fortune.� �Yes, isn�t it?� said Gudrun. �I�d tilt the world with a Glücksritter. But a home, an establishment! Ursula, what would it mean?�think!� �I know,� said Ursula. �We�ve had one home�that�s enough for me.� �Quite enough,� said Gudrun. �The little grey home in the west,� quoted Ursula ironically. �Doesn�t it sound grey, too,� said Gudrun grimly. They were interrupted by the sound of the car. There was Birkin. Ursula was surprised that she felt so lit up, that she became suddenly so free from the problems of grey homes in the west. They heard his heels click on the hall pavement below. �Hello!� he called, his voice echoing alive through the house. Ursula smiled to herself. _He_ was frightened of the place too. �Hello! Here we are,� she called downstairs. And they heard him quickly running up. �This is a ghostly situation,� he said. �These houses don�t have ghosts�they�ve never had any personality, and only a place with personality can have a ghost,� said Gudrun. �I suppose so. Are you both weeping over the past?� �We are,� said Gudrun, grimly. Ursula laughed. �Not weeping that it�s gone, but weeping that it ever _was_,� she said. �Oh,� he replied, relieved. He sat down for a moment. There was something in his presence, Ursula thought, lambent and alive. It made even the impertinent structure of this null house disappear. �Gudrun says she could not bear to be married and put into a house,� said Ursula meaningful�they knew this referred to Gerald. He was silent for some moments. �Well,� he said, �if you know beforehand you couldn�t stand it, you�re safe.� �Quite!� said Gudrun. �Why _does_ every woman think her aim in life is to have a hubby and a little grey home in the west? Why is this the goal of life? Why should it be?� said Ursula. �_Il faut avoir le respect de ses bêtises_,� said Birkin. �But you needn�t have the respect for the _bêtise_ before you�ve committed it,� laughed Ursula. �Ah then, _des bêtises du papa?_� �_Et de la maman_,� added Gudrun satirically. �_Et des voisins_,� said Ursula. They all laughed, and rose. It was getting dark. They carried the things to the car. Gudrun locked the door of the empty house. Birkin had lighted the lamps of the automobile. It all seemed very happy, as if they were setting out. �Do you mind stopping at Coulsons. I have to leave the key there,� said Gudrun. �Right,� said Birkin, and they moved off. They stopped in the main street. The shops were just lighted, the last miners were passing home along the causeways, half-visible shadows in their grey pit-dirt, moving through the blue air. But their feet rang harshly in manifold sound, along the pavement. How pleased Gudrun was to come out of the shop, and enter the car, and be borne swiftly away into the downhill of palpable dusk, with Ursula and Birkin! What an adventure life seemed at this moment! How deeply, how suddenly she envied Ursula! Life for her was so quick, and an open door�so reckless as if not only this world, but the world that was gone and the world to come were nothing to her. Ah, if she could be _just like that_, it would be perfect. For always, except in her moments of excitement, she felt a want within herself. She was unsure. She had felt that now, at last, in Gerald�s strong and violent love, she was living fully and finally. But when she compared herself with Ursula, already her soul was jealous, unsatisfied. She was not satisfied�she was never to be satisfied. What was she short of now? It was marriage�it was the wonderful stability of marriage. She did want it, let her say what she might. She had been lying. The old idea of marriage was right even now�marriage and the home. Yet her mouth gave a little grimace at the words. She thought of Gerald and Shortlands�marriage and the home! Ah well, let it rest! He meant a great deal to her�but�! Perhaps it was not in her to marry. She was one of life�s outcasts, one of the drifting lives that have no root. No, no it could not be so. She suddenly conjured up a rosy room, with herself in a beautiful gown, and a handsome man in evening dress who held her in his arms in the firelight, and kissed her. This picture she entitled �Home.� It would have done for the Royal Academy. �Come with us to tea�_do_,� said Ursula, as they ran nearer to the cottage of Willey Green. �Thanks awfully�but I _must_ go in�� said Gudrun. She wanted very much to go on with Ursula and Birkin. That seemed like life indeed to her. Yet a certain perversity would not let her. �Do come�yes, it would be so nice,� pleaded Ursula. �I�m awfully sorry�I should love to�but I can�t�really�� She descended from the car in trembling haste. �Can�t you really!� came Ursula�s regretful voice. �No, really I can�t,� responded Gudrun�s pathetic, chagrined words out of the dusk. �All right, are you?� called Birkin. �Quite!� said Gudrun. �Good-night!� �Good-night,� they called. �Come whenever you like, we shall be glad,� called Birkin. �Thank you very much,� called Gudrun, in the strange, twanging voice of lonely chagrin that was very puzzling to him. She turned away to her cottage gate, and they drove on. But immediately she stood to watch them, as the car ran vague into the distance. And as she went up the path to her strange house, her heart was full of incomprehensible bitterness. In her parlour was a long-case clock, and inserted into its dial was a ruddy, round, slant-eyed, joyous-painted face, that wagged over with the most ridiculous ogle when the clock ticked, and back again with the same absurd glad-eye at the next tick. All the time the absurd smooth, brown-ruddy face gave her an obtrusive �glad-eye.� She stood for minutes, watching it, till a sort of maddened disgust overcame her, and she laughed at herself hollowly. And still it rocked, and gave her the glad-eye from one side, then from the other, from one side, then from the other. Ah, how unhappy she was! In the midst of her most active happiness, ah, how unhappy she was! She glanced at the table. Gooseberry jam, and the same home-made cake with too much soda in it! Still, gooseberry jam was good, and one so rarely got it. All the evening she wanted to go to the Mill. But she coldly refused to allow herself. She went the next afternoon instead. She was happy to find Ursula alone. It was a lovely, intimate secluded atmosphere. They talked endlessly and delightedly. �Aren�t you _fearfully_ happy here?� said Gudrun to her sister glancing at her own bright eyes in the mirror. She always envied, almost with resentment, the strange positive fullness that subsisted in the atmosphere around Ursula and Birkin. How really beautifully this room is done,� she said aloud. �This hard plaited matting�what a lovely colour it is, the colour of cool light!� And it seemed to her perfect. �Ursula,� she said at length, in a voice of question and detachment, �did you know that Gerald Crich had suggested our going away all together at Christmas?� �Yes, he�s spoken to Rupert.� A deep flush dyed Gudrun�s cheek. She was silent a moment, as if taken aback, and not knowing what to say. �But don�t you think,� she said at last, �it is _amazingly cool!_� Ursula laughed. �I like him for it,� she said. Gudrun was silent. It was evident that, whilst she was almost mortified by Gerald�s taking the liberty of making such a suggestion to Birkin, yet the idea itself attracted her strongly. �There�s a rather lovely simplicity about Gerald, I think,� said Ursula, �so defiant, somehow! Oh, I think he�s _very_ lovable.� Gudrun did not reply for some moments. She had still to get over the feeling of insult at the liberty taken with her freedom. �What did Rupert say�do you know?� she asked. �He said it would be most awfully jolly,� said Ursula. Again Gudrun looked down, and was silent. �Don�t you think it would?� said Ursula, tentatively. She was never quite sure how many defences Gudrun was having round herself. Gudrun raised her face with difficulty and held it averted. �I think it _might_ be awfully jolly, as you say,� she replied. �But don�t you think it was an unpardonable liberty to take�to talk of such things to Rupert�who after all�you see what I mean, Ursula�they might have been two men arranging an outing with some little _type_ they�d picked up. Oh, I think it�s unforgivable, quite!� She used the French word �_type_.� Her eyes flashed, her soft face was flushed and sullen. Ursula looked on, rather frightened, frightened most of all because she thought Gudrun seemed rather common, really like a little _type_. But she had not the courage quite to think this�not right out. �Oh no,� she cried, stammering. �Oh no�not at all like that�oh no! No, I think it�s rather beautiful, the friendship between Rupert and Gerald. They just are simple�they say anything to each other, like brothers.� Gudrun flushed deeper. She could not _bear_ it that Gerald gave her away�even to Birkin. �But do you think even brothers have any right to exchange confidences of that sort?� she asked, with deep anger. �Oh yes,� said Ursula. �There�s never anything said that isn�t perfectly straightforward. No, the thing that�s amazed me most in Gerald�how perfectly simple and direct he can be! And you know, it takes rather a big man. Most of them _must_ be indirect, they are such cowards.� But Gudrun was still silent with anger. She wanted the absolute secrecy kept, with regard to her movements. �Won�t you go?� said Ursula. �Do, we might all be so happy! There is something I _love_ about Gerald�he�s _much_ more lovable than I thought him. He�s free, Gudrun, he really is.� Gudrun�s mouth was still closed, sullen and ugly. She opened it at length. �Do you know where he proposes to go?� she asked. �Yes�to the Tyrol, where he used to go when he was in Germany�a lovely place where students go, small and rough and lovely, for winter sport!� Through Gudrun�s mind went the angry thought��they know everything.� �Yes,� she said aloud, �about forty kilometres from Innsbruck, isn�t it?� �I don�t know exactly where�but it would be lovely, don�t you think, high in the perfect snow�?� �Very lovely!� said Gudrun, sarcastically. Ursula was put out. �Of course,� she said, �I think Gerald spoke to Rupert so that it shouldn�t seem like an outing with a _type_�� �I know, of course,� said Gudrun, �that he quite commonly does take up with that sort.� �Does he!� said Ursula. �Why how do you know?� �I know of a model in Chelsea,� said Gudrun coldly. Now Ursula was silent. �Well,� she said at last, with a doubtful laugh, �I hope he has a good time with her.� At which Gudrun looked more glum. CHAPTER XXVIII. GUDRUN IN THE POMPADOUR Christmas drew near, all four prepared for flight. Birkin and Ursula were busy packing their few personal things, making them ready to be sent off, to whatever country and whatever place they might choose at last. Gudrun was very much excited. She loved to be on the wing. She and Gerald, being ready first, set off via London and Paris to Innsbruck, where they would meet Ursula and Birkin. In London they stayed one night. They went to the music-hall, and afterwards to the Pompadour Café. Gudrun hated the Café, yet she always went back to it, as did most of the artists of her acquaintance. She loathed its atmosphere of petty vice and petty jealousy and petty art. Yet she always called in again, when she was in town. It was as if she _had_ to return to this small, slow, central whirlpool of disintegration and dissolution: just give it a look. She sat with Gerald drinking some sweetish liqueur, and staring with black, sullen looks at the various groups of people at the tables. She would greet nobody, but young men nodded to her frequently, with a kind of sneering familiarity. She cut them all. And it gave her pleasure to sit there, cheeks flushed, eyes black and sullen, seeing them all objectively, as put away from her, like creatures in some menagerie of apish degraded souls. God, what a foul crew they were! Her blood beat black and thick in her veins with rage and loathing. Yet she must sit and watch, watch. One or two people came to speak to her. From every side of the Café, eyes turned half furtively, half jeeringly at her, men looking over their shoulders, women under their hats. The old crowd was there, Carlyon in his corner with his pupils and his girl, Halliday and Libidnikov and the Pussum�they were all there. Gudrun watched Gerald. She watched his eyes linger a moment on Halliday, on Halliday�s party. These last were on the look-out�they nodded to him, he nodded again. They giggled and whispered among themselves. Gerald watched them with the steady twinkle in his eyes. They were urging the Pussum to something. She at last rose. She was wearing a curious dress of dark silk splashed and spattered with different colours, a curious motley effect. She was thinner, her eyes were perhaps hotter, more disintegrated. Otherwise she was just the same. Gerald watched her with the same steady twinkle in his eyes as she came across. She held out her thin brown hand to him. �How are you?� she said. He shook hands with her, but remained seated, and let her stand near him, against the table. She nodded blackly to Gudrun, whom she did not know to speak to, but well enough by sight and reputation. �I am very well,� said Gerald. �And you?� �Oh I�m all wight. What about Wupert?� �Rupert? He�s very well, too.� �Yes, I don�t mean that. What about him being married?� �Oh�yes, he is married.� The Pussum�s eyes had a hot flash. �Oh, he�s weally bwought it off then, has he? When was he married?� �A week or two ago.� �Weally! He�s never written.� �No.� �No. Don�t you think it�s too bad?� This last was in a tone of challenge. The Pussum let it be known by her tone, that she was aware of Gudrun�s listening. �I suppose he didn�t feel like it,� replied Gerald. �But why didn�t he?� pursued the Pussum. This was received in silence. There was an ugly, mocking persistence in the small, beautiful figure of the short-haired girl, as she stood near Gerald. �Are you staying in town long?� she asked. �Tonight only.� �Oh, only tonight. Are you coming over to speak to Julius?� �Not tonight.� �Oh very well. I�ll tell him then.� Then came her touch of diablerie. �You�re looking awf�lly fit.� �Yes�I feel it.� Gerald was quite calm and easy, a spark of satiric amusement in his eye. �Are you having a good time?� This was a direct blow for Gudrun, spoken in a level, toneless voice of callous ease. �Yes,� he replied, quite colourlessly. �I�m awf�lly sorry you aren�t coming round to the flat. You aren�t very faithful to your fwiends.� �Not very,� he said. She nodded them both �Good-night�, and went back slowly to her own set. Gudrun watched her curious walk, stiff and jerking at the loins. They heard her level, toneless voice distinctly. �He won�t come over;�he is otherwise engaged,� it said. There was more laughter and lowered voices and mockery at the table. �Is she a friend of yours?� said Gudrun, looking calmly at Gerald. �I�ve stayed at Halliday�s flat with Birkin,� he said, meeting her slow, calm eyes. And she knew that the Pussum was one of his mistresses�and he knew she knew. She looked round, and called for the waiter. She wanted an iced cocktail, of all things. This amused Gerald�he wondered what was up. The Halliday party was tipsy, and malicious. They were talking out loudly about Birkin, ridiculing him on every point, particularly on his marriage. �Oh, _don�t_ make me think of Birkin,� Halliday was squealing. �He makes me perfectly sick. He is as bad as Jesus. �Lord, _what_ must I do to be saved!�� He giggled to himself tipsily. �Do you remember,� came the quick voice of the Russian, �the letters he used to send. �Desire is holy��� �Oh yes!� cried Halliday. �Oh, how perfectly splendid. Why, I�ve got one in my pocket. I�m sure I have.� He took out various papers from his pocket book. �I�m sure I�ve�_hic! Oh dear!_�got one.� Gerald and Gudrun were watching absorbedly. �Oh yes, how perfectly�_hic!_�splendid! Don�t make me laugh, Pussum, it gives me the hiccup. Hic!�� They all giggled. �What did he say in that one?� the Pussum asked, leaning forward, her dark, soft hair falling and swinging against her face. There was something curiously indecent, obscene, about her small, longish, dark skull, particularly when the ears showed. �Wait�oh do wait! _No-o_, I won�t give it to you, I�ll read it aloud. I�ll read you the choice bits,�_hic!_ Oh dear! Do you think if I drink water it would take off this hiccup? _Hic!_ Oh, I feel perfectly helpless.� �Isn�t that the letter about uniting the dark and the light�and the Flux of Corruption?� asked Maxim, in his precise, quick voice. �I believe so,� said the Pussum. �Oh is it? I�d forgotten�_hic!_�it was that one,� Halliday said, opening the letter. �_Hic!_ Oh yes. How perfectly splendid! This is one of the best. �There is a phase in every race��� he read in the sing-song, slow, distinct voice of a clergyman reading the Scriptures, ��When the desire for destruction overcomes every other desire. In the individual, this desire is ultimately a desire for destruction in the self��_hic!_�� he paused and looked up. �I hope he�s going ahead with the destruction of himself,� said the quick voice of the Russian. Halliday giggled, and lolled his head back, vaguely. �There�s not much to destroy in him,� said the Pussum. �He�s so thin already, there�s only a fag-end to start on.� �Oh, isn�t it beautiful! I love reading it! I believe it has cured my hiccup!� squealed Halliday. �Do let me go on. �It is a desire for the reduction process in oneself, a reducing back to the origin, a return along the Flux of Corruption, to the original rudimentary conditions of being�!� Oh, but I _do_ think it is wonderful. It almost supersedes the Bible�� �Yes�Flux of Corruption,� said the Russian, �I remember that phrase.� �Oh, he was always talking about Corruption,� said the Pussum. �He must be corrupt himself, to have it so much on his mind.� �Exactly!� said the Russian. �Do let me go on! Oh, this is a perfectly wonderful piece! But do listen to this. �And in the great retrogression, the reducing back of the created body of life, we get knowledge, and beyond knowledge, the phosphorescent ecstasy of acute sensation.� Oh, I do think these phrases are too absurdly wonderful. Oh but don�t you think they _are_�they�re nearly as good as Jesus. �And if, Julius, you want this ecstasy of reduction with the Pussum, you must go on till it is fulfilled. But surely there is in you also, somewhere, the living desire for positive creation, relationships in ultimate faith, when all this process of active corruption, with all its flowers of mud, is transcended, and more or less finished�� I do wonder what the flowers of mud are. Pussum, you are a flower of mud.� �Thank you�and what are you?� �Oh, I�m another, surely, according to this letter! We�re all flowers of mud�_fleurs�hic! du mal!_ It�s perfectly wonderful, Birkin harrowing Hell�harrowing the Pompadour�_Hic!_� �Go on�go on,� said Maxim. �What comes next? It�s really very interesting.� �I think it�s awful cheek to write like that,� said the Pussum. �Yes�yes, so do I,� said the Russian. �He is a megalomaniac, of course, it is a form of religious mania. He thinks he is the Saviour of man�go on reading.� �Surely,� Halliday intoned, ��surely goodness and mercy hath followed me all the days of my life��� he broke off and giggled. Then he began again, intoning like a clergyman. ��Surely there will come an end in us to this desire�for the constant going apart,�this passion for putting asunder�everything�ourselves, reducing ourselves part from part�reacting in intimacy only for destruction,�using sex as a great reducing agent, reducing the two great elements of male and female from their highly complex unity�reducing the old ideas, going back to the savages for our sensations,�always seeking to _lose_ ourselves in some ultimate black sensation, mindless and infinite�burning only with destructive fires, raging on with the hope of being burnt out utterly��� �I want to go,� said Gudrun to Gerald, as she signalled the waiter. Her eyes were flashing, her cheeks were flushed. The strange effect of Birkin�s letter read aloud in a perfect clerical sing-song, clear and resonant, phrase by phrase, made the blood mount into her head as if she were mad. She rose, whilst Gerald was paying the bill, and walked over to Halliday�s table. They all glanced up at her. �Excuse me,� she said. �Is that a genuine letter you are reading?� �Oh yes,� said Halliday. �Quite genuine.� �May I see?� Smiling foolishly he handed it to her, as if hypnotised. �Thank you,� she said. And she turned and walked out of the Café with the letter, all down the brilliant room, between the tables, in her measured fashion. It was some moments before anybody realised what was happening. From Halliday�s table came half articulate cries, then somebody booed, then all the far end of the place began booing after Gudrun�s retreating form. She was fashionably dressed in blackish-green and silver, her hat was brilliant green, like the sheen on an insect, but the brim was soft dark green, a falling edge with fine silver, her coat was dark green, lustrous, with a high collar of grey fur, and great fur cuffs, the edge of her dress showed silver and black velvet, her stockings and shoes were silver grey. She moved with slow, fashionable indifference to the door. The porter opened obsequiously for her, and, at her nod, hurried to the edge of the pavement and whistled for a taxi. The two lights of a vehicle almost immediately curved round towards her, like two eyes. Gerald had followed in wonder, amid all the booing, not having caught her misdeed. He heard the Pussum�s voice saying: �Go and get it back from her. I never heard of such a thing! Go and get it back from her. Tell Gerald Crich�there he goes�go and make him give it up.� Gudrun stood at the door of the taxi, which the man held open for her. �To the hotel?� she asked, as Gerald came out, hurriedly. �Where you like,� he answered. �Right!� she said. Then to the driver, �Wagstaff�s�Barton Street.� The driver bowed his head, and put down the flag. Gudrun entered the taxi, with the deliberate cold movement of a woman who is well-dressed and contemptuous in her soul. Yet she was frozen with overwrought feelings. Gerald followed her. �You�ve forgotten the man,� she said cooly, with a slight nod of her hat. Gerald gave the porter a shilling. The man saluted. They were in motion. �What was all the row about?� asked Gerald, in wondering excitement. �I walked away with Birkin�s letter,� she said, and he saw the crushed paper in her hand. His eyes glittered with satisfaction. �Ah!� he said. �Splendid! A set of jackasses!� �I could have _killed_ them!� she cried in passion. �_Dogs!_�they are dogs! Why is Rupert such a _fool_ as to write such letters to them? Why does he give himself away to such _canaille?_ It�s a thing that _cannot be borne._� Gerald wondered over her strange passion. And she could not rest any longer in London. They must go by the morning train from Charing Cross. As they drew over the bridge, in the train, having glimpses of the river between the great iron girders, she cried: �I feel I could _never_ see this foul town again�I couldn�t _bear_ to come back to it.� CHAPTER XXIX. CONTINENTAL Ursula went on in an unreal suspense, the last weeks before going away. She was not herself,�she was not anything. She was something that is going to be�soon�soon�very soon. But as yet, she was only imminent. She went to see her parents. It was a rather stiff, sad meeting, more like a verification of separateness than a reunion. But they were all vague and indefinite with one another, stiffened in the fate that moved them apart. She did not really come to until she was on the ship crossing from Dover to Ostend. Dimly she had come down to London with Birkin, London had been a vagueness, so had the train-journey to Dover. It was all like a sleep. And now, at last, as she stood in the stern of the ship, in a pitch-dark, rather blowy night, feeling the motion of the sea, and watching the small, rather desolate little lights that twinkled on the shores of England, as on the shores of nowhere, watched them sinking smaller and smaller on the profound and living darkness, she felt her soul stirring to awake from its anæsthetic sleep. �Let us go forward, shall we?� said Birkin. He wanted to be at the tip of their projection. So they left off looking at the faint sparks that glimmered out of nowhere, in the far distance, called England, and turned their faces to the unfathomed night in front. They went right to the bows of the softly plunging vessel. In the complete obscurity, Birkin found a comparatively sheltered nook, where a great rope was coiled up. It was quite near the very point of the ship, near the black, unpierced space ahead. There they sat down, folded together, folded round with the same rug, creeping in nearer and ever nearer to one another, till it seemed they had crept right into each other, and become one substance. It was very cold, and the darkness was palpable. One of the ship�s crew came along the deck, dark as the darkness, not really visible. They then made out the faintest pallor of his face. He felt their presence, and stopped, unsure�then bent forward. When his face was near them, he saw the faint pallor of their faces. Then he withdrew like a phantom. And they watched him without making any sound. They seemed to fall away into the profound darkness. There was no sky, no earth, only one unbroken darkness, into which, with a soft, sleeping motion, they seemed to fall like one closed seed of life falling through dark, fathomless space. They had forgotten where they were, forgotten all that was and all that had been, conscious only in their heart, and there conscious only of this pure trajectory through the surpassing darkness. The ship�s prow cleaved on, with a faint noise of cleavage, into the complete night, without knowing, without seeing, only surging on. In Ursula the sense of the unrealised world ahead triumphed over everything. In the midst of this profound darkness, there seemed to glow on her heart the effulgence of a paradise unknown and unrealised. Her heart was full of the most wonderful light, golden like honey of darkness, sweet like the warmth of day, a light which was not shed on the world, only on the unknown paradise towards which she was going, a sweetness of habitation, a delight of living quite unknown, but hers infallibly. In her transport she lifted her face suddenly to him, and he touched it with his lips. So cold, so fresh, so sea-clear her face was, it was like kissing a flower that grows near the surf. But he did not know the ecstasy of bliss in fore-knowledge that she knew. To him, the wonder of this transit was overwhelming. He was falling through a gulf of infinite darkness, like a meteorite plunging across the chasm between the worlds. The world was torn in two, and he was plunging like an unlit star through the ineffable rift. What was beyond was not yet for him. He was overcome by the trajectory. In a trance he lay enfolding Ursula round about. His face was against her fine, fragile hair, he breathed its fragrance with the sea and the profound night. And his soul was at peace; yielded, as he fell into the unknown. This was the first time that an utter and absolute peace had entered his heart, now, in this final transit out of life. When there came some stir on the deck, they roused. They stood up. How stiff and cramped they were, in the night-time! And yet the paradisal glow on her heart, and the unutterable peace of darkness in his, this was the all-in-all. They stood up and looked ahead. Low lights were seen down the darkness. This was the world again. It was not the bliss of her heart, nor the peace of his. It was the superficial unreal world of fact. Yet not quite the old world. For the peace and the bliss in their hearts was enduring. Strange, and desolate above all things, like disembarking from the Styx into the desolated underworld, was this landing at night. There was the raw, half-lighted, covered-in vastness of the dark place, boarded and hollow underfoot, with only desolation everywhere. Ursula had caught sight of the big, pallid, mystic letters �OSTEND,� standing in the darkness. Everybody was hurrying with a blind, insect-like intentness through the dark grey air, porters were calling in un-English English, then trotting with heavy bags, their colourless blouses looking ghostly as they disappeared; Ursula stood at a long, low, zinc-covered barrier, along with hundreds of other spectral people, and all the way down the vast, raw darkness was this low stretch of open bags and spectral people, whilst, on the other side of the barrier, pallid officials in peaked caps and moustaches were turning the underclothing in the bags, then scrawling a chalk-mark. It was done. Birkin snapped the hand bags, off they went, the porter coming behind. They were through a great doorway, and in the open night again�ah, a railway platform! Voices were still calling in inhuman agitation through the dark-grey air, spectres were running along the darkness between the train. �Köln�Berlin�� Ursula made out on the boards hung on the high train on one side. �Here we are,� said Birkin. And on her side she saw: �Elsass�Lothringen�Luxembourg, Metz�Basle.� �That was it, Basle!� The porter came up. �_� Bâle�deuxième classe?�Voilà!_� And he clambered into the high train. They followed. The compartments were already some of them taken. But many were dim and empty. The luggage was stowed, the porter was tipped. �_Nous avons encore�?_� said Birkin, looking at his watch and at the porter. �_Encore une demi-heure._� With which, in his blue blouse, he disappeared. He was ugly and insolent. �Come,� said Birkin. �It is cold. Let us eat.� There was a coffee-wagon on the platform. They drank hot, watery coffee, and ate the long rolls, split, with ham between, which were such a wide bite that it almost dislocated Ursula�s jaw; and they walked beside the high trains. It was all so strange, so extremely desolate, like the underworld, grey, grey, dirt grey, desolate, forlorn, nowhere�grey, dreary nowhere. At last they were moving through the night. In the darkness Ursula made out the flat fields, the wet flat dreary darkness of the Continent. They pulled up surprisingly soon�Bruges! Then on through the level darkness, with glimpses of sleeping farms and thin poplar trees and deserted high-roads. She sat dismayed, hand in hand with Birkin. He pale, immobile like a _revenant_ himself, looked sometimes out of the window, sometimes closed his eyes. Then his eyes opened again, dark as the darkness outside. A flash of a few lights on the darkness�Ghent station! A few more spectres moving outside on the platform�then the bell�then motion again through the level darkness. Ursula saw a man with a lantern come out of a farm by the railway, and cross to the dark farm-buildings. She thought of the Marsh, the old, intimate farm-life at Cossethay. My God, how far was she projected from her childhood, how far was she still to go! In one life-time one travelled through æons. The great chasm of memory from her childhood in the intimate country surroundings of Cossethay and the Marsh Farm�she remembered the servant Tilly, who used to give her bread and butter sprinkled with brown sugar, in the old living-room where the grandfather clock had two pink roses in a basket painted above the figures on the face�and now when she was travelling into the unknown with Birkin, an utter stranger�was so great, that it seemed she had no identity, that the child she had been, playing in Cossethay churchyard, was a little creature of history, not really herself. They were at Brussels�half an hour for breakfast. They got down. On the great station clock it said six o�clock. They had coffee and rolls and honey in the vast desert refreshment room, so dreary, always so dreary, dirty, so spacious, such desolation of space. But she washed her face and hands in hot water, and combed her hair�that was a blessing. Soon they were in the train again and moving on. The greyness of dawn began. There were several people in the compartment, large florid Belgian business-men with long brown beards, talking incessantly in an ugly French she was too tired to follow. It seemed the train ran by degrees out of the darkness into a faint light, then beat after beat into the day. Ah, how weary it was! Faintly, the trees showed, like shadows. Then a house, white, had a curious distinctness. How was it? Then she saw a village�there were always houses passing. This was an old world she was still journeying through, winter-heavy and dreary. There was plough-land and pasture, and copses of bare trees, copses of bushes, and homesteads naked and work-bare. No new earth had come to pass. She looked at Birkin�s face. It was white and still and eternal, too eternal. She linked her fingers imploringly in his, under the cover of her rug. His fingers responded, his eyes looked back at her. How dark, like a night, his eyes were, like another world beyond! Oh, if he were the world as well, if only the world were he! If only he could call a world into being, that should be their own world! The Belgians left, the train ran on, through Luxembourg, through Alsace-Lorraine, through Metz. But she was blind, she could see no more. Her soul did not look out. They came at last to Basle, to the hotel. It was all a drifting trance, from which she never came to. They went out in the morning, before the train departed. She saw the street, the river, she stood on the bridge. But it all meant nothing. She remembered some shops�one full of pictures, one with orange velvet and ermine. But what did these signify?�nothing. She was not at ease till they were in the train again. Then she was relieved. So long as they were moving onwards, she was satisfied. They came to Zürich, then, before very long, ran under the mountains, that were deep in snow. At last she was drawing near. This was the other world now. Innsbruck was wonderful, deep in snow, and evening. They drove in an open sledge over the snow: the train had been so hot and stifling. And the hotel, with the golden light glowing under the porch, seemed like a home. They laughed with pleasure when they were in the hall. The place seemed full and busy. �Do you know if Mr and Mrs Crich�English�from Paris, have arrived?� Birkin asked in German. The porter reflected a moment, and was just going to answer, when Ursula caught sight of Gudrun sauntering down the stairs, wearing her dark glossy coat, with grey fur. �Gudrun! Gudrun!� she called, waving up the well of the staircase. �Shu-hu!� Gudrun looked over the rail, and immediately lost her sauntering, diffident air. Her eyes flashed. �Really�Ursula!� she cried. And she began to move downstairs as Ursula ran up. They met at a turn and kissed with laughter and exclamations inarticulate and stirring. �But!� cried Gudrun, mortified. �We thought it was _tomorrow_ you were coming! I wanted to come to the station.� �No, we�ve come today!� cried Ursula. �Isn�t it lovely here!� �Adorable!� said Gudrun. �Gerald�s just gone out to get something. Ursula, aren�t you _fearfully_ tired?� �No, not so very. But I look a filthy sight, don�t I!� �No, you don�t. You look almost perfectly fresh. I like that fur cap _immensely!_� She glanced over Ursula, who wore a big soft coat with a collar of deep, soft, blond fur, and a soft blond cap of fur. �And you!� cried Ursula. �What do you think _you_ look like!� Gudrun assumed an unconcerned, expressionless face. �Do you like it?� she said. �It�s _very_ fine!� cried Ursula, perhaps with a touch of satire. �Go up�or come down,� said Birkin. For there the sisters stood, Gudrun with her hand on Ursula�s arm, on the turn of the stairs half way to the first landing, blocking the way and affording full entertainment to the whole of the hall below, from the door porter to the plump Jew in black clothes. The two young women slowly mounted, followed by Birkin and the waiter. �First floor?� asked Gudrun, looking back over her shoulder. �Second Madam�the lift!� the waiter replied. And he darted to the elevator to forestall the two women. But they ignored him, as, chattering without heed, they set to mount the second flight. Rather chagrined, the waiter followed. It was curious, the delight of the sisters in each other, at this meeting. It was as if they met in exile, and united their solitary forces against all the world. Birkin looked on with some mistrust and wonder. When they had bathed and changed, Gerald came in. He looked shining like the sun on frost. �Go with Gerald and smoke,� said Ursula to Birkin. �Gudrun and I want to talk.� Then the sisters sat in Gudrun�s bedroom, and talked clothes, and experiences. Gudrun told Ursula the experience of the Birkin letter in the café. Ursula was shocked and frightened. �Where is the letter?� she asked. �I kept it,� said Gudrun. �You�ll give it me, won�t you?� she said. But Gudrun was silent for some moments, before she replied: �Do you really want it, Ursula?� �I want to read it,� said Ursula. �Certainly,� said Gudrun. Even now, she could not admit, to Ursula, that she wanted to keep it, as a memento, or a symbol. But Ursula knew, and was not pleased. So the subject was switched off. �What did you do in Paris?� asked Ursula. �Oh,� said Gudrun laconically��the usual things. We had a _fine_ party one night in Fanny Bath�s studio.� �Did you? And you and Gerald were there! Who else? Tell me about it.� �Well,� said Gudrun. �There�s nothing particular to tell. You know Fanny is _frightfully_ in love with that painter, Billy Macfarlane. He was there�so Fanny spared nothing, she spent _very_ freely. It was really remarkable! Of course, everybody got fearfully drunk�but in an interesting way, not like that filthy London crowd. The fact is these were all people that matter, which makes all the difference. There was a Roumanian, a fine chap. He got completely drunk, and climbed to the top of a high studio ladder, and gave the most marvellous address�really, Ursula, it was wonderful! He began in French�_La vie, c�est une affaire d�âmes impériales_�in a most beautiful voice�he was a fine-looking chap�but he had got into Roumanian before he had finished, and not a soul understood. But Donald Gilchrist was worked to a frenzy. He dashed his glass to the ground, and declared, by God, he was glad he had been born, by God, it was a miracle to be alive. And do you know, Ursula, so it was�� Gudrun laughed rather hollowly. �But how was Gerald among them all?� asked Ursula. �Gerald! Oh, my word, he came out like a dandelion in the sun! _He�s_ a whole saturnalia in himself, once he is roused. I shouldn�t like to say whose waist his arm did not go round. Really, Ursula, he seems to reap the women like a harvest. There wasn�t one that would have resisted him. It was too amazing! Can you understand it?� Ursula reflected, and a dancing light came into her eyes. �Yes,� she said. �I can. He is such a whole-hogger.� �Whole-hogger! I should think so!� exclaimed Gudrun. �But it is true, Ursula, every woman in the room was ready to surrender to him. Chanticleer isn�t in it�even Fanny Bath, who is _genuinely_ in love with Billy Macfarlane! I never was more amazed in my life! And you know, afterwards�I felt I was a whole _roomful_ of women. I was no more myself to him, than I was Queen Victoria. I was a whole roomful of women at once. It was most astounding! But my eye, I�d caught a Sultan that time�� Gudrun�s eyes were flashing, her cheek was hot, she looked strange, exotic, satiric. Ursula was fascinated at once�and yet uneasy. They had to get ready for dinner. Gudrun came down in a daring gown of vivid green silk and tissue of gold, with green velvet bodice and a strange black-and-white band round her hair. She was really brilliantly beautiful and everybody noticed her. Gerald was in that full-blooded, gleaming state when he was most handsome. Birkin watched them with quick, laughing, half-sinister eyes, Ursula quite lost her head. There seemed a spell, almost a blinding spell, cast round their table, as if they were lighted up more strongly than the rest of the dining-room. �Don�t you love to be in this place?� cried Gudrun. �Isn�t the snow wonderful! Do you notice how it exalts everything? It is simply marvellous. One really does feel _übermenschlich_�more than human.� �One does,� cried Ursula. �But isn�t that partly the being out of England?� �Oh, of course,� cried Gudrun. �One could never feel like this in England, for the simple reason that the damper is _never_ lifted off one, there. It is quite impossible really to let go, in England, of that I am assured.� And she turned again to the food she was eating. She was fluttering with vivid intensity. �It�s quite true,� said Gerald, �it never is quite the same in England. But perhaps we don�t want it to be�perhaps it�s like bringing the light a little too near the powder-magazine, to let go altogether, in England. One is afraid what might happen, if _everybody else_ let go.� �My God!� cried Gudrun. �But wouldn�t it be wonderful, if all England did suddenly go off like a display of fireworks.� �It couldn�t,� said Ursula. �They are all too damp, the powder is damp in them.� �I�m not so sure of that,� said Gerald. �Nor I,� said Birkin. �When the English really begin to go off, _en masse_, it�ll be time to shut your ears and run.� �They never will,� said Ursula. �We�ll see,� he replied. �Isn�t it marvellous,� said Gudrun, �how thankful one can be, to be out of one�s country. I cannot believe myself, I am so transported, the moment I set foot on a foreign shore. I say to myself �Here steps a new creature into life.�� �Don�t be too hard on poor old England,� said Gerald. �Though we curse it, we love it really.� To Ursula, there seemed a fund of cynicism in these words. �We may,� said Birkin. �But it�s a damnably uncomfortable love: like a love for an aged parent who suffers horribly from a complication of diseases, for which there is no hope.� Gudrun looked at him with dilated dark eyes. �You think there is no hope?� she asked, in her pertinent fashion. But Birkin backed away. He would not answer such a question. �Any hope of England�s becoming real? God knows. It�s a great actual unreality now, an aggregation into unreality. It might be real, if there were no Englishmen.� �You think the English will have to disappear?� persisted Gudrun. It was strange, her pointed interest in his answer. It might have been her own fate she was inquiring after. Her dark, dilated eyes rested on Birkin, as if she could conjure the truth of the future out of him, as out of some instrument of divination. He was pale. Then, reluctantly, he answered: �Well�what else is in front of them, but disappearance? They�ve got to disappear from their own special brand of Englishness, anyhow.� Gudrun watched him as if in a hypnotic state, her eyes wide and fixed on him. �But in what way do you mean, disappear?�� she persisted. �Yes, do you mean a change of heart?� put in Gerald. �I don�t mean anything, why should I?� said Birkin. �I�m an Englishman, and I�ve paid the price of it. I can�t talk about England�I can only speak for myself.� �Yes,� said Gudrun slowly, �you love England immensely, _immensely_, Rupert.� �And leave her,� he replied. �No, not for good. You�ll come back,� said Gerald, nodding sagely. �They say the lice crawl off a dying body,� said Birkin, with a glare of bitterness. �So I leave England.� �Ah, but you�ll come back,� said Gudrun, with a sardonic smile. �_Tant pis pour moi_,� he replied. �Isn�t he angry with his mother country!� laughed Gerald, amused. �Ah, a patriot!� said Gudrun, with something like a sneer. Birkin refused to answer any more. Gudrun watched him still for a few seconds. Then she turned away. It was finished, her spell of divination in him. She felt already purely cynical. She looked at Gerald. He was wonderful like a piece of radium to her. She felt she could consume herself and know _all_, by means of this fatal, living metal. She smiled to herself at her fancy. And what would she do with herself, when she had destroyed herself? For if spirit, if integral being is destructible, Matter is indestructible. He was looking bright and abstracted, puzzled, for the moment. She stretched out her beautiful arm, with its fluff of green tulle, and touched his chin with her subtle, artist�s fingers. �What are they then?� she asked, with a strange, knowing smile. �What?� he replied, his eyes suddenly dilating with wonder. �Your thoughts.� Gerald looked like a man coming awake. �I think I had none,� he said. �Really!� she said, with grave laughter in her voice. And to Birkin it was as if she killed Gerald, with that touch. �Ah but,� cried Gudrun, �let us drink to Britannia�let us drink to Britannia.� It seemed there was wild despair in her voice. Gerald laughed, and filled the glasses. �I think Rupert means,� he said, �that _nationally_ all Englishmen must die, so that they can exist individually and�� �Super-nationally�� put in Gudrun, with a slight ironic grimace, raising her glass. The next day, they descended at the tiny railway station of Hohenhausen, at the end of the tiny valley railway. It was snow everywhere, a white, perfect cradle of snow, new and frozen, sweeping up on either side, black crags, and white sweeps of silver towards the blue pale heavens. As they stepped out on the naked platform, with only snow around and above, Gudrun shrank as if it chilled her heart. �My God, Jerry,� she said, turning to Gerald with sudden intimacy, �you�ve done it now.� �What?� She made a faint gesture, indicating the world on either hand. �Look at it!� She seemed afraid to go on. He laughed. They were in the heart of the mountains. From high above, on either side, swept down the white fold of snow, so that one seemed small and tiny in a valley of pure concrete heaven, all strangely radiant and changeless and silent. �It makes one feel so small and alone,� said Ursula, turning to Birkin and laying her hand on his arm. �You�re not sorry you�ve come, are you?� said Gerald to Gudrun. She looked doubtful. They went out of the station between banks of snow. �Ah,� said Gerald, sniffing the air in elation, �this is perfect. There�s our sledge. We�ll walk a bit�we�ll run up the road.� Gudrun, always doubtful, dropped her heavy coat on the sledge, as he did his, and they set off. Suddenly she threw up her head and set off scudding along the road of snow, pulling her cap down over her ears. Her blue, bright dress fluttered in the wind, her thick scarlet stockings were brilliant above the whiteness. Gerald watched her: she seemed to be rushing towards her fate, and leaving him behind. He let her get some distance, then, loosening his limbs, he went after her. Everywhere was deep and silent snow. Great snow-eaves weighed down the broad-roofed Tyrolese houses, that were sunk to the window-sashes in snow. Peasant-women, full-skirted, wearing each a cross-over shawl, and thick snow-boots, turned in the way to look at the soft, determined girl running with such heavy fleetness from the man, who was overtaking her, but not gaining any power over her. They passed the inn with its painted shutters and balcony, a few cottages, half buried in the snow; then the snow-buried silent sawmill by the roofed bridge, which crossed the hidden stream, over which they ran into the very depth of the untouched sheets of snow. It was a silence and a sheer whiteness exhilarating to madness. But the perfect silence was most terrifying, isolating the soul, surrounding the heart with frozen air. �It�s a marvellous place, for all that,� said Gudrun, looking into his eyes with a strange, meaning look. His soul leapt. �Good,� he said. A fierce electric energy seemed to flow over all his limbs, his muscles were surcharged, his hands felt hard with strength. They walked along rapidly up the snow-road, that was marked by withered branches of trees stuck in at intervals. He and she were separate, like opposite poles of one fierce energy. But they felt powerful enough to leap over the confines of life into the forbidden places, and back again. Birkin and Ursula were running along also, over the snow. He had disposed of the luggage, and they had a little start of the sledges. Ursula was excited and happy, but she kept turning suddenly to catch hold of Birkin�s arm, to make sure of him. �This is something I never expected,� she said. �It is a different world, here.� They went on into a snow meadow. There they were overtaken by the sledge, that came tinkling through the silence. It was another mile before they came upon Gudrun and Gerald on the steep up-climb, beside the pink, half-buried shrine. Then they passed into a gulley, where were walls of black rock and a river filled with snow, and a still blue sky above. Through a covered bridge they went, drumming roughly over the boards, crossing the snow-bed once more, then slowly up and up, the horses walking swiftly, the driver cracking his long whip as he walked beside, and calling his strange wild _hue-hue!_, the walls of rock passing slowly by, till they emerged again between slopes and masses of snow. Up and up, gradually they went, through the cold shadow-radiance of the afternoon, silenced by the imminence of the mountains, the luminous, dazing sides of snow that rose above them and fell away beneath. They came forth at last in a little high table-land of snow, where stood the last peaks of snow like the heart petals of an open rose. In the midst of the last deserted valleys of heaven stood a lonely building with brown wooden walls and white heavy roof, deep and deserted in the waste of snow, like a dream. It stood like a rock that had rolled down from the last steep slopes, a rock that had taken the form of a house, and was now half-buried. It was unbelievable that one could live there uncrushed by all this terrible waste of whiteness and silence and clear, upper, ringing cold. Yet the sledges ran up in fine style, people came to the door laughing and excited, the floor of the hostel rang hollow, the passage was wet with snow, it was a real, warm interior. The newcomers tramped up the bare wooden stairs, following the serving woman. Gudrun and Gerald took the first bedroom. In a moment they found themselves alone in a bare, smallish, close-shut room that was all of golden-coloured wood, floor, walls, ceiling, door, all of the same warm gold panelling of oiled pine. There was a window opposite the door, but low down, because the roof sloped. Under the slope of the ceiling were the table with wash-hand bowl and jug, and across, another table with mirror. On either side the door were two beds piled high with an enormous blue-checked overbolster, enormous. This was all�no cupboard, none of the amenities of life. Here they were shut up together in this cell of golden-coloured wood, with two blue checked beds. They looked at each other and laughed, frightened by this naked nearness of isolation. A man knocked and came in with the luggage. He was a sturdy fellow with flattish cheek-bones, rather pale, and with coarse fair moustache. Gudrun watched him put down the bags, in silence, then tramp heavily out. �It isn�t too rough, is it?� Gerald asked. The bedroom was not very warm, and she shivered slightly. �It is wonderful,� she equivocated. �Look at the colour of this panelling�it�s wonderful, like being inside a nut.� He was standing watching her, feeling his short-cut moustache, leaning back slightly and watching her with his keen, undaunted eyes, dominated by the constant passion, that was like a doom upon him. She went and crouched down in front of the window, curious. �Oh, but this�!� she cried involuntarily, almost in pain. In front was a valley shut in under the sky, the last huge slopes of snow and black rock, and at the end, like the navel of the earth, a white-folded wall, and two peaks glimmering in the late light. Straight in front ran the cradle of silent snow, between the great slopes that were fringed with a little roughness of pine-trees, like hair, round the base. But the cradle of snow ran on to the eternal closing-in, where the walls of snow and rock rose impenetrable, and the mountain peaks above were in heaven immediate. This was the centre, the knot, the navel of the world, where the earth belonged to the skies, pure, unapproachable, impassable. It filled Gudrun with a strange rapture. She crouched in front of the window, clenching her face in her hands, in a sort of trance. At last she had arrived, she had reached her place. Here at last she folded her venture and settled down like a crystal in the navel of snow, and was gone. Gerald bent above her and was looking out over her shoulder. Already he felt he was alone. She was gone. She was completely gone, and there was icy vapour round his heart. He saw the blind valley, the great cul-de-sac of snow and mountain peaks, under the heaven. And there was no way out. The terrible silence and cold and the glamorous whiteness of the dusk wrapped him round, and she remained crouching before the window, as at a shrine, a shadow. �Do you like it?� he asked, in a voice that sounded detached and foreign. At least she might acknowledge he was with her. But she only averted her soft, mute face a little from his gaze. And he knew that there were tears in her eyes, her own tears, tears of her strange religion, that put him to nought. Quite suddenly, he put his hand under her chin and lifted up her face to him. Her dark blue eyes, in their wetness of tears, dilated as if she was startled in her very soul. They looked at him through their tears in terror and a little horror. His light blue eyes were keen, small-pupilled and unnatural in their vision. Her lips parted, as she breathed with difficulty. The passion came up in him, stroke after stroke, like the ringing of a bronze bell, so strong and unflawed and indomitable. His knees tightened to bronze as he hung above her soft face, whose lips parted and whose eyes dilated in a strange violation. In the grasp of his hand her chin was unutterably soft and silken. He felt strong as winter, his hands were living metal, invincible and not to be turned aside. His heart rang like a bell clanging inside him. He took her up in his arms. She was soft and inert, motionless. All the while her eyes, in which the tears had not yet dried, were dilated as if in a kind of swoon of fascination and helplessness. He was superhumanly strong, and unflawed, as if invested with supernatural force. He lifted her close and folded her against him. Her softness, her inert, relaxed weight lay against his own surcharged, bronze-like limbs in a heaviness of desirability that would destroy him, if he were not fulfilled. She moved convulsively, recoiling away from him. His heart went up like a flame of ice, he closed over her like steel. He would destroy her rather than be denied. But the overweening power of his body was too much for her. She relaxed again, and lay loose and soft, panting in a little delirium. And to him, she was so sweet, she was such bliss of release, that he would have suffered a whole eternity of torture rather than forego one second of this pang of unsurpassable bliss. �My God,� he said to her, his face drawn and strange, transfigured, �what next?� She lay perfectly still, with a still, child-like face and dark eyes, looking at him. She was lost, fallen right away. �I shall always love you,� he said, looking at her. But she did not hear. She lay, looking at him as at something she could never understand, never: as a child looks at a grown-up person, without hope of understanding, only submitting. He kissed her, kissed her eyes shut, so that she could not look any more. He wanted something now, some recognition, some sign, some admission. But she only lay silent and child-like and remote, like a child that is overcome and cannot understand, only feels lost. He kissed her again, giving up. �Shall we go down and have coffee and _Kuchen?_� he asked. The twilight was falling slate-blue at the window. She closed her eyes, closed away the monotonous level of dead wonder, and opened them again to the every-day world. �Yes,� she said briefly, regaining her will with a click. She went again to the window. Blue evening had fallen over the cradle of snow and over the great pallid slopes. But in the heaven the peaks of snow were rosy, glistening like transcendent, radiant spikes of blossom in the heavenly upper-world, so lovely and beyond. Gudrun saw all their loveliness, she _knew_ how immortally beautiful they were, great pistils of rose-coloured, snow-fed fire in the blue twilight of the heaven. She could _see_ it, she knew it, but she was not of it. She was divorced, debarred, a soul shut out. With a last look of remorse, she turned away, and was doing her hair. He had unstrapped the luggage, and was waiting, watching her. She knew he was watching her. It made her a little hasty and feverish in her precipitation. They went downstairs, both with a strange other-world look on their faces, and with a glow in their eyes. They saw Birkin and Ursula sitting at the long table in a corner, waiting for them. �How good and simple they look together,� Gudrun thought, jealously. She envied them some spontaneity, a childish sufficiency to which she herself could never approach. They seemed such children to her. �Such good _Kranzkuchen!_� cried Ursula greedily. �So good!� �Right,� said Gudrun. �Can we have _Kaffee mit Kranzkuchen?_� she added to the waiter. And she seated herself on the bench beside Gerald. Birkin, looking at them, felt a pain of tenderness for them. �I think the place is really wonderful, Gerald,� he said; �_prachtvoll_ and _wunderbar_ and _wunderschön_ and _unbeschreiblich_ and all the other German adjectives.� Gerald broke into a slight smile. �_I_ like it,� he said. The tables, of white scrubbed wood, were placed round three sides of the room, as in a Gasthaus. Birkin and Ursula sat with their backs to the wall, which was of oiled wood, and Gerald and Gudrun sat in the corner next them, near to the stove. It was a fairly large place, with a tiny bar, just like a country inn, but quite simple and bare, and all of oiled wood, ceilings and walls and floor, the only furniture being the tables and benches going round three sides, the great green stove, and the bar and the doors on the fourth side. The windows were double, and quite uncurtained. It was early evening. The coffee came�hot and good�and a whole ring of cake. �A whole _Kuchen!_� cried Ursula. �They give you more than us! I want some of yours.� There were other people in the place, ten altogether, so Birkin had found out: two artists, three students, a man and wife, and a Professor and two daughters�all Germans. The four English people, being newcomers, sat in their coign of vantage to watch. The Germans peeped in at the door, called a word to the waiter, and went away again. It was not meal-time, so they did not come into this dining-room, but betook themselves, when their boots were changed, to the _Reunionsaal._ The English visitors could hear the occasional twanging of a zither, the strumming of a piano, snatches of laughter and shouting and singing, a faint vibration of voices. The whole building being of wood, it seemed to carry every sound, like a drum, but instead of increasing each particular noise, it decreased it, so that the sound of the zither seemed tiny, as if a diminutive zither were playing somewhere, and it seemed the piano must be a small one, like a little spinet. The host came when the coffee was finished. He was a Tyrolese, broad, rather flat-cheeked, with a pale, pock-marked skin and flourishing moustaches. �Would you like to go to the _Reunionsaal_ to be introduced to the other ladies and gentlemen?� he asked, bending forward and smiling, showing his large, strong teeth. His blue eyes went quickly from one to the other�he was not quite sure of his ground with these English people. He was unhappy too because he spoke no English and he was not sure whether to try his French. �Shall we go to the _Reunionsaal_, and be introduced to the other people?� repeated Gerald, laughing. There was a moment�s hesitation. �I suppose we�d better�better break the ice,� said Birkin. The women rose, rather flushed. And the Wirt�s black, beetle-like, broad-shouldered figure went on ignominiously in front, towards the noise. He opened the door and ushered the four strangers into the play-room. Instantly a silence fell, a slight embarrassment came over the company. The newcomers had a sense of many blond faces looking their way. Then, the host was bowing to a short, energetic-looking man with large moustaches, and saying in a low voice: �_Herr Professor, darf ich vorstellen_�� The Herr Professor was prompt and energetic. He bowed low to the English people, smiling, and began to be a comrade at once. �_Nehmen die Herrschaften teil an unserer Unterhaltung?_� he said, with a vigorous suavity, his voice curling up in the question. The four English people smiled, lounging with an attentive uneasiness in the middle of the room. Gerald, who was spokesman, said that they would willingly take part in the entertainment. Gudrun and Ursula, laughing, excited, felt the eyes of all the men upon them, and they lifted their heads and looked nowhere, and felt royal. The Professor announced the names of those present, _sans cérémonie_. There was a bowing to the wrong people and to the right people. Everybody was there, except the man and wife. The two tall, clear-skinned, athletic daughters of the professor, with their plain-cut, dark blue blouses and loden skirts, their rather long, strong necks, their clear blue eyes and carefully banded hair, and their blushes, bowed and stood back; the three students bowed very low, in the humble hope of making an impression of extreme good-breeding; then there was a thin, dark-skinned man with full eyes, an odd creature, like a child, and like a troll, quick, detached; he bowed slightly; his companion, a large fair young man, stylishly dressed, blushed to the eyes and bowed very low. It was over. �Herr Loerke was giving us a recitation in the Cologne dialect,� said the Professor. �He must forgive us for interrupting him,� said Gerald, �we should like very much to hear it.� There was instantly a bowing and an offering of seats. Gudrun and Ursula, Gerald and Birkin sat in the deep sofas against the wall. The room was of naked oiled panelling, like the rest of the house. It had a piano, sofas and chairs, and a couple of tables with books and magazines. In its complete absence of decoration, save for the big, blue stove, it was cosy and pleasant. Herr Loerke was the little man with the boyish figure, and the round, full, sensitive-looking head, and the quick, full eyes, like a mouse�s. He glanced swiftly from one to the other of the strangers, and held himself aloof. �Please go on with the recitation,� said the Professor, suavely, with his slight authority. Loerke, who was sitting hunched on the piano stool, blinked and did not answer. �It would be a great pleasure,� said Ursula, who had been getting the sentence ready, in German, for some minutes. Then, suddenly, the small, unresponding man swung aside, towards his previous audience and broke forth, exactly as he had broken off; in a controlled, mocking voice, giving an imitation of a quarrel between an old Cologne woman and a railway guard. His body was slight and unformed, like a boy�s, but his voice was mature, sardonic, its movement had the flexibility of essential energy, and of a mocking penetrating understanding. Gudrun could not understand a word of his monologue, but she was spell-bound, watching him. He must be an artist, nobody else could have such fine adjustment and singleness. The Germans were doubled up with laughter, hearing his strange droll words, his droll phrases of dialect. And in the midst of their paroxysms, they glanced with deference at the four English strangers, the elect. Gudrun and Ursula were forced to laugh. The room rang with shouts of laughter. The blue eyes of the Professor�s daughters were swimming over with laughter-tears, their clear cheeks were flushed crimson with mirth, their father broke out in the most astonishing peals of hilarity, the students bowed their heads on their knees in excess of joy. Ursula looked round amazed, the laughter was bubbling out of her involuntarily. She looked at Gudrun. Gudrun looked at her, and the two sisters burst out laughing, carried away. Loerke glanced at them swiftly, with his full eyes. Birkin was sniggering involuntarily. Gerald Crich sat erect, with a glistening look of amusement on his face. And the laughter crashed out again, in wild paroxysms, the Professor�s daughters were reduced to shaking helplessness, the veins of the Professor�s neck were swollen, his face was purple, he was strangled in ultimate, silent spasms of laughter. The students were shouting half-articulated words that tailed off in helpless explosions. Then suddenly the rapid patter of the artist ceased, there were little whoops of subsiding mirth, Ursula and Gudrun were wiping their eyes, and the Professor was crying loudly. �_Das war ausgezeichnet, das war famos_�� �_Wirklich famos_,� echoed his exhausted daughters, faintly. �And we couldn�t understand it,� cried Ursula. �_Oh leider, leider!_� cried the Professor. �You couldn�t understand it?� cried the Students, let loose at last in speech with the newcomers. �_Ja, das ist wirklich schade, das ist schade, gnädige Frau. Wissen Sie_�� The mixture was made, the newcomers were stirred into the party, like new ingredients, the whole room was alive. Gerald was in his element, he talked freely and excitedly, his face glistened with a strange amusement. Perhaps even Birkin, in the end, would break forth. He was shy and withheld, though full of attention. Ursula was prevailed upon to sing �Annie Lowrie,� as the Professor called it. There was a hush of _extreme_ deference. She had never been so flattered in her life. Gudrun accompanied her on the piano, playing from memory. Ursula had a beautiful ringing voice, but usually no confidence, she spoiled everything. This evening she felt conceited and untrammelled. Birkin was well in the background, she shone almost in reaction, the Germans made her feel fine and infallible, she was liberated into overweening self-confidence. She felt like a bird flying in the air, as her voice soared out, enjoying herself extremely in the balance and flight of the song, like the motion of a bird�s wings that is up in the wind, sliding and playing on the air, she played with sentimentality, supported by rapturous attention. She was very happy, singing that song by herself, full of a conceit of emotion and power, working upon all those people, and upon herself, exerting herself with gratification, giving immeasurable gratification to the Germans. At the end, the Germans were all touched with admiring, delicious melancholy, they praised her in soft, reverent voices, they could not say too much. �_Wie schön, wie rührend! Ach, die Schottischen Lieder, sie haben so viel Stimmung! Aber die gnädige Frau hat eine wunderbare Stimme; die gnädige Frau ist wirklich eine Künstlerin, aber wirklich!_� She was dilated and brilliant, like a flower in the morning sun. She felt Birkin looking at her, as if he were jealous of her, and her breasts thrilled, her veins were all golden. She was as happy as the sun that has just opened above clouds. And everybody seemed so admiring and radiant, it was perfect. After dinner she wanted to go out for a minute, to look at the world. The company tried to dissuade her�it was so terribly cold. But just to look, she said. They all four wrapped up warmly, and found themselves in a vague, unsubstantial outdoors of dim snow and ghosts of an upper-world, that made strange shadows before the stars. It was indeed cold, bruisingly, frighteningly, unnaturally cold. Ursula could not believe the air in her nostrils. It seemed conscious, malevolent, purposive in its intense murderous coldness. Yet it was wonderful, an intoxication, a silence of dim, unrealised snow, of the invisible intervening between her and the visible, between her and the flashing stars. She could see Orion sloping up. How wonderful he was, wonderful enough to make one cry aloud. And all around was this cradle of snow, and there was firm snow underfoot, that struck with heavy cold through her boot-soles. It was night, and silence. She imagined she could hear the stars. She imagined distinctly she could hear the celestial, musical motion of the stars, quite near at hand. She seemed like a bird flying amongst their harmonious motion. And she clung close to Birkin. Suddenly she realised she did not know what he was thinking. She did not know where he was ranging. �My love!� she said, stopping to look at him. His face was pale, his eyes dark, there was a faint spark of starlight on them. And he saw her face soft and upturned to him, very near. He kissed her softly. �What then?� he asked. �Do you love me?� she asked. �Too much,� he answered quietly. She clung a little closer. �Not too much,� she pleaded. �Far too much,� he said, almost sadly. �And does it make you sad, that I am everything to you?� she asked, wistful. He held her close to him, kissing her, and saying, scarcely audible: �No, but I feel like a beggar�I feel poor.� She was silent, looking at the stars now. Then she kissed him. �Don�t be a beggar,� she pleaded, wistfully. �It isn�t ignominious that you love me.� �It is ignominious to feel poor, isn�t it?� he replied. �Why? Why should it be?� she asked. He only stood still, in the terribly cold air that moved invisibly over the mountain tops, folding her round with his arms. �I couldn�t bear this cold, eternal place without you,� he said. �I couldn�t bear it, it would kill the quick of my life.� She kissed him again, suddenly. �Do you hate it?� she asked, puzzled, wondering. �If I couldn�t come near to you, if you weren�t here, I should hate it. I couldn�t bear it,� he answered. �But the people are nice,� she said. �I mean the stillness, the cold, the frozen eternality,� he said. She wondered. Then her spirit came home to him, nestling unconscious in him. �Yes, it is good we are warm and together,� she said. And they turned home again. They saw the golden lights of the hotel glowing out in the night of snow-silence, small in the hollow, like a cluster of yellow berries. It seemed like a bunch of sun-sparks, tiny and orange in the midst of the snow-darkness. Behind, was a high shadow of a peak, blotting out the stars, like a ghost. They drew near to their home. They saw a man come from the dark building, with a lighted lantern which swung golden, and made that his dark feet walked in a halo of snow. He was a small, dark figure in the darkened snow. He unlatched the door of an outhouse. A smell of cows, hot, animal, almost like beef, came out on the heavily cold air. There was a glimpse of two cattle in their dark stalls, then the door was shut again, and not a chink of light showed. It had reminded Ursula again of home, of the Marsh, of her childhood, and of the journey to Brussels, and, strangely, of Anton Skrebensky. Oh, God, could one bear it, this past which was gone down the abyss? Could she bear, that it ever had been! She looked round this silent, upper world of snow and stars and powerful cold. There was another world, like views on a magic lantern; The Marsh, Cossethay, Ilkeston, lit up with a common, unreal light. There was a shadowy unreal Ursula, a whole shadow-play of an unreal life. It was as unreal, and circumscribed, as a magic-lantern show. She wished the slides could all be broken. She wished it could be gone for ever, like a lantern-slide which was broken. She wanted to have no past. She wanted to have come down from the slopes of heaven to this place, with Birkin, not to have toiled out of the murk of her childhood and her upbringing, slowly, all soiled. She felt that memory was a dirty trick played upon her. What was this decree, that she should �remember�! Why not a bath of pure oblivion, a new birth, without any recollections or blemish of a past life. She was with Birkin, she had just come into life, here in the high snow, against the stars. What had she to do with parents and antecedents? She knew herself new and unbegotten, she had no father, no mother, no anterior connections, she was herself, pure and silvery, she belonged only to the oneness with Birkin, a oneness that struck deeper notes, sounding into the heart of the universe, the heart of reality, where she had never existed before. Even Gudrun was a separate unit, separate, separate, having nothing to do with this self, this Ursula, in her new world of reality. That old shadow-world, the actuality of the past�ah, let it go! She rose free on the wings of her new condition. Gudrun and Gerald had not come in. They had walked up the valley straight in front of the house, not like Ursula and Birkin, on to the little hill at the right. Gudrun was driven by a strange desire. She wanted to plunge on and on, till she came to the end of the valley of snow. Then she wanted to climb the wall of white finality, climb over, into the peaks that sprang up like sharp petals in the heart of the frozen, mysterious navel of the world. She felt that there, over the strange blind, terrible wall of rocky snow, there in the navel of the mystic world, among the final cluster of peaks, there, in the infolded navel of it all, was her consummation. If she could but come there, alone, and pass into the infolded navel of eternal snow and of uprising, immortal peaks of snow and rock, she would be a oneness with all, she would be herself the eternal, infinite silence, the sleeping, timeless, frozen centre of the All. They went back to the house, to the _Reunionsaal_. She was curious to see what was going on. The men there made her alert, roused her curiosity. It was a new taste of life for her, they were so prostrate before her, yet so full of life. The party was boisterous; they were dancing all together, dancing the _Schuhplatteln_, the Tyrolese dance of the clapping hands and tossing the partner in the air at the crisis. The Germans were all proficient�they were from Munich chiefly. Gerald also was quite passable. There were three zithers twanging away in a corner. It was a scene of great animation and confusion. The Professor was initiating Ursula into the dance, stamping, clapping, and swinging her high, with amazing force and zest. When the crisis came even Birkin was behaving manfully with one of the Professor�s fresh, strong daughters, who was exceedingly happy. Everybody was dancing, there was the most boisterous turmoil. Gudrun looked on with delight. The solid wooden floor resounded to the knocking heels of the men, the air quivered with the clapping hands and the zither music, there was a golden dust about the hanging lamps. Suddenly the dance finished, Loerke and the students rushed out to bring in drinks. There was an excited clamour of voices, a clinking of mug-lids, a great crying of �_Prosit�Prosit!_� Loerke was everywhere at once, like a gnome, suggesting drinks for the women, making an obscure, slightly risky joke with the men, confusing and mystifying the waiter. He wanted very much to dance with Gudrun. From the first moment he had seen her, he wanted to make a connection with her. Instinctively she felt this, and she waited for him to come up. But a kind of sulkiness kept him away from her, so she thought he disliked her. �Will you _schuhplätteln, gnädige Frau?_� said the large, fair youth, Loerke�s companion. He was too soft, too humble for Gudrun�s taste. But she wanted to dance, and the fair youth, who was called Leitner, was handsome enough in his uneasy, slightly abject fashion, a humility that covered a certain fear. She accepted him as a partner. The zithers sounded out again, the dance began. Gerald led them, laughing, with one of the Professor�s daughters. Ursula danced with one of the students, Birkin with the other daughter of the Professor, the Professor with Frau Kramer, and the rest of the men danced together, with quite as much zest as if they had had women partners. Because Gudrun had danced with the well-built, soft youth, his companion, Loerke, was more pettish and exasperated than ever, and would not even notice her existence in the room. This piqued her, but she made up to herself by dancing with the Professor, who was strong as a mature, well-seasoned bull, and as full of coarse energy. She could not bear him, critically, and yet she enjoyed being rushed through the dance, and tossed up into the air, on his coarse, powerful impetus. The Professor enjoyed it too, he eyed her with strange, large blue eyes, full of galvanic fire. She hated him for the seasoned, semi-paternal animalism with which he regarded her, but she admired his weight of strength. The room was charged with excitement and strong, animal emotion. Loerke was kept away from Gudrun, to whom he wanted to speak, as by a hedge of thorns, and he felt a sardonic ruthless hatred for this young love-companion, Leitner, who was his penniless dependent. He mocked the youth, with an acid ridicule, that made Leitner red in the face and impotent with resentment. Gerald, who had now got the dance perfectly, was dancing again with the younger of the Professor�s daughters, who was almost dying of virgin excitement, because she thought Gerald so handsome, so superb. He had her in his power, as if she were a palpitating bird, a fluttering, flushing, bewildered creature. And it made him smile, as she shrank convulsively between his hands, violently, when he must throw her into the air. At the end, she was so overcome with prostrate love for him, that she could scarcely speak sensibly at all. Birkin was dancing with Ursula. There were odd little fires playing in his eyes, he seemed to have turned into something wicked and flickering, mocking, suggestive, quite impossible. Ursula was frightened of him, and fascinated. Clear, before her eyes, as in a vision, she could see the sardonic, licentious mockery of his eyes, he moved towards her with subtle, animal, indifferent approach. The strangeness of his hands, which came quick and cunning, inevitably to the vital place beneath her breasts, and, lifting with mocking, suggestive impulse, carried her through the air as if without strength, through blackmagic, made her swoon with fear. For a moment she revolted, it was horrible. She would break the spell. But before the resolution had formed she had submitted again, yielded to her fear. He knew all the time what he was doing, she could see it in his smiling, concentrated eyes. It was his responsibility, she would leave it to him. When they were alone in the darkness, she felt the strange, licentiousness of him hovering upon her. She was troubled and repelled. Why should he turn like this? �What is it?� she asked in dread. But his face only glistened on her, unknown, horrible. And yet she was fascinated. Her impulse was to repel him violently, break from this spell of mocking brutishness. But she was too fascinated, she wanted to submit, she wanted to know. What would he do to her? He was so attractive, and so repulsive at one. The sardonic suggestivity that flickered over his face and looked from his narrowed eyes, made her want to hide, to hide herself away from him and watch him from somewhere unseen. �Why are you like this?� she demanded again, rousing against him with sudden force and animosity. The flickering fires in his eyes concentrated as he looked into her eyes. Then the lids drooped with a faint motion of satiric contempt. Then they rose again to the same remorseless suggestivity. And she gave way, he might do as he would. His licentiousness was repulsively attractive. But he was self-responsible, she would see what it was. They might do as they liked�this she realised as she went to sleep. How could anything that gave one satisfaction be excluded? What was degrading? Who cared? Degrading things were real, with a different reality. And he was so unabashed and unrestrained. Wasn�t it rather horrible, a man who could be so soulful and spiritual, now to be so�she balked at her own thoughts and memories: then she added�so bestial? So bestial, they two!�so degraded! She winced. But after all, why not? She exulted as well. Why not be bestial, and go the whole round of experience? She exulted in it. She was bestial. How good it was to be really shameful! There would be no shameful thing she had not experienced. Yet she was unabashed, she was herself. Why not? She was free, when she knew everything, and no dark shameful things were denied her. Gudrun, who had been watching Gerald in the _Reunionsaal_, suddenly thought: �He should have all the women he can�it is his nature. It is absurd to call him monogamous�he is naturally promiscuous. That is his nature.� The thought came to her involuntarily. It shocked her somewhat. It was as if she had seen some new _Mene! Mene!_ upon the wall. Yet it was merely true. A voice seemed to have spoken it to her so clearly, that for the moment she believed in inspiration. �It is really true,� she said to herself again. She knew quite well she had believed it all along. She knew it implicitly. But she must keep it dark�almost from herself. She must keep it completely secret. It was knowledge for her alone, and scarcely even to be admitted to herself. The deep resolve formed in her, to combat him. One of them must triumph over the other. Which should it be? Her soul steeled itself with strength. Almost she laughed within herself, at her confidence. It woke a certain keen, half contemptuous pity, tenderness for him: she was so ruthless. Everybody retired early. The Professor and Loerke went into a small lounge to drink. They both watched Gudrun go along the landing by the railing upstairs. �_Ein schönes Frauenzimmer_,� said the Professor. �_Ja!_� asserted Loerke, shortly. Gerald walked with his queer, long wolf-steps across the bedroom to the window, stooped and looked out, then rose again, and turned to Gudrun, his eyes sharp with an abstract smile. He seemed very tall to her, she saw the glisten of his whitish eyebrows, that met between his brows. �How do you like it?� he said. He seemed to be laughing inside himself, quite unconsciously. She looked at him. He was a phenomenon to her, not a human being: a sort of creature, greedy. �I like it very much,� she replied. �Who do you like best downstairs?� he asked, standing tall and glistening above her, with his glistening stiff hair erect. �Who do I like best?� she repeated, wanting to answer his question, and finding it difficult to collect herself. �Why I don�t know, I don�t know enough about them yet, to be able to say. Who do _you_ like best?� �Oh, I don�t care�I don�t like or dislike any of them. It doesn�t matter about me. I wanted to know about you.� �But why?� she asked, going rather pale. The abstract, unconscious smile in his eyes was intensified. �I wanted to know,� he said. She turned aside, breaking the spell. In some strange way, she felt he was getting power over her. �Well, I can�t tell you already,� she said. She went to the mirror to take out the hairpins from her hair. She stood before the mirror every night for some minutes, brushing her fine dark hair. It was part of the inevitable ritual of her life. He followed her, and stood behind her. She was busy with bent head, taking out the pins and shaking her warm hair loose. When she looked up, she saw him in the glass standing behind her, watching unconsciously, not consciously seeing her, and yet watching, with finepupilled eyes that _seemed_ to smile, and which were not really smiling. She started. It took all her courage for her to continue brushing her hair, as usual, for her to pretend she was at her ease. She was far, far from being at her ease with him. She beat her brains wildly for something to say to him. �What are your plans for tomorrow?� she asked nonchalantly, whilst her heart was beating so furiously, her eyes were so bright with strange nervousness, she felt he could not but observe. But she knew also that he was completely blind, blind as a wolf looking at her. It was a strange battle between her ordinary consciousness and his uncanny, black-art consciousness. �I don�t know,� he replied, �what would you like to do?� He spoke emptily, his mind was sunk away. �Oh,� she said, with easy protestation, �I�m ready for anything�anything will be fine for _me_, I�m sure.� And to herself she was saying: �God, why am I so nervous�why are you so nervous, you fool. If he sees it I�m done for forever�you _know_ you�re done for forever, if he sees the absurd state you�re in.� And she smiled to herself as if it were all child�s play. Meanwhile her heart was plunging, she was almost fainting. She could see him, in the mirror, as he stood there behind her, tall and over-arching�blond and terribly frightening. She glanced at his reflection with furtive eyes, willing to give anything to save him from knowing she could see him. He did not know she could see his reflection. He was looking unconsciously, glisteningly down at her head, from which the hair fell loose, as she brushed it with wild, nervous hand. She held her head aside and brushed and brushed her hair madly. For her life, she could not turn round and face him. For her life, _she could not_. And the knowledge made her almost sink to the ground in a faint, helpless, spent. She was aware of his frightening, impending figure standing close behind her, she was aware of his hard, strong, unyielding chest, close upon her back. And she felt she could not bear it any more, in a few minutes she would fall down at his feet, grovelling at his feet, and letting him destroy her. The thought pricked up all her sharp intelligence and presence of mind. She dared not turn round to him�and there he stood motionless, unbroken. Summoning all her strength, she said, in a full, resonant, nonchalant voice, that was forced out with all her remaining self-control: �Oh, would you mind looking in that bag behind there and giving me my�� Here her power fell inert. �My what�my what�?� she screamed in silence to herself. But he had started round, surprised and startled that she should ask him to look in her bag, which she always kept so _very_ private to herself. She turned now, her face white, her dark eyes blazing with uncanny, overwrought excitement. She saw him stooping to the bag, undoing the loosely buckled strap, unattentive. �Your what?� he asked. �Oh, a little enamel box�yellow�with a design of a cormorant plucking her breast�� She went towards him, stooping her beautiful, bare arm, and deftly turned some of her things, disclosing the box, which was exquisitely painted. �That is it, see,� she said, taking it from under his eyes. And he was baffled now. He was left to fasten up the bag, whilst she swiftly did up her hair for the night, and sat down to unfasten her shoes. She would not turn her back to him any more. He was baffled, frustrated, but unconscious. She had the whip hand over him now. She knew he had not realised her terrible panic. Her heart was beating heavily still. Fool, fool that she was, to get into such a state! How she thanked God for Gerald�s obtuse blindness. Thank God he could see nothing. She sat slowly unlacing her shoes, and he too commenced to undress. Thank God that crisis was over. She felt almost fond of him now, almost in love with him. �Ah, Gerald,� she laughed, caressively, teasingly, �Ah, what a fine game you played with the Professor�s daughter�didn�t you now?� �What game?� he asked, looking round. �_Isn�t_ she in love with you�oh _dear_, isn�t she in love with you!� said Gudrun, in her gayest, most attractive mood. �I shouldn�t think so,� he said. �Shouldn�t think so!� she teased. �Why the poor girl is lying at this moment overwhelmed, dying with love for you. She thinks you�re _wonderful_�oh marvellous, beyond what man has ever been. _really_, isn�t it funny?� �Why funny, what is funny?� he asked. �Why to see you working it on her,� she said, with a half reproach that confused the male conceit in him. �Really Gerald, the poor girl�!� �I did nothing to her,� he said. �Oh, it was too shameful, the way you simply swept her off her feet.� �That was _Schuhplatteln_,� he replied, with a bright grin. �Ha�ha�ha!� laughed Gudrun. Her mockery quivered through his muscles with curious re-echoes. When he slept he seemed to crouch down in the bed, lapped up in his own strength, that yet was hollow. And Gudrun slept strongly, a victorious sleep. Suddenly, she was almost fiercely awake. The small timber room glowed with the dawn, that came upwards from the low window. She could see down the valley when she lifted her head: the snow with a pinkish, half-revealed magic, the fringe of pine-trees at the bottom of the slope. And one tiny figure moved over the vaguely-illuminated space. She glanced at his watch; it was seven o�clock. He was still completely asleep. And she was so hard awake, it was almost frightening�a hard, metallic wakefulness. She lay looking at him. He slept in the subjection of his own health and defeat. She was overcome by a sincere regard for him. Till now, she was afraid before him. She lay and thought about him, what he was, what he represented in the world. A fine, independent will, he had. She thought of the revolution he had worked in the mines, in so short a time. She knew that, if he were confronted with any problem, any hard actual difficulty, he would overcome it. If he laid hold of any idea, he would carry it through. He had the faculty of making order out of confusion. Only let him grip hold of a situation, and he would bring to pass an inevitable conclusion. For a few moments she was borne away on the wild wings of ambition. Gerald, with his force of will and his power for comprehending the actual world, should be set to solve the problems of the day, the problem of industrialism in the modern world. She knew he would, in the course of time, effect the changes he desired, he could re-organise the industrial system. She knew he could do it. As an instrument, in these things, he was marvellous, she had never seen any man with his potentiality. He was unaware of it, but she knew. He only needed to be hitched on, he needed that his hand should be set to the task, because he was so unconscious. And this she could do. She would marry him, he would go into Parliament in the Conservative interest, he would clear up the great muddle of labour and industry. He was so superbly fearless, masterful, he knew that every problem could be worked out, in life as in geometry. And he would care neither about himself nor about anything but the pure working out of the problem. He was very pure, really. Her heart beat fast, she flew away on wings of elation, imagining a future. He would be a Napoleon of peace, or a Bismarck�and she the woman behind him. She had read Bismarck�s letters, and had been deeply moved by them. And Gerald would be freer, more dauntless than Bismarck. But even as she lay in fictitious transport, bathed in the strange, false sunshine of hope in life, something seemed to snap in her, and a terrible cynicism began to gain upon her, blowing in like a wind. Everything turned to irony with her: the last flavour of everything was ironical. When she felt her pang of undeniable reality, this was when she knew the hard irony of hopes and ideas. She lay and looked at him, as he slept. He was sheerly beautiful, he was a perfect instrument. To her mind, he was a pure, inhuman, almost superhuman instrument. His instrumentality appealed so strongly to her, she wished she were God, to use him as a tool. And at the same instant, came the ironical question: �What for?� She thought of the colliers� wives, with their linoleum and their lace curtains and their little girls in high-laced boots. She thought of the wives and daughters of the pit-managers, their tennis-parties, and their terrible struggles to be superior each to the other, in the social scale. There was Shortlands with its meaningless distinction, the meaningless crowd of the Criches. There was London, the House of Commons, the extant social world. My God! Young as she was, Gudrun had touched the whole pulse of social England. She had no ideas of rising in the world. She knew, with the perfect cynicism of cruel youth, that to rise in the world meant to have one outside show instead of another, the advance was like having a spurious half-crown instead of a spurious penny. The whole coinage of valuation was spurious. Yet of course, her cynicism knew well enough that, in a world where spurious coin was current, a bad sovereign was better than a bad farthing. But rich and poor, she despised both alike. Already she mocked at herself for her dreams. They could be fulfilled easily enough. But she recognised too well, in her spirit, the mockery of her own impulses. What did she care, that Gerald had created a richly-paying industry out of an old worn-out concern? What did she care? The worn-out concern and the rapid, splendidly organised industry, they were bad money. Yet of course, she cared a great deal, outwardly�and outwardly was all that mattered, for inwardly was a bad joke. Everything was intrinsically a piece of irony to her. She leaned over Gerald and said in her heart, with compassion: �Oh, my dear, my dear, the game isn�t worth even you. You are a fine thing really�why should you be used on such a poor show!� Her heart was breaking with pity and grief for him. And at the same moment, a grimace came over her mouth, of mocking irony at her own unspoken tirade. Ah, what a farce it was! She thought of Parnell and Katherine O�Shea. Parnell! After all, who can take the nationalisation of Ireland seriously? Who can take political Ireland really seriously, whatever it does? And who can take political England seriously? Who can? Who can care a straw, really, how the old patched-up Constitution is tinkered at any more? Who cares a button for our national ideas, any more than for our national bowler hat? Aha, it is all old hat, it is all old bowler hat! That�s all it is, Gerald, my young hero. At any rate we�ll spare ourselves the nausea of stirring the old broth any more. You be beautiful, my Gerald, and reckless. There _are_ perfect moments. Wake up, Gerald, wake up, convince me of the perfect moments. Oh, convince me, I need it. He opened his eyes, and looked at her. She greeted him with a mocking, enigmatic smile in which was a poignant gaiety. Over his face went the reflection of the smile, he smiled, too, purely unconsciously. That filled her with extraordinary delight, to see the smile cross his face, reflected from her face. She remembered that was how a baby smiled. It filled her with extraordinary radiant delight. �You�ve done it,� she said. �What?� he asked, dazed. �Convinced me.� And she bent down, kissing him passionately, passionately, so that he was bewildered. He did not ask her of what he had convinced her, though he meant to. He was glad she was kissing him. She seemed to be feeling for his very heart to touch the quick of him. And he wanted her to touch the quick of his being, he wanted that most of all. Outside, somebody was singing, in a manly, reckless handsome voice: �Mach mir auf, mach mir auf, du Stolze, Mach mir ein Feuer von Holze. Vom Regen bin ich nass Vom Regen bin ich nass�� Gudrun knew that that song would sound through her eternity, sung in a manly, reckless, mocking voice. It marked one of her supreme moments, the supreme pangs of her nervous gratification. There it was, fixed in eternity for her. The day came fine and bluish. There was a light wind blowing among the mountain tops, keen as a rapier where it touched, carrying with it a fine dust of snow-powder. Gerald went out with the fine, blind face of a man who is in his state of fulfilment. Gudrun and he were in perfect static unity this morning, but unseeing and unwitting. They went out with a toboggan, leaving Ursula and Birkin to follow. Gudrun was all scarlet and royal blue�a scarlet jersey and cap, and a royal blue skirt and stockings. She went gaily over the white snow, with Gerald beside her, in white and grey, pulling the little toboggan. They grew small in the distance of snow, climbing the steep slope. For Gudrun herself, she seemed to pass altogether into the whiteness of the snow, she became a pure, thoughtless crystal. When she reached the top of the slope, in the wind, she looked round, and saw peak beyond peak of rock and snow, bluish, transcendent in heaven. And it seemed to her like a garden, with the peaks for pure flowers, and her heart gathering them. She had no separate consciousness for Gerald. She held on to him as they went sheering down over the keen slope. She felt as if her senses were being whetted on some fine grindstone, that was keen as flame. The snow sprinted on either side, like sparks from a blade that is being sharpened, the whiteness round about ran swifter, swifter, in pure flame the white slope flew against her, and she fused like one molten, dancing globule, rushed through a white intensity. Then there was a great swerve at the bottom, when they swung as it were in a fall to earth, in the diminishing motion. They came to rest. But when she rose to her feet, she could not stand. She gave a strange cry, turned and clung to him, sinking her face on his breast, fainting in him. Utter oblivion came over her, as she lay for a few moments abandoned against him. �What is it?� he was saying. �Was it too much for you?� But she heard nothing. When she came to, she stood up and looked round, astonished. Her face was white, her eyes brilliant and large. �What is it?� he repeated. �Did it upset you?� She looked at him with her brilliant eyes that seemed to have undergone some transfiguration, and she laughed, with a terrible merriment. �No,� she cried, with triumphant joy. �It was the complete moment of my life.� And she looked at him with her dazzling, overweening laughter, like one possessed. A fine blade seemed to enter his heart, but he did not care, or take any notice. But they climbed up the slope again, and they flew down through the white flame again, splendidly, splendidly. Gudrun was laughing and flashing, powdered with snow-crystals, Gerald worked perfectly. He felt he could guide the toboggan to a hair-breadth, almost he could make it pierce into the air and right into the very heart of the sky. It seemed to him the flying sledge was but his strength spread out, he had but to move his arms, the motion was his own. They explored the great slopes, to find another slide. He felt there must be something better than they had known. And he found what he desired, a perfect long, fierce sweep, sheering past the foot of a rock and into the trees at the base. It was dangerous, he knew. But then he knew also he would direct the sledge between his fingers. The first days passed in an ecstasy of physical motion, sleighing, skiing, skating, moving in an intensity of speed and white light that surpassed life itself, and carried the souls of the human beings beyond into an inhuman abstraction of velocity and weight and eternal, frozen snow. Gerald�s eyes became hard and strange, and as he went by on his skis he was more like some powerful, fateful sigh than a man, his muscles elastic in a perfect, soaring trajectory, his body projected in pure flight, mindless, soulless, whirling along one perfect line of force. Luckily there came a day of snow, when they must all stay indoors: otherwise Birkin said, they would all lose their faculties, and begin to utter themselves in cries and shrieks, like some strange, unknown species of snow-creatures. It happened in the afternoon that Ursula sat in the _Reunionsaal_ talking to Loerke. The latter had seemed unhappy lately. He was lively and full of mischievous humour, as usual. But Ursula had thought he was sulky about something. His partner, too, the big, fair, good-looking youth, was ill at ease, going about as if he belonged to nowhere, and was kept in some sort of subjection, against which he was rebelling. Loerke had hardly talked to Gudrun. His associate, on the other hand, had paid her constantly a soft, over-deferential attention. Gudrun wanted to talk to Loerke. He was a sculptor, and she wanted to hear his view of his art. And his figure attracted her. There was the look of a little wastrel about him, that intrigued her, and an old man�s look, that interested her, and then, beside this, an uncanny singleness, a quality of being by himself, not in contact with anybody else, that marked out an artist to her. He was a chatterer, a magpie, a maker of mischievous word-jokes, that were sometimes very clever, but which often were not. And she could see in his brown, gnome�s eyes, the black look of inorganic misery, which lay behind all his small buffoonery. His figure interested her�the figure of a boy, almost a street arab. He made no attempt to conceal it. He always wore a simple loden suit, with knee breeches. His legs were thin, and he made no attempt to disguise the fact: which was of itself remarkable, in a German. And he never ingratiated himself anywhere, not in the slightest, but kept to himself, for all his apparent playfulness. Leitner, his companion, was a great sportsman, very handsome with his big limbs and his blue eyes. Loerke would go toboganning or skating, in little snatches, but he was indifferent. And his fine, thin nostrils, the nostrils of a pure-bred street arab, would quiver with contempt at Leitner�s splothering gymnastic displays. It was evident that the two men who had travelled and lived together, sharing the same bedroom, had now reached the stage of loathing. Leitner hated Loerke with an injured, writhing, impotent hatred, and Loerke treated Leitner with a fine-quivering contempt and sarcasm. Soon the two would have to go apart. Already they were rarely together. Leitner ran attaching himself to somebody or other, always deferring, Loerke was a good deal alone. Out of doors he wore a Westphalian cap, a close brown-velvet head with big brown velvet flaps down over his ears, so that he looked like a lop-eared rabbit, or a troll. His face was brown-red, with a dry, bright skin, that seemed to crinkle with his mobile expressions. His eyes were arresting�brown, full, like a rabbit�s, or like a troll�s, or like the eyes of a lost being, having a strange, dumb, depraved look of knowledge, and a quick spark of uncanny fire. Whenever Gudrun had tried to talk to him he had shied away unresponsive, looking at her with his watchful dark eyes, but entering into no relation with her. He had made her feel that her slow French and her slower German, were hateful to him. As for his own inadequate English, he was much too awkward to try it at all. But he understood a good deal of what was said, nevertheless. And Gudrun, piqued, left him alone. This afternoon, however, she came into the lounge as he was talking to Ursula. His fine, black hair somehow reminded her of a bat, thin as it was on his full, sensitive-looking head, and worn away at the temples. He sat hunched up, as if his spirit were bat-like. And Gudrun could see he was making some slow confidence to Ursula, unwilling, a slow, grudging, scanty self-revelation. She went and sat by her sister. He looked at her, then looked away again, as if he took no notice of her. But as a matter of fact, she interested him deeply. �Isn�t it interesting, Prune,� said Ursula, turning to her sister, �Herr Loerke is doing a great frieze for a factory in Cologne, for the outside, the street.� She looked at him, at his thin, brown, nervous hands, that were prehensile, and somehow like talons, like �griffes,� inhuman. �What _in?_� she asked. �_Aus was?_� repeated Ursula. �_Granit_,� he replied. It had become immediately a laconic series of question and answer between fellow craftsmen. �What is the relief?� asked Gudrun. �_Alto relievo._� �And at what height?� It was very interesting to Gudrun to think of his making the great granite frieze for a great granite factory in Cologne. She got from him some notion of the design. It was a representation of a fair, with peasants and artisans in an orgy of enjoyment, drunk and absurd in their modern dress, whirling ridiculously in roundabouts, gaping at shows, kissing and staggering and rolling in knots, swinging in swing-boats, and firing down shooting galleries, a frenzy of chaotic motion. There was a swift discussion of technicalities. Gudrun was very much impressed. �But how wonderful, to have such a factory!� cried Ursula. �Is the whole building fine?� �Oh yes,� he replied. �The frieze is part of the whole architecture. Yes, it is a colossal thing.� Then he seemed to stiffen, shrugged his shoulders, and went on: �Sculpture and architecture must go together. The day for irrelevant statues, as for wall pictures, is over. As a matter of fact sculpture is always part of an architectural conception. And since churches are all museum stuff, since industry is our business, now, then let us make our places of industry our art�our factory-area our Parthenon, _ecco!_� Ursula pondered. �I suppose,� she said, �there is no _need_ for our great works to be so hideous.� Instantly he broke into motion. �There you are!� he cried, �there you are! There is not only _no need_ for our places of work to be ugly, but their ugliness ruins the work, in the end. Men will not go on submitting to such intolerable ugliness. In the end it will hurt too much, and they will wither because of it. And this will wither the _work_ as well. They will think the work itself is ugly: the machines, the very act of labour. Whereas the machinery and the acts of labour are extremely, maddeningly beautiful. But this will be the end of our civilisation, when people will not work because work has become so intolerable to their senses, it nauseates them too much, they would rather starve. _Then_ we shall see the hammer used only for smashing, then we shall see it. Yet here we are�we have the opportunity to make beautiful factories, beautiful machine-houses�we have the opportunity�� Gudrun could only partly understand. She could have cried with vexation. �What does he say?� she asked Ursula. And Ursula translated, stammering and brief. Loerke watched Gudrun�s face, to see her judgment. �And do you think then,� said Gudrun, �that art should serve industry?� �Art should _interpret_ industry, as art once interpreted religion,� he said. �But does your fair interpret industry?� she asked him. �Certainly. What is man doing, when he is at a fair like this? He is fulfilling the counterpart of labour�the machine works him, instead of he the machine. He enjoys the mechanical motion, in his own body.� �But is there nothing but work�mechanical work?� said Gudrun. �Nothing but work!� he repeated, leaning forward, his eyes two darknesses, with needle-points of light. �No, it is nothing but this, serving a machine, or enjoying the motion of a machine�motion, that is all. You have never worked for hunger, or you would know what god governs us.� Gudrun quivered and flushed. For some reason she was almost in tears. �No, I have not worked for hunger,� she replied, �but I have worked!� �_Travaillé�lavorato?_� he asked. �_E che lavoro�che lavoro? Quel travail est-ce que vous avez fait?_� He broke into a mixture of Italian and French, instinctively using a foreign language when he spoke to her. �You have never worked as the world works,� he said to her, with sarcasm. �Yes,� she said. �I have. And I do�I work now for my daily bread.� He paused, looked at her steadily, then dropped the subject entirely. She seemed to him to be trifling. �But have _you_ ever worked as the world works?� Ursula asked him. He looked at her untrustful. �Yes,� he replied, with a surly bark. �I have known what it was to lie in bed for three days, because I had nothing to eat.� Gudrun was looking at him with large, grave eyes, that seemed to draw the confession from him as the marrow from his bones. All his nature held him back from confessing. And yet her large, grave eyes upon him seemed to open some valve in his veins, and involuntarily he was telling. �My father was a man who did not like work, and we had no mother. We lived in Austria, Polish Austria. How did we live? Ha!�somehow! Mostly in a room with three other families�one set in each corner�and the W.C. in the middle of the room�a pan with a plank on it�ha! I had two brothers and a sister�and there might be a woman with my father. He was a free being, in his way�would fight with any man in the town�a garrison town�and was a little man too. But he wouldn�t work for anybody�set his heart against it, and wouldn�t.� �And how did you live then?� asked Ursula. He looked at her�then, suddenly, at Gudrun. �Do you understand?� he asked. �Enough,� she replied. Their eyes met for a moment. Then he looked away. He would say no more. �And how did you become a sculptor?� asked Ursula. �How did I become a sculptor�� he paused. �_Dunque_�� he resumed, in a changed manner, and beginning to speak French��I became old enough�I used to steal from the market-place. Later I went to work�imprinted the stamp on clay bottles, before they were baked. It was an earthenware-bottle factory. There I began making models. One day, I had had enough. I lay in the sun and did not go to work. Then I walked to Munich�then I walked to Italy�begging, begging everything.� �The Italians were very good to me�they were good and honourable to me. From Bozen to Rome, almost every night I had a meal and a bed, perhaps of straw, with some peasant. I love the Italian people, with all my heart. �_Dunque, adesso�maintenant_�I earn a thousand pounds in a year, or I earn two thousand�� He looked down at the ground, his voice tailing off into silence. Gudrun looked at his fine, thin, shiny skin, reddish-brown from the sun, drawn tight over his full temples; and at his thin hair�and at the thick, coarse, brush-like moustache, cut short about his mobile, rather shapeless mouth. �How old are you?� she asked. He looked up at her with his full, elfin eyes startled. �_Wie alt?_� he repeated. And he hesitated. It was evidently one of his reticencies. �How old are _you?_� he replied, without answering. �I am twenty-six,� she answered. �Twenty-six,� he repeated, looking into her eyes. He paused. Then he said: �_Und Ihr Herr Gemahl, wie alt ist er?_� �Who?� asked Gudrun. �Your husband,� said Ursula, with a certain irony. �I haven�t got a husband,� said Gudrun in English. In German she answered, �He is thirty-one.� But Loerke was watching closely, with his uncanny, full, suspicious eyes. Something in Gudrun seemed to accord with him. He was really like one of the �little people� who have no soul, who has found his mate in a human being. But he suffered in his discovery. She too was fascinated by him, fascinated, as if some strange creature, a rabbit or a bat, or a brown seal, had begun to talk to her. But also, she knew what he was unconscious of, his tremendous power of understanding, of apprehending her living motion. He did not know his own power. He did not know how, with his full, submerged, watchful eyes, he could look into her and see her, what she was, see her secrets. He would only want her to be herself�he knew her verily, with a subconscious, sinister knowledge, devoid of illusions and hopes. To Gudrun, there was in Loerke the rock-bottom of all life. Everybody else had their illusion, must have their illusion, their before and after. But he, with a perfect stoicism, did without any before and after, dispensed with all illusion. He did not deceive himself in the last issue. In the last issue he cared about nothing, he was troubled about nothing, he made not the slightest attempt to be at one with anything. He existed a pure, unconnected will, stoical and momentaneous. There was only his work. It was curious too, how his poverty, the degradation of his earlier life, attracted her. There was something insipid and tasteless to her, in the idea of a gentleman, a man who had gone the usual course through school and university. A certain violent sympathy, however, came up in her for this mud-child. He seemed to be the very stuff of the underworld of life. There was no going beyond him. Ursula too was attracted by Loerke. In both sisters he commanded a certain homage. But there were moments when to Ursula he seemed indescribably inferior, false, a vulgarism. Both Birkin and Gerald disliked him, Gerald ignoring him with some contempt, Birkin exasperated. �What do the women find so impressive in that little brat?� Gerald asked. �God alone knows,� replied Birkin, �unless it�s some sort of appeal he makes to them, which flatters them and has such a power over them.� Gerald looked up in surprise. �_Does_ he make an appeal to them?� he asked. �Oh yes,� replied Birkin. �He is the perfectly subjected being, existing almost like a criminal. And the women rush towards that, like a current of air towards a vacuum.� �Funny they should rush to that,� said Gerald. �Makes one mad, too,� said Birkin. �But he has the fascination of pity and repulsion for them, a little obscene monster of the darkness that he is.� Gerald stood still, suspended in thought. �What _do_ women want, at the bottom?� he asked. Birkin shrugged his shoulders. �God knows,� he said. �Some satisfaction in basic repulsion, it seems to me. They seem to creep down some ghastly tunnel of darkness, and will never be satisfied till they�ve come to the end.� Gerald looked out into the mist of fine snow that was blowing by. Everywhere was blind today, horribly blind. �And what is the end?� he asked. Birkin shook his head. �I�ve not got there yet, so I don�t know. Ask Loerke, he�s pretty near. He is a good many stages further than either you or I can go.� �Yes, but stages further in what?� cried Gerald, irritated. Birkin sighed, and gathered his brows into a knot of anger. �Stages further in social hatred,� he said. �He lives like a rat, in the river of corruption, just where it falls over into the bottomless pit. He�s further on than we are. He hates the ideal more acutely. He _hates_ the ideal utterly, yet it still dominates him. I expect he is a Jew�or part Jewish.� �Probably,� said Gerald. �He is a gnawing little negation, gnawing at the roots of life.� �But why does anybody care about him?� cried Gerald. �Because they hate the ideal also, in their souls. They want to explore the sewers, and he�s the wizard rat that swims ahead.� Still Gerald stood and stared at the blind haze of snow outside. �I don�t understand your terms, really,� he said, in a flat, doomed voice. �But it sounds a rum sort of desire.� �I suppose we want the same,� said Birkin. �Only we want to take a quick jump downwards, in a sort of ecstasy�and he ebbs with the stream, the sewer stream.� Meanwhile Gudrun and Ursula waited for the next opportunity to talk to Loerke. It was no use beginning when the men were there. Then they could get into no touch with the isolated little sculptor. He had to be alone with them. And he preferred Ursula to be there, as a sort of transmitter to Gudrun. �Do you do nothing but architectural sculpture?� Gudrun asked him one evening. �Not now,� he replied. �I have done all sorts�except portraits�I never did portraits. But other things�� �What kind of things?� asked Gudrun. He paused a moment, then rose, and went out of the room. He returned almost immediately with a little roll of paper, which he handed to her. She unrolled it. It was a photogravure reproduction of a statuette, signed F. Loerke. �That is quite an early thing�_not_ mechanical,� he said, �more popular.� The statuette was of a naked girl, small, finely made, sitting on a great naked horse. The girl was young and tender, a mere bud. She was sitting sideways on the horse, her face in her hands, as if in shame and grief, in a little abandon. Her hair, which was short and must be flaxen, fell forward, divided, half covering her hands. Her limbs were young and tender. Her legs, scarcely formed yet, the legs of a maiden just passing towards cruel womanhood, dangled childishly over the side of the powerful horse, pathetically, the small feet folded one over the other, as if to hide. But there was no hiding. There she was exposed naked on the naked flank of the horse. The horse stood stock still, stretched in a kind of start. It was a massive, magnificent stallion, rigid with pent-up power. Its neck was arched and terrible, like a sickle, its flanks were pressed back, rigid with power. Gudrun went pale, and a darkness came over her eyes, like shame, she looked up with a certain supplication, almost slave-like. He glanced at her, and jerked his head a little. �How big is it?� she asked, in a toneless voice, persisting in appearing casual and unaffected. �How big?� he replied, glancing again at her. �Without pedestal�so high�� he measured with his hand��with pedestal, so�� He looked at her steadily. There was a little brusque, turgid contempt for her in his swift gesture, and she seemed to cringe a little. �And what is it done in?� she asked, throwing back her head and looking at him with affected coldness. He still gazed at her steadily, and his dominance was not shaken. �Bronze�green bronze.� �Green bronze!� repeated Gudrun, coldly accepting his challenge. She was thinking of the slender, immature, tender limbs of the girl, smooth and cold in green bronze. �Yes, beautiful,� she murmured, looking up at him with a certain dark homage. He closed his eyes and looked aside, triumphant. �Why,� said Ursula, �did you make the horse so stiff? It is as stiff as a block.� �Stiff?� he repeated, in arms at once. �Yes. _Look_ how stock and stupid and brutal it is. Horses are sensitive, quite delicate and sensitive, really.� He raised his shoulders, spread his hands in a shrug of slow indifference, as much as to inform her she was an amateur and an impertinent nobody. �_Wissen Sie_,� he said, with an insulting patience and condescension in his voice, �that horse is a certain _form_, part of a whole form. It is part of a work of art, a piece of form. It is not a picture of a friendly horse to which you give a lump of sugar, do you see�it is part of a work of art, it has no relation to anything outside that work of art.� Ursula, angry at being treated quite so insultingly _de haut en bas_, from the height of esoteric art to the depth of general exoteric amateurism, replied, hotly, flushing and lifting her face. �But it _is_ a picture of a horse, nevertheless.� He lifted his shoulders in another shrug. �As you like�it is not a picture of a cow, certainly.� Here Gudrun broke in, flushed and brilliant, anxious to avoid any more of this, any more of Ursula�s foolish persistence in giving herself away. �What do you mean by �it is a picture of a horse?�� she cried at her sister. �What do you mean by a horse? You mean an idea you have in _your_ head, and which you want to see represented. There is another idea altogether, quite another idea. Call it a horse if you like, or say it is not a horse. I have just as much right to say that _your_ horse isn�t a horse, that it is a falsity of your own make-up.� Ursula wavered, baffled. Then her words came. �But why does he have this idea of a horse?� she said. �I know it is his idea. I know it is a picture of himself, really�� Loerke snorted with rage. �A picture of myself!� he repeated, in derision. �_Wissen sie, gnädige Frau_, that is a _Kunstwerk_, a work of art. It is a work of art, it is a picture of nothing, of absolutely nothing. It has nothing to do with anything but itself, it has no relation with the everyday world of this and other, there is no connection between them, absolutely none, they are two different and distinct planes of existence, and to translate one into the other is worse than foolish, it is a darkening of all counsel, a making confusion everywhere. Do you see, you _must not_ confuse the relative work of action, with the absolute world of art. That you _must not do_.� �That is quite true,� cried Gudrun, let loose in a sort of rhapsody. �The two things are quite and permanently apart, they have nothing to do with one another. _I_ and my art, they have _nothing_ to do with each other. My art stands in another world, I am in this world.� Her face was flushed and transfigured. Loerke who was sitting with his head ducked, like some creature at bay, looked up at her, swiftly, almost furtively, and murmured, �_Ja�so ist es, so ist es._� Ursula was silent after this outburst. She was furious. She wanted to poke a hole into them both. �It isn�t a word of it true, of all this harangue you have made me,� she replied flatly. �The horse is a picture of your own stock, stupid brutality, and the girl was a girl you loved and tortured and then ignored.� He looked up at her with a small smile of contempt in his eyes. He would not trouble to answer this last charge. Gudrun too was silent in exasperated contempt. Ursula _was_ such an insufferable outsider, rushing in where angels would fear to tread. But then�fools must be suffered, if not gladly. But Ursula was persistent too. �As for your world of art and your world of reality,� she replied, �you have to separate the two, because you can�t bear to know what you are. You can�t bear to realise what a stock, stiff, hide-bound brutality you _are_ really, so you say �it�s the world of art.� The world of art is only the truth about the real world, that�s all�but you are too far gone to see it.� She was white and trembling, intent. Gudrun and Loerke sat in stiff dislike of her. Gerald too, who had come up in the beginning of the speech, stood looking at her in complete disapproval and opposition. He felt she was undignified, she put a sort of vulgarity over the esotericism which gave man his last distinction. He joined his forces with the other two. They all three wanted her to go away. But she sat on in silence, her soul weeping, throbbing violently, her fingers twisting her handkerchief. The others maintained a dead silence, letting the display of Ursula�s obtrusiveness pass by. Then Gudrun asked, in a voice that was quite cool and casual, as if resuming a casual conversation: �Was the girl a model?� �_Nein, sie war kein Modell. Sie war eine kleine Malschülerin._� �An art-student!� replied Gudrun. And how the situation revealed itself to her! She saw the girl art-student, unformed and of pernicious recklessness, too young, her straight flaxen hair cut short, hanging just into her neck, curving inwards slightly, because it was rather thick; and Loerke, the well-known master-sculptor, and the girl, probably well-brought-up, and of good family, thinking herself so great to be his mistress. Oh how well she knew the common callousness of it all. Dresden, Paris, or London, what did it matter? She knew it. �Where is she now?� Ursula asked. Loerke raised his shoulders, to convey his complete ignorance and indifference. �That is already six years ago,� he said; �she will be twenty-three years old, no more good.� Gerald had picked up the picture and was looking at it. It attracted him also. He saw on the pedestal, that the piece was called �Lady Godiva.� �But this isn�t Lady Godiva,� he said, smiling good-humouredly. �She was the middle-aged wife of some Earl or other, who covered herself with her long hair.� �_� la_ Maud Allan,� said Gudrun with a mocking grimace. �Why Maud Allan?� he replied. �Isn�t it so? I always thought the legend was that.� �Yes, Gerald dear, I�m quite _sure_ you�ve got the legend perfectly.� She was laughing at him, with a little, mock-caressive contempt. �To be sure, I�d rather see the woman than the hair,� he laughed in return. �Wouldn�t you just!� mocked Gudrun. Ursula rose and went away, leaving the three together. Gudrun took the picture again from Gerald, and sat looking at it closely. �Of course,� she said, turning to tease Loerke now, �you _understood_ your little _Malschülerin_.� He raised his eyebrows and his shoulders in a complacent shrug. �The little girl?� asked Gerald, pointing to the figure. Gudrun was sitting with the picture in her lap. She looked up at Gerald, full into his eyes, so that he seemed to be blinded. �_Didn�t_ he understand her!� she said to Gerald, in a slightly mocking, humorous playfulness. �You�ve only to look at the feet�_aren�t_ they darling, so pretty and tender�oh, they�re really wonderful, they are really�� She lifted her eyes slowly, with a hot, flaming look into Loerke�s eyes. His soul was filled with her burning recognition, he seemed to grow more uppish and lordly. Gerald looked at the small, sculptured feet. They were turned together, half covering each other in pathetic shyness and fear. He looked at them a long time, fascinated. Then, in some pain, he put the picture away from him. He felt full of barrenness. �What was her name?� Gudrun asked Loerke. �Annette von Weck,� Loerke replied reminiscent. �_Ja, sie war hübsch._ She was pretty�but she was tiresome. She was a nuisance,�not for a minute would she keep still�not until I�d slapped her hard and made her cry�then she�d sit for five minutes.� He was thinking over the work, his work, the all important to him. �Did you really slap her?� asked Gudrun, coolly. He glanced back at her, reading her challenge. �Yes, I did,� he said, nonchalant, �harder than I have ever beat anything in my life. I had to, I had to. It was the only way I got the work done.� Gudrun watched him with large, dark-filled eyes, for some moments. She seemed to be considering his very soul. Then she looked down, in silence. �Why did you have such a young Godiva then?� asked Gerald. �She is so small, besides, on the horse�not big enough for it�such a child.� A queer spasm went over Loerke�s face. �Yes,� he said. �I don�t like them any bigger, any older. Then they are beautiful, at sixteen, seventeen, eighteen�after that, they are no use to me.� There was a moment�s pause. �Why not?� asked Gerald. Loerke shrugged his shoulders. �I don�t find them interesting�or beautiful�they are no good to me, for my work.� �Do you mean to say a woman isn�t beautiful after she is twenty?� asked Gerald. �For me, no. Before twenty, she is small and fresh and tender and slight. After that�let her be what she likes, she has nothing for me. The Venus of Milo is a bourgeoise�so are they all.� �And you don�t care for women at all after twenty?� asked Gerald. �They are no good to me, they are of no use in my art,� Loerke repeated impatiently. �I don�t find them beautiful.� �You are an epicure,� said Gerald, with a slight sarcastic laugh. �And what about men?� asked Gudrun suddenly. �Yes, they are good at all ages,� replied Loerke. �A man should be big and powerful�whether he is old or young is of no account, so he has the size, something of massiveness and�and stupid form.� Ursula went out alone into the world of pure, new snow. But the dazzling whiteness seemed to beat upon her till it hurt her, she felt the cold was slowly strangling her soul. Her head felt dazed and numb. Suddenly she wanted to go away. It occurred to her, like a miracle, that she might go away into another world. She had felt so doomed up here in the eternal snow, as if there were no beyond. Now suddenly, as by a miracle she remembered that away beyond, below her, lay the dark fruitful earth, that towards the south there were stretches of land dark with orange trees and cypress, grey with olives, that ilex trees lifted wonderful plumy tufts in shadow against a blue sky. Miracle of miracles!�this utterly silent, frozen world of the mountain-tops was not universal! One might leave it and have done with it. One might go away. She wanted to realise the miracle at once. She wanted at this instant to have done with the snow-world, the terrible, static ice-built mountain tops. She wanted to see the dark earth, to smell its earthy fecundity, to see the patient wintry vegetation, to feel the sunshine touch a response in the buds. She went back gladly to the house, full of hope. Birkin was reading, lying in bed. �Rupert,� she said, bursting in on him. �I want to go away.� He looked up at her slowly. �Do you?� he replied mildly. She sat by him und put her arms round his neck. It surprised her that he was so little surprised. �Don�t _you?_� she asked troubled. �I hadn�t thought about it,� he said. �But I�m sure I do.� She sat up, suddenly erect. �I hate it,� she said. �I hate the snow, and the unnaturalness of it, the unnatural light it throws on everybody, the ghastly glamour, the unnatural feelings it makes everybody have.� He lay still and laughed, meditating. �Well,� he said, �we can go away�we can go tomorrow. We�ll go tomorrow to Verona, and find Romeo and Juliet, and sit in the amphitheatre�shall we?� Suddenly she hid her face against his shoulder with perplexity and shyness. He lay so untrammelled. �Yes,� she said softly, filled with relief. She felt her soul had new wings, now he was so uncaring. �I shall love to be Romeo and Juliet,� she said. �My love!� �Though a fearfully cold wind blows in Verona,� he said, �from out of the Alps. We shall have the smell of the snow in our noses.� She sat up and looked at him. �Are you glad to go?� she asked, troubled. His eyes were inscrutable and laughing. She hid her face against his neck, clinging close to him, pleading: �Don�t laugh at me�don�t laugh at me.� �Why how�s that?� he laughed, putting his arms round her. �Because I don�t want to be laughed at,� she whispered. He laughed more, as he kissed her delicate, finely perfumed hair. �Do you love me?� she whispered, in wild seriousness. �Yes,� he answered, laughing. Suddenly she lifted her mouth to be kissed. Her lips were taut and quivering and strenuous, his were soft, deep and delicate. He waited a few moments in the kiss. Then a shade of sadness went over his soul. �Your mouth is so hard,� he said, in faint reproach. �And yours is so soft and nice,� she said gladly. �But why do you always grip your lips?� he asked, regretful. �Never mind,� she said swiftly. �It is my way.� She knew he loved her; she was sure of him. Yet she could not let go a certain hold over herself, she could not bear him to question her. She gave herself up in delight to being loved by him. She knew that, in spite of his joy when she abandoned herself, he was a little bit saddened too. She could give herself up to his activity. But she could not be herself, she _dared_ not come forth quite nakedly to his nakedness, abandoning all adjustment, lapsing in pure faith with him. She abandoned herself to _him_, or she took hold of him and gathered her joy of him. And she enjoyed him fully. But they were never _quite_ together, at the same moment, one was always a little left out. Nevertheless she was glad in hope, glorious and free, full of life and liberty. And he was still and soft and patient, for the time. They made their preparations to leave the next day. First they went to Gudrun�s room, where she and Gerald were just dressed ready for the evening indoors. �Prune,� said Ursula, �I think we shall go away tomorrow. I can�t stand the snow any more. It hurts my skin and my soul.� �Does it really hurt your soul, Ursula?� asked Gudrun, in some surprise. �I can believe quite it hurts your skin�it is _terrible_. But I thought it was _admirable_ for the soul.� �No, not for mine. It just injures it,� said Ursula. �Really!� cried Gudrun. There was a silence in the room. And Ursula and Birkin could feel that Gudrun and Gerald were relieved by their going. �You will go south?� said Gerald, a little ring of uneasiness in his voice. �Yes,� said Birkin, turning away. There was a queer, indefinable hostility between the two men, lately. Birkin was on the whole dim and indifferent, drifting along in a dim, easy flow, unnoticing and patient, since he came abroad, whilst Gerald on the other hand, was intense and gripped into white light, agonistes. The two men revoked one another. Gerald and Gudrun were very kind to the two who were departing, solicitous for their welfare as if they were two children. Gudrun came to Ursula�s bedroom with three pairs of the coloured stockings for which she was notorious, and she threw them on the bed. But these were thick silk stockings, vermilion, cornflower blue, and grey, bought in Paris. The grey ones were knitted, seamless and heavy. Ursula was in raptures. She knew Gudrun must be feeling _very_ loving, to give away such treasures. �I can�t take them from you, Prune,� she cried. �I can�t possibly deprive you of them�the jewels.� �_Aren�t_ they jewels!� cried Gudrun, eyeing her gifts with an envious eye. �_Aren�t_ they real lambs!� �Yes, you _must_ keep them,� said Ursula. �I don�t _want_ them, I�ve got three more pairs. I _want_ you to keep them�I want you to have them. They�re yours, there�� And with trembling, excited hands she put the coveted stockings under Ursula�s pillow. �One gets the greatest joy of all out of really lovely stockings,� said Ursula. �One does,� replied Gudrun; �the greatest joy of all.� And she sat down in the chair. It was evident she had come for a last talk. Ursula, not knowing what she wanted, waited in silence. �Do you _feel_, Ursula,� Gudrun began, rather sceptically, that you are going-away-for-ever, never-to-return, sort of thing?� �Oh, we shall come back,� said Ursula. �It isn�t a question of train-journeys.� �Yes, I know. But spiritually, so to speak, you are going away from us all?� Ursula quivered. �I don�t know a bit what is going to happen,� she said. �I only know we are going somewhere.� Gudrun waited. �And you are glad?� she asked. Ursula meditated for a moment. �I believe I am _very_ glad,� she replied. But Gudrun read the unconscious brightness on her sister�s face, rather than the uncertain tones of her speech. �But don�t you think you�ll _want_ the old connection with the world�father and the rest of us, and all that it means, England and the world of thought�don�t you think you�ll _need_ that, really to make a world?� Ursula was silent, trying to imagine. �I think,� she said at length, involuntarily, �that Rupert is right�one wants a new space to be in, and one falls away from the old.� Gudrun watched her sister with impassive face and steady eyes. �One wants a new space to be in, I quite agree,� she said. �But _I_ think that a new world is a development from this world, and that to isolate oneself with one other person, isn�t to find a new world at all, but only to secure oneself in one�s illusions.� Ursula looked out of the window. In her soul she began to wrestle, and she was frightened. She was always frightened of words, because she knew that mere word-force could always make her believe what she did not believe. �Perhaps,� she said, full of mistrust, of herself and everybody. �But,� she added, �I do think that one can�t have anything new whilst one cares for the old�do you know what I mean?�even fighting the old is belonging to it. I know, one is tempted to stop with the world, just to fight it. But then it isn�t worth it.� Gudrun considered herself. �Yes,� she said. �In a way, one is of the world if one lives in it. But isn�t it really an illusion to think you can get out of it? After all, a cottage in the Abruzzi, or wherever it may be, isn�t a new world. No, the only thing to do with the world, is to see it through.� Ursula looked away. She was so frightened of argument. �But there _can_ be something else, can�t there?� she said. �One can see it through in one�s soul, long enough before it sees itself through in actuality. And then, when one has seen one�s soul, one is something else.� �_Can_ one see it through in one�s soul?� asked Gudrun. �If you mean that you can see to the end of what will happen, I don�t agree. I really can�t agree. And anyhow, you can�t suddenly fly off on to a new planet, because you think you can see to the end of this.� Ursula suddenly straightened herself. �Yes,� she said. �Yes�one knows. One has no more connections here. One has a sort of other self, that belongs to a new planet, not to this. You�ve got to hop off.� Gudrun reflected for a few moments. Then a smile of ridicule, almost of contempt, came over her face. �And what will happen when you find yourself in space?� she cried in derision. �After all, the great ideas of the world are the same there. You above everybody can�t get away from the fact that love, for instance, is the supreme thing, in space as well as on earth.� �No,� said Ursula, �it isn�t. Love is too human and little. I believe in something inhuman, of which love is only a little part. I believe what we must fulfil comes out of the unknown to us, and it is something infinitely more than love. It isn�t so merely _human_.� Gudrun looked at Ursula with steady, balancing eyes. She admired and despised her sister so much, both! Then, suddenly she averted her face, saying coldly, uglily: �Well, I�ve got no further than love, yet.� Over Ursula�s mind flashed the thought: �Because you never _have_ loved, you can�t get beyond it.� Gudrun rose, came over to Ursula and put her arm round her neck. �Go and find your new world, dear,� she said, her voice clanging with false benignity. �After all, the happiest voyage is the quest of Rupert�s Blessed Isles.� Her arm rested round Ursula�s neck, her fingers on Ursula�s cheek for a few moments. Ursula was supremely uncomfortable meanwhile. There was an insult in Gudrun�s protective patronage that was really too hurting. Feeling her sister�s resistance, Gudrun drew awkwardly away, turned over the pillow, and disclosed the stockings again. �Ha�ha!� she laughed, rather hollowly. �How we do talk indeed�new worlds and old�!� And they passed to the familiar worldly subjects. Gerald and Birkin had walked on ahead, waiting for the sledge to overtake them, conveying the departing guests. �How much longer will you stay here?� asked Birkin, glancing up at Gerald�s very red, almost blank face. �Oh, I can�t say,� Gerald replied. �Till we get tired of it.� �You�re not afraid of the snow melting first?� asked Birkin. Gerald laughed. �Does it melt?� he said. �Things are all right with you then?� said Birkin. Gerald screwed up his eyes a little. �All right?� he said. �I never know what those common words mean. All right and all wrong, don�t they become synonymous, somewhere?� �Yes, I suppose. How about going back?� asked Birkin. �Oh, I don�t know. We may never get back. I don�t look before and after,� said Gerald. �_Nor_ pine for what is not,� said Birkin. Gerald looked into the distance, with the small-pupilled, abstract eyes of a hawk. �No. There�s something final about this. And Gudrun seems like the end, to me. I don�t know�but she seems so soft, her skin like silk, her arms heavy and soft. And it withers my consciousness, somehow, it burns the pith of my mind.� He went on a few paces, staring ahead, his eyes fixed, looking like a mask used in ghastly religions of the barbarians. �It blasts your soul�s eye,� he said, �and leaves you sightless. Yet you _want_ to be sightless, you _want_ to be blasted, you don�t want it any different.� He was speaking as if in a trance, verbal and blank. Then suddenly he braced himself up with a kind of rhapsody, and looked at Birkin with vindictive, cowed eyes, saying: �Do you know what it is to suffer when you are with a woman? She�s so beautiful, so perfect, you find her _so good_, it tears you like a silk, and every stroke and bit cuts hot�ha, that perfection, when you blast yourself, you blast yourself! And then�� he stopped on the snow and suddenly opened his clenched hands��it�s nothing�your brain might have gone charred as rags�and�� he looked round into the air with a queer histrionic movement �it�s blasting�you understand what I mean�it is a great experience, something final�and then�you�re shrivelled as if struck by electricity.� He walked on in silence. It seemed like bragging, but like a man in extremity bragging truthfully. �Of course,� he resumed, �I wouldn�t _not_ have had it! It�s a complete experience. And she�s a wonderful woman. But�how I hate her somewhere! It�s curious�� Birkin looked at him, at his strange, scarcely conscious face. Gerald seemed blank before his own words. �But you�ve had enough now?� said Birkin. �You have had your experience. Why work on an old wound?� �Oh,� said Gerald, �I don�t know. It�s not finished�� And the two walked on. �I�ve loved you, as well as Gudrun, don�t forget,� said Birkin bitterly. Gerald looked at him strangely, abstractedly. �Have you?� he said, with icy scepticism. �Or do you think you have?� He was hardly responsible for what he said. The sledge came. Gudrun dismounted and they all made their farewell. They wanted to go apart, all of them. Birkin took his place, and the sledge drove away leaving Gudrun and Gerald standing on the snow, waving. Something froze Birkin�s heart, seeing them standing there in the isolation of the snow, growing smaller and more isolated. CHAPTER XXX. SNOWED UP When Ursula and Birkin were gone, Gudrun felt herself free in her contest with Gerald. As they grew more used to each other, he seemed to press upon her more and more. At first she could manage him, so that her own will was always left free. But very soon, he began to ignore her female tactics, he dropped his respect for her whims and her privacies, he began to exert his own will blindly, without submitting to hers. Already a vital conflict had set in, which frightened them both. But he was alone, whilst already she had begun to cast round for external resource. When Ursula had gone, Gudrun felt her own existence had become stark and elemental. She went and crouched alone in her bedroom, looking out of the window at the big, flashing stars. In front was the faint shadow of the mountain-knot. That was the pivot. She felt strange and inevitable, as if she were centred upon the pivot of all existence, there was no further reality. Presently Gerald opened the door. She knew he would not be long before he came. She was rarely alone, he pressed upon her like a frost, deadening her. �Are you alone in the dark?� he said. And she could tell by his tone he resented it, he resented this isolation she had drawn round herself. Yet, feeling static and inevitable, she was kind towards him. �Would you like to light the candle?� she asked. He did not answer, but came and stood behind her, in the darkness. �Look,� she said, �at that lovely star up there. Do you know its name?� He crouched beside her, to look through the low window. �No,� he said. �It is very fine.� �_Isn�t_ it beautiful! Do you notice how it darts different coloured fires�it flashes really superbly�� They remained in silence. With a mute, heavy gesture she put her hand on his knee, and took his hand. �Are you regretting Ursula?� he asked. �No, not at all,� she said. Then, in a slow mood, she asked: �How much do you love me?� He stiffened himself further against her. �How much do you think I do?� he asked. �I don�t know,� she replied. �But what is your opinion?� he asked. There was a pause. At length, in the darkness, came her voice, hard and indifferent: �Very little indeed,� she said coldly, almost flippant. His heart went icy at the sound of her voice. �Why don�t I love you?� he asked, as if admitting the truth of her accusation, yet hating her for it. �I don�t know why you don�t�I�ve been good to you. You were in a _fearful_ state when you came to me.� Her heart was beating to suffocate her, yet she was strong and unrelenting. �When was I in a fearful state?� he asked. �When you first came to me. I _had_ to take pity on you. But it was never love.� It was that statement �It was never love,� which sounded in his ears with madness. �Why must you repeat it so often, that there is no love?� he said in a voice strangled with rage. �Well you don�t _think_ you love, do you?� she asked. He was silent with cold passion of anger. �You don�t think you _can_ love me, do you?� she repeated almost with a sneer. �No,� he said. �You know you never _have_ loved me, don�t you?� �I don�t know what you mean by the word �love,� he replied. �Yes, you do. You know all right that you have never loved me. Have you, do you think?� �No,� he said, prompted by some barren spirit of truthfulness and obstinacy. �And you never _will_ love me,� she said finally, �will you?� There was a diabolic coldness in her, too much to bear. �No,� he said. �Then,� she replied, �what have you against me!� He was silent in cold, frightened rage and despair. �If only I could kill her,� his heart was whispering repeatedly. �If only I could kill her�I should be free.� It seemed to him that death was the only severing of this Gordian knot. �Why do you torture me?� he said. She flung her arms round his neck. �Ah, I don�t want to torture you,� she said pityingly, as if she were comforting a child. The impertinence made his veins go cold, he was insensible. She held her arms round his neck, in a triumph of pity. And her pity for him was as cold as stone, its deepest motive was hate of him, and fear of his power over her, which she must always counterfoil. �Say you love me,� she pleaded. �Say you will love me for ever�won�t you�won�t you?� But it was her voice only that coaxed him. Her senses were entirely apart from him, cold and destructive of him. It was her overbearing _will_ that insisted. �Won�t you say you�ll love me always?� she coaxed. �Say it, even if it isn�t true�say it Gerald, do.� �I will love you always,� he repeated, in real agony, forcing the words out. She gave him a quick kiss. �Fancy your actually having said it,� she said with a touch of raillery. He stood as if he had been beaten. �Try to love me a little more, and to want me a little less,� she said, in a half contemptuous, half coaxing tone. The darkness seemed to be swaying in waves across his mind, great waves of darkness plunging across his mind. It seemed to him he was degraded at the very quick, made of no account. �You mean you don�t want me?� he said. �You are so insistent, and there is so little grace in you, so little fineness. You are so crude. You break me�you only waste me�it is horrible to me.� �Horrible to you?� he repeated. �Yes. Don�t you think I might have a room to myself, now Ursula has gone? You can say you want a dressing room.� �You do as you like�you can leave altogether if you like,� he managed to articulate. �Yes, I know that,� she replied. �So can you. You can leave me whenever you like�without notice even.� The great tides of darkness were swinging across his mind, he could hardly stand upright. A terrible weariness overcame him, he felt he must lie on the floor. Dropping off his clothes, he got into bed, and lay like a man suddenly overcome by drunkenness, the darkness lifting and plunging as if he were lying upon a black, giddy sea. He lay still in this strange, horrific reeling for some time, purely unconscious. At length she slipped from her own bed and came over to him. He remained rigid, his back to her. He was all but unconscious. She put her arms round his terrifying, insentient body, and laid her cheek against his hard shoulder. �Gerald,� she whispered. �Gerald.� There was no change in him. She caught him against her. She pressed her breasts against his shoulders, she kissed his shoulder, through the sleeping jacket. Her mind wondered, over his rigid, unliving body. She was bewildered, and insistent, only her will was set for him to speak to her. �Gerald, my dear!� she whispered, bending over him, kissing his ear. Her warm breath playing, flying rhythmically over his ear, seemed to relax the tension. She could feel his body gradually relaxing a little, losing its terrifying, unnatural rigidity. Her hands clutched his limbs, his muscles, going over him spasmodically. The hot blood began to flow again through his veins, his limbs relaxed. �Turn round to me,� she whispered, forlorn with insistence and triumph. So at last he was given again, warm and flexible. He turned and gathered her in his arms. And feeling her soft against him, so perfectly and wondrously soft and recipient, his arms tightened on her. She was as if crushed, powerless in him. His brain seemed hard and invincible now like a jewel, there was no resisting him. His passion was awful to her, tense and ghastly, and impersonal, like a destruction, ultimate. She felt it would kill her. She was being killed. �My God, my God,� she cried, in anguish, in his embrace, feeling her life being killed within her. And when he was kissing her, soothing her, her breath came slowly, as if she were really spent, dying. �Shall I die, shall I die?� she repeated to herself. And in the night, and in him, there was no answer to the question. And yet, next day, the fragment of her which was not destroyed remained intact and hostile, she did not go away, she remained to finish the holiday, admitting nothing. He scarcely ever left her alone, but followed her like a shadow, he was like a doom upon her, a continual �thou shalt,� �thou shalt not.� Sometimes it was he who seemed strongest, whist she was almost gone, creeping near the earth like a spent wind; sometimes it was the reverse. But always it was this eternal see-saw, one destroyed that the other might exist, one ratified because the other was nulled. �In the end,� she said to herself, �I shall go away from him.� �I can be free of her,� he said to himself in his paroxysms of suffering. And he set himself to be free. He even prepared to go away, to leave her in the lurch. But for the first time there was a flaw in his will. �Where shall I go?� he asked himself. �Can�t you be self-sufficient?� he replied to himself, putting himself upon his pride. �Self-sufficient!� he repeated. It seemed to him that Gudrun was sufficient unto herself, closed round and completed, like a thing in a case. In the calm, static reason of his soul, he recognised this, and admitted it was her right, to be closed round upon herself, self-complete, without desire. He realised it, he admitted it, it only needed one last effort on his own part, to win for himself the same completeness. He knew that it only needed one convulsion of his will for him to be able to turn upon himself also, to close upon himself as a stone fixes upon itself, and is impervious, self-completed, a thing isolated. This knowledge threw him into a terrible chaos. Because, however much he might mentally _will_ to be immune and self-complete, the desire for this state was lacking, and he could not create it. He could see that, to exist at all, he must be perfectly free of Gudrun, leave her if she wanted to be left, demand nothing of her, have no claim upon her. But then, to have no claim upon her, he must stand by himself, in sheer nothingness. And his brain turned to nought at the idea. It was a state of nothingness. On the other hand, he might give in, and fawn to her. Or, finally, he might kill her. Or he might become just indifferent, purposeless, dissipated, momentaneous. But his nature was too serious, not gay enough or subtle enough for mocking licentiousness. A strange rent had been torn in him; like a victim that is torn open and given to the heavens, so he had been torn apart and given to Gudrun. How should he close again? This wound, this strange, infinitely-sensitive opening of his soul, where he was exposed, like an open flower, to all the universe, and in which he was given to his complement, the other, the unknown, this wound, this disclosure, this unfolding of his own covering, leaving him incomplete, limited, unfinished, like an open flower under the sky, this was his cruellest joy. Why then should he forego it? Why should he close up and become impervious, immune, like a partial thing in a sheath, when he had broken forth, like a seed that has germinated, to issue forth in being, embracing the unrealised heavens. He would keep the unfinished bliss of his own yearning even through the torture she inflicted upon him. A strange obstinacy possessed him. He would not go away from her whatever she said or did. A strange, deathly yearning carried him along with her. She was the determinating influence of his very being, though she treated him with contempt, repeated rebuffs, and denials, still he would never be gone, since in being near her, even, he felt the quickening, the going forth in him, the release, the knowledge of his own limitation and the magic of the promise, as well as the mystery of his own destruction and annihilation. She tortured the open heart of him even as he turned to her. And she was tortured herself. It may have been her will was stronger. She felt, with horror, as if he tore at the bud of her heart, tore it open, like an irreverent persistent being. Like a boy who pulls off a fly�s wings, or tears open a bud to see what is in the flower, he tore at her privacy, at her very life, he would destroy her as an immature bud, torn open, is destroyed. She might open towards him, a long while hence, in her dreams, when she was a pure spirit. But now she was not to be violated and ruined. She closed against him fiercely. They climbed together, at evening, up the high slope, to see the sunset. In the finely breathing, keen wind they stood and watched the yellow sun sink in crimson and disappear. Then in the east the peaks and ridges glowed with living rose, incandescent like immortal flowers against a brown-purple sky, a miracle, whilst down below the world was a bluish shadow, and above, like an annunciation, hovered a rosy transport in mid-air. To her it was so beautiful, it was a delirium, she wanted to gather the glowing, eternal peaks to her breast, and die. He saw them, saw they were beautiful. But there arose no clamour in his breast, only a bitterness that was visionary in itself. He wished the peaks were grey and unbeautiful, so that she should not get her support from them. Why did she betray the two of them so terribly, in embracing the glow of the evening? Why did she leave him standing there, with the ice-wind blowing through his heart, like death, to gratify herself among the rosy snow-tips? �What does the twilight matter?� he said. �Why do you grovel before it? Is it so important to you?� She winced in violation and in fury. �Go away,� she cried, �and leave me to it. It is beautiful, beautiful,� she sang in strange, rhapsodic tones. �It is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen in my life. Don�t try to come between it and me. Take yourself away, you are out of place�� He stood back a little, and left her standing there, statue-like, transported into the mystic glowing east. Already the rose was fading, large white stars were flashing out. He waited. He would forego everything but the yearning. �That was the most perfect thing I have ever seen,� she said in cold, brutal tones, when at last she turned round to him. �It amazes me that you should want to destroy it. If you can�t see it yourself, why try to debar me?� But in reality, he had destroyed it for her, she was straining after a dead effect. �One day,� he said, softly, looking up at her, �I shall destroy _you_, as you stand looking at the sunset; because you are such a liar.� There was a soft, voluptuous promise to himself in the words. She was chilled but arrogant. �Ha!� she said. �I am not afraid of your threats!� She denied herself to him, she kept her room rigidly private to herself. But he waited on, in a curious patience, belonging to his yearning for her. �In the end,� he said to himself with real voluptuous promise, �when it reaches that point, I shall do away with her.� And he trembled delicately in every limb, in anticipation, as he trembled in his most violent accesses of passionate approach to her, trembling with too much desire. She had a curious sort of allegiance with Loerke, all the while, now, something insidious and traitorous. Gerald knew of it. But in the unnatural state of patience, and the unwillingness to harden himself against her, in which he found himself, he took no notice, although her soft kindliness to the other man, whom he hated as a noxious insect, made him shiver again with an access of the strange shuddering that came over him repeatedly. He left her alone only when he went skiing, a sport he loved, and which she did not practise. Then he seemed to sweep out of life, to be a projectile into the beyond. And often, when he went away, she talked to the little German sculptor. They had an invariable topic, in their art. They were almost of the same ideas. He hated Mestrovic, was not satisfied with the Futurists, he liked the West African wooden figures, the Aztec art, Mexican and Central American. He saw the grotesque, and a curious sort of mechanical motion intoxicated him, a confusion in nature. They had a curious game with each other, Gudrun and Loerke, of infinite suggestivity, strange and leering, as if they had some esoteric understanding of life, that they alone were initiated into the fearful central secrets, that the world dared not know. Their whole correspondence was in a strange, barely comprehensible suggestivity, they kindled themselves at the subtle lust of the Egyptians or the Mexicans. The whole game was one of subtle inter-suggestivity, and they wanted to keep it on the plane of suggestion. From their verbal and physical nuances they got the highest satisfaction in the nerves, from a queer interchange of half-suggested ideas, looks, expressions and gestures, which were quite intolerable, though incomprehensible, to Gerald. He had no terms in which to think of their commerce, his terms were much too gross. The suggestion of primitive art was their refuge, and the inner mysteries of sensation their object of worship. Art and Life were to them the Reality and the Unreality. �Of course,� said Gudrun, �life doesn�t _really_ matter�it is one�s art which is central. What one does in one�s life has _peu de rapport_, it doesn�t signify much.� �Yes, that is so, exactly,� replied the sculptor. �What one does in one�s art, that is the breath of one�s being. What one does in one�s life, that is a bagatelle for the outsiders to fuss about.� It was curious what a sense of elation and freedom Gudrun found in this communication. She felt established for ever. Of course Gerald was _bagatelle_. Love was one of the temporal things in her life, except in so far as she was an artist. She thought of Cleopatra�Cleopatra must have been an artist; she reaped the essential from a man, she harvested the ultimate sensation, and threw away the husk; and Mary Stuart, and the great Rachel, panting with her lovers after the theatre, these were the exoteric exponents of love. After all, what was the lover but fuel for the transport of this subtle knowledge, for a female art, the art of pure, perfect knowledge in sensuous understanding. One evening Gerald was arguing with Loerke about Italy and Tripoli. The Englishman was in a strange, inflammable state, the German was excited. It was a contest of words, but it meant a conflict of spirit between the two men. And all the while Gudrun could see in Gerald an arrogant English contempt for a foreigner. Although Gerald was quivering, his eyes flashing, his face flushed, in his argument there was a brusqueness, a savage contempt in his manner, that made Gudrun�s blood flare up, and made Loerke keen and mortified. For Gerald came down like a sledge-hammer with his assertions, anything the little German said was merely contemptible rubbish. At last Loerke turned to Gudrun, raising his hands in helpless irony, a shrug of ironical dismissal, something appealing and child-like. �_Sehen sie, gnädige Frau_�� he began. �_Bitte sagen Sie nicht immer, gnädige Frau_,� cried Gudrun, her eyes flashing, her cheeks burning. She looked like a vivid Medusa. Her voice was loud and clamorous, the other people in the room were startled. �Please don�t call me Mrs Crich,� she cried aloud. The name, in Loerke�s mouth particularly, had been an intolerable humiliation and constraint upon her, these many days. The two men looked at her in amazement. Gerald went white at the cheek-bones. �What shall I say, then?� asked Loerke, with soft, mocking insinuation. �_Sagen Sie nur nicht das_,� she muttered, her cheeks flushed crimson. �Not that, at least.� She saw, by the dawning look on Loerke�s face, that he had understood. She was _not_ Mrs Crich! So-o-, that explained a great deal. �_Soll ich Fräulein sagen?_� he asked, malevolently. �I am not married,� she said, with some hauteur. Her heart was fluttering now, beating like a bewildered bird. She knew she had dealt a cruel wound, and she could not bear it. Gerald sat erect, perfectly still, his face pale and calm, like the face of a statue. He was unaware of her, or of Loerke or anybody. He sat perfectly still, in an unalterable calm. Loerke, meanwhile, was crouching and glancing up from under his ducked head. Gudrun was tortured for something to say, to relieve the suspense. She twisted her face in a smile, and glanced knowingly, almost sneering, at Gerald. �Truth is best,� she said to him, with a grimace. But now again she was under his domination; now, because she had dealt him this blow; because she had destroyed him, and she did not know how he had taken it. She watched him. He was interesting to her. She had lost her interest in Loerke. Gerald rose at length, and went over in a leisurely still movement, to the Professor. The two began a conversation on Goethe. She was rather piqued by the simplicity of Gerald�s demeanour this evening. He did not seem angry or disgusted, only he looked curiously innocent and pure, really beautiful. Sometimes it came upon him, this look of clear distance, and it always fascinated her. She waited, troubled, throughout the evening. She thought he would avoid her, or give some sign. But he spoke to her simply and unemotionally, as he would to anyone else in the room. A certain peace, an abstraction possessed his soul. She went to his room, hotly, violently in love with him. He was so beautiful and inaccessible. He kissed her, he was a lover to her. And she had extreme pleasure of him. But he did not come to, he remained remote and candid, unconscious. She wanted to speak to him. But this innocent, beautiful state of unconsciousness that had come upon him prevented her. She felt tormented and dark. In the morning, however, he looked at her with a little aversion, some horror and some hatred darkening into his eyes. She withdrew on to her old ground. But still he would not gather himself together, against her. Loerke was waiting for her now. The little artist, isolated in his own complete envelope, felt that here at last was a woman from whom he could get something. He was uneasy all the while, waiting to talk with her, subtly contriving to be near her. Her presence filled him with keenness and excitement, he gravitated cunningly towards her, as if she had some unseen force of attraction. He was not in the least doubtful of himself, as regards Gerald. Gerald was one of the outsiders. Loerke only hated him for being rich and proud and of fine appearance. All these things, however, riches, pride of social standing, handsome physique, were externals. When it came to the relation with a woman such as Gudrun, he, Loerke, had an approach and a power that Gerald never dreamed of. How should Gerald hope to satisfy a woman of Gudrun�s calibre? Did he think that pride or masterful will or physical strength would help him? Loerke knew a secret beyond these things. The greatest power is the one that is subtle and adjusts itself, not one which blindly attacks. And he, Loerke, had understanding where Gerald was a calf. He, Loerke, could penetrate into depths far out of Gerald�s knowledge. Gerald was left behind like a postulant in the ante-room of this temple of mysteries, this woman. But he Loerke, could he not penetrate into the inner darkness, find the spirit of the woman in its inner recess, and wrestle with it there, the central serpent that is coiled at the core of life. What was it, after all, that a woman wanted? Was it mere social effect, fulfilment of ambition in the social world, in the community of mankind? Was it even a union in love and goodness? Did she want �goodness�? Who but a fool would accept this of Gudrun? This was but the street view of her wants. Cross the threshold, and you found her completely, completely cynical about the social world and its advantages. Once inside the house of her soul and there was a pungent atmosphere of corrosion, an inflamed darkness of sensation, and a vivid, subtle, critical consciousness, that saw the world distorted, horrific. What then, what next? Was it sheer blind force of passion that would satisfy her now? Not this, but the subtle thrills of extreme sensation in reduction. It was an unbroken will reacting against her unbroken will in a myriad subtle thrills of reduction, the last subtle activities of analysis and breaking down, carried out in the darkness of her, whilst the outside form, the individual, was utterly unchanged, even sentimental in its poses. But between two particular people, any two people on earth, the range of pure sensational experience is limited. The climax of sensual reaction, once reached in any direction, is reached finally, there is no going on. There is only repetition possible, or the going apart of the two protagonists, or the subjugating of the one will to the other, or death. Gerald had penetrated all the outer places of Gudrun�s soul. He was to her the most crucial instance of the existing world, the _ne plus ultra_ of the world of man as it existed for her. In him she knew the world, and had done with it. Knowing him finally she was the Alexander seeking new worlds. But there _were_ no new worlds, there were no more _men_, there were only creatures, little, ultimate _creatures_ like Loerke. The world was finished now, for her. There was only the inner, individual darkness, sensation within the ego, the obscene religious mystery of ultimate reduction, the mystic frictional activities of diabolic reducing down, disintegrating the vital organic body of life. All this Gudrun knew in her subconsciousness, not in her mind. She knew her next step�she knew what she should move on to, when she left Gerald. She was afraid of Gerald, that he might kill her. But she did not intend to be killed. A fine thread still united her to him. It should not be _her_ death which broke it. She had further to go, a further, slow exquisite experience to reap, unthinkable subtleties of sensation to know, before she was finished. Of the last series of subtleties, Gerald was not capable. He could not touch the quick of her. But where his ruder blows could not penetrate, the fine, insinuating blade of Loerke�s insect-like comprehension could. At least, it was time for her now to pass over to the other, the creature, the final craftsman. She knew that Loerke, in his innermost soul, was detached from everything, for him there was neither heaven nor earth nor hell. He admitted no allegiance, he gave no adherence anywhere. He was single and, by abstraction from the rest, absolute in himself. Whereas in Gerald�s soul there still lingered some attachment to the rest, to the whole. And this was his limitation. He was limited, _borné_, subject to his necessity, in the last issue, for goodness, for righteousness, for oneness with the ultimate purpose. That the ultimate purpose might be the perfect and subtle experience of the process of death, the will being kept unimpaired, that was not allowed in him. And this was his limitation. There was a hovering triumph in Loerke, since Gudrun had denied her marriage with Gerald. The artist seemed to hover like a creature on the wing, waiting to settle. He did not approach Gudrun violently, he was never ill-timed. But carried on by a sure instinct in the complete darkness of his soul, he corresponded mystically with her, imperceptibly, but palpably. For two days, he talked to her, continued the discussions of art, of life, in which they both found such pleasure. They praised the by-gone things, they took a sentimental, childish delight in the achieved perfections of the past. Particularly they liked the late eighteenth century, the period of Goethe and of Shelley, and Mozart. They played with the past, and with the great figures of the past, a sort of little game of chess, or marionettes, all to please themselves. They had all the great men for their marionettes, and they two were the God of the show, working it all. As for the future, that they never mentioned except one laughed out some mocking dream of the destruction of the world by a ridiculous catastrophe of man�s invention: a man invented such a perfect explosive that it blew the earth in two, and the two halves set off in different directions through space, to the dismay of the inhabitants: or else the people of the world divided into two halves, and each half decided _it_ was perfect and right, the other half was wrong and must be destroyed; so another end of the world. Or else, Loerke�s dream of fear, the world went cold, and snow fell everywhere, and only white creatures, polar-bears, white foxes, and men like awful white snow-birds, persisted in ice cruelty. Apart from these stories, they never talked of the future. They delighted most either in mocking imaginations of destruction, or in sentimental, fine marionette-shows of the past. It was a sentimental delight to reconstruct the world of Goethe at Weimar, or of Schiller and poverty and faithful love, or to see again Jean Jacques in his quakings, or Voltaire at Ferney, or Frederick the Great reading his own poetry. They talked together for hours, of literature and sculpture and painting, amusing themselves with Flaxman and Blake and Fuseli, with tenderness, and with Feuerbach and Böcklin. It would take them a life-time, they felt to live again, _in petto_, the lives of the great artists. But they preferred to stay in the eighteenth and the nineteenth centuries. They talked in a mixture of languages. The ground-work was French, in either case. But he ended most of his sentences in a stumble of English and a conclusion of German, she skilfully wove herself to her end in whatever phrase came to her. She took a peculiar delight in this conversation. It was full of odd, fantastic expression, of double meanings, of evasions, of suggestive vagueness. It was a real physical pleasure to her to make this thread of conversation out of the different-coloured strands of three languages. And all the while they two were hovering, hesitating round the flame of some invisible declaration. He wanted it, but was held back by some inevitable reluctance. She wanted it also, but she wanted to put it off, to put it off indefinitely, she still had some pity for Gerald, some connection with him. And the most fatal of all, she had the reminiscent sentimental compassion for herself in connection with him. Because of what _had_ been, she felt herself held to him by immortal, invisible threads�because of what _had_ been, because of his coming to her that first night, into her own house, in his extremity, because� Gerald was gradually overcome with a revulsion of loathing for Loerke. He did not take the man seriously, he despised him merely, except as he felt in Gudrun�s veins the influence of the little creature. It was this that drove Gerald wild, the feeling in Gudrun�s veins of Loerke�s presence, Loerke�s being, flowing dominant through her. �What makes you so smitten with that little vermin?� he asked, really puzzled. For he, man-like, could not see anything attractive or important _at all_ in Loerke. Gerald expected to find some handsomeness or nobleness, to account for a woman�s subjection. But he saw none here, only an insect-like repulsiveness. Gudrun flushed deeply. It was these attacks she would never forgive. �What do you mean?� she replied. �My God, what a mercy I am _not_ married to you!� Her voice of flouting and contempt scotched him. He was brought up short. But he recovered himself. �Tell me, only tell me,� he reiterated in a dangerous narrowed voice��tell me what it is that fascinates you in him.� �I am not fascinated,� she said, with cold repelling innocence. �Yes, you are. You are fascinated by that little dry snake, like a bird gaping ready to fall down its throat.� She looked at him with black fury. �I don�t choose to be discussed by you,� she said. �It doesn�t matter whether you choose or not,� he replied, �that doesn�t alter the fact that you are ready to fall down and kiss the feet of that little insect. And I don�t want to prevent you�do it, fall down and kiss his feet. But I want to know, what it is that fascinates you�what is it?� She was silent, suffused with black rage. �How _dare_ you come brow-beating me,� she cried, �how dare you, you little squire, you bully. What right have you over me, do you think?� His face was white and gleaming, she knew by the light in his eyes that she was in his power�the wolf. And because she was in his power, she hated him with a power that she wondered did not kill him. In her will she killed him as he stood, effaced him. �It is not a question of right,� said Gerald, sitting down on a chair. She watched the change in his body. She saw his clenched, mechanical body moving there like an obsession. Her hatred of him was tinged with fatal contempt. �It�s not a question of my right over you�though I _have_ some right, remember. I want to know, I only want to know what it is that subjugates you to that little scum of a sculptor downstairs, what it is that brings you down like a humble maggot, in worship of him. I want to know what you creep after.� She stood over against the window, listening. Then she turned round. �Do you?� she said, in her most easy, most cutting voice. �Do you want to know what it is in him? It�s because he has some understanding of a woman, because he is not stupid. That�s why it is.� A queer, sinister, animal-like smile came over Gerald�s face. �But what understanding is it?� he said. �The understanding of a flea, a hopping flea with a proboscis. Why should you crawl abject before the understanding of a flea?� There passed through Gudrun�s mind Blake�s representation of the soul of a flea. She wanted to fit it to Loerke. Blake was a clown too. But it was necessary to answer Gerald. �Don�t you think the understanding of a flea is more interesting than the understanding of a fool?� she asked. �A fool!� he repeated. �A fool, a conceited fool�a _Dummkopf_,� she replied, adding the German word. �Do you call me a fool?� he replied. �Well, wouldn�t I rather be the fool I am, than that flea downstairs?� She looked at him. A certain blunt, blind stupidity in him palled on her soul, limiting her. �You give yourself away by that last,� she said. He sat and wondered. �I shall go away soon,� he said. She turned on him. �Remember,� she said, �I am completely independent of you�completely. You make your arrangements, I make mine.� He pondered this. �You mean we are strangers from this minute?� he asked. She halted and flushed. He was putting her in a trap, forcing her hand. She turned round on him. �Strangers,� she said, �we can never be. But if you _want_ to make any movement apart from me, then I wish you to know you are perfectly free to do so. Do not consider me in the slightest.� Even so slight an implication that she needed him and was depending on him still was sufficient to rouse his passion. As he sat a change came over his body, the hot, molten stream mounted involuntarily through his veins. He groaned inwardly, under its bondage, but he loved it. He looked at her with clear eyes, waiting for her. She knew at once, and was shaken with cold revulsion. _How_ could he look at her with those clear, warm, waiting eyes, waiting for her, even now? What had been said between them, was it not enough to put them worlds asunder, to freeze them forever apart! And yet he was all transfused and roused, waiting for her. It confused her. Turning her head aside, she said: �I shall always _tell_ you, whenever I am going to make any change�� And with this she moved out of the room. He sat suspended in a fine recoil of disappointment, that seemed gradually to be destroying his understanding. But the unconscious state of patience persisted in him. He remained motionless, without thought or knowledge, for a long time. Then he rose, and went downstairs, to play at chess with one of the students. His face was open and clear, with a certain innocent _laisser-aller_ that troubled Gudrun most, made her almost afraid of him, whilst she disliked him deeply for it. It was after this that Loerke, who had never yet spoken to her personally, began to ask her of her state. �You are not married at all, are you?� he asked. She looked full at him. �Not in the least,� she replied, in her measured way. Loerke laughed, wrinkling up his face oddly. There was a thin wisp of his hair straying on his forehead, she noticed that his skin was of a clear brown colour, his hands, his wrists. And his hands seemed closely prehensile. He seemed like topaz, so strangely brownish and pellucid. �Good,� he said. Still it needed some courage for him to go on. �Was Mrs Birkin your sister?� he asked. �Yes.� �And was _she_ married?� �She was married.� �Have you parents, then?� �Yes,� said Gudrun, �we have parents.� And she told him, briefly, laconically, her position. He watched her closely, curiously all the while. �So!� he exclaimed, with some surprise. �And the Herr Crich, is he rich?� �Yes, he is rich, a coal owner.� �How long has your friendship with him lasted?� �Some months.� There was a pause. �Yes, I am surprised,� he said at length. �The English, I thought they were so�cold. And what do you think to do when you leave here?� �What do I think to do?� she repeated. �Yes. You cannot go back to the teaching. No�� he shrugged his shoulders��that is impossible. Leave that to the _canaille_ who can do nothing else. You, for your part�you know, you are a remarkable woman, _eine seltsame Frau_. Why deny it�why make any question of it? You are an extraordinary woman, why should you follow the ordinary course, the ordinary life?� Gudrun sat looking at her hands, flushed. She was pleased that he said, so simply, that she was a remarkable woman. He would not say that to flatter her�he was far too self-opinionated and objective by nature. He said it as he would say a piece of sculpture was remarkable, because he knew it was so. And it gratified her to hear it from him. Other people had such a passion to make everything of one degree, of one pattern. In England it was chic to be perfectly ordinary. And it was a relief to her to be acknowledged extraordinary. Then she need not fret about the common standards. �You see,� she said, �I have no money whatsoever.� �Ach, money!� he cried, lifting his shoulders. �When one is grown up, money is lying about at one�s service. It is only when one is young that it is rare. Take no thought for money�that always lies to hand.� �Does it?� she said, laughing. �Always. The Gerald will give you a sum, if you ask him for it�� She flushed deeply. �I will ask anybody else,� she said, with some difficulty��but not him.� Loerke looked closely at her. �Good,� he said. �Then let it be somebody else. Only don�t go back to that England, that school. No, that is stupid.� Again there was a pause. He was afraid to ask her outright to go with him, he was not even quite sure he wanted her; and she was afraid to be asked. He begrudged his own isolation, was _very_ chary of sharing his life, even for a day. �The only other place I know is Paris,� she said, �and I can�t stand that.� She looked with her wide, steady eyes full at Loerke. He lowered his head and averted his face. �Paris, no!� he said. �Between the _réligion d�amour_, and the latest �ism, and the new turning to Jesus, one had better ride on a carrousel all day. But come to Dresden. I have a studio there�I can give you work,�oh, that would be easy enough. I haven�t seen any of your things, but I believe in you. Come to Dresden�that is a fine town to be in, and as good a life as you can expect of a town. You have everything there, without the foolishness of Paris or the beer of Munich.� He sat and looked at her, coldly. What she liked about him was that he spoke to her simple and flat, as to himself. He was a fellow craftsman, a fellow being to her, first. �No�Paris,� he resumed, �it makes me sick. Pah�_l�amour_. I detest it. _L�amour, l�amore, die Liebe_�I detest it in every language. Women and love, there is no greater tedium,� he cried. She was slightly offended. And yet, this was her own basic feeling. Men, and love�there was no greater tedium. �I think the same,� she said. �A bore,� he repeated. �What does it matter whether I wear this hat or another. So love. I needn�t wear a hat at all, only for convenience. Neither need I love except for convenience. I tell you what, _gnädige Frau_�� and he leaned towards her�then he made a quick, odd gesture, as of striking something aside��_gnädige Fräulein_, never mind�I tell you what, I would give everything, everything, all your love, for a little companionship in intelligence�� his eyes flickered darkly, evilly at her. �You understand?� he asked, with a faint smile. �It wouldn�t matter if she were a hundred years old, a thousand�it would be all the same to me, so that she can _understand_.� He shut his eyes with a little snap. Again Gudrun was rather offended. Did he not think her good looking, then? Suddenly she laughed. �I shall have to wait about eighty years to suit you, at that!� she said. �I am ugly enough, aren�t I?� He looked at her with an artist�s sudden, critical, estimating eye. �You are beautiful,� he said, �and I am glad of it. But it isn�t that�it isn�t that,� he cried, with emphasis that flattered her. �It is that you have a certain wit, it is the kind of understanding. For me, I am little, _chétif_, insignificant. Good! Do not ask me to be strong and handsome, then. But it is the _me_�� he put his fingers to his mouth, oddly��it is the _me_ that is looking for a mistress, and my _me_ is waiting for the _thee_ of the mistress, for the match to my particular intelligence. You understand?� �Yes,� she said, �I understand.� �As for the other, this _amour_�� he made a gesture, dashing his hand aside, as if to dash away something troublesome��it is unimportant, unimportant. Does it matter, whether I drink white wine this evening, or whether I drink nothing? It _does not matter_, it does not matter. So this love, this _amour_, this _baiser_. Yes or no, _soit ou soit pas_, today, tomorrow, or never, it is all the same, it does not matter�no more than the white wine.� He ended with an odd dropping of the head in a desperate negation. Gudrun watched him steadily. She had gone pale. Suddenly she stretched over and seized his hand in her own. �That is true,� she said, in rather a high, vehement voice, �that is true for me too. It is the understanding that matters.� He looked up at her almost frightened, furtive. Then he nodded, a little sullenly. She let go his hand: he had made not the lightest response. And they sat in silence. �Do you know,� he said, suddenly looking at her with dark, self-important, prophetic eyes, �your fate and mine, they will run together, till�� and he broke off in a little grimace. �Till when?� she asked, blanched, her lips going white. She was terribly susceptible to these evil prognostications, but he only shook his head. �I don�t know,� he said, �I don�t know.� Gerald did not come in from his skiing until nightfall, he missed the coffee and cake that she took at four o�clock. The snow was in perfect condition, he had travelled a long way, by himself, among the snow ridges, on his skis, he had climbed high, so high that he could see over the top of the pass, five miles distant, could see the Marienhütte, the hostel on the crest of the pass, half buried in snow, and over into the deep valley beyond, to the dusk of the pine trees. One could go that way home; but he shuddered with nausea at the thought of home;�one could travel on skis down there, and come to the old imperial road, below the pass. But why come to any road? He revolted at the thought of finding himself in the world again. He must stay up there in the snow forever. He had been happy by himself, high up there alone, travelling swiftly on skis, taking far flights, and skimming past the dark rocks veined with brilliant snow. But he felt something icy gathering at his heart. This strange mood of patience and innocence which had persisted in him for some days, was passing away, he would be left again a prey to the horrible passions and tortures. So he came down reluctantly, snow-burned, snow-estranged, to the house in the hollow, between the knuckles of the mountain tops. He saw its lights shining yellow, and he held back, wishing he need not go in, to confront those people, to hear the turmoil of voices and to feel the confusion of other presences. He was isolated as if there were a vacuum round his heart, or a sheath of pure ice. The moment he saw Gudrun something jolted in his soul. She was looking rather lofty and superb, smiling slowly and graciously to the Germans. A sudden desire leapt in his heart, to kill her. He thought, what a perfect voluptuous fulfilment it would be, to kill her. His mind was absent all the evening, estranged by the snow and his passion. But he kept the idea constant within him, what a perfect voluptuous consummation it would be to strangle her, to strangle every spark of life out of her, till she lay completely inert, soft, relaxed for ever, a soft heap lying dead between his hands, utterly dead. Then he would have had her finally and for ever; there would be such a perfect voluptuous finality. Gudrun was unaware of what he was feeling, he seemed so quiet and amiable, as usual. His amiability even made her feel brutal towards him. She went into his room when he was partially undressed. She did not notice the curious, glad gleam of pure hatred, with which he looked at her. She stood near the door, with her hand behind her. �I have been thinking, Gerald,� she said, with an insulting nonchalance, �that I shall not go back to England.� �Oh,� he said, �where will you go then?� But she ignored his question. She had her own logical statement to make, and it must be made as she had thought it. �I can�t see the use of going back,� she continued. �It is over between me and you�� She paused for him to speak. But he said nothing. He was only talking to himself, saying �Over, is it? I believe it is over. But it isn�t finished. Remember, it isn�t finished. We must put some sort of a finish on it. There must be a conclusion, there must be finality.� So he talked to himself, but aloud he said nothing whatever. �What has been, has been,� she continued. �There is nothing that I regret. I hope you regret nothing�� She waited for him to speak. �Oh, I regret nothing,� he said, accommodatingly. �Good then,� she answered, �good then. Then neither of us cherishes any regrets, which is as it should be.� �Quite as it should be,� he said aimlessly. She paused to gather up her thread again. �Our attempt has been a failure,� she said. �But we can try again, elsewhere.� A little flicker of rage ran through his blood. It was as if she were rousing him, goading him. Why must she do it? �Attempt at what?� he asked. �At being lovers, I suppose,� she said, a little baffled, yet so trivial she made it all seem. �Our attempt at being lovers has been a failure?� he repeated aloud. To himself he was saying, �I ought to kill her here. There is only this left, for me to kill her.� A heavy, overcharged desire to bring about her death possessed him. She was unaware. �Hasn�t it?� she asked. �Do you think it has been a success?� Again the insult of the flippant question ran through his blood like a current of fire. �It had some of the elements of success, our relationship,� he replied. �It�might have come off.� But he paused before concluding the last phrase. Even as he began the sentence, he did not believe in what he was going to say. He knew it never could have been a success. �No,� she replied. �You cannot love.� �And you?� he asked. Her wide, dark-filled eyes were fixed on him, like two moons of darkness. �I couldn�t love _you_,� she said, with stark cold truth. A blinding flash went over his brain, his body jolted. His heart had burst into flame. His consciousness was gone into his wrists, into his hands. He was one blind, incontinent desire, to kill her. His wrists were bursting, there would be no satisfaction till his hands had closed on her. But even before his body swerved forward on her, a sudden, cunning comprehension was expressed on her face, and in a flash she was out of the door. She ran in one flash to her room and locked herself in. She was afraid, but confident. She knew her life trembled on the edge of an abyss. But she was curiously sure of her footing. She knew her cunning could outwit him. She trembled, as she stood in her room, with excitement and awful exhilaration. She knew she could outwit him. She could depend on her presence of mind, and on her wits. But it was a fight to the death, she knew it now. One slip, and she was lost. She had a strange, tense, exhilarated sickness in her body, as one who is in peril of falling from a great height, but who does not look down, does not admit the fear. �I will go away the day after tomorrow,� she said. She only did not want Gerald to think that she was afraid of him, that she was running away because she was afraid of him. She was not afraid of him, fundamentally. She knew it was her safeguard to avoid his physical violence. But even physically she was not afraid of him. She wanted to prove it to him. When she had proved it, that, whatever he was, she was not afraid of him; when she had proved _that_, she could leave him forever. But meanwhile the fight between them, terrible as she knew it to be, was inconclusive. And she wanted to be confident in herself. However many terrors she might have, she would be unafraid, uncowed by him. He could never cow her, nor dominate her, nor have any right over her; this she would maintain until she had proved it. Once it was proved, she was free of him forever. But she had not proved it yet, neither to him nor to herself. And this was what still bound her to him. She was bound to him, she could not live beyond him. She sat up in bed, closely wrapped up, for many hours, thinking endlessly to herself. It was as if she would never have done weaving the great provision of her thoughts. �It isn�t as if he really loved me,� she said to herself. �He doesn�t. Every woman he comes across he wants to make her in love with him. He doesn�t even know that he is doing it. But there he is, before every woman he unfurls his male attractiveness, displays his great desirability, he tries to make every woman think how wonderful it would be to have him for a lover. His very ignoring of the women is part of the game. He is never _unconscious_ of them. He should have been a cockerel, so he could strut before fifty females, all his subjects. But really, his Don Juan does _not_ interest me. I could play Dona Juanita a million times better than he plays Juan. He bores me, you know. His maleness bores me. Nothing is so boring, so inherently stupid and stupidly conceited. Really, the fathomless conceit of these men, it is ridiculous�the little strutters. �They are all alike. Look at Birkin. Built out of the limitation of conceit they are, and nothing else. Really, nothing but their ridiculous limitation and intrinsic insignificance could make them so conceited. �As for Loerke, there is a thousand times more in him than in a Gerald. Gerald is so limited, there is a dead end to him. He would grind on at the old mills forever. And really, there is no corn between the millstones any more. They grind on and on, when there is nothing to grind�saying the same things, believing the same things, acting the same things. Oh, my God, it would wear out the patience of a stone. �I don�t worship Loerke, but at any rate, he is a free individual. He is not stiff with conceit of his own maleness. He is not grinding dutifully at the old mills. Oh God, when I think of Gerald, and his work�those offices at Beldover, and the mines�it makes my heart sick. What _have_ I to do with it�and him thinking he can be a lover to a woman! One might as well ask it of a self-satisfied lamp-post. These men, with their eternal jobs�and their eternal mills of God that keep on grinding at nothing! It is too boring, just boring. However did I come to take him seriously at all! �At least in Dresden, one will have one�s back to it all. And there will be amusing things to do. It will be amusing to go to these eurythmic displays, and the German opera, the German theatre. It _will_ be amusing to take part in German Bohemian life. And Loerke is an artist, he is a free individual. One will escape from so much, that is the chief thing, escape so much hideous boring repetition of vulgar actions, vulgar phrases, vulgar postures. I don�t delude myself that I shall find an elixir of life in Dresden. I know I shan�t. But I shall get away from people who have their own homes and their own children and their own acquaintances and their own this and their own that. I shall be among people who _don�t_ own things and who _haven�t_ got a home and a domestic servant in the background, who haven�t got a standing and a status and a degree and a circle of friends of the same. Oh God, the wheels within wheels of people, it makes one�s head tick like a clock, with a very madness of dead mechanical monotony and meaninglessness. How I _hate_ life, how I hate it. How I hate the Geralds, that they can offer one nothing else. �Shortlands!�Heavens! Think of living there, one week, then the next, and _then the third_� �No, I won�t think of it�it is too much�� And she broke off, really terrified, really unable to bear any more. The thought of the mechanical succession of day following day, day following day, _ad infintum_, was one of the things that made her heart palpitate with a real approach of madness. The terrible bondage of this tick-tack of time, this twitching of the hands of the clock, this eternal repetition of hours and days�oh God, it was too awful to contemplate. And there was no escape from it, no escape. She almost wished Gerald were with her to save her from the terror of her own thoughts. Oh, how she suffered, lying there alone, confronted by the terrible clock, with its eternal tick-tack. All life, all life resolved itself into this: tick-tack, tick-tack, tick-tack; then the striking of the hour; then the tick-tack, tick-tack, and the twitching of the clock-fingers. Gerald could not save her from it. He, his body, his motion, his life�it was the same ticking, the same twitching across the dial, a horrible mechanical twitching forward over the face of the hours. What were his kisses, his embraces. She could hear their tick-tack, tick-tack. Ha�ha�she laughed to herself, so frightened that she was trying to laugh it off�ha�ha, how maddening it was, to be sure, to be sure! Then, with a fleeting self-conscious motion, she wondered if she would be very much surprised, on rising in the morning, to realise that her hair had turned white. She had _felt_ it turning white so often, under the intolerable burden of her thoughts, und her sensations. Yet there it remained, brown as ever, and there she was herself, looking a picture of health. Perhaps she was healthy. Perhaps it was only her unabateable health that left her so exposed to the truth. If she were sickly she would have her illusions, imaginations. As it was, there was no escape. She must always see and know and never escape. She could never escape. There she was, placed before the clock-face of life. And if she turned round as in a railway station, to look at the bookstall, still she could see, with her very spine, she could see the clock, always the great white clock-face. In vain she fluttered the leaves of books, or made statuettes in clay. She knew she was not _really_ reading. She was not _really_ working. She was watching the fingers twitch across the eternal, mechanical, monotonous clock-face of time. She never really lived, she only watched. Indeed, she was like a little, twelve-hour clock, vis-à-vis with the enormous clock of eternity�there she was, like Dignity and Impudence, or Impudence and Dignity. The picture pleased her. Didn�t her face really look like a clock dial�rather roundish and often pale, and impassive. She would have got up to look, in the mirror, but the thought of the sight of her own face, that was like a twelve-hour clock-dial, filled her with such deep terror, that she hastened to think of something else. Oh, why wasn�t somebody kind to her? Why wasn�t there somebody who would take her in their arms, and hold her to their breast, and give her rest, pure, deep, healing rest. Oh, why wasn�t there somebody to take her in their arms and fold her safe and perfect, for sleep. She wanted so much this perfect enfolded sleep. She lay always so unsheathed in sleep. She would lie always unsheathed in sleep, unrelieved, unsaved. Oh, how could she bear it, this endless unrelief, this eternal unrelief. Gerald! Could he fold her in his arms and sheathe her in sleep? Ha! He needed putting to sleep himself�poor Gerald. That was all he needed. What did he do, he made the burden for her greater, the burden of her sleep was the more intolerable, when he was there. He was an added weariness upon her unripening nights, her unfruitful slumbers. Perhaps he got some repose from her. Perhaps he did. Perhaps this was what he was always dogging her for, like a child that is famished, crying for the breast. Perhaps this was the secret of his passion, his forever unquenched desire for her�that he needed her to put him to sleep, to give him repose. What then! Was she his mother? Had she asked for a child, whom she must nurse through the nights, for her lover. She despised him, she despised him, she hardened her heart. An infant crying in the night, this Don Juan. Ooh, but how she hated the infant crying in the night. She would murder it gladly. She would stifle it and bury it, as Hetty Sorrell did. No doubt Hetty Sorrell�s infant cried in the night�no doubt Arthur Donnithorne�s infant would. Ha�the Arthur Donnithornes, the Geralds of this world. So manly by day, yet all the while, such a crying of infants in the night. Let them turn into mechanisms, let them. Let them become instruments, pure machines, pure wills, that work like clock-work, in perpetual repetition. Let them be this, let them be taken up entirely in their work, let them be perfect parts of a great machine, having a slumber of constant repetition. Let Gerald manage his firm. There he would be satisfied, as satisfied as a wheelbarrow that goes backwards and forwards along a plank all day�she had seen it. The wheel-barrow�the one humble wheel�the unit of the firm. Then the cart, with two wheels; then the truck, with four; then the donkey-engine, with eight, then the winding-engine, with sixteen, and so on, till it came to the miner, with a thousand wheels, and then the electrician, with three thousand, and the underground manager, with twenty thousand, and the general manager with a hundred thousand little wheels working away to complete his make-up, and then Gerald, with a million wheels and cogs and axles. Poor Gerald, such a lot of little wheels to his make-up! He was more intricate than a chronometer-watch. But oh heavens, what weariness! What weariness, God above! A chronometer-watch�a beetle�her soul fainted with utter ennui, from the thought. So many wheels to count and consider and calculate! Enough, enough�there was an end to man�s capacity for complications, even. Or perhaps there was no end. Meanwhile Gerald sat in his room, reading. When Gudrun was gone, he was left stupefied with arrested desire. He sat on the side of the bed for an hour, stupefied, little strands of consciousness appearing and reappearing. But he did not move, for a long time he remained inert, his head dropped on his breast. Then he looked up and realised that he was going to bed. He was cold. Soon he was lying down in the dark. But what he could not bear was the darkness. The solid darkness confronting him drove him mad. So he rose, and made a light. He remained seated for a while, staring in front. He did not think of Gudrun, he did not think of anything. Then suddenly he went downstairs for a book. He had all his life been in terror of the nights that should come, when he could not sleep. He knew that this would be too much for him, to have to face nights of sleeplessness and of horrified watching the hours. So he sat for hours in bed, like a statue, reading. His mind, hard and acute, read on rapidly, his body understood nothing. In a state of rigid unconsciousness, he read on through the night, till morning, when, weary and disgusted in spirit, disgusted most of all with himself, he slept for two hours. Then he got up, hard and full of energy. Gudrun scarcely spoke to him, except at coffee when she said: �I shall be leaving tomorrow.� �We will go together as far as Innsbruck, for appearance�s sake?� he asked. �Perhaps,� she said. She said �Perhaps� between the sips of her coffee. And the sound of her taking her breath in the word, was nauseous to him. He rose quickly to be away from her. He went and made arrangements for the departure on the morrow. Then, taking some food, he set out for the day on the skis. Perhaps, he said to the Wirt, he would go up to the Marienhütte, perhaps to the village below. To Gudrun this day was full of a promise like spring. She felt an approaching release, a new fountain of life rising up in her. It gave her pleasure to dawdle through her packing, it gave her pleasure to dip into books, to try on her different garments, to look at herself in the glass. She felt a new lease of life was come upon her, and she was happy like a child, very attractive and beautiful to everybody, with her soft, luxuriant figure, and her happiness. Yet underneath was death itself. In the afternoon she had to go out with Loerke. Her tomorrow was perfectly vague before her. This was what gave her pleasure. She might be going to England with Gerald, she might be going to Dresden with Loerke, she might be going to Munich, to a girl-friend she had there. Anything might come to pass on the morrow. And today was the white, snowy iridescent threshold of all possibility. All possibility�that was the charm to her, the lovely, iridescent, indefinite charm,�pure illusion. All possibility�because death was inevitable, and _nothing_ was possible but death. She did not want things to materialise, to take any definite shape. She wanted, suddenly, at one moment of the journey tomorrow, to be wafted into an utterly new course, by some utterly unforeseen event, or motion. So that, although she wanted to go out with Loerke for the last time into the snow, she did not want to be serious or businesslike. And Loerke was not a serious figure. In his brown velvet cap, that made his head as round as a chestnut, with the brown-velvet flaps loose and wild over his ears, and a wisp of elf-like, thin black hair blowing above his full, elf-like dark eyes, the shiny, transparent brown skin crinkling up into odd grimaces on his small-featured face, he looked an odd little boy-man, a bat. But in his figure, in the greeny loden suit, he looked _chétif_ and puny, still strangely different from the rest. He had taken a little toboggan, for the two of them, and they trudged between the blinding slopes of snow, that burned their now hardening faces, laughing in an endless sequence of quips and jests and polyglot fancies. The fancies were the reality to both of them, they were both so happy, tossing about the little coloured balls of verbal humour and whimsicality. Their natures seemed to sparkle in full interplay, they were enjoying a pure game. And they wanted to keep it on the level of a game, their relationship: _such_ a fine game. Loerke did not take the toboganning very seriously. He put no fire and intensity into it, as Gerald did. Which pleased Gudrun. She was weary, oh so weary of Gerald�s gripped intensity of physical motion. Loerke let the sledge go wildly, and gaily, like a flying leaf, and when, at a bend, he pitched both her and him out into the snow, he only waited for them both to pick themselves up unhurt off the keen white ground, to be laughing and pert as a pixie. She knew he would be making ironical, playful remarks as he wandered in hell�if he were in the humour. And that pleased her immensely. It seemed like a rising above the dreariness of actuality, the monotony of contingencies. They played till the sun went down, in pure amusement, careless and timeless. Then, as the little sledge twirled riskily to rest at the bottom of the slope, �Wait!� he said suddenly, and he produced from somewhere a large thermos flask, a packet of Keks, and a bottle of Schnapps. �Oh Loerke,� she cried. �What an inspiration! What a _comble de joie indeed!_ What is the Schnapps?� He looked at it, and laughed. �_Heidelbeer!_� he said. �No! From the bilberries under the snow. Doesn�t it look as if it were distilled from snow. Can you�� she sniffed, and sniffed at the bottle��can you smell bilberries? Isn�t it wonderful? It is exactly as if one could smell them through the snow.� She stamped her foot lightly on the ground. He kneeled down and whistled, and put his ear to the snow. As he did so his black eyes twinkled up. �Ha! Ha!� she laughed, warmed by the whimsical way in which he mocked at her verbal extravagances. He was always teasing her, mocking her ways. But as he in his mockery was even more absurd than she in her extravagances, what could one do but laugh and feel liberated. She could feel their voices, hers and his, ringing silvery like bells in the frozen, motionless air of the first twilight. How perfect it was, how _very_ perfect it was, this silvery isolation and interplay. She sipped the hot coffee, whose fragrance flew around them like bees murmuring around flowers, in the snowy air, she drank tiny sips of the _Heidelbeerwasser_, she ate the cold, sweet, creamy wafers. How good everything was! How perfect everything tasted and smelled and sounded, here in this utter stillness of snow and falling twilight. �You are going away tomorrow?� his voice came at last. �Yes.� There was a pause, when the evening seemed to rise in its silent, ringing pallor infinitely high, to the infinite which was near at hand. �_Wohin?_� That was the question�_wohin?_ Whither? _Wohin?_ What a lovely word! She _never_ wanted it answered. Let it chime for ever. �I don�t know,� she said, smiling at him. He caught the smile from her. �One never does,� he said. �One never does,� she repeated. There was a silence, wherein he ate biscuits rapidly, as a rabbit eats leaves. �But,� he laughed, �where will you take a ticket to?� �Oh heaven!� she cried. �One must take a ticket.� Here was a blow. She saw herself at the wicket, at the railway station. Then a relieving thought came to her. She breathed freely. �But one needn�t go,� she cried. �Certainly not,� he said. �I mean one needn�t go where one�s ticket says.� That struck him. One might take a ticket, so as not to travel to the destination it indicated. One might break off, and avoid the destination. A point located. That was an idea! �Then take a ticket to London,� he said. �One should never go there.� �Right,� she answered. He poured a little coffee into a tin can. �You won�t tell me where you will go?� he asked. �Really and truly,� she said, �I don�t know. It depends which way the wind blows.� He looked at her quizzically, then he pursed up his lips, like Zephyrus, blowing across the snow. �It goes towards Germany,� he said. �I believe so,� she laughed. Suddenly, they were aware of a vague white figure near them. It was Gerald. Gudrun�s heart leapt in sudden terror, profound terror. She rose to her feet. �They told me where you were,� came Gerald�s voice, like a judgment in the whitish air of twilight. �_Maria!_ You come like a ghost,� exclaimed Loerke. Gerald did not answer. His presence was unnatural and ghostly to them. Loerke shook the flask�then he held it inverted over the snow. Only a few brown drops trickled out. �All gone!� he said. To Gerald, the smallish, odd figure of the German was distinct and objective, as if seen through field glasses. And he disliked the small figure exceedingly, he wanted it removed. Then Loerke rattled the box which held the biscuits. �Biscuits there are still,� he said. And reaching from his seated posture in the sledge, he handed them to Gudrun. She fumbled, and took one. He would have held them to Gerald, but Gerald so definitely did not want to be offered a biscuit, that Loerke, rather vaguely, put the box aside. Then he took up the small bottle, and held it to the light. �Also there is some Schnapps,� he said to himself. Then suddenly, he elevated the battle gallantly in the air, a strange, grotesque figure leaning towards Gudrun, and said: �_Gnädiges Fräulein_,� he said, �_wohl_�� There was a crack, the bottle was flying, Loerke had started back, the three stood quivering in violent emotion. Loerke turned to Gerald, a devilish leer on his bright-skinned face. �Well done!� he said, in a satirical demoniac frenzy. �_C�est le sport, sans doute._� The next instant he was sitting ludicrously in the snow, Gerald�s fist having rung against the side of his head. But Loerke pulled himself together, rose, quivering, looking full at Gerald, his body weak and furtive, but his eyes demoniacal with satire. �_Vive le héros, vive_�� But he flinched, as, in a black flash Gerald�s fist came upon him, banged into the other side of his head, and sent him aside like a broken straw. But Gudrun moved forward. She raised her clenched hand high, and brought it down, with a great downward stroke on to the face and on to the breast of Gerald. A great astonishment burst upon him, as if the air had broken. Wide, wide his soul opened, in wonder, feeling the pain. Then it laughed, turning, with strong hands outstretched, at last to take the apple of his desire. At last he could finish his desire. He took the throat of Gudrun between his hands, that were hard and indomitably powerful. And her throat was beautifully, so beautifully soft, save that, within, he could feel the slippery chords of her life. And this he crushed, this he could crush. What bliss! Oh what bliss, at last, what satisfaction, at last! The pure zest of satisfaction filled his soul. He was watching the unconsciousness come unto her swollen face, watching the eyes roll back. How ugly she was! What a fulfilment, what a satisfaction! How good this was, oh how good it was, what a God-given gratification, at last! He was unconscious of her fighting and struggling. The struggling was her reciprocal lustful passion in this embrace, the more violent it became, the greater the frenzy of delight, till the zenith was reached, the crisis, the struggle was overborne, her movement became softer, appeased. Loerke roused himself on the snow, too dazed and hurt to get up. Only his eyes were conscious. �_Monsieur!_� he said, in his thin, roused voice: �_Quand vous aurez fini_�� A revulsion of contempt and disgust came over Gerald�s soul. The disgust went to the very bottom of him, a nausea. Ah, what was he doing, to what depths was he letting himself go! As if he cared about her enough to kill her, to have her life on his hands! A weakness ran over his body, a terrible relaxing, a thaw, a decay of strength. Without knowing, he had let go his grip, and Gudrun had fallen to her knees. Must he see, must he know? A fearful weakness possessed him, his joints were turned to water. He drifted, as on a wind, veered, and went drifting away. �I didn�t want it, really,� was the last confession of disgust in his soul, as he drifted up the slope, weak, finished, only sheering off unconsciously from any further contact. �I�ve had enough�I want to go to sleep. I�ve had enough.� He was sunk under a sense of nausea. He was weak, but he did not want to rest, he wanted to go on and on, to the end. Never again to stay, till he came to the end, that was all the desire that remained to him. So he drifted on and on, unconscious and weak, not thinking of anything, so long as he could keep in action. The twilight spread a weird, unearthly light overhead, bluish-rose in colour, the cold blue night sank on the snow. In the valley below, behind, in the great bed of snow, were two small figures: Gudrun dropped on her knees, like one executed, and Loerke sitting propped up near her. That was all. Gerald stumbled on up the slope of snow, in the bluish darkness, always climbing, always unconsciously climbing, weary though he was. On his left was a steep slope with black rocks and fallen masses of rock and veins of snow slashing in and about the blackness of rock, veins of snow slashing vaguely in and about the blackness of rock. Yet there was no sound, all this made no noise. To add to his difficulty, a small bright moon shone brilliantly just ahead, on the right, a painful brilliant thing that was always there, unremitting, from which there was no escape. He wanted so to come to the end�he had had enough. Yet he did not sleep. He surged painfully up, sometimes having to cross a slope of black rock, that was blown bare of snow. Here he was afraid of falling, very much afraid of falling. And high up here, on the crest, moved a wind that almost overpowered him with a sleep-heavy iciness. Only it was not here, the end, and he must still go on. His indefinite nausea would not let him stay. Having gained one ridge, he saw the vague shadow of something higher in front. Always higher, always higher. He knew he was following the track towards the summit of the slopes, where was the Marienhütte, and the descent on the other side. But he was not really conscious. He only wanted to go on, to go on whilst he could, to move, to keep going, that was all, to keep going, until it was finished. He had lost all his sense of place. And yet in the remaining instinct of life, his feet sought the track where the skis had gone. He slithered down a sheer snow slope. That frightened him. He had no alpenstock, nothing. But having come safely to rest, he began to walk on, in the illuminated darkness. It was as cold as sleep. He was between two ridges, in a hollow. So he swerved. Should he climb the other ridge, or wander along the hollow? How frail the thread of his being was stretched! He would perhaps climb the ridge. The snow was firm and simple. He went along. There was something standing out of the snow. He approached, with dimmest curiosity. It was a half-buried Crucifix, a little Christ under a little sloping hood, at the top of a pole. He sheered away. Somebody was going to murder him. He had a great dread of being murdered. But it was a dread which stood outside him, like his own ghost. Yet why be afraid? It was bound to happen. To be murdered! He looked round in terror at the snow, the rocking, pale, shadowy slopes of the upper world. He was bound to be murdered, he could see it. This was the moment when the death was uplifted, and there was no escape. Lord Jesus, was it then bound to be�Lord Jesus! He could feel the blow descending, he knew he was murdered. Vaguely wandering forward, his hands lifted as if to feel what would happen, he was waiting for the moment when he would stop, when it would cease. It was not over yet. He had come to the hollow basin of snow, surrounded by sheer slopes and precipices, out of which rose a track that brought one to the top of the mountain. But he wandered unconsciously, till he slipped and fell down, and as he fell something broke in his soul, and immediately he went to sleep. CHAPTER XXXI. EXEUNT When they brought the body home, the next morning, Gudrun was shut up in her room. From her window she saw men coming along with a burden, over the snow. She sat still and let the minutes go by. There came a tap at her door. She opened. There stood a woman, saying softly, oh, far too reverently: �They have found him, madam!� �_Il est mort?_� �Yes�hours ago.� Gudrun did not know what to say. What should she say? What should she feel? What should she do? What did they expect of her? She was coldly at a loss. �Thank you,� she said, and she shut the door of her room. The woman went away mortified. Not a word, not a tear�ha! Gudrun was cold, a cold woman. Gudrun sat on in her room, her face pale and impassive. What was she to do? She could not weep and make a scene. She could not alter herself. She sat motionless, hiding from people. Her one motive was to avoid actual contact with events. She only wrote out a long telegram to Ursula and Birkin. In the afternoon, however, she rose suddenly to look for Loerke. She glanced with apprehension at the door of the room that had been Gerald�s. Not for worlds would she enter there. She found Loerke sitting alone in the lounge. She went straight up to him. �It isn�t true, is it?� she said. He looked up at her. A small smile of misery twisted his face. He shrugged his shoulders. �True?� he echoed. �We haven�t killed him?� she asked. He disliked her coming to him in such a manner. He raised his shoulders wearily. �It has happened,� he said. She looked at him. He sat crushed and frustrated for the time being, quite as emotionless and barren as herself. My God! this was a barren tragedy, barren, barren. She returned to her room to wait for Ursula and Birkin. She wanted to get away, only to get away. She could not think or feel until she had got away, till she was loosed from this position. The day passed, the next day came. She heard the sledge, saw Ursula and Birkin alight, and she shrank from these also. Ursula came straight up to her. �Gudrun!� she cried, the tears running down her cheeks. And she took her sister in her arms. Gudrun hid her face on Ursula�s shoulder, but still she could not escape the cold devil of irony that froze her soul. �Ha, ha!� she thought, �this is the right behaviour.� But she could not weep, and the sight of her cold, pale, impassive face soon stopped the fountain of Ursula�s tears. In a few moments, the sisters had nothing to say to each other. �Was it very vile to be dragged back here again?� Gudrun asked at length. Ursula looked up in some bewilderment. �I never thought of it,� she said. �I felt a beast, fetching you,� said Gudrun. �But I simply couldn�t see people. That is too much for me.� �Yes,� said Ursula, chilled. Birkin tapped and entered. His face was white and expressionless. She knew he knew. He gave her his hand, saying: �The end of _this_ trip, at any rate.� Gudrun glanced at him, afraid. There was silence between the three of them, nothing to be said. At length Ursula asked in a small voice: �Have you seen him?� He looked back at Ursula with a hard, cold look, and did not trouble to answer. �Have you seen him?� she repeated. �I have,� he said, coldly. Then he looked at Gudrun. �Have you done anything?� he said. �Nothing,� she replied, �nothing.� She shrank in cold disgust from making any statement. �Loerke says that Gerald came to you, when you were sitting on the sledge at the bottom of the Rudelbahn, that you had words, and Gerald walked away. What were the words about? I had better know, so that I can satisfy the authorities, if necessary.� Gudrun looked up at him, white, childlike, mute with trouble. �There weren�t even any words,� she said. �He knocked Loerke down and stunned him, he half strangled me, then he went away.� To herself she was saying: �A pretty little sample of the eternal triangle!� And she turned ironically away, because she knew that the fight had been between Gerald and herself and that the presence of the third party was a mere contingency�an inevitable contingency perhaps, but a contingency none the less. But let them have it as an example of the eternal triangle, the trinity of hate. It would be simpler for them. Birkin went away, his manner cold and abstracted. But she knew he would do things for her, nevertheless, he would see her through. She smiled slightly to herself, with contempt. Let him do the work, since he was so extremely _good_ at looking after other people. Birkin went again to Gerald. He had loved him. And yet he felt chiefly disgust at the inert body lying there. It was so inert, so coldly dead, a carcase, Birkin�s bowels seemed to turn to ice. He had to stand and look at the frozen dead body that had been Gerald. It was the frozen carcase of a dead male. Birkin remembered a rabbit which he had once found frozen like a board on the snow. It had been rigid like a dried board when he picked it up. And now this was Gerald, stiff as a board, curled up as if for sleep, yet with the horrible hardness somehow evident. It filled him with horror. The room must be made warm, the body must be thawed. The limbs would break like glass or like wood if they had to be straightened. He reached and touched the dead face. And the sharp, heavy bruise of ice bruised his living bowels. He wondered if he himself were freezing too, freezing from the inside. In the short blond moustache the life-breath was frozen into a block of ice, beneath the silent nostrils. And this was Gerald! Again he touched the sharp, almost glittering fair hair of the frozen body. It was icy-cold, hair icy-cold, almost venomous. Birkin�s heart began to freeze. He had loved Gerald. Now he looked at the shapely, strange-coloured face, with the small, fine, pinched nose and the manly cheeks, saw it frozen like an ice-pebble�yet he had loved it. What was one to think or feel? His brain was beginning to freeze, his blood was turning to ice-water. So cold, so cold, a heavy, bruising cold pressing on his arms from outside, and a heavier cold congealing within him, in his heart and in his bowels. He went over the snow slopes, to see where the death had been. At last he came to the great shallow among the precipices and slopes, near the summit of the pass. It was a grey day, the third day of greyness and stillness. All was white, icy, pallid, save for the scoring of black rocks that jutted like roots sometimes, and sometimes were in naked faces. In the distance a slope sheered down from a peak, with many black rock-slides. It was like a shallow pot lying among the stone and snow of the upper world. In this pot Gerald had gone to sleep. At the far end, the guides had driven iron stakes deep into the snow-wall, so that, by means of the great rope attached, they could haul themselves up the massive snow-front, out on to the jagged summit of the pass, naked to heaven, where the Marienhütte hid among the naked rocks. Round about, spiked, slashed snow-peaks pricked the heaven. Gerald might have found this rope. He might have hauled himself up to the crest. He might have heard the dogs in the Marienhütte, and found shelter. He might have gone on, down the steep, steep fall of the south-side, down into the dark valley with its pines, on to the great Imperial road leading south to Italy. He might! And what then? The Imperial road! The south? Italy? What then? Was it a way out? It was only a way in again. Birkin stood high in the painful air, looking at the peaks, and the way south. Was it any good going south, to Italy? Down the old, old Imperial road? He turned away. Either the heart would break, or cease to care. Best cease to care. Whatever the mystery which has brought forth man and the universe, it is a non-human mystery, it has its own great ends, man is not the criterion. Best leave it all to the vast, creative, non-human mystery. Best strive with oneself only, not with the universe. �God cannot do without man.� It was a saying of some great French religious teacher. But surely this is false. God can do without man. God could do without the ichthyosauri and the mastodon. These monsters failed creatively to develop, so God, the creative mystery, dispensed with them. In the same way the mystery could dispense with man, should he too fail creatively to change and develop. The eternal creative mystery could dispose of man, and replace him with a finer created being. Just as the horse has taken the place of the mastodon. It was very consoling to Birkin, to think this. If humanity ran into a _cul de sac_ and expended itself, the timeless creative mystery would bring forth some other being, finer, more wonderful, some new, more lovely race, to carry on the embodiment of creation. The game was never up. The mystery of creation was fathomless, infallible, inexhaustible, forever. Races came and went, species passed away, but ever new species arose, more lovely, or equally lovely, always surpassing wonder. The fountain-head was incorruptible and unsearchable. It had no limits. It could bring forth miracles, create utter new races and new species, in its own hour, new forms of consciousness, new forms of body, new units of being. To be man was as nothing compared to the possibilities of the creative mystery. To have one�s pulse beating direct from the mystery, this was perfection, unutterable satisfaction. Human or inhuman mattered nothing. The perfect pulse throbbed with indescribable being, miraculous unborn species. Birkin went home again to Gerald. He went into the room, and sat down on the bed. Dead, dead and cold! Imperial Caesar dead, and turned to clay Would stop a hole to keep the wind away. There was no response from that which had been Gerald. Strange, congealed, icy substance�no more. No more! Terribly weary, Birkin went away, about the day�s business. He did it all quietly, without bother. To rant, to rave, to be tragic, to make situations�it was all too late. Best be quiet, and bear one�s soul in patience and in fullness. But when he went in again, at evening, to look at Gerald between the candles, because of his heart�s hunger, suddenly his heart contracted, his own candle all but fell from his hand, as, with a strange whimpering cry, the tears broke out. He sat down in a chair, shaken by a sudden access. Ursula who had followed him, recoiled aghast from him, as he sat with sunken head and body convulsively shaken, making a strange, horrible sound of tears. �I didn�t want it to be like this�I didn�t want it to be like this,� he cried to himself. Ursula could but think of the Kaiser�s: �_Ich habe es nicht gewollt._� She looked almost with horror on Birkin. Suddenly he was silent. But he sat with his head dropped, to hide his face. Then furtively he wiped his face with his fingers. Then suddenly he lifted his head, and looked straight at Ursula, with dark, almost vengeful eyes. �He should have loved me,� he said. �I offered him.� She, afraid, white, with mute lips answered: �What difference would it have made!� �It would!� he said. �It would.� He forgot her, and turned to look at Gerald. With head oddly lifted, like a man who draws his head back from an insult, half haughtily, he watched the cold, mute, material face. It had a bluish cast. It sent a shaft like ice through the heart of the living man. Cold, mute, material! Birkin remembered how once Gerald had clutched his hand, with a warm, momentaneous grip of final love. For one second�then let go again, let go for ever. If he had kept true to that clasp, death would not have mattered. Those who die, and dying still can love, still believe, do not die. They live still in the beloved. Gerald might still have been living in the spirit with Birkin, even after death. He might have lived with his friend, a further life. But now he was dead, like clay, like bluish, corruptible ice. Birkin looked at the pale fingers, the inert mass. He remembered a dead stallion he had seen: a dead mass of maleness, repugnant. He remembered also the beautiful face of one whom he had loved, and who had died still having the faith to yield to the mystery. That dead face was beautiful, no one could call it cold, mute, material. No one could remember it without gaining faith in the mystery, without the soul�s warming with new, deep life-trust. And Gerald! The denier! He left the heart cold, frozen, hardly able to beat. Gerald�s father had looked wistful, to break the heart: but not this last terrible look of cold, mute Matter. Birkin watched and watched. Ursula stood aside watching the living man stare at the frozen face of the dead man. Both faces were unmoved and unmoving. The candle-flames flickered in the frozen air, in the intense silence. �Haven�t you seen enough?� she said. He got up. �It�s a bitter thing to me,� he said. �What�that he�s dead?� she said. His eyes just met hers. He did not answer. �You�ve got me,� she said. He smiled and kissed her. �If I die,� he said, �you�ll know I haven�t left you.� �And me?� she cried. �And you won�t have left me,� he said. �We shan�t have any need to despair, in death.� She took hold of his hand. �But need you despair over Gerald?� she said. �Yes,� he answered. They went away. Gerald was taken to England, to be buried. Birkin and Ursula accompanied the body, along with one of Gerald�s brothers. It was the Crich brothers and sisters who insisted on the burial in England. Birkin wanted to leave the dead man in the Alps, near the snow. But the family was strident, loudly insistent. Gudrun went to Dresden. She wrote no particulars of herself. Ursula stayed at the Mill with Birkin for a week or two. They were both very quiet. �Did you need Gerald?� she asked one evening. �Yes,� he said. �Aren�t I enough for you?� she asked. �No,� he said. �You are enough for me, as far as a woman is concerned. You are all women to me. But I wanted a man friend, as eternal as you and I are eternal.� �Why aren�t I enough?� she said. �You are enough for me. I don�t want anybody else but you. Why isn�t it the same with you?� �Having you, I can live all my life without anybody else, any other sheer intimacy. But to make it complete, really happy, I wanted eternal union with a man too: another kind of love,� he said. �I don�t believe it,� she said. �It�s an obstinacy, a theory, a perversity.� �Well�� he said. �You can�t have two kinds of love. Why should you!� It seems as if I can�t,� he said. �Yet I wanted it.� �You can�t have it, because it�s false, impossible,� she said. �I don�t believe that,� he answered.