THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 GOING DOWN. Page 34.
 
 DOWN IN A MINE; 
 
 BY THE AUTHOR OF 
 
 "THE STORY OF A POCKET BIBLE.' 
 
 PUBLISHED BY THE 
 
 AMERICAN TRACT SOCIETY, 
 
 28 CORNHILL, BOSTON.
 
 F 
 
 NOTE. 
 
 THIS book is a reprint from the RELIGIOUS TRACT 
 SOCIETY of London. It will interest our young Amer- 
 ican readers, as giving them some knowledge of the 
 occupations and dangers of the mining classes of Eng- 
 land ; while it presents, in a simple and affecting man- 
 ner, the value of religion in times of trouble, and the 
 importance of & due preparation for eternity. Both 
 the narratives contained in it are understood to be true 
 histories of actual events. 
 
 W. 
 (3) 
 
 c "~ *~J 
 
 4.82:652 
 
 LIBRARY
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 PAKT FIKST. 
 
 CHAP. PAGE. 
 
 I. PETER MORRISON'S HOME, 7 
 
 II. PETER'S SUNDAY SCHOOL,. . 2) 
 
 III. THE COAL MINES, 33 
 
 IV. THE " CRUSH," . 49 
 
 V. BURIED ALIVE, 65 
 
 VI. HOW THEY PASSED THE TIME, 84 
 
 VII. HOPE AND FEAR, 97 
 
 VIII. RESCUED! 112 
 
 PART SECOND. 
 
 I. THE HARTLEY NEW PIT, 123 
 
 II. THE DISASTER, 135 
 
 III. CLEARING THE SHAFT, 143 
 
 IV. THE SABBATH, 150 
 
 V. THE WORK CONTINUED, 157 
 
 VI. THE NEW BRATTICE, 168 
 
 VII. SORROW AND CONSOLATION, 174 
 
 VIII. LAST MOMENTS IN THE MINE, 181 
 
 (5)
 
 DOWN IN A MINE; 
 
 OB, 
 
 BURIED ALIVE. 
 
 PART FIRST. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 PETEE MORRISON'S HOME. 
 
 IT is not a very pleasant coun .y where 
 Peter Morrison lived when he was a boy; 
 there are not many green fields, and trees, 
 and hedge-rows to be seen ; and the houses 
 look neglected and dirty. Every thing seems 
 black and disagreeable to those who are not 
 accustomed to the scene. The roads are al- 
 most black : great hills of black cinders are 
 heaped up in all directions for miles and 
 miles ; the very streams you pass seem to be 
 flowing with black water ; and even the birds 
 
 (7)
 
 8 DOWN IN A MINK. 
 
 which fly about in the air (there are not 
 many of them, and they are mostly sparrows) 
 have a black, smoky, melancholy look. 
 
 If you were to travel through this country 
 on any working day in the week, you would 
 see thick smoke rising from black-looking fur- 
 naces, and spreading above and around, so as 
 to darken the sky; but not many people 
 would be visible, and those whom you might 
 meet would have a strange, blackened look 
 about them. You would probably pass clus- 
 ters of black-looking ruins, which were once 
 cottages of working men, but which have 
 been deserted long ago ; and you might well 
 wonder at the desolate appearance of every 
 thing around you. 
 
 If you were to travel through this country 
 by night, you would be startled, perhaps, by 
 seeing large, blazing fires in every direction, 
 appearing to rise out of the ground in huge 
 flames. And either by night or by day, the 
 young traveler would very naturally be glad 
 to get away as soon as possible from so dreary 
 a scene.
 
 PETEll MulilUSOX's HOME. 9 
 
 But, tliough every thing looks so black and 
 dismal, the part of England I have described 
 is very important to the whole country, and 
 the people who live in it are useful and indus- 
 trious, and, let us hope, contented and happy 
 also ; though, in some respects, it is a strange 
 life that they lead : but I shall speak of this 
 in another chapter. 
 
 In one of his beautiful psalms, David has 
 these words : " O Lord, how manifold are thy 
 works : in wisdom hast thou made them ail : 
 the earth is full of thy riches." Ps. civ. 24. 
 This is as true now as when it was first 
 spoken. Indeed, the earth has more riches 
 than had then been discovered. Not only is 
 it capable of growing on its surface all man- 
 ner of fruits, and herbs, and plants, 'suitable 
 for the use of men and animals, but, deep 
 below its surface are great treasures also, r.nd 
 man's industry and skill are employed in 
 drawing forth these treasures. Gold, silve*^. 
 and every other kind of metal, diamonds and 
 other precious stones, are among them. They
 
 10 DOWN IX A MIXE. 
 
 are found by digging into the earth, and 
 thousands of men, in different parts of the 
 \voiid. spend the greater portion of their time 
 in searching for these riches in mines far un- 
 der ground. 
 
 And there is one underground treasure 
 which is more really valuable to man than 
 gold, or silver, or precious stones. This treas- 
 ure is coal / and the part of the country of 
 which I have been speaking is that part in 
 which coal is found. Every child knows how 
 useful coal is. 
 
 At one time, most of the people in England 
 who were employed in getting coal out of 
 the earth were wild, and ignorant, and un- 
 godly. They knew very little about God or 
 his Word ; and though some parts of his 
 works were known to them, they did not 
 understand them as being his. "God was 
 not in all their thoughts." 
 
 The greater part of the time of these coal-
 
 PETER MORRISON'S HOME. 11 
 
 they naturally were glad when they could 
 spend a day out of the coal pits, and feel the 
 fresh breezes and warm sunshine. Sundays, 
 to them, therefore, were doubly pleasant and 
 acceptable. But instead of wisely and piously 
 improving the day which God had blessed, 
 they turned it to unholy purposes to drunk- 
 enness and rioting, to gambling, and other 
 vicious practices, and very often to quarrelling 
 and fighting. Indeed, the colliers' villages 
 had, at this earlier time, so sad a character for 
 wickedness, that few persons cared to enter 
 into or pass through them. 
 
 But there were some good men who pitied 
 the ignorance and wickedness of these poor 
 colliers, and offered many prayers to God for 
 their conversion. They did more than this : 
 they went among them, and preached to them 
 about Jesus Christ, and the way of salvation 
 from the wrath to come. They read the 
 Bible to them, and explained it very simply 
 and affectionately, entreating them to forsake 
 their sins, and to seek for true happiness ancl
 
 12 DOWN IN A MINE. 
 
 eternal life in the only way in which they can 
 be found, namely, by true faith in the Lord 
 Jesus Christ as the Saviour of sinners, leading 
 to obedience to God. 
 
 All this was new to the poor colliers, who 
 were indeed almost like heathens. Some of 
 them mocked, and blasphemed, and perse- 
 cuted those who thus sought to do them 
 good, and would have driven them away from 
 their villages; but there were others, whose 
 hearts were touched by what they heard, and 
 who desired to hear more. Indeed, God was 
 with his servants, who had ventured into 
 these sad, dark parts out of love to the souls 
 of their fellow-men, and he gave great suc- 
 cess to his own Word, which they faithfully 
 preached ; so that, after a time, a very great 
 change was seen in these villages. They no 
 more resounded, as before, with cursing and 
 blasphemy; were no longer notorious for 
 Sabbath-breaking, drunkenness, and idle di- 
 versions. Where once had been only con- 
 fusion and strife, there were peace and love.
 
 PETER MORRISON'S HOME. 13 
 
 Great numbers of the people, both men and 
 women, had become mild in their manners, 
 gentle, and easy to be entreated. And, what 
 was better than this, because it was at the 
 root of it all, many had, by the grace of God, 
 become real Christians had repented of 
 their former sinfulness, and, believing in Jesus, 
 had given themselves up to him, to be saved 
 by him in his own way. 
 
 And thus it is, whenever the gospel of 
 Jesus Christ is received into the hearts of 
 sinners: they become new creatures; old 
 things pass away, and all things become new. 
 This gospel, which brings salvation, teaches 
 us "that, denying ungodliness and worldly 
 lasts, we should live soberly, righteously, and 
 godly, in this present world;" while "looking 
 for that blessed hope, and the glorious ap- 
 pearing of the great God and our Saviour 
 Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us that he 
 might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify 
 unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of 
 good works." Titus iL 11-14
 
 14 DOWN IN A MINE. 
 
 " This remedy did WISDOM find, 
 To heal diseases of the mind ; 
 This sovereign balm, whose virtues can 
 Restore the ruined creature, man. 
 
 41 The gospel bids the dead revive} 
 Sinners obey the voice and live ; 
 Dry bones are raised, and clothed afresh, 
 And hearts of stone are turned to flesh. 
 
 " Where Satan reigned, in shades of night, 
 The gospel strikes a heavenly light ; 
 Our lusts its wondrous power controls, 
 And calms the rage of angry souls." 
 
 Now these verses describe, very correctly, 
 the alteration which was seen in these collier 
 villages after the gospel had been introduced 
 into them. Not that all believed and were 
 converted; but even those who continued 
 hard-hearted and impenitent were, in some 
 measure, ashamed to go to the lengths of open 
 wickedness to which they had once run ; 
 while those whose hearts had been opened to 
 receive the things spoken to them out of the 
 Bible, were concerned and anxious to glorify 
 God their Saviour in all things, and, as the 
 Bible requires, "to show out of a good con- 
 versation their works with meekness of wis-
 
 PETER MORRISON'S HOME. 15 
 
 dom." Jaines iii. 13. They desired also to 
 know more of the love of Christ, and to learn 
 more and more of his will, which was only 
 natural, for their hearts were set upon obtain- 
 ing this best of all knowledge ; so, instead of 
 spending the holy day of rest in profaneness 
 and idleness, they assembled together for the 
 worship of God, and for the purpose of lis- 
 tening to the reading and preaching of his 
 Word ; while, at home, they strove, as much 
 as lay in their power, to train up their chil- 
 dren in the nurture and admonition of the 
 Lord. 
 
 And very affecting, as well as pleasant, it 
 was, to witness the eagerness of so many of 
 these once untaught pitmen, and their fam- 
 ilies, to obtain instruction; and to hear the 
 tongues which had been so familiar with 
 oaths, and curses, and corrupt communica- 
 tions, and vile songs, now engaged in prayer 
 to God, and singing his praises. I think (do 
 not you think so too, young reader?) that 
 this was a sight with which the angels of
 
 16 DOWN IN A MINE. 
 
 God were delighted ; for we are told by the 
 Lord Jesus Christ himself that " there is joy 
 in the presence of the angels of God over one 
 sinner that repenteth." Luke xv. 10. 
 
 Well, many years passed away, and those 
 who first preached the gospel, as well as most 
 of those who first heard it preached in these 
 dark villages, were no longer among the liv- 
 ing. But the gospel was not dead. Oh, no : 
 that can never be ; and the fruits of the faith- 
 ful preaching of the gospel remained. Among 
 the poor colliers were many who were " rich 
 in faith, and heirs of the kingdom which God 
 has promised to them that love him." James 
 ii. 5. Sundays were days of refreshment to 
 their souls, as well as of rest to their bodies, 
 wearied with the hard labor of the week ; the 
 high praises of God were heard in the assem- 
 blies of his people, and Sunday schools were 
 to be found, where the children of these hard- 
 working pitmen were taught to read the 
 Holy Scriptures. 
 
 Now I have to tell you a little about Peter
 
 PETER MORRISON'S HOME. 17 
 
 Morrison, his home, his mother, and the way 
 in which he spent the first day of the week 
 of my story. First I must say, however, that 
 not all the pitmen and their families were 
 obedient to God's holy commands, or were 
 disposed to imitate their pious fellow-workmen 
 and neighbors. It was there as it is in other 
 villages and hamlets there were many who 
 preferred remaining in vice and ignorance, 
 their foolish hearts being darkened, and their 
 lives showing that they loved darkness rather 
 than the heavenly light of divine truth, and 
 the slavery of sin than the happy service 
 of God. 
 
 The mother of Peter Morrison was not one 
 of these: she was a pious woman, and al- 
 though not very learned, she could read the 
 Bible, and she loved it. She was a poor 
 widow ; her husband had died some years 
 before, leaving in her charge Peter, who was 
 then about five years old, and a little girl, still 
 younger. 
 
 Bur", though thus left in sorrow, the widow 
 2
 
 18 DOWN IN A MINE. 
 
 was not forsaken by God, who raised up 
 friends to help her. And as she was indus- 
 trious and strong, she maintained herself and 
 her two fatherless children in comfort, until 
 Peter was able to work. This was when he 
 was not more than nine years old ; and his 
 work, like that of all the men and boys about 
 him, was a long way under ground " down 
 in a mine." 
 
 The home in which Peter and his mother 
 and sister lived was one of a row of mean- 
 looking cottages, in a large village, built near 
 a coal mine. It was not very inviting in ap- 
 pearance. Indeed, the entire village would 
 have seemed singularly uncomfortable to any 
 person who had not been accustomed to that 
 part of the country, at the time of which I 
 am writing. The street or road between the 
 rows of houses was unpaved and undrained ; 
 there were no pretty flower gardens in front 
 of the cottages, and very few gardens of any 
 sort attached to them. Where they might 
 have been were heaps of dust and rubbish,
 
 PETEE MORRISON'S HOME. 19 
 
 cinders and coal, very few of the cottagers 
 having any taste for rural employments and 
 enjoyments. 
 
 The widow Morrison's cottage was, in this 
 respect, like those of her neighbors, neglected 
 and dirty in its outward appearance ; for she, 
 like them, had always been used to this state 
 of things, and understood veiy little about 
 the superior comforts which might, perhaps, 
 have been obtained by a little labor and skill, 
 properly directed. 
 
 But the cottage was not destitute of com- 
 fort either. It had two rooms, besides a loft 
 above them. In one of the rooms, which was 
 the living room, were two good tables, one 
 of them bright mahogany ; a set of chairs, 
 strong and well polished ; an upright clock, a 
 little bureau, and a dresser, well furnished 
 with earthen ware and japanned tea trays. 
 In the other room, which was Mrs. Morrison's 
 and Mary's sleeping room, was a good four- 
 post bedstead, with plenty of comfortable 
 bedding ; also a large mahogany chest of
 
 20 DOWN IN A MINE. 
 
 drawers, and a pretty little dressing table and 
 looking-glass. The floor was neatly carpeted, 
 and even the loft above, which was Peter's 
 bed chamberj had -a good many comfortable 
 contrivances, and, like the rest of the cottage 
 inside, was always neat and clean. 
 
 I must not forget to add, that, in the living 
 room was a little set of book shelves, contain- 
 ing an old, well-worn pocket Bible, which had 
 belonged to Peter's father, and which was 
 looked upon with much reverence by the 
 widow and her children, a hymn book or two, 
 a copy of the Pilgrim's Progress, and a few 
 other books of a like sort ; and besides these, 
 on the mahogany table lay a well-bound, 
 large family Bible, with a good many pic- 
 tures in it. 
 
 Thus far, then, I have described Peter Mor- 
 rison's home, when he was about thirteen or 
 fourteen years of age ; and now I have to tell 
 how he spent Ms Sunday.
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 PETER'S SUNDAY SCHOOL. 
 
 IT was six o'clock ; and the sun, not long 
 risen, darted a bright beam or two in at 
 Peter's casement, just as he opened his eyes 
 for the first time. In a moment he had 
 sprung out of bed, almost in a fright, for he 
 did not remember, on first waking, what day 
 it was that had dawned upon him ; and his 
 dreamy thought was, that he had overslept 
 himself, and should get into trouble on going 
 to his work. But Peter very soon recalled to 
 mind that there was to be no work that day ; 
 and such a feeling of Sabbath happiness 
 spread through his mind as perhaps none 
 experience so strongly as those who work 
 hard, either with hands or head, all other days 
 in the week. 
 
 " I can have another hour or two of it, if I 
 
 (21)
 
 22 DOWN IN A MINE. 
 
 like," thought Peter, and he was about to re- 
 turn to bed, when the hymn came into his 
 mind, 
 
 ' This is the day that Christ arose 
 
 So early from the dead ; 
 Why should I then my eyelids close, 
 And waste my hours in bed ? " 
 
 " And I have had sleep enough, and am not 
 tired," argued the boy ; so, resisting the temp- 
 tation with a little effort, he began to put on 
 his clothes. 
 
 Seven o'clock, and the little household 
 were seated at the breakfast table; and by 
 this time Peter had refreshed his memory by 
 reading over the lessons he had to repeat at 
 the Sunday school. Let us hope, also, that 
 he had not neglected to repeat the morning 
 prayer which he had been taught in earlier 
 childhood by his pious mother, unless, in- 
 deed, he had found words of his own to use 
 instead. 
 
 There was nothing in the appearance of 
 Peter Morrison which would have betrayed
 
 PETEE'S SUNDAY SCHOOL. 23 
 
 his daily employment. He had washed away 
 all the stains of this from his person on the 
 previous night ; and his clean, smart Sunday 
 suit presented a great contrast to the miner's 
 every-day dress. 
 
 When breakfast was finished, the widow 
 and her two children got their Bibles, and 
 read two or three Psalms, verse by verse, in 
 turn. One of these Psalms was the ninety- 
 first. This was a favorite portion of Scrip- 
 ture with Mrs. Morrison, because it speaks of 
 the protection afforded by God to those who 
 put their trust in him. She knew quite well, 
 and Peter knew also, that there are many and 
 great dangers in mining ; and it was a source 
 of great comfort to the poor widow to rest 
 assured, when her only son was deep " down 
 in a mine," and exposed to those dangers, 
 that he was "under the shadow of the Al- 
 mighty." Long before, she had induced Peter 
 to commit this psalm to memory, and the boy 
 had often thought it over, and repeated it to 
 himself; when at his daily work-
 
 24 DOWN IX A MINE. 
 
 When reading was finished, and Mrs. Mor- 
 rison, with her children kneeling by her side, 
 had offered a short morning prayer, it was 
 time for Peter and Mary to start to the Sun- 
 day school, and they accordingly set out on 
 the road. It was a fine morning in early 
 summer, and there was no appearance of de- 
 sertion and desolation in the collier village, 
 for all its inhabitants were above ground. 
 And now might have been seen the difference 
 between those families in which God was 
 honored, and others where there was no fear 
 of him. Those who belonged to the first 
 were preparing, in an orderly and quiet way, 
 for the religious du-ties and pleasures of the 
 Lord's day ; while those who belonged to the 
 other class were either carelessly lounging 
 about, or were getting ready for taking their 
 own pleasure. 
 
 For instance, there were small groups of 
 boys and girls going in one direction, with 
 books in their hands, toward the Sunday 
 school, and passing others, who were pro
 
 PETER'S SUNDAY SCHOOL. 25 
 
 ceeding in other directions, fof play and 
 sport. 
 
 As Peter and Mary were passing by one of 
 these idle parties, a boy, a little older than 
 Peter, called him aside. 
 
 " I want you to come with us, Peter," said 
 he, speaking in the broad dialect of that part 
 of the country, which I shall not try to imi- 
 tate ; " we are going a fine ramble this 
 morning." 
 
 " I would rather not, thank you, Joe," said 
 Peter, stoutly. 
 
 " If I were you, I would not keep going to 
 Sunday school," said Joe. " I should think 
 you have had enough of that. I had when 
 I went." 
 
 " I like it very well," replied Peter. 
 
 " I suppose you like it because you must," 
 rejoined the young tempter. " You go be- 
 cause your mother makes you." 
 
 Peter did not like this : he was rather 
 ashamed of well, well, perhaps not exactly 
 ashamed, but he did not like being reproached
 
 26 DOWN IN A MINE. 
 
 with obedience to his mother. He had ar- 
 rived at an age when some boys especially 
 those who work hard to earn their own living 
 think they ought to begin to do as they 
 please, and not to be under such strict gov- 
 ernment at home ; and, though Peter did not 
 exactly think this, he was a little in danger 
 of falling into the great error, and of forget- 
 ting what the Bible says : " My son, hear 
 the instruction of thy father, and forsake not 
 the law of thy mother ; for they shall be an 
 ornament of grace unto thy head, and chains 
 about thy neck." Peter had, as we have 
 seen, no father now to whose instructions he 
 could listen; but he had a kind and pious 
 mother, and there was no occasion for him to 
 be ashamed of, or to forsake, her law. 
 
 " My mother does not make me go to the 
 Sunday school," said Peter, rather blushingly. 
 
 "Doesn't she, though?" retorted Joseph 
 Saville, with a little scornfumess in his tone. 
 Joe was not an ill-natured boy, and he and 
 Peter had a sort of liking for each other;
 
 PETER'S SUNDAY SCHOOL. 27 
 
 they worked together in the same part of the 
 mine, and this had brought them into com- 
 panionship. It was a great misfortune for 
 Joe that his parents were not Christians. To 
 be sure, they sometimes went to a place of 
 worship, but they were never eager to do 
 this, and they permitted their children to do 
 pretty much as they pleased. Some years 
 before, Joe had gone to the Sunday school, 
 but he got tired of it after a little time, and 
 preferred passing the hours of the Sabbath in 
 idleness and play ; and he could scarcely un- 
 derstand how Peter, or any other boy, could 
 go to a Sunday school of his own accord, and 
 without compulsion. 
 
 " It is too bad," he continued, " to be obliged 
 to spend Sunday as you do, Peter, after being 
 down in the pit all the week long. I wonder 
 what Sundays were made for, if not for such 
 as we to enjoy ourselves in ; such a fine day, 
 too." 
 
 I am sorry to say that Peter was half 
 inclined to listen to his companion. He for-
 
 28 DOWX IX A MINE. 
 
 got, at the moment, how much more real 
 enjoyment he had often experienced in the 
 quiet and orderly duties of the Lord's day, 
 than he believed was to be found in disobey- 
 ing God ; and though he had learned to re- 
 peat the words, " Religion never was designed 
 to make our pleasures less," the truth of them 
 did not at that moment come into his mind. 
 
 Joe Saville saw the advantage he had 
 gained, and he pressed Peter, more and more, 
 to go with him instead of to the Sunday 
 school ; and Peter was on the point of giving 
 way, partly because the summer's morning 
 was really inviting, and partly to prove that 
 he was not afraid of his mother's anger, 
 though he knew that she would be grieved. 
 But at this instant a short text came into his 
 mind ; it was one which he had learned and 
 repeated the Sunday before from a little re- 
 ward ticket : " My son, if sinners entice thee, 
 consent thou not." 
 
 Peter turned very red when he remembered 
 this. "No, no," said he, hastily, "I can not
 
 PETEB'S SUNDAY SCHOOL. '29 
 
 go with you, Joe ; 1 would rather not ; " and, 
 without staying to parley any longer, he 
 hurried away after his sister, and presently 
 reached the school without any further im- 
 pediment. This was a simple incident, and 
 scarcely worth telling, perhaps, except that 
 both Peter Morrison and Joe Saville had it 
 brought very forcibly to their minds by the 
 events of the coming week. 
 
 I might go on to tell particularly how Peter 
 spent the whole of this Sunday; what he 
 learned and what he heard in the school that 
 morning; and how, in the afternoon, he ac- 
 companied his mother and sister to public 
 worship, and heard a sermon preached from 
 the solemn words, " Prepare to meet thy 
 God," (Amos iv. 12), which made a deep im- 
 pression on his mind the more so, because 
 the minister affectionately reminded his hear- 
 ers of the peculiar dangers of their occupa- 
 tion, and the probability that some among 
 them might be hurried into eternity without 
 a moment's warning. Peter knew how true
 
 30 * DOWN IN A MINE. 
 
 this was, and it made him thoughtful; and 
 not him only. 
 
 But I must pass over these particulars, and 
 tell only that, at the close of the day, Peter 
 was not at all sorry that he had not consented 
 to the enticements of Joe Saville. He was 
 refreshed with rest; his mind had been in- 
 structed ; he had heard and learned some 
 things which, if remembered, would be of 
 lasting benefit to him ; he had enjoyed the 
 society of his mother and sister at home ; 
 and in a quiet afternoon walk with them, he 
 had had as much exercise, and free air, and 
 beautiful sunshine, as would serve him, he 
 knew, for pleasant remembrance all the rest 
 of the week, while down in the dark mine. 
 
 Meanwhile, Joe Saville, who had spent the 
 day not only in long and idle roaming with 
 companions, many of them more thoughtless 
 than himself, but also in boisterous sports, 
 returned home at night as wearied as he often 
 had been with a day's labor, and dissatisfied 
 as well.
 
 PETER'S SUNDAY SCHOOL. 31 
 
 lie had had no true pleasure, and he had 
 learned only what would have a tendency to 
 injure his mind. 
 
 It was much the same with the other people 
 of this collier village. Those who had called 
 the Sabbath a delight, the holy of the Lord, 
 honorable, and had honored him by honoring 
 his day, were far happier at its close than 
 those who had been spending the day in seek- 
 ing their own sensual gratifications. It is so 
 always, and every where, and in every class 
 of society. Christians can say, every time 
 Sunday comes round, "This is the day which 
 the Lord hath made ; we will rejoice and be 
 glad in it." Ps. cxviii. 24. And, "I was 
 glad when they said unto me, Let us go into 
 the house of the Lord." Ps. cxxii. 1. And 
 they can add, " How amiable are thy taber- 
 nacles, O Lord of hosts! Blessed are they 
 that dwell in thy house. I had rather be a 
 doorkeeper in the house of my God, than to 
 dwell in the tents of wickedness." Ps. Ixxxiv. 
 1, 4, 10. While, to others, the same day
 
 32 DOWN IN A MINE. 
 
 brings vexation and weariness, and often lays 
 the foundation for future misery. So true is 
 it that 
 
 " A Sabbath well spent 
 
 Brings a week of content, 
 And health for the toils of the morrow ; 
 
 But a Sabbath profaned, 
 
 Whate'er may be gained, 
 IB a certain forerunner of sorrow."
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE COAL MIXES. 
 
 IT was not quite dark, for the moon was 
 high in the heavens; but the sun had not 
 risen, and would not rise for another hour or 
 more, when Peter Morrison dressed himself, 
 and was ready for his day's work. A break- 
 fast hastily eaten, and prepared for him by his 
 mother, who was up before him ; his day's 
 provisions put up in a bag, for him to take 
 down into the mine ; and a few words spoken 
 to him by his mother, and spoken also for him, 
 to God in prayer all this occupied but a 
 short time, and then Peter mixed with a crowd 
 of pitmen and boys who were all hurrying 
 on to the mouth of the mine or coal pit. 
 
 Any one who had only seen these men in 
 their Sunday clothes on the previous day 
 would scarcely have known them again in 
 3 (33) .
 
 34 DOWN IN A MINE. 
 
 their working dresses, made of coarse flannel, 
 and black with coal dust. They knew each 
 other, however; and Peter Morrison soon 
 joined himself to a small party who worked 
 in the same part of the mine with himself: 
 among these was Joe Saville. 
 
 It did not take long to reach the mouth of 
 the pit ; and then began the work of lowering 
 these men and boys into the mine. Let me 
 describe this : or shall I ask some one who 
 has gone down into a coal mine as a visitor to 
 describe it ? I think that will be best. These 
 are pretty nearly his words : 
 
 " How were we to get down ? We saw a 
 great hole in the ground pitchy dark, and 
 above it a windlass, or some kind of machin- 
 ery for lowering and raising great weights. 
 From this hung a chain and at the end of 
 that a large basket. 
 
 "We fixed ourselves in the basket, stand- 
 ing with our hands grasping the chain ; the 
 word was given, and down we glided with a 
 smooth motion into what looked like a well,
 
 THE COAL MINES. 35 
 
 about six feet across and boarded all round. 
 I kept my eyes fixed on the opening above, 
 which seemed to become smaller and smaller, 
 till at a vast depth I was obliged to look 
 down, as my head grew dizzy, and small 
 pieces of coal and drops of water struck with 
 unpleasant force against my face. 
 
 " As we descended lower all became dark- 
 ness ; the noise over our heads grew gradually 
 more indistinct till it died away, and a gloomy 
 silence ensued, broken only occasionally by 
 the grating of the basket against the walls. 
 
 "At length, after a descent of nearly six 
 hundred feet, I heard the voices of men below 
 me, and presently I perceived two dim lights. 
 These were at the High Eye, formerly at the 
 bottom of the shaft, on a level with which is a 
 great extent of the workings. I asked no 
 questions here. ' Steady the basket ! ' cried 
 our guide ; and in a moment we were again 
 in utter darkness. In a quarter of a minute 
 more I heard other voices below me, the bas- 
 ket stopped, and we soon found ourselves on 
 our feet at the bottom."
 
 3b DOWN IN A MINE. 
 
 This is a gentleman's description of how he 
 " went down in a mine," and I suppose none 
 of my young readers feel disposed to envy 
 him his journey in a basket. But use recon- 
 ciles us to many strange things, and Peter 
 Morrison had become so accustomed to this 
 mode of reaching his work, that he thought 
 or cared very little about it. He had not 
 always the convenience of a basket to descend 
 in, however. It was not unusual for him to go 
 down into the mine in another way, such as 
 this : 
 
 "Two men, or boys, are about to descend; 
 they make a loop in the lower end of a rope, 
 and each man thrusts one leg into this loop 
 the two clinging together in a strange sort of 
 perilous brotherhood. The windlass.- to which 
 the rope is attached is then set to work, and 
 the two men are lowered to the bottom of 
 the pit. If the rope should break, or the loop 
 should become unfastened, they would of 
 course be killed by the dreadful fall ; but they 
 give no thought to this.
 
 THE COAL MINES. 37 
 
 " Sometimes there are two ropes in one pit, 
 one ascending and the other descending ; the 
 two human loads meeting each other half way. 
 In some pits there are more couples than one 
 thus clinging to the rope at the same time. 
 
 "Another plan of going down into a coal 
 pit is by means of a large iron tub, which 
 holds eight or ten persons ; " and you may 
 fancy, young reader, what a strong, as well as 
 long rope is required to do this work with 
 safety to the miners. 
 
 Well, it was in one or other of these meth- 
 ods that Peter Morrison and his companions 
 reached the bottom of the mine on the Monday 
 morning of our story. It did not take long; 
 in less than half an hour the ground above 
 was cleared, and work was commenced below. 
 But now that I have described the way down, 
 I must say a little about the mine itself. 
 
 A coal mine is not simply a pit with coal at 
 the bottom of it ; the pit is merely an en- 
 trance, with passages, or galleries, cut out 
 from it in every direction, to a great distance.
 
 38 DOWN IN A MINE. 
 
 These galleries are like the streets of a large 
 town, for they meet and cross each other; and 
 in some large mines there are many miles of 
 them. To the right and left of these galleries 
 are what are called "workings;" these are 
 hollow places, or caves, out of which the coal is 
 dug ; they are narrow, and extend a long dis- 
 tance back, while the spaces between them 
 are left so as to prevent the danger of the roof 
 falling in and crushing the poor miners. 
 
 I must explain also, that, besides the larger 
 galleries, there are passages from one part of 
 a coal mine to another, which are so low that 
 no one can pass through them walking up- 
 right. In getting the coal from these pas- 
 sages the pitmen have to work in a stooping 
 posture, or sometimes lying along on. their 
 backs. This work, you may be sure, is very 
 fatiguing, and dangerous also. 
 
 Through these passages, the coal, when it 
 is obtained, has to be conveyed in small caits, 
 or square wooden tubs, on low wheels, from 
 one part of the mine to another until it has
 
 THE COAL MINES. 39 
 
 reached the bottom of the opening, when it 
 is drawn up by the same machinery which is 
 used for the pitmen themselves. 
 
 One more word about these low passages. 
 It is necessary to keep them constantly closed; 
 and for this purpose they are provided with 
 trap doors. But as these doors require to be 
 frequently opened to allow the carts, or tubs, 
 or corves, as they are called, to pass through, 
 means have to be taken for their immediately 
 closing again. What these means are I shall 
 very soon tell. 
 
 But is it not very dark " down in a mine," 
 so far under ground ? Very dark indeed ; no 
 daylight ever reaches the galleries and pas- 
 sages, and all the work is done by the dim. 
 light of candles and lamps. No wonder, then, 
 that the miners, when released from their oc- 
 cupation, enjoy not only the bright sunshine, 
 but the gloomiest day above, which is cheer- 
 ing and pleasant compared with the thick 
 darkness below. 
 
 And now, having so far described a coal 
 mine, we will go back to Peter Morrison.
 
 40 DOWN IN A MINE. 
 
 I have said that Peter began to work in 
 the mine when he was not more than nine 
 years old; and you may wonder what such a 
 little fellow could do there. Well, first of all, 
 he was a trapper, and this was his employ- 
 ment : He had to sit all day long in a little 
 black hole, scooped out in one of the low, 
 narrow passages just beside a trap door, and 
 all he had to do was to pull the door open 
 with a cord he held in his hand every time he 
 heard a corve rumbling along, and then, the 
 moment it had passed through, to let the door 
 shut again, which it did by its own weight. 
 
 This was not very hard work, perhaps ; but 
 it was extremely tedious, and I am sorry to 
 say that Peter's day's work was very long at 
 this early period of his life. He had to be 
 at his post every morning at four o'clock, sum- 
 mer and winter alike, and he did not leave it 
 till six in the evening, so that he was fourteen 
 hours every day " down in a mine," and never 
 saw daylight except for an hour or two on 
 summer evenings and on Sundays. I am sor-
 
 THE COAL MINES. 41 
 
 ry, too, to add, that not only little boys of nine 
 years old, but little girls even yet younger, 
 were in those days employed as trappers. It 
 was not quite right and proper, I think, to 
 take such little ones " down in a mine," and 
 make them sit in the dark so many hours in a 
 day, though the work might not be in itself 
 hard. Mrs. Morrison thought so too, and her 
 little daughter Mary was kept above ground. 
 Yes, it was tiresome, tedious work, this 
 trapping. The only change Peter could have, 
 while thus employed, was sometimes to slip 
 out into the larger galleries to see, as well as 
 he could, what was going on there; but he 
 did not dare to leave his floor long at a time, 
 for fear of being wanted to open it when he 
 was away. His best amusement was to think 
 over all he had learned at the Sunday school, 
 or from his mother at home, and sometimes 
 to sing to himself the hymns he had com- 
 mitted to memory. But it is no wonder that, 
 do what he might, these early days of his 
 " down in a mine " seemed long and dreary ;
 
 42 DOWN IN A MINE. 
 
 and you may be sure that Peter was not sor- 
 ry when he was said to be strong enough to 
 leave off trapping, and take to hurrying or 
 putting, which is the next employment to 
 which children are put in the mines. 
 
 This employment consists in pushing or 
 dragging the corves along the passages just 
 described. This is hard work, for the corves 
 are heavy when laden with coal, and the pas- 
 sages, as I have said, are so low, that in some 
 parts even boys can not stand upright in them. 
 Indeed, boys could not perform this work at 
 all, if iron rails were not laid down for the 
 wheels to run upon. 
 
 Sometimes a putter has to drag these 
 weights alone; but generally there is one 
 before to pull, and another behind to push. 
 This was how Peter Morrison and Joe Saville 
 h;id come to work together; and in this way 
 they were occupied day after day, conveying 
 the coal from the workings in one part of the 
 mine to another part of it, whence it was 
 drawn up to the mouth of the pit.
 
 THE COAL MIXES. 43 
 
 I shall not dwell upon any of the hardships 
 which Peter had to undergo in this mode' of 
 life, and certainly they were not few; but, 
 whatever they were, he was not dissatisfied 
 with the change from trapping. It was a 
 more active occupation, and he had a com- 
 panion with whom he could now and then 
 exchange a few words. Besides this, it 
 brought him into intercourse with the pitmen 
 at different parts of the mine; and though 
 these men were rough in their manners, they 
 were not unkind to him. Indeed, many of 
 them, as I have said, were pious men, disci- 
 ples of the Lord Jesus Christ ; and the reli- 
 gion of Jesus teaches men to be kind to all, 
 especially to the weak. 
 
 At the time of our story, Peter Morrison 
 was still employed with Joe Saville as a put- 
 ter ; but he was looking forward to being a 
 hewer. Hewing, or coal digging, is man's 
 work, and needs a man's strength. Indeed, 
 the labor of the mines, from first to last, is 
 very fatiguing, and sometimes quite distress-
 
 44 DOWN IN A MINE. 
 
 ing. Those of us who sit by a cheerful coal 
 fire, with many comforts and luxuries around, 
 do not always think of, and many of us do 
 not really know, all the toils of those who 
 provide us with our means of enjoyment. 
 Think, young reader, of the little trapper sit- 
 ting in the dark so many hours every day, 
 with no companions to cheer him ; think of 
 the young putter, pulling or pushing with all 
 his might, heavy loads through dark, narrow 
 passages, deep " down in a mine," until he has 
 accomplished his seven, eight, or ten miles a 
 day, and is so weaiy that, when released from 
 his day's work, he can scarcely crawl from the 
 pit's mouth to his mother's cottage, and some- 
 times falls asleep as he is being drawn up from 
 the mine ; think again of the hewer, creeping 
 often on hands and knees to his work, and 
 obliged to lie on his back as he wields his pick 
 to loosen the coal from its bed ; and think of 
 all these working year after year without any 
 change, and knowing little or nothing of the 
 many beautiful scenes of nature on the surface 
 
 i
 
 THE COAL MINES. 45 
 
 of the earth, and you will be more thankful, 
 perhaps, than you sometimes are, for the bless- 
 ings you are permitted to enjoy, and less dis- 
 posed to repine at what you suppose to be the 
 disadvantages of your lot in life. 
 
 But I would have you think also that the 
 poor pitmen, and the young people who work 
 so hard " down in a mine," are far happier in 
 their souls than you can possibly be, if they 
 love the Lord Jesus Christ and you do not. 
 Ah, many a little .trapper and putter and hard 
 working pitman have known and do know a 
 great deal about that "joy unspeakable and 
 full of glory," which arises from a good hope, 
 through grace, that their sins are pardoned, 
 and that, being washed in the atoning blood 
 of Christ, and made holy by the influences of 
 God's blessed Spirit, they are on the way to 
 heaven. And in the deepest, darkest, dreari- 
 est galleries and passages of a coal mine this 
 song has, I have no doubt, often been sung, 
 not with the lip and tongue only, but from 
 the glad heart :
 
 46 DOWN IN A MINE. 
 
 u Thy shining grace can cheer 
 
 This dungeon where I dwell ; 
 'Tis paradise if thou art here j 
 If thou depart 'tis hell. 
 
 " The smiling of thy face, 
 How amiable they are ! 
 'Tis heaven to rest in thine embrace, 
 And nowhere else but there. 
 
 " Nor earth, nor all the sky, 
 Can one delight afford ; 
 No, not a drop of real joy, 
 Without thy presence, Lord ! 
 
 " To thee my spirits fly 
 
 With infinite desire j 
 And yet how far from thee 1 lie : 
 Dear Jesus, raise ine higher." 
 
 But I must bring this chapter to a close ; so 
 I will only add that the work in the mine 
 went on steadily all day. Peter Morrison and 
 Joseph Saville were employed in dragging and 
 pushing corves of coal from a working at a 
 distant part of the mine, where two pitmen 
 were heaving. They left off labor in the mid- 
 dle of the day, to have their dinner and to 
 rest for an hour ; and then they commenced 
 again. All the light they had was from the 
 dull candles which here and there were burn-
 
 THE COAL MINES. 47 
 
 ing in the galleries and workings, or wherever 
 the pitmen were employed; and they were 
 glad when the time came for them to be drawn 
 up to the mouth of the pit by the same ma- 
 chinery which let them down in the morning. 
 Arrived at home, Peter was ready for his 
 supper; but before he could enjoy this, he 
 took care to wash himself well from the stains 
 of his day's black occupation, and to change 
 his clothes. Indeed, this is a common prac- 
 tice with all who work in coal mines. " Every 
 man or boy, immediately on coming from the 
 pit, has a thorough washing (for the pitmen, 
 to their credit be it said, have the character 
 of being personally clean when not at work, 
 whatever their villages or houses may be), 
 and then either changes his dress, or partakes 
 of a meal, and then goes to bed. The flannel 
 dress, too, in which the pit work is done, has 
 to be subjected pretty frequently to the action 
 of soap and water." 
 
 And so the day's work was over, and Peter
 
 48 DOWN IN A MINE. 
 
 was glad now to take his way to the little 
 loft to enjoy the sweets of repose, and to gain 
 strength for the toils of the morrow. Soon, 
 too, the whole collier village was dark and si- 
 lent ; and if any one had strolled beyond it to 
 look around him, he would have seen nothing 
 but the huge fires, with their overhanging 
 canopy of black smoke, spoken of in our first 
 chapter, and which rose from the waste coal 
 dust consumed near the mouths of the ]>its, 
 and the furnaces which drove the machinery 
 by which the coal was daily raised from the 
 mines.
 
 CHAPTER IV: 
 
 THE "CRUSH." 
 
 BEFORE we enter upon the occurrences of 
 another day, I must say a little about the 
 dangers to which those who work " down in 
 a mine " are continually exposed. 
 
 These dangers are many and fearful. 
 
 There is, for instance, some danger in de- 
 scending into the mine, and in coming up out 
 of it ; for if the long rope or the chain should 
 break, or the machinery go wrong, the result 
 would be instant death to the poor miner. 
 But these accidents do not often happen. 
 The greatest dangers are in the mine itself. 
 
 One of these arises from what is called 
 choke-damp. This is foul air, or gas, which 
 suffocates any one who breathes it ; and then 
 death instantly follows. All coal mines are 
 more or less liable to this destructive gas, and 
 4 <)
 
 50 DOWN IN A MINE 
 
 the way in which this danger is partly pre- 
 vented is by forcing a large supply of fresh 
 air constantly into the mines, and causing it 
 to circulate there, so as to drive before it 
 these deadly vapors, and enable the miners to 
 breathe purer air from the upper world than 
 could otherwise ever be found "down in a 
 mine." 
 
 Another danger arises from what is called 
 fire-damp, which is a kind of gas that takes 
 fire when a flame approaches it, and explodes 
 like gunpowder. Very many dreadful acci- 
 dents have been caused by this gas, and hun- 
 dreds of lives have been lost in these explo- 
 sions. There is, indeed, such constant danger 
 from this source, that it is forbidden to carry 
 a candle, with its flame exposed, into the 
 workings ; and the miners use a lamp inclosed 
 in a lantern of fine wire gauze, through which 
 the flame does not penetrate. This kind of 
 light is called a Davy lamp, from the name of 
 Sir Humphrey Davy, the person who invented 
 it, and many lives have been saved by its use.
 
 THE "CRUSH." 51 
 
 But although the danger has been much les- 
 sened since these lamps were introduced into 
 coal pits, it is not entirely removed. 
 
 Another danger to which the miners are 
 exposed is from floods of water. Some coal 
 pits are more liable to this danger than others. 
 The young reader will understand how acci- 
 dents of this nature happen, if they will bear 
 in mind that the earth beneath us has water 
 springs, and that these must sometimes be cut 
 through in digging for coal. Then, of course, 
 the water bursts out and pours into the mine. 
 This is, in general, got rid of by keeping 
 powerful pumps constantly at work; but if 
 any thing happens so that these pumps get 
 out of order, or from any cause cease drawing 
 the water away, it rapidly increases until the 
 galleries, and passages, and workings are filled 
 up with it. There are also many coal mines 
 which have, for some reason or other, been 
 deserted ; and these, in process of time, be- 
 come filled with water, and sometimes this 
 water makes a passage for itself to a coal pit
 
 52 DOWN IN A MINE. 
 
 in full work, and all at once it rushes in in an 
 overwhelming flood, carrying every thing be- 
 fore it, and drowning all the poor miners who 
 are unhappily at work, before any means can 
 be taken for their rescue. 
 
 These accidents *|re very fearful when they 
 take place ; and by choke-damp, fire-damp, 
 and floods, or inundations, almost half the 
 people of some collier villages have been 
 destroyed in a day, and, indeed, we may say 
 in an instant. You see, therefore, how appro- 
 priate was the text to which Peter Morrison 
 and others had listened on the previous Sun- 
 day, and how much reason the inhabitants of 
 these villages have to think often of what is 
 said in one of the Psalms, because it is so 
 applicable to themselves : " Thou tumest man 
 to destruction, and sayest, Return, ye children 
 of men. . . . Thou earnest them away as with 
 a flood ; they are as a sleep : in the morning 
 they are like grass which groweth up ; in the 
 morning it flourisheth and groweth up ; in the 
 evening it is cut down, and withereth." And
 
 THE "CKUSH." 53 
 
 how wise and suitable is it for them (as, in- 
 deed, it is for all) to adopt the prayer which 
 is to be found in the same Psalm : " So teach 
 us to number our days that we may apply 
 our hearts unto wisdom." See Psalm xc. 
 
 I am happy to say that these accidents in 
 coal mines are not so frequent as they were 
 at one time a long while ago, or even as they 
 were when Peter Morrison was a boy, because 
 many skillful plans have been contrived and 
 adopted for lessening the various dangers to 
 which the miners are exposed. But even 
 now, coal mining is a hazardous employment. 
 
 But I have not yet told all their dangers. 
 There is an accident of a very serious nature, 
 to which all collieries are liable, and which 
 has ruined several. This is called a crush, or 
 a sitt. 
 
 In digging out coal, the hewers are, or 
 should be,, careful to leave thick pillars of it 
 between the workings, to support the roof 
 above ; but when these pillars are left so 
 small as they sometimes are as to yield
 
 54 DOWN IN A MINE. 
 
 under tlie weight, or when the pavement of 
 coal is so soft as to permit the pillars to sink 
 into it, the solid roof breaks and falls in, 
 crushes the pillars to pieces, and closes up a 
 great extent of the workings, or probably the 
 whole pit. 
 
 Sometimes such an accident as this happens 
 without any warning, and then many lives 
 may be lost, either by the roof falling in upon 
 the miners, and crushing them with its dread- 
 ful weight, or by imprisoning them in some 
 distant workings, where they must perish 
 before help can reach them. It was an acci- 
 dent of this nature which happened in the 
 coal pit in which Peter Morrison worked as a 
 
 It was on the Tuesday morning of Our 
 story that, as the pitmen were busily at work, 
 they were alarmed by a noise louder, they 
 thought, than the loudest thunder they had 
 ever heard ; and the next moment every lamp 
 was extinguished, while choking clouds of 
 dust, driven toward them by a powerful gust 
 of air, increased the terror they felt.
 
 THE "CKUSH." 55 
 
 The miners knew what that dreadful noise 
 meant, and as soon as they had breath to 
 speak, they cried out to one another, as they 
 hurried along the galleries toward the en- 
 trance to the pit, that the mine was falling in 
 with a crush. 
 
 Again and again the loud rumbling noise 
 was heard, while the earth seemed to be 
 shaken with it ; and then, from all parts of 
 the mine, came running the hewers, and put- 
 ters, and little trappers, to escape, if possible, 
 the fearful death to which they seemed to be 
 that moment exposed. The men had thrown 
 away their tools, the putters had left their 
 loaded corves in the passages, and the little 
 trappers had forsaken their trap doors, and all 
 had groped their way in the dark toward the 
 larger, more open galleries ; and all continued 
 running from the crush, wherever it might be, 
 bent on self-preservation, if that were possible. 
 
 And it was possible. Terrible as the acci- 
 dent was, it was not so terrible as it might 
 have been ; and presently lights were struck,
 
 56 DOWN IN A MINE. 
 
 and load after load of frightened miners was 
 drawn rapidly to the ground above, until 
 there seemed to be no more to be rescued. 
 
 But when they were all gathered together 
 at the mouth of the mine, and were called 
 over, five, who had gone down that morning 
 into the mine, were found to be missing. 
 These were two hewers, two putters, and one 
 little trapper. 
 
 "James Freeman. Where is he?" "Not 
 here : and his mate, Bill Logan, he is not here 
 either: and Joe Saville and Peter Morrison, 
 they are not here : and Robert Lester, the lit- 
 tle trapper, he is not here." 
 
 This discovery was soon made, and repeated 
 from mouth to mouth ; but even before then, 
 the women and children of the collier village 
 had flocked to the pit's mouth in alarm, for 
 they knew that something fearful had hap- 
 pened, though what it was they did not know. 
 
 And then, when the discovery was made of 
 these missing ones, rose a shriek of distress, 
 repeated again and again such shrieks as I
 
 THE " CRUSH. 75 57 
 
 hope my young readers may never hear 
 shrieks from the wives and little ones of the 
 two lost pitmen, and from the mothers of Jo- 
 seph Saville and Robert Lester, and a cry, 
 very pitiful, from the widow Morrison and 
 her little daughter. And no wonder that 
 these poor creatures all cried out in sore dis- 
 tress; for what could be expected but that 
 these missing ones had been crushed beneath 
 the fallen-in roof of the mine? Indeed, it 
 seemed almost certain that this was the case ; 
 for now that the miners had time to collect 
 themselves, and to think of what had hap- 
 pened, they all agreed that the crush which 
 they had heard was in that part of the mine 
 where these poor companions of theirs were 
 working. 
 
 What was to be done? Do not imagine, 
 young reader, that the pitmen were so heart- 
 less and selfish as to be satisfied with their 
 own safety, when others had apparently per- 
 ished. Indeed, there was yet a hope, though 
 a faint one, that their fellow-workmen and the
 
 58 DOWN IN A MINE. 
 
 boys might be safe, or could yet be saved; 
 and though all had been in a hurry to leave 
 the mine when the crush took place, they 
 were all ready and anxious to go down into it 
 again when there was a reason for it. So the 
 poor wives and mothers were bidden to be of 
 good cheer, for their husbands and children 
 should be rescued if possible; and then a 
 score or more of brave men descended the 
 pit, accompanied by the manager or head man 
 of the mine. 
 
 They soon lighted their candles when they 
 reached the bottom of the pit, and then they 
 proceeded through the galleries for a long 
 distance till they came to the place where the 
 accident had happened.! 
 
 Oh, what a ruin there was! The gallery 
 was filled up and choked with the heavy 
 masses which had fallen in : above, so far as 
 they could see, were overhanging rocks yet 
 threatening to fall, while fragments of coal, 
 and stone, and earth, continued to drop upon 
 the adventurous miners every minute.
 
 THE "CRUSH." 59 
 
 " If was in the workings beyond litre that 
 Freeman and Logan were hewing," whispered 
 a pitman to the manager; he was afraid to 
 speak loud. 
 
 " Is it possible that they have escaped some 
 other way ? " was the thought that very nat- 
 urally arose to the minds of those who were 
 searching; but, after a moment's considera- 
 tion, they knew that this could not be. Either 
 the poor men and boys had been instantly 
 killed by the crush, or, what was almost more 
 dreadful, they were imprisoned in the work- 
 ings or passages beyond blocked in by what 
 had fallen, and surrounded on all sides with 
 solid walls of coal, so as to render escape im- 
 possible. 
 
 It was very shocking to contemplate. They 
 must die die either by suffocation or by 
 starvation. This was the first thought ; but 
 the next thought in the minds of the heroic 
 pitmen was, that if they yet lived they should 
 be rescued, and that, come what might, they 
 would not cease working for the deliverance
 
 60 DOWN IN A MINE. 
 
 of their fellow-workmen, until assured* that 
 their further efforts would be unavailing. 
 
 With this determination, they hastened 
 first to recall the rest of the miners to the 
 spot, and then to arm themselves with proper 
 tools ; and after a few hours, all the men were 
 working as hard as they could work, to clear 
 away the crush from the galleries, or rather, 
 to make fresh galleries through it. The boys 
 and children were left above : they would 
 only have been in the way. 
 
 But oh, w r hat labor it was ! and what risk 
 there was also in this work of humanity ! 
 Every moment, they were in danger of them- 
 selves being crushed by falling masses of rock 
 from above ; they were in danger, too, from 
 the foul air, which might at any moment put 
 an end not only to their exertions, but to 
 their lives. And presently there seemed to 
 be another danger ; for water poured in upon 
 them from above, so that they soon had to 
 work in it up to their knees and higher; and 
 if it continued to rise, they would have to flee
 
 THE "CRUSH." 61 
 
 for their own safety. Oh, it was very fearful 
 to be working away, almost in the dark ; for 
 they dared have no other lights than the dull 
 Davy lamps, which gave, or seemed to give, 
 scarcely any light yes, it was fearful to be 
 working away thus, surrounded by such per- 
 ils, encompassed with so many threatening 
 deaths. 
 
 But the pitmen thought of the men and 
 boys who might, perhaps, be saved, and of the 
 poor women and families in their village who 
 were in such distress about their husbands 
 and sons ; and though bathed in perspira- 
 tion, and ready to faint with fatigue, they 
 worked on. 
 
 Means were taken, too, to lessen the dan- 
 gers to which they were exposed ; the water 
 was pumped away as fast as it ran into the 
 galleries, and by closing up some passages, 
 and opening others, fresh air was admitted 
 into the stifling gallery where the men were 
 at work. Long before the day had closed, 
 the news of the disaster had spread to other
 
 62 DOWN IN A MINE. 
 
 villages and coal pits, and men came flocking 
 from all quarters with offers of help, and 
 ready to risk their own safety in the sacred 
 cause of brotherly love. 
 
 This help was very acceptable, you may be 
 sure, to the poor pitmen who had been so 
 many hours endeavoring to clear away the 
 crush; but still they lingered, so anxious 
 were they to be the deliverers of their fellow- 
 workmen. 
 
 But who could tell whether or not they 
 lived ? They had called again and again, but 
 no answer had been returned to them. They 
 were sorrowfully speaking about this, and had 
 almost made up their minds that, after all, 
 their labor would be in vain, when 
 
 "Hark! Men, men ! silence; leave off your 
 work; listen!" 
 
 Yes, they heard something, they hold- 
 ing their breath the while, and not moving 
 even a finger. The something they heard 
 was not a voice, but a tapping, like the strik- 
 ing of iron against stone or coal : so far off it
 
 THE "CRUSH." 63 
 
 seemed oh, so far of that the sound was 
 very faint ; it could scarcely be heard ; yet it 
 was heard. 
 
 Listen again ! Clink, dink, clink, clink, 
 clink, five times. Now it ceases; now it 
 begins again dink, clink, clink, clink, clink. 
 Now it stops again at five; then it begins 
 again ; five more, then a pause, and then five 
 more. What does it mean ? 
 
 Quick-witted men, these miners, in every 
 thing that relates to their own calling. They 
 understood at once. They could tell, though 
 you and I, reader, could not have told from 
 what direction that sound came ; they could 
 judge its distance, and they guessed what it 
 meant. There were five missing, men and 
 boys; and the five clinks, what should 
 these mean but that all the five are yet safe, 
 and are looking to their comrades, whom they 
 know or believe to be thinking of them, for 
 help and deliverance. 
 
 It was a joyful shout that was raised when 
 this was understood ; then the new comers
 
 64 DOWX IX A MINE. 
 
 set to work with zeal, and when the pitmen 
 who had been laboring all day with so little 
 success were drawn up to the mouth of the 
 pit, they could take with them to the dis- 
 tressed relatives of the missing miners the 
 hope that a few hours would suffice for their 
 restoration to their homes and families.
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 BTJKIED ALIVE. 
 
 WE must now return to Peter Morrison 
 and his companions. I have said that they 
 were at some workings in a distant part of the 
 mine; and they, like the other pitmen and 
 boys, were alarmed by the sudden awful noise 
 caused by the falling in of the mine, and the 
 breaking down of the pillars which supported 
 the roof. Indeed they had greater cause for 
 alarm than the other miners, for the crush was 
 very near to them. 
 
 It happened that when the accident oc- 
 curred Peter and Joseph Saville had just re- 
 turned to the workings with an empty corve. 
 If it had taken place a few minutes sooner or 
 later they would have been killed by the 
 crush, which had begun at an open gallery to 
 which t x hey were Imrrying the coal. It was 
 5 (65) 

 
 66 DOWN IN A MINE. 
 
 a great mercy, therefore, that so far they were 
 safe. 
 
 But the little trapper, Robert, who was 
 left sitting in the passage leading from the 
 workings to the gallery, was he safe too? 
 Yes; in a minute after the first shock, and 
 while the fearful rumblings were still follow- 
 ing one another, the boy ran affrighted to the 
 men for shelter and protection. He was too 
 young to understand what was happening; 
 but he was not the less alarmed. 
 
 So the two men, the two youths, and the 
 child, were all together in that distant work- 
 ing. The feelings of alarm which passed 
 through their minds, who can tell ? You may 
 readily understand that picks and shovels and 
 other tools were thrown aside and forgotten : 
 while the single lamp which continued burn- 
 ing would have shown, in its dull light, terror 
 natural to such an occurrence depicted on 
 each countenance. 
 
 But this terror did not deprive them of all 
 self-possession ; and it was well that the two
 
 BURIED ALIVE. 67 
 
 men had sufficient control over themselves to 
 remain quiet, and also to keep their younger 
 companions by their side, until the repeated 
 shocks had ceased. They knew that some- 
 thing serious was taking place between them 
 and the entrance to the mine ; they guessed 
 also what it was ; and they knew that if they 
 then attempted to escape they would almost 
 certainly be rushing upon their own destruc- 
 tion. They waited patiently, therefore, till 
 every thing appeared to be quiet, and then, 
 very cautiously, one of them entered the nar- 
 row passage which the little trapper had de- 
 serted, and taking the lamp with him, crept 
 along on his hands and knees toward the 
 gallery into which it opened. 
 
 You may fancy what a time of suspense it 
 was while he was gone, and how anxiously 
 those whom he left behind waited his return. 
 It seemed very long ; but presently he made 
 his appearance, and very seriously and solemn- 
 ly he spoke. He had gone through the pas- 
 sage, he said, and had entered into the gallery
 
 68 DOWN IN A MINE. 
 
 a little way, when he found that he could go 
 no further. The gallery was, indeed, quite 
 destroyed by the solid earth and rocks from 
 above falling in. They were BURIED ALIVE ! 
 This he told them in other words, and in a 
 voice so changed from its usual tones, and so 
 husky, as proved how deep and strong his 
 emotions were. 
 
 "I want to go home ; please do let me go 
 home," cried little Robert, in a piteous voice, 
 which, rough as they might be in manner, and 
 hardy as they were, brought tears to the eyes 
 of the two men. 
 
 " Yes, yes," said James Freeman, " you shall 
 go home as soon as we can find a way out 
 of this, my man ; but we must all wait a little 
 while. You boys wait here," he added, " and 
 Logan and I will go together and see what 
 can be done." 
 
 " Please don't leave us in the dark again," 
 prayed the child ; and so another lamp was 
 relighted, and the two men disappeared, creep- 
 ing, as one of them had done before, through 
 the low, narrow passage.
 
 BUKIED ALIVE. . 69 
 
 They were gone longer this time. It is not 
 necessary to describe the situation of the gal- 
 lery into which they made their way ; it is 
 needful only to say that though some part of 
 it which went further back into the mine was 
 uninjured by the crush, there was no way out 
 of it except through the part which was so 
 completely destroyed. How far the crush ex- 
 tended it was impossible for them to guess ; 
 but they saw enough to convince them that 
 they were quite shut in, in that direction. 
 
 But there was another hope. In the con- 
 fusion of the accident the men had quite for- 
 gotten another passage which led from the 
 part of the mine in which they were inclosed 
 to a shaft, or narrow opening, by which air 
 was admitted to the workings; arid when this 
 remembrance crossed their minds they hur- 
 ried back, and lost no time in making trial of 
 this second passage. Alas! that no longer 
 existed : the crush had reached it and de- 
 stroyed it ! 
 
 And by this time all the poor imprisoned
 
 70 DOWN IN A MINE. 
 
 ones began to feel the effects of the closing up 
 of the air passage. They could scarcely 
 breathe; it seemed as though they must be 
 suffocated ; and the two lamps gradually 
 burned more and more feebly. They had 
 almost given themselves up to die that very 
 hour, when the men remembered that the air 
 in the gallery was more free and pure than in 
 the close working / and that they might, at 
 least, prolong their lives by moving into it. To 
 be sure there would be greater danger there 
 if the crush were renewed; but this danger 
 seemed slight compared with the certainty of 
 perishing by instant suffocation. As quickly 
 as they could, therefore, they collected their 
 clothing, which had been thrown off for work, 
 their baskets or bags of provision, their lamps 
 and oil cans, and hastened to this last refuge. 
 It was as they hoped : they could breathe 
 more freely in the gallery ; the lamps burned 
 brighter also ; and I may as well say here, 
 that all the while they remained in the mine 
 they did not suffer much from want of air.
 
 BURIED ALIVE. il 
 
 There was no doubt an opening, though they 
 could not find it, by which the air they had 
 already breathed, and which was no longer 
 capable of supporting life, escaped, and by 
 which fresh air entered their dismal dungeon. 
 Their dismal dungeon ! I am not sure that 
 I ought to use this word. Will the young 
 readers bear in mind one of the verses of the 
 hymn they read a few pages back? 
 
 ' Thy shining grace can cheer 
 
 This dungeon where I dwell ; 
 'Tis paradise if THOU art here ; 
 If Thou depart, 'tis hell." 
 
 I shall show, very soon, how applicable these 
 words were to the endangered pitmen, in 
 their dark prison, " down in a mine." 
 
 The first care of the two hewers, when they 
 all reached the gallery, was to find a place 
 where they might be as secure as possible from 
 any fresh falling in of the roof. There was a 
 working, a sort of cave, we may call it, raised 
 a little above the floor of the gallery, and high 
 enough for the men to stand upright in. It
 
 72 DOWX IX A MINE. 
 
 did not extend far back, for, from some cause 
 or other, it had only been commenced and 
 then left unused. It seemed to be tolerably 
 safe; and here they sheltered themselves 
 while they consulted together what was best 
 to be done. 
 
 I have said that some of the pitmen were 
 pious men. It is true they were, in many re- 
 spects, very unlearned; but they were not 
 ignorant of that best of all knowledge, the 
 way of salvation and happiness by faith in 
 Jesus Christ ; and this more than made up 
 for every ignorance besides. Young reader, 
 bear this in mind, think of it often, and pray 
 for grace to act upon it : No man or child is 
 really and truly ignorant who has learned to 
 read the Bible, who does read it, who believes 
 it, loves it, and obeys it. How can any one 
 be ignorant who is " wise unto salvation " ? 
 And it is of the Holy Scriptures contained in 
 the Bible that we are told, " they are able to 
 make us wise unto salvation, through faith 
 which is in Christ Jesus."
 
 BUKIED ALIVE. 73 
 
 Now the two hewers. Freeman and Logan, 
 were Christian men : they believed the Bible ; 
 they loved the Lord Jesus Christ, and they 
 trusted in him. 
 
 "Well, James, what shall we do next?" 
 asked Logan, when they had placed the three 
 boys in present safety, as they hoped, and 
 were themselves standing at the entrance to 
 the working. 
 
 Freeman shook his head rather mournfully, 
 and looked around him with a feeling of help- 
 lessness ; but he did not speak. His heart 
 was very full ; he was thinking of his wife and 
 children, and of their distress. 
 
 " There is one thing we can do, James," con- 
 tinued the other. 
 
 " Ah, what is that, Will ? " 
 
 " James, you know where it is said, * Call 
 upon me in the day of trouble : I will deliver 
 thee, and thou shalt glorify me/ That is a 
 precious promise, and a great encouragement, 
 I think."
 
 74 DOWN IN A MINE. 
 
 "" You are- right, Will," said Freeman ; " and 
 now we have done all we can to help our- 
 selves, which isn't much, we may look to God 
 to help us;" and the very thought of this 
 cheered his drooping mind not a little. 
 
 " And," said Logan, " we are sure of this, 
 that God is able to deliver us if he sees fit ; 
 and if it pleases him to take us to himself 
 from here, why, you know, James," he 
 added this solemnly and thoughtfully, "it 
 is as near to heaven and glory at the bottom 
 of a coal pit as any where else." 
 
 James knew this. And the two pious col- 
 liers clasped each other's hands in Christian 
 fellowship ; and then, after a short silence, one 
 of them spoke. 
 
 " You boys," he said to Peter and Joe, " and 
 you tender little thing, that ought not to be 
 down here at all by rights, there is not any 
 use in denying that we are in a terrible strait ; 
 and we ought all of us to know it, and be 
 prepared for any thing that may come. Now, 
 we can not do any thing of much value with
 
 BURLED ALIVE. 75 
 
 our hands or heads either ; but we may lo'ok 
 upon it as certain, that if any thing can be 
 done by others to help us, it will be. So we 
 must keep up good heart and courage; and 
 the way to do this is to put our trust in God 
 Almighty more than in man : so let us kneel 
 down and pray to him ; that is the first and 
 best thing for us to do. God heard Jonah 
 when he cried for help out of the fish's belly 
 down at the bottom of the sea, and he can 
 hear us out of this coal mine ; let us pray to 
 him, all." 
 
 They knelt down; sobbing and weeping 
 was poor little Robert, the trapper, and sob- 
 bing and weeping were Peter and Joe ; but 
 the short speech they had heard gave them 
 some encouragement, and they restrained 
 their cries while first one and then the other 
 of the pious pitmen prayed very fervently 
 that God would be pleased to deliver them 
 from the danger and death to which they 
 seemed doomed ; and that whether or not they 
 were thus delivered, they might be prepared
 
 76 DOWN IN A MINE. 
 
 to die, and be saved from everlasting ruin 
 You may be sure, also, that they prayed with 
 much feeling for their poor families, who must 
 be suffering great distress on their account, 
 that God would comfort them, and that, if 
 they should never meet again on earth, they 
 might meet in heaven, through the merits and 
 intercession of the blessed Saviour. They 
 prayed, too, for any other poor miners who 
 might be, perhaps, blocked in at other parts of 
 the mine by the same accident. And, lastly, 
 they asked God to give them strength in their 
 own souls to be'ar with patience their present 
 affliction, and not to murmur, or repine, or 
 charge God foolishly, whatever they might be 
 called to endure. 
 
 There was solemn silence when the men 
 had spoken thus ; and when they all rose from 
 their knees, it was as though the last part of 
 their prayers were already answered, for their 
 spirits rose very much. Even the little trap- 
 per's cries were hushed ; and Peter Morrison 
 felt so sure that help would come, that when
 
 BUBIED ALIVE. 77 
 
 he thought of his widowed mother and his lit- 
 tle sister, he could indulge in a hundred bright 
 fancies of how great their happiness would be 
 when he should be restored to them uninjured. 
 
 But the two men were more sober in their 
 expectations. They knew better than the 
 boys how long it might possibly be before 
 help could reach them, if at all ; and also how 
 likely it was that the crush would extend yet 
 further, and that the roof of the gallery where 
 they were might fall in upon them at any mo- 
 ment. Or, if this should not happen, air might 
 fail them ; or food ah, how were they to 
 live if their imprisonment was to last many 
 days, when neither of them had more provis- 
 ions than were enough for one day ? 
 
 Such considerations as these made Free- 
 man and Logan seriously thoughtful, though 
 they did not lose their trust and confidence in 
 God. 
 
 Three or four hours had now passed away 
 since the accident occurred, and it was time 
 to form some plan for sustaining life as long as
 
 78 DOWN IN A JUNE. 
 
 possible. It was a happy circumstance that 
 all of them, down to the little trapper, had se- 
 cured their food ; and now they sat down to 
 a meal ; but, by the advice of James Freeman, 
 they agreed to eat sparingly. 
 
 " We ought, each of us, to reckon on mak- 
 ing what we have got last three days at the 
 shortest," said he. 
 
 " Three days ! Shall we not get out in less 
 than three days?" said Joe Saville, in dismay. 
 He had shared in Peter's firm expectation of 
 a speedy deliverance ; and no wonder his 
 spirits drooped again when he heard three 
 days spoken of. 
 
 " If it please God, we may be released in a 
 few hours," returned Freeman ; "but it is not 
 likely, and we ought to be prepared for the 
 worst : at any rate we ought to make our food 
 hold out three days, if need should be." 
 
 "We had better club together, and share 
 alike," added the other man, Logan. This 
 was a good suggestion, and it was agreed to 
 directly. But it was disinterested, and gener-
 
 BURIED ALIVE. 79 
 
 ous as well, for Logan's bag of food was 
 much the heaviest. 
 
 "I think we ought to start fair, though," 
 said Freeman. " Now, I had a good break- 
 fast before coming down into the mine this 
 morning, and I reckon you hadn't much of 
 one, my little man ; " and he patted Robert 
 Lester kindly on the back. 
 
 "And I had a good breakfast too," said 
 Peter, " and I can do without now ; let Bob 
 have my share." 
 
 The little trapper, however, had not much 
 appetite. He had become alarmed afresh by 
 the prospect of such a long imprisonment; 
 and he refused the food offered him. Happily 
 he sobbed himself to sleep, and one of the 
 men kindly wrapped him up in his miner's 
 frock, and laid him gently down on the floor 
 of the working. 
 
 Their meal was soon finished, and was 
 washed down with a small quantity of beer, 
 a bottle of which one of the men had in his 
 basket.
 
 80 DOWN IN A MINE. 
 
 But now came another serious question. It 
 might be possible to make the food last three 
 days; but what should they have .to drink? 
 The bottle was exhausted, and they were all 
 more likely to suffer from thirst than from 
 hunger. This question did not trouble them 
 long. They had scarcely finished their meal 
 when a very welcome sound was heard; it 
 was the noise of water dripping from the roof 
 and trickling down the side of the gallery. 
 You may fancy how grateful the poor miners 
 were for this supply, which put them in mind 
 of another of the promises of God: "When 
 the poor and needy seek water, and there is 
 none, and their tongue faileth for thirst, I the 
 Lord will hear them, I the God of Israel will 
 not forsake them." 
 
 " It seems," said Logan, " as if the water 
 had been sent us to put us in mind that God is 
 not forsaking us;" and this thought was a 
 great comfort to them. 
 
 And now they again consulted what they 
 should do. There was little hope that, with-
 
 BURIED ALIVE. 81 
 
 out assistance, they could work their way to- 
 ward the entrance to the mine ; but it was 
 right for them to make the attempt. So they 
 got their tools from the working, and began 
 very cautiously to remove some of the rub- 
 bish which had fallen. But, alas ! they soon 
 found how hopeless this labor must be ; and 
 they were giving way to despondency, when 
 a sound reached them which made their hearts 
 beat quick : it was the distant sound of tools, 
 very faint indeed, but they understood what 
 it meant; they were not forsaken efforts 
 were being made to release them from their 
 prison. It was then that it occurred to one 
 of the hewers to strike forcibly against the 
 roof of the gallery with his pickax ; and we 
 have seen how that signal was heard and un- 
 derstood. 
 
 All through the remainder of that day the 
 men and boys were very quiet. They princi- 
 pally employed themselves in listening to the 
 far off sound of the men who were working 
 for their deliverance, and in calculating how 
 6
 
 82 DOWN IN A MINE. 
 
 many hours it might be before it could be 
 effected. As they needed no light for this 
 work, they extinguished one of their lamps. 
 
 You may suppose that the hours of that 
 day seemed to pass away very slowly so 
 slowly, that Freeman, who carried a watch, 
 and often looked at it, fancied that it had 
 stopped; and it was only when he .put it to 
 his ear, and found that it went on ticking, that 
 he was convinced to the contrary. But though 
 slowly, the time did not pass unhappily. 
 There was the knowledge that help was 
 coming to them, or that, at any rate, they 
 were not forgotten by their fellow- workmen, 
 and this inspired them all, even little Robert, 
 with hope. And then, from time to time, 
 the two Christian pitmen spoke so confident- 
 ly of the providence of God, which is over 
 all, and of his especial goodness to those who 
 trust in him, that they cheered not only them- 
 selves, but their young companions in dan- 
 ger. 
 
 At length James Freeman's watch told
 
 BURIED ALIVE. 83 
 
 them that night was come; and after com- 
 mending themselves again to their heavenly 
 Father in solemn prayer, and dividing a por- 
 tion of food among them all, they laid them- 
 selves down on the rough floor of the working 
 and slept.
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 HOW THEY PASSED THE TIME. 
 
 I THINK it likely that the imprisoned min- 
 ers slept sounder that night than many in the 
 collier village. The men who had been labor- 
 ing hard all the day for their deliverance did 
 not sleep much, for they thought of their 
 fellow-workmen buried alive; and although 
 they had said what they could to cheer the 
 grief-stricken relatives of these companions, 
 they had sad forebodings that help would be 
 too late. 
 
 And -the five families who were thus 
 plunged into sorrow you may be sure that 
 there was little sleep for them. The wives 
 and little ones of Freeman and Logan the 
 parents of Joe Saville and the little trapper, 
 and the widowed mother and sister of Peter 
 
 (84)
 
 HOW THEY PASSED THE TIME. 85 
 
 Morrison they were all in too much sorrow, 
 and too full of anxiety, to sleep. 
 
 But if there was not much sleep in the vil- 
 lage that night, there was much prayer. 
 Among the men who had been so hard at 
 work all day down in the mine, were many 
 who, like Freeman and Logan, knew that " it 
 is good to draw near to God;" and these, 
 instead of returning immediately to their cot- 
 tages, got together the mourners, and spent 
 hour after hour in prayer and supplication for 
 their companions. And so the night passed 
 away above ground. 
 
 Then, down in the mine, others were toiling 
 in trying to open a way through the crush ; 
 and when morning came, these workers were 
 relieved by those who had passed the night 
 above ground. 
 
 All through this day, and the following 
 night, and the next day, and the night and 
 day after these, the workmen by turns con- 
 tinued their arduous and dangerous labor; 
 and every hour their difficulties increased.
 
 86 DOWN IX A MINE. 
 
 The hard rock through which they tried to 
 pierce seemed to become harder ; sometimes 
 the tools broke ; at other times, the passage 
 which they were opening became closed again 
 by a fresh falling in from above ; then, again, 
 the water which filtered in from all parts 
 through the narrow gallery increased upon 
 them so much that they feared it would stop 
 their working altogether, and they had to 
 wait until it was drawn away. Indeed, I 
 can not tell you all the difficulties these brave 
 men had to encounter in endeavoring to save 
 their companions. And all this time they 
 were exposed to great peril ; for who could 
 tell that another fall would not take place and 
 crush all who were in the mine ? 
 
 Among the workmen was the father of 
 little Robert, the trapper; and who can At- 
 tempt to describe the agony of his mind as 
 he toiled on ? Xight and day he never left 
 the mine, and scarcely quitted his work. If 
 for a few minutes his strength failed him, and 
 he was obliged to retire and lie down, or to
 
 HOW THEY PASSED THE TIME. 87 
 
 take a few mouthfuls of food, he soon re- 
 turned and resumed his tools with redoubled 
 ardor. 
 
 " You will kill yourself if you go on like 
 this," said a kind-hearted fellow-workman to 
 him, on one of those anxious days; "leave 
 the mine, there's a good man, and take some 
 rest, and trust us to do all we can while you 
 are gone." 
 
 "No, no, Tom," said he, in a husky voice; 
 " you have not got a child among them that 
 are shut in yonder ; I have ; and, if it please 
 God, I will not cease trying to save him. I 
 promised his mother that we would both go 
 up out of the mine together ; and so we will, 
 if it please God," he added, as he wiped a 
 tear away from his rough cheek ; and then he 
 began to hew away again at the hard barrier 
 which separated him from his little Robert. 
 
 There was one sound which occasionally 
 brought hope to this father's heart, and nerved 
 his arm with strength ; it was repeated, from 
 time to time, and from day to day that
 
 88 DOWN IN A MINE. 
 
 faint clink of the iron against the rock, five 
 times repeated. It assured him, as it assured 
 his companions, that his little Robert still 
 lived. 
 
 And now let us turn to the poor prisoners 
 in the mine. 
 
 " Peter, do you think we shall get out of 
 this ? " asked Joe Saville, in a faint, despond- 
 ing voice, as he and his two younger com- 
 panions sat together in the working, while the 
 two men were again exploring the passage 
 and the working beyond, in the vain expecta- 
 tion of finding some other way by which an 
 escape could be effected. It was twenty-four 
 hours after their imprisonment, and the boys 
 were in the dark; for the miners could no 
 longer venture upon the extravagance of 
 burning two lamps. 
 
 " I don't know, Joe," replied Peter, in the 
 same sorrowful tone ; " I don't know what to 
 think about it." 
 
 ** Peter, I wish " Joseph paused here.
 
 HOW THEY PASSED THE TIME. 89 
 
 " What do you wish, Joe ? " responded the 
 other young putter. 
 
 " I wish I hadn't gone where I did on Sun- 
 day," said Joe, with an effort. 
 
 " I wish you hadn't, Joe," said Peter. 
 
 "It is very dreadful to be shut up here," 
 continued Joseph, with a shudder ; " and if 
 we should never get out ! " 
 
 " Oh, but I hope we shall, Joe. They are 
 working away for us, you know." 
 
 " Ah, but before they get at us we may be 
 dead, or another crush may come." 
 
 "That is true, Joe;" and Peter felt his 
 courage giving way, especially when he began 
 to think of his mother and little Mary ; but 
 he was able to reply cheerily, " Joe, we must 
 keep up heart and hope, as Logan says, and 
 think of good things." 
 
 "I don't know any good things to think 
 about," replied Joseph Saville, moodily." 
 
 "I think you do, Joe a few." 
 
 " N"o, I reckon not," said Joe. 
 
 "]STot about Jesus Christ, Joe? Oh, you
 
 90 DOWN IX A MINE. 
 
 have heard about Jesus Christ, and how he 
 came into the world to save sinners; and 
 about his being crucified, you know, and dead 
 and buried ; and then how he rose again, and 
 went up to heaven. You know about all 
 this." 
 
 "Well, then," said Joe, weary and spirit- 
 less. 
 
 " Why, these are good things for us," re- 
 turned Peter, brightening up not a little in 
 his mind; you know what the Bible says, 
 Joe?" 
 
 Joseph made no answer, and both were 
 silent for a little while; but presently the 
 older boy said, " I wish you would talk, Peter, 
 it is so unked* to be here in the dark." 
 
 Peter felt it "unked" too; not that the 
 boys were not used to being in the dark, 
 "down in a mine," but there is a difference 
 between being at work in the dark, with a 
 way open to the light, and being shut in and 
 buried buried alive. Peter was also very 
 willing to strive against this " unkedness " by 
 
 * Dreary or lonely.
 
 HOW THEY PASSED THE TIME. 91 
 
 talking ; but what could he say ? To be sure, 
 he could think of a great many things, but he 
 was afraid that Joe would not care to hear 
 about them ; so he said, " Why don't you talk, 
 Joe? You are the oldest. Where did you 
 go last Sunday, that makes you wish you 
 hadn't gone?" 
 
 It did not matter, the boy said ; he would 
 rather not tell. Yet for all this he did tell. 
 He went rambling about the country with his 
 companions, he said, and they took him to a 
 place where there was a dog fight, and then 
 to a public house, and it was " ever so late " 
 before he got home. 
 
 "Ah, I wish you had been with me, and 
 mother, and Mary, Joe," returned Peter ; 
 " you would have heard such a sermon." 
 
 "I don't know that; very likely I should 
 have gone to sleep," said the other; "what 
 was the sermon about ? " 
 
 " About being prepared to meet God," re- 
 plied Peter; and the minister talked about 
 the dangers of people down in the mines;
 
 92 DOWN IN A MINE. 
 
 you would not have slept, I think, while he 
 was telling about that. Then he said that 
 dying was meeting God ; and that after death 
 was the judgment, and that was meeting God 
 too ; and, oh, I can not remember any more 
 now. But, Joe, if we should not get out of 
 this, but should die down here, we shall all 
 have to meet God you, and I, and little 
 Robert here; and, oh, I wish I was ready, 
 but I am not ! " and the poor boy burst into 
 tears. 
 
 Peter was not alone in his lamentations; 
 the little trapper boy, who had listened to 
 what the others said, and had, all the time 
 of their imprisonment, been very quiet and 
 thoughtful, now began to cry vehemently, and 
 it took Peter some time to quiet him. This 
 turned off the conversation, and soon the men 
 returned with the lamp, but without success, 
 and much exhausted. 
 
 "We must trust in God, and pray," said 
 Freeman ; " but we must also do what we can 
 to keep life in us, and we have had nothing to 
 eat yet to-day."
 
 HOW THEY PASSED THE TIME. 93 
 
 Indeed, they were all faint and dispirited 
 with hunger ; and it was a great trial to them 
 all to refrain from eating as much as they 
 desired. They did refrain, however ; for they 
 could understand now how needful it was to 
 make the small quantity of provisions they 
 had hold out; so they resolutely put aside 
 what remained, and agreed not to have an- 
 other meal for twelve hours. 
 
 It was a mercy that water did not fail 
 them ; indeed, by this time, the floor of the 
 gallery was covered with it, so that they 
 could not step out of their retreat without 
 being over shoe tops. But it never rose so 
 high as the floor of the working; and they 
 were thankful to have it in their power freely 
 to quench the thirst which would otherwise 
 have been very painful to bear. 
 
 Their scanty meal ended, the pious colliers 
 again spent some time in prayer; and their 
 spirits were so lightened that they believed 
 they could sing as well as pray. 
 
 " Come, Peter," said Logan, " you know a
 
 94 DOWN IN A MINE. 
 
 good mafty hymns that you have learned at 
 the Sunday school ; can't you think of one 
 that will suit us ? " 
 
 Yes, Peter could think of several ; and after 
 a little effort, he fixed upon this one : 
 
 " Through all the changing scenes of life, 
 
 In trouble and in joy, 
 The praises of my God shall still 
 My heart and tongue employ." 
 
 "That's a song that will do bravely," said 
 Logan, when Peter, with a faltering voice ? 
 had repeated that verse. " King David said, 
 ' I will bless the Lord at all times ; his praise 
 shall continually be in my mouth ; ' and 
 though he was never shut up in a mine, as 
 we are, I reckon he was in as big trouble 
 often. Didn't he say once that there was 
 only a step between him and death ? and 
 yet he could say, * I will bless the Lord at all 
 times.' That is a good hymn, Peter, and 
 suitable. How does it go on ? " 
 
 "With a little more firmness, Peter repeated 
 the verses that followed :
 
 HOW THEY PASSED THE TIME. 95 
 
 " Of his deliverance I will boast, 
 
 Till all who are distressed 
 From my example comfort take, 
 And charm their griefs to rest. 
 
 ' The hosts of God encamp around 
 
 The dwellings of the just: 
 Protection he affords to all 
 Who make his name their trust. 
 
 "Oh, make but trial of his love : 
 
 Experience will decide 
 How blest are they, and only they, 
 Who in his truth confide. 
 
 " Fear him, ye saints, and you will then 
 
 Hare nothing else to fear : 
 Make you his service your delight, 
 He'll make your wants his care." 
 
 It would have done your hearts good, 
 young readers, if you could have heard this 
 song of praise rising up out of that dark vault, 
 "down in a mine." And though it reached 
 no mortal ears beyond the ears of those who 
 softly sang it, be sure of this, that God heard 
 it ; and so far as the words were sung with 
 melody, and true feeling, and meaning of 
 heart, he was well pleased with it. 
 
 So much were the poor miners refreshed in 
 spirit by singing of God's goodness and
 
 96 DOWN IN A MINE. 
 
 watchful providence, that, throughout that 
 day, when they began to feel a little cast 
 down again, or when the ^time dragged on 
 wearily, they called upon Peter for another 
 hymn. 
 
 But, you may say, they had their tools; 
 why did they not try to dig their way out of 
 that prison? You may rely upon it they 
 would have repeated the attempt they had 
 made the day before, if they had not found it 
 to be worse than useless. No: help must 
 come from without; and all they had the 
 power to do was to pray that God would give 
 success to the efforts of their fellow-workmen. 
 
 They did not forget, however,^ to strike 
 against their prison wall from time to time, to. 
 let their deliverers or those whom they 
 hoped would be their deliverers know that 
 they yet lived. 
 
 And thus twenty-four more hours passed 
 away.
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 HOPE AND FEAR. 
 
 I SHALL pass very rapidly over the events 
 of these two days ; but I must not omit to 
 say that the tidings of an accident had by 
 this time spread far and wide, and that stran* 
 gers came flocking to the colliers' village, and 
 to the mine itself; some out of curiosity, no 
 doubt, but others out of sympathy, and to 
 offer help as far as help could be given. 
 
 There were rich persons, for instance, who 
 offered large rewards to the miners, to inspire 
 them the more in their dangerous work ; there 
 were surgeons and medical men, who held 
 themselves ready to give their services, if 
 they were needed, either in case of other 
 accidents happening, or to the poor exhausted 
 prisoners themselves when rescued ; there 
 were pitmen, also, who had no money to offer 
 7 (97)
 
 98 DOWN IN A MINE. 
 
 for a reward, and no medical skill to boast of, 
 but who had strong arms and willing hearts, 
 and were anxious to "take a spell," as they 
 said, at the benevolent labor going on below. 
 Indeed, if all who came with these ready 
 offers could have been set to work at one and 
 the same time, the work of liberation would 
 soon have been completed; but, in the con- 
 fined gallery of the mine, only a few could 
 work together, and all that could be done was 
 by the men taking turns and relieving one 
 another, at short intervals of time, so as to 
 keep up the labor day and night without ex- 
 hausting the strength of any. 
 
 It was a busy scene in the neighborhood of 
 the new coal pit. The windlass and rope 
 were almost constantly at work, with work- 
 men either descending or ascending ; and 
 around were crowds anxiously waiting for 
 news from below, and asking of those more 
 recently come up from the mine how far they 
 had proceeded in the new passage ; what 
 hope they had of success; and especially
 
 HOPE AND FEAR. 99 
 
 whether the blocked-in miners continued their 
 signals. 
 
 And all the while this was going on, there 
 were those who tried to encourage the dis- 
 tressed families of the poor missing ones to 
 trust in God, and to look to him for help and 
 consolation. Many times a day, and every 
 night also, public prayer was offered on their 
 behalf, in little assemblies gathered together 
 in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ ; and 
 who shall tell how many secret petitions 
 ascended to heaven from humble, contrite 
 hearts of those who understood the nature 
 of true and acceptable prayer to be 
 
 " The burden of a sigh, 
 The falling of a tear ; 
 The upward glancing of the eye 
 When none but God is near " ? 
 
 And now let us descend once more into 
 the mine, to Peter Morrison and his com- 
 panions, young and old. 
 
 Thursday. Very weak and languid were 
 they all by this time. They had been two
 
 100 DOWN IK A MINE. 
 
 whole days and two nights shut in, and the 
 small quantity of food they had taken was 
 quite insufficient to keep up their strength. 
 Indeed, they began now to feel the pains of 
 hunger very severely, and they looked with 
 alarm at their diminished store of provisions. 
 
 And yet they dare not indulge their almost 
 ravenous appetites; for, though they could 
 hear the sound of tools, these sounds seemed 
 as distant as ever, and they began to think 
 that many days might yet elapse before a way 
 would be made into their prison; and by that 
 time they would probably have been starved 
 to death. 
 
 You may, perhaps, suppose that, with these 
 thoughts before them, they became quite be- 
 side themselves with fear and sorrow; but, 
 indeed, this was not the case. The two pious 
 pitmen encouraged each other to trust in 
 God, in some such language as that used by 
 the Psalmist when he was in deep distress: 
 " Why art thou cast down, O my soul ? and 
 why art thou disquieted within me ? Hope
 
 HOPE AND FEAR. 101 
 
 thou in God ; for I shall yet praise him, who 
 is the health of my countenance, and my 
 God." Ps. xlii. 11. 
 
 And you may be sure that they not only 
 encouraged each other thus to trust and not 
 be afraid, but that they were deeply con- 
 cerned that their young companions should 
 be prepared for death, and judgment, and 
 eternity. The greater part of this day was 
 therefore spent in serious and religious con- 
 versation with the boys, and in recalling to 
 their minds what they had many times before 
 heard respecting the way of salvation from 
 the awful punishment due to sin. 
 
 I can not tell you in so many words what 
 they said, but they spoke a good deal about 
 the great love of God in sending his Son into 
 the world to die for sinners, and of the ten- 
 der compassion of the Saviour, now that he is 
 risen and seated at the right hand of God his 
 Father, toward all who need and seek his 
 mercy. I am pretty certain also that these 
 Christian men told the boys of the willing-
 
 102 DOWN IN A MINE. 
 
 ness of God to receive and bless all who come 
 to him by faith in Jesus Christ, and of tho 
 promised gift of his Holy Spirit to all who 
 ask him. 
 
 More than this, they declared the need 
 there is for all to have their hearts changed, 
 their minds renewed, their sins washed away, 
 their thoughts, and feelings, and desires made 
 holy, before heaven can be attained and en- 
 joyed; and that repentance must be felt 
 before pardon of sin can be obtained. And 
 the boys were reminded that God has exalted 
 the Lord Jesus Christ to be a Prince and a 
 Saviour, to give repentance and remission of 
 sins to all who trust in him. 
 
 Further, these earnest, simple-hearted Chris- 
 tians repeated the very words of Scripture 
 and very encouraging words they are about 
 the Lord Jesus Christ, namely, that "he is 
 able to save them to the uttermost that come 
 unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to 
 make intercession for them." Heb. vii. 25. 
 
 And then these pious men reminded their
 
 HOPE AND FEAR. 103 
 
 young companions, kindly but faithfully, of 
 the danger in which each one of them was 
 then placed, and the probability that they 
 *might none of them live to be rescued from 
 it ; that time with them would perhaps soon 
 be no more; and that, ere many hours had 
 passed away, they might all have to meet God 
 in judgment. And because of this they ex- 
 horted them to pray to God, not so much to 
 deliver them from bodily danger, as to have 
 tnercy on them, and save them from eternal 
 ruin. 
 
 Thus, with conversation and prayer, and 
 sometimes with attempting to sing a hymn 
 (but all their voices were becoming feeble by 
 this time), the day passed away; and once 
 more they commended themselves to the pro- 
 tection and compassion of their heavenly 
 Father, and lay down to sleep after having 
 made another, but very scanty, meal. 
 
 Friday. This was a very solemn day clown 
 in the mine. The provisions were almost
 
 104 DOWN IN A MINE. 
 
 gone, and still the sounds of help seemed but 
 little nearer. This was a mistake, however, 
 for help was much nearer than they sup- 
 posed ; but either the sounds were deadened, 
 or their power of hearing them had become 
 weaker. 
 
 And this, perhaps, was the case ; for ah 1 of 
 them had become very weak with long fasting 
 and being confined in so close a place, where 
 the air was becoming unwholesome, though 
 they could still breathe in it. Indeed, little 
 Robert Lester had become so very weak 
 (although great care had been taken of him, 
 and he had had his full share of food) that 
 he could not sit up, and his senses seemed 
 wandering, for he talked about green fields 
 and sunshine as though he saw the fields and 
 felt the warmth of the sun. 
 
 It was a mercy, however, that the pains of 
 hunger, which all had felt on the previous 
 day, were gone ; and when the last morsels 
 of bread were divided, it seemed almost a 
 matter of indifference to them whether they 
 ate or not.
 
 HOPE AND FEAB. 105 
 
 And now another trouble came. For more 
 than three days their lamp had continued 
 burning. It was a dim light, it is true, but it 
 was far better than being quite in the dark ; 
 now, however, toward the close of Friday, 
 they found that all the oil was exhausted, and 
 the lamp went out. 
 
 I believe that they all felt this trouble more 
 keenly than their danger at that time ; but it 
 served to fix their minds more on the prospect 
 before them. 
 
 " Our food is gone, and our light is gone," 
 said Freeman; "but our God is not gone. 
 He has said, ' I will never leave you nor for- 
 sake you;' and you can trust him yet, can 
 you not, mate ? " This he said to Logan. 
 
 "Yes, I can," said the other pious miner. 
 "You know the hymn, James; shall we try 
 to sing it ? It is the last hymn, mayhap, we 
 shall sing down here ; our next song, if it 
 please God, will be where there's no want of 
 lamps nor of sun either, because < the Lamb 
 is the light thereof.' " Rev. xxi. 23.
 
 106 DOWN IN A MINE. 
 
 " True, Will ; and that is glorious to think 
 of: but what hymn do you mean ? " 
 
 "Hymn? Oh, I forgot; yes, I remember 
 now : this is it 
 
 4 The soul that on Jesus hath leaned for repose, 
 He will not, he will not desert to its foes ; 
 That soul, though all hell should endeavor to shake, 
 He'll never, no never, no never forsake.' " 
 
 They tried to sing the verse, but their 
 strength almost failed them before they came 
 to the last words. Their hearts sang, how- 
 ever, and beat joyfully at the remembrance 
 of their Saviour's faithfulness and love. 
 
 " Peter, my poor boy, and you too, Joe," 
 said Logan to the boys, whom he could no 
 longer see ; " and you too, Robert, if you can 
 mind any thing that is said ; our light going 
 out like this should put us in mind of how 
 near our mortal life is going out too. It is a 
 mercy that God has given us time to think of 
 these things : now that time is pretty near 
 up, I reckon ; and will you now pray for 
 yourselves ? We have been praying for you
 
 HOPE AND FEAR. 107 
 
 and others many times, you know, since we 
 have been shut in here; but if any body 
 wants any thing of God, he must ask for it 
 himself, he must. I don't know what there 
 may be between God and your souls, but I do 
 know, if you have not got salvation, you 
 want that more than any thing else. And 
 won't you pray to God for it ? Do, now." 
 
 Little Robert did not appear to understand 
 what the man said, but still to be wandering 
 in mind, for he talked quickly to himself in 
 a low voice, and it was all about the pretty 
 flowers in green fields ; and then suddenly he 
 broke out in a louder tone, and repeated two 
 lines of a hymn which probably he had 
 learned at the Sunday school, 
 
 " Sweet fields beyond the swelling flood 
 Stand dressed in living 1 green." 
 
 " Poor little fellow," said Freeman ; " and, 
 please God, you'll reach those green fields as 
 soon as any of us. Why not? Didn't our 
 blessed Lord say, 'Suffer the little children
 
 108 DOWN IN A MINE. 
 
 to come unto me ; for of such is the kingdom 
 of heaven ? J But you, Joe, and Peter " 
 
 He broke off short here, but perhaps the 
 lads understood him; one of them did, at 
 any rate. Peter had been thoughtful al) 
 through the trying time, although he had 
 been very silent. When he afterward spoke 
 of what had passed through his mind, he 
 said, 
 
 " I thought a great deal of the things I had 
 been taught at the Sunday school, and had 
 heard from my mother; and then I remem 
 bered many circumstances in my short life 
 which before had been forgotten. A great 
 many sins I had committed, not only in deed 
 and in word, but in thought, came into my 
 mind, and made me truly miserable and fear- 
 ful, because I could see how deserving I was 
 of the wrath of God. These words then 
 came to my remembrance, 
 
 ' And if my soul were sent to hell, 
 Thy righteous law approves it well.'
 
 HOPE AND FEAK. 109 
 
 " There had been a time," continued Peter, 
 " when these lines puzzled me. I thought is 
 harsh and cruel that God should punish his 
 creatures so severely in another world for sins 
 committed against him in this ; and I did not 
 understand, nor try to understand, why God 
 should make such laws. But now it came to. 
 my mind that it was right and just ; and I 
 could see more clearly that sin against a holy 
 God must be punished, or God could no 
 longer be holy. This made me still more 
 miserable, and I think I felt something like 
 despair, knowing that I could do nothing of 
 myself to escape the just anger of God. But 
 all at once I remembered the words of David 
 in one of the Psalms, If thou, Lord, shouldst 
 mark iniquities, O Lord, who shall stand? 
 But there is forgiveness with thee, that thou 
 mayst be feared. With the Lord there is 
 mercy, and with him is plenteous redemp- 
 tion.' Ps. cxxx. 3, 4, 7. 
 
 " Oh, what joy these words gave" me ; espe- 
 cially when Freeman and Logan (as though
 
 110 DOWN IN A MINE. 
 
 they knew what was in my mind) began to 
 speak of the great love of God in sending his 
 dear Son into the world to die for sinners. I 
 felt then that I could trust in God to save me, 
 and that I could pray to him in my heart as 
 to my heavenly Father. I forgot the mine, 
 and the danger, and my dear home above 
 ground. There was such lightness, and 
 brightness, and comfort in thinking that, 
 though I could not do any thing, Jesus could 
 do every thing, because he is able to save 
 them to the uttermost who come to God by 
 him. And .then a verse or two of another 
 hymn I had learned, and thought little about 
 when I learned it, came with wonderful sweet- 
 ness to my mind, 
 
 ' Lord, with this guilty heai*t of mice 
 
 To thy dear cross 1 flee ; 
 And to thy grace my soul resign, 
 To be renewed by thee. 
 
 4 Sprinkled afresh with pardoning blood, 
 
 I lay me down to rest, 
 As in the embraces of my God, 
 And on my Saviour's breast.' "
 
 HOPE AND FEAR. Ill 
 
 This is the account that Peter Morrison 
 gave many years afterward of his feelings at 
 that time of danger; and he added that he 
 felt so resigned that he did not desire to live 
 if it were the will of God then to take him to 
 himself. 
 
 It would have given great joy to the two 
 pious pitmen had they known how, in that 
 dark and perilous prison of theirs, the good 
 and gracious Spirit of God was powerfully 
 bringing one of their young companions to 
 the knowledge and love of Jesus Christ. But 
 Peter had not many words to say for himself: 
 he could only think, and wonder, and pray, 
 and love, and praise all silently. 
 
 And so the hours of that day passed away, 
 while every one there had the solemn convic- 
 tion that in a few hours more their mortal 
 lives must close.
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 RESCUED ! 
 
 IT* was a scene of great excitement at the 
 mouth of the coal pit on the morning of this 
 day. Almost before it was light a great num- 
 ber of persons congregated, hoping to hear of 
 the rescue of the buried miners. The wives 
 of Freeman and Logan, with their children, 
 were there ; so were the mothers of the boys ; 
 .for they had been confidently assured that the 
 workmen below had nearly made their way, 
 as they believed, through the crush ; and that 
 a few hours more at furthest would restore to 
 them their lost ones. 
 
 Pale and haggard were they all with hope 
 deferred and anxious care ; but they were very 
 quiet and silent as they stood together in a 
 group, and only showed, by their quivering 
 lips and earnest gaze, as from time to time the 
 
 (112)
 
 RESCUED ! 113 
 
 windlass drew up a fresh freight, how deep was 
 their interest in all that was going on. And 
 then, when the short answer given to the x ques- 
 tions so eagerly put by one after another to 
 these wearied men from below was, "Not 
 yet!" it was piteous to see their grief-stricken 
 countenances, and to hear their broken, half- 
 stifled sobs. 
 
 Below, the scene was different. Very si- 
 lently the men labored with all their might ; 
 they had no time to waste in words, and if 
 they had, they would have had no heart to 
 talk. It is true they hoped and believed that 
 they had almost pierced the barrier which 
 separated them from their companions; but 
 were they not already laboring in vain ? For 
 many hours there had been no signals. They 
 had listened anxiously for the faint clink 
 which had before been so often repeated ; but 
 no sound came. What could this silence 
 mean ? Five whole days had their poor com- 
 rades been buried, without food, or, at best, 
 with only sufficient provisions for two meals ;
 
 114 DOWN IN A MINE. 
 
 and it was but a reasonable fear that, if not 
 destroyed by choke damp, they had more 
 slowly, but not less surely, perished by famine, 
 And among these agitated workers was 
 Thomas Lester still. He listened to no en- 
 treaties to desist. His head .was dizzy, his 
 arms were by this time all but powerless ; yet 
 still he maintained his post. He was trying 
 to save the life of his child. 
 
 
 
 Suddenly the silence was broken by a hasty 
 exclamation from one of the workmen. The 
 barrier was pierced. His tool a long instru- 
 ment used for boring into the hard rock no 
 longer met with resistance, and when it was 
 withdrawn, the murmur of feeble voices was 
 heard from the cavern beyond. For a few 
 moments work was discontinued, while a few 
 anxious questions and answers were exchanged 
 between those without and those within. 
 
 " Freeman, are you there ? " 
 
 "Here: and Logan, and the three boys." 
 The reply was weak and hollow ; but it was 
 understood.
 
 RESCUED ! 115 
 
 " All living ? " This was the next inquiry, 
 with a beating heart. 
 
 " All ! thank God, we are all living." 
 
 " Hear that, men," shouted the questioner 
 to those behind him. " All are living ! " 
 
 "All! tell me that again," shouted the 
 hoarse voice of a man who staggered forward : 
 "all! is my boy alive?" They all knew whose 
 voice this was ; and they made way for the 
 man. The question was repeated : " Is Robert 
 Lester among you ?" 
 
 "Ay, ay; and well cared for, poor little fel- 
 low. He lives." 
 
 The father heard it. The news seemed too 
 good to be true : it overpowered him, and he 
 fell down senseless. His strength arid endur- 
 ance failed him at last ; and he was removed 
 to the more open gallery behind. 
 
 The conversation was renewed. " There 
 are some feet to work through yet ; can you 
 wait another hour?" 
 
 "God has strengthened us, and he will 
 strengthen us. Yes, we can wait."
 
 116 DOWN IN A MINE. 
 
 No need for more : once more the sound of 
 tools, and the wheeling away of the loosened 
 masses as fast as they were detached from the 
 narrow passage. Nearer and nearer, nearer 
 and nearer ; at -last the opening was widened. 
 Be careful now, brave miners ; the lives of 
 your buried companions and your own are 
 hanging as on a thread. One false, unhappy 
 stroke, and tons of rock are ready to fall and 
 involve you all in one common ruin. Pray, 
 pray all, to Him who holds all things in his 
 hands, that he will prosper your brotherly 
 work to the end. 
 
 Yes, the miners know the danger. Ejacu- 
 lations rose from many hearts and lips as 
 carefully oh, how carefully ! one obstacle 
 after another was removed. Then the buried 
 ones came forth, staggering along the passage 
 which had just been completed, their weak 
 and agitated frames supported by their deliv- 
 erers, on whom their feeble sight rested with 
 brotherly affection and gratitude. Soiled, and 
 haggard, and hollow-eyed they were; but
 
 THE RESCUE.
 
 RESCUED! 117 
 
 gladness was in their hearts, and praise on 
 their trembling lips, to Him who had brought 
 them up out of the horrible pit, and cheered 
 them with his presence while there. 
 
 I need not, indeed I can not, describe the 
 meeting of these rescued ones with those 
 whom they loved ; but I must not omit to tell, 
 that when the hewer, Lester, was drawn up to 
 the mouth of the pit, carrying his boy, the 
 little trapper, in his arms, a shout was raised, 
 with which the air rang far and wide. 
 
 But now, indeed, there was some danger 
 that the poor starved men and boys would be 
 almost killed with kindness. It was well that 
 judicious medical men were present, to regu- 
 late and direct the right means for their res- 
 toration. Nourishing liquid food, in small 
 quantities, was at first given to them, until 
 their enfeebled powers were strengthened. 
 
 A few days later, and the ordinary occupa- 
 tions of the mine were resumed ; the ruined 
 galleries were being restored, and hewers,
 
 118 DOWN IX A MINE. 
 
 putters, and little trappers descended and 
 ascended as though nothing had happened to 
 interrupt their work. In time, in a short 
 time indeed, the accident, if not forgotten, 
 was lightly spoken of. It was so common for 
 such things to happen that, when over, they 
 were looked upon with indifference, especially 
 when they had no fatal termination. But 
 there were those upon whom the scenes 
 through which they had passed wrought ef- 
 fects that were never afterward effaced. For 
 instance, the two pitmen, Freeman and Logan, 
 were confirmed in faith and love toward their 
 God and Saviour by the experience they had 
 had of divine mercy and "grace to help in 
 time of need," and of the power of religion to 
 diffuse peace, and happiness, and "joy in be- 
 lieving," in the darkest dispensations of provi- 
 dence, and in the most desperate straits ; while 
 their rescue from death, when death seemed 
 so near and certain, encouraged them to put 
 their trust in God with more unshaken firm- 
 ness in all time to come. They could say and
 
 RESCUED ! 119 
 
 sing, what was always afterward a favorite 
 hymn with them, 
 
 " Of his deliverance we will boast, 
 
 Till all who are distressed 
 From our example comfort take, 
 And charm their fears to rest." 
 
 And there was another song which they were 
 never tired of singing: it was this, 
 
 " Upward I lift mine eyes j 
 
 From God is all my aid 
 The God that built the skies, 
 And earth and nature made : 
 God is the tower 
 To which I fly ; 
 His grace is nigh 
 In every hour. 
 
 " My feet shall never slide, 
 Nor fall in fatal snares, 
 Since God, my Guard and Guide 
 Defends me from my fears. 
 Those wakeful eyes 
 That never sleep, 
 Shall Israel keep 
 When dangers rise. 
 
 " No burning heats by day, 
 
 Nor blasts of evening air, 
 Shall take my health away, 
 If God be with me there : 
 Thou art my sun, 
 And thou my shade, 
 To guard my head 
 By night or noon.
 
 120 DOWN IN A MINE. 
 
 " Hast tliou not given thy word 
 
 To save my soul from death ? 
 And I can trust my Lord 
 To keep my mortal breath. 
 I'll go and come, 
 Nor fear to die, 
 Till from on high 
 Thou call me home." 
 
 Robert Lester, the little trapper, .soon re- 
 covered from the effects of his sufferings ; but 
 he was not sent down into the mine again 
 until he was some years older. This was good 
 for him in many ways : it was good for his 
 health and strength, and it also gave oppor- 
 tunity for his being sent to school, of which 
 he would otherwise have been deprived. I 
 am happy to say that now, at the time I am 
 writing, very young children are not allowed 
 to be put to work in mines, and that the hours 
 of labor of all young persons so employed 
 have been greatly diminished ; so that there 
 are no cases, it is to be hoped, of children of 
 eight or nine years of age working fourteen 
 or sixteen hours a day, " down in a mine." 
 
 I must say a word or two about Joseph
 
 RESCUED ! 121 
 
 Saville, who was greatly and justly alarmed 
 by the near prospect of so shocking a death, 
 and who was very thankful for his escape from 
 it. One useful effect of this alarm was that, 
 from that time, he discontinued the open 
 profanation of the Lord's day, and abandoned 
 the society of those who had led him into 
 sinful practices. Not long afterward, other 
 changes were seen in his entire conduct, which 
 gave evidence of a change of heart also. 
 And then he thankfully acknowledged that 
 the conversation of the pious hewers, and 
 their kind and faithful exhortations, and espe- 
 cially their calm happiness in the midst of 
 danger, had been the means made use of by 
 the blessed Spirit of God in leading him to 
 seek the Lord while he is to be found, and to 
 call upon him while near; to look to the 
 Lord Jesus Christ for deliverance from eternal 
 destruction, and thus to be prepared for meet- 
 ing God in death and in judgment. 
 
 Peter Morrison returned for a short time to 
 his labor in the mine ; but he did not con-
 
 122 DOWN IN A MINE. 
 
 tinue to be a miner all his life. After a few 
 years, he, with his mother and sister, removed 
 to another part of the country ; and in another 
 calling, Peter rose to be a person of some 
 renown. But his after history does not be- 
 long to this " story of a week." 
 There is a hymn which says, 
 
 " Often the clouds of deepest woe 
 
 So sweet a message bear, 
 Dark though they seem, 'twere hard to find 
 A frown of anger there." 
 
 And thus it was in the experience of Peter 
 Morrison ; it was so much so that, as long as 
 he lived, he loved to think of his five days' im- 
 prisonment, and starvation, and peril, for it was 
 then that God met with him, and revealed to 
 him his great mercy in the Lord Jesus Christ. 
 " Surely," he used to say, " it was none other 
 than the house of God and the gate of heaven 
 to my soul that dark dungeon, deep down 
 in a mine"
 
 DOWN IN A MINE; 
 
 OR, 
 
 BURIED ALIVE. 
 
 PART SECOin). 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE HARTLEY NEW PIT. 
 
 IN the first part of this small volume, men- 
 tion is made of several perils to which those 
 who work in coal mines are constantly ex- 
 posed ; and it is remarked that each of these 
 dangers is so fearful and destructive that 
 sometimes half the population of a collier vil- 
 lage has been cut off almost at a stroke. These 
 dangers arise, as the reader has already been 
 informed, from what is called choke-damp, 
 fire-damp, the rushing in of water, and the 
 
 falling in of some part of the mine. 
 
 (123)
 
 124 DOWN IN A MINE. 
 
 Another cause of danger is also referred to, 
 namely, the breaking of machinery at the 
 mouth of the pit. 
 
 It is also remarked, that accidents in coal 
 mines are not so frequent as they were at one 
 time, on account of the plans which have been 
 contrived for lessening the various dangers to 
 which miners are exposed. 
 
 Some months have passed away since this 
 was written, and the writer little thought that, 
 before the book should be printed, he would 
 have to tell, in a second part of " Down in a 
 Mine," of an accident more terrible than that 
 of which he had just given a short account, 
 and that this accident would arise from a 
 source whence danger is least expected. 
 
 On Thursday, the 16th of January, 1862, 
 the women and children of a collier village, 
 in Northumberland, such a village as has 
 been already described, were alarmed by 
 tidings of an accident which had just occurred 
 in the coal pit where almost all the men and 
 boys of the village were at work. You mny
 
 THE HARTLEY NEW PIT. 125 
 
 be sure that the sad news spread very rapidly 
 from one dwelling to another, and that in a 
 short time every ordinary occupation was sus- 
 pended, whilst numbers of the poor affrighted 
 females hastened to the pit's mouth to learn 
 as much as they could of what had taken 
 place. 
 
 The story was soon told, that the beam of 
 a large pump, used for clearing the pit of 
 water, had suddenly, and without warning, 
 broken ; that the broken part of this beam 
 had fallen down the shaft, carrying with it 
 such destruction as to completely block up 
 the passage into the mine; and that all who 
 were then in the mine, were thus, at least for 
 a time, buried alive. It was soon known, also, 
 that the number of those who were thus im- 
 prisoned deep down in the mine, was more 
 than two hundred. 
 
 Something else also was known, namely, 
 that at the very time this happened, a small 
 party of the miners were being drawn up to 
 the mouth of the pit, and that some, at least,
 
 126 DOWN IN A MINE. 
 
 of these men had been killed by the horrible 
 accident. 
 
 The terror and distress caused by this sor- 
 rowful news was very great. Before any 
 thing more could be certainly known, the 
 whole village was in a state of painful confu- 
 sion. Wives and mothers were loudly la- 
 menting or silently fearing for their husbands 
 and boys who were thus entombed ; and were 
 dreading further tidings respecting the poor 
 men who had already lost their lives, and 
 whose names were probably not at first 
 known. 
 
 Before giving any further account of the 
 accident, however, I shall attempt a descrip- 
 tion of the pit or mine in which it occurred. 
 
 The name of this colliery is the Hartley Xew 
 Pit. It is a deep mine, though not so deep 
 as some others, the lowest working (which is 
 called the low main) being six hundred feet 
 below the surface of the ground. Nearly a 
 hundred feet above this is another working, 
 called the yard main ; and still nearer the
 
 THE HARTLEY NEW PIT. 127 
 
 mouth of the pit is a third working, called the 
 high main. 
 
 The only entrance to this mine is by a sin- 
 gle shaft, or well, twelve feet in diameter, 
 which, before the accident happened, was di- 
 vided into two equal parts by a wooden par- 
 tition, called a brattice, which ran down it 
 from top to bottom. One side of this divided 
 shaft served as a downcast pit, by which air 
 was conveyed into the workings, and which 
 having been passed round them by the means 
 ordinarily used in mines, rushed to the sur- 
 face again by the other half of the shaft, which 
 was therefore called the upcast. It will be 
 understood that unless this plan had been 
 adopted, the air in the mine would have been 
 so impure and poisonous that no person could 
 have lived in it. And our readers may also 
 be reminded that in many mines, if not in the 
 greater number, there are two shafts, some 
 distance apart, one of which is the downcast, 
 and the other the upcast. If there had been 
 two shafts to the Hartley New Pit, the sor-
 
 128 DOWN IN A MINE. 
 
 rowful event of which I have to tell would 
 have been averted. 
 
 It will be understood that this great, deep 
 shaft had other uses besides that of airing the 
 mine. Thus, on the downcast side were the 
 large iron cages in which the miners were let 
 down to the workings and were drawn up again. 
 On this side also the coals were raised to the 
 surface; while on the other, or the upcast 
 side, was the machinery for pumping up water 
 from the bottom of the mine. 
 
 This machinery was very powerful, as indeed 
 it had need to be ; for, besides the great depth 
 from which the water had to be raised, there 
 was a great deal of it to be pumped away, so 
 as to enable the workings to be carried on. 
 The mine being a very wet mine, that is to 
 say, the water coming into it very fast from 
 numerous springs, the machinery had to be 
 kept constantly at work day and night ; and 
 it will be seen how necessary this must have 
 been when it is told that fifteen hundred gal- 
 lons of water were thus pumped out of the
 
 THE HARTLEY NEW PIT. 129 
 
 mine every minute, or more than two millions 
 of gallons in every day of twenty-four hours. 
 The pump was kept working by steam power, 
 and it may easily be supposed that every part 
 of the machinery employed was of great 
 weight. It certainly was : for instance, the 
 large iron beam which, suspended by the 
 middle, like the beam of a pair of scales, 
 ceaselessly worked up and down over the pit's 
 mouth, weighed more than forty tons, or near- 
 ly ninety thousand pounds. 
 
 This, then, is a very short description of the 
 mine as it was on the morning of the 16th of 
 January. At the pit's mouth all was cheer- 
 ful activity ; the steam engine was steadily in 
 motion, doing the work of four hundred 
 horses ; the great beam of the pumping ma- 
 chine was rising and falling ; a constant stream 
 of water was pouring forth and passing away 
 from the mine ; while on the other side was 
 the windlass for letting down and drawing up 
 the miners. Already two sets of men, who 
 had been some hours at work below, had been 
 9
 
 130 DOWN IN A MINE. 
 
 safely drawn to the surface, and others were 
 following. 
 
 Down in the mine all was activity. Num- 
 bers of men and boys whose spell of work was 
 for that time over, were hastening in their 
 coarse miner dresses to the bottom of the 
 shaft, naturally desirous of breathing purer 
 air, and enjoying the daylight above; while 
 others who had just arrived, or had not 
 worked out their number of hours, were hew- 
 ing the huge masses of coal in the various 
 workings, or hurrying it away through the 
 low galleries in corves, or patiently sitting at 
 their trap doors those little trappers 
 ready to open and shut them as occasion re- 
 quired. All was deep gloom, for the light of 
 the sun had never penetrated into those black 
 caverns, and only the glimmering of the dull 
 Davy lamps carried by each miner, served 
 partially to disperse the darkness. Nay, the 
 darkness could not be thus dispersed ; there 
 was but light enough to show how great and 
 thick that darkness was.
 
 THE HARTLEY XEW PIT. 131 
 
 And yet there was cheerfulness in the Hart- 
 ley mine on that eventful morning. The 
 "miners were accustomed to their employment, 
 and perhaps had no desire to change it for 
 any other. The mine was familiar to them; 
 and though they knew their work to be haz- 
 ardous, they were so accustomed to its pecu- 
 liar dangers that they had almost ceased to 
 think of them. They knew also that their 
 occupation was honest, and necessary, and 
 manly ; and that though toilsome as well as 
 perilous, it brought with it its reward in suffi- 
 cient wages for the necessary comforts of life, 
 and for some of its luxuries. Yes, there was 
 cheerfulness in that mine that morning. 
 
 And peace; yes, we may be glad to feel 
 assured that there was peace there Chris- 
 tian peace, I mean the peace that passeth 
 understanding, of which an apostle speaks; 
 the peace of God shed abroad in the heart by 
 God's Holy Spirit, through faith in the Lord 
 Jesus Christ. 
 
 I have already told you how the knowledge
 
 132 DOWN IN A MINE. 
 
 of God, and of the gospel of his dear Son, was 
 many years ago taken to the poor miners, who 
 before that time had doubtless been exceed- 
 ingly ignorant and vicious; and how, from 
 that happy time, a great change has been ob- 
 servable in all coal mines as respects the char- 
 acter of the miners. And with regard to 
 those who were employed in the Hartley Pit, 
 it is known that they were not only a remark- 
 ably steady, industrious, and sober set of men, 
 but that many among them had that love of 
 God shed abroad in their hearts, which is the 
 only foundation for true and lasting peace on 
 earth, and a sure pledge of eternal happiness 
 beyond the grave. 
 
 Yes, truly, there were many there, in that 
 dark mine, who on that sad morning had 
 committed their bodies and souls to the care 
 of their God and Saviour; some who perhaps 
 had but recently given their hearts to him, 
 and others who had long known and trusted 
 him, and who could say with the apostle Paul, 
 u We know that if our earthly house of this
 
 THE HAETLEY NEW PIT. 133 
 
 tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building 
 of God, a house not made with hands, eternal 
 in the heavens." 2 Cor.^v. 1. And we may 
 well believe that the thoughts and feelings of 
 these Christian miners would have been very 
 much in accordance with the following verses 
 of a hymn, with which some of them, I dare 
 say, were acquainted : 
 
 " Lord, when I quit this earthly stage, 
 Where shall I fly but to thy breast 
 For I have sought no other house, 
 For I have learned no other rest. 
 
 " I can not live contented here 
 
 Without some glimpses of thy face ; 
 
 And heaven, without thy presence there, 
 
 Would be a dark and tiresome place. 
 
 " When earthly cares engross the day, 
 
 And hold my thoughts aside from thee, 
 Even shining hours of cheerful light 
 Are long and tedious years to me. 
 
 " And if no evening visit's paid 
 
 Between my Saviour and my soul, 
 How dull the night, how dark the shade, 
 How mournfully the minutes roll ! 
 
 " My God, and can a humble child, 
 
 That loves thee with a flame so high, 
 Be ever from thy face exiled, 
 Without the pity of thine eye ?
 
 134 DOWN IN A MINE. 
 
 " Impossible ! for thine own hands 
 
 Have tied my heart so fast to thee ; 
 And in thy Book the promise stands, 
 That where thou art, thy friends shall be." 
 
 These verses, I am sure, Would be very suit- 
 able, and also very sweet and encouraging, to 
 a true Christian " down in a mine ; " and if 
 the exact words did not come into any one's 
 mind that morning in the Hartley New Pit, 
 doubtless the sentiments were felt. 
 
 Now let us leave the mine, and go once 
 more above ground.
 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE DISASTER. 
 
 I HAVE said that two sets of miners had 
 been safely drawn up from the bottom of the 
 mine in the ordinary manner, and that an- 
 other party was on its way upward. The 
 number in that party were eight; and as 
 there is no reason why some of their names 
 should not be given, I will put them down 
 here. They are: Ralph Robson, George 
 Sharp, and his son, also named George, and 
 whose age was only sixteen years, Robert 
 Bewick, William Brown, Thomas Watson, 
 and two others. 
 
 Well, while these men were ascending the 
 shaft, the great beam of the pumping engine, 
 of which I have spoken, suddenly snapped 
 asunder ; and the half of it which was over 
 the shaft fell into it, and, striking with its 
 
 (135)
 
 136 DOWN IN A MINE. 
 
 great weight the top of the brattice^ or parti- 
 tion, tore it all away, and with it the planks 
 and timbers with which the shaft was lined. 
 So sudden and unexpected was this accident, 
 and so rapidly had it taken place, that before 
 those who were standing by had time to as- 
 certain the cause of the disaster, the shaft 
 was in ruins, being blocked up by the falling 
 timber, and the earth from the sides of the 
 shaft. 
 
 But what had become of the men who 
 were at that very time ascending the shaft ? 
 I will tell you, in the words of one of them, 
 whose life was preserved. 
 
 " It was about half past ten when I and 
 seven others got into the cage. We had got 
 about half way up, when we heard a sudden 
 crack in the shaft, and a moment after there 
 came down a tremendous crush of falling 
 timber, which struck the cage. Before we 
 were struck, something passed by us down 
 the shaft, like a flash of lightning. The 
 crack we heard seemed close by us in the
 
 THE DISASTER. 137 
 
 shaft it did not come from overhead. It 
 might have been one of the spears (pump 
 rods) breaking, but I should not like to say. 
 We were all thrown out of the cage by the 
 shock. Four of us were killed on the spot. 
 When we (those who survived) came to con- 
 sider, we concluded that the spears were 
 broken, as the engine had stopped ; and we 
 thought that the shaft had closed up over us. 
 " One of the men in the upper deck of the 
 cage had some matches in his pocket, and we 
 struck a light. The first thing I did was to 
 examine the state of the rapper ropes (by 
 which signals are given from the bottom to 
 the top), and I found them all right. I 
 wrapped a leathern belt round them, with 
 the intention of climbing by them to bank ; 
 but one of the men with me made such a stir 
 about his boy, who had been carried away 
 down by the falling timbers, that I slid down 
 the pumps to look after him. I found him 
 lying among a mass of timber. I remained 
 with him until I was rescued. I was the last
 
 138 DOWN IN A MINE. 
 
 man taken up. They let down a common 
 loop from the top for me, and I went up in 
 that." 
 
 It is Thomas Watson who tells this plain 
 and simple story. You see he does not at- 
 tempt to make a hero of himself; but was 
 there not something heroic in his sliding 
 down by the pumps to look after one of his 
 companions, instead of following his own first 
 instinct of self-preservation? Surely there 
 was. And when he reached the ruins below, 
 what do you suppose he did ? He does not 
 himself tell us in the short account I have 
 just given ; but others tell us for him, that, 
 finding his companion jammed in among the 
 broken timbers, and that it was impossible to 
 release him, though he was not then dead, 
 Thomas Watson employed himself for many 
 hours in praying with and for his dying com- 
 panion, and in comforting and encouraging 
 him in prospect of death. Nor did he seek 
 to leave his poor friend until the last sigh and 
 groan was uttered, and the last pain endured,
 
 THE DISASTER. 139 
 
 although he himself had been bruised with 
 the falling timbers, and was every moment in 
 danger of- being buried in the ruins of the 
 shaft. 
 
 Was not this like a Christian hero ? And 
 may we not feel sure that God, who is the 
 hearer and the answerer of prayer, heard 
 the prayers of these poor miners, and put 
 such heavenly comfort into their souls as sus- 
 tained them in the midst of the terrors with 
 which they were surrounded ? May we not 
 believe that, in those last hours of his life, 
 while hopeless of human help, the dying 
 man's thoughts and faith were directed to the 
 almighty Saviour, who is able to save to the 
 uttermost all that come unto God by him ; 
 and that thus even his " very pains and death 
 were blessed"? And may we not also be 
 convinced that if he who survived to tell the 
 tale should live any number of years longer, 
 no action of his life will be more satisfactory 
 in review than that of his descending deeper 
 into that "horrible pit," instead of attempt-
 
 140 DOWN IN A MINE. 
 
 ing to make his escape from it; and of his 
 remaining close to his dying comrade till 
 death released him from his sufferings, in 
 order that he might pour hope and comfort 
 into his soul ? 
 
 But what were the men at bank, or the 
 mouth of the ruined shaft doing, while Thomas 
 Watson was thus employed below ? Be sure 
 they were not idly looking on and wringing 
 their hands, or uttering loud lamentations in 
 hopeless despair or useless sorrow. As soon 
 as they could ascertain the cause of the acci- 
 dent, and its immediate consequences, they 
 set about to remedy it. Their first thought, 
 doubtless, was of the men in the cage ; and 
 their first efforts were directed to their relief. 
 
 They soon ascertained that the shaft was 
 stopped up by the ruins of the brattice timber, 
 about thirty fathoms, or a hundred and eighty 
 feet, from bank, before arriving at the high 
 main. There was great difficulty in passing a 
 rope through this to the men below. Indeed, 
 so great was this difficulty, that several hours
 
 THE DISASTER. 141 
 
 elapsed before they were reached, and then it 
 was found that only three of the eight who 
 were in the cage were living. When they 
 were got up, the timber in the upper part of 
 the shaft was cleared . away, and steps were 
 taken to clear away the timber below. 
 
 Of course, as soon as the accident was 
 known, messengers were sent to the neigh- 
 boring collieries, and all the best men con- 
 nected with them were sent to the rescue. 
 The gin and rack were rigged and wrought 
 by an engine, as also the crab worked by 
 men and horses. It was determined not to 
 send the timber and rubbish up to the bank, 
 but to pass it into the upper seam. But on 
 descending the shaft, it was found that only 
 two men could work at one time, and in doing 
 so they had to be slung with ropes from the 
 bank, and were in constant danger of them- 
 selves being crushed or buried by the loose 
 and falling sides of the shaft. Thus the work 
 went on very slowly through the whole of 
 that day and the succeeding night.
 
 142 DOWN IN A MINE. 
 
 The night was cold and cheerless, but by 
 the light of the moon, which was then at full, 
 numbers of people from the surrounding 
 country came flocking to the Hartley pit; 
 and there, through the livelong night, were 
 to be seen the poor wives and mothers of the 
 imprisoned men, so far beyond their reach, 
 deep down in the mine. Not many eyes 
 were closed for quiet sleep in the collier vil- 
 lage that night, I think. And still the ques- 
 tions were put from one to another, "Will 
 they be saved?" "Will they be saved to- 
 morrow ? " " Will they be saved at all ? "
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 CLEARING THE SHAFT. 
 
 THE second day dawned upon those who 
 were laboring to penetrate through the rained 
 shaft, and on those who were anxiously look- 
 ing on. By this time the sad news had very 
 widely spread, that more than two hundred 
 miners were inclosed in the mine; and from 
 all quarters, on foot and by railway, parties 
 of men and women, belonging almost entirely 
 to the surrounding mining population, kept 
 pouring in to the colliery ; so that by the after- 
 noon several thousands were gathered round- 
 the pit's mouth, anxious for tidings of their 
 imprisoned fellow-creatures, and filled with 
 sad forebodings respecting their probable fate. 
 
 I have already told you that when the acci- 
 dent happened, the miners were in the low 
 main ; and had they been confined to this 
 
 (143)
 
 144 DOWN IN A MINE. 
 
 part of the mine, their almost immediate de- 
 struction would have been certain, because of 
 the water which kept pouring in. But as it 
 was known that, besides the shaft, there was 
 also a passage from the low main to the yard 
 main, called an " air staple" and that easy ac- 
 cess through this staple was afforded from cne 
 main to the other by means of a long ladder, 
 those above comforted themselves with reflect- 
 ing that their poor companions had escaped 
 drowning, and were as yet safe in the yard 
 main. Another comfortable thought was that 
 the ah- in that main was good, and also that, 
 for a little while, the prisoners would not 
 suffer from either hunger or thirst, as the 
 water there was plentiful and good, and as 
 there was a store of horse provender (most 
 likely oats and beans), which for a time might 
 serve them for food. It was also known that 
 a pony was in the yard main ; and the people 
 above whispered to one another that, rather 
 than die of starvation, it would be possible to 
 live for a little while on pony-flesh, as no
 
 CLEARING THE SHAFT. 145 
 
 doubt it would. Besides this pony there 
 were several horses in the mine; but these 
 were in the low main, and were doubtless 
 soon drowned. 
 
 It may easily be supposed that not only 
 those who were interested in the Hartley 
 mine, as engineers and managers, were untir- 
 ing in their exertions for the rescue of their 
 fellow-workmen, but many persons of much 
 knowledge and experience living in that part 
 of the country brought resources to the help 
 of the anxious men at the bank* These gen- 
 tlemen made a careful inspection of the state 
 of the pit, and offered suggestions as to the 
 most desirable plan of operations. 
 
 Among them was Mr. Coulson, whose busi- 
 ness was that of sinking mine shafts, and who, 
 being at Newcastle on the day after the acci- 
 dent, and hearing tidings of it, started off di- 
 rectly to see how matters were getting on. 
 Finding the state of things so serious, he 
 offered his services, which were accepted ; 
 and then he immediately descended the pit. 
 10
 
 146 DOWN IN A MOTE. 
 
 This was about five o'clock on Friday after- 
 noon, and more than thirty hours after the 
 accident happened. 
 
 Mr. Cqulson found the shaft in a very shat- 
 tered state ; all the timber was swept away, 
 both of the main brattice and of the side 
 lining, except here and there where there 
 was a timber hanging loose from the side. 
 About five fathoms, or thirty feet, above the 
 yard seam, all the rubbish had stuck fast in 
 the shaft, and presented very discouraging 
 obstacles to its removal. Mr. Coulson set to 
 work with a will, however, in directing and 
 assisting this dangerous and difficult opera- 
 tion ; and so the second day closed in. 
 
 Another day passed away, and still no help 
 had reached the poor miners in their dark and 
 dreary dungeon. Late that evening, a gentle- 
 man who was on the spot wrote thus : " After 
 I left the colliery last night, the work for the 
 removal of the rubbish and broken timber 
 obstructing the shaft, went on briskly; but
 
 CLEARING THE SHAFT. 147 
 
 about ten o'clock some of the walls of the 
 shaft gave way, and little could be done until 
 this was bratticed up. This morning the 
 workmen were thirty feet or more from the 
 engine drift of the yard seam, from which it 
 is hoped the unfortunate men and lads will be 
 rescued when reached. The distance has been 
 reduced to-night to less than eighteen feet, 
 and by to-morrow morning at latest, it is to 
 be hoped the obstruction will be removed so 
 far down as this drift, and that the poor fel- 
 lows, if alive, of which there is every hope, 
 will be rescued." 
 
 It was on this day or the preceding night, 
 that the lifeless bodies of four of the poor 
 men who had been thrown out of the cage 
 were found ; these were conveyed to the 
 upper seam. 
 
 I have said that no help had reached the 
 poor imprisoned miners ; and true it is no 
 human help had reached them. But may it 
 not be hoped and cordially believed that the 
 gracious help of God's Holy Spirit had been
 
 148 DOWN IN A MINE. 
 
 given them to cast their burdened, sorrow- 
 laden souls on the mercy of God by faith in 
 his dear Son? And would any help from 
 their fellow-men for their perishable bodies be 
 equal to this divine help for their never-dying 
 souls? I have already* said that among these 
 poor miners were many who knew the grace 
 of God by happy experience; who had re- 
 ceived pardon of sin ; whose souls had been 
 sanctified ; and who could truly give thanks 
 to their heavenly Father who had made them 
 " meet to be partakers of the inheritance of 
 the saints in light." And we shall see pres- 
 ently that these pious men were enabled to 
 glorify God by humble prayer at the throne of 
 grace, and by exhorting those around them to 
 flee for refuge, if they had not yet done so, to 
 lay hold on the hope set before them in the 
 gospel. And shall we not believe that God 
 mercifully heard these prayers? and though 
 it was not his heavenly sovereign will that 
 any of these poor miners should be rescued 
 from temporal death, who shall dare to say
 
 CLEARING THE SHAFT. 149 
 
 that many of them were not led in those sol- 
 emn, awful hours, if for the first time, to sor- 
 row for sin " after a godly sort," and to cast 
 their souls upon the Lord Jesus Christ for 
 eternal salvation? 
 
 And we know who it is that has said, " Him 
 that cometh unto me I will in no wise cast 
 out ; " and again, " Come now, and let us rea- 
 son together : though your sins be as scarlet, 
 they shall be as white as snow ; though they 
 be red like crimson, they shall be as wool,"
 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE SABBATH. 
 
 THE Lord Jesus Christ, when he was on 
 earth, told his disciples that "the Sabbath was 
 made for man, and not man for the Sabbath." 
 He asked the Jews, " What man shall there 
 be among you that shall have one sheep, and 
 if it fall into a pit on the Sabbath day, will he 
 not lay hold on it, and lift it out ? " and he 
 himself did many works of mercy and benev- 
 olence on Sabbath days. 
 
 Had any Christian man, ignorant of what 
 had happened, passed by the bank of the 
 Hartley mine on the 19th of January, which 
 was Sunday, he would no doubt have felt 
 shocked at seeing work very busily going on, 
 with machinery in operation, and a great 
 many men laboring in a variety of ways, with 
 such earnestness and seriousness as is seldom 
 witnessed. (150;
 
 THE SABBATH. 151 
 
 " Ah," the spectator might have said, "these 
 men must be very ignorant or very depraved. 
 They are so anxious to obtain the bread that 
 perisheth, that they care nothing about their 
 souls. Have they never heard that there is 
 such a book as the Bible, and such a com- 
 mandment from the God who made them as 
 this : ' Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it 
 holy'?" 
 
 But, then, had some one said, " These men 
 whom you judge to be so ignorant of what is 
 right, or so regardless of God, are really act- 
 ing in obedience to his commands, for they 
 are laboring hard to save precious lives the 
 lives of two hundred fellow-creatures, who are 
 exposed to danger and death down in yonder 
 pit," how entirely -would the stranger's opin- 
 ion have been altered! Instead of blaming 
 them for their eager exertions, he would have 
 praised them for their humanity and zeal ; and, 
 in the place of praying God to pardon what 
 he had ignorantly supposed to be their great 
 wickedness, he would have given thanks for
 
 152 DOWN IX A MINE. 
 
 that religion which teaches men to love their 
 neighbors as themselves, and would have be- 
 sought God to bless and prosper the work of 
 their hands. 
 
 The Bible tells us not to judge by the out- 
 ward appearance, but to judge righteous judg- 
 ment. 
 
 The work went on all the Sunday long, as 
 it had gone on all through the preceding night ; 
 and yet the miners below were shut up in the 
 pit, where they had been more than three 
 days. 
 
 One thing encouraged the working parties 
 above to hope, and to increase their efforts, if 
 possible. It was this: about midnight of Sat- 
 urday the imprisoned men had been distinctly 
 heard as they also had been at intervals all 
 through the previous day working for their 
 own release, and signaling by sounds to their 
 deliverers. This was joyful intelligence to 
 give to the crowds around the mine, and to 
 send to the collier village. There was yet 
 hope that the men and boys might be saved.
 
 THE SABBATH. 153 
 
 And while men were thus working with all 
 their strength for this purpose, and others by 
 thousands were gathered round to witness the 
 deliverance, prayers were publicly put up to 
 God in churches and chapels for many miles 
 round, as far as the news of the accident had 
 spread, as well as more privately offered in 
 hundreds of families, or yet more secretly, by 
 thousands of praying men and women, in their 
 closets, or from their hearts when no words 
 were spoken, and when none but God was 
 near. 
 
 Every where, in true Christian souls, we 
 may be quite sure those prayers were, that 
 God would be graciously pleased to bless and 
 prosper the means adopted for the rescue of 
 the men and boys, if it were his will ; but if 
 otherwise, and his decree had gone forth that 
 should they die at that time in the mine, in- 
 stead of a few years, or months, or days later,, 
 in the more ordinary course of events, yet 
 that he would, by his good and Holy Spiritj 
 prepare them for this immediate death*
 
 154 DOWN IN A MINE. 
 
 I have no doubt that prayers were offered 
 also for the poor wives and mothers of the 
 miners, that God would give them patience 
 and resignation to his will, whatever that 
 might be; and that this solemn providence 
 might lead such of them as were careless and 
 unconcerned to God, who alone can truly and 
 effectually comfort those who are cast down. 
 As little doubt is there that constant prayers 
 ascended to God on behalf of the men who 
 were employed in the hazardous work of 
 making a way into the mine. 
 
 For, indeed, this was a labor of very great 
 danger. The men could only descend by 
 twos or threes into the blocked-up shaft. 
 They had to be suspended by ropes as they 
 worked ; and then, when so deep down that 
 only a glimmering of light was visible- above 
 them, they were every minute exposed to the 
 closing in of the pit above them, or to loose 
 earth and stones, from the now unprotected 
 shaft, falling down upon them with fatal force. 
 
 And this fatal accident did nearly happen ;
 
 THE SABBATH. 155 
 
 for the torrents of water which poured down 
 the sides of the shaft washed away the stones, 
 and there was a heavy fall while one work- 
 man was below. But, by God's mercy, he 
 escaped unhurt, though there was scarcely 
 more than space enough for him to be drawn 
 through the mass of earth and stones which 
 had fallen. After this, the workmen were 
 obliged to leave off clearing away the rubbish 
 until the sides of the shaft were made more 
 secure. 
 
 I had almost forgotten to say that on Sat- 
 urday night the last of the five men killed in 
 the cage was found in the rubbish, and the 
 dead body was brought up and laid with the 
 others. And so, while almost all in the col- 
 lier village were trembling with fearful appre- 
 hension as to what sad intelligence a day or 
 an hour, or even a few minutes, might bring 
 to them, there were some upon whom the 
 blow had already fallen. 
 
 Thus the short hours of daylight of that 
 mournful Sunday passed away ; and when, by
 
 156 DOWN IN A MINE. 
 
 the deep red glare of the lighted coal heaps 
 around the mouth of the shaft the work was 
 continued, the fear that all this labor for the 
 saving of life would be in vain, moistened 
 many a cheek, though it weakened no single
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE WORK CONTINUED. 
 
 MONDAY came ; but no human help had yet 
 reached the miners. And here I may copy 
 some portions of another letter written on the 
 morning of that day. 
 
 " Now that the shaft is made complete and 
 safe, it is expected that the work of removing 
 the rubbish will go on rapidly. In fact, some 
 good lifts of timber have been made this 
 morning. . . . The sinkers are within twelve 
 feet of the furnace drift, and the greatest con- 
 fidence is expressed that, when they reach it, 
 immediate communication can be opened with 
 the men and lads below in the yard seam ; and 
 even if they can not get them .up thence to 
 bank, strong, active relays of pitmen and 
 miners can soon clear the shaft from the yard 
 seam. . . . There is an arched way in the 
 
 (157)
 
 158 DOWN IN A MINE. 
 
 yard seam leading from the shaft to the staple, 
 up which the men are supposed to have es- 
 caped from the low main, only six feet in 
 height. The whole of the buried party ( il 
 alive, and in the yard seam ) will be gathered 
 together in the archway. It is not known 
 whether they have a fire, but it is certain that 
 they have a good supply of oil for their lamps 
 for some days to come. 
 
 "The bodies of the five men killed in the 
 shaft on Thursday were brought up from the 
 high seam this morning, and carried to their 
 homes. 
 
 "The labors of the past four days in the 
 shaft have gone on with wonderful order and 
 regularity. There has been no noise or confu- 
 sion at bank, as the rubbish sent up the shaft 
 has been stowed away in the high seam ; the 
 only sounds breaking the silence at the pit's 
 mouth, which has been kept quite clear of 
 idlers, being the shouts of the workmen : 
 'Bend up the gin.' 'Bend up the jack.' 
 4 Heave up the crab.'
 
 THE WOKK CONTINUED. 159 
 
 "After Friday night the wives and children 
 of the buried workmen were induced to leave 
 the pit-heap, and have been kept away, which 
 has been a great relief to the working party. 
 Dr. Davison, the colliery surgeon, relieved 
 now and then by Dr. Pyle and other surgeons, 
 has been in attendance for any emergency 
 since the first hour that he received informa- 
 tion of the catastrophe. Mr. Carr, * with Mr. 
 Humble, and the other officials of the pit, ap- 
 pear to be neaply worn out with their four 
 nights' and days' labor and anxiety. Mr. 
 Coulson, the master-sinker, however, who has 
 had vast experience in shaft work, and under 
 whose directions the tedious process of remov- 
 ing the obstruction has been conducted, is 
 bearing up well. 
 
 " The anxiety of every one connected with 
 the district is becoming more intense every 
 hour as the time wears on, and the fate of the 
 poor men and lads still hangs in the balance. 
 
 * Who was one of the owners of the mine.
 
 160 DOWN IN A MINE. 
 
 Last night the fourth of weary watching 
 by the families of the entombed men 
 was one of extreme anguish in their homes, 
 though hope, and the report of the voices of 
 the buried men being heard in the shaft, kept 
 up the hearts of the women and children 
 wonderfully. 
 
 " Very many of the men have families ; and 
 indeed they number nearly the whole working 
 male population of the village. One poor 
 woman has a husband and six children, with 
 a boy whom she and her husband brought up, 
 buried in the pit; and many other persons 
 are in no better position. One man is reported 
 to have taken his little boy down with him at 
 nine o'clock on Thursday morning to show 
 him the pit, which was a little more than an 
 hour before the accident took place." 
 
 Two hours after commencing writing the 
 above, the writer goes on to say : " I have 
 just returned from a second visit to the pit. 
 The work is going on steadily. The last re-
 
 THE WORK CONTINUED. 161 
 
 port from the shaft is, that there is a space or 
 hollow in the obstruction, about six feet deep, 
 and that the working party can hear the loose 
 rubbish falling down to the bottom of the pit. 
 Mr. Coulson and four picked men have just 
 descended, and it is confidently hoped that a 
 communication will be opened this afternoon. 
 
 " An immense number of people were gath- 
 ering round the pit this forenoon; and the 
 anxiety of the wives and families of the poor 
 fellows has become intense since it was known 
 that they might be reached this afternoon," 
 
 Six or seven hours later the following mes- 
 sage was written : 
 
 "At one o'clock to-day, Mr. Coulson, the 
 master-sinker, sent up word that he hoped the 
 men might be reached in four hours. Every 
 preparation was made, and a great number of 
 surgeons were in attendance, and are still 
 waiting. But it is to be feared that many 
 hours will elapse before the men are reached. 
 
 "No tongue can tell nor pen describe the 
 excitement and anguish prevailing here at the 
 11
 
 102" DOWN IX A MINE. 
 
 thought that these poor creatures have to 
 pass another gloomy night in their terrible 
 prison-house. . . . The work in the shaft is of 
 the very slowest and most tedious character. 
 
 " Once more the men have come to bank, 
 and once again a more favorable statement is 
 made. . . . The men work steadily among the 
 wood and small stones ; and while they work 
 they are gratified by hearing the sound of 
 pebbles falling from underneath the obstruct- 
 ing material, and this proves, beyond doubt, 
 that the hoped-for vacancy must exist, and as 
 soon as the firmly fixed portion of material is 
 once loosened, the long hoped-for fall will 
 take place. 
 
 " While the work proceeds, the water falls 
 down amain from the craggy sides above ; but 
 no danger of further falls is dreaded. . . . 
 
 "Those only who descend the shaft, and 
 work for the removal of the knotty obstruc- 
 tions they find there, can form a correct opin- 
 ion of the task on which they are engaged. . .
 
 TOE WORK CONTINUED. 163 
 
 " The accounts from the pit are very gloomy. 
 The hole has been made larger, and is sunk 
 near the seam. 
 
 " A slight fall has blocked up the aperture, 
 but this obstacle is expected to be removed in 
 half an hour. . . . 
 
 " Discouraging news reached the bank. Mr. 
 Wilkinson, one of the men in charge of the 
 working party, was sent down to examine the 
 hole. He started with the seven o'clock shift 
 of men, and remained until nearly ten o'clock. 
 In this time the men were directed to apply 
 their efforts vigorously to the enlargement 
 and further sinking of this aperture in the di- 
 rection of the furnace shaft. They did so 
 with a will. . . . 
 
 "Mr. Wilkinson was brought to bank suf- 
 fering from the effects of foul air." 
 
 This was at eleven o'clock on Monday night. 
 
 Five times the wintery sun had set and risen, 
 and now on the sixth day (Tuesday) almost 
 all hope had disappeared. Way had not yet
 
 164 DOWN IN A MINE. 
 
 been made down the shaft, though all night 
 long, as before, men had been working to 
 effect this. And to add to this discourage- 
 ment, it was remembered that no voices had 
 been heard from below since one o'clock on 
 Sunday. True, the imprisoned men might 
 have retreated to the further extremity of the 
 yard main or seam ; and they might be too 
 exhausted with fasting or sickness, or too dis- 
 couraged by hope delayed, to have strength 
 or energy to cry out more, although they 
 might yet live. But for all this, men looked 
 sadly upon one another as they went on with 
 their arduous labor, while the crowds around 
 moved about uneasily and in great excite- 
 ment ; and though they knew not why, they 
 felt dissatisfied with the slow progress of the 
 work of deliverance, as though not sufficient 
 earnestness was shown in it. They fancied, 
 also, that there was bad news from below 
 which was kept from them. 
 
 And the poor women and children in the 
 collier village think how the hope deferred,
 
 THE WOKK CONTINUED. 165 
 
 through five long days and longer nights, had 
 made their hearts sick! and how at length, 
 with bated breath, and whispered words, and 
 silent tears, and suppressed sobs, they spoke to 
 each other of their common grief ! 
 Here is the story of this sixth day : 
 Another danger to the men engaged in the 
 benevolent work of deliverance was by this 
 time proved to exist. This was what the 
 miners call a stytJie, or a volume of bad air or 
 poisonous gas escaping from the mine. I 
 have already spoken, in the earlier part of this 
 book, of choke-damp ; and the gas which was 
 now dreaded is something of that nature. It 
 is called carbonic oxide gas, and is caused by 
 the fumes of the furnaces which are necessary 
 in mines for keeping up ventilation. So, you 
 see, the very means taken to 'keep off one 
 danger gives rise to another, though not so 
 great. 
 
 But now that the shaft was closed, it was 
 feared that this gas in the mine, having no 
 escape, would accumulate, and, as soon as an
 
 166 DOWN IN A MINE. 
 
 opening was made, would rush upward and 
 destroy the lives of those who were exposed 
 to it in the shaft. 
 
 It was from the effects of this gas that Mr. 
 Wilkinson was brought up to bank almost in- 
 sensible; and not long afterward others of 
 the workers had a still narrower escape from 
 destruction. They were clearing away the 
 rubbish, and rejoicing that certainly the poor 
 imprisoned miners would now soon be reached, 
 when there was a sudden fall of loose stones 
 from that rubbish into the mine below ; and 
 at the same instant rose this poisonous gas, 
 finding its way through the obstruction, and 
 almost overpowering the workmen. Happily 
 they had strength enough left to signal for 
 help, and help came; but when they were 
 drawn up to bank they were nil nearly sense- 
 less, and it was for a time believed that one 
 of them was dying. Their companions who 
 went to their assistance were also seriously 
 affected with the gas ; and the work had again 
 to be suspended until means were devised for 
 the security of the workers in the shaft.
 
 THE WORK COXTIXUIID. 167 
 
 It may bo supposed that this new danger 
 would destroy all remaining hope of saving 
 the poor men and lads below. For, if this gas 
 had proved so nearly fatal to those in the shaft, 
 must it not long before this have destroyed 
 all human life in the mine ? 
 
 This was a question which many did ask, 
 we may be sure ; and the answer to it could 
 not be very hopeful. Yet there were some 
 who said that this deadly gas had, perhaps, not 
 spread through all the parts of the mine, and 
 that there might be pure air below, even 
 while it was so foul in the shaft. 
 
 The plan adopted for clearing the shaft of 
 this foul air, was by making a canvas brattice, 
 to take the place and answer the end of the 
 wooden one that had been destroyed. But a 
 great many hours was needed for the prepara- 
 tion of this brattice ; and until it was com- 
 pleted no one could remain any length of 
 time in the shaft and live. 
 
 And in this state of terrible uncertainty and 
 increased apprehension another night passed 
 away.
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE NEW BRATTICE. 
 
 WITH brave hearts and willing hands the 
 pitmen, who had so many days and nights 
 been taking turns in their anxious and dan- 
 gerous work, were ready again to enter upon 
 it. I think that inaction was worse to them 
 than labor, while they remembered the two 
 hundred prisoners, so deep down beneath the 
 very ground on which they stood, or rested 
 by the numerous blazing fires which burned 
 day and night around the pit's mouth. 
 
 But they were compelled to wait for the 
 making and fixing of the canvas brattice. 
 
 And would you wonder if told that in all 
 these hours of terrible waiting, the poor wives 
 and mothers in that collier village, bowed 
 down with grief which no words can express, 
 turned away from those who would have 
 
 (168)
 
 THE NEW BRATTICE. 169 
 
 comforted them and encouraged them yet to 
 hope? Would it seem strange to you that, 
 frenzied with their deep sorrow, they were 
 ready to reproach even those who were risk- 
 ing their own lives on their behalf, with in- 
 difference and lukewarmness ? Would you 
 have been surprised, had you been there, to 
 have heard words of impatience and mur- 
 muring, with loud, despairing shrieks of "Give 
 us back our husbands and fathers our broth- 
 ers and sons"? 
 
 I know not how this might be. Possibly 
 some of those sad mourners were wild in their 
 sorrow and loud in their complaints; but 
 ah, listen ! it may bring tears to your eyes, 
 but it will bring good to your souls as well, 
 to hear those whispered words of resignation 
 and trust in God, from this cottage and that, 
 and from more than these, where Christian 
 hearts are stricken with grief. "Though he 
 slay me, yet will I trust in him ; " " it is 
 the Lord, let him do as seemeth good in his 
 sight;" "the Lord gave, and the Lord hath
 
 170 DOWN IN A MINE. 
 
 taken away; blessed be the name of the 
 Lord ; " " although the fig tree shall not blos- 
 som, neither shall fruit be in the vines; the 
 labor of the olive shall fail, and the fields shall 
 yield no meat ; the flock shall be cut off from 
 the fold ; . . . yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I 
 will joy in the God of my salvation." 
 
 Can you not believe that such thoughts 
 as these did spring up in the souls of some 
 among those deeply care-burdened, watching 
 women on this day of their sorrow, when they 
 felt and secretly knew that hope was gone ? 
 And may we not be sure that in the multi- 
 tude of their distracting thoughts within them, 
 God's comforts did sustain and delight their 
 souls, so that they could almost have said, 
 
 " Since I can trust my all with God, 
 
 In sorrow's fearful hour, 
 Bow, all resigned, beneath his rod, 
 
 And bless his awful power, 
 A joy springs up amid distress, 
 A fountain in ihe wilderness " ? 
 
 Or, should it be almost too much to expect 
 such strong faith from such tried Christians,
 
 THE NEW BRATTICE. 171 
 
 in the very depth of their deep sufferings, we 
 may be sure that from their bursting hearts 
 would ascend, and did ascend, this prayer : 
 "Lord, help us to say, 'Thy will be done 
 on earth as it is in heaven ; ' help us to be 
 followers of the blessed Lord Jesus Christ, 
 thy beloved Son, and feel in our hearts, l The 
 cup which our Father giveth us, shall we 
 not drink it ? ' Help us to take up our cross ; 
 and, Lord, dear Lord, help us to bear it ! " 
 
 And do you think that the " dear Lord " 
 did not give his help at this time of need ? 
 Ah, are we not sure that he did, according to 
 his promise to all who trust in him : " When 
 thou passest through the waters, I will be with 
 thee; and through the rivers, they shall not 
 overflow thee : when thou walkest through 
 the fire, thou shalt not be burned, neither 
 shall the flame kindle upon thee"? 
 
 And there were earthly comforters, too, 
 whose kind and gentle words and generous 
 deeds will not soon be forgotten in that col-
 
 172 DOWN IN A MINE. 
 
 Her village. Will the weeping widows (for 
 those wives are widows now) ever cease to 
 remember that a widowed queen, all but 
 forgetting her own recent sorrow, or remem- 
 bering it only to make her sympathy the 
 stronger, sent loving messages from day to 
 day, from her palace to those humble cot- 
 tages? and when all was over, and the worst 
 
 was known, . But I have not yet come 
 
 to this part of the sad history. 
 
 It was the seventh day, then, of this great 
 sorrow, and for a while the active work of 
 making a way to the yard main had been 
 stayed. But at noon the following account 
 was written: 
 
 "The work has been going on vigorously 
 in the shaft, and the canvas brattice is now 
 complete. The men are securing it with 
 bunting ; the sides of the shaft are also being 
 made very secure. Two gentlemen have been 
 down to the high seam, and have recently 
 come to bank ; they report very favorably of 
 an improvement in the air, and the shaft
 
 THE NEW BRATTICE. 173 
 
 seems to be clearing itself of the foul vapors. 
 It is confidently expected that the yard seam 
 may be reached in a few hours, as it is sup- 
 posed that much of the stones and rubbish 
 has fallen from between the timbers to the 
 bottom of the shaft. . . . About fifty picked 
 miners have been employed by shifts in the 
 operations that have gone on in the shaft. 
 Two sections of the most experienced men in 
 the coal trade are banded together for the 
 purpose of exploring the workings as soon as 
 the state of the air will admit." 
 
 This is the last uncertain news that was 
 sent away from New Hartley.
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 SORROW AND CONSOLATION. 
 
 HAVING read this history so far, you will 
 be prepared for its sorrowful termination, 
 which shall be told in a few words. 
 
 On the evening of the seventh day, as soon 
 as the shaft was at all safe to venture into 
 again, two brave men offered to make another 
 attempt. They were, therefore, lowered ; and, 
 with much difficulty, they at length succeeded 
 in forcing a passage for themselves into the 
 yard seam. 
 
 With what anxiety their return was 
 watched, and how long those minutes of 
 suspense must have seemed, may easily be 
 imagined. But at last they reappeared in 
 the shaft, and were drawn up to bank. 
 
 They had a sad tale to tell. Of all the im- 
 
 (174)
 
 SORROW AND CONSOLATION. 175 
 
 prisoned miners below, old and young, not 
 one was found to be living ! 
 
 There is no need to describe the solemn, 
 mournful scene witnessed by these two men, 
 .and others who afterward descended into the 
 mine ; nor to tell of the dead being gradually 
 brought to bank, and placed in coffins hurried- 
 ly prepared for them. Neither is it necessary 
 to speak here of the coroner's inquest held 
 concerning the death of these poor miners, 
 nor of the burial of their bodies. But we 
 may linger in imagination yet a little while 
 around the shaft, and suffer ourselves to think 
 on what has passed there from day to day 
 through a whole week of the hopes, and 
 fears, and anxious cares which have exercised 
 so many minds. "We may look, too, at the 
 hundreds of pitmen from other collieries who 
 have gathered round, and who hear the tid- 
 ings at last, that all their fellow-pitmen below 
 are dead ; and who, while hearing them, bow 
 their heads in solemn silence, and suffer the 
 big tears to roll unheeded down, their dusky
 
 176 DOWN IN A MINE. 
 
 cheeks. And we may ask if they and we 
 ourselves are prepared to meet our God in 
 death and judgment, as those poor men below 
 have been called to meet him ? 
 
 And in the consoling hope that many of 
 those now dead miners were prepared by 
 faith in Christ and the renewal of their fallen 
 natures by the holy, sanctifying Spirit, thus 
 to meet their God, we may withdraw our 
 thoughts from the sight which has shocked 
 so many hearts, saying to ourselves, "Be ye 
 also ready; for in such an hour as ye think 
 not, the Son of man cometh." 
 
 Now let us turn for a little while to those 
 who lived to sorrow for the dead. 
 
 You have already read about collier vil- 
 lages, and this at Hartley is like many others. 
 Whatever it may be outside the cottages, 
 there are signs of much comfort within. The 
 rooms and chambers are neat and clean ; there 
 is furniture which tells of sufficient earnings, 
 and sometimes of something else too; for,
 
 
 SORROW AXD CONSOLATION. 177 
 
 however large a man's earnings are, if he is 
 dissolute, and extravagant, and drunken, his 
 home will be sure to betray it by its look of 
 poverty and misery. But I have said that the 
 miners of the Hartley New Pit were sober, 
 and frugal, and industrious; and this account? 
 for the comforts we see around. It was a re- 
 ligious little community, too, and so we need 
 not wonder that the Bible had an honored 
 place in many of these cottages. And even 
 those who do not regard the Bible, and have 
 no heart-love for religion, will tell you now 
 what a consolation it is to think that there 
 was so much religion in this collier village 
 before it was made desolate. 
 
 For it is desolate now; and on the day 
 after the discovery of the dead, almost all the 
 cottage windows were closely curtained with- 
 in, to tell of the bereavement of those who 
 yet lived ; and in every house might be heard 
 the sobs and cries of wives weeping for their 
 husbands, sisters for their brothers, mothers 
 for their boys, and children for their fathers.
 
 178 DOWN IN A MINE. 
 
 But there was sympathy and consolation as 
 well as sorrow. Kind and loving Christians 
 passed from house to house, speaking words 
 of kindness and hope to the 'mourners, and 
 directing their thoughts to that merciful 
 Saviour who once suffered affliction as a man, 
 and "was in all points tempted like as we 
 are," and "is able to succor them that are 
 tempted." 
 
 I shall add nothing more respecting these 
 scenes of sorrow; but I may tell, in a few 
 lines, of the further kindness which was shown 
 to the poor widows and fatherless children. 
 
 It has already been mentioned that the 
 highest lady in the land the queen had 
 sent kind messages of encouragement from 
 time to time by the electric telegraph; and 
 as the work was drawing to an end, these 
 messages were repeated, until the news was 
 sent to her that the men and boys were found 
 to be all dead ; and then she caused this 
 letter to be written :
 
 SORROW AND CONSOLATION. 179 
 
 " SIR : The queen, in the midst of her own 
 overwhelming grief,* has taken the deepest 
 interest in the dreadful accident at Hartley, 
 and up to the last had hoped that at least a 
 considerable number of the poor people might 
 have been recovered alive. The appalling 
 news since received has affected the queen 
 very much. 
 
 "Her Majesty commands me to say, that 
 her tenderest sympathy is with the poor wid- 
 ows and mothers, and that her own misery 
 only makes her feel the more for them. 
 
 " Her Majesty hopes that every thing will 
 be done, as far as possible, to alleviate their 
 distress, and Her Majesty will feel a sad sat- 
 isfation in assisting in such measures. 
 
 " Pray let me know what is doing." 
 
 Be sure that the queen did not limit her 
 benevolence to kind words. She sent two 
 hundred pounds to Hartley for the benefit of 
 
 * The queen had at this time been but a little more than a 
 month a sorrowing widow.
 
 180 DOWN IN A MINE. 
 
 the widows; and her example was followed 
 by so many in the country, of all classes, that 
 in a few days more than enough money had 
 been subscribed throughout the country for 
 the support of all the bereaved ones in that 
 desolate village.
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 LAST MOMENTS IN THE MINE. 
 
 No one lived to tell the story, but there are 
 some indications left behind of the way in 
 which the buried miners employed themselves 
 after their imprisonment. 
 
 The first thing they did was doubtless to 
 escape from the low main to that above them 
 by means of the iron ladder in the staple. 
 And here I must explain that there was also 
 a staple, or passage, with another iron ladder, 
 from the high main to the ground above. 
 But there was no means of getting from the 
 yard main to the high main except by the 
 shaft which the accident blocked up. If there 
 had been, not a life need have been lost. 
 
 And there was no reason why that passage 
 should not have been made ; it had been neg- 
 lected to be done that was all. 
 
 (181)
 
 182 DOWN IN A MINE. 
 
 Now, I wish to teach a short lesson to my 
 young readers from this circumstance. It is, 
 that we have no right to neglect the means 
 placed before us for our safety, and prosperity, 
 and happiness, and then to expect God, in his 
 providence, to guard us from the dangers we 
 incur by that neglect. If we ever act in this 
 way, it is from presumption, and not from 
 faith. It is our duty to do all that we can for 
 ourselves, and then to leave ourselves in God's 
 hands. 
 
 And if this is true with regard to our mor- 
 tal lives, and our common interests in life, it 
 is also true with regard to our souls. 
 
 Let me put this matter before you in an- 
 other light, and suppose, for a minute or two, 
 that there had been a safe way, though a te- 
 dious, and toilsome, and narrow one, all the 
 way from the low main of the Hartley mine 
 to the upper ground by means of a staple ; 
 but that, when they found the shaft to be 
 blocked up and ruined, they had refused to 
 avail themselves of the staple because they
 
 LAST MOMENTS IN THE MINE. 183 
 
 did not like the labor, or were too careless 
 about their safety, or were so infatuated as 
 not to believe themselves to be in danger of 
 perishing. 
 
 " Oh, but," you say, " they would not have 
 acted so they could not ; they would have 
 been so anxious to get out of the horrible pit, 
 that they would have crowded on one an- 
 other to get to the narrow staple and the iron 
 ladder." 
 
 I have no doubt you are right, whoever 
 says this; for self-preservation would lead 
 any one to escape from such perilous circum- 
 stances. But it is sad to think how many 
 there are who will not do for their souls and 
 their eternal interests what they would joy- 
 fully do for their bodies and their temporal 
 interests. For instance, we may liken this 
 sinful world in which we live to a deep pit, 
 the shaft of which, leading to life, and liberty, 
 and heaven, has been ruined, and utterly 
 blocked up by sin. How sad, and sorrowful, 
 and hopeless this condition. But God, in hia
 
 iS-i DOWN IX A MINE. 
 
 infinite mercy, has opened another way, even 
 by the Lord Jesus Christ, who says of himself 
 that he is the way ; and by his Word and his 
 Spirit he invites lost men to escape for their 
 lives ; to hasten that they may be loosed, and 
 not die in the pit. 
 
 But how many are there who do not listen 
 to his voice, and will not make their escape, 
 nor come to Christ that they may have life. 
 Is not this fearful? 
 
 Young reader, have you fled for refuge to 
 lay hold on the hope set before you in the 
 gospel ? If you have not, you are in great 
 danger of losing your soul. Think of this. 
 
 And now I go back again to the poor miners. 
 
 There is no doubt, as I have said, that they 
 did escape as- for as it was possible for them 
 to do so, and were soon all mustered in tlio 
 yard main, or middle seam of the mine, 
 "What more could they do ? 
 
 They attempted to do more. During their 
 imprisonment it is said that they were heard 
 working below; and when the shaft was
 
 LAST MOMENTS LX THE MINE. 185 
 
 cleared, and their dreary dungeon reached, 
 tools were found at the entrance to the main, 
 which showed that they had been doing all 
 in their power, although unavailingly, to 
 break a way through the blocked-up shaft. 
 This proves how conscious they were of their 
 danger, and how anxious they were to escape 
 from it. 
 
 Do we know any more of these last hours 
 in the mine ? 
 
 Yes, a little more that is very affecting, and 
 yet very cheering. In the pocket of one of 
 the men who perished was found a mem- 
 orandum book ; and in it these \vorcta were 
 written : 
 
 " Friday afternoon half past two. Ed- 
 ward Armstrong, Thomas Gledson, John Har- 
 die, Thomas Bell, and others, took extremely 
 ill. We had also a prayer meeting at a quar- 
 ter to two, when Tibbs, H. Sharpe, J. Camp- 
 bell, H. Gibson, and William Palmer " 
 
 the sentence is incomplete ; but we may
 
 186 DOWN IN A MINE. 
 
 readily fill up the blank with the words 
 "engaged in prayer." After this is written 
 " Tibbs exhorted to us again, and Sharpe 
 also." 
 
 I think that my story may very well leave 
 off here; for nothing more will ever be 
 known of any further particulars respecting 
 the last hours of these buried miners, none of 
 whom are supposed to have survived the 
 fourth day of their imprisonment. And what 
 can we know respecting them, or what can 
 their mourning widows, and orphans, and 
 mothers know, better calculated to comfort 
 and cheer the mind, than that those last 
 hours were spent in communion with God by 
 prayer, and in encouraging and exhorting one 
 another to seek the Lord while he might yet 
 be found, and to call upon him while yet he 
 was near? 
 
 You remember reading of the Israelites, 
 who were bitten by fiery, flying serpents, and 
 lay dying in the camp ; and of Moses being
 
 LAST MOMENTS IN THE MINE. 187 
 
 < 
 
 directed by God to make a serpent of brass, 
 and to lift it on a high pole, so that all in the 
 camp might see it: and we are told, you 
 know, " that if a serpent had bitten any man, 
 when he beheld the serpent of brass he 
 lived." Num. xxi. 9. 
 
 Well, when the Lord Jesus Christ was on 
 earth, he said to Nicodemus, "As Moses 
 lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even 
 so must the Son of man be lifted up ; that 
 whosoever believeth in him should not perish, 
 but have eternal life." John iii. 14, 15, 
 
 And so may we surely believe that in those 
 last hours down in the mine, there was many 
 a pious Christian miner, passing from one to 
 another of his fellow-sufferers, who had never 
 perhaps till now thought much about the 
 soul, and religion, and eternal life, directing 
 their minds to the Saviour of sinners, who 
 was lifted up on the cross that all might see 
 him, and seeing him, might believe on him to 
 life everlasting ; telling them of that precious 
 Redeemer whose blood cleanseth from all sin,
 
 188 DOWN IN A MINE. 
 
 and repeating to them the words of Christ 
 himself, " The Son of man came to seek and 
 to save that which was lost ; " " Come unto 
 me, all *ye that labor and are heavy laden, and 
 I will give you rest ; " " For God so loved the 
 world, that he gave his only-begotten Son, 
 that whosoever believeth in him should not 
 perish, but have everlasting life.'* 
 
 And we may be sure of this, that the weak 
 cry of new-born faith, put into the soul by the 
 Holy Spirit of God, would reach his all- 
 hearing ear, and call forth the saving power 
 of his almighty arm, though breathed in the 
 last moments of life, DEEP DOWN IN A MINE.

 
 
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