Facing Death; Or, The Hero of the Vaughan Pit: A Tale of the Coal Mines Read online

  CHAPTER IV.

  THE VAUGHAN PIT.

  Among the group of men and boys assembled round the mouth of the Vaughanpit on the 7th of June were two little lads, Jack Simpson and HarryShepherd, who were to make the descent for the first time. The boys werefast friends. Harry was the taller but was slighter than Jack, and farless sturdy and strong. Both were glad that they were to go into thepit, for although the life of a gate-boy is dull and monotonous, yet inthe pit villages the boys look forward to it as marking the first stepin a man's life, as putting school and lessons behind, and as raisingthem to a position far in advance of their former associates.

  Nowadays the law has stepped in, and the employment of such merechildren in the mines is forbidden, but at that time it had not beenchanged, and if a boy was big enough to shut a door he was big enough togo into a mine.

  "Dost feel skeary, Jack?" Harry asked.

  "Noa," Jack said; "what be there to be skeary aboot? I bean't afeard ofthe dark, and they say in time 'ee get used to it, and can see prettynigh loike a cat. There be dad a calling. Good-bye, Harry, I'll see theeto-night."

  The yard of the Vaughan resembled that of other large collieries. It wasa large space, black and grimy, on which lines of rails were laid downin all directions; on these stood trains of waggons, while here andthere were great piles of coal. In the centre rose up a loftyscaffolding of massive beams. At the top of this was the wheel overwhich a strong wire rope or band ran to the winding engine close by,while from the other end hung the cage, a wooden box some six feetsquare. At the corner of this box were clips or runners which fitted onto the guides in the shaft and so prevented any motion of swinging orswaying. So smoothly do these cages work that, standing in one as it islowered or drawn up, only a very slight vibration or tremor tells thatyou are in motion. Near the square house in which stood the windingengine was another precisely similar occupied by the pumping engine.

  The Vaughan was worked by a single shaft divided by a strong woodenpartition into two, one of these known as the downcast shaft, that is,the shaft through which the air descends into the mine, the other theupcast, through which the current, having made its way through all thewindings and turnings of the roadways below, again ascends to thesurface. This system of working by a single shaft, however, is verydangerous, as, in the event of an explosion, both shafts may becomeinvolved in the disaster and there will be no means of getting at theimprisoned miners. Nowadays all well-regulated mines have two shafts,one at a distance from the other, but this was less common thirty yearsback, and the Vaughan, like most of its neighbours, was worked with asingle shaft.

  Each miner before descending went to the lamp-room and received alighted "Davy." As almost every one is aware, the principle of thislamp, and indeed of all that have since been invented, is that flamewill not pass through a close wire-gauze. The lamp is surrounded withthis gauze, and although, should the air be filled with gas to anexplosive point, it will ignite if it comes in contact with flame, thegauze prevents the light of the lamp from exploding the gas-charged airoutside. When the air is of a very explosive character even theDavy-lamps have to be extinguished, as the heat caused by the frequentignitions within the lamp raises the gauze to a red heat, and the gasbeyond will take fire.

  Jack took his place in the cage with Bill Haden and as many others as itcould contain. He gave a little start as he felt a sudden sinking; thesides of the shaft seemed to shoot up all round him, wet, shining, andblack. A few seconds and the light of day had vanished, and they were indarkness, save that overhead was a square blue patch of sky every momentdiminishing in size.

  "Be'st afeard, Jack?" Bill Haden asked, raising his lamp so as to get asight of the boy's face.

  "Noa, why should I?" Jack said; "I heard 'ee say that the ropes were newlast month, so there ain't nothin to be afeard on!"

  "That is the young un they call Bull-dog, ain't it, Bill?"

  "Ay!" Bill Haden answered; "he's game, he is; you can't make him yelp.I've licked him till I was tired, but he never whimpered. Now then, outyou go;" and as the cage stopped the men all stepped out and started forthe places in which they were working.

  "Coom along, Jack; the viewer told me to put you at No. 10 gate."

  It was ten minutes fast--and as Jack thought very unpleasant--walking.The sleepers on which the rails for the corves, or little waggons, werelaid, were very slippery. Pools of water stood between them and oftencovered them, and blocks of coal of all sizes, which had shaken from thecorves, lay in the road. When it was not water it was black mud.Sometimes a line of waggons full or empty stood on the rails, and topass these they had to squeeze against the damp walls. Before he reachedhis post the gloss of Jack's new mining clothes had departed for ever.The white jumper was covered with black smears, and two or three fallson the slippery wooden sleepers had effectively blackened his canvastrousers.

  "There, lad," Bill Haden said at length, holding his lamp high toafford a general view of the situation; "that's your place."

  "The place" was a hollow like a cupboard, some five feet high, two deep,and a little wider. There was a wooden seat in it, a peg or two had beendriven into the rock to hang things from, and a handful or so of hayupon the ground showed that Jack's predecessor had an idea of comfort.

  "There you are, and not a bad place either, Jack. You see this cord? Nowwhen thou hearst a team of corves coming along, pull yon end and openthe door. When they have passed let go the cord and the door shuts o''tself, for it's got a weight and pulley. It's thy business to see thatit has shut, for if a chunk of coal has happened to fall and stops thedoor from shutting, the ventilation goes wrong and we all goes tokingdom come in no time. That's all thou'st got to do 'cept to keepawake. Of course you woan't do that; no boy does. So that you larn towake up when the corves come along, that ull do foine."

  "But if I doan't?" Jack asked.

  "Well, if thou doan't thou'lt get waked with a cuff o' th' ear by thedriver, and it depends on what sort o' chap he be how hard the cuffthou'lt get. I doan't think thou'lt feel lonely here, for along thatside road they bring down other corves and the horse comes and takes 'emon. On this main road the horses go through to the upper end of themine, half a mile farther."

  "How do it make a differ whether this door be open or shut, father?"

  "Well, lad, the air comes up the road we ha come by. Now it's wanted togo round about by the workings on that side road. This door be put tostop it from going by the straight road, so there's nothing for it butfor to go round by the workings, maybe for a mile, maybe three miles,till it gets back into the main road again. So when the door is open theventilation is checked right round the workings; so mind doan't 'ee openthe door till the horse is close to it, and shut it directly it's past."

  When the door closed behind his foster-father, and Jack Simpson remainedalone in the dense darkness, a feeling of utter loneliness and desertionstole over him. The blackness was intense and absolute; a low confusedmurmur, the reverberation of far-off noises in the pit, sounded in hisears. He spoke, and his voice sounded muffled and dull.

  "This be worse nor I looked for," the boy said to himself; "I supposeI'll get used to it, but I doan't wonder that some young uns who ain'tstrong as I be are badly frighted at first."

  Presently the confused noise seemed to get louder, then a distinctrumble was heard, and Jack felt with delight that a train of waggons wasapproaching. Then he saw far along the gallery a light swinging, as theman who bore it walked ahead of the horse. The water in the little poolsbetween the sleepers reflected it in a score of little lines of light.Now he could hear the hollow splashing sound of the horses' hoofs, andprepared to answer to the shout of "door" by pulling at the stringbeside him. When the light came within twenty yards it changed itsdirection; he heard the grating of the wheels against the points, andsaw that the waggons were going up the other road. There upon a sidingthey came to a stop, and a minute or two later a number of full waggonswere brought down by another horse. A few words were exchanged by the
drivers, but Jack's ear, unaccustomed to the echoes of a mine, could notcatch what they said; then the first man hitched his horse on to thefull waggons, and started for the shaft, while the other with theempties went up the road to the workings.

  The incident, slight as it had been, had altogether dissipated thefeeling of uneasiness of which Jack had been conscious. Before, he hadseemed shut out from the world, as if within a living tomb, but thesight of men engaged at their ordinary work close by him completelyrestored the balance of his mind, and henceforth he never felt theslightest discomfort at being alone in the dark.

  A few minutes after the rumbling of the departing train of "tubs" haddied in his ear, he again heard it. Again he watched the slowlyapproaching light, and when it came within a few yards of him he heardthe expected shout of "Gate!" He replied by a shout of "All right!" andas the driver came level with him pulled the cord and the door opened.

  "G'long, Smiler," the driver said, and the horse went forward. The manleaned forward and raised his lamp to Jack's face.

  "I thawt 'twasn't Jim Brown's voice. Who be'st thou?"

  "Jack Simpson; I live along wi' Bill Haden."

  "Ay, ay, I know'st, I knew thy father, a good sort he was too. Be'st thyfirst day doon the pit?"

  "Ay," Jack said.

  "Foind it dark and lonesome, eh? Thou'lt get used to it soon."

  "How often do the corves come along?" Jack asked as the man prepared torun on after the waggons, the last of which had just passed.

  "There be a set goes out every ten minutes, maybe, on this road, andevery twenty minutes on the other, two o' ours to one o' theirs;" and hemoved forward.

  Jack let the door slam after him, went out and felt that it had shutfirmly, and then resumed his seat in his niche. He whistled for a bit,and then his thoughts turned to the learning which he had determinedfirmly to acquire.

  "I wish I'd ha' took to it afore," he said to himself. "What a sight o'time I ha' lost! I'll go over in my head all the lessons I can remember;and them as I doant know, and that's the best part, I reckon I'll lookup when I get hoame. Every day what I learns fresh I'll go over downhere. I shall get it perfect then, and it will pass the time awayfinely. I'll begin at oncet. Twice two is four;" and so Jack passed thehours of his first day in the pit, recalling his lessons, reproachinghimself continually and bitterly with the time he had wasted, breakingoff every ten minutes from his rehearsals to open the door for the trainof corves going in empty and going out full, exchanging a few words eachtime with the drivers, all of whom were good-naturedly anxious to cheerup the new boy, who must, as they supposed, be feeling the loneliness ofhis first day in the pit keenly. Such was by no means the case withJack, and he was quite taken by surprise when a driver said to him,"This be the last train this shift."

  "Why, it bean't nigh two o'clock, surely?" he said.

  "It be," the driver said; "wants ten minutes, that's all."

  Soon the miners began to come along.

  "Hullo, Jack!" Bill Haden's voice said. "Be'st still here. Come along ofme. Why didst stop, lad? Thou canst always quit thy post when the firstman comes through on his way out. Hast felt it lonely, lad?"

  "Not a bit, dad."

  "That's strange too," Bill said. "Most young boys finds it awful lonelyo' first. I know I thowt that first day were never coming to an end.Weren't frighted at t' dark?"

  "I thought it was onnatural dark and still the first ten minutes," Jackadmitted honestly; "but arter the first set o' corves came along I neverthawt no more about the dark."

  "Here we are at the shaft, joomp in, there's just room for you and me."