Chapter One.

Their Boy.

“Well, why not be a soldier?”

Philip Hexton shook his head.

“No, father. There’s something very brave in a soldier’s career; but I should like to save life, not destroy it.”

“You would save life in times of trouble; fight for your country, and that sort of thing.”

“No, father; I shall not be a soldier.”

“A sailor, then?”

“I have not sufficient love of adventure, father.”

“Oh no, my boy, don’t be a sailor,” said Mrs Hexton piteously. “I have had sufferings enough over your father’s risks in the mine.”

“No, no, Phil; you must not be a sailor,” said sturdy, grey-haired old Hexton, laughing. “I should never get a wink of sleep if you did. Every time the wind blew your mother would be waking me up to ask me if I didn’t think you were wrecked.”

“No, dear; I shall not be a sailor,” said Philip Hexton; and leaving his chair at the breakfast table he went round to his mother’s side, sank down on one knee, passed his arm around her, and drew her to his broad breast.

It was a pleasant sight to see the look of pride come into the mother’s face, as she laid one hand upon her son’s shoulder, and pressed a few loose strands of hair away from his thoughtful forehead, which wrinkled slightly, and there was a look of anxiety in his face as he looked tenderly at the loving woman.

“That’s right, Phil dear,” she said; “don’t choose any life that is full of risks.”

“Don’t try to make a milksop of him, mother,” said Mr Hexton, laughing. “Why, one would think Phil was ten years old, instead of twenty. I say, my boy, had she aired your night-cap for you last night, and warmed the bed?”

“Well, I must confess to the warm bed, father,” said the young man. “A night-cap I never wear.”

“I thought so,” said Mr Hexton, chuckling. “You must not stop at home, Phil. She’ll want you to have camomile tea three times a week.”

“You may joke as much as you like, Hexton,” said his wife, bridling, “but no one shall ever say that I put anybody into a damp bed; and as for the camomile tea, many a time has it given you health when you have been ailing.”

“Why, you don’t think I ever took any of the stuff you left out for me, do you?”

“Of course, dear.”

“Never took a glass of it,” said Old Hexton, chuckling. “Threw it all out of the window.”

“Then it was a great shame,” said Mrs Hexton angrily, “and a very bad example to set to your son.”

“Never mind, Phil; don’t you take it,” chuckled Mr Hexton. Then becoming serious he went on: “Well, there’s no hurry, my boy; only now that you are back from Germany, and can talk High Dutch and Low Dutch, and French, and all the rest of it, why it is getting time to settle what you are to do. I could allow you so much a year, and let you be a gentleman, with nothing to do, if I liked; but I don’t hold with a young fellow going through life and being of no use—only a tailor’s dummy to wear fine clothes.”

“Oh no, father; I mean to take to a business life,” said Philip Hexton quickly.

“Of course, my lad; and you’ll do well in it. I began life in a pair of ragged breeches that didn’t fit me, shoving the corves of coal in a mine; and now,” he exclaimed proudly, “I’m partner as well as manager in our pit. So what I say is, if I could do what I have done, beginning life in a pair of ragged breeches that didn’t fit me, why, what can my boy do, as has had a first-class education, and can have money to back him?”

“My dear James,” said Mrs Hexton, “I do wish you would not be so fond of talking about those—those—”

“Ragged breeches, mother?” said the old fellow, chuckling; “but I will. That’s her pride, Phil, my boy. Now she wears caps made of real lace, she wants to forget how humble she used to be.”

“Nothing of the kind, James,” said the pleasant lady tartly; “I’m not ashamed of our humble beginnings, but I am ashamed to make vulgar remarks.”

“That’s a knock-down, Phil, my boy,” said Mr Hexton. “There, I won’t mention them again, mother. But come, we are running away from our subject. I’m heartily glad to see you back, Phil,” he cried; and there was a little moisture gathered in his eyes as he spoke; “and I thank God to see that you have grown into so fine, healthy, and sturdy a fellow. God bless you, my boy! God bless you!”

He had left his seat at the foot of the table, and came round to stand beside his son, patting his shoulder, and then taking and wringing his hand. He half bent down, too, once, as if to kiss the broad sunburnt forehead, but altered his mind directly, as he thought it would be weak, and ended by going and sitting down once more.

“There’s plenty of time, of course,” he said, “but somehow I shouldn’t dislike to have it settled. Have you ever thought about the matter, Phil?”

“Yes, father, deeply,” said the young man, rising, and then standing holding his mother’s hand. “I like sport, and games, and a bit of idleness sometimes, especially for a Continental trip.”

“Well, if you call that idleness, Phil,” said the elder, rubbing his legs, “give me the hardest day’s work in the pit. Remember our climbing up the Gummy Pass, mother, last year?”

“Oh, don’t talk about it, father,” said the old lady. “But then we are not so young as we used to be. Go on, Philip, my dear.”

She held on tightly by her son’s hand as she spoke, and kept gazing up at him with a wonderfully proud look.

“Well, father, as I say, I like a bit of change.”

“Of course, my lad; all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.”

“But I think it is the duty of every young man—boy, if you like, mother,” he said, smiling.

“Young man, Philip,” she replied, “for I’m sure you’ve grown into a very fine young man.”

“Ugly as possible,” growled the father, with a twinkle in his eye.

“I’m sure he’s a much finer and handsomer young man than you were when I married you, father!” said the old lady with spirit.

“Oh, of course!” chuckled Mr Hexton; “he’s lovely! Phil, boy, pray use scented soap and plenty of pomatum.”

“Come, father, let’s set aside joking for the time,” said Philip quietly. “I’m very glad to get home again, and to find my mother so proud and happy to have me back—and you, too, sir.”

Mr Hexton nodded, and changed his position a little.

“You want to know what I mean to settle to be, sir?”

“Yes, my boy; I should like to know.”

“Well, father, I’ll tell you, for I have thought of it long and deeply, and I have studied chemistry a good deal for that end.”

“Bravo, Phil!” said Mr Hexton. “A doctor, mother; I thought as much.”

“No, sir, not a doctor; though I think a medical man’s a grand profession, and one only yet in its infancy. But I want to be of some use, father, in my career. I want to save life as a medical man does. You know the old saying, father?”

“About getting the wrong pig by the ear, as I did?”

“No, sir; about prevention being better than cure.”

“Yes, my boy; but what are you going to prevent instead of cure?”

“I want to prevent so much loss of life in our coal-pits, father.”

“Oh, my boy, my boy,” cried Mrs Hexton passionately; “don’t say you want to take up your father’s life!”

“Why not, mother dear?” said the young man firmly; “would it not be a good and a useful life, to devote one’s self to the better management of our mines—to studying nature’s forces, and the best way of fighting them for the saving of life?”

“But, my boy, my boy, think of the risks!”

“I didn’t spend hundreds on your education to have you take to a pit life,” growled Mr Hexton.

“Oh, my boy, it is such a dangerous life. The hours of misery we pass no one knows,” cried Mrs Hexton, wringing her hands.

“Mother,” said the young man, “it is to endeavour to save mothers and wives and children from suffering all these pains; for I would strive to make our mines so safe that the men could win the coal almost without risk. And as for education, father,” he said proudly, as he turned to the stern, grey, disappointed man, “is it not by knowledge that we are able to battle with ignorance and prejudice? Don’t regret what you have given me, father.”

“But it seems all thrown away if you are going to be nothing better than overseer of a mine.”

“Oh, no,” said the young man smiling, “it will give me the means for better understanding the task I have in hand; and if, mother, I can only save four or five families from the terrible sufferings we know of, I shall not have worked all in vain.”

“No, my boy, no,” said Mrs Hexton mournfully.

“Ah!” he exclaimed, “knowing what I have of pit life, it has made me wretched scores of times to read some terrible account of the long roll of unfortunates burned, suffocated, or entombed, to die in agonies of starvation and dread. Don’t be disappointed, father, but let me make my effort, and work with you.”

The elder seemed to hesitate for a moment, and then held out his hand.

“No, Phil,” he said, “I won’t stand in your way. I’m disappointed because I wanted you to be something better, but—”

“Better, father! Could you find a better man than Davy, whom we bless for his lamp?”

“Which the reckless donkeys will open in a dangerous gallery,” cried Mr Hexton angrily. “No, my boy; Humphry Davy was a man indeed, and if you turned out half as good, or a quarter, I should be proud of you.”

“That I shall never be, father,” said the young man; “but I mean to try.”

Chapter Two.

Down in the Pit.

“Don’t tell me, lad; I hevn’t worked in t’pit twenty year for nowt. Think I don’t know? Him and his newfangled ways are wuth that!”

The great swarthy pitman snapped his fingers as he stood in the centre of a group waiting for the return of the cage from the bowels of the earth.

All about them was dark and weird-looking, with the lights casting strange shadows where the machinery stood around. There was a hissing noise and a ruddy light from the engine-house, with the panting clank of machinery; pistons worked up, and wheels spun round; while where the group of miners stood there was a square, black-looking pit, surrounded by a massive frame-work, supporting one big wheel, from which depended a thin-looking wire-rope, which was rapidly running down.

A few minutes after, and there was the ringing of a bell, the clink-clank of machinery; the wheel spun round in the other direction, and in due time the cage, as it was called, came to the surface; the group of men stepped in, and the signal for descent was about to be given, when one of the men exclaimed:

“Here he cooms!”

Philip Hexton strode up the next moment, nodded shortly to the men, stepped into the crowded cage, and giving the signal, the stout iron-framed contrivance began rapidly to descend, and the fresh comer, who was still very new at these descents, felt that strange sensation as the cage rushed down, just as if the whole of the internal organs had burst out laughing at the fun they were going to have of trying to frighten their owner’s head.

It is not a pleasant sensation, that of a descent into a coal-pit. There is the rushing noise of the cage, the whirring of wheels, the constant dripping and plashing sound of falling water, the thudding of the pump, the stifling feeling of dank heat, the stuffy mist, and joined to all the knowledge that if that slender thread of wire-rope should happen to break, the cage would fall perhaps hundreds of feet, and its occupants be killed. Then, he who descends knows that he is going into a series of subterranean caves where the gas escapes, that the slightest contact with a light will explode, burning, slaying, and destroying, and leaving behind the choke-damp, which is even more deadly in its insidious effects.

Now Philip Hexton, in making up his mind to take to his father’s life, had readily prepared himself to run all risks, in the hope of soon lessening them; but after three months’ action as deputy assistant-manager under his father, he had awakened to the fact that all he had done had been to establish a general feeling of dislike amongst the men, who, though they did not openly show it, opposed Philip Hexton all the more by a stubborn, quiet resistance that he found it difficult to overcome.

It was something unusual for the manager’s son to come down upon the night shift; but, after mastering the various technicalities of the place, the young deputy had set himself vigorously to work to try and more rigorously enforce the rules of the mine, many of which, he soon found, were terribly neglected by the men.

Upon reaching the bottom, Philip saw the party go into a kind of office, where each was supplied with a locked and lighted Davy-lamp, whose little wick burned dimly through the wire gauze; and then, as they were about to shoulder their sharp steel-pointed picks, he said aloud:

“You’ll need to be very careful to-night, my lads, for there’s a good deal of gas up in the new four-foot.”

The men did not answer, but went sulkily away, leaving Philip to take a gauze lamp of a larger construction to go and spend a couple of hours inspecting different parts of the mine, in company with one of the oldest hands in the pit.

“I wish I could get the men to believe a little more in me,” he said, as they went plashing along through the dark passages of the muddy pit, past places where the black roof was supported by stays, some of which were seamed and charred by explosions and fires in the mine.

“Ay, lad, they’re a bit obstnit,” said the old miner; “they don’t like interference.”

“No,” said Philip rather bitterly, “not even when I am working to save their lives.”

“Nay, lad; but that’s what they don’t believe. Yo’ mun go on wi’ ’em more gently. But what brought you down to-neet?”

“There was a fall in the barometer, and a great want of pressure in the atmosphere this evening,” said Philip. “I could not rest without coming to see that everything possible was done.”

“Ah,” said the overman grimly, “that’s what our lads weant believe in—your brometers, and pressures, and such like. They don’t like to be teached by one who they say’s nobbut a boy.”

“Does it matter how many years old a person is,” cried Philip sternly, “if he can point out what is right? Look here,” he said, as he stopped short in a low-roofed and distant part of the mine, “do you see this?”

He pointed to his Davy-lamp, inside of which the light kept burning blue, and there was a series of little sputtering explosions.

“Ay, I see it, lad; it’s often so,” said the overman coolly; “but the ventilation’s about reet, and it will soon carry that off. It’s nowt to do wi’ no brometers.”

“Listen!” said Philip; and as the man impatiently stood still, there was a low dull hissing noise plainly to be heard, where the gas was rushing from the cracks and fissures of the shaley rock and gathering in the long galleries of the mine.

“Now,” said Philip, “does not the barometer speak truly? When the air is weighty and dense it keeps back the gas, when it is light the gas forces its way out. What would be the consequences if I were to open our lamp?”

“There wouldn’t be no consekences,” said the overman with a grim laugh; “there’d be a inquest, if they had pluck enough to come and hunt out what of us was left.”

In spite of himself, Philip could not help a shudder, as he listened to the cynical, callous manner in which his companion spoke of their proximity to a dreadful death. Then, bidding him follow, he went on along the gloomy maze towards where he could hear the rumble of trucks laden with coal, the sound of the ringing picks, the echoing shouts of the men, and the impatient snort of some pony, toiling with its load up an incline.

There was a quick sharp draught of air as they passed through a door which was closed behind them by a boy, and, satisfied that the ventilation was good, Philip Hexton and his companion went on.

Meanwhile Ebenezer Parks, the big miner who had been complaining when the young man came up, kept on with his remarks as, in company with his party, he made his way to the four-foot seam, as it was called—a part of the mine where the good coal was but a yard in thickness, and at which they had to work in a stooping, sometimes in a lying, position.

“She sings to-night, lad,” said one of the men, as they stripped themselves to their trousers, and then began to use their sharp-pointed picks, their blackened skins soon beginning to glisten with perspiration in the stifling heat.

“Hey, she do,” said Ebenezer, giving a careless glance at his sputtering lamp. “There’s part gas in pit to-neet.”

The dim sputtering lamps, and the warning hiss of the gas were forgotten as the men worked on, showing wondrous skill in the handling of their picks, and fetching out great lumps of coal with the greatest ease, in spite of the awkward position in which they worked.

This went on for a couple of hours, when Ebenezer threw down his pick, seated himself with his back against a pillar of coal, one of those left to support the roof, and took from his trousers pocket a steel tobacco-box, a black short pipe, and a nail.

“Who’s going to hev a smoke?” he said.

“I wouldn’t let young master ketch you smoking,” said one of the men.

“He’d better not say owt to me,” said the man fiercely. “I know what I’m ’bout better than he can tell me;” and as he filled his pipe several more laughed and filled theirs; while, looking like some black spirit of mischief, the big miner took the gauze lamp from the roof where it hung.

“Now then, lads, who wants a leet?” he said; and, taking the nail, he proceeded to pick the lock of the Davy-lamp, or rather unfasten it with the improvised key.

There was a click as the little snap flew back; and then, placing his pipe in his mouth, he proceeded to open the lamp.

This was about as wise an act as for a man to strike a match over an open barrel full of glistening grains of gunpowder—perhaps far worse.

Chapter Three.

Making an Enemy.

Even as the big miner had his hand upon the gauze cover of the Davy-lamp there were tiny little explosions going on within, for in spite of the great current of air that was kept up through the pit, a draught which swept away the dangerous gas, there were places which its purifying influence did not reach, places such as this new gallery in the four-foot seam, where the vapour had been steadily increasing for hours and collecting round the heads of the men.

Familiarity breeds contempt. Often enough we know that the men who work in gunpowder mills have to be searched to keep them from taking matches with them when they enter the mill.

Philip Hexton and his companion went on, the latter ready to grumble as he grew weary of what he looked upon as unnecessary labour. “T’pit was reet enew,” he said to himself; and what need was there of “peeking and poking about this how?”

For the young inspector seemed never satisfied. He was always on the look-out for danger; and as they went on and on through the black galleries, where the iridescent tints of the shaley coal flecked with iron pyrites glittered and flashed in the dim light, he kept pausing and listening.

“He won’t stop at it long,” said the overman to himself; “he’s ’bout scarred of it now. I niver see a lad so freckened at every sound.”

It was quite true. Philip Hexton was startled at every sound; but it was from fear for others—not for self. So far from feeling the ordinary coward’s dread, he would have gone at once into the most dangerous places to save another’s life; but he was at times appalled at the reckless ways of the men.