Dick had wandered out in the afternoon to get a little more of the fresh
air than he could find in the hot street of the village. Not that there
was what would be called fresh air in other parts of the country. Even
the purest air was full of smoke and coal-dust and gas. He sat himself
down to rest on a stone wall, and his eye wandered over the scene.
There were the tall chimneys sending forth wreaths and clouds of smoke,
and the odd shaped buildings, and the cranks and the beams moving up and
down without ceasing, as if they could never get tired, and the railways
in all directions, with train after train of coal wagons moving rapidly
over them, some loaded, and others flying back empty from whence they
came. He had been sitting there for some time, when he saw, by the way
that people were running towards the pit's mouth, that something was
wrong. He got up, and as fast as his lame foot would let him, hurried
in the same direction. Too soon he learned what had happened. There
had been a fearful explosion. The corve, or basket, by which the men
went up and down the shaft, had been knocked to pieces, and even the
machinery over the pit had been injured. Of all those working below it
was believed that not one could have escaped.
Dick's heart sickened when he heard this. His father, his eldest
brother, and his friend, David Adams, were all below. Besides them, he
knew all the people working in the pit; men and boys, they all came
before him as he had last seen them, and now not one alive!
"Oh yes, yes; surely there must be some who have escaped," he cried out,
when he was told that all had been killed.
The sad news quickly spread, and numbers of women and children came
rushing from the village; wives to ask for their husbands, mothers for
their sons, girls for their fathers and brothers, or intended husbands.
They kept running about without bonnets or shawls, their hair streaming
in the wind, and frantically crying as they stretched out their hands to
the banksman and viewers and other officers, "Where are they? where are
they? Why don't they come up?" It would have softened the hardest
heart to have seen the grief, the agony of the poor women. No one could
answer them. It was not the first time such a thing had happened, even
in that pit. They all knew too well the effect of the fire-damp, and
still more destructive choke-damp.
"Is no one going down to bring them up?" was the question next asked.
"Yes, some one will go, I dare say, as soon as it's safe; but it would
not do to go yet," answered the banksman. "Besides, the gear is knocked
to pieces."
This reply only increased the alarm of the poor women, but they were
obliged to be content with it.
Dick pressed forward, and asked if any one had come up. No; no one had
come up since the morning.
"Then, may I go down?" he asked of one of the viewers.
"You are the lad who went by yourself to look for the boy Adams some
years ago, when he was lost, I remember," answered the viewer. "Yes,
you shall go with me presently, if you wish it."
A fresh corve was fitted, and the gear put in order. The viewer stepped
in, there were two other volunteers. Dick followed. Each person had a
safety lamp in his hand. They went down very slowly, for it was
probable that the shaft itself might be injured. They had not got far
when a stream of water, which had burst out of the side, came pouring
down on them, and almost filled the corve. The rushing sound, and the
force with which the water fell, deafened and confused them. Still they
persevered. Hot air, and noxious vapours, and steam, and smoke came
rushing up. They went down through it all. Some of their
fellow-creatures might be below. They would save them if they could.
At last they reached the bottom of the shaft. The furnace was still
blazing away. Beyond all was darkness and gloom, though the pale light
of their lamps showed them the ruin caused by the explosion.