DOWN THE SHAFT
It was only too true. Whether from fire-damp, the rushing in of water,
or some other mischief to which coal-pits are liable, was as yet
scarcely known: nothing was certain except the terrible calamity itself.
Of the men who had gone down the mine that morning, some were dead,
others dying. Meg Pennet echoed the shrieks of the women as she flew
forward and pushed through the crowd collected round the mouth of the
pit. The same confusion prevailed there that prevails in similar scenes
of distress and disaster elsewhere.
"And Mr. Chattaway himself was down the shaft, you say? He went down
this morning? My friends, it is altogether an awful calamity."
The woman pushed in yet further and confronted the speaker, her white
face drawn with anguish. He was the minister of a dissenting chapel, a
Mr. Lloyd, and well known to the miners, some of whom went regularly to
hear him preach.
"No, sir; Chattaway was na down the shaft; he is na one of the dead,
more luck to him," she said, her words brought out brokenly, her bosom
heaving. "Chattaway have this morning made me a widda and my young
children fatherless. My man was stiff with rheumatiz, he was--no more
fit to go to work nor I be to go down that shaft and carry up his poor
murdered body. I knowed his errand as soon as I heerd his horse's feet.
He made him get off the settle, and druv him out to work as he'd drive a
dog; and when I told him of his hardness, he lifted up his whip agin me.
Yes! Pennet's down with the rest of 'em; sent by him: and I be a lone
widda."
"Her says right," interposed a voice. "It wasn't the master as went down
the shaft; it were young Rupert Trevlyn."
"Rupert Trevlyn," uttered the minister in startled tones. "I hope he is
not down."
"Yes, he's down, sir."
"But where can Mr. Chattaway be?" exclaimed Ford, the clerk, who made
one of the throng. "Do you know, Meg Pennet?"
"He's where ill-luck have overtook him for his cruelty to us," answered
Meg Pennet, flinging her hair from her sorrowful face. "I telled him the
ill he forced on others might happen come home to him--that he might
soon be lying in his pain, for aught he knew. And he went right off to
the ill then and there--and he's a-lying in it."
The sympathies of the hearers were certainly not given to Mr. Chattaway.
He was no favourite with his dependants at Blackstone, any more than
with his neighbours around the Hold. But the woman's words were strange,
and they pressed for an explanation.
"He be lying under the wall o' the old ruin," was her reply. "I come
upon him there, and I guess his brave horse had flung him. When I'd ha'
lifted him, he cried out with pain--as my poor man was a-crying in the
night with his back--and I saw him lay hisself down again after I'd left
him. And Chattaway he swore at me for my help--and you can go to him and
be swore at too. Happen his leg be broke."
The minister turned away to seek Mr. Chattaway. Unless completely
disabled, it was necessary that he should be at the scene; no one of any
particular authority was there to give orders; and the inevitable
confusion attendant on such a calamity was thereby increased. Ford, the
clerk, sped after Mr. Lloyd, and one or two stragglers followed him; but
the rest were chained to the more exciting scene of the disaster.
Mr. Chattaway had raised himself when they reached him, and was holding
on by the wall. He broke into a storm of grumbling, especially at Ford,
and asked why he could not have found him out sooner. As if Ford could
divine what had befallen him! Mr. Lloyd stooped and touched the ankle,
which was a good deal swollen. It was sprained, Chattaway said; but he
thought he could manage to get on his horse with their assistance. He
abused the beggar unmercifully, and expressed his intention of calling a
meeting of his brother-magistrates, that measures might be taken to rid
the country of tramps and razor-grinders; and he finished up in the heat
of argument by calling the accident which had befallen him a cursed
misfortune.
"Hush!" quietly interrupted Mr. Lloyd. "I should call it a blessing."
Chattaway stared at him and deemed that he was carrying religion rather
too far. As he looked, it struck him that both his rescuers wore very
sad countenances; Ford in particular was excessively crestfallen. A
sarcastic smile crossed his face.
"A blessing! to have my ankle sprained, and waste my morning in this
fashion? Thank you, Mr. Lloyd! You gentlemen who have nothing better to
do with your time than preach it away may think little of such an
interruption, but to men of business it is not agreeable. A blessing!"
"Yes, I believe it to have come to you as such--sent direct from God.
Were you not going into the pit this morning?"
"Yes, I was," impatiently answered Mr. Chattaway. "I should be there
now, but for this--blessing! I wish you would not----"
"Just so," interrupted Mr. Lloyd, calmly. "And this fall has no doubt
saved your life. There has been an accident in the pit, and the poor
fellows who went down a few hours ago full of health and life, are about
to be carried up dead."
The words brought Mr. Chattaway to his senses. "An accident!" he
repeated. "What accident?--of what nature?" turning hastily to Ford.
"Fire-damp, I believe, sir."
"Who was down?" was the next eager question.
"The usual men, sir. And--and--Mr. Rupert Trevlyn."
Chattaway with some difficulty repressed a shout. Idea after idea
crowded upon his brain, one chasing another. Foremost amongst them rose
distinctly the one thought of the morning from which he had striven to
escape and could not: "Nothing can bring me security save the death of
Rupert." Had the half-encouraged wish brought its realisation.
"Rupert Trevlyn down the shaft!" he repeated, the moisture breaking over
his face. "I know he went down; I sent him; but--but--did he not come up
again?"
"No," gloomily replied Ford, who really liked Rupert; "he is down now.
There's no hope that he'll come up alive."
Whether consternation deadened his physical suffering, or his ankle,
from the rest it had had, was really less painful, Mr. Chattaway
contrived to get pretty comfortably to the scene of action. The crowd
had increased; people were coming up from far and near. Medical men had
arrived, ready to give their services in case any sufferers were brought
up alive. One of them examined Mr. Chattaway's ankle, and bound it up;
the hurt, he said, was only a temporary one.
He, the owner of that pit, sat down on the side of a hand-barrow, for he
could not stand, and issued his orders in sharp, concise tones; and the
bodies began to be brought to the surface. One of the first to appear
was that of the unfortunate man, Bean, to whom he had sent the message
by Rupert. Chattaway looked on, half-dazed. Would Rupert's body be the
next? He could not realise the fact that he, from whom he had dreaded he
knew not what, should soon be laid at his feet, cold and lifeless. Was
he glad or sorry? Did grief for Rupert predominate? Or did the intense
relief the death must bring overpower any warmer feeling? Perhaps Mr.
Chattaway could not yet tell.
They were being brought up pretty quickly now, and were laid on the
ground beside him, to be recognised by the unhappy relatives. The men to
whom Chattaway had spoken that morning were amongst them: he had ordered
them down as he rode off, and one and all had obeyed the mandate. Did he
regret their fate? Did he compassionate the weeping wives and children?
In a degree, perhaps, yes; but not as most men would have done.
A tall form interposed between him and the mouth of the pit--that of Meg
Pennet. She had been watching for a body which had not yet been brought
up. Suddenly she turned to Mr. Chattaway.
"You have killed him, master; you have made my children orphans. But for
your coming in your hardness to drive him out when he warn't fit to go,
we should ha' had somebody still to work for us. Happen you may have
heered of a curse? I'd like to give ye one now."
"Somebody take this woman away," cried Chattaway. "She'll be better at
home."
"Ay, take her away," retorted Meg; "don't let her plaints be heered,
lest folk might say they be just. Send her home to her fatherless
children, and send her dead man after her to lie among 'em till his
burial. Happen, when you come to your death, Mr. Chattaway, you'll have
us all afore your mind, to comfort you!"
She stopped. Another ill-fated man was being drawn up, and she turned to
wait for it, her hands clenched, her face white and haggard in its
intensity. The burden came, and was laid near the rest; but it was not
the one for which she waited. Another woman darted forward; _she_ knew
it too well; and she clasped her hands round it, and sobbed in agony.
Meg Pennet turned resolutely to the mouth of the pit again, watching
still.
"Be they all dead? How many was down?"
The voice came from behind Meg Pennet, and she screamed and started.
There stood her husband. How had he escaped from the pit?
"I haven't been a-nigh it," he answered. "I couldn't get down to the
pit, try as I would, without a rest, and I halted at Green's. Who's dead
among 'em, and who's alive?"
"God be thanked!" exclaimed Meg Pennet, with a sob of emotion.
All Mr. Chattaway's faculties were strained on the mouth of that yawning
pit, and what it might yield up. As body after body was brought to the
surface--seven of them were up now--he cast his anxious looks upon it,
expecting to recognise the fair face of Rupert Trevlyn. Expecting and
yet dreading--don't think him worse than he was; with the frightened,
half-shrinking dread ordinarily experienced by women, or by men of
nervous and timid temperament. So utterly did this suspense absorb him
as to make him almost oblivious to the painful features of the scene,
the wails of woe and bursts of lamentation.
Happening for a minute to turn his eyes from the pit, he saw in the
distance a pony-carriage approaching, which looked uncommonly like that
of Miss Diana Trevlyn. Instinct told him that the two figures seated in
it were his wife and Miss Diana, although as yet he could not see
whether they were women or men. It was slowly winding down a distant
hill, and would have to ascend another and come over the flat stretch of
country ere it could reach them. He beckoned his clerk Ford to him in a
sort of terror.
"Run, Ford! Make all speed. I think I see Miss Trevlyn's pony-carriage
yonder with the ladies in it. Don't let them approach. Tell them to turn
aside, to the office, and I'll come to them. Anywhere; anywhere but
here."
Ford ran with all his might. He met the carriage just at the top of the
nearest hill, and unceremoniously laid his hand upon the pony, giving
Mr. Chattaway's message as well as his breathless state would
allow--begging they would turn aside and not approach the pit.
It was evident that they were strangers as yet to the news, but the
crowd and excitement round the pit had been causing them apprehension
and a foreshadowing of the truth. Miss Diana, paying, as it appeared,
little heed to the message, extended her whip in the direction of the
scene.
"I see what it is, Ford. Don't beat about the bush. How many were down
the shaft?"
"A great many, ma'am," was Ford's reply. "The pit was in full work
to-day."
"Was it fire-damp?"
"I believe so."
"Mr. Chattaway's safe, you say? He was not down? I suppose he was not
likely to be down?"
"No," answered Ford. But the thought of Mr. Chattaway's accident from
another source, which he did not know whether to disclose or not, and
the consciousness of a worse calamity, caused him to speak hesitatingly.
Miss Diana was quick of apprehension, and awoke it.
"Was any one down the shaft besides the men? Was--where's Rupert
Trevlyn?"
Ford looked as if he dared not answer.
Mrs. Chattaway caught the alarm. She half rose in the low carriage, and
stretched out her hands in a pleading attitude; as though Ford held the
issues of life and death.
"Oh, speak, speak! He was not down the shaft! Surely Rupert was not down
the shaft!"
"He had gone down but a short time before," said the young man in a
whisper--for where was the use of denying the fact, now that they had
guessed it? "We shall all mourn him, ma'am. I had almost as soon it had
been me."
"Gone down the shaft but a short time before!" mechanically repeated
Miss Diana in her horror. But she was interrupted by a cry from Ford.
Mrs. Chattaway had fallen back on her seat in a fainting-fit.