THE DOCHART PIT
Harry Ford was a fine, strapping fellow of five and twenty. His grave
looks, his habitually passive expression, had from childhood been
noticed among his comrades in the mine. His regular features, his deep
blue eyes, his curly hair, rather chestnut than fair, the natural grace
of his person, altogether made him a fine specimen of a lowlander.
Accustomed from his earliest days to the work of the mine, he was
strong and hardy, as well as brave and good. Guided by his father, and
impelled by his own inclinations, he had early begun his education, and
at an age when most lads are little more than apprentices, he had
managed to make himself of some importance, a leader, in fact, among
his fellows, and few are very ignorant in a country which does all it
can to remove ignorance. Though, during the first years of his youth,
the pick was never out of Harry’s hand, nevertheless the young miner
was not long in acquiring sufficient knowledge to raise him into the
upper class of the miners, and he would certainly have succeeded his
father as overman of the Dochart pit, if the colliery had not been
abandoned.
James Starr was still a good walker, yet he could not easily have kept
up with his guide, if the latter had not slackened his pace. The young
man, carrying the engineer’s bag, followed the left bank of the river
for about a mile. Leaving its winding course, they took a road under
tall, dripping trees. Wide fields lay on either side, around isolated
farms. In one field a herd of hornless cows were quietly grazing; in
another sheep with silky wool, like those in a child’s toy sheep fold.
The Yarrow shaft was situated four miles from Callander. Whilst
walking, James Starr could not but be struck with the change in the
country. He had not seen it since the day when the last ton of
Aberfoyle coal had been emptied into railway trucks to be sent to
Glasgow. Agricultural life had now taken the place of the more
stirring, active, industrial life. The contrast was all the greater
because, during winter, field work is at a standstill. But formerly, at
whatever season, the mining population, above and below ground, filled
the scene with animation. Great wagons of coal used to be passing night
and day. The rails, with their rotten sleepers, now disused, were then
constantly ground by the weight of wagons. Now stony roads took the
place of the old mining tramways. James Starr felt as if he was
traversing a desert.
The engineer gazed about him with a saddened eye. He stopped now and
then to take breath. He listened. The air was no longer filled with
distant whistlings and the panting of engines. None of those black
vapors which the manufacturer loves to see, hung in the horizon,
mingling with the clouds. No tall cylindrical or prismatic chimney
vomited out smoke, after being fed from the mine itself; no blast-pipe
was puffing out its white vapor. The ground, formerly black with coal
dust, had a bright look, to which James Starr’s eyes were not
accustomed.
When the engineer stood still, Harry Ford stopped also. The young miner
waited in silence. He felt what was passing in his companion’s mind,
and he shared his feelings; he, a child of the mine, whose whole life
had been passed in its depths.
“Yes, Harry, it is all changed,” said Starr. “But at the rate we
worked, of course the treasures of coal would have been exhausted some
day. Do you regret that time?”
“I do regret it, Mr. Starr,” answered Harry. “The work was hard, but it
was interesting, as are all struggles.”
“No doubt, my lad. A continuous struggle against the dangers of
landslips, fires, inundations, explosions of firedamp, like claps of
thunder. One had to guard against all those perils! You say well! It
was a struggle, and consequently an exciting life.”
“The miners of Alva have been more favored than the miners of
Aberfoyle, Mr. Starr!”
“Ay, Harry, so they have,” replied the engineer.
“Indeed,” cried the young man, “it’s a pity that all the globe was not
made of coal; then there would have been enough to last millions of
years!”
“No doubt there would, Harry; it must be acknowledged, however, that
nature has shown more forethought by forming our sphere principally of
sandstone, limestone, and granite, which fire cannot consume.”
“Do you mean to say, Mr. Starr, that mankind would have ended by
burning their own globe?”
“Yes! The whole of it, my lad,” answered the engineer. “The earth would
have passed to the last bit into the furnaces of engines, machines,
steamers, gas factories; certainly, that would have been the end of our
world one fine day!”
“There is no fear of that now, Mr. Starr. But yet, the mines will be
exhausted, no doubt, and more rapidly than the statistics make out!”
“That will happen, Harry; and in my opinion England is very wrong in
exchanging her fuel for the gold of other nations! I know well,” added
the engineer, “that neither hydraulics nor electricity has yet shown
all they can do, and that some day these two forces will be more
completely utilized. But no matter! Coal is of a very practical use,
and lends itself easily to the various wants of industry. Unfortunately
man cannot produce it at will. Though our external forests grow
incessantly under the influence of heat and water, our subterranean
forests will not be reproduced, and if they were, the globe would never
be in the state necessary to make them into coal.”
James Starr and his guide, whilst talking, had continued their walk at
a rapid pace. An hour after leaving Callander they reached the Dochart
pit.
The most indifferent person would have been touched at the appearance
this deserted spot presented. It was like the skeleton of something
that had formerly lived. A few wretched trees bordered a plain where
the ground was hidden under the black dust of the mineral fuel, but no
cinders nor even fragments of coal were to be seen. All had been
carried away and consumed long ago.
They walked into the shed which covered the opening of the Yarrow
shaft, whence ladders still gave access to the lower galleries of the
pit. The engineer bent over the opening. Formerly from this place could
be heard the powerful whistle of the air inhaled by the ventilators. It
was now a silent abyss. It was like being at the mouth of some extinct
volcano.
When the mine was being worked, ingenious machines were used in certain
shafts of the Aberfoyle colliery, which in this respect was very well
off; frames furnished with automatic lifts, working in wooden slides,
oscillating ladders, called “man-engines,” which, by a simple movement,
permitted the miners to descend without danger.
But all these appliances had been carried away, after the cessation of
the works. In the Yarrow shaft there remained only a long succession of
ladders, separated at every fifty feet by narrow landings. Thirty of
these ladders placed thus end to end led the visitor down into the
lower gallery, a depth of fifteen hundred feet. This was the only way
of communication which existed between the bottom of the Dochart pit
and the open air. As to air, that came in by the Yarrow shaft, from
whence galleries communicated with another shaft whose orifice opened
at a higher level; the warm air naturally escaped by this species of
inverted siphon.
“I will follow you, my lad,” said the engineer, signing to the young
man to precede him.
“As you please, Mr. Starr.”
“Have you your lamp?”
“Yes, and I only wish it was still the safety lamp, which we formerly
had to use!”
“Sure enough,” returned James Starr, “there is no fear of fire-damp
explosions now!”
Harry was provided with a simple oil lamp, the wick of which he
lighted. In the mine, now empty of coal, escapes of light carburetted
hydrogen could not occur. As no explosion need be feared, there was no
necessity for interposing between the flame and the surrounding air
that metallic screen which prevents the gas from catching fire. The
Davy lamp was of no use here. But if the danger did not exist, it was
because the cause of it had disappeared, and with this cause, the
combustible in which formerly consisted the riches of the Dochart pit.
Harry descended the first steps of the upper ladder. Starr followed.
They soon found themselves in a profound obscurity, which was only
relieved by the glimmer of the lamp. The young man held it above his
head, the better to light his companion. A dozen ladders were descended
by the engineer and his guide, with the measured step habitual to the
miner. They were all still in good condition.
James Starr examined, as well as the insufficient light would permit,
the sides of the dark shaft, which were covered by a partly rotten
lining of wood.
Arrived at the fifteenth landing, that is to say, half way down, they
halted for a few minutes.
“Decidedly, I have not your legs, my lad,” said the engineer, panting.
“You are very stout, Mr. Starr,” replied Harry, “and it’s something
too, you see, to live all one’s life in the mine.”
“Right, Harry. Formerly, when I was twenty, I could have gone down all
at a breath. Come, forward!”
But just as the two were about to leave the platform, a voice, as yet
far distant, was heard in the depths of the shaft. It came up like a
sonorous billow, swelling as it advanced, and becoming more and more
distinct.
“Halloo! who comes here?” asked the engineer, stopping Harry.
“I cannot say,” answered the young miner.
“Is it not your father?”
“My father, Mr. Starr? no.”
“Some neighbor, then?”
“We have no neighbors in the bottom of the pit,” replied Harry. “We are
alone, quite alone.”
“Well, we must let this intruder pass,” said James Starr. “Those who
are descending must yield the path to those who are ascending.”
They waited. The voice broke out again with a magnificent burst, as if
it had been carried through a vast speaking trumpet; and soon a few
words of a Scotch song came clearly to the ears of the young miner.
“The Hundred Pipers!” cried Harry. “Well, I shall be much surprised if
that comes from the lungs of any man but Jack Ryan.”
“And who is this Jack Ryan?” asked James Starr.
“An old mining comrade,” replied Harry. Then leaning from the platform,
“Halloo! Jack!” he shouted.
“Is that you, Harry?” was the reply. “Wait a bit, I’m coming.” And the
song broke forth again.
In a few minutes, a tall fellow of five and twenty, with a merry face,
smiling eyes, a laughing mouth, and sandy hair, appeared at the bottom
of the luminous cone which was thrown from his lantern, and set foot on
the landing of the fifteenth ladder. His first act was to vigorously
wring the hand which Harry extended to him.
“Delighted to meet you!” he exclaimed. “If I had only known you were to
be above ground to-day, I would have spared myself going down the
Yarrow shaft!”
“This is Mr. James Starr,” said Harry, turning his lamp towards the
engineer, who was in the shadow.
“Mr. Starr!” cried Jack Ryan. “Ah, sir, I could not see. Since I left
the mine, my eyes have not been accustomed to see in the dark, as they
used to do.”
“Ah, I remember a laddie who was always singing. That was ten years
ago. It was you, no doubt?”
“Ay, Mr. Starr, but in changing my trade, I haven’t changed my
disposition. It’s far better to laugh and sing than to cry and whine!”
“You’re right there, Jack Ryan. And what do you do now, as you have
left the mine?”
“I am working on the Melrose farm, forty miles from here. Ah, it’s not
like our Aberfoyle mines! The pick comes better to my hand than the
spade or hoe. And then, in the old pit, there were vaulted roofs, to
merrily echo one’s songs, while up above ground!—But you are going to
see old Simon, Mr. Starr?”
“Yes, Jack,” answered the engineer.
“Don’t let me keep you then.”
“Tell me, Jack,” said Harry, “what was taking you to our cottage
to-day?”
“I wanted to see you, man,” replied Jack, “and ask you to come to the
Irvine games. You know I am the piper of the place. There will be
dancing and singing.”
“Thank you, Jack, but it’s impossible.”
“Impossible?”
“Yes; Mr. Starr’s visit will last some time, and I must take him back
to Callander.”
“Well, Harry, it won’t be for a week yet. By that time Mr. Starr’s
visit will be over, I should think, and there will be nothing to keep
you at the cottage.”
“Indeed, Harry,” said James Starr, “you must profit by your friend
Jack’s invitation.”
“Well, I accept it, Jack,” said Harry. “In a week we will meet at
Irvine.”
“In a week, that’s settled,” returned Ryan. “Good-by, Harry! Your
servant, Mr. Starr. I am very glad to have seen you again! I can give
news of you to all my friends. No one has forgotten you, sir.”
“And I have forgotten no one,” said Starr.
“Thanks for all, sir,” replied Jack.
“Good-by, Jack,” said Harry, shaking his hand. And Jack Ryan, singing
as he went, soon disappeared in the heights of the shaft, dimly lighted
by his lamp.
A quarter of an hour afterwards James Starr and Harry descended the
last ladder, and set foot on the lowest floor of the pit.
From the bottom of the Yarrow shaft radiated numerous empty galleries.
They ran through the wall of schist and sandstone, some shored up with
great, roughly-hewn beams, others lined with a thick casing of wood. In
every direction embankments supplied the place of the excavated veins.
Artificial pillars were made of stone from neighboring quarries, and
now they supported the ground, that is to say, the double layer of
tertiary and quaternary soil, which formerly rested on the seam itself.
Darkness now filled the galleries, formerly lighted either by the
miner’s lamp or by the electric light, the use of which had been
introduced in the mines.
“Will you not rest a while, Mr. Starr?” asked the young man.
“No, my lad,” replied the engineer, “for I am anxious to be at your
father’s cottage.”
“Follow me then, Mr. Starr. I will guide you, and yet I daresay you
could find your way perfectly well through this dark labyrinth.”
“Yes, indeed! I have the whole plan of the old pit still in my head.”
Harry, followed by the engineer, and holding his lamp high the better
to light their way, walked along a high gallery, like the nave of a
cathedral. Their feet still struck against the wooden sleepers which
used to support the rails.
They had not gone more than fifty paces, when a huge stone fell at the
feet of James Starr. “Take care, Mr. Starr!” cried Harry, seizing the
engineer by the arm.
“A stone, Harry! Ah! these old vaultings are no longer quite secure, of
course, and—”
“Mr. Starr,” said Harry Ford, “it seems to me that stone was thrown,
thrown as by the hand of man!”
“Thrown!” exclaimed James Starr. “What do you mean, lad?”
“Nothing, nothing, Mr. Starr,” replied Harry evasively, his anxious
gaze endeavoring to pierce the darkness. “Let us go on. Take my arm,
sir, and don’t be afraid of making a false step.”
“Here I am, Harry.” And they both advanced, whilst Harry looked on
every side, throwing the light of his lamp into all the corners of the
gallery.
“Shall we soon be there?” asked the engineer.
“In ten minutes at most.”
“Good.”
“But,” muttered Harry, “that was a most singular thing. It is the first
time such an accident has happened to me.
“That stone falling just at the moment we were passing.”
“Harry, it was a mere chance.”
“Chance,” replied the young man, shaking his head. “Yes, chance.” He
stopped and listened.
“What is the matter, Harry?” asked the engineer.
“I thought I heard someone walking behind us,” replied the young miner,
listening more attentively. Then he added, “No, I must have been
mistaken. Lean harder on my arm, Mr. Starr. Use me like a staff.”
“A good solid staff, Harry,” answered James Starr. “I could not wish
for a better than a fine fellow like you.”
They continued in silence along the dark nave. Harry was evidently
preoccupied, and frequently turned, trying to catch, either some
distant noise, or remote glimmer of light.
But behind and before, all was silence and darkness.