Produced by David Edwards, Rose Acquavella and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This
file was produced from images generously made available
by The Internet Archive)
[Illustration: BULLDOG FINDS A FRIEND.]
FACING DEATH
OR,
THE HERO OF THE VAUGHAN PIT.
A TALE OF THE COAL MINES.
BY
G. A. HENTY,
Author of "With Clive in India;" "In Freedom's Cause;"
"By Sheer Pluck;" "Under Drake's Flag;" &c.
_WITH EIGHT FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS BY GORDON BROWNE._
LONDON: BLACKIE & SON, LIMITED;
NEW YORK: CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS,
743 AND 745 BROADWAY
CONTENTS.
CHAP. PAGE
I. EVIL TIDINGS, 9
II. BULL-DOG, 16
III. THE RESOLUTION, 31
IV. THE VAUGHAN PIT, 39
V. SETTING TO WORK, 49
VI. "THE OLD SHAFT," 54
VII. FRIENDSHIP, 64
VIII. PROGRESS, 74
IX. THE GREAT STRIKE, 80
X. HARD TIMES, 96
XI. THE ATTACK ON THE ENGINE-HOUSE, 105
XII. AFTER THE STRIKE, 117
XIII. A HEAVY LOSS, 124
XIV. THE NIGHT-SCHOOL, 134
XV. THE SEWING-CLASS, 146
XVI. A NEW LIFE, 156
XVII. THE DOG FIGHT, 166
XVIII. STOKEBRIDGE FEAST, 173
XIX. THE GREAT RIOT, 183
XX. THE ARM OF THE LAW, 193
XXI. A KNOTTY QUESTION, 201
XXII. THE SOLUTION, 209
XXIII. THE EXPLOSION AT THE VAUGHAN, 222
XXIV. IN DEADLY PERIL, 235
XXV. THE IMPRISONED MINERS, 239
XXVI. A CRITICAL MOMENT, 253
XXVII. RESCUED, 259
XXVIII. CHANGES, 274
XXIX. THE NEW MANAGER, 283
XXX. RISEN, 289
XXXI. CONCLUSION, 298
ILLUSTRATIONS.
PAGE
BULLDOG FINDS A FRIEND, _Frontispiece_.
IN THE OLD SHAFT--CAN HE BE SAVED? 58
NELLY'S FIRST LESSON, 70
A LIFE OR DEATH STRUGGLE, 113
JACK IS VICTORIOUS, 170
THE NEW SCHOOLMISTRESS, 217
AFTER THE FIRST EXPLOSION--THE SEARCH PARTY, 237
SAVED! 270
FACING DEATH:
OR, HOW STOKEBRIDGE WAS CIVILIZED.
CHAPTER I.
EVIL TIDINGS.
A row of brick-built houses with slate roofs, at the edge of a large
mining village in Staffordshire. The houses are dingy and colourless,
and without relief of any kind. So are those in the next row, so in the
street beyond, and throughout the whole village. There is a dreary
monotony about the place; and if some giant could come and pick up all
the rows of houses, and change their places one with another, it is a
question whether the men, now away at work, would notice any difference
whatever until they entered the houses standing in the place of those
which they had left in the morning. There is a church, and a vicarage
half hidden away in the trees in its pretty old-fashioned garden; there
are two or three small red-bricked dissenting chapels, and the doctor's
house, with a bright brass knocker and plate on the door. There are no
other buildings above the common average of mining villages; and it
needs not the high chimneys, and engine-houses with winding gear,
dotting the surrounding country, to notify the fact that Stokebridge is
a mining village.
It is a little past noon, and many of the women come to their doors and
look curiously after a miner, who, in his working clothes, and black
with coal-dust, walks rapidly towards his house, with his head bent
down, and his thick felt hat slouched over his eyes.
"It's Bill Haden; he works at the 'Vaughan.'"
"What brings he up at this hour?"
"Summat wrong, I'll be bound."
Bill Haden stopped at the door of his house in the row first spoken of,
lifted the latch, and went in. He walked along a narrow passage into the
back-room. His wife, who was standing at the washing-tub, turned round
with a surprised exclamation, and a bull-dog with half-a-dozen round
tumbling puppies scrambled out of a basket by the fire, and rushed to
greet him.
"What is it, Bill? what's brought thee home before time?"
For a moment Bill Haden did not answer, but stooped, and, as it were
mechanically, lifted the dog and stroked its head.
"There's blood on thy hands, Bill. What be wrong with 'ee?"
"It bain't none of mine, lass," the man said in an unsteady voice. "It
be Jack's. He be gone."
"Not Jack Simpson?"
"Ay, Jack Simpson; the mate I ha' worked with ever since we were butties
together. A fall just came as we worked side by side in the stall, and
it broke his neck, and he's dead."
The woman dropped into a chair, threw her apron over her head, and cried
aloud, partly at the loss of her husband's mate, partly at the thought
of the narrow escape he had himself had.
"Now, lass," her husband said, "there be no time to lose. It be for thee
to go and break it to his wife. I ha' come straight on, a purpose. I
thawt to do it, but I feel like a gal myself, and it had best be told
her by another woman."
Jane Haden took her apron from her face.
"Oh, Bill, how can I do it, and she ill, and with a two-month baby? I
misdoubt me it will kill her."
"Thou'st got to do it," Bill said doggedly, "and thou'd best be quick
about it; it won't be many minutes afore they bring him in."
When Bill spoke in that way his wife knew, as he said, that she'd got to
do it, and without a word she rose and went out, while her husband stood
staring into the fire, and still patting the bull-dog in his arms. A
tear falling on his hand startled him. He dropped the dog and gave it a
kick, passed his sleeve across his eyes, and said angrily:
"Blest if I bain't a crying like a gal. Who'd a thawt it? Well, well,
poor old Jack! he was a good mate too"--and Bill Haden proceeded to
light his pipe.
Slowly and reluctantly Mrs. Haden passed along the row. The sad errand
on which she was going was one that has often to be discharged in a
large colliery village. The women who had seen Bill go in were still at
their doors, and had been joined by others. The news that he had come in
at this unusual hour had passed about quickly, and there was a general
feeling of uneasiness among the women, all of whom had husbands or
relatives below ground. When, therefore, Jane Haden came out with signs
of tears on her cheeks, her neighbours on either side at once assailed
her with questions.
"Jack Simpson's killed by a fall," she said, "and I ha' got to break it
to his wife."
Rapidly the news spread along the row, from door to door, and from group
to group. The first feeling was everywhere one of relief that it was not
their turn this time; then there was a chorus of pity for the widow. "It
will go hard with her," was the general verdict. Then the little groups
broke up, and went back to their work of getting ready for the return of
their husbands from the pit at two o'clock. One or two only, of those
most intimate with the Simpsons, followed Jane Haden slowly down the
street to the door of their house, and took up a position a short
distance off, talking quietly together, in case they might be wanted,
and with the intention of going in after the news was broken, to help
comfort the widow, and to make what preparations were needed for the
last incoming of the late master of the house. It was but a minute or
two that they had to pause, for the door opened again, and Jane Haden
beckoned them to come in.
It had, as the gossips had predicted, gone hard with the young widow.
She was sitting before the fire when Jane entered, working, and rocking
the cradle beside with her foot. At the sight of her visitor's pale
face, and tear-stained cheeks, and quivering lips, she had dropped her
work and stood up, with a terrible presentiment of evil--with that dread
which is never altogether absent from the mind of a collier's wife. She
did not speak, but stood with wide-open eyes staring at her visitor.
"Mary, my poor girl," Mrs. Haden began.
That was enough, the whole truth burst upon her.
"He is killed?" she gasped.
Mrs. Haden gave no answer in words, but her face was sufficient as she
made a step forward towards the slight figure which swayed unsteadily
before her. Mary Simpson made no sound save a gasping sob, her hand went
to her heart, and then she fell in a heap on the ground, before Mrs.
Haden, prepared as she was, had time to clasp her.
"Thank God," Jane Haden said, as she went to the front door and beckoned
the others in, "she has fainted."
"Ay, I thawt as much," one of the women said, "and a good job too. It's
always best so till he is brought home, and things are straightened up."
Between them Mary Simpson was tenderly lifted, and carried upstairs and
laid on the bed of a lodger's room there. The cradle was brought up and
put beside it, and then Jane Haden took her seat by the bed, one woman
went for the doctor, while the others prepared the room below. In a
short time all that remained of Jack Simpson was borne home on a
stretcher, on the shoulders of six of his fellow-workmen, and laid in
the darkened room. The doctor came and went for the next two days, and
then his visits ceased.
It had gone hard with Mary Simpson. She had passed from one long
fainting fit into another, until at last she lay as quiet as did Jack
below; and the doctor, murmuring "A weak heart, poor little woman; the
shock was too much for her," took his departure for the last time from
the house. Then Jane Haden, who had not left her friend's side ever
since she was carried upstairs, wrapped the baby in a shawl and went
home, a neighbour carrying the cradle.
When Bill Haden returned from work he found the room done up, the table
laid for tea, and the kettle on the fire. His wife was sitting by it
with the baby on her lap.
"Well, lass," he said, as he entered the room, "so the poor gal's gone.
I heard it as I came along. Thou'st's had a hard two days on't. Hulloa!
what's that?"
"It's the baby, Bill," his wife said.
"What hast brought un here for?" he asked roughly.
Jane Haden did not answer directly, but standing in front of her
husband, removed the handkerchief which covered the baby's face as he
lay on her arm.
"Look at him, Bill; he's something like Jack, don't thou see it?"
"Not a bit of it," he said gruffly. "Kids don't take after their father,
as pups do."
"I can see the likeness quite plain, Bill. Now," she went on, laying her
hand on his shoulder, "I want to keep him. We ain't got none of our own,
Bill, and I can't abear the thought of his going to the House."
Bill Haden stood irresolute.
"I shouldn't like to think of Jack's kid in the House; still he'll be a
heap of trouble--worse nor a dozen pups, and no chance of winning a
prize with him nohow, or of selling him, or swopping him if his points
don't turn out right. Still, lass, the trouble will be thine, and by the
time he's ten he'll begin to earn his grub in the pit; so if thy mind be
set on't, there's 'n end o' the matter. Now let's have tea; I ain't had
a meal fit for a dog for the last two days, and Juno ain't got her milk
regular."
So little Jack Simpson became a member of the Haden family, and his
father and mother were laid to rest in the burying-ground on the
hillside above the village.