Part 4 (1/2)

”That stone falling just at the ”

”Harry, it was ahis head ”Yes, chance” He stopped and listened

”What is the ht I heard so more attentively Then he added, ”No, I must have been mistaken Lean harder on ood 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 soht

But behind and before, all was silence and darkness

CHAPTER IV THE FORD FAMILY

TEN minutes afterwards, Jaallery They were now standing in a glade, if we nate a vast and dark excavation The place, however, was not entirely deprived of daylight A few rays straggled in through the opening of a deserted shaft It was by means of this pipe that ventilation was established in the Dochart pit Owing to its lesser density, the warht, therefore, penetrated in solade

Here Simon Ford had lived with his fa, hollowed out in the schistous ines which worked the mechanical traction of the Dochart pit

Such was the habitation, ”his cottage,” as he called it, in which resided the old over life of toil, Ford could have afforded to live in the light of day, ado in thethe same opinions, ideas, and tastes Yes, they were quite fond of their cottage, buried fifteen hundred feet below Scottish soil

Aatherers, or rent collectors would ever come to trouble its inhabitants

At this period, Siht of sixty-five years well Tall, robust, well-built, he would have been regarded as one of the most conspicuous men in the district which supplies so i family, and his ancestors had worked the very first carboniferous sea whether or not the Greeks and Romans made use of coal, whether the Chinese worked coal mines before the Christian era, whether the French word for coal (HOUILLE) is really derived froium in the twelfth century, we may affirularly worked So early as the eleventh century, Willia his companions-in-arms At the end of the thirteenth century, a license for the ranted by Henry III Lastly, towards the end of the same century, mention is made of the Scotch and Welsh beds

It was about this time that Simon Ford's ancestors penetrated into the bowels of Caledonian earth, and lived there ever after, from father to son They were but plainthe precious combustible It is even believed that the coal miners, like the salt-makers of that period, were actual slaves

However thatto this ancient faently in the same place where his ancestors had wielded the pick, the crowbar, and the mattock At thirty he was overman of the Dochart pit, the most important in the Aberfoyle colliery He was devoted to his trade During long years he zealously perforrief had been to perceive the bed beco when the seam would be exhausted

It was then he devoted himself to the search for new veins in all the Aberfoyle pits, which coood luck to discover several during the last period of the working His ineer, Jaht be said that he divined the course of seams in the depths of the coal s in the bowels of the earth He was par excellence the type of a miner whose whole existence is indissolubly connected with that of his mine He had lived there from his birth, and now that the works were abandoned he wished to live there still His son Harry foraged for the subterranean housekeeping; as for hi those ten years he had not been ten tiood?” he would say, and refused to leave his black domain The place was remarkably healthy, subject to an equable temperature; the old overman endured neither the heat of suood health; what more could he desire?

But at heart he felt depressed He missed the former animation, movement, and life in the orked pit He was, however, supported by one fixed idea ”No, no! the mine is not exhausted!” he repeated

And that iven serious offense who could have ventured to express before Simon Ford any doubt that old Aberfoyle would one day revive! He had never given up the hope of discovering some new bed which would restore the ly, had it been necessary, have resuorously attacked the rock He went through the dark galleries, so for signs of coal, only to return each day, wearied, but not in despair, to the cottage

Madge, Siude-wife,” to use the Scotch tere had no wish to leave the Dochart pit any rets She encouraged hied him on, and talked to him in a hich cheered the heart of the old overht about that, Sie, as well as the others, was perfectly satisfied to live independent of the outer world, and was the center of the happiness enjoyed by the little faerly expected Si at his door, and as soon as Harry's lamp announced the arrival of his former viewer he advanced to meet hi under the roof of schist ”Welcoh it is buried fifteen hundred feet under the earth, our house is not the less hospitable”

”And how are you, good Si the hand which his host held out to him

”Very well, Mr Starr How could I be otherwise here, sheltered froo to Newhaven or Portobello in the summer time would do much better to pass a few months in the coala heavy cold, as they do in the damp streets of the old capital”