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the superintendent had been called away on business, and 
was now absent. 
“ We won’t go down inter no death-trap like that,” 
broke out a fierce little man, with flaming red whiskers, 
“ no, not for no stranger as wentured where he’d no busi¬ 
ness. I was the first as see him, and I sung out at the top 
of my lungs, but he kep’ right on, and then come the dull 
heavy sound as if a mountain had slid down the pit’s 
mouth.” 
“ ’Twas only the side wall as fell,” remarked another. 
‘I went in as tar as I could crawl on hands and knees, 
and the roof was hanging by a hair ; a sneeze would bring 
it down.” 
“ Tt didn’t cave reg’ler,” remarked he of the burning 
whiskers, “ and I call it the meanest kind of a death-trap; 
but if it was a miner in the way of getting bread for wife 
and weans, as was ketched in n hole like a rat, ropes 
couldn’t hold ns back from digging him out, if we knowed 
we’d be buried forty miles deep in the bowhills of the 
arth.” 
A murmer of approval ran through the crowd, that 
held its ground more doggedly than ever. The pit’s 
mouth had an awful fascination when a human being was 
walled up or perishing in its black depths. 
“He had no belongings with us,” said another man, 
gloomily. 11 He was suspicioned for a thief, and was likely 
hiding away from the sheriff and poss, as they call it. But 
Smoky Duff was his friend, and Smoky’s the man to git 
him out of yon hole.” 
Smoky had kept himself in the background with his 
cap slouched over his eyes. 
“ ITe wmrn’t no friend o’ mine,” he muttered, “My wo¬ 
man took him in to lodge and feed for pay, and I knowed 
nought about it.” 
Nancy Duff had wisely absented herself from the scene. 
“ I wouldn’t have thought, men, you were all cowards,” 
said the engineer, coming toward the larger group, “ you 
whose trade it is to look death in the face every day in the 
year, and yet you will let a fellow-being perish down 
there without putting forth one effort to save him.” 
Tlie swart faces, begrimmed with coal-dust, looked only 
the more dark, and sullen, and glum at these words; but 
one great giant of a man, known as Long Bill, visibly 
winced under the imputation of cowardice. 
“ It’s wife and weans as makes a man bang back,” he 
muttered. “ The feel of their arms round your neck when 
you’re going down the man-lines, takes the spirit out of 
you.” 
“You shan’t stir one step,” cried the giant’s wife, the 
same little wiry, black-eyed woman who had been stirring 
up the others to resistance. She thought she had dis¬ 
cerned signs of weakening in Long Bill's voice, and now 
thrust the pale-faced, deformed little boy into his arms. 
“Have you a spark of human feeling,” she cried, turning 
fiercely upon the others, to be persuadin’ my mon into dan¬ 
ger, when he has got a ricketty baby, and me with only 
one pair of hands, and three others under ten year old to 
support ? Why don’t you go yoursel’ ? ” addressing the 
young engineer, “and you no chick or child to lave be¬ 
hind. Let the boss go I ” raising her shrill voice and look¬ 
ing around triumphantly. 
It was now the young engineer’s turn to wince. He 
had no “chick or child,” as the woman had said, but there 
was a six months’ bride waiting for him down in a lowland 
city. He was no craven, but he, too, might feel a pair of 
arms clinging to his neck as he went down to probable 
death. 
“What good would it do for me to risk my life alone,” 
he said, in a low voice, “ when the men refuse to fol¬ 
low ?" 
“ Try us and see,” was the ready response from more 
than one surly throat. “ If the Boss leads, we’re not so 
slow to go arter him. When he resks his bones, and thinks 
they’re no better than our necks, tain’t in us to hang 
back.” 
A glance of dismay shot out of the black eye of Long 
Bill’s wife. She had miscalculated the effect of her elo¬ 
quence. But the engineer roused himself, and looking 
about with a business air, said in a brisk tone: 
“ Come, come my men, you are not going to let a fellow- 
creature perish without one effort to save him, even if he 
is a doubtful character. Of course you don’t mean to go 
down there without a reward ; but I will promise a hun¬ 
dred dollars in Miss Braithwaite’s name to the first man 
that offers.” 
“ Hoot! ” cried Long Bill, thrusting his hands more 
doggedly than before into his breeches pockets. “ You 
don’t ketch us with mouldy cheese. Old Boss was tight as 
glue. How can we be shore the young missis don’t take 
arter him ? Don’t offer other folks’ money; offer yourself, 
mon, your own blood and bones, and see if we don’t foller 
where you lead, if it’s down to hell.” 
The engineer turned slightly pale and stood silent with 
his eyes cast down. 
“ Who’s a coward now ? ” cried Bill’s wife, with a taunt¬ 
ing laugh, in which the others grimly joined. 
Bob, leading his cart, had approached the edge of the 
crowd where his wife stood with her apron flung over her 
head. 
“ Is’t the choke damp ? ” he asked, jerking his thumb 
forward. 
She shook her head. 
“ The old gallery they’ve been undermining. A strange 
mon got down there, and the old rotten timber-work gave 
way, so lie’s buried alive, and the rest of the timber only 
hangs by a hair. They say a whisper will bring it down.” 
Bob took off his cap, and scratched his head. 
“ What ’casion had a strange mon for to go into the gal¬ 
lery ? ” he asked. 
“ They say he was trying to hide,” she returned in a 
whisper.” There’s officers out searching for him.” 
Bob nodded slowly, “ I knows him, Smoky Duff’s 
chicken. Bvft go to the house, Mary. I brought company 
home wid me.” 
“ Company! ’’ 
“ A gall I picked up by the roadside. She was laying 
in a swound, white and limp as a wet linen rag. I brought 
her in the cart and laid heron the bed in the house.” 
“ Poor thing! how corned she faintin’ by the road¬ 
side ? ” 
“ Dunno. Passes me. Ben Harding, as I had wid me 
in the cart, says it’s the young miss that old Judge’s dar¬ 
ter had wid her last summer, when she corned to the 
mine.” 
“ Oh, no,” cried Mary, putting up her hands. “ It can’t 
be the pretty, pale-faced, yellow-haired young leddy that 
spoke to me so kind, and took such notice of the babby. 
’Twas she, Bob, as made the little frocks—the very one my 
lamb was laid out in.” 
Mary turned to furtively wipe away the tears with her 
apron, and then ran hastily down the path toward her 
own house. 
Biadley had rushed out of the Hall half maddened by 
the crisis of his fate. His brain was confused, and his face 
ghastly in its desperate misery. A wild tumult raged 
within him, and nothing was clear but the determination 
to search for Virginie. An insane notion had full posses¬ 
sion of his mind that he should find her dead in the 
grounds, lying pale aud stark under some tree or hedge, 
with her golden hair dabbled by the night dews. 
He sought with feverish eagerness through the shrub¬ 
bery ; he rushed along the borders of the lake, gazing with 
despair into the clear waters, and looking with sick dread 
for small footprints in the san,d. He found himself in 
among the dense forest trees, not knowing where he was, 
or how he came-there; but the terrible agonizing quest 
went on, while his heart tortured itself with reproaches. 
He had killed her. He was worse than a murderer. He 
had driven her out to suffering, and privation, perhaps to 
death. 
Hours seemed to have passed in a ghastly dream, when 
accident guided his footsteps not far from the highway 
that led to the little hamlet of Halcourt Centre. He knew 
where he was, and a clear rational thought struck like a 
sunbeam through the confusion of his ideas. He had 
been a fool, a madman, not to go at once to the telegraph 
office, aud dispatch to Deanport for aid in rousing the 
country. He could have cursed himself for the precious 
time he had wasted. At that moment an impulse seized 
him to cry aloud for help; but the place was very lonely. 
The crows were cawing drearily overhead in the sunless, 
windless morning air. Though an age seemed to have 
elapsed since he first heard of Yirginie’s flight, when he 
looked at his watch he was surprised to find that it was 
not yet eight o’clock. 
The autumn stillness was profound and solemn, and the 
gray vaporous curtain of the atmosphere transmitted sound 
from a great distance. As he paused for an instant on the 
other side of the screen of trees that divided him from the 
highway, the rythmic beat of a horse’s hoofs, galloping 
down the road, struck his ear. Here, perhaps, were tid¬ 
ings. In that unreasoning state of mind he leaped over 
the brush fence, and, taking his hat off, waved it at the ad¬ 
vancing horseman. His pale face, blood-shot eyes, and 
dishevelled dress gave him the air of a madman. 
“ Stop! ” he shouted as the rider came on at full speed. 
“ Have you any news ? ” 
“Yes, I have news,” yelled the youth on horseback, 
without slackening his pace, “ I am taking it down to 
Halcourt Hall.” 
“ Where is she ? ” cried Bradley, making a spring at the 
bridle rein, aud almost unseating the rider, who was no 
other than the superintendent’s clerk, mounted on his mas¬ 
ter’s horse. 
“ Where’s who ? D- you, let go the rein. You 
must be crazy. Who are you talking about ? ” 
“ Miss Duval, the young lady who escaped last night 
from the Hall in a fit of delirium.” 
“ Oh,”- returned the youth, unbending with a swift gleam 
of recognition. “You are Mr. Halcourt. Excuse me, I 
did not recognize you at first, it was all so sudden. I had 
not heard of the young lady’s disappearance. I was going 
to the Hall to carry the news of an accident at the mine. 
There is a man buried in one of the old disused galleries, 
that has caved, and the men refuse to go down and dig 
him out, partly because it is a dangerous piece of work, 
and partly because he is a stranger of doubtful reputa¬ 
tion.” 
“ Who is he ? ” 
“ He is called Dr. Walters, but that is not his real name. 
According to report he is a desperate character, the leader 
of a gang of burglars. He doubtless took refuge in the. 
old south gallery as a hiding-place, and not knowing the 
kind of trap he was to fall into.” 
Bradley stood for a moment silent and immovable, capa¬ 
ble now of reflection, for a new turn had been given to all 
his ideas. This man must not die. He must snatch him 
out of the pit to wring from him a confession of Virginie’s 
innocence. Ho must vindicate the honor of the woman he 
loved whether alive or dead. 
“ Get off your horse,” at last Bradley spoke with au¬ 
thority, and I will take him and go to the mine, while you 
make your way across to the Hall on foot. But stop a 
moment; you must first leave this message at the tele¬ 
graph office at Halcourt Centre, and he hastily wrote a 
few lines in his pocket diary, and tore out the leaf and 
folded it. 
The young man obeyed meekly; he knew the person 
before him would one day be master of Halcourt, and 
deemed it best to conciliate the coming man. Bradley 
sprung into the saddle, and the horse darted away up the 
road like a flash of lightning. 
The men were still hanging in groups about the shaft, 
half-ashamed and thoroughly sulky. Some had lighted 
pipes and seated themselves on the limber piles and heaps 
of debris, and were smoking in sullen silence. Most of 
the women had gone back to their houses, but Long Bill’s 
wife was still mounting guard over her son of Anak. 
“Why, there’s him,” she exclaimed, turning round at the 
clatter of a horse’s hoofs. “ There’s the young missis's 
intended, and he looks stern as a meat-axe. There’ll be 
some big orderin’ now, I’ll warrant. Bill, don’t you put 
down Charley; don’t you dare stir one step.” 
Bradley sprang from his panting horse, flecked about the 
nostrils with foam, and looked at the group of miners with 
bitter contempt. 
“ Are you men,” said he, “to let a fellow-being perish 
down in that black murder-hole without raising a finger to 
save him ? ” 
A hoarse, gutteral murmur, unintelligible in words, ran 
through the crowd as it shifted and swayed. 
“ I shall not stay here to reason with you, or try to per¬ 
suade you into mere decency,” he added with biting scorn. 
“You are not human beings, but heartless brutes.” He 
flung off his coat. “ Give me a lamp and pick,” he cried, 
and his feet were already on the descent. 
“ Stop! for Heaven’s sake! ” cried the engineer, who 
had laid hold of his arm. “ An attempt must he made to 
prop the roof with timbers, or the whole thing will give 
way and crush you like a worm. One man can do nothing 
alone ; and any attempt will be perilous, but it may per¬ 
haps succeed.” 
“Then, why in God’s name don’t you come along?” 
shouted Bradley.. “Why do you hang back like a mise¬ 
rable poltroon ? ” 
“ I’m coming, sir,” said the young man, with a blush of 
shame on his face. “God knows I’m willing to risk my 
life if you are.” 
The dark crowd of miners hustled and shouldered each 
other, and then made a simultaneous rush forward. Long 
Bill set the little deformed boy down by his mother’s feet, 
though she screeched out after him in vain. 
“ We are ready to go with you,” cried the hoarse voices, 
touched witli some new and genuine emotion, “ we’ll go 
willing as water, but we didn’t want to be druv into no 
slaughter pen like so many dumb critters.” 
“ I’m glad if you have waked up to your duty,” Bradley 
cried out to them. “ It may not yet be too late to save 
life. I shall take the lead here, and I expect to be 
obeyed.” f 
“ Ay, sir, ay, sir,” sounded from all sides, and in a mo¬ 
ment more the perilous work had begun. 
The women all ran back to the pit’s mouth and set up a 
doleful wailing; most of them had babies in their arms, 
and older bairns clinging to their skirts. Long Bill’s wife 
was dry-eyed and vociferous, but the others only wept, and 
moaned, and finally settled down into patient dumb endur¬ 
ance. 
Into the midst of this group Winnifred suddenly came 
spurring on the back of Thunderbolt. She had not waited 
to put on her habit, but had thrown the great furred cloak 
over her morning attire. The proud young face, so beau¬ 
tiful in its bloom and glow, so assured in its glance, so self- 
possessed in its authority, was familiar enough to the 
miners’ women. They had watched her at a distance with 
a wondering awe; they had criticised her, too, in their 
own rude fashion. She seldom went into their cabins, or 
conciliated them with familiar, kindly chat; even when she 
wished to do them a favor, which in their ignorance they 
resisted, as in the case of the school, she carried it with a 
high hand, and by the force of an imperious will. She 
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