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+Project Gutenberg Etext's of The Underground City by Jules Verne
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+The Underground City
+
+by Jules Verne
+
+June, 1998  [Etext #1355]
+
+
+Project Gutenberg Etext's of The Underground City by Jules Verne
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+This etext was prepared by Judy Boss, Omaha, NE
+From:
+Verne, Jules.  _Works of Jules Verne_.  Ed. Charles F. Horne.  Vol. 9.
+New York: F. Tyler Daniels Company, 1911.  277-394.  [_Off on
+a Comet_, transmitted as a separate file earlier, constitutes pp.
+1-276 of Vol. 9.]
+
+
+
+
+
+The Underground City
+
+OR
+
+The Black Indies
+(Sometimes Called The Child of the Cavern)
+
+
+
+
+The Underground City
+
+CHAPTER I
+CONTRADICTORY LETTERS
+
+
+To Mr. F. R. Starr, Engineer, 30 Canongate, Edinburgh.
+
+IF Mr. James Starr will come to-morrow to the Aberfoyle coal-mines,
+Dochart pit, Yarrow shaft, a communication of an interesting nature
+will be made to him.
+
+"Mr. James Starr will be awaited for, the whole day,
+at the Callander station, by Harry Ford, son of the old
+overman Simon Ford."
+
+"He is requested to keep this invitation secret."
+
+Such was the letter which James Starr received by the first post,
+on the 3rd December, 18--, the letter bearing the Aberfoyle postmark,
+county of Stirling, Scotland.
+
+The engineer's curiosity was excited to the highest pitch.
+It never occurred to him to doubt whether this letter might
+not be a hoax.  For many years he had known Simon Ford,
+one of the former foremen of the Aberfoyle mines, of which he,
+James Starr, had for twenty years, been the manager, or,
+as he would be termed in English coal-mines, the viewer.
+James Starr was a strongly-constituted man, on whom his fifty-five
+years weighed no more heavily than if they had been forty.
+He belonged to an old Edinburgh family, and was one of its
+most distinguished members.  His labors did credit to the body
+of engineers who are gradually devouring the carboniferous
+subsoil of the United Kingdom, as much at Cardiff and Newcastle,
+as in the southern counties of Scotland.  However, it was more
+particularly in the depths of the mysterious mines of Aberfoyle,
+which border on the Alloa mines and occupy part of the county
+of Stirling, that the name of Starr had acquired the greatest renown.
+There, the greater part of his existence had been passed.
+Besides this, James Starr belonged to the Scottish Antiquarian Society,
+of which he had been made president.  He was also included
+amongst the most active members of the Royal Institution; and the
+Edinburgh Review frequently published clever articles signed by him.
+He was in fact one of those practical men to whom is due the prosperity
+of England.  He held a high rank in the old capital of Scotland,
+which not only from a physical but also from a moral point of view,
+well deserves the name of the Northern Athens.
+
+We know that the English have given to their vast extent of
+coal-mines a very significant name.  They very justly call them
+the "Black Indies," and these Indies have contributed perhaps
+even more than the Eastern Indies to swell the surprising wealth
+of the United Kingdom.
+
+At this period, the limit of time assigned by professional men
+for the exhaustion of coal-mines was far distant and there was
+no dread of scarcity.  There were still extensive mines to be
+worked in the two Americas.  The manu-factories, appropriated
+to so many different uses, locomotives, steamers, gas works,
+&c., were not likely to fail for want of the mineral fuel;
+but the consumption had so increased during the last few years,
+that certain beds had been exhausted even to their smallest veins.
+Now deserted, these mines perforated the ground with their
+useless shafts and forsaken galleries.  This was exactly the case
+with the pits of Aberfoyle.
+
+Ten years before, the last butty had raised the last ton of coal
+from this colliery.  The underground working stock, traction engines,
+trucks which run on rails along the galleries, subterranean tramways,
+frames to support the shaft, pipes--in short, all that constituted
+the machinery of a mine had been brought up from its depths.
+The exhausted mine was like the body of a huge fantastically-shaped
+mastodon, from which all the organs of life have been taken,
+and only the skeleton remains.
+
+Nothing was left but long wooden ladders, down the Yarrow shaft--the only
+one which now gave access to the lower galleries of the Dochart pit.
+Above ground, the sheds, formerly sheltering the outside works,
+still marked the spot where the shaft of that pit had been sunk,
+it being now abandoned, as were the other pits, of which the whole
+constituted the mines of Aberfoyle.
+
+It was a sad day, when for the last time the workmen quitted the mine,
+in which they had lived for so many years.  The engineer, James Starr,
+had collected the hundreds of
+
+workmen which composed the active and courageous population of the mine.
+Overmen, brakemen, putters, wastemen, barrowmen, masons, smiths,
+carpenters, outside and inside laborers, women, children, and old men,
+all were collected in the great yard of the Dochart pit, formerly heaped
+with coal from the mine.
+
+Many of these families had existed for generations in the mine
+of old Aberfoyle; they were now driven to seek the means
+of subsistence elsewhere, and they waited sadly to bid farewell
+to the engineer.
+
+James Starr stood upright, at the door of the vast shed in which he had
+for so many years superintended the powerful machines of the shaft.
+Simon Ford, the foreman of the Dochart pit, then fifty-five years of age,
+and other managers and overseers, surrounded him.  James Starr took
+off his hat.  The miners, cap in hand, kept a profound silence.
+This farewell scene was of a touching character, not wanting in grandeur.
+
+"My friends," said the engineer, "the time has come for us to separate.
+The Aberfoyle mines, which for so many years have united us
+in a common work, are now exhausted.  All our researches
+have not led to the discovery of a new vein, and the last
+block of coal has just been extracted from the Dochart pit."
+And in confirmation of his words, James Starr pointed to a lump
+of coal which had been kept at the bottom of a basket.
+
+"This piece of coal, my friends," resumed James Starr, "is like the
+last drop of blood which has flowed through the veins of the mine!
+We shall keep it, as the first fragment of coal is kept,
+which was extracted a hundred and fifty years ago from the bearings
+of Aberfoyle.  Between these two pieces, how many generations
+of workmen have succeeded each other in our pits!  Now, it is over!
+The last words which your engineer will address to you are a farewell.
+You have lived in this mine, which your hands have emptied.
+The work has been hard, but not without profit for you.
+Our great family must disperse, and it is not probable
+that the future will ever again unite the scattered members.
+But do not forget that we have lived together for a long time,
+and that it will be the duty of the miners of Aberfoyle to help
+each other.  Your old masters will not forget you either.
+
+When men have worked together, they must never be stranger
+to each other again.
+
+We shall keep our eye on you, and wherever you go,
+our recommendations shall follow you.  Farewell then, my friends,
+and may Heaven be with you!"
+
+So saying, James Starr wrung the horny hand of the oldest miner,
+whose eyes were dim with tears.  Then the overmen of the different
+pits came forward to shake hands with him, whilst the miners
+waved their caps, shouting, "Farewell, James Starr, our master
+and our friend!"
+
+This farewell would leave a lasting remembrance in all these
+honest hearts.  Slowly and sadly the population quitted the yard.
+The black soil of the roads leading to the Dochart pit resounded
+for the last time to the tread of miners' feet, and silence
+succeeded to the bustling life which had till then filled
+the Aberfoyle mines.
+
+One man alone remained by James Starr.  This was the overman,
+Simon Ford.  Near him stood a boy, about fifteen years of age,
+who for some years already had been employed down below.
+
+James Starr and Simon Ford knew and esteemed each other well.
+"Good-by, Simon," said the engineer.
+
+"Good-by, Mr. Starr," replied the overman, "let me add,
+till we meet again!"
+
+"Yes, till we meet again.  Ford!" answered James Starr.  "You know
+that I shall be always glad to see you, and talk over old times."
+
+"I know that, Mr. Starr."
+
+
+"My house in Edinburgh is always open to you."
+
+"It's a long way off, is Edinburgh!" answered the man shaking his head.
+"Ay, a long way from the Dochart pit."
+
+"A long way, Simon?  Where do you mean to live?"
+
+"Even here, Mr. Starr!  We're not going to leave the mine,
+our good old nurse, just because her milk is dried up!
+My wife, my boy, and myself, we mean to remain faithful to her!"
+
+"Good-by then, Simon," replied the engineer, whose voice,
+in spite of himself, betrayed some emotion.
+
+"No, I tell you, it's TILL WE MEET AGAIN, Mr. Starr,
+and not Just 'good-by,'" returned the foreman.  "Mark my words,
+Aberfoyle will see you again!"
+
+The engineer did not try to dispel the man's illusion.  He
+
+patted Harry's head, again wrung the father's hand, and left the mine.
+
+All this had taken place ten years ago; but, notwithstanding the wish
+which the overman had expressed to see him again, during that time
+Starr had heard nothing of him.  It was after ten years of separation
+that he got this letter from Simon Ford, requesting him to take without
+delay the road to the old Aberfoyle colliery.
+
+A communication of an interesting nature, what could it be?
+Dochart pit.  Yarrow shaft!  What recollections of the past
+these names brought back to him!  Yes, that was a fine time,
+that of work, of struggle,--the best part of the engineer's life.
+Starr re-read his letter.  He pondered over it in all its bearings.
+He much regretted that just a line more had not been added
+by Ford.  He wished he had not been quite so laconic.
+
+Was it possible that the old foreman had discovered some
+new vein?  No!  Starr remembered with what minute care the mines
+had been explored before the definite cessation of the works.
+He had himself proceeded to the lowest soundings without finding
+the least trace in the soil, burrowed in every direction.
+They had even attempted to find coal under strata which are usually
+below it, such as the Devonian red sandstone, but without result.
+James Starr had therefore abandoned the mine with the absolute
+conviction that it did not contain another bit of coal.
+
+"No," he repeated, "no!  How is it possible that anything
+which could have escaped my researches, should be revealed
+to those of Simon Ford.  However, the old overman must well
+know that such a discovery would be the one thing in the world
+to interest me, and this invitation, which I must keep secret,
+to repair to the Dochart pit!"  James Starr always came
+back to that.
+
+On the other hand, the engineer knew Ford to be a clever miner,
+peculiarly endowed with the instinct of his trade.
+He had not seen him since the time when the Aberfoyle
+colliery was abandoned, and did not know either what he was
+doing or where he was living, with his wife and his son.
+All that he now knew was, that a rendezvous had been appointed
+him at the Yarrow shaft, and that Harry, Simon Ford's son,
+was to wait for him during the whole of the next day at
+the Callander station.
+
+
+"I shall go, I shall go!" said Starr, his excitement increasing
+as the time drew near.
+
+Our worthy engineer belonged to that class of men whose brain is always
+on the boil, like a kettle on a hot fire.  In some of these brain
+kettles the ideas bubble over, in others they just simmer quietly.
+Now on this day, James Starr's ideas were boiling fast.
+
+But suddenly an unexpected incident occurred.  This was the drop of cold
+water, which in a moment was to condense all the vapors of the brain.
+About six in the evening, by the third post, Starr's servant brought
+him a second letter.  This letter was enclosed in a coarse envelope,
+and evidently directed by a hand unaccustomed to the use of a pen.
+James Starr tore it open.  It contained only a scrap of paper,
+yellowed by time, and apparently torn out of an old copy book.
+
+On this paper was written a single sentence, thus worded:
+
+"It is useless for the engineer James Starr to trouble himself,
+Simon Ford's letter being now without object."
+
+No signature.
+
+
+CHAPTER II ON THE ROAD
+
+
+THE course of James Starr's ideas was abruptly stopped,
+when he got this second letter contradicting the first.
+
+"What does this mean?" said he to himself.  He took up the torn envelope,
+and examined it.  Like the other, it bore the Aberfoyle postmark.
+It had therefore come from the same part of the county of Stirling.
+The old miner had evidently not written it.  But, no less evidently,
+the author of this second letter knew the overman's secret,
+since it expressly contradicted the invitation to the engineer to go
+to the Yarrow shaft.
+
+Was it really true that the first communication was now without object?
+Did someone wish to prevent James Starr from troubling himself either
+uselessly or otherwise?  Might there not be rather a malevolent intention
+to thwart Ford's plans?
+
+This was the conclusion at which James Starr arrived,
+after mature reflection.  The contradiction which existed
+between the two letters only wrought in him a more keen
+
+desire to visit the Dochart pit.  And besides, if after all it was
+a hoax, it was well worth while to prove it.  Starr also thought it
+wiser to give more credence to the first letter than to the second;
+that is to say, to the request of such a man as Simon Ford,
+rather than to the warning of his anonymous contradictor.
+
+"Indeed," said he, "the fact of anyone endeavoring to influence my
+resolution, shows that Ford's communication must be of great importance.
+To-morrow, at the appointed time, I shall be at the rendezvous."
+
+In the evening, Starr made his preparations for departure.
+As it might happen that his absence would be prolonged for some days,
+he wrote to Sir W. Elphiston, President of the Royal Institution,
+that he should be unable to be present at the next meeting
+of the Society.  He also wrote to excuse himself from two
+or three engagements which he had made for the week.
+Then, having ordered his servant to pack a traveling bag,
+he went to bed, more excited than the affair perhaps warranted.
+
+The next day, at five o'clock, James Starr jumped out of bed,
+dressed himself warmly, for a cold rain was falling, and left his
+house in the Canongate, to go to Granton Pier to catch the steamer,
+which in three hours would take him up the Forth as far as Stirling.
+
+For the first time in his life, perhaps, in passing along the Canongate,
+he did NOT TURN TO LOOK AT HOLYROOD, the palace of the former
+sovereigns of Scotland.  He did not notice the sentinels who stood
+before its gateways, dressed in the uniform of their Highland regiment,
+tartan kilt, plaid and sporran complete.  His whole thought was to reach
+Callander where Harry Ford was supposedly awaiting him.
+
+The better to understand this narrative, it will be as well to hear
+a few words on the origin of coal.  During the geological epoch,
+when the terrestrial spheroid was still in course of formation,
+a thick atmosphere surrounded it, saturated with watery vapors,
+and copiously impregnated with carbonic acid.  The vapors gradually
+condensed in diluvial rains, which fell as if they had leapt
+from the necks of thousands of millions of seltzer water bottles.
+This liquid, loaded with carbonic acid, rushed in torrents over
+a deep soft soil, subject to sudden or slow alterations of
+
+form, and maintained in its semi-fluid state as much by the heat
+of the sun as by the fires of the interior mass.  The internal
+heat had not as yet been collected in the center of the globe.
+The terrestrial crust, thin and incompletely hardened, allowed it
+to spread through its pores.  This caused a peculiar form of vegetation,
+such as is probably produced on the surface of the inferior planets,
+Venus or Mercury, which revolve nearer than our earth around
+the radiant sun of our system.
+
+The soil of the continents was covered with immense forests.
+Carbonic acid, so suitable for the development of the vegetable
+kingdom, abounded.  The feet of these trees were drowned in a sort
+of immense lagoon, kept continually full by currents of fresh
+and salt waters.  They eagerly assimilated to themselves the carbon
+which they, little by little, extracted from the atmosphere,
+as yet unfit for the function of life, and it may be said
+that they were destined to store it, in the form of coal,
+in the very bowels of the earth.
+
+It was the earthquake period, caused by internal convulsions,
+which suddenly modified the unsettled features of the
+terrestrial surface.  Here, an intumescence which was to become
+a mountain, there, an abyss which was to be filled with an ocean
+or a sea.  There, whole forests sunk through the earth's crust,
+below the unfixed strata, either until they found a resting-place,
+such as the primitive bed of granitic rock, or, settling together
+in a heap, they formed a solid mass.
+
+As the waters were contained in no bed, and were spread over every
+part of the globe, they rushed where they liked, tearing from
+the scarcely-formed rocks material with which to compose schists,
+sandstones, and limestones.  This the roving waves bore over
+the submerged and now peaty forests, and deposited above them
+the elements of rocks which were to superpose the coal strata.
+In course of time, periods of which include millions of years,
+these earths hardened in layers, and enclosed under a thick
+carapace of pudding-stone, schist, compact or friable sandstone,
+gravel and stones, the whole of the massive forests.
+
+And what went on in this gigantic crucible, where all this
+vegetable matter had accumulated, sunk to various depths?
+A regular chemical operation, a sort of distillation.
+All the carbon contained in these vegetables had agglomerated,
+and little by little coal was forming under the double influence
+of enormous pressure and the high temperature maintained by
+the internal fires, at this time so close to it.
+
+Thus there was one kingdom substituted for another in this
+slow but irresistible reaction.  The vegetable was transformed
+into a mineral.  Plants which had lived the vegeta-tive
+life in all the vigor of first creation became petrified.
+Some of the substances enclosed in this vast herbal left their
+impression on the other more rapidly mineralized products,
+which pressed them as an hydraulic press of incalculable power
+would have done.
+
+Thus also shells, zoophytes, star-fish, polypi, spirifores, even fish
+and lizards brought by the water, left on the yet soft coal their
+exact likeness, "admirably taken off."
+
+Pressure seems to have played a considerable part in the formation
+of carboniferous strata.  In fact, it is to its degree of power that
+are due the different sorts of coal, of which industry makes use.
+Thus in the lowest layers of the coal ground appears the anthracite,
+which, being almost destitute of volatile matter, contains the greatest
+quantity of carbon.  In the higher beds are found, on the contrary,
+lignite and fossil wood, substances in which the quantity of carbon
+is infinitely less.  Between these two beds, according to the degree
+of pressure to which they have been subjected, are found veins
+of graphite and rich or poor coal.  It may be asserted that it is
+for want of sufficient pressure that beds of peaty bog have not been
+completely changed into coal.  So then, the origin of coal mines,
+in whatever part of the globe they have been discovered, is this:
+the absorption through the terrestrial crust of the great forests
+of the geological period; then, the mineralization of the vegetables
+obtained in the course of time, under the influence of pressure and heat,
+and under the action of carbonic acid.
+
+Now, at the time when the events related in this story took place,
+some of the most important mines of the Scottish coal beds had
+been exhausted by too rapid working.  In the region which extends
+between Edinburgh and Glasgow, for a distance of ten or twelve miles,
+lay the Aberfoyle colliery, of which the engineer, James Starr,
+had so long
+
+directed the works.  For ten years these mines had been abandoned.
+No new seams had been discovered, although the soundings had been
+carried to a depth of fifteen hundred or even of two thousand feet,
+and when James Starr had retired, it was with the full conviction
+that even the smallest vein had been completely exhausted.
+
+Under these circumstances, it was plain that the discovery
+of a new seam of coal would be an important event.
+Could Simon Ford's communication relate to a fact of this nature?
+This question James Starr could not cease asking himself.
+Was he called to make conquest of another corner of these rich
+treasure fields?  Fain would he hope it was so.
+
+The second letter had for an instant checked his speculations on this
+subject, but now he thought of that letter no longer.  Besides, the son
+of the old overman was there, waiting at the appointed rendezvous.
+The anonymous letter was therefore worth nothing.
+
+The moment the engineer set foot on the platform at the end
+of his journey, the young man advanced towards him.
+
+
+"Are you Harry Ford?" asked the engineer quickly.
+
+"Yes, Mr. Starr."
+
+"I should not have known you, my lad.  Of course in ten years
+you have become a man!"
+
+"I knew you directly, sir," replied the young miner, cap in hand.
+"You have not changed.  You look just as you did when you bade us
+good-by in the Dochart pit.  I haven't forgotten that day."
+
+"Put on your cap, Harry," said the engineer.  "It's pouring,
+and politeness needn't make you catch cold."
+
+"Shall we take shelter anywhere, Mr. Starr?" asked young Ford.
+
+"No, Harry.  The weather is settled.  It will rain all day,
+and I am in a hurry.  Let us go on."
+
+"I am at your orders," replied Harry.
+
+"Tell me, Harry, is your father well?"
+
+"Very well, Mr. Starr."
+
+"And your mother?"
+
+"She is well, too."
+
+"Was it your father who wrote telling me to come to the Yarrow shaft?"
+
+"No, it was I."
+
+
+"Then did Simon Ford send me a second letter to contradict the first?"
+asked the engineer quickly.
+
+"No, Mr. Starr," answered the young miner.
+
+"Very well," said Starr, without speaking of the anonymous letter.
+Then, continuing, "And can you tell me what you father wants with me?"
+
+"Mr. Starr, my father wishes to tell you himself."
+
+"But you know what it is?"
+
+"I do, sir."
+
+"Well, Harry, I will not ask you more.  But let us get on, for I'm
+anxious to see Simon Ford.  By-the-bye, where does he live?"
+
+"In the mine."
+
+"What!  In the Dochart pit?"
+
+"Yes, Mr. Starr," replied Harry.
+
+"Really! has your family never left the old mine since the cessation
+of the works?"
+
+"Not a day, Mr. Starr.  You know my father.  It is there he was born,
+it is there he means to die!"
+
+
+"I can understand that, Harry.  I can understand that!  His native mine!
+He did not like to abandon it!  And are you happy there?"
+
+"Yes, Mr. Starr," replied the young miner, "for we love one another,
+and we have but few wants."
+
+"Well, Harry," said the engineer, "lead the way."
+
+And walking rapidly through the streets of Callander, in a few
+minutes they had left the town behind them.
+
+
+CHAPTER III 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 direc-
+
+tion 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.
+
+
+CHAPTER IV THE FORD FAMILY
+
+
+TEN minutes afterwards, James Starr and Harry issued from
+the principal gallery.  They were now standing in a glade,
+if we may use this word to designate 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 warm
+air was drawn towards the Yarrow shaft.  Both air and light,
+therefore, penetrated in some measure into the glade.
+
+Here Simon Ford had lived with his family ten years,
+in a subterranean dwelling, hollowed out in the schistous mass,
+where formerly stood the powerful engines which worked
+the mechanical traction of the Dochart pit.
+
+Such was the habitation, "his cottage," as he called it, in which resided
+the old overman.  As he had some means saved during a long life of toil,
+Ford could have afforded to live in the light of day, among trees,
+or in any town of the kingdom he chose, but he and his wife and son
+preferred remaining in the mine, where they were happy together,
+having the same opinions, ideas, and tastes.  Yes, they
+
+were quite fond of their cottage, buried fifteen hundred feet
+below Scottish soil.  Among other advantages, there was no
+fear that tax gatherers, or rent collectors would ever come
+to trouble its inhabitants.
+
+At this period, Simon Ford, the former overman of the Dochart pit,
+bore the weight 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 many fine
+fellows to the Highland regiments.
+
+Simon Ford was descended from an old mining family, and his
+ancestors had worked the very first carboniferous seams opened
+in Scotland.  Without discussing 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 from the farrier Houillos, who lived
+in Belgium in the twelfth century, we may affirm that the beds
+in Great Britain were the first ever regularly worked.
+So early as the eleventh century, William the Conqueror divided
+the produce of the Newcastle bed among his companions-in-arms.
+At the end of the thirteenth century, a license for the mining
+of "sea coal" was granted 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 plain miners.  They labored
+like convicts at the work of extracting the precious combustible.
+It is even believed that the coal miners, like the salt-makers
+of that period, were actual slaves.
+
+However that might have been, Simon Ford was proud
+of belonging to this ancient family of Scotch miners.
+He had worked diligently 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 performed his duty.
+His only grief had been to perceive the bed becoming impoverished,
+and to see the hour approaching when the seam would be exhausted.
+
+It was then he devoted himself to the search for new veins
+in all the Aberfoyle pits, which communicated underground
+one with another.  He had had the good luck to
+discover several during the last period of the working.
+His miner's instinct assisted him marvelously, and the engineer,
+James Starr, appreciated him highly.  It might be said that
+he divined the course of seams in the depths of the coal mine
+as a hydroscope reveals springs 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 himself,
+during those ten years he had not been ten times above ground.
+
+"Go up there!  What is the good?" 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 summer nor the cold of winter.
+His family enjoyed good health; what more could he desire?
+
+But at heart he felt depressed.  He missed the former
+animation, movement, and life in the well-worked pit.
+He was, however, supported by one fixed idea.  "No, no! the mine
+is not exhausted!" he repeated.
+
+And that man would have given 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 mine to its past splendor.
+Yes, he would willingly, had it been necessary, have resumed
+the miner's pick, and with his still stout arms vigorously attacked
+the rock.  He went through the dark galleries, sometimes alone,
+sometimes with his son, examining, searching for signs of coal,
+only to return each day, wearied, but not in despair, to the cottage.
+
+Madge, Simon's faithful companion, his "gude-wife," to use
+the Scotch term, was a tall, strong, comely woman.  Madge had no
+wish to leave the Dochart pit any more than had her husband.
+She shared all his hopes and regrets.  She encouraged him,
+she urged him on, and talked to him in a way which cheered the heart
+of the old overman.  "Aberfoyle is only asleep," she would say.
+"You are right about that, Simon.  This is but a rest,
+it is not death!"
+
+
+Madge, 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 family in their dark cottage.
+
+The engineer was eagerly expected.  Simon Ford was standing at his door,
+and as soon as Harry's lamp announced the arrival of his former viewer
+he advanced to meet him.
+
+
+"Welcome, Mr. Starr!" he exclaimed, his voice echoing under
+the roof of schist.  "Welcome to the old overman's cottage!
+Though it is buried fifteen hundred feet under the earth,
+our house is not the less hospitable."
+
+"And how are you, good Simon?" asked James Starr, grasping the hand
+which his host held out to him.
+
+"Very well, Mr. Starr.  How could I be otherwise here,
+sheltered from the inclemencies of the weather?
+Your ladies who go to Newhaven or Portobello in the summer time
+would do much better to pass a few months in the coal mine
+of Aberfoyle!  They would run no risk here of catching a heavy cold,
+as they do in the damp streets of the old capital."
+
+"I'm not the man to contradict you, Simon," answered James Starr,
+glad to find the old man just as he used to be.  "Indeed, I wonder why
+I do not change my home in the Canongate for a cottage near you."
+
+"And why not, Mr. Starr?  I know one of your old miners who would
+be truly pleased to have only a partition wall between you and him."
+
+"And how is Madge?" asked the engineer.
+
+"The goodwife is in better health than I am, if that's possible,"
+replied Ford, "and it will be a pleasure to her to see you at her table.
+I think she will surpass herself to do you honor."
+
+"We shall see that, Simon, we shall see that!" said the engineer,
+to whom the announcement of a good breakfast could not be indifferent,
+after his long walk.
+
+"Are you hungry, Mr. Starr?"
+
+"Ravenously hungry.  My journey has given me an appetite.
+I came through horrible weather."
+
+"Ah, it is raining up there," responded Simon Ford.
+
+"Yes, Simon, and the waters of the Forth are as rough as the sea."
+
+
+"Well, Mr. Starr, here it never rains.  But I needn't describe
+to you all the advantages, which you know as well as myself.
+Here we are at the cottage.  That is the chief thing, and I
+again say you are welcome, sir."
+
+Simon Ford, followed by Harry, ushered their guest into the dwelling.
+James Starr found himself in a large room lighted by numerous lamps,
+one hanging from the colored beams of the roof.
+
+"The soup is ready, wife," said Ford, "and it mustn't be kept waiting
+any more than Mr. Starr.  He is as hungry as a miner, and he shall
+see that our boy doesn't let us want for anything in the cottage!
+By-the-bye, Harry," added the old overman, turning to his son,
+"Jack Ryan came here to see you."
+
+"I know, father.  We met him in the Yarrow shaft."
+
+"He's an honest and a merry fellow," said Ford; "but he seems to be quite
+happy above ground.  He hasn't the true miner's blood in his veins.
+Sit down, Mr. Starr, and have a good dinner, for we may not
+sup till late."
+
+As the engineer and his hosts were taking their places:
+
+"One moment, Simon," said James Starr.  "Do you want me to eat
+with a good appetite?"
+
+"It will be doing us all possible honor, Mr. Starr," answered Ford.
+
+"Well, in order to eat heartily, I must not be at all anxious.
+Now I have two questions to put to you."
+
+"Go on, sir."
+
+"Your letter told me of a communication which was to be of
+an interesting nature."
+
+"It is very interesting indeed."
+
+"To you?"
+
+"To you and to me, Mr. Starr.  But I do not want to tell
+it you until after dinner, and on the very spot itself.
+Without that you would not believe me."
+
+"Simon," resumed the engineer, "look me straight in the face.
+An interesting communication?  Yes.  Good!  I will not ask more,"
+he added, as if he had read the reply in the old overman's eyes.
+
+"And the second question?" asked the latter.
+
+"Do you know, Simon, who the person is who can have written this?"
+answered the engineer, handing him the anonymous letter.
+
+
+Ford took the letter and read it attentively.  Then giving it to his son,
+"Do you know the writing?" he asked.
+
+"No, father," replied Harry.
+
+"And had this letter the Aberfoyle postmark?" inquired Simon Ford.
+
+"Yes, like yours," replied James Starr.
+
+"What do you think of that, Harry?" said his father, his brow darkening.
+
+"I think, father," returned Harry, "that someone has had some
+interest in trying to prevent Mr. Starr from coming to the place
+where you invited him."
+
+"But who," exclaimed the old miner, "who could have possibly
+guessed enough of my secret?"  And Simon fell into a reverie,
+from which he was aroused by his wife.
+
+"Let us begin, Mr. Starr," she said.  "The soup is already getting cold.
+Don't think any more of that letter just now."
+
+On the old woman's invitation, each drew in his chair,
+James Starr opposite to Madge--to do him honor--the father
+and son opposite to each other.  It was a good Scotch dinner.
+First they ate "hotchpotch," soup with the meat swimming
+in capital broth.  As old Simon said, his wife knew no rival
+in the art of preparing hotchpotch.  It was the same with the
+"cockyleeky," a cock stewed with leeks, which merited high praise.
+The whole was washed down with excellent ale, obtained from
+the best brewery in Edinburgh.
+
+But the principal dish consisted of a "haggis," the national pudding,
+made of meat and barley meal.  This remarkable dish, which inspired
+the poet Burns with one of his best odes, shared the fate of all
+the good things in this world--it passed away like a dream.
+
+Madge received the sincere compliments of her guest.
+The dinner ended with cheese and oatcake, accompanied by a few
+small glasses of "usquebaugh," capital whisky, five and twenty
+years old--just Harry's age.  The repast lasted a good hour.
+James Starr and Simon Ford had not only eaten much, but talked
+much too, chiefly of their past life in the old Aberfoyle mine.
+
+Harry had been rather silent.  Twice he had left the table,
+and even the house.  He evidently felt uneasy since the incident
+of the stone, and wished to examine the environs
+
+of the cottage.  The anonymous letter had not contributed
+to reassure him.
+
+Whilst he was absent, the engineer observed to Ford and his wife,
+"That's a fine lad you have there, my friends."
+
+"Yes, Mr. Starr, he is a good and affectionate son,"
+replied the old overman earnestly.
+
+"Is he happy with you in the cottage?"
+
+"He would not wish to leave us."
+
+"Don't you think of finding him a wife, some day?"
+
+"A wife for Harry," exclaimed Ford.  "And who would it be?
+A girl from up yonder, who would love merry-makings and dancing,
+who would prefer her clan to our mine!  Harry wouldn't do it!"
+
+"Simon," said Madge, "you would not forbid that Harry should
+take a wife."
+
+"I would forbid nothing," returned the old miner, "but there's
+no hurry about that.  Who knows but we may find one for him--"
+
+Harry re-entered at that moment, and Simon Ford was silent.
+
+When Madge rose from the table, all followed her example,
+and seated themselves at the door of the cottage.  "Well, Simon,"
+said the engineer, "I am ready to hear you."
+
+"Mr. Starr," responded Ford, "I do not need your ears, but your legs.
+Are you quite rested?"
+
+"Quite rested and quite refreshed, Simon.  I am ready to go with you
+wherever you like."
+
+"Harry," said Simon Ford, turning to his son, "light our safety lamps."
+
+"Are you going to take safety lamps!" exclaimed James Starr,
+in amazement, knowing that there was no fear of explosions
+of fire-damp in a pit quite empty of coal.
+
+"Yes, Mr. Starr, it will be prudent."
+
+"My good Simon, won't you propose next to put me in a miner's dress?"
+
+"Not just yet, sir, not just yet!" returned the old overman,
+his deep-set eyes gleaming strangely.
+
+Harry soon reappeared, carrying three safety lamps.
+He handed one of these to the engineer, the other to his father,
+and kept the third hanging from his left hand, whilst his right
+was armed with a long stick.
+
+
+"Forward!" said Simon Ford, taking up a strong pick, which was leaning
+against the wall of the cottage.
+
+"Forward!" echoed the engineer.  "Good-by, Madge."
+
+"GOD speed you!" responded the good woman.
+
+"A good supper, wife, do you hear?" exclaimed Ford.  "We shall
+be hungry when we come back, and will do it justice!"
+
+
+CHAPTER V SOME STRANGE PHENOMENA
+
+
+MANY superstitious beliefs exist both in the Highlands and Lowlands
+of Scotland.  Of course the mining population must furnish its
+contingent of legends and fables to this mythological repertory.
+If the fields are peopled with imaginary beings, either good
+or bad, with much more reason must the dark mines be haunted
+to their lowest depths.  Who shakes the seam during tempestuous
+nights? who puts the miners on the track of an as yet unworked
+vein? who lights the fire-damp, and presides over the terrible
+explosions? who but some spirit of the mine?  This, at least,
+was the opinion commonly spread among the superstitious Scotch.
+
+In the first rank of the believers in the supernatural
+in the Dochart pit figured Jack Ryan, Harry's friend.
+He was the great partisan of all these superstitions.
+All these wild stories were turned by him into songs,
+which earned him great applause in the winter evenings.
+
+But Jack Ryan was not alone in his belief.  His comrades affirmed,
+no less strongly, that the Aberfoyle pits were haunted,
+and that certain strange beings were seen there frequently,
+just as in the Highlands.  To hear them talk, it would have
+been more extraordinary if nothing of the kind appeared.
+Could there indeed be a better place than a dark and deep coal
+mine for the freaks of fairies, elves, goblins, and other
+actors in the fantastical dramas?  The scenery was all ready,
+why should not the supernatural personages come there to
+play their parts?
+
+So reasoned Jack Ryan and his comrades in the Aberfoyle mines.
+We have said that the different pits communicated with
+each other by means of long subterranean galleries.
+Thus there existed beneath the county of Stirling
+a vast tract, full of burrows, tunnels, bored with caves,
+and perforated with shafts, a subterranean labyrinth,
+which might be compared to an enormous ant-hill.
+
+Miners, though belonging to different pits, often met, when going
+to or returning from their work.  Consequently there was a constant
+opportunity of exchanging talk, and circulating the stories
+which had their origin in the mine, from one pit to another.
+These accounts were transmitted with marvelous rapidity,
+passing from mouth to mouth, and gaining in wonder as they went.
+
+Two men, however, better educated and with more practical
+minds than the rest, had always resisted this temptation.
+They in no degree believed in the intervention of spirits,
+elves, or goblins.  These two were Simon Ford and his son.
+And they proved it by continuing to inhabit the dismal crypt,
+after the desertion of the Dochart pit.  Perhaps good Madge,
+like every Highland woman, had some leaning towards the supernatural.
+But she had to repeat all these stories to herself, and so she did,
+most conscientiously, so as not to let the old traditions be lost.
+
+Even had Simon and Harry Ford been as credulous as their companions,
+they would not have abandoned the mine to the imps and fairies.
+For ten years, without missing a single day, obstinate and immovable
+in their convictions, the father and son took their picks, their sticks,
+and their lamps.  They went about searching, sounding the rock
+with a sharp blow, listening if it would return a favor-able sound.
+So long as the soundings had not been pushed to the granite of the
+primary formation, the Fords were agreed that the search, unsuccessful
+to-day, might succeed to-morrow, and that it ought to be resumed.
+They spent their whole life in endeavoring to bring Aberfoyle back
+to its former prosperity.  If the father died before the hour of success,
+the son was to go on with the task alone.
+
+It was during these excursions that Harry was more particularly
+struck by certain phenomena, which he vainly sought to explain.
+Several times, while walking along some narrow cross-alley,
+he seemed to hear sounds similar to those which would be produced
+by violent blows of a pickax against the wall.
+
+Harry hastened to seek the cause of this mysterious work.
+The tunnel was empty.  The light from the young miner's
+
+lamp, thrown on the wall, revealed no trace of any recent work with pick
+or crowbar.  Harry would then ask himself if it was not the effect
+of some acoustic illusion, or some strange and fantastic echo.
+At other times, on suddenly throwing a bright light into a
+suspicious-looking cleft in the rock, he thought he saw a shadow.
+He rushed forward.  Nothing, and there was no opening to permit
+a human being to evade his pursuit!
+
+Twice in one month, Harry, whilst visiting the west end of the pit,
+distinctly heard distant reports, as if some miner had exploded
+a charge of dynamite.  The second time, after many careful researches,
+he found that a pillar had just been blown up.
+
+By the light of his lamp, Harry carefully examined
+the place attacked by the explosion.  It had not been made
+in a simple embankment of stones, but in a mass of schist,
+which had penetrated to this depth in the coal stratum.
+Had the object of the explosion been to discover a new vein?
+Or had someone wished simply to destroy this portion of the mine?
+Thus he questioned, and when he made known this occurrence
+to his father, neither could the old overman nor he himself
+answer the question in a satisfactory way.
+
+"It is very queer," Harry often repeated.  "The presence of an
+unknown being in the mine seems impossible, and yet there can
+be no doubt about it.  Does someone besides ourselves wish to find
+out if a seam yet exists?  Or, rather, has he attempted to destroy
+what remains of the Aberfoyle mines?  But for what reason?
+I will find that out, if it should cost me my life!"
+
+A fortnight before the day on which Harry Ford guided
+the engineer through the labyrinth of the Dochart pit,
+he had been on the point of attaining the object of his search.
+He was going over the southwest end of the mine, with a large
+lantern in his hand.  All at once, it seemed to him that a light
+was suddenly extinguished, some hundred feet before him,
+at the end of a narrow passage cut obliquely through the rock.
+He darted forward.
+
+His search was in vain.  As Harry would not admit a supernatural
+explanation for a physical occurrence, he concluded that
+certainly some strange being prowled about in the pit.
+But whatever he could do, searching with the greatest
+care, scrutinizing every crevice in the gallery, he found
+nothing for his trouble.
+
+If Jack Ryan and the other superstitious fellows in the mine had seen
+these lights, they would, without fail, have called them supernatural,
+but Harry did not dream of doing so, nor did his father.
+And when they talked over these phenomena, evidently due to a
+physical cause, "My lad," the old man would say, "we must wait.
+It will all be explained some day."
+
+However, it must be observed that, hitherto, neither Harry
+nor his father had ever been exposed to any act of violence.
+If the stone which had fallen at the feet of James Starr
+had been thrown by the hand of some ill-disposed person,
+it was the first criminal act of that description.
+
+James Starr was of opinion that the stone had become detached
+from the roof of the gallery; but Harry would not admit of such
+a simple explanation.  According to him, the stone had not fallen,
+it had been thrown; for otherwise, without rebounding, it could
+never have described a trajectory as it did.
+
+Harry saw in it a direct attempt against himself and his father,
+or even against the engineer.
+
+
+CHAPTER VI SIMON FORD'S EXPERIMENT
+
+
+THE old clock in the cottage struck one as James Starr and his two
+companions went out.  A dim light penetrated through the ventilating
+shaft into the glade.  Harry's lamp was not necessary here, but it
+would very soon be of use, for the old overman was about to conduct
+the engineer to the very end of the Dochart pit.
+
+After following the principal gallery for a distance of two miles,
+the three explorers--for, as will be seen, this was a regular exploration--
+arrived at the entrance of a narrow tunnel.  It was like a nave,
+the roof of which rested on woodwork, covered with white moss.
+It followed very nearly the line traced by the course of the river Forth,
+fifteen hundred feet above.
+
+"So we are going to the end of the last vein?" said James Starr.
+
+
+"Ay!  You know the mine well still."
+
+"Well, Simon," returned the engineer, "it will be difficult to go
+further than that, if I don't mistake."
+
+"Yes, indeed, Mr. Starr.  That was where our picks tore out the last
+bit of coal in the seam.  I remember it as if it were yesterday.
+I myself gave that last blow, and it re-echoed in my heart more
+dismally than on the rock.  Only sandstone and schist were round
+us after that, and when the truck rolled towards the shaft,
+I followed, with my heart as full as though it were a funeral.
+It seemed to me that the soul of the mine was going with it."
+
+The gravity with which the old man uttered these words impressed
+the engineer, who was not far from sharing his sentiments.
+They were those of the sailor who leaves his disabled vessel--
+of the proprietor who sees the house of his ancestors pulled down.
+He pressed Ford's hand; but now the latter seized that of
+the engineer, and, wringing it:
+
+"That day we were all of us mistaken," he exclaimed.  "No!  The old
+mine was not dead.  It was not a corpse that the miners abandoned;
+and I dare to assert, Mr. Starr, that its heart beats still."
+
+"Speak, Ford!  Have you discovered a new vein?" cried the engineer,
+unable to contain himself.  "I know you have!  Your letter could
+mean nothing else."
+
+"Mr. Starr," said Simon Ford, "I did not wish to tell any
+man but yourself."
+
+"And you did quite right, Ford.  But tell me how, by what signs,
+are you sure?"
+
+"Listen, sir!" resumed Simon.  "It is not a seam that I have found."
+
+"What is it, then?"
+
+"Only positive proof that such a seam exists."
+
+"And the proof?"
+
+"Could fire-damp issue from the bowels of the earth if coal
+was not there to produce it?"
+
+"No, certainly not!" replied the engineer.  "No coal, no fire-damp.
+No effects without a cause."
+
+"Just as no smoke without fire."
+
+"And have you recognized the presence of light carburetted hydrogen?"
+
+"An old miner could not be deceived," answered Ford.  "I have met
+with our old enemy, the fire-damp!"
+
+
+"But suppose it was another gas," said Starr.  "Firedamp is almost
+without smell, and colorless.  It only really betrays its presence
+by an explosion."
+
+"Mr. Starr," said Simon Ford, "will you let me tell you
+what I have done?  Harry had once or twice observed something
+remarkable in his excursions to the west end of the mine.
+Fire, which suddenly went out, sometimes appeared along the face
+of the rock or on the embankment of the further galleries.
+How those flames were lighted, I could not and cannot say.
+But they were evidently owing to the presence of fire-damp,
+and to me fire-damp means a vein of coal."
+
+"Did not these fires cause any explosion?" asked the engineer quickly.
+
+"Yes, little partial explosions," replied Ford, "such as I
+used to cause myself when I wished to ascertain the presence
+of fire-damp. Do you remember how formerly it was the custom
+to try to prevent explosions before our good genius, Humphry Davy,
+invented his safety-lamp?"
+
+"Yes," replied James Starr.  "You mean what the 'monk,' as the men
+called him, used to do.  But I have never seen him in the exercise
+of his duty."
+
+"Indeed, Mr. Starr, you are too young, in spite of
+your five-and-fifty years, to have seen that.  But I,
+ten years older, often saw the last 'monk' working in the mine.
+He was called so because he wore a long robe like a monk.
+His proper name was the 'fireman.'  At that time there was
+no other means of destroying the bad gas but by dispersing
+it in little explosions, before its buoyancy had collected
+it in too great quantities in the heights of the galleries.
+The monk, as we called him, with his face masked, his head muffled up,
+all his body tightly wrapped in a thick felt cloak, crawled along
+the ground.  He could breathe down there, when the air was pure;
+and with his right hand he waved above his head a blazing torch.
+When the firedamp had accumulated in the air, so as to form
+a detonating mixture, the explosion occurred without being fatal,
+and, by often renewing this operation, catastrophes were prevented.
+Sometimes the 'monk' was injured or killed in his work,
+then another took his place.  This was done in all mines until
+the Davy lamp was universally adopted.  But I knew the plan,
+and by its means I discovered the presence of firedamp
+and consequently that of a new seam of coal in the Dochart pit."
+
+All that the old overman had related of the so-called "monk"
+or "fireman" was perfectly true.  The air in the galleries
+of mines was formerly always purified in the way described.
+
+Fire-damp, marsh-gas, or carburetted hydrogen, is colorless,
+almost scentless; it burns with a blue flame, and makes
+respiration impossible.  The miner could not live in a place
+filled with this injurious gas, any more than one could live
+in a gasometer full of common gas.  Moreover, fire-damp, as
+well as the latter, a mixture of inflammable gases,
+forms a detonating mixture as soon as the air unites with it
+in a proportion of eight, and perhaps even five to the hundred.
+When this mixture is lighted by any cause, there is an explosion,
+almost always followed by a frightful catastrophe.
+
+As they walked on, Simon Ford told the engineer all that he had done
+to attain his object; how he was sure that the escape of fire-damp took
+place at the very end of the farthest gallery in its western part,
+because he had provoked small and partial explosions, or rather
+little flames, enough to show the nature of the gas, which escaped
+in a small jet, but with a continuous flow.
+
+An hour after leaving the cottage, James Starr and his two companions
+had gone a distance of four miles.  The engineer, urged by anxiety
+and hope, walked on without noticing the length of the way.
+He pondered over all that the old miner had told him, and mentally weighed
+all the arguments which the latter had given in support of his belief.
+He agreed with him in thinking that the continued emission
+of carburetted hydrogen certainly showed the existence of a new
+coal-seam. If it had been merely a sort of pocket, full of gas,
+as it is sometimes found amongst the rock, it would soon have
+been empty, and the phenomenon have ceased.  But far from that.
+According to Simon Ford, the fire-damp escaped incessantly, and from
+that fact the existence of an important vein might be considered certain.
+Consequently, the riches of the Dochart pit were not entirely exhausted.
+The chief question now was, whether this was merely a vein which would
+yield comparatively little, or a bed occupying a large extent.
+
+Harry, who preceded his father and the engineer, stopped.
+
+
+"Here we are!" exclaimed the old miner.  "At last,
+thank Heaven! you are here, Mr. Starr, and we shall soon know."
+The old overman's voice trembled slightly.
+
+"Be calm, my man!" said the engineer.  "I am as excited as you are,
+but we must not lose time."
+
+The gallery at this end of the pit widened into a sort of dark cave.
+No shaft had been pierced in this part, and the gallery, bored into
+the bowels of the earth, had no direct communication with the surface
+of the earth.
+
+James Starr, with intense interest, examined the place in which
+they were standing.  On the walls of the cavern the marks of
+the pick could still be seen, and even holes in which the rock
+had been blasted, near the termination of the working.
+The schist was excessively hard, and it had not been necessary
+to bank up the end of the tunnel where the works had come to an end.
+There the vein had failed, between the schist and the tertiary sandstone.
+From this very place had been extracted the last piece of coal
+from the Dochart pit.
+
+"We must attack the dyke," said Ford, raising his pick;
+"for at the other side of the break, at more or less depth,
+we shall assuredly find the vein, the existence of which I assert."
+
+"And was it on the surface of these rocks that you found out
+the fire-damp?" asked James Starr.
+
+"Just there, sir," returned Ford, "and I was able to light
+it only by bringing my lamp near to the cracks in the rock.
+Harry has done it as well as I."
+
+"At what height?" asked Starr.
+
+"Ten feet from the ground," replied Harry.
+
+James Starr had seated himself on a rock.  After critically
+inhaling the air of the cavern, he gazed at the two miners,
+almost as if doubting their words, decided as they were.
+In fact, carburetted hydrogen is not completely scentless,
+and the engineer, whose sense of smell was very keen, was astonished
+that it had not revealed the presence of the explosive gas.
+At any rate, if the gas had mingled at all with the surrounding air,
+it could only be in a very small stream.  There was no danger
+of an explosion, and they might without fear open the safety lamp
+to try the experiment, just as the old miner had done before.
+
+What troubled James Starr was, not lest too much gas
+
+mingled with the air, but lest there should be little or none.
+
+"Could they have been mistaken?" he murmured.  "No:  these men know
+what they are about.  And yet--"
+
+He waited, not without some anxiety, until Simon Ford's phenomenon should
+have taken place.  But just then it seemed that Harry, like himself,
+had remarked the absence of the characteristic odor of fire-damp;
+for he exclaimed in an altered voice, "Father, I should say the gas
+was no longer escaping through the cracks!"
+
+"No longer!" cried the old miner--and, pressing his lips tight together,
+he snuffed the air several times.
+
+Then, all at once, with a sudden movement, "Hand me
+your lamp, Harry," he said.
+
+Ford took the lamp with a trembling hand.  He drew off the wire gauze
+case which surrounded the wick, and the flame burned in the open air.
+
+As they had expected, there was no explosion, but, what was
+more serious, there was not even the slight crackling which
+indicates the presence of a small quantity of firedamp.
+Simon took the stick which Harry was holding, fixed his lamp
+to the end of it, and raised it high above his head, up to where
+the gas, by reason of its buoyancy, would naturally accumulate.
+The flame of the lamp, burning straight and clear, revealed no
+trace of the carburetted hydrogen.
+
+"Close to the wall," said the engineer.
+
+"Yes," responded Ford, carrying the lamp to that part
+of the wall at which he and his son had, the evening before,
+proved the escape of gas.
+
+The old miner's arm trembled whilst he tried to hoist the lamp up.
+"Take my place, Harry," said he.
+
+Harry took the stick, and successively presented the lamp to the different
+fissures in the rock; but he shook his head, for of that slight crackling
+peculiar to escaping fire-damp he heard nothing.  There was no flame.
+Evidently not a particle of gas was escaping through the rock.
+
+"Nothing!" cried Ford, clenching his fist with a gesture rather
+of anger than disappointment.
+
+A cry escaped Harry.
+
+"What's the matter?" asked Starr quickly.
+
+"Someone has stopped up the cracks in the schist!"
+
+"Is that true?" exclaimed the old miner.
+
+
+"Look, father!"  Harry was not mistaken.  The obstruction
+of the fissures was clearly visible by the light of the lamp.
+It had been recently done with lime, leaving on the rock a long
+whitish mark, badly concealed with coal dust.
+
+"It's he!" exclaimed Harry.  "It can only be he!"
+
+"He?" repeated James Starr in amazement.
+
+"Yes!" returned the young man, "that mysterious being who haunts
+our domain, for whom I have watched a hundred times without
+being able to get at him--the author, we may now be certain,
+of that letter which was intended to hinder you from coming to see
+my father, Mr. Starr, and who finally threw that stone at us
+in the gallery of the Yarrow shaft!  Ah! there's no doubt about it;
+there is a man's hand in all that!"
+
+Harry spoke with such energy that conviction came instantly and fully
+to the engineer's mind.  As to the old overman, he was already convinced.
+Besides, there they were in the presence of an undeniable fact--
+the stopping-up of cracks through which gas had escaped freely
+the night before.
+
+"Take your pick, Harry," cried Ford; "mount on my shoulders, my lad!
+I am still strong enough to bear you!"  The young man understood
+in an instant.  His father propped himself up against the rock.
+Harry got upon his shoulders, so that with his pick he could reach
+the line of the fissure.  Then with quick sharp blows he attacked it.
+Almost directly afterwards a slight sound was heard, like champagne
+escaping from a bottle--a sound commonly expressed by the word "puff."
+
+Harry again seized his lamp, and held it to the opening.
+There was a slight report; and a little red flame, rather blue
+at its outline, flickered over the rock like a Will-o'-the-Wisp.
+
+Harry leaped to the ground, and the old overman, unable to contain his
+joy, grasped the engineer's hands, exclaiming, "Hurrah! hurrah! hurrah!
+Mr. Starr.  The fire-damp burns! the vein is there!"
+
+
+CHAPTER VII NEW ABERFOYLE
+
+
+THE old overman's experiment had succeeded.  Firedamp, it is
+well known, is only generated in coal seams; therefore the existence
+of a vein of precious combustible could no longer be doubted.
+As to its size and quality, that must be determined later.
+
+"Yes," thought James Starr, "behind that wall lies a carboniferous bed,
+undiscovered by our soundings.  It is vexatious that all the apparatus
+of the mine, deserted for ten years, must be set up anew.  Never mind.
+We have found the vein which was thought to be exhausted, and this time
+it shall be worked to the end!"
+
+"Well, Mr. Starr," asked Ford, "what do you think of our discovery?
+Was I wrong to trouble you?  Are you sorry to have paid this visit
+to the Dochart pit?"
+
+"No, no, my old friend!" answered Starr.  "We have not lost
+our time; but we shall be losing it now, if we do not return
+immediately to the cottage.  To-morrow we will come back here.
+We will blast this wall with dynamite.  We will lay open
+the new vein, and after a series of soundings, if the seam
+appears to be large, I will form a new Aberfoyle Company,
+to the great satisfaction of the old shareholders.
+Before three months have passed, the first corves full of coal
+will have been taken from the new vein."
+
+"Well said, sir!" cried Simon Ford.  "The old mine will grow young again,
+like a widow who remarries!  The bustle of the old days will soon
+begin with the blows of the pick, and mattock, blasts of powder,
+rumbling of wagons, neighing of horses, creaking of machines!
+I shall see it all again!  I hope, Mr. Starr, that you will not think
+me too old to résumé my duties of overman?"
+
+"No, Simon, no indeed!  You wear better than I do, my old friend!"
+
+"And, sir, you shall be our viewer again.  May the new working
+last for many years, and pray Heaven I shall have the consolation
+of dying without seeing the end of it!"
+
+The old miner was overflowing with joy.  James Starr fully
+entered into it; but he let Ford rave for them both.
+Harry alone remained thoughtful.  To his memory recurred
+the succession of singular, inexplicable circumstances
+
+314
+
+attending the discovery of the new bed.  It made him uneasy
+about the future.
+
+An hour afterwards, James Starr and his two companions were
+back in the cottage.  The engineer supped with good appetite,
+listening with satisfaction to all the plans unfolded by the old overman;
+and had it not been for his excitement about the next day's work,
+he would never have slept better than in the perfect stillness
+of the cottage.
+
+The following day, after a substantial breakfast,
+James Starr, Simon Ford, Harry, and even Madge herself, took the road
+already traversed the day before.  All looked like regular miners.
+They carried different tools, and some dynamite with which to blast
+the rock.  Harry, besides a large lantern, took a safety lamp,
+which would burn for twelve hours.  It was more than was necessary
+for the journey there and back, including the time for the working--
+supposing a working was possible.
+
+"To work! to work!" shouted Ford, when the party reached the further
+end of the passage; and he grasped a heavy crowbar and brandished it.
+
+"Stop one instant," said Starr.  "Let us see if any change has
+taken place, and if the fire-damp still escapes through the crevices."
+
+"You are right, Mr. Starr," said Harry.  "Whoever stopped it up
+yesterday may have done it again to-day!"
+
+Madge, seated on a rock, carefully observed the excavation,
+and the wall which was to be blasted.
+
+It was found that everything was just as they left it.  The crevices had
+undergone no alteration; the carburetted hydrogen still filtered through,
+though in a small stream, which was no doubt because it had had
+a free passage since the day before.  As the quantity was so small,
+it could not have formed an explosive mixture with the air inside.
+James Starr and his companions could therefore proceed in security.
+Besides, the air grew purer by rising to the heights of the Dochart pit;
+and the fire-damp, spreading through the atmosphere, would not be strong
+enough to make any explosion.
+
+"To work, then!" repeated Ford; and soon the rock flew in splinters
+under his skillful blows.  The break was chiefly composed
+of pudding-stone, interspersed with sandstone and schist,
+such as is most often met with between the coal
+
+veins.  James Starr picked up some of the pieces, and examined
+them carefully, hoping to discover some trace of coal.
+
+Starr having chosen the place where the holes were to be drilled,
+they were rapidly bored by Harry.  Some cartridges of dynamite
+were put into them.  As soon as the long, tarred safety
+match was laid, it was lighted on a level with the ground.
+James Starr and his companions then went off to some distance.
+
+"Oh!  Mr. Starr," said Simon Ford, a prey to agitation, which he did
+not attempt to conceal, "never, no, never has my old heart beaten
+so quick before!  I am longing to get at the vein!"
+
+"Patience, Simon!" responded the engineer.  "You don't mean
+to say that you think you are going to find a passage all ready
+open behind that dyke?"
+
+"Excuse me, sir," answered the old overman; "but of course I think so!
+If there was good luck in the way Harry and I discovered this place,
+why shouldn't the good luck go on?"
+
+As he spoke, came the explosion.  A sound as of thunder
+rolled through the labyrinth of subterranean galleries.
+Starr, Madge, Harry, and Simon Ford hastened towards the spot.
+
+"Mr. Starr!  Mr. Starr!" shouted the overman.  "Look! the door
+is broken open!"
+
+Ford's comparison was justified by the appearance of
+an excavation, the depth of which could not be calculated.
+Harry was about to spring through the opening; but the engineer,
+though excessively surprised to find this cavity, held him back.
+"Allow time for the air in there to get pure," said he.
+
+"Yes! beware of the foul air!" said Simon.
+
+A quarter of an hour was passed in anxious waiting.
+The lantern was then fastened to the end of a stick, and introduced
+into the cave, where it continued to burn with unaltered brilliancy.
+"Now then, Harry, go," said Starr, "and we will follow you."
+
+The opening made by the dynamite was sufficiently large
+to allow a man to pass through.  Harry, lamp in hand,
+entered unhesitatingly, and disappeared in the darkness.
+His father, mother, and James Starr waited in silence.
+A minute--which seemed to them much longer--passed.  Harry did
+not reappear, did not call.  Gazing into the opening,
+
+James Starr could not even see the light of his lamp, which ought
+to have illuminated the dark cavern.
+
+Had the ground suddenly given way under Harry's feet?
+Had the young miner fallen into some crevice?  Could his voice
+no longer reach his companions?
+
+The old overman, dead to their remonstrances, was about to enter
+the opening, when a light appeared, dim at first, but gradually
+growing brighter, and Harry's voice was heard shouting,
+"Come, Mr. Starr! come, father!  The road to New Aberfoyle is open!"
+
+If, by some superhuman power, engineers could have raised in a block,
+a thousand feet thick, all that portion of the terrestrial
+crust which supports the lakes, rivers, gulfs, and territories
+of the counties of Stirling, Dumbarton, and Renfrew, they would
+have found, under that enormous lid, an immense excavation,
+to which but one other in the world can be compared--
+the celebrated Mammoth caves of Kentucky.  This excavation was
+composed of several hundred divisions of all sizes and shapes.
+It might be called a hive with numberless ranges of cells,
+capriciously arranged, but a hive on a vast scale, and which,
+instead of bees, might have lodged all the ichthyosauri,
+megatheriums, and ptero-dactyles of the geological epoch.
+
+A labyrinth of galleries, some higher than the most lofty cathedrals,
+others like cloisters, narrow and winding--these following a horizontal
+line, those on an incline or running obliquely in all directions--
+connected the caverns and allowed free communication between them.
+
+The pillars sustaining the vaulted roofs, whose curves allowed
+of every style, the massive walls between the passages, the naves
+themselves in this layer of secondary formation, were composed
+of sandstone and schistous rocks.  But tightly packed between these
+useless strata ran valuable veins of coal, as if the black blood
+of this strange mine had circulated through their tangled network.
+These fields extended forty miles north and south, and stretched
+even under the Caledonian Canal.  The importance of this bed could
+not be calculated until after soundings, but it would certainly
+surpass those of Cardiff and Newcastle.
+
+We may add that the working of this mine would be singularly
+facilitated by the fantastic dispositions of the secondary earths;
+for by an unaccountable retreat of the mineral matter
+at the geological epoch, when the mass was solidifying,
+nature had already multiplied the galleries and tunnels of New Aberfoyle.
+
+Yes, nature alone!  It might at first have been supposed that some works
+abandoned for centuries had been discovered afresh.  Nothing of the sort.
+No one would have deserted such riches.  Human termites had never gnawed
+away this part of the Scottish subsoil; nature herself had done it all.
+But, we repeat, it could be compared to nothing but the celebrated
+Mammoth caves, which, in an extent of more than twenty miles,
+contain two hundred and twenty-six avenues, eleven lakes, seven rivers,
+eight cataracts, thirty-two unfathomable wells, and fifty-seven domes,
+some of which are more than four hundred and fifty feet in height.
+Like these caves, New Aberfoyle was not the work of men, but the work
+of the Creator.
+
+Such was this new domain, of matchless wealth, the discovery
+of which belonged entirely to the old overman.  Ten years'
+sojourn in the deserted mine, an uncommon pertinacity in research,
+perfect faith, sustained by a marvelous mining instinct--
+all these qualities together led him to succeed where so many
+others had failed.  Why had the soundings made under the direction
+of James Starr during the last years of the working stopped
+just at that limit, on the very frontier of the new mine?
+That was all chance, which takes great part in researches
+of this kind.
+
+However that might be, there was, under the Scottish subsoil,
+what might be called a subterranean county, which, to be habitable,
+needed only the rays of the sun, or, for want of that, the light
+of a special planet.
+
+Water had collected in various hollows, forming vast ponds,
+or rather lakes larger than Loch Katrine, lying just above them.
+Of course the waters of these lakes had no movement of currents or tides;
+no old castle was reflected there; no birch or oak trees waved on
+their banks.  And yet these deep lakes, whose mirror-like surface
+was never ruffled by a breeze, would not be without charm by the light
+of some electric star, and, connected by a string of canals,
+would well complete the geography of this strange domain.
+
+Although unfit for any vegetable production, the place could be inhabited
+by a whole population.  And who knows but that in this steady temperature,
+in the depths of the
+
+mines of Aberfoyle, as well as in those of Newcastle, Alloa, or Cardiff--
+when their contents shall have been exhausted--who knows but that
+the poorer classes of Great Britain will some day find a refuge?
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII EXPLORING
+
+
+AT Harry's call, James Starr, Madge, and Simon Ford entered
+through the narrow orifice which put the Dochart pit in
+communication with the new mine.  They found themselves at
+the beginning of a tolerably wide gallery.  One might well believe
+that it had been pierced by the hand of man, that the pick
+and mattock had emptied it in the working of a new vein.
+The explorers question whether, by a strange chance, they had
+not been transported into some ancient mine, of the existence
+of which even the oldest miners in the county had ever known.
+
+No!  It was merely that the geological layers had left this
+passage when the secondary earths were in course of formation.
+Perhaps some torrent had formerly dashed through it; but now it
+was as dry as if it had been cut some thousand feet lower,
+through granite rocks.  At the same time, the air circulated freely,
+which showed that certain natural vents placed it in communication
+with the exterior atmosphere.
+
+This observation, made by the engineer, was correct, and it was
+evident that the ventilation of the new mine would be easily managed.
+As to the fire-damp which had lately filtered through the schist,
+it seemed to have been contained in a pocket now empty, and it was
+certain that the atmosphere of the gallery was quite free from it.
+However, Harry prudently carried only the safety lamp, which would
+insure light for twelve hours.
+
+James Starr and his companions now felt perfectly happy.
+All their wishes were satisfied.  There was nothing but coal around them.
+A sort of emotion kept them silent; even Simon Ford restrained himself.
+His joy overflowed, not in long phrases, but in short ejaculations.
+
+It was perhaps imprudent to venture so far into the crypt.
+Pooh! they never thought of how they were to get back.
+
+The gallery was practicable, not very winding.  They met
+with no noxious exhalations, nor did any chasm bar the path.
+There was no reason for stopping for a whole hour;
+James Starr, Madge, Harry, and Simon Ford walked on,
+though there was nothing to show them what was the exact
+direction of this unknown tunnel.
+
+And they would no doubt have gone farther still, if they had not
+suddenly come to the end of the wide road which they had followed
+since their entrance into the mine.
+
+The gallery ended in an enormous cavern, neither the height nor
+depth of which could be calculated.  At what altitude arched
+the roof of this excavation--at what distance was its opposite wall--
+the darkness totally concealed; but by the light of the lamp the explorers
+could discover that its dome covered a vast extent of still water--
+pond or lake--whose picturesque rocky banks were lost in obscurity.
+
+"Halt!" exclaimed Ford, stopping suddenly.  "Another step,
+and perhaps we shall fall into some fathomless pit."
+
+"Let us rest awhile, then, my friends," returned the engineer.
+"Besides, we ought to be thinking of returning to the cottage."
+
+"Our lamp will give light for another ten hours, sir," said Harry.
+
+"Well, let us make a halt," replied Starr; "I confess my legs
+have need of a rest.  And you, Madge, don't you feel tired
+after so long a walk?"
+
+"Not over much, Mr. Starr," replied the sturdy Scotchwoman;
+"we have been accustomed to explore the old Aberfoyle mine
+for whole days together."
+
+"Tired? nonsense!" interrupted Simon Ford; "Madge could go
+ten times as far, if necessary.  But once more, Mr. Starr,
+wasn't my communication worth your trouble in coming to hear it?
+Just dare to say no, Mr. Starr, dare to say no!"
+
+"Well, my old friend, I haven't felt so happy for a long while!"
+replied the engineer; "the small part of this marvelous mine that we
+have explored seems to show that its extent is very considerable,
+at least in length."
+
+"In width and in depth, too, Mr. Starr!" returned Simon Ford.
+
+"That we shall know later."
+
+
+"And I can answer for it!  Trust to the instinct of an old miner!
+It has never deceived me!"
+
+"I wish to believe you, Simon," replied the engineer, smiling.
+"As far as I can judge from this short exploration, we possess
+the elements of a working which will last for centuries!"
+
+"Centuries!" exclaimed Simon Ford; "I believe you, sir!
+A thousand years and more will pass before the last bit of coal
+is taken out of our new mine!"
+
+"Heaven grant it!" returned Starr.  "As to the quality of the coal
+which crops out of these walls?"
+
+"Superb!  Mr. Starr, superb!" answered Ford; "just look at it yourself!"
+
+And so saying, with his pick he struck off a fragment of the black rock.
+
+"Look! look!" he repeated, holding it close to his lamp;
+"the surface of this piece of coal is shining!  We have here fat coal,
+rich in bituminous matter; and see how it comes in pieces,
+almost without dust!  Ah, Mr. Starr! twenty years ago this
+seam would have entered into a strong competition with Swansea
+and Cardiff!  Well, stokers will quarrel for it still, and if it
+costs little to extract it from the mine, it will not sell
+at a less price outside."
+
+"Indeed," said Madge, who had taken the fragment of coal and was
+examining it with the air of a connoisseur; "that's good quality
+of coal.  Carry it home, Simon, carry it back to the cottage!
+I want this first piece of coal to burn under our kettle."
+
+"Well said, wife!" answered the old overman, "and you shall see
+that I am not mistaken."
+
+"Mr. Starr," asked Harry, "have you any idea of the probable direction
+of this long passage which we have been following since our entrance
+into the new mine?"
+
+"No, my lad," replied the engineer; "with a compass I could
+perhaps find out its general bearing; but without a compass
+I am here like a sailor in open sea, in the midst of fogs,
+when there is no sun by which to calculate his position."
+
+"No doubt, Mr. Starr," replied Ford; "but pray don't compare
+our position with that of the sailor, who has everywhere and
+always an abyss under his feet!  We are on firm ground here,
+and need never be afraid of foundering."
+
+
+"I won't tease you, then, old Simon," answered James Starr.  "Far be
+it from me even in jest to depreciate the New Aberfoyle mine
+by an unjust comparison!  I only meant to say one thing,
+and that is that we don't know where we are."
+
+"We are in the subsoil of the county of Stirling, Mr. Starr,"
+replied Simon Ford; "and that I assert as if--"
+
+"Listen!" said Harry, interrupting the old man.
+All listened, as the young miner was doing.  His ears, which were
+very sharp, had caught a dull sound, like a distant murmur.
+His companions were not long in hearing it themselves.
+It was above their heads, a sort of rolling sound, in which though
+it was so feeble, the successive CRESCENDO and DIMINUENDO could
+be distinctly heard.
+
+All four stood for some minutes, their ears on the stretch,
+without uttering a word.  All at once Simon Ford exclaimed,
+"Well, I declare!  Are trucks already running on the rails
+of New Aberfoyle?"
+
+"Father," replied Harry, "it sounds to me just like the noise
+made by waves rolling on the sea shore."
+
+"We can't be under the sea though!" cried the old overman.
+
+"No," said the engineer, "but it is not impossible that we
+should be under Loch Katrine."
+
+"The roof cannot have much thickness just here, if the noise
+of the water is perceptible."
+
+"Very little indeed," answered James Starr, "and that is the reason
+this cavern is so huge."
+
+"You must be right, Mr. Starr," said Harry.
+
+"Besides, the weather is so bad outside," resumed Starr, "that the waters
+of the loch must be as rough as those of the Firth of Forth."
+
+"Well! what does it matter after all?" returned Simon Ford;
+"the seam won't be any the worse because it is under a loch.
+It would not be the first time that coal has been looked for under
+the very bed of the ocean!  When we have to work under the bottom
+of the Caledonian Canal, where will be the harm?"
+
+"Well said, Simon," cried the engineer, who could not restrain a smile
+at the overman's enthusiasm; "let us cut our trenches under the waters
+of the sea!  Let us bore the bed of the Atlantic like a strainer;
+let us with our picks join
+
+our brethren of the United States through the subsoil of the
+ocean! let us dig into the center of the globe if necessary,
+to tear out the last scrap of coal."
+
+"Are you joking, Mr. Starr?" asked Ford, with a pleased but
+slightly suspicious look.
+
+"I joking, old man? no! but you are so enthusiastic that you
+carry me away into the regions of impossibility!  Come, let us
+return to the reality, which is sufficiently beautiful;
+leave our picks here, where we may find them another day,
+and let's take the road back to the cottage."
+
+Nothing more could be done for the time.  Later, the engineer,
+accompanied by a brigade of miners, supplied with lamps
+and all necessary tools, would résumé the exploration of
+New Aberfoyle.  It was now time to return to the Dochart pit.
+The road was easy, the gallery running nearly straight
+through the rock up to the orifice opened by the dynamite,
+so there was no fear of their losing themselves.
+
+But as James Starr was proceeding towards the gallery
+Simon Ford stopped him.
+
+"Mr. Starr," said he, "you see this immense cavern,
+this subterranean lake, whose waters bathe this strand at our feet?
+Well! it is to this place I mean to change my dwelling,
+here I will build a new cottage, and if some brave fellows will
+follow my example, before a year is over there will be one town
+more inside old England."
+
+James Starr, smiling approval of Ford's plans, pressed his hand,
+and all three, preceding Madge, re-entered the gallery, on their way
+back to the Dochart pit.  For the first mile no incident occurred.
+Harry walked first, holding his lamp above his head.
+He carefully followed the principal gallery, without ever turning
+aside into the narrow tunnels which radiated to the right and left.
+It seemed as if the returning was to be accomplished as easily
+as the going, when an unexpected accident occurred which rendered
+the situation of the explorers very serious.
+
+Just at a moment when Harry was raising his lamp there came
+a rush of air, as if caused by the flapping of invisible wings.
+The lamp escaped from his hands, fell on the rocky ground,
+and was broken to pieces.
+
+James Starr and his companions were suddenly plunged
+in absolute darkness.  All the oil of the lamp was spilt,
+and it was of no further use.  "Well, Harry," cried his father,
+
+"do you want us all to break our necks on the way back to the cottage?"
+
+Harry did not answer.  He wondered if he ought to suspect
+the hand of a mysterious being in this last accident?
+Could there possibly exist in these depths an enemy whose
+unaccountable antagonism would one day create serious difficulties?
+Had someone an interest in defending the new coal field against
+any attempt at working it?  In truth that seemed absurd,
+yet the facts spoke for themselves, and they accumulated in such
+a way as to change simple presumptions into certainties.
+
+In the meantime the explorers' situation was bad enough.
+They had now, in the midst of black darkness, to follow
+the passage leading to the Dochart pit for nearly five miles.
+There they would still have an hour's walk before reaching the cottage.
+
+"Come along," said Simon Ford.  "We have no time to lose.
+We must grope our way along, like blind men.  There's no fear
+of losing our way.  The tunnels which open off our road are
+only just like those in a molehill, and by following the chief
+gallery we shall of course reach the opening we got in at.
+After that, it is the old mine.  We know that, and it won't
+be the first time that Harry and I have found ourselves there
+in the dark.  Besides, there we shall find the lamps that we left.
+Forward then!  Harry, go first.  Mr. Starr, follow him.
+Madge, you go next, and I will bring up the rear.
+Above everything, don't let us get separated."
+
+All complied with the old overman's instructions.
+As he said, by groping carefully, they could not mistake the way.
+It was only necessary to make the hands take the place of the eyes,
+and to trust to their instinct, which had with Simon Ford
+and his son become a second nature.
+
+James Starr and his companions walked on in the order agreed.
+They did not speak, but it was not for want of thinking.  It became
+evident that they had an adversary.  But what was he, and how were they
+to defend themselves against these mysteriously-prepared attacks?
+These disquieting ideas crowded into their brains.  However, this was
+not the moment to get discouraged.
+
+Harry, his arms extended, advanced with a firm step, touching first
+one and then the other side of the passage.
+
+If a cleft or side opening presented itself, he felt with his hand
+that it was not the main way; either the cleft was too shallow,
+or the opening too narrow, and he thus kept in the right road.
+
+In darkness through which the eye could not in the slightest
+degree pierce, this difficult return lasted two hours.
+By reckoning the time since they started, taking into
+consideration that the walking had not been rapid,
+Starr calculated that he and his companions were near the opening.
+In fact, almost immediately, Harry stopped.
+
+"Have we got to the end of the gallery?" asked Simon Ford.
+
+"Yes," answered the young miner.
+
+"Well! have you not found the hole which connects New Aberfoyle
+with the Dochart pit?"
+
+"No," replied Harry, whose impatient hands met with nothing
+but a solid wall.
+
+The old overman stepped forward, and himself felt the schistous rock.
+A cry escaped him.
+
+Either the explorers had strayed from the right path on their return,
+or the narrow orifice, broken in the rock by the dynamite, had been
+recently stopped up.  James Starr and his companions were prisoners
+in New Aberfoyle.
+
+
+CHAPTER IX THE FIRE-MAIDENS
+
+
+A WEEK after the events just related had taken place, James Starr's
+friends had become very anxious.  The engineer had disappeared,
+and no reason could be brought forward to explain his absence.
+They learnt, by questioning his servant, that he had embarked
+at Granton Pier.  But from that time there were no traces
+of James Starr.  Simon Ford's letter had requested secrecy,
+and he had said nothing of his departure for the Aberfoyle mines.
+
+Therefore in Edinburgh nothing was talked of but the unaccountable
+absence of the engineer.  Sir W. Elphiston, the President
+of the Royal Institution, communicated to his colleagues
+a letter which James Starr had sent him, excusing himself
+from being present at the next meeting of the society.
+Two or three others produced similar letters.  But
+
+though these documents proved that Starr had left Edinburgh--
+which was known before--they threw no light on what had become
+of him.  Now, on the part of such a man, this prolonged absence,
+so contrary to his usual habits, naturally first caused surprise,
+and then anxiety.
+
+A notice was inserted in the principal newspapers of the United Kingdom
+relative to the engineer James Starr, giving a description
+of him and the date on which he left Edinburgh; nothing more
+could be done but to wait.  The time passed in great anxiety.
+The scientific world of England was inclined to believe that one
+of its most distinguished members had positively disappeared.
+At the same time, when so many people were thinking about
+James Starr, Harry Ford was the subject of no less anxiety.
+Only, instead of occupying public attention, the son of the old
+overman was the cause of trouble alone to the generally cheerful
+mind of Jack Ryan.
+
+It may be remembered that, in their encounter in the Yarrow shaft,
+Jack Ryan had invited Harry to come a week afterwards to the festivities
+at Irvine.  Harry had accepted and promised expressly to be there.
+Jack Ryan knew, having had it proved by many circumstances,
+that his friend was a man of his word.  With him, a thing promised was
+a thing done.  Now, at the Irvine merry-making, nothing was wanting;
+neither song, nor dance, nor fun of any sort--nothing but Harry Ford.
+
+The notice relative to James Starr, published in the papers,
+had not yet been seen by Ryan.  The honest fellow was therefore
+only worried by Harry's absence, telling himself that something
+serious could alone have prevented him from keeping his promise.
+So, the day after the Irvine games, Jack Ryan intended to take the railway
+from Glasgow and go to the Dochart pit; and this he would have done
+had he not been detained by an accident which nearly cost him his life.
+Something which occurred on the night of the 12th of December was of a
+nature to support the opinions of all partisans of the supernatural,
+and there were many at Melrose Farm.
+
+Irvine, a little seaport of Renfrew, containing nearly seven
+thousand inhabitants, lies in a sharp bend made by the Scottish coast,
+near the mouth of the Firth of Clyde.  The most ancient and the most
+famed ruins on this part
+
+of the coast were those of this castle of Robert Stuart,
+which bore the name of Dundonald Castle.
+
+At this period Dundonald Castle, a refuge for all the stray goblins
+of the country, was completely deserted.  It stood on the top
+of a high rock, two miles from the town, and was seldom visited.
+Sometimes a few strangers took it into their heads to explore
+these old historical remains, but then they always went alone.
+The inhabitants of Irvine would not have taken them there
+at any price.  Indeed, several legends were based on the story
+of certain "fire-maidens," who haunted the old castle.
+
+The most superstitious declared they had seen these fantastic
+creatures with their own eyes.  Jack Ryan was naturally one of them.
+It was a fact that from time to time long flames appeared,
+sometimes on a broken piece of wall, sometimes on the summit
+of the tower which was the highest point of Dundonald Castle.
+
+Did these flames really assume a human shape, as was asserted?
+Did they merit the name of fire-maidens, given them by the people
+of the coast?  It was evidently just an optical delusion,
+aided by a good deal of credulity, and science could easily
+have explained the phenomenon.
+
+However that might be, these fire-maidens had the reputation
+of frequenting the ruins of the old castle and there
+performing wild strathspeys, especially on dark nights.
+Jack Ryan, bold fellow though he was, would never have dared
+to accompany those dances with the music of his bagpipes.
+
+"Old Nick is enough for them!" said he.  "He doesn't need me
+to complete his infernal orchestra."
+
+We may well believe that these strange apparitions
+frequently furnished a text for the evening stories.
+Jack Ryan was ending the evening with one of these.
+His auditors, transported into the phantom world, were worked
+up into a state of mind which would believe anything.
+
+All at once shouts were heard outside.  Jack Ryan stopped short
+in the middle of his story, and all rushed out of the barn.
+The night was pitchy dark.  Squalls of wind and rain swept along
+the beach.  Two or three fishermen, their backs against a rock,
+the better to resist the wind, were shouting at the top
+of their voices.
+
+Jack Ryan and his companions ran up to them.  The
+
+shouts were, however, not for the inhabitants of the farm, but to warn
+men who, without being aware of it, were going to destruction.
+A dark, confused mass appeared some way out at sea.  It was a vessel whose
+position could be seen by her lights, for she carried a white one on
+her foremast, a green on the starboard side, and a red on the outside.
+She was evidently running straight on the rocks.
+
+"A ship in distress?" said Ryan.
+
+"Ay," answered one of the fishermen, "and now they want to tack,
+but it's too late!"
+
+"Do they want to run ashore?" said another.
+
+"It seems so," responded one of the fishermen, "unless he has
+been misled by some--"
+
+The man was interrupted by a yell from Jack.  Could the crew
+have heard it?  At any rate, it was too late for them to beat back
+from the line of breakers which gleamed white in the darkness.
+
+But it was not, as might be supposed, a last effort of Ryan's to warn
+the doomed ship.  He now had his back to the sea.  His companions
+turned also, and gazed at a spot situated about half a mile inland.
+It was Dundonald Castle.  A long flame twisted and bent under the gale,
+on the summit of the old tower.
+
+"The Fire-Maiden!" cried the superstitious men in terror.
+
+Clearly, it needed a good strong imagination to find any human
+likeness in that flame.  Waving in the wind like a luminous flag,
+it seemed sometimes to fly round the tower, as if it was just going out,
+and a moment after it was seen again dancing on its blue point.
+
+"The Fire-Maiden! the Fire-Maiden!" cried the terrified
+fishermen and peasants.
+
+All was then explained.  The ship, having lost her reckoning in the fog,
+had taken this flame on the top of Dundonald Castle for the Irvine light.
+She thought herself at the entrance of the Firth, ten miles to the north,
+when she was really running on a shore which offered no refuge.
+
+What could be done to save her, if there was still time?  It was
+too late.  A frightful crash was heard above the tumult of the elements.
+The vessel had struck.  The white line of surf was broken for an instant;
+she heeled over on her side and lay among the rocks.
+
+
+At the same time, by a strange coincidence, the long flame disappeared,
+as if it had been swept away by a violent gust.  Earth, sea, and sky
+were plunged in complete darkness.
+
+"The Fire-Maiden!" shouted Ryan, for the last time, as the apparition,
+which he and his companions believed supernatural, disappeared.
+But then the courage of these superstitious Scotchmen,
+which had failed before a fancied danger, returned in face
+of a real one, which they were ready to brave in order to save
+their fellow-creatures. The tempest did not deter them.
+As heroic as they had before been credulous, fastening ropes
+round their waists, they rushed into the waves to the aid
+of those on the wreck.
+
+Happily, they succeeded in their endeavors, although some--and bold
+Jack Ryan was among the number--were severely wounded on the rocks.
+But the captain of the vessel and the eight sailors who composed
+his crew were hauled up, safe and sound, on the beach.
+
+The ship was the Norwegian brig MOTALA, laden with timber, and bound
+for Glasgow.  Of the MOTALA herself nothing remained but a few spars,
+washed up by the waves, and dashed among the rocks on the beach.
+
+Jack Ryan and three of his companions, wounded like himself,
+were carried into a room of Melrose Farm, where every care
+was lavished on them.  Ryan was the most hurt, for when with
+the rope round his waist he had rushed into the sea, the waves
+had almost immediately dashed him back against the rocks.
+He was brought, indeed, very nearly lifeless on to the beach.
+
+The brave fellow was therefore confined to bed for several days,
+to his great disgust.  However, as soon as he was given permission
+to sing as much as he liked, he bore his trouble patiently,
+and the farm echoed all day with his jovial voice.
+But from this adventure he imbibed a more lively sentiment
+of fear with regard to brownies and other goblins who amuse
+themselves by plaguing mankind, and he made them responsible
+for the catastrophe of the Motala.  It would have been vain
+to try and convince him that the Fire-Maidens did not exist,
+and that the flame, so suddenly appearing among the ruins, was but
+a natural phenomenon.  No reasoning could make him believe it.
+His companions were, if possible, more obstinate than he in
+
+their credulity.  According to them, one of the Fire-Maidens
+had maliciously attracted the MOTALA to the coast.  As to wishing
+to punish her, as well try to bring the tempest to justice!
+The magistrates might order what arrests they pleased, but a flame
+cannot be imprisoned, an impalpable being can't be handcuffed.
+It must be acknowledged that the researches which were ultimately
+made gave ground, at least in appearance, to this superstitious
+way of explaining the facts.
+
+The inquiry was made with great care.  Officials came to Dundonald Castle,
+and they proceeded to conduct a most vigorous search.
+The magistrate wished first to ascertain if the ground bore
+any footprints, which could be attributed to other than goblins' feet.
+It was impossible to find the least trace, whether old or new.
+Moreover, the earth, still damp from the rain of the day before,
+would have preserved the least vestige.
+
+The result of all this was, that the magistrates only got for their
+trouble a new legend added to so many others--a legend which would
+be perpetuated by the remembrance of the catastrophe of the MOTALA,
+and indisputably confirm the truth of the apparition of the Fire-Maidens.
+
+A hearty fellow like Jack Ryan, with so strong a constitution,
+could not be long confined to his bed.  A few sprains and bruises
+were not quite enough to keep him on his back longer than he liked.
+He had not time to be ill.
+
+Jack, therefore, soon got well.  As soon as he was on his legs again,
+before resuming his work on the farm, he wished to go and visit
+his friend Harry, and learn why he had not come to the Irvine
+merry-making. He could not understand his absence, for Harry
+was not a man who would willingly promise and not perform.
+It was unlikely, too, that the son of the old overman had not
+heard of the wreck of the MOTALA, as it was in all the papers.
+He must know the part Jack had taken in it, and what had happened
+to him, and it was unlike Harry not to hasten to the farm and see
+how his old chum was going on.
+
+As Harry had not come, there must have been something to prevent him.
+Jack Ryan would as soon deny the existence of the Fire-Maidens as believe
+in Harry's indifference.
+
+Two days after the catastrophe Jack left the farm merily,
+feeling nothing of his wounds.  Singing in the fullness
+of his heart, he awoke the echoes of the cliff, as he walked
+to the station of the railway, which VIA Glasgow would take
+him to Stirling and Callander.
+
+As he was waiting for his train, his attention was attracted by a bill
+posted up on the walls, containing the following notice:
+
+"On the 4th of December, the engineer, James Starr,
+of Edinburgh, embarked from Granton Pier, on board the Prince
+of Wales.  He disembarked the same day at Stirling.  From that
+time nothing further has been heard of him.
+
+"Any information concerning him is requested to be sent to the President
+of the Royal Institution, Edinburgh."
+
+Jack Ryan, stopping before one of these advertisements,
+read it twice over, with extreme surprise.
+
+"Mr. Starr!" he exclaimed.  "Why, on the 4th of December I
+met him with Harry on the ladder of the Dochart pit!
+That was ten days ago!  And he has not been seen from that time!
+That explains why my chum didn't come to Irvine."
+
+And without taking time to inform the President of the Royal Institution
+by letter, what he knew relative to James Starr, Jack jumped into
+the train, determining to go first of all to the Yarrow shaft.
+There he would descend to the depths of the pit, if necessary,
+to find Harry, and with him was sure to be the engineer James Starr.
+
+"They haven't turned up again," said he to himself.  "Why?  Has anything
+prevented them?  Could any work of importance keep them still at
+the bottom of the mine?  I must find out!" and Ryan, hastening his steps,
+arrived in less than an hour at the Yarrow shaft.
+
+Externally nothing was changed.  The same silence around.
+Not a living creature was moving in that desert region.
+Jack entered the ruined shed which covered the opening of the shaft.
+He gazed down into the dark abyss--nothing was to be seen.
+He listened--nothing was to be heard.
+
+"And my lamp!" he exclaimed; "suppose it isn't in its place!"
+The lamp which Ryan used when he visited the pit was usually
+deposited in a corner, near the landing of the topmost ladder.
+It had disappeared.
+
+"Here is a nuisance!" said Jack, beginning to feel rather
+
+uneasy.  Then, without hesitating, superstitious though he was,
+"I will go," said he, "though it's as dark down there as in the lowest
+depths of the infernal regions!"
+
+And he began to descend the long flight of ladders, which led
+down the gloomy shaft.  Jack Ryan had not forgotten his old
+mining habits, and he was well acquainted with the Dochart pit,
+or he would scarcely have dared to venture thus.
+He went very carefully, however.  His foot tried each round,
+as some of them were worm-eaten. A false step would entail
+a deadly fall, through this space of fifteen hundred feet.
+He counted each landing as he passed it, knowing that he could
+not reach the bottom of the shaft until he had left the thirtieth.
+Once there, he would have no trouble, so he thought,
+in finding the cottage, built, as we have said, at the extremity
+of the principal passage.
+
+Jack Ryan went on thus until he got to the twenty-sixth landing,
+and consequently had two hundred feet between him and the bottom.
+
+Here he put down his leg to feel for the first rung of the twenty-seventh
+ladder.  But his foot swinging in space found nothing to rest on.
+He knelt down and felt about with his hand for the top of the ladder.
+It was in vain.
+
+"Old Nick himself must have been down this way!" said Jack,
+not without a slight feeling of terror.
+
+He stood considering for some time, with folded arms,
+and longing to be able to pierce the impenetrable darkness.
+Then it occurred to him that if he could not get down,
+neither could the inhabitants of the mine get up.  There was now no
+communication between the depths of the pit and the upper regions.
+If the removal of the lower ladders of the Yarrow shaft had been
+effected since his last visit to the cottage, what had become
+of Simon Ford, his wife, his son, and the engineer?
+
+The prolonged absence of James Starr proved that he had not
+left the pit since the day Ryan met with him in the shaft.
+How had the cottage been provisioned since then?
+The food of these unfortunate people, imprisoned fifteen hundred
+feet below the surface of the ground, must have been exhausted
+by this time.
+
+All this passed through Jack's mind, as he saw that by himself
+he could do nothing to get to the cottage.  He had no doubt
+but that communication had been interrupted
+
+with a malevolent intention.  At any rate, the authorities must
+be informed, and that as soon as possible.
+
+Jack Ryan bent forward from the landing.
+
+"Harry!  Harry!" he shouted with his powerful voice.
+
+Harry's name echoed and re-echoed among the rocks, and finally died
+away in the depths of the shaft.
+
+Ryan rapidly ascended the upper ladders and returned to the light of day.
+Without losing a moment he reached the Callander station, just caught the
+express to Edinburgh, and by three o'clock was before the Lord Provost.
+
+There his declaration was received.  His account was given so clearly
+that it could not be doubted.  Sir William Elphiston, President of
+the Royal Institution, and not only colleague, but a personal
+friend of Starr's, was also informed, and asked to direct
+the search which was to be made without delay in the mine.
+Several men were placed at his disposal, supplied with lamps,
+picks, long rope ladders, not forgetting provisions and cordials.
+Then guided by Jack Ryan, the party set out for the Aberfoyle mines.
+
+The same evening the expedition arrived at the opening of
+the Yarrow shaft, and descended to the twenty-seventh landing,
+at which Jack Ryan had been stopped a few hours previously.
+The lamps, fastened to long ropes, were lowered down the shaft,
+and it was thus ascertained that the four last ladders were wanting.
+
+As soon as the lamps had been brought up, the men fixed to
+the landing a rope ladder, which unrolled itself down the shaft,
+and all descended one after the other.  Jack Ryan's descent was
+the most difficult, for he went first down the swinging ladders,
+and fastened them for the others.
+
+The space at the bottom of the shaft was completely deserted;
+but Sir William was much surprised at hearing Jack Ryan exclaim,
+"Here are bits of the ladders, and some of them half burnt!"
+
+"Burnt?" repeated Sir William.  "Indeed, here sure enough are cinders
+which have evidently been cold a long time!"
+
+"Do you think, sir," asked Ryan, "that Mr. Starr could have had any
+reason for burning the ladders, and thus breaking of communication
+with the world?"
+
+"Certainly not," answered Sir William Elphiston, who
+
+had become very thoughtful.  "Come, my lad, lead us to the cottage.
+There we shall ascertain the truth."
+
+Jack Ryan shook his head, as if not at all convinced.
+Then, taking a lamp from the hands of one of the men, he proceeded
+with a rapid step along the principal passage of the Dochart pit.
+The others all followed him.
+
+In a quarter of an hour the party arrived at the excavation
+in which stood Simon Ford's cottage.  There was no light
+in the window.  Ryan darted to the door, and threw it open.
+The house was empty.
+
+They examined all the rooms in the somber habitation.
+No trace of violence was to be found.  All was in order, as if old
+Madge had been still there.  There was even an ample supply
+of provisions, enough to last the Ford family for several days.
+
+The absence of the tenants of the cottage was quite unaccountable.
+But was it not possible to find out the exact time they had quitted it?
+Yes, for in this region, where there was no difference of day or night,
+Madge was accustomed to mark with a cross each day in her almanac.
+
+The almanac was pinned up on the wall, and there the last cross
+had been made at the 6th of December; that is to say, a day after
+the arrival of James Starr, to which Ryan could positively swear.
+It was clear that on the 6th of December, ten days ago,
+Simon Ford, his wife, son, and guest, had quitted the cottage.
+Could a fresh exploration of the mine, undertaken by the engineer,
+account for such a long absence?  Certainly not.
+
+It was intensely dark all round.  The lamps held by the men gave light
+only just where they were standing.  Suddenly Jack Ryan uttered a cry.
+"Look there, there!"
+
+His finger was pointing to a tolerably bright light, which was
+moving about in the distance.  "After that light, my men!"
+exclaimed Sir William.
+
+"It's a goblin light!" said Ryan.  "So what's the use?
+We shall never catch it."
+
+The president and his men, little given to superstition,
+darted off in the direction of the moving light.  Jack Ryan,
+bravely following their example, quickly overtook the head-most
+of the party.
+
+It was a long and fatiguing chase.  The lantern seemed to be carried
+by a being of small size, but singular agility.
+
+Every now and then it disappeared behind some pillar, then was seen
+again at the end of a cross gallery.  A sharp turn would place
+it out of sight, and it seemed to have completely disappeared,
+when all at once there would be the light as bright as ever.
+However, they gained very little on it, and Ryan's belief that they
+could never catch it seemed far from groundless.
+
+After an hour of this vain pursuit Sir William Elphiston and his
+companions had gone a long way in the southwest direction of the pit,
+and began to think they really had to do with an impalpable being.
+Just then it seemed as if the distance between the goblin and those who
+were pursuing it was becoming less.  Could it be fatigued, or did this
+invisible being wish to entice Sir William and his companions to the place
+where the inhabitants of the cottage had perhaps themselves been enticed.
+It was hard to say.
+
+The men, seeing that the distance lessened, redoubled their efforts.
+The light which had before burnt at a distance of more than
+two hundred feet before them was now seen at less than fifty.
+The space continued to diminish.  The bearer of the lamp
+became partially visible.  Sometimes, when it turned its head,
+the indistinct profile of a human face could be made out,
+and unless a sprite could assume bodily shape, Jack Ryan
+was obliged to confess that here was no supernatural being.
+Then, springing forward,--
+
+"Courage, comrades!" he exclaimed; "it is getting tired!
+We shall soon catch it up now, and if it can talk as well as it
+can run we shall hear a fine story."
+
+But the pursuit had suddenly become more difficult.
+They were in unknown regions of the mine; narrow passages
+crossed each other like the windings of a labyrinth.
+The bearer of the lamp might escape them as easily as possible,
+by just extinguishing the light and retreating into some dark refuge.
+
+"And indeed," thought Sir William, "if it wishes to avoid us,
+why does it not do so?"
+
+Hitherto there had evidently been no intention to avoid them,
+but just as the thought crossed Sir William's mind the light
+suddenly disappeared, and the party, continuing the pursuit,
+found themselves before an extremely narrow natural opening
+in the schistous rocks.
+
+
+To trim their lamps, spring forward, and dart through the opening,
+was for Sir William and his party but the work of an instant.
+But before they had gone a hundred paces along this new gallery,
+much wider and loftier than the former, they all stopped short.
+There, near the wall, lay four bodies, stretched on the ground--
+four corpses, perhaps!
+
+"James Starr!" exclaimed Sir William Elphiston.
+
+"Harry!  Harry!" cried Ryan, throwing himself down beside his friend.
+
+It was indeed the engineer, Madge, Simon, and Harry Ford who were
+lying there motionless.  But one of the bodies moved slightly,
+and Madge's voice was heard faintly murmuring, "See to the others!
+help them first!"
+
+Sir William, Jack, and their companions endeavored to reanimate
+the engineer and his friends by getting them to swallow a few drops
+of brandy.  They very soon succeeded.  The unfortunate people,
+shut up in that dark cavern for ten days, were dying of starvation.
+They must have perished had they not on three occasions
+found a loaf of bread and a jug of water set near them.
+No doubt the charitable being to whom they owed their lives
+was unable to do more for them.
+
+Sir William wondered whether this might not have been the work
+of the strange sprite who had allured them to the very spot
+where James Starr and his companions lay.
+
+However that might be, the engineer, Madge, Simon, and Harry Ford
+were saved.  They were assisted to the cottage, passing through
+the narrow opening which the bearer of the strange light had apparently
+wished to point out to Sir William.  This was a natural opening.
+The passage which James Starr and his companions had made for
+themselves with dynamite had been completely blocked up with rocks
+laid one upon another.
+
+So, then, whilst they had been exploring the vast cavern, the way
+back had been purposely closed against them by a hostile hand.
+
+
+CHAPTER X COAL TOWN
+
+
+THREE years after the events which have just been related,
+the guide-books recommended as a "great attraction,"
+to the numerous tourists who roam over the county of Stirling,
+a visit of a few hours to the mines of New Aberfoyle.
+
+No mine in any country, either in the Old or New World,
+could present a more curious aspect.
+
+To begin with, the visitor was transported without danger
+or fatigue to a level with the workings, at fifteen
+hundred feet below the surface of the ground.  Seven miles
+to the southwest of Callander opened a slanting tunnel,
+adorned with a castellated entrance, turrets and battlements.
+This lofty tunnel gently sloped straight to the stupendous crypt,
+hollowed out so strangely in the bowels of the earth.
+
+A double line of railway, the wagons being moved by hydraulic power,
+plied from hour to hour to and from the village thus buried in the subsoil
+of the county, and which bore the rather ambitious title of Coal Town.
+
+Arrived in Coal Town, the visitor found himself in a place where
+electricity played a principal part as an agent of heat and light.
+Although the ventilation shafts were numerous, they were not
+sufficient to admit much daylight into New Aberfoyle, yet it had
+abundance of light.  This was shed from numbers of electric discs;
+some suspended from the vaulted roofs, others hanging on
+the natural pillars--all, whether suns or stars in size, were fed
+by continuous currents produced from electro-magnetic machines.
+When the hour of rest arrived, an artificial night was easily
+produced all over the mine by disconnecting the wires.
+
+Below the dome lay a lake of an extent to be compared to the Dead Sea
+of the Mammoth caves--a deep lake whose transparent waters swarmed with
+eyeless fish, and to which the engineer gave the name of Loch Malcolm.
+
+There, in this immense natural excavation, Simon Ford built his
+new cottage, which he would not have exchanged for the finest house
+in Prince's Street, Edinburgh.  This dwelling was situated on the shores
+of the loch, and its five windows looked out on the dark waters,
+which extended further than the eye could see.  Two months later a second
+habitation was erected in the neighborhood of Simon Ford's cottage:
+this was for James Starr.  The engineer had given
+
+337
+
+himself body and soul to New Aberfoyle, and nothing but the most
+imperative necessity ever caused him to leave the pit.
+There, then, he lived in the midst of his mining world.
+
+On the discovery of the new field, all the old colliers had hastened
+to leave the plow and harrow, and résumé the pick and mattock.
+Attracted by the certainty that work would never fail, allured by
+the high wages which the prosperity of the mine enabled the company
+to offer for labor, they deserted the open air for an underground life,
+and took up their abode in the mines.
+
+The miners' houses, built of brick, soon grew up in a picturesque fashion;
+some on the banks of Loch Malcolm, others under the arches which seemed
+made to resist the weight that pressed upon them, like the piers
+of a bridge.  So was founded Coal Town, situated under the eastern
+point of Loch Katrine, to the north of the county of Stirling.  It was
+a regular settlement on the banks of Loch Malcolm.  A chapel,
+dedicated to St. Giles, overlooked it from the top of a huge rock,
+whose foot was laved by the waters of the subterranean sea.
+
+When this underground town was lighted up by the bright rays
+thrown from the discs, hung from the pillars and arches,
+its aspect was so strange, so fantastic, that it justified
+the praise of the guide-books, and visitors flocked to see it.
+
+It is needless to say that the inhabitants of Coal Town were
+proud of their place.  They rarely left their laboring village--
+in that imitating Simon Ford, who never wished to go out again.
+The old overman maintained that it always rained "up there,"
+and, considering the climate of the United Kingdom,
+it must be acknowledged that he was not far wrong.
+All the families in New Aberfoyle prospered well, having in
+three years obtained a certain com-petency which they could
+never have hoped to attain on the surface of the county.
+Dozens of babies, who were born at the time when the works
+were resumed, had never yet breathed the outer air.
+
+This made Jack Ryan remark, "It's eighteen months since they were weaned,
+and they have not yet seen daylight!"
+
+It may be mentioned here, that one of the first to run at the engineer's
+call was Jack Ryan.  The merry fellow had
+
+thought it his duty to return to his old trade.
+But though Melrose farm had lost singer and piper it must
+not be thought that Jack Ryan sung no more.  On the contrary,
+the sonorous echoes of New Aberfoyle exerted their strong lungs
+to answer him.
+
+Jack Ryan took up his abode in Simon Ford's new cottage.  They offered him
+a room, which he accepted without ceremony, in his frank and hearty way.
+Old Madge loved him for his fine character and good nature.
+She in some degree shared his ideas on the subject of the fantastic
+beings who were supposed to haunt the mine, and the two, when alone,
+told each other stories wild enough to make one shudder--stories well
+worthy of enriching the hyperborean mythology.
+
+Jack thus became the life of the cottage.  He was, besides being
+a jovial companion, a good workman.  Six months after the works
+had begun, he was made head of a gang of hewers.
+
+"That was a good work done, Mr. Ford," said he, a few days
+after his appointment.  "You discovered a new field, and though
+you narrowly escaped paying for the discovery with your life--
+well, it was not too dearly bought."
+
+"No, Jack, it was a good bargain we made that time!"
+answered the old overman.  "But neither Mr. Starr nor I have
+forgotten that to you we owe our lives."
+
+"Not at all," returned Jack.  "You owe them to your son Harry,
+when he had the good sense to accept my invitation to Irvine."
+
+"And not to go, isn't that it?" interrupted Harry, grasping his
+comrade's hand.  "No, Jack, it is to you, scarcely healed of your wounds--
+to you, who did not delay a day, no, nor an hour, that we owe our being
+found still alive in the mine!"
+
+"Rubbish, no!" broke in the obstinate fellow.
+"I won't have that said, when it's no such thing.
+I hurried to find out what had become of you, Harry, that's all.
+But to give everyone his due, I will add that without
+that unapproachable goblin--"
+
+"Ah, there we are!" cried Ford.  "A goblin!"
+
+"A goblin, a brownie, a fairy's child," repeated Jack Ryan,
+"a cousin of the Fire-Maidens, an Urisk, whatever you like!
+It's not the less certain that without it we should
+
+never have found our way into the gallery, from which you could
+not get out."
+
+"No doubt, Jack," answered Harry.  "It remains to be seen whether
+this being was as supernatural as you choose to believe."
+
+"Supernatural!" exclaimed Ryan.  "But it was as supernatural
+as a Will-o'-the-Wisp, who may be seen skipping along
+with his lantern in his hand; you may try to catch him,
+but he escapes like a fairy, and vanishes like a shadow!
+Don't be uneasy, Harry, we shall see it again some day or other!"
+
+"Well, Jack," said Simon Ford, "Will-o'-the-Wisp or not,
+we shall try to find it, and you must help us."
+
+"You'll get into a scrap if you don't take care, Mr. Ford!"
+responded Jack Ryan.
+
+"We'll see about that, Jack!"
+
+We may easily imagine how soon this domain of New Aberfoyle became
+familiar to all the members of the Ford family, but more particularly
+to Harry.  He learnt to know all its most secret ins and outs.
+He could even say what point of the surface corresponded with what point
+of the mine.  He knew that above this seam lay the Firth of Clyde,
+that there extended Loch Lomond and Loch Katrine.  Those columns supported
+a spur of the Grampian mountains.  This vault served as a basement
+to Dumbarton.  Above this large pond passed the Balloch railway.
+Here ended the Scottish coast.  There began the sea, the tumult
+of which could be distinctly heard during the equinoctial gales.
+Harry would have been a first-rate guide to these natural catacombs,
+and all that Alpine guides do on their snowy peaks in daylight he could
+have done in the dark mine by the wonderful power of instinct.
+
+He loved New Aberfoyle.  Many times, with his lamp stuck
+in his hat, did he penetrate its furthest depths.
+He explored its ponds in a skillfully-managed canoe.
+He even went shooting, for numerous birds had been introduced
+into the crypt--pintails, snipes, ducks, who fed on the fish
+which swarmed in the deep waters.  Harry's eyes seemed made
+for the dark, just as a sailor's are made for distances.
+But all this while Harry felt irresistibly animated by
+the hope of finding the mysterious being whose intervention,
+strictly speaking, had saved himself and his friends.  Would
+
+he succeed?  He certainly would, if presentiments were to be trusted;
+but certainly not, if he judged by the success which had as yet
+attended his researches.
+
+The attacks directed against the family of the old overman,
+before the discovery of New Aberfoyle, had not been renewed.
+
+
+CHAPTER XI HANGING BY A THREAD
+
+
+ALTHOUGH in this way the Ford family led a happy and contented life,
+yet it was easy to see that Harry, naturally of a grave disposition,
+became more and more quiet and reserved.  Even Jack Ryan, with all
+his good humor and usually infectious merriment, failed to rouse him
+to gayety of manner.
+
+One Sunday--it was in the month of June--the two friends were
+walking together on the shores of Loch Malcolm.  Coal Town rested
+from labor.  In the world above, stormy weather prevailed.
+Violent rains fell, and dull sultry vapors brooded over the earth;
+the atmosphere was most oppressive.
+
+Down in Coal Town there was perfect calm; no wind, no rain.
+A soft and pleasant temperature existed instead of the strife
+of the elements which raged without.  What wonder then,
+that excursionists from Stirling came in considerable numbers
+to enjoy the calm fresh air in the recesses of the mine?
+
+The electric discs shed a brilliancy of light which the British sun,
+oftener obscured by fogs than it ought to be, might well envy.
+Jack Ryan kept talking of these visitors, who passed them in noisy crowds,
+but Harry paid very little attention to what he said.
+
+"I say, do look, Harry!" cried Jack.  "See what numbers of people
+come to visit us!  Cheer up, old fellow!  Do the honors of the place
+a little better.  If you look so glum, you'll make all these outside
+folks think you envy their life above-ground."
+
+"Never mind me, Jack," answered Harry.  "You are jolly enough for two,
+I'm sure; that's enough."
+
+"I'll be hanged if I don't feel your melancholy creeping over me though!"
+exclaimed Jack.  "I declare my eyes
+
+are getting quite dull, my lips are drawn together,
+my laugh sticks in my throat; I'm forgetting all my songs.
+Come, man, what's the matter with you?"
+
+"You know well enough, Jack."
+
+"What? the old story?"
+
+"Yes, the same thoughts haunt me."
+
+"Ah, poor fellow!" said Jack, shrugging his shoulders.
+"If you would only do like me, and set all the queer things
+down to the account of the goblins of the mine, you would
+be easier in your mind."
+
+"But, Jack, you know very well that these goblins exist only in
+your imagination, and that, since the works here have been reopened,
+not a single one has been seen."
+
+"That's true, Harry; but if no spirits have been seen, neither has
+anyone else to whom you could attribute the extraordinary doings we
+want to account for."
+
+"I shall discover them."
+
+"Ah, Harry!  Harry! it's not so easy to catch the spirits
+of New Aberfoyle!"
+
+"I shall find out the spirits as you call them," said Harry,
+in a tone of firm conviction.
+
+"Do you expect to be able to punish them?"
+
+"Both punish and reward.  Remember, if one hand shut us up
+in that passage, another hand delivered us!  I shall not
+soon forget that."
+
+"But, Harry, how can we be sure that these two hands do not belong
+to the same body?"
+
+"What can put such a notion in your head, Jack?" asked Harry.
+
+"Well, I don't know.  Creatures that live in these holes, Harry, don't you
+see? they can't be made like us, eh?"
+
+"But they ARE just like us, Jack."
+
+"Oh, no! don't say that, Harry!  Perhaps some madman managed to get
+in for a time."
+
+"A madman!  No madman would have formed such connected plans,
+or done such continued mischief as befell us after the breaking
+of the ladders."
+
+"Well, but anyhow he has done no harm for the last three years,
+either to you, Harry, or any of your people."
+
+"No matter, Jack," replied Harry; "I am persuaded that this malignant
+being, whoever he is, has by no means given up his evil intentions.
+I can hardly say on what I
+
+found my convictions.  But at any rate, for the sake of the new works,
+I must and will know who he is and whence he comes."
+
+"For the sake of the new works did you say?" asked Jack,
+considerably surprised.
+
+"I said so, Jack," returned Harry.  "I may be mistaken,
+but, to me, all that has happened proves the existence
+of an interest in this mine in strong opposition to ours.
+Many a time have I considered the matter; I feel almost sure of it.
+Just consider the whole series of inexplicable circumstances,
+so singularly linked together.  To begin with, the anonymous letter,
+contradictory to that of my father, at once proves that some
+man had become aware of our projects, and wished to prevent
+their accomplishment.  Mr. Starr comes to see us at the Dochart pit.
+No sooner does he enter it with me than an immense stone is
+cast upon us, and communication is interrupted by the breaking
+of the ladders in the Yarrow shaft.  We commence exploring.
+An experiment, by which the existence of a new vein would
+be proved, is rendered impossible by stoppage of fissures.
+Notwithstanding this, the examination is carried out,
+the vein discovered.  We return as we came, a prodigious
+gust of air meets us, our lamp is broken, utter darkness
+surrounds us.  Nevertheless, we make our way along the gloomy
+passage until, on reaching the entrance, we find it blocked up.
+There we were--imprisoned.  Now, Jack, don't you see in all
+these things a malicious intention?  Ah, yes, believe me,
+some being hitherto invisible, but not supernatural, as you will
+persist in thinking, was concealed in the mine.  For some reason,
+known only to himself, he strove to keep us out of it.
+WAS there, did I say?  I feel an inward conviction that he IS
+there still, and probably prepares some terrible disaster for us.
+Even at the risk of my life, Jack, I am resolved to discover him."
+
+Harry spoke with an earnestness which strongly impressed his companion.
+"Well, Harry," said he, "if I am forced to agree with you in
+certain points, won't you admit that some kind fairy or brownie,
+by bringing bread and water to you, was the means of--"
+
+"Jack, my friend," interrupted Harry, "it is my belief that
+the friendly person, whom you will persist in calling a spirit,
+exists in the mine as certainly as the criminal we
+
+speak of, and I mean to seek them both in the most distant recesses
+of the mine."
+
+"But," inquired Jack, "have you any possible clew to guide your search?"
+
+"Perhaps I have.  Listen to me!  Five miles west of New Aberfoyle,
+under the solid rock which supports Ben Lomond, there exists a
+natural shaft which descends perpendicularly into the vein beneath.
+A week ago I went to ascertain the depth of this shaft.
+While sounding it, and bending over the opening as my plumb-line
+went down, it seemed to me that the air within was agitated,
+as though beaten by huge wings."
+
+"Some bird must have got lost among the lower galleries," replied Jack.
+
+"But that is not all, Jack.  This very morning I went back
+to the place, and, listening attentively, I thought I could
+detect a sound like a sort of groaning."
+
+"Groaning!" cried Jack, "that must be nonsense; it was a current of air--
+unless indeed some ghost--"
+
+"I shall know to-morrow what it was," said Harry.
+
+"To-morrow?" answered Jack, looking at his friend.
+
+"Yes; to-morrow I am going down into that abyss."
+
+"Harry! that will be a tempting of Providence."
+
+"No, Jack, Providence will aid me in the attempt.  Tomorrow, you
+and some of our comrades will go with me to that shaft.
+I will fasten myself to a long rope, by which you can let me down,
+and draw me up at a given signal.  I may depend upon you, Jack?"
+
+"Well, Harry," said Jack, shaking his head, "I will do as you wish me;
+but I tell you all the same, you are very wrong."
+
+"Nothing venture nothing win," said Harry, in a tone of decision.
+"To-morrow morning, then, at six o'clock. Be silent, and farewell!"
+
+It must be admitted that Jack Ryan's fears were far from groundless.
+Harry would expose himself to very great danger, supposing the enemy
+he sought for lay concealed at the bottom of the pit into which he was
+going to descend.  It did not seem likely that such was the case, however.
+
+"Why in the world," repeated Jack Ryan, "should he take all this
+trouble to account for a set of facts so very
+
+easily and simply explained by the supernatural intervention
+of the spirits of the mine?"
+
+But, notwithstanding his objections to the scheme, Jack Ryan and
+three miners of his gang arrived next morning with Harry at the mouth
+of the opening of the suspicious shaft.  Harry had not mentioned
+his intentions either to James Starr or to the old overman.
+Jack had been discreet enough to say nothing.
+
+Harry had provided himself with a rope about 200 feet long.
+It was not particularly thick, but very strong--sufficiently so to
+sustain his weight.  His friends were to let him down into the gulf,
+and his pulling the cord was to be the signal to withdraw him.
+
+The opening into this shaft or well was twelve feet wide.
+A beam was thrown across like a bridge, so that the cord
+passing over it should hang down the center of the opening,
+and save Harry from striking against the sides in his descent.
+
+He was ready.
+
+"Are you still determined to explore this abyss?" whispered Jack Ryan.
+
+"Yes, I am, Jack."
+
+The cord was fastened round Harry's thighs and under his arms,
+to keep him from rocking.  Thus supported, he was free to use
+both his hands.  A safety-lamp hung at his belt, also a large,
+strong knife in a leather sheath.
+
+Harry advanced to the middle of the beam, around which the cord
+was passed.  Then his friends began to let him down, and he slowly
+sank into the pit.  As the rope caused him to swing gently round
+and round, the light of his lamp fell in turns on all points
+of the side walls, so that he was able to examine them carefully.
+These walls consisted of pit coal, and so smooth that it would
+be impossible to ascend them.
+
+Harry calculated that he was going down at the rate of about
+a foot per second, so that he had time to look about him,
+and be ready for any event.
+
+During two minutes--that is to say, to the depth of about 120 feet,
+the descent continued without any incident.
+
+No lateral gallery opened from the side walls of the pit,
+which was gradually narrowing into the shape of a funnel.
+But Harry began to feel a fresher air rising from beneath,
+
+whence he concluded that the bottom of the pit communicated with a gallery
+of some description in the lowest part of the mine.
+
+The cord continued to unwind.  Darkness and silence were complete.
+If any living being whatever had sought refuge in the deep
+and mysterious abyss, he had either left it, or, if there,
+by no movement did he in the slightest way betray his presence.
+
+Harry, becoming more suspicious the lower he got, now drew his
+knife and held it in his right hand.  At a depth of 180 feet,
+his feet touched the lower point and the cord slackened and
+unwound no further.
+
+Harry breathed more freely for a moment.  One of the fears he entertained
+had been that, during his descent, the cord might be cut above him,
+but he had seen no projection from the walls behind which anyone could
+have been concealed.
+
+The bottom of the abyss was quite dry.  Harry, taking the lamp
+from his belt, walked round the place, and perceived he had been
+right in his conjectures.
+
+An extremely narrow passage led aside out of the pit.
+He had to stoop to look into it, and only by creeping could it
+be followed; but as he wanted to see in which direction it led,
+and whether another abyss opened from it, he lay down on the ground
+and began to enter it on hands and knees.
+
+An obstacle speedily arrested his progress.  He fancied he could
+perceive by touching it, that a human body lay across the passage.
+A sudden thrill of horror and surprise made him hastily draw back,
+but he again advanced and felt more carefully.
+
+His senses had not deceived him; a body did indeed lie there;
+and he soon ascertained that, although icy cold at
+the extremities, there was some vital heat remaining.
+In less time than it takes to tell it, Harry had drawn the body
+from the recess to the bottom of the shaft, and, seizing his lamp,
+he cast its lights on what he had found, exclaiming immediately,
+"Why, it is a child!"
+
+The child still breathed, but so very feebly that Harry expected
+it to cease every instant.  Not a moment was to be lost;
+he must carry this poor little creature out of the pit,
+and take it home to his mother as quickly as he could.  He
+
+eagerly fastened the cord round his waist, stuck on his lamp,
+clasped the child to his breast with his left arm, and, keeping his
+right hand free to hold the knife, he gave the signal agreed on,
+to have the rope pulled up.
+
+It tightened at once; he began the ascent.  Harry looked around him
+with redoubled care, for more than his own life was now in danger.
+
+For a few minutes all went well, no accident seemed to threaten him,
+when suddenly he heard the sound of a great rush of air from beneath;
+and, looking down, he could dimly perceive through the gloom a broad
+mass arising until it passed him, striking him as it went by.
+
+It was an enormous bird--of what sort he could not see; it flew
+upwards on mighty wings, then paused, hovered, and dashed fiercely
+down upon Harry, who could only wield his knife in one hand.
+He defended himself and the child as well as he could,
+but the ferocious bird seemed to aim all its blows at him alone.
+Afraid of cutting the cord, he could not strike it as he wished,
+and the struggle was prolonged, while Harry shouted with all his
+might in hopes of making his comrades hear.
+
+He soon knew they did, for they pulled the rope up faster;
+a distance of about eighty feet remained to be got over.
+The bird ceased its direct attack, but increased the horror
+and danger of his situation by rushing at the cord, clinging to it
+just out of his reach, and endeavoring, by pecking furiously,
+to cut it.
+
+Harry felt overcome with terrible dread.  One strand of the rope gave way,
+and it made them sink a little.
+
+A shriek of despair escaped his lips.
+
+A second strand was divided, and the double burden now hung suspended
+by only half the cord.
+
+Harry dropped his knife, and by a superhuman effort succeeded,
+at the moment the rope was giving way, in catching hold of it
+with his right hand above the cut made by the beak of the bird.
+But, powerfully as he held it in his iron grasp, he could feel
+it gradually slipping through his fingers.
+
+He might have caught it, and held on with both hands by
+sacrificing the life of the child he supported in his left arm.
+The idea crossed him, but was banished in an instant,
+although he believed himself quite unable to hold out until
+
+drawn to the surface.  For a second he closed his eyes,
+believing they were about to plunge back into the abyss.
+
+He looked up once more; the huge bird had disappeared; his hand
+was at the very extremity of the broken rope--when, just as
+his convulsive grasp was failing, he was seized by the men,
+and with the child was placed on the level ground.
+
+The fearful strain of anxiety removed, a reaction took place,
+and Harry fell fainting into the arms of his friends.
+
+
+CHAPTER XII NELL ADOPTED
+
+
+A COUPLE of hours later, Harry still unconscious, and the child
+in a very feeble state, were brought to the cottage by Jack Ryan
+and his companions.  The old overman listened to the account
+of their adventures, while Madge attended with the utmost care
+to the wants of her son, and of the poor creature whom he had
+rescued from the pit.
+
+Harry imagined her a mere child, but she was a maiden of the age
+of fifteen or sixteen years.
+
+She gazed at them with vague and wondering eyes; and the thin face,
+drawn by suffering, the pallid complexion, which light
+could never have tinged, and the fragile, slender figure,
+gave her an appearance at once singular and attractive.
+Jack Ryan declared that she seemed to him to be an uncommonly
+interesting kind of ghost.
+
+It must have been due to the strange and peculiar
+circumstances under which her life hitherto had been led,
+that she scarcely seemed to belong to the human race.
+Her countenance was of a very uncommon cast, and her eyes,
+hardly able to bear the lamp-light in the cottage, glanced around
+in a confused and puzzled way, as if all were new to them.
+
+As this singular being reclined on Madge's bed and awoke to consciousness,
+as from a long sleep, the old Scotchwoman began to question her a little.
+
+"What do they call you, my dear?" said she.
+
+"Nell," replied the girl.
+
+"Do you feel anything the matter with you, Nell?"
+
+"I am hungry.  I have eaten nothing since--since--"
+
+
+Nell uttered these few words like one unused to speak much.  They were
+in the Gaelic language, which was often spoken by Simon and his family.
+Madge immediately brought her some food; she was evidently famished.
+It was impossible to say how long she might have been in that pit.
+
+"How many days had you been down there, dearie?" inquired Madge.
+
+Nell made no answer; she seemed not to understand the question.
+
+"How many days, do you think?"
+
+"Days?" repeated Nell, as though the word had no meaning for her,
+and she shook her head to signify entire want of comprehension.
+
+Madge took her hand, and stroked it caressingly.  "How old are you,
+my lassie?" she asked, smiling kindly at her.
+
+Nell shook her head again.
+
+"Yes, yes," continued Madge, "how many years old?"
+
+"Years?" replied Nell.  She seemed to understand that word
+no better than days!  Simon, Harry, Jack, and the rest,
+looked on with an air of mingled compassion, wonder, and sympathy.
+The state of this poor thing, clothed in a miserable garment
+of coarse woolen stuff, seemed to impress them painfully.
+
+Harry, more than all the rest, seemed attracted by the very peculiarity
+of this poor stranger.  He drew near, took Nell's hand from his mother,
+and looked directly at her, while something like a smile curved her lip.
+"Nell," he said, "Nell, away down there--in the mine--were you all alone?"
+
+"Alone! alone!" cried the girl, raising herself hastily.
+Her features expressed terror; her eyes, which had appeared
+to soften as Harry looked at her, became quite wild again.
+"Alone!" repeated she, "alone!"--and she fell back on the bed,
+as though deprived of all strength.
+
+"The poor bairn is too weak to speak to us," said Madge,
+when she had adjusted the pillows.  "After a good rest,
+and a little more food, she will be stronger.  Come away,
+Simon and Harry, and all the rest of you, and let her go to sleep."
+So Nell was left alone, and in a very few minutes slept profoundly.
+
+This event caused a great sensation, not only in the coal
+
+mines, but in Stirlingshire, and ultimately throughout the kingdom.
+The strangeness of the story was exaggerated; the affair could not have
+made more commotion had they found the girl enclosed in the solid rock,
+like one of those antediluvian creatures who have occasionally
+been released by a stroke of the pickax from their stony prison.
+Nell became a fashionable wonder without knowing it.
+Superstitious folks made her story a new subject for legendary marvels,
+and were inclined to think, as Jack Ryan told Harry, that Nell
+was the spirit of the mines.
+
+"Be it so, Jack," said the young man; "but at any rate she
+is the good spirit.  It can have been none but she who
+brought us bread and water when we were shut up down there;
+and as to the bad spirit, who must still be in the mine,
+we'll catch him some day."
+
+Of course James Starr had been at once informed of all this, and came,
+as soon as the young girl had sufficiently recovered her strength,
+to see her, and endeavor to question her carefully.
+
+She appeared ignorant of nearly everything relating to life, and,
+although evidently intelligent, was wanting in many elementary ideas,
+such as time, for instance.  She had never been used to its division,
+and the words signifying hours, days, months, and years were
+unknown to her.
+
+Her eyes, accustomed to the night, were pained by the glare of
+the electric discs; but in the dark her sight was wonderfully keen,
+the pupil dilated in a remarkable manner, and she could
+see where to others there appeared profound obscurity.
+It was certain that her brain had never received any impression
+of the outer world, that her eyes had never looked beyond the mine,
+and that these somber depths had been all the world to her.
+
+The poor girl probably knew not that there were a sun and stars,
+towns and counties, a mighty universe composed of myriads of worlds.
+But until she comprehended the significance of words at present
+conveying no precise meaning to her, it was impossible to ascertain
+what she knew.
+
+As to whether or not Nell had lived alone in the recesses
+of New Aberfoyle, James Starr was obliged to remain uncertain;
+indeed, any allusion to the subject excited evident alarm in
+the mind of this strange girl.  Either Nell could not or would
+not reply to questions, but that some secret
+
+existed in connection with the place, which she could
+have explained, was manifest.
+
+"Should you like to stay with us?  Should you like to go back
+to where we found you?" asked James Starr.
+
+"Oh, yes!" exclaimed the maiden, in answer to his first question;
+but a cry of terror was all she seemed able to say to the second.
+
+James Starr, as well as Simon and Harry Ford, could not help feeling
+a certain amount of uneasiness with regard to this persistent silence.
+They found it impossible to forget all that had appeared so inexplicable
+at the time they made the discovery of the coal mine; and although
+that was three years ago, and nothing new had happened, they always
+expected some fresh attack on the part of the invisible enemy.
+
+They resolved to explore the mysterious well, and did so, well armed
+and in considerable numbers.  But nothing suspicious was to be seen;
+the shaft communicated with lower stages of the crypt, hollowed out
+in the carboniferous bed.
+
+Many a time did James Starr, Simon, and Harry talk over these things.
+If one or more malevolent beings were concealed in the coal-pit,
+and there concocted mischief, Nell surely could have warned
+them of it, yet she said nothing.  The slightest allusion
+to her past life brought on such fits of violent emotion,
+that it was judged best to avoid the subject for the present.
+Her secret would certainly escape her by-and-by.
+
+By the time Nell had been a fortnight in the cottage, she had become
+a most intelligent and zealous assistant to old Madge.  It was clear
+that she instinctively felt she should remain in the dwelling where she
+had been so charitably received, and perhaps never dreamt of quitting it.
+This family was all in all to her, and to the good folks themselves
+Nell had seemed an adopted child from the moment when she first came
+beneath their roof.  Nell was in truth a charming creature; her new mode
+of existence added to her beauty, for these were no doubt the first
+happy days of her life, and her heart was full of gratitude towards
+those to whom she owed them.  Madge felt towards her as a mother would;
+the old woman doted upon her; in short, she was beloved by everybody.
+Jack Ryan only regretted one thing, which was that he had not saved
+her himself.  Friend
+
+Jack often came to the cottage.  He sang, and Nell, who had never
+heard singing before, admired it greatly; but anyone might see
+that she preferred to Jack's songs the graver conversation of Harry,
+from whom by degrees she learnt truths concerning the outer world,
+of which hitherto she had known nothing.
+
+It must be said that, since Nell had appeared in her own person,
+Jack Ryan had been obliged to admit that his belief in hobgoblins
+was in a measure weakened.  A couple of months later his credulity
+experienced a further shock.  About that time Harry unexpectedly made
+a discovery which, in part at least, accounted for the apparition
+of the fire-maidens among the ruins of Dundonald Castle at Irvine.
+
+During several days he had been engaged in exploring the remote galleries
+of the prodigious excavation towards the south.  At last he scrambled with
+difficulty up a narrow passage which branched off through the upper rock.
+To his great astonishment, he suddenly found himself in the open air.
+The passage, after ascending obliquely to the surface of the ground,
+led out directly among the ruins of Dundonald Castle.
+
+There was, therefore, a communication between New Aberfoyle and the hills
+crowned by this ancient castle.  The upper entrance to this gallery,
+being completely concealed by stones and brushwood, was invisible
+from without; at the time of their search, therefore, the magistrates
+had been able to discover nothing.
+
+A few days afterwards, James Starr, guided by Harry, came himself to
+inspect this curious natural opening into the coal mine.  "Well," said he,
+"here is enough to convince the most superstitious among us.
+Farewell to all their brownies, goblins, and fire-maidens now!"
+
+"I hardly think, Mr. Starr, we ought to congratulate ourselves,"
+replied Harry.  "Whatever it is we have instead of these things,
+it can't be better, and may be worse than they are."
+
+"That's true, Harry," said the engineer; "but what's to be done?
+It is plain that, whatever the beings are who hide in the mine,
+they reach the surface of the earth by this passage.
+No doubt it was the light of torches waved by them during
+that dark and stormy night which attracted the MOTALA towards
+the rocky coast, and like the wreckers
+
+of former days, they would have plundered the unfortunate vessel, had it
+not been for Jack Ryan and his friends.  Anyhow, so far it is evident,
+and here is the mouth of the den.  As to its occupants, the question is--
+Are they here still?"
+
+"I say yes; because Nell trembles when we mention them--
+yes, because Nell will not, or dare not, speak about them,"
+answered Harry in a tone of decision.
+
+Harry was surely in the right.  Had these mysterious denizens
+of the pit abandoned it, or ceased to visit the spot, what reason
+could the girl have had for keeping silence?
+
+James Starr could not rest till he had penetrated this mystery.
+He foresaw that the whole future of the new excavations must depend
+upon it.  Renewed and strict precautions were therefore taken.
+The authorities were informed of the discovery of the entrance.
+Watchers were placed among the ruins of the castle.
+Harry himself lay hid for several nights in the thickets
+of brushwood which clothed the hill-side.
+
+Nothing was discovered--no human being emerged from the opening.
+So most people came to the conclusion that the villains had
+been finally dislodged from the mine, and that, as to Nell,
+they must suppose her to be dead at the bottom of the shaft
+where they had left her.
+
+While it remained unworked, the mine had been a safe enough
+place of refuge, secure from all search or pursuit.  But now,
+circumstances being altered, it became difficult to conceal this
+lurking-place, and it might reasonably be hoped they were gone,
+and that nothing for the future was to be dreaded from them.
+
+James Starr, however, could not feel sure about it;
+neither could Harry be satisfied on the subject, often repeating,
+"Nell has clearly been mixed up with all this secret business.
+If she had nothing more to fear, why should she keep silence?
+It cannot be doubted that she is happy with us.  She likes us all--
+she adores my mother.  Her absolute silence as to her former life,
+when by speaking out she might benefit us, proves to me that some
+awful secret, which she dares not reveal, weighs on her mind.
+It may also be that she believes it better for us, as well as for herself,
+that she should remain mute in a way otherwise so unaccountable."
+
+
+In consequence of these opinions, it was agreed by common consent
+to avoid all allusion to the maiden's former mode of life.
+One day, however, Harry was led to make known to Nell what
+James Starr, his father, mother, and himself believed they owed
+to her interference.
+
+It was a fete-day. The miners made holiday on the surface of
+the county of Stirling as well as in its subterraneous domains.
+Parties of holiday-makers were moving about in all directions.
+Songs resounded in many places beneath the sonorous vaults
+of New Aberfoyle.  Harry and Nell left the cottage, and slowly
+walked along the left bank of Loch Malcolm.
+
+Then the electric brilliance darted less vividly, and the rays were
+interrupted with fantastic effect by the sharp angles of the picturesque
+rocks which supported the dome.  This imperfect light suited Nell,
+to whose eyes a glare was very unpleasant.
+
+"Nell," said Harry, "your eyes are not fit for daylight yet,
+and could not bear the brightness of the sun."
+
+"Indeed they could not," replied the girl; "if the sun is such as you
+describe it to me, Harry."
+
+"I cannot by any words, Nell, give you an idea either of his splendor
+or of the beauty of that universe which your eyes have never beheld.
+But tell me, is it really possible that, since the day when you
+were born in the depths of the coal mine, you never once have been
+up to the surface of the earth?"
+
+"Never once, Harry," said she; "I do not believe that,
+even as an infant, my father or mother ever carried me thither.
+I am sure I should have retained some impression of the open
+air if they had."
+
+"I believe you would," answered Harry.  "Long ago, Nell, many children
+used to live altogether in the mine; communication was then difficult,
+and I have met with more than one young person, quite as ignorant as you
+are of things above-ground. But now the railway through our great
+tunnel takes us in a few minutes to the upper regions of our country.
+I long, Nell, to hear you say, 'Come, Harry, my eyes can bear daylight,
+and I want to see the sun!  I want to look upon the works
+of the Almighty.'"
+
+"I shall soon say so, Harry, I hope," replied the girl;
+"I shall soon go with you to the world above; and yet--"
+
+
+"What are you going to say, Nell?" hastily cried Harry; "can you
+possibly regret having quitted that gloomy abyss in which you
+spent your early years, and whence we drew you half dead?"
+
+"No, Harry," answered Nell; "I was only thinking that darkness is
+beautiful as well as light.  If you but knew what eyes accustomed
+to its depth can see!  Shades flit by, which one longs to follow;
+circles mingle and intertwine, and one could gaze on them forever;
+black hollows, full of indefinite gleams of radiance, lie deep
+at the bottom of the mine.  And then the voice-like sounds!
+Ah, Harry! one must have lived down there to understand what I feel,
+what I can never express."
+
+"And were you not afraid, Nell, all alone there?"
+
+"It was just when I was alone that I was not afraid."
+
+Nell's voice altered slightly as she said these words; however, Harry
+thought he might press the subject a little further, so he said,
+"But one might be easily lost in these great galleries, Nell.  Were you
+not afraid of losing your way?"
+
+"Oh, no, Harry; for a long time I had known every turn of the new mine."
+
+"Did you never leave it?"
+
+"Yes, now and then," answered the girl with a little hesitation;
+"sometimes I have been as far as the old mine of Aberfoyle."
+
+"So you knew our old cottage?"
+
+"The cottage! oh, yes; but the people who lived there I only saw
+at a great distance."
+
+"They were my father and mother," said Harry; "and I was there too;
+we have always lived there--we never would give up the old dwelling."
+
+"Perhaps it would have been better for you if you had,"
+murmured the maiden.
+
+"Why so, Nell?  Was it not just because we were obstinately resolved
+to remain that we ended by discovering the new vein of coal?
+And did not that discovery lead to the happy result of providing
+work for a large population, and restoring them to ease and comfort?
+and did it not enable us to find you, Nell, to save your life,
+and give you the love of all our hearts?"
+
+"Ah, yes, for me indeed it is well, whatever may happen,"
+replied Nell earnestly; "for others--who can tell?"
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"Oh, nothing--nothing.  But it used to be very dangerous at that time
+to go into the new cutting--yes, very dangerous indeed, Harry!  Once some
+rash people made their way into these chasms.  They got a long, long way;
+they were lost!"
+
+"They were lost?" said Harry, looking at her.
+
+"Yes, lost!" repeated Nell in a trembling voice.
+"They could not find their way out."
+
+"And there," cried Harry, "they were imprisoned during eight long days!
+They were at the point of death, Nell; and, but for a kind
+and charitable being--an angel perhaps--sent by God to help them,
+who secretly brought them a little food; but for a mysterious guide,
+who afterwards led to them their deliverers, they never would
+have escaped from that living tomb!"
+
+"And how do you know about that?" demanded the girl.
+
+"Because those men were James Starr, my father, and myself, Nell!"
+
+Nell looked up hastily, seized the young man's hand, and gazed so
+fixedly into his eyes that his feelings were stirred to their depths.
+"You were there?" at last she uttered.
+
+"I was indeed," said Harry, after a pause, "and she to whom we
+owe our lives can have been none other than yourself, Nell!"
+
+Nell hid her face in her hands without speaking.
+Harry had never seen her so much affected.
+
+"Those who saved your life, Nell," added he in a voice tremulous
+with emotion, "already owed theirs to you; do you think they
+will ever forget it?"
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII ON THE REVOLVING LADDER
+
+
+THE mining operations at New Aberfoyle continued to be carried on
+very successfully.  As a matter of course, the engineer, James Starr,
+as well as Simon Ford, the discoverers of this rich carboniferous region,
+shared largely in the profits.
+
+In time Harry became a partner.  But he never thought
+
+of quitting the cottage.  He took his father's place as overman,
+and diligently superintended the works of this colony of miners.
+Jack Ryan was proud and delighted at the good fortune which had
+befallen his comrade.  He himself was getting on very well also.
+
+They frequently met, either at the cottage or at the works in the pit.
+Jack did not fail to remark the sentiments entertained by Harry
+towards Nell.  Harry would not confess to them; but Jack only
+laughed at him when he shook his head and tried to deny any special
+interest in her.
+
+It must be noted that Jack Ryan had the greatest possible wish to be
+of the party when Nell should pay her first visit to the upper surface
+of the county of Stirling.  He wished to see her wonder and admiration
+on first beholding the yet unknown face of Nature.  He very much hoped
+that Harry would take him with them when the excursion was made.
+As yet, however, the latter had made no proposal of the kind to him,
+which caused him to feel a little uneasy as to his intentions.
+
+One morning Jack Ryan was descending through a shaft which led from
+the surface to the lower regions of the pit.  He did so by means
+of one of those ladders which, continually revolving by machinery,
+enabled persons to ascend and descend without fatigue.
+This apparatus had lowered him about a hundred and fifty feet,
+when at a narrow landing-place he perceived Harry, who was coming
+up to his labors for the day.
+
+"Well met, my friend!" cried Jack, recognizing his comrade by the light
+of the electric lamps.
+
+"Ah, Jack!" replied Harry, "I am glad to see you.
+I've got something to propose."
+
+"I can listen to nothing till you tell me how Nell is,"
+interrupted Jack Ryan.
+
+"Nell is all right, Jack--so much so, in fact, that I hope in a month
+or six weeks--"
+
+"To marry her, Harry?"
+
+"Jack, you don't know what you are talking about!"
+
+"Ah, that's very likely; but I know quite well what I shall do."
+
+"What will you do?"
+
+"Marry her myself, if you don't; so look sharp,"
+laughed Jack.  "By Saint Mungo!  I think an immense deal of
+
+bonny Nell!  A fine young creature like that, who has been
+brought up in the mine, is just the very wife for a miner.
+She is an orphan--so am I; and if you don't care much for her,
+and if she will have me--"
+
+Harry looked gravely at Jack, and let him talk on without trying
+to stop him.  "Don't you begin to feel jealous, Harry?" asked Jack
+in a more serious tone.
+
+"Not at all," answered Harry quietly.
+
+"But if you don't marry Nell yourself, you surely can't expect
+her to remain a spinster?"
+
+"I expect nothing," said Harry.
+
+A movement of the ladder machinery now gave the two friends
+the opportunity--one to go up, the other down the shaft.
+However, they remained where they were.
+
+"Harry," quoth Jack, "do you think I spoke in earnest just
+now about Nell?"
+
+"No, that I don't, Jack."
+
+"Well, but now I will!"
+
+"You? speak in earnest?"
+
+"My good fellow, I can tell you I am quite capable of giving a friend
+a bit of advice."
+
+"Let's hear, then, Jack!"
+
+"Well, look here!  You love Nell as heartily as she deserves.
+Old Simon, your father, and old Madge, your mother, both love her
+as if she were their daughter.  Why don't you make her so in reality?
+Why don't you marry her?"
+
+"Come, Jack," said Harry, "you are running on as if you knew how Nell
+felt on the subject."
+
+"Everybody knows that," replied Jack, "and therefore it is
+impossible to make you jealous of any of us.  But here goes
+the ladder again--I'm off!"
+
+"Stop a minute, Jack!" cried Harry, detaining his companion,
+who was stepping onto the moving staircase.
+
+"I say! you seem to mean me to take up my quarters here altogether!"
+
+"Do be serious and listen, Jack!  I want to speak in earnest myself now."
+
+"Well, I'll listen till the ladder moves again, not a minute longer."
+
+"Jack," resumed Harry, "I need not pretend that I do not love Nell; I wish
+above all things to make her my wife."
+
+
+"That's all right!"
+
+"But for the present I have scruples of conscience as to asking
+her to make me a promise which would be irrevocable."
+
+"What can you mean, Harry?"
+
+"I mean just this--that, it being certain Nell has never
+been outside this coal mine in the very depths of which she
+was born, it stands to reason that she knows nothing,
+and can comprehend nothing of what exists beyond it.
+Her eyes--yes, and perhaps also her heart--have everything
+yet to learn.  Who can tell what her thoughts will be,
+when perfectly new impressions shall be made upon her mind?
+As yet she knows nothing of the world, and to me it would
+seem like deceiving her, if I led her to decide in ignorance,
+upon choosing to remain all her life in the coal mine.
+Do you understand me, Jack?"
+
+"Hem!--yes--pretty well.  What I understand best is that you
+are going to make me miss another turn of the ladder."
+
+"Jack," replied Harry gravely, "if this machinery were to stop altogether,
+if this landing-place were to fall beneath our feet, you must and shall
+hear what I have to say."
+
+"Well done, Harry! that's how I like to be spoken to!
+Let's settle, then, that, before you marry Nell, she shall go
+to school in Auld Reekie."
+
+"No indeed, Jack; I am perfectly able myself to educate the person
+who is to be my wife."
+
+"Sure that will be a great deal better, Harry!"
+
+"But, first of all," resumed Harry, "I wish that Nell should
+gain a real knowledge of the upper world.  To illustrate
+my meaning, Jack, suppose you were in love with a blind girl,
+and someone said to you, 'In a month's time her sight will
+be restored,' would you not wait till after she was cured,
+to marry her?"
+
+"Faith, to be sure I would!" exclaimed Jack.
+
+"Well, Jack, Nell is at present blind; and before she marries me,
+I wish her to see what I am, and what the life really is to which
+she would bind herself.  In short, she must have daylight let
+in upon the subject!"
+
+"Well said, Harry!  Very well said indeed!" cried Jack.  "Now I
+see what you are driving at.  And when may we expect the operation
+to come off?"
+
+
+"In a month, Jack," replied Harry.  "Nell is getting used
+to the light of our reflectors.  That is some preparation.
+In a month she will, I hope, have seen the earth and its wonders--
+the sky and its splendors.  She will perceive that the limits
+of the universe are boundless."
+
+But while Harry was thus giving the rein to his imagination, Jack Ryan,
+quitting the platform, had leaped on the step of the moving machinery.
+
+"Hullo, Jack!  Where are you?"
+
+"Far beneath you," laughed the merry fellow.  "While you soar
+to the heights, I plunge into the depths."
+
+"Fare ye well.  Jack!" returned Harry, himself laying hold
+of the rising ladder; "mind you say nothing about what I have
+been telling you."
+
+"Not a word," shouted Jack, "but I make one condition."
+
+"What is that?"
+
+"That I may be one of the party when Nell's first excursion
+to the face of the earth comes off!"
+
+"So you shall, Jack, I promise you!"
+
+A fresh throb of the machinery placed a yet more considerable distance
+between the friends.  Their voices sounded faintly to each other.
+Harry, however, could still hear Jack shouting:
+
+"I say! do you know what Nell will like better than either sun,
+moon, or stars, after she's seen the whole of them?"
+
+"No, Jack!"
+
+"Why, you yourself, old fellow! still you! always you!"
+And Jack's voice died away in a prolonged "Hurrah!"
+
+Harry, after this, applied himself diligently, during all
+his spare time, to the work of Nell's education.
+He taught her to read and to write, and such rapid progress did
+she make, it might have been said that she learnt by instinct.
+Never did keen intelligence more quickly triumph over utter ignorance.
+It was the wonder of all beholders.
+
+Simon and Madge became every day more and more attached to
+their adopted child, whose former history continued to puzzle
+them a good deal.  They plainly saw the nature of Harry's
+feelings towards her, and were far from displeased thereat.
+They recollected that Simon had said to the engineer on his first
+visit to the old cottage, "How can our son ever think of marrying?
+Where could a wife
+
+possibly be found suitable for a lad whose whole life must be passed
+in the depths of a coal mine?"
+
+Well! now it seemed as if the most desirable companion in the world
+had been led to him by Providence.  Was not this like a blessing direct
+from Heaven?  So the old man made up his mind that, if the wedding did
+take place, the miners of New Aberfoyle should have a merry-making
+at Coal Town, which they would never during their lives forget.
+Simon Ford little knew what he was saying!
+
+It must be remarked that another person wished for this union of Harry
+and Nell as much as Simon did--and that was James Starr, the engineer.
+Of course he was really interested in the happiness of the two
+young people.  But another motive, connected with wider interests,
+influenced him to desire it.
+
+It has been said that James Starr continued to entertain a certain amount
+of apprehension, although for the present nothing appeared to justify it.
+Yet that which had been might again be.  This mystery about the
+new cutting--Nell was evidently the only person acquainted with it.
+Now, if fresh dangers were in store for the miners of Aberfoyle,
+how were they possibly to be guarded against, without so much as knowing
+the cause of them?
+
+"Nell has persisted in keeping silence," said James Starr very often,
+"but what she has concealed from others, she will not long hide from
+her husband.  Any danger would be danger to Harry as well as to the rest
+of us.  Therefore, a marriage which brings happiness to the lovers,
+and safety to their friends, will be a good marriage, if ever there
+is such a thing here below."
+
+Thus, not illogically, reasoned James Starr.  He communicated
+his ideas to old Simon, who decidedly appreciated them.
+Nothing, then, appeared to stand in the way of the match.
+What, in fact, was there to prevent it?  They loved each other;
+the parents desired nothing better for their son.
+Harry's comrades envied his good fortune, but freely acknowledged
+that he deserved it.  The maiden depended on no one else,
+and had but to give the consent of her own heart.
+
+Why, then, if there were none to place obstacles in the way
+of this union--why, as night came on, and, the labors of the day
+being over, the electric lights in the mine were
+
+extinguished, and all the inhabitants of Coal Town at rest
+within their dwellings--why did a mysterious form always emerge
+from the gloomier recesses of New Aberfoyle, and silently glide
+through the darkness?
+
+What instinct guided this phantom with ease through passages
+so narrow as to appear to be impracticable?
+
+Why should the strange being, with eyes flashing through
+the deepest darkness, come cautiously creeping along the shores
+of Lake Malcolm?  Why so directly make his way towards
+Simon's cottage, yet so carefully as hitherto to avoid notice?
+Why, bending towards the windows, did he strive to catch,
+by listening, some fragment of the conversation within
+the closed shutters?
+
+And, on catching a few words, why did he shake his fist with a menacing
+gesture towards the calm abode, while from between his set teeth issued
+these words in muttered fury, "She and he?  Never! never!"
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV A SUNRISE
+
+
+A MONTH after this, on the evening of the 20th of August, Simon Ford
+and Madge took leave, with all manner of good wishes, of four tourists,
+who were setting forth from the cottage.
+
+James Starr, Harry, and Jack Ryan were about to lead Nell's
+steps over yet untrodden paths, and to show her the glories
+of nature by a light to which she was as yet a stranger.
+The excursion was to last for two days.  James Starr, as well as Harry,
+considered that during these eight and forty hours spent above ground,
+the maiden would be able to see everything of which she must
+have remained ignorant in the gloomy pit; all the varied aspects
+of the globe, towns, plains, mountains, rivers, lakes, gulfs,
+and seas would pass, panorama-like, before her eyes.
+
+In that part of Scotland lying between Edinburgh and Glasgow,
+nature would seem to have collected and set forth specimens
+of every one of these terrestrial beauties.  As to the heavens,
+they would be spread abroad as over the whole earth, with their
+changeful clouds, serene or veiled moon, their radiant sun,
+and clustering stars.  The expedition had been planned so as to
+combine a view of all these things.
+
+Simon and Madge would have been glad to go with Nell;
+but they never left their cottage willingly, and could not make
+up their minds to quit their subterranean home for a single day.
+
+James Starr went as an observer and philosopher, curious to note,
+from a psychological point of view, the novel impressions made upon Nell;
+perhaps also with some hope of detecting a clue to the mysterious
+events connected with her childhood.  Harry, with a little trepidation,
+asked himself whether it was not possible that this rapid initiation
+into the things of the exterior world would change the maiden he had
+known and loved hitherto into quite a different girl.  As for Jack Ryan,
+he was as joyous as a lark rising in the first beams of the sun.
+He only trusted that his gayety would prove contagious, and enliven his
+traveling companions, thus rewarding them for letting him join them.
+Nell was pensive and silent.
+
+James Starr had decided, very sensibly, to set off in the evening.
+It would be very much better for the girl to pass gradually from
+the darkness of night to the full light of day; and that would
+in this way be managed, since between midnight and noon she
+would experience the successive phases of shade and sunshine,
+to which her sight had to get accustomed.
+
+Just as they left the cottage, Nell took Harry's hand saying,
+"Harry, is it really necessary for me to leave the mine at all,
+even for these few days?"
+
+"Yes, it is, Nell," replied the young man.  "It is needful
+for both of us."
+
+"But, Harry," resumed Nell, "ever since you found me, I have been
+as happy as I can possibly be.  You have been teaching me.
+Why is that not enough?  What am I going up there for?"
+
+Harry looked at her in silence.  Nell was giving utterance to nearly
+his own thoughts.
+
+"My child," said James Starr, "I can well understand the
+hesitation you feel; but it will be good for you to go with us.
+Those who love you are taking you, and they will bring you back again.
+Afterwards you will be free, if you wish it, to continue your life
+in the coal mine, like old
+
+Simon, and Madge, and Harry.  But at least you ought to be able to compare
+what you give up with what you choose, then decide freely.  Come!"
+
+"Come, dear Nell!" cried Harry.
+
+"Harry, I am willing to follow you," replied the maiden.
+At nine o'clock the last train through the tunnel started
+to convey Nell and her companions to the surface of the earth.
+Twenty minutes later they alighted on the platform where the branch
+line to New Aberfoyle joins the railway from Dumbarton to Stirling.
+
+The night was already dark.  From the horizon to the zenith,
+light vapory clouds hurried through the upper air, driven by
+a refreshing northwesterly breeze.  The day had been lovely;
+the night promised to be so likewise.
+
+On reaching Stirling, Nell and her friends, quitting the train,
+left the station immediately.  Just before them, between high trees,
+they could see a road which led to the banks of the river Forth.
+
+The first physical impression on the girl was the purity of the air
+inhaled eagerly by her lungs.
+
+"Breathe it freely, Nell," said James Starr; "it is fragrant
+with all the scents of the open country."
+
+"What is all that smoke passing over our heads?" inquired Nell.
+
+"Those are clouds," answered Harry, "blown along by the westerly wind."
+
+"Ah!" said Nell, "how I should like to feel myself carried
+along in that silent whirl!  And what are those shining sparks
+which glance here and there between rents in the clouds?"
+
+"Those are the stars I have told you about, Nell.  So many suns they are,
+so many centers of worlds like our own, most likely."
+
+The constellations became more clearly visible as the wind
+cleared the clouds from the deep blue of the firmament.
+Nell gazed upon the myriad stars which sparkled overhead.
+"But how is it," she said at length, "that if these are suns,
+my eyes can endure their brightness?"
+
+"My child," replied James Starr, "they are indeed suns, but suns
+at an enormous distance.  The nearest of these millions of stars,
+whose rays can reach us, is Vega, that star in Lyra which you
+observe near the zenith, and that is
+
+fifty thousand millions of leagues distant.
+Its brightness, therefore, cannot affect your vision.
+But our own sun, which will rise to-morrow, is only distant
+thirty-eight millions of leagues, and no human eye can gaze fixedly
+upon that, for it is brighter than the blaze of any furnace.
+But come, Nell, come!"
+
+They pursued their way, James Starr leading the maiden, Harry walking
+by her side, while Jack Ryan roamed about like a young dog,
+impatient of the slow pace of his masters.  The road was lonely.
+Nell kept looking at the great trees, whose branches, waving in
+the wind, made them seem to her like giants gesticulating wildly.
+The sound of the breeze in the tree-tops, the deep silence during
+a lull, the distant line of the horizon, which could be discerned
+when the road passed over open levels--all these things filled
+her with new sensations, and left lasting impressions on her mind.
+
+After some time she ceased to ask questions, and her companions
+respected her silence, not wishing to influence by any words
+of theirs the girl's highly sensitive imagination, but preferring
+to allow ideas to arise spontaneously in her soul.
+
+At about half past eleven o'clock, they gained the banks of the
+river Forth.  There a boat, chartered by James Starr, awaited them.
+In a few hours it would convey them all to Granton.  Nell looked
+at the clear water which flowed up to her feet, as the waves
+broke gently on the beach, reflecting the starlight.
+"Is this a lake?" said she.
+
+"No," replied Harry, "it is a great river flowing towards
+the sea, and soon opening so widely as to resemble a gulf.
+Taste a little of the water in the hollow of your hand, Nell,
+and you will perceive that it is not sweet like the waters
+of Lake Malcolm."
+
+The maiden bent towards the stream, and, raising a little water
+to her lips, "This is quite salt," said she.
+
+"Yes, the tide is full; the sea water flows up the river as far
+as this," answered Harry.
+
+"Oh, Harry!  Harry!" exclaimed the maiden, "what can that red
+glow on the horizon be?  Is it a forest on fire?"
+
+"No, it is the rising moon, Nell."
+
+"To be sure, that's the moon," cried Jack Ryan, "a fine
+
+big silver plate, which the spirits of air hand round and round
+the sky to collect the stars in, like money."
+
+"Why, Jack," said the engineer, laughing, "I had no idea you
+could strike out such bold comparisons!"
+
+"Well, but, Mr. Starr, it is a just comparison.  Don't you see
+the stars disappear as the moon passes on? so I suppose they
+drop into it."
+
+"What you mean to say, Jack, is that the superior brilliancy
+of the moon eclipses that of stars of the sixth magnitude,
+therefore they vanish as she approaches."
+
+"How beautiful all this is!" repeated Nell again and again,
+with her whole soul in her eyes.  "But I thought the moon was round?"
+
+"So she is, when 'full,'" said James Starr; "that means when she is just
+opposite to the sun.  But to-night the moon is in the last quarter,
+shorn of her just proportions, and friend Jack's grand silver plate
+looks more like a barber's basin."
+
+"Oh, Mr. Starr, what a base comparison!" he exclaimed, "I was just going
+to begin a sonnet to the moon, but your barber's basin has destroyed
+all chance of an inspiration."
+
+Gradually the moon ascended the heavens.  Before her light
+the lingering clouds fled away, while stars still sparkled
+in the west, beyond the influence of her radiance.
+Nell gazed in silence on the glorious spectacle.
+The soft silvery light was pleasant to her eyes, and her little
+trembling hand expressed to Harry, who clasped it, how deeply
+she was affected by the scene.
+
+"Let us embark now," said James Starr.  "We have to get to the top
+of Arthur's Seat before sunrise."
+
+The boat was moored to a post on the bank.  A boatman awaited them.
+Nell and her friends took their seats; the sail was spread;
+it quickly filled before the northwesterly breeze, and they sped
+on their way.
+
+What a new sensation was this for the maiden!  She had been rowed on
+the waters of Lake Malcolm; but the oar, handled ever so lightly by Harry,
+always betrayed effort on the part of the oarsman.  Now, for the
+first time, Nell felt herself borne along with a gliding movement,
+like that of a balloon through the air.  The water was smooth as a lake,
+and Nell reclined in the stern of the boat, enjoying its gentle rocking.
+Occasionally the effect of the
+
+moonlight on the waters was as though the boat sailed across
+a glittering silver field.  Little wavelets rippled along the banks.
+It was enchanting.
+
+At length Nell was overcome with drowsiness, her eyelids drooped,
+her head sank on Harry's shoulder--she slept.  Harry, sorry that
+she should miss any of the beauties of this magnificent night,
+would have aroused her.
+
+"Let her sleep!" said the engineer.  "She will better enjoy
+the novelties of the day after a couple of hours' rest."
+
+At two o'clock in the morning the boat reached Granton pier.
+Nell awoke.  "Have I been asleep?" inquired she.
+
+"No, my child," said James Starr.  "You have been dreaming
+that you slept, that's all."
+
+The night continued clear.  The moon, riding in mid-heaven,
+diffused her rays on all sides.  In the little port of Granton
+lay two or three fishing boats; they rocked gently on the waters
+of the Firth.  The wind fell as the dawn approached.
+The atmosphere, clear of mists, promised one of those fine
+autumn days so delicious on the sea coast.
+
+A soft, transparent film of vapor lay along the horizon;
+the first sunbeam would dissipate it; to the maiden it exhibited
+that aspect of the sea which seems to blend it with the sky.
+Her view was now enlarged, without producing the impression
+of the boundless infinity of ocean.
+
+Harry taking Nell's hand, they followed James Starr and Jack Ryan
+as they traversed the deserted streets.  To Nell, this suburb
+of the capital appeared only a collection of gloomy dark houses,
+just like Coal Town, only that the roof was higher, and gleamed
+with small lights.
+
+She stepped lightly forward, and easily kept pace with Harry.  "Are you
+not tired, Nell?" asked he, after half an hour's walking.
+
+"No! my feet seem scarcely to touch the earth," returned she.
+"This sky above us seems so high up, I feel as if I could take
+wing and fly!"
+
+"I say! keep hold of her!" cried Jack Ryan.  "Our little Nell is too
+good to lose.  I feel just as you describe though, myself, when I
+have not left the pit for a long time."
+
+"It is when we no longer experience the oppressive effect of the vaulted
+rocky roof above Coal Town," said
+
+James Starr, "that the spacious firmament appears to us like a
+profound abyss into which we have, as it were, a desire to plunge.
+Is that what you feel, Nell?"
+
+"Yes, Mr. Starr, it is exactly like that," said Nell.  "It makes
+me feel giddy."
+
+"Ah! you will soon get over that, Nell," said Harry.  "You will get used
+to the outer world, and most likely forget all about our dark coal pit."
+
+"No, Harry, never!" said Nell, and she put her hand over her eyes,
+as though she would recall the remembrance of everything she
+had lately quitted.
+
+Between the silent dwellings of the city, the party passed
+along Leith Walk, and went round the Calton Hill, where stood,
+in the light of the gray dawn, the buildings of the Observatory
+and Nelson's Monument.  By Regent's Bridge and the North Bridge they
+at last reached the lower extremity of the Canongate.  The town
+still lay wrapt in slumber.
+
+Nell pointed to a large building in the center of an open space,
+asking, "What great confused mass is that?"
+
+"That confused mass, Nell, is the palace of the ancient kings
+of Scotland; that is Holyrood, where many a sad scene has been enacted!
+The historian can here invoke many a royal shade; from those of
+the early Scottish kings to that of the unhappy Mary Stuart,
+and the French king, Charles X. When day breaks, however, Nell,
+this palace will not look so very gloomy.  Holyrood, with its four
+embattled towers, is not unlike some handsome country house.
+But let us pursue our way.  There, just above the ancient Abbey
+of Holyrood, are the superb cliffs called Salisbury Crags.
+Arthur's Seat rises above them, and that is where we are going.
+From the summit of Arthur's Seat, Nell, your eyes shall behold
+the sun appear above the horizon seaward."
+
+They entered the King's Park, then, gradually ascending they passed
+across the Queen's Drive, a splendid carriageway encircling the hill,
+which we owe to a few lines in one of Sir Walter Scott's romances.
+
+Arthur's Seat is in truth only a hill, seven hundred and fifty
+feet high, which stands alone amid surrounding heights.
+In less than half an hour, by an easy winding path, James Starr
+and his party reached the crest of the
+
+crouching lion, which, seen from the west, Arthur's Seat so
+much resembles.  There, all four seated themselves; and James Starr,
+ever ready with quotations from the great Scottish novelist,
+simply said, "Listen to what is written by Sir Walter Scott
+in the eighth chapter of the Heart of Mid-Lothian. 'If I were
+to choose a spot from which the rising or setting sun could be seen
+to the greatest possible advantage, it would be from this neighborhood.'
+Now watch, Nell! the sun will soon appear, and for the first time
+you will contemplate its splendor."
+
+The maiden turned her eyes eastward.  Harry, keeping close
+beside her, observed her with anxious interest.
+Would the first beams of day overpower her feelings?
+All remained quiet, even Jack Ryan.  A faint streak of pale rose
+tinted the light vapors of the horizon.  It was the first ray
+of light attacking the laggards of the night.  Beneath the hill
+lay the silent city, massed confusedly in the twilight of dawn.
+Here and there lights twinkled among the houses of the old town.
+Westward rose many hill-tops, soon to be illuminated by
+tips of fire.
+
+Now the distant horizon of the sea became more plainly visible.
+The scale of colors fell into the order of the solar.
+Every instant they increased in intensity, rose color became red,
+red became fiery, daylight dawned.  Nell now glanced towards
+the city, of which the outlines became more distinct.
+Lofty monuments, slender steeples emerged from the gloom;
+a kind of ashy light was spread abroad.  At length one solitary
+ray struck on the maiden's sight.  It was that ray of green which,
+morning or evening, is reflected upwards from the sea when
+the horizon is clear.
+
+An instant afterwards, Nell turned, and pointing towards a bright
+prominent point in the New Town, "Fire!" cried she.
+
+"No, Nell, that is no fire," said Harry.  "The sun has touched with gold
+the top of Sir Walter Scott's monument"--and, indeed, the extreme point
+of the monument blazed like the light of a pharos.
+
+It was day--the sun arose--his disc seemed to glitter
+as though he indeed emerged from the waters of the sea.
+Appearing at first very large from the effects of refraction,
+he contracted as he rose and assumed the perfectly circular form.
+Soon no eye could endure the dazzling splendor;
+
+it was as though the mouth of a furnace was opened through the sky.
+
+Nell closed her eyes, but her eyelids could not exclude
+the glare, and she pressed her fingers over them.
+Harry advised her to turn in the opposite direction.
+"Oh, no," said she, "my eyes must get used to look at what yours
+can bear to see!"
+
+Even through her hands Nell perceived a rosy light,
+which became more white as the sun rose above the horizon.
+As her sight became accustomed to it, her eyelids were raised,
+and at length her eyes drank in the light of day.
+
+The good child knelt down, exclaiming, "Oh Lord God! how
+beautiful is Thy creation!"  Then she rose and looked around.
+At her feet extended the panorama of Edinburgh--the clear,
+distinct lines of streets in the New Town, and the irregular
+mass of houses, with their confused network of streets
+and lanes, which constitutes Auld Reekie, properly so called.
+Two heights commanded the entire city; Edinburgh Castle,
+crowning its huge basaltic rock, and the Calton Hill,
+bearing on its rounded summit, among other monuments, ruins built
+to represent those of the Parthenon at Athens.
+
+Fine roadways led in all directions from the capital.
+To the north, the coast of the noble Firth of Forth was indented
+by a deep bay, in which could be seen the seaport town of Leith,
+between which and this Modern Athens of the north ran a street,
+straight as that leading to the Piraeus.
+
+Beyond the wide Firth could be seen the soft outlines of the county
+of Fife, while beneath the spectator stretched the yellow sands
+of Portobello and Newhaven.
+
+Nell could not speak.  Her lips murmured a word or two indistinctly;
+she trembled, became giddy, her strength failed her;
+overcome by the purity of the air and the sublimity of the scene,
+she sank fainting into Harry's arms, who, watching her closely,
+was ready to support her.
+
+The youthful maiden, hitherto entombed in the massive depths
+of the earth, had now obtained an idea of the universe--
+of the works both of God and of man.  She had looked upon town
+and country, and beyond these, into the immensity of the sea,
+the infinity of the heavens.
+
+
+CHAPTER XV LOCH LOMOND AND LOCH KATRINE
+
+
+HARRY bore Nell carefully down the steeps of Arthur's Seat,
+and, accompanied by James Starr and Jack Ryan, they reached
+Lambert's Hotel.  There a good breakfast restored their strength,
+and they began to make further plans for an excursion to
+the Highland lakes.
+
+Nell was now refreshed, and able to look boldly forth into the sunshine,
+while her lungs with ease inhaled the free and healthful air.
+Her eyes learned gladly to know the harmonious varieties of color
+as they rested on the green trees, the azure skies, and all the endless
+shades of lovely flowers and plants.
+
+The railway train, which they entered at the Waverley Station, conveyed
+Nell and her friends to Glasgow.  There, from the new bridge across
+the Clyde, they watched the curious sea-like movement of the river.
+After a night's rest at Comrie's Royal Hotel, they betook themselves
+to the terminus of the Edinburgh and Glasgow Railway, from whence
+a train would rapidly carry them, by way of Dumbarton and Balloch,
+to the southern extremity of Loch Lomond.
+
+"Now for the land of Rob Roy and Fergus MacIvor!--the scenery
+immortalized by the poetical descriptions of Walter Scott,"
+exclaimed James Starr.  "You don't know this country, Jack?"
+
+"Only by its songs, Mr. Starr," replied Jack; "and judging by those,
+it must be grand."
+
+"So it is, so it is!" cried the engineer, "and our dear Nell
+shall see it to the best advantage."
+
+A steamboat, the SINCLAIR by name, awaited tourists about to make
+the excursion to the lakes.  Nell and her companions went on board.
+The day had begun in brilliant sunshine, free from the British fogs
+which so often veil the skies.
+
+The passengers were determined to lose none of the beauties of nature
+to be displayed during the thirty miles' voyage.  Nell, seated between
+James Starr and Harry, drank in with every faculty the magnificent poetry
+with which lovely Scottish scenery is fraught.  Numerous small isles and
+islets soon appeared, as though thickly sown on the bosom of the lake.
+The SINCLAIR steamed her way among
+
+371
+
+them, while between them glimpses could be had of quiet valleys,
+or wild rocky gorges on the mainland.
+
+"Nell," said James Starr, "every island here has its legend,
+perhaps its song, as well as the mountains which overshadow the lake.
+One may, without much exaggeration, say that the history of this
+country is written in gigantic characters of mountains and islands."
+
+Nell listened, but these fighting stories made her sad.
+Why all that bloodshed on plains which to her seemed enormous,
+and where surely there must have been room for everybody?
+
+The shores of the lake form a little harbor at Luss.  Nell could
+for a moment catch sight of the old tower of its ancient castle.
+Then, the SINCLAIR turning northward, the tourists gazed upon Ben Lomond,
+towering nearly 3,000 feet above the level of the lake.
+
+"Oh, what a noble mountain!" cried Nell; "what a view there must
+be from the top!"
+
+"Yes, Nell," answered James Starr; "see how haughtily its peak
+rises from amidst the thicket of oaks, birches, and heather,
+which clothe the lower portion of the mountain!  From thence one
+may see two-thirds of old Caledonia.  This eastern side of the lake
+was the special abode of the clan McGregor.  At no great distance,
+the struggles of the Jacobites and Hanoverians repeatedly
+dyed with blood these lonely glens.  Over these scenes shines
+the pale moon, called in old ballads 'Macfarlane's lantern.'
+Among these rocks still echo the immortal names of Rob Roy
+and McGregor Campbell."
+
+As the SINCLAIR advanced along the base of the mountain,
+the country became more and more abrupt in character.
+Trees were only scattered here and there; among them were the willows,
+slender wands of which were formerly used for hanging persons
+of low degree.
+
+"To economize hemp," remarked James Starr.
+
+The lake narrowed very much as it stretched northwards.
+
+The steamer passed a few more islets, Inveruglas, Eilad-whow, where stand
+some ruins of a stronghold of the clan MacFarlane.  At length the head
+of the loch was reached, and the SINCLAIR stopped at Inversnaid.
+
+Leaving Loch Arklet on the left, a steep ascent led to the Inn
+of Stronachlacar, on the banks of Loch Katrine.
+
+
+There, at the end of a light pier, floated a small steamboat,
+named, as a matter of course, the Rob Roy.  The travelers
+immediately went on board; it was about to start.  Loch Katrine
+is only ten miles in length; its width never exceeds two miles.
+The hills nearest it are full of a character peculiar to themselves.
+
+"Here we are on this famous lake," said James Starr.  "It has
+been compared to an eel on account of its length and windings:
+and justly so.  They say that it never freezes.
+I know nothing about that, but what we want to think of is,
+that here are the scenes of the adventures in the Lady of
+the Lake.  I believe, if friend Jack looked about him carefully,
+he might see, still gliding over the surface of the water,
+the shade of the slender form of sweet Ellen Douglas."
+
+"To be sure, Mr. Starr," replied Jack; "why should I not?
+I may just as well see that pretty girl on the waters of Loch Katrine,
+as those ugly ghosts on Loch Malcolm in the coal pit."
+
+It was by this time three o'clock in the afternoon.  The less hilly
+shores of Loch Katrine westward extended like a picture framed between
+Ben An and Ben Venue.  At the distance of half a mile was the entrance
+to the narrow bay, where was the landing-place for our tourists,
+who meant to return to Stirling by Callander.
+
+Nell appeared completely worn out by the continued excitement of the day.
+A faint ejaculation was all she was able to utter in token
+of admiration as new objects of wonder or beauty met her gaze.
+She required some hours of rest, were it but to impress lastingly
+the recollection of all she had seen.
+
+Her hand rested in Harry's, and, looking earnestly at her, he said,
+"Nell, dear Nell, we shall soon be home again in the gloomy region
+of the coal mine.  Shall you not pine for what you have seen during
+these few hours spent in the glorious light of day?"
+
+"No, Harry," replied the girl; "I shall like to think about it,
+but I am glad to go back with you to our dear old home."
+
+"Nell!" said Harry, vainly attempting to steady his voice,
+"are you willing to be bound to me by the most sacred tie?
+Could you marry me, Nell?"
+
+
+"Yes, Harry, I could, if you are sure that I am able to make you happy,"
+answered the maiden, raising her innocent eyes to his.
+
+Scarcely had she pronounced these words when an unaccountable
+phenomenon took place.  The Rob Roy, still half a mile
+from land, experienced a violent shock.  She suddenly grounded.
+No efforts of the engine could move her.
+
+The cause of this accident was simply that Loch Katrine was all at
+once emptied, as though an enormous fissure had opened in its bed.
+In a few seconds it had the appearance of a sea beach at low water.
+Nearly the whole of its contents had vanished into the bosom
+of the earth.
+
+"My friends!" exclaimed James Starr, as the cause of this marvel
+became suddenly clear to him, "God help New Aberfoyle!"
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI A FINAL THREAT
+
+
+ON that day, in the colliery of New Aberfoyle, work was going on in
+the usual regular way.  In the distance could be heard the crash of great
+charges of dynamite, by which the carboniferous rocks were blasted.
+Here masses of coal were loosened by pick-ax and crowbar;
+there the perforating machines, with their harsh grating,
+bored through the masses of sandstone and schist.
+
+Hollow, cavernous noises resounded on all sides.
+Draughts of air rushed along the ventilating galleries,
+and the wooden swing-doors slammed beneath their violent gusts.
+In the lower tunnels, trains of trucks kept passing along at
+the rate of fifteen miles an hour, while at their approach electric
+bells warned the workmen to cower down in the refuge places.
+Lifts went incessantly up and down, worked by powerful engines
+on the surface of the soil.  Coal Town was throughout brilliantly
+lighted by the electric lamps at full power.
+
+Mining operations were being carried on with the greatest activity;
+coal was being piled incessantly into the trucks, which went in hundreds
+to empty themselves into the corves at the bottom of the shaft.
+While parties of miners who
+
+had labored during the night were taking needful rest, the others
+worked without wasting an hour.
+
+Old Simon Ford and Madge, having finished their dinner, were resting
+at the door of their cottage.  Simon smoked a good pipe of tobacco,
+and from time to time the old couple spoke of Nell, of their boy,
+of Mr. Starr, and wondered how they liked their trip to the surface
+of the earth.  Where would they be now?  What would they be doing?
+How could they stay so long away from the mine without feeling homesick?
+
+Just then a terrific roaring noise was heard.  It was like the sound of a
+mighty cataract rushing down into the mine.  The old people rose hastily.
+They perceived at once that the waters of Loch Malcolm were rising.
+A great wave, unfurling like a billow, swept up the bank and broke
+against the walls of the cottage.  Simon caught his wife in his arms,
+and carried her to the upper part of their dwelling.
+
+At the same moment, cries arose from all parts of Coal Town,
+which was threatened by a sudden inundation.  The inhabitants fled
+for safety to the top of the schist rocks bordering the lake;
+terror spread in all directions; whole families in frantic haste
+rushed towards the tunnel in order to reach the upper regions
+of the pit.
+
+It was feared that the sea had burst into the colliery, for its galleries
+and passages penetrated as far as the Caledonian Canal.  In that case
+the entire excavation, vast as it was, would be completely flooded.
+Not a single inhabitant of New Aberfoyle would escape death.
+
+But when the foremost fugitives reached the entrance to the tunnel,
+they encountered Simon Ford, who had quitted his cottage.
+"Stop, my friends, stop!" shouted the old man; "if our town
+is to be overwhelmed, the floods will rush faster than you can;
+no one can possibly escape.  But see! the waters are rising
+no further! it appears to me the danger is over."
+
+"And our comrades at the far end of the works--what about them?"
+cried some of the miners.
+
+"There is nothing to fear for them," replied Simon; "they are working
+on a higher level than the bed of the loch."
+
+It was soon evident that the old man was in the right.
+The sudden influx of water had rushed to the very lowest
+
+bed of the vast mine, and its only ultimate effect was to raise
+the level of Loch Malcolm a few feet.  Coal Town was uninjured,
+and it was reasonable to hope that no one had perished in the flood
+of water which had descended to the depths of the mine never yet
+penetrated by the workmen.
+
+Simon and his men could not decide whether this inundation was owing
+to the overflow of a subterranean sheet of water penetrating fissures
+in the solid rock, or to some underground torrent breaking through its
+worn bed, and precipitating itself to the lowest level of the mine.
+But that very same evening they knew what to think about it,
+for the local papers published an account of the marvelous phenomenon
+which Loch Katrine had exhibited.
+
+The surprising news was soon after confirmed by the four travelers, who,
+returning with all possible speed to the cottage, learned with extreme
+satisfaction that no serious damage was done in New Aberfoyle.
+
+The bed of Loch Katrine had fairly given way.  The waters had suddenly
+broken through by an enormous fissure into the mine beneath.
+Of Sir Walter Scott's favorite loch there was not left enough to wet
+the pretty foot of the Lady of the Lake; all that remained was a pond
+of a few acres at the further extremity.
+
+This singular event made a profound sensation in the country.
+It was a thing unheard of that a lake should in the space of a few
+minutes empty itself, and disappear into the bowels of the earth.
+There was nothing for it but to erase Loch Katrine from the map of
+Scotland until (by public subscription) it could be refilled, care being
+of course taken, in the first place, to stop the rent up tight.
+This catastrophe would have been the death of Sir Walter Scott,
+had he still been in the world.
+
+The accident was explicable when it was ascertained that,
+between the bed of the lake and the vast cavity beneath,
+the geological strata had become reduced to a thin layer,
+incapable of longer sustaining the weight of water.
+
+Now, although to most people this event seemed plainly due
+to natural causes, yet to James Starr and his friends,
+Simon and Harry Ford, the question constantly recurred,
+was it not rather to be attributed to malevolence?
+Uneasy suspicions continually harassed their minds.
+Was their evil
+
+genius about to renew his persecution of those who ventured to work
+this rich mine?
+
+At the cottage, some days later, James Starr thus discussed
+the matter with the old man and his son:  "Well, Simon," said he,
+"to my thinking we must class this circumstance with the others
+for which we still seek elucidation, although it is no doubt
+possible to explain it by natural causes."
+
+"I am quite of your mind, Mr. James," replied Simon, "but take my advice,
+and say nothing about it; let us make all researches ourselves."
+
+"Oh, I know the result of such research beforehand!" cried the engineer.
+
+"And what will it be, then?"
+
+"We shall find proofs of malevolence, but not the malefactor."
+
+"But he exists! he is there!  Where can he lie concealed?
+Is it possible to conceive that the most depraved human being could,
+single-handed, carry out an idea so infernal as that of bursting
+through the bed of a lake?  I believe I shall end by thinking,
+like Jack Ryan, that the evil demon of the mine revenges himself
+on us for having invaded his domain."
+
+Nell was allowed to hear as little as possible of these discussions.
+Indeed, she showed no desire to enter into them, although it was
+very evident that she shared in the anxieties of her adopted parents.
+The melancholy in her countenance bore witness to much mental agitation.
+
+It was at length resolved that James Starr, together with
+Simon and Harry, should return to the scene of the disaster,
+and endeavor to satisfy themselves as to the cause of it.
+They mentioned their project to no one.  To those unacquainted
+with the group of facts on which it was based, the opinion of Starr
+and his friends could not fail to appear wholly inadmissible.
+
+A few days later, the three friends proceeded in a small boat to examine
+the natural pillars on which had rested the solid earth forming
+the basin of Loch Katrine.  They discovered that they had been right
+in suspecting that the massive columns had been undermined by blasting.
+The blackened traces of explosion were to be seen, the waters having
+subsided below the level of these mysterious operations
+Thus the fall of a portion of the vast vaulted dome was
+proved to have been premeditated by man, and by man's hand
+had it been effected.
+
+"It is impossible to doubt it," said James Starr; "and who can say
+what might not have happened had the sea, instead of a little loch,
+been let in upon us?"
+
+"You may well say that," cried the old overman, with a feeling of pride
+in his beloved mine; "for nothing less than a sea would have drowned
+our Aberfoyle.  But, once more, what possible interest could any human
+being have in the destruction of our works?"
+
+"It is quite incomprehensible," replied James Starr.  "This case is
+something perfectly unlike that of a band of common criminals, who,
+concealing themselves in dens and caves, go forth to rob and pillage
+the surrounding country.  The evil deeds of such men would certainly,
+in the course of three years have betrayed their existence and
+lurking-places. Neither can it be, as I sometimes used to think,
+that smugglers or coiners carried on their illegal practices
+in some distant and unknown corner of these prodigious caverns,
+and were consequently anxious to drive us out of them.
+But no one coins false money or obtains contraband goods only
+to conceal them!
+
+"Yet it is clear that an implacable enemy has sworn
+the ruin of New Aberfoyle, and that some interest urges him
+to seek in every possible way to wreak his hatred upon us.
+He appears to be too weak to act openly, and lays his schemes
+in secret; but displays such intelligence as to render him
+a most formidable foe.
+
+"My friends, he must understand better than we do the secrets
+of our domain, since he has all this time eluded our vigilance.
+He must be a man experienced in mining, skilled beyond the most skillful--
+that's certain, Simon!  We have proof enough of that.
+
+"Let me see!  Have you never had a personal enemy,
+to whom your suspicions might point?  Think well!
+There is such a thing as hatred which time never softens.
+Go back to recollections of your earliest days.
+What befalls us appears the work of a stern and patient will,
+and to explain it demands every effort of thought and memory."
+
+Simon did not answer immediately--his mind evidently engaged
+in a close and candid survey of his past life.  Presently,
+raising his head, "No," said he; "no!  Heaven be my witness,
+neither Madge nor I have ever injured anybody.  We cannot
+believe that we have a single enemy in the world."
+
+"Ah! if Nell would only speak!" cried the engineer.
+
+"Mr. Starr--and you, father," said Harry, "I do beg of you to keep
+silence on this matter, and not to question my poor Nell.  I know she
+is very anxious and uneasy; and I feel positive that some great secret
+painfully oppresses her heart.  Either she knows nothing it would be
+of any use for us to hear, or she considers it her duty to be silent.
+It is impossible to doubt her affection for us--for all of us.
+If at a future time she informs me of what she has hitherto concealed
+from us, you shall know about it immediately."
+
+"So be it, then, Harry," answered the engineer; "and yet I must say
+Nell's silence, if she knows anything, is to me perfectly inexplicable."
+
+Harry would have continued her defense; but the engineer
+stopped him, saying, "All right, Harry; we promise to say
+no more about it to your future wife."
+
+"With my father's consent she shall be my wife without further delay."
+
+"My boy," said old Simon, "your marriage shall take place
+this very day month.  Mr. Starr, will you undertake the part
+of Nell's father?"
+
+"You may reckon upon me for that, Simon," answered the engineer.
+
+They then returned to the cottage, but said not a word
+of the result of their examinations in the mine, so that to
+the rest of its inhabitants, the bursting in of the vaulted roof
+of the caverns continued to be regarded as a mere accident.
+There was but a loch the less in Scotland.
+
+Nell gradually resumed her customary duties, and Harry made good use
+of her little visit to the upper air, in the instructions he gave her.
+She enjoyed the recollections of life above ground, yet without
+regretting it.  The somber region she had loved as a child, and in
+which her wedded life would be spent, was as dear to her as ever.
+
+The approaching marriage created great excitement in
+New Aberfoyle.  Good wishes poured in on all sides, and foremost
+among them were Jack Ryan's. He was detected busily practicing
+his best songs in preparation for the great
+
+day, which was to be celebrated by the whole population of Coal Town.
+
+During the month preceding the wedding-day, there were more accidents
+occurring in New Aberfoyle than had ever been known in the place.
+One would have thought the approaching union of Harry and Nell
+actually provoked one catastrophe after another.  These misfortunes
+happened chiefly at the further and lowest extremity of the works,
+and the cause of them was always in some way mysterious.
+
+Thus, for instance, the wood-work of a distant gallery was discovered
+to be in flames, which were extinguished by Harry and his companions
+at the risk of their lives, by employing engines filled with water
+and carbonic acid, always kept ready in case of necessity.
+The lamp used by the incendiary was found; but no clew whatever
+as to who he could be.
+
+Another time an inundation took place in consequence of the stanchions
+of a water-tank giving way; and Mr. Starr ascertained beyond a doubt
+that these supports had first of all been partially sawn through.
+Harry, who had been overseeing the works near the place at the time,
+was buried in the falling rubbish, and narrowly escaped death.
+
+A few days afterwards, on the steam tramway, a train of trucks,
+which Harry was passing along, met with an obstacle on the rails,
+and was overturned.  It was then discovered that a beam had been
+laid across the line.  In short, events of this description became
+so numerous that the miners were seized with a kind of panic,
+and it required all the influence of their chiefs to keep them
+on the works.
+
+"You would think that there was a whole band of these ruffians,"
+Simon kept saying, "and we can't lay hands on a single one of them."
+
+Search was made in all directions.  The county police were on the alert
+night and day, yet discovered nothing.  The evil intentions seeming
+specially designed to injure Harry.  Starr forbade him to venture alone
+beyond the ordinary limits of the works.
+
+They were equally careful of Nell, although, at Harry's entreaty,
+these malicious attempts to do harm were concealed from her,
+because they might remind her painfully
+
+of former times.  Simon and Madge watched over her by day
+and by night with a sort of stern solicitude.  The poor child
+yielded to their wishes, without a remark or a complaint.
+Did she perceive that they acted with a view to her interest?
+Probably she did.  And on her part, she seemed to watch over others,
+and was never easy unless all whom she loved were together
+in the cottage.
+
+When Harry came home in the evening, she could not restrain
+expressions of child-like joy, very unlike her usual manner,
+which was rather reserved than demonstrative.  As soon as day broke,
+she was astir before anyone else, and her constant uneasiness
+lasted all day until the hour of return home from work.
+
+Harry became very anxious that their marriage should take place.
+He thought that, when the irrevocable step was taken, malevolence would
+be disarmed, and that Nell would never feel safe until she was his wife.
+James Starr, Simon, and Madge, were all of the same opinion,
+and everyone counted the intervening days, for everyone suffered
+from the most uncomfortable forebodings.
+
+It was perfectly evident that nothing relating to Nell was indifferent
+to this hidden foe, whom it was impossible to meet or to avoid.
+Therefore it seemed quite possible that the solemn act of her marriage
+with Harry might be the occasion of some new and dreadful outbreak
+of his hatred.
+
+One morning, a week before the day appointed for the ceremony,
+Nell, rising early, went out of the cottage before anyone else.
+No sooner had she crossed the threshold than a cry of indescribable
+anguish escaped her lips.
+
+Her voice was heard throughout the dwelling; in a moment,
+Madge, Harry, and Simon were at her side.  Nell was pale as death,
+her countenance agitated, her features expressing the utmost horror.
+Unable to speak, her eyes were riveted on the door of the cottage,
+which she had just opened.
+
+With rigid fingers she pointed to the following words traced upon it
+during the night:  "Simon Ford, you have robbed me of the last vein
+in our old pit.  Harry, your son, has robbed me of Nell.  Woe betide you!
+Woe betide you all!  Woe betide New Aberfoyle!--SILFAX."
+
+"Silfax!" exclaimed Simon and Madge together.
+
+
+"Who is this man?" demanded Harry, looking alternately at his father
+and at the maiden.
+
+"Silfax!" repeated Nell in tones of despair, "Silfax!"--and,
+murmuring this name, her whole frame shuddering with fear
+and agitation, she was borne away to her chamber by old Madge.
+
+James Starr, hastening to the spot, read the threatening sentences
+again and again.
+
+"The hand which traced these lines," said he at length, "is the same
+which wrote me the letter contradicting yours, Simon.  The man calls
+himself Silfax.  I see by your troubled manner that you know him.
+Who is this Silfax?"
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII THE "MONK"
+
+
+THIS name revealed everything to the old overman.
+It was that of the last "monk" of the Dochart pit.
+
+In former days, before the invention of the safety-lamp, Simon had
+known this fierce man, whose business it was to go daily, at the risk
+of his life, to produce partial explosions of fire-damp in the passages.
+He used to see this strange solitary being, prowling about the mine,
+always accompanied by a monstrous owl, which he called Harfang,
+who assisted him in his perilous occupation, by soaring with a lighted
+match to places Silfax was unable to reach.
+
+One day this old man disappeared, and at the same time also,
+a little orphan girl born in the mine, who had no relation
+but himself, her great-grandfather. It was perfectly evident
+now that this child was Nell.  During the fifteen years,
+up to the time when she was saved by Harry, they must have lived
+in some secret abyss of the mine.
+
+The old overman, full of mingled compassion and anger, made known to
+the engineer and Harry all that the name of Silfax had revealed to him.
+It explained the whole mystery.  Silfax was the mysterious being so long
+vainly sought for in the depths of New Aberfoyle.
+
+"So you knew him, Simon?" demanded Mr. Starr.
+
+"Yes, that I did," replied the overman.  "The Harfang man,
+we used to call him.  Why, he was old then!  He must be fifteen
+or twenty years older than I am.  A wild,
+
+savage sort of fellow, who held aloof from everyone and was known
+to fear nothing--neither fire nor water.  It was his own fancy
+to follow the trade of 'monk,' which few would have liked.
+The constant danger of the business had unsettled his brain.
+He was prodigiously strong, and he knew the mine as no one else--
+at any rate, as well as I did.  He lived on a small allowance.
+In faith, I believed him dead years ago."
+
+"But," resumed James Starr, "what does he mean by those words,
+'You have robbed me of the last vein of our old mine'?"
+
+"Ah! there it is," replied Simon; "for a long time it
+had been a fancy of his--I told you his mind was deranged--
+that he had a right to the mine of Aberfoyle; so he became
+more and more savage in temper the deeper the Dochart pit--
+his pit!--was worked out.  It just seemed as if it was his
+own body that suffered from every blow of the pickax.
+You must remember that, Madge?"
+
+"Ay, that I do, Simon," replied she.
+
+"I can recollect all this," resumed Simon, "since I have seen the name
+of Silfax on the door.  But I tell you, I thought the man was dead,
+and never imagined that the spiteful being we have so long sought
+for could be the old fireman of the Dochart pit."
+
+"Well, now, then," said Starr, "it is all quite plain.
+Chance made known to Silfax the new vein of coal.
+With the egotism of madness, he believed himself the owner
+of a treasure he must conceal and defend.  Living in the mine,
+and wandering about day and night, he perceived that you had discovered
+the secret, and had written in all haste to beg me to come.
+Hence the letter contradicting yours; hence, after my arrival,
+all the accidents that occurred, such as the block of stone
+thrown at Harry, the broken ladder at the Yarrow shaft,
+the obstruction of the openings into the wall of the new cutting;
+hence, in short, our imprisonment, and then our deliverance,
+brought about by the kind assistance of Nell, who acted of
+course without the knowledge of this man Silfax, and contrary
+to his intentions."
+
+"You describe everything exactly as it must have happened, Mr. Starr,"
+returned old Simon.  "The old 'Monk' is mad enough now, at any rate!"
+
+"All the better," quoth Madge.
+
+
+"I don't know that," said Starr, shaking his head; "it is a terrible
+sort of madness this."
+
+"Ah! now I understand that the very thought of him must have terrified
+poor little Nell, and also I see that she could not bear to denounce
+her grandfather.  What a miserable time she must have had of it
+with the old man!"
+
+"Miserable with a vengeance," replied Simon, "between that savage and
+his owl, as savage as himself.  Depend upon it, that bird isn't dead.
+That was what put our lamp out, and also so nearly cut the rope
+by which Harry and Nell were suspended."
+
+"And then, you see," said Madge, "this news of the marriage of our son
+with his granddaughter added to his rancor and ill-will."
+
+"To be sure," said Simon.  "To think that his Nell should marry
+one of the robbers of his own coal mine would just drive
+him wild altogether."
+
+"He will have to make up his mind to it, however," cried Harry.  "Mad as
+he is, we shall manage to convince him that Nell is better off
+with us here than ever she was in the caverns of the pit.
+I am sure, Mr. Starr, if we could only catch him, we should be able
+to make him listen to reason."
+
+"My poor Harry! there is no reasoning with a madman,"
+replied the engineer.  "Of course it is better to know your
+enemy than not; but you must not fancy all is right because we
+have found out who he is.  We must be on our guard, my friends;
+and to begin with, Harry, you positively must question Nell.
+She will perceive that her silence is no longer reasonable.
+Even for her grandfather's own interest, she ought to speak now.
+For his own sake, as well as for ours, these insane plots must
+be put a stop to."
+
+"I feel sure, Mr. Starr," answered Harry, "that Nell will
+of herself propose to tell you what she knows.  You see it
+was from a sense of duty that she has been silent hitherto.
+My mother was very right to take her to her room just now.
+She much needed time to recover her spirits; but now I will
+go for her."
+
+"You need not do so, Harry," said the maiden in a clear and firm voice,
+as she entered at that moment the room in which they were.
+Nell was very pale; traces of tears were in her eyes; but her whole
+manner showed that she had nerved herself to act as her loyal heart
+dictated as her duty.
+
+
+"Nell!" cried Harry, springing towards her.
+
+The girl arrested her lover by a gesture, and continued,
+"Your father and mother, and you, Harry, must now know all.
+And you too, Mr. Starr, must remain ignorant of nothing
+that concerns the child you have received, and whom Harry--
+unfortunately for him, alas!--drew from the abyss."
+
+"Oh, Nell! what are you saying?" cried Harry.
+
+"Allow her to speak," said James Starr in a decided tone.
+
+"I am the granddaughter of old Silfax," resumed Nell.  "I never knew
+a mother till the day I came here," added she, looking at Madge.
+
+"Blessed be that day, my daughter!" said the old woman.
+
+"I knew no father till I saw Simon Ford," continued Nell;
+"nor friend till the day when Harry's hand touched mine.
+Alone with my grandfather I have lived during fifteen
+years in the remote and most solitary depths of the mine.
+I say WITH my grandfather, but I can scarcely use the expression,
+for I seldom saw him.  When he disappeared from Old Aberfoyle,
+he concealed himself in caverns known only to himself.
+In his way he was kind to me, dreadful as he was; he fed me
+with whatever he could procure from outside the mine; but I can
+dimly recollect that in my earliest years I was the nursling
+of a goat, the death of which was a bitter grief to me.
+My grandfather, seeing my distress, brought me another animal--
+a dog he said it was.  But, unluckily, this dog was lively,
+and barked.  Grandfather did not like anything cheerful.
+He had a horror of noise, and had taught me to be silent;
+the dog he could not teach to be quiet, so the poor animal
+very soon disappeared.  My grandfather's companion was a
+ferocious bird, Harfang, of which, at first, I had a perfect horror;
+but this creature, in spite of my dislike to it, took such
+a strong affection for me, that I could not help returning it.
+It even obeyed me better than its master, which used to make me
+quite uneasy, for my grandfather was jealous.  Harfang and I
+did not dare to let him see us much together; we both knew it
+would be dangerous.  But I am talking too much about myself:
+the great thing is about you."
+
+"No, my child," said James Starr, "tell us everything that comes
+to your mind."
+
+
+"My grandfather," continued Nell, "always regarded your abode
+in the mine with a very evil eye--not that there was any lack
+of space.  His chosen refuge was far--very far from you.
+But he could not bear to feel that you were there.  If I asked any
+questions about the people up above us, his face grew dark, he gave
+no answer, and continued quite silent for a long time afterwards.
+But when he perceived that, not content with the old domain,
+you seemed to think of encroaching upon his, then indeed
+his anger burst forth.  He swore that, were you to succeed
+in reaching the new mine, you should assuredly perish.
+Notwithstanding his great age, his strength is astonishing,
+and his threats used to make me tremble."
+
+"Go on, Nell, my child," said Simon to the girl, who paused as though
+to collect her thoughts.
+
+"On the occasion of your first attempt," resumed Nell,
+"as soon as my grandfather saw that you were fairly
+inside the gallery leading to New Aberfoyle, he stopped
+up the opening, and turned it into a prison for you.
+I only knew you as shadows dimly seen in the gloom of the pit,
+but I could not endure the idea that you would die of hunger
+in these horrid places; and so, at the risk of being detected,
+I succeeded in obtaining bread and water for you during some days.
+I should have liked to help you to escape, but it was
+so difficult to avoid the vigilance of my grandfather.
+You were about to die.  Then arrived Jack Ryan and the others.
+By the providence of God I met with them, and instantly guided
+them to where you were.  When my grandfather discovered what I
+had done, his rage against me was terrible.  I expected death
+at his hands.  After that my life became insupportable to me.
+My grandfather completely lost his senses.  He proclaimed
+himself King of Darkness and Flame; and when he heard your tools
+at work on coal-beds which he considered entirely his own,
+he became furious and beat me cruelly.  I would have fled
+from him, but it was impossible, so narrowly did he watch me.
+At last, in a fit of ungovernable fury, he threw me down into
+the abyss where you found me, and disappeared, vainly calling
+on Harfang, which faithfully stayed by me, to follow him.
+I know not how long I remained there, but I felt I was at
+the point of death when you, my Harry, came and saved me.
+But now you all see that the grandchild of old Silfax can
+
+never be the wife of Harry Ford, because it would be certain
+death to you all!"
+
+"Nell!" cried Harry.
+
+"No," continued the maiden, "my resolution is taken.  By one means
+only can your ruin be averted; I must return to my grandfather.
+He threatens to destroy the whole of New Aberfoyle.  His is
+a soul incapable of mercy or forgiveness, and no mortal can
+say to what horrid deed the spirit of revenge will lead him.
+My duty is clear; I should be the most despicable creature on earth
+did I hesitate to perform it.  Farewell!  I thank you all heartily.
+You only have taught me what happiness is.  Whatever may befall,
+believe that my whole heart remains with you."
+
+At these words, Simon, Madge, and Harry started up in an agony of grief,
+exclaiming in tones of despair, "What, Nell! is it possible you
+would leave us?"
+
+James Starr put them all aside with an air of authority, and,
+going straight up to Nell, he took both her hands in his,
+saying quietly, "Very right, my child; you have said exactly what you
+ought to say; and now listen to what we have to say in reply.
+We shall not let you go away; if necessary, we shall keep you by force.
+Do you think we could be so base as to accept of your generous proposal?
+These threats of Silfax are formidable--no doubt about it!
+But, after all, a man is but a man, and we can take precautions.
+You will tell us, will you not, even for his own sake, all you can
+about his habits and his lurking-places? All we want to do is to put
+it out of his power to do harm, and perhaps bring him to reason."
+
+"You want to do what is quite impossible," said Nell.  "My grandfather
+is everywhere and nowhere.  I have never seen his retreats.
+I have never seen him sleep.  If he meant to conceal himself,
+he used to leave me alone, and vanish.  When I took my resolution,
+Mr. Starr, I was aware of everything you could say against it.
+Believe me, there is but one way to render Silfax powerless,
+and that will be by my return to him.  Invisible himself,
+he sees everything that goes on.  Just think whether it is
+likely he could discover your very thoughts and intentions,
+from that time when the letter was written to Mr. Starr,
+up to now that my marriage with Harry has been arranged, if he did
+not possess the extraordinary faculty of knowing everything.
+As far as I
+
+am able to judge, my grandfather, in his very insanity,
+is a man of most powerful mind.  He formerly used to talk to me
+on very lofty subjects.  He taught me the existence of God,
+and never deceived me but on one point, which was--that he made me
+believe that all men were base and perfidious, because he wished
+to inspire me with his own hatred of all the human race.
+When Harry brought me to the cottage, you thought I was simply
+ignorant of mankind, but, far beyond that, I was in mortal fear
+of you all.  Ah, forgive me!  I assure you, for many days I
+believed myself in the power of wicked wretches, and I longed
+to escape.  You, Madge, first led me to perceive the truth,
+not by anything you said, but by the sight of your daily life,
+for I saw that your husband and son loved and respected you!
+Then all these good and happy workmen, who so revere
+and trust Mr. Starr, I used to think they were slaves;
+and when, for the first time, I saw the whole population
+of Aberfoyle come to church and kneel down to pray to God,
+and praise Him for His infinite goodness, I said to myself,
+'My grandfather has deceived me.'  But now, enlightened by all you
+have taught me, I am inclined to think he himself is deceived.
+I mean to return to the secret passages I formerly frequented
+with him.  He is certain to be on the watch.  I will call to him;
+he will hear me, and who knows but that, by returning to him,
+I may be able to bring him to the knowledge of the truth?"
+
+The maiden spoke without interruption, for all felt that it
+was good for her to open her whole heart to her friends.
+
+But when, exhausted by emotion, and with eyes full of tears,
+she ceased speaking, Harry turned to old Madge and said,
+"Mother, what should you think of the man who could forsake
+the noble girl whose words you have been listening to?"
+
+"I should think he was a base coward," said Madge, "and, were he my son,
+I should renounce and curse him."
+
+"Nell, do you hear what our mother says?" resumed Harry.  "Wherever you
+go I will follow you.  If you persist in leaving us, we will
+go away together."
+
+"Harry!  Harry!" cried Nell.
+
+Overcome by her feelings, the girl's lips blanched, and she sank
+into the arms of Madge, who begged she might be left alone with her.
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII NELL'S WEDDING
+
+
+IT was agreed that the inhabitants of the cottage must keep more on
+their guard than ever.  The threats of old Silfax were too serious
+to be disregarded.  It was only too possible that he possessed some
+terrible means by which the whole of Aberfoyle might be annihilated.
+
+Armed sentinels were posted at the various entrances to
+the mine, with orders to keep strict watch day and night.
+Any stranger entering the mine was brought before James Starr,
+that he might give an account of himself.  There being no fear
+of treason among the inhabitants of Coal Town, the threatened
+danger to the subterranean colony was made known to them.
+Nell was informed of all the precautions taken, and became
+more tranquil, although she was not free from uneasiness.
+Harry's determination to follow her wherever she went compelled
+her to promise not to escape from her friends.
+
+During the week preceding the wedding, no accident whatever
+occurred in Aberfoyle.  The system of watching was carefully
+maintained, but the miners began to recover from the panic,
+which had seriously interrupted the work of excavation.
+James Starr continued to look out for Silfax.  The old man having
+vindictively declared that Nell should never marry Simon's son,
+it was natural to suppose that he would not hesitate to commit
+any violent deed which would hinder their union.
+
+The examination of the mine was carried on minutely.
+Every passage and gallery was searched, up to those higher ranges
+which opened out among the ruins of Dundonald Castle.  It was rightly
+supposed that through this old building Silfax passed out to obtain
+what was needful for the support of his miserable existence
+(which he must have done, either by purchasing or thieving).
+
+As to the "fire-maidens," James Starr began to think that appearance
+must have been produced by some jet of fire-damp gas which,
+issuing from that part of the pit, could be lighted by Silfax.  He was
+not far wrong; but all search for proof of this was fruitless,
+and the continued strain of anxiety in this perpetual effort
+to detect a malignant and invisible being rendered the engineer--
+outwardly calm--an unhappy man.
+
+389
+
+
+As the wedding-day approached, his dread of some catastrophe increased,
+and he could not but speak of it to the old overman, whose uneasiness
+soon more than equaled his own.  At length the day came.
+Silfax had given no token of existence.
+
+By daybreak the entire population of Coal Town was astir.
+Work was suspended; overseers and workmen alike desired to do
+honor to Simon Ford and his son.  They all felt they owed a large
+debt of gratitude to these bold and persevering men, by whose
+means the mine had been restored to its former prosperity.
+The ceremony was to take place at eleven o'clock, in St. Giles's chapel,
+which stood on the shores of Loch Malcolm.
+
+At the appointed time, Harry left the cottage,
+supporting his mother on his arm, while Simon led the bride.
+Following them came Starr, the engineer, composed in manner,
+but in reality nerved to expect the worst, and Jack Ryan,
+stepping superb in full Highland piper's costume.
+Then came the other mining engineers, the principal people
+of Coal Town, the friends and comrades of the old overman--
+every member of this great family of miners forming the population
+of New Aberfoyle.
+
+In the outer world, the day was one of the hottest of the month
+of August, peculiarly oppressive in northern countries.  The sultry air
+penetrated the depths of the coal mine, and elevated the temperature.
+The air which entered through the ventilating shafts, and the great
+tunnel of Loch Malcolm, was charged with electricity, and the barometer,
+it was afterwards remarked, had fallen in a remarkable manner.
+There was, indeed, every indication that a storm might burst forth
+beneath the rocky vault which formed the roof of the enormous crypt
+of the very mine itself.
+
+But the inhabitants were not at that moment troubling themselves
+about the chances of atmospheric disturbance above ground.
+Everybody, as a matter of course, had put on his best clothes
+for the occasion.  Madge was dressed in the fashion of days
+gone by, wearing the "toy" and the "rokelay," or Tartan plaid,
+of matrons of the olden time, old Simon wore a coat of which
+Bailie Nicol Jarvie himself would have approved.
+
+Nell had resolved to show nothing of her mental agitation;
+she forbade her heart to beat, or her inward terrors to
+
+betray themselves, and the brave girl appeared before all with a calm
+and collected aspect.  She had declined every ornament of dress,
+and the very simplicity of her attire added to the charming elegance
+of her appearance.  Her hair was bound with the "snood," the usual
+head-dress of Scottish maidens.
+
+All proceeded towards St. Giles's chapel, which had been handsomely
+decorated for the occasion.
+
+The electric discs of light which illuminated Coal Town
+blazed like so many suns.  A luminous atmosphere pervaded
+New Aberfoyle.  In the chapel, electric lamps shed a glow over
+the stained-glass windows, which shone like fiery kaleidoscopes.
+At the porch of the chapel the minister awaited the arrival
+of the wedding party.
+
+It approached, after having passed in stately procession along
+the shore of Loch Malcolm.  Then the tones of the organ were heard,
+and, preceded by the minister, the group advanced into the chapel.
+The Divine blessing was first invoked on all present.
+Then Harry and Nell remained alone before the minister,
+who, holding the sacred book in his hand, proceeded to say,
+"Harry, will you take Nell to be your wife, and will you promise
+to love her always?"
+
+"I promise," answered the young man in a firm and steady voice.
+
+"And you, Nell," continued the minister, "will you take Harry
+to be your husband, and--"
+
+Before he could finish the sentence, a prodigious noise resounded
+from without.  One of the enormous rocks, on which was formed
+the terrace overhanging the banks of Loch Malcolm, had suddenly
+given way and opened without explosion, disclosing a profound abyss,
+into which the waters were now wildly plunging.
+
+In another instant, among the shattered rocks and rushing waves appeared
+a canoe, which a vigorous arm propelled along the surface of the lake.
+In the canoe was seen the figure of an old man standing upright.
+He was clothed in a dark mantle, his hair was dishevelled, a long
+white beard fell over his breast, and in his hand he bore a lighted
+Davy safety lamp, the flame being protected by the metallic gauze
+of the apparatus.
+
+In a loud voice this old man shouted, "The fire-damp is upon you!
+Woe--woe betide ye all!"
+
+
+At the same moment the slight smell peculiar to carburetted hydrogen
+was perceptibly diffused through the atmosphere.  And, in truth,
+the fall of the rock had made a passage of escape for an enormous
+quantity of explosive gas, accumulated in vast cavities, the openings
+to which had hitherto been blocked up.
+
+Jets and streams of the fire-damp now rose upward in the vaulted dome;
+and well did that fierce old man know that the consequence of what he had
+done would be to render explosive the whole atmosphere of the mine.
+
+James Starr and several others, having hastily quitted the chapel,
+and perceived the imminence of the danger, now rushed back,
+crying out in accents of the utmost alarm, "Fly from the mine!
+Fly instantly from the mine!"
+
+"Now for the fire-damp! Here comes the fire-damp!" yelled the old man,
+urging his canoe further along the lake.
+
+Harry with his bride, his father and his mother, left the chapel
+in haste and in terror.
+
+"Fly! fly for your lives!" repeated James Starr.  Alas! it was
+too late to fly!  Old Silfax stood there, prepared to fulfill
+his last dreadful threat--prepared to stop the marriage of Nell
+and Harry by overwhelming the entire population of the place
+beneath the ruins of the coal mine.
+
+As he stood ready to accomplish this act of vengeance, his enormous owl,
+whose white plumage was marked with black spots, was seen hovering
+directly above his head.
+
+At that moment a man flung himself into the waters of the lake,
+and swam vigorously towards the canoe.
+
+It was Jack Ryan, fully determined to reach the madman before he could
+do the dreadful deed of destruction.
+
+Silfax saw him coming.  Instantly he smashed the glass of his lamp,
+and, snatching out the burning wick, waved it in the air.
+
+Silence like death fell upon the astounded multitude.  James Starr,
+in the calmness of despair, marvelled that the inevitable explosion
+was even for a moment delayed.
+
+Silfax, gazing upwards with wild and contracted features, appeared to
+become aware that the gas, lighter than the lower atmosphere,
+was accumulating far up under the dome; and at a sign from him the owl,
+seizing in its claw the lighted match, soared upwards to the vaulted roof,
+towards which the madman pointed with outstretched arm.
+
+
+Another second and New Aberfoyle would be no more.
+
+Suddenly Nell sprang from Harry's arms, and, with a bright
+look of inspiration, she ran to the very brink of the waters
+of the lake.  "Harfang!  Harfang!" cried she in a clear voice;
+"here! come to me!"
+
+The faithful bird, surprised, appeared to hesitate in its flight.
+Presently, recognizing Nell's voice, it dropped the burning match
+into the water, and, describing a wide circle, flew downwards,
+alighting at the maiden's feet.
+
+Then a terrible cry echoed through the vaulted roofs.
+It was the last sound uttered by old Silfax.
+
+Just as Jack Ryan laid his hand on the edge of the canoe, the old man,
+foiled in his purpose of revenge, cast himself headlong into the waters
+of the lake.
+
+"Save him! oh, save him!" shrieked Nell in a voice of agony.
+Immediately Harry plunged into the water, and, swimming towards
+Jack Ryan, he dived repeatedly.
+
+But his efforts were useless.  The waters of Loch Malcolm yielded
+not their prey:  they closed forever over Silfax.
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX THE LEGEND OF OLD SILFAX
+
+
+Six months after these events, the marriage, so strangely interrupted,
+was finally celebrated in St. Giles's chapel, and the young couple,
+who still wore mourning garments, returned to the cottage.
+James Starr and Simon Ford, henceforth free from the anxieties which
+had so long distressed them, joyously presided over the entertainment
+which followed the ceremony, and prolonged it to the following day.
+
+On this memorable occasion, Jack Ryan, in his favorite character of piper,
+and in all the glory of full dress, blew up his chanter, and astonished
+the company by the unheard of achievement of playing, singing, and dancing
+all at once.
+
+It is needless to say that Harry and Nell were happy.
+These loving hearts, after the trials they had gone through found
+in their union the happiness they deserved.
+
+As to Simon Ford, the ex-overman of New Aberfoyle, he began to talk
+of celebrating his golden wedding, after
+
+fifty years of marriage with good old Madge, who liked
+the idea immensely herself.
+
+"And after that, why not golden wedding number two?"
+
+"You would like a couple of fifties, would you, Mr. Simon?"
+said Jack Ryan.
+
+"All right, my boy," replied the overman quietly, "I see nothing
+against it in this fine climate of ours, and living far from
+the luxury and intemperance of the outer world."
+
+Will the dwellers in Coal Town ever be called to witness this
+second ceremony?  Time will show.  Certainly the strange bird
+of old Silfax seemed destined to attain a wonderful longevity.
+The Harfang continued to haunt the gloomy recesses of the cave.
+After the old man's death, Nell had attempted to keep the owl,
+but in a very few days he flew away.  He evidently disliked
+human society as much as his master had done, and, besides that,
+he appeared to have a particular spite against Harry.  The jealous
+bird seemed to remember and hate him for having carried off Nell
+from the deep abyss, notwithstanding all he could do to prevent him.
+Still, at long intervals, Nell would see the creature hovering
+above Loch Malcolm.
+
+Could he possibly be watching for his friend of yore?
+Did he strive to pierce, with keen eye, the depths which had
+engulfed his master?
+
+The history of the Harfang became legendary, and furnished
+Jack Ryan with many a tale and song.  Thanks to him, the story
+of old Silfax and his bird will long be preserved, and handed
+down to future generations of the Scottish peasantry.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg Etext's of The Underground City, by Jules Verne
+
+
+
+
+
+Note: I have made the following changes to the text:
+PAGE  LINE  ORIGINAL          CHANGED TO
+ 285    31  Collander          Callander
+ 296     4  quarternary          quaternary
+ 301    36  intersting          interesting
+ 349     1  unusued          unused
+ 350     8  lengendary          legendary
+ 379    35  her          her.
+ 390    38  Tarton          Tartan
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg Etext's of The Underground City, by Jules Verne
+