Ko. 4. THE BLACK-INDIES. 117 " How ? Your family has not left the mine since the work stopped ?" "Not for a day, Mr. Starr. You know my father. He was born there, and he wishes to die there." "I know, I know, Harry. His native mines. He would not leave it. And are you contented there?" " Yes, Mr. Starr, for we are very fond of each other, and we have few wants." " Well, Harry, let us go." James Starr, following the young man, has tened through the street of Callander. In ten minutes they had left the town. CHAPTER IV. THE DOCHART PIT. Harry Ford was a tall young man of twenty- five years, vigorous and well developed. His serious expression, and habitually pensive bear- ing had distinguished him from infancy trom his companions in the mine. His regular fea- tures, his sweet earnest eyes, his hair rather wavy and of a chestnut rather than blonde shade, his natural charm of manner, all agreed to form the perfect type of the Lowlander—that ing noise of the engines. Not a single column of blackish vapor which the workman loves to see, mingled with the great clouds in the hori- zon. No high cylindrical chimney, or pris- matic vomiting of smoke ; after being fed in the depths of the earth, no shaft exhausts it- self in breathing out its white vapor. The earth, formerly blackened by the dust from the mine, had a natural appearance, to which the eyes of James Starr were not accustomed. When the engineer stopped, Harry Ford stopped also. The young miner waited in silence. He understood what was passing in the mind of his companion, and he fully shared his feelings; he, a child ofthe mine, whose soil. " Yes, Harry ; all is changed," said James Starr. " But in proportion as they are with- drawn, the treasures of the mine must some day be exhausted. You regret that time ? " "I regret it, Mr. Starr," replied Harry. " The work was hard, but it was interesting, like all efforts." " Without doubt, my boy. The constant struggle, the danger of the mine falling in, of fires, of inundations, of explosions, of fire mains of beams, to which were fastened the shaft of the exhausting pumps, wedges, broken and encrusted with earth, toothless saws, over- turned weighing-machines, several ladder- rounds, fixed to wooden horses and looking like the great bones of the ichthyosaurus, rails car- ried on broken cross-pieces, still upheld by two or three tottering piles, tramways which would not have borne the weight of an empty wagon —such was the desolate appearance of the Dochart Pit. The chafed stones at the edge of the pit were covered with thick mosses. Here were tho pieces of a cage, there the remains of a shed, where the coal was stored before being sorted according to its quality and size. Finally, whole life has been spent in the depths of this .the remains of tons to which hung the end is to say, a superb specimen of the Scotchman damp, which strike like lightning ! To ward of the plain. Inured almost from his earliest | off these perils ! You are right ! It is a Strug childhood to fhe work of the mine, he was at once, a reliable companion, and a brave, hon- est soul. Guided by his father, led by his own instincts, he had worked, he had learned in time, and at an age when one is little more than an apprentice, he had made himself of importance, one of the first in his station, in a country which numbers few ignoramuses, as it does everything to suppress ignorance. If during the early years of manhood, the pick had scarcely left his hand, nevertheless, the young miner was not slow in acquiring suffi- cient knowledge to advance h'.n in the hier- archy of the mine; and he would certainly have succeeded his father in the position of overseer in the Dochart Pit if the mine had not been abandoned. Although James Starr was still a good walk- er, he could not have easily followed his guide, if the latter had not moderated his steps. The rain fell with less violence. Tho large drops were scattered before touching the soil. They Were more like moist gusts which swept the atmosphere, stirred up by the fresh breeze. Harry Ford and James Starr—the young man carrying the engineer's light baggage,— followed the left bank of the river for the dis- tance of a mile. After having skirted its wind- ing bank they took a road which struck inland under the great rustling, dripping trees. Pas- tures spread on either side, surrounding isolated farms. Several flocks were quietly grazing on the grass, which is always green in the Low- land meadows. There were hornless cows, or little sheep with silken wool, which resembled the toy sheep of childrens' folds. No shepherd could be seen—he was no doubt sheltered in a hollow tree—but the colley, a dog peculiar to this country of the United Kingdom, and re- nowned for his vigilance, roamed around the pasturage. The Yarow Well was situated four miles from Callander. James Starr, even while walk- ing could not help feeling depressed. He had not seen the country since the last ton of coal from the Aberfoyle mines had been thrown into the cars of the Glasgow Railway. The agri- cultural life had now replaced the industrial one, always more exciting, more active. The contrast was all the more striking because that in winter the farmer's work decreases, liut, formerly, in all seasons the mining population, above as well as below, enlivened this district. The great coal trains passed day and night. The rails now buried on their rotten sleepers, were once ground under the weight of the wagons. Now, a road of stones and clay was gradually taking the place of the old tramways of the works. James Starr thought he w'as .crossing a desert. The engineer looked about him with sad- dened eyes. He stopped at intervals to take breath. He listened. The air was no longer filled with the distant whistlings and the pant- gle, and consequently the excitement ! " " The Alloa miners have been more favored than the Aberfoyle miners, Mr. Starr." " Yes, Harry.» " In fact," cried the young man, "it is too bad that the whole earth was not made entirely of coal ! Then it would last for several mil- lions of years ! " " Without doubt, Harry ! But, we must admit that nature has proved thoughtful in forming our spheroid principally of sandstone, lime- stone, and granite, which cannot consume." " Do you mean to say, Mr. Starr, that hu- man beings would have ended bv burning their globe ?" "Yes, decidedly so, my boy. The earth would have passed to the last mite into the fur- naces of the locomotives, the machines, the steamers, the gas-works; and certainly, it is thus that one of these fine days our world would have ended." " That is no longer to be feared, Mr. Starr. But instead the mines will be exhausted much sooner than statistics say." "That will happen, Harry; and, in my opinion, Harry, England is wrong in exchang- ing her coal for the gold of other nations." " You are right." " I know well," added the engineer. " that neither hydraulics nor electricity are yet com- pletely understood, and that these two forces will yet be more thoroughly utilized. But never mind. Coal is of great practical use, and is easily adapted to the various needs of industry. Unhappily men cannot produce it at will. If the outer forests should spring unceasingly under the influence of heat and rain, the inner forests could never be repro- duced, and the world will never again he un- der the conditions necessary to make them." James Starr and his guide, while talking, had been walking rapidly. An hour after leav- ing Callander, they reached the Dochart Pit. The most indifferent spectator would have been touched by the sad appearance of these deserted works. , It was like the skeleton of what had before been full of animation. In a vast square, bordered by some miserable trees, the earth was still black with coal-dust, but all signs of cinders, pieces of coal and soot were gone. They had long since been carried off and consumed. On a small hill was distinguishable the skel- eton of an enormous frame, which the sun and the rain were slowly eating away. At the top of this frame was a great rowel or casting wheel ; and still lower rounded the great drums, on which formerly were rolled the câbler which drew the cages to the surface of the earth. On the lower floor they saw the dismantled machine-house, in which the copper and steel parts of the mechanism had once glistened. Some fragments of the wall lay on the ground among broken joints, moldy with damp. Re- of a chain, fragments of gigantic wooden horses, the plates of a ripped-open boiler, twisted pistons, long beams suspended over the mouths of the pump wells, foot-bridges trem- bling in the wind, culverts shaking under the feet, walls full of crevices, half-broken down roofs, overhanging disjointed brick chimneys, resembling those modern guns whose breech is chiseled out in cylindrical rings. Everything conveyed an impression of desolation, misery and sadness ; not produced by the ruins of an old stone castle, or the remains of a dismantled fortress. " It is desolation," said James Starr, looking at the young man, who did not reply. They then passed under the shed which cov- ered the mouth of the Yarrow Pit, whose lad- ders still gave access to tho lower galleries of the mine. The engineer swung himself over the mouth. Formerly the strong air exhaled by the venti- lators could be felt there. It was now a silent abyss. It seemed like the crater of an extinct volcano. James Starr and Harry stepped on the first landing. While being worked, an ingenious engine served certain shafts in the Aberfoyle mines, which in this respect were well supplied with apparatus. Buckets furuished with automatic parachutes, held by wooden slides, oscillating ladders—called engine-men—which, by a sim- ple oscillating motion, allowed the miners to descend without danger and ascend without fatigue. But this perfected apparatus had been carried away after the work was stopped. There re- mained at the Yarow shaft only a long line of ladders, separated by narrow landings at inter- vals of fifty feet. Thirty of these ladders, placed end to end, would allow a descent to the bottom of the lowest gallery, at a depth of fifteen hundred feet. It was the only commu- nication which existed between the bottom of the Dochart Pit and the surface of the earth. As for ventilation, it happened that the gal- leries of the Yarow Well communicated with another shaft which opened on a higher level. The warm air was thus naturally set free by this kind of a reversed syphon. " I will follow you, my boy," said the engi- neer, signing to the young man to precede him. " At your service, Mr. Starr." " You have your lamp ?" "Yes; and would to Heaven it were the safety lamp which we formerly used." " The fact is, an explosion of fire-damp is no longer to be feared," said James Starr. . Harry was furnished with a simple oil lamp, the wick of which he lit. In the empty mine, carburetted hydrogen gas cannot be produced ; thus no explosion need be feared. No neces- sity exists for interposing between the flame and ambient air that metallic gauze which pre- vents the gas from igniting the outer air. The Davy lamp, then so perfect, was no longer needed here. But if the danger had ceased to exist, it was because the cause had disappeared, and, with this cause, the combustible which, formerly made the wealth of the Dochart Pit. Harry descended the first rounds of the up- per ladder. James Starr followed him. Both soon found themselves in profound darkness, broken only by the fight of the lamp. Th« young man held it, above his head, the better to light his companion.