The Black Tor: A Tale of the Reign of James the First by George Manville Fenn (classic romance novels .TXT) 📕

was Sir Edward’s chief man over the mine. Not a gentleman superintendent, but a genuine miner, who gave orders, and then helped to carry them out. He had the credit of knowing more about mines than any man in the midland counties, knowledge gathered by passing quite half his life underground like a mole.

Dummy was his only child, so-called on account of his being a particularly silent, stupid-looking boy. But old Dan said he was not such a fool as he looked, and Dan was right.

Dummy hailed his young master’s coming with quiet satisfaction, for Mark was almost the only being to whom he ever said much; and as soon as he saw him come to where he was at work, he walked with him to a chest, and took out a flint and steel and a good supply of home-made candles, without stopping to ask questions; and then lighting one, he handed it to Mark, and led off into the part of the mine where the men were not at work.

“Aren’t you going to take a candle, Dummy?” said Mark.

“No, master; I can manage.”

“I believe you can see in the dark, like a rat or an owl. Can you?”

“Not very well, Master Mark; but I can see a bit. Got used to it, I s’pose.”

“Well, why are you going down there?” asked Mark.

“’Cause I thought you’d like to see the place I found while you were at school.”

“Ah! Is it worth seeing?”

“Dunno. It’s big.”

“Been dug out?”

“Nay. It’s a big split as goes up ever so far, and goes down ever so far. Chucked bits down; and they were precious long ’fore they hit bottom. There’s a place over the other side too, and I clum round to it, and it goes in and in, farther than I could stop to go. Thought I’d wait till you came home.”

“That’s right, Dummy. We will not go to-day; but start early some morning, and take a basket and bottle with us.”

“Ay, that’s the way. Water’s warm in there, I think.”

By degrees, from old acquaintance and real liking for the dull heavy lad, who looked up to him as a kind of prince, Mark dropped into telling his adventures over the ravens, while they trudged along the black passages, with Dummy leading, Mark still carrying the candle, and the lad’s huge long shadow going first of all.

The miner’s son listened without a word, drinking in the broken disconnected narrative, as if not a word ought to be lost, and when it was ended, breaking out with: “Wish I’d been there.”

“I wish you had, Dummy. But if you had been, what would you have done?”

“I d’know, Master Mark. I aren’t good out in the daylight; but I can get along on the cliffs. I’d ha’ come down to you. I should just like to ketch any one heaving stones down upon you. I wonder that young Darley didn’t kill you, though, when he’d cotched you. We should ha’ killed him, shouldn’t us, sir?”

“Don’t know, Dummy,” said the lad shortly. “Let’s talk about something else.”

Dummy was silent; and they went on and on till Mark spoke again.

“Well,” he said, “found any good bits of spar for Miss Mary?”

“Lots, sir. One big bit with two points like a shovel handle. Clear as glass.”

There was another silence, and then Mark spoke again.

“What’s going on?”

“Witches, master.”

“Eh? What?”

“Things comes in the night, and takes lambs, and fowls, and geese.”

“You mean thieves.”

“Nay, not like thieves, master. Old Mother Deggins saw ’em the other night, and they fluttered and made a noise—great black witches, in long petticoats and brooms. It was a noise like thunder, and a light like lightnin’, she says, and it knocked her down night afore last; and she won’t live in the cottage no longer, but come next to ours.”

“Somebody tried to frighten her.”

“P’r’aps. Frightened two of our men too. They was coming back from Gatewell over the hills; and they see a light up by Ergles, where there aren’t no lights, and they crep’ up to see what it was, and looked down and see a fire, with a lot of old witches in long gowns leaning over it, and boiling something in a pot; and they think it’s babies.”

“Why do they think that?”

“I d’know, master. Because they thought so, I think. Then, as they were looking, all at once there was a ter’ble squirty noise, and a rush like wings; and there was no fire, and nothing to see. Glad I warn’t there. Wouldn’t go across the moor by Ergles for anything.”

“But you’re not afraid to come along here in the dark.”

“’Fraid, Master Mark? No: why should I be? Nothing to hurt you here.”

“You’re a queer fellow, Dummy,” said Mark.

“Yes, master. That’s what father says. I s’pose it’s through being so much in the mine.”

“I suppose so. But you don’t mind?”

“Mind, Master Mark? I like it. Wish you was at home more, though.—I say—”

“Well?”

“If ever you go to fight the Darleys, take me, Master Mark.”

“I shall not go to fight the Darleys, Dummy. They may come to fight us, and if they do, you shall come and help.”

“Hah!” ejaculated the rough-looking boy. “I’m pretty strong now. If they come and meddle with us, do you know what I should like to do, Master Mark.”

“No: hammer them, I suppose.”

“Nay; I should like to drive ’em all down to the place I’m going to show you.”

“Well, where is it?”

“Oh, ever so far yet. ’N’our away.”

Mark whistled in surprise.

“Not tired, are you, sir?”

“Tired? No; but I didn’t think you could go so far.”

“Oh yes, you can, sir, if you don’t mind crawling a bit now and then. You can go miles and miles where the stone’s split apart. I think it’s all cracks under the hills.”

“On you go, then; but don’t you want a candle?”

“No, sir; I can see best like this, with you holding the light behind.”

Mark relapsed into silence, and his guide remained silent too, and went on and on, along passages formed by the busy miners of the past, in following the lode of lead, and along ways that were nature’s work.

At last, fully an hour after Dummy had announced how far they had to go, he stopped short, took a candle, lit it, and looked smilingly at Mark, who gazed round the natural cavern in which they were, and then turned to his guide.

“Well,” he said, “is this it? Not much of a place. I thought you said it went farther.”

“So it does, Master Mark. Shut your eyes while you count a hundred.”

Mark obeyed, and counted his hundred aloud, opened his eyes again, and he was alone.

“Here! Where are you?” he cried; and he looked about the place, up and down, but to all appearances, he was in a cul de sac, whose walls were dotted with the fossil stems of pentacrinites, over which stalagmitic petrifaction had gradually formed, looking as if dirty water had run over the walls in places, and hardened in the course of time to stone.

“Here, Dummy! Haven’t run back, have you?” shouted Mark, as it occurred to him that should the boy have played him a trick, he would have no little difficulty in getting back to the part where the men were at work.

But there was no occasion for so loud a cry; the words had hardly passed his lips when a hand holding a candle suddenly appeared against the wall in front, and upon stepping to it, he found that the sheet of stalagmite there, instead of touching the wall, was a foot away, leaving room for any one to creep up a steep slope for thirty or forty feet, and continue the way through a long crevice, whose sides looked as if they might have separated only a few hours before.

“This is the way,” said Dummy, and he led on for a quarter of an hour longer, with a peculiar rushing noise growing louder, till it became a heavy dull roar, as the narrow crack through which they had passed suddenly opened out into a vast cavity which, below the ledge on which they stood, ended in gloom, and whose roof was lost in the same blackness; but the echoes of the falling water below told them that it must be far enough above their heads.

“What a horrible hole!” cried Mark.

“Yes; big,” said Dummy. “Look: I climbed along there. It’s easy; and then you can go right on, above where the water comes in. It’s warm in here.”

“Yes, warm enough.”

“Shall we go any farther?”

“No, not to-day. Let’s stop and look. Shall I throw down my candle?”

“No, Master Mark: it’s no good. Goes out too soon. I’ll light a match.”

He took an old-fashioned brimstone match from his breast, lit both its pointed ends, waited till the sulphur was fluttering its blue flame, and the splint was getting well alight and blackening, and then he reached out and let it fall, to go burning brightly down and down, as if into a huge well. Then it went out, and they seemed for the moment to be in darkness.

“I don’t think it’s very, very deep,” said Dummy quietly; “but it’s all water over yonder. Seen enough, Master Mark!”

“Yes, for one day. Let’s go back now.”

Dummy topped the long wicks with his natural snuffers, to wit, his finger and thumb, and led the way back, after Mark had taken a final glance at the vast chasm.

“So you found this place out, Dummy?”

“Yes, Master Mark. I’m always looking for new holes when I’ve nothing to do and the men aren’t at work.”

“It’s of no use: there’s no lead.”

“No: aren’t any ore. All spar and stones like this.”

“Well, we must bring hammers and find some good pieces next time we come.”

“And go on along by the water, Master Mark?”

“If you like. Want to find how far it goes?”

“Yes: I want to find how far it goes, master. Perhaps it opens somewhere. I often think we must come out somewhere on the other side.”

“That would be queer,” said Mark thoughtfully; “but I don’t think my father would be pleased. Seem like making a way for the Darleys to come in and attack us.”

Dummy stopped short, and turned to stare open-mouthed at his young chief.

“What a head you’ve got, Master Mark,” he said. “I never thought of that.”

“Didn’t you? Well, you see now: we don’t want to find another way in.”

“Yes, we do, if there is one, Master Mark, and stop it up.”

Very little more was said as they went back, Mark becoming thoughtful, and too tired to care about speaking. But that night he lay in bed awake for some time, thinking about the visit to the cavernous mine, and how it honeycombed the mountainous place: then about Dummy’s witches, and the fire and caldron, at the mouth of the hole by Ergles, a mighty limestone ridge about three miles away. Then after a laugh at the easy way in which the superstitious country people were alarmed, he fell asleep, to begin a troublous dream, which was mixed up in a strangely confused way with the great chasm in the mine, down which he had worked his way to get at the ravens’ nest: and then he started into wakefulness, as he was falling down and down, hundreds upon hundreds of feet, to find his face wet with perspiration, and that he had been lying upon his back.