Deep Down, a Tale of the Cornish Mines by R. M. Ballantyne (that summer book .TXT) 📕

of an old part of the mine which was known to be full of water. To tap this old part, or as the miners expressed it, to “hole into this house of water,” was, they were well aware, an exceedingly dangerous operation. The part of the mine to which we allude was not under the sea, but back a little from the shore, and was not very deep at that time. The “adit”—or water-conducting—level by which the spot was reached commenced at the cliffs, on a level with the seashore, and ran into the interior until it reached the old mine, about a quarter of a mile inland. Here was situated the “house,” which was neither more nor less than a number of old shafts and levels filled with water. As they had approached the old mine its near proximity was made disagreeably evident by the quantity of moisture that oozed through the crevices in the rocks—moisture which ere long took the form of a number of tiny rills—and at last began to spirt out from roof and sides in such a way that the miners became alarmed, and hesitated to continue to work in a place where they ran the most imminent risk of being suddenly drowned and swept into the sea, by the bursting of the rocks that still withstood the immense pressure of the confined water.

It was at this point in the undertaking that David Trevarrow went to examine the place, and made the discovery of a seam—a “keenly lode”—which had such a promising appearance that the anxiety of the miners to get rid of this obstructive “house” was redoubled.

It was at this point, too, that the council of which we write was held, in order to settle who should have the undesirable privilege of constituting the “forlorn hope” in their subterranean assault.

Maggot, who was known to be one of the boldest, and, at the same time, one of the most utterly reckless, men in St. Just, was appealed to in the emergency, and, as we have seen, offered to attack the enemy single-handed, on condition that the miners should give him a “pitch” of the good lode they had found—that is, give him the right to work out a certain number of fathoms of ore for himself.

They agreed to this, but one of them expressed some doubt as to Maggot’s courage being equal to the occasion.

To this remark Maggot vouchsafed no other reply than a frown, but his friend and admirer John Cock exclaimed in supreme contempt,—“What! Maggot afear’d to do it! aw, my dear, hould tha tongue.”

“But he haven’t bin to see the place,” urged the previous speaker.

“No, my son,” said Maggot, turning on the man with a look of pity, “but he can go an’ see it. Come, lads, lev us go an’ see this place of danger.”

The miners rose at once as Maggot threw his forehammer on a heap of coals, put on his hat, and strode out of the forge with a reckless fling. A few minutes sufficed to bring them to the beach at the mouth of the adit.

It was a singularly wild spot, close under those precipitous cliffs on which some of the picturesque buildings of Botallack mine are perched—a sort of narrow inlet or gorge which from its form is named the Narrow Zawn. There was nothing worthy of the name of a beach at the place, save a little piece of rugged ground near the adit mouth, which could be reached only by a zigzag path on the face of the almost perpendicular precipice.

Arrived here, each man lighted a candle, wrapped the customary piece of wet clay round the middle of it, and entered the narrow tunnel. They advanced in single file, James Penrose leading. The height of the adit permitted of their walking almost upright, but the irregularity of the cuttings rendered it necessary that they should advance carefully, with special regard to their heads. In about a quarter of an hour they reached a comparatively open space—that is to say, there were several extensions of the cutting in various directions, which gave the place the appearance of being a small cavern, instead of a narrow tunnel. Here the water, which in other parts of the adit flowed along the bottom, ran down the walls and spirted in fine streams from the almost invisible crevices of the rock, thus betraying at once the proximity and the power of the pent-up water.

“What think’ee now, my son?” asked an elderly man who stood at Maggot’s elbow.

After a short pause, during which he sternly regarded the rocks before him, the smith replied, “I’ll do it,” in the tone and with the air of a man who knows that what he has made up his mind to do is not child’s play.

The question being thus settled, the miners retraced their steps and went to their several homes.

Entering his cottage, the smith found his little girl Grace busily engaged in the interesting process of nursing the baby. He seated himself in a chair by the fireside, smoked his pipe, and watched the process, while his wife busied herself in preparing the evening meal.

Oh! but the little Maggot was a big baby—a worthy representative of his father—a true chip of the old block, for he was not only fat, riotous, and muscular, but very reckless, and extremely positive. His little nurse, on the contrary, was gentle and delicate; not much bigger than the baby, although a good deal older, and she had a dreadful business of it to keep him in order. All her efforts at lifting and restraining him were somewhat akin to the exertion made by wrestlers to throw each other by main force, and her intense desire to make baby Maggot “be good” was repaid by severe kicks on the shins, and sundry dabs in the face with, luckily, a soft, fat pair of fists.

“Sit ’ee quiet, now, or I’ll scat oo nose,” said the little nurse suddenly, with a terrible frown.

It need scarcely be said that she had not the remotest; intention of carrying out this dreadful threat to smash the little Maggot’s nose. She accompanied it, however, with a twist that suddenly placed the urchin in a sitting posture, much to his own surprise, for he opened his eyes very wide, drew his breath sharply, and appeared to meditate a roar. He thought better of it, however, and relapsed into goodness just as the door opened, and David Trevarrow entered.

“Oh, uncle David,” cried little Grace, jumping up and running towards him, “do help me nuss baby.”

“What’s the matter with the cheeld—bad, eh? Fetch un to me and I’ll cure him.”

There was no necessity to fetch baby, for that obstreperous individual entertained an immense regard for “Unkil Day,” and was already on his fat legs staggering across the floor to him with outstretched arms. Thereafter he only required a pair of wings to make him a complete cherub.

Little Grace, relieved of her charge, at once set to work to assist her mother in household matters. She was one of those dear little earnest creatures who of their own accord act in a motherly and wifely way from their early years. To look at little Grace’s serious thoroughgoing face, when she chanced to pause in the midst of work, and meditate what was to be done next, one might imagine that the entire care of the household had suddenly devolved upon her shoulders. In the matter of housewifery little Grace was almost equal to big Grace, her respected mother; in downright honesty and truthfulness she greatly excelled her.

The description of Maggot’s household, on that evening, would be very incomplete were we to omit mention of Zackey Maggot. That young man—for man he deemed himself, and man he was, in all respects, except the trifling matters of years, size, and whiskers—that young man entered the room with his uncle, and, without deigning to change his wet red garments, sat him down at his father’s feet and caught hold of a small black kitten, which, at the time, lay sound asleep on the hearth, and began to play with it in a grave patronising way, as though his taking notice of it at all were a condescension.

That black kitten, or Chet, as it was usually styled, was accustomed to be strangled the greater part of the morning by the baby. Most of the afternoon it was worried by Zackey, and, during the intervals of torment, it experienced an unusually large measure of the vicissitudes incident to kitten life—such as being kicked out of the way by Maggot senior, or thrown or terrified out of the way by Mrs Maggot, or dashed at by stray dogs, or yelled at by passing boys. The only sunshine of its life (which was at all times liable to be suddenly clouded) was when it slept, or when little Grace put it on her soft neck, tickled its chin, and otherwise soothed its ruffled spirit, as only a loving heart knows how. A bad memory seemed to be that kitten’s chief blessing. A horror of any kind was no sooner past than it was straightway forgotten, and the facetious animal would advance with arched back and glaring eyes in defiance of an incursive hen, or twirl in mad hopeless career after its own miserable tail!

“’Tis a keenly lode,” said Maggot, puffing his pipe thoughtfully.

“Iss,” assented David Trevarrow, also puffing his pipe, at the clouds issuing from which baby gazed with endless amazement and admiration; “it’s worth much, but it isn’t worth your life.”

“Sure, I ain’t goin’ to give my life for’t,” replied Maggot.

“But you’re goin’ to risk it,” said David, “an’ you shouldn’t, for you’ve a wife an’ child’n to provide for. Now, I tell ’ee what it is: you lev it to me. I’ll hole to the house. It don’t matter much what happens to me.”

“No, ’ee won’t,” said Maggot stoutly; “what I do promise to do I will do.”

“But if you die?” said David.

“Well, what if I do? we have all to come to that some day, sooner or later.”

“Are you prepared to die?” asked Trevarrow earnestly.

“Now, David, don’t ’ee trouble me with that. ’Tis all very well for the women an’ child’n, but it don’t suit me, it don’t, so lev us have no more of it, booy. I’ll do it to-morrow, that’s fixed, so now we’ll have a bit supper.”

The tone in which Maggot said this assured David that further conversation would be useless, so he dropped the subject and sat down with the rest of the family to their evening meal.