Deep Down by Robert Michael Ballantyne (sneezy the snowman read aloud .txt) 📕

smuggling way had proved unsuccessful, and the mines did not offer a tempting prospect just then. There had, no doubt, been one or two hopeful veins opened up, and some good "pitches" had been wrought, but these were only small successes, and the luck had not fallen to either of themselves. The recent discovery of a good bunch by poor Penrose had not been fully appreciated, for the wounded man had as yet said nothing about it, and little Zackey had either forgotten all about it in the excitement of the accident, or was keeping his own counsel.

Maggot talked gloomily about the advisability of emigration to America, as he sent clouds of tobacco smoke up Un Jilly's chimney, and Tonkin said he would try the mines for a short time, and if things didn't improve he would go to sea. He did not, however, look at things in quite the same light with his friend. Perhaps he was of a more hopeful disposition, perhaps had met with fewer disappointments. At all events, he so wrought on Maggot's mind that he half induced him to deny his smuggling propensities for a time, and try legitimate work in the mines. Not that Joe Tonkin wanted to reform him by any means, but he was himself a little out of humour with his old profession, and sought to set his friend against it also.

"Try your luck in Botallack," said Joe Tonkin, knocking the ashes out of his pipe, preparatory to quitting the place, "that's my advice to 'ee, booy."

"I've half a mind to," replied Maggot, rising; "if that theere cargo I run on Saturday do go the way the last did, I'll ha' done with it, so I will. Good-hevenin', Un Jilly."

"Good-hevenin', an' don't 'ee go tumblin' down the owld shafts," said the worthy hostess, observing that her potent brandy had rendered the gait of the men unsteady.

They laughed as they received the caution, and walked together towards St. Just.

"Lev us go see if the toobs are all safe," said Maggot, on reaching the common.

Tonkin agreed, and they turned aside into a narrow track, which led across the waste land, where the search for the baby had been so diligently carried on all that day.

Night had set in, as we have said, and the searchers had gone up to the town to partake of much-needed refreshment, and obtain torches, so that the place was bleak and silent, as well as dark, when the friends crossed it, but they knew every foot of the ground so thoroughly, that there was no fear of their stumbling into old holes. Maggot led the way, and he walked straight to the old shaft where his hopeful son lay.

There were three noteworthy points of coincidence here to which we would draw attention. It was just because this old shaft was so well concealed that Maggot had chosen it as a place in which to hide his tubs of smuggled brandy; it was owing to the same reason that the town's-people had failed to discover it while searching for the baby; and it was--at least we think it must have been--just because of the same reason that baby Maggot had found it, for that amiable child had a peculiar talent, a sort of vocation, for ferreting out things and places hidden and secret, especially if forbidden.

Having succeeded in falling into the hole, the urchin naturally discovered his father's tubs. After crying himself to sleep as before mentioned, and again awakening, his curiosity in respect to these tubs afforded him amusement, and kept him quiet for a time; perhaps the fact that one of the tubs had leaked and filled the lower part of the old shaft with spirituous fumes, may account for the baby continuing to keep quiet, and falling into a sleep which lasted the greater part of the day; at all events, it is certain that he did not howl, as might have been expected of him in the circumstances. Towards evening, however, he began to move about among the tubs, and to sigh and whimper in a subdued way, for his stomach, unused to such prolonged fasting, felt very uncomfortable. When darkness came on baby Maggot became alarmed, but, just about the time of his father's approach, the moon shone out and cast a cheering ray down the shaft, which relieved his mind a little.

"Joe," said Maggot in a whisper, and with a serious look, "some one have bin here."

"D'ee think so?" said Tonkin.

"Iss I do; the bushes are broken a bit. Hush! what's that?"

The two men paused and looked at each other with awe depicted on their faces, while they listened intently, but, in the words of the touching old song, "the beating of their own hearts was all the sound they heard."

"It wor the wind," said Maggot.

"Iss, that's what it wor," replied Tonkin; "come, lev us go down. The wind can't do no harm to we."

But although he proposed to advance he did not move, and Maggot did not seem inclined to lead the way, for just then something like a sigh came from below, and a dark cloud passed over the moon.

It is no uncommon thing to find that men who are physically brave as lions become nervous as children when anything bordering on what they deem supernatural meets them. Maggot was about the most reckless man in the parish of St. Just, and Tonkin was not far behind him in the quality of courage, yet these two stood there with palpitating hearts undecided what to do.

Ashamed of being thought afraid of anything, Maggot at last cleared his throat, and, in a husky voice, said,--"Come, then, lev us go down."

So saying he slid down the shaft, closely followed by Tonkin, who was nearly as much afraid to be left alone on the bleak moor as he was to enter the old mine.

Now, while the friends were consulting with palpitating hearts above, baby Maggot, wide-awake and trembling with terror, listened with bated breath below, and when the two men came scrambling down the sides of the shaft his heart seemed to fill up his breast and throat, and his blood began to creep in his veins. Maggot could see nothing in the gloomy interior as he advanced, but baby could see his father's dark form clearly. Still, no sound escaped from him, for horror had bereft him of power. Just then the dark cloud passed off the moon, and a bright beam shone full on the upper half of the baby's face as he peeped over the edge of one of the tubs. Maggot saw two glaring eyeballs, and felt frozen alive instantly. Tonkin, looking over his comrade's shoulder, also saw the eyes, and was petrified on the spot. Suddenly baby Maggot found his voice and uttered a most awful yell. Maggot senior found his limbs, and turned to fly. So did Tonkin, but he slipped and fell at the first step. Maggot fell over him. Both rose and dashed up the shaft, scraping elbows, shins, and knuckles as they went, and, followed by a torrent of hideous cries, that sounded in their ears like the screaming of fiends, they gained the surface, and, without exchanging a word, fled in different directions on the wings of terror!

Maggot did not halt until he burst into his house, and flung himself into his own chair by the chimney corner, whence he gazed on what was calculated to alarm as well as to perplex him. This was the spectacle of his own wife taking tea in floods of tears, and being encouraged in her difficult task by Mrs Penrose and a few sympathising friends.

With some difficulty he got them to explain this mystery.

"What! baby gone lost?" he exclaimed; "where away?"

When it was told him what had occurred, Maggot's eyes gradually opened, and his lips gradually closed, until the latter produced a low whistle.

"I think that I do knaw where the cheeld is," he said; "come along, an' I'll show un to 'ee."

So saying, the wily smith, assuming an air of importance and profound wisdom, arose and led his wife and her friends, with a large band of men who had prepared torches, straight to the old shaft. Going down, but sternly forbidding any one to follow he speedily returned with the baby in his arms, to the surprise of all, and to the unutterable joy of the child's mother.

In one sense, however, the result was disastrous. Curious persons were there who could not rest until they had investigated the matter further, and the tubs were not only discovered, but carried off by those who had no title to them whatever! The misfortune created such a tumult of indignation in the breast of Maggot, that he was heard in his wrath to declare he "would have nothin' more to do with un, but would go into the bal the next settin' day."

This was the commencement of that series of events which, as we have stated at the beginning of this chapter, were brought about by that wonderful baby--the baby Maggot.


CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT.


DESCRIBES SETTING-DAY AT THE MINE, ETCETERA.

That very evening, while Maggot was smoking his pipe by the fireside, his son Zackey referred to the bunch of copper which Penrose had discovered in the mine. After a short conversation, Maggot senior went to the wounded man to talk about it.

"'Twas a keenly lode, did 'ee say?" asked Maggot, after he had inquired as to the health of his friend.

"Yes, and as I shall not be able to work there again," said Penrose sadly, "I would advise you to try it. Zackey is entitled to get the benefit of the discovery, for he was with me at the time, and, but for his aid, dear boy, I should have been suffocated."

Maggot said no more on that occasion about the mine, being a man of few words, but, after conversing a short time with the wounded man, and ascertaining that no hope was held out to him of the recovery of his sight, he went his way to the forge to work and meditate.

Setting-day came--being the first Saturday in the month, and no work was done on that day in Botallack, for the men were all above ground to have their "pitches" for the next month fixed, and to receive their wages-- setting-day being also pay day.

Some time before the business of the day commenced, the miners began to assemble in considerable numbers in the neighbourhood of the account-house. Very different was their appearance on that occasion from the rusty-red fellows who were wont to toil in the dark chambers far down in the depths below the spot where they stood. Their underground dresses were laid aside, and they now appeared in the costume of well-off tradesmen. There was a free-and-easy swing about the movements of most of these men that must have been the result of their occupation, which brings every muscle of the body into play, and does not--as is too much the case in some trades--over-tax the powers of a certain set of muscles to the detriment of others.

Some there were, however, even among the young men, whose hollow cheeks and bloodless lips, accompanied with a short cough, told of evil resulting from bad air and frequent chills; while, on the other hand, a few old