Deep Down, a Tale of the Cornish Mines Part 31

"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 pa.s.sed 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 pa.s.sed 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 eyeb.a.l.l.s, 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, sc.r.a.ping 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, a.s.suming 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 t.i.tle 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 ent.i.tled 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 Sat.u.r.day 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 a.s.semble 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 men were to be seen with bright eyes and ruddy cheeks which indicated const.i.tutions of iron. Not a few were mere lads, whose broad shoulders and deep chests and resolute wills enabled them to claim the t.i.tle, and do the work, of men.

There were some among them, both young and old, who showed traces of having suffered in their dangerous employment. Several were minus an eye, and one or two were nearly blind, owing to blast-holes exploding in their faces. One man in particular, a tall and very powerful fellow, had a visage which was quite blue, and one of his eyes was closed--the blue colour resulting from unburnt grains of powder having been blown into his flesh. He had been tattooed, in fact, by a summary and effective process. This man's family history was peculiar. His father, also a miner, had lived in a lonely cottage on a moor near St. Just, and worked in Balaswidden Mine. One night he was carried home and laid at his wife's feet, dead--almost dashed to pieces by a fall. Not long afterwards the son was carried to the same cottage with his right eye destroyed. Some time later a brother dislocated his foot twice within the year in the mine; and a few months after that another brother fell from a beam, descended about twenty-four feet perpendicularly, where he struck the side of the mine with his head, and had six or seven of his teeth knocked out; glancing off to one side, he fell twenty feet more on the hard rock, where he was picked up insensible. This man recovered, however, under the careful nursing of his oft and sorely tried mother.

Maggot was present on this setting-day, with a new cap and a new blue cloth coat, looking altogether a surprisingly respectable character. A good deal of undertoned chaffing commenced when he appeared.

"Hallo!" exclaimed one, "goin' to become an honest man, Maggot?"

"Thinkin' 'bout it," replied the smith, with a good-humoured smile.

"Why, if I didn't knaw that the old wuman's alive," said another, "I'd say he was agoin' to get married again!"

"Never fear," exclaimed a third, "Maggot's far too 'cute a cunger to be caught twice."

"I say, my dear man," asked another, "have 'ee bin takin' a waalk 'pon the clifts lately?"

"Iss, aw iss," replied the smith with much gravity.

"Did 'ee find any more daws 'pon clift?" asked the other, with a leer.

There was a general laugh at this, but Maggot replied with good-humour,--"No, Billy, no--took 'em all away last time. But I'm towld there's some more eggs in the nest, so thee'll have a chance some day, booy."

"I hope the daws ain't the worse of their ducking?" asked Billy, with an expression of anxious interest.

"Aw, my dear," said Maggot, looking very sad, and shaking his head slowly, "didn't 'ee hear the noos?"

"No, not I."

"They did catch the noo complaint the doctor do spaik of--bronkeetis I think it is--and although I did tie 'em up wi' flannel round their necks, an' water-gruel, besides 'ot bottles to their feet, they're all gone dead. I mean to have 'em buried on Monday. Will 'ee come to the berryin, Billy?"

"P'raps I will," replied Billy, "but see that the gravedigger do berry 'em deep, else he'll catch a blowin' up like the gravedigger did in Cambourne last week."

"What was that, booy? Let us hear about it, Billy," exclaimed several voices.

"Well, this is the way of it," said Billy: "the owld gravedigger in Cambourne was standin' about, after mittin' was over, a-readin' of the tombstones, for he'd got a good edjication, had owld Tom. His name was Tom--the same man as put a straw rope to the bell which the cows did eat away, so that he cudn't ring the people to mittin'. Well, when he was studdyin' the morials on the stones out comes Captain Rowe. He was wan o' the churchwardens, or somethin' o' that sort, but I don't knaw nothin' 'bout the church, so I ain't sure--an' he calls owld Tom into the vestry.

"`Now look here, Tom,' says the captain, very stern, `they tell me thee 'rt gettin' lazy, Tom, an' that thee do dig the graves only four fut deep. Now, Tom, I was over to St. Just t'other day to a berryin', and I see that they do dig their graves six fut or more deeper than you do.

That won't do, Tom, I tell 'ee. What's the meanin' of it?'

"This came somewhat suddent on owld Tom, but he wor noways put out.

"`Well, you do see, Cap'n Rowe,' says he, `I do it apurpose, for I do look at the thing in two lights.'"

"`How so?' asked the captain.

"`Why, the people of St. Just only think of the berryin', but _I_ do think of the resurrection; the consekince is that they do dig too deep, an' afore the St. Just folk are well out of their graves, _ours_ will be a braave way up to heaven!'"