Deep Down, a Tale of the Cornish Mines Part 5

At last he paused, and looking over his shoulder called out--"Zackey, booy."

The sound died away in a hollow echo through the retiring galleries of the mine, but there was no reply.

"Zackey, booy, are 'ee slaipin'?" he repeated.

A small reddish-coloured bundle, which lay in a recess close at hand, uncoiled itself like a hedgehog, and, yawning vociferously, sat up, revealing the fact that the bundle was a boy.

"Ded 'ee call, uncle?" asked the boy in a sleepy tone.

"Iss did I," said the man; "fetch me the powder an' fuse, my son."

The lad rose, and, fetching out of a dark corner the articles required, a.s.sisted in charging the hole which his uncle had just finished boring.

This was the last hole which the man intended to blast that night. For weeks past he had laboured day after day--sometimes, as on the present occasion, at night--and had removed many tons of rock, without procuring either tin or copper sufficient to repay him for his toil, so that he resolved to give it up and remove to a more hopeful part of the mine, or betake himself to another mine altogether. He had now bored his last hole, and was about to blast it. Applying his candle to the end of the fuse, he hastened along the level to a sufficient distance to afford security, warning his nephew as he pa.s.sed.

Zackey leaped up, and, scrambling over the debris with which the bottom of the level was covered, made good his retreat. About a minute they waited in expectancy. Suddenly there was a bright blinding flash, which lit up the rugged sides of the mine, and revealed its cavernous ramifications and black depths. This was accompanied by a dull smothered report and a crash of falling rock, together with a shower of debris. Instantly the whole place was in profound darkness.

"Aw, booy," exclaimed the miner; "we was too near. It have knacked us in the dark."

"So't have, uncle; I'll go an' search for the box."

"Do, my son," said David.

In those days lucifer matches had not been invented, and light had to be struck by means of flint, steel, and tinder. The process was tedious compared with the rapid action of congreves and vestas in the present day. The man chipped away for full three minutes before he succeeded in relighting his candle. This done, the rock was examined.

"Bad still, Uncle David?" inquired the boy.

"Iss, Zackey Maggot, so we'll knack'n, and try the higher mine to-morrow." Having come to this conclusion Uncle David threw down the ma.s.s of rock which he held in his brawny hands, and, picking up his implements, said, "Get the tools, booy, and lev us go to gra.s.s."

Zackey, who had been in the mine all day, and was tired, tied his tools at each end of a rope, so that they might be slung over his shoulder and leave his hands free. Trevarrow treated his in the same way, and, removing his candle from the wall, fixed it on the front of his hat by the simple process of sticking thereto the lump of clay to which it was attached. Zackey having fixed his candle in the same manner, both of them put on their red-stained flannel shirts and linen coats, and traversed the level until they reached the bottom of the ladder-shaft.

Here they paused for a few moments before commencing the long wearisome ascent of almost perpendicular ladders by which the miners descended to their work or returned "to gra.s.s," as they termed the act of returning to the surface.

It cost them more than half an hour of steady climbing before they reached the upper part of the shaft and became aware that a storm was raging in the regions above. On emerging from the mouth of the shaft or "ladder road," man and boy were in a profuse perspiration, and the sharp gale warned them to hasten to the moor-house at full speed.

Moor-houses were little buildings in which miners were wont to change their wet underground garments for dry clothes. Some of these used to be at a considerable distance from the shafts, and the men were often injured while going to them from the mine, by being exposed in an overheated state to cutting winds. Many a stout able-bodied miner has had a chill given him in this way which has resulted in premature death.

Moor-houses have now been replaced by large drying-houses, near the mouths of shafts, where every convenience is provided for the men drying their wet garments and washing their persons on coming to the surface.

Having changed their clothes, uncle and nephew hastened to St. Just, where they dwelt in the cottage of Maggot, the blacksmith. This man, who has already been introduced to the reader, was brother-in-law to David, and father to Zackey.

When David Trevarrow entered his brother-in-law's cottage, and told him of his bad fortune, and of his resolution to try his luck next day in the higher mine, little did he imagine that his change of purpose was to be the first step in a succession of causes which were destined to result, at no very distant period, in great changes of fortune to some of his friends in St. Just, as well as to many others in the county.

CHAPTER FIVE.

DESCRIBES A WRECK AND SOME OF ITS CONSEQUENCES.

While the miner had been pursuing his toilsome work in the solitude and silence of the level under the sea, as already described, a n.o.ble ship was leaping over the Atlantic waves--homeward bound--to Old England.

She was an East-Indiaman, under close-reefed sails, and although she bent low before the gale so that the waves almost curled over her lee bulwarks, she rose buoyantly like a seagull, for she was a good ship, stout of plank and sound of timber, with sails and cordage to match.

Naturally, in such a storm, those on board were anxious, for they knew that they were drawing near to land, and that "dear Old England" had an ugly seaboard in these parts--a coast not to be too closely hugged in what the captain styled "dirty weather, with a whole gale from the west'ard," so a good lookout was kept. Sharp eyes were in the foretop looking out for the guiding rays of the Long-ships lighthouse, which illumine that part of our rocky sh.o.r.es to warn the mariner of danger and direct him to a safe harbour. The captain stood on the "foge's'l" with stern gaze and compressed lip. The chart had been consulted, the bearings correctly noted, calculations made, and leeway allowed for.

Everything in fact that could be done by a commander who knew his duty had been done for the safety of the ship--so would the captain have said probably, had he lived to be questioned as to the management of his vessel. But everything had _not_ been done. The lead, strange to say, had not been hove. It was ready to heave, but the order was delayed.

Unaccountable fatality! The only safe guide that remained to the good ship on that wild night was held in abeyance. It was deemed unnecessary to heave it yet, or it was troublesome, and they would wait till nearer the land. No one now can tell the reasons that influenced the captain, but _the lead was not used_. Owing to similar delay or neglect, hundreds upon hundreds of ships have been lost, and thousands of human lives have been sacrificed!

The ship pa.s.sed like a dark phantom over the very head of the miner who was at work many fathoms below the bottom of the sea.

"Land, ho!" came suddenly in a fierce, quick shout from the mast-head.

"Starboard! starboard--hard!" cried the captain, as the roar of breakers ahead rose above the yelling of the storm.

Before the order was obeyed or another word spoken the ship struck, and a shriek of human terror followed, as the foremast went by the board with a fearful crash. The waves burst over the stern, sweeping the decks fore and aft. Wave after wave lifted the great ship as though it had been a child's toy, and dashed her down upon the rocks. Her bottom was stove in, her planks and timbers were riven like matchwood. Far down below man was destroying the flinty rock, while overhead the rock was destroying the handiwork of man! But the destruction in the one case was slow, in the other swift. A desperate but futile effort was made by the crew to get out the boats, and the pa.s.sengers, many of whom were women and children, rushed frantically from the cabin to the deck, and clung to anything they could lay hold of, until strength failed, and the waves tore them away.

One man there was in the midst of all the terror-stricken crew who retained his self-possession in that dread hour. He was a tall, stern old man with silver locks--an Indian merchant, one who had spent his youth and manhood in the wealthy land collecting gold--"making a fortune," he was wont to say--and who was returning to his fatherland to spend it. He was a thinking and calculating man, and in the antic.i.p.ation of some such catastrophe as had actually overtaken him, he had secured some of his most costly jewels in a linen belt. This belt, while others were rushing to the boats, the old man secured round his waist, and then sprang on deck, to be swept, with a dozen of his fellow-pa.s.sengers, into the sea by the next wave that struck the doomed vessel. There was no one on that rugged coast to lend a helping hand.

Lifeboats did not then, as now, nestle in little nooks on every part of our dangerous coasts. No eye was there to see nor ear to hear, when, twenty minutes after she struck, the East-Indiaman went to pieces, and those of her crew and pa.s.sengers who had retained their hold of her uttered their last despairing cry, and their souls returned to G.o.d who gave them.

It is a solemn thought that man may with such awful suddenness, and so unexpectedly, be summoned into the presence of his Maker. Thrice happy they who, when their hearts grow chill and their grasps relax as the last plank is rending, can say, "Neither death, nor life, nor any other creature, is able to separate us from the love of G.o.d, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord."

The scene we have described was soon over, and the rich cargo of the East-Indiaman was cast upon the sea and strewn upon the sh.o.r.e, affording much work for many days to the coastguard, and greatly exciting the people of the district--most of whom appeared to entertain an earnest belief in the doctrine that everything cast by storms upon their coast ought to be considered public property. Portions of the wreck had the name "Trident" painted on them, and letters found in several chests which were washed ash.o.r.e proved that the ship had sailed from Calcutta, and was bound for the port of London. One little boy alone escaped the waves. He was found in a crevice of the cliffs the following day, with just enough vitality left to give a few details of the wreck. Although all possible care was bestowed on him, he died before night.

Thus sudden and complete was the end of as fine a ship as ever spread her canvas to the breeze. At night she had been full of life--full of wealth; in the morning she was gone--only a few bales and casks and broken spars to represent the wealth, and stiffened corpses to tell of the life departed. So she came and went, and in a short time all remnants of her were carried away.

One morning, a few weeks after the night of the storm, Maggot the smith turned himself in his bed at an early hour, and, feeling disinclined to slumber, got up to look at the state of the weather. The sun was just rising, and there was an inviting look about the morning which induced the man to dress hastily and go out.

Maggot was a powerfully-built man, rough in his outer aspect as well as in his inner man, but by no means what is usually termed a bad man, although, morally speaking, he could not claim to be considered a good one. In fact, he was a hearty, jolly, reckless fisherman, with warm feelings, enthusiastic temperament, and no principle; a man who, though very ready to do a kind act, had no particular objection to do one that was decidedly objectionable when it suited his purpose or served his present interest. He was regarded by his comrades as one of the greatest madcaps in the district. Old Maggot was, as we have said, a blacksmith to trade, but he had also been bred a miner, and was something of a fisherman as well, besides being (like most of his companions) an inveterate smuggler. He could turn his hand to almost anything, and was "everything by turns, but nothing long."

Sauntering down to Priests Cove, on the south of Cape Cornwall, with his hands in his pockets and his sou'-wester stuck carelessly on his s.h.a.ggy head, he fell in with a comrade, whom he hailed by the name of John c.o.c.k. This man was also a fisherman, _et cetera_, and the bosom friend and admirer of Maggot.

"Where bound to this mornin', Jack?" inquired Maggot.

"To fish," replied John.

"I go with 'ee, booy," said Maggot.

This was the extent of the conversation at that time. They were not communicative, but walked side by side in silence to the beach, where they launched their little boat and rowed out to sea.

Presently John c.o.c.k looked over his shoulder and exclaimed--"Maggot, I see summat."

"Do 'ee?"

"Iss do I."

"What do un look like?"

"Like a dead corp."

"Aw, my dear," said Maggot, "lev us keep away. It can do no good to we."

Acting on this opinion the men rowed past the object that was floating on the sea, and soon after began to fish; but they had not fished long when the dead body, drifted probably by some cross-current, appeared close to them again. Seeing this they changed their position, but ere long the body again appeared.