The Copper Princess Part 4

"No fear, lad. Only fear is I'll be proud of thee, and lat others see it, which would be very bad indeed. Now, I'll bate 'ee hasn't rag of clothing fit for mine work."

"I have only what I am wearing," answered Peveril, who had left his trunks in Hanc.o.c.k, "but I guess they will do until I can earn the money to buy others more suitable."

[Ill.u.s.tration: PEVERIL GOES TO WORK]

"Do, lad! They'd be ruined forever in first five minutes. Besides, thee'd be laughing-stock of whole mine, if 'ee went down dressed like Jim Dandy. No, no; come along of me and I'll rig 'ee out proper."

So Peveril was taken to the company store, where, with Mark Trefethen to vouch for him, he was allowed to purchase, on credit, two blue-flannel shirts, a suit of brown canvas, a pair of heavy hobnailed shoes, two pairs of woollen socks, a hard, round-topped hat, a dinner-pail, and a miner's lamp. As these things were, by order of the timber boss, charged to "d.i.c.k Peril," that was the name under which our young Oxonian began his new life and became known in the strange community to which erratic fortune had led him.

On the following morning he sallied forth from the Trefethen cottage with a tin dinner-pail on one arm, his working-suit under the other, and uncomfortably conscious that he was curiously regarded by every person whom he met on his way to the mine. As the "Dry" was already overcrowded, he shared Tom's locker, and was grateful for the opportunity of changing his clothing in the comparative seclusion of the compressor-room rather than in company with the two hundred men who thronged the steam-heated building devoted especially to that purpose.

Having a.s.sumed his new garments, and feeling very awkward in them, Peveril made his way to the shaft-mouth. There he was joined by Mark Trefethen, who regarded the change made in his protege's appearance with approving eyes. Together, and in company with a stream of men talking in a bewildering Babel of tongues, they climbed flight after flight of wooden stairs to the uppermost floor of the tall shaft-house.

An empty cage that had just deposited its load of copper conglomerate was again ready to descend into the black depths, and, hurrying Peveril forward, Mark Trefethen, with half a dozen other miners, entered it. An iron gate closed behind them and a gong clanged in the engine-house.

"Hold fast, lad, and remember there's no danger," was all that the timber boss had time to say. Then the bottom seemed to drop out of everything, and Peveril, experiencing the sickening sensation of having left his stomach at the top of the shaft, found himself rushing downward with horrible velocity through utter blackness. Instinctively reaching out for something by which to hold on, he clutched a rough-coated arm, but his grasp was rudely shaken off, and a gruff voice bade him keep his hands to himself.

He could not frame an answer, for his brain was in a whirl, his ears were filled with a dull roaring, and a whistling rush of air caught away his breath. The motion of the cage was so smooth and noiseless that after a while he could not tell whether it were going up or down, though it seemed to be doing both, as though poised on a gigantic spring. At length faint glimmers of light began to flash past as it shot by the mouths of working levels, and finally it stopped with a jerk that threw its pa.s.sengers into a confused huddle.

A gate was flung open, and as Peveril stumbled out of the cage he was only conscious of dancing lights, a crashing rumble of iron against iron, and a medley of shouting voices. At the same time all these sounds seemed far away and unreal.

CHAPTER VI

A MILE BENEATH THE SURFACE

"Swallow, lad!"

Mark Trefethen uttered the words, and Peveril, dimly comprehending him, instinctively obeyed. The effect of that simple muscular action was marvellous. His brain was instantly cleared of its weight, the ringing in his ears ceased, and his hearing was restored to its normal keenness. At the same time he was happily conscious that his stomach had been restored to its proper position.

"This is plat of bottom level, and we're a mile underground,"

continued Mark. "They put us down in one-thirty this time, but often they do it ten seconds better."

"I wonder how much longer it would take to drop from a balloon one mile above the earth?" reflected Peveril, at the same time gazing about him with a lively interest.

The place in which he stood was a s.p.a.cious room, hewn from solid rock.

Lighted by several lanterns and little, flaring mine-lamps, it was also smoothly floored with iron plates, and from it a narrow-gauge railway led away into the blackness. Articles of clothing and dinner-pails were hung about the walls, and on the side opposite the shaft was a bench of rude workmanship.

Every few minutes an iron car holding several tons of copper rock was run into the plat with a tremendous clatter from the little railway that penetrated to every "drift" and "stope" of the level. Each of these cars was pushed by a team of three wild-looking men, who were stripped naked to the waist. Their haggard faces and naked bodies were begrimed with powder-smoke, stained red with ore-dust, and gleamed in the fitful lamp-light with trickling rivulets of perspiration. The car-pushers were all foreigners--Italians, Bohemians, Hungarians, or Poles--and the uncouth jargon of their shouts intensified the wildness of their appearance. Theirs was the very lowest form of mine drudgery, and but few of them were possessed of intelligence or ambition sufficient to raise them above it.

One, who was accounted somewhat brighter than his fellows, by whom he was regarded as a leader, had indeed been promoted on trial by the timber boss to a position in his own gang. He was a perfect brute for strength, but so densely ignorant and of such sullen disposition that when a better man was offered, in the person of d.i.c.k Peveril, the boss was only too glad to return him to his hated task of car-pushing and accept the new-comer in his place. His sentence of degradation, p.r.o.nounced only the day before, had been received as a personal affront by every wild-eyed car-pusher of the mine. All knew that some one must fill the place from which their leader had been ousted, and all were prepared to hate him the moment his ident.i.ty should be disclosed.

Thus, as Peveril stumbled awkwardly out of the cage in which he had just made that breathless, mile-deep descent, he was instantly spotted as being a new man, and a team of car-pushers, slaking their thirst at a water-barrel in one corner of the plat, gazed at him with scowling intentness, that they might minutely describe his appearance to their fellows. As he knew nothing of the circ.u.mstances through which a place had been made for him, he paid no attention to these men, other than to note their savage appearance as a feature of his novel surroundings.

In fact, he had barely time to take a single comprehensive glance around the plat before a man who had been one of his fellow-pa.s.sengers in the cage remarked, sneeringly:

"Pretty well scared, wasn't you, young feller?"

"Yes, I was," replied Peveril, turning and facing his questioner. "But how did you know it?"

"By the way you grabbed my arm. If you'd done it again I'd have punched your head; for I don't 'low no man to catch holt on me that way."

Peveril had already recognized the speaker's face; but, without deigning a further reply, he turned to Mark Trefethen and said:

"Will you kindly give me the name of this unpleasant person, as I wish to file it away in my memory for future reference?"

"Person be blowed!" exclaimed the man, stepping forward with a menacing gesture. "What do you mean by calling me names, you d.a.m.ned--"

"Shut up, Mike Connell, and go about your business," commanded the timber boss. "Come, lad, he's not worth noticing," and, thus saying, Mark Trefethen led Peveril away.

Although the car-pushers had not caught the words of this brief conversation, they had readily understood Mike Connell's threatening gesture towards the new-comer, and several times during that day one or more of them might have been seen in low-voiced consultation with the scowling-faced Irishman.

"Here, lad, fill lamp wi' sunlight," said the timber boss, as he and his protege were leaving the plat. "First rule of mine is always have lamp in trim, and carry candle, besides plenty of matches in pocket."

With this Mark scooped up in his hand a small quant.i.ty of a stiff, whitish substance from an open box beside them, and stuffed it into his lamp. The box was indeed marked "Sunlight," but when Peveril followed his companion's example he found its contents to be merely solidified paraffine.

With their lamps well filled and flaring brightly, the two walked for half a mile through a dry and well-ventilated gallery, which had been driven by drill and blast through solid rock, and from which thousands of tons of copper had been taken. Now Peveril learned for the first time what "timbering" a mine meant, and realized the necessity for the huge piles of great logs that he had seen above ground in close proximity to the shaft. Not only had it been incased on all four sides by logs mortised together and laid up like the walls of a house, but the drift through which he now walked was timbered from end to end.

Its roof was upheld by huge tree-trunks standing from ten to twenty feet apart, and occasionally in groups of three or four together.

Supported by them, and pressing against the roof or "hanging," were other great timbers known as "wall plates," and behind these was a compactly laid sheathing of split timber spoken of as "lagging."

As the two men advanced deeper into the drift, an occasional ore-car, pushed by its panting human team, rumbled heavily past, while every now and then came dull, tremulous shocks like those of an earthquake.

These were blasts on other levels, or in other parts of the one on which they were.

At sound of a confused shouting from somewhere ahead of them, they stood still until, with a crashing roar that bellowed and echoed through the galleries like a peal of loudest thunder, one of these blasts was fired close at hand. A minute later they were enveloped in a pungent smoke, through which twinkled dimly a score of lights.

Brawny, half-naked forms were already wielding pick and shovel amid the ma.s.ses of rock just loosened, a powerful air-drill was being placed in position for another attack upon the wall of tough rock, and a small timber gang was struggling to hoist a huge log that they called a "stull" into position.

"Here's the place, lad. Take hold and give a lift. Now, boys, altogether"! shouted Mark Trefethen, and in another moment d.i.c.k Peveril found himself hard at work.

Within a few minutes the new hand was as begrimed and dripping with perspiration as any member of the gang, all of whom exchanged significant glances as they noted the willingness with which he exerted his great strength. Never had the heavy timbers been set in place so quickly, and never in their remembrance had a green hand "caught on" so readily.

"He won't last long, though, at that pace," remarked one of the older men to Trefethen, as he paused to wipe the sweat-drops from his eyes, "he's too fresh."

"Perhaps not," replied the timber boss. "We'll give him a bit of a try, though, before dropping him," and then he walked away to inspect the operations of another gang in a distant part of the mine.

Late that day, as Peveril's first shift of work drew towards its close, he ached in every part of his body, but was learning his new trade so rapidly that his fellows were already beginning to regard him as one of the best men in their gang. He had made several trips to and from the foot of the timber-shaft in company with others, and so, when, shortly before quitting time, the foreman of his gang sang out:

"Oh, Peril! Just run back to the stack and bring us one of them small sprags. Hurry, now!" the new man started without a moment's hesitation.

He found his way without difficulty to the timber pile, and began a search for such a piece as he had been told to fetch. The better to see what he was doing, he removed the lamp from his hat and held it low in front of him, in which position his own face was clearly revealed by its light. While he was thus engaged, a miner, who, with his day's work finished, was walking towards the plat, paused to regard him. The man's face bore a malicious expression, and he seemed to meditate some mischief towards the unsuspecting youth, for he clinched his fists and took a step in Peveril's direction. Just then the rumble of an approaching car caused him to pause and wait until it should pa.s.s. As it came abreast of him he recognized one of its pushers, and drew him aside, while the car, still propelled by two members of its team, moved on out of sight.

Without a word the miner directed his companion's attention to the figure still bending over the log pile, and made several significant gestures. The brutish face of the pusher lighted with an ugly leer, expressive of understanding, and he began to move cautiously towards the man who had that day displaced him from the timber gang. As he had left his light on the car, there was nothing to warn Peveril of his approach until he was close at hand and about to deliver a cowardly blow.

At that instant the mysterious premonition that always gives warning of human presence caused the young man to turn his head. Although he was too late to avoid the impending blow, it was deflected by his movement, and instead of stunning him it merely caused him to stagger and drop his lamp. He also partially warded off a closely following second blow, and then his own terrible fist was planted with crashing force full on his a.s.sailant's jaw.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE CAR-PUSHERS MADE A FURIOUS ATTACK ON PEVERIL]