Chapter I: Part 1

“_Familiar in their Mouths as HOUSEHOLD WORDS._”—+Shakespeare.+

HOUSEHOLD WORDS.

A WEEKLY JOURNAL.

CONDUCTED BY CHARLES DICKENS.

N^o. 2.] SATURDAY, APRIL 6, 1850. [+Price+ 2_d._

A CHILD’S DREAM OF A STAR.

There was once a child, and he strolled about a good deal, and thought of a number of things. He had a sister, who was a child too, and his constant companion. These two used to wonder all day long. They wondered at the beauty of the flowers; they wondered at the height and blueness of the sky; they wondered at the depth of the bright water; they wondered at the goodness and the power of +God+ who made the lovely world.

They used to say to one another, sometimes, Supposing all the children upon earth were to die, would the flowers, and the water, and the sky, be sorry? They believed they would be sorry. For, said they, the buds are the children of the flowers, and the little playful streams that gambol down the hill-sides are the children of the water; and the smallest bright specks, playing at hide and seek in the sky all night, must surely be the children of the stars; and they would all be grieved to see their playmates, the children of men, no more.

There was one clear shining star that used to come out in the sky before the rest, near the church spire, above the graves. It was larger and more beautiful, they thought, than all the others, and every night they watched for it, standing hand in hand at a window. Whoever saw it first, cried out, “I see the star!” And often they cried out both together, knowing so well when it would rise, and where. So they grew to be such friends with it, that, before lying down in their beds, they always looked out once again, to bid it good night; and when they were turning round to sleep, they used to say, “God bless the star!”

But while she was still very young, oh very very young, the sister drooped, and came to be so weak that she could no longer stand in the window at night; and then the child looked sadly out by himself, and when he saw the star, turned round and said to the patient pale face on the bed, “I see the star!” and then a smile would come upon the face, and a little weak voice used to say, “God bless my brother and the star!”

And so the time came, all too soon! when the child looked out alone, and when there was no face on the bed; and when there was a little grave among the graves, not there before; and when the star made long rays down towards him, as he saw it through his tears.

Now, these rays were so bright, and they seemed to make such a shining way from earth to Heaven, that when the child went to his solitary bed, he dreamed about the star; and dreamed that, lying where he was, he saw a train of people taken up that sparkling road by angels. And the star, opening, showed him a great world of light, where many more such angels waited to receive them.

All these angels, who were waiting, turned their beaming eyes upon the people who were carried up into the star; and some came out from the long rows in which they stood, and fell upon the people’s necks, and kissed them tenderly, and went away with them down avenues of light, and were so happy in their company, that lying in his bed he wept for joy.

But, there were many angels who did not go with them, and among them one he knew. The patient face that once had lain upon the bed was glorified and radiant, but his heart found out his sister among all the host.

His sister’s angel lingered near the entrance of the star, and said to the leader among those who had brought the people thither:

“Is my brother come?”

And he said “No.”

She was turning hopefully away, when the child stretched out his arms, and cried “O, sister, I am here! Take me!” and then she turned her beaming eyes upon him, and it was night; and the star was shining into the room, making long rays down towards him as he saw it through his tears.

From that hour forth, the child looked out upon the star as on the Home he was to go to, when his time should come; and he thought that he did not belong to the earth alone, but to the star too, because of his sister’s angel gone before.

There was a baby born to be a brother to the child; and while he was so little that he never yet had spoken word, he stretched his tiny form out on his bed, and died.

Again the child dreamed of the opened star, and of the company of angels, and the train of people, and the rows of angels with their beaming eyes all turned upon those people’s faces.

Said his sister’s angel to the leader:

“Is my brother come?”

And he said “Not that one, but another.”

As the child beheld his brother’s angel in her arms, he cried, “O, sister, I am here! Take me!” And she turned and smiled upon him, and the star was shining.

He grew to be a young man, and was busy at his books, when an old servant came to him, and said:

“Thy mother is no more. I bring her blessing on her darling son!”

Again at night he saw the star, and all that former company. Said his sister’s angel to the leader:

“Is my brother come?”

And he said, “Thy mother!”

A mighty cry of joy went forth through all the star, because the mother was re-united to her two children. And he stretched out his arms and cried, “O, mother, sister, and brother, I am here! Take me!” And they answered him “Not yet,” and the star was shining.

He grew to be a man, whose hair was turning grey, and he was sitting in his chair by the fireside, heavy with grief, and with his face bedewed with tears, when the star opened once again.

Said his sister’s angel to the leader, “Is my brother come?”

And he said, “Nay, but his maiden daughter.”

And the man who had been the child saw his daughter, newly lost to him, a celestial creature among those three, and he said “My daughter’s head is on my sister’s bosom, and her arm is round my mother’s neck, and at her feet there is the baby of old time, and I can bear the parting from her, God be praised!”

And the star was shining.

Thus the child came to be an old man, and his once smooth face was wrinkled, and his steps were slow and feeble, and his back was bent. And one night as he lay upon his bed, his children standing round, he cried, as he had cried so long ago:

“I see the star!”

They whispered one another “He is dying.”

And he said, “I am. My age is falling from me like a garment, and I move towards the star as a child. And O, my Father, now I thank thee that it has so often opened, to receive those dear ones who await me!”

And the star was shining; and it shines upon his grave.

THE TRUE STORY OF A COAL FIRE.

IN THREE CHAPTERS.—CHAPTER I.

One winter’s evening, when the snow lay as thick as a great feather-bed all over the garden, and was knee-deep in the meadow-hollows, a family circle sat round a huge fire, piled up with blocks of coal of that magnitude and profusion which are only seen at houses in the neighbourhood of a coal-mine. It appeared as if a tram-waggon had been ‘backed’ into the room, and half its load of great loose coal shot out into the enormous aperture in the wall which lies below the chimney and behind the fire-place in these rural abodes. The red flames roared, and the ale went round.

The master of the house was not exactly a farmer, but one of those country personages who fill up the interval between the thorough farmer and the ’squire who farms his own estate,—a sort of leather-legged, nail-shoed old gentleman, whose elder sons might easily be mistaken for gamekeepers, and the younger for ploughboys, but who on Sundays took care to ‘let un see the difference’ at church. Their father was therefore never called Farmer Dalton, but old Mr. Dalton, and almost as frequently Billy-Pit Dalton—the coal-mine in which he held a share being named the ‘William Pitt.’ His lands, however, were but a small matter; his chief property was a third share he had in this coal-mine, which was some half a mile distant from the house. His eldest son was married, and lived close to the mine, of which he acted as the chartermaster, or contractor with proprietors for the work to be done.

Among the family group that encircled the huge coal fire was one visitor,—a young man from London, the nephew of old Dalton. He had been sent down to this remote coal country by his father, in order to separate him from associates who dissipated his time, and from pursuits and habits that prevented his mind settling to any fixed occupation and course of life. Flashley was a young man of kindly feelings and good natural abilities, both of which, however, were in danger of being spoiled.

Various efforts were made from time to time to amuse the dashing young fellow ‘from town.’ Sometimes the old gentleman related the wonders of the coal-mines, and the perilous adventures of the miners; and on more than one occasion the curate of the village endeavoured to interest him in the grand history of the early world, and especially of the period of antediluvian forests, and their various transmutations. All in vain. He paid no attention to them. If anything they said made any impression at all, it was solely due to the subtle texture of the human mind, which continually receives much more than it seeks, or has wit enough to desire.

‘You don’t find the coal countries quite so bright and merry as London town, do ye, Flashley?’ said old Dalton, with a good-natured smile.

‘I can’t say I do, uncle,’ answered the youth, frankly. ‘As to merriment, that is all very well at the present moment, in front of that great family bonfire; but all the rest of the day—’ and here Flashley laughed with easy impudence and no small fun; ‘the house and garden are in a state of dingy mourning, so are all the roads, and lanes, and hedges,—in fact, the passage of lines of little black waggons to and fro, rumbling full of coals, or rattling by, empty, seems like the chief business of life, and the main purpose for which men came into the world.’

‘And so they be!’ ejaculated old Dalton, jocosely; ‘so far as these parts are concerned. You know, Flashley, the world is made up of many parts, and this be the coal part. We be the men born to do the world’s work of this sort; and we can’t very handsomely pass all our time a-sitting before a shiny fire, and drinking ale,—though, that’s good o’ nights, after the work’s done.’

With this laconic homily, old Billy-Pitt Dalton rose smiling from his chair, emptied his mug of ale, and, shaking the young man kindly by the hand, trudged off to bed. With much the same sort of smiling ‘good night,’ the sons all trudged after him. The good dame and her daughter went last. Flashley remained sitting alone in front of the great fire.

He sat in silence for a long time, watching the fire decline into great dark chasms, black holes, and rugged red precipices, with grim smouldering chaotic heaps below.

A word or two about this young man. Flashley Dalton had some education, which he fancied was quite enough, and was very ambitious without any definite object. His father had proposed several professions to him, but none of them suited him, chiefly because, to acquire eminence in any of them, so long a time was needed. Besides, none seemed adequate to satisfy his craving for distinction. He looked down rather contemptuously on all ordinary pursuits. The fact was, he ardently desired fame and fortune, but did not like to work for either. One of the greatest injuries his mind had sustained, was from a certain species of ‘fast literature,’ which the evil spirit of town-life has squirted into the brains of our young men during the last three or four years, whereby he had been taught and encouraged to laugh at everything of serious interest, and to seek to find something ridiculous in all ennobling efforts. If a great thing was done, he endeavoured to prove it a little one; if a profound truth was enunciated, he sought to make it out a lie; to him a new discovery in science was a humbug; a generous effort, a job. If he went to see an exhibition of pictures, it was to sneer at the most original designs; if to see a new tragedy, it was only in the hope of its being damned. If a new work of fiction were admirable, he talked spitefully of it, or with supercilious patronage; and as to a noble poem, he scoffed at all such things with some slang joke at ‘high art;’ besides, he _wrote_ himself, as many a young blade now attempts to do, instead of beginning with a little study and some decent reading. To Flashley all knowledge was a sort of absurdity; his own arrogant folly seemed so much better a thing. He therefore only read books that were like himself, and encouraged him to grow worse. The literature of indiscriminate and reckless ridicule and burlesque had taught him to have no faith in any sincere thing, no respect for true knowledge; and this had well-nigh destroyed all good in his mind and nature, as it unfortunately has done with too many others of his age at the present day.

After sitting silently in front of the fire for some half an hour, Flashley gradually fell into a sort of soliloquy, partaking in about equal degrees of the grumbling, the self-conceited, the humorous, and the drowsy.

‘So, they’re all snoring soundly by this time—all the clodpole Billy Pittites. Uncle’s a fine old fellow. Very fond of _him_. As for all the rest!—Wonder why the mine was called the William Pitt? Because it is so black and deep, I suppose. Before _my_ time. Who cares for him now, or for any of the bygones! Why should we care for anybody who went before us? The past ones give place to the fast ones. That’s _my_ feather.

‘But a pretty mess I’ve made of my affairs in London! My father does not know of half my debts. Hardly know of half of them myself. Incontinent contractions. Tavern bills, sixty or seventy pounds—maybe a hundred. Tailors? can’t calculate. Saloons and night-larks, owing for—don’t know how much, besides money paid. Money borrowed, eighty or ninety pounds. Books—forget—say sixpence. Like Falstaff’s ha’pennyworth of bread to all that quantity of sack! Think I paid ready money for all the light reading, and young gent’s books.’

The fire sank lower and lower, and so did the candles, one of which had just gone out, and began to send up a curdling stream of yellow smoke.

‘What a place this is for coals. What a smutty face Nature wears! From the house upwards, all alike,—dull, dusky, and detestable. Pfeu! Smell of fried mutton fat! Now, then, old Coal fire, hold up your head. I’m sleepy myself. This house is more like a hearse than a dwelling-place for live stock. The roadway in front of the house is all of coal-dust; the front of the house is like a sweep’s, it only wants the dangling sign of his “brush.” The window-ledges have a constant layer of black dust over them; so has the top of the porch; so have the chimney-pieces inside the house, where all the little china cups and gimcracks have a round black circle of coal-dust at the bottom. There is always a dark scum over the water of the jug in my bedroom. How I detest this life among the coals! Where’s the great need of them? Why don’t the stupid old world burn wood?’

The fire had by this time sunk to dull red embers and grey ashes, with large dark chasms around and behind. The shadows on the wall were faint, and shifting with the flickering of the last candle, now dying in the socket. Flashley’s eyes were closed, and his arms folded, as he still continued to murmur to himself. Sooth to say, the ale had got into his head.

‘Margery, the housemaid, has large black eyes, with dark rings of coal-grime round them. Her hair is also black—her cap like a mourning mop—and she has worn a black patch on one side of her nose since last Friday, when I gave her a handful from the coal-scuttle for comparing me to the lazy young dog that lay asleep before the fire. Margery Daw!—you shall slide down to the lower regions,—on an inclined plane, as the Useful Knowledge books would say.

‘Ale is a good thing when it is strong; but a coal-mine is all nonsense. Still, they seem to make money by it, and _that’s_ some excuse—some reason for men wasting in work lives which ought to be passed in pleasure. Human time—human——I thought something touched my elbow.

‘Human time should not be passed——why there it came again! I must be dreaming.

‘Old Billy-Pitt Dalton understands brewing. But human time should not be passed in digging and groping, and diving and searching—whether to scrape up coals, or what folks call “knowledge.” For the fuel of life burns out soon enough of itself, and, therefore, it should not be wasted over the baser material; because the former is all for one’s self, while coal-fuel, and the search after it, is just working for other people. Something _did_ touch my elbow! There’s something astir in the room out in the darkness! It was standing at my side!’

Flashley made an effort to rise; but instead of doing so, he fell sideways over one arm of the chair, with his arms hanging down. Staring up helplessly from this position, he saw a heavy dwarfed figure with shining eyes, coming out of the darkness of the room! He could not distinguish its outline; but it was elf-like, black, and had a rough rocky skin. It had eyes that shot rays like great diamonds; and through its coal-black naked body, the whole of its veins were discernible, not running with blood, but filled with stagnant gold. Its step was noiseless, yet its weight seemed so immense, that the floor slowly bent beneath it; and, like ice before it breaks, the floor bent more and more as the figure came nearer.

At this alarming sight, Flashley struggled violently to rise. He did so; but instantly reeling half round, dropped into the chair, with his head falling over the back of it. At the same moment the ponderous Elfin took one step nearer; and the whole floor sank slowly down, with a long-drawn moan, that ended in a rising and rushing wind, with which Flashley felt himself borne away through the air, fleeter than his fast-fleeing consciousness.

In the progress of generations and cycles—in that wealth and dispensation of Time ordained by +Him+, before whose sight ‘one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day’—mere grains of sand running through the glass that regulates the operations of never-ending work—the bodies of all living things, whether animal or vegetable, fulfil their destinies by undergoing a gradual transmutation into other bodies and things of the most opposite kind to their own original being. Original being, accurately to speak, there is none; but we must call that thing original to which some other thing is traced back as to its ultimate point, or starting place, and at which we are obliged to stop, not because it is the end, but because we can go no further; nevertheless, up to that antediluvian period, and during a great part of it, we are moving in the dusky yet demonstrable regions and tracts of substantial facts, and scientific knowledge.

Not daring to unclose his eyes, Flashley gradually returned to consciousness, and heard a voice speaking near to him, yet in tones that seemed like the echoes of some great cavern or deep mine.

‘Man lives to-day,’ said the voice—and the youth felt it was the black Elfin, with the diamond eyes and golden veins, that was speaking—‘man lives to-day, not only for himself and those around him, but also that by his death and decay fresh grass may grow in the fields of future years,—and that sheep may feed, and give food and clothing for the continuous race of man. Even so the food of one generation becomes the stone of another. And the stone shall become a fuel—a poison—or a medicine. Awake, young man!—awake from the stupor of an ignorant and presumptuous youth—and look around you!’

The young man, with no little trepidation, opened his eyes. He found he was alone. The strange being that had just spoken was gone. He ventured to gaze on the scene that surrounded him.

The place in which he found himself seemed to partake, not in distinct proportions, but altogether, so far as this was possible, of a wild forest of strange and enormous trees—a chaotic jungle—a straggling woodland, and a dreary morass or swamp, intersected by a dark river, that appeared to creep towards the sea which embraced a part of the distant horizon with a leaden arm. The moist mound whereon he stood was covered with ferns of various kinds—the comb-fern, the wedge-fern, the tooth-fern, the nerve-fern—and of all sizes, rising from a crumpled crest bursting through the earth, to plants of a foot high, of several feet, and thence up to lofty trees of forty or fifty feet in height, with great stems and branching crowns. The green-stemmed and many-pointed mare’s-tail was also conspicuous in number and in magnitude; not merely of two or three feet high, as in the present period of the earth, but large green-jointed trees, shooting up their whisking spires to fourteen or fifteen feet. Thickly springing up in wild and threatening squadrons over the morass, they bent their heads in long rows after rows over the edge of the muddy river, with sullen, moveless, and interminable monotony. Here and there, enormous sombre shrubs oppressed the scene. The collective clumps resembled the inextricable junction of several of our thickest-foliaged trees, as though several oaks had agreed to unite their trunks, and make one—several beeches, the same—several poplars—several limes—though not one of them bearing likeness in trunk or foliage to oak, or beech, or poplar, or lime, or any known tree of present date.

Clumps also were there, of a rank undergrowth, out of which limp bare stems shot up to a great height, covered with a sickly white mealy powder, and terminating, for the most part, in coarse brown swollen heads, or gigantic black fingers, varied with dull red bosses at the tops of the great stems, broken cups, or red and grey forks and spikes,—a sort of monstrous club-moss and cup-moss, with lichens, coarse water-weeds, and water-grasses at the base.

Uncouth and terrible as were the forms to the young man’s eyes, there were some things not without grace. Large trees, having their entire trunks and boughs elegantly fluted, bearing leaves at regular intervals on each fluting upwards and along every bough, rose up amidst the disordered vegetation. Where the leaves had fallen from the lower part of the trunk, marks were left, like seals, at regular intervals on the flutings.[A]

In many places, close to the trees just described, huge tortuous succulent roots[B] protruded from the ground, as if anxious to exchange their darkness and want of air for the light, and for the warm atmosphere, attracted by the strong gases with which it was impregnated.

Round the feet of the young man lay intertangled bunches and bundles of wood-weeds, river-weeds, and other weeds that seemed to partake equally of the river and the sea; long rank grasses, sword-like, spear-like, or with club-like crowns of seeds, and fungi of hideous shapes, gross, pulpy, like giants’ heads, hairy and bearded, and sometimes bursting and sending forth steamy odours that were scarcely to be borne, and which the youth felt to be a deadly poison, but that for the time he, somehow, was endowed with a ‘charmed life.’

[A] These trees are known in fossil botany as the _Sigillariæ_.

[B] The _Stigmaria_.

Spell-bound, he turned from these dismaying sights, to trees that rose to altitudes of from sixty to eighty feet, having leaves in long rows upon all the boughs, from which they shot forth direct, and without the intervention of any small twigs or other usual connecting medium of foliage. The same course of leaves had existed on the trunk, from which they had fallen as the tree rose up to maturity, and had left scars or scales, like a Mosaic ornament, and a sign of their progressive years.[C]

Gazing through and beyond all these lofty trunks, Flashley beheld in the distance a sort of palm-like and pine-like trees, standing against the pale blue sky, which far transcended all the rest in altitude, and seemed indeed, here and there, to rise to a hundred feet above the whole range of other lofty trees! His eyes ached as he stared at them. It was not their altitude alone that caused a painful impression, but the feeling of their unbroken solitude—a loneliness unvisited by a single bird, and with nothing between them and the heavens, to which they seemed to aspire for ever, and in vain.

No flowers on any of the trees and shrubs around him were to be seen—and no fruits. The tone of colour was grave, sullen, melancholy. It was a solitude that seemed to feel itself. Not only no bird was visible, but no quadruped, insect, creeping thing, or other form of animal life. The earth was devoted solely to the production of enormous vegetation.

To complete the pregnant solemnity of the scene, there were no sounds of life or motion in the air; all was silence.

Looking round with a forlorn and overawed yet enquiring face, he discerned something like two keen stars of arrowy light at the foot of a gigantic fern-tree, at some distance from him. The darting rays seemed directed towards him. They were eyes; they could be nothing else! He presently perceived that the rough black elfin figure, with the veins of stagnant gold, was seated there, and that its eyes were fixed upon him!

[C] The _Lepidodendron_.

‘The scene amidst which you stand,’ said the Elfin in his echo-like voice, and without moving from his seat beneath the tree, ‘is the stupendous vegetation of the elder world. The trunks and stems of the antediluvian earth erect their columns, and shoot up their spires towards the clouds; their dull, coarse foliage overhangs the swamps, and they drink in, at every pore, the floating steam impregnated with the nutriment of prodigies. No animal life do you behold, for none is of this date, nor could it live amidst these potent vapours which feed the vegetation. And yet these vast trees and plants, this richly poisoned atmosphere, this absence of all animal life of man, and beast, and bird, and creeping thing, is all arranged in due order of progression, that man may hereafter live, not merely a savage life, but one civilised and refined, with the sense of a soul within—of God in the world, and over it, and all around it—whereof comes man’s hope of a future life beyond his presence here. Thus upward, and thus onward ever.

‘And all this monstrous vegetation above ground shall be cast down and embedded deep in the dark bowels of the earth, there under the chemical process of ages to become a fuel for future generations of men, yet unborn, who will require it for their advance in civilisation and knowledge. Yes; these huge ferns, these trunks, and stems, and towering fabrics of trees, shall all crash down—sink deep into the earth with all the rank enfolding mass of undergrowth—there to be jammed and mashed up between beds of fiery stone and grit and clay, and covered with oozy mud and sand, till stratum after stratum of varied matter rises above them, and forms a new surface of earth. On this surface the new vegetation of the world will commence, while that of the old lies beneath,—not rotting in vain, nor slumbering uselessly in darkness, but gradually, age after age, undergoing transmutation by the alchemy of Nature, till verdure becometh veriest blackness, and wood is changed to coal.

‘Then man is born, appearing on the earth only when the earth is ready to receive him, and minister to his wants. At first he useth wood for his fuel; but as his knowledge expands and deepens he penetrates far below the surface, and there finds forests of fuel almost inexhaustible, made ready for his various needs and arts. And when, in far-off ages, these vast stores become exhausted, others will be discovered not only of the same date, but which have been since accumulated; for the same process of transmutation is constantly going on. Thus present time always works for future ages.

‘Slowly as moves the current in _my_ veins,’—the Elfin rose up as he said this—‘veins which seem to your eye to contain a stagnant gold, but whose metallic current, in its appointed period of years, performs each several circulation within me,—yea, slowly as this, or any other invisible progression, move these mighty forest trees towards their downward course, to rise again in coals,—in fire,—and thence ascend to air. Yes, this invisible motion is as certain withal, as that immediate action which mortal nature best can comprehend.’

As the Elfin uttered these last words, the great trees around sank with crashing slant one over the other!—then came rushing, like a sudden tempest, down upon the earth; and the young man was overwhelmed with the foliage, and instantly lost all further consciousness.

The traveller who has journeyed for many days across the fertile levels and shining flats of Holland, must often have bethought him that all this was surging ocean, but a few years ago; in like manner, by an inverse process, the voyager up the Mississippi or Missouri rivers, or the wayfarer for many days through the apparently interminable and dense forests of North America, might look forward to a period when all these masses of vegetation would become coal, if left to be dealt with by the regular process of nature.

The rapid advances of civilisation into these wooded solitudes may prevent the transmutation to which they were otherwise destined; and the same may be said of the forests even on many of the vast tracts, as yet scarcely trodden by the foot of man, in New Zealand and Australia; but many other giant forest tracts exist in unknown regions, which are destined to follow the law of transmutation, and secretly become a carbonic fuel for future ages of discovery.

But what does young Flashley now behold? He is aroused from his trance, and is again conscious of surrounding objects. He is seated, so that he cannot move, on a little wooden bench beneath a low wooden shed, such as labourers ‘knock up’ by way of temporary shelter in the vicinity of some great works. Great works are evidently in hand all around him.

Labourers with pick-axes and spades came hurrying to the spot, and began to dig a circular hole of some seven feet in diameter. Then came others with a great wooden roller on a stand, with a thick rope, like a well-rope, wound round it; and fixing this across the top of the hole, they let down a basket, ever and anon, and brought it up filled with earth and stones. It was evident that they were employed in sinking a shaft.

They worked away at a prodigious rate, the descending baskets continually taking down men with pickaxes and spades; and next with carpenter’s tools and circular pieces of wood-work, with which they made an inner frame round the sides of the shaft below. Bricklayers, with hods of bricks, were next let down in the baskets, and with the support of the circular frame beneath, they rapidly cased the inside of the shaft with brickwork up to the top. More and deeper digging out then took place—more wooden frame-work below, with more brickwork round the sides, and gradually sinking lower and lower. This was continued again and again, till suddenly loud cries from below announced some new event. The diggers had arrived at springs—water was gushing in upon them!

Up came the rope and basket with three men standing up inside and holding on the rope, and two men and a boy clinging round rope and basket, and round each other as they best could, and with no small peril to all. Leaping, scrambling, or lugged to the side, they relieved the basket, which rapidly ran down again to bring up others.

Meanwhile came labourers heavily trotting beneath the weight of pumps and pump-gear; and they rigged up the pump, and as soon as all the men and boys were out of the shaft, up came the water pouring in a thick volume, now mud-coloured, now clay-coloured, and now grey and chalky. At length the volume became less and less, and soon there was no more. Down again went basket after basket, with men or boys in them. Flashley shuddered, as something within him seemed to say ‘_Your_ turn will come!’ Up came the clay, and the sand, and the gravel, and the chalk as before; and soon a mixture of several earths and stones. Thus did they toil and toil below and above, winding up and winding down, till at last a shout of success was heard faintly echoing from the deep pit beneath, and presently up came a basket full of broken limestone, and grit, and red sandstone—and coals!

Flashley now observed a great turmoil above, but all with definite intention, and preparations for new and larger works. A steam-engine was fitted up in a small brick edifice at a hundred yards distance, from which came a strong rope that passed over a large drum or broad wheel. The rope was then extended to the shaft, over the top of which a small iron wheel was erected; and over this they carried the rope, which was to take down men and bring up coals. A larger measure than the basket, called a _corve_, was fastened to this rope by chains, and up and down it went bringing great heaps of coals to the surface. After a time, wood-work and iron-work of various kinds were sent down, and sledges and trucks with little wheels; and then broad belts were put round horses, by means of which they were raised, kicking and capering wildly in the air, and staring with horrified eye-balls into the black abyss, down which they were lowered, every limb trembling, and their ears sharpened up to a single hair.

At this sight Flashley’s ears began to prick and tingle in sympathy, for he felt that he should not much longer remain a mere spectator of these descents into the lower regions of the earth.

And now corve after corve full of coals rose in regular succession from the mine, and tram-roads were laid down, upon which little black waggons constantly ran to and fro, carrying away the coals from the pit’s mouth. While all this had been going on, a second shaft was sunk at no great distance; but no coals were seen to issue from it. It was for air, and ventilation of the mine.

The men sometimes went down standing up in the corve, but generally each man sat in the loop of a short chain which he hooked on to the rope; and, in this way, six or seven went swinging down together in a bunch; sometimes ten or twelve in a bunch; and now and then, by some using longer chains than the others, in a double bunch, amounting to as many as twenty, men and boys.

A voice, which seemed to come from beneath the earth, but which poor Flashley recollected too well as that of the Elfin who had carried him so recently into the antediluvian forests and swamps, now called him by his name, with a familiarity that made him shudder. Instantly he found himself borne away from the wooden shed, and placed on the brink of the first shaft. A strange apparatus, composed of a chain with a loop at bottom, and an iron umbrella over head, was now attached to the rope by three chains. It had very much the look of some novel instrument of torture. Into this loop Flashley’s legs were placed in a sitting posture.

‘Straddle your legs!’ cried an old black-visaged miner, as the young man was swung off from the brink, and suspended over the profound abyss below. Not obeying, and, indeed, not instantly understanding the uncouth injunction, Flashley had omitted the ‘straddling;’ in consequence of which the chain loop clipped him close around, and pinched his legs together with a force that would have made him utter a cry, but for the paramount terror of his position. Down he went. Round and round went the shaft-wheel above—faster and faster—and lower and lower he sank from the light of day between the dark circular walls of the shaft.

At first the motion was manifestly rapid. It took away his breath. It became more rapid. He gave himself up for lost. But presently the motion became more smooth, and more steady—then quite steady, so that he thought he was by no means descending rapidly. Presently, again, he fancied he was not descending at all—but stationary—or, rather, _ascending_. It was difficult to think otherwise. The current of air rising from below, meeting his swiftly descending body, gave him this impression.

He now saw a dim light moving below. It became stronger, and almost immediately after he saw three half-naked demons of the mine, as he thought, who stood ready to receive him.

For the first time he ventured to cast a forlorn look upwards. He beheld the iron umbrella with a light from beneath flashing upon it. Again, he turned his eyes below. He was close down upon the demons. One of them held a lamp up to his face as he descended among them. Whereupon these three demons all uttered a jovial laugh, and welcomed him.

‘Oh, _where_ am I?’ exclaimed Flashley, in utter dismay.

‘At the first “workings” of the Billy-Pitt Mine!’ shouted a voice. ‘Steady the chains!’

The chains were steadied, and in a moment Flashley felt himself launched into a new abyss, down which he descended in utter darkness, and in utter silence, except from the rushing of the air-currents, and the occasional grating of the iron umbrella against the sides of the shaft.

LIZZIE LEIGH.

IN FOUR CHAPTERS.—CHAPTER II.

‘Mother,’ then said Will, ‘why will you keep on thinking she’s alive? If she were but dead, we need never name her name again. We’ve never heard nought on her since father wrote her that letter; we never knew whether she got it or not. She’d left her place before then. Many a one dies is——’

‘Oh my lad! dunnot speak so to me, or my heart will break outright,’ said his mother, with a sort of cry. Then she calmed herself, for she yearned to persuade him to her own belief. ‘Thou never asked, and thou’rt too like thy father for me to tell without asking—but it were all to be near Lizzie’s old place that I settled down on this side o’ Manchester; and the very day after we came, I went to her old missus, and asked to speak a word wi’ her. I had a strong mind to cast it up to her, that she should ha’ sent my poor lass away without telling on it to us first; but she were in black, and looked so sad I could na’ find in my heart to threep it up. But I did ask her a bit about our Lizzie. The master would have her turned away at a day’s warning, (he’s gone to t’other place; I hope he’ll meet wi’ more mercy there than he showed our Lizzie,—I do,—) and when the missus asked her should she write to us, she says Lizzie shook her head; and when she speered at her again, the poor lass went down on her knees, and begged her not, for she said it would break my heart, (as it has done, Will—God knows it has),’ said the poor mother, choking with her struggle to keep down her hard overmastering grief, ‘and her father would curse her—Oh, God, teach me to be patient.’ She could not speak for a few minutes,—‘and the lass threatened, and said she’d go drown herself in the canal, if the missus wrote home,—and so—

‘Well! I’d got a trace of my child,—the missus thought she’d gone to th’ workhouse to be nursed; and there I went,—and there, sure enough, she had been,—and they’d turned her out as soon as she were strong, and told her she were young enough to work,—but whatten kind o’ work would be open to her, lad, and her baby to keep?’

Will listened to his mother’s tale with deep sympathy, not unmixed with the old bitter shame. But the opening of her heart had unlocked his, and after a while he spoke.

‘Mother! I think I’d e’en better go home. Tom can stay wi’ thee. I know I should stay too, but I cannot stay in peace so near—her—without craving to see her—Susan Palmer I mean.’

‘Has the old Mr. Palmer thou telled me on a daughter?’ asked Mrs. Leigh.

‘Aye, he has. And I love her above a bit. And it’s because I love her I want to leave Manchester. That’s all.’

Mrs. Leigh tried to understand this speech for some time, but found it difficult of interpretation.

‘Why should’st thou not tell her thou lov’st her? Thou ’rt a likely lad, and sure o’ work. Thou ’lt have Upclose at my death; and as for that I could let thee have it now, and keep mysel by doing a bit of charring. It seems to me a very backwards sort o’ way of winning her to think of leaving Manchester.’

‘Oh mother, she’s so gentle and so good,—she’s downright holy. She’s never known a touch of sin; and can I ask her to marry me, knowing what we do about Lizzie, and fearing worse! I doubt if one like her could ever care for me; but if she knew about my sister, it would put a gulf between us, and she’d shudder up at the thought of crossing it. You don’t know how good she is, mother!’

‘Will, Will! if she’s so good as thou say’st, she’ll have pity on such as my Lizzie. If she has no pity for such, she’s a cruel Pharisee, and thou ’rt best without her.’

But he only shook his head, and sighed; and for the time the conversation dropped.

But a new idea sprang up in Mrs. Leigh’s head. She thought that she would go and see Susan Palmer, and speak up for Will, and tell her the truth about Lizzie; and according to her pity for the poor sinner, would she be worthy or unworthy of him. She resolved to go the very next afternoon, but without telling any one of her plan. Accordingly she looked out the Sunday clothes she had never before had the heart to unpack since she came to Manchester, but which she now desired to appear in, in order to do credit to Will. She put on her old-fashioned black mode bonnet, trimmed with real lace; her scarlet cloth cloak, which she had had ever since she was married; and always spotlessly clean, she set forth on her unauthorised embassy. She knew the Palmers lived in Crown Street, though where she had heard it she could not tell; and modestly asking her way, she arrived in the street about a quarter to four o’clock. She stopped to inquire the exact number, and the woman whom she addressed told her that Susan Palmer’s school would not be loosed till four, and asked her to step in and wait until then at her house.

‘For,’ said she, smiling, ‘them that wants Susan Palmer wants a kind friend of ours; so we, in a manner, call cousins. Sit down, missus, sit down. I’ll wipe the chair, so that it shanna dirty your cloak. My mother used to wear them bright cloaks, and they’re right gradely things again a green field.’

‘Han ye known Susan Palmer long?’ asked Mrs. Leigh, pleased with the admiration of her cloak.

‘Ever since they comed to live in our street. Our Sally goes to her school.’

‘Whatten sort of a lass is she, for I ha’ never seen her?’

‘Well,—as for looks, I cannot say. It’s so long since I first knowed her, that I’ve clean forgotten what I thought of her then. My master says he never saw such a smile for gladdening the heart. But may be it’s not looks you’re asking about. The best thing I can say of her looks is, that she’s just one a stranger would stop in the street to ask help from if he needed it. All the little childer creeps as close as they can to her; she’ll have as many as three or four hanging to her apron all at once.’

‘Is she cocket at all?’

‘Cocket, bless you! you never saw a creature less set up in all your life. Her father’s cocket enough. No! she’s not cocket any way. You’ve not heard much of Susan Palmer, I reckon, if you think she’s cocket. She’s just one to come quietly in, and do the very thing most wanted; little things, maybe, that any one could do, but that few would think on, for another. She’ll bring her thimble wi’ her, and mend up after the childer o’ nights,—and she writes all Betty Harker’s letters to her grandchild out at service,—and she’s in nobody’s way, and that’s a great matter, I take it. Here’s the childer running past! School is loosed. You’ll find her now, missus, ready to hear and to help. But we none on us frab her by going near her in school-time.’

Poor Mrs. Leigh’s heart began to beat, and she could almost have turned round and gone home again. Her country breeding had made her shy of strangers, and this Susan Palmer appeared to her like a real born lady by all accounts. So she knocked with a timid feeling at the indicated door, and when it was opened, dropped a simple curtsey without speaking. Susan had her little niece in her arms, curled up with fond endearment against her breast, but she put her gently down to the ground, and instantly placed a chair in the best corner of the room for Mrs. Leigh, when she told her who she was. ‘It’s not Will as has asked me to come,’ said the mother, apologetically, ‘I’d a wish just to speak to you myself!’

Susan coloured up to her temples, and stooped to pick up the little toddling girl. In a minute or two Mrs. Leigh began again.

‘Will thinks you would na respect us if you knew all; but I think you could na help feeling for us in the sorrow God has put upon us; so I just put on my bonnet, and came off unknownst to the lads. Every one says you’re very good, and that the Lord has keeped you from falling from his ways; but maybe you’ve never yet been tried and tempted as some is. I’m perhaps speaking too plain, but my heart’s welly broken, and I can’t be choice in my words as them who are happy can. Well now! I’ll tell you the truth. Will dreads you to hear it, but I’ll just tell it you. You mun know,’—but here the poor woman’s words failed her, and she could do nothing but sit rocking herself backwards and forwards, with sad eyes, straight-gazing into Susan’s face, as if they tried to tell the tale of agony which the quivering lips refused to utter. Those wretched stony eyes forced the tears down Susan’s cheeks, and, as if this sympathy gave the mother strength, she went on in a low voice, ‘I had a daughter once, my heart’s darling. Her father thought I made too much on her, and that she’d grow marred staying at home; so he said she mun go among strangers, and learn to rough it. She were young, and liked the thought of seeing a bit of the world; and her father heard on a place in Manchester. Well! I’ll not weary you. That poor girl were led astray; and first thing we heard on it, was when a letter of her father’s was sent back by her missus, saying she’d left her place, or, to speak right, the master had turned her into the street soon as he had heard of her condition—and she not seventeen!’

She now cried aloud; and Susan wept too. The little child looked up into their faces, and, catching their sorrow, began to whimper and wail. Susan took it softly up, and hiding her face in its little neck, tried to restrain her tears, and think of comfort for the mother. At last she said:

‘Where is she now?’

‘Lass! I dunnot know,’ said Mrs. Leigh, checking her sobs to communicate this addition to her distress. ‘Mrs. Lomax telled me she went’——

‘Mrs. Lomax—what Mrs. Lomax?’

‘Her as lives in Brabazon-street. She telled me my poor wench went to the workhouse fra there. I’ll not speak again the dead; but if her father would but ha’ letten me,—but he were one who had no notion—no, I’ll not say that; best say nought. He forgave her on his death-bed. I dare say I did na go th’ right way to work.’

‘Will you hold the child for me one instant?’ said Susan.

‘Ay, if it will come to me. Childer used to be fond on me till I got the sad look on my face that scares them, I think.’

But the little girl clung to Susan; so she carried it upstairs with her. Mrs. Leigh sat by herself—how long she did not know.

Susan came down with a bundle of far-worn baby-clothes.

‘You must listen to me a bit, and not think too much about what I’m going to tell you. Nanny is not my niece, nor any kin to me that I know of. I used to go out working by the day. One night, as I came home, I thought some woman was following me; I turned to look. The woman, before I could see her face (for she turned it to one side), offered me something. I held out my arms by instinct: she dropped a bundle into them with a bursting sob that went straight to my heart. It was a baby. I looked round again; but the woman was gone. She had run away as quick as lightning. There was a little packet of clothes—very few—and as if they were made out of its mother’s gowns, for they were large patterns to buy for a baby. I was always fond of babies; and I had not my wits about me, father says; for it was very cold, and when I’d seen as well as I could (for it was past ten) that there was no one in the street, I brought it in and warmed it. Father was very angry when he came, and said he’d take it to the workhouse the next morning, and flyted me sadly about it. But when morning came I could not bear to part with it; it had slept in my arms all night; and I’ve heard what workhouse bringing up is. So I told father I’d give up going out working, and stay at home and keep school, if I might only keep the baby; and after awhile, he said if I earned enough for him to have his comforts, he’d let me; but he’s never taken to her. Now, don’t tremble so,—I’ve but a little more to tell,—and maybe I’m wrong in telling it; but I used to work next door to Mrs. Lomax’s, in Brabazon-street, and the servants were all thick together; and I heard about Bessy (they called her) being sent away. I don’t know that ever I saw her; but the time would be about fitting to this child’s age, and I’ve sometimes fancied it was her’s. And now, will you look at the little clothes that came with her—bless her!’