Читать книгу A Pit-brow Lassie - John Monk Foster - Страница 12

Table of Contents

When Luke Standish came out of the swoon which followed his dream or supernatural vision, whichever it might be, he stared wildly around him, not remembering for a few moments where he was and what had happened.

Then his memory came back with a rush, and an irrepressible shudder shook his frame as he recalled the horror he had endured prior to losing his senses. The first question he put to himself was—Had he been dreaming, or was he awake when he saw, or fancied he saw, that strange, weird-looking figure disappear in the fall just beyond where he was still sitting?

A dream sorely. It was absurd to think it could be anything else.

Glancing down the road Luke could see the lamps of his comrades, who were still awaiting his return, and it struck him that he must have been unconscious for only a very short time, or they would have come to seek him. Then he arose, and with one last shuddering glance around walked down the road to rejoin his work-mates.

As he went along he made up his mind to say nothing to them of the singular incident that had just befallen him. There were several reasons for this. In the first place Luke was known among his comrades as a profound disbeliever in all things pertaining to dreams and spectral visitations, and had always criticised in a most unmerciful manner the ghost stories some of the old pitmen were fond of narrating.

Again, he thought, and perhaps rightly, that the recital of his strange experience might discourage his companions and incline them to believe that they were all doomed to perish in the subterranean wilderness in which they were entangled.

"Have ah bin a good while away?" Luke asked as he joined Joe and the other two, who were still seated where he had left them.

"Middlin'," Joe answered; "did yo' fahnd owt?"

"A fa' o' roof, that's aw," Luke replied. "What's eawr next move, Joe?"

"Ah dun know," Thomson cried wearily. "Ah think we mut as weel dee heer as anywheer else."

"Ah'm gooin' no further," one of the other men cried doggedly. "It's no use ramblin' abeawt when we dunnot know wheer we are."

"Sumbuddy ull ha' to fahnd us," the other man broke in, "for we connot fahnd eawrsels, an' they'll fahnd as heer as weel as anywheer else."

"Ah'm gooin' to ha' o sleep, Luke," Thomson exclaimed. "Ah'm gradely done up."

Luke saw that it would be vain on his part to urge his comrades to continue their rambling just then, and it seemed there was small hope of them finding their way unaided.

So he followed the example of the others and seated himself on the cold hard floor of the mine. In a few moments he could hear the deep-drawn regular breathing of tired men sleeping. Two of the men were already slumbering in entire oblivion of their situation, and a few minutes afterwards Joe Thomson also fell asleep.

Then Luke Standish drew a piece of chalk from his waistcoat pocket, and upon the rocky side of the place he had ascended he wrote his name in large thick strokes that would take years to obliterate, and in addition to this he inscribed the day of the month and year.

He would be able to recognise the spot again should it ever be his lot to revisit it, and, even at that moment it seemed probable that at some tune or other he would desire to see the place where he had, either in fancy or fact, encountered that blue-shirted, dark-bearded figure.

It was now after nine o'clock. They had been wandering among the old galleries for nearly five hours, and were, it appeared, no nearer liberty than when they set out just after the roof collapsed. There was no telling how much longer their imprisonment might last. All that day might elapse, perhaps much longer, before someone came to lead them from out that huge labyrinth whose windings seemed endless.

The dense unbroken stillness was both impressive and oppressive, and seemed to weigh heavily on Lake's heart and mind. He would have slept also, but his head ached too fearfully to allow him to sleep. So he sat there pondering many things, and slowly the minutes slid past, every one seeming to impress itself upon the young miner.

He looked again at his watch and found it was a quarter past ten. Joe Thomson and the others still slumbered as peacefully as if they were at home in their respective beds, and a sullen despair was beginning to fasten upon Luke, when at last his tired eyelids fell and he slumbered.

But his sleep was of short duration. He had hardly closed his eyes, it seemed, when his attention was aroused by some distant sound, and in a moment he was listening intently.

What was it that awoke him?

Was it the clatter of falling roof or the sound of approaching feet? He bent down low, placed his ear against the cold floor, and held his breath, while he listened in an intense, excited way.

Thud! thud! thud! fell lowly, but unmistakably, upon his strained hearing, and rising to a sitting posture he shouted with all the power of his deep, strong lungs—

"Hallo! Hallo! Hallo!"

Joe Thomson and the other sleepers rose suddenly to their knees, staring wildly about, unable to understand the great noise Luke had made.

"There's sumbuddy abeawt!" Luke cried to his wondering sleepy-eyed mates. "I've heard feet! Let's aw sheawt together!"

The next moment four powerful voices blent together, and a mighty "Hallo!" swept along the old galleries of the mine. Intense stillness followed for an instant, and then they all heard a clear, piercing whistle.

Again their joined voices rang out; once more a wave of sound rolled swiftly along the low galleries, and the whistle answered their shout. A minute afterwards old Ike Ellsworth, the other fireman, and two men were beside them, each one glad to find all the missing miners safe.

"What's up, lads?" old Ike asked jocularly. "Han yo' bin lost?"

"Ah think thah knows," Joe Thomson cried ill-humoredly. "We'n bin like four wand'rin' Jews sin' four o'clock this mornin'."

"Thah shouldn't o getting lost, Joe," retorted Ellsworth, "for thah's bin thro' th' air-roads afoor."

"Ay, ah have, Ike, bur ah'll never gooa thro' 'em again," and Joe shook his head with great solemnity.

"It was Joe us sed he knowed t'road," one of the men scowled, "and he lost hissel un' us too."

"Never mahnd, lad," was Joe's response, "ah'll never do it no moor."

There was a general laugh at Joe's expense, and then they prepared to quit the place, old Ike Ellsworth leading. Without the least difficultly the old fireman led them out of the labyrinth, and Luke and his comrades were not over-pleased to notice that they had crossed and recrossed the right way many a time.

All the way out Luke Standish used his chalk unsparingly, making signs upon the roof and sides every score of yards. Old Ike and the other men laughed when they saw him doing this, for they imagined that he was only taking soon precautions as would enable him to find his way out of the maze in future, whereas in reality he was thinking of returning thither some day.

He had not yet forgotten the blue-shirted, dark-bearded figure, and every fresh chalk-mark he made attested to the depth of the impression the incident had made upon him.

After a long fatiguing walk the pit shaft was reached, and a few minutes after the four miners were standing on the pit bank in the warm autumn sunshine. Kate was busy at her work of number shouting, and she could only flash across to him a look of deep love and thankfulness that amply repaid the miner for all the annoyance of the last few hours.

Just as Luke and the others were about to leave the bank the manager—Mr. Latham—put in an appearance. He, of course, had heard of the great fall in the north level and had been uneasy regarding the missing men, and now expressed his pleasure at seeing them all safe.

Luke had to give him an account of all the events of the preceding night, and by the time this was done the steam whistles were announcing the dinner hour. Mr. Latham was both a feeling man and a generous master. Knowing the four men were greatly exhausted by last night's wanderings he intimated that each of them could take a holiday that evening and that their wages should be paid in full at the week end.

This pleased the miners very much, and each went home happy. The relatives of the missing men had been informed that their breadwinners were in no danger, being merely detained in the pit through an accident, and this information had allayed many fears in the missing miners' homes.

On reaching home Luke found his mother awaiting his coming somewhat anxiously. The miner was almost famished with his long fast, having eaten nothing since midnight, and after a hearty meal he washed himself and went to bed.

The remembrance of the singular incident that had befallen him when he left his comrades for a space to explore the old road had seldom been out of Luke's thoughts since the occurrence, and the affair troubled his mind still when slumber seized his tired brain and wearied limbs.

In his sleep he was again lost in the old galleries of the King Pit, once more he left his workmates to go up the old road to find it closed at the top by a heap of fallen roof. Again he seated himself disgusted ere turning to rejoin his fellows, and once more was he struck sick and dumb with unspeakable horror on feeling that weird-looking, noiseless, blue-shirted, dark-bearded figure pass through him and then slowly disappear amid the fallen roof-heaps.

The dream ended suddenly there—sleep also; and the miner sprang to a sitting posture in bed, his face covered with thick beads of cold sweat, and the horror of it all still upon him.

Then he lay back again on his pillow, and in a few moments was fast asleep again, and this time his heavy slumber was neither broken nor disturbed by any phantom fancies.

When Luke next awoke it was a little after 6 in the evening, so arising, he dressed and went out for a walk. He regretted now that he had not told Kate of the holiday the manager had given him and the others, and made an appointment with her.

It was a fine evening, warm and still, and Luke struck for the fields, on the eastern borders of the town, where one, in half-an-hour's walk, might get beyond the smoke and smell of Ashford.

The big red sun hung low in the west, encompassed by a thin veil of haze which gave promise of a fine sunset, whilst here and there the blue sky was dotted with islands of fleecy white cloud. The shorn wheat stood in thick sheaves in the fields Luke strolled through, and amid the ripe-leaved trees song-birds were piping their vesper roundelays. Now and again he met a pair of lovers loitering about the stiles or sitting under the hedgerows.

But Luke had no eye this evening for the grace and light and life about him. He was immersed in reflection, and his thoughts were of his late dream and the remarkable incident that preceded and doubtless originated it.

Looking back now and calmly regarding the incident which befell him up the old road he was forced to think it also had been a dream. But the features of the man he had seen, his dress and figure, the weird aspect of his face—every detail was indelibly impressed upon Lake's mind as if he had know the man for years and seen him thousands of times.

Thus musing Luke came to a standstill beside a grassy bank, where a big-leaved sycamore threw a broad shadow, and here he sat down. He had scarcely seated himself when an idea flashed through his mind, followed by an instantaneous determination to give an effect to the fancy.

From one of his pockets the young pit-man drew an old pocket-book, out of another he fished a piece of black-lead pencil, and sharpening the latter he proceeded to carry out the idea that had struck him.

Luke had attended the art school held in the town for a couple of sessions, and was able to sketch a little. Going to work earnestly, if slowly and laboriously, he contrived in the space of half-an-hour or so to produce a crude yet singularly striking likeness of the figure he had seen in the old gallery of the King Pit.

When the rude sketch was finished he held it at arm's length and scanned it attentively. There before him were the form, face, and clothes he remembered so well. He had missed nothing. There were the corduroy breeches, patched at the knees; the blue flannel shirt, torn at the elbows; the compact form, and heavily bearded face, with its weird aspect. All were reproduced, rudely, it is true, but sufficiently near the original to satisfy Luke.

Gazing at the lines he had made, the likeness struck him so much that a trace of the old shivering horror seized him, and he hastily replaced the pocket-book in his pocket.

Then he arose from the grassy slope and continued his walk, taking a direction that would lead him by a somewhat circuitous route past Bannister's-row, in one of the cottages of which his sweetheart lived. But the length of the walk was of small import to Luke, as he had not to work until the following evening.

The sun was setting now amid great banks of crimson and amber clouds, and through great rifts in the gorgeous colored vapor the glorious light streamed forth, dyeing everything it touched a deep blood-red hue, and transforming the prosaic landscape to a picture of weird unearthly beauty.

By the time Luke Standish came in sight of Bannister's-row the sunset's glory was over, the western heaven had lost all its splendor of coloring, and to mark where the sun had so lately fallen were only some faint streaks of grey far up toward the zenith, whilst upon the horizon's rim there still burned a dull blackish-red glow.

The The miner had resolved to call upon the Leighs for a few minutes, and as he came to the corner of the little garden patch he lifted the latch of the gate and stepped upon the narrow gravelled walk. Suddenly he paused, his gaze fixed intently upon the lower window of the cottage in which the Leighs lived.

There was a good light inside the room, and as the blind was not pulled down Luke could see everything within the apartment, whilst he remained invisible to those inside. And what he saw shot into his heart a pang of keenest pain and sent the blood in hot passionate surges of jealousy through his brain.

This is what he saw—In the centre of the small room was a square table, and on the father side of this, with their faces to the window, so that Lake could see them both dearly, were Kate Leigh and a dark handsome young fellow. They were standing side by side, so close that their garments touched, and their eyes were fixed upon the open pages of some book or magazine.

From their movements and the play of their lips—for no sound reached Luke—he could tell that they were talking; and Kate seemed to be quite at home with the good-looking and well-dressed gentleman who was standing beside her.

The man was a perfect stranger to Luke, who had not the remotest idea of his business there. But one thing concerning him the miner had already divined. The man was in love with Kate; was a rival of his own; and to judge from present appearances, the stranger was not an opponent to be despised.

These thoughts flashed through his mind in the space of two or three moments; and as he stood there by the gate of the garden, irresolute, whether to turn homeward or toward the cottage door, he witnessed something that added another pang to those he already endured.

Kate was bent low over the open pages, whilst her companion stood upright by her side. One of the girl's long, dark tresses had escaped from its crimping pins, and seizing it, unobserved by Kate, the young fellow toyed with it a moment, lifted it to his lips, and kissed it lovingly.

The next moment Kate turned to her companion, and perceiving her vagrant tress in his hands blushed furiously. Some words were exchanged, but Luke could only guess vaguely at their purport; then he saw his unknown rival, with deft white fingers, re-confine the glossy lock of hair.

He waited to see no more. Turning out of the garden he hurried past the row of cottages, through the fields, over the stile, into the waggon road, and through the colliery yard homeward.

For the first time in his life the young pitman was experiencing the extraordinary pains of jealousy. Hot-blooded as he was by nature, the little scene, of which he had been an unsuspected witness, had aroused within his breast such feelings as he had never dreamed himself capable of harboring.

And when Luke turned his back upon the white cottage all love seemed crushed out of his heart, and his excited brain was filled with bitter unuttered thoughts of Kate Leigh and the unknown man who, he believed, had ousted him from her affections.