Читать книгу A Miner's Million - John Monk Foster - Страница 6

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Five years and as many months had slipped into the gulf of time since Jacob Gray died, but the passing of that period had not brought Robert Wilson Gray to claim his inheritance.

Walter had felt certain all along that his relative was alive, and he felt equally certain that he would return within the stipulated time to possess himself of the million of money that awaited his coming. Only when weeks, months, and at last five years passed away did he abandon all hope of his cousin's return. For whole weeks together advertisements had figured prominently in the leading papers of England, America, and Australia, but with no fruitful result.

Robert Wilson Grays, from every quarter of the world, applied to Mr. John Braile, solicitor, for the fortune their father, Jacob Gray, had left them. But in almost every case the applicants were unable, through some unfortunate circumstance or another, to make themselves visible to the lawyer at his offices in Market-street, Manchester. One Wilson Gray was digging gold on the Pacific slope, and was too poor to make his way unaided to England; another was roughing it amongst the Boers in the Transvaal, loved the life, and preferred to stay on the banks of the Vaal; still another was sojourning in Italy, being in delicate health, and his physician would not permit him to change his abode; others there were who made similar excuses, and all the applicants were agreed on one point; each of them was hard up and needed help at once, but in no case were the impostors successful in obtaining money. A few questions, tersely put and never answered, settled the matter so far as the applicants were concerned.

When the five years were past Walter Gray found the fortune thrust upon him, and, perhaps, no man ever received a million of money less thankfully. How many thousands there are who would barter even their souls for the ease and adulation that a million will purchase. Adulation and ease were as yet unattractive to Walter Gray, and, consequently, he cared but little for that which would purchase them. In years to come he might learn to love gold and its concomitants; now, in the full vigour of early manhood, he cared for nought but work.

At 25 Walter Gray was a good-looking fellow, not extremely handsome, as heroes too often are, but pleasant-faced, which beauty-men seldom are. Your very handsome men and your beautiful women seldom escape the taint of personal vanity. They are human peacocks that strut about soliciting admiration for the result of an accident. Walter was strongly built, ordinary sized, fair skinned, brown eyed, and dark haired. A short, crisp beard covered chin and cheeks, lending a quiet, resolute look to his face, such as is seen in portraits of the old Romans.

Left an orphan at an early age, Walter had lost the gentle influence that parents alone wield. But his uncle Jacob had, as nearly as possible, taken a parent's place. The mineowner resolved to give his nephew an excellent education, and he did so, but great public schools, such as Eton and Harrow were to be avoided as pestilential. The experiment of sending his son to Eton and thence to Cambridge had failed so disastrously that Jacob determined to have Walter educated amongst commoner folks, so the lad began and finished his schooling at a grammar school within easy reach of Torleigh.

Early in his teens Walter was seized with a passion for reading. Books on all sorts of subjects were devoured with avidity, and his studious habits pleased his uncle much, and the mineowner gladly purchased any books his nephew desired. Of his own accord young Gray had adopted the profession of mining engineer, and ere he died Jacob Gray heard his nephew spoken of as a clever and most promising man.

In his early manhood Walter read as much and as eagerly as in his youth. His professional studies had bent his mind towards science, and he assimilated the writings of Darwin, Huxley, Tyndall, and Spencer with the enthusiasm of a proselyte. The daring speculations of these great lights of the scientific firmament filled his mind, and he readily subscribed to many of their opinions. Ever a devout believer from his childhood up he remained a sincere believer still. Scientific knowledge had only exalted his faith.

But the faith of his earlier years was sublimed into a purer and nobler faith. The wonders of the universe were invested with a new and higher wonder, and, though the mysteries of misery, evil, and pain perplexed his understanding, his faith enabled him to discern a light beyond the clouds—a light that was always shining for men to see. The main characteristics of Walter Gray's character were earnestness and honesty of purpose. Much reading of a grave nature had induced hard thinking, and even as he entered manhood Walter had discovered a touchstone wherewith to test his life and actions.

"He that satisfies his conscience in all things satisfies God," was the terse axiom into which Walter had summed up and crystallized the thoughts that dominated his life. To act so that his conscience should never be able to accuse him of wrong was his aim.

It must not be thought from these statements that Walter Gray was one of those disgusting persons who possess a habitually lugubrious visage, and are always preaching of the follies and wickedness of the world. He could laugh as loudly and as heartily at a good joke as any one; he was generous, used harsh words but seldom, and only a few people knew that he ever busied himself with the higher phases of speculative thought. He thought most of the mysteries of the universe when he happened to be rambling alone through the fields at sunset or sunrise. The calm beauty of a summer sunset induces grave thoughts, and the reflective mind turns naturally to ponder the mystery of being and the origin of things at such a time.

After his uncle's death, Walter devoted himself assiduously to his professional duties. He never had regarded himself as the probable possessor of the huge sum of money which awaited his cousin's coming—he was quite satisfied with his present position and the work he had undertaken.

About one thousand miners were employed at the Torleigh Collieries—most of the mines were deep, gaseous, and dangerous to work, and Walter Gray resolved to make "Gray's Pits" the safest in the shire. Soon after his uncle's death he commenced this work, descending the pit each day like an ordinary workman, his clear understanding and practical knowledge suggesting many improvements. Incapable officials were got rid of, and efficient men engaged in their stead, no expense or trouble being spared to make the pits as safe as possible.

To get to the hearts of the people one must rub shoulders with them. This Walter did. He knew most of the miners intimately; to them his manners were always pleasant and cheery; he listened to their grievances patiently and dealt generously by them. Wage disputes were rare indeed at the Torleigh pits, and it was a well known fact that "Owd Gray's men" worked less time and got better wages than any other miners in the shire of Lancaster.

This was all done in the five years following his uncle's death, and when the stipulated period had passed without Robert Wilson Gray's return, Walter found himself the possessor of a huge fortune.

What was he to do with it all. How should he act so as to merit such a fortune? These self-put questions he answered quickly and practically. An enthusiast in the cause of progress and education he had looked after the physical welfare of his miners by materially lessening the dangers of their hazardous work. Now, he would make it his business to care for their children's education.

When a man thinks clearly, has resoluteness of character, honesty of purpose, and the means to carry out all his plans, wonders may be done. Half a year after Walter Gray succeeded to his uncle's fortune a set of large and handsome schools were erected by him for the pitmen's children, who had all their schooling free, Walter defraying all expenses of books, schoolmasters, schoolmistresses, and teachers. This much done, Walter Gray felt that he had done something for the men whose labours had made the great wealth in his possession.

Walter's labours were not actuated by a love of praise, for though he was desirous of winning and keeping the good opinion of his fellows, the work he had done for his pitmen and their children was the outcome of the promptings of his conscience. He satisfied his conscience, and was content whether his work called forth praise or blame.

But had Walter been seeking praise he could not have desired greater success. The little town rang with his name, and feuilletonists chronicled his doings in crisp, readable paragraphs, so that Walter enjoyed a more than local fame. Sir Wilton Haigh, the member for South Lancashire, in which division of the county Torleigh was situated, manifested a great interest in Walter, repeatedly inviting him to his country house, but he had declined the baronet's invitations on the plea of having no leisure.

Olsham Hall, the residence of the Haighs for many generations, lay in the midst of a beautiful stretch of country about half a dozen miles from Torleigh, close to the border of Cheshire. Sir Wilton had married a fashionable beauty, a clever and accomplished woman, and the baronet occupied a much more prominent position in the fashionable world than he did in the world of politics. Rich, good-looking, and even-tempered, Sir Wilton was a lover of sport and good wine, and a hater of speech-makers; and his wife, Lady Haigh, was the pleasantest of hostesses, being still under thirty, and better looking than ever.

The Olsham coverts were noted for plump-bodied, strong-winged, shootable birds; Sir Wilton's cook was a master of his craft; the cellar at Olsham was famed for its wines, and each year, after the London season was over, the hospitable baronet's house was invaded by a host of guests, some of them attracted by the partridges, others by the perfect cuisine, and not a few were drawn to the Hall by the good company that Sir Wilton Haigh gathered around him.

At Olsham Hall, each September, one was certain of meeting clever men and pretty women. On rare occasions even royalty itself honoured the place with its presence. The baronet and his pretty wife possessed the rare accomplishment of being able to draw together a company of men and women who were certain to entertain and amuse each other. An author or two who had made their mark in fiction; artists whose works had drawn crowds to the Royal Academy; a popular scientist whose discoveries marked a new epoch; clever politicians who were striving for fame and office; minor poets who twanged their lyres to the tune of the "Religion of Humanity," and the "Abolition of Dynasties." These, with a few new beauties and men of fashion thrown in to brighten and leaven the mass, constituted Sir Wilton's guests; and to spend a week or two at the Hall was a favour much esteemed and sought after.

'Twas August when Walter got his new schools completed and the scholars in them, and when Sir Wilton Haigh renewed his annual invitation it was accepted, much to the baronet's surprise and pleasure. Sir Wilton had begun to think Walter something of a hermit and mysoginist, he had declined his invitations so regularly, and he desired no better pleasure than that of introducing Gray to society. The baronet, and Lady Haigh also, thought Walter ought to see a little more life than Torleigh could show him. A good-looking young fellow like Gray, with his great wealth, they argued, ought to do something besides dragging out his existence in a small dull little town.

So Walter accepts the baronet's invitation going to the Hall for a few weeks, leaving word at the collieries that he was to be consulted at once in case anything happened out of common. He felt some trepidation in having to meet Sir Wilton's guests. They were clever and accomplished men and women of the world, and he had mixed but little with such people.

But he came well through his trial, as Sir Wilton had predicted. A vulgar, ill-bred man, who is rich, soon makes plenty of friends, and when a man is good-looking and opulent, clever and amiable, he wins friends more rapidly still, and keeps them, which the former seldom does.

The days slipped pleasantly and quickly by, and Walter made many friends amongst his fellow guests. When the sportsmen returned, after a hard day's shooting, they would discuss during dinner and over the wine many topics of interest. Walter's neighbour at the repast might be a literary man, and they would chat learnedly about books, or perchance a politician, and they would discuss some much-needed measure of reform. And even if his neighbour happened to be a woman of fashion, his frankness of manner, freshness of idea, and clearly intoned, terse language never failed to interest his companion.

With one of Sir Wilton Haigh's lady guests Walter was deeply impressed. Lady Ruth Gordan was a wondrously beautiful creature. Small even for a woman, she had hands that would have crazed a pianoforte artist with envy, and her feet would have made an opera dancer famous, so prettily shaped and highly arched were they. And face and form were as exquisitely moulded as hands and feet. Brown skinned, brown haired, with melting almond-shaped hazel eyes, she was as beautiful as Nourmahal is said to have been, with a similar kind of beauty, and Lady Ruth had subdued as many hearts as Shah Afkun's peerless widow, but she was still awaiting the coming of her Jehanghire.

Her Ladyship came of a race which had always been richer in blue blood and pride of birth than the world's goods. The seventh child and fourth daughter of Baron Gordan, Earl of Ellsden, a nobleman whose impecuniosity had passed into a proverb amongst his fellow peers, Ruth Gordan's dower was scarcely likely to attract fortune-hunters. Her face was her fortune, and Her Ladyship felt serenely confident that her natural dower would some day win her a wealthy husband.

Novelists accomplished in the art of character analysis would have found a rare and difficult study in Lady Ruth. Rarely beautiful, well-bred, high-born, possessing solid accomplishments, and not a little ambition, she seemed fitted by nature to fill a high place in the world; but to counteract all these possessions was the damning influence of poverty. An ugly woman would have been satisfied to her heart's content with Ruth Gordan's beauty; an ignorant and low-born one would have rested content with her lineage, breeding, and acquirements.

But what she possessed only made Lady Ruth sigh for more. She thought that her beauty gave her a natural right to rarest diamonds, costliest furs, magnificent dresses—everything in the way of personal adornment, and that her birth and talents fitted her even for a royal alliance. She was annoyed beyond expression on seeing some ugly old dowager, or scraggy maid wearing diamonds whose rarity, splendour, and value set every one talking, and concerning which paragraphs were written in the society papers. And when she heard that some foreign prince or English duke had wedded the daughter of some American millionaire, whose brothers and sisters were navvies and washerwomen, she muttered something about social bathos, curling her red lips scornfully the while, and vowed to insult or ignore the newly married pair should she ever meet them.

In one respect Lady Ruth was ordinary and common. The general run of the order Bimana are what circumstances make them, though now and again a remarkable member of the species by sheer force of individuality and genius masters circumstances, and sometimes even creates a new set of events. To the latter kind of people Ruth Gordan in nowise belonged. Women with less talent than she possessed had won fame and done great things, but they had been actuated by noble purpose; but nobility of purpose was certainly not a characteristic of her ladyship.

Lady Ruth was a woman with a mission, but her mission attempted no loftier flight than a good marriage, which, of course, meant a rich husband; she was ambitious, but only for a life of sumptuous ease and gay pleasure. In her visions of the future she figured herself as the wife of a wealthy man, neither old nor ugly, who loving her madly, lavished upon her diamonds and every imaginable luxury without end. She saw herself queening it over a little world of her own, her name familiar as household words on the lips of the votaries of fashion, and her doings duly chronicled in the recognised journals of society.

To set her ladyship down as either a good or bad woman would be scarcely accurate; she was, in fact, an indifferent one. She could be generous and even kind when liberality and kindness cost her nothing, and she could be cruel as a tiger when necessity impelled her. She dismissed a maid for treading on the toes of her terrier, and an hour afterwards she had refused to see and pay her dressmaker, a poor girl who was hungry and ill.

Angel and devil enter more or less into every woman's composition. Sometimes good fortune brings the saint to the surface; at others, ill-luck discloses the sinner; so much depends on mere circumstances. A man who drops into a snug sinecure, the salary of which enables its possessor to gratify his tastes and keep square—a woman whose spouse is rich enough to gratify all her whims, is hardly likely to go far astray. In such a case the angel of one's nature generally dominates the life. But when one is impelled by high ambitions, be they noble or base; when failure damns every effort; when stress of poverty, pressure of pain, loss of love or hope tempts to wrong, then the devil blent in all humanity waxes strong and sways the existence.

So it would be with Ruth Gordan. There was indolence enough in her character to make her satisfied with a fair measure of social success; yet there slumbered in her breast more than sufficient of passion and vice to make her spurn and rise against failure. The evil in her nature might be drugged to sleep by the opiate of prosperity: haply, it might be stung to quick life by the stimulant of ill-fortune.

Beautiful women are, as a rule, quite conscious of the power they wield, and Lady Ruth did not fail to notice the impression she had made on Walter Gray. The young mine-owner's fortune had been augmented by rumour to twice its size, and, everything considered, he was perhaps the most eligible of all Sir Wilton Haigh's numerous guests.

Apart from his wealth Walter Gray interested her ladyship. Tired of beauty-men and their jargon, she found something especially pleasing in his frank, resolute face and earnest manner. Even from the first hour of their acquaintance she permitted him to see this, and Walter's feelings towards her soon assumed the colouring of passion.

The autumn days sped by; Walter became Lady Ruth's slave, and he was supremely happy in his thraldon. For the first time in his life he loved, and, like all young lovers, he loved with all the fire of his heart and soul. She was so beautiful, bewitching, and naive in manner and word to him that he was fascinated by her, and when her ladyship permitted him to see that his attentions were anything but distasteful to her, he felt that the world was hardly big enough to hold all his happiness.

The intuition of the lover—which sometimes errs—told him that his passion was reciprocated. Yet he feared to ask her to be his wife, she seemed so much above him on account of her great beauty and high lineage. But, according to a few of Sir Wilton's guests, who discussed the matter, Walter need not have felt any apprehension on this head, for they professed to be able to see that the "Gipsy," as the baronet's male guests termed Lady Ruth, intended to permit the young mine-owner to win her peerless self.

When Walter had been at Olsham Hall about a fortnight one of his colliery managers came to the hall to see him. After a few minutes' conversation the mine official departed, and when Walter returned to his friends who were assembled in the drawing room his host remarked:—

"I suppose you were not wanted for anything particular, Gray? Nothing, I mean, to take you away from us, eh?"

"I am afraid," Walter replied, "that I must go for a day at least."

"Something wrong at the pits?"

"Oh, no! That was one of my Underground Managers who was here, and he brought welcome intelligence. In one of my deepest pits—the Alley Mine—a large fossil has been discovered to-day, and he wished to know what I intended to have done with it. 'Tis a perfect specimen of a saurian, and still lies where it was found imbedded in the coal."

The words "fossil"—"saurian" had fallen on the ears of a man of science who was chatting with Lady Ruth on the other side of the room. He joined Walter and Sir Wilton at once, remarking:—

"What were you saying, Mr. Gray, about the discovery of a fossil saurian?"

"I was telling Sir Wilton that one had been found in one of my mines," Walter answered.

"Indeed!" and Professor Ruxton was all interest in a moment. "And may I ask where it is now?" the scientist continued, "and what you intend to do with it?"

"The fossil still lies in the Arley Mine where it was exhumed this morning. I feel great interest in it and intend to have it brought to the surface intact, if possible. I am thinking of leaving the Hall this afternoon in order to see it and make arrangements for its safe removal from the pit bottom to the surface."

A few others had now joined Walter and his friends, amongst them Lady Ruth, who manifested considerable curiosity regarding the saurian; but, of course, Professor Ruxton's interest was deepest of all, and more than once the scientist thought of treating those about him to a graphic account of the earth's condition at the time of the Carboniferous Epoch, when live saurians frisked amid the vegetation now forming coal.

"I should like to see this fossil just as it lies," the Professor remarked thoughtfully to Walter. "If you will permit me, Mr. Gray, I will accompany you this afternoon. This is an opportunity that I may never have again. Saurians are rarely found intact."

"I shall only be too glad to have you with me," was Walter's reply. "And if there's any one else who would care to see the fossil we shall be glad of his company. Suppose you go, Sir Wilton?"

"'Twould be quite an adventure," laughed the baronet, "and, by Jove! I'll go. Suppose you go too, Bandon?"

"I'll go if the ladies will accompany us," drawled Dick Bandon, the handsomest fellow and the best shot of all Sir Wilton Haigh's guests.

"I'm afraid that none of them will have the courage to face the black depths of the mine," laughed Walter, glancing at Lady Ruth as he spoke.

"I feel daring enough for the venture," her ladyship retorted, with a smile. "Perhaps some ladies will go also."

In the end a party consisting of a dozen ladies and gentlemen was organized to visit the mine that very afternoon, and a couple of hours later the whole party stood on the pit-brow of the Arley Mine, Torleigh, each one provided with a "Davy" lamp and all dressed, owing to a hint from Walter, in their shabbiest clothes.

It was about 4 o'clock, and the pits were almost all deserted, the miners having finished work an hour before, consequently they would be enabled to visit the fossil quietly and safely. The engineman was still at the engine, and Walter ordered the cage to be drawn up so that they could descend. The huge iron cage rose slowly to the surface, the whole party got in, then Gray shouted, "Let down, Bill," and the cage with its burden of living beings shot down into the pit's black depths at such a speed as to make their hearts leap to their throats.

In a while the cage stopped; they alighted. Walter lit the lamps, and when their eyes grew accustomed to the faint light they found themselves standing in a large vaulted cavern. Leading them along Walter went to the stables, geared a horse, and yoked it to some four or five small "tubs," or pit wagons, and telling his companions to get into them, the horse set off at a brisk trot.

The road along which they were going was about 6 feet in height and about double that in width. After a ride of about twenty minutes' duration the horse stopped, and they all alighted, glad to stretch their limbs after their uncomfortable ride.

"We shall have to walk the rest of the way," said Walter, "as the roads are too low now to admit of the horse going further. We'll leave it here till we return. The fossil is only a couple of hundred yards from here. Come along, and bend your heads, or you'll catch them against the roof."

On they went, Walter leading the way. There were numerous other roads branching out of the one along which they were travelling, and it would not have been an easy matter for a stranger to have found his way out of the mine. But Walter was familiar with every nook and corner of the pit, and they were nearing their destination when Professor Ruxton suddenly exclaimed:—

"What's this, Gray, and what does it mean?"

The whole party stopped, and looking round Walter saw the Professor attentively scanning a board suspended on a light fence thrown across the entrance to a collier's place. On the plate was painted in red DANGER, and this it was that had caused the Professor's interrogations.

Walter explained that there had been a mis-shot in that place that day, and that the danger-signal was placed there to warn any one from going near, as mis-shots sometimes went off after hanging fire for hours.

They resumed their walk. Lady Ruth murmured something about her boot having come untied, and she dropped behind to tie it. The fossil was soon reached, and all crowded round the huge reptile, the petrified memento of an age long past. Professor Ruxton let loose the lecture, which had been growing since its inception one or two hours before; and I am afraid that his oratory, replete as it was with technical phrases, dispersed the party, and he was left to contemplate in pathetic silence one of his remote ancestors.

Some of the party rambled about the colliers' working-places, wondering what kind of men they could be who could endure to pass their lives in those dark places; others seized hold of the colliers' picks and hewed bits of coal to carry away as mementos of their visit; and in a quiet corner handsome Dick Bandon was making love to pretty Olive Clair.

Then the party was got together, and suddenly it was discovered that Lady Ruth was missing. Walter Gray had missed her ladyship for some time, but, thinking she was with some other members of the party, he had not said anything. After much questioning, it was discovered that no one had seen Lady Ruth since the fossil was reached, and then Olive Clair suggested that when the missing lady had stopped to tie her boot she had sat down, and was awaiting their return.

But when they returned to the place where Lady Ruth had stopped she was not to be seen, and then it struck Walter that she might have returned to the "shunt" where the horse was left. Thither the party hied, and all were astounded to find that neither Lady Ruth nor the horse was there.

"Ha! ha! ha!" broke out Sir Wilton Haigh, with a merry laugh that rung along the low cavernous ways of the mine. "I see it all now, Gray, don't you? Lady Ruth made an excuse in order to lag behind unnoticed, or rather unsuspected. Then she returned here, took the horse, and now we shall have to walk all the way back to the pit shaft."

"A capital joke, too," said Dick Bandon, "but the worst of it is that we shall have to crawl back instead of riding. 'Twas a danced uncomfortable ride, Gray; but it was better than walking when a fellow keeps knocking his head against the roof."

There was a general laugh, though one or two did not relish Lady Ruth's practical joke. But there was nothing to be done save walk to the pit shaft, and they set off at once, reaching the pit bottom after a fatiguing walk, finding the horse there, but not her ladyship.

Some one suggested that Lady Ruth had gone up the pit, but Walter did not think so, as he felt certain that she would not understand how to signal to the engineman. He really began to be uneasy, fearing that she had got lost in the mine. But, perhaps, after all, she was up the pit and awaiting their coming. He would go up and see, and if the worst had happened he would descend again and find Lady Ruth. There was no danger even if she were lost in the mine. He and half a dozen miners would find her in an hour or two.

Signalling to the engine-tenter they were all drawn to the surface, and there they learned that Lady Ruth was still down the pit. Many of the party expressed fears concerning her ladyship's safety, but Walter assured them that that there was no danger.

"You will return with Sir Wilton to the Hall," he said, "and I will obtain help and descend to find her. She is in no danger. She will be annoyed and a little frightened by her mishap, but, believe me, there is nothing to fear—oh heaven! what has happened?"

As Walter spoke a low rumble like the sound of distant thunder was heard, and a mighty column of dense black smoke shot up the pit shaft high into the air. Walter's companions looked at each other with white, frightened faces, and their hearts lept to their throats as he cried in an agonised voice:—

"Good God the pit's fired! Heaven help poor Lady Ruth now!"