Story 6—Chapter 6.
Dick had wandered out in the afternoon to get a little more of the fresh air than he could find in the hot street of the village. Not that there was what would be called fresh air in other parts of the country. Even the purest air was full of smoke and coal-dust and gas. He sat himself down to rest on a stone wall, and his eye wandered over the scene. There were the tall chimneys sending forth wreaths and clouds of smoke, and the odd shaped buildings, and the cranks and the beams moving up and down without ceasing, as if they could never get tired, and the railways in all directions, with train after train of coal wagons moving rapidly over them, some loaded, and others flying back empty from whence they came. He had been sitting there for some time, when he saw, by the way that people were running towards the pit’s mouth, that something was wrong. He got up, and as fast as his lame foot would let him, hurried in the same direction. Too soon he learned what had happened. There had been a fearful explosion. The corve, or basket, by which the men went up and down the shaft, had been knocked to pieces, and even the machinery over the pit had been injured. Of all those working below it was believed that not one could have escaped.
Dick’s heart sickened when he heard this. His father, his eldest brother, and his friend, David Adams, were all below. Besides them, he knew all the people working in the pit; men and boys, they all came before him as he had last seen them, and now not one alive!
“Oh yes, yes; surely there must be some who have escaped,” he cried out, when he was told that all had been killed.
The sad news quickly spread, and numbers of women and children came rushing from the village; wives to ask for their husbands, mothers for their sons, girls for their fathers and brothers, or intended husbands. They kept running about without bonnets or shawls, their hair streaming in the wind, and frantically crying as they stretched out their hands to the banksman and viewers and other officers, “Where are they? where are they? Why don’t they come up?” It would have softened the hardest heart to have seen the grief, the agony of the poor women. No one could answer them. It was not the first time such a thing had happened, even in that pit. They all knew too well the effect of the fire-damp, and still more destructive choke-damp.
“Is no one going down to bring them up?” was the question next asked.
“Yes, some one will go, I dare say, as soon as it’s safe; but it would not do to go yet,” answered the banksman. “Besides, the gear is knocked to pieces.”
This reply only increased the alarm of the poor women, but they were obliged to be content with it.
Dick pressed forward, and asked if any one had come up. No; no one had come up since the morning.
“Then, may I go down?” he asked of one of the viewers.
“You are the lad who went by yourself to look for the boy Adams some years ago, when he was lost, I remember,” answered the viewer. “Yes, you shall go with me presently, if you wish it.”
A fresh corve was fitted, and the gear put in order. The viewer stepped in, there were two other volunteers. Dick followed. Each person had a safety lamp in his hand. They went down very slowly, for it was probable that the shaft itself might be injured. They had not got far when a stream of water, which had burst out of the side, came pouring down on them, and almost filled the corve. The rushing sound, and the force with which the water fell, deafened and confused them. Still they persevered. Hot air, and noxious vapours, and steam, and smoke came rushing up. They went down through it all. Some of their fellow-creatures might be below. They would save them if they could. At last they reached the bottom of the shaft. The furnace was still blazing away. Beyond all was darkness and gloom, though the pale light of their lamps showed them the ruin caused by the explosion.
The viewer shouted out, “Is any one alive?”
They stopped and listened anxiously. There was a faint cry, which came from not far off.
“I heard a groan also,” said the viewer. “There may be several alive, I hope.”
The brave little band moved on, knowing well that each step they advanced the danger was increased.
“Here is a poor fellow,” cried the viewer, who was looking into a hollow cut in the wall. Dick hoped that it might be his father or brother, but it was a man he knew little about. He was alive, but hurt from having been blown into the place where he was found, and appeared to have lost his senses. He was carried to the foot of the shaft and placed in the corve. Two other men crawled up on hearing the shout, but they were very weak, and could only say that they believed all the rest were killed.
The overseer told Dick that he might go up with them, but he begged so hard to remain that he might look for his father, that two men were sent instead.
While the overseer was securing the men in the corve, Dick once more went along the main gallery. He had not gone far when he saw in a hollow, a figure crouching down. It was that of his friend David Adams. Was he alive? He lifted him up and carried him along in his arms towards the shaft. Already he felt the choke-damp in his throat; he was stumbling, too, with the weight of his burden. He felt that he could not move another yard, for his knees were bending under him.
“Run, run to the shaft,” he heard a voice say. “I’ll take him on.” It was the viewer, who, throwing the body of young Adams over his shoulders, seized Dick with the other hand and dragged him on. Their companion had disappeared. In vain they shouted for him, while they anxiously waited for the return of the corve to carry them up. To go back into the passages already full of poisonous air, would have been madness. Dick, notwithstanding, was eager to go back to try and find his father and brother. Had not the viewer prevented him, he would have made the attempt and perished. Even where they were, it was with difficulty they breathed. Dick, as he looked at his friend’s face, calm and quiet, was afraid that he had lost him too. At last the corve came down, and the viewer and Dick lifting in David’s body, were drawn up.
Poor Mrs Adams was among those in the front surrounding the pit. She at once knew her son, and clasping him in her arms, gave way to her grief, calling him to come to life.
“Let the doctor see him, dame,” said several voices. “May be he is not so far gone as you think.”
On this the surgeon stepped forward and had David carried out of the crowd, who prevented him from breathing the fresh air, which, if a person is not dead, is more likely than anything else to restore the power of breathing.
Meantime Mrs Kempson, among the other women, had come up.
“Oh! my husband! my husband! where is he? Dick, my boy, have you found your father and Tom? Where is your brother, boy?” Such were the questions asked by numbers of the unhappy women.
Dick could only shake his head and burst into tears.
From the report of the viewer, the engineers declared that it would be dangerous to go down the pit again till the ventilation was set to rights, and that all hope of finding any of those below still alive was gone.