“Nay, sir,” said the man, seriously, “you mustn’t venture on that.”
“Well, I’m going to take him down,” said Gwyn.
“I know,” said Joe, eagerly; “send him down in the skep.”
“Ay, ye might do that, sir,” said Hardock, nodding. “Would he stop, sir?”
“If I tell him,” said Gwyn; and, an empty skep being hooked on just then, the engineer grinned as Gwyn went to it and bade the dog jump in.
Grip obeyed on the instant, and then, as his master did not follow, he whined, and made as if to leap out.
“Lie down, sir. Going down. Wait for us at the bottom.”
The dog couched, and the engineer asked if he’d stay.
“Oh, yes, he’ll stay,” said Gwyn. Then, obeying a sudden impulse, he took his basket, and placed it beside the dog at the bottom of the iron skep. “Watch it, Grip!” he cried, and the dog growled. “He wouldn’t leave that.”
“Till every morsel’s devoured,” said Joe. Then click went the break, a bell rang, and the skep descended, while the little party stepped one by one on to the man-engine, and began to descend by jumps and steps off, lower and lower, till in due time the bottom was reached, where Grip sat watching the basket just inside the great archway, the skep he had descended in having been placed on wheels, and run off into the depths of the mine, while a full one had taken its place and gone up.