Philip Hexton must have walked in and out quite a couple of miles, examining ventilating-doors, seeing that the boys who opened and shut them for the corves to pass were doing their duty, and the like; and, trifling as it may sound, a great deal depends in a coal-mine upon such a thing as the opening and shutting of a door, for by means of these doors the current of air that is sucked, as it were, through the passages of the pit by the great furnace at the bottom of the shaft is altered in its course, and turned down this or that passage, sweeping out the foul air or gas, and making safe the pit. Hence, then, the neglect of one boy may alter the whole ventilation of some part of a mine, the purifying draught may be stopped from coursing through some dangerous gallery where the gas comes singing out of the seams, a light be taken inadvertently there, and ruin and death be the result.
The young deputy was going on thinking to himself whether it would not be possible to invent a process by which the dangerous gas of a mine might be collected in great gasholders, and then burned within gauze shades for the lighting up of the pit, when the distant chip—chip—chip ringing and echoing where the men were at work in the new four-foot grew less persistent, and in place of becoming louder as they drew nearer, gradually began to cease, as if first one man and then another had thrown aside his took.
“Hadn’t we better turn down here now, Master Hexton?” said the overman.
“No; I want to inspect the new four-foot,” replied Philip.
“My lad, thee needn’t go theer to-neet,” said the overman. “That’s all right, I warrant.”
“He has some reason for stopping me from going there,” was Philip Hexton’s first thought. “The men have ceased working; something must be wrong.”
“This is the gainest wayer,” said the overman, turning sharply down a passage, light in hand, of course thinking that his companion would follow him, for he knew well enough what the stoppage meant, and he did not want the young man to see the miners smoke.
But Philip Hexton was made of different metal to what he expected, and, careless of being left in the gloom of one of those weird passages, the young man stood for a moment peering forward into the black darkness, and, making out a faint glimmer of light, stretched out his hands and began to make his way cautiously along by the shaley wall.
It was terribly bad walking, the floor being uneven from the many falls of coal from the roof. Here and there, too, were wooden supports which had to be avoided; but after stumbling along cautiously for about fifty yards, and avoiding the obstacles as if by a miracle, the distant glow of light was sufficient, dim as it was, to show him the supports that intervened, and fifty yards further he could walk quite fast, for there were the Davy-lamps hanging here and there, each forming a faint star, with a dull halo around.
They seemed very near the ground till the young deputy remembered that they were in the four-foot seam, and the next moment he was spared a violent blow by one of his hands coming in contact with the roof.