Son Philip

by George Manville Fenn

There it was already made. It was only a question of acquiring some fifty or a hundred acres of worthless land with the old pit workings, and the ridding of those workings from water. They had galleries in their own mine that he knew nearly reached those of the old, and to drive from one to the other was the simplest of things.

The very next day, provided with the old map of the mine, which he had been studying half the night, he descended the shaft with one of the shifts of men, and, providing himself with a lamp, he set off alone to explore some of the old workings which had been given up in consequence of the dread that at any time the ancient mine might be tapped and their own pit flooded by the enormous gathering of water.

It was a long and dreary journey, one which no one saw him undertake, for the men went off at once to their work; and after going down two or three of the long black passages Philip felt a strange sense of hesitation about going farther.

It was not, he told himself, that he was afraid of journeying alone there in the dark; and, armed as he was with one of the best of the Davy-lamps, he had no fear of gas; the choke-damp there was no occasion to mind, as that followed an explosion; but all the same he felt such a hesitation as he had never, even on his first descent, felt before.

“I must be shaken by my adventure,” he said to himself laughing; and he considered for a moment or two whether he should go back and get one of the overmen for a companion.

He gave up the idea, though, directly, and went on, forcing himself to master the nervous sensation and to do his duty like a man.

There were miles of galleries in the pit, and it was no light task to make a way through mud and water between the crumbling walls. Here and there great patches of the roof had tumbled down, and in places he found that the masses of coal that had been left as pillars had been taken away, and the ceiling of the pit had come down bodily, so that he had to sit down and study his map to find a way round to the part he wanted to reach.

It was strangely depressing work; but Philip Hexton had a big spirit, the strength of mind that has enabled Englishmen to make their nation what it is; and hence no sooner was he stopped by a fall of rock in one place, than he sought out and found a way round to the other side.

Sometimes a clear dry part would enable him to get along pretty quickly, but generally it was very slow travelling; often, where the seam of coal hewn-out had been a thin one, it was in a position bent double.

And now, as he exerted himself, he felt less of the feeling of dread. Once only did it come very strongly, and that was when, after getting by a very narrow, crumbling part of the workings, he heard a heavy fall of rock behind, and he crept cautiously back, feeling sure that the passage by which he had come was stopped up, and that he might be left there to starve, buried alive, without a prospect of being saved.