There was not a workman in Dryden Slope but would have worn his fingers to the bone to save these lads, or their widowed mother, from one hour of suffering. The frank, manly character of Tom, and the pathetic simplicity of his blind brother, had made both boys the favorites of the mine. And beneath the grimy clothes of these rugged miners, beat hearts as warm and resolute as ever moved the noblest of earth’s heroes to generous deeds of daring.
When the Widow Taylor reached home it was almost midnight. She set away the supper-dishes from the table, and, in place of them, she put some of her simple household remedies. She prepared bandages and lint, and made every thing ready for the restoration and comfort of the sufferers when they should arrive.
She expected that they would be weak, wounded, too, perhaps; but she had not yet thought of them as dead.
Then she lay down upon her bed and tried to sleep; but at every noise she wakened; at every passing foot-fall she started to her feet.
At daybreak a miner stopped, with blackened face and bleeding hands, to tell her that the work of rescue was going bravely on. He had, himself, just come from the face of the new opening, he said; and would go back again, to work, after he had taken a little food and a little sleep.
The morning went by; noon passed, and still no other tidings. The monotony of waiting became unbearable at last, and the stricken woman started on another journey to the mine.
When she came near to the mouth of the slope, they made way for her in silent sympathy. A trip of cars came out soon after her arrival, and a half-dozen miners lifted themselves wearily to the ground. The crowd pressed forward with eager questions, but the tired workers only shook their heads. They feared, they said, that not half the distance through the fall had yet been accomplished.
But one of them, a brawny, great-hearted Irishman, came over to where the Widow Taylor stood, white-faced and eager-eyed, and said, “It won’t be long now, ma’am, till we’ll be afther rachin’ ’em. We’re a-hopin’ every blissed hour to break through to where the purty lads is a-sthayin’.”
She started to ask some question, but he interrupted her:
“Oh, av coorse! av coorse! It’s alive they are, sure; an’ hearty; a bit hungry like, maybe, an’ no wondher; but safe, ma’am, as safe as av ye had the both o’ thim in your own house, an’ the dure locked behind yez.”