At two o'clock, five of the intrepid persons who had thus nobly volunteered their assistance, ascended; two were still in the shaft, and the other two remained below, when a second explosion, much less severe, however, than the first, excited amongst the relatives of those entombed in the mine still more frightful expressions of grief and despair. The persons in the shaft experienced but little inconvenience from this fresh eruption, while those below, on hearing the distant growlings, immediately threw themselves flat on their faces, and in this posture, by keeping a firm hold on a strong wooden prop, they felt no other annoyance from the blast than that of having their bodies tossed in various directions, in the manner that a buoy is heaved by the waves of the sea. As soon as the atmospheric current returned down the shaft, they were safely drawn to the light.
As each came up, he was surrounded by a group of anxious enquirers; but not a ray of hope could be elicited; and the second explosion so strongly corroborated their account of the impure state of the mine, that their assertions for the present seemed to obtain credit. This impression, however, was but of short duration,—hope still lingered; they recollected that persons had survived similar accidents, and that, upon opening the mine, they had been found alive after considerable intervals. Three miners, for instance, had been shut up for forty days in a pit near Byker, and during the whole of that period had subsisted on candles and horse-beans. Persons too were not wanting to agitate the minds of the relatives with disbelief in the report of the pitmen who had lately descended to explore the mine. It was suggested to them, that want of courage, or bribery, might have induced them to magnify the danger, and to represent the impossibility of reaching the bodies of the unfortunate sufferers. By this species of wicked industry, the grief of the neighbourhood began to change its gloomy, for an irritable aspect. The proposition to exclude the atmospheric air from the mine, in order to extinguish the fire, was received with the cries of Murder!—and with the determination to oppose such a proceeding by violence.
Many of the widows lingered about the mouth of the pit during the whole of the night with the hope of hearing the cries of a husband or a son.
On Tuesday the 26th, that natural propensity in the human mind to derive gratification from spectacles of horror, was exemplified in a very striking manner. An immense crowd of colliers from various parts, but more especially from the banks of the river Wear, assembled around the pit, and were clamorous in their reproaches of the persons concerned in the management of the mine, accusing them of want of perseverance in their attempts to rescue the unhappy sufferers. Every one had some successful adventure to relate; all were liberal in their professions of readiness to give assistance; but not one was found hardy enough to enter the jaws of the burning cavern.
The leaders of this outcry, however, who had been led into error by an impulse which did honour to their hearts, were soon brought to listen with patience to a relation of all the circumstances of the explosion, and of the reasons for concluding that the mine was then actually on fire, and the persons enclosed in it beyond the hope of recovery. They very candidly allowed, after this explanation, the impracticability of any attempt to reach the bodies of the sufferers, until the fire was extinguished; and they accordingly urged the propriety of excluding from the mine the access of air, as the only means of accomplishing the object. At the same time, the proprietors gave the strongest assurances to the multitude, that if any project could be devised for the recovery of their friends, no cost or labour should be spared in executing it; that, if any person could be found willing to enter the mine, every facility and assistance should be afforded him; but, as they were assured by the most eminent Viewers that the workings were inaccessible, they would not hold out any reward for the attempt,—they would not be accessary to the death of any one, either by persuasion or bribery.
At the clamorous solicitation, however, of the populace, two persons again descended the shaft, and very nearly lost their lives in the attempt. The report of these last adventurers, in a great measure, convinced the people of the impossibility of their friends' survival in so deadly an atmosphere, and reconciled them to the plan of excluding the air. The operation was accordingly commenced, and it proceeded without interruption; but from various accidents, more than a month elapsed before the mine was in a state to admit of examination; and during this interval, numerous were the idle tales which had been circulated throughout the country. Several of the sufferers, it was said, had found their way to the shafts, and been recovered. Their number even had been circumstantially told—how they had subsisted on candles, oats, and beans, and how they had heard the different persons who explored the mine in the hope of rescuing them.
Some conjuror too, it was said, had set his spells and divinations to work, and had penetrated all the secrets of the mine. He had discovered one famishing group receiving drops of water from the roof, another eating their shoes and clothes, and many other similar pictures of horror. These inventions were carefully related to the widows, and they produced the effect of daily harrowing up afresh their sorrows; indeed, it seemed the chief employment of some to indulge in a kind of insane sport with their own and their neighbours' calamity.
The morning of Wednesday the 8th of July having been appointed for exploring the workings, the distress of the neighbourhood was again renewed at an early hour: a great concourse of people assembled; some, out of curiosity, to witness the commencement of an undertaking full of sadness and danger,—some to excite the revenge, or to aggravate the sorrows, of the relatives by calumnies and reproaches, for the sole purpose of mischief; but the greater part came with broken hearts and streaming eyes, in expectation of seeing the mangled corpse of a father, brother, husband, or son.
The shifts of men employed in this doleful and unwholesome work were generally about eight in number. They were four hours in, and eight hours out of the mine; so that each individual wrought two shifts every twenty-four hours.
When the first shift of men came up, a message was dispatched for a number of coffins to be in readiness at the mouth of the pit. Ninety-two had been prepared, and they had to pass by the village of Low Felling, in their way to the mine. As soon as a cart-load of them was seen, the howling of the women, who, hitherto secluded in their dwellings, had now begun to assemble about their doors, came on the breeze in slow fitful gusts, which presaged a scene of the greatest distress and confusion.