Now at the back of the mountain there was a deep mine where many people, men, women and children, were searching after, and finding, gold. Only they were obliged to descend deep, deep into the bowels of the earth, where all was dark, save for the pale flickering of little lanterns, which they were allowed to carry down.
Poor Dame Ursula wept bitterly at the notion of taking her darling little Lionel into such a dismal pit. But there was no help for it; down they must go, and live like the rest at the bottom of the gloomy mine, whilst Martin, with a pickaxe, wrought for gold.
... The days passed, and the weeks passed, and the months, and the years! And little Lionel was growing up amidst the dross. His long hair was filthy, and matted together, and his skin was always stained with the clay. His parents could scarcely know whether he was a lovely boy or not. It was so dark down there, that his mother could not show his blue eyes to the neighbours; yet she ever kept him by her side, for fear of losing him, and also because she dreaded he might learn bad ways from the gold-diggers—to curse and swear like them, and tell lies, and steal other people's treasures.
And poor Martin dug from year-end to year-end, in the weary hope of some day lighting on a great heap of wealth.
The time dragged slowly on, and Lionel's father was getting old and weak, and his pickaxe fell with feeble, quavering strokes into the earth; and Lionel's poor mother was growing blind with constantly peering after her son through the half-obscurity of their underground abode.
Then one morning she missed him altogether, having mistaken for him another youth, whom she followed and then found with bitter anguish to be not her boy. Thus Lionel was alone; and he, too, searched for his mother, and, in so doing, became completely lost in the mine.
On and on he wandered, through endless subterraneous corridors, until at last he spied a feeble glimmer before him. He never remembered to have been here before, or to have seen this light. It was the entrance to the mine.
There was a large basket, with two old men standing in it; and they told Lionel that they were about to be taken up into the daylight.
"Oh, let me go with you!" cried Lionel. "Take me also to the daylight, if only for a little while!"
They hoisted him into the basket; and immediately several unseen hands from above drew all three right up, out of the dark gold mine. The pale, thin ray grew stronger, broader, brighter as they ascended; and, at the mouth of the mine, a perfect flood of golden sunshine overwhelmed Lionel, who now held his hands across his brow, and felt painfully dazzled.