Read Ebook: Indians of Lassen Volcanic National Park and Vicinity by Schulz Paul E

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Ebook has 165 lines and 5576 words, and 4 pages

"You want to know what I mean to settle to be, sir?"

"Yes, my boy; I should like to know."

"Well, father, I'll tell you, for I have thought of it long and deeply, and I have studied chemistry a good deal for that end."

"Bravo, Phil!" said Mr Hexton. "A doctor, mother; I thought as much."

"No, sir, not a doctor; though I think a medical man's a grand profession, and one only yet in its infancy. But I want to be of some use, father, in my career. I want to save life as a medical man does. You know the old saying, father?"

"About getting the wrong pig by the ear, as I did?"

"No, sir; about prevention being better than cure."

"Yes, my boy; but what are you going to prevent instead of cure?"

"I want to prevent so much loss of life in our coal-pits, father."

"Oh, my boy, my boy," cried Mrs Hexton passionately; "don't say you want to take up your father's life!"

"Why not, mother dear?" said the young man firmly; "would it not be a good and a useful life, to devote one's self to the better management of our mines--to studying nature's forces, and the best way of fighting them for the saving of life?"

"But, my boy, my boy, think of the risks!"

"I didn't spend hundreds on your education to have you take to a pit life," growled Mr Hexton.

"Oh, my boy, it is such a dangerous life. The hours of misery we pass no one knows," cried Mrs Hexton, wringing her hands.

"Mother," said the young man, "it is to endeavour to save mothers and wives and children from suffering all these pains; for I would strive to make our mines so safe that the men could win the coal almost without risk. And as for education, father," he said proudly, as he turned to the stern, grey, disappointed man, "is it not by knowledge that we are able to battle with ignorance and prejudice? Don't regret what you have given me, father."

"But it seems all thrown away if you are going to be nothing better than overseer of a mine."

"Oh, no," said the young man smiling, "it will give me the means for better understanding the task I have in hand; and if, mother, I can only save four or five families from the terrible sufferings we know of, I shall not have worked all in vain."

"No, my boy, no," said Mrs Hexton mournfully.

"Ah!" he exclaimed, "knowing what I have of pit life, it has made me wretched scores of times to read some terrible account of the long roll of unfortunates burned, suffocated, or entombed, to die in agonies of starvation and dread. Don't be disappointed, father, but let me make my effort, and work with you."

The elder seemed to hesitate for a moment, and then held out his hand.

"No, Phil," he said, "I won't stand in your way. I'm disappointed because I wanted you to be something better, but--"

"Better, father! Could you find a better man than Davy, whom we bless for his lamp?"

"Which the reckless donkeys will open in a dangerous gallery," cried Mr Hexton angrily. "No, my boy; Humphry Davy was a man indeed, and if you turned out half as good, or a quarter, I should be proud of you."

"That I shall never be, father," said the young man; "but I mean to try."

DOWN IN THE PIT.

"Don't tell me, lad; I hevn't worked in t'pit twenty year for nowt. Think I don't know? Him and his newfangled ways are wuth that!"

The great swarthy pitman snapped his fingers as he stood in the centre of a group waiting for the return of the cage from the bowels of the earth.

All about them was dark and weird-looking, with the lights casting strange shadows where the machinery stood around. There was a hissing noise and a ruddy light from the engine-house, with the panting clank of machinery; pistons worked up, and wheels spun round; while where the group of miners stood there was a square, black-looking pit, surrounded by a massive frame-work, supporting one big wheel, from which depended a thin-looking wire-rope, which was rapidly running down.

A few minutes after, and there was the ringing of a bell, the clink-clank of machinery; the wheel spun round in the other direction, and in due time the cage, as it was called, came to the surface; the group of men stepped in, and the signal for descent was about to be given, when one of the men exclaimed:

"Here he cooms!"

Philip Hexton strode up the next moment, nodded shortly to the men, stepped into the crowded cage, and giving the signal, the stout iron-framed contrivance began rapidly to descend, and the fresh comer, who was still very new at these descents, felt that strange sensation as the cage rushed down, just as if the whole of the internal organs had burst out laughing at the fun they were going to have of trying to frighten their owner's head.

It is not a pleasant sensation, that of a descent into a coal-pit. There is the rushing noise of the cage, the whirring of wheels, the constant dripping and plashing sound of falling water, the thudding of the pump, the stifling feeling of dank heat, the stuffy mist, and joined to all the knowledge that if that slender thread of wire-rope should happen to break, the cage would fall perhaps hundreds of feet, and its occupants be killed. Then, he who descends knows that he is going into a series of subterranean caves where the gas escapes, that the slightest contact with a light will explode, burning, slaying, and destroying, and leaving behind the choke-damp, which is even more deadly in its insidious effects.

Now Philip Hexton, in making up his mind to take to his father's life, had readily prepared himself to run all risks, in the hope of soon lessening them; but after three months' action as deputy assistant-manager under his father, he had awakened to the fact that all he had done had been to establish a general feeling of dislike amongst the men, who, though they did not openly show it, opposed Philip Hexton all the more by a stubborn, quiet resistance that he found it difficult to overcome.

It was something unusual for the manager's son to come down upon the night shift; but, after mastering the various technicalities of the place, the young deputy had set himself vigorously to work to try and more rigorously enforce the rules of the mine, many of which, he soon found, were terribly neglected by the men.

Upon reaching the bottom, Philip saw the party go into a kind of office, where each was supplied with a locked and lighted Davy-lamp, whose little wick burned dimly through the wire gauze; and then, as they were about to shoulder their sharp steel-pointed picks, he said aloud:

"You'll need to be very careful to-night, my lads, for there's a good deal of gas up in the new four-foot."

The men did not answer, but went sulkily away, leaving Philip to take a gauze lamp of a larger construction to go and spend a couple of hours inspecting different parts of the mine, in company with one of the oldest hands in the pit.

"I wish I could get the men to believe a little more in me," he said, as they went plashing along through the dark passages of the muddy pit, past places where the black roof was supported by stays, some of which were seamed and charred by explosions and fires in the mine.

"Ay, lad, they're a bit obstnit," said the old miner; "they don't like interference."

"No," said Philip rather bitterly, "not even when I am working to save their lives."

"Nay, lad; but that's what they don't believe. Yo' mun go on wi' 'em more gently. But what brought you down to-neet?"

"There was a fall in the barometer, and a great want of pressure in the atmosphere this evening," said Philip. "I could not rest without coming to see that everything possible was done."

"Ah," said the overman grimly, "that's what our lads weant believe in-- your brometers, and pressures, and such like. They don't like to be teached by one who they say's nobbut a boy."

"Does it matter how many years old a person is," cried Philip sternly, "if he can point out what is right? Look here," he said, as he stopped short in a low-roofed and distant part of the mine, "do you see this?"

He pointed to his Davy-lamp, inside of which the light kept burning blue, and there was a series of little sputtering explosions.

"Ay, I see it, lad; it's often so," said the overman coolly; "but the ventilation's about reet, and it will soon carry that off. It's nowt to do wi' no brometers."

"Listen!" said Philip; and as the man impatiently stood still, there was a low dull hissing noise plainly to be heard, where the gas was rushing from the cracks and fissures of the shaley rock and gathering in the long galleries of the mine.

"Now," said Philip, "does not the barometer speak truly? When the air is weighty and dense it keeps back the gas, when it is light the gas forces its way out. What would be the consequences if I were to open our lamp?"

"There wouldn't be no consekences," said the overman with a grim laugh; "there'd be a inquest, if they had pluck enough to come and hunt out what of us was left."

In spite of himself, Philip could not help a shudder, as he listened to the cynical, callous manner in which his companion spoke of their proximity to a dreadful death. Then, bidding him follow, he went on along the gloomy maze towards where he could hear the rumble of trucks laden with coal, the sound of the ringing picks, the echoing shouts of the men, and the impatient snort of some pony, toiling with its load up an incline.

There was a quick sharp draught of air as they passed through a door which was closed behind them by a boy, and, satisfied that the ventilation was good, Philip Hexton and his companion went on.

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