"Ah," said he, "they couldn't get white men to mess with backer and such in a hot country, and in course every one knows that blacks won't work till they're made. That's why they bothers themselves with 'em, I reckon. But, Lord! they are useless trash. White convicts is useless enough; think what black n.i.g.g.e.rs must be!"

How about the gentleman in bed? I thought; but he was snoring comfortably.

"I am a free man myself," continued the old man. "I never did aught, ay, or thought o' doing aught, that an honest man should not do. But I've lived among convicts twenty odd year, and do you know, sir, sometimes I hardly know richt fra wrang. Sometimes I see things that whiles I think I should inform of, and then the devil comes and tells me it would be dishonourable. And then I believe him till the time's gone by, and after that I am miserable in my conscience. So I haven't an easy time of it, though I have good times, and money to spare."

I was getting fond of the honest, talkative old fellow; so when d.i.c.k asked him if he wanted to turn in, and he answered no, I was well pleased.

"Can't you pitch us a yarn, daddy?" said d.i.c.k. "Tell us something about the old country. I should like well to hear what you were at home."

"I'll pitch ye a yarn, lad," he replied, "if the master don't want to turn in. I'm fond of talking. All old men are, I think," he said, appealing to me. "The time's coming, ye see, when the gift o' speech will be gone from me. It's a great gift. But happen we won't lose it after all."

I said, "No, that I thought not; that I thought on the other side of the grave we should both speak and hear of higher things than we did in the flesh."

"Happen so," said he; "I think so too, sometime. I'll give ye my yarn; I have told it often. Howsever, neither o' ye have heard it, so ye're the luckier that I tell it better by frequent repet.i.tion. Here it is:--

"I was a collier lad, always lean, and not well favoured, though I was active and strong. I was small, too, and that set my father's heart agin me somewhat, for he was a gran' man, and a mighty fighter.

"But my elder brother Jack, he was a mighty fellow, G.o.d bless him; and when he was eighteen he weighed twelve stone, and was earning man's wages, tho' that I was hurrying still. I saw that father loved him better than me, and whiles that vexed me, but most times it didn't, for I cared about the lad as well as father did, and he liked me the same.

He never went far without me; and whether he fought, or whether he drunk, I must be wi' him and help.

"Well, so we went on till, as I said, I was seventeen, and he eighteen.

We never had a word till then; we were as brothers should be. But at this time we had a quarrel, the first we ever had; ay, and the last, for we got something to mind this one by.

"We both worked in the same pit. It was the Southstone Pit; happen you've heard of it. No? Well, thus things get soon forgot. Father had been an overman there, but was doing better now above ground. He and mother kept a bit shop; made money.

"There was a fair in our village, a poor thing enough; but when we boys were children we used to look forward to it eleven months out o'

twelve, and the day it came round we used to go to father, and get sixpence, or happen a shilling apiece to spend.

"Well, time went on till we came to earn money; but still we kept up the custom, and went to the old man reg'lar for our fairin', and he used to laugh and chaff us as he'd give us a fourpenny or such, and we liked the joke as well as he.

"Well this time--it was in '12, just after the comet, just the worst times of the war, the fair came round, 24th of May, I well remember, and we went in to the old man to get summut to spend--just for a joke like.

"He'd lost money, and been vexed; so when Jack asked him for his fairin' he gi'ed him five shillin', and said, 'I'll go to gaol but what my handsome boy shan't have summut to treat his friends to beer.' But when I axed him, he said, 'Earn man's wages, and thee'll get a man's fairin,' and heaved a penny at me.

"That made me wild mad, I tell you. I wasn't only angry wi' the old man, but I was mad wi' Jack, poor lad! The devil of jealousy had got into me, and, instead of kicking him out, I nursed him. I ran out o'

the house, and away into the fair, and drunk, and fought, and swore like a mad one.

"I was in one of the dancing booths, half drunk, and a young fellow came to me, and said, 'Where has thee been? Do thee know thy brother has foughten Jim Perry, and beaten him?'

"I felt like crying, to think my brother had fought, and I not there to set him up. But I swore, and said, 'I wish Jim Perry had killed un;'

and then I sneaked off home to bed, and cried like a la.s.s.

"And next morning I was up before him, and down the pit. He worked a good piece from me, so I did not see him, and it came on nigh nine o'clock before I began to wonder why the viewer had not been round, for I had heard say there was a foul place cut into by some of them, and at such times the viewer generally looks into every corner.

"Well, about nine, the viewer and underviewer came up with the overman, and stood talking alongside of me, when there came a something sudden and sharp, as tho' one had boxed your ears, and then a 'whiz, whiz,'

and the viewer stumbled a one side, and cried out, 'G.o.d save us!'

"I hardly knew what had happened till I heard him singing out clear and firm, 'Come here to me, you lads; come here. Keep steady, and we'll be all right yet.' Then I knew it was a fire, and a sharp one, and began crying out for Jack.

"I heard him calling for me, and then he ran up and got hold of me; and so ended the only quarrel we ever had, and that was a one-sided one.

"'Are you all here?' said the viewer. 'Now follow me, and if we meet the afterdamp hold your breath and run. I am afraid it's a bad job, but we may get through yet.'

"We had not gone fifty yards before we came on the afterdamp, filling the headway like smoke. Jack and I took hold of each other's collars and ran, but before we were half-way through, he fell. I kept good hold of his shirt, and dragged him on on the ground. I felt as strong as a horse; and in ten seconds, which seemed to me like ten hours, I dragged him out under the shaft into clear air. At first I thought he was dead, but he was still alive, and very little of that. His heart beat very slow, and I thought he'd die; but I knew if he got clear air that he might come round.

"When we had gotten to the shaft bottom we found it all full of smoke; the waft had gone straight up, and they on the top told us after that all the earth round was shook, and the black smoke and coal-dust flew up as though from a gun-barrel. Any way it was strong enough to carry away the machine, so we waited there ten minutes and wondered the basket did not come down; but they above, meanwhile, were rigging a rope to an old horse-whim, and as they could not get horses, the men run the poles round themselves.

"But we at the bottom knew nothing of all this. There were thirty or so in the shaft bottom, standing there, dripping wet wi' water, and shouting for the others, who never came; now the smoke began to show in the west drive, and we knew the mine was fired, and yet we heard nought from those above.

"But what I minded most of all was, that Jack was getting better. I knew we could not well be lost right under the shaft, so I did not swear and go on like some of them, because they did not mind us above.

When the basket came down at last, I and Jack went up among the first, and there I saw such a sight, lad, as ye'll never see till ye see a colliery explosion. There were hundreds and hundreds there. Most had got friends or kin in the pit, and as each man came up, his wife or his mother would seize hold of him and carry on terrible.

"But the worst were they whose husbands and sons never came up again, and they were many; for out of one hundred and thirty-one men in the pit, only thirtynine came up alive. Directly we came to bank, I saw father; he was first among them that were helping, working like a horse, and directing everything. When he saw us, he said, 'Thank the Lord, there's my two boys. I am not a loser to-day!' and came running to us, and helped me to carry Jack down the bank. He was very weak and sick, but the air freshened him up wonderful.

"I told father all about it, and he said, 'I've been wrong, and thou'st been wrong. Don't thou get angry for nothing; thou hast done a man's work to-day, at all events. Now come and bear a hand. T'owd 'ooman will mind the lad.'

"We went back to the pit's mouth; the men were tearing round the whim faster than horses would a' done it. And first amongst 'em all was old Mrs. Cobley, wi' her long grey hair down her back, doing the work o'

three men; for her two boys were down still, and I knew for one that they were not with us at the bottom; but when the basket came up with the last, and her two boys missing, she went across to the master, and asked him what he was going to do, as quiet as possible.

"He said he was going to ask some men to go down, and my father volunteered to go at once, and eight more went with him. They were soon up again, and reported that all the mine was full of smoke, and no one had dared leave the shaft bottom fifty yards.

"'It's clear enough, the mine's fired, sir,' said my father to the owner. 'They that's down are dead. Better close it, sir.'

"'What!' screamed old Mrs. Cobley, 'close the pit, ye dog, and my boys down there? Ye wouldn't do such a thing, master dear?' she continued; 'ye couldn't do it.' Many others were wild when they heard the thing proposed; but while they raved and argued, the pit began to send up a reek of smoke like the mouth of h.e.l.l, and then the master gave orders to close the shaft, and a hundred women knew they were widows, and went weeping home.

"And Jack got well. And after the old man died, we came out here. Jack has gotten a public-house in Ya.s.s, and next year I shall go home and live with him.

"And that's the yarn about the fire at the Southstone Pit."

We applauded it highly, and after a time began to talk about lying down, when on a sudden we heard a noise of horses' feet outside; then the door was opened, and in came a stranger.

He was a stranger to me, but not to my servant, who I could see recognized him, though he gave no sign of it in words. I also stared at him, for he was the handsomest young man I had ever seen.

Handsome as an Apollo, beautiful as a leopard, but with such a peculiar style of beauty, that when you looked at him you instinctively felt at your side for a weapon of defence, for a more reckless, dangerous looking man I never yet set eyes on. And while I looked at him I recognised him. I had seen his face, or one like it, before often, often. And it seemed as though I had known him just as he stood there, years and years ago, on the other side of the world. I was almost certain it was so, and yet he seemed barely twenty. It was an impossibility, and yet as I looked I grew every moment more certain.

He dashed in in an insolent way. "I am going to quarter here to-night and chance it," he said. "Hallo! d.i.c.k, my prince! You here? And what may your name be, old c.o.c.k?" he added, turning to me, now seeing me indistinctly for the first time, for I was sitting back in the shadow.

"My name is Geoffry Hamlyn. I am a Justice of the Peace, and I am at your service," I said. "Now perhaps you will favour me with YOUR name?"

The young gentleman did not seem to like coming so suddenly into close proximity with a "beak," and answered defiantly,--

"Charles Sutton is my name, and I don't know as there's anything against me, at present."

"Sutton," I said; "Sutton? I don't know the name. No, I have nothing against you, except that you don't appear very civil."

Soon after I rolled myself in a blanket and lay down. d.i.c.k lay at right angles to me, his feet nearly touching mine. He began snoring heavily almost immediately, and just when I was going to give him a kick, and tell him not to make such a row, I felt him give me a good sharp shove with the heel of his boot, by which I understood that he was awake, and meant to keep awake, as he did not approve of the strangers.

I was anxious about our horses, yet in a short time I could keep awake no longer. I slept, and when I next woke, I heard voices whispering eagerly together. I silently turned, so that I could see whence the voices came, and perceived the hut-keeper sitting up in bed, in close confabulation with the stranger.