Deep Down, a Tale of the Cornish Mines. Robert Michael Ballantyne

Dan here stopped, and, sticking his candle against the wet wall of the mine, sat down on a piece of rock, while our hero stood beside him. “You see,” said he, “we were sinking a shaft, or rather reopening an old one, at the time, and Harvey, that was the man’s name, was down working with a comrade. They came to a soft bit o’ ground, an’ as they cut through it they boarded it up with timbers across to prevent it slipping, but they did the work hastily. After they had cut down some fathoms below it, the boarding gave way, and down the whole thing went, boards, timbers, stones, and rubbish, on their heads. We made sure they were dead, but set to, nevertheless, to dig them out as fast as possible—turning as many hands to the work as could get at it. At last we came on them, and both were alive, and not very much hurt! The timbers and planks had fallen over them in such a way as to keep the stones and rubbish off. I had a talk with old Harvey the other day on this very subject. He told me that he was squeezed flat against the side of the shaft by the rubbish which buried him, and that he did not lose consciousness for a moment. A large stone had stuck right above his head, and this probably saved him. He heard us digging down to him, he said, and when we got close he sang out to hold on, as the shovel was touching him. Sure enough this was the case, for the next shovelful of rubbish that was lifted revealed the top of his head! We cleared the way to his mouth as carefully as we could, and then gave him a drop of brandy before going on with the work of excavation. His comrade was found in a stooping position, and was more severely bruised than old Harvey, but both of them lived to tell the tale of their burial, and to thank God for their deliverance. Yes,” continued the captain, detaching his candle from the wall and resuming his walk, “we have narrow escapes sometimes.—Look here, doctor, did you ever see a rock like that?”

      Captain Dan pointed to a place in the side of the rocky wall which was grooved and cut as if with a huge gouge or chisel, and highly polished. “It was never cut by man in that fashion; we found it as you see it, and there’s many of ’em in the mine. We call ’em slinking slides.”

      “The marks must have been caused when the rocks were in a state of partial fusion,” observed Oliver, examining the place with much curiosity.

      “I don’t know as to that, sir,” said the captain, moving on, “but there they are, and some of ’em polished to that extent you could almost see your face in ’em.”

      On turning the corner of a jutting rock a light suddenly appeared, revealing a pair of large eyes and a double row of teeth, as it were gleaming out of the darkness. On drawing nearer, this was discovered to be a miner, whose candle was at some little distance, and only shone on him partially.

      “Well, Jack, what’s doing?” asked the captain.

      The man cast a disconsolate look on a large mass of rock which lay in the middle of the path at his feet. He had been only too successful in his last blasting, and had detached a mass so large that he could not move it.

      “It’s too hard for to break, Captain Dan.”

      “Better get it into the truck,” said the captain.

      “Can’t lift it, sur,” said the man, who grudged to go through the tedious process of boring it for a second blast.

      “You must get it out o’ that, Jack, at all events. It won’t do to let it lie there,” said the captain, passing on, and leaving the miner to get out of his difficulty as best he might.

      A few minutes more and they came on a “pare” of men (in other words, a band of two or more men working together) who were “stopeing-in the back of the level,” as they termed the process of cutting upwards into the roof.

      “There’s a fellow in a curious place!” said Oliver, peering up through an irregular hole, in which a man was seen at work standing on a plank supported by a ladder. He was chiselling with great vigour at the rock over his head, and immediately beyond him another man stood on a plank supported by a beam of timber, and busily engaged in a similar occupation. Both men were stripped to the waist, and panted at their toil. The little chamber or cavern in which they worked was brilliantly illuminated by their two candles, and their athletic figures stood out, dark and picturesque, against the light glistering walls.

      “A curious place, and a singular man!” observed the captain; “that fellow’s family is not a small one.—Hallo! James Martin.”

      “Hallo! Captain Dan,” replied the miner, looking down.

      “How many children have you had?”

      “How many child’n say ’ee?”

      “Ay, how many?”

      “I’ve had nineteen, sur, an’ there’s eight of ’em alive. Seven of ’em came in three year an six months, sur—three doubles an’ a single, but them uns are all gone dead, sur.”

      “How old are you, Jim?”

      “Forty-seven, sur.”

      “Your brother Tom is at work here, isn’t he?”

      “Iss, in the south level, drivin’ the end.”

      “How many children has Tom had, Jim?”

      “Seventeen, sur, an’ seven of ’em’s alive; but Tom’s only thirty-eight years old, sur.”3

      “Good-morning, Jim.”

      “Good-morning, Captain Dan,” replied the sturdy miner, resuming his work.

      “Good specimens of men these,” said the captain, with a quiet smile, to Oliver. “Of course I don’t mean to say that all the miners hereabouts are possessed of such large families—nevertheless there are, as I dare say you have observed, a good many children in and about St. Just!”

      Proceeding onward they diverged into a branch level, where a number of men were working overhead; boring holes into the roof and burrowing upwards. They all drove onwards through flinty rock by the same slow and toilsome process that has already been described—namely, by chipping with the pick, driving holes with the borer, and blasting with gunpowder.

      As the Captain and Oliver traversed this part of the mine they had occasionally to squeeze past small iron trucks which stood below holes in the sides of the level, down which ever and anon masses of ore and débris came from the workings above with a hard crashing noise. The ore was rich with tin, but the metal was invisible to any but trained eyes. To Oliver Trembath the whole stuff appeared like wet rubbish.

      Suddenly a low muffled report echoed through the cavernous place. It was followed by five or six similar reports in succession.

      “They are blasting,” said Captain Dan.

      As he spoke, the thick muddy shoes and brick-dust legs of a man appeared coming down the hole that had previously discharged ore. The man himself followed his legs, and, alighting thereon, saluted Captain Dan with a free-and-easy “Good-morning.” Another man followed him; from a different part of the surrounding darkness a third made his appearance, and others came trooping in, until upwards of a dozen of them were collected in the narrow tunnel, each with his tallow candle in his hand or hat, so that the place was lighted brilliantly. They were all clad in loose, patched, and ragged clothes. All were of a uniform rusty-red colour, each with his broad bosom bared, and perspiration trickling down his besmeared countenance.