LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume IV, Issue 345, 21 July 1875, Page 3

LITERATURE.

AN ADVENTUKE IN A COAL-PIT. ( Concluded.) Being greatly exhausted, I could no longer resist sleep, f and when I woke and struck a fusee, I found it was again six o'clock; six a.m., I supposed, of the day after my accident. Shortly after, the watch stopped, and I was for the future obliged to guess at the lapse of time, as the watch key had been left on my dressing-table at home. Energy returned after my slumber, and together with a burning thirst, drove me to leave the mouth of the pit, and search for water. I left my gun and pocket-book behind me, having first scrawled a few words on a page of it, in case rescuers should descend in my absence. I walked on boldly from the mouth, where, high above, the circular patch of sky was once more appearing with dawn, and affording me a a ray of hope. When fairly in the darkness, I stopped to listen, and the silence Was awful. Again I pressed on through what seemed light sand, but which I well knew was dry coal-dust, which invariably carpets a pit, and extends up to the ankles of any one walking in it, At length, I heard the pleasant sound of water trickling down, and immediately I was on the edge of a rill, at which I had a delicious and refreshing draught. I lay for some time by the rill, and left it invigorated, and once more, strange to say, hopeful. How to find my way back, was now my difficulty. Hunger admits of no parleying, and I was now resolved to appease my appetite on what had before seemed so revolting, the flesh of poor Eover. Staggering back to the spot where he lay, there was a hurried rush past me of an army of small animals. The truth flashed upon me. Boor Rover's body was being gnawed to pieces and devoured by rats. Strength of mind again almost forsook me. These frightful creatures, I thought, were waiting in the gloom to pick my bonea as

well. Though this were a disused working, the presence of rats, I felt assurred, pointed out that there were worked portions of the - mine atno great distance. If they did not muster up courage enough to overwhelm me by numbers, I might yet be saved. Now I took my gun as a protection, and resolving to give up what I had previously regarded as a treasure of inestimable value, the rill of running water, prepared to strike boldly into an opposite working, and take my chance. My flask was full of water, and with it I might support life for a couple of days, if the worst came to the worst. I tightened my waistband—a plan to appease the cravings of hunger, which I had learned also from the Bed Indians—and dipping a finger of my kid glove in the flask, by dint of chewing it, made a sorry meal, but yet one that greatly relieved my pangs and opened the salivary glands to my wonderful refreshment. My new track led a floor of very uneven nature, and over which the roof could be felt. I concluded that this was rather a forsaken working than a thoroughfare, so to speak, of the mine, and turned to one side, where the roof again rose. This I supposed to be the passage leading to the abandoned working from the main adit of the mine. On the more level and dusty floor, I here kicked something which sounded metallic, and picked up what I made out by feeling to be an old safetylamp. The padlock was still on its side, and the ring at the top was not eaten away or rendered less easy in its play by rust. Clearly, the pit had not been many years abandoned. And then a brilliant thought struck me. With hands trembling from excitement, I opened my pocket-knife, and forced off the little padlock with some little trouble. Then I drew out my fusee-box, box, scarcely daring to allow to myself that there might be sufficient oil left in the lamp to admit of my obtaining a light, if it were but for a short time. There was but one fusee left. All my hopes, almost my existence, seemed centred on it. At length I plucked up courage enough to try to strike it. It fizzed for a moment, and then went irrecoverably out, dashing all my expectations to the ground, and leaving me once more in utter darkness, both outwardly and in my heart. Worse still, as I turned the lamp, I felt the precious drops of oil pouring over my fingers. I would then have willingly given all I possessed for another match. After this disappointment, I once more began to despair ; and yet, determining not to give in without another great struggle, I went on, blindly hoping to light upon some clue which might perchance lead me to a working still actively prosecuted, for I knew that much of the district underlying the hills over which I had wandered was honeycombed by the operations of the colliers. At all events, this was my only chance, and it seemed well to keep up hope to the last. All at once, I fell over a hard projection, and on stooping down, found it was an iron chair yet in situ. Though the rails and transoms had been removed, here was a discovery (though I would not build too much on it) which kindled hope, and I felt in front of it till I kicl el another, and then another. These successive chairs shewed that I was on a track, at all events, along which I could hasten without constant fear of running against the walls of the pit, and which, so long as I was careful to keep touching these chairs, might lead me to a frequented part of the pit. The most intense listening disclosed no sound. It was quite possible, I thought, if I pursued this track, that it might bring me to a level entrance into the pit. I must have rambled on for an hour, pursuing my monotonous task of kicking these iron chairs, which regularly succeed each other at intervals of four yards, till, to my great joy, I reached a rail fixed on the chairs; and a few yards further, finding the rail continuous, I began to feel certain that I was on the right mode of escape. Taking the last draught of water which remained, I made a mental vow not to lie down, for I felt I should never rise again if I did. Fortunately, the end was at hand. Was I dreaming, or out of the body in Hades ? Did a dull knocking strike upon my ears, or was it the labom-ed thud of my heart's slow beating that I heard ? I shook off fancies for a moment, and realised as I stood there, leaning against the wall, that repeated blows, smothered by distance, were being struck before me. The knocking continued; two or three blows being given, and then a momentary halt. I recognised the sound of colliers picks, and thankfully strove to penetrate to them, but my knees would no longer support me; I staggered on, and fell prostrate. Still it seemed so awful a death to die within reach of succour, that I shouted as loud as I could, and was entranced when the knocking ceased, as though the colliers were listening. The revulsion of hope was too much : my faculties all became dim and hazy; I fired off in succession the two barrels of my gun. My next recollection is that of a knot of colliers, in semi nudity, who had just left their workings, and come through the brattice which divided their portion of the pit from the disused part, and were standing round me with their safety-lamps. They had fled, they afterwards told me, at first, thinking an explosion had taken place in the abandoned workings; and it was long before the 'butty' could persuade any of them to follow him. But when they once saw my deplorable condition, agonised with hunger and thirst, grimy from head to foot with coal-dust, thin and cadaverous with anxiety, no Sisters of Charity could have been more tender in their ministrations. Warm tea and bread in spare morsels were given me; and then I was raised, and carried to the working, put in a wagon, and drawn by one of the pit-horses to the pithead. Never shall I forget the delight of being brought up to ' bank,' and once more feeling the blessed air of heaven blow on my haggard cheeks. And if any day my resolution not to shoot again on a Yorkshire moor were in danger of being shaken by the hospitable invitations of Willis, my nightly dreams would soon force me to abide by my vow.

THE BOBBINS TWINS. (Wild Oats.) They were never happy. The Siamese twins were a serene pair by the side of them, for they were yoked up like a pair of duncolored oxen, and it was ' gee Buck, whoa haw Dobbin' with them. You always knew which side to find them on, but the miserable Bobbins were not in harness, and their trials began with their earliest life. When Tommy Bobbins let all the vinegar out of the keg, Billy Bobbins was spanked with his mother's slipper until he said he'd never do so any more. And when Billy upset the tub of appleeaas in the Baud, they rubbed

Tommy's nose in it until he could smell cider in the air for weeks afterwards. Everyday brought some new trial to them, and grief to their young hearts. Tommy would play hookey from school one day, and Billy would next morning be laid affectionately across the teacher's lap, and, whack, whack, whack, he'd receive instructions in the logic of birch, until he'd feel as if he'd been sitting on a red-hot stove, and he could study astronomy without any telescope for the nebular system. Then recess would bring about a slight unpleasantness between Billy and a freckle-faced boy, in a top trade, or about some favourite taw in marbles, and after school, down the road, ' freckles' would go for Tommy, and he'd come out of that ring so ' groggy on his pins' that his mother would have to tie him up in poultices for the night. Billy was sick one night and the old doctor gave Tommy the castor oil and the pills, and when they came with the peach marmalade, Billy got it for being so good in taking the medicine. Tommy got the medal at Sunday school for the verses that Billy had been three weeks committing to memory. But the saddest grief of all fell upon Tommy in his tender, budding, young life. He had been selling old iron and glass, and sawing wood for the widow Sparkins, and putting the money away in his savings bank, and when Christmas came, he got the meat cleaver and smashed that box, and' bought peppermint drops and chewing gum for Kitty Simpkins. Now, Kitty was sweet as a peach, and when she grew up she wasn't going to be a girl in the dazzler style, to swing on to a fellow and stick him for circus tickets, and soak him for ice-cream, without doing something nice in return. So she tied on her little apron, and tucked up her sleeves and made some nice ginger-cakes for Tommy, and got up a pretty bouquet of hot-house flowers, and put in some sprigs of evergreen and some thyme and cammomile, and tied it up with a pink ribbon, and when she saw Billy coming down the road the next day, she ran out with the ginger cakes and bouquet, and said he was a dear, good Tommy, and she didn't like Billy nohow. And Billy, he looked sweet at her, and pocketed the ginger cakes, and smelt of the bouquet seventeen times, and tied the pink ribbon in his button hole, and told her he'd wear it there forever, and then have it buried with him. And she believed all this, and they swung on the gate, and it squeaked on its rusty hinges until the kisses never made any more noise than a humming bird in the honeysuckles. And just about the time they had quit counting the kisses, Tommy came down the road, and saw "some little things going on that he did't like. Kitty said : "There comes Billy."

And Billy said: "Yes; there he comes, poking along like he had cuckle burs in his boots. We won't look at him, will we, Kitty ? " "No, Tommy, we won't," replied Kitty, looking sweet at Billy. The light all went out of Tommy's eyes when he saw Kitty look away from him, and Billy shut one eye on him and took a squint at him with the other, and remarked carelessly that Billy looked as though he was about seventy-five years old; and if five minutes had made him so ancient, in a week he'd be great-grandfather to Adam. This made Kitty snicker, and Tommy, thinking she was making fun of him, tore off down the road at a furious rate, and vowed he'd make her pay him back the money he paid for the peppermint drops and chewing gum. They never came within speaking distance any more, and Billy shrewdly wore the pink ribbon in his button-hole ; and Kitty always mistook him for Tommy, and never found out how Billy had played it on them. (To be continued.')