LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume XXIII, Issue 2184, 24 February 1881, Page 3

LITERATURE.

THE MINE BY THE SKA. ( Continued.) ‘ Never thought!’ said he, laying hold of her hand with passionate grasp, 4 Never thought I when I used to guide these little lingers o’ winter nights in onr schooling, how I longed to seize them and tell thee all, or that when we wandered abont on these cliffs and talked o’ all strange things in the big world, I was anything more than the stern old schoolmaster I Well, I was a fool. Curse it all!’and he stamped with sullen rage and impatience. Her head was bent low, and the teats were fast falling again. ‘Agnes, dear, look up,’ he went on, with a sudden change in his voice. ‘ I see it’s no use; I was a fool to think any woman could care for mo again Well, never mind, I won’t trouble you in this way any more But oh ! if yon could only love me, child ?’ he spoke out with another burst of passion. ‘I would make yon so happy—happier far than any of the poor fools about here could do.’

* Oh, George, didn’t I say it was all a mistake the way things go?’she said, looking appealingly into his face. ‘You were so good, George, I never thought of that—and then there was another, and he need to court me, though neither you nor mother knew; and I love him, oh, George, so much I But I don’t know how it is, things have gone wrong, and I don’t know whether he cares for me now, and I’m so wretched.’ Heimers was too generous to askthename. Still, he thought he might watch over and help her, and there was no knowing but she might learn to love him at last. So, with some hope yet left, ho talked of other matters—the fair at Saxby, the new steamer anchored in Saintby harbor, and so on, till it was time to return to the cottage. He would not go In that night, but wandered instead for many hours by the seashore, with the gently murmuring waves and the countless gleaming stars for company, Then he returned to the mine which he was overlooking, and did not leave it till again the sun was setting on the following day. A week went past, when one night George, weary and disheartened (for things were going on very badly in the mine), strolled along the beach till he came to some seaweed covered rocks. Dying down and resting his head upon his hand, he remained there motionless for a long time, with his eyes fixed upon the waves that in restlets mood were bsat'ng upon the rocks before him. It was about nine o’clock, and the night was now very dark. All at once he heard footsteps approaching by the narrow path which wound along the side of the cliff at a little distance above his head. He looked up, though the darkness was too great to see any one, but at the same time he heard voices, and evidently the speakers had stopped just above where he was lying. At the same instant he recognised their voices. They were A gnes Benson and her cousin, Jim Massey, a goodlooking, hard-working fellow, ignorant and thoughtless, and too fond of spending his money in public-houses, with no ambition to be anything higher in life than a working collier, but with no worse faults that Heimers knew of.

It was bitter torture for him to listen, but he could not move from where he was without being discovered, and he did not wish that. The lovers’ quarrel had evidently been made up ; their talk was half banter, and half In earnest of a happy future, in which none but themselves should have a part, and George detected in the soft tones of Agnes’s voice a joyous ring that he had not heard in it. I hen came the sound of kisses interchanged, and still George had to listen. Then they passed away, up the hillside, in the direction of Agnes’s home. George Heimers stood erect, his back against the cliff. All was still save for the long melancholy cry of a sea gull that chanced to fly past him, and the hoarse sound of the waves beating at his feet with the grating rattle of the pebbles as each spent wave crew back from the chore. The thick darkness was about him and within his soul. Terrible to him was the clamour of those waves as they rushed up the beach, and then retiring dragged with them their prey from the shore. The sound was in his ears like the dirge of his hopes overthrown, his life drawn downward, downward, by the waves of pitiless fate, to the depths of that ocean of despair that never more gives up its dead. Chapter 11. A strange sight is a coal mine. Wonderfully picturesque with its streets and lanes and alleys, its unending corridors and countless chambers of the dead. The men there, with blackened faces and scanty attire, seem of another (race from those above ground, and the feeble lights gleaming in the midst of the darkness give a weird, unreal aspect to the scene.

The only sounds beard are those of the coal waggons slowly pushed along by boys towards the month of the pit, and in the □arrow passages, where the men are at work, the clang of their pickaxes as they cleave their way through the great rocks of coal. Men are not the only beings here. There are horses that hare not seen the daylight for many a year, to draw the waggons in the broader passages, and sometimes, if the light of the lamp is turned towards the ground, the bright little eyes of rats (how they came to that under world I don’t know) may be seen peering out of nook* among the walla. There is an almost fearful sombreness about the place. Thoughts that the daylight would at once dispel seem to haunt the air, and the voices of the men as they wander about, each one, Gideon-like, with his lamp and pickaxe, have a deeper, hollower tone than above ground. Two days had passed, and during that time a storm, long remembered on the coast, had been raging ; but the men in the mine, accustomed as they were to hearing the roar of the waves above their heads, paid little heed to the increased noise. Q-eorgo Heimers alone had noticed it, and each day had spent more time than usual iu examining the supports of the roof. It was now night time, and be had been superintending some rather dangerous work in the lower levels, of blasting with gunpowder, which, much against bis advice, the owner had [ordered. This being done, leaving further order for work with the men, G-eorge turned away and walked alone in the direction of the pit’s mouth, carrying in one hand a large canister containing the gnupowder ; in the other his lamp and the heavy stick that, on account of his lameness, was his constant companion, Even in that imperfect light it might have been seen that a great change had passed over his face; it was haggard and pinched-looking ; there was a strange restless glitter in his eyes, and now and then his lips parted with an involuntary quivering movement, quickly pressed together again with that stern, set expression that was now habitual to them. Instead of leaving the mine, a sudden thought seemed to strike him half way, and he turned aside and entered a part of the mine long deserted on account of tho danger of working too near t ie bottom of tho sea, but which reosntly had been opened again ; and though George had many times warned the owner of the danger of weakening the supports of the roof, large quantities of coal bad been taken from it.

All was still as ho advanced through the narrow passages, but soon these widened into a more open space, and as ho entered the noise of the tumultuous waters overhead was fearfully loud* A cold draught of air smote on him, and made him shiver The place was known to the colliers as the ‘Boggart’s Hole," or the “Ghost's Hole." It was an immerse low-roofed ball, one of those natural caverns that exist beneath the sea and land; and in the centre was an abyss, into whose depths no human beinghad ever penetrated. The workings had been carried on along the sides, and a rude pathway led half-way round, abmptly stopping above the great chasm. The poor light which George held illumined only a narrow circle round him, but he knew the place well, and, cautiously stepping along, reached the part where the last workings had been made, and which was so low that he coaid touch with hir hand the black slimy roof, to which gigantic loathsome fungi clung. (To be continued .)