CHAPTER X. COAL TOWN
THREE years after the events which have just been related, theguide-books recommended as a "great attraction," to the numeroustourists who roam over the county of Stirling, a visit of a few hours tothe mines of New Aberfoyle.
No mine in any country, either in the Old or New World, could present amore curious aspect.
To begin with, the visitor was transported without danger or fatigue toa level with the workings, at fifteen hundred feet below the surface ofthe ground. Seven miles to the southwest of Callander opened a slantingtunnel, adorned with a castellated entrance, turrets and battlements.This lofty tunnel gently sloped straight to the stupendous crypt,hollowed out so strangely in the bowels of the earth.
A double line of railway, the wagons being moved by hydraulic power,plied from hour to hour to and from the village thus buried in thesubsoil of the county, and which bore the rather ambitious title of CoalTown.
Arrived in Coal Town, the visitor found himself in a place whereelectricity played a principal part as an agent of heat and light.Although the ventilation shafts were numerous, they were not sufficientto admit much daylight into New Aberfoyle, yet it had abundance oflight. This was shed from numbers of electric discs; some suspended fromthe vaulted roofs, others hanging on the natural pillars--all, whethersuns or stars in size, were fed by continuous currents produced fromelectro-magnetic machines. When the hour of rest arrived, an artificialnight was easily produced all over the mine by disconnecting the wires.
Below the dome lay a lake of an extent to be compared to the Dead Seaof the Mammoth caves--a deep lake whose transparent waters swarmed witheyeless fish, and to which the engineer gave the name of Loch Malcolm.
There, in this immense natural excavation, Simon Ford built his newcottage, which he would not have exchanged for the finest house inPrince's Street, Edinburgh. This dwelling was situated on the shoresof the loch, and its five windows looked out on the dark waters, whichextended further than the eye could see. Two months later a secondhabitation was erected in the neighborhood of Simon Ford's cottage: thiswas for James Starr. The engineer had given himself body and soul to NewAberfoyle, and nothing but the most imperative necessity ever causedhim to leave the pit. There, then, he lived in the midst of his miningworld.
On the discovery of the new field, all the old colliers had hastened toleave the plow and harrow, and resume the pick and mattock. Attractedby the certainty that work would never fail, allured by the high wageswhich the prosperity of the mine enabled the company to offer for labor,they deserted the open air for an underground life, and took up theirabode in the mines.
The miners' houses, built of brick, soon grew up in a picturesquefashion; some on the banks of Loch Malcolm, others under the archeswhich seemed made to resist the weight that pressed upon them, like thepiers of a bridge. So was founded Coal Town, situated under the easternpoint of Loch Katrine, to the north of the county of Stirling. It was aregular settlement on the banks of Loch Malcolm. A chapel, dedicatedto St. Giles, overlooked it from the top of a huge rock, whose foot waslaved by the waters of the subterranean sea.
When this underground town was lighted up by the bright rays thrown fromthe discs, hung from the pillars and arches, its aspect was so strange,so fantastic, that it justified the praise of the guide-books, andvisitors flocked to see it.
It is needless to say that the inhabitants of Coal Town were proud oftheir place. They rarely left their laboring village--in that imitatingSimon Ford, who never wished to go out again. The old overman maintainedthat it always rained "up there," and, considering the climate of theUnited Kingdom, it must be acknowledged that he was not far wrong. Allthe families in New Aberfoyle prospered well, having in three yearsobtained a certain competency which they could never have hoped toattain on the surface of the county. Dozens of babies, who were born atthe time when the works were resumed, had never yet breathed the outerair.
This made Jack Ryan remark, "It's eighteen months since they wereweaned, and they have not yet seen daylight!"
It may be mentioned here, that one of the first to run at the engineer'scall was Jack Ryan. The merry fellow had thought it his duty to returnto his old trade. But though Melrose farm had lost singer and piper itmust not be thought that Jack Ryan sung no more. On the contrary, thesonorous echoes of New Aberfoyle exerted their strong lungs to answerhim.
Jack Ryan took up his abode in Simon Ford's new cottage. They offeredhim a room, which he accepted without ceremony, in his frank and heartyway. Old Madge loved him for his fine character and good nature. She insome degree shared his ideas on the subject of the fantastic beingswho were supposed to haunt the mine, and the two, when alone, told eachother stories wild enough to make one shudder--stories well worthy ofenriching the hyperborean mythology.
Jack thus became the life of the cottage. He was, besides being a jovialcompanion, a good workman. Six months after the works had begun, he wasmade head of a gang of hewers.
"That was a good work done, Mr. Ford," said he, a few days after hisappointment. "You discovered a new field, and though you narrowlyescaped paying for the discovery with your life--well, it was not toodearly bought."
"No, Jack, it was a good bargain we made that time!" answered the oldoverman. "But neither Mr. Starr nor I have forgotten that to you we oweour lives."
"Not at all," returned Jack. "You owe them to your son Harry, when hehad the good sense to accept my invitation to Irvine."
"And not to go, isn't that it?" interrupted Harry, grasping hiscomrade's hand. "No, Jack, it is to you, scarcely healed of yourwounds--to you, who did not delay a day, no, nor an hour, that we oweour being found still alive in the mine!"
"Rubbish, no!" broke in the obstinate fellow. "I won't have that said,when it's no such thing. I hurried to find out what had become of you,Harry, that's all. But to give everyone his due, I will add that withoutthat unapproachable goblin--"
"Ah, there we are!" cried Ford. "A goblin!"
"A goblin, a brownie, a fairy's child," repeated Jack Ryan, "a cousin ofthe Fire-Maidens, an Urisk, whatever you like! It's not the less certainthat without it we should never have found our way into the gallery,from which you could not get out."
"No doubt, Jack," answered Harry. "It remains to be seen whether thisbeing was as supernatural as you choose to believe."
"Supernatural!" exclaimed Ryan. "But it was as supernatural as aWill-o'-the-Wisp, who may be seen skipping along with his lantern inhis hand; you may try to catch him, but he escapes like a fairy, andvanishes like a shadow! Don't be uneasy, Harry, we shall see it againsome day or other!"
"Well, Jack," said Simon Ford, "Will-o'-the-Wisp or not, we shall try tofind it, and you must help us."
"You'll get into a scrap if you don't take care, Mr. Ford!" respondedJack Ryan.
"We'll see about that, Jack!"
We may easily imagine how soon this domain of New Aberfoyle becamefamiliar to all the members of the Ford family, but more particularly toHarry. He learnt to know all its most secret ins and outs. He could evensay what point of the surface corresponded with what point of the mine.He knew that above this seam lay the Firth of Clyde, that there extendedLoch Lomond and Loch Katrine. Those columns supported a spur of theGrampian mountains. This vault served as a basement to Dumbarton. Abovethis large pond passed the Balloch railway. Here ended the Scottishcoast. There began the sea, the tumult of which could be distinctlyheard during the equinoctial gales. Harry would have been a first-rateguide to these natural catacombs, and all that Alpine guides do ontheir snowy peaks in daylight he could have done in the dark mine by thewonderful power of instinct.
He loved New Aberfoyle. Many times, with his lamp stuck in his hat,did he penetrate its furthest depths. He explored its ponds in askillfully-managed canoe. He even went shooting, for numerous birds hadbeen introduced into the crypt--pintails, snipes, ducks, who fed on thefish which swarmed in the deep waters. Harry's eyes seemed made forthe dark, just as a sailor's are made for distances. But all this
whileHarry felt irresistibly animated by the hope of finding the mysteriousbeing whose intervention, strictly speaking, had saved himself and hisfriends. Would he succeed? He certainly would, if presentiments were tobe trusted; but certainly not, if he judged by the success which had asyet attended his researches.
The attacks directed against the family of the old overman, before thediscovery of New Aberfoyle, had not been renewed.