Deep Down, a Tale of the Cornish Mines by R. M. Ballantyne (readnow txt) 📖

Before descending the mine Captain Dan led Oliver to the counting-house, where he bade him undress and put on miner’s clothing.

“I’ll need a biggish suit,” observed Oliver.

“True,” said Captain Dan; “we are obliged usually to give visitors our smallest suits. You are an exception to the rule. Indeed, I’m not sure that I have a pair of trousers big enough for—ah yes, by the way, here is a pair belonging to one of our captains who is unusually stout and tall; I dare say you’ll be able to squeeze into ’em.”

“All right,” said Oliver, laughing, as he pulled on the red garments; “they are wide enough round the waist, at all events. Now for a hat.”

“There,” said the captain, handing him a white cotton skull-cap, “put that on.”

“Why, what’s this for?” said Oliver.

“To keep that from dirtying your head,” replied the other, as he handed his companion a thick felt hat, which was extremely dirty, on the front especially, where the candle was wont to be fixed with wet clay. “Now, then, attach these two candles to that button in your breast, and you are complete.—Not a bad miner to look at,” said Captain Dan with a smile of approval.

The captain was already equipped in underground costume, and the dirty disreputable appearance he presented was, thought Oliver, a wonderful contrast to his sober and gentlemanly aspect on the evening of their first meeting at his uncle’s table.

“I’ll strike a light after we get down a bit—so come along,” said Captain Dan, leaving the office and leading the way.

On reaching the entrance to the shaft, Oliver Trembath looked down and observed a small speck of bright light in the black depths.

“A man coming up—wait a bit,” said the captain in explanation.

Presently a faint sound of slow footsteps was heard; they grew gradually more distinct, and ere long the head and shoulders of a man emerged from the hole. Perspiration was trickling down his face, and painting him, streakily, with iron rust and mud. All his garments were soaking. He sighed heavily on reaching the surface, and appeared to inhale the fresh air with great satisfaction.

“Any more coming?”

“No, Captain Dan,” replied the man, glancing with some curiosity at the tall stranger.

“Now, sir, we shall descend,” said the captain, entering the shaft.

Oliver followed, and at once plunged out of bright sunshine into subdued light. A descent of a few fathoms brought them to the bottom of the first ladder. It was a short one; most of the others, the captain told him, were long ones. The width of the shaft was about six feet by nine. It was nearly perpendicular, and the slope of the ladders corresponded with its width—the head of each resting against one side of it, and the foot against the other, thus forming a zigzag of ladders all the way down.

At the foot of the first ladder the light was that of deep twilight. Here was a wooden platform, and a hole cut through it, out of which protruded the head of the second ladder. The Captain struck a light, and, applying it to one of the candles, affixed the same to the front of Oliver’s hat. Arranging his own hat in a similar way, he continued the descent, and, in a few minutes, both were beyond the region of daylight. When they had got a short way down, probably the distance of an ordinary church-steeple’s height below the surface, Oliver looked up and saw the little opening far above him, shining brightly like a star. A few steps more and it vanished from view; he felt that he had for the first time in his life reached the regions of eternal night.

The shaft varied in width here and there; in most places it was very narrow—about six feet wide—but, what with cross-beams to support the sides, and prevent soft parts from falling in, and other obstructions, the space available for descent was often not more than enough to permit of a man squeezing past.

A damp smell pervaded the air, and there was a strange sense of contraction and confinement, so to speak, which had at first an unpleasant effect on Oliver. The silence, when both men paused at a ladder-foot to trim candles or to rest a minute, was most profound, and there came over the young doctor a sensation of being buried alive, and of having bid a final farewell to the upper earth, the free air, and the sunshine, as they went down, down, down to the depths below.

At last they reached a “level” or gallery, by which the ladder-shaft communicated with the pump-shaft.

Here Captain Dan paused and trimmed Oliver’s candle, which he had thrust inadvertently against a beam, and broken in two.

“You have to mind your head here, sir,” said the captain, with a quiet smile; “’tis a good place to learn humility.”

Oliver could scarce help laughing aloud as he gazed at his guide, for, standing as he did with the candle close to his face, his cheeks, nose, chin, forehead, and part of the brim of his hat and shoulders were brought into brilliant light, while the rest of him was lost in the profound darkness of the level behind, and the flame of his candle rested above his head like the diadem of some aristocratic gnome.

“How far down have we come?” inquired Oliver.

“About eighty fathoms,” said the captain; “we shall now go along this level and get into the pump-shaft, by which we can descend to the bottom. Take care of your feet and head as you go, for you’ll be apt to run against the rocks that hang down, and the winzes are dangerous.”

“And pray what are winzes?” asked Oliver as he stumbled along in the footsteps of his guide, over uneven ground covered with débris.—“Ah! hallo! stop!”

“What’s wrong?” said the captain, looking back, and holding up his candle to Oliver’s face.

“Candle gone again, captain; I’ve run my head on that rock. Lucky for me that your mining hats are so thick and hard, for I gave it a butt that might have done credit to an ox.”

“I told you to mind your head,” said Captain Dan, relighting the candle; “you had better carry it in your hand in the levels, it will light your path better. Look out now—here is a winze.”

The captain pointed to a black yawning hole, about six or seven feet in diameter, which was bridged across by a single plank.

“How deep does it go?” asked the youth, holding up his candle and peering in; “I can’t see the bottom.”

“I dare say not,” said the captain, “for the bottom is ten fathoms down, at the next level.”

“And are all the winzes bridged with a single plank in this way?”

“Why, no, some of ’em have two or three planks, but they’re quite safe if you go steady.”

“And, pray, how many such winzes are there in the mine?” asked Oliver.

“Couldn’t say exactly, without thinkin’ a bit,” replied the captain; “but there are a great number of ’em—little short of a hundred, I should say—for we have a good many miles of levels in Botallack, which possesses an underground geography as carefully measured and mapped out as that of the surface.”

“And what would happen,” asked Oliver, with an expression of half-simulated anxiety, “if you were to fall down a winze and break your neck, and my candle were to get knocked or blown out, leaving me to find my way out of a labyrinth of levels pierced with holes sixty feet deep?”

“Well, it’s hard to say,” replied Captain Dan with much simplicity.

“Go on,” said Oliver, pursing his lips with a grim smile, as he followed his leader across the narrow bridge.

Captain Dan continued his progress