Deep Down, a Tale of the Cornish Mines

“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.

Here, however, the uniformity of their appearance ended, for they were of all sizes and characters. Some were robust and muscular; some were lean and wiry; some were just entering on manhood, with the ruddy hue of health shining through the slime on their smooth faces; some were in the prime of life, pale from long working underground, but strong, and almost as hard as the iron with which they chiselled the rocks. Others were growing old, and an occasional cough told that the “miners’ complaint” had begun its fatal undermining of the long-enduring, too-long-tried human body. There were one or two whose iron constitutions had resisted the evil influences of wet garments, bad air, and chills, and who, with much of the strength of manhood, and some of the colour of youth, were still plying their hammers in old age. But these were rare specimens of vigour and longevity; not many such are to be found in Botallack mine. The miner’s working life is a short one, and comparatively few of those who begin it live to a healthy old age. Little boys were there, too, diminutive but sturdy urchins, miniature copies of their seniors, though somewhat dirtier; proud as peacocks because of being permitted at so early an age to accompany their fathers or brothers underground, and their bosoms swelling with that stern Cornish spirit of determination to face and overcome great difficulties, which has doubtless much to do with the excessive development of chest and shoulder for which Cornish miners, especially those of St. Just, are celebrated.4

It turned out that the men had all arranged to fire their holes at the same hour, and assemble in a lower level to take lunch, or, as they term it, “kroust,” while the smoke should clear away. This rendered it impossible for the captain to take his young companion further into the workings at that part of the mine, so they contented themselves with a chat with the men. These sat down in a row, and, each man unrolling a parcel containing a pasty or a thick lump of cake with currants in it, commenced the demolition thereof with as much zeal as had previously been displayed in the demolition of the rock. This frugal fare was washed down with water drawn from little flat barrels or canteens, while they commented lightly, grumblingly, or laughingly, according to temperament, on the poor condition of the lode at which they wrought. We have already said that in mining, as in other things, fortune fluctuates, and it was “hard times” with the men of Botallack at that period.

Before they had proceeded far with their meal, one of the pale-faced men began to cough.

“Smoke’s a-coming down,” he said.

“We shall ’ave to move, then,” observed another.

The pouring in of gunpowder smoke here set two or three more a-coughing, and obliged them all to rise and seek for purer—perhaps it were better to say less impure—air in another part of the level, where the draught kept the smoke away. Here, squatting down on heaps of wet rubbish, and sticking their candles against the damp walls, they continued their meal, and here the captain and Oliver left them, retraced their steps to the foot of the shaft, and began the ascent to the surface, or, in mining parlance, began to “return to grass.”

Up, up, up—the process now was reversed, and the labour increased tenfold. Up they went on these nearly perpendicular and interminable ladders, slowly, for they had a long journey before them; cautiously, for Oliver had a tendency to butt his head against beams, and knock his candle out of shape; carefully, for the rounds of the ladders were wet and slimy and a slip of foot or hand might in a moment have precipitated them into the black gulf below; and pantingly, for strength of limb and lung could not altogether defy the influence of such a prolonged and upright climb.

If Oliver Trembath felt, while descending, as though he should never reach the bottom, he felt far more powerfully as if reaching the top were an event of the distant future—all the more that the muscles of his arms and legs, unused to the peculiar process, were beginning to feel rather stiff. This feeling, however, soon passed away, and when he began to grow warm to the work, his strength seemed to return and to increase with each step—a species of revival of vigour in the midst of hard toil with which probably all strong men are acquainted.

Up they went, ladder after ladder, squeezing through narrow places, rubbing against wet rocks and beams, scraping against the boarding of the kibble-shaft, and being scraped by the pump-rods until both of them were as wet and red and dirty as any miner below.

As he advanced, Oliver began to take note of the places he had passed on the way down, and so much had he seen and thought during his sojourn underground, that, when he reached the level where he first came upon the noisy kibbles, and made acquaintance with the labouring pump-rod, he almost hailed the spot as an old familiar landmark of other days!

A circumstance occurred just then which surprised him not a little, and tended to fix this locality still more deeply on his memory. While he was standing in the level, waiting until the captain should relight and trim his much and oft bruised candle, the kibbles began their noisy motion. This was nothing new now, but at the same time the shout of distant voices was heard, as if the gnomes held revelry in their dreary vaults. They drew gradually nearer, and Oliver could distinguish laughter mingled with the sound of rapidly approaching footsteps.

“Foolish lads!” ejaculated Captain Dan with a smile, and an expression that proved he took some interest in the folly, whatever it might be.

“What is it?” inquired Oliver.

“They are racing to the kibble. Look and you shall see,” replied the other.

Just then a man who had outrun his comrades appeared at the place where the level joined the shaft, just opposite. Almost at the same moment the kibble appeared flying upwards. The miner leaped upon it, caught and clung to the chain as it passed, and shouted a defiant adieu to his less fortunate comrades, who arrived just in time to witness him disappear upwards in this rapid manner “to grass.”

“That’s the way the young ones risk their lives,” said the captain, shaking his head remonstratively; “if that young fellow had missed the kibble he would have been dashed to pieces at the bottom of the shaft.”

Again Captain Dan said “Foolish lads,” and shook his head so gravely that Oliver could not help regarding him with the respect due to a sedate, fatherly sort of man; but Oliver was young and unsophisticated, and did not know at the time that the captain had himself been noted in his youth as an extremely reckless and daring fellow, and that a considerable spice of the daring remained in him still!

Diverging to the right at this point Captain Dan led Oliver to an old part of the mine, where there were a couple of men opening up and extending one of the old levels. Their progress here was very different from what it had been. Evidently the former miners had not thought it worth their while to open up a wide passage for themselves, and Oliver found it necessary to twist his broad shoulders into all sorts of positions to get them through.

The first level they came to in this part was not more than three feet high at the entrance.

“A man can’t hold his head very high here, sir,” said his guide.

“Truly no, it is scarce high enough for my legs to walk in without any body above them,” said Oliver. “However, lead the way, and I will follow.”

The captain stooped and made his way through a winding passage where the roof was so low in many places that they were obliged to bend quite double, and the back and neck of the young doctor began to feel the strain very severely. There were, however, a few spots where the roof rose a little, affording temporary relief. Presently they came to the place where the men were at work. The ground was very soft here; the men were cutting through soft granite!—a condition of the stone which Oliver confessed he had never expected to see. Here the lights burned very badly.

“What can be the matter with it?” said Oliver, stopping for the third time to trim the wick of his candle.

Captain Dan smiled as he said, “You asked me, last night, to take you into one of the levels where the air was bad—now here you are, with the air so bad that the candle will hardly burn. It will be worse before night.”

“But I feel no disagreeable sensation,” said Oliver. “Possibly not, because you are not quite so sensitive as the flame of a candle, but if you remain here a few hours it will tell upon you. Here are the men—you can ask them.”

The two men were resting when they approached. One was old, the other middle-aged. Both were hearty fellows, and communicative. The old one, especially, was ruddy in complexion and pretty strong.

“You look well for an old miner,” said Oliver; “what may be your age?”

“About sixty, sur.”

“Indeed! you are a notable exception to the rule. How comes it that you look so fresh?”

“Can’t say, sur,” replied the old man with a peculiar smile; “few miners live to my time of life, much less do they go underground. P’raps it’s because I neither drink nor smoke. Tom there, now,” he added, pointing to his comrade with his thumb, “he ain’t forty yit, but he’s so pale as a ghost; though he is strong ’nuff.”

“And do you neither drink nor smoke, Tom?” inquired Oliver.

“Well, sur, I both smokes and drinks, but I do take ’em in moderation,” said Tom.

“Are you married?” asked Oliver, turning again to the old man.

“Iss, got a wife at hum, an’ had six child’n.”

“Don’t you find this bad air tell on your health?” he continued.

“Iss, sur. After six or seven hours I do feel my head like to split, an’ my stummik as if it wor on fire; but what can us do? we must live, you knaw.”

Bidding these men goodbye, the captain and Oliver went down to another level, and then along a series of low galleries, in some of which they had to advance on their hands and knees, and in one of them, particularly, the accumulation of rubbish was so great, and the roof so low, that they could only force a passage through by wriggling along at full length like snakes. Beyond this they found a miner and a little boy at work; and here Captain Dan pointed out to his companion that the lodes of copper and tin were rich. Glittering particles on the walls and drops of water hanging from points and crevices, with the green, purple, and yellow colours around, combined to give the place a brilliant metallic aspect.

“You’d better break off a piece of ore here,” said Captain Dan.

Oliver took a chisel and hammer from the miner, and applying them to the rock, spent five minutes in belabouring it with scarcely any result.

“If it were not that I fear to miss the chisel and hit my knuckles,” he said, “I think I could work more effectively.”

As he spoke he struck with all his force, and brought down a large piece, a chip of which he carried away as a memorial of his underground ramble.

“The man is going to fire the hole,” said Captain Dan; “you’d better wait and see it.”

The hole was sunk nearly two feet deep diagonally behind a large mass of rock that projected from the side of the level. It was charged with gunpowder, and filled up with “tamping” or pounded granite, Then the miner lighted the fuse and hastened away, giving the usual signal, “Fire!” The others followed him to a safe distance, and awaited the result. In a few minutes there was a loud report, a bright blinding flash, and a concussion of the air which extinguished two of the candles. Immediately a crash followed, as the heavy mass of rock was torn from its bed and hurled to the ground.

“That’s the way we raise tin and copper,” said Captain Dan; “now, doctor, we had better return, if you would not be left in darkness, for our candles are getting low.”

“Did you ever travel underground in the dark?” inquired Oliver.

“Not often, but I have done it occasionally. Once, in particular, I went down the main shaft in the dark, and gave a miner an awful fright. I had to go down in haste at the time, and, not having a candle at hand, besides being well acquainted with the way, I hurried down in the dark. It so chanced that a man named Sampy had got his light put out when about to ascend the shaft, and, as he also was well acquainted with the way, he did not take the trouble to relight. There was a good deal of noise in consequence of the pump being at work. When I had got about half-way down I put my foot on something that felt soft. Instantly there was uttered a tremendous yell, and my legs at the same moment were seized by something from below. My heart almost jumped out of my mouth at this, but as the yell was repeated it flashed across me I must have trod on some one’s fingers, so I lifted my foot at once, and then a voice, which I knew to be that of Sampy, began to wail and lament miserably.

“‘Hope I haven’t hurt ’ee, Sampy?’ said I.

“‘Aw dear! aw dear! aw, my dear!’ was all that poor Sampy could reply.

“‘Let us go up, my son,’ said I, ‘and we’ll strike a light.’

“So up we went to the next level, where I got hold of the poor lad’s candle and lighted it.

“‘Aw, my dear!’ said Sampy, looking at his fingers with a rueful countenance; ‘thee have scat ’em all in jowds.’”

“Pray,” interrupted Oliver, “what may be the meaning of ‘scat ’em all in jowds’?

“Broke ’em all in pieces,” replied Captain Dan; “but he was wrong, for no bones were broken, and the fingers were all right again in the course of a few days. Sampy got a tremendous fright, however, and he was never known to travel underground without a light after that.”

Continuing to retrace their steps, Captain Dan and Oliver made for the main shaft. On the way they came to another of those immense empty spaces where a large lode had been worked away, and nothing left in the dark narrow void but the short beams which had supported the working stages of the men. Here Oliver, looking down through a hole at his feet, saw several men far below him. They were at work on the “end” in three successive tiers—above each other’s heads.

“You’ve seen two of these men before,” said Captain Dan.

“Have I?”

“Yes, they are local preachers. The last time you saw the upper one,” said Captain Dan with a smile, “you were seated in the Wesleyan chapel, and he was in the pulpit dressed like a gentleman, and preaching as eloquently as if he had been educated at college and trained for the ministry.”

“I should like very much to go down and visit them,” said Oliver.

“’Tis a difficult descent. There are no ladders. Will your head stand stepping from beam to beam, and can you lower yourself by a chain?”

“I’ll try,” said Oliver.

Without more words Captain Dan left the platform on which they had been walking, and, descending through a hole, led his companion by the most rugged way he had yet attempted. Sometimes they slid on their heels down places that Oliver would not have dreamed of attempting without a guide; at other times they stepped from beam to beam, with unknown depths below them.

“Have a care here, sir,” said the captain, pausing before a very steep place. “I will go first and wait for you.”

So saying, he seized a piece of old rusty chain that was fastened into the rock, and swung himself down. Then, looking up, he called to Oliver to follow.

The young doctor did so, and, having cautiously lowered himself a few yards, he reached a beam, where he found the captain holding up his candle, and regarding him with some anxiety. Captain Dan appeared as if suspended in mid-air. Opposite to him, in the distance, the two “local preachers” were hard at work with hammer and chisel, while far below, a miner could be seen coming along the next level, and pushing an iron truck full of ore before him.

A few more steps and slides, and then a short ascent, and Oliver stood beside the man who had preached the previous Sunday. He worked with another miner, and was red, ragged, and half-clad, like all the rest, and the perspiration was pouring over his face, which was streaked with slime. Very unlike was he at that time to the gentlemanly youth who had held forth from the pulpit. Oliver had a long chat with him, and found that he aspired to enter the ministry, and had already passed some severe examinations. He was self-taught, having procured the loan of books from his minister and some friends who were interested in him. His language and manners were those of a gentleman, yet he had had no advantages beyond his fellows.

“My friend there, sir, also hopes to enter the ministry,” said the miner, pointing, as he spoke, to a gap between the boards on which he stood.

Oliver looked down, and there beheld a stalwart young man, about a couple of yards under his feet, wielding a hammer with tremendous vigour. His light linen coat was open, displaying his bared and muscular bosom.

“What! is he a local preacher also?”

“He is, sir,” said the miner, with a smile.

Oliver immediately descended to the stage below, and had a chat with this man also, after which he left them at their work, wondering very much at the intelligence and learning displayed by them; for he remembered that in their sermons they had, without notes, without hesitation, and without a grammatical error, entered into the most subtle metaphysical reasoning (rather too much of it indeed!), and had preached with impassioned (perhaps too impassioned) eloquence, quoting poets and prose writers, ancient and modern, with the facility of good scholars—while they urged men and women to repent and flee to Christ, with all the fervour of men thoroughly in earnest. On the other hand, he knew that their opportunities for self-education were not great, and that they had to toil in the meantime for daily bread, at the rate of about 3 pounds a month!

Following Captain Dan, Oliver soon reached the ladder-way.

While slowly and in silence ascending the ladders; they heard a sound of music above them.

“Men coming down to work, singing,” said the captain, as they stood on a cross-beam to listen.

The sounds at first were very faint and inexpressibly sweet. By degrees they became more distinct, and Oliver could distinguish several voices singing in harmony, keeping time to the slow measured tread of their descending steps. There seemed a novelty, and yet a strange familiarity, in the strains as they were wafted softly down upon his ear, until they drew near, and the star-like candles of the miners became visible. Their manly voices then poured forth in full strength the glorious psalm-tune called “French,” which is usually sung in Scotland to the beautiful psalm beginning, “I to the hills will lift mine eyes.”

The men stopped abruptly on encountering their captain and the stranger. Exchanging a few words with the former, they stood aside on the beams to let them pass. A little boy came last. His small limbs were as active as those of his more stalwart comrades, and he exhibited no signs of fatigue. His treble voice, too, was heard high and tuneful among the others as they continued their descent and resumed the psalm. The sweet strains retired gradually, and faded in the depths below as they had first stolen on the senses from above; and the pleasant memory of them still remained with the young doctor when he emerged from the mine through the hole at the head of the shaft, and stood once more in the blessed sunshine!

Chapter Nine.

Treats of Difficulties to be Overcome

One afternoon a council—we may appropriately say of war—was held in St. Just. The scene of the council was the shop of Maggot, the blacksmith, and the members of it were a number of miners, the president being the worthy smith himself, who, with a sledge-hammer under his arm in the position of a short crutch, occupied the chair, if we may be allowed so to designate the raised hearth of the forge.

The war with poverty had not been very successfully waged of late, and, at the time of which we write, the enemy had apparently given the miners a severe check, in the way of putting what appeared to be an insuperable obstacle in their path.

“Now, lads,” said Maggot, with a slap on the leathern apron that covered his knees, “this is the way on it, an’ do ’ee be quiet and hould yer tongues while I do spaik.”

The other men, of whom there were nearly a dozen, nodded and said, “Go on, booy; thee’s knaw tin, sure;” by which expression they affirmed their belief that the blacksmith was a very knowing fellow.

“You do tell me that you’ve come so close to water that you’re ’fraid to go on? Is that so?”

“Iss, iss,” responded the others.

“Well, I’ll hole into the house, ef you do agree to give un a good pitch,” said Maggot.

“Agreed, one and all,” cried the miners.

In order that the reader may understand the drift of this conversation, it is necessary to explain that the indefatigable miner, David Trevarrow, whom we have already introduced in his submarine workshop, had, according to his plan, changed his ground, and transferred his labour to a more hopeful part of the mine.

For some time previous the men had been at work on a lode which was very promising, but they were compelled to cease following it, because it approached the workings of an old part of the mine which was known to be full of water. To tap this old part, or as the miners expressed it, to “hole into this house of water,” was, they were well aware, an exceedingly dangerous operation. The part of the mine to which we allude was not under the sea, but back a little from the shore, and was not very deep at that time. The “adit”—or water-conducting—level by which the spot was reached commenced at the cliffs, on a level with the seashore, and ran into the interior until it reached the old mine, about a quarter of a mile inland. Here was situated the “house,” which was neither more nor less than a number of old shafts and levels filled with water. As they had approached the old mine its near proximity was made disagreeably evident by the quantity of moisture that oozed through the crevices in the rocks—moisture which ere long took the form of a number of tiny rills—and at last began to spirt out from roof and sides in such a way that the miners became alarmed, and hesitated to continue to work in a place where they ran the most imminent risk of being suddenly drowned and swept into the sea, by the bursting of the rocks that still withstood the immense pressure of the confined water.