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The coal-miner was, however, still a creation of the future, and even as peat is collected in Ireland at the present day for fuel, without the laborious process of mining for it, so those people living in coal-bearing districts found their needs satisfied by the quantity of coal, small as it was, which appeared ready to hand on the sides of the carboniferous mountains.
When we consider that this plateau has a height above the sea- level equal to that of Skiddaw, we can easily imagine what the long eight months' winter here is like. For the greater part of the time the country is under several feet of snow, and the Caussenard warms his poor tenement as best he can with peat.
On all sides was heard, "Mauve qui peat; we are going to be blown up, we are all lost;" and the maledictions, lamentations, blasphemies, were sufficient to make your hair stand on end. The aides-de-camp of his Majesty and those of Marshal Soult galloped in every direction, forcing their way through the crowds, stopping the drummers, and asking them, "Why do you beat the alarm?
In a little time Ronny came back to us, and we made our way into Alastair's house, a place where a grown man could stand broad-soled on the clay floor and touch the rafters of the roof with the flat of his palms. The peat fire was smouldering on the floor, and the reek made its way out at the rigging.
Owing to the conditions of their growth, the deposits formed in marine marshes contain no distinct peat, the nearest approach to that substance being the tangle of wirelike roots which covers the upper foot or so of the accumulation.
As far as I could judge, the figure was that of a tall, thin man. He stood with his legs a little separated, his arms folded, his head bowed, as if he were brooding over that enormous wilderness of peat and granite which lay before him. He might have been the very spirit of that terrible place. It was not the convict. This man was far from the place where the latter had disappeared.
It is only in colder regions and when covered with water that the destruction of the organic matter stops short of decay. But such incomplete fermentation is still going on in many parts of the world, and by its means vegetable accumulations are being converted into peat. This formation of peat appears to be a first step in the formation of denser coal.
The tower was in a state of decay and roofless, but a wandering tribe of ragged Eeliauts had taken up their quarters inside, and watched us suspiciously through the grey smoke of a damp, spluttering peat fire.
Ralph knelt long at his father's side, and when he rose from his knees it was with a calmer but a heavier heart. "Surely God's hand is upon me," he murmured. The mystery would yield no other meaning. "Gone to his account with the burden, not of my guilt, but of my fate, upon him." Ralph walked to the fire and turned over the expiring peat. It gave a fitful flicker.
He added up all that he could get together in a hurry from outstanding debts, but the sum was not sufficient by half to cover the expenses of the funeral. The three cart-loads of peat, too, which he could send into town to-morrow and the day after, would make but little difference. Then he took a piece of paper and began to calculate the expenses: A coffin ....... 15 thalers.
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