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Updated: May 9, 2025
"What's that?" exclaimed Oliver. "It's only the kibbles," replied Captain Dan. Before the captain could explain what kibbles were, these reckless buckets met, with a bang, close to Oliver's cheek, and rebounded on the beams that protected him from their fury. Naturally the young man shrank a little from a noise so loud and so near. He was at once scraped down on the other side by the pump-rod!
This "easing down" a great number of fathoms was by no means an easy process, as those know well who have seen a pair of kibbles go banging up and down a shaft.
All this time they had not met with a miner, or with any sign of human life unless the pump and kibbles could be regarded as such for they had been hitherto traversing the old levels and workings of the mine, but at last, during one of their pauses, they heard the faint sound of chip, chip, chip, in the far distance. "Miners?" inquired Oliver.
On the other side of the shaft an arrangement of beams and partially broken boards formed the traversing "ways" or tube, up which were drawn the kibbles these last being large iron buckets used for lifting ore to the surface. Between the pump-rod and the kibble-way there was just room for the ladders upon which Captain Dan, followed by Oliver, now stepped.
"Why, whatever brought 'ee here?" said Trevarrow. "The kibble, sure," replied the man, exhibiting his knuckles, which were cut and bleeding a good deal. "I did come by the chain, anyhow." This was indeed true. Frankey, as his mates called him, was at that time the "lander" in charge of the kibbles at the surface.
This shaft was very wet, water dropped and spirted about in fine spray everywhere, and the rounds of the ladders were wet and greasy with much-squeezed slime. It would seem as though the kibbles had known that a stranger was about to descend and had waited for him, for no sooner did Oliver get on the ladder than they began to move the one to ascend full, and the other to descend empty.
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.
Massive kibbles, such as were used in coal mines half a century ago, are arranged alongside a winding engine, built in the middle of the century, and evidently designed for hauling the kibbles from a depth of 1000 feet. Nothing less than horse-power will stir the trucks for underground use, and their design is distinctly of the antique type.
Frankey had emptied one of the kibbles, and had given the signal to the boy attending the horse to "lower away," when he inadvertently stepped into the shaft. With ready presence of mind the man caught the chain and clung to it, but the boy, being prevented by a pile of rubbish from seeing what had occurred, eased him down, supposing him to be the kibble!
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!
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