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Now, I tell 'ee what it is: you lev it to me. I'll hole to the house. It don't matter much what happens to me." "No, 'ee won't," said Maggot stoutly; "what I do promise to do I will do." "But if you die?" said David. "Well, what if I do? we have all to come to that some day, sooner or later." "Are you prepared to die?" asked Trevarrow earnestly. "Now, David, don't 'ee trouble me with that.
"Zackey has forgot it," said Trevarrow, looking round. "It don't matter; hand me the borer." "No, I won't," said Trevarrow decidedly, as he grasped the iron tool in question. "Ho! Zackey booy, throw down the tampin'-bar." This was done, and the operation of filling the hole continued, while Trevarrow commented somewhat severely on his companion's recklessness.
Penrose and David Trevarrow had always been staunch friends. After the accident to the former, they became more closely united than before.
But stout David Trevarrow did not think his lot peculiarly hard. His workshop was a low narrow tunnel deep down under the surface of the earth ay, and deep under the bottom of the sea! His daily sun was a tallow candle, which rose regularly at seven in the morning and set at three in the afternoon. His atmosphere was sadly deficient in life-giving oxygen, and much vitiated by gunpowder smoke.
One of those ministers of our Lord happened to meet with David Trevarrow, and was the means of opening his eyes to many great and previously unknown truths.
But David Trevarrow had neither wife, child, nor mother to support, so he could afford to toil for poor pay, and, being of a remarkably hopeful and cheery disposition, he returned home that afternoon resolved to persevere in his unproductive toil, in the hope that at last he should discover a good "bunch of copper," or a "keenly lode of tin."
The air at the "end" of the level in which Maggot and Trevarrow worked was very bad, and, for some time past, men had been engaged in sinking a winze from the level above to connect the two, and send in a supply of fresh air by creating a new channel of circulation.
Among others, David Trevarrow excelled and suffered. No one could beat him in running up the ladders; but one day, on reaching the surface, blood issued from his mouth, and thenceforth his racing and wrestling days were ended, and his spirit was broken. A long illness succeeded. Then he began to mend. Slowly and by degrees his strength returned, but not his joyous spirit.
Trevarrow was preparing to ascend by the windlass, intending to leave his comrade to light the fuse and come up after him. Meanwhile Maggot found that the fuse was too long. He discovered this after it was fixed in the hole, and, unobserved by his companion, proceeded to cut it by means of an iron tool and a flat stone.
Zackey, who had been in the mine all day, and was tired, tied his tools at each end of a rope, so that they might be slung over his shoulder and leave his hands free. Trevarrow treated his in the same way, and, removing his candle from the wall, fixed it on the front of his hat by the simple process of sticking thereto the lump of clay to which it was attached.
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