consisting of miners and agricultural labourers--were
assembled, either as actors, assistants, or lookers-on, at a display of
various kinds of fire-works that was then going forward.

A sight so welcome to our little hero's hopes imparted fresh vigour to
his limbs; and he darted down the steep declivity at the imminent danger
of his neck, but happily reached the bottom in safety, just as the light
which had aided him in his descent expired, which then made every thing
appear even darker than before. Consequently, Frank, not espying the
brook that intervened betwixt himself and the object he was striving to
reach, tumbled over head and ears into one of its deepest pools; but
being a swimmer, and the stream but narrow though the pool was deep, he
soon attained the summit of the opposite bank; when a hedge, almost
close at hand, alone seemed to separate him from the people whose
assistance he was so anxious to secure. The hedge was easily clambered
over, though an impediment he had not anticipated awaited him on the
other side, in the form of a small fishpond, into which he bundled, and
so got a second ducking. But as this pond, or rather that portion of it
into which he had fallen, was not deep, he soon splashed across it, to
the amazement of the assembled party who witnessed the feat, which a
fresh blue-light, just then ignited, afforded them ample means of
doing--the heavy souse he had made in tumbling in, and the splutter he
made in floundering out again, having already attracted their attention
to the spot--which, as he seemed to have selected the very widest part
of the whole pool, was the very last of all others any one could have
suspected an entry to have been made on the premises.

Unconscious of the surprise he had thus excited, Frank Trevelyan rushed
forward into the midst of the assembled group, and seizing hold upon a
stout little old gentleman who seemed to be the leading man of the
party, endeavoured, as well as his exhausted state would permit, to
explain the fearful misadventure which had just occurred. The
intelligence excited an exclamation of horror from all who heard it.

"What a dreadful death!" exclaimed the old gentleman.

"Oh! don't say so, for heaven's sake," cried Frank--"He may be, and I
fear is, much hurt; but I trust he may yet be saved."

"Impossible!" said half a dozen voices. "Why, the shaft's hundreds of
feet deep."

"But my companion is yet far from the bottom of it," resumed
Frank