all by and by," said the man condescendingly; "and
if yo'll take my bit of advice, yo'll let the men tak' care o'
theirsens."

Philip Hexton must have walked in and out quite a couple of miles,
examining ventilating-doors, seeing that the boys who opened and shut
them for the corves to pass were doing their duty, and the like; and,
trifling as it may sound, a great deal depends in a coal-mine upon such
a thing as the opening and shutting of a door, for by means of these
doors the current of air that is sucked, as it were, through the
passages of the pit by the great furnace at the bottom of the shaft is
altered in its course, and turned down this or that passage, sweeping
out the foul air or gas, and making safe the pit. Hence, then, the
neglect of one boy may alter the whole ventilation of some part of a
mine, the purifying draught may be stopped from coursing through some
dangerous gallery where the gas comes singing out of the seams, a light
be taken inadvertently there, and ruin and death be the result.

The young deputy was going on thinking to himself whether it would not
be possible to invent a process by which the dangerous gas of a mine
might be collected in great gasholders, and then burned within gauze
shades for the lighting up of the pit, when the distant
_chip_--_chip_--_chip_ ringing and echoing where the men were at work in
the new four-foot grew less persistent, and in place of becoming louder
as they drew nearer, gradually began to cease, as if first one man and
then another had thrown aside his took.

"Hadn't we better turn down here now, Master Hexton?" said the overman.

"No; I want to inspect the new four-foot," replied Philip.

"My lad, thee needn't go theer to-neet," said the overman. "That's all
right, I warrant."

"He has some reason for stopping me from going there," was Philip
Hexton's first thought. "The men have ceased working; something must be
wrong."

"This is the gainest wayer," said the overman, turning sharply down a
passage, light in hand, of course thinking that his companion would
follow him, for he knew well enough what the stoppage meant, and he did
not want the young man to see the miners smoke.

But Philip Hexton was made of different metal to what he expected, and,
careless of being left in the gloom of one of those weird passages, the
young man stood for a moment peering forward into the black darkness,
and, making out a faint glimmer of light, stretched out his