man, holding out the nail; "a
contemptible pick-lock, to open the lamps that are locked up, by a wise
rule, for your safety; and you--you great mass of bone and muscle, you
call yourself a man! Shame upon you, shame!"

Without another word, Philip picked up the extinct lamp just as the
overman came up in search of him, placed it under his arm, signed to the
new-comer to lead on, and followed, hot, flushed, and angry, along the
dark galleries, and out of the pit.

"Yah!" growled Ebenezer Parks, breaking the silence that lasted some few
minutes after Philip's steps had died away; "he's nobbut a boy."

"Nobbut a boy, eh?" said one of the men who had held him; "well, all I
can say is, as I hope my bairn'll grow up just like un."

"He was man enew to tackle thee, Eben," said another.

"Ay, he's a plucked un," said another. "I like the lad, that I do."

"Like him!" growled Eben, glaring vindictively round at his companions.
"Man enew for me? Sithee: you know me, lads, and what I can do."

There was no reply.

"Yo' all know me, and what I can do, and do you think I'm going to let a
bit of a boy, wi' his pretence about his larning and studies, bunch me
and ca' me a fool and a brute when I know more about t'mine wi' one o'
my hands than he does wi' his whole body."

Still there was no reply, the men taking up their picks and looking
uneasily at the speaker.

"Tell 'ee what. I'm a man, I am, and a man o' my word. I said I'd put
my mark on him for this job; and I will. Yo' all hear me, don't 'ee? I
say I'll put my mark upon him."

The big miner, with his fierce blackened face and rolling eyes, looked
vindictive enough then to be guilty of any atrocity as he seemed to be
seeking for an answer.

"Yo' hear me? I say I'll put my mark upon him."

"Not thou, lad," said one of his companions at last.

"I tell 'ee I will. Never mind when or wheer. And now wheer's the man
as'll go and tell him what I say?"

No one spoke, and soon after that was heard the regular metallic
_chip_--_chip_--_chip_ of the picks in the black wall of coal, Ebenezer
Parks muttering to himself the while, and thinking of how he could best
revenge himself upon "that boy."

CHAPTER FIVE.

'TWIXT FATHER AND SON.

When her son went home, Mrs Hexton was sitting up very straight and
stern-looking in her chair, with a knitted stocking in one hand, a
worsted-threaded needle in the other, and a handkerchief tied over her
head to keep off