mout, James Penrose finished a
blast-hole, and called to Zackey Maggot to fetch the fuse.

Zackey had been working for a week past in connection with Penrose, and,
at the time he was called, was engaged in his wonted occupation of
pounding "tamping" wherewith to fill the hole.

Wherever Zackey chanced to be at work, he always made himself as
comfortable as circumstances would admit of. At the present time he had
discovered a little hollow or recess in the wall of the level, which he
had converted into a private chamber for the nonce.

There was a piece of flat rock on the floor of this recess, which Zackey
used as his anvil, and in front of which he kneeled. At his side was a
candle, stuck against the wall, where it poured a flood of light on
objects in its immediate neighbourhood, and threw the boy's magnified
shadow over the floor and against the opposite wall of the level. Above
his head was a small shelf, which he had ingeniously fixed in a narrow
part of the cell, and on this lay a few candles, a stone bottle of
water, a blasting fuse, and part of his lunch, which he had been unable
to consume, wrapped in a piece of paper. A small wooden box on the
floor, and a couple of pick-hilts, leaning against the wall, completed
the furniture of this subterranean grotto.

Zackey, besides being a searcher after metals, possessed an unusual
amount of metal in himself. He was one of those earnest, hard-working,
strong-hearted boys who pass into a state of full manhood, do the work
of men, and are looked upon as being men, before they have passed out of
their "teens." The boy's manhood, which was even at that early period
of his life beginning to show itself, consisted not in his looks or his
gait, although both were creditable, but in his firmness of purpose and
force of character. What Zackey undertook to do he always did. He
never left any work in a half-finished state, and he always employed
time diligently.

In the mine he commenced to labour the moment he entered, and he never
ceased, except during a short period for "kroust," until it was time to
shoulder his tools, and mount to the regions of light. Above ground, he
was as ready to skylark as the most volatile of his companions, but
underground he was a pattern of perseverance--a true Cornish miner in
miniature. His energy of character was doubtless due to his reckless
father, but his steadiness was the result of "Uncle Davy's" counsel and
example.

"Are