le accidents happen even now, and indeed,
had any one passed through a certain coal district on the day of which
we speak, a scene of desolation and misery would have presented itself;
for there had been a colliery accident!--a fearful explosion in a mine
through some (as yet) unknown cause, and they were now bringing up the
dead and dying. We too often, alas! read these sad accounts in the
newspapers, but cannot fully realize the intense anguish and despair
among the mining population when such a calamity befalls them. Try to
picture, then, the men, women, and even children, who were gathered in
anxious groups around the mouth of the pit, eagerly waiting to see if
any of their kindred were among the hapless victims; and when the brave
rescue party would appear above the shaft, bearing in their arms the
sufferers, wailing cries would rend the very air, as some poor woman
recognised her son or her 'good man' in the crushed and mangled form
they laid so tenderly down!

There was a little cottage standing among others of the same class, but
which from its appearance seemed to betoken the residence of one more
refined than the rest, for snowy curtains draped the windows, the panes
of which were scrupulously clean, and the doorsteps were as white as
hands could make them. Going now towards this cottage, a group of men
might be seen, carefully carrying a heavy burden, over which a sheet
was spread. It was their foreman--a man loved and respected by them all,
and the hearts of these rough colliers beat sadly, as they bore him thus
towards his once happy home!

The rumour of the catastrophe, and of her husband being one among the
many poor sufferers, had burst upon his wife like the surging of an
angry wave, overwhelming her with its force, and she sat with ashen
cheeks and quivering lips, listening with bated breath for that which
she knew must come, the while convulsively clasping in her arms their
only child, their fair-haired Davie. But when at last she heard the
measured tread of those who bore him coming nearer and nearer to her
door, she rose, with a shivering sob, to meet him, as she had ever done,
with a loving smile, though now her heart was full of anguish. And he
knew her, for he put out his poor crushed hand for her to take, faintly
murmuring,--

'My poor, poor girl!'

Tenderly, as with the gentle touch of woman, those rugged men laid him
upon the bed from which he had risen in full health and strength, and
th