Very well, Mr. Starr."

"And your mother?"

"She is well, too."

"Was it your father who wrote telling me to come to the Yarrow shaft?"

"No, it was I."

"Then did Simon Ford send me a second letter to contradict the first?"
asked the engineer quickly.

"No, Mr. Starr," answered the young miner.

"Very well," said Starr, without speaking of the anonymous letter. Then,
continuing, "And can you tell me what you father wants with me?"

"Mr. Starr, my father wishes to tell you himself."

"But you know what it is?"

"I do, sir."

"Well, Harry, I will not ask you more. But let us get on, for I'm
anxious to see Simon Ford. By-the-bye, where does he live?"

"In the mine."

"What! In the Dochart pit?"

"Yes, Mr. Starr," replied Harry.

"Really! has your family never left the old mine since the cessation of
the works?"

"Not a day, Mr. Starr. You know my father. It is there he was born, it
is there he means to die!"

"I can understand that, Harry. I can understand that! His native mine!
He did not like to abandon it! And are you happy there?"

"Yes, Mr. Starr," replied the young miner, "for we love one another, and
we have but few wants."

"Well, Harry," said the engineer, "lead the way."

And walking rapidly through the streets of Callander, in a few minutes
they had left the town behind them.

CHAPTER III. THE DOCHART PIT

HARRY FORD was a fine, strapping fellow of five and twenty. His grave
looks, his habitually passive expression, had from childhood been
noticed among his comrades in the mine. His regular features, his deep
blue eyes, his curly hair, rather chestnut than fair, the natural grace
of his person, altogether made him a fine specimen of a lowlander.
Accustomed from his earliest days to the work of the mine, he was strong
and hardy, as well as brave and good. Guided by his father, and impelled
by his own inclinations, he had early begun his education, and at an age
when most lads are little more than apprentices, he had managed to make
himself of some importance, a leader, in fact, among his fellows, and
few are very ignorant in a country which does all it can to remove
ignorance. Though, during the first years of his youth, the pick was
never out of Harry's hand, nevertheless the young miner was not long in
acquiring sufficient knowledge to raise him into the upper class of the
miners, and he would certainly have succeeded his father as overman of
the Dochart pit, if the coll