dark nave. Harry was evidently
preoccupied, and frequently turned, trying to catch, either some distant
noise, or remote glimmer of light.

But behind and before, all was silence and darkness.

CHAPTER IV. THE FORD FAMILY

TEN minutes afterwards, James Starr and Harry issued from the principal
gallery. They were now standing in a glade, if we may use this word
to designate a vast and dark excavation. The place, however, was not
entirely deprived of daylight. A few rays straggled in through
the opening of a deserted shaft. It was by means of this pipe that
ventilation was established in the Dochart pit. Owing to its lesser
density, the warm air was drawn towards the Yarrow shaft. Both air and
light, therefore, penetrated in some measure into the glade.

Here Simon Ford had lived with his family ten years, in a subterranean
dwelling, hollowed out in the schistous mass, where formerly stood the
powerful engines which worked the mechanical traction of the Dochart
pit.

Such was the habitation, "his cottage," as he called it, in which
resided the old overman. As he had some means saved during a long life
of toil, Ford could have afforded to live in the light of day, among
trees, or in any town of the kingdom he chose, but he and his wife and
son preferred remaining in the mine, where they were happy together,
having the same opinions, ideas, and tastes. Yes, they were quite fond
of their cottage, buried fifteen hundred feet below Scottish soil.
Among other advantages, there was no fear that tax gatherers, or rent
collectors would ever come to trouble its inhabitants.

At this period, Simon Ford, the former overman of the Dochart pit, bore
the weight of sixty-five years well. Tall, robust, well-built, he would
have been regarded as one of the most conspicuous men in the district
which supplies so many fine fellows to the Highland regiments.

Simon Ford was descended from an old mining family, and his ancestors
had worked the very first carboniferous seams opened in Scotland.
Without discussing whether or not the Greeks and Romans made use of
coal, whether the Chinese worked coal mines before the Christian era,
whether the French word for coal (HOUILLE) is really derived from the
farrier Houillos, who lived in Belgium in the twelfth century, we may
affirm that the beds in Great Britain were the first ever regularly
worked. So early as the eleventh century, William the Conqueror divided
the produce of the Newcastl