The Purple Cloud
Page 26
entrance. Myprying lantern showed me here only nineteen dead, men of variousnations, and at the far end two holes in the floor, large enough toadmit the body, through which from below came up a sound of fallingwater. Both of these holes, I could see, had been filled with cementconcrete--wisely, I fancy, for a current of air from somewhere seemed tobe now passing through them: and this would have resulted in the deathof the hiders. Both, however, of the fillings had been broken through,one partially, the other wholly, by the ignorant, I presume, whothought to hide in a secret place yet beyond, where they may havebelieved, on seeing the artificial work, that others were. I had my eara long time at one of these openings, listening to that mysterious chantdown below in a darkness most murky and dismal; and afterwards, spurredby the stubborn will which I had to be thorough, I went back, took anumber of outer robes from the bodies, tied them well together, then oneend round the nearest pillar, and having put my mouth to the hole,calling: _'Anyone? Anyone?'_ let myself down by the rope of garments,the candle at my head: I had not, however, descended far into thosemournful shades, when my right foot plunged into water: and instantlythe feeling of terror pierced me that all the evil things in theuniverse were at my leg to drag me down to Hell: and I was up quickerthan I went down: nor did my flight cease till, with a sigh ofdeliverance, I found myself in open air.
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After this, seeing that the autumn warmth was passing away, I set myselfwith more system to my task, and within the next six months worked withsteadfast will, and strenuous assiduity, seeking, not indeed for a manin a mine, but for some evidence of the possibility that a man might bealive, visiting in that time Northumberland and Durham, Fife andKinross, South Wales and Monmouthshire, Cornwall and the Midlands, thelead mines of Derbyshire, of Allandale and other parts ofNorthumberland, of Alston Moor and other parts of Cumberland, ofArkendale and other parts of Yorkshire, of the western part of Durham,of Salop, of Cornwall, of the Mendip Hills of Somersetshire, of Flint,Cardigan, and Montgomery, of Lanark and Argyll, of the Isle of Man, ofWaterford and Down; I have gone down the 360-ft. Grand Pipe iron ladderof the abandoned graphite-mine at Barrowdale in Cumberland, half-way upa mountain 2,000 feet high; and visited where cobalt and manganese oreis mined in pockets at the Foel Hiraeddog mine near Rhyl in Flintshire,and the lead and copper Newton Stewart workings in Galloway; the Bristolcoal-fields, and mines of South Staffordshire, where, as in Somerset,Gloucester, and Shropshire, the veins are thin, and the mining-system isthe 'long-wall,' whereas in the North, and Wales, the system is the'pillar-and stall'; I have visited the open workings for iron ores ofNorthamptonshire, and the underground stone-quarries, and theunderground slate-quarries, with their alternate pillars and chambers,in the Festiniog district of North Wales; also the rock-salt workings;the tin, copper and cobalt workings of Cornwall; and where the mineralswere brought to the surface on the backs of men, and where they werebrought by adit-levels provided with rail-roads, and where, as in oldCornish mines, there are two ladders in the shaft, moved up and downalternately, see-saw, and by skipping from one to the other at rightmoments you ascended or descended, and where the drawing-up is by a ginor horse-whinn, with vertical drum; the Tisbury and Chilmark quarries inWiltshire, the Spinkwell and Cliffwood quarries in Yorkshire; and everytunnel, and every recorded hole: for something urged within me, saying:'You must be sure first, or you can never be--yourself.'
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At the Farnbrook Coal-field, in the Red Colt Pit, my inexperience nearlyended my life: for though I had a minute theoretical knowledge of allBritish workings, I was, in my practical relation to them, like a manwho has learnt seamanship on shore. At this place the dead wereaccumulated, I think beyond precedent, the dark plain around for atleast three miles being as strewn as a reaped field with stacks, and,near the bank, much more strewn than stack-fields, filling the onlyhouse within sight of the pit-mouth--the small place provided for thecompany's officials--and even lying over the great mountain-heap ofwark, composed of the shale and _debris_ of the working. Here I arrivedon the morning of the 15th December, to find that, unlike the others,there was here no rope-ladder or other contrivance fixed by thefugitives in the ventilating-shaft, which, usually, is not very deep,being also the pumping-shaft, containing a plug-rod at one end of thebeam-engine which works the pumps; but looking down the shaft, Idiscerned a vague mass of clothes, and afterwards a thing that couldonly be a rope-ladder, which a batch of the fugitives, by hanging to ittheir united weight, must have dragged down upon themselves, to preventthe descent of yet others. My only way of going down, therefore, was bythe pit-mouth, and as this was an important place, after some hesitationI decided, very rashly. First I provided for my coming up again bygetting a great coil of half-inch rope, which I found in the bailiff'soffice, probably 130 fathoms long, rope at most mines being soplentiful, that it almost seemed as if each fugitive had providedhimself in that way. This length of rope I threw over the beam of thebeam-engine in the bite where it sustains the rod, and paid one enddown the shaft, till both were at the bottom: in this way I could comeup, by tying one rope-end to the rope-ladder, hoisting it, fastening theother end below, and climbing the ladder; and I then set to work tolight the pit-mouth engine-fire to effect my descent. This done, Istarted the engine, and brought up the cage from the bottom, the 300yards of wire-rope winding with a quaint deliberateness round the drum,reminding me of a camel's nonchalant leisurely obedience. When I saw thefour meeting chains of the cage-roof emerge, the pointed roof, andtwo-sided frame, I stopped the ascent, and next attached to theknock-off gear a long piece of twine which I had provided; carried theother end to the cage, in which I had five companions; lit myhat-candle, which was my test for choke-damp, and the Davy; and withoutthe least reflection, pulled the string. That hole was 900 feet deep.First the cage gave a little up-leap, and then began to descend--quitenormally, I thought, though the candle at once went out--nor had I theleast fear; a strong current of air, indeed, blew up the shaft: but thathappens in shafts. _This_ current, however, soon became too vehementlyboisterous for anything: I saw the lamp-light struggle, the dead cheeksquiver, I heard the cage-shoes go singing down the wire-rope guides,and quicker we went, and quicker, that facile descent of Avernus,slipping lightly, then raging, with sparks at the shoes and guides, anda hurricane in my ears and eyes and mouth. When we bumped upon the'dogs' at the bottom, I was tossed a foot upwards with the stern-facedothers, and then lay among them in the eight-foot space withoutconsciousness.
It was only when I sat, an hour later, disgustedly reflecting on thisincident, that I remembered that there was always some 'hand-working' ofthe engine during the cage-descents, an engineman reversing the actionby a handle at every stroke of the piston, to prevent bumping. However,the only permanent injury was to the lamp: and I found many othersinside.
I got out into the coal-hole, a large black hall 70 feet square by 15high, the floor paved with iron sheets; there were some little holesround the wall, dug for some purpose which I never could discover, somewaggons full of coal and shale standing about, and all among thewaggons, and on them, and under them, bodies, clothes. I got a new lamp,pouring in my own oil, and went down a long steep ducky-road, veryrough, with numerous rollers, over which ran a rope to the pit-mouthfor drawing up the waggons; and in the sides here, at regular intervals,man-holes, within which to rescue one's self from down-tearing waggons;and within these man-holes, here and there, a dead, and in others everysort of food, and at one place on the right a high dead heap, and theair here hot at 64 or 65 degrees, and getting hotter with the descent.
The ducky led me down into a standing--a space with a turn-table--ofunusual size, which I made my base of operations for exploring. Here wasa very considerable number of punt-shaped putts on carriages, and alsowaggons, such as took the new-mined coal from putt to pit-mouth; andraying out from this open standing, several avenues, some ascending asguggs, some descending as dipples, and the dead here all arranged ingroups,
the heads of this group pointing up this gugg, of that grouptoward that twin-way, of that other down that dipple, and the centralspace, where weighing was done, almost empty: and the darksome silenceof this deep place, with all these multitudes, I found extremelygravitating and hypnotic, drawing me, too, into their great Passion ofSilence in which they lay, all, all, so fixed and veteran; and at onetime I fell a-staring, nearer perhaps to death and the empty Gulf thanI knew; but I said I would be strong, and not sink into their habit ofstillness, but let them keep to their own way, and follow their ownfashion, and I would keep to my own way, and follow my own fashion, noryield to them, though I was but one against many; and I roused myselfwith a shudder; and setting to work, caught hold of the drum-chain of along gugg, and planting my feet in the chogg-holes in which rested thewheels of the putt-carriages that used to come roaring down the gugg,