The White Virgin

“Same way again, sir?”

“No; we’ll try that gallery off to the left. That third one I noticed last time.”

“Why, that’s right half a mile away, and goes to nowhere. That’s never been worked.”

Reed faced round to him sharply.

“Do you object to your job, my man?” he said; “because if so, speak at once, and send down one of the others.”

“Oh, I don’t object,” said the man surlily. “I’ll go where you won’t get them to venture. I was thinking about you.”

“Then don’t think about me, but about your duties.”

“That’s all right enough, sir; only if a regular consulting engineer came down, he’d chip off a bit here, and a bit there, and know directly what a mine’s worth. I took stock of this old place last time, and can tell you now without your troubling yourself to go a step farther. ’Sides, I’ve been down since.”

“Indeed!”

“Oh yes. I’d nothing to do, so it was natural I should come down and have a look of the property I was to take care of.”

“Well, and what estimate did you set on it – as to value?” said Reed, with a smile.

“Oh, about the usual figure,” said the man, with a peculiar laugh. “It’s worth just as much as you can get out of your shareholders.”

“Yes?”

“That’s it, sir; I’ve not been busy over mines ten years for nothing. Not a penny more. The old folks cleared it out clean enough, all but the patch to the right down yonder.”

“Then you think the whole thing is a swindle, Mr Sturgess, eh?”

“Oh no, sir. I don’t say that,” replied the man, with a chuckle. “I only say it’s a mine as will show up well when it has got all its new machinery. Ought to make a good job for a couple of years for a few people. Shall I show you where you can get a few good specimens? I know of some bits as are pretty rich.”

“No, thank you,” said Reed quietly. “I’m not a regular consulting engineer, my man, and we came down to do a good day’s exploring. I want to see the whole of the workings.”

“Then it’ll take you a week, sir.”

“Very well, then, let it take me a week. Now, then, let’s waste no more time.”

Michael Sturgess uttered a sound something like a grunt, and holding the lantern before him led on along the rocky cavernous passage, which was wonderfully free from fallen stones, the rock having formed endless pillar buttresses and arch-like processes of stalactitic growth, cementing and holding all firmly together.

But there was a wonderful sameness as they went on, following the course of what had once been a lode of ore, which had finally been cleared out, leaving its shape in the rock, and forming a tunnel as the ancient miners worked their way.

Far down the main gallery of the mine Sturgess paused by a narrow rift four or five feet across, and running up to nothing some fifteen feet overhead. The rock was different here, being a mass of cemented together fragments of the old geological stone lilies, and looked as if some modern shock had riven the place in two, for the lines on either side suggested that if compressed they would still fit together.

“Mean to go along here, sir?” said Sturgess, holding up the lanthorn, so as to display the stone of which the sides were formed.

“Yes; go on,” said Reed shortly.

“There’s been no working here, sir; this is all natural split in the rock.”

“I am perfectly aware of that, and we are wasting time.”

“Oh, all right, sir,” said the man surlily, and he strode in through the opening, walking as fast as he could, like a sulky, offended schoolboy, for a few dozen yards; but this soon came to an end, for in place of a regular beaten well-used way, they were now compelled to pick their path over broken marble, loose angular masses, and the accumulated débris which had fallen from above, while in places they had to stride from side to side of a narrow crevice which ran straight down.

But the place attracted Clive Reed as they went on and on, with the rift they traversed growing wider, and opening out into a cavern now, or contracting again, till in places their passage was so narrow that they had to squeeze through into curious-looking chambers in the rock. Then the way split and branched off into different passages, suggestive of endless labyrinths leading right away through the untrodden bowels of the earth. Below them in one place ran a good-sized stream, unseen as it threaded its way among the broken stones, but making its presence known by its musical gurgling, till, after they had been walking above it for about ten minutes, Sturgess stood still, holding up the light at the edge of a gulf, down which the water plunged with a dull, hissing roar.

“Won’t go no farther this way, I suppose, sir?” he said, rather mockingly.

Reed made no reply, but stepped forward close to the man’s side, shaded his eyes, and peered into darkness, which he could not pierce.

He stooped to pick up a stone and hurl it outward, and listened till it fell and splintered, and the fragments went rattling down for some distance, before the noise they made was overcome by the roar of the water.

“Along here,” said Reed at last, and he pointed to his left.

Sturgess hesitated for a few moments, and then began to move cautiously along the side of the vast cavern, a place apparently untouched, and very rarely, if ever, visited by man.

At last he stopped short.

“I don’t want to show no white feathers, Mr Reed, sir,” he said, “but our candles’ll only last a certain time, and we’ve got to get back.”

“I have matches and three candles in my pocket,” said the young engineer quietly.

“But I don’t know whether I can find my way back, sir, now; whilst if we go any farther, I’m sure I can’t.”

“I have it all perfectly impressed on my brain,” said Reed quietly. “But I do not want to go much farther. I only want to examine the rock here and there. Take care, man: mind!”

He darted out his right hand, caught the miner by the coat and saved him from plunging down into the black abyss beneath them, for in taking a step forward, Sturgess had trodden on a piece of loose shell marble, which gave way and one foot went down.

He dropped the lanthorn, though, and it went below, to hang in a crevice upon its side, threatening to go out; but as soon as Sturgess had a little recovered himself and sat down to start wiping his forehead, Reed began to descend.

“Don’t do that, sir,” cried Sturgess hoarsely. “Light your candle.”

“No; I can get the lanthorn,” said Reed quietly; and he went on descending cautiously till, getting well hold of the nearest projecting fragment with his left hand, he bent down lower and lower to try and reach the handle of their lamp.

But, try how he would, it was always a few inches beyond his reach; and at last, with the candle within guttering, flaring, and blackening the glass, threatening to crack it and then go out, Reed drew himself up again to try and get a fresh footing upon the side of the chasm.

He looked up to see, faintly, a white face gazing down at him, and, as their eyes met, the man said hoarsely —

“Don’t do that, sir. Come up and light a fresh bit. If you slip, I shall be all in darkness. It’s horrid to have to come to one’s end in a place like this.”

“Sympathy for himself, and not for me,” thought Reed. “I have the lights.”

Just at that moment he noted something just level with where he stood, where there was a plain demarcation between two kinds of stone; and, whereas on the left all was shelly fossil, on his right it was limestone; and again, with a sparkling and gem-like vein of quartz full of great crystals of galena.

“Do you hear, sir? Come back here, and let’s get out of this,” cried Sturgess again. “It arn’t fair to a man to bring him into such a hole. This isn’t a mine.”

“My good fellow,” said Reed quietly, “you are alarming yourself about nothing. I can get the lanthorn directly, and it is a pity to leave it here.”

The miner uttered a hoarse sigh which was almost a groan, and crouched on the rugged shelf, looking down with starting eyes, as Reed glanced quickly once more at the face of the rock, and then, taking fast hold of another projection, he tried again to get a little lower, and had looked beyond the lanthorn, to see that he was on a very rapid slope, going down to unknown depths for aught that he could tell; for all below the dim light was black – a terrible void, out of which came the splash and roar of falling water.

He could not help a shudder as his mind raised up horrors in connection with that black darkness, and the possibility of his falling and going down and down into some rushing water which was waiting to bear him away.

But it was only a momentary nervousness. Then he smiled to himself, and thought of home and of Janet Praed – how horrified she would be if she could see him then.

“And nothing whatever to mind but imaginary fears,” he said to himself.

“Stop a minute, sir,” came in a hoarse whisper from above. “Give me the matches and candles, and I’ll strike another light.”

“And then I go to perdition for aught you care,” thought Clive Reed. “No, hang me if I do.”

He took no notice of the appeal, but lowered one foot, got a fresh hold, bent towards the lanthorn, extending his arm to the utmost, touched the handle, but it moved an inch, a stone broke from where he was standing, to go down with a rattle, and then, to the young man’s dismay, the lanthorn began to glide.

It was all in a moment. He bent down lower and made a sudden snatch, his left hand slipped from its hold, and he was falling, but in that brief instant he grasped the lanthorn. The next it was beneath him, the light was out, and with a rush of dislodged stones he felt himself rushing rapidly down the cavern side with the water roaring loudly in his ears, but pierced by a cry that robbed him of all power as thoroughly | as if he had received a paralytic stroke.

Chapter Six.

The Lead of Lead

“Ahoy there! Sturgess! Are you hurt?”

“Hurt, sir? No.”

“Then don’t make that noise, man. Any one would think you were a child, frightened at the dark.”

“But where are you, sir?”

“Down here, of course.”

“I thought you were killed, sir, and – and – ”

“That you were left alone in the dark, man. There, wait till I get a light.”

Michael Sturgess muttered an oath, and leaned forward over the sharp slope, as he wiped the great drops of fear-born perspiration from his face. “Child, am I?” he muttered. “I’ll let him see. Enough to scare anybody – place like this.”

He gazed downward as Reed, after a little manipulation of the damaged lanthorn, struck a light, which gleamed out some sixty feet below. Then the candle was relit, giving the man a faint glimpse of the horrible-looking slope, and lastly Reed began to climb up, slowly talking the while. “Of course it’s an ugly-looking place,” he said; “these underground limestone caverns always are, but it’s of no use to lose your nerve at the first emergency.”

There was a good-humoured contempt in the young engineer’s tones which enraged the big strong man above him as he stood looking down at the light.

“Like to scare him!” he muttered, as Reed climbed higher, rested when about half-way up, and raised the lanthorn above his head to gaze at the rock face before him, as if seeking for a good hand or foot hold.

“I daresay this place goes down for far enough,” he said, as he continued his climb, and kept on talking as if to take his companion’s attention; “it would be interesting to try and plumb the depth.”

“Shall I take the lanthorn?” said Sturgess, a minute or two later.

“No, thanks, I’ll carry it,” replied Reed, as he made his way to where Sturgess stood. “I shall want to look at the walls here and there as we go back. There! might have been worse. A bit scratched, and my clothes a little torn. I will go back to the regular old workings now. There has evidently never been anything done here.”

“No, sir; what I told you. No good here.”

“No good!” said Reed, with a laugh. “I think there’s a great deal of good.”

“What, workable stuff, sir?” said the man sharply. “Perhaps; but what I meant was this tremendous hole and the water. Why, Sturgess, man, it’s worth thousands.”

“Don’t see it, sir,” said the man roughly.

“I do. A natural drainage of the mine. No expenditure for keeping the workings dry.”

“Oh, yes, that’s right enough, sir,” said the man, with a laugh, “if you’ve got anything to work.”

“I’m afraid Mr Sturgess and I will not get on together,” said Reed to himself, as he led the way on, examining the wall from time to time, and now and then chipping off a piece for a specimen.

“If this cockney jockey’s going to be over me,” muttered Sturgess, “he’s got to be tough; but he don’t know everything.”

They reached the entrance to the grotto-like portion of the mine, where Reed halted, took out a sandwich-box and flask, and began to refresh himself, handing both to his companion first; and as Reed ate, he lifted the lanthorn from time to time, and examined the neighbouring walls, roof, and floor.

“All pretty well cleared out, sir,” said Sturgess, with a grin.

“Yes – clean,” replied Reed quietly; and soon after they resumed their exploration, following the track of the old veins here and there through an almost interminable maze of passages, and going farther and farther into the depths of the mountain. But it was always the same, passage after passage through the limestone, following the old lode of lead ore which had been diligently quarried and picked out any time during, probably, the past two thousand years, and there was no plan, no special arrangement in driving the various tunnels. Where nature had run her mineral in veins, there the old miners had followed; and, as Reed had noticed before, there was scarcely a passage that had water lying about, the drippings from the roof and cracks in the walls having worn for themselves little channels, which found their way into others, and then by degrees went to swell the fall by whose side he had stood some hours before.

At last, with his bag growing heavy with specimens, and the supply of candles getting less, and after the termination of the workings had been found and examined in several places, Reed stopped.

“Back now,” he said.

“Satisfied, sir?”

“Oh yes, for to-day. I shall follow the other leads, of course, till I have well examined all, and mapped it out.”

“And settled where you shall begin work, sir,” said the man, with a grin.

“Oh, I have settled that,” replied Reed.

Sturgess stared.

“Been a lot of good stuff got out of here, sir, no doubt.”

“Evidently.”

“More than there ever will be again.”

“That’s more than we can say, Sturgess. Take the lanthorn now, and lead on straight for the mouth. Good heavens! Why, it’s five o’clock.”

“Yes, sir, I thought it must be,” said the man.

“Time goes when one is interested. There, have a cigar. Light up. We have not done a bad’s day work. Can you lead back pretty straight?”

“Oh yes, sir, I can manage that,” said the man confidently; but he had been trudging along, sending his and the young man’s shadows grotesquely dancing upon the roof for quite an hour and a half before the end of the main artery of the mine was reached, with the sloping shaft up to the daylight – “to grass,” Sturgess termed it – but here there was no response to their hails for nearly an hour, the men having gone.

“The scoundrels!” Reed cried at last. “Well, it’s risky work, but we can’t stop down here. We must either go back into the mine, try for the other shaft, which may be climbable, or you or I must go up that rope.”

“Who’s to climb a rope like that, sir?” growled Sturgess; “and how do we know that the end’s properly fastened? – There they are!”

For a faint murmur of voices was heard from far above, and now an answer came to their hail, and a minute later a voice shouted —

“All right below?”

“Yes,” cried Reed. “Get in the loop, my man. – Ahoy there! haul up.”

The rope tightened and Sturgess was raised from his feet and went up slowly, leaving Reed below in the darkness.

But it was all light to the young engineer, whose tired face shone with joy and excitement.

“The blind cavern lizards,” he said, half aloud. “I knew it. God bless the old dad, what a brain he has! He’ll be delighted with my report; and Janet, my darling, you shall have a home that will be the envy of all we know, and make the old Doctor proud of us. My darling!” he said softly, as, with his eyes half closed, he raised up her fair young face before him. “Hah! poor old Jessop, too. He must have a bit of the luck. I’ll tell the old man bygones must be bygones. We’ll have a clean slate. Jess isn’t a bad fellow after all. I might have gone down the wrong road a bit if it hadn’t been for Janet. Hang it all! the love of a dear sweet girl does keep a weak fellow straight.”

He glanced down at his hands and tweed suit, daubed with limestone mud, and showing a couple of tears in the stout cloth.

“Delightful party for a drawing-room, and – hullo! here’s the loop.”

He secured the rope, which came dangling down, felt that his specimens and tools were safe, and then slipped the loop over his head, sat in it as nonchalantly as if it had been a swing, uttered a loud “All right,” and the next minute he was being steadily hauled up towards the surface.

Chapter Seven.

Making Friends

“Hallo, my lads!” cried Reed, as he reached terra firma and gazed around. “I didn’t know there was a public-house handy.”

“No, no, don’t blame the poor lads,” said a well-dressed, elderly man, smiling. “They were alarmed at your long absence, sir, and came on to me for help. We came round, and picked up these two brave fellows, and were ready for a search, but, thank heaven, it was a false alarm.”

“Oh, that was it?” cried Reed; “then I beg your pardon, my lads, and thank you, sir, heartily. Whom have I the pleasure of addressing?”

“Major Gurdon, at your service, sir,” and there was a swift military drawing up of the spare figure, the soft dark eyes brightened up, and the speaker threw back his grey head and gave his long white beard a shake to settle it upon his breast.

“Mr Reed, I believe, the new engineer of the mine?”

“Yes, sir, but at this present moment more like one of the miners,” said Reed, with a deprecating glance at his besmirched garments. “Excuse me one moment.”

He turned to the men with his hand in his pocket – a hand that did not come back empty, and the new-comers went off slowly, smiling as Reed turned now to the Major, who had stepped forward, eager to speak.

“You look thoroughly exhausted,” he said quickly. “I live quite a cottage life out here with my garden and fishing-rod, but if you will accept my hospitality, such as it is – ”

“Really, I could not trouble you – and in this condition,” began Reed, as Sturgess changed colour, and an unpleasant scowl came upon his face.

“You will be conferring a favour, my dear sir,” said the Major. “One does not often have the society of a gentleman out in this wild place; and,” he added laughingly, “the hospitality will embrace soap and water and a clothes-brush.”

“Then I accept willingly,” said Reed, holding out his hand, but withdrawing it directly as he noted its condition, covered with dried limestone mud, and streaked in two places with blood.

“Nonsense!” said the Major, taking the hand. “I understand these things, my dear sir. I often go prowling about with a geologist’s hammer, and have gone home like this. Come along. My high tea will be about ready.”

“Well, this is most unexpected,” said Reed warmly. “Here, Sturgess, I shall come over again to-morrow about eleven. Be here with the men, and you had better bring a couple of lanthorns.”

“Hadn’t I better come on to put you in the right road?”

“What! Oh, no! I shall manage. That will do.” The man turned away with the look upon his countenance intensifying; but it was not observed, for Reed walked off in company with his new acquaintance, the pair chatting away as if they had known each other for years.

“Quite gave me a scare,” said the Major. “Life here is so uneventful. Very beautiful, but lonely, especially in the winter.”

“But you do not stay here in the winter?”

“Oh yes; I have lived here ten years now.”

“No accounting for taste,” thought Reed; and he glanced sidewise at his companion, but learned nothing. He only saw a quiet-looking country gentleman, whose sun-browned face told of an open-air life.

Sturgess followed them to the great natural gateway at the end of the chasm, where he had stood some days before, but not alone; and he now remained watching them as they went on westward along the narrow path, and round by the huge buttress formed by the refuse of the mine, carried and cast down there for hundreds upon hundreds of years. Then as they passed on out of sight, the man raised one of his fingers to his lips, and began gnawing roughly at the side of the nail, till he seemed to make up his mind, and took a step or two forward after them, next stopped short again, for a hail came from behind.

“Coming on down to the village, Mr Sturgess?”

He turned and faced one of the two men, and nodded, walking away with him in the other direction, taciturn and strange, answering his companion in monosyllables, and with his thoughts evidently far away. Not so very, though, for they were with Clive Reed, and promised him no good.

“So you have been examining the old ‘White Virgin’ mine, eh?” said Major Gurdon. “I heard it was sold. A new company, eh?”

“Yes,” said Reed, smiling; “a new company – a solid one.”

“Eh? I hope so. But if I had to go in for a mining adventure, I think I should begin here with the material the old miners cast away as rubbish.” He pointed to the great buttress they were skirting. “There it is, already extracted from the mountain, and though poor, rich enough, I should say, to pay a company if worked with modern appliances.”

“You understand these things?” said Reed, looking at his elderly companion searchingly, and noting how deeply lined his brow seemed, and that care and sorrow more than age had given him his hollow-cheeked, anxious air.

“A man who likes geology, mineralogy, and who always lives among these hills, cannot help picking up a little mining lore,” said the Major, with a smile. “I have searched and toiled, my dear sir – much loss and little gain. I hope yours may prove to be a successful venture.”

“Let’s hope so,” said Reed quietly. “All mining is speculative, and in speculative matters there must be losses as well as gains.”

“And after all, what does it amount to, my young friend? The chase of a will o’ the wisp who bears a golden lamp not worth the winning, you will say when you grow as old as I. But there, I shall bore you with this twaddle. What do you say to that for a view? Derbyshire in front; broad, honest, hardworking old Yorkshire away to your right; at your feet the Swirl – my river, I call it.”

“A lovely prospect, but rather wild,” said Reed, smiling.

“Say savage, and you will be nearer the truth; but I can show you something a little less stern;” and, chatting away pleasantly, he led on along first one slope and then another, till at last they came down upon a narrow track beside a rippling stream, shut in between two perpendicular walls of rock, draped with ivy, and with every cleft and crevice green and bright with trailing birch, moss, and clustering fern.

The water of the little river ran swiftly babbling here among the rocks, there swirling round, eddying and forming whirlpools, one of which, across the river where it washed the perpendicular rock, was evidently very deep, for the water gradually subsided there and grew still and glassy, reflecting the ivy-curtained walls as it slowly glided round.

“Ah! this is delightful,” cried Reed, as he stopped to gaze at the glancing waters, where the sun made the ripples dazzling to the eye, and then turned to the deep shadows. “Eden may have been lovely, but this would be good enough for a poor commonplace nineteenth-century fellow like myself.”

“You like it?” said the Major, smiling.

“It’s glorious. Is there much of it like this?”

“About a mile. I call it my river here, and the mining men respect my rights generally – that is, unless the trout they catch sight of in some pool is a very fat one indeed.”

He said this with a peculiar smile, as he met Reed’s eye.