Chapter VII

A Mining Tragedy

Within doors at the pretty Lowdown Rectory everything was even more brightly cheerful than usual for the contrast with the dismal storm outside. The breakfast table, with all its elegant appointments, was waiting in the oak dining-room, and at one of the windows in the same room was a group of young girls waiting, too, for their elders to be ready for breakfast. But they were not early risers at the rectory, and it was nearly ten o’clock before the family and their guests assembled around the table. Mr. Seldon, the old rector, and his wife lived quite alone, but once every year their quiet household was enlivened by a visit from their nephew and his wife and children.

The party had arrived only the day before, and the children were lamenting the storm that seemed likely to keep them in the house.

“I don’t think it’s much of a hardship to stay in such a lovely house as this,” said their mother, looking around the pleasant room and smiling at Aunt Delia, who laughed and nodded back from behind the urn.

“Oh, the house is jolly, and so is aunty,” said Marion, the oldest girl; “but I want to run out and see the ponies and talk with Jim, and take a look at the peacocks and feed the rabbits, and do a thousand things that the rain won’t let me.”

“A thousand is a large number,” said her father quietly.

“So it is, but I’ll give up the whole thousand if you’ll take me down into the mine. Papa, I ask you every time we come to see Uncle Seldon, but you never do.”

Dr. Norton looked uncomfortable, glanced at his uncle, who seemed to avoid his eye, and then at his aunt, who, on the contrary, fixed her eyes on his very expressively and sadly, while her lips parted as if she were about to say something. Mrs. Norton kept her attention steadily fixed upon her plate, but the color rushed to her face, and she, too, looked ill at ease.

“Well, what have I said?” said Marion, who was something of a spoiled child. “One would think I had done something out of the way. You all look as displeased as Miss Hiller does when I wipe my pen on my pocket-handkerchief or get a blot on the copy-book.”

“If such are your habits, I don’t wonder your mamma has had to change your governesses so often,” said the rector, seizing the opportunity to change the subject and keep the conversation in his own hands for a few moments.

But Marion might have found an opportunity to repeat her question, had it not been for an occurrence which gave them something else to think of. Peter, the privileged old butler, whose own mother had been the rector’s nurse, and who consequently felt himself to be one of the family, came running into the room without the toast he had been sent for, and, without waiting to be questioned as to his singular behavior, exclaimed, lapsing into the speech of his earlier years:

“Maister! maister! There’s been a falling-in at the mines, and Joe Short he have been up to say there’s been men buried under, an’ the superintendent’s down with ’em, and there’s no one about giving any orders worth taking, an’ he says the skreeling of the women is fit to turn the head of one!”

“There must have been some carelessness with uncovered lamps,” said the rector, rising instantly. “Bring my coat, Peter, and get ready to come with me.”

“I am going with you, too,” said Dr. Norton.

“And I will follow as soon as I can prepare some bandages in case they should be wanted,” said Mrs. Norton, “and some brandy, if Aunt Delia will give it to me.”

“How very thoughtful you are, Grace!” the rector stopped a moment to say. “If you are willing to come over, you might, perhaps, comfort the poor women who will be waiting in agony to know if their husbands and sons are living or dead. But can you bear it, dear?”

“I can answer for her,” said her husband. “Grace is a surgeon’s daughter and a surgeon’s wife, and, delicate as she looks, has nerve enough to be a surgeon herself.”

Half an hour later, Mrs. Norton joined her husband and his uncle at the scene of the disaster. There had been an explosion of fire-damp, and eight or ten more or less severely injured men had been brought up. Others were buried under the fallen wall of the gallery in which the accident occurred, and all the workmen were doing their best to dig them out. The distress of those who feared the worst for their friends was terrible, and Mrs. Norton turned pale as she went through the crowd to her husband’s side. Her arrival was most opportune, and for hours she was actively engaged in assisting him and trying to give some consolation to the women. The overseer was not, as they feared, one of the missing, nor was he even hurt, but was directing the work of rescue below.

At last, after eight hours of digging, word was sent up that they had hopes of speedily reaching those who were buried. Their shouts had been feebly answered, so some at least were still living. It grew dark and late into the night before they were reached, but not one of the party from the rectory would leave the vicinity of the mine.

Old Peter, who had been travelling back and forth all day, brought over a basket of provisions and spread supper for them in one of the miners’ huts. They were all so thoroughly exhausted that they found it a most welcome repast, and it was fortunate they had taken it, for almost before it was finished Dr. Norton was summoned again to the shaft.

They had brought up five men,--two of whom were dead and the others nearly unconscious--a woman, and a boy. Mrs. Norton, already overcome with the labor and excitement of the day, felt for a moment that she could not endure the sight of more suffering, but hearing that a woman was among the victims, she hesitated no longer, and ran quickly to the shaft. She found her husband bending over a woman who had been laid upon a plank covered with quilts, preparations for carrying the sufferers having been made hours before. She was so motionless that they were all sure she was dead, but as the doctor raised his head he said:

“She is alive. Take her to her house and I will follow you instantly. Leave her on the board till I come there.”

Then he turned to examine the others by the light of the lanterns, but Mrs. Norton followed the men who were carrying the woman. They took her into a little hut, no different from all the other houses about, and there they waited as the doctor had asked them to do, keeping her still on the plank. She groaned slightly then, and Mrs. Norton moistened her lips with something she carried in a bottle, but the woman did not seem to be conscious.

Her back was broken, the doctor said upon examination, and she was not conscious of suffering, and probably never would be again. So they laid her upon the bed, and Dr. Norton asked his wife to leave her to his care, with the assistance of some women who had come in with him, and go to the house where they had taken the boy. He had not been working in the mine, it seemed, but had gone down to carry a message before the explosion occurred; he was not injured in any way, but was prostrated by partial suffocation. Mrs. Norton was quite equal to the simple treatment necessary in his case, and after beef tea and stimulants had been administered, a little color began to creep into his face, and he asked feebly for his mother.

The woman on whose bed he was lying shook her head warningly, and Mrs. Norton understood from her gesture that the woman who lay dying in the house near by was his mother. Her heart ached for the poor boy, and, putting her soft cheek close to his, she petted and soothed him as if he had been a child of her own, whispering to him that he must be very still and not ask to see his mother till morning. He was still very weak and seemed to forget that he had asked for any one, and soon dropped asleep with his hand so tightly clasping hers that she feared to withdraw it.

And there she was, sitting silently by his side and studying the pale face, from which she had washed the grimy dust it was covered with at first, and brushed back the thick, fair, waving hair, when the rector came in, and, after looking attentively at the boy for a moment, took a seat by her side.

“Grace,” he said, having first sent the woman of the house out of the room on some trifling errand, “do you know who this boy’s mother is?”

“I have heard them speak of her as Mag, uncle, but I do not know of any other name.”

“She is the wife of your husband’s brother Philip, Grace, and this boy is his son; but she is dying now, and all the hard feelings we had toward her in the past must be forgotten.”

“Oh, uncle, I have always wished to see her; but how dreadful that it should be in this way! Let me go to her now. I can leave this child in old Dorothy’s care.”

“Yes, I want you to go to her if you are willing,” said the rector. “She is anxious to see her boy, and we have promised to take him to her when he awakes. George says she will probably live a number of hours yet. She suffers no pain, and is quite conscious now.”

“Oh, is there no hope of saving her?”

“None whatever,” answered her uncle.

“Does she know she must die?”

“Yes, and she seems to have no desire to live.”

“Poor woman! What a sad life that must be which one is so willing to leave!” said Mrs. Norton, who had been gently withdrawing her hand from the close clasp of little Philip’s, and getting ready to go with her uncle.

They found Mag in a dull, heavy sleep, from which Dr. Norton said she would awake again; and she did, at short intervals, all through the night. As morning dawned, she awoke more fully and asked for a drink. A miner with a sorrowful face brought it in a cup, which Mrs. Norton took from him and held to her lips. She drained it, and then, looking at the tender, pitying eyes fixed on hers, said fretfully:

“What brings a leddy here to look at me? Take her away and bring my boy. And who’s yon?” she asked half fearfully, as Dr. Norton came across the room and laid his finger on her pulse.

“It’s Dr. Norton,” said his wife gently; “your Philip’s brother, you know; and he is doing all he can to make you comfortable.”

“Dr. Norton!” said the dying woman, in a strange, awe-struck whisper. “It was him, then, that told me ’twas a death-blow I’d gotten, when I asked him in the night.”

“Shall I take him out?” whispered the rector, thinking his presence troubled her.

“No, let him be,” said Mag, her voice husky now, but as strong and steady as if the chill of death were not already creeping over her. “Let him stay. I’m fair glad to have him see me lie here broken and mangled the way I am. I don’t ask him to forgive me, but happen it will be a comfort to him to see the one that sent his brother to his death taken the same way herself. Oh, if I had only died long ago, before I brought grief to them all!”

Long ago, when Philip Norton, who had married a girl very far beneath him, met with his violent death, his brother had said that he never could forgive the woman who had been the means of bringing such unutterable misery upon Philip and all who loved him. But as he looked down on her now, all bitterness and malice faded out of Dr. Norton’s heart, and he assured her in earnest, broken words of his entire forgiveness.

“Good words,” she murmured, so low this time that Mrs. Norton, kneeling by her side, could hardly catch them; “good words to hear. Maybe if he can forgive me, the Lord will.”

“Indeed He will,” sobbed Mrs. Norton.

“Do you think He will?” said Mag earnestly. She had no power to move her neck, but she turned her eyes eagerly to the speaker. “I heard it said once, a life ’ill be asked for a life. My life’s poor pay for one like Philip’s. I never was one to know much about church an’ praying, but I’ve asked in a rough sort of way if He would take my life of me if I could have patience to wait till He was ready, for many’s the time I’ve longed to put an end to it myself.”

She slept again after the doctor had given her a stimulant, and her son was brought in. He was weak and pale, and Mrs. Norton held him while the rector tried, as gently as possible, to explain his mother’s condition to him. He received all that was told him so quietly that it was evident the shock and exhaustion of the accident kept him from fully understanding the words.

Again Mag opened her eyes, and this time they fell upon her child.

“Poor lad!” she whispered; “he was always so fond of his poor mother, and I don’t know who’ll care for him now.”

“I will,” said Mrs. Norton quickly. “I am his Aunt Grace, and if you will trust me I will try to take your place with him. And I will not let him forget you.”

Mag’s face darkened with the look of gloomy reserve that it had worn for so many years.

“He must forget me,” she said, “if he’s to be with his father’s people. The very thought of me would keep him from being fit for them.”

“Give him to us,” said Dr. Norton, who had exchanged a few whispered words on the subject with his wife while Mag slept, “and we will educate and rear him as Philip’s child should be.”

“No,” said the rector, who had been weeping silently while they spoke, “give him to me, that I may have the opportunity of repairing my neglect of him and you. I have not realized till now the duty I have owed you both. Philip was like a darling son to us, and his boy will take his place in our hearts. I can speak for my wife, for she has urged me to do this before, though I was wicked enough not to heed her.”

Mag had watched them all keenly. “Let him be Philip over again if ye can make him so, and do with him as ye please,” she said, not making any decision as to which of his relatives should take him. She lay quite still for some time after that with her eyes closed, and when she opened them again she looked about fearfully as though alarmed at the sight of so many strange faces. “If the ladies and gentlemen wouldn’t mind,” she said, “could I have just a word alone with my little lad?”

In tearful silence they all left the room, but through the thin partition they could hear Mag’s low voice growing gradually fainter until it ceased altogether, and the sound of Philip’s heart-broken sobbing filled the room. Mrs. Norton stole quietly in, and kneeling beside the bed gathered the boy gently in her arms.

“Oh, mother, mother, whatever will I do without ye?” he sobbed; and the old clergyman, coming in at this moment, laid his hand on the boy’s fair curls.

“I pray God to forgive me for having so long neglected that noble woman,” he said solemnly, “and with His help I will try to be a father to her boy.”