CHAPTER XII

A HAUNTED MINE IN WALES

While I was at Brixton, paying daily visits to various well-known theatrical agencies in search of work, I ran across the manager of a fit-up company, who wanted a man of about my age and build to play second lead in a melodrama. I closed with his offer, and for the next four weeks, which was as long as his funds held out, I paid three night visits to various towns in Wales, winding up at Llandudno, no better off financially than when I commenced, and having to pay my own fare back to London.

If, however, my excursion into Wales was unprofitable from the monetary standpoint, it was by no means lacking in other respects, for, apart from the experience I gained from playing four entirely different parts a night, with two electric changes, I came across several interesting cases of hauntings.

One of my landladies, a kindly old soul to whom I had chatted about ghosts, introduced me to an old man, Clem Morgan, whom she said had had a curious experience in one of the neighbouring mines. The incident had taken place some fifty years ago, shortly after a dreadful explosion, whereby many scores of the miners had been killed and injured. I will narrate the experience—merely altering the wording of it here and there—just as Clem Morgan narrated it to me:—

“A thousand feet down, close to the site of a great tragedy that had thrilled the whole country to the very core, my mate and I were at work. Pick, pick, pick; shovel, shovel, shovel; the sound of our instruments must have been heard hundreds of yards away.

“‘George,’ I said suddenly, leaving off work, ‘was it like this afore the accident?’

“‘Like what?’ George grunted. He was a middle-aged man with a black, stubby beard, and arms like the gnarled and knotted branches of an oak. ‘Like what?’

“‘Why, as lonely as this? Were you working with just one other man, or were you with the rest of the gang?’

“‘With one other,’ George responded, ‘and just as soft as you. Why can’t you let the matter drop? I’m sick to death of hearing about it.’

“‘It’s a marvel to me how you escaped,’ I went on; ‘whereabouts were you?’

“‘Just where we are now,’ George growled, ‘and that’s all I’ll tell you, so you’d best shut up!’

“‘And you went up them steps with all the hell of the explosion ringing around you?’ I observed, advancing to the edge of the black shaft close to where we were working, and looking at the slender wooden ladder leading up to the dark vault above. ‘It’s a wonder to me you didn’t miss your footing in your hurry, and fall. I should have done.’

“‘I’ve no doubt you would,’ George sneered, ‘but I’m no tenderfoot; I was at this game when you were in your cradle, which you never ought to have left.’

“‘How many feet down is it?’ I went on, peering below me, much fascinated.

“‘Fourteen fathoms. We don’t reckon by feet here. Done with that way of doing things in the schoolroom.’

“‘So that you would be killed outright, if you fell?’

“‘Try and see,’ George jeered.

“‘It’s my brother I was thinking of, not myself,’ I observed. ‘Where was he exactly, when the explosion took place?’

“‘How can I say, boy,’ George replied, irritably. ‘I don’t know where half the folk are.’

“‘They told me he was in an adit leading into the main shaft.’

“‘He may have been, for all I know—and for all I care,’ George answered gruffly.

“‘Do you suppose it was here he was working?’ I said, after a moment or two’s pause, during which I again went to the shaft and peered down.

“‘This is not the only adit on the main,’ George growled. ‘He wasn’t here—leastways not when I was.’

“‘I heard he was with a man he unintentionally injured, and who ever after bore him a grudge.’

“‘Oh, oh!’ George exclaimed; ‘so you know as much as that, do you? And what, pray, was this man like?’

“‘I couldn’t say,’ I replied, ‘excepting that he was much older than Dick, and very ugly.’

“‘A description that would fit in with dozens down here. If he was working with your brother, and your brother was killed, the odds are he was killed too.’

“‘You think so?’

“‘It seems reasonable enough, don’t it?’ George said.

“‘He might have escaped like you did.’

“‘He might,’ George laughed, ‘just in the same way as pigs might fly. Supposing you get on with your work and let me do the same.’

“‘I had a queer dream about that man,’ I went on.

“‘Dreams! Pooh! Who believes in dreams!’ George said. ‘What was it?’

“‘Why, I dreamed he had something to do with Dick’s death and with the accident.’

“‘You had better tell the Inspector,’ George sneered. ‘And maybe he’ll alter his verdict. You seem to have been very fond of this brother of yours. You’ve done nothing but carp about him all the morning.’

“‘I was,’ I replied. ‘So were we all. He kept the home going for the last six years.’

“‘Kept the home going! Why, where was you?’

“‘At College, studying for a teacher. I gave it up after his death.’

“‘A schoolmaster! Well, I’m blowed. Then you didn’t see much of Dick?’

“‘Only in the holidays.’

“‘And who told you about this fellow who was supposed to have had a spite against him?’

“‘Mother.’

“‘It was your mother, was it? Only hearsay evidence after all. Well, they’re both dead, anyhow—good and bad, and bad and good—all went together—in a moment, boy! What do they call you?’

“‘Clem.’

“‘Well, Clem, get on with your shovelling for mercy’s sake. I’ve had enough of talking to last me to the end of the week.’

“I took up my spade, and for the next hour there were no other sounds but the steady, mechanical pick, pick, pick, and scrape, scrape, scrape. Every now and then George sprang aside, there was a crash, and a huge block of coal fell on the rocky floor, mid a blinding shower of dust. A fraction of a second later, and George would have been under it—his head a jelly. Yet the narrowness of his escape did not seem to affect him; he treated it with the utmost indifference, and, wiping away the smuts from his eyes, took up his pick and resumed his hitting. I regarded him in silent wonder. When the dinner-hour arrived, I groped my way to one of the big galleries—the idea of eating alone with George did not appeal to me—and, an hour later, I set out on my way back.

“A terrible sense of isolation hung over that part of the mine whither I bent my steps. It was so far away from the other adits—so tremendously deep down—so alarmingly dark, so sepulchrally silent. Up above, in the fields, woods, valleys, even far away in the primitive parts of the world, one is never quite alone, for the voice of Nature makes itself heard in the birds and insects. One knows one is in the midst of life. But here!—here in the bowels of the earth, encased in the dead vegetation of a long-forgotten world, there is absolute, all paramount stillness—a thousand times stiller than the stillness of a closed sepulchre. As I pressed on, the crunching of my feet on the scattered fragments of coal awoke the echoes of the galleries, and I paused every now and then to listen in awe to the long reverberating echoes as they rolled round and round me. Once, I nearly slipped; another foot, and I would have plunged into a sable labyrinth, the cold draught from which wound itself round me and choked the air in my lungs.

“I drew back in horror, and clinging to the knobbly surface of the black wall by my side, pressed frantically forward. God, supposing I should ever lose my way down here—be left behind when all the men went home—what would become of me? The perspiration rose on my forehead at the bare idea of it. Presently, to my relief, the sound of picking fell on my ears, and an abrupt turn of the passage brought me within sight of George, who had already recommenced work. I hastened to his side, and, picking up my shovel, began to make a neat stack of the rapidly accumulating chunks.

“‘George,’ I said, after an emphatic silence, ‘why didn’t you tell me it was you who was working along with Dick?’

“‘So you’ve been asking questions, have you?’ George growled, without, however, showing the slightest inclination to leave off working. ‘Who told you?’

“‘Jim and Harry Peters.’

“‘Well, and what of it?’

“‘But why didn’t you say so, when I asked you?’

“‘What odds if I had, it wouldn’t have done you any good.’

“‘Did you have a quarrel with him?’

“‘Did the boys tell you I had? Because if so, it’s no use my saying anything.’

“‘But what do you say?’

“‘No! Dick and me never had no quarrel.’

“‘Is that true?’

“‘Gospel.’

“After this there was another silence unbroken save by the monotonous handling of the implements. Then I suddenly uttered an ejaculation and pointed at my cap. It was lying on the ground, some few feet from where we were working, close beneath a projecting block of coal, and it was moving—moving as if it were being violently agitated by something inside it.

“‘What is it?’ I demanded.

“‘What is what?’ George growled, resting for a moment on the handle of his pick.

“‘Why, that!’ I said, pointing to my cap. ‘What makes it move like that?’

“‘The wind, of course,’ George said.

“‘There’s not enough draught for that. See!’ I placed a piece of paper on the ground within an inch or two of the cap, and it remained perfectly still. ‘Something must be underneath it.’ I picked the cap up, there was nothing there. ‘What do you think of it now?’ I asked.

“George made no reply. He turned round, so that I could not see his face, and plied his pick vigorously. After a few minutes I stopped work again.

“‘George,’ I cried, ‘what’s the matter with your coat? Look! It’s doing just as your cap did.’

“George threw down his pick with an oath.

“‘What do you want to keep worrying me for?’ he said. ‘What’s wrong now?’

“‘Why, your coat! Look! it’s moving—rising up and down as if the wind were blowing it—and there’s not an atom of draught.’

“‘It’s your fancy,’ George said hoarsely. ‘The coat’s not moving.’

“‘What,’ I cried, ‘do you mean to say you can’t see it moving?’

“‘No,’ George replied. ‘It’s not, I tell you.’ And picking up his tool he set to work again, even more vigorously than before.

“Some minutes later I again stopped. ‘Heavens!’ I exclaimed. ‘Look at my lamp! It’s burning blue! What makes it do that?’

“George paused—his pick shoulder high—and looked round. ‘Nonsense,’ he said savagely. ‘You are——’ Then he left off and his jaws dropped. ‘It must be some chemical in it,’ he stammered. ‘Let the damned thing be; it’ll soon right itself.’

“‘This is a strange place, George!’ I said slowly.

“‘Why strange?’ George snapped.

“‘Well, first of all there was my cap, then your coat, and now the lantern—all doing something queer. Have you ever known the likes of it before?’

“‘Often,’ George muttered. ‘Scores of times. Funny things is always happening below ground; you’ll get used to them in time.’

“‘And yet you look a bit scared.’

“‘Do I?’ George grunted. ‘Well, I’m not. By ——, I’m not. You can’t always judge by looks, you know.’ And, raising his pick, he attacked the coal furiously.

“The afternoon was now waning. Outside, away on the top, where the only roof was the heavens, the sun had sunk to the level of the pine-trees, from whose straight and gently-swaying bodies the grotesque shadows of the night were beginning to steal. It is a peculiarity of the mines that, however deep down they may be, they yet feel the influence of time, and the departure of the sunlight from above creates an immediate increase in the gloom below.

“On this afternoon in particular I felt the change acutely. A darkness, that did not seem to be merely the darkness due to time, stole down the pit’s mouth and permeated adits, shafts, galleries—everywhere and everything.

“My light was still burning blue, but beyond it, down in the great, gaping chasm, not ten feet from him, and away along the narrow, winding passage separating me from the rest of the gang, all was black—a denser black than I had conceived possible. I was staring around, too fascinated to go on with my work, when something icy cold gripped my fingers, and, looking down, I saw a big, white hand lying on the top of mine. I gave a yell and dropped my shovel—whereupon the hand vanished.

“‘What’s the matter now, curse you!’ George said angrily. ‘If you keep on hindering me like this, I’ll tell the overseer. See if I don’t.’

“‘The place is haunted,’ I gasped. ‘A hand caught hold of mine just now.’

“‘A hand! Rot. What next?’ And George forced a laugh.

“‘I’m certain it was a hand,’ I said, ‘and it had a ring on like my brother Dick’s.’

“‘You’ve got Dick on the brain, which is only natural, seeing that you was fond of him, and he only just dead. In a few days’ time you will get over it and laugh at your present fears. There’s no hands here but yours and mine, lad!’

“‘Aren’t there?’ I said quietly. ‘Then what is that just below yours on the pick.’

“George looked down. Instead of two hands—his own two hands—on the pick, there were three, and the third was white and luminous. With a shriek, George dropped the pick, and sprang away from it, as if it had been a serpent.

“‘Do you believe me now?’ I remarked. ‘If that wasn’t Dick’s hand, I’ve never seen it. Besides, I could swear to his ring among a thousand. Have you noticed how dark it has been getting?’

“‘I’ve noticed nothing,’ George muttered, picking up his tool. ‘It’s all your talk that has done it—you’ve upset my nerves.’ He raised his pick and began to work again, but his hands shook so much he struck his leg and dropped the implement with a cry of pain.

“‘It’s nothing,’ he growled, as I sprang to his side; ‘only the skin grazed. But I reckon I’ll sit down a bit—I’m all of a tremble.’

“He had moved nearer to the edge of the pit, and was about to sit down with his back towards it, when I cried, ‘My God! There’s Dick! He’s just behind you. He’s pointing at you, George. I see it all now! George, you devil—you murdered him!’

“George looked round—and there, bending over him, was a tall figure, with a strangely white face. He threw out his hands to keep the figure off, and, as he did so, he slipped, and fell, with one loud yell of terror, into the pit. I heard him strike the side of the great abyss once—then thud—that was all!

“Sick at heart, I reeled back to the safety of the niche where we had been working, and, as I did so, my eyes fell on the lamp—the flame was now white and normal.

“A rescue party that went in search of George found him in a dying condition at the bottom of the shaft. The fact that he was not killed outright was due to his having fallen in a foot or two of mud and water, which had somewhat broken the force of the concussion. He was fatally injured, but he lingered just long enough to confess that he, and he only, was to blame for the recent disaster. He had had a violent quarrel with Dick, whom he had hated, and, when Dick’s back was turned, he had struck him over the head with his pick and killed him. Seized with horror, he then dragged Dick’s body into the passage, and, in order to minimise the risk of discovery, had saturated it with paraffin and set fire to it. He had had just time enough to reach the ladder leading up from the shaft, and climb up it, before the explosion had taken place.”

* * * * *

The Welsh miners are at times magnanimous, and on this occasion they agreed to keep George’s crime a secret. To give publicity to the affair, they argued, would not give them back the relatives they had lost, and would only do harm to the dead man’s widow and family, who were left almost penniless. Thus the matter ended, and to the outside world the cause of the explosion remained, as before, a mystery.

Of course, it may be said of this case that it has no great value from the evidental point of view, no one having witnessed the ghostly happening but Morgan and the man who was subsequently killed. This may be. At the same time much depends upon the character of a witness, and the evidence of one man, who is reliable, is surely worth more than the evidence of several men who are not reliable.

Morgan told his story in a simple, straightforward manner, and I believed him.