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THE BLIND BROTHER.




SUNSHINE LIBRARY.

    =Aunt Hannah and Seth.= By James Otis.
    =Blind Brother (The).= By Homer Greene.
    =Captain's Dog (The).= By Louis Enault.
    =Cat and the Candle (The).= By Mary F. Leonard.
    =Christmas at Deacon Hackett's.= By James Otis.
    =Christmas-Tree Scholar.= By Frances Bent Dillingham.
    =Dear Little Marchioness.= The Story of a Child's Faith and Love.
    =Dick in the Desert.= By James Otis.
    =Divided Skates.= By Evelyn Raymond.
    =Gold Thread (The).= By Norman MacLeod, D.D.
    =Half a Dozen Thinking Caps.= By Mary Leonard.
    =How Tommy Saved the Barn.= By James Otis.
    =Ingleside.= By Barbara Yechton.
    =J. Cole.= By Emma Gellibrand.
    =Jessica's First Prayer.= By Hesba Stretton.
    =Laddie.= By the author of "Miss Toosey's Mission."
    =Little Crusaders.= By Eva Madden.
    =Little Sunshine's Holiday.= By Miss Mulock.
    =Little Peter.= By Lucas Malet.
    =Master Sunshine.= By Mrs. C. F. Fraser.
    =Miss Toosey's Mission.= By the author of "Laddie."
    =Musical Journey of Dorothy and Delia.= By Bradley Gilman.
    =Our Uncle, the Major.= A Story of 1765. By James Otis.
    =Pair of Them (A).= By Evelyn Raymond.
    =Playground Toni.= By Anna Chapin Ray.
    =Play Lady (The).= By Ella Farman Pratt.
    =Prince Prigio.= By Andrew Lang.
    =Short Cruise (A).= By James Otis.
    =Smoky Days.= By Edward W. Thomson.
    =Strawberry Hill.= By Mrs. C. F. Fraser.
    =Sunbeams and Moonbeams.= By Louise R. Baker.
    =Two and One.= By Charlotte M. Vaile.
    =Wreck of the Circus (The).= By James Otis.
    =Young Boss (The).= By Edward W. Thomson.

  THOMAS Y. CROWELL & COMPANY,
  NEW YORK.




[Illustration]




                                  THE
                            BLIND BROTHER:

                              A Story of
                      THE PENNSYLVANIA COAL MINES

                                  BY
                             HOMER GREENE

 _The author received for this story the First Prize, Fifteen Hundred
         Dollars, offered by the_ YOUTH'S COMPANION _in 1886,
                      for the Best Serial Story_

                          FOURTEENTH THOUSAND

                               NEW YORK
                      THOMAS Y. CROWELL & COMPANY
                              PUBLISHERS




                           Copyright, 1887,
                      By THOMAS Y. CROWELL & CO.




                                  TO

                              MY MOTHER,

               WHOSE TENDER CARE AND UNSELFISH DEVOTION
                       MADE HAPPY THE DAYS OF MY
                             OWN BOYHOOD,

                          This Book for Boys

                     IS AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED,
                            BY THE AUTHOR.

Honesdale, Penn., April 6, 1887.




CONTENTS.


 CHAPTER                           PAGE
      I. LOST IN THE MINE            11
     II. THE BURNED BREAKER          30
    III. THE UNQUIET CONSCIENCE      50
     IV. THE TRIAL                   69
      V. THE VERDICT                 89
     VI. THE FALL                   109
    VII. THE SHADOW OF DEATH        128
   VIII. OUT OF DARKNESS            148




THE BLIND BROTHER.




CHAPTER I.

LOST IN THE MINE.


The Dryden Mine, in the Susquehanna coal-fields of Pennsylvania, was
worked out and abandoned long ago. To-day its headings and airways and
chambers echo only to the occasional fall of loosened slate, or to the
drip of water from the roof. Its pillars, robbed by retreating workmen,
are crumbling and rusty, and those of its props which are still
standing have become mouldy and rotten. The rats that once scampered
through its galleries deserted it along with human kind, and its very
name, from long disuse, has acquired an unaccustomed sound.

But twenty years ago there was no busier mine than the Dryden from
Carbondale to Nanticoke. Two hundred and thirty men and boys went by
the <DW72> into it every morning, and came out from it every night. They
were simple and unlearned, these men and boys, rugged and rude, rough
and reckless at times, but manly, heroic, and kindhearted.

Up in the Lackawanna region a strike had been in progress for nearly
two weeks. Efforts had been made by the strikers to persuade the miners
down the valley to join them, but at first without success.

Then a committee of one hundred came down to appeal and to intimidate.
In squads of ten or more they visited the mines in the region, and, in
the course of their journeyings, had come to the Dryden <DW72>. They
had induced the miners to go out at all the workings they had thus far
entered, and were no less successful here. It required persuasion,
sometimes threats, sometimes, indeed, even blows, for the miners in
Dryden <DW72> had no cause of complaint against their employers; they
earned good wages, and were content.

But, twenty years ago, miners who kept at work against the wishes of
their fellows while a strike was in progress, were called "black-legs,"
were treated with contempt, waylaid and beaten, and sometimes killed.

So the men in the Dryden Mine yielded; and soon, down the chambers and
along the headings, toward the foot of the <DW72>, came little groups,
with dinner-pails and tools, discussing earnestly, often bitterly, the
situation and the prospect.

The members of a party of fifteen or twenty, that came down the airway
from the tier of chambers on the new north heading, were holding an
especially animated conversation. Fully one-half of the men were
visiting strikers. They were all walking, in single file, along the
route by which the mine-cars went.

For some distance from the new chambers the car-track was laid in the
airway; then it turned down through an entrance into the heading, and
from that point followed the heading to the foot of the <DW72>. Where
the route crossed from the airway to the heading, the space between
the pillars had been carefully boarded across, so that the air current
should not be turned aside; and a door had been placed in the boarding,
to be opened whenever the cars approached, and shut as soon as they had
passed by.

That door was attended by a boy.

To this point the party had now come, and one by one filed through the
opening, while Bennie, the door-boy, stood holding back the door to let
them pass.

"Ho, Jack, tak' the door-boy wi' ye!" shouted some one in the rear.

The great, broad-shouldered, rough-bearded man who led the procession
turned back to where Bennie, apparently lost in astonishment at this
unusual occurrence, still stood, with his hand on the door.

"Come along, lad!" he said; "come along! Ye'll have a gret play-spell
noo."

"I can't leave the door, sir," answered Bennie. "The cars'll be comin'
soon."

"Ye need na min' the cars. Come along wi' ye, I say!"

"But I can't go till Tom comes, anyway, you know."

The man came a step closer. He had the frame of a giant. The others who
passed by were like children beside him. Then one of the men who worked
in the mine, and who knew Bennie, came through the doorway, the last in
the group, and said,--

"Don't hurt the boy; let him alone. His brother'll take him out; he
always does."

All this time Bennie stood quite still, with his hand on the door,
never turning his head.

It was a strange thing for a boy to stand motionless like that, and
look neither to the right nor the left, while an excited group of men
passed by, one of whom had stopped and approached him, as if he meant
him harm. It roused the curiosity of "Jack the Giant," as the miners
called him, and, plucking his lamp from his cap, he flashed the light
of it up into Bennie's face.

The boy did not stir; no muscle of his face moved; even his eyes
remained open and fixed.

"Why, lad! lad! What's the matter wi' ye?" There was tenderness in the
giant's voice as he spoke, and tenderness in his bearded face as Bennie
answered,--

"Don't you know? I'm blind."

"Blind! An' a-workin' i' the mines?"

"Oh, a body don't have to see to 'tend door, you know. All I've to do
is to open it when I hear the cars a-comin', an' to shut it when they
get by."

"Aye, that's true; but ye did na get here alone. Who helpit ye?"

Bennie's face lighted up with pleasure, as he answered,--

"Oh, that's Tom! He helps me. I couldn't get along without him; I
couldn't do _any thing_ without Tom."

The man's interest and compassion had grown, as the conversation
lengthened, and he was charmed by the voice of the child. It had in it
that touch of pathos that often lingers in the voices of the blind. He
would hear more of it.

"Sit ye, lad," he said; "sit ye, an' tell me aboot Tom, an' aboot
yoursel', an' a' ye can remember."

Then they sat down on the rude bench together, with the roughly hewn
pillar of coal at their backs, blind Bennie and Jack Rennie, the giant,
and while one told the story of his blindness, and his blessings, and
his hopes, the other listened with tender earnestness, almost with
tears.

Bennie told first about Tom, his brother, who was fourteen years old,
two years older than himself. Tom was so good to him; and Tom could
see, could see as well as anybody. "Why," he exclaimed, "Tom can see
_every thing_!"

Then he told about his blindness; how he had been blind ever since
he could remember. But there was a doctor, he said, who came up once
from Philadelphia to visit Major Dryden, before the major died; and he
had chanced to see Tom and Bennie up by the mines, and had looked at
Bennie's eyes, and said he thought, if the boy could go to Philadelphia
and have treatment, that sight might be restored.

Tom asked how much it would cost, and the doctor said, "Oh, maybe a
hundred dollars;" and then some one came and called the doctor away,
and they had never seen him since.

But Tom resolved that Bennie should go to Philadelphia, if ever he
could save money enough to send him.

Tom was a driver-boy in Dryden <DW72>, and his meagre earnings went
mostly to buy food and clothing for the little family. But the dollar
or two that he had been accustomed to spend each month for himself he
began now to lay aside for Bennie.

Bennie knew about it, of course, and rejoiced greatly at the prospect
in store for him, but expressed much discontent because he, himself,
could not help to obtain the fund which was to cure him. Then Tom, with
the aid of the kindhearted mine superintendent, found employment for
his brother as a door-boy in Dryden <DW72>, and Bennie was happy. It
wasn't absolutely necessary that a door-boy should see; if he had good
hearing he could get along very well.

So every morning Bennie went down the <DW72> with Tom, and climbed
into an empty mine-car, and Tom's mule drew them, rattling along the
heading, till they reached, almost a mile from the foot of the <DW72>,
the doorway where Bennie staid.

Then Tom went on, with the empty cars, up to the new tier of chambers,
and brought the loaded cars back. Every day he passed through Bennie's
doorway on three round trips in the forenoon, and three round trips in
the afternoon; and every day, when the noon-hour came, he stopped on
the down-trip, and sat with Bennie on the bench by the door, and both
ate from one pail the dinner prepared for them by their mother.

When quitting time came, and Tom went down to the foot of the <DW72>
with his last trip for the day, Bennie climbed to the top of a load,
and rode out, or else, with his hands on the last car of the trip,
walked safely along behind.

"And Tom and me together have a'most twenty dollars saved now!" said
the boy exultingly. "An' we've only got to get eighty dollars more, an'
then I can go an' buy back the sight into my eyes; an' then Tom an' me
we're goin' to work together all our lives. Tom, he's goin' to get a
chamber an' be a miner, an' I'm goin' to be Tom's laborer till I learn
how to mine, an' then we're goin' to take a contract together, an' hire
laborers, an' get rich, an' then--why, then Mommie won't have to work
any more!"

It was like a glimpse of a better world to hear this boy talk. The most
favored child of wealth that ever revelled seeing in the sunlight has
had no hope, no courage, no sublimity of faith, that could compare with
those of this blind son of poverty and toil. He had his high ambition,
and that was to work. He had his sweet hope to be fulfilled, and that
was to see. He had his earthly shrine, and that was where his mother
sat. And he had his hero of heroes, and that was Tom.

There was no quality of human goodness, or bravery, or excellence
of any kind, that he did not ascribe to Tom. He would sooner have
disbelieved all of his four remaining senses than have believed that
Tom would say an unkind word to Mommie or to him, or be guilty of a
mean act towards any one.

Bennie's faith in Tom was fully justified. No nineteenth century boy
could have been more manly, no knight of old could have been more true
and tender, than was Tom to the two beings whom he loved best upon all
the earth.

"But the father, laddie," said Jack, still charmed and curious;
"whaur's the father?"

"Dead," answered Bennie. "He came from the old country first, an' then
he sent for Mommie an' us, an' w'en we got here he was dead."

"Ah, but that was awfu' sad for the mither! Took wi' the fever, was he?"

"No; killed in the mine. Top coal fell an' struck him. That's the way
they found him. We didn't see him, you know. That was two weeks before
me an' Tom an' Mommie got here. I wasn't but four years old then, but
I can remember how Mommie cried. She didn't have much time to cry,
though, 'cause she had to work so hard. Mommie's al'ays had to work so
hard," added Bennie, reflectively.

The man began to move, nervously, on the bench. It was apparent that
some strong emotion was taking hold of him. He lifted the lamp from his
cap again and held it up close to Bennie's face.

"Killed, said ye--i' the mine--top coal fell?"

"Yes, an' struck him on the head; they said he didn't ever know what
killed him."

The brawny hand trembled so that the flame from the spout of the little
lamp went up in tiny waves.

"Whaur--whaur happenit it--i' what place--i' what mine?"

"Up in Carbondale. No. 6 shaft, I think it was; yes, No. 6."

Bennie spoke somewhat hesitatingly. His quick ear had caught the change
in the man's voice, and he did not know what it could mean.

"His name, lad! gi' me the father's name!"

The giant's huge hand dropped upon Bennie's little one, and held it in
a painful grasp. The boy started to his feet in fear.

"You won't hurt me, sir! Please don't hurt me; I can't see!"

"Not for the warld, lad; not for the whole warld. But I must ha' the
father's name; tell me the father's name, quick!"

"Thomas Taylor, sir," said Bennie, as he sank back, trembling, on the
bench.

The lamp dropped from Jack Rennie's hand, and lay smoking at his feet.
His huge frame seemed to have shrunk by at least a quarter of its size;
and for many minutes he sat, silent and motionless, seeing as little of
the objects around him as did the blind boy at his side.

At last he roused himself, picked up his lamp, and rose to his feet.

"Well, lad, Bennie, I mus' be a-goin'; good-by till ye. Will the
brither come for ye?"

"Oh, yes!" answered Bennie, "Tom al'ays stops for me; he aint come up
from the foot yet, but he'll come."

Rennie turned away, then turned back again.

"Whaur's the lamp?" he asked; "have ye no licht?"

"No; I don't ever have any. It wouldn't be any good to me, you know."

Once more the man started down the heading, but, after he had gone a
short distance, a thought seemed to strike him, and he came back to
where Bennie was still sitting.

"Lad, I thocht to tell ye; ye s'all go to the city wi' your eyes. I ha'
money to sen' ye, an' ye s'all go. I--I--knew--the father, lad."

Before Bennie could express his surprise and gratitude, he felt a
strong hand laid gently on his shoulder, and a rough, bearded face
pressed for a moment against his own, and then his strange visitor was
gone.

Down the heading the retreating footsteps echoed, their sound swallowed
up at last in the distance; and up at Bennie's doorway silence reigned.

For a long time the boy sat, pondering the meaning of the strange man's
words and conduct. But the more he thought about it the less able was
he to understand it. Perhaps Tom could explain it, though; yes, he
would tell Tom about it. Then it occurred to him that it was long past
time for Tom to come up from the foot with his last trip for the day.
It was strange, too, that the men should all go out together that way;
he didn't understand it. But if Tom would only come--

He rose and walked down the heading a little way; then he turned and
went up through the door and along the airway; then he came back to his
bench again, and sat down.

He was sure Tom would come; Tom had never disappointed him yet, and he
knew he would not disappoint him for the world if he could help it. He
knew, too, that it was long after quitting-time, and there hadn't been
a sound, that he could hear, in the mine for an hour, though he had
listened carefully.

After a while he began to grow nervous; the stillness became oppressive;
he could not endure it. He determined to try to find the way out by
himself. He had walked to the foot of the <DW72> alone once, the day Tom
was sick, and he thought he could do it again.

So he made sure that his door was tightly closed, then he took his
dinner-pail, and started bravely down the heading, striking the rails
of the mine car-track on each side with his cane as he went along, to
guide him.

Sometimes he would stop and listen, for a moment, if, perchance, he
might hear Tom coming to meet him, or, possibly, some belated laborer
going out from another part of the mine; then, hearing nothing, he
would trudge on again.

After a long time spent thus, he thought he must be near the foot of
the <DW72>; he knew he had walked far enough to be there. He was tired,
too, and sat down on the rail to rest. But he did not sit there long;
he could not bear the silence, it was too depressing, and after a very
little while he arose and walked on. The caps in the track grew higher;
once he stumbled over one of them and fell, striking his side on the
rail. He was in much pain for a few minutes; then he recovered and went
on more carefully, lifting his feet high with every step, and reaching
ahead with his cane. But his progress was very slow.

Then there came upon him the sensation of being in a strange place. It
did not seem like the heading along which he went to and from his daily
work. He reached out with his cane upon each side, and touched nothing.
Surely, there was no place in the heading so wide as that.

But he kept on.

By-and-by he became aware that he was going down a steep incline.
The echoes of his footsteps had a hollow sound, as though he were in
some wide, open space, and his cane struck one, two, three, props in
succession. Then he knew he was somewhere in a chamber; and knew, too,
that he was lost.

He sat down, feeling weak and faint, and tried to think. He remembered
that, at a point in the heading about two-thirds of the way to the
foot, a passage branched off to the right, crossed under the <DW72>, and
ran out into the southern part of the mine, where he had never been. He
thought he must have turned into this cross-heading, and followed it,
and if he had, it would be hard indeed to tell where he now was. He
did not know whether to go on or to turn back.

Perhaps it would be better, after all, to sit still until help should
come, though it might be hours, or even days, before any one would find
him.

Then came a new thought. What would Tom do? Tom would not know where
he had gone; he would never think of looking for him away off here; he
would go up the heading to the door, and not finding him there, would
think that his brother had already gone home. But when he knew that
Bennie was not at home, he would surely come back to the mine to search
for him; he would come down the <DW72>; maybe he was, at that very
moment, at the foot; maybe Tom would hear him if he should call, "Tom!
O Tom!"

The loudest thunder-burst could not have been more deafening to the
frightened child than the sound of his own voice, as it rang out
through the solemn stillness of the mine, and was hurled back to his
ears by the solid masses of rock and coal that closed in around him.

A thousand echoes went rattling down the wide chambers and along the
narrow galleries, and sent back their ghosts to play upon the nervous
fancy of the frightened child. He would not have shouted like that
again if his life had depended on it.

Then silence fell upon him; silence like a pall--oppressive, mysterious
and awful silence, in which he could almost hear the beating of his own
heart. He could not endure that. He grasped his cane again and started
on, searching for a path, stumbling over caps, falling sometimes,
but on and on, though never so slowly; on and on until, faint and
exhausted, he sank down upon the damp floor of the mine, with his face
in his hands, and wept, in silent agony, like the lost child that he
was.

Lost, indeed, with those miles and miles of black galleries opening
and winding and crossing all around him, and he, lying prostrate and
powerless, alone in the midst of that desolation.




CHAPTER II.

THE BURNED BREAKER.


For a long time Bennie lay there, pitifully weeping. Then, away off
somewhere in the mine, he heard a noise. He lifted his head. By degrees
the noise grew louder; then it sounded almost like footsteps. Suppose
it were some one coming; suppose it were Tom! The light of hope flashed
up in Bennie's breast with the thought.

But the sound ceased, the stillness settled down more profoundly than
before, and about the boy's heart the fear and loneliness came creeping
back. Was it possible that the noise was purely imaginary?

Suddenly, tripping down the passages, bounding from the walls, echoing
through the chambers, striking faintly, but, oh, how sweetly, upon
Bennie's ears, came the well-known call,--

"Ben-nie-e-e-e!"

The sound died away in a faint succession of echoing _e_'s.

Bennie sprang to his feet with a cry.

"Tom! Tom! Tom, here I am."

Before the echoes of his voice came back to him they were broken by the
sound of running feet, and down the winding galleries came Tom, as fast
as his lamp and his legs would take him, never stopping till he and
Bennie were in one another's arms.

"Bennie, it was my fault!" exclaimed Tom. "Patsy Donnelly told me you
went out with Sandy McCulloch while I was up at the stables; an' I went
way home, an' Mommie said you hadn't been there, an' I came back to
find you, an' I went up to your door an' you wasn't there, an' I called
an' called, an' couldn't hear no answer; an' then I thought maybe you'd
tried to come out alone, an' got off in the cross headin' an' got lost,
an'"--

Tom stopped from sheer lack of breath, and Bennie sobbed out,--

"I did, I did get lost an' scared, an'--an'--O Tom, it was awful!"

The thought of what he had experienced unnerved Bennie again, and,
still holding Tom's hand, he sat down on the floor of the mine and wept
aloud.

"There, Bennie, don't cry!" said Tom, soothingly; "don't cry! You're
found now. Come, jump up an' le's go home; Mommie'll be half-crazy."
It was touching to see the motherly way in which this boy of fourteen
consoled and comforted his weaker brother, and helped him again to his
feet. With his arm around the blind boy's waist, Tom led him down,
through the chambers, out into the south heading, and so to the foot of
the <DW72>.

It was not a great distance; Bennie's progress had been so slow that,
although he had, as he feared, wandered off by the cross heading into
the southern part of the mine, he had not been able to get very far
away.

At the foot of the <DW72> they stopped to rest, and Bennie told about
the strange man who had talked with him at the doorway. Tom could give
no explanation of the matter, except that the man must have been one
of the strikers. The meaning of his strange conduct he could no more
understand than could Bennie.

It was a long way up the <DW72>, and for more than half the distance it
was very steep; like climbing up a ladder. Many times on the upward way
the boys stopped to rest. Always when he heard Bennie's breathing grow
hard and laborious, Tom would complain of being himself tired, and they
would turn about and sit for a few moments on a tie, facing down the
<DW72>.

Out at last into the quiet autumn night! Bennie breathed a long sigh of
relief when he felt the yielding soil under his feet and the fresh air
in his face.

Ah! could he but have seen the village lights below him, the glory of
the sky and the jewelry of stars above him, and the half moon slipping
up into the heavens from its hiding-place beyond the heights of
Campbell's Ledge, he would, indeed, have known how sweet and beautiful
the upper earth is, even with the veil of night across it, compared
with the black recesses of the mine.

It was fully a mile to the boys' home; but, with light hearts and
willing feet, they soon left the distance behind them, and reached the
low-roofed cottage, where the anxious mother waited in hope and fear
for the coming of her children.

"Here we are, Mommie!" shouted Tom, as he came around the corner
and saw her standing on the doorstep in the moonlight watching. Out
into the road she ran then, and gathered her two boys into her arms,
kissed their grimy, coal-blackened faces, and listened to their
oft-interrupted story, with smiles and with tears, as she led them to
her house.

But Tom stopped at the door and turned back.

"I promised Sandy McCulloch," he said, "to go over an' tell him if I
found Bennie. He said he'd wait up for me, an' go an' help me hunt him
up if I came back without him. It's only just over beyond the breaker;
it won't take twenty minutes, an' Sandy'll be expectin' me."

And without waiting for more words, the boy started off on a run.

It was already past ten o'clock, and he had not had a mouthful of
supper, but that was nothing in consideration of the fact that Sandy
had been good to him, and would have helped him, and was, even now,
waiting for him. So, with a light and grateful heart, he hurried on.

He passed beyond the little row of cottages, of which his mother's was
one, over the hill by a foot-path, and then along the mine car-track to
the breaker. Before him the great building loomed up, like some huge
castle of old, cutting its outlines sharply against the moon-illumined
sky, and throwing a broad black shadow for hundreds of feet to the west.

Through the shadow went Tom, around by the engine-room, where the
watchman's light was glimmering faintly through the grimy window; out
again into the moonlight, up, by a foot-path, to the summit of another
hill, along by another row of darkened dwellings, to a cottage where a
light was still burning, and there he stopped.

The door opened before he reached it, and a man in shirt-sleeves
stepped out and hailed him:

"Is that you, Tom? An' did ye find Bennie?"

"Yes, Sandy. I came to tell you we just got home. Found him down in the
south chambers; he tried to come out alone, an' got lost. So I'll not
need you, Sandy, with the same thanks as if I did, an' good-night to
you!"

"Good-nicht till ye, Tom! I'm glad the lad's safe wi' the mither. Tom,"
as the boy turned away, "ye'll not be afeard to be goin' home alone?"

Tom laughed.

"Do I looked scared, Sandy? Give yourself no fear for me; I'm afraid o'
naught."

Before Sandy turned in at his door, Tom had disappeared below the brow
of the hill. The loose gravel rolled under his feet as he hurried down,
and once, near the bottom, he slipped and fell.

As he rose, he was astonished to see the figure of a man steal
carefully along in the shadow of the breaker, and disappear around the
corner by the engine-room.

Tom went down cautiously into the shadow, and stopped for a moment in
the track by the loading-place to listen. He thought he heard a noise
in there; something that sounded like the snapping of dry twigs.

The next moment a man came out from under that portion of the breaker,
with his head turned back over his shoulder, muttering, as he advanced
toward Tom,--

"There, Mike, that's the last job o' that kind I'll do for all the
secret orders i' the warl'. They put it on to me because I've got no
wife nor childer, nor ither body to cry their eyes oot, an' I get i'
the prison for it. But I've had the hert o' me touched the day, Mike,
an' I canna do the like o' this again; it's the las' time, min' ye, the
las' time I--Mike!--why, that's no' Mike! Don't ye speak, lad! don't ye
whusper! don't ye stir!"

The man stepped forward, a very giant in size, with a great beard
floating on his breast, and laid his brawny hands on Tom's shoulders
with a grip that made the lad wince.

Tom did not stir; he was too much frightened for one thing, too much
astonished for another. For, before the man had finished speaking,
there appeared under the loading-place in the breaker a little
flickering light, and the light grew into