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[Illustration: BULLDOG FINDS A FRIEND.]




  FACING DEATH
  OR,
  THE HERO OF THE VAUGHAN PIT.

  A TALE OF THE COAL MINES.


  BY
  G. A. HENTY,

  Author of "With Clive in India;" "In Freedom's Cause;"
  "By Sheer Pluck;" "Under Drake's Flag;" &c.


  _WITH EIGHT FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS BY GORDON BROWNE._


  LONDON: BLACKIE & SON, LIMITED;

  NEW YORK: CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS,
  743 AND 745 BROADWAY




  CONTENTS.


    CHAP.                                          PAGE
       I. EVIL TIDINGS,                               9
      II. BULL-DOG,                                  16
     III. THE RESOLUTION,                            31
      IV. THE VAUGHAN PIT,                           39
       V. SETTING TO WORK,                           49
      VI. "THE OLD SHAFT,"                           54
     VII. FRIENDSHIP,                                64
    VIII. PROGRESS,                                  74
      IX. THE GREAT STRIKE,                          80
       X. HARD TIMES,                                96
      XI. THE ATTACK ON THE ENGINE-HOUSE,           105
     XII. AFTER THE STRIKE,                         117
    XIII. A HEAVY LOSS,                             124
     XIV. THE NIGHT-SCHOOL,                         134
      XV. THE SEWING-CLASS,                         146
     XVI. A NEW LIFE,                               156
    XVII. THE DOG FIGHT,                            166
   XVIII. STOKEBRIDGE FEAST,                        173
     XIX. THE GREAT RIOT,                           183
      XX. THE ARM OF THE LAW,                       193
     XXI. A KNOTTY QUESTION,                        201
    XXII. THE SOLUTION,                             209
   XXIII. THE EXPLOSION AT THE VAUGHAN,             222
    XXIV. IN DEADLY PERIL,                          235
     XXV. THE IMPRISONED MINERS,                    239
    XXVI. A CRITICAL MOMENT,                        253
   XXVII. RESCUED,                                  259
  XXVIII. CHANGES,                                  274
    XXIX. THE NEW MANAGER,                          283
     XXX. RISEN,                                    289
    XXXI. CONCLUSION,                               298




  ILLUSTRATIONS.


                                                   PAGE
  BULLDOG FINDS A FRIEND,                _Frontispiece_.
  IN THE OLD SHAFT--CAN HE BE SAVED?                 58
  NELLY'S FIRST LESSON,                              70
  A LIFE OR DEATH STRUGGLE,                         113
  JACK IS VICTORIOUS,                               170
  THE NEW SCHOOLMISTRESS,                           217
  AFTER THE FIRST EXPLOSION--THE SEARCH PARTY,      237
  SAVED!                                            270




FACING DEATH:

OR, HOW STOKEBRIDGE WAS CIVILIZED.


CHAPTER I.

EVIL TIDINGS.


A row of brick-built houses with slate roofs, at the edge of a large
mining village in Staffordshire. The houses are dingy and colourless,
and without relief of any kind. So are those in the next row, so in the
street beyond, and throughout the whole village. There is a dreary
monotony about the place; and if some giant could come and pick up all
the rows of houses, and change their places one with another, it is a
question whether the men, now away at work, would notice any difference
whatever until they entered the houses standing in the place of those
which they had left in the morning. There is a church, and a vicarage
half hidden away in the trees in its pretty old-fashioned garden; there
are two or three small red-bricked dissenting chapels, and the doctor's
house, with a bright brass knocker and plate on the door. There are no
other buildings above the common average of mining villages; and it
needs not the high chimneys, and engine-houses with winding gear,
dotting the surrounding country, to notify the fact that Stokebridge is
a mining village.

It is a little past noon, and many of the women come to their doors and
look curiously after a miner, who, in his working clothes, and black
with coal-dust, walks rapidly towards his house, with his head bent
down, and his thick felt hat slouched over his eyes.

"It's Bill Haden; he works at the 'Vaughan.'"

"What brings he up at this hour?"

"Summat wrong, I'll be bound."

Bill Haden stopped at the door of his house in the row first spoken of,
lifted the latch, and went in. He walked along a narrow passage into the
back-room. His wife, who was standing at the washing-tub, turned round
with a surprised exclamation, and a bull-dog with half-a-dozen round
tumbling puppies scrambled out of a basket by the fire, and rushed to
greet him.

"What is it, Bill? what's brought thee home before time?"

For a moment Bill Haden did not answer, but stooped, and, as it were
mechanically, lifted the dog and stroked its head.

"There's blood on thy hands, Bill. What be wrong with 'ee?"

"It bain't none of mine, lass," the man said in an unsteady voice. "It
be Jack's. He be gone."

"Not Jack Simpson?"

"Ay, Jack Simpson; the mate I ha' worked with ever since we were butties
together. A fall just came as we worked side by side in the stall, and
it broke his neck, and he's dead."

The woman dropped into a chair, threw her apron over her head, and cried
aloud, partly at the loss of her husband's mate, partly at the thought
of the narrow escape he had himself had.

"Now, lass," her husband said, "there be no time to lose. It be for thee
to go and break it to his wife. I ha' come straight on, a purpose. I
thawt to do it, but I feel like a gal myself, and it had best be told
her by another woman."

Jane Haden took her apron from her face.

"Oh, Bill, how can I do it, and she ill, and with a two-month baby? I
misdoubt me it will kill her."

"Thou'st got to do it," Bill said doggedly, "and thou'd best be quick
about it; it won't be many minutes afore they bring him in."

When Bill spoke in that way his wife knew, as he said, that she'd got to
do it, and without a word she rose and went out, while her husband stood
staring into the fire, and still patting the bull-dog in his arms. A
tear falling on his hand startled him. He dropped the dog and gave it a
kick, passed his sleeve across his eyes, and said angrily:

"Blest if I bain't a crying like a gal. Who'd a thawt it? Well, well,
poor old Jack! he was a good mate too"--and Bill Haden proceeded to
light his pipe.

Slowly and reluctantly Mrs. Haden passed along the row. The sad errand
on which she was going was one that has often to be discharged in a
large colliery village. The women who had seen Bill go in were still at
their doors, and had been joined by others. The news that he had come in
at this unusual hour had passed about quickly, and there was a general
feeling of uneasiness among the women, all of whom had husbands or
relatives below ground. When, therefore, Jane Haden came out with signs
of tears on her cheeks, her neighbours on either side at once assailed
her with questions.

"Jack Simpson's killed by a fall," she said, "and I ha' got to break it
to his wife."

Rapidly the news spread along the row, from door to door, and from group
to group. The first feeling was everywhere one of relief that it was not
their turn this time; then there was a chorus of pity for the widow. "It
will go hard with her," was the general verdict. Then the little groups
broke up, and went back to their work of getting ready for the return of
their husbands from the pit at two o'clock. One or two only, of those
most intimate with the Simpsons, followed Jane Haden slowly down the
street to the door of their house, and took up a position a short
distance off, talking quietly together, in case they might be wanted,
and with the intention of going in after the news was broken, to help
comfort the widow, and to make what preparations were needed for the
last incoming of the late master of the house. It was but a minute or
two that they had to pause, for the door opened again, and Jane Haden
beckoned them to come in.

It had, as the gossips had predicted, gone hard with the young widow.
She was sitting before the fire when Jane entered, working, and rocking
the cradle beside with her foot. At the sight of her visitor's pale
face, and tear-stained cheeks, and quivering lips, she had dropped her
work and stood up, with a terrible presentiment of evil--with that dread
which is never altogether absent from the mind of a collier's wife. She
did not speak, but stood with wide-open eyes staring at her visitor.

"Mary, my poor girl," Mrs. Haden began.

That was enough, the whole truth burst upon her.

"He is killed?" she gasped.

Mrs. Haden gave no answer in words, but her face was sufficient as she
made a step forward towards the slight figure which swayed unsteadily
before her. Mary Simpson made no sound save a gasping sob, her hand went
to her heart, and then she fell in a heap on the ground, before Mrs.
Haden, prepared as she was, had time to clasp her.

"Thank God," Jane Haden said, as she went to the front door and beckoned
the others in, "she has fainted."

"Ay, I thawt as much," one of the women said, "and a good job too. It's
always best so till he is brought home, and things are straightened up."

Between them Mary Simpson was tenderly lifted, and carried upstairs and
laid on the bed of a lodger's room there. The cradle was brought up and
put beside it, and then Jane Haden took her seat by the bed, one woman
went for the doctor, while the others prepared the room below. In a
short time all that remained of Jack Simpson was borne home on a
stretcher, on the shoulders of six of his fellow-workmen, and laid in
the darkened room. The doctor came and went for the next two days, and
then his visits ceased.

It had gone hard with Mary Simpson. She had passed from one long
fainting fit into another, until at last she lay as quiet as did Jack
below; and the doctor, murmuring "A weak heart, poor little woman; the
shock was too much for her," took his departure for the last time from
the house. Then Jane Haden, who had not left her friend's side ever
since she was carried upstairs, wrapped the baby in a shawl and went
home, a neighbour carrying the cradle.

When Bill Haden returned from work he found the room done up, the table
laid for tea, and the kettle on the fire. His wife was sitting by it
with the baby on her lap.

"Well, lass," he said, as he entered the room, "so the poor gal's gone.
I heard it as I came along. Thou'st's had a hard two days on't. Hulloa!
what's that?"

"It's the baby, Bill," his wife said.

"What hast brought un here for?" he asked roughly.

Jane Haden did not answer directly, but standing in front of her
husband, removed the handkerchief which covered the baby's face as he
lay on her arm.

"Look at him, Bill; he's something like Jack, don't thou see it?"

"Not a bit of it," he said gruffly. "Kids don't take after their father,
as pups do."

"I can see the likeness quite plain, Bill. Now," she went on, laying her
hand on his shoulder, "I want to keep him. We ain't got none of our own,
Bill, and I can't abear the thought of his going to the House."

Bill Haden stood irresolute.

"I shouldn't like to think of Jack's kid in the House; still he'll be a
heap of trouble--worse nor a dozen pups, and no chance of winning a
prize with him nohow, or of selling him, or swopping him if his points
don't turn out right. Still, lass, the trouble will be thine, and by the
time he's ten he'll begin to earn his grub in the pit; so if thy mind be
set on't, there's 'n end o' the matter. Now let's have tea; I ain't had
a meal fit for a dog for the last two days, and Juno ain't got her milk
regular."

So little Jack Simpson became a member of the Haden family, and his
father and mother were laid to rest in the burying-ground on the
hillside above the village.




CHAPTER II.

BULL-DOG.


A curious group as they sit staring into the fire. Juno and Juno's
daughter Bess, brindles both, with their underhanging lower jaws, and
their black noses and wrinkled faces, and Jack Simpson, now six years
old, sitting between them, as grave and as immovable as his supporters.
One dog is on either side of him and his arms are thrown round their
broad backs. Mrs. Haden is laying the table for her husband's return;
she glances occasionally at the quiet group in front of the fire, and
mutters to herself: "I never did see such a child in all my born days."

Presently a sudden and simultaneous pricking of the closely-cropped ears
of Juno and Bess proclaim that among the many footsteps outside they
have detected the tread of their master.

Jack accepts the intimation and struggles up to his feet just as Bill
Haden lifts the latch and enters.

"It's a fine day, Bill," his wife said.

"Be it?" the collier replied in return. "I took no note o't. However it
doant rain, and that's all I cares for. And how's the dogs? Did you give
Juno that physic ball I got for her?"

"It's no manner of use, Bill, leaving they messes wi' me. I ha' tould
you so scores o' times. She woant take it from me. She sets her jaws
that fast that horses could na pull 'em apart, and all the while I'm
trying she keeps oop a growl like t' organ at the church. She's a' right
wi'out the physic, and well nigh pinned Mrs. Brice when she came in
to-day to borrow a flatiron. She was that frighted she skirled out and
well nigh fainted off. I had to send Jack round to the "Chequers" for
two o' gin before she came round."

"Mrs. Brice is a fool and you're another," Bill said. "Now, ooman, just
take off my boots for oim main tired. What be you staring at, Jack? Were
you nearly pinning Mother Brice too?"

"I doant pin folk, I doant," Jack said sturdily. "I kicks 'em, I do, but
I caught hold o' Juno's tail, and held on. And look 'ee here, dad, I've
been a thinking, doant 'ee lift I oop by my ears no more, not yet. They
are boath main sore. I doant believe neither Juno nor Bess would stand
bein lifted oop by their ears, not if they were sore. I be game enough,
I be, but till my ears be well you must try some other part. I expect
the cheek would hurt just as bad, so you can try that."

"I do wish, Bill, you would not try these tricks on the boy. He's game
enough, and if you'd ha' seen him fighting to-day with Mrs. Jackson's
Bill, nigh twice as big as himself, you'd ha' said so too; but it ain't
Christian-like to try children the same way as pups, and really his ears
are sore, awful sore. I chanced t' notice 'em when I washed his face
afore he went to school, and they be main bad, I tell 'ee."

"Coom here," the miner said to Jack. "Aye, they be sore surely; why
didn't 'ee speak afore, Jack? I doant want to hurt 'ee, lad."

"I wa'n't going to speak," Jack said. "Mother found it out, and said
she'd tell 'ee o't; but the last two nights I were well nigh yelping
when 'ee took me up."

"You're a good plucked 'un, Jack," Bill Haden said, "and I owt not t' ha
done it, but I didn't think it hurt 'ee, leastways not more nor a boy
owt to be hurt, to try if 'ee be game!"

"And what's you and t' dogs been doing to-day, Jack?" the miner asked,
as he began at his dinner.

"We went for a walk, dad, after school, out in the lanes; we saw a big
black cat, and t' dogs chased her into a tree, then we got 't a pond,
and d'ye know, dad, Bess went in and swam about, she did!"

"She did?" the miner said sharply. "Coom here, Bess;" and leaving his
meal, he began anxiously to examine the bull-dog's eyes and listened
attentively to her breathing. "That were a rum start for a bull too,
Jack. She doant seem to ha' taken no harm, but maybe it ain't showed
itself. Mother, you give her some hot grub t' night. Doant you let her
go in t' water again, Jack. What on airth made her tak it into her head
to go into t' water noo, I wonder?"

"I can't help it if she wants to," Jack said; "she doant mind I, not
when she doant want to mind. I welted her t'other day when she wanted to
go a't parson's coo, but she got hold o' t' stick and pulled it out o'
my hand."

"And quite raight too," Bill Haden said; "don't 'ee try to welt they
dogs, or I'll welt thee!"

"I doant care," the child said sturdily; "if I goes out in charge o'
they dogs, theys got to mind me, and how can I make 'em mind me if I
doant welt 'em? What would 'ee say to I if Bess got had up afore the
court for pinning t' parson's coo?"

As no ready reply occurred to Bill Haden to this question he returned to
his meal. Juno and Bess watched him gravely till he had finished, and
then, having each received a lump of meat put carefully aside for them,
returned to the fire. Jack, curling himself up beside them, lay with his
head on Juno's body and slept till Mrs. Haden, having cleared the table
and washed up the things, sent him out to play, her husband having at
the conclusion of his meal lighted his pipe and strolled over to the
"Chequers."

Bill Haden had, according to his lights, been a good father to the child
of his old mate Simpson. He treated him just as if he had been his own.
He spent twopence a day less in beer than before, and gave his wife
fourteen pence in addition to her weekly money for household expenses,
for milk for the kid, just as he allowed twopence a day each for bones
for Juno and Bess. He also when requested by his wife handed over what
sum was required for clothing and shoes, not without grumbling, however,
and comparisons as to the wants of dorgs and boys, eminently
unfavourable to the latter. The weekly twopence for schooling Mrs. Haden
had, during the year that Jack had been at school, paid out of her
housekeeping money, knowing that the expenses of the dogs afforded no
precedent whatever for such a charge.

Bill Haden was, however, liberal to the boy in many ways, and when in a
good temper would often bestow such halfpence as he might have in his
pocket upon him, and now and then taking him with him into town,
returned with such clothes and shoes that "mother" held up her hands at
the extravagance.

Among his young companions Jack was liked but feared. When he had money
he would purchase bull's-eyes, and collecting all his acquaintances,
distribute them among them; but he was somewhat sedate and old-fashioned
in his ways, from his close friendships with such thoughtful and
meditative animals as Juno and Bess, and when his wrath was excited he
was terrible. Never uttering a cry, however much hurt, he would fight
with an obstinacy and determination which generally ended by giving him
the victory, for if he once got hold of an antagonist's hair--pinning
coming to him naturally--no amount of blows or ill-treatment could
force him to leave go until his agonized opponent confessed himself
vanquished.

It was not often, however, that Jack came in contact with the children
of his own age. His duties as guardian of the "dorgs" absorbed the
greater part of his time, and as one or both of these animals generally
accompanied him when he went beyond the door, few cared about having
anything to say to him when so attended; for the guardianship was by no
means entirely on his side, and however excellent their qualities and
pure their breed, neither Juno nor Bess were animals with whom strangers
would have ventured upon familiarity.

Jack's reports to his "dad" of Bess's inclination to attack t' parson's
coo was not without effect, although Bill Haden had made no remark at
the time. That night, however, he observed to his wife: "I've been a
thinking it over, Jane, and I be come to the opinion that it's better t'
boy should not go out any more wi' t' dorgs. Let 'em bide at home, I'll
take 'em oot when they need it. If Bess takes it into her head to pin a
coo there might be trouble, an I doan't want trouble. Her last litter o'
pups brought me a ten pun note, and if they had her oop at 'a court and
swore her life away as a savage brute, which she ain't no way, it would
pretty nigh break my heart."

The execution of this, as of many other good intentions, however, was
postponed until an event happened which led to Jack's being definitely
relieved of the care of his canine friends.

Two years had passed, when one morning Jack was calmly strolling along
the road accompanied by Juno and Bess. A gig came rapidly along
containing two young bagmen, as commercial travellers were still called
in Stokebridge. The driver, seeing a child with two dogs, conceived that
this was a favourable opportunity for a display of that sense of playful
humour whose point lies in the infliction of pain on others, without any
danger of personal consequences to the inflictor.

With a sharp sweep he brought down his whip across Jack's back, managing
to include Bess in the stroke.

Jack set up a shout of mingled pain and indignation, and stooping for a
stone, hurled it after the man who had struck him. Bess's response to
the assault upon her was silent, but as prompt and far more effectual.
With two springs she was beside the horse, and leaping up caught it by
the nostrils and dragged it to the ground.

Juno at once joined in the fray, and made desperate attempts to climb
into the gig and seize its inmates, who had nearly been thrown out as
the horse fell.

Recovering himself, the driver, pale with terror, clubbed his whip, and
struck at Juno with the butt-end.

"Don't 'ee hit her," Jack cried as he arrived on the spot; "if thou dost
she'll tear 'ee limb from limb."

"Call the brute off, you little rascal," cried the other, "it's killing
the horse."

"Thou'd best keep a civil tongue in thy head," the child said coolly,
"or it will be bad for 'ee. What did 'ee hit I and Bess for? It would
serve 'ee roight if she had pinned 'ee instead o' t' horse."

"Call them off," the fellow shouted as Juno's teeth met in close
proximity to his leg.

"It be all very well to say call 'em orf," Jack said, "but they doan't
moind I much. Have 'ee got a strap?"

The man hastily threw down a strap, and this Jack passed through Juno's
collar, she being too absorbed in her efforts to climb into the gig to
heed what the child was doing; then he buckled it to the wheel.

"Noo," he said, "ye can light down t' other side. She caan't reach 'ee
there."

The young men leapt down, and ran to the head of the horse; the poor
brute was making frantic efforts to rise, but the bull-dog held him down
with her whole might.

Jack shouted and pulled, but in vain; Bess paid no attention to his
voice.

"Can you bite his tail?" one of the frightened men said; "I've heard
that is good."

"Boite her tail!" Jack said in contempt; "doan't yer see she's a
full-bred un; ye moight boite her tail off, and she would care nowt
about 't. I've got summat here that may do."

He drew out a twisted paper from his pocket.

"This is snuff," he said; "if owt will make her loose, this will. Now
one o' yer take holt by her collar on each side, and hoult tight, yer
know, or she'll pin ye when she leaves go o' the horse. Then when she
sneezes you pull her orf, and hoult fast."

The fear of the men that the horse would be killed overpowered their
dread of the dog, and each took a firm grip upon its collar. Then Jack
placed a large pinch of snuff to its nostrils. A minute later it took
effect, the iron jaws unclosed with a snap, and in an instant Bess was
snatched away from the horse, which, delivered from its terrible foe,
sank back groaning on the road. Bess made the most furious attempts to
free herself from her captors, but in vain, and Juno strained
desperately at the strap to come to the assistance of her offspring.

"Ha' ye got another strap?" Jack asked.

"There's a chain in the box under the seat."

Jack with some difficulty and an amount of deliberation for which the
men could gladly have slain him, climbed up into the gig, and presently
came back with the chain.

"Noo tak' her round to t' other side o' gig," he said; "we'll fasten her
just as Juno is."

When Bess was securely chained to the wheel the men ran to raise the
horse, who lay with its head in a pool of blood.

"There's a pond in yon field," Jack said, "if 'ee wants water."

After Bess was secured Jack had slipped round to Juno, and kept his hand
upon the buckle in readiness to loose her should any attempt be made
upon his personal safety. The men, however, were for the moment too
scared to think of him. It was some time before the horse was got on to
its legs, with a wet cloth wrapped round its bleeding wound. Fortunately
Bess's grip had included the bit-strap as well as the nostrils, and this
had somewhat lessened the serious nature of the hurt.

Jack had by this time pacified the dogs, and when the men looked round,
after getting the horse on to its legs, they were alarmed to see him
standing by quietly holding the