A SHORT STORY.

Sun (Christchurch), Volume I, Issue 258, 4 December 1914, Page 5

A SHORT STORY.

[COPYRIGHT.] BLACK DIAMONDS. A MINER'S LOVE STORY. [By Oliver Strange.] "Yes; I'll speak to him this morning; and take the chance of being dismissed. He must learn that, although he's the manager and I am only a pit hand, ; he can't do as he likes with me and mine." Dick Rodney rose from the hummock •upon which he had been'seated, picked up his miner's dinner-pail, and resumed his way. Scarce twenty-five, lithe and muscular, he covered the ground with long, swinging strides, unmindful of the keen air of the April morning, though it bit sharply, for the hour was not yet ■six. Around him lay the barren waste of Depleigh Moor, and behind him the village of the same name. It was a sleepy little place, depending entirely for existence upon the mine, with which, directly or indirectly, nearly all the inhabitants were connected. Dick's father had been one of the engineers, and had lost, his life when the boy was quite young in an heroic attempt to rescue some miners imprisoned by an explosion. The gallant act procured for thewindow a small pension : aad fi uottage rent free, while the boy, as soon as he was old enough, obtained work at the pit. His mother would have had him try for something better, but Dick saw the many needs his earnings would supply, and was firm. ""Don't you worry, old lady," he had said. "I'll be manager of a mine yet, and it won't do me any harm to learn the whole thing." But the years slid by, and the chance of improving his condition had not come. Sometimes it seemed to him that the long hours he had spent in study, and acquiring a wider knowledge of his oc; cupation, were wasted; and he was tempted to throw his books aside and spend his leisure in amusement after the fashion of his companions. Among the latter he was not popular; for the fastest considered his mode of life a reproach to themselves, and the majority attributed his aloofness to pride, and cold-shouldered him accordingly. Rodney cared little about this, for—--save his mother —he valued the opinion . of but one person in the village. This was Norah Transome, a cousin, who had come to live with them when Mrs Rodney's health broke down; giving up her situation as companion to Ethel Lester, the mine-owner's only child, in order to do so. She was a pretty, educated girl, some three years younger than Dick; who, of course, promptly fell in love with her.

The hope of winning her had given him all the happiness he desired; but with the advent of a fresh manager of the mine came that fell destroyer of joy—jealousy. That his cousin and John Fenton, the new young manager, were acquainted he soon discovered, for he met them several times walking on the moor. Also, Fenton had called at the cottage to make the invalid's acquaintance, and, to Dick's disgust, won the old lady's approval immediately. But he hid his growing resentment until the malevolent whispers of his mates culminated in an open jeer on the part of one. The thrashing the scoffer received silenced the rest, but the taunt rankled, the more cruelly for that it had apparently some justification. This and his jealousy wrought the determination to '' have it out'' with the manager.

The latter, though a few years the elder of the two, was young for the responsible post he held, but he knew his work, and did it thoroughly. He had almost absolute power from the owner, and a strong sense of duty made him more strict, perhaps, than he would have been had the mine been his own. His predecessor had been too easy-going,

and when Fenton commenced reforms ho speedily made himself unpopular, though many of the innovations benefited the workers. Fenton knew that he was not liked, ahd that there were some desperate characters among his men; but he was not easily frightened. He was in no pleasant frame of mind when Rodney entered the office, for he had just learned of the rumour that he was about to introduce the "iron man" (the collier's name for the coal-cutting machine) into the mine, and though it was untrue, he knew it would be believed.

"Well, Rodney, what is it!" he asked, rather sharply. For a moment Dick found himself unable to reply. Oh his way across the moor he had rehearsed what seemed a dignified and eloquent speech, but now that the moment had come not a phrase could he remember.

" It's about my cousin,'' he blurted out, after an awkward pause. "Some of the men are talking about your being seen with her.' ' And then, anger coming to his aid, he cried, passionately: " It's got to stop, Mr Fenton. I won't have it, so now y6u know." "Is your cousin aware of your intention to speak to me?" asked the other, whose look of surprise had quickly changed to one of stern displeasure, and, reading his answer on Rodney's embarrassed face, he added: '' And the lady is of age, too, I fancy? May I ask by what right you interfere in her affairs —and mine?"

The speaker's complete command of himself, and his own sudden conviction that the young lady would most certainly deeply resent his action, still further routed Dick's ideas, and he could only stammer that the girl had but himself to look to for protection. "She does not need any—from me," retorted Fenton, curtly. He paused, reflecting for a moment, and then continued : '' You have made a fool of yourself, Rodney; but for your mother's sake I will overlook it this time. No"—as Dick would have spoken —"I care nothing for your threats. By the way, you were working in the North Cutting yesterday. I am going to examine it to-dav. What do you think of it?" His keen eyes were watching the young miner closely as he put the question, and Dick flushed under his scrutiny. He knew that the cutting was in such a dangerous state now that none of the men would venture along it. The workers had been driven out the previous day by ominous cracks, and in many places the shoring timbers of the walls had given way, so that a collapse of the whole tunnel might occur at any instant. For the moment the primal savagery hidden in every man had the ascendancy, and Dick said that the danger had been exaggerated by the men. "Thank you," replied Fenton, grimly, ( < That will do."

He turned to his desk again, and Dick left the office in silence, but with bitter hatred in his heart. At the pithead several of the more unruly of the men were grouped together, muttering, with dark faces. He caught a word or two as he passed. '' P 'raps he 'll go an' look at it himself, an' I hope it'll fall in on him," growled one.

'' It wouldn't take much to make it,'' said Mike Luben, darkly. " It's him or ns. Why not " His voice dropped to a whisper, and Dick heard no more. He had heard enough, however, to tell him that Fenton's life was in serious danger if he ventured into the North Cutting. A slight explosion would bring the tunnel, or, at least, great portions of it, down upon him. A small charge of blasting powder, with a time fuse, and the deed was done —safely. Deep down in the bowels of the earth Dick worked and wrestled with his better self. His natural instinct as an Englishman urged him to warn his rival, while love and self-pride told him that it was no affair of his. Once the former triumphed, and ho even went to the shaft and asked for the manager. "Gone over to Runcaster, I've heard," said the man to whom he put the question.

Dick returned to his work with mingled feelings. Uppermost in his mind he was conscious of a sense of disappointment that Fenton was safe. For the hundredth time he went over the morning's interview, and as he realised all that the manager's death might mean to him the brute instinct got the upper hand again. In this frame of mind he would not have raised a finger to prevent Fenton from walking to certain destruction. He worked savagely, venting his rage upon the stubborn coal-seam, until a dull, booming sound, reverberating along the side cutting, made him drop his pick and listen anxiously. A moment later his

name was shouted, and he obeyed the call with the alacrity tlie miner soon learns. At the shaft he found all was confusion. An explosion had occurred in the North. Cutting, and the men, always ready for an excuse to knock off, work, were getting out of the mine with all speed. Mr Fenton was not to be found, and as the post of assistant manager was vacant, there was no one with sufficient authority to interfere. Luben and his gang were the first to leave, and something in their demeanour made Dick's heart throb with dread, curiously intermixed with a feeling of exultation. Was Fenton in the mine, and was the explosion a natural one? The question agitated his mind as he crossed the moor homewards, and, with bent head, he strode onward heedless of all else.

"Dick, what has happened; they are speaking of an accident at the mine?" He stopped, and looked up to find his cousin before him. His face was pale and drawn, while her panting bosom and disordered dress told of violent haste. For an instant he hugged the dear delusion that her fears had been for him. "Where is Mr Fenton?" she asked.

The question, uttered in trembling, anxious tones, aroused all that was worst in him again, and, with a scowl, he replied: "How should I know? It's no business of mine."

"You do know, and it is your business," she cried, passionately. "You saw him this morning, and told him the North Cutting was not dangerous, when only last night you told me that it was as much as a man's life was worth to venture into it. When he told me that he intended to see foivhimself I begged him not to; but he wouldn't listen — even to me.'' The last three words were worse than a blow to their hearer. He muttered something about Fenton having changed his mind and gone to Runcaster.

'' That was a blind,'' Nora said. '' He feared treachery if some of the men knew he was going into the cutting." Her tone was almost an accusation, and Dick started and flushed. The girl's quick eyes noted it, and instinctively she divined the truth. "You knew it!" she cried. "And you let him go to his death. Why?" There was a note of bitter anguish in the question which stung the man to sudden fury. "Because I love you, and he came between us,'' he said, fiercely.

''At least he is a man, and a brave one," she retorted, bitterly. "You — you are a coward, and I hate cowards." The scorn in her eyes burned him as she turned contemptuously away. He watched her retreating figure for a space, with clenched hands and set teeth, as though he had been turned to stone. Then, suddenly, he wheeled and made for the mine. He found it deserted, save for an old engineer who lived in a cottage on the premises. "I am going down again, Murphy," he said, and, unmindful of the old man's protestations, he went to the lamp-room to get his lamp and tools. Murphy, still protesting, nevertheless lowered him into the depths, and Dick, with a parting glance up the shaft, turned towards the North Cutting, with the word "Coward!" ringing in his ears. He soon came upon evidence of the "accident" in the shape of loosened debris, while at every yard a bulging timber showed how insecure were the wallsi He trod warily, well knowing that even the light shock of a footfall might be sufficient to bring the straining masses down upon his head. Presently he found his way almost blocked, and he had to crawl laboriously over or under huge detached masses of coal. Used as he was to tho surroundings, the gloom and silence worked on his nerves. It seemed hours since lie had seen the daylight, and an almost overpowering impulse urged him to go back. But the name with which the girl had branded him drove him like a task-master, and lie fought his way with dogged determination. Almost blinded by coal-dust, with lacerated, bleeding limbs, he still struggled on, meeting with increased difficulties at every yard. At last it seemed he could go no further. A mass of shattered timbers, rocks, and coal completely blocked the tunnel. As Dick surveyed it hesitatingly, something resembling a groan caught his startled ear. He shouted, and his voice was caught up and echoed weirdly along the silences of the tunnel, but no answer came.

There was but one way to get through, and well as he knew the danger he seized his pick and attacked the obstacle vigorously. Foot by foot he cut a way through, and at length was clear.

An instant later a dull road and a rush of air told him that the roof of the tunnel behind him had fallen, and that his escape was cut off. He accepted his fate with*a reckless laugh: he had been in the shadow of death for the past, hour, and the grim monarch no longer inspired fear. -A groan, almost at his feet, answered his mad mirth, and there, stretched upon the floor of the cutting, lay the man whom he had risked his all to reach. Fenton was bleeding from a gash on the temple and pinned down by a baulk of timber] but he was quite conscious.

"Rodney, you?" he cried, recognising his would-be rescuer despite the grime. "Yes," replied Dick, curtly. He moved the log. No benes were broken, and the manager—though faint and bruised —was soon able to stand. His attempt to thank the young miner was a failure.

"I came because I lied to you about the cutting," Dick said, shortly, adding, with a bitter laugh, "and, after all, I've only come to die with you." '' But where you got in we can get out," responded Fenton, puzzled by the other's manner.

Rodney flung himself down upon a block of coal, and in a few words explained the situation. '' It would take a week to dig us out," he concluded, "and by that time There was a long silence, and then Fenton said:

"We are almost at the far end of the cutting, and yet there is a distinct current of air."

Taking the lamp he went a little farther along the tunnel, and a moment -later a cry brought the younger man to his side. He was standing in front of a jagged fissure in the wall, through which the cool air entered briskly. "Come along!" he cried. "It's worth trying, for we cannot be worse off, any way." They passed through,/ to find themselves in a tunnel similar, but running at right angles, to the one they had left. Fenton examined the walls curiously, and thought for a moment. "I have it," he said, presently. "This will be one of the cuttings, of the old mine which was abandoned after the big disaster. If the way is still clear to the shaft, we have a chance yet. These scoundrels who wrecked the cutting little thought they were opening a door for me at the same time."

"Then it was foul play?" queried Dick.

"This must be one of the higher workings—the old mine was much deeper than the new,'' Fenton remarked, as they proceeded. "She's half full of water, too." Soon a sort of ghostly glow appeared ahead, and in a few moments they were at the old shaft. Below them, a depth of still, inky water; above, a small patch of twilight sky. They gazed silently for some moments, and then Fenton' voiced the thoughts in both their minds.

"We might rot here.before anyone passed near enough to hear a hail. There's our road."

He pointed to the remains of an old ladder, clamped to the timbers lining the shaft. Probably it had been there from the earliest days of the mine, but it looked fairly secure, and Fenton did not hesitate. Clinging with fingers and toes to the rude sheething, he swung clear of the ledge, and dragged himself up until he could grasp the ladder. "All serene!" he called. And Dick followed with like success.

"Steadily they began to mount, the ladder creaking ominously at every moment. Suddenly there came a sharp crack, and; looking up, Dick saw that their frail support was unequal to the strain. An instant, and his decision was made.

"It won't bear us both. For Nora's sake —she loves you! Tell her —I'm not —a coward." With the last word he released his hold. He was conscious of the swift drop, the icy chill of the water, a stunning shock, and then —oblivion.

"Lie perfectly still, sir, and you shall hear all about "it," Nora said, as she gently pushed her patient back upon the pillow and held up a warning finger. So Bodney, weak as a child—he had been delirious for a week —and -with a sorely battered head, listened patiently while she told how Fenton had followed him in that mad plunge, and, finding Dick senseless, had supported him in the water until, by a.lucky chance, his shouts were heard.

"And to think I called you a coward," she said, shamedly. "Dick, can you ever forgive me?" "I deserved it, lass," he replied. "I was just mad with jealousy, but that's past. Fenton's the better man, and it's only right he should have you.''

"But he doesn't want me —he never did," she whispered, laughing and crying at once. "He loves Miss Ethel, and she him, but they feared her father's displeasure, and so they corresponded through me. It' was their secret, so I couldn't tell even you.'' "Then you don't love him?" Dick cried. "You don't love anyone?" "I didn't say that, Dick," she said, her eyes twinkling roguishly. "As I may not have the manager, I suppose I must be content with the new assistantmanager —that is, of course, if he wants me."