THE LONGEST1 TUNNEL IN THE WORLD. LITERATURE.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 3597, 21 October 1879, Page 3

THE LONGEST 1 TUNNEL IN THE WORLD.

LITERATURE.

.jirt&v' {GalijtiaMi's. Hussengcr.) j3*xue opening of the first railway is spoken /0? a* a memorahle event, but every one seems to forget that centuries before this occurence loads were transported on rails in mines, and the fact is equally overlooked in regarding the piercing of wholo mountains, such a& Mount Cenis and Saint Gothard that similar works had been effected ages ago in mines on a far larger scale. Tho longe&t subterranean construction of this kind is to bo found in tho mines of Froyberg, in tho Kingdom of Saxony. Already, at tho end of tho year 1835, the galleries had attained a length of 102 miles, or 163 kilometers. At the same timo tho works, commenced at tho end of tho twelfth century, had reached such a depth that any further descent was found to be impracticable. From 1524 to 1834 they had produced 6,504,481 mares (1 franc 25 centimes each) in. silver alono, of a value of 200,000,000 thalers yearly.. Consequently a new gallory had to be openoci This was to lead from the village of Bothschcenberg to a distance of 12,882 meters.; ite cost was estimated at 1,300,000 thalew (3 francs 75 centimes each), and 22 years was calculated as tho time necessary to carry out tho undertaking. The work was completed a year ago, and its execution had occupied thirty-three years, and necessitated an expenditure of 7,186,697 marcs. That considerable increase on tho original estimatos was caused by the rock to be pierced turning out much harder than had been expected, and tho fact that tho quantity of water yielded by tho mountain was far larger tha.n had been calculated upon. Other circumstances helped to swell the costs ; the rise in wages, and the price of materials greatly augmented the expenditure, and tho delay in tho execution increased the general costs and those of superintendency and administration. Moreover, the gallery had b;come longer than was originally intended. It rises, generally speaking, at a gradient of three in 1000. Including tho secondary gallerio?, tho shaft of Eothschocnberg has now an extent of tunneling of 29,000 meters, which will soon reach 50,800 meters ; or nearly thirty-two miles. This length far surpasses any railway tunnel in the world.

ALONG THE LINKS OF ALNMOUTH. (All the Year Hound.) " Weel, Annico, I'll say't again ; ye niicht gac fairthor an 1 faro worse ; an' yo'll own it yoursel ano o' these days." " An 1 will it bo your son bid yo toll mo so, Mrs Garth ? Indeed, an' 'twas very kind o' him ; an' 'tis ho knows best his am value." " Eh, but you're a eaucy gairl, Annice ; yo knaw weel eneuch that John's no the man to say anything for himsol' ; tho' weel he raicht, an' he were willing." " Ayj'but he'll set you to say't ; an' for the maitter o' that I'd as lief hcar't from himsel'. Sure an' it's a' ano to me, an 1 if you're willin' I'll bd biddin' yo gude day tho noo, Mrs Garth ; for I'm gaun wi' a messago to Meestress Plaistaws at Warkworth ; an' I'm no minded to be driven aboot any man, least o' a' ane who thcenks sac weel o' himsel's John Garth !" with which, and in a little pet, which flushed her pretty cheeks carnation-wise, and lent a double sparkle to her bright blue eyes, Annice Laidlaw caught up a little basket, and departed with a whisk of her short skirts from tho cottnge door at which she had been standing for tho last ten minutes ; Mrs Garth, a thin, rathor hard-featured old woman, wearing a widow's cap and a rusty black gown, looked after her with a sigh, and shook • her head frowningly. " Noo, I'll ha jest made maittcrs wurree," she said to herself ; " an' John will blame mo whin he comes to hear on't ; but I canna hclf it ; I canna see that lass playin' wi' him i 1 the way she does ; an 1 if she will pa take a waird fra her luve's mither, she's no tho woman to make a gude wife to him, an' sac I'll tell him."

In despite of which conclusion Mrs Garth felt uncomfortable in her heart ; and wont back with another eigh to tho washtub. Mrs Garth had only one left on earth to her now, the John above-mentioned. A strong-hearted, right- thinking, north-country woman, she . had borne with travail, and roared with hard labour and patient love, five tall, strapping, strong-limbed children, from infancy to maturity ; slaving for them night and day when they were young, and living hard and faring poorly that they might bo fed and clothed and have a "bit of schooling" to fit them for tho world they wore to labour in —four sons and a daughter. Then came one wild and boisterous night, with wavos which beat like the thunder of a thousand cannon on tho rocks of Dunstanbro', and flung themselves in sheets of milk-white, foam over the

Blonder lighthouse on Coquet Isle, and rared and roared up to the very cottago doors of Alnmouth ; and in Mat storm Mrs Ganh's husband and three elder lads, together with her daughter's bridegroom of three months' Btandmg, went down, into eternity ; nor was ought of them ever-given back to greet tho .widow s eyes save. a,»hattered boat and one bruis( d and mangled corpse flung high on tho Boulmer sands on fche following morning. The daughter did not stay long behind. She was but a young thing, poor girl, married early, .tw tlie lassies of tho "north countrio" 'generally are; and after her fisher lad's d«afch she "just pined and dwithored," to use her- neighbour*' phrase, 'an soughed oot like tlb fag eend o' a wind," dying six montljs after her husband in tho effort to give birth to- a child who never even opened its eyes op.a world where there were none to welcomo-it. Mrs G n rth laid them hot!? 111 one grave bosides that which held her husband's battered corpse, and went back to her own cottage, a. beufe, grey-haired woman, kaning on the «on of the one son left her To him from that day forth phe devoted hers?lt with a stem and, passionate love, which only tlio .uneo-jquerablo reserve of the iNort!mm>ian character prevented hor from expressing by those words and caresses which another, woman would have freely lavished on him who was indeed a Benjamin to her in her bercayogaenfc. The utmost she ever allowed herself- to say on the subjecb was, Ay, he 3 a good lad to me, an' I'll no deny 1 set 60ine stame by him."

In truth, John Garth was a very good son —sober, stsady, and hard-working ; and ! though a fisherman, like the ivst of hij ; family, a«d tlwrefore often causing his ! mother -anxious- hours and nights of prayer .and. walefulness, ho bnd never added., a wrin,fcLi to her brow of his own wilful-;! ness ;.andhYjM now at sev<m-and-twenty still a. baclieLsß, .because, in his love for his mother, ho had determined to take no wife to himscli I uut.l his- means would allow him, not only to suppart lier aad any family be might have by her,, bub to secure a home to the wom*ii whom, hard labour and sorrow had prci»or turaly aged. Mrs Garth was active and esargeiiic still, and would willinglj have madcaut ohat ehe was quite able to keep herself ; but J.#fcn wouid not hear of her doing so, twd c Jf&^'^y young man—"masterfully as his mother called it— she !siiow batter than to try and go against him wheaho had onco set his willouathing. Had shaven said a cold word when she first found that his heart was lost to Annice Liidlaw, a pretty, ,blue-eyed, saucy little coquette, who" lived with, her old grandmother in a wee. oottage down on the beach, and was almost* the last girl in Alnmouth whom aho would havoihought of picking out as a daughter-in-law ?;- Annice hadn't a farthing in her pouch to bless herself with, save what she earned by. her own needle ; yet sho was bo far from bowing down to John's supremacy, and accepting bis love with gratitude, thnt sho had. no sooner beguiled his heart into her meshaa than Bhe played hot and cold with it, half, yielded and half held off, and teased and tormented him in a way which filled Airs Garth's motherly soul with indignation, and evon brought down on herself the ccnauro of maapt of her feminine neighbours, who wondered what she could bo thinking of to trifle " wi' a man like Jahn Garth. Faith! au' iff she lost him a' together there'd be a dozen, lassies ready to tak oop wi'ni, au' whew* would she bs then ? "

And meanwhile John, oaly loved her the bitter for it, as big, strong, genorous-hearted men often do pretty,, impulsive, quicktempered littlo women.;.' and thought himself, so unworthy of hcrjjjfit it was a wonder to him at first that sho.. didn't send him away altogether, and followed after her like a faithful Newfoundland Hag, thinking the whole day bright if she. gave him a smile at the beginning of it; ,■ ojiA thought no sight so. lovely as when Aoaico, who, after all, had) been a childish , pefc. of his mother's, ran in,, as she often drd,-, to give the old womasi a,' helping hand with ncr baking or cleaningnp ; : orperhap3 took, one of his own coarse blue sjeks from the widow's stiffened fingers, and. sat down to darn it with a chnrming littlo assumption of; meekness and " gudewifery " which mada-he? moro than ever fascinating to tho honest iJsherinan.

" If sho weald but bind hersel 1 to.me !" he used to say. fco himself ; " come next autumn, I will lia 1 pajd off the last two iust'taeata. on t\:C new boaVic, an' cu\d affoorcfc to mwry vighfc comfertablo, an' keep her iui* tbeniither too."

But Aiinice alivays laughed, and bade him wait bill the autumn carje ;. may bo. she'd think about it thon ; but she was in no hurry for marrying herself, and wouldn't bind herself to.any man aforehand : Bho'd bo suro to 'change her mind next duy if she did. At tho present moment she- Wkpd very :m.uch us if she had, changed it for good as far as John Giarth was concerned! j ; sho carried hor head very high, and her checks under her big whito sun-bonnet weve vsry, red ; and eho walked at, a pace which soon book her out of sight of the strip of grassy bsjilt and Fandy bench, littered over with bouts turned keel upwards, romping, bare-legged children, and nets spread out to dry, which stretched before tho litllo villxgo of Alnmoulh, n» romoto cluster of grey stono. houses and red'tiled roofs midday between Warkworbhand Dun9tonbro! on tho'NortUuin.brinn coast j fca bo lectured by Mrs Garth, and told (as the widow had told her v.'ry, plaiDly) that she wa9 a. vain, silly, jpoiled child, when pho had been so " good "—more good than (the had over been before to John, on the provioua evening, and had only looked in at hi» mother's, that morning that sho might help tho old wojnan with her Monday's wash before walking all the way to "Vfcirkworth to tako some work home to,a lady— it was too. bad ; and if John had set his mother on to. do it, ns of course he had) sho. would nevor speak to. him agu,iu— never ; that sho wouldn't !

Poor littlo Annice ! After all, sho was but seventeen, and a spoilt cliild, as Mly Garth had so unwisely said j and just now her indignation was flaming so high that it almost made her little feet By over the hard yellow eande, and she was fairly out of breath by. the timo she reached Mrs Plaistaw's house with her littlo basket of nicely finished work. It was afternoon now, and the sun was. on her back, and she began to foci tired. She had risen eai'ly that morning to finish tho piece of work, and had dressed her grandmother,, and got tho breakfast and scrubbed tho kitchen, and tidied up everything in her own homo before Bhe ran up to Mrs Garth's, looking as fresh os a l'Oße, and quite ready to rinse and wring out sheets for hor j as, indeed, Annice always was iready to help anyone, being w busy and alert as any bee ; but now she was feeling disappointed, and hot, and tired — not to cay moro than a little cross ; and, S3 aftor she had gouo twothirds of tho way, eho eat herself dawn to rf st among tho lufta of bracken covering' tho steep grassy slopes whish riso above tho beach, and are called the " links " in northcountry parlance, and leaniug her- head back ogainst the bank behind her, shut her eyes, and in three minutes was sound asleep in the sunshine. Above her head was the vast dome of sky, bluo as any turquoise, and scattered over with long, wind-torn clouds like wreaths of white flowers blown across an azure field. Eelow her feet lny tho German Ocean, blue, too, but with tho deeper blue of a sapphire, dimpling in the breeze, scintillating in the sunboams, dotted with the brown and whito sails of Bcores of fishing boats, scored with faint black lines of smoke from passing steamers, and slrotching away to tho palo limitless horizon. Around her was the bracken, just beginning to turn brown and yollow in the glowing September sunshine. Now and then the crack of a gun sounded from distant stubble fields ; now and then a couple of white butterflies rose abovo the nodding harebells on tho bank, and fluttered about in the summer air, tossing and jostling, dipping and curling, to and fromono anoilior in a mad aerial danco ; or a long flight of gulls passed seaward with a shrill, screaming cry ; but Btili the littlo figure lay tboro nestled into a sheltored hollow j tho crisp, curly, brown- gold head thrown back among the long grass and fern-stalks ; tho rownd cheeks flushed with slumber; the protty mouth pouting still, as if in drenxus she rehearsed her past wilfuluess ; the whito kerchief on her bosom rising and failing with every regular, deop-drawn breath j as fair a picture in her unconscious youth and loveliness as any painter could hava wished to copy ; certainly as fair as any. that ever met tho eyes of a man who "presently came trending along the links with a light elastic Btep, and just saved himsslf by a sddden start from stumbling over th ft sleeping maiden. "The deuce!" ho said then undor his breath, and- stood itill to look at hor, the first Burpriee in his eyes morging into an expression of blended admiration and oomicality. The now-comor was no Alnmoulh fishoi Iman ; that much wa» evideat a mile off. An

I acute observer might havo'toldi almost as pnsi'y Sb»t ho was no nati7e of' Alnmouth or i its. i neighbourhood; but pimply a bird of | passßreirone of those uDirJoiakable "London men, 1 who}. clad in serge aud -kniokerbockerß, i and CDOumbarod with oithor gun- or fishing • rod or alpenstock, are to be-met with in every 1 imaginable and unimaginable comer of the [ mothar .country, eioep't London, during the months of August and Septembor. ! • Ho glanced quickly, round him, and muttered to himself— _"A new edition of,. the Sleeping Beauty, Lot o-hope the breaking of the spell nm'nt <be ense. as noisy as Tennyoon's toi-moii." . L.e-)bent down aud- deliberately touched with.his lips thoße rosy .parted ones below, for »hose smiles John Garth would have givea all his worldly j-cigeesions. And of course Annice woke up on the inslimb. It wasfcho lightest feather-touch of a kies erer laid on a pretty girl's inoutii, but it was enough to rouse a yoiiM^woman ffom the light : slumber of a summer's afternoon ; and Anwce^at up, opening a .pair of wide bine eyo* »ith an innocent,- half -awakened bewilderment. " I hopo I didn't disturb you, trampling pi»i your resting plaso,". Jtvan Harknes* snid gently, and, reassured by 8-o»g in the naive, untroubled inuccauao of her face that eiifc was quite unconscious what it was which bad roused ; "please, dou.'t jump up. You\e found a charming nock-there for u.biimmer's iuT-dream." " Indeed, an' I will Ijavo no beo>inc.«s to- be ?»leep," said Annice, vroefully ujliamedand Ji blushing. ,{ Sho had Hot the least idea w3f»t hU fine ;|words meant, but there, was something in the i.;studious gentlencps oi his tone wiieh touched iher ear pleasantly^ and mad 6 the little icoquetto glance,. vp rf irom untie* her long ilashes to see what.tlia /ace miglit bo like to which that voice belonged; ''but tlio sun were sao warm 5 . ca'. I'd been a', the road to Warkworth an' bacfc.langsido tlio sans. I think 'twill be thut.iuado me.'do'fcj but I'm glad ye woke me." " And I'm Bo;vy," Fa id IJftm ; "but if you've come front . .Warkworth, you 01a tell mo how far off it, is. I only, came (a Alnmouth last eight, and am oamy waj now to Beetho woiiderfa^ihermitagqi. Is it •» lone walk ?". " Eh, no, oii-i 'twill be »bout thre& miles from Alnmouth. I've walked faither an* no tired mcsol' ; an,', the castlt^is a gran" place, though it '11 no be liko Alcwiok ; an', indeed for the matter.. o\ that, there canna. beany placo like the duke's own palace 5 but yell ha' seen Alnwick a' ready 1 ■ and Annice looked up with Bitch simple conC^once and loyalty in. the belief that the firsb pilgrimage of any stranger muet be to thednko'e tovm and cast lo, .that Eva.n Harkness felt mow than willing to repeat his former experimeßt. Flo did not dojro, however. "No ; ; liiaven'fcseo3it,yofc. I'm new to these, parts. i)o you iye there yourself, my protty child ? If scy. I'd osk you to be my ciceronaul' " Indeed, no, sir ;,-. 'tis in Alnmooth I'm leeving, an' I suld hr.' dune richtly lo be there afoor npo. Yo'll uo moos your way to Warkworth tho', sir, for tViafcfs the cußtl© ye can mo in freafc 0' ye v' the ,way." (To bxcontinuecl.)^