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CHAPTER IX.

THE FUGITIVE.

WITHIN two or three hours it became known everywhere in the neighbourhood of the mine that David Mort, Israel's only son, had been lost in the recesses of the pit, and was supposed to have strayed into some abandoned working, from whence he could not extricate himself, and where in all probability he must have perished speedily from the foul state of the air.

Thus the news reached Mrs. Mort, who rushed frantically to the pit's mouth. Thus the news reached Israel, who had gone into the village, but who, as he went back at a steady pace with the messenger, sternly bade the latter to say nothing to anyone, but that the lad had missed his way, and would be found all right again at his work to-morrow. And thus the news reached, at a still earlier hour, the night-deputy, Rees Thomas, who was in bed, and had just waked from his first sleep when his landlady came to tell him the news.

Within five minutes Rees Thomas was going at a swift pace towards what he feared was to be the grave of the poor boy; and he was the first of the important outsiders to reach the pit.

He found Lusty in dreadful trouble. He and certain picked men had vainly ransacked every part that it was at all safe to go into, and he looked as if the case were a thoroughly hopeless one, and that he was chiefly dreading the meeting with Israel.

Taking all possible precautions for his safety, and for the power of enduring for a short time serious difficulties with the air, Rees Thomas simply said,

'The lad is in the Lord's hands. It is not as we will, but as He wills. If aught happens to me, remember me kindly to Israel, and ask him to befriend the young maiden whose name I have written here for his son's sake.'

Then starting for the place where David had been

located for his work, and avoiding the ordinary level, he went from one old and abandoned stall to another, whereever they were not absolutely impervious to the entrance of a boy, till he came to one in which the road descended and passed through shallow water, and where the gas was so bad and dangerous that he felt sure Lusty and his companions had not tried to go through.

Going on all fours, so that he was nearly enveloped by the water, he entered into this valley of the shadow of death, keeping his mouth just above the water, where he knew would be the most air. But he had not advanced above a step or two across the hollow bottom of the declivity before he felt something, which brought with it the instantaneous conviction he had found the lost boy.

His hands told him he could not be mistaken, and his heart told him the lad was gone utterly, unless he had been able to breathe where he lay, which the darkness prevented Rees Thomas from attempting to judge of.

Almost fainting himself, he managed to drag the helpless body back into the airy level, to look at it by the aid of his lamp, and then he became insensible.

It was, however, but for a few brief moments. He revived, prayed audibly, even while not delaying an instant to attempt to discover if the boy still lived.

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Ah, yes! the heart beats. He will recover. Thy hand is in this, O Father of mercies! Thou hast said Thy servant Israel shall yet truly serve Thee.'

Moistening the boy's lips, and using such other gentle gestures as he remembered to be useful in cases of drowning, for he knew not whether the gas, or the water, or the simple fright had done the chief harm, he soon had the inexpressible happiness to see David's great blue vacantlooking eyes open, then become filled with a sudden sense of terror awful to look on, and then recognise who it was that bent over him with looks of love. There was a smile, a sob, and a great rush of tears, while he found himself folded to the heart of the good deputy.

By this time Lusty and others had found them; but Rees Thomas begged them to leave him alone with David

for a little while, and he would bring him to the pit's mouth, if they would have all ready for him to ascend. Meanwhile he asked Lusty to go to Israel and his wife, and tell them the lad was safe and coming up.

Lusty went away, and Rees Thomas gave David something to drink, which seemed to him quite as good as the nectar of the gods he had so often read about in his school, though he owned afterwards he knew quite well it was only weak tea.

He then ate a few morsels, and was so much better that, by taking the deputy's right arm, he could walk.

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Do you know, Mr. Thomas,' he said, when he was able to speak a little, that I don't know how it was, but when I got to the water I felt so strange, and suddenly I seemed to see the sky and all the stars shining so brightly down upon me, and I thought I was in the wood, and then

'And then?' kindly guessed the deputy. 'No; I can't tell anything more.

I saw the stars, and then-oh! but it seemed such a time after-I saw your eyes, and I was so confused between them, as to which was which, that

I understand, David.

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Forget it all, lad, now. It is but a little accident. We mustn't make too much of such things. I want you to tell me about yourself, and this leaving school, and coming to the mine."

The poor lad stared a moment at the speaker; it seemed so strange to be asked to relieve his over-burdened soul. Mother, father, everybody, whether pitying him or all alike seemed to think it wise to say little about the event to him, and manly in him to say nothing at all.

no,

He revolted against that, and he had found a sympathising listener at last. Little by little Rees Thomas got him to converse freely, and so to tell him all he had been thinking, feeling, and suffering from, through his sudden withdrawal from the school, and the enforced work in the mine.

Rees Thomas listened with the deepest interest to the revelation, until quite moved out of himself David could

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no longer hide the one black cloud that obscured his whole mental world

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"Oh, Mr. Thomas! I am so afraid that-that

What, David? Be afraid of nothing but not telling the truth, when it is a friend who listens.'

'That I am a wretched coward, and that I shall never be fit for anything in the whole world.'

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'David, I don't believe that.'

Oh, it is true! father says so. I didn't know till he made me do this, and now-oh, I do so wish I was dead? Why did you come to me? I should never have had

any more trouble if you hadn't.'

'David, lad, that is wicked talk, or would be if you were in a fit state to guide and judge yourself, but you are not. Come now, trust in me, if only for a little, and let me see if I can't shape things a bit for you. But we have said enough for the present about these matters. I want to think them well over. But if I do, and work for you as a friend with all my heart, will you promise on your part to be patient and thoughtful?'

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Oh, yes, I will; I will, indeed-if you think I'm worth caring for.'

Worth, my boy? Why it's as much as the angels can do to calculate the worth of any human soul, even the most ordinary, if only the life that it is to lead be but in harmony with its capacities. But you, David, are, if I mistake not, not one of these merely, but unusually favoured by God. However, that we shall see. I am now going to try to show you the mine in a different aspect.'

Rees Thomas first took him to the stables, where no less than forty horses were stalled at night. Some were then in their places, eating as heartily and looking as robust and full of enjoyable life as if the mine was the sole world into which they had been born.

Then they went to a pleasant cosy place near the bottom of the shaft, where many of the colliers were at the moment dining. They sat down with them, entered into conversation with them, and whether it was the influence the deputy exerted over David and them, or the really

agreeable chit-chat and banter, mixed at once with good sense and feeling, that characterised the meal in which David shared, the result was a strange and altogether new lightness of heart that came over the boy, and promptly influenced all his surroundings. He laughed, he jested, and might have grown uproarious, but that he happened to see some of the colliers exchanging significant glances of amusement, and he was at once sobered, and carried back to the grimness of fact.

Rees Thomas noted the change, and took him away by a long rambling gallery till they stopped at a great hole in the wall, a kind of big natural cupboard in an out-ofthe-way corner, where the deputy had collected a number of pieces of stone coal, of different shapes, with their surface so beautifully polished, you seemed to see right into them.

David looked at one of these brilliantly reflecting surfaces by the aid of the lamp, and was charmed by the exquisite forms he saw there. Then Rees Thomas explained these were all fossils, found in the mine at different periods, and which by gift or purchase had become his.

He then told David the story of the origin of coal, of the state of the world at the time, of the state more particularly of his own immediate neighbourhood, and of the things that then lived and grew, examples of which lay before them. All this became to David as one of the most ravishing fairy tales he had ever heard.

Is it true? Is it true?' Such was his question, again and again repeated.

The deputy began in the gentlest way, and using the most simple language, to suggest to David that we can none of us shape the circumstances under which life must begin. We can neither choose our parents, our homes, nor our pecuniary positions; neither can we choose our friends or our future vocation-not, at least, till we begin to gather knowledge, strength, power to see things as they are, and power to so guide ourselves that we may gradually and safely put off the dependent child, and put on the independent man. Fortunate but few are those

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