READ: Jules Verne's 'lost' story of a town under a loch

BY JULES VERNE

Mining overman Simon Ford, his wife, Madge, adult son Harry and Harry’s friend Jack Ryan move into a cottage deep underground after he discovers a large vein of coal under Loch Katrine. A whole underground town grows up around them but mysterious and life-threatening events occur in the mine.

Last week we told of Harry’s discovery of a young girl, Nell, while he was exploring a deep mine shaft. The excerpt ended with Harry collapsing into the arms of his friends.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

NELL AT THE COTTAGE

TWO hours later, Harry, who had not immediately recovered his senses, and the child, whose weakness was extreme, reached the cottage with the help of Jack Ryan and his companions. There, these events were recounted to the old overman, and Madge gave all her attention to the poor creature whom her son had just rescued.

READ: Jules Verne's 'lost' story, set under a Scottish loch (part 'one')

Harry had thought that he had taken out a child from the abyss… But it was a girl of fifteen or sixteen. Her vague expression, full of astonishment, her thin figure, attenuated by suffering, her blonde complexion that the light never seemed to have bathed, her frail condition and small size, all made for a being at once bizarre and charming. Jack Ryan, with some justification, compared her to an elf of rather supernatural appearance. Because of the particular circumstances and exceptional environment in which this young girl appeared to have lived until now, she seemed only half to belong to humanity. Her physiognomy was strange. Her eyes, which the brightness of the cottage lamps seemed to tire, looked around in confusion as if everything was new to them. To this singular being, now lying on Madge’s bed and who had just come back to life as if from a deep sleep, the old Scotswoman addressed first these words: ‘‘What’s your name?’’ ‘‘Nell,’’replied the girl. ‘‘Nell,’’ resumed Madge, ‘‘are you in pain?’’ ‘‘I’m hungry,’’ replied Nell. ‘‘I haven’t eaten since… since…’’

From these few words she had just pronounced, it was clear that Nell was not used to speaking. The language which she used was old Gaelic, which Simon Ford and

his family often used. At the girl’s response, Madge immediately brought her some food. Nell was dying of hunger. How long had she been at the bottom of that shaft? One could not say. ‘‘How many days did you spend there, my lass?’’ asked Madge. Nell did not reply. She did not seem to understand the question that had been put to her. ‘‘Since how many days?’’ resumed Madge. ‘‘Days…?’’ replied Nell, for whom this word seemed to be lacking all meaning. Then she shook her head like someone who did not understand what she was being asked. Madge had taken Nell’s hand and was stroking it to give her confidence. ‘‘How old are you, my lass?’’ she asked, looking at her with kind and reassuring eyes. The same negative sign from Nell. ‘‘Yes, yes,’’ resumed Madge, ‘‘how many years?’’ ‘‘Years?’’ replied Nell. And this word, seemed to have no more significance for the young girl than the word ‘‘day’’.

SIMON Ford, Harry, Jack Ryan and his companions were looking at her with a double feeling of pity and sympathy. The state of this poor creature, dressed in a miserable tunic of coarse material, deeply moved them. Harry, more than any other, felt irresistibly attracted by Nell’s very strangeness.

He approached. He took in his hand the hand that Madge had just released. He looked straight at Nell, whose lips formed a sort of smile, and said to her: ‘‘Nell… there… in the mine… were you alone?’’ ‘‘Alone! Alone!’’ cried the young girl, sitting up. Her expression showed abject horror. Her eyes, which had softened under the young man’s expression, became wild again. ‘‘Alone! Alone!’’ she repeated, and she fell back on to Madge’s bed, as if she utterly lacked strength.

‘‘The poor child is still too weak to talk to us,’’ said Madge, after having tucked in the young girl again. ‘‘A few hours rest and some good food will restore her energy. Come, Simon! Come, Harry! Everyone come away, and let’s let sleep do its work’!’’

On Madge’s advice, Nell was left alone, and we can be sure that, an instant later, she was sound asleep.

The event caused quite a stir, not only in the colliery, but also in Stirlingshire, and soon afterwards, in the whole of the United Kingdom. The renown of the strange character of Nell grew. Had a girl been discovered encased in shale rock, like one of those prehistoric creatures that are released from their stone casings by the blow of a pick, there would not have been more fuss. Without knowing it, Nell became very much the news of the moment.

Superstitious folk found here a new text for their story-telling. They readily believed that Nell was the sprite of New Aberfoyle, and when Jack Ryan said this to his friend Harry: ‘‘Be that as it may,’’ replied the young man, ‘‘be that as it may, Jack! But in any case, she’s the good sprite! She’s the one who saved us, who brought us the bread and water, when we were imprisoned in the mine! She could only be that one! As for the evil sprite, if it’s still in the mine, we shall have to find it one day!’’

As we can imagine, the engineer James Starr had been the first to hear about what had happened. Having recovered her strength by the day after her arrival in the cottage, the girl was questioned by him with the greatest concern.

She seemed to him to be ignorant of most of the things of life. However, she was intelligent – that much could be seen – but she lacked certain elementary notions: of time, among other things. It was clear that she was not used to dividing time either by hours or by days, and that these very words were unknown to her. Moreover, her eyes, accustomed to the night, operated with difficulty in the brightness of the electric discs; but in the darkness, her sight had an extraordinary sharpness, and her widely dilated pupils enabled her to see into the midst of the deepest shadows.

IT was also noted that her brain had never received any impressions of the outside world, that no horizon other than that of the mine had spread before her eyes, that for her all of humankind had been contained in this dark crypt.

Did she know, the poor girl, that there was a sun and stars, towns and countryside, and a universe in which worlds abounded? It had to be doubted, at least until the day when certain words that she did not yet know would gain a precise meaning for her.

As for the question of knowing whether Nell lived alone in the depths of New Aberfoyle, James Starr had to give up looking for an answer. Every allusion to the subject threw the strange creature into a state of terror. Nell either could not, or would not reply; but there was certainly some secret there, which she might have revealed. ‘‘Do you want to stay with us? Or do you want to return to where you were?’’ James Starr had asked her. To the first of these two questions the girl had said, ‘‘Oh yes!’’ To the second, she had replied only with a cry of terror, then nothing more.

Confronted with this obstinate silence, James Starr, and with him Simon and Harry Ford, did not let their apprehension show. They could not forget the inexplicable facts that had accompanied the discovery of the mine. For although there had been no new incident for three years, they were constantly expecting some new aggression on the part of their invisible enemy.

Consequently, they wanted to explore the mysterious shaft. This they did, well-armed and well-accompanied. But they found nothing suspicious. The shaft communicated with the lower floors of the crypt, hollowed into the coal-bearing layer.

James Starr, Simon and Harry often talked about these matters. If one or more criminal beings were hidden in the mine and if they were preparing some trap, Nell would have perhaps been able to tell them, but she was not talking. The least allusion to the young girl’s past provoked fits, and it seemed best not to insist. With time, her secret would no doubt come out.

A fortnight after her arrival at the cottage, Nell had become old Madge’s most intelligent and zealous helper. Evidently, it seemed entirely natural to her never to leave this house, where she had been so charitably received, and perhaps she did not even imagine that from now on she could live elsewhere.

The Ford family was enough for her, and it goes without saying that in the thoughts of these good people, from the moment that Nell entered into the cottage, she had become their adopted child. Nell was, in truth, charming. Her new life became her. They were no doubt the first happy days of her life. She was full of gratitude to those to whom she owed them.

Madge was overcome by an entirely maternal sympathy for Nell. The old overman was soon taken by her in turn. Everyone loved her. Their friend Jack Ryan regretted just one thing: not to have saved her himself. He was often at the cottage. He sang, and Nell, who had never heard singing, found it extremely beautiful; but one could see that the young girl preferred the more serious talks with Harry, who gradually taught her what she did not know about the outside world, to the songs of Jack Ryan.

It must be said that since Nell had appeared in human form, Jack Ryan found himself forced to admit that his belief in bogles was to a certain extent waning. Furthermore, two months later, his superstition received a new blow. For around this time, Harry made a quite unexpected discovery, which explained in part the appearance of the fire-maidens in the ruins of Dundonald Castle in Irvine. One day, after a long exploration of the southern part of the mine – an exploration which had lasted several days along the furthest tunnels of this enormous substructure – Harry had with some difficulty climbed a narrow tunnel, formed by a gap in

shale rock.

Suddenly, he was very surprised to find himself in the open air. The tunnel had risen diagonally to ground level and ended right in the ruins of Dundonald Castle. There was, therefore, a secret communication between New Aberfoyle and the hill, which was crowned by the old castle. The upper mouth of this tunnel had been impossible to find from the outside, so hidden was it by stones and undergrowth. Consequently, during the enquiry, the magistrates had been unable to discover it.

Several days later, James Starr, led by Harry, came to discover this natural feature of the seam for himself. ‘‘Here,’’ he said, ‘‘is something to convince these superstitious folk of the mine. Farewell, brownies, bogles and fire-maidens!’’ ‘‘I don’t believe, Mr Starr,’’ replied Harry, ‘‘that we should be too quick to congratulate ourselves! Their replacements will not be any better, and assuredly could be worse!’’ ‘‘Indeed, Harry,’’ replied the engineer, ‘‘but what can we do? Obviously, whatever they are, the beings that hide in the mine communicate with the ground through this tunnel. It was doubtless they who, torch in hand, attracted the Motala to the coast, and like the wreckers of yore would have taken the spoils, had Jack Ryan and his companions not happened to be there! Be that as it may, finally everything is explained. Here is the mouth of the den! As for those who were inhabiting it, do they inhabit it still?’’

‘‘Yes, because Nell trembles, when we speak to her of it!’’ replied Harry with conviction. ‘‘Yes, because Nell doesn’t want, or doesn’t dare to speak of it!’’

HARRY must have been right. If the mysterious hosts of the mine had abandoned it, or if they were dead, what reason had the girl for keeping quiet? However, James Starr was absolutely determined to get to the bottom of this secret. He sensed that the future of the new exploitation could depend on it. Therefore the most strict precautions were again taken. The magistrates were informed. Officers secretly occupied the ruins of Dundonald Castle. Harry himself hid, for several nights, in the middle of the undergrowth which bristled on the hill.

A vain effort. Nothing was discovered. No human being crossed the opening. Soon it was concluded that the criminals had definitively left New Aberfoyle, and that, as far as Nell was concerned, they believed her to be dead at the bottom of the shaft where she had been abandoned. Before the exploitation, the mine could offer them a safe refuge, hidden from all enquiries. But since then things had changed. The refuge had become difficult to hide. It could reasonably have been hoped that there was nothing more to fear for the future.

However, James Starr was not absolutely reassured. Neither could Harry surrender, and he often repeated, ‘‘Nell was clearly mixed up in all this mystery. If she had nothing more to fear, why should she keep quiet? It cannot be doubted that she is happy to be with us. She loves us all. She adores my mother. If she is silent about her past, about what might reassure us for the future, she must have some terrible secret weighing on her that her conscience prevents her from revealing! Perhaps then, she believes it in our interest more than in her own that she should withdraw herself into this inexplicable silence!’’

It was in consequence of these various considerations that, by common agreement, it had been decided that all conversation that might remind the young girl of her past should be avoided.

One day, however, Harry made known to Nell what James Starr, his father and mother, and he himself believed that they owed to her intervention. It was a holiday. Workers were as idle in the subterranean domain as on the surface of Stirlingshire. People were going for walks more or less everywhere. Songs resounded in a score of places under the sonorous vaults of New Aberfoyle.

Harry and Nell had left the cottage and were slowly following the left bank of Loch Malcolm. There, the electric glares fell with less violence, and their beams broke capriciously on the angles of picturesque rocks that supported the dome. This halflight better suited Nell’s eyes, which grew accustomed to the light only with considerable difficulty.

After an hour of walking, Harry and his companion stopped opposite St Giles’ Chapel, on a sort of natural terrace that dominated the waters of the loch. ‘‘Your eyes are still not used to the day, Nell,’’ said Harry, ‘‘and certainly, they couldn’t bear the light of the sun.’’ ‘‘No, without doubt not,’ replied the girl, ‘‘if the sun is as you have pictured it for me, Harry.’’ ‘‘Nell,’’ resumed Harry, ‘‘I couldn’t give you a fair idea of its splendour nor of the beauties of this world that your eyes have never observed just through words. But, tell me, can it be that since the day you were born in the depths of the mine, can it be that you have never climbed up to the surface of the ground?’’

‘N’ever, Harry,’’ replied Nell, ‘‘and I don’t think that, even as a little girl, either a father or a mother carried me there. I would have surely kept some memory of the outside!’’

’’’I believe so,’ replied Harry. ‘‘Besides, at that time Nell, there were many other than you who had never left the mine. Communications with the outside were difficult and I knew more than one lad or lass who, at your age, were still ignorant of all the things that are unknown to you up there! But now, the railway of the great tunnel takes us to the surface of the county in a matter of minutes. So I can’t wait, Nell, to hear you say, ‘Come, Harry, my eyes can bear the light of day, and I want to see the sun! I want to see God’s work!’’’

‘‘I will say it to you, Harry’’ replied the girl, ‘‘before long, I hope. I will go and admire with you this outside world, and yet…’’

‘‘What do you want to say, Nell?’’ asked Harry eagerly. ‘Would you have some regret in abandoning the dark pit in which you have lived for these first years of your life, and from which we brought you out nearly dead?’’

‘‘No, Harry,’ replied Nell. ‘I was only thinking that the shadows are beautiful too. If you knew all that eyes used to their depth can see! There are shadows that pass and that you love to follow in their flight! Sometimes these are circles, which intersect before your eyes and from which you don’t want to come out! At the bottom of the mine there are black holes, full of hazy lights. And then, you hear noises that speak to you! You see, Harry, you have to have lived there to understand what I feel, what I can’t express to you!’’

‘‘And were you not afraid, Nell, when you were alone?’’ ‘‘Harry,’ replied the young girl, ‘‘it was when I was alone that I wasn’t afraid!’’ Nell’s voice changed slightly in pronouncing these words.

Harry, however, believed he should press her a little, and said: ‘‘But you could get lost in these long tunnels, Nell. Weren’t you fearful then of losing your way?’’

‘‘No, Harry. I have known, since way back, all the twists and turns of the new mine!’’

‘‘Did you not go out of it, sometimes…?’’

‘‘Yes… sometimes…’’ replied the young girl hesitantly, ‘‘sometimes I came into the old Aberfoyle mine.’’

’’’Did you know the old cottage then?’’ ‘The cottage… yes… but those who inhabited it, only from a distance!’

‘‘It was my father and mother,’’ replied Harry, ‘‘and me! We wanted never to abandon our former abode!’’

‘‘Perhaps that would have been better for you all…!’’ murmured the young girl.

‘‘But why, Nell? Wasn’t it our obstinacy in not leaving it, which made us discover the new seam? And hasn’t this discovery had happy consequences for an entire population which has recovered here its comfort through the work, and for you, Nell, who, restored to life, has found love from all around you!’’

‘‘For me!’’ replied Nell eagerly, ‘‘Yes! Whatever happens! For the others … who knows?’’

‘‘What do you mean?’’

‘‘Nothing… nothing! … But, it was dangerous to break into the new mine! Yes! Very dangerous! Harry! One day, careless people penetrated into these abysses. They were far, very far! They got lost...’’ #

‘‘Lost?’ said Harry looking at Nell.

‘‘Yes… lost…’ replied Nell, whose voice was trembling. ‘‘Their lamp went out! They couldn’t find their way…’’

‘‘And there,’ cried Harry, ‘‘imprisoned for eight long days, Nell, they were close to dying! And without a kind person, that God sent them, an angel perhaps, who secretly brought them a bit of food, without a mysterious guide who later led their liberators to them, they would never have got out of that tomb!’’

‘‘And how do you know that?’’ asked the young girl.

‘‘Because these men were James Starr… my father… and me, Nell!’’

Nell, raising her head, grabbed the young man’s hand, and she looked at him with such fixity that he felt troubled down to the very depths of his heart.

‘‘You!’’ repeated the young girl.

‘‘Yes!’’ replied Harry, after a moment of silence, ‘‘and the person to whom we owe our lives is you, Nell! It could only have been you!’’ #

Nell let her head fall between her two hands, without replying. Never had Harry seen her so deeply upset. ‘‘Those who saved you, Nell,’’ he added in an emotional voice, ‘‘already owed you their lives, and do you think they can ever forget that?’ ‘

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

ON THE WINDING LADDER

Meanwhile, the exploitation works of New Aberfoyle were being conducted to great profit. It goes without saying that the engineer James Starr and Simon Ford – the first discoverers of this rich coal basin – shared largely in its profits. Harry therefore became a good match. But he hardly thought about leaving the cottage. He had replaced his father in the functions of overman and he assiduously watched over this whole world of miners.

Jack Ryan was proud and delighted with all the good fortune that came to his friend. He too, was doing well. The two of them saw each other often, either in the cottage, or at the coal-face.

Jack Ryan was not oblivious to the feelings that Harry showed for the girl. Harry would not admit it, but Jack laughed out loud when his friend shook his head in denial.

It must be said that one of Jack Ryan’s deepest wishes was to accompany Nell to the county’s surface. He wanted to see her astonishment, her admiration before this nature as yet unknown to her. He really hoped that Harry would bring him along during this excursion. Until then, however, his friend had never made the proposition – which continued to concern him somewhat.

One day, Jack Ryan was descending one of the ventilation shafts by which the lower levels of the mine communicated with the ground above. He had taken one of those ladders, which by rising and descending in successive windings, allows men to go up and down without tiring. Twenty windings of the machine had lowered him about five hundred feet, when on the narrow landing onto which he had stepped, he met Harry, who was climbing up to the surface work.

‘‘Is that you?’’ said Jack, looking at his companion, illuminated by the electric lights of the shaft.

‘‘Yes, Jack,’’ replied Harry, ‘‘and I’m happy to see you. I have a proposition to make you…’

‘‘I won’t hear anything until you give me news of Nell!’’ cried Jack Ryan.

‘Nell is well, Jack, and in fact so well that, in a month or six weeks I hope to…’

‘‘You’re going to marry her, Harry?’’

‘‘I don’t know what you’re talking about, Jack!’’

‘‘That’s possible, Harry, but I know what I shall do!’’

‘‘And what will you do?’’

‘I’ shall marry her myself, if you don’t marry her first!’’ retorted Jack, bursting out laughing. ‘‘St Mungo protect me! But I like her, gentle Nell! A young and good creature who has never left the mine, she’s the perfect wife for a miner! She is an orphan like I am an orphan, and if you really aren’t thinking about her, and as long as she wants your old friend, Harry…!’’

Harry looked gravely at Jack. He let him speak, without even trying to reply to him.

‘‘I’m not making you jealous am I, Harry?;’ asked Jack Ryan in a more serious tone.

‘‘No, Jack,’’ replied Harry calmly.

‘‘Yet, if you don’t make Nell your wife, you don’t expect that she will stay a spinster?’

‘‘I don’t expect anything,’’ replied Harry.

A winding of the ladder had just then allowed the two friends to separate, one to descend, the other to climb up the shaft. But they did not take the opportunity to do so.

‘‘Harry,’’ said Jack, ‘‘do you think that I was speaking seriously about Nell just then?’’

‘‘No, Jack,’’ replied Harry.

‘‘Well then, I’m going to now.’’

‘‘You, speak seriously?’’

‘‘My good Harry,’’ replied Jack, ‘‘I am capable of giving some good advice to a friend.’

‘‘So give it then, Jack.’’

‘‘Well, here it is! You love Nell with all the love she deserves,nHarry. Your father, old Simon, your mother, old Madge, love herbas if she was their child. Now, you could well make a little effort so that she really becomes their daughter! Why don’t you marry her?’

‘‘For you to be going so far in your suggestions, Jack,’’ replied Harry, ‘‘do you know Nell’s feelings?’’

‘‘There is nobody who doesn’t know them, not even you,vHarry, and it’s for that reason that you aren’t jealous of me or anyone else. But here’s the ladder that is going down, and…’

‘‘Wait, Jack,’ said Harry, holding back his friend, whose foot had already left the landing for the mobile rung.

‘‘Well done, Harry!’ cried Jack laughing, ‘‘you’re going to tear me apart!’’

‘‘Listen seriously, Jack,]’ replied Harry, ‘for, I too, am speaking seriously.’

‘]’m listening… until the next winding, but no longer!’’

‘‘Jack,’’ resumed Harry, ‘‘I haven’t concealed the fact that I love Nell. My deepest desire is to make her my wife…’

‘‘That’s good.’’

‘‘But I have a scruple of conscience in asking her to take an irrevocable decision as she is now.’

‘‘What do you mean, Harry?’’

‘‘I mean, Jack, that Nell has never left the depths of the mine where she was born, no doubt. She knows about nothing, knows nothing of the outside world. She has everything to learn with her eyes, and perhaps also with her heart. Who knows what her thoughts will be, when new impressions are born in her! She still has nothing earthly about her, and it seems to me that it would be cheating her, before she has decided in full knowledge on the life of the mine over all other. Do you understand me, Jack?’’

‘‘Yes… vaguely… I understand above all that you want to make me miss the next winding!’’

‘‘Jack,’’ replied Harry in a grave voice, ‘‘you shall listen to what I have to say to you, if this equipment should no longer function, and when this landing should be gone from under our feet!’’

‘‘About time, Harry! That’s how I like to be spoken to! We were saying then, that before marrying Nell, you are going to send her to a boarding-school in Auld Reekie?’’

‘‘No, Jack,’’ replied Harry. ‘‘I know well enough myself how to educate the girl who should be my wife!’’

‘‘And she won’t want anything more, Harry!’’

‘‘But, beforehand,’’ resumed Harry, ‘‘as I have just told you, Iwant Nell to have a real knowledge of the outside world. A comparison, Jack: if you loved a blind girl, and if someone just said to you, ‘In one month she will be cured!’ wouldn’t you wait until she had been cured before marrying her?’

‘‘Yes, well, yes!’’ replied Jack Ryan.

‘‘Well, Jack, Nell is still blind, and before making her my wife, I want her to be sure that it’s me, that it’s the conditions of my life that she prefers and accepts. I want her eyes to be finally opened to the light of day!’

‘‘Good, Harry, good, very good!’’ cried Jack Ryan. ‘I’ understand you this time. And when is the operation to be…?’’

‘‘In a month, Jack,’’ replied Harry. ‘‘Nell’s eyes are gradually getting used to the brightness of our discs. It’s a preparation. In a month I hope she will have seen the earth and its wonders, the sky and its splendours! She will know that Nature has given horizons more distant to the human gaze than those of the mine! She will see that the limits of the universe are infinite!’

But, while Harry was letting himself be carried away by his imagination, Jack Ryan, leaving the landing, had jumped on to the oscillating rung of the machine.

‘‘Eh, Jack,’’ cried Harry, ‘‘where are you?’’

‘‘Below you,’’ replied the cheerful comrade. ‘‘While you are elevating yourself to the infinite, I’m descending into the abyss!’’

‘‘Bye, Jack!’’ replied Harry, himself hanging on to the mount ing ladder. ‘‘I recommend that you don’t speak to anyone about what I’ve just told you!’

‘‘Not to anyone!’’ cried Jack Ryan, ‘‘but on one condition however…’’

‘‘What’s that?’’

‘‘That I accompany the two of you on the first excursion that Nell makes to the surface of the globe!’’

‘‘Yes, Jack, I promise,’’ replied Harry.

A new propulsion of the equipment placed a further, more considerable interval between the two friends. Their voices only just reached each other, very faintly.

And yet, Harry could still hear Jack shout: ‘‘And when Nell has seen the stars, the moon and the sun, do you know what she will prefer to them?’

‘‘No, Jack!’’

‘‘You, my friend, still you, always you!’

And the voice of Jack Ryan finally petered out with a final hurrah.

Meanwhile, Harry dedicated all his unfilled hours to the education of Nell. He had taught her to read and to write – things in which the young girl made rapid progress. You would have said that she ‘knew’ by instinct. Never did sharp intelligence triumph more quickly over such complete ignorance. It was astonishing to those who were close to her.

Each day Simon and Madge felt more closely connected to their adoptive child, whose past nevertheless preoccupied them.

They had well recognised Harry’s feelings for Nell, and that did not displease them.

We remember during the engineer’s first visit to the other cottage, the old overman had said to the ngineer:

‘Why would my son marry? What creature from up there would suit a lad whose life must be spent in the depths of a mine!’

Well, did it not seem as if Providence itself had sent the only companion who could truly suit his son? Was it not like a gift from Heaven?

Therefore, the old overman promised himself that if the marriage took place, that day, there would be a celebration in Coal

City to go down in the history of the miners of New Aberfoyle.

Simon Ford could not have spoken a truer word.

It must be added that another desired this union no less ardently than Nell and Harry. It was the engineer James Starr. Certainly, he wanted above all the happiness of these two young people. But another motive, a more general interest, perhaps, also pushed him in that direction.

We know that James Starr retained certain apprehensions, although nothing any longer justified them. Nevertheless, what had been before could be again. Nell was clearly the only one to know the mystery of the new mine. But, if the future should hold new dangers for the Aberfoyle miners, how to guard against such eventualities, without at least knowing the cause?

‘‘Nell has not wanted to talk,’’ repeated James Starr often, ‘‘but what she has kept quiet about until now from all others, she will not know how to keep from her husband for long! The danger will threaten Harry like it will threaten us. So a marriage that gives happiness to the spouses and security to their friends, is a good marriage, or there will never be one down here!’’

So reasoned the engineer James Starr, not without some logic. He even communicated this reasoning to old Simon, who found it to his taste. It seemed therefore that nothing should stand in the way of Harry becoming Nell’s husband.

And indeed who could have done so? Harry and Nell loved each other. The old parents did not imagine another companion for their son. Harry’s comrades envied his happiness, while recognising that he well deserved it. The young girl was dependent only on herself, and needed only the consent of her own heart. But, if no one seemed to present an obstacle to this marriage, why, when the electrical discs went out at the hour of rest, when night fell on the workers’ city, when the inhabitants of Coal City had returned to their cottages, why, from one of the darkest corners of New Aberfoyle, would a mysterious being creep in on the winding ladder?

What instinct would guide this ghost across certain tunnels so narrow that one would think they were impenetrable? Why would this enigmatic creature, whose eyes pierced the darkest obscurity, come crawling on the banks of Loch Malcolm? Why would it head so obstinately towards Simon Ford’s habitation, and so prudently too that it had until now thwarted all surveillance? Why would it come to press its ear to the windows and try to overhear snippets of conversation through the shutters of the cottage?

And, when certain words reached it, why would it raise its fist to threaten the peaceful residence? Why, finally did these words escape from a mouth contracted by anger:

‘Her and him! Never!’