Some Strange Phenomena

: The Underground City

MANY superstitious beliefs exist both in the Highlands and Lowlands of

Scotland. Of course the mining population must furnish its contingent

of legends and fables to this mythological repertory. If the fields are

peopled with imaginary beings, either good or bad, with much more reason

must the dark mines be haunted to their lowest depths. Who shakes the

seam during tempestuous nights? who puts the miners on the track of an
/> as yet unworked vein? who lights the fire-damp, and presides over the

terrible explosions? who but some spirit of the mine? This, at least,

was the opinion commonly spread among the superstitious Scotch.



In the first rank of the believers in the supernatural in the Dochart

pit figured Jack Ryan, Harry's friend. He was the great partisan of

all these superstitions. All these wild stories were turned by him into

songs, which earned him great applause in the winter evenings.



But Jack Ryan was not alone in his belief. His comrades affirmed, no

less strongly, that the Aberfoyle pits were haunted, and that certain

strange beings were seen there frequently, just as in the Highlands. To

hear them talk, it would have been more extraordinary if nothing of the

kind appeared. Could there indeed be a better place than a dark and deep

coal mine for the freaks of fairies, elves, goblins, and other actors

in the fantastical dramas? The scenery was all ready, why should not the

supernatural personages come there to play their parts?



So reasoned Jack Ryan and his comrades in the Aberfoyle mines. We have

said that the different pits communicated with each other by means of

long subterranean galleries. Thus there existed beneath the county of

Stirling a vast tract, full of burrows, tunnels, bored with caves,

and perforated with shafts, a subterranean labyrinth, which might be

compared to an enormous ant-hill.



Miners, though belonging to different pits, often met, when going to or

returning from their work. Consequently there was a constant opportunity

of exchanging talk, and circulating the stories which had their origin

in the mine, from one pit to another. These accounts were transmitted

with marvelous rapidity, passing from mouth to mouth, and gaining in

wonder as they went.



Two men, however, better educated and with more practical minds than the

rest, had always resisted this temptation. They in no degree believed

in the intervention of spirits, elves, or goblins. These two were Simon

Ford and his son. And they proved it by continuing to inhabit the dismal

crypt, after the desertion of the Dochart pit. Perhaps good Madge, like

every Highland woman, had some leaning towards the supernatural. But

she had to repeat all these stories to herself, and so she did, most

conscientiously, so as not to let the old traditions be lost.



Even had Simon and Harry Ford been as credulous as their companions,

they would not have abandoned the mine to the imps and fairies. For ten

years, without missing a single day, obstinate and immovable in their

convictions, the father and son took their picks, their sticks, and

their lamps. They went about searching, sounding the rock with a sharp

blow, listening if it would return a favor-able sound. So long as the

soundings had not been pushed to the granite of the primary formation,

the Fords were agreed that the search, unsuccessful to-day, might

succeed to-morrow, and that it ought to be resumed. They spent their

whole life in endeavoring to bring Aberfoyle back to its former

prosperity. If the father died before the hour of success, the son was

to go on with the task alone.



It was during these excursions that Harry was more particularly struck

by certain phenomena, which he vainly sought to explain. Several times,

while walking along some narrow cross-alley, he seemed to hear sounds

similar to those which would be produced by violent blows of a pickax

against the wall.



Harry hastened to seek the cause of this mysterious work. The tunnel

was empty. The light from the young miner's lamp, thrown on the wall,

revealed no trace of any recent work with pick or crowbar. Harry would

then ask himself if it was not the effect of some acoustic illusion, or

some strange and fantastic echo. At other times, on suddenly throwing a

bright light into a suspicious-looking cleft in the rock, he thought he

saw a shadow. He rushed forward. Nothing, and there was no opening to

permit a human being to evade his pursuit!



Twice in one month, Harry, whilst visiting the west end of the pit,

distinctly heard distant reports, as if some miner had exploded a charge

of dynamite. The second time, after many careful researches, he found

that a pillar had just been blown up.



By the light of his lamp, Harry carefully examined the place attacked

by the explosion. It had not been made in a simple embankment of stones,

but in a mass of schist, which had penetrated to this depth in the coal

stratum. Had the object of the explosion been to discover a new vein? Or

had someone wished simply to destroy this portion of the mine? Thus

he questioned, and when he made known this occurrence to his father,

neither could the old overman nor he himself answer the question in a

satisfactory way.



"It is very queer," Harry often repeated. "The presence of an unknown

being in the mine seems impossible, and yet there can be no doubt

about it. Does someone besides ourselves wish to find out if a seam

yet exists? Or, rather, has he attempted to destroy what remains of the

Aberfoyle mines? But for what reason? I will find that out, if it should

cost me my life!"



A fortnight before the day on which Harry Ford guided the engineer

through the labyrinth of the Dochart pit, he had been on the point of

attaining the object of his search. He was going over the southwest end

of the mine, with a large lantern in his hand. All at once, it seemed

to him that a light was suddenly extinguished, some hundred feet before

him, at the end of a narrow passage cut obliquely through the rock. He

darted forward.



His search was in vain. As Harry would not admit a supernatural

explanation for a physical occurrence, he concluded that certainly

some strange being prowled about in the pit. But whatever he could do,

searching with the greatest care, scrutinizing every crevice in the

gallery, he found nothing for his trouble.



If Jack Ryan and the other superstitious fellows in the mine had seen

these lights, they would, without fail, have called them supernatural,

but Harry did not dream of doing so, nor did his father. And when they

talked over these phenomena, evidently due to a physical cause, "My

lad," the old man would say, "we must wait. It will all be explained

some day."



However, it must be observed that, hitherto, neither Harry nor his

father had ever been exposed to any act of violence. If the stone which

had fallen at the feet of James Starr had been thrown by the hand

of some ill-disposed person, it was the first criminal act of that

description.



James Starr was of opinion that the stone had become detached from

the roof of the gallery; but Harry would not admit of such a simple

explanation. According to him, the stone had not fallen, it had been

thrown; for otherwise, without rebounding, it could never have described

a trajectory as it did.



Harry saw in it a direct attempt against himself and his father, or even

against the engineer.



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