It was at least a week before Solomon Coe could be induced to open his lips before Richard, beyond the utterance of a few pithy sentences; not that the smouldering embers of jealousy had been fanned in the mean time—­for Richard had been prudence itself in his behavior to Harry—­but because the miner could not comprehend the young fellow, and therefore distrusted him.  The light and airy manners, which were as natural to Richard as was John Trevethick’s ponderous cunning or his own self-satisfied reticence, seemed to Solomon mere affectation, and even his appearance effeminate and dandified; but when he saw that he wore no other air when conversing with the pitmen of Dunloppel—­an expedition undertaken with himself at Richard’s special invitation—­and marked how actively he climbed the tall, steep ladders, and how fearlessly he trusted himself to the rope, he acquitted him of such artful fopperies.  Of Richard’s intelligence he had formed a good opinion from the time when the latter had enlisted himself upon his side in the argument concerning superstition; and it flattered his vanity to find so sensible and accomplished a young fellow deferring to his opinion upon all practical points, and apparently desirous of obtaining his views upon them.

There was one subject, the experience of his early years, upon which Solomon was never averse to descant, could he once be got to talk at all; and it was a certain token—­as one, at least, of the company well knew—­that his prejudice against Richard was quite surmounted when Solomon began to unfold to him, over their punch in the bar parlor, the annals of his underground career.  Often had he done so to Harry—­like another Othello (and almost as swarthy) narrating his adventures to his Desdemona—­but never had she been so pleased to listen as now, when she needed but to seem to hear, and, without the penalty of reply, could feed her eyes upon young Richard’s listening face.  It is hard when, in the race for woman’s favor, one has to waste one’s breath in making the running for one’s rival.

And yet the talk of Solomon Coe was well worth listening to.  He told of the great war which is always being waged by man beneath the earth against the powers of Water, and Fire, and Foul Air, and of the daring deeds he had seen wrought against them.  He told of coal-pits that had been on fire from time immemorial, above which no snow would lie, by reason of the heat beneath, and where the grass of the meadows was always green.  He told of others which had been suddenly inundated by a neighboring river, or by the waters from old workings, let in by a single unlucky blow, whereby scores and scores of strong men were overwhelmed, whose corpses floated about for months in the dark drowned pit before their fellows above-ground could get at them.