“A’ richt,” cheerfully replied the boy, withdrawing down to the end of the road, where his clothes hung upon a tree, and taking his bread from one of his pockets, he sat down tired and hungry to await his father and John.

Geordie’s “place” was being worked over the old workings of another mine which had exhausted most of the coal of a lower seam many years previously, except for the “stoops” or pillars, which had been left in.  This was supposed to be the barrier beyond which Rundell’s lease did not go.  It would be too dangerous to work the upper seam with the ground hollow underneath, so the “places” had all been stopped as they came up, with the exception of Geordie Sinclair’s.  Sinclair was puzzled at this, and he often wondered why his place had not been stopped with the others.  He was more uneasy, too, when he began to find large cracks or fissures in the metals, and spoke of this to Andrew Marshall a few nights before; but he did not like to seem to make too much of it, and the matter was passed over, till the day before, when Walker visited the place for a few minutes, when Geordie accosted him.

“What way is my place going on?” he asked, and was told that it was a corner in the barrier, which extended for one hundred yards and must go on for that distance, and that there was really no danger, as the ground below was solid.

So, busily working away, and finding still more rents in the floor and roof, Sinclair thought it must just be as he had seen it in other places of a like kind, the weight of the upper metals which were breaking over the solid ground by reason of the hollow beneath between the stoops, though in this case it did not amount to much as yet.

The coal was easy to get; he had one boy “forrit to the pick,” with Robert as “drawer,” and his prospects seemed good, he thought, as he was busily preparing a shot, ramming in the powder, and “stemming” up the hole.  He was busy ramming the powder in the prepared hole, while the elder boy prepared clay, with which to stem or seal it up after the powder had been pressed back, leaving only the fuse protruding.

“Here’s a tree cracking,” said the boy, drawing his father’s attention to a breaking prop; but as this is a common occurrence in all mines where there is extra weight after development, Geordie thought nothing of it at the time, intending merely, before he lighted his shot, to put in a fresh prop.

“Bring in another prop, sonny,” he said to the boy, “and I’ll put it in when I have stemmed this hole,” and the boy turned to obey his order.

But suddenly a low crackling sound, caused by the breaking of more props, was heard, then a roar and a crash as of thunder, followed by a long rumbling noise, which left not a moment for the two trapped human beings to stir even a limb or utter a cry.  The immensity of the fall created a wind, which put out little Robert’s lamp; the great rumbling noise filled him with a dreadful fear, and he sprang involuntarily to his feet.