nt for to come here. They
are working on,--relays relieving each other day and night; but no one
but poor Lady Lucy thinks there is any hope. Mr. Alder, the engineer,
says Lord St. Erme must have been in the farthest gallery, and they
cannot reach it in less than a week, so that if the other perils should
be escaped, there would be starvation. The real number lost is fourteen,
besides Lord St. Erme. It was a strange scene when I arrived at about
seven o'clock yesterday evening. The moor looking so quiet, and like
itself, with the heath and furze glowing in the setting sun, as if they
had no sympathy for us, till, when we came near the black heaps of coal,
we saw the crowd standing round,--then getting into the midst, there was
the great broken down piece of blackened soil and the black strong-armed
men working away with that life-and-death earnestness. By the ruins of
a shed that had been thrown down, there was a little group, Lady Lucy,
looking so fair and delicate, so unlike everything around, standing by
an old woman in a red cloak, whom she had placed in the chair that had
been brought for herself, the mother of one of the other sufferers.
Mamma and papa were with her; but nothing seems to comfort her so much
as going from one to the other of the women and children in the same
trouble with herself. She talks to them, and tries to get them to be
hopeful, and nurses the babies, and especially makes much of the old
woman. The younger ones look cheered when she tells them that history
which she dwells on so much, and seem as if they must believe her, but
the poor old dame has no hope, and tells her so. "'Tis the will of God,
my lady, don't ye take on so now. It will be all one when we come to
heaven, though I would have liked to have seen Willy again; but 'tis the
cross the Lord sends, so don't ye take on," and then Lady Lucy sits down
on the ground, and looks up in her face, as if her plain words did
her more good than anything we can say, or even the clergyman, who is
constantly going from one to the other. Whenever the men come to work,
or go away, tired out, Lady Lucy thanks them from the bottom of her
heart; and a look at her serves to inspirit and force them on to
wonderful exertions. But alas! what it must end in! We are at the house
that was Mr. Shoreham's, the nearest to the spot. It was hard work to
get poor Lady Lucy to come in last night. She stood there till long
after dark, when the stars were all out, and m