underground for several years. He was a staid, sober man,
and an abstemious liver, but it was evident that his life on earth was
drawing to a close. He had been employed chiefly in driving levels, and
had worked a great deal in very bad air, where the candles could not be
made to burn unless placed nine or ten feet behind the spot where he was
at work. Indeed, he often got no fresh air except what was blown to
him, and only a puff now and then. When he first went to work in the
morning the candle would not keep alight, so that he had to take his
coat and beat the air about before going into the level, and, after a
time, went in when the candles could be got to burn by holding them on
one side, and teasing out the wick very much. This used to create a
great deal of smoke, which tended still further to vitiate the air.
When he returned "to grass" his saliva used to be as black as ink.
About five years before giving up underground work he had had
inflammation of the lungs, followed by blood-spitting, which used to
come on when he was at work in what he called "poor air," or in
"cold-damp," and he had never been well since.

Oliver's last visit that day was to the man John Batten; who had
exploded a blast-hole in his face the day before. This man dwelt in a
cottage in the small hamlet of Botallack, close to the mine of the same
name. The room in which the miner lay was very small, and its furniture
scanty; nevertheless it was clean and neatly arranged. Everything in
and about the place bore evidence of the presence of a thrifty hand.
The cotton curtain on the window was thin and worn, but it was well
darned, and pure as the driven snow. The two chairs were old, as was
also the table, but they were not rickety; it was obvious that they owed
their stability to a hand skilled in mending and in patching pieces of
things together. Even the squat little stool in the side of the chimney
corner displayed a leg, the whiteness of which, compared with the other
two, told of attention to small things. There was a peg for everything,
and everything seemed to be on its peg. Nothing littered the
well-scrubbed floor or defiled the well-brushed hearthstone, and it did
not require a second thought on the part of the beholder to ascribe all
this to the tidy little middle-aged woman, who, with an expression of
deep anxiety on her good-looking countenance, attended to the wants of
her injured husband.

As Oliver approached the doo