happy father and daughter, and with some success. He was very
urgent with Thomas to sign the pledge, and thus openly join himself to
the little band of total abstainers, and Thomas had pretty nearly made
up his mind to do so. He had hesitated, not so much because he dreaded
the sneers and jeers of his companions--he had become callous to those--
but he shrank from encountering the daily, wearing, gnawing trial of his
wife's taunts and reproaches; for the restless uneasiness of a
conscience not yet quite seared into utter insensibility made the
unhappy woman doubly bitter in her attacks upon abstinence and
abstainers. And thus matters were when February opened.

It was on a clear frosty evening in the beginning of that month that
Betty was returning from the mill. They were running short time that
week, and she was coming home about an hour earlier than usual. The
ground was hard and crisp, and the setting sun sank a misty red, while a
greyish-yellow tint overspread the whole horizon. Betty toiled slowly
and listlessly up the hill, the old weight still on her heart. She had
nearly reached her home, when a sound fearfully loud and awful, like the
discharge of the cannon of two conflicting armies underground in one
vast but muffled roar, made her heart almost stand still with terror.
The next instant a huge body of sulphurous smoke leaped high into the
air from one of the pit-mouths. In a moment the dreadful cry arose,
"The pit's fired!"

The next minute men, women, and children poured out from houses and
cottages, horror and dismay on every face. Near two hundred men and
boys were down that pit; scarce a house but had one or more below. Oh,
who could adequately describe the dreadful scene of misery, wailing; and
confusion which followed!

Betty knew that her father was down, and she felt that in him all she
had to cling to on earth was now, perhaps, torn from her for ever. Men
and women rushed past her towards the pit's mouth.

"Lord help us," groaned one poor mother; "our Thomas and Matthew's
down."

"Fayther's there too," wailed Betty. "Oh, the Lord keep him, and bring
him up safe."

"Where's our Bill?--oh, have you seen anything of our Bill?" shrieked
another poor distracted mother.

Then came crowds of men, with overlookers and policemen. Then a hasty
consultation was held as to what must be done.

"Who'll volunteer to go down with me and send the poor fellows up?"
cries the overlooker. Three m