Bonny Hugh of Ironbrook

BY half past four in the afternoon the breaker at Rainbow Slope was nearly deserted, and the miners were either wending their ways homeward, or reveling in their baths (minus modern conveniences, privacy included) ; or, having already undergone their daily transformation from imps of darkness to creatures of peculiar fairness, were lounging about in clean shirts, smoking pipes of peace and comfort. Now and then, however, until as late as six o’clock, grimy stragglers might be seen trudging wearily along the coal-dust roads, all tending in the direction of Ironbrook, which was the centre of a string of collieries, although the nearest breaker was fully a quarter of a mile distant, standing in a hollow behind a long hill; its towering top of charcoal black, surmounted by an eternally ascending plume of white smoke, being all that gave evidence of its existence from the village. The remoteness of the breakers had much to do with the unusual cleanliness of the place, which, except at those hours of the day when the miners were going to or returning from their work, would hardly have been taken for what it was, namely, the oldest and most important mining settlement in the region. It contained few of those hideous stereotyped rows of cottages which characterize the more recent mining villages, and from the hill-tops around its simple dwellings of varied form and color, surrounded by more or less well-kept gardens and set irregularly along the crooked, rocky streets, produced a picturesqueness of effect that even a walk through it could not quite dispel.

Across the extreme lower end of one of these climbing streets, which was, in fact, nothing more than a moraine, and had been appropriately christened Featherbed Lane by some waggish person of eld, was a stream, whose clear, reddish-brown water, flowing over what seemed more like chunks of rusty iron than stones, sufficiently indicated its mineral source and gave the settlement its name.

Close by the stream stood, or rather reposed, the smallest and prettiest cottage in all Ironbrook. Its log frame, now concealed by clapboards, was nearly a century old, having been put together by an Englishman, who, before the days of regular mining, undertook to get coal for himself from a broad “ surface vein,” and gained the doubtful honor of being the first victim of a mine disaster in these parts.

A tall tree hung yearningly above the cottage, as if jealous of the vines that lay lovingly all over its low roof, and cuddled in the corners of its tiny latticed porch. A fence of unpainted boards, nailed lengthwise from post to post, held as in a rude box a minute garden, where shrubs, flowers, and vegetables grew with a generous luxuriance which showed that a contracted space has often room for great breadth of idea.

Six whistles had blown from Rainbow Slope, and were reëchoed with cheerful shrillness by the neighboring breakers, followed by fainter responses from Far Vista, Black Diamond, and Mountain Side. A brown twilight was falling over the village and into the valley below, but behind Long Hill still hung a cloudless sheet of pale October yellow.

Suddenly from the ridge there stood out against this soft luminousness, vivid as jet upon amber, a gigantic silhouette. The hat with its noble sweep of rim and lamp hung high in front, the loose blouse, the dinner-pail swung by a strap across the shoulders, the baggy trousers tucked in wrinkled boot-tops, all formed a type of outline familiar and common enough hereabouts ; but the ideal moulding of those shoulders and limbs could not be concealed under the conventional sooty garb of the miner; the broad hat needed not to be lifted in order to recognize that head, the very poise of which, even when seen at a distance by lurid flickering lights in the dismal gangways below ground, betrayed “ Bonny Hugh ” to his companions.

He stood one moment only in full relief, and turned as if to go back the way he had come, and stood again for a second, his noble profile cutting into the yellow sky ; then he flung himself around, and walked resolutely down the stony lane towards the cottage at its foot.

Leaping lightly over the gate to avoid the tell-tale squeak caused by opening it, he went softly to one of the vinecurtained windows, parted the leaves, and looked in. There was no light in the room save from a tiny grate fire, which reflected brightly from its whitewashed brick-work upon two black cats sitting at roasting distance before it, upon an old cushioned rocking-chair drawn up to one side of the hearth, and upon a table set for two, placed in front of a black settle.

In the middle of the room, with his back towards Hugh, stood a man whose Scotch uprightness of hair added several inches to a stature already far from mean, and enabled him fairly to brush the low ceiling when he stood erect. His huge bulk trebled itself in shadow that spread over and darkened one whole side of the room. He was filling a pipe, and presently sat down in the cosy rocking-chair and toasted his stockinged feet, smoking the while luxuriously.

A few moments later a door at the further end opened, and a girl in a pink dress entered, carrying a large steaming bowl, which she placed upon the table, and then seated herself. The man took his place on the settle, and the cats, not unwilling to exchange one creature comfort for another, left their rug, and jumped up on either side of their master, indulging no vain hopes of a share in the " stir-abouts.”

Hugh had by this sunk down upon his knees and removed his hat, which interfered with the vines. He saw but one thing, — the girl, upon whom all the firelight in the room seemed to shine. It turned her common pink gown to purest rose ; it brightened her short brown elf-locks; it flowed around her like a sea; there seemed no shadow where she was; it held her in its embrace of flame ; it kissed her hotly from head to foot. Hugh envied the spoon that she put between her red lips ; he could in pure jealousy have wrung the neck of one of the cats, who, thinking herself not to have been justly treated on the settle side of the table, had left the master and sought the lap of the mistress.

In his eagerness he touched the window-pane, thus attracting the attention of those within. The man sprang to his feet, and the girl cried out in momentary terror. Hugh bolted through the gate, regardless of squeak and bang, tore up the cobbly hill, and was over its crest and out of sight before Mr. Kidd had reached the door to discover who might be the intruder upon his domestic privacy.

Before Effie’s dishes were put away the young men began to come. It sometimes struck Mr. Kidd as remarkable that the young men should so persistently seek his society. Every night in the week a ring of well-scrubbed fellows sat around the fire in the common room, or, the temperature permitting, formed a row of male wall-flowers in the stiff, clean, stuffy-smelling best room.

This best room had an organ with twelve stops, over which hung a shelf of books, among them those which Mr. Kidd and his wife (now dead) had studied in the old-country school together. The most worn book on the shelf was Burns. A table stood opposite, cluttered with glass vases, china trinkets, an enormous family Bible, and a photograph album of nearly equal dimensions. Against the mock fireplace leaned great slabs of slate fossils and “rainbow coal,” and upon the narrow mantel were ranged choice bits of anthracite coated with sulphur and glittering chunks of iron pyrites. These native curios were chiefly presentations to Effie from the young men, who all vied with each other in bringing her the best the bowels of the earth would yield. Her little low chamber in the roof was a perfect museum of such treasures; and Mr. Kidd used to say that if ever Rainbow vein got worked out, they might get all the coal they wanted for the hauling, up-stairs in his house, without the trouble of drill or blast.

And yet he thought the boys came to see him!

He greatly liked the boys, and never wearied of communicating useful information to them. The more worldly wise among them always came primed with questions. They would inquire as to the probable success of engines that could consume culm or the latest thing in ventilating fans, while some whose minds flowed in less scientific channels would seek advice about the readiest way of building a brattice, or the easiest method of using a hand-drill, or what to do with kicking mules. In these or any other matters connected with the mines they always found Mr. Kidd full cocked, and it was only necessary to pull the trigger to insure a steady shower of talk, under cover of which many a sly fellow got a chance at conversation with Effie on the settle against the wall.

Dan Hatty — saucy imp! — who would have dared the devil in his den, used to manage to slip out behind Mr. Kidd’s back into the kitchen and wipe the dishes. It was his dear delight to stand in the crack, flourishing his dish-towel and making faces at the other boys, who sat trying to look solemn while being pelted with Mr. Kidd’s solid lumps of wisdom.

One night his love of mischief betrayed him. He was vigorously polishing Mr. Kidd’s favorite basin for stirabouts, and at the same time making a feint of kissing Effie, who, with both hands in the dish-water, was supposed to be defenseless. But in his desire to arouse the passion of jealousy among his less daring co-mates, and possibly over-tempted by opportunity, he ventured too near, and a splash of hot, soapy water in his face caused him to recoil suddenly and drop the precious bowl upon the floor. The crash brought Mr. Kidd, who uttered some pious Scotch imprecations, and turned Dan out of the kitchen; but the good man could no more put two and two together than he could join the broken bits of his “ parritch ” basin. Dan mended matters by asking an opinion on the subject of mine-props, and did not venture into the kitchen again for at least two nights.

When John Johns came they always had music. John Johns did not care whether there was fire or not ; he could play himself warm any day, and positively sing himself into a fever. When his fine Welsh tenor swelled the walls of the best room almost to bursting with Men of Harlech, or moaned out the Marsh of Rhuddlan, or jingled the Bells of Aberdoyey with pathetic sweetness, even Mr. Kidd stopped talk to listen, and after each song would come a request from Dan Hatty to “squawk some more.”

For some time the absence of Hugh Wilson from this jolly circle had been very noticeable and much commented upon. The boys teased Effie a good deal about it, implying strongly her accountability, and professing great sympathy with Bonny Hugh in his jilted condition; but every man’s heart in him rejoiced at the immense increase of chances for himself which the withdrawal of so important a unit from their number caused. Mr. Kidd, who absolutely ignored the boys’ chaffing, and whose mind was always underground, thought he must have offended Hugh in a dispute they had had concerning the car tally ; and Dan, after exhausting his wits with frivolous suggestions, at length produced a shout from his audience by declaring that “ that pretty fellow was growin’ so big he could n’t come for fear of bustin’ the ceilin’ through.”

But whoever the accountable person might be, the true reason was known only to Bonny Hugh himself, unless perchance Effie, being a woman, divined it by that sense which is neither sight, nor hearing, nor touch, but is more akin, though in a spiritual way, to the subtle instinct that scents what is distant, indefinite, possible.

Not that Effie at this time gave it any conscious thought. The boys came and went, but she was not a girl to count noses. Such social triumphs as Ironbrook could furnish had been easily and exclusively hers since the days when she had waded, bare-legged, with Dan and John and Hugh and the rest of them in the brown stream, of which her eyes seemed two brimming cupfuls. So far as her manner was concerned, while perfectly cordial and free, a looker-on might have supposed that she shared her father’s views as to the object of the young men’s visits. But coquetry is planted so deep in some natures that growing-time is nearly over before any tell-tale sprout forces its way to the surface, and it cannot be averred that Effie did not know more than she told. There could be no doubt on this point regarding Hugh. He had a counsel and he kept it, and in so doing he stayed away; that is, he did not appear with the others to take his share of the lectures and the side-flirting.

He could not absent himself entirely, poor fellow. In these dark autumn days he purposely came home late from work that he might have a peep through the vines, unknown to any, unshared by any, at the girl who filled his heart so full that hardly a drop of blood seemed to pass it when he looked at her.

These were miserable evenings for Hugh, but he had made his choice of evils, and in his present state of mind not to see Effie at all, except by stealth, was preferable to seeing her in the same company with that wild, singing Welshman, John Johns.

The night when he was so nearly caught by Mr. Kidd was a peculiarly painful one; for during the day he had overheard some of the boys talking, and gathered from what they said that John and Effie were getting very " thick.” The evening before Effie had followed John into the best room, while the others stayed by the fire, and sung the Ash Grove with him ; and everybody knows what the Ash Grove is to a Welshman. It is his Home, Sweet Home, his Wenn die Schwalben, his Normandie. All his patriotism and all his passion are in the magnificent melodious sweep of that song. Hugh felt as if hope’s deathknell had sounded, and all day, like melancholy after-vibrations, there fell upon his ear with torturing regularity the liquid syllables and rich intervals of Llwyn On. How he hated the song, now that Effie and John Johns had sung it together !

He had, as we have seen, hesitated before going down the hill that evening for his accustomed peep, feeling that all looks in that direction were henceforth empty folly, but finally he resolved to go and take a last farewell.

As he knelt at the window, embracing fondly with his eyes the bewitching form that he might never hold in his arms, a passionate despair such as he had never known before seized and tore him. He strained his sight as if he saw her from a vast distance; there seemed indeed miles, leagues, between the ruddy room where sat that pink angel and the outer darkness where his black form crouched. Had he ever sat within and touched her? It all looked so familiar, yet so far away.

As he ran up the hill Hugh had a sense of utter, hopeless banishment that was overwhelming. He was not used to reasoning, and it never occurred to him that Mr. Kidd could not possibly have known who he was.

He felt in his dumb anguish that his best friends had turned on him and chased him from their door. All the old, happy days with Effie came back to him in warm memory waves, which, subsiding, left him chilled, outcast, and stranded.

For the idea of pitting himself against John Johns was too wild to be entertained for an instant. Not only could John Johns sing; he could also write essays upon subjects that were as “ Welsh ” to Hugh as the language in which they were written, and on Friday evenings, after his work, used to trudge miles, to read these essays before his literary society. Then as to his singing, everybody knew it was too good for Ironbrook. Why, he belonged to the first oratorio society of the valley, and could sing at sight every solo and chorus in the Messiah. Judas Maccabæus, and anything else, for aught Hugh could tell. And if John Johns trained a choir for the Eisteddfod, it was simply a foregone conclusion where all the prizes would go.

What had Hugh to show for all this? He was the handsomest man in Ironbrook, — that was all. He knew that he was handsome, and he knew that everybody else knew it. His nickname had not been bestowed upon him in irony. When people from the city visited Rainbow Slope, they always noticed him and made remarks about him, with the open shamelessness of tourists. One young woman of culture had pronounced him “an Apollo in black marble,” which expression in an unknown tongue caught the ear of a viciously precocious young slate-picker, who christened Hugh “Polly Black,” a name which clung to him for a long time.

He had always been quite vain, and since his thoughts had turned on love and Effie he had rejoiced doubly in his own beauty ; but what was it worth if she could put up with a fellow whose hair was like molasses candy, and whose legs were joined on at his waist ?

Hugh stumbled home through the darkness, and after his bath and supper went to bed, feigning illness, which indeed he truly felt, but of a deep sort that no mother’s potions nor coddlings could reach.

Late one afternoon, Hugh was starting out for work on the “ night shift,” and saw Effie at a distance coming toward him.

He had several times, when huckleberrying on the mountains, met a bear or a wild-cat, and his prowess on these occasions was quite worthy of that boastful shepherd lad, David ; but yonder soft girl in her pink dress (by the way, who had ever told Effie that pink became her ?), — terrible as an army with banners was she to the man who could have dislocated her little wrist with his thumb and finger.

He tried to think of something he had forgotten, that he might turn back for it; but his mind was a muddle, and on she came, so there was nothing for him but to face the music.

Effie was on her way to Black Diamond, and carried a little basket of goodies for poor Mrs. Walsh, a former neighbor of the Kidds’, who had lost her husband and her eldest boy Terry, and was now ill from sorrow and overwork. Effie met Hugh just as he had decided to take a cross-cut to the slope, and without waiting for him to speak hailed him with a charming openness : —

“ What’s the matter, Hugh, that you have n’t been to see us for so long ? ”

Hugh had on his black oily clothes, and his cheeks were white with the pallor which comes from the insufficiency of day-sleep, while the fine rim of black (that unmistakable mark of a miner) around his large, luminous, intense eyes gave to his extraordinarily handsome face a look unbearable, uncanny. It was also something back of those eyes that made Effie look away after she had asked her naive question.

There was a moment of awkward silence, and then Hugh mumbled out something about working on the night shift.

“ But the boys said you’d only just begun night-work, and you have n’t been around for more ’n a week. Father’s asking for you every night.”

Hugh was burrowing with his heel in the fine coal dust, and hanging his head so that the lamp swung loose from his hat. He saw that he had not made a brilliant success with his first excuse, and was dumbly cursing himself for not having another ready ; but he had never thought of meeting Effie, — he had somehow felt that he should never see her any more; and who could dream that she would pitch into a fellow this way ?

“ Well, may be I ’ll come round tonight,” he said, and made as if he were going on his way.

“ Do come ! ” exclaimed Effie. “ John Johns is going to sing us his new song, — the one he’s practicing for a prize at the next contest.”

Hugh turned about, striking his foot into the culm so that it spurted like water. His face was blood-red, and his eyes flamed like two angry headlights. “ Curse John Johns ! ” he shouted, as if all Ironbrook were more than welcome to hear.

Was it Bonny Hugh using such words ? This violent passion in him was new to Effie, and its suddenness made her grow pale. “I thought you liked John Johns,” she faltered. " What’s he been doing to you ? ”

Hugh’s face was whiter than ever now, but the terrible look still burned in his blue, black-rimmed eyes.

“ Do you think I ’d like a fellow that ’s taken my girl away ? You 're my girl,” said he, with an air of outraged ownership, — " not one of them fellows has any right to you but me; and as for John Johns ” — He stopped, an expression of archangelic scorn completing the sentence.

Effie was not averse to admiration, and she rolled the idea of being a cause of jealousy as a sweet morsel under her tongue ; but this brutal appropriation, without a “ by your leave,” she resented, as any fancy-free girl would do.

“ I never heard anything about being your girl or anybody else’s girl,” she replied, " except father’s,” and glanced down at her basket as if to intimate that she entertained no thoughts outside her own housekeeping.

Hugh was not looking at her,—he did not dare to, his eyes were not strong enough, — hut he saw her all the same ; he even saw the demure housewife look, and his heart seemed to turn over in his breast with the vision of Effie at his table, his fireside. He stood dreamily gazing off in the distance, where Far Vista loomed like some huge fossil creature against the sunny afternoon sky, showing through its open timber-work mountain slopes of misty blue.

“ I want you for my girl, Effie,” he said tenderly ; “you don’t care for John Johns, do you ? ”

It was surely a true story, that of the cat turned into a woman; of course the woman would always be more or less of a cat. Effie now felt her prey under her paw, so to speak, and tease it she must. She had never bestowed a serious thought upon John Johns, but Hugh had been unwise enough to betray his jealousy, thus giving her an advantage over him of which she was quite woman enough to avail herself.

“ It ’s nobody’s business who I care for,” said she, tossing her head, on which that most unstylish head-gear, a sunbonnet, sat jauntily in spite of itself, —“ least of all you, Hugh Wilson.” She felt this was mean when she said it, but the delightful new sense of being able to hurt some one so much bigger than herself excited her, and she dashed on recklessly : “ John and I are very good friends. He is n’t much for good looks, but looks ain’t everything, though some folks think so; he’s very pretty behaved, and father likes him, — father says he ’s a saving young man ” (this pin went in very deep, for Hugh’s pockets were like the coal-shoots, and let everything run through) ; " and he does sing beautiful, — you know that yourself, Hugh Wilson, — and he’s going to teach me Welsh, so that I can sing with him.”

This was too much. Hugh had been stung by the blow to his vanity, and galled by the allusion to his extravagance ; but a handsome fellow can always stand the former, and what spendthrift was ever seriously touched by the latter ? But the suggestion of intimacy implied in Effie’s last words fairly scorched the blood in him; his veins withered in the fire. Teach her Welsh indeed ! John Johns was coming on !

Rage and love were tearing him to pieces in their mad strife. He never knew what words he used ; he was only conscious of a crazy sort, of relief in pouring out pell-mell the perilous stuff in his heart. Nor did Effie fully comprehend what he said ; she stood like a little flower in a hailstorm, — bent, patient, appalled.

When silence came at length she lifted her head timidly, and caught a look which she never forgot. In another moment Hugh’s black form was flying over the ground toward the slope, like a strayed lost soul suddenly recalled to its place of torment, and Effie was walking as in a dream over the hill to Black Diamond.

Hugh did not go to the Kidds’ that night, and indeed weeks passed without their seeing him. Mr. Kidd made constant inquiries concerning his absence, and the Rainbow Slope boys reported him as “ grumpy.” They also said he worked as if the devil were after him; and Dan Hatty, while wiping the dishes one evening, confided to Effie his suspicion that Hugh was going to the bad pretty fast. " Why, he don’t comb that curl of his’n down on to his forehead any more,” remarked this shrewd youth ; “ and I know I smelt liquor on him onst last week.”

As for Effie, one “boy” the less or more did not matter. At any rate, the masculine beings about her detected no change in the merry, sweet girl, who treated them all like big brothers. None of them were so very jealous of John Johns, after all. He liked well enough to have Effie sing with him, but was too self-centred to think of much but his own singing, and often sharply criticised and snubbed her after she had done her best.

“ You should hear Lizzy Morgan sing that,” he would say with Cymric bluntness and emphasis.

But love’s bandage was too tight around poor Hugh’s eyes for him to see anything. His imagination alone led him, and imagination is sometimes a blind guide; so it happened that Hugh got into a very deep ditch. He had two ideas in his mind which he held subject to neither doubt nor dispute: the one, that Effie was in love with John Johns; the other, that he hated “that singing fellow ” enough to kill him.

John’s work and Hugh’s lay far apart, but they often met on the lift going up or down the shaft, and such times were the occasion both of torture and temptation to Hugh. In their rapid descent of many hundreds of feet, which sucks the very breath out of one unaccustomed to it, he would find himself in fancy strangling the throat that held that beautiful, hateful voice, or twisting the little telescoped body in two.

After these encounters he would work like a fiend; his great strength was trebled, and his drill would go through a breast of coal like a gimlet through a pine board. Those black chambers and corridors were fitting surroundings for the blackness of his thoughts during these days. The dense darkness met and mingled with the gloom in his heart, and gave him a sense of comfort which the upper air, with its autumn shine and sparkle, had no power to bestow.

The Rainbow mine was getting well worked out in its upper vein, but six hundred feet lower lay a fine “ red ash ” vein, which was now opening, a new shaft having been sunk to that depth.

John Johns had for some time been at work in the air-way of the lower opening.

One morning, Hugh, stopping as usual at the little underground station of the fire-boss, learned that all work in the Red Ash was forbidden until further notice, on account of a dangerous amount of gas in that region; for the air-ways not being completed, the ventilation was as yet defective.

As he came out of the station a man brushed past him, hurrying along the gangway, whom he knew by his “ Welsh walk ” to be John, though in the darkness he could not see his face. John was going in the direction of the new slope, and it was evident that he had not stopped at the fire-boss’s station to learn instructions, and therefore did not know that it was unsafe to go below.

Hugh’s heart jumped up and down in him. The fire-boss had just said there was more gas in the Red Ash than he had ever known; no man without a safety-lamp could go in and come out alive. And John Johns was on his way there now! Good-by to him and his cursed singing!

But Effie! What of her? Hugh’s heart suddenly ceased its mad jump, and seemed to fall with a thud and lie still. Effie ! Effie with a broken heart! Effie stretched out senseless with the stroke of sorrow, or sitting with streaming eyes, clenching her little hands like one demented !

Could Hugh look upon this picture? Not for one moment.

He would overtake John and warn him — for what ? That he might return safe to Effie ? That he might sing himself into her heart, lie in her arms, be blessed by her love? Never! Let him go ; he knew his own business ; if he chose to rush into danger, what was it to Hugh ?

Hugh was plunging along through the heavy culm, ground fine by the heels of miners and the hoofs of mules, totally absorbed in his own thoughts. The thundering of a long train of loaded cars, drawn by unusually spirited mules and driven by a hooting demon, which might have shattered a not over-sensitive tympanum, had no effect upon the inner ear of this youth who was undergoing his first real conflict with the evil in his own heart, — evil blacker than the blackest of earth’s unlighted caverns, deeper than any shaft could reach, more dreadful and destructive than the foulest vapor that ever gathered to choke out men’s lives.

He strode unconsciously past the chamber where his own work lay, following hard after John ; not as one who flies to save, but rather like an avenger of blood.

Suddenly he came to a full stop. Where was he going? What did he intend to do ? He leaned hack against a prop, his head in a whirl. A sickness of soul crept over him, invisible, stupefying, like the “ white damp.” Would he kill John Johns or wish him dead ? Had he wished him dead ? He hardly knew.

A blast of cold air, caused by the opening of one of the doors placed at intervals to direct the ventilation of the gangways, brought strength to his weakening senses. Simultaneously came a strong, warm rush of feeling, — his love for Effie. What else was of any account ? She loved him not, but he — he loved. There was always a debt to pay for such loving ; he could do this for her, — nothing else in the wide world could he do but this. His heart gave a great, exultant, vivifying throb at the thought of serving her, and his spirit leaped free from its chains, rejoicing in self-conquest.

He darted down a transverse corridor toward the Red Ash slope, stumbling as he ran, but picking himself up again, mad to regain lost time and overtake John before he could reach the “ heading” that led to the fatal air-way. John was meanwhile safely returning by the lift, having gone down, furnished with a safety-lamp (which Hugh had not, observed), to fetch some of his implements left there on the previous evening.

When Hugh made the last turn before coming to the door that shut off the new part, he peered eagerly ahead to catch, perchance, a sight of John, calling his name wildly; but the flaring light upon his hat penetrated but a few paces before him, and no human answer came back to him in those reëchoing halls. He almost tumbled against the huge door, and, finding no one, opened it recklessly and rushed through, — rushed into a solid mass of flame, for his open lamp had instantly fired the slumbering deadly gas, that cracked with its igniting like many rifleshots. Hugh threw himself forward on the ground, but jets of gas spurted out from every cranny, lighted by the sheet of fire above.

He lay for an instant, licked all over by the fierce flames, but remembering that the door was standing open, he managed to crawl back, shutting it upon the burning gangway; then he fell, and groveled and agonized in the black dust, until some of his fellow-workmen, attracted by the explosion from a distant part of the mine, came and carried him away.

All the long winter, while Hugh was slowly recovering from his deep burns, life went on at Ironbrook as life always goes on, — relentlessly, with heartless cheerfulness and zest. Mr. Kidd’s hearthstone seemed to have lost none of its attractive charm, nor had Mr. Kidd himself any reason to feel that his sun of popularity was setting. How the boys did like him, to be sure, and what jolly boys they were !

The absence of two former habitués of his ingleside, though duly noted, cast no permanent gloom upon the spirits of those who sat nightly in the roseate firelight. How could it while the “ dancin’ lowe ” still leaped to meet an answering flicker in certain brown eyes, and laid loving, warm fingers upon two cheeks that turned the redder for its touch ?

Without doubt that melodious warbler John Johns was much missed. Mr. Kidd, who never could be made to understand why voices do not grow in every throat, was constantly calling for a song, to which call Dan Hatty not infrequently responded; his vocal performances resembling nothing so much as the abortive crow of a rooster that by reason of his callow youth is fitter to grace a gridiron than a fence.

John was now entirely devoted to Miss Lizzy Morgan, whose singing and nationality together had proved a combination which to one of his clannish nature was quite irresistible.

Nor must it be thought that Hugh was forgotten. Dan was his devoted friend during his long affliction, visiting him every Sunday, and bringing back bulletins of his condition. One Monday evening, toward spring, Dan was very dumpish. When asked how he had found Hugh the day before, he replied that “ they ’d taken off his swaddlin’ clo’es, and dressed him like a Christian.” Mr. Kidd inquired whether he was much scarred about the face, and Dan responded that “ he ’d seen him look handsomer ; ” but no more remarks would he make on this or any other subject that night. Once, when some of the other boys who had paid a visit to Hugh began talking about his appearance just as Effie was entering the room, Dan’s chair suddenly became tipsy and precipitated him upon the floor, which incident turned the conversation effectually among this easily diverted crowd.

One day early in April, Effie was returning from one of her frequent expeditions to Black Diamond. Coming over the hill and beginning to descend the steep, rough street, she spied far ahead of her a man, walking slowly. At twice that distance she would have known him. There was but one man in Ironbrook with such shoulders and legs.

He was not in his working-clothes, and lounged along as if no business pressed, with bent head, kicking the small stones as he went. Effie had been told that Hugh was out of the hospital, and felt truly glad at the news; so she hastened forward that she might felicitate him upon his recovery and return home.

As she came up behind him he heard her step, and turned involuntarily. Her mouth was open to speak, but only a cry of horror came forth. Who was this she had been following ?

Hugh covered his poor marred face with two limp, twisted hands, and shrank together as if a sudden blight had struck him.

Effie’s own countenance was terrible to behold. There was one moment of tragic silence, in which she stood gazing at the mighty form cowering so piteously before her; then came the words,

“ Oh, Hugh, Hugh! ” and he was left standing alone, still striving vainly to hide what the fire had done for love’s sake.

Effie ran home by a kind of instinct, for her outer senses were all benumbed. She rushed immediately up to her little roof chamber, and, shutting herself in, gave way utterly to tears.

But while weeping herself blind, there hung ever before her inner vision an image of the seamed, drawn face, — the face of Bonny Hugh, never to be bonny again. The pity of it so smote her heart that it seemed unendurable. Then she remembered how he had tried to conceal his hideousness, crouching as in shame before her; and it came to her like a stab that she had shown only horror at the sight of him, and nothing that he might construe as sympathy. How could she have run away and left him without telling him how sorry she felt? But perhaps he would not have liked that.

It all came so unexpectedly upon her. If Dan had only prepared her for the change in Hugh ! It had never occurred to her that his burns would disfigure him. Then she had shrunk away as if in disgust, when in reality her heart had never so gone out to him before. Yes, this was something she could not hide from herself any longer. A little feeling had been slowly creeping into her heart all winter,— such a little, little feeling that she had hardly taken any notice of it; she only knew now by looking back that it was there all the time. The evenings had not been so pleasant as formerly, and she had thought it was John Johns that she missed ; now she knew it was Hugh.

And Hugh, — how he loved her ! He had always loved her. She gazed around her little room, crowded with its geological treasures; she knew who had given her each piece, and at least two thirds of them had come from Hugh. Then those passionate words of his, last autumn, when he had cursed his supposed rival, and she had let him think she cared for John. Yet it was in trying to save John that he had got burned. It was for her, for her! She knew it all now ; why had it never come to her before ?

Gratitude, pity, love, crowded together in her breast. How her spirit flew to him ! It was not here ; it surrounded and enfolded him in its motherliness. Her soul almost burst with a woman’s yearning to help, to comfort, — yes, to protect the strong man she loved, as love can protect even though the arm be weak. But to these warm thoughts succeeded an icy chill. Never, never would Hugh speak to her of love again.

Effie sat staring out of the low window, her eyes dry, and all life turned black. Through the faintly green trees on the hill opposite the mountains gleamed a rich blue, — blue like huckleberries, like Hugh’s eyes ; poor eyes, bloodshot and with patched lids. No, he would never ask her to look into them with love ; and yet — she would give her own two beaming eyes to be asked.

But it could not be. They would live, grow old, die, side by side, and never would he know how she valued his selfsacrificing love, nor that she loved him so that nothing, nothing could ever seem too hard for her to bear, if only —

What is shining in Effie’s face ? Not the sun, for it is behind the house; not its reflection, for the delicate spring tints offer at this hour but a mild absorbing mirror for its rays. The light is in Effie’s heart, within which a thought has risen like a sun, and all the earth is bright again.

Her father’s voice roused her, calling up and asking why his bath was not ready. She hastened down, smiling, and still smiled, although he stormed and scolded at having to sit in his mining clothes while the water was heating. Days passed, but the light did not leave Effie’s face, — that strange light of resolve. Yet she had not seen Hugh again. He had returned to work in a new position, that of fire-boss at Far Vista, for his burnt hands were unable to hold a drill and do miner’s work.

One Sunday afternoon Effie started off with her basket, not to the Walshes’ this time, but to gather arbutus up by “the old opening,”a wild ravine, where the first outcroppings of coal had been found ; the cliff on one side now a mere shell covering a vast, coal-lined cavern, and supported by a few gigantic pillars of solid anthracite.

The ravine was very beautiful on this lovely spring day. Its northern side, rustily carpeted with last year’s wintergreens and arbutus, and picked out hi the light green of budding trees, smiled cheerfully across at the frowning black openings, while its little brook foamed down over variegated slaty rocks, in very pride of life, from swelling springs above.

Effie ascended the steep path with sprightly step, her veins full of the spring, and her eyes bright with the smile that ever abode in her heart.

All at once she saw Hugh sitting on a ledge in front of one of the openings.

His hat was off, showing to the full the sad ravages of the fire-damp. He sat with downcast face, unconscious of all about him.

Effie stood still, feeling as if a shot had passed through her. She was one throbbing pulse from head to foot.

Gould she go on ?

She had looked forward to this for days, —to meeting Hugh alone and speaking to him ; and there he was, and here she was, rooted, unable to speak, longing to fly.

A bird’s clear note rang out from the opposite cliff. Hugh looked up and saw Effie, then quickly seized his hat and drew it down over his brows. This brought Effie to his side in an instant. “ Oh, Hugh, I am so glad to see you ! ” she exclaimed.

Hugh gave a sort of groan, and turned away from her.

“ Hugh,” she persisted, “ won’t you let me speak to you ? It ’s been so long since I had the chance, and I " — Here her voice suddenly broke off.

He did not reply, and Effie stood silently, the little basket fallen to the ground, and her hands clasped tightly before her. How she longed to throw her arms around him, and caress the head that once held itself so proudly erect, and now cowered under its pulleddown hat!

Presently with a great effort he spoke. It was the first time she had heard his voice in many months, and it sounded strangely to her, so low and choked it was.

“Effie,” he said, “you’d better go away. You don’t want to he talking to me. I’m a pretty fellow for you to be talking to! ”

Were these, then, his first words to her after so long a time ? Did he tell her to go away? Should a loving heart find no reward but this ? There was a lump in her throat, and her eyes smarted with the tears that did not fall. She would not cry ; no, he should not know how he made her suffer. As she waited beside him she remembered their meeting of the week before: she had hurt him then ; it was on that account he treated her so to-day. How could she make amends ? Could she tell him the truth, — that she had been frightened at the sight of him ? Poor amends that!

Put something must be said, and soon too. She tried to speak with cheerfulness.

“I do want to talk to you, Hugh. Was n’t I always willing to talk to you ? ”

“ You like singing better,” said he sullenly, “ and I can’t sing.”

A happy thought struck her. “ Do you know, Hugh, John is going to marry Lizzy Morgan. He ’s with her all the time.”

“ I ’m sorry for you, then.”

“ Oil, you need n’t be sorry for me. I don’t eare who he marries. He would n’t think of marrying anybody but a Welsh girl, you know. Did you think ” — She paused, and then added hesitatingly, clasping her hands more tightly than ever, “ Did you think I’d marry a Welshman. Hugh ?”

It was the veritable fiery Hugh of old that sprang to his feet, and stood towering above her on the crumbling ledge, oblivious of his burns and disfigurement. Passion had long lain speechless, but now had found a tongue.

“ What do you come here for ? " he said. “ Why don’t you leave me alone, now that you ’ve broken my heart ? You let me think you ’d marry him, and it near killed me, and I — I d have killed him — once I would ; I’d have killed him for love of you. I loved you, Effie; all them fellows together could n’t love you as I did; they don’t know nothing about loving the way I do. Why, Kffie,” and he tried to clench his limp red fingers, “you’ve been just a bit of me ever since we was little. I don’t know how to live without you. I ain’t a man without you ! ”

The present had so overcome him that his words unconsciously took the present form. Suddenly he remembered, and groaned at the memory.

Silence fell upon them both, and upon all around them. The little brook whispered to itself for a few moments, and the bird stopped singing. Effie’s hands were still clasped, and Hugh’s dangled uselessly at his sides.

Eternity is neither short nor long ; it is an environment, simply ; it is the atmosphere in which a soul breathes free from the flesh, and has nothing to do with duration.

Effie felt like a disembodied spirit.

When at length she lifted her eyes and looked upon the dear ruined countenance, she saw not it, but Hugh, that loved and loving entity. There was no longer any struggle, any movement of maiden modesty. She said in the tone of one who prays, —

“ I love you, Hugh.”

He threw himself down before her.

“Oh, Effie, don’t, don’t,—you can’t love me ! What am I, — what am I ? ” and he covered his face and wept aloud, the tears falling piteously between his fingers. “ My life is gone, Effie. I can’t offer it to you ; I can’t ask you to marry me.”

“ No,” she said : “ I knew you would n’t ask me, and so — so that was the reason I thought I’d ask you, Hugh ! and she opened to him her arms, the doors of that sanctuary, her breast, whereon he laid his poor scarred head, and forgot the deadly peril that had blasted his beauty and his hopes together, forgot the anguish bitterer than death, forgot all but Effie and her love.

As they walked down the narrow path together, a low red sun shone straight up the ravine. Hugh’s head was bent, but in pride now, not in shame, while he looked into Effie’s bright face, all pink and white, like the arbutus she had forgotten to pick.

The bird whistled a good-night after them, and the woods and waters settled back with a sigh to the peace which this unwonted outburst of human passion had so rudely disturbed.

Edith Brower.