You know I am the piper of the place.
There will be dancing and singing."
"Thank you, Jack, but it's impossible."
"Impossible?"
"Yes; Mr. Starr's visit will last some time, and I must take
him back to Callander."
"Well, Harry, it won't be for a week yet. By that time Mr. Starr's
visit will be over, I should think, and there will be nothing to keep
you at the cottage."
"Indeed, Harry," said James Starr, "you must profit by your
friend Jack's invitation."
"Well, I accept it, Jack," said Harry. "In a week we will
meet at Irvine."
"In a week, that's settled," returned Ryan. "Good-by, Harry!
Your servant, Mr. Starr. I am very glad to have seen you again!
I can give news of you to all my friends. No one has
forgotten you, sir."
"And I have forgotten no one," said Starr.
"Thanks for all, sir," replied Jack.
"Good-by, Jack," said Harry, shaking his hand. And Jack Ryan,
singing as he went, soon disappeared in the heights of the shaft,
dimly lighted by his lamp.
A quarter of an hour afterwards James Starr and Harry descended
the last ladder, and set foot on the lowest floor of the pit.
From the bottom of the Yarrow shaft radiated numerous empty galleries.
They ran through the wall of schist and sandstone, some shored up
with great, roughly-hewn beams, others lined with a thick casing of wood.
In every direc-
tion embankments supplied the place of the excavated veins.
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