If the fields are peopled with imaginary beings, either good
or bad, with much more reason must the dark mines be haunted
to their lowest depths. Who shakes the seam during tempestuous
nights? who puts the miners on the track of an as yet unworked
vein? who lights the fire-damp, and presides over the terrible
explosions? who but some spirit of the mine? This, at least,
was the opinion commonly spread among the superstitious Scotch.
In the first rank of the believers in the supernatural
in the Dochart pit figured Jack Ryan, Harry's friend.
He was the great partisan of all these superstitions.
All these wild stories were turned by him into songs,
which earned him great applause in the winter evenings.
But Jack Ryan was not alone in his belief. His comrades affirmed,
no less strongly, that the Aberfoyle pits were haunted,
and that certain strange beings were seen there frequently,
just as in the Highlands. To hear them talk, it would have
been more extraordinary if nothing of the kind appeared.
Could there indeed be a better place than a dark and deep coal
mine for the freaks of fairies, elves, goblins, and other
actors in the fantastical dramas? The scenery was all ready,
why should not the supernatural personages come there to
play their parts?
So reasoned Jack Ryan and his comrades in the Aberfoyle mines.
We have said that the different pits communicated with
each other by means of long subterranean galleries.
Pages:
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57