And
so, though she was only seven years old when he came to work in this mine,
he very often took her with him in the cage, and she had leave to stay
underground until his work was done and he could take her home again.
Children can always find ways of amusing themselves, and this child had a
happy time in her strange nursery, and many a merry game she played among
the coal. As she grew older her father allowed her to carry a lantern, as
the miners did, and she would go fearlessly through the dark passages by
herself, until she knew all their windings as well as you know the paths in
your father's garden.
But all at once this happy life came to an end: three years had passed, and
she was just ten years old, when a great sorrow came to this child. As her
dear father was going down the shaft one morning the chain broke, and the
cage fell to the bottom of the mine. When his mates ran to the spot, they
knew at once that he had been killed by that terrible fall, and slowly and
sadly they took up his crushed and wounded body and carried it home. The
first thing that the dear little daughter knew about the accident which had
made her an orphan child, was when she saw the men, who had worked with her
father, coming towards his cottage with their sad burden.
She at once ran to meet them, asking when father would be home; but the
sight of their faces soon told her, young as she was, all the truth. When
first she understood what had happened she cried with a bitter cry, for her
father was all she had in the world.
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