"I think it was madness," said Philip excitedly. "You might have fired the mine." "Nay, lad, there was no fear o' that I knowed well enew what I was doing, and that bit o' gas was just as well away." The young deputy's heart beat fast, and he was about to speak angrily, but he felt that it would be better to consult with his father to see if a stop could not be put to such reckless ways. For he argued if an overman would run such a risk as this, knowing that the detached portion of gas might possibly communicate with a larger body, was it not likely that the ordinary winners of the coal would, without the overman's knowledge and experience, run even greater risks? "Yo'll get used to it all by and by," said the man condescendingly; "and if yo'll take my bit of advice, yo'll let the men tak' care o' theirsens." Philip Hexton must have walked in and out quite a couple of miles, examining ventilating-doors, seeing that the boys who opened and shut them for the corves to pass were doing their duty, and the like; and, trifling as it may sound, a great deal depends in a coal-mine upon such a thing as the opening and shutting of a door, for by means of these doors the current of air that is sucked, as it were, through the passages of the pit by the great furnace at the bottom of the shaft is altered in its course, and turned down this or that passage, sweeping out the foul air or gas, and making safe the pit. Hence, then, the neglect of one boy may alter the whole ventilation of some part of a mine, the purifying draught may be stopped from coursing through some dangerous gallery where the gas comes singing out of the seams, a light be taken inadvertently there, and ruin and death be the result. The young deputy was going on thinking to himself whether it would not be possible to invent a process by which the dangerous gas of a mine might be collected in great gasholders, and then burned within gauze shades for the lighting up of the pit, when the distant _chip_--_chip_--_chip_ ringing and echoing where the men were at work in the new four-foot grew less persistent, and in place of becoming louder as they drew nearer, gradually began to cease, as if first one man and then another had thrown aside his took. "Hadn't we better turn down here now, Master Hexton?" said the overman. "No; I want to inspect the new four-foot," replied Philip. "My lad, thee needn't go theer to-neet," said the overman. "That's all right, I warrant." "He has some reason for stopping me from going there," was Philip Hexton's first thought. "The men have ceased working; something must be wrong." "This is the gainest wayer," said the overman, turning sharply down a passage, light in hand, of course thinking that his companion would follow him, for he knew well enough what the stoppage meant, and he did not want the young man to see the miners smoke.