As soon as the men on the scaffold had recovered from their surprise they naturally all at once were animated with a desire to save their comrade. One lustily roared out for rope; another vociferously proposed something else; while several navvies, bawling from the surface, were each as eagerly and as loudly prescribing his own remedy. In the midst of this confusion the stentorian voice of Jack Pierson himself was heard, from the very bottom of the pit, calmly to exclaim, “DARM YOUR EYES, MAKE LESS NOISE AND POOL ME AROUT!!” His rough command was instantly attended to, and he was moreover carried to his bed, where, poor fellow! he lay many weeks unable to move. Besides the 1250 labourers employed in the construction of the tunnel, a proportionate number of suttlers and victuallers of all descriptions concentrated upon the village of Kilsby. In several houses there lodged in each room sixteen navvies, and as there were four beds in each apartment, two navvies were constantly in each; the two squads of eight men as alternately changing places with each other in their beds as in their work. Such was the demand for lodging that it was, as we have stated, found necessary to construct a large village over the tunnel for the accommodation of the workmen, and, as they generally allowed themselves three meat meals a-day, it has been asserted that more beef was eaten at Kilsby during the construction of the tunnel than had previously been consumed there since the Deluge. As these navigators are now before us, we trust that our readers will not only be curious but desirous to know a little more of the habits of a set of men who have lately added so materially to the prosperity of the country as well as to our luxuries, by the numerous railways which, by the honest sweat of their brows, they have one after another executed. We need hardly say that, as regards their physical strength, they are the finest Herculean specimens of the British race; and, as is generally the case, in proportion as they are powerful so are they devoid of all bluster or bravado. Those who have commanded large numbers of them state that they are not only obedient to all above them, even to their own “gangers,” but that, although they have--we think very justly--occasionally required a permanent increase of pay, they have never meanly taken advantage of a press of business to strike for wages. Indeed the conduct of a “navvy,” like his countenance, is honest and open. If from illness or misfortune he is unable to work, he and his family are maintained by his comrades; in truth the same provision is made among them for what are called by navvies their “_tally-wives_,” a description of relationship exceedingly difficult _correctly_ to describe.