“The door-keepers were summoned before the overseer; or, as you call him, the viewer. I was the youngest, and the blame was all laid upon me. The man, who had only swooned, recovered; but I was thrashed and thrashed for the neglect of another person, till the viewer was tired. “A weary life I led afterwards with my friend the door-keeper, who was enraged against me for having told the truth. “In process of time, as I grew stronger and bigger, I was set to other work. First, I was employed at the barrow; and then a pick-axe and a _gad_{Footnote: A gad is a tool used in mines; it resembles a smith’s punch.} were put into my hands; and I thought myself a great man.--It was my fate to fall among the idlest set in the mine. I observed that those men who worked by task, and who had the _luck_ to hit upon easy beds of the rock, were not obliged to work more than three or four hours a day: they got high wages with little labour; and they spent their money jollily above-ground in the ale-houses, as I heard. I did not know that these jolly fellows often left their wives and families starving while they were getting drunk. “I longed for the time when I should be a man, and do as I saw others do. I longed for the days when I should be able to drink and be idle; and, in the mean time, I set all my wits to work to baffle and overreach the viewer. “I was now about fourteen, and, had I grown up with these notions and habits, I must have spent my life in wretchedness, and I should probably have ended my days in a workhouse; but fortunately for me, an accident happened, which made as great a change in my mind as in my body. “One of my companions bribed me, with a strong dram, to go down into a hole in the mine to search for his _gad_; which he, being half intoxicated, had dropped. My head could not stand the strength of the dram which he made me swallow to give me courage: and being quite insensible to the danger, I took a leap down a precipice which I should have shuddered to look at, if I had not lost my recollection. “I soon came to my senses, for I broke my leg; and it is wonderful I did not break my neck by my fall. I was drawn up by cords, and was carried to a hut in the mine, near the stables, where I lay in great pain. “My master was in the mine at the time the accident happened; and, hearing where I was, he had the goodness to come directly to me himself, to let me know that he had sent for a surgeon. “The surgeon, who lived in the neighbourhood, was not at home; but there was then upon a visit at my master’s a Mr. Y----, an old gentleman who had been a surgeon; and, though he had for many years left off practice, he no sooner heard of the accident that had happened to me than he had the goodness to come down into the mine, to set my leg.