lowered into, and raised out of the shaft. Of the doors and their management he knew nothing. The situation was serious; Grant looked at his watch. "How long were we coming from the Great Shaft ?" "Three quarters of an hour or thereabouts." "And this fellow would get over the ground in half an hour. Well, we must try what can be done." He tore a leaf from his pocket-book, and wrote the following words: "The two men drunk; doors unopened. Signal all the men out of the mine. Send us a gang at once to see to things here."-Leven. Folding it up, and directing it to the overseer, he gave it to the boy, with half-a-crown, and bade him run for his life with it to the Great Shaft. "If you are quick and faithful, you shall have the same sum when you return; now lose no time, but be off." The boy grinned at sight of the silver, and set off at a round pace. I only imperfectly apprehended the state of things, but I saw that Grant kept an anxious look-out on the road to detect the first appearance of the relief party. But half an hour passed, and no one appeared. "The boy is frightened," he said, "and has made off. Well, there is only one other chance. Here, you fellow," addressing the man, who by this time was partially sobered, "can you trust yourself to handle the winch, and lower the bucket ?" "Aye, sure, but who'll be going down ?" "I shall," said the Duke, firmly; and in another moment he had entered the bucket; and seizing the chain, gave the signal to lower away. "Grant!" I exclaimed, "don't be so mad; why the fellows will be here in a moment; what can you do?" "Leave go, Jack, it's all right; I must see to those doors." "Is there danger, then ?" "To the hundred and eighty men on the other side of the pit there is, if they are not out of the mine." "Let me go." "Stuff! What could you do? You don't know a door from a donkey." "But you ?" "I could find my way blindfolded. Why, Jack, I have planned the whole business; I've been in and out here a dozen times at least." I implored, but all in vain; he gave the signal, and the man lowered the winch Grant nodded to me with his bright, frank, fearless look, "All right, Jack; say a Hail Mary," and he was out of sight. I tried to still my fears-fears of what? After all, I knew not. I paced up and down, whether for hours or minutes I could not tell. At last, looking towards the hill, I caught the welcome sight of a dozen men descending the road towards the shaft. I waved my hat to urge them quicker, and in my impatience set out to meet them. We were nearing together when there was a low sound, as it were, far beneath my feet, a slight trembling of the earth, and a cry from the men. I sprang forward, crying, "The Duke! the Duke!" "Where ?" said the overseer, who led the party. "In the shaft-alone." "Then God rest his soul !" he exclaimed, "that was an explosion." We hastened to the shaft, and whilst some telegraphed for more aid, others prepared to clear the shaft and descend without loss of time. Before long the whole gang were on the spot; for Leven's message to signal the men out of the mine had cleared the workings and saved the men from the danger. They were all there, the hundred and eighty men he had so nobly saved; many of whom a short week before had been burning him in effigy. And as the rumour of the accident spread, and women and children came hurrying in dismay to the pit's mouth, loud were the expressions of joy and thankfulness to find fathers, sons, husbands, all safe and sound. But how was it with Leven? An hour or two of work sufficed to answer that question. The shaft was cleared, and when the working party who had volunteered to explore came to the surface, they bore him with them, and laid him on the grass, and in another moment I was kneeling beside him. Yes, he was dead. Not a mark of exterior injury. The breath of the fire had not touched him. A sweet smile on his face, a smile of inexpressible peace, but life had been extinct at least an hour. The cause of his death was not the actual combustion, but what miners call the "after-damp," that is, the mixture of bad gases caused by the explosion, and resulting in suffocation. They laid him in one of the sheds, and we telegraphed to Glenleven and Oakham. I do not stop here to speak of my own feelings, or those of the men around me. Some sensations are not keenly felt from their very intensity. This blow had come with a shock which, for the time, stunned me. I could act, and speak, and move, and give orders, but at first I could not think. Only gradually did the truth, the whole truth, break on me, and deluge me with its anguish; and I understood that a noble life had been consummated by a death of sacrifice, and that in very deed and truth he had given his life for his brethren. CHAPTER XVI. THE END. WE carried him to Oakham. He was so completely the last of his family that we should have been perplexed as to whom to commit the direction of affairs had it not been for his secretary, Mr. Dymock, who placed in my hands a sealed packet which had been given into his keeping by the Duke the evening before he had last left Oakham. It was directed to myself. I opened it, and found his will, drawn up and signed with the usual formalities, and a brief document declaring Sir John Ripley, myself, and Oswald, his trustees and executors, and myself sole guardian of Edward Wigram, his heir. This sufficed to enable us to act; and as we knew that he had already fixed on Glenleven as the place of his interment, intelligence of what had happened had already been sent to the monastery; and on our arrival at Oakham we found the abbot, Werner, and some others of the monks waiting to receive us. Werner and the other brethren gently and reverently prepared him for his last rest, and then it was we came to know that not care nor toils alone had done the work of age, but that he, who had sacrificed his life to charity, had also been used to offer his body to God by the longer and more lingering sacrifice of penance. There were the rough hair shirt, and the iron chain, and the sharp crucifix. I beheld it all, and then, when I recalled the frank, joyous voice, and inartificial manner, I marvelled at the power of self-repression, the exquisite ingenuity with which he had hidden from curious eyes. every one of his higher gifts of sanctity. Until all was ready for his removal to Glenleven, we laid him in the little chapel, before the golden tabernacle, and there, hour after hour, we watched beside him whilst there crowded in from all the county round all whom he had served, and helped, and ministered to, young and old, Catholics and Protestants, gentle and simple, to look on him, and pray beside him, and take their last farewell. But there was one who came and would not go away; he knelt there like one who had been smitten to the heart with something more than sorrow. It was Wilfrid Knowles, who, in the closing scene of that beautiful life, received the light of faith into his soul, and awoke to reality. The abbot's words regarding him had been an unconscious prophecy; he had been won by the suffering, not of himself, but of another. I shall only touch on the last scene of all: the gorgeous ceremonial which bore to his resting-place the last Duke of Leven, followed by half the country, by all his tenantry, and by the colliers whom he had died to save, and who walked in the long procession, praying for and blessing their benefactor. I will say nothing of all that, and of the bitter tears we shed, as we laid him at the feet of his father, and felt that one had gone out from among us who belonged to a higher sphere than men of common mould. We read his will; and all were startled and amazed to find that there was little left to dispose of. Oakham Park, and a modest estate attached to it, were devised to Edward Wigram; certain other lands and properties were left to be administered in trust for the maintenance of hospitals, schools, and other charitable institutions he had founded; but the vast wealth he had once possessed had all but disappeared, and of his Australian millions there remained not a farthing. The news spread about, and gradually the truth came to be understood. The Duke, the greatest millionaire of England, had died worth comparatively nothing, because he had been steadily carrying out the purpose of his life to obey the precept of the Gospel: "to sell all, and give to the poor, and follow Christ." The truth, when known, produced a powerful impression, especially among his own young men at Oakham, many of whom followed the example of Knowles, and embraced the faith. The little domestic chapel soon became insufficient for the wants of the Oakham congregation; and gladly recognising the opportunity thus given me of carrying out one of Leven's dearest wishes, I resolved to dedicate a portion of my own wealth to the erection of a church. I chose a spot close to that part of the plantations where, years before, he had held me over the precipice and saved my life. There the new parish church of Oakham has arisen, dedicated to St. Alexis, and designed by Werner, who watched over every detail with loving eyes. It is my monument to the memory of my friend, and a thankoffering for that friendship which I number among the choicest graces of a not unhappy life. In the completion of this undertaking I have been not a little assisted by the ardour of one whose story I have as yet left incomplete. The Duke's death hastened the work which the influence of his words and character had commenced in the heart of Florence Oswald. She was received into the Church within the same year, and my readers will not probably be greatly astonished to hear that two years later she became my wife. She shares with me the care of my little ward, to whom, as she often says, she owes, in no small degree, the gift of faith. And I think, if there be a desire in both our hearts, it is so to train him that in after years he may worthily fulfil the trust committed to him, and realise our dear Grant's ideal of "the Christian family." THE END. T PROBATICA. HE summer sun falls softly on the sea, The Syrian palms are drooping 'neath his breath; Beyond the city's sounds deep stillness reigns, Bethsaida's pool lies beautiful and pure, One blind goes in, and lo! on coming forth One deaf goes in, and, when he reascends, Day after day for many a weary year, Day after day-and slowly passed the years Day after day-and he became a man, |