The Underground City Read Online
| CHAPTER I. | CONTRADICTORY LETTERS |
| CHAPTER II. | ON THE ROAD |
| CHAPTER III. | THE DOCHART PIT |
| CHAPTER IV. | THE FORD FAMILY |
| CHAPTER V. | SOME STRANGE PHENOMENA |
| CHAPTER VI. | SIMON FORD'S EXPERIMENT |
| CHAPTER VII. | NEW ABERFOYLE |
| CHAPTER VIII. | EXPLORING |
| CHAPTER IX. | THE FIRE-MAIDENS |
| CHAPTER X. | COAL TOWN |
| CHAPTER XI. | HANGING BY A THREAD |
| CHAPTER XII. | NELL ADOPTED |
| CHAPTER XIII. | ON THE REVOLVING LADDER |
| CHAPTER XIV. | A SUNRISE |
| CHAPTER XV. | LOCH LOMOND AND LOCH KATRINE |
| CHAPTER XVI. | A FINAL THREAT |
| CHAPTER XVII. | THE "MONK" |
| CHAPTER XVIII. | NELL'S WEDDING |
| CHAPTER XIX. | THE LEGEND OF OLD SILFAX |
THE UNDERGROUND CITY
CHAPTER I. CONTRADICTORY LETTERS
To Mr. F. R. Starr, Engineer, 30 Canongate, Edinburgh.
IF Mr. James Starr will come to-morrow to the Aberfoyle coal-mines, Dochart pit, Yarrow shaft, a communication of an interesting nature will be made to him.
"Mr. James Starr will be awaited for, the whole day, at the Callander station, by Harry Ford, son of the old overman Simon Ford."
"He is requested to keep this invitation secret."
Such was the letter which James Starr received by the first post, on the 3rd December, 18—, the letter bearing the Aberfoyle postmark, county of Stirling, Scotland.
The engineer's curiosity was excited to the highest pitch. It never occurred to him to doubt whether this letter might not be a hoax. For many years he had known Simon Ford, one of the former foremen of the Aberfoyle mines, of which he, James Starr, had for twenty years, been the manager, or, as he would be termed in English coal-mines, the viewer. James Starr was a strongly-constituted man, on whom his fifty-five years weighed no more heavily than if they had been forty. He belonged to an old Edinburgh family, and was one of its most distinguished members. His labors did credit to the body of engineers who are gradually devouring the carboniferous subsoil of the United Kingdom, as much at Cardiff and Newcastle, as in the southern counties of Scotland. However, it was more particularly in the depths of the mysterious mines of Aberfoyle, which border on the Alloa mines and occupy part of the county of Stirling, that the name of Starr had acquired the greatest renown. There, the greater part of his existence had been passed. Besides this, James Starr belonged to the Scottish Antiquarian Society, of which he had been made president. He was also included amongst the most active members of the Royal Institution; and the Edinburgh Review frequently published clever articles signed by him. He was in fact one of those practical men to whom is due the prosperity of England. He held a high rank in the old capital of Scotland, which not only from a physical but also from a moral point of view, well deserves the name of the Northern Athens.
We know that the English have given to their vast extent of coal-mines a very significant name. They very justly call them the "Black Indies," and these Indies have contributed perhaps even more than the Eastern Indies to swell the surprising wealth of the United Kingdom.
At this period, the limit of time assigned by professional men for the exhaustion of coal-mines was far distant and there was no dread of scarcity. There were still extensive mines to be worked in the two Americas.
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