Chapter 6 Chapter 6: A Few Unexplainable Strange Things

We all know how superstitious people are in the Highlands and Lowlands of Scotland.In some clans the tenants of the lords, when they met for a vigil, liked to recount nonsense they had heard from the treasure-houses of the myths of the Far North.These legends, which seem to be bound up with the ancient land of Caledonia, cannot be dismissed as lies and heresy, notwithstanding the great and great extent of education which has permeated the region.This is still a land of gods and ghosts, goblins and fairies.There, haunted by evil spirits that can only be sent away by paying money, prophets among the highlanders who predict life and death through second vision, appear in the form of hairy girls on their arms, and foretell the catastrophic May to the families threatened by them Moraj, the nymph Brancy who announces the mourning, entrusts the family's chattels to Brauny, whom they keep.Uresk, who prefers to frequent the uninhabited canyons of Lake Katrin, has so much else.

【Note】The ancient name of Scotland. It goes without saying that the inhabitants of the Scottish coal mines have crammed their share of legends and anecdotes into this treasure trove of mythology.If the people who live on the hills of the Highlands are fancy people, the dark coal mines to their furthest reaches are haunted anyway.On a stormy night, who shakes the ore deposits, who points out the untapped veins, who ignites the gas and presides over the explosions, who else but a certain ore essence?This, at least, is the common and widespread opinion among those superstitious in Scotland.Indeed, when purely natural phenomena are involved, most miners self-consciously believe that it is the work of the gods, and that it would be a waste of time to wake them up.Where can superstition develop more freely than at the bottom of these abysses?

And the coal mines of Aberfoyle, being mined in this legendary area, are naturally more suitable for all supernatural events. Therefore, the legend here is extremely rich.It must also be pointed out that certain hitherto unexplained imaginations could only provide new food for public superstition. Among the superstitious people at Dochart's Coal Bunker, Harry.Ford's friend Jack.Ryan is one of the most aggressive.He is the most ardent believer in supernatural phenomena of any kind.He turned all those ghost stories into songs, which made him a hit at the winter watch. But Jack.Ryan isn't the only one showing superstition.His companions affirmed equally aloud that the coal bunkers at Aberfoyle were haunted, and that certain elusive beings were there as often as in the Highlands.According to them.Even those unthinkable things before are not unbelievable.Indeed, what better place for patron saints, goblins, house gods, and other actors in a spooky drama to frolic than in the murky depths of a coal mine?The set is set, why don't those supernatural characters come here and play their parts?

Jack.That's what Ryan and his colleagues at the Aberfoyle Coal Mine reasoned.It is well known that different coal bunkers are connected to each other by long underground drifts carefully arranged between veins.Underground in Stirling County, there is such a huge group that has dug trenches, dug cellars, and dug wells. It is a kind of underground building, an underground labyrinth, which looks like an ant nest. Miners from different underground mines therefore often meet, sometimes going to the mining project and sometimes returning from there.So the exchange of topics and stories about the coal mines were passed from one coal bunker to another very often.Word of mouth and embellishments quickly changed those accounts.

However, there are two people who have received more education than others and have more stable personalities than others, who can always resist this impulse.They allow no goblins, patron saints or fairies to interfere. That is Simon.Ford and his son, after the abandonment of the Dochart coal bunker, continued to live in the shadowy dungeon to show their attitude.Madge is probably, like all Highland Scottish women, a little inclined towards the paranormal.But these stories of apparitions are limited to her own telling, and the reason why she does this is to never lose the ancient tradition.

Even Simon and Harry.Fords were as superstitious as their mates, and they wouldn't surrender coal mines to patron saints or fairies.The hope of discovering new veins of minerals led them to ignore the imaginary goblins.They were not credulous, and their belief was based on one thing only: they could not just assume that all the carbon-bearing veins of Aberfoyle had been mined.Simon.There was some truth in Ford and his son's simple, unadorned faith, a faith in God which nothing could shake. That's why father and son have held their picks, their sticks, and their lamps stubbornly and confidently for ten years without missing a day.So the two of them searched and groped and slammed on the rock, listening for a pleasant sound.

As long as the Paleozoic granites have not been detected, Simon and Harry.Ford unanimously believed that if he couldn't find it today, he might find it tomorrow, and he must go to explore again tomorrow.Their entire time was spent trying to restore the Aberfoyle coal mines to their former glory.If the father may die before success, the son will continue the task alone. At the same time, these two passionate coal mine guards inspected the coal mine from the perspective of keeping the coal mine.They reinforced the padstones and vaults.They looked carefully for worrisome landslides that would suddenly block parts of the bunker.They checked for signs of water infiltration from above, diverted the water, and opened pipes to allow water to flow into the sewage seepage well.In short, they gladly pretend to be the protectors and caretakers of this unproductive domain, from which so much wealth has been dug up, but is now in smoke.

On several occasions during these excursions, Harry in particular encountered several oddities which he could not explain. Several times it happened that, as he walked along a side to the level lane, he seemed to hear something, like a pickaxe being slammed into a raised rock face. For Harry, neither supernatural phenomena nor natural phenomena can frighten him. He quickened his pace, hoping to suddenly discover the origin of this mysterious labor. There was no one in the tunnel.The young miner's lamp moved across the rock face, not revealing any new marks left by the blows of the sled-bar or the pickaxe.So Harry wondered if he was being fooled by an auditory hallucination, by some strange echo.

On other occasions, when a bright light was suddenly thrown at a suspicious bend, he thought he saw a shadow running past.He rushed up to nothing, and there wasn't even any way out for a man to escape his pursuit at the time. Twice in a month, while inspecting the west side of the coal bunker, Harry heard distinctly distant explosions, as if some miner had detonated a high dynamite cartridge. The most recent time, after careful searching, he found a newly blasted pit log. Using the light, Harry carefully inspected the blasted rock wall.This rock wall is not a simple stone filling at all, but a whole piece of shale inserted deep into the deposit.The purpose of the explosion was to discover a new vein?Is someone trying to cause a landslide in this part of the mine?So Harry thought, and when he told his father, neither the old overman nor he could answer the question satisfactorily.

How odd, Harry thought over and over.It seemed impossible that a stranger had appeared in the mine, but there could be no doubt about it!The other one is like us, and therefore wants to find out if there is a mineable vein, or rather, he won't try to destroy what is left of the coal mine at Aberfoyle?But for what purpose?I'll figure it out, even if it costs my life! In Harry.Two weeks before Ford led engineers through the maze of Dochart's coal bunkers, he thought he was on the verge of finding what he was looking for. He ran all over the far southwest of the coal mine, and he carried a very bright lantern in his hand.

Suddenly it seemed to him that a light had just gone out, a few hundred feet before his eyes, at the end of a narrow chute that ran obliquely through the high ground.He ran towards the suspicious light. Looked for nothing.Because Harry was unwilling to give supernatural explanations for natural things, he concluded that there must be a stranger wandering in the coal bunker.But no matter what he did, he searched extremely carefully, exploring the smallest recesses in the alley, but it was useless to draw any conclusions. Harry therefore searched aimlessly again, trying to solve the mystery for himself.Farther and farther he saw lights again, flying from side to side like St. Elm's fire.But this light was fleeting, and he had to give up looking for the reason. If it is Jack.Ryan and the other superstitious people at the mine must not forget to shout about the supernatural when they see this amazing flash! But Harry didn't even think about it.Same goes for old Simon.When the two spoke of these oddities, apparently due to some purely natural cause: Wait, boy, replied the old foreman, and one day all this will be explained! It must be noted, however, that until then, neither Harry nor his father had ever been targeted by an act of violence. If it falls on James that day.The stone at Starr's feet was thrown by the hand of a perpetrator, and that was the first act of such crimes. James.Starr, when questioned, believed that the stone had fallen from the vault of the alley.But Harry disagreed with such a simple explanation.He speculated that the stone was not falling but thrown.If it had not been impelled by an external impetus, it would never have been able to trace a track except by bouncing. Harry thus saw a plot directed against him and his father, and even against the Engineer.All in all, there are good reasons to believe this.