Chapter 16 Chapter Sixteen On the Swinging Ladder

At that time, the excavation works at New Aberfoyle brought huge profits, needless to say, engineer James.Starr and Simon.The first discoverers of Ford's rich coal fields shared in large part in these dividends.Harry also got a share of it.But he didn't really want to leave the cottage.He had taken over from his father as foreman and dutifully oversaw the entire class of miners. Jack.Ryan is proud and happy that the entire fortune went to his friend.He, too, made a lot of money.The two often meet, either in the cottage or on underground projects.Jack.Ryan was not unaware of Harry's feelings for the girl.Harry didn't admit it.But when his friend shook his head in denial, Jack.Ryan laughed.

It should be Jack.One of Ryan's strongest desires was to accompany Nell on her first ground tour of the county.He wanted to see her wonder, that admiration, in the presence of a nature she had never seen.He wished Harry had dragged him along on this tour.However, he could not help but feel a little uneasy that the latter had not made such a proposal to him until then. One day, Jack.Ryan walked down a ventilation shaft that connected the lower level of the mine to the surface.He had seized one of the swing ladders, which were raised and lowered by successive oscillations so that one could go up and down effortlessly.Twenty vibrations of the machine took him down about a hundred and fifty feet, and as he took his position on the narrow landing he met Harry who was going up to the groundworks.

It's you?said Jack, looking at his friend illuminated by the electric lights of the mine. Yes, Jack, Harry replied, nice to see you.i have a suggestion for you I don't listen to anything until you tell me about Nell!Jack.cried Ryan. Nell is in good health, Jack, and well, in a month or a month and a half, I hope she You're going to want her, Harry? You don't know what you're talking about, Jack! It's possible, Harry, but I know exactly what I'm going to do? what will you do I will marry her, I, if you, you don't marry her!Jack retorted, laughing, Holy Mongol bless me!But she pleases me, sweet Nell!A young and kind person who never left the mines, just what a miner should marry!She's an orphan, as I am an orphan, and, as long as you don't really miss her, and she'll be your friend, Harry!

Harry looked at Jack seriously.He let him talk, not even going to answer him. Doesn't what I say make you jealous, Harry?Jack.Ryan asked in a somewhat serious tone. No, Jack, Harry replied calmly. But if you made Nell your wife, you didn't intend her to be an old maid forever? I don't have any intentions, Harry replied. At this moment, a vibration of the ladder caused the two friends to part, one descending and the other ascending the mine.However, they are not separated. Harry, said Jack, do you think I meant what I just told you about Nell? No, Jack, Harry answered. Well, I'm going to do it!

You, be serious! My good Harry, answered Jack, I can give a friend a piece of advice. Go ahead, Jack. Well, you listen!You are loving Nell with all the love Nell deserves, Harry!Your father, old Simon, and your mother, old Madge, loved her as if she were their child, and you could quite make her their daughter with very little work!why don't you marry her You've come so far, Jack, replied Harry, do you know Nell's feelings? Nobody knows, not even you, Harry, and just because it makes you absolutely envious of me and no one else but the ladder is going down.and Wait a minute, Jack, said Harry, keeping his friend's feet off the landing to put on the moving steps.

"Well, Harry," cried Jack, laughing, you're going to get me down. Listen seriously, Jack, replied Harry, because, for my part, I mean it seriously. I listen until the next oscillation, but can't wait any longer! Jack, went on Harry, I will make no secret that I love Nell.My strongest desire is to make her my wife This, well said. However, if she remains that way, I seem to have a scruple in my conscience to ask her to make a decision that may be irreversible. What are you trying to say, Harry? I want to say, Jack, that Nell never left the depths of the coal mine, where she was born, without a doubt.She doesn't know anything, she doesn't know anything about the outside world.She has to learn with her eyes.Maybe you have to study harder.When new impressions are formed in her heart, who knows what she will think?She doesn't know anything about the world yet, and I feel that until she knows enough to finally make up her mind that she prefers a life quite different from the coal mines, that will be deceiving her, do you know what I mean, Jack?

Yes vaguely I understand better that you're going to make me miss the next oscillation again! "Jack," replied Harry in a serious voice, "Even if these machines never work again, even if this landing is going to slip under our feet, you'll have to listen to what I have to say to you!" great!Harry.I really like hearing people talk to me!Are we saying before you marry Nell you're going to send her to some boarding school in Old Chimneys? No, Jack, replied Harry, I can quite personally give her the education that will make her my future wife. And it's only better, Harry!

However, beforehand, Harry went on, I hope, as I told you just now, that Nell will have a real sense of the outside world.There is a comparison, Jack.If you love a blind girl, and someone comes to you and says: In a month, she will be cured!Won't you wait until she's cured before marrying her? Yes, no doubt, yes!Jack.Ryan replied. Well, Jack, Nell is not blind yet, and before I marry her, I want her to fully understand that it is me and my life situation that she prefers and accepts.I hope her eyes finally open in the sunlight! Yes, Harry, yes, great!Jack.Ryan exclaimed, I understand you now.When will the surgery be performed?

A month later, Jack, Harry replied, Nell's eyes were getting used to the light of our electric panel.This is a preparation.In a month, I hope, she will see the earth and its wonders, the sky and its splendor!She will know that the horizon of vision given by nature is farther than that given by a dark coal mine!She will see that the boundaries of the universe are infinite! However, when Harry let his imagination run wild, Jack.Ryan left the landing and jumped onto the oscillating rung of the machine. Hi!Jack, cried Harry, where are you? Beneath you, the merry companion laughs and replies, I descend in the abyss as you rise in infinity!

Good-bye, Jack, replied Harry, holding on to the swing ladder as he went up, and I want you to remember not to tell anyone what I just told you! Will not tell anyone!Jack.cried ryan, but on one condition What conditions? That is.Let me accompany the two of you as Neil goes to visit the surface of the Earth for the first time! "Okay, Jack, I promise you," Harry replied. A new pulsation of the apparatus again widened the distance between the two friends.Their voices can only be heard very softly from one side to the other. However, Harry could still hear Jack calling: And when Nell sees the stars, the moon, and the sun, do you know what she will like more than these?

I don't know, Jack! I like you more, my friend, still you, always you! Jack.Ryan's voice finally died in a final huh. At the time, Harry spent all his spare time educating Nell.He taught her to read and write. The young girl made rapid progress in all studies.It can be said that she learned it instinctively.Never has a greater intellect been seen to triumph more quickly over an equally utter ignorance.Everyone around her was amazed. Simon and Madge feel increasingly attached to their adopted child, but her past still worries them.They were well aware of the nature of Harry's feelings for Nell, but that by no means displeased them. It is remembered that the old foreman had said to the engineer when he first visited the old cottage: Why is my son going to get married?Who's there for a lad who has to live under a deep mine! Well, didn't God seem to send him a mate who would only be right for his son?Isn't this like a gift from God to him? The old foreman therefore resolved that if the wedding took place, there would be a day in the Coal City that would mark an epochal festival for the miners of New Aberfoyle. The old foreman didn't expect that he was completely right! It must be added that another person was equally eagerly anticipating this union of Nell and Harry.That is the engineer James.Starr.Of course, the happiness of the two young men, he agreed above all else.But some kind of motivation, from a more holistic concern, may have pushed him in that direction too. You know, James.Starr still has some concerns, though there is no longer any sign of confirming them.However, what has happened can still happen.Nell was apparently the only one who knew about the mystery of the new coal mine.However, if there might be new dangers lurking in the miners of Aberfoyle in the future, how to prevent these possibilities without even knowing their causes? Nell would not say, James.Starr had often repeated, but, having kept silent until now to everyone else, could not keep silent for long about her husband!That danger threatened us as well as Harry.Therefore, a marriage that makes both the couple happy and their friends safe is a good marriage, otherwise it should never happen on earth! So reasoning, engineer James.Starr is not without some logic.He even told old Simon about this reasoning, and he was not indifferent to it.So, it seems there's nothing against Harry being Nell's husband. And who can oppose it?Harry and Nell are in love.Elderly parents do not want their sons to have other partners.Harry's friends envied his happiness and understood that it was entirely his.A young girl belongs only to herself; as long as she consents in her own heart, she needs no other consent. But if no one seems to be able to thwart the marriage, why, when the electric panels go out during the break, when night falls on the workers' quarters, when the Coal City dwellers return to their cottages, why, from New Aberford In one of the darkest corners of Il, a mysterious person has slipped into the darkness?What instinct led the ghost through certain narrow alleys that were thought impossible?Why did this enigmatic being, whose eyes penetrate the deepest darkness, crawl to the shores of Lake Malcolm?Why is he so stubborn towards Simon.Ford's house moved forward, and so discreetly, that it escaped all surveillance until then?Why had he put his ear to the window, trying to hear fragments of conversation through the shutters of the cottage? And, when certain words reached him, why did he raise his fist to threaten the peaceful home?Why, these words finally slipped from his mouth contracted with rage: She and him.Forever!