Philip Sterling’s circumstances were becoming
straightened. The prospect was gloomy.
His long siege of unproductive labor was beginning
to tell upon his spirits; but what told still more
upon them was the undeniable fact that the promise
of ultimate success diminished every day, now.
That is to say, the tunnel had reached a point in the
hill which was considerably beyond where the coal
vein should pass (according to all his calculations)
if there were a coal vein there; and so, every foot
that the tunnel now progressed seemed to carry it
further away from the object of the search.
Sometimes he ventured to hope that he had made a mistake
in estimating the direction which the vein should
naturally take after crossing the valley and entering
the hill. Upon such occasions he would go into
the nearest mine on the vein he was hunting for, and
once more get the bearings of the deposit and mark
out its probable course; but the result was the same
every time; his tunnel had manifestly pierced beyond
the natural point of junction; and then his, spirits
fell a little lower. His men had already lost
faith, and he often overheard them saying it was perfectly
plain that there was no coal in the hill.
Foremen and laborers from neighboring mines, and no
end of experienced loafers from the village, visited
the tunnel from time to time, and their verdicts were
always the same and always disheartening—“No
coal in that hill.” Now and then Philip
would sit down and think it all over and wonder what
the mystery meant; then he would go into the tunnel
and ask the men if there were no signs yet?
None—always “none.”
He would bring out a piece of rock and examine it,
and say to himself, “It is limestone—it
has crinoids and corals in it—the rock is
right” Then he would throw it down with a sigh,
and say, “But that is nothing; where coal is,
limestone with these fossils in it is pretty certain
to lie against its foot casing; but it does not necessarily
follow that where this peculiar rock is coal must
lie above it or beyond it; this sign is not sufficient.”
The thought usually followed:—“There
is one infallible sign—if I could only
strike that!”
Three or four tines in as many weeks he said to himself,
“Am I a visionary? I must be a visionary;
everybody is in these days; everybody chases butterflies:
everybody seeks sudden fortune and will not lay one
up by slow toil. This is not right, I will discharge
the men and go at some honest work. There is
no coal here. What a fool I have been; I will
give it up.”
But he never could do it. A half hour of profound
thinking always followed; and at the end of it he
was sure to get up and straighten himself and say:
“There is coal there; I will not give it up;
and coal or no coal I will drive the tunnel clear
through the hill; I will not surrender while I am
alive.”
