Geordie's "place" was being worked over the old workings of another mine
which had exhausted most of the coal of a lower seam many years
previously, except for the "stoops" or pillars, which had been left in.
This was supposed to be the barrier beyond which Rundell's lease did not
go. It would be too dangerous to work the upper seam with the ground
hollow underneath, so the "places" had all been stopped as they came up,
with the exception of Geordie Sinclair's. Sinclair was puzzled at this,
and he often wondered why his place had not been stopped with the
others. He was more uneasy, too, when he began to find large cracks or
fissures in the metals, and spoke of this to Andrew Marshall a few
nights before; but he did not like to seem to make too much of it, and
the matter was passed over, till the day before, when Walker visited the
place for a few minutes, when Geordie accosted him.
"What way is my place going on?" he asked, and was told that it was a
corner in the barrier, which extended for one hundred yards and must go
on for that distance, and that there was really no danger, as the ground
below was solid.
So, busily working away, and finding still more rents in the floor and
roof, Sinclair thought it must just be as he had seen it in other places
of a like kind, the weight of the upper metals which were breaking over
the solid ground by reason of the hollow beneath between the stoops,
though in this case it did not amount to much as yet.
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