No doubt but what some men enjoy it, being born, like worms, to dig, and to live in their own scoopings. Yet even the worms come up sometimes, after a good soft shower of rain, and hold discourse with one another; whereas these men, and the horses let down, come above ground never.
And the changing of the sky is half the change our nature calls for. Earth we have, and all its produce (moving from the first appearance, and the hope with infants' eyes, through the bloom of beauty's promise, to the rich and ripe fulfilment, and the falling back to rest); sea we have (with all its wonder shed on eyes, and ears, and heart; and the thought of something more)--but without the sky to look at, what would earth, and sea, and even our own selves, be to us?
Do we look at earth with hope? Yes, for victuals only. Do we look at sea with hope? Yes, that we may escape it. At the sky alone (though questioned with the doubts of sunshine, or scattered with uncertain stars), at the sky alone we look with pure hope and with memory.
Hence it always hurt my feelings when I got into that bucket, with my small-clothes turned up over, and a kerchief round my hat. But knowing that my purpose was sound, and my motives pure, I let the sky grow to a little blue hole, and then to nothing over me. At the bottom Master Carfax met me, being captain of the mine, and desirous to know my business. He wore a loose sack round his shoulders, and his beard was two feet long.
'My business is to speak with you,' I answered rather sternly; for this man, who was nothing more than Uncle Reuben's servant, had carried things too far with me, showing no respect whatever; and though I did not care for much, I liked to receive a little, even in my early days.
'Coom into the muck-hole, then,' was his gracious answer; and he led me into a filthy cell, where the miners changed their jackets.
'Simon Carfax, I began, with a manner to discourage him; 'I fear you are a shallow fellow, and not worth my trouble.'
'Then don't take it,' he replied; 'I want no man's trouble.'
'For your sake I would not,' I answered; 'but for your daughter's sake I will; the daughter whom you left to starve so pitifully in the wilderness.'
The man stared at me with his pale gray eyes, whose colour was lost from candle light; and his voice as well as his body shook, while he cried,-'It is a lie, man. No daughter, and no son have I. Nor was ever child of mine left to starve in the wilderness. You are too big for me to tackle, and that makes you a coward for saying it.' His hands were playing with a pickaxe helve, as if he longed to have me under it.