In Nenthead, and at Coalcleugh in Allendale, before the First World War the Vieille Montagne Zinc Company of Belgium employed a workforce which came from all over Europe, the largest group being the Italians who were over here on three-year contracts. They caught the imagination of Wilhelmina Martha James of Clarghyll Hall near Alston, whose pen name was Austin Clare. She wrote many books under that name and some short stories including this one, published in the Cumberland and Westmorland Herald of the 10th March 1915.

“Three weeks more – then Italy, home and Bianca!” The speaker sat on a pallet-bed in a rough little mining-hut. He had just been counting over the coins contained in a leather bag which he kept in a hole behind the place where he was sitting. A smile broke out all over his thin brown face, like gleam of sunshine on a dark hillside, as he replaced the last piece of money, and tied the string that fastened the mouth of the bag.

“Three years’ work! It’s taken long to earn,” he said to himself. “And it’s three years, all but three weeks, since I saw her last, the darling! But time’s nearly up now. I’ll soon be out of this. Then – ah, but it’s good to think of!” The smile broadened and brightened, till the man’s whole face was transfigured. He got up, put the bag carefully into its hiding-place, stretched himself, with a deep breath and a chuckle, and opened the door of the shanty.

A round red, wintry sun was setting over stretches of snow-covered moorland, staining the whiteness with crimson flashing cold fire from the surface of a stream that zig-zagged down from the heights to the hollow of the moor on its way into the distant valley. The flowing lines of limestone hills cut darkly against an amber horizon, above which the night and storm hovered in the deepening cloud and gloom.

It was a wild and inhospitable outlook – a typical winter landscape among the Fells of the Pennine range. But the man who was looking at it had none of the characteristics of the native born. The brown face, with dark lustrous eyes and sensitive lips, was as evidently of the south as the setting in which he found himself was to the north.

An Italian workman in the north of England is a rarity. Yet that is what he was. He was one of a gang, brought over by a foreign company that had taken the lease of the neighbouring mines. That is how Luigi Frascati, a mountaineer from the Appennines, came to be employed in the lead and zinc mines at Minehills, among the wild fells that divide the county of Cumberland from its neighbours of Northumberland and Durham.

As he stood at the door of the shanty that he shared with a fellow-labourer of the same race as himself, it was not the alien English landscape that Luigi saw, though his bodily eyes were upon it. Instead of these wild hills and moorlands of the cold north, his mental vision beheld a southern scene, mountainous indeed, but after quite another pattern. A little village of gaily painted wooden houses, wreathed in vines – that is what he saw – nestling under hills far higher and grander than those before him. Yet, to his thinking, infinitely kinder and more smiling. He saw a pretty wistful-faced girl, looking northward from a balcony full of flowers; and, at that vision, the heart of the exile burned within him, consumed by that gnawing fever that his people call “nostalgia di piese.” Three years since he had left his home for this frigid northern land – how long the time had seemed!

But, now it was nearly over, the term contracted for had all but run out. He had saved almost the whole of his wages, living frugally, sleeping hardly, that he might have the more money to take home to Bianca, who was waiting there to marry him till the needful sum was made that should set them up on the little mountain farm they had coveted so long. No wonder the light of a joy, greatly desired, and looked forward to with such poignant hope, almost dazzled the eyes of the outlander as he drew daily nearer to where it shone. Yet the joy was mixed with fear – with a great anxiety, lest, after all, it should escape him, when all but within his grasp. He turned from the stretch of moorland, growing pallid in the dying night and cast a hurried glance into the interior of the hut.

It was one of a group of several exactly like it, built for the accommodation of a dozen miners, who were opening a new mine on the opposite side of the hill to that where stood the village of Minehills, where the main workings were situated. Each of these huts were shared by two men, one of whom was on “day-shift,” as the term is, while the other worked at night. They saw little of each other, their alternate occupation seldom allowing both to be at home together.

Luigi was the day labourer at present; his mate, Carlo Rubini, having been told off for the night-shift. He had gone to work, half an hour before, just as Luigi came back to the shanty. The two men, though house-mates and fellow-countrymen, had little in common; and Luigi the frugal was more than content that his card-playing, wine-loving compatriot should have but few opportunities of exchanging speech with him. He lived in continual anxiety lest Carlo should discover his hoard. Not that he had any reason for suspecting the man’s honesty. But a gambler is so constantly in need of money that the man who has it can never feel perfectly safe with such as he. So far, however, Luigi believed that his hiding-place was known to no one besides himself; for, though he counted them almost daily, not a coin was missing. Yet, as the time for his return to Italy drew on, anxiety grew. What if his golden dream should disappear, just as it was about to become reality? Luigi’s heart almost stopped beating at the bare idea of such a catastrophe.

“Tomorrow is pay-day,” he said to himself, as he lit the stove and began to prepare his evening meal. “I’ll wait till I get this week’s wages; then I’ll carry the bag to our manager. He’ll keep it for me in his safe till I’m free to go home. Aye, that’ll be best, though I shall miss the counting-”

Then, having satisfied his hunger, he knelt for a while before the Crucifix that he had brought with him to what, in his eyes, as a devout Catholic, seemed a heathen land, threw himself upon his bed, and was soon walking in dreams with Bianca beneath the skies of Italian blue. The dream was a happy one. The young man smiled in his sleep. But, all on a sudden, as it appeared to him, though, in truth he had slept for hours, another and a very different vision blotted out the first. He struck out with his clenched hands, frowned and muttered. “Nay!” he said angrily, “you shall not! I’ll die before I let you take her from me!”

To the sleeper it seemed that, while he walked with his betrothed among the scented pine-woods on the sloped of the Appennines, a stealthy foot-fall sounded behind him and a hand was stretched out towards his companion. From broad daylight it fell, suddenly, dark. Bianca vanished. He raised himself on his elbow – back, as it seemed, in the mining shanty. But, still, the stealthy sound was there. On the wall, opposite to him as he lay, there appeared the shadow of a man. It was crouching low, feeling about with a hand, as though in search of something. A faint light hovered about the shadow. To Luigi it seemed to come from one of those dip candles, stuck in a lump of clay, used by the miners at their work. But this man was not at work in the mines. What was he doing? Was it the money, not the woman, he was after? The cold sweat of a great fear broke out upon Luigi’s forehead. He tried to turn himself on his bed towards the side where his hoard was concealed, with the intention of springing out upon the thief; but a great heaviness in limbs and brain prevented him. He tried to cry out, and only succeeded in making a smothered croak. With that he awoke, or at least, so it seemed to him, for he was fully conscious at last, and in command of all his faculties.

The light and shadow, however, were no longer visible. Total darkness filled their place. Was it a dream, then, after all? Still cold and trembling, Luigi struck a light and searched the hut. All was as he left it when he went to sleep on the previous evening. The bag was in its place, the coins were intact. But the horror of the dream remained. It had been too vivid to be shaken off, though he told himself it was baseless. Perhaps it had been sent him as a warning? At any rate Luigi decided at once to change the hiding-place of his money from the wall of the shanty to the mattress of his bed. This precaution taken, as he lay down again, and fell, this time, into sleep as dreamless as it was profound, from which he only awoke at the call of his mate, Carlo Rubini, whose return in the morning was Luigi’s summons to work.

All day long in the darkness of the mine, the vision of the night haunted the young Italian. The dim light of the candle by which he toiled, the shadows cast upon the walls of rock by those of his comrades, called up again, with uncanny persistence, what he had seemed to see as he lay asleep. More than once, though warm with work, Luigi felt the cold sweat break out suddenly upon him, as he though of his savings and all they meant to him. Even in his new hiding-place he could not assure himself that they were safe. When, that evening on leaving the mine, he received his weekly wages from the overseer, he hardly gave himself time to wash, change his clothes, and take his supper before setting out for Minehills, to place the precious bag where no thief could possibly break through and steal the treasure it contained. Only, when dressed in his best, and armed with his big Italian umbrella, he passed a group of his comrades, standing, smoking, and chatting in the doorway of one of the shanties, they shouted to him: “Hi! Luigi Frascati; If you are going to Minehills, better haste back, or stay there till to-morrow. It’s looking very like snow.”

“There’re worse things than snow,” muttered the man spoken to, buttoning his coat tightly over his precious bag, and sticking his hands in his pockets. “We get plenty of that in winter at home. And who’s the worse for it there?” Nevertheless, though he made so little of the danger, Luigi looked more than once at the sullen sky, where the light was dying early, smothered behind great grey clouds, stained with red, where the sun had lately sunk into the moors. He shivered a little at the menace, mountaineer though he was. For, where among the mountains of Italy could a scene be found to match in chilly dreariness with these snow-clad hills of Cumberland? “E tristissimo!” he whispered to himself, as he hastened up the slope. “But, never mind. It’s not for long now. Three weeks more, and then, Italia la bella, e la mia cara Bianca!” Luigi fell to singing an Italian love-song that echoed strangely among the frozen fells of this bleak northern land. His voice had a warm and caressing tone quite foreign to the surroundings. His heart beat with a passion of love and longing that would have made the natives stare could they have seen beneath the rather shabby outward appearance of this alien workman.

There was no song, however, on the lips of the man, who, an hour or two later, set out from Minehills, with his face set towards the place from whence he had come in the afternoon. He was carrying a heavy parcel of provisions for the coming week. But it was not this load, only, that bowed him down, as he toiled up the hill over which the road leads into Allendale. He had thought to come back unloaded from the anxiety concerning his money, that had been weighing on his mind. The weight was still there; for the bag remained in his breast pocket. The explanation was that the manager, to whose care Luigi meant to confide his treasure, was away from home, and he had been unable to make up his mind to leave it with anyone else. Accordingly, he was bringing it back with him to await a more convenient season. But he was growing uneasy under the delay – very uneasy. A growing fear, a dread foreboding gnawed at the heart on which lay the heavy leathern bag, as though its golden contents had turned to vipers, whose fangs were fastened on the breast of their owner envenoming his blood. Heavy-hearted, heavy-footed, with head bowed and bent back, Luigi toiled up the pass, looking more like an old man than then lissom young fellow he was.

The snow, which had begun to fall in scattered flakes before he left Minehills, was now driving so thickly in his face that he could not have held his head up even had his heart been lighter. It was already dark, except for the cold white glimmer that came from, the snow-covered ground. Walking grew more and more difficult as he neared the top of the pass. The road, the rocks on either side, the air – all were thick with snow – clogging choking snow, that cumbered the feet and smothered the breath. Luigi began to wish he had taken the advice of his compatriots at Minehills and had remained for the night in the barracks there built for the foreign workmen employed there. A curious, dreamy sensation was gradually wrapping his senses as the snow his body.

Anxiety as to his position was dulled by the blurring of the limitations of time and space. Though, as he continued to plod forward, he knew that he was walking in the snow over the bleak fells of a land hundreds of miles from his own, he felt, nevertheless, as though his home were quite near, and that, within the next few steps, he might cross the frontier into Italy. There are few more exposed places in the United Kingdom than Kilhope Top. From thence you pass from the valley of the Nent, in Cumberland, to that of the Weir (sic) in Durham – if you go straight, that is. If you turn to the left, just before reaching the summit, you descend into the Allen valley in Northumberland. It was among the upper reaches of the latter river that the mine was situated where Luigi worked. The turning into the well-known road was invisible to him when he reached the place. It was completely buried. But for the blackened posts, planted at intervals by the unfenced track, for the guidance of travellers in winter, there was no indication of the fork; and even these posts, such was the storm and the darkness, were hardly visible. A he topped the hill where the road should be, such a fury of wind and snow assaulted the Italian, that he was compelled to pause and turn his back to the hurricane to get his breath. It was only for a moment however. He pressed on again, dogged though dazed. But fatigue and cold were doing their deadly work on this exile from a southern land. There came a time when he ceased altogether to be conscious of his surroundings. Numbness paralysed his limbs. Giddiness seized on his brain. He fell, unconscious, within a few hundred yards of the shanties where he lived.

Here, after a while, Luigi was found by some of his fellow-workmen, who carried him into the hut he shared with Carlo. There was no possibility of fetching a doctor in such a storm. The men did what they could to restore animation, but with no success. Luigi Frascati lay, white, stiff and cold, and, finally, with many shakings of the head and expressive gestures of pity and regret, his mates quitted the shanty, one by one, leaving only Carlo to watch the last sleep of his fellow-lodger.

“E morte, securo, poverine!” they whispered sorrowfully. “Never, now will he return to il paese. This terrible England has done for him. God rest his soul! He was a good fellow, was Luigi Frascati.”

Alone with his comrade, lying rigid upon the bed, Carlo Rubini sat, for a long time, by the stove, his chin upon his hands, his elbows on his knees. He was thinking. The miners had taken away their lanterns when they had given up all hope of restoring their unfortunate fellow-countryman, and had gone to attend to their own needs in their respective quarters. Only the dim light of a couple of tallow candles, set on each side of the corpse, and the dull red glow that came from the stove, thinned the darkness of the shanty. It was full of shadows that lurked in the corners, and hovered, bat-like, among the rough timbers of the sod-covered roof. From where he sat, Carlo could just see the white, still face of the man upon the bed, lit up by the long-wicked candles. Carlo watched the face, with a fascinated gaze. Yes, Luigi Frascati was dead – most assuredly he was dead. The closed eyes, the colourless lips, the pallor of the skin and the rigidity of the limbs all attested the last sleep of poor mortality. He was dead beyond all doubt. What followed? The dead carry nothing away with them. To the living belongs what they leave behind. Luigi had saved sufficient to set him up in a home of his own in Italy. Carlo, his comrade, had not. Luigi was dead. Carlo lived. Why, then, should the latter not profit by that which the former no longer needed? No one but himself, so far as Carlo knew, was aware of Luigi’s savings. What was to hinder him from appropriating them? Carlo got up, presently, and, moving furtively, as though he feared to wake the dead, sought about the hut but could find nothing of value anywhere. The money-bag had been moved. That was evident. Where was it now? Could it be concealed in the clothes of that motionless figure upon the bed? Carlo’s flesh crept at the idea of touching his dead comrade. Yet if he was to get possession of the treasure he coveted, it must be done now, when everyone in the little mining camp, except the watcher, was sound asleep. In the morning it would be too late: for, then, someone would come to lay out the corpse.

Cold and trembling, with a heart that beat to suffocation, Carlo Rubini stooped over the rigid figure, felt about his clothing, and, finally, discovered and drew the money-bag from the breast-pocket of his coat. As he did so, the thief started violently, almost letting go his hold of the bag. It seemed to him that the closed eyelids of the dead man opened slightly. A moment’s consideration reassured him, however. The dead do not open eyes once closed. It could be but a trick of the light, a flicker from one of the candles, whose dim-burning flames wavered occasionally in the draught that came through the ill-fitting door.

Carlo stooped again over the corpse. He could see no change in the sealed face. What he had seemed to notice must be purely fancy. Luigi was dead. There could be no two opinions about that. No return to life was possible for him. Yet to make assurance doubly sure - to provide against the remote chance of his awakening at a juncture so critical – would it not be prudent to adopt precautions? There was a little bottle upon the shelf by the stove where the two house-mates kept their cups and plates. It was labelled “Poison,” and contained a soothing drug given to Luigi by the doctor when he had suffered from an attack of neuralgia, a while ago. There was not much left in the bottle – not enough to do anyone harm – so there could be no question of taking life. Thus the man reasoned. Besides, how can one take what is not there? Luigi was dead. Life was already gone. What he, Carlo, was about to do, was merely a precaution. With a shaking hand he poured the contents of the bottle into the mouth of the corpse, using a handkerchief, as he did so, lest any of the liquid should run over and stain the bed-clothes. Did the dead man swallow? Carlo had a horrible idea that the throat had moved to allow the medicine to pass. At any rate, very little of it came back upon the handkerchief. Perhaps the act of swallowing – if such there had really been – was purely mechanical, brought about by the action of the liquid. Carlo was not sufficiently skilled in anatomy to know whether such a thing was possible. But, though he watched anxiously for some further movement, nothing occurred. The figure on the bed remained motionless and rigid as before.

Thus it continued throughout the terrible vigil, during which Carlo kept his place by the corpse. Keenly though he desired to give up the task he had undertaken, he was afraid to do so. To leave the hut might excite suspicion. All night, therefore, he crouched beside the stove, his elbows on his knees, his chin on his hands, with his eyes gazing fixedly at the still face of the dead companion whose treasure was now his own.

The snowstorm that cost Luigi Frascati so dearly was one of the heaviest that had occurred among the Pennines within living memory. It blocked the pass completely, cutting off the little mining settlement in the upper Allen, not only from the country at large but from the village of Minehills, which was but a few miles distant. So far as regards the upper world, that is – there was still a possible way of communication between the two places, namely, through the mines. For the chain of hills that separates the valley of the Nent from that of the Allen had been all but tunnelled through by two gangs of miners working in opposite directions in search of zinc and lead. To complete the work, and open communications underground would be, so the miners at Allengill calculated, require considerably less time and labour than to clear away the snow from the pass.  Not that it would be an easy matter to carry a corpse through the rough intricacies of the mine. The cuttings were not all on the same level. There were ladders to ascend, and others to descend. There was water to be waded, and tight places to be negotiated in which a man could not stand upright or pass another, going in the opposite direction. In an emergency, however, much will be undertaken; and, with a dead comrade awaiting burial, the miners of the little camp were ready to make the attempt. They set to work with a will to complete the passage; and, three days after his death, the body of Luigi Frascati was lifted on to an improvised bier, and borne by his companions, in solemn silence through the mine.

It was a strange procession, more like the funeral of some early Christian in the Catacombs, or like a scene from “Dante’s Inferno,” than the bit of real life, in modern times, that it actually was. First came two miners, a lantern in one hand, a pick in the other, leading the way. The bier, borne by four, followed behind. On this lay the body of Luigi Frascati, laid out with all the decency his comrades could compass, in the absence of women to whom these last sad rites naturally belong. Carlo Rubini, as the dead man’s house-mate, walked immediately behind, filling the place of chief mourner. The rest of the small band of Italian miners employed at Allengill brought up the rear, each carrying a candle, stuck in a lump of clay.

Through the dark and narrow cuttings of the mine they passed at a foot’s pace, their lights gleaming on the low roof and rough walls, dripping in many places with water, hung in others with long stalactites, like glittering candles, each with its drop of oozing moisture at the tip. Here and there the light caught the facets of a piece of rock crystal, of amethyst-tinted fluorspar, or jetty black-jack, and was flashed back, jewel-like, in a thousand sparkles. The smoke of the candles wavered above and behind the procession. And, everywhere, beyond the range of the feeble illumination, lurked the shadows ghost-like, ready to return, close in, and plunge the mine into darkness when the transitory invasion should have passed. The dark faces of the Italians added to the weird unreality of the scene, looking, as they did, almost as inanimate as the white, uncovered visage upon the bier. Nor was the silence less impressive than the sight. Not a word was uttered as the procession slowly passed along. No sound struck the ear but the rhythmic tramp of feet, and the “drip! drip!” of ever-falling water - drops in the bowels of the earth.

It took a long time to make this underground journey. At the end of an hour, the procession was hardly more than halfway through. The bearers had just, with difficulty and precaution, and not without sundry unavoidable jolts, lowered their burden to the foot of the last ladder, when a strange thing happened.

A shrill cry shattered the heavy silence of the mine, and was echoed and re-echoed, as though by hidden goblins, from its dark recesses. The procession came to a dead stop. All eyes were turned to the chief mourner, from whose lips the cry had come. With hand uplifted and shaking forefinger he pointed to the corpse. Luigi Frascati’s eyes were open. He was slowly raising himself on his elbow. Terror-stricken the bearers nearly dropped the bier. They did, in fact, set it hastily down, shrinking back from it, pale and trembling, as far as the narrow passage would allow.

But their alarm was nothing as to the agony of fear shown by the wretched Carlo. With chattering teeth and shaking limbs, he dropped on his knees beside the bier. “Ah!” he cried between gasping breaths. “Do not look at me like that! Your money’s here. See -” He drew out a heavy leathern bag from the bosom of his coat, and threw it upon the bier. “It is all there – every piece – I swear it! I – I was only keeping it safe, till -” But the man, that everyone had believed to be dead, interrupted him. “That’s enough, Carlo,” he said huskily. “I know.” Then, with a curious eagerness, his palsied hands drew the bag towards him. His fingers closed upon it, and he relapsed into unconsciousness.

There was no funeral, that day, at Minehills. The doctor, indeed, while he pronounced the case a most remarkable one, was of the opinion that it might be spared indefinitely, for that Luigi Frascati was likely to on living – as in fact he did, and that for many a long year. Nor was there any prosecution. Whatever it was he knew, the Italian miner never made any accusation against his mate. The doctor, likewise, whatever he might think of the strange resurrection, kept his thoughts to himself. Very soon after his recovery, Luigi returned to Italy, leaving an invitation for all his mates to visit him and Bianca in their mountain home, there to drink a glass of chianti to the health and long-life of one who had in very deed, like Lazarus of old, returned from the grave and the Gates of Death.

[The End]