constituted the mines of Aberfoyle.

It was a sad day, when for the last time the workmen quitted the mine,
in which they had lived for so many years. The engineer, James Starr,
had collected the hundreds of

workmen which composed the active and courageous population of the mine.
Overmen, brakemen, putters, wastemen, barrowmen, masons, smiths,
carpenters, outside and inside laborers, women, children, and old men,
all were collected in the great yard of the Dochart pit, formerly heaped
with coal from the mine.

Many of these families had existed for generations in the mine
of old Aberfoyle; they were now driven to seek the means
of subsistence elsewhere, and they waited sadly to bid farewell
to the engineer.

James Starr stood upright, at the door of the vast shed in which he had
for so many years superintended the powerful machines of the shaft.
Simon Ford, the foreman of the Dochart pit, then fifty-five years of age,
and other managers and overseers, surrounded him. James Starr took
off his hat. The miners, cap in hand, kept a profound silence.
This farewell scene was of a touching character, not wanting in grandeur.

"My friends," said the engineer, "the time has come for us to separate.
The Aberfoyle mines, which for so many years have united us
in a common work, are now exhausted. All our researches
have not led to the discovery of a new vein, and the last
block of coal has just been extracted from the Dochart pit."
And in confirmation of his words, James Starr pointed to a lump