enraged against me for having told the truth.

"In process of time, as I grew stronger and bigger, I was set to other
work. First, I was employed at the barrow; and then a pick-axe and a
_gad_[Footnote: A gad is a tool used in mines; it resembles a smith's
punch.] were put into my hands; and I thought myself a great man.--It
was my fate to fall among the idlest set in the mine. I observed that
those men who worked by task, and who had the _luck_ to hit upon easy
beds of the rock, were not obliged to work more than three or four hours
a day: they got high wages with little labour; and they spent their
money jollily above-ground in the ale-houses, as I heard. I did not know
that these jolly fellows often left their wives and families starving
while they were getting drunk.

"I longed for the time when I should be a man, and do as I saw others
do. I longed for the days when I should be able to drink and be idle;
and, in the mean time, I set all my wits to work to baffle and overreach
the viewer.

"I was now about fourteen, and, had I grown up with these notions and
habits, I must have spent my life in wretchedness, and I should probably
have ended my days in a workhouse; but fortunately for me, an accident
happened, which made as great a change in my mind as in my body.

"One of my companions bribed me, with a strong dram, to go down into
a hole in the mine to search for his _gad_; which he, being half
intoxicated, had dropped. My head could not stand the strength of the
dram which he made me swallow to give me courage: and being quite
insensible to the danger, I took a leap down a precipice which I should
have shuddered to look at, if I had not lost my recollection.