Chapter Six.At an Awkward Corner.“Hurrah!” yelled Joe, half mad with excitement. “It is long enough, and he has got it. He was trying if it was safe.”“Hooroar!” shouted Hardock, hoarsely, for he was as excited as the boy. “Hold tight, my lad; don’t let him pull it out of your hands. But he won’t, for I’ve got it, too. Why, it’s all right, young Jollivet, and the old mine goblins had nothing to do with it, after all. We’ll soon have him up.”“Yes, we’ll soon have him up,” cried Joe, hysterically, and he burst into a strange laugh. “I say, how he frightened us, though!”And in those moments of relief from the tension they had felt, it seemed like nothing that the lad was two hundred feet down the terrible precipice, about to swing at the end of the rope which had played him so false but a short time before.“He’s making the line fast round him, Sam. I can feel it quiver and jerk. Shout down to him to be sure and tie the knots tight.”“Nay, nay, you let him be. He don’t want no flurrying. Trust him for that. He knows how to make himself fast.”“Think so?” said Joe, hoarsely; and he felt the hands which held the rope grow wet.“Nay, don’t want no thinking, my lad. He’ll manage all right.”“He has,” cried Joe, excitedly. “Do you feel? He’s signalling for us to haul him up.”For three sharp tugs were given at the rope.“Ay, that means all right,” said Hardock. “Now you hold on tight.”“I can’t haul him all alone.”“Nay, not you. Nobody wants you to try; I only want you to hold while I get ready. It wouldn’t do to let one end go loose, would it?”As he spoke Hardock relinquished his hold of the rope, and began to strip off his jacket.“What are you going to do? You’re not going down, Sam?”“You wait a bit: you’ll see,” said the man; and he folded his coat into a large pad, which he laid over the edge of the rock. “Now you lay the rope on that, my lad, and give me the end. That’s the way; now it won’t be cut.”“When we haul it over the rock? No; I see.”“But we aren’t going to haul it over the rock,” said Hardock, nodding his head. “I’ll show you a way worth two of that.”He took the end and pulled it over, and made a loop, leaving just enough free line for the purpose; and slipping it over one shoulder and across his breast diagonally, he stood ready.Meanwhile jerk after jerk was given to the rope, each signal which reached Joe’s hands making him thrill with eagerness.“There, he must be ready now,” growled Hardock.“Ready? Yes,” cried the boy, impatiently. “Then you are going to walk away with the rope?”“Ay, that’s it; draw steadily as I go right along the Hog’s Back. All right. Look out,” he shouted as the word “Haul!” reached their ears. “There, you stand fast, my lad, ready to help him when he comes up to the edge. Now then—off!”Hardock, who stood with his back now to the cliff edge, started off at a slow steady walk inland, and Joe dropped upon his breast and craned his neck over the edge of the precipice to watch the block below which hid his comrade from his sight.But not for many moments now. All at once Gwyn’s head appeared, then his chest, and his arms were busy as he seemed to be helping himself over the rock; and the next minute, as Hardock steadily walked away, the boy was hanging clear of the rock face, swinging to and fro and slowly turning round, suggesting that the layers of the rope were beginning to untwist.To use a familiar expression, Joe’s heart felt as if it were in his mouth, and he trembled with apprehension, dreading lest the rope should come untwisted or the hemp give way, the result of either of these accidents being that Gwyn must fall headlong on to the sea-washed rocks below. Consequently, Joe’s eyes were constantly turning from the ascending figure to the rough pad over which the rope glided, and back again, while his heart kept on beating with a slow, heavy throb which was almost suffocating.The distance to ascend was very short under the circumstances, but to both boys, as they found when they afterwards compared notes, it seemed to be interminable, and it is doubtful which of the two suffered the more—Joe, as he gazed down with strained eyes and his vacant hands longing to seize the rope, or Gwyn, as he hung with elbows squared, fists clenched on the knot of the rope to ensure its remaining fast, and his head thrown back and face gazing up at his comrade when he slowly turned breast inward, at the sky when he turned back to the rocky wall.So short a distance for Hardock to continue—his tramp less than two hundred feet—and yet it seemed so great, for every nerve was on the strain, and no one spoke a word.It was in Joe’s heart to keep on saying encouraging words to Gwyn, and to utter warnings to Hardock, and advice as to going slow or fast, but not a word would come. He could only stare down at the upturned face or at the bare head to which the wet hair clung close.But all the time Gwyn was steadily rising, and in a few seconds more Joe felt that he would have to act—catching hold of his comrade by the rope about his chest and helping him over the edge into safety.“Will he never come?” groaned Joe, softly. “Oh, make haste, Hardock, make haste.”He turned to look round once to see the strained rope and Hardock bending forward like some animal drawing a load, and the rope looked so thin that he shivered. Then, as it did not part, he felt a pang of dread, for he felt that the risk for his comrade was doubled by the feet that he was dependent upon two knots now instead of one, the slipping of either meaning certain death.The moisture in Joe’s hands grew more dense, and the great drops gathered upon his forehead, ran together and glided down his nose with a horrible tickling sensation; and as he now gazed down once more at Gwyn’s hard, fixed, upturned face and straining eyes, his own grew dim so that he could only see through a mist, while a strange, paralysing feeling began to creep through him, so that he knew that he would not be able to help.And all the time Gwyn rose higher and higher, till he was not ten feet below the edge, and now the horrible, numbing chill which pervaded Joe’s being was chased away, for he found that he was suddenly called upon to act—to do something to help.For the action of the rope had told upon the jacket laid there to soften the friction, and it began to travel slowly from the edge, keeping time with the rope, which now ground over the edge, and, to Joe’s horror, looked as if it were fraying.Bending down, he seized the pad and tried to thrust it back in its place, but soon found that this was impossible, and, before he could devise some plan, the knot in front of Gwyn’s breast reached the edge, and a greater call was made upon him for help.The inaction had passed away, and he shouted to Hardock to stop.“Keep it tight!” he roared; and he went down on his knees, leaned over, caught hold of the loop on either side close beneath Gwyn’s arms, and essayed to lift him over the edge on to the rocky platform.It was a bitter lesson in his want of power, for, partly from his position there on the extreme edge of the terrible precipice, partly from its being a task for a muscular man, he found out he could not stir Gwyn in the least, only hold him tighter against the rock, pressing the great knot of the rope into the boy’s chest.“Up with him, lad!” shouted Hardock from where he stood straining the rope tight. “Up with him—right over on to the rock!”Joe’s eyes dilated and he gazed horror-stricken into the eyes of his comrade, who hung there perfectly inert, while just overhead three great grey gulls wheeled round and round, uttering their screams, and looking as if they expected that the next minute the boy would have fallen headlong on to the stones beneath.“Come, look sharp!” shouted Hardock; “this rope cuts. Up with him quick!”“Can—can you get hold of anything and—and help?” panted Joe at last, hoarsely.Gwyn stared at him as if he had heard him speak, but did not quite comprehend what he said.“Quick, Ydoll! Do you hear! Do something to help. Get hold.”This seemed to rouse the boy, who slowly loosened his hold of the rope, and then, with a quick spasmodic action, caught hold of the collar of Joe’s jacket on either side.“Now—your feet,” said Joe, in a harsh whisper. “Try and find foothold.”“Can you—hold?” said Gwyn, faintly.“Yes, I’ll try,” was the reply, and Gwyn’s toes were heard scraping over the rock again and again, but without result, and Joe uttered a piteous groan.“Can’t you do it?” cried Hardock from the other end. “Why, it’s as easy as easy. Up with him.”“No—no! Can’t move!” cried Joe, frantically.“Hold tight of him then till I come,” cried the man, and Joe uttered a piercing shriek, for the rope went down with a jerk which drew him forward upon his chest as his hands were torn from their hold, and he clutched wildly at the rock on either side to save himself from going down.Just then one of the gulls swooped close to his head and uttered its strange querulous cry.
“Hurrah!” yelled Joe, half mad with excitement. “It is long enough, and he has got it. He was trying if it was safe.”
“Hooroar!” shouted Hardock, hoarsely, for he was as excited as the boy. “Hold tight, my lad; don’t let him pull it out of your hands. But he won’t, for I’ve got it, too. Why, it’s all right, young Jollivet, and the old mine goblins had nothing to do with it, after all. We’ll soon have him up.”
“Yes, we’ll soon have him up,” cried Joe, hysterically, and he burst into a strange laugh. “I say, how he frightened us, though!”
And in those moments of relief from the tension they had felt, it seemed like nothing that the lad was two hundred feet down the terrible precipice, about to swing at the end of the rope which had played him so false but a short time before.
“He’s making the line fast round him, Sam. I can feel it quiver and jerk. Shout down to him to be sure and tie the knots tight.”
“Nay, nay, you let him be. He don’t want no flurrying. Trust him for that. He knows how to make himself fast.”
“Think so?” said Joe, hoarsely; and he felt the hands which held the rope grow wet.
“Nay, don’t want no thinking, my lad. He’ll manage all right.”
“He has,” cried Joe, excitedly. “Do you feel? He’s signalling for us to haul him up.”
For three sharp tugs were given at the rope.
“Ay, that means all right,” said Hardock. “Now you hold on tight.”
“I can’t haul him all alone.”
“Nay, not you. Nobody wants you to try; I only want you to hold while I get ready. It wouldn’t do to let one end go loose, would it?”
As he spoke Hardock relinquished his hold of the rope, and began to strip off his jacket.
“What are you going to do? You’re not going down, Sam?”
“You wait a bit: you’ll see,” said the man; and he folded his coat into a large pad, which he laid over the edge of the rock. “Now you lay the rope on that, my lad, and give me the end. That’s the way; now it won’t be cut.”
“When we haul it over the rock? No; I see.”
“But we aren’t going to haul it over the rock,” said Hardock, nodding his head. “I’ll show you a way worth two of that.”
He took the end and pulled it over, and made a loop, leaving just enough free line for the purpose; and slipping it over one shoulder and across his breast diagonally, he stood ready.
Meanwhile jerk after jerk was given to the rope, each signal which reached Joe’s hands making him thrill with eagerness.
“There, he must be ready now,” growled Hardock.
“Ready? Yes,” cried the boy, impatiently. “Then you are going to walk away with the rope?”
“Ay, that’s it; draw steadily as I go right along the Hog’s Back. All right. Look out,” he shouted as the word “Haul!” reached their ears. “There, you stand fast, my lad, ready to help him when he comes up to the edge. Now then—off!”
Hardock, who stood with his back now to the cliff edge, started off at a slow steady walk inland, and Joe dropped upon his breast and craned his neck over the edge of the precipice to watch the block below which hid his comrade from his sight.
But not for many moments now. All at once Gwyn’s head appeared, then his chest, and his arms were busy as he seemed to be helping himself over the rock; and the next minute, as Hardock steadily walked away, the boy was hanging clear of the rock face, swinging to and fro and slowly turning round, suggesting that the layers of the rope were beginning to untwist.
To use a familiar expression, Joe’s heart felt as if it were in his mouth, and he trembled with apprehension, dreading lest the rope should come untwisted or the hemp give way, the result of either of these accidents being that Gwyn must fall headlong on to the sea-washed rocks below. Consequently, Joe’s eyes were constantly turning from the ascending figure to the rough pad over which the rope glided, and back again, while his heart kept on beating with a slow, heavy throb which was almost suffocating.
The distance to ascend was very short under the circumstances, but to both boys, as they found when they afterwards compared notes, it seemed to be interminable, and it is doubtful which of the two suffered the more—Joe, as he gazed down with strained eyes and his vacant hands longing to seize the rope, or Gwyn, as he hung with elbows squared, fists clenched on the knot of the rope to ensure its remaining fast, and his head thrown back and face gazing up at his comrade when he slowly turned breast inward, at the sky when he turned back to the rocky wall.
So short a distance for Hardock to continue—his tramp less than two hundred feet—and yet it seemed so great, for every nerve was on the strain, and no one spoke a word.
It was in Joe’s heart to keep on saying encouraging words to Gwyn, and to utter warnings to Hardock, and advice as to going slow or fast, but not a word would come. He could only stare down at the upturned face or at the bare head to which the wet hair clung close.
But all the time Gwyn was steadily rising, and in a few seconds more Joe felt that he would have to act—catching hold of his comrade by the rope about his chest and helping him over the edge into safety.
“Will he never come?” groaned Joe, softly. “Oh, make haste, Hardock, make haste.”
He turned to look round once to see the strained rope and Hardock bending forward like some animal drawing a load, and the rope looked so thin that he shivered. Then, as it did not part, he felt a pang of dread, for he felt that the risk for his comrade was doubled by the feet that he was dependent upon two knots now instead of one, the slipping of either meaning certain death.
The moisture in Joe’s hands grew more dense, and the great drops gathered upon his forehead, ran together and glided down his nose with a horrible tickling sensation; and as he now gazed down once more at Gwyn’s hard, fixed, upturned face and straining eyes, his own grew dim so that he could only see through a mist, while a strange, paralysing feeling began to creep through him, so that he knew that he would not be able to help.
And all the time Gwyn rose higher and higher, till he was not ten feet below the edge, and now the horrible, numbing chill which pervaded Joe’s being was chased away, for he found that he was suddenly called upon to act—to do something to help.
For the action of the rope had told upon the jacket laid there to soften the friction, and it began to travel slowly from the edge, keeping time with the rope, which now ground over the edge, and, to Joe’s horror, looked as if it were fraying.
Bending down, he seized the pad and tried to thrust it back in its place, but soon found that this was impossible, and, before he could devise some plan, the knot in front of Gwyn’s breast reached the edge, and a greater call was made upon him for help.
The inaction had passed away, and he shouted to Hardock to stop.
“Keep it tight!” he roared; and he went down on his knees, leaned over, caught hold of the loop on either side close beneath Gwyn’s arms, and essayed to lift him over the edge on to the rocky platform.
It was a bitter lesson in his want of power, for, partly from his position there on the extreme edge of the terrible precipice, partly from its being a task for a muscular man, he found out he could not stir Gwyn in the least, only hold him tighter against the rock, pressing the great knot of the rope into the boy’s chest.
“Up with him, lad!” shouted Hardock from where he stood straining the rope tight. “Up with him—right over on to the rock!”
Joe’s eyes dilated and he gazed horror-stricken into the eyes of his comrade, who hung there perfectly inert, while just overhead three great grey gulls wheeled round and round, uttering their screams, and looking as if they expected that the next minute the boy would have fallen headlong on to the stones beneath.
“Come, look sharp!” shouted Hardock; “this rope cuts. Up with him quick!”
“Can—can you get hold of anything and—and help?” panted Joe at last, hoarsely.
Gwyn stared at him as if he had heard him speak, but did not quite comprehend what he said.
“Quick, Ydoll! Do you hear! Do something to help. Get hold.”
This seemed to rouse the boy, who slowly loosened his hold of the rope, and then, with a quick spasmodic action, caught hold of the collar of Joe’s jacket on either side.
“Now—your feet,” said Joe, in a harsh whisper. “Try and find foothold.”
“Can you—hold?” said Gwyn, faintly.
“Yes, I’ll try,” was the reply, and Gwyn’s toes were heard scraping over the rock again and again, but without result, and Joe uttered a piteous groan.
“Can’t you do it?” cried Hardock from the other end. “Why, it’s as easy as easy. Up with him.”
“No—no! Can’t move!” cried Joe, frantically.
“Hold tight of him then till I come,” cried the man, and Joe uttered a piercing shriek, for the rope went down with a jerk which drew him forward upon his chest as his hands were torn from their hold, and he clutched wildly at the rock on either side to save himself from going down.
Just then one of the gulls swooped close to his head and uttered its strange querulous cry.
Chapter Seven.Sam Hardock laughs.Joe Jollivet must have gone over the cliff in another instant headlong down to destruction, for only one thing could have saved him, and in all probability the sudden jerk of his snatching at his comrade would have taken him, too.But as it happened Samuel Hardock—“the Captain,” as he was generally called in Ydoll Cove—saw the mistake he had made, and did that one special thing.Turning suddenly, he stepped quickly back, tightening the line again, drawing Gwyn close up to the sharp edge of the cliff once more; and as in his agony Joe clutched at the moving cord, and clung to it with all his might, he too was drawn back from the edge.“That was near,” muttered Hardock. “What’s best to be done?”Fortunately the man could be cool and matter-of-fact in the face of real danger, though, as he had shown, he was a superstitious coward when it was something purely imaginary; and he did at once the very best thing under the circumstances.“Put heart into ’em by making ’em wild,” he muttered, and he burst into a hearty fit of laughter.“Yah!” he cried. “Nice pair o’ soft-roed ’uns you two are! Why, you aren’t got no more muscle than a pair o’ jelly-fishes. There, get, your breath, Master Joe, and have another try; and you see if you can’t make another out of it, Colonel. You’re all right if you’ve made that knot good. I could hold you for a week standing up, and when I get tired I can lie down. Now—hard, hard! I thought you meant to dive off the cliff, you, Master Joe.”The latter had risen to his knees with his wet hair clinging to his brow; and for a moment he felt disposed to rage out something furiously at the grinning speaker.But he refrained, and turned to get a fresh grip of Gwyn, who seemed to have recovered somewhat, too.“He’s a beast!” cried Joe, angrily, for the anger was working in the right direction.Hardock began again,—“Rope cut, Master Gwyn?” he cried. “S’pose it does, though. Well, when you two are ready, just say. I’ve got him tight enough. But, hark ye, here; can you tell what I say?”“Yes,” cried Joe, in a choking voice.“That’s right. Well, first thing you do, my lad, you try and ease the rope over the edge. It checks you like, don’t you see? Stretch your arms well over, Colonel, and get your fingers in a crack and find a place for your toes, while young Joe Jollivet eases the knot over. Take it coolly. There’s nothing to mind. I’ve got yer, yer know. Ready?”“Yes. Now, Ydoll, old chap,” whispered Joe, “can you do what he says and find foothold?”There was a peculiar staring look in the boy’s eyes, but he began to search about with his toes; and almost at once found a crack that he had passed over before, forced in the end of one boot, and, reaching over, he gripped the rope with both hands.“Get tight hold of my collar,” he whispered rather faintly. “Can you do it kneeling?”“No power,” said Joe, huskily, “I must stand.”He rose to his feet, gripping the collar as he was told, gazing there into Gwyn’s eyes, for he dared not look down beyond him into the dizzy depth.“Now,” said Gwyn, “when you’re ready, I’ll try and raise myself a bit, and you throw yourself back.”“Wait a moment,” panted Joe. Then he shouted, “Now I am—all together!”“Right! Hauley hoi!” came back, and with one effort Gwyn curved his body, forcing his breast clear of the edge, joined his strength to that of his comrade in the effort to rise, and the next moment Joe was on his back with Gwyn being dragged over him.Then came an interval of inaction, for the three actors in the perilous scene lay prone upon the rough surface of the cliff, Hardock having thrown himself upon his face.“Oh, Gwyn, old chap!—oh, Gwyn,” groaned Joe.“Hah! Yes; it was near,” sighed the rescued boy, as he slowly rose to a sitting posture, and began to unfasten the rope. “I thought I was gone.”“It was horrid—horrid—horrid!” groaned Joe. “And I couldn’t do anything.”He rose slowly, wiping his brow, which was dripping with perspiration, and the two boys sat there in the sunshine gazing at one another for a few minutes as if quite unconscious of the presence of Hardock at the end of the rope, where he lay spread-eagled among the heath.Then Gwyn slowly held out his hand, which was gripped excitedly by Joe, who seized it with a loud sob.“Thank ye, Jolly-wet,” said Gwyn, quietly. “I felt so queer seeing you try so hard.”“You felt—about me? Ah, you don’t know what I felt about you. Ugh! I could kick you! Frightening me twice over like that! I don’t know which was worst—when you went down or when you came up.”“Going down was worst,” said Gwyn, quietly. “But have a kick if you like; I don’t feel as if I could hit back.”“Then I’ll wait till you can,” said Joe, with a faint smile. “Oh, dear, how my heart does keep on beating!”He turned with hand pressing his side and looked toward Hardock, for the man had moved, and he, too, sat up and began searching in his pockets. And then, to the great disgust of the two boys, they saw him slowly bring out a short pipe and a brass tobacco-box, and then deliberately fill the former, take out his matches, strike a light, and begin to smoke.“Look at that,” cried Joe, viciously.“Yes; I’m looking,” said Gwyn, slowly, and speaking as if he were utterly exhausted. “I feel as if I wish I were strong enough to go and knock him over.”“For laughing at us when we were in such a horrible fix? Yes; so do I. He’s an old beast; and when you feel better we’ll go and tell him so.”“Let’s go now,” said Gwyn, rising stiffly. “I say, I feel wet and cold, and sore all over.”Joe rose with more alacrity and clenched his fists, his teeth showing a little between his tightened lips.“Why, Jolly,” said Gwyn, gravely, “you look as if you’d knocked the skin off your temper.”“That’s just how I do feel,” cried the boy—“regularly raw. I want to have a row with old Sammy Hardock. It’s all his fault, our getting into such trouble; and first he stands there laughing at us when we were nearly gone, and now he sits there as if it hadn’t mattered a bit, and begins to smoke. I never hated anyone that I know of, but I do hate him now. He’s a beast.”“Well, you said that before,” said Gwyn, slowly; and he shivered. “I say, Jolly, isn’t it rum that when you’re wet, if you stand in the sun, you feel cold?”“Then let’s go and give it to old Hardock; that’ll warm you up. I feel red hot now.”Gwyn began to rub his chest softly, where the rope had cut into him, and the boys walked together to where Hardock sat with his back to them, smoking.The man did not hear them coming till they were close to him, when he started round suddenly, and faced them, letting the pipe drop from between his lips.The resentment bubbling up in both of the boys died out on the instant, as they saw the drawn, ghastly face before them.“Ah, my lads! Ah, my dear lads!” groaned the man; “that’s about the nighest thing I ever see; but, thank goodness, you’re all safe and sound. Would you two mind shaking hands?”The boys stared at him, then at each other and back.“Why, Sam!” said Gwyn, huskily.“Yes; it’s me, my lad,” he replied, with a groan, “what there is left on me. I’ve been trying a pipe, but it aren’t done me no good, not a bit. I seem to see young Jollivet there going head first over the cliff; and the mortal shiver it did send through me was something as I never felt afore.”“Why, you laughed at us!” said Joe, with his resentment flashing up again.“Laughed at yer? Course I did. What was I to do? If I’d ha’ told yer both you was in danger, wouldn’t it ha’ frightened you so as you’d ha’ been too froze up to help yourselves?”“No; I don’t think so,” cried Joe.“Don’t yer? Well, I’m sure on it. I couldn’t do anything but hold on to the rope, and no one could ha’ saved you but yourselves.”“But you shouldn’t have laughed,” said Gwyn, gravely.“What was I to do then, Colonel? It was the only thing likely to spur you up. I thought it would make you both wild like, and think you warn’t in such a queer strait, and it did.”The boys exchanged glances.“Yes,” continued Hardock, as he shook hands solemnly with both, “there was nobody to help you, my lads, but yourselves, and I made you do that; but talk about giving a man a turn—Oh, dear! oh, dear! And now my pipe’s gone right out.”“Light it again, then, Sam,” said Gwyn, quietly, as he stooped stiffly to pick up the fallen pipe, and hand it to its owner.“Thank ye, my lad, thank ye; but I don’t feel in the humour for no pipes to-day, I’m just as if I’ve had a very gashly turn.”“But you might have tied the rope round me better, Sam,” said Gwyn.“Ay, I might, my lad, but somehow I didn’t. Are you hurt much?”“Only sore, with the rope cutting me.”“Nay, but I mean when you fell down the shaft. Did you hit yourself again’ the sides?”“No. It was very horrible, though. One moment I was turning slowly round and round and the next I was losing all the light; the rope slipped from round me and I was going down, down into the darkness. It was as if it lasted ever so long. Then there was a splash, the water was roaring in my ears, and I felt as if I were being dragged down lower and lower, till all at once my head shot up again. I never once felt as if I was coming up.”“How queer!” exclaimed Joe, who stood listening with his face all wrinkled over. “Didn’t you feel, when you’d got as low as you went, that you were going up again?”“No, not in the least. It was all confused like and strange, and I hardly knew anything till I was at the surface, and then I began to strike out, and swam along the sides of the slimy stones, trying to get a grip of them, but my hands kept slipping off.”“But you didn’t halloa!” said Joe.“No,” continued Gwyn, still speaking in the same grave, subdued way, as if still suffering from the shock of all he had gone through. “I didn’t shout; I felt stunned like, as if I’d been hit on the head.”“You must have been,” cried Joe. “You hit yourself against the side.”“No, if I had it would have killed me. I can’t explain it. Perhaps it was striking on the water.”“Nonsense; water’s too soft to hurt you. But go on; what did you do then?”“I hardly know, only that I kept on striking out, thinking how horribly dark it must be and wondering whether there were any live things to come at me; and then I hit my knee against the stones at the bottom.”“But you said it was deep.”“So it was in the shaft, but I must have swum into a passage where it was quite shallow; and almost directly after I’d hit my knee my hands touched the stones and I crawled out into the dark, and went on and on, feeling afraid to go back because of the water.”“But why didn’t you shout to us?” cried Joe, excitedly.“I don’t know. I suppose I couldn’t. It was like being in a dream, and I felt obliged to go crawling on. Then all of a sudden I began to feel better, for I could see a faint light, and this made me try to stand up, but I couldn’t without hitting my head. But I could walk stooping like, and I went on toward the pale light, which was almost like a star. Directly after, I was there looking out of a square place like a window, trying to find a way up or a way down, but the rocks stood out overhead, and they were quite straight down below me, so I could do nothing but shout, and I began to think no one would come. Every now and then I could hear voices, but when I called my voice seemed to float out to sea. There, you know the rest. But that’s an adit, isn’t it, Sam Hardock?”“Ay, my lad, and lucky for you it was there. You see, the water must run off by it out to sea when the top rises so high. But I never knew there was an opening from seaward into the mine. Being right up there, nobody could see it. Why it must be ’underd and fifty feet above the shore.”“It looked more,” said Gwyn, with a shudder.“There, I say, hadn’t you better get home and change your things, my lad? You’re pretty wet still. If you take my advice, you’ll go off as fast as you can.”“Yes,” said Joe, “you’d better. But we haven’t done much to examine the mine.”“Eh?” cried Hardock, “I think we have. Found out that there’s an adit for getting rid of the water and the spoil. Not bad for one day’s work.”
Joe Jollivet must have gone over the cliff in another instant headlong down to destruction, for only one thing could have saved him, and in all probability the sudden jerk of his snatching at his comrade would have taken him, too.
But as it happened Samuel Hardock—“the Captain,” as he was generally called in Ydoll Cove—saw the mistake he had made, and did that one special thing.
Turning suddenly, he stepped quickly back, tightening the line again, drawing Gwyn close up to the sharp edge of the cliff once more; and as in his agony Joe clutched at the moving cord, and clung to it with all his might, he too was drawn back from the edge.
“That was near,” muttered Hardock. “What’s best to be done?”
Fortunately the man could be cool and matter-of-fact in the face of real danger, though, as he had shown, he was a superstitious coward when it was something purely imaginary; and he did at once the very best thing under the circumstances.
“Put heart into ’em by making ’em wild,” he muttered, and he burst into a hearty fit of laughter.
“Yah!” he cried. “Nice pair o’ soft-roed ’uns you two are! Why, you aren’t got no more muscle than a pair o’ jelly-fishes. There, get, your breath, Master Joe, and have another try; and you see if you can’t make another out of it, Colonel. You’re all right if you’ve made that knot good. I could hold you for a week standing up, and when I get tired I can lie down. Now—hard, hard! I thought you meant to dive off the cliff, you, Master Joe.”
The latter had risen to his knees with his wet hair clinging to his brow; and for a moment he felt disposed to rage out something furiously at the grinning speaker.
But he refrained, and turned to get a fresh grip of Gwyn, who seemed to have recovered somewhat, too.
“He’s a beast!” cried Joe, angrily, for the anger was working in the right direction.
Hardock began again,—
“Rope cut, Master Gwyn?” he cried. “S’pose it does, though. Well, when you two are ready, just say. I’ve got him tight enough. But, hark ye, here; can you tell what I say?”
“Yes,” cried Joe, in a choking voice.
“That’s right. Well, first thing you do, my lad, you try and ease the rope over the edge. It checks you like, don’t you see? Stretch your arms well over, Colonel, and get your fingers in a crack and find a place for your toes, while young Joe Jollivet eases the knot over. Take it coolly. There’s nothing to mind. I’ve got yer, yer know. Ready?”
“Yes. Now, Ydoll, old chap,” whispered Joe, “can you do what he says and find foothold?”
There was a peculiar staring look in the boy’s eyes, but he began to search about with his toes; and almost at once found a crack that he had passed over before, forced in the end of one boot, and, reaching over, he gripped the rope with both hands.
“Get tight hold of my collar,” he whispered rather faintly. “Can you do it kneeling?”
“No power,” said Joe, huskily, “I must stand.”
He rose to his feet, gripping the collar as he was told, gazing there into Gwyn’s eyes, for he dared not look down beyond him into the dizzy depth.
“Now,” said Gwyn, “when you’re ready, I’ll try and raise myself a bit, and you throw yourself back.”
“Wait a moment,” panted Joe. Then he shouted, “Now I am—all together!”
“Right! Hauley hoi!” came back, and with one effort Gwyn curved his body, forcing his breast clear of the edge, joined his strength to that of his comrade in the effort to rise, and the next moment Joe was on his back with Gwyn being dragged over him.
Then came an interval of inaction, for the three actors in the perilous scene lay prone upon the rough surface of the cliff, Hardock having thrown himself upon his face.
“Oh, Gwyn, old chap!—oh, Gwyn,” groaned Joe.
“Hah! Yes; it was near,” sighed the rescued boy, as he slowly rose to a sitting posture, and began to unfasten the rope. “I thought I was gone.”
“It was horrid—horrid—horrid!” groaned Joe. “And I couldn’t do anything.”
He rose slowly, wiping his brow, which was dripping with perspiration, and the two boys sat there in the sunshine gazing at one another for a few minutes as if quite unconscious of the presence of Hardock at the end of the rope, where he lay spread-eagled among the heath.
Then Gwyn slowly held out his hand, which was gripped excitedly by Joe, who seized it with a loud sob.
“Thank ye, Jolly-wet,” said Gwyn, quietly. “I felt so queer seeing you try so hard.”
“You felt—about me? Ah, you don’t know what I felt about you. Ugh! I could kick you! Frightening me twice over like that! I don’t know which was worst—when you went down or when you came up.”
“Going down was worst,” said Gwyn, quietly. “But have a kick if you like; I don’t feel as if I could hit back.”
“Then I’ll wait till you can,” said Joe, with a faint smile. “Oh, dear, how my heart does keep on beating!”
He turned with hand pressing his side and looked toward Hardock, for the man had moved, and he, too, sat up and began searching in his pockets. And then, to the great disgust of the two boys, they saw him slowly bring out a short pipe and a brass tobacco-box, and then deliberately fill the former, take out his matches, strike a light, and begin to smoke.
“Look at that,” cried Joe, viciously.
“Yes; I’m looking,” said Gwyn, slowly, and speaking as if he were utterly exhausted. “I feel as if I wish I were strong enough to go and knock him over.”
“For laughing at us when we were in such a horrible fix? Yes; so do I. He’s an old beast; and when you feel better we’ll go and tell him so.”
“Let’s go now,” said Gwyn, rising stiffly. “I say, I feel wet and cold, and sore all over.”
Joe rose with more alacrity and clenched his fists, his teeth showing a little between his tightened lips.
“Why, Jolly,” said Gwyn, gravely, “you look as if you’d knocked the skin off your temper.”
“That’s just how I do feel,” cried the boy—“regularly raw. I want to have a row with old Sammy Hardock. It’s all his fault, our getting into such trouble; and first he stands there laughing at us when we were nearly gone, and now he sits there as if it hadn’t mattered a bit, and begins to smoke. I never hated anyone that I know of, but I do hate him now. He’s a beast.”
“Well, you said that before,” said Gwyn, slowly; and he shivered. “I say, Jolly, isn’t it rum that when you’re wet, if you stand in the sun, you feel cold?”
“Then let’s go and give it to old Hardock; that’ll warm you up. I feel red hot now.”
Gwyn began to rub his chest softly, where the rope had cut into him, and the boys walked together to where Hardock sat with his back to them, smoking.
The man did not hear them coming till they were close to him, when he started round suddenly, and faced them, letting the pipe drop from between his lips.
The resentment bubbling up in both of the boys died out on the instant, as they saw the drawn, ghastly face before them.
“Ah, my lads! Ah, my dear lads!” groaned the man; “that’s about the nighest thing I ever see; but, thank goodness, you’re all safe and sound. Would you two mind shaking hands?”
The boys stared at him, then at each other and back.
“Why, Sam!” said Gwyn, huskily.
“Yes; it’s me, my lad,” he replied, with a groan, “what there is left on me. I’ve been trying a pipe, but it aren’t done me no good, not a bit. I seem to see young Jollivet there going head first over the cliff; and the mortal shiver it did send through me was something as I never felt afore.”
“Why, you laughed at us!” said Joe, with his resentment flashing up again.
“Laughed at yer? Course I did. What was I to do? If I’d ha’ told yer both you was in danger, wouldn’t it ha’ frightened you so as you’d ha’ been too froze up to help yourselves?”
“No; I don’t think so,” cried Joe.
“Don’t yer? Well, I’m sure on it. I couldn’t do anything but hold on to the rope, and no one could ha’ saved you but yourselves.”
“But you shouldn’t have laughed,” said Gwyn, gravely.
“What was I to do then, Colonel? It was the only thing likely to spur you up. I thought it would make you both wild like, and think you warn’t in such a queer strait, and it did.”
The boys exchanged glances.
“Yes,” continued Hardock, as he shook hands solemnly with both, “there was nobody to help you, my lads, but yourselves, and I made you do that; but talk about giving a man a turn—Oh, dear! oh, dear! And now my pipe’s gone right out.”
“Light it again, then, Sam,” said Gwyn, quietly, as he stooped stiffly to pick up the fallen pipe, and hand it to its owner.
“Thank ye, my lad, thank ye; but I don’t feel in the humour for no pipes to-day, I’m just as if I’ve had a very gashly turn.”
“But you might have tied the rope round me better, Sam,” said Gwyn.
“Ay, I might, my lad, but somehow I didn’t. Are you hurt much?”
“Only sore, with the rope cutting me.”
“Nay, but I mean when you fell down the shaft. Did you hit yourself again’ the sides?”
“No. It was very horrible, though. One moment I was turning slowly round and round and the next I was losing all the light; the rope slipped from round me and I was going down, down into the darkness. It was as if it lasted ever so long. Then there was a splash, the water was roaring in my ears, and I felt as if I were being dragged down lower and lower, till all at once my head shot up again. I never once felt as if I was coming up.”
“How queer!” exclaimed Joe, who stood listening with his face all wrinkled over. “Didn’t you feel, when you’d got as low as you went, that you were going up again?”
“No, not in the least. It was all confused like and strange, and I hardly knew anything till I was at the surface, and then I began to strike out, and swam along the sides of the slimy stones, trying to get a grip of them, but my hands kept slipping off.”
“But you didn’t halloa!” said Joe.
“No,” continued Gwyn, still speaking in the same grave, subdued way, as if still suffering from the shock of all he had gone through. “I didn’t shout; I felt stunned like, as if I’d been hit on the head.”
“You must have been,” cried Joe. “You hit yourself against the side.”
“No, if I had it would have killed me. I can’t explain it. Perhaps it was striking on the water.”
“Nonsense; water’s too soft to hurt you. But go on; what did you do then?”
“I hardly know, only that I kept on striking out, thinking how horribly dark it must be and wondering whether there were any live things to come at me; and then I hit my knee against the stones at the bottom.”
“But you said it was deep.”
“So it was in the shaft, but I must have swum into a passage where it was quite shallow; and almost directly after I’d hit my knee my hands touched the stones and I crawled out into the dark, and went on and on, feeling afraid to go back because of the water.”
“But why didn’t you shout to us?” cried Joe, excitedly.
“I don’t know. I suppose I couldn’t. It was like being in a dream, and I felt obliged to go crawling on. Then all of a sudden I began to feel better, for I could see a faint light, and this made me try to stand up, but I couldn’t without hitting my head. But I could walk stooping like, and I went on toward the pale light, which was almost like a star. Directly after, I was there looking out of a square place like a window, trying to find a way up or a way down, but the rocks stood out overhead, and they were quite straight down below me, so I could do nothing but shout, and I began to think no one would come. Every now and then I could hear voices, but when I called my voice seemed to float out to sea. There, you know the rest. But that’s an adit, isn’t it, Sam Hardock?”
“Ay, my lad, and lucky for you it was there. You see, the water must run off by it out to sea when the top rises so high. But I never knew there was an opening from seaward into the mine. Being right up there, nobody could see it. Why it must be ’underd and fifty feet above the shore.”
“It looked more,” said Gwyn, with a shudder.
“There, I say, hadn’t you better get home and change your things, my lad? You’re pretty wet still. If you take my advice, you’ll go off as fast as you can.”
“Yes,” said Joe, “you’d better. But we haven’t done much to examine the mine.”
“Eh?” cried Hardock, “I think we have. Found out that there’s an adit for getting rid of the water and the spoil. Not bad for one day’s work.”
Chapter Eight.The Mine Fever.“You’ll have to tell them at home, Ydoll,” said Joe as they reached the rough stone-wall which enclosed the Colonel’s estate. “What shall you say?”“Oh, just what happened,” replied Gwyn; “but the job is how to begin. It’s making the start.”“Pst! Look out!” whispered Joe. “Here is your father.”“Good-morning, Hardock,” said the Colonel, coming upon the group suddenly.“I hope you haven’t been filling my boy’s head with more stuff about mining. Why, halloa, Gwyn; how did you get in that state? Where’s your cap?”“Down the mine-shaft, father,” replied the lad; and he found no difficulty about beginning. In a few minutes the Colonel knew all.“Most reckless—most imprudent,” he cried. “You ought to have known better, sir, than to lead these boys into such a terrible position; and how dare you, sir—how dare you begin examining my property without my permission!”“Well you see, Colonel,” began Hardock, “I thought—be doing you good, like, and as a neighbour—”“A neighbour, indeed! Confounded insolence! Be off, sir! How dare you! Never you show yourself upon my land again. There, you, Gwyn, come home at once and change your clothes; and as for you, Jollivet, you give my compliments to your father and tell him I say he ought to give you a good thrashing, and if he feels too ill to do it, let him send you down to me, and I will. Now, Gwyn; right face. March!”The Colonel led off his son, and Hardock and Joe stood looking at each other.“Made him a bit waxy,” said the miner; “but he’ll come round to my way of thinking yet; and it strikes me that he’ll be ordering me on to his land again, when he knows all. I say, young Jollivet, mean to go down to him to be thrashed with the young Colonel?”“Oh, he wouldn’t thrash me,” said Joe, quietly. “I know the Colonel better than that. I feel all stretched and aching like. I wish he hadn’t taken Gwyn home, though.”“I don’t feel quite square myself, lad,” said the mining captain; “but you see if the Colonel don’t go looking at the mine.”Hardock’s prophecy was soon fulfilled, for that evening the Colonel was rowing in his boat with his son, who had a mackerel line trailing astern, and when they came opposite to the great buttress the Colonel lay on his oars, and let his boat rise and fall on the clear swell.“Now, then; whereabouts is the mouth of the adit?”“I can’t quite make it out from down here, father,” replied Gwyn. “Yes I can; there it is, only it doesn’t look like an opening, only a dark shadowy part of the cliff. No one could tell it was a passage in, without being up there.”“Quite right; they could not,” said the Colonel, thoughtfully. “And you were drawn up from there, and right over the top of the cliff?”“Yes, father.”“Horribly dangerous, boy—hideous. There, your mother knows something about it, but she must never be shown how frightful a risk you ran. Come, let’s get back.”Gwyn only caught one fish that evening, and his father was very thoughtful and quiet when they returned.“Here, Gwyn,” he said next morning; “come along with me, I want to have a look at the old pit-shaft, and the bit of cliff over which you were drawn.”“Yes, father,” said Gwyn, and he led the way over their own ground; but before they reached the dwarf mine wall, he was conscious of the fact that they were observed; for, at the turn of the lane, Hardock’s oilskin cap could be seen as if the man were watching there, and the next moment Joe Jollivet’s straw hat was visible by his side.Gwyn felt disposed to point out that they were not alone; but the next moment his father began talking about the slow progress made by the belt of pines he had planted between there and the house, so as to take off something of the barrenness of the place.“Want of shelter, Gwyn,” he said; “the great winds from the west catch them too much. I’m afraid they will always be stunted. Still, they would hide the mine buildings.”“The mine buildings, father?” said the boy, looking at his father inquiringly.“Yes; I mean if I were to be tempted into doing anything of the kind—opening the mine again. Seems a pity, if it does contain wealth, to let it lie there useless. Money’s money, my boy.”“But you don’t want money, father, do you?” said Gwyn. The Colonel stopped short, and faced round to gaze in his son’s face before bursting into a merry fit of laughter. “Have I said something very stupid, father?”“No, not stupid—only shown me how inexperienced you are in the matters of everyday life, Gwyn. My dear boy, I never knew an officer on half-pay who did not want money.”“But I thought you had enough.”“Enough, boy? Someone among our clever writers once said that enough was always a little more than a man possessed.”“But you will not begin mining, father?”“I don’t know, my boy. Let’s have a look at the place. Here have we been these ten years, and I know no more about this hole than I did when I came. I know it is an old mine-shaft half full of water, just like a dozen more about the district, and I should have gone on knowing no more about it if that man had not begun talking, and shown me, by the great interest he takes in the place, that he thinks it must be rich. Be rather a nice thing to grow rich, my boy, and have plenty to start you well in the world.”“But I don’t want starting well in the world, father; it’s nice enough as it is.”“What, you idle, young dog! Do you expect to pass all your life fishing, bathing, and bird’s-nesting here?”“No, father; but—”“‘No, father; but—’ Humph! here’s the place, then. Dear me, how very unsafe that stone-wall is. A strong man could push it down the shaft in half-an-hour.”As he spoke the Colonel strode up to the piled-up stones, and looked over into the fern-fringed pit.“Ugh! horrible! Pitch one of those stones down, boy.”Gwyn took a piece of the loose granite, raised it over his head with both hands, and threw it from him with force enough to make it strike the opposite side of the shaft, from which it rebounded, and then went on down, down, into the darkness for some moments before there was a dull splash, which came echoing out of the mouth, followed by a strange swishing as the water rose and fell against the sides.“Horrible, indeed!” muttered the Colonel. Then aloud: “And you let them lower you down by a rope, it came undone, and you fell headlong into that water down below, rose, swam to the side and then crept along a horizontal passage to where it opened out on the sea yonder?”“Yes, father,” said the boy, recalling his sensations as his father spoke.“Bless my heart!” exclaimed the Colonel. “Well, Gwyn, you’re a queer sort of boy. Not very clever, and you give me a good deal of anxiety as to how you are going to turn out. But one thing is very evident—with all your faults, you are not a coward.”“Oh, yes, I am, father,” said Gwyn, shaking his head. “You don’t know what a fright I was in.”“Fright! Enough to frighten anybody. I’ve faced fire times enough, my boy, and had to gallop helter-skelter with a handful of brave fellows against a thousand or more enemies who were thirsting for our blood! But I dared not have gone down that pit hanging at the end of a rope. No, Gwyn, my boy, you are no coward. There, show me now where you were drawn up.”Gwyn led the way to the foot of the granite ridge, fully expecting to hear his father say that he could not climb up there; but, to his surprise, the Colonel mounted actively enough, and walked along the rugged top to where it ended in the great buttress, and there he stood at the very edge gazing down.“Where were you, Gwyn?” he said at last; and the boy pointed out the projection beneath which the adit opened out.“To be sure. Yes, I couldn’t quite make it out,” said the Colonel, coolly, as he turned away; but Gwyn noticed that he took out his handkerchief to pass it over his forehead, and then wiped the insides of his hands as if they were damp.“Let’s go back by the road,” said the Colonel, after shading his eyes and taking a look round; “but I want to pass the mouth of the mine.”Upon reaching the latter, the Colonel drew a hammer from his pocket, and after routing out a few grey pieces of stone from where they lay beneath the furze bushes, he cracked and chipped several, till one which looked red in the new cleavage, and was studded with little blackish-purple, glistening grains, took his fancy.“Carry this home for me, Gwyn,” he said. “I wonder whether that piece ever came out of the mine?”“I think all that large sloping bank covered with bushes and brambles came out of the mine some time, father,” said the boy. “It seems to have been all raised up round about the mouth there.”“Eh? You think so?”“Yes, father; and as the pieces thrown out grew higher, they seem to have built up the mouth of the mine with big blocks to keep the stones from rolling in. I noticed that when I was being let down. The ferns have taken root in the joints. Lower down, fifteen or twenty feet, the hole seems to have been cut through the solid rock.”“Humph! you kept your eyes open, then?”Crossing the wall where the lane ran along by the side of the Colonel’s property, they turned homeward, and in a few minutes Gwyn caught sight of Joe Jollivet’s cap gliding in and out among the furze bushes, as he made his way in the direction of his own house, apparently not intending to be seen. But a few hundred yards farther along the lane there was some one who evidently did intend to be seen, in the shape of Sam Hardock, who rose from where he was sitting on a grey-lichened block, and touched his hat.“That’s a nice specimen you’ve got there, Master Pendarve,” he said, eyeing the block the boy carried.“It’s a very heavy one, Sam,” replied Gwyn; and his father strode on, but stopped short and turned back frowning, unable, in spite of his annoyance, to restrain his curiosity.“Here, you Hardock,” he cried, tapping the block his son carried, with his cane. “What is it? What stone do you call that?”“Quartz, sir,” said the man, examining the piece, “and a very fine specimen.”“Eh? Good for breaking up to repair the roads with, eh?”“No, sir; bad for that; soon go to powder. But it would be fine to crush and smelt.”“Eh? What for?”“What for, sir?” said the man with a laugh; “why, that bit o’ stone’s half tin. I dunno where you got it, o’ course; but if it came from the spoil bank of that old mine, it just proves what I thought.”“Tin? Are you sure?”“Sure, sir? Yes,” said the man, laughing. “I ought to know tin when I see it. If it comes out of the old Ydoll mine, you’ve only got to set men at work to go down and blast it out, sir, and in a very short time you’ll be a rich man.”“Come along, Gwyn,” said the Colonel, hastily; “it’s time we got back. Hang the fellow!” he muttered, “he has given me the mining fever, and badly, too, I fear.”
“You’ll have to tell them at home, Ydoll,” said Joe as they reached the rough stone-wall which enclosed the Colonel’s estate. “What shall you say?”
“Oh, just what happened,” replied Gwyn; “but the job is how to begin. It’s making the start.”
“Pst! Look out!” whispered Joe. “Here is your father.”
“Good-morning, Hardock,” said the Colonel, coming upon the group suddenly.
“I hope you haven’t been filling my boy’s head with more stuff about mining. Why, halloa, Gwyn; how did you get in that state? Where’s your cap?”
“Down the mine-shaft, father,” replied the lad; and he found no difficulty about beginning. In a few minutes the Colonel knew all.
“Most reckless—most imprudent,” he cried. “You ought to have known better, sir, than to lead these boys into such a terrible position; and how dare you, sir—how dare you begin examining my property without my permission!”
“Well you see, Colonel,” began Hardock, “I thought—be doing you good, like, and as a neighbour—”
“A neighbour, indeed! Confounded insolence! Be off, sir! How dare you! Never you show yourself upon my land again. There, you, Gwyn, come home at once and change your clothes; and as for you, Jollivet, you give my compliments to your father and tell him I say he ought to give you a good thrashing, and if he feels too ill to do it, let him send you down to me, and I will. Now, Gwyn; right face. March!”
The Colonel led off his son, and Hardock and Joe stood looking at each other.
“Made him a bit waxy,” said the miner; “but he’ll come round to my way of thinking yet; and it strikes me that he’ll be ordering me on to his land again, when he knows all. I say, young Jollivet, mean to go down to him to be thrashed with the young Colonel?”
“Oh, he wouldn’t thrash me,” said Joe, quietly. “I know the Colonel better than that. I feel all stretched and aching like. I wish he hadn’t taken Gwyn home, though.”
“I don’t feel quite square myself, lad,” said the mining captain; “but you see if the Colonel don’t go looking at the mine.”
Hardock’s prophecy was soon fulfilled, for that evening the Colonel was rowing in his boat with his son, who had a mackerel line trailing astern, and when they came opposite to the great buttress the Colonel lay on his oars, and let his boat rise and fall on the clear swell.
“Now, then; whereabouts is the mouth of the adit?”
“I can’t quite make it out from down here, father,” replied Gwyn. “Yes I can; there it is, only it doesn’t look like an opening, only a dark shadowy part of the cliff. No one could tell it was a passage in, without being up there.”
“Quite right; they could not,” said the Colonel, thoughtfully. “And you were drawn up from there, and right over the top of the cliff?”
“Yes, father.”
“Horribly dangerous, boy—hideous. There, your mother knows something about it, but she must never be shown how frightful a risk you ran. Come, let’s get back.”
Gwyn only caught one fish that evening, and his father was very thoughtful and quiet when they returned.
“Here, Gwyn,” he said next morning; “come along with me, I want to have a look at the old pit-shaft, and the bit of cliff over which you were drawn.”
“Yes, father,” said Gwyn, and he led the way over their own ground; but before they reached the dwarf mine wall, he was conscious of the fact that they were observed; for, at the turn of the lane, Hardock’s oilskin cap could be seen as if the man were watching there, and the next moment Joe Jollivet’s straw hat was visible by his side.
Gwyn felt disposed to point out that they were not alone; but the next moment his father began talking about the slow progress made by the belt of pines he had planted between there and the house, so as to take off something of the barrenness of the place.
“Want of shelter, Gwyn,” he said; “the great winds from the west catch them too much. I’m afraid they will always be stunted. Still, they would hide the mine buildings.”
“The mine buildings, father?” said the boy, looking at his father inquiringly.
“Yes; I mean if I were to be tempted into doing anything of the kind—opening the mine again. Seems a pity, if it does contain wealth, to let it lie there useless. Money’s money, my boy.”
“But you don’t want money, father, do you?” said Gwyn. The Colonel stopped short, and faced round to gaze in his son’s face before bursting into a merry fit of laughter. “Have I said something very stupid, father?”
“No, not stupid—only shown me how inexperienced you are in the matters of everyday life, Gwyn. My dear boy, I never knew an officer on half-pay who did not want money.”
“But I thought you had enough.”
“Enough, boy? Someone among our clever writers once said that enough was always a little more than a man possessed.”
“But you will not begin mining, father?”
“I don’t know, my boy. Let’s have a look at the place. Here have we been these ten years, and I know no more about this hole than I did when I came. I know it is an old mine-shaft half full of water, just like a dozen more about the district, and I should have gone on knowing no more about it if that man had not begun talking, and shown me, by the great interest he takes in the place, that he thinks it must be rich. Be rather a nice thing to grow rich, my boy, and have plenty to start you well in the world.”
“But I don’t want starting well in the world, father; it’s nice enough as it is.”
“What, you idle, young dog! Do you expect to pass all your life fishing, bathing, and bird’s-nesting here?”
“No, father; but—”
“‘No, father; but—’ Humph! here’s the place, then. Dear me, how very unsafe that stone-wall is. A strong man could push it down the shaft in half-an-hour.”
As he spoke the Colonel strode up to the piled-up stones, and looked over into the fern-fringed pit.
“Ugh! horrible! Pitch one of those stones down, boy.”
Gwyn took a piece of the loose granite, raised it over his head with both hands, and threw it from him with force enough to make it strike the opposite side of the shaft, from which it rebounded, and then went on down, down, into the darkness for some moments before there was a dull splash, which came echoing out of the mouth, followed by a strange swishing as the water rose and fell against the sides.
“Horrible, indeed!” muttered the Colonel. Then aloud: “And you let them lower you down by a rope, it came undone, and you fell headlong into that water down below, rose, swam to the side and then crept along a horizontal passage to where it opened out on the sea yonder?”
“Yes, father,” said the boy, recalling his sensations as his father spoke.
“Bless my heart!” exclaimed the Colonel. “Well, Gwyn, you’re a queer sort of boy. Not very clever, and you give me a good deal of anxiety as to how you are going to turn out. But one thing is very evident—with all your faults, you are not a coward.”
“Oh, yes, I am, father,” said Gwyn, shaking his head. “You don’t know what a fright I was in.”
“Fright! Enough to frighten anybody. I’ve faced fire times enough, my boy, and had to gallop helter-skelter with a handful of brave fellows against a thousand or more enemies who were thirsting for our blood! But I dared not have gone down that pit hanging at the end of a rope. No, Gwyn, my boy, you are no coward. There, show me now where you were drawn up.”
Gwyn led the way to the foot of the granite ridge, fully expecting to hear his father say that he could not climb up there; but, to his surprise, the Colonel mounted actively enough, and walked along the rugged top to where it ended in the great buttress, and there he stood at the very edge gazing down.
“Where were you, Gwyn?” he said at last; and the boy pointed out the projection beneath which the adit opened out.
“To be sure. Yes, I couldn’t quite make it out,” said the Colonel, coolly, as he turned away; but Gwyn noticed that he took out his handkerchief to pass it over his forehead, and then wiped the insides of his hands as if they were damp.
“Let’s go back by the road,” said the Colonel, after shading his eyes and taking a look round; “but I want to pass the mouth of the mine.”
Upon reaching the latter, the Colonel drew a hammer from his pocket, and after routing out a few grey pieces of stone from where they lay beneath the furze bushes, he cracked and chipped several, till one which looked red in the new cleavage, and was studded with little blackish-purple, glistening grains, took his fancy.
“Carry this home for me, Gwyn,” he said. “I wonder whether that piece ever came out of the mine?”
“I think all that large sloping bank covered with bushes and brambles came out of the mine some time, father,” said the boy. “It seems to have been all raised up round about the mouth there.”
“Eh? You think so?”
“Yes, father; and as the pieces thrown out grew higher, they seem to have built up the mouth of the mine with big blocks to keep the stones from rolling in. I noticed that when I was being let down. The ferns have taken root in the joints. Lower down, fifteen or twenty feet, the hole seems to have been cut through the solid rock.”
“Humph! you kept your eyes open, then?”
Crossing the wall where the lane ran along by the side of the Colonel’s property, they turned homeward, and in a few minutes Gwyn caught sight of Joe Jollivet’s cap gliding in and out among the furze bushes, as he made his way in the direction of his own house, apparently not intending to be seen. But a few hundred yards farther along the lane there was some one who evidently did intend to be seen, in the shape of Sam Hardock, who rose from where he was sitting on a grey-lichened block, and touched his hat.
“That’s a nice specimen you’ve got there, Master Pendarve,” he said, eyeing the block the boy carried.
“It’s a very heavy one, Sam,” replied Gwyn; and his father strode on, but stopped short and turned back frowning, unable, in spite of his annoyance, to restrain his curiosity.
“Here, you Hardock,” he cried, tapping the block his son carried, with his cane. “What is it? What stone do you call that?”
“Quartz, sir,” said the man, examining the piece, “and a very fine specimen.”
“Eh? Good for breaking up to repair the roads with, eh?”
“No, sir; bad for that; soon go to powder. But it would be fine to crush and smelt.”
“Eh? What for?”
“What for, sir?” said the man with a laugh; “why, that bit o’ stone’s half tin. I dunno where you got it, o’ course; but if it came from the spoil bank of that old mine, it just proves what I thought.”
“Tin? Are you sure?”
“Sure, sir? Yes,” said the man, laughing. “I ought to know tin when I see it. If it comes out of the old Ydoll mine, you’ve only got to set men at work to go down and blast it out, sir, and in a very short time you’ll be a rich man.”
“Come along, Gwyn,” said the Colonel, hastily; “it’s time we got back. Hang the fellow!” he muttered, “he has given me the mining fever, and badly, too, I fear.”
Chapter Nine.Doctor Joe.“Oh, dear! Oh, dear! What a life! what a state of misery to be in!”“Shall I turn the pillow over, father?” said Joe to Major Jollivet, who was lying on the couch drawn before the window, so that he could have a good view of the sea.“No,” shouted the Major, whose face was contracted by pain; and he shivered as he spoke although his forehead was covered with perspiration. “Why do you want to worry me by turning the pillow?”“Because it will be nice and cool on the other side.”“Get out. Be off with you directly, sir. Can’t you see I’m shivering with cold? Oh, dear: who would have jungle fever?”“I wouldn’t father,” said the boy; and in spite of the words just spoken, he softly thrust his arm under his father’s neck, raised his head, and then turned and punched the pillow, smoothed it, and let the Major’s head down again.“How dah you, sir!” cried the sufferer, fiercely. “Did I not tell you, sir, that I did not want it done? Did I not order you to quit the room, sir? Am I not your superior officer, sir? And you dared to disobey me, sir, because I am on the sick list. How dah you, sir! How dah you, sir! If you were in a regiment, sir, it would mean court-martial, sir, and—Oh, dear me!”“That’s cooler and more comfortable, father, isn’t it?” said Joe, calmly enough, and without seeming to pay the slightest attention to the fierce tirade of angry words directed against him.“Yes,” sighed the Major, “that’s cooler and more comfortable; but,” he cried, turning angry again and beginning to draw out and point his great fierce moustache with his long thin fingers, “I will not have you disobey my orders, sir. You’re as bad as your poor mother used to be—taking command of the regiment, and dictating and disobeying me as if I were not fit to manage my own affairs. How dah you, sir, I say—how dah you!”Joe leaned over his father in the most imperturbable way, screwed up his mouth as if he were whistling, and drew out the Major’s clean handkerchief from his breast-pocket, shook it, and then gently dabbed the moist forehead.“Don’t! Leave off, sir!” roared the Major. “How dah you, sir! I will not be treated in this way as if I were a helpless infant. Joseph, you scoundrel, you shall leave home at once, and go to an army tutor. I will not have these mutinous ways in the house.”Joe smiled faintly, screwed up his lips a little more, turned the handkerchief, gave the forehead a light wipe over by way of a polish, and then lowered it.“Want to blow your nose, dad?” he said.“No, sir, I do not want to blow my nose; and if I did I could blow it myself. Oh, dear! Oh, dear. This pain—this pain!”Joe thrust the handkerchief back, and laid his palm on his father’s forehead.“Not quite so hot, dad,” he said.“How dah you, sir! It’s your rank mutinous obstinacy that makes you say so. Take away that nasty hot paw.”Joe went to the mantelpiece, took a large square bottle of eau-de-Cologne, removed the stopper, and once more drew out his father’s pocket-handkerchief, moistened it with the scent, and softly applied it to the sufferer’s forehead.“Confound you!” cried the Major. “Will you leave me alone, sir, or am I to get up and fetch my cane to you?”“What do they make eau-de-Cologne of, father?” said Joe, coolly. “Does it come from a spring like all those nasty mineral waters you take?”“It’s insufferable!” panted the Major.“Time you had a drink, father,” said Joe, quietly.“It is not, sir. I take that medicine at eleven o’clock, military time. It wants quite half-an-hour to that yet. You want to be off to play with that idle young scoundrel of Pendarve’s, I suppose; but I wish you to stay here till it is eleven. Do you hear that, sir? You disobey me if you dare.”“Five minutes past eleven now, dad,” said Joe, after a glance at the clock over the chimney-piece.“It’s not, sir,” cried the Major, turning his head quickly to look for himself, and then wincing from pain. “That clock’s wrong. It’s a wretched cheap fraud, and never did keep time. Fast! Nearly an hour fast!”“Said it was the best timekeeper in Cornwall only yesterday,” said Joe to himself, as he went to a side table on which stood a couple of bottles, a glass, and water-jug.Here the boy busied himself for a few moments, with his father frowning and watching him angrily, and looking, in spite of his pain-distorted countenance, pallid look and sunken cheeks, a fine, handsome, middle-aged man.The next minute Joe was coming back with a tumbler in his hand, and stirring it with a little glass rod.“Here you are, dad. Shall I hoist you up while you tip it off?”“No, sir; I can sit up. How much quinine did you put in?”“Usual dose, father.”“Ho! How much lemon juice?”“Wineglass full, and filled up with spring water.”Major Jollivet made an effort to sit up, but sank back again with a groan.Joe might have smiled, but he did not. He could justly have said triumphantly: “There, I knew you could not manage it!” but he calmly drew a chair to the side of the couch, stood the glass within reach of his father’s hand, and then went behind his head, forced his arm under the pillow, lowered his brow so that he could butt like a ram, and slowly and steadily raised the invalid’s shoulders, keeping him upright till the draught had been taken and the glass set down.“Bah! Horrible! Bitter as gall.”“Lower away!” said Joe; and he drew softly back till the pillow was in its old place, and the Major uttered a sigh of relief.“I say, dad, you’re getting better,” said Joe, as he took away chair and glass after brushing his disordered hair from his forehead.“How dah you, sir!” cried the Major, “when I’m in such a state of prostration!”Joe laid his hand on the patient’s forehead again, and nodded.“Head’s getting wet and cool, dad. You’ll be right as a trivet again soon.”“Worse than your poor mother—worse than your poor mother. You haven’t a bit of feeling, boy. It’s abominable.”Joe took a sprayer, thrust it into the neck of the scent bottle, and blew an odorous vapour about the sufferer’s head.“Will you put that tomfool thing away, sir! You’re never happy unless you’re playing with it.”“I say,” cried Joe, still without seeming to pay the slightest heed to his father’s words—“what do you think, dad?”“Think, sir? How can I think of anything but this wretched jungle fever. Oh, my bones, my bones!”“Colonel Pendarve’s going to open the old Ydoll mine.”“Eh? What?” cried the Major, turning his head sharply. “Say that again.”“Captain Hardock got talking to me and Gwyn about it, and Gwyn told his father.”“Told him what?”“Sam Hardock said he was sure that there was plenty of tin in it, and that it was a pity for it to be there, and when the Colonel might make a fortune out of it.”“And—and what did Pendarve say?” cried the Major, excitedly.“Said it was all nonsense, I believe. Then Sam Hardock took me—me and Gwyn—to have a look, and Ydoll went down.”“Look here, sir, I will not have you call Gwyn Pendarve by that idiotic nickname.”“No, father. When he was half down the rope came undone, and he went down plash.”“Killed?” cried the Major, excitedly.“Oh, no, father, there was plenty of water, and he got out through a passage on to the cliffs, and Sam and I had to pull him up again.”“What mad recklessness!”“He wasn’t hurt, father, only got very wet; and since then the Colonel has been to have a look at the place and had a talk or two with Sam Hardock, and Ydoll—”“What!” cried the Major, fiercely.“Gwyn thinks his father is going to have machinery down, and the mine pumped out.”“Madness! Going to throw all his money away. He sha’n’t do it. I won’t have it. What does Mrs Pendarve say?”“Gwyn says she doesn’t like it at all.”“I should think not, sir. It means ruin spelt with a big letter. Why can’t he be contented with his half-pay?”“I dunno, father. I suppose he feels as if he’d like more.”“Yes, and get less. You never knew me tempted by these wretched mining schemes, did you, sir?”“No, father.”“The man’s mad. Got a bee in his bonnet. Going to ruin his son’s prospects in life. He sha’n’t do it. How can he be so absurd! I’ll go to him as soon as I can move.”“Feel a little easier, father?” said Joe, going to the head of the couch, and pressing his hand upon his father’s brow again.“Yes, much easier, my boy,” said the invalid, placing his hand upon his son’s, and holding it down for a few moments. “Feels cooler, doesn’t it?”“Ever so much, dad, and not so damp.”“Yes, I feel like a new man again. Thank you, Joe—thank you, my boy. Haven’t been fretful, have I?”“Oh, just a little, father, of course. Who could help it?”“I was afraid I had been, Joe. But, as you say, who could help it? Didn’t say anything very cross to you, did I?”“Oh, no, nothing to signify, dad. But, I say, I am glad you’re better.”“Thank you, my boy, thank you,” said the Major, drawing his boy’s hand down to his lips and kissing it. “Just like your poor, dear mother, so calm and patient with me when I am suffering. Joe, my boy, you will have to be a doctor.”“I? Oh, no, father. I must be a soldier, same as you’ve been, and Gwyn is going to be.”“But I meant a military surgeon,” said the Major.“Wouldn’t do, father. Why, if I were to tell Ydoll—I mean Gwyn—that I was going to be a doctor, he would crow over me horribly, and I should never hear the end of it. He’d christen me jalap or rhubarb, or something of that sort.”“Ah, well, we shall see, and—who’s that coming up to the door?”Joe looked out from the window, and came back directly.“The Colonel, dad. Shall I go and let him in?”“Yes, fetch him in, and stop here and give me a hint now and then if I get a little irritable. What you have told me makes me feel rather cross, and I shall have to give him a bit of my mind. I can’t let him go and waste his money like that.”Joe hurried out to the front hall, and found that Gwyn had accompanied his father, the former having been hidden by the shrubs as they came up to the door.
“Oh, dear! Oh, dear! What a life! what a state of misery to be in!”
“Shall I turn the pillow over, father?” said Joe to Major Jollivet, who was lying on the couch drawn before the window, so that he could have a good view of the sea.
“No,” shouted the Major, whose face was contracted by pain; and he shivered as he spoke although his forehead was covered with perspiration. “Why do you want to worry me by turning the pillow?”
“Because it will be nice and cool on the other side.”
“Get out. Be off with you directly, sir. Can’t you see I’m shivering with cold? Oh, dear: who would have jungle fever?”
“I wouldn’t father,” said the boy; and in spite of the words just spoken, he softly thrust his arm under his father’s neck, raised his head, and then turned and punched the pillow, smoothed it, and let the Major’s head down again.
“How dah you, sir!” cried the sufferer, fiercely. “Did I not tell you, sir, that I did not want it done? Did I not order you to quit the room, sir? Am I not your superior officer, sir? And you dared to disobey me, sir, because I am on the sick list. How dah you, sir! How dah you, sir! If you were in a regiment, sir, it would mean court-martial, sir, and—Oh, dear me!”
“That’s cooler and more comfortable, father, isn’t it?” said Joe, calmly enough, and without seeming to pay the slightest attention to the fierce tirade of angry words directed against him.
“Yes,” sighed the Major, “that’s cooler and more comfortable; but,” he cried, turning angry again and beginning to draw out and point his great fierce moustache with his long thin fingers, “I will not have you disobey my orders, sir. You’re as bad as your poor mother used to be—taking command of the regiment, and dictating and disobeying me as if I were not fit to manage my own affairs. How dah you, sir, I say—how dah you!”
Joe leaned over his father in the most imperturbable way, screwed up his mouth as if he were whistling, and drew out the Major’s clean handkerchief from his breast-pocket, shook it, and then gently dabbed the moist forehead.
“Don’t! Leave off, sir!” roared the Major. “How dah you, sir! I will not be treated in this way as if I were a helpless infant. Joseph, you scoundrel, you shall leave home at once, and go to an army tutor. I will not have these mutinous ways in the house.”
Joe smiled faintly, screwed up his lips a little more, turned the handkerchief, gave the forehead a light wipe over by way of a polish, and then lowered it.
“Want to blow your nose, dad?” he said.
“No, sir, I do not want to blow my nose; and if I did I could blow it myself. Oh, dear! Oh, dear. This pain—this pain!”
Joe thrust the handkerchief back, and laid his palm on his father’s forehead.
“Not quite so hot, dad,” he said.
“How dah you, sir! It’s your rank mutinous obstinacy that makes you say so. Take away that nasty hot paw.”
Joe went to the mantelpiece, took a large square bottle of eau-de-Cologne, removed the stopper, and once more drew out his father’s pocket-handkerchief, moistened it with the scent, and softly applied it to the sufferer’s forehead.
“Confound you!” cried the Major. “Will you leave me alone, sir, or am I to get up and fetch my cane to you?”
“What do they make eau-de-Cologne of, father?” said Joe, coolly. “Does it come from a spring like all those nasty mineral waters you take?”
“It’s insufferable!” panted the Major.
“Time you had a drink, father,” said Joe, quietly.
“It is not, sir. I take that medicine at eleven o’clock, military time. It wants quite half-an-hour to that yet. You want to be off to play with that idle young scoundrel of Pendarve’s, I suppose; but I wish you to stay here till it is eleven. Do you hear that, sir? You disobey me if you dare.”
“Five minutes past eleven now, dad,” said Joe, after a glance at the clock over the chimney-piece.
“It’s not, sir,” cried the Major, turning his head quickly to look for himself, and then wincing from pain. “That clock’s wrong. It’s a wretched cheap fraud, and never did keep time. Fast! Nearly an hour fast!”
“Said it was the best timekeeper in Cornwall only yesterday,” said Joe to himself, as he went to a side table on which stood a couple of bottles, a glass, and water-jug.
Here the boy busied himself for a few moments, with his father frowning and watching him angrily, and looking, in spite of his pain-distorted countenance, pallid look and sunken cheeks, a fine, handsome, middle-aged man.
The next minute Joe was coming back with a tumbler in his hand, and stirring it with a little glass rod.
“Here you are, dad. Shall I hoist you up while you tip it off?”
“No, sir; I can sit up. How much quinine did you put in?”
“Usual dose, father.”
“Ho! How much lemon juice?”
“Wineglass full, and filled up with spring water.”
Major Jollivet made an effort to sit up, but sank back again with a groan.
Joe might have smiled, but he did not. He could justly have said triumphantly: “There, I knew you could not manage it!” but he calmly drew a chair to the side of the couch, stood the glass within reach of his father’s hand, and then went behind his head, forced his arm under the pillow, lowered his brow so that he could butt like a ram, and slowly and steadily raised the invalid’s shoulders, keeping him upright till the draught had been taken and the glass set down.
“Bah! Horrible! Bitter as gall.”
“Lower away!” said Joe; and he drew softly back till the pillow was in its old place, and the Major uttered a sigh of relief.
“I say, dad, you’re getting better,” said Joe, as he took away chair and glass after brushing his disordered hair from his forehead.
“How dah you, sir!” cried the Major, “when I’m in such a state of prostration!”
Joe laid his hand on the patient’s forehead again, and nodded.
“Head’s getting wet and cool, dad. You’ll be right as a trivet again soon.”
“Worse than your poor mother—worse than your poor mother. You haven’t a bit of feeling, boy. It’s abominable.”
Joe took a sprayer, thrust it into the neck of the scent bottle, and blew an odorous vapour about the sufferer’s head.
“Will you put that tomfool thing away, sir! You’re never happy unless you’re playing with it.”
“I say,” cried Joe, still without seeming to pay the slightest heed to his father’s words—“what do you think, dad?”
“Think, sir? How can I think of anything but this wretched jungle fever. Oh, my bones, my bones!”
“Colonel Pendarve’s going to open the old Ydoll mine.”
“Eh? What?” cried the Major, turning his head sharply. “Say that again.”
“Captain Hardock got talking to me and Gwyn about it, and Gwyn told his father.”
“Told him what?”
“Sam Hardock said he was sure that there was plenty of tin in it, and that it was a pity for it to be there, and when the Colonel might make a fortune out of it.”
“And—and what did Pendarve say?” cried the Major, excitedly.
“Said it was all nonsense, I believe. Then Sam Hardock took me—me and Gwyn—to have a look, and Ydoll went down.”
“Look here, sir, I will not have you call Gwyn Pendarve by that idiotic nickname.”
“No, father. When he was half down the rope came undone, and he went down plash.”
“Killed?” cried the Major, excitedly.
“Oh, no, father, there was plenty of water, and he got out through a passage on to the cliffs, and Sam and I had to pull him up again.”
“What mad recklessness!”
“He wasn’t hurt, father, only got very wet; and since then the Colonel has been to have a look at the place and had a talk or two with Sam Hardock, and Ydoll—”
“What!” cried the Major, fiercely.
“Gwyn thinks his father is going to have machinery down, and the mine pumped out.”
“Madness! Going to throw all his money away. He sha’n’t do it. I won’t have it. What does Mrs Pendarve say?”
“Gwyn says she doesn’t like it at all.”
“I should think not, sir. It means ruin spelt with a big letter. Why can’t he be contented with his half-pay?”
“I dunno, father. I suppose he feels as if he’d like more.”
“Yes, and get less. You never knew me tempted by these wretched mining schemes, did you, sir?”
“No, father.”
“The man’s mad. Got a bee in his bonnet. Going to ruin his son’s prospects in life. He sha’n’t do it. How can he be so absurd! I’ll go to him as soon as I can move.”
“Feel a little easier, father?” said Joe, going to the head of the couch, and pressing his hand upon his father’s brow again.
“Yes, much easier, my boy,” said the invalid, placing his hand upon his son’s, and holding it down for a few moments. “Feels cooler, doesn’t it?”
“Ever so much, dad, and not so damp.”
“Yes, I feel like a new man again. Thank you, Joe—thank you, my boy. Haven’t been fretful, have I?”
“Oh, just a little, father, of course. Who could help it?”
“I was afraid I had been, Joe. But, as you say, who could help it? Didn’t say anything very cross to you, did I?”
“Oh, no, nothing to signify, dad. But, I say, I am glad you’re better.”
“Thank you, my boy, thank you,” said the Major, drawing his boy’s hand down to his lips and kissing it. “Just like your poor, dear mother, so calm and patient with me when I am suffering. Joe, my boy, you will have to be a doctor.”
“I? Oh, no, father. I must be a soldier, same as you’ve been, and Gwyn is going to be.”
“But I meant a military surgeon,” said the Major.
“Wouldn’t do, father. Why, if I were to tell Ydoll—I mean Gwyn—that I was going to be a doctor, he would crow over me horribly, and I should never hear the end of it. He’d christen me jalap or rhubarb, or something of that sort.”
“Ah, well, we shall see, and—who’s that coming up to the door?”
Joe looked out from the window, and came back directly.
“The Colonel, dad. Shall I go and let him in?”
“Yes, fetch him in, and stop here and give me a hint now and then if I get a little irritable. What you have told me makes me feel rather cross, and I shall have to give him a bit of my mind. I can’t let him go and waste his money like that.”
Joe hurried out to the front hall, and found that Gwyn had accompanied his father, the former having been hidden by the shrubs as they came up to the door.
Chapter Ten.Finding an Intruder.“Well, old man; on the sick list?” began the Colonel, shaking hands warmly with his friend. “What’s the last bulletin?”“Bad, bad,” said the Major, sharply. “Just heard that a man I respected is going to make a fool of himself.”“Eh? What?” said the Colonel, flushing. “Who’s been chattering about—ahem! Are you alluding to the mine on my property, Major Jollivet?”“No, sir,” said the Major, sitting up, “I was speaking about the hole by the cliff that was dug by a pack of greedy noodles who were not satisfied with their incomes, and I felt that I should not like to see an old friend of mine go shovelling his money down into it, and breaking his wife’s heart.”“Then it was like your—ahem, ahem!” coughed the Colonel, checking himself. “No, no; don’t go away, boys,” for Gwyn was stealing out, followed by Joe.“No, don’t you boys go,” cried the Major; “it will be a lesson for you both.”“Father been very bad, Joe?” said the Colonel.“Very bad, indeed, sir,” said the boy.“Silence, sir!” cried the Major. “Nothing of the sort. Don’t exaggerate, Joe.”“No, father.”“He doesn’t, Dick. You’ve had a nasty touch this morning, or you wouldn’t have spoken to me like that.”“I couldn’t help it, old man,” said the Major, warmly. “But surely you will never be so mad as to go pumping out that old place.”“H’m! I don’t know about mad. Be useful to make a little money for the sake of the boy.”“Very bad to lose a great deal for the sake of the boy.”“Nothing venture, nothing win, Dick. I’m beginning to think that it would be worth while to put some money in the venture, and I came up this morning to make you the first offer of joining in.”“And throwing away my bit of money, too. No, sir, not if I know it. I’m not quite such an idiot as that.”“You mean as I am,” said the Colonel, quietly.“I did not say so,” retorted the Major. “I should not dream of insulting an old friend by using such language.”“No, but you would think it all the same,” cried the Colonel. “Now, look here, Jollivet; you and I have enough to live upon comfortably.”“Quite.”“But there’s nothing left to start these two young dogs well in life; now is there?”“Well—er—rum—er—no; there is not much, Pendarve, certainly.”“That’s what I have been thinking, and though the idle, reckless young dogs do not deserve it—do you hear, you two? I say you don’t deserve it.”“Joe doesn’t,” said Gwyn, with a mischievous grin at his companion.“No, not at all,” said Joe. “I’m nearly as bad as Gwyn.”“Ah, you’re a nice pair,” said the Colonel. “But we, as fathers, must, I suppose, give you both a good preparation for the army—eh, Jollivet?”“Yes, of course that must be done,” said the Major.“Exactly! Well, I’ve been thinking a great deal about it this last day or two, and I have quite come to the conclusion that I must do something.”“Well, do something,” said the Major, testily; “don’t go and fling your money down a mine.”“But there are mines and mines, Jollivet, old fellow. If I were asked to join in some company to buy a mine or open a new one, I should of course hesitate; but in this case I have one of my own, one that is undoubtedly very ancient, and must have had a great deal of tin or copper or both in it.”“No doubt, and it was all dug out and sold long enough ago. The old people had the oyster, and you’ve got the shell.”“I don’t know so much about that, sir,” said the Colonel, earnestly. “I brought home a piece of old ore that was dug out, and it’s very rich in tin. There’s plenty of room down below for there to be an enormous amount, and as the only outlay will be for machinery for pumping and raising the ore, I have made up my mind to start a company of the owners to work that mine.”“And lose all your money.”“I hope not. The mine is already sunk, and I believe when it is pumped dry we shall find that there are drifts with plenty of ore in them, waiting to be worked—plenty to pay well for the getting.”“And if there turns out to be none at all?”“Well, that’s the very worst way of looking at it. If it turns out as bad as that, I shall have spent so many hundred pounds in new pumping machinery, and have it to sell for what it will fetch to some fresh company.”“But you would only get half the value.”“If I got half the value, I should be satisfied. Then the loss would not be so very severe.”“Severe enough to make you repent it to the last day of your life,” said the Major, shortly.“I hope not. Money is not worth so much repentance.”“But you talk as if you really meant to do this, Pendarve,” said the Major, warmly.“I do. I have quite made up my mind.”Gwyn looked at his father, with his eyes flashing with excitement.“My dear Pendarve, I implore you not to do so for that boy’s sake,” cried the Major.“It is for his sake I am going to venture upon what seems to me a very safe piece of business.”“No, no; a wild-goose chase, sir.”“Mining is not so reckless as that, if carried out on business principles, my dear Jollivet.”“There, we shall never agree. But in the name of all that is sensible, why did you come to me?”“Partly because you are my oldest friend, and one in whom I should confide any important business.”“And partly,” cried the Major, warmly, “because you thought I should be weak enough to join you.”“Quite right, all but the question of weakness,” said the Colonel.“Absurd! There, I am obliged to speak plainly; I could never dream of such a thing.”“I don’t want you to dream,” said the Colonel, smiling; “I want you to act—to join me; and upon this basis: I will find the mine, and half the money for the machinery, if you will find the other half.”“It would be folly. Look at the money we know to have been lost on mines.”“Yes, in companies, and over very doubtful affairs. In this case we have the proof of mining having been carried on. We have the mine, and we should not have to share profits with a number of shareholders.”“Nor losses neither,” said the Major, testily.“Nor the losses neither,” assented the Colonel. “Then we live on the spot and could oversee matters.”“Bah! What do we know about mines? I could manage a regiment, not a hole underground.”“We could soon learn, my dear boy,” said the Colonel; “and it would be very interesting to have such an occupation. I have felt for years past that you and I have been wasting time. No occupation whatever, nothing to do but think about our ailments. It’s rusting, Jollivet—it’s rusting out; and I’m sure that if we both worked hard, we should be healthier and better men.”“Humph! Well, there is something in that. But, no, no, no, I’m not going to be tempted to spend money that ought some day to come to Joe.”“Oh, I don’t mind, father, if it’s going to do you good,” cried the boy, eagerly. “I should like for you to have a mine.”“Shall I have any money some day, father?” said Gwyn.“I suppose so, my boy, what I leave when I die,” said the Colonel, frowning.“Oh, then, I’ll give it to go into the mine, father,” cried Gwyn; and the stern look passed off the Colonel’s face. He nodded, and looked pleased.“Think of the anxiety that such a venture would bring,” said the Major.“I have thought of it, and also of the anxieties and worries which come to a man who has nothing to do. Look here, Jollivet, I firmly believe in this adventure, and I should very much like it if you would join me, for I feel that it would do you good, and that we should get on well together.”“Oh, yes, I’ve no doubt about that,” said the Major, “and if you really do make up your mind to venture, I don’t say that I will not lend you some money if you need it.”“Thank you, I know that you would, Jollivet; but I don’t want to take it in that way. Think it over for a few days, and see how you feel about it.”“No, I can give you my answer now without any hesitation. It is quite out of the question, Pendarve. Even if it were a gold mine, I should say—”“Don’t decide rashly, old fellow,” said the Colonel. “A few days ago I should have answered you in the same way, if you had come and proposed the thing; but since I have thought it over, I have quite changed my mind. Do the same, and let me hear how you have concluded to act at the end of a week.”“But I tell you, my dear sir—”“Yes; tell me at the end of a week,” said the Colonel, smiling. “What do you think of these fellows beginning to investigate the mine for themselves? There, Gwyn, you need not stay for me if you want a run with Joe: I’ll walk home alone.”“Father is not well enough to be left,” said Joe.“Yes, yes, my boy,” cried the Major; “I don’t want to make a prisoner of you. Go and have a run with Gwyn, by all means.”The boys required no second permission, but were off at once, their fathers hearing the beat of their feet on the road directly after.“Where have they gone?” said the Major, turning on his couch.“Over to the mouth of the mine, for certain,” said the Colonel.He was quite right. There was no proposal made by either of the boys, but as soon as they were outside the gate, they started off together at a rapid trot, making straight for the Colonel’s land, springing over the stone-wall, and threading their way amongst stones and bushes, till they were compelled by the rough ground to go more slowly.“Makes one want to see more of what it’s like,” said Joe.“Yes; I didn’t know father was thinking about it so seriously. Why, it’ll be splendid, Joe. I say; you’ll have to go down the mine first this time.”“Yes, I suppose so, but not your way.”“Hist!” whispered Gwyn, as they drew near. “What does that mean?”“What? I don’t see anything.”Gwyn ducked down behind one of the great, grey weathered lumps of granite, and signed to his companion to follow his example.This was done on the instant, and then Joe looked inquiringly in his face.“Something wrong,” whispered Gwyn. “Trespassers. Got to know that father means to work the mine.”Gwyn raised his head slowly, so as to peer over the block of granite, and plainly made out a hand and arm working about at the side of the low protection wall of the old mine.“Sam Hardock,” whispered Joe, who had followed his example. “What’s he doing? Measuring the depth?”“’Tisn’t Sam,” whispered Gwyn, “it’s someone else—stranger, I think. Then the mine must be valuable or he wouldn’t be there. What shall we do?”“He has no business there. It’s on your father’s property, perhaps it’ll be ours, too,” whispered Joe. “I say, Ydoll, we’re not going to stand that; let’s go and collar him.”“Agreed!” said Gwyn, excitedly. “We’ve right on our side. Come on.”
“Well, old man; on the sick list?” began the Colonel, shaking hands warmly with his friend. “What’s the last bulletin?”
“Bad, bad,” said the Major, sharply. “Just heard that a man I respected is going to make a fool of himself.”
“Eh? What?” said the Colonel, flushing. “Who’s been chattering about—ahem! Are you alluding to the mine on my property, Major Jollivet?”
“No, sir,” said the Major, sitting up, “I was speaking about the hole by the cliff that was dug by a pack of greedy noodles who were not satisfied with their incomes, and I felt that I should not like to see an old friend of mine go shovelling his money down into it, and breaking his wife’s heart.”
“Then it was like your—ahem, ahem!” coughed the Colonel, checking himself. “No, no; don’t go away, boys,” for Gwyn was stealing out, followed by Joe.
“No, don’t you boys go,” cried the Major; “it will be a lesson for you both.”
“Father been very bad, Joe?” said the Colonel.
“Very bad, indeed, sir,” said the boy.
“Silence, sir!” cried the Major. “Nothing of the sort. Don’t exaggerate, Joe.”
“No, father.”
“He doesn’t, Dick. You’ve had a nasty touch this morning, or you wouldn’t have spoken to me like that.”
“I couldn’t help it, old man,” said the Major, warmly. “But surely you will never be so mad as to go pumping out that old place.”
“H’m! I don’t know about mad. Be useful to make a little money for the sake of the boy.”
“Very bad to lose a great deal for the sake of the boy.”
“Nothing venture, nothing win, Dick. I’m beginning to think that it would be worth while to put some money in the venture, and I came up this morning to make you the first offer of joining in.”
“And throwing away my bit of money, too. No, sir, not if I know it. I’m not quite such an idiot as that.”
“You mean as I am,” said the Colonel, quietly.
“I did not say so,” retorted the Major. “I should not dream of insulting an old friend by using such language.”
“No, but you would think it all the same,” cried the Colonel. “Now, look here, Jollivet; you and I have enough to live upon comfortably.”
“Quite.”
“But there’s nothing left to start these two young dogs well in life; now is there?”
“Well—er—rum—er—no; there is not much, Pendarve, certainly.”
“That’s what I have been thinking, and though the idle, reckless young dogs do not deserve it—do you hear, you two? I say you don’t deserve it.”
“Joe doesn’t,” said Gwyn, with a mischievous grin at his companion.
“No, not at all,” said Joe. “I’m nearly as bad as Gwyn.”
“Ah, you’re a nice pair,” said the Colonel. “But we, as fathers, must, I suppose, give you both a good preparation for the army—eh, Jollivet?”
“Yes, of course that must be done,” said the Major.
“Exactly! Well, I’ve been thinking a great deal about it this last day or two, and I have quite come to the conclusion that I must do something.”
“Well, do something,” said the Major, testily; “don’t go and fling your money down a mine.”
“But there are mines and mines, Jollivet, old fellow. If I were asked to join in some company to buy a mine or open a new one, I should of course hesitate; but in this case I have one of my own, one that is undoubtedly very ancient, and must have had a great deal of tin or copper or both in it.”
“No doubt, and it was all dug out and sold long enough ago. The old people had the oyster, and you’ve got the shell.”
“I don’t know so much about that, sir,” said the Colonel, earnestly. “I brought home a piece of old ore that was dug out, and it’s very rich in tin. There’s plenty of room down below for there to be an enormous amount, and as the only outlay will be for machinery for pumping and raising the ore, I have made up my mind to start a company of the owners to work that mine.”
“And lose all your money.”
“I hope not. The mine is already sunk, and I believe when it is pumped dry we shall find that there are drifts with plenty of ore in them, waiting to be worked—plenty to pay well for the getting.”
“And if there turns out to be none at all?”
“Well, that’s the very worst way of looking at it. If it turns out as bad as that, I shall have spent so many hundred pounds in new pumping machinery, and have it to sell for what it will fetch to some fresh company.”
“But you would only get half the value.”
“If I got half the value, I should be satisfied. Then the loss would not be so very severe.”
“Severe enough to make you repent it to the last day of your life,” said the Major, shortly.
“I hope not. Money is not worth so much repentance.”
“But you talk as if you really meant to do this, Pendarve,” said the Major, warmly.
“I do. I have quite made up my mind.”
Gwyn looked at his father, with his eyes flashing with excitement.
“My dear Pendarve, I implore you not to do so for that boy’s sake,” cried the Major.
“It is for his sake I am going to venture upon what seems to me a very safe piece of business.”
“No, no; a wild-goose chase, sir.”
“Mining is not so reckless as that, if carried out on business principles, my dear Jollivet.”
“There, we shall never agree. But in the name of all that is sensible, why did you come to me?”
“Partly because you are my oldest friend, and one in whom I should confide any important business.”
“And partly,” cried the Major, warmly, “because you thought I should be weak enough to join you.”
“Quite right, all but the question of weakness,” said the Colonel.
“Absurd! There, I am obliged to speak plainly; I could never dream of such a thing.”
“I don’t want you to dream,” said the Colonel, smiling; “I want you to act—to join me; and upon this basis: I will find the mine, and half the money for the machinery, if you will find the other half.”
“It would be folly. Look at the money we know to have been lost on mines.”
“Yes, in companies, and over very doubtful affairs. In this case we have the proof of mining having been carried on. We have the mine, and we should not have to share profits with a number of shareholders.”
“Nor losses neither,” said the Major, testily.
“Nor the losses neither,” assented the Colonel. “Then we live on the spot and could oversee matters.”
“Bah! What do we know about mines? I could manage a regiment, not a hole underground.”
“We could soon learn, my dear boy,” said the Colonel; “and it would be very interesting to have such an occupation. I have felt for years past that you and I have been wasting time. No occupation whatever, nothing to do but think about our ailments. It’s rusting, Jollivet—it’s rusting out; and I’m sure that if we both worked hard, we should be healthier and better men.”
“Humph! Well, there is something in that. But, no, no, no, I’m not going to be tempted to spend money that ought some day to come to Joe.”
“Oh, I don’t mind, father, if it’s going to do you good,” cried the boy, eagerly. “I should like for you to have a mine.”
“Shall I have any money some day, father?” said Gwyn.
“I suppose so, my boy, what I leave when I die,” said the Colonel, frowning.
“Oh, then, I’ll give it to go into the mine, father,” cried Gwyn; and the stern look passed off the Colonel’s face. He nodded, and looked pleased.
“Think of the anxiety that such a venture would bring,” said the Major.
“I have thought of it, and also of the anxieties and worries which come to a man who has nothing to do. Look here, Jollivet, I firmly believe in this adventure, and I should very much like it if you would join me, for I feel that it would do you good, and that we should get on well together.”
“Oh, yes, I’ve no doubt about that,” said the Major, “and if you really do make up your mind to venture, I don’t say that I will not lend you some money if you need it.”
“Thank you, I know that you would, Jollivet; but I don’t want to take it in that way. Think it over for a few days, and see how you feel about it.”
“No, I can give you my answer now without any hesitation. It is quite out of the question, Pendarve. Even if it were a gold mine, I should say—”
“Don’t decide rashly, old fellow,” said the Colonel. “A few days ago I should have answered you in the same way, if you had come and proposed the thing; but since I have thought it over, I have quite changed my mind. Do the same, and let me hear how you have concluded to act at the end of a week.”
“But I tell you, my dear sir—”
“Yes; tell me at the end of a week,” said the Colonel, smiling. “What do you think of these fellows beginning to investigate the mine for themselves? There, Gwyn, you need not stay for me if you want a run with Joe: I’ll walk home alone.”
“Father is not well enough to be left,” said Joe.
“Yes, yes, my boy,” cried the Major; “I don’t want to make a prisoner of you. Go and have a run with Gwyn, by all means.”
The boys required no second permission, but were off at once, their fathers hearing the beat of their feet on the road directly after.
“Where have they gone?” said the Major, turning on his couch.
“Over to the mouth of the mine, for certain,” said the Colonel.
He was quite right. There was no proposal made by either of the boys, but as soon as they were outside the gate, they started off together at a rapid trot, making straight for the Colonel’s land, springing over the stone-wall, and threading their way amongst stones and bushes, till they were compelled by the rough ground to go more slowly.
“Makes one want to see more of what it’s like,” said Joe.
“Yes; I didn’t know father was thinking about it so seriously. Why, it’ll be splendid, Joe. I say; you’ll have to go down the mine first this time.”
“Yes, I suppose so, but not your way.”
“Hist!” whispered Gwyn, as they drew near. “What does that mean?”
“What? I don’t see anything.”
Gwyn ducked down behind one of the great, grey weathered lumps of granite, and signed to his companion to follow his example.
This was done on the instant, and then Joe looked inquiringly in his face.
“Something wrong,” whispered Gwyn. “Trespassers. Got to know that father means to work the mine.”
Gwyn raised his head slowly, so as to peer over the block of granite, and plainly made out a hand and arm working about at the side of the low protection wall of the old mine.
“Sam Hardock,” whispered Joe, who had followed his example. “What’s he doing? Measuring the depth?”
“’Tisn’t Sam,” whispered Gwyn, “it’s someone else—stranger, I think. Then the mine must be valuable or he wouldn’t be there. What shall we do?”
“He has no business there. It’s on your father’s property, perhaps it’ll be ours, too,” whispered Joe. “I say, Ydoll, we’re not going to stand that; let’s go and collar him.”
“Agreed!” said Gwyn, excitedly. “We’ve right on our side. Come on.”