Chapter Twenty.A Doubtful Acquaintance.Gwyn recognised the voice, and knew what was the matter, and his first aim was to make a rush to protect his dog from the crushing blow which would probably be given him with one of the many weather-worn fragments of granite lying about among the great monoliths. But he was just where he could not make such a rush, for it would have been into a dense bed of gorse as high as himself, and forming achevaux de friseof millions of sharp thorns.The next best plan was to shout loudly, “You hurt my dog if you dare—” though the man might dare, and cast the stone all the same.But Gwyn did neither of these things, for another familiar voice rose from beyond the furze, crying loudly,—“You let that dog alone! You touch him and I’ll set him to worry you. Once he gets his teeth into you, he won’t let go. Here, Grip! Come to heel!”“Well done, Joe!” muttered Gwyn, who felt that his dog was safe; and he ran to the end of the bank of prickly growth, where there was an opening, and suddenly appeared upon the scene.It was all just as he had pictured; there was Joe Jollivet, with Grip close to his legs, barking angrily and making short rushes, and there, a few yards away, stood the big, swarthy stranger who had been caught at the mine mouth, and whom Gwyn believed to have tampered with the furnace door, now standing with a big stone of eight or ten pounds’ weight, ready to hurl at the dog if attacked.“Here, you put down that stone,” cried Gwyn, angrily. “How dare you threaten my dog!”“Stone aren’t yours,” said the man, tauntingly. “This ground don’t belong to you. Keep your mongrel cur quiet.”“My dog wouldn’t interfere with you if you let it alone.”“Oh, it’s your dog, is it?” said the man. “Well, take him home and chain him up. I don’t want to flatten his head, but I jolly soon will if he comes at me.”“He couldn’t hit Grip,” said Joe, maliciously, as he bent down to pat and encourage the dog. “Set him at the fellow—he has no business here.”“What!” cried the fellow, who looked a man of three or four-and-thirty, but talked like a boy of their own age. “Much right here as you have. You let me alone, and I’ll let you alone. What business have you to set your beastly dog at me?”“Who set him at you?” cried Joe. “He only barked at you—he saw you were a stranger—and you picked up a stone, and that, of course, made him mad.”“So would you pick up a stone, if a savage dog came at you. Look at him now, showing his sharp teeth. On’y wish I had his head screwed up in a carpenter’s bench. I’d jolly soon get the pinchers and nip ’em all out. He wouldn’t have no more toothache while I knew him.”“There, you be off,” said Gwyn, “while your shoes are good.”“Don’t wear shoes, young ’un. Mine’s boots.”“You’re after no good hanging about here.”“Er—think I want to steal your guv’nor’s pears off the wall, now, don’t yer?”“How do you know we’ve got pears on our wall?”“Looked over and see,” said the man, grinning.“Yes, that’s it; you’re a regular spy, looking for what you can steal,” cried Joe. “Be off!”“Sha’n’t. Much right here, I tell you, as you have. But I like folks to talk about stealing! Who nipped off with my fishing line and sinker? You give ’em back to me.”“No; they’re confiscated, same as poachers’ nets,” said Gwyn. “Who sent you here?”“Sent me here? Sent myself.”“What for?”“Wants a job. I’m mining, and I heared you was going to open the old mine. Think your guv’nors’ll take me on?”“You put down that stone before you ask questions,” said Gwyn.“You shut up your dog’s mouth, then. I don’t want to kill him, but I aren’t going to have him stick his teeth into me.”“The dog won’t hurt you if you don’t threaten him. Throw away that stone.”“There you are, then; but I warn you, if he comes at me, I’ll let him have my boot, and if he does get it, he won’t have any more head.”“Quiet, Grip!” said Gwyn, as the man threw away the stone, and the dog whined and said, “Don’t talk to me like that; this fellow isn’t to be trusted; make me drive him away.” At least not in words, for the dog spoke with his eyes, which seemed to suggest that this course should be taken.“Who are you, and where do you come from?” said Gwyn, looking at the man suspiciously.“Truro. All sorts o’ places wherever there’s mines open and—work.”“And you heard that this one was going to be opened?”“Yes, that’s just what I did hear.”“Then why did you come spying about the place?”“Never came spying about; only wanted to know how deep she was. I don’t like mines as is two hundred fathom deep. Too hot enough, and such a long way up and down. Takes all the steam out of you. Will your guv’nors give me a job?”“Go to the office and ask them; that’s the best way,” said Gwyn, looking at the man suspiciously, as he took off his cap, and began to smooth it round and round.“Well, p’r’aps that won’t be a bad way,” said the fellow. “But you two won’t say anything again’ me, will you, ’cause of that row we had when you smugged my line and sinker?”“I don’t think I shall say any more than what happened,” replied Gwyn.“’Cause it was all over a row, now, warn’t it? Of course, a chap gets his monkey up a bit when it comes to a fight. That’s nat’ral, ar’n’t it?”Gwyn nodded, and felt as if he did not like the look of the man at all; but at the same time he was ready to own that there might be a good deal of prejudice in the matter.“Wouldn’t like to go and say a good word for me, would you?” said the man.“Of course, I should not like to,” said Gwyn, laughing. “How can I go and speak for a man whom I only know through our having two rows with him. That isn’t natural, is it?”“No, I s’pose not,” said the man, frankly. “Well, I’ll go myself. I say, I am a wunner to work.”“You’d better tell Colonel Pendarve so,” said Gwyn, smiling.“Think so? Well, I will, and good luck to me. But, I say, hadn’t you two better make your dog friends with me?”“No,” said Gwyn, promptly. “Grip will know fast enough whether he ought to be friends with you or no.”“Would he? Is he clever enough for that?”“Oh, yes,” said Gwyn; “he knows an honest man when he sees him, doesn’t he, Joe?”“To be sure he does.”“Think o’ that, now,” said the man. “All right, then. Don’t you two go again’ me. I’ll start for the office at once.”“Here, what’s your name?”“Dinass—Thomas Dinass,” said the man, with a laugh, “but I’m mostly called Tom. That all?”“Yes, that’s all,” said Gwyn, shortly; and the man turned to go, with the result that Grip made a rush after him, and the man faced round and held up his boot.“Come here, sir! Come back!” shouted Gwyn; and the dog obeyed at once, but muttering protests the while, as if not considering such an interruption justifiable.Then all three stood watching till the man had disappeared, the dog uttering an angry whine from time to time, as if still dissatisfied.At last the two boys, who had met now for the first time since the adventure on the ladder, turned to gaze in each other’s eyes, and ended in exchanging a short nod.“Going up?” said Gwyn at last.“Yes; I came on purpose, and found Grip here.”“So did I come on purpose,” said Gwyn. “Wanted a good think. Lead on.”Joe went to the tallest of the old stones, and began to climb—no easy task, but one to which he seemed to be accustomed; and after a little difficulty, he obtained foothold, and then, getting a hand well on either side of one of the weather-worn angles, he drew himself higher and higher, and finally perched himself on the top.Before he was half up, Gwyn began to follow, without a thought of danger, though he did say, “Hold tight; don’t come down on my head.”Up he went skilfully enough, but before he was at the top, Grip uttered a few sharp barks, raised his ears, became excited, and jumped at the monolith, to scramble up a few feet, drop, and, learning no wisdom from failure, scramble up again and again, and fall back.Then, as he saw his master reach the top, he threw back his head, opened his jaws, and uttered a most doleful, long-drawn howl, as full of misery and disappointment as a dog could give vent to.“Quiet, will you!” cried Gwyn, and the dog answered with a sharp bark, to which he added another dismal, long-drawn howl.“Do you hear!” cried Gwyn; “don’t make that row. Lie down!”There was another howl.“Do you want me to throw stones at you?” cried Gwyn, fiercely.Doubtless the dog did not, for he had an intense aversion to being pelted; but, as if quite aware of the fact that there were no stones to cast, he threw his head up higher than ever, and put all his force into a dismal howl, that was unutterably mournful and strange.“You wretch! Be quiet! Lie down!” cried Gwyn; but the more he shouted the louder the dog howled, while he kept on making ineffectual efforts to mount the stone.“Let him be; never mind. He’ll soon get tired. Want to talk.”The boys settled themselves in uncomfortable positions on the narrow top, where the felspar crystals stood out at uncomfortable angles, and those of quartz were sharper still, and prepared for their long confab. As a matter of course, they would have been ten times as comfortable on the short turf just beyond the furze; but then, that would have been quite easy, and there would have been no excitement, or call upon their skill and energy. There was nothing to be gained by climbing up the stone—nothing to see, nothing to find out; but there was the inclination to satisfy that commonplace form of excelsiorism which tempts so many to try and get to the top. So the boys sat there, thoughtfully gazing out to sea, while the dog, after a good many howls, gave it up for a bad job, curled himself into an ottoman, hid his nose under his bushy collie tail, and went to sleep.Some minutes elapsed before either of the boys spoke, and when one did, it was with his eyes fixed upon the warm, brown sails of a fishing-lugger, miles away.It was Gwyn who commenced, and just as if they had been conversing on the subject for some time,—“Major very angry?”Joe nodded.“Awfully. Said, knowing what a state of health he was in, it wasn’t fair for me to go on trying to break my neck, for I was very useful to him when he had his bad fever fits—that it wasn’t pleasant for him to stop at home, expecting to have me brought back in bits.”“He didn’t say that, did he?”“Yes, he did—bits that couldn’t be put together again; and that, if this was the result of having you for a companion, I had better give you up.”Gwyn drew a deep breath, and kicked his heels together with a loud clack. Then there was a long pause.“Well,” said Gwyn, at last; “are you going to give me up?”Joe did not make a direct answer, but proposed a question himself.“What did the Colonel say?”“Just about the same as your father did; only he didn’t bring in about the fever, nor he didn’t say anything about my being brought home in bits. Said that I was a great nuisance, and he wondered how it was that I could not amuse myself like other boys did.”“So we do,” said Joe, sharply. “I never knew of a boy yet who didn’t get into a scrape sometimes.”Gwyn grunted, and frowned more deeply.“Said it was disgraceful for me to run risks, and cause my mother no end of anxiety, and—”“Well, go on: what a time you are!” cried Joe, for Gwyn suddenly paused. “What else did he say?”“Oh, something you wouldn’t like to hear.”“Yes, I should. Tell me what it was.”Gwyn took out his knife, and began to pick with the point at a large crystal of pinkish felspar, which stood partly out of the huge block of granite.“I say, go on. What an aggravating chap you are!”Gwyn went on picking.“I say, do you want me to shove you off the top here?”“No; and you couldn’t, if I did.”“Oh, couldn’t I?—you’d see. But I say, go on, Ydoll; tell us all about it. I did tell you what my father said.”“Said he supposed it was from associating with such a boy as you; for he was sure that I was too well-meaning a lad to do such things without being prompted.”“Oh, my! What a shame!” cried Joe. “It was too bad.”“Well, I didn’t want to tell you, only you bothered me till I did speak.”“Of course. Isn’t it better to know than have any one thinking such things of you without knowing. But I say, though, it is too bad; I couldn’t help turning like I did. It came on all at once, and I couldn’t stir.”“He didn’t mean about that so much. He bullied me for not taking care of you, and stopping you from going up the ladder.”“Did he? Why, you couldn’t help it.”“He talked as if he supposed I could, and said if we went out again together, I had better take Grip’s collar and chain, put the collar round your neck, and lead you.”“Oh I say! Just as if I was a monkey.”“No; father meant a dog, or a puppy.” Joe gave himself a sudden twist round to face his companion, flushing with anger the while, and as the space on the top of the stone was very small, he nearly slipped off, and had to make a snatch at Gwyn to save himself from an ugly fall.“There!” cried Gwyn, “you’re at it again. You’ve made up your mind to break your neck, or something else.”“It was all your fault,” cried Joe, “saying things like that. I don’t believe your father said anything of the kind. It was just to annoy me.”“What, do you suppose I wanted to go home with fresh trouble to talk about?”“No, but it’s your nasty, bantering, chaffing way. Colonel Pendarve wouldn’t have spoken about me like that.”Gwyn laughed.“I suppose he didn’t say I had better give you up as a companion—”“Did he?”“If I was always getting into some scrape or another.”“No; but I say, Ydoll, did he?”“Something of the kind. He said it was getting time for me to be thinking of something else beside tops and marbles.”“Well, so we do. Whoever thinks about tops and marbles now? Why, I haven’t touched such a thing for two years.”“So I suppose you and I will have to part,” continued Gwyn.Joe glanced at him sidewise.“It’s no use for us to be companions if it means always getting into scapes at home.”Joe began to whistle. His face became perfectly smooth, and he watched his companion, as he picked away at the crystal, while Gwyn looked puzzled.“I say, you’ll break the point of your knife directly,” said Joe.“Well, suppose I do?”“Be a pity. It’s a good knife.”“Well, you won’t see it when it’s broken if we’re going to part.”“Of course not; and you could get to the big grindstone they’ve set up under that shed for the men to grind their picks. Soon give it a fresh point. I say, how jolly that is—only to put on the band over the wheel shaft from the engine, and the stone goes spinning round! I tried it one day on my knife. It was splendid.”“You seem precious glad that we’ve got to part,” said Gwyn.“Not a bit of it. It’s all gammon.”“Eh? What is?”“Talking about separating. It doesn’t mean anything. I know better than that. Come, let’s talk sense.”“That’s what I have been doing,” said Gwyn, stiffly.“Not you; been bantering all the time. They didn’t mean it, and you didn’t mean it. We’re to be partners over the mine some of these days, Ydoll, when we grow up, and they’re tired of it. I say, though, I don’t think I shall like having that Tom Dinass here.”“No,” said Gwyn, thoughtfully. “He looks as if he could bite. Think what he said about getting work was all true?”“I suppose so. Seems reasonable. I don’t like to disbelieve people when they speak out plainly to you.”“No,” said Gwyn, thoughtfully. “If they’ve told you a crammer at some time, it makes all the difference, and you don’t feel disposed to believe them again. Perhaps it’s all right, and when he’s taken on, he may turn out a very good sort of fellow.”“Yes; we shall have to chance it. I say, though, Ydoll, we must be more careful for the future about not getting into scrapes together.”“Won’t matter if we’re not to be companions any more. We can’t get into any, can we?”“Gammon! They didn’t mean it, I tell you. We’ve only got to mind.”“And we begin by getting up here, and running the risk of breaking our legs or wings.”“Well, it was stupid, certainly,” said Joe, thoughtfully. “But then, you see, we were so used to climbing up it that it came quite natural.”“Father says one has got to think about being a man now, and setting to work to understand the mining.”“Yes,” said Joe, with a sigh; “that’s what my father said. Seems rather hard to have to give up all our old games and excursions.”“Then don’t let’s give them up,” said Gwyn, quickly. “They don’t want us to, I know—only to work hard sometimes. There, let’s get down and go and see how they’re getting on at the mine.”“Shall we?” said Joe, doubtingly.“Yes. Why not? We needn’t do anything risky. I haven’t been there since the day the pump was started. Have you?”“No; haven’t been near it.”“Then come on!”Gwyn set the example of descending by lowering his legs over the side, gripping the angle with his knees, and let himself down cleverly, Joe following directly after; while Grip, who had uncurled himself, bounded away before them full of excitement.A week had resulted in a good deal of work being done by the many men employed; the roughly-made office had been advanced sufficiently for the two old officers to take possession, and spend a good deal of time in consultation with Hardock, who was at work from daylight to dusk, superintending, and was evidently most eager for the success of the mine. The tall granite shaft was smoking away, and the puffs of steam and the whirring, buzzing noises told that the engine was fully at work, while a dull heavyclank, clank, came to the boys from the mouth of the shaft.The first person almost that they set eyes upon was Hardock, who came bustling out of the building over the mouth of the shaft, and stopped short to stare. Then, giving his leg a heavy slap, his face expanded into a grin of welcome.“There you are, then, both of you at last. Why, where have you been all this time?”“Oh, busy at home,” said Gwyn, evasively.“Come to knock up an accident of some kind!” said the man, with the grin on his face expanding.“No, I haven’t,” said Gwyn, shortly.“You, then?” cried Hardock, turning to Joe, who coloured like a girl.“Ah, well, we won’t quarrel now you have come, my lads: but the Colonel made my ears sing a bit the other day for not looking more sharply after you both. Well, aren’t you going to ask how the mine is?”“Yes,” said Gwyn, glad to change the subject. “Got all the water out?”“Nay, my lad, nor nothing like all.”“Then you never will,” said Joe. “Depend upon it, there’s a way in somewhere from the sea, and that’s why the old place was forsaken.”“Sounds reasonable,” said Hardock, “’specially as the bits of ore we’ve come across are so rich.”“Yes, that’s it,” said Gwyn. “What a pity, though. How far have you got down?”“Oh, a long way, my lad, and laid open the mouths of two galleries. Wonderful sight of water we’ve pumped out. Don’t seem to get much farther now.”“No, and you never will,” said Joe again, excitedly. “I’m sorry, though. Father will be so disappointed.”“What makes you say that there’s a way in from the sea?” said Hardock, quietly.“Because the shaft’s so near. It’s a very bad job, though.”“But look ye here,” said Hardock, laying his hand on Gwyn’s shoulder, “as you have come, tell me this: how should you try to find out whether it was sea-water we were pumping out?”“Why, by tasting it, of course,” said Gwyn. “It would be quite salt.”“Of course!” said Hardock, with a chuckle, “that’s what I did do.”“And was it salt?” asked Joe.“No, it warn’t. It was fresh, all fresh; only it warn’t good enough to make tea.”“Why?” asked Gwyn.“’Cause you could taste the copper in it quite strong. We shall get the water out, my lads, in time; but it’s a big mine, and goodness knows how far the galleries run. Strikes me that your guv’nors are going to be rich men and— Hullo! What’s he been doing there?”The boys turned, on seeing the direction of the mine captain’s gaze, and they saw Tom Dinass’s back, as he stood, cap in hand, talking to someone inside the office door—someone proving to be the Colonel.“Been to ask to be taken on to work at the mine,” said Gwyn.“But that won’t do, my lads,” cried Hardock, excitedly. “We want to be all friends here, and he belongs to the enemy. They can’t take him on! It would mean trouble, as sure as you’re both there. Oh, they wouldn’t engage he.”Hardock said no more, for Dinass had seen them as he turned from the office door, and came toward them at once.“Are you?” he said to Hardock, without the ‘How’; and the captain nodded in a sulky way.“What do you want here?” he said.“Just whatever you like, captain. I’m an old hand, and ready for anything. The guv’nors have took me on, and I’m come to work.”
Gwyn recognised the voice, and knew what was the matter, and his first aim was to make a rush to protect his dog from the crushing blow which would probably be given him with one of the many weather-worn fragments of granite lying about among the great monoliths. But he was just where he could not make such a rush, for it would have been into a dense bed of gorse as high as himself, and forming achevaux de friseof millions of sharp thorns.
The next best plan was to shout loudly, “You hurt my dog if you dare—” though the man might dare, and cast the stone all the same.
But Gwyn did neither of these things, for another familiar voice rose from beyond the furze, crying loudly,—
“You let that dog alone! You touch him and I’ll set him to worry you. Once he gets his teeth into you, he won’t let go. Here, Grip! Come to heel!”
“Well done, Joe!” muttered Gwyn, who felt that his dog was safe; and he ran to the end of the bank of prickly growth, where there was an opening, and suddenly appeared upon the scene.
It was all just as he had pictured; there was Joe Jollivet, with Grip close to his legs, barking angrily and making short rushes, and there, a few yards away, stood the big, swarthy stranger who had been caught at the mine mouth, and whom Gwyn believed to have tampered with the furnace door, now standing with a big stone of eight or ten pounds’ weight, ready to hurl at the dog if attacked.
“Here, you put down that stone,” cried Gwyn, angrily. “How dare you threaten my dog!”
“Stone aren’t yours,” said the man, tauntingly. “This ground don’t belong to you. Keep your mongrel cur quiet.”
“My dog wouldn’t interfere with you if you let it alone.”
“Oh, it’s your dog, is it?” said the man. “Well, take him home and chain him up. I don’t want to flatten his head, but I jolly soon will if he comes at me.”
“He couldn’t hit Grip,” said Joe, maliciously, as he bent down to pat and encourage the dog. “Set him at the fellow—he has no business here.”
“What!” cried the fellow, who looked a man of three or four-and-thirty, but talked like a boy of their own age. “Much right here as you have. You let me alone, and I’ll let you alone. What business have you to set your beastly dog at me?”
“Who set him at you?” cried Joe. “He only barked at you—he saw you were a stranger—and you picked up a stone, and that, of course, made him mad.”
“So would you pick up a stone, if a savage dog came at you. Look at him now, showing his sharp teeth. On’y wish I had his head screwed up in a carpenter’s bench. I’d jolly soon get the pinchers and nip ’em all out. He wouldn’t have no more toothache while I knew him.”
“There, you be off,” said Gwyn, “while your shoes are good.”
“Don’t wear shoes, young ’un. Mine’s boots.”
“You’re after no good hanging about here.”
“Er—think I want to steal your guv’nor’s pears off the wall, now, don’t yer?”
“How do you know we’ve got pears on our wall?”
“Looked over and see,” said the man, grinning.
“Yes, that’s it; you’re a regular spy, looking for what you can steal,” cried Joe. “Be off!”
“Sha’n’t. Much right here, I tell you, as you have. But I like folks to talk about stealing! Who nipped off with my fishing line and sinker? You give ’em back to me.”
“No; they’re confiscated, same as poachers’ nets,” said Gwyn. “Who sent you here?”
“Sent me here? Sent myself.”
“What for?”
“Wants a job. I’m mining, and I heared you was going to open the old mine. Think your guv’nors’ll take me on?”
“You put down that stone before you ask questions,” said Gwyn.
“You shut up your dog’s mouth, then. I don’t want to kill him, but I aren’t going to have him stick his teeth into me.”
“The dog won’t hurt you if you don’t threaten him. Throw away that stone.”
“There you are, then; but I warn you, if he comes at me, I’ll let him have my boot, and if he does get it, he won’t have any more head.”
“Quiet, Grip!” said Gwyn, as the man threw away the stone, and the dog whined and said, “Don’t talk to me like that; this fellow isn’t to be trusted; make me drive him away.” At least not in words, for the dog spoke with his eyes, which seemed to suggest that this course should be taken.
“Who are you, and where do you come from?” said Gwyn, looking at the man suspiciously.
“Truro. All sorts o’ places wherever there’s mines open and—work.”
“And you heard that this one was going to be opened?”
“Yes, that’s just what I did hear.”
“Then why did you come spying about the place?”
“Never came spying about; only wanted to know how deep she was. I don’t like mines as is two hundred fathom deep. Too hot enough, and such a long way up and down. Takes all the steam out of you. Will your guv’nors give me a job?”
“Go to the office and ask them; that’s the best way,” said Gwyn, looking at the man suspiciously, as he took off his cap, and began to smooth it round and round.
“Well, p’r’aps that won’t be a bad way,” said the fellow. “But you two won’t say anything again’ me, will you, ’cause of that row we had when you smugged my line and sinker?”
“I don’t think I shall say any more than what happened,” replied Gwyn.
“’Cause it was all over a row, now, warn’t it? Of course, a chap gets his monkey up a bit when it comes to a fight. That’s nat’ral, ar’n’t it?”
Gwyn nodded, and felt as if he did not like the look of the man at all; but at the same time he was ready to own that there might be a good deal of prejudice in the matter.
“Wouldn’t like to go and say a good word for me, would you?” said the man.
“Of course, I should not like to,” said Gwyn, laughing. “How can I go and speak for a man whom I only know through our having two rows with him. That isn’t natural, is it?”
“No, I s’pose not,” said the man, frankly. “Well, I’ll go myself. I say, I am a wunner to work.”
“You’d better tell Colonel Pendarve so,” said Gwyn, smiling.
“Think so? Well, I will, and good luck to me. But, I say, hadn’t you two better make your dog friends with me?”
“No,” said Gwyn, promptly. “Grip will know fast enough whether he ought to be friends with you or no.”
“Would he? Is he clever enough for that?”
“Oh, yes,” said Gwyn; “he knows an honest man when he sees him, doesn’t he, Joe?”
“To be sure he does.”
“Think o’ that, now,” said the man. “All right, then. Don’t you two go again’ me. I’ll start for the office at once.”
“Here, what’s your name?”
“Dinass—Thomas Dinass,” said the man, with a laugh, “but I’m mostly called Tom. That all?”
“Yes, that’s all,” said Gwyn, shortly; and the man turned to go, with the result that Grip made a rush after him, and the man faced round and held up his boot.
“Come here, sir! Come back!” shouted Gwyn; and the dog obeyed at once, but muttering protests the while, as if not considering such an interruption justifiable.
Then all three stood watching till the man had disappeared, the dog uttering an angry whine from time to time, as if still dissatisfied.
At last the two boys, who had met now for the first time since the adventure on the ladder, turned to gaze in each other’s eyes, and ended in exchanging a short nod.
“Going up?” said Gwyn at last.
“Yes; I came on purpose, and found Grip here.”
“So did I come on purpose,” said Gwyn. “Wanted a good think. Lead on.”
Joe went to the tallest of the old stones, and began to climb—no easy task, but one to which he seemed to be accustomed; and after a little difficulty, he obtained foothold, and then, getting a hand well on either side of one of the weather-worn angles, he drew himself higher and higher, and finally perched himself on the top.
Before he was half up, Gwyn began to follow, without a thought of danger, though he did say, “Hold tight; don’t come down on my head.”
Up he went skilfully enough, but before he was at the top, Grip uttered a few sharp barks, raised his ears, became excited, and jumped at the monolith, to scramble up a few feet, drop, and, learning no wisdom from failure, scramble up again and again, and fall back.
Then, as he saw his master reach the top, he threw back his head, opened his jaws, and uttered a most doleful, long-drawn howl, as full of misery and disappointment as a dog could give vent to.
“Quiet, will you!” cried Gwyn, and the dog answered with a sharp bark, to which he added another dismal, long-drawn howl.
“Do you hear!” cried Gwyn; “don’t make that row. Lie down!”
There was another howl.
“Do you want me to throw stones at you?” cried Gwyn, fiercely.
Doubtless the dog did not, for he had an intense aversion to being pelted; but, as if quite aware of the fact that there were no stones to cast, he threw his head up higher than ever, and put all his force into a dismal howl, that was unutterably mournful and strange.
“You wretch! Be quiet! Lie down!” cried Gwyn; but the more he shouted the louder the dog howled, while he kept on making ineffectual efforts to mount the stone.
“Let him be; never mind. He’ll soon get tired. Want to talk.”
The boys settled themselves in uncomfortable positions on the narrow top, where the felspar crystals stood out at uncomfortable angles, and those of quartz were sharper still, and prepared for their long confab. As a matter of course, they would have been ten times as comfortable on the short turf just beyond the furze; but then, that would have been quite easy, and there would have been no excitement, or call upon their skill and energy. There was nothing to be gained by climbing up the stone—nothing to see, nothing to find out; but there was the inclination to satisfy that commonplace form of excelsiorism which tempts so many to try and get to the top. So the boys sat there, thoughtfully gazing out to sea, while the dog, after a good many howls, gave it up for a bad job, curled himself into an ottoman, hid his nose under his bushy collie tail, and went to sleep.
Some minutes elapsed before either of the boys spoke, and when one did, it was with his eyes fixed upon the warm, brown sails of a fishing-lugger, miles away.
It was Gwyn who commenced, and just as if they had been conversing on the subject for some time,—
“Major very angry?”
Joe nodded.
“Awfully. Said, knowing what a state of health he was in, it wasn’t fair for me to go on trying to break my neck, for I was very useful to him when he had his bad fever fits—that it wasn’t pleasant for him to stop at home, expecting to have me brought back in bits.”
“He didn’t say that, did he?”
“Yes, he did—bits that couldn’t be put together again; and that, if this was the result of having you for a companion, I had better give you up.”
Gwyn drew a deep breath, and kicked his heels together with a loud clack. Then there was a long pause.
“Well,” said Gwyn, at last; “are you going to give me up?”
Joe did not make a direct answer, but proposed a question himself.
“What did the Colonel say?”
“Just about the same as your father did; only he didn’t bring in about the fever, nor he didn’t say anything about my being brought home in bits. Said that I was a great nuisance, and he wondered how it was that I could not amuse myself like other boys did.”
“So we do,” said Joe, sharply. “I never knew of a boy yet who didn’t get into a scrape sometimes.”
Gwyn grunted, and frowned more deeply.
“Said it was disgraceful for me to run risks, and cause my mother no end of anxiety, and—”
“Well, go on: what a time you are!” cried Joe, for Gwyn suddenly paused. “What else did he say?”
“Oh, something you wouldn’t like to hear.”
“Yes, I should. Tell me what it was.”
Gwyn took out his knife, and began to pick with the point at a large crystal of pinkish felspar, which stood partly out of the huge block of granite.
“I say, go on. What an aggravating chap you are!”
Gwyn went on picking.
“I say, do you want me to shove you off the top here?”
“No; and you couldn’t, if I did.”
“Oh, couldn’t I?—you’d see. But I say, go on, Ydoll; tell us all about it. I did tell you what my father said.”
“Said he supposed it was from associating with such a boy as you; for he was sure that I was too well-meaning a lad to do such things without being prompted.”
“Oh, my! What a shame!” cried Joe. “It was too bad.”
“Well, I didn’t want to tell you, only you bothered me till I did speak.”
“Of course. Isn’t it better to know than have any one thinking such things of you without knowing. But I say, though, it is too bad; I couldn’t help turning like I did. It came on all at once, and I couldn’t stir.”
“He didn’t mean about that so much. He bullied me for not taking care of you, and stopping you from going up the ladder.”
“Did he? Why, you couldn’t help it.”
“He talked as if he supposed I could, and said if we went out again together, I had better take Grip’s collar and chain, put the collar round your neck, and lead you.”
“Oh I say! Just as if I was a monkey.”
“No; father meant a dog, or a puppy.” Joe gave himself a sudden twist round to face his companion, flushing with anger the while, and as the space on the top of the stone was very small, he nearly slipped off, and had to make a snatch at Gwyn to save himself from an ugly fall.
“There!” cried Gwyn, “you’re at it again. You’ve made up your mind to break your neck, or something else.”
“It was all your fault,” cried Joe, “saying things like that. I don’t believe your father said anything of the kind. It was just to annoy me.”
“What, do you suppose I wanted to go home with fresh trouble to talk about?”
“No, but it’s your nasty, bantering, chaffing way. Colonel Pendarve wouldn’t have spoken about me like that.”
Gwyn laughed.
“I suppose he didn’t say I had better give you up as a companion—”
“Did he?”
“If I was always getting into some scrape or another.”
“No; but I say, Ydoll, did he?”
“Something of the kind. He said it was getting time for me to be thinking of something else beside tops and marbles.”
“Well, so we do. Whoever thinks about tops and marbles now? Why, I haven’t touched such a thing for two years.”
“So I suppose you and I will have to part,” continued Gwyn.
Joe glanced at him sidewise.
“It’s no use for us to be companions if it means always getting into scapes at home.”
Joe began to whistle. His face became perfectly smooth, and he watched his companion, as he picked away at the crystal, while Gwyn looked puzzled.
“I say, you’ll break the point of your knife directly,” said Joe.
“Well, suppose I do?”
“Be a pity. It’s a good knife.”
“Well, you won’t see it when it’s broken if we’re going to part.”
“Of course not; and you could get to the big grindstone they’ve set up under that shed for the men to grind their picks. Soon give it a fresh point. I say, how jolly that is—only to put on the band over the wheel shaft from the engine, and the stone goes spinning round! I tried it one day on my knife. It was splendid.”
“You seem precious glad that we’ve got to part,” said Gwyn.
“Not a bit of it. It’s all gammon.”
“Eh? What is?”
“Talking about separating. It doesn’t mean anything. I know better than that. Come, let’s talk sense.”
“That’s what I have been doing,” said Gwyn, stiffly.
“Not you; been bantering all the time. They didn’t mean it, and you didn’t mean it. We’re to be partners over the mine some of these days, Ydoll, when we grow up, and they’re tired of it. I say, though, I don’t think I shall like having that Tom Dinass here.”
“No,” said Gwyn, thoughtfully. “He looks as if he could bite. Think what he said about getting work was all true?”
“I suppose so. Seems reasonable. I don’t like to disbelieve people when they speak out plainly to you.”
“No,” said Gwyn, thoughtfully. “If they’ve told you a crammer at some time, it makes all the difference, and you don’t feel disposed to believe them again. Perhaps it’s all right, and when he’s taken on, he may turn out a very good sort of fellow.”
“Yes; we shall have to chance it. I say, though, Ydoll, we must be more careful for the future about not getting into scrapes together.”
“Won’t matter if we’re not to be companions any more. We can’t get into any, can we?”
“Gammon! They didn’t mean it, I tell you. We’ve only got to mind.”
“And we begin by getting up here, and running the risk of breaking our legs or wings.”
“Well, it was stupid, certainly,” said Joe, thoughtfully. “But then, you see, we were so used to climbing up it that it came quite natural.”
“Father says one has got to think about being a man now, and setting to work to understand the mining.”
“Yes,” said Joe, with a sigh; “that’s what my father said. Seems rather hard to have to give up all our old games and excursions.”
“Then don’t let’s give them up,” said Gwyn, quickly. “They don’t want us to, I know—only to work hard sometimes. There, let’s get down and go and see how they’re getting on at the mine.”
“Shall we?” said Joe, doubtingly.
“Yes. Why not? We needn’t do anything risky. I haven’t been there since the day the pump was started. Have you?”
“No; haven’t been near it.”
“Then come on!”
Gwyn set the example of descending by lowering his legs over the side, gripping the angle with his knees, and let himself down cleverly, Joe following directly after; while Grip, who had uncurled himself, bounded away before them full of excitement.
A week had resulted in a good deal of work being done by the many men employed; the roughly-made office had been advanced sufficiently for the two old officers to take possession, and spend a good deal of time in consultation with Hardock, who was at work from daylight to dusk, superintending, and was evidently most eager for the success of the mine. The tall granite shaft was smoking away, and the puffs of steam and the whirring, buzzing noises told that the engine was fully at work, while a dull heavyclank, clank, came to the boys from the mouth of the shaft.
The first person almost that they set eyes upon was Hardock, who came bustling out of the building over the mouth of the shaft, and stopped short to stare. Then, giving his leg a heavy slap, his face expanded into a grin of welcome.
“There you are, then, both of you at last. Why, where have you been all this time?”
“Oh, busy at home,” said Gwyn, evasively.
“Come to knock up an accident of some kind!” said the man, with the grin on his face expanding.
“No, I haven’t,” said Gwyn, shortly.
“You, then?” cried Hardock, turning to Joe, who coloured like a girl.
“Ah, well, we won’t quarrel now you have come, my lads: but the Colonel made my ears sing a bit the other day for not looking more sharply after you both. Well, aren’t you going to ask how the mine is?”
“Yes,” said Gwyn, glad to change the subject. “Got all the water out?”
“Nay, my lad, nor nothing like all.”
“Then you never will,” said Joe. “Depend upon it, there’s a way in somewhere from the sea, and that’s why the old place was forsaken.”
“Sounds reasonable,” said Hardock, “’specially as the bits of ore we’ve come across are so rich.”
“Yes, that’s it,” said Gwyn. “What a pity, though. How far have you got down?”
“Oh, a long way, my lad, and laid open the mouths of two galleries. Wonderful sight of water we’ve pumped out. Don’t seem to get much farther now.”
“No, and you never will,” said Joe again, excitedly. “I’m sorry, though. Father will be so disappointed.”
“What makes you say that there’s a way in from the sea?” said Hardock, quietly.
“Because the shaft’s so near. It’s a very bad job, though.”
“But look ye here,” said Hardock, laying his hand on Gwyn’s shoulder, “as you have come, tell me this: how should you try to find out whether it was sea-water we were pumping out?”
“Why, by tasting it, of course,” said Gwyn. “It would be quite salt.”
“Of course!” said Hardock, with a chuckle, “that’s what I did do.”
“And was it salt?” asked Joe.
“No, it warn’t. It was fresh, all fresh; only it warn’t good enough to make tea.”
“Why?” asked Gwyn.
“’Cause you could taste the copper in it quite strong. We shall get the water out, my lads, in time; but it’s a big mine, and goodness knows how far the galleries run. Strikes me that your guv’nors are going to be rich men and— Hullo! What’s he been doing there?”
The boys turned, on seeing the direction of the mine captain’s gaze, and they saw Tom Dinass’s back, as he stood, cap in hand, talking to someone inside the office door—someone proving to be the Colonel.
“Been to ask to be taken on to work at the mine,” said Gwyn.
“But that won’t do, my lads,” cried Hardock, excitedly. “We want to be all friends here, and he belongs to the enemy. They can’t take him on! It would mean trouble, as sure as you’re both there. Oh, they wouldn’t engage he.”
Hardock said no more, for Dinass had seen them as he turned from the office door, and came toward them at once.
“Are you?” he said to Hardock, without the ‘How’; and the captain nodded in a sulky way.
“What do you want here?” he said.
“Just whatever you like, captain. I’m an old hand, and ready for anything. The guv’nors have took me on, and I’m come to work.”
Chapter Twenty One.Sam Hardock Disapproves.Clank, clank! andwash, wash! The great pump worked and the water came up clear and bright, to rush along the channel cut in the floor of the adit and pour from the end like a feathery waterfall into the sea, the spray being carried like a shower of rain for far enough on a breezy day. But there seemed to be no end to it, and the proprietors began to look anxious.Still Hardock’s face was always cheery.“Only because she’s so big underground, and there’s such a lot to get out, you see, my lads. She’s right enough. Why, that water’s been collecting from perhaps long before I was born. We shall get her dry some day.”But Dinass, who somehow always seemed to be near when the boys were about the mine, looked solemn, and as soon as Hardock’s back was turned he gave Gwyn a significant wink.“I only hope he’s right,” said the man.“Then you don’t know he is?” said Joe, sharply.“I don’t say nothing, young gents, nothing at all; but that pump’s been going long enough now to empty any mine, and yet, if you both go and look at the water, you’ll see it’s coming as fast as ever and just as clear.”“Because they haven’t got to the bottom of it yet,” said Gwyn.“It aren’t that, young gentleman,” said Dinass, mysteriously. “Of course it aren’t my business, but if the mine belonged to me I should begin to get uncomfortable.”“Why?” asked Joe.“Because I should be thinking that the old folks who digged this mine had to come up it in a hurry one day.”“Why?—because there were bogies and goblins in it?”“No, sir, because they broke through one day into an underground river; and you can’t never pump dry a place like that. But there, I don’t know, gentlemen—that’s only what I think.”The man went about his work, over which he was so assiduous that even Hardock could not complain, and the latter soon after encountered the lads.“Don’t say Dinass told us,” whispered Gwyn. “Sam hates him badly enough as it is. Let him think that it’s our own idea.”“Not got to the bottom of the water yet, then?” said Gwyn.“No, sir—not yet, not yet,” replied the captain, blandly; “and it won’t come any the quicker for you joking me about it.”“But aren’t you beginning to lose heart?”“Lose heart? Wouldn’t do to lose heart over a mine, sir. No, no; man who digs in the earth for metals mustn’t lose heart.”“But we’re not digging, only pumping.”“But we might begin in one of these galleries nearly any time, sir. I’ve been down, and I’ve seen better stuff than they’re getting in some of the mines, I can tell you, sir. But we’d better have the water well under first.”“But suppose you are never going to get it under?”“Eh? No, I don’t s’pose anything of the kind. It’s fresh water, and we must soon bottom it.”“But suppose it’s an underground river, Sam?” said Joe, sharply.“Underground river, my lad? Then that will be a fine chance for you two. I should be for getting my tackle ready, and going fishing as soon as the water’s low enough. Who knows what you might ketch?”“Nothing to laugh at, Sam,” said Gwyn, sternly. “If there should prove to be an underground stream, you’ll never pump the mine dry.”“Never, sir, and I shouldn’t like to try; but,” the man continued with a twinkle of the eye, “the steam-engine will. That’s the beauty of these things—they never get tired. Here’s the guv’nors.”Colonel Pendarve came up with the Major, both looking very serious, and evidently troubled by the slow progress over the water.“Been down the shaft, Hardock?” said the former.“Yes, sir; just come up.”“Any better news?” said the Major, quickly.“No, sir; it’s just about the same. Couldn’t be better.”“Not be better, man! The anxiety is terrible.”“Oh, no, sir,” said Hardock; “that’s only because you worry yourself over it. Water’s been steadily sinking ever since we began to pump.”“But so slowly—so slowly, man.”“Yes, sir, but there’s the wonder of it. Place is bigger than we expected.”“Then the water is falling, Hardock?” said the Colonel.“Yes, sir, steady and sure; and whenever the pump has been stopped, the water hasn’t risen, which is the best sign of all.”“Yes; we must have patience, Jollivet, and wait.”“Yes, sir,” put in Hardock; “and if I might make so bold as to speak I wouldn’t engage anyone else for the present. When the mine’s dry it will be time enough.”“No; better get recruits while we can,” said the Colonel.“But you have ideas on paying wages, sir, and I fancy I know the best sort of men we want.”“Ah, you don’t like the man Dinass,” said the Colonel.“No, sir, I don’t; not at all.”“But you said he worked well and knew his business.”“Yes, sir; but I don’t like him none the more.”“Petty jealousy, my man, because you did not have a word in the business. Come along, Major, and let’s see how the pump’s getting on.”“Jealousy,” grunted Hardock; “just as if I’d be jealous of a chap like that. What yer laughing at, Mr Gwyn?”“You, Sam. Why, you’re as jealous of Dinass as you can be.”“Think so, sir? What do you say, Mr Joe Jollivet?”“Didn’t say anything, but I thought so. You’re afraid of his taking your place as foreman or captain.”“Me?” cried the man, indignantly. “’Fraid of an odd-job sort of a chap, took on like out of charity, being able to take my place? Come, I do like that, Master Joe. What do you think of it, Mr Gwyn?”“Think Joe Jollivet’s right,” said Gwyn, hotly; and Hardock turned upon him angrily,—“Well, aren’t it enough to make me, sir. Here was I out of work through mine after mine being advertised, and none of ’em a bit of good. And what do I do but sit down and puzzle and think out what could be done, till I hit upon Ydoll and went up and examined it, and looked at bits of stuff that I found on the bank and round about the mouth, till I was sure as sure that it was a good thing that had never been properly worked, or they wouldn’t have pitched away the good ore they did. Though what could you expect from people ever so long ago who had no proper machinery to do things with; and the more I work here the more I’m sure of there being heaps of good stuff to be got. Well, what do I do? Talks to you young gents about it, don’t I? and then your fathers laugh at it all, and I’m regularly upset till they took the idea up. Then I set to and got the place in going order, and it’s bound to be a very big thing, and all my doing, as you may say; and then up comes Mr Dinass to shove his nose in like the thin edge of a wedge. How would you both like it if it was you?”“Well, I shouldn’t like it at all,” said Gwyn.“Of course, you wouldn’t, sir, nor Mr Joe neither; and I just tell Mr Tom Dinass this: so long as he goes on and does his work, well and good—I sha’n’t quarrel with him; but if he comes any underhanded games and tries to get me out of my place, I’ll go round the mine with him.”“You’ll do what?” cried Joe.“See how deep the mine is with him, sir, and try how he likes that.”Sam Hardock gave the lads a very meaning nod and walked away, leaving the pair looking inquiringly at each other.“He’d better mind what he’s about,” said Joe. “That Tom Dinass is an ugly customer if he’s put out.”“Yes, but it’s all talk,” said Gwyn. “People don’t pitch one another down mines; and besides, you couldn’t pitch anyone down our mine on account of the platforms. Why, you couldn’t drop more than fifteen or twenty feet anywhere.”“No, but it would be very ugly if those two were to quarrel and fight.”
Clank, clank! andwash, wash! The great pump worked and the water came up clear and bright, to rush along the channel cut in the floor of the adit and pour from the end like a feathery waterfall into the sea, the spray being carried like a shower of rain for far enough on a breezy day. But there seemed to be no end to it, and the proprietors began to look anxious.
Still Hardock’s face was always cheery.
“Only because she’s so big underground, and there’s such a lot to get out, you see, my lads. She’s right enough. Why, that water’s been collecting from perhaps long before I was born. We shall get her dry some day.”
But Dinass, who somehow always seemed to be near when the boys were about the mine, looked solemn, and as soon as Hardock’s back was turned he gave Gwyn a significant wink.
“I only hope he’s right,” said the man.
“Then you don’t know he is?” said Joe, sharply.
“I don’t say nothing, young gents, nothing at all; but that pump’s been going long enough now to empty any mine, and yet, if you both go and look at the water, you’ll see it’s coming as fast as ever and just as clear.”
“Because they haven’t got to the bottom of it yet,” said Gwyn.
“It aren’t that, young gentleman,” said Dinass, mysteriously. “Of course it aren’t my business, but if the mine belonged to me I should begin to get uncomfortable.”
“Why?” asked Joe.
“Because I should be thinking that the old folks who digged this mine had to come up it in a hurry one day.”
“Why?—because there were bogies and goblins in it?”
“No, sir, because they broke through one day into an underground river; and you can’t never pump dry a place like that. But there, I don’t know, gentlemen—that’s only what I think.”
The man went about his work, over which he was so assiduous that even Hardock could not complain, and the latter soon after encountered the lads.
“Don’t say Dinass told us,” whispered Gwyn. “Sam hates him badly enough as it is. Let him think that it’s our own idea.”
“Not got to the bottom of the water yet, then?” said Gwyn.
“No, sir—not yet, not yet,” replied the captain, blandly; “and it won’t come any the quicker for you joking me about it.”
“But aren’t you beginning to lose heart?”
“Lose heart? Wouldn’t do to lose heart over a mine, sir. No, no; man who digs in the earth for metals mustn’t lose heart.”
“But we’re not digging, only pumping.”
“But we might begin in one of these galleries nearly any time, sir. I’ve been down, and I’ve seen better stuff than they’re getting in some of the mines, I can tell you, sir. But we’d better have the water well under first.”
“But suppose you are never going to get it under?”
“Eh? No, I don’t s’pose anything of the kind. It’s fresh water, and we must soon bottom it.”
“But suppose it’s an underground river, Sam?” said Joe, sharply.
“Underground river, my lad? Then that will be a fine chance for you two. I should be for getting my tackle ready, and going fishing as soon as the water’s low enough. Who knows what you might ketch?”
“Nothing to laugh at, Sam,” said Gwyn, sternly. “If there should prove to be an underground stream, you’ll never pump the mine dry.”
“Never, sir, and I shouldn’t like to try; but,” the man continued with a twinkle of the eye, “the steam-engine will. That’s the beauty of these things—they never get tired. Here’s the guv’nors.”
Colonel Pendarve came up with the Major, both looking very serious, and evidently troubled by the slow progress over the water.
“Been down the shaft, Hardock?” said the former.
“Yes, sir; just come up.”
“Any better news?” said the Major, quickly.
“No, sir; it’s just about the same. Couldn’t be better.”
“Not be better, man! The anxiety is terrible.”
“Oh, no, sir,” said Hardock; “that’s only because you worry yourself over it. Water’s been steadily sinking ever since we began to pump.”
“But so slowly—so slowly, man.”
“Yes, sir, but there’s the wonder of it. Place is bigger than we expected.”
“Then the water is falling, Hardock?” said the Colonel.
“Yes, sir, steady and sure; and whenever the pump has been stopped, the water hasn’t risen, which is the best sign of all.”
“Yes; we must have patience, Jollivet, and wait.”
“Yes, sir,” put in Hardock; “and if I might make so bold as to speak I wouldn’t engage anyone else for the present. When the mine’s dry it will be time enough.”
“No; better get recruits while we can,” said the Colonel.
“But you have ideas on paying wages, sir, and I fancy I know the best sort of men we want.”
“Ah, you don’t like the man Dinass,” said the Colonel.
“No, sir, I don’t; not at all.”
“But you said he worked well and knew his business.”
“Yes, sir; but I don’t like him none the more.”
“Petty jealousy, my man, because you did not have a word in the business. Come along, Major, and let’s see how the pump’s getting on.”
“Jealousy,” grunted Hardock; “just as if I’d be jealous of a chap like that. What yer laughing at, Mr Gwyn?”
“You, Sam. Why, you’re as jealous of Dinass as you can be.”
“Think so, sir? What do you say, Mr Joe Jollivet?”
“Didn’t say anything, but I thought so. You’re afraid of his taking your place as foreman or captain.”
“Me?” cried the man, indignantly. “’Fraid of an odd-job sort of a chap, took on like out of charity, being able to take my place? Come, I do like that, Master Joe. What do you think of it, Mr Gwyn?”
“Think Joe Jollivet’s right,” said Gwyn, hotly; and Hardock turned upon him angrily,—
“Well, aren’t it enough to make me, sir. Here was I out of work through mine after mine being advertised, and none of ’em a bit of good. And what do I do but sit down and puzzle and think out what could be done, till I hit upon Ydoll and went up and examined it, and looked at bits of stuff that I found on the bank and round about the mouth, till I was sure as sure that it was a good thing that had never been properly worked, or they wouldn’t have pitched away the good ore they did. Though what could you expect from people ever so long ago who had no proper machinery to do things with; and the more I work here the more I’m sure of there being heaps of good stuff to be got. Well, what do I do? Talks to you young gents about it, don’t I? and then your fathers laugh at it all, and I’m regularly upset till they took the idea up. Then I set to and got the place in going order, and it’s bound to be a very big thing, and all my doing, as you may say; and then up comes Mr Dinass to shove his nose in like the thin edge of a wedge. How would you both like it if it was you?”
“Well, I shouldn’t like it at all,” said Gwyn.
“Of course, you wouldn’t, sir, nor Mr Joe neither; and I just tell Mr Tom Dinass this: so long as he goes on and does his work, well and good—I sha’n’t quarrel with him; but if he comes any underhanded games and tries to get me out of my place, I’ll go round the mine with him.”
“You’ll do what?” cried Joe.
“See how deep the mine is with him, sir, and try how he likes that.”
Sam Hardock gave the lads a very meaning nod and walked away, leaving the pair looking inquiringly at each other.
“He’d better mind what he’s about,” said Joe. “That Tom Dinass is an ugly customer if he’s put out.”
“Yes, but it’s all talk,” said Gwyn. “People don’t pitch one another down mines; and besides, you couldn’t pitch anyone down our mine on account of the platforms. Why, you couldn’t drop more than fifteen or twenty feet anywhere.”
“No, but it would be very ugly if those two were to quarrel and fight.”
Chapter Twenty Two.A Mental Kink.The time went on, with the carpenters and engineers hard at work. As fast as the water was lowered enough, fresh platforms were placed across the shaft. After a little consideration and conference with Hardock, it was decided not to let the men go up and down the mine by means of ladders on account of the labour and loss of time, but to erect one of the peculiar beams used in some mines, the platforms being at equal distances favouring the arrangement.The boys were present at the consultation, and when it was over they went off for a stroll, Grip following in a great state of excitement, and proceeding to stalk the gulls whenever he saw any searching for spoil on the grassy down at the top of the cliffs.But the dog had no success. The gulls always saw him coming, and let him creep pretty near before giving a few hops with outstretched wings, and then sailing away just above his head, leaving him snapping angrily and making his futile bounds.After a time the boys threw themselves on the grass at the top of one of the highest cliffs, from whence they could look down through the transparent sea at the purply depths, or at the pale-green shallows, where the sand had drifted, or again, at where all the seaweed was of a rich golden brown.It was a lovely day, and in the offing the tints on the sea were glorious, but the boys had no eyes for anything then. So to speak, they were looking back at the meeting which had just taken place at Colonel Pendarve’s.“Father looked very serious about these lift things,” said Gwyn, at last.“Enough to make him; it’s nothing but pay, pay, pay. I want to see them get to work and make money. It will be skilly and bread for us if the mine fails.”“’Tisn’t going to fail. Don’t be a coward. See what a grand thing this new apparatus will be.”“Will it?” said Joe. “I don’t understand it a bit.”“Why, it’s easy enough.”“I can understand about a bucket or a cage, let up and down by a rope running over a wheel, but this seems to me to be stupid.”“Nonsense! It’s you who are stupid. Can’t you see that a great beam is to go from the top to the bottom of the mine?”“That’s nonsense. Where are they going to get one long enough?”“Can’t they join a lot together till it is long enough, old Wisdom teeth? Of course, it will have to be made in bits, and put together.”“Well, what then?” cried Joe.“What then? Sam Hardock and the engineer explained it simply enough. The beam is to have a little standing-place on it at every eighteen feet.”“Yes, I understand that, and it’s to be attached to an engine lever which will raise it eighteen feet, and then lower it eighteen feet.”“Of course. Well, what’s the good of pretending you did not understand?”“I didn’t pretend; I don’t understand.”Gwyn laughed.“You are a fellow! There’ll be a ledge for a man to stand on, all down the beam from top to bottom exactly opposite the regular platform.”“Yes, I understand that.”“Well, then, what is it you don’t understand?” cried Gwyn, smiling.“How it works.”“Why, you said you did just now. Oh, I say, Jolly-wet, what a foggy old chap you are. You said as plain as could be, that the beam rose and fell eighteen feet.”“Oh, yes, I said that, but I don’t understand about the men.”“Well, you are a rum one, Joe. Is it real, or are you making believe?”“Real. Now, suppose it was us who wanted to go down.”“Well, suppose it was us.”“What do we do?”“Why, we—”“No, no, let me finish. I say, what do we do? We step on the ledge attached to the beam?”“Of course we do, only one at a time.”“Very well, then, one at a time. Then down goes the beam eighteen feet to the next platform.”“Yes, and then up it rises again eighteen feet, and most likely there’d be a man on every ledge, from top to bottom.”“Well, what’s the good of that?”“Good? Why, so that the men can ride up or down when they’re tired, and do away with the ladders.”“Isn’t that absurd? I’m sure my father never meant to put a lot of money into this thing so as to give the men a ride up and down on a patent see-saw.”“Oh I say, Joe, what a chap you are! What have you got in your head?”“This old see-saw that Hardock and the engineer want us to have, of course.”“Well, can’t you see how good it will be?”“No, I can’t, nor you neither.”“But don’t you see it sends the men all down eighteen feet into the mine?”“Of course I can. Never mind the men. Suppose it’s me, and I step on. It sends me down eighteen feet.”“Yes, at one stride, and then comes up again; can’t you see that?”“Of course, I can. It comes up again, and brings me up with it, ready to go down again. Why, it’s no good. It will be only like a jolly old up-and-down.”Gwyn stared at his companion.“What are you talking about?” he said, but in a less confident tone.“You know, this gimcrack thing that was to do so much. Why the idea’s all wrong. Don’t you see?”Gwyn stared at his companion again.“Nonsense!” he cried, “it’s all right. There’ll be a man step on to it at every platform, and then down he’ll go.”“Of course, and when he has gone down eighteen or twenty feet, up he’ll come again. It sounds very pretty, but it’s all a muddle. It’s just like the story of the man who wanted to go to America, so he went up in a balloon and stayed there for hours and waited till the world had turned round enough, so as to come down in America.”“Oh, but this is all right; they explained it exactly to my father, and I saw it all plainly enough then: it was as clear as could be,” said Gwyn, thoughtfully. “A man stepped on and went down.”“Yes, and the beam rose and he came up again.”Gwyn scratched his head and looked regularly puzzled, and the more he tried to see the plan clearly, the more confused he grew.“Here, I can’t make it out now,” he said at last.“Of course you can’t, my lad; it’s all wrong.”“But if it is, there will be a terrible loss.”“To be sure there will.”“Let’s go and talk to my father about it.”“Or mine,” said Joe.“Our place is nearest, or perhaps father’s in the office,” cried Gwyn, excitedly. “Mind, I don’t say you’re right, because I seemed to see it all so clearly, though it has all turned misty and stupid like now.”“I know how it was,” said Joe. “Sam Hardock had got the idea in his head, and he explained it all so that it seemed right; but it isn’t, and the more I think about it, the more I wonder that no one saw what a muddle it was before.”“Gammon!” cried Gwyn, springing up, and the two lads started back toward the mine; but they were not destined to reach it then, for they had not gone above a hundred yards along by the edge of the cliff, when they came upon Dinass seated with his back to a rock, smoking his pipe and gazing out to sea between his half-closed eyelids.“Hallo!” shouted Gwyn; “what are you doing here?”“Smoking,” said the man, coolly.“Well, I can see that,” cried Gwyn. “How is it you are not at work?”“’Cause a man can’t go on for ever without stopping. Man aren’t a clock, as only wants winding up once a week; must have rest sometimes.”“Well, you have the night for rest,” said Gwyn, sharply.“Sometimes,” said Dinass; “but I was working the pump all last night.”“Oh, then you’re off work to-day?”“That’s so, young gentleman, and getting warm again in the sun. It was precious cold down there in the night, and I got wet right through to my backbone. I’m only just beginning to get a bit dried now.”“Look here, Ydoll,” said Joe, sharply; “he’ll have been talking to Sam Hardock about it, I know. Here, Tom Dinass, what about that hobby up-and-down thing Sam Hardock wants to have in the mine?”“’Stead of ladders? Well, what about it?”“It’s all nonsense, isn’t it?”“Well, I shouldn’t call it nonsense,” said the man, thoughtfully, as he took his pipe out of his mouth and sat thinking.“What do you call it, then?” said Joe.“Mellancolly, sir, that’s what I call it—mellancolly.”“Because it won’t work?” cried Joe.“But it would work, wouldn’t it?” said Gwyn.“Oh, yes, sir, it would work,” said the man, “because the engine would pump it up and down.”“Of course it would,” said Joe; “but what’s the use of having a thing that pumps up and down, unless it’s to bring up water?”“Ay, but this is a thing as pumps men up and down,” said Dinass.“Gammon! It’s impossible.”Dinass looked at him in astonishment.“No, it aren’t,” he said gruffly. “I’ve been pumped up and down one times enough, so I ought to know.”“You have?” said Gwyn, eagerly.“Ay, over Redruth way.”“There, then it is right,” cried Gwyn. “I knew it was. What an old jolly wet blanket you are, Joe!”“But it can’t be right,” cried Joe, stubbornly. “Here you get on a bit of a shelf and stand there and the beam goes down twenty feet.”“Nay, it don’t,” said Dinass, interrupting; “only twelve foot.”“Well it’s all the same—it might be twenty feet, mightn’t it?”“I s’pose so, sir. Ones I’ve seen only goes twelve foot at a jog.”“Twelve feet, then; and then it jigs up again,” cried Joe.“Ay, just like a pump. Man-engines they call ’em,” said Dinass; “but I have heard ’em called farkuns.”(Note:Fahr-Kunst. First used in the Harz Mountain mines.)“Then you’ve seen more than one?” cried Gwyn.“More than one, sir! I should think I have!”“And they do go well?”“Oh, yes, sir, they go well enough after a fashion.”“Can’t,” cried Joe.“But they do, sir,” said Dinass. “I’ve seen ’em and gone down deep mines on ’em.”“Now you didn’t—you went down twelve feet,” said Joe, more stubbornly than ever.“Yes, sir, twelve foot at a time.”“And then came up twelve feet.”“That’s right, sir.”“Then what’s the good of them if they only give you a ride up and down twelve feet?”“To take you to the bottom.”“But they can’t,” cried Joe.“I dunno about can’t!” said the man, gruffly; “all I know is that they do take ’em up or down whenever you like, and saves a lot of time, besides being (I will say that for ’em) a regular rest.”“What, through just stepping on a shelf of the beam and stopping there?”“Who said anything about stopping there?” cried the man, roughly. “You steps on to the shelf and down goes the beam twelve foot, and you steps off on to a bit o’ platform. Up goes the beam and brings the next shelf level with you, and on you gets to that. Down you go another twelve foot, or another twenty-four. Steps off, up comes the next shelf, and you steps on. Down she goes again, and you steps on and off, and on and off, going down twelve foot at a time, till you’re at the bottom, or where you want to be part of the way down at one of the galleries.”“Of course,” cried Gwyn, triumphantly. “I knew it was German, all right, only I got a bit foggy over it when you said it wasn’t.”“But—”“I knew there was something. We forgot about stepping off and letting the beam rise.”Joe scratched his head.“Don’t you see now?” cried Gwyn.“Beginning to: not quite,” said Joe, still in the same confused way. Then, with a start, he gave his leg a hearty slap. “Why, of course,” he cried, “I see it all clearly enough now. You step on and go down, and then step on and go up, and then you step on—and step on. Oh, I say, how is it the thing does work after all?”“Why you—” began Gwyn, roaring with laughter the while, but Joe interrupted him.“No, no; I’ve got it all right now. I see clearly enough. But it is puzzling. What an obstinate old block you were, Ydoll.”“Eh? Oh, come, I like that,” cried Gwyn. “Why you—” Then seeing the mirthful look on his companion’s face he clapped him on the shoulder. “You did stick to it, though, that it wouldn’t go, and no mistake.”“Well, I couldn’t see it anyhow. It was a regular puzzle,” said Joe, frankly. “But I say, Tom Dinass, what made you call these man-engines melancholy things?”“’Cause of the mischief they doos, sir. I do hope you won’t have one here.”“Why? What mischief do they do?” cried Gwyn.“Kills the poor lads sometimes. Lad doesn’t step on or off at the right time, and he gets chopped between the step and the platform. It’s awful then. ’Bliged to be so very careful.”“Man who goes down a mine ought to be very careful.”“O’ course, sir; but they things are horrid bad. I don’t like ’em.”“But they can’t be so dangerous as ladders, or going down in a bucket at the end of a string or chain; you might fall, or the chain might break. Such things do happen,” said Gwyn.“Ay, sir, they do sometimes; but I don’t like a farkun. Accident’s an accident, and you must have some; but these are horrid, and we shall be having some accident with that dog of yours if we don’t mind.”“Accident?” said Gwyn. “What do you mean?”“He’ll be a-biting me, and I shall have to go into horspittle.”“Oh, he won’t hurt you,” cried Gwyn.“Don’t know so much about that, sir,” said the man, grinning. “I should say if he did bite he would hurt me a deal. Must have a precious nice pair o’ legs, or he wouldn’t keep smelling ’em as he does, and then stand licking his jaws.”“I tell you he won’t hurt you,” cried Gwyn. “Here, Grip—come away.”The dog looked up at his master, and passed his tongue about his lower jaw.“Look at that, sir,” said Dinass, laughing; but there was a peculiar look in his eyes. “Strikes me as he’d eat cold meat any day without pickles.”“I’ll take care he sha’n’t bite your legs, with or without pickles,” said Gwyn, laughing. “Come along, Joe, and let’s go and have a talk to Sam Hardock about the—what did he call it—far—far—what?”“I don’t know,” replied Joe; “but somehow I wish Master Tom Dinass hadn’t been taken on.”“Going to have a man-engine, are they?” muttered Dinass, as he sat watching the two lads from the corners of his eyes. “Seems to me that things have gone pretty nigh far enough, and they’ll have to be stopped. Won’t eat my legs with or without pickles, won’t he? No, he won’t if I know it. Getting pretty nigh all the water out too. Well, I daresay there’ll be enough of it to drown that dog.”
The time went on, with the carpenters and engineers hard at work. As fast as the water was lowered enough, fresh platforms were placed across the shaft. After a little consideration and conference with Hardock, it was decided not to let the men go up and down the mine by means of ladders on account of the labour and loss of time, but to erect one of the peculiar beams used in some mines, the platforms being at equal distances favouring the arrangement.
The boys were present at the consultation, and when it was over they went off for a stroll, Grip following in a great state of excitement, and proceeding to stalk the gulls whenever he saw any searching for spoil on the grassy down at the top of the cliffs.
But the dog had no success. The gulls always saw him coming, and let him creep pretty near before giving a few hops with outstretched wings, and then sailing away just above his head, leaving him snapping angrily and making his futile bounds.
After a time the boys threw themselves on the grass at the top of one of the highest cliffs, from whence they could look down through the transparent sea at the purply depths, or at the pale-green shallows, where the sand had drifted, or again, at where all the seaweed was of a rich golden brown.
It was a lovely day, and in the offing the tints on the sea were glorious, but the boys had no eyes for anything then. So to speak, they were looking back at the meeting which had just taken place at Colonel Pendarve’s.
“Father looked very serious about these lift things,” said Gwyn, at last.
“Enough to make him; it’s nothing but pay, pay, pay. I want to see them get to work and make money. It will be skilly and bread for us if the mine fails.”
“’Tisn’t going to fail. Don’t be a coward. See what a grand thing this new apparatus will be.”
“Will it?” said Joe. “I don’t understand it a bit.”
“Why, it’s easy enough.”
“I can understand about a bucket or a cage, let up and down by a rope running over a wheel, but this seems to me to be stupid.”
“Nonsense! It’s you who are stupid. Can’t you see that a great beam is to go from the top to the bottom of the mine?”
“That’s nonsense. Where are they going to get one long enough?”
“Can’t they join a lot together till it is long enough, old Wisdom teeth? Of course, it will have to be made in bits, and put together.”
“Well, what then?” cried Joe.
“What then? Sam Hardock and the engineer explained it simply enough. The beam is to have a little standing-place on it at every eighteen feet.”
“Yes, I understand that, and it’s to be attached to an engine lever which will raise it eighteen feet, and then lower it eighteen feet.”
“Of course. Well, what’s the good of pretending you did not understand?”
“I didn’t pretend; I don’t understand.”
Gwyn laughed.
“You are a fellow! There’ll be a ledge for a man to stand on, all down the beam from top to bottom exactly opposite the regular platform.”
“Yes, I understand that.”
“Well, then, what is it you don’t understand?” cried Gwyn, smiling.
“How it works.”
“Why, you said you did just now. Oh, I say, Jolly-wet, what a foggy old chap you are. You said as plain as could be, that the beam rose and fell eighteen feet.”
“Oh, yes, I said that, but I don’t understand about the men.”
“Well, you are a rum one, Joe. Is it real, or are you making believe?”
“Real. Now, suppose it was us who wanted to go down.”
“Well, suppose it was us.”
“What do we do?”
“Why, we—”
“No, no, let me finish. I say, what do we do? We step on the ledge attached to the beam?”
“Of course we do, only one at a time.”
“Very well, then, one at a time. Then down goes the beam eighteen feet to the next platform.”
“Yes, and then up it rises again eighteen feet, and most likely there’d be a man on every ledge, from top to bottom.”
“Well, what’s the good of that?”
“Good? Why, so that the men can ride up or down when they’re tired, and do away with the ladders.”
“Isn’t that absurd? I’m sure my father never meant to put a lot of money into this thing so as to give the men a ride up and down on a patent see-saw.”
“Oh I say, Joe, what a chap you are! What have you got in your head?”
“This old see-saw that Hardock and the engineer want us to have, of course.”
“Well, can’t you see how good it will be?”
“No, I can’t, nor you neither.”
“But don’t you see it sends the men all down eighteen feet into the mine?”
“Of course I can. Never mind the men. Suppose it’s me, and I step on. It sends me down eighteen feet.”
“Yes, at one stride, and then comes up again; can’t you see that?”
“Of course, I can. It comes up again, and brings me up with it, ready to go down again. Why, it’s no good. It will be only like a jolly old up-and-down.”
Gwyn stared at his companion.
“What are you talking about?” he said, but in a less confident tone.
“You know, this gimcrack thing that was to do so much. Why the idea’s all wrong. Don’t you see?”
Gwyn stared at his companion again.
“Nonsense!” he cried, “it’s all right. There’ll be a man step on to it at every platform, and then down he’ll go.”
“Of course, and when he has gone down eighteen or twenty feet, up he’ll come again. It sounds very pretty, but it’s all a muddle. It’s just like the story of the man who wanted to go to America, so he went up in a balloon and stayed there for hours and waited till the world had turned round enough, so as to come down in America.”
“Oh, but this is all right; they explained it exactly to my father, and I saw it all plainly enough then: it was as clear as could be,” said Gwyn, thoughtfully. “A man stepped on and went down.”
“Yes, and the beam rose and he came up again.”
Gwyn scratched his head and looked regularly puzzled, and the more he tried to see the plan clearly, the more confused he grew.
“Here, I can’t make it out now,” he said at last.
“Of course you can’t, my lad; it’s all wrong.”
“But if it is, there will be a terrible loss.”
“To be sure there will.”
“Let’s go and talk to my father about it.”
“Or mine,” said Joe.
“Our place is nearest, or perhaps father’s in the office,” cried Gwyn, excitedly. “Mind, I don’t say you’re right, because I seemed to see it all so clearly, though it has all turned misty and stupid like now.”
“I know how it was,” said Joe. “Sam Hardock had got the idea in his head, and he explained it all so that it seemed right; but it isn’t, and the more I think about it, the more I wonder that no one saw what a muddle it was before.”
“Gammon!” cried Gwyn, springing up, and the two lads started back toward the mine; but they were not destined to reach it then, for they had not gone above a hundred yards along by the edge of the cliff, when they came upon Dinass seated with his back to a rock, smoking his pipe and gazing out to sea between his half-closed eyelids.
“Hallo!” shouted Gwyn; “what are you doing here?”
“Smoking,” said the man, coolly.
“Well, I can see that,” cried Gwyn. “How is it you are not at work?”
“’Cause a man can’t go on for ever without stopping. Man aren’t a clock, as only wants winding up once a week; must have rest sometimes.”
“Well, you have the night for rest,” said Gwyn, sharply.
“Sometimes,” said Dinass; “but I was working the pump all last night.”
“Oh, then you’re off work to-day?”
“That’s so, young gentleman, and getting warm again in the sun. It was precious cold down there in the night, and I got wet right through to my backbone. I’m only just beginning to get a bit dried now.”
“Look here, Ydoll,” said Joe, sharply; “he’ll have been talking to Sam Hardock about it, I know. Here, Tom Dinass, what about that hobby up-and-down thing Sam Hardock wants to have in the mine?”
“’Stead of ladders? Well, what about it?”
“It’s all nonsense, isn’t it?”
“Well, I shouldn’t call it nonsense,” said the man, thoughtfully, as he took his pipe out of his mouth and sat thinking.
“What do you call it, then?” said Joe.
“Mellancolly, sir, that’s what I call it—mellancolly.”
“Because it won’t work?” cried Joe.
“But it would work, wouldn’t it?” said Gwyn.
“Oh, yes, sir, it would work,” said the man, “because the engine would pump it up and down.”
“Of course it would,” said Joe; “but what’s the use of having a thing that pumps up and down, unless it’s to bring up water?”
“Ay, but this is a thing as pumps men up and down,” said Dinass.
“Gammon! It’s impossible.”
Dinass looked at him in astonishment.
“No, it aren’t,” he said gruffly. “I’ve been pumped up and down one times enough, so I ought to know.”
“You have?” said Gwyn, eagerly.
“Ay, over Redruth way.”
“There, then it is right,” cried Gwyn. “I knew it was. What an old jolly wet blanket you are, Joe!”
“But it can’t be right,” cried Joe, stubbornly. “Here you get on a bit of a shelf and stand there and the beam goes down twenty feet.”
“Nay, it don’t,” said Dinass, interrupting; “only twelve foot.”
“Well it’s all the same—it might be twenty feet, mightn’t it?”
“I s’pose so, sir. Ones I’ve seen only goes twelve foot at a jog.”
“Twelve feet, then; and then it jigs up again,” cried Joe.
“Ay, just like a pump. Man-engines they call ’em,” said Dinass; “but I have heard ’em called farkuns.”
(Note:Fahr-Kunst. First used in the Harz Mountain mines.)
“Then you’ve seen more than one?” cried Gwyn.
“More than one, sir! I should think I have!”
“And they do go well?”
“Oh, yes, sir, they go well enough after a fashion.”
“Can’t,” cried Joe.
“But they do, sir,” said Dinass. “I’ve seen ’em and gone down deep mines on ’em.”
“Now you didn’t—you went down twelve feet,” said Joe, more stubbornly than ever.
“Yes, sir, twelve foot at a time.”
“And then came up twelve feet.”
“That’s right, sir.”
“Then what’s the good of them if they only give you a ride up and down twelve feet?”
“To take you to the bottom.”
“But they can’t,” cried Joe.
“I dunno about can’t!” said the man, gruffly; “all I know is that they do take ’em up or down whenever you like, and saves a lot of time, besides being (I will say that for ’em) a regular rest.”
“What, through just stepping on a shelf of the beam and stopping there?”
“Who said anything about stopping there?” cried the man, roughly. “You steps on to the shelf and down goes the beam twelve foot, and you steps off on to a bit o’ platform. Up goes the beam and brings the next shelf level with you, and on you gets to that. Down you go another twelve foot, or another twenty-four. Steps off, up comes the next shelf, and you steps on. Down she goes again, and you steps on and off, and on and off, going down twelve foot at a time, till you’re at the bottom, or where you want to be part of the way down at one of the galleries.”
“Of course,” cried Gwyn, triumphantly. “I knew it was German, all right, only I got a bit foggy over it when you said it wasn’t.”
“But—”
“I knew there was something. We forgot about stepping off and letting the beam rise.”
Joe scratched his head.
“Don’t you see now?” cried Gwyn.
“Beginning to: not quite,” said Joe, still in the same confused way. Then, with a start, he gave his leg a hearty slap. “Why, of course,” he cried, “I see it all clearly enough now. You step on and go down, and then step on and go up, and then you step on—and step on. Oh, I say, how is it the thing does work after all?”
“Why you—” began Gwyn, roaring with laughter the while, but Joe interrupted him.
“No, no; I’ve got it all right now. I see clearly enough. But it is puzzling. What an obstinate old block you were, Ydoll.”
“Eh? Oh, come, I like that,” cried Gwyn. “Why you—” Then seeing the mirthful look on his companion’s face he clapped him on the shoulder. “You did stick to it, though, that it wouldn’t go, and no mistake.”
“Well, I couldn’t see it anyhow. It was a regular puzzle,” said Joe, frankly. “But I say, Tom Dinass, what made you call these man-engines melancholy things?”
“’Cause of the mischief they doos, sir. I do hope you won’t have one here.”
“Why? What mischief do they do?” cried Gwyn.
“Kills the poor lads sometimes. Lad doesn’t step on or off at the right time, and he gets chopped between the step and the platform. It’s awful then. ’Bliged to be so very careful.”
“Man who goes down a mine ought to be very careful.”
“O’ course, sir; but they things are horrid bad. I don’t like ’em.”
“But they can’t be so dangerous as ladders, or going down in a bucket at the end of a string or chain; you might fall, or the chain might break. Such things do happen,” said Gwyn.
“Ay, sir, they do sometimes; but I don’t like a farkun. Accident’s an accident, and you must have some; but these are horrid, and we shall be having some accident with that dog of yours if we don’t mind.”
“Accident?” said Gwyn. “What do you mean?”
“He’ll be a-biting me, and I shall have to go into horspittle.”
“Oh, he won’t hurt you,” cried Gwyn.
“Don’t know so much about that, sir,” said the man, grinning. “I should say if he did bite he would hurt me a deal. Must have a precious nice pair o’ legs, or he wouldn’t keep smelling ’em as he does, and then stand licking his jaws.”
“I tell you he won’t hurt you,” cried Gwyn. “Here, Grip—come away.”
The dog looked up at his master, and passed his tongue about his lower jaw.
“Look at that, sir,” said Dinass, laughing; but there was a peculiar look in his eyes. “Strikes me as he’d eat cold meat any day without pickles.”
“I’ll take care he sha’n’t bite your legs, with or without pickles,” said Gwyn, laughing. “Come along, Joe, and let’s go and have a talk to Sam Hardock about the—what did he call it—far—far—what?”
“I don’t know,” replied Joe; “but somehow I wish Master Tom Dinass hadn’t been taken on.”
“Going to have a man-engine, are they?” muttered Dinass, as he sat watching the two lads from the corners of his eyes. “Seems to me that things have gone pretty nigh far enough, and they’ll have to be stopped. Won’t eat my legs with or without pickles, won’t he? No, he won’t if I know it. Getting pretty nigh all the water out too. Well, I daresay there’ll be enough of it to drown that dog.”
Chapter Twenty Three.Grip takes an Interest.“Now, Joe, this ought to be a big day,” said Gwyn, one bright morning. “Father’s all in a fidget, and he looked as queer at breakfast as if he hadn’t slept all night.”“Wasn’t any as if,” replied Joe; “my father says he didn’t sleep a wink for thinking about the mine.”“Oh, but people often say they haven’t slept a wink when they’ve been snoring all the night. See how the fellows used to say it at Worksop. I never believed them.”“But when father says it you may believe him, for when he has fits of the old jungle fever come back, I’m obliged to give him his doses to make him sleep.”“Well I woke ever so many times wondering whether it was time to get up. Once the moon was shining over the sea, and it was lovely. It would have been a time to have gone off to Pen Ree Rocks congering.”“Ugh, the beasts!” exclaimed Joe. “But, I say, what a thing it will be if the place turns out no good after all this trouble and expense.”“Don’t talk about it,” said Gwyn. “But Sam says it’s right enough.”“And Tom Dinass shakes his head and says—as if he didn’t believe it could be—that he hopes it may turn out all right, but he doubts it.”“Tom Dinass is a miserable old frog croaker. Sam knows. He says there’s no doubt about it. The mine’s rich, and it must have been worked in the old days in their rough way, without proper machinery, till the water got the better of them, and they had to give it up.”“I hope it is so,” said Joe, with a sigh. “But, I say, what about going down?”“Your father won’t go down.”“Oh, yes, he will. He says he shall go in the skep if your father does.”“Oh, my father will go, of course; but he said I’d better not go till the mine was more dry, and the man-engine had been made and fitted.”“Hurrah! Glad of it!”“What do you mean by that?” cried Gwyn, angrily.“What I say! I don’t see why you should be allowed to go, and me stay up at grass.”“Humph! Just the place for you,” said Gwyn.“And what do you mean by that?” cried Joe, angrily in turn.“Proper place for a donkey where there’s plenty of grass.”“Ah, now you’ve got one of your nasty disagreeable fits on. Just like a Cornishman—I mean boy.”“Better be a Cornish chap than a Frenchy.”“Frenchy! We’ve been long enough in England to be English now,” cried Joe. “But it’s too hard for us not to go.”“Regular shame!” said Gwyn. “I’ve been longing for this day so as to have a regular examination. It must be a wonderful place, Joe. Quite a maze.”“Oh, I don’t know,” said Joe, superciliously; “just a long hole, and when you’ve seen one bit you’ve seen all.”“That’s what the fox said to the grapes,” said Gwyn, with a laugh.“No, he didn’t; he said they were sour.”“Never mind; it’s just your way. The place will be wonderful. There are sure to be plenty of crystals and stalactites and wonderful caverns and places. Oh, I do wish we were going down.”“I don’t know that I do now—the place will be horribly damp.”“Fox again.”“Look here, Gwyn Pendarve, if you wish to quarrel, say so, and I’ll go somewhere else.”“But I don’t want to quarrel, Joseph Jollivet, Esquire,” said Gwyn, imitating the other’s stilted way of speaking. “What’s the good of quarrelling with you?”Joe picked up a stone and threw it as far as he could, so as to get rid of some of his irritability; and Grip, who had been sitting watching the boys, wondering what was the matter, went off helter-skelter, found the stone, and brought it back crackling against his sharp white teeth, dropped it at Joe’s feet, and began to dance about and make leaps from the ground, barking, as if saying, “Throw it again—throw it again!”“Lie down, you old stupid!” cried Gwyn.“Let him have a run,” said Joe, picking up the stone and jerking it as far as he could over the short grassy down, the dog tearing off again.“Ugh! Look at your hand,” said Gwyn, “all wet with the dog’s ‘serlimer,’ as the showman called it.”“Oh, that’s clean enough,” said Joe; but he gave his hand a rub on the grass all the same.The dog came back panting, and Joe picked up the stone to give it another jerk, but, looking round for a fresh direction in which to throw it, he dropped the piece of granite.“Come on!” he shouted, as he started off; “they’re going to the shaft.”Gwyn glanced in the direction of the mine, and started after Joe, raced up to him, and they ran along to the building over the mouth, getting there just at the same time as the Colonel and Major Jollivet, the dog coming frantically behind.“Well, boys,” cried the Colonel, “here we are, you see. Wish us luck.”“Of course I do, father,” said Gwyn. “But you’d better let us come, too.”“No, no, no, no,” said the Colonel, “better wait a bit. Besides, you are not dressed for it. We are, you see.”He smilingly drew attention to their shooting caps and boots and long mackintoshes.“Yes,” said the Major, laughing, “we’re ready for a wet campaign.”Gwyn was not in the habit of arguing with his father, whose quietest words always carried with them a military decision which meant a great deal, so he was silent, and contented himself with a glance at Joe, who took his cue from him and remained quiet.Several of the men were there standing about the square iron-bound box attached by a wire rope to a wheel overhead, and known as the skep, which, with another, would be the conveyances of the ore that was to be found, from deep down in the mine to the surface, or, as the miners termed it, to grass; and until the man-engine was finished this was the ordinary way up and down.There was Sam Hardock, muffled up in flannel garments, and wearing a leather cap like a helmet, with a brim, in front of which was his feather represented by a thick tallow candle. He was armed with a stout pick in his belt, and the Colonel and Major both carried large geological hammers.Tom Dinass was there, too, in charge with the engineer of the skep, to ensure a safe descent.Then there were lanthorns, and Hardock, in addition, bore by a strap over his shoulder what looked like a large cartouche box, but its contents were to re-load the lanthorns, being thick tallow candles.“Got plenty of matches, Hardock?” said Gwyn, eagerly.“Oh yes, sir, two tin boxes full.”“We have each a supply of wax matches, too, my boy,” said the Colonel. “All ready, I think,” he continued, turning to the Major, who nodded, and then said to him in a low tone of voice, overheard by the boys in addition to him for whom it was addressed,—“If anybody had told me six months ago that I should do this, I should have called him mad.”“Never mind, old fellow,” said the Colonel, laughingly; “better than vegetating as we were, and doing nothing. It sets my old blood dancing in my veins again to have something like an adventure. Well,” he said aloud, “we may as well make a start. By the way, have you any lunch to take down?”“Oh, yes,” said the Major, tapping a sandwich-box in his coat pocket; “too old a campaigner to forget my rations.”“Right,” said the Colonel, tapping his own breast. “Well, boys, if we get lost and don’t come up again by some time next week, you will have to organise a search-party, and come down and find us.”“Better let us come with you, father, to take care of you both.”The Colonel laughed, and shook his head.“Now, Major,” he cried, “forward!”The Major stepped into the great wooden bucket, the Colonel followed, and then Sam Hardock took his place beside them.“All ready!” cried the Colonel. “Now, Hardock, give the word.”The mining captain obeyed, there was a sharp, clicking noise, as the engineer touched the brake, and the wheel overhead began to revolve; then the skep dropped quickly and silently down through the square hole in the rough plank floor formed over the great open shaft, the pump being now still. Then, all at once, as the boys caught at the stout railing about the opening and looked down, the lanthorns taken began to glow softly and grew brighter for a time; then the light decreased, growing more and more feeble till it was almost invisible, and Gwyn drew a deep breath and looked up at the revolving wheel.“Seems precious venturesome, doesn’t it?” observed Joe.“Not half so bad as going down with a rope round you, and feeling it coming undone,” said Gwyn.“No, but you did have water to fall into,” said Joe. “If the wire rope breaks, they’ll fall on the stone bottom and be smashed.”“Ah, yes,” said Dinass, in solemn tones. “Be a sad business that.”“Will you be quiet, Tom Dinass!” cried Gwyn, irritably. “You’re always croaking about the mine.”“Nay, sir, not me,” replied the man. “It were Mr Joe here as begun talking about the rope breaking and their coming down squelch.”“Well, don’t let anybody talk about such things,” said Gwyn, who spoke as if he had been running hard. “Nearly down now, aren’t they?”“About half, sir,” said the engineer.“Oh, I don’t want to talk,” said Dinass; “only one can’t help thinking it’s queer work for two gents to do. It’s a job for chaps like me. Howsoever, I hope they won’t come to no harm.”Grip growled at something, as if, in fact, he were resenting the man’s words, but it might have only been that he was being troubled by the flea which he had several times that morning tried to scratch out of his thick coat.“You’d better not let them come to harm. I say, mind they don’t come down bang at the bottom,” said Gwyn, after what seemed to be a long time.“He’ll see to that, sir,” said the man, nodding his head in the direction of the engineer.“Yes, young gentlemen, that’s all right. I’ve got the depth to an inch, and they’ll come down as if on to a spring.”“I say, how deep it seems,” said Joe, who also was rather breathless.“Deep, sir!” said Dinass, with a laugh; “you don’t call this deep? Why, it’s nothing to some of the pits out Saint Just way—is it, mate?”“Nothing at all,” said the engineer. “This is a baby.”“Rather an old baby,” said Gwyn, smiling. “Why, this must be the oldest mine in Cornwall.”“Dessay it is, sir,” said the man; and he checked the wheel as he spoke, just as an empty skep of the same size as that which had descended made its appearance and came to a standstill.“Right!” came up from below, in a hollow whisper, and Gwyn drew a deep breath.“You two ought to have gone with ’em,” said Dinass, “and had a look round.”“Oh, don’t bother,” cried Gwyn, petulantly. “I suppose we shall have our turn.”“No offence meant, sir,” said the man. “Better let me go down with you. Dessay I can show you a lot about the mine.”“I suppose it will be all one long passage from the bottom,” said Joe.“Not it, sir,” said Dinass, holding out his bare arm, and spreading his fingers. “It’ll go like that. Lode runs along for a bit like my wrist, and then spreads out like my fingers here, or more like the root of a tree, and they pick along there to get the stuff where it runs richest. But you’ll see. We don’t know yet; but, judging from the water pumped out, this mine must wander a very long way. There’s no knowing how far.”“I say, how long will they stop down?” said Joe.“Oh, I don’t know,” replied Gwyn. “Hours, I daresay.”“Plenty of time for you young gents to take a boat and have half-a-day with the bass. There’s been lots jumping out of the water against Ydoll Point. I should say they’d be well on the feed.”“That’s likely!” said Gwyn. “You don’t suppose we shall leave here till they come up?”“Oh, I didn’t know, sir. Makes no difference to me; only it’ll be rather dull waiting.”Grip uttered a low, uneasy growl again, and looked up at his master, and then went to the opening and peeped down.“Like us to send him down in the skep, sir?” said Dinass, grinning. “Better not, p’r’aps, as he might lose his way.”“No fear of Grip losing his way—eh, Joe?”Joe shook his head.“He’d find his way back from anywhere if he had walked over the ground. Wouldn’t you, Grip?”The dog gave a sharp bark as he turned his head, and then looked down again, whining and uneasy.“What’s the matter, old boy?” said Gwyn. “It’s all right, old man, they’ve gone down. Will you go with me?”The dog uttered a volley of barks, then turned to Dinass and growled.“Quiet, sir!” cried Gwyn. “Look here, Tom Dinass, you must tease him, or he wouldn’t be so disagreeable to you.”“Me? Me tease him, sir! Not me.”“Well, take my advice,” said Gwyn, “don’t. He’s a splendid dog to his friends; so you make good friends with him as soon as you can.”
“Now, Joe, this ought to be a big day,” said Gwyn, one bright morning. “Father’s all in a fidget, and he looked as queer at breakfast as if he hadn’t slept all night.”
“Wasn’t any as if,” replied Joe; “my father says he didn’t sleep a wink for thinking about the mine.”
“Oh, but people often say they haven’t slept a wink when they’ve been snoring all the night. See how the fellows used to say it at Worksop. I never believed them.”
“But when father says it you may believe him, for when he has fits of the old jungle fever come back, I’m obliged to give him his doses to make him sleep.”
“Well I woke ever so many times wondering whether it was time to get up. Once the moon was shining over the sea, and it was lovely. It would have been a time to have gone off to Pen Ree Rocks congering.”
“Ugh, the beasts!” exclaimed Joe. “But, I say, what a thing it will be if the place turns out no good after all this trouble and expense.”
“Don’t talk about it,” said Gwyn. “But Sam says it’s right enough.”
“And Tom Dinass shakes his head and says—as if he didn’t believe it could be—that he hopes it may turn out all right, but he doubts it.”
“Tom Dinass is a miserable old frog croaker. Sam knows. He says there’s no doubt about it. The mine’s rich, and it must have been worked in the old days in their rough way, without proper machinery, till the water got the better of them, and they had to give it up.”
“I hope it is so,” said Joe, with a sigh. “But, I say, what about going down?”
“Your father won’t go down.”
“Oh, yes, he will. He says he shall go in the skep if your father does.”
“Oh, my father will go, of course; but he said I’d better not go till the mine was more dry, and the man-engine had been made and fitted.”
“Hurrah! Glad of it!”
“What do you mean by that?” cried Gwyn, angrily.
“What I say! I don’t see why you should be allowed to go, and me stay up at grass.”
“Humph! Just the place for you,” said Gwyn.
“And what do you mean by that?” cried Joe, angrily in turn.
“Proper place for a donkey where there’s plenty of grass.”
“Ah, now you’ve got one of your nasty disagreeable fits on. Just like a Cornishman—I mean boy.”
“Better be a Cornish chap than a Frenchy.”
“Frenchy! We’ve been long enough in England to be English now,” cried Joe. “But it’s too hard for us not to go.”
“Regular shame!” said Gwyn. “I’ve been longing for this day so as to have a regular examination. It must be a wonderful place, Joe. Quite a maze.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” said Joe, superciliously; “just a long hole, and when you’ve seen one bit you’ve seen all.”
“That’s what the fox said to the grapes,” said Gwyn, with a laugh.
“No, he didn’t; he said they were sour.”
“Never mind; it’s just your way. The place will be wonderful. There are sure to be plenty of crystals and stalactites and wonderful caverns and places. Oh, I do wish we were going down.”
“I don’t know that I do now—the place will be horribly damp.”
“Fox again.”
“Look here, Gwyn Pendarve, if you wish to quarrel, say so, and I’ll go somewhere else.”
“But I don’t want to quarrel, Joseph Jollivet, Esquire,” said Gwyn, imitating the other’s stilted way of speaking. “What’s the good of quarrelling with you?”
Joe picked up a stone and threw it as far as he could, so as to get rid of some of his irritability; and Grip, who had been sitting watching the boys, wondering what was the matter, went off helter-skelter, found the stone, and brought it back crackling against his sharp white teeth, dropped it at Joe’s feet, and began to dance about and make leaps from the ground, barking, as if saying, “Throw it again—throw it again!”
“Lie down, you old stupid!” cried Gwyn.
“Let him have a run,” said Joe, picking up the stone and jerking it as far as he could over the short grassy down, the dog tearing off again.
“Ugh! Look at your hand,” said Gwyn, “all wet with the dog’s ‘serlimer,’ as the showman called it.”
“Oh, that’s clean enough,” said Joe; but he gave his hand a rub on the grass all the same.
The dog came back panting, and Joe picked up the stone to give it another jerk, but, looking round for a fresh direction in which to throw it, he dropped the piece of granite.
“Come on!” he shouted, as he started off; “they’re going to the shaft.”
Gwyn glanced in the direction of the mine, and started after Joe, raced up to him, and they ran along to the building over the mouth, getting there just at the same time as the Colonel and Major Jollivet, the dog coming frantically behind.
“Well, boys,” cried the Colonel, “here we are, you see. Wish us luck.”
“Of course I do, father,” said Gwyn. “But you’d better let us come, too.”
“No, no, no, no,” said the Colonel, “better wait a bit. Besides, you are not dressed for it. We are, you see.”
He smilingly drew attention to their shooting caps and boots and long mackintoshes.
“Yes,” said the Major, laughing, “we’re ready for a wet campaign.”
Gwyn was not in the habit of arguing with his father, whose quietest words always carried with them a military decision which meant a great deal, so he was silent, and contented himself with a glance at Joe, who took his cue from him and remained quiet.
Several of the men were there standing about the square iron-bound box attached by a wire rope to a wheel overhead, and known as the skep, which, with another, would be the conveyances of the ore that was to be found, from deep down in the mine to the surface, or, as the miners termed it, to grass; and until the man-engine was finished this was the ordinary way up and down.
There was Sam Hardock, muffled up in flannel garments, and wearing a leather cap like a helmet, with a brim, in front of which was his feather represented by a thick tallow candle. He was armed with a stout pick in his belt, and the Colonel and Major both carried large geological hammers.
Tom Dinass was there, too, in charge with the engineer of the skep, to ensure a safe descent.
Then there were lanthorns, and Hardock, in addition, bore by a strap over his shoulder what looked like a large cartouche box, but its contents were to re-load the lanthorns, being thick tallow candles.
“Got plenty of matches, Hardock?” said Gwyn, eagerly.
“Oh yes, sir, two tin boxes full.”
“We have each a supply of wax matches, too, my boy,” said the Colonel. “All ready, I think,” he continued, turning to the Major, who nodded, and then said to him in a low tone of voice, overheard by the boys in addition to him for whom it was addressed,—
“If anybody had told me six months ago that I should do this, I should have called him mad.”
“Never mind, old fellow,” said the Colonel, laughingly; “better than vegetating as we were, and doing nothing. It sets my old blood dancing in my veins again to have something like an adventure. Well,” he said aloud, “we may as well make a start. By the way, have you any lunch to take down?”
“Oh, yes,” said the Major, tapping a sandwich-box in his coat pocket; “too old a campaigner to forget my rations.”
“Right,” said the Colonel, tapping his own breast. “Well, boys, if we get lost and don’t come up again by some time next week, you will have to organise a search-party, and come down and find us.”
“Better let us come with you, father, to take care of you both.”
The Colonel laughed, and shook his head.
“Now, Major,” he cried, “forward!”
The Major stepped into the great wooden bucket, the Colonel followed, and then Sam Hardock took his place beside them.
“All ready!” cried the Colonel. “Now, Hardock, give the word.”
The mining captain obeyed, there was a sharp, clicking noise, as the engineer touched the brake, and the wheel overhead began to revolve; then the skep dropped quickly and silently down through the square hole in the rough plank floor formed over the great open shaft, the pump being now still. Then, all at once, as the boys caught at the stout railing about the opening and looked down, the lanthorns taken began to glow softly and grew brighter for a time; then the light decreased, growing more and more feeble till it was almost invisible, and Gwyn drew a deep breath and looked up at the revolving wheel.
“Seems precious venturesome, doesn’t it?” observed Joe.
“Not half so bad as going down with a rope round you, and feeling it coming undone,” said Gwyn.
“No, but you did have water to fall into,” said Joe. “If the wire rope breaks, they’ll fall on the stone bottom and be smashed.”
“Ah, yes,” said Dinass, in solemn tones. “Be a sad business that.”
“Will you be quiet, Tom Dinass!” cried Gwyn, irritably. “You’re always croaking about the mine.”
“Nay, sir, not me,” replied the man. “It were Mr Joe here as begun talking about the rope breaking and their coming down squelch.”
“Well, don’t let anybody talk about such things,” said Gwyn, who spoke as if he had been running hard. “Nearly down now, aren’t they?”
“About half, sir,” said the engineer.
“Oh, I don’t want to talk,” said Dinass; “only one can’t help thinking it’s queer work for two gents to do. It’s a job for chaps like me. Howsoever, I hope they won’t come to no harm.”
Grip growled at something, as if, in fact, he were resenting the man’s words, but it might have only been that he was being troubled by the flea which he had several times that morning tried to scratch out of his thick coat.
“You’d better not let them come to harm. I say, mind they don’t come down bang at the bottom,” said Gwyn, after what seemed to be a long time.
“He’ll see to that, sir,” said the man, nodding his head in the direction of the engineer.
“Yes, young gentlemen, that’s all right. I’ve got the depth to an inch, and they’ll come down as if on to a spring.”
“I say, how deep it seems,” said Joe, who also was rather breathless.
“Deep, sir!” said Dinass, with a laugh; “you don’t call this deep? Why, it’s nothing to some of the pits out Saint Just way—is it, mate?”
“Nothing at all,” said the engineer. “This is a baby.”
“Rather an old baby,” said Gwyn, smiling. “Why, this must be the oldest mine in Cornwall.”
“Dessay it is, sir,” said the man; and he checked the wheel as he spoke, just as an empty skep of the same size as that which had descended made its appearance and came to a standstill.
“Right!” came up from below, in a hollow whisper, and Gwyn drew a deep breath.
“You two ought to have gone with ’em,” said Dinass, “and had a look round.”
“Oh, don’t bother,” cried Gwyn, petulantly. “I suppose we shall have our turn.”
“No offence meant, sir,” said the man. “Better let me go down with you. Dessay I can show you a lot about the mine.”
“I suppose it will be all one long passage from the bottom,” said Joe.
“Not it, sir,” said Dinass, holding out his bare arm, and spreading his fingers. “It’ll go like that. Lode runs along for a bit like my wrist, and then spreads out like my fingers here, or more like the root of a tree, and they pick along there to get the stuff where it runs richest. But you’ll see. We don’t know yet; but, judging from the water pumped out, this mine must wander a very long way. There’s no knowing how far.”
“I say, how long will they stop down?” said Joe.
“Oh, I don’t know,” replied Gwyn. “Hours, I daresay.”
“Plenty of time for you young gents to take a boat and have half-a-day with the bass. There’s been lots jumping out of the water against Ydoll Point. I should say they’d be well on the feed.”
“That’s likely!” said Gwyn. “You don’t suppose we shall leave here till they come up?”
“Oh, I didn’t know, sir. Makes no difference to me; only it’ll be rather dull waiting.”
Grip uttered a low, uneasy growl again, and looked up at his master, and then went to the opening and peeped down.
“Like us to send him down in the skep, sir?” said Dinass, grinning. “Better not, p’r’aps, as he might lose his way.”
“No fear of Grip losing his way—eh, Joe?”
Joe shook his head.
“He’d find his way back from anywhere if he had walked over the ground. Wouldn’t you, Grip?”
The dog gave a sharp bark as he turned his head, and then looked down again, whining and uneasy.
“What’s the matter, old boy?” said Gwyn. “It’s all right, old man, they’ve gone down. Will you go with me?”
The dog uttered a volley of barks, then turned to Dinass and growled.
“Quiet, sir!” cried Gwyn. “Look here, Tom Dinass, you must tease him, or he wouldn’t be so disagreeable to you.”
“Me? Me tease him, sir! Not me.”
“Well, take my advice,” said Gwyn, “don’t. He’s a splendid dog to his friends; so you make good friends with him as soon as you can.”