William reached up his hand slowly and silently.
"It's often been a wonder to me," Sam said, squeezing his kinsman's hand, "that you never looked in that direction yourself; but I'm glad you never did."
"It would have been no use," William said sadly. "I'm not the kind of man to take any girl's fancy."
"Oh, that's all nonsense," Sam said gaily. "I admit that a great many girls like a fellow with a lot of dash and go, and are not particular about his past so long as he has a winning tongue and a smart exterior. But all girls are not built that way. Why, I can fancy you being a perfect hero in some people's eyes."
"You must have a vivid imagination," William said, with a smile; and then Sam put spurs to his horse and galloped away.
William went back to his work behind his counter with a pathetic and far-away look in his eyes. He was glad when the little group of customers were served, and he was left alone for a few minutes.
He had intended going to see the Penlogans that evening, but he decided now that he would not go. While Ruth was free he had a right to look at her and admire her, but he was not sure that that right was his any longer.
He wondered if Sam noticed that he did not congratulate him. He could not get out the words somehow.
He sat down at length with his elbow on the counter, and rested his head on his hand. He began to realise that he had built more on the acquisition of Hillside Farm than he knew. He had hoped in some vague way that the farm would be a bond between him and Ruth. Well, well, it was at an end now; the one romance of his life had vanished. His unspoken love would remain unspoken.
The next day being Sunday, all the characters in this story had time for meditation. Ruth and Ralph walked to Veryan that they might worship once more in the little chapel made sacred to them by the memory of father and mother. Ruth had great difficulty in keeping back the tears. How often she had sat in that bare and comfortless pew holding her father's hand. How she missed him again. How acute and poignant was her sense of loss.
She never once looked at her brother. He sat erect and motionless by her side, but she doubted if he heard the sermon. The thought of the coming separation lay heavy upon him as it did upon her.
On their way back Ruth plucked up her courage and told Ralph of Sam Tremail's proposal the previous afternoon.
Ralph stopped short for a moment, and looked at her.
"Now I understand why you have been so absent-minded," he said at length. "I was afraid you were fretting because I was going away."
"If I fretted, I should try and not let you see," she answered. "You have enough to bear already."
"The thought of leaving you unprotected is the hardest part," he said.
"Would it be a relief to you if I accepted Sam Tremail's offer?" she questioned.
"Supposing you cared for him enough, it would be," he replied. "Sam is a good fellow by all accounts. Socially, he is much above us."
"I have nothing against him," she answered slowly, "nothing! And I am quite sure he meant all he said."
"And do you care for him?"
She shook her head slowly and smiled—
"I neither like him nor dislike him. But he offers me protection and a good home."
"To be free from worry is a great thing," he answered, looking away across the distant landscape; and then he thought of Dorothy Hamblyn, and wondered if love and romance were as much to a woman as to a man.
"Yes, freedom from worry is doubtless a great thing," she said, after a long pause, "but is it the greatest and best?"
But she waited in vain for an answer. Ralph was thinking of something else.
William Menire got up early on Monday morning and helped to tidy up the shop before breakfast. He was not sorry that the working week had begun again. Work left him very little time for brooding and introspection. He had been twice to church the previous day, but he could not remember a word of the sermons. His own thoughts had drowned the voice of the preacher.
"I hope I shall have a busy week," he said to himself, as he helped his apprentice to take down the shutters. "The less I think the happier I shall be."
During breakfast the postman called. There was only one delivery per day, and during Sunday there was no delivery at all.
William glanced at the letters, but did not open any of them. One, in a blue envelope, was from Mr. Jewell, the solicitor. The postmark bore Saturday's date.
"His news is two days late," William reflected. "We really ought to have two deliveries in a place like this."
Then he helped himself to some more bacon. His mother was not so well, and had her breakfast in bed.
No one called him from the shop, so he was allowed to finish his breakfast in peace. Then he turned his attention to his correspondence. The blue envelope was left to the last.
"I wonder if Jewell knows the name of the purchaser?" he reflected, as he inserted a small paper-knife and cut open the envelope. He unfolded the letter slowly, then gave a sudden exclamation.
"Dear Sir,—I am advised by post this morning that your offer for Hillside Farm has been accepted, and——"
But he did not stop to read any further. Rushing into the passage, he seized his hat, and without a word to anyone, hurried away in the direction of St. Ivel as fast as his legs could carry him.
Ralph was standing in the middle of the room measuring with his eye the capacity of an open portmanteau, when William, breathless and excited, burst in upon him. Ruth was seated at the table, the portmanteau by her side.
"I say, Ralph, we've got it," William cried excitedly, without noticing Ruth.
"Got what?" Ralph said, turning suddenly round.
"Got the farm," was the reply. "We jumped to conclusions too soon on Saturday. Jewell says our offer has been accepted."
"Accepted!"
"Ay. Here is the letter, if you like to read it. Shut up your portmanteau, and take it out of sight. You are not going abroad yet awhile."
Ruth, who had risen to her feet on William's sudden appearance, now ran out of the room to hide her tears.
Ralph seized the lawyer's letter and read it slowly and carefully from beginning to end. Then he dropped into a chair and read it a second time. William stood and watched him, with a bright, eager smile lighting up his face.
"It seems all right," Ralph said at length.
"Ay, it's right enough, but I wish we had known earlier."
"It would have saved us a good many anxious and painful hours."
"Never mind. All's well that ends well."
"Oh, we haven't got to the end yet," Ralph said, with a laugh. "If that lode turns out a frost, we shall wish that somebody else had got the place."
"Never!" William said, almost vehemently.
"No?"
"I shall never regret we've got it, or rather that you have, though there isn't an ounce of tin in the whole place."
"Why not?"
"I don't know. One cannot give a reason for everything. But I have a feeling that this opens up a fresh page in the life of both of us."
"That's true enough, but everything depends on the kind of page it will be."
"I'm not worried about that. The thing that interests me is, the powers that be are not going to shunt us as they hoped. Lord St. Goram meant to drive me out of the parish, but I'm not going——"
"Nor I," Ralph interposed, with a laugh; and he shut up the portmanteau, and pushed it against the wall.
"We shall have to keep dark, however, till the deeds are signed," William said. "We must give Sir John no excuse for going back on his bargain. I'd wager my Sunday coat, if I were a betting man, that he hasn't the remotest idea we are the purchasers."
"Won't he look blue when he discovers? You know how he hates me."
"Ay, he has made no secret of that. It is rumoured, however, that he is going to live out of the country, and so he may not get to know for some time. However, we must walk warily till the thing is finally and absolutely settled. Also"—and William lowered his voice to a whisper—"you'd better say nothing yet to your sister."
"Oh, but she knows," Ralph replied.
William looked blank.
"I told her on Saturday what we had been trying to do. I thought she might as well know when the thing, as we thought, had come to an end. Besides, she heard what you said when you came in."
"I forgot all about her for the moment," William said absently. "Perhaps, after all, it is as well she knows. I hope, however, she will not feel in any way obligated to me."
"My dear fellow, what are you talking about?" Ralph said, with a smile. "Why, we owe nearly everything to you."
"No, no. I couldn't have done less, and so far I have received far more than I gave. But I must be getting back, or things will have got tied into a knot," and putting on his hat, he hurried away.
Ruth came back into the room as soon as William had disappeared. Her eyes were still red and her lashes wet with tears, but there was a bright, happy smile on her lips.
"Oh, Ralph," she said, "isn't it almost too good to be true?"
"It may not be so good as it looks," he said, in a tone of banter.
"Oh, it must be, Ralph; for, of course, we shall go back again to Hillside to live."
"But we can't live on nothing, you know, and the whole thing may turn out a frost."
"But you are quite sure it won't, or you and William Menire would not be so elated at getting it."
"Are we elated?"
"You are. You can hardly contain yourself at this moment. You would like to get on the top of the house and shout."
"Which would be a very unwise thing to do. We must not breathe a word to anyone till the thing is absolutely settled."
"And what will you do then?"
"Begin prospecting. If I can get as much out of the place as father sunk in it I shall be quite content."
During the next few weeks William Menire and the Penlogans saw a good deal of each other. Nearly every evening after his shutters had been put up William stole away to St. Ivel. He and Ralph had so many plans to discuss and so many schemes to mature. Ruth was allowed to listen to all the debates, and frequently she was asked to give advice.
It was in some respects a very trying time for William. The more he saw of Ruth the more he admired her. She seemed to grow bonnier every day. The sound of her voice stirred his heart like music, her smile was like summer sunshine. Moreover, she treated him with increasing courtesy, and even tenderness, so much so that it became a positive pain to him to hide his affection. And yet he wanted to be perfectly loyal to his Cousin Sam. Sam had proposed to her, Sam was waiting for an answer, if he had not already received it, and it would be a very uncousinly act to put the smallest obstacle in the way.
Not that William supposed for a moment that he could ever be a rival to Sam in any true sense of the word. On the other hand, he knew that Ruth was of so generous and grateful a nature that she might be tempted to accept him out of pure gratitude if he were bold enough and base enough to propose to her.
So William held himself in check with a firm hand and made no sign, but what the effort cost him no one knew. To sit in the same room with her evening after evening, to watch the play of her features and see the light sparkle in her soft brown eyes, and yet never by word or look betray the passion that was consuming him, was an experience not given to many men.
He was too loyal to his ideals ever to dream of marriage for any cause less than love. Possession was not everything, nor even the greatest thing. If he could have persuaded himself that there was even the remotest possibility of Ruth loving him, he would have gone on his knees to her every day in the week, and would have gladly waited any time she might name.
But he had persuaded himself of the very opposite. He was a dozen years her senior. While she was in the very morning of her youth, he was rapidly nearing youth's eventide. That she could ever care for him, except in a friendly or sisterly fashion, seemed an utter impossibility. The thought never occurred to him but he attempted to strangle it at once.
So the days wore away, and lengthened into weeks, and then the news leaked out in St. Goram that William and Ralph had gone into partnership and had purchased Hillside Farm. For several days little else was talked about. What could it mean? What object could they have in view? For agricultural purposes the place was scarcely worth buying; besides, William Menire knew absolutely nothing about farming, while most people knew that Ralph's tastes did not lie in that direction.
A few people blamed Ralph for "fooling William out of his money," for they rightly surmised that it was chiefly William's money that had purchased the estate. Others whispered maliciously that William had befriended Ralph simply that he might win favour with Ruth; but the majority of people said that William was much too 'cute a business man to be influenced by anybody, whether man or woman, and that if he had invested his money in Hillside Farm he had very good reasons for doing it. The only sensible attitude, therefore, was to wait and see what time would bring forth.
One of the first things Ralph did as soon as the deeds were signed was to send for Jim Brewer. He had heard that the young miner was out of work, and in sore need. He had heard also that Jim had never forgiven himself for not confessing at the outset that it was he who shot the squire by mistake.
Ralph had never seen the young fellow since he came out of prison, and had never desired to see him. He had no love for cowards, and was keenly resentful of the part Brewer had played. Time, however, had softened his feelings. The memory of those dark and bitter months was slowly fading from his mind. Moreover, poor Brewer had suffered enough already for the wrong he had done. He had been boycotted and shunned by almost all who knew him.
Ralph heard by accident one day of the straits to which Brewer had been driven, and his resentment was changed as if by magic into pity. It was easy to blame, easy to fling the word "coward" into the teeth of a weaker brother; but if he had been placed in Jim Brewer's circumstances, would he have acted a nobler part? It was Brewer's care for his mother and the children that led him to hide the truth. Moreover, if he had been wholly a coward, he would never have confessed at all.
Ralph told Ruth what he intended to do, and her eyes filled in a moment.
"Oh, Ralph," she said, "it is the very thing of all others I should like you to do."
"For what reason, Ruth?"
"For every reason that is great and noble and worthy."
"He played a cowardly part."
"And he has paid the penalty, Ralph. Your duty now is to be magnanimous. Besides——" Then she hesitated.
"Besides what?" he asked.
"I have heard you rail at what you call the justice of the strong. You are strong now, you will be stronger in time, and so you must see to it that you don't fall into the same snare."
"Wise little woman," he said affectionately, and then the subject dropped.
It was dark when Jim Brewer paid his visit. He came dejectedly and shamefacedly, much wondering what was in the wind.
Ralph opened the door for him, and took him into his little office.
"I understand you are out of work?" he said, pointing him to a seat.
Jim nodded.
"You understand prospecting, I believe?"
"Yes."
"Well, I can give you a job if you are prepared to take it, and you can begin work to-morrow if you like."
Brewer looked up with dim and wondering eyes, while Ralph further explained, and then he burst into tears.
"I don't deserve it," he sobbed at length. "I did you a mean and cowardly trick, and I've loathed myself for it ever since."
"Oh, well, never mind that now. It is all over and past, and we'd better try and forget it."
"I shall never forget it," Jim said chokingly, "but if you can forgive me, I shall be—oh, so happy!"
"Oh, well, then, I do forgive you, if that is any comfort to you."
Jim hid his face in his hands and burst into fresh weeping.
"Forgive my giving way like this," he said at length. "I ain't quite as strong as I might be. I had influenza a month agone, and it's shook me a goodish bit."
"Why, bless me, you look hungry!" Ralph said, eyeing him closely.
"Do I? I'm very sorry, but the influenza pulls one down terrible."
"But are you hungry?" Ralph questioned.
Jim smiled feebly.
"Oh, I've been hungrier than this," he said; "but I'll be glad to begin work to-morrow morning."
"I'm not sure you're fit. But come into the next room—we are just going to have supper."
Jim hesitated and drew back, but Ralph insisted upon it; and yet, when a plate of meat was placed before him, he couldn't eat.
"Excuse me," he said, his eyes filling, "but the little ones ain't had nothing to-day, and they can't bear it as well as me. If you wouldn't mind me taking it home instead?"
Ruth sprang to her feet in a moment.
"I'll let you have plenty for the little ones," she said, with trembling lips. "Now eat your supper, and enjoy it if you can." And she ran off into the pantry and quickly returned with a small basket full of food, which she placed by his side.
"That ain't for me?" he questioned.
"For you to take home to your mother and the children."
He laid down his knife and fork and rose to his feet.
"I'd like to go home at once, if you don't mind?" he said brokenly.
"But you haven't half finished your supper."
"I'd like to eat it with the little ones and mother, if you wouldn't mind?"
"By all means, if you would rather," Ruth said, smiling through unshed tears.
"I should feel happier," he said; and he emptied his plate into the basket.
Ralph went and opened the door for him, and watched him as he hurried away into the darkness.
He came back after a few minutes, and sat down; but neither he nor Ruth spoke again for some time. It was Ralph who at length broke the silence.
"He may be a long way from being a hero," he said, "but he has a lot of goodness in him. I shall never think hardly of him any more."
Ruth did not reply for a long time, then she said, "I am glad Brewer is to begin prospecting for you."
"Yes?" he questioned.
"I can't explain myself," she answered, "but it seems a right kind of beginning, and I think God's blessing will be upon it."
"We will hope so, at any rate. Yes, we will hope so."
And then silence fell again.
Farmer Jenkins was grimly contemptuous. He hated miners. "They were always messing up things," sinking pits, covering the hillsides with heaps of rubbish, erecting noisy and unsightly machinery, cutting watercourses through fruitful fields, breaking down fences, and, generally speaking, destroying the peace and quietness of a neighbourhood.
He told Ralph to his face that he considered he was a fool.
"Possibly you are right, Mr. Jenkins," Ralph said, with a laugh.
"Ay, and you'll laugh t'other side of your face afore you've done with it."
"You think so?"
"It don't require no thinking over. Yer father sunk all his bit of money in this place, in bringing it under cultivation; and now you're throwing your bit of money after his, and other folks' to boot, in undoin' all he did, and turning the place into a desert again."
"But suppose the real wealth of this place is under the surface, Mr. Jenkins?"
"Suppose the sky falls. I tell 'ee there ain't no wealth except what grows. However, 'tain't no business of mine. If folks like to make fools of their selves and throw away their bit of money, that's their own look-out." And Farmer Jenkins spat on the ground and departed.
Jim Brewer pulled off his coat, and set to work at a point indicated by Ralph to sink a pit.
That was the beginning of what Ruth laughingly called "Great St. Goram Mine," with an emphasis on the word "great."
After watching Jim for a few minutes, Ralph pulled off his coat also, and began to assist his employee. It did not look a very promising commencement for a great enterprise.
The ground was hard and stony, and Jim's strength was not what it had been, nor what it would be providing he got proper food and plenty of it; while Ralph could scarcely be said to be proficient in the use of pick and shovel.
By the end of the third day they had got through the "rubbly ground," as Jim called it, and had struck what seemed a bed of solid rock.
Ralph got intensely excited. He had little doubt that this was the lode, the existence of which his father had accidentally discovered. With the point of his pick he searched round for fissures; but the rock was very closely knit, and he had had no experience in rock working.
Jim Brewer, as a practical miner, showed much more skill, and when Ralph returned to his home that evening his pockets were full of bits of rock that had been splintered from the lode.
"Well, Ralph, what news?" was Ruth's first question when she met him at the door. She was as much excited over the prospecting expedition as he was.
"We've struck something," he said eagerly, "but whether it's father's lode or no I'm not certain yet."
"But how will you find out?"
"I've got a sample in my pocket," he said, with a little laugh. "I'll test it after supper," and he went into his little laboratory and emptied his pockets on the bench.
By the time he had washed, and brushed his hair, supper was ready.
"And who've you seen to-day?" he said, as he sat down opposite his sister.
"Not many people," she said, blushing slightly. "Mr. Tremail called this afternoon."
He looked up suddenly with a questioning light in his eyes. Sam's name had scarcely been mentioned for the last two or three weeks, and whether Ruth had accepted him or rejected him was a matter that had ceased to trouble him. In fact, his mind had been so full of other things that there was no place left for the love affairs of Sam Tremail and his sister.
"Oh, indeed," he said slowly and hesitatingly; "then I suppose by this time it may be regarded as a settled affair?"
"Yes, it is quite settled," she said, and the colour deepened on her neck and face.
"Well, he's a good fellow—a very good fellow by all accounts," he said, with a little sigh. "I shall be sorry to lose you. Still, I don't know that you could have done much better."
"Oh, but you are not going to lose me yet," she answered, with a bright little laugh, though she did not raise her eyes to meet his.
"Well, no. Not for a month or two, I presume. But I have noticed that when men become engaged they get terribly impatient," and he dropped his eyes to his plate again.
"Yes, I have heard the same thing," she replied demurely. "But the truth is, I have decided not to get married at all."
"You mean——"
"I could not accept his offer, Ralph. I think a woman must care an awful lot for a man before she can consent to marry him."
"Andvice versâ," he answered. "Yes, yes, I think you are quite right in that. But how did he take it, Ruth?"
"Not at all badly. Indeed, I think he was prepared for my answer. When he was leaving he met Mary Telfer outside the gate, and he stood for quite a long time laughing and talking with her."
"I did not know he knew her."
"He met her here a fortnight ago."
"Did Mary know why he came here?"
"I don't know. I never told her."
"I am very glad on the whole you have said No to him. Mind you, he's a good fellow, and, as things go, an excellent catch. And yet, if I had to make choice for you, it would not be Sam Tremail. At least I would not place him first."
"And who would you place first?" she questioned, raising her eyes timidly to his.
"Ah, well, that is a secret. No, I am not going to tell you; for women, you know, always go by the rule of contrary."
"If you had gone abroad," Ruth said, after a long pause, "and I had been left alone, I might have given Mr. Tremail a different answer. I don't know. When a good home is offered to a lonely woman the temptation is great. But when I knew that you were going to stay at home, and that Hillside was to be ours once more, I could think of nothing else. Do you think I would leave Hillside for Pentudy?"
"But Hillside is not ours altogether, Ruth."
"It is as good as ours," she answered, with a smile. "William Menire does not want it; he told me so. He said nothing would make him happier than to see me living there again."
"Did he tell you that?"
"He did."
"That's strange. I always understood he did his best to bring about a match between you and Sam Tremail."
"He may have done so. I don't know. He had always a good word for his cousin. On the whole, I think he was quite indifferent."
"William can never be indifferent where his friends are concerned."
"Oh, then, perhaps he will be pleased that I am going to remain to keep house for you."
And then the subject dropped.
Directly supper was over, Ralph retired to his work-room and laboratory, and began with such appliances as he had to grind the stones into powder. It was no easy task, for the rock was hard and of exceedingly fine texture.
Ruth joined him when she had finished her work, and watched him with great interest. His first test was made with the ordinary "vanning shovel," his second with the aid of chemicals. But neither test seemed conclusive or satisfactory.
"There's something wrong somewhere," he said, as he put away his tools. "I must do my next test in the daylight."
Ruth got very anxious as the days passed away. She learned from her brother that he had employed more men to sink further prospecting pits along the course of the lode, but with what results she was unable to discover.
Ralph, for some reason, had grown strangely reticent. He spent very little time at home, and that little was chiefly passed in his laboratory. His face became so serious that she feared for the worst, and refrained from asking questions lest she should add to his anxiety.
William Menire dropped in occasionally of an evening, but she noticed that the one topic of all others was avoided as if by mutual consent. At last Ruth felt as if she could bear the suspense no longer.
"Do tell me, Ralph," she said; "is the whole thing what you call a frost?"
"Why do you ask?" he questioned.
"Because you are so absorbed, and look so terribly anxious."
"I am anxious," he said, "very anxious."
"Then, so far, the lode has proved to be worthless?" she questioned.
"It is either worthless, or else is so rich in mineral that I hardly like to think about it."
"I don't understand," she said.
"Well, it is this way. The tests we have made so far show such a large percentage of tin that I am afraid we are mistaken."
"How? In what way?"
"If there had been a less quantity, I should not have doubted that it was really tin, but there is so much of it that I'm afraid. Now do you understand?"
"But surely you ought to be able to find out?"
"Oh yes; we shall find out in time. A quantity of stuff is in the hands of expert assayers at the present time, and we are awaiting their report. If their final test should harmonise with the others, why—well, I will not say what."
"And when do you expect to hear?"
"I hope, to-morrow morning."
"But why have you kept me in the dark all this time?"
"Because we did not wish to make you anxious. It is bad enough that William and I should be so much on thequi vivethat we are unable to sleep, without robbing you of your sleep also."
"I don't think I shall be robbed of my sleep," she said, with a laugh.
"Then you are not anxious?" he questioned.
"Not very."
"Why not?"
"Because father was not the man to be mistaken in a matter of that kind. If any man in Cornwall knew tin when he saw it, it was father."
"I am glad you are so hopeful," he said; and he went off into his laboratory. He did not tell her that the possibilities of mistake were far more numerous than she had any conception of, and that it was possible for the cleverest experts to be mistaken until certain tests had been applied.
William Menire turned up a little later in the evening, and joined Ralph in his laboratory. He would have preferred remaining in the sitting-room, but Ruth gave him no encouragement to stay. She had grown unaccountably reserved with him of late. He was half afraid sometimes that in some way he had offended her. There was a time, and not so long ago, when she seemed pleased to be in his company, when she talked with him in the freest manner, when she even showed him little attentions. But all that was at an end. Ever since that morning when he had rushed into the house with the announcement that their offer for Hillside Farm had been accepted, she had been distinctly distant and cool with him.
He wondered if Ruth had read his heart better than he had been able to read it himself; wondered whether his love for her had coloured his motives. He had been anxious to act unselfishly; to act without reference to his love for Ruth. He was not so sure that he had done so. And if Ruth had guessed that he hoped to win her favour by being generous to her brother—and to her—then he could understand why she was distant with him now. Ruth's love was not to be bought with favours.
Unconsciously William himself became shy and reserved when Ruth was about. The fear that she mistrusted him made him mistrustful of himself. He felt as though he had done a mean thing, and had been found out. If by chance he caught her looking at him, he fancied there was reproach in her eyes, and so he avoided looking at her as much as possible.
All this tended to deepen the reserve that had grown up between them. Neither understood the other, and William had not the courage to have the matter out with her. A few plain questions and a few plain answers would have solved the difficulty and made two people as happy as mortals could ever hope to be; but, as often happens in this world, the questions were not asked and the unspoken fear grew and intensified until it became absolute conviction.
Ruth did not join her brother and William in the laboratory. She sat near the fire with a lamp by her side and some unfinished work in her lap. She caught up her work every now and then, and plied a few vigorous stitches; then her hands would relax again, and a dreamy, far-away look would come into her eyes.
Now and then a low murmur of voices would come through from the little shed at the back, but she could distinguish nothing that was said. One thing she was conscious of, there was no note of mirth or merriment, no suggestion of laughter, in the sounds that fell on her ear. The hours were so big with Fate, so much was trembling in the balance, that there was no place for anything but the most serious talk.
"Nothing seems of much importance to men but business," she said to herself, with a wistful look in her eyes. "Life consists in the abundance of the things which they possess. They get their joy out of conflict—battle. We women live a life apart, and dream dreams with which they have no sympathy, and see visions which they never see."
The evening wore away unconsciously. The men talked, the woman dreamed, but neither the talk nor the dreams brought much satisfaction.
Ruth stirred herself at length and got supper ready for three, but William would not stay. He had remained much too long already, and had no idea it was so late.
Ruth did not press him, she left that to her brother. Once or twice William looked towards her, but she avoided his glance. Like all women, she was proud at heart. William was conscious that Ruth's invitation was coldly formal. If he remained he would be very uncomfortable.
"No, I must get back," he said decidedly, without again looking at Ruth; and with a hasty good-evening he went out into the dark.
For a few minutes he walked rapidly, then he slackened his pace.
"She grows colder than ever," he said to himself. "She intends me to see without any mistake that if I expected to win her love by favours, I'm hugely mistaken. Well, well!" and he sighed audibly. "To-morrow morning we shall know, I expect, whether it is failure or fortune," he went on, after a long pause. "It's a tremendous risk we are running, and yet I would rather win Ruth Penlogan than all the wealth there is in Cornwall."
William did not sleep well that night. Neither did Ralph nor Ruth. They were all intensely anxious for what the morrow should bring.
By the evening of the following day all St. Goram had heard the news; by the end of the week it was the talk of the county. The discovery of a new tin lode was a matter of considerable importance, not only to the few people directly interested, but to the entire community. It would mean more work for the miner, more trade for the shopkeeper, and more traffic for the railway.
The "out-of-works" straggled into St. Goram by the dozen. Mining experts came to see and report. Newspaper men appeared on the scene at all hours of the day, and wrote astonishing articles for the weekly press. Ralph found himself bombarded on every side. Speculators, financiers, company promotors, editors, reporters, photographers, miners, and out-of-works generally made his life a burden. He would have kept out of sight if he could, and turned William Menire on the crowd. But William was busy winding up his own business. Moreover, his mother was ill, and never seemed happy if he was off the premises.
Ralph almost wished sometimes that he had never discovered the lode. Men came to him for employment who scarcely knew how to handle a shovel, and he often had to take off his coat and show them the way. He was like a beggar who had found a diamond and did not know what to do with it. On all hands people spoke of his good fortune, but after a few weeks he began to be in doubt. Difficulties and worries and vexations began to gather like snowflakes in a winter's storm. Lord St. Goram put in a claim for a certain right of way. The District Council threatened legal proceedings if he interfered with a particular watercourse. Sir John Hamblyn's legal adviser raised a technical point on the question of transfer. The Chancellor of the Duchy sent a formidable list of questions relating to Crown rights, while Farmer Jenkins wanted compensation for the destruction of crops which had never been destroyed.
"I've raised a perfect hornets' nest," Ralph said to William Menire one evening, in his little room at the back of the shop. "Everybody seems to consider me fair game. There isn't a man in the neighbourhood with any real or fancied right who has not put in some trumpery claim or other. The number of lawyers' letters I have received is enough to turn my hair grey."
"Oh, never mind," William said cheerfully, "things will come out right in the end! I am sorry you have to face the music alone, but I'm as fast here as a thief in a mill."
"I know you are," Ralph said sympathetically. "But to tell you the candid truth, I am not so sure that things will come out right."
"Why not?"
"Because everybody is up in arms against us."
"Not everybody."
"Everybody who thinks he can get something out of us. Our little dominion is surrounded by hostile tribes. I never realised till the last few days how completely we are hemmed in. On two sides the Hamblyn estates block our passage, on the third side Lord St. Goram's land abuts, and on the fourth side old Beecham has his fence and his barbed wire, and all these people have struck up a threatening attitude. Sir John is naturally as mad as a hatter that he sold the farm at all. Lord St. Goram is angry that a couple of plebeians should own land in what he regards as his parish; while old Beecham, who regards himself as an aristocrat, sides with his own class, and so between them our fate promises to be that of the pipkin between the iron pots."
"But we need not go beyond the bounds of our own property," William said.
"There you are mistaken," Ralph answered quickly. "Our small empire is not self-contained. There is no public road through it or even to it. Lord St. Goram threatens to block up the only entrance. And you know what going to law with a landed magnate means."
William looked grave.
"Then we must have a 'dressing floor' somewhere," Ralph went on, "and the only convenient place is Dingley Bottom. Water is abundant there. But though God gave it, man owns it, and the owner, like an angry dog, snarls when he is approached."
"Very good," William said, after a pause, "but don't you see we are still masters of the situation?"
"No, I can't say that I do. We are only two very small and very obscure men with a very limited amount of cash. As a matter of fact, I have got to the end of mine. In a battle with these Titans of wealth, what can we do?"
"Sit tight!"
"Easier said than done. Your business life in St. Goram has been terminated. At the present time I am earning nothing. In order to sit tight, we must have something to sit on."
"We can farm Hillside, and live on vegetables."
"Jenkins does not go out till March, and in the meanwhile he is claiming compensation for damages."
"We can easily deal with him. He won't go to law; he is too poor, and has too genuine a horror of lawyers. So he will submit his claim to arbitration."
"But even with Jenkins out of the way, and ourselves installed as farmers, we are still in a very awkward plight. Suppose St. Goram really contests this right of way—which was never hinted at till now—he can virtually ruin us with law costs."
"He would never be so mean as to attempt it."
Ralph laughed bitterly.
"My dear fellow," he said, "I can see clearly enough there is going to be an organised attempt to crush us. As for the question of meanness, that will never be considered for a moment. We are regarded as interlopers who have been guilty of sharp practice. Hence, we must not only be checkmated, but ground into powder."
"They haven't done it yet," William said, with a cheerful smile, "and I'm not going to say die till I'm dead."
Ralph laughed again, and a little less bitterly than before. William's hopefulness was not without its influence upon him.
For a while there was silence, then William spoke again.
"Look here, Ralph," he said; "strength will have to be met with strength. The strong too often know nothing of either mercy or justice. One does not like to say such a thing, or even think it, but this is no time for sentiment."
"Well?"
"You know our hope has been to work the lode ourselves; to increase our plant, as we have made a little money; to employ only St. Goram men, and give each one a share in the concern. It was a benevolent idea, but it is clear we are not to be allowed to carry it out."
"Well?"
"Two courses are still open to us. The first is to fill in the prospecting pits and let the lode lie undeveloped. The second is to let the financiers come in and form a company that shall be strong enough to meet Lord St. Goram and his class on their own ground."
Ralph was silent.
"I know you do not like either alternative," William went on, "but we are pushed up into a corner."
"The first alternative will fail for the reason I mentioned just now," Ralph interposed. "St. Goram will dispute the right of way."
"And he knows we cannot afford to go to law with him."
"Exactly."
"Then we are thrown back on the second alternative, and our little dream of a benevolent autocracy is at an end. Strangers must come in. People who have no interest in St. Goram will find the money. A board of directors will manage the concern, and you and I will be lost in the crowd."
Ralph raised his eyes for a moment, but did not reply.
"Such a plan has its advantages," William went on. "If we had been allowed to carry out our plan, developments would be very slow."
"Not so slow. You must remember that the lode is very rich."
"It would necessarily be slow at the start," William replied. "By letting the financiers come in, the thing will be started right away on a big scale. Every man out of work will have a job, and money will begin to circulate in St. Goram at once."
"That is no doubt true, but—well, it knocks on the head much I had hoped for."
"I know it does; but living in our little corner here, our view may be narrow and prejudiced. There is honest company promoting as well as dishonest. Combination of capital need not be any more wrong than combination of labour. No single man could build a railway from London to Penzance, and stock it; and if he could, it is better that a company should own it, and work it, than a single individual. You prefer a democracy to an autocracy, surely?"
Ralph's face brightened, but he remained silent.
"Suppose you and I had been able to carry out our idea," William went on. "We should have been absolute rulers. Are we either of us wise enough to rule? We might have become, in our own way, more powerful than Lord St. Goram and all the other county magnates rolled into one. Should we have grace enough to use our power justly? We have benevolent intentions, but who knows how money and power might corrupt? They nearly always do corrupt. We complain of the way the strong use their strength; perhaps it is a mercy the temptation is not put in our way."
"Perhaps you are right, William," Ralph said at length, "though I confess I distrust the whole gang of company promoters that have been buzzing about me for the last month."
"Why not consult Sir John Liskeard? He is our member; he is interested in the place. He knows most people, and he would at least bring an unprejudiced mind to bear on the question."
Ralph gave a little gasp. To see Sir John he would have to go to London. If he went to London, he might see Dorothy Hamblyn.
He did not speak for a moment. The sudden vision of Dorothy's face blotted out everything. It was curious how she dominated him still; how his heart turned to her constantly as the needle to the pole; how her face came up before him in the most unexpected places, and at the most unexpected times; how the thought of her lay at the back of all his enterprises and all his hopes.
"It means money going to London," he said at length.
"We must sow if we would reap," William replied, "and our balance at the bank is not quite exhausted yet. Don't forget that we are partners in this enterprise, and in any case we could sell the farm for a great deal more than we gave for it."
"We may be compelled to sell it yet," Ralph said ruefully.
"But not until we are compelled," was the cheerful reply. "No, no; if we don't win this time, it will not be for want of trying."
"My experience has not been encouraging," Ralph answered. "In every struggle so far, I have gone under. The strong have triumphed. Right and justice have been set aside."
"You have gone under only to come to the top again," William laughed.
"But think of father and mother."
"Martyrs in the sacred cause of freedom," William answered. "The rights of the people are not won in a day."
Ralph was silent for a while, then he looked up with a smile.
"Your judgment is sounder than mine," he said. "I will go to London to-morrow."
He had no difficulty in getting an interview with Sir John. The member for the St. Hilary division of the county had his eye on the next election. Moreover, he was keenly interested in the new discovery, and was not without hope that he might be able to identify himself with the concern. He manifested distinct pleasure when Ralph was announced, and gave all his attention to him at once.
Ralph put the whole case before him from start to finish. Liskeard listened attentively with scarcely an interruption. He smiled now and then as Ralph explained his own hope and purpose—his benevolent autocracy, as William called it—and how he had been foiled by the ring of strong men—strong in wealth and social influence—who threatened to strangle all his hopes and schemes.
It took Ralph a long time to tell his story, for he was anxious to leave no point obscure. Sir John listened without the least trace of weariness or impatience. He was too keenly interested to notice how rapidly time was flying.
"I think your partner has the true business instinct," he said at length. "It is almost impossible to carry out great schemes by private enterprise."
"Then you approve of forming a company?"
"Most certainly. I have been expecting to see in the papers for weeks past that such a company had been formed."
"I mistrust the whole lot of them," Ralph said, with a touch of vehemence in his tone. "Everybody appears to be on the make."
"It is of very little use quarrelling with human nature," Sir John said, with a smile. "We must take men as we find them, and be careful to keep our eyes open all the time."
"If someone stronger than yourself ties you to a tree and robs you, I don't see much use in keeping your eyes open," Ralph answered bluntly. "Indeed, it might be a prudent thing to keep your eyes shut."
Liskeard lay back in his chair and laughed heartily.
"I see where you are," he said at length. "Still, there is a soul of honour alive in the world even among business men. Don't forget that our great world of commerce is built on trust. There are blacklegs, of course, but in the main men are honest."
"I am glad to hear it," Ralph answered dubiously. "But now to get to the main point. Will you help us in this thing? William Menire and myself are both inexperienced, both ignorant, both mistrustful of ourselves, and particularly of other people."
"Can you trust me?" Liskeard questioned, with a laugh.
"Yes, we can, or I should not have come to you."
"Then I think I may say I can put the thing through for you."
"It's a good thing," Ralph said warmly. "There is not a lode a quarter so rich in the three parishes. I question if there is anything equal to it in the whole county."
"I have read the assayer's report," Sir John answered.
"And because it is so good," Ralph went on, "I'd like St. Goram to have the first claim, if you understand. If there are any preferences, let them go to the people at home."
"And your share?"
"William and I will leave our interests in your hands. You are a lawyer. All we want is justice and fair play."
"I understand. If you will dine with me at the House to-morrow night I think we shall be able to advance the case a step further."
Ralph got into an omnibus in Fleet Street, and alighted at Westminster. Thence he made his way into St. James's Park. The weather was raw and cold, the trees bare, the paths muddy and deserted. He wandered up and down for the best part of an hour—it was too cold to sit down—then he made his way across Hyde Park Corner and struck Rotten Row.
A few schoolgirls, accompanied by riding masters, were trotting up and down. A few closed carriages rolled by on the macadam road, a few pedestrians sauntered listlessly along under the bare trees.
A few soldiers might be seen talking to giggling nursemaids, but the one face he hungered to see did not reveal itself. He walked almost to Kensington Palace and back again, by which time night had begun to fall. Then with a little sigh he got into a 'bus, and was soon rolling down Piccadilly.
London seemed a lonely place in the summer time; it was lonelier than ever in the winter.
By the end of the following May, Great St. Goram Mine was in full working order. Ralph was installed as managing director; William was made a director and secretary to the company. Lord St. Goram was in Scotland at the time, and when he applied for shares he was too late. His chagrin knew no bounds. He had imagined that he had Ralph and William in the hollow of his hand. That two country bumpkins, as he was pleased to call them, would be able to float a company had not occurred to him. He knew the project that first occupied their thoughts. He knew that he could make it impossible for them to carry their ideas into effect.
His agent had hinted to William that his lordship would be willing to take the farm off their hands at a price; hence, he believed that by applying gentle pressure, and waiting, he would be able in a very short time to get the whole thing into his hands.
For a few weeks he threatened the company with all sorts of pains and penalties, but the company was not to be bluffed. Private interest had to give way before public convenience. Where the welfare of a whole community was at stake, no petty and niggling contention about right of way was allowed to stand. The company made its own right of way, and was prepared to pay any reasonable damage.
With the company at his back, Ralph laughed in the consciousness of his strength. He had never felt strong before. It was a new experience, and a most delightful sensation. He had never lacked courage or will power, but he had been made to feel that environment or destiny—or whatever name people liked to give it—was too strong for him. Strength is relative, and in comparison with the forces arrayed against him, he had felt weaker than an infant.
When his father was driven from his home, he had bowed his head with the rest in helpless submission. When he was arrested on a false and ridiculous charge, he submitted without protest. When he saw his mother dying in a workhouse hospital, he could only groan in bitterness of spirit. When the Brick, Tile, and Clay Company gave him notice to suspend operations, he had tamely to submit. In fact, submission had been the order of his life. It had been given to others to rule; it had been his to obey.
This would not have been irksome if the rule of the strong had been wise and just. But when justice was thrust aside or trampled under foot, as if it had no place in the social order, when equity was only the shuttlecock and plaything of interested people, when the weak were denied their rights simply because they were weak, and the reward of merit was to be cuffed by the tyrant, then his soul revolted and he grew bitter and cynical in spite of himself.
Now, however, the tables had been turned. For the first time in his life he felt himself among the strong. He need no longer sit down tamely under an injustice, or submit to insults in silence. Success was power. Money was power. Combination was power.
He pulled himself up suddenly at length with a feeling almost of terror. He was in danger of becoming what he had condemned so much in others. The force and subtlety of the temptation stood revealed as in a blinding flash. It was so splendid to have strength, to be able to stalk across the land like a giant, to do just what pleased him to do, to consult no one in the doing of it. It was just in that the temptation and the danger lay. It was so easy to forget the weak, to overlook the insignificant, to treat the feeble as of no account. Strength did not constitute right.
That was a truth that tyrants never learned and that Governments too frequently shut their eyes to. God would hold him responsible for his strength. If he had the strength of ten thousand men, he still had no right to do wrong.
So at length he got to see things in their true proportion and perspective. The strength that had come to him was only an adventitious kind of strength, after all. Unless he had another and a better kind of strength to balance it, it might prove his destruction. What he needed most was moral strength, strength to use wisely and justly his opportunities, strength to hold the balance evenly, strength to do the right, whatever it might cost him, to suffer loss for conscience' sake, to do to others what he would they should do to him.
If he ever forgot the pit out of which he had been digged, success would be a failure in the most direful sense.
He trembled when he saw the danger, and prayed God to help him. He was walking on the edge of a precipice and knew it; a precipice over which thousands of so-called successful men had fallen.
"Ruth," he said to his sister one evening, with a grave look in his eyes, "if you ever see me growing proud, remind me that my mother died in a workhouse."
"Ralph?" she questioned, with a look of surprise on her face.
"I am not joking," he said solemnly. "I was never in more sober earnest. I have stood in slippery places many times before, but never in one so slippery as this."
"Are not things going well at the mine?" she asked, in alarm.
"Too well," he answered. "The shareholders will get twenty per cent. on their money the first year."
"And you are a large shareholder," she said, with a look of elation in her eyes.
"Besides which, there are the dues to the landlord, as well as the salary of the manager. Do you not see, Ruth, that this sudden change of fortune is a perilous thing?"
"To some people it might be, Ralph."
"It is to me. It came to me this afternoon as I walked across the 'floors' and men touched their caps to me."
"But you can never forget the past," she said.
"But men do forget the past," he answered. "Would you ever imagine for a moment that Lord Probus, for instance, was not to the manner born?"
"I have seen him only two or three times," she answered; "but it seems to me that he is always trying to be a lord, which proves——"
"Which proves what?"
"Well, you see, a man who is really a gentleman does not try to be one. He is one, and there's an end of it; he hasn't to try."
"Oh, I see. Then forgetting the past is all a pretence?"
"A man may forget his poverty, but I do not think he can forget his parents. You need not remember where mother died, but how she and father lived; their goodness is our greatest fortune."
He did not make any further reply then, and a little later he put on his hat and said—
"I am going along to see William. He went home poorly this morning."
"Poorly?"
"Caught a chill, I fancy. The weather has been very changeable, you know."
Ruth felt a sudden tightening of the strings about her heart, and when Ralph had disappeared she sat down by the window and looked with unseeing eyes out across the garden.
She was back again in the old home, the home in which she had spent so many happy and peaceful years, and from which she had been exiled so long. She was very happy, on the whole, and yet she realised in a very poignant sense that Hillside could never be again what it had been.
It was bound to be something more or something less. Nothing could restore the past, nothing could give back what had been taken away.
The twilight was deepening rapidly across the landscape, the tender green of spring was vanishing into a sombre black. From over the low hill came fitfully the rattle of stamps which had been erected in Dingley Bottom, and occasionally the creak of winding gear could be faintly heard.
From the front windows of the house there was no change in the landscape, but from the kitchen and dairy windows the engine-house, with its tall, clumsy stack, loomed painfully near. Ralph had planted a double line of young trees along the ridge, which in time would shut off that part of the farm given over to mining operations, but at present they were only just breaking into leaf.
It was at first a very real grief to Ruth that the mine so disfigured the farm. She recalled the years of ungrudging toil given by her father to bring the waste land under cultivation, and now the fields were being turned into a desert once more. She soon, however, got reconciled to the change. The best of the fields remained unharmed, and the man and boy who looked after the farm had quite as much as they could attend to. Ralph did not mind so long as there was a bowl of clotted cream on the table at every meal. Beyond that his interest in the farm ceased.
But the mine was a never-failing source of pleasure to him. Tin was not the only product of those mysterious veins that threaded their way through the solid earth. There were nameless ores that hitherto had been treated as of no account because no use had been found for them.
Ralph began making experiments at once. His laboratory grew more rapidly than any other department. His early passion for chemistry received fresh stimulus, and had room for full play, with the result that he made his salary twice over by what he saved out of the waste.
William Menire's interest in the mine was purely commercial, and in that respect he was of great value. He laboured quietly and unceasingly, finding in work the best antidote to loneliness and disappointment. His mother was no longer with him. She had joined the silent procession of the dead. He was thankful for some things that she did not live to see the winding up of his little business—for it seemed little to him now in contrast with the wider and vaster interests of the company with which he was connected. She had been very proud of the shop, particularly proud of the great plate-glass window her son had put in at his own expense.
The edict of Lord St. Goram to restore the house to its original position had been a great blow to her. She had adored the aristocracy—they were not as other men, mean and petty and revengeful—hence the demand of his lordship shattered into fragments one of her most cherished illusions.
She did not live to hear the click and ring of the trowel, telling her that a brick wall was taking the place of the plate glass. On the very last day of her life she heard as usual the tinkle of the shop bell and the murmur of voices below.
When William had laid her to rest in the churchyard he disposed of his stock as rapidly as possible, restored the house to its original condition as far as it was possible to do it, and then turned his back upon St. Goram.
The little village of Veryan was much nearer the mine, much nearer the Penlogans, and just then seemed much nearer heaven. So he got rooms with a garrulous but godly old couple, and settled down to bachelordom with as much cheerfulness as possible.
That he felt lonely—shockingly lonely at times—it was of no use denying. He missed the late customers, the "siding up" when the shutters were closed, the final entries in his day-book and ledger. Big and wealthy and important as the Great St. Goram Tin Mining Company was, and exacting as his labour was in the daytime, he was left with little or nothing to do after nightfall. The evenings hung on his hands. Books were scarce and entertainments few, and sometimes he smoked more than was good for him.
He went to see Ralph as often as he could find a reasonable excuse, and always received the heartiest welcome, but for some reason the cloud of Ruth's reserve never lifted. She was sweet and gentle and hospitable, but the old light had gone out of her eyes and the old warmth from her speech. She rarely looked straight into his face, and rarely remained long in his company.
He puzzled himself constantly to find out the reason, and had not the courage to ask. He wanted to be her friend, to be taken into her confidence, to be treated as a second brother. Anything more than that he never dared hope for. That she might love him was a dream too foolish to be entertained. He was getting old—at any rate he was much nearer forty than thirty, while she was in the very flower of her youth. So he wondered and speculated, and got no nearer a solution of the problem.
Ralph was so engrossed in his own affairs that he never noticed any change, and never guessed that Ruth was the light of William's eyes.
The idea that William Menire might be in love occurred to no one. He was looked upon as a confirmed bachelor, and when the public has assigned a man to that position he may be as free with the girls as he likes without awaking the least suspicion.
Ruth sat by the window until it had grown quite dark, and then a maid came in and lighted the lamp. She took up her work when the maid had gone, and tried to centre her thoughts on the pattern she was working; but her eyes quickly caught a far-away expression, and she found herself listening for the footfall of her brother, while her hands lay listlessly in her lap.
Several times she shook herself—metaphorically—and plied her needle afresh, but the effort never lasted very long. An unaccountable sense of fear or misgiving stole into her heart. She grew restless and apprehensive, and yet she had no tangible reason for anxiety.
William Menire was more her brother's friend than hers, and the fact that he had caught cold was not a matter of any particular moment. Of course a cold might develop into something serious. He might be ill—very ill. He might die. She caught her breath suddenly, and went and opened the door. The stars were burning brightly in the clear sky above, and the wind blew fresh and strong from the direction of Treliskey Plantation. She listened intently for the sound of footsteps, but the only noise that broke the silence was the rattle of the stamps in Dingley Bottom.
Somehow she hated the sound to-night. It grated harshly on her ears. It had no human tone, no note of sympathy. The stamps were grinding out wealth for greedy people, careless of who might suffer or die.
She came in and shut the door after a few moments, and looked apprehensively at the clock. Ralph was making a long call.
The house grew very still at length. The servant went to bed. The clock ticked loudly on the mantelpiece; the wind rumbled occasionally in the chimney.
Suddenly the door opened, and her brother stood before her. His face was flushed, and there was a troubled look in his eyes.
"You are late, Ralph," she said, scarcely daring to look at him.
"William is very ill," he said, as if he had not heard her words, "dangerously ill."
"No!"
"Pneumonia, the doctor fears. He is terribly anxious."
"Who—the doctor?"
"Yes. If William dies I shall lose my best friend."