Chapter Eighteen.

Chapter Eighteen.Meeting a Volcano—and a Placid Lake.Geoffrey came swinging along the path, with his head thrown back and his chest forward, smiling at something that crossed his mind, when he stopped short, for Amos Pengelly suddenly stood in his way.“Ah, Pengelly,” he said, heartily, “how are you, my lad?” and he stretched out his hand.To his astonishment, the miner struck it savagely aside, closed with him, caught him by arm and waistband, and by a clever Cornish wrestling trick, and the exercise of his iron muscles, literally lifted him from the ground.Geoffrey was powerful, and full of youth and vigour, but his antagonist’s dwarfish legs gave him another advantage, and he could have thrown the young man heavily to the ground, but in the very act of dashing him upon the rocks he relented, and let him recover himself.“Have you gone mad, Pengelly?” cried Geoffrey, warmly. “Hang it, man, if you don’t control that confounded temper of yours you’ll be on your trial some day for murder.”“Maybe it’ll be yours,” cried Amos, fiercely. “What have I done to you that you should serve me in this way?”“I? Serve you?” cried Geoffrey, in astonishment, for he had resumed his unruffled manner. “What’s the matter, Amos?”“Where have you been, master?”“Been? Down to Gwennas Cove.”“There, you own it,” cried Amos, with his passion rising again.“Look here, master, there are things that make me mad. I’ve fought like men with beasts at Ephesus, as holy Paul says, and my beasts are the beasts of passion that rise up in me. I’ve fought and I’ve prayed, and I’ve mastered them again and again, but there’s one thing lets them loose, and I can’t keep them down.”“Look here, Pengelly,” said Geoffrey, quietly, “I had hoped when the day came that I could get a good engagement to have you as one of my best men; but, hang me! if I can trust a fellow who has always got a volcano in him ready to burst out.”“Then why do you cross me like this?”“Cross you, my good fellow?” said Geoffrey, as he fixed the miner with his eye. “I’m not going to cross you. There, come along back to Carnac, and let’s talk about yonder mine.”“I want no dealings with such a treacherous man,” cried Amos, fiercely. “But, look here, I warn ye. You’re well-shaped and good to look upon, while I’m only a cripple; but I can’t—there’s that in me that won’t let me—stand by and see another man take up with her as flouts me for what I am.”“Flouts? Take up with her?” said Geoffrey, wonderingly, while the miner’s breast heaved as he seemed to be battling hard to contain himself.Then a light burst upon Geoffrey, and he was ready to burst into a fit of laughter; but he saw that the subject was too serious for mirth, and he exclaimed, in a tone of vexation once more,—“Are all you people mad here upon questions relating to the sexes? Why, my good fellow, where do you think I’ve been?”“You said—to Prawle’s.”“Yes, of course; but what for?”“You’ve been to see her. You’ve been again and again, master, till I can bear it no more. Oh! Master Trethick,” he cried, piteously, “it may be play and trifling with you, but it’s killing me.”“Amos Pengelly,” cried Geoffrey, laying his hand on the miner’s shoulder, “if you think I go over yonder to see Prawle’s daughter you, never made a greater mistake in your life.”Amos drew back and looked full in his eyes, which never flinched for a moment, but frankly returned the gaze.“Say that again,” said the miner, hoarsely.“I won’t,” cried Geoffrey. “Hang it, man! there are bounds to every thing. It’s absurd, it’s—”He stopped short as he saw the man’s emotion, and said kindly, as he held out his hand,—“Pengelly, my lad, as I am a man, I never bestowed a thought on Bessie Prawle, but have been there to sit half-an-hour with her poor sick mother.”The miner’s face changed, and he was about to speak, but he turned sharply round, and limped away with wonderful activity, disappearing amongst the rocks; and, after waiting a few minutes to see if he would return, Geoffrey gave himself a shake, and then stooped to pick up something that fell tinkling on the granite path.“That’s one of my brace buttons gone,” he said pettishly. “Hang the fellow! he’s as strong as a horse. It was enough to break all one’s buttons. So that’s Cornish wrestling, is it? I thought myself pretty clever, but he could have thrown me like a baby.”“Poor fellow, though,” he said to himself, as he went on, “I suppose he did feel cut up and savage with me. But what a set they are—down here, to be sure. Seems to me that they think of nothing but love-making, and that it isn’t safe to look at a woman in the place. What a blessing it is that I am so constituted that all women seem to me to be mothers and sisters—mothers and sisters—sisters—yes, sisters,” he mused, as he looked at his right hand, opening and closing the fingers gently, as he seemed to feel within it a soft, shapely white hand, and traced each tapering finger where Rhoda’s had so lately been.“She would have been a very sweet sister to a man. Full of firmness, and ready to advise and help a fellow in his troubles. It must be very nice to have a sister—such a one as she.”He walked on very slowly, growing moment by moment more thoughtful, and somehow his thoughts were of Rhoda Penwynn; but they were all chased away by the sight of the Reverend Edward Lee coming along the track.“Ah, Mr Lee!” he cried, holding out his hand, “how are you getting along?”The young clergyman started and looked confused. There was a shrinking manner about him as he unwillingly put out his hand to be heartily pressed; but somehow Geoffrey Trethick’s will seemed always to master his, and he replied nervously to his inquiries.“I’ve been going to call upon you over and over again,” said Geoffrey. “Coming for advice, and that sort of thing; but I suppose you are terribly busy over your new cure?”“I am—very busy,” said the other, with a half sigh, as he recalled some of the difficulties of his task; and he looked nervously in Geoffrey’s eyes, and felt constrained to say that he would be very glad to see him.“That’s right,” said Geoffrey, “I shall come. One has not too many cultivated acquaintances down here. And I’m a parishioner, you know.”The Reverend Edward Lee grew bolder for this suggested duty.“And I have not called upon you,” he said. “I have been remiss.”“Ah, well, you’ll make up for that,” said Geoffrey.“Is—is that why I have not seen you at church?” he said.“Oh, no!” said Geoffrey. “That’s because I have been remiss and—ah, here’s Miss Penwynn.”His companion started, and a slight colour came into his pale cheeks as Rhoda came round one of the rocky buttresses of the cliff, and, in spite of himself, as his keen eyes detected the change, Geoffrey felt a suspicion coming upon him that the Reverend Edward Lee had had some idea that Rhoda was walking in this direction, and had turned his steps that way so as to meet her.“Why, she’s blushing, too!” said Geoffrey to himself, as Rhoda came up and shook hands with Mr Lee.“I need not shake hands with you again, Mr Trethick,” she said. “By the way, it is very kind of you to call and talk to that poor Mrs Prawle.”The vicar darted a quick glance from one to the other, and then, without making any pretence of going further, he turned round, and walked back beside Rhoda towards Carnac, Geoffrey coming behind, for the path did not admit of three abreast. The consequence was that he only came in for a stray word here and there, and told himself that being the third party he wasde trop.All the same, though, he found himself taking note of Rhoda’s figure, the carriage of her head, and her free, firm step on the rugged path. This path seemed to trouble the young vicar, who, being short-sighted, more than once caught the toes of his thin boots against some irregularity in the granite, as he talked on in his smooth, easy-flowing way, only interrupted by Rhoda turning her head occasionally to point out some place of interest in the distance.“Parson’s like the rest!” said Geoffrey to himself, as he turned off to the cottage. “He’s touched. I wonder whether she knew that he was coming to meet her, for that he went on purpose, I’ll swear. I wonder whether any thing could be made of Wheal Carnac? What a nice sister she would make! Hallo! Pengelly, you here again? No, no; stand off, my lad: I’ve no more brace buttons to spare. One of your hugs is enough for a day. What?”“I beg your pardon, Master Trethick,” said the miner, humbly; and he stood with his hat off in the track, “I beg your pardon humbly, sir; I do indeed.”“Oh, tut—tut, man, that’s all past,” said Geoffrey, heartily.“No, sir, it arn’t,” said Amos. “I feel that shamed o’ myself that I haven’t got words to speak it. Only please say that you forgive me, and won’t think of it any more.”“Forgive you! Yes, Pengelly, of course; but next time you suspect one of any thing wrong, just bark out aloud before you bite, will you?—it will give a fellow a chance to get out of your way.”“Ah, sir, you don’t know how foolish I feel.”“Do you? Then don’t feel so any more. And now look here, my lad, I want to have a few words with you again about Wheal Carnac.”“Yes, sir—when?”“Oh, soon—say to-morrow morning. I’ll meet you there at your own time.”“Say six, sir. I’m not on at the mine till nine,” said Amos, with his face lighting up; and they parted, for Geoffrey to become aware, as he entered the gate, that Madge Mullion was at the window ready to smile at him as he went in, and a shrewd suspicion smote him that she had been watching for his return.

Geoffrey came swinging along the path, with his head thrown back and his chest forward, smiling at something that crossed his mind, when he stopped short, for Amos Pengelly suddenly stood in his way.

“Ah, Pengelly,” he said, heartily, “how are you, my lad?” and he stretched out his hand.

To his astonishment, the miner struck it savagely aside, closed with him, caught him by arm and waistband, and by a clever Cornish wrestling trick, and the exercise of his iron muscles, literally lifted him from the ground.

Geoffrey was powerful, and full of youth and vigour, but his antagonist’s dwarfish legs gave him another advantage, and he could have thrown the young man heavily to the ground, but in the very act of dashing him upon the rocks he relented, and let him recover himself.

“Have you gone mad, Pengelly?” cried Geoffrey, warmly. “Hang it, man, if you don’t control that confounded temper of yours you’ll be on your trial some day for murder.”

“Maybe it’ll be yours,” cried Amos, fiercely. “What have I done to you that you should serve me in this way?”

“I? Serve you?” cried Geoffrey, in astonishment, for he had resumed his unruffled manner. “What’s the matter, Amos?”

“Where have you been, master?”

“Been? Down to Gwennas Cove.”

“There, you own it,” cried Amos, with his passion rising again.

“Look here, master, there are things that make me mad. I’ve fought like men with beasts at Ephesus, as holy Paul says, and my beasts are the beasts of passion that rise up in me. I’ve fought and I’ve prayed, and I’ve mastered them again and again, but there’s one thing lets them loose, and I can’t keep them down.”

“Look here, Pengelly,” said Geoffrey, quietly, “I had hoped when the day came that I could get a good engagement to have you as one of my best men; but, hang me! if I can trust a fellow who has always got a volcano in him ready to burst out.”

“Then why do you cross me like this?”

“Cross you, my good fellow?” said Geoffrey, as he fixed the miner with his eye. “I’m not going to cross you. There, come along back to Carnac, and let’s talk about yonder mine.”

“I want no dealings with such a treacherous man,” cried Amos, fiercely. “But, look here, I warn ye. You’re well-shaped and good to look upon, while I’m only a cripple; but I can’t—there’s that in me that won’t let me—stand by and see another man take up with her as flouts me for what I am.”

“Flouts? Take up with her?” said Geoffrey, wonderingly, while the miner’s breast heaved as he seemed to be battling hard to contain himself.

Then a light burst upon Geoffrey, and he was ready to burst into a fit of laughter; but he saw that the subject was too serious for mirth, and he exclaimed, in a tone of vexation once more,—

“Are all you people mad here upon questions relating to the sexes? Why, my good fellow, where do you think I’ve been?”

“You said—to Prawle’s.”

“Yes, of course; but what for?”

“You’ve been to see her. You’ve been again and again, master, till I can bear it no more. Oh! Master Trethick,” he cried, piteously, “it may be play and trifling with you, but it’s killing me.”

“Amos Pengelly,” cried Geoffrey, laying his hand on the miner’s shoulder, “if you think I go over yonder to see Prawle’s daughter you, never made a greater mistake in your life.”

Amos drew back and looked full in his eyes, which never flinched for a moment, but frankly returned the gaze.

“Say that again,” said the miner, hoarsely.

“I won’t,” cried Geoffrey. “Hang it, man! there are bounds to every thing. It’s absurd, it’s—”

He stopped short as he saw the man’s emotion, and said kindly, as he held out his hand,—

“Pengelly, my lad, as I am a man, I never bestowed a thought on Bessie Prawle, but have been there to sit half-an-hour with her poor sick mother.”

The miner’s face changed, and he was about to speak, but he turned sharply round, and limped away with wonderful activity, disappearing amongst the rocks; and, after waiting a few minutes to see if he would return, Geoffrey gave himself a shake, and then stooped to pick up something that fell tinkling on the granite path.

“That’s one of my brace buttons gone,” he said pettishly. “Hang the fellow! he’s as strong as a horse. It was enough to break all one’s buttons. So that’s Cornish wrestling, is it? I thought myself pretty clever, but he could have thrown me like a baby.”

“Poor fellow, though,” he said to himself, as he went on, “I suppose he did feel cut up and savage with me. But what a set they are—down here, to be sure. Seems to me that they think of nothing but love-making, and that it isn’t safe to look at a woman in the place. What a blessing it is that I am so constituted that all women seem to me to be mothers and sisters—mothers and sisters—sisters—yes, sisters,” he mused, as he looked at his right hand, opening and closing the fingers gently, as he seemed to feel within it a soft, shapely white hand, and traced each tapering finger where Rhoda’s had so lately been.

“She would have been a very sweet sister to a man. Full of firmness, and ready to advise and help a fellow in his troubles. It must be very nice to have a sister—such a one as she.”

He walked on very slowly, growing moment by moment more thoughtful, and somehow his thoughts were of Rhoda Penwynn; but they were all chased away by the sight of the Reverend Edward Lee coming along the track.

“Ah, Mr Lee!” he cried, holding out his hand, “how are you getting along?”

The young clergyman started and looked confused. There was a shrinking manner about him as he unwillingly put out his hand to be heartily pressed; but somehow Geoffrey Trethick’s will seemed always to master his, and he replied nervously to his inquiries.

“I’ve been going to call upon you over and over again,” said Geoffrey. “Coming for advice, and that sort of thing; but I suppose you are terribly busy over your new cure?”

“I am—very busy,” said the other, with a half sigh, as he recalled some of the difficulties of his task; and he looked nervously in Geoffrey’s eyes, and felt constrained to say that he would be very glad to see him.

“That’s right,” said Geoffrey, “I shall come. One has not too many cultivated acquaintances down here. And I’m a parishioner, you know.”

The Reverend Edward Lee grew bolder for this suggested duty.

“And I have not called upon you,” he said. “I have been remiss.”

“Ah, well, you’ll make up for that,” said Geoffrey.

“Is—is that why I have not seen you at church?” he said.

“Oh, no!” said Geoffrey. “That’s because I have been remiss and—ah, here’s Miss Penwynn.”

His companion started, and a slight colour came into his pale cheeks as Rhoda came round one of the rocky buttresses of the cliff, and, in spite of himself, as his keen eyes detected the change, Geoffrey felt a suspicion coming upon him that the Reverend Edward Lee had had some idea that Rhoda was walking in this direction, and had turned his steps that way so as to meet her.

“Why, she’s blushing, too!” said Geoffrey to himself, as Rhoda came up and shook hands with Mr Lee.

“I need not shake hands with you again, Mr Trethick,” she said. “By the way, it is very kind of you to call and talk to that poor Mrs Prawle.”

The vicar darted a quick glance from one to the other, and then, without making any pretence of going further, he turned round, and walked back beside Rhoda towards Carnac, Geoffrey coming behind, for the path did not admit of three abreast. The consequence was that he only came in for a stray word here and there, and told himself that being the third party he wasde trop.

All the same, though, he found himself taking note of Rhoda’s figure, the carriage of her head, and her free, firm step on the rugged path. This path seemed to trouble the young vicar, who, being short-sighted, more than once caught the toes of his thin boots against some irregularity in the granite, as he talked on in his smooth, easy-flowing way, only interrupted by Rhoda turning her head occasionally to point out some place of interest in the distance.

“Parson’s like the rest!” said Geoffrey to himself, as he turned off to the cottage. “He’s touched. I wonder whether she knew that he was coming to meet her, for that he went on purpose, I’ll swear. I wonder whether any thing could be made of Wheal Carnac? What a nice sister she would make! Hallo! Pengelly, you here again? No, no; stand off, my lad: I’ve no more brace buttons to spare. One of your hugs is enough for a day. What?”

“I beg your pardon, Master Trethick,” said the miner, humbly; and he stood with his hat off in the track, “I beg your pardon humbly, sir; I do indeed.”

“Oh, tut—tut, man, that’s all past,” said Geoffrey, heartily.

“No, sir, it arn’t,” said Amos. “I feel that shamed o’ myself that I haven’t got words to speak it. Only please say that you forgive me, and won’t think of it any more.”

“Forgive you! Yes, Pengelly, of course; but next time you suspect one of any thing wrong, just bark out aloud before you bite, will you?—it will give a fellow a chance to get out of your way.”

“Ah, sir, you don’t know how foolish I feel.”

“Do you? Then don’t feel so any more. And now look here, my lad, I want to have a few words with you again about Wheal Carnac.”

“Yes, sir—when?”

“Oh, soon—say to-morrow morning. I’ll meet you there at your own time.”

“Say six, sir. I’m not on at the mine till nine,” said Amos, with his face lighting up; and they parted, for Geoffrey to become aware, as he entered the gate, that Madge Mullion was at the window ready to smile at him as he went in, and a shrewd suspicion smote him that she had been watching for his return.

Chapter Nineteen.At Wheal Carnac.“I’ve got Wheal Carnac on the brain,” said Geoffrey, as he leaped out of his bed soon after five o’clock, made a great deal of noise and splashing over a tub, and ended by standing up fresh, healthy, and dressed, and calling himself a fool. “Why, I might have taken a towel and had a dip in the sparkling waters,” he said, as he gazed out, to see the ripples stained with blood-red and gold, orange and brilliant topaz with the rising sun. “Why, it would have been a bath in Falernian wine! Never mind—live and learn.”“By George, what was I dreaming? Oh! I remember: that I fell down the old pit-shaft and went on falling into infinite space, with some one like that Tregenna laughing at me the while.”He went softly out of his room and down-stairs, so as not to disturb the other occupants of the house, to find, to his surprise, that the door was open; and, on stepping out into the garden, he came suddenly upon Madge, looking very bright and rosy, with her rich auburn hair taking a fresh tinge from the early morning beams.“Ah, Miss Mullion! Good-morning. You up so soon?”“Yes,” she said eagerly, “I often go out for an early walk down to the sea.”“Not to play at mermaid, and sport in the briny wave!” he asked laughingly.“Oh, dear, no!” she cried with a shiver, “I’m so afraid of the water.”“Are you?” he said, smiling. “Well, it would be a job to get all that pretty hair dry again.”Madge coloured with pleasure.“It is so nice walking over the rocks quite early,” she said.“Yes, I suppose so. Well, I must be off.”“Are you going for a walk?” she said naïvely.“Yes, but only on my way to work. Good-by for the present. I say, Miss Mullion, a nice bit of brown fish for breakfast, please. I shall be as hungry as a hunter when I come back.”He walked sharply off, not seeing that uncle Paul’s blind stirred slightly, and Madge stood gazing after him.“He’s as cold as a stone,” said the girl, petulantly. “I declare I hate him—that I do. But I’ll pique him yet, see if I don’t, clever as he is. He’ll be sorry for this some day. A great, ugly, stupid thing!”The tears of vexation stood in her eyes, but they disappeared almost directly.“He did say it was pretty hair,” she said, with her face lighting up, “and if I don’t make some one jealous yet it’s strange to me.”She hesitated for a few moments as to whether she should take the same path as Geoffrey, and ended by flinging herself petulantly round and entering the house.“It’s a glorious morning,” said Geoffrey, as he went down the steep, stone-paved pathway, drinking in the fresh salt-breeze. “I declare, it’s like living a new life here,” and his chest seemed to expand, and his muscles and nerves grow tense, as the life-blood bounded through his veins.At times he felt as if he would like to rush off and run, like a school-boy, from the full tide of vitality that made his veins throb; but he went on soberly enough, exchanging a nod with different fishermen at their cottage doors, for most of them had come to know him now, and showed their white teeth in a friendly smile as he swung along.He glanced at his watch as he neared the slope up which the mine chimney crawled, like a huge serpent, to the perpendicular shaft on the hill, and found he was an hour before his time; so walking sharply down to a little sandy stretch only bare at very low tides, he slipped off his boots, tied the laces together, and hung them over his shoulder, and then drew off his socks, which he thrust into his pocket, turned up his trousers, and had a good wade; after which, being without a towel, he began to walk along the dry sand so as to let sun and air perform the part of bath attendants, finally taking a seat upon a stone to put the final polish to his toes with a silk pocket-handkerchief.He was bending down, seriously intent upon a few stray particles of sand, when a shadow fell athwart him, and looking up sharply, there stood Rhoda Penwynn.“Oh! I beg your pardon, Mr Trethick,” she cried, colouring.“Beg yours,” he said bluntly, as he started up and held out his hand; for it struck him that under the circumstances the better plan was to ignore his pursuit.“It’s only a matter of custom,” he said to himself; “bare feet are no more indelicate than bare hands or bare shoulders, and if ever she goes to sea she won’t see many sailors wear socks and shoes.”So in the coolest manner possible he walked by Rhoda’s side, as calmly as a barefooted friar of old, and as free from guile; while she felt half-annoyed, half ready to blush, and ended by smiling at her companion’s matter-of-fact ways. For he chatted about the place, the contents of the rock-pools, and the various weeds, and ended in the bluntest way by holding out his hand.“Good-morning, Miss Penwynn, I have an appointment now. Let me say good-by though, with a compliment.”“Please don’t,” said Rhoda.“But I will,” he said, laughing, “I only wanted to say that I admire your early rising ways.”Then nodding in his frank, cheery way, he started off back towards the ruined mine, walking quickly till the acorn barnacles upon the rocks suggested the advisability of putting on his socks and boots, which he rapidly did.“What a Goth she must have thought me!” he said, laughing. “Well, can’t help it if she did.”Then starting off once more, he turned a corner and could see a short, thick-set figure advancing, and waved his hand, to see a cap held up in return.“Morning, Pengelly,” he cried, as he met the miner. “Did you bring a pick?”“No, sir, it looked too business-like,” said Pengelly, “and I thought we’d keep the matter quiet. But is that all over, sir?”“What?” said Geoffrey.“That last night work, sir. I haven’t slep’ a wink for thinking of it.”“Tut, man! I never thought of it again. But, as you have spoken, just look here, Pengelly; you people down here seem to be all mad about marriage.”“Well, I don’t know about mad, sir,” said the miner, apologetically; “but folks do think a deal about coming together.”“So it seems,” said Geoffrey, grimly.“Comes natural like, sir,” said Amos, in a quiet, innocent way; “I think it no shame to say I think a deal of Bessie Prawle, and that’s what made me so mad last night.”“Well, I suppose it was natural, Pengelly. But hang it, man, you must keep that devil of a temper of yours chained.”“I do, sir; I do,” said the miner, piteously. “I fight with it hard; but you, a fine straight man, don’t know what it is to love a handsome girl like my Bessie, and to feel that you are misshapen and unsightly in her eyes.”“Well, but they say pretty girls like ugly men, Pengelly,” said Geoffrey, smiling.“Foolish people say many foolish things, sir,” said the miner. “I can’t believe all that. She’s a handsome girl, and she’s as good as she’s handsome, and waits upon her mother hand and foot. I wish I could bring her though to a better way, for they don’t do as they should; and old Prawle makes a mock at all religious talk. Then people say Bess is a witch, and can ill-wish people, and it worries me, sir, knowing as I do how good she is at heart.”“Well, never mind, Pengelly,” said Geoffrey, cheerily. “Some day, perhaps, Miss Bessie yonder will find out that you are like one of the sea-shells, rough outside but bright and soft within. Eh? But come along, let’s see if we can’t find out something worth our while. I want to get a good mine going, my lad.”“And so do I, sir,” cried the miner. “I want to save money now; and—and—”“Well, what?”“You don’t think it foolish of me to talk, sir, as I have?”“Not I, my lad.”“It was all owing to that upset last night, sir.”“Which we will both forget,” replied Geoffrey, “for I’ve got work on hand that I mean to do, and have no time for such nonsense. Now then, how are we to examine these stones without a pick?”Amos Pengelly smiled, and opened his waistcoat, to show, stuck in his trousers’ waistband, the head of a miner’s hammer, and a crowbar with a piece of wood, tied in the form of a cross, to keep it from slipping down his leg.“That’s capital,” cried Geoffrey. “Give me the hammer; you take the bar. First of all let’s have a look at the shaft.”There seemed to be nothing to see but darkness, but Geoffrey gazed long and earnestly down its rocky sides, and as he let a stone fall down to get an approximate idea of its depth he felt a strange shudder run through him, as he thought of what a man’s chance would be did some enemy throw him down.“Ugly place!” he said, as he saw Pengelly watching him.“I never think of that, sir,” was the reply.A glance round at the buildings sufficed, and then the miner led him to the bottom of a slope where hundreds of loads had been thrown down as thedébriswas dug out of the shaft, and, patiently clearing off the grass that had sprung up, Pengelly kept handing up pieces of rock for Geoffrey to break and examine.“Yes,” said Geoffrey, as he inspected scrap after scrap, even examining the fractures with a magnifying glass, “yes, that’s paying stuff, Pengelly.”“Iss, sir, isn’t it?” cried the miner, eagerly.“Paying, but poor.”“But it would be richer lower down, and we should hit the six-foot lode by driving.”“May be,” said Geoffrey. “Humph, mundic! There’s copper here too,” he said, examining a piece of stone that glistened with the yellowish metal.“That there be,” cried Pengelly; “I’m sure Wheal Carnac would pay, sir; I always believed it; and old Prawle there at the Cove, though he’s close, he knows it’s a good pit.”“Yes,” said Geoffrey, “I believe it would pay, well worked, and on economical and scientific principles.”“Pay, sir? Yes, I’m sure she would,” cried Pengelly. “You look here, sir, and here, at the stuff.”He plied his crowbar most energetically, and Geoffrey worked hard, too, breaking fragment after fragment, and convincing himself that, though under the old plans it would not have paid to powder, wash, and extract the tin from the quality of ore lying thrown out from the mouth of the pit; yet under the system he hoped to introduce he felt sure that he could make a modest return.“And there’s such a chance, sir,” cried Amos, with whom the working of Wheal Carnac was a pet project. “Look at the money laid out, and how well every thing was done.”“What became of the machinery?” cried Geoffrey, abruptly.“It was sold by auction, sir; all beautiful, fine new engines, and boilers, and wheels, and chains—not old-fashioned ones, but new casts, and they bought it at Tulip Hobba.”“Where they work with it?”“No, sir, it’s stopped; and they do say as it could all be bought back for very little.”“Your very littles all mean thousands of pounds, Master Pengelly,” said Geoffrey, thoughtfully.“But they’d all come back, sir, and you’d have the machinery still. Do buy it, sir, and get her to work once more.”“Why, you don’t suppose I’ve got the money to invest?” cried Geoffrey.“Haven’t you, sir?” said Pengelly, in a disappointed tone.“Not a penny, my man.”“Never mind, sir; you get them as has, and we’ll turn out such an output of tin to grass as’ll make some of the clever ones shake their heads.”“More copper,” said Geoffrey, picking up a piece of stone.“Yes, sir, a bit by chance; but I don’t think there’s much. This pit was sunk for tin.”“Copper pays better than tin,” said Geoffrey, as he went on from spot to spot. “You don’t think any of this stuff was brought here from anywhere else?”“Oh, dear, no, sir.”“Not thrown down to make the pit seem more valuable than it is? Such tricks have been played.”“Oh, no, sir. Besides, I wouldn’t begin till she’d been pumped out, and some more stuff got up to try her.”“No,” said Geoffrey, “of course not;” and he went on with his examination, finding nothing to cause him great elation, but enough to make him soberly sensible that there was a modest career of success for the mine, if properly worked.Who was to find the money, and give him the charge?That was the problem he had to solve, and as he returned the hammer to Pengelly, and walked slowly back, he wondered whether he should be fortunate enough to find any one with a sufficiency of the speculative element in him to venture.He was so deep in thought that he nearly ran up against Rhoda Penwynn, returning from her early walk, and in conversation with the Reverend Edward Lee, evidently also on a constitutional bout.Rhoda gave him a smile and a salute, and the young vicar raised his hat stiffly; but Geoffrey’s head was too full of tin ore, pounds per ton, cost of crushing and smelting, to give them more than a passing thought; and he was only aroused from his reverie by a peculiar odour at Mrs Mullion’s door, where that dame stood, buxom, pleasant, and smiling, to hope he had had a nice walk, and tell him that breakfast was quite ready, and Uncle Paul already having his.

“I’ve got Wheal Carnac on the brain,” said Geoffrey, as he leaped out of his bed soon after five o’clock, made a great deal of noise and splashing over a tub, and ended by standing up fresh, healthy, and dressed, and calling himself a fool. “Why, I might have taken a towel and had a dip in the sparkling waters,” he said, as he gazed out, to see the ripples stained with blood-red and gold, orange and brilliant topaz with the rising sun. “Why, it would have been a bath in Falernian wine! Never mind—live and learn.”

“By George, what was I dreaming? Oh! I remember: that I fell down the old pit-shaft and went on falling into infinite space, with some one like that Tregenna laughing at me the while.”

He went softly out of his room and down-stairs, so as not to disturb the other occupants of the house, to find, to his surprise, that the door was open; and, on stepping out into the garden, he came suddenly upon Madge, looking very bright and rosy, with her rich auburn hair taking a fresh tinge from the early morning beams.

“Ah, Miss Mullion! Good-morning. You up so soon?”

“Yes,” she said eagerly, “I often go out for an early walk down to the sea.”

“Not to play at mermaid, and sport in the briny wave!” he asked laughingly.

“Oh, dear, no!” she cried with a shiver, “I’m so afraid of the water.”

“Are you?” he said, smiling. “Well, it would be a job to get all that pretty hair dry again.”

Madge coloured with pleasure.

“It is so nice walking over the rocks quite early,” she said.

“Yes, I suppose so. Well, I must be off.”

“Are you going for a walk?” she said naïvely.

“Yes, but only on my way to work. Good-by for the present. I say, Miss Mullion, a nice bit of brown fish for breakfast, please. I shall be as hungry as a hunter when I come back.”

He walked sharply off, not seeing that uncle Paul’s blind stirred slightly, and Madge stood gazing after him.

“He’s as cold as a stone,” said the girl, petulantly. “I declare I hate him—that I do. But I’ll pique him yet, see if I don’t, clever as he is. He’ll be sorry for this some day. A great, ugly, stupid thing!”

The tears of vexation stood in her eyes, but they disappeared almost directly.

“He did say it was pretty hair,” she said, with her face lighting up, “and if I don’t make some one jealous yet it’s strange to me.”

She hesitated for a few moments as to whether she should take the same path as Geoffrey, and ended by flinging herself petulantly round and entering the house.

“It’s a glorious morning,” said Geoffrey, as he went down the steep, stone-paved pathway, drinking in the fresh salt-breeze. “I declare, it’s like living a new life here,” and his chest seemed to expand, and his muscles and nerves grow tense, as the life-blood bounded through his veins.

At times he felt as if he would like to rush off and run, like a school-boy, from the full tide of vitality that made his veins throb; but he went on soberly enough, exchanging a nod with different fishermen at their cottage doors, for most of them had come to know him now, and showed their white teeth in a friendly smile as he swung along.

He glanced at his watch as he neared the slope up which the mine chimney crawled, like a huge serpent, to the perpendicular shaft on the hill, and found he was an hour before his time; so walking sharply down to a little sandy stretch only bare at very low tides, he slipped off his boots, tied the laces together, and hung them over his shoulder, and then drew off his socks, which he thrust into his pocket, turned up his trousers, and had a good wade; after which, being without a towel, he began to walk along the dry sand so as to let sun and air perform the part of bath attendants, finally taking a seat upon a stone to put the final polish to his toes with a silk pocket-handkerchief.

He was bending down, seriously intent upon a few stray particles of sand, when a shadow fell athwart him, and looking up sharply, there stood Rhoda Penwynn.

“Oh! I beg your pardon, Mr Trethick,” she cried, colouring.

“Beg yours,” he said bluntly, as he started up and held out his hand; for it struck him that under the circumstances the better plan was to ignore his pursuit.

“It’s only a matter of custom,” he said to himself; “bare feet are no more indelicate than bare hands or bare shoulders, and if ever she goes to sea she won’t see many sailors wear socks and shoes.”

So in the coolest manner possible he walked by Rhoda’s side, as calmly as a barefooted friar of old, and as free from guile; while she felt half-annoyed, half ready to blush, and ended by smiling at her companion’s matter-of-fact ways. For he chatted about the place, the contents of the rock-pools, and the various weeds, and ended in the bluntest way by holding out his hand.

“Good-morning, Miss Penwynn, I have an appointment now. Let me say good-by though, with a compliment.”

“Please don’t,” said Rhoda.

“But I will,” he said, laughing, “I only wanted to say that I admire your early rising ways.”

Then nodding in his frank, cheery way, he started off back towards the ruined mine, walking quickly till the acorn barnacles upon the rocks suggested the advisability of putting on his socks and boots, which he rapidly did.

“What a Goth she must have thought me!” he said, laughing. “Well, can’t help it if she did.”

Then starting off once more, he turned a corner and could see a short, thick-set figure advancing, and waved his hand, to see a cap held up in return.

“Morning, Pengelly,” he cried, as he met the miner. “Did you bring a pick?”

“No, sir, it looked too business-like,” said Pengelly, “and I thought we’d keep the matter quiet. But is that all over, sir?”

“What?” said Geoffrey.

“That last night work, sir. I haven’t slep’ a wink for thinking of it.”

“Tut, man! I never thought of it again. But, as you have spoken, just look here, Pengelly; you people down here seem to be all mad about marriage.”

“Well, I don’t know about mad, sir,” said the miner, apologetically; “but folks do think a deal about coming together.”

“So it seems,” said Geoffrey, grimly.

“Comes natural like, sir,” said Amos, in a quiet, innocent way; “I think it no shame to say I think a deal of Bessie Prawle, and that’s what made me so mad last night.”

“Well, I suppose it was natural, Pengelly. But hang it, man, you must keep that devil of a temper of yours chained.”

“I do, sir; I do,” said the miner, piteously. “I fight with it hard; but you, a fine straight man, don’t know what it is to love a handsome girl like my Bessie, and to feel that you are misshapen and unsightly in her eyes.”

“Well, but they say pretty girls like ugly men, Pengelly,” said Geoffrey, smiling.

“Foolish people say many foolish things, sir,” said the miner. “I can’t believe all that. She’s a handsome girl, and she’s as good as she’s handsome, and waits upon her mother hand and foot. I wish I could bring her though to a better way, for they don’t do as they should; and old Prawle makes a mock at all religious talk. Then people say Bess is a witch, and can ill-wish people, and it worries me, sir, knowing as I do how good she is at heart.”

“Well, never mind, Pengelly,” said Geoffrey, cheerily. “Some day, perhaps, Miss Bessie yonder will find out that you are like one of the sea-shells, rough outside but bright and soft within. Eh? But come along, let’s see if we can’t find out something worth our while. I want to get a good mine going, my lad.”

“And so do I, sir,” cried the miner. “I want to save money now; and—and—”

“Well, what?”

“You don’t think it foolish of me to talk, sir, as I have?”

“Not I, my lad.”

“It was all owing to that upset last night, sir.”

“Which we will both forget,” replied Geoffrey, “for I’ve got work on hand that I mean to do, and have no time for such nonsense. Now then, how are we to examine these stones without a pick?”

Amos Pengelly smiled, and opened his waistcoat, to show, stuck in his trousers’ waistband, the head of a miner’s hammer, and a crowbar with a piece of wood, tied in the form of a cross, to keep it from slipping down his leg.

“That’s capital,” cried Geoffrey. “Give me the hammer; you take the bar. First of all let’s have a look at the shaft.”

There seemed to be nothing to see but darkness, but Geoffrey gazed long and earnestly down its rocky sides, and as he let a stone fall down to get an approximate idea of its depth he felt a strange shudder run through him, as he thought of what a man’s chance would be did some enemy throw him down.

“Ugly place!” he said, as he saw Pengelly watching him.

“I never think of that, sir,” was the reply.

A glance round at the buildings sufficed, and then the miner led him to the bottom of a slope where hundreds of loads had been thrown down as thedébriswas dug out of the shaft, and, patiently clearing off the grass that had sprung up, Pengelly kept handing up pieces of rock for Geoffrey to break and examine.

“Yes,” said Geoffrey, as he inspected scrap after scrap, even examining the fractures with a magnifying glass, “yes, that’s paying stuff, Pengelly.”

“Iss, sir, isn’t it?” cried the miner, eagerly.

“Paying, but poor.”

“But it would be richer lower down, and we should hit the six-foot lode by driving.”

“May be,” said Geoffrey. “Humph, mundic! There’s copper here too,” he said, examining a piece of stone that glistened with the yellowish metal.

“That there be,” cried Pengelly; “I’m sure Wheal Carnac would pay, sir; I always believed it; and old Prawle there at the Cove, though he’s close, he knows it’s a good pit.”

“Yes,” said Geoffrey, “I believe it would pay, well worked, and on economical and scientific principles.”

“Pay, sir? Yes, I’m sure she would,” cried Pengelly. “You look here, sir, and here, at the stuff.”

He plied his crowbar most energetically, and Geoffrey worked hard, too, breaking fragment after fragment, and convincing himself that, though under the old plans it would not have paid to powder, wash, and extract the tin from the quality of ore lying thrown out from the mouth of the pit; yet under the system he hoped to introduce he felt sure that he could make a modest return.

“And there’s such a chance, sir,” cried Amos, with whom the working of Wheal Carnac was a pet project. “Look at the money laid out, and how well every thing was done.”

“What became of the machinery?” cried Geoffrey, abruptly.

“It was sold by auction, sir; all beautiful, fine new engines, and boilers, and wheels, and chains—not old-fashioned ones, but new casts, and they bought it at Tulip Hobba.”

“Where they work with it?”

“No, sir, it’s stopped; and they do say as it could all be bought back for very little.”

“Your very littles all mean thousands of pounds, Master Pengelly,” said Geoffrey, thoughtfully.

“But they’d all come back, sir, and you’d have the machinery still. Do buy it, sir, and get her to work once more.”

“Why, you don’t suppose I’ve got the money to invest?” cried Geoffrey.

“Haven’t you, sir?” said Pengelly, in a disappointed tone.

“Not a penny, my man.”

“Never mind, sir; you get them as has, and we’ll turn out such an output of tin to grass as’ll make some of the clever ones shake their heads.”

“More copper,” said Geoffrey, picking up a piece of stone.

“Yes, sir, a bit by chance; but I don’t think there’s much. This pit was sunk for tin.”

“Copper pays better than tin,” said Geoffrey, as he went on from spot to spot. “You don’t think any of this stuff was brought here from anywhere else?”

“Oh, dear, no, sir.”

“Not thrown down to make the pit seem more valuable than it is? Such tricks have been played.”

“Oh, no, sir. Besides, I wouldn’t begin till she’d been pumped out, and some more stuff got up to try her.”

“No,” said Geoffrey, “of course not;” and he went on with his examination, finding nothing to cause him great elation, but enough to make him soberly sensible that there was a modest career of success for the mine, if properly worked.

Who was to find the money, and give him the charge?

That was the problem he had to solve, and as he returned the hammer to Pengelly, and walked slowly back, he wondered whether he should be fortunate enough to find any one with a sufficiency of the speculative element in him to venture.

He was so deep in thought that he nearly ran up against Rhoda Penwynn, returning from her early walk, and in conversation with the Reverend Edward Lee, evidently also on a constitutional bout.

Rhoda gave him a smile and a salute, and the young vicar raised his hat stiffly; but Geoffrey’s head was too full of tin ore, pounds per ton, cost of crushing and smelting, to give them more than a passing thought; and he was only aroused from his reverie by a peculiar odour at Mrs Mullion’s door, where that dame stood, buxom, pleasant, and smiling, to hope he had had a nice walk, and tell him that breakfast was quite ready, and Uncle Paul already having his.

Chapter Twenty.Geoffrey is Foolish.Time glided on, and Geoffrey had very little to encourage him. He investigated Wheal Carnac a little more, and then stopped because he could go no farther. He found life, however, very pleasant at the far western home. He was invited to several houses; and played whist so well that he became a favourite, especially as he generally held bad cards. Then he sat a good deal with old Mr Paul, and bantered him when he was cross; while with Mrs Mullion he became an especial favourite, the pleasant, patient, innocent little body delighting in going to his room to tell him of her troubles, and about what a good man brother Thomas was, though she did wish she would be more patient.“He gets more impatient as he grows older,” she sighed; “and if his paper isn’t on the table it’s dreadful. You see, Madge is so fond of getting it to read down the list of marriages, while, when her uncle has it, the first thing he does is to look and see if any one he knows is dead. I always peep to see if any one I know is born.”Poor Mrs Mullion used to blunder on in the most innocent way possible, to her half-brother’s great delight, while Geoffrey had hard work sometimes to refrain from a smile.The young man’s life was one of disappointment, but it was not unhappy; and more than once he found himself thinking of what it would have been had he had a sister, and that sister had been like Rhoda Penwynn. Then came thoughts of Madge Mullion, who seemed to be developing more and more a desire to enlist him in her train of admirers. Rumour said that she was fond of flirting, and her uncle angrily endorsed it. Now Geoffrey began to think of it, he recalled the fact that he received many little attentions at the girl’s hands such as an ordinary lodger would not get. Fresh flowers were always upon his table, both in sitting and bed room; books were left in conspicuous places, with markers in tender passages; he had caught Madge several times busy with needle and thread over some one or other of his articles of attire that needed the proverbial stitch in time; and one night, as he lay in bed thinking, he suddenly recalled the fact that he had said in her hearing that if there was any colour in the universe that he liked, it was blue.“And, by George! she has worn blue ever since. The girl’s a regular man-trap, and old Paul’s right.”“Well,” he said, getting up, and giving his pillow a vicious punch, as he lay thinking of her more than usual, “she may go on till all’s blue, for I sha’n’t put my foot in the trap. Why, confound her impudence! she’s carrying on with that smooth-looking fellow Tregenna, or else my ears deceived me, and—bother the wench! she’s very pretty, andpiquante, and attractive, and all that sort of thing, and I wish she was at the bottom of the sea—a mermaid combing her golden hair—not drowned. Stupid wench!”He then turned over, and mentally went down Horton Friendship mine, discussed to himself the losses that the slovenly manner of carrying on the work must entail to the proprietary; and then absolutely writhed over the contemptuous indifference his proposals received from those whom he looked upon as common-sense people.“Hang them!” he growled. “The old cry. What did for our great-grandfathers will do for us. The farther you go back, the wiser people were; so that if you will only go far enough into antiquity there you find perfection.“Now take my case,” he said. “I don’t propose any extraordinary new invention that shall take men’s breath away. I merely say you are getting your ores in a costly, wasteful manner. That you are digging out of the ground vast quantities of mundic and throwing it away. Well, I say to them that mundic is pyrites, and contains so much sulphur; that, by a process, I can utilise that, so as to supply sulphur as a heat producer, to the great saving of fuel, besides which, I can give you metallic results as well, and make a large profit.“Result: they shake their heads and laugh at me.”“Hang them! They’re as obstinate as—as—well, as I am, for give up I will not.”Then, in a half-dreamy manner, he mentally went to the edge of the shaft at Wheal Carnac, and, as he had often done in reality, he picked up and examined thedébris, lying where it had been thrown when the shaft was dug, and ended by going to sleep after half determining to try and get some apparatus fitted to allow of a descent, as far as he could go for the water, to examine the shaft and the adits, when if he could conscientiously feel that there was any prospect of the place being profitably worked he would make an effort to get a few enterprising capitalists together to take advantage of what was already done, and carry the mine on to prosperity.The first person on whom Geoffrey’s eyes rested the next morning as he entered his room was Madge Mullion, in a neat blue gingham dress, arranging a bunch of forget-me-nots in a little blue vase upon his breakfast-table, and ready to look very bright and conscious, as she started up to smile pleasantly in his face.“Why, hang the girl! she has blue eyes, too,” thought Geoffrey, as he nodded, by way of good-morning.“Uncle Paul down?” he said.“Yes, Mr Trethick, I heard him come down just before you, and—”“The old rascal’s got something good for breakfast,” cried Geoffrey, with a pronounced sniff. “What is it?”“Curried lobster, Mr Trethick,” said Madge, pouting her pretty red—perhaps already too pouting—lips at the lodger’s extremely mundane views.“I love turned lobster,” said Geoffrey, “especially such lobsters as you get down here. I shall go and attack him for a portion.”“Don’t, please, Mr Trethick,” said Madge, earnestly. “There is a delicious sole for you. It came from the trawler this morning, and—and I cooked it myself.”“Egged and crumbed; Miss Mullion?”“Yes,” she said, eagerly.“Humph! Well, I think I’ll compound for the fresh sole, and let Uncle Paul have his lobster in peace.”“You shall have it directly, Mr Trethick,” cried Madge, looking brightly in the young man’s face. “I—I brought you some forget-me-nots this morning.”“Yes,” he said, smiling, “I was admiring them. They are beautiful; just like your eyes.”“For shame! Mr Trethick; what nonsense!”“No,” he said, “it’s a fact, and you’ve got the downiest of cheeks, and the reddest of lips that pout up at one as if asking to be kissed; and really, Madge, if they ask like that I shall be obliged to kiss them.”“I’d never forgive you if you did,” said Madge, with a look that bade him go on.“Well, I’m afraid I must chance the forgiveness,” he said, merrily. “It’s a great risk, but you may be merciful,” and he playfully caught her in his arms and kissed her, Madge making a pretence at resistance as she triumphantly told herself that she knew she could pique him and master his coldness.“Oh! Mr Trethick!” she exclaimed.“Madge! Here, I say, Madge!” cried the old man, whose door was heard to open sharply.“Yes, uncle,” cried the girl, reddening.“Oh, you’re there, are you,” he said, stumping across the little passage. “What are you doing there, madam?”“Defending your curried lobster, most bravely, old gentleman,” said Geoffrey, coming to the rescue, but asking himself how he could have been such an ass, and whether he had not caught the complaint so prevalent in Carnac.“How the devil did you know I had got curried lobster?” cried the old man.“Smelt it,” said Geoffrey, curtly. “Is it good?”“No, it isn’t good,” cried the old man, “and I want to know why—why my niece can’t let the girl wait upon you.”“Why, you’re jealous, old boy,” cried Geoffrey. “Hang it all! are you to have all the good things, and best attention in the house? Let me have my sole in the next room, Miss Mullion. Your uncle’s low-spirited this morning, and I’ll go and keep him company. Come along, old fellow.”To Madge’s great relief, and Uncle Paul’s utter astonishment, the result being a grateful look from the one and an angry snarl from the other, Geoffrey thrust his arm through that of the old man, marched him into his own room, and half forced him into his chair.“There, begin your breakfast,” cried Geoffrey; “it’s getting cold.”“It’s always getting cold, and how the devil am I to eat my lobster without salt? Every thing’s forgotten now, so that you may get what you want.”“Rubbish!” said Geoffrey, taking a chair.“It is not rubbish, sir. Didn’t I see that jade exchanging glances with you just now? and she’s always in your room.”“Let the poor girl alone, and don’t worry her into hysterics, at all events not until I have got my sole,” cried Geoffrey; “and don’t talk stuff about what you don’t understand. What paper’s that?”“Times. What I don’t understand?” cried Uncle Paul, who was foaming with rage at being so unceremoniously treated.“Yes, what you don’t understand. Thanks, Miss Mullion, that will do. But there’s no salt.”“I do forget so now,” said poor Madge.“Yes, and what can you expect, if you stuff your brains full of other things?” snarled Uncle Paul, with the result that Madge beat a hasty retreat, and the maid came in with the salt and the rest of the breakfast.“Now look here, Uncle Paul,” said Geoffrey, as the old man, after growling and snarling a little over his curry, took a liqueur of brandy in a very small cup of coffee, and seemed to calm down, “you are a shrewd old fellow.”“Shrewd?” he cried, “I’m an old fool, a lunatic, an ass, or I should never have brought you up here.”“Ah! we all do foolish things sometimes.”“Yes, even to running after artful, coquetting jades of girls.”“Well,” said Geoffrey—“By George! what a capital sole, flaky and creamy as can be. Try a bit.”“Curse your sole!” snarled the old man, with his mouth full of curry.“You mean the fish, I hope,” said Geoffrey, laughing. “Let’s see; what was I saying? Oh! I know, about doing foolish things. I’ve done a great many in my time, but running after coquettes was never one of them.”“Nor yet indulging in mine moonshine?”“Moonshine, eh? Well that brings me to what I was going to say. Now, look here, Uncle Paul.”“Confound you, sir, don’t stick yourself on to me as a relative. You’ll want to borrow money next.”“Very likely,” said Geoffrey.“Ha-ha-ha! he-he-he!” chuckled the old man, with his face lighting up. “I should like to see you doing it. You’re a clever fellow, Master Trethick, but I don’t quite see you getting the better of me there.”“That’s right,” said Geoffrey. “Now you look yourself again.” Uncle Paul’s face was transformed on the instant by an aspect of wrath, but Geoffrey took no notice, only went on with his breakfast and talked.“Look here, old gentleman, from what I hear, some fifty thousand pounds went down that Wheal Carnac?”“Quite. Fool’s money,” said Uncle Paul. “Give me that thick bit of the sole with the roe in.”“I don’t know about fool’s money,” said Geoffrey, helping him to the choice piece of fish. “Now I’ve had some good looks at that place, and I’m beginning to be convinced that a little enterprise freshly brought to bear would result in good returns.”“Exactly,” said Uncle Paul, grinning, “and you’d like me to invest a thousand pounds, and nine other fools to do the same, and to appoint you manager, with a salary of three hundred and fifty pounds a year, and Amos Pengelly, the mad preacher, as your foreman, at a hundred. I saw you through a glass, you two, poking and picking about.”“Well, I should like a hundred a year for Pengelly,” said Geoffrey, “and he’d be well worth it.”“Oh! I did not go high enough then,” said Uncle Paul, with a sneer. “Suppose we must make it five hundred a year. Will that enlist your lordship’s services?”“I should spend a hundred pounds first,” said Geoffrey, quietly; “that would be ten pounds apiece for ten shareholders, in carefully examining the mine and testing the lodes, and then, if I thought it really would be a good venture, I’d give my services for fifteen per cent on the profits, and take not a penny besides.”“Wouldn’t you really?” said the old man, with an aggravating sneer, as he threw himself back in his chair. “Ha-ha-ha! There, I’m better now. Look here, Master Geoffrey Trethick, I mean some day to buy Wheal Carnac for a building plot, and to turn the engine-house into a cottage, where I can live in peace, and not be aggravated to death by seeing that jade of a niece of mine running after every good-looking, or ill-looking, fellow she sees. I’ve got a bit of money, but before I’d put a penny in a mine, I’d cash the lot, and go and sit on a rock and make ducks-and-drakes with it at high water. As for you, my lad, I don’t like you, for you’re the most confoundedly impudent fellow I ever met; but I’ll give you this bit of advice: if you can find any fools to venture their money in an adventure, fix your salary and have it paid. No percentage. There, now I’ll give you one of my best cigars.”He got up and unlocked a desk, out of whose drawer he took a couple, and relocked the holder, when, just as he was in the act of offering one to Geoffrey, the door opened, and Madge came in, looking flushed and pleased.“What the dev—”“It’s a letter for Mr Trethick,” cried the girl, hastily, “from Mr Penwynn, and it says ‘important.’”“Then you should have sent it in,” cried the old man, shaking his fist at her.“Penwynn—to see me this morning—important business,” read Geoffrey, flushing with pleasure. “Then,” he said aloud, “the tide has turned.”“Oh, Mr Trethick! I’m so glad,” cried Madge; but her uncle made as if to throw something at her, and she ran out of the room, while Geoffrey hastily re-read the letter.“Do you see that?” cried the old gentleman. “You’ve been talking nonsense to her, and you promised not.”“I? no! Hang the girl!” cried Geoffrey, joyously. “Uncle Paul, old man, the tree’s going to bear fruit at last?”

Time glided on, and Geoffrey had very little to encourage him. He investigated Wheal Carnac a little more, and then stopped because he could go no farther. He found life, however, very pleasant at the far western home. He was invited to several houses; and played whist so well that he became a favourite, especially as he generally held bad cards. Then he sat a good deal with old Mr Paul, and bantered him when he was cross; while with Mrs Mullion he became an especial favourite, the pleasant, patient, innocent little body delighting in going to his room to tell him of her troubles, and about what a good man brother Thomas was, though she did wish she would be more patient.

“He gets more impatient as he grows older,” she sighed; “and if his paper isn’t on the table it’s dreadful. You see, Madge is so fond of getting it to read down the list of marriages, while, when her uncle has it, the first thing he does is to look and see if any one he knows is dead. I always peep to see if any one I know is born.”

Poor Mrs Mullion used to blunder on in the most innocent way possible, to her half-brother’s great delight, while Geoffrey had hard work sometimes to refrain from a smile.

The young man’s life was one of disappointment, but it was not unhappy; and more than once he found himself thinking of what it would have been had he had a sister, and that sister had been like Rhoda Penwynn. Then came thoughts of Madge Mullion, who seemed to be developing more and more a desire to enlist him in her train of admirers. Rumour said that she was fond of flirting, and her uncle angrily endorsed it. Now Geoffrey began to think of it, he recalled the fact that he received many little attentions at the girl’s hands such as an ordinary lodger would not get. Fresh flowers were always upon his table, both in sitting and bed room; books were left in conspicuous places, with markers in tender passages; he had caught Madge several times busy with needle and thread over some one or other of his articles of attire that needed the proverbial stitch in time; and one night, as he lay in bed thinking, he suddenly recalled the fact that he had said in her hearing that if there was any colour in the universe that he liked, it was blue.

“And, by George! she has worn blue ever since. The girl’s a regular man-trap, and old Paul’s right.”

“Well,” he said, getting up, and giving his pillow a vicious punch, as he lay thinking of her more than usual, “she may go on till all’s blue, for I sha’n’t put my foot in the trap. Why, confound her impudence! she’s carrying on with that smooth-looking fellow Tregenna, or else my ears deceived me, and—bother the wench! she’s very pretty, andpiquante, and attractive, and all that sort of thing, and I wish she was at the bottom of the sea—a mermaid combing her golden hair—not drowned. Stupid wench!”

He then turned over, and mentally went down Horton Friendship mine, discussed to himself the losses that the slovenly manner of carrying on the work must entail to the proprietary; and then absolutely writhed over the contemptuous indifference his proposals received from those whom he looked upon as common-sense people.

“Hang them!” he growled. “The old cry. What did for our great-grandfathers will do for us. The farther you go back, the wiser people were; so that if you will only go far enough into antiquity there you find perfection.

“Now take my case,” he said. “I don’t propose any extraordinary new invention that shall take men’s breath away. I merely say you are getting your ores in a costly, wasteful manner. That you are digging out of the ground vast quantities of mundic and throwing it away. Well, I say to them that mundic is pyrites, and contains so much sulphur; that, by a process, I can utilise that, so as to supply sulphur as a heat producer, to the great saving of fuel, besides which, I can give you metallic results as well, and make a large profit.

“Result: they shake their heads and laugh at me.”

“Hang them! They’re as obstinate as—as—well, as I am, for give up I will not.”

Then, in a half-dreamy manner, he mentally went to the edge of the shaft at Wheal Carnac, and, as he had often done in reality, he picked up and examined thedébris, lying where it had been thrown when the shaft was dug, and ended by going to sleep after half determining to try and get some apparatus fitted to allow of a descent, as far as he could go for the water, to examine the shaft and the adits, when if he could conscientiously feel that there was any prospect of the place being profitably worked he would make an effort to get a few enterprising capitalists together to take advantage of what was already done, and carry the mine on to prosperity.

The first person on whom Geoffrey’s eyes rested the next morning as he entered his room was Madge Mullion, in a neat blue gingham dress, arranging a bunch of forget-me-nots in a little blue vase upon his breakfast-table, and ready to look very bright and conscious, as she started up to smile pleasantly in his face.

“Why, hang the girl! she has blue eyes, too,” thought Geoffrey, as he nodded, by way of good-morning.

“Uncle Paul down?” he said.

“Yes, Mr Trethick, I heard him come down just before you, and—”

“The old rascal’s got something good for breakfast,” cried Geoffrey, with a pronounced sniff. “What is it?”

“Curried lobster, Mr Trethick,” said Madge, pouting her pretty red—perhaps already too pouting—lips at the lodger’s extremely mundane views.

“I love turned lobster,” said Geoffrey, “especially such lobsters as you get down here. I shall go and attack him for a portion.”

“Don’t, please, Mr Trethick,” said Madge, earnestly. “There is a delicious sole for you. It came from the trawler this morning, and—and I cooked it myself.”

“Egged and crumbed; Miss Mullion?”

“Yes,” she said, eagerly.

“Humph! Well, I think I’ll compound for the fresh sole, and let Uncle Paul have his lobster in peace.”

“You shall have it directly, Mr Trethick,” cried Madge, looking brightly in the young man’s face. “I—I brought you some forget-me-nots this morning.”

“Yes,” he said, smiling, “I was admiring them. They are beautiful; just like your eyes.”

“For shame! Mr Trethick; what nonsense!”

“No,” he said, “it’s a fact, and you’ve got the downiest of cheeks, and the reddest of lips that pout up at one as if asking to be kissed; and really, Madge, if they ask like that I shall be obliged to kiss them.”

“I’d never forgive you if you did,” said Madge, with a look that bade him go on.

“Well, I’m afraid I must chance the forgiveness,” he said, merrily. “It’s a great risk, but you may be merciful,” and he playfully caught her in his arms and kissed her, Madge making a pretence at resistance as she triumphantly told herself that she knew she could pique him and master his coldness.

“Oh! Mr Trethick!” she exclaimed.

“Madge! Here, I say, Madge!” cried the old man, whose door was heard to open sharply.

“Yes, uncle,” cried the girl, reddening.

“Oh, you’re there, are you,” he said, stumping across the little passage. “What are you doing there, madam?”

“Defending your curried lobster, most bravely, old gentleman,” said Geoffrey, coming to the rescue, but asking himself how he could have been such an ass, and whether he had not caught the complaint so prevalent in Carnac.

“How the devil did you know I had got curried lobster?” cried the old man.

“Smelt it,” said Geoffrey, curtly. “Is it good?”

“No, it isn’t good,” cried the old man, “and I want to know why—why my niece can’t let the girl wait upon you.”

“Why, you’re jealous, old boy,” cried Geoffrey. “Hang it all! are you to have all the good things, and best attention in the house? Let me have my sole in the next room, Miss Mullion. Your uncle’s low-spirited this morning, and I’ll go and keep him company. Come along, old fellow.”

To Madge’s great relief, and Uncle Paul’s utter astonishment, the result being a grateful look from the one and an angry snarl from the other, Geoffrey thrust his arm through that of the old man, marched him into his own room, and half forced him into his chair.

“There, begin your breakfast,” cried Geoffrey; “it’s getting cold.”

“It’s always getting cold, and how the devil am I to eat my lobster without salt? Every thing’s forgotten now, so that you may get what you want.”

“Rubbish!” said Geoffrey, taking a chair.

“It is not rubbish, sir. Didn’t I see that jade exchanging glances with you just now? and she’s always in your room.”

“Let the poor girl alone, and don’t worry her into hysterics, at all events not until I have got my sole,” cried Geoffrey; “and don’t talk stuff about what you don’t understand. What paper’s that?”

“Times. What I don’t understand?” cried Uncle Paul, who was foaming with rage at being so unceremoniously treated.

“Yes, what you don’t understand. Thanks, Miss Mullion, that will do. But there’s no salt.”

“I do forget so now,” said poor Madge.

“Yes, and what can you expect, if you stuff your brains full of other things?” snarled Uncle Paul, with the result that Madge beat a hasty retreat, and the maid came in with the salt and the rest of the breakfast.

“Now look here, Uncle Paul,” said Geoffrey, as the old man, after growling and snarling a little over his curry, took a liqueur of brandy in a very small cup of coffee, and seemed to calm down, “you are a shrewd old fellow.”

“Shrewd?” he cried, “I’m an old fool, a lunatic, an ass, or I should never have brought you up here.”

“Ah! we all do foolish things sometimes.”

“Yes, even to running after artful, coquetting jades of girls.”

“Well,” said Geoffrey—“By George! what a capital sole, flaky and creamy as can be. Try a bit.”

“Curse your sole!” snarled the old man, with his mouth full of curry.

“You mean the fish, I hope,” said Geoffrey, laughing. “Let’s see; what was I saying? Oh! I know, about doing foolish things. I’ve done a great many in my time, but running after coquettes was never one of them.”

“Nor yet indulging in mine moonshine?”

“Moonshine, eh? Well that brings me to what I was going to say. Now, look here, Uncle Paul.”

“Confound you, sir, don’t stick yourself on to me as a relative. You’ll want to borrow money next.”

“Very likely,” said Geoffrey.

“Ha-ha-ha! he-he-he!” chuckled the old man, with his face lighting up. “I should like to see you doing it. You’re a clever fellow, Master Trethick, but I don’t quite see you getting the better of me there.”

“That’s right,” said Geoffrey. “Now you look yourself again.” Uncle Paul’s face was transformed on the instant by an aspect of wrath, but Geoffrey took no notice, only went on with his breakfast and talked.

“Look here, old gentleman, from what I hear, some fifty thousand pounds went down that Wheal Carnac?”

“Quite. Fool’s money,” said Uncle Paul. “Give me that thick bit of the sole with the roe in.”

“I don’t know about fool’s money,” said Geoffrey, helping him to the choice piece of fish. “Now I’ve had some good looks at that place, and I’m beginning to be convinced that a little enterprise freshly brought to bear would result in good returns.”

“Exactly,” said Uncle Paul, grinning, “and you’d like me to invest a thousand pounds, and nine other fools to do the same, and to appoint you manager, with a salary of three hundred and fifty pounds a year, and Amos Pengelly, the mad preacher, as your foreman, at a hundred. I saw you through a glass, you two, poking and picking about.”

“Well, I should like a hundred a year for Pengelly,” said Geoffrey, “and he’d be well worth it.”

“Oh! I did not go high enough then,” said Uncle Paul, with a sneer. “Suppose we must make it five hundred a year. Will that enlist your lordship’s services?”

“I should spend a hundred pounds first,” said Geoffrey, quietly; “that would be ten pounds apiece for ten shareholders, in carefully examining the mine and testing the lodes, and then, if I thought it really would be a good venture, I’d give my services for fifteen per cent on the profits, and take not a penny besides.”

“Wouldn’t you really?” said the old man, with an aggravating sneer, as he threw himself back in his chair. “Ha-ha-ha! There, I’m better now. Look here, Master Geoffrey Trethick, I mean some day to buy Wheal Carnac for a building plot, and to turn the engine-house into a cottage, where I can live in peace, and not be aggravated to death by seeing that jade of a niece of mine running after every good-looking, or ill-looking, fellow she sees. I’ve got a bit of money, but before I’d put a penny in a mine, I’d cash the lot, and go and sit on a rock and make ducks-and-drakes with it at high water. As for you, my lad, I don’t like you, for you’re the most confoundedly impudent fellow I ever met; but I’ll give you this bit of advice: if you can find any fools to venture their money in an adventure, fix your salary and have it paid. No percentage. There, now I’ll give you one of my best cigars.”

He got up and unlocked a desk, out of whose drawer he took a couple, and relocked the holder, when, just as he was in the act of offering one to Geoffrey, the door opened, and Madge came in, looking flushed and pleased.

“What the dev—”

“It’s a letter for Mr Trethick,” cried the girl, hastily, “from Mr Penwynn, and it says ‘important.’”

“Then you should have sent it in,” cried the old man, shaking his fist at her.

“Penwynn—to see me this morning—important business,” read Geoffrey, flushing with pleasure. “Then,” he said aloud, “the tide has turned.”

“Oh, Mr Trethick! I’m so glad,” cried Madge; but her uncle made as if to throw something at her, and she ran out of the room, while Geoffrey hastily re-read the letter.

“Do you see that?” cried the old gentleman. “You’ve been talking nonsense to her, and you promised not.”

“I? no! Hang the girl!” cried Geoffrey, joyously. “Uncle Paul, old man, the tree’s going to bear fruit at last?”

Chapter Twenty One.The Vicar is Shocked.Geoffrey read it that he was to go up to. An Morlock, where he was informed that Mr Penwynn was engaged, but would be at liberty in a few minutes, and he was shown into the drawing-room, where he found the young vicar and Rhoda, who rose eagerly, but the next moment seemed rather constrained.“The vicar has been discoursing of spiritual love,” said Geoffrey to himself, as he declined to notice, either Rhoda’s constraint or the young clergyman’s stiffness, but chatted away in his free-and-easy manner.“By the way, Miss Penwynn,” he said, after a few moments’ conversation, during which he felt that he was in the way, “I saw you were at church last Sunday.”“I was very glad to see you there, Mr Trethick,” interposed the vicar, hastily.“Thanks,” said Geoffrey, bluffly. “I shall come—sometimes. Don’t you set me down as a heathen. I went to the chapel in the evening.”“Indeed!” said the vicar, gazing at him in a horrified way, his looks plainly saying—“You a University man, and go to that chapel!”“Yes,” said Geoffrey, “and heard a capital sermon.”“Indeed!” said the vicar again, with a slightly supercilious smile.“Capital,” said Geoffrey, “by a miner—a rough fellow—one Pengelly.”“Yes, yes. I know Amos Pengelly,” said Rhoda, hastily.“Then you know a capital preacher, Miss Penwynn,” cried Geoffrey, nodding to her. “He’s as rough and uncultivated as can be—rather illogical sometimes; but the fellow’s earnestness, and the way he swayed the congregation, were something startling.”“He is one of the local preachers,” said Rhoda, “and, I believe, a very good man.”As she spoke Rhoda involuntarily glanced at her visitor’s feet.“With a most awful temper,” said Geoffrey, laughing. “He got quite angry with the people’s sins while he was preaching.”“I must confess,” said the vicar, flushing, and speaking rather warmly—“hem! I must confess, Mr Trethick, that the way in which the people down here usurp the priestly office is very shocking, and—and really gives me a great deal of pain.”“Yes,” said Geoffrey, coolly, “I dare say it would. But I do not see why it should. Here, for instance, is a truly earnest man who finds his way right to the hearts of the people, and he does what you do—prays that they may be led into better ways. His language is rough, I grant, but they understand its homeliness; and if they wouldn’t be so fond of groaning and shouting out ‘Glory’ and ‘Hallelujah’ at incongruous times I should not care. One thing is very evident: he rouses people out of what your clerical gentlemen would call their sinful lethargy.”“I must say,” said the vicar, “that this is all very terrible to me.”“Well, I suppose so,” continued Geoffrey. “You see, Mr Lee, you view it all from a University and High Church point of view.”“And pray, sir, how would you view it?” said the vicar, with his usual nervousness dropped, and speaking like a doughty champion of the church militant, while Rhoda’s lips parted, and a slight flush came into her cheeks, as she grew quite excited over the verbal battle.“How would I view it?” said Geoffrey. “Why, from a common-sense point of view—matter-of-fact—human nature.”“Mr Trethick,” cried the vicar, “you—but I beg pardon, Miss Penwynn; this is not a discussion to carry on before you. Mr Trethick, we may talk of this again.”“Oh, go on!” cried Rhoda, naïvely, with her excitement flashing out of her eyes. “I like it.”“Then I will speak,” said the vicar, angrily. “Mr Trethick, you pain me by your remark, and I feel it my duty to say that your words savour of most heterodox opinions.”“Yes,” said Geoffrey, “I suppose they do. I am decidedly unorthodox. I’ve studied nature too much to hold to many of our old college notions.”“Perhaps you would advocate free thinking?” said the vicar, with a slight sneer; and Rhoda flushed a little more, as she eagerly looked at Geoffrey for his reply.“Free thinking? Not I. ’Pon my word, Mr Lee, I believe I’m too religious for that.”“Religious?”“Yes! Why not? Cannot a man go to chapel, or, in other words, leave off going to church sometimes, without being taxed with irreligion? Look here, Mr Lee, you and I are about contemporaries, and do you know I think if we want to get on here in our different lines of life, the first thing we have to do is to learn of the people.”“My duty here, sir,” said the vicar, coldly, and growing very pale and upright, “is to teach.”“So is mine,” said Geoffrey, laughing; “yours spiritual, mine carnal; but, my dear fellow, the first thing we have to do, it seems to me, is to learn the right way to the people’s hearts.”Rhoda glanced from one to the other, and her pulses began to beat, as she clasped her hands on her lap and excitedly listened for more.“Perhaps so,” said the vicar, coldly, and he glanced at the door, as if to bring the interview to an end, and yet not liking to leave Geoffrey there the master of the situation.“For instance, take your sermon last Sunday.”“Mr Trethick!” cried the vicar, half rising.“Don’t be offended, I mean no harm,” said Geoffrey, smiling, “and I am not talking to an elder, but a contemporary, as I said before. Besides, Miss Penwynn heard it, and she shall be judge.”“I beg, Mr Trethick,” began the vicar, but on glancing at Rhoda’s eager face, he determined not to be mastered in argument, especially upon his own ground.“I maintain,” said Geoffrey, coolly, “that your sermon was a masterly bit of logic.”The vicar stared.“A capital line of argument.”Rhoda nodded.“Most scholarly.”A faint flush began to appear in the vicar’s cheeks.“In fact, an excellent sermon,” said Geoffrey.“Then why do you allude to it?” said the vicar, rather warmly.“Because I maintain that it was perfectly unsuited for a simple-minded, ignorant congregation of fishermen and miners. What do they care about how Saint Augustine wrote, or Polycarp thought, or the doings of Chrysostom the Golden Mouthed? Your words about the heresies and the Gnostics and Manichaeans were all thrown away. The early days of the Church don’t interest them a bit, but they can understand about the patriarchs and their troubles and weaknesses, because the masterly hand that wrote their lives painted them as men similar to themselves.”“Mr Trethick!”“All right; I’ve just done,” said Geoffrey. “There was another sermon of yours too, I heard you preach, a well-meant one, but somehow you did not get hold of them. You had taken the text about the apostles becoming fishers of men, and the rough fellows could not see that it was their duty to give up their boats and nets, and forsake their wives and little ones, as you downright told them they ought.”“I hope I know my duty, Mr Trethick,” said the vicar, sternly.“I hope you do, sir; but somehow, as I say, you don’t get hold of them. Now Pengelly seems to fit what he says to their everyday life, and shows them how to follow the apostles’ example in their self-denial and patience. Why, my dear sir, the people here care no more for the early fathers of the Church than—than I do,” he added, at a loss for a simile.“Mr Trethick, you surprise me,” gasped the vicar, “you pain me.”“Do I?” said Geoffrey. “Well, I don’t want to do so. Now that man on Sunday night; he took for his text—”“Miss Penwynn, Mr Trethick,” said the vicar, rising, “I find—the time—I must say good-morning.”“I’m afraid I’ve been too free-speaking,” said Geoffrey, earnestly, as he held out his hand. “It’s a bad habit of mine to get warm in argument; and I dare say I’ve been preaching most heretically.”The vicar hesitated for a moment, but Geoffrey’s manner disarmed him, and besides, Rhoda was looking on.The result was that he shook hands warmly, and said, with a smile, “Mr Trethick, we must have a few more arguments. I am not beaten yet. Good-morning.”“Beaten? no,” said Geoffrey. “Good-morning. Miss Penwynn, I’m afraid I’ve shocked you,” he said, merrily, as soon as they were left alone; and as he spoke he could not help admiring the bright, animated face before him; for after the vicar’s smooth, flowing speeches that morning, Geoffrey’s brisk, sharp way had seemed to her like the racy breeze of the sea, fanning her spirit, and making her very pulses tingle.“Shocked?” she said, eagerly; “I liked the discussion. I do love to hear a man speak as he really feels.”“Do you?” said Geoffrey, showing his white teeth. “Well really, Miss Penwynn, if we ever meet much in the future you will invariably hear me speak as I feel. I always did it, and invariably got myself into trouble.”“For being honest?” said Rhoda.“Yes, for being honest. We’re a strange people, Miss Penwynn. Every one advocates the truth, and straightforwardness, but, as a rule, those two qualities find very little favour.”“I’m afraid there is a great deal in what you say,” said Rhoda, thoughtfully.“I’m sure there is,” exclaimed Geoffrey. “It’s a queer world altogether, but I like it all the same.”“I hope we all do,” replied Rhoda, smiling.“Of course; and we do all like it,” said Geoffrey, in an imperious way; “and when next you hear any one, my dear young lady, calling it a vale of tears, and wanting to be somewhere else, you set that person down as an impostor or a fool.”Rhoda raised her eyebrows, feeling half-annoyed at his freedom, half amused.“It’s a splendid world, and it’s half bitters, half sweets.”“Indeed?”“Yes, and wisely so. The bitters make us like the sweets. I find old Mr Paul up yonder do me no end of good when I’m put out. He’s all bitters.”“And Madge Mullion supplies the sweets,” thought Rhoda.“Don’t you think I ought to have gone into the Church, Miss Penwynn?” said Geoffrey, abruptly.“No. Why?”“Because I’m so fond of preaching. Somehow it always sets me going if I come across a man with about two notions only in his head, which he jumps to the conclusion will do admirably for the north and south poles of the world, and that he has nothing else to do but set the world turning upon them; and gets cross if some one tells him the world is really turning the other way. But I’m preaching again. There, I frightened the parson away, and if I don’t change my tone, or Mr Penwynn does not soon send for me, I shall scare you as well.”“I am not so easily alarmed,” said Rhoda, laughing; “but I hope you are meeting with success in your efforts, Mr Trethick?”“Success, my dear madam?” replied Geoffrey, laughing outright. “Why, I have been hammering away ever since I came down, months now, and have not succeeded in any thing but in making the people harder against me.”“I am sorry to hear that.”“Thank you. Sympathy’s nice,” said Geoffrey. “But I’m not beaten yet, Miss Penwynn, and now I think the sun is going to shine, for Mr Penwynn has sent me a line asking me to come and see him; and I have a shrewd suspicion that it means business.”“Mr Penwynn will see you, sir, in the study,” said a servant, opening the door; and, after a frank good-by, Geoffrey swung out of the room, Rhoda’s eyes following him till the door closed.But she did not sigh, she did not go to the glass and look conscious, she did not begin to commune with her spirit, she only said, quietly,—“There is a something about him that I like!”

Geoffrey read it that he was to go up to. An Morlock, where he was informed that Mr Penwynn was engaged, but would be at liberty in a few minutes, and he was shown into the drawing-room, where he found the young vicar and Rhoda, who rose eagerly, but the next moment seemed rather constrained.

“The vicar has been discoursing of spiritual love,” said Geoffrey to himself, as he declined to notice, either Rhoda’s constraint or the young clergyman’s stiffness, but chatted away in his free-and-easy manner.

“By the way, Miss Penwynn,” he said, after a few moments’ conversation, during which he felt that he was in the way, “I saw you were at church last Sunday.”

“I was very glad to see you there, Mr Trethick,” interposed the vicar, hastily.

“Thanks,” said Geoffrey, bluffly. “I shall come—sometimes. Don’t you set me down as a heathen. I went to the chapel in the evening.”

“Indeed!” said the vicar, gazing at him in a horrified way, his looks plainly saying—“You a University man, and go to that chapel!”

“Yes,” said Geoffrey, “and heard a capital sermon.”

“Indeed!” said the vicar again, with a slightly supercilious smile.

“Capital,” said Geoffrey, “by a miner—a rough fellow—one Pengelly.”

“Yes, yes. I know Amos Pengelly,” said Rhoda, hastily.

“Then you know a capital preacher, Miss Penwynn,” cried Geoffrey, nodding to her. “He’s as rough and uncultivated as can be—rather illogical sometimes; but the fellow’s earnestness, and the way he swayed the congregation, were something startling.”

“He is one of the local preachers,” said Rhoda, “and, I believe, a very good man.”

As she spoke Rhoda involuntarily glanced at her visitor’s feet.

“With a most awful temper,” said Geoffrey, laughing. “He got quite angry with the people’s sins while he was preaching.”

“I must confess,” said the vicar, flushing, and speaking rather warmly—“hem! I must confess, Mr Trethick, that the way in which the people down here usurp the priestly office is very shocking, and—and really gives me a great deal of pain.”

“Yes,” said Geoffrey, coolly, “I dare say it would. But I do not see why it should. Here, for instance, is a truly earnest man who finds his way right to the hearts of the people, and he does what you do—prays that they may be led into better ways. His language is rough, I grant, but they understand its homeliness; and if they wouldn’t be so fond of groaning and shouting out ‘Glory’ and ‘Hallelujah’ at incongruous times I should not care. One thing is very evident: he rouses people out of what your clerical gentlemen would call their sinful lethargy.”

“I must say,” said the vicar, “that this is all very terrible to me.”

“Well, I suppose so,” continued Geoffrey. “You see, Mr Lee, you view it all from a University and High Church point of view.”

“And pray, sir, how would you view it?” said the vicar, with his usual nervousness dropped, and speaking like a doughty champion of the church militant, while Rhoda’s lips parted, and a slight flush came into her cheeks, as she grew quite excited over the verbal battle.

“How would I view it?” said Geoffrey. “Why, from a common-sense point of view—matter-of-fact—human nature.”

“Mr Trethick,” cried the vicar, “you—but I beg pardon, Miss Penwynn; this is not a discussion to carry on before you. Mr Trethick, we may talk of this again.”

“Oh, go on!” cried Rhoda, naïvely, with her excitement flashing out of her eyes. “I like it.”

“Then I will speak,” said the vicar, angrily. “Mr Trethick, you pain me by your remark, and I feel it my duty to say that your words savour of most heterodox opinions.”

“Yes,” said Geoffrey, “I suppose they do. I am decidedly unorthodox. I’ve studied nature too much to hold to many of our old college notions.”

“Perhaps you would advocate free thinking?” said the vicar, with a slight sneer; and Rhoda flushed a little more, as she eagerly looked at Geoffrey for his reply.

“Free thinking? Not I. ’Pon my word, Mr Lee, I believe I’m too religious for that.”

“Religious?”

“Yes! Why not? Cannot a man go to chapel, or, in other words, leave off going to church sometimes, without being taxed with irreligion? Look here, Mr Lee, you and I are about contemporaries, and do you know I think if we want to get on here in our different lines of life, the first thing we have to do is to learn of the people.”

“My duty here, sir,” said the vicar, coldly, and growing very pale and upright, “is to teach.”

“So is mine,” said Geoffrey, laughing; “yours spiritual, mine carnal; but, my dear fellow, the first thing we have to do, it seems to me, is to learn the right way to the people’s hearts.”

Rhoda glanced from one to the other, and her pulses began to beat, as she clasped her hands on her lap and excitedly listened for more.

“Perhaps so,” said the vicar, coldly, and he glanced at the door, as if to bring the interview to an end, and yet not liking to leave Geoffrey there the master of the situation.

“For instance, take your sermon last Sunday.”

“Mr Trethick!” cried the vicar, half rising.

“Don’t be offended, I mean no harm,” said Geoffrey, smiling, “and I am not talking to an elder, but a contemporary, as I said before. Besides, Miss Penwynn heard it, and she shall be judge.”

“I beg, Mr Trethick,” began the vicar, but on glancing at Rhoda’s eager face, he determined not to be mastered in argument, especially upon his own ground.

“I maintain,” said Geoffrey, coolly, “that your sermon was a masterly bit of logic.”

The vicar stared.

“A capital line of argument.”

Rhoda nodded.

“Most scholarly.”

A faint flush began to appear in the vicar’s cheeks.

“In fact, an excellent sermon,” said Geoffrey.

“Then why do you allude to it?” said the vicar, rather warmly.

“Because I maintain that it was perfectly unsuited for a simple-minded, ignorant congregation of fishermen and miners. What do they care about how Saint Augustine wrote, or Polycarp thought, or the doings of Chrysostom the Golden Mouthed? Your words about the heresies and the Gnostics and Manichaeans were all thrown away. The early days of the Church don’t interest them a bit, but they can understand about the patriarchs and their troubles and weaknesses, because the masterly hand that wrote their lives painted them as men similar to themselves.”

“Mr Trethick!”

“All right; I’ve just done,” said Geoffrey. “There was another sermon of yours too, I heard you preach, a well-meant one, but somehow you did not get hold of them. You had taken the text about the apostles becoming fishers of men, and the rough fellows could not see that it was their duty to give up their boats and nets, and forsake their wives and little ones, as you downright told them they ought.”

“I hope I know my duty, Mr Trethick,” said the vicar, sternly.

“I hope you do, sir; but somehow, as I say, you don’t get hold of them. Now Pengelly seems to fit what he says to their everyday life, and shows them how to follow the apostles’ example in their self-denial and patience. Why, my dear sir, the people here care no more for the early fathers of the Church than—than I do,” he added, at a loss for a simile.

“Mr Trethick, you surprise me,” gasped the vicar, “you pain me.”

“Do I?” said Geoffrey. “Well, I don’t want to do so. Now that man on Sunday night; he took for his text—”

“Miss Penwynn, Mr Trethick,” said the vicar, rising, “I find—the time—I must say good-morning.”

“I’m afraid I’ve been too free-speaking,” said Geoffrey, earnestly, as he held out his hand. “It’s a bad habit of mine to get warm in argument; and I dare say I’ve been preaching most heretically.”

The vicar hesitated for a moment, but Geoffrey’s manner disarmed him, and besides, Rhoda was looking on.

The result was that he shook hands warmly, and said, with a smile, “Mr Trethick, we must have a few more arguments. I am not beaten yet. Good-morning.”

“Beaten? no,” said Geoffrey. “Good-morning. Miss Penwynn, I’m afraid I’ve shocked you,” he said, merrily, as soon as they were left alone; and as he spoke he could not help admiring the bright, animated face before him; for after the vicar’s smooth, flowing speeches that morning, Geoffrey’s brisk, sharp way had seemed to her like the racy breeze of the sea, fanning her spirit, and making her very pulses tingle.

“Shocked?” she said, eagerly; “I liked the discussion. I do love to hear a man speak as he really feels.”

“Do you?” said Geoffrey, showing his white teeth. “Well really, Miss Penwynn, if we ever meet much in the future you will invariably hear me speak as I feel. I always did it, and invariably got myself into trouble.”

“For being honest?” said Rhoda.

“Yes, for being honest. We’re a strange people, Miss Penwynn. Every one advocates the truth, and straightforwardness, but, as a rule, those two qualities find very little favour.”

“I’m afraid there is a great deal in what you say,” said Rhoda, thoughtfully.

“I’m sure there is,” exclaimed Geoffrey. “It’s a queer world altogether, but I like it all the same.”

“I hope we all do,” replied Rhoda, smiling.

“Of course; and we do all like it,” said Geoffrey, in an imperious way; “and when next you hear any one, my dear young lady, calling it a vale of tears, and wanting to be somewhere else, you set that person down as an impostor or a fool.”

Rhoda raised her eyebrows, feeling half-annoyed at his freedom, half amused.

“It’s a splendid world, and it’s half bitters, half sweets.”

“Indeed?”

“Yes, and wisely so. The bitters make us like the sweets. I find old Mr Paul up yonder do me no end of good when I’m put out. He’s all bitters.”

“And Madge Mullion supplies the sweets,” thought Rhoda.

“Don’t you think I ought to have gone into the Church, Miss Penwynn?” said Geoffrey, abruptly.

“No. Why?”

“Because I’m so fond of preaching. Somehow it always sets me going if I come across a man with about two notions only in his head, which he jumps to the conclusion will do admirably for the north and south poles of the world, and that he has nothing else to do but set the world turning upon them; and gets cross if some one tells him the world is really turning the other way. But I’m preaching again. There, I frightened the parson away, and if I don’t change my tone, or Mr Penwynn does not soon send for me, I shall scare you as well.”

“I am not so easily alarmed,” said Rhoda, laughing; “but I hope you are meeting with success in your efforts, Mr Trethick?”

“Success, my dear madam?” replied Geoffrey, laughing outright. “Why, I have been hammering away ever since I came down, months now, and have not succeeded in any thing but in making the people harder against me.”

“I am sorry to hear that.”

“Thank you. Sympathy’s nice,” said Geoffrey. “But I’m not beaten yet, Miss Penwynn, and now I think the sun is going to shine, for Mr Penwynn has sent me a line asking me to come and see him; and I have a shrewd suspicion that it means business.”

“Mr Penwynn will see you, sir, in the study,” said a servant, opening the door; and, after a frank good-by, Geoffrey swung out of the room, Rhoda’s eyes following him till the door closed.

But she did not sigh, she did not go to the glass and look conscious, she did not begin to commune with her spirit, she only said, quietly,—

“There is a something about him that I like!”

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