CORNWALL TO THE RESCUE
"One and all!" The rallying-cry of the most clannish county in
England. The one in which, from Land's End to Plymouth Sound, every
family claims some degree of cousinship with every other, until, at
home and abroad, "Cousin Richard" is the name proudly borne by all
Cornishmen.
"One and all!" As the startling cry rang through the black underground
depths it was heard and answered, caught up and repeated, until it
penetrated the remotest corners of the far-reaching level. At its
sound the men of Cornwall, working in stope or drift, breast or
cross-cut, dropped their tools and sprang to obey its summons. By twos
and threes they ran, shouting the magic words that Cornish tongues
have carried around the world. They met in eager groups, each
demanding to know who had first given the alarm and its cause. As none
could answer, and the shouts still came from far away, they swept on,
in ever-increasing numbers and with growing anxiety, for the call of
Cornwall is never given save in an emergency.
In the meantime the fight between two and five rages with unabated
fury; the two, with their backs to a wall, putting up the splendid
defence of trained boxers against the fierce but untaught rush of mere
brutes. Science, however, labored under the disadvantage of fighting
in a gloom that was almost darkness, for Mark Trefethen's lamp had
been extinguished at the outset, and the only one still burning was on
a car standing at a distance from them.
Of a sudden the timber boss heard a groan at his side, and found
himself fighting alone. His comrade had sunk limply to the ground, and
an exultant yell from the others proclaimed their knowledge that they
had no longer to fear his telling blows. As they were about to rush in
and complete their victory, the battle-cry of Cornwall, accompanied by
the flash of many lights, came rolling down the gallery.
Help was close at hand. If Mark Trefethen could hold out for another
minute he would be surrounded by friends. With an answering shout of
"One and all!" he sprang to meet his assailants, and, realizing their
danger, they fled before him. At the same instant the lamp on their
car disappeared, and in the utter darkness that followed Trefethen
could only grope his way back to Peveril's side.
A moment later the flaring lights of the Cornish miners disclosed the
old man, with face battered and bleeding, standing grimly undaunted
beside the motionless form of the newest comer to the mine. The latter
lay unconscious, with an ugly wound on the side of his head, from
which blood was flowing freely. It had been made by a fragment of
copper rock, evidently taken from the loaded car close at hand, and
flung from that direction. Several other similar pieces were picked up
near where the two men had defended themselves, and, now that
Trefethen had time for reflection, he recalled having heard these
crash against the wall behind him.
Who had flung them was a mystery, as was the cause of the attack on
Peveril. Even the identity of his assailants seemed likely to remain
unrevealed, for these had slipped away in the darkness, and though the
rescuing party searched the level like a swarm of angry hornets, they
could not discover a man bearing on his person any signs of the recent
fray.
In the gloom shrouding the scene of conflict, Mark Trefethen had not
been able to recognize those with whom he fought, but only knew them
to be foreigners and car-pushers. It afterwards transpired that a
number of these had, on that evening, made their way to a shaft a mile
distant, and so gained the surface. One of them was reported to have
had his head tied up as the result of an accident, but no one had
recognized him.
While certain of the Cornishmen searched the mine, Trefethen and
others bore the still unconscious form of Richard Peveril to the plat,
and sounded the alarm signal of five bells. Nothing so startles a
mining community as to have this signal come from underground. It may
mean death and disaster. It surely means that there are injured men to
be brought up to the surface, and the time elapsing before their
arrival is always filled with deepest anxiety.
It was so in the present case, and when the cage containing the two
battered miners, one of whom had also every appearance of being dead,
emerged from the shaft, a throng of spectators was waiting to greet
it.
These learned with a great sigh of relief that there had been no
accident, but merely a fight, in which the men just brought up were
supposed to be the only ones injured. Their revulsion of feeling led
many of the spectators to treat the whole affair as a joke, especially
as the only person seriously hurt was a stranger.
"It's always new-comers as stirs up shindies," growled a miner who,
having reached the surface a few minutes earlier, formed one of the
expectant group. "They ought not to be let underground, I say."
"How about Trefethen?" asked a voice. "He's no new-comer."
"Oh, Mark's a quarrelsome old cuss, who's always meddling where he has
no call."
"You lie, Mike Connell, and you know it. My father never fights
without good cause," cried Tom Trefethen, who had arrived just in time
to resent the slurring remark.
"I'll teach you, you young whelp!" shouted the miner, springing
furiously forward; but Tom leaped aside, leaving the other to be
confronted by several burly Cornishmen, in whose ears was still
ringing the cry of "One and all!"
"Lad's right, Maister Connell," said one of these. "If 'ee doan't
believe it, come along and get proof."
But the Irishman, muttering something about not caring to fight all
Cornwall, turned abruptly and walked away.
Tom Trefethen, not yet knowing that Peveril had been hurt, also
hurried away to find his father, who, having left his young friend in
the hands of the mine surgeon, had gone to change his clothing. At the
same time poor Peveril lay in a small room of the shaft-house, having
the gash in his head sewn up. Several spectators regarded the
operation curiously, and among them was a gentleman, addressed by the
doctor as Mr. Owen, whom none of the others remembered to have seen
before, but who seemed to take a great interest in the still
unconscious sufferer.
"Do you consider it a serious case, doctor?" he asked.
"No. Not at all serious. These miners are a tough lot, and not easily
done for, as you'll find out before you have seen as much of them as I
have. This one will probably be out and at work again in a day or two.
I'm always having such little jobs on my hands, the results of
accident, mostly, though this, I believe, is a case of fighting,
something very uncommon in our mine, I can assure you. Splendid
physique, hasn't he? Savage-looking face, though. Hate to trust myself
alone with him. I understand old Mark Trefethen had a hard tussle
before he brought him to terms."
"What was the trouble?"
"I don't know, exactly. Insubordination, I suppose; but old Mark
don't put up with any nonsense."
"Do you know this fellow's name, or anything about him?"
"Um--yes. I have learned something, but not much. His name is
Peril--Richard Peril. Odd name, isn't it? He's a new-comer, and, like
yourself, has just entered the company's employ. Rather a contrast in
your positions, though. Illustrates the difference between one brought
up and educated as a gentleman, and one destined from the first for
the other thing, eh? It is all poppycock to say that education can
make a gentleman; don't you think so? In the present case, for
instance, I doubt if even Oxford could make a gentleman of this
fellow. His whole expression is a protest against such a supposition.
But now he's coming to all right, and I'm glad of it, for I have an
engagement at the club, and don't want to spend much more time with
him."
Poor Peveril, whose begrimed and blood-streaked face was not
calculated to prepossess one in his favor, began just then to have a
realizing sense that he was still alive, and the doctor, bending over
him, said:
"There now, my man, you are doing nicely, and by taking care of
yourself you will be about again in a day or two. You had a close
call, though, and it's a warning to behave yourself in the future; for
I can assure you that one given to fighting or disobedience of orders
is not allowed to linger in these parts. I must leave you now, but
will call again this evening to see how you are getting along. What
is your address?"
"He lives along of us, sir," answered Tom Trefethen, who had just
entered the room; "and if you think it's safe to move him, we'll take
him right home."
"Certainly you can move him; in fact, he could walk if there was no
other way; but it will be as well to take him in a carriage. Let me
see, your name is Trefethen, is it not?"
"Yes, sir."
"Very well; put your boarder to bed as soon as you get him home, keep
him quiet, give him only cooling drinks, and I'll call round after a
while. Now I must hurry along."
The stranger, who walked away with the self-important young doctor,
was none other than Peveril's Oxford classmate--"Dig" Owen--who,
having obtained a position in the Eastern office of the White Pine
Mining Company, had been advised to visit the mine and learn something
of its practical working before assuming his new duties. He had just
arrived when the rumor of an accident caused him to hurry to the
shaft-mouth. There he was thunderstruck at recognizing in one of the
two men brought up from the depths his recent college-mate and rival.
In the excitement of the moment he had very nearly betrayed the fact
of their acquaintance, but managed to restrain himself, and was
afterwards careful to keep out of Peveril's sight, foreseeing a great
advantage to himself by so doing.
That same evening he sat in the comfortable writing-room of the
club-house--at which poor Peveril had gazed with envious eyes--and
composed a long epistle to Rose Bonnifay, in which he mentioned that
he had just run across their mutual friend, Dick Peveril, working as a
day-laborer in a copper-mine.
"This" [he continued] "is doubtless the mine in which he
claimed to be _interested_, and under the circumstances one can
hardly blame the poor fellow for putting it in that way. At the
same time, I consider it only fair that _you_ should know the
real facts in the case.
"His misfortunes seem also to have affected his disposition,
for on the very day of my arrival he was engaged in a most
disgraceful fight with some of his low associates, by whom he
was severely and justly punished. Of course I could not afford
to recognize him, and so took pains to have him kept in
ignorance of my presence. Is it not sad that a fellow of such
promise should in so short a time have fallen so low?
"Within a few days I shall return to the East, where my own
prospects are of the brightest," etc.
"There," said Mr. Owen to himself, as he sealed and addressed this
letter. "If that don't effectually squelch Mr. Richard Peveril's
aspirations in a certain direction, then I'm no judge of human
nature."