I left Sam picking out the touch-holes with a piece of wire, walked
across the high ground of the wind-swept moor and descended into the
Gap, a well-beaten track now marking the way.
It was too rough for wheels, but filled with the heavy hoof-marks of
donkeys, which were used largely for carrying wood, charcoal, and
sea-coal to the mine; and as I stood up by the spot where years before
Bob Chowne, Bigley, and I had blown up the big stone and set it rolling
down into the valley, it was wonderful what a change had taken place.
Where we had swept the side of the ravine clear with an avalanche of
rock, there had now sprung up quite a tiny village built of the rough
stones dug from the mine. There was a large water-wheel slowly turning
and sending down the water led to it from above, in company with that
which it pumped out of the mine, all thick and discoloured, in quite a
torrent to the beautiful little stream below, which now ran turbid and
in which the trout were all dead.
There was a row of stoutly-built sheds, and a big place with a high
chimney where the ore was smelted. Then there were offices, and a
building where the purified metal was passed through another furnace,
and in addition a place where the metal was kept.
There seemed a total alteration in the place till I directed my eyes
towards the sea, where all appeared to be unchanged. There were the two
cottages--Binnacle Bill's, with some newly washed white garments hanging
over the rocks; and Jonas Uggleston's, with its stone sheds and
outbuildings bristling with spars and wreck-wood that had been thrown
up, and with nets and sails spread out to dry.
Beyond lay his lugger; and the boat drawn up on the beach, suggesting to
my mind the horrors of that night when we were blown off the shore.
I stood looking at the scene, with the bare sea beyond and the vast
cliff towering up a thousand feet on my left, and then began to descend
the rugged slope, making straight for the building which my father used
as his counting-house and office.
"Well, Sep," he said, smiling, "I'm glad to see you."
I noticed that he looked care-worn and anxious, and his aspect
reproached me, for I felt as if it was too bad of me to be making
holiday while he was working so hard.
"Can I help you, father?" I said.
"Help me! Yes, my boy, I hope so--a good deal; but I don't want to be
too hard upon you. Take a good look round for a few days, so as to rest
a little while, and then you shall come and help me here; for, Sep, an
affair like this is not without plenty of anxiety."
"Oh, father!" I said, "I shall have plenty of time for amusement; let's
see if I can't help you now."
He looked more and more pleased as he heard my words.
"No," he said, "not yet. You shall have a look round first for a few
days, and perhaps you may be able quietly to pick up the cause of
something that is troubling me a great deal."
"Troubling you, father!" I said.
"Yes, my lad, troubling me, for things are not going as I could wish.
'Tis just as if, as fast as I get a few steps forward, someone pulls me
back."
"But I thought the mine was very prosperous, father?" I said.
"So it is, my boy, and I am getting it better and better; but there is
always mischief being done, or else some accident occurs, and I can't
tell how."
"Do you suspect anybody?"
"Well, er--no!" he said emphatically. "But, there--never mind now. I'm
busy with some calculations; go and have a look round."
I left his office and had "a look round," the place seeming to have far
more interest for me than it had before. Men were busy wheeling broken
ore and taking it from one heap to another; the great pump was hard at
work sucking out water; and the wheel was winding up buckets of produce
from out of the deep shaft.
I went and had a look there and shrank back, it seemed so repulsive and
dark; but as I did so I saw one of the men smiling, and this made me
turn red.
"Look here," I said sharply, "can I go down there?"
"Oh, yes, if you like, master," he replied, staring at me wonderingly
now.
"Then I will," I said. "I'll have a look at the furnace first, and then
I'll go down."
"Ay, do," he said; "and you're just in time. They're going to run off
the metal in a few minutes."
I recalled our experiment at home with the little built-up furnace, when
the ore was first tried, as I walked to the stone-built house, where
from out of the centre came a low dull roar; from cracks and chinks and
crannies blindingly bright rays of light shot out and seemed to cut the
darkness, which, after the sunshine of out of doors, seemed to be black
and terrible. Now and then there came a peculiar crackling, as if
something were snapping and flying to pieces under the great heat, and
it was some time before I could see anything but the brilliant pencils
of light that cut the gloom.
By degrees, though, I made out that a couple of men were moving here and
there, and that each of them carried a long black rod of iron.
The flames seemed to flutter and burn and to be rushing upward with
tremendous force, while I could fancy that I heard the metal bubbling in
its bed, where it was seething and throwing off wonderful flames, as I
could judge by the gleams I saw.
"Stand back, young master," said one of the men roughly--"there, right
up in the corner here. You won't hurt now. Just going to run her off."
I backed into the corner he pressed me to, where there was a broad
shutter or screen, and I was getting so accustomed to the darkness now
that I could see just below, and in front of a place where golden tears
seemed to be dropping from a chink at the bottom of the furnace, several
long square trenches in the black charcoal floor, and the next minute I
made out that these trenches were all connected together by a little
channel.
"The moulds," I thought to myself, and I looked eagerly now at one of
the men, who shouted something by way of warning to his fellow-worker;
and then, as the man stepped behind a similar screen of wood-work to
that which sheltered me, the one who uttered his words of warning thrust
and hammered with his long iron rod at the foot of the furnace.
I did not quite see what he did afterwards, but he seemed to dart out of
the way, and then a stream of what looked like liquid gold came gushing
out, sputtering, snapping, and sending into the air myriads of glorious
firework-like sparks of blue and orange and scarlet and gold, and so
brilliant that they lit up the whole building and made my eyes ache and
my cheeks tingle. Where a minute before there were so many black
trenches were now so many dazzling ingots, over which played and
fluttered many-tinted flames that kept on waving and undulating as if
they were liquid, and swayed from side to side, giving forth with the
molten metal a glow that scorched my face.
For the first few seconds the molten metal had run off quickly and
filled the moulds; now what came was sluggish and not half so brilliant;
and I noticed that by a quick movement of a long iron rake one of the
men drew some of the earth and charcoal which formed the floor on one
side, so as to alter the course of the running molten contents of the
furnace, and instead of its passing into moulds it seemed to settle down
in a patch.
This, too, was most brilliant to the eye; and from it endless dazzling
coruscations darted up and played about, but for a much shorter period;
and in place of the ruddy glow of the metal, which rapidly cooled down
to look like silver, this last melting grew sombre and stony, ending by
looking of a blackish-grey.
I was still watching the fading away of the brilliant display, when
there was a familiar voice at the door of the building, and my father
stepped in to make inquiries about the running off of the molten ore,
and as he examined the result, he expressed his satisfaction.
"Mind!" he cried to me, as I was about to touch one of the ingots of
lead with my toes. "My good boy, these will not be cool enough to touch
yet. They retain the heat for a long while."
He stopped talking to me for some time, and explained how the men were
closing the bottom of the furnace again with fire-clay, and that they
would now go on pouring in at the top barrows full of charcoal and
broken-up ore. How that dark grey stuff was the molten stones and
refuse which remained after the metal had been cleared, and then he
laughed at what he called my innocence, as I asked him if the ingots, as
he called the square masses which now looked quite white, were silver.
"No, my boy," he said; "we are not so rich as that. If those pieces of
coarse metal, when melted down again, and submitted to a fresh process,
give us three pounds' weight of silver out of every hundred pounds of
lead we shall do well. Now then, would you like to go down the mine?"
He spoke as if he expected to hear me decline; but I had made up my mind
to go, and he looked quite pleased when he heard me say that I was
ready.
"Well," he said, as we reached the top of the shaft, "I'll go down
first, and you can follow. We can get candles at the bottom."
If I had had any ideas of a silver mine being a cavern full of beautiful
sights, I was very soon deceived, for as I stood there at the top, I saw
my father step on to the top rounds of a rough-looking ladder, and begin
to descend slowly till he reached a platform, when he called to me to
follow.
"Hold tight," he said. "But there, I needn't tell you after your cliff
climbing."