"I should just like to shake hands with you, sir," said Geoffrey's
guide, wiping his hand carefully upon his flannel trousers after using
his fingers to snuff both candles. "I never thought you'd come down
half-way--that I didn't. You're a plucked un, sir. That's about what
you are, if you'll excuse me."
Geoffrey laughed, and shook hands with his guide, finding that he had
risen wonderfully in the man's estimation, the manager looking at him
quite admiringly.
"My name's Curnow," he said, "Richard Curnow, and I'd like to see you
again, sir. Now what can I show you?"
"Every thing!" exclaimed Geoffrey. "Let me see all the workings, and
what sort of stuff you are sending up."
"Why, you've been down a mine before, sir?" said the manager, curiously,
and he gazed inquiringly in Geoffrey's face with a look of suspicion,
gradually growing plainer; but he remained very civil, and led the way
through the maze of passages through which for many a generation the ore
had been picked out--laboriously hewn out of the solid rock as the veins
of tin were patiently followed. Every now and then some dark, echoing
gallery struck off at right angles, till Geoffrey felt, as he stumbled
on, that a stranger would soon lose his way in such a terrible
labyrinth, if not his life through falling down one of the well-like
pits yawning here and there at his feet.
Sometimes the way had a lofty roof, and the floor was clear; sometimes
they had to stoop and wade through mud and water, and crawl round
buttresses of rock to avoid a fall, or to step from sleeper to sleeper
of a very primitive tramway.
"Let me see," said the manager. "Amos Pengelly ought to be somewhere
about here. Wait a minute, and let's try if we can hear him."
There were only a few distant echoing noises to be heard, as they stood
in the midst of that black darkness, their candles just shedding a halo
of light round them, and casting grotesque shadows of their forms upon
the glistening walls, and they once more groped more than walked along,
Geoffrey pausing now and again, though, to examine with his light the
various tokens of minerals that could be seen cropping out on wall and
roof, to all of which actions the guide gave an impatient shrug.
"They don't mean any thing," he said. "We've pretty well worked the old
place out. There's Amos!"
Geoffrey turned from the place he was examining, and could hear a
confused sound; but after journeying on for about a hundred yards the
manager stopped and touched his arm.
They had just reached a low side passage, at the end of which there was
a faint glow, and there, keeping time to the clicking sharp strokes of a
pick, came the sounds of a rich tenor voice, whose owner seemed to be
throwing his whole soul into what he was singing.
"Hal--le--hal--le--lu--i--jah. Hal--le--hal--le--lu--i--jah."
And so on slowly, every other syllable being accompanied by a stroke of
the pick. Then, as the verse of the old-fashioned anthem being sung
came to an end, there was a pause, the light seemed to be shifted, and
the singer began again, but this time choosing Luther's hymn as an
accompaniment to the strokes of his pick.
"Here's a gentleman come to see you, Amos! Creep out, my lad; we can't
get in to you."
They had approached the singer till the ceiling was so low that it would
have necessitated crawling to where Geoffrey could see by the light of a
candle, stuck with a lump of clay against the rocky wall, a dark figure,
half lying upon one side, vigorously working a sharp-pointed steel
pickaxe, and chipping down fragments of glistening tin-grained quartz.
On hearing the summons, the figure gave itself a roll over and crawled
slowly out, when in the short, lame, thick-set miner Geoffrey recognised
the man with the piece of conger eel who had explained the fishing to
him on the cliff.
"This is our Amos Pengelly," said the manager, as if he were showing one
of the curiosities of the mine; "works all week-days and sings psalms;
goes out preaching on Sundays."
"Well," said Geoffrey, bluntly, "he might do worse."
Amos nodded and looked curiously at the speaker, who went down on hands
and knees to creep to where the miner had been at work; took down the
candle from the wall, and examined the vein of glistening tin and the
fragments that had been chipped off.
"Very poor stuff," said Geoffrey, as he returned.
"Ah, we work out poorer stuff than that," said the manager, "don't we,
Amos?"
"Ay," said the miner, looking eagerly at the visitor. "Was you thinking
of buying this mine, sir?"
"No!" said Geoffrey, shortly.
"Surveying it for some one else, perhaps?"
"What's the good of talking like that, Amos," said the manager, "when it
is not for sale?"
"I heered as it was," said Amos, still gazing searchingly at the
well-built young man before him. "But whether it be or not, sir, if you
wants to buy a good working and paying mine, you buy Wheal Carnac."
"Ha, ha, ha, ha!" laughed the manager, a man who had evidently been
himself a working miner. "Oh, come, Amos! I wonder at you who call
yourself a Christian man trying to persuade a stranger to buy that old
swindle."
"I don't care!" cried Amos, excitedly, "Christian or no Christian," and
he gave his pick a blow on the rock which made the sparks fly, "I know
there's good stuff down that shaft, and if it arn't been found yet it's
because they haven't looked in the right place. You go and look at it,
sir, and see what you think."
"Don't you do nothing of the sort, sir," said the manager. "It's a
gashly old hole, down which thousands of pounds have been thrown, and
machinery wasted over. Don't you take any notice of what Amos says."
"All right," said the miner, making the sparks fly again as he smote the
rock angrily. "I haven't worked underground man and boy for five and
twenty year without knowing something about it, and as I'm a honest man,
why Wheal Carnac's a fortune to them as know'd how to work it."
"I'll have another look at the place," said Geoffrey, who was struck by
the man's earnestness.
"You just do, sir, you just do, and if that place don't turn out right,
I'll--I'll--"
"Swallow your pick heft, eh, Amos?" said the manager, tauntingly.
"Nay, I won't; but I'll never believe in any thing again. But you can't
look at the stuff they got up, sir, she's full of water."
"And it would take hundreds of pounds to get her dry, eh, Amos? Don't
you worry your head about Wheal Carnac, sir, unless you want a place to
work a company, and draw a salary until they are sick of it."
"As some rogues down in these parts do," said Amos, making the sparks
fly again.
"I don't know about rogues," said the manager, laughing. "There's
always plenty of fools with heaps of money, which they want to invest in
mines, and I don't see why the adventurers shouldn't have it as well as
any one else."
Geoffrey turned in disgust from the manager, and held his candle so that
its light should fall upon the frank, honest face of the miner, whose
ways rather won upon him.
"Look here, Pengelly," he said, "you and I will have a chat about Wheal
Carnac and a look at the ore together."
"Will you, sir? will you?" cried the miner, excitedly. "I can show you
some of the ore. When will you look?"
"Any time you like," said Geoffrey. "I don't suppose any thing will
come of it, but I came to see all I can."
"I've--I've waited years upon years to see that mine fairly tried,"
cried Pengelly, "but every one laughs at me."
"Of course they do, Amos," said the manager, banteringly. "Why, you did
trick one party into fooling away thousands."
"Trick? trick? I tricked any one?" cried the miner, who had for the
last few minutes been writhing under the lash of the other's tongue.
"It's a lie--a cruel he!" he exclaimed, and in a furious burst of
passion he whirled up his steel pick as though it had been a straw, to
strike at the cause of his annoyance.
Amos Pengelly's furious burst of passion was but of momentary duration.
As Geoffrey made a step forward to seize his arm, the pick dropped from
the man's hand, his face became convulsed, and all token of menace had
gone. One moment he had been ready to strike down the manager for
hinting that he was dishonest; the next his arms fell to his sides, his
head drooped, his shoulders heaved, and he turned away into the darkness
of the mine, uttering a low, piteous moaning as if torn by some great
agony that he wished to hide from the sight of man.
"Come away, sir," said the manager, quietly, "he won't like to face us
again to-day," and as Geoffrey rather unwillingly followed him, the
manager went on towards the foot of the shaft. "Poor old Amos! I
believe he's a bit touched in the head. I haven't seen him in one of
his fits of passion like that for months. He's off now into one of the
darkest corners he can find, and he'll be down on his knees praying as
hard as ever he can. His temper gets the better of him sometimes, and
he's such a religious chap that he won't forgive himself for getting in
a rage; but when he comes up to grass to-night he'll walk straight to my
office, as humble as a child, and beg my pardon."
"And you'll forgive him?" said Geoffrey.
"Forgive him? Oh, yes! poor chap. Why not? He can't help it."
"He seems an honest fellow," said Geoffrey, musingly.
"Honest? Oh, yes! he's honest as the day's long, sir. I'd trust him
with all our sales' money without counting it. His failing is that he's
gone off religious crazy; and what's as bad, he's in love with a
handsome girl who don't care for him. Bess Prawle, down at the Cove, is
as straight as an arrow, and poor Amos is quite a cripple, and not the
sort of fellow to take the fancy of a dashing girl like she."
"Poor fellow," said Geoffrey, softly, as he followed his guide, who kept
on conversing.
"Then, too, sir, poor old Amos got that craze on about Wheal Carnac, and
wanting people to believe in it, so that altogether it's no wonder he
turns queer. People say that Bess Prawle, who's a bit of a witch, has
ill-wished him, but I don't know. One thing I do know, though--poor old
Amos is about as good a workman as ever handled a pick."
"Then," said Geoffrey, thoughtfully, "you think Wheal Carnac is
worthless?"
"Worthless? Worthless? Ha-ha-ha!" roared the manager. "If you had
lived down here you'd have laughed as I do to see what money's been
wasted there. No end of people have been took in with that mine. Just
you go and have a look at it yourself, sir. You seem to know a bit
about mining. Of course you can't do much, but you can turn over a few
of the stones and see what was dug out last. Now, sir, what do you
say--would you like to see any more of the place?"
"No," replied Geoffrey, who had been in several parts of the mine, and
spoken to different men at work, "no, I have seen all I wish to see for
one day," and, following his guide to the foot of the shaft, the
terrible array of ladders was attacked; and at last, with wearied and
strained muscles, Geoffrey reached the mouth in safety, feeling as if he
had never seen the sky look so pure and blue, or felt the breath of
heaven so sweet.
He was drenched with perspiration, and only too glad to accept the
manager's hospitality, and have a wash and rest. But he was well
satisfied with his visit, in which he had learned no little, but above
all, he could not help dwelling upon the words of the miner, and feeling
deeply impressed about the deserted mine--so deeply indeed that what had
been merely a visit of curiosity proved to be the turning-point in his
future career.
An hour afterwards he was striding back towards Carnac, while Amos
Pengelly was still upon his knees in the darkest part of Horton
Friendship, the great tears streaming from his eyes as he prayed, in all
the sincerity of his great soul, for forgiveness of his burst of anger,
and for strength to control the temper that mastered him from time to
time, lest the day should come when he should go forth into the world
with the curse of Cain upon his brow--for that was the black shadow that
haunted the poor fellow's life.