"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 naively.
"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
the _debris_ was 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.