Bred in the Bone; Or, Like Father, Like Son Part 9

"Die, Sir? Oh yes," answered the young girl, sadly; "my own mother died two years ago, and lies buried there in yonder lonesome place. But it is not usual for Gethin folks to die so young, except by shipwreck."

"Are there many wrecks here, then?"

"Yes, Sir, and will be to all time; our church-yard is half full of drowned men. On the nights before storm, up yonder, you may hear them calling out each other's names."

"Have _you_ ever heard them?"

"Not I, Sir, thanks be to Heaven. I would not venture there at night for the best cargo that ever came to Turlock."

"Where is Turlock?"

"The port there behind us, Sir; you can see the houses now, but not the harbor. It winds beneath the cliff, so that a ship can scarcely make it, save in smooth weather, though, when it once does so, it is safe enough.

To see the great green waves rush in and turn, and turn, and waste themselves in their wild fury, as though they searched for it in anger--ah! it's an awful sight."

"That is in winter-time only, I suppose?"

"Nay, Sir; we have storms at other seasons. Whenever I see such a sign as the castle without the crag--it's all clear now, you see, because the wind is rising--then am I thankful that my father is no sailor. Most folk are such at Gethin that are not miners."

"Then your father is a miner, is he?"

"No, Sir, not now, though he once was. Every body knows John Trevethick about here, and why he don't work underground."

"How was that, then?" inquired Richard, with interest. "You must remember I am a stranger, and know nothing."

"Well, Sir, it was years ago, and before I was born. Father was just married, though he was not a young man for a bridegroom, and was down Turlock pit-hole with Harry Coe (Solomon's father), putting in shot for blasting. They had worked underground together for five-and-twenty years, and were fast friends, though Coe was an older man, and a widower, with Solomon almost of age. They were deep down in the shaft, and one at a time was all that the man at the windla.s.s above could haul up; and they had put in their shot, and given them the signal. One was to go up first, of course, and then the second to light the match, and follow him with all speed. Now, while they were still both at the bottom, it struck Coe that the match was too long, and he took a couple of stones, a flat and a sharp one, to cut it shorter. He did cut it shorter, but at the same time kindled the match. Both shouted their loudest, and sprang at the basket, but the man at the windla.s.s could not lift the double weight. You see, Sir, it was certain death to both of them, unless one should give way. Then Coe jumped out, crying to father 'Go aloft, John. In one minute I shall be in heaven.' It was he who had caused the disaster, and therefore, as he doubtless thought, should be the one to suffer for it; besides, he reflected, perhaps, that he was an old man, and had no bride at home to mourn for him; still, it was a n.o.ble deed, and I never denied it."

"Denied it!" exclaimed Richard; "I should think not. Why should you?"

and he looked up with wonder into his companion's face. It was one blush from brow to chin.

"Well, Sir," continued she, disregarding his interruption, "my father was hurried up; and as he looked over the basket the charge exploded, and the great stones flew up and blackened his face. In a minute more he was safe above-ground."

"But the poor man below?"

"He was dead, Sir. It could not have been otherwise. Father took it so to heart that he never did a day's work underground again. And when I was born, a few months afterward, I was christened Harry--though that's a lad's name--in memory of the friend that saved his life by the sacrifice of his own."

"He might well have done that, and even more," said Richard, "if more could have been done."

"That's just what father says, Sir," answered the young girl, quietly.

"But when things have happened so long ago--before one was born--they don't come home to one quite so strong, you see. Father keeps not only his old grat.i.tude, but his old tastes. He cares more for mines and machinery and such like than for any thing else; he is a better mechanic than any in Turlock, where I have just been to the watch-maker's to get him some steel springs. You should see the locks he makes, and the rings he turns. He will be so pleased if you ask him to show them to you."

"I shall certainly ask him to do so, if I get the chance," said Richard, eagerly. "Is that your house with the pretty garden?"

"No, Sir; that's the parson's. n.o.body can get flowers to grow as he does. The next house at the top of the hill is ours."

"Why, I thought that would be the inn!" exclaimed Richard, looking at the little white-washed house, with its sign-board, or what seemed to be such, swinging in the rising breeze.

"It _is_ the inn," said his companion, quietly, but not without a roguish smile. "Father keeps the _Gethin Castle_, although he has many other trades."

"And is that he, at the door yonder?" inquired Richard, pointing to a tall, thick-set man of middle age, who was standing beneath the little portico, with a pipe in his mouth.

"No, Sir, that is not father," replied the girl, with sudden gravity; "that is Solomon Coe."

CHAPTER XII.

A PERILOUS CLIMB.

"Is father in?" inquired the young girl of Solomon, as he stood in the doorway, without moving aside to let Richard pa.s.s into the house.

"No, he is not," returned the person addressed, his keen blue eye fixed suspiciously on the stranger. "As you were so long on your errand, he gave up his lock-work, and has gone off to the pit. He said he had never known you loiter so."

"I did not loiter at all," returned the maiden, indignantly; "if it had not been for the fog, I should have been home an hour ago; but one can't walk through wool as if it were air. You had the fog here yourselves, hadn't ye?"

It was strange to note the change in the girl's speech; not only were her air and tone quite different from what they had been--her modesty or shyness exchanged for a confidence and even a touch of defiance--but her phraseology had become blunt and provincial.

"Well, any way he was angered, Harry," returned Solomon, "until I told him of the new copper lode, as I whispered to you of this morning (you were the first to learn it, Harry), when off he set, in good-humor enough with all the world.--You'll come across John Trevethick, if you want him, young man, over at Dunloppel, though I doubt whether you will find him much of a customer--unless you are in the iron and steel line."

"I am in the knife-and-fork line just at present," answered Richard, good-humoredly; "and, if you will be good enough to move aside, I should like to order my dinner."

"I ax pardon," said Solomon, sulkily, withdrawing himself from the doorway. "I did not know I was hindering custom.--Who is this young spark, Harry?" added he, in a low tone, as the other entered the house.

"Well, he's a young gentleman, Solomon, as you could see very well if you chose," answered the girl, angrily. "He don't look much like a bagman, I think, any ways. I am sure father would not like you to treat his customers in that fashion."

"I am sure he wouldn't like your escorting such customers over Turlock Down alone."

"That's father's business, and not yours, at present, Solomon," retorted the girl, tartly; "and perhaps it never may be yours. You take as much upon yourself because of your new copper vein as if it was gold."

"Nay, don't say that, Harry," replied the other, with an admiring look, from which every trace of ill feeling seemed to have departed. "If it _were_ gold, I should be more pleased upon your account than my own, you may depend upon it. You think I am jealous, now, of yonder bit of a lad, but----"

"I think nothing of the kind," answered Harry, impetuously.

"Well, well," returned Solomon, soothingly; "then we'll say no more about it. Trevethick wanted me to be away with him to pit, but I said: 'No; I'll wait for Harry, and bring her with me to Dunloppel.' It's a great find, my girl, and may be the making of us all."

"Nay, a walk to Turlock and back is enough for one day's work, Solomon; and, besides, I'm wet through with the fog, and must change my things.--Hannah! Hannah!" and, raising her voice to landlady pitch, she addressed some one within doors, "didn't you hear the parlor bell ringing?--So never mind me, Solomon; I dare say I shall hear enough about the lode when you and father come back;" and with that, and a careless nod of her shapely head, the young girl pushed past her disappointed swain, and ran up stairs.

The _Gethin Castle Inn_ was a much better house of entertainment than might have been looked for in a spot so secluded from the world, and far from the great arteries of travel. A coast-road pa.s.sed through the little village leading from Turlock to the now almost disused harbor at Polwheel, and that was the sole means of getting to Gethin save on foot or horseback. There was no traffic--to be called such--in the district.

Dunloppel, always a productive mine, was, like its more famous brother, Botallack, situated on the sea-coast, so that neither road nor tramway had been created for its needs; the land about was barren, except in minerals; and not a tree was to be seen for miles. Indeed, with the exception of the parson's garden, there was scarcely a cultivated spot in the whole parish. The graceful sprays of the sea-tamarisk, however, flourished every where, in lieu of foliage, and in places where certainly foliage is seldom seen. Not only did it grow luxuriantly on banks and similar exposed positions, as though the roaring sea-winds, which cut off all other vegetation, favored and nourished it, but waved its triumphant pennant upon walls and house-tops. Stony places have a special attraction for this weed; and it takes root so readily that the story of its importation into Gethin might have had more foundation in fact than some other local legends equally credited. Only a few years back the plant had been unknown there, but a wagoner of the place, on his return journey, had plucked a sprig of it in some locality where it grew, to serve the purpose of a whip; and, when he reached home, had thrown it carelessly on the top of an earthen wall, where it had struck root, and multiplied.

The cliffs, and the sea, and, above all, the ruined castle upon the rock, were the sole attractions then which Gethin possessed--and that they _did_ attract was an unceasing subject of wonder to its inhabitants. Whatever could the fine folk see in a heap of stones or a waste of water, to bring them there for hundreds of miles, was a mystery unexplained; but the villagers were no more unwilling than professional spiritualists to take a practical advantage of the Inexplicable. In the winter they reaped the harvest of the sea, or explored the bowels of the earth; in the summer they transformed themselves into "guides," and set up curiosity-shops of sh.e.l.ls and minerals; while, to supply accommodation to the increasing throng of Visitors, John Trevethick, who had always a keen eye for profit, had leased the village beer-house, and enlarged it to the dimensions of a respectable inn. Even now, however, the house exhibited a curious ignorance or disregard of the tastes of those for whose use it was built--the windows of all its sitting-rooms opened upon the straggling street, while the glorious prospect of cliff and ocean which it commanded behind was totally ignored. Thus Richard Yorke found himself located in an apartment which, though otherwise tolerably comfortable, might as well have been in Bloomsbury for the view which it afforded. The walls were ornamented by colored pictures of the Royal Exchange and of the Thames Tunnel, London; and upon the mantel-piece was an equestrian figure (in china) of Field-marshal the Duke of Wellington as he appears upon the arch of Const.i.tution Hill. The only attempt at "local coloring" was found in the book-case--composed of two boards and a cat's cradle--in which three odd volumes of the "Tales of the Castle" had been placed, no doubt with reference to the grand old ruin whose tottering walls beckoned "the quality" to Gethin.

His simple meal of bacon and eggs having been dispatched, and grat.i.tude failing to invest with interest the lean pigs that searched in vain for cabbage-stalks, or the dyspeptic fowls that were moulting digestive pebbles in the street without, Richard lit a cigar, and prepared to saunter forth. The fog had vanished; all the sky was blue and bright.

The keen and gusty air increased in him that elasticity of spirit with which luncheon at all stages of their life-journey inspires mankind.

"I suppose," said he, looking in at the window of the room he had just left, and where Hannah, who was waiting-maid as well as cook, except "in the season," was clearing away the remnants of the repast, "one can get to the castle without a guide?"