Menhardoc Part 32

"Never mind the wet--haul!" cried d.i.c.k; and he hardly keep his fingers off the line.

Urged in this way by his brother, Arthur went on pulling the line in feebly enough, till the fish made a fresh dash for liberty.

"Oh!" cried Arthur; "it's cutting my hands horribly. There--he's gone!"

Not quite, for d.i.c.k made a dash at the flying line, which was rushing over the gunwale, caught it in time, and began a steady pull at it till the fish was more exhausted, and he could turn its head, when he pulled the line in rapidly, and the boys could soon after see the bright silvery fish darting here and there.

"Got a gaff, Will?" shouted d.i.c.k.

"There's the old one stuck in the side, sir," replied the lad; and, holding on with one hand, d.i.c.k reached the gaff-hook with the other; but though he got his fish close up to the stern two or three times, he found that he was not experienced fisherman enough to hold the line with his left hand and gaff it with the other.

"Here!" he cried at last, for Arthur was looking on helplessly. "You catch hold of the line while I gaff him!"

Arthur obeyed with a grimace indicative of disgust as he felt the wet and slippery line; and, in obedience to his brother's orders, he dragged the fish close in; but just as d.i.c.k made a lunge at it with the big hook it darted off again, cutting Arthur's hands horribly. The next time it was dragged in d.i.c.k was successful, getting his hook in its gills, and hoisting it on board, flapping and bounding about as if filled with so much steel spring.

"Hallo! you've got one then, d.i.c.k!" cried his father, turning round; Josh and Will having been quietly observant the while.

"Yes, father!" cried d.i.c.k in the most disinterested way; "Arthur held him and I gaffed him. Isn't it a beauty? What is it, Josh--a silver pollack?"

"A-mussy me, no!" cried Josh, who had ceased rowing. "That be no pollack; that be a ba.s.s. Dessay there be a shoal out there."

"Mind his back tin, Master d.i.c.k!" cried Will excitedly, as he saw d.i.c.k take hold of his prize.

"Yes, I'll mind," said d.i.c.k. "Here, never mind, it being wet," he went on; "catch hold of him with both hands, Arthur, I'll get out the hook."

"Oh--oh--oh!" shouted Arthur, s.n.a.t.c.hing back his hands. "It p.r.i.c.ks!"

"What p.r.i.c.ks?" cried d.i.c.k, seizing the fish and throwing it down again sharply. "Oh, I say, it's like a knife."

"Shall I take it off, sir?" said Will.

"No, I'm not going to be beaten!" cried d.i.c.k, whose hand was bleeding.

"I didn't know what you meant. Why, it's a big stickleback!"

He took hold of the prize more cautiously, disengaged the hook, and then laid the fish before his father--a fine salmon ba.s.s of eight or nine pounds.

"Bravo, my boy!" said Mr Temple; "but is your hand much cut?"

"Oh, no! it's nothing," said d.i.c.k, hastily twisting his handkerchief round his hurt. "I say, isn't it a beauty? But what is the use of that fin?"

"Means of defence, I suppose," said his father, raising the keen perch-like back fin of the fish.--"But there, we are close insh.o.r.e now.

Run her in, my men."

The next minute the boat was grating upon the rocks. Will leaped out and held it steady, for the waves rocked it about a good deal; and the party landed close to the adit, the boat being moored with a grapnel; and then they all walked up to the hole in the foot of the rock, through which Josh and Will had made their escape after their adventure in the mine-shaft a short time before.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN.

ARTHUR TEMPLE CATCHES HIS LARGEST FISH--AN ODD ONE--AND EVEN THEN IS NOT AT REST.

Mr Temple took a small flat lantern from his pocket, struck a match inside, and lit the lamp, which burned with a clear, bright flame.

"Is the shaft belonging to this open at the top?" he said to Will.

"Yes, sir--quite."

"Ah! then there's no foul air. Now, Arthur, come along and you shall see what a mine adit is like."

"I--er--I'd rather not come this time, papa," said Arthur in a rather off-hand way; "the knees of my trousers are so wet."

"Oh! are they?" said Mr Temple quietly. "You will come, I suppose, d.i.c.k?"

"Yes, father. May I carry the lamp?"

"Yes; and go first. Slowly, now. Rather hard to get through;" and after a little squeezing the whole party, save Arthur, crept into the low gallery, the light showing the roof and sides to be covered with wet moss of a glittering metallic green.

There was not much to reward the seekers,--nothing but this narrow pa.s.sage leading to a black square pool of water, upon which the light of the lamp played, and seemed to be battling with a patch of reflected daylight, the image of the square opening, a hundred and fifty feet above.

"Hah!" said Mr Temple after a few minutes' inspection of the adit and the shaft, whose walls, as far as he could reach, he chipped with a sharp-pointed little hammer formed almost like a wedge of steel. "A good hundred years since this was worked, if ever it got beyond the search. Copper decidedly."

"And you think it is very rich?" said Will excitedly, for he had been watching Mr Temple with the greatest eagerness.

"Rich! No, my lad. What, have you got the Cornish complaint?"

"Cornish complaint, sir?" said Will wonderingly.

"The longing to search for mineral treasures?"

"Yes, sir," said Will bluntly after a few moments' pause.

"Then you need not waste time here, my lad."

"But there's copper here. I proved it; and now you say there is."

"Yes; tons of it," said Mr Temple.

"There, Josh!" cried Will triumphantly.

"But," continued Mr Temple as they all stood there half-crouching in the narrow adit, "it is in quant.i.ties and in a bed that would be hard to work, and every hundredweight you got out and smelted would have cost more in wages than you could obtain when you sold your copper."

"There, lad, what did I gashly say?" cried Josh eagerly. "Didn't I say as the true mining was for silver in the sea--ketching fish with boats and nets."

"No, you did not," cried Will hotly; "and you meant nothing of the kind in what you did say."

"Ah! there's nought like the sea for making a living," said Josh in an ill-used tone. "I wouldn't work in one of these gashly places on no account; not for two pound a week, I wouldn't."

"Well, let's get out in the open air at all events, now," said Mr Temple. "I should like to see the mouth of the shaft."