Menhardoc Part 4

"Fisherman's a good honest life," said Josh sententiously.

"Not when a lad feels that he's a dependant and a burden on his friends," cried Will excitedly. "I want to get on, Josh. I want to succeed, and--there, I knew you'd come."

For Josh had thrown away the mop with an angry movement, and then dragging on a pair of great blue stockings he put on shoes and followed Will without a word.

Out along the beach and away from the village, and in and out among the rocks for quite two miles, till they were where the cliff went sheer up like a vast wall of rugged granite, at a part of which, where a ma.s.s of broken stone had either fallen or been thrown down, Will stopped and looked round to see if they were observed. As they were alone with no other watchers than a swarthy-looking cormorant sitting on a sunny lodge drying his wings, and a s.h.a.g or two perched with outstretched neck, narrowly observing them, Will climbed up, followed by Josh, till they were upon a broad shelf a hundred and fifty feet above the sea--a wild solitary place, where the heap of debris, lichened and wave-beaten, was explained, for mining operations had once gone on hero, and a great square hole yawned black and awful at their feet.

They had evidently been there before, for Will stepped close to a spot where the rock overhung, and reaching in, drew out some pieces of granite, and then from where it was hidden a large coil of stout rope, and threw it on the broken fragments around.

"It's your doing, mind, you know," said Josh. "I don't like the gashly job at all."

"Yes, it's my doing," said Will.

"And you mean to go down?"

"I do, Josh, for certain."

"It be a gashly unked hole, and you'd best give it up. Look here."

As he spoke he stooped and picked up a piece of rock weighing quite a hundredweight, poised it in his hands for a moment or two, and then, with a wonderful display of strength, tossed it from him right over the middle of the disused mine-shaft. The mica flashed in the sun for a moment, and then the great piece plunged down into the darkness, Josh and Will involuntarily darting to the side and craning over the awesome place to try and follow it with their eyes and catch the reverberations when it struck the sides and finally plunged into the black collected waters far enough below.

CHAPTER FOUR.

A FOOLHARDY VENTURE FOR A GOODLY END.

It seemed as if that stone would never reach the bottom, and a curious expression was upon the eager faces that peered down, a strained look almost of pain, till all at once there was a start as of relief, as a hollow heavy plash was heard that came hissing, and echoing, and reverberating up the rocky sides of the shaft past them and into the sunny air.

"Ugh!" growled Josh, "who knows what gashly creatures lives down there.

P'r'aps its harnted with them as tumbled down and was killed."

"Don't talk nonsense, Josh," said Will, in a voice full of contempt; "I never heard of anybody falling down here."

"Looks as if lots had. Ugh! I wouldn't go down for the price of a new boat and all her gear."

"If everybody felt like you do, Josh, what should we have done for tin and copper?"

"I d'now," growled Josh. "Why can't you leave it alone and 'tend to the fishing. Arn't catching pilchar' and mack'rel good 'nough for you?

Yah! I shall never make nothing of you."

"No, Josh; catching pilchard and mackerel is not good enough for me."

"Then why not get aboard the smack and larn to trawl for sole and turbot? There arn't no better paying fishing than that, so long as you don't get among the rocks."

"No, Josh; nor trawling won't do," said Will, who ash.o.r.e seemed to take the lead that he yielded to his companion and old Michael Polree on board the lugger. "I want to make my way in the world, and do you hear, I will."

He said the last word so emphatically that the fisherman stared, and then said in an ill-used tone:

"Then why don't you try in a reasonable way, and get to be master of a lugger? and if that arn't enough for you, have your share o' nets in another; not come poking about these gashly holes. What's the good?"

"Good!" cried Will, with his eyes flashing. "Hasn't a fortune been got out of Gwavas mine year after year till the water began to pour in?"

"Oh, yes! out o' that."

"And I'm sure one might be got out of this," cried Will, pointing down into the black void.

"What, out o' this gashly pit? Yah! Why didn't the captain and 'venturers get it, then, when they dug it fifty year 'fore I was born?"

"Because they missed the vein."

"And how are you going to find it, lad?"

"By looking," said Will. "There's Retack Mine over yonder, and Carn Rean over there, and they're both rich; and I think the old people who dug down here went too far, and missed what they ought to have found."

"And so you're going to find it, are you, my lad?"

"I don't know," said Will quietly; "but I'm going to try."

As he said those last words he set his teeth and knit his brow, looking so calmly determined that Josh picked up a little bit of granite, turned it over in his fingers a few times as if finding a suitable part, and then began to rub his nose with it softly.

"Well, you do cap me, lad, you do," he said at last. "Look ye here, now," he cried, as if about to deliver a poser, and he seated himself on the rock and crossed his legs, "you don't expect to find coal, do you?"

"No," said Will, "there is no coal in Cornwall."

"Nor yet gold and silver?"

"No: not much."

"Then it's tin you're after, and it won't pay for getting."

"You are wrong, Josh," said the lad smiling.

"Not copper?"

"Yes: copper."

"Yah! Now is it likely?"

"Yes," said Will. "Come here."

Josh rose reluctantly, and the lad began to descend again, climbing quickly down the old mine debris till they reached the sh.o.r.e, and then walking a dozen yards or so he climbed in and out among the great ma.s.ses of rock to where there was a deep crevice or c.h.i.n.k just large enough for a full-grown man to force himself through to where the light came down from above.

"What's the good o' coming into a gashly place like this?" growled Josh, whose breast-bone and elbows had been a little rubbed.

"I wanted to show you that," said Will, pointing to a little crack through which a thread of water made its way running over a few inches of rock, and then disappearing amongst the shingly stones.

"Well, I can see it, can't I?"