Sappers and Miners Part 13

"But you don't want money, father, do you?" said Gwyn. The Colonel stopped short, and faced round to gaze in his son's face before bursting into a merry fit of laughter. "Have I said something very stupid, father?"

"No, not stupid--only shown me how inexperienced you are in the matters of everyday life, Gwyn. My dear boy, I never knew an officer on half-pay who did not want money."

"But I thought you had enough."

"Enough, boy? Someone among our clever writers once said that enough was always a little more than a man possessed."

"But you will not begin mining, father?"

"I don't know, my boy. Let's have a look at the place. Here have we been these ten years, and I know no more about this hole than I did when I came. I know it is an old mine-shaft half full of water, just like a dozen more about the district, and I should have gone on knowing no more about it if that man had not begun talking, and shown me, by the great interest he takes in the place, that he thinks it must be rich. Be rather a nice thing to grow rich, my boy, and have plenty to start you well in the world."

"But I don't want starting well in the world, father; it's nice enough as it is."

"What, you idle, young dog! Do you expect to pa.s.s all your life fishing, bathing, and bird's-nesting here?"

"No, father; but--"

"'No, father; but--' Humph! here's the place, then. Dear me, how very unsafe that stone-wall is. A strong man could push it down the shaft in half-an-hour."

As he spoke the Colonel strode up to the piled-up stones, and looked over into the fern-fringed pit.

"Ugh! horrible! Pitch one of those stones down, boy."

Gwyn took a piece of the loose granite, raised it over his head with both hands, and threw it from him with force enough to make it strike the opposite side of the shaft, from which it rebounded, and then went on down, down, into the darkness for some moments before there was a dull splash, which came echoing out of the mouth, followed by a strange swishing as the water rose and fell against the sides.

"Horrible, indeed!" muttered the Colonel. Then aloud: "And you let them lower you down by a rope, it came undone, and you fell headlong into that water down below, rose, swam to the side and then crept along a horizontal pa.s.sage to where it opened out on the sea yonder?"

"Yes, father," said the boy, recalling his sensations as his father spoke.

"Bless my heart!" exclaimed the Colonel. "Well, Gwyn, you're a queer sort of boy. Not very clever, and you give me a good deal of anxiety as to how you are going to turn out. But one thing is very evident--with all your faults, you are not a coward."

"Oh, yes, I am, father," said Gwyn, shaking his head. "You don't know what a fright I was in."

"Fright! Enough to frighten anybody. I've faced fire times enough, my boy, and had to gallop helter-skelter with a handful of brave fellows against a thousand or more enemies who were thirsting for our blood!

But I dared not have gone down that pit hanging at the end of a rope.

No, Gwyn, my boy, you are no coward. There, show me now where you were drawn up."

Gwyn led the way to the foot of the granite ridge, fully expecting to hear his father say that he could not climb up there; but, to his surprise, the Colonel mounted actively enough, and walked along the rugged top to where it ended in the great b.u.t.tress, and there he stood at the very edge gazing down.

"Where were you, Gwyn?" he said at last; and the boy pointed out the projection beneath which the adit opened out.

"To be sure. Yes, I couldn't quite make it out," said the Colonel, coolly, as he turned away; but Gwyn noticed that he took out his handkerchief to pa.s.s it over his forehead, and then wiped the insides of his hands as if they were damp.

"Let's go back by the road," said the Colonel, after shading his eyes and taking a look round; "but I want to pa.s.s the mouth of the mine."

Upon reaching the latter, the Colonel drew a hammer from his pocket, and after routing out a few grey pieces of stone from where they lay beneath the furze bushes, he cracked and chipped several, till one which looked red in the new cleavage, and was studded with little blackish-purple, glistening grains, took his fancy.

"Carry this home for me, Gwyn," he said. "I wonder whether that piece ever came out of the mine?"

"I think all that large sloping bank covered with bushes and brambles came out of the mine some time, father," said the boy. "It seems to have been all raised up round about the mouth there."

"Eh? You think so?"

"Yes, father; and as the pieces thrown out grew higher, they seem to have built up the mouth of the mine with big blocks to keep the stones from rolling in. I noticed that when I was being let down. The ferns have taken root in the joints. Lower down, fifteen or twenty feet, the hole seems to have been cut through the solid rock."

"Humph! you kept your eyes open, then?"

Crossing the wall where the lane ran along by the side of the Colonel's property, they turned homeward, and in a few minutes Gwyn caught sight of Joe Jollivet's cap gliding in and out among the furze bushes, as he made his way in the direction of his own house, apparently not intending to be seen. But a few hundred yards farther along the lane there was some one who evidently did intend to be seen, in the shape of Sam Hardock, who rose from where he was sitting on a grey-lichened block, and touched his hat.

"That's a nice specimen you've got there, Master Pendarve," he said, eyeing the block the boy carried.

"It's a very heavy one, Sam," replied Gwyn; and his father strode on, but stopped short and turned back frowning, unable, in spite of his annoyance, to restrain his curiosity.

"Here, you Hardock," he cried, tapping the block his son carried, with his cane. "What is it? What stone do you call that?"

"Quartz, sir," said the man, examining the piece, "and a very fine specimen."

"Eh? Good for breaking up to repair the roads with, eh?"

"No, sir; bad for that; soon go to powder. But it would be fine to crush and smelt."

"Eh? What for?"

"What for, sir?" said the man with a laugh; "why, that bit o' stone's half tin. I dunno where you got it, o' course; but if it came from the spoil bank of that old mine, it just proves what I thought."

"Tin? Are you sure?"

"Sure, sir? Yes," said the man, laughing. "I ought to know tin when I see it. If it comes out of the old Ydoll mine, you've only got to set men at work to go down and blast it out, sir, and in a very short time you'll be a rich man."

"Come along, Gwyn," said the Colonel, hastily; "it's time we got back.

Hang the fellow!" he muttered, "he has given me the mining fever, and badly, too, I fear."

CHAPTER NINE.

DOCTOR JOE.

"Oh, dear! Oh, dear! What a life! what a state of misery to be in!"

"Shall I turn the pillow over, father?" said Joe to Major Jollivet, who was lying on the couch drawn before the window, so that he could have a good view of the sea.

"No," shouted the Major, whose face was contracted by pain; and he shivered as he spoke although his forehead was covered with perspiration. "Why do you want to worry me by turning the pillow?"

"Because it will be nice and cool on the other side."

"Get out. Be off with you directly, sir. Can't you see I'm shivering with cold? Oh, dear: who would have jungle fever?"

"I wouldn't father," said the boy; and in spite of the words just spoken, he softly thrust his arm under his father's neck, raised his head, and then turned and punched the pillow, smoothed it, and let the Major's head down again.