Sappers and Miners Part 40

said Gwyn, laughing. "Come along, Joe, and let's go and have a talk to Sam Hardock about the--what did he call it--far--far--what?"

"I don't know," replied Joe; "but somehow I wish Master Tom Dina.s.s hadn't been taken on."

"Going to have a man-engine, are they?" muttered Dina.s.s, as he sat watching the two lads from the corners of his eyes. "Seems to me that things have gone pretty nigh far enough, and they'll have to be stopped.

Won't eat my legs with or without pickles, won't he? No, he won't if I know it. Getting pretty nigh all the water out too. Well, I daresay there'll be enough of it to drown that dog."

CHAPTER TWENTY THREE.

GRIP TAKES AN INTEREST.

"Now, Joe, this ought to be a big day," said Gwyn, one bright morning.

"Father's all in a fidget, and he looked as queer at breakfast as if he hadn't slept all night."

"Wasn't any as if," replied Joe; "my father says he didn't sleep a wink for thinking about the mine."

"Oh, but people often say they haven't slept a wink when they've been snoring all the night. See how the fellows used to say it at Worksop.

I never believed them."

"But when father says it you may believe him, for when he has fits of the old jungle fever come back, I'm obliged to give him his doses to make him sleep."

"Well I woke ever so many times wondering whether it was time to get up.

Once the moon was shining over the sea, and it was lovely. It would have been a time to have gone off to Pen Ree Rocks congering."

"Ugh, the beasts!" exclaimed Joe. "But, I say, what a thing it will be if the place turns out no good after all this trouble and expense."

"Don't talk about it," said Gwyn. "But Sam says it's right enough."

"And Tom Dina.s.s shakes his head and says--as if he didn't believe it could be--that he hopes it may turn out all right, but he doubts it."

"Tom Dina.s.s is a miserable old frog croaker. Sam knows. He says there's no doubt about it. The mine's rich, and it must have been worked in the old days in their rough way, without proper machinery, till the water got the better of them, and they had to give it up."

"I hope it is so," said Joe, with a sigh. "But, I say, what about going down?"

"Your father won't go down."

"Oh, yes, he will. He says he shall go in the skep if your father does."

"Oh, my father will go, of course; but he said I'd better not go till the mine was more dry, and the man-engine had been made and fitted."

"Hurrah! Glad of it!"

"What do you mean by that?" cried Gwyn, angrily.

"What I say! I don't see why you should be allowed to go, and me stay up at gra.s.s."

"Humph! Just the place for you," said Gwyn.

"And what do you mean by that?" cried Joe, angrily in turn.

"Proper place for a donkey where there's plenty of gra.s.s."

"Ah, now you've got one of your nasty disagreeable fits on. Just like a Cornishman--I mean boy."

"Better be a Cornish chap than a Frenchy."

"Frenchy! We've been long enough in England to be English now," cried Joe. "But it's too hard for us not to go."

"Regular shame!" said Gwyn. "I've been longing for this day so as to have a regular examination. It must be a wonderful place, Joe. Quite a maze."

"Oh, I don't know," said Joe, superciliously; "just a long hole, and when you've seen one bit you've seen all."

"That's what the fox said to the grapes," said Gwyn, with a laugh.

"No, he didn't; he said they were sour."

"Never mind; it's just your way. The place will be wonderful. There are sure to be plenty of crystals and stalact.i.tes and wonderful caverns and places. Oh, I do wish we were going down."

"I don't know that I do now--the place will be horribly damp."

"Fox again."

"Look here, Gwyn Pendarve, if you wish to quarrel, say so, and I'll go somewhere else."

"But I don't want to quarrel, Joseph Jollivet, Esquire," said Gwyn, imitating the other's stilted way of speaking. "What's the good of quarrelling with you?"

Joe picked up a stone and threw it as far as he could, so as to get rid of some of his irritability; and Grip, who had been sitting watching the boys, wondering what was the matter, went off helter-skelter, found the stone, and brought it back crackling against his sharp white teeth, dropped it at Joe's feet, and began to dance about and make leaps from the ground, barking, as if saying, "Throw it again--throw it again!"

"Lie down, you old stupid!" cried Gwyn.

"Let him have a run," said Joe, picking up the stone and jerking it as far as he could over the short gra.s.sy down, the dog tearing off again.

"Ugh! Look at your hand," said Gwyn, "all wet with the dog's 'serlimer,' as the showman called it."

"Oh, that's clean enough," said Joe; but he gave his hand a rub on the gra.s.s all the same.

The dog came back panting, and Joe picked up the stone to give it another jerk, but, looking round for a fresh direction in which to throw it, he dropped the piece of granite.

"Come on!" he shouted, as he started off; "they're going to the shaft."

Gwyn glanced in the direction of the mine, and started after Joe, raced up to him, and they ran along to the building over the mouth, getting there just at the same time as the Colonel and Major Jollivet, the dog coming frantically behind.

"Well, boys," cried the Colonel, "here we are, you see. Wish us luck."

"Of course I do, father," said Gwyn. "But you'd better let us come, too."

"No, no, no, no," said the Colonel, "better wait a bit. Besides, you are not dressed for it. We are, you see."