Devon Boys

"Go back again," I said laughing. "Why, they'll never come."

"Get out, lad! You're too young to understand they things. You wait a bit, and you'll see that they will come and find us ready for them too."

"With six-foot two of trench, eh, Sam?" I said.

"Eh? What? What do you mean?"

"Why, weren't you singing something about burying them all. Here, sing us the rest."

"Nay, nay, nay, my lad; I can't sing."

"Why, I heard you, Sam."

"Ay, but that's all I know; and I must get on with my job afore they come."

"Before they come, Sam! Why, they'll never come. Go and hoe up your cabbages and potatoes and you'll be doing some good."

"Nay, lad, this be no time for hoeing up cabbage and 'tater. Why, what for?--ready for the French?"

"French!" I said with a laugh as I leaned over the low wall and looked down the perpendicular cliff at the piled-up ma.s.ses of fallen fragments.

"No French will ever trouble us."

For it looked ridiculous to imagine that a foreign enemy would ever attempt to make a landing anywhere beneath the grand wall of piled-up rock that protected our coast from a far more dangerous enemy than any French fleet, for the sea was ready to attack and sweep away even the land, and this a foreign fleet could never do.

I sat on the edge looking down at the ivy, and toad-flax, and saxifrage, and ferns that climbed and cl.u.s.tered all over the steep cliff-face; and as I sat looking and enjoying the sea-breeze and the rest from all school labours, old Sam went on cleaning out the guns and expressing in his way the feelings of nearly everybody round the coast.

"Is my father over at the mine?" I said.

"Ay, my lad; he's always there. Going over?"

"Yes, Sam, when I'm rested. They're very busy now, I suppose."

"Wonderful, Master Sep, wonderful. Who'd ha' thought it?" he exclaimed, sticking the mop handle on the path and resting his bare brown arms upon the wet woollen rags that formed the top.

"Who'd have thought what, Sam?"

"Why, as there'd be lead and silver under they slates down at the Gap.

Always looked to be nothin' but clatter, and old ma.s.sy rock and no soil."

"Ah, it was a discovery, Sam," I said.

"Discovery, my lad! Why, when they said as the Captain had bought the old place I went into my tool-shed and sat down on a 'tater heap and 'most cried."

"'Most cried, Sam--you?"

"Ay, my lad, for I thought the Captain had gone off his head and everything would be in rack and ruin."

"Instead of which my father is making quite a fortune out of it, Sam."

"Ay, I s'pose so, my lad, but fortuns

"Well, then, why don't you hoe them up, Sam?" I said sharply.

"Hoe 'em up, lad? I can't put a hoe in his mind, can I? That's where the weeds grows, my dear lad. Why, he never takes no interest in his guns now, and if I hadn't set to this morning to scour 'em out and give 'em a regular good cleaning, where would they have been when the French come?"

CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR.

DOWN THE SILVER MINE.

I left Sam picking out the touch-holes with a piece of wire, walked across the high ground of the wind-swept moor and descended into the Gap, a well-beaten track now marking the way.

It was too rough for wheels, but filled with the heavy hoof-marks of donkeys, which were used largely for carrying wood, charcoal, and sea-coal to the mine; and as I stood up by the spot where years before Bob Chowne, Bigley, and I had blown up the big stone and set it rolling down into the valley, it was wonderful what a change had taken place.

Where we had swept the side of the ravine clear with an avalanche of rock, there had now sprung up quite a tiny village built of the rough stones dug from the mine. There was a large water-wheel slowly turning and sending down the water led to it from above, in company with that which it pumped out of the mine, all thick and discoloured, in quite a torrent to the beautiful little stream below, which now ran turbid and in which the trout were all dead.

There was a row of stoutly-built sheds, and a big place with a high chimney where the ore was smelted. Then there were offices, and a building where the purified metal was pa.s.sed through another furnace, and in addition a place where the metal was kept.

There seemed a total alteration in the place till I directed my eyes towards the sea, where all appeared to be unchanged. There were the two cottages--Binnacle Bill's, with some newly washed white garments hanging over the rocks; and Jonas Uggleston's, with its stone sheds and outbuildings bristling with spars and wreck-wood that had been thrown up, and with nets and sails spread out to dry.

Beyond lay his lugger; and the boat drawn up on the beach, suggesting to my mind the horrors of that night when we were blown off the sh.o.r.e.

I stood looking at the scene, with the bare sea beyond and the vast cliff towering up a thousand feet on my left, and then began to descend the rugged slope, making straight for the building which my father used as his counting-house and office.

"Well, Sep," he said, smiling, "I'm glad to see you."

I noticed that he looked care-worn and anxious, and his aspect reproached me, for I felt as if it was too bad of me to be making holiday while he was working so hard.

"Can I help you, father?" I said.

"Help me! Yes, my boy, I hope so--a good deal; but I don't want to be too hard upon you. Take a good look round for a few days, so as to rest a little while, and then you shall come and help me here; for, Sep, an affair like this is not without plenty of anxiety."

"Oh, father!" I said, "I shall have plenty of time for amus.e.m.e.nt; let's see if I can't help you now."

He looked more and more pleased as he heard my words.

"No," he said, "not yet. You shall have a look round first for a few days, and perhaps you may be able quietly to pick up the cause of something that is troubling me a great deal."

"Troubling you, father!" I said.

"Yes, my lad, troubling me, for things are not going as I could wish.

'Tis just as if, as fast as I get a few steps forward, someone pulls me back."

"But I thought the mine was very prosperous, father?" I said.

"So it is, my boy, and I am getting it better and better; but there is always mischief being done, or else some accident occurs, and I can't tell how."

"Do you suspect anybody?"