Kitabı oku: «The Vicar's People», sayfa 9
Chapter Eighteen
Meeting a Volcano – and a Placid Lake
Geoffrey came swinging along the path, with his head thrown back and his chest forward, smiling at something that crossed his mind, when he stopped short, for Amos Pengelly suddenly stood in his way.
“Ah, Pengelly,” he said, heartily, “how are you, my lad?” and he stretched out his hand.
To his astonishment, the miner struck it savagely aside, closed with him, caught him by arm and waistband, and by a clever Cornish wrestling trick, and the exercise of his iron muscles, literally lifted him from the ground.
Geoffrey was powerful, and full of youth and vigour, but his antagonist’s dwarfish legs gave him another advantage, and he could have thrown the young man heavily to the ground, but in the very act of dashing him upon the rocks he relented, and let him recover himself.
“Have you gone mad, Pengelly?” cried Geoffrey, warmly. “Hang it, man, if you don’t control that confounded temper of yours you’ll be on your trial some day for murder.”
“Maybe it’ll be yours,” cried Amos, fiercely. “What have I done to you that you should serve me in this way?”
“I? Serve you?” cried Geoffrey, in astonishment, for he had resumed his unruffled manner. “What’s the matter, Amos?”
“Where have you been, master?”
“Been? Down to Gwennas Cove.”
“There, you own it,” cried Amos, with his passion rising again.
“Look here, master, there are things that make me mad. I’ve fought like men with beasts at Ephesus, as holy Paul says, and my beasts are the beasts of passion that rise up in me. I’ve fought and I’ve prayed, and I’ve mastered them again and again, but there’s one thing lets them loose, and I can’t keep them down.”
“Look here, Pengelly,” said Geoffrey, quietly, “I had hoped when the day came that I could get a good engagement to have you as one of my best men; but, hang me! if I can trust a fellow who has always got a volcano in him ready to burst out.”
“Then why do you cross me like this?”
“Cross you, my good fellow?” said Geoffrey, as he fixed the miner with his eye. “I’m not going to cross you. There, come along back to Carnac, and let’s talk about yonder mine.”
“I want no dealings with such a treacherous man,” cried Amos, fiercely. “But, look here, I warn ye. You’re well-shaped and good to look upon, while I’m only a cripple; but I can’t – there’s that in me that won’t let me – stand by and see another man take up with her as flouts me for what I am.”
“Flouts? Take up with her?” said Geoffrey, wonderingly, while the miner’s breast heaved as he seemed to be battling hard to contain himself.
Then a light burst upon Geoffrey, and he was ready to burst into a fit of laughter; but he saw that the subject was too serious for mirth, and he exclaimed, in a tone of vexation once more, —
“Are all you people mad here upon questions relating to the sexes? Why, my good fellow, where do you think I’ve been?”
“You said – to Prawle’s.”
“Yes, of course; but what for?”
“You’ve been to see her. You’ve been again and again, master, till I can bear it no more. Oh! Master Trethick,” he cried, piteously, “it may be play and trifling with you, but it’s killing me.”
“Amos Pengelly,” cried Geoffrey, laying his hand on the miner’s shoulder, “if you think I go over yonder to see Prawle’s daughter you, never made a greater mistake in your life.”
Amos drew back and looked full in his eyes, which never flinched for a moment, but frankly returned the gaze.
“Say that again,” said the miner, hoarsely.
“I won’t,” cried Geoffrey. “Hang it, man! there are bounds to every thing. It’s absurd, it’s – ”
He stopped short as he saw the man’s emotion, and said kindly, as he held out his hand, —
“Pengelly, my lad, as I am a man, I never bestowed a thought on Bessie Prawle, but have been there to sit half-an-hour with her poor sick mother.”
The miner’s face changed, and he was about to speak, but he turned sharply round, and limped away with wonderful activity, disappearing amongst the rocks; and, after waiting a few minutes to see if he would return, Geoffrey gave himself a shake, and then stooped to pick up something that fell tinkling on the granite path.
“That’s one of my brace buttons gone,” he said pettishly. “Hang the fellow! he’s as strong as a horse. It was enough to break all one’s buttons. So that’s Cornish wrestling, is it? I thought myself pretty clever, but he could have thrown me like a baby.”
“Poor fellow, though,” he said to himself, as he went on, “I suppose he did feel cut up and savage with me. But what a set they are – down here, to be sure. Seems to me that they think of nothing but love-making, and that it isn’t safe to look at a woman in the place. What a blessing it is that I am so constituted that all women seem to me to be mothers and sisters – mothers and sisters – sisters – yes, sisters,” he mused, as he looked at his right hand, opening and closing the fingers gently, as he seemed to feel within it a soft, shapely white hand, and traced each tapering finger where Rhoda’s had so lately been.
“She would have been a very sweet sister to a man. Full of firmness, and ready to advise and help a fellow in his troubles. It must be very nice to have a sister – such a one as she.”
He walked on very slowly, growing moment by moment more thoughtful, and somehow his thoughts were of Rhoda Penwynn; but they were all chased away by the sight of the Reverend Edward Lee coming along the track.
“Ah, Mr Lee!” he cried, holding out his hand, “how are you getting along?”
The young clergyman started and looked confused. There was a shrinking manner about him as he unwillingly put out his hand to be heartily pressed; but somehow Geoffrey Trethick’s will seemed always to master his, and he replied nervously to his inquiries.
“I’ve been going to call upon you over and over again,” said Geoffrey. “Coming for advice, and that sort of thing; but I suppose you are terribly busy over your new cure?”
“I am – very busy,” said the other, with a half sigh, as he recalled some of the difficulties of his task; and he looked nervously in Geoffrey’s eyes, and felt constrained to say that he would be very glad to see him.
“That’s right,” said Geoffrey, “I shall come. One has not too many cultivated acquaintances down here. And I’m a parishioner, you know.”
The Reverend Edward Lee grew bolder for this suggested duty.
“And I have not called upon you,” he said. “I have been remiss.”
“Ah, well, you’ll make up for that,” said Geoffrey.
“Is – is that why I have not seen you at church?” he said.
“Oh, no!” said Geoffrey. “That’s because I have been remiss and – ah, here’s Miss Penwynn.”
His companion started, and a slight colour came into his pale cheeks as Rhoda came round one of the rocky buttresses of the cliff, and, in spite of himself, as his keen eyes detected the change, Geoffrey felt a suspicion coming upon him that the Reverend Edward Lee had had some idea that Rhoda was walking in this direction, and had turned his steps that way so as to meet her.
“Why, she’s blushing, too!” said Geoffrey to himself, as Rhoda came up and shook hands with Mr Lee.
“I need not shake hands with you again, Mr Trethick,” she said. “By the way, it is very kind of you to call and talk to that poor Mrs Prawle.”
The vicar darted a quick glance from one to the other, and then, without making any pretence of going further, he turned round, and walked back beside Rhoda towards Carnac, Geoffrey coming behind, for the path did not admit of three abreast. The consequence was that he only came in for a stray word here and there, and told himself that being the third party he was de trop.
All the same, though, he found himself taking note of Rhoda’s figure, the carriage of her head, and her free, firm step on the rugged path. This path seemed to trouble the young vicar, who, being short-sighted, more than once caught the toes of his thin boots against some irregularity in the granite, as he talked on in his smooth, easy-flowing way, only interrupted by Rhoda turning her head occasionally to point out some place of interest in the distance.
“Parson’s like the rest!” said Geoffrey to himself, as he turned off to the cottage. “He’s touched. I wonder whether she knew that he was coming to meet her, for that he went on purpose, I’ll swear. I wonder whether any thing could be made of Wheal Carnac? What a nice sister she would make! Hallo! Pengelly, you here again? No, no; stand off, my lad: I’ve no more brace buttons to spare. One of your hugs is enough for a day. What?”
“I beg your pardon, Master Trethick,” said the miner, humbly; and he stood with his hat off in the track, “I beg your pardon humbly, sir; I do indeed.”
“Oh, tut – tut, man, that’s all past,” said Geoffrey, heartily.
“No, sir, it arn’t,” said Amos. “I feel that shamed o’ myself that I haven’t got words to speak it. Only please say that you forgive me, and won’t think of it any more.”
“Forgive you! Yes, Pengelly, of course; but next time you suspect one of any thing wrong, just bark out aloud before you bite, will you? – it will give a fellow a chance to get out of your way.”
“Ah, sir, you don’t know how foolish I feel.”
“Do you? Then don’t feel so any more. And now look here, my lad, I want to have a few words with you again about Wheal Carnac.”
“Yes, sir – when?”
“Oh, soon – say to-morrow morning. I’ll meet you there at your own time.”
“Say six, sir. I’m not on at the mine till nine,” said Amos, with his face lighting up; and they parted, for Geoffrey to become aware, as he entered the gate, that Madge Mullion was at the window ready to smile at him as he went in, and a shrewd suspicion smote him that she had been watching for his return.
Chapter Nineteen
At Wheal Carnac
“I’ve got Wheal Carnac on the brain,” said Geoffrey, as he leaped out of his bed soon after five o’clock, made a great deal of noise and splashing over a tub, and ended by standing up fresh, healthy, and dressed, and calling himself a fool. “Why, I might have taken a towel and had a dip in the sparkling waters,” he said, as he gazed out, to see the ripples stained with blood-red and gold, orange and brilliant topaz with the rising sun. “Why, it would have been a bath in Falernian wine! Never mind – live and learn.”
“By George, what was I dreaming? Oh! I remember: that I fell down the old pit-shaft and went on falling into infinite space, with some one like that Tregenna laughing at me the while.”
He went softly out of his room and down-stairs, so as not to disturb the other occupants of the house, to find, to his surprise, that the door was open; and, on stepping out into the garden, he came suddenly upon Madge, looking very bright and rosy, with her rich auburn hair taking a fresh tinge from the early morning beams.
“Ah, Miss Mullion! Good-morning. You up so soon?”
“Yes,” she said eagerly, “I often go out for an early walk down to the sea.”
“Not to play at mermaid, and sport in the briny wave!” he asked laughingly.
“Oh, dear, no!” she cried with a shiver, “I’m so afraid of the water.”
“Are you?” he said, smiling. “Well, it would be a job to get all that pretty hair dry again.”
Madge coloured with pleasure.
“It is so nice walking over the rocks quite early,” she said.
“Yes, I suppose so. Well, I must be off.”
“Are you going for a walk?” she said naïvely.
“Yes, but only on my way to work. Good-by for the present. I say, Miss Mullion, a nice bit of brown fish for breakfast, please. I shall be as hungry as a hunter when I come back.”
He walked sharply off, not seeing that uncle Paul’s blind stirred slightly, and Madge stood gazing after him.
“He’s as cold as a stone,” said the girl, petulantly. “I declare I hate him – that I do. But I’ll pique him yet, see if I don’t, clever as he is. He’ll be sorry for this some day. A great, ugly, stupid thing!”
The tears of vexation stood in her eyes, but they disappeared almost directly.
“He did say it was pretty hair,” she said, with her face lighting up, “and if I don’t make some one jealous yet it’s strange to me.”
She hesitated for a few moments as to whether she should take the same path as Geoffrey, and ended by flinging herself petulantly round and entering the house.
“It’s a glorious morning,” said Geoffrey, as he went down the steep, stone-paved pathway, drinking in the fresh salt-breeze. “I declare, it’s like living a new life here,” and his chest seemed to expand, and his muscles and nerves grow tense, as the life-blood bounded through his veins.
At times he felt as if he would like to rush off and run, like a school-boy, from the full tide of vitality that made his veins throb; but he went on soberly enough, exchanging a nod with different fishermen at their cottage doors, for most of them had come to know him now, and showed their white teeth in a friendly smile as he swung along.
He glanced at his watch as he neared the slope up which the mine chimney crawled, like a huge serpent, to the perpendicular shaft on the hill, and found he was an hour before his time; so walking sharply down to a little sandy stretch only bare at very low tides, he slipped off his boots, tied the laces together, and hung them over his shoulder, and then drew off his socks, which he thrust into his pocket, turned up his trousers, and had a good wade; after which, being without a towel, he began to walk along the dry sand so as to let sun and air perform the part of bath attendants, finally taking a seat upon a stone to put the final polish to his toes with a silk pocket-handkerchief.
He was bending down, seriously intent upon a few stray particles of sand, when a shadow fell athwart him, and looking up sharply, there stood Rhoda Penwynn.
“Oh! I beg your pardon, Mr Trethick,” she cried, colouring.
“Beg yours,” he said bluntly, as he started up and held out his hand; for it struck him that under the circumstances the better plan was to ignore his pursuit.
“It’s only a matter of custom,” he said to himself; “bare feet are no more indelicate than bare hands or bare shoulders, and if ever she goes to sea she won’t see many sailors wear socks and shoes.”
So in the coolest manner possible he walked by Rhoda’s side, as calmly as a barefooted friar of old, and as free from guile; while she felt half-annoyed, half ready to blush, and ended by smiling at her companion’s matter-of-fact ways. For he chatted about the place, the contents of the rock-pools, and the various weeds, and ended in the bluntest way by holding out his hand.
“Good-morning, Miss Penwynn, I have an appointment now. Let me say good-by though, with a compliment.”
“Please don’t,” said Rhoda.
“But I will,” he said, laughing, “I only wanted to say that I admire your early rising ways.”
Then nodding in his frank, cheery way, he started off back towards the ruined mine, walking quickly till the acorn barnacles upon the rocks suggested the advisability of putting on his socks and boots, which he rapidly did.
“What a Goth she must have thought me!” he said, laughing. “Well, can’t help it if she did.”
Then starting off once more, he turned a corner and could see a short, thick-set figure advancing, and waved his hand, to see a cap held up in return.
“Morning, Pengelly,” he cried, as he met the miner. “Did you bring a pick?”
“No, sir, it looked too business-like,” said Pengelly, “and I thought we’d keep the matter quiet. But is that all over, sir?”
“What?” said Geoffrey.
“That last night work, sir. I haven’t slep’ a wink for thinking of it.”
“Tut, man! I never thought of it again. But, as you have spoken, just look here, Pengelly; you people down here seem to be all mad about marriage.”
“Well, I don’t know about mad, sir,” said the miner, apologetically; “but folks do think a deal about coming together.”
“So it seems,” said Geoffrey, grimly.
“Comes natural like, sir,” said Amos, in a quiet, innocent way; “I think it no shame to say I think a deal of Bessie Prawle, and that’s what made me so mad last night.”
“Well, I suppose it was natural, Pengelly. But hang it, man, you must keep that devil of a temper of yours chained.”
“I do, sir; I do,” said the miner, piteously. “I fight with it hard; but you, a fine straight man, don’t know what it is to love a handsome girl like my Bessie, and to feel that you are misshapen and unsightly in her eyes.”
“Well, but they say pretty girls like ugly men, Pengelly,” said Geoffrey, smiling.
“Foolish people say many foolish things, sir,” said the miner. “I can’t believe all that. She’s a handsome girl, and she’s as good as she’s handsome, and waits upon her mother hand and foot. I wish I could bring her though to a better way, for they don’t do as they should; and old Prawle makes a mock at all religious talk. Then people say Bess is a witch, and can ill-wish people, and it worries me, sir, knowing as I do how good she is at heart.”
“Well, never mind, Pengelly,” said Geoffrey, cheerily. “Some day, perhaps, Miss Bessie yonder will find out that you are like one of the sea-shells, rough outside but bright and soft within. Eh? But come along, let’s see if we can’t find out something worth our while. I want to get a good mine going, my lad.”
“And so do I, sir,” cried the miner. “I want to save money now; and – and – ”
“Well, what?”
“You don’t think it foolish of me to talk, sir, as I have?”
“Not I, my lad.”
“It was all owing to that upset last night, sir.”
“Which we will both forget,” replied Geoffrey, “for I’ve got work on hand that I mean to do, and have no time for such nonsense. Now then, how are we to examine these stones without a pick?”
Amos Pengelly smiled, and opened his waistcoat, to show, stuck in his trousers’ waistband, the head of a miner’s hammer, and a crowbar with a piece of wood, tied in the form of a cross, to keep it from slipping down his leg.
“That’s capital,” cried Geoffrey. “Give me the hammer; you take the bar. First of all let’s have a look at the shaft.”
There seemed to be nothing to see but darkness, but Geoffrey gazed long and earnestly down its rocky sides, and as he let a stone fall down to get an approximate idea of its depth he felt a strange shudder run through him, as he thought of what a man’s chance would be did some enemy throw him down.
“Ugly place!” he said, as he saw Pengelly watching him.
“I never think of that, sir,” was the reply.
A glance round at the buildings sufficed, and then the miner led him to the bottom of a slope where hundreds of loads had been thrown down as the débris was dug out of the shaft, and, patiently clearing off the grass that had sprung up, Pengelly kept handing up pieces of rock for Geoffrey to break and examine.
“Yes,” said Geoffrey, as he inspected scrap after scrap, even examining the fractures with a magnifying glass, “yes, that’s paying stuff, Pengelly.”
“Iss, sir, isn’t it?” cried the miner, eagerly.
“Paying, but poor.”
“But it would be richer lower down, and we should hit the six-foot lode by driving.”
“May be,” said Geoffrey. “Humph, mundic! There’s copper here too,” he said, examining a piece of stone that glistened with the yellowish metal.
“That there be,” cried Pengelly; “I’m sure Wheal Carnac would pay, sir; I always believed it; and old Prawle there at the Cove, though he’s close, he knows it’s a good pit.”
“Yes,” said Geoffrey, “I believe it would pay, well worked, and on economical and scientific principles.”
“Pay, sir? Yes, I’m sure she would,” cried Pengelly. “You look here, sir, and here, at the stuff.”
He plied his crowbar most energetically, and Geoffrey worked hard, too, breaking fragment after fragment, and convincing himself that, though under the old plans it would not have paid to powder, wash, and extract the tin from the quality of ore lying thrown out from the mouth of the pit; yet under the system he hoped to introduce he felt sure that he could make a modest return.
“And there’s such a chance, sir,” cried Amos, with whom the working of Wheal Carnac was a pet project. “Look at the money laid out, and how well every thing was done.”
“What became of the machinery?” cried Geoffrey, abruptly.
“It was sold by auction, sir; all beautiful, fine new engines, and boilers, and wheels, and chains – not old-fashioned ones, but new casts, and they bought it at Tulip Hobba.”
“Where they work with it?”
“No, sir, it’s stopped; and they do say as it could all be bought back for very little.”
“Your very littles all mean thousands of pounds, Master Pengelly,” said Geoffrey, thoughtfully.
“But they’d all come back, sir, and you’d have the machinery still. Do buy it, sir, and get her to work once more.”
“Why, you don’t suppose I’ve got the money to invest?” cried Geoffrey.
“Haven’t you, sir?” said Pengelly, in a disappointed tone.
“Not a penny, my man.”
“Never mind, sir; you get them as has, and we’ll turn out such an output of tin to grass as’ll make some of the clever ones shake their heads.”
“More copper,” said Geoffrey, picking up a piece of stone.
“Yes, sir, a bit by chance; but I don’t think there’s much. This pit was sunk for tin.”
“Copper pays better than tin,” said Geoffrey, as he went on from spot to spot. “You don’t think any of this stuff was brought here from anywhere else?”
“Oh, dear, no, sir.”
“Not thrown down to make the pit seem more valuable than it is? Such tricks have been played.”
“Oh, no, sir. Besides, I wouldn’t begin till she’d been pumped out, and some more stuff got up to try her.”
“No,” said Geoffrey, “of course not;” and he went on with his examination, finding nothing to cause him great elation, but enough to make him soberly sensible that there was a modest career of success for the mine, if properly worked.
Who was to find the money, and give him the charge?
That was the problem he had to solve, and as he returned the hammer to Pengelly, and walked slowly back, he wondered whether he should be fortunate enough to find any one with a sufficiency of the speculative element in him to venture.
He was so deep in thought that he nearly ran up against Rhoda Penwynn, returning from her early walk, and in conversation with the Reverend Edward Lee, evidently also on a constitutional bout.
Rhoda gave him a smile and a salute, and the young vicar raised his hat stiffly; but Geoffrey’s head was too full of tin ore, pounds per ton, cost of crushing and smelting, to give them more than a passing thought; and he was only aroused from his reverie by a peculiar odour at Mrs Mullion’s door, where that dame stood, buxom, pleasant, and smiling, to hope he had had a nice walk, and tell him that breakfast was quite ready, and Uncle Paul already having his.
