The Vicar's People Part 20

Geoffrey laughed, and shook hands with his guide, finding that he had risen wonderfully in the man's estimation, the manager looking at him quite admiringly.

"My name's Curnow," he said, "Richard Curnow, and I'd like to see you again, sir. Now what can I show you?"

"Every thing!" exclaimed Geoffrey. "Let me see all the workings, and what sort of stuff you are sending up."

"Why, you've been down a mine before, sir?" said the manager, curiously, and he gazed inquiringly in Geoffrey's face with a look of suspicion, gradually growing plainer; but he remained very civil, and led the way through the maze of pa.s.sages through which for many a generation the ore had been picked out--laboriously hewn out of the solid rock as the veins of tin were patiently followed. Every now and then some dark, echoing gallery struck off at right angles, till Geoffrey felt, as he stumbled on, that a stranger would soon lose his way in such a terrible labyrinth, if not his life through falling down one of the well-like pits yawning here and there at his feet.

Sometimes the way had a lofty roof, and the floor was clear; sometimes they had to stoop and wade through mud and water, and crawl round b.u.t.tresses of rock to avoid a fall, or to step from sleeper to sleeper of a very primitive tramway.

"Let me see," said the manager. "Amos Pengelly ought to be somewhere about here. Wait a minute, and let's try if we can hear him."

There were only a few distant echoing noises to be heard, as they stood in the midst of that black darkness, their candles just shedding a halo of light round them, and casting grotesque shadows of their forms upon the glistening walls, and they once more groped more than walked along, Geoffrey pausing now and again, though, to examine with his light the various tokens of minerals that could be seen cropping out on wall and roof, to all of which actions the guide gave an impatient shrug.

"They don't mean any thing," he said. "We've pretty well worked the old place out. There's Amos!"

Geoffrey turned from the place he was examining, and could hear a confused sound; but after journeying on for about a hundred yards the manager stopped and touched his arm.

They had just reached a low side pa.s.sage, at the end of which there was a faint glow, and there, keeping time to the clicking sharp strokes of a pick, came the sounds of a rich tenor voice, whose owner seemed to be throwing his whole soul into what he was singing.

"Hal--le--hal--le--lu--i--jah. Hal--le--hal--le--lu--i--jah."

And so on slowly, every other syllable being accompanied by a stroke of the pick. Then, as the verse of the old-fas.h.i.+oned anthem being sung came to an end, there was a pause, the light seemed to be s.h.i.+fted, and the singer began again, but this time choosing Luther's hymn as an accompaniment to the strokes of his pick.

"Here's a gentleman come to see you, Amos! Creep out, my lad; we can't get in to you."

They had approached the singer till the ceiling was so low that it would have necessitated crawling to where Geoffrey could see by the light of a candle, stuck with a lump of clay against the rocky wall, a dark figure, half lying upon one side, vigorously working a sharp-pointed steel pickaxe, and chipping down fragments of glistening tin-grained quartz.

On hearing the summons, the figure gave itself a roll over and crawled slowly out, when in the short, lame, thick-set miner Geoffrey recognised the man with the piece of conger eel who had explained the fis.h.i.+ng to him on the cliff.

"This is our Amos Pengelly," said the manager, as if he were showing one of the curiosities of the mine; "works all week-days and sings psalms; goes out preaching on Sundays."

"Well," said Geoffrey, bluntly, "he might do worse."

Amos nodded and looked curiously at the speaker, who went down on hands and knees to creep to where the miner had been at work; took down the candle from the wall, and examined the vein of glistening tin and the fragments that had been chipped off.

"Very poor stuff," said Geoffrey, as he returned.

"Ah, we work out poorer stuff than that," said the manager, "don't we, Amos?"

"Ay," said the miner, looking eagerly at the visitor. "Was you thinking of buying this mine, sir?"

"No!" said Geoffrey, shortly.

"Surveying it for some one else, perhaps?"

"What's the good of talking like that, Amos," said the manager, "when it is not for sale?"

"I heered as it was," said Amos, still gazing searchingly at the well-built young man before him. "But whether it be or not, sir, if you wants to buy a good working and paying mine, you buy Wheal Carnac."

"Ha, ha, ha, ha!" laughed the manager, a man who had evidently been himself a working miner. "Oh, come, Amos! I wonder at you who call yourself a Christian man trying to persuade a stranger to buy that old swindle."

"I don't care!" cried Amos, excitedly, "Christian or no Christian," and he gave his pick a blow on the rock which made the sparks fly, "I know there's good stuff down that shaft, and if it arn't been found yet it's because they haven't looked in the right place. You go and look at it, sir, and see what you think."

"Don't you do nothing of the sort, sir," said the manager. "It's a gashly old hole, down which thousands of pounds have been thrown, and machinery wasted over. Don't you take any notice of what Amos says."

"All right," said the miner, making the sparks fly again as he smote the rock angrily. "I haven't worked underground man and boy for five and twenty year without knowing something about it, and as I'm a honest man, why Wheal Carnac's a fortune to them as know'd how to work it."

"I'll have another look at the place," said Geoffrey, who was struck by the man's earnestness.

"You just do, sir, you just do, and if that place don't turn out right, I'll--I'll--"

"Swallow your pick heft, eh, Amos?" said the manager, tauntingly.

"Nay, I won't; but I'll never believe in any thing again. But you can't look at the stuff they got up, sir, she's full of water."

"And it would take hundreds of pounds to get her dry, eh, Amos? Don't you worry your head about Wheal Carnac, sir, unless you want a place to work a company, and draw a salary until they are sick of it."

"As some rogues down in these parts do," said Amos, making the sparks fly again.

"I don't know about rogues," said the manager, laughing. "There's always plenty of fools with heaps of money, which they want to invest in mines, and I don't see why the adventurers shouldn't have it as well as any one else."

Geoffrey turned in disgust from the manager, and held his candle so that its light should fall upon the frank, honest face of the miner, whose ways rather won upon him.

"Look here, Pengelly," he said, "you and I will have a chat about Wheal Carnac and a look at the ore together."

"Will you, sir? will you?" cried the miner, excitedly. "I can show you some of the ore. When will you look?"

"Any time you like," said Geoffrey. "I don't suppose any thing will come of it, but I came to see all I can."

"I've--I've waited years upon years to see that mine fairly tried,"

cried Pengelly, "but every one laughs at me."

"Of course they do, Amos," said the manager, banteringly. "Why, you did trick one party into fooling away thousands."

"Trick? trick? I tricked any one?" cried the miner, who had for the last few minutes been writhing under the lash of the other's tongue.

"It's a lie--a cruel he!" he exclaimed, and in a furious burst of pa.s.sion he whirled up his steel pick as though it had been a straw, to strike at the cause of his annoyance.

Amos Pengelly's furious burst of pa.s.sion was but of momentary duration.

As Geoffrey made a step forward to seize his arm, the pick dropped from the man's hand, his face became convulsed, and all token of menace had gone. One moment he had been ready to strike down the manager for hinting that he was dishonest; the next his arms fell to his sides, his head drooped, his shoulders heaved, and he turned away into the darkness of the mine, uttering a low, piteous moaning as if torn by some great agony that he wished to hide from the sight of man.

"Come away, sir," said the manager, quietly, "he won't like to face us again to-day," and as Geoffrey rather unwillingly followed him, the manager went on towards the foot of the shaft. "Poor old Amos! I believe he's a bit touched in the head. I haven't seen him in one of his fits of pa.s.sion like that for months. He's off now into one of the darkest corners he can find, and he'll be down on his knees praying as hard as ever he can. His temper gets the better of him sometimes, and he's such a religious chap that he won't forgive himself for getting in a rage; but when he comes up to gra.s.s to-night he'll walk straight to my office, as humble as a child, and beg my pardon."

"And you'll forgive him?" said Geoffrey.

"Forgive him? Oh, yes! poor chap. Why not? He can't help it."

"He seems an honest fellow," said Geoffrey, musingly.

"Honest? Oh, yes! he's honest as the day's long, sir. I'd trust him with all our sales' money without counting it. His failing is that he's gone off religious crazy; and what's as bad, he's in love with a handsome girl who don't care for him. Bess Prawle, down at the Cove, is as straight as an arrow, and poor Amos is quite a cripple, and not the sort of fellow to take the fancy of a das.h.i.+ng girl like she."