Sappers and Miners | Page 5

like you. What have I done? I didn't say it."
"No, but your father did, and it's all the same."
"Oh! is it? I don't see that. I couldn't help it."
"Yes, you could. It all came of your chattering. See if I go fishing with
you again!"
"Go it!"
"I mean to; and I shall walk straight up to Cam Maen, and tell the
Major what I think of him. I won't have my father called a fool by a
jolly old foot-soldier, and so I'll tell him."
"Yes, do," said Joe. "He's got a touch of fever this morning, and can't
help himself; so now's your chance. But if you do go and worry him,
you've got to have it out with me afterwards, and so I tell you."

"Oh, have I? You want me to give you another good licking?"
"I don't care if you do. I won't stand still and have my father bullied by
old Ydoll, Gwyn."
Gwyn turned upon him fiercely, but the sight of his companion's face
calmed his anger on the instant.
"It's all right, Joe," he said; "I like to hear anyone sticking up for his
father or his mother."
"I haven't got a mother to stick up for; but my father's ill and weak, and
if you--"
"Don't I keep on telling you I'm not going, you stupid old Jolly-wet-'un.
Come on. Didn't we two say, after the last fight, when we shook hands,
that we would never fight again?"
"Yes; then why do you begin it?"
"Who's beginning it? Get out, and let's go and have a look at the mine.
Let's stick to what we said: fight any of the fisher-lads, and help one
another. Now, then, let's go on to the old mine, and see if we can get
down. Pst! here's Hardock."
For at the corner of the stone-walled lane, whose left side skirted the
Colonel's property, which extended for half-a-mile along by the sea, the
estate having been bought a bargain for the simple reason that its many
acres grew scarcely anything but furze, heather and rag-wort, the rest
being bare, storm-weathered granite, they came suddenly upon a
dry-looking brown-faced man with a coil of rope worn across his chest
like an Alpine guide.
He was seated on the low wall dotted with pink stone-crop and golden
and grey lichens, chewing something, the brown stain at the corner of
his lips suggesting that the something was tobacco; and he turned his
head slowly toward them, and spoke in a harsh grating voice, as they
came up.

"Going to the old mine?" he said. "I thought you would, after what I
told you this morning. I'll go with you."
"Did you bring that rope on purpose?" said Gwyn, quickly.
"O' course, my son. You couldn't look at the gashly place without."
Gwyn glanced at Joe, and the latter laughed, while the mining captain
displayed his brown teeth.
"Right, aren't it?" he said. "Didn't tell the Colonel what I said, I s'pose?"
"Yes, I did," cried Gwyn; "and he as good as said it was all nonsense."
"Maybe it be, and maybe it ban't," said the man, quietly. "You two
come along with me and have a look. I've brought a hammer with me,
too; and I say, let's chip off a bit or two of the stuff, and see what it's
like. If it's good, your father may like to work it. If it's poor, we sha'n't
be no worse off than we was before, shall we?"
"No, of course not," said Gwyn, "what do you say, Joe--shall we go?"
"Of course," was the reply; and they trudged on together for about a
hundred yards, and then climbed over the loose stone-wall, and then up
a rugged slope dotted with gigantic fragments of granite. A stone's
throw or so on their left was the edge of the uneven cliff, which went
down sheer to the sea; and all about them the great masses towered up,
and their path lay anywhere in and out among tall rocks wreathed with
bramble and made difficult with gorse.
But they were used to such scrambles, and, the mining captain leading,
they struggled on with the gulls floating overhead, starting a cormorant
from his perch, and sending a couple of red-legged choughs dashing
over the rough edge to seek refuge among the rocks on the face of the
cliff.
It was a glorious morning, the sea of a rich bright blue, and here and
there silvery patches told where some shoal of fish was playing at the

surface or demolishing fry.
There was not a house to be seen, and the place was wild and chaotic in
the extreme, but no one alluded to its ruggedness, all being intent upon
the object of their