The Vicar's People

“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.

Chapter Twenty

Geoffrey is Foolish

Time glided on, and Geoffrey had very little to encourage him. He investigated Wheal Carnac a little more, and then stopped because he could go no farther. He found life, however, very pleasant at the far western home. He was invited to several houses; and played whist so well that he became a favourite, especially as he generally held bad cards. Then he sat a good deal with old Mr Paul, and bantered him when he was cross; while with Mrs Mullion he became an especial favourite, the pleasant, patient, innocent little body delighting in going to his room to tell him of her troubles, and about what a good man brother Thomas was, though she did wish she would be more patient.

“He gets more impatient as he grows older,” she sighed; “and if his paper isn’t on the table it’s dreadful. You see, Madge is so fond of getting it to read down the list of marriages, while, when her uncle has it, the first thing he does is to look and see if any one he knows is dead. I always peep to see if any one I know is born.”

Poor Mrs Mullion used to blunder on in the most innocent way possible, to her half-brother’s great delight, while Geoffrey had hard work sometimes to refrain from a smile.

The young man’s life was one of disappointment, but it was not unhappy; and more than once he found himself thinking of what it would have been had he had a sister, and that sister had been like Rhoda Penwynn. Then came thoughts of Madge Mullion, who seemed to be developing more and more a desire to enlist him in her train of admirers. Rumour said that she was fond of flirting, and her uncle angrily endorsed it. Now Geoffrey began to think of it, he recalled the fact that he received many little attentions at the girl’s hands such as an ordinary lodger would not get. Fresh flowers were always upon his table, both in sitting and bed room; books were left in conspicuous places, with markers in tender passages; he had caught Madge several times busy with needle and thread over some one or other of his articles of attire that needed the proverbial stitch in time; and one night, as he lay in bed thinking, he suddenly recalled the fact that he had said in her hearing that if there was any colour in the universe that he liked, it was blue.

“And, by George! she has worn blue ever since. The girl’s a regular man-trap, and old Paul’s right.”

“Well,” he said, getting up, and giving his pillow a vicious punch, as he lay thinking of her more than usual, “she may go on till all’s blue, for I sha’n’t put my foot in the trap. Why, confound her impudence! she’s carrying on with that smooth-looking fellow Tregenna, or else my ears deceived me, and – bother the wench! she’s very pretty, and piquante, and attractive, and all that sort of thing, and I wish she was at the bottom of the sea – a mermaid combing her golden hair – not drowned. Stupid wench!”

He then turned over, and mentally went down Horton Friendship mine, discussed to himself the losses that the slovenly manner of carrying on the work must entail to the proprietary; and then absolutely writhed over the contemptuous indifference his proposals received from those whom he looked upon as common-sense people.

“Hang them!” he growled. “The old cry. What did for our great-grandfathers will do for us. The farther you go back, the wiser people were; so that if you will only go far enough into antiquity there you find perfection.

“Now take my case,” he said. “I don’t propose any extraordinary new invention that shall take men’s breath away. I merely say you are getting your ores in a costly, wasteful manner. That you are digging out of the ground vast quantities of mundic and throwing it away. Well, I say to them that mundic is pyrites, and contains so much sulphur; that, by a process, I can utilise that, so as to supply sulphur as a heat producer, to the great saving of fuel, besides which, I can give you metallic results as well, and make a large profit.

“Result: they shake their heads and laugh at me.”

“Hang them! They’re as obstinate as – as – well, as I am, for give up I will not.”

Then, in a half-dreamy manner, he mentally went to the edge of the shaft at Wheal Carnac, and, as he had often done in reality, he picked up and examined the débris, lying where it had been thrown when the shaft was dug, and ended by going to sleep after half determining to try and get some apparatus fitted to allow of a descent, as far as he could go for the water, to examine the shaft and the adits, when if he could conscientiously feel that there was any prospect of the place being profitably worked he would make an effort to get a few enterprising capitalists together to take advantage of what was already done, and carry the mine on to prosperity.

The first person on whom Geoffrey’s eyes rested the next morning as he entered his room was Madge Mullion, in a neat blue gingham dress, arranging a bunch of forget-me-nots in a little blue vase upon his breakfast-table, and ready to look very bright and conscious, as she started up to smile pleasantly in his face.

“Why, hang the girl! she has blue eyes, too,” thought Geoffrey, as he nodded, by way of good-morning.

“Uncle Paul down?” he said.

“Yes, Mr Trethick, I heard him come down just before you, and – ”

“The old rascal’s got something good for breakfast,” cried Geoffrey, with a pronounced sniff. “What is it?”

“Curried lobster, Mr Trethick,” said Madge, pouting her pretty red – perhaps already too pouting – lips at the lodger’s extremely mundane views.

“I love turned lobster,” said Geoffrey, “especially such lobsters as you get down here. I shall go and attack him for a portion.”

“Don’t, please, Mr Trethick,” said Madge, earnestly. “There is a delicious sole for you. It came from the trawler this morning, and – and I cooked it myself.”

“Egged and crumbed; Miss Mullion?”

“Yes,” she said, eagerly.

“Humph! Well, I think I’ll compound for the fresh sole, and let Uncle Paul have his lobster in peace.”

“You shall have it directly, Mr Trethick,” cried Madge, looking brightly in the young man’s face. “I – I brought you some forget-me-nots this morning.”

“Yes,” he said, smiling, “I was admiring them. They are beautiful; just like your eyes.”

“For shame! Mr Trethick; what nonsense!”

“No,” he said, “it’s a fact, and you’ve got the downiest of cheeks, and the reddest of lips that pout up at one as if asking to be kissed; and really, Madge, if they ask like that I shall be obliged to kiss them.”

“I’d never forgive you if you did,” said Madge, with a look that bade him go on.

“Well, I’m afraid I must chance the forgiveness,” he said, merrily. “It’s a great risk, but you may be merciful,” and he playfully caught her in his arms and kissed her, Madge making a pretence at resistance as she triumphantly told herself that she knew she could pique him and master his coldness.

“Oh! Mr Trethick!” she exclaimed.

“Madge! Here, I say, Madge!” cried the old man, whose door was heard to open sharply.

“Yes, uncle,” cried the girl, reddening.

“Oh, you’re there, are you,” he said, stumping across the little passage. “What are you doing there, madam?”

“Defending your curried lobster, most bravely, old gentleman,” said Geoffrey, coming to the rescue, but asking himself how he could have been such an ass, and whether he had not caught the complaint so prevalent in Carnac.

“How the devil did you know I had got curried lobster?” cried the old man.

“Smelt it,” said Geoffrey, curtly. “Is it good?”

“No, it isn’t good,” cried the old man, “and I want to know why – why my niece can’t let the girl wait upon you.”

“Why, you’re jealous, old boy,” cried Geoffrey. “Hang it all! are you to have all the good things, and best attention in the house? Let me have my sole in the next room, Miss Mullion. Your uncle’s low-spirited this morning, and I’ll go and keep him company. Come along, old fellow.”

To Madge’s great relief, and Uncle Paul’s utter astonishment, the result being a grateful look from the one and an angry snarl from the other, Geoffrey thrust his arm through that of the old man, marched him into his own room, and half forced him into his chair.

“There, begin your breakfast,” cried Geoffrey; “it’s getting cold.”

“It’s always getting cold, and how the devil am I to eat my lobster without salt? Every thing’s forgotten now, so that you may get what you want.”

“Rubbish!” said Geoffrey, taking a chair.

“It is not rubbish, sir. Didn’t I see that jade exchanging glances with you just now? and she’s always in your room.”

“Let the poor girl alone, and don’t worry her into hysterics, at all events not until I have got my sole,” cried Geoffrey; “and don’t talk stuff about what you don’t understand. What paper’s that?”

“Times. What I don’t understand?” cried Uncle Paul, who was foaming with rage at being so unceremoniously treated.

“Yes, what you don’t understand. Thanks, Miss Mullion, that will do. But there’s no salt.”

“I do forget so now,” said poor Madge.

“Yes, and what can you expect, if you stuff your brains full of other things?” snarled Uncle Paul, with the result that Madge beat a hasty retreat, and the maid came in with the salt and the rest of the breakfast.

“Now look here, Uncle Paul,” said Geoffrey, as the old man, after growling and snarling a little over his curry, took a liqueur of brandy in a very small cup of coffee, and seemed to calm down, “you are a shrewd old fellow.”

“Shrewd?” he cried, “I’m an old fool, a lunatic, an ass, or I should never have brought you up here.”

“Ah! we all do foolish things sometimes.”

“Yes, even to running after artful, coquetting jades of girls.”

“Well,” said Geoffrey – “By George! what a capital sole, flaky and creamy as can be. Try a bit.”

“Curse your sole!” snarled the old man, with his mouth full of curry.

“You mean the fish, I hope,” said Geoffrey, laughing. “Let’s see; what was I saying? Oh! I know, about doing foolish things. I’ve done a great many in my time, but running after coquettes was never one of them.”

“Nor yet indulging in mine moonshine?”

“Moonshine, eh? Well that brings me to what I was going to say. Now, look here, Uncle Paul.”

“Confound you, sir, don’t stick yourself on to me as a relative. You’ll want to borrow money next.”

“Very likely,” said Geoffrey.

“Ha-ha-ha! he-he-he!” chuckled the old man, with his face lighting up. “I should like to see you doing it. You’re a clever fellow, Master Trethick, but I don’t quite see you getting the better of me there.”

“That’s right,” said Geoffrey. “Now you look yourself again.” Uncle Paul’s face was transformed on the instant by an aspect of wrath, but Geoffrey took no notice, only went on with his breakfast and talked.

“Look here, old gentleman, from what I hear, some fifty thousand pounds went down that Wheal Carnac?”

“Quite. Fool’s money,” said Uncle Paul. “Give me that thick bit of the sole with the roe in.”

“I don’t know about fool’s money,” said Geoffrey, helping him to the choice piece of fish. “Now I’ve had some good looks at that place, and I’m beginning to be convinced that a little enterprise freshly brought to bear would result in good returns.”

“Exactly,” said Uncle Paul, grinning, “and you’d like me to invest a thousand pounds, and nine other fools to do the same, and to appoint you manager, with a salary of three hundred and fifty pounds a year, and Amos Pengelly, the mad preacher, as your foreman, at a hundred. I saw you through a glass, you two, poking and picking about.”

“Well, I should like a hundred a year for Pengelly,” said Geoffrey, “and he’d be well worth it.”

“Oh! I did not go high enough then,” said Uncle Paul, with a sneer. “Suppose we must make it five hundred a year. Will that enlist your lordship’s services?”

“I should spend a hundred pounds first,” said Geoffrey, quietly; “that would be ten pounds apiece for ten shareholders, in carefully examining the mine and testing the lodes, and then, if I thought it really would be a good venture, I’d give my services for fifteen per cent on the profits, and take not a penny besides.”

“Wouldn’t you really?” said the old man, with an aggravating sneer, as he threw himself back in his chair. “Ha-ha-ha! There, I’m better now. Look here, Master Geoffrey Trethick, I mean some day to buy Wheal Carnac for a building plot, and to turn the engine-house into a cottage, where I can live in peace, and not be aggravated to death by seeing that jade of a niece of mine running after every good-looking, or ill-looking, fellow she sees. I’ve got a bit of money, but before I’d put a penny in a mine, I’d cash the lot, and go and sit on a rock and make ducks-and-drakes with it at high water. As for you, my lad, I don’t like you, for you’re the most confoundedly impudent fellow I ever met; but I’ll give you this bit of advice: if you can find any fools to venture their money in an adventure, fix your salary and have it paid. No percentage. There, now I’ll give you one of my best cigars.”