The Vicar's People. George Manville Fenn

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ was no reply.

      “Madge!” roared the old man again, beating the table for a change.

      “Madge has gone out, dear,” said plump Mrs. Mullion, hurrying out to the summer-house.

      “Where’s my newspaper?” cried the old man, angrily. “I never get my newspaper to the time. Do you hear, I want my newspaper. If you can’t have me properly attended to by that cat of a girl, I declare I’ll go. Do you hear? I’ll go. I’m looking out now for a plot of land to build a house where I can be in peace and properly attended to. Do you hear? I want my newspaper—‘The Times.’ ”

      “There it is, dear,” said Mrs. Mullion, upon whom this storm did not seem to have the slightest effect, “you are sitting upon it.”

      “Then why, in the name of Buddha, was the paper put in my chair? A table’s the place for a paper. Where’s Madge?”

      “Gone out for a walk, dear.”

      “She’s always gone for a walk. I wish to good—”

      Rustle—rustle—rustle of the paper.

      ”—To goodness I had nev—”

      Rustle—rustle—rustle—

      ”—Had never come to this con—”

      Rustle—rustle—rustle. Bang in the middle and double up.

      ”—Come to this confounded place. Hang Madge! She’ll get into disgrace one of these—and—eh—um—oh. Hah! at last! um—um—um. ‘North-west provinces. This important question came on last night,’ um—um—um.”

      The old man’s irritable voice toned down into a hum like that of a gigantic bee, for Uncle Paul was safe now to be in peace and good temper for a couple of hours at least over the debates in his newspaper, and Mrs. Mullion, as unruffled as ever, was already back indoors, thinking over her half-brother’s words, and wondering whether they would ever prove true.

Chapter Eight.

       Table of Contents

      Geoffrey Makes a Discovery.

      There were plenty of heads thrust out of the granite cottages on either side of the steep way as Geoffrey strode on, ready to give back frank, open look for curious gaze, and to take notice that the people were dark and swarthy; that there were plenty of brown fishing-nets, and blackened corks, and swollen bladders, hanging from the walls, in company with a pair or two of sculls, a hitcher and a mast from some small boat, with now and then what seemed to be a human being split and hung up to dry after the fashion of a haddock, but which proved to be only an oilskin fishing-suit.

      At one cottage door a huge pair of fisher’s boots stood out in the sun, as if they were being worn by some invisible prince or Cornish giant. At another door sat a woman cleaning a long, snaky-looking hake, opposite to a neighbour who was busily counting pilchards, which had evidently been brought up from one of the boats by a big, brown, bluff-looking man, who, from top to toe, seemed as if he had some idea of going into the harlequin profession, so spangled was he with silver scales.

      “Can I get down to the beach this way?” Geoffrey asked of the latter.

      “Can ’ee get down to ba-ach this way! Iss my son,” said the man, in a sing-song tone; and, after a very steep descent, Geoffrey found himself where he desired to go.

      Not upon a soft, sandy, or pleasant shingly beach, but upon one literally paved with great masses of rock—black shale, granite, and gneiss—over which the huge Atlantic waves came foaming in stormy weather, rolling and polishing the surface with the rounded boulders, which seemed to average the size of a goodly cheese. Even now the rocky promontory that ran out and sheltered the little place and its tiny harbour was fringed with foaming water as the blue waves came slowly rolling in, to break on the black rocks, run up and fall back in silvery cascades to the heaving sea.

      Geoffrey’s keen eyes scanned the rocks, with their great white veins of milky quartz; running through the beautiful sea-scape on his left, the piled-up rocks upon his right, and then they rested on the grey engine-house upon the promontory—the mark of the great disused unsuccessful mine that had been pointed out to him as Wheal Carnac.

      This place had a sort of fascination for him, and, clambering up, as he drew nearer he noticed every thing—the roughly blasted-out road, the furnace-house, so arranged that its chimney trailed over the ground like a huge serpent along the slope of the cliff, and higher and higher, till, quite a hundred and fifty yards away, it ended in a masonry shaft, towering up on the very summit of the cliff.

      “What a blast they could get up here!” muttered Geoffrey, as he leaped from rock to rock, till, quite breathless, he reached the great tongue of land, and found that by clambering laboriously up a rough path he could stand on the chine of the promontory and look down upon the deep blue sea upon the other side, quite a mile away, and where the rugged shore was one mass of foam.

      But though the sight was grand it was not practical, and, soon descending, he made his way towards the great engine-house, to find everywhere traces of wasted enterprise, followed by ruin and neglect. A deep mine shaft had been sunk close to the edge that sloped down to the shore, and from a platform of rock where he stood he could see quite a vast embankment of the débris that had been toilsomely dug out and allowed to run down into the sea.

      There were granite buildings, but they were windowless, and a glance showed that the machinery had been torn out, to leave the place a ruin.

      “I wonder how many thousands were sunk here,” said Geoffrey, half aloud, “before the heart-sick proprietors gave it up, perhaps just on the eve of a great discovery. What a chance now, if there are good tin-bearing strata, for a fresh set of proprietors to take up the others’ work and carry it on to success.”

      “It looks tempting!” he muttered, as he went on from place to place, picking up specimens of the rock that had been chipped out and thrown from the shaft, and examining each piece attentively with a pocket-lens. “That’s antimony; yes, that’s tin,” he continued, as he examined a piece of reddish quartz, on one side of which sparkled some black grains, looking as unlike tin as can be imagined.

      “Dash of copper there,” he said, after a time, as he went on and on, till he stopped at the edge of the profound square shaft, which went down into darkness, right below where the waves beat upon the shore.

      “How deep, I wonder?” he said, as he gazed down into the pitchy blackness, and then threw in one of the fragments of rock which he held in his hand, listening attentively for some considerable time till there came up a weirdly strange, hollow, echoing plash, full of strange whisperings, each telling of the terrible depth down to where the water lay, filling up the profundities of the awe-inspiring place.

      “Thousands upon thousands of pounds must have gone down that hole?” mused Geoffrey, seating himself on the very edge, with his legs hanging down into the shaft, into which he gazed as if it fascinated him and something was drawing him downward to his death.

      “What a pit for a fellow to fall into!” he said, with a shudder. “He might slip or jump in, СКАЧАТЬ