Deep Down, a Tale of the Cornish Mines, R. M. Ballantyne [best ebook pdf reader android .TXT] 📗
- Author: R. M. Ballantyne
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Maggot explained how he had obtained the jewels, and then asked what they were worth.
“I can’t tell that,” said Mr Donnithorne, shaking his head gravely. “Some of them are undoubtedly of value; the others, for all I know, may not be worth much.”
“Come now, sur,” said Maggot, with a confidential leer, “it’s not the fust time we have done a bit o’ business. I ’spose I cud claim salvage on ’em?”
“I don’t know that,” said the old gentleman; “you cannot tell whom they belonged to, and I suspect Government would claim them, if— But, by the way, I suppose you found no letters—nothing in the shape of writing on the body?”
“Nothin’ whatsomever.”
“Well, then, I fear that—”
“Come now, sur,” said Maggot boldly; “’spose you gives John and me ten pounds apaice an’ kape ’em to yourself to make what ’ee can of ’em?”
Mr Donnithorne shook his head and hesitated. Often before had he defrauded the revenue by knowingly purchasing smuggled brandy and tobacco, and by providing the funds to enable others to smuggle them; but then the morality of that day in regard to smuggling was very lax, and there were men who, although in all other matters truly honest and upright, could not be convinced of the sinfulness of smuggling, and smiled when they were charged with the practice, but who, nevertheless, would have scorned to steal or tell a downright lie. This, however, was a very different matter from smuggling. The old gentleman shrank from it at first, and could not meet the gaze of the smuggler with his usual bold frank look. But the temptation was great. The jewels he suspected were of immense value, and his heart readily replied to the objections raised by his conscience, that after all there was no one left to claim them, and he had a much better right to them, in equity if not in law, than Government; and as to the fellows who found them—why, the sum they asked would be a great and rich windfall to them, besides freeing them from all further trouble, as well as transferring any risk that might accrue from their shoulders to his own.
While the old gentleman was reasoning thus with himself, Maggot stood anxiously watching his countenance and twisting the cloth that had enclosed the jewellery into a tight rope, as he shifted his position uneasily. At length old Mr Donnithorne said—
“Leave the jewels with me, and call again in an hour from this time. You shall then have my answer.”
Maggot and his friend consented to this delay, and left the room.
No sooner were they gone than the old gentleman called his wife, who naturally exclaimed in great surprise on beholding the table covered with such costly trinkets—
“Where ever did you get these, Tom?”
Mr Donnithorne explained, and then asked what she thought of Maggot’s proposal.
“Refuse it,” said she firmly.
“But, my dear—”
“Don’t ‘but’ about it, Tom. Whenever a man begins to ‘but’ with sin, it is sure to butt him over on his back. Have nothing to do with it, I say.”
“But, my dear, it is not dishonest—”
“I don’t know that,” interrupted Mrs Donnithorne vigorously; “you think that smuggling is not dishonest, but I do, and so does the minister.”
“What care I for the minister?” cried the old gentleman, losing his temper; “who made him a judge of my doings?”
“He is an expounder of God’s Word,” said Mrs Donnithorne firmly, “and holds that ‘Thou shalt not steal’ is one of the Ten Commandments.”
“Well, well, he and I don’t agree, that’s all; besides, has he never expounded to you that obedience to your husband is a virtue? a commandment, I may say, which you are—”
“Mr Donnithorne,” said the lady with dignity, “I am here at your request, and am now complying with your wishes in giving my opinion.”
“There, there, Molly,” said the subdued husband, giving his better half a kiss, “don’t be so sharp. You ought to have been a lawyer with your powerful reasoning capacity. However, let me tell you that you don’t understand these matters—”
“Then why ask my advice, Tom?”
“Why, woman, because an inexplicable fatality leads me to consult you, although I know well enough what the upshot will be. But I’m resolved to close with Maggot.”
“I knew you would,” said Mrs Donnithorne quietly.
The last remark was the turning-point. Had the good lady condescended to be earnest in her entreaties that the bargain should not be concluded, it is highly probable her husband would have given in; but her last observation nettled him so much that he immediately hoisted a flag of defiance, nailed it to the mast, and went out in great indignation to search for Maggot. That individual was not far off. The bargain was completed, the jewels were locked up in one of the old gentleman’s secret repositories, and the fishermen, with ten pounds apiece in their pockets, returned home.
Note 1. It may be well here to inform the reader that the finding of the jewels as here described, and the consequences which followed, are founded on fact.
Maggot’s home was a disordered one when he reached it, for his youngest baby, a fat little boy, had been seized with convulsions, and his wife and little daughter Grace, and son Zackey, and brother-in-law David Trevarrow, besides his next neighbour Mrs Penrose, with her sixteen children, were all in the room, doing their best by means of useless or hurtful applications, equally useless advice, and intolerable noise and confusion, to cure, if not to kill, the baby.
Maggot’s cottage was a poor one, his furniture was mean, and there was not much of it; nevertheless its inmates were proud of it, for they lived in comparative comfort there. Mrs Maggot was a kind-hearted, active woman, and her husband—despite his smuggling propensities—was an affectionate father. Usually the cottage was kept in a most orderly condition; but on the present occasion it was, as we have said, in a state of great confusion.
“Fetch me a bit of rag, Grace,” cried Mrs Maggot, just as her husband entered.
“Here’s a bit, old ’ooman,” said Maggot, handing her the linen cloth in which the jewels had been wrapped up, and which he had unconsciously retained in his hands on quitting Mr Donnithorne— “Run, my dear man,” he added, turning to John Cock, “an’ fetch the noo doctor.”
John darted away, and in a quarter of an hour returned with Oliver Trembath, who found that the baby had weathered the storm by the force of its own constitution, despite the adverse influences that were around it. He therefore contented himself with clearing the place of intruders, and prescribing some simple medicine.
“Are you going to work?” inquired Oliver of David Trevarrow, observing that the man was about to quit the cottage.
“Iss, sur—to Botallack.”
“Then I will accompany you. Captain Dan is going to show me over part of the mine to-day. Good-morning, Mrs Maggot, and remember my directions if this should happen to the little fellow again.”
Leaving the cottage the two proceeded through the town to the north end of it, accompanied by Maggot, who said he was going to the forge to do a bit of work, and who parted from them at the outskirts of the town.
“Times are bad with you at the mines just now, I find,” said Oliver as they walked along.
“Iss sur, they are,” replied Trevarrow, in the quiet tone that was peculiar to him; “but, thank God, we do manage to live, though there are some of us with a lot o’ child’n as finds it hard work. The Bal (The mine) ain’t so good as she once was.”
“I suppose that you have frequent changes of fortune?” said Oliver.
The miner admitted that this was the case, for that sometimes a man worked underground for several weeks without getting enough to keep his family, while at other times he might come on a bunch of copper or tin which would enable him to clear 50 pounds or more in a month.
“If report says truly,” observed Oliver, “you have hit upon a ‘keenly lode,’ as you call it, not many days ago.”
“A do look very well now, sur,” replied the miner, “but wan can never tell. I did work for weeks in the level under the say without success, so I guv it up an went to Wheal Hazard, and on the back o’ the fifty-fathom level I did strike ’pon a small lode of tin ’bout so thick as my finger. It may get better, or it may take the bit in its teeth and disappear; we cannot tell.”
“Well, I wish you good luck,” said Oliver; “and here comes Captain Dan, so I’ll bid you good-morning.”
“Good-morning, sur,” said the stout-limbed and stout-hearted man, with a smile and a nod, as he turned off towards the moor-house to put on his mining garments.
Towards this house a number of men had been converging while Oliver and his companion approached it, and the former observed, that whatever colour the men might be on entering it, they invariably came out light red, like lobsters emerging from a boiling pot.
In Botallack mine a large quantity of iron is mingled with the tin ore. This colours everything in and around the mine, including men’s clothes, hands, and faces, with a light rusty-red. The streams, of course, are also coloured with it, and the various pits and ponds for collecting the fluid mud of tin ore seem as if filled with that nauseous compound known by the name of “Gregory’s Mixture.”
In the moor-house there were rows of pegs with red garments hung thereon to dry, and there were numerous broad-shouldered men dressing and undressing—in every stage of the process; while in a corner two or three were washing their bodies in a tank of water. These last were men who had been at work all night, and were cleansing themselves before putting on what we may term their home-going clothes.
The mining dress is a very simple, and often a very ragged affair. It consists of a flannel shirt, a pair of linen trousers, a short coat of the same, and a hat in the form of a stiff wide-awake, but made so thick as to serve the purpose of a helmet to guard the head from the rocks, etcetera. Clumsy ankle-boots complete the costume. As each man issued from the house, he went to a group of wooden chests which lay scattered about outside, and, opening his own, took from it a bag of powder, some blasting fuse, several iron tools, which he tied to a rope so as to be slung over his shoulder, a small wooden canteen of water, and a bunch of tallow candles. These last he fastened to a button on his breast, having previously affixed one of them to the front of his hat.
Thus accoutred, they proceeded to a small platform close at hand, with a square hole in it, out of which protruded the head of a ladder. This was the “ladder road.” Through the hole these red men descended one by one, chatting and laughing as they went, and disappeared, leaving the moor-house and all around it a place of solitude.
Captain Dan now prepared to descend this ladder road with Oliver Trembath.
Botallack, to the dark depths of which we are now about to descend, is the most celebrated mine in the great mining county of Cornwall. It stands on the sea coast, a little more than a mile to the north of St. Just. The region around it is somewhat bleak and almost destitute of trees. In approaching it, the eyes of the traveller are presented with a view of engine-houses, and piles of stones and rubbish, in the midst of which stand a number of uncouth yet picturesque objects, composed of boards and timber, wheels, ropes, pulleys, chains, and suchlike gear. These last are the winding
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