Home > Authors Index > George Manville Fenn > Menhardoc: A Story of Cornish Nets and Mines > This page
Menhardoc: A Story of Cornish Nets and Mines, a novel by George Manville Fenn |
||
Chapter 16. Arthur Temple Catches His Largest Fish... |
||
| < Previous |
Table of content |
Next > |
|
________________________________________________
_ CHAPTER SIXTEEN. ARTHUR TEMPLE CATCHES HIS LARGEST FISH--AN ODD ONE--AND EVEN THEN IS NOT AT REST Mr Temple took a small flat lantern from his pocket, struck a match inside, and lit the lamp, which burned with a clear, bright flame. "Is the shaft belonging to this open at the top?" he said to Will. "Yes, sir--quite." "Ah! then there's no foul air. Now, Arthur, come along and you shall see what a mine adit is like." "I--er--I'd rather not come this time, papa," said Arthur in a rather off-hand way; "the knees of my trousers are so wet." "Oh! are they?" said Mr Temple quietly. "You will come, I suppose, Dick?" "Yes, father. May I carry the lamp?" "Yes; and go first. Slowly, now. Rather hard to get through;" and after a little squeezing the whole party, save Arthur, crept into the low gallery, the light showing the roof and sides to be covered with wet moss of a glittering metallic green. There was not much to reward the seekers,--nothing but this narrow passage leading to a black square pool of water, upon which the light of the lamp played, and seemed to be battling with a patch of reflected daylight, the image of the square opening, a hundred and fifty feet above. "Hah!" said Mr Temple after a few minutes' inspection of the adit and the shaft, whose walls, as far as he could reach, he chipped with a sharp-pointed little hammer formed almost like a wedge of steel. "A good hundred years since this was worked, if ever it got beyond the search. Copper decidedly." "And you think it is very rich?" said Will excitedly, for he had been watching Mr Temple with the greatest eagerness. "Rich! No, my lad. What, have you got the Cornish complaint?" "Cornish complaint, sir?" said Will wonderingly. "The longing to search for mineral treasures?" "Yes, sir," said Will bluntly after a few moments' pause. "Then you need not waste time here, my lad." "But there's copper here. I proved it; and now you say there is." "Yes; tons of it," said Mr Temple. "There, Josh!" cried Will triumphantly. "But," continued Mr Temple as they all stood there half-crouching in the narrow adit, "it is in quantities and in a bed that would be hard to work, and every hundredweight you got out and smelted would have cost more in wages than you could obtain when you sold your copper." "There, lad, what did I gashly say?" cried Josh eagerly. "Didn't I say as the true mining was for silver in the sea--ketching fish with boats and nets." "No, you did not," cried Will hotly; "and you meant nothing of the kind in what you did say." "Ah! there's nought like the sea for making a living," said Josh in an ill-used tone. "I wouldn't work in one of these gashly places on no account; not for two pound a week, I wouldn't." "Well, let's get out in the open air at all events, now," said Mr Temple. "I should like to see the mouth of the shaft." "I'll show you, sir," said Will eagerly; and Mr Temple watched him closely as they stood once more out in the bright sunshine, and, lithe and strong, he began to climb up the rocks, Dick following him almost as quickly, but without his cleverness in making his way from block to block. Mr Temple followed, then Josh, lastly Arthur, who got on very badly, but indignantly refused Josh's rough tarry hand when he good-naturedly offered to help him up the rough cliff. "Here's where Josh and I went down," said Will, as they all stood at the shaft mouth. "And did you go down there, my lad?" "Yes, sir." "Swinging on a rope?" "Yes, sir." "Then you've a good nerve, my lad. It wants a cool head to do that." Will winced and glanced at Josh, who wrinkled up his forehead in a curious way. "A tremendous nerve," continued Mr Temple. "You wouldn't care to go down, Dick?" "No, father; but I'd go if you told me, and the rope was safe." "That's right," said Mr Temple, smiling; "but, as I said before, it would require tremendous nerve--like that of our friend here." Will looked from one to the other uneasily, and turned his cap first to right, and then to left. Suddenly he drew a long breath. "I felt when I got out of the shaft, sir, as if I never dared try to do it again," he said hastily. "Indeed!" "Yes, sir; I wasn't at all brave over it." "Steady, my lad--steady!" said Josh in a reproving tone. "I think you did well. P'raps the gentleman would like to go now to Blee Vor." "Yes, I should," said Mr Temple, "so let's go at once. There is nothing to be done here." Josh led the way down the cliff--rather a dangerous road, but one which seemed easy enough to him, while Arthur shuddered and stopped two or three times on the way down, as if the descent made him giddy. He was always well enough, though, to resent any offer of assistance, even into the boat when it was hauled close up to the rock. Josh would have lifted him in; Will was ready to lay a back for him and porter him in like a sack; but the sensitive London boy looked upon these offers of aid as insulting; and the consequence was that he got on board with one of his shoes full of water, and a very small piece of skin taken off his shin. "Shall we row you on to Blee Vor," said Josh. Mr Temple nodded in a short business-like way, and taking out his glass, he began to examine the rock as they went along. All of a sudden, though, he turned to Dick. "Go and take that oar," he said sharply; and then to Will--"Come here, my lad." Will coloured a little as he gave up his oar to Dick, who began rowing with a great deal of vigour and a great deal of splash, but with little effect upon the progress of the boat. "And so you are spending your spare time hunting for metals, are you, my lad?" said Mr Temple, gazing sharply at Will. "Yes, sir." "Why?" Will hesitated for a moment and then said frankly: "I want to get on, sir, and make myself independent." "Capital idea!" said Mr Temple; "but what knowledge have you on the subject? Have you studied mineralogy?" "Not from books, sir. Only what the miners about here could teach me." "But you know a little about these things?" "Very little, sir; but I'm trying to learn more." "Ah! that's what we are all trying to do," said Mr Temple quickly. "That will do. Perhaps we shall see a little more of each other." He took up his glass once more; and feeling himself to be dismissed, Will went back to his seat, and would have taken the oar, but Dick wanted to learn how to row, and would not give it up. "Go and help my brother catch another bass," he said; so rather unwillingly the lad went to where Arthur was diligently dragging the whiffing-line through the water. "Don't you get any bites, sir?" said Will. "No. I don't think there are many fish hero now," said Arthur haughtily. "But there are a few," said Will smiling. "Did you put on a good bait?" "Good bait!" said Arthur, looking at his questioner in a half-offended tone. "Yes, you must have a good lask on your hook, or the fish will not rise at it." "Why, I've got the same hook on that my brother used when he caught that fish." "Let me look," said Will quietly. Arthur frowned, and would have declined, but Will did not wait for permission, and drew in the line till he came to the lead, lifted it carefully inboard, and then hauled up the hook. "You might have kept on trying all day," said Will. "There's no bait." "Oh, indeed! then some fish must have bitten it off," said Arthur in the most nonchalant way. "I thought I felt a tug." Will had his back turned to the fisherman, so that he could smile unobserved, for he knew that there had been no bait left on the hook, and that Arthur would not have soiled his fingers to put one on. "There," he said as he hooked on a good bright lask; "now try." He threw the bait over and then dropped in the lead, when the bait seemed to dart away astern, drawing out the line; but to Arthur's surprise Will checked it instantly, caught the line from the gunwale and handed it to him, Will's quick eyes having detected the dash of a fish at the flying bait. "Why, there's one on!" cried Arthur excitedly. "Small pollack," said Will smiling. "Haul him in." Arthur forgot all about the wetness of the line this time, and soon drew one of the brightly coloured fish inboard and called to his brother. "Here, look!" he cried, "you never saw anything so beautiful as this." "Just like mine," cried Dick, "only it was ten times as big." "Oh!" said Arthur in a disappointed tone. Then, in a whisper to Will, "I say, boy, put on a big bait this time. I want to catch a large one." Will felt amused at the other's dictatorial importance, but he said nothing: placing a bait on the hook, and the line was once more trailed behind, but this time without success, and at the end of a few minutes the boat was guided into a narrow passage amongst the rocks, below a high forbidding headland where the long slimy sea-weed that clung to the granite was washing to and fro, as the waves rushed foaming in and out among the huge blocks of stone, some of which were every now and then invisible, and then seemed to rise out of the sea like the backs of huge shaggy sea-monsters playing in the nook. Josh had taken the oar from Dick, and had now assumed the sole guidance of the boat, rowing slowly with his head turned towards the shore, and once or twice there was a scraping, bumping noise and a jerk or two, which made Arthur seize hold of the side. "Is it safe to go in here?" said Mr Temple. "Oh! you may trust Josh, sir," exclaimed Will. "It wouldn't be safe at high water, but there's no danger now." "Not of getting a hole through the boat?" "Boomp--craunch!" Arthur turned quite white, while Dick laughed. "That's only her iron keel, sir," said Will, for Josh was too intent upon his work to turn his head for answer. "The wave dropped us on that rock, and we slid off, you see, on the keel. Now we're in deep water again." The action of the waves close inshore on that rugged coast, even in that calm weather, was sufficient to raise them up three or four feet and then let them down, while the water was so clear that they could see the weeds waving and streaming here and there over the tinted rock, patches of which, where they were washed bare, were of the most brilliant crimsons, purples, and greens. Josh was guiding the boat in and out along a most intricate channel, now almost doubling back, but always the next minute getting nearer to a beautiful white patch of strand, beyond which was a dark forbidding clump of rocks piled-up in picturesque confusion, and above which the gaunt cliff ran up perpendicularly in places till it was at least three hundred feet above their heads, and everywhere seeming to be built up in great blocks like rugged ashlar work, the joints fitting closely, but all plainly marked and worn by the weather. "Sit fast all!" said Josh; "here's a wave coming!" He gave one oar a sharp tug to set the boat's head a little farther round, and Arthur sprang up and with a sort of bound leaped to his father's side, clinging to him tightly, as a loud rushing, hissing sound rose from behind, and a good-sized wave came foaming in and out among the great blocks of stone, as if bent on leaping into and swamping the boat; but instead of this, as it reached them it lifted the boat, bore it forward, bumping and scraping two or three rocks below the keel, and then letting it glide over the surface of a good-sized rock-pool, swirling and dancing with the newly coming water. Josh then rowed steadily on for a few strokes, pausing by some glistening rocks that, after lying dry for a few hours, were being covered again by the title. "Your young gents like to look at the dollygobs, master?" said Josh. "Look at the what!" exclaimed Mr Temple. "Them there gashly things," said Josh, pointing to a number of round patches of what seemed to be deep-red jelly, with here and there one of an olive green. "Sea-anemones, boys," said Mr Temple. Then to Josh, "No, they must hunt them out another time; I want to land. I suppose we can climb up to that shelf?" He pointed to a flat place about a hundred feet above them. "Dessay we can, if it arn't too gashly orkard," growled Josh. "If she be, we'll bring the rope another time and let you down. Sit fast again!" For another wave came rushing in, seeming to gather force as it ran, while Josh so cleverly managed the boat that he made it ride on the surface of the wave right over a low ridge of rocks, and then rowed close in and ran her head upon what looked to be coarse sand. Then in went the oars, Josh and Will leaped out, waited a few moments, and then, another smaller wave helping them, they drew the boat higher, so that she was left half dry, and her passengers were able to step out on the dry patch beneath the rocks. "Why, it isn't sand, but little broken shells," cried Dick excitedly, as Mr Temple casually picked up a handful to examine. "Yes, Dick, broken shells, and not siliceous," said Mr Temple. "What are those red and green rocks, father?" asked Dick. "Serpentine; and that white vein running through is soapstone. Ah! now we shall get to know a little about what is inside." "But why have we come here?" asked Arthur. "Because there has been a working here. Some one must have dug down and thrown out all that mass of broken rock. Part has been washed away; but all this, you see, though worn and rounded by the waves washing it about, has been dug out of the rock." He had walked to a long slope of wave-worn fragments of rock as he spoke, forming a steep ascent that ran up into a rift in the great cliff; and he drew Dick's attention to the fact that what seemed like a level place a hundred feet above was so situated that anything thrown down would have fallen in the niche or combe of the cliff just beyond them. "Now, my fine fellow," said Mr Temple, as he picked up a piece of wave-polished stone, "what's that?" "Serpentine," said Will quietly. "And this?" said Mr Temple. "Granite, sir." "Eight; and this?" "Gneiss," replied Will. "Quite correct. Now this," he continued, breaking a piece of stone in two with his hammer. "Cop--no, only mundic," cried Will, who had nearly been caught tripping. "Right again. Now this?" He picked up a reddish piece of stone which, when broken, showed bright clear crystals, and close to the ruddy stone a number of little black grains. "Tin," cried Will eagerly; "and a rich piece." "Let me look at the tin," cried Arthur eagerly; and the piece being handed to him, "where?" he cried; "there's no tin here." "Tin ore, my boy," said Mr Temple quietly. "Those black grains are rich tin." "Well, I shouldn't have thought that," said Arthur; "and I should have thought that was gold or brass." "Then you would have thought wrong," said Mr Temple sharply. "All is not gold that glitters, my boy; and you can't find brass in the earth. What can you find, my lad?" he continued, turning sharply to Will. "Copper, sir, and tin and zinc." "Then what is brass?" said Mr Temple. "Copper and zinc mixed." "Not copper and tin?" "Copper and tin, sir, make fine bronze, same as the ancient people used to hammer for swords and spears; but I can't understand, sir, why two soft metals like copper and tin should make a hard one when they are mixed." "And I cannot explain it to you," said Mr Temple smiling. "Are we going to stop here long?" said Arthur impatiently. "Oh? don't go yet," cried Dick, laughing; "I want to hear Will say his miner's catechism." "Oh! very well," said Mr Temple, smiling. "What is mundic, then, my lad?" "A mussy me! as if every lad here didn't know what mundic was!" cried Josh to himself; but he spoke loud enough for the others to hear. "Well, what is mundic, then?" said Mr Temple quickly to Josh. "What's mundic?" growled Josh, picking up a yellow metallic-looking piece of rock; "why, that is, and that is, and that is. There's tons of it everywhere." "To be sure there is, my man; but what is it?" said Mr Temple. "Well, ain't I showing of you!" growled Josh. "This here's mundic." "The gentleman means what is it made of?" whispered Will, and then he added two or three words. "Why, how should I know? Made of! 'Tain't made of anything, nor more ar'n't tin. I suppose it grows." "Do you know?" said Mr Temple. "I think so, sir," said Will modestly; "sulphur and iron." "Let's go on now," said Arthur; "I want to fish." "Stop and learn something, my boy," said Mr Temple sternly. "Oh! go on, please," cried Dick, who was delighted to find so much knowledge in his new friend. "What is this, then?" said Mr Temple, picking up a whitish metallic-looking piece of mineral. "I don't know exactly, sir," said Will eagerly; "but I think it is partly antimony and partly silver." "Quite right again, my lad," cried Mr Temple, clapping Will upon the shoulder of his fish-scaly blue jersey; "a great deal of antimony, and there is sulphur and iron too, I think, in this piece." "This must have come out of the working above there," cried Will eagerly. "Undoubtedly, my lad." "I didn't know that there had been a mine here," said Will. "Or you would have had a look at it before now, eh?" "Yes, sir," said Will, colouring. "We'll go and have a look at it now," said Mr Temple; "but I don't think we shall find anything of much good." "Here, papa, what's this?" cried Arthur eagerly. "This must be gold." "Copper," cried Will. "Then there is copper here too!" "Yes, that is copper," said Mr Temple, examining and re-fracturing a glistening piece of stone full of purple and gold reflections, with touches of blue and crimson. "Peacock ore some people call it. Now, let's have a climb. Or stop, let's have a look at that cave. I should not wonder if the adit is there." "Beggin' yer pardon, sir," said Josh respectfully, "I don't think as I'd go in there, if I was you." "Why not?" said Mr Temple, as he stood just inside the rugged cavern, whose mouth was fringed with sea-ferns. "Well, you see, sir, they say gashly things about these here old zorns." "What sort of things, Josh?" cried Dick. "Wild beasts in 'em?" "Well, no, Master Ditchard, sir," said Josh, who was confused as to the proper way of using the names Dick and Richard; "not wild beasts here." "You must go two miles farther," said Will, "and we can show you the seal-caves." "With seals in them?" cried Richard. "Oh, yes, plenty," said Will. "Josh thinks there is something unpleasant lives in these zorns." "No, not exactly lives," said Josh, hesitating; "and don't you get making game of 'em, young fellow," he added, turning to Will. "Them as is a deal older than us wouldn't go in 'em to save their lives." "Why, what is there in the cave, my man?" said Mr Temple. "Oh! I shouldn't like to say, sir," said Josh, gazing furtively into the darksome hole in the rock. "But you are not afraid?" "Afraid, sir! Oh, no, I'm not afraid; but I don't think it's right to go in and disturb what's there." "Ah, well, Dick, we'll go," said Mr Temple; "and we must apologise if the occupants object." "I wouldn't go, really, sir," protested Josh. "You can stay behind, my man," said Mr Temple. "Then don't take Master Dick, sir. You see he's so young." "My son can stay outside if he likes," said Mr Temple in a tone of voice that made Dick tighten himself up and fasten the lower, button of his jacket. "There," said Mr Temple as he closed his lanthorn and held it up; "now we shall see." He stepped in over the shelly sand which filled up the vacancies between the rocks that strewed the floor, and Dick stepped in after him. Will turned and looked half-mockingly at Josh as he stepped in next. "Oh! well, I can't stand that," growled Josh. "Here goes." He moistened both of his hands as if he were going to get a grip of some rope or spar, and then hurried in, leaving Arthur alone at the mouth of the zorn, peering in at the dancing light and the strange shadows cast upon the glistening stone of roof and wall. "Shall I go in?" he said to himself. "I know Dick will laugh at me if I don't." Then he hesitated: the place looked so dark and cold and forbidding, while without it was so light and bright and sunshiny. "I sha'n't go," he muttered. "Let him laugh if he likes, and that Cornish fisher-boy as well. I don't see why I should go into the nasty old cellar." Then he peered in, and thought that he would like to go in just a little way; and stretching out one leg he was about to set his foot down when there was a black shadow cast at his feet, a rushing noise, and something came quite close, uttered a harsh cry, and dashed off. Arthur Temple bounded back into the broad sunshine with his heart beating painfully; and even when he saw that it was one of the great black fishing-birds that had dipped down and dashed off again he was not much better. "I wish I were not so nervous!" he muttered; and he looked about hastily. "I'm glad no one was here, though," he added. "How Dick would have laughed! Now I'll follow them in. No, I won't. I'll say I wanted to fish;" and snatching at this idea he ran down to the boat, got in, and arranging the line, gave the lead a swing and threw it seaward, so that it should fall in the deep channel among the rocks, where there was not the slightest likelihood of his getting a fish. But it requires some skill to throw out lead attached to a fishing-line, especially when there are ten or twelve feet of line between the lead and the hook. Hence it was then that when Arthur Temple swung the lead to and fro, and finally let it go seaward, there was a sharp tug and a splash, the lead falling into the water about a couple of yards from the stern, and the hook sticking tightly in the gunwale of the boat. "Bother!" exclaimed Arthur angrily as he proceeded to haul the lead in, and then to extricate the hook, whose bait wanted rearranging, while the hook itself was a good deal opened out in drawing it from the wood. He got all right at last, screwing up his face a good deal at having to replace the bait, and then stopping to wash his hands very carefully and wipe them upon his pocket-handkerchief. This done, he smelt his fingers. "Pah!" he ejaculated; and he proceeded to wash and wipe them again before rearranging the line; and then after swinging the lead to and fro four or five times, he let it go, giving it a tremendous jerk, which recoiled so upon his frame, and caused the boat to swerve so much, that he nearly fell overboard, and only saved himself by throwing himself down and catching at the thwarts. "Bother the beastly, abominable old boat!" he cried angrily as he scrambled up, and with all the pettishness of a spoiled child, kicked the side with all his might, a satisfactory proceeding which resulted in the wood giving forth a hollow sound, and a painful sensation arising from an injured toe. He felt a little better, though, after getting rid of this touch of spite, and he smiled with satisfaction, too, for the lead had descended some distance off in the water, and with a self-complacent smile Arthur Temple sat down on the edge of the boat and waited for a bite. "This is better than getting wet and dirty in that cavern," he said. "It's warm and sunshiny, and old Dick will be as savage as savage if he finds that I've caught three or four good fish before he comes. Was that a touch?" It did not seem to be, so Arthur sat patiently on waiting for the bite, and sometimes looking over the side, where, in the clear water, half-hidden by a shelf of rock, he could see what at first made him start, for it looked like an enormous flat spider lying about three feet down, watching him with a couple of eyes like small peas, mounted, mushroom-fashion, on a stalk. "Why, it's an old crab," he said; "only a small one, though. Ugh! what a disgusting-looking beast!" He remained watching the crab for some few minutes, and then looked straight along the line, which washed up and down on a piece of rock as the waves came softly in, bearing that peculiar sea-weedy scent from the shore. Then he had another look at the crab, and could distinctly see its peculiar water-breathing apparatus at work, playing like some piece of mechanism about its mouth, while sometimes one claw would be raised a little way, then another, as if the mollusc were sparring at Arthur, and asking him to come on. "Ugh! the ridiculous-looking little monster!" he muttered. "I wonder how long they'll be! What a while it is before I get a bite!" But he did not get a bite all the same. For, in the first place, there were none but very small fish in and about the rocks--little wrasse, and blennies wherever the bottom was sandy, and tiny crabs scuffling in and out among the stones, where jelly-fish were opening and shutting and expanding their tentacles in search of minute food. In the second place, Arthur sat on fishing, happily unconscious of the fact that he was in a similar position to the short-sighted old man in the caricature. This individual is by a river side comfortably seated beneath a tree, his rod horizontally held above the water, but his line and float, where he has jerked them, four or five feet above his head in an overhanging bough. There were no overhanging boughs near Arthur, and no trees; but when he threw in his line the lead had gone into a rock-pool, the hook had stopped in a patch of sea-weed on a rock high and dry, and the bait of squid was being nicely cooked and frizzled in the sun. "I think it wants a new bait," said our fisherman at last very importantly; and, drawing in the line, the lead came with a bump up against the side of the boat, while the bait was dragged through the water, and came in thoroughly wet once more. "I thought so," said Arthur complacently as he examined the shrunken bait. "Something has been at it and sucked all the goodness away. I wish that fisher-boy was here to put on a fresh one." But that fisher-boy was right in the cavern, so Arthur had to put on a fresh bait himself. This done, and very badly too, he took the line in hand once more, stood up on the thwart, spreading his legs wide apart to steady himself, because the boat rocked; and then, after giving the heavy lead a good swing, sent it off with a thrill of triumph, which rapidly changed to a look of horror, accompanied by a yell of pain. "Oh! oh! oh! oh!" cried Arthur. "My leg! my leg! my leg! Oh! help! help! help!" and sitting down in the boat he began to drag in the line rapidly, as he thoroughly realised the fact that he had caught a very large and a very odd fish this time. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Note: Zorn, the Cornish name for a sea-cave. _ |
||