Chapter Four.
At Work under the Sea
Chip, chip, chip—down in the dusky mine! Oh, but the rock at which the miner chipped was hard, and the bit of rock on which he sat was hard, and the muscles with which he toiled were hard from prolonged labour; and the lot of the man seemed hard, as he sat there in the hot, heavy atmosphere, hour after hour, from morn till eve, with the sweat pouring down his brow and over his naked shoulders, toiling and moiling with hammer and chisel.
But stout David Trevarrow did not think his lot peculiarly hard. His workshop was a low narrow tunnel deep down under the surface of the earth—ay, and deep under the bottom of the sea! His daily sun was a tallow candle, which rose regularly at seven in the morning and set at three in the afternoon. His atmosphere was sadly deficient in life-giving oxygen, and much vitiated by gunpowder smoke. His working costume consisted only of a pair of linen trousers; his colour from top to toe was red as brick-dust, owing to the iron ore around him; his food was a slice of bread, with, perchance, when he was unusually luxurious, the addition of a Cornish pasty; and his drink was water. To an inexperienced eye the man’s work would have appeared not only hard but hopeless, for although his hammer was heavy, his arm strong, and his chisel sharp and tempered well, each blow produced an apparently insignificant effect on the flinty rock. Frequently a spark of fire was all that resulted from a blow, and seldom did more than a series of little chips fly off, although the man was of herculean mould, and worked “with a will,” as was evident from the kind of gasp or stern expulsion of the breath with which each blow was accompanied. Unaided human strength he knew could not achieve much in such a process, so he directed his energies chiefly to the boring of blast-holes, and left it to the mighty power of gunpowder to do the hard work of rending the rich ore from the bowels of the unwilling earth. Yes, the work was very hard, probably the hardest that human muscles are ever called on to perform in this toiling world; but again we say that David Trevarrow did not think so, for he had been born to the work and bred to it, and was blissfully ignorant of work of a lighter kind, so that, although his brows frowned at the obstinate rock, his compressed lips smiled, for his thoughts were pleasant and far away. The unfettered mind was above ground roaming in fields of light, basking in sunshine, and holding converse with the birds, as he sat there chip, chip, chipping, down in the dusky mine.
Stopping at last, the miner wiped his brow, and, rising, stood for a few moments silently regarding the result of his day’s work.
“Now, David,” said he to himself, “the question is, what shall us do—shall us keep on, or shall us knack?”
He paused, as if unable to answer the question. After a time he muttered, “Keep on; it don’t look promisin’, sure ’nuff, an’ it’s poor pay; but it won’t do to give in yet.”
Poor pay it was indeed, for the man’s earnings during the past month had been barely ten shillings. But David Trevarrow had neither wife, child, nor mother to support, so he could afford to toil for poor pay, and, being of a remarkably hopeful and cheery disposition, he returned home that afternoon resolved to persevere in his unproductive toil, in the hope that at last he should discover a good “bunch of copper,” or a “keenly lode of tin.”
David was what his friends and the world styled unfortunate. In early manhood he had been a somewhat wild and reckless fellow—a noted wrestler, and an adept in all manly sports and games. But a disappointment in love had taught him very bitterly that life is not all sunshine; and this, coupled with a physical injury which was the result of his own folly, crushed his spirit so much that his comrades believed him to be a “lost man.”
The injury referred to was the bursting of a blood-vessel in the lungs. It was, and still is, the custom of the youthful miners of Cornwall to test their strength by racing up the almost interminable ladders by which the mines are reached. This tremendous exertion after a day of severe toil affected them of course very severely, and in some cases seriously. Many an able-bodied man has by this means brought himself to a premature end. Among others, David Trevarrow excelled and suffered. No one could beat him in running up the ladders; but one day, on reaching the surface, blood issued from his mouth, and thenceforth his racing and wrestling days were ended, and his spirit was broken. A long illness succeeded. Then he began to mend. Slowly and by degrees his strength returned, but not his joyous spirit. Still it was some comfort to feel able for work again, and he “went underground” with some degree of his old vigour, though not with the light heart or light step of former days; but bad fortune seemed to follow him everywhere. When others among his comrades were fortunate in finding copper or tin, David was most unaccountably unsuccessful. Accidents, too, from falls and explosions, laid him up more than once, and he not only acquired the character of an unlucky man from his friends, but despite a naturally sanguine temperament, he began himself to believe that he was one of the unluckiest fellows in the world.
About this time the followers of that noble Christian, John Wesley, began to make an impression on Cornwall, and to exert an influence which created a mighty change in the hearts and manners of the people, and the blessed effects of which are abundantly evident at the present day—to the rejoicing of every Christian soul. One of those ministers of our Lord happened to meet with David Trevarrow, and was the means of opening his eyes to many great and previously unknown truths. Among others, he convinced him that “God’s ways are not as man’s ways;” that He often, though not always, leads His people by thorny paths that they know not of, but does it in love and with His own glory in their happiness as the end in view; that the Lord Jesus Christ must be to a man “the chiefest among ten thousand, and altogether lovely,” else He is to him nothing at all, and that he could be convinced of all these truths only by the Holy Spirit.
It were vain to attempt to tell all that this good man said to the unhappy miner, but certain it is that from that time forth David became himself again—and yet not himself. The desire to wrestle and fight and race returned in a new form. He began to wrestle with principalities and powers, to fight the good fight of faith, and to run the race set before him in the gospel. The old hearty smile and laugh and cheery disposition also returned, and the hopeful spirit, and so much of the old robust health and strength, that it seemed as if none of the evil effects of the ruptured blood-vessel remained. So David Trevarrow went, as of old, daily to the mine. It is true that riches did not flow in upon him any faster than before, but he did not mind that much, for he had discovered another mine, in which he toiled at nights after the day’s toil was over, and whence he extracted treasure of greater value than copper or tin, or even gold—treasure which he scattered in a Sabbath school with liberal hand, and found himself all the richer for his prodigality.
Occasionally, after prolonged labour in confined and bad air, a faint trace of the old complaint showed itself when he reached the top of the ladders, but he was not now depressed by that circumstance as he used to be. He was past his prime at the period of which we write, and a confirmed bachelor.
To return from this digression: David Trevarrow made up his mind, as we have said, to “go on,” and, being a man of resolute purpose, he went on; seized his hammer and chisel, and continued perseveringly to smite the flinty rock, surrounded by thick darkness, which was not dispelled but only rendered visible by the feeble light of the tallow candle that flared at his side.
Over his head rolled the billows of the Atlantic; the whistling wind howled among the wild cliffs of the Cornish coast, but they did not break the deep silence of the miner’s place of midnight toil. Heaven’s artillery was rending the sky, and causing the hearts of men to beat slow with awe. The great boulders ground the pebbles into sand as they crashed to and fro above him, but he heard them not—or if he did, the sound reached him as a deep-toned mysterious murmur, for, being in one of the low levels, with many fathoms of solid rock between him and the bottom of the superincumbent sea, he was beyond the reach of such disturbing influences, tremendous though they were.
The miner was making a final effort at his unproductive piece of rock, and had prolonged his toil far into the night.
Hour after hour he wrought almost without a moment’s respite, save for the purpose, now and then, of trimming his candle. When his right arm grew tired, he passed the hammer swiftly to his left hand, and, turning the borer with his right, continued to work with renewed vigour.
At last he paused, and looking over his shoulder called out— “Zackey, booy.”
The sound died away in a hollow echo through the retiring galleries of the mine, but there was no reply.
“Zackey, booy, are ’ee slaipin’?” he repeated.
A small reddish-coloured bundle, which lay in a recess close at hand, uncoiled itself like a hedgehog, and, yawning vociferously, sat up, revealing the fact that the bundle was a boy.
“Ded ’ee call, uncle?” asked the boy in a sleepy tone.
“Iss did I,” said the man; “fetch me the powder an’ fuse, my son.”
The lad rose, and, fetching out of a dark corner the articles required, assisted in charging the hole which his uncle had just finished boring. This was the last hole which the man intended to blast that night. For weeks past he had laboured day after day—sometimes, as on the present occasion, at night—and had removed many tons of rock, without procuring either tin or copper sufficient to repay him for his toil, so that he resolved to give it up and remove to a more hopeful part of the mine, or betake himself to another mine altogether. He had now bored his last hole, and was about to blast it. Applying his candle to the end of the fuse, he hastened along the level to a sufficient distance to afford security, warning his nephew as he passed.
Zackey leaped up, and, scrambling over the débris with which the bottom of the level was covered, made good his retreat. About a minute they waited in expectancy. Suddenly there was a bright blinding flash, which lit up the rugged sides of the mine, and revealed its cavernous ramifications and black depths. This was accompanied by a dull smothered report and a crash of falling rock, together with a shower of débris. Instantly the whole place was in profound darkness.
“Aw, booy,” exclaimed the miner; “we was too near. It have knacked us in the dark.”
“So’t have, uncle; I’ll go an’ search for the box.”
“Do, my son,” said David.
In those days lucifer matches had not been invented, and light had to be struck by means of flint, steel, and tinder. The process was tedious compared with the rapid action of congreves and vestas in the present day. The man chipped away for full three minutes before he succeeded in relighting his candle. This done, the rock was examined.
“Bad still, Uncle David?” inquired the boy.
“Iss, Zackey Maggot, so we’ll knack’n, and try the higher mine to-morrow.” Having come to this conclusion Uncle David threw down the mass of rock which he held in his brawny hands, and, picking up his implements, said, “Get the tools, booy, and lev us go to grass.”
Zackey, who had been in the mine all day, and was tired, tied his tools at each end of a rope, so that they might be slung over his shoulder and leave his hands free. Trevarrow treated his in the same way, and, removing his candle from the wall, fixed it on the front of his hat by the simple process of sticking thereto the lump of clay to which it was attached. Zackey having fixed his candle in the same manner, both of them put on their red-stained flannel shirts and linen coats, and traversed the level until they reached the bottom of the ladder-shaft. Here they paused for a few moments before commencing the long wearisome ascent of almost perpendicular ladders by which the miners descended to their work or returned “to grass,” as they termed the act of returning to the surface.
It cost them more than half an hour of steady climbing before they reached the upper part of the shaft and became aware that a storm was raging in the regions above. On emerging from the mouth of the shaft or “ladder road,” man and boy were in a profuse perspiration, and the sharp gale warned them to hasten to the moor-house at full speed.
Moor-houses were little buildings in which miners were wont to change their wet underground garments for dry clothes. Some of these used to be at a considerable distance from the shafts, and the men were often injured while going to them from the mine, by being exposed in an overheated state to cutting winds. Many a stout able-bodied miner has had a chill given him in this way which has resulted in premature death. Moor-houses have now been replaced by large drying-houses, near the mouths of shafts, where every convenience is provided for the men drying their wet garments and washing their persons on coming to the surface.
Having changed their clothes, uncle and nephew hastened to St. Just, where they dwelt in the cottage of Maggot, the blacksmith. This man, who has already been introduced to the reader, was brother-in-law to David, and father to Zackey.
When David Trevarrow entered his brother-in-law’s cottage, and told him of his bad fortune, and of his resolution to try his luck next day in the higher mine, little did he imagine that his change of purpose was to be the first step in a succession of causes which were destined to result, at no very distant period, in great changes of fortune to some of his friends in St. Just, as well as to many others in the county.
Chapter Five.
Describes a Wreck and some of its Consequences
While the miner had been pursuing his toilsome work in the solitude and silence of the level under the sea, as already described, a noble ship was leaping over the Atlantic waves—homeward bound—to Old England.
She was an East-Indiaman, under close-reefed sails, and although she bent low before the gale so that the waves almost curled over her lee bulwarks, she rose buoyantly like a seagull, for she was a good ship, stout of plank and sound of timber, with sails and cordage to match.
Naturally, in such a storm, those on board were anxious, for they knew that they were drawing near to land, and that “dear Old England” had an ugly seaboard in these parts—a coast not to be too closely hugged in what the captain styled “dirty weather, with a whole gale from the west’ard,” so a good lookout was kept. Sharp eyes were in the foretop looking out for the guiding rays of the Long-ships lighthouse, which illumine that part of our rocky shores to warn the mariner of danger and direct him to a safe harbour. The captain stood on the “foge’s’l” with stern gaze and compressed lip. The chart had been consulted, the bearings correctly noted, calculations made, and leeway allowed for. Everything in fact that could be done by a commander who knew his duty had been done for the safety of the ship—so would the captain have said probably, had he lived to be questioned as to the management of his vessel. But everything had not been done. The lead, strange to say, had not been hove. It was ready to heave, but the order was delayed. Unaccountable fatality! The only safe guide that remained to the good ship on that wild night was held in abeyance. It was deemed unnecessary to heave it yet, or it was troublesome, and they would wait till nearer the land. No one now can tell the reasons that influenced the captain, but the lead was not used. Owing to similar delay or neglect, hundreds upon hundreds of ships have been lost, and thousands of human lives have been sacrificed!
The ship passed like a dark phantom over the very head of the miner who was at work many fathoms below the bottom of the sea.
“Land, ho!” came suddenly in a fierce, quick shout from the mast-head.
“Starboard! starboard—hard!” cried the captain, as the roar of breakers ahead rose above the yelling of the storm.
Before the order was obeyed or another word spoken the ship struck, and a shriek of human terror followed, as the foremast went by the board with a fearful crash. The waves burst over the stern, sweeping the decks fore and aft. Wave after wave lifted the great ship as though it had been a child’s toy, and dashed her down upon the rocks. Her bottom was stove in, her planks and timbers were riven like matchwood. Far down below man was destroying the flinty rock, while overhead the rock was destroying the handiwork of man! But the destruction in the one case was slow, in the other swift. A desperate but futile effort was made by the crew to get out the boats, and the passengers, many of whom were women and children, rushed frantically from the cabin to the deck, and clung to anything they could lay hold of, until strength failed, and the waves tore them away.
One man there was in the midst of all the terror-stricken crew who retained his self-possession in that dread hour. He was a tall, stern old man with silver locks—an Indian merchant, one who had spent his youth and manhood in the wealthy land collecting gold—“making a fortune,” he was wont to say—and who was returning to his fatherland to spend it. He was a thinking and calculating man, and in the anticipation of some such catastrophe as had actually overtaken him, he had secured some of his most costly jewels in a linen belt. This belt, while others were rushing to the boats, the old man secured round his waist, and then sprang on deck, to be swept, with a dozen of his fellow-passengers, into the sea by the next wave that struck the doomed vessel. There was no one on that rugged coast to lend a helping hand. Lifeboats did not then, as now, nestle in little nooks on every part of our dangerous coasts. No eye was there to see nor ear to hear, when, twenty minutes after she struck, the East-Indiaman went to pieces, and those of her crew and passengers who had retained their hold of her uttered their last despairing cry, and their souls returned to God who gave them.
It is a solemn thought that man may with such awful suddenness, and so unexpectedly, be summoned into the presence of his Maker. Thrice happy they who, when their hearts grow chill and their grasps relax as the last plank is rending, can say, “Neither death, nor life, nor any other creature, is able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
The scene we have described was soon over, and the rich cargo of the East-Indiaman was cast upon the sea and strewn upon the shore, affording much work for many days to the coastguard, and greatly exciting the people of the district—most of whom appeared to entertain an earnest belief in the doctrine that everything cast by storms upon their coast ought to be considered public property. Portions of the wreck had the name “Trident” painted on them, and letters found in several chests which were washed ashore proved that the ship had sailed from Calcutta, and was bound for the port of London. One little boy alone escaped the waves. He was found in a crevice of the cliffs the following day, with just enough vitality left to give a few details of the wreck. Although all possible care was bestowed on him, he died before night.
Thus sudden and complete was the end of as fine a ship as ever spread her canvas to the breeze. At night she had been full of life—full of wealth; in the morning she was gone—only a few bales and casks and broken spars to represent the wealth, and stiffened corpses to tell of the life departed. So she came and went, and in a short time all remnants of her were carried away.
One morning, a few weeks after the night of the storm, Maggot the smith turned himself in his bed at an early hour, and, feeling disinclined to slumber, got up to look at the state of the weather. The sun was just rising, and there was an inviting look about the morning which induced the man to dress hastily and go out.
Maggot was a powerfully-built man, rough in his outer aspect as well as in his inner man, but by no means what is usually termed a bad man, although, morally speaking, he could not claim to be considered a good one. In fact, he was a hearty, jolly, reckless fisherman, with warm feelings, enthusiastic temperament, and no principle; a man who, though very ready to do a kind act, had no particular objection to do one that was decidedly objectionable when it suited his purpose or served his present interest. He was regarded by his comrades as one of the greatest madcaps in the district. Old Maggot was, as we have said, a blacksmith to trade, but he had also been bred a miner, and was something of a fisherman as well, besides being (like most of his companions) an inveterate smuggler. He could turn his hand to almost anything, and was “everything by turns, but nothing long.”
Sauntering down to Priests Cove, on the south of Cape Cornwall, with his hands in his pockets and his sou’-wester stuck carelessly on his shaggy head, he fell in with a comrade, whom he hailed by the name of John Cock. This man was also a fisherman, et cetera, and the bosom friend and admirer of Maggot.
“Where bound to this mornin’, Jack?” inquired Maggot.
“To fish,” replied John.
“I go with ’ee, booy,” said Maggot.
This was the extent of the conversation at that time. They were not communicative, but walked side by side in silence to the beach, where they launched their little boat and rowed out to sea.
Presently John Cock looked over his shoulder and exclaimed— “Maggot, I see summat.”
“Do ’ee?”
“Iss do I.”
“What do un look like?”
“Like a dead corp.”
“Aw, my dear,” said Maggot, “lev us keep away. It can do no good to we.”
Acting on this opinion the men rowed past the object that was floating on the sea, and soon after began to fish; but they had not fished long when the dead body, drifted probably by some cross-current, appeared close to them again. Seeing this they changed their position, but ere long the body again appeared.
“P’raps,” observed Maggot, “there’s somethin’ in its pockets.”
As the same idea had occurred to John Cock, the men resolved to examine the body, so they rowed up to it and found it to be that of an elderly man, much decomposed, and nearly naked. A very short examination sufficed to show that the pockets of such garments as were still upon it were empty, and the men were about to let it go again, when Maggot exclaimed—
“Hold fast, Jack, I see somethin’ tied round the waist of he; a sort o’ belt it do seem.”
The belt was quickly removed and the body released, when it sank with a heavy plunge, but ere long reappeared on the surface. The fishermen rowed a considerable distance away from it, and then shipped their oars and examined the belt, which was made of linen. Maggot sliced it up as he would have ripped up a fish, and laid bare, to the astonished gaze of himself and his friend, a number of glittering gems of various colours, neatly and firmly embedded in cotton, besides a variety of rings and small brooches set with precious stones.
“Now, I tell ’ee,” said Maggot, “’tis like as this here will make our fortin’, or else git we into trouble.”
“Why, whatever shud we git into trouble ’bout it for?” said John Cock. “’Tis like as not they ain’t real—only painted glass, scarce wuth the trouble o’ car’in’ ashore.”
“Hould thy tongue, thee g’eat chucklehead,” replied Maggot; “a man wouldn’t go for to tie such stuff round his waist to drown hisself with, I do know, if they worn’t real. Lev us car’ ’em to Maister Donnithorne.”
John Cock replied with a nod, and the two men, packing up the jewels, pulled in-shore as fast as possible. Hauling their boat beyond the reach of the surf, they hastened to St. Just, and requested a private audience of Mr Donnithorne.1
That excellent gentleman was not unaccustomed to give private audiences to fishermen, and, as has been already hinted at the beginning of this tale, was reported to have private dealings with them also—of a very questionable nature. He received the two men, however, with the hearty air of a man who knows that the suspicions entertained of him by the calumnious world are false.
“Well, Maggot,” said Mr Donnithorne, “what is your business with me? You are not wont to be astir so early, if all be true that is reported of ’ee.”
“Plaise, sur,” said Maggot, with a glance at Rose Ellis, who sat sewing near the window, “I’m come to talk ’bout private matters—if—”
“Leave us, Rose dear, for a little,” said the old gentleman.
As soon as she was out of the room Maggot locked the door, a proceeding which surprised Mr Donnithorne not a little, but his surprise was much greater when the man drew a small parcel from the breast of his rough coat, and, unrolling it, displayed the glittering jewels of which he had so unexpectedly become possessed.
“Where got you these?” inquired Mr Donnithorne, turning them over carefully.
“Got ’em in the say—catched ’em, sure ’nough,” said Maggot.
“Not with a baited hook, I warrant,” said the old gentleman. “Come, my son, let’s hear all about it.”
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.