Part 1 (2/2)

”And that I am very poor, Gwyn, and that it would be nice for me to make a place for a mining captain out of work.”

”But you will not attempt anything of the kind, my dear,” said Mrs Pendarve, anxiously.

”I don't think, so, my dear. We have no money to spare for speculating, and I don't think an old Indian cavalry officer on half-pay is quite the man to attempt such a thing.”

”But old Hardock said you were, father, and that you and Major Jollivet ought to form a little company of your own, and that he knows he could make the mine pay wonderfully.”

”Yes,” said the Colonel, drily, ”that's exactly what he would say, but I don't think much of his judgment. I should be bad enough, but Jollivet, with his wound breaking out when he is not down with touches of his old jungle fever, would be ten times worse. All the same, though, I have no doubt that the old mine is rich.”

”But Arthur, my dear,” protested Mrs Pendarve, ”think of how much money has been--”

”Thrown down mines, my dear?” said the Colonel, smiling. ”Yes I do, and I don't think our peaceful retired life is going to be disturbed by anything a mining adventurer may say.”

”But it would be interesting, father,” said Gwyn.

”Very, my boy,” said his father, smiling. ”It would give you and Joe Jollivet--”

”Old Joe Jolly-wet,” said Gwyn to himself.

”A fine opportunity for trying to break your necks--”

”Oh, my dear!” cried Mrs Pendarve.

”Getting drowned in some unfathomable hole full of water.”

”Arthur!” protested Mrs Pendarve.

”Losing yourself in some of the mazy recesses of the ancient workings.”

”Really, my dear!” began Mrs Pendarve; but the Colonel went on--

”Or getting crushed to death by some fall of the mine roofing that has been tottering ready to fall perhaps for hundreds of years.”

”Pray don't talk like that, my dear,” said Mrs Pendarve, piteously.

”He doesn't mean it, mother,” said Gwyn, laughing. ”Father's only saying it to frighten me. But really, father, do you think the mine is so very old?”

”I have no doubt of it, my boy. It is certainly as old as the Roman occupation, and I should not be surprised if it proved to be as early as the time when the Phoenicians traded here for tin.”

”But I thought it was only stream tin that they got. I read it somewhere.”

”No doubt, my boy, they searched the surface for tin; but suppose you had been a st.u.r.dy fellow from Tyre or Sidon, instead of a tiresome, idle, mischievous young nuisance of an English boy--”

”Not quite so bad as that, am I, mother?” said Gwyn, laughing.

”That you are not, my dear,” said Mrs Pendarve, ”though I must own that you do worry me a great deal sometimes by being so daring with your boating, climbing and swimming.”

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