Part 31 (1/2)

”If it wasn't so dangerous for you, I'd kick you, Sam,” said Gwyn.

”Kick away, then, my lad; 'taint the first time I've been on a ladder by a few thousand times. My hands and feet grows to a ladder, like, and holds on. You won't knock me off. But I say!”

”What is it?” said Gwyn, who was steadily ascending, with the rope held fairly taut from above.

”You'll pay for a new hat for me?”

”Oh, yes, of course.”

”And another knife, better than the one you pitched overboard?”

”Oh, we can come round in a boat and find that when the tide's down.”

”Rocks are never bare when the tide's down here, my lad. There's always six fathom o' water close below here; so you wouldn't ha' been broken up if you'd falled; but you might ha' been drownded. That were a five-s.h.i.+lling knife.”

”All right, Sam, I'll buy you another,” shouted Gwyn, who was some distance up now.

”Thank ye. Before you go, though,” said Sam Hardock.

”Go? Go where?”

”Off to school, my lad; I'm going to 'tis.h.i.+on your two fathers to send you both right away, for I can't have you playing no more of your pranks in my mine, and so I tell you.”

Gwyn made no reply, but he went steadily up, while, on casting a glance below, he saw that the mine captain was making his way as steadily down; but he thought a good deal, and a great deal more afterwards, for, on reaching the top of the cliff, there lay Joe on the short gra.s.s, looking ghastly pale, and his father, with Joe's, ready to seize him by the arm and draw him into safety.

”There must be no more of this,” said the Colonel, sternly. ”You two boys are not fit to be trusted in these dangerous places. Now, go home at once.”

The little crowd attracted by the accident had begun to cheer wildly, but the congratulatory sound did Gwyn no good. He did not feel a bit like the hero of an adventure, one who had done brave deeds, but a very ordinary schoolboy sort of personage, who was being corrected for a fault, and he felt very miserable as he turned to Joe.

”Are you coming home, too?”

”Yes. I suppose so,” said Joe, dismally.

There was another cheer, and the boys felt as if they could not face the crowd, till an angry flush came upon Gwyn's cheeks; for there stood, right in the front, the big, swarthy fellow who had been caught plumbing the depth of the mine, and he was grinning widely at them both.

”Ugh!” thought Gwyn, ”how I should like to punch that chap's head.

Here, Joe, let's tell our fathers that this fellow is hanging about here.”

”No,” said Joe, dismally. ”I feel as if I didn't mind about anything now. My father looked at me as if I'd been doing it all on purpose to annoy him. Let's go home.”

CHAPTER NINETEEN.

A BRUTAL THREAT.

Gwyn did not see Joe for a whole week, and he did not go over to the mine, for the Colonel had called him into his room the next morning, and had a very long, serious talk with him, and this was the end of his lesson,--

”Of course, I meant you to go and read for the army, Gwyn, my lad, but this mine has quite upset my plans, and I can't say yet what I shall do about you. It will seem strange for one of our family to take to such a life, but a man can do his duty in the great fight of life as well whether he's a mine owner or a soldier. He has his men to keep in hand, to win their confidence, and make them follow him, and to set them a good example, Gwyn. But I can't say anything for certain. It's all a speculation, and I never shut my eyes to the fact that it may turn out a failure. If it does, we can go back to the old plans.”

”Yes, father,” said the boy, rather dolefully, for his father had stopped as if waiting for him to speak.