Part 40 (1/2)
said Gwyn, laughing. ”Come along, Joe, and let's go and have a talk to Sam Hardock about the--what did he call it--far--far--what?”
”I don't know,” replied Joe; ”but somehow I wish Master Tom Dina.s.s hadn't been taken on.”
”Going to have a man-engine, are they?” muttered Dina.s.s, as he sat watching the two lads from the corners of his eyes. ”Seems to me that things have gone pretty nigh far enough, and they'll have to be stopped.
Won't eat my legs with or without pickles, won't he? No, he won't if I know it. Getting pretty nigh all the water out too. Well, I daresay there'll be enough of it to drown that dog.”
CHAPTER TWENTY THREE.
GRIP TAKES AN INTEREST.
”Now, Joe, this ought to be a big day,” said Gwyn, one bright morning.
”Father's all in a fidget, and he looked as queer at breakfast as if he hadn't slept all night.”
”Wasn't any as if,” replied Joe; ”my father says he didn't sleep a wink for thinking about the mine.”
”Oh, but people often say they haven't slept a wink when they've been snoring all the night. See how the fellows used to say it at Worksop.
I never believed them.”
”But when father says it you may believe him, for when he has fits of the old jungle fever come back, I'm obliged to give him his doses to make him sleep.”
”Well I woke ever so many times wondering whether it was time to get up.
Once the moon was s.h.i.+ning over the sea, and it was lovely. It would have been a time to have gone off to Pen Ree Rocks congering.”
”Ugh, the beasts!” exclaimed Joe. ”But, I say, what a thing it will be if the place turns out no good after all this trouble and expense.”
”Don't talk about it,” said Gwyn. ”But Sam says it's right enough.”
”And Tom Dina.s.s shakes his head and says--as if he didn't believe it could be--that he hopes it may turn out all right, but he doubts it.”
”Tom Dina.s.s is a miserable old frog croaker. Sam knows. He says there's no doubt about it. The mine's rich, and it must have been worked in the old days in their rough way, without proper machinery, till the water got the better of them, and they had to give it up.”
”I hope it is so,” said Joe, with a sigh. ”But, I say, what about going down?”
”Your father won't go down.”
”Oh, yes, he will. He says he shall go in the skep if your father does.”
”Oh, my father will go, of course; but he said I'd better not go till the mine was more dry, and the man-engine had been made and fitted.”
”Hurrah! Glad of it!”
”What do you mean by that?” cried Gwyn, angrily.
”What I say! I don't see why you should be allowed to go, and me stay up at gra.s.s.”
”Humph! Just the place for you,” said Gwyn.