Deep Down, a Tale of the Cornish Mines by R. M. Ballantyne (readnow txt) 📖

Chapter Twenty Three. In which is Recorded a Visit to an Infant-School; a Warning to a Thankless Old Gentleman; also a Storm, and a Sudden as well as Surprising End of a Mine, besides Dark Designs.

Oliver Trembath’s plan of “asking again” had to be put in practice sooner than had been anticipated, for the back alleys and lanes of Newlyn were a little perplexing to a stranger.

“Let us inquire here,” said Tregarthen, seeing the half-open door of a very small cottage, with part of a woman’s back visible in the interior.

“By all means,” said Oliver, pushing open the door and stooping low as he entered.

The visitors were instantly transfixed by thirty pair of eyes—all of them bright blue, or bright black—few of them elevated much more than two feet from the ground, and not one of them dimmed by the smallest approach to a wink. Nay, on the contrary, they all opened so wide when the strangers entered that it seemed as if either winking or shutting were in future out of the question, and that to sleep with eyes wide open was the sad prospect of the owners thereof in all time coming.

“An infant-school,” murmured Tregarthen.

The very smallest boy in the school—an infant with legs about five inches long, who sat on a stool not more than three inches high—appeared to understand what he said, and to regard it as a personal insult, for he at once began to cry. A little girl with bright red hair, a lovely complexion, and a body so small as to be scarce worth mentioning, immediately embraced the small boy, whereupon he dried his eyes without delay.

“You have a nice little school here,” said Oliver.

“Iss, sur; we do feel proud of it,” said the good-looking motherly dame in charge, with a little twitch of her shoulders, which revealed the horrible fact that both her arms had been taken off above the elbows, “the child’n are very good, and they do sing bootiful. Now then, let the gentlemen hear you—‘O that’ll be’—come.”

Instantly, and in every possible pitch, the thirty mouths belonging to the thirty pair of eyes opened, and “O that will be joyful,” etcetera, burst forth with thrilling power. A few leading voices gradually turned the torrent into a united channel, and before the second verse was reached the hymn was tunefully sung, the sweet voice of the little girl with the bright hair being particularly distinguishable, and the shrill pipe of the smallest boy sounding high above the rest as he sang, “O that will be doyful, doyful, doyful, doyful,” with all his might and main.

When this was finished Tregarthen asked the schoolmistress what misfortune had caused the loss of her arms, to which she replied that she had lost them in a coach accident. As she was beginning to relate the history of this sad affair, Oliver broke in with a question as to where old Mr Hitchin’s house was. Being directed to it they took leave of the infant-school, and soon found themselves before the door of a small cottage. They were at once admitted to the presence of the testy old Hitchin, who chanced to be smoking a pipe at the time. He did not by any means bestow a welcome look on his visitors, but Oliver, nevertheless, advanced and sat down in a chair before him.

“I have called, Mr Hitchin,” he began, “not to trouble you about the matter which displeased you when we conversed together on the beach, but to warn you of a danger which I fear threatens yourself.”

“What danger may that be?” inquired Hitchin, in the tone of a man who held all danger in contempt.

“What it is I cannot tell, but—”

“Cannot tell!” interrupted the old man; “then what’s the use of troubling me about it?”

“Neither can I tell of what use my troubling you may be,” retorted Oliver with provoking coolness, “but I heard the man speak of you on the beach less than an hour ago, and as you referred to him yourself I thought it right to call—”

At this point Hitchin again broke in,—“Heard a man speak of me—what man? Really, Mr Trembath, your conduct appears strange to me. Will you explain yourself?”

“Certainly. I was going to have added, if your irascible temper would have allowed me, that the notorious smuggler, Jim Cuttance—”

Oliver stopped, for at the mention of the smuggler’s name the pipe dropped from the old man’s mouth, and his face grew pale.

“Jim Cuttance!” he exclaimed after a moment’s pause; “the villain, the scoundrel—what of him? what of him? No good, I warrant. There is not a rogue unhanged who deserves more richly to swing at the yard-arm than Jim Cuttance. What said he about me?”

When he finished this sentence the old man’s composure was somewhat restored. He took a new pipe from the chimney-piece and began to fill it, while Oliver related all that he knew of the conversation between the two smugglers.

When he had finished Hitchin smoked for some minutes in silence.

“Do you really think,” he said at length, “that the man means to do me bodily harm?”

“I cannot tell,” replied Oliver; “you can form your own judgment of the matter more correctly than I can, but I would advise you to be on your guard.”

“What says your friend?” asked Hitchin, turning towards Tregarthen, of whom, up to that point, he had taken no notice.

Thus appealed to, the youth echoed Oliver’s opinion, and added that the remark of Cuttance about his intention not to do something unknown that night, and Joe Tonkin’s muttered expressions of disbelief and an intention to watch, seemed to him sufficient to warrant unusual caution in the matter of locks, bolts, and bars.

As he spoke there came a blinding flash of lightning, followed by a loud and prolonged peal of thunder.

Oliver sprang up.

“We must bid you good-night,” he said, “for we have to walk to St. Just, and don’t wish to get more of the storm than we can avoid.”

“But you cannot escape it,” said Hitchin.

“Nevertheless we can go as far as possible before it begins, and then take shelter under a bush or hedge, or in a house if we chance to be near one. I would rather talk in rain any day than drive in a kittereen!”

“Pray be persuaded to stop where you are, gentlemen,” said the old man in a tone of voice that was marvellously altered for the better. “I can offer you comfortable quarters for the night, and good, though plain fare, with smuggled brandy of the best, and tobacco to match.”

Still Oliver and Tregarthen persisted in their resolution to leave, until Hitchin began to plead in a tone that showed he was anxious to have their presence in the house as protectors. Then their resolution began to waver, and when the old man hinted that they might thus find time to reconsider the matter of the Wherry Mine, they finally gave in, and made up their minds to stay all night.

According to the opinion of a celebrated poet, the best-laid plans of men as well as mice are apt to miscarry. That night the elements contrived to throw men’s calculations out of joint, and to render their cupidity, villainy, and wisdom alike ineffectual.

A storm, the fiercest that had visited them for many years, burst that night on the southern shores of England, and strewed her rocks and sands with wrecks and dead bodies. Nothing new in this, alas! as all know who dwell upon our shores, or who take an interest in, and read the records of, our royal and noble Lifeboat Institution. But with this great subject we have not to do just now, further than to observe, as we have said before, that in those days there were no lifeboats on the coast.

Under the shelter of an old house on the shore at Penzance were gathered together a huge concourse of townspeople and seafaring men watching the storm. It was a grand and awful sight—one fitted to irresistibly solemnise the mind, and incline it, unless the heart be utterly hardened, to think of the great Creator and of the unseen world, which seems at such a season to be brought impressively near.

The night was extremely dark, and the lightning, by contrast, peculiarly vivid. Each flash appeared to fill the world for a moment with lambent fire, leaving the painful impression on observers of having been struck with total blindness for a few seconds after, and each thunderclap came like the bursting of artillery, with scarcely an interval between the flash and crash, while the wind blew with almost tropical fury.

The terrible turmoil and noise were