George held his peace—shut up, but not convinced.
“Hallo! you two lucky ones,” cried a voice distant about thirty yards. “Will you buy our hole, it is breaking our heart here.”
Robinson went up and found a large hole excavated to a great depth; it was yielding literally nothing, and this determined that paradoxical personage to buy it if it was cheap. “What there is must be somewhere all in a lump.”
He offered ten pounds for it, which was eagerly snapped at.
“Well done, Gardiner,” said one of the band. “We would have taken ten shillings for it,” explained he to Robinson.
Robinson paid the money, and let himself down into the hole with his spade. He drove his spade into the clay, and the bottom of it just reached the rock; he looked up. “I would have gone just one foot deeper before I gave in,” said he; he called George. “Come, George, we can know our fate in ten minutes.”
They shoveled the clay away down to about one inch above the rock, and there in the white clay they found a little bit of gold as big as a pin's head.
“We have done it this time,” cried Robinson, “shave a little more off, not too deep, and save the clay.” This time a score of little nuggets came to view sticking in the clay; no need for washing, they picked them out with their knives.
The news soon spread, and a multitude buzzed round the hole and looked down on the men picking out peas and beans of pure gold with their knives.
Presently a voice cried, “Shame, give the men back their hole!”