I laughed as he told me this, and then asked him if he was going to write back to his father.
“No,” said Bigley; “he says I am not to write, because it might give people a clue to where he is. I don’t care, now I know that he is quite well.”
Then the time glided on, with everybody at the mine leading the busiest of busy lives. I was there every day, and the men won the lead, others smelted it and cast it into pigs, then the pigs were remelted and the silver extracted and ingots cast, which were stored up, after being stamped and numbered, down in the strong cellar beneath the counting-house floor.
I did a great deal: sometimes I was down in the mine, whose passages began to grow longer; sometimes I was entering the number of pigs of lead that were taken over to Ripplemouth, and shipped at the little quay for Bristol; sometimes I was watching the careful process by which the silver was obtained from the lead, and learning a good deal about the art, while Bigley seemed to be growing more and more one of us, and worked with the greatest of earnestness over the various tasks I had to undertake.
“No news of old Jonas, father?” I said one day as we were walking along the cliff path to the mine, a lugger in the offing having brought him to my mind.
“No, Sep,” said my father; “but I’m afraid that we shall have a visit from him some day, and a very unpleasant one.”
“Why?” I asked.
“Because he will never forgive me about that cave business. I saw the look he gave me, my boy. He does not seem to have any very great ideas of the meaning of the word honour, and he evidently could not see then that I was bound to state what I had seen.”
“But do you think he will owe you a grudge for that, father?”
“I am sure of it, my boy. He never forgave me for buying the Gap, and now I’m afraid this exposure of his smuggling tricks has made matters ten times worse.”