“Good!” cried Will, with his eyes flashing. “Hasn’t a fortune been got out of Gwavas mine year after year till the water began to pour in?”
“Oh, yes! out o’ that.”
“And I’m sure one might be got out of this,” cried Will, pointing down into the black void.
“What, out o’ this gashly pit? Yah! Why didn’t the captain and ’venturers get it, then, when they dug it fifty year ’fore I was born?”
“Because they missed the vein.”
“And how are you going to find it, lad?”
“By looking,” said Will. “There’s Retack Mine over yonder, and Carn Rean over there, and they’re both rich; and I think the old people who dug down here went too far, and missed what they ought to have found.”
“And so you’re going to find it, are you, my lad?”
“I don’t know,” said Will quietly; “but I’m going to try.”
As he said those last words he set his teeth and knit his brow, looking so calmly determined that Josh picked up a little bit of granite, turned it over in his fingers a few times as if finding a suitable part, and then began to rub his nose with it softly.