“Quite right,” said the Colonel; “that’s what I tell Gwyn; but boys have such terribly short memories. There, we may as well go back; but you had better wash your face at the first pool, Gwyn. You look horrible. I can’t have you go home in that condition.”
“No; he would frighten Mrs Pendarve out of her senses,” said the Major. “Well, I’ve seen the wonderful mine, and it looks just like what it is: a big square hole, with plenty of room to throw down money enough to ruin the Queen. But you were right, Pendarve: the fresh air and the exertion have done me good. I must go back, though, now; the fever makes me weak.”
That evening the Colonel had a long talk with his son, for he had come to the conclusion that they had not heard the end of the man’s visit to the mine.
“It seems to me, Gwyn,” he said, “that something must have been known about the place and caused this amateurish kind of inspection.”
“I’ve been thinking so, too, father,” said Gwyn. “Sam Hardock must have been talking about it to different people, and praised it so that someone wants to begin mining.”
They had come to the right conclusion, for the very next day a dog-cart was driven to the Cove, stopped at the Colonel’s gate, and a little fussy-looking gentleman, with sharp eyes, a snub nose, and grey hair, which seemed to have a habit of standing out in pointed tufts, came up to the door, knocked, and sent in his card.
“Mr Lester Dix, solicitor, Plymouth,” said the Colonel, reading the card, as he and Gwyn were busy over a work on military manoeuvres. “I don’t know any Mr Dix. Show him in.”
“Shall I go, father?”
“No, I think not, my boy. I don’t suppose it is anything important, unless it is someone come to claim damages for the assault you committed on the man at the mine, and for confiscating the reel and line.”
“Oh, it would not be that, would it, father?” cried Gwyn, anxiously. “And besides—”