“No, it aren’t,” he said gruffly. “I’ve been pumped up and down one times enough, so I ought to know.”
“You have?” said Gwyn, eagerly.
“Ay, over Redruth way.”
“There, then it is right,” cried Gwyn. “I knew it was. What an old jolly wet blanket you are, Joe!”
“But it can’t be right,” cried Joe, stubbornly. “Here you get on a bit of a shelf and stand there and the beam goes down twenty feet.”
“Nay, it don’t,” said Dinass, interrupting; “only twelve foot.”
“Well it’s all the same—it might be twenty feet, mightn’t it?”
“I s’pose so, sir. Ones I’ve seen only goes twelve foot at a jog.”
“Twelve feet, then; and then it jigs up again,” cried Joe.
“Ay, just like a pump. Man-engines they call ’em,” said Dinass; “but I have heard ’em called farkuns.”