“Yes, father; and we gave him two pairs of fine ones, and he said they looked as bright as newly-run tin.”
“Humph! Yes, that man thinks of nothing else but tin.”
“And he began about it again this morning, father,” said Gwyn, eagerly.
“Indeed!” said Colonel Pendarve; and Gwyn’s mother looked up inquiringly from behind the silver coffee-urn.
“Yes, father,” said Gwyn, helping himself to more fresh, yellow Cornish butter and honey. “He said what a pity it was that you did not adventure over the old Ydoll mine and make yourself a rich man, instead of letting it lie wasting on your estate.”
“My estate!” said the Colonel, smiling at his wife—“a few score acres of moorland and rock on the Cornish coast!”
“But he says, father, he is sure that the old mine is very rich.”
“And that I am very poor, Gwyn, and that it would be nice for me to make a place for a mining captain out of work.”
“But you will not attempt anything of the kind, my dear,” said Mrs Pendarve, anxiously.
“I don’t think, so, my dear. We have no money to spare for speculating, and I don’t think an old Indian cavalry officer on half-pay is quite the man to attempt such a thing.”