“P’r’aps not,” said old Prawle, gruffly. “Tom Jennen and some of ’em were talking about it. Amos Pengelly heard it, too.”
Geoffrey was silent, and his heart began to throb as he thought of Rhoda, and of how it must bitterly affect her. Only a few months ago, and it seemed as if he had secured for her the fortune of a princess; now she was to be as poor as he, and they were still estranged.
“You oughtn’t to mind,” said old Prawle, laughing. “Penwynn did not behave so well to you.”
“Would you mind changing the conversation, Mr Prawle?” said Geoffrey, sharply, when the old man uttered a low chuckle and went on steadily rowing.
“Are we going to fish?” said Geoffrey, after they had been rowing along in the shadow of the rocks for some time.
“Yes: to fish for money, my lad,” said the old fellow. “Pull steady.”
Geoffrey obeyed, and after his long days of enforced idleness, during which his thoughts had seemed to eat into his mind like cankers, there was something quite refreshing in the rowing over the heaving sea, and joined to it there was a spice of excitement to know what the old man really meant.
They rowed on and on with the bright waters of the bay on one side, and the weed-hung, weather-worn granite on the other, where every wave that ran beneath them seemed to playfully dash at the rocks, to lift the long, tangled brown and olive-green weeds, toss them, and deck them with gems as if they were the tresses of some uncouth sea-monster, before dashing up the wall that checked their way, and falling back in spray.
After a time, as Geoffrey glanced over his shoulder, he caught sight of the towering chimney above Wheal Carnac, and as he snatched his gaze, as it were, away, he found that old Prawle was watching him, and he uttered a low, chuckling laugh.
“Yon’s the mine,” he said, looking at Geoffrey curiously, as the young man took so tremendous a tug at his oar that the boat was pulled slightly round.