“I wouldn’t if I were you,” said the doctor, nervously. “It isn’t worth your while, and it’s very hard work to get a dish now-a-days,” and he glanced with anxious eyes at his companion. For, on non-busy mornings, Mr James Rumsey, MRCSE—the “doctor” being a local degree—found it useful to take his rod and capture a dish of trout for the home dinner, if he did not go out in the bay, in a borrowed boat, in search of something more substantial.
“Ah well, we’ll see,” said Geoffrey. “Yonder’s Horton Friendship, is it not?”
“Yes, that’s it,” said the doctor, who seemed relieved. “That’s the manager’s office close by. They’ve got a manager there.”
“Oh! have they?” said Geoffrey, who was amused by the doctor’s subdued, weary way. “All right; I’m going to see it, though. Good-morning.”
“Good-morning,” said the doctor, and making dreamy casts with his rod, he went on over the heather.
“Looks dull, and as if he had lived too much in the shade—of the vine and olive branches,” said Geoffrey, as he strode along. “Well, ten branches would keep off a good deal of the sun of a man’s life. What a row those stamps make!”
The rattling noise was caused by a row of iron-faced piles, which were being raised and let fall by a great cogged barrel upon a quantity of pieces of tin ore, with which they were fed, and as he drew nearer to watch them, the noise was almost deafening; but all the same he stopped to watch them curiously, and evidently dissatisfied with the primitive nature of the machine.
Farther on he paused to watch where a dozen women and boys were busy directing the flow of a stream of muddy water over a series of sloping boards, so as to wash the crushed ore free from earthy particles and powdered stone, till it fell of its own gravity into a trough prepared for its reception, where it looked like so much coffee-grounds waiting to be taken out and dried.
“Very, very primitive, and full of waste,” muttered Geoffrey then, as he noted the ruddy, healthy look of the people who ceased working to stare at the stranger, an example followed by a couple of men whose clothes seemed reddened by some mineral.
The manager welcomed the visitor in the most civil manner, and furnished him with a rough suit of flannel for the descent, as well as a stiff, solid kind of hat, which did duty for helmet, to protect his head from falling stones, and also for holder of a large tallow candle, which was stuck in front, so as to leave his hands at liberty.