I suddenly realised that the accordion had stopped playing. The singing had ceased, so had the click of the skittles. I turned quickly. No one was talking. They were all looking at me. I was seized with a panic desire to run. But my feet seemed to be rooted to the floor. I took a grip on myself. They couldn't tell just by the look of me. 'Why do you all stare at me?' I heard myself ask.
It was the accordion player who answered.''We bin trying to make 'ee out from yer talk. Thee's a furriner sure, an' yet 'ee's a fitly way of speaking.'
'I'm Canadian,' I said.
'Iss, iss, but thee's got Cornish blood in 'ee,' the old man insisted.
I felt relieved. But I wondered how he could tell. I suppose it was the fact that I'd been brought up to Cornish dialect. I could drop into it quite easily and did now. 'Iss,' I said. 'Me father was a tinner over to Redruth afore we went to Canada. Born at Boscaswell, he was, an' worked cores down in Botallack till they knacked the bal.'
The old man nodded approvingly. 'A' thort so,' he said. The whole room was smiling at me. 'The way 'ee were talking,' the old man went on, 'puts me in mind of the old days in Camborne and Redruth. I mind the time when the bals were working full blast and the kiddiwinks was full o' Cornishmen tarkin' all sorts of strange, outlandish tongues. They'd packed their traps when things were bad — that were in the Nineties. Iss, an' there weren't a corner o' the world they hadn't been to, 'ee knaw; Chile, Peru, the silver mines at Lima where old Dick Trevithick went, Kimberley, Jo'burg, the States — they'd been most everywheres there'd been a mine working. They came home soon's the bals began to open up again. Strange clo's they wore an' strange 'abits they had, but they hadn't forgot their native Cornish way o' speakin', no more'm 'ee have, boay.' He shook his head sadly. 'There was money about in them days, 'ee knaw. Not laike it is now. Why me father would tell me o' the days when there was nigh on fifty bals working in this part o' the country alone. Now there's only the one.' He took his pipe out of his mouth and spat. 'Navvies' work, that's what it is now. Mind 'ee, they was rough lads that came back in the old days. Whilst 'ee got 'eesel' eddicated.' He peered across at me. 'Thee's not looking for work, is 'ee boay?' I didn't say anything and he didn't seem to expect a reply.
'Thee wouldn't find much mining work in these parts now. Edn't I right, Garge?' he asked the landlord.
'Thas right, Bill.' The landlord turned to me. 'Thee'll hear people say that the bals in Cornwall is worked out,' he said. "Taint so. But 'ee's got to go deep, deeper'n they'll go these days for all their modern equipment. Started some o' the mines up, the Government did during this last war. Thee can see one of'n in the cove down beyond Cape Cornwall. That was when Malay was took by the Japs. Spent a mint o' money they did in the valley there. But it were the same as it were with the adventurers. No sooner'n they were gettin' near the tin than they knacked 'er — found they could get tin from Bolivia or some sicn place. When I was a boay, copper were 'bout all anybody thort on around here. An' when the copper was worked out, the mine closed down. But under the copper there's tin — and plenty of it. Thee can ask any of the boays who've worked deep. They'll tell 'ee the same. There's tin under the copper. I seen it meself. But it would cost a heap of money to get at it, for the mines is all full o' water now, full right up to the adits.'
'What about the eyebits?' I asked. 'There must be some rich patches left above water. Isn't anybody working them?'
'Ar, there's one or two little groups gettin' an uneasy living out of'n,' replied the landlord. 'But there edn't no future in it.'