“Iss, sir, that’s where I maake et.” The note of despondency in the Earthstopper’s voice as he said this, served only to stimulate the Squire. The hopelessness of the situation would have daunted most people, but Sir Bevil had no thought of giving in, much less of owning that he was beaten.
Jumping up from the mouth of the earth, he rushes to the edge of the work and letting himself down the face of the rock, joins the two miners at the bottom of the shaft.
“Men,” says the Squire, “the badger has shifted from his old quarters, and we must drive a level under the Cairn. Andrew!”
“Plaase, sir?”
“Give me the direction; is that about it?” says he, stretching his arm across the shaft.
“Iss, sir, as near as can be.”
“Now, my man, give me your pick and let me have a turn: it’s not the first time I’ve used one.” Taking off his coat, he uses the tool with a vigour that astonishes the miner.
Fortunately, the ground admits of his working round the edge of the rock nearer the Cairn, in a direction almost at right angles to its already exposed face, and before long he has dug his way out of sight, and is shouting for a candle to enable him to see what he is about. A forlorn proceeding it might well seem to the old miner shovelling away the soil as the Squire fetches it down, for they are nearly a hundred feet from the badger, and at any moment may come on rocky ground and have to give up. The Squire knows this, but sticks to the apparently impossible task with his never-say-die tenacity. And when things seem hopeless, fortune befriends him. For to his surprise, after driving several feet, and narrowly escaping injury from a rock that fell behind him and dented the miner’s shovel, the pick penetrates the wall of mixed earth and stone at the end of the level. Putting his ear to the aperture, he makes out distinctly the yapping of the terrier on the far side of what, judging from the hollow sound, appears to be a cave. The discovery stimulates him to further exertions, and in a short time pick and spade clear away the partition that separates the workers from a cavernous chamber. The flame of the candle held at arm’s length burns as steadily as in a room. Its light falls on huge columns of granite under the Cairn, and makes the mica sparkle. This is not the place to describe the grim remains that were subsequently found in this weird sepulchre. An article from the pen of that learned antiquary, the village doctor, in the records of the Cornubian Society, gives a detailed description of the bones of animals now extinct, discovered there, and of the skeletons of two men with their tattered plaids still about them.
“A queer place this,” says the Squire, forgetting the badger for a moment; “a place for bats, owls, and buccaboos.”
“Yes, a wisht ould plaace, sure ’nuf, ’tis a soart o’ fogau, sir,” says Andrew, who has crept along the tunnel, and is peering over the Squire’s shoulder. “How deep es et, sir? I caan’t see the bottom.”