The Root of All Evil

by J. S. Fletcher

"Oh, a few hundred'll go a long way in the preliminaries," answered Mortimer. "I'll wait until Farebrother comes along before I decide which method I'll follow—the percussive or the rotatory. But I won't bother you with technical details; what you'll be more interested in will be results."

"This boring that you talk about, now?" said Jeckie. "It shows what there is underneath the surface?"

"To be sure!" assented Mortimer. "It's like this—you select your spot, and you put in (this is the rotary method) a cutting-tool which is a sort of hollow cylinder, with saw-like teeth at its lower edge, or an edge of hard minerals—rough diamonds, sometimes—and it's driven in by steam-power at two or three hundred revolutions a minute. As it's hollow, a solid core is formed in the cylinder—you raise the cylinder from time to time and examine the core, which comes up several feet in length. And you know from the core what there is down there. See?"

"I understand," said Jeckie. "I thought it must be something of that sort. Very well—I'll pay for all that. Get to work on it."

Mortimer again glanced at her in surprise. But she saw that there was no suspicion in his eyes as to her object.

"You seem inclined to launch out!" he said, laughing. "You were disposed the other way when I first mentioned this matter."

"It's my land," reiterated Jeckie. "So, to start with, anyway, I'll pay the expenses. As you said just now, we can make things right later. Mind you, I'm going on what you've said! If you hadn't assured me, you, as a professional man, that there's coal under that land, I shouldn't ha' bought it, and if there isn't—well, I know what I shall say! But I'm willing to pay the cost o' finding out. Only—I shall want to be certain!"

"If there isn't coal under your forty acres, may I never see coal again!" asserted Mortimer. "I tell you there's any amount there!"

"Then it's all right—and when we know that it is there, for certain and sure, it'll be time to consider matters further," said Jeckie calmly. "Go on with your boring and I'll pay. As you said, I say again—we can make things right later."

Mortimer was too elated at the prospect of opening out a new and possibly magnificent enterprise to ask Jeckie what her present ideas were as to how things should be made right in the event of coal being found in sufficient quantity to warrant the making of a mine. He went away and plunged into business, and in a few days brought his friend Farebrother down to Savilestowe—a quiet, reserved man of cautious words, who impressed Jeckie much more than Mortimer had done. But, cautious and reserved as he was, Farebrother, dragged hither and thither by Mortimer over the woods and meadows, uplands and lowlands, gave it as his deliberate opinion that there were vast quantities of coal under Savilestowe, and that Jeckie's forty acres of land probably covered a particularly rich bed.