'My business is to speak with you,' I answered rather sternly; for this man, who was nothing more than Uncle Reuben's servant, had carried things too far with me, showing no respect whatever; and though I did not care for much, I liked to receive a little, even in my early days.
'Coom into the muck-hole, then,' was his gracious answer; and he led me into a filthy cell, where the miners changed their jackets.
'Simon Carfax, I began, with a manner to discourage him; 'I fear you are a shallow fellow, and not worth my trouble.'
'Then don't take it,' he replied; 'I want no man's trouble.'
'For your sake I would not,' I answered; 'but for your daughter's sake I will; the daughter whom you left to starve so pitifully in the wilderness.'
The man stared at me with his pale gray eyes, whose colour was lost from candle light; and his voice as well as his body shook, while he cried,—
'It is a lie, man. No daughter, and no son have I. Nor was ever child of mine left to starve in the wilderness. You are too big for me to tackle, and that makes you a coward for saying it.' His hands were playing with a pickaxe helve, as if he longed to have me under it.
'Perhaps I have wronged you, Simon,' I answered very softly; for the sweat upon his forehead shone in the smoky torchlight; 'if I have, I crave your pardon. But did you not bring up from Cornwall a little maid named “Gwenny,” and supposed to be your daughter?'
'Ay, and she was my daughter, my last and only child of five; and for her I would give this mine, and all the gold will ever come from it.'
'You shall have her, without either mine or gold; if you only prove to me that you did not abandon her.'