“Iss, sur—to Botallack.”
“Then I will accompany you. Captain Dan is going to show me over part of the mine to-day. Good-morning, Mrs Maggot, and remember my directions if this should happen to the little fellow again.”
Leaving the cottage the two proceeded through the town to the north end of it, accompanied by Maggot, who said he was going to the forge to do a bit of work, and who parted from them at the outskirts of the town.
“Times are bad with you at the mines just now, I find,” said Oliver as they walked along.
“Iss sur, they are,” replied Trevarrow, in the quiet tone that was peculiar to him; “but, thank God, we do manage to live, though there are some of us with a lot o’ child’n as finds it hard work. The Bal (The mine) ain’t so good as she once was.”
“I suppose that you have frequent changes of fortune?” said Oliver.
The miner admitted that this was the case, for that sometimes a man worked underground for several weeks without getting enough to keep his family, while at other times he might come on a bunch of copper or tin which would enable him to clear 50 pounds or more in a month.
“If report says truly,” observed Oliver, “you have hit upon a ‘keenly lode,’ as you call it, not many days ago.”
“A do look very well now, sur,” replied the miner, “but wan can never tell. I did work for weeks in the level under the say without success, so I guv it up an went to Wheal Hazard, and on the back o’ the fifty-fathom level I did strike ’pon a small lode of tin ’bout so thick as my finger. It may get better, or it may take the bit in its teeth and disappear; we cannot tell.”
“Well, I wish you good luck,” said Oliver; “and here comes Captain Dan, so I’ll bid you good-morning.”