Lorna Doone: A Romance of Exmoor by R. D. Blackmore (free ebooks romance novels txt) 📕

worn-out rill running down a smithy; 'you with your strength and youth, and all that, are inclined to be romantic. I take things as I have known them, going on for seventy years. Now will you come and meet the wizard, or does your courage fail you?'

'My courage must be none,' said I, 'if I would not go where you go, sir.'

He said no more, but signed to me to lift a heavy wooden corb with an iron loop across it, and sunk in a little pit of earth, a yard or so from the mouth of the shaft. I raised it, and by his direction dropped it into the throat of the shaft, where it hung and shook from a great cross-beam laid at the level of the earth. A very stout thick rope was fastened to the handle of the corb, and ran across a pulley hanging from the centre of the beam, and thence out of sight in the nether places.

'I will first descend,' he said; 'your weight is too great for safety. When the bucket comes up again, follow me, if your heart is good.'

Then he whistled down, with a quick sharp noise, and a whistle from below replied; and he clomb into the vehicle, and the rope ran through the pulley, and Uncle Ben went merrily down, and was out of sight, before I had time to think of him.

Now being left on the bank like that, and in full sight of the goodly heaven, I wrestled hard with my flesh and blood, about going down into the pit-hole. And but for the pale shame of the thing, that a white-headed man should adventure so, and green youth doubt about it, never could I have made up my mind; for I do love air and heaven. However, at last up came the bucket; and with a short sad prayer I went into whatever might happen.

My teeth would chatter, do all I could; but the strength of my arms was with me; and by them I held on the grimy rope, and so eased the foot of the corb, which threatened to go away fathoms under me. Of course I should still have been safe enough, being like an egg in an egg-cup, too big to care for the bottom; still I wished that all should be done, in good order, without excitement.

The scoopings of the side grew black, and the patch of sky above more blue, as with many thoughts of Lorna, a long way underground I sank. Then I was fetched up at the bottom with a jerk and rattle; and but for holding by the rope so, must have tumbled over. Two great torches of bale-resin showed me all the darkness, one being held by Uncle Ben and the other by a short square man with a face which seemed well-known to me.

'Hail to the world of gold, John Ridd,' said Master Huckaback, smiling in the old dry manner; 'bigger coward never came down the shaft, now did he, Carfax?'

'They be all alike,' said the short square man, 'fust time as they doos it.'

'May I go to heaven,' I cried, 'which is a thing quite out of sight'—for I always have a vein of humour, too small to be followed by any one—'if ever again of my own accord I go so far away from it!' Uncle Ben grinned less at this than at the way I knocked my shin in getting out of the bucket; and as for Master Carfax, he would not even deign to smile. And he seemed to look upon my entrance as an interloping.

For my part, I had nought to do, after rubbing my bruised leg, except to look about me, so far as the dullness of light would help. And herein I seemed, like a mouse in a trap, able no more than to run to and fro, and knock himself, and stare at things. For here was a little channel grooved with posts on either side of it, and ending with a heap of darkness, whence the sight came back again; and there was a scooped place, like a funnel, but pouring only to darkness. So I waited for somebody to speak first, not seeing my way to anything.'

'You seem to be disappointed, John,' said Uncle Reuben, looking blue by the light of the flambeaux; 'did you expect to see the roof of gold, and the sides of gold, and the floor of gold, John Ridd?'

'Ha, ha!' cried Master Carfax; 'I reckon her did; no doubt her did.'

'You are wrong,' I replied; 'but I did expect to see something better than dirt and darkness.'

'Come on then, my lad; and we will show you some-thing better. We want your great arm on here, for a job that has beaten the whole of us.'

With these words, Uncle Ben led the way along a narrow passage, roofed with rock and floored with slate-coloured shale and shingle, and winding in and out, until we stopped at a great stone block or boulder, lying across the floor, and as large as my mother's best oaken wardrobe. Beside it were several sledge-hammers, battered, and some with broken helves.

'Thou great villain!' cried Uncle Ben, giving the boulder a little kick; 'I believe thy time is come at last. Now, John, give us a sample of the things they tell of thee. Take the biggest of them sledge-hammers and crack this rogue in two for us. We have tried at him for a fortnight, and he is a nut worth cracking. But we have no man who can swing that hammer, though all in the mine have handled it.'

'I will do my very best,' said I, pulling off my coat and waistcoat, as if I were going to wrestle; 'but I fear he will prove too tough for me.'

'Ay, that her wull,' grunted Master Carfax; 'lack'th a Carnishman, and a beg one too, not a little charp such as I be. There be no man outside Carnwall, as can crack that boolder.'

'Bless my heart,' I answered; 'but I know something of you, my friend, or at any rate of your family. Well, I have beaten most of your Cornish men, though not my place to talk of it. But mind, if I crack this rock for you, I must have some of the gold inside it.'

'Dost think to see the gold come tumbling out like the kernel of a nut, thou zany?' asked Uncle Reuben pettishly; 'now wilt thou crack it or wilt thou not? For I believe thou canst do it, though only a lad of Somerset.'

Uncle Reuben showed by saying this, and by his glance at Carfax, that he was proud of his county, and would be disappointed for it if I failed to crack the boulder. So I begged him to stoop his torch a little, that I might examine my subject. To me there appeared to be nothing at all remarkable about it, except that it sparkled here and there, when the flash of the flame fell upon it. A great obstinate, oblong, sullen stone; how could it be worth the breaking, except for making roads with?

Nevertheless, I took up the hammer, and swinging it far behind my head, fetched it down, with all my power, upon the middle of the rock. The roof above rang mightily, and the echo went down delven galleries, so that all the miners flocked to know what might be doing. But Master Carfax only smiled, although the blow shook him where he stood, for behold the stone was still unbroken, and as firm as ever. Then I smote it again, with no better fortune, and Uncle Ben looked vexed and angry, but all the miners