LITMIR.BIZ

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the raft floated in the middle of the tarn, the man laid down his oar, knelt on the board and began to pray.

      "Why—!" exclaimed the girl; "that is Captain Saltren, Jingles' father."

      Captain Stephen Saltren, master of the manganese mine, was a tall man, rather gaunt and thin, and loosely compacted at the joints, with dark hair, high cheek-bones and large, deeply-sunken eyes. His features were irregular and ill cut—yet it was impossible to look at his face without being impressed with the thought that he was no ordinary man. His hands, though roughened and enlarged by work, had long fingers, the indication of a nervous temperament. He had, moreover, one of those flexible voices which go far towards making a man an orator. He was unaware of the value of his organ, he was devoid of skill in using it; but it was an impressive voice when used in times of deep emotion, thrilling those who heard it and sweeping them into sympathy with the speaker. His eyes were those of a mystic, looking into a far-off sphere, esteeming the world of sense as a veil, a painted film, disturbing, impeding distinct vision of the sole realities that existed in the world beyond.

      There was velvety softness in his dark eyes, and gentleness in his flexible mouth, and yet the least observant person speaking with him could see that fire was ready to leap out of those soft eyes on provocation, and that the mouth could set with rigid determination when his prejudices were touched.

      The forehead of the man was of unusual height. He had become partly bald, had shed some of the hair above the brow, and this had given loftiness to his forehead. There were hollows between his temples and eye-brows; his head was lumpy and narrow. Altogether it was an ill-balanced, but an interesting head.

      ​The mystic, who at one time was a prominent feature in religious life, has almost disappeared from among us, gone utterly out of the cultured classes, gone from among the practical mercantile classes, going little by little from the lower beds of life, not expelled by education but by the materialism that penetrates every realm of human existence. In time the mystic will have become as extinct as the dodo, the great auk, and the Caleb Balderstones. But there are mystics still—especially when there is a strain of Celtic blood, and of this class of beings was Stephen Saltren.

      The captain was in trouble, and whenever he was in trouble or unhappy he had recourse to prayer, and he prayed with most disengagement on his raft. He came to the quarry when his mind was disturbed and his heart agitated, thrust himself out from land, and prayed where he believed himself to be unobserved and unlikely to be interrupted.

      The cause of his unrest on this occasion was the threat Lord Lamerton had uttered of closing the manganese mine. This mine had its adit, crushing mill and washing floors at but a short distance from the great house. About fifteen years previous, a mine had been worked on the estate that yielded so richly, that with the profits, Lord Lamerton had been able to clear off some mortgages. That lode was worked out. It had been altogether an extraordinary one, bunching, as it is termed, into a great mass of solid manganese, but this bunch, when worked out, ended without a trace of continuance. Then, as Lord Lamerton was assured, another came to the surface in the hill behind the mansion, and as he was in want of money, he reluctantly permitted the mine to be opened within a rifle shot of his house. The workings were out of sight, hidden by a plantation, and manganese mines make no great heaps of unsightly deposit; nevertheless, the mine was inconveniently near the place. It did not yield as it ​had promised, or as the experts had pretended it promised, and Lord Lamerton had lost all hope of making money by it. The vein was followed, but it never "bunched." Foreign competition affected the market, English manganese was under-sold, and Wheal Perseverance, as the mine was called, did not pay for the "working." Lord Lamerton annually lost money on it. Then he was informed that the lode ran under Orleigh gardens, and promised freely to "bunch" under the mansion. That is to say, he was asked to allow his house to be undermined. This decided his lordship, and he announced that the mine must be abandoned. Bunch or no bunch, he was not going to have his old place tunnelled under and brought about his ears, on the chance—the chimerical chance—of a few thousand pounds' worth of metal being extracted from the rock on which it stood.

      To Lord Lamerton his determination seemed right and reasonable. The land was his. The royalties were his; the house was his. Every man may do what he will with his own. If he has a penny in his pocket, he is at liberty to spend or to hoard it as he deems best.

      But this decision of his lordship threatened ruin or something like ruin to a good many men who had lived on the mine, to families whereof the father worked underground, and the children above washing ore on the floors. The cessation of the mining would throw all these out of employ. It was known to the miners that manganese mines were everywhere unprofitable, and were being abandoned. Where then should they look for employment?

      It was open to bachelors to migrate to America, but what were the married men to do? The captain would feel the stoppage of the mine most of all. He had kept the accounts of the output, had paid the wages, and sold the metal. The miners might, indeed, take temporary work on the new line in course of construction, but that meant a ​change of life from one that was regular, whilst living in settled homes, to a wandering existence, to makeshift housing, separation from their families, and to association with demoralising and lawless companions. The captain, however, had not this chance within reach. He could not migrate, because he possessed the little house in which he lived, together with an acre of garden ground beside it, which his father had enclosed and reclaimed. Moreover, he was not likely to find work which gave him a situation of authority and superiority. Instead of being a master he must be content—if he found employ—to work as a servant. Hitherto, he had engaged and dismissed the hands, now he must become a hand—and be glad to be one—liable to dismissal.

      It was natural that the men, and especially Saltren, should feel keenly and resent the closing of the mine. People see things as they affect themselves, and appreciate them only as they relate to their own affairs. I knew a man named Balhatchet who patented a quack medicine which he called his Heal-all, and this man never could be brought to see that the Fall of Man was a disaster to humanity, for, he argued, if there had been no fall, then no sickness, and therefore no place for Balhatchet's Heal-all.

      According to "The Spectator," when the news reached London that the King of France was dead, "Now we shall have fish cheaper," was the greeting the tidings evoked. The miners were angry with the bleachers, because they used German manganese instead of that raised in England, and angry with the shippers for bringing it across the sea. But above all, at this time, they were inclined to resent the action of Lord Lamerton in closing the mine, for by so doing he was, as they put it, snatching the bread out of their hungry mouths, whilst himself eating cake. They did not believe that undermining the great house would disturb its foundations. That was a mere excuse. ​How could his lordship be sure that undermining would crack his walls till he had tried it? And—supposing they did settle, what of that? They might be rebuilt. The men had been told that his lordship had painted the north wall with impenetrable, anti-damp preparation, because on that side of the house the paper in the rooms became mildewed. If there was damp, what better means of drying the house than undermining it? Why should his lordship send many pounds to London for damp-excluding paint, when by spending the money in Orleigh he might so drain the soil through a level under the foundations that no moisture could possibly rise?

      Lord Lamerton had made a great deal of money out of the first mine. He had provided good cottages for his tenants, the workmen, but so much the worse if they were to be turned out of them.

      The mine had been christened Wheal Perseverance, and what does perseverance mean, but going on with what is begun? If his lordship had not intended to carry on the mine indefinitely, he should not have called it Wheal Perseverance. When he gave it that name he as much as promised to keep it going always, and to stop it now was a breach of faith. Was it endurable that Lord Lamerton should close the mine? Who had put the manganese in the rock? Was it Lord Lamerton? What had the metal been run there for but for the good of mankind, that it might be extracted and utilized? God had carried the lode under Orleigh Park before a Lamerton was thought of. Was it justifiable that one man, through his aristocratic selfishness, should interfere with the public good, should contravene the arrangements of the Creator? In the gospel the man who hid his talent was held up to condemnation, but here was

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