nience is provided for the men drying
their wet garments and washing their persons on coming to the surface.

Having changed their clothes, uncle and nephew hastened to St. Just,
where they dwelt in the cottage of Maggot, the blacksmith. This man,
who has already been introduced to the reader, was brother-in-law to
David, and father to Zackey.

When David Trevarrow entered his brother-in-law's cottage, and told him
of his bad fortune, and of his resolution to try his luck next day in
the higher mine, little did he imagine that his change of purpose was to
be the first step in a succession of causes which were destined to
result, at no very distant period, in great changes of fortune to some
of his friends in St. Just, as well as to many others in the county.

CHAPTER FIVE.

DESCRIBES A WRECK AND SOME OF ITS CONSEQUENCES.

While the miner had been pursuing his toilsome work in the solitude and
silence of the level under the sea, as already described, a noble ship
was leaping over the Atlantic waves--homeward bound--to Old England.

She was an East-Indiaman, under close-reefed sails, and although she
bent low before the gale so that the waves almost curled over her lee
bulwarks, she rose buoyantly like a seagull, for she was a good ship,
stout of plank and sound of timber, with sails and cordage to match.

Naturally, in such a storm, those on board were anxious, for they knew
that they were drawing near to land, and that "dear Old England" had an
ugly seaboard in these parts--a coast not to be too closely hugged in
what the captain styled "dirty weather, with a whole gale from the
west'ard," so a good lookout was kept. Sharp eyes were in the foretop
looking out for the guiding rays of the Long-ships lighthouse, which
illumine that part of our rocky shores to warn the mariner of danger and
direct him to a safe harbour. The captain stood on the "foge's'l" with
stern gaze and compressed lip. The chart had been consulted, the
bearings correctly noted, calculations made, and leeway allowed for.
Everything in fact that could be done by a commander who knew his duty
had been done for the safety of the ship--so would the captain have said
probably, had he lived to be questioned as to the management of his
vessel. But everything had _not_ been done. The lead, strange to say,
had not been hove. It was ready to heave, but the order was delayed.
Unaccountable fatality! The only safe guide that remained to the good