n here."

"Looks as if lots had. Ugh! I wouldn't go down for the price of a new
boat and all her gear."

"If everybody felt like you do, Josh, what should we have done for tin
and copper?"

"I d'now," growled Josh. "Why can't you leave it alone and 'tend to the
fishing. Arn't catching pilchar' and mack'rel good 'nough for you?
Yah! I shall never make nothing of you."

"No, Josh; catching pilchard and mackerel is not good enough for me."

"Then why not get aboard the smack and larn to trawl for sole and
turbot? There arn't no better paying fishing than that, so long as you
don't get among the rocks."

"No, Josh; nor trawling won't do," said Will, who ashore seemed to take
the lead that he yielded to his companion and old Michael Polree on
board the lugger. "I want to make my way in the world, and do you hear,
I will."

He said the last word so emphatically that the fisherman stared, and
then said in an ill-used tone:

"Then why don't you try in a reasonable way, and get to be master of a
lugger? and if that arn't enough for you, have your share o' nets in
another; not come poking about these gashly holes. What's the good?"

"Good!" cried Will, with his eyes flashing. "Hasn't a fortune been got
out of Gwavas mine year after year till the water began to pour in?"

"Oh, yes! out o' that."

"And I'm sure one might be got out of this," cried Will, pointing down
into the black void.

"What, out o' this gashly pit? Yah! Why didn't the captain and
'venturers get it, then, when they dug it fifty year 'fore I was born?"

"Because they missed the vein."

"And how are you going to find it, lad?"

"By looking," said Will. "There's Retack Mine over yonder, and Carn
Rean over there, and they're both rich; and I think the old people who
dug down here went too far, and missed what they ought to have found."

"And so you're going to find it, are you, my lad?"

"I don't know," said Will quietly; "but I'm going to try."

As he said those last words he set his teeth and knit his brow, looking
so calmly determined that Josh picked up a little bit of granite, turned
it over in his fingers a few times as if finding a suitable part, and
then began to rub his nose with it softly.

"Well, you do cap me, lad, you do," he said at last. "Look ye here,
now," he cried, as if about to deliver a poser, and he seated himself on
the rock and crossed his legs, "you don't expect to find coal, do you?"

"No," said Will, "