Bonds of Earth, The (15 page)

T
WO HOURS AFTER
Goran and Albert arrived on the mine, Captain Pyne and the four missing miners were located, safe and well. As was hoped, they had been inspecting the upward sloping lode when water from the old mine broke into Wheal Hope. Although the lode tunnel had been flooded for the whole of its length the water was no more than waist high at its furthest extent and there had been a sufficient pocket of air remaining at the end of the tunnel to keep the men alive – but it would not have lasted for very much longer.

The miner sent down the shaft on the end of a rope risked his own life to find them, needing to go underwater along much of the lode tunnel in order to reach them, not knowing whether he could surface and find air enough to breathe at the far end.

Once there he organized their rescue, accompanying each man along the flooded tunnel and having them hoisted as far as the ladders that had not been affected by the sudden torrent of water, then waiting for the rope to come back down to him and repeating the operation.

Captain Pyne was the last of the men to arrive at the surface and he was greeted with emotional relief by Annie. His youngest daughter, unable to comprehend the great danger he had been in, protested at being hugged by her father who wore soaked clothing, her indignation helping to break the tension which had been felt by all those gathered around the flooded shaft.

Even as he was being embraced by his wife, Piran Pyne was thinking of how soon he could have the Wheal Hope returned to normal working, but soon afterwards the shift captain who had been in charge of the rescue operations told him how it had been possible to slow the flow of water into the shaft and he realized the adit dug to drain the ancient mine could be utilized to take away the water from the Wheal Hope and keep it drained without the need for a pumping engine until his own mine's workings had extended beyond the depth at which the adit began.

When the mine captain was told of the part played in his rescue by Goran and Albert he looked for them in order to express his gratitude, only to learn that once it was confirmed the missing men had been located and were being brought to the surface, Goran had returned to the work that awaited him at Elworthy, taking Albert with him.

Piran Pyne wasted no time setting in motion an operation that would have the Wheal Hope working again as soon as possible and before making his way to the Pyne cottage to change out of his wet clothes and have something to eat, he left instructions for the old workings to be explored with a view to breaking through lower down the existing Wheal Hope shaft and using the reopened adit to drain all the water from both mines.

On the way home Annie told him of Morwenna's collapse, the result, so she believed, of the state she had got herself into due to the accident involving her father.

Moved by the reported concern of his eldest daughter, Piran went up to the girls' room as soon as he arrived home to assure Morwenna he was none the worse for his ordeal, but came downstairs again to say she was fast asleep and looking very pale.

Soon after eating, unable to settle and despite his wife's protests, the mine captain returned to Wheal Hope to check that his instructions were being carried out.

Late that evening, his chores completed for the day, Goran tramped up the slope to the Wheal Hope once more, this time with Jenken, for confirmation that the mine captain was safe and well. He was given a personal assurance from Piran Pyne who was effusive in his thanks for Goran's part in the rescue operation.

Aware of the pride Jenken had in his father, Goran said, ‘It's Albert you should really be thanking. For a man who almost lost a leg only a few weeks ago he was truly magnificent.'

‘So I've been told, and I intend showing my gratitude to him in a practical way. The engine-house is nearing completion and the engine on its way from Hayle with the engineer. When they arrive I'm hoping Albert will be able to come up here to watch it all being put together and have the engineer give him instruction on how to work it. He'll be my chief engine-man, with a couple of helpers to carry out any heavy work and do the climbing about for him.'

Jenken had great difficulty hiding his delight and Goran said, ‘Albert will be happy with that – but you're going to lose a very experienced explosives man.'

‘True,' Captain Pyne agreed, ‘but he'll be on hand to give advice when it's needed – although I hope it won't be for anything similar to what's happened here today. It's quite obvious the old mine must have been extensively worked beneath Agnes Roach's land. I'm surprised she said nothing about it.'

‘I doubt very much if she or her family before her ever knew. The main workings would have been on Spurre land and I doubt whether the family was any less reluctant to have anyone know anything about its business then than Sir John is today.'

‘Well, we'll know more when the water's gone and I can get into the old mine and map it out. We were lucky the accident today wasn't far more serious. We can't rely on that luck being with us if it should happen again. As it is, the only people who seem to have really suffered are yourself with your cuts and bruises … and Morwenna.'

‘Yes, Mrs Pyne told me Morwenna had been taken ill because she ran home in such a hurry, is she going to be all right?'

‘I hope so. She was asleep when I got home but she certainly looked pale and wan. I suppose she was with you when she became aware of the accident?'

Surprised by Captain Pyne's assumption, Goran replied, ‘I haven't seen her for weeks. What made you think she would have been with me?'

‘I thought she was seeing you … I must have mistaken something she said.'

Shaking his head, Goran said, ‘I haven't seen her since the day she came to the farm and brought the dictionary Nessa had bought from her for me….' A sudden thought struck him. ‘Is that why Nessa hasn't been to the farm to see me, because she believed there was something between Morwenna and me?'

Thinking fast, Piran Pyne said, ‘I believe there might have been a little misunderstanding about it, but I don't know how serious it was.'

‘I'm sorry about that. I was surprised when it was Morwenna who brought the book to me, and not Nessa. I understood she'd exchanged a bracelet for the dictionary to give it to me.'

Hesitating for a moment, wondering whether he should tell his secret to Piran Pyne, Goran decided he would. ‘I bought Nessa a replacement bracelet when I went to Liskeard Fair and was hoping to give it to Nessa as a thank you, but what with taking over the farm and haymaking I've been kept so busy I haven't been able to get around to it. To be honest, I've been disappointed that she hasn't been to see me at the farm.'

Captain Pyne explained that now Nessa knew he was safe she would be spending the next day or two at Caradon with her recently arrived friend whose birthday was being celebrated, but he promised to suggest that she visited Elworthy Farm on her return.

He realized that Goran cared more about not seeing Nessa than he did about Morwenna being taken ill, and it raised the question of why Morwenna had said she was seeing Goran when it was quite apparent she had not. He sincerely hoped it was not one of his eldest daughter's malicious little games. But if Morwenna had not spent her time at Elworthy, where had she been when she was away from home so much?

It was something he needed to think about seriously, but not now. The immediate concern was the future of the Wheal Hope.

O
N A WET
afternoon, two days after the Wheal Hope was flooded, Goran was in the milking-parlour repairing a wooden manger when Jenken hurried in and said, excitedly, ‘There are a lot of men coming along the track towards the farm, Goran … they look like miners.'

‘Are they from Wheal Hope? I wonder what they're doing down here.'

‘I don't recognize any of them and they don't look particularly friendly. They're coming from the direction of the village and not from the moor.'

Abandoning the manger, Goran stepped outside the milking-parlour and saw a group of some fifty or sixty men heading along the track towards Elworthy. Dressed in the manner adopted by miners, many of them carried sticks and although they were approaching quietly there was an air of aggression about them that made Goran immediately uneasy. But he could think of no reason why they should want to cause him any trouble.

The gate to the farmyard was open. Entering, the men fanned out in front of him, one of their number stepping forward to confront Goran, saying, ‘We're here to see how much corn you've got.'

Puzzled, Goran said, ‘I doubt if I have half-a-sack left in the store, I'll need to buy some in later this week.'

‘We're not interested in what you've got for feeding your animals, we're here to buy what you've got to sell, but we intend paying no more than thirty shillings a bushel, none of the fancy prices you're selling it for in the market.'

Goran shrugged. ‘You'll find no corn here apart from what I've already told you about. I'm hoping to begin arable farming soon, but Elworthy and Roach Farms have never been anything but pasture land for as long as I've known them.'

‘Then you won't mind if we have a look for ourselves to see whether you're telling the truth, will you?'

It was phrased as a question but Goran realized the miners were going to search his farm whatever he replied and it angered him.

‘Yes I
do
mind, same as I mind you coming here and stopping me from getting on with my work. I've told you there's no corn here and I'd be grateful if you went about your business and left me to carry on with mine.'

‘Well now, it's my experience that when there's money to be made it's greed and not the truth that comes first with farmers so, like I said, we'll have a look around for ourselves.'

‘That won't be necessary, Jacob Barlow.'

The voice was Albert's and it came from a corner of the milking-parlour, where he had arrived, unseen, and stood leaning heavily upon his stick.

The leader of the party of miners was as surprised as Goran at his appearance, but it was apparent he knew the injured miner and he demanded, ‘Albert Bolitho! What are you doing here?'

‘I'm recovering from an injury that ended my mining days and would have put an end to me too had it not been for Goran here – and, if it hadn't been for him, Cap'n Pyne and four of his miners would have been dead when water from an old workings broke through into Wheal Hope. So if you're here to cause trouble, you'll find yourself coming up against Cap'n Pyne, me, and every man at Wheal Hope.'

‘We're not here to make trouble for anyone, Albert, but as you know well enough, times are hard down west and farmers are making them harder by pushing the price of wheat sky high. We're going around buying up all the wheat we can – but at a fair price. Fair to us, and fair to the farmers. We've just bought some from a reluctant farmer who tried to put us off by saying there was a farm along this way which had harvested a brave wheat crop this year. We thought it must be this one.'

‘Well it isn't. Goran's only just taken over Elworthy Farm after working this and the next farm since he was a boy and neither has ever grown crops – am I right, Goran?'

‘Yes, and although I hope to have some arable land for next season the first crop has to be potatoes, so I'll not have wheat for a couple of years yet. I think that farmer might have been talking about Colonel Sir John Spurre. The wheat I saw growing on his Home Farm fields, beyond the skew bridge on the other side of the estate was some of the finest I can ever remember, but you'll need to be careful how you check on what they have stored at the farm. Sir John is both a magistrate and commanding officer of the local militia. He also has a gamekeeper named Marcus Grimble who's fond of boasting about the number of poachers he's peppered with small shot and who would as soon shoot a miner as a magpie if he found them on Spurre land.'

‘Is that so?' The miners' leader spoke above the angry murmuring of the men with him. ‘Perhaps we'll be lucky enough to meet up with this gamekeeper. I don't think we'll need to search your buildings after all, young man, but remember us when you start growing corn. We're happy enough to pay a fair price for it. After all, you need to make a living, same as we, but there are enough folk getting rich at our expense. We'll not have farmers added to the list.'

Nodding to Albert, the miners' leader turned and walked back the way he and his companions had come to the farm. Some of the miners following in his wake raised a hand in a farewell salute to Albert as they departed, but one of their number did not go with them. Only a year or two older than Goran he spoke to Albert whom he quite obviously knew well.

‘Hello, Albert, It's a surprise meeting up with you.'

‘I could say the same about you, Alan Toms,' Albert said, with little warmth in his voice. ‘Although I'm not surprised to find you in the company of Jacob Barlow, you were never one to choose your friends wisely, as I remember, even though you were a good enough miner. Barlow's more interested in making a name for himself than helping miners, for all his talk of miners' rights.'

‘I'm not with him because I want to be, Albert, but things got far worse down west after you left. Miners are leaving from Falmouth by the shipload, going to places they've only heard of, and them as stay are desperate for work. Those who follow Jacob Barlow can at least be certain of getting one meal a day.'

Albert snorted scornfully. ‘I doubt if it's Barlow who pays for it. With a mob behind him he scares someone else into providing the wherewithal. One day he'll come up against a man powerful enough to refuse him, and Barlow and all those with him will end up in chains on their way to Botany Bay.'

‘I know that, Albert, and if I can find work I'll have no more to do with him. Do you think Cap'n Pyne might have anything for me?'

Goran was about to go back to the work he was carrying out in the milking-parlour when Albert's next words brought him to a halt.

‘After the way you treated his daughter I doubt it very much – especially with what's been happening at the mine….' Albert told the other man of the flooding from the ancient mine, adding, ‘All the Wheal Hope men will be working hard to get the engine-house completed so they can bring out some ore and get a pump working. But you can go and see Cap'n Pyne if you want to. He might take you on just to cheer up Morwenna. His being trapped underground upset her so much she's been in bed ever since.'

‘What's wrong with her?' Alan Toms sounded genuinely concerned and he confirmed this by adding, ‘To be honest, I've been hoping to meet up with her again. When we were seeing each other, down west, she talked about marriage so often it scared me. I didn't
wan't
to be married, but since she left with her family I've missed her so much I've come to realize it might not be such a bad idea after all.'

‘Well, that's your business, son, and no one else can sort that out for you, but if you're going to keep up with Jacob Barlow you'd better hurry, he'll be out of sight soon.'

Looking to where the departing miners had almost passed from view, Alan Toms said, ‘I won't have any problem finding Jacob if I need to. How do I get to the Wheal Hope?'

Goran directed the young miner by the shortest route, through Elworthy farmland. When he had gone on his way and Albert had returned to the cottage, Goran suggested Jenken should help him complete the work in the milking-parlour.

Once inside, he asked, ‘Was that Morwenna's sweetheart when you and the Pynes were living down west?'

‘He was the latest one, and the one she seemed really serious about. So serious that everyone thought she'd get him in the end and make him marry her.'

Grinning at Goran, Jenken said, ‘She might get him, even now, but it might spoil her chances if he learns about Grimble's nephew. The more I think about it the more certain I am that it
was
him I saw with her up by the Spurre estate and I heard Ma talking to Pa about her, the other night. She said that Morwenna has been telling her ma she's been spending a lot of time down here, but we all know that isn't true, so I bet she was seeing Grimble's nephew instead. Alan Toms said it was her talk of marriage that frightened him off, but there were lots of rumours about the type of girl she was – and had been. If he thought she was up to her old tricks again he might think twice about what being married to her would be like!'