Hungry Hill (7 page)

Henry was amongst them immediately, chatting easily, asking questions, while John stood aloof, looking at the dripping walls and the rubble caused by the last explosion, which the men were now clearing with their picks and shovels. He heard his brother enquire how far the gallery ran, and where they had been blasting during the previous weeks, and one of the men, a Cornishman, whose work it was actually to ignite the train, pointed to the far end of the gallery, where a mass of rubble appeared to be uncleared and the height of the ceiling little more than four foot.

“We wasted our time there,” he said. “The rock goes chalky, and there is no mineral deposit. You could blast away for weeks, and you would only find chalk. It’s my belief the hill slopes suddenly here, above ground, forming a wide hollow, and we are not so very far from the surface.”

“Yes,” said Henry, “I have often come upon those hollows while walking about the hill-almost like natural quarries. I should say there were earthworks here in days gone by.”

“Yes, sir,” said the Cornishman, uncertain what was meant by an earthwork, and then John suddenly perceived that his brother was very vigorously blowing his nose. He at once moved into the group of men.

“Do you ever have accidents during these explosions?” he asked.

The man turned to him civilly. “No, sir,” he said; “it’s only a matter of being careful. Of course it’s specialised work.”

The Cornishman showed John where holes had been bored in the side of the rock, for the charge to be inserted. John asked many questions, showing a keen interest most foreign to his nature, while the other three men, glad of a respite, leant on their tools and entered into the discussion, which worked round to when and where gunpowder had. first been employed for mining purposes.

No one noticed or cared that Henry did not join in the conversation, and had disappeared in the gloom to the end of the gallery. When he finally returned-John having meanwhile re-told the story of the Gunpowder Plot with great eloquence, professing himself firmly on the side of Guy Fawkes, and thus earning for himself a certain amount of respect from two of the men, who came from Doonhaven-ten minutes or a quarter-of-an-hour had passed by, and John, glancing at his brother, perceived that his clothes were covered in chalk and that there was a look of intense excitement in his eyes.

“Well, John,” he said, “if you’ve had enough of it, we’ll leave these fellows to their work and get up to the surface,” andwitha brief word of thanks to the men he began to edge his way back along the level to the ladder.

They climbed to the surface in silence, John asking no questions, but as soon as they were above ground, and Henry had dusted the chalk from his clothes, he turned to his brother in triumph.

“My instinct was right,” he said. “I know how these devils take the stuff away. Wait until we get to the counting-house, and you shall hear the whole story.”

Their father, who was beginning to show signs of impatience, was walking up and down the room, his hands behind his back.

“Well,” he said, as his sons entered, “no bones broken?”

“Not yet,” said Henry, “but there may be before this business is finished. Captain Nicholson, can we be overheard here?”

“No, sir. The clerk has gone to her dinner, and not a soul but ourselves is within earshot.”

“Very well then,” said Henry. “I am able to tell you that your stuff is being stolen below ground, before it is ever brought to the surface.”

“What the devil do you mean, Henry?” asked his father sharply.

“Only this, sir. I have always understood that in prehistoric days Hungry Hill was inhabited by cave-dwellers, who burrowed passages and tunnels underground, a few traces of which remain to this day. I have come across caves and hollows myself, when walking the hill, but never bothered to explore them to any depth. It was only when I heard about the disappearance of material that I remembered them.”

“Well?” said his father.

“Just now, down on the second level, I left John to talk to the men who were blasting, and I went to the end of the gallery, where work has ceased, because chalk was struck. I cleared away some of the rubble, and moved one large piece of rock that looked as though it had been placed there with deliberate intention. I crawled in behind it, and found what I suspected. A narrow tunnel, just wide enough for a man to crawl on his hands and knees, sloping upwards, away from the mine.

It was worn quite smooth with recent use. I did not explore more than a few yards, for fear of discovery, but I can pretty well guess that it leads out into one of those old hollows in the side of the hill. It would be the simplest thing in the world to have a man crawl along that tunnel and dump the stuff at the end of it, and for someone else to come by night on to the hill by the hollow and load up his donkey and cart.

It’s easy to see how they work it, too. Two Doon-haven fellows in the business arrange to work the same shift below ground, and one of them goes up the tunnel, while his partner keeps watch. Your Cornishmen are entirely innocent, Captain Nicholson. I’m sure of that. The fellow who was blasting today had no more idea there was a tunnel behind the chalk than my brother John had, but if he had a little more curiosity he would soon find out. So there you have it, father. And make what you like of the discovery.”

He smiled at the two older men, and winked at his brother. His achievement was, after all, something of a triumph.

“Well, Nicholson,” said Copper John, “my son seems to have accomplished more in half-an-hour than you have done in weeks. Nor do I seek to make any excuses for myself. Now, my plan is as follows. When the men come off shift this evening, you and my son Henry will go down the mine and explore the tunnel to its outlet in the hillside.

We will then post a watch every night until we catch the fellows at work. If there is a scrap, so much the better. John, you are the lawyer of the family.

What do you say?”

John, whose dislike of the law was intense, and who had not the moral courage to say so, glanced appealingly at his brother, who took no notice.

“I don’t know, sir,” he havered. “Would you not perhaps consider telling the men that their game has been discovered, and block up the tunnel, and so end the business? Then there will be no bad blood spilt on either side.”

“If that’s what they teach you in Lincoln’s Inn no wonder nobody briefs you for Counsel,” said his father scornfully. “I fear my second son knows more about his dogs than he does about his profession, Captain Nicholson. Very well, John, you can stay at home and mind Jane. We don’t want any faint-hearts amongst us. I suppose we can depend upon your Cornishmen, Nicholson? Meanwhile, I will find one or two neighbours to give us some assistance. I don’t want to appeal to the military in this affair. Simon Flower from Andriff might be prevailed upon to help us; he is hefty enough, whatever else he lacks.”

John Brodrick returned to Clonmere in high good-humour. They would soon have the whip-hand of the pilferers, and give them such a lesson that no one would try to interfere with his mine again in a hurry. The whole story was related to Jane, whose pleasure at Henry’s cleverness was only tempered by the sight of John’s gloomy face, which she knew at once to be caused by his own sense of inferiority.

“Let Henry crawl about the confounded tunnel on his hands and knees,” he said to Jane afterwards, sprawling on his father’s chair in the drawing-room.

“I don’t give a tinker’s curse what he discovers. I’m sick of the whole affair.”

“Why did you come over here, dear, if you did not want to help father?”

“Did you ever know me refuse the chance of a holiday? And the woodcock waiting to be destroyed on Doon Island? Come along to the pantry, and help me clean my gun. The fellows can take every bit of copper out of Hungry Hill for all I care.”

It was decided that the following night a watch should be set on the hillside, and that during the day Copper John should sound one or two neighbours as to their willingness to help, while Henry and John rode over to Castle Andriff to see Simon Flower. Old Robert Lumley was in Cheltenham, where he usually spent the winter, and even had he been in the country his presence would not have been much help.

The day was fine, and the sky cloudless, and the two young Brodricks rode over to Andriff in good spirits, bearing a present of wood- cock to Mrs. Flower. She was a large, rather formidable woman, with a great sense of her own importance, and she never could forget that her husband Simon was brother to the Earl of Mundy, a fact which Simon Flower himself found it convenient to ignore.

Castle Andriff, therefore, was a perplexing house to visit, for the drawing-room, which on first inspection appeared to be of a grandeur only equalled by that of a royal palace, with marble floor, and gilt chairs, and Mrs. Flower rising like a queen from her throne to receive the caller, would, on looking a little closer, reveal the fact that many of the legs of the gilt chairs were broken, making them unsafe to sit upon, while the marble floor was so muddied and begrimed by Simon Flower’s setters that it would bear comparison with a kennel. A powdered footman, in livery, received the two Brodricks, and escorted them to the drawing-room, his fine appearance spoilt by the darns in his white stockings and the odour of manure about his person, suggesting that his morning had been spent in the stables, while heated voices overhead sounded as though a domestic dispute of some magnitude was taking place. The altercation was not improved by the discordant notes proceeding from a pianoforte, which on entering the drawing-room the Brodricks discovered to their surprise were being produced by Simon Flower himself, who, with a hat on the back of his head, eyes closed, and a pipe of great length between his lips, was swaying backwards and forwards to some strange melody of his own composition.

Mrs. Flower, dressed as for a London reception, was mending a tear in her brocaded bedroom curtains, nor did the entrance of the two visitors embarrass her at all.

“I am delighted to see you both,” she said, extending a gracious hand, which Henry wondered whether he was expected to kiss. “You find us as usual in a state of disorganisation. Pray take a chair and tell me the news. Not that one, Mr. Brodrick, the leg is unsafe… . How kind of your father to send us a present of game! It so happens that my husband’s brother, the Earl of Mundy, is not at the moment in residence in this country-he generally keeps us very plentifully supplied with game, as you can imagine… . Are your sisters still picnicking in the little farmhouse? Miss Brodrick must fancy herself Marie-Antoinette at the Petit Trianon. Quite a change after Clonmere… .?

She rattled on, hardly pausing to draw breath and never waiting for an answer, and as she talked loudly to make herself heard above the piano, so did her husband increase the volume of sound, until one of the setters, which had been crouching between his legs, crawled from his lair and added a mournful howl to his master’s strains.

“Poor Boris cannot abide the pianoforte,” shouted Mrs. Flower. “Sometimes he will continue howling for an hour on end, but it never puts my husband out of countenance. When are you both coming over to hunt with my father’s hounds at Duncroom?”

The strain of conversing under such conditions proved too much for Henry, for all his charm of manner, and he could do little else but smile and bow and gesture with his hands, while John remained steadily mute, as he invariably did when secretly entertained.

At length the concert came to an end, there was a superb flourish of chords and a loud hammering in the bass that drew forth a final moan of protest from the setter, and Simon Flower rose to his feet, slamming the lid of the piano.

“They say it’s a sign of intelligence when a dog sings to music,” he said, waving his pipe at the brothers. “Did you hear that hound of mine trying to accompany me ? I declare he puts his very soul into his voice; it wrings my heart to hear him.”

“Don’t be absurd, Simon; the animal dislikes it.”

“Dislikes it ? I tell you the dog will sit by my side like a leech, with his eyes fixed on the notes, so devoted he is to the instrument. But never mind about that; these lads want refreshment after their journey. Come down to the cellar, both of you; we shall do better that way than if we allow my wife to make tea.”

He led the way down a narrow, twisting stair to the labyrinths of his castle, and after poking about with a stump of candle he discovered a bottle of old Madeira, which he proceeded to decant on the spot into an ancient carafe hidden in a cranny of the cellar along with some half-dozen glasses.

“When there’s frost on the ground in winter and I can’t hunt,” he said gravely, “I bring my friends down here, and it would astonish you to see how well we pass the time. My wife imagines us to be playing billiards, and to deceive her I get my servant to click the balls about She never knows but what we are there, the dear trusting soul. Fill up your glasses, my boys, and make yourselves comfortable.

There’s a beer barrel apiece for you to sit upon.”

The two young men and their host did indeed do so much better than if their hostess had made tea for them in the drawing-room, that when they finally emerged from the cellar and blinked their way into the upper regions once more Henry had forgotten his mission, John was in a state of bland benevolence, and their host was singing “O! Mistress mine, where are you roaming?” which song, in John’s opinion, could hardly be directed at the formidable Mrs. Flower. Tea, however, was being served in the drawing-room, and Henry recovered himself sufficiently to broach, in a somewhat lame fashion, the reason for the visit. The story he told certainly sounded a little muddled, and Simon Flower, in spite of the interlude in the cellar, could hardly be blamed for shaking his head at the end of it.

“I’ll not go crawling around in a rabbit burrow for your father or for any man on earth,” he said, yawning, the potency of the old Madeira beginning to show in his sleepy blue eyes. “Why, it might be that I’d lose me way, and never a soul would have sight of me again. Do you remember it was in such fashion we lost poor Trouncer, Maria? She got poking into an old badger’s earth and that was the end of her, the best bitch I ever bred.”