'Morty Donovan? Always when I 'have any annoyance or trouble it is Morty Donovan who is responsible. You can call upon him from me, Ned, and you can tell him that if I hear of my game being destroyed on Doon Island without my express permission, then the persons concerned will be punished with the utmost severity, and have to answer for it at the Mundy Assizes.'
'I will, Mr. Brodrick. The man should be ashamed; it's what I've said often enough in Doonhaven.'
'Morty Donovan doesn't know the meaning of the word, nor do any of his family. So you think they will make trouble when we start work on the mine?'
'I don't say they will make trouble, Mr.
Brodrick, but for myself, I would not care to be one of the Cornish miners you are importing. It may be that they would do better for themselves if they stopped at. home.'
'You are as bad as the rest of them, Ned. I believe when my back is turned you go and gossip in the cottages like any old woman; yes, and tell your beads too into the bargain.'
'It's God's truth, Mr. Brodrick, I never consort with the people at all, except to gather in your rents, which is a sorry business at the best of times; and as for telling my beads, haven't I handed round the plate at the Established Church Sunday after Sunday for as many years as you have sat in the place yourself?'
'That's all right, Ned. I'm not complaining.
You've always done your duty by me, and I won't forget it. But what irritates me beyond measure is that an ignorant, halfeducated fellow like Morty Donovan can so play upon the superstitions of the people in Doonhaven as to lead them to believe that what I am doing for the district is some sort of devil's work or witchcraft, whereas if they had the sense to understand it I am going to put the bread-and-butter into their mouths for nothing.'
'There's no gratitude in the country, Mr.
Brodrick, that's the fault.'
'Gratitude, is it? I don't ask for gratitude, damn it. I only ask for commonsense. Well, that's enough of the matter. You had better walk home, Ned, while the moon is up.
There's nothing further I want to discuss this evening.
Don't forget to tell that woman at the gate-house to keep the gates closed. I'm tired of seeing my cattle on the moors with Morty Donovan's mark branded on their backs.'
And so alone at last, and the estate book put away, and his papers neatly filed, and all business done for the day.
Presently he would go upstairs and chat with the girls for an hour or so, ask them their opinion about a small property across the water to make a change from Clonmere, from which they could pay visits to Bath now and again during the season, and when the girls had gone to bed he would stir the fire with his foot and tell Henry about the mining methods in Cornwall, the suggestions of the fellow from Bronsea, and how old Lumley had stuck out for his twenty per cent royalty, and what a pity it was that Simon Flower was such a good-for-nothing.
But first he would take a turn in the grounds, have a breath of fresh air from the sea to clear his head. He walked down the bank, as John had done, and presently, as he looked out across the creek to Doon Island, he became aware of the figure of his second son, standing aloof and strangely lonely, in apparent aimless meditation.
'Not with the others, John?' he said abruptly.
The boy started. He had been unaware of his father's approach.
'No, sir.'
There was a silence, neither knowing what to say to the other, and both remembering the incident at dinner.
Then the boy, impulsive, stammered an apology.
'I'm sorry, sir, that I spoke as I did this evening.'
'That's all right, John. I had forgotten it.'
The father wondered whether he should tell the boy that he understood well enough what he had been trying to express. He was forty-eight, his son was just nineteen. He knew that the first John Brodrick had been shot in the back for the same reason given by his son, he knew too that the Donovans of the present day had not forgotten it. These things he found convenient to forget. It did not do to have long memories in this country. That was the great fault of the people, they remembered too much. He believed in justice, in fair dealing, in scrupulous honesty with those less fortunate than himself, but it was dangerous to go farther than this. Once a man became sympathetic in this country he became soft, he became idle, he allowed his mind to dwell on supposed injuries, on long-dead feuds, on a past that was buried and gone. If John was not handled properly, was not made to understand discipline and service and respect for his elders and betters, he would turn into another useless idler like Simon Flower.
So John Brodrick said no more. He stood by the side of the creel looking out towards his future mine, and his son stood by his side, nervous, irresolute, watching the moonlight shimmer upon the blank, dark face of Hungry Hill.
When John Brodrick told Robert Lumley that his royalty in the mine, after a few years, would be near a thousand pounds, he did so in no spirit of foolish optimism, but in firm belief in the accuracy of his statement. Actually the sum paid into the old man's account in the Slane bank at the close of the fourth year exceeded fifteen hundred pounds, all initial expenses having been paid off in the second year.
The price of copper had never been so high, and by purchasing three vessels that were wholly employed in shipping the ore from Doonhaven to Bronsea, John Brodrick managed to keep freights low.
Robert Lumley, when he saw how matters were progressing, forgot his former caution and would have had his partner employ double the men he did, so that every ounce of ore might be extracted, but this John Brodrick refused to do.
'We might,' he said, 'employ more miners, and merely pick out the best of the copper as fast as we want, but my object is that nothing should be lost to our families, or left behind in such a situation that we never could get at it afterwards. If Captain Nicholson goes down too deep we defeat our own object. The force of water is too great to be dealt with, and in a short time whatever ore is there would be lost beyond recovery.'
Old Robert Lumley would drive down to Doonhaven once in every six months to inspect the mine, and each time he would find fault with some part of it or other, understanding nothing of the work himself, until John Brodrick, who made a practice of riding over every day, and knew the mine as well as the miners themselves, would lose his patience and his temper.
'You complain that the mine is not properly conducted?' he said. 'Perhaps you would like to read this letter from the foremost expert in the country, who visited us last month?'
And the old man would peer at the letter of praise through his spectacles, and lay it aside again, and say that anyway, properly conducted or not, the miners were too well paid, and Captain Nicholson in particular.
'In Cornwall,' John Brodrick told him, 'they have a custom long established by which the proprietors make a payment to their Captains every year in proportion to the produce, in addition to the fixed salary. I propose to do the same with Captain Nicholson.'
'But that will mean another deduction from our profit, Brodrick?'
'It will indeed, but I consider the deduction necessary.
Captain Nicholson has worked this mine from the start, in conditions that at times have been extremely unpleasant for him and his men, owing to the opposition of people in the neighbourhood, and he has never once suggested returning to Cornwall.'
And so Robert Lumley would argue and protest and finally be won over, and drive away again in his carriage, leaving the Director in high ill-humour, wishing he could buy the old man out of the Company and be rid of him for ever.
The mine was a success, and the profits were high, but there had Deen many difficulties to overcome, and they were not all over yet. For one thing, the people in Doonhaven had proved even more obstructive than he had anticipated. He had not expected them to welcome the Cornishmen, he had been prepared for a certain amount of animosity, and had provided, as he thought, against it. For instance, he had huts erected, at his own expense, close to the mine on Hungry Hill, and fitted them up with the necessary furniture, bedding, and cooking apparatus. Some of the men were married, and brought their wives and children.
It was when they went down into Doonhaven to buy provisions that the trouble started. Murphy's shop would quite unaccountably appear to be bare, without so much as a candle or a bar of soap on the premises, and Murphy himself, with smiles and apologies, declare to the disappointed Cornish housewives that never a candle had he seen
