for three months, and as for soap, why his own wife had been scouring the beach that morning for a bucket of sand to wash down the floor of the shop.
It was the same if they wished to buy eggs, or butter, or even milk from the farms. The chickens would not have laid since Easter, they would have a disease amongst them, and as for the milk, why the sun had turned it sour and it had all been thrown away, not even the pigs would touch the stuff. In fact the unfortunate miners and their families would have starved had not John Brodrick sent one of the ships express to Slane for provisions, and this perforce became a custom, so that the only means of feeding the workers at the mine was by getting provisions once a week from Mundy, for they could get nothing at all in Doonhaven. It spoke highly indeed for Captain Nicholson that he was able to prevent his men returning home.
They became, with the aid of the provision ship, self-supporting, and by planting vegetables and keeping a few chickens, managed to live in not too uncomfortable a fashion. But even so the potato plants would be lifted in the night for no reason, the cabbages would disappear, and the chickens wander, and if questions were asked in Doonhaven or the neighbouring cottages, the answer would be a shaking of the head and a raising of eyes to heaven. John Brodrick would be obliged to send over sacks of potatoes from his own fields, and cabbage plants, and a brood of young chickens to make up for the loss sustained by the miners.
In winter there would be losses of firewood, and no turf to be had, and the miners be forced to go and cut timber or gather the driftwood below Clonmere, on John Brodrick's estate, to keep themselves and their families warm. Ned Brodrick went round among the people, and by a deft mixture of threat and persuasion would inveigle some half-dozen of the younger men to try their hands at the mine, and at last, at the beginning of the second year, they began to wander up, in twos and threes, to ask for employment at Hungry Hill, but even so, the animosity against the mine remained.
No, it had not been easy, thought John Brodrick, and indeed it was a relief sometimes to get away from Clonmere and across the water to Bronsea, and so up to the cheerful, homely farmhouse of Lletharrog that he had bought for his daughters, where they would spend two or three months of the winter now, every year. Henry's dream had been realised, and he had visited Paris, Brussels, and Vienna, while John was still reading for the Bar in Lincoln's Inn.
It was during the autumn of 1825, when the family had been settled in Lletharrog since August, that John Brodrick had a letter from an anonymous correspondent in Doonhaven. The writing was smudged and practically illegible, but the message ran: 'You'd do well to come home if you wish to stop trouble.' The letter was addressed to the shipping-office in Bronsea, and he put it in his pocket and forgot all about it. A week later, when one of his ships, the Henrietta, docked at Bronsea with her shipment of copper, John Brodrick remembered the letter, and as a matter of curiosity showed the message to the master of the vessel. The man looked thoughtful, and did not speak for a moment or two.
'You have not heard from Captain Nicholson, then, Mr. Brodrick?' he said at last.
'No, not since the first of the month, when he writes as a matter of course. Why? Is anything wrong?'
'Maybe he did not wish to cause you anxiety.
There's little to go upon anyway. No, sir, I'm wondering whether the letter you have there refers to the losses they have had lately at the mine.'
'Losses? What losses?'
'I cannot tell you a great deal about it, sir, having only been in Doonhaven for this shipment, and we were loaded and away in four days. But there's stuff being taken into Slane and Mundy and other places along the coast, that doesn't find its way into your vessels, and is not handled by Captain Nicholson or by us.'
'How do you know this?'
'Two or three of Captain Nicholson's own men were speaking of it, sir. The ore is taken up from the mine right enough, but it's when it is above ground that the mischief starts. I understand that Captain Nicholson is to order some system of watching by night, for it is then that the stuff must be taken away, but whether he has done so or not I cannot say.'
'Is the matter discussed at all in Doonhaven?'
'Not directly, sir. But I had the feeling that the people knew about it all the same.'
John Brodrick thanked the master of the Henrietta, and, ordering his carriage, drove back to Lletharrog, resolved to write to Nicholson that evening and demand an immediate explanation. The letter was never posted, for the very next day there arrived a letter from the mining captain himself, written in great haste and obviously in a state of extreme agitation.
'A system of plunder is in progress,' he wrote, 'that, if it continues, will eventually put a stop to our work. Little by little I have noticed losses of material that was stacked above ground, ready for shipment, but two days ago a large consignment disappeared, over which I had stationed a watch, for I had my suspicions that the theft took place after dark. The man in charge-one of my own people, a Cornishman named Collins-was found in the small hours of the morning with a broken head, and is not likely to recover. It seems he was struck from behind, and saw nothing of his assailant. This attack has so intimidated the rest of his fellows that I am having difficulty in getting men to undertake sentry duty at all, and some of them are even talking of packing their things and returning to Cornwall with their families.'
John Brodrick read the letter aloud to his daughters and announced his intention of travelling home to Clonmere immediately.
'I shall send word to London to Henry and John to join me,' he said, 'if they can see their way to do so. I have little doubt who is at the bottom of the trouble.'
'You mean Morty Donovan?' said Barbara, after a moment's hesitation.
'He may not take part in the actual plunder, in fact I think he is too shrewd a man to do so,' replied her father, 'but if he is not the brains behind it I shall be extremely astonished.'
'Who do you suppose wrote the anonymous letter?' asked Eliza.
'I neither know nor care,' said John Brodrick. 'Possibly one of my tenants who is too scared of Morty Donovan to declare himself.
At any rate, the writer of the letter does not matter. What matters is that the men responsible should be tracked and punished, and this I am determined to do, if I risk my own head being broken in consequence.'
His daughters looked at each other in distress.
'I implore you,' said Barbara, 'not to do anything rash. Could you not get assistance from the garrison on the Island?'
'Dear child,' returned her father, 'if I cannot quell one or two of my own country-people who have fallen into mischief without engaging the military to take up the matter for me, I should never be able to hold up my head in Doonhaven again. Your great-grandfather did not ask for help when he put down the smuggling seventy-five years ago.'
'No,' said Jane, 'but he got shot in the back for doing it.'
John Brodrick looked at his youngest daughter with severity.
'I suppose your brother John has been talking to you,' he said.
Jane shook her head, her eyes filling with tears, and suddenly she got up from her chair at the breakfast-table and ran round to her father, putting her arms about him.
'If you go home,' she said, 'please let me come with you. I'm not afraid of the Donovans or anybody, and you will need someone to look after you and see that the house is in order. I'm not a child any longer, I'm nearly fourteen.'
John Brodrick smiled at her, and patted her cheek.
'D'y think Copper John cannot take care of himself?' he said. 'Don't look embarrassed, Eliza, at your end of the table. I know very well what I am called in Doonhaven. So, Jane child, you would look after me, and see that those lazy servants have the water heated, and the dinner served on clean plates, and the linen on my bed not wringing wet?
Well, you must ask Barbara her opinion; it is not within my province. But whatever is decided, I leave here tomorrow for Bronsea in order to embark in the ship that sails for Slane in the evening.'
A letter was dispatched to London informing Henry and John of their father's return to Doonhaven, and asking them to join him at Clonmere if they could conveniently do so, and the following day John Brodrick and Jane, accompanied by old Martha, embarked on board the steam-packet that plied regularly between Bronsea and Slane. John Brodrick took the opportunity while in Slane, where they were obliged to put up for the night, to see if he could
