EXHIBITS THE MANAGING DIRECTOR AND
THE SECRETARY OF WHEAL DOOEM IN CONFIDENTIAL CIRCUMSTANCES,
AND INTRODUCES THE SUBJECT OF “LOCALS.”
About this time that energetic promoter
of mining operations, Mr George Augustus Clearemout,
found it necessary to revisit Cornwall.
He was seated in an easy-chair in
a snug little back-office, or board-room, in one of
the airiest little streets of the City of London,
when this necessity became apparent to him. Mr
Clearemout did not appear to have much to do at that
particular time, for he contented himself with tapping
the arm of his easy-chair with the knuckles of his
right hand, while he twirled his gold watch-key with
his left, and smiled occasionally.
To judge from appearances it seemed
that things in general were prospering with George
Augustus. Everything about him was new, and,
we might almost say, gorgeous. His coat and
vest and pantaloons had a look and a cut about them
that told of an extremely fashionable tailor, and a
correspondingly fashionable price. His rings,
of which he wore several, were massive, one of them
being a diamond ring of considerable value. His
boots were faultlessly made, quite new, and polished
so highly that it dazzled one to look at them, while
his linen, of which he displayed a large quantity
on the breast, was as white as snow not
London snow, of course! Altogether Mr G.A.
Clearemout was a most imposing personage.
“Come in,” he said, in
a voice that sounded like the deep soft whisper of
a trombone.
The individual who had occasioned
the command by tapping at the door, opened it just
enough to admit his head, which he thrust into the
room. It was a shaggy red head belonging to a
lad of apparently eighteen; its chief characteristics
being a prolonged nose and a retracted chin, with
a gash for a mouth, and two blue holes for eyes.
“Please, sir, Mr Muddle,” said the youth.
“Admit Mr Muddle.”
The head disappeared, and immediately
after a gentleman sauntered into the room, and flung
himself lazily into the empty armchair which stood
at the fireplace vis-a-vis to the one in which
Mr Clearemout sat, explaining that he would not have
been so ceremonious had he not fancied that his friend
was engaged with some one on business.
“How are you, Jack?” said George Augustus.
“Pretty bobbish,” replied
Jack. (He was the same Jack whom we have already
introduced as being Mr Clearemout’s friend and
kindred spirit.)
“Any news?” inquired Mr Clearemout.
“No, nothing moving,” said Jack languidly.
“H’m, I see it is time
to stir now, Jack, for the wheel of fortune is apt
to get stiff and creaky if we don’t grease her
now and then and give her a jog. Here is a little
pot of grease which I have been concocting and intend
to lay on immediately.”
He took a slip of paper from a large
pocket-book which lay at his elbow on the new green
cloth-covered table, and handed it to his friend, who
slowly opened and read it in a slovenly way, mumbling
the most of it as he went on:
“`WHEAL DOOEM, in St. Just,
Cornwall mumble m m in
10,000 shares. An old mine, m m every
reason to believe m m splendid
lodes visible from m m.
Depth of Adit fifty fathoms m depth
below Adit ninety fathoms. Pumps, whims, engines,
etcetera, in good working order m
little expense Landowners, Messrs. m Manager
at the Mine, Captain Trembleforem m thirteen
men, four females, and two boys m water
wheels stamps m Managing
Director, George Augustus Clearemout, Esquire, 99
New Gull Street, London m Secretary,
John Muddle, Esquire ahem ’”
“But, I say, it won’t
do to publish anything of this sort just yet, you
know,” said Secretary Jack in a remonstrative
tone, “for there’s nothing doing at all,
I believe.”
“I beg your pardon,” replied
the managing director, “there is a good deal
doing. I have written to St. Just appointing
the local manager, and it is probable that things
are really under way by this time; besides, I shall
set out for Cornwall to-morrow to superintend matters,
leaving my able secretary in charge here in the meantime,
and when he hears from me this paper may be completed
and advertised.”
“I say, it looks awful real-like,
don’t it?” said Jack, with a grin.
“Only fancy if it should turn out to be a good
mine after all what a lark that
would be! and it might, you know, for it was
a real one once, wasn’t it? And if you
set a few fellows to sink the what-d’ye-call-’ems
and drive the thingumbobs, it is possible they may
come upon tin and copper, or something of that sort wouldn’t
it be jolly?”
“Of course it would, and that
is the very thing that gives zest to it. It’s
a speculation, not a swindle by any means, and admirably
suits our easy consciences. But, I say, Jack,
you must break yourself off talking slang.
It will never do to have the secretary of the Great
Wheal Dooem Mining Company talk like a street boy.
Besides, I hate slang even in a blackguard not
to mention a black-leg so you must give
it up, Jack, you really must, else you’ll ruin
the concern at the very beginning.”
Secretary Jack started into animation at this.
“Why, George,” he said,
drawing himself up, “I can throw it off when
I please. Look here suppose yourself
an inquiring speculator ahem! I assure
you, sir, that the prospects of this mine are most
brilliant, and the discoveries that have been made
in it since we commenced operations are incredible absolutely
incredible, sir. Some of the lodes (that’s
the word, isn’t it?) are immensely rich, and
upwards of a hundred feet thick, while the part that
runs under the sea, or is to run under the
sea, at a depth of three thousand fathoms, is probably
as rich in copper ore as the celebrated Botallack,
whose majestic headland, bristling with machinery,
overhangs the raging billows of the wide Atlantic,
etcetera, etcetera. O George, it’s a great
lark entirely!”
“You’ll have to learn
your lesson a little better, else you’ll make
a great mess of it,” said Clearemout.
“A muddle of it according
to my name and destiny, George,” said the secretary;
“a muddle of it, and a fortune by it.”
Here the secretary threw himself back
in the easy-chair, and grinned at the opposite wall,
where his eye fell on a large picture, which changed
the grin into a stare of surprise.
“What have we here, George,”
he said, rising, and fitting a gold glass in his eye “not
a portrait of Wheal Dooem, is it?”
“You have guessed right,”
replied the other. “I made a few sketches
on the spot, and got a celebrated artist to put them
together, which he has done, you see, with considerable
effect. Here, in the foreground, you observe,”
continued the managing director, taking up a new white
pointer, “stands Wheal Dooem, on a prominent
crag overlooking the Atlantic, with Gurnard’s
Head just beyond. Farther over, we have the
celebrated Levant Mine, and the famous Botallack, and
the great Wheal Owles, and a crowd of other more or
less noted mines, with Cape Cornwall, and the Land’s
End, and Tolpedenpenwith in the middle-distance, and
the celebrated Logan Rock behind them, while we have
Mounts Bay, with the beautiful town of Penzance, and
St. Michael’s Mount, and the Lizard in the background,
with France in the remote distance.”
“Dear, dear me! quite
a geographical study, I declare,” exclaimed
Secretary Jack, examining the painting with some care.
“Can you really see all these places at once
from Wheal Dooem?”
“Not exactly from Wheal Dooem,
Jack, but if you were to go up in a balloon a few
hundred yards above the spot where it stands, you might
see ’em all on a very clear day, if your eyes
were good. The fact is, that I regard this picture
as a triumph of art, exhibiting powerfully what is
by artists termed `bringing together’ and great
`breadth,’ united with exceedingly minute detail.
The colouring too, is high very high indeed,
and the chiaroscuro is perfect ”
“Ha!” interposed Jack,
“all the chiar being on the surface, and
the oscuro down in the mine, eh?”
“Exactly so,” replied
Clearemout. “It is a splendid picture.
The artist regards it as his chef d’oeuvre,
and you must explain it to all who come to the office,
as well as those magnificent geological sections rolled-up
in the corner, which it would be well, by the way,
to have hung up without delay. They arrived
only this morning. And now, Jack, having explained
these matters, I will leave you, to study them at
your leisure, while I prepare for my journey to Cornwall,
where, by the way, I have my eye upon a sweet little
girl, whose uncle, I believe, has lots of tin, both
in the real and figurative sense of the word.
Something may come of it who knows?”
Next morning saw the managing director
on the road, and in due time he found his way by coach,
kittereen, and gig to St. Just, where, as before,
he was hospitably received by old Mr Donnithorne.
That gentleman’s buoyancy of
spirit, however, was not quite so great as it had
been a few months before, but that did not much affect
the spirits of Clearemout, who found good Mrs Donnithorne
as motherly, and Rose Ellis as sweet, as ever.
It happened at this time that Oliver
Trembath had occasion to go to London about some matter
relating to his deceased mother’s affairs, so
the managing director had the field all to himself.
He therefore spent his time agreeably in looking
after the affairs of Wheal Dooem during the day, and
making love to Rose Ellis in the evening.
Poor Rose was by no means a flirt,
but she was an innocent, straightforward girl, ignorant
of many of the world’s ways, and of a trusting
disposition. She found the conversation of Mr
Clearemout agreeable, and did not attempt to conceal
the fact. Mr Clearemout’s vanity induced
him to set this down to a tender feeling, although
Rose never consciously gave him, by word or look,
the slightest reason to come to such a conclusion.
One forenoon Mr Clearemout was sitting
in Mr Donnithorne’s dining-room conversing with
Rose and Mrs Donnithorne, when the old gentleman entered
and sat down beside them.
“I had almost forgotten the
original object of my visit this morning,” said
the managing director, with a smile, and a glance at
Rose; “the fact is that I am in want of a man
to work at Wheal Dooem, a steady, trustworthy man,
who would be fit to take charge become a
sort of overseer; can you recommend one?”
Mr Donnithorne paused for a moment
to reflect, but Mrs Donnithorne deeming reflection
quite unnecessary, at once replied, “Why,
there are many such men in St. Just. There’s
John Cock, as good a man as you could find in all
the parish, and David Trevarrow, and James Penrose
he’s a first-rate man; You remember him, my dear?”
(turning to her worse half) “one
of our locals, you know.”
“Yes, my dear, I remember him
perfectly. You could not, Mr Clearemout,
get a better man, I should say.”
“I think you observed, madam,”
said Mr Clearemout, “that this man is a `local.’
Pray, what is a local?”
Rose gave one of her little laughs
at this point, and her worthy aunt exclaimed, “La!
Mr Clearemout, don’t you know what a local preacher
is?”
“Oh! a preacher?
Connected with the Methodist body, I presume?”
“Yes, and a first-rate man, I assure you.”
“But,” said Mr Clearemout,
with a smile, “I want a miner, not a preacher.”
“Well, he is a miner, and a good one too ”
“Allow me to explain,
my dear,” said Mr Donnithorne, interrupting his
spouse. “You may not be aware, sir, that
many of our miners are men of considerable mental
ability, and some of them possess such power of speech,
and so earnest a spirit, that the Wesleyan body have
appointed them to the office of local preaching.
They do not become ministers, however, nor are they
liable to be sent out of the district like them.
They don’t give up their ordinary calling, but
are appointed to preach in the various chapels of
the district in which they reside, and thus we accomplish
an amount of work which could not possibly be overtaken
by the ordinary ministry.”
“Indeed! but are they not untrained
men, liable to teach erroneous doctrine?” asked
Mr Clearemout.
“They are not altogether untrained
men,” replied Mr Donnithorne. “They
are subjected to a searching examination, and must
give full proof of their Christianity, knowledge,
and ability before being appointed.”
“And good, excellent Christian
men many of them are,” observed Mrs Donnithorne,
with much fervour.
“Quite true,” said her
husband. “This James Penrose is one of
our best local preachers, and sometimes officiates
in our principal chapel. I confess, however,
that those who have the management of this matter are
not always very judicious in their appointments.
Some of our young men are sorely tempted to show
off their acquirements, and preach themselves
instead of the gospel, and there are one or two whom
I could mention whose hearts are all right, but whose
brains are so muddled and empty that they are utterly
unfit to teach their fellows. We must not, however,
look for perfection in this world, Mr Clearemout.
A little chaff will always remain among the wheat.
There is no system without some imperfection, and
I am convinced that upon the whole our system of appointing
local preachers is a first-rate one. At all events
it works well, which is one of the best proofs of its
excellence.”
“Perhaps so,” said Mr
Clearemout, with the air of a man who did not choose
to express an opinion on the subject; “nevertheless
I had rather have a man who was not a local
preacher.”
“You can see and hear him, and
judge for yourself,” said Mr Donnithorne; “for
he is, I believe, to preach in our chapel to-morrow,
and if you will accept of a seat in our pew it will
afford my wife and myself much ”
“Thank you,” interrupted
Mr Clearemout; “I shall be very glad to take
advantage of your kind offer. Service, you say,
begins at ”
“Ten precisely,” said Mr Donnithorne.