THE LAST
Many others as well as Maggot made
money by the pilchards at that time. All
round the coast of Cornwall millions of these little
fish were taken, salted, and exported. No fewer
than one thousand hogsheads were taken at St. Ives
in the first three seine-nets cast into the sea.
In Mounts Bay, Fowey Bay, Mevagissey, and other fishing
grounds, immense quantities were caught, and the total
catch of the county was little if at all short of
thirty thousand hogsheads.
Among others, old Mr Donnithorne was
so successful that his broken fortunes were almost
re-established; and a small sum which our friend Oliver
Trembath had ventured to invest in the fishing was
more than quadrupled before the end of the year.
But this was not all. At the
next Botallack account-dinner, Mr Cornish gladdened
the hearts of the adventurers by telling them that
the lodes which had been “promising” for
such a length of time had at last got the length of
“performance,” and that he had now the
pleasure of announcing a large dividend, which he
paid there and then.
A considerable share of this fell
to old Mr Donnithorne, who, in the enthusiasm of the
occasion, observed confidentially to Captain Dan that
he was convinced “honesty was the best policy
after all” a sentiment which the
captain heartily agreed with, although he failed to
detect the precise connection between it and the old
gentleman’s sudden influx of good fortune.
But, then, the captain did not drink Botallack punch,
while old Mr Donnithorne did, which may to some extent
account for the difference in their powers of vision.
Captain Dan, however, possessed wonderful
powers of vision in reference to the underground workings
of Botallack, which were displayed to advantage and
to the great gratification of the shareholders when,
at the request of Mr Cornish, he stood up and gave
a detailed and graphic account of the prospects of
the mine; telling them that the appearance of the
lodes in several parts of the mine was very promising
indeed, and that some ground was returning a rich
harvest for the labour that had been bestowed on it;
that in the 105, which was driving north by six men,
they had taken down the copper for fourteen fathoms
long, nearly the whole of which had turned out to
be worth 100 pounds per fathom; that a splice had
been formed in the lode about two fathoms behind the
present end, which had disordered it, but he was glad
to say it was again improving, and was at that time
about fifteen inches wide of rich copper, and, as
far as he could judge, they were going through to the
top part of the “bunch” of copper; that
these facts, he thought, were very satisfactory, but
that it was still more gratifying to know that the
lode on the bottom of the 105 was far more valuable
than that in the back; that in the “Crowns,”
especially in the various levels under the sea, the
lodes were not only “promising,” but performing
great things, two men and a boy (he referred to Maggot,
Trevarrow, and Zackey here) having broken an immense
quantity of copper during the last quarter, which
was paying splendidly.
At this point, Mr Grenfell, who sat
on Mr Cornish’s right hand, exclaimed, “Hear!
hear!” and a little bald-headed man, with a red
nose and blue spectacles, near the foot of the table,
echoed “Hear!” with genuine enthusiasm
(for he had been bordering on bankruptcy for some
months past), and swigged off a full glass of punch
without winking.
Thus encouraged, Captain Dan went
on to remark that there were six men driving in Wheal
Hazzard (which statement caused a “stranger”
who chanced to be at the dinner to observe, in an
undertone, that he was not aware they had horses or
vehicles of any kind in the mines!), that one cross-cut
was also being driven, and three winzes were sinking,
and one rise several of which were opening
up tin of first-rate quality, while in the Narrow
shaft, Chicornish, Higher Mine, and Wheal Cock, a great
deal to the same effect was being done all
of which we leave to the imagination of the reader,
merely remarking that however incomprehensible these
things may appear to him (or her), they created feelings
of profound joy in the assembled guests, especially
in the breast of the almost bankrupt one with the
bald, red, and blue headpiece.
Mr Cornish afterwards congratulated
the adventurers on the success of the mine, and the
splendid prospects which were opening up to them
prospects which, he had no doubt, would be fully realised
ere long. He referred also to the condition
of the miners of the neighbourhood, and alluded to
the fact that the neighbouring mines, Wheal Owles and
Levant, were also in a flourishing condition; a matter,
he said, for which they had reason to be profoundly
thankful, for the distress in the district had been
severe and prolonged. The manager’s voice
deepened at this point, and he spoke with pathos,
for he had a kindly heart, and his thoughts were at
the moment with many a poor miner, in whose little
cottages the effects of gaunt poverty could be traced
in scanty furniture, meagre fare, and careworn brows.
He remembered, too, that only the week before he
had seen poor blind John Batten carried to his grave,
and had heard the sobs of the bereaved widow, as she
attempted to tell him how the brave man had forgotten
himself to the very last, when he put his wasted hand
on her head, and said, “I’m goin’
to leave thee, Mary, for a time; but cheer up, dear
lass, I’ll be with Jesus soon, an’ have
my sight restored, and look wance more ’pon the
faces of the dear boys, an’ ’pon your
own sweet face too, dear lass, when we meet again in
heaven.”
There was one of the miners and shareholders
of Botallack who did not die, but who lived to enjoy
the fruit of his labour and the sunshine of prosperity.
James Penrose recovered not only his health,
but also, in some degree, his sight. One of
his eyes had indeed been entirely destroyed by the
explosion which had so nearly killed him, but the other
was partially restored. A long period elapsed,
however, ere he was able to go about. Then he
found his circumstances so much improved that it was
not necessary to resume work underground. Botallack,
in which all his savings had been invested, continued
steadily to improve, and from the income derived from
this source alone he was enabled to live without labouring.
But Penrose was not the man to sit down in idleness.
Wesley never had a more earnest follower than this
miner of St. Just. Thenceforth he devoted himself
to preaching, teaching, and doing good as his hand
found opportunity, and, being an active man as well
as conscientious, he laboured to the end of his days
in the service of his Lord more energetically than
he had ever toiled in the mines.
Penrose and David Trevarrow had always
been staunch friends. After the accident to
the former, they became more closely united than before.
Trevarrow did not give up underground work; he possessed
no shares in any of the mines, but, in common with
the rest of the mining community, he benefited by
the sunshine of prosperity that became so bright at
that period, and found leisure, when above ground,
to join his friend in his labours of love.
They both agreed to make an earnest
effort to convince Maggot and John Cock of the error
of their ways with what amount of success
it is not easy to state, for these worthies were made
of stubborn metal, that required a furnace of unusually
fierce heat to melt it. However, we are warranted
in concluding that some good was done, from the fact
that both of them gave up smuggling, and, in various
other ways, showed indication of an improved state
of mind. Maggot especially gave a signal and
unexpected proof of a softened spirit, when, one Sunday
morning, as he was getting ready for chapel, he said
to his wife that it was “high time to send that
little chucklehead the baby to Sunday school, for he
was no better than a small heathen!” The “baby,”
be it observed, was about six years old at the time
when this speech was made, and his protege the
“chet” was a great-grandmother, with innumerable
chets of her own. It is right to add that, in
accordance with this opinion of his father, the baby
was carried off to school that very morning by Zackey
and Grace, the first having grown to be a strapping
youth, and the other a lovely girl, for whose sake
there were scores of young miners in St. Just who
would gladly have walked ten miles on their bare knees,
or dived head foremost into Wheal Hazzard shaft, or
jumped over the cliffs into Zawn Buzzangein, or done
any other insane act or desperate deed, if, by so
doing, they could have caused one thrill of pleasure
to pass through her dear little heart!
It is not necessary, we should think,
to say that in the midst of so much sunshine Oliver
Trembath and Rose Ellis thought it advisable to “make
hay.” Old Mr Donnithorne and his excellent
wife (of whose goodness and wisdom, by the way, he
became more and more convinced every day of his life)
saw no objection whatever to this hay-making so
the young couple were wed at the Wesleyan Chapel of
St. Just Charlie Tregarthen, of course,
being groomsman and the only vehicle in
the town was hired to drive them over to Penberth
Cove and bliss!
As to George Augustus Clearemout,
Esquire that able managing director, despite
his ducking at St. Just, continued to fill his chair
and to fulfil his destiny in the airy little street
in London, where, for many years, he represented Wheal
Dooem, and “did” a too confiding public.
In this work he was ably assisted by Secretary Jack
Muddle, who became quite celebrated as a clear expounder
and explainer of veins, lodes, ores, cross-cuts, shafts,
levels, winzes, minerals, metals, and mines
insomuch that he was regarded by many of the confiding
public who frequented his office as a more thoroughly
learned and scientific man than George Augustus himself.
It is interesting, how ever, to have to record the
curious fact that the too confiding public changed
their opinion at last on this head, and came to regard
Secretary Jack as a humbug, and the managing director
as a scoundrel. Unfortunately this change of
opinion did not take place until the whole of the too
confiding public (the T.C.P., as Clearemout styled
them) had lost large sums of money, and a few of them
become bankrupt. When affairs had reached this
crisis, one of the T.C.P. an irascible old
gentleman, whose fiery nature seemed to have singed
all the hair off his head, leaving it completely bald went
down to Cornwall in a passion to sift the thing for
himself. There he found the Great Wheal Dooem
pump-engine going full swing, day and night, under
the superintendence of one man, while the vast works
underground (on which depended the “enormous”
dividends promised to and expected by the T.C.P.) were
carried on by another man and a boy. On making
this discovery the fiery old gentleman with the denuded
head left Cornwall still in a passion and
exploded in the face of a meeting of the members of
the T.C.P., who immediately exploded in each other’s
faces, and appointed an indignation committee to go
and explode, with unexampled fury, in the faces of
the managing director and Secretary Jack. But
these knowing gentlemen, being aware that the explosion
was coming, had wisely betaken themselves to the retirement
and seclusion of the Continent.
Without troubling the reader with
further particulars, we may say, in conclusion, that
the result was the stoppage of Wheal Dooem mining
operations, and the summary dismissal of the two men
and the boy. At the present day the ruins of
that great concern may be seen standing on the wild
sea-cliffs of west Cornwall, solitary, gaunt, and grey,
with the iron “bob” of the pump-engine
motionless and pointing up obliquely to the sky, as
if the giant arm of the mine were upraised to protest
for ever against the villainy and the too confiding
folly that had left it standing there a
monument of wasted and misdirected energy a
caution to all speculators a deserted mine in
the language of miners, a “knacked bal.”
There are many such “knacked
bals” in Cornwall, with their iron “bobs”
horizontal, depressed, or raised aloft, according to
the attitude in which they expired holding
forth similar firm, silent, and perpetual protests
and cautions. Many Wheal Dooems (which having
accomplished their ends may now be termed Wheal Donems)
are to be seen all over the country on gorse-clad
hills and on bold headlands; but, alongside of these,
may be seen their venerable ancestors, still alive
and working; subject, indeed, at times, to fits of
depression, when, as their indomitable and unconquerable
managers will tell you, “the price of tin is
low,” and subject also to seasons of revival,
when they are getting a “little better price
for tin,” but still working on with untiring
persistency whether the price of tin be high or low.
Chief among these, our chosen type,
Botallack, may be seen bristling on the grey cliffs
of the “far west” with the Atlantic winds
and spray revelling amongst its machinery, and the
thunder of its stamps giving constant token that hundreds
of stout-hearted, strong-limbed Cornishmen are still
hewing out tin and copper from its gloomy depths, as
they did in days gone by, and as they will, doubtless,
continue to do in time to come steadily,
sternly, manfully doing their work of sinking and
extending the mine deeper down under the sod and further
out under the sea.