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 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.