"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 glean any information there about the illegal sale of copper, and if it was known who had the handling of it.
The manager of the shipping-office was interested and sympathetic, but hardly helpful. He admitted that he had heard of an underground market in the county and that there were always unscrupulous agents who were prepared to handle the stuff and have it shipped across the water to the smelting companies, but who the agents were, and what shipping firms were concerned, he was not prepared to say.
John Brodrick left the shipping-office in a spirit of grim determination. Matters were even worse than he had expected. He had been away exactly three months, and in that space of time a system of plunder had developed that bade fair to put an end to the mining business altogether. He blamed Captain Nicholson for not having made him aware sooner of what was going on, and Ned Brodrick too.
The latter was awaiting them in Mundy, and on seeing the expression on his employer's face, at once sought to justify himself for not having written.
"I would have taken ship and come over to you at Bronsea," he persisted, "but that Captain Nicholson was so persistent that he could deal with the matter himself. And to tell you the truth, sir, I have been so hard put to it with the business of the estate that I felt I must leave the concerns of the mine to him."
John Brodrick said nothing. He guessed that the truth of the matter was that his brother had passed the three months of his employer's absence in idleness, sitting about in his mother's cottage at Oakmount with his feet in the fireplace, and when the weather was fine enough shooting the woodcock on Doon Island, or courting one of the numerous widows in the neighbourhood, who apparently found his lean form and cadaverous appearance not wanting in attraction.
The carriage covered the distance from Mundy to Doonhaven in half the time it had taken a few years back, for the new road had been completed at last, chiefly owing to John Brodrick's influence with the member of Parliament, "The only injury it can receive," he observed to Jane, who was leaning from the window of the carriage, "is from the banks that support the road giving way, but I see no prospect of that ever happening. I wonder if Simon Flower has won his bet, and has travelled the distance in two hours, as he boasted he would. Here we are at the mine. You had better drive on to Clonmere with Martha, Jane, and send the carriage back for Ned and myself."