The man in soft felt hat, and brown canvas bag slung across his side, with wicked-looking little hammer-head peeping out, is a common object. Specimens enough have been taken out of the county to metal a turnpike road, and yet the scientific stone-man comes and tumbles over the refuse-heaps once again, and chips little bits on his own account, and carries them off. To find sermons in stones is his reward, and there are sermons enough, in all conscience, in a county which is mostly stone, or something harder. When a man of science in a soft felt hat is missing, the first idea is that he's fallen down an old mine shaft, and that his stone treasures have taken him safely to the bottom, a hundred fathoms or so under water. It is well to beware of one's steps, and not to take short cuts in the dark across moors and downs which are honeycombed.

We were told we might amuse ourselves by turning over the rubbish-heaps, and, for reward, pick up a few specimens of ore,—no one would interfere with us; and we might wander at will in and about the ruins of square towers and "count-houses," which people fancy, at first sight, are baronial castles in ruins. They are ruins, right enough, and the money sunk in the engine shafts would have built castles and pyramids. These ruins look best at a distance, with big bundles of broom shivering and rotting in sunshine and storm. There is something weird and uncanny about the look of these ruins, with broom-bundles, like black things of misfortune, hung about them. The Bookworm said that broom was a sign or symbol of bad luck. We didn't find fortunes in turning over stones on rubble-heaps, and only secured a few tin and mundic and copper specimens of no value to the owner. Guy said they would look swagger when labelled, "Tin found on Scatmoor, Cornwall." The beginnings of a museum were in his pockets, he said, when they began to bulge out.

There were some small houses scattered about, and every house was in a garden. None were empty; but as all the mines around were idle, we began to wonder what the population lived on. There must be work somewhere, but a long way off, we thought; so far, indeed, that the men would tire morning and night when going and coming. The houses were low, two-storied dwellings, built of moor-stone, and roofed with thick turves kept in place by flat, heavy stones. The people we saw were mostly aged, or women with young children.

We came across an old fellow sitting on a big stone, blinking with watery eyes at an old ruined mine engine-house. He made us welcome, and offered us the whole of the stone he was sitting on; but we squatted on the turf, and let the green lizards run over us—we said we liked it like that. Very soon we were interested in the old boy, who told us he was Jim Tregedga, the son of Jim Tregedga before him, and he cited Tregedgas sufficient to reach back to the days of the Deluge. The house he lived in he built himself "out of coor," that is to say, in spare time, and he fenced in the bit of garden, ditto. It was moor land, and no one said him nay, so he took what he wanted, and the rest did the same. All the houses were built like that, and every man his own landlord. All the mines around were working then, and at every shift hundreds of young men poured out of these stone hives and went to work underground or upon "grass." And all the maidens rose early and went to work upon the dressing-floors, singing like thrushes. The mine was the soul of the moor, and the pumps and stamps its music. The young men now are spread over South Africa and Australia, South America and the regions of Klondike; and the old people and young wives and children were left at home, dependent for daily bread upon the love of kindred whom they might never see again.

Things were so different in the old days, when Cousin Jack was full of money, and spent it like a king, and then went to work again with a good heart, and always ready to kiss the maidens, or "wrassle" and break a head on paydays. In fact, Cousin Jack wouldn't go home without a fight, unless he was poorly. This old man knew the names of all the mines round about, and their histories; when they "cut rich," and when they "cut out" and were shut down, and the broom hoisted to tell all the world that another bal had gone wrong.

Every mine had its own particular spirit, or family of spirits, called "nuggies." Every household was brought up in a firm faith in nuggies, and the good or bad fortune of a mine depended on the temper of the nuggies. Men working on "tribute" were very careful not to offend the spirits of the mine, and they had to be careful, or they would earn little, and were sometimes lucky to reach grass alive. These spirits had underground workshops, wherein they worked upon silver anvils, and the walls sparkled with crystals of pure tin and virgin silver. These workshops were called "parlours," and, as they were not always willing to be disturbed, they misled the miners, making them believe that the tinkling upon the silver anvils was in the very opposite direction:—such was their power. Or they would cease working altogether, and then the men would become disheartened, and say the nuggies had forsook the bal, and she might as well be "knacked" at once, for all the profit she would yield. But the nuggies were good to poor tributers sometimes, after they had been working for weeks and months on starvation wages. Months and months of work and no sound through the gloomy corridors but the tap, tap, of the steel-edged tools, and the fall of rock, barren and unprofitable; and then, all at once, the music on the silver anvils, and falling water, indicating the presence of the precious lode. If a man worked underground he was bound to believe in nuggies; and if he did not believe, and said so, then he was sure to be punished, for the nuggies had a way of leading men into trouble. A favourite way was to hide danger from a man until he was on the brink of it, and then, if stubborn and would not take warning, they'd let him fall over a precipice, or down an old shaft, and be heard of no more in the land of the living. What they gave, they gave freely, and took no toll—they wanted none, all the minerals in the universe belonging to the nuggie family; only they would have men civil, and civility brought rich rewards.

The talk was rambling, and Guy put many questions. Had deponent ever seen a nuggie? Well, he believed he had. He was working on Wheal Rose, first coor by night, and he saw a flash at the end of the stope, and Jan Trebilcock slapped his hand over his (deponent's) mouth so that he shouldn't screech. That was a nuggie going into his parlour, and Jan Trebilcock followed the lead and came upon a lode as rich as King Solomon's mines whilst it lasted. And he'd heard old men say——

But Guy wouldn't have hearsay. Then deponent said he had heard the tinkling upon silver anvils, and beautiful it was, like the melody of church bells on a summer eve. The nuggies always took their anvils with them when they gave up possession of a workshop—they were wanted elsewhere.

"Provoking," said Guy. "Whenever we get very near to something it vanishes in this land of piskies and fairies and other enchantments."

A little lizard crawling over Guy turned brilliant colours, which, the old miner observing, said there was a "thunder planet" passing, and wished us to come into his cottage. We had wandered five miles, but thought we could return before the storm burst, in which, however, we were mistaken, for we had hardly trotted a couple of miles when it burst with sub-tropical fury. Had it been night, the sight would have been splendid; but we had to dart for cover into a man's house, like three drowned rats. There was no ceremony about our entrance, and none was wanted. An old man and woman were the only occupants, and they made us welcome, but our clothes stuck to us. We drank some hot tea and ate the remains of our pasties to the accompaniment of celestial artillery, which put to shame the battle of Mukden. Still it poured, and the cottage trembled sometimes when the thunder was loudest. The two old people were quite tranquil, and the only apparent trouble they had in the world was our wet clothes. The little rivulets which ran from us were dried up, but might be traced on the stone floor, making zigzag courses towards the door.

Then came the old man's hour for reading a Psalm, and he opened the "big book" without any apparent thought of strangers being present.

"'Th' Loard es ma sheper; I shall not waant'—no fath, I shaant.

"'He maaketh me to lie down en green pastures'—ez, that 'e do, th' precious dear."

And so, until he finished, and shut the book. "Now we will zay a few words, for th' dear Loard is with us;" and without more to do, he went down upon his knees and spread out his hands, and his face shone. If there was a soul in happiness in the universe, it was this one; and he did not forget the strangers under his roof. "Ef'm be out in th' wilderness, Loard, guide'm like a good sheper; and ef'm be cauld, warm 'em en Thy buzum, and turn 'em out to lie down en green pastures."

The rain stopped suddenly, and the thunder grew more distant, and the lightning less vivid, and when we were once more upon the downs a strange feeling crept over us.

"I never thought I should have found myself kneeling in a miner's hut, saying my prayers," said Guy. "This would just have suited Softie Smith, who's in Orders now—going to be a bishop, or something. At school, Softie was always longer at his devotions than the rest, and we used to shy things at him to remind him that the dormitory was waiting. Sometimes the boys made extra good shots at Softie and got him waxy; and one night he suddenly rose from his knees, shouting, 'Amen-who-shied-that-boot?' It was a shout, by Jove! and the captain on his rounds heard it; but we were little angels when he came to us, and Softie got a wigging for making a row. After that we dropped the 'Softie,' and re-named him 'Amen-who-shied-that-boot?' which will sound splendidly when he's a bishop. 'My lord Amen-who-shied-that-boot, from Lower Egypt, then addressed the meeting,' will look well in the papers. The name'll push him on in the world, and that he'll owe to us."

The Bookworm wouldn't be drawn, and we walked, one on each side of him, until we reached the road, and then kept to it carefully, to avoid tumbling down some old, disused mine shaft. He gave our hands an extra grip before retiring, saying, "I shall never forget."

"I hope the little beggar isn't going to be ill," said Guy. "I don't like a fellow to talk solemnly, and grip your hands, and all that, after he's been wet to the skin."

But no harm came of it.