“Well, Vennie me beety, theere’s death and worse nor death in thet theere cottage, and et’s shook me tar’ble, but our night’s work must be got through somehow or theer’ll be no spoart to-day. With this wind a fox es moast sure to make for Zonnor Cliffs.
“Come, me dear, ’tes cold up heere, two mile waan’t see us to cliff, and thee must furst run through the radgell on the Little Galver.”
So, taking up the lantern, he went to the clitter of rocks and sent the bitch in. He could follow her by the patter of her feet as she ran through the cavernous hollows. On coming out at the far end of the rocks she awaited her master and, when he came up, took her place at his heels. Before leaving the high ground the Earthstopper stood listening for a few moments with his face towards Madron, whither Jago had ridden to summon the doctor. Hearing nothing, he made his way down the slope of the cairn to the rugged waste that stretches away to the Northern coast.
Their work was now done till they reached the cliffs. He seldom spoke to his dog in going from one earth to another, and to-night he had enough to think about.
Thirty years of wandering under the stars had matured the philosopher within him.
“Mine’s a wisht kind of a life, mine es; but so long as health and strength do laast ’tes grand to traapse the moors and circumvent the varmints. I know evra inch o’ thes eere country, evra patch o’ fuzze, and evra pile o’ rocks, and the stars be moore to me nor to moast folks. The eearth es beetiful, ’tes a pity to laave et, and when we do wheere do we go to? The ways o’ the birds, the enstincts of evra wild crittur, the min’rals I’ve blasted in the bal under the saa, the dimants up theere, tell me plain enuf theere’s a Maister-hand behind et all. All of ee say theere’s a God, but why are ee quiate as the grave about the Better Land?”
The distant stars glittered in the silent vault, the wind was heedless as the moor it swept, and there was no answer in the far-off mystic murmur of the sea.
His sinewy strides soon brought him to the edge of the cliff. Two hundred feet below, the Atlantic lashed the rocks and raged in the caverns.
“Well, auld Ocean, I can hear ee ef I caan’t see ee. Hope theest heaved up no dead thes tide. Lor’, how the gools do scraame, to be sure! but ’tes moosic and ’tes company to thet scraach on the moor”; and he shuddered at the thought. Half trusting to the tussocks of coarse grass but with muscles all alert he clambered down the steep zigzag his own feet had traced, towards the adit of Wheal Stanny situate near the line of the foam. Shrinking from the seething waters below he crept along a narrow ledge and with scanty foothold reached the mouth of the adit, where he brushed the sweat and salt spray from his face.