They reached the outer edge of the farm at length, and David paused in the shadow of a tree.
"Come here, my boy," he said. And Ralph went and stood by his side. "You see the parlour chimney?" David questioned.
"Well, now draw a straight line from this tree to the parlour chimney, and what do you strike?"
"Well, nothing except a gatepost over there in Stone Close."
"That's just it. It was while I was digging a pit to sink that post in that I struck the back of the lode."
"Very. It intersects the big Helvin lode at that point, and the junction makes for wealth. There'll be a fortune made out of this little farm some day--not out of what grows on the surface, but out of what is dug up from underground."
"And in which direction does the lode run?"
"Due east and west. We are standing on it now, and it passes under the house."
"Then it passes under Peter Ladock's farm also?" Ralph questioned. And he turned and looked over the boundary hedge across their neighbour's farm.
"Ay; but the lode's no use out there," David said.
"Well, you see, 'tisn't mineral-bearing strata, that's all. I dug a pit just where you are standing, and came upon the lode two feet below the surface. But there's no tin in it here scarcely. It's the same lode that the spring comes out of down in the delf, and I've sampled it there. But all along that high ridge where it cuts through the Helvin it's richer than anything I know in this part of the county."
"But the tin might give out as you sink."
"It might, but it would be something unheard of, if it did. If I know anything about mining--and I think I know a bit--that lode will be twenty per cent. richer a hundred fathoms down than it is at the surface."
"Oh, well!" Ralph said, with a sigh, "rich or poor, it can make no difference to us."
"Perhaps not--perhaps not," David said wistfully. "But it may be valuable to somebody some day. I have passed the secret to you. Some day you may pass it on to another. The future is with God," and he drew a long breath, and turned his face toward home, which in a few hours would be his home no more.
Ralph turned his face in another direction.
"I think I will go on to St. Goram," he said, "and see how they are getting on with the cottage. You see we have to move into it to-morrow."