The cause of his unrest on this occasion was the threat Lord Lamerton had uttered of closing the manganese mine. This mine had its adit, crushing mill and washing floors at but a short distance from the great house. About fifteen years previous, a mine had been worked on the estate that yielded so richly, that with the profits, Lord Lamerton had been able to clear off some mortgages. That lode was worked out. It had been altogether an extraordinary one, bunching, as it is termed, into a great mass of solid manganese, but this bunch, when worked out, ended without a trace of continuance. Then, as Lord Lamerton was assured, another came to the surface in the hill behind the mansion, and as he was in want of money, he reluctantly permitted the mine to be opened within a rifle shot of his house. The workings were out of sight, hidden by a plantation, and manganese mines make no great heaps of unsightly deposit; nevertheless, the mine was inconveniently near the place. It did not yield as it had promised, or as the experts had pretended it promised, and Lord Lamerton had lost all hope of making money by it. The vein was followed, but it never “bunched.” Foreign competition affected the market, English manganese was under-sold, and Wheal Perseverance, as the mine was called, did not pay for the “working.” Lord Lamerton annually lost money on it. Then he was informed that the lode ran under Orleigh gardens, and promised freely to “bunch” under the mansion. That is to say, he was asked to allow his house to be undermined. This decided his lordship, and he announced that the mine must be abandoned. Bunch or no bunch, he was not going to have his old place tunnelled under and brought about his ears, on the chance—the chimerical chance—of a few thousand pounds’ worth of metal being extracted from the rock on which it stood. To Lord Lamerton his determination seemed right and reasonable. The land was his. The royalties were his; the house was his. Every man may do what he will with his own. If he has a penny in his pocket, he is at liberty to spend or to hoard it as he deems best. But this decision of his lordship threatened ruin or something like ruin to a good many men who had lived on the mine, to families whereof the father worked underground, and the children above washing ore on the floors. The cessation of the mining would throw all these out of employ. It was known to the miners that manganese mines were everywhere unprofitable and were being abandoned. Where then should they look for employment?