John Herring: A West of England Romance. Volume 1 (of 3)Baring-Gould, S. (Sabine)
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John Herring: A West of England Romance. Volume 1 (of 3)
Baring-Gould, S. (Sabine)
West Country (England) -- Fiction
The old man drummed with his fingers on the table, and raised his eyes
furtively to the Captain, met his cold, supercilious stare, and dropped
them again.
’Well! go into the drawing-room, and patch up the rent with Orange.’
Then, when the Captain was gone, Tramplara laughed heartily. ’By
Grogs!’ he said, ’who would have thought the fellow so keen? He don’t
look it.’
The Captain found Orange standing in the drawing-room leaning against
the mantel-piece, tearing a white lily that she had plucked out of a
vase into many pieces. Her fingers were stained with the pollen. Her
cheeks were flushed, and an angry glitter was in her eyes, twinkling
through tears of mortified pride.
Trecarrel had not much difficulty in changing the expression of that
handsome face, and before he left the reconciliation was complete,
sealed with a kiss, and the day was named.
*CHAPTER XX.*
*GRINDING GOLD.*
In a remarkably short space of time two ’leats,’ that is, channels of
water, had been brought from Rayborough Pool along the side of the moor
to the site of the gold mine. Buildings had been erected, wooden sheds
run up and tarred, and a crushing machine was in operation. One stream
of water was conducted over a wheel, and the wheel set in motion half a
dozen hammers that pounded the granite; then the granite thus pounded
was passed under an iron roller which effectually reduced it to powder.
This powder was made to slide through a trough into water brought by the
second leat, and the water, as soon as it received the pounded quartz,
became milky. The milky water overflowed into a second tank, depositing
in both much that was held in solution, and then ran away into the
river, which it discoloured for some distance down.
Old Tramplara looked regretfully at the white water. If Ophir had been
nearer Plymouth or Exeter, he might have sold it as milk.
The deposit in the tanks was subjected to a second and, indeed, a third
washing. It was washed and rewashed till all the quartz had been carried
away and nothing remained but glittering gold.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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