’She is severely bruised, but no other bones are broken except those in her arms. She is obstinate, and I cannot induce her to allow me to put splints on and bandage the arms.’ ’Oh, Joyce! if you wish to be well you will submit.’ ’I don’t care one way or other,’ said the girl sullenly. ’I wouldn’t give the turn of a turf whether I lived or whether I died. Wot’s life to me? It ain’t anything I cares for.’ ’But I do care very much about it, Joyce. You must have your bones mended and get well to make me happy.’ ’You care, do’y? Then I’ll live. There!’ She held out her broken arms, but as suddenly drew them back. ’I won’t hev the doctor touch me. Blast me blue if I will. If I be to get well and live, then you must make me well and live, and none else. Take my hands and do what you will. You may cut ’em off and I won’t cry. You may tie ’em up and I’ll say nort.’ The surgeon said to Herring, ’You had better humour her. She is not a rational being.’ So Herring put the splints in place, and bound the bandages tightly round them. Joyce watched him with her large animal-like eyes fixed on his face. A feverish fire was burning in them, giving them a factitious light. She did not withdraw them from him for a moment. ’You’re right for sartain,’ she said. ’If I’d ha’ died, what ’ud vaither ha’ done? And her be growing a brave age.’ Then, still kneeling by her, Herring spoke with the surgeon about the girl, as to what was to be done with her arms and what she was to eat. Suddenly he exclaimed with a start and recoil, ’Good heavens, Joyce! what are you doing?’ He looked at her. A human soul was struggling to emancipate itself from brute instinct. He saw it in her feverish eyes. She had them fixed on him as those of a dog look at its master—and _she was licking his hand_. *CHAPTER XII.* *OPHIR.* ’Sampy, my boy,’ said Tramplara the elder, ’improve each shining hour, says Paul, afterwards called Saul, and he couldn’t have given a better piece of advice if he’d been paid to do it. Since Polpluggan has been blown I have had nothing to do, and I want not only to follow Paul’s advice and improve the shining hour, but do better, and improve the overcast and rainy ones. You and I, Sampy, are the men to whom the future belongs, the representatives of the age, and it will not do for the likes of us to keep our light under a bushel. That ain’t Scriptural, and it ain’t advantageous neither.’ ’All right, gov’nor. What is this the preface to?’ ’Sampy,’ said Tramplara, confidingly, ’we must start another mine.’ ’What—tin? lead? manganese? copper?’ ’Better still, my gosling.’ ’I don’t know what you can have better except coal, and coal don’t luxuriate alongside of granite.’ ’Gold—the noblest of metals—gold.’ ’Oh, ah! gov’nor, that won’t do. There’s no gold to be found here.’ ’Why not?’