’No,’ said Joyce, resentfully; ’you laugh. If it be good for me, I’ll ax the young maister to larn me when he be well. I sed them same words to he once—what make you giggle—and he didn’t laugh; he didn’t even smile, but I saw that in his eyes was more like tears. However, the words be good as they be, and I sez them scores and scores of times by day and by night, thinking of him as is sick, and he up there;’ she pointed with her finger—not to the window, but far, far above it. ’He as I knows nort about, don’t laugh, but listens, just as the maister listened when I said them to he at first; and he takes off his hat, as did the maister.’ ’I wish I could persuade you to come indoors, Joyce. It is cold out here, the wind blows keenly over the garden wall, and I cannot remain here.’ ’I bain’t cold,’ said Joyce; ’you can go in, I don’t want’y here. I’ll bide here alone a bit. But I’ll larn the knitting and make the maister his stockings. I will, sure. He sed he’d never wear none but what I made, and what he sez he sticks to.’ A few days later Herring came down. He was now much better, though still stiff and bruised. His mind was perfectly clear, and he was impatient of his confinement. ’Mr. Battishill,’ said he, ’now is our opportunity; Ophir is done, and Upaver begins. I will make a bid for the plant of Ophir, and remove it to the silver lead. I will rent Upaver of you, and mine there on my own account.’ ’Very well,’ answered Mr. Battishill, ’I can say with the shepherd in the "Winter’s Tale," "Now, bless thyself, I meet with things dying, thou with things new-born." I was set on Ophir; you never doubted in Upaver.’ ’You forget, sir, you were the finder of the silver lead.’ ’Ah, yes; but I was drawn aside by the glitter of the gold of Ophir. I am sorry for Ophir, too. It was a dream of splendour. But again, with Paulina, "To the noble heart, what’s gone and what’s past help, should be past grief."’ ’You have been at your Shakespeare, sir, whilst I have been upstairs.’ ’To whom else should I go, John? "For I do love that man," said rare Ben Jonson of him; and who that has mind and heart does not say the same. Shakespeare is the common and personal friend of humanity. By the way, John, there are some letters for you. We would not let you have them before now, as, no doubt, they are on business—they come from Launceston.’ Herring looked at them. Their purport is already known. They were from the directors of Ophir. ’If Miss Cicely will write for me a letter about the machinery at Ophir, I will sign it,’ he said; ’we had better secure it at once. I knew that Ophir would fail, and that was the reason why I did not hurry to get machinery for the silver lead. Now we shall secure the entire plant under half-price.’ ’Oh, John, how far further ahead you see than do I! But you are calculating on working the mine yourself. How can you combine a mineralogical captaincy with military duties?’