"It be a gashly unked hole, and you'd best give it up. Look here." As he spoke he stooped and picked up a piece of rock weighing quite a hundredweight, poised it in his hands for a moment or two, and then, with a wonderful display of strength, tossed it from him right over the middle of the disused mine-shaft. The mica flashed in the sun for a moment, and then the great piece plunged down into the darkness, Josh and Will involuntarily darting to the side and craning over the awesome place to try and follow it with their eyes and catch the reverberations when it struck the sides and finally plunged into the black collected waters far enough below. CHAPTER FOUR. A FOOLHARDY VENTURE FOR A GOODLY END. It seemed as if that stone would never reach the bottom, and a curious expression was upon the eager faces that peered down, a strained look almost of pain, till all at once there was a start as of relief, as a hollow heavy plash was heard that came hissing, and echoing, and reverberating up the rocky sides of the shaft past them and into the sunny air. "Ugh!" growled Josh, "who knows what gashly creatures lives down there. P'r'aps its harnted with them as tumbled down and was killed." "Don't talk nonsense, Josh," said Will, in a voice full of contempt; "I never heard of anybody falling down here." "Looks as if lots had. Ugh! I wouldn't go down for the price of a new boat and all her gear." "If everybody felt like you do, Josh, what should we have done for tin and copper?" "I d'now," growled Josh. "Why can't you leave it alone and 'tend to the fishing. Arn't catching pilchar' and mack'rel good 'nough for you? Yah! I shall never make nothing of you." "No, Josh; catching pilchard and mackerel is not good enough for me." "Then why not get aboard the smack and larn to trawl for sole and turbot? There arn't no better paying fishing than that, so long as you don't get among the rocks." "No, Josh; nor trawling won't do," said Will, who ashore seemed to take the lead that he yielded to his companion and old Michael Polree on board the lugger. "I want to make my way in the world, and do you hear, I will." He said the last word so emphatically that the fisherman stared, and then said in an ill-used tone: "Then why don't you try in a reasonable way, and get to be master of a lugger? and if that arn't enough for you, have your share o' nets in another; not come poking about these gashly holes. What's the good?" "Good!" cried Will, with his eyes flashing. "Hasn't a fortune been got out of Gwavas mine year after year till the water began to pour in?" "Oh, yes! out o' that." "And I'm sure one might be got out of this," cried Will, pointing down into the black void. "What, out o' this gashly pit? Yah! Why didn't the captain and 'venturers get it, then, when they dug it fifty year 'fore I was born?" "Because they missed the vein." "And how are you going to find it, lad?"