* So called from Sir Henry Bodrigan, who in the reign of Henry VII. sprang down the cliff, when flying from his neighbours Trevannion and Edgecumbe, who sought to capture or slay him. He was so little injured by the fall, that he reached a vessel sailing near the shore, and escaped to France. A mound, called the Castle Hill, and a farm-house, once part of a splendid mansion, are all that now remain of the abode of this fine old Cornish family. Fearlessly he tied himself to the cradle which old Michael Treherne prepared for him; a lantern was hung at his neck, leaving his arms free, and now a dozen of strong and careful hands were laid on the ropes. "Lower away, my lads," cried he, almost gaily; and with something like a gasp of anxiety in his throat, the General saw his young friend's face disappear as they lowered him into that awful orifice, the mouth of a shaft that went down a thousand feet and more. "Steady, my booys!" cried old Treherne, in a species of glee. Those who witnessed this descent were none of them, perhaps, very impressionable men; yet even to them, there was a gloomy horror in the idea of the vast profundity of the deserted mine, over which Trevelyan swung; and the wildness of the night, the storm at sea, the whistling and howling of the wind as it swept the rocky promontories, and rolled the waves in foam against them, were not without their due effects upon the mind. CHAPTER XV. THE SEARCH. "He's a braave booy, sartainly!" said old Michael Treherne, admiringly, in his queer Cornish accent, "it is like him and like his family--the Trevelyans of Rhoscadzhel. By Tre, Pol and Pen, We know the Cornish men. He'd face Tregeagle himself--lower away gently, lads. His ancestors existed hundreds of years ago; and for the matter o' that, I spose so did mine; we be all old Cornish _keth_."* * People. Audley Trevelyan would freely have risked his life to save anyone--of course a woman more than all; but how glorious was this! The peril he risked--for no ordinary amount of nerve was requisite for him who swung thus over the profundity of the ancient mine--was for his lovely little friend of the sketch-book; the Naiad of the moorland tarn--she who seemed not indisposed to love him, and whose heart he might yet make his own. "But Heaven!" thought he; "that impulsive little heart may be--alas--still enough by this time!"