"Yes. He thinks he has made a discovery. You know, part of our land includes the valley they call Branterdale. I expect Mr. Gaunt has told you that all this part of Derbyshire is limestone rock, and it is honeycombed with caves. We did not know we had any on our land, but the other day--that is, I should say, last season--when we were huntin', the fox ran across the river, and disappeared as if the earth had swallowed him. It was a narrow bit of the stream, between rocks, the bit that the guide-books tell you is like Dovedale in miniature. Of course, they all hunted and poked about, but they did not find so much as a rabbit-burrow. However, the thing worked in Percy's mind, and he went over afterwards on the quiet with the huntsman. This man, Gibbs, is a clever fellow, and he said the fox ran up the side of the rocky wall quite a long way; he saw the waving of the briers as he ran, and that the seekers had looked much too low down. "So Percy let him down on a rope from the top--it's a sort of little cliff, you know, too steep for a man to climb just there--and they found the cave mouth under a great growth of blackberry bushes and fern." "Oh, how exciting!" "Yes, it was. The entrance was so small, they had to chip the rock to make it big enough for them to crawl in, and it was narrow when they got inside--like a mere slit in the ground, but soon it widened out, and then there came a low tunnel, and it went downwards, and after that they came out into a huge cave, with pillars of stalactite." "It must have made quite an excitement." "It was a bally nuisance," was Joey's elegant response. "The papers got hold of it, and before you could say 'knife' all the geologists in the kingdom wanted to come hunting for bones. Well, you see, we had to let them in, we couldn't very well keep them out. They grubbed and grubbed, but they didn't get much, because they say at no time could the entrance have been big enough to admit a large animal. Percy went with them, and watched them when they grubbed, to make sure that they didn't take anything away without leave, or keep any finds dark. And one day he found something that they were not looking for." "Oh! What was that?" "A pocket of lead. Quite a big one. You know, this county used to be mined for lead. The Speedwell cavern was really a mine at first. So he said nothing to anybody, but he got hold of an expert, who thought it quite promising; and now he wants to find people to subscribe capital, and work the lead. Wouldn't it be splendid if he found some?" "It would indeed." "You see, the land has belonged to my forefathers ever since the fourteenth century," said Joey. "Nobody has touched it; that bit of the river bank has never been used for anything. If we should strike it rich, it would not be so very surprising."