"Want Pengelly, eh!" he said, looking at the speaker, inquiringly. "He won't be here to-day. But look here, Mr Trethick, I like you. You're a man with some stuff in you. Let me give you a word of advice." "Thank you," said Geoffrey. "What is it?" "Don't let Amos Pengelly lead you into any scrape. He's mad, that's what he is; and if you don't look out he'll persuade you to take up some mining spec, such as that old fly-blown Wheal Carnac, and ruin you. The fact is, Mr Trethick, between you and me, Cornwall's about pumped out. You understand." "Yes, I understand," said Geoffrey, who felt much amused. "You take care of yourself, and wait till something turns up. Don't you be in too great a hurry. As for Amos Pengelly, he's religious crazy, and half his time don't know what he's about." "Where do you suppose he is to-day?" "Dressed up in his black satin waistcoat and long togs, gone preaching. There's a revival meeting somewhere." "All right; thanks," said Geoffrey, and, with a bluff "good-morning," he strode off back again; but before he had gone many yards he determined to try and make a short cut across to the cliff, west of Carnac. "I can have a good look at the old mine, and call in at Pengelly's cottage and leave word that I want to see him," thought Geoffrey. "That chap'll get himself into a scrape with Amos Pengelly, if he don't look out," muttered the manager, as he watched his visitor out of sight. "He's one of your jolly, honest sort, he is, and Amos Pengelly's one of your religious kind. If them two put their heads together there'll be a nice mess made of it." After delivering himself of this prophecy, the manager went back into his office to begin a laborious process of making up accounts; while Geoffrey, with the brisk sea-breeze making his pulses throb, crossed rough scraps of pasture, leaped the quaint Cornish stiles of parallel blocks of stone, heavily-laden slopes of granite, stony track, and rugged ravine, with a tiny stream at the bottom, overhung with ferns. He had meant to make a bee-line for the cliff, but the country was more rugged than he anticipated. Then, too, he had to follow a path here and there formed on the top of the low granite walls that separated various plots; and the result was, that instead of striking the cliff just west of the town, he found himself beyond the older ruined mine, and nearly as far as Gwennas Cove. "Might as well go and see the old lady," he said to himself, as he scrambled down the steep face of the cliff, and reached the shelf-like path. "No, I'll get on with my work now," he continued; and, turning at once for the town, he had not gone a hundred yards before he became aware of a loud shouting and yelling, as if something was being hunted along the cliff. "Why, what could they hunt here?" he said to himself. "Foxes? seals? Nonsense, they couldn't get up the cliff. It must be--why, by George! it's a woman."