Several things were tried for Rupert. He was placed with a clergyman to study for the Church; he went to an LL.D. to read for the Bar; he was consigned to a wealthy grazier to be made into a farmer; he was posted off to Sir John Rennet, to be initiated into the science of civil engineering. And he came back from all. As one venture after the other was made, so it failed, and a very short time would see Rupert return as ineligible to Trevlyn Hold. Ineligible! Was he deficient in capacity? No. He was only deficient in that one great blessing, without which life can bring no enjoyment--health. In his weakness of chest--his liability to take cold--his suspiciously delicate frame, Rupert Trevlyn was ominously like his dead father. The clergyman, the doctor, the hearty grazier, and the far-famed engineer, thought after a month's trial they would rather not take charge of him. He had a fit of illness--it may be better to say of weakness--in the house of each; and they, no doubt, one and all, deemed that a pupil predisposed to disease--it may be almost said to death--as Rupert Trevlyn appeared to be, would bring with him too much responsibility. So, times and again, Rupert was returned on the hands of Mr. Chattaway. To describe that gentleman's wrath would take a pen dipped in gall. Was Rupert _never_ to be got rid of? It was like the Eastern slippers which persisted in turning up. And, in like manner, up came Rupert Trevlyn. The boy could not help his ill-health; but you may be sure Mr. Chattaway's favour was not increased by it. "I shall put him in the office at Blackstone," said he. And Miss Diana acquiesced. Blackstone was the locality where Mr. Chattaway's mines were situated. An appropriate name, for the place was black enough, and stony enough, and dreary enough for anything. A low, barren, level country, its flatness alone broken by signs of the pits, its uncompromising gloom enlivened only by ascending fires which blazed up at night, and illumined the country for miles round. The pits were not all coal: iron mines and other mines were scattered with them. On Chattaway's property, however, there was coal alone. Long rows of houses, as dreary as the barren country, were built near: occupied by the workers in the mines. The overseer or manager for Mr. Chattaway was named Pinder, a brother to John Pinder, who was on Mrs. Ryle's farm: but Chattaway chose to interfere very much with the executive himself, and may almost have been called his own overseer. He had an office near the pits, in which accounts were kept, the men paid, and other business items transacted: a low building, of one storey only, consisting of three or four rooms. In this office he kept one regular clerk, a young man named Ford, and into this same office he put Rupert Trevlyn.