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Devon Boys: A Tale of the North Shore, a fiction by George Manville Fenn |
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Chapter 8. The Doctor And I Build A Furnace |
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_ CHAPTER EIGHT. THE DOCTOR AND I BUILD A FURNACE My father was very silent as we walked swiftly back home, where he locked up the specimens we had obtained, and then after a few minutes' thought he signed to me to follow him and started for Ripplemouth. About half-way there we met Doctor Chowne on his grey pony with Bob walking beside him, and directly after the doctor and my father were deep in conversation, leaving us boys together. "What's the matter!" said Bob. "Your father ill?" "No," I replied; "I think it's about business." How well I can recollect Doctor Chowne! A little fierce-looking stoutish man, in drab breeches and top-boots, and a very old-fashioned cocked hat that looked terribly the worse for wear. He used to have a light brown coat and waistcoat, with very large pockets that I always believed to be full of powders, and draughts, and pills on one side; and on the other of tooth-pincers, and knives, and saws for cutting off people's legs and arms. Then, too, he wore a pigtail, his hair being drawn back and twisted up, and bound, and tied at the end with a greasy bit of ribbon. But it was not like anybody else's pigtail, for, instead of hanging down decently over his coat collar, it cocked up so that it formed a regular curve, and looked as if it was a hook or a handle belonging to his cocked hat. Before my father and he had been talking many minutes, the doctor turned sharply round in his saddle, with one hand resting on the pony's back. He was going to speak, but his hand tickled the pony, which began to kick, whereupon Doctor Chowne, who looked rather red-faced and excited, stuck his spurs into the pony's ribs, and this made him rear and back towards the cliff edge, till the doctor dragged his head round so that he could see the sea, when he directly ran backwards and stood with his tail in the bank. "Quiet, will you?" cried the doctor, and, as the pony was not being tickled, he consented to stand still. "Here, Bob!" said the doctor then. "Yes, father." "Go home." "Go home, father! Mayn't I go along with Sep Duncan?" "I said go home, sir," said the doctor sternly; and Bob turned short upon his heel, and I saw him go along the road cutting viciously at the ferns and knapweeds at every step. "Come along, Sep," said my father, and I followed them as they walked slowly back towards our cottage, my father holding on by the pony's mane as he talked quickly to the doctor. For my father and Doctor Chowne were great friends, having once served for a long time in the same ship together; and so it was that, when my father left the service and settled down to his quiet life at the little bay, Doctor Chowne bought the practice off the last doctor's widow, and settled himself, with his boy, at Ripplemouth. As I say, the doctor and my father were very great friends, such great friends that when one day my father felt himself to be dangerously ill, and sent over in great haste for Doctor Chowne, that gentleman galloped over and examined him carefully, and then began to bully him and call him names. He told him there was nothing the matter with him but fancy, and made him get up and go out for a walk, and told him afterwards that if they had not been such great friends he--the doctor--would have run him up a twenty-pound bill for attendance instead of nothing at all. And there before me were those two, one walking and the other riding, with their heads close together, talking in a low eager tone, while I was thinking about how hard it was for Bob Chowne that he should be sent away, and began to wish that I had not found that piece of stone. We reached home, and our Sam, who kept the garden in order, and cleaned the boots and knives, and washed the boat, was called to take the doctor's pony, after which Doctor Chowne whispered something to my father. "Oh, no," my father said. "He found it, and we can trust him." Doctor Chowne whispered something else, and it set me wondering how my father could be such good friends with a man who made himself so very disagreeable and unpleasant to every one he met; but all at once it seemed to strike me that I was always good friends with Bob Chowne, who was the most disagreeable boy in our school, and that though he could be so unpleasant, there was something about him I always liked; for though he bullied and hectored, he was not, like most bullying and hectoring boys, a coward, for he had taken my part many a time against bigger and stronger fellows, and at all times we had found him thoroughly staunch. As soon as Sam had gone off with the pony, my father called Kicksey, our maid, a great, brawny woman of forty, who was quite mistress at our place, my father being, like Doctor Chowne and Jonas Uggleston, a widower. Kicksey came in a great hurry, with her muslin mob-cap flopping and her eyes staring, to know what was the matter. "Light the back kitchen fire," said my father. "No," said Doctor Chowne, "put some wood and charcoal ready, and fetch a dozen bricks out of the yard." "Is Master Sep ill?" cried Kicksey. "Oh, no: there he is. I was quite--" "There, be quick," said my father; "and if anybody comes, go to the gate and say I'm busy." Kicksey stared at us all, with her eyes seeming to stand out of her head like a lobster's, she was so astounded at this curious proceeding, but she said nothing and hurried out. And here I ought to say that her name was Ellen Levan, only, when I was a tiny little fellow after my mother died, she used to nurse me, and in my childish prattle I somehow got in the habit of calling her Kicksey, and the name became so fixed that my father never spoke of her as Ellen; while our Sam, who was an amphibious being, half fisherman, half gardener, with a mortal hatred of Jonas Uggleston's Bill Binnacle, and the doctor's man, always called her Missers Kicksey and nothing else. "Now, then, Duncan, are we to do this together, or is--" He made a sign towards me. "Let him stop and help," said my father. "I can trust Sep when I've told him not to speak. But can you stop? I understood you to say that you were going to see a couple of patients." "Only old Mrs Ransom at the Hall, and Farmer Dikeby's wife. The old woman's got nothing the matter but ninety-one, and as for Mistress Dikeby, she has had too much physic as it is, and if I go she won't be happy till I give her some more, which she will be far better without. No: I am going to stay and see this through." "I shall be very glad." "And so shall I, Duncan. I said you were an idiot to buy that Gap, and I told you so; but no one will be better pleased than I shall if it turns out well." He held out his hand and my father took it without a word. "Now, then," said the doctor, "let's see the stuff." My father opened the corner cupboard and took out the pieces of rock, and Doctor Chowne put on his glasses and examined them carefully, frowning severely all the time and without a word. "Do you think it _is_ tin?" said my father at last. "No, sir, I don't," said Doctor Chowne, throwing down one of the pieces in an ill-humoured way. "I'll take my oath it isn't." "Oh!" ejaculated my father in a disappointed tone; "but are you sure?" "Sure, sir? Yes. I'm not clever, and I'm better at gunshot wounds and amputations than at medical practice, but I do know a bit about metals and mining. Why, didn't we touch at Banca in '44 and see the tin mining there?" "Yes," said my father; "but I took no interest in it then." "Well, I did, my lad. Tin? No. Tin would either be stream-tin, looking like so much grey stone, or else tin in quartz, all little blackish grains." "Then this is--" "Like the yellow iron you showed me once, and wanted to make me believe was gold--a mare's nest?" My father looked at him with his brow all wrinkled up. "No," said the doctor quickly, "it is not tin, Duncan, but very fine galena--" "Galena?" said my father; and I stared at the glittering blackish ore like metallic coal. "Yes, sir, galena-lead ore, and I shall be very much surprised if we do not find in it a large proportion of silver." "Silver!" cried my father excitedly. "Then it is a great find." "Great find, my boy? A very great find. Now get a hammer and let's powder some of this up, and see whether we can melt it. Got a pair of bellows?" "Oh yes, big ones." "Hah! That's right," said the doctor. "Now the way would be to take our powdered specimens to the blacksmith's forge, and melt them there, but that would be like letting the whole country-side know about it, and we've no occasion to do that. I suppose no one knows as yet?" "No--I'm not sure," said my father; and he mentioned how Jonas Uggleston seemed to be watching him. "That's bad. But never mind; the place is yours. Have you got your deeds?" "No," said my father, "Lawyer Markley said they would be ready in a day or two. That was last week." "Take the pony and ride over to Barnstaple at once, and get them. Don't come back without them, or, mark my words, there'll be some quibble or hindrance thrown in the way. Make quite sure of the place at once I say." "But to-morrow, when we've tested these stones," said my father. "My dear Duncan," cried the doctor, "I'm a disagreeable crotchety fellow, but you know you can trust me. Now, take my advice, and go directly. If I saw a patient in a bad way, should I put off my remedies till to-morrow; and if you saw that you were getting your ship land-bound on a lee shore, would you wait till to-morrow before you altered your course?" "No," said my father smiling. "There, I'll go." He started directly, and as soon as we heard the pony's hoofs on the road the doctor turned to me. "Come along, Sep," he said, "and let's see if we can't make your father's fortune." He was quite at home in our house, and I followed him into the back kitchen, where he set me at work powdering up the specimens with a hammer on a block of stone, while he built up in the broad open fireplace quite a little furnace with bricks, into which he fitted a small deep earthen pot, one that he chose as being likely to stand the fire, which he set with wood and charcoal, after mixing the broken and powdered ore with a lot of little bits of charcoal, and half filling the earthen pot. This he covered with more charcoal, shut in the little furnace with some slate slabs, and then, when he considered everything ready, started the fire, which it became my duty to blow. This did not prove necessary after the fire was well alight, for the doctor had managed his furnace so well that it soon began to roar and glow, getting hotter and hotter, while, as the charcoal sunk, more and more was heaped on, till the little fire burned furiously, and the bricks began to crack, and turn first of a dull red, then brighter, and at last some of them looked almost transparent. All this took a long time, and our task was a very hot one, for from between the places where the bricks joined, the fire sent out a tremendous heat, where it could be seen glowing and almost white in its intensity. But hot as it was on a midsummer day, the whole business had a great fascination for me, and I would not have left it on any account. The doctor, too, seemed wonderfully interested. Kicksey came about two o'clock to say that the dinner was ready, but the doctor would not leave the furnace; neither would I, and each of us, armed with a pair of tongs from the kitchen and parlour, stood as close as we could, ready to put on fresh pieces of charcoal as the fire began to sink. "How long will it take cooking, sir?" I said, after the furnace had been glowing for a long time. "Hah!" he said, "that's what I can't tell you, Sep. You see we have not got a regular furnace and blast, and this heat may not be great enough to turn the ore into metal, so we must keep on as long as we can to make sure. It is of no use to be sanguine over experiments, for all this may turn out to be a failure. Even with the best of tools we make blunders, my lad, and with a such a set out as this, why, of course, anything may happen." "Anything happen, sir?" I said. "To be sure. That ore ought to have been put in a proper fire-clay crucible." "What's a crucible, sir?" I said. "A pot made of a particular material that will bear any amount of heat. Now perhaps while we are patiently waiting here that pot in the furnace may have cracked and fallen to pieces, or perhaps melted away instead of the ore inside." "Oh, but a pot would not melt, sir, would it?" I said. "Melt? To be sure it would, if you make the fire hot enough. Did you ever see a brick-kiln?" "Yes, sir." "And did you never see how sometimes, when the fire has been too hot, the bricks have all run together?" "And formed clinkers, sir? Oh yes, often." "Well, then, there you have seen how a mixture of sand and powdered stone and clay will melt, so, why should not that earthen pot?" "Then if that pot melts or breaks all our trouble will have been for nothing, sir?" "Yes, Sep, and we must begin again." "But shouldn't we find the stuff melted down at the bottom of the fire?" "Perhaps; perhaps not; we might find it run into a lump, but we should most likely find it not melted at all, and then, as I said, we should have to begin over again." "That would be tiresome," I said. "But never mind, we should succeed next time, perhaps." "We should try till we did succeed, Sep, my lad. There, that's the last of the charcoal." "Shall I fetch some more?" I cried. "No, my lad, perhaps what has been burned may have melted it, so we'll wait and see." "And take out the pot?" "No, we couldn't do that. We must wait till it cools down. Maybe by and by I can take out a brick, and we shall be able to see whether the ore has melted." I waited impatiently for this to be done, and about an hour later the doctor took the top brick from the glowing furnace with the tongs, and touched the charcoal embers, which fell at once down to a level with the top of the pot, the interior having burned away, so as to leave quite a glowing basket or cage of fire. _ |
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