ground with a hole in it. "I lost a hundred pounds there; and no chance of ever getting it back again. There's some thinks of trying it again next week; but I don't think they'll ever get copper out of that hole. 'Tis wonderful the money that's lost in mines: where one wins, twenty loses. And then there's always plenty to do with shares; everybody likes to try his luck with them."

"There's the old man, now," he went on, speaking of his companion, who had fallen into the rear; "he looks respectable and comfortable enough, don't he? You see, he was a shoemaker, but didn't make much out at it, though he wasn't so very free with what he earned. Well, a year or two ago, one day when he was a little sprung, he goes to a place where shares was selling by auction, and bids for a lot as bold as brass. He got 'em for a trifle just; for you see the mine didn't pay, and people laughed at him. But lo, and behold! before a month was over they struck a vein, that sent the shares up, and they have been up ever since; and now the old 'un gets enough out of 'em to keep him comfortable. He'd never have bid for 'em if he hadn't been sprung."

In talk of this sort we shortened the two miles to Gwennap. The Pit lies a few yards off the road. You see a perpendicular green bank, and climbing up, find yourself on the rim of a spacious oval amphitheatre of twelve grades, all smoothly covered with turf. It is much smaller than the engravings of the original rugged excavation in which John Wesley preached to such great multitudes would lead you to imagine. To that zealous missionary's preaching the place owes its interest. Bearing in mind the debasement into which

the working population had sunk in the reigns of the Georges, one could not regard without interest the spot where thousands of the benighted, flocking together to listen, first learned they had a conscience. The Pit has been ever since a favourite meeting-place of the Wesleyans; and on Whit-Monday they assemble to the number of thirty thousand to hold an annual celebration. In my simplicity I believed this to be a great gathering of the godly-minded; but the truth appears to be, that while the seats of the Pit are filled by those disposed to hearken to the speakers, cock-fighting, wrestling-matches, and other boisterous sports, enlivened by the beer-barrel, are going on in the immediate neighbourhood. The former spirit is perhaps declining. Cornwall, for prosperity, was once the pride and boast of Wesleyans: in 1844 they numbered, in the county and Isles, 21,642; in 1854, not more than 16,430.

The old man told me he had known the Pit for sixty years, and remembered when it was first shaped and laid down with turf; and when we came to St. Day (or locally, St. Dye) he pointed out a spot where a "grand old cross stood once;" but why it was removed, or whither, he could not tell. The innkeeper, accompanying me clear of the town, said, "I'd go with ye three or four mile further, if 'twasn't for the funeral. However, I can show ye a goodish bit of the way to St. Ann's from here;" and pointing to sundry chimneys and engine-houses as landmarks, he indicated my course by the shortest route. We were about to separate, when, seeing a Scotch pedlar pass, he said: "That reminds me. Nigh upon thirty year ago, I was walking from Redruth to Stithians, when a man that was going along offered me half-a-crown to go to the top of the

hill with him. I couldn't go myself, but I see a chap coming as I knew, and he went. Well, when they got to the top, the other one asked, What's the name of this place? What's the name of that place? How many people lives there? and a lot o' questions of that sort. And when he'd done, he paid the man his halfcrown, and said, 'After this, there shall be Scotchmen in Cornwall.' And sure enough, before long, he opened a shop, and had men selling about among the miners." The story ended, I shook hands with the innkeeper, and we parted, mutually content with our brief acquaintance.

From St. Day to St. Agnes, or St. Ann's, as the natives have it, is about six miles: one-half a mining district with its attendant deformities, the other bleak moorland, at the extremity of which you see the Beacon. I arrived at the hotel just as a party of young Scotchmen were sitting down to a tea, which, in addition to the refreshing beverage, comprised a leg of mutton and black currant pie, and joined them forthwith. They were employés of the mines. One of them knew the old man I had recently parted with, and had tried more than once to induce him to sell his fortunate shares; but the venerable was proof against the offer of a daily leg of mutton, a bottle of wine, and a tidy income" besides. It was easy to infer, from the conversation during the repast, that speculation in mining shares is keen in the mining district. This mine's paying; that one's losing; they're going to try Huel Faithless again, are the burden of discourse; and the working man, with his slender savings, is too often tempted by the spirit of adventure. An admission was made, that one had better not assume too much honesty for those who have most to do with mining shares.

St. Agnes Beacon is six hundred and twenty-one feet high, not difficult of access, and commands a fine prospect. But as I could not climb the hill and see the cliffs too, I preferred the latter. The way to the Head lay through one of the largest and noisiest mines of the district, where I met gangs of weary-looking men sauntering homewards from their spell of work. One, to whom I talked, told me his earnings were not more than three pounds a month; but now and then he had made five pounds at tribute, and thought himself fortunate. I had been struck by the homely dialect of the communicative innkeeper; here it was still more homely, if not ungraceful. I cannot attempt to write the conversation as it was spoken, and shall take leave to give a specimen of the vernacular from "The St. Agnes Boar Hunt," a humorous poem. "The Beer,"

says a hoaxing miller to a terrified captain of mines

Whereupon the "cappen," waxing valiant, calls upon

66

every man that ez a man" to come forth with

and attack the monster:

"Lev‡ all your injuns § idle stand,

Lev noan to work be found,

Doant lev a kibbal || down a shaft,

Nor lev a whem go round.

weapons

* Larger.

† Swallow.

+ Let.

§ Engines.

|| Kibble is the large bucket in which the ore is drawn up.

"Boath tutwork * men and tributers,†

And halveners† I say,

Lev every man that ez a man,

Come foath weth we to-day."

The effect of such a tongue from a number of men who, released from their labour, were loquacious as parrots, may be imagined.

Some of the captains are remarkably intelligent men, having the best of experience—that gained by personal industry and observation. Hitherto they have had too little opportunity of knowing what has been accomplished by others; but Cornwall is removing her reproach by the establishment of a Mining School at Truro. Their talk, as you will find on drawing it out, is sagacious; and notice their look when you inquire if they know how to pick out the eyes of a mine. Proprietors of mines know full well that shareholders must be kept in good humour; and so they leave here and there a mass of the richer ore met with in their excavation; which masses are laid under contribution by the captains when the reputation of the mine begins to suffer, and are then dug out and sent to the surface. And this is called "picking out the eyes of the mine."

The ground is covered with refuse to the very edge of the cliffs, and there all the wider interstices are filled with tufts of heath and thyme struggling through to the air and sunshine. The precipices have that aspect of savage grandeur which characterises the northern coast; and an inlet running up into a craggy ravine forms St. Agnes Harbour. Conspicuous about two miles from the shore you see the Boden Rocks, or,

* Miners at fixed wages.

† Miners on piece work, who are paid according to the quantity of ore they send up.