Page 80 of The Cornish Inheritance

“If I bang mine, can I say that too?” Yves asked, at last sounding a little like his normal self. That short sleep must have done him good.

“No, you cannot,” Caroline retorted, glancing back over her shoulder. “If it became a habit, think how shocked your Aunt Ruth would be.”

“Pooh to Aunt Ruth,” Yves said, with a little more spirit.

They’d climbed for another ten minutes when Caroline stopped, head on one side and ears cocked, listening.

Nat’s breathing filled the silence.

She swung round. “Ssh. Try not to pant. I can hear something.”

They stood still, waiting for their own heavy breathing to lessen. Silence gradually fell. Was that a tapping up ahead? Faint and faraway? Surely not just the drip of water.

“That sounds like hammering.” Yves’s voice rose in excitement.

“Keep going,” Nat said. “We must be nearly there.”

Caroline started climbing again, holding the candle up ahead of her. Another five minutes brought her to a halt again. This time the tapping sounded much closer.

Nat grinned at her out of his filthy face, his teeth flashing white in the candlelight. “We’ve done it. They must be up ahead. Look, we’re out of the stope and into an adit. We’re in the current workings and must be near the main shaft, by my reckoning.”

Caroline set out again with renewed determination, along a tunnel even narrower than any in the lower levels, where she had to squeeze herself between the crowding walls. Hope that they would soon be out in daylight drove her on. From ahead came the distant, muffled sound of voices rising in song. Was that a hymn, like the one she’d heard the miners singing on their way to work? Did they feel the sound of worship made them safer down here, in these dark, depressing tunnels, so alike to hell itself? Was their religion their crutch?

She trudged around a corner in the tunnel and found it widened out. At the far end, four miners, dirty and scruffy and akin to Satan’s own demons, were hammering at the walls, the candles set in small alcoves each throwing a tiny circle of feeble light. And yet it seemed to Caroline as though they’d reached heaven.

All four of them stopped working and swung round to stare. As well they might, for she must be a sight, with her ripped gown, filthy face, and messy hair. As for them, they were more like angels than if they’d been arrayed in heavenly white with wings and haloes. She’d never seen a more welcome sight.

Nat emerged from behind Caroline, Yves peering over his shoulder.

“Mister Nat!” One of the miners started forward. Impossible to guess his age as he was as dirty as Caroline and Nat, but he appeared to be in charge. “What’re you doing down here, surr? I didn’t see you come down with the shift change.”

Nat sat down on a rock, looking relieved to take the weight off his feet. “I didn’t, Opie, but I’m very glad to have found you. We came up through the old workings from Penmar Cove searching for Master Yves, who’d gone exploring on his own. We had to find our way up here because the tide was coming in and the cove would have been shut off. I’m just glad there were no significant roof falls to stop us.”

Opie looked at Yves. “Why, ’tis the young master hisself. What were’ee doing lost in those old adits?”

“Learning to be a miner,” Yves said with some asperity. “But I fell into a shaft full of water and couldn’t get out.”

Opie’s eyes widened. “Right little miner you are then. But I ’spect you all want to get out o’ here.” His eyes ran over Caroline again. “You an’ the young leddy.”

Caroline could have cried with relief, but held herself in check. “I want nothing more than to never go down a mine again, Mr. Opie. Once I’m up in the fresh air, I shall be the happiest woman on Earth.”

Opie grinned, his teeth showing white in his dirty face. “You’ll have to climb a few ladders to git out, I’m afraid. This ain’t no place for a leddy.” He wiped a dirty hand across his eyes. “But if you’ve come all the way up from the old workings, I think you can do it.” He turned back to Nat. “Here, you give me the lad, and I’ll tek him on my back. You look knackered, my luvver.”

What an odd expression that was, but how kindly said. How very Cornish.

Yves was transferred to Opie’s broad back, and the miner led the way along more narrow passageways, past other groups of miners working away at the lode, until the main shaft was reached. Here, the first of what was to be a series of wooden ladders rose upwards.

Caroline heaved in a resigned breath. At least this was the last stage of their journey and ahead lay the great outdoors. A great outdoors she never wanted to leave behind again.