t platform, we followed, and then on
and on with the water splashing and the pump going, and now and then the
creaking sound of the windlass coming down to us as the men over the
bucket shaft wound up each heavy load of ore.

"There, I'm going back into my office," said my father. "You, lads,
have had enough mining for to-day. I shall not want you, Sep."

"Don't the open air look clear and fresh?" I said as soon as we were
alone, and I gazed round at the patches of green upon the hills, and the
bright sea out at the end of the Gap.

"Yes," said Bigley, with a shiver. "I shouldn't like to work in a mine.
I say, I suppose your father's getting very rich now, isn't he?"

"I suppose so," I said.

"That's what the people say. Binnacle Bill says he has got heaps of
silver locked up in the strong place below the office under iron doors.
Have you seen it?"

"No," I said; "and I shouldn't think it's true. Hallo! Look yonder.
Why, there's Bob Chowne!"

Bob it was, and the mine, the coming of the French, and everything else
was forgotten, as we went down to the beach, ready enough for a ramble
beneath the rocks, after six months' absence from home.

CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE.

FRIENDS AND ENEMIES.

At seventeen one's ideas are very different to what they are at
fourteen, and matters that seemed of no account in the earlier period
looked important at the more mature. For it used to seem to us quite a
matter of course that Bigley's father should have a lugger, and if the
people said he went over to France or the Low Countries with the men who
came over from Dodcombe, and engaged in smuggling, why, he did. It was
nothing to us.

We never troubled about it, for Bigley was our school-fellow, and old
Jonas was very civil, though he never would let us have the boat again.
But now that we were getting of an age to think and take notice of what
was said about us, Bob Chowne began to suggest that he and I ought to
make a change.

"You see it don't seem respectable for me, the son of the doctor, and
you of the captain, who is our mine owner, to be such friends with one
whose father is a regular smuggler."

"How do you know he is?" I said.

"How do I know? Oh, everybody says so. Let's drop him."

"I sha'n't," I said, "unless father tells me to Bigley can't help it."

"Then you'll have to drop--I mean I shall drop you," said Bob haughtily.

"Very well," I said, feeling very much amused at the pompous tone in
whi