did you expect to see the roof of gold, and
the sides of gold, and the floor of gold, John Ridd?"

"Ha, ha!" cried Master Carfax; "I reckon her did; no doubt her did."

"You are wrong," I replied; "but I did expect to see something better
than dirt and darkness."

"Come on then, my lad; and we will show you some-thing better. We want
your great arm on here, for a job that has beaten the whole of us."

With these words, Uncle Ben led the way along a narrow passage, roofed
with rock and floored with slate-coloured shale and shingle, and winding
in and out, until we stopped at a great stone block or boulder, lying
across the floor, and as large as my mother's best oaken wardrobe.
Beside it were several sledge-hammers, battered, and some with broken
helves.

"Thou great villain!" cried Uncle Ben, giving the boulder a little kick;
"I believe thy time is come at last. Now, John, give us a sample of the
things they tell of thee. Take the biggest of them sledge-hammers and
crack this rogue in two for us. We have tried at him for a fortnight,
and he is a nut worth cracking. But we have no man who can swing that
hammer, though all in the mine have handled it."

"I will do my very best," said I, pulling off my coat and waistcoat, as
if I were going to wrestle; "but I fear he will prove too tough for me."

"Ay, that her wull," grunted Master Carfax; "lack'th a Carnishman, and
a beg one too, not a little charp such as I be. There be no man outside
Carnwall, as can crack that boolder."

"Bless my heart," I answered; "but I know something of you, my friend,
or at any rate of your family. Well, I have beaten most of your Cornish
men, though not my place to talk of it. But mind, if I crack this rock
for you, I must have some of the gold inside it."

"Dost think to see the gold come tumbling out like the kernel of a nut,
thou zany?" asked Uncle Reuben pettishly; "now wilt thou crack it or
wilt thou not? For I believe thou canst do it, though only a lad of
Somerset."

Uncle Reuben showed by saying this, and by his glance at Carfax, that he
was proud of his county, and would be disappointed for it if I failed to
crack the boulder. So I begged him to stoop his torch a little, that
I might examine my subject. To me there appeared to be nothing at all
remarkable about it, except that it sparkled here and there, when the
flash of the flame fell upon it. A great obstinate, oblong, sullen
stone; how could it be worth the breaking, exc