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Thinking of these things he answered curtly: “When shall I start?”

“Down-by-the-starn” Hemmings replied with a sort of fearful sprightliness: “There’s a good fellow! I will send instructions; so glad to see you well.” Conferring on Scorrier a look–fine to the verge of vulgarity–he withdrew. Scorrier remained, seated; heavy with insignificance and vague oppression, as if he had drunk a tumbler of sweet port.

A week later, in company with Pippin, he was on board a liner.

The “King” Pippin of his school-days was now a man of forty-four. He awakened in Scorrier the uncertain wonder with which men look backward at their uncomplicated teens; and staggering up and down the decks in the long Atlantic roll, he would steal glances at his companion, as if he expected to find out from them something about himself. Pippin had still “King” Pippin’s bright, fine hair, and dazzling streaks in his short beard; he had still a bright colour and suave voice, and what there were of wrinkles suggested only subtleties of humour and ironic sympathy. From the first, and apparently without negotiation, he had his seat at the captain’s table, to which on the second day Scorrier too found himself translated, and had to sit, as he expressed it ruefully, “among the big-wigs.”

During the voyage only one incident impressed itself on Scorrier’s memory, and that for a disconcerting reason. In the forecastle were the usual complement of emigrants. One evening, leaning across the rail to watch them, he felt a touch on his arm; and, looking round, saw Pippin’s face and beard quivering in the lamplight. “Poor people!” he said. The idea flashed on Scorrier that he was like some fine wire sound-recording instrument.

‘Suppose he were to snap!’ he thought. Impelled to justify this fancy, he blurted out: “You’re a nervous chap. The way you look at those poor devils!”

Pippin hustled him along the deck. “Come, come, you took me off my guard,” he murmured, with a sly, gentle smile, “that’s not fair.”

He found it a continual source of wonder that Pippin, at his age, should cut himself adrift from the associations and security of London life to begin a new career in a new country with dubious prospect of success. ‘I always heard he was doing well all round,’ he thought; ‘thinks he’ll better himself, perhaps. He’s a true Cornishman.’

The morning of arrival at the mines was grey and cheerless; a cloud of smoke, beaten down by drizzle, clung above the forest; the wooden houses straggled dismally in the unkempt semblance of a street, against a background of endless, silent woods. An air of blank discouragement brooded over everything; cranes jutted idly over empty trucks; the long jetty oozed black slime; miners with listless faces stood in the rain; dogs fought under their very legs. On the way to the hotel they met no one busy or serene except a Chinee who was polishing a dish-cover.

The late superintendent, a cowed man, regaled them at lunch with his forebodings; his attitude toward the situation was like the food, which was greasy and uninspiring. Alone together once more, the two newcomers eyed each other sadly.

“Oh dear!” sighed Pippin. “We must change all this, Scorrier; it will never do to go back beaten. I shall not go back beaten; you will have to carry me on my shield;” and slyly: “Too heavy, eh? Poor fellow!” Then for a long time he was silent, moving his lips as if adding up the cost. Suddenly he sighed, and grasping Scorrier’s arm, said: “Dull, aren’t I? What will you do? Put me in your report, ‘New Superintendent–sad, dull dog–not a word to throw at a cat!'” And as if the new task were too much for him, he sank back in thought. The last words he said to Scorrier that night were: “Very silent here. It’s hard to believe one’s here for life. But I feel I am. Mustn’t be a coward, though!” and brushing his forehead, as though to clear from it a cobweb of faint thoughts, he hurried off.