CHAPTER 7.

 

            THE loud din indicated that they were now close to the works. Entering the gate, for the whole mine was walled in, Maynard conducted his friend, first to his office, where they remained for some time, and then to the various parts of the works which were likely to interest him, describing all the processes, which Noel soon perceived to comprise some which were very different to anything he had seen used in gold-mining. The odd mixture of sounds which had been exciting his curiosity was now explained. On the upper side of the patío, or yard, were arranged a series of cylinders, wheels, and stampers, for crushing the ore to powder. These were worked by mules and horses. And immediately below them was a large reservoir into which the powdered ores were washed by water kept always

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flowing through the machinery. This reservoir was a morass of dark mud, knee deep, in which horses, mules, and oxen were driven frantically round in never ending rotation. This was done to mix the whole mass thoroughly with quicksilver, in order to amalgamate the particles of metal. The clang and thud of the machinery, combined with the shouts of the drivers, constituted a portion of the noise that daily rose to the summit, and kept the dwellers there ever within hearing of the works. The rest was produced by the revolutions of a number of huge barrels, in which a similar result was obtained from the poorer ores.

 

            ‘Have you much ore in which the silver is visible?’ asked Noel, examining a lump which he had picked out of a vast heap of apparently worthless earth.

 

            ‘There is a fair proportion of it,’ answered Maynard; ‘but the principal part of our yield comes from this very stuff in which a microscope could scarcely reveal the presence of the metal. Most of the mines in Mexico have got past the individual stage when men might get rich by their solitary labour. They can now only be made to pay by means of such a vast and complex organisation as you see here. My main results have been attained from materials which used to be treated as refuse. On my first visit I found enormous heaps of this stuff already excavated by the former owners, and having tested it and made au estimate of the cost of putting it through the mills on a cheap system, partly my own invention and partly borrowed, I found that I could make the mine pay well, even if the richest lodes failed altogether. I have been helped, too, a good deal by the cheapening of quicksilver, owing to the discovery of it in quantity in California. But my hopes in respect of this stuff have been more than realised, and in addition to that the richer lodes have by no means failed.’

 

            ‘So that within three years you have paid off all expenses, and are working at a clear profit! Why, in a few more, you will all be millionaires.’

 

            ‘If the world last so long in Mexico,’ said Maynard somewhat gloomily.

 

            ‘What do you fear?’ asked Noel.

 

            ‘A rich mine has, somehow, generally been the ruin of its owners in this country, and the present condition of things is quite enough to make one anxious. But happen what may, I

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have resolved to stick to the mine even if I have to send Margaret and the children to England.’

 

            ‘Why, what do you anticipate?’

 

            ‘Anarchy, revolution, civil war, confiscation, massacre, and every other horrible thing that a tropical climate and a barbarous people can produce in perfection.’

 

            ‘Then you anticipate no good from intervention?’

 

            ‘No immediate good, certainly. It is sure to excite some opposition, however managed; and opposition in Mexico always means severe tribulation for many. If I could have kept the value of the mine a secret, it might pass unnoticed; but there are too many who know the number of silver bars we are in the habit of sending down to Tampico for shipment.’

 

            ‘But you could not send your family away without you. You would at least see them to Tampico; and once there, the sight of the steamer would be sure to modify your resolution. Surely you have some trustworthy agent to take charge in your absence?’

 

            ‘Not if I go to England. Besides, Margaret is quite reconciled to the separation, and I think it will do the children good.’

 

            This was not the first time that Maynard’s tone in referring to Margaret had jarred painfully upon Noel. Utterly ignorant of their real relations, he was yet impressed in the same way that Sophia Bevan had owned herself to he impressed, by an instinctive perception of a lack of sympathy between them, and of their own consciousness both of their unhappiness and of its source.

 

            It was curious to Noel to note that throughout all that Maynard said there ran an undercurrent of character which reminded him of Sophia Bevan. He thought he detected the same persistent tendency to analyse personal relations that used to irritate him with her, as indicating a belief in the power of the will to govern the emotions. Without in any degree underestimating the value of discipline in developing and controlling the mind and the expression, Noel was unable to admit the possibility its modifying or reversing the feelings. In many a battle-royal had he contended with Sophia on behalf of the divine right of spontaneity as against will, of inspiration as against mechanism. He applied the theory alike to the affections and to Art. Her assertion that any man or woman could love each other, or at least behave as if they did, by dint of trying

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to do so, he treated with incredulous scoffings; and in the protraction of her own singlehood in spite of the strong domestic tendencies with which she was endowed, he sought the explanation of her holding such a tenet. That she had such tendencies he had no doubt, and she did not scruple to own it boldly, even to shocking a somewhat prim interlocutor who, in a theological discussion, once charged her with being a Pantheist.

 

            ‘Not a bit of it,’ cried Sophia, with a shriek of laughter. ‘If I am anything at all, I’m a Mantheist!’

 

            But however Edmund Noel and Sophia Bevan might vary in their characters and theories, they were agreed in their practical estimate of results in the case of the Maynards. The fact was that, failing to find the perfect accord of sentiment that he desired in his married life, James had early set his powerful intellect to analyse the sources of their disquietude, for the dissatisfaction was mutual. Margaret hoped by earnest and patient striving to mould herself to her husband’s wishes; hoped against hope, inasmuch as she felt convinced of the invincible discordancy of their natures. But his temperament made him incapable of patience where his feelings were so deeply involved. James persisted in this delicate investigation until Margaret’s feeling came as near to resentment as her gentle nature was capable of approaching. She thought that at least her feelings were her own, and sacred from such forcible intrusion; and to find them thus rudely treated made her appear to herself much as if she were a plant torn up by the roots in order to see if it were growing: a process, she felt, that could only harm if all were going on well; and must be utterly destructive if it were not. Yet for her life she would not consciously have allowed her letters to betray the remotest hint of her relations with her husband. Suffer as she might at his hands, from all the world he was sacred.

 

            Maynard’s business kept him for many hours at the works, and Noel became very desirous of returning to the house and renewing his conversation with Margaret. The feeling, however, that he was embarking on a dangerous sea, and might cause her uneasiness by seeming to hasten back to her, made him resist the impulse, and wait until Maynard was ready to accompany him home.

 

            In the mean time Margaret passed the morning hours in a state altogether strange to her. Her apprehensions being as yet unaroused, it was a state of dreamy blissfulness with just

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enough of consciousness to enable her to appreciate the novelty of her emotions and to wonder at their meaning. Her life-long perplexity seemed all at once to have become merged in an ecstasy of contentment. To Noel, Margaret was as the conclusion to a search. To her, he was as the key to an enigma. None ever know how vast has been their previous ignorance until they fall in love. It is the revelation of the mystery that lights up the depth of its mysteriousness. Margaret had no idea of having fallen in love; or of love having aught to do with her. She was only aware that she was no longer the same Margaret that she had all along known herself to be. A near and a dear relation was found, whose appearance was enough to convert all hitherto prevailing discords into divinest harmony; and each hour that passed was to her as a silent anthem of gratitude and thanksgiving. 

 

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