Well, the next morning, when the tinners came by, there was a wheel-barrow waiting for Thomas. And atop of the barrow was a pasty that was six foot across, and as thick as a mattress! It had taken the oven for itself, and filled the space that cooked six-dozen loaves on a normal morning. It was wrapped in a sack with a rope and pulley tied round it, ready to lower down the shaft, for it was larger by far than a lad could hope to carry.
“You be horrible greedy, Prentice Jack!” said Hefty Jack to Thomas. “You can’t eat that by yourself, and that’s a fact. Nobody could.”
“Even the giant Tregeagle couldn’t eat that much at a sitting!” said FireJack. “You should be ashamed to try on such a guzzle!”
But there wasn’t much spark in their teasing — it was a bad sort of a morning.
At the top of the shaft, Jack the tribute man lined up his men, and he told them, “We’ve worked all the tin in our tunnels, boys, and if we don’t find a new and likely lode very shortly we’ll all be gone overseas before Christmas. Keep your eyes skinned for a gleam or a glint, every one of you.”
Thomas was busy lowering his pasty down the shaft till he reached the place where they were working. He left it beside the water barrel, and the croust-bags of the others, and went to work. He really thought there might be a bite for him, this time.
But when the work was half done, and they tramped back to their benches for their croust time, a strange sight met Thomas’s eyes. There was his great pasty, propped up on four chunks of granite, and there sitting cross-legged round it, as though it had been a table, were a dozen or more of the Buccas, their napkins tucked under their chins, and their knives and forks at the ready.
“Yum yum yum, let’s all have some!” they cried, and as Thomas reached out to break a piece for himself they all began to eat, and the pasty was gone in a trice, leaving just a seated ring of the little fellows and heap of crust crumbs.
“Thieves! Thieves!” cried Thomas in a rage. “That’s my pasty you’ve taken! And I’m HUNGRY!”
“You never are!” said FireJack, who was sitting next to Thomas on the bench. “Have you gobbled up all that vasty pasty? You’ll be ill!”
Thomas put his head in his hands. It was clear to him that none of his mates could see or hear the Buccas, that they were a torment just for him alone.
There were his team, all sitting around him. Their clothes were damp and dusty, and their faces sticky with sweat. And they were quiet and dejected today, as each man thought about leaving Cornwall behind, and going to far away lands where there might be more tin to be found, and a miner could cut a living for himself out of the hard rock.
Thomas felt a little tug on his sleeve. “Have a wish, Thomas,” said the first little fellow. “We owe you a wish, and we always pay our debts.”
Thomas thought how mournful his mates were feeling. “I’d like tin,” he said. “Find us a likely lode — we need tin.”
And to his amazement there was the little fellow shouting “Huzzah!” and dancing around like a spinning top or a boy on a birthday.
“We thought you’d never ask!” he said, “Come come, look and see …” and he began tugging Thomas along by handfuls of his clothes, and his friends all pushing and pulling with him.
It was only a little way they dragged and carried Thomas, and then they set him down in the darkness, where only the candle in his cap shed a glimmer, and put his hammer in his hands, and said, “Try there!”
Thomas swung the hammer, and struck where the little fellow pointed, and a great tumble-down of rock fell out of the wall, and showed him behind it a tunnel, all made and ready, and in the walls of the tunnel as far as his candle-light fell the lode of tin was running, ready to cut. The little fellows didn’t use gunpowder, he could see, but the bore holes were all made and ready.
“All for you, Thomas, all for you!” the Buccas were crying, and cavorting round his feet, and up and down their lovely likely lode. And as they danced they were flickering in his eyes, and turning sea-blue, and transparent as fire, until all he could see was a ring of dancing blue flames, guttering and blowing out as they moved away from him into the dark.
Thomas rubbed his eyes and went to fetch the others.
