But, as old Tom Hamon had predicted, he very soon found that he had laid
his hand to no easy plough.
The Sark men were characteristically difficult, and made the difficulty
greater by not understanding him--or declining to understand, which came
to the same thing--when he laid down his ideas and endeavoured to bring
them to his ways.
Some, without doubt, had no English, and their patois was quite beyond
him. Others could understand him an they would, but deliberately chose
not to--partly from a conservative objection to any change whatever, and
partly from an idea that he had been imported for the purpose of driving
them, and driving is the last thing a Sark man will submit to.
Old Tom Hamon, and a few others who had a financial interest in the
mines, assisted him all they could, in hopes of thereby assisting
themselves, but they were few.
As for the Cornishmen and Welshmen, the success or failure of the Sark
Mines mattered little to them. There was always mining going on
somewhere and competent men were always in demand. They were paid so
much a week, small output or large, and without a doubt the small output
entailed less labour than the large.
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