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There was not a man on the platform who did not evince some degree of pleasure at the approach of the new-comer. The last warm rays of the sun, already sinking behind the mountains, seemed rather to take pride in showing what a debonair young fellow he was, in glowing kindly upon his handsome face and strong, graceful figure, and touching up to greater brightness his bright hair.

The face was one to be remembered with a sentiment approaching gratitude for the mere existence of such genial and unspoiled good looks, but the voice that addressed the men was one to be loved, and loved without stint, it was so clear and light-hearted and frank.

“Boys,” said he, “good-evening to you. Evans, if you could spare me a minute”–

Evans rose at once.

“I’ll speak to him,” he said to the lad at his side. “His word will go further with Lancashire Jack than mine would.” He went to the horse’s side, and stood there for a few minutes talking in an undertone, and then he turned to the stranger and beckoned. “Come here,” he said.

The lad took up his bundle and obeyed the summons, advancing with an awkward almost stumbling step, suggestive of actual weakness as well as the extremity of shyness. Reaching the two men, he touched his cap humbly, and stood with timorous eyes upraised to the young man’s face.

Langley met his glance with a somewhat puzzled look, which presently passed away in a light laugh. “I’m trying to remember who you are, my lad,” he said, “but I shall be obliged to give it up. I know your face, I think, but I have no recollection of your name. I dare say I have seen you often enough. You came from Deepton, Evans tells me.”

“Ay, mester, fro’ Deepton.”

“A long journey for a lad like you to take alone,” with inward pity for the heavy face.

“Ay, mester.”

“And now you want work?”

“If you please, mester.”

“Well, well!” cheerily, “we will give it to you. There’s work enough, though it isn’t such as you had at Deepton. What is your name?”

“Seth, mester–Seth Raynor,” shifting the stick and bundle in uneasy eagerness from one shoulder to another. “An’ I’m used to hard work, mester. It wur na easy work we had at th’ Deepton mine, an’ I’m stronger than I look. It’s th’ faggedness as makes me trembly–an’ hunger.”

“Hunger?”

“I ha’ not tasted sin’ th’ neet afore last,” shamefacedly. “I hadna th’ money to buy, an’ it seemt loike I could howd out.”

“Hold out!” echoed Langley in some excitement. “That’s a poor business, my lad. Here, come with me. The other matter can wait, Evans.”

The downcast face and ungainly figure troubled him in no slight degree as they moved off together, they seemed to express in some indescribable fashion so much of dull and patient pain, and they were so much at variance with the free grandeur of the scene surrounding them. It was as if a new element were introduced into the very air itself. Black Creek was too young yet to have known hunger or actual want of any kind. The wild things on the mountain sides had scarcely had time to learn to fear the invaders of their haunts or understand that they were to be driven backward. The warm wind was fragrant with the keen freshness of pine and cedar. Mountain and forest and sky were stronger than the human stragglers they closed around and shut out from the world.

“We don’t see anything like that in Lancashire,” said Langley. “That kind of thing is new to us, my lad, isn’t it?” with a light gesture toward the mountain, in whose side the workers had burrowed.

“Ay, mester,” raising troubled eyes to its grandeur–“iverything’s new. I feel aw lost some-toimes, an’ feared-loike.”

Langley lifted his hat from his brow to meet a little passing breeze, and as it swept softly by he smiled in the enjoyment of its coolness. “Afraid?” he said. “I don’t understand that.”