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“I dunnot see into it mysen’, mester. Happen it’s th’ bigness, an’ quiet, an’ th’ lonely look, an’ happen it’s summat wrong in mysen’. I’ve lived in th’ cool an’ smoke an/ crowd an’ work so long as it troubles me in a manner to–to ha’ to look so high.”

“Does it?” said Langley, a few faint lines showing themselves on his forehead. “That’s a queer fancy. So high!” turning his glance upward to where the tallest pine swayed its dark plume against the clear blue. “Well, so it is. But you will get used to it in time,” shaking off a rather unpleasant sensation.

“Happen so, mester, in toime,” was the simple answer; and then silence fell upon them again.

They had not very far to go. The houses of the miners–rough shanties hurriedly erected to supply immediate needs–were most of them congregated together, or at most stood at short distances from each other, the larger ones signifying the presence oL feminine members in a family and perhaps two or three juvenile pioneers–the smaller ones being occupied by younger miners, who lived in couples, or sometimes even alone.

Before one of the larger shanties Langley reined in his horse. “A Lancashire man lives here,” he said, “and I am going to leave you with him.”

In answer to his summons a woman came to the door–a young woman whose rather unresponsive face wakened somewhat when she saw who waited.

“Feyther,” she called out, “it’s Mester Langley, an’ he’s getten a stranger wi’ him.”

“Feyther,” approaching the door, showed himself a burly individual, with traces of coal-dust in all comers not to be reached by hurried and not too fastidious ablutions. Clouds of tobacco-smoke preceded and followed him, and much stale incense from the fragrant weed exhaled itself from his well-worn corduroys. “I ha’ not nivver seed him afore,” he remarked after a gruff by no means-ill-natured greeting, signifying the stranger by a duck of the head in his direction.

“A Lancashire lad, Janner,” answered Langley, “I want a home for him.”

Janner regarded him with evident interest, but shook his head dubiously. “Ax th’ missus,” he remarked succinctly: “dunnot ax me.”

Langley’s good-humored laugh had a touch of conscious power in it. If it depended upon “th’ missus” he was safe enough. His bright good looks and gay grace of manner never failed with the women. The most practical and uncompromising melted, however unwillingly, before his sunshine, and the suggestion of chivalric deference which seemed a second nature with him. So it was easy enough to parley with “th’ missus.”

“A Lancashire lad, Mrs. Janner,” he said, “and so I know you’ll take care of him. Lancashire folk have a sort of fellow feeling for each other, you see; that was why I could not make up my mind to leave him until I saw him in good hands; and yours are good ones. Give him a square meal as soon as possible,” he added in a lower voice: “I will be accountable for him myself.”

When he lifted his hat and rode away, the group watched him until he was almost out of sight, the general sentiment expressing itself in every countenance.

“Theer’s summat noice about that theer young chap,” Janner remarked with the slowness of a man who was rather mystified by the fascination under whose influence he found himself–“sum-mat as goes wi’ th’ grain loike.”

“Ay,” answered his wife, “so theer is; an’ its natur’ too. Coom along in, lad,” to Seth, “an ha’ summat to eat: yo’ look faintish.”

Black Creek found him a wonderfully quiet member of society, the lad Seth. He came and went to and from the mine with mechanical regularity, working with the rest, taking his meals with the Janners, and sleeping in a small shanty left vacant by the desertion of a young miner who had found life at the settlement too monotonous to suit his tastes. No new knowledge of his antecedents was arrived at. He had come “fro’ Deepton,” and that was the beginning and end of the matter. In fact, his seemed to be a peculiarly silent nature. He was fond of being alone, and spent most of his spare time in the desolate little shanty. Attempts at conversation appeared to trouble him, it was discovered, and accordingly he was left to himself as not worth the cultivating.