scious of personal uncouthness, and
of a desire to get up and go out and wash their hands and have a shave.

Gard, they knew, was the new captain of the mine, chosen by the
managers of the company for his experience with men, and he looked as if
he had been accustomed to order them about.

His eyes were dark and keen, his face full of energy. Being clean-shaven
his age was doubtful. He might be twenty-five or forty. Nance, in her
first quick comprehensive glance, had wondered which.

He stood close upon six feet and was broad-chested and
square-shouldered. A good figure of a man, clean and upstanding, and
with no nonsense about him. A capable-looking man in every respect, and
if his manner was quiet and retiring, there was that about him which
suggested the possibility of explosion if occasion arose.

Not that the Hamon family as a whole, or any member of it, would have
put the matter quite in that way to itself, or herself. But that,
vaguely, was the impression produced upon them--an impression of
uprightness, intelligence, and reserved strength--and the more strongly,
perhaps, because of late these characteristics had been somewhat
overshadowed in the Island by the greed of gain and love of display
engendered by the opening of the mines.

To old Tom Hamon his coming was wholly welcome. It foreshadowed a strong
and more energetic development of the mines and the speedier realization
of his most earnest desires.

To Mrs. Hamon it meant some extra household work, which she would gladly
undertake since it was her husband's wish to have the stranger live with
them, though in his absorption by the mines she had no sympathy
whatever.

Nance looked upon him merely as a part of the mines, and therefore to
be detested along with the noisy engine-house, the pumps, the damp and
dirty miners, and all the rest of it--the coming of which had so
completely spoiled her much-loved Sark.

Tom disliked him because he made him feel small and boorish, and of a
commoner make. And feelings such as that inevitably try to disprove
themselves by noisy self-assertion.

Accordingly Tom--after various jocular remarks in patois to Peter, who
would have laughed at them had he dared, but, knowing Nance's feelings
towards her brother was not sure how she would take it--loudly and
provocatively to Gard--

"Expect to make them mines pay, monsieur?"

"Well, I hope so. But it's too soon to express an opinion till I've seen
them."

"They pu