ed of begging when it came to the point, he said:

"Please can yer give me a morsel of bread?"

The man, who had kind slow brown eyes and a very placid face, looked at
him without speaking, and shook his head at the outstretched hand. But
the boy answered with a wide-mouthed grin:

"He's hard o' hearin', my pardner is. He don't know what yer say."

He then rose, and going close to the man shouted shrilly in his ear:

"Little chap wants summat t'eat."

The man nodded.

"He's welcome to jine at tea," he said, "and he can work it out
arterwards. Where dost come from?" to Frank.

Frank hesitated; then he thought of a village several miles beyond
Danecross, and answered boldly, "Dinton."

"And where art goin'?"

"I'm seekin' work," said Frank.

These answers having been yelled into his ear by the boy, the man asked
no further questions, though he gravely considered the stranger with his
large quiet eyes. Shortly afterwards, having been joined by the mate
who was sawing in the other shed, the company disposed themselves round
the fire, and to Frank's great joy the meal began. And what a meal it
was! Roasted potatoes, tea, thick hunches of bread, small fragments of
fat bacon, all pervaded with a slight flavour of smoke--could anything
be more delicious to a famished boy? Frank abandoned himself silently
to the enjoyment of it; and though his companions cast interested
glances at him from time to time, no one spoke. It was a very quiet
assembly. All round and above them the new little green leaves danced
and twinkled, and on the ground the old ones made a rich brown carpet;
the blue smoke of the fire rose thinly up in the midst.

At last Frank gave a deep sigh of contentment as he put down his tin
mug, and the deaf man clapped him kindly on the shoulder.

"Hast taken the edge off, little chap?" he said.

Then the two men, stretched luxuriously on the ground, filled their
pipes and smoked in silence. The boy, who was about Frank's own age,
but brown-faced and stoutly built, busied himself in clearing away the
remains of the meal, and in carefully making up the fire with dry chips
and shavings; he seemed to have caught the infection of silence from his
companions, and eyed the stranger guest without speaking a word. But
Frank, who was revived and cheered by his food, felt inclined for a
little conversation; he was always of an inquisitive turn of mind, and
he was longing to ask some questions; so as the