nd
bundle down in a slow, wearied fashion.

"Fro' Lancashire," he repeated in a voice as wearied as his
action--"fro' th' Deepton coalmines theer. You'll know th' name on 'em,
I ha' no doubt. Th' same company owns 'em as owns these."

"What!" said an outsider--"Langley an 'em?"

The boy turned himself round and nodded. "Ay," he answered--"them. That
was why I comn here. I comn to get work fro'--fro' _him_."

He faltered in his speech oddly, and even reddened a little, at the same
time rubbing his hands together with a nervousness which seemed habitual
to him.

"Mester Ed'ard, I mean," he added--"th' young mester as is here. I heerd
as he liked 'Merika, an'--an' I comn."

The loungers glanced at each other, and their glance did not mean high
appreciation of the speaker's intellectual powers. There was a lack of
practicalness in such faith in another man as expressed itself in the
wistful, hesitant voice.

"Did he say he'd give you work?" asked the first man who had questioned
him, the Welshman Evans.

"No. I dunnot think--I dunnot think he'd know me if he seed me. Theer
wur so many on us."

Another exchange of glances, and then another question: "Where are you
going to stay?"

The homely face reddened more deeply, and the lad's eyes--dull, soft,
almost womanish eyes--raised themselves to the speaker's. "Do yo' knew
anybody as would be loikely to tak' me in a bit" he said, "until I ha'
toime to earn th' wage to pay? I wouldna wrong no mon a penny as had
trusted me."

There was manifest hesitation, and then some one spoke: "Lancashire Jack
might."

"Mester," said the lad to Evans, "would you moind speakin' a word fur
me? I ha' had a long tramp, an' I'm fagged-loike, an'"--He stopped and
rose from his seat with a hurried movement. "Who's that theer as is
comin'?" he demanded. "Isna it th' young mester?"

The some one in question was a young man on horseback, who at that
moment turned the corner and rode toward the shed with a loose rein,
allowing his horse to choose his own pace.

"Ay," said the lad with an actual tremor in his excited voice--"it's
him, sure enow," and sank back on his seat again as if he had found
himself scarcely strong enough to stand. "I--I ha' not 'aten much fur
two or three days," he said to Evans.

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, se