Various efforts were made from time to time to amuse the dashing young fellow ‘from town.’ Sometimes the old gentleman related the wonders of the coal-mines, and the perilous adventures of the miners; and on more than one occasion the curate of the village endeavoured to interest him in the grand history of the early world, and especially of the period of antediluvian forests, and their various transmutations. All in vain. He paid no attention to them. If anything they said made any impression at all, it was solely due to the subtle texture of the human mind, which continually receives much more than it seeks, or has wit enough to desire. ‘You don’t find the coal countries quite so bright and merry as London town, do ye, Flashley?’ said old Dalton, with a good-natured smile. ‘I can’t say I do, uncle,’ answered the youth, frankly. ‘As to merriment, that is all very well at the present moment, in front of that great family bonfire; but all the rest of the day—’ and here Flashley laughed with easy impudence and no small fun; ‘the house and garden are in a state of dingy mourning, so are all the roads, and lanes, and hedges,—in fact, the passage of lines of little black waggons to and fro, rumbling full of coals, or rattling by, empty, seems like the chief business of life, and the main purpose for which men came into the world.’ ‘And so they be!’ ejaculated old Dalton, jocosely; ‘so far as these parts are concerned. You know, Flashley, the world is made up of many parts, and this be the coal part. We be the men born to do the world’s work of this sort; and we can’t very handsomely pass all our time a-sitting before a shiny fire, and drinking ale,—though, that’s good o’ nights, after the work’s done.’ With this laconic homily, old Billy-Pitt Dalton rose smiling from his chair, emptied his mug of ale, and, shaking the young man kindly by the hand, trudged off to bed. With much the same sort of smiling ‘good night,’ the sons all trudged after him. The good dame and her daughter went last. Flashley remained sitting alone in front of the great fire. He sat in silence for a long time, watching the fire decline into great dark chasms, black holes, and rugged red precipices, with grim smouldering chaotic heaps below.