“A long journey for a lad like you to take alone,” with inward pity for the heavy face. “Ay, mester.” “And now you want work?” “If you please, mester.” “Well, well!” cheerily, “we will give it to you. There's work enough, though it isn't such as you had at Deepton. What is your name?” “Seth, mester--Seth Raynor,” shifting the stick and bundle in uneasy eagerness from one shoulder to another. “An' I'm used to hard work, mester. It wur na easy work we had at th' Deepton mine, an' I'm stronger than I look. It's th' faggedness as makes me trembly--an' hunger.” “Hunger?” “I ha' not tasted sin' th' neet afore last,” shamefacedly. “I hadna th' money to buy, an' it seemt loike I could howd out.” “Hold out!” echoed Langley in some excitement. “That's a poor business, my lad. Here, come with me. The other matter can wait, Evans.” The downcast face and ungainly figure troubled him in no slight degree as they moved off together, they seemed to express in some indescribable fashion so much of dull and patient pain, and they were so much at variance with the free grandeur of the scene surrounding them. It was as if a new element were introduced into the very air itself. Black Creek was too young yet to have known hunger or actual want of any kind. The wild things on the mountain sides had scarcely had time to learn to fear the invaders of their haunts or understand that they were to be driven backward. The warm wind was fragrant with the keen freshness of pine and cedar. Mountain and forest and sky were stronger than the human stragglers they closed around and shut out from the world. “We don't see anything like that in Lancashire,” said Langley. “That kind of thing is new to us, my lad, isn't it?” with a light gesture toward the mountain, in whose side the workers had burrowed. “Ay, mester,” raising troubled eyes to its grandeur--“iverything's new. I feel aw lost some-toimes, an' feared-loike.” Langley lifted his hat from his brow to meet a little passing breeze, and as it swept softly by he smiled in the enjoyment of its coolness. “Afraid?” he said. “I don't understand that.” “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.