“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 boy passed near him he ventured to say, pointing to the neat piles of wood:
“What be yon?”
The boy stared.
“Yon?” he repeated; “why, yon be legs and rungs of cheers—that’s what we make ’em fur.”
“Where be the cheers?” pursued Frank.
“We send all yon down to Wickham, to the cheer factory,” answered the boy; “we don’t fit ’em together here.”