“Some o' th' Harpers.”
“Indeed! Are you after work? You don't look like one of the clay-cutters. Where do you come from?”
“I be Darset, I be; but I comed fra Carnwall.”
“From where?” asked Agatha, puzzled by the provincialism, and attracted at once by the man's intelligent face, and by a keen, misery-stricken, hungry look, which she had truly called “wolfish.”
“I be comed fra the miners in Carnwall,” reiterated the man, raising his voice threateningly. “They sent I back to Darset to see some o' th' Harpers.”
“You must go in, Agatha; it is cold. I cannot have you standing here. Go—quick.” And Agatha was astonished to see how pallid and eager her husband looked, and how anxious he seemed to get her out of the way.
“No, thank you. I am not cold at all. I want to hear this man. Perhaps he is one of the poor miners Miss Valery spoke of at Wheal—what was it?”
“I be comed fra Wheal Caroline, Missus, and I do want one o' th' Harpers. There be the old 'un at the window! Thick's the man for we.”
And he was hurrying off to the bow-window of the Squire's room, which was alongside of the conservatory. But Nathanael called him back imperatively.
“Stay, friend. My father has nothing to do with the mines—it is I. I'll speak to you presently.—Some business of Anne's,” he explained hastily to his wife. “Leave us, dear.”