A thin voice came up the stairs.
"John—breaksis!"
"Come to breakfast," said Mr. Prout. "Then I'll walk around the place with 'e, afore the master be ready."
So dull was the dawn, that firelight shone in the polished surfaces of the kitchen, and its genial glow made the morning chill and lifeless by contrast.
Three men already sat at the table, and John Prout took the head of it. The newcomer was listened to with courtesy, and his extraordinary size won him open admiration.
"A good big un's the best that woman breeds," said the widower, Tapson. He was himself a man somewhat undersized. He had but one eye, a wrinkled brown skin, and a little goat-beard; but the rest of his face was shaved clean once a week—on Sunday morning.
"No tender spot?" he asked. "So often you gert whackers have a soft place somewhere that brings you down to the level of common men when it comes to work. 'Tis the heart gets tired most often, along wi' the power o' pumping the blood to the frame."
"No weak spot that I know about, thank God," said Daniel.
"Us'll have to get up a wraslin' bout betwixt you and the 'Infant,'" declared another labourer, called Agg. He was a red man of average size, with a pleasant and simple countenance.
"The 'Infant's' a chap to Lydford," he explained. "He was at a shop up in London, but got home-sick an' come back to the country. Very near so large as you be."