The soft wind blew in their faces, and there was a glittering purity in the atmosphere that held Juliet spell-bound. She breathed deeply, gazing far out over that sparkling sea of wonder.
"Oh, the magic of it!" she said. "The glorious freedom! It makes you feel—as if you had been born again."
Her companion watched her in silence, a certain curiosity in her look.
After many seconds Juliet turned round. "Thank you for bringing me here," she said. "It has done me good. I should like to stay here all day long."
Her eyes travelled along the line of cliff towards that distant spot that had been the scene of her night adventure, and slowly returned to dwell upon a long deep seam in the side of the hill.
"That's the lead mine," observed Mrs. Fielding. "It belongs to your aristocratic relatives, the Farringmores. They are pretty badly hated by the miners, I believe. But your friend Mr. Green is extremely popular with them. He rather likes to be a king among cobblers, I imagine."
"How nice of him!" said Juliet. "And where do the cobblers live?"
"You can't see it from here. It's just on the other side of the workings—a horribly squalid place. I never go near it. It's called High Shale, but it's very low really, right in a pocket of the hills, and very unhealthy. You can see the smoke hanging over there now. The cottages are wretched places, and the people who live in them—words fail! Ashcott, the agent and manager of the mines, says they are quite hopeless, and so they are. They are just like pigs in a sty."
"Poor dears!" said Juliet.
"Oh, they're horrors!" declared Mrs. Fielding. "They fling stones at the car if we go within half-a-mile of them. And they are such a drunken set. Go round the other way, Jack,—round by Fairharbour! Miss Moore will enjoy that."