try. The cluster of gray stone houses nestled beneath the scarred
face of a crag, and, because mining operations had lately been
suspended and work was scarce just then, pale-faced men in moleskin
lounged about the slate-slab doorsteps. Above the village, and beyond
the summit of the crag, the mouth of a tunnel formed a black blot on
the sunlit slopes of sheep-cropped grass stretching up to the heather,
which gave place in turn to rock out-crop on the shoulders of the fell.
The loungers glanced at the tunnel regretfully, for that mine had
furnished most of them with their daily bread.

"It's in t' blood," said one, nodding toward the young man. "Ay,
headstrong folly's bred in t' bone of them, an' it's safer to counter
an angry bull than a Thurston of Crosbie Ghyll. It's like his
grandfather--roughed out of the old hard whinstane he is."

A murmur of approval followed, for the listeners knew there was a
measure of truth in this; but it ceased when the pedestrian passed
close to them with long, vigorous strides. Though several raised their
hands half-way to their caps in grudging salute, Geoffrey Thurston, who
appeared preoccupied, looked at none of them. Notwithstanding his
youth, there were lines on his forehead and his brows were wrinkled
over his eyes, while his carriage suggested strength of limb and
energy. Tall in stature his frame looked wiry rather than heavily
built. His face was resolute, for both square jaw and steady brown
eyes suggested tenacity of purpose. The hands that swung at his sides
had been roughened by labor with pick and drill. Yet in spite of the
old clay-stained shooting suit and shapeless slouch hat with the grease
on the front of it, where a candle had been set, there was a stamp of
command, and even refinement, about him. He was a Thurston of Crosbie,
one of a family the members of which had long worked their own
diminishing lands among the rugged fells that stretch between the West
Riding and the Solway.

The Thurstons had been a reckless, hard-living race, with a stubborn,
combative disposition. Most of them had found scope for their energies
in wresting a few more barren acres from the grasp of moss and moor;
but several times an eccentric genius had scattered to the winds what
the rest had won, and Geoffrey seemed bent on playing the traditional
_role_ of spendthrift. There were, however, excuses for him. He was
an ambitious man, and had studied mechanical science under a