"Will I no'?" returned Andrew challengingly. "How the hell do ye ken
whether I will or no'?"

"I ken ye'll no'," replied Walker, with quiet menacing tones; "the
ground at the office belongs to the company, and is private. So ye can
do it if ye like, but ye'll be weel advised no' to bother."

"I don't gi'e a damn," cried Andrew explosively, "whether the ground is
private or no'. I'll take that 'gathering' for Geordie Sinclair the
morn, though ye ha'e a regiment o' sodgers at the office."

"Very well," said Walker, as he departed, "if ye do, ye can look out."

Peter took his pipe out of his mouth and spat savagely on the ground;
he then replaced it with great deliberation and looked gloomily at the
stoop-side. He was a man about thirty-five, tall, bony and angular; his
neck was long and thin, and his head seemed always on the point of
turning to allow him to look over his shoulder. His right eye was half
closed, while his left eye looked big and saucer-like, and never seemed
to wink; one eye was ready to laugh and the other to "greet," as his
comrades described it. He had been badly disfigured in a burning
accident in the pit when he was a young man, and a broken nose added
still more to the strangeness of his appearance. Andrew, on the other
hand, was stout and broadly built, with a bushy whisker on each cheek,
and a clump of tufty hair on his head.

"What do ye mak' o' that, Andrew?" enquired Peter, after a few minutes,
as he again spat savagely at the stoop-side.