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But his knowledge of women was of the slightest (owing to his youth), or he would not have been sure of any action on the part of one of them. Martha answered promptly.

asked triumphantly, feeling certain that explanation. The term "Un Jane" Martha could not answer him. did not mean that she was a relation of Martha's; simply “’Un,” for “Aunt,' is a term of respect applied to elderly and old women, as "Uncle 99 is to old men in Cornwall. The case of 'Un Jane was indeed a warning to girls not to marry 66 sumpmen." It was now many years since her man was "blawed up." The facts were as follows: "'Un Jane's man - his very name was for

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"Because I do like being my own missus, and having my hevenings to myself, and to wear what cloes I do like. So there now, are ee satisfied?" Harry did not answer at once, but gotten - was sinking a shaft at Wheal stood silently watching her as she gazed Vor; his assistant had missed in chargsaucily up at him. She looked so sturdy ing a hole; it was therefore necessary and independent in her mine-girl's to pick out the charge-a dangerous dress, with her short woollen petticoat, operation for the operator. Whilst clean white touser, big bonnet, black ""Un Jane's man" was engaged in worsted stockings, and her tiny feet picking it out, the charge exploded. clad in leather shoes of Harry's own making, that she angered him. He felt he would conquer her, and lost his temper as he asked angrily, Why waant ee marry a sumpman ?"

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"Why?" Martha sat herself down on the stile by which they were standing, that divided the bal-dumps 1 from the lane which wound down-hill to the village of St. Endellion.

When the remains were brought to the surface, their aspect was so horrible that one of the miners shovelled them into the furnace of an engine close at hand.

Bitter as was the trouble to "Un Jane," it was made unutterably more so by the absence of a corpse to lay out, and for the neighbors to admire. There was no funeral, with its hymn-singing, "Why?" she said again, more gen- winding down the steep hill to the tly than she had yet spoken. "Be-parish church of St. Endellion. "There I do waant to be a proper wasn't nawthin'." And "Un Jane widdaw, and for ee to have a proper cuddn't wear black without a funeral, burrying." nor a body." And "passon wuddent leave her put a headstone up 'mongst his people's, as there wasn't no grave.' So the poor woman was only a widow

cause

"A widdaw! Aw, my dear! I don't see what ee do want me to die for."

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"I doan't! That's what I'm a tell-"by compliment," as it were, and was ing of ee."

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"Theest a great bufflehead," interrupted the girl in softened tones, and a glance of her bright, dark eyes, which Harry was quick to take advantage of. But Martha evaded the touch of his outstretched hand, and waving him back, continued, "I do mane ef I got to be a widdaw, I shouldn't like to be a second 'Un Jane up to Wheal 2 Vor." There was silence. The fate of 'Un Jane, or, to be more correct, Aunt Jane, was too well known to need any

1 Heaps of refuse from the mines, or "bals." 2" Wheal" is from "huel," the ancient Cornish for "a work," and is used constantly in Cornwall before the name of a mine.

an object of unfeigned pity to the whole mining community.

Harry at first seemed convinced by Martha's argument, but a few moments' reflection showed him the feebleness of Martha's reasoning.

""Tes nonsense, Martha; we arn't driving no shafts up to Wheal Agnes, and shaan't be; I awnly wish we cud; 'twould shaw times was lookin' up a bit, instead of gettin' bad, as Cappun Williams do say they are. 'Tes pure fullishness."

"Fullishness is et? Aw, my dear, I baan't so fullish as to marry a sumpman of the bal es going scat." &

3"Bal es going scat"-Mine is going to stop working.

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"I dedn't say 'twas, Martha. I dinner-hour. No! Martha had hers to awnly said

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"I was fullish," finished Martha, rising with dignity; and as she saw Harry was going to accompany her she said angrily, "Noa, I doan't want ee; I'm goin' to see ef Charley Tresize can mend the hen-house door."

Harry was too angry to reply to her, or to attempt to follow her as she ran away up the side of the dump, and off to the broad white highroad, by the side of which lay her father's cottage.

It was pure fiction about Charley Tresize; Martha only said it because she felt she had no more strength of mind left to say no to Harry just then. Retreat was her only chance of making a good fight another day, for she liked him better than any of her other admirers; but she would not marry a "sumpman," of that she was determined.

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herself; she was not going to wait for "turns." She'd always have "first turn" herself, and be first in the field to take her pick of the young men to be her "shiner" for the time.

Her dinner, in common with the other girls, was of saffron cake, or a figgy hobbun (a lump of dough with a handful of figs, as they call raisins, stuck into the middle of it and baked). Their drink cold tea. On it they contrived to look in perfect health, and to do fatiguing work without any apparent effort. But the choice of a shiner," with whom to talk after the slender meal was partaken of - well, that required care. And Martha was careful in her choice; she rarely had the same man "twice running." On the rare occasions that she had so favored one, that man was Harry Trethowan.

She was extravagant, too, and mean. In the matter of stockings, Martha, of course, knitted them herself. All the girls did. Their straw sheaths tucked into the bands of their tousers, they clicked merrily away with their needles as they walked along the road, or gossiped as they stood in groups. Now every one knows that a stocking should be refooted as long as the leg holds to"gether. Should be, I say. Martha's were not, at least, not by her, after the leg began to show a green tinge. The "bal girl's" petticoats only reach halfway down the calf of the leg, so it

"Where she do get her notions, I doant know," her mother said when, later in the evening, Martha mentioned casually she had "towld Harry Trethowan she wudn't have un ef he dedn't larn a traade." "Ye'll die a h'old maid, that you will," were her mother's parting words as Martha ascended the creaking stairs that led to her bedroom. "Where Martha got her notions was the perpetual wonder of the neighbors, or her looks cither." She was as unlike her parents and neighbors as it was possible for her to be. She defied her mother when the latter tried is readily understood that the black to persuade her to go to "mittin'," and laughed at her father when he reproved her for her "haythenish ways." But not a scrap did Martha care; her gurgling laugh bubbled forth, and she tilted her head back, showing her firm, fat little throat, as though it were the funniest thing in the world to be scolded and reproved. She was so round one wondered how she walked on the soles of her feet; it was impossible they could be flattened. Martha wore the smallest shoes of any girl that worked at the mine, and she did not "go shares" in the blacking and brushes with which the girls polished their shoes preparatory to sallying forth in the

woollen stockings form an important
item in their costume. To keep her
stockings a uniform color was Martha's
ambition. She sold the legs of them,
when from much washing the green
tinge appeared, to her less coquettish
sisters for threepence a pair. But with
a twinkle in her dark eyes she defended
her line of action
superior economy.

even claimed for it

"Ef I was to wear they things, do ee think that Harry Trethowan wud maake my shoes for me for nawthin' ?"

"More shaame to ee," retorted her mother, "when you doan't waalk out with un, not to say constant."

1 "Tousers 99 - aprons, from "toute serve."

Then Martha laughed, and her thin, | And never would she take from her bright red lips parted, over her small,"stock" until she had a newly made white teeth, which were rather pointed, article of clothing ready to replace the like those of a rat, as she went on with one taken out. her bargaining over some "legs" she was offering for sale to her friend Alma.

"They're wored," grumbled Alma, in her slow voice that seemed to drop from her full, loosely hung lips.

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"Wored, my dear soul," snapped Martha, a coorse they are. D'ye think I'd sell 'em ef they wasn't? But get away, you shan't have 'em at oal. Such a good shaape they are, too; why, ef you do want Charley Tresize for a shiner you shu'd buy 'em, for my legs is fine and keenly shaaped. They'd set ee off fine."

Alma hesitated and was lost. The fact of the superior shape Martha knitted her stockings was the secret of their popularity. Her clever fingers accentuated the slimness of her ankle and the swelling fulness of her calf.

"How do ee find time, Martha ?" Alma would ask in her slow, looselipped way.

"How?" Martha replied derisively. "How? Well, I'll tell ee. I doan't go foolin' round 'pon nights weth shiners, nor I doan't waste time up to mittins to the chapel. I do have a shiner denner hours, and 'pon Sundays when I do go to church. I doan't mind them comin' in evenings to mend my shoes, or to play 'pon father's harmonium. But I do sew all the time they're there."

Martha went to church. How she got that notion no one knew, and great airs she gave herself in consequence. Three miles down the hill to St. Endellion Church, and three miles up-hill home, every Sunday, rain or fine. It gave her a chance to use a handsome prayer-book some one had given her; who, I don't know. She carried it in her gloved hand, wrapped in a clean white pocket- handkerchief, and al

"Why doan't ee sell them when they're new, and maake a good profit ?" her mother once asked her. Martha's laugh gurgled forth from though she held it open in church she her full throat.

"I aan't goin' to have none of them girls looking so well as I do. Ef they havn't got more pride than to go round in my auld green legs, I doan't mind. Ev'ry wan do knaw then; they arn't goin' to have good shaapes and good colors too, I can tell ee."

Martha's eightpence a day of wages went further than any of the other girls made theirs go. She was a good customer to the "Johnny Fortnights," as the packmen are called, from the fact that they go around once a fortnight with their drapery goods. And, also unlike many of her neighbors, she never I went into debt. She sewed her own garments, and cut out and made all but her "very best" dresses. In her trunk (as she proudly called the oblong deal box that held her clothes) she kept her "stock." Always she had half-a-dozen dresses, and the same quantity of each kind of undergarment in the trunk, the latter all trimmed with handsome crochet lace, made by Martha herself.

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could not read it. For she would never go to school; if sent, she "minceyed ” (played truant), so she was left alone. She based her preference for church on the fact "she could hear people talk what she could understand every day of her life, so 'twasn't worth while to go to chapel for that traade." But what she liked to hear was a fine scholared, with words she cudn't make nothin' of, all strucke off the tip of his tongue: And his hands white, and a clane handkercher, and oiled hair. And a sarvint to finish up his prayers for un, and say Aamen. And the Miss Brays and the Miss Tregelliss (farmers' daughters of the neighborhood), purtendin' to listen and lookin' 'pon each other's bonnets."

"But what will that do for ee when you do come to die?" asked her father.

Martha laughed, which so incensed her parents that for once she had to go to chapel with them to appease their wrath.

There was a "revival" on, and many

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"down" with "conviction of was hard on her to-night, for she worshipped Charley as much as Harry did Martha, so they two were but a sadfaced couple.

sin." And "brothers" came from far and near to conduct the "revival mittins." Martha attired herself in her "second best silk," a bright green Martha and Charley led the procesdress with white lines running across sion of about a dozen couples, and the the green, a white bonnet with a rose matrons and old women criticised them in it that vied with Martha's cheeks in as they passed the cottages that lay on brightness, white cotton gloves, and a cach side of the broad, white highroad. white silk sunshade. Her dark eyes In Martha and Charley, however, their sparkled as she "looked on" at the interest centred; the latter looked screaming, praying, and singing; her "peart," with a red rose in his buttonthin red lips curled contemptuously. hole matching the one in Martha's She would have turned up her little bonnet. His hat stuck so much on one nose, but its delicate aquiline curve made that an impossibility.

On her return home Martha proceeded to give her parents her "mind" on the subject.

side that it almost hung on his ear -a sure sign a young man is trying to look a "shiner - anglicè, masher. They held their heads high, forming a cruel contrast to Alma and Harry who fol"Simmin' to me, 'tes the bestest lowed, looking, the onlookers said, lookin' young women do get the mostest "shaamed" and "sheepish." of prayin'; for you do never see a woman prayin' weth a woman; they do alleys go to the men. Why Alma had fower class-leaders a prayin' ovver her; and not wan of 'em went 'nest Sally Polwhele, along a her bein' oogly. And she-right down howlin' for spite that she was let alone to pray ovver her sins. I doan't hold weth such ways and callin' it religion when 'tes awnly coortin'- "" But here Martha found it wise to retire to bed.

They found a large company assembled about the huge pile of furze and tar barrels from all the country round, for White Cross was on high ground, and to be seen from all the neighboring hills. And the miners felt it incumbent to them to "shaw what they cu'd do." The sun seemed loth to sink behind the hills and leave so fair a sight, and the groups played kiss in the ring" until the sun should set. And even later, for the glory of the afterThe next night was midsummer eve, glow, all yellow and crimson, with and Martha attired in an old cotton masses of purple clouds, seemed to fill dress (for fear it should be burnt), her half the sky. But at last the night oldest shoes, beautifully blacked and gained, and the darkness encroached shined, and white knitted stockings. on the light and finally subdued it. In These last not old, thereby rousing her its place from all the surrounding hills mother's indignation again; but Mar- glowed the bonfires shining redly out tha's tactful remark of "Ye shu'd a of the gloom. The old whitewashed larned me to wear sluttish stockings stone cross that gave its name to the when I was little ef ye wanted me to wear 'em now I'm growed up," proved to be as oil on troubled waters. And it was with pride she viewed her daughter, when, her costume completed by the white bonnet with the red rose, she stood drawing on her gloves, and giving directions to her companions.

"You'd best arm Alma, Harry; and Charley and me'll lead."

As Martha decreed, so it happened; poor Alma had always to take the man Martha did not happen to want. It

spot was glorified by the flames that rose from "Martha's bonfire." It would have been curious to know of how many such fires the granite stone had been a silent witness. To know of the transition of the heathen worship of the sun on midsummer eve when the fires were lit in joy that the sun was at its fullest glory- to the Christian worship of the blessed St. John, when midsummer eve was attempted to be called St. John's eve. The Irish saints did their best to reconcile the

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heathen to Christianity, even convert- shut in front of the tiny grate, and ing their rugged granite monuments poked the fire into a blaze, and then into the sign of the cross - not chang-crept up-stairs to take off her "shift." ing the object of their veneration, but She soon reappeared, carrying it in her Christianizing it. To Martha the eve hand, and dressed in her mine-girl's was wholly a pagan act of worship; she costume of short petticoat and loose would not for the world have missed jacket, girt round her waist with the going. And as the fire burnt lower, "touser.' Alma drew her legs under and they all joined hands for the final her on to the seat of the settle, and held dance round it, it was to her a mystic her elbows in her hands, and watched rite, for which she had prepared by Martha with an anxious gaze. The carefully pinning her dress skirt up sight was a pretty one. The whitearound her and divesting herself of her washed kitchen, with the strings of white cotton gloves. Then with a firm onions hanging from the ceiling, and grip she held the hands of the men on flitches of bacon and hams tied up in each side of her. Not on any account muslin; the high mantelshelf over the would she have broken the circle until slab, with its burden of shining brass they had trodden the fire out. and tinware; the slab, with its flanking Charley was on one side, of course; of warming-pan and big spoons, shining but Harry and Alma- where were with much rubbing; with the dark they? Harry ought to have been the wood settle on the side away from the other man. To say that Martha was window, and against the wall behind angry is not to adequately express her the settle rose the dresser to the ceiling, feelings. She was jealously angry. covered with "clome."1 Facing the Charley found her but a dull compan- slab was the door leading into the pasion on the homeward walk. There was sage, and against the wall on the same always plenty of fun with Martha, the side was an harmonium, on which Mar"boys" said, but no "coortin'" not tha's father played; and the remaining side of the kitchen was taken up by the window, in which stood pots of musk, and lemon-plant, and geranium; and close to the window the deal table, covered now with a red cloth, on which stood the shining tin candlestick. On the sanded floor in front of the fire Martha knelt at the wooden tray and washed her shift; and when it was finished, turned it inside out and hung it to dry on the chair placed before the fire. Then she sat down on the settle by Alma to watch. They put their arms around each other's waists, and in silence waited for the first stroke of twelve. When at last it pierced the silence of the night, the two girls would have screamed had they dared; but the success of the spell kept them silent, and fear.

even a good-night kiss; but to-night there was neither fun nor "coortin'," and Charley found himself wishing he had Alma with him. Martha dismissed him at the cottage door, and entered the kitchen to find Alma sitting on the settle waiting for her. The mother was in bed asleep, as her snores testified; the father "'pon night coore," so the cottage was practically empty; and as Alma was to stay all night, they had ample scope for Martha's "haythenish ways." Alma diverted Martha's anger by complaining of the dulness of Harry, and stated she had left him and run home.

"You do knaw I do love Charley," she moaned. "You might as well have took Harry and leaved 'un to me." Martha made no answer, but busied herself with setting light to the tallow candle, and scolded Alma for sitting in the dark as she bustled about, pouring hot water into a wooden clothes-tray, and placing a chair before the "slab,” as they call the closed iron stove; she opened the little iron doors that were

From the gloom behind the settle came a tall form, that walked straight to the chair, and taking Martha's shift in its hands, turned it.

Both girls could see; it was Harry's

1 Earthenware,

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