A quick sigh rose to her lips as again she took his flowers and held them against her face.

CHAPTER VII

THE SPELL

A wonderful summer evening followed the sultry day.  The sun sank gloriously behind High Shale, and a soft breeze blew in from the sea.

On the slope of the hill behind the lighthouse and above the miners’ village there stood an old thatched barn, and about this a knot of men and youths loitered, smoking and talking in a desultory, discontented fashion.  On the other side of the barn a shrill cackling proclaimed the presence of some of the feminine portion of the community, and the occasional squall of a baby or a squeal of a bigger child testified to the fact that the greater part of the village population awaited the entertainment which Green contrived to give on the first Saturday of every month.

He had started these concerts two winters before down in the village of Little Shale, and they had originally been for men and boys only, but the women had grumbled so loudly at their exclusion that Green had very soon realized the necessity of extending a welcome to them also.  So now they flocked in a body to his support, even threatening to crowd out the men in the winter evenings when he had to assemble his audience at the Village Club at Little Shale.  But in the summer, as a concession to High Shale, he held his concerts, whenever feasible, up on the hill, and practically the whole of High Shale village came to them.  Little Shale was also well represented, but he always felt that he was in closer touch with the miners on these occasions, when he met them on their own ground.

The two villages were apt to eye one another with scant sympathy, the fisher population of the one and the mining population of the other having little in common beyond the liquor which they uniformly sought at The Three Tuns by the shore.  Green never permitted any bickering, and they were all alike in their respect for him, but a species of armed neutrality which was very far removed from comradeship existed between them.  Fights at The Three Tuns were by no means of unusual occurrence and the miners of High Shale were invariably spoken of with wholesale contempt by the men along the shore.

But, thanks to Green’s untiring efforts, they met on common ground at his concerts, and any member of the audience who dared to commit any breach of the peace on any of these occasions was summarily dealt with by Green himself.  He knew how to keep his men in hand.  There was not one of them who ever ventured to question his supremacy.  He ruled them, not one of them could have said how.  Ashcott, the manager of the mine, who battled in vain against the rising spirit of disorder and rebellion among them, was wont to describe his influence over them as black magic.  Whatever its source it was certainly unique.  None but Dick Green could spring from the platform, seize a delinquent by his collar or the scruff of his neck, and run him, practically unresisting, out of the assembly.  His lightning decisions were never questioned.  His language, which could be forcible upon occasion, never met with any retort.  The men seemed to recognize instinctively that it was useless to stand up to him.  He could have compelled them blindfold and with his hands behind him.