At the sound of the chairs a boy of fourteen came quietly in and slipped into his seat.

His sister had gone off with a portion on a plate through the open door.

Gard was surprised to find himself hoping it was not her custom to take her meals in private, and was relieved when she came back presently without the plate and sat down by her brother.

“Ah, you, Bernel, as soon as you’ve done your supper run over and tell Mr. Le Pelley that his white stallion is on our common, and he’d better send for him.”

“I’ll ride him home,” said the boy exultingly.

“No you won’t, Bern,” said his sister quickly.  “He’s not safe.  You know what an awkward beast he is at times, and you could never get him across the Coupee.”

“Pooh!  I’d ride him across any day.”

“Promise me you won’t,” she said, with a hand on his arm.

“Oh, well, if you say so,” he grumbled.  “I could manage him all right though.”

Just then the doorway darkened and two young men entered, and threw their caps on the green bed, and sat down with an awkward nod of greeting to the company in general.

“My son Tom,” said Mr. Hamon, and Tom jerked another awkward nod towards the stranger.  “And Peter Mauger”—­Peter repeated the performance, more shyly and awkwardly even than Tom, from a variety of reasons.

Tom was at home, and he had not even been invited—­except by Tom.  And strangers always made him shy.  And then there was Nance, with her great eyes fixed on him, he knew, though he had not dared to look straight at her.

And then the stranger had an air about him—­it was hard to say of what, but it made Peter Mauger and Tom conscious of personal uncouthness, and of a desire to get up and go out and wash their hands and have a shave.

Gard, they knew, was the new captain of the mine, chosen by the managers of the company for his experience with men, and he looked as if he had been accustomed to order them about.

His eyes were dark and keen, his face full of energy.  Being clean-shaven his age was doubtful.  He might be twenty-five or forty.  Nance, in her first quick comprehensive glance, had wondered which.

He stood close upon six feet and was broad-chested and square-shouldered.  A good figure of a man, clean and upstanding, and with no nonsense about him.  A capable-looking man in every respect, and if his manner was quiet and retiring, there was that about him which suggested the possibility of explosion if occasion arose.

Not that the Hamon family as a whole, or any member of it, would have put the matter quite in that way to itself, or herself.  But that, vaguely, was the impression produced upon them—­an impression of uprightness, intelligence, and reserved strength—­and the more strongly, perhaps, because of late these characteristics had been somewhat overshadowed in the Island by the greed of gain and love of display engendered by the opening of the mines.