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.
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