“And was he a collier himself?”
“Blacksmith on the pit-bank, I believe: overhead smith. But he was keeper here for two years before the war … before he joined up. My father always had a good opinion of him, so when he came back, and went to the pit for a blacksmith’s job, I just took him back here as keeper. I was really very glad to get him … it’s almost impossible to find a good man round here, for a gamekeeper … and it needs a man who knows the people.”
“And isn’t he married?”
“He was. But his wife went off with … with various men … but finally with a collier at Stacks Gate, and I believe she’s living there still.”
“So this man is alone?”
“More or less! He has a mother in the village … and a child, I believe.”
Clifford looked at Connie, with his pale, slightly prominent blue eyes, in which a certain vagueness was coming. He seemed alert