CHAPTER IIThe squire has gathered all his kin,
To hunt the fox so sly;
’Tis not a beast with paws and brush,
But a man like you or I!
They hunt him down the thorny glen,
And up the hillside dark;
“O hear him gasp and hear him sob,
Whenas our hounds do bark!”
—Ruck’s Ballad of the Mink
* * * *
When Revel was due for a rest space, he went through the blue-tinged dusk of the mine, cleaned his arms and face at the washers, scrubbing the coal dust from his big hands, and climbed the ladders, up and up, till day shone in his face.
He stood beneath the cross-beam of the entrance, sucking in clean air. The red and blue buttons shone in the sun; far down the valley a globe passed between trees, bent on some private business. Another floated by him into the mine; under it trotted a zanph,
