Then he crossed towards the old
quarries.
"Don't know what they should want to come in here for--unless it wor to
talk very confidential," said Pickard. "But lor bless yer!--it 'ud be
quiet enough anywheer about this neighbourhood at that time o' neet.
However, this is wheer Bill Thomson says he see'd 'em come."
He led the way amongst the disused quarries, and Byner, following,
climbed on a mound, now grown over with grass and weed, and looked about
him. To his town eyes the place was something novel. He had never seen
the like of it before. Gradually he began to understand it. The stone
had been torn out of the earth, sometimes in square pits, sometimes in
semi-circular ones, until the various veins and strata had become
exhausted. Then, when men went away, Nature had stepped in to assert her
rights. All over the despoiled region she had spread a new clothing of
green. Turf had grown on the flooring of the quarries; ivy and bramble
had covered the deep scars; bushes had sprung up; trees were already
springing. And in one of the worn-out excavations some man had planted a
kitchen-garden in orderly and formal rows and plots.
"Dangerous place that there!" said Pickard suddenly. "If I'd known o'
that, I shouldn't ha' let my young 'uns come to play about here. They
might be tummlin' in and drownin' theirsens! I mun tell my missis to
keep 'em away!"
Byner turned--to find the landlord pointing at the old shaft which had
gradually become filled with water.
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