He could tell, in the resigned shrugs of the others, that they were not only getting used to his desire for solitude, they were also growing more than a little fed up. The time would soon come when they would stop asking. Sympathy went only so far. He wasn’t the only miner who had suffered unexpectedly as a result of the recent dispute – some poor souls had given up the ghost altogether and hurled themselves into the Leeds-Liverpool Canal or the River Douglas – nor was he the only chap whose wife had made a fool of him and taken herself off with another. Betty Cowburn had been duped by a silver tongue and the promise of plenty by one of the soldiers brought in to prevent any trouble from the strikers. The soldier had deserted, and they were both now on the run. As he flung open his front door, his blackened face gave him an appearance more demonic than human. The coal dust that was almost ingrained into his face rendered his eye sockets an unearthly white, flecked with tiny specks of black.
