Bonds of Earth, The by E.V. Thompson Page A

Bolithos were living. She promised to tell him when he came home.’
    â€˜I hope she does! Young girls are so empty-headed these days all they seem to think about are young men and enjoying themselves.’
    â€˜I think her older sister might be like that, but not Nessa, she can read and write and knows a lot about all sorts of things. She hopes to be a schoolteacher one day.’
    Agnes looked at him questioningly, ‘So, Nessa , is it? You seem to know a great deal about a girl who hasn’t been in the area for more than five minutes and whom you’ve hardly met.’
    â€˜I had to go to Captain Pyne’s house to find out where Albert Bolitho and his family are living,’ Goran said defensively. ‘Mrs Pyne asked Nessa to take me to them. If she hadn’t I’d have never found it.’
    Memories of the family’s home flooded back and he said, ‘You should have seen their place, it was awful , our pigs are better housed! He’s got a wife and five young boys living in a gap between rocks that’s covered over with bracken and with only the one bracken bed for all of them. Instead of chairs and tables they’re using rocks. There can’t be anyone in the whole world with less!’
    Aware that Goran was truly upset by the plight of the injured miner and his family, Agnes said, ‘Then the things you took up there for them won’t be wasted. Did you see the boy about helping us with the haymaking?’
    â€˜No, he’d gone to Rilla Mill to collect ointment from the doctor for his pa’s leg, but Albert Bolitho said Jenken would do it and I’m sure he will, the family is absolutely desperate for anything that comes their way.’
    â€˜Well, I hope he’ll earn what I’ll be paying him … but I’m still curious about the mine captain’s daughter you seem to know so well….’
    â€˜I’m sorry, Agnes, but I must go now, Ma will have a meal ready for me and be wondering where I’ve got to …’
    Watching him hurrying away from the farm, Agnes thought Goran was reaching an age when most young men were thinking of finding a girl and settling down. Intelligent and hardworking, he would be a catch for any young woman.
    Not until he passed out of sight did her thoughts turn to the news he had brought about Elworthy and Sir John Spurre being seen together. She would need to pay a visit to her brother and discover what was going on. He was far too simple to recognize the wiles of a man as unscrupulous as the titled landowner and she did not want him landing himself in trouble.
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Chapter 8    
    T HE FOLLOWING MORNING when Goran began working with Elworthy he tackled him about the meeting with Sir John Spurre the previous evening but Elworthy refused to reveal what they had been discussing.
    â€˜We was talking business, man-to-man, and when two men talk between themselves it ain’t nothing to do with anyone else.’
    Goran realized that Elworthy’s words did not reflect his own thinking – such as it was – but were words that would have been used by the owner of the Spurre estate. He wondered what had been said that Sir John wanted kept secret. However, he knew if he continued questioning his employer about it he would only become increasingly stubborn. He decided to get on with his work and leave Agnes to learn the reason for Sir John’s unprecedented visit to the farm, as she most certainly would!
    But that afternoon when Goran reached the neighbouring farm to begin his half-day’s work there he found to his surprise that Agnes was far less concerned about her brother’s meeting with the owner of the Spurre estate than the fact that Captain Pyne had not yet called on her.
    When he asked her what it was that was of such importance she was no more forthcoming than her brother had been earlier that day.
    â€˜What we have to discuss will be between him and