The Lost Girl

Excerpt

Take a mining townlet like Woodhouse, with a population of ten thousand people, and three generations behind it.  This space of three generations argues a certain well-established society.  The old “County” has fled from the sight of so much disembowelled coal, to flourish on mineral rights in regions still idyllic.  Remains one great and inaccessible magnate, the local coal owner:  three generations old, and clambering on the bottom step of the “County,” kicking off the mass below.  Rule him out.