The colliers, who are very suspicious with strangers, guessing from his small middle-class hands that he belonged to another caste, had at first imagined a romance, some assassination, and that he was escaping punishment.
Les houilleurs, tres défiants devant les étrangers, le flairant d'une autre classe a ses mains petites de bourgeois, avaient d'abord imaginé une aventure, un assassinat dont il fuyait le châtiment.