George Manville Fenn (continued 2)

“I don’t want no sticking-plaister,” she said, taking a phial of some brown liquid from inside a common ornament. “This’ll cure it directly.”

“And what may this be?” said the vicar, smiling, as he saw his leech shake the bottle, and well soak a small piece of rag in the liquid.

“Rag Jack’s oil,” said Mrs Slee, pursing up her lips, and then anointing and tying up the injured hand. “It cures everything.”

The vicar nodded, not being without a little faith in homely country simples; and then the rag was neatly sewed on, and an old glove cut so as to cover the unsightly bandage.

“Did they upset you?” she then queried.

“Well, no,” he said; and he briefly related what had taken place. “By the way, I hope that gentleman in the red waistcoat is no relation of yours. Is he?”

“Is he?” retorted Mrs Slee, viciously dabbing down a dish of tempting bacon, with some golden eggs, beside the crisp brown loaf and yellow butter. “Is he, indeed! He’s my master.”

Mrs Slee hurried out of the room, but came back directly after.

“You’ve no spoons,” she said, sharply; and then making a dive through her thin, shabby dress, she searched for some time for a pocket-hole, and then plunging her arm in right to the shoulder, she brought out a packet tied in a bit of calico. This being undone displayed a paper, and within this another paper was set free. Carefully folded, and fitted into one another, within this were half a dozen very small-sized, old-fashioned silver teaspoons, blackened with tarnish.

“They are quite clean,” grumbled Mrs Slee, giving a couple of them a rub. “They were my grandmother’s, and she gave ’em to me when I was married—worse luck. I keep ’em there so as they shan’t be drunk. He did swallow the sugar-tongs.”

“Does your husband drink, then?” said Mr Selwood, quietly.

“Is there anything he don’t do as he oughtn’t since they turned him out of the plan?” said the woman, angrily. “There, don’t you talk to me about him; it makes me wild when I don’t want to be.”

She hurried out of the room again, shutting the door as loudly as she possibly could without it’s being called a bang; and then hunger drove everything else out of the young vicar’s mind, even the face of Eve Pelly, and—a minor consideration—his bruised hand.

“A queer set of people indeed,” he said, as he progressed with his hearty meal. “What capital bread, though. That butter’s delicious. Hah!” he ejaculated, helping himself to another egg and a pinky brown piece of bacon; “if there is any fault in those eggs they are too fresh. By Sampson, I must tell Mrs Slee to secure some more of this bacon.”

Ten minutes later he was playing with the last cup of tea, and indulging it with more than its normal proportions of sugar and milk, for the calm feeling of satisfaction which steals over a hearty man after a meal—a man who looks upon digestion as a dictionary word, nothing more—had set in, and Murray Selwood was thinking about his new position in life.

“Well, I suppose I shall get used to it—in time. There must be a few friends to be made. Hallo!”

The ejaculation was caused by some one noisily entering the adjoining room with—

“Now then, what hev you got to yeat?”

“Nowt.” was the reply.

The voices were both familiar, for in the first the vicar recognised that of the man in the red waistcoat—“My master,” as Mrs Slee called him.

“You’ve been cooking something,” he continued loudly.

“Yes. The parson’s come, and it’s his brakfast.”

“Brakfast at this time o’ day! Oh, then, it’s him as I see up at foundry wi’ them Glaires.”

“Don’t talk so loud, or he’ll hear you,” said Mrs Slee, sharply.

“Let him. Let him hear me, and let him know that there’s a free, enlightened Englishman beneath the same roof. Let him know that there’s one here breathing the free—free light—breath of heaven here. A man too humble to call himself a paytriot, but who feels like one, and moans over the sufferings of his down-trampled brothers.”

“I tell you he’ll hear you directly, and we shall have to go.”

“Let him hear me,” shouted Simeon, “and let him drive us out—drive us into the free air of heaven. It’ll only be a new specimint of the bloated priesthood trampling down and gloating over the sufferings of the poor. Who’s he—a coming down here with his cassicks and gowns to read and riot on his five hundred a year in a house like this, when the hard-working body of brothers on the local plan can preach wi’out having it written down, and wi’out cassicks and gowns, and get nothing for it but glory! Let him hear me.”

“Thou fulsome! hold thy stupid tongue,” cried Mrs Slee.

“Never!” exclaimed Simeon, who counted this his opportunity after being baffled in the forenoon. “I’ll be trampled on no more by any bloated oligarch of a priest or master. I’ve been slave too—too long. I’m starving now, but what then? I can be a martyr to a holy cause—the ’oly cause of freedom. Let him riot in his food and raiment—let him turn us out, and some day—some day—I say some day—”

Mr Slee paused in his oratory, for his wife had clapped her hand over his mouth; but just then the door opened, and the vicar stood in the opening.

Mrs Slee dropped her hand, while Simeon thrust his right into his breast, orator fashion, and faced the new-comer with inborn dignity.

“How do, Mr Slee,” said the vicar, quietly. “We met before this morning. I merely came to say that I cannot help hearing every word that is spoken in this room.”

“The words that I said—” began Simeon.

“And,” continued the vicar, “I have quite done, if you will clear away, Mrs Slee. I am going to see about a few more necessaries for the place, and to look out for a gardener, unless your husband likes the job.”

“Garden!” said Simeon; “I dig!”

“I often do,” said the vicar, coolly. “It’s very healthy work. Famous for the appetite. By the way, Mr Slee, I heard you say you were hungry. Mrs Slee, pray don’t save anything on the table; you are quite welcome.”

He walked out of the place, and Mrs Slee, who, poor woman, looked ravenously hungry, hastened to spread their own table.

“That for you,” said Simeon, snapping his fingers after the retreating form. “I care that for you—a bloated priest. Of course, we’re to eat his husks—a swine—his leavings. No; I’ll rather starve than be treated so.”

“Howd thy silly tongue, thou fulsome!” exclaimed Mrs Slee, “and thank the Lord there is something sent for thee. You talk like that! Oh, Sim, Sim, if ever there was a shack, it’s thou.”

“Mebbe I am, mebbe I’m not,” said Sim, as he looked curiously on, while his wife filled up the steaming teapot, put the half dish of bacon down to warm, and then proceeded to cut some thick slices of bread and butter.

Sim turned his eyes away and tried to look out of the window, but those thick slices, with the holes well filled with butter, were magnetic, and drew his eyes back again.

“I tell ye what, woman,” he began, wrenching his eyes away, “that the day is coming when the British wuckman will tear himself from under the despot’s heel.”

“There, do hold thee clat, and—there, yeat that.”

Mrs Slee thrust a great slice of the tempting bread and butter into her husband’s hand, and his fingers clutched it fiercely.

“Yeat that—yeat that?” he cried. “Yeat the bread of a brutal, Church—established tyrant? Yeat the husks of his leavings? Never! I’d sooner—sooner—sooner—sooner—Yah!”

Mr Simeon Slee’s words came more and more slowly, as he prepared to dash the bread and butter down; but as his eyes rested upon the slice, he hesitated, and as he hesitated he fell, for the temptation was too great for the hungry hero. He uttered a kind of snarling ejaculation, and then treating the bread as if it were an enemy, he bit out of it a great semicircle, while throwing himself into a chair, he sat and ate slice after slice with bacon, in silence, washing all down with cups of tea.

Mr Slee stirred his tea with a fork-handle, for it was noticeable that the silver teaspoons had disappeared—a line of procedure adopted by Sim as soon as his hunger was appeased, for he had certain meetings of his brotherhood to attend, so he told his wife; and he did not return till late, his coming being announced by sundry stumbles in the passage, and a peculiar thickness of utterance, due doubtless to the exhaustion consequent upon many patriotic utterances at the hostelry known as the Bull for short—the Bull and Cucumber in fact.

Seekers for derivations of signs had puzzled themselves a good deal over the connection between a bull and that familiar gourd of the cucurbitaceae known as a cucumber. It is perhaps needless to add that the learned were baffled, but the incongruity was never noticed by the people of Dumford, and as their pronunciation of the sign was the Bull and Cow-cumber, the connection did not sound at all out of place.

Mr Selwood heard Sim return, and lay for some time listening to his patriotic utterances—fragments, in fact, of the speech he had delivered at the meeting—and it became very evident to the new occupant of the vicarage that life with Mr Simeon Slee beneath his roof would not be very pleasant.

“I don’t like the idea of turning out the poor woman, either,” he said to himself, as he lay turning from side to side, courting the rest that would not come.

“I’ve been a bit excited to-day, I suppose,” he muttered; and then he tried all the known recipes short of drugs for obtaining rest, from saying a speech backwards to getting out of bed and brushing his hair.

But sleep would not come till close upon morning, for that face before him was the sweet appealing face of Eve Pelly, and in the stillness of the night he seemed to be hearing her words again and again—“Don’t judge dear Richard harshly from what you saw this morning.”

“Dear Richard, dear Richard, dear Richard”—he found himself repeating over and over again. “And she loves him, and believes in him. He is everything to her, and if she found out that he was a scoundrel it would break her heart.”

“And set her free,” something in the corner of his own seemed to whisper; and he started, and sat up in bed with the perspiration standing on his brow.

“Am I sane? Am I in my right senses?” he said, feeling his pulse and counting its beats. “I must be a little out of tone. Humph! I’ll have such a walk to-morrow! Bah! it’s the excitement of coming down here, and it has been rather a lively day.”

He punched and turned his pillow fiercely, threw himself down, and closed his eyes once more, shutting out the dimly-seen lattice window, with its fringe of ivy leaves; but as he did so there was Eve Pelly’s face again, and that gentle look which accompanied the appealing curve of her lips, as she said, “Don’t judge dear Richard harshly.”

The would-be sleeper started up in bed again, and sat there feeling hot and feverish for some time.

“Look here, Murray, dear boy,” he said at last. “You are down here for a great purpose. You have here in your charge some four thousand souls to teach and tend, and help on in life’s course. Don’t fidget, my boy. I’m not going to preach, only to say a few words to the point. Now, look here: You are the spiritual head of the parish; you have your Master’s work to do. In short, you are a teacher. Now mind this, a teacher who cannot govern himself is a broken reed. Are you a broken reed?” This was all said in a low voice, and then for a few moments there was silence in the room, to be broken by the young man saying in a somewhat louder voice in answer to his own words: “I hope not.”

“Good,” he continued, in the former tone. “I like that: it sounds humble and hopeful. Now look here, you will see a great deal of what goes on in this place. In fact, you have seen a good deal already, and you have learned what is the state of affairs with one of the principal families. You have heard that Richard Glaire is engaged to his cousin; that the said cousin loves him; and that this weak young man is playing fast and loose.”

“Yes.”

“Good. Well, your duty is plain; the young fellow doubtless has his good points. Make him your friend, and improve them—for her sake—gain an influence over him. You can, and you will, Murray Selwood. Yours may be a hard duty, but you must do it.”

“Yes, verily, and by God’s help so I will.”

“Good. Now you may go to sleep.”

After this he lay down, and by a strange exercise of will, and in the belief that he was going to conquer a feeling absolutely new to him, he fell asleep directly.

But it was no peaceful rest such as generally came to his pillow, for he lay tossing in dreams of Eve Pelly turning to him constantly for help from some great trouble that was ever pursuing her—a danger that he could not avert. Then Richard Glaire had him by the throat, charging him with robbing him of his love; and then he was engaged in a mad struggle with the young man, holding him over a gulf to hurl him in, incited thereto by the young workman.

Then once more Eve Pelly’s appealing face was before him, praying him to spare dear Richard, the man she loved, and then—

“Thank God, it’s morning!” he exclaimed, waking with a start, to consult his watch, and finding it was half-past six.

Volume One—Chapter Ten.

Sim Slee Busy.

Banks, the foreman, stayed late at the foundry on the night of the disturbance. His master remained in the counting-house smoking cigars till he was very white and ill, feelings which he attributed to the assault made upon him that day—a very sudden one by the way, and one which had arisen, as has been intimated, on account of a rather unfair reduction that had been made in the rate of pay.

But this was not all, for the fact was, that after being left to go on in its quiet, old-fashioned way for years, probably from its insignificance, Dumford had suddenly been leavened by Sim Slee with a peculiar version of his own of the trades-union doctrines of some of the larger towns—doctrines which he had altered to suit his own ends.

Hence arose a society which was the pride of Sim Slee, and known amongst the workmen as the Brotherhood. Meetings were held regularly, speeches made, and Simeon Slee, who heretofore had confined himself to idleness, drink, and local preaching, till expelled as a disgrace to the plan, became a shining light in the brotherhood, on account of what the more quiet workmen called his power of putting things, though the greater part held aloof, from the contempt in which this leader was held.

In previous days, with one or two exceptions, the word of the master of the works had been law, and wages were raised or lowered as trade flourished or fell, with nothing more than a few murmurs; but now times were altered, men had begun to think for themselves, and the behaviour of Richard Glaire had grown so arbitrary and unjust that the consequence was the riot we have seen.

Richard Glaire was about as unsuitable a person as it is possible to imagine to have such a responsibility as the management of a couple of hundred men; but he did not believe this, and he sat, after the departure of his mother, nursing his wrongs, and making plans for the punishment of his workmen.

At one time he was for having the assistance of the military, but as he cooled down he was obliged to acknowledge that his request would be ridiculed.

Then he determined on getting summonses against about twenty of the ringleaders, whom he meant to discharge.

Once he called Banks, and asked him what it would be best to do.

“Put the wage right again,” said the foreman.

Whereupon Richard Glaire turned upon him in a burst of childish passion, and declared that he was in league with the scoundrels who had assaulted him.

“There, I shall go till you’ve had time to cool down,” said Banks, grimly. “Your metal’s hot, Master Richard, and it wean’t be raight again till you’ve had a night’s rest.”

Richard made no reply, but sat biting his lips and making plans till dusk, when he cautiously stole out of the building by a side door, of which he alone had the key.

Banks stayed on for another couple of hours, plodding about the building, examining doors, the extinct forges and furnaces, looking at the bands of the huge lathes, and displaying a curious kind of energy, as by means of a small bull’s-eye lantern he peered in and out of all sorts of out-of-the-way places.

“There’s no knowing what games Master Sim might try on,” he remarked to himself; “blowings up and cutting bands, and putting powther in the furnace holes; he’s shack enew for ought, and I dessay some on ’em will be stupid enough to side wi’ him. What’s that?”

He stopped and listened, for it seemed to him that he had heard a noise below him in the ground floor.

The sound was not repeated, so he went on cautiously through the great black workshop, with its weird assemblage of shafts, cranks, and bands, looking, in the fitful gleams cast by the lantern, like a torture-chamber in the fabled Pandemonium.

A stranger would have tripped and fallen a dozen times over the metal-cumbered floor; but every inch and every piece of machinery was so familiar to the foreman that he could have gone about the place blindfold, even as he did once or twice in the dark when he closed his bull’s-eye lantern, thinking he heard a noise.

All seemed right in this workshop, so he descended to the foundry, going over it and amongst the furnaces, now growing cold.

Then he threaded his way amongst the sunken moulds for castings; looked up at the cranes, paused before the massive crucibles used for melting bell-metal or ingots for the great steel bells, and ended by stopping again to listen.

“I’ll sweer I heerd a noise,” he muttered, taking a short constable’s staff from his pocket, and twisting its stout leather thong round his wrist. “It will be strange and awkward for somebody if I find him playing any of his tricks here.”

He went cautiously on tip-toe in the direction from which the noise had seemed to come, going up a short ladder to a raised portion of the foundry, which formed an open floor where lighter work was done.

He advanced very cautiously in the dark, holding his staff ready to deliver a blow, or guard his head, and the next minute there was the sound of some tool being moved on a bench, and then something alighted at his feet, setting up a soft purring and beginning to rub up against his legs.

“Why, Tommy,” he said, “you scar’d me, my boy. It was you, was it? After rats, eh, Tommy? Poor old puss, then.”

He turned on his lantern, took a good look round, and then, apparently satisfied, he pulled out an old-fashioned silver watch and consulted its face.

“Eight o’clock, eh? Why, they’ll think at home that I’m lost.”

As he spoke he made his light play round for a few minutes, and then, apparently satisfied, he put it out, placed the lamp on a shelf, and went out and across the yard to the kind of lodge, where a man was waiting to take the duty of the watchman for the night.

“All raight, Mester Banks?”

“All right, Rolf,” was the reply. “I’ve been all round.”

Directly after the old foreman was on his way homeward, but he had hardly taken a dozen strides down the lane under the wall, before the head of Simeon Slee was cautiously raised above the edge of one of the great crucibles, or melting-pots, and then for a time he remained motionless.

“You’re a clever one, Joe Banks, you are,” he said at last, as he raised himself up and sat on the edge of the great pot. “You can find out everything, yow can; you can trample on the raights of the British wucking-man, and get the independent spirits discharged, eh? But you’re one of the ungodly bitter ones, and you must be smitten wherever you can. Let’s see how the wuck ’ll go on to-morrow.”

The speaker threw his legs over the side, and then paused to dust his trousers and his coat before proceeding further.

“It’s hot lying in hiding there,” he muttered, pulling off his coat and rolling up his sleeves. “I have to toil and moil like a slave for the cause.”

His next proceeding was to open a great clasp knife and try its edge, which was keen as that of a razor; and then, armed with this, and quite as much at home in the works as the foreman, he went about with lithe steps as cautious as a cat, and, cutting through the bands that connected the wheels of the lathes with the great shaft that set them in motion, he dragged them down and piled them together till he had collected a goodly heap.

This was not accomplished all at once, and with ease, for, setting aside the watchfulness with which the task had to be done, and the care to ensure silence, the bands were heavy, hard to cut, and they had to be borne some distance. Altogether it took Sim Slee a good hour’s arduous labour, and he perspired profusely. In fact, it was his habit to take more pains to achieve a bad end than would have sufficed to get a good living twice over.

“Phew! it’s hot,” he muttered in one of his pauses, during which he ran to the nearest door, and listened. “What a slave I am to the cause.”

Then he chuckled and laughed over the mischief he had done, and ended by laboriously dragging all the great leather bands and straps to the uncovered hole of a furnace, down which he dropped them, so that they fell far back from the mouth below, which opened on the stoke-hole; and he knew that the chances were ten to one that if the present heat did not destroy them, a fire would be lit by the careless stokers, and the bands consumed before they were missed, as, if business were resumed on the following day, the firemen would be there long before the ordinary workers.

“Theer,” said Sim, when he had finished, “I wonder what Joe Banks would say now if he knew o’ this?”

He resumed his coat, out of the pocket of which he took a piece of strong line, some fifteen feet long, and walked cautiously, listening the while, towards one of the windows which looked down on the lane, one side of which was formed by the works and the wall of the yard, and from which the little door before mentioned gave access to the proprietor’s private room in the counting-house.

Sim Slee had entered by this window, being a light, active man, and he was about to descend from it, and make his escape by hitching the strong light steel hook attached to the end of his rope to the sill, just as he had entered by throwing it up till it caught, it being so constructed that a sharp wave sent along the slackened rope would set it free. But before descending Sim stood, rope in hand, listening, watched by the cat at a respectable distance, that sage black animal being evidently impressed with the fact that the intruder in the works was wonderfully rat-like in his actions.

Tommy did not approach him, nor yet purr, but crouched there watching while Sim stood with one ear close to the window, then sharply turned his head and thrust it out into the night air, drew it back again as sharply, and then cautiously thrust it out once more, so that unseen he could see and listen to what went on below.

For there were two figures just below the opening, and as Sim listened, holding his breath, one of them exclaimed:

“I won’t, I won’t, Mr Richard, and you’ve no business to ask me.”

“Mr. Richard,” said the other, reproachfully; “I thought it was to be Dick—your own Dick.”

“Oh, don’t—don’t—don’t talk like that,” sobbed the other. “Oh, I wish I really, really knew whether you meant it all.”

“Meant it all, Daisy! how can you be so cruel, when you know how dearly I love you? But come into the counting-house, and we can sit there and talk.”

“I can’t—I won’t!” said Daisy; “and you know you oughtn’t to ask me, Mr Richard. What would father say if he were to hear of it?”

“Father would only be too pleased,” whispered the young man, “for he believes in me, if you don’t, Daisy. He’d like you to be my own beautiful darling little wife, that I should make a lady.”

“But, do you really, really mean it, Mr Richard?” said Daisy, with a hysterical sob.

“‘Really mean it! Mr Richard!’” said the young fellow, reproachfully. “Oh, Daisy, have you so mean an opinion of me? Do you take me for a contemptible liar?”

“Oh no, no, no,” sobbed the girl; “but they say—I always thought—I believed that you were engaged to Miss Eve.”

“A poor puny thing,” said Richard, in a contemptuous tone; “and besides, she’s my cousin.”

“But she thinks you love her,” said Daisy.

“Poor thing!” laughed Richard.

“And I believe you love her.”

“Indeed I don’t, nor anybody else but you, you beautiful little rosebud. Oh, Daisy, Daisy, how can you be so cruel!”

“I’m not, I’m not cruel,” sobbed poor Daisy; “but I want to do what’s right.”

“Of course,” whispered Richard. “But come along, let’s go in the counting-house—to my room—it’s safer there.”

“I won’t, I won’t,” cried Daisy, indignantly. “At such a time of night, too! You oughtn’t to ask me.”

“I only asked you for your own sake,” said Richard, “because people might talk if they saw you with me here.”

“Oh yes,” sobbed Daisy; “and they would. I must go.”

“Stop a moment,” said Richard, catching her wrist. “Perhaps, too, it was a little for my own sake, because the men are so furious against me.”

“Oh yes, I heard,” cried Daisy, with her voice shaking; “but they did not hurt you to-day?”

“Not hurt me!” said Richard. “Why, they nearly killed me.”

“No, no,” sobbed Daisy.

“But they did; and they would if I hadn’t been rescued.”

Daisy suppressed a hysterical cry, and Richard passed his arm round her little waist, and drew her to him.

“Then you do love me a little, Daisy?” he whispered.

“No, no, I don’t think I do,” sobbed the girl, without, however, trying to get away. “I believe you were going to meet Miss Eve this morning, and were disappointed because I was there.”

“Indeed I was not,” said Richard. “But I’m sure you were expecting to see that great hulking hound, Tom Podmore.”

“That I was not,” cried Daisy, impetuously; “and I won’t have you speak like that of poor Tom, for I’ve behaved very badly to him, and he’s a good—good, worthy fellow.”

“‘Poor Tom!’” said Richard, with a sigh. “Ah, Daisy, Daisy.”

“Don’t, Mr Richard, please,” sobbed Daisy, who was crying bitterly.

“‘Poor Tom—Mr Richard,’” said the young man, as if speaking to himself.

“Don’t, don’t, Mr Richard, please.”

“‘Mr Richard.’”

“Well, Dick, then. But there, I must go now.”

“Not just now, darling Daisy,” whispered Richard, passionately. “Come with me—here we are close by the door.”

“No, no, indeed I will not,” cried Daisy, firmly.

“Not when I tell you it isn’t safe for me to be in the streets at night, for fear some ruffian should knock out my brains?”

“Oh, Dick, dear Dick, don’t say so.”

“But I’m obliged to,” he said, trying to draw her along, but she still resisted.

“I wouldn’t have you hurt for the world,” she sobbed; “but, Richard—Dick, do you really, really love me as much as you have said?”

“Ten thousand times more, my darling, or I shouldn’t have been running horrible risks to-night to keep my appointment with you.”

“And you—you want to make me your wife, Richard—to share everything with you?”

“You know I do, darling,” he cried, in a low, hoarse whisper.

“Then, Dick, dear, it wouldn’t be proper respect to your future wife to take me there to your works at this time of night,” said the girl, simply, as she clung to him.

“Not when the streets are unsafe?” he cried.

“Let’s part now, directly,” said Daisy. “I would sooner die than any one should hurt you, Richard; but you’d never respect your wife if she had no respect for herself. Good night, Richard.”

“There, I was right,” he cried, petulantly, as he snatched himself away. “You do still care for Tom.”

“No, no, Dick, dear Dick. I don’t a bit,” sobbed the girl. “Don’t, pray don’t, speak to me like that.”

“Then will you come with me—only because it isn’t safe here?” whispered Richard.

“No, no,” sobbed the girl, firmly, “I can’t do that, and if you loved me as you said, you wouldn’t ask me.”

“Bah!” ejaculated Richard, angrily. “Go to your dirty, grimy lout of a lover then;” and as the girl clung to him he thrust her rudely away.

Sim Slee, more rat-like than ever, had been rubbing his hands together with delight, as he looked down at the dimly-seen figures, and overheard every word.

“There’ll be a faight, and Dicky Glaire will be bunched about strangely,” muttered Sim, as Daisy gave a faint scream, for a figure strode out of the darkness.

“She wouldn’t have far to go,” said the figure, hoarsely.

“Tom!” cried Daisy, shrinking to the wall.

“Yes, it’s Tom, sure enew,” said the new-comer. “Daisy Banks, it’s time thou wast at home, and I’m goin’ to see thee theer.”

“How dare you interfere, you insolent scoundrel!” cried Richard, striding forward; but he stopped short as Tom drew himself up.

“Look ye here, Richard Glaire—Mester Richard Glaire,” said Tom, hoarsely, “I’m goin’ to tak’ Daisy Banks home to her father wi’out touching of you; but if yow try to stop me, I’ll finish the job as I stopped them lads from doing this morning. Now go home while you’re raight, for it wean’t be safe to come a step nigher.”

Richard Glaire drew back, while the young fellow took Daisy by the wrist, and drew her arm through his own, striding off directly, but stopping as Richard cried:

“You cowardly eavesdropper; you heard every word.”

“Just about,” said Tom, coolly; “I come to tak’ care o’ Daisy here; and if she’d said ‘Yes,’ by the time yow’d got the key of your private door theer, I should ha’ knocked thee down and had my foot o’ thee handsome face, Mester.”

He strode off, Daisy having hard work to keep up with him, sobbing the while, till they were near her home, when she made an effort to cease crying, wiped her eyes, and broke the silence.

“Did—did you hear what I said, Tom?” she whispered.

“Ivery word, lass, but I only recollect one thing.”

“What was that?”

“That thou did’st not love me a bit.”

Daisy gave a sob.

“You mustn’t mind, Tom,” she said, in a low voice, “for I’m a bad, wretched girl.”

“I should spoil the face of any man who said so to me,” he said, passionately; and then he relapsed into his quiet, moody manner.

“There’s plenty of better girls than me, Tom, will be glad to love you,” she said.

“Yes,” he said, softly, “plenty;” and then with a simple pathos he continued bitterly, “and I’ve got plenty more hearts to give i’ place o’ the one as you’ve ’bout broke.”

Daisy’s breath came with a catch, and they went on in silence for a time—a silence that the girl herself broke.

“Tom,” she said, hoarsely, and he gave quite a start. “Tom, are you going to tell mother and father what you’ve heard and seen?”

“No, lass,” he said, sadly, “I’m not o’ that sort. I came to try and take care o’ thee, not as I’ve any call to now. Thou must go thy own gate, for wi’ such as thou fathers and mothers can do nowt. If Dick Glaire marries thee, I hope thou’lt be happy. If he deceives thee—”

“What, Tom?” whispered the girl, in an awe-stricken tone, for her companion was silent.

“I shall murder him, and be hung out of my misery,” said Tom. “There’s your door, lass. Go in.”

He waited till the door closed upon her, and then strode off into the darkness.

Meanwhile Sim Slee leaned cautiously from the window watching Richard, who stood now just beneath him, grinding his teeth with impotent rage as he saw Daisy disappear.

“Why didn’t that fool smash the lungeing villain!” said Slee to himself; and then he leaned a little further out.

“I’d like to drop one of these ingots on his head, only it would be mean—Yah! go on, you tyrant and oppressor and robber of the poor, and—oh, my! what a lark!” he said, drawing in his head as Richard Glaire disappeared, when he threw himself on the floor, hugging himself and rolling about in ecstasy, while the cat on a neighbouring lathe set up its back, swelled its tail, and stared at him with dilated eyes.

“Here’s a lark!” said Sim again. “Why, we shall get owd Joe Banks over to our side. Oh yes, of course he sides with the mesters, he does. He hates trades unions, he does. He says my brotherhood’s humbug, and he’s too true to his master to side wi’ such as me. Ho, ho, ho! I shall hev’ you, Joe Banks, and you’ll bring the rest. I shall hev’ you; and if you ain’t enrolled at the Bull before a month’s out, my name ain’t Simeon Slee.”

“Let me see,” said Sim, sitting up sedately and brushing the dirt from his coat, “I’ve to speak at Churley o’ Tuesday. I’ll let ’em have it about suthing as ’ll fit exact to the case. An’ it’s a wonderful power is speech. Hey! that it is.”

He looked out and listened for a few minutes, and then, all being apparently clear, he placed his knee on the window-sill, slid down the rope, gave it a jerk which set the hook free, caught it nimbly, and rolling the line up, went on preening and brushing himself still like a rat till he reached the Bull and Cucumber, where he was received by the party assembled with a good deal of pot-rattling on the table.

It fell to him, as has been intimated, to make a speech or two that night, for the affairs of the day were largely discussed; and in the course of his delivery he named no names, he said, leastwise he did not say it weer, nor he didn’t say it weern’t Joe Banks, foreman at the foundry, but what he did say was that there was more unlikely things on the cards than for a certain person to jine their ranks, and become one of a brotherhood of which every man there was proud.

“Well, I don’t know so much about that, Sim Slee,” said one of the men. “This here don’t seem like the societies that we hear on.”

“What do you mean?” said Sim.

“Mean! Why, as instead of our being joined sensible like to get what’s reasonable fro’ the master, we comes here to hear thee spout.”

“That’s your ignorance, Peter Thorndike,” said Sim. “Yow’d like to be head man pr’haps, and tak’ the lead.”

“Nay,” said the man, “I want to tak’ no leads, for I can’t talk like thee; but I want what’s sensible and raight for both sides, and I don’t see as we’re agoing to get it by calling ourselves brothers, and takking oaths, and listening to so much o’ thy blather.”

“Peter Thorndike,” said Sim, folding his arms like an image of Napoleon at St. Helena, “thou’rt only a child yet, and hast much to learn. Don’t I tell thee as afore long Joe Banks ’ll be over on our side, and a great time coming for Dicky Glaire?”

“Yes, you telled me,” growled the man, “but I don’t know as I believe it. I wants what’s fair, and that’s what we all wants, eh, lads?”

“Yes, yes,” chorused the others. “Then you shall have it,” said Sim, raising one hand to speak.

“I’ words,” said Thorndike, “and they don’t make owt to yeat. Sim Slee, your brotherhood’s all a sham.”

Volume One—Chapter Eleven.

Mrs Glaire’s Victory.

Tea had been waiting for some time at the house before Richard Glaire made his appearance—for he had of late insisted upon oversetting the old-fashioned homely customs of his boyhood, and dined late.

The drawing-room looked pleasant, for it was well lighted; the tea-service was bright and handsome: and Eve’s hand was visible in many places about the room, where flowers were prettily arranged in vases; in the handsomely-worked cosy which covered the teapot; and in the various pieces of needlework that had grown from her leisure time.

Mrs Glaire, still somewhat upset by the excitement of the day, was lying on a couch, with her face screened from the lamp, whose soft light fell upon Eve as she sat trying to read, but with her thoughts wandering far away. In fact, from time to time she glanced towards the window, and at every sound a bright look of pleasure took that of the anxiety depicted upon her sweet young face.

Then the animation would die out, and she sat apparently listening.

A sigh from the couch aroused her; and, crossing the room, she bent down to tenderly stroke the grey curls back from Mrs Glaire’s forehead before kissing her.

“Poor aunty,” she cooed; “she does want her tea so badly. Let me give you one—just one little cup.”

“No, Eve,” said Mrs Glaire; “I’ll wait till Richard comes.”

“Where can he be?” said Eve, anxiously. “How late he is.” Then seeing how her words had impressed her aunt, she hastened to add: “Don’t fidget, aunt dear; he’s only stopping to have a cigar. He’ll soon be here.”

“Eve, my child,” said Mrs Glaire, who had been brooding over a trouble other than that which had disturbed her during the day, “bring a stool and sit down by me.”

Eve hastened to obey, and, drawing the young girl’s head down to her breast, Mrs Glaire went on:

“My child, you must not think me strange; but I want to talk to you—about Richard.”

“Yes, aunt,” said Eve, whose voice suddenly turned husky, as her heart began to accelerate its motion.

“You love Dick, Eve?”

“Oh, aunt dear, yes,” faltered the girl, with tears rising to her eyes.

“Of course you do, child. No girl could help loving my son.”

“Oh no, aunt.”

“I always meant him to marry you here, my dear; for it would be best for both of you. You have always looked upon him as to be your husband.”

“Yes, aunt dear, always.”

“Yes, and it will be best for you both,” said Mrs Glaire, repeating herself, as if she found some difficulty in what she had to say.

There was silence then for a few minutes, during which the tea-urn went on humming softly, and both women listened for the truant’s footsteps, but he did not come.

“Richard is quite a man now,” said Mrs Glaire, after clearing her throat. “Yes, aunt dear, quite.”

“Does he—does he ever talk much to you about—about love?”

“Oh no, aunt dear,” said Eve, in a surprised tone. “But he is always very, very kind to me, and of course he does love me very much. He would never think of talking about it, aunt dear; he shows it.”

“Yes, yes, of course,” said Mrs Glaire.

“But—but—does he ever talk to you about—being married?”

“Married, aunt? Oh no!”

“He ought to,” said Mrs Glaire, with a sigh. “Eve, my child, I think it would be better for you both if you were married.”

“Do you, aunt; why?” said Eve, naïvely.

“It would be better for me too,” said Mrs Glaire, evading the question.

“Would it, aunt?” said Eve, looking at her for a moment, and then hanging her head as if in deep thought.

“Yes, my dear, I should feel happier—I should feel that Richard was settled. That he had a good, true, dutiful wife, who would watch over him and guide him when I am gone.”

“Oh, aunty, aunty, aunty,” cried the girl, turning and twining her arms round her neck to kiss her tenderly, “you are low-spirited and upset with that terrible trouble to-day. You must not talk like that. Why, you look so young and bright and happy sometimes, that it’s nonsense for you to say dear Dick wants some one to look after him. Of course we shall be married some day—when Dick likes; but we never think of such a thing—at least, I’m sure I don’t.”

There was a pleasant, rosy flush on the girl’s face as she spoke, and just then a cough in the hall made her jump up, exclaiming—

“Here’s Dick!”

Mr Richard Glaire swung the door open directly after, gave a scowl round the room, nodded shortly at his mother, threw himself into an easy-chair, picked up the book Eve had been reading, glanced at it, and with an impatient “pish!” jerked it to the other side of the room.

Eve laughed, made a pretty little grimace at him, and, removing the cosy, hastened to pour out the tea, one cup of which she held ready, evidently expecting that Richard would come and take it to his mother. Then, seeing that he did not pay any heed to her look, she carried the cup herself, round by the back of the young man’s chair, giving his hair a playful twitch as she went by.

“Don’t!” shouted Richard, angrily, and then in an undertone muttered something about “confounded childishness,” while Eve bent over her aunt and whispered softly—

“He’ll be better when he has had some tea, aunt dear. He’s upset with thinking about to-day.”

Mrs Glaire nodded, and watched the pretty, graceful form as Eve tripped back, to stand for a moment or two behind Richard’s chair, resting her hands upon his shoulders as she whispered tenderly—

“Does your face hurt you, Dick dear?”

“Bother!” growled Dick, pouring the cup of tea to which he had helped himself down his throat. “Here, fill this.”

Eve took the cup and saucer, only smiling back at him, and refilling it, said playfully—

“Dick’s cross, aunty. I’m going to give him double allowance of sugar to sweeten his temper.”

“I wish you’d pour out the tea, and not chatter so,” he cried, impatiently. “What with your tongue and hers, there isn’t a bit of peace to be had in the place.”

Eve looked pained, but the look passed off, and without attending to her own wants, she took some bread and butter across to where Richard sat scowling at the wall.

“Won’t you have something to eat, Dick dear?” she said, affectionately.

“NO!”

There are a good many ways of saying “no.” This was one of the most decisive, and was uttered so sharply that Eve forbore to press that which she had brought upon her cousin, and carried it to her aunt.

The rest of the time before retiring was passed in about as agreeable a way, till, at a nod from Mrs Glaire, Eve said, “Good night,” being affectionately embraced by her aunt, and then turning to Dick, she bent over him.

“Good night, dear Dick,” she whispered, holding her cheek to be kissed, as she rested her hands upon his shoulders.

“There, good night. For goodness’ sake don’t paw one about so.”

Eve remained motionless, with the tears gathering in her eyes, for a few moments, before bending down and kissing the young man’s forehead.

“Good night, dear darling Dick,” she whispered. “I’m very sorry about all your troubles; but don’t speak like that, it—it hurts me.”

The next moment she had taken up her candlestick and glided from the room.

Richard Glaire gave himself an impatient twist in his chair, and lay back thinking of the warm, glowing beauties of Daisy Banks, when he started up in affright, so silently had his mother risen from her couch, advanced, laid her hands upon his shoulder, one crossed over the other, and said in a low, clear voice—

“Dick, you are thinking of Daisy Banks.”

“I—I thought you were asleep.” he stammered.

“I was never more wide awake, Richard—to your interests,” said Mrs Glaire.

“I don’t know what you mean,” he said, petulantly, as he gave the lamp-shade a twist, so that its light should not fall upon his face, and then changed his position a little.

“Yes, you do, Richard—perfectly,” said Mrs Glaire. “I said just now that you were thinking of Daisy Banks.”

“Yes, I heard you say so; and I said, I don’t know what you mean.”

An angry retort was upon Mrs Glaire’s lips, but she checked the hasty expression, and pressing her hands a little more firmly upon her son’s shoulders, she went on—

“You know perfectly well what I mean Richard, and I must speak to you about that, as well as about the business.”

“Look here,” exclaimed the young man, impatiently; “I’m tired and worried enough for one day. I’m going to bed.”

He started up, crossed to the side table, took a candle, and advancing to the lamp, was about to light it with a taper, when, to his surprise, his mother, who of late years had given up to him in everything, took candle and taper from his hands and pressed him back unresisting into his seat.

“Richard, you are not going to bed till you have heard what I have to say.”

“I tell you I’m worn out and worried!” he exclaimed.

“You were not too tired to go out and keep engagements,” said Mrs Glaire, firmly.

“Who told you I had been out to keep engagements?” retorted Richard, sharply.

“My heart, Richard,” said his mother. “I know as well as if I had seen you that you have been to-night to meet Daisy Banks.”

“What stuff, mother!”

“As you have often been to meet her, Richard; tell me, do you wish to marry her?”

“I marry that hoyden—that workman’s daughter! Mother, are you mad?”

“You are only a workman’s son, sir.”

“My father made me a gentleman, mother,” said Richard, taking out a cigarette, “and I have the tastes of a gentleman. May I light this?”

“Smoke if you wish to, Richard,” said Mrs Glaire, quietly. “I have never stood in your way when that was a just one.”

Richard lit his cigarette, threw himself back in his chair with one leg over an arm, and said negligently—

“Well, if I am to be lectured, go on.”

“I am not going to lecture you, my son,” said Mrs Glaire, firmly; “I am only interposing when I see you hesitating on the brink of a precipice.”

“Look here, mother,” cried Richard; “do you want to quarrel?”

“No, Richard, to advise.”

“Then don’t talk stuff, mother.”

“I shall not, Richard, neither shall I let you put me off in what I wish to say. I am going to speak to you about Joseph Banks’ daughter, and about the business.”

“Now, look here, mother,” cried the young man, who, with all his desire to go, felt himself pinned down in his chair by a stronger will—“look here. What stuff have you got in your head about that little girl?”

“The stuff, as you call it, that is the common talk of the town.”

“Oh, come, that’s rich,” cried Richard, with a forced laugh. “To keep me up here and scold me about the common talk of scandal-mad Dumford. Mother, I thought you had more sense.”

“And I, Richard, thought that you had more honour; that your father had brought you up as a gentleman; and that you really had the tastes of a gentleman.”

“Come, I say, this is coming it too strong, you know, mother,” said the young man, in a feeble kind of protestation. “It is too hard on a fellow: it is indeed, you know.”

“Richard,” continued Mrs Glaire, with her words growing more firm and deep as she proceeded, “I have had Daisy Banks in this house off and on for years, as the humble companion of Eve, who is shut out here from the society of girls of her own age. It was a foolish thing to do, perhaps, but I was confident in the honour and gentlemanly feeling of my son, the wealthiest and greatest man in Dumford—in the honour of my son who is engaged to be married to his second cousin, Eve Pelly, as good, pure-minded, and sweet a girl as ever lived.”

“Oh, Eve’s right enough,” said Richard, roughly, “or she ought to be, for I’m sick of hearing her praises.”

“A girl who loves you with her whole heart, and who only waits your wishes to endow you with the love and companionship that would make you a happy man to the end of your days.”

“Oh yes,” said Richard, yawning. “I know all about that.”

“And what do I wake up to find?”

“Goodness knows, mother; some mare’s nest or another.”

“I wake up to find what Joseph Banks, our trusty old foreman, also wakes up to find.”

“What!” roared Richard, thrown off his balance; “does he know?”

“Yes,” said Mrs Glaire; “he, too, knows. Does that touch you home?”

“Damn!” muttered Richard, between his teeth.

“Yes, Banks too has woke up to the fact that you are frequently seen alone, and in a clandestine manner, with his only child; but he believes that you love her, that you, in spite of your position, remember that you are only a workman’s son, and that you mean to marry a workman’s daughter, and bring her home here as the wife of the master of Dumford Works.”

“Confound it all!” muttered Richard, biting his nails.

“He smiles at the notion of your being engaged to Eve, for he believes you to be honourable and a gentleman, while I, your mother, am obliged to know that your designs are evil, that you plot the ruin of a poor, weak girl—I wake up, in short, to know that my son is behaving like a scoundrel.”

“Hold your tongue!” cried Richard, hoarsely; and leaping up, he took two or three turns backwards and forwards in the room, before throwing himself once more in his chair.

“But you’ve not spoken to Joe Banks?” he cried.

“I have, this morning,” said Mrs Glaire, and then, her voice trembling, and the judgelike tone giving way to one of appeal, she threw herself at the young man’s knees, clasping them with her arms, and then catching at and holding his hand. “Dick, my boy—my darling—I was obliged to speak—I am obliged to speak to you. You know how, since you became of age, I have delivered everything into your hands—how I have kept back from interfering—how I have been proud to see the boy I brought into the world rich and powerful. You know I have never stood in the way, though you have poured out like water on your betting and gambling the money your father and I saved by dint of scraping and saving.”

“Oh, that’s it, is it?” said Richard, with a sneer.

“No,” cried his mother, appealingly, “it is not, Dick, my boy; it is that I wish to make you see your danger before it is too late. You mad, infatuated boy, can you not see that by what you have done you have set all your workmen against you? You see how you are treated to-day!”

“Oh yes,” said Richard; “and I’ve got the marks upon me.”

“Who stood by you, faithfully and true, as he has always stood by our house in similar times of danger—danger not brought on by folly?—Banks, your father’s old fellow-workman—a man as true as steel.”

“Oh yes, Joe Banks is right enough,” muttered Richard.

“And yet you, Dick—oh, Dick, Dick, my boy, think what you are doing—you would reward him for his long services by doing him the greatest injury man could do to man. Are you mad?”

“If I’m not, you’ll drive me mad,” cried Richard, trying to shake off his mother’s tight embrace.

“No, no, Dick, you shall not leave me yet,” cried Mrs Glaire, in impassioned tones, as the tears now streamed down her cheeks. “You must—you shall listen to me. Can you not see that besides maddening the poor man by the cruel wrong you would do, you will make him your deadly enemy; that the works would be almost helpless without him; and that he is the strong link that holds the workpeople to our side? For they respect him, and—”

“Go on. They don’t respect me, you were going to say,” said Richard, petulantly. “Oh, mother, it’s too bad. You’ve got hold of some cock-and-bull bit of scandal, set about by one of the chattering fools of the place—old Bullivant, very likely—and you believe it.”

“Richard, my boy,” said Mrs Glaire, rising and standing before him, “can you not be frank and candid with your own mother?”

“You won’t let me,” he said; “you do nothing but bully me.”

“When I tell you of your danger; when I remind you that you are standing on the edge of a precipice—”

“Oh, hang the precipice!” he cried; “you said that before.”

“When I warn you of the ruin, and beg of you on my knees, my boy, if you like, not to pursue this girl—not to yield to a weak, mad passion that will only bring you misery and regret to the end of your days, for you would never marry her.”

“Well, it isn’t likely,” he said, brutally.

“Dick—Dick,” cried Mrs Glaire, passionately, roused by the callous tone in which he spoke, “are you in your right senses, or have you been drinking? It cannot be my boy who speaks!”

“Well, there, all right, mother, I’ll own to it all,” he said, flippantly, and then he winced as the poor woman cast her arms round his neck, and strained him to her breast.

“I knew you would, my boy, as soon as the good in your nature got the upper hand. And now, Dick, you’ll promise me you won’t see Daisy Banks any more.”

“All right, mother, I won’t.”

“Thankyou, Dick. God bless you for this. But I must talk to you a little more. I have something else to say.”

“What, to-night?” he said, with a weary yawn.

“Yes, to-night. Just a few words.”

“Go on then, only cut it short.”

“I wanted to say a few words to you about Eve.”

“Oh, bother Eve,” he muttered. “Well, go on.”

“Don’t you think, Dick, my boy, you’ve been very neglectful of poor Eve lately?”

“Been as attentive as I ever have.”

“No, no, Dick; and listen, dear; try and be a little more loving to her.”

“Look here, mother,” cried Richard, impatiently; “I’ve promised all you want.”

“Yes, yes, my boy.”

“Well, if you get always trying to thrust Eve down my throat, I shall go away.”

“Richard!”

“I’m tired of being bored about her.”

“But your future wife! Dick, my boy—there, only a few more words—will you take my advice?”

“Yes—no—yes; well, there, I’ll try.”

“Don’t you think, then, that had better come off soon?”

“That! What?”

“Your marriage.”

“No, indeed I don’t, so I tell you. I don’t mean to be tied up to any woman’s apron-string till I have had my fling. There, good night; I’m going to bed.”

Mrs Glaire made an effort to stay him, but he brushed by her, turned at the door, said, “Good night,” and was gone.

As the door closed, Mrs Glaire sank into the chair her son had so lately occupied, and sat thinking over their conversation.

Would he keep his word? Would he keep his word? That was the question that repeated itself again and again, and the poor woman brought forward all her faith to force herself to believe in her son’s sense of honour and truth, smiling at last with a kind of pride at the victory she had won.

But as she smiled, lighting her candle the while, and then extinguishing the lamp, a shiver of dread passed through her at the recollection of the events of the day; and at last, when she passed from the room a heavy shadow seemed to follow her. It was the shadow of herself cast by the light she carried, but it seemed to her like the shadow of some coming evil, and as she went upstairs and passed her son’s door, from beneath which came the odour of tobacco, she sighed bitterly, and went on wondering how it would end, for she had not much faith in his promise.

Volume One—Chapter Twelve.

More Trouble at the Works.

“I shall have to do something about these people,” said the vicar, as he descended, after making a hasty toilet.

His way out lay through the room appropriated by the objects of his thoughts, and on opening the door it was to find Mr Simeon Slee’s toilet still in progress. In fact, that gentleman was seated in a chair, holding a tin bowl of water, and his wife was washing his face for him, as if he were a child.

They took no notice of the interruption, and the vicar passed through, intending to take a long walk, but he checked his steps at the gate, where he stood looking down the long street, that seemed a little brighter in the early morning.

He had not been there five minutes before he saw a sodden-looking man come out of the large inn—the Bull and Cucumber—and as the pale, sodden-looking man involuntarily wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, the vicar nodded.

“Morning drain, eh? I’m afraid yours is not a very comfortable home, my friend.”

The man was going slowly down the street when his eye caught the figure of the vicar, and he immediately turned and came towards him, and touched his hat.

“Mr Selwood, sir?”

“That is my name, my man.”

“I’m Budd, sir—J. Budd—the clerk, sir. Thowt I’d come and ask if you’d like the garden done, sir. I’m the gardener here, sir. Four days a week at Mr Glaire’s. Your garden, sir—”

“Would have looked better, Budd, if, out of respect to the church and the new vicar, you had kept it in order.”

“Yes, sir; exackly, sir; but I was too busy, sir. Shall I come, sir?”

“Yes, you may come, Budd. By the way, do you always have a glass before breakfast?”

“Beg pardon, sir—a glass?”

“Yes, at the Bull?”

“Never, sir,” said Budd, with an injured air. “I went in to take Mr Robinson’s peck.”

“Peck of what? pease?”

“Peck, sir—peck-axe—maddick.”

“Oh, I see,” said the vicar, looking at the man so that he winced. “Well, Budd, come and see to the garden after breakfast.”

“That I will, sir.”

“And, by the way, Budd.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Don’t wipe your mouth when you have been to return picks or mattocks. I’m rather a hard, matter-of-fact person, and it makes me think a man has been drinking.”

Jacky Budd touched his hat without a word, stuck one thumb into his arm-hole, and went off to inform the next person he met that “new parson” was a tartar and a teetotaler.

By this time Simeon Slee had gone off in another direction, and as the vicar was busy with his pocket-knife, pruning some trailing branches from the front windows, Mrs Slee came to announce that his breakfast was ready, and soon after relieved him of a difficulty.

“Going, eh, Mrs Slee? When?”

“I thowt we’d flit to-day, sir. We only came in to take charge of the house.”

“Have you a place to go to?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Humph! Well, it’s best, perhaps, Mrs Slee, for I am a frank man, and I don’t think your husband and I would agree. You couldn’t come and keep me right till I’ve got a housekeeper, I suppose?”

Mrs Slee could, and said she would; and that morning Jacky Budd helped the poor woman to “flit” her things to a neighbouring cottage, Simeon vowing that he’d “never set foot in the brutal priest’s house again.”

“You’re well shut of a bad lot, sir,” said Jacky Budd, turning to Mr Selwood, after the last items of the Slee impedimenta were off the premises, and he had looked round the wilderness of a garden, sighed, and wondered how he should ever get it in order.

“Think so, Budd?” said the vicar, drily.

“Yes, sir, I do,” said Jacky, resting on the spade he had not yet begun to use; “he’s a Ranter, is Slee, a Primity Methody, sir—a fellow as sets up against our Church—helps keep the opposition shop, and supplies small-beer instead of our sacrymental wine.”

Jacky involuntarily smacked his lips as he spoke, and the vicar turned sharply upon him with knit and angry brows.

But Jacky Budd was obtuse, and saw it not, but went on, wiping his forehead the while, as if he were panting and hot with his exertions.

“They had him down on the plan, sir; they did, ’pon my word of honour, sir—him, a regular shack, as never does a day’s work if he can help it. He was a local preacher, and put on a white ’ankercher o’ Sundays, and went over to Churley, and Raiby, and Beddlethorpe, and Mardby, and the rest of ’em, he did. It’s as good as a play, sir, to hear him ’preach. But they’ve ’bout fun’ him out now.”

“You have been to hear him, then, Budd?” said the vicar, drily.

“Me? Been to hear he? Me, sir—the clerk of the parish? No, sir; I never be-meaned myself by going into one of their chapels, I can assure you,” said Jacky, indignantly; and raising his spade, he chopped down a couple of unorthodox weeds growing up within the sacred borders of the vicarage garden.

“I’m glad to hear it, Budd,” said Mr Selwood, looking at him curiously; “and now I think as you’ve begun, we’ll go on with the gardening.”

“To be sure, sir—to be sure,” said Jacky, looking round and sighing at the broad expanse of work; “but if I might be so bold, sir, I should say, Don’t you have nowt to do wi’ that chap Slee. He’s a regular Shimei, sir—a man as curses and heaves stones at our holy Church, sir—a man as comes in the night, and sows tares and weeds amongst our wheat.”

“Exactly, Budd,” said the vicar, looking him full in the face; “but now suppose we sink the metaphorical and take to the literal. There are tares and weeds enough here: so suppose you root them out of the garden.”

“Yes, sir, of course, sir; I was just going to,” said Jacky. “It’s a lovely garden when it’s in good order. I suppose you wouldn’t like me to get Thad Warmouth and one of the Searbys to come and help me—labouring chaps, sir, and very strong?”

“No, Budd, I really should not,” said the vicar; “and besides, it would be depriving you of a good deal of work. What three men would do in two days will last one man six.”

“Exactly, sir—thanky, sir; it’s very thowtful of you,” said Jacky, sighing, and looking as if he would be willing to be deprived of a good deal of work; and then he began to chop at the ground very softly, as if, knowing that it was his mother earth, he was unwilling to hurt it.

“I’m fond of gardening myself, Budd; it’s good, healthy work, and I dare say I shall help you a great deal. Excuse me; lend me that spade a moment. I think it would be as well to drive it right in like this—it will save further trouble; this wild convolvulus takes such a strong hold of the soil.”

He took the tool and dug for a few minutes lustily, stooping down after each newly-turned spadeful to pick up and remove the long, white trailing roots that matted it together, horrifying Jacky, who took off his hat and wiped his dewy forehead, for it made him perspire freely to see such reckless use of muscular power.

“Thanky, sir; yes, I see,” said Jacky, taking the spade again with a sigh, and fervently wishing that he had not undertaken the job. “Hallo! here’s the Missus.”

He paused, and rested his foot on the spade, as just then Mrs Glaire, driving a little four-wheel chaise, drawn by an extremely chubby pony, like a heavy cart-horse cut down, drew up by the vicarage gate.

The little lady was greatly agitated, though she strove hard to keep an equable look upon her countenance, returning the vicar’s salute quietly, as he walked down to the gate; whilst such an opportunity of a respite from the spade not being one to be neglected, Jacky Budd stuck that implement firmly amongst the weeds, and followed closely.

“Shall I hold Prinkle, mum?” he said, going to the pony’s head.

“Yes—no, Jacky, I’m not going to stay,” said Mrs Glaire. “Are you at work here, then?”

“Yes, mum.”

“Mind he does work, then, Mr Selwood,” she continued; “and don’t let him have any beer, for he’s a terribly lazy fellow.”

Jacky looked appealingly at his mistress, then smiled, and looked at the vicar, as much as to say, “You hear her—she will have her joke.”

“Is anything the matter?” said the vicar, earnestly.

“Well, yes; not much, Mr Selwood: but I am getting old and nervous, and I thought I would ask you to come up. You seemed to have so much influence with the men.”

“Certainly I’ll come up, if I can be of any use.”

“Pray get in then,” said Mrs Glaire, and the springs of the little vehicle went down as the vicar stepped in, while, during the minute or two that ensued, as Mrs Glaire drove up to the foundry, she told him that the works had not been opened till mid-day, when it had been agreed upon by her son—at her wish—that he would receive some of the workmen at the counting-house, and try to make some arrangement about terms.

“I went to the works, too,” she said, “not to interfere, but to try and be ready to heal any breach that might arise. Of course I called in as if by accident, as I was going for a drive.”

“And has anything occurred?” said the vicar.

“No; but I was afraid, for Richard is very impetuous, and I thought as—as you saw what you did yesterday—”

“My dear Mrs Glaire, pray always look upon me as an old friend, who has your welfare and that of the people thoroughly at heart. Oh, here we are.”

His remarks were cut short by the pony turning sharply in at the great gates, as if quite accustomed to the place, and as the men, who were pretty thick in the yard, made way, some of them roughly saluting the occupants of the chaise, the pony stopped of its own accord in front of the counting-house.

The vicar sprang out and helped Mrs Glaire to alight, following her into the building, where Richard was sitting, looking very sulky, at the head of a table, and about a dozen of the men were present, Simeon Slee being in the front rank.

“It’s going agen my advice, Mester Richard Glaire,” he was saying. “If the men did as I advise, they’d stand out, but I’m not the man to stand in the way of a peaceable settlement, and as you’ve come to your senses, why I agree.”

“I didn’t agree for you to come to the works, Slee,” said Richard, sharply.

“Yes, yes, yes,” chorused half-a-dozen voices; “all or none, Maister. All or none.”

“I can stand out,” said Sim, loftily. “I can afford to be made a martyr and a scapegoat, and bear the burthen. I don’t want to come back to work.”

“And I don’t want and don’t mean to have you,” said Richard, hotly. “I sent to you all this morning, forgiving the brutal treatment I met with yesterday—”

“Your own fault,” said a voice. “Howd thee tongue, theer,” said one of the men, who seemed to take a leading part. “Bygones is bygones. You sent for us, Maister Richard, and we’ve come. You says, says you, for the sake o’ peace and quiet you’d put wage where it were, and you’ve done it, but it must be all or none. Fair play’s fair play, ain’t it, parson?”

“Yes, yes, Richard, give way,” whispered Mrs Glaire; and with an impatient stamp of his foot Richard Glaire gave his lip a gnaw, and exclaimed—

“There, very well; Slee can come back; but mind this, if he begins any of his games and speech-making in the works again, he goes at once.”

“Oh, I can stay away,” said Slee, in an injured tone; but his fellow-workmen held to his side, and, to Mrs Glaire’s great relief, an amicable settlement was arrived at, and the men were about to go, when Banks, the old foreman, burst into the place in a towering passion.

“Howd hard theer,” he roared, looking fiercely round. “You’re a pretty set o’ cowardly shacks, you are. Do you call that a fighting fair?”

“What is it, Banks?” exclaimed Richard, starting.

“Don’t make no terms wi’ ’em at all, for they wean’t keep to ’em, the blackguards.”

“But what is it?” cried Richard, impatiently.

“What is it? What is it, Missus Glaire? Why, I was watching here mysen till nine o’clock, and left all safe.”

“Well?” cried Richard, turning pale.

“Look here, Joe Banks,” cried the man who had been speaking before; “tak’ it a bit easy, theer. None o’ us ain’t done nowt, ha’e we, lads?”

“No,” was chorused, Sim Slee’s voice being the loudest.

“Done nowt!” roared Banks, like an angry lion. “D’yer call it nowt to steal into a man’s place, and coot and carry off every band in t’ whole works?”

“Have they—have they done that, Banks?” cried Richard.

“Have they?” roared the foreman; “ask the sneaking cowards.”

“No, no, we hain’t,” cried the leader, bringing his hand down on the table with a thump. “It’s a loi, ain’t it, lads—a loi?”

“Yes,” was chorused; “we ain’t done nowt o’ t’ sort.”

“Then who did it?” cried Banks; and there was a silence.

“Look here,” cried Richard, who had been brought very unwillingly to this concession by Mrs Glaire, and gladly hailed an excuse for evading it. “Look here, Banks, are all those wheel-bands destroyed?”

“Ivery one of ’em,” said Banks.

“Then I’ll make no agreement,” cried Richard, in a rage. “You may strike, and I’ll strike. It’s my turn now—be quiet, mother, I’m master here,” he cried, as Mrs Glaire tried to check him. “I won’t have my property destroyed, and then find work for a pack of lazy, treacherous scoundrels. There’s a hundred pounds’ worth of my property taken away. Make it up, and put it back, and then perhaps I’ll talk to you.”

“But I tell you, Mester, it’s none o’ us,” cried the leader.

“None of you!” sneered Richard. “Why, the bands are gone, and I’m to give way, and pay better, and feed you and yours, and be trampled upon. Be off, all of you; go and strike, and starve, till you come humbly on your knees and beg for work.”

“Had you not better try and find out the offender, Mr Glaire?” interposed the vicar, who saw the men’s lowering looks. “Don’t punish the innocent with the guilty.”

“Well spoke, parson,” cried a voice.

“You mind your own business, sir,” shouted Richard. “I know how to deal with my own workmen. You struck for wages, and you assaulted me. I’ll strike now, you cowards, for I’ll lock you out. The furnaces are cold; let them stop cold, for I’ll lose thousands before I’ll give in. I’ll make an example of you all.”

“You’ll repent this, Mester Richard Glaire,” shouted Slee.

“I’ll repent when I see you in gaol, you mouthing demagogue!” cried Richard. “Now, get off my premises, all of you, for I’ll hold no more intercourse with any of the lot.”

“But I tell you, Mester,” said the leader, a short, honest-looking fellow, “it’s—”

“Be off, I tell you!” shouted Richard. “Where are my bands?”

The man wiped his forehead, and looked at his companions, who one and all looked from one to another, and then, as if feeling that there was a guilty man amongst them—one who had, as it were, cut the ground from beneath their feet—they slowly backed out, increasing their pace though, towards the last, as if each one was afraid of being left.

“Go after them, Banks, and see them off the premises,” said Richard, with a triumphant look in his eye. “Let’s see who’ll be master now.”

The foreman went after the deputation, and there was a low murmuring in the yard, but the men all went off quietly, and the great gates were heard to clang to.

“Oh, Richard, my boy,” said Mrs Glaire, “I’m afraid you’ve made matters worse.”

“I’ll see about that,” said Richard, rubbing his hands, and giving a look askant at the vicar, who stood perfectly silent. “They’ll be down on their knees before the week’s out, as soon as the cupboard begins to be nipped. Are they all gone, Banks?”

“Yes, they’re all gone,” said the foreman, returning. “I wouldn’t ha’ thowt it on ’em.”

“Stop!” cried Richard, as a sudden idea seemed to strike him. “What time did you go away, Joe?”

“’Bout nine.”

“And all was right then?”

“That I’ll sweer,” said the foreman; “I went all over the works. It must ha’ been done by some cowardly sneak as had hid in the place.”

“I know who it was,” said Richard, with his eyes sparkling with malicious glee.

“Know who it was?” said Banks. “Tell me, Maister Richard, and I’ll ’bout break his neck.”

“It was that scoundrel Tom Podmore.”

“Who? Tom Podmore! Yah!” said the foreman, in a tone of disgust; and then with a chuckle. “I dessay he’d like to gi’e you one, Maister Dick; but go and steal the bands! It ain’t in him.”

“But I tell you I saw him!” cried Richard.

“Saw him? When?”

“Hanging about the works here last night between nine and ten.”

“You did!” cried the foreman, eagerly.

“That I did, myself,” said Richard, while the vicar scanned his eager face so curiously that the young man winced.

Joe Banks stood thinking with knitted brow for a few moments, and then, just as Mrs Glaire was going to interpose, he held up his hand.

“Wait a moment, Missus,” he said. “Look here, Maister Richard, you said you saw Tom Podmore hanging about the works last night?”

“I did.”

“There’s nobbut one place wheer a chap could ha’ been likely to ha’ gotten in,” said Banks, thoughtfully. “Wheer might you ha’ sin him?”

“In the lane by the side.”

“That’s the place,” said the foreman, in a disappointed tone. “That theer window. Was he by hissen?”

“Yes, he was quite alone,” said Richard, flinching under this cross-examination.

“And what was you a-doing theer, Maister Richard, at that time?” said the foreman, curiously.

“I—I—” faltered Richard, thoroughly taken aback by the sudden question; “I was walking down to go into the counting-house, with a sort of idea that I should like to see if the works were all right.”

“Ho!” said the foreman, shortly; and just then the eyes of the young men met, and it seemed to Richard that there was written in those of the vicar the one word, “Liar!”

“Did you speak, sir?” said Richard, blanching, and then speaking hotly.

“No, Mr Glaire, I did not speak, but I will, for I should like to say that from what I have seen of that young man Podmore, I do not think he is one who would be guilty of such a dastardly action.”

“How can you know?” said Richard, flushing up. “You only came to the town yesterday.”

“True,” said the vicar; “but this young man was my guide here, and I had some talk with him.”

“I hope you did him good,” said Richard, with an angry sneer.

“I hope I did, Mr Glaire,” said the vicar, meaningly, “and I think I did, for he told me something of his life, and I gave him some advice.”

“Of course,” from Richard.

“Richard, my son, pray remember,” exclaimed Mrs Glaire.

“Oh yes, I remember, mother,” cried Richard, stung with rage by the doubting way in which his charge had been received; “but it is just as well that Mr Selwood here should learn at once that he’s not coming to Dumford to be master, and do what he likes with people.”

“It is far from my wish, Mr Glaire,” said the vicar, with a bright spot burning on each cheek, for he was young and impulsive too, but the spots died out, and he spoke very calmly. “My desire here is to be the counsellor and friend of both master and man—the trusty counsellor and faithful friend. My acquaintance with this young workman Podmore was short, but I gave him a few friendly words on his future action, and the result was that he came and fought for his master like a man when he was in the midst of an angry mob.”

“So he did, parson, so he did,” said Banks, bluntly.

“And came in a malicious, cowardly way at night to destroy my property,” cried Richard.

“Nay, nay, lad, nay,” said Banks, sturdily. “Parson’s raight. Tom Podmore ain’t the lad to do such a cowardly trick, and don’t you let it be known as you said it was him.”

“Let it be known!” said Richard, grinding his teeth. “Why, I’ll set the police after him, and have him transported as an example.”

“Nay, nay, lad,” said Banks, “wait a bit, and I’ll find out who did this. It wasn’t Tom Podmore—I’ll answer for that.”

“Let him prove it, then—and he shall,” cried Richard, who hardly believed it himself; but it was so favourable an opportunity for having an enemy on the hip, that he was determined, come what might, not to let it pass.

Five minutes later the parties separated, the works were shut up, and Richard Glaire did not reject the companionship of the vicar and the foreman to his own door, for there were plenty of lowering faces in the street—women’s as well as men’s; but the party were allowed to pass in sullen silence, for the strikers felt that “the maister” had something now of which to complain, and the better class of workmen were completely taken aback by the wanton destruction of the machinery bands.

Volume One—Chapter Thirteen.

The Foreman at Home.

There had been a few words at Joe Banks’s plainly-furnished home when he returned the previous night.

Everything looked very snug—the plain, simple furniture shone in the lamplight, and a cosy meal was prepared, with Mrs Banks—a Daisy of a very ripened nature—sitting busily at work.

“Well, moother,” said Banks, as he entered and threw himself into a chair.

“Well, Joe,” said Mrs Banks, without looking up.

“Phee-ew!” whistled Joe, softly, as he took up the pipe laid ready beside the old, grey, battered, leaden tobacco-box, filled the bowl, and lit up before speaking again, Mrs Banks meanwhile making a cup of tea for him to have with his supper.

“Why didn’t you come home to tea, Joe—didn’t you know there was some pig cheer?”

“Bit of a row up at the works. Didn’t you know?”

“Bless us and save us, no!” cried Mrs Banks, nearly dropping the teapot, and hurrying to her husband’s side. “You’re not hurt, Joe?”

“Not a bit, lass. Give us a buss.”

Mrs Banks submitted ungraciously to a salute being placed upon her comely cheek, and then, satisfied that no one was hurt, she proceeded to fill up the pot, and resumed her taciturn behaviour.

“Owd woman’s a bit popped,” said Joe to himself. Then aloud, “Wheer’s Daisy?”

“That’s what I want to know,” said Mrs Banks, tartly. “Wheer’s Daisy? There’s no keeping the girl at home now-a-days, gadding about.”

“Is she up at the House?” said Joe. “I suppose so,” said Mrs Banks; “and, mark my words, Joe, no good ’ll come of it. It’s your doing, mind.”

“Nonsense, nonsense, old woman. What’s put you out? Come, let’s have some supper; I’m ’bout pined.”

“Then begin,” said Mrs Banks. “Not wi’out you, my lass,” said Joe, winking at the great broad-faced clock, as much as to say, “That’ll bring her round.”

“I don’t want any supper,” said Mrs Banks. “More don’t I, then,” said Joe, with a sigh; and he got up, took off his coat, and then began to unlace his stout boots.

“Bless and save the man! wheer are you going?” exclaimed Mrs Banks.

“Bed,” said Joe, shortly. “Tired out.”

“What’s the use o’ me having sausages cooked and hot ready for you if you go on that a way, Joe?”

“I can’t eat sausages wi’out a smile wi’ ’em for gravy,” said Joe, quietly, “and some one to eat one too.”

“There, sit down,” said Mrs Banks, pushing her lord roughly into his well polished Windsor chair. “I don’t know what’s come to the man.”

“Come home straange and hungry,” said Joe, smiling; and the next minute, on Mrs Banks producing a steaming dish of home-made sausages from the oven, Joe began a tremendous onslaught upon them, after helping his wife, and putting a couple of the best on a plate.

“Just put them i’ the oven to keep hot for Daisy, wilt ta, my lass?” said Joe.

“She won’t want any supper,” said Mrs Banks, tartly, but she placed the plate in the oven all the same, and after pouring out some tea, set the teapot on the hob.

“But she may, my lass, she may,” said Joe. “Now, tell us what’s wrong,” he continued, with his mouth full, after pouring a large steaming cup of tea down his capacious throat.

“Tom Podmore’s been here,” said Mrs Banks. “Only just gone. Didn’t you meet him?”

“No,” said Joe. “Didn’t he say nowt about the row?”

“Not a word,” said Mrs Banks, looking up. “Was he in it?”

“Just was,” said Joe. “Saved me and the Maister from being knocked to pieces a’most. He’s a good plucky chap, is Tom.”

“Yes, and nicely he gets treated for it,” said Mrs Banks, hotly.

“Who treats him nicely?” said Joe, with half a slice of bread and butter disappearing.

“You—Daisy—everybody.”

“Self included, my lass!” said Joe. “He allus was a favourite of yours.”

“Favourite, indeed!” said Mrs Banks. “Joe, mark my words—It’ll come home to Daisy for jilting him as she’s done; and, as I told him to-night, he’s a great stupid ghipes to mind anything about the wicked, deceitful girl.”

“Here, have some more sausage, mother; it’s splendid; and don’t get running down your own flesh and blood.”

“Own flesh and blood!” cried Mrs Banks. “I’m ashamed of her.”

“No, you’re not, lass,” said Joe, with a broad grin. “Thou’rt as proud of her as a she peacock wi’ two tails. Now, lookye here, lass; you’ve took quite on that Daisy should have Tom. Well, he’s a decent young fellow enew, and if she’d liked him I should ha’ said nowt against it, but then she didn’t.”

“She don’t know her own mind,” said Mrs Banks.

“Oh yes, she do,” said Joe, smiling, “quite well; and so does some one else. The Missus has fun’ it out.”

“Mrs Glaire?”

“Yes, the Missus. She sent for me to-day to speak to me about it.”

“What, about her boy coming after our Daisy?”

“About Mr Richard Glaire, maister o’ Doomford Foundry, taking a fancy to, and having matrimonial projects with regard to his foreman’s daughter,” said Joe, pompously.

“Well!” exclaimed Mrs Banks, eagerly; “and does she like it?”

“Well—er—er—er—she’s about for and again it,” said Joe, slowly.

“Now that won’t do, Joe,” exclaimed Mrs Banks. “You can’t deceive me, and I’m not going to be put aside in that way. I know as well as if I’d ha’ been theer that she said she didn’t like.”

“Well, what does it matter about what the women think? Dick—I mean Maister Richard Glaire’s hard after her.”

“And means to marry her?” said Mrs Banks.

“Marry her? Of course. Didn’t Baxter, of Churley, marry Jane Kemp? Didn’t Bill Bradby, as was wuth fifty thousand, marry Polly Robinson of Toddlethorpe, and make a real lady of her, and she wasn’t fit to stand within ten yards o’ my Daisy.”

“Yes, go on,” said Mrs Banks. “That’s your pride.”

“Pride be blowed, it’s only a difference in money. Richard Glaire’s only my old fellow-workman’s son, and Daisy’s my daughter, and I can buy her as many silk frocks, and as many watches, and chains, and rings as any lady in the land need have,” said Joe, angrily, as he slapped his pocket. “I ain’t gone on saving for twenty years for nowt. She shan’t disgrace him when they’re married.”

“Yes, Joe, that’s your pride,” said Mrs Banks.

“Go it,” said Joe, angrily, “tant away—tant—tant—tant. I don’t keer.”

“It’s your pride, that’s what it is. When she might marry a decent, honest, true-hearted lad like Tom, who’s worth fifty Richard Glaires—an insignificant, stuck-up dandy.”

“Don’t you abuse him whose bread you eat,” said Joe.

“I don’t,” said Mrs Banks. “It’s his mother’s and not his. I believe he soon wouldn’t have a bit for himself, if it wasn’t for you keeping his business together. Always sporting and gambling, and fooling away his money.”

“Well, if I keep it together, it’s for our bairn, isn’t it?” said Joe.

“And he’s no better than he should be.”

“You let him alone,” said Joe, stoutly. “All young men are a bit wild ’fore they’re married. I was for one.”

“It’s a big story, Joe,” said Mrs Banks, indignantly. “You wasn’t, or I shouldn’t ha’ had you.”

Joe winked at the clock again, and laughed a little inside as he unbuttoned another button of his vest—the second beginning at the top—to keep count how many cups of tea he had had.

“It’s my opinion,” said Mrs Banks, “that—”

“Howd thee tongue, wilt ta?” cried Joe. “Here’s the lass.”

Daisy entered as he spoke, looking very pale and anxious-eyed, hastened through the kitchen, and went upstairs to take off her hat and jacket.

“Just you make haste down, miss,” said Mrs Banks, tartly.

“I don’t want any supper, mother,” said the girl, hurriedly.

“Then I want thee to ha’e some!” exclaimed Mrs Banks; “so look sharp.”

Daisy gave a sigh and hurried upstairs, and, as the door closed, Joe brought his hand down on the table with a thump that made the cups and saucers dance.

“Now, look here, old woman—that’s my bairn, and I wean’t have her wherrited. If she is—”

“I’m going to say what’s on my mind, Joe, when it’s for my child’s good,” said Mrs Banks, stoutly.

“Are you?” said Joe, taking another cup of tea and undoing another button; “then so am I. Lookye here, my lass! I wouldn’t ha’ took a step to throw Daisy in young Maister’s way, but as he’s took to her, why, I wean’t ha’ it interfered wi’—so now, then.”

“Don’t blame me, then, Joe; that’s all,” said Mrs Banks.

“Who’s going to?” said Joe. “So now let’s have none of your clat.”

Daisy came in then, and took her place at the table, making a very sorry pretence at eating, and only speaking in monosyllables till her mother pressed her.

“Did Mrs Glaire send you home with anybody?”

“No, mother.”

“Did you come home alone?”

“No, mother.”

“Humph: who came with you?”

“Tom, mother.”

Mrs Banks looked mollified, and Joe surprised.

“Has Miss Eve been playing to you, to-night?”

“No, mother.”

“What have you been doing then?”

“I—I—haven’t been at the House,” stammered Daisy.

Joe turned sharply round.

“Have you been a-walking with Tom, then?”

“No, mother, I only met him—coming home—and he walked beside me,” said the girl, with crimson cheeks.

“Theer, theer, theer,” said Joe, interposing, “let the bairn alone. Daisy, my lass, mak’ me a round o’ toast.”

How Joe was going to dispose of a round of toast after the meal he had already devoured was a problem; but Daisy darted a grateful look at him, made the toast—which was not eaten—and then, after the things were cleared away, read for an hour to her father, straight up and down the columns of the week-old county paper, till it was time for bed, without a single interruption.

But Mrs Banks made up for it when they went to bed, and the last words Joe heard before going to sleep were—

“Well, Joe, I wash my hands of the affair. It’s your doing, and she’s your own bairn.”

And Joe Banks went to sleep, and dreamed of seeing himself in a new suit of clothes, throwing an old shoe after Daisy as she was being carried off by Richard Glaire in a carriage drawn by four grey horses, the excitement being such that he awoke himself in the act of crying “Hooray!” while poor Daisy was kneeling by her bedside, sobbing as though she would break her heart.

Volume One—Chapter Fourteen.

Sim Slee Sees Another Opening.

“Here, just hap me up a bit,” said Sim Slee to his wife, as he lay down on a rough kind of couch in their little keeping-room, as the half sitting-room, half kitchen was called; and in obedience to the command, Mrs Slee happed him up—in other words, threw a patchwork counterpane over her lord.

“If you’d come home at reasonable times and tak’ thee rest you wouldn’t be wantin’ to sleep in the middle o’ the day,” said Mrs Slee, roughly.

“Ah, a deal you know about things,” grumbled Sim. “You’d see me starved with cold before you’d stir, when I was busy half the night over the affairs of the town.”

“I’stead o’ your own,” grumbled Mrs Slee.

“Howd thee tongue, woman,” said Sim. “I’m not going to sleep, but to think over matters before I go and see Joe Banks this afternoon. I can think best lying down.”

Mrs Slee resumed her work, which was that of making a hearthrug of shreds of cloth, and soon after Sim was thinking deeply with his mouth open, and his breath coming and going with an unpleasant gurgle.

As soon as he was asleep, Mrs Slee began busily to prepare the humble dinner that was cooking, and spread the clean white table for her lord’s meal. A table-cloth was a luxury undreamed of, but on so white a table it did not seem necessary.

When all was ready, she went across the room and touched Sim, who opened his eyes and rose.

“That’s better,” he said. “I feel as tiff as a band now. Where’s the Rag Jack’s oil?”

Without a word, Mrs Slee went to a little cupboard and produced a dirty-looking bottle of the unpleasant-looking liquid, one which was looked upon in the district as an infallible cure for every kind of injury, from cuts and bruises down to chilblains, and the many ailments of the skin.

“How did you do that?” said Mrs Slee, sharply, as her husband held out a finger that was torn and evidently festering.

“Somebody was nation fast the other day, and pulled me off the foundry wall.”

“Where you’d got up to speak, eh?” said Mrs Slee.

“Where I’d got up to speak,” said Sim, holding his hand, while his wife dressed it with the balm composed by the celebrated Rag Jack, a dealer who went round from market to market, and then tied it up in a bit of clean linen.

“That’s better,” said Sim, taking his place at the table. “What is there to yeat?”

“There’d be nothing if it was left to you—but wind,” said his wife, sourly, as she took the lid off a boiler, hanging from the recking-hooks of the galley balk, and proceeded to take out some liquid with a tea-cup.

“But, then, it ain’t,” said Sim, smiling. “You see, I knew where to pick up a good missus.”

“Yes,” retorted his wife, “and then tried to pine her to dead for all you’d do to feed her. Will ta have a few broth?”

“Yes,” said Sim, taking the basin she offered him and sniffing at it. “Say, wife, you’ve been waring your money at a pretty rate.”

“I’ve wared no money ower that,” said Mrs Slee. “Thou mayst thank parson for it.”

“Yah!” growled Sim, dipping his spoon, and beginning angrily; “this mutton’s as tough as a bont whong.”

“There, do sup thee broth like a Christian, if thee canst!” exclaimed Mrs Slee. “Wilt ta have a tate?”

Sim held out his basin for the “tate” his wife was denuding of its jacket, and she dropped it into the broth.

“Say!” exclaimed Sim, poking at the potato with his spoon, “these taters are strange and sad.”

Mrs Slee did not make any reply, but went on peeling potatoes one by one, evidently in search of a floury one to suit her husband, who objected to those of a waxy or “sad” nature. But they were all alike, and he had to be content.

“I’ll have a few more broth,” said Sim, at the end of a short space of time, and before his wife had had an opportunity to partake of a mouthful; and this being ladled out for him and finished, Sim condescended to say “that them broth wasn’t bad.”

“Have you got any black beer?” he now asked.

Mrs Slee had—a little, and the bottle of black beer, otherwise spruce, being produced, Sim had a teaspoonful of the treacly fluid mixed in a mug of hot water with a little sugar; and then, leaving his wife to have her meal, he rose and went out.

A week had passed since the discovery of the loss of the bands, and though Sim had been dodging about and watching in all directions, he had never once hit upon Joe Banks alone, so he had at last made up his mind to go straight to his house, and, to use his own words, “beard the lion in his den.”