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The Parson O' Dumford

by George Manville Fenn · English · Gutenberg #34141 · 725,887 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: The Parson O' Dumford

Author: George Manville Fenn


        
Release date: October 26, 2010 [eBook #34141]

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/34141

Credits: Produced by Nick Hodson of London, England


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PARSON O' DUMFORD ***




Produced by Nick Hodson of London, England




Volume 1, Chapter I.

PLEASANT RECEPTIONS.

"Ax."

"I was asking, or axing, as you call it, my man.  I said, Is that
Dumford, down there in the valley?"

"And I said axe, or arks, as you call it, my man," was the surly,
defiant reply.

The last speaker looked up savagely from the block of stone on which he
was seated, and the questioner looked down from where he stood on the
rough track.  There was a quiet, half-amused twinkle in his clear grey
eyes, which did not quit his verbal opponent for an instant, as he
remained gazing at him without speaking.

They were men of about the same age--eight-and-twenty or thirty--the one
evidently a clergyman by his white tie, and the clerical cut of his
clothes, though there was an easy _degage_ look in the soft felt hat
cocked a little on one side of his massive head--a head that seemed
naturally to demand short crisp curly brown hair.  The same free and
easy air showed in the voluminous wrinkles of his grey tweed trousers;
his thick square-toed rather dusty boots; and his gloveless hands, which
were brown, thickly veined, and muscular.  He had a small leather bag in
one hand, a stout stick in the other, and it was evident that he had
walked some distance over the hills, for the nearest town, in the
direction he had come, was at least six miles away.

The seated man, who was smoking a very dirty and short clay pipe, was as
broad-shouldered, as sturdy, and as well-knit; but while the one, in
spite of a somewhat heavy build, was, so to speak, polished by exercise
into grace; the other was rough and angular, and smirched as his
countenance was by sweat and the grime of some manufacturing trade, he
looked as brutal as his words.

"What are yow lookin' at?" he suddenly growled menacingly.

"At yow," said the clergyman, in the most unruffled way; and, letting
his bag and stick fall in the ferns, he coolly seated himself on a
second block of stone on the bright hill-side.

"Now look here," exclaimed the workman, roughly, "I know what you're
after.  You're going to call me my friend, and finish off with giving me
a track, and you may just save yerself the trouble, for it wean't do."

He knocked the ashes out of his pipe as he spoke, and looked menacing
enough to do any amount of mischief to a man he did not like.

"You're wrong," said the traveller, coolly, as he rummaged in the pocket
of his long black coat.  "I'm going to have a pipe."

He opened a case, took out a well-blackened meerschaum, scraped the
ashes from its interior, filled it from a large india-rubber pouch which
he then passed to the workman, before striking a match from a little
brass box and beginning to smoke with his hands clasped round his knees.

"Try that tobacco," he continued.  "You'll like it."

The workman took the tobacco-pouch in an ill-used way, stared at it,
stared at the stranger smoking so contentedly by him, frowned, muttered
something uncommonly like an oath, and ended by beginning to fill his
pipe.

"Don't swear," said the traveller, taking his pipe from his lips for a
moment, but only to replace it, and puff away like a practised smoker.

"Shall if I like," said the other, savagely.  "What have yow got to do
wi' it?"

"Don't," said the traveller; "what's the good?  It's weak and stupid.
If you don't like a man, hit him.  Don't swear."

The workman stared as these strange doctrines were enunciated; then,
after a moment's hesitation, he finished filling his pipe, struck a
match which refused to light, threw it down impatiently, tried another,
and another, and another, with the same result, and then uttered a
savage oath.

"At it again," said the traveller, coolly, thrusting a hand into his
pocket.  "Why, what a dirty-mouthed fellow you are."

"Yow wean't be happy till I've made your mouth dirty," said the workman,
savagely; "and you're going the gainest way to get it."

"Nonsense!" said the traveller, coolly, "Why didn't you ask me for a
light?"

He handed his box of vesuvians, and it was taken in a snatchy way.  One
was lighted, and the few puffs of smoke which followed seemed to have a
mollifying effect on the smoker, who confined himself to knitting his
brows and staring hard at the stranger, who now took off his hat to let
the fresh soft breeze blow over his hot forehead, while he gazed down at
the little town, with its square-towered church nestling amidst a clump
of elms, beyond which showed a great blank, many-windowed building, with
tall chimney shafts, two or three of which were vomiting clouds of black
smoke nowise to the advantage of the landscape.

"I thowt you was a parson," said the young workman at last, in a growl a
trifle less surly.

"Eh?" said the other, starting from a reverie, "parson?  Yes, to be sure
I am."

"Methody?"

"No."

"Ranter, p'raps?"

"Oh, no, only when I get a little warm."

"What are you, then?"

"Well, first of all," said the traveller, quietly, "you'd better answer
my question.  Is that Dumford?"

The workman hesitated and frowned.  It seemed like giving in--being
defeated--to answer now, but the clear grey eyes were fixed upon him in
a way that seemed to influence his very being, and he said at last,
gruffly,

"Well, yes, it is Doomford; and what if it is?"

"Oh, only that I'm the new vicar."

The workman puffed rapidly at his pipe, his face assuming a look of
dislike, and at last he ejaculated, "Ho!"

"Like that tobacco?" said the new vicar, quietly.

There was a pause, during which the workman seemed to be debating within
himself whether he should answer or not.  At last he condescended to
reply, "'taint bad."

"No; it's really good.  I always get the best."

The last speaker took in at a glance what was going on in his
companion's breast, and that was a fight between independent defiance
and curiosity, but he seemed not to notice it.

"Give him time," he said to himself; and he smoked on, amused at the
fellow's rough independence.  He had been told that he would find
Dumford a strange place, with a rough set of people; but nothing
daunted, he had accepted the living, and had made up his mind how to
act.  At last the workman spoke:

"I never see a parson smoke afore!"

"Didn't you?  Oh, I like a pipe."

"Ain't it wicked?" said the other, with a grin.

"Wicked?  Why should it be?  I see nothing wrong in it, or I should not
do it."

There was another pause, during which pipes were refilled and lighted
once more.

"Ever drink beer?" said the workman at last.

"Beer?  By Samson!" exclaimed the new vicar, "how I should like a good
draught now, my man.  I'm very thirsty."

"Then there ain't none nigher than the Bull, an that's two mile away.
There's plenty o' watter."

"Where?"

"Round the corner in the beck."

A short nod accompanied this, and the vicar rose.

"Then we'll have a drop of water--qualified," he said, taking a flask
from his pocket.  "Scotch whisky," he added, as he saw the stare
directed at the little flask, whose top he was unscrewing.

A dozen paces down the path, hidden by some rocks, ran the source of a
tiny rivulet or beck, with water like crystal, and filling the cup he
took from his flask, the vicar qualified it with whisky, handed it to
his rough companion, and then drank a draught himself with a sigh of
relief.

"I've walked across the hills from Churley," he said, as they re-seated
themselves.  "I wanted to see what the country was like."

"Ho!" said the workman.  "Say, you ain't like the owd parson."

"I suppose not.  Did you know him?"

"Know him?  Not I.  He warn't our sort."

"You used to go and hear him, I suppose?"

"Go and hear him?  Well, that's a good one," said the workman; and a
laugh transformed his face, driving away the sour, puckered look, which,
however, began rapidly to return.

"What's the matter?" said the vicar, after a few minutes' silent
smoking.

"Matter? matter wi' who?"

"Why, with you.  What have you come up here for, all by yourself?"

"Nothing," was the reply, in the surliest of voices.

"Nonsense, man!  Do you think I can't tell that you're put out--hipped--
and that something has annoyed you?"

The young man's face gave a twitch or two, and he shuffled half round in
his seat.  Then, leaping up, he began to hurry off.

The new vicar had caught him in a dozen strides, putting away his pipe
as he walked.

"There," he said, "I won't ask any more questions about yourself.  I'm
going down into the town, and we may as well walk together."

The young workman turned round to face him, angrily, but the calm
unruffled look of his superior disarmed him, and he gave a bit of a gulp
and walked on.

"I never quarrel with a man for being cross when he has had something to
put him out," said the vicar, quietly.  Then seeing that he was touching
dangerous ground, he added, "By the way, where's the vicarage?"

"That's it, next the church," was the reply.

"Yes, I see; and what's that big building with the smoking chimneys?"

"Foundry," was said gruffly.

"To be sure, yes.  Bell foundry, isn't it?"

"Yes."  Then after a pause, "I work theer."

"Indeed?"

"Tell you what," said the young man, growing sociable in spite of
himself; "yow get leave and I'll show you all about the works.  No I
wean't, though," he exclaimed, abruptly.  "Cuss the works, I'll never go
there no more."

The new vicar looked at him, tightening his lips a little.

"Another sore place, eh?" he said to himself, and turned the
conversation once more.

"What sort of people are you at Dumford, my lad?"

"Hey? what sort o' people?  Why, men and women and bairns, of course.
What did you expect they weer?"

"I mean as to conduct," said the vicar, laughing.  "What will they say
to me, for instance?"

The young man's face grew less cloudy for a few moments, a broad,
hearty, honest grin extending it so that he looked a frank, even
handsome young fellow.

"They'll make it a bit warm for you, parson," he said at last.

"Eh? will they?" said the vicar, smiling.  "Rough as you were, eh?"

"Oh no," said the other, quickly.  "Don't you take no notice o' that.  I
ain't always that how.  I was a bit popped this morning."

"Yes, I could see you were a bit _popped_," said the vicar.  "We all
have our troubles, my lad; but it's your true man that gets the strong
hand of his anger and masters it."

"You look as if you never had nought to make you waxy in your life,"
said the workman.  "I say, what do they call you?"

"Call me?  A parson, I suppose."

"No; I mean call you.  What's your name?"

"Oh!  Selwood--Murray Selwood."

"Murray Selwood," said the questioner, repeating it to himself.  "It's a
curus sort o' name.  Why didn't they call you Tom, or Harry, or Sam when
thou wast a bairn?"

"Can't say," said the vicar, smiling.  "I was too young to have a voice
in the matter."

"You couldn't help it, of course.  Say, can yow play cricket?"

"Oh yes."

"Bowl a bit, I suppose!"

"Yes; I'm best with the ball."

"Round hand?"

"Yes, and pretty sharp."

"Give's yer hand, parson, I like yow, hang me if I don't; and I'll come
and hear you fust Sunday as you preaches."

The two men joined hands, and the grasp was long, earnest, and friendly,
for the Reverend Murray Selwood, coming down freshly to his new living
amongst people who had been described to him as little better than
savages, felt that he had won one rough heart to his side, and was
gladdened by the frank open gaze that met his own.

It was a different man that walked on now by his side, talking freely,
in the rough independent way of the natives of his part; people who
never thought of saying _Sir_, or touching their hat to any man--save
and excepting the tradespeople, who contrived a salute to the wealthier
families or clergy of the neighbourhood.  He laughed as he talked of the
peculiarities of Jacky this or Sammy that, and was in the midst of a
speech about how parson would find "some of 'em rough uns to deal wi',"
when he stopped short, set his teeth, drew in a long breath, and was in
an instant an altered man.

The Reverend Murray Selwood saw and interpreted the change in a moment.

"Oh, 'tis love, 'tis love, 'tis love that makes the world go round," he
said to himself; and he looked curiously at the little group upon which
they had suddenly come on turning round by a group of weather-beaten,
grey-lichened rocks.

There were two girls, one of whom was more than ankle-deep in a soft
patch of bog, while the other was trying very hard to reach her and
relieve her from her unpleasant predicament.

Danger there was none: a good wetting from the amber-hued bog water
being all that need be feared; but as the corner by the rocks was turned
it was evident that the spongy bog was now rapidly giving way, and if
help were to be afforded it must be at once.

The young workman hesitated for a moment, and then half turned away his
head, but the vicar ran forward as the maiden in distress cried
sharply--

"Oh Daisy, Daisy, what shall I do?"

"Let me help you out," said the vicar, smiling.  "Why, it is soft here,"
he cried, as he went in over his knees, but got one foot on a tuft of
dry heath and dragged out the other, to plant it upon a patch of grass.
"Don't be alarmed.  There, both hands on my shoulder.  That's right.
Hold tight, I've got you.  Why you were sinking fast, and planting
yourself as a new kind of marsh flower--and--there, don't shrink away,
or we shall be both planted--to blossom side by side.  It _is_ soft--
that's better--now lean all your weight on me, my dear--not that you're
heavy--now I have you--steady it is--that's better."

As he kept up this running fire of disconnected words, he contrived to
drag the girl out of the soft bog, placing his arm well round her waist,
and then carried her in his arms, stepping cautiously from tussock to
tussock till he placed her blushing and trembling beside her companion,
who had retreated to the firm ground.

"Oh, thank you.  I am so much obliged," stammered the girl, as her long
lashes were lowered over her pretty hazel eyes, which shrank from the
honest admiring gaze directed upon them.

And truly there was something to admire in the pretty, innocent, girlish
face with its creamy complexion, and wavy dark brown hair, several
little tresses of which had been blown loose by the breeze on the
hill-side.

She was very plainly dressed, and wore a simple coarse straw hat, but
there was an air of refinement about her which, before she opened her
lips, told the new vicar that he was in the presence of one who had been
born in a sphere of some culture.

Not so her companion, who, though as well favoured by nature, was cast
in quite another mould.  Plump, peachy, and rounded of outline, she was
a thorough specimen of the better class English cottage girl, spoiled by
her parents, and imbued with a knowledge that she was the pretty girl of
the place.

"I am so much obliged--it was so good of you," stammered the heroine of
the bog.

"Not at all, my dear; don't mention it," said the vicar, in a quiet way
that helped to put the discomfited maiden at her ease.  "I see:
gathering bog-flowers and went too far.  For shame," he continued,
loudly.  "You, a county young lady, and not to know it was dangerous to
go where the cotton rushes grow.  You wanted some, eh?  Yes, and left
the basket out there--half full."

"Oh, pray don't go--never mind the basket--it does not matter," faltered
the girl; but the vicar was already stepping from tussock to tussock,
ending by hooking up the basket with his stick, and pausing to pick some
of the best silky topped rushes within his reach.

"There," he said, returning the basket and its contents; "there are your
cotton rushes--earth's fruit.  I ought to scold you for behaving like a
daughter of Eve, and trying to get what you ought not to touch."

The girl crimsoned to the roots of her hair at the word Eve, and
exchanged glances with her companion, who was standing before her,
looking hot, frowning, and cross, with her eyes fixed on the ground, and
her nose in the air, as if being scourged by the angry look directed at
her by the young workman, who stood a few yards off scowling, with his
hands thrust into the very bottoms of his pockets.

"I did not think the bog was so treacherous," said the girl, stealing a
look at the frank, manly face before her.  "It looked so safe."

"So do many things in this world, my dear; but you must not trust them
any the more for their fair seeming."

The girl started a little, and looked indignant at the familiar way in
which she was addressed by so young a man--a perfect stranger.  She had
already tried to sting him in the bog with two or three furious darts
from her bright eyes for daring to put his arms round her.  In fact she
had felt for a moment that she would rather sink into the earth than be
touched like that, but she was helpless and had to resign herself to her
fate.

"Ah!" said the vicar, "you are looking angry at me for speaking in such
a free way."

"I--I indeed--I--"

"Ah, my dear, I can read that pretty innocent face of yours like a book.
There--there--don't blush so.  We are strangers: well, let's be
strangers no more.  Let me introduce myself.  I am Murray Selwood, your
new parson, and you are--?"

"Eve Pelly--Mrs Glaire's--"

"Niece.  I know, my dear.  Very, very glad to make your acquaintance.
You see I know something about the place, though I have not been there
yet."

As he spoke he took the timidly extended hand and gave it a warm, frank
pressure, which again heightened the blush; but in a few moments Eve
Pelly felt more at her ease in the presence of this stranger, who, with
all his freedom, had an atmosphere of gentlemanly truth and candour
which won upon all with whom he came in contact.

"Now," he said, "you must introduce me to my other little friend here.
Who is this?"

"This is Daisy Banks, Mr Selwood.  Mr Banks is my aunt's foreman at
the Foundry.  Daisy comes with me sometimes when I go for a walk.  We
have known each other from children."

"To be sure," said the vicar, smiling.  "I might have known your name
was Daisy.  Shake hands, my dear.  You'll never change that name, but
some day you'll be coming to me to change the other for you."

"Which I'm sure I never shall," cried Daisy, with an indignant stamp,
and a hot angry glance at the young workman, who ground his teeth, and
savagely kicked the top off a tuft of heather.

"Don't be angry, my dear," said the vicar, kindly, as, red-faced,
choking, and hardly able to restrain her angry tears, the girl snatched
away her hand and turned away.

"It's one of my weaknesses to touch tender chords unwittingly," he said
in a low tone to Eve; and, how it was she knew not, the girl felt
herself drawn into a feeling of confidence with this stranger, who,
however, half affronted her susceptibilities the next moment by saying,

"But come, you must not stand here with wet feet.  If you were a sister
of mine I should make you take off those dripping boots."

"They are not wet--not very wet," she stammered, correcting herself.

"I think I know," said the vicar, smiling.  "But come, you must walk
home sharply.  I'm a bit of a doctor in my way.  You won't mind my
company, I hope.  We must be very good friends."

"I'm sure we shall," said Eve, frankly, as she glanced once more at her
companion, and the next minute he was chatting to her about the contents
of her basket.

"Then you understand botany?" she said, eagerly, and he looked down with
pleasure at the bright, animated countenance at his side.

"Oh, yes, a little.  And you do, I see?"

"Oh, a very little," said Eve; "the hard Latin words are so puzzling."

"But you can learn plenty of botany without troubling yourself over the
long names; they will come to you imperceptibly."

Meanwhile Daisy, who had been forgotten, had followed on a few yards
behind, looking very angry and indignant at the way in which she was
neglected, while the young workman walking by her side seemed as angry,
but with a dash of the savage in his face.

Both looked straight before them, and neither spoke, each going on as if
in utter ignorance of the companions presence.

"I shall have to give you some lessons when I begin making my collection
of specimens," said the vicar, after a few more observations.

"Will you?" exclaimed Eve, eagerly; and then, retailing the fact that
she had known this stranger but a few minutes, she tried to qualify her
remark, failed dismally, and began to feel exceedingly hot and
conscious, when there was a diversion.  They had been gradually nearing
the town, and had reached a spot where the moorland gave place to
cultivated soil, when a young man, dressed in a rather fast style, and
with a cigar in his mouth, suddenly leaped over a stile, and started and
looked quite awkward on finding himself face to face with this group.

He was a slight fair young fellow, of some four-and-twenty, with rather
pale downy whiskers, and a blonde silky moustache, which was carefully
waxed into points.  His dress was a light tweed suit, but to condone for
the sombre hue of it and his grey deerstalker hat, he wore a brilliant
scarlet tie slipped through a massive gold ring, and wore several rings
on his thin effeminate fingers.

The effect upon the party caused by the sudden appearance of this
personage was varied.

Daisy, who had resumed the natural tint of her complexion--a peachy hue
touched rather warmly by the brown of the sun--became as though the
new-comer's tie was reflected to her very temples; the young workman's
face grew black as night, and his teeth grated together as his pockets
suddenly bulged out, indicative of doubled fists, and he stared at the
dandy in a menacing way that betokened evil.

As for Eve, she ran forward with a little joyous cry and took the young
man's arm.

"Ah, Dick," she cried, "I didn't expect you.  How kind of you to come."

"Didn't come to meet you," said the young man, shortly, as he fixed a
glass with some difficulty in his eye to stare at the stranger.

"Then you ought to have come," said Eve, quickly.  "Take that stupid
glass out of your eye, you silly boy," she whispered.  Then aloud, "I've
been in such trouble, Dick, dear."

"Dick, dear!"  He did not know why it was, but this very familiar
appellation from those soft red lips seemed to jar on the stranger's
ears, and he drew a longer breath than usual.

"I actually got bogged, Dick, and was sinking, when this gentleman came
and saved me.  Dick, dear, this is our new vicar.  Mr Selwood, this is
Mr Richard Glaire of the Foundry."

"Glad to know you, Mr Glaire," said the vicar, holding out his hand.

"How do?" said the new-comer, shortly, and his hand went out in a slow,
awkward, unwilling way, retiring afterwards from the hearty grasp it
received in a very sharp manner, for thin effeminate hands, that do not
return an honest pressure, fare badly in a manly grasp, especially if
they happen to be half-covered with unnecessary rings.

"How do?  Glad to see you," said the young owner of the Foundry, though
it was always more looked upon since his father's death as the property
of Mrs Glaire.  "Find this rather dull place."

"I don't think I shall," said the vicar, looking at him curiously.

"Very dull place," said the young man.  "Very.  Come, Evey.  You'll
call, I suppose?"

"Of course I shall," said the vicar, smiling.  "I mean to know everybody
here."

"Thanks, much," said Mr Glaire, glancing at Daisy, who gave herself an
angry twitch and turned away.  He then drew Eve's arm through his own,
and, raising his hat slightly to the vicar, was turning away when his
eye lit on the young workman.  "Hallo you, Tom Podmore," he cried, "how
is it you're not at work?"

"That's my business," growled the man.  "I'll tell you that when you
ain't got young missus there wi' you, and I wean't afore."

Richard Glaire looked at the sturdy fellow uneasily, and directed a
second glance at Daisy, his vacillating eyes resting for a moment on the
pocketed double fists before repeating his words shortly--

"Come along, Evey."

"Wait a moment, Dick, dear," she said, disengaging her arm.  "How rude
you are!" she added in an undertone.  "Good day, Mr Selwood, and thank
you very much," she said, ingenuously.  "Pray come and see us soon.
Aunt will be so glad to know you.  She was talking about you last night,
and wondering what you would be like.  Good-bye."

She held out her hand, and the constraint that was in spite of himself
creeping over the new vicar was thawed away by the genial, innocent
sunshine of the young girl's smile.

"Good-bye," he said, frankly; and his face lit up with pleasure.  "I
shall call very soon, and we won't forget the botany."

"Oh, no," said Eve, as her arm was once more pinioned.  "Come, Daisy,
you are coming up to the house."

"No, thank you, miss; I must go home now."

As she spoke she hurried forward, tripped over the stile first, and was
gone.

A minute later and Eve had lightly touched Richard Glaire's arm, and
climbed the stile in her turn, leaving the vicar to follow slowly,
forgetful of the presence of the young workman--Podmore.

He was brought back from his dreamy musings on the relation existing
between the young fellow who had just gone, and the sweet innocent girl
who was his companion, by a rough grasp being laid upon his arm, and
turning sharply, there stood Tom Podmore, with the veins in his forehead
swelling, and his face black with rage.

Volume 1, Chapter II.

TOM PODMORE'S GRIEVANCE.

"Look here, parson," cried the young workman, in a voice husky with
emotion; and as he spoke he dashed his cap upon the ground and began to
roll up his sleeves, displaying arms fit, with their sturdy rolls of
muscle, for a young Hercules.  "Look here, parson.  You're a straanger
here, and I'll tell 'ee.  That's my master, that is, and I shall kill
him afore I've done."

"Hush, man, hush!" cried the young vicar.

"I don't keer, I shall.  Why ain't I at work, eh?  Never another stroke
will I do for him; wish that my hammer may come on my head if I do.
Look here, parson," he went on, catching the other's arm hard in a grasp
of iron, "that's his lass, that is--that's his young lady--Miss Eve
Pelly; God bless her for a perfect angel, and too good for him.  He's
engaged to her, he is--engaged to be married, and he's got thousands and
thousands of his own, and the Foundry, and horses to hunt wi', and he
ain't satisfied.  No, no; I ain't done yet.  Look here, ain't all that
enough for any man?  You know what's right, and what ain't.  What call's
he got to come between me and she?"

He jerked one fist in the direction taken by Daisy, and went on.

"Things ran all right between us before he steps in with his London
dandy air, and his short coot hair, and fine clothes.  Old Joe Banks was
willing; and as for Missus Banks, why, bless her, she's always been like
a mother to me.  I'd saved up a hundred and sixty pun' ten, all hard
earnings, and we was soon to be married, and then he comes between us
and turns the girl's head.  You come on to me when I'd gone up the
hill-side there, to chew it all over, after she'd huffed me this
morning, and I coot up rough.  I say, warn't it enough to make any man
coot up rough?"

"It was, indeed, Podmore," said the vicar, kindly.

"But I wean't stand it, that I wean't," roared the young man, like an
angry bull.  "A man's a man even if he is a master.  I'll fight fair;
but if I don't break every bone in his false skin, my name ain't Tom
Podmore."

This burst over, he resumed his cap and snatched down his sleeves,
looking half ashamed of his effusion in the presence of a stranger, and
he shrank away a little as the vicar laid his hand upon his arm.

"Look here, Podmore," he said kindly; "when I went first to school they
used to give me for a copy to write, `Do nothing rashly.'  Don't you do
anything rashly, my friend, because things done in haste are repented of
at leisure.  I have come down here to be a friend, I hope, to everybody,
and as you were the first man I met in Dumford, I shall look upon you as
one of the first to have a call upon me."

"Thanky, sir, thanky kindly," said Podmore, in a quieter tone.  "I don't
know how it is, but you've got a kind of way with you that gets over a
fellow."

"She seems a nice, pretty, well-behaved girl, that Daisy Banks," said
the vicar.

"There isn't a better nor a truer-hearted girl nor a prettier nowhere
for twenty miles round," cried the young fellow, flushing up with a
lover's pride.  "Why look at her, sir, side by side with Miss Eve,
that's a born lady.  Why, Miss Eve's that delicate and poor beside my
Daisy, as there ain't no comparison 'tween 'em.  My Daisy, as was," he
added, sorrowfully.  "Something's come over her like of late, and it's
all over now."

The great strong fellow turned his back, and resting one hand upon the
stile, his broad shoulders gave a heave or two.

"I shan't take on about it," he said, roughly, as he turned round with a
sharp, defiant air of recklessness.  "I ain't the first fool that's been
jilted by a woman, ay, parson--hundred and sixty pound 'll buy a sight
o' gills o' ale.  Don't you take no heed o' what I said."

He was turning away, but a strong hand was upon his shoulder.

"Look here, Podmore," said the vicar, firmly, "you said something about
fools just now.  You are not a fool, and you know it.  You leave the ale
alone--to the fools--and go back and get to work as hard, or harder,
than you ever worked before.  I shall see you again soon, perhaps bowl
to you in the cricket field.  As for your affairs, you leave them to me.
Do you know why Englishmen make the best soldiers?"

"Do I know why Englishmen make the best soldiers, parson?" said Podmore,
staring.  "No: can't say I do."

"Because, my lad, they never know when they are beaten.  Now, you are
not beaten yet.  Good-bye."

He held out his hand, and the great grimy, horny palm of the workman
came down into it with a loud clap, and the grip that ensued from each
side would have been unpleasant to any walnut between their palms.

Then they parted, taking different routes, and ten minutes later the
Reverend Murray Selwood was walking quietly through the empty town
street, quite conscious though that head after head was being thrust out
to have a look at the stranger.

There was the usual sprinkling of shops and private houses, great blank
red-brick dwellings, which told their own tale of being the houses of
the lawyer, the doctor, and their newer opponents.  Then there was the
factory-looking place, with great gates to the yard, and a time-keeper's
lodge inside, surmounted by a bell in its little wooden hutch.  The
throb of machinery could be heard, and the shriek of metal being
tortured into civilised form came painfully to the ear from time to
time.  Smoke hung heavily in the air--smoke tinged with lurid flame; and
above all came the roar of the reverberating furnaces, where steel or
some alloy was being fused for the castings which had made
out-of-the-way, half-savage Dumford, with its uncouth, independent
people, famous throughout the length and breadth of the land.

There were very few people visible, for the works had not yet begun to
pour forth their masses of working bees, but there were plenty of big
rough lads hanging about the corners of the streets.

"I wonder what sort of order the schools are in," said the new vicar to
himself, as he neared the church, towards which he was bending his
steps, meaning to glance round before entering the vicarage.  "Yes, I
wonder what sort of a condition they are in.  Bad, I fear.  Very bad,
I'm sure," he added.

For at that moment a great lump of furnace refuse, or glass, there known
as slag, struck him a heavy blow in the back.

He turned sharply, but not a soul was visible, and he stooped and picked
up the lump, which was nearly equal in size to his fist.

"Yes, no doubt about it, very bad," he said.  "Well, I'll take you to my
new home, and you shall have the first position in my cabinet of
specimens, being kept as a memorial of my welcome to Dumford."

"Well," he said, as he reached the church gate, "I've made two friends
already, and--perhaps--an enemy.  By Jove, there's another brick."

Volume 1, Chapter III.

AT THE FOUNDRY HOUSE.

Mrs Glaire lived in a great blank-looking red-brick house in the main
street, two ugly steep stone steps coming down from the front door on to
the narrow kidney pebble path, and encroaching so upon the way that they
were known as the tipsy-turvies, in consequence of the number of excited
Dumfordites who fell over them in the dark.  Though for the matter of
that they were awkward for the most sober wayfarer, and in a town with a
Local Board would have been condemned long before.

The ugliness of the Foundry House, as it was called, only dwelt on the
side giving on the street; the back opened upon an extensive garden,
enclosed by mighty red-brick walls, for the greater part concealed by
the dense foliage, which made the fine old garden a bosky wilderness of
shady lawn, walk, and shrubbery.

For Mrs Glaire was great upon flowers, in fact, after "my son,
Richard," her garden stood at the top of her affections, even before her
niece, Eve, whom she loved very dearly all the same.

Mrs Glaire was a little busy ant of a woman, with a pleasant, fair
face, ornamented with two tufts of little fuzzy blonde curls, which
ought to have hung down, but which seemed to be screwed up so tightly
that they took delight in sticking out at all kinds of angles, one or
two of the most wanton--those with the rough ends--that had been
untwisted by Mrs Glaire's curl-papers, even going so far as to stick
straight up.

On the morning when the new vicar made his entry into Dumford, Mrs
Glaire was out in her garden busy.  She had on her brown holland apron,
and her print drawn hood, the strings of which seemed to cut deeply into
her little double chin, and altogether did nothing to improve her
personal appearance.  A little basket was in one hand half-filled with
the dead leaves of geraniums which she had been snipping off with the
large garden scissors she held in the other hand--scissors which, for
fear of being mislaid, were attached to a silken cord, evidently the
former trimming of some article of feminine attire, and this cord was
tied round her waist.

She had two attendants--Prince and the gardener, Jacky Budd--Jacky: for
it was the peculiarity of Dumford that everybody was known by a familiar
interpretation of his Christian name, or else by a _sobriquet_ more
quaint than pleasant.

Prince was a King Charles spaniel, with the shortest of snub noses, the
most protrusive of great intelligent eyes, and long silky ears that
nearly swept the ground.  Prince had a weakness, and that was fat.  He
had been fed into such a state of rotundity that he had long ceased
running and barking, even at cats, against which he was supposed to have
a wonderful antipathy, and he passed his time after his regular meals in
sleeping, when he was lying down, and wheezing when he was standing up,
and never if he could possibly help it did he move from the position in
which he was placed.

Jacky Budd, the gardener, was a pale, sodden-looking man, the only tinge
of colour in his countenance being in his nose, and that tinge was given
by a few fiery veins.  He had a knack when addressed of standing with
one thumb stuck in the arm-hole of his ragged vest, which was stretched
and worn in consequence, and this attitude was a favourite with him on
Sundays, and was maintained just inside the south door till all the
people were in church, when he went to his own sitting beneath the
reading desk, for Jacky Budd, in addition to being a gardener, was the
parish clerk.

Jacky had his weakness, like Prince, but it was very different from that
of the dog; in fact, it was one that troubled a great many of the people
of Dumford, who looked upon it with very lenient eyes.  For though the
gentleman in question had been suspended by the late vicar for being
intoxicated in church, and saying out loud in reading the psalms, "As it
(hic) was in the beginning (hic) is now (hic) and ever shall be (hic),"
he was penitent and forgiven at the end of the week, and he sinned no
more until the next time.

The late vicar was compelled to take notice of the backsliding, even
though people said he was troubled with the same weakness, for Miss
Purley, the doctor's sister, burst out laughing quite loud in
consequence of a look given her by Richard Glaire from the opposite pew.
Her brother was there, and to pass it off he made a stir about it, and
had her carried out, to come back after a few minutes on tip-toe and
whisper to two or three people that it was a touch of hysterics.

Those who knew Jacky could tell when he had been drinking from the
stolid look upon his countenance, and Mrs Glaire was one of those who
knew him.

"Come along, Prince," she cried in a shrill chirpy treble, and stooping
down she lifted and carried Prince a few yards, to set him down beside a
rustic flower-stand, rubbing his leg with the rim of the basket, and
Prince went on wheezing, while his mistress began to snip.

Jacky followed slowly with a pot of water, a fluid that he held in
detestation, and considered to be only useful for watering flowers.

"Now, Jacky," exclaimed his mistress, "these pots are quite dry.  Give
them all some water."

"Yes, mum," said Jacky; and raising the pot, he began with trembling
hands to direct erratic streams amongst the flowers, then shaking his
head, stopping, and examining the spout as if that were in fault.

"Stone got in it, I think," he muttered.

"You've been drinking again, Jacky," exclaimed his mistress, shaking the
scissors at him threateningly.

"Drinking, mum! drinking!"

This in a tone of injured surprise.

"Yes, you stupid man.  Do you think I don't know?  I can smell you."

"Drinking!" said Jacky, putting his hand to his head, as if to collect
his thoughts.

"Yes, so I did; I had a gill of ale last night."

"Now, Jacky, I won't have it," exclaimed Mrs Glaire.  "If you try to
deceive me I won't keep you on."

"What, and turn away a faithful servant as made this garden what it is,
mum, and nursed Master Dick when he was a bit of a bairn no bigger
than--"

Jacky stooped down to try and show how many inches high Dick Glaire was
when his nursing days were on; and as the gardener placed his hand
horizontally, it seemed that about six inches must have been the stature
of the child.  But this was a dangerous experiment, and Jacky nearly
overbalanced himself.  A sharp question from his mistress, however,
brought him upright, and somewhat sobered him.

"Have you heard any more about that, Jacky?"

"'Bout Master Richard, mum?"

"Yes, Jacky.  But mind this, I hate talebearing and the gossip of the
place."

"You do, mum; you allus did," said Jacky, winking solemnly to himself;
"but that's a fact."

"I won't believe it, Jacky," said Mrs Glaire, snipping off sound leaves
and blossoms in her agitation.

"It's a fact, mum, and I don't wonder at your feeling popped."

"I'm not cross at all, Jacky," exclaimed Mrs Glaire, with her face
working, "for I don't believe my son would stoop in that way."

"But it's a fack, mum; and you must send him away, or he'll be taking a
wife from among the Midianitish women.  That's so."

"Now, I don't want to hear gossip, man; but what have you heard?  There,
do stand still or you'll tread on Prince."

"Heard, mum?  Lots.  You should say, `What have you seen?'"

"Seen!  Have you seen anything?"

Jacky put his thumb very far into his arm-hole, and spread his fingers
very wide, as he rolled his head solemnly.

"You won't tell Master Richard as you heard of it from me, mum?"

"No, Jacky, no; certainly not."

"And get me kicked out without a moment's notice?"

"No, no, certainly not.  Now tell me directly."

"Well, mum, Missus Hubley says as she knows he's always arter her."

"What, Daisy Banks?"

Jacky nodded.

"But she's a mischief-making, gossiping old woman!" exclaimed Mrs
Glaire; "and her word isn't worth anything.  You said you had seen
something."

Jacky nodded, and screwed up his face as he laid his finger beside his
nose.

"If you don't speak directly, man, I shall do you a mischief," exclaimed
the little woman, excitedly.  "Tell me all you know this instant."

"Well, you see, mum, it was like this: last night was very dark, and my
missus said to me, `Jacky,' she says, `take the boocket and go down to
Brown's poomp and get a boocket o' watter.'  Because you see, mum, the
sucker being wore, our poomp's not agate just now."

"Well!" exclaimed Mrs Glaire, impatiently.

"Well, mum, I goes round by Kitty Rawson's corner, and out back way, and
I come upon Master Richard wi' his arm round Daisy Banks's waist."

"Now, Jacky," exclaimed Mrs Glaire, with a hysterical sob, "if this is
not the truth I'll never, never forgive you."

"Truth, mum," said Jacky, in an ill-used tone.  "I've been clerk here a
matter o' twenty year, and my father and grandfather before me, and
would I tell a lie, do you think?  Speak the truth without fear or
favour.  Amen."

"Go away now," cried Mrs Glaire, sharply.

"Wean't I water all the plants, mum?"

"No; go away, and if you say a word to a soul about this, I'll never
forgive you, Jacky, never."

"Thanky, mum, thanky," said Jacky, turning to go, and nearly trampling
on Prince.

"No, come here!" exclaimed Mrs Glaire, whose face was working.  "Go
round to the foundry, and tell Joe Banks I want to speak to him.  Tell
him I'm in the garden."

"Yes, mum."

"Jacky," she said, calling him back.

"Yes, mum."

"Don't you dare to say a word about what it's for."

"No, mum."

Jacky went off round by his tool-shed, out into the street, and down to
the foundry gates, where, after a word with the gateman, he went on
across the great metal-strewn yard in search of Mrs Glaire's sturdy
foreman.

Meanwhile that lady caught up her dog, and carried him to a garden seat,
where, upon being set down, he curled up and went to sleep, his tail and
ears combined, making a comfortable coverlid.  Then taking off her
scissors and placing them in her basket, Mrs Glaire seated herself,
sighing deeply, and taking out from a voluminous pocket, which took
sundry evolutions with drapery to reach, a great ball of lambswool and a
couple of knitting pins, she began to knit rapidly what was intended to
be some kind of undergarment for her only son.

"Oh, Dick, Dick," she muttered; "you'll break my heart before you've
done."

The knitting pins clicked loudly, and a couple of bright tears stole
down her cheeks and dropped into her lap.

"And I did not tell him to hold his tongue before Eve," she exclaimed,
sharply.  "Tut-tut--tut-tut!  This must be stopped; this must be
stopped."

The sighing, lamenting phase gave place by degrees to an angry one.  The
pins clicked sharply, and the pleasant grey head was perked, while the
lips were tightened together even as were the stitches in the knitting,
which had to be all undone.

Just then the garden door opened, and a broad-shouldered grizzled man of
seven or eight and forty entered the garden followed by Jacky.  Foreman
though he was, Joe Banks had been hard at work, and his hands and lace
bore the grime of the foundry.  He had, however, thrown on a jacket, and
wiped the perspiration from his forehead, leaving a half clean line over
his pale blue eyes, while a pleasant smile puckered such of his face as
was not hidden by his closely cut grizzled beard.

"Sarvant, ma'am," he said, making a rough bow to the lady of the house.

"Good morning, Banks," said Mrs Glaire.  "Jacky, go and nail up that
wistaria, and mind you don't tumble off the ladder."

Jacky looked injured, but walked off evidently making a bee line for the
tool-shed--one which he did not keep.

"Little on, mum," said the foreman, with a wise nod in Jacky's
direction.  "Wants a month's illness to be a warnin'."

"It's a pity.  Banks, but he will drink."

"Like lots more on 'em, ma'am.  Why if I was to get shut of all the lads
in the works there who like their drop of drink, I shouldn't have half
enew."

"How are things going on, Banks?" said Mrs Glaire.

The foreman looked at her curiously, for it was a new thing for his
mistress to make any inquiry about the foundry.  A few months back and
he had to make his daily reports, but since Richard Glaire had come of
age, Mrs Glaire had scrupulously avoided interfering in any way,
handing over the business management to "my son."

"I said how are things going on in the foundry, Banks," said the lady
again, for the foreman had coughed and shuffled from one foot on to the
other.

"Do you wish me to tell you, ma'am?" he said at last.

"Tell me? of course," said Mrs Glaire, impatiently.  "How are matters?"

"Bad."

"Bad?  What do you mean?"

"Well, mum, not bad as to work; 'cause there's plenty of that, and
nothing in the way of contracts as is like to suffer by waiting."

"Then, what do you mean?"

"Well, you see, ma'am, Mr Richard don't get on wi' the men.  He wants
to have it all his own way, and they want to have it all theirn.  Well,
of course that wean't work; so what's wanted is for the governor to give
way just a little, and then they'd give way altogether."

"But I'm sure my son Richard's management is excellent," said Mrs
Glaire, whose lip quivered a little as she drew herself up with dignity,
and began a fresh row of her knitting.

Banks coughed slightly, and remained silent.

"Don't you think so, Banks?"

"Well, you see, ma'am, he's a bit arbitrary."

"Arbitrary?  What do you mean, Banks?"

"Well, you see, ma'am, he turned Sim Slee off at a moment's notice."

"And quite right, too," said Mrs Glaire hotly.  "My son told me.  The
fellow is a spouting, mouthing creature."

"He is that, ma'am, and as lazy as a slug, but it made matters worse,
and just now there's a deal of strikes about, and the men at other
places listening to delegates from societies, and joining unions, and
all that sort of stuff."

"And have you joined one of those clubs, Joe Banks?" said Mrs Glaire,
sharply.

"Me join 'em, ma'am?  Not I," said Banks, who seemed immensely tickled
at the idea.  "Not I.  _I'm_ foreman, and get my wage reg'lar, and I
don't want none of their flummery.  You should hear Ann go on about
'em."

"I beg your pardon, Banks," said Mrs Glaire.  "I might have known that
you were too sensible a man to go to these meetings."

"Well, as to being sensible, I don't know about that, Missus Glaire.
Them two women folk at home do about what they like wi' me."

"I don't believe it, Joe," said Mrs Glaire.  "Daisy would not have
grown up such a good, sensible girl if she had not had a firm, kind,
sensible father."

"God bless her!" said Joe, and a little moisture appeared in one eye.
Then speaking rather huskily--"Thank you, ma'am--thank you, Missus
Glaire.  I try to do my duty by her, and so does Ann."

"Is Ann quite well?"

"Quite well, thank you kindly, ma'am," said the foreman.  "Don't you be
afeared for me, Missus Glaire.  I worked with Richard Glaire, senior,
thirty years ago, two working lads, and we was always best of friends
both when we was poor, and when I saw him gradually grow rich, for he
had a long head, had your husband, while I'd only got a square one.  But
I stuck to him, and he stuck to me, and when he died, leaving me his
foreman, you know, Mrs Glaire, how he sent for me, and `Joe,' he says,
`good bye, God bless you!  You've always been my right hand man.  Stick
to my son.'"

"He did, Joe, he did," said Mrs Glaire, with a deep sigh, and a couple
of tears fell on her knitting.

"And I'll stick to him through thick and thin," said the foreman,
stoutly.  "For I never envied Dick, his father--there, 'tain't 'spectful
to you, ma'am, to say Dick, though it comes natural--I never envied
Master Glaire his success with his contracts, and getting on to be a big
man.  I was happy enough; but you know, ma'am, young Master Dick is
arbitrary; he is indeed, and he can't feel for a working man like his
father did."

"He is more strict you see, Banks, that is all," said Mrs Glaire,
stiffly; and the foreman screwed up his face a little.

"You advise him not to be quite so strict, ma'am.  I wouldn't advise you
wrong, as you know."

"I know that, Joe Banks," said Mrs Glaire, smiling pleasantly; "and
I'll say a word to him.  But I wanted to say something to you."

"Well, I've been a wondering why you sent for me, ma'am," said the
foreman, bluntly.

"You see," said Mrs Glaire, hesitating, "there are little bits of petty
tattle about."

"What, here, ma'am," said the foreman, with a hearty laugh.  "Of course
there is, and always was, and will be."

"But they are about Daisy," said Mrs Glaire, dashing at last into the
matter.

"I should just like to get hold of the man as said a word against my
lass," said Banks, stretching out a tremendous fist.  "I'd crack him, I
would, like a nut.  But what have they been saying?"

Volume 1, Chapter IV.

DAISY'S FATHER.

"Well," said Mrs Glaire, who found her task more difficult than she had
apprehended, "the fact is, they say she has been seen talking to my
son."

"Is that all?" said the foreman, laughing in a quiet, hearty way.

"Yes, that is all, and for Daisy's sake I want it stopped.  Have you
heard or known anything?"

"Well, to put it quite plain, the missus wants her to have Tom Podmore
down at the works there, but the girl hangs back, and I found out the
reason.  I did see Master Dick talking to her one night, and it set me a
thinking."

"And you didn't stop it?" exclaimed Mrs Glaire, sharply.

"Stop it?  Why should I stop it?" said the foreman.  "She's getting on
for twenty, and is sure to begin thinking about sweethearts.  Ann did
when she was nineteen, and if I recollect right, little fair-haired
Lisbeth Ward was only eighteen when she used to blush on meeting Dick
Glaire.  I see her do it," said the bluff fellow, chuckling.

"But that was long ago," exclaimed Mrs Glaire, excitedly.  "Positions
are changed since then.  My son--"

"Well, ma'am, he's a workman's son, and my bairn's a workman's daughter.
I've give her a good schooling, and she's as pretty a lass as there is
in these parts, and if your son Richard's took a fancy to her, and asks
me to let him marry her, and the lass likes him, why I shall say yes,
like a man."

Mrs Glaire looked at him aghast.  This was a turn in affairs she had
never anticipated, and one which called forth all her knowledge of human
nature to combat.

"But," she exclaimed, "he is engaged to his cousin here, Miss Pelly."

"Don't seem like it," chuckled the foreman.  "Why, he's always after
Daisy now."

"Oh, this is dreadful!" gasped Mrs Glaire, dropping her knitting.  "I
tell you he is engaged--promised to be married to his second cousin,
Miss Pelly."

"Stuff!" said Banks, laughing.  "He'll never marry she, though she's a
good, sweet girl."

"Don't I tell you he will," gasped Mrs Glaire.  "Man, man, are you
blind?  This is dreadful to me, but I must speak.  Has it never struck
you that my son may have wrong motives with respect to your child?"

"What?" roared the foreman; and the veins in his forehead swelled out,
as his fists clenched.  "Bah!" he exclaimed, resuming his calmness.
"Nonsense, ma'am, nonsense.  What!  Master Dicky Glaire, my true old
friend's son, mean wrong by my lass Daisy?  Mrs Glaire, ma'am, Mrs
Glaire, for shame, for shame!"

"The man's infatuated!" exclaimed Mrs Glaire, and she stared
wonderingly at the bluff, honest fellow before her.

"Why, ma'am," said the foreman, smiling, "I wouldn't believe it of him
if you swore it.  He's arbitrary, and he's too fond of his horses, and
dogs, and sporting: but my Daisy!  Oh, for shame, ma'am, for shame!  He
loves the very ground on which she walks."

"And--and"--stammered Mrs Glaire, "does--does Daisy care for him?  Fool
that I was to let her come here and be so intimate with Eve," she
muttered.

"Well, ma'am," said the foreman, thoughtfully, "I'm not so sure about
that."

He was about to say more when Mrs Glaire stopped him.

"Another time, Banks, another time," she said, hastily.  "Here is my
son."

As she spoke Richard Glaire came into the garden with his hands in his
pockets, and Eve Pelly clinging to one arm, looking bright and happy.

The foreman started slightly, but gave himself a jerk and smiled, and
then, in obedience to a gesture from his mistress, he left the garden
and returned to the foundry.

Volume 1, Chapter V.

THE VICAR'S STROLL.

The brick, as the vicar called it, was only another piece of slag; but
he did not turn his head, only smiled, and began thinking that Dumford
quite equalled the report he had heard of it.  Then looking round the
plain old church, peering inside through the windows, and satisfying
himself that its architectural beauties were not of a very striking
nature, he turned aside and entered the vicarage garden, giving a sigh
of satisfaction on finding that his home was a comfortable red-brick,
gable-ended house, whose exterior, with its garden overrun with weeds,
promised well in its traces of former cultivation.

A ring at a bell by the side post of the door brought forth a wan,
washed-out looking woman, who looked at the visitor from top to toe,
ending by saying sharply, in a vinegary tone of voice:

"What d'yer want?"

"To come in," said the vicar, smiling.  "Are you in charge of the
house?"

"If yow want to go over t'church yow must go to Jacky Budd's down street
for the keys.  I wean't leave place no more for nobody."

"But I don't want to go over the church--at least not now.  I want to
come in, and see about having a room or two made comfortable."

"Are yow t'new parson, then?"

"Yes, I'm the new parson."

"Ho!  Then yow'd best come in."

The door was held open, and looking at him very suspiciously, the lady
in charge, to wit Mrs Simeon Slee, allowed the vicar to enter, and then
followed him as he went from room to room, making up his mind what he
should do as he ran his eye over the proportions of the house, finding
in the course of his peregrinations that Mrs Slee had installed herself
in the dining-room, which apparently served for kitchen as well, and had
turned the pretty little drawing-room, opening into a shady verandah and
perfect wilderness of a garden, into a very sparsely furnished bed-room.

"That will do," said the vicar.  "I suppose I can get some furniture in
the town?"

"Oh, yes, yow can get plenty furniture if you've got t'money.  Only they
wean't let yow have annything wi'out.  They don't like strangers."

"I dare say I can manage what I want, Mrs--Mrs--What is your name?"

"Hey?"

"I say, what is your name?"

"Martha," said the woman, as if resenting an impertinence.

"Your other name.  I see you are a married woman."

He pointed to the thin worn ring on her finger.

"Oh, yes, I'm married," said the woman, bitterly; "worse luck."

"You have no children, I suppose?"

"Not I."

"I am sorry for that."

"Sorry?  I'm not.  What should I have children for?  To pine; while
their shack of a father is idling about town and talking wind?"

"They would have been a comfort to you, may be," said the vicar,
quietly.  "I hope your husband does not drink?"

"Drink?" said the woman, with a harsh laugh.  "Yes, I almost wish he did
more; it would stop his talking."

"Is he a workman--at the foundry?"

"Sometimes, but Mr Dicky Glaire's turned him off again, and now he's
doing nowt."

"Never mind, don't be downhearted.  Times mend when they come to the
worst."

"No, they don't," said the woman, sharply.  "If they did they'd have
mended for me."

"Well, well," said the vicar; "we will talk about that another time;"
and he took the two pieces of slag from his pocket, and placed them on
the mantelpiece of the little study, where they were now standing.

"Some one threw them at yow?" said the woman.

"Yes," said the vicar, smiling.

"Just like 'em.  They don't like strangers here."

"So it seems," said the vicar.  "But you did not tell me your name,
Mrs--"

"Slee, they call me, Slee," was the sulky reply.

"Well, Mrs Slee," said the vicar, "I have had a good long walk, and I'm
very hungry.  If I give you the money will you get me something to eat,
while I go down the town and order in some furniture for this little
room and the bed-room above?"

"Why, the Lord ha' mussy! you're never coming into the place this how!"

"Indeed, Mrs Slee, but I am.  There's half a sovereign; go and do the
best you can."

"But the place ought to be clent before you come in."

"Oh, we'll get that done by degrees.  You will see about something for
me to eat.  I shall be back in an hour.  But tell me first, if I want to
get into the church, who has the keys?"

"Mr Budd"--Mrs Slee pronounced it Bood--"has 'em; he's churchwarden,
and lives over yonder."

"What, at that little old-fashioned house?"

"Nay, nay, mun, that's th'owd vicarage.  Next house."

"Oh," said the vicar, looking curiously at the little, old-fashioned,
sunken, thatch-roofed place.  "And who lives there?"

"Owd Isaac Budd."

"Another Mr Budd; and who is he?"

"Th'other one's brother."

"Where shall I find the clerk--what is his name?" said the vicar.

"Oh, Jacky Budd," said Mrs Slee.  "He lives down south end."

"I'm afraid I shall get confused with so many Budds," said the vicar,
smiling.  "Is that the Mr Budd who leads the singing?"

"Oh no, that's Mr Ned Budd, who lives down town.  He's nowt to do wi'
Jacky."

"Well, I'll leave that now," said the vicar.  "But I want some one to
fetch a portmanteau from Churley.  How am I to get it here?"

"Mrs Budd will fetch it."

"And who is she?"

"The Laddonthorpe carrier."

"Good; and where shall I find her?"

"Over at Ted Budd's yard--the Black Horse."

"Budd again," said the vicar.  "Is everybody here named Budd?"

"Well, no," said the woman, "not ivery body; but there's a straange
sight of 'em all ower the town, and they're most all on 'em cousins or
sum'at.  But there, I must get to wuck."

The woman seemed galvanised into a fresh life by the duties she saw
before her; and almost before the strange visitor had done speaking she
was putting on a print hood, and preparing to start.

"It will make a very comfortable place when I have got it in order,"
said the vicar to himself, as he passed down the front walk.  "Now to
find some chairs and tables."

This was no very difficult task, especially as the furniture dealer
received a couple of crisp bank-notes on account.  In fact, one
hand-truck full of necessaries was despatched before the vicar left the
shop and made up his mind to see a little more of the place before
returning to his future home.

Perhaps he would have been acting more wisely if he had sent in a load
of furniture and announcements of his coming, with orders for the place
to be put in readiness; but the Reverend Murray Selwood was eccentric,
and knowing that he had an uncouth set of people to deal with, he had
made up his mind to associate himself with them in every way, so as to
be thoroughly identified with the people, and become one of them as soon
as possible.

His way led him round by the great works of the town--Glaire's Bell
Foundry--and as he came nearer, a loud buzz of voices increased to a
roar, that to him, a stranger, seemed too great for the ordinary
transaction of business; and so it proved.

On all sides, as he went on, he saw heads protruded from doors and
windows, and an appearance of excitement, though he seemed in his own
person to transfer a good deal of the public attention to himself.

A minute or two later, and he found himself nearing a crowd of a couple
of hundred workmen, who were being harangued by a tall thin man, in
workman's costume, save that he wore a very garish plaid waistcoat,
whose principal colour was scarlet.

This man, who was swinging his arms about, and gesticulating
energetically, was shouting in a hoarse voice.  His words were
disconnected, and hard to catch, but "Downtrodden,"--"bloated
oligarchs,"--"British pluck"--"wucking-man"--"slavery"--and "mesters,"
reached the vicar's ears as he drew nearer.

Suddenly there was a movement in the crowd, and the speaker seemed to be
hustled from the top of the stone post which he had chosen for his
rostrum, and then, amid yells and hootings, it seemed that the crowd had
surrounded a couple of men who had been hemmed in while making their way
towards the great gates, and they now stood at bay, with their backs to
the high brick wall, while the mob formed a semicircle a few feet from
them.

It was rather hard work, and wanted no little elbowing, but, without a
moment's hesitation, the vicar began to force his way through the crowd;
and as he got nearer to the hemmed in men, he could hear some of the
words passing to and fro.

"Why, one of them is my friend, Mr Richard Glaire," said the vicar to
himself, as he caught sight of the pale trembling figure, standing side
by side with a heavy grizzled elderly workman, who stood there with his
hat off, evidently bent on defending the younger man.

"Yow come out o' that, Joe Banks, an' leave him to us," roared a great
bull-headed hammerman, who was evidently one of the ringleaders.

"Keep off, you great coward," was the answer.

"Gie him a blob, Harry; gie him a blob," shouted a voice.

"My good men--my good men," faltered Richard Glaire, trying to make
himself heard; but there was a roar of rage and hatred, and the men
pressed forward, fortunately carrying with them the vicar, and too
intent upon their proposed victims to take any notice of the strange
figure elbowing itself to the front.

"Where are the police, Banks--the police?"

"Yah!  He wants the police," shouted a shrill voice, which came from the
man in the red waistcoat.  "He's trampled down the rights of man, and
now he wants the brutal mummydons of the law."

"Yah!" roared the crowd, and they pressed on.

"Banks, what shall we do?" whispered Glaire; "they'll murder us."

"They won't murder me," said the foreman, stolidly.

"But they will me.  What shall we do?"

"Faight," said the foreman, sturdily.

"I can't fight.  I'll promise them anything," groaned the young man.
"Here, my lads," he cried, "I'll promise you--"

"Yah!  You wean't keep your promises," roared those nearest.  "Down with
them.  Get hold of him, Harry."

The big workman made a dash at Richard Glaire, and got him by the
collar, dragging him from the wall just as the foreman, who tried to get
before him, was good-humouredly baffled by half-a-dozen men, who took
his blows for an instant, and then held him helpless against the bricks.

It would have gone hard with the young owner of the works, for an
English mob, when excited and urged to action, is brutal enough for the
moment, before their manly feelings resume their sway, and shame creeps
in to stare them in the face.  He would probably have been hustled, his
clothes torn from his back, and a rain of blows have fallen upon him
till he sank exhausted, when he would have been kicked and trampled upon
till he lay insensible, with half his ribs broken, and there he would
have been left.

"Police!  Where are the police?" shouted the young man.

"Shut themselves up to be safe," roared a lusty voice; and the young man
grew dizzy with fear, as he gazed wildly round at the sea of menacing
faces screaming and struggling to get at him.

As he cowered back a blow struck him on the forehead, and another on the
lip, causing the blood to trickle down, while the great hammerman held
him forward, struggling helplessly in his grasp.

At that moment when, sick with fear and pain, Richard Glaire's legs were
failing him, and he was about to sink helpless among his men, something
white seemed to whiz by his ear, to be followed instantly by a heavy
thud.  There was a jerk at his collar, and he would have fallen, but a
strong arm was thrown before him; and then it seemed to him that the big
workman Harry had staggered back amongst his friends, as a loud voice
exclaimed:

"Call yourselves Englishmen?  A hundred to one!"

The new vicar's bold onslaught saved Richard Glaire for the moment, and
the men fell back, freeing the foreman as they did so.  It was only for
the moment though, and then with a yell of fury the excited mob closed
in upon their victims.

Volume 1, Chapter VI.

MOTHER AND SON.

Matters looked very bad for the new vicar, and for him he had tried to
save, for though the foreman was now ready and free to lend his aid, and
Richard Glaire, stung by his position into action, had recovered himself
sufficiently to turn with all the feebleness of the trampled worm
against his assailants, the fierce wave was ready to dash down upon them
and sweep them away.

Harry, the big hammerman, had somewhat recovered himself, and was
shaking his head as if to get rid of a buzzing sensation, and murmurs
loud and deep were arising, when the shrill voice of the man in the red
waistcoat arose.

"Now, lads, now's your time.  Trample down them as is always trampling
on you and your rights.  Smite 'em hip and thigh."

"Come on, and show 'em how to do it," roared a sturdy voice, and Tom
Podmore thrust himself before the vicar, and faced the mob.  "Come on
and show 'em how, Sim Slee; and let's see as you ain't all wind."

There was a derisive shout at this, and the man in the red waistcoat
began again.

"Down with them, boys.  Down with Tom Podmore, too; he's a sneak--a rat.
Yah!"

"I'll rat you, you ranting bagpipe," cried Tom, loudly.  "Stand back,
lads; this is new parson, and him as touches him has to come by me
first.  Harry, lad, come o' my side; you don't bear no malice again a
man as can hit like that."

"Not I," said Harry, thrusting his great head forward, to stare full in
the vicar's face.  "Dal me, but you are a stout un, parson; gie's your
fist.  It's a hard un."

It was given on the instant, and the hearty pressure told the vicar that
he had won a new ally.

"As for the governor," cried Tom, "you may do what you like wi' him,
lads, for I shan't tak' his part."

"Podmore," whispered the vicar, "for Heaven's sake be a man, and help
me."

"I am a man, parson, and I'll help you like one; but as for him"--he
cried, darting a malignant look at Richard Glaire.

He did not finish his sentence, for at that moment the man in the red
waistcoat mounted a post, and cried again:

"Down with 'em, lads; down with--"

He, too, did not finish his sentence, for at that moment, either by
accident or malicious design, the orator was upset; and, so easily
changed is the temper of a crowd, a loud laugh arose.

But the danger was not yet passed, for those nearest seemed ready to
drag their employer from his little body-guard.

"You'll help me then, Podmore?" cried the vicar, hastily.  "Come, quick,
to the gate."

The veins were swelling in Tom Podmore's forehead, and he glanced as
fiercely as any at his master, but the vicar's advice seemed like a new
law to him, and joining himself to his defenders, with the great
hammerman, they backed slowly to the gate, through the wicket, by which
Richard Glaire darted, and the others followed, the vicar coming last
and facing the crowd.

The little door in the great gates was clapped to directly, and then
there came heavy blows with stones, and a few kicks, followed by a burst
of hooting and yelling, after which the noise subsided, and the little
party inside began to breathe more freely.

"Thanky, Tom Podmore, my lad," said Banks, shaking him by the hand.
"I'm glad you turned up as you did."

Tom nodded in a sulky way, and glowered at his master, but he pressed
the foreman's hand warmly.

"I'd fight for you, Joe Banks, till I dropped, if it was only for her
sake; but not for him."

Meanwhile Harry, the big hammerman, was walking round the vicar and
inspecting him, just as a great dog would look at a stranger.

"Say, parson, can you wrastle?" he said at last.

"Yes, a little," was the reply, with a smile.

"I'd maybe like to try a fall wi' ye."

"I think we've had enough athletics for one day," was the reply.  "Look
at my hand."

He held out his bleeding knuckles, and the hammerman grinned.

"That's my head," he said.  "'Tis a hard un, ain't it?"

"The hardest I ever hit," said the vicar, smiling.

"Is it, parson--is it now?" said Harry, with his massive face lighting
up with pride.  "Hear that, Tom?  Hear that, Joe Banks?"

He stood nodding his head and chuckling, as if he had received the
greatest satisfaction from this announcement; and then, paying no heed
to the great bruise on his forehead, which was plainly puffing up, he
sat down on a pile of old metal, lit his pipe, and looked on.

"I hope you are not hurt, Mr Glaire?" said the vicar.  "This is a
strange second meeting to-day."

"No," exclaimed Richard, grinding his teeth, "I'm not hurt--not much.
Banks, go into the counting-house, and get me some brandy.  Curse them,
they've dragged me to pieces."

"Well, you would be so arbitrary with them, and I told you not," said
Banks.  "I know'd there'd be a row if you did."

"What!" cried Richard, "are you going to side with them?"

"No," said Banks, quietly.  "I never sides with the men again the
master, and never did; but you would have your own way about taking off
that ten per cent."

"I'll take off twenty now," shrieked Richard, stamping about like an
angry child.  "I'll have them punished for this outrage.  I'm a
magistrate, and I'll punish them.  I'll have the dragoons over from
Churley.  It's disgraceful, it's a regular riot, and not one of those
three wretched policemen to be seen."

"I see one on 'em comin'," growled Harry, grinning; "and he went back
again."

"Had you not better try a little persuasion with your workpeople?" said
the vicar.  "I am quite new here, but it seems to me better than force."

"That's what I tells him, sir," exclaimed Banks, "only he will be so
arbitrary."

"Persuasion!" shrieked Richard, who, now that he was safe, was
infuriated.  "I'll persuade them.  I'll starve some of them into
submission.  What's that?  What's that?  Is the gate barred?"

He ran towards the building, for at that moment there was a roar outside
as if of menace, but immediately after some one shouted--

"Three cheers for Missus Glaire!"

They were given heartily, and then the gate bell was rung lustily.

"It's the Missus," said Banks, going towards the gates.

"Don't open those gates.  Stop!" shrieked Richard.

"But it's the Missus come," said Banks, and he peeped through a crack.

"Open the gates, open the gates," cried a dozen voices.

"I don't think you need fear now," said the vicar; "the disturbance is
over for the present."

"Fear!  I'm not afraid," snarled Richard; "but I won't have those
scoundrels in here."

"I'll see as no one else comes in," said Harry, getting up like a small
edition of Goliath; and he stood on one side of the wicket gate, while
Banks opened it and admitted Mrs Glaire, with Eve Pelly, who looked
ghastly pale.

Several men tried to follow, but the gate was forced to by the united
efforts of Harry and the foreman, when there arose a savage yell; but
this was drowned by some one proposing once more "Three cheers for the
Missus!" and they were given with the greatest gusto, while the next
minute twenty heads appeared above the wall and gates, to which some of
the rioters had climbed.

"Oh, Richard, my son, what have you been doing?" cried Mrs Glaire,
taking his hand, while Eve Pelly went up and clung to his arm, gazing
tremblingly in his bleeding face and at his disordered apparel.

"There, get away," cried Richard, impatiently, shaking himself free.
"What have I been doing?  What have those scoundrels been doing, you
mean?"

He applied his handkerchief to his bleeding mouth, looking at the white
cambric again and again, as he saw that it was stained, and turning very
pale and sick, so that he seated himself on a rough mould.

"Dick, dear Dick, are you much hurt?" whispered Eve, going to him again
in spite of his repulse, and laying her pretty little hand on his
shoulder.

"Hurt?  Yes, horribly," he cried, in a pettish way.  "You see I am.
Don't touch me.  Go for the doctor somebody."

He looked round with a ghastly face, and it was evident that he was
going to faint.

"Run, pray run for Mr Purley," cried Mrs Glaire.

"I'll go," cried Eve, eagerly.

"I don't think there is any necessity," said the vicar, quietly.  "Can
you get some brandy, my man?" he continued, to Banks.  "No, stay, I have
my flask."

He poured out some spirit into the cup, and Richard Glaire drank it at a
draught, getting up directly after, and shaking his fist at the men on
the wall.

"You cowards!" he cried.  "I'll be even with you for this."

A yell from the wall, followed by another from the crowd, was the
response, when Mr Selwood turned to Mrs Glaire.

"If you have any influence with him get him inside somewhere, or we
shall have a fresh disturbance."

"Yes, yes," cried the anxious mother, catching her son's arm.  "Come
into the counting-house, Dick.  Go with him, Eve.  Take him in, and I'll
speak to the men."

"I'm not afraid of the brutal ruffians," cried Richard, shrilly.  "I'll
not go, I'll--"

Here there was a menacing shout from the wall, and a disposition shown
by some of the men to leap down; a movement which had such an effect on
Richard Glaire that he allowed his cousin to lead him into a building
some twenty yards away, the vicar's eyes following them as they went.

"I'll speak to the men now," said the little lady.  "Banks, you may open
the gates; they won't hurt me."

"Not they, ma'am," said the sturdy foreman, looking with admiration at
the self-contained little body, as, hastily wiping a tear or two from
her eyes, she prepared to encounter the workmen.

Before the gates could be opened, however, an ambassador in the person
of Eve Pelly arrived from Richard.

"Not open the gates, child?" exclaimed Mrs Glaire.

"No, aunt, dear, Richard says it would not be safe for you and me, now
the men are so excited."

For a few minutes Mrs Glaire forgot the deference she always rendered
to "my son!" and, reading the message in its true light, she exclaimed
angrily--

"Eve, child, go and tell my son that there are the strong lock and bolts
on the door that his father had placed there after we were besieged by
the workmen ten years ago, and he can lock himself in if he is afraid."

The Reverend Murray Selwood, who heard all this, drew in his breath with
a low hissing noise, as if he were in pain, on seeing the action taken
by the fair bearer of Richard Glaire's message.

"Aunt, dear," she whispered, clinging to Mrs Glaire, "don't send me
back like that--it will hurt poor Dick's feelings."

"Go and say what you like, then, child," cried Mrs Glaire, pettishly.
"Yes, you are right, Eve: don't say it."

"And you will not open the gates, aunt, dear?"

"Are you afraid of the men, Eve?"

"I, aunt?  Oh, no," said the young girl, smiling.  "They would not hurt
me."

"I should just like to see any one among 'em as would," put in Harry,
the big hammerman, giving his shirt sleeve a tighter roll, as if
preparing to crush an opponent bent on injuring the little maiden.  "We
should make him sore, shouldn't we, Tom Podmore, lad?"

"Oh, nobody wouldn't hurt Miss Eve, nor the Missus here," said Tom,
gruffly.  And then, in answer to a nod from Banks, the two workmen threw
open the great gates, and the yard was filled with the crowd, headed by
Sim Slee, who, however, hung back a little--a movement imitated by his
followers on seeing that Mrs Glaire stepped forward to confront them.

Volume 1, Chapter VII.

MRS GLAIRE'S SPEECH.

"It's all raight, lads," roared Harry, in a voice of thunder.  "Three
cheers for Missus Glaire!"

The cheers were given lustily, in spite of Sim Slee, who, mounting on a
pile of old metal, began to wave his hands in protestation.

"Stop, stop!" he cried; "it isn't all raight yet.  I want to know
whether we are to have our rights as British wuckmen, and our just and
righteous demands 'corded to us.  What I want to know is--"

"Stop a moment, Simeon Slee," said Mrs Glaire, quickly; and a dead
silence fell on the crowd, as her clear, sharp voice was heard.  "When I
was young, I was taught to look a home first.  Now, tell me this--before
you began to put matters straight for others, did you make things right
at home?"

There was a laugh ran through the crowd at this; but shaken, not
daunted, the orator exclaimed--

"Oh, come, that wean't do for me, Mrs Glaire, ma'am--that's begging of
the question.  What I want to know is--"

"And what I want to know is," cried Mrs Glaire, interrupting, "whether,
before you came out here leading these men into mischief, you provided
your poor wife with a dinner?"

"Hear, hear,"--"That's a good one,"--"Come down, Sim,"--"The Missus is
too much for ye!" were amongst the shouts that arose on all sides,
mingled with roars of laughter; and Sim Slee's defeat was completed by
Harry, the big hammerman, who, incited thereto by Banks, shouted--

"Three more cheers for the Missus!"  These were given, and three more,
and three more after that, the workmen forgetting for the time being the
object they had in view in the defeat of Simeon Slee, who, vainly trying
to make himself heard from the hill of old metal, was finally pulled
down and lost in the crowd, while now, in a trembling voice, Mrs Glaire
said--

"My men, I can't tell you how sorry I am to find you fighting against
the people who supply you with the work by which you live."

"Not again you, Missus," cried half a dozen.

"Yes, against me and my son--the son of your old master," said Mrs
Glaire, gathering strength as she proceeded.

"You come back agen, and take the wucks, Missus," roared Harry.  "Things
was all raight then."

"Well said, Harry; well said," cried Tom Podmore, bringing his hand down
on the hammerman's shoulder with a tremendous slap.  "Well said.
Hooray!"

There was a tremendous burst of cheering, and it was some little time
before Mrs Glaire could again make herself heard.

"I cannot do that," she said, "but I will talk matters over with my son,
and you shall have fair play, if you will give us fair play in return."

"That's all very well," cried a shrill voice; and Sim Slee and his red
waistcoat were once more seen above the heads of the crowd, for, put out
of the gates, he had managed to mount the wall; "but what we want to
know, as an independent body of sittizens, is--"

"Will some on yo' get shoot of that chap, an' let Missus speak," cried
Tom Podmore.

There was a bit of a rush, and Sim Slee disappeared suddenly, as if he
had been pulled down by the legs.

"I don't think I need say any more," said Mrs Glaire, "only to ask you
all to come quietly back to work, and I promise you, in my son's name--"

"No, no, in yours," cried a dozen.

"Well," said Mrs Glaire, "in my own and your dead master's name--that
you shall all have justice."

"That's all raight, Missus," cried Harry.  "Three more cheers for the
Missus, lads!"

"Stop!" cried Mrs Glaire, waving her hands for silence.  "Before we go,
I think we should one and all thank our new friend here--our new
clergyman, for putting a stop to a scene that you as well as I would
have regretted to the end of our days."

Mrs Glaire had got to the end of her powers here, for the mother
stepped in as she conjured up the trampled, bleeding form of her only
son; her face began to work, the tears streamed down her cheeks, and,
trembling and sobbing, she laid both her hands in those of Mr Selwood,
and turned away.

"Raight, Missus," roared Harry, who had certainly partaken of more gills
of ale than was good for him.  "Raight, Missus.  Parson hits harder nor
any man I ever knowed.  Look here, lads, here wur a blob.  Three cheers
for new parson!"

He pointed laughingly to his bruised forehead with one hand, while he
waved the other in the air, with the result that a perfect thunder of
cheers arose, during which the self-instituted, irrepressible advocate
of workmen's rights made another attempt to be heard; but his time had
passed, the men were in another temper, and he was met with a cry raised
by Tom Podmore.

"Put him oonder the poomp."  Simeon Slee turned and fled, the majority
of the crowd after him, and the others slowly filtered away till the
yard was empty.

Volume 1, Chapter VIII.

DEAR RICHARD.

"Take my arm, Mrs Glaire," said the vicar, gently; and, the excitement
past, the overstrung nerves slackened, and the woman reasserted itself,
for the doting mother now realised all that had gone, and the risks
encountered.  Trembling and speechless, she suffered herself to be led
into the counting-house, and placed in a chair.

"I--I shall be--better directly," she panted.

"Better!" shrieked her son, who was pacing up and down the room;
"better!  Mother, it's disgraceful; but I won't give way a bit--not an
inch.  I'll bring the scoundrels to reason.  I'll--"

"Dick, dear Dick, don't.  See how ill poor aunt is," whispered Eve.

"I don't care," said the young man, furiously.  "I won't have it.
I'll--"

"Will you kindly get a glass of water for your mother, Mr Glaire?" said
the vicar, as he half held up the trembling woman in her chair, and
strove hard to keep the disgust he felt from showing in his face--"I am
afraid she will faint."

"Curse the water!  No," roared Richard.  "I won't have it--I--I say I
won't have it; and who the devil are you, that you should come poking
your nose into our business!  You'll soon find that Dumford is not the
place for a meddling parson to do as he likes."

"Dick!" shrieked Eve; and she tried to lay a hand upon his lips.

"Hold your tongue, Eve!  Am I master here, or not?" cried Richard
Glaire.  "I won't have a parcel of women meddling in my affairs, nor any
kind of old woman," he continued, disdainfully glancing at the vicar.

There was a slight accession of colour in Murray Selwood's face, but he
paid no further heed to the young man's words, while, with her face
crimson with shame, Eve bent over her aunt, trying to restore her, for
she was indeed half fainting; and the cold clammy dew stood upon her
forehead.

"Here's a mug o' watter, sir," said the rough, sturdy voice of Joe
Banks, as he filled one from a shelf; and then he threw open a couple of
windows to let the air blow in more freely.

"Don't let anybody here think I'm a child," continued Richard Glaire,
who, the danger passed, was now white with passion; "and don't let
anybody here, mother or foreman, or stranger, think I'm a man to be
played with."

"There's nobody thinks nothing at all, my lad," said Joe Banks, sharply,
"only that if the parson there hadn't come on as he did, you'd have been
a pretty figure by this time, one as would ha' made your poor moother
shoother again."

"Hold your tongue, sir; how dare you speak to me like that!" roared
Richard.

"How dare I speak to you like that, my lad?" said the foreman, smiling.
"Well, because I've been like a sort of second father to you in the
works, and if you'd listened to me, instead of being so arbitrary, there
wouldn't ha' been this row."

"You insolent--"

"Oh yes, all raight, Master Richard, all raight," said the foreman,
bluffly.

"Dick, dear Dick," whispered Eve, clinging to his arm; but he shook her
off.

"Hold your tongue, will you!" he shrieked.  "Look here, you Banks," he
cried, "if you dare to speak to me like that I'll discharge you; I will,
for an example."

Banks laughed, and followed the raving man to the other end of the great
counting-house to whisper:

"No you wean't, lad, not you."

Richard started, and turned of a sickly hue as he confronted the sturdy
old foreman.

"Think I didn't know you, my lad, eh?" he whispered; and driving his
elbow at the same time into the young man's chest, he puckered up his
face, and gave him a knowing smile.  "No, you wean't start me, Richard
Glaire, I know.  But I say, my lad, don't be so hard on the poor lass
there, your cousin."

"Will you hold your tongue?" gasped Richard.  "They'll hear you."

"Well, what if they do?" said the sturdy old fellow.  "Let 'em.  There's
nowt to be ashamed on.  But there, you're popped now, and no wonder.
Get you home with your moother."

"But I can't go through the streets."

"Yes, you can; nobody 'll say a word to you now.  Get her home, lad; get
her home."

It was good advice, but Richard Glaire would not take it, and his mother
gladly availed herself of the vicar's arm.

"You'll come home now, Richard," said Mrs Glaire, feebly; and she
looked uneasily from her son to the foreman, as she recalled their
conversation in the garden, and felt unwilling to leave them alone
together.

"I shall come home when the streets are safe," said Richard, haughtily.
"They are safe enough for you, but I'm not going to subject myself to
another attack from a set of brute beasts."

"I don't think you have anything to fear now," said the vicar, quietly.

"Who said I was afraid?" snarled Richard, facing sharply round, and
paying no heed to the remonstrant looks of cousin and mother.  "I should
think I know Dumford better than you, and when to go and when to stay."

The young men's eyes met for a moment, and Richard Glaire's shifty gaze
sank before the calm, manly look of the man who had so bravely
interposed in his behalf.

"Curse him!  I hate him," Richard said in his heart.  "He's brave and
strong, and big and manly, and he does nothing but degrade me before
Eve.  I hate him--I hate him."

"What a contemptible cad he is," said Murray Selwood in his heart; "and
yet he must have his good points, or that sweet girl would not love him
as she evidently does.  Poor girl, poor girl!  But there: it is not fair
to judge him now."

"Of course, you must know best, Mr Glaire," he said aloud, "for I am
quite a stranger.  I will see your mother and cousin safely home, and I
hope next time we shall have a more pleasant meeting.  You are put out
now, and no wonder.  Good-bye."

He held out his hand with a frank, pleasant smile upon his countenance,
and the two women and the foreman looked curiously on as Richard shrank
away, and with a childish gesture thrust his hand behind him.  But it
was of no use, that firm, unblenching eye seemed to master him, the
strong, brown muscular hand remained outstretched, and, in spite of
himself, the young man felt drawn towards it, and fighting mentally
against the influence the while, he ended by impatiently placing his own
limp, damp fingers within it, and letting them lie there a moment before
snatching them away.

Directly after, leaning on the vicar's arm, and with Eve on her other
side, Mrs Glaire was being led through the knots of people still
hanging about the streets.  There was no attempt at molestation, and
once or twice a faint cheer rose; but Mr Selwood was fully aware of the
amount of attention they drew from door and window, for the Dumford
people were not at all bashful as to staring or remark.

At last the awkward steps were reached, and after supporting Mrs Glaire
to a couch, the new vicar turned to go, followed to the door by Eve.

"Good-bye, and thank you--so much, Mr Selwood," she said, pressing his
hand warmly.

"I did not think we should meet again so soon.  And, Mr Selwood--"

She stopped short, looking up at him timidly.

"Yes," he said, smiling.  "Don't be afraid to speak; we are not
strangers now."

"No, no; I know that," she cried, eagerly.  "I was only going to say--to
say--don't judge dear Richard harshly from what you saw this morning.
He was excited and hurt."

"Of course, of course," said the vicar, pressing the little hand he held
in both his.  "How could any one judge a man harshly at such a time?
Good-bye."

"Good-bye."

"And with such a little ministering angel to intercede for him,"
muttered the vicar, as the door closed.  "Heigho! these things are a
mystery, and it is as well that they should be, or I don't know what
would become of poor erring man."

Volume 1, Chapter IX.

AN ENLIGHTENED ENGLISHMAN.

On reaching the vicarage, Murray Selwood found one of the rooms made
bright and comfortable with the furniture that had been sent in, and the
table spread ready for a composite meal, half breakfast, half dinner,
with a dash in it of country tea.

Everything was scrupulously clean, and Mrs Slee was bustling about, not
looking quite so wan and unsociable as when he saw her first.

"I've scratted a few things together," she said, acidly, "and you must
mak' shift till I've had more time.  Will you have the pot in now?  I
put the bacon down before the fire when I saw you coming.  But, lord,
man, what have ye been doin' to your hand?"

"Only bruised it a bit: knocked the skin off," said Mr Selwood,
smiling.

"Don't tell me," said Mrs Slee, sharply.  "You've been faighting."

"Well, I knocked a man down, if you call that fighting," said the vicar,
smiling, as he saw Mrs Slee hurriedly produce a basin, water, and a
coarse brown, but very clean, towel, with which she proceeded to bathe
his bleeding hand.

"Oh, it's nothing," he said, as he took out his pocket-book.  "You'll
find scissors and some sticking-plaister in there."

"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 1, Chapter X.

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 1, Chapter XI.

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, naively.

"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 1, Chapter XII.

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 1, Chapter XIII.

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 1, Chapter XIV.

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."

A good deal had taken place in the interval, and among other things,
Richard Glaire, in opposition to the advice of his mother and Banks, had
applied for a warrant against Tom Podmore, for destroying or stealing
the bands; but as yet, from supineness or fear on the part of the local
police, it had not been put in force.

For things did not look pleasant in Dumford; men were always standing
about in knots or lounging at the doors of their houses, looking
loweringly at people who passed.  There had been no violence, and, in a
prosperous little community, a week or two out of work had little effect
upon a people of naturally saving habits and considerable industry; but
those who were wise in such matters said that mischief was brewing, and
it was reported that meetings were held nightly at the Bull and
Cucumber--meetings of great mystery, where oaths were taken, and where
the doors were closed and said to be guarded by men with drawn swords.

"Hallo, Sim Slee, off preaching somewhere?" said a very stout man,
pulling up his horse as he overtook Sim on his way to the foreman's
house.  He was indeed a very stout man, so stout that he completely
filled the gig from side to side, making its springs collapse, and
forming a heavy load for his well-fed horse.

"No, I ain't going preaching nowheer, Mester Purley," said Sim, sulkily,
as he looked up sidewise in the speaker's merry face.

"I thought you were off perhaps to a camp meeting, or something, Sim,
and as I'm going out as far as Roby, I was going to offer you a lift
along the road."

There was a twinkle in the stout man's eyes as he spoke, and he
evidently enjoyed the joke.

"No, you warn't going to offer me a ride, doctor," said Sim.  "Do you
think I don't know?"

"Right, Sim Slee, right," said the doctor, chuckling.  "I never gave a
man a lift on the road in my life, did I, Sim?  Puzzle any one to sit by
my side here, wouldn't it?"

"Strange tight fit for him if he did," said Sim.

"So it would, Sim; so it would, Sim," laughed the doctor.  "I've asked a
many though in my time; ha--ha--ha."

"That you have, doctor," said Sim, looking at the goodly proportions of
the man by his side.  For it was Mr--otherwise Dr--Purley's one joke
to ask everybody he overtook, or any of his convalescent patients, if
they would have a lift in his gig.  He had probably fired the joke as
many times as he was days old; but it was always in use, and it never
struck him that it might grow stale.

"What's the matter with your hand, Sim?" said the doctor, touching the
bound-up member with his whip.

"Bit hurt--fell off a wall," said Sim, thrusting it in his breast.

"And you have been poisoning it with Rag Jack oil, eh?  I'll be bound
you have, and when it's down bad you'll come to me to cure it.  Say,
Sim, some of your fellows knocked the young master about pretty well--
he's rare and bruised."

"I wish ivery bit of gruzzle in his body was bruzz," said Sim, fiercely.

"Do you now!" said the doctor, smiling.  "Well, I suppose it'll come to
broken heads with some of you, and then you'll be glad of me.  Who stole
the bands?"

Sim jumped and turned pale, so suddenly and sharply was the question
asked.

"How should I know?" he cried, recovering himself.

"Some of you chaps at the Bull, eh, Sim?  Artful trick, very.  Say, Sim,
if you want a doctor for your society, remember me.  Ck!"  This last was
to the horse, which went off immediately at a sharp trot, with the
springs of the gig dancing up and down, as the wheels went in and out of
the ruts.

"Remember you, eh!" said Sim, as the doctor went out of hearing.  "Have
you for the medical man?  Yes, when we want ivery word as is spoke
blabbed all over the place.  It's my belief," continued Sim,
sententiously, "as that fat old blobkite tells the last bit o' news, to
every baby as soon as it's born, and asks them as he's killed whether
they'd like a ride in his gig.  Hallo! there's owd Joe Banks leaning
over his fence.  What a fierce-looking old maulkin he is; he looks as
sour as if he'd been yeating berry pie wi'out sugar.  Day, Banks," he
said, stopping.

"Day," said Joe, shortly, and staring very hard at the visitor.

"I think it'll rean soon, mun."

"Do yow?" said Joe, roughly.

"I weer over to Churley yesterday," said Sim, "and it reant all day."

"Did it?" said Joe.

"Ay, it did.  'Twas a straange wet day."

"Where are you going?" said Joe.

"Oh, only just up to Brown's to see if I could buy a bit o' kindling for
the Missus."

"Go and buy it, then," said Joe, turning his back, "and let me get shut
o' thee."

"Say, Joe Banks," said Sim, quite unabashed, "as I have met thee I
should just like to say a word or two to thee."

"Say away then."

"Nay, nay.  Not here.  Say, mun, that's a fine primp hedge o' yourn," he
continued, pointing to the luxuriant privet hedge that divided the
garden of the snug house from the road.

"You let my primp hedge bide," said Joe, sharply; "and if you've got any
mander o' message from your lot, spit it out like a man."

"Message!  I a message!" said Sim, with a surprised air.  "Not I.  It
was a word or two 'bout thy lass."

Joe Banks's face became crimson, and he turned sharply to see if any one
was at door or window so as to have overheard Sim's words.

As there was no one, he came out of the gate, took his caller's arm
firmly in his great fist, and walked with him down the lane out of sight
of the houses, for the foreman's pretty little place was just at the
edge of the town, and looked right down the valley.

Sim's heart beat a little more quickly, and he felt anything but
comfortable; but, calling up such determination as he possessed, he
walked on till Joe stopped short, faced him, and then held up a menacing
finger.

"Now look here, Sim Slee," said Joe; "I just warn thee to be keerful,
for I'm in no humour to be played wi'."

"Who wants to play wi' you?" said Sim; "I just come in a neighbourly way
to gi'e ye a bit o' advice, and you fly at me like a lion."

"Thou'rt no neighbour o' mine," said Joe, "and thou'rt come o' no
friendly errant.  Yow say yow want to speak to me 'bout my lass.  Say
thee say."

"Oh, if that's the way you tak' it," said Sim, "I'm going."

"Nay, lad, thee ain't," said Joe.  "Say what thee've got to say now, for
not a step do yow stir till yo' have."

Sim began to repent his visit; but seeing no way of escape, and his
invention providing him with no inoffensive tale, he began at once,
making at the same time a good deal of show of his bound-up hand, and
wincing and nursing it as if in pain.

"Well, Joe Banks, as a man for whom, though we have differed in politics
and matters connected with the wucks, I always felt a great respect--"

"Dal thee respect!" said Joe; "come to the point, man."

"I say, Joe, that it grieves me to see thee stick so to a mester as is
trying to do thee an injury."

"An yow want to talk me over to join thy set o' plotting, conspiring
shackbags at the Bull, eh?"

"I should be straange and proud to feel as I'd browt a man o' Joe
Banks's power and common sense into the ways o' wisdom, and propose him
as a member o' our society," said Sim.

"I dare say thee would, Sim; strange and glad.  But that's not what thee
come to say.  Out wi' it, mun; out wi' it."

"That is what I come to say, Joe," said Sim, turning white, as he saw
the fierce look in Joe's eyes.

"Nay; thee said something 'bout my lass."

"I only were going to say as I didn't like to see such a worthy man
serving faithful a mester as was trying to do him an injury."

"What do you mean?" said Joe, quite calmly.

Sim hesitated, but he felt obliged to speak, so calmly firm was the look
fixed upon him, though at the same time the foreman's fists were
clenched most ominously.

"Well, Joe," said Sim, with a burst, "Dicky Glaire's allus after thy
bairn, and I saw him the other night, at nearly midnight, trying to drag
her into the counting-house."

"Thee lies, thee chattering, false--hearted maulkin!" roared Joe, taking
the trembling man by the throat and shaking him till his teeth clicked
together.

"Don't! don't! murder!" cried Sim, holding up his injured hand with the
rag before Joe's face.  "Don't ill-use a helpless man."

"Thou chattering magpie!" roared Joe, throwing him off, so that Sim
staggered back against the prickly hedge, and quickly started upright.
"I wish thee weer a man that I could thrash till all thee bones was
sore.  Look here, Sim Slee, if thee says a word again about my lass and
the doings of thee betters it'll be the worse for thee."

"My poor hand! my poor hand!" moaned Sim, nursing it as if it were
seriously injured.

"Then thee shouldn't ha' made me wroth," said Joe, calming down, and
blaming himself for attacking a cripple.

"I didn't know that thou wast going to wink at thee lass being Dicky
Glaire's mis--"

Sim did not finish the word, for Joe Banks's fist fell upon his mouth
with a heavy thud, and he went down in the road, and lay there with his
lips bleeding, and a couple of his front teeth loosened.

"Thou lying villin," said Joe, hoarsely, "howd thee tongue, if thee
wants to stay me from killing thee.  I'd ha' let thee off, but thou
wouldst hev it.  Don't speak to me again, or I shall--"

He did not trust himself to finish, but strode off, leaving Slee lying
in the dust.

"Poor Master Richard," he muttered--"a scandal-hatching, lying
scoundrel--as if the lad would think a wrong word about my lass.  Well,"
he added, with a forced laugh, "that has stopped his mouth, and a good
many more, as I expect."

As he disappeared, Sim Slee slowly sat up, took out his handkerchief and
wiped his bleeding mouth.  Then rising he walked on half a mile to where
a stream, known as the Beck, crossed the road, and there he stooped down
and bathed his cut lip till the bleeding ceased.

"All raight, Mester Joe Banks," he said, with a malicious look in his
eye.  "All raight, I'll put that down to you, my lad.  I shan't forget
it.  Some men fights wi' their fists, and some don't.  I'm one as don't;
but I can fight other ways.  I'll be even wi' you, Joe Banks; I'll be
even wi' you.  Thou blind owd bat.  Think he'll marry her, dosta!  Ha!
ha! ha! ha!  All raight.  Let it go on.  Suppose I help it now, and then
get thee on our side after--a blind old fool, I shan't forget this."

Sim Slee washed his handkerchief carefully in the brook, spread it in
the sun to dry, and then lay down amongst the furze bushes to think,
till, seeing a couple of figures in the distance on the hill-side, he
caught up his handkerchief and, stooping down, ran along under the
shelter of the hedge, and on and on till he reached a fir plantation,
through which he made his way till he was within easy reach of the two
figures, in utter ignorance of his proximity.

"'Tis them," he muttered, peering out from the screen of leaves formed
by the undergrowth of the edge of the plantation.  "'Tis them.  Got his
arm round her waist, eh!  A kiss, eh!  Ha--ha--ha!  Joe Banks, I shall
be upsides wi' you yet."

He glided back, and then, knowing every inch of the ground, he went to
the end of the copse, out on to the open hill-side, and, running fast,
made a circuit which brought him out on the track far beyond the
figures, who were hidden from him by the inequalities of the waste land,
close by where the vicar found Tom Podmore on his arrival.

Then, hastening on, he approached, stooping until he had well measured
his distance, when, pausing for a few minutes to gain his breath, he
walked on with his footsteps inaudible on the soft, velvety turf, till,
coming suddenly upon the two figures, seated behind a huge block of
stone, he stopped short, as if in surprise.

"Beg pardon, sir, didn't see," he said, with a smile and a leer.

"What the deuce do you want?" said Richard Glaire, starting to his feet,
while, with a faint cry, Daisy Banks ran a few steps.

"Why you quite scar'd me, sir," said Sim, "starting up like that.  I've
only been for a walk out Chorley way.  It's all raight, Miss Banks,
don't be scar'd; it's only me.  I know, Mr Glaire, sir, I know.  Young
folks and all that sort o' thing.  We ain't friends about wuck matters,
but you may trust me."

He gave Richard a peculiar smile, shut one eye slowly, and walked on,
smiling at Daisy, whose face was crimson as he passed.

"Oh, Richard! oh, Richard!" she sobbed, "why did you tempt me to come?
Now he'll go straight home and tell father."

"Tempt you to come, eh, Daisy!" said Richard.  "Why, because I love you
so; I'm not happy out of your sight.  No, he won't tell--a scoundrel.
There, you go home the other way.  I'll follow Master Sim Slee.  I know
the way to seal up his lips."

He caught Daisy in his arms, and kissed her twice before she could evade
his grasp, and then ran off after Slee, who was steadily walking on,
smiling, as he caressed his tender, bruised lip with his damp
handkerchief.

Once he pressed his thumb down on his palm in a meaning way, and gave an
ugly wink.  Then he chuckled, but checked his smiles, for they hurt his
swollen face.

"Not bad for one day, eh!  That's ointment for Mester Joe Banks's sore
place, and a bit o' revenge at the same time.  This wean't have nowt to
do wi' the strike; this is all private.  Here he comes," he muttered,
twitching his ears.  "I thowt he would.  Well, I mean to hev five pun'
to howd my tongue, and more when I want it.  And mebbe," he continued,
with an ugly leer, "I can be a bit useful to him now and then."

A minute later Richard Glaire had overtaken Sim Slee, and a short
conversation ensued, in the course of which something was thrust into
the schemer's hand.  Then they parted, and that night, in spite of his
swollen lip, Sim Slee delivered a wonderful oration on the rights of the
British workman at the meeting at the Bull, at which were present
several of the men after Sim's own heart; but the shrewd, sensible
workmen were conspicuous by their absence, as they were having a quiet
meeting of their own.

Volume 1, Chapter XV.

DAISY IS OBSTINATE.

"A lungeing villain," muttered Joe Banks to himself, "he knows nowt but
nastiness.  Strange thing that a man can't make up to a pretty girl
wi'out people putting all sorts o' bad constructions on it.  Why they're
all alike--Missis Glaire, the wife and all.  My Daisy, too.  To say such
a word of her."

He hastened home, filled his pipe, lit it, and went out and sat down in
the garden, in front of his bees, to smoke and watch them, while he
calmed himself down and went over what had gone by, before thinking over
the future.

This was a favourite place with Joe Banks on a Sunday, and he would sit
in contemplative study here for hours.  For he said it was like having a
holiday and looking at somebody else work, especially when the bees were
busy in the glass bells turned over the flat-topped hives.

"I'd no business to hit a crippled man like that," mused Joe; "but he'd
no business to anger me.  Be a lesson to him."

He filled a fresh pipe, lit it by holding the match sheltered in his
hands, and then went on--

"Be a lesson to him--a hard one, for my hand ain't light.  Pity he
hadn't coot away, for he put me out."

"Now, what'll I do?" mused Joe.  "Shall I speak to the maister?"

"No, I wean't.  He'll speak to me when it's all raight, and Daisy and
him has made it up.  I'll troost him, that I will; for though he's a bit
wild, he's a gentleman at heart, like his father before him.  Why of
course I'll troost him.  He's a bit shamefaced about it o' course; but
he'll speak, all in good time.  Both of 'em will, and think they're
going to surprise me.  Ha--ha--ha!  I've gotten 'em though.  Lord, what
fools young people is--blind as bats--blind as bats.  Here's Daisy."

"It's so nice to see you sitting here, father," said the girl, coming
behind him, and resting her chin on his bald crown, while her plump arms
went round his neck.

"Is it, my gal?  That's raight.  Why, Daisy lass, what soft little arms
thine are.  Give us a kiss."

Daisy leaned down and kissed him, and then stopped with her arms resting
on his shoulders, keeping her face from confronting him; and so they
remained for a few minutes, when a smile twinkled about the corners of
the foreman's lips and eyes as he said--

"Daisy, my gal, I've been watching the bees a bit."

"Yes, father," she said, smiling, though it was plain to see that the
smile was forced.  "Yes, father, you always like to watch the bees."

"I do, my bairn, I do.  They're just like so many workmen in a factory;
but they don't strike, my gal, they don't strike."

"But they swarm, father," said Daisy, making an effort to keep up the
conversation.

"Yes," chuckled Joe, taking hold of the hand that rested on his left
shoulder.  "Yes, my bairn, I was just coming to that.  They swarm, don't
they?"

"Yes, father."

"And do you know why they swarm, Daisy?"

"Yes, father; because the hive is not big enough for them."

"Yes, yes," chuckled Joe, patting the hand, and holding it to his rough
cheek.  "You're raight, but it's something more, Daisy: it's the young
ones going away from home and setting up for theirselves--all the young
ones 'most do that some day."

The tears rose to Daisy's eyes, and she tried to withdraw her hand, for
Joe had touched on a tenderer point than he imagined; but he held it
tightly and gave it a kiss.

"There, there, my pet," he said, tenderly, "I won't tease you.  I knew
it would come some day all right enough, and I don't mind.  I only want
my little lass to be happy."

"Oh, father--father--father," sobbed Daisy, letting her face droop till
it rested on his head, while her tears fell fast.

"Come, come, come, little woman," he said, laughing; "thou mustn't cry.
Why, it's all raight."  There was a huskiness in his voice though, as he
spoke, and he had to fight hard to make the dew disappear from his eyes.
"Here, I say, Daisy, my lass, that wean't do no good: you may rain
watter for ever on my owd bald head, and the hair won't come again.
There--tut--tut--tut--you'll have moother here directly, and she'll be
asking what's wrong."

Daisy made a strong effort over self, and succeeded at last in drying
her eyes.

"Then, you are not cross with me, father?" faltered Daisy.

"Cross, my darling? not a bit," said Joe, patting her hand again.  "You
shan't disgrace the man as has you, my dear; that you shan't.  Why,
you're fit to be a little queen, you are."

Daisy gave him a hasty kiss, and ran off, while Joe proceeded to refill
his pipe.

"Cross indeed!  I should just think I hadn't," he exclaimed--"only with
the women.  Well, they'll come round."

But if Joe Banks had stood on the hill-side a couple of hours earlier,
just by the spot where Tom Podmore had sat on the day of the vicar's
arrival, he would perhaps have viewed the matter in a different light,
for--of course by accident--Daisy had there encountered Richard Glaire,
evidently not for the first time since the night when they were
interrupted by Tom in the lane.

It was plain that any offence Richard had given on the night in question
had long been condoned, and that at every meeting he was gaining a
stronger mastery over the girl's heart.

"Then you will, Daisy, won't you?" he whispered to her.

"No, no, Dick dear.  Don't ask me.  Let me tell father all about it."

"What?" he cried.

"Let me tell father all about it, and I'm sure he'll be pleased."

"My dear little Daisy, how well you are named," he cried, playfully; and
as he looked lovingly down upon her, the foolish girl began to compare
him with the lover of her mother's choice--a man who was nearly always
blackened with his labours, and heavy and rough spoken, while here was
Richard Glaire professing that he worshipped her, and looking, in her
eyes, so handsome in his fashionably-cut blue coat with the rosebud in
the button-hole, and wearing patent leather boots as tight as the lemon
gloves upon his well-formed hands.

"I can't help my name," she said, coquettishly.

"I wouldn't have it changed for the world, my little pet," he whispered,
playing with her dimpled chin; "only you are as fresh as a daisy."

"What do you mean, Dick?" she said, nestling to him.

"Why you are so young and innocent.  Look here, my darling: don't you
see how I'm placed?  My mother wants me to marry Eve."

"But you don't really, really, really, care the least little bit for
her, do you, Mr Richard?"

"`Mr Richard!'" reproachfully.

"Dear Dick, then," she whispered, colouring up, and glancing fondly at
him, half ashamed though the while at her boldness.

"Of course I don't love her.  Haven't I sworn a hundred times that I
love only you, and that I want you to be my darling little wife?"

"Yes, yes," said the girl, softly.

"Well, then, my darling, if you go and tell your father, the first thing
he'll do will be to go and tell my mother, and then there'll be no end
of a row."

"But she loves you very much, Dick."

"Worships me," said Dick, complacently.

"Of course," said the girl, softly; and her foolish little eyes seemed
to say, "She couldn't help it," while she continued, "and she'd let you
do as you like, Dick."

"Well, but you see the devil of it is, Daisy, that I promised her I
wouldn't see you any more."

"Why did you do that?" said the girl, sharply.

"To save rows--I hate a bother."

"Richard, you were ashamed of me, and wouldn't own me," said Daisy,
bursting into tears.

"Oh, what a silly, hard-hearted, cruel little blossom it is," said
Richard, trying to console her, but only to be pushed away.  "All I did
and said was to save bother, and not upset the old girl.  That's why I
want it all kept quiet.  Here, as I tell you, I could be waiting for you
over at Chorley, we could pop into t

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