; he wouldn't; but sure enough it
was "bred in the bone of him!" Master Hewlett went on with his planing;
and when the troop, now amounting to about thirty grown men, besides a
huge rabble of boys and girls, came along, and Dan shouted to him to
come and stand up for the rights of the people, and down with that there
"tyrum Gobbleall" and his machine to grind down the poor, he answered--

"Machine ain't nothing to me. I minds my own business, and thou beest a
fool, Dan, not to mind thine! And where's that lad of thine? A
trapesing after mischief, just like all idle fellows?"

"He bain't a labourer, and has no feeling for them as is," said Dan.
"We wants your axe, though, George."

"Not he! I dares you to touch him," said George Hewlett in his unmoved
way, smoothing off a long curled shaving, which fell on the ground.
"There, that's the worth of you all and your Jack Swing! Swing, ye
will, Dan, if you don't take the better care."

Some one made a move as if to seize the axe, but George made one step,
and lifted quietly the stout bit of timber he had been planing, and it
was plain that a whole armoury of carpenter's tools was on his side the
bench.

"Come along," said Dan, "he's a coward and mean-spirited cur. Us shan't
do nothing with he."

So on they went, all the kindnesses and benefits from Greenhow
forgotten, and nothing remembered at the moment but grievances, mostly
past, but more looked forward to as possible!

The women did remember. Judith Grey was in an agony, praying as she lay
for Mrs Carbonel and the children. Widow Mole knew nothing, but was
weeding the paths at Greenhow; Betsy Seddon and Molly Barnes were crying
piteously "at thought of madam and her little girl as might be fraught
to death by them there rascals." But no one knew what to do! Some
stayed at home, in fear for their husbands, but a good many followed in
the wake of the men, to see what would happen, and to come in for a
little excitement--whether it were fright, pity, or indignation.

"'Pon my word and honour," said Lizzy Morris, "that there will be summat
to talk on."

CHAPTER TWENTY TWO.

GREAT MARY AND LITTLE MARY.

"Who'll plough their fields? Who'll do their drudgery for them? And
work like horses to give them the harvest?"--_Southey_.

Mrs Carbonel, having seen her two little ones laid down for their
midday nap, was sitting down to write a note to her husband, while
Sophia was gone to give her lesson