d-humor, and come home. This damp
wind chills my very bones. Come and preach your Saint-Simonian doctrines
to-morrow to Kirby's hands. Let them have a clear idea of the rights of
the soul, and I'll venture next week they'll strike for higher wages.
That will be the end of it."

"Will you send the coach-driver to this side of the mills?" asked Kirby,
turning to Wolfe.

He spoke kindly: it was his habit to do so. Deborah, seeing the puddler
go, crept after him. The three men waited outside. Doctor May walked up
and down, chafed. Suddenly he stopped.

"Go back, Mitchell! You say the pocket and the heart of the world speak
without meaning to these people. What has its head to say? Taste,
culture, refinement? Go!"

Mitchell was leaning against a brick wall. He turned his head
indolently, and looked into the mills. There hung about the place a
thick, unclean odor. The slightest motion of his hand marked that he
perceived it, and his insufferable disgust. That was all. May said
nothing, only quickened his angry tramp.

"Besides," added Mitchell, giving a corollary to his answer, "it would
be of no use. I am not one of them."

"You do not mean"--said May, facing him.

"Yes, I mean just that. Reform is born of need, not pity. No vital
movement of the people's has worked down, for good or evil; fermented,
instead, carried up the heaving, cloggy mass. Think back through
history, and you will know it. What will this lowest deep--thieves,
Magdalens, negroes--do with the light filtered through ponderous Church
creeds, Baconian theories, Goethe schemes? Some day, out of their bitter
need will be thrown up their own light-bringer,--their Jean Paul, their
Cromwell, their Messiah."

"Bah!" was the Doctor's inward criticism. However, in practice, he
adopted the theory; for, when, night and morning, afterwards, he prayed
that power might be given these degraded souls to rise, he glowed at
heart, recognizing an accomplished duty.

Wolfe and the woman had stood in the shadow of the works as the coach
drove off. The Doctor had held out his hand in a frank, generous way,
telling him to "take care of himself, and to remember it was his right
to rise." Mitchell had simply touched his hat, as to an equal, with a
quiet look of thorough recognition. Kirby had thrown Deborah some money,
which she found, and clutched eagerly enough. They were gone now, all
of them. The man sat down on the cinder-road, looking up into the murky
sky.

"'T