de is built like his father, to let well alone. Raymond
Ironsyde don't count. He'll only want his money."

"Have you ever seen Mr. Raymond?" asked a girl. She was Nancy Buckler,
a spinner--hard-featured, sharp-voiced, and wiry. Nancy might have been
any age between twenty-five and forty. She owned to thirty.

"He don't come to Bridetown, and if you want to see him, you must go to
'The Tiger,' at Bridport," declared another girl. Her name was Sarah
Northover.

"My Aunt Nelly keeps 'The Seven Stars,' in Barrack Street," she
explained, "and that's just alongside 'The Tiger,' and my Aunt Nelly's
very friendly with Mr. Gurd, of 'The Tiger,' and he's told her that
Mr. Raymond is there half his time. He's all for sport and such like, and
'The Tiger's' a very sporting house."

"He won't be no good to the mills if he's that sort," prophesied Sally
Groves.

"I saw him once, with another young fellow called Motyer," answered
Sarah Northover. "He's very good-looking--fair and curly--quite
different from Mr. Daniel."

"Light or dark, they're Henry Ironsyde's sons and be brought up in his
pattern no doubt," declared Mr. Baggs.

People continued to appear, and among them walked an elderly man, a
woman and a girl. They were Mr. Ernest Churchouse, of 'The Magnolias,'
with his widowed housekeeper, Mary Dinnett, and her daughter, Sabina.
The girl was nineteen, dark and handsome, and very skilled in her
labour. None disputed her right to be called first spinner at the mills.
She was an impulsive, ambitious maiden, and Mr. Best, foreman at the
works, claimed for her that she brought genius as well as understanding
to her task. Sabina joined her friend, Nancy Buckler; Mrs. Dinnett, who
had been a mill hand in her youth, took a seat beside Sally Groves, and
Mr. Churchouse paced alone. He was a round-faced, clean-shaven man with
mild, grey eyes and iron grey hair. He looked gentle and genial. His
shoulders were high, and his legs short. Walking irked him, for a
sedentary life and hearty appetite had made him stout.

The fall of Henry Ironsyde served somewhat to waken Ernest Churchouse
from the placid dream in which he lived, shake him from his normal
quietude, and remind him of the flight of time. He and the dead man were
of an age and had been boys together. Their fathers founded the
Bridetown Spinning Mill, and when the elder men passed away, it was
Henry Ironsyde who took over the enterprise and gradually bought out
Ernest Churcho