ke much
progress, and after walking for a while crept into the shelter of a
haystack, and went off to sleep for many hours. After it was dusk in the
evening he started again, and made his way to his lodgings at ten
o'clock that night. It was a fortnight before he could leave his room,
so bruised and cut was his face, and a month before the last sign of the
struggle was obliterated, and he felt that he could return to
Stokebridge without his appearance being noticed.

There, great changes had taken place. The military had found the
splintered door, the hose, and the still steaming water in the yard, and
the particulars of the occurrence which had taken place had been pretty
accurately judged. They were indeed soon made public by the stories of
the scalded men, a great number of whom were forced to place themselves
in the hands of the doctor, many of them having had very narrow escapes
of their lives, but none of them had actually succumbed. In searching
round the engine-house the soldiers had found a man, apparently dead,
his tongue projecting from his mouth. A surgeon had accompanied them,
and a vein having been opened and water dashed in his face, he gave
signs of recovery. He had been taken off to jail as being concerned in
the attack on the engine-house; but no evidence could be obtained
against him, and he would have been released had he not been recognized
as a man who had, five years before, effected a daring escape from
Portland, where he was undergoing a life sentence for a brutal
manslaughter.

The defeat of the attempt to destroy the Vaughan engines was the
death-blow of the strike. Among the foremost in the attack, and
therefore so terribly scalded that they were disabled for weeks, were
most of the leaders of the strike in the pits of the district, and their
voices silenced, and their counsel discredited, the men two days after
the attack had a great meeting, at which it was resolved almost
unanimously to go to work on the masters' terms.

Great excitement was caused throughout the district by the publication
of the details of the defence of the engine-house, and the most
strenuous efforts were made by Mr. Brook to discover the person to whom
he was so indebted. The miners were unanimous in describing him as a
stranger, and as speaking like a gentleman; and there was great wonder
why any one who had done so great a service to the mine-owners should
conceal his identity. Jack's secret was, however, well ke