currence, and the
establishment, supplemented by the library and wash-house, did wonders
for Stokebridge.

The promise made by Mr. Brook at the fete had been carried out. A
choir-master came over twice a week from Birmingham, and the young
people entered into the scheme with such zest that the choir had carried
away the prize three years in succession at Birmingham. The night-school
was now carried on on a larger scale than ever, and the school for
cooking and sewing was so well attended that Mrs. Dodgson had now a
second assistant. To encourage the children and young people an annual
show was held at which many prizes were given for gardening, needlework,
dressmaking, carpentering, and a variety of other subjects. It was
seldom, indeed, that an untidy dress was to be seen, still more uncommon
that a foul word was heard in the streets of Stokebridge. Nothing could
make the rows of cottages picturesque as are those of a rural village;
but from tubs, placed in front, creepers and roses climbed over the
houses, while the gardens behind were gay with flowers.

No young woman needed to remain single in Stokebridge longer than she
chose, for so noteworthy were they for their housewifely qualities that
the young pitmen of the villages round thought themselves fortunate
indeed if they could get a wife from Stokebridge. Bill Cummings, Fred
Wood, and several others of Jack's boy friends, were viewers or
under-managers of the Vaughan, and many had left to take similar
situations elsewhere.

Jack Simpson was popular with all classes. With the upper class his
simple straightforwardness, his cheerfulness and good temper, made him a
great favourite, although they found it hard to understand how so quiet
and unassuming a young fellow could be the hero of the two rescues at
the Vaughan, for, now when the fact was known, Jack no longer made a
secret of his share in the attack by the rioters on the engine-house.
Among the pitmen his popularity was unbounded. Of an evening he would
sometimes come down to the club-room and chat as unrestrainedly and
intimately as of old with the friends of his boyhood, and he never lost
an opportunity of pushing their fortunes.

Once a week he spent the evening with Bill Haden and his wife, who
always came up and passed Sunday with him when he was at home. At this
time all ceremony was dispensed with, the servants were sent out of the
room, and when the pitman and his wife became accustomed to their
su