s towards the potters. The works were lingering on,
only just not perishing; the wages that the men did get, such as they
were, went in drink; the town in that quarter was really unsafe in the
evening; and the most ardent hope of all the neighbourhood was, that
the total ruin constantly expected would lead to the migration of all
the wretched population.

Mr. Yolland, who attended most of their sicknesses, used to tell
fearful things of the misery, vice, and hardness, and did acts of
almost heroic kindness among them, which did not seem consistent with
what, to my grief and dismay, was reported of this chosen companion of
Harold--that physical science had conducted him into materialism. The
chief comfort I had was that Miss Woolmer liked him and opened her
house to him. She was one of the large-hearted women who can see the
good through the evil, and was interested by contact with all phases of
thought; and, moreover, the lad should not be lost for want of the
entree to something like a home, because the upper crust of Mycening
considered him as "only Dr. Kingston's partner," and the Kingstons
themselves had the sort of sense that he was too much for them which
makes a spider dislike to have a bluebottle in his web.

She was interested, too, rather sadly in the crusade without the cross
that the two young men were trying to undertake against the
wretchedness of those potters.

It was much in their favour that the landlord, who was also the owner
of the "Dragon's Head," was invited to join a brother in America
without loss of time, and was ready to sell and give immediate
possession; so that Harry actually owned it in a fortnight from first
hearing of the offer, having, of course, given a heavy price for it.

The evening it came into his possession he went down, and, standing at
the door, tried to explain why he had closed it, and why he could not
bear to see its frequenters spending their wages on degrading
themselves and making their homes miserable. In no mood for a
temperance harangue, the men drowned, or would have drowned aught but
his short incisive sentences, in clamours for their beer, and one big
bully pushed forward to attack him. His left hand was still in the
sling, but with the other he caught hold of the fellow by the collar,
and swung him over the side of the stone steps as helpless as a puppy
dog, shaking him till his teeth chattered ere setting him on his feet.
"If you wish for any more," he sai