pay. They could take it, or leave it. There were
plenty of men at Coldbridge, thrown out by the failure of Kendrick &
Co., who would be glad to come. He could fill any vacant place.

But the ball grew and grew by handling. There were union-meetings and
violent harangues, much of them truth, too, but badly and unwisely
used. And the result was that the men demanded the old wages, were
peremptorily refused, and struck. The great engine subsided, and a
Sunday stillness reigned. Down at Hull's Iron Works the same proceedings
were going on, but the saloons seemed to profit by it.

Jack hung around the mill for a while, then went down stairs. The
chilliness in the air made him draw his coat together by one button, and
slip his hands into his pockets. He sauntered through several streets,
nodding to one and another, or exchanging a few words. Once again his
advice was asked.

"I think you had better come to work to-morrow," he said. "Don't muddle
your brains with beer or bad whiskey: that will not make the way any
clearer."

"A good enough lad!" was the surly comment, "but why grudge a man a sup
of beer when he can't have wine like the big folks?"

Jack had hardly planned for the enforced idleness. He did not want to go
home and read, he could not call on Sylvie thus early in the morning,
neither did he feel in the humor for argument with any of the men. So he
stopped at the door of a small office, and turned the knob rather
hesitatingly.

"Hillo, Darcy, is that you? Come in, come in! Sullen gray day, isn't it?
Off on a strike, eh?"

Jack laughed,--the sound with no real music in it, the sort of
lip-service merely.

"Come in, old fellow; don't be afraid. I've neither pistol nor bludgeon,
and I'll promise to treat you civilly."

The man's accents were clear and curt, with a certain ring of out-door
freshness,--a capital voice to travel with up mountain-sides and through
forests. The face, too, indicated a kind of joyous strength; for the
blue eyes were merry and baffling, the laughing lips a brilliant
scarlet, the nose neither Grecian nor aquiline, but slightly
_retrousse_; a bronze moustache with long curling ends that were
undeniably red, and hair a little darker, slightly curling as well. A
broad-shouldered man with the deep breathing of intense vitality;
healthy nerves that could enjoy laziness to the full, as well as a brisk
walk across the country.

A glance at the interior showed the place to be a doctor's