t in-doors as much as practicable.
From the first neither Mr. Craggie nor Lawyer Perkins had gone to the
hotel to consult the papers in the reading-room, and Mr. Pinkham did
not dare to play on his flute of an evening. The Rev. Arthur Langly
found it politic to do but little visiting in the parish. His was not
the pinion to buffet with a wind like this, and indeed he was not
explicitly called upon to do so. He sat sorrowfully in his study day
by day, preparing the weekly sermon,--a gentle, pensive person,
inclined in the best of weather to melancholia. If Mr. Langly had
gone into arboriculture instead of into the ministry, he would have
planted nothing but weeping-willows.

In the mean time the mill directors continued their deliberations
in the bank building, and had made several abortive attempts to
effect an arrangement with the leaders of the union. This seemed
every hour less possible and more necessary.

On the afternoon of the seventh day of the strike a crowd gathered
in front of the residence of Mr. Alexander, the superintendent of the
Miantowona Iron Works, and began groaning and hooting. Mr. Alexander
sought out Mr. Craggie, and urged him, as a man of local weight and
one accustomed to addressing the populace, to speak a few words to
the mob. That was setting Mr. Craggie on the horns of a cruel
dilemma. He was afraid to disoblige the representative of so powerful
a corporation as the Miantowona Iron Works, but he equally dreaded to
risk his popularity with seven or eight hundred voters; so, like the
crafty chancellor in Tennyson's poem, he dallied with his golden
chain, and, smiling, but the question by.

"Drat the man!" muttered Mr. Craggie, "does he want to blast my
whole political career! _I_ can't pitch into our adopted
countrymen."

There was a blot on the escutcheon of Mr. Craggie which he was
very anxious not to have uncovered by any chance in these latter
days,--his ancient affiliation with the deceased native American
party.

The mob dispersed without doing damage, but the fact that it had
collected and had shown an ugly temper sent a thrill of apprehension
through the village. Mr. Slocum came in a great flurry to Richard.

"This thing ought to be stopped," said Mr. Slocum.

"I agree to that," replied Richard, bracing himself not to agree
to anything else.

"If we were to drop that stipulation as to the increase of
apprentices, no doubt many of the men would give over insisting on an
adva