r; a silent and rather nervous repast, for
Montgomery's mind was full of what was before him, and Wilson had
himself more money at stake than he cared to lose.

Wilson's carriage and pair were at the door, the horses with blue and
white rosettes at their ears, which were the colours of the Wilson
Coal-pits, well known, on many a football field. At the avenue gate a
crowd of some hundred pit-men and their wives gave a cheer as the
carriage passed. To the assistant it all seemed dream-like and
extraordinary--the strangest experience of his life, but with a thrill
of human action and interest in it which made it passionately absorbing.
He lay back in the open carriage and saw the fluttering handkerchiefs
from the doors and windows of the miners' cottages. Wilson had pinned a
blue and white rosette upon his coat, and everybody knew him as their
champion. "Good luck, sir! good luck to thee!" they shouted from the
roadside. He felt that it was like some unromantic knight riding down
to sordid lists, but there was something of chivalry in it all the same.
He fought for others as well as for himself. He might fail from want of
skill or strength, but deep in his sombre soul he vowed that it should
never be for want of heart.

Mr. Fawcett was just mounting into his high-wheeled, spidery dogcart,
with his little bit of blood between the shafts. He waved his whip and
fell in behind the carriage. They overtook Purvis, the tomato-faced
publican, upon the road, with his wife in her Sunday bonnet. They also
dropped into the procession, and then, as they traversed the seven miles
of the high road to Croxley, their two-horsed, rosetted carriage became
gradually the nucleus of a comet with a loosely radiating tail.
From every side-road came the miners' carts, the humble, ramshackle
traps, black and bulging, with their loads of noisy, foul-tongued,
open-hearted partisans. They trailed for a long quarter of a mile
behind them--cracking, whipping, shouting, galloping, swearing.
Horsemen and runners were mixed with the vehicles. And then suddenly a
squad of the Sheffield Yeomanry, who were having their annual training
in those parts, clattered and jingled out of a field, and rode as an
escort to the carriage. Through the dust-clouds round him Montgomery
saw the gleaming brass helmets, the bright coats, and the tossing heads
of the chargers, the delighted brown faces of the troopers. It was more
dream-like than ever.

And then,