time, trust the Lord. You
wouldn't then have been abroad this summer morning"--and he pointed to
the dawn just reddening in the sky--"this quiet, blessed summer
morning, burning and rioting, bringing yourselves to the gallows, and
your children to starvation."

"They be nigh that a'ready," said Jacob, sullenly. "Us men ha' gotten
a meal, thankee for it; but what'll become o' the little 'uns at home?
I say, Mr. Halifax," and he seemed waxing desperate again, "we must get
some food somehow."

John turned away, his countenance very sad. Another of the men plucked
at him from behind.

"Sir, when thee was a poor lad I lent thee a rug to sleep on; I doan't
grudge 'ee getting on; you was born for a gentleman, sure-ly. But
Master Fletcher be a hard man."

"And a just one," persisted John. "You that work for him, did he ever
stint you of a halfpenny? If you had come to him and said, 'Master,
times are hard, we can't live upon our wages,' he might--I don't say
that he would--but he MIGHT even have given you the food you tried to
steal."

"D'ye think he'd give it us now?" And Jacob Baines, the big, gaunt,
savage fellow, who had been the ringleader--the same, too, who had
spoken of his "little 'uns"--came and looked steadily in John's face.

"I knew thee as a lad; thee'rt a young man now, as will be a father
some o' these days. Oh! Mr. Halifax, may 'ee ne'er want a meal o' good
meat for the missus and the babbies at home, if ee'll get a bit o'
bread for our'n this day."

"My man, I'll try."

He called me aside, explained to me, and asked my advice and consent,
as Abel Fletcher's son, to a plan that had come into his mind. It was
to write orders, which each man presenting at our mill, should receive
a certain amount of flour.

"Do you think your father would agree?"

"I think he would."

"Yes," John added, pondering--"I am sure he would. And besides, if he
does not give some, he may lose all. But he would not do it for fear
of that. No, he is a just man--I am not afraid. Give me some paper,
Jael."

He sat down as composedly as if he had been alone in the
counting-house, and wrote. I looked over his shoulder, admiring his
clear, firm hand-writing; the precision, concentrativeness, and
quickness, with which he first seemed to arrange and then execute his
ideas. He possessed to the full that "business" faculty, so frequently
despised, but which, out of very ordinary material, often makes a
clever man; a