set up with. Look thee here, Mark: I made my
will seven years ago i' thy favour.'

'Thank ye,' said Mark gratefully.

'But that,' the dying man continued with a frown--'that was afore
thou'dst taken up with these socialistic doctrines o' thine. I've heard
as thou'rt going to be th' secretary o' the Hanbridge Labour Church, as
they call it.'

Hanbridge is the metropolis of the Five Towns, and its Labour Church is
the most audacious and influential of all the local activities, half
secret, but relentlessly determined, whose aim is to establish the new
democratic heaven and the new democratic earth by means of a gradual and
bloodless revolution. Edward Beechinor uttered its abhorred name with a
bitter and scornful hatred characteristic of the Toryism of a man who,
having climbed high up out of the crowd, fiercely resents any widening
or smoothing of the difficult path which he himself has conquered.

'They've asked me to take the post,' Mark answered.

'What's the wages?' the older man asked, with exasperated sarcasm.

'Nothing.'

'Mark, lad,' the other said, softening, 'I'm worth seven hundred pounds
and this freehold house. What dost think o' that?'

Even in that moment, with the world and its riches slipping away from
his dying grasp, the contemplation of this great achievement of thrift
filled Edward Beechinor with a sublime satisfaction. That sum of seven
hundred pounds, which many men would dissipate in a single night, and
forget the next morning that they had done so, seemed vast and almost
incredible to him.

'I know you've always been very careful,' said Mark politely.

'Give up this old Labour Church'--again old Beechinor laid a withering
emphasis on the phrase--'give up this Labour Church, and its all
thine--house and all.'

Mark shook his head.

'Think twice,' the sick man ordered angrily. 'I tell thee thou'rt
standing to lose every shilling.'

'I must manage without it, then.'

A silence fell.

Each brother was absolutely immovable in his decision, and the other
knew it. Edward might have said: 'I am a dying man: give up this thing
to oblige me.' And Mark could have pleaded: 'At such a moment I would do
anything to oblige you--except this, and this I really can't do. Forgive
me.' Such amenities would possibly have eased the cord which was about
to snap; but the idea of regarding Edward's condition as a factor in
the case did not suggest itself favourably to the grim Beechinor stock,
so ste