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СКАЧАТЬ that night she managed to possess herself of the slip of cardboard on which was engraved—Michael Litvinoff.

      What an uncommon name! How strange that he of all people should have been the one to come forward at the critical moment.

      Yes, but not quite so strange as it seemed to Miss Stanley; for Litvinoff had gone to the theatre for no other purpose than to be near her. It was not only to gaze at her fair face that he thus followed her; but because he was determined to catch at any straw which might lead to an introduction, and the fates had favoured him, as they had often done before, in a degree beyond his wildest hopes. He was well contented to have lost his hat, and did not care much about his bruised foot. These were a cheap price to pay for admittance to the acquaintance of the girl who had occupied most of his thoughts during the few days that had passed since he had first seen her.

      'A very fair beginning. The gods have certainly favoured me so far; and now, O Jupiter, aid us! or rather Cupid, for I suppose he's the proper deity to invoke in an emergency like this.'

      And Michael Litvinoff stretched out his slippered feet to the blazing fire in his bedroom.

      'By-the-way, I might as well look at the address. I know it's somewhere down North.'

      He rose, walked with some difficulty to the chair, where he had flung his great-coat, and took the card from one of its pockets. 'Mr John Stanley, Aspinshaw, Firth Vale.'

      'By Jove!' he said, sinking into his chair again. 'Firth Vale—Firth Vale. That's in Derbyshire. Ah me!'

      He thrust his feet forward again to the warmth, and leaning back gazed long into the fire, but not quite so complacently as he had done before it had occurred to him to make that journey across the room to his great-coat.

      CHAPTER III.

      THE NEW MASTERS

      THE funeral was over, and Thornsett Mill was closed for the day. Fortunately the 'Spotted Cow' was not closed, so that the majority of the hands did not find themselves without resources. Added to the subtle pleasure which so many derive from drinking small beer in a sanded kitchen furnished with oak benches, there was to-day the excitement of discussing a great event, for to the average mind of Thornsett the death and burial of old Richard Ferrier were great events indeed. And then there appears to be something inherent in the nature of a funeral which produces intense and continued thirst in all persons connected, however remotely, with the ceremony. So John Bolt, the landlord, had his hands pretty full, and the state of the till was so satisfactory that it was a really praiseworthy sacrifice to the decencies of society for him to persist in not shortening by one fraction of an inch the respectfully long face which he had put on in the morning as appropriate to the occasion.

      'Well, for my part, I'm sorry he's gone,' he said, drawing himself a pot of that tap which seemed best calculated to assist moral reflections. 'That I am! He was always a fair dealer, if he wasn't a giving one.'

      'He was more a havin' nor a givin' one,' said old Bill Murdoch. 'Givin' don't build mills, my lad, nor yet muck up two acres o' good pasture wi' bits o' flowers wi' glass windows all over 'em. I never seen sic foolin'.'

      'Surely a man's a right to do what he will with his own,' ventured a meek-looking man, who had himself a few pounds laid by, and felt acutely the importance of leaving unchallenged the rights of property.

      'I'm none so sure o' that,' remarked Bill, who had a conviction which is shared by a few more of us, that one's superiority shows itself naturally and unmistakably in one's never agreeing with any statement whatever which is advanced by anyone else.

      'There'll be more flowers than ever now, if Mr Roland has his way,' said Sigley the meek.

      'D'ye think, now, Sigley, he'll be like to get that where Mr Richard is?' asked Bill. 'Mr Roland thinks too much o' flowers and singin', and book learnin', to give much time to getten o' his own way.'

      'Mr Roland may be this, or he may be that,' Potters, the village grocer, observed, with the air of one clearly stating a case, 'but he can get his way where he cares to.'

      'Tha's fond o' saying words as might mean owt—or nowt, for that matter. Can't tha say what tha does mean?'

      'Tha'd know what I mean if tha weren't too blind to see owt. How about Alice Hatfield?'

      'Gently, gently,' said Bolt. 'Tha was i' the right, Potters, not to name names, but when it comes to namin' o' names I asks tha where's tha proof?'

      Here there was a general 'movement of adhesion,' and an assenting murmur ran round, while the mild man repeated like an echo, 'Where's your proof?'

      'Her father don't think ther's proof,' said Sigley.

      'A man doesn't want to prove the bread out of his mouth, and the roof off his children.'

      'John Hatfield wouldn't work for a man as had ruined his girl.'

      'Hungry dogs eat dirty pudding,' remarked Potters.

      'Hatfield does na' deal o' thee, Potters,' observed Murdoch, drily.

      'And it would be just one if he did,' answered Potters, his large face growing crimson, 'and Alice was a good lass and a sweet lass till she took up wi' fine notions and told a' the lads as none on 'em was good enough to tie her shoon, and as she'd be a lady, and I don't know what all, and Mr Roland was the only gentleman as ever took any notice of her, except Mr Richard; and Mr Roland, he went away when she went away, and it's all as plain as the nose on your face.'

      'Tha says too much,' said Murdoch slowly, 'for't a' to be true.'

      'Now, now!' interposed Bolt. 'Enow said on all sides, I'm sure. The poor old master's gone, and the mill's got a holiday, and I think you'll all be better employed i' turning your thoughts on him as is gone than i' picking holes i' them as is to be your masters, and raking up yesterday's fires i' this fashion. And so I say, as I said before, I for one am sorry he's gone.'

      'Yes; and so am I,' said Bill; 'for as long as he lived I always expected him to do summat for me, as worked alongside o' him when he were a lad i' Carrington's Mills, and now I know that chance is ower.'

      'Well, he gave thee work here, and he'd always a kind word for thee.'

      'Kind words spread no butties, and when he was rolling in brass, work at the usual wages was a' he ever give me.'

      'Did'st thee ever gie him owt, lad?'

      'I never had owt to give him, or anyone else for that matter.'

      A general laugh arose, and Bill buried his face in his mug of beer.

      'The next work-day the mill's closed'll be a wedden-day, I s'pose,' said Sigley, after a pause.

      'Ay, and not long fust.'

      'Mr Roland's always up at Aspinshaw.'

      'So's Mr Richard if you come to that.'

      'They can't both marry the girl.'

      'No, nor I shouldn't think either of them would yet a bit. Miss Clare's only just come home fro' endin' her schoolin'.'

      'And a gradely lass she is.'

      'Ay, that's so,' cut in old Murdoch. 'She thinks a sight more o' workin'-folk nor either o' they boys do.'

      'Where's your proof o' that, Bill?' СКАЧАТЬ