"Have your tea first, Jack, it's a' ready; but I do believe thou'dst go wi'out eating wi'out noticing it, when thou'st got thy books in thy head."

Jack sat down and drank the tea his mother poured out for him, and devoured bread and butter with a zest that showed that his appetite was unimpaired by study. As soon as he had finished he caught up his candle, and with a nod to Mrs. Haden ran upstairs to his room.

Jack Simpson's craze for learning, as it was regarded by the other lads of Stokebridge, was the subject of much joking and chaff among them. Had he been a shy and retiring boy, holding himself aloof from the sports of his mates, ridicule would have taken the place of joking, and persecution of chaff. But Jack was so much one of themselves, a leader in their games, a good fellow all round, equally ready to play or to fight, that the fact that after six o'clock he shut himself up in his room and studied, was regarded as something in the nature of a humorous joke.

When he had first begun, his comrades all predicted that the fit would not last, and that a few weeks would see the end of it; but weeks and months and years had gone by, and Jack kept on steadily at the work he had set himself to do. Amusement had long died away, and there grew up an unspoken respect for their comrade.

"He be a rum 'un, be Jack," they would say; "he looves games, and can lick any chap his age anywhere round, and yet he shoots himself oop and reads and reads hours and hours every day, and he knows a heap, Bull-dog does." Not that Jack was in the habit of parading his acquirements; indeed he took the greatest pains to conceal them and to show that in no respect did he differ from his playfellows.

The two hours which he now spent twice a week with Mr. Merton, and his extensive reading, had modified his rough Staffordshire dialect, and when with his master he spoke correct English almost free of provincialisms, although with his comrades of the pit he spoke as they spoke, and never introduced any allusion to his studies. All questions as to his object in spending his evenings with his books were turned aside with joking answers, but his comrades had accidentally discovered that he possessed extraordinary powers of calculation. One of the lads had vaguely said that he wondered how many buckets of water there were in the canal between Stokebridge and Birmingham, a distance of eighteen miles, and Jack, without seeming to think of what he was doing, almost instantaneously gave the answer to the question. For a moment all were silent with surprise.

"I suppose that be a guess, Jack, eh?" Fred Orme asked.

"Noa," Jack said, "that's aboot roight, though I be sorry I said it; I joost reckoned it in my head."

"But how didst do that, Jack?" his questioner asked, astonished, while the boys standing round stared in silent wonder.

"Oh! in my head," Jack said carelessly; "it be easy enough to reckon in your head if you practise a little."

"And canst do any sum in thy head, Jack, as quick as that?"

"Not any sum, but anything easy, say up to the multiplication or division by eight figures."

"Let's try him," one boy said.

"All right, try away," Jack said. "Do it first on a bit of paper, and then ask me."

The boys drew off in a body, and a sum was fixed upon and worked out with a great deal of discussion.

At last, after a quarter of an hour's work, when all had gone through it and agreed that it was correct, they returned and said to him, "Multiply 324,683 by 459,852." Jack thought for a few seconds and then taking the pencil and paper wrote down the answer: 149,306,126,916.

"Why, Jack, thou be'est a conjurer," one exclaimed, while the others broke out into a shout of astonishment.

From that time it became an acknowledged fact that Jack Simpson was a wonder, and that there was some use in studying after all; and after their games were over they would sit round and ask him questions which they had laboriously prepared, and the speed and accuracy of his answers were a never-failing source of wonder to them.

As to his other studies they never inquired; it was enough for them that he could do this, and the fact that he could do it made them proud of him in a way, and when put upon by the pitmen it became a common retort among them, "Don't thou talk, there's Jack Simpson, he knows as much as thee and thy mates put together. Why, he can do a soom as long as a slaate as quick as thou'd ask it."

Jack himself laughed at his calculating powers, and told the boys that they could do the same if they would practise, believing what he said; but in point of fact this was not so, for the lad had an extraordinary natural faculty for calculation, and his schoolmaster was often astonished by the rapidity with which he could prepare in his brain long and complex calculations, and that in a space of time little beyond that which it would take to write the question upon paper.

So abnormal altogether was his power in this respect that Mr. Merton begged him to discontinue the practice of difficult calculation when at work.

"It is a bad thing, Jack, to give undue prominence to one description of mental labour, and I fear that you will injure your brain if you are always exercising it in one direction. Therefore when in the pit think over other subjects, history, geography, what you will, but leave calculations alone except when you have your books before you."



CHAPTER IX.

THE GREAT STRIKE.

It was Saturday afternoon, a time at which Stokebridge was generally lively. The men, (dinner over, and the great weekly wash done,) usually crowded the public-houses, or played bowls and quoits on a piece of waste land known as "the common," or set off upon a spree to Birmingham or Wolverhampton, or sat on low walls or other handy seats, and smoked and talked. But upon this special Saturday afternoon no one settled down to his ordinary pursuits, for the men stood talking in groups in the street, until, as the hour of four approached, there was a general move towards the common. Hither, too, came numbers of men from the colliery villages round, until some four or five thousand were gathered in front of an old "waste tip" at one corner of the common. Presently a group of some five or six men came up together, made their way through the throng, and took their stand on the edge of the tip, some twenty feet above the crowd. These were the delegates, the men sent by the union to persuade the colliers of Stokebridge and its neighbourhood to join in a general strike for a rise of wages.

The women of the village stand at their doors, and watch the men go off to the meeting, and then comment to each other concerning it.

"I ain't no patience wi' 'em, Mrs. Haden," said one of a group of neighbours who had gathered in front of her house; "I don't hold by strikes. I have gone through three of 'em, bad un's, besides a score of small un's, and I never knowed good come on 'em. I lost my little Peg in the last—low fever, the doctor called it, but it was starvation and nothing more."

"If I had my way," said Mrs. Haden, "I'd just wring the heads off they delegates. They come here and 'suades our men to go out and clem rather than take a shilling a week less, just a glass o' beer a day, and they gets their pay and lives in comfort, and dunna care nowt if us and th' childer all dies off together."

"Talk o' woman's rights, as one hears about, and woman's having a vote; we ought to have a vote as to strikes. It's us as bears the worse o't, and we ought to have a say on't; if we did there wouldn't be another strike in the country."

"It's a burning shame," another chimed in; "here us and the childer will have to starve for weeks, months may be, and all the homes will be broke up, and the furniture, which has took so long to get together, put away, just because the men won't do with one glass of beer less a day."

"The union's the curse of us a'," Mrs. Haden said. "I know what it'll be—fifteen bob a week for the first fortnight, and then twelve for a week, and then ten, and then eight, and then six, and then after we've clemmed on that for a month or two, the union'll say as the funds is dry, and the men had best go to work on the reduction. I knows their ways, and they're a cuss to us women."

"Here be'st thy Jack. He grows a proper lad that."

"Ay," Jane Haden agreed, "he's a good lad, none better; and as for learning, the books that boy knows is awesome; there's shelves upon shelves on 'em upstairs, and I do believe he's read 'em all a dozen times. Well, Jack, have ee cum from meeting?"

"Ay, mother; I heard them talk nonsense till I was nigh sick, and then I comed away."

"And will they go for the strike, Jack?"

"Ay, they'll go, like sheep through a gate. There's half a dozen or so would go t'other way, but the rest won't listen to them. So for the sake of a shilling a week we're going to lose thirty shillings a week for perhaps twenty weeks; so if we win we sha'n't get the money we've throw'd away for twenty times thirty weeks, mother, and that makes eleven years and twenty-eight weeks."

Jack Simpson was now sixteen years old, not very tall for his age, but square and set. His face was a pleasant one, in spite of his closely cropped hair. He had a bright fearless eye and a pleasant smile; but the square chin, and the firm determined lines of the mouth when in rest, showed that his old appellation of Bull-dog still suited him well. After working for four years as a gate-boy and two years with the waggons, he had just gone in to work with his adopted father in the stall, filling the coal in the waggon as it was got down, helping to drive the wedges, and at times to use the pick. As the getters—as the colliers working at bringing down the coal are called—are paid by the ton, many of the men have a strong lad working with them as assistant.

"Is t' dad like to be at home soon, Jack?" Mrs. Haden asked, as she followed him into the house.

"Not he, mother. They pretty well all will be getting themselves in order for earning nothing by getting drunk to-night, and dad's not slack at that. Have you got tea ready, mother?"

"Ay, lad."

"I've made up my mind, mother," the boy said, as he ate his slice of bacon and bread, "that I shall go over to Birmingham to-morrow, and try to get work there. John Ratcliffe, the engineman, is going to write a letter for me to some mates of his there. The last two years, when I've been on the night-shift, I have gone in and helped him a bit pretty often in the day, so as to get to know something about an engine, and to be able to do a job of smith's work; anyhow, he thinks I can get a berth as a striker or something of that sort. I'd rather go at once, for there will be plenty of hands looking out for a job before long, when the pinch begins, and I don't want to be idle here at home."

"They've promised to give some sort o' allowance to non-unionists, Jack."

"Yes, mother, but I'd rather earn it honestly. I'm too young to join the union yet, but I have made up my mind long ago never to do it. I mean to be my own master, and I ain't going to be told by a pack of fellows at Stafford or Birmingham whether I am to work or not, and how much I am to do, and how many tubs I am to fill. No, mother, I wasn't born a slave that I know of, and certainly don't mean to become one voluntarily."

"Lor, how thou dost talk, Jack! Who'd take 'ee to be a pitman?"

"I don't want to be taken for anything that I am not, mother. What with reading and with going two hours twice a week of an evening for six years, to talk and work with Mr. Merton, I hope I can express myself properly when I choose. As you know, when I'm away from you I talk as others do, for I hate any one to make remarks. If the time ever comes when I am to take a step up, it will be time enough for them to talk; at present, all that the other lads think of me is, that I am fond of reading, and that I can lick any fellow of my own age in the mine," and he laughed lightly. "And now, mother, I shall go in and tell Mr. Merton what I have made up my mind to do."

Mr. Merton listened to Jack's report of his plans in silence, and then after a long pause said:

"I have been for some time intending to talk seriously to you, Jack, about your future, and the present is a good time for broaching the subject. You see, my boy, you have worked very hard, and have thrown your whole strength into it for six years. You have given no time to the classics or modern languages, but have put your whole heart into mathematics; you have a natural talent for it, and you have had the advantage of a good teacher. I may say so," he said, "for I was third wrangler at Cambridge."

"You, sir!" Jack exclaimed in astonishment.

"Yes, lad, you may well be surprised at seeing a third wrangler a village schoolmaster, but you might find, if you searched, many men who took as high a degree, in even more humble positions. I took a fellowship, and lived for many years quietly upon it; then I married, and forfeited my fellowship. I thought, like many other men, that because I had taken a good degree I could earn my living. There is no greater mistake. I had absolutely no knowledge that was useful that way. I tried to write; I tried to get pupils: I failed all round. Thirteen years ago, after two years of marriage, my wife died; and in despair of otherwise earning my bread, and sick of the struggle I had gone through, I applied for this little mastership, obtained it, and came down with Alice, then a baby of a year old. I chafed at first, but I am contented now, and no one knows that Mr. Merton is an ex-fellow of St. John's. I had still a little property remaining, just enough to have kept Alice always at a good school. I do not think I shall stay here much longer. I shall try to get a larger school, in some town where I may find a few young men to teach of an evening. I am content for myself; but Alice is growing up, and I should wish, for her sake, to get a step up in the world again. I need not say, my lad, that I don't want this mentioned. Alice and you alone know my story. So you see," he went on more lightly, "I may say you have had a good teacher. Now, Jack, you are very high up in mathematics. Far higher than I was at your age; and I have not the slightest doubt that you will in a couple of years be able to take the best open scholarship of the year at Cambridge, if you try for it. That would keep you at college, and you might hope confidently to come out at least as high as I did, and to secure a fellowship, which means three or four hundred a year, till you marry. But to go through the university you must have a certain amount of Latin and Greek. You have a good two years, before you have to go up, and if you devote yourself as steadily to classics as you have to mathematics, you could get up enough to scrape through with. Don't give me any answer now, Jack. The idea is, of course, new to you. Think it very quietly over, and we can talk about it next time you come over from Birmingham."

"Yes, sir, thank you very much," Jack said, quietly; "only, please tell me, do you yourself recommend it?"

The schoolmaster was silent for a while.

"I do not recommend one way or the other, Jack. I would rather leave it entirely to you. You would be certain to do well in one way there. You are, I believe, equally certain to do well here, but your advance may be very much slower. And now, Jack, let us lay it aside for to-night. I am just going to have tea, I hope you will take a cup with us."

Jack coloured with pleasure. It was the first time that such an invitation had been given to him, and he felt it as the first recognition yet made that he was something more than an ordinary pit-boy; but for all that he felt, when he followed his master into the next room, that he would have rather been anywhere else.

It was a tiny room, but daintily furnished—a room such as Jack had never seen before; and by the fire sat a girl reading. She put down her book as her father entered with a bright smile; but her eyes opened a little wider in surprise as Jack followed him in.

"My dear Alice, this is my pupil, Jack Simpson, who is going to do me great credit, and make a figure in the world some day. Jack, this is my daughter, Miss Merton."

Alice held out her hand.

"I have heard papa speak of you so often," she said, "and of course I have seen you come in and out sometimes when I have been home for the holidays."

"I have seen you in church," Jack said, making a tremendous effort to shake off his awkwardness.

Jack Simpson will to the end of his life look back upon that hour as the most uncomfortable he ever spent. Then for the first time he discovered that his boots were very heavy and thick; then for the first time did his hands and feet seem to get in his way, and to require thought as to what was to be done with them; and at the time he concluded that white lace curtains, and a pretty carpet, and tea poured out by a chatty and decidedly pretty young lady, were by no means such comfortable institutions as might have been expected.

It was two months from the commencement of the strike before Jack Simpson returned from Birmingham, coming home to stay from Saturday till Monday. Nothing can be more discouraging than the appearance of a colliery village where the hands are on strike. For the first week or two there is much bravado, and anticipation of early victory; and as money is still plentiful, the public-houses do a great trade. But as the stern reality of the struggle becomes felt, a gloom falls over the place. The men hang about listlessly, and from time to time straggle down to the committee-room, to hear the last news from the other places to which the strike extends, and to try to gather a little confidence therefrom. At first things always look well. Meetings are held in other centres, and promises of support flow in. For a time money arrives freely, and the union committee make an allowance to each member, which, far below his regular pay as it is, is still amply sufficient for his absolute wants. But by the end of two months the enthusiasm which the strike excited elsewhere dies out, the levies fall off, and the weekly money scarce enables life to be kept together.

It is distinctive of almost all strikes, that the women, beforehand averse to the movement, when it has once begun, throw themselves heartily into the struggle. From the time it is fairly entered upon until its termination it is rare indeed to hear a collier's wife speak a word against it. When the hardest pinch comes, and the children's faces grow thin and white, and the rooms are stripped of furniture, much as the women may long for an end of it, they never grumble, never pray their husbands to give in. This patient submission to their husbands' wills—this silent bearing of the greatest of suffering, namely, to see children suffer and to be unable to relieve them—is one of the most marked features of all great strikes in the coal districts.

"Well, mother, and how goes it?" Jack asked cheerfully after the first greetings.

"We be all right, Jack; if we ain't we ought to be, when we've got no children to keep, and get nigh as much as them as has."

"Eight shillings a week now, ain't it?"

Mrs. Haden nodded. Jack looked round.

"Holloa!" he said, "the clock's gone, and the new carpet!"

"Well, you see, my boy," Mrs. Haden said, hesitatingly, "Bill is down-hearted sometimes, and he wants a drop of comfort."

"I understand," Jack said significantly.

"Jack,"—and she again spoke hesitatingly—"I wish ee'd carry off all they books out o' thy little room. There's scores of 'em, and the smallest would fetch a glass o' beer. I've kept the door locked, but it might tempt him, my boy—not when he's in his right senses, you know, he'd scorn to do such a thing; but when he gets half on, and has no more money, and credit stopped, the craving's too much for him, and he'd sell the bed from under him—anything he's got, I do believe, except his pups;" and she pointed to some of Juno's great grandchildren, which were, as usual, lying before the fire, a mere handful of coal now, in comparison with past times.

"I'll pick out a parcel of them that will be useful to me," Jack said, "and take them away. The rest may go. And now look here, mother. After paying you for my board, I have had for a long time now some eight shillings a week over. I have spent some in books, but second-hand books are very cheap—as dad will find when he tries to sell them. So I've got some money put by. It don't matter how much, but plenty to keep the wolf away while the strike lasts. But I don't mean, mother, to have my savings drunk away. I'm getting sixteen bob a week, and I can live on ten or eleven, so I'll send you five shillings a week. But dad mustn't know it. I'll be home in a month again, and I'll leave you a pound, so that you can get food in. If he thinks about it at all, which ain't likely, you can make out you get it on tick. Well, dad, how are you?" he asked, as Bill Haden entered the cottage.

"Ah, Jack, lad, how be it with 'ee?"

"All right, dad; getting on well. And how are things here?"

"Bad, Jack. Those scoundrels, the masters, they won't give in; but we're bound to beat 'em—bound to. If they don't come to our terms we mean to call the engine-men, and the hands they've got to keep the ways clear, out of the pits. That'll bring 'em to their senses quick enough. I've been for it all along."

"Call off the engine-hands!" Jack said, in tones of alarm; "you ain't going to do such a mad thing as that! Why, if the water gains, and the mines get flooded, it'll be weeks, and maybe months, before the mines can be cleared and put in working order; and what will you all be doing while that's being done?"

"It'll bring 'em to their senses, lad," Bill Haden said, bringing his hand down on the table with a thump. "They mean to starve us; we'll ruin them. There, let's have the price of a quart, Jack; I'm dry."

Jack saw that argument against this mad scheme would be of no use, for his foster-father was already half-drunk, so he handed him a shilling, and with a shrug of his shoulders walked off to Mr. Merton's.

He had long since written to his master, saying that he preferred working his way up slowly in mining, to entering upon a new life, in which, however successful he might be at college, the after course was not clear to him; and his teacher had answered in a tone of approval of his choice.

On his way he stopped at the houses of many of his boy friends, and was shocked at the misery which already prevailed in some of them. Harry Shepherd's home was no better than the others.

"Why, Harry, I should scarce have known you," he said, as the lad came to the door when he opened it and called him. "You look bad, surely."

"We're a big family, Jack; and the extra children's allowance was dropped last week. There's eight of us, and food's scarce. Little Annie's going fast, I think. The doctor came this morning, and said she wanted strengthening food. He might as well ha' ordered her a coach-and-four. Baby died last week, and mother's ailing. You were right, Jack; what fools we were to strike! I've been miles round looking for a job, but it's no use; there's fifty asking for every place open."

The tears came into Jack's eyes as he looked at the pinched face of his friend.

"Why did you not write to me?" he asked, almost angrily. "I told you where a letter would find me; and here are you all clemming, and me know nought of it. It's too bad. Now look here, Harry, I must lend you some money—you know I've got some put by, and you and your father can pay me when good times come again. Your dad gets his eight shillings from the union, I suppose?"

"Yes," the lad answered.

"Well, with fifteen shillings a week you could make a shift to get on. So I'll send you ten shillings a week for a bit; that'll be seven shillings to add to the eight, and the other three will get meat to make broth for Annie. The strike can't last much over another month, and that won't hurt me one way or the other. Here's the first ten shillings; put it in your pocket, and then come round with me to the butcher and I'll get a few pounds of meat just to start you all. There, don't cry, and don't say anything, else I'll lick you."

But when Jack himself entered the schoolmaster's house, and was alone with Mr. Merton, he threw himself in a chair and burst into tears.

"It is awful, sir, awful. To see those little children, who were so noisy and bright when I went away, so pale, and thin, and quiet now. Poor little things! poor little things! As to the men, they are starving because they don't choose to work, and if they like it, let them; even the women I don't pity so much, for if they did right they would take broomsticks and drive the men to work; but the children, it's dreadful!"

"It is dreadful, Jack, and it makes me feel sick and ill when I go into the infant-school. The clergyman's wife has opened a sort of soup-kitchen, and a hundred children get a bowl of soup and a piece of bread at dinner-time every day, and they sell soup under cost price to the women. Mr. Brook has given fifty pounds towards it."

"Look here, sir," Jack said; "you know I've over fifty pounds laid by—and money can't be better spent than for the children. The strike can't last over a month, or six weeks at the outside, and maybe not that. I'll give you three pounds a week, if you will kindly hand it over to Mrs. Street, and say it's been sent you. But it's to go to feeding children. Let me see; the soup don't cost above a penny a bowl, and say a halfpenny for a hunch of bread. So that will give a good many of 'em a dinner every day. Will you do that for me, sir?"

"I will, my boy," Mr. Merton said heartily. "You may save many a young life."

"Well, sir, and what do you think of things?"

"I fear we shall have trouble, Jack. Last night there was rioting over at Crawfurd; a manager's house was burnt down, and some policemen badly hurt. There is angry talk all over the district, and I fear we shall have it here."

When Jack started on Sunday evening for Birmingham, his last words to his mother were:

"Mind, mother, the very first word you hear about violence or assault, you post this envelope I have directed, to me. I will come straight back. I'll keep father out of it somehow; and I'll do all I can to save Mr. Brook's property. He's a good master, and he's been specially kind to me, and I won't have him or his property injured."

"Why, lauk a' mercy, Jack, you ain't going to fight the whole place all by yourself, are you?"

"I don't know what I am going to do yet," Jack said; "but you may be quite sure I shall do something."

And as his mother looked at the set bull-dog expression of his mouth and jaw, she felt that Jack was thoroughly in earnest.



CHAPTER X.

HARD TIMES.

It was when the pinch came, the subscriptions fell off, and the weekly payments by the union dwindled to a few shillings for the support of a whole family, that the rough virtues of the people of the mining districts came strongly into prominence. Starvation was doing its work, and told first upon the women and children. Little faces, awhile since so rosy and bright, grew thin and pinched, chubby arms shrank until the bone could almost be seen through the skin, and low fever, a sure accompaniment of want, made its appearance.

No more tender and devoted nurses could be found than the rough women, who hushed their voices, and stole with quiet feet around the little beds, letting fall many a silent tear when the sufferer asked for little things, for tea or lemonade, which there were no means to purchase, or when the doctor shook his head and said that good food and not medicine was needed.

The pitmen themselves would saunter aimlessly in and out of the houses, so changed from the cottages well stocked with furniture, with gay-coloured pictures on the wall, an eight-day clock, and many another little valuable, and all gone one after another. Very many of them lived upon the scantiest allowance of dry bread which would keep life together, in order that the allowance might all go for the children, retaining as their sole luxury a penny or two a week for the purchase of a pipe or two of tobacco daily. Had it not been for the soup-kitchen scores of children would have died, but the pint of soup and the slice of bread enabled them to live.

There was no talk of surrender yet, although compromises, which would at first have been indignantly rejected, were now discussed, and a deputation had waited upon Mr. Brook, but the owner refused to enter into any compromise.

"No, never," he said; "you have chosen to join the hands of the other pits in an endeavour to force your employers into giving you a higher rate of wages than they can afford to pay. I, therefore, have joined the other employers. We know, what you cannot know, what are our expenses, and what we can afford to pay, and we will accept no dictation whatever from the men as to their rate of wages. If I prefer, as I do prefer, that the colliery should stand idle, to raising your rate of wages, it is a clear proof that I should lose money if I agreed to your demand. If needs be I would rather that the pit was closed for a year, or for ten years. We have bound ourselves together to make no advance, just as you have bound yourselves not to go to work at the old rate. When you choose to go in at that rate there are your places ready for you, but I will give way in no single point, I will not pay a halfpenny a ton more than before. You best know how long you can hold out. Don't let it be too long, lads, for the sake of your wives and children; remember that the time may come, when, thinking over some empty chair, recalling some little face you will never see again, you will curse your folly and obstinacy in ruining your homes, and destroying those dependent upon you in a struggle in which it was from the first certain that you could not win, and in which, even if you won, the amount at stake is not worth one day of the suffering which you are inflicting upon those you love."

Left to themselves the men would have much sooner given in, would indeed never have embarked on the strike, but the influence of the union being over them, they feared to be called "black sheep," and to be taunted with deserting the general cause, and so the strike went on.

The tale of the suffering over the wide district affected by the strike was told through the land, and the subscriptions of the benevolent flowed in. Public opinion was, however, strongly opposed to the strike, and for the most part the money was subscribed wholly for soup-kitchen, for children, and for relief of the sick. But the area was wide, there were scores of villages as badly off as Stokebridge, and the share of each of the general fund was very small. A local committee was formed, of which the vicar was at the head, for the management of the funds, and for organizing a body of nurses. All the women who had no children of their own were enrolled upon its lists, and many of the girls of the sewing-class volunteered their services.

No one during this sad time devoted herself more untiringly and devotedly than Nelly Hardy. The quiet manner, the steady and resolute face, rendered her an excellent nurse, and as her father and mother were, perforce, sober, she could devote her whole time to the work. A portion of the funds was devoted to the preparation of the articles of food and drink necessary for the sick, and the kitchen of the schoolroom was freely employed in making milk-puddings, barley-water, and other things which brought pleasure and alleviation to the parched little lips for which they were intended.

The distress grew daily more intense. The small traders could no longer give credit; the pawnbrokers were so overburdened with household goods that they were obliged absolutely to decline to receive more; the doctors were worn out with work; the guardians of the poor were nearly beside themselves in their efforts to face the frightful distress prevailing; and the charitable committee, aided as they were by subscriptions from without, could still do but little in comparison to the great need. Jane Haden and the other women without families, did their best to help nurse in the houses where sickness was rife. The children were mere shadows, and the men and women, although far less reduced, were yet worn and wasted by want of food. And still the strike went on, still the men held out against the reduction. Some of the masters had brought men from other parts, and these had to be guarded to and from their work by strong bodies of police, and several serious encounters had taken place. Some of the hands were wavering now, but the party of resistance grew more and more violent, and the waverers dared not raise their voices. The delegates of the union went about holding meetings, and assuring their hearers that the masters were on the point of being beaten, and must give way; but they were listened to in sullen and gloomy silence by the men. Then came muttered threats and secret gatherings; and then Jane Haden, obedient to her promise, but very doubtful as to its wisdom, posted the letter Jack had left with her.

It was three o'clock next day before he arrived, for he had not received the letter until he went out for his breakfast, and he had to go back to his work and ask to be allowed to go away for the afternoon on particular business, for which he was wanted at home.

"Well, mother, what is it?" was his first question on entering.

"I oughtn't to tell 'ee, Jack; and I do believe Bill would kill me if he knew."

"He won't know, mother, and you must tell me," Jack said quietly.

"Well, my boy, yesterday afternoon Bill came in here with eight or ten others. I were upstairs, but I suppose they thought I were out, and as I did not want to disturb 'em, and was pretty nigh worn out—I had been up three nights with Betsy Mullin's girl—I sat down and nigh dozed off. The door was open, and I could hear what they said downstairs when they spoke loud. At first they talked low, and I didn't heed what they were saying; then I heard a word or two which frighted me, and then I got up and went quiet to my door and listened. Jack, they are going to wreck the engines, so as to stop the pumping and drown the mines. They are going to do for the 'Vaughan,' and the 'Hill Side,' and 'Thorns,' and the 'Little Shaft,' and 'Vale.' It's to be done to-night, and they begin with the 'Vaughan' at ten o'clock, 'cause it's closest, I suppose."

"They are mad," Jack said sternly. "How are they to earn bread if they flood the mines? and it will end by a lot of them being sent to jail for years. But I'll stop it if it costs me my life."

"Oh, Jack! don't 'ee do anything rash," Mrs. Haden said piteously. "What can one lad do against two or three hundred men?"

"Now, mother," Jack said promptly, not heeding her appeal, "what police are there within reach?"

"The police were all sent away yesterday to Bampton. There were riots there, I heard say. That's why they chose to-night."

"Now the first thing, mother, is to prevent dad from going out to-night. He must be kept out of it, whatever others do. I've brought a bottle of gin from Birmingham. Tell him I've come over for an hour or two to see schoolmaster, and I'm going back again afterwards, but I've brought him this as a present. Get the cork out; he's sure to drink a glass or two anyhow, perhaps more, but it will send him off to sleep, sure enough. It's the strongest I could get, and he's out of the way of drink now. I don't suppose they'll miss him when they start; but if any one comes round for him, you tell 'em I brought him some Old Tom over, and that he's so dead sleepy he can't move. Later on, if you can, get some woman or child to come in, and let them see him, so that there'll be a witness he was at home when the thing came off, that'll make him safe. I've thought it all over."

"But what be'est thou going to do, Jack?"

"Don't mind me, mother. I'm going to save the Vaughan colliery. Don't you fret about me; all you've got to do is to make dad drink, which ain't a difficult job, and to stick to the story that I have been over for an hour to see schoolmaster. Good-bye, mother. Don't fret; it will all come out right."

As Jack went down the street he tapped at the door of his friend's house.

"Is Harry in?"

Harry was in, and came out at once.

"How's Annie?" was Jack's first question.

"Better, much better, Jack; the doctor thinks she'll do now. The broth put fresh life into her; we're all better, Jack, thanks to you."

"That's all right, Harry. Put on your cap and walk with me to the schoolroom. Now," he went on, as his friend rejoined him, and they turned up the street, "will you do a job for me?"

"Anything in the world, Jack—leastways, anything I can."

"You may risk your life, Harry."

"All right, Jack, I'll risk it willing for you. You risked yours for me at the old shaft."

"Dost know what's going to be done to-night Harry?"

"I've heard summat about it."

"It must be stopped, Harry, if it costs you and me our lives. What's that when the whole district depends upon it? If they wreck the engines and flood the mines there will be no work for months; and what's to become of the women and children then? I'm going to Mr. Merton to tell him, and to get him to write a letter to Sir John Butler—Brook's place would be watched—he's the nearest magistrate, and the most active about here, and won't let the grass grow under his feet by all accounts. The letter must tell him of the attack that is to be made to-night, and ask him to send for the soldiers, if no police can be had. I want you to take the letter, Harry. Go out the other side of the village and make a long sweep round. Don't get into the road till you get a full mile out of the place. Then go as hard as you can till you get to Butler's. Insist on seeing him yourself; say it's a question of life and death. If he's out, you must go on to Hooper—he's the next magistrate. When you have delivered the letter, slip off home and go to bed, and never let out all your life that you took that letter."

"All right, Jack; but what be'est thou going to do?"

"I'm going another way, lad; I've got my work too. You'd best stop here, Harry; I will bring the letter to you. It may get out some day that Merton wrote it, and it's as well you shouldn't be seen near his place."



CHAPTER XI.

THE ATTACK ON THE ENGINE-HOUSE.

No sooner did Mr. Merton hear of the resolution of the miners to destroy the engines, than he sat down and wrote an urgent letter to Sir John Butler.

"Is there anything else, Jack?"

"I don't know, sir. If the masters could be warned of the attack they might get a few viewers and firemen and make a sort of defence; but if the men's blood's up it might go hard with them; and it would go hard with you if you were known to have taken the news of it."

"I will take the risk of that," Mr. Merton said. "Directly it is dark I will set out. What are you going to do, Jack?"

"I've got my work marked out," Jack said. "I'd rather not tell you till it's all over. Good-bye, sir; Harry is waiting for the letter."

Mr. Merton did not carry out his plans. As soon as it was dark he left the village, but a hundred yards out he came upon a party of men, evidently posted as sentries. These roughly told him that if he didn't want to be chucked into the canal he'd best go home to bed; and this, after trying another road with the same result, he did.

Jack walked with Harry as far as the railway-station, mentioning to several friends he met that he was off again. The lads crossed the line, went out of the opposite booking-office, and set off—for it was now past five, and already dark—at the top of their speed in different directions. Jack did not stop till he reached the engine-house of the Vaughan mine. The pumps were still clanking inside, and the water streaming down the shoot. Peeping carefully in, to see that his friend, John Ratcliffe, was alone, Jack entered.

"Well, John," he said, "the engine's still going."

"Ay, Jack; but if what's more nor one has told me to-day be true, it be for the last time."

"Look here, John; Mr. Brook has been a good master, will you do him a good turn?"

"Ay, lad, if I can; I've held on here, though they've threatened to chuck me down the shaft; but I'm a married man, and can't throw away my life."

"I don't ask you to, John. I want you to work hard here with me till six o'clock strikes, and then go home as usual."

"What dost want done, lad?"

"What steam is there in the boiler?"

"Only about fifteen pounds. I'm just knocking off, and have banked the fire up."

"All right, John. I want you to help me fix the fire hose, the short length, to that blow-off cock at the bottom of the boiler. We can unscrew the pipe down to the drain, and can fasten the hose to it with a union, I expect. You've got some unions, haven't you?"

"Yes, lad; and what then?"

"That's my business, John. I'm going to hold this place till the soldiers come; and I think that with twenty pounds of steam in the boiler, and the hose, I can keep all the miners of Stokebridge out. At any rate, I'll try. Now, John, set to work. I want thee to go straight home, and then no one will suspect thee of having a hand in the matter. I'll go out when thou dost, and thou canst swear, if thou art asked, that there was not a soul in the house when thou camest away."

"Thou wilt lose thy life, Jack."

"That be my business," Jack said. "I think not. Now set to work, John; give me a spanner, and let's get the pipe off the cock at once."

John Ratcliffe set to work with a will, and in twenty minutes the unions were screwed on and the hose attached, a length of thirty feet, which was quite sufficient to reach to the window, some eight feet above the ground. Along by this window ran a platform. There was another, and a smaller window, on the other side.

While they were working, John Ratcliffe tried to dissuade Jack from carrying out his plan.

"It's no use, John. I mean to save the engines, and so the pit. They'll never get in; and no one knows I am here, and no one will suspect me. None of 'em will know my voice, for they won't bring boys with them, and dad won't be here. There, it's striking six. Let me just drop a rope out of the window to climb in again with. Now we'll go out together; do thou lock the door, take the key, and go off home. Like enough they'll ask thee for the key, or they may bring their sledges to break it in. Anyhow it will make no difference, for there are a couple of bolts inside, and I shall make it fast with bars. There, that's right. Good-night, John. Remember, whatever comes of it, thou knowest nought of it. Thou camest away and left the place empty, as usual, and no one there."

"Good-bye, lad, I'd stop with 'ee and share thy risk, but they'd know I was here, and my life wouldn't be worth the price of a pot o' beer. Don't forget, lad, if thou lowerst the water, to damp down the fire, and open the valves."

Jack, left to himself, clambered up to the window and entered the engine-house again, threw some fresh coal on the fire, heaped a quantity of coal against the door, and jammed several long iron bars against it. Then he lighted his pipe and sat listening, occasionally getting up to hold a lantern to the steam-gauge, as it crept gradually up.

"Twenty-five pounds," he said; "that will be enough to throw the water fifty or sixty yards on a level, and the door of the winding-engine's not more than thirty, so I can hold them both if they try to break in there."

He again banked up the fires, and sat thinking. Harry would be at the magistrate's by a quarter to six. By six o'clock Sir John could be on his way to Birmingham for troops; fifteen miles to drive—say an hour and a half. Another hour for the soldiers to start, and three hours to do the nineteen miles to the Vaughan, half-past eleven—perhaps half an hour earlier, perhaps half an hour later. There was no fear but there was plenty of water. The boiler was a large one, and was built partly into, partly out of the engine-house. That is to say, while the furnace-door, the gauges, and the safety-valve were inside, the main portion of the boiler was outside the walls. The blow-off cock was two inches in diameter, and the nozzle of the hose an inch and a half. It would take some minutes then, even with the steam at a pressure of twenty-five pounds to the inch, to blow the water out, and a minute would, he was certain, do all that was needed.

Not even when, upon the first day of his life in the pit, Jack sat hour after hour alone in the darkness, did the time seem to go so slowly as it did that evening. Once or twice he thought he heard footsteps, and crept cautiously up to the window to listen; but each time, convinced of his error, he returned to his place on a bench near the furnace. He heard the hours strike, one after another, on the Stokebridge church clock—eight, nine, ten—and then he took his post by the window and listened. A quarter of an hour passed, and then there was a faint, confused sound. Nearer it came, and nearer, until it swelled into the trampling of a crowd of many hundreds of men. They came along with laughter and rough jests, for they had no thought of opposition—no thought that anyone was near them. The crowd moved forward until they were within a few yards of the engine-house, and then one, who seemed to be in command, said, "Smash the door in with your sledges, lads."

Jack had, as they approached, gone down to the boiler, and had turned the blow-off cock, and the boiling water swelled the strong leathern hose almost to bursting. Then he went back to the window, threw it open, and stood with the nozzle in his hand.

"Hold!" he shouted out in loud, clear tones. "Let no man move a step nearer for his life."

The mob stood silent, paralyzed with surprise. Jack had spoken without a tinge of the local accent, and as none of the boys were there, his voice was quite unrecognized. "Who be he?" "It's a stranger!" and other sentences, were muttered through the throng.

"Who be you?" the leader asked, recovering from his surprise.

"Never mind who I am," Jack said, standing well back from the window, lest the light from the lanterns which some of the men carried might fall on his face. "I am here in the name of the law. I warn you to desist from your evil design. Go to your homes; the soldiers are on their way, and may be here any minute. Moreover, I have means here of destroying any man who attempts to enter."

There was a movement in the crowd. "The soldiers be coming" ran from mouth to mouth, and the more timid began to move towards the outside of the crowd.

"Stand firm, lads, it be a lie," shouted the leader. "Thee baint to be frighted by one man, be'est 'ee? What! five hundred Staffordshire miners afeard o' one? Why, ye'll be the laughing-stock of the country! Now, lads, break in the door; we'll soon see who be yon chap that talks so big."

There was a rush to the door, and a thundering clatter as the heavy blows of the sledge-hammers fell on the wood; while another party began an assault upon the door of the winding-engine house.

Then Jack, with closely pressed lips and set face, turned the cock of the nozzle.

With a hiss the scalding water leaped out in a stream. Jack stood well forward now and with the hose swept the crowd, as a fireman might sweep a burning building. Driven by the tremendous force of the internal steam, the boiling water knocked the men in front headlong over; then, as he raised the nozzle and scattered the water broadcast over the crowd, wild yells, screams, and curses broke on the night air. Another move, and the column of boiling fluid fell on those engaged on the other engine-house door, and smote them down.

Then Jack turned the cock again, and the stream of water ceased.

It was but a minute since he had turned it on, but it had done its terrible work. A score of men lay on the ground, rolling in agony; others danced, screamed, and yelled in pain; others, less severely scalded, filled the air with curses; while all able to move made a wild rush back from the terrible building.

When the wild cries had a little subsided, Jack called out,—

"Now, lads, you can come back safely. I have plenty more hot water, and I could have scalded the whole of you as badly as those in front had I wanted to. Now I promise, on my oath, not to turn it on again if you will come and carry off your mates who are here. Take them off home as quick as you can, before the soldiers come. I don't want to do you harm. You'd all best be in bed as soon as you can."

The men hesitated, but it was clear to them all that it had been in the power of their unknown foe to have inflicted a far heavier punishment upon them than he had done, and there was a ring of truth and honesty in his voice which they could not doubt. So after a little hesitation a number of them came forward, and lifting the men who had fallen near the engine-house, carried them off; and in a few minutes there was a deep silence where, just before, a very pandemonium had seemed let loose.

Then Jack, the strain over, sat down, and cried like a child.

Half an hour later, listening intently, he heard a deep sound in the distance. "Here come the soldiers," he muttered, "it is time for me to be off." He glanced at the steam-gauge, and saw that the steam was falling, while the water-gauge showed that there was still sufficient water for safety, and he then opened the window at the back of the building, and dropped to the ground. In an instant he was seized in a powerful grasp.

"I thought ye'd be coming out here, and now I've got ye," growled a deep voice, which Jack recognized as that of Roger Hawking, the terror of Stokebridge.

For an instant his heart seemed to stand still at the extent of his peril; then, with a sudden wrench, he swung round and faced his captor, twisted his hands in his handkerchief, and drove his knuckles into his throat. Then came a crashing blow in his face—another, and another. With head bent down, Jack held on his grip with the gameness and tenacity of a bull-dog, while the blows rained on his head, and his assailant, in his desperate effort to free himself, swung his body hither and thither in the air, as a bull might swing a dog which had pinned him. Jack felt his senses going—a dull dazed feeling came over him. Then he felt a crash, as his adversary reeled and fell—and then all was dark.



It could have been but a few minutes that he lay thus, for he awoke with the sound of a thunder of horses' hoofs, and a clatter of swords in the yard on the other side of the engine-house. Rousing himself, he found that he still grasped the throat of the man beneath him. With a vague sense of wonder whether his foe was dead, he rose to his feet and staggered off, the desire to avoid the troops dispersing all other ideas in his brain. For a few hundred yards he staggered along, swaying like a drunken man, and knowing nothing of where he was going; then he stumbled, and fell again, and lay for hours insensible.

It was just the faint break of day when he came to, the cold air of the morning having brought him to himself. It took him a few minutes to recall what had happened and his whereabouts. Then he made his way to the canal, which was close by, washed the blood from his face, and set out to walk to Birmingham. He was too shaken and bruised to make much progress, and after walking for a while crept into the shelter of a haystack, and went off to sleep for many hours. After it was dusk in the evening he started again, and made his way to his lodgings at ten o'clock that night. It was a fortnight before he could leave his room, so bruised and cut was his face, and a month before the last sign of the struggle was obliterated, and he felt that he could return to Stokebridge without his appearance being noticed.

There, great changes had taken place. The military had found the splintered door, the hose, and the still steaming water in the yard, and the particulars of the occurrence which had taken place had been pretty accurately judged. They were indeed soon made public by the stories of the scalded men, a great number of whom were forced to place themselves in the hands of the doctor, many of them having had very narrow escapes of their lives, but none of them had actually succumbed. In searching round the engine-house the soldiers had found a man, apparently dead, his tongue projecting from his mouth. A surgeon had accompanied them, and a vein having been opened and water dashed in his face, he gave signs of recovery. He had been taken off to jail as being concerned in the attack on the engine-house; but no evidence could be obtained against him, and he would have been released had he not been recognized as a man who had, five years before, effected a daring escape from Portland, where he was undergoing a life sentence for a brutal manslaughter.

The defeat of the attempt to destroy the Vaughan engines was the death-blow of the strike. Among the foremost in the attack, and therefore so terribly scalded that they were disabled for weeks, were most of the leaders of the strike in the pits of the district, and their voices silenced, and their counsel discredited, the men two days after the attack had a great meeting, at which it was resolved almost unanimously to go to work on the masters' terms.

Great excitement was caused throughout the district by the publication of the details of the defence of the engine-house, and the most strenuous efforts were made by Mr. Brook to discover the person to whom he was so indebted. The miners were unanimous in describing him as a stranger, and as speaking like a gentleman; and there was great wonder why any one who had done so great a service to the mine-owners should conceal his identity. Jack's secret was, however, well kept by the three or four who alone knew it, and who knew too that his life would not be safe for a day did the colliers, groaning and smarting over their terrible injuries, discover to whom they were indebted for them.



CHAPTER XII.

AFTER THE STRIKE.

"Well, Jack, so you're back again," Nelly Hardy said as she met Jack Simpson on his way home from work on the first day after his return.

"Ay, Nelly, and glad to see you. How have things gone on?" and he nodded towards her home.

"Better than I ever knew them," the girl said. "When father could not afford to buy drink we had better times than I have ever known. It was a thousand times better to starve than as 'twas before. He's laid up still; you nigh scalded him to death, Jack, and I doubt he'll never be fit for work again."

"I," Jack exclaimed, astounded, for he believed that the secret was known only to his mother, Harry, John Ratcliffe, Mr. Merton and perhaps the schoolmaster's daughter.

"Has Harry—"

"No, Harry has not said a word. Oh, Jack, I didn't think it of you. You call me a friend and keep this a secret, you let Harry know it and say nowt to me. I did not think it of you," and the dark eyes filled with tears.

"But if Harry did not tell you, how—"

"As if I wanted telling," she said indignantly. "Who would have dared do it but you? Didn't I know you were here an hour or two before, and you think I needed telling who it was as faced all the pitmen? and to think you hid it from me! Didn't you think I could be trusted? couldn't I have gone to fetch the redcoats for you? couldn't I have sat by you in the engine-house, and waited and held your hand when you stood against them all? oh, Jack!" and for the first time since their friendship had been pledged, nearly four years before, Jack saw Nelly burst into tears.

"I didn't mean unkind, Nell, I didn't, indeed, and if I had wanted another messenger I would have come to you. Don't I know you are as true as steel? Come, lass, don't take on. I would have sent thee instead o' Harry only I thought he could run fastest. Girls' wind ain't as good as lads'."

"And you didn't doubt I'd do it, Jack?"

"Not for a moment," Jack said. "I would have trusted thee as much as Harry."

"Well then, I forgive you, Jack, but if ever you get in danger again, and doant let me know, I'll never speak a word to you again."

In the years which had passed since this friendship began Nelly Hardy had greatly changed. The companionship of two quiet lads like Jack and Harry had tamed her down, and her love of reading and her study of all the books on history and travel on Jack's book-shelves had softened her speech. When alone the three spoke with but little of the dialect of the place, Jack having insisted on improvement in this respect. With Nelly his task had been easy, for she was an apt pupil, but Harry still retained some of his roughness of speech.

Nelly was fifteen now, and was nearly as tall as Jack, who was square and somewhat stout for his age. With these two friends Jack would talk sometimes of his hopes of rising and making a way for himself. Harry, who believed devoutly in his friend, entered most warmly into his hopes, but Nelly on this subject alone was not sympathetic.

"You don't say anything," Jack remarked one day; "do you think my castles in the air will never come true?"

"I know they will come true, Jack," she said earnestly; "but don't ask me to be glad. I can't; I try to but I can't. It's selfish, but, but—" and her voice quivered. "Every step thou takest will carry you farther up from me, and I can't be glad on it, Jack!"

"Nonsense, Nelly," Jack said angrily, "dos't think so little of me as to think that I shall not be as true to my two friends, Harry and you, as I am now?"

The girl shook her head.

"You will try, Jack, you will try. Don't think I doubt you, but—" and turning round she fled away at full speed.

"I believe she ran away because she was going to cry," Harry said. "Lasses are strange things, and though in some things Nell's half a lad, yet she's soft you see on some points. Curious, isn't it, Jack?"

"Very curious," Jack said; "I thought I understood Nell as well as I did you or myself, but I begin to think I doant understand her as much as I thought. It comes of her being a lass, of course, but it's queer too," and Jack shook his head over the mysterious nature of lasses. "You can't understand 'em," he went on again, thoughtfully. "Now, if you wanted some clothes, Harry, and you were out of work, I should just buy you a set as a matter of course, and you'd take 'em the same. It would be only natural like friends, wouldn't it?"

Harry assented.

"Now, I've been wanting to give Nelly a gown, and a jacket, and hat for the last two years. I want her to look nice, and hold her own with the other lasses of the place—she's as good looking as any—but I daren't do it. No, I daren't, downright. I know, as well as if I see it, how she'd flash up, and how angry she'd be."

"Why should she?" Harry asked.

"That's what I doan't know, lad, but I know she would be. I suppose it comes of her being a lass, but it beats me altogether. Why shouldn't she take it? other lasses take presents from their lads, why shouldn't Nell take one from her friend? But she wouldn't, I'd bet my life she wouldn't, and she wouldn't say, 'No, and thank you,' but she'd treat it as if I'd insulted her. No, it can't be done, lad; but it's a pity, for I should ha' liked to see her look nice for once."

Not satisfied with his inability to solve the question Jack took his mother into his confidence.

Jane Haden smiled.

"Noa, Jack, I don't think as how thou canst give Nell Hardy a dress. She is a good quiet girl and keeps herself respectable, which, taking into account them she comes from, is a credit to her, but I don't think thou could'st gi' her a gown."

"But why not, mother?" Jack persisted. "I might gi' her a pair o' earrings or a brooch, I suppose, which would cost as much as the gown."

"Yes, thou might'st do that, Jack."

"Then if she could take the thing which would be no manner o' use to her, why couldn't she take the thing that would?"

"I doant know as I can rightly tell you, Jack, but there's a difference."

"But can't you tell me what is the difference?" Jack insisted.

"Noa, Jack, I can't, but there be a difference."

Jack seized his candle with a cry of despair, and ran upstairs. He had solved many a tough problem, but this was beyond him altogether. He was not, however, accustomed to be baffled, and the next day he renewed the subject, this time to Nelly herself.

"Look here, Nell," he said, "I want to ask you a question. It is a supposition, you know, only a supposition, but it bothers me."

"What is it, Jack?" she said, looking up from the ground, upon which as was her custom she was sitting with a book while Jack sat on a gate.

"If I was to offer you a pair of gold earrings."

"I wouldn't take 'em," the girl said rising, "you know I wouldn't, Jack; you know I never take presents from you."

"I know, lass, I know. We'll suppose you wouldn't take it, but you wouldn't be angered, would you?"

"I should be angered that you had spent money foolishly," the girl said after a pause, "when you knew I shouldn't take it, but I couldn't be angered any other way."

"Well, but if I were to buy you a hat and a jacket and a gown."

"You dare not," the girl said passionately, her face flushed scarlet; "you dare not, Jack."

"No," Jack said consciously, "I know I dare not, though I should like to; but why don't I dare?"

"Because it would be an insult, a gross insult, Jack, and you dare not insult me."

"No lass, I darena; but why should it be an insult? that's what I canna make out; why wouldn't it be an insult to offer you a gold brooch worth three or four pounds, and yet be an insult to offer you the other things? what's the difference?"

Nelly had calmed down now when she saw that the question was a hypothetical one, and that Jack had not, as she at first supposed, bought clothes for her.

She thought for some time. "I suppose, Jack, the difference is this. It's the duty of a girl's father and mother to buy fit clothes for her, and if they don't it's either their fault, or it's because they are too poor. So to give clothes is an interference and a sort of reproach. A brooch is not necessary; it's a pretty ornament, and so a lad may give it to his lass wi'out shame."

"Yes, I suppose it must be that," Jack said thoughtfully. "I'm glad I've got some sort of answer."



CHAPTER XIII.

A HEAVY LOSS.

"I thought, sir, that you promised to say nothing about that soup-kitchen money," Jack said rather indignantly one evening a fortnight after he had gone to work again.

"Here all the women of the place seem to know about it, and as I was coming home from work to-day, there was Mrs. Thompson run out and shook me by the hand and would ha' kissed me if I'd let her, and said I'd saved her children's lives. I ha' been thinking of going away; I can't stand this; and I thought you promised to say nowt about it."

"'Nothing,' Jack," corrected Mr. Merton. "It is a long time since I heard you say 'nowt.' No, Jack, I did not promise; you told me to say nothing about it, but I was careful not to promise. Sit down, lad, you're a little hot now, and I am not surprised, but I am sure that you will credit me for having acted for the best."

Jack sat down with a little grunt, and with the expression of dissatisfaction on his face in no way mollified.

"In the first place, Jack, you will, I know, be sorry to hear that I am going away."

"Going away!" Jack exclaimed, leaping to his feet, all thought of his grievance gone at once. "Oh! Mr. Merton."

"I told you, you will remember, Jack, when the strike first began, that for the sake of my daughter I should make an effort to obtain a superior position, and I am glad to say that I have done so. I have obtained the post of mathematical master at the Foundation School at Birmingham, with a salary of three hundred a year, and this, Jack, I partly owe to you."

"To me!" Jack exclaimed in astonishment; "how could that be, sir?"

"Well, Jack, you got me to write that letter to Sir John Butler, that was the means of bringing the troops over from Birmingham. As we know, they arrived too late, for in point of fact the hot water from the Vaughan boiler put an end to the riot and the strike together. However, Sir John Butler mentioned to Mr. Brook, and the other owners whose mines were threatened, that it was I who at some risk to myself sent the message which brought down the troops. I can assure you that I disclaimed any merit in the affair; however, they chose to consider themselves under an obligation, and when I applied for the vacant mastership, sending in, of course, my college testimonials, they were good enough to exert all their influence with the governors in my favour, and I was elected unanimously. The salary is an increasing one, and I am to be allowed to coach private pupils for the university. So, Jack, you may congratulate me."

"I do, sir, most heartily, most heartily," Jack said as he grasped the hand which Mr. Merton held out, but his voice quivered a little and tears stood in his eyes. "I am glad, indeed, although I shall miss you so terribly, you have been so good to me," and Jack fairly broke down now, and cried silently.

Mr. Merton put his hand on his shoulder: "Jack, my work is nearly done, so far as you are concerned. You have worked nearly as far as can be of any use to you in pure mathematics. For the next few months you may go on; but then you had better turn your attention to the useful application of what you have learned. You want to fit yourself to be an engineer, especially, of course, a mining engineer; still the more general your knowledge the better. You will have, therefore, to devote yourself to the various strains and stresses in iron bridges, and the calculation of the strength of the various forms of these structures. Then all calculations as to the expenditure of heat and force in steam engines will be quite material for you to master. In fact, there is work before you for another four or five years. But for much of this you will not require a master. You will find the practical part easy to you when you have a thorough knowledge of mathematics. At the same time if you will once a week send me your papers, noting all difficulties that you may meet with, I will go through them and answer you, and will also give you papers to work out."

"You are very, very kind, sir," Jack said; "but it will not be the same thing as you being here."

"No, not quite the same, Jack; still we can hardly help that."

"Oh, no, sir!" Jack said eagerly, "and please do not think that I am not glad to hear that you have got a place more worthy of you. It was a blow to me just at first, and I was selfish to think of myself even for a moment."

"Well, Jack, and now about this question of the soup dinner?"

"Oh! it does not matter, sir. I had forgot all about it."

"It matters a little, Jack, because, although I did not promise to keep silence, I should certainly have respected your wish, had it not been that it seemed to be a far more important matter that the truth should be known."

"More important, sir?" Jack repeated in a puzzled tone.

"More important, Jack. My successor has been chosen. He is just the man for this place—earnest, well trained, a good disciplinarian. He will be no help to you, Jack. He is simply taught and trained as the master of a national school, but he is thoroughly in earnest. I have told him that his most efficient assistant here will be yourself."

"I?" Jack exclaimed in extreme astonishment.

"You, Jack, not as a teacher, but as an example. You have immense power of doing good, Jack, if you do but choose to exert it."

Jack was altogether too surprised to speak for some time.

"A power of good," he said at last. "The only good I can do, sir, and that is not much, is to thrash chaps I see bullying smaller boys, but that's nothing."

"Well, that's something, Jack; and indeed I fear you are fond of fighting."

"I am not fond of it," Jack said. "I don't care about it, one way or the other. It doesn't hurt me; I am as hard as nails, you see, so I don't think more about fighting than I do about eating my dinner."

"I don't like fighting, Jack, when it can be avoided, and I don't think that you are quarrelsome though you do get into so many fights."

"Indeed I am not quarrelsome, Mr. Merton; I never quarrel with anyone. If any of the big chaps interfere with us and want to fight, of course I am ready, or if chaps from the other pits think that they can knock our chaps about, of course I show them that the Vaughans can fight, or if I see any fellow pitching in to a young one—"

"Or, in fact, Jack, on any pretext whatever. Well, if it were anyone else but yourself I should speak very strongly against it; but in your case I avow that I am glad that you have fought, and fought until, as I know, no one anywhere near your age will fight with you, because it now makes you more useful for my purpose."

Jack looked astonished again. "You don't want me to thrash anyone, Mr. Merton?" he said; "because if you do—"

"No, no, Jack, nothing is further from my thoughts. I want you to get the lads of your own age to join a night-school, and to become a more decent Christian set of young fellows than they are now. It is just because you can fight well, and are looked up to by the lads as their natural leader, that you can do this. Were anyone else to try it he would fail. He would be regarded as a milksop, and be called a girl, and a Molly, and all sorts of names, and no one would join him. Now with you they can't say this, and boys joining would say to those who made fun of them, 'There's Jack Simpson, he's one of us; you go and call him Molly and see what you'll get.' Now you can talk to your comrades, and point out to them the advantages of learning and decent manners. Show that not only will they become happier men, but that in a worldly point of view they will benefit, for that the mine-owners have difficulty in getting men with sufficient education to act as overmen and viewers. Get them to agree to keep from drink and from the foul language which makes the streets horrible to a decent person. You can work a revolution in the place. You won't get them to do all this at present, but the first step is to get them to attend a night-school. I have for the last year been thinking over the matter, and was intending to speak to you about it when the strike began, and everything else was put aside. Now, I have spoken to my successor, and he is willing, and indeed anxious, to open such a school if the young fellows can be induced to come."

Jack sat for some time in silence. He was always slow at coming to a conclusion, and liked to think over every side of a question.

"How often would it be held, sir?" he asked presently.

"Two or three nights a week, Jack. Those who are anxious to get on can do as you did, and work between times."

"Two nights would be enough at first," Jack said; "but I think, yes, I think I could get some of them to give that. Harry Shepherd would, I'm sure, and Bill Cummings, and Fred Wood, and I think five or six others. Yes, sir, I think we could start it, and all I can do I will. It would do a sight—I mean a great deal of good. I'll come myself at first, sir, and then if any of them make a noise or play games with the schoolmaster I'll lick 'em next day."

"No, Jack, I don't think that would do, but your presence would no doubt aid the master at first. And you'll think of the other things, Jack, the drinking, and the bad language, and so on."

"I'll do what I can, Mr. Merton," Jack said, simply, "but it must be bit by bit."

"That's right, Jack, I knew that I could rely upon you; and now come in to tea, and there was one thing I wanted to say, I want you once a month to come over to me at Birmingham on Saturday afternoon and stay till Sunday evening. It will be a great pleasure to me; I shall see how you are getting on, and shall hear all the news of Stokebridge."

"I am very very much obliged to you, sir," Jack said, colouring with pleasure, "but I am afraid I am not, not fit—"

"You are fit to associate with anyone, Jack, and it is good for you that you should occasionally have other association than that of your comrades of the pit. You will associate with people of higher rank than mine, if you live, and it is well that you should become accustomed to it. And now, Jack, I know you will not take it amiss, but clothes do go for something, and I should advise you to go to a good tailor's at Birmingham the first time you come over—I will obtain the address of such a one—and order yourself a suit of well made clothes. As you get on in life you will learn that first impressions go a long way, and that the cut of the clothes have not a little to do with first impressions. I shall introduce you to my friends there, simply as a friend; not that either you or I are ashamed of your working in a pit—indeed, that is your highest credit—but it would spare you the comments and silly questions which would be put to you. Now let us go into the next room, Alice will be expecting us."

Jack had taken tea with Mr. Merton more than once since that first evening before the strike, and was now much more at his ease with Miss Merton, who, having heard from her father that it was he who saved the Vaughan pit, viewed him with a constant feeling of astonishment. It seemed so strange to her that this quiet lad, who certainly stood in awe of her, although he was a year her senior, should have done such a daring action; equally wonderful to think that in spite of his well chosen words and the attainments her father thought so highly of, he was yet a pit boy, like the rough noisy lads of the village.

A week later Mr. Merton and his daughter left Stokebridge, and upon the following day his successor arrived, and Jack, at Mr. Merton's request, called upon him the same evening. He was a tall man of some forty years old, with a face expressive of quiet power. Jack felt at once that he should like him.

He received the lad very kindly. "I have heard so much of you from Mr. Merton," he said, "and I am sure that you will be a great help to me. Harriet," he said to his wife, a bright-looking woman of about thirty-five years old, who came into the room, "this is Mr. Simpson, of whom Mr. Merton spoke so highly to me. My wife is going to have the girls' school, have you heard?"

"No, indeed," Jack said; "Mr. Merton did not mention it."

"It was only settled yesterday; the managers heard that my wife was a trained mistress, and as they were going to pension off the present mistress they offered it to her."

"I am very glad," Jack said, "for Mrs. White has long been past her work, and the girls did pretty well as they liked."

"I expect to have some trouble with them at first," Mrs. Dodgson said cheerfully. "I often tell my husband girls are ever so much more troublesome than boys, but I daresay I shall manage; and now, Mr Simpson, we are just going to have supper, will you join us? It will be our first regular meal in the house."

"Thank you very much," Jack said, colouring and hesitating, "but I think, perhaps, you don't know that I am only a lad in the pit."

"Stuff and nonsense," Mrs. Dodgson said, "what has that to do with it? Why, Mr. Merton says that you will be John's right hand. Besides, you will be able to tell us all about the people we shall have to do with."

In another moment Jack was seated at table, and really enjoyed the meal, lightened, as it was, by the pleasant talk of his hostess, and the grave but not less kindly conversation of her husband.



CHAPTER XIV.

THE NIGHT-SCHOOL.

Jack found that, as he expected, his friends Harry Shepherd, Bill Cummings, and Fred Wood, would be glad to attend a night-school, and to work in earnest; for the example of what Jack had done for himself, even so far as they knew, had excited a strong desire for improvement among them. They, however, were doubtful as to others, and agreed that it would not do to propose it in a straightforward manner, but that a good deal of careful management would be necessary.

Jack, it was arranged, should open the subject after leading up to it carefully. Harry should be the first to consent, Bill Cummings was to give in his adhesion when he saw signs of wavering among the others, and Fred Wood to delay his until a moment when his coming forward would be useful.

The following Saturday, when many of them were always together, should be the occasion, and Fred Wood was to lead up to the matter by asking Jack some questions as to the relative bigness of the earth and the sun.

Saturday came, the lads gathered in a field which belonged to the Vaughan, and upon which a great tip of rubbish and shale was gradually encroaching. Here choosing sides they played at rounders for a couple of hours, and then flung themselves down on the grass. Some of them lighted pipes, and all enjoyed the quiet of the fine autumn evening.

Presently Fred Wood artfully fired off the questions he had prepared, which Jack answered.

"What a sight o' things thou know'st, Jack!" Bill Cummings said.

"I don't know much yet, Bill, but I hopes to know a goodish deal some day."

"And thou really lik'st reading, Jack? I hate it," John Jordan said.

"I didn't like it ower much at first," Jack answered, "but as I got on I liked it more and more. I wish you chaps had the chances I had. It isn't every one who would take the pains wi' a fellow as Merton took wi' me."

"What ud be t' good o't?" John Jordan asked. "I doan't see no good in knowing that t' sun be a hundred thousand times as big as t' world."

"There's use in a great deal o' what one gets to know, though," Jack said; "not so much now as some day, maybe. A chap as has some sort o' edication has chances over another o' being chosen as a viewer or an oversman."

"Oh! that's what thou be'est looking forward to, Jack, eh? Well there's summat in that, and I shouldna' wonder if we see thee that some day; but we can't all be oversmen."

"Not in the Vaughan," Jack said; "but there's plenty o' other pits, and a chap as has got his head screwed on straight, and can write well and figure a bit, and have read up his work, may always look forward to getting a step up wherever he goes. Besides, look at the difference it makes to the pleasures o' life. What has a man got to do who ain't learnt to be fond o' reading? Nowt but to go to t' public to spend his evenings and drink away his earnings. So 'ee goes on, and his woife doan't care about taking pains about a house when t' maister ain't never at home but to his meals, and his children get to look for him coming home drunk and smashing the things, and when he gets old he's just a broken-down drunkard, wi'out a penny saved, and nowt but the poorhouse before him. Now, that's the sort o' life o' a man who can't read, or can't read well enough to take pleasure in it, has before him. That is so, bean't it?"

There was a long silence; all the lads knew that the picture was a true one.

"Now look at t'other side," Jack went on; "look at Merton. He didn't get moore pay a week than a pitman does; look how he lived, how comfortable everything was! What a home that ud be for a man to go back to after his work was done! Noice furniture, a wife looking forward neat and tidy to your coming hoam for the evening. Your food all comfortable, the kids clean and neat, and delighted to see feyther home."

There was again a long silence.

"Where be the girls to make the tidy wife a' cooming from, I wonder?" John Jordan said; "not in Stokebridge, I reckon!"

"The lasses take mostly after the lads," Jack said. "If we became better they'd be ashamed to lag behind. Mrs. Dodgson, the new schoolmaister's wife, told me t'other day she thought o' opening a sort o' night class for big girls, to teach 'em sewing, and making their own clothes, and summat about cooking, and such like."

"That would be summat like," said Harry Shepherd, who saw that his opportunity had come. "I wonder whether t' maister would open a night-school for us; I'd go for one, quick enough. I doan't know as I've rightly thought it over before, but now ye puts it in that way, Jack, there be no doubt i' my moind that I should; it would be a heap better to get some larning, and to live like a decent kind o' chap."

"I doan't know," John Jordan said; "it moight be better, but look what a lot o' work one ud have to do."

"Well, John, I always finds plenty o' time for play," Jack said. "You could give an hour a day to it, and now the winter's coming on you'd be main glad sometimes as you'd got summat to do. I should ha' to talk to the schoolmaister a bit. I doan't know as he'd be willing to give up his time of an evening two or three evenings a week, say two, when he's been at work all day. It be a good deal to ask a man, that is."

"It be, surely," Harry said; "but what a sight o' good it would do, and if his woife be willing to give oop her time to the girls, maybe he would do as much for us." There was a pause again. Several of the lads looked irresolute.

"Well," Bill Cummings said, "I be ready for another if some more of 'ee will join't." The example was contagious. Four others agreed to join.

"Come," Harry Shepherd said, "it bean't no use if Jack can't tell schoolmaister that a dozen o' us will come in ef he will open a school two nights a week. You'll join, woan't you, Fred Wood?"

"Oi allers hated my books," Fred said, "and used to be bottom o' class. It ain't as I doan't believe what Jack Simpson says; there be no doubt as it would be a sight better look-out if one got to be fond o' books, and such loike. I doan't believe as ever I shall be, but I doan't mind giving it a trial for six months, and if at the end o' that time I doan't like it, why I jacks it oop."

The adhesion of this seemingly reluctant recruit settled the matter. Even John Jordan yielded upon the same terms, and the whole party, fifteen in number, put down their names, and Jack Simpson undertook to speak to Mr Dodgson.

"See how we shall get laughed at," John Jordan said. "Why, we shall get made fun o' by the whole place."

"Let 'em laugh," Jack said, "they won't laugh long. I never was laughed at, and why should you be? They canna call us Jennies, for we sixteen will play any sixteen wi'in five miles round, at any game they like, or fight 'em if it comes to that. We has only got to stick together. I sha'n't be one of the night-school, but I am one wi' you, and we'll just stick together. Don't let us mind if they do laugh; if they go on at it, and I doubt they will, just offer to fight anyone your own size, and if he be bigger than you like I'll take him in hand."

"That's it," Harry Shepherd said enthusiastically; "we'll stick together, and you see how we'll get on; and look here, I vote we each pay threepence a week, that will get us a room at two bob, and candles. Then we can work a' night wi'out being disturbed."

"This be a good idea o' thine, Harry. I'll give my threepence a week as well as the rest, and I'll come in on the nights when you don't go to school and help any that wants it."

"Yes," Bill Cummings said, "and we'll send round challenges to the other pits to play football and rounders. I vote we call ourselves the 'Bull-dogs,' and Jack shall be our captain."

The proposition was carried with unanimity, and the "Bull-dogs" became a body from that time. Harry was appointed treasurer, and the first week's subscriptions were paid forthwith, and an hour later a room was hired.

"Hullo!" Fred Wood said, as they poured in and took possession; "we forgot furniture. We must have a table and some benches."

"It is the captain's duty to provide furniture," Jack said. "I will get a big table and some benches on Monday, and then we'll draw up rules and get 'em framed and hung over the fireplace, then we shall be all in order."

Nothing could have been more happy than this plan of starting a club; it gave all the members a lively interest in the matter, and united them by a bond which would keep the lazy and careless from hanging back, and it was quite with a sense of excitement that they met on the Monday evening.

Jack had got a large table and some benches. Inkstands, slates, paper, and pencils were on the table, and four candles were burning. He took the place of honour at the head of the table, and the others, much pleased with the appearance of the room, took their seats round the table.

"In the first place," Jack said, striking the table with his fist to call for order, "I have to report to you that I ha' seen the schoolmaister, and he says that he will willingly give two hours two nights a week to teaching the 'Bull-dogs.'"

This announcement was received with great applause, for the lads had all become deeply interested in the matter.

"He says Tuesdays and Fridays will suit him, from seven till nine; and I have, in your name, accepted with very many thanks his offer; for, lads, it be no light thing that a man who has been all day teaching, should give up two evenings a week to help us on, and that wi'out charge or payment."

"That's so, Jack!" Fred Wood said. "I voate we pass a vote o' thanks to Mr. Dodgson."

There was a chorus of approval.

"Someone ha' got to second that proposal," Jack said; "we must do things in the proper form."

"I second it," John Jordan said.

"Very well," Jack said, "are you all agreed?" "All." "Very well, then, I'll write that out neatly in this book I ha' bought to keep the records o' the club, and I'll send a copy to Mr. Dodgson; I'm sure he will be pleased. I had best act as secretary as well as captain at present, till one o' you gets on wi' his writing and can take it off my hands. Now we must draw out our rules. First, we must put down that the following are the original members of the Bull-dog Club. Then, that the objects of the club are to improve ourselves, and to make decent men o' ourselves. Next, to stick together in a body and to play all sorts o' games against any other set. All that's been agreed, ain't it?"

There were cries of "Ay, ay," and Jack wrote down the items on the sheet o' paper before him.

"Now about new members. Do we mean to keep it to ourselves, or to let in other chaps?"

"Keep it to ourselves," shouted several.

"Well, I dunno," Harry Shepherd said; "if this is going to do us as much good as we hopes, and think it is, would it be right to keep the chaps o' the place out? O' course we wouldn't go beyond Stokebridge, but we might keep it to that."

The point was hotly debated, the majority being in favour of confining the club to its present members; some saying that if it were opened the original members would be swamped by numbers, and that their bond of union would be broken.

When all had spoken Jack Simpson said:

"I think we might go between both opinions. If we were to limit the club to twenty-four members, this room would just about hold 'em. We would only elect one each week, so as to have time to make a good choice. Any member who broke the rules or made himself unpleasant would be expelled, and so we should see in a while all the young chaps o' t' village wanting to join, and it would get to be looked upon as a feather in a chap's cap to belong to it."

This proposal was agreed to unanimously.

"Now the next rule I propose," Jack said, "is that this room is to be used from seven to nine for work. No talking to be allowed. Arter nine, books to be put away and pipes to be lit by them as smoke, and to talk till ten. I ha' been talking to the woman o' the house, and she will supply cups o' coffee or tea at a penny a piece between nine and ten."

This rule was agreed to without a dissentient voice.

"Now," Jack said, "I doan't know as you'll all like the next rule I ha' to propose, but I do think it is a needful one. That is that no swearing or bad language be used in this room. A fine of a penny being inflicted for each time the rule be broken."

There was a dead silence.

"You see," Jack said, "you will all be fined a few times at first, but this money will go to the club fund, and will help up to get fires i' winter. You'll soon break yourselves of it, it be only a trick. I did. Mr. Merton told me that it was a bad habit and horrible to decent people. I said I could never break myself o't. He said if I fined myself a penny every time I did it, and put it in the poor box o' Sunday, I should soon get out o' t'way. Well, the first day cost me thirteen pence, the next fourpence, and afterwards it was only a penny now and then. First and last it didn't cost me half a crown, and you never hear me swear or use bad language now. Come, Bull-dogs, this will be the first step toward improving yourselves, and when you find how easy it be to do wi'out it here, you will soon do wi'out it outside."