'Against Baxendale. He came to speak to me before breakfast. I gave him the declaration to read and sign, and sent him to work at once. In the course of the morning it had got wind; though Baxendale told me he had given Sam Shuck notice of his intention on Saturday night. At dinner time, when Baxendale was quitting the yard, there were, I should say, a couple of hundred men assembled there----' 'The Daffodil Delight people?' interrupted Mr. Hunter. 'Yes. Our late men chiefly, and a sprinkling of Mr. Henry's. They were waiting there for Baxendale, and the moment he appeared, the yells, the hisses, the groans, were dreadful. I suspected what it was, and ran out. But for my doing so, I believe they would have set upon him.' 'Mark you, Clay! I will protect my workmen to the very limit of the law. Let the malcontents lay but a finger upon any one of them, and they shall assuredly be punished to the uttermost,' reiterated Mr. Hunter, bringing down his hand forcibly. 'What did you do?' 'I spoke to them just as you have now spoken,' said Austin. 'Their threatenings to the man were terrible. I dared them to lay a finger upon him; I assured them that the language they were using was punishable. Had the police been in the way--but the more you want them, the less they are to be seen--I should have handed a few into custody.' 'Who were the ringleaders?'--'I can scarcely tell. Ryan, the Irishman, was busy, and so was Jim Dunn; Cheek, also, backed by his wife.' 'Oh, you had women also!' 'In plenty,' said Austin. 'One of them--I think it was Cooper's wife--roared out a challenge to fight _Mrs._ Baxendale, if her man, Cooper, as she expressed it, was too much of a woman to fight _him_. There will be bloodshed, I fear, sir, before the thing is over.' 'If there is, let they who cause it look to themselves,' said Mr. Hunter, speaking as sternly as he felt. 'How did it end?' 'I cleared a passage for Baxendale, and they yelled and hooted him home,' replied Austin. "I suppose they'd like to take my life, sir," he said to me; "but I think I am only doing right in returning to work. I could not let my family and Mary quite starve." This afternoon all was quiet; Quale told me the men were holding a meeting.' Florence was sitting with her hands clasped, her colour gradually rising. 'If they should--set upon Baxendale, and--and injure him!' she breathed. 'Then the law would see what it could do towards getting some of them punished,' sternly spoke Mr. Hunter. 'Oh, James!' interposed his wife, her pale cheeks flushing, as the words grated on her ears. 'Can nothing be done to prevent it? Prevention is better than cure. Austin, will you not give notice to the police, and tell them to be on the alert?' 'I have done it,' answered Austin. 'Papa,' said Florence, 'have you heard that Robert Darby's children are ill?--likely to die? They are suffering dreadfully from want. Mary Baxendale said so when she was here this morning.'