“Risk?” he cried. “What can you risk more than you’re risking now--a white cap and the mortal push? You’ve risked that this dozen years; and for what? Clippings and scrapings and filings! You’ve risked Ouse Bridge for that! Now by ----, there are those in Back o’ th’ Mooin ready to call Arthur Monjoy king, but I’ll kick my shoes off at the end of a tow for the chance of being a king in truth!... Risk? Could an army rout us out o’ that wilderness? Who gets far over Wadsworth Scout without a ‘by-your-leave’? The country’s made for it!--To Pudsay and the ballad, Matthew!” He drank. “To the gold they find i’ partridges’ heads and hares’ bellies,” quoth the merchant, rising. “Well, I suppose we go on the old way while Arthur’s looking for his silver? A new way o’ finding it, too; happen it’ll be a new sort o’ silver. We’ll have to wait for the plating-plant too, now. Ah, well!--The next meeting’s at the ‘Gooise’.... Nay, if we’re all stirring I’ll turn the lamps down; there’s no sense in wasting oil; we aren’t kings yet----” He turned low the lamps that made on the ceiling the rings that intersected like the eyes of an owl. CHAPTER III. “JOHNNY COPE.” The house occupied by the new supervisor of excise lay up a narrow cobbled croft, turning sharp from the Fullergate by the “Fullers’ Arms.” It was, in reality, half of what had once been a considerable house, extending along the top of the croft; but the right-hand portion had for long been boarded and shuttered, and a pear-tree, planted by design or lack of thought close to the wall, divided the two portions. The lower part of the tree grew of necessity outwards; but at the eaves it spread back and embowered in its branches two dormer windows. Between the cobbles of the croft grass grew; the place was retired and quiet; and on the roof-flags pigeons crooned and flirted and made white droppings. The shop of Cole the clogger was in the extreme corner, adjoining the supervisor’s house. It lay in the basement, reached by half a dozen stone steps down a sort of well, and its window was flush with the grass and the cobbles. Thus, appropriately enough, the clogger was able to recognise his visitors by that portion of their attire that was in many cases his own handiwork. There was no mistaking the calliper-legs of Pim o’ Cuddy, the darned blue worsted that cased Mish Murgatroyd’s shins, the vast calf-muscles of Big Monjoy, nor the pudding ankles of fat Dooina Benn, the clogger’s sister. A facetious soul, Cole the clogger was, and apparently a well-beloved by his neighbours. He was seldom without visitors, on his steps, on the bench within his door, or supporting his outer wall. As he shaped the wooden soles in his vice, or with his cobbler’s knife carved the stiff uppers, Cole ever declared that the odour of the leather that soaked in his tubs of black water was as good for the lungs as his sister’s gentian, and none who wore his clogs (he vowed) suffered from toothache or neuralgia.