Morning, noon and night, whenever the small body of fresh workmen had to pass to and from the works, they were accompanied by the two policemen specially engaged to protect them, whilst others hovered within call. North Inlet, the ill-feeling of its old inhabitants increasing day by day, had become dangerous. It was not that all the men would have done violence. Ketler, for instance, and others, well-disposed men by nature, sensible and quiet, would not have lifted a hand against those who had, in one sense of the word, displaced them. But they did this: they stood tamely by, knowing quite well that some of their comrades only waited their opportunity to kill, or disable--as might be--Richard North's new followers. North Inlet was not quite so full as it used to be: for some of the old inhabitants, weary and out of patience with hope deferred: hope they hardly knew of what, unless for the good time promised by the Trades' Union: had departed on the tramp, with their wives and little ones, seeking a corner of the earth where work sufficient to give them a crust of bread and a roof, might be found. Others had decamped without their wives and children: and were in consequence being sought by the parish. North Inlet, taken on the whole, was in a sore plight. The men and women, reduced by want and despair to apply for parish relief, found none accorded them. They had brought themselves to this condition; had refused work when work was to be had; and to come and ask to be supported in idleness by the parish was a procedure not to be tolerated or entertained; as one resolute guardian, sitting at the head of a table, fiercely told them. Not as much as a loaf of bread would be given them, added another. If it came to the pass that they were in danger of dying of hunger--as the applicants urged--why they must come into the house with their wives and families: and a humiliating shame that would be for able-bodied men, the guardian added: but they would receive no relief out-of-doors. So North Inlet, not choosing to go into that unpopular refuge for the destitute, kept out of it. And to terrible straits were they reduced!