This was not all. The men unreasonably held to it that these others having taken work again, was the cause why they themselves were kept out of it. Richard North would ha' come-to, they said, if these curs hadn't went sneaking back again to lick his hand. If all had held out, Dick North must ha' given in. And this they repeated so constantly, in their ire, one to another, that at last they grew to believe it. It was quite wrong, and they were wholly mistaken: for had Richard North not begun again cautiously as he did, and on the old terms, he would not have recommenced at all: but the men refused to see this, and held to their idea, making it a greater grievance than the want of food. It is so convenient to have something substantial on which to throw blame: and unlimited power and permission to punch the obnoxious head would have afforded intense gratification. Oh, it was very hard to bear. To see this small knot of men re-established in work, and to know that it was their own work once, and might have been theirs still! Peeping through hedges, hiding within doorways, standing sulkily or derisively in the open ground, they would watch the men going to and fro, guarded by the two policemen. Many a bitter word, many a silent threat was levelled at the small band. Murder had been done from a state of mind not half as bad as they were cherishing. "What be you looking at, with those evil frowns on your faces?" A group of malcontents, gazing from a corner of North Inlet at the daily procession, found this question suddenly sounding on their ears. Mrs. Gass had stepped out of a dwelling close by, and put it to them. Their eyes were following the escorted men coming home to their twelve-o'clock dinner, so that they had not observed her. They turned to her, and dropped their threatening expression. A man named Poole, not too much respected in the most prosperous times, and one of the worst of the malcontents, answered boldly too. "We was taking the measure o' that small lot o' convic's. Wishing we could brand 'em." "Ah," said Mrs. Gass. "It strikes me some of you have been wishing it before to-day. I should like to give you a bit of advice, my men; and you, especially, Poole. Take care you don't become convicts yourselves." "For two pins, I'd do what 'ud make me one," was the rejoinder of Poole, who was in a more defiant mood than even he often dared exhibit. He was a large, thick-set man, with shaggy light hair and a brick-dust complexion. His clothes, originally fustian, had been worn and torn and patched until they now hardly held together. "You are a nice jail-bird, Poole! I don't think you ever were much better than one," added Mrs. Gass. To which candid avowal Poole only replied by a growl. "These hard times be enough to make jail-birds of all of us," interposed another, Foster; but speaking civilly. "Why don't the Government come down and interfere, and prevent our work being took out of our hands by these rascals?"