"If you men had had a spark of gratitude, you'd have listened to Mr. Richard North, when he prayed you to go back to him," said Mrs. Gass. "No, you wouldn't; and what has it done for him? Why, just ruined him, my men: almost as bare as you are ruined. It has took his hopes from him; wasted what little money he had; played the very dickens with his prospects. The business he once had never will and never can come back. If once you break a mirror to pieces, you can't put it together again. Mr. Richard has a life of work to look forward to; he may earn a living, but he won't do much more. You men have at least the satisfaction of knowing that whilst you ruined your own prosperity, you also ruined his." They had talked so long--for all that passed cannot be recorded--that it was close upon one o'clock, and the small band of workmen and the two policemen were seen coming back again towards the works. The malignant look rose again on Poole's face: and he gave forth a savage growl. "There'll be mischief yet," thought Mrs. Gass, as she turned away. Sounds of a woman's sobbing were proceeding from an open door as she went down North Inlet, and Mrs. Gass stepped in to see what might be the matter. They came from Dawson's wife. Dawson had been beating her. The unhappy state to which they were reduced tried the tempers of the men--of the women also, for that matter--rendering some of them little better than ferocious beasts. In the old days, when Dawson could keep himself and his family in comfort, never a cross word had been heard from him: but all that was changed; and under the new order of things, it often came to blows. The wife had now been struck in the eye. Smarting under ills of body and ills of mind, the woman enlarged on her wrongs to Mrs. Gass, and displayed the mark; all of which at another time she would certainly have concealed. The home was miserably bare; the children, wan and thin, were in tatters like their mother; it was a comprehensive picture of wretchedness. "And all through those idiots having thrown up their work at the dictates of the Trades' Union!" was the wrathful comment of Mrs. Gass, as she departed. "They've done for themselves in this world: and, to judge by the unchristian lives they are living, seem to be in a fair way of doing for themselves in the next." As she reached her own house, the smart housemaid was showing Miss Dallory out of it. That young lady, making a call on Mrs. Gass, had waited for her a short time, and was departing. They now went in together. Mrs. Gass, entering her handsome drawing-room, began recounting the events of the morning; what she had heard and seen. "There'll be mischief, as sure as a gun," she concluded. "My belief is, that some of them would kill Mr. Richard if they had only got the chance." Mary Dallory looked startled. "Kill _him!_" she cried. "Why, he has always been their friend. He would have been so still, had they only been willing."