"Wheer art tha puttin' my cap?" shouted Granny Dixon. "What art tha doin' wi' my cap? Does tha think because I've got a bit o' brass, I can hot th' bake-oven wi' head-dresses?" Mrs. Briarley had picked up the cap, and was only rescued by this timely warning from the fatal imprudence of putting it in the fire and stirring it violently with the poker. "Art tha dazeder than common?" shrieked the old woman. "Has tha gone daft? What art tha starin' at?" "I am na starin' at nowt," said Mrs. Briarley, with a start. "I--I wur hearkenin' to the lady here, an' I did na think o' what I wur doin'." She did not fully recover herself during the whole of her visitor's stay, and, in fact, several times lapsed into the same meditative condition. When Haworth's charitable intentions were made known to her, she stopped jolting the baby and sat in wild confusion. "Did tha say as he wur goin' to gi' thee money?" she exclaimed,--"money to gi' away?" "He said he'd give it without a grudge," said his mother, proudly. "Without a grudge, if it pleased me. That's his way, my dear. It were his way from the time he were a boy, an' worked so hard to give me a comfortable home. He give it, he said, without a grudge." "Jane Ann," said Mrs. Briarley, standing at the door to watch her out of sight,--"Jane Ann, what dost tha think o' that theer?" She said it helplessly, clutching at the child on her hip with a despairing grasp. "Did tha hear her?" she demanded. "She wur talkin' o' Haworth, an' she wur pridin' hersen on th' son he'd been to her, an'--an' th' way he'd lived. Th' cold sweat broke out aw over me. No wonder I wur for puttin' th' cap i' th' fire. Lord ha' mercy on us!" But Janey regarded the matter from a more practical stand-point. "He has na treated _her_ ill," she said. "Happen he is na so bad after aw. Did tha hear what she said about th' money?" CHAPTER XXII. AGAIN. "Theer's a chap," it was said of Murdoch with some disdain among the malcontents,--"theer's a chap as coom here to work for his fifteen bob a week, an' now he's hand i' glove wi' th' mesters an's getten a shop o' his own." The "shop" in question had, however, been only a very simple result of circumstances. In times of emergency it had been discovered that "th' 'Merican chap" was an individual of resources. Floxham had discovered this early, and, afterward, the heads of other departments. If a machine or tool was out of order, "Tak' it to th' 'Merican chap an' he'll fettle it," said one or another. And the time had never been when the necessary "fettling" had not been accomplished. In his few leisure moments, Murdoch would go from room to room, asking questions or looking on in silence at the work being carried on. Often his apparently hap-hazard and desultory examinations finally resulted in some suggestion which simplified things astonishingly. He had a fancy for simplifying and improving the appliances he saw in use, and this, too, without any waste of words.