Mrs. Verners had a last word to say. “But there is Tom.” Young Tom Verners was with his regiment in the Peninsula. “Tom!” cried Dorothy. “I’ll show you what Tom thinks of this.” She raised a candlestick to light the face of her grandfather’s portrait on the wall. Tom, they said, was the image of his grandfather who had been painted in his youth in the uniform of a cornet of horse when he brought victory home with Marlborough. She waved the candle and as she knew very well it would, the minx, its flicker brought to the portrait the sudden appearance of a smile. “That,” she said, “is what Tom thinks,” and Mrs. Verners wept maudlin tears and felt exceedingly content. There was happiness that night in the Verners house. When he had mounted his horse, and had set off, she came running down the steps after him. “Stop!” she cried. “No, don’t get off. Just listen. My man, my steam-man, I love you, I love you,” and ran into the house. In his own house, when he reached it, he found Peter and Phoebe Bradshaw waiting for him, sad sights the pair of them, with drawn, suffering faces and the sense of incomprehensible wrong gnawing at their hearts. They couldn’t understand, they couldn’t believe; hours ago they had talked themselves to a standstill, and waited now in silent apprehensive misery. “Well?” asked Reuben. “The weavers tell me of an order of yours. I can’t believe--there must be some mistake.” “I gave an order.” “But--” “I gave an order. It closes your factory? Come into mine. You shall have an overlooker’s job.” Peter was silent. He was to lose his factory, his position, his independence. He who had been master was to turn man again, to go back, in the afternoon of life, to the place from which as young man he had raised himself. What was Hepplestall saying? “You had no faith in steam, Bradshaw. This is where disbelief has brought you. I did not hear your thanks.” “Thanks?” repeated Peter. “I offer you an overlooker’s job in my factory.” “But Reuben,” said Phoebe, “Reuben!” He turned upon her with a snarl. She used his Christian name. She dared! “Reuben!” she said. “The boy. Our boy. Our John?” “He will be--what--five months old?” “Yes,” she said. “At five years old, I take children into the factory. Good-night.” CHAPTER VII--THE EARLY LIFE OF JOHN BRADSHAW ONCE upon a time, a West Indian slave owner was in conversation with three master-spinners and they spoke of labor conditions in the North of England. “Well,” he said, “I have always thought myself disgraced by being the owner of slaves, but we never in the West Indies thought it possible for any human being to be so cruel as to require a child of nine years old to work twelve and a half hours a day, and that, you acknowledge, is your regular practice.”