“I know nothing beyond that he’s not been home all night.” “A kna’ he’s not bin hoam. He’s done wi’ coming hoam.” “Why? Why? What has happened?” “A’m, striving to tell thee that. Th’ job’s not easy, though.” He looked at her. “Wilt have it straight?” “I’m never afraid of truth.” “Truth can hit hard. Well, I’ll tell thee. Thy John shot at th’ maister’s wife last neight an’ hit her. They’ve gotten him.” He upturned a waste-bin. “Now, A’m real sorry for thee and it weren’t a pleasant job for me to break th’ news. That’s over, though, and tha’ knaws now. Next sit thee down on this. It’s in a corner, like, and folks canna watch thee. When tha’ feels like work, come and tell me.” He left her with rough kindliness, and relieved his feelings by cuffing a child who was peering round a loom at them. He was paid to be brutal, and the child, gathering himself up from the floor, might have thought that the overseer was earning his wages: but the shrewd blow was rather a warning to the rest and an expression of his sympathy with Phoebe than an episode in his day’s work. That Aspinall, and not he alone but the general sense of the workers, should be sympathetic towards her was in its way remarkable enough. They expected naturally that John would hang, but they had definitely the idea that retribution for his deed would not stop at the capital punishment of the actual malefactor. Hepplestall would “tak’ it out of all on us,” and “We’ll go ravenous for this,” “Skin an’ sorrow--that’s our shape,” and (from a humorist) “Famished? He’ll spokeshave us” were some of the phrases by which they expressed their belief in the widespread severity of Hepplestall’s vengeance. Yet they had no bitterness against John, nor against Phoebe who, as his mother, might be supposed to have a special responsibility. It was a dreadful deed and the more dreadful since his bullet had miscarried and had killed a woman; but it had fanned to quick fire their smoldering hatred of Hepplestall and there was more rejoicing than regret that he was, through Dorothy, cast down. They would have preferred to know that John had hit the true target but, as it was, it was well enough and they were not going to squeal at the price they expected to pay. Their commiseration was not for the bereaved master, but for the about-to-be-bereaved mother of the murderer. Somebody moved a candle so that Phoebe in her corner should be the more effectually screened from observation. It was a kindly act, but one which she hardly needed. Her thoughts were with John, but not with a John who was going to be hanged; they were with a John who was going to be saved.