In the first place he went to look up some of the older "hewers," men who had been for years in the employ of the Tressadys. Two or three of them had just come back from the early shift, and their wives, at any rate, were pleased and flattered by George's call. But the men sat like stocks and stones while he talked. Scarcely a word could be got out of them, and George felt himself in an atmosphere of storm, guessing at dangers, everywhere present, though not yet let loose--like the foul gases in the pits under his feet. He behaved with a good deal of dignity, stifling his pride here and there sufficiently to talk simply and well of the general state of trade, the conditions of the coal industry in the West Mercian district, the position of the masters, the published accounts of one or two large companies in the district, and so on. But in the end he only felt his own auger rising in answer to the sullenness of the men. Their sallow faces and eyes weakened by long years of the pit expressed little--but what there was spelt war. Nor did his visits to what might be called his own side give him much more satisfaction. One man, a brawny "fireman," whom George had been long taught to regard as one of the props of law and order in the district, was effusively and honestly glad to see his employer. His wife hurried the tea, and George drank and ate as heartily as his own luncheon would let him in company with Macgregor and his very neat and smiling family. Nothing could be more satisfactory than Macgregor's general denunciations of the Union and its agent. Burrows, in his opinion, was a "drunken, low-livin scoundrel," who got his bread by making mischief; the Union was entering upon a great mistake in resisting the masters' proposals; and if it weren't for the public-house and idleness there wasn't a man in Perth that couldn't live _well_, ten per cent. reduction and all considered. Nevertheless, he did not conceal his belief that battle was approaching, and would break out, if not now, at any rate in the late summer or autumn. Times, too, were going to be specially bad for the non-society men. The membership of the Union had been running up fast; there had been a row that very morning at the pit where he worked, the Union men refusing to go down in the same cage with the blacklegs. He and his mates would have to put their backs into it. Never fear but they would! Bullying might be trusted only to make them the more "orkard."