John Hewlett had finished his day's work, and come home in the dusk of an October evening. He found the house hung all over with the family linen, taken in to shelter from a shower; but not before it had become damp enough to need to be put by the fire before it could be ironed or folded. His mother was moaning over it, and there was no place to sit down. He did not wonder that Jem had taken his hunch of bread and gone away with it, nor that his father was not at home; but he took off his boots at the back door, as his aunt never liked his coming into her room in them--though they were nothing to what he would have worn had he worked in the fields--and then climbed up the stairs. Judith was sitting up in bed, with her teapot, tea-cup, and a piece of stale loaf, laid out on a tray before her; and little Judy beside her, drinking out of a cracked mug. Judith's eyes had a strange look of fright in them, but there was an air of relief when she saw Johnnie. "Well, aunt, is that all you have got for tea?" "Poor mother has been hindered; but never mind that," returned Judith, in a quick, agitated tone. "Judy, my dear, drink up your tea and run down to help mother, there's a dear." "You haven't brought nothing, Johnnie," Judy lingered to ask. "No, not I. I've worked too late to go to shop," said Johnnie. "Go down, my dear, as I told you," said Judith, with a little unwonted tone of impatience, which made the youth certain that she had something important to tell him; and as soon as the little girl began clumping down the stairs, she held out her hand and said in the lowest of voices, "Come near, Johnnie, that you may hear." He came near; she put out her hand to pull him on his knees, so that his ear might be close to her, and whispered, "Jack Swing is coming to Greenhow to-morrow." "The captain away! How do you know?" "A man came and talked with your father in the back garden--just under this window. Mother had run up to shop for a bit of soap; but they thought she might come in any minute, and so went out at the back door, so that I heard them all the better." "They never thought of that! Well?" "They mean to come on Greenhow, ask for money and arms, break up the machine, and burn the ricks if they don't get what they want. Father said they might be sure of the Downhill men, and most of 'em here, for they all hate that there machine that is to starve poor folk in winter time; and those that were not of that way would be afraid to hold back, or they would show them the reason why." "And the captain away. It is enough to be the death of madam and the little ones." "That's just what I thought. Oh, Johnnie dear, can't you help to save them, and hinder it?" "Master wouldn't go along with such doings," said John.