"I can stand out," said Sim, loftily. "I can afford to be made a martyr and a scapegoat, and bear the burthen. I don't want to come back to work." "And I don't want and don't mean to have you," said Richard, hotly. "I sent to you all this morning, forgiving the brutal treatment I met with yesterday--" "Your own fault," said a voice. "Howd thee tongue, theer," said one of the men, who seemed to take a leading part. "Bygones is bygones. You sent for us, Maister Richard, and we've come. You says, says you, for the sake o' peace and quiet you'd put wage where it were, and you've done it, but it must be all or none. Fair play's fair play, ain't it, parson?" "Yes, yes, Richard, give way," whispered Mrs Glaire; and with an impatient stamp of his foot Richard Glaire gave his lip a gnaw, and exclaimed-- "There, very well; Slee can come back; but mind this, if he begins any of his games and speech-making in the works again, he goes at once." "Oh, I can stay away," said Slee, in an injured tone; but his fellow-workmen held to his side, and, to Mrs Glaire's great relief, an amicable settlement was arrived at, and the men were about to go, when Banks, the old foreman, burst into the place in a towering passion. "Howd hard theer," he roared, looking fiercely round. "You're a pretty set o' cowardly shacks, you are. Do you call that a fighting fair?" "What is it, Banks?" exclaimed Richard, starting. "Don't make no terms wi' 'em at all, for they wean't keep to 'em, the blackguards." "But what is it?" cried Richard, impatiently. "What is it? What is it, Missus Glaire? Why, I was watching here mysen till nine o'clock, and left all safe." "Well?" cried Richard, turning pale. "Look here, Joe Banks," cried the man who had been speaking before; "tak' it a bit easy, theer. None o' us ain't done nowt, ha'e we, lads?" "No," was chorused, Sim Slee's voice being the loudest. "Done nowt!" roared Banks, like an angry lion. "D'yer call it nowt to steal into a man's place, and coot and carry off every band in t' whole works?" "Have they--have they done that, Banks?" cried Richard. "Have they?" roared the foreman; "ask the sneaking cowards." "No, no, we hain't," cried the leader, bringing his hand down on the table with a thump. "It's a loi, ain't it, lads--a loi?" "Yes," was chorused; "we ain't done nowt o' t' sort." "Then who did it?" cried Banks; and there was a silence. "Look here," cried Richard, who had been brought very unwillingly to this concession by Mrs Glaire, and gladly hailed an excuse for evading it. "Look here, Banks, are all those wheel-bands destroyed?" "Ivery one of 'em," said Banks.