Of all the worshippers at Aenon Chapel, none was more considered than Jabez Tinker. There were many reasons for this. One undoubtedly was that Jabez Tinker was one of the leading manufacturers in the valley. No one, not old Daft Tommy, who was reputed to be over a hundred years old, could remember a time when the Tinkers were not a great name in Holmfirth and when Wilberlee Mill was not run by them. The very name of Tinker is, curiously enough, significant the family connection with the staple industry of the valleys of the Colne and the Holme. It is said to be derived from the Latin, _tinctor_, a dyer, and to have come down from those far off times when the Roman conquerors introduced the arts of civilisation to the aboriginal Celts of these northern wilds. Certainly Jabez Tinker's father and grandfather and great-grandfather before him made cloth and doubtless dyed it. And they had made good cloth, buckskin and doeskin of the best. They were not a pretentious nor an ambitious race. They worked hard made shrewd bargains, paid their way expected to be paid, and put by money slowly but steadily. They had mostly married money too, not, perhaps marrying for money, but taking care to marry where money was. They were just to their work people and were slow either to put a man on or to take a man off. Once get a job at Wilberlee Mill and you were there for good, if you behaved yourself--or, as the heads said, if Tinker didn't know when he had a good man, the man knew when he had a good master. It was not that the Tinkers paid more than ruling prices for their labour. They made no pretence at being industrial philanthropists--that would not have been business; but they contrived to keep the mill running, shine or shower. Times must be parlous bad indeed if the great water-wheel did not turn at proper times in the race at Wilberlee; and constant employment is more to a man than high wages, with slack times in between, if men had only the sense to see it.