“It will end! It will end, this evil day! Already the new age is beginning. These robbers of the people had better make haste with their plundering, for the hour is approaching! Where is your priest?”--he struggled violently with his captors, turning towards the rapidly retreating crowd, “where is your vicar,--your curer of souls? He talks to you of submission, and love, and obedience, and duty. What does this man care for these things? It is under this talk of “love” that you are betrayed! It is under this talk of “duty,” that your children have the bread taken from their mouths! But the hour will come;--yes, you may smile,” he addressed himself directly to Mr. Romer now, “but you will not smile for long. _Your_ fate is already written down! It is as sure as this rain,--as sure as this storm!” He was silent, and making no further resistance, let himself be carried off by the two officials. The rain he spoke of was indeed beginning. Heavy drops, precursors of what seemed likely to be a tropical deluge, fell upon the broken wood-work, upon the half-burnt bracken, upon the slabs of Leonian stone, and upon the trampled grass. They also fell upon Mr. Romer’s silver match-box as he selected another cigarette of his favourite brand, and walked slowly and smilingly away in the direction of Nevilton. CHAPTER XVI HULLAWAY “I see,” said Luke Andersen to his brother, as they sat at breakfast in the station-master’s kitchen, about a fortnight after the riot on Leo’s Hill, “I see that Romer has withdrawn his charge against young Wone. It seems that the magistrates set him free yesterday, on Romer’s own responsibility. So the case will not come up at all. What do you make of that?” “He is a wiser man than I imagined,” said James. “And that’s not all!” cried his brother blowing the cigarette ashes from the open paper in front of him. “It appears the strike is in a good way of being settled by those damned delegates. We were idiots to trust them. I knew it. I told the men so. But they are all such hopeless fools. No doubt Romer has found some way of getting round them! The talk is now of arbitration, and a commissioner from the government. You mark my words, Daddy Jim, we shall be back working again by Monday.” “But we shall get the chief thing we wanted, after all--if Lickwit is removed,” said James, rising from the table and going to the window, “I know I shall be quite satisfied myself, if I don’t see that rascal’s face any more.”