He had heard of the disaffection. There was not much to say except that the new scale of prices would go into effect next Monday morning. He never asked a man to work for any less wages than he, the workman, considered his services worth. Here was the work, and the wages Hope Mills could afford to pay. They could take it, or leave it. There were plenty of men at Coldbridge, thrown out by the failure of Kendrick & Co., who would be glad to come. He could fill any vacant place. But the ball grew and grew by handling. There were union-meetings and violent harangues, much of them truth, too, but badly and unwisely used. And the result was that the men demanded the old wages, were peremptorily refused, and struck. The great engine subsided, and a Sunday stillness reigned. Down at Hull's Iron Works the same proceedings were going on, but the saloons seemed to profit by it. Jack hung around the mill for a while, then went down stairs. The chilliness in the air made him draw his coat together by one button, and slip his hands into his pockets. He sauntered through several streets, nodding to one and another, or exchanging a few words. Once again his advice was asked. "I think you had better come to work to-morrow," he said. "Don't muddle your brains with beer or bad whiskey: that will not make the way any clearer." "A good enough lad!" was the surly comment, "but why grudge a man a sup of beer when he can't have wine like the big folks?" Jack had hardly planned for the enforced idleness. He did not want to go home and read, he could not call on Sylvie thus early in the morning, neither did he feel in the humor for argument with any of the men. So he stopped at the door of a small office, and turned the knob rather hesitatingly. "Hillo, Darcy, is that you? Come in, come in! Sullen gray day, isn't it? Off on a strike, eh?" Jack laughed,--the sound with no real music in it, the sort of lip-service merely. "Come in, old fellow; don't be afraid. I've neither pistol nor bludgeon, and I'll promise to treat you civilly." The man's accents were clear and curt, with a certain ring of out-door freshness,--a capital voice to travel with up mountain-sides and through forests. The face, too, indicated a kind of joyous strength; for the blue eyes were merry and baffling, the laughing lips a brilliant scarlet, the nose neither Grecian nor aquiline, but slightly _retroussé_; a bronze moustache with long curling ends that were undeniably red, and hair a little darker, slightly curling as well. A broad-shouldered man with the deep breathing of intense vitality; healthy nerves that could enjoy laziness to the full, as well as a brisk walk across the country.