Oliver had to knit his brows and think for a moment before he recognised that the two words replied concisely to the single statement that he was to keep on the mill, while they were totally irrelevant to what he considered the gist of the speech which he had pumped up by a severe struggle out of the depth of the temporary chaos of his mind. It sounded as if Ted and his fellows dismissed that with cynical contempt and only troubled themselves to grapple with the bit of information which was practical in their eyes. ‘Well, I take it, since there is no question of parting company, me and my mates here don’t object to present terms—not at present,’ Ted resumed and ended with stiff and wary, but unmistakable condescension, the moment the decision had, in his judgment, passed over to the men. ‘Not at present, sir,’ the young millers confirmed their leader’s opinion with one voice, as if it were worked by the mill machinery, and rendered a little husky and obscure by the pervading dust. Oliver’s gravity was nearly upset. At the same time, he was aware of a slight sense of repulse, and consequent disappointment, which he said to himself proved him to be the inveterately sanguine and hasty beggar with whose foolish traits he ought at this date to have been familiar enough to overcome them, and set their reactionary influence at defiance. But he could not help looking forward to receiving a little more encouragement in the bakehouse, were it only in an indignant apprehension of some of his inferences, and a dogged assertion of a working baker’s rights, including that of testing the quality of his work, and of dealing with his master, in the full bloom of class prejudice, as his natural enemy. It was all very well to speak of the superior comfort and general agreeability of a miller’s life over that of a baker. The former had the advantage in the matter of picturesqueness like the toil of the day labourer in the fields over the artisan’s—above all the petty tradesman’s occupations. Yet there could be no comparison—taking the two trades _en masse_—of which was the more intelligent of the two. There were honourable exceptions of ploughmen-poets and young shepherds, among the lowly pastoral hills, who had lived to become—like David, king of Israel—leaders of men. But the exceptions only proved the rule.