The men outside were working at the ruins,—among them some of the strikers of yesterday. They found poor Mrs. Rooney's little Johnny, burned to a crisp; and in the house next to Keppler's they exhumed the body of Biddy Brady, a good-natured, efficient washerwoman, whose greatest fault was her intemperance. She and her son had gone to bed very drunk, after having a good time through the evening. The boy had been roused in season, but she had perished. It was as vivid and fervent a temperance-lecture as ever was given in Yerbury.
About ten in the morning Jack Darcy returned home dead tired, as much with the excitement as the fatigue, took a bath, and went to bed.
The Yerbury authorities looked sharply about them that day. The strikers were orderly and quiet, but they had lost ground. "The Evening Transcript" deprecated all this sort of business, and for once had no fling about the "Utopian theory of co-operation." But "The Leader" of the morning came out strongly in praise of the good order, forbearance, and esprit de corps of Hope Mills, and called Mr. Darcy "our young and enterprising citizen, whom, we doubt not, we shall hear of in higher positions in life, which he has proved himself eminently worthy to fill."
There was no great lament made about Boyd's Row or Keppler's saloon, except for the sad casualty it had caused; but the dastardly attack on Mrs. Connelly, and the fiendish attempt to burn Hope Mills, met with the severest condemnation.
Maverick came around to the Darcys that evening. "I fancy I have found your man, Jack," he began. "Mrs. Stixon called me in towards night, saying Jem had been on a spree, and was dreadfully beaten. I found one side of his face scratched and bruised, and bits of gravel still adhering to the flesh. The right arm, on the same side, has one bone broken, and his shoulder is dislocated. He said he fell off of a stoop, and is dreadfully sullen. I asked him what stoop, but he would not tell. Do you remember which way the man fell?"
Jack thought a moment. "On the right side, Maverick, away from me, or I should have seen his face. Just such a size man as Jem Stixon, too," with a satisfied nod.
"What will you do about it?"
Jack took two or three turns across the floor. "See here, Maverick, we will not do any thing. You cure the poor fellow, and I think he will never try to damage Hope Mills again. I can hardly forgive him Bruno, though."
"If I were Sylvie Barry,"—he never called her Mrs. Lawrence when speaking of her,—"I should say, 'Jack, you are an angel.'"
Jack flushed. "Masculine angels!" he laughed.