“Whatever is evil, must look evil—but here we are at Jonathan Hartley’s. Will you go in?”
“He is coming to us. I will give him my father’s letter. That will be sufficient.”
But Jonathan had much to say and he seemed troubled beyond outside affairs to move him, and the preacher asked—“What is personally out of the right way with you, Jonathan?”
“Well, sir, my mother is down at the ford; she may cross any hour—she’s only waiting for the guide—and my eldest girl had a son last night—the little lad was born half-starved. We doan’t know yet whether either of them can be saved—or not. So I’ll not say ‘Come in,’ but if you’ll sit down with me on the garden bench, I’ll be glad of a few minutes fresh air.” He opened the little wicket gate as he spoke and they sat down on a bench under a cherry tree full dressed in perfumed white for Easter tide.
As soon as they were seated the young squire delivered his father’s letter and then they talked of the sudden disappearance of the men of the village. “What does it mean, Jonathan?” asked Dick, and Jonathan said—
“Well, sir, I hevn’t been much among the lads for a week now. My mother hes been lying at the gate of the grave and I couldn’t leave her long at a time. They were all loitering about the village when I saw them last. Suddenly they all disappeared, and the old woman at the post office told me ivery one of them hed received a letter four mornings ago, from the same Working Man’s Society. I hed one mysen, for that matter, and that afternoon they all left together for somewhere.”
“But,” asked Dick, “where did they get the money necessary for a journey?”
“Philip Sugden got the money from Sugbury Bank. He hed an order for it, that was cashed quick enough. What do you make of that, sir?”
“I think there may be fighting to do if parliament fails the people this time.”
“And in the very crisis of this trouble,” said Dick, “I hear from Mr. Foster that a man has been here wanting to build a mill. Who is he, Jonathan? And what can be his motive?”