“It only wanted Mr. Black to make it just perfect,” said Mr. Redfearn, “but we’ll drink in silence to the memory of as good a man as ever walked i’ shoe-leather.”
I refuse to tell, too, in what glowing terms Mr. Redfearn proposed the health of Tom Pinder, and many a happy return of the day, and of how Tom completely broke down in acknowledging the toast, and of how Ben proposed Mr. Redfearn’s health, and Mr. Redfearn Ben’s, and Tom the ladies, and then how they drank Mrs. Schofield’s and the ladies with a three times three and God bless ’em, and then started the toast list all over again, till Lucy was more than glad when Moll brought in the tea-pot and cups, and they all drew round the fire, and the men lighted their pipes and sobered down to rational talk.
Be sure Tom had to tell of what he was going to do now he was his own master, and of how Ben had “weighed in” to help him, and he had to explain till he was nearly hoarse before Betty could understand what a co-op mill was to be like. And then nothing would satisfy Betty but she must offer to put £50 “into th’ consarn, sink or swim, it were all one to her if it ’ud do ’em any good;” and then Tom had to begin all over again and make it clear that only the actual workers were to have any interest in the mill.
“An’ wheer are yo’ buyin’ yo’r wool?” asked Tom o’ Fairbanks.
And Tom and Ben looked grave, for they would have precious little left for wool-buying when the machinery was bought and set up.
“At Hirst’s, the wool stapler, in Huddersfield, I suppose,” said Tom.
“Now I don’t take it friendly of you, or either of you,” commented Mr. Redfearn. “I’ve bales and bales left over from th’ last shearing, haven’t we, Aleck?”
And Aleck said “To be sure we have, an’ fair gettin’ maggoty for want o’ usin’.”
“You must take it off my hands, Tom and Co.,” said Redfearn. “I’ll let you have it cheap, and you can pay me for it when you’ve had time to turn yourselves round.”
It is very sad that such things should be in a Christian land; but it is none the less true that the wool which later on Aleck carted to Co-op Mill had never coated the back of any sheep that grazed on Fairbank’s field or moors, and why, about the same time, Farmer Redfearn should be buying wool in Huddersfield, Charles Hirst, the Huddersfield wool stapler, spent many an hour in vain attempt to divine.