They were standing opposite Mr. Trood’s house at the main gate and the master turned and knocked at the door. Trood himself appeared.
“A vatman,” said Trenchard.
“By name, Philander Knox,” explained the stranger. “I must tell you,” he added, “that I’ve got rather a queer stroke at the vat. People laugh to see me with a mould; but they don’t laugh when they see the paper.”
“We shan’t quarrel with your stroke if we don’t with your sheet,” said Trood. “I’m for a nice, easy stroke myself, because it goes farther and faster; but we all know no two men have the same stroke. We’ve got a man now with a stroke like a cow with a musket; but his paper’s all right.”
“You can come for a week on trial,” declared Trenchard. “Begin to-morrow if you’re agreeable to terms. We’re very busy. This is Mr. Trood, our foreman.”
He went homewards and left the others together, while Mr. Knox produced his credentials.
CHAPTER V
THE RAG HOUSE
The place where Lydia Trivett worked and controlled the activities of twenty other women was a lofty, raftered hall lighted from the north by a row of windows under which the sorters sat. In the midst of the chamber the material was piled in huge, square bales covered with sacking. The parcels came from all parts of Europe, where linen and cotton rag could be obtained; and before they were handled, the contents entered a thresher for preliminary dusting. The thresher throbbed and thundered within a compartment boarded off from the workshop. Here in a great wooden case, a roller with iron-shod teeth revolved, while above this lower, moving wheel, fixed prongs stood similarly armed, so that their teeth passed between each other at every turn. Here spun the rags and whirled and tossed, while the dust of France, Belgium, England, Ireland, Scotland was sucked away from them. Every rag that entered Dene Mill was subjected to this rough initial embrace, where Alice Barefoot, a tall, strong woman, attended the thresher. She was herself of the colour of dust, with a high complexion and lion-coloured hair, tied up in a yellow kerchief. She prided herself on doing man’s work and, indeed, accomplished her heavy labours very completely. The dusted rag she piled in tall baskets, stopped the thresher, then opened the door of the chamber and bore the rag out to the sorters. They sat each before her lattice with the material heaped at her left. The practised workers dealt very swiftly with the stuff, running it between their hands and knowing its composition by touch. Wool or silk sometimes intruded, but was flung aside, for only cotton passed to the empty baskets at each woman’s right. The workers were clad in white overalls and their heads were covered with white caps and bonnets. Wonderful cleanliness marked them and the atmosphere of the brightly lighted shop was clear despite the flocculent material that passed through it.