“I asked this of him for you, lads, and for mysen, and he turned upon me, cursed me for an owd fool, and ca’ed me the cause o’ all his troubles. He swore he did’n’ know nor keer where my poor bairn might be, and at last I comed awaya trembling all ower me, to wheer Tom Podmore here waited for me i’ street; for,” he continued, holding out his hands before him half-crooked, “if I’d ha’ stayed, I should ha’ throttled him wheer he stood; and for his moother’s sake, his dead father’s sake, and that o’ my poor lost bairn, I should ha’ repented it till I died.”
A low murmur ran through the room, and Sim Slee was about to rise and speak, but several of those present thrust him down, when, with a fierce and lowering countenance, the foreman turned upon him.
“Now,” he said, “speak out, mun, what are your plans?”
“The plan is mine,” said Sim; “and we go to work this how. We climb in by the little window in the lane, and then go into the low foundry and put two barrels o’ powther theer under the middle wall.”
Joe Banks nodded.
“Then we lay a train away to the leather, and put a slow match which we fires, comes awaya, and horny-handed labour triumps, and the wucks comes down.”
“Good!” said Banks, nodding his head. “It will destroy them.”
“That ’ll do, wean’t it?” continued Slee, eagerly.
“Yes, that will do,” said Banks, in the midst of silence. “And the powther?”
“That is one barrel,” said Barker; “the other is at Sim Slee’s. Hadn’t you better go on, Brother Slee, and make the arrangements?”