“I, aunt? Oh, no,” said the young girl, smiling. “They would not hurt me.”
“I should just like to see any one among ’em as would,” put in Harry, the big hammerman, giving his shirt sleeve a tighter roll, as if preparing to crush an opponent bent on injuring the little maiden. “We should make him sore, shouldn’t we, Tom Podmore, lad?”
“Oh, nobody wouldn’t hurt Miss Eve, nor the Missus here,” said Tom, gruffly. And then, in answer to a nod from Banks, the two workmen threw open the great gates, and the yard was filled with the crowd, headed by Sim Slee, who, however, hung back a little—a movement imitated by his followers on seeing that Mrs Glaire stepped forward to confront them.
Volume One—Chapter Seven.
Mrs Glaire’s Speech.
“It’s all raight, lads,” roared Harry, in a voice of thunder. “Three cheers for Missus Glaire!”
The cheers were given lustily, in spite of Sim Slee, who, mounting on a pile of old metal, began to wave his hands in protestation.
“Stop, stop!” he cried; “it isn’t all raight yet. I want to know whether we are to have our rights as British wuckmen, and our just and righteous demands ’corded to us. What I want to know is—”