Michael held her to him; she was indeed the child of his flesh as she was of his spirit, as he held her then.
He did not speak; he could not. Looking up, he caught Potch's eyes on him, the same expression of faith and tenderness in them. The joy of the moment was beyond words.
Potch's and Sophie's love and faith were beyond all value, precious to Michael in this time of trouble. When he had failed to believe in himself, Sophie and Potch believed in him; when his life-work seemed to be falling from his hands, they were ready to take it up. They had told him so. In his grief and realisation of failure, that thought was a star—a thing of miraculous joy and beauty.
CHAPTER XVI
The men stood in groups outside the hall, smoking and yarning together before going into it, on the night John Armitage was to put his proposition for reorganisation of the mines before them. Each group formed itself of men whose minds were inclined in the same direction. M'Ginnis was the centre of the crowd from the Punti rush who were prepared to accept Armitage's scheme. The Crosses, while they would not go over to the M'Ginnis faction, had a following—and the group about them was by far the largest—which was asserting an open mind until it heard what Armitage had to say. Archie and Ted Cross and the men with them, however, were suspected of a prejudice rather in favour of, than against, Armitage's outline of the new order of things for the Ridge since its main features and conditions were known. Men who were prepared at all costs to stand by the principle which had held the gougers of Fallen Star Ridge, together for so long, and whose loyalty to the old spirit of independence was immutable, gathered round George Woods and Watty Frost.
"Thing that's surprised me," Pony-Fence Inglewood murmured, "is the numbers of men there is who wants to hear what Armitage has got to say. I wouldn't 've thought there'd be so many."
"I don't like it meself, Pony," George admitted. "That's why we're here. Want to know the strength of them—and him."
"That's right," Watty muttered.
"Crosses, for instance," Pony-Fence continued. "You wouldn't 've thought Archie and Ted'd 've even listened to guff about profit-sharin'—all that.... But they've swallowed it—swallowed it all down. They say——"