'Well, Mary, it comes to what I say—that they are blinded. They should have better sense than to be led away.'
'You speak as a master, sir.'
'Probably I do; but I have brought my common sense to bear upon the question, both on the side of the masters and of the men; and I believe that this time the men are wrong. If they had laboured under any real grievance, it would have been different; but they did not labour under any. Their wages were good, work was plentiful——'
'I say, Mary, I wish you'd just come in and sit by the little ones a bit, while I go down to the back kitchen and rinse out the clothes.'
The interruption came from Mrs. Baxendale, who had thrown up her window to speak. Mary rose at once, took her pillow from the chair, wished Florence good day, and went indoors.
Austin held the gate open for Florence to pass out: he was not intending to accompany her. She stood a moment, speaking to him, when some one, who had come up rapidly and stealthily, laid his great hand on Austin's arm. Absorbed in Florence, Austin had not observed him, and he looked up with a start. It was Lawyer Gwinn, of Ketterford, and he appeared to be in some anger or excitement.
'Young Clay, where is your master to-day?'
Neither the salutation nor the manner of the man pleased Austin; his appearance, there and then, especially displeased him. His answer was spoken in haughty defiance. Not in policy: and in a cooler moment he would have remembered the latter to have been the only safe diplomacy.
A strangely bitter smile of conscious power parted the man's lips. 'So you take part with him, do you, sir! It may be better for both you and him, that you bring me face to face with him. They have denied me to him at his house; their master is out of town, they say; but I know it to be a lie: I know that the message was sent out to me by Hunter himself. I had a great mind to force——'
Florence, who was looking deadly white, interrupted, her voice haughty as Austin's had been.