The Parson O' Dumford. Fenn George Manville

been a bit excited to-day, I suppose,” he muttered; and then he tried all the known recipes short of drugs for obtaining rest, from saying a speech backwards to getting out of bed and brushing his hair.

      But sleep would not come till close upon morning, for that face before him was the sweet appealing face of Eve Pelly, and in the stillness of the night he seemed to be hearing her words again and again – “Don’t judge dear Richard harshly from what you saw this morning.”

      “Dear Richard, dear Richard, dear Richard” – he found himself repeating over and over again. “And she loves him, and believes in him. He is everything to her, and if she found out that he was a scoundrel it would break her heart.”

      “And set her free,” something in the corner of his own seemed to whisper; and he started, and sat up in bed with the perspiration standing on his brow.

      “Am I sane? Am I in my right senses?” he said, feeling his pulse and counting its beats. “I must be a little out of tone. Humph! I’ll have such a walk to-morrow! Bah! it’s the excitement of coming down here, and it has been rather a lively day.”

      He punched and turned his pillow fiercely, threw himself down, and closed his eyes once more, shutting out the dimly-seen lattice window, with its fringe of ivy leaves; but as he did so there was Eve Pelly’s face again, and that gentle look which accompanied the appealing curve of her lips, as she said, “Don’t judge dear Richard harshly.”

      The would-be sleeper started up in bed again, and sat there feeling hot and feverish for some time.

      “Look here, Murray, dear boy,” he said at last. “You are down here for a great purpose. You have here in your charge some four thousand souls to teach and tend, and help on in life’s course. Don’t fidget, my boy. I’m not going to preach, only to say a few words to the point. Now, look here: You are the spiritual head of the parish; you have your Master’s work to do. In short, you are a teacher. Now mind this, a teacher who cannot govern himself is a broken reed. Are you a broken reed?” This was all said in a low voice, and then for a few moments there was silence in the room, to be broken by the young man saying in a somewhat louder voice in answer to his own words: “I hope not.”

      “Good,” he continued, in the former tone. “I like that: it sounds humble and hopeful. Now look here, you will see a great deal of what goes on in this place. In fact, you have seen a good deal already, and you have learned what is the state of affairs with one of the principal families. You have heard that Richard Glaire is engaged to his cousin; that the said cousin loves him; and that this weak young man is playing fast and loose.”

      “Yes.”

      “Good. Well, your duty is plain; the young fellow doubtless has his good points. Make him your friend, and improve them – for her sake – gain an influence over him. You can, and you will, Murray Selwood. Yours may be a hard duty, but you must do it.”

      “Yes, verily, and by God’s help so I will.”

      “Good. Now you may go to sleep.”

      After this he lay down, and by a strange exercise of will, and in the belief that he was going to conquer a feeling absolutely new to him, he fell asleep directly.

      But it was no peaceful rest such as generally came to his pillow, for he lay tossing in dreams of Eve Pelly turning to him constantly for help from some great trouble that was ever pursuing her – a danger that he could not avert. Then Richard Glaire had him by the throat, charging him with robbing him of his love; and then he was engaged in a mad struggle with the young man, holding him over a gulf to hurl him in, incited thereto by the young workman.

      Then once more Eve Pelly’s appealing face was before him, praying him to spare dear Richard, the man she loved, and then —

      “Thank God, it’s morning!” he exclaimed, waking with a start, to consult his watch, and finding it was half-past six.

      Volume One – Chapter Ten.

      Sim Slee Busy

      Banks, the foreman, stayed late at the foundry on the night of the disturbance. His master remained in the counting-house smoking cigars till he was very white and ill, feelings which he attributed to the assault made upon him that day – a very sudden one by the way, and one which had arisen, as has been intimated, on account of a rather unfair reduction that had been made in the rate of pay.

      But this was not all, for the fact was, that after being left to go on in its quiet, old-fashioned way for years, probably from its insignificance, Dumford had suddenly been leavened by Sim Slee with a peculiar version of his own of the trades-union doctrines of some of the larger towns – doctrines which he had altered to suit his own ends.

      Hence arose a society which was the pride of Sim Slee, and known amongst the workmen as the Brotherhood. Meetings were held regularly, speeches made, and Simeon Slee, who heretofore had confined himself to idleness, drink, and local preaching, till expelled as a disgrace to the plan, became a shining light in the brotherhood, on account of what the more quiet workmen called his power of putting things, though the greater part held aloof, from the contempt in which this leader was held.

      In previous days, with one or two exceptions, the word of the master of the works had been law, and wages were raised or lowered as trade flourished or fell, with nothing more than a few murmurs; but now times were altered, men had begun to think for themselves, and the behaviour of Richard Glaire had grown so arbitrary and unjust that the consequence was the riot we have seen.

      Richard Glaire was about as unsuitable a person as it is possible to imagine to have such a responsibility as the management of a couple of hundred men; but he did not believe this, and he sat, after the departure of his mother, nursing his wrongs, and making plans for the punishment of his workmen.

      At one time he was for having the assistance of the military, but as he cooled down he was obliged to acknowledge that his request would be ridiculed.

      Then he determined on getting summonses against about twenty of the ringleaders, whom he meant to discharge.

      Once he called Banks, and asked him what it would be best to do.

      “Put the wage right again,” said the foreman.

      Whereupon Richard Glaire turned upon him in a burst of childish passion, and declared that he was in league with the scoundrels who had assaulted him.

      “There, I shall go till you’ve had time to cool down,” said Banks, grimly. “Your metal’s hot, Master Richard, and it wean’t be raight again till you’ve had a night’s rest.”

      Richard made no reply, but sat biting his lips and making plans till dusk, when he cautiously stole out of the building by a side door, of which he alone had the key.

      Banks stayed on for another couple of hours, plodding about the building, examining doors, the extinct forges and furnaces, looking at the bands of the huge lathes, and displaying a curious kind of energy, as by means of a small bull’s-eye lantern he peered in and out of all sorts of out-of-the-way places.

      “There’s no knowing what games Master Sim might try on,” he remarked to himself; “blowings up and cutting bands, and putting powther in the furnace holes; he’s shack enew for ought, and I dessay some on ’em will be stupid enough to side wi’ him. What’s that?”

      He stopped and listened, for it seemed to him that he had heard a noise below him in the ground floor.

      The sound was not repeated, so he went on cautiously through the great black workshop, with its weird assemblage of shafts, cranks, and bands, looking, in the fitful gleams cast by the lantern, like a torture-chamber in the fabled Pandemonium.

      A stranger would have tripped and fallen a dozen times over the metal-cumbered floor; but every inch and every piece of machinery was so familiar to the foreman that he could have gone about the place blindfold, even as he did once or twice in the dark when he closed his bull’s-eye lantern, thinking he heard a noise.

      All seemed right in this workshop, so he descended to the foundry, going over it and amongst the furnaces, now growing cold.

      Then