o limit either to his offers or his proffered services. But all were
declined; Gerard would live by labour. The post he had occupied at Mr
Trafford's was not vacant even if that gentleman had thought fit again
to receive him; but his reputation as a first-rate artizan soon obtained
him good employment, though on this occasion in the town of Mowbray,
which for the sake of his daughter he regretted. He had no pleasant home
now for Sybil, but he had the prospect of one, and until he obtained
possession of it, Sybil sought a refuge, which had been offered to her
from the first, with her kindest and dearest friend; so that at this
period of our history, she was again an inmate of the convent at
Mowbray, whither her father and Morley had attended her the eve of the
day she had first visited the ruins of Marney Abbey.

Book 6 Chapter 3

"I have seen a many things in my time Mrs Trotman," said Chaffing Jack
as he took the pipe from his mouth in the silent bar room of the Cat and
Fiddle; "but I never see any like this. I think I ought to know Mowbray
if any one does, for man and boy I have breathed this air for a matter
of half a century. I sucked it in when it tasted of primroses, and this
tavern was a cottage covered with honeysuckle in the middle of green
fields, where the lads came and drank milk from the cow with their
lasses; and I have inhaled what they call the noxious atmosphere, when
a hundred chimneys have been smoking like one; and always found myself
pretty well. Nothing like business to give one an appetite. But when
shall I feel peckish again, Mrs Trotman?"

"The longest lane has a turning they say, Mr Trotman."

"Never knew anything like this before," replied her husband, "and I
have seen bad times: but I always used to say, 'Mark my words friends,
Mowbray will rally.' My words carried weight, Mrs Trotman, in
this quarter, as they naturally should, coming from a man of my
experience,--especially when I gave tick. Every man I chalked up was
of the same opinion as the landlord of the Cat and Fiddle, and always
thought that Mowbray would rally. That's the killing feature of these
times, Mrs Trotman, there's no rallying in the place."

"I begin to think it's the machines," said Mrs Trotman.

"Nonsense," said Mr Trotman; "it's the corn laws. The town of Mowbray
ought to clothe the world with our resources. Why Shuffle and Screw can
turn out forty mile of calico per day; but where's the returns? That's