otice to quit in Parker's field this day se'nnight. Simmons won't drop
wages, but works half time."

"The boys will be at play afore long," said a collier.

"Hush!" said Master Nixon with a reproving glance, "play is a very
serious word. The boys are not to go to play as they used to do without
by your leave or with your leave. We must appoint a committee to
consider the question and we must communicate with the other trades."

"You're the man, Master Nixon, to choose for churchwarden," replied the
reproved miner with a glance of admiration.

"What is Diggs doing?" said Master Nixon in a solemn tone.

"A-dropping wages and a-raising tommy like fun," said Master Waghorn.

"There is a great stir in Hell-house yard," said a miner who entered the
tap room at this moment, much excited. "They say that all the workshops
will be shut to-morrow; not an order for a month past. They have got a
top-sawyer from London there who addresses them every evening, and says
that we have a right to four shillings a day wages, eight hours' work
and two pots of ale."

"A fair day's wage for a fair day's work," said Master Nixon. "I would
not stickle about hours, but the money and the drink are very just."

"If Hell-house yard is astir," said Waghorn, "there will be a good deal
to be seen yet."

"It's grave," said Master Nixon. "What think you of a deputation there?
It might come to good."

"I should like to hear the top-sawyer from London," said Juggins. "We
had a Chartist here the other day, but he did not understand our case at
all."

"I heard him," said Master Nixon, "but what's his Five Points to us? Why
he ayn't got tommy among them."

"Nor long stints," said Waghorn.

"Nor butties," said Juggins.

"He's a pretty fellow to come and talk to us," said a collier. "He had
never been down a pit in all his life."

The evening passed away in the tap room of the Rising Sun in reflections
on the present critical state of affairs and in consultations as to
the most expedient course for the future. The rate of wages which for
several years in this district had undergone a continuous depression,
had just received another downward impulse and was threatened with still
further reduction, for the price of iron became every day lower in the
market, and the article itself so little in demand that few but the
great capitalists who could afford to accumulate their produce were able
to maintain their furnaces in action. The little men who s