e. Stupid indeed! What next, when a
Hell-cat is to be called stupid by such a thing as you?"

"I'll give you a piece of advice young man," said Master Nixon taking
his pipe out of his mouth and blowing an immense puff; "just you go
down the shaft for a couple of months, and then you'll learn a little of
life, which is wery useful."

The lively temperament of the Dandy would here probably have involved
him in an inconvenient embroilment had not some one at this moment
touched him on the shoulder, and looking round he recognised Mr Morley.
Notwithstanding the difference of their political schools Mick had a
profound respect for Morley, though why he could not perhaps precisely
express. But he had heard Devilsdust for years declare that Stephen
Morley was the deepest head in Mowbray, and though he regretted the
unfortunate weakness in favour of that imaginary abstraction called
Moral Force for which the editor of the Phalanx was distinguished, still
Devilsdust used to say that if ever the great revolution were to occur
by which the rights of labour were to be recognised, though bolder
spirits and brawnier arms might consummate the change, there was only
one head among them that would be capable when they had gained their
power to guide it for the public weal, and as Devilsdust used to add,
"carry out the thing," and that was Morley.

It was a fine summer day, and Mowedale was as resplendent as when
Egremont amid its beauties first began to muse over the beautiful. There
was the same bloom over the sky, the same shadowy lustre on the trees,
the same sparkling brilliancy on the waters. A herdsman following some
kine was crossing the stone bridge, and except their lowing as they
stopped and sniffed the current of fresh air in its centre, there was
not a sound.

Suddenly the tramp and hum of a multitude broke upon the sunshiny
silence. A vast crowd with some assumption of an ill-disciplined order
approached from the direction of Mowbray. At their head rode a man on
a white mule. Many of his followers were armed with bludgeons and
other rude weapons, and moved in files. Behind them spread a more
miscellaneous throng, in which women were not wanting and even children.
They moved rapidly; they swept by the former cottage of Gerard; they
were in sight of the settlement of Trafford.

"All the waters of the river shall not dout the blaze that I will light
up to-day," said the Liberator.

"He is a most inveterate Capitalist,"