and, as I suppose they saw that I meant to do
it, they went off. That is all I have to tell, so far as I know."

The clerk's pen ran swiftly over the paper as Ned quietly made his
statement. Then there was a silence for a minute or two.

"And did you really mean to carry out your threat, Mr. Sankey?"

"Certainly," Ned said.

"But you would, of course, have been killed yourself."

"Naturally," Ned said dryly; "but that would have been of no great
consequence to me or any one else. As the country was lately about to
take my life at its own expense it would not greatly disapprove of my
doing so at my own, especially as the lesson to the Luddites would have
been so wholesale a one that the services of the troops in this part of
the country might have been dispensed with for some time."

"Did you recognize any of the men concerned?"

"I am glad to say I did not," Ned replied. "Some of them were masked.
The others were, so far as I could see among such a crowd of faces in a
not very bright light, all strangers to me."

"And you would not recognize any of them again were you to see them?"

"I should not," Ned replied. "None of them stood out prominently among
the others."

"You speak, Mr. Sankey," Mr. Thompson said, "as if your sympathies were
rather on the side of these men, who would have burned your mill, and
probably have murdered you, than against them."

"I do not sympathize with the measures the men are taking to obtain
redress for what they regard as a grievance; but I do sympathize very
deeply with the amount of suffering which they are undergoing from the
introduction of machinery and the high prices of provisions; and I am
not surprised that, desperate as they are, and ignorant as they are,
they should be led astray by bad advice. Is there any other question
that you wish to ask me?"

"Nothing at present, I think," Mr. Simmonds said after consulting his
colleague by a look. "We shall, of course, forward a report of the
affair to the proper authorities, and I may say that although you appear
to take it in a very quiet and matter of fact way, you have evidently
behaved with very great courage and coolness, and in a manner most
creditable to yourself. I think, however, that you ought immediately to
have made a report to us of the circumstances, in order that we might
at once have determined what steps should be taken for the pursuit and
apprehension of the rioters."

Ned made no reply, but rising, bowed