that Ned on the Saturday afternoon
entered Varley.

Varley was a scattered village lying at the very edge of the moor.
The houses were built just where the valley began to dip down from the
uplands, the depression being deep enough to shelter them from the
winds which swept across the moor. Some of those which stood lowest were
surrounded by a few stumpy fruit trees in the gardens, but the majority
stood bleak and bare. From most of the houses the sound of the shuttle
told that hand weaving was carried on within, and when the weather was
warm women sat at the doors with their spinning wheels. The younger men
for the most part worked as croppers in the factories in Marsden.

In good times Varley had been a flourishing village, that is to say its
inhabitants had earned good wages; but no one passing through the bare
and dreary village would have imagined that it had ever seen good days,
for the greater proportion of the earnings had gone in drink, and the
Varley men had a bad name even in a country and at a time when heavy
drinking was the rule rather than the exception. But whatever good times
it may have had they were gone now. Wages had fallen greatly and the
prices of food risen enormously, and the wolf was at the door of every
cottage. No wonder the men became desperate, and believing that all
their sufferings arose from the introduction of the new machinery, had
bound themselves to destroy it whatever happened.

A woman of whom he inquired for John Swinton's cottage told him that it
was the last on the left. Although he told himself that he had nothing
to be afraid of, it needed all Ned's determination to nerve himself to
tap at the door of the low thatched cottage. A young woman opened it.

"If you please," Ned said, "I have come to see Bill; the doctor said he
would see me. It was I who hurt him, but indeed I didn't mean to do it."

"A noice bizness yoi've made of it atween ee," the woman said, but in
a not unkind voice. "Who'd ha' thought as Bill would ha' got hurted by
such a little un as thou be'st; but coom in, he will be main glad to see
ee, and thy feyther ha' been very good in sending up all sorts o' things
for him. He's been very nigh agooing whoam, but I believe them things
kept un from it."

The cottage contained but two rooms. In a corner of the living room,
into which Ned followed the woman, Bill Swinton lay upon a bed which
Captain Sankey had sent up. Ned would not have known him again, and
cou