people there; but I would not take money for doing
it. Even if nobody ever got to know of it, it would always seem to me as
if I had sold the hands, and they have suffered enough, God knows."

"I don't think Mr. Cartwright thought of offering you money. I told him
that I was sure that you wouldn't take it, but he hoped that he might be
able to do something for you in some other way."

"No, thank you, sir," Mary said with quiet dignity; "there isn't any way
that I could take anything for doing what I did."

"Well, Mary, we won't say anything more about it. I only spoke, you
know, because Mr. Cartwright insisted, and, of course, as he did not
know you he could not tell how different you were from other girls.
There is no suspicion, I hope, that you were away from the village?"

"No, sir, I don't think so. Two of the men sat here talking with feyther
till past eleven o'clock, but they thought that I was in bed, as I had
said goodnight and had gone into my room an hour before, and I did not
see any one about in the village as I came back over the moor behind."

"None of the hands belonging to the village are missing, I hope, Mary.
I was glad to find that none of them were among the killed and wounded
round the mill."

"No, sir, except that John Stukeley has not been about since. The smithy
was not opened the next morning and the chapel was closed yesterday.
They say as he has been taken suddenly ill, but feyther thinks that
perhaps he was wounded. Of course men don't speak much before feyther,
and I don't talk much to the other women of the village, so we don't
know what's going on; anyhow the doctor has not been here to see him,
and if he had been only ill I should think they would have had Dr. Green
up. Old Sarah James is nursing him. I saw her this morning going to the
shop and asked her how he was; she only said it was no business of mine.
But she doesn't like me because sometimes I nurse people when they are
ill, and she thinks it takes money from her; and so it does, but what
can I do if people like me to sit by them better than her? and no
wonder, for she is very deaf and horribly dirty."

"I don't think they are to be blamed, Polly," Ned said, smiling. "If
I were ill I should certainly like you to nurse me a great deal better
than that bad tempered old woman."

The attack on Cartwright's mill made a great sensation through that part
of the country. It was the most determined effort which the Luddites had
y