here smoking,
as if nothing were the matter,' remarked Sarah.

'If you will tell me what good I should do by getting excited I might
try it; but I don't know of anything to be gained by making a row. You'd
better go back to mother, and tell her the mills are all right, that
father's gone to see what he can do at Balmoral, and that I shall stop
here until further notice. Try to put a good face on it, and cheer her
up, Sarah. She isn't fit for all this worry,' urged her brother.

'I'll do my best,' replied Sarah; and she went back to her mother, and
left her brother in charge of the mills and of the men.

The two porters at the gate were his devoted servants, and talked to him
with the freedom of old workmen, as they deplored the present condition
of things. 'And the sooner we see the backs of those chaps the better,'
said one. 'They are quick enough, but they're not thorough; and they'd
chuck it up to-morrow if it weren't for the high wages they're bribed
with.'

'I shouldn't have thought that would pay,' observed George in his usual
lazy, indifferent way.

The man gave him a look, and said in a significant tone, 'It doesn't--at
least, it wouldn't in the long-run; but it pays better than letting the
mills "play," especially with this big contract on for blankets for
abroad. The hands knew that, and that's why they struck. They thought the
master'd have been obliged to give way to get it done. And so did I, and
so he would have if he hadn't got those chaps by a miracle.'

'How did he get them?' inquired George, asking the same question that
every one else was asking.

The man laughed, with an evident appreciation of the smartness that could
accomplish what looked like a miracle, although he shook his head
disapprovingly. 'He telephoned to somewhere abroad--I don't rightly know
if 'twas France or Belgium; in fact, he've been 'phoning for days; and it
seems there was a wool-mill shut down, and these men out of employ, and
he had the whole lot brought over and put in here by midnight on Sunday.
They came in wagon-loads from a station ten miles off, and not a soul
knew. Oh, he managed it well, did the master! But they laugh best who
laugh last, as the saying is.'

George took a whiff of his cigarette. 'So you think the men will laugh
the last? Do you think they'll burn the mills down?' he inquired.

'No, sir; I don't think they could if they would, and I doubt if they
would. 'Twould be wholesale murder, with all tho