aspect that evening,
something like a beleaguered town. Groups of men and boys collected on
the corners, or wended their way through the streets with low, ominous
mutterings. People barred their doors and locked their windows, though
it was a hot summer night. Some women were abroad: but they were of the
rougher sort, and now and then their shrill voices rose on the air in
derision or vituperation. Still there were no overt acts of violence,
and at ten everybody began to breathe more freely.

The coffee-house had been shut up that evening: it was deemed advisable.
Darcy went round to the side-door, and was admitted. Hay and three other
workmen were within. They had been figuring up possible and probable
profits by the end of the five years, and looked very well satisfied.

"There's a sort of hope and expectation about it," said one of the men,
"that kind of stirs and warms a body. And when you come to count lost
time, and fluctuation in wages, it makes a pretty even thing, after all!
In '73 I worked in a shoddy-mill that _had_ been making money hand over
fist,--eleven hours a day,--not a man of us made more than five dollars
a week. Some poor fellows with families earned only three. You've never
been as hard up as that! God only knows how they lived: it's beyond my
guessing!"

"And if that was co-operation, how the system would be blamed!"
exclaimed Ben Hay. "I declare, it makes me madder than a hen in a
fence--I've caught that of Cameron," laughingly,--"to hear the things
people have said about us. They're forever blathering about fair play--I
wish they'd give a little, as well as take all. Wait till we've come to
the end, say I, before they tell what we can do, or what we can't or
sha'n't or won't!"

There was a tramp in the street. The startled eyes studied one another.
Then a shuffling and muttering, and a knock at the door.

No one stirred but Mrs. Connelly, who threw up her hands, and cried,
"The saints protect us!"

"Earthly saints, Mother Connelly,--this kind," said Ben Hay with gay
re-assurance, doubling his fist, and baring his brawny arm.

The pounding increased. Rose ran down stairs wild with affright,
followed by her sister. The boys fortunately were asleep in the back
chambers.

"Let us in, Mother Connelly: we want some bread and butter!" shouted a
voice.

"Cakes and yale!"

"Pretzel and zwei lager!"

"A sup of the craythur!"

"A dhrop of whiskey to warrum us this could night! Av yees the h