es the
independent poor. And thus they gradually won respect and confidence;
and after sixteen years he was looked up to by the whole neighborhood
as _the_ just man, _the_ man to whom masters and men could go in their
strikes, and in all their quarrels and difficulties, and by whom the
right and true word would be said without fear or favor. And the women
had come round to take her advice, and go to her as a friend in all
their troubles, while all the children worshipped the ground she trod
on.

[15] #Arthur#: here, young Arthur's father.

[16] #Chartism#: the principles of a political party which
demanded universal suffrage and other radical reforms. The
chartists were regarded much as the anarchists are now.

[17] #Living#: parish.

They had three children, two daughters and a son, little Arthur, who
came between his sisters. He had been a very delicate boy from his
childhood; they thought he had a tendency to consumption, and so
he had been kept at home and taught by his father, who had made a
companion of him, and from whom he had gained good scholarship, and a
knowledge of, and an interest in, many subjects which boys in general
never come across till they are many years older.

Just as he reached his thirteenth year, and his father had settled
that he was strong enough to go to school; and, after much debating
with himself, had resolved to send him there, a desperate fever broke
out in the town; most of the other clergy, and almost all the doctors,
ran away; the work fell with tenfold weight on those who stood to
their work. Arthur and his wife both caught the fever, of which he
died in a few days, and she recovered, having been able to nurse him
to the end, and store up his last words. He was sensible to the last,
and calm and happy, leaving his wife and children with fearless trust
for a few years in the hands of the Lord and Friend who had lived and
died for him, and for whom he, to the best of his power, had lived and
died. His widow's mourning was deep and gentle; she was more affected
by the request of the Committee of a Free-thinking club, established
in the town by some of the factory hands (which he had striven against
with might and main, and nearly suppressed), that some of their number
might be allowed to help bear the coffin, than by anything else. Two
of them were chosen, who with six laboring men, his own fellow-workmen
and friends, bore him to his grave,--a man who had fou