d drew the back
of his hand across his warm face, I noticed that he gave his eyes a
brush, and, glancing at him once more, I recognized the presence of a
moisture in them.

In my anxiety to conceal that I had noticed anything unusual, I am
afraid I spoke to him quite hurriedly. I was a young man then, and by no
means as self-possessed as I ought to have been.

"I hope you won't misunderstand me, Hibblethwaite,"

I said; "I don't mean to complain--indeed, I have nothing to complain
of, for Foxley tells me you are the steadiest and most orderly hand he
has under him; but the fact is, I should like to make friends with you
all, and see that no one is treated badly. And somehow or other I found
out that you were not disposed to feel friendly towards the rest, and I
was sorry for it. But I suppose you have some reason of your own."

The man bent down over his work again, silent for a minute, to my
discomfiture, but at last he spoke, almost huskily.

"Thank yo', Mester," he said; "yo're a koindly chap or yo' wouldn't ha'
noticed. An' yo're not fur wrong either. I ha' reasons o' my own, tho'
I'm loike to keep 'em to mysen most o' toimes. Th' fellows as throws
their slurs on me would na understond 'em if I were loike to gab, which
I never were. But happen th' toime 'll come when Surly Tim 'll tell his
own tale, though I often think its loike it wunnot come till th' Day o'
Judgment."

"I hope it will come before then," I said, cheerfully. "I hope the time
is not far away when we shall all understand you, Hibblethwaite. I think
it has been misunderstanding so far which has separated you from the
rest, and it cannot last always, you know."

But he shook his head--not after a surly fashion, but, as I thought, a
trifle sadly or heavily--so I did not ask any more questions, or try to
force the subject upon him.

But I noticed him pretty closely as time went on, and the more I saw of
him the more fully I was convinced that he was not so surly as people
imagined. He never interfered with the most active of his enemies,
nor made any reply when they taunted him, and more than once I saw
him perform a silent, half-secret act of kindness. Once I caught him
throwing half his dinner to a wretched little lad who had just come to
the factory, and worked near him; and once again, as I was leaving the
building on a rainy night, I came upon him on the stone steps at the
door bending down with an almost pathetic clumsiness to pin the wool