quiet the rest.

John Halifax never stirred. Evidently he was pretty well known. I
caught many a stray sentence, such as "Don't hurt the lad."--"He were
kind to my lad, he were."--"No, he be a real gentleman."--"No, he comed
here as poor as us," and the like. At length one voice, sharp and
shrill, was heard above the rest.

"I zay, young man, didst ever know what it was to be pretty nigh
vamished?"

"Ay, many a time."

The answer, so brief, so unexpected, struck a great hush into the
throng. Then the same voice cried--

"Speak up, man! we won't hurt 'ee! You be one o' we!"

"No, I am not one of you. I'd be ashamed to come in the night and burn
my master's house down."

I expected an outbreak, but none came. They listened, as it were by
compulsion, to the clear, manly voice that had not in it one shade of
fear.

"What do you do it for?" John continued. "All because he would not
sell you, or give you, his wheat. Even so--it was HIS wheat, not
yours. May not a man do what he likes with his own?"

The argument seemed to strike home. There is always a lurking sense of
rude justice in a mob--at least a British mob.

"Don't you see how foolish you were?--You tried threats, too. Now you
all know Mr. Fletcher; you are his men--some of you. He is not a man
to be threatened."

This seemed to be taken rather angrily; but John went on speaking, as
if he did not observe the fact.

"Nor am I one to be threatened, neither. Look here--the first one of
you who attempted to break into Mr. Fletcher's house I should most
certainly have shot. But I'd rather not shoot you, poor, starving
fellows! I know what it is to be hungry. I'm sorry for you--sorry
from the bottom of my heart."

There was no mistaking that compassionate accent, nor the murmur which
followed it.

"But what must us do, Mr. Halifax?" cried Jacob Baines: "us be starved
a'most. What's the good o' talking to we?"

John's countenance relaxed. I saw him lift his head and shake his hair
back, with that pleased gesture I remember so well of old. He went
down to the locked gate.

"Suppose I gave you something to eat, would you listen to me
afterwards?"

There arose up a frenzied shout of assent. Poor wretches! they were
fighting for no principle, true or false, only for bare life. They
would have bartered their very souls for a mouthful of bread.

"You must promise to be peaceable," said John again, very resolutely,
as soon as he coul