some trepidation, and it was not till George had given him a handshake that gripped like a vice that he knew his man again.  Soon the two were deep in the work of exchanging histories.  The crew of the captured collier brig, it appeared, had been kept at Dunkirk till the autumn of 1704, when they had been exchanged for certain French prisoners in ward at Dover.  The Fairburn colliery had prospered wonderfully, and the owner now employed no fewer than four vessels of his own, one of which ran to Hull regularly.  In fact, the skipper was just going on board to return to the Tyne.

Within an hour, therefore, Lieutenant Fairburn was afloat once more, to his great joy.  On the voyage he learnt many things from the old captain.  Squire Blackett was in very bad odour with the men of the district.  For years his business had been falling off, and he had been dismissing hands.  Now his health was failing; he was unable or unwilling to give vigorous attention to his trade, and he talked of closing his pit altogether.  The colliers of the neighbourhood were desperately irritated, and to a man declared that, with anything like energy in the management, the Blackett pit had a fortune in it for any owner.

The well-known wharf was reached, a wharf vastly enlarged and improved, however, and George sprang ashore impatiently.  Leaving all his belongings for the moment, he strode off at a great rate for home, rather wondering how it was that he did not see a single soul either about the river or on the road.  He rubbed his eyes as he caught a sight of his boyhood’s home.  Like the wharf, the house had been added to and improved until he scarcely recognized the spot at all.  “Father must be a prosperous man,” was his thought.  Opening the door without ceremony, he entered.  A figure in the hall turned, and in a moment the boy had his mother in his arms, while he capered about the hall with her in pure delight.

The good woman gave a cry, but she was not of the fainting kind, and soon she was weeping and laughing by turns, kissing her handsome lad again and again.  Presently, as if forgetting herself, she cried, “Ah, my boy, there’s a parlous deed going on up at the Towers!  You should be going to help.”  And George learned to his astonishment that the Squire’s house was being at that moment attacked by a formidable and desperate gang.  Fairburn had gone off to render what assistance he could.  It was reported that the few defenders were holding the house against the besiegers, but that they could hold out little longer.  The Fairburn pitmen had declined to be mixed up in the quarrel, as they called it.

“Good Heavens!” exclaimed George, “what a state of things!”

Bolting out of the house, he ran back at full speed to the wharf, his plan already clear in his head.  Within ten minutes he was leading to Binfield Towers every man jack of the little crew, the old skipper included.  The pace was not half quick enough, and when, at a turn in the road, an empty coal cart was met, George seized the head of the nag, and slewed him round, crying “All aboard, mates!” The crew tumbled in, and in an instant the lieutenant was whipping up the animal, to the utter astonishment of the carter.