“Then our fate is in store,” declared Nicholas.  “Some hope nothing, but, seeing that with all his faults he’s a sportsman, I do hope a bit.  There’s plenty beside me who remember his words very well, and they pointed to an all-around rise for men and women alike.”

“There was a rumour of violence against him.  You don’t apprehend anything of that sort, I hope?” asked Ernest of Best.

“A few—­more women than men—­had a plot, I believe, but I haven’t heard any more about it.  Baggs is the ringleader; but if there was any talk of raising the money, he’d find himself deserted.  He’s very bitter just now, however, and as he’s got the pleasant experience of being right for once, you may be sure he’s making the most of it.”

“I’ll see him,” said Mr. Churchouse.  “I always find him the most difficult character possible; but he must know that to answer violence with violence is vain.  Patience may yet find the solution.  I have by no means given up hope that right will be done.”

“Come and tell Levi, then.  Him and me are out for the moment, because I won’t join him in calling down evil on Mister Ironsyde’s head.  But what’s the sense of losing your temper in other people’s quarrels?  Better keep it for your own, I say.”

They found Levi Baggs grumbling to himself over a mass of badly scutched flax; but when he heard that Raymond Ironsyde was coming, he grew philosophic.

“If we could only learn from what we work in,” he said, “we’d have the lawless young dog at our mercy.  But, of course, we shall not.  Why don’t the yarn teach us a lesson?  Why don’t it show us that, though the thread is nought, and you can break it, same as Raymond Ironsyde can break me or you, yet when you get to the twist, and the doubling and the trebling, then it’s strong enough to defy anything.  And if we combined as we ought, we shouldn’t be waiting here to listen to what he’s got to say; we should be waiting here to tell him what we’ve got to say.  If we had the wit and understanding to twist our threads into one rope against the wickedness of the world, then we should have it all our own way.”

“Yes—­all your own way to do your own wickedness,” declared Best.  “We know very well what your idea of fairness is.  You look upon capital as a natural enemy, and if Raymond Ironsyde was an angel with wings, you’d still feel to him that he was a foe and not a friend.”

“The tradition is in the blood,” declared Levi.  “Capital is our natural enemy, as you say.  Our fathers knew it, and we know it, and our children will know it.”

“Your fathers had a great deal more sense than you have, Baggs,” declared Mr. Churchouse.  “And if you only remember the past a little, you wouldn’t grumble quite so loudly at the present.  But labour has a short memory and no gratitude, unfortunately.  You’re always shouting out what must be done for you; you never spare a thought on what has been done.  You never look back at the working-class