“What a wretched end—­to be choked up in the shingle like that,” he said, “instead of dashing out gloriously and losing yourself in the sea!”

She smiled gently to herself.

“I thought that once, then I was ever so sorry for poor little Bride.”

“A bride without a wedding,” he said.

“No.  She steals to him; she wins his salt kisses and finds them sweet enough.  They mate down deep out of sight of all eyes.  So you needn’t be sorry for her really.”

“It’s like watching people try ever so hard to do something and never bring it off.”

“Yes—­even more like than you think, Ray; because we feel sad at such apparent failures, and yet what we are looking at may be a victory really, only our dull eyes miss it.”

“I daresay many people are succeeding who don’t appear to be,” he admitted.

“Goodness can’t be wasted.  It may be poured into the sand all unseen and unsung; but it conquers somehow and does something worth doing, even though no eye can see what.  Plenty of good things happen in the world—­good and helpful things—­that are never recorded, or even recognised.”

“Like a stonewaller in a cricket match.  The people cuss him, but he may determine who is going to win.”

She laughed at the simile.

They went homeward presently, Estelle quietly content to have shown Raymond the flower-sprinkled strand, and he well pleased to have pleasured her.

CHAPTER III

A TWIST FRAME

Raymond Ironsyde grumbled sometimes at the Factory Act and protested against grandmotherly legislation.  Yet in some directions he anticipated it.  He went, for example, beyond the Flax Mill Ventilation Regulations.  He loved fresh air himself, and took vast pains to make his works sweet and wholesome for those who breathed therein.  Even Levi Baggs could not grumble, for the exhaust draught in his hackling shop was stronger than the law demanded, and the new cyclone separators in the main buildings served to keep the air far purer than of old.

Ironsyde had established also the Kestner System of atomising water, to regulate temperature and counteract the electrical effects of east wind, or frost, on the light slivers.  He was always on the lookout for new automatic means to regulate the drags on the bobbins.  He had installed an automatic doffing apparatus, and made a departure from the usual dry spinning in a demi-sec, or half-dry, spinning frame, which was new at that time, and had offered excellent results and spun a beautifully smooth yarn.

These things all served to assist and relieve the workers in varying degree, but, as Raymond often pointed out, they were taken for granted and, sometimes, in his gloomier moments, he accused his people of lacking gratitude.  They, for their part, were being gradually caught up in the growing movements of labour.  The unintelligent forgot to credit the master with his consideration; while those who could think, were often soured by suspicion.  These ignorant spirits doubted not that he was seeking to win their friendship against the rainy days in store for capital.