“Read it to your children,” he said, “and if the opportunity occurs, take them sometimes to see my grave.  The spot is long chosen.  Let there be no gardening upon it out of good heart but bad taste.  I should wish it left largely to Nature.  There will be daisies for your babies to pick.  I forget the text I selected.  It’s in my will.”

He bade her good-bye more tenderly than usual, as though he knew that he would never see her again, and the next morning Bridetown heard that the old man had died in his sleep.  The people felt sorry, for he left no enemies, and his many kindly thoughts and deeds were remembered for a little while.

CHAPTER XIX

NEW WORK FOR ABEL

With a swift weaver’s knot John Best mended the flying yarn.  Then he turned from a novice at the Gill Spinner and listened, not very patiently, to one who interrupted his lesson.

“It’s rather a doubtful thing that you should always be about the place now you’ve left it, Levi,” he said to Mr. Baggs.  “It would be better judgment and more decent on your part if you kept away.”

“You may think so,” answered the hackler, “but I do not.  And until the figure of my pension is settled, I shall come and go and take no denial.”

“It is settled.  He don’t change.  He’s said you shall have ten shillings a week and no more, so that it will be.”

“And what if I decline to take ten shillings a week, after fifty years of work in his beastly Mill?”

“Then you can do the other thing and go without.  You want it both ways, you do.”

“I want justice—­no more.  Common justice, I suppose, can be got in Dorset as elsewhere.  I ought to have had a high testimonial when I left this blasted place—­a proper presentation for all to see, and a public feed and a purse of sovereigns at the least.”

“That’s what I mean when I say you can’t have it both ways,” answered Mr. Best.  “To be nice and pick words and consider your feelings is waste of time, so I tell you that you can’t grizzle and grumble and find fault with everything and everybody for fifty years, and then expect people to bow down and worship you and collect a purse of gold when you retire.  If we flew any flags about you, it would be because we’d got rid of you.  Mister Ironsyde don’t like you, and why should he?  You’ve always been up against the employer and you’ve never lost a chance to poison the minds of the employed.  There’s no good will in you and never was, and where you could hang us up in the Mill and make difficulties without getting yourself into trouble, you’ve always took great pleasure in so doing.  Did you ever pull with me, or anybody, if you could help it?  Never.  You pulled against.  You’d often have liked to treat us like the hemp and tear us to pieces on your rougher’s hackle.  And how does such a man expect anybody to care about him?  There was no reason why you should have had a pension at all, in my opinion.  You’ve been blessed with good health and no family, and you’ve never spent a shilling on another fellow creature in your life.  Therefore, it’s more than justice that you get ten shillings, and not less as you seem to think.”