Uncle is not happy, if Martha is out of sight [she wrote] and Aunt is always planning some new pleasure for her.  And, John, Uncle is never tired of praising your pluck and humanity.  He says he wishes the Almighty had given him such an opportunity; he thinks he would have done just as you have done.  It was a little strange that Uncle met a great Manchester banker the other day, and while they were talking of the trouble, now so nearly over, this man said, “Gentlemen, a great many of us have done well, but there is a cotton-spinner in the Yorkshire wolds that has excelled us all—­one John Hatton.  He mortgaged and sold all he had and kept his looms going till the war was practically over.  His people have not been idle two months.  What do you think of that?”

Some man answered, he did not think it was extraordinary, for John Hatton of Hatton-Elmete was of the finest blood in England.  He could not help doing the grand thing if it was there to be done.  And then another man took it up and said your blood and family had nothing to do with your conduct.  Many poor spinners would have done as you did, if they had been your equals in money.  Then the first speaker answered, “We can do without any of your ‘equality’ talk, Sam Thorpe.  What the cream is, the cheese is.  Chut!  Where’s your equality now?” Uncle told me much more but that is enough of praise for you, at once.  Martha and I are very happy, and if all the news we hear is true, I expect you to be living by the factory bell when we get home.  Dear, good John, we love you and think of you and talk of you all the day long.

     JANE.

Jane’s letters came constantly and they gave to this period of getting ready for work again a sense of great elation.  If a man only passed John on the hill or in the corridors of the mill during these days, he caught spirit and energy and hope from his up-head and happy face and firm step.  At the beginning of May the poor women had commenced with woeful hearts to clean their denuded houses, and make them as homelike as they could; and before May was half over, peace was won and there were hundreds of cotton ships upon the Atlantic.

John’s finished goods were all now in Manchester warehouses, and Greenwood was watching the arrival of cotton and its prices in Liverpool.  John had very little money—­none in fact that he could use for cotton, but he confidently expected it, though ignorant of any certain cause for expectation.

As he was eating dinner with his mother one day, she said, “Whatever have you sent Greenwood to Liverpool for?”

“To buy any cotton he can.”

“But you have no money.”

“Simpson and Hager paid me at once for the calicoes I sent them.  I shall be getting money every day now.”

“Enough?”

“I shall have enough—­some way or other—­no fear.”

“I’ll tell you what, John.  I can lend you twenty thousand pounds.  I’ll be glad to do it.”