“For the Lord’s sake, don’t show the white feather now!” cried a young fellow beside him, who was striding on with an eager, even joyous outlook.  He had fighting blood, and it was up, and he took a keen delight in the situation.

“It’s easy to talk,” grumbled the other man.  “I don’t know but all our help lies in the union, and we’ve been a pack of fools not to go in with them, because we hoped Lloyd would weaken and take us back.  He hasn’t weakened; we’ve had to.  Good God, them that’s rich have it their own way!”

“I’d have joined the union in a minute, and got a job, and got my nearseal cape, if it hadn’t been for father,” said Sadie Peel, with a loud laugh.  “But, my land! if father’d caught me joinin’ the union I dun’no’ as there would have been anything left of me to wear the cape.”

They all marched along with no disturbance until they reached the corner of the street into which they had to turn in order to approach Lloyd’s.  There they were confronted by a line of pickets, stationed there by the union, and the real trouble began.  Yells of “Scab, scab!” filled the air.

“Good land, I ain’t no more of a scab than you be!” shrieked Sadie Peel, in a loud, angry voice.  “Scab yourself!  Touch me if you dasse!”

Many young men among the returning force had stout sticks in their hands.  Granville Joy was one of them.  Andrew, who was quite unarmed, pressed in before Ellen.  Granville caught him by the arm and tried to draw him back.

“Look here, Mr. Brewster,” he said, “you keep in the background a little.  I am young and strong, and here are Sargent and Mendon.  You’d better keep back.”

But Ellen, with a spring which was effectual because so utterly uncalculated, was before Granville and her father, and them all.  She reasoned it out in a second that she was responsible for the strike, and that she would be in the front of whatever danger there was in consequence.  Her slight little figure passed them all before they knew what she was doing.  She was in the very front of the little returning army.  She saw the threatening faces of the pickets; she half turned, and waved an arm of encouragement, like a general in a battle.  “Strike if you want to,” she cried out, in her sweet young voice.  “If you want to kill a girl for going back to work to save herself and her friends from starvation, do it.  I am not afraid!  But kill me, if you must kill anybody, because I am the one that started the strike.  Strike if you want to.”

[Illustration:  If you want to kill a girl for going back to work to save herself from starvation, do it!]

The opposing force moved aside with an almost imperceptible motion.  Ellen looked like a beautiful child, her light hair tossed around her rosy face, her eyes full of the daring of perfect confidence.  She in reality did not feel one throb of fear.  She passed the picket-line, and turned instinctively and marched backward with her blue eyes upon them all.  Abby Atkins sprang forward to Ellen’s side, with Sargent and Joy and Willy Jones and Andrew.  Andrew kept calling to Ellen to come back, but she did not heed him.