One night this poor man’s haystack and stable were all in flames in a moment, and unearthly screams issued from the latter.

The man ran out, half-naked, and his first thought was to save his good gray mare from the fire.  But this act of humanity had been foreseen and provided against.  The miscreants had crept into the stable, and tied the poor docile beast fast by the head to the rack; then fired the straw.  Her screams were such as no man knew a horse could utter.  They pierced all hearts, however hard, till her burnt body burst the burnt cords, and all fell together.  Man could not aid her.  But God can avenge her.

As if the poor thing could tell whether she was drawing machine-made bricks, or hand-made bricks!

The incident is painful to relate; but it would be unjust to omit it.  It was characteristic of that particular Union; and, indeed, without it my reader could not possibly appreciate the brickmaking mind.

Bolt went off with this to Little; but Amboyne was there, and cut his tales short.  “I hope,” said he, “that the common Creator of the four-legged animal and the two-legged beasts will see justice done between them; but you must not come here tormenting my inventor with these horrors.  Your business is to relieve him of all such worries, and let him invent in peace.”

“Yes,” said Little, “and I have told Mr. Bolt we can’t avoid a difficulty with the cutlers.  But the brickmakers—­what madness to go and quarrel with them!  I will have nothing to do with it, Mr. Bolt.”

“The cutlers!  Oh, I don’t mind them,” said Bolt.  “They are angels compared with the brickmakers.  The cutlers don’t poison cows, and hamstring horses, and tie them to fire; the cutlers don’t fling little boys into water-pits, and knock down little girls with their fists, just because their fathers are non-Union men; the cutlers don’t strew poisoned apples and oranges about, to destroy whole families like rats.  Why, sir, I have talked with a man the brickmakers tried to throw into boiling lime; and another they tried to poison with beer, and, when he wouldn’t drink it, threw vitriol in his eyes, and he’s blind of an eye to this day.  There’s full half a dozen have had bottles of gunpowder and old nails flung into their rooms, with lighted fuses, where they were sleeping with their families; they call that ‘bottling a man;’ it’s a familiar phrase.  I’ve seen three cripples crawling about that have been set on by numbers and spoiled for life, and as many fired at in the dark; one has got a slug in his head to this day.  And, with all that, the greatest cowards in the world—­daren’t face a man in daylight, any two of them; but I’ve seen the woman they knocked down with their fists, and her daughter too, a mere child at the time.  No, the cutlers are men, but the brickmakers are beasts.”

“All the more reason for avoiding silly quarrels with the brickmakers,” said Little.

Thus snubbed, Mr. Bolt retired, muttering something about “bad to beat.”  He found Harris crying over the ashes of his mare, and the man refused to wheel any more machine-made bricks.  Other carters, being applied to, refused also.  They had received written warning, and dared not wheel one of those bricks for their lives.