Messrs. Bolt and Little were rattened again, and never knew it till morning.  This time it was not the bands, but certain axle-nuts and screws that vanished.  The obnoxious machines came to a standstill, and Bolt fumed and cursed.  However, at ten o’clock, he and the foreman were invited to the Town hall, and there they found the missing gear, and the culprit, one of the very workmen employed at high wages on the obnoxious machines.

Ransome had bored a small hole in the ceiling, by means of which this room was watched from above; the man was observed, followed, and nabbed.  The property found on him was identified and the magistrate offered the prisoner a jury, which he declined; then the magistrate dealt with the case summarily, refused to recognize rattening, called the offense “petty larceny,” and gave the man six months’ prison.

Now as Ransome, for obvious reasons, concealed the means by which this man had been detected, a conviction so mysterious shook that sense of security which ratteners had enjoyed for many years, and the trades began to find that craft had entered the lists with craft.

Unfortunately, those who directed the Saw-grinders’ Union thought the existence of the trade at stake, and this minor defeat merely exasperated them.

Little received a letter telling him he was acting worse than Brinsley, who had been shot in the Briggate; and asking him, as a practical man, which he thought was likely to die first, he or the Union?  “You won’t let us live; why should we let you?”

Bolt was threatened in similar style, but he merely handed the missives to Ransome; he never flinched.

Not so Little.  He got nervous; and, in a weak moment, let his mother worm out of him that he was at war with the trades again.

This added anxiety to her grief, and she became worse every day.

Then Dr. Amboyne interfered, and, after a certain degree of fencing—­which seems inseparable from the practice of medicine—­told Henry plainly he feared the very worst if this went on; Mrs. Little was on the brink of jaundice.  By his advice Henry took her to Aberystwith in Wales, and, when he had settled her there, went back to his troubles.

To those was now added a desolate home; gone was the noble face, the maternal eye, the soothing voice, the unfathomable love.  He never knew all her value till now.

One night, as he sat by himself sad and disconsolate, his servant came to tell him there was a young woman inquiring for Mrs. Little.  Henry went out to her, and it was Jael Dence.  He invited her in, and told her what had happened.  Jael saw his distress, and gave him her womanly sympathy.  “And I came to tell her my own trouble,” said she; “fie on me!”

“Then tell it me, Jael.  There, take off your shawl and sit down.  They shall make you a cup of tea.”

Jael complied, with a slight blush; but as to her trouble, she said it was not worth speaking of in that house.