This sally raised a loud laugh at the notorious drunkard’s expense, and checked the storm, as a laugh generally does.

But men were gathering round, and a workman who had heard the raised voices, and divined the row, ran out of the works, with his apron full of blades, and his heart full of mischief.  It was a grinder of a certain low type, peculiar to Hillsborough, but quite common there, where grinders are often the grandchildren of grinders.  This degenerate face was more canine than human; sharp as a hatchet, and with forehead villainously low; hardly any chin; and—­most characteristic trait of all—­the eyes, pale in color, and tiny in size, appeared to have come close together, to consult, and then to have run back into the very skull, to get away from the sparks, which their owner, and his sire, and his grandsire, had been eternally creating.

This greyhound of a grinder flung down a lot of dull bluish blades, warm from the forge, upon a condemned grindstone that was lying in the yard; and they tinkled.

“——­ me, if I grind cockney blades!” said he.

This challenge fired a sympathetic handle-maker.  “Grinders are right,” said he.  “We must be a ——­ mean lot and all, to handle his ——­ work.”

“He has been warned enough; but he heeds noane.”

“Hustle him out o’ works.”

“Nay, hit him o’er th’ head and fling him into shore.”

With these menacing words, three or four roughs advanced on him, with wicked eyes; and the respectable workmen stood, like stone statues, in cold and terrible neutrality; and Henry, looking round, in great anxiety, found that Bayne had withdrawn.

He ground his teeth, and stepped back to the wall, to have all the assailants in the front.  He was sternly resolute, though very pale, and, by a natural impulse, put his hand into his side-pocket, to feel if he had a weapon.  The knife was there, the deadly blade with which his enemies themselves had armed him; and, to those who could read faces, there was death in the pale cheek and gleaming eye of this young man, so sorely tried.

At this moment, a burly gentleman walked into the midst of them, as smartly as Van Amburgh amongst his tigers, and said steadily, “What is to do now, lads?” It was Cheetham himself, Bayne knew he was in the office, and had run for him in mortal terror, and sent him to keep the peace.  “They insult me, sir,” said Henry; “though I am always civil to them; and that grinder refuses to grind my blades, there.”

“Is that so?  Step out, my lad.  Did you refuse to grind those blades?”

“Ay,” said the greyhound-man sullenly.

“Then put on your coat, and leave my premises this minute.”

“He is entitled to a week’s warning, Mr. Cheetham,” said one of the decent workmen, respectfully, but resolutely; speaking now for the first time.

“You are mistaken, sir,” replied Mr. Cheetham, in exactly the same tone.  (No stranger could have divined the speakers were master and man.) “He has vitiated his contract by publicly refusing to do his work.  He’ll get nothing from me but his wages up to noon this day.  But you can have a week’s warning, if you want it.”