‘Oh, I couldn’t do that!’ murmured Emma.  ‘Dick knows best.’

She stopped to listen; there was a noise above as of people entering the house.

‘Here they come at last,’ said Mrs. Mutimer.  ‘Hear him laughin’?  Now, don’t you be so ready to laugh with him.  Let him see as it ain’t such good fun to everybody.’

Heavy feet tramped down the stone stairs, amid a sound of loud laughter and excited talk.  The next moment the kitchen door was thrown open, and two young men appeared.  The one in advance was Richard Mutimer; behind him came a friend of the family, Daniel Dabbs.

‘Well, what do you think of this?’ Richard exclaimed as he shook Emma’s hands rather carelessly.  ’Mother been putting you out of spirits, I suppose?  Why, it’s grand; the best thing that could have happened!  What a meeting we’ve had to-night!  What do you say, Dan?’

Richard represented—­too favourably to make him anything but an exception—­the best qualities his class can show.  He was the English artisan as we find him on rare occasions, the issue of a good strain which has managed to procure a sufficiency of food for two or three generations.  His physique was admirable; little short of six feet in stature, he had shapely shoulders, an erect well-formed head, clean strong limbs, and a bearing which in natural ease and dignity matched that of the picked men of the upper class—­those fine creatures whose career, from public school to regimental quarters, is one exclusive course of bodily training.  But the comparison, on the whole, was to Richard’s advantage.  By no possibility could he have assumed that aristocratic vacuity of visage which comes of carefully induced cerebral atrophy.  The air of the workshop suffered little colour to dwell upon his cheeks; but to features of so pronounced and intelligent a type this pallor added a distinction.  He had dark brown hair, thick and long, and a cropped beard of hue somewhat lighter.  His eyes were his mother’s—­keen and direct; but they had small variety of expression; you could not imagine them softening to tenderness, or even to thoughtful dreaming.  Terribly wide awake, they seemed to be always looking for the weak points of whatever they regarded, and their brightness was not seldom suggestive of malice.  His voice was strong and clear; it would ring out well in public places, which is equivalent to saying that it hardly invited too intimate conference.  You will take for granted that Richard displayed, alike in attitude and tone, a distinct consciousness of his points of superiority to the men among whom he lived; probably he more than suspected that he could have held his own in spheres to which there seemed small chance of his being summoned.

Just now he showed at once the best and the weakest of his points.  Coming in a state of exaltation from a meeting of which he had been the eloquent hero, such light as was within him flashed from his face freely; all the capacity and the vigour which impelled him to strain against the strait bonds of his lot set his body quivering and made music of his utterance.  At the same time, his free movements passed easily into swagger, and as he talked on, the false notes were not few.  A working man gifted with brains and comeliness must, be sure of it, pay penalties for his prominence.