“Have you a brother a clergyman?” I said, rather surprised, and to fill up Harold’s silence.

“Yes, my brother Ben.  It’s his first curacy, and his two years are all but up.  I don’t know if he will stay on.  He’s a right down jolly good fellow is Ben, and I wish he would come down here.”

Neither of us echoed the wish.  Harold had no turn for clergymen after the specimen of Mr. Smith; and Mr. Yolland, though I could specify nothing against him but that he was rough and easy, had offended me by joining us, when I wanted Harold all to myself.  Besides, was he not deluding my nephews into this horrid Hydriot Company, of which they would be the certain victims?

The Staffordshire man came, and the former workmen looked very bitter on him.  After a meeting, in which the minority made many vehement objections, Eustace addressed the workmen in the yards—­that is to say, he thought he did; but Harold and Mr. Yolland made his meaning more apparent.  A venture in finer workmanship, imitating Etruscan ware, was to be made, and, if successful, would much increase trade and profits, and a rise in wages was offered to such as could undertake the workmanship.  Moreover, it was held out to them that they might become the purchasers of shares or half shares at the market price, and thus have an interest in the concern, whereat they sneered as at some new dodge of the Company for taking them in.  It did not seem to me that much was done, save making Harry pore over books and accounts, and run his hands through his hair, till his thick curls stood up in all directions.

And Miss Woolmer herself was sorry.  She remembered the old story—­ nay, she had one of Prometesky’s own figures modelled in terra cotta, defective, of course, as a work of art, but with that fire that genius can breathe into the imperfect.  She believed it had been meant for the Hope of Poland.  Alas! the very name reminded one of the old word for despair, “Wanhope.”  But Harold admired it greatly, and both he and George Yolland seemed to find inspiration in it.

But one summer evening, when the young men were walking up and down the garden, smoking, we heard something that caused us to look round for a thunder-cloud, though none could be seen in the clear sky, and some quarter of an hour after, Richardson hurried out to us with the tidings, “I beg your pardon, sir, but there is a person come up to say there has been an explosion at the Hydriot works.”

“Impossible!” said Harold.  “There’s nothing to explode!”

“I beg your pardon, sir, but it is Mr. Yolland they say has blowed himself up with his experiments, and all the old ‘Dragon’s Head’ in Lerne Street, and he is buried under the ruins.  It is all one mass of ruin, sir, and he under it.”

Harold rushed off, without further word or query, and Eustace after him, and I had almost to fight to hold back Dora, and should hardly have succeeded if the two had not disappeared so swiftly that she could not hope to come up with them.