The wheel of what small social life there was in Stillwater had ceased to revolve.  With the single exception of Lemuel Shackford, the more respectable inhabitants kept in-doors as much as practicable.  From the first neither Mr. Craggie nor Lawyer Perkins had gone to the hotel to consult the papers in the reading-room, and Mr. Pinkham did not dare to play on his flute of an evening.  The Rev. Arthur Langly found it politic to do but little visiting in the parish.  His was not the pinion to buffet with a wind like this, and indeed he was not explicitly called upon to do so.  He sat sorrowfully in his study day by day, preparing the weekly sermon,—­a gentle, pensive person, inclined in the best of weather to melancholia.  If Mr. Langly had gone into arboriculture instead of into the ministry, he would have planted nothing but weeping-willows.

In the mean time the mill directors continued their deliberations in the bank building, and had made several abortive attempts to effect an arrangement with the leaders of the union.  This seemed every hour less possible and more necessary.

On the afternoon of the seventh day of the strike a crowd gathered in front of the residence of Mr. Alexander, the superintendent of the Miantowona Iron Works, and began groaning and hooting.  Mr. Alexander sought out Mr. Craggie, and urged him, as a man of local weight and one accustomed to addressing the populace, to speak a few words to the mob.  That was setting Mr. Craggie on the horns of a cruel dilemma.  He was afraid to disoblige the representative of so powerful a corporation as the Miantowona Iron Works, but he equally dreaded to risk his popularity with seven or eight hundred voters; so, like the crafty chancellor in Tennyson’s poem, he dallied with his golden chain, and, smiling, but the question by.

“Drat the man!” muttered Mr. Craggie, “does he want to blast my whole political career! I can’t pitch into our adopted countrymen.”

There was a blot on the escutcheon of Mr. Craggie which he was very anxious not to have uncovered by any chance in these latter days,—­his ancient affiliation with the deceased native American party.

The mob dispersed without doing damage, but the fact that it had collected and had shown an ugly temper sent a thrill of apprehension through the village.  Mr. Slocum came in a great flurry to Richard.

“This thing ought to be stopped,” said Mr. Slocum.

“I agree to that,” replied Richard, bracing himself not to agree to anything else.

“If we were to drop that stipulation as to the increase of apprentices, no doubt many of the men would give over insisting on an advance.”

“Our only salvation is to stick to our right to train as many workmen as we choose.  The question of wages is of no account compared with that; the rate of wages will adjust itself.”

“If we could manage it somehow with the marble workers,” suggested Mr. Slocum, “that would demoralize the other trades, and they’d be obliged to fall in.”