part I promise to strain every nerve to do my duty by you. We will work

on as long as there is cotton to be had, and then--I trust, for your sakes, and mine, and that of humanity at large, that it will not be long that I shall have to help you in your fight to keep the wolf from the door.’

He stopped, bowed, and was turning away, when they gave him a hearty cheer; and one or two voices informed him laconically that they ‘reckoned he was one o’ th’ reet sort,’ and that ‘he’d suit.’

He jumped down from the lorrie, joined Wilson and his friend Hugo, and went with them towards the office. The engineer returned to his post; soon the busy machinery was in full roar again, as if there had been no such thing as war--no such parties as Federals and Confederates. The interruption to the morning’s work was already a thing of the past--an incident to be talked about.

Myles Heywood maintained entire silence upon the subject, nor could any one of all who inquired of him get him to say what he thought of the new master. He might have deep thoughts about it--at least they were unexpressed. The rest of the hands talked the event over with lively excitement. The general impression was a favourable one. The men liked what he had said, though he was generally pronounced to be a ‘bit too much of a swell,’ and it was agreed that he ‘spoke rather fine,’ and, they said, minced his words too much; was, in short, rather too much of a fine gentleman. Otherwise he was considered sound, and they were pleased to find him on the right side in politics.

The women, too, liked him, for reasons apparently similar to those alleged by Peter van den Bosch, as their grounds for liking Philip van Artevelde,

‘And wenches who were there, said Artevelde Was a sweet name, and musical to hear.’

Mary Heywood, at least, said she ‘liked the chap: he had siccan a soft voice, and a nice, smooth-soundin’ name, like.’

The general conclusion was a very Lancashire one; that the young man had spoken well and reasonably; sensibly enough for a person who knew nothing about his business, but that ‘fair words butter no parsnips;’ and the conjecture may reasonably be hazarded whether Sebastian’s speech had induced any one of his hearers to form a decided opinion, good or bad, of him. They waited to see, and indeed the time was striding forward with fearful rapidity, nearer and nearer, when the sincerity of his profession should be put to the proof.