Page:Arminell, a social romance (1896).djvu/378

370 of altering our sets, there is a disadvantage which must not be left unnoticed, which is that the biting and holding power in them is not equal to that possessed by the natural articles.

Patience Kite came upon the captain as he stood in a dream, Bible in hand, but not reading, meditating, and looking far away, yet seeing nothing. She roused him with a hand on his shoulder.

"Do you know what they are about?"

"They! Who?"

"All the parish—the men; the miners out of work, the day-labourers, the tradesmen, all."

Saltren shook his head; he desired to be left alone to his thoughts, his prayers, his Bible reading.

"They are destroying your house," said Patience, shaking him, to rouse him, as she would have shaken a sleeper.

"My house? Chillacot?"

"Yes, they are; they are breaking up the rock on the Cleave, and throwing it down on your roof, and smashing it in."

"My house! Chillacot?" He was still absent in mind. He could not at once withdraw his thoughts from where they had strayed to matters so closely concerning himself.

"It is true; Tamsine came running to me to tell me about it. Your son managed to get into the house and bring his mother out, and Marianne is like one in a fit, she cannot speak—that, if you wish it, is a miracle. The men have set picks and crowbars to work to tumble the stones down on your house and garden, and bury them. Slates and windows are smashed already, and the shrubs broken down in your garden."

"My house!—why?"

"Why? Because you won't let the railway come along there, and the parish is angry, and thinks the station will be set further from the village. The fellows say you, with your