Page:Between Two Loves.djvu/222

Rh reply, "Has ta heard that Steve Benson is in prison about Aske's robbery?"

"I hev. Who'd hev thought that Steve would turn out such a bad halfpenny?"

"They say, 'as t' twig is bent, t' tree's inclined.' I don't know about that I am sure Steve hed a rare good mother, and she were always trying to bend t' twig in t' right direction."

"Ay, but if t' twig is a willow twig to start wi', Jonathan, no amount o' bending will iver make it an oak, Steve hed some good points, but he never hed much backbone."

Immediately after his visit to his uncle Shuttleworth, Jonathan had very gladly posted on his mill gates this notice—"Wanted, Five Hundred Good Weavers." Most of the applicants had come from Syke's mill, and every one who did so was sure of a favorable reception. For Burley's change of feeling did not by any means include Sykes; he had for him, not only hatred, but also that contempt which, perhaps justly enough, every man feels for the tools of mischief and malice.

Sykes was confounded by this movement, especially as Matthew Rhodes declined, about