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242 upon the night of the riot. Just before he left the Works she had come into the yard, saying she had a message for Haworth, and on being told that he was away, had asked for Murdoch.

"He'll do if I canna see th' mester," she remarked.

But when she reached Murdoch's room she stepped across the threshold and shut the door cautiously.

"Con anybody hear?" she demanded, with an uneasy glance round.

"No," he answered.

"Then cut thy stick as fast as tha con an' get thee whoam an' hoid away that thing tha'rt makkin. Th' stroikers is after it. Nivver moind how I fun' out. Cut an' run. I axt fur Haworth to throw 'em off th' scent. I knowed he wurna here. Haste thee!"

Her manifest alarm convinced him that there was foundation enough for her errand, and that she had run some risk in venturing it.

"Thank you," he said. "You may have saved me a great deal. Let us go out quietly as if nothing was in hand. Come along."

And so they went, he talking aloud as they passed through the gates, and as it was already dusk he was out on the Broxton road in less than half an hour, and when he returned the mob had been to his mother's house and broken a few windows in their rage at his having escaped them, and had gone off shouting that they would go to Ffrench's.

"He'll be fun theer," some one said—possibly the cynic. "Th' young woman is a sweetheart o' his an' yo'll be loike to hear o' th' cat wheer th' cream stonds."

His mother met him on the threshold with the news of the outbreak and the direction it had taken. A few brief