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 by that darkly shaping purpose to which a revolver was so imperative an essential.

Along the darkling streets, amidst the sullen crowds, the thought of Nettie, my Nettie, and her gentleman lover made ever a vivid inflammatory spot of purpose in my brain.

3

IT was three days after this--on Wednesday, that is to say--that the first of those sinister outbreaks occurred that ended in the bloody affair of Peacock Grove and the flooding out of the entire line of the Swathinglea collieries. It was the only one of these disturbances I was destined to see, and at most a mere trivial preliminary of that struggle.

The accounts that have been written of this affair vary very widely. To read them is to realise the extraordinary carelessness of the truth that dishonoured the press of those latter days. In my bureau I have several files of the daily papers of the old time--I collected them, as a matter of fact--and three or four of about that date I have just this moment taken out and looked through to refresh my impression of what I saw. They lie before me--queer, shrivelled, incredible things; the cheap paper has already bec