'FURRINERS' IN OUSEBANK!
The young Clays stood and stared at each other in blank amazement. Then
they looked out again at the cluster of tall chimneys which belonged to
Clay's Mills, and which were belching forth great volumes of smoke as if
in contemptuous defiance of those who had dared to try to stop their
mighty engine.
'It is our mills!' repeated Sarah, as if she had almost disbelieved her
eyes.
'Yes, there's no mistake about it; they are our mills; and yet I could
have vowed I saw some of the hands pass by the park-gate this morning
when I went to speak to the park-keeper. They were going away from
Ousebank in search of work, I supposed.'
'I expect you are mistaken. How could the mills work without the hands?
Unless they climbed down, and I'm sure they won't do that. Besides, you
don't know their faces, do you?' asked Sarah.
'I guessed who they were by the way they glared at me; it made me pretty
uncomfortable,' said George.
Sarah looked at her brother, who was smoking a gold-tipped cigarette.
'You don't look very uncomfortable,' she observed.
'Oh George! Oh Sarah! Do you see that the mills are workin' again?' cried
Mrs Clay, her lips trembling, as she came into the room where her
children were.
George put his arm round his mother. Even Sarah was moved to be
demonstrative, and, taking her mother's hand, fondled it.
'What is it, mother? Why does that frighten you so? It is a very good
thing, though I don't know how it has come about,' said George gently.
Mrs Clay only shook her head. She made no reply, but stood gazing out
over Ousebank, her eyes fixed on the cluster of chimneys that belonged to
their mills. They had finished the firing probably, for the chimneys were
not smoking so violently now, but some smoke was still coming out.
Sarah seemed very thoughtful, and soon left the room to go in search of
Naomi. 'Have the hands gone back, Naomi?' she asked abruptly.
'You've seen it, then? Our lads haven't, I know. I can't make it out at
all. I'd give something to know what's happened; but now that none of the
townspeople are allowed farther than the park-gates we hear no news at
all,' replied Naomi.
'Naomi, I must know how they've managed it. I shall come down the town
with you,' cried Sarah.
'Very well, miss. I'll be ready in two minutes,' said Naomi, and went
off.
On her way she met Mrs Clay, who looked relieved at meeting her, and
remarked, 'Oh Naomi, just tell Miss Sarah that Mr Howroyd 'as 'phoned to
say that none of us are to go into the town to-day.'
'None of us, ma'am? Do you mean not even me?' inquired Naomi, looking
blank.
'Oh, you! No, you won't matter; they won't 'urt you,' said Mrs Clay,
quite severely for her.
Naomi returned slowly to Sarah's room. 'Mistress says no one is to go
into the town to-day, by Mr Howroyd's orders, except me; so, please,
miss, may I run down and find out what it all means?'
As may be imagined, Sarah did not understand this message at all; but
when Naomi had explained as well as she could, her young mistress said
with decision, 'I'm coming with you, Naomi. Something dreadful is the
matter. I expect they are burning up all the fuel, or doing some damage
to the mill.'
'Please, Miss Sarah, don't be angry, but I daren't take you. It's as much
as my place is worth, and you might get roughly handled if the lads are
angry with the master,' said Naomi.
'You need not take me, but you can't prevent me from going with you. In
fact, if you like you can start first. I will go alone,' persisted Sarah.
Naomi would have liked to argue with Sarah; but she knew it would be a
waste of time, so she went off, and instead of making herself smart, she
caught up a shawl, threw it over her head, and ran down the back-stairs
and out at the back-door as quick as she could.
'No, you don't!' cried a voice behind her, and a strong hand grasped her
shoulder none too gently.
With a little cry Naomi turned, to see herself confronted by Sykes, who
exclaimed, 'Whatever are you up to, Naomi? I thought you were a
mill-lass, and we don't want none of them up here.'
'So I am for the moment. Let me pass, Mr Sykes. Miss Sarah wants to know
what's on in Ousebank.'
'No good, I'll warrant; and don't get mixing up with it,' was the
butler's parting remark as he released her.
Naomi sped across the park; but what was her surprise to see ahead of
her, running as fast as she could, another mill-lass! Naomi made after
her quickly, meaning, if she were a friend, to ask what was doing in
Ousebank, and, if not, to demand her business at Balmoral. 'Wait a bit,
lass,' she called out when she got near enough to be heard; but the girl
only ran on faster. She was tall and slender, and not unlike Jane Mary,
Naomi's sister; and the thought struck Naomi that if it was her sister,
she was after no good. 'Jane Mary,' she shouted, 'if you don't stop I'll
heave this stone at you!'
The figure in front stopped at this threat, and turned.
'Miss Sarah! I beg your pardon, miss; I didn't know you,' cried Naomi in
surprise.
'Now that you do know me, and see that I mean to go to Ousebank, perhaps
you'll drop that stone--it might have killed me if it had fallen on my
head--and let me walk beside you instead of in front.'
Noami looked rather guiltily at the stone in her hand, and dropped it,
saying apologetically, 'I thought it might be some one up to no good. But
do you suppose they won't know you, miss?'
'You didn't,' observed Sarah with a laugh.
'Not your back; but all Ousebank knows your face, and they'll maybe turn
nasty to you,' Naomi warned her.
'They'll be too busy to stare at a mill-lass, and I shall keep as well
behind you as I can.'
Naomi looked doubtfully at her mistress. 'Perhaps if you were to tie this
handkerchief round your face, as if you'd got toothache, you'd pass
better,' she suggested, handing Sarah a large white pocket-handkerchief
with a coloured border.
Sarah took it and wrapped it round her face, saying as she did so, 'It
will make me very hot. But I'll tell you what, we'll go straight to your
house, Naomi; they will know all about it there, and we sha'n't mix in
the crowd.' Sarah's courage, as may be seen, was oozing away with all
Naomi's warnings.
But Naomi proved a Job's comforter. 'I doubt we'd better not go home,
Miss Sarah. There's Jane Mary fair off her head, she's that mad with the
master, and she's turned against all of you. She'd think you were a spy
or something, and be nasty as like as not.'
Sarah said no more, and as they had come to the town now they had enough
to do to pick their way through the crowded streets. 'The mills can't be
working, Naomi. Here are some of the chief hands,' she said in an
undertone.
'I never thought they were. It's some mischief they're doing. Hark! did
you hear what yon man said?' inquired Naomi in the same tone.
'No; at least, I could not understand, he spoke such broad Yorkshire. I
thought he said something about "furriners,"' replied Sarah.
'That's what he did say. Oh miss, come into the ginnel [alley] till these
men pass,' cried Naomi, pulling Sarah into the said 'ginnel,' just in
time to avoid a party of young men, who were evidently very excited, and
were anathematising Mark Clay. 'Miss, you'd best go to Howroyd's. There's
a fine to-do to-day,' entreated Naomi.
'Perhaps I'd better,' agreed Sarah, who was not very happy in her
mill-lass's get-up. At no time did Sarah like meeting the 'hands;' but in
this disguise she disliked it still more. It was only a mad impulse which
made her don the disguise, and she rather regretted it now that she saw
the state of the town. So she willingly turned towards Howroyd's Mill.
'The master's at the telephone. He's been there most of the morning, and
it's no use your coming to-day; you'd best leave your message,' said the
maid, who did not recognise Sarah. Indeed, she had only opened the door a
few inches, taking them to be poor girls come to ask help from the
ever-ready philanthropist, William Howroyd.
'Let me in, Mary,' said Sarah, coming forward and untying her disguising
handkerchief.
The maid gave a little shriek, and grasping Sarah by the hand, drew her
inside. 'Miss Sarah, my dear! however could you? And the town all against
your father! Come forward! Pray, come forward!'
Sarah very willingly went 'forward,' as they say in Yorkshire, and gave a
sigh of relief as she threw off the shawl which covered her head, and
sank into a chair. 'What is the matter, Mary? What has my father done
now?' she demanded.
'You don't know? Oh deary me!' cried the maid, with lifted hands and much
shaking of the head.
'No; tell me quick,' said Sarah abruptly.
Mary looked fearfully round, as if the information was dangerous to give.
'He's got in a lot of furriners--blacklegs--to run the mills,' she said
in a hoarse whisper.
Sarah looked at her in horror, mingled with incredulity. 'Foreigners! How
could he? And how could they do the work? Besides, where did he get them
from, and when did they come? It's impossible!' she cried.
'It's true for all that,' said Mary, nodding her head.
'I must see Uncle Howroyd,' said Sarah. 'Go and tell him I'm here, Mary.'
'I told you not to leave the house,' was her uncle's remark when he came
in, looking graver and sadder than Sarah had ever seen him.
'Yes, I know; but I simply had to come, and no one recognised me. See, I
was a mill-lass,' said Sarah, throwing her shawl over her head to show
her uncle.
She looked so pretty and coaxing--for Sarah could be charming to those
she loved--that her uncle smiled, and said with a sigh, 'Well, you're
safe enough now you're here, and I've half a mind to send for your mother
and George. Anyway, I must telephone to tell them you are here.'
'Oh no, Uncle Howroyd; I must go back for lunch,' cried Sarah, not adding
what was in her mind--that her father would be angry if she were not home
for lunch.
'You'll have to stay now you've come, child. There'll be no going home
for you to-day, so you'll have to do with a plain dinner to-night; and
Naomi had better go back and fetch what you want, unless I go and fetch
them and your mother myself,' replied Mr Howroyd.
'Do you mean that you think mother isn't safe at Balmoral?' cried Sarah,
starting up.
'I hope so. Do you suppose I should be here and not with her if she
weren't?' demanded Mr Howroyd. 'No; it's only that I doubt if your father
will be able to get home to-day, and I thought she 'd feel safer with
me.'
'She has George,' said Sarah quickly, for she sometimes resented other
people speaking slightingly of her brother, however much she might do so
herself.
'Ah yes, she has George. Well, I'll just 'phone to her;' and he went off,
only to return in a few minutes to say, 'You are right; she prefers
George, and George prefers Balmoral. He says I am to tell you to stop
where you are, if it's any use telling you to do anything.'
'I sha'n't obey George; but as it's Hobson's choice, I will stay with
you, Uncle Howroyd; but, please, tell me, how did father manage to get
foreigners to do his work?'
'That's more than any one but himself knows; but he smuggled them into
the mills yesterday, and they slept there all night, it seems; but who
they are, or where they came from, or how they are getting on, no one
knows,' replied Mr Howroyd.
'They can't stop in there always, and the people will kill them when they
come out,' said Sarah.
'Your father will protect them, and so shall I, if it comes to that; but
it's a bad business, a very bad business; and what will be the end of it,
who can tell?'
'I know they'll burn down the mills--that's what always happens--and we
shall be ruined,' said Sarah.
'That won't ruin you, because they are insured, and let us hope it won't
come to that. Besides, the mills are so well guarded that they can't get
near them,' said Mr Howroyd in a tone which showed that he had thought of
this danger himself.
Mr Howroyd was now called away, and Sarah was left to her own thoughts,
which were not pleasant ones. Somehow, when it came to the point, the
thought of her father being burnt in his mill or ruined by his
workpeople's spite was not so lovely, and she was relieved when Naomi
reappeared with a bundle in her arms.
'I didn't dare to bring a portmanteau, miss, or even your dressing-bag. I
was afraid with all these folk about ready for any mischief, so I've just
brought a few necessities, as the mistress says; and she sends her love,
and says she's glad you are safe with your uncle, though she wishes you'd
stayed with her.'
'I wish I had, Naomi. Tell her I would never have come if I had known I
should not be able to get back, and that if she will tell Uncle Howroyd I
may, I'll come home at once,' said Sarah.
Trouble was doing Sarah good, and her affectionate message did her mother
good; though she hurried off to the telephone to tell Mr Howroyd that she
forbade Sarah to attempt to come home, and to inform him that Mr Clay was
stopping at the mill too.
And so the weary, dreary day wore on, and the excitement in the streets
grew. After nightfall the older men held indignation meetings in public,
where they had huge audiences of sympathisers, the entire population
being on their side, as a matter of fact.
'Foreigners in Ousebank! We've never had such a thing before, and we
don't want it now,' they all agreed. As for the younger men, they held
meetings too; but their meetings were held within closed doors, and what
was said at them was not divulged.
'They're brewing mischief they young uns, sir,' said Luke Mickleroyd to
Mr Howroyd when he came in for a few minutes before he took his watch for
the night.
'I'm afraid they are. We must only pray and trust that they may not carry
it out,' replied Mr Howroyd.
'Ay, sir, that's all we can do. I shall keep a sharper lookout to-night
than I've ever done, and, please God, they'll be kept from doing harm to
others and bringing sorrow on themselves,' said the good and pious old
watchman.