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She gave him her hand and felt his fingers close with a spring-like strength upon it, while his eyes laughed into hers. Then the car was in motion again, and he dropped into the seat. "By Jove, this is a treat!" he said. "I had the greatest difficulty in the world to get away, made Ashcott take my place. It isn't a very important match, and he's a better bowler than I am anyway."
Some youths at the back started applause, which spread, though somewhat half-heartedly, through the crowd, and for a space the ugly feeling died down. "We'll get to business," said Dick, and took out his banjo. The concert began, Ashcott came up on to the platform and under cover of Dick's jangling ragtime spoke in a low voice and urgently to Saltash.
I've no objection to speaking to Yardley or any other man on their behalf, but I'm hanged if I'll be regarded as their representative. They'll make a strike-leader of me next." "Well, they're simmering," Ashcott said, as he prepared to depart. "They'll boil over before long. If they don't find a responsible representative they'll probably run amuck and get up to mischief."
The heavy sullenness had passed like a thunder-cloud, and Ashcott no longer smoked his pipe in the doorway with an air of gloomy foreboding. Dick laid aside his banjo and came to the front of the platform. There was absolute confidence in his bearing, a vital strength that imparted a mastery that yet was largely compounded of comradeship.
And he can do anything with 'em too, plays his banjo and sings and makes 'em laugh. The mines belong to the Farringmore family, you know Lord Wilchester owns 'em. But he never comes near, and a' course the men gets discontented and difficult. And they're a nasty drinking lot too. Why, the manager that's Mr. Ashcott he's at his wit's end sometimes.
He said good-night to the men, and prepared to depart with a feeling that he was nearing the end of his endurance. It was not soothing to nerves already on edge to be waylaid by Ashcott and made the unwilling recipient of gloomy forebodings. "We shan't hold 'em much longer," the manager said. "They're getting badly out of hand.
And in the evening I'm running an open-air concert at High Shale with Ashcott." "For those wretched miners!" exclaimed Mrs. Fielding. He nodded. "Yes, and their wives and their babies. They are rather amusing shows sometimes. We use native talent of course. I believe you would be interested, Miss Moore." "I am sure I should," said Juliet. "May I come to one some day?" He faced her boldly.
Ashcott, the manager of the mine, who battled in vain against the rising spirit of disorder and rebellion among them, was wont to describe his influence over them as black magic. Whatever its source it was certainly unique. None but Dick Green could spring from the platform, seize a delinquent by his collar or the scruff of his neck, and run him, practically unresisting, out of the assembly.
"I'll see 'em damned first!" he said. Ashcott shrugged his shoulders. "It's your affair. You're the only man who has any influence with 'em. I'm sick of trying to keep the peace." Dick checked his indignation. "Poor devils! They certainly have some cause for grievance, but I'm not going to draw up their ultimatum for them.
I never go near it. It's called High Shale, but it's very low really, right in a pocket of the hills, and very unhealthy. You can see the smoke hanging over there now. The cottages are wretched places, and the people who live in them words fail! Ashcott, the agent and manager of the mines, says they are quite hopeless, and so they are. They are just like pigs in a sty." "Poor dears!" said Juliet.
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