Lionel’s brow burned; not with the blazing sun, but with indignation.  That this should happen on the lands of the Verner’s!  Hot words rose to his lips—­to the effect that Roy, as he believed, was acting against the law—­but he swallowed them down ere spoken.  It might not be expedient to proclaim so much to the men.

“Since when has Roy done this?” he asked.  “I am surprised not to have heard of it.”

“This six weeks he have done it, sir, and longer nor that.  It’s get our things from Peckaby’s or it’s not get any at all.  Folks won’t trust the likes of us, without us goes with the money in our hands.  We might have knowed there was some evil in the wind when Peckaby’s took to give us trust.  Mr. Verner wasn’t the best of masters to us, after he let Roy get on our backs—­saving your presence for saying it, sir; but you must know as it’s truth—­but there’s things a-going on now as ’ud make him, if he knowed ’em, rise up out of his grave.  Let Roy take care of hisself, that he don’t get burned up some night in his bed!” significantly added the man.

“Be silent, Davies!  You—­”

Lionel was interrupted by a commotion.  Upon turning to ascertain its cause, he found an excited crowd hastening towards the spot from the brick-fields.  The news of the affray had been carried thither, and Roy, with much intemperate language and loud wrath, had set off at full speed to quell it.  The labourers set off after him, probably to protect their wives.  Shouting, hooting, swearing—­at which pastime Roy was the loudest—­on they came, in a state of fury.

But for the presence of Lionel Verner, things might have come to a crisis—­if a fight could have brought a crisis on.  He interposed his authority, which even Roy did not yet dispute to his face, and he succeeded in restoring peace for the time.  He became responsible—­I don’t know whether it was quite wise of him to do so—­for the cost of the broken windows, and the women were allowed to go home unmolested.  The men returned to their work, and Mr. Peckaby’s face regained its colour.  Roy was turning away, muttering to himself, when Lionel beckoned him aside with an authoritative hand.

“Roy, this must not go on.  Do you understand me?  It must not go on.”

“What’s not to go on, sir?” retorted Roy sullenly.

“You know what I mean.  This disgraceful system of affairs altogether.  I believe that you would be amenable to the law in thus paying the men, or in part paying them, with an order for goods; instead of in open, honest coin.  Unless I am mistaken, it borders very closely upon the truck system.”

“I can take care of myself and of the law, too, sir,” was the answer of Roy.

“Very good.  I shall take care that this sort of oppression is lifted off the shoulders of the men.  Had I known it was being pursued, I should have stopped it before.”

“You have no right to interfere between me and anything now, sir.”