There were remnants of each of these human tides to be found as one looked about the mills.  Old Henry Dow, the overseer of the cloth-hall, was a Lancashire man and some of his grandchildren had risen to wealth and prominence in another part of the country, while he kept steadily on with his familiar work and authority.  A good many elderly Irishmen and women still kept their places; everybody knew the two old sweepers, Mary Cassidy and Mrs. Kilpatrick, who were looked upon as pillars of the Corporation.  They and their compatriots always held loyally together and openly resented the incoming of so many French.

You would never have thought that the French were for a moment conscious of being in the least unwelcome.  They came gayly into church and crowded the old parishioners of St. Michael’s out of their pews, as on week-days they took their places at the looms.  Hardly one of the old parishioners had not taken occasion to speak of such aggressions to Father Daley, the priest, but Father Daley continued to look upon them all as souls to be saved and took continual pains to rub up the rusty French which he had nearly forgotten, in order to preach a special sermon every other Sunday.  This caused old Mary Cassidy to shake her head gravely.

“Mis’ Kilpatrick, ma’am,” she said one morning.  “Faix, they ain’t folks at all, ’tis but a pack of images they do be, with all their chatter like birds in a hedge.”

“Sure then, the holy Saint Francis himself was after saying that the little birds was his sisters,” answered Mrs. Kilpatrick, a godly old woman who made the stations every morning, and was often seen reading a much-handled book of devotion.  She was moreover always ready with a friendly joke.

“They ain’t the same at all was in them innocent times, when there was plenty saints living in the world,” insisted Mary Cassidy.  “Look at them thrash, now!”

The old sweeping-women were going downstairs with their brooms.  It was almost twelve o’clock, and like the old dray-horses in the mill yard they slackened work in good season for the noonday bell.  Three gay young French girls ran downstairs past them; they were let out for the afternoon and were hurrying home to dress and catch the 12:40 train to the next large town.

“That little one is Meshell’s daughter; she’s a nice child too, very quiet, and has got more Christian tark than most,” said Mrs. Kilpatrick.  “They live overhead o’ me.  There’s nine o’ themselves in the two rooms; two does be boarders.”

“Those upper rooms bees very large entirely at Fitzgibbon’s,” said Mary Cassidy with unusual indulgence.

“’Tis all the company cares about is to get a good rent out of the pay.  They’re asked every little while by honest folks ’on’t they build a trifle o’ small houses beyond the church up there, but no, they’d rather the money and kape us like bees in them old hives.  Sure in winter we’re better for having the more fires, but summer is the pinance!”