“They’re coming!” said one of the crowd; but it was a false alarm.  A flock of breeding lambs of the Dorset horned sheep pattered through the village on their way to pasture.  The young, healthy creatures, with amber-coloured horns and yellow eyes, trotted contentedly along together and left an ovine reek in the air.  Behind them came the shepherd—­a high-coloured, middle-aged man with a sharp nose and mild, grey eyes.  He could give news of the funeral, which was on the way behind him.

An iron seat stood under the sycamore on the triangular patch of grass, and a big woman sat upon it.  She was of vast dimensions, broad and beamy as a Dutch sloop.  Her bulk was clad in dun colour, and on her black bonnet appeared a layer of yellow dust.  She spoke to others of the little crowd who surrounded her.  They came from Bridetown Spinning Mill, for work was suspended because Henry Ironsyde, the mill owner, had died and now approached his grave.

“The Ironsydes bury here, but they don’t live here,” said Sally Groves.  “They lived here once, at North Hill House; but that’s when I first came to the Mill as a bit of a girl.”

The big woman fanned herself with a handkerchief, then spoke a grey man with a full beard, small head, and discontented eyes.  He was Levi Baggs, the hackler.

“We shall have those two blessed boys over us now, no doubt,” he said.  “But what know they?  Things will be as they were, and time and wages the same as before.”

“They’ll be sure to do what their father wished, and there was a murmur of changes before he died,” said Sally Groves; but Levi shook his head.

“Daniel Ironsyde is built like his father, to let well alone.  Raymond Ironsyde don’t count.  He’ll only want his money.”

“Have you ever seen Mr. Raymond?” asked a girl.  She was Nancy Buckler, a spinner—­hard-featured, sharp-voiced, and wiry.  Nancy might have been any age between twenty-five and forty.  She owned to thirty.

“He don’t come to Bridetown, and if you want to see him, you must go to ‘The Tiger,’ at Bridport,” declared another girl.  Her name was Sarah Northover.

“My Aunt Nelly keeps ‘The Seven Stars,’ in Barrack Street,” she explained, “and that’s just alongside ‘The Tiger,’ and my Aunt Nelly’s very friendly with Mr. Gurd, of ‘The Tiger,’ and he’s told her that Mr. Raymond is there half his time.  He’s all for sport and such like, and ‘The Tiger’s’ a very sporting house.”

“He won’t be no good to the mills if he’s that sort,” prophesied Sally Groves.

“I saw him once, with another young fellow called Motyer,” answered Sarah Northover.  “He’s very good-looking—­fair and curly—­quite different from Mr. Daniel.”

“Light or dark, they’re Henry Ironsyde’s sons and be brought up in his pattern no doubt,” declared Mr. Baggs.