Lionel had turned upon the man like lightning.

“Davies, how dare you presume so to speak of Mrs. Verner in my presence?  Mrs. Verner is not the source of your ills; you must look nearer to you, for that.  Mrs. Verner is aged and ailing; she cannot get out of doors to see into your grievances.”

At the moment of Lionel’s turning to the man, he, Davies, had commenced to push his way towards Lionel.  This caused the crowd to sway, and Lionel’s hat, which he held carelessly in his hand, having taken it off to wipe his heated brow, got knocked down.  Before he could stoop for its rescue, it was trampled out of shape; not intentionally—­they would have protected Lionel and his things with their lives—­but inadvertently.  A woman picked it up with a comical look of despair.  To put on that again was impossible.

“Never mind,” said Lionel good-naturedly.  “It was my own fault; I should have held it better.”

“Put your handkercher over your head, sir,” was the woman’s advice.  “It’ll keep the sun off.”

Lionel smiled, but did not take it.  Davies was claiming his attention; while some of the women seemed inclined to go in for a fight, which should secure the hat.

“Could Mr. Verner get out o’ doors and look into our grievances, the last years of his life, any more, sir, nor she can?” he was asking, in continuation of the subject.

“No, sir; he couldn’t, and he didn’t; but things wasn’t then brought to the pitch as they be now.”

“No,” acquiesced Lionel, “I was at hand then, to interpose between Roy and Mr. Verner.”

“And don’t you think, sir, as you might be able to do the same thing still?”

“No, Davies.  I have been displaced from Verner’s Pride, and from all power connected with it.  I have no more right to interfere with the working of the estate than you have.  You must make the best of things until Mr. Massingbird’s return.”

“There’ll be some dark deed done, then, afore many weeks is gone over; that’s what there’ll be!” was Davies’s sullen reply.  “It ain’t to be stood, sir, as a man and his family is to clam, ’cause Peckaby—­”

“Davies, I will hear no more on that score,” interrupted Lionel.  “You men should be men, and make common cause in that one point for yourselves against Roy.  You have your wages in your hand on a Saturday night, and can deal at any shop you please.”

The man—­he wore a battered old straw hat on his head, which looked as dirty as his face—­raised his eyes with an air of surprise at Lionel.

“What wages, sir?  We don’t get ours.”

“Not get your wages?” repeated Lionel.

“No, sir; not on a Saturday night.  That’s just it—­it’s where the new shoe’s a-pinching.  Roy don’t pay now on a Saturday night.  He gives us all a sort o’ note, good for six shilling, and we has, us or our wives, to take that to Peckaby’s, and get what we can for it.  On the Monday, at twelve o’clock, which is his new time for paying the wages, he docks us of six shilling. That’s his plan now; and no wonder as some of us has kicked at it, and then he have turned us off.  I be one.”