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“‘Tis true for you,” agreed Mrs. Kilpatrick.

“What’ll ye do wit’ the shild, now she’s no chance of pay, any more?” asked Mary relentlessly, and poor Maggie’s eyes grew dark with fright as the conversation abruptly pointed her way. She sometimes waked up in misery in Mrs. Kilpatrick’s warm bed, crying for fear that she was going to be sent back to the poorhouse.

“Maggie an’ me’s going to kape together awhile yet,” said the good old woman fondly. “She’s very handy for me, so she is. We ‘on’t part with ‘ach other whativer befalls, so we ‘on’t,” and Maggie looked up with a wistful smile, only half reassured. To her the shut-down seemed like the end of the world.

Some of the French people took time by the forelock and boarded the midnight train that very Saturday with all their possessions. A little later two or three families departed by the same train, under cover of the darkness between two days, without stopping to pay even their house rent. These mysterious flittings, like that of the famous Tartar tribe, roused a suspicion against their fellow countrymen, but after a succession of such departures almost everybody else thought it far cheaper to stay among friends. It seemed as if at any moment the great mill wheels might begin to turn, and the bell begin to ring, but day after day the little town was still and the bell tolled the hours one after another as if it were Sunday. The mild spring weather came on and the women sat mending or knitting on the doorsteps. More people moved away; there were but few men and girls left now in the quiet boarding-houses, and the spare tables were stacked one upon another at the end of the rooms. When planting-time came, word was passed about the Corporation that the agent was going to portion out a field that belonged to him a little way out of town on the South road, and let every man who had a family take a good-sized piece to plant. He also offered seed potatoes and garden seeds free to anyone who would come and ask for them at his house. The poor are very generous to each other, as a rule, and there was much borrowing and lending from house to house, and it was wonderful how long the people seemed to continue their usual fashions of life without distress. Almost everybody had saved a little bit of money and some had saved more; if one could no longer buy beefsteak he could still buy flour and potatoes, and a bit of pork lent a pleasing flavor, to content an idle man who had nothing to do but to stroll about town.

V.

One night the agent was sitting alone in his large, half-furnished house. Mary Moynahan, his housekeeper, had gone up to the church. There was a timid knock at the door.

There were two persons waiting, a short, thick-set man and a pale woman with dark, bright eyes who was nearly a head taller than her companion.

“Come in, Ellen; I’m glad to see you,” said the agent. “Have you got your wheel-barrow, Mike?” Almost all the would-be planters of the field had come under cover of darkness and contrived if possible to avoid each other.

“‘Tisn’t the potatoes we’re after asking, sir,” said Ellen. She was always spokeswoman, for Mike had an impediment in his speech. “The childher come up yisterday and got them while you’d be down at the counting-room. ‘Twas Mary Moynahan saw to them. We do be very thankful to you, sir, for your kindness.”

“Come in,” said the agent, seeing there was something of consequence to be said. Ellen Carroll and he had worked side by side many a long day when they were young. She had been a noble wife to Mike, whose poor fortunes she had gladly shared for sake of his good heart, though Mike now and then paid too much respect to his often infirmities. There was a slight flavor of whisky now on the evening air, but it was a serious thing to put on your Sunday coat and go up with your wife to see the agent.