ABSTRACT
We have said that if there existed a particle of feeling in the dark, flinty heart of George Mellor it was certainly monopolised by his dead friend Booth. After the decease of that poor misguided young man he seemed altogether to lose his balance. He grew perceptibly day by day more bitter against the masters who had adopted the new machinery, and his subtle brain was always planning and scheming f©r their injury or destruction. Naturally gloomy and reserved in disposition, and given to fits of violent passion, he grew more gloomy and desperate still. Booth had exercised a restraining and beneficent influence over him, and now he was dead, Mellor’s whole thoughts appeared to be engrossed with what he deemed the wrongs of his class, and the whole subject of his conversation with his fellow workmen was how to avenge them. His outward appearance was a true index of the fierce and tumultuous passions that reigned within his soul. He had grown careless and slovenly of late, his cheeks had become pale, his brow careworn, and his lurid, bloodshot eyes were now habitually fixed upon the ground. The man was sinking, gradually perhaps, but surely; the hot insatiate craving for revenge which filled his bosom seemed to shrivel him body and soul.
