disconcerted, he asked if 'anything else was wrong.' I replied no, but ventured to upbraid him gently for his violent behaviour, pointing out that the guard was not in any way to blame either for the misdoings of railway companies or for our present misadventure.
'Of course not,' replied Morris, cheerfully. 'But we've got to blow up someone, don't you know. If we don't, nothing will be done to remedy matters. I hope, however, the guard didn't think I was bull-ragging him. Of course he didn't—he looked quite a sensible chap. Now, shan't we have a refreshment, and get our shanks on the road?' He looked so imperturbably good-humoured that it was incredible that only a minute before he had been a blazing pillar of Olympian wrath. It was as that instant change from storm to sunshine which never ceases to astonish us in the moods of children.
Proceeding on our way back to Coatbridge along the dry, coal-dusty road, with its dreary stretches of 'colliers' rows,' Morris' interest in everything he saw never flagged. He plied us with questions about the miners, their politics, their wages, and mode of spending their leisure. He noted (with many an imprecation) the effects of the ironworks on vegetation, and stopped occasionally to note the wayside flowers struggling for life here and there among the grimy hedgerows; and every now and then quoted some old saying, or told some amusing story illustrative of the subject on hand.
When we got to Coatbridge we had no little difficulty in deciding where we should hold our meeting. The police were exceedingly hostile to any sort of open-air meetings, religious or political, in the town, because of the frequent rows bordering on riots which they occasioned between the Orangemen and Roman Catholics, who formed a large part of the population. The street corners adjacent to public-houses, where the workmen were mostly congregated, were, I knew from past experience, forbidden us; and the few vacant pieces of ground elsewhere discernible gave
