Few words were exchanged between Ned and Mr.Mulready; and although the latter could not but have noticed that Ned was brighter and more cheerful in his talk, he was brooding over his own trouble, and paid but little heed to it.
The time was fast approaching when he could no longer go on as at present.

The competition with the mills using the new machinery was gradually crushing him, and it was necessary for him to come to a determination either to pluck up heart and to use his new machines, or to close his mill.
At last he determined to take the former course and to defy King Lud.
Other manufacturers used steam, and why should not he?
It was annoying to him in the extreme that his friends and acquaintances, knowing that he had fitted the mill with the new plant, were always asking him why he did not use it.
A sort of uneasy consciousness that he was regarded by his townsmen as a coward was constantly haunting him.

He knew in his heart that his danger was greater than that of others, because he could not rely on his men.
Other masters had armed their hands, and had turned their factories into strong places, some of them even getting down cannon for their defense: for, as a rule, the hands employed with the new machinery had no objection to it, for they were able to earn larger wages with less bodily toil than before.
The hostility was among the hands thrown out of employment, or who found that they could now no longer make a living by the looms which they worked in their own homes.

Hitherto Mr.Mulready had cared nothing for the goodwill of his hands.

He had simply regarded them as machines from whom the greatest amount of work was to be obtained at the lowest possible price.