OSBORN'S PRIDE GETS HURT Soon after the farmers met at Ashness, Bell, feeling sore and resentful, sat one evening in the Tarnside library.

Osborn, after fixing a time for his visit, had kept him waiting twenty minutes, and Bell had come to think himself a man of a little importance.

The spacious library was very cold and the end of a small log smouldered among the ashes in the grate.
Bell knew he had been brought into the library because it was Osborn's business room; but the latter might have ordered the fire to be made up.
His neglect rankled, although Bell had something else to think about.

He had lowered his price for coal another shilling, without attracting buyers, and now admitted that the dales folks' resistance was getting dangerous.

To some extent, the Askews were accountable for this, but Osborn got a large share of the profit Bell had hoped to make.