CHAPTER XII.
PROFIT AND LOSS The trifles of our daily life, The common things scarce worth recall, Whereof no visible trace remains, These are the main springs after all.
O why to those who need them not, Should Love's best gifts be given! How much is wasted, wrecked, forgot, On this side of heaven?
The thing that John feared, had happened to him, no miracle had prevented it, and that day he must shut the great gates of Hatton factory.

He could hardly realize the fact.

He kept wondering if his father knew it, but if so, he told himself he would doubtless know the why and the wherefore and the end of it.

He would know, also, that his son John had done all a man could do to prevent it.

This was now a great consolation and he had also a confident persuasion that the enforced lock-out would only last for a short time.
"Things have got to their worst, Greenwood," he said, "and when the tide is quite out, it turns instantly for the onward flow." "To be sure it does, sir," was the answer.