Nor did it matter much; for had he not his violin?
I have, I think, already indicated that his grandfather had been a linen manufacturer.

Although that trade had ceased, his family had still retained the bleachery belonging to it, commonly called the bleachfield, devoting it now to the service of those large calico manufactures which had ruined the trade in linen, and to the whitening of such yarn as the country housewives still spun at home, and the webs they got woven of it in private looms.

To Robert and Shargar it was a wondrous pleasure when the pile of linen which the week had accumulated at the office under the ga'le-room, was on Saturday heaped high upon the base of a broad-wheeled cart, to get up on it and be carried to the said bleachfield, which lay along the bank of the river.

Soft laid and high-borne, gazing into the blue sky, they traversed the streets in a holiday triumph; and although, once arrived, the manager did not fail to get some labour out of them, yet the store of amusement was endless.

The great wheel, which drove the whole machinery; the plash-mill, or, more properly, wauk-mill--a word Robert derived from the resemblance of the mallets to two huge feet, and of their motion to walking--with the water plashing and squirting from the blows of their heels; the beatles thundering in arpeggio upon the huge cylinder round which the white cloth was wound--each was haunted in its turn and season.