I think Grace will be here to-night, and then there will be no room for me here." Mr.Crawley went forth and made his way with rapid steps to a portion of his parish nearly two miles distant from his house, through which was carried a canal, affording water communication in some intricate way both to London and Bristol.

And on the brink of this canal there had sprung up a colony of brickmakers, the nature of the earth in those parts combining with the canal to make brickmaking a suitable trade.

The workmen there assembled were not, for the most part, native-born Hogglestockians, or folk descended from Hogglestockian parents.

They had come thither from unknown regions, as labourers of that class do come when they are needed.

Some young men from that and neighbouring parishes had joined themselves to the colony, allured by wages, and disregarding the menaces of the neighbouring farmers; but they were all in appearance and manners nearer akin to the race of navvies than to ordinary rural labourers.