They were quicker-fingered, and were willing to work
cheaper than any other workpeople yet.
There were remnants of each of these human tides to be found as one
looked about the mills. Old Henry Dow, the overseer of the cloth-hall,
was a Lancashire man and some of his grandchildren had risen to wealth
and prominence in another part of the country, while he kept steadily
on with his familiar work and authority. A good many elderly Irishmen
and women still kept their places; everybody knew the two old
sweepers, Mary Cassidy and Mrs. Kilpatrick, who were looked upon as
pillars of the Corporation. They and their compatriots always held
loyally together and openly resented the incoming of so many French.
You would never have thought that the French were for a moment
conscious of being in the least unwelcome. They came gayly into church
and crowded the old parishioners of St. Michael's out of their pews,
as on week-days they took their places at the looms. Hardly one of the
old parishioners had not taken occasion to speak of such aggressions
to Father Daley, the priest, but Father Daley continued to look upon
them all as souls to be saved and took continual pains to rub up the
rusty French which he had nearly forgotten, in order to preach a
special sermon every other Sunday. This caused old Mary Cassidy to
shake her head gravely.
"Mis' Kilpatrick, ma'am," she said one morning. "Faix, they ain't
folks at all, 'tis but a pack of images they do be, with all their
chatter like birds in a hedge.
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