“Well, then, we will go at once. The day is yet early and bright, but no one can tell what it will be in an hour or two.”
So Wade called a coach and they drove to London’s famous manufacturing district noted for the excellence of its brocaded silks and velvet, and the beauty and variety of its ribbons, satins and lutestrings. The ride there was full of interest to Katherine and she needed no explanation concerning the groups of silent men standing at street corners sullen and desperate-looking, or else listening to some passionate speaker. Annis and Wade looked at each other and slightly shook their heads but did not make any remark. The locality was not a pleasant one; it spoke only of labor that was too urgent to have time for “dressing up,” as Pierre Delaney--the man they were visiting--explained to them.
They found Delaney in his weaving shop, a large many-windowed room full of strange looking looms and of men silent and intensely pre-occupied. No one looked round when they entered, and as Wade and Annis talked to the proprietor, Katherine cast her eyes curiously over the room. She saw that it was full of looms, large ponderous looms, with much slower and heavier movements than the usual one; and she could not help feeling that the long, dangling, yellow harness which hung about each loom fettered and in some way impeded its motion. The faces of all the workers were turned from the door and they appeared to be working slowly and with such strict attention that not one man hesitated, or looked round, though they must have known that strangers had entered the room.
In a few minutes Katherine’s curiosity was intense. She wanted to go close to the looms, and watch the men at what seemed to be difficult work. However, she had scarcely felt the thrill of this strong desire ere her father took her hand and they went with Delaney to a loom at the head of the room. He said “he was going to show them the work of one of his pupils, who had great abilities for patterns requiring unwavering attention and great patience; but in fact,” he added, “every weaver in this room has as much as he can manage, if he keeps his loom going.”
The man whose work they were going to examine must have heard them approaching, but he made no sign of such intelligence until they stood at his side. Then he lifted his head, and as he did so, Katherine cried out--“Father! Father! It is Harry! It is Harry Bradley! Oh Harry! Harry! Whatever are you doing here?” And then her voice broke down in a cry that was full both of laughter and tears.