Years passed away and a gradual change came over the character of the
social and economic life of Holmton. The town became linked up by rail
with Leeds and Bradford, and in this way it lost its isolation and
caught an echo of the ideas and views of life of the people in the big
towns. Elementary education was introduced, and the printed book slowly
found its way into the weavers' cottages. Most important change of all,
the hand-loom gave place to the power-loom. Factories were built by the
side of the beck, and while a certain amount of weaving continued to be
done by the old people in their cottages, the younger generation sought
employment in the mills, and payment for piecework gave way to
time-wages. Most of the younger weavers welcomed this change when it was
fully understood. They found that the hours of work, though still
terribly long, were shorter than those spent by their parents over their
hand-looms, and the social intercourse of the mill, where the youths and
girls met their equals in age, was deemed preferable to the family
labours in the upper story of the cottages. Moreover, if the overseers
and foremen in the mills were often brutal, the workers could, at any
rate, get away from the atmosphere of the weaving-shed when the hooters
sounded at six o'clock in the evening.

When this revolution in industrial life took place Tom Parfitt found
himself too old to adapt himself to the change.

"T' hand-loom's gooid enough for me," were his words. "If I went to work
i' t' mill I'd feel like givin' up an owd friend, just because he'd
grown owd-feshioned. I'll stick to cottage wark, choose-what other fowks
may do."

Hearing this decision, his wife at once decided to remain with him; but
the three children of Parfitt's former marriage, the youngest of whom