give the key of inconvenience and uneasiness in which all things
were arranged, should suggest the breath of trouble that stirred
along the hot summer streets, the anxiety about the strike, the
rumors and indignations, the gatherings and meetings, the increasing
gravity of the policemen's faces, the combative headlines of the
local papers, the knots of picketers who scrutinized any one who
passed near the silent, smokeless forges, but in my mind, you must
understand, such impressions came and went irregularly; they made
a moving background, changing undertones, to my preoccupation by
that darkly shaping purpose to which a revolver was so imperative
an essential.

Along the darkling streets, amidst the sullen crowds, the thought
of Nettie, my Nettie, and her gentleman lover made ever a vivid
inflammatory spot of purpose in my brain.



Section 3

It was three days after this--on Wednesday, that is to say--that
the first of those sinister outbreaks occurred that ended in the
bloody affair of Peacock Grove and the flooding out of the entire
line of the Swathinglea collieries. It was the only one of these
disturbances I was destined to see, and at most a mere trivial
preliminary of that struggle.

The accounts that have been written of this affair vary very widely.
To read them is to realize the extraordinary carelessness of truth
that dishonored the press of those latter days. In my bureau I