The Press., 1892-12-08
.sThe artist don't like strangers.

The dwarf turned again and gave me probing look, and again took up his chisel and cut shining curls without reply.
 l grew impatient of this barley. He Enew something, and it must out.
 'tLook at me, George Padiham!" l said. sStop your lathe minute and charge me for the time hundred times overt I know the hand that painted these pictures. My portrait, and my friends, and my horses portrait are here on your wall. Only one person in the world could have painted them Ellen Clitheroe. Here are her initials in the corner. You know where she is. wish to see her. must see her at once, now"
 .'Keep cool, young man! This, is my shop. I'm master here. I've put bigger men than you out of this door before. Whats all this must and shall about? Whats your name?"
 "Richard Wade"
 Padiham left his lathe, came toward me, surveyed me earnestly again and then took down the drawing wherein appeared. He compared the man stand ing before him with his counterfeit pre- sentiment. There could be no mistaking me. had the honor to resemble my self, as the artist had remembered me.
 "You're the man," said Padiham "Pve heard of you. 1 wasn't looking sharp not to have known you when you first came in and stood there by the door waiting for me to speak first. Richard Wade, give me your handl I suppose if I am the best mechanic in England called so on good authority-you won't mind striking palms with me-"
 Ishook him by the hand pretty vigor- ously.
 "You've got middling strong grip of your fist for one of the overgrown sort, said he. "Where's your friend. John Brent?'
 g"Here in London, searching for Miss Chtheroer' @s
 "Where's your horse-the black?"
 'sDead! Shot and drowned in the Mis- souri, helping off fugitive slave"
 ''That's brave. We'll, Richard Wade, my dear child Ellen Clitheroe and her father are here in my house. They are safe here, after all their troubles, up in that room where perhaps you marked the roses in the window. She has been sick at heart to have heard nothing from you since she came to England. It'will be the one thing she lacks to see you, and if you will let me say few words to you first, I'll take you to them"
 ''Go on. If you have protected my friends, you are my friend, and want to hear what you have to. say"
 ''I am short, and shall try to make a long story short" said Padiham. "l wish to tell you, in as few words as may, why MT. Clitheroe and his daughter are in my house.
 "Look at me, stunted man! Life in coal mine stunted me. suppose was born underground. know that I never remember when 1 was not at work, either harnessed like dog and dragging coals through shop where I could not stand upright, or, when grew stronger bigger I was not to grow-down in the darkest holes, beating out with a pickax stuff to make other mems houses warm and cheery. If had had air and sun and light and hope I might have been a shapely man.
 "It was in Lancashire, the coal mine where had been shut up, boy and man. some twenty years, as reckon. There came one day,a weakly man, who hadn't been used to work hard, into the shaft and they put him at drawing out. the coals dug. Hugh was the name he gave, and he hadn't been long @nough underground to get his face black be- h0v ! had never seen a gentleman to know him, but l had a feeling of what one ought to be, and so had my mates in the pit. Gentleman Hugh seemed to us tc suit the nickname we gave him. We're roughs down in the coal pits, and some of us are brntes enough: but Gentleman Hugh managed to get us all on his side and there wasn't man of us that wouldn't give him lift.
 ''Gentleman Hugh took fancy to me and so did to him. Nature had mis used me and life had misused him. We had something to pity each other for But I had the advantage in the dark damp hole where we worked. had lost | nothing; Iknew of nothing better; was healthy and strong if I was stunted; could help Gentleman Hugh and save him wearing himself out. And so l did He was the first person or creature had ever cared for.
 -'I did what could for him in Tighten. ing his work, but he gave me back a hun. dred times what l could give. was hands without head, or without any head that could make my hands of use. He had head enough, and things in his head but his hands were never meant fol tools to get living. Gentleman Hugh walked up my brains. l knew how tc pick and dig, and sometimes wondered if that was all should ever be at. But air and daylight seemed as if they did not belong to me. was drudge and never thought of anything but drudging until Gentleman Hugh came down into my shaft and began to tell me what there was outside of coal mines.
 "He told me about himself; that he was Hugh Clitheroe, gentleman, and how he had been ruined by factories and coal speculations. It was his losing his fortune in coal mine that set him on coming into ours to make his bread, and poor bread, too, for gentleman. He said he was sick of daylight. It was better to be g drudge, so he said, down in the blackest and wettest hole of any coalpit in Lancashire than to beg bread of men that pretended to be his friends when he was rich, and sneered at him for his folly in losing his wealth. found out that there were wrongs and brutality above ground as we'll as un- der it.
 By and by, when Gentleman Hugh and had got to be friends, he took me one holiday and showed me his daugh- ter. She was sweet little lass. He had left her with the rough women, tine miners wives. But she had her own way with them just as he had had with us. They called her little Lady Ellen, and would have cut up their own brats, | if thov ho1nsf hoov too fo,,r,b oh h., d