you will not have long to wait for the declaration of war."
Rhodes kept his word. Within a week a large force of men had begun to dig the foundations for another mill, higher up the stream than Burley's. Jonathan winced at the coming competition; but he had not, during the months it was in process of erection, any idea of the deeper wrong that was to follow.
But it was bad enough to see the edifice growing as rapidly as unstinted money and labor could produce it; and it soon became an almost intolerable eyesore to him. Aske never appeared in the new enterprise. A man from Halifax, called Sykes, was the nominal proprietor, but Burley knew well whose money and power was behind him. And Sykes, too, was a blustering, hectoring fellow, whose manner was especially offensive to Jonathan; a very Mordecai passing his mill-gates.
When the new mill-building was completed it was filled with machinery and looms of the best description, and such high wages were offered to first-class hands as speedily robbed Burley of most of his fine workers. Almost every day there was some irritation of this kind; and the
