Time had gone on. It was a gloomy winter's evening. Not that, reckoning by the seasons, it could be called winter yet; but it was getting near it, and the night was dark and sloppy, and blowing and rainy. The wind went booming down Daffodil's Delight, sending the fierce rain before it in showers, and the pools gleamed in the reflected light of the gas-lamps, as wayfarers splashed through them and stirred up their muddy waters.
The luxurious and comfortable in position—those at ease in the world, who could issue their orders to attentive tradespeople at their morning's leisure—had no necessity to be abroad on that inclement Saturday night. Not so Daffodil's Delight; there was not much chance (taking it collectively) of a dinner for the morrow, at the best; but, unless they went abroad, there was none. The men had not gone to work yet, and times were bad.
Down the street, to one particular corner shop, which had three gilt-coloured balls hanging outside it, flocked the stream—chiefly females. Not together. They mostly walked in units, and, some of them at least, in a covert sort of manner, keeping in the shade of dead walls, and of dark houses, as if not caring to be seen. Amongst the latter, stole one who appeared more especially fearful of being recognised. She was a young woman, comely once, but pale and hollow-eyed now, her bones too sharp for her skin. Well wrapped up, was she, against the weather; her cloth cloak warm, a fur round her neck, and india-rubber shoes. Choosing her time to approach the shop when the coast should be tolerably clear, she glanced cautiously in at the window and door, and entered.
Laying upon the counter a small parcel, which she carried folded in a handkerchief, she displayed a cardboard box to the sight of the shop's master, who came forward to attend to her. It contained a really handsome set of corals, fashioned like those worn in the days when our mothers were young; a necklace of six rows ofsmall beads, with a gold snap made to imitate a rose, a long coral bead set in it. A pair of gold earrings, with large pendant coral drops, lay beside it, and a large and handsome gold brooch, set likewise with corals.
'What, is ityou, Miss Baxendale?' he exclaimed, his tone expressive of some surprise.
'It is, indeed, Mr. Cox,' replied Mary. 'We all have to bend to these hard times. It's share and share alike in them. Will you please to look at these jewels?'
She tenderly drew aside the cotton which was over the trinkets—tenderly and reverently, almost as if a miniature live baby were lying there. Very precious were they to Mary. They were dear to her from association; and she also believed them to be of great value.
The pawnbroker glanced at them slightly, carelessly lifting one of the earrings in his hand, to feel its weight. The brooch he honoured with a closer inspection.
'What do you want upon them?' he asked.
'Nay,' said Mary, 'it is not for me to name a sum. What will you lend?'
'You are not accustomed to our business, or you would know that we like borrowers to mention their own ideas as to sum; and we give it if we can,' he rejoined with ready words. 'What do you ask?'
'If you would let me have four pounds upon them, began Mary, hesitatingly. But he snapped up the words.
'Four pounds! Why, Miss Baxendale, you can't know what you are saying. The fashion of these coral things is over and done with. They are worth next to nothing.'
Mary's heart beat quicker in its sickness of disappointment.
'They are genuine, sir, if you'll please to look. The gold is real gold, and the coral is the best coral; my poor mother has told me so many a time. Her godmother was a lady, well-to-do in the world, and the things were a present from her.'
'If they were not genuine, I'd not lend as many pence upon them,' said the man. 'With a little alteration the brooch might be made tolerably modern; otherwise their value would be no more than old gold. In selling them, I——'
'It will not come to that, Mr. Cox,' interrupted Mary. 'Please God spares me a little while—and, since the hot weather went out, I feel a bit stronger—I shall soon redeem them.'
Mr. Cox looked at her thin face; he listened to her short breath; and he drew his own conclusions. There was a line of pity in his hard face, for he had long respected Mary Baxendale.
'By the way the strike seems to be lasting on, there doesn't seem much promise of a speedy end to it,' quoth he, in answer. 'I never was so over-done with pledges.'
'My work does not depend upon that,' said Mary. 'Let me get up a little strength, and I shall have as much work as I can do. And I am well paid, Mr. Cox: I have a private connection. I am not like the poor seamstresses who make skirts for fourpence a-piece.'
Mr. Cox made no immediate reply to this, and therewas a pause. The open box lay before him. He took up the necklace and examined its clasp.
'I will lend you a sovereign upon them.'
She lifted her face pitiably, and the tears glistened in her eyes.
'It would be of no use to me,' she whispered. 'I want the money for a particular purpose, otherwise I should never have brought here these gifts of my mother's. She gave them to me the day I was eighteen, and I have tenderly kept them from desecration.'
Poor Mary! From desecration!
'I have heard her say what they cost; but I forget now. I know it was over ten pounds.'
'But the day for this fashion has gone by. To ask four pounds upon them was preposterous; and you would know it to be so, were you acquainted with the trade.'
'Will you lend me two pounds, then?'
The tone was tremblingly eager, the face beseeching—a wan face, telling of the coming grave. Possibly the thought struck the pawnbroker, and awoke some humanity within him.
'I shall lose by it, I know, if it comes to a sale. I'd not do it for anybody else, Miss Baxendale.'
He proceeded to write out the ticket, his thoughts running upon whether—if it did come to a sale—he could not make three pounds by the brooch alone. As he was handing her the money, somebody rushed in, close to the spot occupied by Mary, and dashed down a large-sized paper parcel on the counter. She wore ablack lace bonnet, which had once been white, frayed, and altogether the worse for wear, independent of its dirt. It was tilted on the back of her head, displaying a mass of hair in front, half grey, half black, and exceedingly in disorder; together with a red face. It was Mrs. Dunn.
'Well, to be sure! if it's not Mary Baxendale! I thought you was too much of the lady to put your nose inside a pop-shop. Don't it go again the grain?' she ironically added, for she did not appear to be in the sweetest of tempers.
'It does indeed, Mrs. Dunn,' was the girl's meek answer, as she took her money and departed.
'Now then, old Cox, just attend to me,' began Mrs. Dunn. 'I have brought something as you don't get offered every day.'
Mr. Cox, accustomed to the scant ceremony bestowed upon him by some of the ladies of Daffodil's Delight, took the speech with indifference, and gave his attention to the parcel, from which Mrs. Dunn was rapidly taking off the twine.
'What's this—silk?' cried he, as a roll of dress-silk, brown, cross-barred with gold, came forth to view.
'Yes, it is silk; and there's fourteen yards of it; and I want thirty shillings upon it,' volubly replied Mrs. Dunn.
He took the silk between his fingers, feeling its substance, in his professionally indifferent and disparaging manner.
'Where did you get it from?' he asked.
'Where did I get it from?' retorted Mrs. Dunn. 'What's that to you!' D'ye think I stole it?'
'How do I know?' returned he.
'You insolent fellow! Is it only to-day as you have knowed me, Tom Cox? My name's Hannah Dunn; and I don't want you to testify to my honesty; I can hold up my head in Daffodil's Delight just as well as you can—perhaps a little better. Concern yourself with your own business. I want thirty shillings upon that.'
'It isn't worth thirty shillings in the shop, new,' was the rejoinder.
'What?' shrieked Mrs. Dunn. 'It cost three-and-fourpence halfpenny a yard, every yard of it, and there's fourteen of 'em, I tell you.'
'I don't care if it cost six-and-fourpence halfpenny, it's not worth more than I say. I'll lend you ten shillings upon it, and I should lose then.'
'Where do you expect to go to when you die?' demanded Mrs. Dunn, in a tone that might be heard half over the length and breadth of Daffodil's Delight. 'I wouldn't tell such lies for the paltry sake of grinding folks down; no, not if you made me a duchess to-morrow for it.'
'Here, take the silk off. I have not got time to bother: it's Saturday night.'
He swept the parcel, silk, paper, and string, towards her, and was turning away. She leaned over the counter and seized upon him.
'You want a opposition in the place, that's what you want, Master Cox! You have been cock o' the walkover Daffodil's Delight so long, that you think you can treat folks as if they was dirt. You be over-done with business, that's what you be; you're a making gold as fast as they makes it in Aurstraliar; we shall have you a setting up your tandem next. What'll you give me upon that silk?'
'I'll give you ten shillings; I have said so. You may take it or not; it's at your own option.'
More contending; but the pawnbroker was firm; and Mrs. Dunn was forced to accept the offer, or else take away her silk.
'How long is this strike going to last?' he asked, as he made out the duplicate.
The words excited the irascibility of Mrs. Dunn.
'Strike!' she uttered, in a flaming passion. 'Who dares to call it a strike? It's not a strike; it's a lock-out.'
'Lock-out, then. The two things come to the same, don't they? Is there a chance of its coming to an end?'
'No, they don't come to the same,' shrieked Mrs. Dunn. 'A strike's what it is—a strike; a act of noble independence which the British workman may be proud on. A lock-out is a nasty, mean, overbearing tyranny on the part of the masters. Now, old Cox! call it a strike again.'
'But I hear the masters' shops are open again—for anybody to go to work that likes,' replied Mr. Cox, quite imperturbable.
'They be open for slaves to go to work, not for free-born men,' retorted Mrs. Dunn, her shrieking voice ata still higher pitch. 'I hope the men'll hold out for ever, I do! I hope the masters 'll be drove, everyone of 'em, into the dust and dregs of the bankruptcy court! I hope their sticks and stones 'll be sold up, down to their children's cradles——'
'There, that's enough,' interposed the pawnbroker, as he handed her what he had to give. 'You'll be collecting a crowd round the door, if you go on like that. Here's somebody else waiting for your place.'
It was Mrs. Cheek, an especial friend of the lady's now being dismissed. Mrs. Cheek was carefully carrying a basket which contained various chimney ornaments—pretty enough in their places, but not of much value. The pawnbroker, after some haggling, not so intemperately carried on as the bargain just concluded, advanced six shillings on them.
'I had wanted twelve,' she said; 'and I can't do with less.'
'I am willing to lend it,' returned he, 'if you bring goods accordingly.'
'I have stripped the place of a'most all the light things as can be spared,' said Mrs. Cheek. 'One doesn't care to begin upon the heavy furniture and the necessaries.'
'Is there no chance of the present state of affairs coming to an end?' inquired Mr. Cox, putting the same question to which he had not got a direct answer from Mrs. Dunn. 'The men can go back to work if they like; the masters' yards are open again.'
'Open!' returned Mrs. Cheek, in a guttural tone, asshe threw back her head in disdain; 'they have been open some time, if you callthatopening 'em. If a man likes to go as a sneaking coward, and work upon the terms offered now, knuckling down to the masters, and putting his hand to their mean old odious document, severing himself from the Union, he can do it. It ain't many of our men as you'll find do that dirty work. If my husband was to attempt it, I'd be ready to skin him alive.'
'But the men have gone back in some parts of the metropolis.'
'Men, do you call 'em. A few may; one black sheep out of a flock. They ain't men, they are half-castes. Let them look to theirselves,' concluded Mrs. Cheek significantly, as she quitted the pawnbroker's shop with a fling.
At the butcher's stall, a few paces further, she came up to Mrs. Dunn, who was standing in the glare of the blazing gaslight, in the incessant noise of the 'Buy, buy, buy! what'll you buy?' Not less than a dozen women were congregated there, elbowing each other, as they turned over the scraps of meat set out for sale in small heaps—sixpence the lot, a shilling the lot, according to quality and quantity. In the prosperous time when their husbands were in full work, these ladies had scornfully disdained such heaps on a Saturday night. They had been wont then to buy a good joint for the Sunday's dinner. One of the women nudged another in her vicinity, directing her attention to the inside of the shop. 'Just twig Mother Shuck; she's a being served, I hope!'
'Mother Shuck,' Slippery Sam's better half, was making her purchases in the agreeable confidence of possessing money to pay for them—liver and bacon for the present evening's supper, and a breast of veal, to be served with savoury herbs, for the morrow's dinner. In the old times, while the throng of women now outside had been able to make the same or similar purchases,shehad hovered without like a hungry hyena, hanging over the cheap portions with covetous eyes and fingers, as many another poor wife had done, whose husband could not or would not work. Times were changed.
'I can't afford nothing, hardly, I can't,' grumbled Mrs. Cheek. 'What's the good of six shillings for a Saturday night, when everything's wanted, from the rent down to a potater? The young 'uns have got their bare feet upon the boards, as may be said, for their shoes be without toes and heels; and who is to get 'em others? I wish that Cox was a bit juster. He's a getting rich upon our spoils. Six shillings for that lot as I took him in!'
'I wish he was smothered!' struck in Mrs. Dunn. 'He took and asked me if I'd stole the silk. It was that lovely silk, you know, as I was fool enough to go and choose the week of the strike, on the strength of the good times a coming. We have had something else to do since, instead of making up silk gownds.'
'The good times ain't come yet,' said Mrs. Cheek, shortly. 'I wish the old 'uns was back again, if we could get 'em without stooping to the masters.'
'It was at the shop where Mary Ann and Jemimardeals, when they has to get in things for their customers' work,' resumed Mrs. Dunn, continuing the subject of the silk. 'I shouldn't have had credit at any other place. Fourteen yards I bought of it, and three-and-fourpence halfpenny I gave for every yard of it; I did, I protest to you, Elizar Cheek; and that swindling old screw had the conscience to offer me ten shillings for the whole!'
'Is the silk paid for?'—'Paid for!' wrathfully repeated Mrs. Dunn; 'has it been a time to pay for silk gownds when our husbands be under a lock-out? Of course it's not paid for, and the shop's a beginning to bother for it; but they'll be none the nearer getting it. I say, master, what'll you weigh in these fag ends of mutton and beef at—the two together?' It will be readily understood, from the above conversation and signs, that in the several weeks that had elapsed since the commencement of the lock-out, things, socially speaking, had been going backwards. The roast goose and other expected luxuries had not come yet. The masters' works were open—open to any who would go to work in them, provided they renounced all connection with the Trades' Unions. Daffodil's Delight, taking it collectively, would not have this at any price, and held out. The worst aspect in the affair—I mean for the interests of the men—was, that strange workmen were assembling from different parts of the country, accepting the work which they refused. Of course this feature in the dispute was most bitter to the men; they lavished their abuse upon the masters for employing strange hands; and they would have been glad to lavishsomething worse than abuse up on the hands themselves. One of the masters compared them to the fable of the dog in the manger—they would not take the work, and they would not let (by their good will) anybody else take it. Incessant agitation was maintained. The workmen were in a sufficiently excited state, as it was; and, to help on that which need not have been helped, the agents of the Trades' Union kept the ball rolling—an incendiary ball, urging obstinacy and spreading discontent. But this little history has not so much to do with the political phases of the unhappy dispute, as with its social effects.
As Mary Baxendale was returning home from the pawnbroker's, she passed Mrs. Darby, who was standing at her own door looking at the weather. 'Mary, girl,' was the salutation, 'this is not a night for you to be abroad.'
'I was obliged to go,' was the reply. 'How are the children?'
'Come in and see them,' said Mrs. Darby. She led the way into a back room, which, at the first glance, seemed to be covered with mattresses and children. A large family had Robert Darby—indeed, it was a complaint prevalent in Daffodil's Delight. They were of various ages; these, lying on the mattresses, six of them, were from four to twelve years. The elder ones were not at home. The room had a close, unhealthy smell, which struck especially on the senses of Mary, rendered sensitive from illness.
'What have you got them all in this room for?' she exclaimed, in the impulse of the moment.
'I have given up the rooms above,' was Mrs. Darby's reply.
'But—when the children were ill—was it a time to give up rooms?' debated Mary.
'No,' replied Mrs. Darby, who spoke as if she were heart-broken, in a sad, subdued tone, the very reverse of Mesdames Dunn and Cheek. 'But how could we keep on the top rooms when we were unable to get together the rent, to pay for them? I spoke to the landlord, and he is letting the back rent stand a bit, not to sell us up; and I gave up to him the two top rooms; and we all sleep in here together.'
'I wish the men would go back to work!' said Mary, with a sigh.
'Mary my heart's just failing within me,' said Mrs. Darby, her tone a sort of wail. 'Here's winter coming on, and all of them out of work. If it were not for my daughter, who is in service, and brings us her wages as she gets them, I believe we should just have starved. Imustget medicine, for the children, though we go without bread.'
'It is not medicine they want: it is nourishment,' said Mary.
'It is both. Nourishment would have done when they were first ailing, but now that it has turned to low fever, they must have medicine, or it will grow into typhus. It's bark they have to take, and it costs——'
'Mother! mother!' struck up a plaintive voice, that of the eldest of the children lying there, 'I want more of that nice drink!'
'I have not got it, Willy. You know that you had it all. Mrs. Quale brought me round a pot of black currant jelly,' she explained to Mary, 'and I poured boiling water on it to make drink. Their little parched throats did so relish it, poor things.'
Mary knelt on the floor and put her hand on the child's moist brow. He was a pretty boy; fair and delicate, with light curls falling round his face. A gentle, thoughtful, intelligent boy he had ever been, but less healthy than some. 'You are thirsty, Willy?'
He opened his heavy eyelids, and the large round blue eyes glistened with fever, as they were lifted to see who spoke.
'How do you do, Mary?' he meekly said. 'Yes, I am so thirsty. Mother said perhaps she should have a sixpence to-night to buy a pot of jelly like Mrs. Quale's.' Mrs. Darby coloured slightly; she thought Mary must reflect on the extravagance implied. Sixpence for jelly, when they were wanting money for a loaf!
'I did say it to him,' she whispered, as she was quitting the room with Mary. 'I thought I might spare a sixpence out of what Darby got from the society. But I can't; I can't. There's so many things we cannot do without, unless we just give up, and lie down and don't even try at keeping body and soul together. Rent, and coals, and candles, and soap; and we must eat something. Darby, too, of course he wants a trifle for beer and tobacco. Mary, I say I am just heart-faint. If the poor boy should die, it'll be upon my mind for ever,that the drink he craved for in his last illness couldn't be got for him.'
'Does he crave for it?'
'Nothing was ever like it. All day long it has been his sad, pitiful cry. "Have you got the jelly yet, mother? Oh, mother, if I could but have the drink!"'
As Mary went through the front room, Robert Darby was in it then. His chin rested on his hands, his elbows were on the table; altogether he looked very down-hearted.
'I have been to see Willy,' she cried.
'Ah, poor little chap!' It was all he said; but the tone implied more.
'Things seem to be getting pretty low with us all. I wish there could be a change,' continued Mary.
'How can there be, while the masters and the Unions are at loggerheads?' he asked. 'Us men be between the two, and between the two we come to the ground. It's like sitting on two stools at once.'
Mary proceeded to the shop where jelly was sold, an oilman's, bought a sixpenny pot, and took it back to Mrs. Darby's, handing it in at the door. 'Why did you do it, Mary? You cannot afford it.'
'Yes, I can. Give it to Willy, with my love.'
'He will only be out of a world of care, if God does take him,' sighed Mary to herself, as she bent her steps homeward. 'Oh, father!' she continued aloud, encountering John Baxendale at their own gate, 'I wish this sad state of things could be ended. There's thepoor little Darbys worse instead of better. They are all lying in one room, down with fever.'
'God help us if fever should come!' was the reply of John Baxendale.
'It is not catching fever yet. They have given up their top chambers, and are all sleeping in that back room. Poor Willie craved for a bit of jelly, and Mrs. Darby could not get it him.'
'Better crave for that than for worse things,' returned John Baxendale. 'I am just a walking about here, because I can't bear to stop indoors. Ican'tpay the rent, and the things must go.'
'No, father, they need not. He said if you would get up two pounds towards it, he would give time for the rest. If——'
'Two pounds!' ejaculated John Baxendale, 'where am I to get two pounds from? Borrow of them that have been provident, and so are better off, in this distress, than me? No, that I never will.'
Mary opened her hand, and displayed two sovereigns held in its palm. They sparkled in the gaslight. 'The money is my own, father. Take it.' A sudden revulsion of feeling came over Baxendale—he seemed to have passed from despair to hope.—'Child,' he gently said, 'did an angel send it?' And Mary, worn with weakness, with long-continued insufficient food, sad with the distress around her, burst into tears, and, bending her head upon his arm, sobbed aloud.
The Shucks had got a supper party. On this same Saturday night, when the wind was blowing outside, and the rain was making the streets into pools, two or three friends had dropped into Sam Shuck's—idlers like Sam himself—and were hospitably invited to remain. Mrs. Shuck was beginning to fry the liver and bacon she had just brought in, with the accompaniment of a good peck of onions, and Sam and his friends were staying their appetites with pipes and porter. When Mary Baxendale and her father entered—Mary having lingered a minute outside, until her emotion had passed, and her eyes were dry—they could scarcely find their way across the kitchen, what with the clouds from the pipes, and the smoke from the frying-pan. There was a great deal of laughter going on. Prosperity had not yet caused the Shucks to change their residence for a better one. Perhaps that was to come: but Sam's natural improvidence stood in the way of much change.
'You are merry to-night,' observed Mary, by way of being sociable.
'It's merrier inside nor out, a-wading through the puddles and the sharp rain,' replied Mrs. Shuck, without turning round from her employment. 'It's some'at new to see you out such a night as this, Mary Baxendale! Don't you talk about folks wanting sense again.'
'I don't know that I ever do talk of it,' was the inoffensive reply of Mary, as she followed her father up the stairs.
Mrs. Baxendale was hushing a baby when they entered their room. She looked very cross. The best-tempered will do so, under the long-continued embarrassment of empty purses and empty stomachs. 'Who has been spreading it up and down the place thatweare in trouble about the rent?' she abruptly demanded, in no pleasant voice. 'That girl of Ryan's was here just now—Judy. She knew it, it seems, and she didn't forget to speak of it. Mary, what a simpleton you are, to be out in this rain!'
'Never mind who speaks of the rent, Mrs. Baxendale, so long as it can be paid,' said Mary, sitting down in the first chair to get her breath up, after mounting the stairs. 'Father is going to manage it, so that we shan't have any trouble at present. It's all right.'
'However have you contrived it?' demanded Mrs. Baxendale of her husband, in a changed tone.
'Mary has contrived it—not I. She has just put two pounds into my hand. Where did you get it, child?'—'It does not signify your knowing that, father.'
'If I don't know it, I shan't use the money,' he answered, shortly.—'Why, surely, father, you can trust me!' she rejoined.
'That is not it, Mary,' said John Baxendale. 'I don't like to use borrowed money, unless I know who it has been borrowed from.'
'It was not borrowed, in your sense of the word,father. I have only done what you and Mrs. Baxendale have been doing lately. I pledged that set of coral ornaments of my mother's. Had you forgotten them?'
'Why, yes, I had forgot 'em,' cried he. 'Coral ornaments! I declare they had as much slipped my memory, as if she had never possessed them.'
'Cox would only lend me two pounds upon them. Father, I hope I shall some time get them redeemed.' John Baxendale made no reply. He turned to pace the small room, evidently in deep thought. Mary, her poor short breath gathered again, took off her wet cloak and bonnet. Presently, Mrs. Baxendale put the loaf upon the table, and some cold potatoes.
'Couldn't you have brought in a sausage or two for yourself, Mary, or a red herring?' she said. 'You had got a shilling in your pocket.'
'I can eat a potato,' said Mary; 'it don't much matter about me.'
'It matters about us all, I think,' cried Mrs. Baxendale. 'What a delicious smell of onions!' she added in a parenthesis. 'Them Shucks have got the luck of it just now. Us, and the children, and you, are three parts starved—I know that, Mary.Wemay weather it—it's to be hoped we shall; but it will just kill you.'
'No, it shan't,' said John Baxendale, turning to them with a strangely stern decision marked upon his countenance. 'This night has decided me, and I'll go and do it.'
'Go and do what?' exclaimed his wife, a sort of fear in her tone.
'I'll go toWORK, please God, Monday morning comes,' he said, with emphasis. 'The thought has been hovering in my mind this week past.'
'It's just the thing you ought to have done weeks ago,' observed Mrs. Baxendale.
'You never said it.'—'Not I. It's best to let men come to their senses of their own accord. You mostly act by the rules of contrary, you men; if I had advised your going to work next Monday morning, you'd just have stopped away.'
Passing over this conjugal compliment in silence, John Baxendale descended the stairs. He possessed a large share of the open honesty of the genuine English workman. He disdained to do things in a corner. It would not suit him to return to work the coming Monday morning on what might be called 'the sly;' he preferred to act openly, and to declare it to the Trades' Union previously, in the person of their paid agent, Sam Shuck. This he would do at once, and for that purpose entered the kitchen. The first instalment of the supper was just served: which was accomplished by means of a tin dish placed on the table, and the contents of the frying-pan being turned unceremoniously into it. Sam and the company deemed the liver and bacon were best served hot and hot, so they set themselves to eat, while Mrs. Shuck continued to fry.
'I have got just a word to say, Shuck; I shan't disturb you,' began John Baxendale. But Shuck interrupted him.
'It's of no use, Baxendale, your remonstrating about the short allowance. Think of the many mouths thereis to feed. It's hard times, we all know, thanks to the masters; but our duty, ay, and our pride too, must lie in putting up with them, like men.'
'It's not very hard times with you, at any rate,' said John Baxendale, sniffing involuntarily the savoury odour, and watching the tempting morsels consumed. 'My business here is not to remonstrate at anything, but to inform you that I shall resume work on Monday.'
The announcement took Sam by surprise. He dropped the knife with which he was cutting the liver, held upon his bread—for the repast was not served fashionably, with a full complement of plates and dishes—and stared at Baxendale—'What!' he uttered.
'I have had enough of it. I shall go back on Monday morning.'
'Are you a fool, Baxendale? Or a knave?'
'Sometimes I think I must be a fool,' was the reply, given without irritation. 'Leastways, I have wondered lately whether I am or not: when there has been full work and full wages to be had for the asking, and I have not asked, but have let my wife and children and Mary go down to starvation point.'
'You have been holding out for principle,' remonstrated Sam.
'I know; and principle is a very good thing when you are sure it's the right principle. But flesh and blood can't stand out for ever.'
'After standing out as long as this, I'd try and stand out a bit longer,' cried Sam. 'Youmust, Baxendale; you can't turn traitor now.'
'You say "a bit," longer, Sam Shuck. It has been "a bit longer," and "a bit longer," for some time past; but the bit doesn't come to any ending. There's no more chance of the masters' coming to, than there was at first, but a great deal less. The getting of these men from the country will render them independent of us. What is to become of us then?'
'Rubbish!' said Sam Shuck. 'The masters must come to: they can't stand against the Unions. Because a sprinkling of poor country workmen have thrust in their noses, and the masters are keeping open their works on the show of it, is that a reason why we should knuckle down? They are doing it to frighten us.'
'Look here,' said Baxendale. 'I have two women and two children on my hands, and one of the women is next door to the grave; I am threatened—youknow it, Sam Shuck—with a lodging for them in the street next week, because I have not been able to pay the rent; I have parted by selling and pledging, with nearly all there is to part with, of my household goods. There was what they call a Bible reader round last week, and he says, pleasantly, "Why don't you kneel down and ask God to consider your condition, Mr. Baxendale?" Very good. But how can I do that? Isn't it just a mockery for me to pray for help to provide for me and mine? If God was pleased to answer us in words, would not the answer be, "There is work, and to spare; you have only got to do it?"'
'Well, that's grand,' put in one of Sam's guests, mostof whom had been staring with open mouths. 'As if folks asked God about such things as this!'
'Since my late wife died, I have thought about it more than I used to,' said Baxendale, simply, 'and I have got to see that there's no good to be done in anything without it. But how can I in reason ask for help now, when I don't help myself? The work is ready to my hand, and I don't take it. So, Sam, my mind's made up at last. You'll tell the Union.'
'No, I shan't. You won't go to work.'
'You'll see. I shall be glad to go. I haven't had a proper meal this——'
'You'll think better of it between now and Monday morning,' interrupted Sam, drowning the words. 'I'll have a talk with you to-morrow. Have a bit of supper, Baxendale?'
'No, thank ye. I didn't come in to eat your victuals,' he added, moving to the door.
'We have got plenty,' said Mrs. Shuck, turning round from the frying-pan. 'Here, eat it up-stairs, if you won't stop, Baxendale.' She took out a slice of liver and of bacon, and handed them to him on a saucer. What a temptation it was to the man, sick with hunger! However, he was about to refuse, when he thought of Mary.
'Thank ye, Mrs. Shuck. I'll take it, then, if you can spare it. It will be a treat to Mary.' Like unto the appearance of water in the arid desert to the parched and exhausted traveller, was the sight of that saucer of meat to Mary. Terribly did she often crave for it. John Baxendale positively refused to touch any; soMary divided it into two portions, giving one to Mrs. Baxendale. The woman's good-nature—her sense of Mary's condition—would have led her to refuse it; but she was not quite made up of self-denial, and she felt faint and sinking. John Baxendale cut a thick slice of bread, rubbed it over the remains of gravy in the saucer, and ate that. 'Please God, this shall have an end,' he mentally repeated. 'I think Ihavebeen a fool!'
Mr. Hunter's yard—as it was familiarly called in the trade—was open just as were other yards, though as yet he had but few men at work in it; in fact, so little was doing that it was almost equivalent to a stand-still. Mr. Henry Hunter was better off. A man of energy, determined to stand no nonsense, as he himself expressed it, he had gone down to country places, and engaged many hands.
On the Monday following the above Saturday night, John Baxendale presented himself to Austin Clay and requested to be taken on again. Austin complied at once, glad to do so, and told the man he was wise to come to his senses. Mr. Hunter was not at business that day; 'too unwell to leave home' was the message carried to Austin Clay. In the evening Austin went to the house: as was usual when Mr. Hunter did not make his appearance at the works in the day. Florence was alone when he entered. Evidently in distress; though she strove to hide it from him, to turn it off with gay looks and light words. But he noted the signs. 'What is your grief, Florence?' he asked, speaking in an earnest tone of sympathy.
It caused the tears to come forth again. Austin took her hands and drew her to him, as either a lover or a brother might have done, leaving her to take it as she pleased.
'Let me share it, Florence, whatever it may be.'
'It is nothing more than usual,' she answered; 'but somehow my spirits are low this evening. I try to bear up bravely; and I do bear up: but, indeed, this is an unhappy home. Mamma is sinking fast; I see it daily. While papa——' But for making the abrupt pause, she would have broken down. Austin turned away: he did not choose that she should enter upon any subject connected with Mr. Hunter. This time Florence would not be checked: as she had been hitherto. 'Austin, I cannot bear it any longer. What is it that is overshadowing papa?' she continued, her voice, her whole manner full of dread. 'I am sure that some misfortune hangs over the house.'
'I wish I could take you out of it,' was the impulsive and not very relevant answer. 'I can tell you nothing, Florence,' he concluded more soberly. 'Mr. Hunter has many cares in business; but the cares are his own.'
'Austin, is it kind of you to try to put me off so? I can bear reality, whatever it may be, better than suspense. It is for papa I grieve. See how ill he is! And yet he has no ailment of body, only of mind. Night after night he paces his room, never sleeping.'
'How do you know that?' Austin inquired.
'Because I listen to it.'—'You should not do so.'
'I cannothelplistening to him. How is it possible? His room is near mine, and when his footsteps aresounding in it, in the midnight silence, hour after hour, my ears grow sensitively quick. I say that loving him, I cannot help it. Sometimes I think that if I only knew the cause, the nature of his sorrow, I might soothe it—perhaps help to remove it.'
'As if young ladies could ever help or remove the cares of business!' he cried, speaking lightly.
'I am not a child, Austin,' she resumed: 'it is not kind of you to make pretence that I am, and try to put me off as one. Papa's trouble isnotconnected with business, and I am sure you know that as well as I do. Will you not tell me what it is?'
'Florence, you can have no grounds for assuming that I am cognisant of it.'
'I feel very sure that you are. Can you suppose that I should otherwise speak of it to you?'
'I say that you can have no grounds for the supposition. By what do you so judge?'
'By signs,' she answered. 'I can read it in your countenance, your actions. I was pretty sure of it before that day when you sent me hastily into your rooms, lest I should hear what the man Gwinn was about to say; but I have been fully sure since. What he would have said related to it; and, in some way, the man is connected with the ill. Besides, you have been on confidential terms with papa for years.'
'On business matters only: not on private ones. My dear Florence, I must request you to let this subject cease, now and always. I know nothing of its nature from your father; and if my own thoughts have in anyway strayed towards it, it is not fitting that I should give utterance to them.'
'Tell me one thing: could I be of any service, in any way?'
'Hush, Florence,' he uttered, as if the words had struck upon some painful cord. 'The only service you can render is, by taking no notice of it. Do not think of it if you can help; do not allude to it to your mother.'
'I never do,' she interrupted.—'That is well.'
'You have sometimes said you cared for me.'
'Well?' he rejoined, determined to be as contrary as he could.
'If you did, you would not leave me in this suspense. Only tell me the nature of papa's trouble, I will not ask further.'
Austin gathered his wits together, thinking what plea he should invent. 'It is a debt, Florence. Your papa contracted a debt many years ago; he thought it was paid; but by some devilry—pardon the word; I forgot I was talking to you—a lawyer, Gwinn of Ketterford, has proved that it was not paid, and he comes to press for instalments of it. That is all I know. And now you must give me your promise not to speak of this. I'll never tell you anything more if you do.'
Florence had listened attentively, and was satisfied.
'I will never speak of it,' she said. 'I think I understand it now. Papa fears he shall have no fortune left for me. Oh, if he only knew——'
'Hush, Florence!' came the warning whisper, for Mrs. Hunter was standing at the door.
'Is it you, Austin? I heard voices here, and wondered who had come in.'
'How are you, dear Mrs. Hunter?' he said to her as she entered. 'Better this evening?'
'Not better,' was Mrs. Hunter's answer, as she retained Austin's hand, and drew him on the sofa beside her. 'There will be no "better" for me in this world. Austin, I wish I could have gone from it under happier circumstances. Florence, I hear your papa calling.'
'Ifyouare not happy in the prospect of the future, who can be?' murmured Austin, as Florence left the room.
'I spoke not of myself. My concern is for Mr. Hunter. Austin, I would give every minute of my remaining days to know what terrible grief it is that has been so long upon him.' Austin was silent. Had Mrs. Hunter and Florence entered into a compact to annoy him? 'It has been like a dark shade upon our house for years. Florence and I have kept silence upon it to him, and to each other; to him we dare not speak, to each other we would not. Latterly it has seemed so much worse, that I was forced to whisper of it to her: I could not keep it in; the silence was killing me. We both agree that you are in his confidence; if so, perhaps you will satisfy me?'
Austin Clay felt himself in a dilemma. He could not speak of it in the light manner he had to Florence, or put off so carelessly Mrs. Hunter. 'I am not in his confidence, indeed, Mrs. Hunter,' he broke forth, glad to be able to say so much. 'That I have observed thesigns you speak of in Mr. Hunter, his embarrassment, his grief——'
'Say his fear, Austin.'
'His fear. That I have noticed this it would be vain to deny. But, Mrs. Hunter, I assure you he has never given me his confidence upon the subject. Quite the contrary; he has particularly shunned it with me. Of course I can give a very shrewd guess at the cause—he is pressed for money. Times are bad; and when a man of Mr. Hunter's thoughtful temperament begins to be really anxious on the score of money matters, it shows itself in various ways.'
Mrs. Hunter quitted the subject, perhaps partially reassured; at any rate convinced that no end would be answered by continuing it. 'I was mistaken, I suppose,' she said, with a sigh. 'At least you can tell me, Austin, how business is going on. How will it go on?'
Very grave turned Austin's face now. This was an open evil—one to be openly met and grappled with; and what his countenance gained in seriousness it lost in annoyance. 'I really do not see how it will go on,' was his reply, 'unless we can get to work soon. I want to speak to Mr. Hunter. Can I see him?'
'He will be in directly. He has not been down to-day yet. But I suppose you will wish to see him in private; I know he and you like to be alone when you talk upon business matters.'
At present it was expedient that Mrs. Hunter, at any rate, should not be present, if she was to be spared annoyance; for Mr. Hunter's affairs were growingominous. This was chiefly owing to the stoppage of works in process, and partly to the effect of a diminished capital. Austin as yet did not know all the apprehension, for Mr. Hunter contrived to keep some of it from him. That the diminishing of the capital was owing to Gwinn of Ketterford, Austin did know; at least, his surmises amounted to certainty. When a hundred pounds, or perhaps two hundred pounds, mysteriously went out, and Austin was not made acquainted with the money's destination, he drew his own conclusions.
'Are the men not learning the error of their course yet?' Mrs. Hunter resumed.
'They seem further off learning it than ever. One of them, indeed, came back to-day: Baxendale.'
'I felt sure he would be amongst the first to do so. He is a sensible man: how he came to hold out at all, is to me a matter of surprise.'
'He told me this morning, when he came and asked to be taken on again, that he wished he never had held out,' said Austin. 'Mary is none the better for it.'
'Mary was here to-day,' remarked Mrs. Hunter. 'She came to say that she was better, and could do some work if I had any. I fear it is a deceitful improvement. She is terribly thin and wan. No; this state of things must have been bad for her. She looks as if she were half famished.'
'She only looks what she is,' said Austin.
'Oh, Austin! I should have been so thankful to help her to strengthening food during this scarcity,' Mrs. Hunter exclaimed, the tears rising in her eyes. 'But Ihave not dared. You know what Mr. Hunter's opinion is—that the men have brought it upon themselves, and that, to help their families, only in the least degree, would be encouraging them to hold out, and would tend to prolong the contest. He positively forbade me helping any of them: and I could only obey. I have kept indoors as much as possible; that I might avoid the sight of the distress which I must not relieve. But I ordered Mary a good meal here this morning: Mr. Hunter did not object to that. Here he is.' Mr. Hunter entered, leaning upon Florence. He looked like an old man, rather than one of middle age.
'Baxendale is back, sir,' Austin observed, after a few words on business matters had passed in an under tone.
'Come to his senses at last, has he?' cried Mr. Hunter.
'That is just what I told him he had done, sir.'
'Has he signed the declaration?'
'Of course he has. The men have to do that, you know, sir, before they get any work. He says he wishes he had come back at first.'
'So do a good many others, in their hearts,' answered Mr. Hunter, significantly. 'But they can't pluck up the courage to acknowledge it.'
'The men are most bitter against him—urged on, no doubt, by the Union. They——'
'Against Baxendale?'
'Against Baxendale. He came to speak to me before breakfast. I gave him the declaration to read and sign, and sent him to work at once. In the course of the morning it had got wind; though Baxendale told me hehad given Sam Shuck notice of his intention on Saturday night. At dinner time, when Baxendale was quitting the yard, there were, I should say, a couple of hundred men assembled there——'
'The Daffodil Delight people?' interrupted Mr. Hunter.
'Yes. Our late men chiefly, and a sprinkling of Mr. Henry's. They were waiting there for Baxendale, and the moment he appeared, the yells, the hisses, the groans, were dreadful. I suspected what it was, and ran out. But for my doing so, I believe they would have set upon him.'
'Mark you, Clay! I will protect my workmen to the very limit of the law. Let the malcontents lay but a finger upon any one of them, and they shall assuredly be punished to the uttermost,' reiterated Mr. Hunter, bringing down his hand forcibly. 'What did you do?'
'I spoke to them just as you have now spoken,' said Austin. 'Their threatenings to the man were terrible. I dared them to lay a finger upon him; I assured them that the language they were using was punishable. Had the police been in the way—but the more you want them, the less they are to be seen—I should have handed a few into custody.'
'Who were the ringleaders?'—'I can scarcely tell. Ryan, the Irishman, was busy, and so was Jim Dunn; Cheek, also, backed by his wife.'
'Oh, you had women also!'
'In plenty,' said Austin. 'One of them—I think it was Cooper's wife—roared out a challenge to fightMrs.Baxendale, if her man, Cooper, as she expressed it, wastoo much of a woman to fighthim. There will be bloodshed, I fear, sir, before the thing is over.'
'If there is, let they who cause it look to themselves,' said Mr. Hunter, speaking as sternly as he felt. 'How did it end?'
'I cleared a passage for Baxendale, and they yelled and hooted him home,' replied Austin. "I suppose they'd like to take my life, sir," he said to me; "but I think I am only doing right in returning to work. I could not let my family and Mary quite starve." This afternoon all was quiet; Quale told me the men were holding a meeting.'
Florence was sitting with her hands clasped, her colour gradually rising. 'If they should—set upon Baxendale, and—and injure him!' she breathed.
'Then the law would see what it could do towards getting some of them punished,' sternly spoke Mr. Hunter.
'Oh, James!' interposed his wife, her pale cheeks flushing, as the words grated on her ears. 'Can nothing be done to prevent it? Prevention is better than cure. Austin, will you not give notice to the police, and tell them to be on the alert?'
'I have done it,' answered Austin.
'Papa,' said Florence, 'have you heard that Robert Darby's children are ill?—likely to die? They are suffering dreadfully from want. Mary Baxendale said so when she was here this morning.'
'I know nothing about Robert Darby or his children,' was the uncompromising reply of Mr. Hunter. 'If aman sees his children starving before him, and will not work to feed them, he deserves to find them ill. Florence, I see what you mean—you would like to ask me to permit you to send them relief.I will not.'
Do not judge of Mr. Hunter's humanity by the words, or deem him an unfeeling man. He was far from that. Had the men been out of work through misfortune, he would have been the first to forward them succour; many and many a time had he done it in cases of sickness. He considered, as did most of the other London masters, that to help the men or their families in any way, would but tend to prolong the dispute. And there was certainly reason in their argument—if the men wished to feed their children, why did they not work for them?
'Sir,' whispered Austin, when he was going, and Mr. Hunter went with him into the hall, 'that bill of Lamb's came back to us to-day, noted.'
'No!'—'It did, indeed. I had to take it up.'
Mr. Hunter lifted his hands. 'This wretched state of things! It will bring on ruin, it will bring on ruin. I heard one of the masters curse the men the other day in his perplexity and anger; there are times when I am tempted to follow his example. Ruin! for my wife and for Florence!'
'Mr. Hunter,' exclaimed Austin, greatly agitated, and speaking in the moment's impulse, 'why will you not give me the hope of winning her? I will make her a happy home——'
'Be silent!' sternly interrupted Mr. Hunter. 'I have told you that Florence can never be yours. Ifyou cannot put away this unthankful subject, at once and for ever, I must forbid you the house.'
'Good night, sir,' returned Austin. And he went away, sighing heavily.
How do the poor manage to pull through illness? Through distress, through hunger, through cold, through nakedness; above all, through the close, unwholesome atmosphere in which too many of them are obliged to live, they struggle on from sickness back to health. Look at the children of Robert Darby. The low fever which attacked them had in some inexplicable way been subdued, without its going on to the dreaded typhus. If typhus had appeared at that untoward time in Daffodil's Delight, why, then, no earthly power could have kept many from the grave. Little pale, pinched forms, but with the disease gone, there sat Darby's children. Colder weather had come, and they had gathered round the bit of fire in their close room: fire it could scarcely be called, for it was only a few decaying embers. All sat on the floor, save Willy; he was in a chair, leaning his head back on a pillow. The boy had probably never been fitted by constitution for a prolonged life, though he might have lasted some years more under favourable surroundings; as it was, fever and privation had donetheir work with him, and the little spirit was nearly worn out. Mrs. Darby had taken him round to Mr. Rice. 'He does not want me, he wants good nourishment, and plenty of it,' was the apothecary's announcement! And Mrs. Darby took him home again. 'Mother, the fire's nearly out.'
'I can't help it, Willy. There's no coal, and nothing to buy it with.'—'Take something, mother.'
You may or may not, as you are acquainted or not with the habits of the poor, be aware that this sentence referred to the pawnbroker: spoken out fully it would have been, 'Take something and pledge it, mother.' In cases of long-continued general distress, the children of a family know just as much about its ways and means as the heads do. Mrs. Darby cast her eyes round the kitchen. There was nothing to take, nothing that would raise them help, to speak of. As she stood over Willy, parting the hair with her gentle finger upon his little pale brow, her tears dropped upon his face. The pillow on which his head leaned? Ay; she had thought of that with longing; but how would his poor aching head do without it? The last things put in pledge had been Darby's tools. The latch of the door opened, and Grace entered. She appeared to be in some deep distress. Flinging herself on a chair, she clasped hold of her mother, sobbing wildly, clinging to her as if for protection. 'Oh, mother, they have accused me of theft; the police have been had to me!' were the confused words that broke from her lips. Grace had taken a service in a baker's family, where there was an excessively crossmistress. She was a well-conducted, honest girl, and, since the distress had commenced at home, had brought her wages straight to her mother, whenever they were paid her. For the last week or two, the girl had brought something more. On the days when she believed she could get a minute to run home in the evening, she had put by her allowance of meat at dinner—they lived well at the baker's—and made it upon bread and potatoes. Had Grace for a moment suspected there was anything wrong or dishonest in this, she would not have done it: she deemed the meat was hers, and she took it to Willy. On this day, two good slices of mutton were cut for her; she put them by, ate her potatoes and bread, and after dinner, upon being sent on an errand past Daffodil's Delight, was taking them out with her. The mistress pounced upon her. She abused her, she reproached her with theft, she called her husband to join in the accusation; and finally, a policeman was brought in from the street, probably more to frighten the girl than to give her in charge. It did frighten her in no measured degree. She protested, as well as she could do it for her sobs, that she had no dishonest thought; that she had believed the meat to be hers to eat it or not as she pleased, and that she was going to take it to her little brother, who was dying. The policeman decided that it was not a case for charge at the police-court, and the baker's wife ended the matter by turning her out. All this, with sobs and moans, she by degrees explained now.
Robert Darby, who had entered during the scene,placed his hand, more in sorrow than in anger, upon Grace's shoulder, in his stern honesty. 'Daughter, I'd far rather we all dropped down here upon the floor and died out with starvation, than that you should have brought home what was not yours to bring.'
'There's no need foryouto scold her, Robert,' spoke Mrs. Darby, with more temper than she, meek woman that she was, often betrayed: and her conscience told her that she had purposely kept these little episodes from her husband. 'It is the bits of meat she has fed him with twice or thrice a week that has just kept life in him; that's my firm belief.'
'She shouldn't have done it; it was not hers to bring,' returned Robert Darby.
'What else has he had to feed him?' proceeded the wife, determined to defend the girl. 'What do any of us have?Youare getting nothing.' The tone was a reproachful one. With her starving children before her, and one of them dying, the poor mother's wrung heart could but speak out.
'I know I am getting nothing. Is it my fault? I wish I could get something. I'd work my fingers to the bone to keep my children.'
'Robert, let me speak to you,' she said in an imploring tone, the tears gushing from her eyes. 'I have sat here this week and asked myself, every hour of it, what we shall do. All our things, that money can be made on, are gone; the pittance we get allowed by the society does not keep body and soul together; and this state of affairs gets worse, and will get worse. What isto become of us? What are we to do?' Robert Darby leaned in his old jacket—one considerably the worse for wear—against the kitchen wall, his countenance gloomy, his attitude bespeaking misery. He knew not what they were to do, therefore he did not attempt to say. Grace had laid down her inflamed face upon the edge of Willy's pillow and was sobbing silently. The others sat on the floor: very quiet; as semi-starved little ones are apt to be. 'You have just said you would work your fingers to the bone to keep your children,' resumed Mrs. Darby to her husband.
'I'd work for them till the flesh dropped off me. I'd ask no better than to do it,' he vehemently said. 'But where am I to get work to do now?'
'Baxendale has got it,' she rejoined in a low tone.
Grace started from her leaning posture.
'Oh, father, do as Baxendale has done! don't let the children quite starve. If you had been in work, this dreadful thing would not have happened. It will be a slur upon me for life.'
'So I would work, girl, but for the Trades' Unions.'
'Father, the Trades' Unions seem to bring you no good; nothing but harm. Don't trust them any longer; trust the masters now.'
Never was there a better meaning man than Robert Darby; but he was too easily swayed by others. Latterly it had appeared to him that the Trades' Unions did bring him harm, and his trust in them was shaken. He stood for a few moments, revolving the question in his own mind. 'They'd cast me off, you see, theTrades' Unions would,' he observed to his wife, in an irresolute tone.
'What if they did? The masters would take you on. Stand right with the masters——'
Mrs. Darby was interrupted by a shriek from Grace. Little Willy, whom nobody had been giving attention to, was lying back with a white face, senseless. Whether from the weakness of his condition, or from the unusual excitement of the scene going on around him, certain it was that the child had fainted. There was some little bustle in bringing him to, and Mrs. Darby sat down, the boy upon her lap.
'What ailed you, deary?' said Robert Darby, bending down to him.
'I don't know, father,' returned the child. And his voice was fainter than ever.
Mrs. Darby pulled her husband's ear close to her lips. 'When the boy's dead, you'll wish you had cared for him more than for the Trades' Unions; and worked for him.'
The words told upon the man. Perhaps for the first time he had fully realized to his imagination the moment when he should see his boy lying dead before him. 'I will work,' he exclaimed. 'Willy, boy, father will go and get work; and he'll soon bring you home something good to eat, as he used to.' Willy's hot lips parted with a pleasant smile of response; his blue eyes glistened brightly. Robert Darby bent his rough, unshaven face, and took a kiss from the child's smooth one. 'Yes, my boy; fatherwillwork.'
He went out, bending his steps towards Slippery Sam's—who, by the way, had latterly tried to exact the title of 'Mr. Shuck.' There was a code of honour—as they regarded it—amidst these operatives of the Hunters, to do nothing underhanded. That is, not to resume work without first speaking to the Unions' man, Sam Shuck—as was mentioned in the case of Baxendale. It happened that Mr. Shuck was standing in the strip of garden before his house, carrying on a wordy war over the palings with Mrs. Quale, when Darby came up. Peter Quale had of course been locked out with the rest, but with the first hour that Mr. Hunter's yard was opened, Peter returned to his work. He did not belong to the Trades' Unions—he never had belonged to them and never would; therefore, he was a free man. Strange to say, he was left to do as he liked in peace; somehow the Union did not care to interfere with Peter Quale—for one thing, he occupied a better position in the yard than most of the men. Peter pursued his own course quietly—going to his work and returning from it, saying little to the malcontents of Daffodil's Delight. Not so Mrs. Quale; she exercised her tongue upon them whenever she got the chance. Her motive was a good one: she was at heart sorry for the privation at present existing in Daffodil's Delight, and would have liked to shame the men into going to work again.
'Now, Robert Darby! how are them children of your'n?' began she. 'Starved out yet?'
'Next door to it,' was Darby's answer.
'And whose is the fault?' she went on. 'If I hadchildren, and my husband wouldn't work to keep 'em out of their graves, through getting some nasty mistaken crotchet in his head, and holding out when the work was going a-begging, I'd go before a magistrate and see if I couldn't have the law of him.'
'You'd do a good many things if you wore the breeches,' interposed Sam Shuck, with a sneer; 'but you don't, you know.'
'You be wearing whole breeches now, which you get out of the blood and marrow of the poor misguided men,' retorted Mrs. Quale. 'They won't last out whole for ever, Slippery Sam.'
'They'll last out as long as I want 'em to, I dare say,' said Sam. 'Have you come up for anything particular, Darby?'
'I have come to talk a bit, Shuck,' answered Darby, inwardly shrinking from his task, and so deferring for a minute the announcement. 'There seems no chance of this state of things coming to an end.'
'No, that there doesn't. You men are preventing that.'—'Us men!' exclaimed Robert Darby in surprise. 'What do you mean?'
'I don't mean you; I don't mean the sturdy, honest fellows who hold out for their rights like men—I mean the other lot. If every operative in the kingdom had held out, to a man, the masters would have given in long ago—they must have done it; and you would all be back, working in triumph the nine hours per day. I spoke of those rats who sneak in, and take the work, to the detriment of the honest man.'
'At any rate, the rats are getting the best of it just now,' said Robert Darby.
'That they are,' said Mrs. Quale, exultingly, who would not lose an opportunity of putting in her word. She stood facing the men, her arms resting on the palings that divided the gardens. 'It isn'ttheirchildren that are dropping into their winding-sheets through want of food.'
'If I had my way, I'd hang every man who in this crisis is putting his hand to a stroke of work,' exclaimed Sam Shuck. 'Traitors! to turn and work for the masters after they had resorted to a lock-out! It was that lock-out floored us.'
'Of course it was,' assented Mrs. Quale, with marked complaisance. 'If the Union only had money coming in from the men, they'd hold out for ever. But the general lock-out stopped that.'
'Ugh!' growled Sam, with the addition of an ugly word.
'Well, Shuck, as things seem to be getting worse instead of better, and prospects look altogether so gloomy, I shall go back to work myself,' resumed Darby, plucking up courage to say it.
'Chut,' said Shuck.
'Will you tell me what Iamto do? I'd rather turn a thousand miles the other way than I'd put my foot indoors at home, and see things as they are there. If a man can clam himself, he can't watch those belonging to him clam. Every farthing of allowance I had from the society last week was——'
'You had your share,' interrupted Sam, who never cared to contend about the amount received. 'Think of the thousands there is to divide it among. The subscriptions have come in very well as yet, but they be falling off now.'
'And think of the society's expenses,' interposed Mrs. Quale, with suavity. 'The scores of gentlemen, like Mr. Shuck, there is to pay, and keep on the fat of the land. He'll be going into Parliament next!'
'You shut up, will you?' roared Sam. 'Ryan,' called out he to the Irishman, who was lounging up, 'here's Darby saying he thinks he shall go to work.'
'Oh, but that would be rich,' said Ryan, with a laugh, as he entered the garden, and took his standing beside Sam Shuck. 'Darby, man, you'd never desert the society! It couldn't spare you.'
'I want to do for the best,' said Darby; 'and it seems to me that to hold out is for the worse. Shuck, just answer me a question or two, as from man to man. If the masters fill their yards with other operatives, what is to become of us?'
'They can't fill their yards with other operatives,' returned Shuck. 'Where's the use of talking nonsense?'
'But they can. They are doing it.'