The singing ceased, and in the movement which it occasioned in the room, Austin left Mrs. Hunter's side, and stood within the embrasure of the window, half hidden by the curtains. The air was pleasant on that warm summer night, and Florence, resigning her place at the instrument to some other lady, stole to the window to inhale its freshness. There she saw Austin. She had not heard him enter the room—did not know, in fact, that he was back from Ketterford.
'Oh!' she uttered, in the sudden revulsion of feeling that the sight brought to her, 'is it you?'
He quietly took her hands in his, and looked down at her. Had it been to save her life, she could not have helped betraying emotion.
'Are you glad to see me, Florence?' he softly whispered.
She coloured even to tears. Glad! The time might come when she should be able to tell him so; but that time was not yet.
'Mrs. Hunter is glad of my return,' he continued, in the same low tone, sweeter to her ear than all music. 'She says I have been missed. Is it so, Florence?'
'And what have you been doing?' asked Florence, not knowing in the least what she said in her confusion, as she left his question unanswered, and drew her hands away from him.
'I have not been doing much, save the seeing a dear old friend laid in the earth. You know that Mrs. Thornimett is dead. She died before I got there.'
'Papa told us that. He heard from you two or three times, I think. How you must regret it! But why did they not send for you in time?'
'It was only the last day that danger was apprehended,' replied Austin. 'She grew worse suddenly. You cannot think, Florence, how strangely this gaiety'—he half turned to the room—'contrasts with the scenes I have left: the holy calm of her death-chamber, the laying of her in the grave.'
'An unwelcome contrast, I am sure it must be.'
'It jars on the mind. All events, essentially of the world, let them be ever so necessary or useful, must do so, when contrasted with the solemn scenes of life's close. But how soon we forget those solemn scenes, and live in the world again!'
'Austin,' she gently whispered, 'I do not like to talk of death. It reminds me of the dread that is ever oppressing me.'
'She looks so much better as to surprise me,' was his answer, unconscious that it betrayed his undoubted cognisance of the 'dread' she spoke of.
'If it would but last!' sighed Florence. 'To prolong mamma's life, I think I would sacrifice mine.'
'No, you would not, Florence—in mercy to her. If called upon to lose her you would grow reconciled to it; to do so, is in the order of nature.Shecould not spareyou.'
Florence believed that she never could grow reconciled to it: she often wonderedhowshe should bear it whenthe time came. But there rose up before her now, as she spoke with Austin, one cheering promise, 'As thy day is, so shall thy strength be.'
'What should you say, if I tell you I have come into a fortune!' resumed Austin, in a lighter tone.
'I should say—But, is it true?' broke off Florence.
'Not true, as you and Mr. Hunter would count fortunes,' smiled Austin; 'but true, as poor I, born without silver spoons in my mouth, and expecting to work hard for all I shall ever possess, have looked upon them. Mrs. Thornimett has behaved to me most kindly, most generously; she has bequeathed to me two thousand pounds.'
'I am delighted to hear it,' said Florence, her glad eyes sparkling. 'Never call yourself poor again.'
'I cannot call myself rich, as Mr. and Mrs. Hunter compute riches. But, Florence, it may be a stepping-stone to become so.'
'A stepping-stone to become what?' demanded Dr. Bevary, breaking in upon the conference.
'Rich,' said Austin, turning to the doctor. 'I am telling Florence that I have come into some money since I went away.'
Mr. Hunter and others were gathering around them, and the conversation became general. 'What is that, Clay?' asked Mr. Hunter. 'You have come into a fortune, do you say?'
'I said,notinto a fortune, sir, as those accustomed to fortune would estimate it. That great physician, standing there and listening to me, he would laugh at the sum: I daresay he makes more in six months. But itmay prove a stepping-stone to fortune, and to—to other desirable things.'
'Do not speak so vaguely,' cried the doctor, in his quaint fashion. 'Define the "desirable things." Come! it's my turn now.'
'I am not sure that they have taken a sufficiently tangible shape as yet, to be defined,' returned Austin, in the same tone. 'You might laugh at them for day-dreams.'
Unwittingly his eye rested for a moment upon Florence. Did she deem the day-dreams might refer to her, that her eye-lids should droop, and her cheeks turn scarlet? Dr. Bevary noticed both the look and the signs; Mr. Hunter saw neither.
'Day-dreams would be enchanting as an eastern fairy-tale, only that they never get realized,' interposed one of the fair guests, with a pretty simper, directed to Austin Clay and his attractions.
'I will realize mine,' he returned, rather too confidently, 'Heaven helping me!'
'A better stepping-stone, that help, to rely upon, than the money you have come into,' said Dr. Bevary, with one of his peculiar nods.
'True, doctor,' replied Austin. 'But may not the money have come from the same helping source? Heaven, you know, vouchsafes to work with humble instruments.'
The last few sentences had been interchanged in a low tone. They now passed into the general circle, and the evening went on to its close.
Austin and Dr. Bevary were the last to leave the house. They quitted it together, and the doctor passed his arm within Austin's as they walked on.
'Well,' said he, 'and what have you been doing at Ketterford?'
'I have told you, doctor. Leaving my dear old friend and relative in her grave; and, realizing the fact that she has bequeathed to me this money.'
'Ah, yes; I heard that,' returned the doctor. 'You've been seeing friends too, I suppose. Did you happen to meet the Gwinns?'
'Once. I was passing the house, and Miss Gwinn laid hands upon me from the window, and commanded me in. I got out again as soon as I could. Her brother made his appearance as I was leaving.'
'And what did he say to you?' asked the doctor, in a tone meant to be especially light and careless.
'Nothing; except that he told me if I wanted a safe and profitable investment for the money I had inherited under Mrs. Thornimett's will, he could help me to one. I cut him very short, sir.'
'What didshesay?' resumed Dr. Bevary. 'Did she begin upon her family affairs—as she is rather fond of doing?'
'Well,' said Austin, his tone quite as careless as the doctor's, 'I did not give her the opportunity. Once, when she seemed inclined to do so, I stopped her; telling her that her private affairs were no concern of mine, neither should I listen to them.'
'Quite right, my young friend,' emphatically spoke the doctor.
Not another word was said until they came to Daffodil's Delight. Here they wished each other good night The doctor continued his way to his home, and Austin turned down towards Peter Quale's.
But what could be the matter? Had Daffodil's Delight miscalculated the time, believing it to be day, instead of night? Women leaned out of their windows in night-caps; children had crept from their beds and come forth to tumble into the gutter naked, as some of them literally were; men crowded the doorway of the Bricklayers' Arms, and stood about with pipes and pint pots; all were in a state of rampant excitement. Austin laid hold of the first person who appeared sober enough to listen to him. It happened to be a woman, Mrs. Dunn.
'What is this?' he exclaimed. 'Have you all come into a fortune?' the recent conversation at Mr. Hunter's probably helping him to the remark.
'Better nor that,' shrieked Mrs. Dunn. 'Better northat, a thousand times! We have circumvented the masters, and got our ends, and now we shall just have all we want—roast goose and apple pudding for dinner, and plenty of beer to wash it down with.'
'But what is it that you have got?' pursued Austin, who was completely at sea.
'Got! why, we have got theSTRIKE,' she replied, in joyful excitement. 'Pollocks' men struck to-day. Where have you been, sir, not to have heered on it?'
At that moment a fresh crowd came jostling down Daffodil's Delight, and Austin was parted from the lady.Indeed, she rushed up to the mob to follow in their wake. Many other ladies followed in their wake—half Daffodil's Delight, if one might judge by numbers. Shouting, singing, exulting, dancing; it seemed as if they had, for the nonce, gone mad. Sam Shuck, in his long-tailed coat, ornamented with its holes and its slits, was leading the van, his voice hoarse, his face red, his legs and arms executing a war-dance of exaltation. He it was who had got up the excitement and was keeping it up, shouting fiercely: 'Hurrah for the work of this day! Rule Britanniar! Britons never shall be slaves! The Strike has begun, friends! H—o—o—o—o—o—r—rah! Three cheers for the Strike!'
Yes. The Strike had begun.
The men of an influential metropolitan building firm had struck, because their employers declined to accede to certain demands, and Daffodil's Delight was, as you have seen, in a high state of excitement, particularly the female part of it. The men said they struck for a diminution in the hours of labour; the masters told them they struck for an increase of wages. Seeing that the non-contents wanted the hours reduced andnotthe pay, it appears to me that you may call it which you like.
The Messrs. Hunters' men—with whom we have todo, for it was they who chiefly filled Daffodil's Delight—though continuing their work as usual, were in a most unsettled state; as was the case in the trade generally. The smouldering discontent might have died away peacefully enough, and probably would, but that certain spirits made it their business to fan it into a flame.
A few days went on. One evening Sam Shuck posted himself in an angle formed by the wall at the top of Daffodil's Delight. It was the hour for the men to quit work; and, as they severally passed him on their road home, Sam's arm was thrust forward, and a folded bit of paper put into their hands. A mysterious sort of missive apparently; for, on opening the paper, it was found to contain only these words, in the long, sprawling hand of Sam himself: 'Barn at the back of Jim Dunn's. Seven o'clock.'
Behind the house tenanted by the Dunns were premises occupied until recently by a cowkeeper. They comprised, amidst other accommodation, a large barn, or shed. Being at present empty, and to let, Sam thought he could do no better than take French leave to make use of it.
The men hurried over their tea, or supper (some took one on leaving work for the night, some the other, some a mixture of both, and some neither), that they might attend to the invitation of Sam. Peter Quale was seated over a substantial dish of batter pudding, a bit of neck of mutton baked in the midst of it, when he was interrupted by the entrance of John Baxendale, who had stepped in from his own rooms next door.
'Be you a going to this meeting, Quale?' Baxendale asked, as he took a seat.
'I don't know nothing about it,' returned Peter. 'I saw Slippery Sam a giving out papers, so I guessed there was something in the wind. He took care to pass me over. I expect I'm the greatest eyesore Sam has got just now. Have a bit?' added Peter, unceremoniously, pointing to the dish before him with his knife.
'No, thank ye; I have just had tea at home. That's the paper'—laying it open on the table-cloth. 'Sam Shuck is just now cock-a-hoop with this strike.'
'He is no more cock-a-hoop than the rest of Daffodil's Delight is,' struck in Mrs. Quale, who had finished her own meal, and was at leisure to talk. 'The men and women is all a going mad together, I think, and Slippery Sam's leading 'em on. Suppose you all do strike—which is what they are hankering after—what good 'll it bring?'
'That's just it,' replied Baxendale. 'One can't see one's way clear. The agitation might do us some good, but it might do us a deal of harm; so that one doesn't know what to be at. Quale, I'll go to the meeting, if you will?'
'If I go, it will be to give 'em a piece of my mind,' retorted Peter.
'Well, it's only right that different sides should be heard. Sam 'll have it all his own way else.'
'He'll manage to get that, by the appearance things wears,' said Mrs. Quale, wrathfully. 'How you mencan submit to be led by such a fellow as him, just because his tongue is capable of persuading you that black's white, is a marvel to me. Talk of women being soft! let the men talk of theirselves. Hold up a finger to 'em, and they'll go after it: like the Swiss cows Peter read of the other day, a flocking in a line after their leader, behind each other's tails.'
'I wish I knew what was right,' said Baxendale, 'or which course would turn out best for us.'
'I'd be off and listen to what's going on, at any rate,' urged Mrs. Quale.
The barn was filling. Sam Shuck, perched upon Mrs. Dunn's washing-tub turned upside down, which had been rolled in for the occasion, greeted each group as it arrived with a gracious nod. Sam appeared to be progressing in the benefits he had boasted to his wife he should derive, inasmuch as that the dilapidated clothes had been discarded for better ones: and he stood on the tub's end in all the glory of a black frock coat, a crimson neck-tie with lace ends, and peg-top pantaloons: the only attire (as a ready-made outfitting shop had assured him) that a gentleman could wear. Sam's eye grew less complacent when it rested on Peter Quale, who was coming in with John Baxendale.
'This is a pleasure we didn't expect,' said he.
'Maybe not,' returned Peter Quale, drily. 'The barn's open to all.'
'Of course it is,' glibly said Sam, putting a good face upon the matter. 'All fair and above board, is our mottor: which is more than them native enemies ofours, the masters, can say: they hold their meetings in secret, with closed doors.'
'Not in secret—do they?' asked Robert Darby. 'I have not heard of that.'
'They meet in their own homes, and they shut out strangers,' replied Sam. 'I'd like to know what you call that, but meeting in secret?'
'I should not call it secret; I should call it private,' decided Darby, after a minute's pause, given to realize the question. 'We might do the same. Our homes are ours, and we can shut out whom we please.'
'Of course wemight,' contended Sam. 'But we like better to be open; and if a few of us assemble together to consult on the present aspect of affairs, we do it so that the masters, if they choose, might come and hear us. Things are not equalized in this world. Let us attempt secret meetings, and see how soon we should be looked up by the law, and accused of hatching treason and sedition, and all the rest of it. That sharp-eyedTimesnewspaper would be the first to set on us. There's one law for the masters, and another for the men.'
'Is that Slippery Sam?' ejaculated a new comer, at this juncture. 'Where did you get that fine new toggery, Shuck?'
The disrespectful interruption was spoken in simple surprise: no insidious meaning prompting it. Sam Shuck had appeared in ragged attire so long, that the change could not fail to be remarkable. Sam loftily turned a deaf ear to the remark, and continued his address.
'I am sure that most of you can't fail to see that things have come to a crisis in our trade. The moment that brought it, was when that great building firm refused the reasonable demands of their men; and the natural consequence of which was a strike. Friends, I have been justriledever since. I have watched you go to work day after day like tame cats, the same as if nothing had happened; and I have said to myself: "Have those men of Hunter's got souls within them, or have they got none?"'
'I don't suppose we have parted from our souls,' struck in a voice.
'You have parted with the feelings of them, at any rate,' rejoined Sam, beginning to dance in the excitement of contention, but remembering in time that histerra firmawas only a creaky tub. 'What's that you ask me? How have you parted with them? Why, by not following up the strike. If you possessed a grain of the independence of free men, you'd have hoisted your colours before now; what would have been the result? Why, the men of other firms in the trade would have followed suit, and all struck in a body. It's the only way that will bring the masters to reason: the only way by which we can hope to obtain our rights.'
'You see there's no knowing what would be the end of a strike, Shuck,' argued John Baxendale.
'There's no knowing what may be the inside of a pie until you cut him open,' said Jim Dunn, whose politics were the same as Mr. Shuck's, red-hot for a strike. 'But 'tain't many as 'ud shrink from putting in the knife to see.'
The men laughed, and greeted Jim Dunn with applause.
'I put it to you all,' resumed Sam, who took his share of laughing with the rest, 'whether there's sense or not in what I say. Are we likely to get our grievances redressed by the masters, unless we force it? Never: not if we prayed our hearts out.'
'Never,' and 'never,' murmured sundry voices.
'Whatareour grievances?' demanded Peter Quale, putting the question in a matter-of-fact tone, as if he really asked for information.
'Listen!' ironically ejaculated Sam. 'He asks what our grievances are! I'll answer you, Quale. They are many and great. Are we not kept to work like beasts of burden, ten hours a day? Does that leave us time for the recreation of our wearied bodies, for the improvement of our minds, for the education of our children, for the social home intercourse in the bosoms of our families? By docking the day's labour to nine hours—or to eight, which we shall get, may be, after awhile,' added Sam, with a wink—'it would leave us the extra hour, and be a blessing.'
Sam carried the admiring room with him. That hard, disbelieving Peter Quale, interrupted the cheering.
'A blessing, or the conterairy, as it might turn out,' cried he. 'It's easy to talk of education, and self-improvement; but how many is there that would use the accorded hour that way?'
'Another grievance is our wages,' resumed Sam, drowning the words, not caring to court discussion onwhat might be a weak point. 'We call ourselves men, and Englishmen, and yet we lie down contented with five-and-sixpence a day. Do you know what our trade gets in Australia? Oh, you do, some of you? then I'll tell those that don't. From twelve to fifteen shillings per day: and even more than that.Twelve shillings!and that's the minimum rate of pay,' slowly repeated Sam, lifting up his arm and one peg-top to give emphasis to the words.
A murmur of envy at the coveted rate of pay in Australia shook the room to the centre.
'But the price of provisions and other necessaries is enormous in that quarter,' debated Abel White. 'So it may come to the same in the end—be about as broad as long. Old father and me was talking about it last night.'
'If everybody went in for your old father's sentiments, we should soon be like him—in our dotage,' loftily observed Sam.
'But things are dear there,' persisted Sam's antagonist. 'I have heard what is sometimes given for shoes there; but I'm afraid to say, it was so much. The wages in Australia can't be any guide for us.'
'No, they can't,' said Peter Quale. 'Australia is one place, and this is another. Where's the use of bringing up that?'
'Oh, of course not,' sarcastically uttered Sam. 'Anything that tends to show how we are put upon, and how we might be made more comfortable, it's of no use bringing up. The long and the short of it is this: wewant to be regarded asMEN: to have our voices considered, and our plaints attended to; to be put altogether upon a better footing. Little enough is it we ask at present: only for a modicum of ease in our day's hard labour, just the thin end of the wedge inserted to give it. That's all we are agitating for. It depends upon ourselves whether we get it or not. Let us display manly courage and join the strike, and it is ours to-morrow.'
The response did not come so quickly as Sam deemed it ought. He went on in a persuasive, ringing tone.
'Consider the wives of your bosoms; consider your little children; consider yourselves. Were you born into the world to be slaves—blackymoors; to be ground into the dust with toil? Never.'
'Never,' uproariously echoed three parts of the room.
'The motto of a true man is, or ought to be, "Do as little as you can, and get as much for it;"' said Sam, dancing in his enthusiasm, and thereby nearly losing his perch on the tub. 'With an hour's work less a day, and the afternoon holiday on the Saturday, we shall——'
'What's the good of a afternoon Saturday holiday? We don't want that, Sam Shuck.'
This ignominious interruption to the proceedings came from a lady. Buzzing round the entrance door and thrusting in their heads at a square hole, which might originally have been intended for a window were a dozen or two of the gentler sex. This irregularity had not been unobserved by the chairman, whofaced them: the chairman's audience, densely packed, had their backs that way. It was not an orthodox adjunct to a trade meeting, that was certain, and the chairman would probably have ordered the ladies away, had he deemed there was a chance of his getting obeyed; but too many of them had the reputation of being the grey mares. So he winked at the irregularity, and had added one or two flourishes of oratory for their especial ears. The interruption came from Mrs. Cheek, Timothy Cheek's wife.
'What's the good of a afternoon Saturday holiday? We don't want that, Sam Shuck. Just when we be up to our eyes in muck and cleaning, our places routed out till you can't see the colour of the boards, for brooms, and pails, and soap and water, and the chairs and things is all topsy-turvy, one upon another, so as the children have to be sent out to grub in the gutter, for there ain't no place for 'em indoors, do you think we want the men poking their noses in? No; and they'd better not try it on. Women have got tempers given to 'em as well as you.'
'And tongues too,' rejoined Sam, unmindful of the dignity of his office.
'It is to be hoped they have,' retorted Mrs. Cheek, not inclined to be put down; and her sentiments appeared to be warmly joined in by the ladies generally. 'Don't you men go a agitating for the Saturday's half-holiday! What 'ud you do with it, do you suppose? Why, just sot it away at the publics.'
Some confusion ensued; and the women wereperemptorily ordered to mind their own business, and 'make theirselves scarce,' which not one of them attempted to obey. When the commotion had subsided, a very respectable man took up the discourse—George Stevens.
'The gist of the whole question is this,' he said: 'Will agitation do us good, or will it do us harm? We look upon ourselves as representing one interest; the masters consider they represent another. If it comes to open warfare between the two, the strongest would win.'
'In other words, whichever side's funds held out the longest,' said Robert Darby. 'That is as I look upon it.'
'Just so,' returned Stevens. 'I cannot say, seeing no farther than we can see at present, that a strike would be advisable.'
'Stevens, do you want to better yourself, or not?' asked Sam Shuck.
'I'd be glad enough to better myself, if I saw my way clear to do it,' was the reply. 'But I don't.'
'We don't want no strikes,' struck in a shock-headed hard-working man. 'What is it we want to strike for? We have got plenty of work, and full wages. A strike won't fill our pockets. Them may vote for strikes that like 'em; I'll keep to my work.'
Partial applause.
'It is as I said,' cried Sam. 'There's poor, mean-spirited creatures among you, as won't risk the loss of a day's pay for the common good, or put out a hand to help the less fortunate. I'd rather be buried alive, five feet under the earth, than I'd show cat so selfish.'
'What is the interest of one of us is the interest of all,' observed Stevens. 'And a strike, if we went into it, would either benefit us all in the end, or make us all suffer. It is sheer nonsense to attempt to make out that one man's interest is different from another's; our interests are the same. I'd vote for striking to-morrow, if I were sure we should come out of it with whole skins, and get what we struck for: but I must see that a bit clearer first.'
'How can we get it, unless we try for it?' demanded Sam. 'If the masters find we're all determined, they'll give in to us. I appeal to you all'—raising his hands over the room—'whether the masters can do without us?'
'That has got to be seen,' said Peter Quale, significantly. 'One thing is plain: we could not do without them.'
'Nor they without us—nor they without us,' struck in voices from various parts of the barn.
'Then why shilly-shally about the question of a strike?' asked Sam of the barn, in a glib tone of reason. 'If a universal strike were on, the masters would pretty soon make terms that would end it. Why, a six months' strike would drive half of them into theGazette——'
'But it might drive us into the workhouse at the same time,' interrupted John Baxendale.
'Let me finish,' went on Sam; 'it's not perlite to take up a man in the middle of a sentence. I say that a six months' strike would send many of the masters to the bankruptcy court. Well now, there has been a question debated among us'—Sam lowered his voice—'whetherit would not be policy to let things go on quietly, as they are, till next spring——'
'A question among who?' interposed Peter Quale, regardless of the reproof just administered to John Baxendale.
'Never you mind who,' returned Sam, with a wink: 'among those that are hard at work for your interest. With their contracts for the season signed, and their works in full progress, say about next May, then would be the time for a strike to tell upon the masters. However, it has been thought better not to delay it. The future's but an uncertainty: the present is ours, and so must the strike be.Haveyou wives?' he pathetically continued; 'haveyou children?haveyou spirits of your own? Then you will all, with one accord, go in for the strike.'
'But what are our wives and children to do while the strike is on?' asked Robert Darby. 'You say yourself it might last six months, Shuck. Who would support them?'
'Who!' rejoined Sam, with an indignant air, as if the question were a superfluous one. 'Why the Trades' Unions, of course.That'sall settled. The Unions are prepared to take care of all who are out on strike, standing up, like brave Britons, for their privileges, and keep 'em like fighting-cocks. Hooroar for that blessed boon, the Trades' Unions!'
'Hooroar for the Trades' Unions!' was shouted in chorus. 'Keep us like fighting-cocks, will they! Hooroar!'
'Much good you'll get from the Trades' Unions!' burst forth a dissentient voice. 'They are the greatest pests as ever was allowed in a free country.'
The opposition caused no little commotion. Standing by the door, having pushed his way through the surrounding women, who hadnotmade themselves 'scarce,' was a man in a flannel jacket, a cap in his hand, and his head white with mortar. He was looking excited as he spoke.
'This is not regular,' said Sam Shuck, displaying authority. 'You have no business here: you don't belong to us.'
'Regular or irregular, I'll speak my mind,' was the answer. 'I have been at work for Jones the builder, down yonder. I have done my work steady and proper, and I have had my pay. A man comes up to me yesterday and says, "You must join the Trades' Union." "No," says I, "I shan't; I don't want nothing of the Trades' Union, and the Union don't want nothing of me." So they goes to my master. "If you keep on employing this man, your other men will strike," they says to him; and he, being in a small way, got intimidated, and sent me off to-day. And here I am, throwed out of work, and I have got a sick wife and nine young children to keep. Is that justice? or is it tyranny? Talk about emancipating the slaves! let us emancipate ourselves at home.'
'Why don't you join the Union?' cried Sam. 'All do, who are good men and true.'
'All good men and truedon't,' dissented the man.'Many of the best workmen among us won't have anything to do with Unions; and you know it, Sam Shuck.'
'Just clear out of this,' said Sam.
'When I've had my say,' returned the man, 'not before. If I would join the Union, I can't. To join it, I must pay five shillings, and I have not got them to pay. With such a family as mine, you may guess every shilling is forestalled afore it comes in. I kept myself to myself, doing my work in quiet, and interfering with nobody. Why should they interfere with me?'
'If you have been in full work, five shillings is not much to pay to the Union,' sneered Sam.
'If I had my pockets filled with five-shilling pieces, I would not pay one to it,' fearlessly retorted the man. 'Is it right that a free-born Englishman should give in to such a system of intimidation? No: I never will. You talk of the masters being tyrants: it's you who are the tyrants, one to another. What is one workman better than his fellow, that he should lay down laws and say, You shall do this, and you shall do that, or you shan't be allowed to work at all? That rule you want to get passed—that a skilled, thorough workman shouldn't do a full day's work because some of his fellows can't—who's agitating for it? Why, naturally those that can't or won't do the full work. Would an honest, capable man go in for it? Of course he'd not. I tell you what'—turning his eyes on the room—'the Trades' Unions have been called a protection to the working man; but, if you don't take care, they'll growinto a curse. When Sam Shuck, and other good-for-naughts like him, what never did a full week's work for their families yet, are paid in gold and silver to spread incendiarism among you, it's time you looked to yourselves.'
He turned away as he spoke; and Sam, in a dance of furious passion, danced off his tub. The interlude had not tended to increase the feeling of the men in Sam's favour—that is, in the cause he advocated. Not a man present but wanted to better himself could he do so with safety, but they were afraid to enter on aggressive measures. Indiscriminate talking ensued; diverse opinions were disputed, and the meeting was prolonged to a late hour. Finally the men dispersed as they came, nothing having been resolved upon. A few set their faces resolutely against the proposed strike; a few were red-hot for it; but the majority were undecided, and liable to be swayed either way.
'It will come,' nodded Sam Shuck, as he went home to a supper of pork chops and gin-and-water.
But Sam was destined to be—as he would have expressed it—circumvented. It cannot be supposed that this unsatisfactory state of things was unnoticed by the masters: and they took their measures accordingly. Forming themselves into an association, they discussed the measures best to be adopted, and determined upon a lock-out; that is, to close their yards until the firm, whose workmen had struck, should resume work. They also resolved to employ only those men who would sign an agreement, or memorandum, affirming that theywere not connected with any society which interfered with the arrangements of the master whose service they entered, or with the hours of labour, and acknowledging the rights both of masters and men to enter into any trade arrangements on which they might mutually agree. This paper of agreement was not relished by the men at all; they styled it 'the odious document.' Neither was the lock-out relished: it was of course equivalent, in one sense, to a strike; only that the initiative had come from the masters' side, and not from theirs. It commenced early in August. Some of the masters closed their works without a word of explanation to their men: in one sense it was not needed, for the men knew of the measure beforehand. Mr. Hunter chose to assemble them together, and state what he was about to do. Somewhat of his old energy appeared to have been restored to him for the moment, as he stood before them and spoke—Austin Clay by his side.
'You have brought it upon yourselves,' he said, in answer to a remark from one who boldly, but respectfully, asked whether it was fair to resort to a lock-out, and so punish all alike, contents and non-contents. 'I will meet the question upon your own grounds. When the Messrs. Pollocks' men struck because their demands, to work nine hours a day, were not acceded to, was it not in contemplation that you should join them—that the strike should be universal? Come, answer me candidly.'
The men, true and honest, did not deny it.
'And possibly by this time you would have struck,' said Mr. Hunter. 'How much more "fair" would that have been towards us, than this locking-out is towardsyou? Do you suppose that you alone are to meet and pass your laws, saying you will coerce the masters, and that the masters will not pass laws in return? Nonsense, my men!'
A pause.
'When have the masters attempted to interfere with your privileges, either by saying that your day's toil shall consist of longer hours, or by diminishing your wages, and threatening to turn you off if you do not fall in with the alteration? Never. Masters have rights as well as men; but some of you, of late, have appeared to ignore the fact. Let me ask you another question: Were you well treated under me, or were you not? Have I shown myself solicitous for your interests, for your welfare? Have I ever oppressed you, ever put upon you?'
No, Mr. Hunter had never sought to oppress them: they acknowledged it freely. He had ever been a good master.
'My men, let me give you my opinion. While condemning your conduct, your semblance of discontent—it has been semblance rather than reality—I have been sorry for you, for it is not with you that the chief blame lies. You have suffered evil persuaders to get access to your ears, and have been led away by their pernicious counsels. The root of the evil lies there. I wish you could bring your own good sense to bear upon these points, and to see with your own eyes. If so, there will be nothing to prevent our resuming together amicable relations; and, for my own part, I care not how soon the time shall come. The works are for the present closed.
Daffodil's Delight was in all the glory of the lock-out. The men, having nothing to do, improved their time by enjoying themselves; they stood about the street, or lounged at their doors, smoking their short pipes and quaffing draughts of beer. Let money run ever so short, you will generally see that the beer and the pipes can be found. As yet, the evils of being out of work were not felt; for weekly pay, sufficient for support, was supplied them by the Union Committee. The men were in high spirits—in that sort of mood implied by the words 'Never say die,' which phrase was often in their mouths. They expressed themselves determined to hold out; and this determination was continually fostered by the agents of the Union, of whom Sam Shuck was the chief: chief as regarded Daffodil's Delight—inferior as regarded other agents elsewhere. Many of the more temperate of the men, who had not particularly urged the strike, were warm supporters now of the general opinion, for they regarded the lock-out as an unwarrantable piece of tyranny on the part of the masters. As to the ladies, they were over-warm partisans, generallyspeaking, making the excitement, the unsettled state of Daffodil's Delight, an excuse for their own idleness (they are only too ready to do so when occasion offers), and collected in groups round the men, or squatted themselves on door steps, proclaiming their opinion of existing things, and boasting that they'd hold out for their rights till death.
It was almost like a summer's day. Seated in a chair at the bottom of her garden, just within the gate, was Mary Baxendale. Not that she was there to join in the gossip of the women, little knots of whom were dotting the street, or had any intention of joining in it: she was simply sitting there for air.
Mary Baxendale was fading. Never very strong, she had, for the last year or two, been gradually declining, and, with the excessive heat of the past summer, her remaining strength appeared to have gone out. Her occupation, that of a seamstress, had not tended to keep her in health; she had a great deal of work offered her, her skill being superior, and she had sat at it early and late. Mary was thoughtful and conscientious, and she was anxious to contribute a full share to the home support. Her father had married again, had now two young children, and it almost appeared to Mary as if she were an interloper in the paternal home. Not that the new Mrs. Baxendale made her feel this: she was a bustling, hearty woman, fond of show and spending, and of setting off her babies; but she was kind to Mary.
The capability of exertion appeared to be past, and Mary's days were chiefly spent in a quiescent state ofrest, and in frequently sitting out of doors. This day—it was now the beginning of September—was an unusually bright one, and she drew her invalid shawl round her, and leaned back in her seat, looking out on the lively scene, at the men and women congregating in the road, and inhaling the fresh air. At least, as fresh as it could be got in Daffodil's Delight.
'How do you feel to-day, Mary?'
The questioner was Mrs. Quale. She had come out of her house in her bonnet and shawl, bent on some errand and stopped to accost Mary.
'I am pretty well to-day. That is, I should be, if it were not for the weakness.'
'Weakness, ay!' cried Mrs. Quale, in a snapping sort of tone, for she was living in a state of chronic tartness, not approving of matters in general just now. 'And what have you had this morning to fortify you against the weakness?'
A faint blush rose to Mary's thin face. The subject was a sore one to the mind of Mrs. Quale, and that lady was not one to spare her tongue. The fact was, that at the present moment, and for some little time past, Mary's condition and appetite had required unusual nourishment; but, since the lock-out, this had not been procurable by John Baxendale. Sufficient food the household had as yet, but it was of a plain coarse sort, not suitable for Mary; and Mrs. Quale, bitter enough against the existing condition of things before, touching the men and their masters, was not by this rendered less so. Poor Mary, in her patient meekness, wouldhave subsided into her grave with famine, rather than complain of what she saw no help for.
'Did you have an egg at eleven o'clock?'
'Not this morning. I did not feel greatly to care for it.'
'Rubbish!' responded Mrs. Quale. 'I may say I don't care for the moon, because I know I can't get it.'
'But I really did not feel to have any appetite just then,' repeated Mary.
'And if you had an appetite, I suppose you couldn't have been any the nearer satisfying it!' returned Mrs. Quale, in a raised voice. 'You let your stomach get empty, and, after a bit, the craving goes off and sickness comes on, and then you say you have no appetite. But, there! it is not your fault; where's the use of my——'
'Why, Mary, girl, what's the matter?'
The interruption to Mrs. Quale proceeded from Dr. Bevary. He was passing the gate with Miss Hunter. They stopped, partly at sight of Mary, who was looking strikingly ill, partly at the commotion Mrs. Quale was making. Neither of them had known that Mary was in this state. Mrs. Quale was the first to take up the discourse.
'She don't look over flourishing, do she, sir?—do she Miss Florence? She have been as bad as this—oh, for a fortnight, now.'
'Why did you not send my uncle word, Mary?' spoke Florence, impulsive in the cause of kindness, as she had been when a child. 'I am sure he would have come to see you.'
'You are very kind, Miss, and Dr. Bevary, also,' said Mary. 'I could not think of troubling him with my poor ailments, especially as I feel it would be useless. I don't think anybody can do me good on this side the grave, sir.'
'Tush, tush!' interposed Dr. Bevary. 'That's what many sick people say; but they get well in spite of it. Let us see you a bit closer,' he added, going inside the gate. 'And now tell me how you feel.'
'I am just sinking, sir, as it seems to me; sinking out of life, without much ailment to tell of. I have a great deal of fever at night, and a dry cough. It is not so much consumption as——'
'Who told you it was consumption?' interrupted Dr. Bevary.
'Some of the women about here call it so, sir. My step-mother does: but I should say it was more of a waste.'
'Your step-mother is fond of talking of what she knows nothing about, and so are the women,' remarked Dr. Bevary. 'Have you much appetite?'
'Yes, and that's the evil of it,' struck in Mrs. Quale, determined to lose no opportunity of propounding her view of the case. 'A pretty time this is for folks to have appetites, when there's not a copper being earned. I wish all strikes and lock-outs was put down by law, I do. Nothing comes of 'em but empty cubbarts.'
'Your cupboard need not be any the emptier for a lock-out,' said Dr. Bevary, who sometimes, when conversing with the women of Daffodil's Delight, would fall familiarly into their mode of speech.
'No, I know that; we have been providenter than that, sir,' returned Mrs. Quale. 'A pity but what others could say the same. You might take a walk through Daffodil's Delight, sir, from one end of it to the other, and not find half a dozen cubbarts with plenty in 'em just now. Serve 'em right! they should have put by for a rainy day.'
'Ah!' returned Dr. Bevary, 'rainy days come to most of us as we go through life, in one shape or other. It is well to provide for them when we can.'
'And it's well to keep out of 'em where it's practicable,' wrathfully remarked Mrs. Quale. 'There no more need have been this disturbance between masters and men, than there need be one between you and me, sir, this moment, afore you walk away. They be just idiots, are the men; the women be worse, and I'm tired of telling 'em so. Look at 'em,' added Mrs. Quale, directing the doctor's attention to the female ornaments of Daffodil's Delight. 'Look at their gowns in jags, and their dirty caps! they make the men's being out of work an excuse for their idleness, and they just stick theirselves out there all day, a crowing and a gossiping.'
'Crowing?' exclaimed the doctor.
'Crowing; every female one of 'em, like a cock upon its dunghill,' responded Mrs. Quale, who was not given to pick her words when wrath was moving her. 'There isn't one as can see an inch beyond her own nose. If the lock-out lasts, and starvation comes, let 'em see how they'll crow then. It'll be on t'other side their mouths, I fancy!'
'Money is dealt out to them by the Trades' Union, sufficient to live,' observed Dr. Bevary.
'Sufficient not to starve,' independently corrected Mrs. Quale. 'What is it, sir, the bit of money they get, to them that have enjoyed their thirty-five shillings a-week, and could hardly make that do, some of 'em? Look at the Baxendales. There's Mary, wanting more food than she did in health; ay, and craving for it. A good bit of meat once or twice in the day, an egg now and then, a cup of cocoa and milk, or good tea—not your wishy-washy stuff, bought in by the ounce—how is she to get it all? The allowance dealt out to John Baxendale keeps 'em in bread and cheese; I don't think it does in much else.' They were interrupted by John Baxendale himself. He came out of his house, touching his hat to the doctor and to Florence. The latter had been leaning over Mary, inquiring softly into her ailments, and the complaint of Mrs. Quale, touching the short-comings of Mary's comforts, had not reached her ears; that lady, out of regard to the invalid, having deemed it well to lower her tone.
'I am sorry, sir, you should see her so poorly,' said Baxendale, alluding to his daughter. 'She'll get better, I hope.'
'I must try what a little of my skill will do towards it,' replied the doctor. 'If she had sent me word she was ill, I would have come before.'
'Thank ye, sir. I don't know as I should have been backward in asking you to come round and take a look at her; but a man don't like to ask favours when he hasgot no money in his pocket; it makes him feel little, and look little. Things are not in a satisfactory state with us all just now.'
'They are not indeed.'
'I never thought the masters would go to the extreme of a lock-out,' resumed Baxendale. 'It was a harsh measure.'
'On the face of it it does seem so,' responded Dr. Bevary. 'But what else could they have done? Have kept open their works, that those on strike might have been supported from the wages they paid their men, and probably have found those men also striking at last? If you and others had wanted to escape a lock-out, Baxendale, you should have been cautious not to lend yourselves to the agitation that was smouldering.'
'Sir, I know there's a great deal to be said on both sides,' was the reply. 'I never was for the agitation; I did not urge the strike; I set my face nearly dead against it. The worst is, we all have to suffer for it alike.'
'Ay, that is the worst of things in this world,' responded the doctor. 'When people do wrong, the consequences are rarely confined to themselves, they extend to the innocent. Come, Florence. I will see you again later, Mary.'
The doctor and his niece walked away. Mrs. Quale had already departed on her errand.
'He was always a kind man,' observed John Baxendale, looking after Dr. Bevary. 'I hope he will be able to cure you, Mary.'
'I don't feel that he will, father,' was the low answer.But Baxendale did not hear it; he was going out at the gate, to join a knot of neighbours, who were gathered together at a distance.
'Will Mary Baxendale soon get well, do you think, uncle?' demanded Florence, as they went along.
'No, my dear, I do not think she will.'
There was something in the doctor's tone that startled Florence. 'Uncle Bevary! you do not fear she will die?'
'I do fear it, Florence; and that she will not be long first.'
'Oh!' Then, after she had gone a few paces further, Florence withdrew her arm from his. 'I must go back and stay with her a little while. I had no idea of this.'
'Mind you don't repeat it to her in your chatter,' called out the doctor; and Florence shook her head by way of answer.
'I am in no hurry to go home, Mary; I thought I would return and stay a little longer with you,' was her greeting, when she reached the invalid. 'You must feel it dull, sitting here alone.'
'Dull! oh no, Miss Florence. I like sitting by myself and thinking.'
Florence smiled. 'What do you think about?'
'Oh, miss, I quite lose myself in thinking. I think of my Saviour, of how kind he was to everybody; and I think of the beautiful life we are taught to expect after this life. I can hardly believe that I shall soon be there.'
Florence paused, feeling as if she did not know whatto say. 'You do not seem to fear death, Mary. You speak rather as if you wished it.'
'I do not fear it, Miss Florence; I have been learning not to fear it ever since my poor mother died. Ah, miss! it is a great thing to learn; a great boon, when once it's learnt.'
'But surely you do not want to die!' exclaimed Florence, in surprise.
'Miss Florence, as to that, I feel quite satisfied to let it be as God pleases. I know I am in His good hands. The world now seems to me to be full of care and trouble.'
'It is very strange,' murmured Florence. 'Mamma, too, believes she is near death, and she expresses no reluctance, no fear. I do not think she feels any.'
'Miss Florence, it is only another proof of God's mercies,' returned the sick girl. 'My mother used to say that you could not be quite ripe for death until you felt it; that it came of God's goodness and Christ's love. To such, death seems a blessing instead of a terror, so that when their time is drawing near, they are glad to die. There's a gentleman waiting to speak to you, miss.'
Florence lifted her head hastily, and encountered the smile and the outstretched hand of Austin Clay. But that Mary Baxendale was unsuspicious, she might have gathered something from the vivid blush that overspread her cheeks.
'I thought it was you, Florence,' he said. 'I caught sight of a young lady from my sitting-room window; but you kept your head down before Mary.'
'I am sorry to see Mary looking so ill. My unclewas here just now, but he has gone. I suppose you were deep in your books?' she said, with a smile, her face regaining its less radiant hue. 'This lock-out must be a fine time for you.'
'So fine, that I wish it were over,' he answered. 'I am sick of it already, Florence. A fortnight's idleness will tire out a man worse than a month's work.'
'Is there any more chance of its coming to an end, sir?' anxiously inquired Mary Baxendale.
'I do not see it,' gravely replied Austin. 'The men appear to be too blind to come to any reasonable terms.'
'Oh, sir, don't cast more blame on them than you can help!' she rejoined, in a tone of intense pain. 'They are all led away by the Trades' Unions; they are, indeed. If once they enrol under them, they must only obey.'
'Well, Mary, it comes to what I say—that they are blinded. They should have better sense than to be led away.'
'You speak as a master, sir.'
'Probably I do; but I have brought my common sense to bear upon the question, both on the side of the masters and of the men; and I believe that this time the men are wrong. If they had laboured under any real grievance, it would have been different; but they did not labour under any. Their wages were good, work was plentiful——'
'I say, Mary, I wish you'd just come in and sit by the little ones a bit, while I go down to the back kitchen and rinse out the clothes.'
The interruption came from Mrs. Baxendale, whohad thrown up her window to speak. Mary rose at once, took her pillow from the chair, wished Florence good day, and went indoors.
Austin held the gate open for Florence to pass out: he was not intending to accompany her. She stood a moment, speaking to him, when some one, who had come up rapidly and stealthily, laid his great hand on Austin's arm. Absorbed in Florence, Austin had not observed him, and he looked up with a start. It was Lawyer Gwinn, of Ketterford, and he appeared to be in some anger or excitement.
'Young Clay, where is your master to-day?'
Neither the salutation nor the manner of the man pleased Austin; his appearance, there and then, especially displeased him. His answer was spoken in haughty defiance. Not in policy: and in a cooler moment he would have remembered the latter to have been the only safe diplomacy.
A strangely bitter smile of conscious power parted the man's lips. 'So you take part with him, do you, sir! It may be better for both you and him, that you bring me face to face with him. They have denied me to him at his house; their master is out of town, they say; but I know it to be a lie: I know that the message was sent out to me by Hunter himself. I had a great mind to force——'
Florence, who was looking deadly white, interrupted, her voice haughty as Austin's had been.
'You labour under a mistake, sir. My father is out of town. He went this morning.'
Mr. Gwinn wheeled round to her. Neither her tone nor Austin's was calculated to abate his anger.
'You are his daughter, then!' he uttered, with the same insolent stare, the same displayed irony he had once used to her mother. 'The young lady whom people envy as that spoiled and only child, Miss Hunter! What if I tell you a secret?—that you——'
'Be still!' shouted Austin, in uncontrollable emotion. 'Are you a man, or a demon? Miss Hunter, allow me,' he cried, grasping the hand of Florence, and drawing her peremptorily towards Peter Quale's door, which he threw open. 'Go upstairs, Florence, to my sitting-room: wait there until I come to you. I must be alone with this man.'
Florence looked at him in amazement, as he pushed her into the passage. He was evidently in the deepest agitation: every vestige of colour had forsaken his face, and his manner was authoritative as any father's could have been. She bowed to its power unconsciously, not a thought of resistance crossing her mind, and went straight upstairs to his sitting room—although it might not be precisely correct for a young lady so to do. Not a soul, save herself, appeared to be in the house.
A short colloquy and an angry one, and then Mr. Gwinn was seen returning the way he had come. Austin came springing up the stairs three at a time.
'Will you forgive me, Florence? I could not do otherwise.'
What with the suddenness of the proceedings, their strangeness, and her own doubts and emotion, Florenceburst into tears. Austin lost his head: at least, all of prudence that was in it. In the agitation of the moment he suffered his long-controlled feelings to get the better of him, and spoke words that he had hitherto successfully repressed.
'My darling!' he whispered, taking her hand, 'I wish I could have shielded you from it! Florence, you know—you must long have known—that my dearest object in life is you—your happiness, your welfare. I had not intended to say this so soon; it has been forced from me: you must pardon me for saying it here and now.'
She gently disengaged the hand, and he did not attempt to retain it. Her wet eyelashes fell on her blushing cheeks; they were like a damask rose glistening in the morning dew. 'But this mystery?—it certainly seems one,' she exclaimed, striving to speak with matter-of-fact calmness. 'Is not that man Gwinn, of Ketterford?'
'Yes.'
'Brother to the lady who seemed to cause so much emotion to papa. Ah! I was but a child at the time, but I noticed it. Austin, I think there must be some dreadful secret. What is it? He comes to our house at periods and is closeted with papa, and papa is more miserable than ever after it.'
'Whether there is or not, it is not for us to inquire into it. Men engaged in business often have troublesome people to deal with. I hastened you in,' he quickly went on, not caring to be more explanatory, and compelled to speak with reserve. 'I know the man of old,and his language is sometimes coarse, not fitted for a young lady's ears: so I sent you away. Florence,' he whispered, his tone changing to one of deepest tenderness, 'this is neither the time nor the place to speak, but I must say one word. I shall win you if I can.'
Florence made no answer. She only ran downstairs as quickly as she could, she and her scarlet cheeks. Austin laughed at her haste, as he followed her. Mrs. Quale was coming in then, and met them at the door.
'See what it is to go gadding out!' cried Austin, to her. 'When young ladies pay you the honour of a morning visit, they might find an empty house, but for my stay-at-home propensities.'
Mrs. Quale turned her eyes from one to the other of them in puzzled doubt.
'The truth is,' said Austin, vouchsafing an explanation, 'there was a rude man in the road, talking nonsense, so I sent Miss Hunter indoors, and stopped to deal with him.'
'I am sure I am sorry, Miss Florence,' cried unsuspicious Mrs. Quale. 'We often have rude men in this quarter: they get hold of a drop too much, the simpletons. And when the wine's in, the wit's out, you know, Miss.'
Austin piloted her through Daffodil's Delight, possibly lest any more 'rude men' should molest her, leaving her at her own door.
But when he came to reflect on what he had done, he was full of contrition and self-blame. The time hadnotcome for him to aspire to the hand of Florence Hunter, at least in the estimation of the world, and he ought not to have spoken to her. There was only one course open to him now in honour; and that was, to tell the whole truth to her mother.
That same evening at dusk he was sitting alone with Mrs. Hunter. Mr. Hunter had not returned: that he had gone out of town for the day was perfect truth: and Florence escaped from the room when she heard Austin's knock.
After taking all the blame on himself for having been premature, he proceeded to urge his cause and his love, possibly emboldened to do so by the gentle kindness with which he was listened to.
'It has been my hope for years,' he avowed, as he held Mrs. Hunter's hands in his, and spoke of the chance of Mr. Hunter's favour. 'Dear Mrs. Hunter, do you think he will some time give her to me!'
'But, Austin——'
'Not yet; I do not ask for her yet; not until I have made a fitting home for her,' he impulsively continued, anticipating what might have been the possible objection of Mrs. Hunter. 'With the two thousand pounds left to me by Mrs. Thornimett, and a little more added to it, which I have myself saved, I believe I shall be able to make my way.'
'Austin, you will make your way,' she replied, in a tone of the utmost confidence and kindness. 'I have heard Mr. Hunter himself anticipate a successful career for you. Even when you were, comparatively speaking,penniless, Mr. Hunter would say that talent and energy, such as yours, could not fail to find its proper outlet. Now that you have inherited the money, your success is certain. But—I fear you cannot win Florence.'
The words fell on his heart like an icebolt. He had reckoned on Mrs. Hunter's countenance, though he had not been sure of her husband's. 'What do you object to in me?' he inquired, in a tone of pain. 'I am of gentle birth.'
'Austin,Ido not object. I have long seen that your coming here so much—and it was Mr. Hunter's pleasure to have you—was likely to lead to an attachment between you and Florence. Had I objected to you, I should have pointed out to Mr. Hunter the impolicy of your coming. I likeyou: there is no one in the world to whom I would so readily intrust the happiness of Florence. Other mothers might look to a higher alliance for her: but, Austin, when we get near the grave, we judge with a judgment not of this world. Worldly distinctions lose their charm.'
'Then where lies the doubt—the objection?' he asked.
'I once—it is not long ago—hinted at this to Mr. Hunter,' she replied. 'He would not hear me out; he would not suffer me to conclude. It was an utter impossibility that you could ever marry Florence,' he said: 'neither was it likely that either of you would wish it.'
'But we do wish it; the love has already arisen,' he exclaimed, in agitation. Dear Mrs. Hunter——'
'Hush, Austin! calm yourself. Mr. Hunter musthave some private objection. I am sure he has; I could see so far; and one that, as was evident, he did not choose to disclose to me. I never inquire into his reasons when I perceive this. You must try and forget her.'
A commotion was heard in the hall. Austin went out to ascertain its cause. There stood Gwinn of Ketterford, insisting upon an interview with Mr. Hunter.
Austin contrived to get rid of the man by convincing him Mr. Hunter was really not at home. Gwinn went out grumbling, promising to be there the first thing in the morning.
The interlude had broken up the confidence between Austin and Mrs. Hunter; and he went home in despondency: but vowing to win her, all the same, sooner or later.