'They are not. They have just got a sprinkling of men for show—not many. Where are they to get them from?'
'Do you know what I heard? That Mr. Henry Hunter has been over to Belgium, and one or two of the other masters have also been, and——'
'There's no fear of the Beljim workmen,' interrupted Ryan. 'What English master 'ud employ them half-starved frogs?'
'I heard that Mr. Henry Hunter was quite thunderstruck at their skill,' continued Darby, paying no attention to the interruption. Their tools are bad: they are not to be called tools, compared to ours; but they turn out finished work. Their decorative work is beautiful. Mr. Henry Hunter put the question to them, whether they would like to come to England and earn five-and-sixpence per day, instead of three shillings as they do there, and they jumped at it. He told them that perhaps he might be sending for them.'
'Where did you bear that fine tale?' asked Slippery Sam?'
'It's going about among us. I dare say you have heard it also, Shuck. Mr. Henry was away somewhere for nine or ten days.'
'Let 'em come, them Beljicks,' sneered Ryan. 'Maybe they'd go back with their heads off. It couldn't take much to split the skull of them French beggars.'
'Not when an Irishman holds the stick,' cried Mrs. Quale, looking the man steadily in the face, as she left the palings.
Ryan watched her away, and resumed. 'How dare the masters think of taking on forringers? Leaving us to starve!'
'The preventing of it lies with us,' said Darby. 'If we go back to work, there'll be no room for them.'
'Listen, Darby,' rejoined Shuck, in a persuasive toneof confidence, the latter in full force, now that his enemy, Mrs. Quale, had gone. 'The bone of contention is the letting us work nine hours a day instead of ten: well, why should they not accord it? Isn't there every reason why they should? Isn't there men, outsiders, willing to work a full day's work, but can't get it? This extra hour, thrown up by us, would give employment to them. Would the masters be any the worse off?'
'They say they'd be the hour's wages out of pocket.'
'Flam!' ejaculated Sam. 'It would come out of the public's pocket, not out of the masters'. They would add so much the more on to their contracts, and nobody would be the worse. It's just a dogged feeling of obstinacy that's upon 'em; it's nothing else. They'll come-to in the end, if you men will only let them; they can't help doing it. Hold out, hold out, Darby! If we are to give into them now, where has been the use of this struggle? Haven't you waited for it, and starved for it, and hoped for it?'
'Very true,' replied Darby, feeling in a perplexing maze of indecision.
'Don't give in, man, at the eleventh hour,' urged Shuck, with affectionate eloquence: and to hear him you would have thought he had nothing in the world at heart so much as the interest of Robert Darby. 'A little longer, and the victory will be ours. You see, it is not the bare fact of your going back that does the mischief, it's the example it sets. But for that scoundrel Baxendale's turning tail, you would not have thought about it.'
'I don't know that,' said Darby.
'One bad sheep will spoil a flock,' continued Sam, puffing away at a cigar which he was smoking. He would have enjoyed a pipe a great deal more; but gentlemen smoked cigars, and Sam wanted to look as much like a gentleman as he could; it had been suggested to him that it would add to his power over the operatives. 'Why, Darby, we have got it all in our own hands—if you men could but be brought to see it. It's as plain as the nose before you. Us, builders, taking us in all our branches, might be the most united and prosperous body of men in the world. Only let us pull together, and have consideration for our fellows, and put away selfishness. Binding ourselves to work on an equality, nine hours a day being the limit; eight, perhaps, after a while——'
'It's a good thing you have not got much of an audience here, Sam Shuck! That doctrine of yours is false and pernicious; its in opposition to the laws of God and man.' The interruption proceeded from Dr. Bevary. He had come into the garden unperceived by Sam, who was lounging on the side palings, his back to the gate. The doctor was on his way to pay a visit to Mary Baxendale. Sam started up. 'What did you say, sir?'
'What did I say!' repeated Dr. Bevary. 'I think it should be, what did you say? You would dare to circumscribe the means of usefulness God has given to man—to set a limit to his talents and his labour! You would say, "So far shall you work, and no farther!"Who are you, and all such as you, that you should assume such power, and set yourselves up between your fellow-men and their responsibilities?'
'Hear, hear,' interrupted Mrs. Quale, putting her head out at her window—for she had gone indoors. 'Give him a bit of truth, sir.'
'I have been a hard worker for years,' continued Dr. Bevary, paying no attention, it must be confessed, to Mrs. Quale. 'Mentally and practically I have toiled—toiled, Sam Shuck—to improve and make use of the talents entrusted to me. My days are spent in alleviating, so far as may be, the sufferings of my fellow-creatures; when I go to rest, I often lie awake half the night, pondering difficult questions of medical science. What man living has God endowed with power to come and say to me, "You shall not do this; you shall only work half your hours; you shall only earn a limited amount of fees?" Answer me.'
'It's not a parallel case, sir, with ours,' returned Sam.
'It is a parallel case,' said Dr. Bevary. 'There's your friend next door, Peter Quale; take him. By diligence he has made himself into a finished artizan; by dint of industry in working over hours, he is amassing a competence that will keep him out of the workhouse in his old age. What reason or principle of justice can there be in your saying, "He shall not do this; he shall receive no more than I do, or than Ryan, there, does? Because Ryan is an inferior workman, and I love idleness and drink and agitation better than work, Quale and others shall not work to have an advantage overus; we will share and fare alike." Out upon you, Slippery Sam, for promulgating doctrines so false! You must be the incarnation of selfishness, or you could not do it. If ever they obtain sway in free and enlightened England, the independence of the workman will be at an end.' The Doctor stepped in to Shuck's house, on his way to Mary Baxendale, leaving Sam on the gravel. Sam put his arm within Darby's, and led him down the street, out of the Doctor's way, who would be coming forth again presently. There he set himself to undo what the Doctor's words had done, and to breathe persuasive arguments into Darby's ear. Later, Darby went home. It had grown dusk then, for Sam had treated him to a glass at the Bricklayers' Arms, where sundry other friends were taking their glasses. There appeared to be a commotion in his house as he entered; his wife, Grace, and the young ones were standing round Willy.
'He has had another fainting fit,' said Mrs. Darby to her husband, in explanation. 'And now—I declare illness is the strangest thing!—he says he is hungry.' The child put out his hot hand. 'Father!' Robert Darby advanced and took it. 'Be you better, dear? What ails you this evening?'
'Father,' whispered the child, hopefully, 'have you got the work?'
'When do you begin, Robert?' asked the wife. 'To-morrow?'
Darby's eyes fell, and his face clouded. 'I can't ask for it; I can't go back to work,' he answered. 'The society won't let me.'
A great cry. A cry from the mother, from Grace, from the poor little child. Hope, sprung up once more within them, had been illumining the past few hours. 'You shall soon have food; father's going to work again, darlings,' the mother had said to the hungry little ones. And now the hopes were dashed! The disappointment was hard to bear. 'Is he todieof hunger?' exclaimed Mrs. Darby, in bitterness, pointing to Willy. 'You said you would work for him.'
'So I would, if they'd let me. I'd work the life out of me, but what I'd get a crust for ye all; but the Trades' Union won't have it,' panted Darby, his breath short with excitement. 'What am I to do?'
'Work without the Trades' Union, father,' interposed Grace, taking courage to speak. She had always been a favourite with her father. 'Baxendale has done it.'
'They are threatening Baxendale awfully,' he answered. 'But it is not that I'd care for; it's this. The society would put a mark upon me: I should be a banned man: and when this struggle's over, they say I should be let get work by neither masters nor men. My tools are in pledge, too,' he added, as if that climax must end the contest.
Mrs. Darby threw her apron over her eyes and burst into tears; Grace was already crying silently, and the boy had his imploring little hands held up. 'Robert, they are your own children!' said the wife, meekly. 'I never thought you'd see them starve.'
Another minute, and the man would have cried with them. He went out of doors, perhaps to sob his emotionaway. Two or three steps down the street he encountered John Baxendale. The latter slipped five shillings into his hand. Darby would have put it back again.
'Tut, man; don't be squeamish. Take it for the children. You'd do as much for mine, if you had got it and I hadn't. Mary and I have been talking about you. She heard you having an argument with that snake, Shuck.'
'They be starving, Baxendale, or I wouldn't take it,' returned the man, the tears running down his pinched face. 'I'll pay you back with the first work I get. You call Shuck a snake; do you think he is one?'
'I'm sure of it,' said Baxendale. 'I don't know that he means ill, but can't you see the temptation it is?—all this distress and agitation that's ruining us, is making a gentleman of him. He and the other agents are living on the fat of the land, as Quale's wife calls it, and doing nothing for their pay, except keeping up the agitation. If we all went to work again quietly, where would they be? Why, they'd have to go to work also, for their pay must cease. Darby, I think the eyes of you union men must be blinded, not to see this.'
'It seems plain enough to me at times,' assented Darby. 'I say, Baxendale,' he added, wishing to speak a word of warning to his friend ere he turned away, 'have a care of yourself; they are going on again you at a fine rate.'
Come what would, Darby determined to furnish a home meal with this relief, which seemed like a very help from heaven. He bought two pounds of beef, apound of cheese, some tea, some sugar, two loaves of bread, and a lemon to make drink for Willy. Turning home with these various treasures, he became aware that a bustle had arisen in the street. Men and women were pressing down towards one particular spot. Tongues were busy; but he could not at first obtain an insight into the cause of the commotion.
'An obnoxious man had been set upon in a lonely corner, under cover of the night's darkness, and pitched into,' was at length explained. 'Beaten to death.' Away flew Darby, a horrible suspicion at his heart. Pushing his way amidst the crowd collected round the spot, as only a resolute man can do, he stood face to face with the sight. One, trampled on and beaten, lay in the dust, his face covered with blood.
'Is it Baxendale?' shouted Darby, for he was unable to recognise him.
'It's Baxendale, as sure as a trivet. Who else should it be? He have caught it at last.'
But there were pitying faces around. Humanity revolted at the sight; and quiet, inoffensive John Baxendale, had ever been liked in Daffodil's Delight. Robert Darby, his voice rising to a shriek with emotion, held out his armful of provisions.
'Look here! I wanted to work, but the Union won't let me. My wife and children be a starving at home, one of them dying: I came out, for I couldn't bear to stop indoors in the misery. There I met a friend—it seemed to me more like an angel—and he gave me money to feed my children; made me take it; he saidif I had money and he had not, I'd do as much for him. See what I bought with it: I was carrying it home for my poor children when this cry arose. Friends, the one to give it me was Baxendale. And you have murdered him!' Another great cry, even as Darby concluded, arose to break the deep stillness. No stillness is so deep as that caused by emotion.
'He is not dead!' shouted the crowd. 'See! he is stirring! Who could have done this!'
The winter had come in, intensely hard. Frost and snow lay early upon the ground. Was that infliction in store—a bitter winter—to be added to the already fearful distress existing in this dense metropolis? The men held out from work, and the condition of their families was something sad to look upon. Distress of a different nature existed in the house of Mr. Hunter. It was a house of sorrow; for its mistress lay dying. The spark of life had long been flickering, and now its time to depart had come. Haggard, worn, pale, stood Mr. Hunter in his drawing-room. He was conversing with his brother Henry. Their topic was business. In spite of existing domestic woes, men of business cannot long forget their daily occupation. Mr. Henry Hunter hadcome in to inquire news of his sister-in-law, and the conversation insensibly turned on other matters.
'Of course I shall weather it,' Mr. Henry was saying, in answer to a question. 'It will be a fearful loss, with so much money out, and buildings in process standing still. Did it last very much longer, I hardly know that I could. And you, James?' Mr. Hunter evaded the question. Since the time, years back, when they had dissolved partnership, he had shunned all allusion to his own prosperity, or non-prosperity, with his brother. Possibly he feared that it might lead to that other subject—the mysterious paying away of the five thousand pounds.
'For my part, I do not feel so sure of the strike's being near its end,' he remarked.
'I have positive information that the eligibility of withdrawing the strike at the Messrs. Pollocks' has been mooted by the central committee of the Union,' said Mr. Henry. 'If nothing else has brought the men to their senses, this weather must do it. It will end as nearly all strikes have ended—in their resuming work upon our terms.'
'But what an incalculable amount of suffering they have brought upon themselves!' exclaimed Mr. Hunter. 'I do not see what is to become of them, either, in future. How are they all to find work again? We shall not turn off the stranger men who have worked for us in this emergency, to make room for them.'
'No, indeed,' replied Mr. Henry. 'And those strangers amount to nearly half my complement ofhands. Do you recollect a fellow of the name of Moody?'
'Of course I do. I met him the other day, looking like a walking skeleton. I asked him whether he was not tired of the strike. He saidhehad been tired of it long ago; but the Union would not let him be.'
'He hung himself yesterday.'
Mr. Hunter replied only by a gesture.
'And left a written paper behind him, cursing the strike and the Trades' Unions, which had brought ruin upon him and his family. 'I saw the paper,' continued Mr. Henry. 'A decent, quiet man he was; but timorous, and easily led away.'
'Is he dead?'
'He had been dead two hours when he was found. He hung himself in that shed at the back of Dunn's house, where the men held some meetings in the commencement of the strike. I wonder how many more souls this wretched state of affairs will send, or has sent, out of the world!'
'Hundreds, directly or indirectly. The children are dying off quickly, as the Registrar-General's returns show. A period of prolonged distress always tells upon the children. And upon us also, I think,' Mr. Hunter added, with a sigh.
'Upon us in a degree,' Mr. Henry assented, somewhat carelessly. He was a man of substance; and, upon such, the ill effects fall lightly. 'When the masters act in combination, as we have done, it is not the men who can do us permanent injury. They must give in, beforegreat harm has had time to come. James, I saw that man this morning: yourbête noire, as I call him. Mr. Hunter changed countenance. He could not be ignorant that his brother alluded to Gwinn of Ketterford. It happened that Mr. Henry Hunter had been cognisant of one or two of the unpleasant visits forced by the man upon his brother during the last few years. But Mr. Henry had avoided questions: he had the tact to perceive that they would only go unanswered, and be deemed unpleasant into the bargain.
'I met him near your yard. Perhaps he was going in there.'
The sound of the muffled knocker, announcing a visitor, was heard the moment after Mr. Henry spoke, and Mr. Hunter started as though struck by a pistol-shot. At a calmer time he might have had more command over himself; but the sudden announcement of the presence of the man in town—which fact he had not been cognisant of—had startled him to tremor. That Gwinn, and nobody else, was knocking for admittance, seemed a certainty to his shattered nerves. 'I cannot see him: I cannot see him!' he exclaimed, in agitation; and he backed away from the room door, unconscious what he did in his confused fear, his lips blanching to a deadly whiteness.
Mr. Henry moved up and took his hand. 'James, there has been estrangement between us on this point for years. As I asked you once before, I now ask you again: confide in me and let me help you. Whatever the dreadful secret may be, you shall find me your true brother.'
'Hush!' breathed Mr. Hunter, moving from his brother in his scared alarm. 'Dreadful secret! who says it? There is no dreadful secret. Oh Henry! hush! hush! The man is coming in! You must leave us.' Not the dreaded Gwinn, but Austin Clay. He was the one who entered. Mr. Hunter sat down, breathing heavily, the blood coming back to his face; he nearly fainted in the revulsion of feeling brought by the relief. Broken in spirit, health and nerves alike shattered, the slightest thing was now sufficient to agitate him.
'You are ill, sir!' exclaimed Austin, advancing with concern.
'No—no—I am not ill. A momentary spasm; that's all. I am subject to it.'
Mr. Henry moved to the door in vexation. There was to be no more brotherly confidence between them now than there had formerly been. He spoke as he went, without turning round. 'I will come in again by-and-by, James, and see how Louisa is.'
The departure seemed a positive relief to Mr. Hunter. He spoke quietly enough to Austin Clay. 'Who has been at the office to-day?'
'Let me see,' returned Austin, with a purposed carelessness. 'Lyall came, and Thompson——'
'Not men on business, not men on business,' Mr. Hunter interrupted with feverish eagerness. 'Strangers.'
'Gwinn of Ketterford,' answered Austin, with the same assumption of carelessness. 'He came twice. No other strangers have called, I think.'
Whether his brother's request, that he should beenlightened as to the 'dreadful secret,' had rendered Mr. Hunter suspicious that others might surmise there was a secret, certain it is that he looked up sharply as Austin spoke, keenly regarding his countenance, noting the sound of his voice. 'What did he want?'
'He wanted you, sir. I said you were not to be seen. I let him suppose that you were too ill to be seen. Bailey, who was in the counting-house at the time, gave him the gratuitous information that Mrs. Hunter was very ill—in danger.'
Why this answer should have increased Mr. Hunter's suspicions, he best knew. He rose from his seat, grasped Austin's arm, and spoke with menace. 'You have been prying into my affairs! You sought out those Gwinns when you last went to Ketterford! You——'
Austin withdrew from the grasp, and stood before his master, calm and upright. 'Mr. Hunter!'
'Was it not so?'
'No, sir. I thought you had known me better. I should be the last to "pry" into anything that you might wish to keep secret.'
'Austin, I am not myself to-day, I am not myself,' cried the poor gentleman, feeling how unjustifiable had been his suspicions. 'This grief, induced by the state of Mrs. Hunter, unmans me.'
'How is she, sir, by this time?'
'Calm and collected, but sinking fast. You must go up and see her. She said she should like to bid you farewell.' Through the warm corridors, so well protected from the bitter cold reigning without, Austin wasconducted to the room of Mrs. Hunter. Florence, her eyes swollen with weeping, quitted it as he entered. She lay in bed, her pale face raised upon pillows; save for that pale face and the laboured breathing, you would not have suspected the closing scene to be so near. She lifted her feeble hand and made prisoner of Austin's. The tears gathered in his eyes as he looked down upon her.
'Not for me, dear Austin,' she whispered, as she noted the signs of sorrow. 'Weep rather for those who are left to battle yet with this sad world.' The words caused Austin to wonder whether she could have become cognisant of the nature of Mr. Hunter's long-continued trouble. He swallowed down the emotion that was rising in his throat.
'Do you feel no better?' he gently inquired.
'I feel well, save for the weakness. All pain has left me. Austin, I shall be glad to go. I have only one regret, the leaving Florence. My husband will not be long after me; I read it in his face.'
'Dear Mrs. Hunter, will you allow me to say a word to you on the subject of Florence?' he breathed, seizing on the swiftly-passing opportunity. 'I have wished to do it before we finally part.'
'Say what you will.'
'Should time and perseverance on my part be crowned with success, so that the prejudices of Mr. Hunter become subdued, and I succeed in winning Florence, will you not say that you bless our union?'
Mrs. Hunter paused. 'Are we quite alone?' sheasked. Austin glanced round to the closed door. 'Quite,' he answered.
'Then, Austin, I will say more. My hearty consent and blessing be upon you both, if you can, indeed, subdue the objection of Mr. Hunter. Not otherwise: you understand that.'
'Without her father's consent, I am sure that Florence would not give me hers. Have you any idea in what that objection lies?'
'I have not. Mr. Hunter is not a man who will submit to be questioned, even by me. But, Austin, I cannot help thinking that this objection to you may fade away—for, that he likes and esteems you greatly, I know. Should that time come, then tell him that I loved you—that I wished Florence to become your wife—that I prayed God to bless the union. And then tell Florence.'
'Will you not tell her yourself?'
Mrs. Hunter made a feeble gesture of denial. 'It would seem like an encouragement to dispute the decision of her father. Austin, will you say farewell, and send my husband to me? I am growing faint.' He clasped her attenuated hands in both his; he bent down, and kissed her forehead. Mrs. Hunter held him to her. 'Cherish and love her always, should she become yours,' was the feeble whisper. 'And come to me, come to me, both of you, in eternity.'
A moment or two in the corridor to compose himself, and Austin met Mr. Hunter on the stairs, and gave him the message. 'How is Baxendale?' Mr. Hunter stayed to ask.
'A trifle better. Not yet out of danger.'
'You take care to give him the allowance weekly?'
'Of course I do, sir. It is due to-night, and I am going to take it to him.'
'Will he ever be fit for work again?'—'I hope so.'
Another word or two on the subject of Baxendale, the attack on whom Mr. Hunter most bitterly resented, and Austin departed. Mr. Hunter entered his wife's chamber. Florence, who was also entering, Mrs. Hunter feebly waved away. 'I would be a moment alone with your father, my child. James,' Mrs. Hunter said to her husband, as Florence retired—but her voice was now so reduced that he had to bend his ear to catch the sounds—'there has been estrangement between us on one point for many years: and it seems—I know not why—to be haunting my death-bed. Will you not, in this my last hour, tell me its cause?'
'It would not give you peace, Louisa. It concerns myself alone.'
'Whatever the secret may be, it has been wearing your life out. I ought to know it.'
Mr. Hunter bent lower. 'My dear wife, it would not bring you peace, I say. I contracted an obligation in my youth,' he whispered, in answer to the yearning glance thrown up to him, 'and I have had to pay it off—one sum after another, one after another, until it has nearly drained me. It will soon be at an end now.'
'Is it nearly paid?'—'Ay. All but.'
'But why not have told me this? It would have saved me many a troubled hour. Suspense, when fancyis at work, is hard to bear. And you, James: why should simple debt, if it is that, have worked so terrible a fear upon you?'
'I did not know that I could stave it off: looking back, I wonder that I did do it. I could have borne ruin for myself: I could not, for you.'
'Oh, James!' she fondly said, 'should I have been less brave? While you and Florence were spared to me, ruin might have done its worst.' Mr. Hunter turned his face away: strangely wrung and haggard it looked just then. 'What a mercy that it is over!'
'All but, I said,' he interrupted. And the words seemed to burst from him in an uncontrollable impulse, in spite of himself.
'It is the only thing that has marred our life's peace, James. I shall soon be at rest. Perfect peace! perfect happiness! May all we have loved be there! I can see——'
The words had been spoken disjointedly, in the faintest whisper, and, with the last one died away. She laid her head upon her husband's arm, and seemed as if she would sleep. He did not disturb her: he remained buried in his own thoughts. A short while, and Florence was heard at the door. Dr. Bevary was there.
'You can come in,' called out Mr. Hunter.
They approached the bed. Florence saw a change in her mother's face, and uttered an exclamation of alarm. The physician's practised eye detected what had happened: he made a sign to the nurse who had followed him in, and the woman went forth to carry the news to the household. Mr. Hunter alone was calm.
'Thank God!' was his strange ejaculation.
'Oh, papa! papa! it is death!' sobbed Florence, in her distress. 'Do you not see that it is death?'
'Thank God also, Florence,' solemnly said Dr. Bevary. 'She is better off.'
Florence sobbed wildly. The words sounded to her ears needlessly cruel—out of place. Mr. Hunter bent his face on that of the dead, with a long, fervent kiss. 'My wronged wife!' he mentally uttered. Dr. Bevary followed him as he left the room.
'James Hunter, it had been a mercy for you had she been taken years ago.'
Mr. Hunter lifted his hands as if beating off the words, and his face turned white. 'Be still! be still! what canyouknow?'
'I know as much as you,' said Dr. Bevary, in a tone which, low though it was, seemed to penetrate to the very marrow of the unhappy man. 'The knowledge has disturbed my peace by day, and my rest by night. What, then, must it have done by yours?'
James Hunter, his hands held up still to shade his face, and his head down, turned away. 'It was the fault of another,' he wailed, 'and I have borne the punishment.'
'Ay,' said Dr. Bevary, 'or you would have had my reproaches long ago. Hark! whose voice is that?' It was one known only too well to Mr. Hunter. He cowered for a moment, as he had hitherto had terrible cause to do: the next, he raised his head, and shook off the fear.
'I can dare him now,' he bravely said, turning to thestairs with a cleared countenance, to meet Gwinn of Ketterford.
He had obtained entrance in this way. The servants were closing up the windows of the house, and one of them had gone outside to tell the gossiping servant of a neighbour that their good lady and ever kind mistress was dead, when the lawyer arrived. He saw what was being done, and drew his own conclusions. Nevertheless, he desisted not from the visit he had come to pay.
'I wish to see Mr. Hunter,' he said, while the door stood open.
'I do not think you can see him now, sir,' was the reply of the servant. 'My master is in great affliction.'
'Your mistress is dead, I suppose.'—'Just dead.'
'Well, I shall not detain Mr. Hunter many minutes,' rejoined Gwinn, pushing his way into the hall. 'I must see him.'
The servant hesitated. But his master's voice was heard. 'You can admit that person, Richard.'
The man opened the door of the front room. It was in darkness; the shutters were closed; so he turned to the door of the other, and showed the guest in. The soft perfume from the odoriferous plants in the conservatory was wafted to the senses of Gwinn of Ketterford as he entered. 'Why do you seek me here?' demanded Mr. Hunter when he appeared. 'Is it a fitting time and place?'
'A court of law might perhaps be more fit,' insolently returned the lawyer. 'Why did you not remit themoney, according to promise, and so obviate the necessity of my coming?'
'Because I shall remit no more money. Not another farthing, or the value of one, shall you ever obtain of me. If I have submitted to your ruinous and swindling demands, you know why I have done it——'
'Stop!' interrupted Mr. Gwinn. 'You have had your money's worth—silence.'
Mr. Hunter was deeply agitated. 'As the breath went out of my wife's body, I thanked God that He had taken her—that she was removed from the wicked machinations of you and yours. But for the bitter wrong dealt out to me by your wicked sister Agatha, I should have mourned for her with regrets and tears. You have made my life into a curse: I purchased your silence that you should not render hers one. The fear and the thraldom are alike over.'
Mr. Gwinn laughed significantly. 'Your daughter lives.'
'She does. In saying that I will make her cognisant of this, rather than supply you with another sixpence, you may judge how firm is my determination.'
'It will be startling news for her.'
'It will: should it come to the telling. Better that she hear it, and make the best and the worst of it, than that I should reduce her to utter poverty—and your demands, supplied, would do that. The news will not kill her—as it might have killed her mother.'
Did Lawyer Gwinn feel baffled? For a minute or two he seemed to be at a loss for words. 'I will havemoney,' he exclaimed at length. 'You have tried to stand out against it before now.'
'Man! do you know that I am on the brink of ruin?' uttered Mr. Hunter, in deep excitement, 'and that it is you who have brought me to it?' But for the money supplied to you, I could have weathered successfully this contest with my workmen, as my brother and others are weathering it. If you have any further claim against me,' he added in a spirit of mocking bitterness, 'bring it against my bankruptcy, for that is looming near.'
'I will not stir from your house without a cheque for the money.'
'This house is sanctified by the presence of the dead,' reverently spoke Mr. Hunter. 'To have any disturbance in it would be most unseemly. Do not force me to call in a policeman.'
'As a policeman was once called into you, in the years gone by,' Lawyer Gwinn was beginning with a sneer: but Mr. Hunter raised his voice and his hand.
'Be still! Coward as I have been, in one sense, in yielding to your terms, I have never been coward enough to permityouto allude, in my presence, to the past. I never will. Go from my house quietly, sir: and do not attempt to re-enter it.'
Mr. Hunter broke from the man—for Gwinn made an effort to detain him—opened the door, and called to the servant, who came forward.
'Show this person to the door, Richard.'
An instant's hesitation with himself whether it shouldbe compliance or resistance, and Gwinn of Ketterford went forth.
'Richard,' said Mr. Hunter, as the servant closed the hall-door.—'Sir?'
'Should that man ever come here again, do not admit him. And if he shows himself troublesome, call a policeman to your aid.' And then Mr. Hunter shut himself in the room, and burst into heavy tears, such as are rarely shed by man.
No clue whatever had been obtained to the assailants of John Baxendale. The chief injury lay in the ribs. Two or three of them were broken: the head was also much bruised and cut. He had been taken into his own home and there attended to: it was nearer than the hospital: though the latter would have been the better place. Time had gone on since, and he was now out of danger. Never would John Baxendale talk of the harshness of masters again—though, indeed, he never much talked of it. The moment Mr. Hunter heard of the assault, he sent round his own surgeon, directed Austin to give Baxendale a sovereign weekly, and caused strengthening delicacies to be served from his own house. And that was the same man whom you heard forbidding his wife and daughter to forward aid to Darby's starving children.Yes; but Mr. Hunter denied the aid upon principle: Darby would not work. It pleased him far more to accord it to Baxendale than to deny it to Darby: the one course gladdened his heart, the other pained it. The surgeon who attended was a particular friend of Dr. Bevary's, and the Doctor, in his quaint, easy manner, contrived to let Baxendale know that there would be no bill for him to pay.
It was late when Austin reached Baxendale's room the evening of Mrs. Hunter's death. Tidings of which had already gone abroad. 'Oh, sir,' uttered the invalid, straining his eyes on him from the sick-bed, before Austin had well entered, 'is the news true?'
'It is,' sadly replied Austin. 'She died this afternoon.'
'It is a good lady gone from among us. Does the master take on much?'
'I have not seen him since. Death came on, I believe, rather suddenly at the last.'
'Poor Mrs. Hunter!' wailed Baxendale. 'Hers is not the only spirit that is this evening on the wing,' he added, after a pause. 'That boy of Darby's is going, Mary'—looking on the bright sovereign put into his hands by Austin—'suppose you get this changed, and go down there and take 'em a couple of shillings? It's hard to have a cupboard quite empty when death's a visitor.'
Mary came up from the far end of the room, and put on her shawl with alacrity. She looked but a shadow herself. Austin wondered how Mr. Hunter would approve of any of his shillings finding their way toDarby's; but he said nothing against it. But for the strongly expressed sentiments of Mr. Hunter, Austin would have given away right and left, to relieve the distress around him: although, put him upon principle, and he agreed fully with Mr. Hunter. Mary got change for the sovereign, and took possession of a couple of shillings. It was a bitterly cold evening; but she was well wrapped up. Though not permanently better, Mary was feeling stronger of late: in her simple faith, she believed God had mercifully spared her for a short while, that she might nurse her father. She knew, just as well as did Dr. Bevary, that it would not be for long. As she went along she met Mrs. Quale.
'The child is gone,' said the latter, hearing where Mary was going.
'Poor child! Is he really dead?'
Mrs. Quale nodded. Few things upset her equanimity. 'And I am keeping my eyes open to look out for Darby,' she added. 'His wife asked me if I would. She is afraid'—dropping her voice—'that he may do something rash.'
'Why?' breathed Mary, in a tone of horror, understanding the allusion.
'Why!' vehemently repeated Mrs. Quale; 'why, because he reflects upon himself—that's why. When he saw that the breath was really gone out of the poor little body—and that's not five minutes ago—he broke out like one mad. Them quiet natures in ordinary be always the worst if they get upset; though it takes a good deal to do it. He blamed himself, saying that ifhe had been in work, and able to get proper food for the boy, it would not have happened; and he cursed the Trades Unions for misleading him, and bringing him to what he is. There's many another cursing the Unions on this inclement night, or my name's not Nancy Quale.' She turned back with Mary, and they entered the home of the Darbys. Grace, unable to get another situation, partly through the baker's wife refusing her a character, partly because her clothes were in pledge, looked worn and thin, as she stood trying to hush the youngest child, then crying fretfully. Mrs. Darby sat in front of the small bit of fire, the dead boy on her knees, pressed to her still, just as Mrs. Quale had left her.
'He won't hunger any more,' she said, lifting her face to Mary, the hot tears running from it.
Mary stooped and kissed the little cold face. 'Don't grieve,' she murmured. 'It would be well for us all if we were as happy as he.'
'Go and speak to him,' whispered the mother to Mrs. Quale, pointing to a back door, which led to a sort of open scullery. 'He has come in, and is gone out there.'
Leaning against the wall, in the cold moonlight, stood Robert Darby. Mrs. Quale was not very good at consolation: finding fault was more in her line. 'Come, Darby, don't take on so: it won't do no good,' was the best she could say. 'Be a man.' He seized hold of her, his shaking hands trembling, while he spoke bitter words against the Trades Unions. 'Don't speak so, Robert Darby,' was the rejoinder of Mrs. Quale. 'You are not obliged to join the Trades' Unions;therefore there's no need to curse 'em. If you and others kept aloof from them, they'd soon die away.'
'They have proved a curse to me and mine'—and the man's voice rose to a shriek, in his violent emotion. 'But for them, I should have been at work long ago.'
'Then I'd go to work at once, if it was me, and put the curse from me that way,' concluded Mrs. Quale.
With the death of the child, things had come to so low an ebb in the Darby household, as to cause sundry kind gossipers to suggest, and to spread the suggestion as a fact, that the parish would have the honour of conducting the interment. Darby would have sold himself first. He was at Mr. Hunter's yard on the following morning before daylight, and the instant the gates were opened presented himself to the foreman as a candidate for work. That functionary would not treat with him. 'We have had so many of you old hands just coming on for a day or two, and then withdrawing again, through orders of the society, or through getting frightened at being threatened, that Mr. Clay said I was to take back no more shilly-shallyers.'
'Try me!' feverishly cried Darby. 'I will not go from it again.'
'No,' said the foreman. 'You can speak to Mr. Clay.'
'Darby,' said Austin, when the man appeared before him, 'will you pass your word to me to remain? Here men come; they sign the document, they have work assigned them; and in a day or so, I hear that they have left again. It causes no end of confusion to us, for work to be taken up and laid down in that way.'
'Take me on, and try me, sir. I'll stick to it as long as there's a stroke of work to do—unless they tread me to pieces as they did Baxendale. I never was cordial for the society, sir. I obeyed it, and yet a doubt was always upon me whether I might not be doing wrong. I am sure of it now. The society has worked harm to me and mine, and I will never belong to it again.'
'Others have said as much of the society, and have returned to it the next day,' remarked Mr. Clay.
'Perhaps so, sir. They hadn't seen one of their children die, that they'd have laid down their own lives to save—but that they had notworkedto save. I have. Take me on, sir! He can't be buried till I have earned the wherewithal to pay for it. I'll stand to my work from henceforth—over hours, if I can get it.'
Austin wrote a word on a card, and desired Darby to carry it to the foreman. 'You can go to work at once,' he said.
'I'll take work too, sir, if I can get it,' exclaimed another man, who had come up in time to hear Austin's last words.
'What! is it you, Abel White?' exclaimed Austin, with a half-laugh. 'I thought you made a boast that if the whole lot of hands came back to work, you never would, except upon your own terms.'
'So I did, sir. But when I find I have been in the wrong, I am not above owning it,' was the man's reply, who looked in a far better physical condition than the pinched, half-starved Darby. 'I could hold out longer, sir, without much inconvenience; leastways, with a dealless inconvenience than some of them could, for I and father belong to one or two provident clubs, and they have helped us weekly, and my wife and daughters don't do amiss at their umbrella work. But I have come over to my old father's views at last; and I have made my mind up, as he did long ago, never to be a Union man again—unless the masters should turn round and make themselves into a body of tyrants; I don't know what I might do then. But there's not much danger of that—as father says—in these go-a-head days. You'll give me work, sir?'
'Upon certain conditions,' replied Austin. And he sat down and proceeded to talk to the man.
Daffodil's Delight and its environs were in a state of bustle—of public excitement, as may be said. Daffodil's Delight, however low its condition might be, never failed to seize hold upon any possible event, whether of a general public nature, or of a private local nature, as an excuse for getting up a little steam. On that cold winter's day, two funerals were appointed to take place: the one, that of Mrs. Hunter; the other, of little William Darby: and Daffodil's Delight, in spite of the black frost, turned out in crowds to see. You could not have passed into the square when the large funeral came forthso many had collected there. It was a funeral of mutes and plumes and horses and trappings and carriages and show. The nearer Mr. Hunter had grown to pecuniary embarrassment, the more jealous was he to guard all suspicion of it from the world. Hence the display: which the poor unconscious lady they were attending would have been the first to shrink from. Mr. Hunter, his brother, and Dr. Bevary were in the first mourning-coach: in the second, with two of the sons of Henry Hunter, and another relative, sat Austin Clay. And more followed. That took place in the morning. In the afternoon, the coffin of the boy, covered by something black—but it looked like old cloth instead of velvet—was brought out of Darby's house upon men's shoulders. Part of the family followed, and pretty nearly the whole of Daffodil's Delight brought up the rear. There it is, moving slowly down the street. Not over slowly either; for there had been a delay in some of the arrangements, and the clergyman must have been waiting for half an hour. It was a week since Darby resumed work; a long while to keep the child, but the season was winter. Darby had paid part of the expense, and had been trusted for the rest. It arrived at the burial place; and the little body was buried, there to remain until the resurrection at the last day. As Darby stood over the grave, the regret for his child was nearly lost sight of in that other and far more bitter regret, the remorse of which was telling upon him. He had kept the dead starving for months, when work was to be had for the asking!
'Don't take on so,' whispered a neighbour, who knew his thoughts. 'If you had gone back to work as soon as the yards were open, you'd only have been set upon and half-killed, as Baxendale was.'
'Then it would not, in that case, have been my fault if he had starved,' returned Darby, with compressed lips. 'His poor hungry face 'll lie upon my mind for ever.'
The shades of evening were on Daffodil's Delight when the attendants of the funeral returned, and Mr. Cox, the pawnbroker, was busily transacting the business that the dusk hour always brought him. Even the ladies and gentlemen of Daffodil's Delight, though they were common sufferers, and all, or nearly all, required to pay visits to Mr. Cox, imitated their betters in observing that peculiar reticence of manner which custom has thrown around these delicate negotiations. The character of their offerings had changed. In the first instance they had chiefly consisted of ornaments, whether of the house or person, or of superfluous articles of attire and of furniture. Then had come necessaries: bedding, and heavier things; and then trifles—irons, saucepans, frying-pans, gowns, coats, tools—anything; anything by which a shilling could be obtained. And now had arrived the climax when there was nothing more to take—nothing, at least, that Mr. Cox would speculate upon.
A woman went banging into the shop, and Mr. Cox recognised her for the most troublesome of his customers—Mrs. Dunn. Of all the miserable households in Daffodil's Delight, that of the Dunns' was about theworst: but Mrs. Dunn's manners and temper were fiercer than ever. The non-realization of her fond hope of good cheer and silk dresses was looked upon as a private injury, and resented as such. See her as she turns into the shop: her head, a mass of torn black cap and entangled hair; her gown, a black stuff once, dirty now, hanging in jags, and clinging round her with that peculiar cling which indicates that few, if any, petticoats are underneath; her feet scuffling along in shoes tied round the instep with white rag, to keep them on! As she was entering, she encountered a poor woman named Jones, the wife of a carpenter, as badly reduced as she was. Mrs. Jones held out a small blanket for her inspection, and spoke with the tears running down her cheeks. Apparently, her errand to Mr. Cox had been unsuccessful.
'We have kept it till the last. We said we could not lie on the sack of straw this awful weather, without the blanket to cover us. But to-day we haven't got a crumb in the house, or a ember in the grate; and Jones said, says he, "There ain't no help for it, you must pledge it."'
'And Cox won't take it in?' shrilly responded Mrs. Dunn. The woman shook her head, and the tears fell fast on her thin cotton shawl, as she walked away. 'He says the moths has got into it.'
'A pity but the moths had got into him! his eyes is sharper than they need be,' shrieked Mrs. Dunn. 'Here, Cox,' dashing up to the counter, and flinging on it a pair of boots, 'I want three shillings on them.'
Mr. Cox took up the offered pledge—a thin pair ofwoman's boots, black cloth, with leather tips; new, they had probably cost five shillings, but they were now considerably the worse for wear. 'What is the use of bringing these old things?' remonstrated Mr. Cox. 'They are worth nothing.'
'Everything's worth nothing, according to you,' retorted Mrs. Dunn. 'Come! I want three shillings on them.'
'I wouldn't lend you eighteen-pence. They'd not fetch it at an auction.'
Mrs. Dunn would have very much liked to fling the boots in his face. After some dispute, she condescended to ask what he would give. 'I'll lend a shilling, as you are a customer, just to oblige you. But I don't care to take them in at all.' More dispute; and she brought her demand down to eighteen-pence. 'Not a penny more than a shilling,' was the decisive reply. 'I tell you they are not worth that, to me.' The boots were at length left, and the shilling taken. Mrs. Dunn solaced herself with a pint of half-and-half in a beer-shop, and went home with the change.
Upon no home had the strike acted with worse effects than upon that of the Dunns: and we are not speaking now as to pecuniary matters.Theywere just as bad as they could be. Irregularity had prevailed in it at the best of times; quarrelling and contention often; embarrassment, the result of bad management, frequently. Upon such a home, distress, long continued bitter distress, was not likely to work for good. The father and a grown-up son were out of work; and the MissesDunn were also without employment. Their patronesses, almost without exception, consisted of the ladies of Daffodil's Delight, and, as may be readily conjectured, they had no funds just now to expend upon gowns and their making. Not only this: there was, from one party or another, a good bit of money owing to the sisters for past work, and this they could not get. As a set-off to this—on the wrong side—theywere owing bills in various directions for materials that had been long ago made up for their customers, some of whom had paid them and some not. Any that had not been paid before the strike came, remained unpaid still. The Miss Dunns might just as well have asked for the moon as for money, owing or not owing, from the distressed wives of Daffodil's Delight. So, there they were, father, mother, sons, daughters, all debarred from earning money; while all, with the younger children in addition, had to be kept. It was wearying work, that forced idleness and that forced famine; and it worked badly, especially on the girls. Quarrelling they were accustomed to; embarrassment they did not mind; irregularity in domestic affairs they had lived in all their lives; but they could not bear the distress that had now come upon them. Added to this, the girls were unpleasantly pressed for the settlement of the bills above alluded to. Mrs. Quale had from the first recommended the two sisters to try for situations: but when was advice well taken? They tossed their heads at the idea of going out to service, thereby giving up their liberty and their idleness. They said that it might prevent them gettingtogether again their business, when things should look up; they urged that they were not fitted for service, knowing little of any sort of housework; and, finally, they asked—and there was a great deal in the plea—how they were to go out while the chief portion of their clothes was in pledge.
For the past few days certain mysterious movements on the part of Mary Ann Dunn had given rise to some talk (the usual expression for gossiping and scandal) in Daffodil's Delight. She had been almost continually out from home, and when asked where, had evaded an answer. Ever ready, as some people are, to put a bad construction upon things, it was not wanting in this case. Tales were carried home to the father and mother, and there had been a scene of attack and abuse, on Mary Ann's presenting herself at home at mid-day. The girl had a fierce temper, inherited probably from her mother; she returned abuse for abuse, and finally rushed off in a passion, without having given any satisfactory defence of herself. Dunn cared for his children after a fashion, and the fear that the reports must be true, completely beat him down; cowed his spirit, as he might have put it. Mrs. Dunn, on the contrary, ranted and raved till she was hoarse; and then, being excessively thirsty, stole off surreptitiously with the boots to Mr. Cox's, and so obtained a pint of half-and-half.
She returned home again, the delightful taste of it still in her mouth. The room was stripped of all, save a few things, too old or too useless for Mr. Cox to take; and, except for a little fire, it presented a complete pictureof poverty. The children lay on the boards crying; not a loud cry, but a distressed moan. Very little, indeed, even of bread, got those children; for James Dunn and his wife were too fond of beer, to expend in much else the trifle allowed them by the Trades Union. James Dunn had just come in. After the scene with his daughter, when he had a little recovered himself, he went out to keep an appointment. Some of the workmen, in a similarly distressed condition to himself, had been that day to one of the police courts, hoping to obtain pecuniary help from the magistrates. The result had been a complete failure, and Dunn sat, moody and cross, upon a bench, his depression of spirit having given place to a sort of savage anger; chiefly at his daughter Mary Ann, partly at things altogether. The pint of half-and-half upon an empty stomach had not tended to render Mrs. Dunn of a calmer temper. She addressed him snappishly. 'What, you have come in! Have you got any money?' Mr. Dunn made no reply; unless a growl that sounded rather defiant constituted one. She returned to the charge. 'Have you got any money, I ask? Or be you come home again with a empty pocket?'
'No; father hasn't got none: they didn't get any good by going there,' interposed Jemima Dunn, as though it were a satisfaction to tell out the bad news, and who appeared to be looking in all sorts of corners and places, as if in search of something. 'Ted Cheek told me, and he was one of 'em that went. The magistrate said to the men that there was plenty of work openfor them if they liked to do it; and his opinion was, that if they did not like to do it, they wanted punishment instead of assistance.'
'That's just my opinion,' returned Mrs. Dunn, with intense aggravation. 'There!'
James Dunn broke out intemperately, with violent words. And then he relapsed into his gloomy mood again.
'I can't think what's gone with my boots,' exclaimed Jemima.
'Mother took 'em out,' cried a little voice from the floor.
'What's that, Jacky?' asked Jemima.
'Mother took 'em out,' responded Jacky.
The girl turned round, and stood still for a moment as if taking in the sense of the words. Then she attacked her mother, anger flashing from her eyes. 'If you have been and took 'em to the pawnshop, you shall fetch 'em back. How dare you interfere with my things? Aren't they my boots? Didn't I buy 'em with my own money?'
'If you don't hold your tongue, I'll box your ears,' shrieked Mrs. Dunn, with a look and gesture as menacing as her tone. 'Hold your tongue! hold your tongue, I say, miss!'
'I shan't hold my tongue,' responded Jemima, struggling between anger and tears. 'I will have my boots! I want to go out, I do! and how can I go barefoot?'
'Want to go out, do you!' raved Mrs. Dunn. 'Perhaps you want to go and follow your sister! The boots be at Cox's, and you may go there and get 'em. Now, then!'
The words altogether were calculated to increase the ire of Jemima; they did so in no measured degree. She and her mother commenced a mutual contest of ranting abuse. It might have come to blows but for the father's breaking into a storm of rage, so violent as to calm them, and frighten the children. It almost seemed as if trouble had upset his brain.
Long continued hunger—the hunger that for weeks and months never gets satisfied—will on occasion transform men and women into demons. In the house of the Dunns, not only hunger but misery of all sorts reigned, and this day seemed to have brought things to a climax. Added to the trouble and doubt regarding Mary Ann, was the fear of a prison, Dunn having just heard that he had been convicted in the Small Debts Court. Summonses had been out against him, hopeless though it seemed to sue anybody so helplessly poor. In truth, the man was overwhelmed with misery—as was many another man in Daffodil's Delight—and did not know where to turn. After this outburst, he sat down on the bench again, administering a final threat to his wife for silence. Mrs. Dunn stood against the bare wooden shelves of the dresser, her hair on end, her face scarlet, her voice loud enough, in its shrieking sobs, to alarm all the neighbours; altogether in a state of fury. Disregarding her husband's injunction for silence, she broke out into reproaches. 'Was he a man, that he should bring 'em to this state of starvation, and then turn round upon 'em with threats? Wasn't she his wife? wasn't they his children? Ifshewas a husband andfather, she'd rather break stones till her arms rotted off, but what she'd find 'em food! A lazy, idle, drunken object! There was the masters' yards open, and why didn't he go to work? If a man cared for his own family, he'd look to his interests, and set the Trades Union at defiance. Was he a going to see 'em took off to the workhouse? When his young ones lay dead, and she was in the poorhouse, then he'd fold his hands and be content with his work. If the strike was to bring 'em all this misery, what the plague business had he to join it? Couldn't he have seen better? Let him go to work if he was a man, and bring home a few coals, and a bit of bread, and get out a blanket or two from Cox's, and her gownds and things, and Jemimar's boots——'
Dunn, really a peacefully inclined man by nature, and whose own anger had spent itself, let it go on to this point. He then stood up before her, and with a clenched fist, but calm voice of suppressed meaning, asked her what she meant. What, indeed! In the midst of Mrs. Dunn's reproaches, how was it she did not cast a recollection to the past? To her own eagerness, public and private, for the strike? how she had urged her husband on to join it, boasting of the good times it was to bring them? She could ignore all that now: perhaps really had almost forgotten it. Anyway, her opinions had changed. Misery and disappointment will subdue the fiercest obstinacy; and Mrs. Dunn, casting all the blame upon her husband, would very much have liked to chastise him with hands as well as tongue.
Reader! if you think this is an overdrawn picture, go and lay it before the wives of the workmen who suffered the miseries induced by the strike, and ask them whether or not it is true. Ay, and it is only part of the truth.
'I wish the strike had been buried five-fathom deep, I do!' uttered Dunn, with a catching up of the breath that told of the emotion he strove to hide. 'It have been nothing but a curse to us all along. And where's to be the ending?'
'Who brought home all this misery but you?' recommenced Mrs. Dunn. 'Have you done a day's work for weeks and months? No you haven't; you know you haven't! You have just rowed in the same boat with them nasty lazy Unionists, and let the work go a begging.'
'Who edged me on to join the Unionists? who reproached me with being no man, but a sneak, if I went to work and knuckled down to the masters?' demanded Dunn, in his sore vexation. 'It was you! You know it was you! You was fire-hot for the strike: worse than ever the men was.'
'Can we starve?' said Mrs. Dunn, choking with passion. 'Can we drop into our coffins with famine? Be our children to be drove, like Mary Ann——' An interruption—fortunately. Mrs. Cheek came into the room with a burst. She had a tongue also, on occasions.
'Whatever has been going on here this last half hour?' she inquired in a high voice. 'One would thinkmurder was being committed. There's a dozen listeners collected outside your shutters.'
'She's a casting it in my teeth, now, for having joined the strike,' exclaimed Dunn, indicating his wife. 'She! And she was the foremost to edge us all on.'
'Can one clam?' fiercely returned Mrs. Dunn, speaking at her husband, not to him. 'Let him go to work.'
'Don't be a fool, Hannah Dunn,' said Mrs. Cheek. 'I'd stand up for my rights till I dropped: and so must the men. It'll never do to bend to the will of the masters at last. There's enough men turning tail and going back, without the rest doing of it. I should like to see Cheek attempting it: I'd be on to him.'
'Cheek don't want to; he have got no cause to,' said Mrs. Dunn. 'You get the living now, and find him in beer and bacca.'
'I do; and I am proud on it,' was Mrs. Cheek's answer. 'I goes washing, I goes chairing, I goes ironing; nothing comes amiss to me, and I manages to keep the wolf from the door. It isn't my husband that shall bend to the masters. He shall stand up with the Unionists for his rights, or he shall stand up against me.' Having satisfied her curiosity as to the cause of the disturbance, Mrs. Cheek went out as she came, with a burst and a bang, for she had been bent on some hasty errand when arrested by the noise behind the Dunn's closed shutters. What the next proceedings would have been, it is difficult to say, had not another interruption occurred. Mrs. Dunn was putting her entangled hair behind her ears, most probably preparatory to theresuming of the attack on her husband, when the offending Mary Ann entered, attended by Mrs. Quale.
At it she went, the mother, hammer and tongs, turning her resentment on the girl, her language by no means choice, though the younger children were present. Dunn was quieter; but he turned his back upon his daughter and would not look at her. And then Mrs. Quale took a turn, and exercisedhertongue on both the parents: not with quite as much noise, but with better effect.
It appeared that the whispered suspicions against Mary Ann Dunn had been mistaken ones. The girl had been doing right, instead of wrong. Mrs. Quale had recommended her to a place at a small dressmaker's, partly of service, chiefly of needlework. Before engaging her, the dressmaker had insisted on a few days of trial, wishing to see what her skill at work was; and Mary Ann had kept it secret, intending a pleasant surprise to her father when the engagement shall be finally made. The suspicions cast on her were but a poor return for this; and the girl, in her temper, had carried the grievance to Mrs. Quale, when the day's work was over. A few words of strong good sense from that talkative friend subdued Mary Ann, and she had now come back in peace. Mrs. Quale gave the explanation, interlarding it with a sharp reprimand at their proneness to think ill of 'their own flesh and blood,' and James Dunn sat down meekly in glad repentance. Even Mrs. Dunn lowered her tone for once. Mary Ann held out some money to her father after a quick glance at Mrs. Qualefor approval. 'Take it, father. It'll stop your going to prison, perhaps. Mrs. Quale has lent it me to get my clothes out, for I am to enter for good on my place to-morrow. I can manage without my clothes for a bit.'
James Dunn put the money back, speaking softly, very much as if he had tears in his voice. 'No, girl: it'll do you more good than it will me. Mrs. Quale has been a good friend to you. Enter on your place, and stay in it. It is the best news I've heard this many a day.'
'But if the money will keep you out of jail, father!' sobbed Mary Ann, quite subdued.
'It wouldn't do that; nor half do it; nor a quarter. Get your clothes home, child, and go into your place of service. As for me—better I was in jail than out of it,' he added with a sigh. 'In there, one does get food.'
'Are you sure it wouldn't do you good, Jim Dunn?' asked Mrs. Quale, speaking in the emergency he seemed to be driven to. Not that she would have helped him, so improvident in conduct and mistaken in opinions, with a good heart.
'Sure and certain. If I paid this debt, others that I owe would be put on to me.'
'Come along, Mary Ann,' said Mrs. Quale. 'I told you I'd give you a bed at my house to-night, and I will: so you'll know where she is, Hannah Dunn. You go on down to Cox's, girl; get out as much as you can for the money, and come straight back to me: I'm going home now, and we'll set to work and see the best we can do with the things.' They went out together. But Mrs.Quale opened the door again and put in her head for a parting word; remembering perhaps her want of civility in not having given it. 'Good night to you all. And pleasant dreams—if you can get 'em. You Unionists have brought your pigs to a pretty market.'