From Wimbledon to Surbiton is comparatively but a step. An enterprising train, bent on accomplishing the feat, can do the distance in seven or eight minutes, and even the slowest of “locals” takes but twelve. Barney was an energetic young man, and, where a cheque was concerned, knew the dangers of delay; so he resolved, being in the neighbourhood, to go to Surbiton, see his mother, and settle the business. The young man often reassured himself by saying inwardly that he was no fool, and the few minutes he had to meditate on the situation, as he paced up and down No. 3 platform waiting for the train, enabled him to formulate a course of action.
Barney had a well-defined mental process by which he arrived at any plan of procedure. “The great thing, my boy,” he used to say, “is to know exactly what you want, and then go for it.” In going for it the young fellow trampled on anything that came in his path: truth, for example. His one object was success—the kind that succeeds. Having attained that, he was careless of the means.
In this instance what he wanted was to prevent any interference with Sartwell, and he knew, if he boldly opposed his mother’s scheme, such opposition would inevitably bring about the meddling he desired to avoid, and at the same time place himself in her bad books, which was financially undesirable.
“It will take a bit of thinking,” said Barney to himself, thus showing that he correctly estimated the difficulties of the situation, and realized the shortness of the distance between Wimbledon and Surbiton.
Surbiton is a most attractive Surrey suburb with an excellent service of trains. The houses are large, detached, and of the class known in the estate agents’ vocabulary as “desirable.” Stockbrokers in the city are attracted thither as much by the rapid train service as by the desirable residences; thus many of them live there. The rich and retired tradesman and the manufacturer in a large way have given the place an exclusiveness which it could never have attained if it had been a mere resort of noblemen, or a place for the housing of the working classes. It is the rich and retired tradesman who has given England its reputation as a cold and dignified nation. Nothing can compare with a first-class compartment from Surbiton—“Vaux-hall and Waterloo only”—for frigid exclusiveness. Sometimes an unfortunate duke or marquis, coming from his estates in the southwest, chances upon the Surbiton contingent, and makes an innocent and friendly remark. He is frozen into silence by the icy stare of the other five occupants of the compartment.
Surbiton, to a stranger, has the look of a sea-side place. Some of the streets are broad and divided by narrow railed-in parks. There are benches here and there, and trees everywhere, while an assembly hall in the centre of the town, and a sort of marine parade along the river, and a band-stand and military concert every Wednesday evening during the summer, give to this charming suburb the air of a coast resort, lacking only the long, spidery, cast-iron pier, which Surbiton may yet build over the river into the Hampton Court grounds, where in spring the waters lie like a broad yellow ocean. When that pier is built, the charge for admission will doubtless be fourpence—double the Brighton price, for Surbiton is prone to attest its exclusiveness in a manner that appeals to the financial imagination. It is proud of the fact that its local rates are high. The Surbiton improvement committee being elected to attend to that matter, and that a first-class season ticket costs two pounds more than to any other place an equal distance from London.
The Hope residence was a large, square, yellow house, rather old-fashioned—“an imposing mansion” was the phrase that caught Mrs. Hope’s eye, in theTimes, before she induced her husband to buy it—and it stood in extensive well-wooded grounds. Barney drove up to it in one of the open victorias which stand for hire at the station, a class of vehicle that adds to the sea-side appearance of Surbiton.
Telling the man to wait, he sprang up the steps and knocked, for there was nothing so modern as a bell at the front door. He found his mother in the drawingroom, and with her Lady Mary Fanshaw, who had driven over from her father’s country place in the Dorking direction. Lady Mary was a nice girl, rather shy, who blushed prettily when Barney came in, and had a great admiration for the young man’s hitherto unappreciated artistic talents, liking a painter better than a manufacturer. Her father, having ascertained definitely that Barney’s possession of a studio would in no way interfere with his ultimate coming into the proprietorship of the remunerative factory, made no objection to the acquaintanceship between the Hope family and his own.
“How-de-do, Lady Mary,” cried the young man, shaking hands with her. “How are you, mater?” he added to his mother, kissing her on the cheek.
“Barnard,” said the elder lady, with a touch of severity in her tone, “I did not expect to see you in Surbiton so soon. I thought you would attend to the business I spoke of.”
“It’s all been attended to, mater. I don’t let the grass grow under my feet—not that it’s a good day for grass either,” continued the young man cheerfully, warming his hands at the fire. “Beastly weather,” he remarked to Lady Mary, who assented to the terse statement.
“Yes, mater; my motto is, what is worth doing is worth doing quickly—speedily done is twice done—I think there’s a proverb to that effect, don’t you know. If there’s not, there ought to be.”
Lady Mary rose to leave the room, as mother and son had evidently something to discuss together.
“Sit down, child,” said Mrs. Hope. “It is nothing private. The men at the ‘works’ talk of going on strike. The manager is a stubborn, unyielding man, given even to browbeating his employers—”
“Bullying, I call it,” interrupted Barney, who now stood with his back to the fire, his feet well apart on the hearth-rug.
His mother went on calmly, without noticing her son’s interpolation—“So it seems to me that such a man, utterly lacking in tact, might not perhaps be mindful of the feelings of those under him. We all have our duties towards the working class, a fact many, alas! appear to forget.”
Lady Mary said softly, with her eyes cast down, that this was indeed the case.
“So you saw Mr. Sartwell, Barnard?”
“Oh, yes, I saw Sartwell, and had a talk with some of the men—with the—ah—ringleaders, don’t you know.”
“You mean the leaders, Barnard.”
“Yes, something of that sort. I don’t pretend to understand the bally workingman, you know, but there’s lots of sense in what they say. They know what they want.”
“Did you find Mr. Sartwell obdurate?”
“Oh, bless you, no, mater. Sartwell’s the most reasonable of men.”
“Indeed? It never occurred to me to place him in that category.”
“Don’t you make any mistake about Sartwell, mater; you won’t find him stand in your way at all. He’s perfectly willing to do whatever you want done. ‘Barney, my boy,’ he said to me, when I told him what you thought about this trouble, ‘Barney,’ says he, ‘after all is said and done, it’s the women’s affair more than ours.’”
“The women’s affair!” said Mrs. Hope, drawing herself severely up. “Do I understand you to mean, Barnard, that the man was referring to Mrs. Monkton and myself?”
“Well, mater, you see we were talking freely together as man to man—and—hang it all! you know, itisyour affair and Mrs. Monkton’s, more than old Monkton’s and father’s. I don’t suppose they care so very much.”
Mrs. Hope slowly raised her glasses to her eyes and stared at her son, who was looking at the hearth-rug now, resting his weight on his toes and then coming down on his heels.
“I haven’t the least idea what you are talking about, Barnard.”
“I am talking about the proposed strike, mater; about the demands of the men.”
“Requests, my son. The men request an audience with Mr. Sartwell, and he refuses it, as if he were Prime Minister.”
“That’s just what I said to Sartwell. ‘Sartwell,’ said I, ‘you’re high-handed with the men.’ He admitted it, but held that if he had a conference with them, no good would be accomplished unless he acceeded to their dem——requests.”
“He could compromise—he could make some concessions and then everything would go smoothly again. He has no tact.”
“Quite so, quite so. But you see the men want only one thing, not several. They are perfectly logical about it—I had a talk with them and they were very much gratified to hear that you were on their side. There will be no trouble with them in future if Sartwell is only reasonable. They look at it like this: they work ten hours a day and get on an average a pound a week—or—ah—something like that—I forget the exact amount, although they had it there in shillings and pence. Now father and Monkton work four or five hours a day—not very hard either—and go to Switzerland in the summer and Algiers in the winter, yet they draw twenty thousand pounds a year each out of the business. This, the men claim, is unjust, and of course I quite agree with them. It’s outrageous, and I said so. Well, the men are prepared to do the most generous things. In order to compromise, they will allow the partners ten times what the real workers get; Monkton and father are each to draw five hundred pounds a year out of the business, and the forty thousand pounds is to be divided among the workers. I thought that it was an exceedingly liberal proposal, and I told them so.”
During this able, if mythical, exposition of the workmen’s views, Mrs. Hope gazed at her son with ever-increased amazement. When he had concluded, she was standing up, apparently speechless, with an ominous frown on her brow. Lady Mary looked with timid anxiety from one to the other. There seemed to be a sweet reasonableness in the young man’s argument, and yet something hopelessly wrong about the proposition.
“Five hundred pounds a year!—to me!” cried Mrs. Hope, at last.
“Well—to father, technically—same thing, of course.”
“Five hundred a year! Barnard, if anyone had told me an hour ago that you were a fool I—five hundred a year!—how can people exist on five hundred a year?”
Barney looked reproachfully at his mother. He was evidently hurt.
“That’s just the way Sartwell talks, and I suppose he thinks I’m a fool, too, merely because I’m trying to understand the labour problem. It seemed to me that if a workman with twelve children to support can live on fifty pounds a year, an elderly pair with but one child, and he about to make a fortune in painting, could get along on ten times that amount.”
“Oh, I’ve no patience with you, Barnard.”
“And then, Sartwell says, look at the capital invested——”
“Certainly. He is perfectly right, and anyone with a grain of sense would see that. There are thousands and thousands expended in the buildings and in the development of the business. The workmen never think of that—nor you either, it appears.”
“You see, mater, it’s out of my line. But what Sartwell said about investment made me think——”
“Think!” exclaimed his mother, with withering contempt.
“Yes,” continued Barney, placidly; “so I went to the workmen to see whattheyhad to say about it. They said at once that the capital had been refunded over and over again. I went back to Sartwell to see if this were true, and it was true. Well, then——”
“What then?”
“Under the circumstances it seemed to me that the workmen had made a most magnanimous proposal. If a man would paint a picture for me which I could sell for five hundred pounds and he was content to take fifty for it and leave me the other four hundred and fifty, I should think him the most generous of men.”
“Stop talking nonsense, please. Is Sartwell going to receive the men?”
“I suppose so.”
“Then you must instantly go back to the city and tell him he is to do nothing of the sort.”
“But, mater—” protested the young man. He looked uneasily around the room and saw that Lady Mary had slipped away unperceived.
“Don’t talk. You’ve done enough harm already. Try and undo it.”
“But I say! It’s rather rough on me, mater. When you promised me a cheque for three hundred, I didn’t imagine I would have to see old Sartwell a second time and take back all I said. He would think me an ass then.”
“He thinks it already. But it doesn’t matter what he thinks. It is what he does that you have to deal with. You must see him at once and stop this nonsense about a conference.”
Barney shook his head dolefully.
“I don’t see how I can face him again, mater. I’d rather lose the three-hundred-pound cheque.”
“The cheque has nothing to do with the question. I should hope you are not attending to this for the three hundred pounds. But I’ll write you a cheque for five hundred, if that will satisfy you. Then I hope to hear no more about five hundred a year. Be consistent at least, Barnard.”
“Thanks, mater, I’ll try. And while you are writing out the cheque I’ll have a word with Lady Mary.”
“Very well,” said his mother, rising. The request did not seem to displease her.
When the young lady came in Barney was wonderfully bright after his long discussion.
“I was afraid I was in the way,” said Lady Mary, modestly, “I don’t know much about work-people.”
“The labour question,” said Barney, “is an exceedingly intricate one, and I’m afraid I don’t quite understand it in all its bearings myself; but it’s most interesting, I assure you—most interesting. I’m a labouring man myself, now. I’ve got my studio all fitted upland I work like a—let’s see, is it a Turk—or a nigger?”
“I think a nailer is the simile you want.”
“Very likely. I don’t suppose a Turk works if he can help it. Oh, by the way, Lady Mary, I have ‘At Homes’ at my studio every Tuesday from three till five. I wish you would come. Get your father to bring you. I want a real live Lord, don’t you know, to—well—to give tone to the gathering.”
Lady Mary laughed.
“I should like to go very much. I was never in a studio since I had my portrait painted. I’ll ask my father, but he doesn’t go out very often.”
“Oh, I know you can get him to come, so that’s a promise.”
In the hall his mother handed Barney a cheque.
“Be sure you go at once to Sartwell,” she said, “and see that you don’t bungle the business a second time.”
And yet the poor boy had merely pretended that her former orders had been carried out! Barney made no remark about the inconsistency of woman. He kissed her on both cheeks, as a dutiful son should do, and departed.
In almost any other country than England the name by which the evil-smelling cul-de-sac off Light Street was known might be supposed to have been given it by some cynical humourist. It was called Rose Garden Court. As there is a reason for almost everything in this world, the chances are that once upon a time a garden stood there, and that roses probably bloomed in it. The entrance to the court was through an archway, over which, on the Light Street side, was the name of the court. At the right hand of this tunnel stood the “Rose and Crown,” locally known as the “pub,” and the door of the jug and bottle department opened into the passage, which was convenient for the inhabitants of the court. On the left of the archway there was a second-hand clothing shop, the wares, exceedingly second hand, hanging in tattered festoons about the door.
A street lamp stood at the edge of the pavement, opposite the entrance to the court, and threw its rays under the archway, which somewhat feeble illumination was supplemented by a gas jet over the door of the jug and bottle department. At the blind end of Rose Garden Court stood another lamp post. The court was unevenly paved with large slabs of stone, sloppy, as a rule, from the overflow of a tap which supplied the inhabitants with water.
The court was walled about with five-story buildings, and in the oblong well, formed by these rather dilapidated edifices, the air hung dank and heavy, laden with many smells. Breezes blowing over London from the south, or the north, or the west, produced no movement of the noxious air in Rose Garden Court. “Come out,” the gale from the Surrey hills might cry as it whistled merrily over the house-tops; “come out, and give the people a chance to breathe,”—but there was no answering rustle in the court—the air there was silent and sullen, as if it had taken its temper from the inhabitants of the place.
Sometimes, in early spring, the insistent east wind roared boisterously through the tunnel, catching the mephitic atmosphere unawares and flinging it headlong over the roofs, filling the court with a biting whirlwind, scattering loose bits of paper and rags skywards, but the inhabitants of the court didn’t like it. They closed their windows, shivered, and wished the gale would cease. Next day the air would settle down quietly in the court, collect its odours once more, and then everybody felt that things were as they should be.
The court was a property that paid handsomely. No one residing there knew who owned the buildings or the ground. The man who collected the room rents did so promptly in advance, and he had once told the landlord of the “Rose and Crown” that the court was more lucrative as an investment than if it had been situated in the Grosvenor Square district. The owner was popularly supposed to have farmed the property to a company, and the rent-collector represented this organization. The company could not be expected to spend money on repairs, the owner could not be reached, and, aside from all that, the rooms were in constant demand; so if a tenant did not like the arrangement he could get out—there were a dozen others ready to take his place.
The people who lived in this human warren were not criminals. Most of them did something useful for the living they received. Criminals, when convicted, are housed in a much more sanitary manner, and they are sure of enough to eat—which the denizens of the court were not. If any prison in the kingdom were as fetid as Rose Garden Court, the great heart of the nation would be stirred with indignation, and some wretch in authority would feel the lash of righteous public scorn. The court was merely fairly representative of the home of the British workingman, in the wisest, largest, proudest, most wealthy city in the world, at the end of the nineteenth century, after a thousand years, more or less, of progress. Some homes of the workingmen are better; but then some are worse, for we must never forget that we have the “artisan’s improved dwellings” amongst us. The occupants of the “improved dwellings” are hedged about with restrictions, but in the court was freedom: freedom to come and go as you liked; freedom to get drunk; freedom to loaf or work; freedom to starve.
The personal predilections of the courtites were much the same as those ofhabituésof first-class West End clubs. They liked to drink and gamble. The “pub” was at the entrance, and there, or at the barbershop, they could place a little on a horse they knew nothing of. One of the advantages of a free country is that a man can get quite as drunk on beer as he can on champagne, and at a much less cost. The results are wonderfully similar. It is popularly believed that a policeman in Piccadilly is kinder to a client in a dress coat, than a fellow-officer on Waterloo Road is to a man in moleskins.
Rose Garden Court had little trouble with the police, although the court—especially the feminine portion of it—looked somewhat askance at the force. All a policeman asked of a drunken dweller in the court was, that if he wanted to fight he should fight in the court, and not on a busy thoroughfare like Light Street. In the court the wives of the combatants usually took charge of them before the battle had been fought to a finish, and sometimes a tall policeman watched over the separation of temporary foes, saying little unless one of the fighters resisted the wife who was vociferously shoving him towards his own doorway, when the officer would say: “Come now, my man, none of that,” whereupon, strangely enough, it was the woman who resented the officer’s interference for her protection, though when her man proceeded to abuse a member of the force also, she quickly told him to “shut his ——— mouth,” using an adjective that was at once sanguinary and descriptive. Often a stalwart policeman would take by the scruff of the neck an inhabitant of the court staggering along Light Street, filling the air with melody or defiance, and walk him rapidly down the street, the man’s legs wobbling about uncertainly, as if he were a waxwork automaton, until they were opposite the entrance of the court; then, having received the required impetus from the officer, the man shot under the archway and was presumably taken care of when he got inside: anyhow, once in the court he could not get out again except by the way he entered, and few ever became drunk enough to forget there was always a policeman in the neighbourhood. The thrust under the archway was merely the kindly Light Street way of doing the Piccadilly act of placing a man tenderly in a cab and telling the driver where to go. Few were ever actually arrested in the Light Street district, and their conduct had to be particularly flagrant to bring upon them this last resort of the force.
Along Light Street came Marsten, with the elastic springy energetic step of a young man in good health, who takes this world seriously and believes there is something to be done in it. He paused for a moment opposite the “Rose and Crown,” and nodded to some men who were lounging there.
“Are you going to the meeting to-night, men?” he asked.
One shook his head, another shrugged his shoulders; it was evident at a glance that none of them had any interest in the meeting while the “pub” remained open.
“It’s important,” said Marsten. “The committee reports to-night, and ‘strike or no strike’ will likely be put to vote. You are not in favor of a strike, surely? Then come along and vote against it.”
“I dunno’ ’bout that,” said one, removing his pipe. “Strike pay is as good as master’s pay, an’ less work to get it. I could do with a bit of an ’oliday.”
“Strike pay may be as good as master’s while it lasts, but it won’t last,” rejoined Marsten.
“When it gives out we’ll go back to work,” returned the man. The others laughed.
“Some of you won’t get back,” said Marsten. “That’s always the way after a strike. Better keep a good job while we have it.”
“Oh, I could do with a bit of an ’oliday,” repeated the spokesman of the “pub” crowd, indifferently.
“My God!” cried Marsten, indignantly, “if you take no more interest in your condition than that, how can you ever expect to better it?”
“Well, I thort,” answered the other, good-naturedly, “when I sees you a-comin’ along, as ’ow you’d better it by arstin’ us to ’ave a drop o’ beer with you.”
“You’re muddled with beer already,” said the young man shortly, as he turned and disappeared up the court.
The crowd smoked on in silence for some minutes after he had left them.
“Cocky young feller that,” said one at last, jerking his pipe over his shoulder in the direction Marsten had gone.
“Oh, ’e knows a bit, ’e does,” remarked another, sarcastically.
There was a longer pause, when the spokesman, who had been ruminating over the matter, said:
“Wot d’ ye s’y t’ ’avin another pint insoide? Then we go t’ th’ meetin’ and wote for th’ stroike. Larn ’im a lesson. I like ’is impidence, I do. Tork ’bout muddlin’; we’ll show ’oose muddled.”
This was unanimously agreed to as illuminating the situation. It is perhaps a pity that Marsten did not know the result of his brief conversation with his felow-workmen.
He was young and had to learn many things. He did not know that the desire for improving one’s condition is not at all universal, and that even where there may be the germ of a desire, people do not wish to be dragooned into bettering themselves. Tact, as Mrs. Hope might have told him, goes farther than good intentions. A drop of beer and a friendly smite on the shoulder would have got him several votes against the strike. As it was, he had merely strengthened the arms of “that ass Gibbons,” by making the mistake of supposing that the average human being is actuated by reason.
Meanwhile, the young man had passed under the archway and up the court, until he came to doorway No. 3. The hall, and the five pairs of grimy stairs, were only less public than the court, which in its turn was only less public than Light Street, because fewer feet trod thereon. He ascended the first flight of stairs and paused at one of the doors of the landing. From within came the droning notes of a harmonium, and Marsten forebore to knock as he listened to the sound. A slatternly woman came down the second flight with a water-jug in her hand. She stopped, on seeing a stranger standing there, and listened to the music also. The dirge being played did not soothe whatever savageness there was within the breast of the woman, for she broke out against the inmates of the rooms.
“Oh, yes,” she cried. “Fine goin’s on for the likes o’ them. A harmonyum, if you please. Gawd save us! we ain’t good enough for the likes o’ ’im. A harmonyum! In Garden Court! No good can come o’ ’stravagance like that. Wot’s ’e, I’d like to know? Bah!”
The woman, with a wave of her hand, expressed her contempt for such goings on and departed down the stairs with her jug. Her husband spent his spare cash at the “pub,” as a man should, and not in such vanities as a second-hand musical instrument. She had, very properly, no patience with extravagance.
Marsten rapped when the playing ceased, and Joe Braunt himself came to the door.
“Come in, my boy,” he said cordially, and Marsten went in.
A tall girl, who might have been fourteen, or sixteen, or eighteen, rose from a chair at the harmonium. She was pale and thin, with large pathetic eyes that gave a melancholy beauty to her face. Shaking hands with her,—“How are you, Jessie?” said Marsten. “Is the cough any better?”
“I think it’s always about the same,” answered the girl.
“It is hard to get better in this hole,” said her father, gruffly.
Braunt spoke with the accent of a Yorkshireman. He was a man who in stature and build did credit to his county, and it was “hard to believe that the slender girl was his daughter. However much Joe Braunt’s neighbours disapproved of his putting on airs and holding himself and his slim useless daughter above their betters, they took good care not to express their opinions in his hearing, for he was a rough masterful man, taciturn and gloomy, whose blow was readier than his speech; not only prompt, but effective. The whole court was afraid of him, and it acted on the principle of letting sleeping dogs lie. The woman with the jug in her hand had good cause for resentment against Joe Braunt. She had been getting her “man” home one evening from the “pub” with difficulty, and in spite of many breakings away on his part. She had succeeded in pushing and hauling him as far as the first landing, when he, overcome by a sudden realization of her unnecessary cruelty in dragging him from the brilliantly lighted public bar filled with jollity, gin, and good comradeship, to the dismal back room two flights up, with nothing but her own bitter tongue for company, clenched his fist and felled her to the floor, the back of her head striking against Braunt’s door as she went down. Braunt, pulling open his door, found the husband walking over—or perhaps it would be more accurate to say, staggering over—the prostrate body of his wife. Joe clutched the drunkard and flung him airily over the landing rail. The ill-used man rolled down the stair and out into the court, where he lay in a heap and groaned. Braunt lifted the woman and carried her up to her room. She had a dazed idea of what had happened, and at once, rather incoherently at first, began to give her rescuer her opinion of him. Who was he, she would like to know, to interfere between man and wife, great strong brute that he was. If her man had been sober he’d have given him what for, takin’ advantage of a man wot ‘ad a drop too much. Braunt went down stairs and picked up the “pore” man, who had certainly had one drop too much, carried him up, and laid him in his room with his wife.
“You’ve killed the pore man, as never did no ’arm to you,” screamed the wife.
“No such luck,” said Braunt; “he’s too drunk to hurt.”
Which was, indeed, the case. Joe drew the door shut behind him, and left them to fight it out if they wanted to.
Mrs. Scimmins had much sympathy from the court when she related the incident. The women were more indignant than the men. It was a fine state of things if a great, hulking, sulky brute like Braunt was to interfere in little matrimonial discussions that happen in all well-regulated families. Much as they disliked the police, it seemed that now, if ever, their aid should be invoked.
“If he’d tried to break every bone inmyman’s body, Mrs. Scimmins,” said one bulky woman, “I’d ’a ’ad ’im by the ’air.”
“I donno ‘bout that, Sarah,” said Mrs. Scimmins, who did not wish to rest under the imputation of not doing all she could, under the circumstances, for her husband in his comparatively helpless state. “Wot with bein’ ’it in the ’ead, an’ the face, an’ the back, an’ then my ’ead strikin’ the door; an’ one eye as I couldn’t see out o’, an’ yer ’usban’ a-tramplin’ of yer, yer wouldn’t ’ave breath enough to ’ave anybody by the ’air.”
Mrs. Scimmins pressed tenderly the bruised and still swollen portion of her face under the eye, and felt that she had made out her case; in fact, her defence was accepted as a strong plea that only made Braunt’s inhuman and uncalled for conduct stand out the darker by comparison.
The men were astonished, of course, but not so emphatic in their denunciation of Braunt as the wives had been. Scimmins bore no particular malice against his assailant, although what he had thrown him over the stairs for, he expressed himself as unable to conceive. In answer to sympathetic inquiries from his pals at the public bar of the “Rose and Crown,” he informed them that, although shaky, he was still in the ring.
“Gawd ’elp us!” he went on, more in sorrow than in anger, “wot’s this world a-comin’ to? If you arsts me I gives it up. Wot with Braunt an’ the police both on a chap’s shoulders, if he raises ’is ’and to ’is own wife, the court’s no fit place for a pore ’ard-workin’ man to live in.”
But nobody ventured to remonstrate with the York-shireman, least of all Scimmins, although the court as a community held more aloof from him than ever.
“Are you coming to the meeting to-night, Mr. Braunt?” asked young Marsten, when he had greeted father and daughter.
“Not me.”
“Why not?”
“Why go?”
“Well, you see, Mr. Braunt, there is a crisis on. The committee is to report. Mr. Sartwell has refused to meet them, and this will likely anger Gibbons and the others. Strike or no strike will be put to vote, and I for one don’t want to see a strike—at least not just now.”
“No more do I,” said Braunt.
“Then come on to the meeting and speak up against a strike.”
“I’m no speaker. You speak.”
“They won’t listen to me, but they would pay attention to what you would say.”
“Not a bit of it, my lad. But it doesn’t matter to me, not a haporth.”
“What doesn’t? Whether there is a strike or not?”
“I’m not going to strike. They can do as they’ve a mind.”
“But if the Union orders us out we’ll have to go.”
“Not me.”
“Supposing the strike succeeds, as it may—the Union’s very strong,—what will you do then?”
“Stick to my work, and mind my own business.”
“But the Union won’t let you. If the strike fails you’ll merely get the ill will of all the men; if it succeeds they’ll force you out of the works. There’s no use running your head against a brick wall, Mr. Braunt.”
“You speak; you’ve got the gift o’ the gab,” said Braunt.
“I’m too young. They won’t listen to me now. But a day will come when they will—aye, and the masters, too. I’d willingly devote my life to the cause of the workingman.”
Marsten spoke with the fire of youthful enthusiasm, and was somewhat disconcerted when the other took his pipe from his mouth and laughed.
“Why do you laugh?”
“I’m laughing at you. I’m glad to know there’s some one that believes in us, but as thou says, thou ’art yoong; thou’ll know better-later on.”
“Don’t you believe in yourself and your fellow-workers?”
“Not me. I know ’em too well. By the sweat of thy brow shalt thou earn thy bread. Them’s not the right words, happen; but that’s the meaning. It has been, is now, and ever shall be. Amen.”
“I don’t object to that, Mr. Braunt,” cried the young man, rising and pacing the floor in his excitement. “Don’t think it. But I want to see everybody work. What I object to is earning your bread by the sweat of the hired man’s brow, as someone has said. Bless me! look at our numbers. We outnumber the loafers ten to one; yes, a hundred to one in every country in the world. All we need is an unselfish leader.”
The elder man looked at him with a quizzical smile on his stern lips.
“Look at the number of the sands on the seaside. Will any leader make a rope out of them? Numbers are nothing, my lad. Take care of yourself, Marsten, and never mind the workers; that’s the rule of the world. You may pull yourself up, but you can’t lift them with you. They’ve broken the hearts—aye, and the heads too, of many a one that tried to better them. You think you have only the masters and capital to fight. The masters won’t hurt you; it’s the men you’re fighting for that will down you. Wait till your head is an inch above the crowd, then you’ll catch it from the sticks of every rotten one of them that thinks he’s got as much right as you have to be in command. It isn’t money that helps the masters, it’s because they’ve the sense to know a good man when they see him, and to stand by him when they’ve got him. Don’t be deluded by numbers. What’s the good of them? One determined man who doesn’t need to bother about his backing—who knows his principals will back him through thick and thin—will beat any mob. Why can a small company of soldiers put down a riot? It’s because they’re commanded by one man. When he says ‘jump,’ they jump; when he says ‘shoot,’ they shoot. That’s the whole secret of it.”
Braunt resumed his pipe, and smoked vigorously to get back to his usual state of taciturnity. Marsten had never heard him talk so long before, and he stood pondering what had been said. Braunt was the first to speak.
“Play theDead March, Jessie,” he said, gruffly.
The girl hesitated a moment, evidently loath to begin when Marsten was in the room, a slight hectic colour mounting to her cheek: but obedience was strong in her; her father was not a man to be disobeyed. She drew up her chair, and began Chopin’sFuneral March, playing it very badly, but still recognizably.
Peace seemed to come over Braunt as he listened to the dirge. He sat back in the chair, his eyes on the ceiling, smoking steadily. Marsten sat down, meditating on what Braunt had said. He was not old enough to have his opinions fixed, and to be impervious to argument, so Braunt’s remarks troubled him. He hoped they were not true, but feared they might be. The mournful cadence of the music, which seemed to soothe the soul of the elder man, wound itself among the younger’s thoughts, and dragged them towards despair; the indifference of the men in front of the public-house flashed across his memory and depressed him. He wished Jessie would stop playing.
“Ah,” said Braunt, with a deep sigh when she did stop. “That’s the grandest piece of music ever made. It runs in my head all day. The throb of the machinery at the works seems to be tuned to it. It’s in the roar of the streets. Come, my lad, I’ll go with you, because you want me to, not that it will do any good. I’ll speak if you like, not that they’ll care much for what I say—not hearken, very like. But come along, my lad.”
Braunt and Marsten passed from the dimness of Rose Garden Court into the brilliancy of Light Street, which on certain nights in the week was like one prolonged fair, each side being lined with heaped-up coster’s barrows, radiant with flaring gasoline. Incense was being burned—evil-smelling incense—to the God of Cheapness. Hordes of women, down at the heel, were bargaining with equally impecunious venders—meeting and chaffering on the common level of poverty.
Turning into a side street and then into a narrower lane, the two men came to a huge building where the Salvation Army held its services—a building let temporarily to the employees of Monkton & Hope for the discussion of their grievances. The place was crowded to the doors, and the latest comers had some difficulty in making their way along one side of the walls, nearer the front platform, where they at last found room half way between the doors and the speakers.
Scimmins was in the chair, looking very uneasy and out of place, not knowing exactly what was expected of him, smiling a wan deprecatory smile occasionally as some of his pals in the crowd made audible remarks about his elevation, and the native dignity he brought to bear on his office. One gave it as his opinion (“if you awsked him”) that Scimmins would have looked more natural with a pint pot in his right hand, instead of the mallet with which he was supposed to keep order.
On a row of chairs at the back of the platform sat the members of the committee, looking, most of them, quite as uncomfortable as the chairman. Several reporters were writing at a table provided for them. Sometimes one whispered a question to the chairman or a member of the committee, and received the almost invariable answer, “Blest if I know, arsk Gibbons.”
Gibbons was quite palpably the man of the hour. He was on his feet by virtue of his position as chairman of the committee and secretary to the Union, and was just finishing the reading of the committee’s report as Braunt and Marsten found standing-room at the side of the hall.
“—And finally your committee begs leave to report that Mr. Sartwell, having rejected all overtures from your committee, refusing to confer with it either through its chairman, or as a body, it was resolved that this report be drawn up and presented to you in order that definite action may be taken upon it.”
Gibbons, when he had finished reading the document, placed it upon the reporters’ table for their closer inspection. He had drawn up the report himself and was naturally rather proud of the wording, and he hoped to see it printed in the newspapers. He turned to his audience, after saluting the chairman.
“Now, gentlemen, you have heard the report. The committee appointed by you, empowered by you, acting for you, vested in your authority, has done all in its power to bring this matter to an amicable conclusion; It has left no stone unturned, shrunk from no honourable means, spared no trouble, to bring about an understanding fair alike to employer and employee. But, gentlemen, your committee has been met at the very threshold with a difficulty which it could not surmount; a difficulty that has rendered all its efforts abortive. The firm of Monkton & Hope refers the committee to Mr. Sartwell, the manager, and Mr. Sartwell absolutely refuses to see the committee and discuss anything with it. This man, who was once a workman himself, now arrogates——”
Here one of the reporters pulled Gibbons’s coat-tail, and a whispered colloquy took place. When it was over, Gibbons continued: “A gentleman of the press has asked me a question—and a very proper question it is. He asks if we threatened Mr. Sartwell in any way with a strike, as has been rumoured. Gentlemen, no threats of any kind whatever have been used.” (Cheers.) “We have approached Mr. Sartwell with the same deference that we would have approached a member of Her Majesty’s Government if we had a petition to present. The sum and substance of the whole business is that Mr. Sartwell absolutely refuses to treat with his own men when they have——”
“That is not true,” said a voice, from the side of the hall.
The crowd turned their heads towards the sound, noticeably gleeful at the interruption. It promised liveliness ahead. There was a murmur of pleasurable anticipation. Gibbons turned sharply towards the point from which the voice came.
“What is not true?” he demanded.
“It’s not true that Mr. Sartwell refuses to see his own men.”
“Are you one of them?”
“Yes. Are you?”
There was a rustle of intense enjoyment at this palpable hit at Gibbons. The glib speaker himself was taken aback by the retort, but only for a moment.
“I thought,” continued the secretary, “that it might have been some one sent here to interrupt this meeting. This may still be the case, but we will waive that point. We will not follow Mr. Sartwell’s example, and if there is any friend of his present we shall be pleased to hear from him at the proper time. As I was about to say when I was int——”
“I answered your question; answer mine,” cried the voice.
Gibbons glanced appealingly at the Chair for protection, and Scimmins rapped feebly with his gavel on the table in front of him, saying, “Order, order,” but in a tone that he apparently hoped nobody would hear.
“What is your question?” asked Gibbons, with an angry ring in his voice.
“Are you an employee of Monkton & Hope?”
“I am secretary of the Union of which that firm’s men are a part, and I may add, the strongest Union in London. I am chairman of this committee, composed of that firm’s men. I did not seek the position, but was unanimously elected to it; therefore I claim that practically I am an employee of Monkton & Hope, and that no man here has a better right to speak for those employees—aye, or to stand up for them against oppression—than I have. And I will tell the man who interrupts me—I’ll tell him to his face—that I am not to be brow-beaten from the path of duty, by him, or by Mr. Sartwell either, as long as I retain the confidence of the men who put me here. I acknowledge no other masters. If you want to address this meeting, come up here on the platform and face it like a man, and not stand barking there like a dog. Let’s have a look at you.”
There was wild cheering at this. The fight was on, and the crowd was jubilant. This was the kind of talk they liked to hear.
Braunt smote young Marsten on the back and pushed him forward.
“Take oop the challenge, lad,” he cried. “Oop wi’ ye. I’ll follow ye, and give them some facts about the unemployed. We’ve got this meeting if we work it right. Oop wi’ ye, mate.”
Marsten went toward the platform, the crowd making way for him. Gibbons stood for a moment apparently surprised at this unexpected opposition, then walked back to his chair at the head of the committee. The good-natured gathering cheered when they saw the young man standing before them.
“Fellow-workingmen—” he began.
“Address the Chair,” admonished some one in the middle of the hall, whereat there was a laugh. Scimmins himself indulged in a sickly smile. The speaker reddened slightly, and in confused haste said:
“Mr. Chairman and fellow-workers——-”
The crowd cheered lustily, and it was some moments before Marsten could again get a hearing. A feeling of despair came over him as he stood before them. It was only too evident that they all looked upon the whole proceeding as a great lark, something in the way of a music-hall entertainment without the beer,—which was a drawback of course; but also without any charge for admission,—which was an advantage, for it left so much more cash to expend in stimulants after the fun was over. He wondered, as he looked at the chaffing jocular assemblage, whether he was taking too serious a view of the situation. There flashed across his mind a sentence he had heard in a lecture on socialism. “It is not the capitalist nor the government you have to conquer,” the lecturer had said, “but the workmen themselves.”
When the disorder had subsided so that his voice could be heard, Marsten went on:
“Mr. Gibbons asserted that the manager had refused to consult with his employees, and I claimed that such a statement was not true. Mr. Sartwell told me himself that he was willing to receive a deputation from the men of the works. He said——”
“What’s that?” cried Gibbons, springing to his feet and taking a step forward.
“Don’t interrupt the speaker,” shouted Braunt, from the body of the hall.
“He interrupted me,” roared Gibbons, now thoroughly angry. Turning to the young man who stood there silently, waiting for statement and retort to cease, the secretary demanded:
“When did Sartwell tell you that?”
“On Tuesday night.”
“On Tuesday night!” repeated Gibbons, coming to the front of the platform. “On Tuesday night! and you have the brazen cheek to stand here and admit it.”
“Why shouldn’t I?” asked Marsten, with perceptible self-control, but whitening around his tightened lips.
“Why shouldn’t you? I’ll tell you why. Because you sneaked in behind the backs of the committee you had helped to appoint. That’s why.”
“I had no hand in appointing the committee.”
“Every man in the works had a hand in appointing the committee. If you didn’t vote, then you neglected your duty. If you voted against the committee, you were bound by the result just as the committee would have been bound, if they had been defeated. That’s trade unionism—stand together or fall together. You, knowing a committee had been appointed to deal with this very business, must go crawling to Sartwell, and undermine the work of your fellow-unionists.”
“That’s a lie!” hissed Marsten, through his set teeth, in a low but intense tone of voice which was heard to the further end of the hall. The young man strode toward his antagonist, his right hand nervously clinching and unclinching. It was an electric moment,—the crowd held its breath. They expected the next move would be a blow.
Gibbons stood his ground without flinching. Not a muscle of his face moved except his eyelids, which partially closed over his eyes, leaving a slit through which a steely glance shot at Marsten; but his answer was not so truculent as his look.
“If it’s a lie,” he said calmly, to the evident disappointment of his hearers, “then the lie is not mine. I was merely putting your own statements in a little terser language; that’s all.”
Braunt, who had with difficulty kept his hot temper in hand during this colloquy on the stage, now roared at the top of his voice:
“Give t’ lad a chance to speak and shut your silly mouth. He’s called you a liar like a man and you daren’t take him oop like a man. Sit down, you fool!”
“I must really ask the protection of the Chair,” protested the secretary, turning to Scimmins. The latter, feeling that something was expected of him, rose rather uncertainly to his feet, and struck the table three or four times with his mallet.
“Order, order!” he cried. “If there is any more disturbance down there, the man will be put out of the meeting.
“What!” shouted Braunt. “Put me out! Egod! I’ll give ’ee th’ chance.”
The big man made his way toward the platform, brushing aside from his path a few who, in the interests of law and order, endeavoured to oppose him. The majority of those present, however, were manifestly of opinion that the progress of the angry man should not be barred, so they cheered his intervention and made encouraging remarks.
Braunt sprang upon the platform, advanced to the chair, smote his clinched fist on the table, and cried:
“Here I am, Scimmins. Now put me out; d’ye hear?”
He paused for a reply, but there was none. Scimmins, shrinking from him, obviously prepared for flight if Braunt attempted to storm the position. The Yorkshireman glared about him, but those on the platform appeared to think that the time for protest had not yet arrived. Meanwhile, the audience was calling loudly for a speech.
“I haven’t much to say, mates,” began Braunt, calming down through lack of opposition, “and I’m no man at the gab. I’m a worker, and all I want is a chance to earn my bread. But I’ll say this: I saw in t’ papers not so long ago that there’s twenty-seven thousand men of our trade out of work in England today. Twenty-seven thousand men anxious for a job. Now what is this man Gibbons asking you to do? He’s asking you to chook up your jobs and have your places taken by some of them twenty-seven thousand. Sartwell has only to put an advertisement in the papers, and he can fill the shops five times over in two days. It’s always easier to chook oop a job than to get a new one these times. I know, because I’ve tried it. So have most of you. Take my advice, and go no further with this nonsense. If Sartwell, as Mar-sten says, is willing to talk over grievances, then I say let us send him a deputation of our own men, with no outsiders among ’em. What’s the Union done for us? Taken our money every week, that’s all I can see. And now they have got so much of it they want to squander it fighting a strong man like Sartwell.”
Marsten had sat down on the edge of the platform. We are always quicker to perceive the mistakes of others than to recognize our own, and he did not like Braunt’s talk against the Union. He felt that it would be unpopular, besides he believed in the Union if it were properly led. His fight was against Gibbons, not against the organization.
Gibbons was in his chair, and he had rapidly taken the measure of the speaker. He saw that the address was having its effect, and that the crowd was slipping away from his control. It was a risky thing to do with such a powerful man, but he made up his mind that Braunt must be angered, when he would likely, in his violence, lose all the ground he had gained. So Gibbons quietly, with his eye, gathered up his trusty henchmen, who were scattered in different parts of the hall to give an appearance of unanimity to the shouting when the proper time came, and these men had now gradually edged to the front during the speaking. One or two had silently mounted the platform and held a whispered conference with the secretary, after which they and some others took their places behind the seated committee. When Sartwell was alluded to, Gibbons arose.
“Mr. Chairman,” he said, “I cannot allow——”
Braunt turned on him like a raging lion.
“Don’t you interrupt me,” he cried, rolling up his sleeves, “or I’ll bash you through that window.”
“Order, order!” said the chairman, faintly.
“Yes, an’ you atop o’ him!” shouted the infuriated man. “I’ve done it before.”
“Respect the meeting, if you have no regard for the Chair,” said Gibbons, calmly.
“You talk to us as if we were a parcel of fools,” cried a man in front. Braunt, like a baited bull, not knowing in which direction to rush, turned his eyes, blazing with rage, upon the last speaker. He shook his clenched fist and bared arm at the audience.
“What else are you?” he roared, at the top of his voice. “A parcel o’ dommed fools, all o’ ye. Led by the nose by a still bigger fool than any o’ ye. Yes; a set o’ chattering idiots, that’s what ye are, with not enough brains among the lot o’ ye to turn a grindstone. I know ye, a beer-sodden gang, with just enough sense to see that your pint mug’s full.”
By this time those in the hall were in a state of exasperation bordering on frenzy. A small door, to the right of the stage, connecting with an alley, had been opened, and a number of the more timid, seeing a storm impending, had quietly slipped out. The meeting was now a seething mob, crying for the blood of the man who stood there defying them and heaping contumely upon it.
Gibbons, his lips pale but firm, took a step forward. “We have had enough of this,” he said. “Get off the platform!”
Braunt turned as if on a pivot, and rushed at the secretary. The latter stepped nimbly back, and one of his supporters, with a running jump and hop, planted his boot squarely in Braunt’s stomach. The impetus was so great, and the assault so sudden and unexpected, that Braunt, powerful as he was, doubled up like a two-foot rule, and fell backward from the platform to the floor. Instantly a dozen men pounced upon him, and hustled him, in spite of his striking out right and left, through the open door into the alley. The door was closed and bolted in the twinkling of an eye—Braunt outside and his assailants within. It was all so neatly and so quickly done, that the police, who had been on the alert for some time, only reached the spot when the door was bolted. The crowd, with but the vaguest general notion of what had happened, beyond the sudden backward collapse of Braunt, raised a wild cheer for which Gibbons was thankful. He did not wish them to know that Braunt had been taken in hand by the police outside, and he had been very anxious, if an arrest were inevitable, that it should not take place in the hall, for then even Braunt’s violent tirade would not have prevented universal sympathy turning towards him. While the cheer was ringing up to the roof, Gibbons had heard a terrific blow delivered against the door, a blow that nearly burst in the bolt and made the faces of those standing near turn pale. Another crashing hit shattered the panel and gave a glimpse for one moment of bleeding knuckles. Then there was an indication of a short sharp struggle in the alley, and all was quiet save the reverberating echo of the cheer.
Gibbons strode to the front of the platform, and held up his hand for silence.
“I am very sorry,” he said, “that the last speaker made some remarks which ought not to have been made, but let us all remember that hard words break no bones. However, there has been enough talk for one night, and it is time to proceed to business. Gentlemen, you have heard the report of the committee—what is your pleasure?”
“I move,” said a man, rising in the middle of the hall, “that we go on strike.”
“I second that motion,” cried several voices.
“Put the motion,” whispered Gibbons to the bewildered chairman.
Scimmins rose to his feet.
“You have all heard the motion,” he said. “All in favour say aye.”
A seemingly universal shout of “Aye” arose. The chairman was on the point of resuming his seat when Gibbons, in a quick aside, said: “Contrary.”
“All to the contrary,” called out the chairman, hovering between sitting and standing.
There was no dissent, for Marsten had left to see what had become of his friend, and the timorous men had stolen away when they detected signs of disturbance.
“Motion’s carried,” said Scimmins, seating himself with every indication of relief.
“Unanimously,” added Gibbons loudly, unable to conceal his satisfaction with the result.