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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 73196 ***
+
+Transcriber's note: Unusual and inconsistent spelling is as printed.
+
+[Illustration: "We'll make our own terms. We'll be the masters now!"]
+
+
+
+                          TOO DEARLY BOUGHT
+
+                                  OR
+
+                           THE TOWN STRIKE.
+
+
+                                  BY
+                            AGNES GIBERNE
+
+
+                              AUTHOR OF
+
+         "HIS ADOPTED DAUGHTER," "THE OLD HOUSE IN THE CITY,"
+            "WILL FOSTER OF THE FERRY," "MADGE HARDWICKE,"
+                               ETC.
+
+
+
+                          With Illustrations.
+
+
+
+                               LONDON:
+                         JOHN F. SHAW AND CO.
+                      48, PATERNOSTER ROW, E. C.
+
+
+
+                       STORIES BY AGNES GIBERNE.
+
+
+IDA'S SECRET; or, The Towers of Ickledale.
+   Cr. 8vo, 2/6.
+
+
+WON AT LAST; or, Mrs. Briscoe's Nephews.
+   Cr. 8vo, 2/6.
+  "The treatment is so admirable we can understand Miss Giberne's
+   book being a help to many."—_Athenæum._
+
+
+HIS ADOPTED DAUGHTER; or, A Quiet Valley.
+   Large Cr. 8vo, 5/—.
+  "A thoroughly interesting and good book."—_Birmingham Post._
+
+
+THE EARLS OF THE VILLAGE.
+   Large Cr. 8vo, 2/6.
+  "A pathetic tale of country life, in which the fortunes of a family are
+   followed out with a skill that never fails to interest."—_Scotsman._
+
+
+THE OLD HOUSE IN THE CITY; or, Not Forsaken.
+   Crown 8vo, cloth, 2/6.
+  "An admirable book for girls."—_Teachers' Aid._
+
+
+FLOSS SILVERTHORN; or, The Master's Little Hand-maid.
+   Cr. 8vo, 2/6.
+  "We should like to see this in every home library."—_The News._
+
+
+MADGE HARDWICKE; or, The Mists of the Valley.
+   Cr. 8vo, 2/6.
+  "An extremely interesting book, and one that can be read with profit
+   by all."—_The Schoolmaster._
+
+
+WILL FOSTER OF THE FERRY.
+   Cr. 8vo, 2/6.
+  "We are glad to see this capital story in a new shape."—_Record._
+
+
+TOO DEARLY BOUGHT.
+   Cr. 8vo, 1/6.
+  "A timely story, which should be widely circulated."
+
+
+        LONDON: JOHN F. SHAW & CO., 48, PATERNOSTER ROW, E.C.
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+                             CONTENTS.
+
+CHAP.
+
+    I. FLAGS AND BANNERS
+
+   II. PETER POPE'S SPEECH
+
+  III. THE STRIKE BEGUN
+
+   IV. WHAT STUCKEY THOUGHT
+
+    V. DUCKED
+
+   VI. SEED-CAKE
+
+  VII. THE CHILDREN
+
+ VIII. HOLDFAST'S SPEECH
+
+   IX. A COLD EVENING
+
+    X. THE QUEER LOOK OF THINGS
+
+   XI. BABY HARRY
+
+  XII. ANOTHER MEETING
+
+ XIII. A DISCUSSION
+
+  XIV. HOW IT ALL ENDED
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+                          TOO DEARLY BOUGHT
+
+                                  OR
+
+                           THE TOWN STRIKE.
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+FLAGS AND BANNERS.
+
+THE procession was coming down Pleasant Lane!
+
+A great number of noisy little boys came trooping on ahead, with
+shrill cries, to announce this important fact. Hardly one among them
+understood exactly what the procession was about; but flags and banners
+are the delight of a boy's heart. Not seldom this particular form of
+affection for coloured bunting lasts on into manhood.
+
+The wives and mothers, who turned out of their doorways to enjoy the
+sight, were, however, more learned than their little boys as to the
+cause of the stir. And everybody was aware that Peter Pope was to be at
+its head.
+
+Peter Pope, a smooth-tongued and comfortably-dressed individual, had
+been very busy lately in the town. Most of his business had been in
+the way of talk; but what of that? There was a committee, of course,
+behind him, which did a good deal of work while Pope did the talk. He
+had been sent down, as a delegate from London, for the express purpose
+of teaching the inhabitants of the town; and teaching commonly means
+a certain amount of talk. Peter Pope had come to teach the men of
+the town to appreciate their degraded and enslaved condition. With
+this object in view he had talked vigorously for many weeks; and the
+men were becoming fast convinced of the truth of his words. They had
+not dreamt before what a melancholy thing it was to be a British
+working-man; but now their eyes were opened.
+
+If you want to convince the British Public about anything,—especially
+that part of the British Public which reads very few books, and knows
+very little of history, and never goes out of England, just remember
+this! There is not the least need that you should be clever or learned
+yourself, or even powerful in speech. You only have to go on saying the
+same thing over and over and over again, with dogged pertinacity; and
+in time you are sure to be believed. The British Public is wonderfully
+easy of belief, and will swallow anything,—if only you give it time!
+Peter Pope had done this. He had talked on, with a resolute and dogged
+pertinacity; he had given his hearers plenty of time; and now he was
+rewarded by seeing the biggest boluses he could offer, meekly gulped
+down.
+
+It was a dingy and smoky town enough to which he had come; one of the
+crowded manufacturing towns, of which England owns so many. Not a clean
+or pretty town, but a prosperous one hitherto, with a fair abundance of
+work for willing toilers. Those who were unwilling to toil did badly
+there as elsewhere; and these were the men who first swallowed Peter
+Pope's bait.
+
+Pleasant Lane was not the least narrow and dingy of many narrow dingy
+streets. The houses on either side were small, and for the most part
+not over clean. One little home near the centre formed a marked
+exception as to this last point; boasting dainty muslin blinds, windows
+filled with plants, and a spotless front doorstep.
+
+On that step stood Sarah Holdfast, in her clean print gown, watching
+like others for the coming procession. Not that she had the least idea
+of seeing her husband figure in it. She was only dandling her baby, and
+lifting it up to be amused with the stir.
+
+Martha Stevens, a young and pretty woman in the next doorway, had no
+such security about her husband. Roger Stevens was morally sure to be
+in the thick of whatever might be stirring,—whether it were good or
+bad. He was a well-meaning man, and not usually unsteady; but, like
+a good many of his companions, he was easily led, always ready to
+believe what he was told, and ever prepared to follow the crowd. As
+the stream of public opinion—the public opinion of the little world
+around himself—happened just then to run in the direction of a grand
+procession, Martha had not a shadow of doubt that her husband would
+find his place somewhere in the said procession.
+
+"What's it all about, mother?" asked Robert, a rosy child of nine.
+
+"It's the men, Bobbie," she said. "They're having a procession."
+
+"What for?" asked Bobbie.
+
+"They want something that the masters won't give 'em. They want higher
+wages and shorter hours."
+
+"But what's the 'cession for?" persisted Bobbie.
+
+"I'll tell you what it's for," volunteered a slovenly woman in the
+left-hand doorway, tossing a ragged infant in her arms. "It's to show
+that they're Men, and they're going to have their Rights! Time enough
+too! Working-men ain't a-going to be trampled on no longer, nor their
+wives neither. We won't put up with no more tyranny nor nonsense."
+
+Martha moved her head from one side to the other, and was silent.
+
+But Sarah Holdfast remarked dryly, "There's a sort of tyranny in
+the home that isn't so easy got rid of! And there's a tyranny of
+working-man to working-man, which I'd like to see done away with. It
+may be harder tyranny than the tyranny of capital, which folks talk
+such a lot about nowadays."
+
+"Oh, you! I dare say—you're sure to say that!" the untidy woman
+retorted with contempt. "Your husband's such a poor-spirited chap—all
+on the side of the masters."
+
+"He is not on the side of the masters," Sarah answered resolutely.
+"He's on the side of doing what is right; and he's against tyranny of
+every sort,—it don't matter whether it's tyranny of masters or of men.
+That's what the lot of you don't and won't see."
+
+"Here it comes!" cried Bobbie.
+
+Except to a young imagination such as Bobbie's, the advancing
+procession was not perhaps very imposing; but it made a good show
+in point of numbers, and the men kept well together, in a solid and
+orderly phalanx. Outside the main body walked detached individuals,
+carrying money-boxes; for the processioners had a practical object in
+view beside the mere display of numbers. They would not only march
+round the town, endeavour to impress the imaginations of people
+generally, and pay a visit to their employers' office to make formal
+demand of what they required, but also they hoped to gather funds by
+the way for the coming struggle. Most of the men appeared thus far to
+be sober; but some towards the rear showed signs of a recent visit to a
+public-house.
+
+At the head of the procession marched a brass band, playing lively
+jigs, very much out of tune; and the amount of flags and banners
+following was really quite respectable.
+
+First might be seen a great sheet of white calico, stretched across two
+poles, and bearing the portentous inscription—
+
+   "WE DEMAND FIFTEEN PER CENT. AND EIGHT HOURS."
+
+Next swaggered unsteadily along a second white calico sheet, with the
+words—
+
+   "UNION IS STRENGTH!"
+
+An axiom so self-evident that nobody could question its truth.
+
+An "Oddfellows" banner, drooping gracefully from its single pole, came
+next. It had a picture of the good Samaritan on a blue ground, and was
+not peculiarly appropriate to a strike; but flags of all kinds help to
+swell the general effect, and this with others was borrowed.
+
+After the good Samaritan, a loaf stuck upon a pole was borne along. No
+especial meaning might be attached to the uplifted loaf; but no doubt
+bread is always an impressive object. What would man be without the
+"staff of life"? There is also an obvious connection between loaves and
+wages.
+
+At the tail of the procession, after sundry other appropriate and
+inappropriate flags, made or borrowed, came the final output of native
+genius—another big square of white, having its inscription painted with
+a tar-brush—
+
+   "WE MEAN TO GET OUR RIGHTS!"
+
+This sentiment began with a magnificent "W," and tapered gradually
+off to an absurdly diminutive "s"; no doubt the natural expression of
+artistic feeling.
+
+A loose crowd of open-mouthed followers clattered along behind, deeply
+impressed by the whole affair.
+
+"It's a grand lot of flags, mother, ain't it?" said Bobbie.
+
+Martha was gazing, as if she did not hear, and little fair-haired
+Millie said, "Daddy's there!"
+
+One look in the direction where the tiny hand pointed, and Martha
+turned away.
+
+"Come, Millie,—come, Bobbie,—we'll go indoors now."
+
+"O mother, I want to wait," cried Bobbie. But he yielded to her touch
+and went in, only asking eagerly—"'Why mayn't we stay?"
+
+Martha made no answer. How could she bear to tell her child that his
+father had been drinking?
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+PETER POPE'S SPEECH.
+
+"TELL ye what, boys; now's the time! Now's the time if ye want to gain
+your freedom! If ye give in tamely now and let yourselves be driven
+to the shambles like a flock of silly sheep, and crushed to the earth
+under the iron heels of a set of despots, as 'ud grind down the very
+souls of ye, if they could, into scrapings of gold-dust,—why, ye'll
+never hold the position of men!"
+
+Peter Pope had taken his stand at the corner of a street one evening,
+two or three days after the grand procession. He mounted a block of
+wood which lay conveniently there; and being thus raised over the heads
+of his compeers, was at once in a situation to exercise power over
+their minds. Men began to gather round him, with attentive eyes and
+ears, ready to believe whatever Peter Pope might assert. Englishmen do
+not often put faith in Roman infallibility; but give an English Pope to
+a particular class, and no amount of infallibility becomes impossible.
+
+"Now's the time!" pursued the orator, flourishing his arms, "now's
+the time! It'll maybe never come to ye again. There's a good old
+saying, lads, as tells us 'Procrastination is the thief of time!'
+Procrastination means putting off. Procrastination is putting off the
+settling of a question like you're doing now. Procrastination is the
+thief of time. It steals time! It steals the nick of time, when the
+nick of time comes; and once gone, you'll never get that nick of time
+back."
+
+"Now's the time I tell ye, boys! Will you cringe before the iron heel
+of capital? Will ye knuckle down before the bloodhounds of tyrannic
+power, when ye may fight and conquer, if ye will; and come out from the
+battle men, and not slaves?"
+
+"For you're not men now!—Don't think it. Men!—When ye have to work like
+dogs for your living! Men!—When you're counted plebeians by them as 'll
+scarce deign to look at ye in passing. I tell ye, lads, ye're all tied
+hand and foot; though many a one of you scarce feels his bonds, just
+because he don't know what freedom is. You're degraded and miserable
+and enslaved, and don't scarce know what it is to wish for anything
+better."
+
+"That's what I've come down to you for, my men. It's because I want
+you all to see what you are, and what you might be, if ye'd sense
+and spirit to exert yourselves. It's because I'm a friend of the
+Working-man. It's because the noble society, of which I am a member and
+a delegate—and proud to be both;—it's because that noble society is the
+friend of the Working-man, desirous to rescue him from the gigantic
+heel of a merciless power, which is crushing him in the dust—like the
+boa-constrictor, lads, which wraps the victim in its voluminous folds,
+and slays him in its slimy embrace. And the best thing a friend can
+give is advice. Advice, men. Wise advice; thoughtful advice; advice
+founded on knowledge, which 'tisn't everybody has power to attain to."
+
+"What are we to do first? That's what you'll say; that's the question
+ye'll put. Don't I read it now in your manly faces, lads, all a-looking
+up at me this moment? And I'll tell you what you're to do first! You're
+to—"
+
+"UNITE!!"
+
+The word came out with tremendous emphasis, emitted by the whole force
+of Peter Pope's lungs, after a suitable pause. It made a proportionate
+impression.
+
+"Ye'll say, 'What for?' To show your power, lads; to show that ye won't
+be cajoled, nor cheated, nor beaten down, nor taken in, nor treated
+like a pack of infants. And then you're to—"
+
+"STRIKE!! That's the word for you, men. It's a mighty easy word. It's a
+mighty easy thing. Just strike—and the business is done."
+
+"What business?" a voice asked.
+
+"What business? Why, the business of getting what you want. You want
+shorter hours and an increase of fifteen per cent. on your wages, eh?
+Just so. You've made the demand in fair and reasonable terms, eh? Just
+so. You're freeborn Englishmen, all of you, eh? Just so—or had ought
+to be. What man living has a right to say you're not to have a rise
+which is your fair and just due? Why, if it wasn't for the tyranny of
+capital, you'd have had it months ago."
+
+"Will ye submit to that tyranny? Will ye let your children grow up
+under that tyranny? Tell you, lads, it's time to make a change. Things
+have gone on long enough. It's time you should be the masters now! Show
+yourselves men, lads. Better to die than to yield. Give a cheer with
+me, now! Hurrah for the strike! Hurrah! Hurrah for the strike! Hurrah
+for the strike, boys!"
+
+They went a little mad, of course, and shouted and yelled in chorus,
+not musically, but to Peter Pope's satisfaction. Peter Pope's
+enthusiasm was catching, and so was the toss of his cap. What "boys"
+would not have followed his example, under like circumstances?—"Boys"
+of any age. There is no great difference, after all, between the
+credulity, or to use a certain working-man's forcible word, the
+"gullibility," of young and old and middle-aged.
+
+Somewhere near the outskirts of the crowd stood a man, in age verging
+perhaps on fifty, or even fifty-five. He was little and crooked in
+figure, with a wizened face, and glittering eyes under bent overhanging
+brows. Everybody knew Peter Stuckey; the man-servant of the Rector of
+the neighbouring church—gardener, groom and coachman, all in one. Years
+before, Mr. Hughes had taken Peter Stuckey into his service, after the
+severe accident which cut the man off from his old work. Peter did his
+utmost to repay with personal devotion this disinterested act.
+
+Through his namesake's oration, he stood with his head on one side,
+and a note-book in his hand, scribbling a word occasionally. After the
+uproar of cheering, Stuckey turned to a sensible-looking man near, who
+had been as silent as himself, and dryly remarked—
+
+"I say, we've learnt a deal this evening."
+
+"H'm," the other answered.
+
+"Such a lot o' facts, I've had to note 'em down for fear of forgetting.
+Let's see—"
+
+"'Working-men are like sheep.' Some truth in that. I've heard say as
+how if one sheep jumps over a broomstick, all the rest 'll follow to
+save walking round it."
+
+"The aristocracy is 'bloated.' Don't see much meanin' in the term; but,
+howsoever, it looks grand, so we'll let it pass."
+
+"'Men are not men, but has to work like dogs.' Shouldn't wonder. Little
+enough o' work Rover gets through in the twenty-four hours—and little
+enough many o' them get through. But he does a deal o' barking."
+
+"'Peter Pope yonder is a friend o' the working-man.' Werry
+disinterested friend!"
+
+Stuckey paused, and gave a side-glance at his companion.
+
+"Well, I won't go for to say whether Peter Pope or Peter Stuckey is the
+wiser man o' the two; but I won't go for to say I haven't a notion. Any
+way he's uncommon like to his namesake of Rome, layin' down the law for
+everybody."
+
+"There's nothing on earth that can't be made out in the way of talk,"
+the other said briefly.
+
+"You're a sensible fellow, Holdfast, and no mistake. Now what's your
+opinion about this here notion of a strike?" asked Stuckey, putting one
+hand up to his mouth with a confidential air.
+
+"I'll not move in the matter. But it'll come about without me,"
+Holdfast replied, wearing the look of one who sees impending evil.
+
+"Trust Pope for that; he'd be a loser if it didn't. They'd every man
+Jack of 'em put his head into a noose if Pope told 'em it was right.
+Well—an' I've got to be off," said Stuckey, as a fresh burst of shouts
+arose.
+
+He lingered till it ceased, then singled out a man standing near—
+
+"I say, Stevens; you and the rest is hearing a lot o' rayther startling
+assertions. If you'll take a bit o' friendly 'adwice,' you'll just ask
+Mr. Pope a question from me. Which is—how much that there Society pays
+him for the making of his grand speeches?"
+
+Stuckey's voice was very distinct. Peter Pope had to defer the
+winding-up of his oration a full quarter of an hour, that he might do
+away with the effect of Stuckey's parting suggestion.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+THE STRIKE BEGUN.
+
+"THERE!" said Roger Stevens, setting down his bag of tools, with the
+air of a man who has done a noble deed, and is aware of the same.
+
+Martha's lips parted, then closed fast. She stood looking without a
+word.
+
+"Nobody'll dare say now that we're to be trodden on like reptiles,"
+continued Stevens loftily.
+
+"Who ever did say it?" asked Martha.
+
+"Well, Pope said they might; and they won't be able now."
+
+"Then the strike's begun, and it's all up!" faltered the wife.
+
+"All up! It's all just begun! There's thousands out to-day, and there
+'ll be a thousand more to-morrow. The masters won't stand that long.
+We'll make our own terms. We'll be the masters now!!"
+
+"Mr. Pope says so, I s'pose," murmured Martha.
+
+"And good reason he has to say it too. I tell you, he knows what he's
+about. 'Tain't often you come across a cleverer chap than Pope."
+
+"I wish he'd kept himself and his cleverness away! I've a notion he
+wouldn't be so ready for the strike, if it was he that had to lose his
+living by it."
+
+"Well, I never did in all my life see a woman like you—not a bit of
+spirit!" declared Stevens. "One 'ud think you cared for nothing in the
+world but food and drink."
+
+"Why, it's food and drink you're striking for now, isn't it? Drink
+'specially, and tobacco," said Martha; with tart truth. "Leastways,
+it's more money to get your drink and tobacco with."
+
+"No, it isn't," returned Roger loudly. "It's because a rise is our due!
+It's for public spirit, and to show we won't be trampled on. That's
+what it's for. There's a lot of men gone out to-day who haven't got no
+particular grievances, and they're just striking for the principle of
+the thing—just for to help us."
+
+"They'd be a deal wiser if they stayed in for the principle of the
+thing," said Martha.
+
+"You've not got a spark of spirit in you," grumbled Roger. "Look at
+Mrs. Hicks! She don't hold her husband back. She's been pushing him on,
+and encouraging him from the first to act like a man."
+
+"Mrs. Hicks may, but Mrs. Holdfast don't; and I'd a deal sooner be like
+Mrs. Holdfast."
+
+Roger flung away impatiently out of the house; and Martha walked to the
+open door.
+
+A busy street met her gaze,—busy, that is to say, as regarded the
+amount of moving life, not as regarded actual employment. The road was
+filled with scattered groups of working-men in their working-dress;
+some of whom wore looks of depression and anxiety, though the
+prevailing sensation seemed to be of triumph.
+
+For the Strike was begun!
+
+The masters could not long hold out. Success, speedy success, in the
+shape of higher wages and shorter hours, might be confidently expected.
+So Peter Pope declared. Capital could not but fail in a tussle with
+labour; for what was capital without labour? Peter Pope forgot to ask
+the equally forcible question—What was labour without capital? It is
+so easy to say, What is a man's head without his body?—But then one
+naturally inquires next, What is a man's body without his head? Unless
+the two work in harmony, both come to grief; and a wrong done by the
+one to the other always recoils upon itself. This is not more true of
+the joint existence, a man's head and body, than of that other joint
+existence, Labour and Capital.
+
+Still, Peter Pope said things were all right; and who should know
+better than Peter Pope?
+
+Those among the strikers who were members of a Trades Union felt
+comfortably sure of a certain amount of help, to carry them through the
+fight.
+
+The larger proportion, who were not members of any such Union, indulged
+in vague hopes of being somehow or other tided through.
+
+For the strikers belonged to more trades than one in the town; some
+having gone out, as Stevens implied, "on principle," or in sympathy
+with the rest.
+
+Peter Pope was not far off. Martha could see him at a little distance,
+haranguing a group of listeners. She turned away with a sigh, and found
+Sarah Holdfast by her side.
+
+"Stevens is one of them, I suppose," Mrs. Holdfast said kindly.
+
+Martha tried to speak, and her voice was choked.
+
+"Come, I'll go indoors for a minute. Baby is asleep, and Bessie's such
+a steady little lass, I may leave them just for a bit."
+
+Martha was glad to get out of sight of that exultant crowd, looking to
+her foreboding sight so like a flock of thoughtless sheep, frisking to
+the slaughter. Peter Pope's illustration had not been inapt.
+
+"How well the children do look, all of them!" said Mrs. Holdfast. "Just
+see Bobbie's cheeks! And I'm sure Baby Harry is a beauty. Hasn't he fat
+arms?"
+
+"And how long are they going to keep fat, I wonder?" asked Martha.
+
+Mrs. Holdfast hardly knew what to say. She stroked the head of little
+three years-old Harry, as he nestled up to his mother. Martha took such
+a pride in her children. They had hitherto rivalled Mrs. Holdfast's in
+healthy freshness.
+
+"I'd work my fingers to the bone, if I could, to keep 'em as they are
+now," said Martha. "But whatever am I to do? I can't leave 'em alone
+all day, and go out to charing. I'm sure it's little enough work my
+husband does at the best of times; and now he's ready to risk starving
+us all, just that he may stick up for his 'rights' as he calls it.
+Rights indeed! It makes me sick to hear 'em all a-talking of their
+rights," cried Martha, with sudden energy, as she hugged little Harry
+in her arms. "A man's wife and children has a right to expect he'll
+give them food to eat, and clothes to wear; and if he won't do that,
+he'd no business to marry."
+
+"Men are easy led to believe whatever they're told—provided it's one of
+themselves that tells them," said Mrs. Holdfast shrewdly.
+
+"I don't see as that's any excuse. They'd ought to have sense to think
+for themselves."
+
+"So they would, if they was all like my John," said Mrs. Holdfast, with
+pardonable pride. "But there's where it is. He reads and learns, while
+other folks talk."
+
+Martha found no comfort in the thought of John Holdfast's superiority.
+
+"See here—" she said, looking round—"all the little comforts we've been
+getting together, when we could spare a sixpence or a shilling. And
+they'll all go now. I won't say but what Roger's been a good husband
+in the main, letting alone that he's so easy led. He does care for the
+children, and he brings home his wages more regular than most—if he
+wasn't so fond of a day's holiday, when he ought to be at work. Talk of
+short hours! He's never in no danger of overdoing hisself. But that's
+the way with the men. I wonder whatever 'd happen if we women was to
+strike for short hours, and knock off work, and leave things to take
+care of themselves."
+
+Mrs. Holdfast shook her head dubiously. She saw that it was a relief to
+Martha to pour out.
+
+"I'm sure I've toiled day and night for him and children, and never
+wanted to complain. Roger has had a clean home, and his clothes mended,
+and his Sunday dinners as good as the best of them. And I'd just begun
+to think of laying by something against a rainy day. And here's the end
+of it all."
+
+"Maybe the strike won't last long."
+
+"Don't tell me that! You don't think so. Get a wrong notion into a
+man's head, and he'll stick to it like beeswax. They're made up of
+selfishness, down to their shoes; and that's what it is! And Roger like
+the rest! As if four days of work in the week wasn't little enough for
+a great strong man like him—and I'm sure it's seldom he does more. As
+if he couldn't put up patiently with less wages and more work for a
+while, sooner than see his wife and children starve before his eyes."
+
+"You're talking a lot of nonsense! Like a woman," said Stevens,
+standing in the doorway. "You don't know nothing about the matter, and
+that's a fact! It's our rights that's got to be considered, Pope says.
+We're striking for our rights!"
+
+"I don't care for nobody's rights nor for Mr. Pope neither, so as I've
+bread to put in the children's mouths," sobbed Martha. "Do you think
+I don't know what you're bringing us to? I hope I am talking like a
+woman! I wouldn't wish to do anything else. I wouldn't wish to talk
+like the men—a set of lazy creatures, with never a thought except for
+their own comfort."
+
+Stevens walked off, and Martha looked up pitifully.
+
+"There now! I'm wrong! I know I'm wrong—speaking like that to him
+before the children. But it's hard to be patient. Your husband's at
+work still, ain't he?"
+
+"He's at work, and he'll be at work as long as ever he can. If many
+more go out in the town, the works may have to stop for want of men to
+keep them going. But John 'll only stop if he's obliged. He won't go
+out with the rest."
+
+"They won't like that," said Martha.
+
+"Maybe not," Mrs. Holdfast said quietly. "He's had a warning already."
+
+"A warning from the strikers!" Martha's eyes grew round. She wondered
+at Mrs. Holdfast's composure.
+
+"Yes; but he says he don't see that one sort of tyranny is better than
+another. If he's a freeborn Englishman, he's got a right to work as
+long as he will, and the others haven't power to forbid him. That's
+what John says."
+
+Martha sighed. "They haven't no right," she said. "But as for power—if
+I was you, I should be all in a fright for him."
+
+"It's no manner of use expecting troubles till they come," said Mrs.
+Holdfast.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+WHAT STUCKEY THOUGHT.
+
+"SO there's a lot more of you to-day, a-setting to work to run your
+heads agin a stone wall," said Stuckey.
+
+He had a basket of ferns in his hand, which he was carrying home,
+taking Pleasant Lane on his way.
+
+"Nothing of the sort," responded Stevens. "There's no stone wall at
+all. You just wait, and you'll see."
+
+"Sure to do that! For why? 'Cause I can't help it," said Stuckey. "Nor
+wouldn't if I could. It's a werry interesting contemplation."
+
+"What's interesting?"
+
+"Why, this here strike," said Stuckey. "I've come along here for the
+werry purpose of examining into your state of mind, and learnin' how
+you're all a-looking on the state of affairs. Once on a time I'd ha'
+gone along with you all, afore I got to be more enlightened."
+
+"Oh, you're enlightened, are you?" said Stevens, with contempt.
+
+"Hope so," Stuckey answered. "Not as I means for to say that
+enlightenment o' the understanding goes alongside of a garden spade
+more than of a pick. But since I've laid by the pick and took up the
+spade, I've learnt to look upon things in a more reasonable sort of a
+light, there ain't no denying."
+
+"Glad to hear it," said Stevens incredulously. "You don't go the best
+way to show your sense by talking of a stone wall."
+
+"Maybe I do, more'n you're aware. Maybe it's an inwisible stone wall,
+as none o' you'll see, till heads go bang agin it. But ye all seem
+mighty cheerful this evening. Mr. Hughes 'll ask me by an' by,—"
+
+"'Well, Peter,' he'll say, 'and how's the men getting along to-night?'"
+he'll say.
+
+"And I'll tell him, 'Not a bit depressed nor down in the mouth, sir,'
+I'll say, 'but all as merry as crickets, thinking o' the nice long
+holiday they're a-going to get."
+
+"And he'll say, 'Poor fellows!'"
+
+"Mr. Hughes has been down the road himself, and heard Pope, so it isn't
+like he'll go to you for information," retorted Stevens.
+
+"I've heard him!" said Stuckey, with a nod. "I've heard Pope! Heard him
+yesterday a-talking against that 'ere cruel bloodhound of a master, Mr.
+Bertie, who's just been setting up a soup-kitchen for them iron-workers
+that's got cut off from work by the action of the strikers. Werry
+bloodthirsty deed!"
+
+"I've nothing to say against Mr. Bertie himself," said Stevens. "We're
+striking for our rights. 'Tain't because Pope tells us. It's because we
+want our rights."
+
+"Never you mind, man," Stuckey responded, in consoling tones. "When
+Peter Pope's golden age is come, and capital is abolished, and masters
+is all wiped out of existence, and men don't need to work, and wages
+comes pouring in from nobody knows where, ye'll all share and share
+alike, I don't doubt. That's something to look forward to, ain't it?
+Never you mind a bit o' trouble beforehand. Some o' ye's pretty sure to
+struggle through the starwation-time previous; leastways I hopes so.
+And if so be ye don't—why it's only dying for your rights!"
+
+[Illustration: Before he could enter, a hand came on his arm.]
+
+With a friendly nod, Stuckey trudged away, leaving Stevens not greatly
+cheered by his remarks. Coming so soon after his wife's complaints,
+Roger found them depressing. Almost without thought, he turned his step
+towards the nearest public-house; but before he could enter, a hand
+came on his arm.
+
+"Now, Stevens—Stevens, man, it's no time for that!"
+
+"No time for what?" demanded Stevens, shaking himself free.
+
+"You know! Think of the wife and children," urged John.
+
+"And if I do?" asked Stevens surlily.
+
+"Winter's at hand, and not much money like to come to you yet awhile, I
+wouldn't now—if I was you. Just think of the little ones! You haven't
+even Union funds to depend on."
+
+"I know that well enough—more's the pity!" Stevens hesitated a moment,
+then turned short round and walked away—both from the public-house and
+from John Holdfast. So Holdfast's effort had not been quite a failure.
+
+Sarah Holdfast had returned from her kind little visit to Martha,
+next door. When her husband reached home, she had prepared his tea,
+washed the children, and made everything spick and span. Holdfast's
+first move was, as always, to disappear up-stairs, that he might do
+away with the marks of toil before he enjoyed his evening meal. His
+next move, on reappearance, was to take the baby in his strong arms,
+and to let little Bessie climb upon his knee. But he seemed a degree
+absent to-day; not so playful with the young ones as Mrs. Holdfast was
+accustomed to see him.
+
+"Anything wrong, John?" she asked, when tea was nearly over.
+
+"Well, yes. It can't be helped," said John, trying to speak cheerfully.
+
+"Work going to stop?"
+
+"Not for a few days—three or four, I suppose. But if more men go out
+to-morrow and next day,—if the strike don't end by then—"
+
+"It won't yet," she said.
+
+"I'm afraid not."
+
+"It won't—yet awhile. The masters and the men's both equal set on their
+own way; and neither's ready to give in one inch to the other. There
+'ll be a fight first."
+
+John nodded.
+
+"And the works 'll have to stop?"
+
+"Yes. It ain't known certainly yet; but I've had a private word. Not
+the only one," muttered John.
+
+A look of fear came into Mrs. Holdfast's eyes. "The men?" she breathed.
+
+"If I don't go out like the rest, but just stick to work as long as I
+can get it, I'm to look to myself, and take the consequences."
+
+Mrs. Holdfast breathed quickly.
+
+"Don't seem I'm to have much choice soon," said John. "I'll have to go
+out then. Only it'll be because I must, not because I choose. That's
+all the difference."
+
+"John, wouldn't it be best to go out now? If you'll have to be paid off
+in a day or two—"
+
+John gave her a steady look.
+
+"You wouldn't have me act as a craven?" he asked. "Give in, for fear of
+consequences!"
+
+"But if they was to hurt you? There's some among 'em who might do that."
+
+"Then I'd have to bear it."
+
+"Only, wouldn't it be better, just this once—"
+
+"Say the true word, Sarah. Wouldn't it be safer?"
+
+"Well, wouldn't it be safer?" she faltered.
+
+"Safer for my bones, I shouldn't wonder. There's a cowardly few among
+'em, I know, who wouldn't scruple to knock me down, if they got a
+chance of doing it, unbeknown. But I don't mean 'em to have a chance if
+I can help it. Come, cheer up," said John. "Things 'll come right in
+the end."
+
+Things seemed very wrong to Sarah at this moment.
+
+"Pope says the men strike for their rights," continued John. "Well, and
+I'm standing out for my rights. I've my rights as well as they! Don't
+you see? If Pope's free to take his view of the question, I'm free
+to take my view of it. And my view don't coincide with Pope's. I've
+no notion of giving in to tyranny, whether it's tyranny of men or of
+masters. If the lot of them are free to strike, I'm free to not strike."
+
+"That wouldn't be much help to me if you got hurt."
+
+"Hope I shan't be, but any way I've got to do right," said John. "I've
+got to do what seems to me right; and a strike just now don't seem to
+me right. It don't seem to me called for. It don't seem to me likely to
+bring good. Pope and others says I'm wrong; and they says I'm bound to
+do what they think right. Now I don't nor can't see that. If Pope's a
+free and independent Englishman, I'm the same. If I've got to give in
+my judgment to Pope, and do what I count to be wrong, because he says
+it's right, I wonder where my freedom is. That's tyranny, and tyranny
+of the worst sort, because it tries to hold a man's conscience in
+bondage. I'll not give in to it, Sarah. I wasn't named 'Holdfast' for
+nothing. So long as I live, I'll 'hold fast' to what is right, so far
+as I can see what's right."
+
+John spoke quietly, not with a noisy voice or manner; and his words
+were all the more impressive from their quietness. Sarah fully agreed
+with all he said, as a matter of principle,—only as his wife she was
+afraid for him. She would not argue against his convictions, but her
+eyes grew tearful.
+
+"I think we needn't fear," John said more softly. "We haven't brought
+ourselves into the difficulty, Sarah, woman. If we had, it 'ud be
+different. I think we've got just to go straight ahead, and do what's
+right, and put our trust in God. If it's His will to let me suffer,
+why, there's some good reason for it. I'm sure of that."
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+DUCKED.
+
+SARAH could not shake off the thought of something happening to John.
+All the next day, and the next, she lived in fear, often hard to
+control. Those evenings he came home safely untouched. He did not tell
+Sarah how the men on strike glowered at him; how he was pursued on his
+way by the contemptuous groan of "Blackleg!!"
+
+Many a man would sooner face a knock-down blow than that sound of
+scorn; but John was not made of yielding stuff. He did not tell Sarah
+all this, for there was no need to add to her anxiety.
+
+On the third day it became known that the works must close; so John
+Holdfast, and those others who had refused to join the strike, would
+be reduced to idleness. Some said this might not be for long, as there
+was talk of workmen coming from a distance. Mrs. Holdfast hoped that
+the closing of the works would appease the strikers' anger against her
+husband; but she did not happen to hear the report about men arriving
+from elsewhere, or she would hardly have been so hopeful.
+
+Her dread had lessened on the third day; and that very evening John was
+long coming home. He was far later than usual. Mrs. Holdfast waited and
+waited, uneasiness deepening into terror. She put on her bonnet and
+shawl at length, and went out into the dusk to look for John; but she
+could see nothing of him, and it was impossible to leave the children
+for more than a few minutes.
+
+She went in next door, and found Martha alone.
+
+Stevens had gone somewhere, Martha said—to a meeting, she thought.
+"They're always at it with their speechifying," she said. "Maybe your
+husband's with them."
+
+"He'd have told me if he meant to go," Mrs. Hold fast answered.
+
+"Roger don't trouble to tell me," said Martha.
+
+No comfort was to be had there, and Mrs. Holdfast hastened home; the
+dread of foul play growing upon her with sickening force.
+
+Another hour she waited. It had grown quite dark. John never stayed
+away like this without previous warning.
+
+Mrs. Holdfast went again next door, in her misery, and found Stevens
+just come in. He knew nothing, he said—had seen nothing, heard nothing.
+He had not set eyes on Holdfast that day.
+
+At first he seemed very much disinclined to take any steps. "Holdfast's
+got himself into bad odour," he said; "staying in when the rest went
+out. He'd better have taken good advice."
+
+Mrs. Holdfast would not then argue against the view that to go with the
+multitude must be the wiser course. She used all her energies to get
+him to act, and presently her entreaties overcame his reluctance. He
+left the house to make inquiries, and Sarah went back to her home.
+
+Another long period of wearying suspense, and at length somebody was
+coming. Sarah knew what it meant, directly her ears caught the sound
+of shuffling footsteps. She went to the open door, and heard Stevens'
+voice—
+
+"Come along! Here you are! Just home."
+
+"John!" cried Sarah.
+
+"I've found him. He's had a fall or something," said Stevens. "Been and
+tumbled into a pond."
+
+Did Stevens really think so? There was a shamefaced sound in his voice.
+
+Sarah was by her husband's side, helping to bear him up, to pull him
+along. John said nothing. It was as much as he could do to move at all,
+with the assistance of them both.
+
+[Illustration: "Tumbled into the pond! Not he! He's been in;
+ but it wasn't a tumble."]
+
+Once in the kitchen, they could see the state he was in—dripping wet,
+half-covered with green slime from the pond, his face ghastly pale, his
+right arm hanging helplessly, blood flowing still from a cut in his
+forehead. Stevens got him into a chair, and shut the door, John sat
+drooping forward, like one stupefied.
+
+"Must have knocked his head against a sharp stone," said Stevens.
+
+Sarah was bending over her husband, examining the cut. She straightened
+herself, and looked full at Stevens.
+
+"Don't tell me that!" she said in a hard voice. "You know better! It's
+their doing—cowardly brutes, that dare to call themselves men!"
+
+Then her manner softened, "But I do thank you," she said.
+
+"Shouldn't wonder if you'd like me to help to get him up-stairs," said
+Stevens. "He don't seem able to stand alone. I say, Mrs. Holdfast—if I
+was you, I wouldn't go about saying it was the men."
+
+"No, I won't; for they're not men!" she answered, with bitter scorn.
+"I'll say it's been done by brutes. You wouldn't have me say what I
+don't believe, would you? Tumbled into the pond! Not he! He's been in;
+but it wasn't a tumble."
+
+"Well, I'll maintain it was a tumble; and I'll thank you to keep my
+name out of it too," said Stevens.
+
+"I wouldn't get you into the same trouble, not on any account," Mrs.
+Holdfast answered gratefully.
+
+Getting John up-stairs was no easy task. He was too dizzy and dazed
+to stand without support, and he seemed not to understand what was
+said. The right arm would hardly endure a touch, but it appeared to be
+only bruised and strained, not broken. Stevens was very much averse
+to a doctor being called, and Sarah hoped it might not be needful.
+She bathed and bound up the injured arm and the cut forehead, and
+John showed signs of amendment. When he was in bed, and Sarah began
+feeding him with spoonfuls of tea, Stevens being gone, he looked almost
+comfortable.
+
+"Things might be worse," he murmured, with an attempt at a smile.
+
+"Yes; they might have managed to kill you outright," Sarah said
+sternly. The sternness was for others. She was very tender towards
+John. "Do you think you can tell me how it happened?" she asked.
+
+John had little to tell. He had had occasion to go round by a certain
+lonely lane, to leave a message for somebody; and he supposed his going
+to have been known. Two or three men, perhaps more, had set upon him
+suddenly, in the dusk and loneliness, had ducked him in the pond, and
+otherwise maltreated him. He believed that they had left him on the
+road beside the pond, more or less unconscious. Stevens had found him
+there, when he was beginning to regain his sense, and had given him a
+helping arm home.
+
+"And that's about all," John said.
+
+"You didn't see the faces of the men?"
+
+"No, not a glimpse. They were too sharp, and the cut blinded me."
+
+"And they call themselves men!" she said again. "Men! Brutes, I say!
+John, I'll never forgive them!"
+
+"That's no resolve for a Christian woman to make," John answered.
+"Why, Sarah, woman, how will you ever pray your prayers in church next
+Sunday, not to speak of to-night and to-morrow morning, without you
+forgive?"
+
+"The brutes! That they should treat you so!" she said. "But I'm not
+going to let you go on talking now; you've got to try and sleep."
+
+"Don't feel much like sleep," said John. "One word more. Sarah, I
+don't mean to hide the truth of what I know. It wouldn't be right, for
+others' sake. But I do want you not to go about saying a lot of hard
+words. It's no good, and there's bitterness enough. We've got to be
+kind and to forgive."
+
+Sarah could only say tearfully—
+
+"I'll try."
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+SEED-CAKE.
+
+WINTER was setting in, and the strike continued in full force.
+
+Nobody showed any inclination to give way. There was no talk, as yet,
+of compromise. Masters and men alike stood firm, holding resolutely
+each to his own view of the matter, refusing resolutely each to take a
+kind and unselfish view of the difficulties on the other side.
+
+For of course there were two sides to the question, as there always
+are, each side having its own share of wrong and of right. The masters
+had their heavy expenses; their wearing anxieties; their fluctuations
+in profits. The men had their large families, more or less; their many
+needs; their comparatively low wages. A little measure of true sympathy
+and understanding on either side for the other, might have shortened
+the struggle; but the masters did not fully understand the men's
+position, and the men were far from sympathizing with the masters'
+position.
+
+It was a dull cold sky; the sky overhead being black, the mud underfoot
+blacker still. Sleety rain fell off and on upon the scores of idle
+loungers in Pleasant Lane and other streets. Many of the loungers took
+refuge in public-houses—for however badly off the strikers might be,
+they almost always seemed to have something to spend there.
+
+The usual stir of the busy town was hushed. All sound of engine and
+hammer had ceased. Work was at an end. Wages were at an end. Food in
+too many houses threatened to be soon at an end also.
+
+Peter Pope was not just now at hand; and the recollection of a stirring
+speech the evening before was not enough to prevent down-heartedness
+this morning. Many of those poor fellows, lolling idly about, were
+simply ready to do whatever they were told. Peter Pope desired them to
+hold out; and so they did hold out. But if each one had been questioned
+separately as to his real feeling in the matter, the answer in nine
+cases out of ten would have been—
+
+"Give me work, and let me earn bread for my little ones—" irrespective
+of those "rights" about which Peter Pope eloquently declaimed.
+
+John Holdfast had come out of his house for a breath of air, and he
+stood at the gate looking about. A fortnight of suffering had rendered
+him pale and gaunt. The cut on his forehead was nearly healed, but his
+right arm was still in a sling, and very helpless.
+
+There had been a great stir about John's injuries; but all attempts to
+identify John's injurers had failed. John had recognized no faces; and
+everybody else professed entire ignorance. Men of the better class were
+utterly ashamed of the miserable affair; but few had courage to speak
+out what they thought, or to give open sympathy to John.
+
+"Good morning, Holdfast. How's the arm to-day, eh?" asked Mr. Hughes,
+coming at a brisk pace through Pleasant Lane.
+
+Many a visit had Mr. Hughes paid to John lately; and many a supply of
+food had Stuckey brought from the Rectory. Much kindness had also been
+shown, and much practical help given, by the heads of the firm for
+which John worked. So, in point of fact, he and his family had suffered
+far less from the strike, thus far, than others.
+
+"Getting on, sir, thank you," John answered cheerfully. "The doctor
+hopes it'll be up to work in a few weeks."
+
+"Fortunate, if it is. Those strained muscles are troublesome things. I
+hope the strike will not last till your arm is really up to work."
+
+John shook his head dubiously.
+
+"I wish it may not, sir."
+
+"Mr. Bertie has been to see you."
+
+"Twice, sir. He says he don't mean me to be a loser by this."
+
+"No; so I hear. Quite right too. No hope now, I'm afraid, of finding
+out the fellows who maltreated you."
+
+"No," John said slowly. "I don't know as I can say I'm sorry. But if
+they was found, it wouldn't be right to let 'em off."
+
+"Certainly not; for the sake of others more than yourself. But—" Mr.
+Hughes paused and sighed. "How I wish one could breathe a breath of
+Christ-like loving-kindness into all this—all these business relations
+between masters and men, between workmen and workmen. The wheels would
+move then without creaking, and adjustment would not be a matter of
+fighting."
+
+"That's so, sir," John answered emphatically. "It's Christian
+consideration for others that's wanted, not just each side trying to
+grab the biggest profits."
+
+John had left his house, and was walking slowly by Mr. Hughes' side. A
+gesture had invited him to do so.
+
+"I'm afraid the poor wives and children are the worst sufferers."
+
+"Likely to be," said John. "Sarah and I, we've nothing to complain
+of—thanks to you and to Mr. Bertie. But them poor Stevenses next door—"
+
+"Stevens joined the strike?"
+
+"Yes, sir; and he don't belong to the Union. I don't know how ever he
+gets along. His wife is getting as thin—"
+
+"I dare say I can give you a basket of cake and odds and ends for her,
+poor thing! Can you come with me for it?"
+
+"Now, sir?"
+
+"Yes, now. No time like the present. Poor fellows!" murmured Mr.
+Hughes, as they passed another group of idlers. "They look very
+deplorable this morning. Rather different from their state of
+excitement under one of Pope's orations."
+
+"That sort of excitement don't last," said John. "But I suppose it's
+the only way to get hold of them."
+
+"Speechifying is, you mean?"
+
+"Yes, sir. Pope has a hold upon 'em, somehow. I'd give a deal to see
+somebody able to stand up and give the other side of the matter. They
+do want showing a common-sense view of things."
+
+"Why don't you do it yourself?"
+
+John looked up in astonishment.
+
+"You have read and thought on these subjects and you have a large share
+of common-sense. Why not impart it to others?"
+
+Holdfast laughed slightly.
+
+"I've not got the gift of the gab," he said.
+
+"Never mind about gifts. If you have a matter clearly in your mind, I
+imagine that you are capable of putting it into plain words."
+
+"I'm afraid that's not much in my line, sir. I haven't got Pope's
+smooth tongue, you see."
+
+"Working-men don't want only smoothness. They get enough and too much
+of that from certain quarters. What they really want is truth. Give
+them facts. Think things out for yourself, and make up your own mind as
+to what is right; then throw your influence into the right scale. You
+have shown already that you are no coward; that you can stand alone;
+and that you are not afraid to act independently. Don't be afraid to
+speak as well as to act; and don't conclude that, because you have not
+Pope's tongue, you have therefore no tongue at all. It may be your
+positive duty to speak out sometimes, for the sake of others."
+
+"I'll think it over, sir, any way. I wouldn't wish to neglect my duty,
+if it is a duty," said John. "But I'm afraid the men would only say I
+was taking the masters' side."
+
+"Don't give them a chance of saying so. Don't take the masters' side.
+You have not to do that. Let the masters look to themselves, and take
+the men's side—which Pope does not do, for all his boasting. Try to
+show them—as many as will listen to you—the wise and common-sense view
+of things. Show them the folly of trying to control forces which will
+not be controlled. Show them the doubtful wisdom of half-starving
+themselves for the chance of a slight rise in wages, which, when
+gained, cannot repay them for what they have lost in gaining it. At the
+same time, don't deny that masters, like men, are sometimes unfair; and
+that pressure has sometimes to be wisely and justly used."
+
+"Maybe I might say something," John observed thoughtfully.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+THE CHILDREN.
+
+"MOTHER—"
+
+"Yes, Bobbie."
+
+"I'm so hungry."
+
+"And I'm so hungry too," chimed in little Harry.
+
+Martha Stevens was mending a child's frock by the dim light of a
+wintry afternoon. Snow outside fell thickly; and there were only a few
+decaying embers in the grate. Food and firing were hard to procure. Not
+once or twice only, since Holdfast spoke to Mr. Hughes of the Stevens'
+needs, kind supplies had been sent from the Rectory; but such supplies
+could only mean temporary relief.
+
+One thing after another had gone to the pawnshop. The best Sunday
+clothes first; then all the little ornaments and treasures and
+knick-knacks; and at last even Martha's wedding-ring. The once cheery
+home was changed.
+
+"I'm so hungry, mother, I don't know what to do."
+
+Bobbie's nine-years-old manliness threatened to fail him; and there
+was the sound of a sob. Little Millie, curled up on the ground at her
+mother's feet, lifted her head slowly.
+
+"It's no good crying, Bobbie," she said, in a grave unchildlike manner.
+"Mother hasn't got nothing?"
+
+"Millie's hungry too, I know," said Mrs. Stevens. "And she don't go on
+as you do, Bobbie."
+
+"Millie's a girl," sobbed Bobbie. "I don't think she feels it so
+dreadful bad as me."
+
+"She's worse than any of us, I know that," said Martha, looking down
+on the tiny blue stick of an arm, which had once been so round and
+mottled. "And boys hadn't ought to give in more easy than girls."
+
+Bobbie put his head down on a chair, and tried to smother the sobs;
+but it was hard work. Grown-up men found it no easy task to endure the
+gnawings of hunger which could not be satisfied; and it was no wonder
+that Bobbie, with his keen boyish appetite, should fail.
+
+"I'm so hungry,—I'm so hungry," broke out from him anew.
+
+"Father 'll have to take something else—" take it to the pawnbroker's,
+she meant. "The baker says he don't know how he's to go on giving
+credit, for there's no knowing where it'll end. And I don't know how
+we'll ever be able to pay what we owe him now!"
+
+Hundreds of other families were more or less in the same condition; yet
+the men talked still of holding out.
+
+"Just a little longer," Pope told them, "and they would have everything
+their own way."
+
+"Father's coming!" Millie said, as a step was heard; and little Harry
+lifted his heavy head, only to lay it down again.
+
+Stevens came in with a moody air, and took a seat. He looked thinner
+himself under the pressure of want.
+
+"We've nothing left in the house," Martha said; "and the children's
+craving and crying till I don't know how to bear myself."
+
+Stevens drew a small loaf—twopenny size—from his pocket, and tossed it
+on the table. "That's all I've got," he said; "and I didn't expect to
+have so much."
+
+"Where did you get it from?" Martha asked, taking it in hand to respond
+to the little ones' eager eyes.
+
+"Met Holdfast," 'said Roger gruffly.
+
+"And he gave it you?"
+
+A grunt of assent. "For the children."
+
+"And where's the next to come from?"
+
+This question had no answer.
+
+"We can't starve," she said, looking at him. "There isn't another crumb
+nor another penny in the house. Where's the next loaf to come from?"
+
+Stevens was silent.
+
+"You'll have to get something, somehow! We can't go on like this," she
+continued, speaking quietly thus far. Then she burst out as if choked,
+"But if you'd been getting your wages all this time we'd never have
+got to such a pass! As if it mattered that you'd have had to work a
+bit longer than you liked! What business has a man got to marry, if
+he don't mean to work? Why, dear me, a lot more work wouldn't have
+pulled you down yourself, like the want of food! . . . And there's the
+children! . . . And if you do get what you're trying for, it won't pay
+for these weeks. It won't give us back half, nor a quarter, of what
+we've lost. I wish you men had some common-sense, I do, if it's only
+for the sake of your wives and children."
+
+"You needn't scold," said Roger.
+
+"I don't want to scold! It isn't scolding! I'm only telling you the
+plain truth. If you'd look the matter in the face for once, you'd maybe
+see how things are before it's too late."
+
+"Too late for what?" asked Stevens.
+
+Martha did not speak. Her eyes went first to his, then travelled round
+the room, passed over the older children; and rested on Harry. Roger
+followed her glance.
+
+"I can't help it," he said desperately. "What am I to do? Pope says
+we'd be cowards now to give in."
+
+"Pope says!" she repeated with scorn. "Can't you think for yourselves,
+and not be at Pope's beck and call?"
+
+"Just see how Holdfast was treated—" Stevens began, and stopped.
+
+"Ah, that's it! That's the real truth! You're afraid, all of
+you,—afraid of Pope, and afraid of each other, and afraid of being
+called 'blacklegs.' What's that but cowardice? . . . Roger, are you
+going to wait, and let your little ones starve afore your eyes? . . .
+There's work to be had now, for I know there is. It's offered to any
+who'll take. Mr. Holdfast 'ud be at work, if it wasn't for his arm.
+What's to keep you back?"
+
+"I daren't be the first to give in," he faltered. "They'd hoot at me
+for a 'blackleg.'"
+
+"Daren't! And you call yourself a man! You call yourself independent!
+You call yourself a freeborn Englishman! Daren't! And you call that
+liberty!" she uttered, with unconscious eloquence. "I call it being a
+slave."
+
+Stevens seemed too dejected for anger. "You know well enough, there's
+lots of men willing to get to work," he said, "if others would let
+them. But there's too many for holding out still. What's a man to do?
+He can't stand alone—and there's nobody to take the lead."
+
+"Except Pope! Take the lead yourself," said Martha.
+
+Roger sat in gloomy silence.
+
+"They do say there's signs that the masters 'll give in soon," he
+observed at length.
+
+"I don't believe it. And if they did, we'll have lost a deal more than
+we'll gain."
+
+Roger rose slowly.
+
+"Where are you going?" she asked, in a sharp voice. It had grown sharp
+lately under the wearing strain of want.
+
+"There's a meeting."
+
+"Pope, I suppose," she said.
+
+"Pope's away for to-night. It was Holdfast asked me to go."
+
+"If he's to be there, you'll have a word on the right side."
+
+"Holdfast said it wasn't to be a question of taking' sides, but just
+for to consider the state of affairs," said Roger.
+
+Then he passed out into the falling snow, glad to escape from those
+pinched pitiful faces. Little Harry's wan look haunted him all the way.
+Harry had been such a beautiful child; plump and rosy, and full of fun.
+While now—!
+
+"Something 'll have to be done soon," murmured Roger.
+
+The Church schoolroom had been lent by Mr. Hughes to the men for this
+evening, that they might meet to talk things over among themselves; and
+Holdfast had undertaken to call them together. A moderate gathering was
+the response.
+
+It did not promise to be an excited meeting. Pope was not there to
+supply bombast; and the men were generally more or less depressed. Many
+of them were hungry; some might almost have been called half-starved.
+
+The main question was—Ought the strike to continue, or should it cease?
+Ought they to hold on, or were they willing to yield? Were the promised
+results worth the battle,—if such results might be gained by further
+delay? In other words, was the game worth the candle?
+
+One and another stood up to speak. In Pope's absence, they were
+conscious of unusual freedom. They tried to look these questions fairly
+in the face, with such light as they possessed. It was not that these
+few men expected to decide for the whole community. The number present
+was a mere fraction of the whole number out on strike. But even to gain
+a few frankly-expressed opinions was worth much.
+
+Presently John Holdfast was seen to rise and come forward. He spoke to
+the chairman, then turned to face the meeting. It was easy to see that
+he had something to say. There were many present who had baited John
+and jeered at him for his independent action of late; yet there was not
+one who did not really in his heart respect John; and no unwillingness
+to hear him was displayed.
+
+John had at first something of the embarrassed and hesitating air usual
+with men who find themselves in an unwonted position. But that did not
+last. He knew his subject; and he had a good command of words. Indeed,
+as he went on, he showed a degree of fluency which perhaps astonished
+himself at least as much as his hearers.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+HOLDFAST'S SPEECH.
+
+"I'VE got a few words to say to you to-night, lads. I'm a plain-spoken
+man, as you know, with no particular gift for speechifying; so you'll
+have to bear with me, if I blunder, and put things badly. I'm one of
+yourselves, and you'll just take my blundering kindly, and look beyond
+it to the root of the matter. It's as one of yourselves that I want to
+talk to you."
+
+"There's been a lot said already, as to whether you should or shouldn't
+go on with the strike. Some are for one side, and some for the other.
+Well, I s'pose you all know pretty well which side I'm for. But maybe
+you don't all know so well what's my reasons, nor why I'm for that
+side."
+
+"Now you needn't think I'm going to pretend to settle the whole
+question for you in a dozen words, and expect you all in a moment to
+follow what I say. That wouldn't be fair nor sensible. What I want to
+do is just to put the thing before you in a reasonable light."
+
+"It seems to me that a deal of nonsense is talked, and a lot of
+mistakes are made, in these days, through men not looking on both sides
+of a question. You've heard the old story of the shield, and the two
+knights looking upon it. One said it was made of gold, and the other
+would have it was made of silver; and words ended in blows, and if I'm
+not mistaken, one wounded the other to death. At all events, it wasn't
+till after there'd been fighting, that somebody passing by showed them
+how the shield was gold on one side and silver on the other. So both
+were right and both were wrong; for it was gold, but it wasn't all
+gold; and it was silver, but it wasn't only silver: A little patience
+and common-sense were wanted there, weren't they?"
+
+"Folks do much the same now. One is on the masters' side, and he says
+the shield is all gold. Another is on the men's side, and he says the
+shield, is all silver. Neither of 'em has the sense to walk round, and
+take a look on the other side."
+
+"There's the masters' side of the question, the side of Capital.
+There's the men's side, the side of Labour. Each has its rights,
+and each depends upon the other. It's all very fine to talk of
+independence; but I tell you, men, you can't be independent. There's
+no man living who can stand alone, and do for himself without help
+from others. You're dependent on others for the food you eat, for the
+clothes you wear, for the houses you live in, for the tools you work
+with."
+
+"Aye, and more than that; when you buy, you're among the capitalists.
+Others have worked for you, and you pay them for their labour. There's
+no such sharp division as many make out between capitalists and
+labouring-men. It's a question of degrees. The working-man spends less
+money, and works more with his hands; the capitalist spends more money,
+and works less with his hands. That's the distinction. But they're all
+members of one community, and each depends upon the other."
+
+"To come back to the common view of the matter; the greater amount of
+capital is in the masters' hands no doubt, and power goes with money.
+Yet, if the masters couldn't get hands to work for them, much use would
+their wealth be to them. The men do the work, and power goes with
+labour too; but if there was no capital out of which their wages would
+come, they'd be badly off too."
+
+"Fact is, there's power on both sides, and there's dependence on both
+sides. It's the few with capital to balance the many without capital.
+More truly, it's the few with large capital to balance the many with
+little capital."
+
+"Now you mind one thing that I have to say. Capital is your friend, and
+not your enemy. Some among you are given to talking about the tyranny
+of capital. Well, I don't say capital is never tyrannical when it gets
+a chance, just as I don't say labour is never tyrannical when it gets
+a chance too. But the 'tyranny of labour' may be as true a phrase as
+the 'tyranny of capital;' and all the while, each is the friend of
+the other. Capital is the friend of labour, and labour is the friend
+of capital. Capital can't get along without labour, and labour can't
+get along without capital. A man 'll sometimes act tyrant to his own
+friend, if he gets a chance—when he's thinking too much about his own
+pocket."
+
+"One thing's sure. If a man hurts his friend, he hurts himself too in
+the long run, whether he sees it or not. The masters can't do wrong
+to the men without injuring themselves, and the men can't wrong the
+masters without hurting themselves; for each depends on the other."
+
+"I suppose it would be a happy thing if the two sides could come to an
+agreement as to their exact rights, and so put a stop to all disputes.
+But that's a thing more easy said than done; for the fact is, there's
+no one spot where you can say the rights of one side begin, and the
+rights of the other end. Or if there is such a spot, it's always
+moving."
+
+"I'll tell you what—it's like what the children call a see-saw, you
+know. The masters with their capital are seated on one end of the
+board, and the men with their labour are seated on the other end. The
+plank is supported on a narrow edge, and the very least change in the
+quantity of gold at one end, or in the number of men at the other end,
+makes a re-adjustment needful to keep the balance."
+
+"Nell, and the re-adjustment can't come about in a moment. If both
+parties keep quiet, the board 'll swing a little, and presently they'll
+see what the true balance is—whether the masters or the men weigh
+heaviest. But sometimes they won't wait. They fidget, and they get
+excited; and the plank swings harder, and maybe they end in an upset
+altogether, which puts off the settling for a good bit longer. I think
+we've had something of that sort lately."
+
+"I'm inclined to believe that the upset don't make much difference in
+the long run. The plank 'll find its balance just the same, whether
+those at each end sit quiet or whether they don't. It may swing more or
+less; but nothing on earth can keep the heavier end from being lowest,
+nor the lighter end from being highest, when it does come to rest."
+
+"Matters are something like that in the labour-market."
+
+"You've had a lot of fine words said to you of late by Pope, which
+maybe some of you believe. He'd teach you to think that everything is
+in your own hands; that you only have to strike and strike again to get
+higher and higher wages, and that the masters all keep you wilfully
+down, and don't give you your dues."
+
+"Well, I've had a good lot of spare time lately, and I thought I
+couldn't do better than read about these questions, and get up some
+information."
+
+"I've one fact to give you, as a result of my reading. Facts are
+stubborn things you know; and I'm not sure as this isn't a specially
+stubborn fact. Any way, here it is. Whatever you and the masters do
+or don't do, and whether so be that you like it or not, labour, as a
+general rule and in the long run, is always paid at its worth."
+
+"You don't see that, eh?"
+
+"Well, I'll give you the key to it in a sentence I've read somewhere.
+'Labour is dear when it is scarce, and cheap when it is plentiful.'
+Other things have their bearing on the question, I won't deny; but
+you'll always have to work back to this. When trade's prosperous,
+and the demand for labour grows, and the masters compete one against
+another for hands, then wages rise. But when the market is overstocked,
+and the demand for labour gets less, and the men compete one against
+another for work, instead of the masters competing for men, there's a
+change. Natural enough, those in need of work will take it at a lower
+rate, rather than go without; and down the wages run. It isn't a surer
+law that water finds its own level, than that wages do the same."
+
+"But suppose now you won't let men take lower wages. Suppose, by the
+power of combination, you force the wages to keep at a higher level
+than they'd do naturally? That's possible sometimes, I don't deny; just
+as you can bank up a stream of water, and hinder it from flowing down."
+
+"I'm not talking about the right or the wrong of such action, nor
+whether you've a right to restrain the freedom of others. That's for
+you and them to consider. But I'll tell you what must be the result of
+such action."
+
+"By forcing up the wages, you make the fruits of your work more dear
+than elsewhere. Then other towns or other countries will compete
+against you, producing the same things more cheaply. Then the public
+will leave you, and buy elsewhere. Stands to reason, don't it, that
+folks turn to the cheapest market for their goods? If you men can buy
+a serviceable coat for a low price at one shop, you won't choose to
+pay a high price for the same at another shop. So, by getting higher
+wages than are really your due, you'll have driven away the trade from
+your neighbourhood, perhaps from your country; and masters and men will
+suffer alike."
+
+"Maybe you'll say that if all working-men over the world joined into
+one great league, they could force up the wages everywhere alike.
+Well, I don't know as that's altogether an impossible state of things
+for a time. But mind you, it would be only for a time. It couldn't go
+on always. The produce of higher wages being too expensive for the
+condition of the times, people would buy less; or they'd find something
+else cheaper to use instead. I don't know as I'm making myself clear;
+but it's clear to myself what I mean."
+
+"I can't tell what 'll be the outcome of the present strike. Maybe, if
+you go on long enough, the masters will give in, and you'll get your
+higher wage. Well, and if so be the state of the market allows it, all
+will go right. But if your doing so forces the masters to put a higher
+price on the produce of your work than is paid for it elsewhere, we
+shall be losers in the end. For trade will flow away from our town.
+Customers will go elsewhere."
+
+"You'll tell me now that I'm arguing on the masters' side. But I'm not.
+It's the men's side I'm considering; and the trouble you'll all be in,
+if a time of slack trade comes."
+
+"I want you all, as I've said before, to take a common-sense view of
+the matter. That's what some of your fine speechifiers don't help you
+to do. I dare say you'd like it better if I was to talk a lot about
+tyranny and oppression, and iron heels trampling you down, and such
+trash, and then was to butter you up for a set of noble chaps, the like
+of which never trod this earth before."
+
+"You're used to that sort of thing, ain't you, now? But it's not in my
+line, nor never will be. You may be noble if you choose—all and any
+of you. I don't say you all are; any more than I'd go for to say that
+all the aristocracy or all the capitalists of the country are noble.
+Nobody's noble who lives to himself, and who's a slave to any manner
+of wrong-doing. But there's many a noble fellow among them; and I hope
+there's many a noble fellow among us too. Any way, I've a notion that
+your iron-heeled aristocracy would be the last to deny the fact. Only,
+whether you're noble or no, I do say you let your eyes be too easy
+blinded by a handful of dust."
+
+"Now you just think quiet for a minute or two, about this notion of
+cheap and dear labour depending on whether it's plentiful or scarce."
+
+"You all know that pearls and diamonds cost a lot more than bits of
+glass and wood. Why do they? Because they're valuable, you'll say. But
+why are they valuable? Because men want to have them? No, it's not that
+only. It's because they're scarce.
+
+"Take the Kohinoor—the grandest diamond in England, belonging to Her
+Majesty. Three cheers for our noble Queen, lads!" John's hat went up,
+and the haggard men before him responded warmly. "That's it!" said
+John, well pleased. "Now about the Kohinoor. I'm afraid to say how much
+it is worth. But supposing that instead of one there was fifty such
+diamonds in the country. Would they all be worth as much? No, of course
+not. And suppose there was ten thousand—why, lots of people could buy
+them then, the price 'ud be so much lower. And suppose they were as
+common as pebbles in the road; why, then you'd be able to, pick them up
+like pebbles, you know, and not have to pay anything at all."
+
+"So a thing is worth more or less, partly according to whether it's
+wanted, but mostly according to whether it's scarce or plentiful."
+
+"That's how it is with labour. When there's much work to be done, and
+few men to do it, labour is dear because it's scarce. When there's
+little work to be done, and many men to do it, labour is cheap because
+it is plentiful. And when labour is cheap, no amount of strikes can
+make it worth more than it is worth, even though wages may be forced up
+unnaturally for a while."
+
+"Would you go for to say," put in a voice, "that strikes are never on
+no account to be resorted to?"
+
+"No, I don't say that," returned John. "It's natural and it's right
+that working-men should band together to protect their own interests;
+and maybe now and then a strike's the only method open to them. Any
+way, I do know it oughtn't to be a common thing. For in nine cases out
+of ten, lads, the loss is more than the gain. A strike is wise, only
+when affairs are in such a condition, that you all know on the very
+best authority—not only on Pope's authority—that a rise is your just
+due, and that there's no chance of your getting it for a long while
+save by a strike. That's a state of things that might be; and then
+if you liked to go in for a strike—well, it mightn't be altogether
+unreasonable."
+
+"But a strike should be your last resort, not your first. If a rise in
+wages is really your due, I suppose it's sure to come sooner or later,
+from the pressure of competition, whether you strike or whether you
+don't. But if you're mistaken as to the state of things, and a rise is
+not your due—why a strike isn't like to do more than bring loss and
+disappointment; or even if it does force the wages up for a bit, that
+can't last, and things will be worse for your trade in the end."
+
+"It 'ud be a good thing if masters and men would draw together, and be
+more friendly-like, and each listen to the other. For there's rights
+on both sides, and difficulties on both sides; and there's room on
+both sides for a kind and thoughtful spirit to be shown. It wouldn't
+do no harm to you, lads, if you was sometimes to put yourselves into
+the masters' place, and think how you'd act there. And I wish the
+masters would do the same for the men. Not as they don't sometimes,
+I'll be bound. There's masters and masters, just as there's men and
+men! I don't see as we ourselves have much to complain of. Mr. Bertie
+and Mr. Lovett have been good friends to us for many a year. It wasn't
+till Pope came to enlighten our ignorance, that we found out we was
+grovelling under the heels of two bloodthirsty tyrants."
+
+"No, no; not so bad as that!" cried several voices.
+
+"Hope not!" said John dryly. "Any way, my slavery don't fret me much.
+I've got along pretty comfortable, in spite of it—till these last
+weeks."
+
+"I say," broke in a fresh voice, "that's all very fine, you know, what
+you've been saying; and I don't say there's no truth in it. But I'd
+like to know one thing, and that is, why working-men are paid at a
+higher rate in other countries than in England?"
+
+"And perhaps, if I answer that, you'll tell me why workmen are paid at
+a lower rate in other countries than in England," said John.
+
+"Look at America," was the answer.
+
+"And look at France—look at Germany—look at Holland. It comes in both
+cases from the same reason. Labour is more scarce in one place than in
+another; or, capital is more plentiful. Either way the wages must rise."
+
+"Twelve to eighteen shillings a day, as I've heard say Englishmen could
+make awhile back in a place called Lima," chimed in somebody else.
+
+"Maybe so," John answered. "And if you want to make that amount, you'd
+best go there—supposing it's the same still. Only take care too many of
+you don't go; for as sure as labour gets more plentiful, the wages will
+run down."
+
+"When you think of the lower rate of wages paid to workmen on the
+Continent, you'll no doubt say that the advantage on our side is all
+owing to Trades, Unions and strikes. But it's nothing of the sort.
+Trades Unions, property managed, are all very well in their way; and
+a strike at the right time may be a good thing in its way. But Trades
+Unions and strikes can't force wages up to a higher level and keep them
+there, when the state of the labour-market don't allow it."
+
+"There's trades in England, with powerful Unions, which haven't made
+any advance in wages during years past. There are trades on the
+Continent, with no Unions at all to push for them, which have just gone
+on with the tide; and the workmen have gained twenty or thirty per
+cent. on their wages."
+
+"I've spoken longer than I meant when I began; and now it's about time
+I should stop. A word more, first. You'll tell me, perhaps, that many a
+strike isn't for higher wages, but for shorter hours. So it is. English
+workmen are growing mighty careful of themselves nowadays, and afraid
+of work. But the rise is the same either way. It's a rise if you get
+better pay for ten hours' work than before; and it's a rise if you keep
+ten hours' pay for nine hours' work."
+
+"Yes; and it's the same thing in another way. The cost of production
+is greater, whichever sort of rise you get; and that means a higher
+price for the thing sold; and that means, sometimes, driving away the
+trade to some other place. A lot of trade has drifted away from England
+to foreign countries, of late years—and why? Just because the shorter
+hours and higher wages of English workmen mean higher prices for the
+produce of their work—and people won't pay higher prices when they can
+get as good for lower. Would you? No, of course you wouldn't!"
+
+"You've borne patiently with me, and I mustn't tax you further, though
+there's plenty more I could say yet. But I do want you just to think
+over these matters for yourselves, and not be led away by fine talk
+which hasn't sense in it. And while you're thinking, you just remember
+the wives and children at home. What's best for them?"
+
+Holdfast sat down without another word, and not without his meed of
+applause.
+
+But though he was heard patiently throughout, and though he had dropped
+some seeds which might perchance take root, yet those present were
+few in number compared with the many out on strike; and those few had
+not force of character or vigour of will to speak out and to act for
+themselves.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+A COLD EVENING.
+
+IT was a Sunday evening, and bitterly cold. A hard frost had come to
+aggravate the misery which already reigned in the town.
+
+Martha Stevens cowered over a scanty fire, with her shivering children.
+Harry had wailed himself to sleep in his little bed; but Millie and
+Bobbie were up still, clinging to their mother's faded dress.
+
+"I wonder what father's doing," patient Millie said. She did not utter
+the first words which rose to her lips—"I wonder if father 'll bring us
+anything to eat." Millie was unusually thoughtful for her few years,
+and would not say needlessly what would distress "mother."
+
+"I don't know. There isn't much here to tempt him," sighed Martha.
+
+The door opened slowly. "I say—may I come in, Mrs. Stevens?" asked a
+voice.
+
+A ragged slatternly figure, carrying a baby, entered and drew towards
+the fire-place. It was their near neighbour, Mrs. Hicks.
+
+"You can sit down," said Martha; "only shut the door first. The wind's
+bitter cold. Do you want anything?"
+
+"That's a nice question, ain't it?" said Mrs. Hicks, acting on the
+leave given. "Do I want—anything? O no; we're all so flush o' cash just
+now, we don't want nothing, do we? Not you, nor me, nor nobody!"
+
+Martha made no answer. She felt too listless and despairing for
+neighbourly talk. Molly Hicks gazed round the little room with hungry
+eyes.
+
+"Maybe you've not got to such a pass as we," she said. "Maybe you
+haven't a crust to spare!"
+
+[Illustration: "Maybe you haven't a crust to spare!" she said.]
+
+"It wouldn't be on the shelf long if I had," Martha said in a hard tone.
+
+"Ah—then I'm come to the wrong place," said Molly. "Look here, Mrs.
+Stevens!"
+
+She held out a wan baby, with claw-like fingers and wizened face—a face
+that might have belonged to some old man.
+
+"And Jack 'll stand seeing that! And he'll stand knowing that the
+child's being killed! It'll die soon! And I tell him so! And he won't
+believe, till it's too late! If ever I go and work him up again to this
+sort of thing, I'll—"
+
+Molly caught her breath in a sob. But for her "working up," as she
+rightly termed it, her husband might never have joined the strike.
+He was a man slow to decide, difficult to move; but when once he had
+decided on some new course of action, he was equally resolute in
+holding, to it. Molly had given the impulse. She could not now undo her
+own work.
+
+"How long does your husband s'pose it'll last?" asked Mrs. Hicks, after
+a pause.
+
+"I don't know. Nobody don't know," said Martha wearily. "Till the
+masters give in, or till the men see they've no hope of getting their
+way. And they don't seem like to see that, so long as Mr. Pope goes on
+talking at them."
+
+"I wish Pope was at the bottom of the sea. That's what I wish," said
+Mrs. Hicks, slowly rising.
+
+Martha's drooping manner and empty cupboard did not tempt her to a
+longer stay. Wrapping the baby in her torn shawl, she went out again.
+
+"Mother, how dreadful bad Mrs. Hicks' baby does look," said Bobbie.
+
+Martha could not speak. She could only think how changed were the faces
+of her own children—of little Harry especially. Bobbie's mind seemed to
+go in the same direction.
+
+"And Millie's got such thin arms; and baby don't laugh as he used, and
+all the red's gone out of his checks. I wish I was a man; I'd go off to
+the works, and get a lot of money."
+
+"It'll be long enough before you're a man, Bobbie," sighed his mother.
+"Years and years first. And when you are, I suppose you'll just be like
+the rest,—do what everybody else does, and never think about the little
+ones at home."
+
+"Don't father think?"
+
+Martha put a sudden check upon herself.
+
+"Yes, he does," she said. "He does think; and it goes to his heart to
+see baby Harry's look. I didn't mean that, Bobbie; I only meant, I wish
+with all my heart the strike was over."
+
+
+"Look 'ee here, Mrs. Holdfast!"
+
+Molly Hicks once more held out her baby, and Sarah Holdfast's kind face
+softened with pity.
+
+"Poor little thing! Why, she's wasted away to nothing!"
+
+"Starving!" said Mrs. Hicks, in a dry unnatural voice.
+
+"Poor little thing!" repeated Mrs. Holdfast.
+
+"There's nothing for anybody at home. And we've parted with pretty
+near everything. The house is just left bare. They've helped us at the
+shops, till they say they can't go on no longer. I don't know how it'll
+all end. I've got nobody to help me, nor nobody to turn to."
+
+Molly Hicks sat down on the doorstep of the Holdfasts' cottage, and
+rocked the baby to and fro. It set up a faint whimper, as if in
+response, but seemed too weak to cry.
+
+"Don't stay there. You'll give the child its death of cold. Come in,
+and you shall have a cup of tea," said Sarah, "and some milk for baby."
+
+Mrs. Hicks obeyed the invitation with alacrity.
+
+Tea-things were still on the table, for Mrs. Holdfast had delayed for
+once putting them away until the children were in bed. She was glad now
+of Bessie's unwonted sleepiness. A little boiling water added to the
+remains of tea in the tea-pot, soon produced a very drinkable cup; and
+Molly disposed of it eagerly. A big slice of bread and butter awaited
+her also; but she turned from it, to soak scraps of dry bread in a
+saucer of milk, and to squeeze them between the tiny creature's parched
+lips. Sarah looked on with tearful eyes.
+
+"There! Not too fast," she said. "Take something yourself now."
+
+"I don't know how to thank you enough, that I don't," said Molly Hicks
+at length, when her wants and those of the baby seemed both satisfied.
+"I haven't had such a meal for days. It's not a bit of good to say one
+word to my husband. He won't listen. If he'd a grain of sense, he'd be
+back at work—now work's to be had. But he won't. He's as obstinate—!"
+
+"One man's afraid to stir without the rest stirring too," said Sarah.
+
+"Then he'd ought to think of his children, and put his fears in his
+pocket," said Molly.
+
+"You didn't think like that in the beginning of the strike," Sarah
+ventured to say.
+
+"No, I didn't—more fool I!" said Molly. "Talking a lot of rubbish, and
+getting him to go along with the rest, when he wouldn't have done it
+but for me! O yes, he'd hear me then; but he won't hear me now. I just
+wish I'd bitten off my tongue first! You don't look as if you'd come to
+the end of everything yet, Mrs. Holdfast."
+
+"No," said Sarah quietly. "It isn't John's fault he can't work; and
+he's been helped."
+
+"He ain't at work yet."
+
+"His arm isn't well enough. It's been business—longer than we thought.
+The doctor says he'll have to rest it yet awhile."
+
+"Everybody knows how that came about," said Molly.
+
+Sarah was silent.
+
+"Some folks do say it was an accident. But everybody knows. It was the
+men—because your husband wouldn't join 'em."
+
+"Maybe," Sarah said in constrained tones. "Well——all we can do is to—"
+
+"Have the law out of 'em! But you can't!" said Molly.
+
+"No. We can't; for John doesn't know who it was. Any way, we've got to
+forgive them."
+
+"That ain't so easy," said Molly, with a short laugh, hanging over the
+fire. "Where's your husband now?"
+
+"Gone to church."
+
+"Catch my husband putting his foot inside of a church door," said Molly.
+
+"Then he loses a lot of happiness," said Mrs. Holdfast. "John and me
+can't go together, because of the children; but he mostly manages for
+me to go once, and he does like to go twice, as often as not. I've been
+this afternoon; and he's been morning and evening. We wouldn't give it
+up—no, not for anything."
+
+"Why, what's the good?" asked Molly, opening her eyes.
+
+"I think the good is, because it's right—first," said Mrs. Holdfast.
+"And if we go in a right spirit, it brings us nearer to God. And we
+go to worship Him, and to learn about Him. You just try, Mrs. Hicks;
+you'll soon feel you couldn't do without it."
+
+"I!" said Mrs. Hicks. "In this gown! And it's the only one I've got."
+
+"I'd sooner go in a work-a-day gown than not at all," said Sarah.
+"Maybe it would be hard. But I'm quite sure I couldn't stay away. I
+don't know how I'd ever bear trouble when it comes, if I hadn't such a
+Friend to turn to, and to ask to help me."
+
+"A friend! Do you mean Mr. Hughes?"
+
+"No; I didn't mean Mr. Hughes, though he's been a real good friend and
+no mistake," said Mrs. Holdfast. "I meant One above—One who's a Friend
+to all that call up on Him. I wouldn't stay away from His House, when
+I've a chance to go—no, not for anything you could mention. And John,
+he feels the same, Mrs. Hicks."
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+THE QUEER LOOK OF THINGS.
+
+"THERE was another meeting of the men last night, Peter," said Mr.
+Hughes one morning, in a thoughtful tone, as he paced the garden-path.
+
+"Werry important meeting, sir," said Stuckey.
+
+"Were you there yourself?"
+
+"I was, sir. It's interestin' to watch an' see the course which matters
+is a-takin'."
+
+Peter spoke in a contemplative tone, gazing straight over the top of
+the Rector's hat.
+
+"What course are they taking?" asked Mr. Hughes, amused.
+
+"An' that's the werry question, sir," responded Peter, moving his head
+to and fro, with an air of profound consideration.
+
+"Did Pope address the men?"
+
+"And he did, sir; an' told the men a lot of things in werry uncommon
+fine language. Pope speaks a deal finer than you do, sir."
+
+"He does, does he?" laughed Mr. Hughes.
+
+"Werry much finer, only it ain't by a long chalk so clear to the
+understandin'. For why, sir? Peter Pope, he strings together a lot of
+fine words, like children do with glass beads, and those that listens
+is none the wiser. But he does a deal of butterin', and that's what the
+men likes. They likes the butter laid on thick, and no mistake, sir."
+
+"Human nature, I'm afraid. Most people have no objection to a certain
+amount of flattery."
+
+"Just my own view of the matter, sir. As I was a-telling of Holdfast
+this very morning: 'They likes a good spread o' butter, Holdfast,' says
+I; 'and they don't know, not they, as it's rancid butter, calc'lated to
+do 'em no good.'"
+
+"What did Pope say to them yesterday, Peter?"
+
+"Telled 'em what a splendid set of manly fellows they all was, sir, to
+be sure, and what a cowardly lot of sneaking chaps they'd got over 'em.
+Telled 'em too they'd got everything in their own hands—sort of general
+management of the whole world, you know—and all they'd got to do was to
+strike, an' strike, an' strike again, and drive the wages up as high as
+ever they liked. That's what he says! Telled 'em the masters 'ud soon
+give in, and then they'd have another strike, and the masters 'ud give
+in again. All as easy as b—a—ba, sir!"
+
+"And the men believed him!"
+
+"Well, I don't know as I can 'xactly say that, sir. There is some among
+the men as has too much sense to be altogether so easy bamboozled with
+a lot of clap-trap. But any way, they do like uncommon to hear it all.
+Sort of tickles and soothes 'em, you know."
+
+"Was Holdfast there?"
+
+"I've a notion not, but I ain't sure. Any way, he's spoke up bravely
+once, and I make no doubt he'll do it again. I'm not sure as I won't
+take up the line myself some day."
+
+"Which line?" Mr. Hughes asked.
+
+"Speechifying, sir, for the good of them as is ignorant," Peter said
+loftily.
+
+"You think you have a gift that way?"
+
+Peter scratched his head, divided between modesty and assurance.
+
+"Well, sir, my old mother, she were knowing and no mistake, and she'd
+used to say I had a gift for most things, whatever I chose to take up."
+
+"Perhaps a little practice beforehand would be advisable, before
+adventuring yourself in public," suggested Mr. Hughes.
+
+"Just the werry identical same conclusion as I comed to myself,"
+asserted Peter. "Nothing in the world like practice for giving of a
+man confidence, sir. And it's confidence as does it. It ain't the gift
+only; it's confidence, and practice leads to confidence."
+
+"Have you begun your practising?"
+
+"It ain't my way, sir, for to go a-puttin' off when I sees a duty
+plain afore me. Soon 's I sees my way, I up and does it. Yes, I was
+a-practising yesterday evening; an' I'd just got to that 'ere point,
+sir, as I'd worked up a picture-like of a lot o' men round, all
+a-listenin' as meek as lambs, and I a-giving out o' my opinions—I'd got
+to that 'ere point, sir, when Mary Anne she come in, an' says she,—"
+
+"'Why, Peter,' says she, 'whatever are you after,' says she, 'a-hitting
+out at the candlestick like that?' says she."
+
+"'That's action,' says I. 'A fine thing is action,' says I, 'and Pope's
+got a lot of it. Gives him a sort of hold-like on people's minds, Mary
+Anne,' says I."
+
+"Mary Anne she didn't see it, and she fell a-laughing at me, fit to
+bu'st; but there's no manner o' doubt it is so, sir. Nor action ain't
+hard to get, neither. It's just a swing, an' a stamp, an' a bang of
+the feet now and agin, and a deal o' tossing about o' the arms between
+times. Just a sort of emphaticallizing of the words by means o' the
+body, you see, sir. I've been a-telling Holdfast he's got to work up
+his action, afore he speaks agin. The men likes a lot of action."
+
+"I shouldn't recommend either you or Holdfast to take Pope for your
+model," said the much diverted Mr. Hughes, as he moved away. "A
+statement, well worded, may be quite as emphatic without the swing or
+the stamp."
+
+Peter stood motionless, weighing this parting utterance. He rubbed his
+forehead more than once in dubious style.
+
+[Illustration: "'A fine thing is action,' says I, 'and Pope's got a lot
+of it.'"]
+
+"Don't know as I can give in to that 'ere notion neither. There ain't
+no doubt as the men likes action. A speaker as didn't stir a finger
+wouldn't make no way with our chaps. They likes a stamp and a bang,
+once and agin. Same time, they did listen pretty patient to Holdfast;
+for all he'd no action, nor didn't lay on the butter."
+
+"It's a queer thing now—come to think of it!—A werry queer and
+extraordinary thing, to see all these able-bodied fellows hanging about
+idle for weeks an' weeks, an' bringing their families to the brink o'
+starwation—and for why? 'Cause they're told! That's why! Peter Pope
+tells 'em to do it, and they does it! Not as they wants to do it, most
+of 'em! There's hundreds this minute as 'ud be glad and thankful to
+give in, an' be at work again! But no! They're bid to hold out, and
+hold out they will. They'll hold out, and they'll do all they can to
+make others hold out, and maybe punish them as don't."
+
+"And all the while they're sick at heart, poor fellows, knowing; all
+they've lost an' must lose, and knowing the misery at home! Supposing
+the masters do give way. What then! Think a bit of a rise in their
+wages 'll ever make up for what they've gone through these weeks? Not
+it! An' the men knows that—many of 'em—as well as I do; for they've
+sense down below. But they haven't the courage to speak out, nor to act
+for themselves. Talk of independence! They're like a flock of sheep,
+everybody a-running after the rest."
+
+"Yes, it is a werry queer state of things indeed. But if it hadn't ha'
+been for that there accident, I'd ha' been among 'em now, scuttling
+after Pope, like to the rest."
+
+"'Tain't so amazin' the members of a Union holding out when they're
+bid. Whether it's wise or foolish orders they has, and whatever they
+thinks privately, they gets an allowance, and they're helped through.
+But it's mighty queer to see them hundreds of men who don't belong to
+no Union, nor don't get a penny from it saving by way of charity, all
+knuckling down alike. Werry advantageous for Pope! It's a fine increase
+of income as he's been getting all through the strike, which 'll stop
+when the strike stops."
+
+"So it ain't surprising that Peter Pope is sort of anxious to keep the
+strike a-going! And it ain't so werry surprising that the unionists
+shouldn't mind a bit longer holiday, an' being kept without havin'
+to work for their living. But it's most surprising an' altogether
+remarkable, when a lot of poor starving chaps, who don't get no extra
+income nor don't belong to no Union, should be so wonderful ready to do
+just as they're bid, and take the bread out of their children's mouth's
+to put jam an' pastry into Peter Pope's mouth! Don't seem fair on the
+children, though!"
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+BABY HARRY.
+
+"NO Sunday dinner to-morrow, mother," said Bobbie, late in the
+afternoon of a cold and wintry day. "I wish there was."
+
+"Not much chance of Sunday dinners, till father brings home wages
+regular again," sighed Martha.
+
+She looked thin and worn, poor woman, with weeks of insufficient food.
+Little enough came into the house these days; and what there was, she
+reserved, mother-like, as far as possible for the children, eating
+scarcely enough herself to keep soul and body together.
+
+"I'm so hungry, mother. I'm always hungry," complained Bobbie. "We
+don't never have enough now. O mother, it used to be so nice on
+Sundays. It isn't now."
+
+"No," she said patiently. "I haven't much for you to-morrow, Bobbie,
+without father brings anything home. And that ain't likely. I don't
+know whether—"
+
+She paused to stoop over baby Harry. He was lying on the little
+cot-bed, covered by a shawl. A slight moaning had drawn her attention.
+
+"He's so cold to-night. I don't like his look," she said anxiously.
+"Millie, just put one more scrap of coal on the fire. We mustn't use it
+all. But he's like ice."
+
+"Harry hasn't eaten nothing all day," said Millie.
+
+"He don't seem to have no appetite. He's got so low, for want of proper
+food—that's where it is," Martha said bitterly. "He turns against
+everything now. I'm sure I'm at my wits' end to know what to do. If he
+don't get better by Monday, I'll have to take him to the doctor's—not
+as it's much use. Good food's what he wants; and how am I to get it for
+him?"
+
+She lifted the little fellow, and brought him close to the fire, where
+she sat down. Harry lay heavily across her knees, not looking up at any
+of them.
+
+Martha leant forward to touch up the tiny fire.
+
+"We must have a bit of a blaze to warm him," she said. "He does seem
+bad. Speak to him, Millie. He always likes your voice, you know."
+
+Millie's blue fingers strayed lovingly over the wan baby-face.
+
+"Harry—Harry," she cooed softly. "Wake up, Harry."
+
+"He's too cold, and he wants food," said Martha, as there was no
+response. "You just hold him careful a minute, Millie, while I get a
+bit of bread. I'll try again. There's a drop of milk still."
+
+She crumbled the bread into the milk, and tried to feed the child, but
+he moaned and turned away. A spoonful of milk, slightly warmed, she
+held next to the pale lips—still in vain. None was swallowed. Harry
+only seemed to be fretted by her attempts; and there was a weak little
+wail of complaint. Martha gave it up, and took him back into her arms.
+
+"I don't like him being like this," she said uneasily. "It isn't his
+way. He used to be such a healthy little fellow."
+
+"Is it the strike, mother?" asked Bobbie.
+
+"It's being half-starved—and that's the strike," she said.
+
+"Then I wish there wasn't no strike," said Bobbie.
+
+Roger Stevens came into the room at this juncture.
+
+"No tea for me, I s'pose," he said gloomily.
+
+"There's a bit of bread, and a drop of milk," said Martha. "I'm out of
+tea, and I can't get any more. There's no money left, and only half a
+loaf for to-morrow. I durstn't touch that to-night."
+
+Stevens came to the table, and munched a few mouthfuls of the dry crust
+hastily, drinking off the milk at one draught.
+
+"I say; haven't you a drop more?"
+
+"I'm keeping it for Harry. He hasn't taken a scrap of food all day. I
+can't make him. Seems like as if his stomach turned against it. He's
+ill, Roger."
+
+She spoke plaintively.
+
+"Oh, he'll be all right in a few days," said Stevens. Nevertheless,
+his eyes went uneasily to the small figure on Martha's knee. "It's the
+cold."
+
+"Yes; cold and starvation. He's dying of the strike."
+
+"Dying! Rubbish and nonsense!" Roger spoke angrily. "No more dying than
+you nor me. He wants feeding up a bit. The strike's just at an end, and
+he'll be all right then."
+
+"Will he? Children don't get back strength so easy, once it's run
+down," said Martha. "How do you know the strike's at an end?"
+
+"Some sort of proposals has come from the masters—I've not heard
+particulars. Meeting us half-way, I'm told."
+
+"And it's going to be settled?"
+
+"There's a meeting. We're going to consider the question," said
+Stevens. "Some don't want to give in till we get the whole. It's only a
+half rise that's talked of. I don't know if we'll accept the offer, or
+if we'll wait a while longer."
+
+"And meantime—what are we to do?" asked Martha. "There's nothing to
+eat. What are we to do? Roger, don't be persuaded," she implored. "Do
+take the right side; and don't you mind what others say. If the masters
+give way one half, surely the men can give way the other half. It's
+like children if they don't—holding out because they've said they will.
+Don't you listen to what others say—Pope least of all. It's nothing to
+him—he, with all his comforts. And just look at us. It's life and death
+to the children."
+
+"A man must do as others do," came in answer.
+
+"I don't see the 'must.' Mr. Holdfast don't; and I'm sure he's as much
+of a man as any of you. I wouldn't be so easy led, if I was a man, that
+I wouldn't!" declared Martha passionately. "As if folks' talk was more
+to you than the wants of your own little ones."
+
+Stevens walked off, banging the door behind him; and the noise brought
+another moan from Harry. Martha sat watching him, tears running down
+her cheeks.
+
+"Maybe he'd like me to sing to him," said Millie. "Would he, mother?"
+
+"Try," was the reply.
+
+And Millie's thin but sweet child-voice rose softly in one of the hymns
+she had learnt at the Church Sunday-school, Bobbie's uncertain tones
+joining in now and then.
+
+   "I love to hear the story,
+      Which angel voices tell,
+    How once the King of Glory
+      Came down on earth to dwell;"
+
+   "I am both weak and sinful,
+      But this I surely know,
+    The Lord came down to save me,
+      Because He loved me so."
+
+Millie came to a pause.
+
+"I've forgot the next verse," she said. "Mother, Harry likes me to
+sing. He's got his eyes open. Harry likes hymns about Jesus and the
+angels, don't he?"
+
+Martha only said "Go on," in a choked voice.
+
+And Millie started the last verse, Bobbie still following her lead.
+
+   "To sing His love and mercy,
+      My sweetest songs I'll raise,
+    And though I cannot see Him,
+      I know He hears my praise:
+    For He has kindly promised
+      That even I may go
+    To sing among His angels,
+      Because He loves me so."
+
+Baby Harry lay quite still. There was no response of look or word, as
+in earlier and brighter days. The blue eyes were shut, and the small
+face was white—how white Martha could not see in the dim light, though
+she could feel how heavily he lay on her arm. She resolved anew that on
+Monday, if he were not better, he must see the doctor.
+
+But no Monday would ever dawn for little Harry. He was slipping quietly
+away from the hard and bitter strifes of men, with all their sorrowful
+consequences, away to the Land of peace where love alone has sway;
+where want can never enter; where hunger and thirst are unknown. He who
+had "kindly promised" a Home among the angels, was even now drawing
+baby Harry out of the mother's clasp into His own strong and gentle
+Arms, "because He loved him so."
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+ANOTHER MEETING.
+
+IT was on the whole an orderly meeting, and altogether an earnest one.
+For a momentous decision had to be made. Many pale and haggard men
+present had had no meal worth mentioning through the past day.
+
+The masters' proposals were laid before them. The demand of the men on
+strike was for fifteen per cent. increase on their wages. Half this was
+conceded. If the men returned at once to work, seven and a half per
+cent increase should be theirs. If not, immediate measures would be
+taken to procure hands from elsewhere. This was distinctly stated.
+
+Then came the discussion. Should the men accept the offer, or should
+they refuse to yield one jot of their demand?
+
+Of course there were opposite views. Pope was loudly in favour of
+holding out; and he had his band of devoted followers. Some unionists,
+in receipt of a weekly allowance, which, though perhaps small, kept
+them from destitution, argued for firmness. But many present were
+not unionists; and it soon became evident which way the sense of the
+majority tended. Long pressure of want had loosened their implicit
+confidence in Peter Pope. Some of them had even begun to think a little
+for themselves, independently.
+
+A good many stood up in turn. The delegates who had interviewed the
+masters came first. Then Pope was allowed full swing; and many of his
+hearers, carried away for the moment by his honeyed phrases, seemed
+to swing with him. But others spoke out plainly after, in rough and
+terse language, showing up the miseries of the strike and its doubtful
+advantages, also in some cases protesting against the tyranny which
+would impose upon them all, a yoke chosen by the few.
+
+John Holdfast once again rose, and gave something of an abstract of his
+former speech, addressed now to larger numbers. It was well received,
+winning applause. When he sat down, Peter Stuckey made his appearance
+from a retired corner, and was hauled up on the platform. His crooked
+little figure and wizened comical face were the signal for a gust of
+laughter; but Peter stood his ground, nodded, smiled, and signified his
+intention to "say something."
+
+The chairman, with a broad grin, introduced him to the audience, and
+a hail of clapping followed. Stuckey chose a convenient spot on which
+to stand, braced himself for mental action, forgot all about bodily
+action, and dashed into the fray.
+
+
+"I've seen pretty nigh all of you before, men; so don't need to say
+where I'm comed from. I was a fellow-workman of some o' you once—till
+it pleased God to afflict me, and cut me off from such employment.
+Well—He gave me a friend to take care o' me, and one as has been a
+friend to many a one o' you too, more especial of late. We'll give a
+cheer for Mr. Hughes, by and by.—Wait awhile!" shouted Stuckey. "I've
+got a lot to say, and bein' none too used to public speakin', I'll
+maybe forget."
+
+"You've all been hearing a lot o' sensible words spoke this evening.
+More sensible by a long chalk than some as I've heard spoke other
+evenings. Werry good, so far! But it won't do to end with talk, lads;
+you've got to make up your minds for to act."
+
+"Just you let me say first of all that I takes it this here is a
+conversational sort of a meetin' like, an' if any man don't agree with
+what's said, he's free to say so."
+
+If this was a clever dodge of Stuckey's, to cover a sudden confusion of
+ideas, consequent on his unaccustomed position, it proved successful.
+Up started two or three men, and two or three voices cried—
+
+"Got to act how? What action? Put it plain, Stuckey."
+
+"Well, if ye wants me to be the mouthpiece of the meeting, I'll put
+it plain an' no mistake," said Stuckey. "Ye've got to consider these
+here proposals, and to answer them. Ye've got to settle whether ye'll
+say 'yes,' and go back to your work; or whether you give up, once an'
+for all. For mind ye, they ain't going to shilly-shally. There's work
+to be done, and if you won't do it, somebody else will. Yes—furriners,
+maybe—" in response to a general groan.
+
+"It's no manner o' use to howl, boys! Howlin' won't stop 'em. I'm not
+especial fond o' furriners; no more than yourselves; but I hopes I've
+got a bit o' common' sense; and I do see that. If Englishmen won't
+work, furriners will. There's where it is. And it ain't likely the
+masters 'll keep the works all idle just as long as you choose, if
+others is willing to come and work. I wouldn't, if I was a master; nor
+none of you wouldn't, if you was masters. It's common-sense, lads."
+
+"But the masters is willin' to come half-way to you, if you'll go
+half-way to them. That's reasonable, that is! As fair an end to a
+quarrel as can be; each side a-going half-way to meet the other. You
+wouldn't have all the givin' in on one side, would you? Leastways, save
+and except the wrong was all o' one side, which is a most uncommon
+state of affairs."
+
+"Now I wouldn't go for to say in this here strike which side's been
+most wrong, nor which has been most right. Ain't no doubt it's been a
+half-and-half concern, right and wrong mixed up o' both sides like the
+plums an' suet in a pudden'. There's been mistakes, and there's been
+misunderstandings, and there's been a lot of hard words, not to speak
+of hard blows; and some o' you's misbehaved yourselves, an' forgotten
+your manliness, lads, for all Mr. Pope's so fond o' telling ye what a
+set of manly chaps ye be. It is forgetting your manliness, and it's
+acting like miserable curs an' sneaks, to set upon an innocent man
+in the dark, 'cause he don't see things just as you see 'em! An' you
+all know among yourselves whether there hasn't been some'at o' that
+sort going on, once and agin. But, howsoever, let's hope we won't have
+nothin' o' the sort agin, nor Englishmen forgetting they're men."
+
+"Nor I won't go for to say as the masters is altogether right. For why?
+I ain't sure about it. Uncommon pleasant-spoken gentlemen they is, an'
+you knows it, an' ready to do a kindness any day. But there's a law of
+love and kindness, men, an' a law of thinking for others afore a man's
+own pocket; an' I shouldn't wonder if that 'ere law of Christian love
+don't always reign in the hearts of masters towards their men, no more
+than it always reigns in the hearts o' the men towards the masters.
+Eh, lads! I wonder now, I do, which is fittest to fling a stone at the
+other, for t'other's want of loving-kindness!"
+
+"Well, now, to be werry plain indeed, an' to come to the p'int—my
+advice to you is,—End the strike! Accept these here proposals!"
+
+"And put your necks into a noose!" protested a voice.
+
+"Sounds uncommon like my namesake, t'other Peter," said Stuckey,
+peering about with wrinkled-up eyes. "Can't see ye nowhere, friend
+Pope, but maybe ye ain't far, seeing ye was on this here platform an
+hour since. If so be ye happens to be present still, allow me for to
+say as I condoles with ye most heartily, an' expresses the general
+sympathy o' the meeting, on the diminishment o' your income like to
+come on ye soon. It's werry tryin' to come down of a sudden in yer
+income! I've knowed that trial my own self, and my hearers has lately
+knowed it in a most marked an' melancholy way. We're werry grieved an'
+sad for ye, friend Pope; only 'tis more adwisable as your income should
+be diminished, than some hundreds o' families should be sunk altogether
+into a state o' starwation."
+
+This sally was received with a burst of laughter, in the midst of which
+somebody quitted the hall.
+
+"Shouldn't wonder if that's Mr. Pope hisself, so overcomed wi' the
+thoughts of his coming reduction, as he couldn't contain his emotions
+no longer. Werry sad for him! No! What—he's here still! Well,
+well,—'tisn't for to be expected as all present should disinterestedly
+sacrifice 'emselves for the sake o' Pope's pocket."
+
+Tumultuous cheering, mingled with certain loud protests from Pope or
+Pope's friends, gave Peter time to rearrange his ideas, and to start
+afresh.
+
+"You've all been a-hearin' of a lot o' wise remarks from Holdfast here.
+He's a friend o' mine, an' a friend o' many o' you, an' he's a friend
+worth havin'. For why? He's a man of sense, an' he's a true man. He
+don't butter ye up with clap-trap, and he ain't afraid to do what's
+right for fear o' consequences."
+
+"There's been a lot of talk about banding together, and resisting of
+oppression. Now I'm not a-going to cry down Trades Unions. I'm not
+a-goin' to deny, no more than Holdfast does, that working-men needs to
+band together for mutual help and protection, an' lookin' after one
+another's interests, as well as layin' by money in store agin' a rainy
+day."
+
+"But I'd like to speak a word of warning too, lads. Which is—Take care
+what ye're after! Don't ye, in fear of one tyranny, put yourselves
+under another. Trades Union men ain't infallible, no more than other
+men. Trades Unionism is werry apt to get selfish, and selfishness is
+short-sighted."
+
+"I won't deny as Trades Unions has done a lot of good; an' ye needn't
+be in a hurry to deny as they've mayhap done some harm too. Just you
+think for yourselves. Haven't they sometimes encouraged bad feeling
+between men and masters? Haven't they sometimes pushed you into strikes
+which couldn't end but in failure and loss?"
+
+"You're free an' independent working-men, ain't you? Well, but I
+wonder how many a one o' you dares stand out an' act independent in
+the face of the Union? How many a one among you, when he's at work,
+dares put forth his best strength, an do his utmost, an' run ahead of
+others? Ye don't need that I should tell you how things be! You look
+out sharp, men, or there won't be much o' your boasted freedom left
+to you soon,—and the tyrants of your choice will be those of your own
+standing. Don't see as that 'll make your bondage easier."
+
+"Well, well, 'tis easy to see you don't all agree with me! Not
+surprisin', neither, it isn't! For why? There's lots o' bad workmen to
+every good workman. 'Tis natural the bad workmen an' the lazy chaps
+should want to put themselves on a level with the best an' the most
+diligent. But what's natural ain't always fair, nor it don't always
+work well in the end. If I was you, I'd learn to look ahead a bit. I
+can tell you, shorter an' shorter hours, an' higher an' higher wages,
+an' easier an' easier work, sounds mighty pleasant. But it may mean
+some'at in the future as won't be pleasant. It may mean trade driven
+away from English shores to foreign countries. It may mean less work to
+do and too many men to do it, in our land."
+
+"Well; I've given my warning; an' that's all I can do. Anybody got any
+questions to ask?"
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+A DISCUSSION.
+
+"I'VE a question to ask," said Roger Stevens, rising. "Holdfast said
+awhile since that labour is paid always at its true value. Now I don't
+agree to that."
+
+"I didn't say 'always.' I said that as a rule it is," remarked Holdfast.
+
+"Comes to pretty much the same thing, don't it?"
+
+"No. You have to allow a time before each rise and fall, when it's not
+paid at its exact market value. Sometimes it's paid over its worth, and
+then it must soon fall. Sometimes it's paid under its worth, and then
+it must soon rise. But it finds its true level in time either way, and
+competition alone will send it up or down, without the help of strikes."
+
+"I don't know as I hold with you," repeated Stevens.
+
+"It's found to be true."
+
+"Found by who?"
+
+"Men who know a deal more of the matter than you or I. Men who have
+workmen in all parts of the world, and are able to compare the rise and
+fall of wages in different countries at the same time, noting the cause
+of each. These things have been watched and written about."
+
+"And you mean to say you'd do away with strikes altogether?" asked
+Stevens, in a voice of dissent.
+
+"No; I've told you already I wouldn't. But I would have them the last
+instead of the first resort. If you're being really paid under the
+fair worth of your labour, it's because the demand for that labour is
+increasing; and in such a case competition among the masters will soon
+act for you, and bring about a rise. If your labour is being paid at
+its fair value, no strike can bring about a lasting rise. If labour is
+growing more plentiful, and the demand is growing less, then, strike or
+no strike, your wages must fall."
+
+"And who's to settle what the fair value of our labour is? And who's
+to say when we're paid over or under what's right?" A subdued stamping
+signified general acquiescence in this question.
+
+"That's the difficulty, I grant you," Holdfast answered. "It's easy
+to say, if you and I are each on one end of a see-saw, we've just got
+to sit still, and let the board balance up and down till it finds its
+right position. We shouldn't need there to ask anybody to come and
+settle the slope of the board for us. The weight at each end would do
+that, if the board's only let alone. But it ain't so easy in the matter
+we're discussing; for each side is eager to grab the biggest profits,
+and it's hard to say how much ought justly to go to each, nor when
+things are fair and square. I wouldn't say no manner of pressure is
+ever needed on either side, to keep fair relations between employers
+and men—on both sides, mind!"
+
+"But I do say it's the pressure of competition which does in the end
+settle the question—the competition of masters for labour, or the
+competition of men for work, depending on which is the more scarce. We
+need to look after our interests, and the masters need to look after
+their interests; but neither they nor we have that power over the
+question which some would make out. Where there's much work to be done,
+and few men to do it, no combining of masters can keep the wages down;
+and where there's little work to be done, and many men to do it, no
+combining of men can keep the wages up."
+
+"Clear as daylight, ain't it?" chimed in Stuckey. "If labour's runnin'
+downhill, nobody can't make the wages run uphill; and if labour's
+runnin' uphill, nobody can't make the wages run downhill. If a rise
+is your due, why, you're pretty sure to get it by waitin' a bit; for
+it'll come in the natural course of events, like! If ye strike first,
+why most like ye'll wait a bit then too; and when it comes, ye'll be
+mighty stuck up, and think ye've won a huge victory. But fact is, you
+haven't got a victory at all. Ye've only half-starved your families,
+an' used up your savings, an' pawned your clothes, just for to get what
+ye'd have got in the end without all that bother, if ye'd been patient
+an' waited. The board's found its balance, don't ye see?—An' it's moral
+sure to have done that, if you hadn't given it no such shake."
+
+"It's competition as really settles the question. If you wants to test
+the matter now an' agin, why, a strike's not a bad test. But it's a
+werry expensive one; an' it means a lot of trouble. Nor I don't see for
+my part as it's a great consolation to yourselves, to think that maybe
+you've half-ruined a master or two, as well as half-starvin' of your
+own little ones. I'd sooner wait a while longer sometimes, lads!"
+
+Stuckey sat down, amid applause; but Holdfast was standing still.
+
+"Stevens was asking just now," he said, "about the worth of labour; and
+about how it's commonly found in the long run to be paid at its worth.
+Well, there's a curious fact I came across lately, and I don't know as
+it mayn't be new to some of you. It is that labour, taken generally, is
+found to be of pretty much the same value throughout the world."
+
+"Oh! Oh!" cried two or three voices.
+
+"I mean what I say. Mind, I'm not giving you a hard and fast rule. I
+only tell you that it's been found generally, in places where capital
+and labour have free play, and where there ain't any extraordinary
+pressure from the scarcity of one or the other, that the cost of labour
+is wonderfully equal."
+
+"I don't see that at all," Stevens observed.
+
+"Maybe not; but it's worth your going into and reading about. It's been
+found by employers, with contracts in all parts of the world, that
+though the wages of the men in each place were different, the actual
+cost of the labour was much the same."
+
+"But I say," broke in a voice, "if the cost was different, how could it
+be the same?"
+
+"I said the wages were different, but the cost of the labour was equal.
+That's easy enough to understand. I'll give you two instances. There
+was a London bricklayer working beside a country one. The country
+bricklayer was paid three-and-sixpence a day for his work; the London
+chap five-and-sixpence. D'you suppose he was paid more because he was
+a Londoner? Of course not! He was paid more because his work was worth
+more. It was found that in one day he laid near upon twice as many
+bricks as the countryman. Would you say that his labour was the more
+expensive of the two?"
+
+"No, no," Stevens answered.
+
+"Well, and in some works on a French railway the French navvies were
+paid at the rate of two-and-sixpence a day, the English navvies at
+the rate of five shillings a day. It wasn't out of politeness to your
+country, you may be sure of that! It was because their labour was worth
+more. It was found, on comparison, that the work done by the English at
+five shillings a day was positively cheaper labour than the work done
+by the French at two-and-sixpence."
+
+A cheer interrupted John.
+
+"Yes; that was good. English workmen have had that pre-eminence! But
+will they keep it?" asked Holdfast steadily. "There's a spirit among us
+now that makes one fear for the future of English trade."
+
+"Well, you see how it may be that labour, taken all round, is more
+equally paid than shows on the surface. It's the better workmen the
+better pay; just because he is a better workman. But the cost of work,
+done by the good workman at high pay, or done by the poor workman at
+low pay, is found to come to much the same in the end."
+
+"I don't know as this question of the equality of the cost of labour
+has so much to do with us men as with the masters. It's a question that
+affects their pockets. But it's worth our knowing too; for it bears on
+the truth of labour being paid at its worth; and it tells us of forces
+which will have their way, and which masters nor men can't control."
+
+"Any way, you'll do well to hold back from vain struggles which can't
+profit you—struggles to bring about a rate of wages beyond the real
+worth of your labour. For you might as well try to force a river to run
+uphill."
+
+"And yet—" Holdfast spoke slowly—"and yet there are times, and no use
+to deny it, when things ain't fair, and the men have real good reason
+to know it—reason beyond the empty talk of clap-trap blusterers—and the
+question is, what's to be done?"
+
+"I don't say it's often so. There's a deal of ignorance on such points;
+and sometimes there's unfair accusations; and many a strike fails of
+its object just because it deserves to fail. But for all that there are
+times, now in one trade, now in another, when a rise is known on all
+sides and acknowledged by good judges to be the real due of the men,
+and yet it's withheld."
+
+"It'll come in the end, no doubt. Sooner or later the pressure can't
+be resisted. But long waiting means loss; and when men have got big
+families and small means, it stands to reason they do want to get their
+due. Right they should too."
+
+"Well, even then, I still say, let the strike be your last resort, men!
+Don't fly to it at once. I do think a deal might be done first. For a
+strike itself means trouble and loss; and it does harm to yourselves
+and your families, harm to your trade and your country."
+
+"Why shouldn't masters and men meet in a kindly spirit, each
+acknowledging the rights of the other, to discuss the question? For
+each side has its rights, and each side has its difficulties; and
+there's no such thing as smooth sailing for masters any more than for
+men. I can't and don't see, for my part, why capital and labour need
+be at daggers drawn; seeing that each is needful for the life of the
+other, and seeing too that we're a Christian country."
+
+"There'd ought to be some way of getting at the truth of things, in
+this land, short of fighting. A strike means loss to masters and to
+men; and many a strike, it's found later, need never have taken place
+at all."
+
+"I'd have you all think for the future whether arbitration isn't
+sometimes a thing possible. Couldn't able and honourable men be found,
+who'd look into the state of the matter, and tell us in honest truth
+whether a rise is our just due—men who could be trusted by employers
+and workmen alike? Wouldn't sometimes a calm and temperate demand for a
+rise, backed by a real knowledge of the justice of it, be as likely to
+bring about what's wanted as all the anger and bitterness of a strike?"
+
+"Well—that's for another time. You've got to decide now for the
+present. An offer has come, meeting you half-way. Seems to me, we ought
+to go the other half to meet 'em. As friend Stuckey says, that's a
+tolerable fair ending to a struggle, each side yielding half."
+
+"Any way, I'm meaning to be at work again next week. I'd have been
+sooner, if it wasn't for a lame arm. I hope to see all of you at work
+too."
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+HOW IT ALL ENDED.
+
+WHILE the men's meeting went on, Martha and the children still sat in
+the dim firelight. Millie and Bobbie were asleep, leaning against their
+mother's knee; and Martha, in a kind of half-dream, had forgotten the
+passing of time. It was beyond the little ones' hour for bed, and she
+had not noted the fact.
+
+Somebody came in with a light step, and Sarah Holdfast's pleasant voice
+asked, "Why, Mrs. Stevens, is this the way you spend your evening?"
+
+Martha sat slowly more upright, wearing a dazed look.
+
+"O dear, I'm tired," she said. "I didn't know it was so late."
+
+"And the children up still?"
+
+"They were so cold, I made a bit more fire, and they didn't seem to
+want to leave it. I must have been near asleep too," Martha gasped
+listlessly. "Well, I've got to wake 'em now."
+
+"Wait a minute. I'll light your candle. I've got a loaf of bread here,
+and some butter and a jug of milk. Poor thing!" as a faint cry escaped
+Martha. "You're so hungry, aren't you? There's a basket of food come
+from Mr. Hughes, and I knew John would want you to have a share. Don't
+you stir yet."
+
+Martha did not move. She sat motionless, staring down at the little
+head on her arm.
+
+Mrs. Holdfast had already lighted the candle, and pulled down the blind.
+
+"Why, you're as white as a sheet, you poor thing!" she said, stirring
+quickly about. "There! Give the children something to eat before they
+go to bed. And it's plain you want it too. Well, my husband's in hopes
+the strike will soon be over; and I'm sure I hope the same. It's been a
+hard time for you all. I'll tell you what—a cup of tea will do you more
+good than anything. Haven't got any? Never mind, I'll put the kettle on
+to boil, and get a pinch in from next door."
+
+Martha had not answered save by silence.
+
+She looked strangely pale, and the dazed expression in her eyes had
+increased. The little child on her knee lay motionless, and when Mrs.
+Holdfast came near, Martha shielded the tiny face from observation.
+
+"He's off—sound!" she said hoarsely.
+
+"Well, let him be a few minutes," said Sarah cheerfully. "Don't you get
+up yet. I'm sure you're not fit. Now, Millie, Bobbie—wake up, wake up."
+
+She aroused the two drowsy children; and Bobbie at once broke into
+fretting sobs. "I'm so hungry! I'm so hungry!" he wailed.
+
+Martha made no response at all, but Sarah took him to the table, and
+Bobbie's pitiful face changed into smiles at the sight of bread and
+butter. When he and Millie were supplied, Sarah hastened away for the
+"pinch of tea."
+
+On her return, she found Martha still in the same position, passive and
+white as an image, only with a bewildered wildness in her eyes. There
+was again the shielding motion of both hands to hide baby Harry's face.
+Mrs. Holdfast noticed it now, and wondered, but said nothing till the
+tea was ready. Then she poured out a cup, hot and strong, and brought
+it with a goodly slice of bread and butter to Martha's side.
+
+"That'll do you good," she said. "And you'll let me see to Harry, won't
+you? It's time he should have something."
+
+"No, he's sound—sound;" repeated Martha in a hollow voice.
+
+"Baby Harry hasn't eaten nothing all day," said Millie.
+
+"Then he oughtn't to wait, I'm sure. Give him to me."
+
+Martha did not resist when Sarah lifted the child from her lap, only
+her eyes followed him with a strange gaze, and Mrs. Holdfast's own face
+changed; for the little fair head fell helplessly, and the long lashes
+lay upon cheeks of waxen whiteness.
+
+Sarah checked the cry which rose to her lips. She turned to the fire,
+away from Martha.
+
+"He don't wake up, not even for your taking him," said Millie. "He must
+be dreadful sleepy."
+
+"He is—very sound," Mrs. Holdfast answered in trembling tones, as she
+pressed the tiny cold form more closely in her arms.
+
+"Give him back to me!" demanded Martha hoarsely.
+
+"No, my dear—take your tea first," said Mrs. Holdfast. "I'll lay him in
+his cot—just for—"
+
+"No, no—give him to me! I won't have him laid—laid out—nowhere!" cried
+Martha, in a voice of sharp anguish. "Give my baby back to me!"
+
+"I'll hold him for you. Just a minute or two. You take your tea and
+bread and butter. You must eat, you know."
+
+Martha obeyed silently, rapidly. It was almost more than Sarah had
+ventured to hope. Tea and bread and butter alike vanished, and a faint
+tinge of colour came to Martha's lips. She was able now to stand up,
+with outstretched hands.
+
+"Not yet," insisted Mrs. Holdfast. "You just put Millie and Bobbie to
+bed, and I'll see to him. Yes, do, my dear—it's best for you. Take
+them," pleaded the good woman.
+
+Martha yielded again. She hurried the two children away, and saw them
+both in bed. Undressing did not take long, but Sarah was busy also
+during her short absence.
+
+Harry's little cot had been much in the kitchen of late. He had slept
+away most of the day, often, in his growing weakness. When Martha
+returned, still with half-wild, half-dreamy eyes, she found Mrs.
+Holdfast standing beside the cot, and within lay Harry, prepared as if
+for the night. He had his little night-dress on, and the calm white
+baby-face rested peacefully on the pillow. The lips, just parted, were
+rigid in repose, and one wee waxen hand was crossed over the other.
+
+"You've put him to bed," said Martha's hollow voice.
+
+"Yes, my dear; I've put him to bed," said Sarah pityingly.
+
+Martha came nearer, and gasped for breath, gazing upon the fair little
+image. Then her eyes went with passionate appeal to Sarah's.
+
+"Poor thing!" murmured Sarah.
+
+[Illustration: She hung over the cot, sobbing wildly.]
+
+"You think I don't know! But I do!" said Martha bitterly. "I do! I do!
+He's murdered! If ever anybody was murdered, it's my—" and then she
+broke into a bitter wail—"O my baby! My baby Harry!"
+
+She hung over the cot, sobbing wildly, and Sarah's arm came round her
+in support.
+
+"He'll never be hungry again," she whispered. "Think of that, my dear;
+and don't you want him back. There 'll be no strikes up there. He's
+got to the end of all the trouble. Don't you go and say that to your
+husband when he comes. Stevens 'll have enough to bear!"
+
+Enough indeed! There was not one of his children whom Stevens loved as
+he loved baby Harry.
+
+An hour later he returned, light-footed and eager with the news which,
+he felt sure, would gladden Martha's heart. The door was flung open,
+and he entered briskly.
+
+"I say, Martha, it's all right! We've settled to accept the masters'
+proposals, and I'll be off to work to-morrow morning. It's all right.
+Just as you wanted."
+
+A gesture from Mrs. Holdfast checked Roger. She was present still,
+having persuaded a neighbour to stay with her own little ones for a
+time.
+
+Martha sat beside the cot, dropping hot quiet tears at intervals, and
+the desolate look of the mother's eyes, lifted to his, Stevens would
+not soon forget.
+
+"Too late now!" she whispered.
+
+Roger's glance went from her to the small face on the pillow—the face
+of his own little Harry, the child who till lately had never failed to
+greet him with a joyous spring, and cry of "Dadda." Harry had always
+been the father's especial pet. Even of late, when the child was too
+weak to spring or cry out, the tiny face had always brightened at the
+sound of Roger's voice.
+
+It did not brighten now; yet that was no look of common sleep. Roger
+knew the difference.
+
+"You don't say—What's the matter? Why don't you give him something, eh?
+Letting him lie there! And the room as cold—! What d'you want for him,
+Martha? Tell me, sharp, and I'll get it. I can now; we're going to work
+again, and it'll be all right."
+
+Martha's tears fell faster, and a sound like a sob crept into Roger's
+rough voice.
+
+"No use," Martha said brokenly; "the strike's done it at last. It's
+killed him—our baby Harry!"
+
+"He's better off. He'll never know trouble again," said Mrs. Holdfast.
+"Don't you go and want him back again too much—both of you. He's out of
+it all now!"
+
+"If I'd known! Why didn't somebody tell me?" demanded Stevens,
+hoarsely. "I'd have done—anything—if I'd known!"
+
+Sobs came hard and thick from the father's heart. But no sounds of
+grief could bring back the household darling; no wailing could reach
+him on that distant shore which he had reached. He was "out of it all
+now," indeed! The better for little Harry!
+
+
+So the strike was at an end; and Peter Pope, finding his services no
+longer required, betook himself elsewhere.
+
+There were some who counted that the working-men of the place owed him
+much, seeing that by dint of the strike he had won for them an increase
+of seven and a half per cent. on their wages.
+
+There were others who held that the same increase would have come,
+probably as soon, without the pressure exerted by the strike.
+
+There were very many who found that the said increase of wages would by
+no means suffice to repay them for the heavy losses they had suffered
+through the strike.
+
+There were not a few who maintained that the trade of the town, and its
+consequent prosperity, had received lasting injury from the strike.
+
+On the whole it may be safely said, that if the strike had done some
+possible good, it had also done a considerable amount of positive harm.
+It may be hoped that the working-men of the town, having learnt wisdom
+from a success which involved more of loss than of solid gain, would be
+long before they embarked in another such enterprise.
+
+
+
+                           THE END.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 73196 ***
+\ No newline at end of file
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+<html lang="en">
+<head>
+    <meta charset="UTF-8">
+    <title>
+      Too Dearly Bought, or The Town Strike., by Agnes Giberne—A Project Gutenberg eBook
+    </title>
+   <link rel="icon" href="images/image001.jpg" type="image/cover">
+    <style>
+
+body {
+    margin-left: 10%;
+    margin-right: 10%;
+    font-size:12.0pt;
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+
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+}
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+    text-align: center
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+
+p.poem { 
+    margin-left: auto;
+    margin-right: auto;
+	padding: 20px 0;
+	text-align: left;
+	width: 555px;
+	}
+
+    </style>
+</head>
+<body>
+<div style='text-align:center'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 73196 ***</div>
+
+<p>Transcriber's note: Unusual and inconsistent spelling is as printed.</p>
+
+<p><br><br><br></p>
+
+<figure class="figcenter" id="image001" style="max-width: 33.8125em;">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/image001.jpg" alt="image001">
+</figure>
+
+<p><br><br><br></p>
+
+<figure class="figcenter" id="image002" style="max-width: 25.3125em;">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/image002.jpg" alt="image002">
+</figure>
+<p class="t4">
+<b>"We'll make our own terms. We'll be the masters now!"</b><br>
+</p>
+
+<p><br><br><br></p>
+
+<h1>TOO DEARLY BOUGHT</h1>
+
+<p class="t3">
+OR<br>
+</p>
+
+<p class="t1">
+THE TOWN STRIKE.<br>
+</p>
+
+<p><br></p>
+
+<p class="t3">
+BY<br>
+</p>
+
+<p class="t1">
+AGNES GIBERNE<br>
+<br>
+</p>
+
+<p class="t3">
+AUTHOR OF<br>
+</p>
+
+<p class="t4">
+"HIS ADOPTED DAUGHTER," "THE OLD HOUSE IN THE CITY,"<br>
+"WILL FOSTER OF THE FERRY," "MADGE HARDWICKE,"<br>
+ETC.<br>
+</p>
+
+<p><br><br></p>
+
+<p class="t3">
+With Illustrations.<br>
+</p>
+
+<p><br><br></p>
+
+<p class="t3">
+LONDON:<br>
+</p>
+
+<p class="t3">
+JOHN F. SHAW AND CO.<br>
+</p>
+
+<p class="t4">
+48, PATERNOSTER ROW, E. C.<br>
+</p>
+
+<p><br><br><br></p>
+
+<p class="t3b">
+STORIES BY AGNES GIBERNE.<br>
+</p>
+
+<p><br></p>
+
+<p><b>IDA'S SECRET; or, The Towers of Ickledale.</b></p>
+<p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Cr. 8vo, 2/6.</p>
+
+<p><br></p>
+
+<p><b>WON AT LAST; or, Mrs. Briscoe's Nephews.</b></p>
+<p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Cr. 8vo, 2/6.</p>
+<p>&nbsp;&nbsp;"The treatment is so admirable we can understand Miss Giberne's
+book being a help to many."—<em>Athenæum.</em></p>
+
+<p><br></p>
+
+<p><b>HIS ADOPTED DAUGHTER; or, A Quiet Valley.</b></p>
+<p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Large Cr. 8vo, 5/—.</p>
+<p>&nbsp;&nbsp;"A thoroughly interesting and good book."—<em>Birmingham Post.</em></p>
+
+<p><br></p>
+
+<p><b>THE EARLS OF THE VILLAGE.</b></p>
+<p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Large Cr. 8vo, 2/6.</p>
+<p>&nbsp;&nbsp;"A pathetic tale of country life, in which the fortunes of a family are
+followed out with a skill that never fails to interest."—<em>Scotsman.</em></p>
+
+<p><br></p>
+
+<p><b>THE OLD HOUSE IN THE CITY; or, Not Forsaken.</b></p>
+<p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Crown 8vo, cloth, 2/6.</p>
+<p>&nbsp;&nbsp;"An admirable book for girls."—<em>Teachers' Aid.</em></p>
+
+<p><br></p>
+
+<p><b>FLOSS SILVERTHORN; or, The Master's Little Hand-maid.</b></p>
+<p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Cr. 8vo, 2/6.</p>
+<p>&nbsp;&nbsp;"We should like to see this in every home library."—<em>The News.</em></p>
+
+<p><br></p>
+
+<p><b>MADGE HARDWICKE; or, The Mists of the Valley.</b></p>
+<p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Cr. 8vo, 2/6.</p>
+<p>&nbsp;&nbsp;"An extremely interesting book, and one that can be read with profit
+by all."—<em>The Schoolmaster.</em></p>
+
+<p><br></p>
+
+<p><b>WILL FOSTER OF THE FERRY.</b></p>
+<p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Cr. 8vo, 2/6.</p>
+<p>&nbsp;&nbsp;"We are glad to see this capital story in a new shape."—<em>Record.</em></p>
+
+<p><br></p>
+
+<p><b>TOO DEARLY BOUGHT.</b></p>
+<p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Cr. 8vo, 1/6.</p>
+<p>&nbsp;&nbsp;"A timely story, which should be widely circulated."</p>
+
+<p><br><br></p>
+
+<p class="t3">
+LONDON: JOHN F. SHAW &amp; CO., 48, PATERNOSTER ROW, E.C.<br>
+</p>
+
+<p><br><br><br></p>
+
+<figure class="figcenter" id="image003" style="max-width: 25.3125em;">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/image003.jpg" alt="image003">
+</figure>
+
+<p><br><br></p>
+
+<p class="t3b">
+CONTENTS.<br>
+</p>
+
+<p><br></p>
+
+<p>CHAP.</p>
+
+<p><br></p>
+
+<p><a href="#Chapter_1">I. FLAGS AND BANNERS</a></p>
+
+<p><a href="#Chapter_2">II. PETER POPE'S SPEECH</a></p>
+
+<p><a href="#Chapter_3">III. THE STRIKE BEGUN</a></p>
+
+<p><a href="#Chapter_4">IV. WHAT STUCKEY THOUGHT</a></p>
+
+<p><a href="#Chapter_5">V. DUCKED</a></p>
+
+<p><a href="#Chapter_6">VI. SEED-CAKE</a></p>
+
+<p><a href="#Chapter_7">VII. THE CHILDREN</a></p>
+
+<p><a href="#Chapter_8">VIII. HOLDFAST'S SPEECH</a></p>
+
+<p><a href="#Chapter_9">IX. A COLD EVENING</a></p>
+
+<p><a href="#Chapter_10">X. THE QUEER LOOK OF THINGS</a></p>
+
+<p><a href="#Chapter_11">XI. BABY HARRY</a></p>
+
+<p><a href="#Chapter_12">XII. ANOTHER MEETING</a></p>
+
+<p><a href="#Chapter_13">XIII. A DISCUSSION</a></p>
+
+<p><a href="#Chapter_14">XIV. HOW IT ALL ENDED</a></p>
+
+<p><br><br><br></p>
+
+<figure class="figcenter" id="image004" style="max-width: 25.3125em;">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/image004.jpg" alt="image004">
+</figure>
+
+<p class="t2">
+<b>TOO DEARLY BOUGHT</b><br>
+</p>
+
+<p class="t3">
+OR<br>
+</p>
+
+<p class="t1">
+THE TOWN STRIKE.<br>
+</p>
+
+<p><br></p>
+
+<h3><a id="Chapter_1">CHAPTER I.</a></h3>
+
+<p class="t3">
+FLAGS AND BANNERS.<br>
+</p>
+
+<p><br></p>
+
+<p>THE procession was coming down Pleasant Lane!</p>
+
+<p>A great number of noisy little boys came trooping on ahead, with
+shrill cries, to announce this important fact. Hardly one among them
+understood exactly what the procession was about; but flags and banners
+are the delight of a boy's heart. Not seldom this particular form of
+affection for coloured bunting lasts on into manhood.</p>
+
+<p>The wives and mothers, who turned out of their doorways to enjoy the
+sight, were, however, more learned than their little boys as to the
+cause of the stir. And everybody was aware that Peter Pope was to be at
+its head.</p>
+
+<p>Peter Pope, a smooth-tongued and comfortably-dressed individual, had
+been very busy lately in the town. Most of his business had been in
+the way of talk; but what of that? There was a committee, of course,
+behind him, which did a good deal of work while Pope did the talk. He
+had been sent down, as a delegate from London, for the express purpose
+of teaching the inhabitants of the town; and teaching commonly means
+a certain amount of talk. Peter Pope had come to teach the men of
+the town to appreciate their degraded and enslaved condition. With
+this object in view he had talked vigorously for many weeks; and the
+men were becoming fast convinced of the truth of his words. They had
+not dreamt before what a melancholy thing it was to be a British
+working-man; but now their eyes were opened.</p>
+
+<p>If you want to convince the British Public about anything,—especially
+that part of the British Public which reads very few books, and knows
+very little of history, and never goes out of England, just remember
+this! There is not the least need that you should be clever or learned
+yourself, or even powerful in speech. You only have to go on saying the
+same thing over and over and over again, with dogged pertinacity; and
+in time you are sure to be believed. The British Public is wonderfully
+easy of belief, and will swallow anything,—if only you give it time!
+Peter Pope had done this. He had talked on, with a resolute and dogged
+pertinacity; he had given his hearers plenty of time; and now he was
+rewarded by seeing the biggest boluses he could offer, meekly gulped
+down.</p>
+
+<p>It was a dingy and smoky town enough to which he had come; one of the
+crowded manufacturing towns, of which England owns so many. Not a clean
+or pretty town, but a prosperous one hitherto, with a fair abundance of
+work for willing toilers. Those who were unwilling to toil did badly
+there as elsewhere; and these were the men who first swallowed Peter
+Pope's bait.</p>
+
+<p>Pleasant Lane was not the least narrow and dingy of many narrow dingy
+streets. The houses on either side were small, and for the most part
+not over clean. One little home near the centre formed a marked
+exception as to this last point; boasting dainty muslin blinds, windows
+filled with plants, and a spotless front doorstep.</p>
+
+<p>On that step stood Sarah Holdfast, in her clean print gown, watching
+like others for the coming procession. Not that she had the least idea
+of seeing her husband figure in it. She was only dandling her baby, and
+lifting it up to be amused with the stir.</p>
+
+<p>Martha Stevens, a young and pretty woman in the next doorway, had no
+such security about her husband. Roger Stevens was morally sure to be
+in the thick of whatever might be stirring,—whether it were good or
+bad. He was a well-meaning man, and not usually unsteady; but, like
+a good many of his companions, he was easily led, always ready to
+believe what he was told, and ever prepared to follow the crowd. As
+the stream of public opinion—the public opinion of the little world
+around himself—happened just then to run in the direction of a grand
+procession, Martha had not a shadow of doubt that her husband would
+find his place somewhere in the said procession.</p>
+
+<p>"What's it all about, mother?" asked Robert, a rosy child of nine.</p>
+
+<p>"It's the men, Bobbie," she said. "They're having a procession."</p>
+
+<p>"What for?" asked Bobbie.</p>
+
+<p>"They want something that the masters won't give 'em. They want higher
+wages and shorter hours."</p>
+
+<p>"But what's the 'cession for?" persisted Bobbie.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll tell you what it's for," volunteered a slovenly woman in the
+left-hand doorway, tossing a ragged infant in her arms. "It's to show
+that they're Men, and they're going to have their Rights! Time enough
+too! Working-men ain't a-going to be trampled on no longer, nor their
+wives neither. We won't put up with no more tyranny nor nonsense."</p>
+
+<p>Martha moved her head from one side to the other, and was silent.</p>
+
+<p>But Sarah Holdfast remarked dryly, "There's a sort of tyranny in
+the home that isn't so easy got rid of! And there's a tyranny of
+working-man to working-man, which I'd like to see done away with. It
+may be harder tyranny than the tyranny of capital, which folks talk
+such a lot about nowadays."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, you! I dare say—you're sure to say that!" the untidy woman
+retorted with contempt. "Your husband's such a poor-spirited chap—all
+on the side of the masters."</p>
+
+<p>"He is not on the side of the masters," Sarah answered resolutely.
+"He's on the side of doing what is right; and he's against tyranny of
+every sort,—it don't matter whether it's tyranny of masters or of men.
+That's what the lot of you don't and won't see."</p>
+
+<p>"Here it comes!" cried Bobbie.</p>
+
+<p>Except to a young imagination such as Bobbie's, the advancing
+procession was not perhaps very imposing; but it made a good show
+in point of numbers, and the men kept well together, in a solid and
+orderly phalanx. Outside the main body walked detached individuals,
+carrying money-boxes; for the processioners had a practical object in
+view beside the mere display of numbers. They would not only march
+round the town, endeavour to impress the imaginations of people
+generally, and pay a visit to their employers' office to make formal
+demand of what they required, but also they hoped to gather funds by
+the way for the coming struggle. Most of the men appeared thus far to
+be sober; but some towards the rear showed signs of a recent visit to a
+public-house.</p>
+
+<p>At the head of the procession marched a brass band, playing lively
+jigs, very much out of tune; and the amount of flags and banners
+following was really quite respectable.</p>
+
+<p>First might be seen a great sheet of white calico, stretched across two
+poles, and bearing the portentous inscription—</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+<br>
+"WE DEMAND FIFTEEN PER CENT. AND EIGHT HOURS."<br>
+<br>
+</p>
+
+<p>Next swaggered unsteadily along a second white calico sheet, with the
+words—</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+<br>
+"UNION IS STRENGTH!"<br>
+<br>
+</p>
+
+<p>An axiom so self-evident that nobody could question its truth.</p>
+
+<p>An "Oddfellows" banner, drooping gracefully from its single pole, came
+next. It had a picture of the good Samaritan on a blue ground, and was
+not peculiarly appropriate to a strike; but flags of all kinds help to
+swell the general effect, and this with others was borrowed.</p>
+
+<p>After the good Samaritan, a loaf stuck upon a pole was borne along. No
+especial meaning might be attached to the uplifted loaf; but no doubt
+bread is always an impressive object. What would man be without the
+"staff of life"? There is also an obvious connection between loaves and
+wages.</p>
+
+<p>At the tail of the procession, after sundry other appropriate and
+inappropriate flags, made or borrowed, came the final output of native
+genius—another big square of white, having its inscription painted with
+a tar-brush—</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+<br>
+"WE MEAN TO GET OUR RIGHTS!"<br>
+<br>
+</p>
+
+<p>This sentiment began with a magnificent "W," and tapered gradually
+off to an absurdly diminutive "s"; no doubt the natural expression of
+artistic feeling.</p>
+
+<p>A loose crowd of open-mouthed followers clattered along behind, deeply
+impressed by the whole affair.</p>
+
+<p>"It's a grand lot of flags, mother, ain't it?" said Bobbie.</p>
+
+<p>Martha was gazing, as if she did not hear, and little fair-haired
+Millie said, "Daddy's there!"</p>
+
+<p>One look in the direction where the tiny hand pointed, and Martha
+turned away.</p>
+
+<p>"Come, Millie,—come, Bobbie,—we'll go indoors now."</p>
+
+<p>"O mother, I want to wait," cried Bobbie. But he yielded to her touch
+and went in, only asking eagerly—"'Why mayn't we stay?"</p>
+
+<p>Martha made no answer. How could she bear to tell her child that his
+father had been drinking?</p>
+
+<p><br></p>
+
+<figure class="figcenter" id="image005" style="max-width: 25.3125em;">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/image005.jpg" alt="image005">
+</figure>
+
+<p><br><br><br></p>
+
+<figure class="figcenter" id="image006" style="max-width: 25.3125em;">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/image006.jpg" alt="image006">
+</figure>
+
+<h3><a id="Chapter_2">CHAPTER II.</a></h3>
+
+<p class="t3">
+PETER POPE'S SPEECH.<br>
+</p>
+
+<p><br></p>
+
+<p>"TELL ye what, boys; now's the time! Now's the time if ye want to gain
+your freedom! If ye give in tamely now and let yourselves be driven
+to the shambles like a flock of silly sheep, and crushed to the earth
+under the iron heels of a set of despots, as 'ud grind down the very
+souls of ye, if they could, into scrapings of gold-dust,—why, ye'll
+never hold the position of men!"</p>
+
+<p>Peter Pope had taken his stand at the corner of a street one evening,
+two or three days after the grand procession. He mounted a block of
+wood which lay conveniently there; and being thus raised over the heads
+of his compeers, was at once in a situation to exercise power over
+their minds. Men began to gather round him, with attentive eyes and
+ears, ready to believe whatever Peter Pope might assert. Englishmen do
+not often put faith in Roman infallibility; but give an English Pope to
+a particular class, and no amount of infallibility becomes impossible.</p>
+
+<p>"Now's the time!" pursued the orator, flourishing his arms, "now's
+the time! It'll maybe never come to ye again. There's a good old
+saying, lads, as tells us 'Procrastination is the thief of time!'
+Procrastination means putting off. Procrastination is putting off the
+settling of a question like you're doing now. Procrastination is the
+thief of time. It steals time! It steals the nick of time, when the
+nick of time comes; and once gone, you'll never get that nick of time
+back."</p>
+
+<p>"Now's the time I tell ye, boys! Will you cringe before the iron heel
+of capital? Will ye knuckle down before the bloodhounds of tyrannic
+power, when ye may fight and conquer, if ye will; and come out from the
+battle men, and not slaves?"</p>
+
+<p>"For you're not men now!—Don't think it. Men!—When ye have to work like
+dogs for your living! Men!—When you're counted plebeians by them as 'll
+scarce deign to look at ye in passing. I tell ye, lads, ye're all tied
+hand and foot; though many a one of you scarce feels his bonds, just
+because he don't know what freedom is. You're degraded and miserable
+and enslaved, and don't scarce know what it is to wish for anything
+better."</p>
+
+<p>"That's what I've come down to you for, my men. It's because I want
+you all to see what you are, and what you might be, if ye'd sense
+and spirit to exert yourselves. It's because I'm a friend of the
+Working-man. It's because the noble society, of which I am a member and
+a delegate—and proud to be both;—it's because that noble society is the
+friend of the Working-man, desirous to rescue him from the gigantic
+heel of a merciless power, which is crushing him in the dust—like the
+boa-constrictor, lads, which wraps the victim in its voluminous folds,
+and slays him in its slimy embrace. And the best thing a friend can
+give is advice. Advice, men. Wise advice; thoughtful advice; advice
+founded on knowledge, which 'tisn't everybody has power to attain to."</p>
+
+<p>"What are we to do first? That's what you'll say; that's the question
+ye'll put. Don't I read it now in your manly faces, lads, all a-looking
+up at me this moment? And I'll tell you what you're to do first! You're
+to—"</p>
+
+<p>"UNITE!!"</p>
+
+<p>The word came out with tremendous emphasis, emitted by the whole force
+of Peter Pope's lungs, after a suitable pause. It made a proportionate
+impression.</p>
+
+<p>"Ye'll say, 'What for?' To show your power, lads; to show that ye won't
+be cajoled, nor cheated, nor beaten down, nor taken in, nor treated
+like a pack of infants. And then you're to—"</p>
+
+<p>"STRIKE!! That's the word for you, men. It's a mighty easy word. It's a
+mighty easy thing. Just strike—and the business is done."</p>
+
+<p>"What business?" a voice asked.</p>
+
+<p>"What business? Why, the business of getting what you want. You want
+shorter hours and an increase of fifteen per cent. on your wages, eh?
+Just so. You've made the demand in fair and reasonable terms, eh? Just
+so. You're freeborn Englishmen, all of you, eh? Just so—or had ought
+to be. What man living has a right to say you're not to have a rise
+which is your fair and just due? Why, if it wasn't for the tyranny of
+capital, you'd have had it months ago."</p>
+
+<p>"Will ye submit to that tyranny? Will ye let your children grow up
+under that tyranny? Tell you, lads, it's time to make a change. Things
+have gone on long enough. It's time you should be the masters now! Show
+yourselves men, lads. Better to die than to yield. Give a cheer with
+me, now! Hurrah for the strike! Hurrah! Hurrah for the strike! Hurrah
+for the strike, boys!"</p>
+
+<p>They went a little mad, of course, and shouted and yelled in chorus,
+not musically, but to Peter Pope's satisfaction. Peter Pope's
+enthusiasm was catching, and so was the toss of his cap. What "boys"
+would not have followed his example, under like circumstances?—"Boys"
+of any age. There is no great difference, after all, between the
+credulity, or to use a certain working-man's forcible word, the
+"gullibility," of young and old and middle-aged.</p>
+
+<p>Somewhere near the outskirts of the crowd stood a man, in age verging
+perhaps on fifty, or even fifty-five. He was little and crooked in
+figure, with a wizened face, and glittering eyes under bent overhanging
+brows. Everybody knew Peter Stuckey; the man-servant of the Rector of
+the neighbouring church—gardener, groom and coachman, all in one. Years
+before, Mr. Hughes had taken Peter Stuckey into his service, after the
+severe accident which cut the man off from his old work. Peter did his
+utmost to repay with personal devotion this disinterested act.</p>
+
+<p>Through his namesake's oration, he stood with his head on one side,
+and a note-book in his hand, scribbling a word occasionally. After the
+uproar of cheering, Stuckey turned to a sensible-looking man near, who
+had been as silent as himself, and dryly remarked—</p>
+
+<p>"I say, we've learnt a deal this evening."</p>
+
+<p>"H'm," the other answered.</p>
+
+<p>"Such a lot o' facts, I've had to note 'em down for fear of forgetting.
+Let's see—"</p>
+
+<p>"'Working-men are like sheep.' Some truth in that. I've heard say as
+how if one sheep jumps over a broomstick, all the rest 'll follow to
+save walking round it."</p>
+
+<p>"The aristocracy is 'bloated.' Don't see much meanin' in the term; but,
+howsoever, it looks grand, so we'll let it pass."</p>
+
+<p>"'Men are not men, but has to work like dogs.' Shouldn't wonder. Little
+enough o' work Rover gets through in the twenty-four hours—and little
+enough many o' them get through. But he does a deal o' barking."</p>
+
+<p>"'Peter Pope yonder is a friend o' the working-man.' Werry
+disinterested friend!"</p>
+
+<p>Stuckey paused, and gave a side-glance at his companion.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I won't go for to say whether Peter Pope or Peter Stuckey is the
+wiser man o' the two; but I won't go for to say I haven't a notion. Any
+way he's uncommon like to his namesake of Rome, layin' down the law for
+everybody."</p>
+
+<p>"There's nothing on earth that can't be made out in the way of talk,"
+the other said briefly.</p>
+
+<p>"You're a sensible fellow, Holdfast, and no mistake. Now what's your
+opinion about this here notion of a strike?" asked Stuckey, putting one
+hand up to his mouth with a confidential air.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll not move in the matter. But it'll come about without me,"
+Holdfast replied, wearing the look of one who sees impending evil.</p>
+
+<p>"Trust Pope for that; he'd be a loser if it didn't. They'd every man
+Jack of 'em put his head into a noose if Pope told 'em it was right.
+Well—an' I've got to be off," said Stuckey, as a fresh burst of shouts
+arose.</p>
+
+<p>He lingered till it ceased, then singled out a man standing near—</p>
+
+<p>"I say, Stevens; you and the rest is hearing a lot o' rayther startling
+assertions. If you'll take a bit o' friendly 'adwice,' you'll just ask
+Mr. Pope a question from me. Which is—how much that there Society pays
+him for the making of his grand speeches?"</p>
+
+<p>Stuckey's voice was very distinct. Peter Pope had to defer the
+winding-up of his oration a full quarter of an hour, that he might do
+away with the effect of Stuckey's parting suggestion.</p>
+
+<p><br></p>
+
+<figure class="figcenter" id="image007" style="max-width: 25.3125em;">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/image007.jpg" alt="image007">
+</figure>
+
+<p><br><br><br></p>
+
+<figure class="figcenter" id="image009" style="max-width: 25.3125em;">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/image009.jpg" alt="image009">
+</figure>
+
+<h3><a id="Chapter_3">CHAPTER III.</a></h3>
+
+<p class="t3">
+THE STRIKE BEGUN.<br>
+</p>
+
+<p><br></p>
+
+<p>"THERE!" said Roger Stevens, setting down his bag of tools, with the
+air of a man who has done a noble deed, and is aware of the same.</p>
+
+<p>Martha's lips parted, then closed fast. She stood looking without a
+word.</p>
+
+<p>"Nobody'll dare say now that we're to be trodden on like reptiles,"
+continued Stevens loftily.</p>
+
+<p>"Who ever did say it?" asked Martha.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, Pope said they might; and they won't be able now."</p>
+
+<p>"Then the strike's begun, and it's all up!" faltered the wife.</p>
+
+<p>"All up! It's all just begun! There's thousands out to-day, and there
+'ll be a thousand more to-morrow. The masters won't stand that long.
+We'll make our own terms. We'll be the masters now!!"</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Pope says so, I s'pose," murmured Martha.</p>
+
+<p>"And good reason he has to say it too. I tell you, he knows what he's
+about. 'Tain't often you come across a cleverer chap than Pope."</p>
+
+<p>"I wish he'd kept himself and his cleverness away! I've a notion he
+wouldn't be so ready for the strike, if it was he that had to lose his
+living by it."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I never did in all my life see a woman like you—not a bit of
+spirit!" declared Stevens. "One 'ud think you cared for nothing in the
+world but food and drink."</p>
+
+<p>"Why, it's food and drink you're striking for now, isn't it? Drink
+'specially, and tobacco," said Martha; with tart truth. "Leastways,
+it's more money to get your drink and tobacco with."</p>
+
+<p>"No, it isn't," returned Roger loudly. "It's because a rise is our due!
+It's for public spirit, and to show we won't be trampled on. That's
+what it's for. There's a lot of men gone out to-day who haven't got no
+particular grievances, and they're just striking for the principle of
+the thing—just for to help us."</p>
+
+<p>"They'd be a deal wiser if they stayed in for the principle of the
+thing," said Martha.</p>
+
+<p>"You've not got a spark of spirit in you," grumbled Roger. "Look at
+Mrs. Hicks! She don't hold her husband back. She's been pushing him on,
+and encouraging him from the first to act like a man."</p>
+
+<p>"Mrs. Hicks may, but Mrs. Holdfast don't; and I'd a deal sooner be like
+Mrs. Holdfast."</p>
+
+<p>Roger flung away impatiently out of the house; and Martha walked to the
+open door.</p>
+
+<p>A busy street met her gaze,—busy, that is to say, as regarded the
+amount of moving life, not as regarded actual employment. The road was
+filled with scattered groups of working-men in their working-dress;
+some of whom wore looks of depression and anxiety, though the
+prevailing sensation seemed to be of triumph.</p>
+
+<p>For the Strike was begun!</p>
+
+<p>The masters could not long hold out. Success, speedy success, in the
+shape of higher wages and shorter hours, might be confidently expected.
+So Peter Pope declared. Capital could not but fail in a tussle with
+labour; for what was capital without labour? Peter Pope forgot to ask
+the equally forcible question—What was labour without capital? It is
+so easy to say, What is a man's head without his body?—But then one
+naturally inquires next, What is a man's body without his head? Unless
+the two work in harmony, both come to grief; and a wrong done by the
+one to the other always recoils upon itself. This is not more true of
+the joint existence, a man's head and body, than of that other joint
+existence, Labour and Capital.</p>
+
+<p>Still, Peter Pope said things were all right; and who should know
+better than Peter Pope?</p>
+
+<p>Those among the strikers who were members of a Trades Union felt
+comfortably sure of a certain amount of help, to carry them through the
+fight.</p>
+
+<p>The larger proportion, who were not members of any such Union, indulged
+in vague hopes of being somehow or other tided through.</p>
+
+<p>For the strikers belonged to more trades than one in the town; some
+having gone out, as Stevens implied, "on principle," or in sympathy
+with the rest.</p>
+
+<p>Peter Pope was not far off. Martha could see him at a little distance,
+haranguing a group of listeners. She turned away with a sigh, and found
+Sarah Holdfast by her side.</p>
+
+<p>"Stevens is one of them, I suppose," Mrs. Holdfast said kindly.</p>
+
+<p>Martha tried to speak, and her voice was choked.</p>
+
+<p>"Come, I'll go indoors for a minute. Baby is asleep, and Bessie's such
+a steady little lass, I may leave them just for a bit."</p>
+
+<p>Martha was glad to get out of sight of that exultant crowd, looking to
+her foreboding sight so like a flock of thoughtless sheep, frisking to
+the slaughter. Peter Pope's illustration had not been inapt.</p>
+
+<p>"How well the children do look, all of them!" said Mrs. Holdfast. "Just
+see Bobbie's cheeks! And I'm sure Baby Harry is a beauty. Hasn't he fat
+arms?"</p>
+
+<p>"And how long are they going to keep fat, I wonder?" asked Martha.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Holdfast hardly knew what to say. She stroked the head of little
+three years-old Harry, as he nestled up to his mother. Martha took such
+a pride in her children. They had hitherto rivalled Mrs. Holdfast's in
+healthy freshness.</p>
+
+<p>"I'd work my fingers to the bone, if I could, to keep 'em as they are
+now," said Martha. "But whatever am I to do? I can't leave 'em alone
+all day, and go out to charing. I'm sure it's little enough work my
+husband does at the best of times; and now he's ready to risk starving
+us all, just that he may stick up for his 'rights' as he calls it.
+Rights indeed! It makes me sick to hear 'em all a-talking of their
+rights," cried Martha, with sudden energy, as she hugged little Harry
+in her arms. "A man's wife and children has a right to expect he'll
+give them food to eat, and clothes to wear; and if he won't do that,
+he'd no business to marry."</p>
+
+<p>"Men are easy led to believe whatever they're told—provided it's one of
+themselves that tells them," said Mrs. Holdfast shrewdly.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't see as that's any excuse. They'd ought to have sense to think
+for themselves."</p>
+
+<p>"So they would, if they was all like my John," said Mrs. Holdfast, with
+pardonable pride. "But there's where it is. He reads and learns, while
+other folks talk."</p>
+
+<p>Martha found no comfort in the thought of John Holdfast's superiority.</p>
+
+<p>"See here—" she said, looking round—"all the little comforts we've been
+getting together, when we could spare a sixpence or a shilling. And
+they'll all go now. I won't say but what Roger's been a good husband
+in the main, letting alone that he's so easy led. He does care for the
+children, and he brings home his wages more regular than most—if he
+wasn't so fond of a day's holiday, when he ought to be at work. Talk of
+short hours! He's never in no danger of overdoing hisself. But that's
+the way with the men. I wonder whatever 'd happen if we women was to
+strike for short hours, and knock off work, and leave things to take
+care of themselves."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Holdfast shook her head dubiously. She saw that it was a relief to
+Martha to pour out.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm sure I've toiled day and night for him and children, and never
+wanted to complain. Roger has had a clean home, and his clothes mended,
+and his Sunday dinners as good as the best of them. And I'd just begun
+to think of laying by something against a rainy day. And here's the end
+of it all."</p>
+
+<p>"Maybe the strike won't last long."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't tell me that! You don't think so. Get a wrong notion into a
+man's head, and he'll stick to it like beeswax. They're made up of
+selfishness, down to their shoes; and that's what it is! And Roger like
+the rest! As if four days of work in the week wasn't little enough for
+a great strong man like him—and I'm sure it's seldom he does more. As
+if he couldn't put up patiently with less wages and more work for a
+while, sooner than see his wife and children starve before his eyes."</p>
+
+<p>"You're talking a lot of nonsense! Like a woman," said Stevens,
+standing in the doorway. "You don't know nothing about the matter, and
+that's a fact! It's our rights that's got to be considered, Pope says.
+We're striking for our rights!"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't care for nobody's rights nor for Mr. Pope neither, so as I've
+bread to put in the children's mouths," sobbed Martha. "Do you think
+I don't know what you're bringing us to? I hope I am talking like a
+woman! I wouldn't wish to do anything else. I wouldn't wish to talk
+like the men—a set of lazy creatures, with never a thought except for
+their own comfort."</p>
+
+<p>Stevens walked off, and Martha looked up pitifully.</p>
+
+<p>"There now! I'm wrong! I know I'm wrong—speaking like that to him
+before the children. But it's hard to be patient. Your husband's at
+work still, ain't he?"</p>
+
+<p>"He's at work, and he'll be at work as long as ever he can. If many
+more go out in the town, the works may have to stop for want of men to
+keep them going. But John 'll only stop if he's obliged. He won't go
+out with the rest."</p>
+
+<p>"They won't like that," said Martha.</p>
+
+<p>"Maybe not," Mrs. Holdfast said quietly. "He's had a warning already."</p>
+
+<p>"A warning from the strikers!" Martha's eyes grew round. She wondered
+at Mrs. Holdfast's composure.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; but he says he don't see that one sort of tyranny is better than
+another. If he's a freeborn Englishman, he's got a right to work as
+long as he will, and the others haven't power to forbid him. That's
+what John says."</p>
+
+<p>Martha sighed. "They haven't no right," she said. "But as for power—if
+I was you, I should be all in a fright for him."</p>
+
+<p>"It's no manner of use expecting troubles till they come," said Mrs.
+Holdfast.</p>
+
+<p><br></p>
+
+<figure class="figcenter" id="image010" style="max-width: 25.3125em;">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/image010.jpg" alt="image010">
+</figure>
+
+<p><br><br><br></p>
+
+<figure class="figcenter" id="image011" style="max-width: 25.3125em;">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/image011.jpg" alt="image011">
+</figure>
+
+<h3><a id="Chapter_4">CHAPTER IV.</a></h3>
+
+<p class="t3">
+WHAT STUCKEY THOUGHT.<br>
+</p>
+
+<p><br></p>
+
+<p>"SO there's a lot more of you to-day, a-setting to work to run your
+heads agin a stone wall," said Stuckey.</p>
+
+<p>He had a basket of ferns in his hand, which he was carrying home,
+taking Pleasant Lane on his way.</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing of the sort," responded Stevens. "There's no stone wall at
+all. You just wait, and you'll see."</p>
+
+<p>"Sure to do that! For why? 'Cause I can't help it," said Stuckey. "Nor
+wouldn't if I could. It's a werry interesting contemplation."</p>
+
+<p>"What's interesting?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, this here strike," said Stuckey. "I've come along here for the
+werry purpose of examining into your state of mind, and learnin' how
+you're all a-looking on the state of affairs. Once on a time I'd ha'
+gone along with you all, afore I got to be more enlightened."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, you're enlightened, are you?" said Stevens, with contempt.</p>
+
+<p>"Hope so," Stuckey answered. "Not as I means for to say that
+enlightenment o' the understanding goes alongside of a garden spade
+more than of a pick. But since I've laid by the pick and took up the
+spade, I've learnt to look upon things in a more reasonable sort of a
+light, there ain't no denying."</p>
+
+<p>"Glad to hear it," said Stevens incredulously. "You don't go the best
+way to show your sense by talking of a stone wall."</p>
+
+<p>"Maybe I do, more'n you're aware. Maybe it's an inwisible stone wall,
+as none o' you'll see, till heads go bang agin it. But ye all seem
+mighty cheerful this evening. Mr. Hughes 'll ask me by an' by,—"</p>
+
+<p>"'Well, Peter,' he'll say, 'and how's the men getting along to-night?'"
+he'll say.</p>
+
+<p>"And I'll tell him, 'Not a bit depressed nor down in the mouth, sir,'
+I'll say, 'but all as merry as crickets, thinking o' the nice long
+holiday they're a-going to get."</p>
+
+<p>"And he'll say, 'Poor fellows!'"</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Hughes has been down the road himself, and heard Pope, so it isn't
+like he'll go to you for information," retorted Stevens.</p>
+
+<p>"I've heard him!" said Stuckey, with a nod. "I've heard Pope! Heard him
+yesterday a-talking against that 'ere cruel bloodhound of a master, Mr.
+Bertie, who's just been setting up a soup-kitchen for them iron-workers
+that's got cut off from work by the action of the strikers. Werry
+bloodthirsty deed!"</p>
+
+<p>"I've nothing to say against Mr. Bertie himself," said Stevens. "We're
+striking for our rights. 'Tain't because Pope tells us. It's because we
+want our rights."</p>
+
+<p>"Never you mind, man," Stuckey responded, in consoling tones. "When
+Peter Pope's golden age is come, and capital is abolished, and masters
+is all wiped out of existence, and men don't need to work, and wages
+comes pouring in from nobody knows where, ye'll all share and share
+alike, I don't doubt. That's something to look forward to, ain't it?
+Never you mind a bit o' trouble beforehand. Some o' ye's pretty sure to
+struggle through the starwation-time previous; leastways I hopes so.
+And if so be ye don't—why it's only dying for your rights!"</p>
+
+<p><br></p>
+
+<figure class="figcenter" id="image008" style="max-width: 25.3125em;">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/image008.jpg" alt="image008">
+</figure>
+<p class="t4">
+<b>Before he could enter, a hand came on his arm.</b><br>
+</p>
+
+<p><br></p>
+
+<p>With a friendly nod, Stuckey trudged away, leaving Stevens not greatly
+cheered by his remarks. Coming so soon after his wife's complaints,
+Roger found them depressing. Almost without thought, he turned his step
+towards the nearest public-house; but before he could enter, a hand
+came on his arm.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, Stevens—Stevens, man, it's no time for that!"</p>
+
+<p>"No time for what?" demanded Stevens, shaking himself free.</p>
+
+<p>"You know! Think of the wife and children," urged John.</p>
+
+<p>"And if I do?" asked Stevens surlily.</p>
+
+<p>"Winter's at hand, and not much money like to come to you yet awhile, I
+wouldn't now—if I was you. Just think of the little ones! You haven't
+even Union funds to depend on."</p>
+
+<p>"I know that well enough—more's the pity!" Stevens hesitated a moment,
+then turned short round and walked away—both from the public-house and
+from John Holdfast. So Holdfast's effort had not been quite a failure.</p>
+
+<p>Sarah Holdfast had returned from her kind little visit to Martha,
+next door. When her husband reached home, she had prepared his tea,
+washed the children, and made everything spick and span. Holdfast's
+first move was, as always, to disappear up-stairs, that he might do
+away with the marks of toil before he enjoyed his evening meal. His
+next move, on reappearance, was to take the baby in his strong arms,
+and to let little Bessie climb upon his knee. But he seemed a degree
+absent to-day; not so playful with the young ones as Mrs. Holdfast was
+accustomed to see him.</p>
+
+<p>"Anything wrong, John?" she asked, when tea was nearly over.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, yes. It can't be helped," said John, trying to speak cheerfully.</p>
+
+<p>"Work going to stop?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not for a few days—three or four, I suppose. But if more men go out
+to-morrow and next day,—if the strike don't end by then—"</p>
+
+<p>"It won't yet," she said.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm afraid not."</p>
+
+<p>"It won't—yet awhile. The masters and the men's both equal set on their
+own way; and neither's ready to give in one inch to the other. There
+'ll be a fight first."</p>
+
+<p>John nodded.</p>
+
+<p>"And the works 'll have to stop?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. It ain't known certainly yet; but I've had a private word. Not
+the only one," muttered John.</p>
+
+<p>A look of fear came into Mrs. Holdfast's eyes. "The men?" she breathed.</p>
+
+<p>"If I don't go out like the rest, but just stick to work as long as I
+can get it, I'm to look to myself, and take the consequences."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Holdfast breathed quickly.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't seem I'm to have much choice soon," said John. "I'll have to go
+out then. Only it'll be because I must, not because I choose. That's
+all the difference."</p>
+
+<p>"John, wouldn't it be best to go out now? If you'll have to be paid off
+in a day or two—"</p>
+
+<p>John gave her a steady look.</p>
+
+<p>"You wouldn't have me act as a craven?" he asked. "Give in, for fear of
+consequences!"</p>
+
+<p>"But if they was to hurt you? There's some among 'em who might do that."</p>
+
+<p>"Then I'd have to bear it."</p>
+
+<p>"Only, wouldn't it be better, just this once—"</p>
+
+<p>"Say the true word, Sarah. Wouldn't it be safer?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, wouldn't it be safer?" she faltered.</p>
+
+<p>"Safer for my bones, I shouldn't wonder. There's a cowardly few among
+'em, I know, who wouldn't scruple to knock me down, if they got a
+chance of doing it, unbeknown. But I don't mean 'em to have a chance if
+I can help it. Come, cheer up," said John. "Things 'll come right in
+the end."</p>
+
+<p>Things seemed very wrong to Sarah at this moment.</p>
+
+<p>"Pope says the men strike for their rights," continued John. "Well, and
+I'm standing out for my rights. I've my rights as well as they! Don't
+you see? If Pope's free to take his view of the question, I'm free
+to take my view of it. And my view don't coincide with Pope's. I've
+no notion of giving in to tyranny, whether it's tyranny of men or of
+masters. If the lot of them are free to strike, I'm free to not strike."</p>
+
+<p>"That wouldn't be much help to me if you got hurt."</p>
+
+<p>"Hope I shan't be, but any way I've got to do right," said John. "I've
+got to do what seems to me right; and a strike just now don't seem to
+me right. It don't seem to me called for. It don't seem to me likely to
+bring good. Pope and others says I'm wrong; and they says I'm bound to
+do what they think right. Now I don't nor can't see that. If Pope's a
+free and independent Englishman, I'm the same. If I've got to give in
+my judgment to Pope, and do what I count to be wrong, because he says
+it's right, I wonder where my freedom is. That's tyranny, and tyranny
+of the worst sort, because it tries to hold a man's conscience in
+bondage. I'll not give in to it, Sarah. I wasn't named 'Holdfast' for
+nothing. So long as I live, I'll 'hold fast' to what is right, so far
+as I can see what's right."</p>
+
+<p>John spoke quietly, not with a noisy voice or manner; and his words
+were all the more impressive from their quietness. Sarah fully agreed
+with all he said, as a matter of principle,—only as his wife she was
+afraid for him. She would not argue against his convictions, but her
+eyes grew tearful.</p>
+
+<p>"I think we needn't fear," John said more softly. "We haven't brought
+ourselves into the difficulty, Sarah, woman. If we had, it 'ud be
+different. I think we've got just to go straight ahead, and do what's
+right, and put our trust in God. If it's His will to let me suffer,
+why, there's some good reason for it. I'm sure of that."</p>
+
+<p><br></p>
+
+<figure class="figcenter" id="image012" style="max-width: 25.3125em;">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/image012.jpg" alt="image012">
+</figure>
+
+<p><br><br><br></p>
+
+<figure class="figcenter" id="image013" style="max-width: 25.3125em;">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/image013.jpg" alt="image013">
+</figure>
+
+<h3><a id="Chapter_5">CHAPTER V.</a></h3>
+
+<p class="t3">
+DUCKED.<br>
+</p>
+
+<p><br></p>
+
+<p>SARAH could not shake off the thought of something happening to John.
+All the next day, and the next, she lived in fear, often hard to
+control. Those evenings he came home safely untouched. He did not tell
+Sarah how the men on strike glowered at him; how he was pursued on his
+way by the contemptuous groan of "Blackleg!!"</p>
+
+<p>Many a man would sooner face a knock-down blow than that sound of
+scorn; but John was not made of yielding stuff. He did not tell Sarah
+all this, for there was no need to add to her anxiety.</p>
+
+<p>On the third day it became known that the works must close; so John
+Holdfast, and those others who had refused to join the strike, would
+be reduced to idleness. Some said this might not be for long, as there
+was talk of workmen coming from a distance. Mrs. Holdfast hoped that
+the closing of the works would appease the strikers' anger against her
+husband; but she did not happen to hear the report about men arriving
+from elsewhere, or she would hardly have been so hopeful.</p>
+
+<p>Her dread had lessened on the third day; and that very evening John was
+long coming home. He was far later than usual. Mrs. Holdfast waited and
+waited, uneasiness deepening into terror. She put on her bonnet and
+shawl at length, and went out into the dusk to look for John; but she
+could see nothing of him, and it was impossible to leave the children
+for more than a few minutes.</p>
+
+<p>She went in next door, and found Martha alone.</p>
+
+<p>Stevens had gone somewhere, Martha said—to a meeting, she thought.
+"They're always at it with their speechifying," she said. "Maybe your
+husband's with them."</p>
+
+<p>"He'd have told me if he meant to go," Mrs. Hold fast answered.</p>
+
+<p>"Roger don't trouble to tell me," said Martha.</p>
+
+<p>No comfort was to be had there, and Mrs. Holdfast hastened home; the
+dread of foul play growing upon her with sickening force.</p>
+
+<p>Another hour she waited. It had grown quite dark. John never stayed
+away like this without previous warning.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Holdfast went again next door, in her misery, and found Stevens
+just come in. He knew nothing, he said—had seen nothing, heard nothing.
+He had not set eyes on Holdfast that day.</p>
+
+<p>At first he seemed very much disinclined to take any steps. "Holdfast's
+got himself into bad odour," he said; "staying in when the rest went
+out. He'd better have taken good advice."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Holdfast would not then argue against the view that to go with the
+multitude must be the wiser course. She used all her energies to get
+him to act, and presently her entreaties overcame his reluctance. He
+left the house to make inquiries, and Sarah went back to her home.</p>
+
+<p>Another long period of wearying suspense, and at length somebody was
+coming. Sarah knew what it meant, directly her ears caught the sound
+of shuffling footsteps. She went to the open door, and heard Stevens'
+voice—</p>
+
+<p>"Come along! Here you are! Just home."</p>
+
+<p>"John!" cried Sarah.</p>
+
+<p>"I've found him. He's had a fall or something," said Stevens. "Been and
+tumbled into a pond."</p>
+
+<p>Did Stevens really think so? There was a shamefaced sound in his voice.</p>
+
+<p>Sarah was by her husband's side, helping to bear him up, to pull him
+along. John said nothing. It was as much as he could do to move at all,
+with the assistance of them both.</p>
+
+<p><br></p>
+
+<figure class="figcenter" id="image014" style="max-width: 25.3125em;">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/image014.jpg" alt="image014">
+</figure>
+<p class="t4">
+<b>"Tumbled into the pond! Not he! He's been in;</b><br>
+<b>but it wasn't a tumble."</b><br>
+</p>
+
+<p><br></p>
+
+<p>Once in the kitchen, they could see the state he was in—dripping wet,
+half-covered with green slime from the pond, his face ghastly pale, his
+right arm hanging helplessly, blood flowing still from a cut in his
+forehead. Stevens got him into a chair, and shut the door, John sat
+drooping forward, like one stupefied.</p>
+
+<p>"Must have knocked his head against a sharp stone," said Stevens.</p>
+
+<p>Sarah was bending over her husband, examining the cut. She straightened
+herself, and looked full at Stevens.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't tell me that!" she said in a hard voice. "You know better! It's
+their doing—cowardly brutes, that dare to call themselves men!"</p>
+
+<p>Then her manner softened, "But I do thank you," she said.</p>
+
+<p>"Shouldn't wonder if you'd like me to help to get him up-stairs," said
+Stevens. "He don't seem able to stand alone. I say, Mrs. Holdfast—if I
+was you, I wouldn't go about saying it was the men."</p>
+
+<p>"No, I won't; for they're not men!" she answered, with bitter scorn.
+"I'll say it's been done by brutes. You wouldn't have me say what I
+don't believe, would you? Tumbled into the pond! Not he! He's been in;
+but it wasn't a tumble."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I'll maintain it was a tumble; and I'll thank you to keep my
+name out of it too," said Stevens.</p>
+
+<p>"I wouldn't get you into the same trouble, not on any account," Mrs.
+Holdfast answered gratefully.</p>
+
+<p>Getting John up-stairs was no easy task. He was too dizzy and dazed
+to stand without support, and he seemed not to understand what was
+said. The right arm would hardly endure a touch, but it appeared to be
+only bruised and strained, not broken. Stevens was very much averse
+to a doctor being called, and Sarah hoped it might not be needful.
+She bathed and bound up the injured arm and the cut forehead, and
+John showed signs of amendment. When he was in bed, and Sarah began
+feeding him with spoonfuls of tea, Stevens being gone, he looked almost
+comfortable.</p>
+
+<p>"Things might be worse," he murmured, with an attempt at a smile.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; they might have managed to kill you outright," Sarah said
+sternly. The sternness was for others. She was very tender towards
+John. "Do you think you can tell me how it happened?" she asked.</p>
+
+<p>John had little to tell. He had had occasion to go round by a certain
+lonely lane, to leave a message for somebody; and he supposed his going
+to have been known. Two or three men, perhaps more, had set upon him
+suddenly, in the dusk and loneliness, had ducked him in the pond, and
+otherwise maltreated him. He believed that they had left him on the
+road beside the pond, more or less unconscious. Stevens had found him
+there, when he was beginning to regain his sense, and had given him a
+helping arm home.</p>
+
+<p>"And that's about all," John said.</p>
+
+<p>"You didn't see the faces of the men?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, not a glimpse. They were too sharp, and the cut blinded me."</p>
+
+<p>"And they call themselves men!" she said again. "Men! Brutes, I say!
+John, I'll never forgive them!"</p>
+
+<p>"That's no resolve for a Christian woman to make," John answered.
+"Why, Sarah, woman, how will you ever pray your prayers in church next
+Sunday, not to speak of to-night and to-morrow morning, without you
+forgive?"</p>
+
+<p>"The brutes! That they should treat you so!" she said. "But I'm not
+going to let you go on talking now; you've got to try and sleep."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't feel much like sleep," said John. "One word more. Sarah, I
+don't mean to hide the truth of what I know. It wouldn't be right, for
+others' sake. But I do want you not to go about saying a lot of hard
+words. It's no good, and there's bitterness enough. We've got to be
+kind and to forgive."</p>
+
+<p>Sarah could only say tearfully—</p>
+
+<p>"I'll try."</p>
+
+<p><br></p>
+
+<figure class="figcenter" id="image015" style="max-width: 25.3125em;">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/image015.jpg" alt="image015">
+</figure>
+
+<p><br><br><br></p>
+
+<figure class="figcenter" id="image016" style="max-width: 25.3125em;">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/image016.jpg" alt="image016">
+</figure>
+
+<h3><a id="Chapter_6">CHAPTER VI.</a></h3>
+
+<p class="t3">
+SEED-CAKE.<br>
+</p>
+
+<p><br></p>
+
+<p>WINTER was setting in, and the strike continued in full force.</p>
+
+<p>Nobody showed any inclination to give way. There was no talk, as yet,
+of compromise. Masters and men alike stood firm, holding resolutely
+each to his own view of the matter, refusing resolutely each to take a
+kind and unselfish view of the difficulties on the other side.</p>
+
+<p>For of course there were two sides to the question, as there always
+are, each side having its own share of wrong and of right. The masters
+had their heavy expenses; their wearing anxieties; their fluctuations
+in profits. The men had their large families, more or less; their many
+needs; their comparatively low wages. A little measure of true sympathy
+and understanding on either side for the other, might have shortened
+the struggle; but the masters did not fully understand the men's
+position, and the men were far from sympathizing with the masters'
+position.</p>
+
+<p>It was a dull cold sky; the sky overhead being black, the mud underfoot
+blacker still. Sleety rain fell off and on upon the scores of idle
+loungers in Pleasant Lane and other streets. Many of the loungers took
+refuge in public-houses—for however badly off the strikers might be,
+they almost always seemed to have something to spend there.</p>
+
+<p>The usual stir of the busy town was hushed. All sound of engine and
+hammer had ceased. Work was at an end. Wages were at an end. Food in
+too many houses threatened to be soon at an end also.</p>
+
+<p>Peter Pope was not just now at hand; and the recollection of a stirring
+speech the evening before was not enough to prevent down-heartedness
+this morning. Many of those poor fellows, lolling idly about, were
+simply ready to do whatever they were told. Peter Pope desired them to
+hold out; and so they did hold out. But if each one had been questioned
+separately as to his real feeling in the matter, the answer in nine
+cases out of ten would have been—</p>
+
+<p>"Give me work, and let me earn bread for my little ones—" irrespective
+of those "rights" about which Peter Pope eloquently declaimed.</p>
+
+<p>John Holdfast had come out of his house for a breath of air, and he
+stood at the gate looking about. A fortnight of suffering had rendered
+him pale and gaunt. The cut on his forehead was nearly healed, but his
+right arm was still in a sling, and very helpless.</p>
+
+<p>There had been a great stir about John's injuries; but all attempts to
+identify John's injurers had failed. John had recognized no faces; and
+everybody else professed entire ignorance. Men of the better class were
+utterly ashamed of the miserable affair; but few had courage to speak
+out what they thought, or to give open sympathy to John.</p>
+
+<p>"Good morning, Holdfast. How's the arm to-day, eh?" asked Mr. Hughes,
+coming at a brisk pace through Pleasant Lane.</p>
+
+<p>Many a visit had Mr. Hughes paid to John lately; and many a supply of
+food had Stuckey brought from the Rectory. Much kindness had also been
+shown, and much practical help given, by the heads of the firm for
+which John worked. So, in point of fact, he and his family had suffered
+far less from the strike, thus far, than others.</p>
+
+<p>"Getting on, sir, thank you," John answered cheerfully. "The doctor
+hopes it'll be up to work in a few weeks."</p>
+
+<p>"Fortunate, if it is. Those strained muscles are troublesome things. I
+hope the strike will not last till your arm is really up to work."</p>
+
+<p>John shook his head dubiously.</p>
+
+<p>"I wish it may not, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Bertie has been to see you."</p>
+
+<p>"Twice, sir. He says he don't mean me to be a loser by this."</p>
+
+<p>"No; so I hear. Quite right too. No hope now, I'm afraid, of finding
+out the fellows who maltreated you."</p>
+
+<p>"No," John said slowly. "I don't know as I can say I'm sorry. But if
+they was found, it wouldn't be right to let 'em off."</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly not; for the sake of others more than yourself. But—" Mr.
+Hughes paused and sighed. "How I wish one could breathe a breath of
+Christ-like loving-kindness into all this—all these business relations
+between masters and men, between workmen and workmen. The wheels would
+move then without creaking, and adjustment would not be a matter of
+fighting."</p>
+
+<p>"That's so, sir," John answered emphatically. "It's Christian
+consideration for others that's wanted, not just each side trying to
+grab the biggest profits."</p>
+
+<p>John had left his house, and was walking slowly by Mr. Hughes' side. A
+gesture had invited him to do so.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm afraid the poor wives and children are the worst sufferers."</p>
+
+<p>"Likely to be," said John. "Sarah and I, we've nothing to complain
+of—thanks to you and to Mr. Bertie. But them poor Stevenses next door—"</p>
+
+<p>"Stevens joined the strike?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir; and he don't belong to the Union. I don't know how ever he
+gets along. His wife is getting as thin—"</p>
+
+<p>"I dare say I can give you a basket of cake and odds and ends for her,
+poor thing! Can you come with me for it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Now, sir?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, now. No time like the present. Poor fellows!" murmured Mr.
+Hughes, as they passed another group of idlers. "They look very
+deplorable this morning. Rather different from their state of
+excitement under one of Pope's orations."</p>
+
+<p>"That sort of excitement don't last," said John. "But I suppose it's
+the only way to get hold of them."</p>
+
+<p>"Speechifying is, you mean?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir. Pope has a hold upon 'em, somehow. I'd give a deal to see
+somebody able to stand up and give the other side of the matter. They
+do want showing a common-sense view of things."</p>
+
+<p>"Why don't you do it yourself?"</p>
+
+<p>John looked up in astonishment.</p>
+
+<p>"You have read and thought on these subjects and you have a large share
+of common-sense. Why not impart it to others?"</p>
+
+<p>Holdfast laughed slightly.</p>
+
+<p>"I've not got the gift of the gab," he said.</p>
+
+<p>"Never mind about gifts. If you have a matter clearly in your mind, I
+imagine that you are capable of putting it into plain words."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm afraid that's not much in my line, sir. I haven't got Pope's
+smooth tongue, you see."</p>
+
+<p>"Working-men don't want only smoothness. They get enough and too much
+of that from certain quarters. What they really want is truth. Give
+them facts. Think things out for yourself, and make up your own mind as
+to what is right; then throw your influence into the right scale. You
+have shown already that you are no coward; that you can stand alone;
+and that you are not afraid to act independently. Don't be afraid to
+speak as well as to act; and don't conclude that, because you have not
+Pope's tongue, you have therefore no tongue at all. It may be your
+positive duty to speak out sometimes, for the sake of others."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll think it over, sir, any way. I wouldn't wish to neglect my duty,
+if it is a duty," said John. "But I'm afraid the men would only say I
+was taking the masters' side."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't give them a chance of saying so. Don't take the masters' side.
+You have not to do that. Let the masters look to themselves, and take
+the men's side—which Pope does not do, for all his boasting. Try to
+show them—as many as will listen to you—the wise and common-sense view
+of things. Show them the folly of trying to control forces which will
+not be controlled. Show them the doubtful wisdom of half-starving
+themselves for the chance of a slight rise in wages, which, when
+gained, cannot repay them for what they have lost in gaining it. At the
+same time, don't deny that masters, like men, are sometimes unfair; and
+that pressure has sometimes to be wisely and justly used."</p>
+
+<p>"Maybe I might say something," John observed thoughtfully.</p>
+
+<p><br></p>
+
+<figure class="figcenter" id="image017" style="max-width: 25.3125em;">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/image017.jpg" alt="image017">
+</figure>
+
+<p><br><br><br></p>
+
+<figure class="figcenter" id="image018" style="max-width: 25.3125em;">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/image018.jpg" alt="image018">
+</figure>
+
+<h3><a id="Chapter_7">CHAPTER VII.</a></h3>
+
+<p class="t3">
+THE CHILDREN.<br>
+</p>
+
+<p><br></p>
+
+<p>"MOTHER—"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, Bobbie."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm so hungry."</p>
+
+<p>"And I'm so hungry too," chimed in little Harry.</p>
+
+<p>Martha Stevens was mending a child's frock by the dim light of a
+wintry afternoon. Snow outside fell thickly; and there were only a few
+decaying embers in the grate. Food and firing were hard to procure. Not
+once or twice only, since Holdfast spoke to Mr. Hughes of the Stevens'
+needs, kind supplies had been sent from the Rectory; but such supplies
+could only mean temporary relief.</p>
+
+<p>One thing after another had gone to the pawnshop. The best Sunday
+clothes first; then all the little ornaments and treasures and
+knick-knacks; and at last even Martha's wedding-ring. The once cheery
+home was changed.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm so hungry, mother, I don't know what to do."</p>
+
+<p>Bobbie's nine-years-old manliness threatened to fail him; and there
+was the sound of a sob. Little Millie, curled up on the ground at her
+mother's feet, lifted her head slowly.</p>
+
+<p>"It's no good crying, Bobbie," she said, in a grave unchildlike manner.
+"Mother hasn't got nothing?"</p>
+
+<p>"Millie's hungry too, I know," said Mrs. Stevens. "And she don't go on
+as you do, Bobbie."</p>
+
+<p>"Millie's a girl," sobbed Bobbie. "I don't think she feels it so
+dreadful bad as me."</p>
+
+<p>"She's worse than any of us, I know that," said Martha, looking down
+on the tiny blue stick of an arm, which had once been so round and
+mottled. "And boys hadn't ought to give in more easy than girls."</p>
+
+<p>Bobbie put his head down on a chair, and tried to smother the sobs;
+but it was hard work. Grown-up men found it no easy task to endure the
+gnawings of hunger which could not be satisfied; and it was no wonder
+that Bobbie, with his keen boyish appetite, should fail.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm so hungry,—I'm so hungry," broke out from him anew.</p>
+
+<p>"Father 'll have to take something else—" take it to the pawnbroker's,
+she meant. "The baker says he don't know how he's to go on giving
+credit, for there's no knowing where it'll end. And I don't know how
+we'll ever be able to pay what we owe him now!"</p>
+
+<p>Hundreds of other families were more or less in the same condition; yet
+the men talked still of holding out.</p>
+
+<p>"Just a little longer," Pope told them, "and they would have everything
+their own way."</p>
+
+<p>"Father's coming!" Millie said, as a step was heard; and little Harry
+lifted his heavy head, only to lay it down again.</p>
+
+<p>Stevens came in with a moody air, and took a seat. He looked thinner
+himself under the pressure of want.</p>
+
+<p>"We've nothing left in the house," Martha said; "and the children's
+craving and crying till I don't know how to bear myself."</p>
+
+<p>Stevens drew a small loaf—twopenny size—from his pocket, and tossed it
+on the table. "That's all I've got," he said; "and I didn't expect to
+have so much."</p>
+
+<p>"Where did you get it from?" Martha asked, taking it in hand to respond
+to the little ones' eager eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"Met Holdfast," 'said Roger gruffly.</p>
+
+<p>"And he gave it you?"</p>
+
+<p>A grunt of assent. "For the children."</p>
+
+<p>"And where's the next to come from?"</p>
+
+<p>This question had no answer.</p>
+
+<p>"We can't starve," she said, looking at him. "There isn't another crumb
+nor another penny in the house. Where's the next loaf to come from?"</p>
+
+<p>Stevens was silent.</p>
+
+<p>"You'll have to get something, somehow! We can't go on like this," she
+continued, speaking quietly thus far. Then she burst out as if choked,
+"But if you'd been getting your wages all this time we'd never have
+got to such a pass! As if it mattered that you'd have had to work a
+bit longer than you liked! What business has a man got to marry, if
+he don't mean to work? Why, dear me, a lot more work wouldn't have
+pulled you down yourself, like the want of food! . . . And there's the
+children! . . . And if you do get what you're trying for, it won't pay
+for these weeks. It won't give us back half, nor a quarter, of what
+we've lost. I wish you men had some common-sense, I do, if it's only
+for the sake of your wives and children."</p>
+
+<p>"You needn't scold," said Roger.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't want to scold! It isn't scolding! I'm only telling you the
+plain truth. If you'd look the matter in the face for once, you'd maybe
+see how things are before it's too late."</p>
+
+<p>"Too late for what?" asked Stevens.</p>
+
+<p>Martha did not speak. Her eyes went first to his, then travelled round
+the room, passed over the older children; and rested on Harry. Roger
+followed her glance.</p>
+
+<p>"I can't help it," he said desperately. "What am I to do? Pope says
+we'd be cowards now to give in."</p>
+
+<p>"Pope says!" she repeated with scorn. "Can't you think for yourselves,
+and not be at Pope's beck and call?"</p>
+
+<p>"Just see how Holdfast was treated—" Stevens began, and stopped.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, that's it! That's the real truth! You're afraid, all of
+you,—afraid of Pope, and afraid of each other, and afraid of being
+called 'blacklegs.' What's that but cowardice? . . . Roger, are you
+going to wait, and let your little ones starve afore your eyes? . . .
+There's work to be had now, for I know there is. It's offered to any
+who'll take. Mr. Holdfast 'ud be at work, if it wasn't for his arm.
+What's to keep you back?"</p>
+
+<p>"I daren't be the first to give in," he faltered. "They'd hoot at me
+for a 'blackleg.'"</p>
+
+<p>"Daren't! And you call yourself a man! You call yourself independent!
+You call yourself a freeborn Englishman! Daren't! And you call that
+liberty!" she uttered, with unconscious eloquence. "I call it being a
+slave."</p>
+
+<p>Stevens seemed too dejected for anger. "You know well enough, there's
+lots of men willing to get to work," he said, "if others would let
+them. But there's too many for holding out still. What's a man to do?
+He can't stand alone—and there's nobody to take the lead."</p>
+
+<p>"Except Pope! Take the lead yourself," said Martha.</p>
+
+<p>Roger sat in gloomy silence.</p>
+
+<p>"They do say there's signs that the masters 'll give in soon," he
+observed at length.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't believe it. And if they did, we'll have lost a deal more than
+we'll gain."</p>
+
+<p>Roger rose slowly.</p>
+
+<p>"Where are you going?" she asked, in a sharp voice. It had grown sharp
+lately under the wearing strain of want.</p>
+
+<p>"There's a meeting."</p>
+
+<p>"Pope, I suppose," she said.</p>
+
+<p>"Pope's away for to-night. It was Holdfast asked me to go."</p>
+
+<p>"If he's to be there, you'll have a word on the right side."</p>
+
+<p>"Holdfast said it wasn't to be a question of taking' sides, but just
+for to consider the state of affairs," said Roger.</p>
+
+<p>Then he passed out into the falling snow, glad to escape from those
+pinched pitiful faces. Little Harry's wan look haunted him all the way.
+Harry had been such a beautiful child; plump and rosy, and full of fun.
+While now—!</p>
+
+<p>"Something 'll have to be done soon," murmured Roger.</p>
+
+<p>The Church schoolroom had been lent by Mr. Hughes to the men for this
+evening, that they might meet to talk things over among themselves; and
+Holdfast had undertaken to call them together. A moderate gathering was
+the response.</p>
+
+<p>It did not promise to be an excited meeting. Pope was not there to
+supply bombast; and the men were generally more or less depressed. Many
+of them were hungry; some might almost have been called half-starved.</p>
+
+<p>The main question was—Ought the strike to continue, or should it cease?
+Ought they to hold on, or were they willing to yield? Were the promised
+results worth the battle,—if such results might be gained by further
+delay? In other words, was the game worth the candle?</p>
+
+<p>One and another stood up to speak. In Pope's absence, they were
+conscious of unusual freedom. They tried to look these questions fairly
+in the face, with such light as they possessed. It was not that these
+few men expected to decide for the whole community. The number present
+was a mere fraction of the whole number out on strike. But even to gain
+a few frankly-expressed opinions was worth much.</p>
+
+<p>Presently John Holdfast was seen to rise and come forward. He spoke to
+the chairman, then turned to face the meeting. It was easy to see that
+he had something to say. There were many present who had baited John
+and jeered at him for his independent action of late; yet there was not
+one who did not really in his heart respect John; and no unwillingness
+to hear him was displayed.</p>
+
+<p>John had at first something of the embarrassed and hesitating air usual
+with men who find themselves in an unwonted position. But that did not
+last. He knew his subject; and he had a good command of words. Indeed,
+as he went on, he showed a degree of fluency which perhaps astonished
+himself at least as much as his hearers.</p>
+
+<p><br></p>
+
+<figure class="figcenter" id="image019" style="max-width: 25.3125em;">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/image019.jpg" alt="image019">
+</figure>
+
+<p><br><br><br></p>
+
+<figure class="figcenter" id="image021" style="max-width: 25.3125em;">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/image021.jpg" alt="image021">
+</figure>
+
+<h3><a id="Chapter_8">CHAPTER VIII.</a></h3>
+
+<p class="t3">
+HOLDFAST'S SPEECH.<br>
+</p>
+
+<p><br></p>
+
+<p>"I'VE got a few words to say to you to-night, lads. I'm a plain-spoken
+man, as you know, with no particular gift for speechifying; so you'll
+have to bear with me, if I blunder, and put things badly. I'm one of
+yourselves, and you'll just take my blundering kindly, and look beyond
+it to the root of the matter. It's as one of yourselves that I want to
+talk to you."</p>
+
+<p>"There's been a lot said already, as to whether you should or shouldn't
+go on with the strike. Some are for one side, and some for the other.
+Well, I s'pose you all know pretty well which side I'm for. But maybe
+you don't all know so well what's my reasons, nor why I'm for that
+side."</p>
+
+<p>"Now you needn't think I'm going to pretend to settle the whole
+question for you in a dozen words, and expect you all in a moment to
+follow what I say. That wouldn't be fair nor sensible. What I want to
+do is just to put the thing before you in a reasonable light."</p>
+
+<p>"It seems to me that a deal of nonsense is talked, and a lot of
+mistakes are made, in these days, through men not looking on both sides
+of a question. You've heard the old story of the shield, and the two
+knights looking upon it. One said it was made of gold, and the other
+would have it was made of silver; and words ended in blows, and if I'm
+not mistaken, one wounded the other to death. At all events, it wasn't
+till after there'd been fighting, that somebody passing by showed them
+how the shield was gold on one side and silver on the other. So both
+were right and both were wrong; for it was gold, but it wasn't all
+gold; and it was silver, but it wasn't only silver: A little patience
+and common-sense were wanted there, weren't they?"</p>
+
+<p>"Folks do much the same now. One is on the masters' side, and he says
+the shield is all gold. Another is on the men's side, and he says the
+shield, is all silver. Neither of 'em has the sense to walk round, and
+take a look on the other side."</p>
+
+<p>"There's the masters' side of the question, the side of Capital.
+There's the men's side, the side of Labour. Each has its rights,
+and each depends upon the other. It's all very fine to talk of
+independence; but I tell you, men, you can't be independent. There's
+no man living who can stand alone, and do for himself without help
+from others. You're dependent on others for the food you eat, for the
+clothes you wear, for the houses you live in, for the tools you work
+with."</p>
+
+<p>"Aye, and more than that; when you buy, you're among the capitalists.
+Others have worked for you, and you pay them for their labour. There's
+no such sharp division as many make out between capitalists and
+labouring-men. It's a question of degrees. The working-man spends less
+money, and works more with his hands; the capitalist spends more money,
+and works less with his hands. That's the distinction. But they're all
+members of one community, and each depends upon the other."</p>
+
+<p>"To come back to the common view of the matter; the greater amount of
+capital is in the masters' hands no doubt, and power goes with money.
+Yet, if the masters couldn't get hands to work for them, much use would
+their wealth be to them. The men do the work, and power goes with
+labour too; but if there was no capital out of which their wages would
+come, they'd be badly off too."</p>
+
+<p>"Fact is, there's power on both sides, and there's dependence on both
+sides. It's the few with capital to balance the many without capital.
+More truly, it's the few with large capital to balance the many with
+little capital."</p>
+
+<p>"Now you mind one thing that I have to say. Capital is your friend, and
+not your enemy. Some among you are given to talking about the tyranny
+of capital. Well, I don't say capital is never tyrannical when it gets
+a chance, just as I don't say labour is never tyrannical when it gets
+a chance too. But the 'tyranny of labour' may be as true a phrase as
+the 'tyranny of capital;' and all the while, each is the friend of
+the other. Capital is the friend of labour, and labour is the friend
+of capital. Capital can't get along without labour, and labour can't
+get along without capital. A man 'll sometimes act tyrant to his own
+friend, if he gets a chance—when he's thinking too much about his own
+pocket."</p>
+
+<p>"One thing's sure. If a man hurts his friend, he hurts himself too in
+the long run, whether he sees it or not. The masters can't do wrong
+to the men without injuring themselves, and the men can't wrong the
+masters without hurting themselves; for each depends on the other."</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose it would be a happy thing if the two sides could come to an
+agreement as to their exact rights, and so put a stop to all disputes.
+But that's a thing more easy said than done; for the fact is, there's
+no one spot where you can say the rights of one side begin, and the
+rights of the other end. Or if there is such a spot, it's always
+moving."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll tell you what—it's like what the children call a see-saw, you
+know. The masters with their capital are seated on one end of the
+board, and the men with their labour are seated on the other end. The
+plank is supported on a narrow edge, and the very least change in the
+quantity of gold at one end, or in the number of men at the other end,
+makes a re-adjustment needful to keep the balance."</p>
+
+<p>"Nell, and the re-adjustment can't come about in a moment. If both
+parties keep quiet, the board 'll swing a little, and presently they'll
+see what the true balance is—whether the masters or the men weigh
+heaviest. But sometimes they won't wait. They fidget, and they get
+excited; and the plank swings harder, and maybe they end in an upset
+altogether, which puts off the settling for a good bit longer. I think
+we've had something of that sort lately."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm inclined to believe that the upset don't make much difference in
+the long run. The plank 'll find its balance just the same, whether
+those at each end sit quiet or whether they don't. It may swing more or
+less; but nothing on earth can keep the heavier end from being lowest,
+nor the lighter end from being highest, when it does come to rest."</p>
+
+<p>"Matters are something like that in the labour-market."</p>
+
+<p>"You've had a lot of fine words said to you of late by Pope, which
+maybe some of you believe. He'd teach you to think that everything is
+in your own hands; that you only have to strike and strike again to get
+higher and higher wages, and that the masters all keep you wilfully
+down, and don't give you your dues."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I've had a good lot of spare time lately, and I thought I
+couldn't do better than read about these questions, and get up some
+information."</p>
+
+<p>"I've one fact to give you, as a result of my reading. Facts are
+stubborn things you know; and I'm not sure as this isn't a specially
+stubborn fact. Any way, here it is. Whatever you and the masters do
+or don't do, and whether so be that you like it or not, labour, as a
+general rule and in the long run, is always paid at its worth."</p>
+
+<p>"You don't see that, eh?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I'll give you the key to it in a sentence I've read somewhere.
+'Labour is dear when it is scarce, and cheap when it is plentiful.'
+Other things have their bearing on the question, I won't deny; but
+you'll always have to work back to this. When trade's prosperous,
+and the demand for labour grows, and the masters compete one against
+another for hands, then wages rise. But when the market is overstocked,
+and the demand for labour gets less, and the men compete one against
+another for work, instead of the masters competing for men, there's a
+change. Natural enough, those in need of work will take it at a lower
+rate, rather than go without; and down the wages run. It isn't a surer
+law that water finds its own level, than that wages do the same."</p>
+
+<p>"But suppose now you won't let men take lower wages. Suppose, by the
+power of combination, you force the wages to keep at a higher level
+than they'd do naturally? That's possible sometimes, I don't deny; just
+as you can bank up a stream of water, and hinder it from flowing down."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm not talking about the right or the wrong of such action, nor
+whether you've a right to restrain the freedom of others. That's for
+you and them to consider. But I'll tell you what must be the result of
+such action."</p>
+
+<p>"By forcing up the wages, you make the fruits of your work more dear
+than elsewhere. Then other towns or other countries will compete
+against you, producing the same things more cheaply. Then the public
+will leave you, and buy elsewhere. Stands to reason, don't it, that
+folks turn to the cheapest market for their goods? If you men can buy
+a serviceable coat for a low price at one shop, you won't choose to
+pay a high price for the same at another shop. So, by getting higher
+wages than are really your due, you'll have driven away the trade from
+your neighbourhood, perhaps from your country; and masters and men will
+suffer alike."</p>
+
+<p>"Maybe you'll say that if all working-men over the world joined into
+one great league, they could force up the wages everywhere alike.
+Well, I don't know as that's altogether an impossible state of things
+for a time. But mind you, it would be only for a time. It couldn't go
+on always. The produce of higher wages being too expensive for the
+condition of the times, people would buy less; or they'd find something
+else cheaper to use instead. I don't know as I'm making myself clear;
+but it's clear to myself what I mean."</p>
+
+<p>"I can't tell what 'll be the outcome of the present strike. Maybe, if
+you go on long enough, the masters will give in, and you'll get your
+higher wage. Well, and if so be the state of the market allows it, all
+will go right. But if your doing so forces the masters to put a higher
+price on the produce of your work than is paid for it elsewhere, we
+shall be losers in the end. For trade will flow away from our town.
+Customers will go elsewhere."</p>
+
+<p>"You'll tell me now that I'm arguing on the masters' side. But I'm not.
+It's the men's side I'm considering; and the trouble you'll all be in,
+if a time of slack trade comes."</p>
+
+<p>"I want you all, as I've said before, to take a common-sense view of
+the matter. That's what some of your fine speechifiers don't help you
+to do. I dare say you'd like it better if I was to talk a lot about
+tyranny and oppression, and iron heels trampling you down, and such
+trash, and then was to butter you up for a set of noble chaps, the like
+of which never trod this earth before."</p>
+
+<p>"You're used to that sort of thing, ain't you, now? But it's not in my
+line, nor never will be. You may be noble if you choose—all and any
+of you. I don't say you all are; any more than I'd go for to say that
+all the aristocracy or all the capitalists of the country are noble.
+Nobody's noble who lives to himself, and who's a slave to any manner
+of wrong-doing. But there's many a noble fellow among them; and I hope
+there's many a noble fellow among us too. Any way, I've a notion that
+your iron-heeled aristocracy would be the last to deny the fact. Only,
+whether you're noble or no, I do say you let your eyes be too easy
+blinded by a handful of dust."</p>
+
+<p>"Now you just think quiet for a minute or two, about this notion of
+cheap and dear labour depending on whether it's plentiful or scarce."</p>
+
+<p>"You all know that pearls and diamonds cost a lot more than bits of
+glass and wood. Why do they? Because they're valuable, you'll say. But
+why are they valuable? Because men want to have them? No, it's not that
+only. It's because they're scarce.</p>
+
+<p>"Take the Kohinoor—the grandest diamond in England, belonging to Her
+Majesty. Three cheers for our noble Queen, lads!" John's hat went up,
+and the haggard men before him responded warmly. "That's it!" said
+John, well pleased. "Now about the Kohinoor. I'm afraid to say how much
+it is worth. But supposing that instead of one there was fifty such
+diamonds in the country. Would they all be worth as much? No, of course
+not. And suppose there was ten thousand—why, lots of people could buy
+them then, the price 'ud be so much lower. And suppose they were as
+common as pebbles in the road; why, then you'd be able to, pick them up
+like pebbles, you know, and not have to pay anything at all."</p>
+
+<p>"So a thing is worth more or less, partly according to whether it's
+wanted, but mostly according to whether it's scarce or plentiful."</p>
+
+<p>"That's how it is with labour. When there's much work to be done, and
+few men to do it, labour is dear because it's scarce. When there's
+little work to be done, and many men to do it, labour is cheap because
+it is plentiful. And when labour is cheap, no amount of strikes can
+make it worth more than it is worth, even though wages may be forced up
+unnaturally for a while."</p>
+
+<p>"Would you go for to say," put in a voice, "that strikes are never on
+no account to be resorted to?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, I don't say that," returned John. "It's natural and it's right
+that working-men should band together to protect their own interests;
+and maybe now and then a strike's the only method open to them. Any
+way, I do know it oughtn't to be a common thing. For in nine cases out
+of ten, lads, the loss is more than the gain. A strike is wise, only
+when affairs are in such a condition, that you all know on the very
+best authority—not only on Pope's authority—that a rise is your just
+due, and that there's no chance of your getting it for a long while
+save by a strike. That's a state of things that might be; and then
+if you liked to go in for a strike—well, it mightn't be altogether
+unreasonable."</p>
+
+<p>"But a strike should be your last resort, not your first. If a rise in
+wages is really your due, I suppose it's sure to come sooner or later,
+from the pressure of competition, whether you strike or whether you
+don't. But if you're mistaken as to the state of things, and a rise is
+not your due—why a strike isn't like to do more than bring loss and
+disappointment; or even if it does force the wages up for a bit, that
+can't last, and things will be worse for your trade in the end."</p>
+
+<p>"It 'ud be a good thing if masters and men would draw together, and be
+more friendly-like, and each listen to the other. For there's rights
+on both sides, and difficulties on both sides; and there's room on
+both sides for a kind and thoughtful spirit to be shown. It wouldn't
+do no harm to you, lads, if you was sometimes to put yourselves into
+the masters' place, and think how you'd act there. And I wish the
+masters would do the same for the men. Not as they don't sometimes,
+I'll be bound. There's masters and masters, just as there's men and
+men! I don't see as we ourselves have much to complain of. Mr. Bertie
+and Mr. Lovett have been good friends to us for many a year. It wasn't
+till Pope came to enlighten our ignorance, that we found out we was
+grovelling under the heels of two bloodthirsty tyrants."</p>
+
+<p>"No, no; not so bad as that!" cried several voices.</p>
+
+<p>"Hope not!" said John dryly. "Any way, my slavery don't fret me much.
+I've got along pretty comfortable, in spite of it—till these last
+weeks."</p>
+
+<p>"I say," broke in a fresh voice, "that's all very fine, you know, what
+you've been saying; and I don't say there's no truth in it. But I'd
+like to know one thing, and that is, why working-men are paid at a
+higher rate in other countries than in England?"</p>
+
+<p>"And perhaps, if I answer that, you'll tell me why workmen are paid at
+a lower rate in other countries than in England," said John.</p>
+
+<p>"Look at America," was the answer.</p>
+
+<p>"And look at France—look at Germany—look at Holland. It comes in both
+cases from the same reason. Labour is more scarce in one place than in
+another; or, capital is more plentiful. Either way the wages must rise."</p>
+
+<p>"Twelve to eighteen shillings a day, as I've heard say Englishmen could
+make awhile back in a place called Lima," chimed in somebody else.</p>
+
+<p>"Maybe so," John answered. "And if you want to make that amount, you'd
+best go there—supposing it's the same still. Only take care too many of
+you don't go; for as sure as labour gets more plentiful, the wages will
+run down."</p>
+
+<p>"When you think of the lower rate of wages paid to workmen on the
+Continent, you'll no doubt say that the advantage on our side is all
+owing to Trades, Unions and strikes. But it's nothing of the sort.
+Trades Unions, property managed, are all very well in their way; and
+a strike at the right time may be a good thing in its way. But Trades
+Unions and strikes can't force wages up to a higher level and keep them
+there, when the state of the labour-market don't allow it."</p>
+
+<p>"There's trades in England, with powerful Unions, which haven't made
+any advance in wages during years past. There are trades on the
+Continent, with no Unions at all to push for them, which have just gone
+on with the tide; and the workmen have gained twenty or thirty per
+cent. on their wages."</p>
+
+<p>"I've spoken longer than I meant when I began; and now it's about time
+I should stop. A word more, first. You'll tell me, perhaps, that many a
+strike isn't for higher wages, but for shorter hours. So it is. English
+workmen are growing mighty careful of themselves nowadays, and afraid
+of work. But the rise is the same either way. It's a rise if you get
+better pay for ten hours' work than before; and it's a rise if you keep
+ten hours' pay for nine hours' work."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; and it's the same thing in another way. The cost of production
+is greater, whichever sort of rise you get; and that means a higher
+price for the thing sold; and that means, sometimes, driving away the
+trade to some other place. A lot of trade has drifted away from England
+to foreign countries, of late years—and why? Just because the shorter
+hours and higher wages of English workmen mean higher prices for the
+produce of their work—and people won't pay higher prices when they can
+get as good for lower. Would you? No, of course you wouldn't!"</p>
+
+<p>"You've borne patiently with me, and I mustn't tax you further, though
+there's plenty more I could say yet. But I do want you just to think
+over these matters for yourselves, and not be led away by fine talk
+which hasn't sense in it. And while you're thinking, you just remember
+the wives and children at home. What's best for them?"</p>
+
+<p>Holdfast sat down without another word, and not without his meed of
+applause.</p>
+
+<p>But though he was heard patiently throughout, and though he had dropped
+some seeds which might perchance take root, yet those present were
+few in number compared with the many out on strike; and those few had
+not force of character or vigour of will to speak out and to act for
+themselves.</p>
+
+<p><br></p>
+
+<figure class="figcenter" id="image022" style="max-width: 25.3125em;">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/image022.jpg" alt="image022">
+</figure>
+
+<p><br><br><br></p>
+
+<figure class="figcenter" id="image023" style="max-width: 25.3125em;">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/image023.jpg" alt="image023">
+</figure>
+
+<h3><a id="Chapter_9">CHAPTER IX.</a></h3>
+
+<p class="t3">
+A COLD EVENING.<br>
+</p>
+
+<p><br></p>
+
+<p>IT was a Sunday evening, and bitterly cold. A hard frost had come to
+aggravate the misery which already reigned in the town.</p>
+
+<p>Martha Stevens cowered over a scanty fire, with her shivering children.
+Harry had wailed himself to sleep in his little bed; but Millie and
+Bobbie were up still, clinging to their mother's faded dress.</p>
+
+<p>"I wonder what father's doing," patient Millie said. She did not utter
+the first words which rose to her lips—"I wonder if father 'll bring us
+anything to eat." Millie was unusually thoughtful for her few years,
+and would not say needlessly what would distress "mother."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know. There isn't much here to tempt him," sighed Martha.</p>
+
+<p>The door opened slowly. "I say—may I come in, Mrs. Stevens?" asked a
+voice.</p>
+
+<p>A ragged slatternly figure, carrying a baby, entered and drew towards
+the fire-place. It was their near neighbour, Mrs. Hicks.</p>
+
+<p>"You can sit down," said Martha; "only shut the door first. The wind's
+bitter cold. Do you want anything?"</p>
+
+<p>"That's a nice question, ain't it?" said Mrs. Hicks, acting on the
+leave given. "Do I want—anything? O no; we're all so flush o' cash just
+now, we don't want nothing, do we? Not you, nor me, nor nobody!"</p>
+
+<p>Martha made no answer. She felt too listless and despairing for
+neighbourly talk. Molly Hicks gazed round the little room with hungry
+eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"Maybe you've not got to such a pass as we," she said. "Maybe you
+haven't a crust to spare!"</p>
+
+<p><br></p>
+
+<figure class="figcenter" id="image020" style="max-width: 25.3125em;">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/image020.jpg" alt="image020">
+</figure>
+<p class="t4">
+<b>"Maybe you haven't a crust to spare!" she said.</b><br>
+</p>
+
+<p><br></p>
+
+<p>"It wouldn't be on the shelf long if I had," Martha said in a hard tone.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah—then I'm come to the wrong place," said Molly. "Look here, Mrs.
+Stevens!"</p>
+
+<p>She held out a wan baby, with claw-like fingers and wizened face—a face
+that might have belonged to some old man.</p>
+
+<p>"And Jack 'll stand seeing that! And he'll stand knowing that the
+child's being killed! It'll die soon! And I tell him so! And he won't
+believe, till it's too late! If ever I go and work him up again to this
+sort of thing, I'll—"</p>
+
+<p>Molly caught her breath in a sob. But for her "working up," as she
+rightly termed it, her husband might never have joined the strike.
+He was a man slow to decide, difficult to move; but when once he had
+decided on some new course of action, he was equally resolute in
+holding, to it. Molly had given the impulse. She could not now undo her
+own work.</p>
+
+<p>"How long does your husband s'pose it'll last?" asked Mrs. Hicks, after
+a pause.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know. Nobody don't know," said Martha wearily. "Till the
+masters give in, or till the men see they've no hope of getting their
+way. And they don't seem like to see that, so long as Mr. Pope goes on
+talking at them."</p>
+
+<p>"I wish Pope was at the bottom of the sea. That's what I wish," said
+Mrs. Hicks, slowly rising.</p>
+
+<p>Martha's drooping manner and empty cupboard did not tempt her to a
+longer stay. Wrapping the baby in her torn shawl, she went out again.</p>
+
+<p>"Mother, how dreadful bad Mrs. Hicks' baby does look," said Bobbie.</p>
+
+<p>Martha could not speak. She could only think how changed were the faces
+of her own children—of little Harry especially. Bobbie's mind seemed to
+go in the same direction.</p>
+
+<p>"And Millie's got such thin arms; and baby don't laugh as he used, and
+all the red's gone out of his checks. I wish I was a man; I'd go off to
+the works, and get a lot of money."</p>
+
+<p>"It'll be long enough before you're a man, Bobbie," sighed his mother.
+"Years and years first. And when you are, I suppose you'll just be like
+the rest,—do what everybody else does, and never think about the little
+ones at home."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't father think?"</p>
+
+<p>Martha put a sudden check upon herself.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, he does," she said. "He does think; and it goes to his heart to
+see baby Harry's look. I didn't mean that, Bobbie; I only meant, I wish
+with all my heart the strike was over."</p>
+
+<p><br></p>
+
+<p>"Look 'ee here, Mrs. Holdfast!"</p>
+
+<p>Molly Hicks once more held out her baby, and Sarah Holdfast's kind face
+softened with pity.</p>
+
+<p>"Poor little thing! Why, she's wasted away to nothing!"</p>
+
+<p>"Starving!" said Mrs. Hicks, in a dry unnatural voice.</p>
+
+<p>"Poor little thing!" repeated Mrs. Holdfast.</p>
+
+<p>"There's nothing for anybody at home. And we've parted with pretty
+near everything. The house is just left bare. They've helped us at the
+shops, till they say they can't go on no longer. I don't know how it'll
+all end. I've got nobody to help me, nor nobody to turn to."</p>
+
+<p>Molly Hicks sat down on the doorstep of the Holdfasts' cottage, and
+rocked the baby to and fro. It set up a faint whimper, as if in
+response, but seemed too weak to cry.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't stay there. You'll give the child its death of cold. Come in,
+and you shall have a cup of tea," said Sarah, "and some milk for baby."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Hicks obeyed the invitation with alacrity.</p>
+
+<p>Tea-things were still on the table, for Mrs. Holdfast had delayed for
+once putting them away until the children were in bed. She was glad now
+of Bessie's unwonted sleepiness. A little boiling water added to the
+remains of tea in the tea-pot, soon produced a very drinkable cup; and
+Molly disposed of it eagerly. A big slice of bread and butter awaited
+her also; but she turned from it, to soak scraps of dry bread in a
+saucer of milk, and to squeeze them between the tiny creature's parched
+lips. Sarah looked on with tearful eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"There! Not too fast," she said. "Take something yourself now."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know how to thank you enough, that I don't," said Molly Hicks
+at length, when her wants and those of the baby seemed both satisfied.
+"I haven't had such a meal for days. It's not a bit of good to say one
+word to my husband. He won't listen. If he'd a grain of sense, he'd be
+back at work—now work's to be had. But he won't. He's as obstinate—!"</p>
+
+<p>"One man's afraid to stir without the rest stirring too," said Sarah.</p>
+
+<p>"Then he'd ought to think of his children, and put his fears in his
+pocket," said Molly.</p>
+
+<p>"You didn't think like that in the beginning of the strike," Sarah
+ventured to say.</p>
+
+<p>"No, I didn't—more fool I!" said Molly. "Talking a lot of rubbish, and
+getting him to go along with the rest, when he wouldn't have done it
+but for me! O yes, he'd hear me then; but he won't hear me now. I just
+wish I'd bitten off my tongue first! You don't look as if you'd come to
+the end of everything yet, Mrs. Holdfast."</p>
+
+<p>"No," said Sarah quietly. "It isn't John's fault he can't work; and
+he's been helped."</p>
+
+<p>"He ain't at work yet."</p>
+
+<p>"His arm isn't well enough. It's been business—longer than we thought.
+The doctor says he'll have to rest it yet awhile."</p>
+
+<p>"Everybody knows how that came about," said Molly.</p>
+
+<p>Sarah was silent.</p>
+
+<p>"Some folks do say it was an accident. But everybody knows. It was the
+men—because your husband wouldn't join 'em."</p>
+
+<p>"Maybe," Sarah said in constrained tones. "Well——all we can do is to—"</p>
+
+<p>"Have the law out of 'em! But you can't!" said Molly.</p>
+
+<p>"No. We can't; for John doesn't know who it was. Any way, we've got to
+forgive them."</p>
+
+<p>"That ain't so easy," said Molly, with a short laugh, hanging over the
+fire. "Where's your husband now?"</p>
+
+<p>"Gone to church."</p>
+
+<p>"Catch my husband putting his foot inside of a church door," said Molly.</p>
+
+<p>"Then he loses a lot of happiness," said Mrs. Holdfast. "John and me
+can't go together, because of the children; but he mostly manages for
+me to go once, and he does like to go twice, as often as not. I've been
+this afternoon; and he's been morning and evening. We wouldn't give it
+up—no, not for anything."</p>
+
+<p>"Why, what's the good?" asked Molly, opening her eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"I think the good is, because it's right—first," said Mrs. Holdfast.
+"And if we go in a right spirit, it brings us nearer to God. And we
+go to worship Him, and to learn about Him. You just try, Mrs. Hicks;
+you'll soon feel you couldn't do without it."</p>
+
+<p>"I!" said Mrs. Hicks. "In this gown! And it's the only one I've got."</p>
+
+<p>"I'd sooner go in a work-a-day gown than not at all," said Sarah.
+"Maybe it would be hard. But I'm quite sure I couldn't stay away. I
+don't know how I'd ever bear trouble when it comes, if I hadn't such a
+Friend to turn to, and to ask to help me."</p>
+
+<p>"A friend! Do you mean Mr. Hughes?"</p>
+
+<p>"No; I didn't mean Mr. Hughes, though he's been a real good friend and
+no mistake," said Mrs. Holdfast. "I meant One above—One who's a Friend
+to all that call up on Him. I wouldn't stay away from His House, when
+I've a chance to go—no, not for anything you could mention. And John,
+he feels the same, Mrs. Hicks."</p>
+
+<p><br></p>
+
+<figure class="figcenter" id="image025" style="max-width: 25.3125em;">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/image025.jpg" alt="image025">
+</figure>
+
+<p><br><br><br></p>
+
+<figure class="figcenter" id="image026" style="max-width: 25.3125em;">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/image026.jpg" alt="image026">
+</figure>
+
+<h3><a id="Chapter_10">CHAPTER X.</a></h3>
+
+<p class="t3">
+THE QUEER LOOK OF THINGS.<br>
+</p>
+
+<p><br></p>
+
+<p>"THERE was another meeting of the men last night, Peter," said Mr.
+Hughes one morning, in a thoughtful tone, as he paced the garden-path.</p>
+
+<p>"Werry important meeting, sir," said Stuckey.</p>
+
+<p>"Were you there yourself?"</p>
+
+<p>"I was, sir. It's interestin' to watch an' see the course which matters
+is a-takin'."</p>
+
+<p>Peter spoke in a contemplative tone, gazing straight over the top of
+the Rector's hat.</p>
+
+<p>"What course are they taking?" asked Mr. Hughes, amused.</p>
+
+<p>"An' that's the werry question, sir," responded Peter, moving his head
+to and fro, with an air of profound consideration.</p>
+
+<p>"Did Pope address the men?"</p>
+
+<p>"And he did, sir; an' told the men a lot of things in werry uncommon
+fine language. Pope speaks a deal finer than you do, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"He does, does he?" laughed Mr. Hughes.</p>
+
+<p>"Werry much finer, only it ain't by a long chalk so clear to the
+understandin'. For why, sir? Peter Pope, he strings together a lot of
+fine words, like children do with glass beads, and those that listens
+is none the wiser. But he does a deal of butterin', and that's what the
+men likes. They likes the butter laid on thick, and no mistake, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"Human nature, I'm afraid. Most people have no objection to a certain
+amount of flattery."</p>
+
+<p>"Just my own view of the matter, sir. As I was a-telling of Holdfast
+this very morning: 'They likes a good spread o' butter, Holdfast,' says
+I; 'and they don't know, not they, as it's rancid butter, calc'lated to
+do 'em no good.'"</p>
+
+<p>"What did Pope say to them yesterday, Peter?"</p>
+
+<p>"Telled 'em what a splendid set of manly fellows they all was, sir, to
+be sure, and what a cowardly lot of sneaking chaps they'd got over 'em.
+Telled 'em too they'd got everything in their own hands—sort of general
+management of the whole world, you know—and all they'd got to do was to
+strike, an' strike, an' strike again, and drive the wages up as high as
+ever they liked. That's what he says! Telled 'em the masters 'ud soon
+give in, and then they'd have another strike, and the masters 'ud give
+in again. All as easy as b—a—ba, sir!"</p>
+
+<p>"And the men believed him!"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I don't know as I can 'xactly say that, sir. There is some among
+the men as has too much sense to be altogether so easy bamboozled with
+a lot of clap-trap. But any way, they do like uncommon to hear it all.
+Sort of tickles and soothes 'em, you know."</p>
+
+<p>"Was Holdfast there?"</p>
+
+<p>"I've a notion not, but I ain't sure. Any way, he's spoke up bravely
+once, and I make no doubt he'll do it again. I'm not sure as I won't
+take up the line myself some day."</p>
+
+<p>"Which line?" Mr. Hughes asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Speechifying, sir, for the good of them as is ignorant," Peter said
+loftily.</p>
+
+<p>"You think you have a gift that way?"</p>
+
+<p>Peter scratched his head, divided between modesty and assurance.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, sir, my old mother, she were knowing and no mistake, and she'd
+used to say I had a gift for most things, whatever I chose to take up."</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps a little practice beforehand would be advisable, before
+adventuring yourself in public," suggested Mr. Hughes.</p>
+
+<p>"Just the werry identical same conclusion as I comed to myself,"
+asserted Peter. "Nothing in the world like practice for giving of a
+man confidence, sir. And it's confidence as does it. It ain't the gift
+only; it's confidence, and practice leads to confidence."</p>
+
+<p>"Have you begun your practising?"</p>
+
+<p>"It ain't my way, sir, for to go a-puttin' off when I sees a duty
+plain afore me. Soon 's I sees my way, I up and does it. Yes, I was
+a-practising yesterday evening; an' I'd just got to that 'ere point,
+sir, as I'd worked up a picture-like of a lot o' men round, all
+a-listenin' as meek as lambs, and I a-giving out o' my opinions—I'd got
+to that 'ere point, sir, when Mary Anne she come in, an' says she,—"</p>
+
+<p>"'Why, Peter,' says she, 'whatever are you after,' says she, 'a-hitting
+out at the candlestick like that?' says she."</p>
+
+<p>"'That's action,' says I. 'A fine thing is action,' says I, 'and Pope's
+got a lot of it. Gives him a sort of hold-like on people's minds, Mary
+Anne,' says I."</p>
+
+<p>"Mary Anne she didn't see it, and she fell a-laughing at me, fit to
+bu'st; but there's no manner o' doubt it is so, sir. Nor action ain't
+hard to get, neither. It's just a swing, an' a stamp, an' a bang of
+the feet now and agin, and a deal o' tossing about o' the arms between
+times. Just a sort of emphaticallizing of the words by means o' the
+body, you see, sir. I've been a-telling Holdfast he's got to work up
+his action, afore he speaks agin. The men likes a lot of action."</p>
+
+<p>"I shouldn't recommend either you or Holdfast to take Pope for your
+model," said the much diverted Mr. Hughes, as he moved away. "A
+statement, well worded, may be quite as emphatic without the swing or
+the stamp."</p>
+
+<p>Peter stood motionless, weighing this parting utterance. He rubbed his
+forehead more than once in dubious style.</p>
+
+<p><br></p>
+
+<figure class="figcenter" id="image024" style="max-width: 25.3125em;">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/image024.jpg" alt="image024">
+</figure>
+<p class="t4">
+<b>"'A fine thing is action,' says I, 'and Pope's got a lot
+of it.'"</b><br>
+</p>
+
+<p><br></p>
+
+<p>"Don't know as I can give in to that 'ere notion neither. There ain't
+no doubt as the men likes action. A speaker as didn't stir a finger
+wouldn't make no way with our chaps. They likes a stamp and a bang,
+once and agin. Same time, they did listen pretty patient to Holdfast;
+for all he'd no action, nor didn't lay on the butter."</p>
+
+<p>"It's a queer thing now—come to think of it!—A werry queer and
+extraordinary thing, to see all these able-bodied fellows hanging about
+idle for weeks an' weeks, an' bringing their families to the brink o'
+starwation—and for why? 'Cause they're told! That's why! Peter Pope
+tells 'em to do it, and they does it! Not as they wants to do it, most
+of 'em! There's hundreds this minute as 'ud be glad and thankful to
+give in, an' be at work again! But no! They're bid to hold out, and
+hold out they will. They'll hold out, and they'll do all they can to
+make others hold out, and maybe punish them as don't."</p>
+
+<p>"And all the while they're sick at heart, poor fellows, knowing; all
+they've lost an' must lose, and knowing the misery at home! Supposing
+the masters do give way. What then! Think a bit of a rise in their
+wages 'll ever make up for what they've gone through these weeks? Not
+it! An' the men knows that—many of 'em—as well as I do; for they've
+sense down below. But they haven't the courage to speak out, nor to act
+for themselves. Talk of independence! They're like a flock of sheep,
+everybody a-running after the rest."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, it is a werry queer state of things indeed. But if it hadn't ha'
+been for that there accident, I'd ha' been among 'em now, scuttling
+after Pope, like to the rest."</p>
+
+<p>"'Tain't so amazin' the members of a Union holding out when they're
+bid. Whether it's wise or foolish orders they has, and whatever they
+thinks privately, they gets an allowance, and they're helped through.
+But it's mighty queer to see them hundreds of men who don't belong to
+no Union, nor don't get a penny from it saving by way of charity, all
+knuckling down alike. Werry advantageous for Pope! It's a fine increase
+of income as he's been getting all through the strike, which 'll stop
+when the strike stops."</p>
+
+<p>"So it ain't surprising that Peter Pope is sort of anxious to keep the
+strike a-going! And it ain't so werry surprising that the unionists
+shouldn't mind a bit longer holiday, an' being kept without havin'
+to work for their living. But it's most surprising an' altogether
+remarkable, when a lot of poor starving chaps, who don't get no extra
+income nor don't belong to no Union, should be so wonderful ready to do
+just as they're bid, and take the bread out of their children's mouth's
+to put jam an' pastry into Peter Pope's mouth! Don't seem fair on the
+children, though!"</p>
+
+<p><br></p>
+
+<figure class="figcenter" id="image027" style="max-width: 25.3125em;">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/image027.jpg" alt="image027">
+</figure>
+
+<p><br><br><br></p>
+
+<figure class="figcenter" id="image028" style="max-width: 25.3125em;">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/image028.jpg" alt="image028">
+</figure>
+
+<h3><a id="Chapter_11">CHAPTER XI.</a></h3>
+
+<p class="t3">
+BABY HARRY.<br>
+</p>
+
+<p><br></p>
+
+<p>"NO Sunday dinner to-morrow, mother," said Bobbie, late in the
+afternoon of a cold and wintry day. "I wish there was."</p>
+
+<p>"Not much chance of Sunday dinners, till father brings home wages
+regular again," sighed Martha.</p>
+
+<p>She looked thin and worn, poor woman, with weeks of insufficient food.
+Little enough came into the house these days; and what there was, she
+reserved, mother-like, as far as possible for the children, eating
+scarcely enough herself to keep soul and body together.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm so hungry, mother. I'm always hungry," complained Bobbie. "We
+don't never have enough now. O mother, it used to be so nice on
+Sundays. It isn't now."</p>
+
+<p>"No," she said patiently. "I haven't much for you to-morrow, Bobbie,
+without father brings anything home. And that ain't likely. I don't
+know whether—"</p>
+
+<p>She paused to stoop over baby Harry. He was lying on the little
+cot-bed, covered by a shawl. A slight moaning had drawn her attention.</p>
+
+<p>"He's so cold to-night. I don't like his look," she said anxiously.
+"Millie, just put one more scrap of coal on the fire. We mustn't use it
+all. But he's like ice."</p>
+
+<p>"Harry hasn't eaten nothing all day," said Millie.</p>
+
+<p>"He don't seem to have no appetite. He's got so low, for want of proper
+food—that's where it is," Martha said bitterly. "He turns against
+everything now. I'm sure I'm at my wits' end to know what to do. If he
+don't get better by Monday, I'll have to take him to the doctor's—not
+as it's much use. Good food's what he wants; and how am I to get it for
+him?"</p>
+
+<p>She lifted the little fellow, and brought him close to the fire, where
+she sat down. Harry lay heavily across her knees, not looking up at any
+of them.</p>
+
+<p>Martha leant forward to touch up the tiny fire.</p>
+
+<p>"We must have a bit of a blaze to warm him," she said. "He does seem
+bad. Speak to him, Millie. He always likes your voice, you know."</p>
+
+<p>Millie's blue fingers strayed lovingly over the wan baby-face.</p>
+
+<p>"Harry—Harry," she cooed softly. "Wake up, Harry."</p>
+
+<p>"He's too cold, and he wants food," said Martha, as there was no
+response. "You just hold him careful a minute, Millie, while I get a
+bit of bread. I'll try again. There's a drop of milk still."</p>
+
+<p>She crumbled the bread into the milk, and tried to feed the child, but
+he moaned and turned away. A spoonful of milk, slightly warmed, she
+held next to the pale lips—still in vain. None was swallowed. Harry
+only seemed to be fretted by her attempts; and there was a weak little
+wail of complaint. Martha gave it up, and took him back into her arms.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't like him being like this," she said uneasily. "It isn't his
+way. He used to be such a healthy little fellow."</p>
+
+<p>"Is it the strike, mother?" asked Bobbie.</p>
+
+<p>"It's being half-starved—and that's the strike," she said.</p>
+
+<p>"Then I wish there wasn't no strike," said Bobbie.</p>
+
+<p>Roger Stevens came into the room at this juncture.</p>
+
+<p>"No tea for me, I s'pose," he said gloomily.</p>
+
+<p>"There's a bit of bread, and a drop of milk," said Martha. "I'm out of
+tea, and I can't get any more. There's no money left, and only half a
+loaf for to-morrow. I durstn't touch that to-night."</p>
+
+<p>Stevens came to the table, and munched a few mouthfuls of the dry crust
+hastily, drinking off the milk at one draught.</p>
+
+<p>"I say; haven't you a drop more?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'm keeping it for Harry. He hasn't taken a scrap of food all day. I
+can't make him. Seems like as if his stomach turned against it. He's
+ill, Roger."</p>
+
+<p>She spoke plaintively.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, he'll be all right in a few days," said Stevens. Nevertheless,
+his eyes went uneasily to the small figure on Martha's knee. "It's the
+cold."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; cold and starvation. He's dying of the strike."</p>
+
+<p>"Dying! Rubbish and nonsense!" Roger spoke angrily. "No more dying than
+you nor me. He wants feeding up a bit. The strike's just at an end, and
+he'll be all right then."</p>
+
+<p>"Will he? Children don't get back strength so easy, once it's run
+down," said Martha. "How do you know the strike's at an end?"</p>
+
+<p>"Some sort of proposals has come from the masters—I've not heard
+particulars. Meeting us half-way, I'm told."</p>
+
+<p>"And it's going to be settled?"</p>
+
+<p>"There's a meeting. We're going to consider the question," said
+Stevens. "Some don't want to give in till we get the whole. It's only a
+half rise that's talked of. I don't know if we'll accept the offer, or
+if we'll wait a while longer."</p>
+
+<p>"And meantime—what are we to do?" asked Martha. "There's nothing to
+eat. What are we to do? Roger, don't be persuaded," she implored. "Do
+take the right side; and don't you mind what others say. If the masters
+give way one half, surely the men can give way the other half. It's
+like children if they don't—holding out because they've said they will.
+Don't you listen to what others say—Pope least of all. It's nothing to
+him—he, with all his comforts. And just look at us. It's life and death
+to the children."</p>
+
+<p>"A man must do as others do," came in answer.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't see the 'must.' Mr. Holdfast don't; and I'm sure he's as much
+of a man as any of you. I wouldn't be so easy led, if I was a man, that
+I wouldn't!" declared Martha passionately. "As if folks' talk was more
+to you than the wants of your own little ones."</p>
+
+<p>Stevens walked off, banging the door behind him; and the noise brought
+another moan from Harry. Martha sat watching him, tears running down
+her cheeks.</p>
+
+<p>"Maybe he'd like me to sing to him," said Millie. "Would he, mother?"</p>
+
+<p>"Try," was the reply.</p>
+
+<p>And Millie's thin but sweet child-voice rose softly in one of the hymns
+she had learnt at the Church Sunday-school, Bobbie's uncertain tones
+joining in now and then.</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+<br>
+"I love to hear the story,<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Which angel voices tell,<br>
+&nbsp;How once the King of Glory<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Came down on earth to dwell;"<br>
+<br>
+"I am both weak and sinful,<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;But this I surely know,<br>
+&nbsp;The Lord came down to save me,<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Because He loved me so."<br>
+<br>
+</p>
+
+<p>Millie came to a pause.</p>
+
+<p>"I've forgot the next verse," she said. "Mother, Harry likes me to
+sing. He's got his eyes open. Harry likes hymns about Jesus and the
+angels, don't he?"</p>
+
+<p>Martha only said "Go on," in a choked voice.</p>
+
+<p>And Millie started the last verse, Bobbie still following her lead.</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+<br>
+"To sing His love and mercy,<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;My sweetest songs I'll raise,<br>
+&nbsp;And though I cannot see Him,<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;I know He hears my praise:<br>
+&nbsp;For He has kindly promised<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;That even I may go<br>
+&nbsp;To sing among His angels,<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Because He loves me so."<br>
+<br>
+</p>
+
+<p>Baby Harry lay quite still. There was no response of look or word, as
+in earlier and brighter days. The blue eyes were shut, and the small
+face was white—how white Martha could not see in the dim light, though
+she could feel how heavily he lay on her arm. She resolved anew that on
+Monday, if he were not better, he must see the doctor.</p>
+
+<p>But no Monday would ever dawn for little Harry. He was slipping quietly
+away from the hard and bitter strifes of men, with all their sorrowful
+consequences, away to the Land of peace where love alone has sway;
+where want can never enter; where hunger and thirst are unknown. He who
+had "kindly promised" a Home among the angels, was even now drawing
+baby Harry out of the mother's clasp into His own strong and gentle
+Arms, "because He loved him so."</p>
+
+<p><br></p>
+
+<figure class="figcenter" id="image029" style="max-width: 25.3125em;">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/image029.jpg" alt="image029">
+</figure>
+
+<p><br><br><br></p>
+
+<figure class="figcenter" id="image030" style="max-width: 25.3125em;">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/image030.jpg" alt="image030">
+</figure>
+
+<h3><a id="Chapter_12">CHAPTER XII.</a></h3>
+
+<p class="t3">
+ANOTHER MEETING.<br>
+</p>
+
+<p><br></p>
+
+<p>IT was on the whole an orderly meeting, and altogether an earnest one.
+For a momentous decision had to be made. Many pale and haggard men
+present had had no meal worth mentioning through the past day.</p>
+
+<p>The masters' proposals were laid before them. The demand of the men on
+strike was for fifteen per cent. increase on their wages. Half this was
+conceded. If the men returned at once to work, seven and a half per
+cent increase should be theirs. If not, immediate measures would be
+taken to procure hands from elsewhere. This was distinctly stated.</p>
+
+<p>Then came the discussion. Should the men accept the offer, or should
+they refuse to yield one jot of their demand?</p>
+
+<p>Of course there were opposite views. Pope was loudly in favour of
+holding out; and he had his band of devoted followers. Some unionists,
+in receipt of a weekly allowance, which, though perhaps small, kept
+them from destitution, argued for firmness. But many present were
+not unionists; and it soon became evident which way the sense of the
+majority tended. Long pressure of want had loosened their implicit
+confidence in Peter Pope. Some of them had even begun to think a little
+for themselves, independently.</p>
+
+<p>A good many stood up in turn. The delegates who had interviewed the
+masters came first. Then Pope was allowed full swing; and many of his
+hearers, carried away for the moment by his honeyed phrases, seemed
+to swing with him. But others spoke out plainly after, in rough and
+terse language, showing up the miseries of the strike and its doubtful
+advantages, also in some cases protesting against the tyranny which
+would impose upon them all, a yoke chosen by the few.</p>
+
+<p>John Holdfast once again rose, and gave something of an abstract of his
+former speech, addressed now to larger numbers. It was well received,
+winning applause. When he sat down, Peter Stuckey made his appearance
+from a retired corner, and was hauled up on the platform. His crooked
+little figure and wizened comical face were the signal for a gust of
+laughter; but Peter stood his ground, nodded, smiled, and signified his
+intention to "say something."</p>
+
+<p>The chairman, with a broad grin, introduced him to the audience, and
+a hail of clapping followed. Stuckey chose a convenient spot on which
+to stand, braced himself for mental action, forgot all about bodily
+action, and dashed into the fray.</p>
+
+<p><br></p>
+
+<p>"I've seen pretty nigh all of you before, men; so don't need to say
+where I'm comed from. I was a fellow-workman of some o' you once—till
+it pleased God to afflict me, and cut me off from such employment.
+Well—He gave me a friend to take care o' me, and one as has been a
+friend to many a one o' you too, more especial of late. We'll give a
+cheer for Mr. Hughes, by and by.—Wait awhile!" shouted Stuckey. "I've
+got a lot to say, and bein' none too used to public speakin', I'll
+maybe forget."</p>
+
+<p>"You've all been hearing a lot o' sensible words spoke this evening.
+More sensible by a long chalk than some as I've heard spoke other
+evenings. Werry good, so far! But it won't do to end with talk, lads;
+you've got to make up your minds for to act."</p>
+
+<p>"Just you let me say first of all that I takes it this here is a
+conversational sort of a meetin' like, an' if any man don't agree with
+what's said, he's free to say so."</p>
+
+<p>If this was a clever dodge of Stuckey's, to cover a sudden confusion of
+ideas, consequent on his unaccustomed position, it proved successful.
+Up started two or three men, and two or three voices cried—</p>
+
+<p>"Got to act how? What action? Put it plain, Stuckey."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, if ye wants me to be the mouthpiece of the meeting, I'll put
+it plain an' no mistake," said Stuckey. "Ye've got to consider these
+here proposals, and to answer them. Ye've got to settle whether ye'll
+say 'yes,' and go back to your work; or whether you give up, once an'
+for all. For mind ye, they ain't going to shilly-shally. There's work
+to be done, and if you won't do it, somebody else will. Yes—furriners,
+maybe—" in response to a general groan.</p>
+
+<p>"It's no manner o' use to howl, boys! Howlin' won't stop 'em. I'm not
+especial fond o' furriners; no more than yourselves; but I hopes I've
+got a bit o' common' sense; and I do see that. If Englishmen won't
+work, furriners will. There's where it is. And it ain't likely the
+masters 'll keep the works all idle just as long as you choose, if
+others is willing to come and work. I wouldn't, if I was a master; nor
+none of you wouldn't, if you was masters. It's common-sense, lads."</p>
+
+<p>"But the masters is willin' to come half-way to you, if you'll go
+half-way to them. That's reasonable, that is! As fair an end to a
+quarrel as can be; each side a-going half-way to meet the other. You
+wouldn't have all the givin' in on one side, would you? Leastways, save
+and except the wrong was all o' one side, which is a most uncommon
+state of affairs."</p>
+
+<p>"Now I wouldn't go for to say in this here strike which side's been
+most wrong, nor which has been most right. Ain't no doubt it's been a
+half-and-half concern, right and wrong mixed up o' both sides like the
+plums an' suet in a pudden'. There's been mistakes, and there's been
+misunderstandings, and there's been a lot of hard words, not to speak
+of hard blows; and some o' you's misbehaved yourselves, an' forgotten
+your manliness, lads, for all Mr. Pope's so fond o' telling ye what a
+set of manly chaps ye be. It is forgetting your manliness, and it's
+acting like miserable curs an' sneaks, to set upon an innocent man
+in the dark, 'cause he don't see things just as you see 'em! An' you
+all know among yourselves whether there hasn't been some'at o' that
+sort going on, once and agin. But, howsoever, let's hope we won't have
+nothin' o' the sort agin, nor Englishmen forgetting they're men."</p>
+
+<p>"Nor I won't go for to say as the masters is altogether right. For why?
+I ain't sure about it. Uncommon pleasant-spoken gentlemen they is, an'
+you knows it, an' ready to do a kindness any day. But there's a law of
+love and kindness, men, an' a law of thinking for others afore a man's
+own pocket; an' I shouldn't wonder if that 'ere law of Christian love
+don't always reign in the hearts of masters towards their men, no more
+than it always reigns in the hearts o' the men towards the masters.
+Eh, lads! I wonder now, I do, which is fittest to fling a stone at the
+other, for t'other's want of loving-kindness!"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, now, to be werry plain indeed, an' to come to the p'int—my
+advice to you is,—End the strike! Accept these here proposals!"</p>
+
+<p>"And put your necks into a noose!" protested a voice.</p>
+
+<p>"Sounds uncommon like my namesake, t'other Peter," said Stuckey,
+peering about with wrinkled-up eyes. "Can't see ye nowhere, friend
+Pope, but maybe ye ain't far, seeing ye was on this here platform an
+hour since. If so be ye happens to be present still, allow me for to
+say as I condoles with ye most heartily, an' expresses the general
+sympathy o' the meeting, on the diminishment o' your income like to
+come on ye soon. It's werry tryin' to come down of a sudden in yer
+income! I've knowed that trial my own self, and my hearers has lately
+knowed it in a most marked an' melancholy way. We're werry grieved an'
+sad for ye, friend Pope; only 'tis more adwisable as your income should
+be diminished, than some hundreds o' families should be sunk altogether
+into a state o' starwation."</p>
+
+<p>This sally was received with a burst of laughter, in the midst of which
+somebody quitted the hall.</p>
+
+<p>"Shouldn't wonder if that's Mr. Pope hisself, so overcomed wi' the
+thoughts of his coming reduction, as he couldn't contain his emotions
+no longer. Werry sad for him! No! What—he's here still! Well,
+well,—'tisn't for to be expected as all present should disinterestedly
+sacrifice 'emselves for the sake o' Pope's pocket."</p>
+
+<p>Tumultuous cheering, mingled with certain loud protests from Pope or
+Pope's friends, gave Peter time to rearrange his ideas, and to start
+afresh.</p>
+
+<p>"You've all been a-hearin' of a lot o' wise remarks from Holdfast here.
+He's a friend o' mine, an' a friend o' many o' you, an' he's a friend
+worth havin'. For why? He's a man of sense, an' he's a true man. He
+don't butter ye up with clap-trap, and he ain't afraid to do what's
+right for fear o' consequences."</p>
+
+<p>"There's been a lot of talk about banding together, and resisting of
+oppression. Now I'm not a-going to cry down Trades Unions. I'm not
+a-goin' to deny, no more than Holdfast does, that working-men needs to
+band together for mutual help and protection, an' lookin' after one
+another's interests, as well as layin' by money in store agin' a rainy
+day."</p>
+
+<p>"But I'd like to speak a word of warning too, lads. Which is—Take care
+what ye're after! Don't ye, in fear of one tyranny, put yourselves
+under another. Trades Union men ain't infallible, no more than other
+men. Trades Unionism is werry apt to get selfish, and selfishness is
+short-sighted."</p>
+
+<p>"I won't deny as Trades Unions has done a lot of good; an' ye needn't
+be in a hurry to deny as they've mayhap done some harm too. Just you
+think for yourselves. Haven't they sometimes encouraged bad feeling
+between men and masters? Haven't they sometimes pushed you into strikes
+which couldn't end but in failure and loss?"</p>
+
+<p>"You're free an' independent working-men, ain't you? Well, but I
+wonder how many a one o' you dares stand out an' act independent in
+the face of the Union? How many a one among you, when he's at work,
+dares put forth his best strength, an do his utmost, an' run ahead of
+others? Ye don't need that I should tell you how things be! You look
+out sharp, men, or there won't be much o' your boasted freedom left
+to you soon,—and the tyrants of your choice will be those of your own
+standing. Don't see as that 'll make your bondage easier."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, well, 'tis easy to see you don't all agree with me! Not
+surprisin', neither, it isn't! For why? There's lots o' bad workmen to
+every good workman. 'Tis natural the bad workmen an' the lazy chaps
+should want to put themselves on a level with the best an' the most
+diligent. But what's natural ain't always fair, nor it don't always
+work well in the end. If I was you, I'd learn to look ahead a bit. I
+can tell you, shorter an' shorter hours, an' higher an' higher wages,
+an' easier an' easier work, sounds mighty pleasant. But it may mean
+some'at in the future as won't be pleasant. It may mean trade driven
+away from English shores to foreign countries. It may mean less work to
+do and too many men to do it, in our land."</p>
+
+<p>"Well; I've given my warning; an' that's all I can do. Anybody got any
+questions to ask?"</p>
+
+<p><br></p>
+
+<figure class="figcenter" id="image031" style="max-width: 25.3125em;">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/image031.jpg" alt="image031">
+</figure>
+
+<p><br><br><br></p>
+
+<figure class="figcenter" id="image032" style="max-width: 25.3125em;">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/image032.jpg" alt="image032">
+</figure>
+
+<h3><a id="Chapter_13">CHAPTER XIII.</a></h3>
+
+<p class="t3">
+A DISCUSSION.<br>
+</p>
+
+<p><br></p>
+
+<p>"I'VE a question to ask," said Roger Stevens, rising. "Holdfast said
+awhile since that labour is paid always at its true value. Now I don't
+agree to that."</p>
+
+<p>"I didn't say 'always.' I said that as a rule it is," remarked Holdfast.</p>
+
+<p>"Comes to pretty much the same thing, don't it?"</p>
+
+<p>"No. You have to allow a time before each rise and fall, when it's not
+paid at its exact market value. Sometimes it's paid over its worth, and
+then it must soon fall. Sometimes it's paid under its worth, and then
+it must soon rise. But it finds its true level in time either way, and
+competition alone will send it up or down, without the help of strikes."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know as I hold with you," repeated Stevens.</p>
+
+<p>"It's found to be true."</p>
+
+<p>"Found by who?"</p>
+
+<p>"Men who know a deal more of the matter than you or I. Men who have
+workmen in all parts of the world, and are able to compare the rise and
+fall of wages in different countries at the same time, noting the cause
+of each. These things have been watched and written about."</p>
+
+<p>"And you mean to say you'd do away with strikes altogether?" asked
+Stevens, in a voice of dissent.</p>
+
+<p>"No; I've told you already I wouldn't. But I would have them the last
+instead of the first resort. If you're being really paid under the
+fair worth of your labour, it's because the demand for that labour is
+increasing; and in such a case competition among the masters will soon
+act for you, and bring about a rise. If your labour is being paid at
+its fair value, no strike can bring about a lasting rise. If labour is
+growing more plentiful, and the demand is growing less, then, strike or
+no strike, your wages must fall."</p>
+
+<p>"And who's to settle what the fair value of our labour is? And who's
+to say when we're paid over or under what's right?" A subdued stamping
+signified general acquiescence in this question.</p>
+
+<p>"That's the difficulty, I grant you," Holdfast answered. "It's easy
+to say, if you and I are each on one end of a see-saw, we've just got
+to sit still, and let the board balance up and down till it finds its
+right position. We shouldn't need there to ask anybody to come and
+settle the slope of the board for us. The weight at each end would do
+that, if the board's only let alone. But it ain't so easy in the matter
+we're discussing; for each side is eager to grab the biggest profits,
+and it's hard to say how much ought justly to go to each, nor when
+things are fair and square. I wouldn't say no manner of pressure is
+ever needed on either side, to keep fair relations between employers
+and men—on both sides, mind!"</p>
+
+<p>"But I do say it's the pressure of competition which does in the end
+settle the question—the competition of masters for labour, or the
+competition of men for work, depending on which is the more scarce. We
+need to look after our interests, and the masters need to look after
+their interests; but neither they nor we have that power over the
+question which some would make out. Where there's much work to be done,
+and few men to do it, no combining of masters can keep the wages down;
+and where there's little work to be done, and many men to do it, no
+combining of men can keep the wages up."</p>
+
+<p>"Clear as daylight, ain't it?" chimed in Stuckey. "If labour's runnin'
+downhill, nobody can't make the wages run uphill; and if labour's
+runnin' uphill, nobody can't make the wages run downhill. If a rise
+is your due, why, you're pretty sure to get it by waitin' a bit; for
+it'll come in the natural course of events, like! If ye strike first,
+why most like ye'll wait a bit then too; and when it comes, ye'll be
+mighty stuck up, and think ye've won a huge victory. But fact is, you
+haven't got a victory at all. Ye've only half-starved your families,
+an' used up your savings, an' pawned your clothes, just for to get what
+ye'd have got in the end without all that bother, if ye'd been patient
+an' waited. The board's found its balance, don't ye see?—An' it's moral
+sure to have done that, if you hadn't given it no such shake."</p>
+
+<p>"It's competition as really settles the question. If you wants to test
+the matter now an' agin, why, a strike's not a bad test. But it's a
+werry expensive one; an' it means a lot of trouble. Nor I don't see for
+my part as it's a great consolation to yourselves, to think that maybe
+you've half-ruined a master or two, as well as half-starvin' of your
+own little ones. I'd sooner wait a while longer sometimes, lads!"</p>
+
+<p>Stuckey sat down, amid applause; but Holdfast was standing still.</p>
+
+<p>"Stevens was asking just now," he said, "about the worth of labour; and
+about how it's commonly found in the long run to be paid at its worth.
+Well, there's a curious fact I came across lately, and I don't know as
+it mayn't be new to some of you. It is that labour, taken generally, is
+found to be of pretty much the same value throughout the world."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! Oh!" cried two or three voices.</p>
+
+<p>"I mean what I say. Mind, I'm not giving you a hard and fast rule. I
+only tell you that it's been found generally, in places where capital
+and labour have free play, and where there ain't any extraordinary
+pressure from the scarcity of one or the other, that the cost of labour
+is wonderfully equal."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't see that at all," Stevens observed.</p>
+
+<p>"Maybe not; but it's worth your going into and reading about. It's been
+found by employers, with contracts in all parts of the world, that
+though the wages of the men in each place were different, the actual
+cost of the labour was much the same."</p>
+
+<p>"But I say," broke in a voice, "if the cost was different, how could it
+be the same?"</p>
+
+<p>"I said the wages were different, but the cost of the labour was equal.
+That's easy enough to understand. I'll give you two instances. There
+was a London bricklayer working beside a country one. The country
+bricklayer was paid three-and-sixpence a day for his work; the London
+chap five-and-sixpence. D'you suppose he was paid more because he was
+a Londoner? Of course not! He was paid more because his work was worth
+more. It was found that in one day he laid near upon twice as many
+bricks as the countryman. Would you say that his labour was the more
+expensive of the two?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, no," Stevens answered.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, and in some works on a French railway the French navvies were
+paid at the rate of two-and-sixpence a day, the English navvies at
+the rate of five shillings a day. It wasn't out of politeness to your
+country, you may be sure of that! It was because their labour was worth
+more. It was found, on comparison, that the work done by the English at
+five shillings a day was positively cheaper labour than the work done
+by the French at two-and-sixpence."</p>
+
+<p>A cheer interrupted John.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; that was good. English workmen have had that pre-eminence! But
+will they keep it?" asked Holdfast steadily. "There's a spirit among us
+now that makes one fear for the future of English trade."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, you see how it may be that labour, taken all round, is more
+equally paid than shows on the surface. It's the better workmen the
+better pay; just because he is a better workman. But the cost of work,
+done by the good workman at high pay, or done by the poor workman at
+low pay, is found to come to much the same in the end."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know as this question of the equality of the cost of labour
+has so much to do with us men as with the masters. It's a question that
+affects their pockets. But it's worth our knowing too; for it bears on
+the truth of labour being paid at its worth; and it tells us of forces
+which will have their way, and which masters nor men can't control."</p>
+
+<p>"Any way, you'll do well to hold back from vain struggles which can't
+profit you—struggles to bring about a rate of wages beyond the real
+worth of your labour. For you might as well try to force a river to run
+uphill."</p>
+
+<p>"And yet—" Holdfast spoke slowly—"and yet there are times, and no use
+to deny it, when things ain't fair, and the men have real good reason
+to know it—reason beyond the empty talk of clap-trap blusterers—and the
+question is, what's to be done?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't say it's often so. There's a deal of ignorance on such points;
+and sometimes there's unfair accusations; and many a strike fails of
+its object just because it deserves to fail. But for all that there are
+times, now in one trade, now in another, when a rise is known on all
+sides and acknowledged by good judges to be the real due of the men,
+and yet it's withheld."</p>
+
+<p>"It'll come in the end, no doubt. Sooner or later the pressure can't
+be resisted. But long waiting means loss; and when men have got big
+families and small means, it stands to reason they do want to get their
+due. Right they should too."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, even then, I still say, let the strike be your last resort, men!
+Don't fly to it at once. I do think a deal might be done first. For a
+strike itself means trouble and loss; and it does harm to yourselves
+and your families, harm to your trade and your country."</p>
+
+<p>"Why shouldn't masters and men meet in a kindly spirit, each
+acknowledging the rights of the other, to discuss the question? For
+each side has its rights, and each side has its difficulties; and
+there's no such thing as smooth sailing for masters any more than for
+men. I can't and don't see, for my part, why capital and labour need
+be at daggers drawn; seeing that each is needful for the life of the
+other, and seeing too that we're a Christian country."</p>
+
+<p>"There'd ought to be some way of getting at the truth of things, in
+this land, short of fighting. A strike means loss to masters and to
+men; and many a strike, it's found later, need never have taken place
+at all."</p>
+
+<p>"I'd have you all think for the future whether arbitration isn't
+sometimes a thing possible. Couldn't able and honourable men be found,
+who'd look into the state of the matter, and tell us in honest truth
+whether a rise is our just due—men who could be trusted by employers
+and workmen alike? Wouldn't sometimes a calm and temperate demand for a
+rise, backed by a real knowledge of the justice of it, be as likely to
+bring about what's wanted as all the anger and bitterness of a strike?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well—that's for another time. You've got to decide now for the
+present. An offer has come, meeting you half-way. Seems to me, we ought
+to go the other half to meet 'em. As friend Stuckey says, that's a
+tolerable fair ending to a struggle, each side yielding half."</p>
+
+<p>"Any way, I'm meaning to be at work again next week. I'd have been
+sooner, if it wasn't for a lame arm. I hope to see all of you at work
+too."</p>
+
+<p><br></p>
+
+<figure class="figcenter" id="image034" style="max-width: 25.3125em;">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/image034.jpg" alt="image034">
+</figure>
+
+<p><br><br><br></p>
+
+<figure class="figcenter" id="image035" style="max-width: 25.3125em;">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/image035.jpg" alt="image035">
+</figure>
+
+<h3><a id="Chapter_14">CHAPTER XIV.</a></h3>
+
+<p class="t3">
+HOW IT ALL ENDED.<br>
+</p>
+
+<p><br></p>
+
+<p>WHILE the men's meeting went on, Martha and the children still sat in
+the dim firelight. Millie and Bobbie were asleep, leaning against their
+mother's knee; and Martha, in a kind of half-dream, had forgotten the
+passing of time. It was beyond the little ones' hour for bed, and she
+had not noted the fact.</p>
+
+<p>Somebody came in with a light step, and Sarah Holdfast's pleasant voice
+asked, "Why, Mrs. Stevens, is this the way you spend your evening?"</p>
+
+<p>Martha sat slowly more upright, wearing a dazed look.</p>
+
+<p>"O dear, I'm tired," she said. "I didn't know it was so late."</p>
+
+<p>"And the children up still?"</p>
+
+<p>"They were so cold, I made a bit more fire, and they didn't seem to
+want to leave it. I must have been near asleep too," Martha gasped
+listlessly. "Well, I've got to wake 'em now."</p>
+
+<p>"Wait a minute. I'll light your candle. I've got a loaf of bread here,
+and some butter and a jug of milk. Poor thing!" as a faint cry escaped
+Martha. "You're so hungry, aren't you? There's a basket of food come
+from Mr. Hughes, and I knew John would want you to have a share. Don't
+you stir yet."</p>
+
+<p>Martha did not move. She sat motionless, staring down at the little
+head on her arm.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Holdfast had already lighted the candle, and pulled down the blind.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, you're as white as a sheet, you poor thing!" she said, stirring
+quickly about. "There! Give the children something to eat before they
+go to bed. And it's plain you want it too. Well, my husband's in hopes
+the strike will soon be over; and I'm sure I hope the same. It's been a
+hard time for you all. I'll tell you what—a cup of tea will do you more
+good than anything. Haven't got any? Never mind, I'll put the kettle on
+to boil, and get a pinch in from next door."</p>
+
+<p>Martha had not answered save by silence.</p>
+
+<p>She looked strangely pale, and the dazed expression in her eyes had
+increased. The little child on her knee lay motionless, and when Mrs.
+Holdfast came near, Martha shielded the tiny face from observation.</p>
+
+<p>"He's off—sound!" she said hoarsely.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, let him be a few minutes," said Sarah cheerfully. "Don't you get
+up yet. I'm sure you're not fit. Now, Millie, Bobbie—wake up, wake up."</p>
+
+<p>She aroused the two drowsy children; and Bobbie at once broke into
+fretting sobs. "I'm so hungry! I'm so hungry!" he wailed.</p>
+
+<p>Martha made no response at all, but Sarah took him to the table, and
+Bobbie's pitiful face changed into smiles at the sight of bread and
+butter. When he and Millie were supplied, Sarah hastened away for the
+"pinch of tea."</p>
+
+<p>On her return, she found Martha still in the same position, passive and
+white as an image, only with a bewildered wildness in her eyes. There
+was again the shielding motion of both hands to hide baby Harry's face.
+Mrs. Holdfast noticed it now, and wondered, but said nothing till the
+tea was ready. Then she poured out a cup, hot and strong, and brought
+it with a goodly slice of bread and butter to Martha's side.</p>
+
+<p>"That'll do you good," she said. "And you'll let me see to Harry, won't
+you? It's time he should have something."</p>
+
+<p>"No, he's sound—sound;" repeated Martha in a hollow voice.</p>
+
+<p>"Baby Harry hasn't eaten nothing all day," said Millie.</p>
+
+<p>"Then he oughtn't to wait, I'm sure. Give him to me."</p>
+
+<p>Martha did not resist when Sarah lifted the child from her lap, only
+her eyes followed him with a strange gaze, and Mrs. Holdfast's own face
+changed; for the little fair head fell helplessly, and the long lashes
+lay upon cheeks of waxen whiteness.</p>
+
+<p>Sarah checked the cry which rose to her lips. She turned to the fire,
+away from Martha.</p>
+
+<p>"He don't wake up, not even for your taking him," said Millie. "He must
+be dreadful sleepy."</p>
+
+<p>"He is—very sound," Mrs. Holdfast answered in trembling tones, as she
+pressed the tiny cold form more closely in her arms.</p>
+
+<p>"Give him back to me!" demanded Martha hoarsely.</p>
+
+<p>"No, my dear—take your tea first," said Mrs. Holdfast. "I'll lay him in
+his cot—just for—"</p>
+
+<p>"No, no—give him to me! I won't have him laid—laid out—nowhere!" cried
+Martha, in a voice of sharp anguish. "Give my baby back to me!"</p>
+
+<p>"I'll hold him for you. Just a minute or two. You take your tea and
+bread and butter. You must eat, you know."</p>
+
+<p>Martha obeyed silently, rapidly. It was almost more than Sarah had
+ventured to hope. Tea and bread and butter alike vanished, and a faint
+tinge of colour came to Martha's lips. She was able now to stand up,
+with outstretched hands.</p>
+
+<p>"Not yet," insisted Mrs. Holdfast. "You just put Millie and Bobbie to
+bed, and I'll see to him. Yes, do, my dear—it's best for you. Take
+them," pleaded the good woman.</p>
+
+<p>Martha yielded again. She hurried the two children away, and saw them
+both in bed. Undressing did not take long, but Sarah was busy also
+during her short absence.</p>
+
+<p>Harry's little cot had been much in the kitchen of late. He had slept
+away most of the day, often, in his growing weakness. When Martha
+returned, still with half-wild, half-dreamy eyes, she found Mrs.
+Holdfast standing beside the cot, and within lay Harry, prepared as if
+for the night. He had his little night-dress on, and the calm white
+baby-face rested peacefully on the pillow. The lips, just parted, were
+rigid in repose, and one wee waxen hand was crossed over the other.</p>
+
+<p>"You've put him to bed," said Martha's hollow voice.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, my dear; I've put him to bed," said Sarah pityingly.</p>
+
+<p>Martha came nearer, and gasped for breath, gazing upon the fair little
+image. Then her eyes went with passionate appeal to Sarah's.</p>
+
+<p>"Poor thing!" murmured Sarah.</p>
+
+<p><br></p>
+
+<figure class="figcenter" id="image033" style="max-width: 25.3125em;">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/image033.jpg" alt="image033">
+</figure>
+<p class="t4">
+<b>She hung over the cot, sobbing wildly.</b><br>
+</p>
+
+<p><br></p>
+
+<p>"You think I don't know! But I do!" said Martha bitterly. "I do! I do!
+He's murdered! If ever anybody was murdered, it's my—" and then she
+broke into a bitter wail—"O my baby! My baby Harry!"</p>
+
+<p>She hung over the cot, sobbing wildly, and Sarah's arm came round her
+in support.</p>
+
+<p>"He'll never be hungry again," she whispered. "Think of that, my dear;
+and don't you want him back. There 'll be no strikes up there. He's
+got to the end of all the trouble. Don't you go and say that to your
+husband when he comes. Stevens 'll have enough to bear!"</p>
+
+<p>Enough indeed! There was not one of his children whom Stevens loved as
+he loved baby Harry.</p>
+
+<p>An hour later he returned, light-footed and eager with the news which,
+he felt sure, would gladden Martha's heart. The door was flung open,
+and he entered briskly.</p>
+
+<p>"I say, Martha, it's all right! We've settled to accept the masters'
+proposals, and I'll be off to work to-morrow morning. It's all right.
+Just as you wanted."</p>
+
+<p>A gesture from Mrs. Holdfast checked Roger. She was present still,
+having persuaded a neighbour to stay with her own little ones for a
+time.</p>
+
+<p>Martha sat beside the cot, dropping hot quiet tears at intervals, and
+the desolate look of the mother's eyes, lifted to his, Stevens would
+not soon forget.</p>
+
+<p>"Too late now!" she whispered.</p>
+
+<p>Roger's glance went from her to the small face on the pillow—the face
+of his own little Harry, the child who till lately had never failed to
+greet him with a joyous spring, and cry of "Dadda." Harry had always
+been the father's especial pet. Even of late, when the child was too
+weak to spring or cry out, the tiny face had always brightened at the
+sound of Roger's voice.</p>
+
+<p>It did not brighten now; yet that was no look of common sleep. Roger
+knew the difference.</p>
+
+<p>"You don't say—What's the matter? Why don't you give him something, eh?
+Letting him lie there! And the room as cold—! What d'you want for him,
+Martha? Tell me, sharp, and I'll get it. I can now; we're going to work
+again, and it'll be all right."</p>
+
+<p>Martha's tears fell faster, and a sound like a sob crept into Roger's
+rough voice.</p>
+
+<p>"No use," Martha said brokenly; "the strike's done it at last. It's
+killed him—our baby Harry!"</p>
+
+<p>"He's better off. He'll never know trouble again," said Mrs. Holdfast.
+"Don't you go and want him back again too much—both of you. He's out of
+it all now!"</p>
+
+<p>"If I'd known! Why didn't somebody tell me?" demanded Stevens,
+hoarsely. "I'd have done—anything—if I'd known!"</p>
+
+<p>Sobs came hard and thick from the father's heart. But no sounds of
+grief could bring back the household darling; no wailing could reach
+him on that distant shore which he had reached. He was "out of it all
+now," indeed! The better for little Harry!</p>
+
+<p><br></p>
+
+<p>So the strike was at an end; and Peter Pope, finding his services no
+longer required, betook himself elsewhere.</p>
+
+<p>There were some who counted that the working-men of the place owed him
+much, seeing that by dint of the strike he had won for them an increase
+of seven and a half per cent. on their wages.</p>
+
+<p>There were others who held that the same increase would have come,
+probably as soon, without the pressure exerted by the strike.</p>
+
+<p>There were very many who found that the said increase of wages would by
+no means suffice to repay them for the heavy losses they had suffered
+through the strike.</p>
+
+<p>There were not a few who maintained that the trade of the town, and its
+consequent prosperity, had received lasting injury from the strike.</p>
+
+<p>On the whole it may be safely said, that if the strike had done some
+possible good, it had also done a considerable amount of positive harm.
+It may be hoped that the working-men of the town, having learnt wisdom
+from a success which involved more of loss than of solid gain, would be
+long before they embarked in another such enterprise.</p>
+
+<p><br><br><br></p>
+
+<p class="t3">
+THE END.<br>
+</p>
+
+<p><br><br><br></p>
+
+<div style='text-align:center'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 73196 ***</div>
+</body>
+</html>
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author	nfenwick <nfenwick@pglaf.org>	2025-01-15 15:06:44 -0800
committer	nfenwick <nfenwick@pglaf.org>	2025-01-15 15:06:44 -0800
commit	31c5aefe998dfd4aad5418de9befb5b50b838bb3 (patch)
tree	6322fb18d8c8f618eb7e3cf6bf46896d7e3bc282