by Ellen Wood
Very grave turned Austin’s face now. This was an open evil — one to be openly met and grappled with; and what his countenance gained in seriousness it lost in annoyance. ‘I really do not see how it will go on,’ was his reply, ‘unless we can get to work soon. I want to speak to Mr. Hunter. Can I see him?’
‘He will be in directly. He has not been down to-day yet. But I suppose you will wish to see him in private; I know he and you like to be alone when you talk upon business matters.’
At present it was expedient that Mrs. Hunter, at any rate, should not be present, if she was to be spared annoyance; for Mr. Hunter’s affairs were growing ominous. This was chiefly owing to the stoppage of works in process, and partly to the effect of a diminished capital. Austin as yet did not know all the apprehension, for Mr. Hunter contrived to keep some of it from him. That the diminishing of the capital was owing to Gwinn of Ketterford, Austin did know; at least, his surmises amounted to certainty. When a hundred pounds, or perhaps two hundred pounds, mysteriously went out, and Austin was not made acquainted with the money’s destination, he drew his own conclusions.
‘Are the men not learning the error of their course yet?’ Mrs. Hunter resumed.
‘They seem further off learning it than ever. One of them, indeed, came back to-day: Baxendale.’
‘I felt sure he would be amongst the first to do so. He is a sensible man: how he came to hold out at all, is to me a matter of surprise.’
‘He told me this morning, when he came and asked to be taken on again, that he wished he never had held out,’ said Austin. ‘Mary is none the better for it.’
‘Mary was here to-day,’ remarked Mrs. Hunter. ‘She came to say that she was better, and could do some work if I had any. I fear it is a deceitful improvement. She is terribly thin and wan. No; this state of things must have been bad for her. She looks as if she were half famished.’
‘She only looks what she is,’ said Austin.
‘Oh, Austin! I should have been so thankful to help her to strengthening food during this scarcity,’ Mrs. Hunter exclaimed, the tears rising in her eyes. ‘But I have not dared. You know what Mr. Hunter’s opinion is — that the men have brought it upon themselves, and that, to help their families, only in the least degree, would be encouraging them to hold out, and would tend to prolong the contest. He positively forbade me helping any of them: and I could only obey. I have kept indoors as much as possible; that I might avoid the sight of the distress which I must not relieve. But I ordered Mary a good meal here this morning: Mr. Hunter did not object to that. Here he is.’ Mr. Hunter entered, leaning upon Florence. He looked like an old man, rather than one of middle age.
‘Baxendale is back, sir,’ Austin observed, after a few words on business matters had passed in an under tone.
‘Come to his senses at last, has he?’ cried Mr. Hunter.
‘That is just what I told him he had done, sir.’
‘Has he signed the declaration?’
‘Of course he has. The men have to do that, you know, sir, before they get any work. He says he wishes he had come back at first.’
‘So do a good many others, in their hearts,’ answered Mr. Hunter, significantly. ‘But they can’t pluck up the courage to acknowledge it.’
‘The men are most bitter against him — urged on, no doubt, by the Union. They — —’
‘Against Baxendale?’
‘Against Baxendale. He came to speak to me before breakfast. I gave him the declaration to read and sign, and sent him to work at once. In the course of the morning it had got wind; though Baxendale told me he had given Sam Shuck notice of his intention on Saturday night. At dinner time, when Baxendale was quitting the yard, there were, I should say, a couple of hundred men assembled there — —’
‘The Daffodil Delight people?’ interrupted Mr. Hunter.
‘Yes. Our late men chiefly, and a sprinkling of Mr. Henry’s. They were waiting there for Baxendale, and the moment he appeared, the yells, the hisses, the groans, were dreadful. I suspected what it was, and ran out. But for my doing so, I believe they would have set upon him.’
‘Mark you, Clay! I will protect my workmen to the very limit of the law. Let the malcontents lay but a finger upon any one of them, and they shall assuredly be punished to the uttermost,’ reiterated Mr. Hunter, bringing down his hand forcibly. ‘What did you do?’
‘I spoke to them just as you have now spoken,’ said Austin. ‘Their threatenings to the man were terrible. I dared them to lay a finger upon him; I assured them that the language they were using was punishable. Had the police been in the way — but the more you want them, the less they are to be seen — I should have handed a few into custody.’
‘Who were the ringleaders?’— ‘I can scarcely tell. Ryan, the Irishman, was busy, and so was Jim Dunn; Cheek, also, backed by his wife.’
‘Oh, you had women also!’
‘In plenty,’ said Austin. ‘One of them — I think it was Cooper’s wife — roared out a challenge to fight Mrs. Baxendale, if her man, Cooper, as she expressed it, was too much of a woman to fight him. There will be bloodshed, I fear, sir, before the thing is over.’
‘If there is, let they who cause it look to themselves,’ said Mr. Hunter, speaking as sternly as he felt. ‘How did it end?’
‘I cleared a passage for Baxendale, and they yelled and hooted him home,’ replied Austin. “I suppose they’d like to take my life, sir,” he said to me; “but I think I am only doing right in returning to work. I could not let my family and Mary quite starve.” This afternoon all was quiet; Quale told me the men were holding a meeting.’
Florence was sitting with her hands clasped, her colour gradually rising. ‘If they should — set upon Baxendale, and — and injure him!’ she breathed.
‘Then the law would see what it could do towards getting some of them punished,’ sternly spoke Mr. Hunter.
‘Oh, James!’ interposed his wife, her pale cheeks flushing, as the words grated on her ears. ‘Can nothing be done to prevent it? Prevention is better than cure. Austin, will you not give notice to the police, and tell them to be on the alert?’
‘I have done it,’ answered Austin.
‘Papa,’ said Florence, ‘have you heard that Robert Darby’s children are ill? — likely to die? They are suffering dreadfully from want. Mary Baxendale said so when she was here this morning.’
‘I know nothing about Robert Darby or his children,’ was the uncompromising reply of Mr. Hunter. ‘If a man sees his children starving before him, and will not work to feed them, he deserves to find them ill. Florence, I see what you mean — you would like to ask me to permit you to send them relief. I will not.’
Do not judge of Mr. Hunter’s humanity by the words, or deem him an unfeeling man. He was far from that. Had the men been out of work through misfortune, he would have been the first to forward them succour; many and many a time had he done it in cases of sickness. He considered, as did most of the other London masters, that to help the men or their families in any way, would but tend to prolong the dispute. And there was certainly reason in their argument — if the men wished to feed their children, why did they not work for them?
‘Sir,’ whispered Austin, when he was going, and Mr. Hunter went with him into the hall, ‘that bill of Lamb’s came back to us to-day, noted.’
‘No!’— ‘It did, indeed. I had to take it up.’
Mr. Hunter lifted his hands. ‘This wretched state of things! It will bring on ruin, it will bring on ruin. I heard one of the masters curse the men the other day in his perplexity and anger; there are times when I am tempted to follow his example. Ruin! for my wife and for Florence!’
‘Mr. Hunter,’ exclaimed Austin, greatly agitated, and speaking in the moment’s impulse, ‘why will you not give me the hope of winning her? I will make her a happy home — —’
‘Be silent!’ sternly interrupted Mr. Hunter. ‘I have told you that Florence can never be yours. If you cannot put away this unthankful
subject, at once and for ever, I must forbid you the house.’
‘Good night, sir,’ returned Austin. And he went away, sighing heavily.
CHAPTER IV. SOMEBODY ‘PITCHED INTO.’
How do the poor manage to pull through illness? Through distress, through hunger, through cold, through nakedness; above all, through the close, unwholesome atmosphere in which too many of them are obliged to live, they struggle on from sickness back to health. Look at the children of Robert Darby. The low fever which attacked them had in some inexplicable way been subdued, without its going on to the dreaded typhus. If typhus had appeared at that untoward time in Daffodil’s Delight, why, then, no earthly power could have kept many from the grave. Little pale, pinched forms, but with the disease gone, there sat Darby’s children. Colder weather had come, and they had gathered round the bit of fire in their close room: fire it could scarcely be called, for it was only a few decaying embers. All sat on the floor, save Willy; he was in a chair, leaning his head back on a pillow. The boy had probably never been fitted by constitution for a prolonged life, though he might have lasted some years more under favourable surroundings; as it was, fever and privation had done their work with him, and the little spirit was nearly worn out. Mrs. Darby had taken him round to Mr. Rice. ‘He does not want me, he wants good nourishment, and plenty of it,’ was the apothecary’s announcement! And Mrs. Darby took him home again. ‘Mother, the fire’s nearly out.’
‘I can’t help it, Willy. There’s no coal, and nothing to buy it with.’— ‘Take something, mother.’
You may or may not, as you are acquainted or not with the habits of the poor, be aware that this sentence referred to the pawnbroker: spoken out fully it would have been, ‘Take something and pledge it, mother.’ In cases of long-continued general distress, the children of a family know just as much about its ways and means as the heads do. Mrs. Darby cast her eyes round the kitchen. There was nothing to take, nothing that would raise them help, to speak of. As she stood over Willy, parting the hair with her gentle finger upon his little pale brow, her tears dropped upon his face. The pillow on which his head leaned? Ay; she had thought of that with longing; but how would his poor aching head do without it? The last things put in pledge had been Darby’s tools. The latch of the door opened, and Grace entered. She appeared to be in some deep distress. Flinging herself on a chair, she clasped hold of her mother, sobbing wildly, clinging to her as if for protection. ‘Oh, mother, they have accused me of theft; the police have been had to me!’ were the confused words that broke from her lips. Grace had taken a service in a baker’s family, where there was an excessively cross mistress. She was a well-conducted, honest girl, and, since the distress had commenced at home, had brought her wages straight to her mother, whenever they were paid her. For the last week or two, the girl had brought something more. On the days when she believed she could get a minute to run home in the evening, she had put by her allowance of meat at dinner — they lived well at the baker’s — and made it upon bread and potatoes. Had Grace for a moment suspected there was anything wrong or dishonest in this, she would not have done it: she deemed the meat was hers, and she took it to Willy. On this day, two good slices of mutton were cut for her; she put them by, ate her potatoes and bread, and after dinner, upon being sent on an errand past Daffodil’s Delight, was taking them out with her. The mistress pounced upon her. She abused her, she reproached her with theft, she called her husband to join in the accusation; and finally, a policeman was brought in from the street, probably more to frighten the girl than to give her in charge. It did frighten her in no measured degree. She protested, as well as she could do it for her sobs, that she had no dishonest thought; that she had believed the meat to be hers to eat it or not as she pleased, and that she was going to take it to her little brother, who was dying. The policeman decided that it was not a case for charge at the police-court, and the baker’s wife ended the matter by turning her out. All this, with sobs and moans, she by degrees explained now.
Robert Darby, who had entered during the scene, placed his hand, more in sorrow than in anger, upon Grace’s shoulder, in his stern honesty. ‘Daughter, I’d far rather we all dropped down here upon the floor and died out with starvation, than that you should have brought home what was not yours to bring.’
‘There’s no need for you to scold her, Robert,’ spoke Mrs. Darby, with more temper than she, meek woman that she was, often betrayed: and her conscience told her that she had purposely kept these little episodes from her husband. ‘It is the bits of meat she has fed him with twice or thrice a week that has just kept life in him; that’s my firm belief.’
‘She shouldn’t have done it; it was not hers to bring,’ returned Robert Darby.
‘What else has he had to feed him?’ proceeded the wife, determined to defend the girl. ‘What do any of us have? You are getting nothing.’ The tone was a reproachful one. With her starving children before her, and one of them dying, the poor mother’s wrung heart could but speak out.
‘I know I am getting nothing. Is it my fault? I wish I could get something. I’d work my fingers to the bone to keep my children.’
‘Robert, let me speak to you,’ she said in an imploring tone, the tears gushing from her eyes. ‘I have sat here this week and asked myself, every hour of it, what we shall do. All our things, that money can be made on, are gone; the pittance we get allowed by the society does not keep body and soul together; and this state of affairs gets worse, and will get worse. What is to become of us? What are we to do?’ Robert Darby leaned in his old jacket — one considerably the worse for wear — against the kitchen wall, his countenance gloomy, his attitude bespeaking misery. He knew not what they were to do, therefore he did not attempt to say. Grace had laid down her inflamed face upon the edge of Willy’s pillow and was sobbing silently. The others sat on the floor: very quiet; as semi-starved little ones are apt to be. ‘You have just said you would work your fingers to the bone to keep your children,’ resumed Mrs. Darby to her husband.
‘I’d work for them till the flesh dropped off me. I’d ask no better than to do it,’ he vehemently said. ‘But where am I to get work to do now?’
‘Baxendale has got it,’ she rejoined in a low tone.
Grace started from her leaning posture.
‘Oh, father, do as Baxendale has done! don’t let the children quite starve. If you had been in work, this dreadful thing would not have happened. It will be a slur upon me for life.’
‘So I would work, girl, but for the Trades’ Unions.’
‘Father, the Trades’ Unions seem to bring you no good; nothing but harm. Don’t trust them any longer; trust the masters now.’
Never was there a better meaning man than Robert Darby; but he was too easily swayed by others. Latterly it had appeared to him that the Trades’ Unions did bring him harm, and his trust in them was shaken. He stood for a few moments, revolving the question in his own mind. ‘They’d cast me off, you see, the Trades’ Unions would,’ he observed to his wife, in an irresolute tone.
‘What if they did? The masters would take you on. Stand right with the masters — —’
Mrs. Darby was interrupted by a shriek from Grace. Little Willy, whom nobody had been giving attention to, was lying back with a white face, senseless. Whether from the weakness of his condition, or from the unusual excitement of the scene going on around him, certain it was that the child had fainted. There was some little bustle in bringing him to, and Mrs. Darby sat down, the boy upon her lap.
‘What ailed you, deary?’ said Robert Darby, bending down to him.
‘I don’t know, father,’ returned the child. And his voice was fainter than ever.
Mrs. Darby pulled her husband’s ear close to her lips. ‘When the boy’s dead, you’ll wish you had cared for him more than for the Trades’ Unions; and worked for him.’
The words told upon the man. Perhaps for the first time he had fully realized to his imagination the moment when he should see his boy lyin
g dead before him. ‘I will work,’ he exclaimed. ‘Willy, boy, father will go and get work; and he’ll soon bring you home something good to eat, as he used to.’ Willy’s hot lips parted with a pleasant smile of response; his blue eyes glistened brightly. Robert Darby bent his rough, unshaven face, and took a kiss from the child’s smooth one. ‘Yes, my boy; father will work.’
He went out, bending his steps towards Slippery Sam’s — who, by the way, had latterly tried to exact the title of ‘Mr. Shuck.’ There was a code of honour — as they regarded it — amidst these operatives of the Hunters, to do nothing underhanded. That is, not to resume work without first speaking to the Unions’ man, Sam Shuck — as was mentioned in the case of Baxendale. It happened that Mr. Shuck was standing in the strip of garden before his house, carrying on a wordy war over the palings with Mrs. Quale, when Darby came up. Peter Quale had of course been locked out with the rest, but with the first hour that Mr. Hunter’s yard was opened, Peter returned to his work. He did not belong to the Trades’ Unions — he never had belonged to them and never would; therefore, he was a free man. Strange to say, he was left to do as he liked in peace; somehow the Union did not care to interfere with Peter Quale — for one thing, he occupied a better position in the yard than most of the men. Peter pursued his own course quietly — going to his work and returning from it, saying little to the malcontents of Daffodil’s Delight. Not so Mrs. Quale; she exercised her tongue upon them whenever she got the chance. Her motive was a good one: she was at heart sorry for the privation at present existing in Daffodil’s Delight, and would have liked to shame the men into going to work again.
‘Now, Robert Darby! how are them children of your’n?’ began she. ‘Starved out yet?’
‘Next door to it,’ was Darby’s answer.
‘And whose is the fault?’ she went on. ‘If I had children, and my husband wouldn’t work to keep ’em out of their graves, through getting some nasty mistaken crotchet in his head, and holding out when the work was going a-begging, I’d go before a magistrate and see if I couldn’t have the law of him.’