"There are briars besetting every path,Which call for patient care;There is a cross in every lot,And an earnest need for prayer."
ANON.
Margaret went out heavily and unwillingly enough. But the length of astreet--yes, the air of a Milton Street--cheered her young blood beforeshe reached her first turning. Her step grew lighter, her lip redder. Shebegan to take notice, instead of having her thoughts turned soexclusively inward. She saw unusual loiterers in the streets: men withtheir hands in their pockets sauntering along; loud-laughing and loud-spoken girls clustered together, apparently excited to high spirits, and aboisterous independence of temper and behaviour. The more ill-lookingof the men--the discreditable minority--hung about on the steps of thebeer-houses and gin-shops, smoking, and commenting pretty freely onevery passer-by. Margaret disliked the prospect of the long walkthrough these streets, before she came to the fields which she hadplanned to reach. Instead, she would go and see Bessy Higgins. Itwould not be so refreshing as a quiet country walk, but still it wouldperhaps be doing the kinder thing.
Nicholas Higgins was sitting by the fire smoking, as she went in. Bessywas rocking herself on the other side.
Nicholas took the pipe out of his mouth, and standing up, pushed hischair towards Margaret; he leant against the chimney piece in alounging attitude, while she asked Bessy how she was.
"Hoo"s rather down i" th" mouth in regard to spirits, but hoo"s better inhealth. Hoo doesn"t like this strike. Hoo"s a deal too much set on peaceand quietness at any price."
"This is th" third strike I"ve seen," said she, sighing, as if that was answerand explanation enough.
"Well, third time pays for all. See if we don"t dang th" masters this time.
See if they don"t come, and beg us to come back at our own price. That"sall. We"ve missed it afore time, I grant yo"; but this time we"n laid ourplans desperate deep."
"Why do you strike?" asked Margaret. "Striking is leaving off work tillyou get your own rate of wages, is it not? You must not wonder at myignorance; where I come from I never heard of a strike."
"I wish I were there," said Bessy, wearily. "But it"s not for me to get sickand tired o" strikes. This is the last I"ll see. Before it"s ended I shall be inthe Great City--the Holy Jerusalem."
"Hoo"s so full of th" life to come, hoo cannot think of th" present. Now I,yo" see, am bound to do the best I can here. I think a bird i" th" hand isworth two i" th" bush. So them"s the different views we take on th" strikequestion."
"But," said Margaret, "if the people struck, as you call it, where I comefrom, as they are mostly all field labourers, the seed would not be sown,the hay got in, the corn reaped."
"Well?" said he. He had resumed his pipe, and put his "well" in the formof an interrogation.
"Why," she went on, "what would become of the farmers."
He puffed away. "I reckon they"d have either to give up their farms, or togive fair rate of wage."
"Suppose they could not, or would not do the last; they could not giveup their farms all in a minute, however much they might wish to do so;but they would have no hay, nor corn to sell that year; and where wouldthe money come from to pay the labourers" wages the next?"
Still puffing away. At last he said:
"I know nought of your ways down South. I have heerd they"re a pack ofspiritless, down-trodden men; welly clemmed to death; too much dazedwi" clemming to know when they"re put upon. Now, it"s not so here. Weknown when we"re put upon; and we"en too much blood in us to stand it.
We just take our hands fro" our looms, and say, "Yo" may clem us, butyo"ll not put upon us, my masters!" And be danged to "em, they shan"tthis time!"
"I wish I lived down South," said Bessy.
"There"s a deal to bear there," said Margaret. "There are sorrows to beareverywhere. There is very hard bodily labour to be gone through, withvery little food to give strength."
"But it"s out of doors," said Bessy. "And away from the endless, endlessnoise, and sickening heat."
"It"s sometimes in heavy rain, and sometimes in bitter cold. A youngperson can stand it; but an old man gets racked with rheumatism, andbent and withered before his time; yet he must just work on the same, orelse go to the workhouse."
"I thought yo" were so taken wi" the ways of the South country."
"So I am," said Margaret, smiling a little, as she found herself thuscaught. "I only mean, Bessy, there"s good and bad in everything in thisworld; and as you felt the bad up here, I thought it was but fair youshould know the bad down there."
"And yo" say they never strike down there?" asked Nicholas, abruptly.
"No!" said Margaret; "I think they have too much sense."
"An" I think," replied he, dashing the ashes out of his pipe with so muchvehemence that it broke, "it"s not that they"ve too much sense, but thatthey"ve too little spirit."
"O, father!" said Bessy, "what have ye gained by striking? Think of thatfirst strike when mother died--how we all had to clem--you the worst ofall; and yet many a one went in every week at the same wage, till allwere gone in that there was work for; and some went beggars all theirlives at after."
"Ay," said he. "That there strike was badly managed. Folk got into th"
management of it, as were either fools or not true men. Yo"ll see, it"ll bedifferent this time."
"But all this time you"ve not told me what you"re striking for," saidMargaret, again.
"Why, yo" see, there"s five or six masters who have set themselves againpaying the wages they"ve been paying these two years past, andflourishing upon, and getting richer upon. And now they come to us,and say we"re to take less. And we won"t. We"ll just clem them to deathfirst; and see who"ll work for "em then. They"ll have killed the goose thatlaid "em the golden eggs, I reckon."
"And so you plan dying, in order to be revenged upon them!"
"No," said he, "I dunnot. I just look forward to the chance of dying at mypost sooner than yield. That"s what folk call fine and honourable in asoldier, and why not in a poor weaver-chap?"
"But," said Margaret, "a soldier dies in the cause of the Nation--in thecause of others."
