North and South

HAT IS A STRIKE?

“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 a
street—yes, the air of a Milton Street—cheered her young blood before
she reached her first turning. Her step grew lighter, her lip redder.
She began to take notice, instead of having her thoughts turned so
exclusively inward. She saw unusual loiterers in the streets: men with
their hands in their pockets sauntering along; loud-laughing and
loud-spoken girls clustered together, apparently excited to high
spirits, and a boisterous independence of temper and behaviour. The more
ill-looking of the men—the discreditable minority—hung about on the
steps of the beer-houses and gin-shops, smoking, and commenting pretty
freely on every passer-by. Margaret disliked the prospect of the long
walk through these streets, before she came to the fields which she had
planned to reach. Instead, she would go and see Bessy Higgins. It would
not be so refreshing as a quiet country walk, but still it would perhaps
be doing the kinder thing.

Nicholas Higgins was sitting by the fire smoking, as she went in. Bessy
was rocking herself on the other side.

Nicholas took the pipe out of his mouth, and standing up, pushed his
chair towards Margaret; he leant against the chimney-piece in a lounging
attitude, while she asked Bessy how she was.

“Hoo’s rather down i’ th’ mouth in regard to spirits, but hoo’s better
in health. Hoo doesn’t like this strike. Hoo’s a deal too much set on
piece and quietness at any price.”

“This is th’ third strike I’ve seen,” said she, sighing, as if that was
answer and 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’s all. We’ve missed it afore time, I grant yo’; but this time we’n
laid our plans desperate deep.”

“Why do you strike?” asked Margaret. “Striking is leaving off work till
you get your own rate of wages, is it not? You must not wonder at my
ignorance; where I come from I never heard of a strike.”

“I wish I were there,” said Bessie, wearily. “But it’s not for me to get
sick and tired o’ strikes. This is the last I’ll see. Before it’s ended
I shall be in the 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 is worth two i’ th’ bush. So them’s the different views we take on
th’ strike question.”

“But,” said Margaret, “if the people struck, as you call it, where I
come from, 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 form
of 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
to give fair rate of wage.”

“Suppose they could not, or would not do the last; they could not give
up 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 would
the 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 of
spiritless, down-trodden men; welly clemmed to death; too dazed wi’
clemming to know when they’re put upon. Now, it’s not so here. We known
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, but yo’ll not
put upon us, my masters!’ And be danged to ’em, they shan’t this time!”

“I wished I lived down South,” said Bessy.

“There’s a deal to bear there,” said Margaret. “There are sorrows to
bear everywhere. There is very hard bodily labour to be gone through,
with very little food to give strength.”

“But it’s out of doors,” said Bessy. “And away from the endless, endless
noise, and sickening heat.”

“It’s sometimes in heavy rain, and sometimes in bitter cold. A young
person can stand it; but an old man gets racked with rheumatism, and
bent and withered before his time; yet he must just work on the same, or
else 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 thus
caught. “I only mean, Bessy, there’s good and bad in everything in this
world; and as you felt the bad up here, I thought it was but fair you
should 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
much vehemence that it broke, “it’s not that they’ve too much sense, but
that they’ve too little spirit.”

“Oh, father!” said Bessy, “what have ye gained by striking? Just think
of that first strike when mother died—how we all had to clem—you the
worst of all; and yet many a one went in every week at the same wage,
till all were gone in that there was work for; and some went beggars all
their lives 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
be different this time.”

“But all this time you’ve not told me what you’re striking for,” said
Margaret, again.

“Why, yo see, there’s five or six masters who have set themselves again
paying the wages they’ve been paying these two years past, and
flourishing 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 death
first; and see who’ll work for ’em then. They’ll have killed the goose
that laid ’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
my post sooner than yield. That’s what folk call fine and honourable in
a soldier, and why not in a poor weaver-chap?”

“But,” said Margaret, “a soldier dies in the cause of the Nation—in the
cause of others.”

He laughed grimly. “My lass,” said he, “yo’re but a young wench, but
don’t yo think I can keep three people—that’s Bessy, and Mary, and
me—on sixteen shillings a week? Dun yo think it’s for mysel’ I’m
striking work at this time? It is just as much in the cause of others as
yon soldier—only m’appen, the cause he dies for is just that of
somebody he never clapt eyes on, nor heerd on all his born days, while I
take up John Boucher’s cause, as lives next door but one, wi’ a sickly
wife, and eight childer, none on ’em factory age; and I don’t take up
his cause only, though he’s a poor good-for-nought, as can only manage
two looms at a time, but I take up th’ cause o’ justice. Why are we to
have less wage now, I ask, than two year ago?”

“Don’t ask me,” said Margaret; “I am very ignorant. Ask some of your
masters. Surely they will give you a reason for it. It is not merely an
arbitrary decision of theirs, come to without reason.”

“Yo’re just a foreigner, and nothing more,” said he, contemptuously.
“Much yo know about it. Ask th’ masters! They’d tell us to mind our own
business, and they’d mind theirs. Our business being, yo understand, to
take the bated wage, and be thankful; and their business to bate us down
to clemming point, to swell their profits. That’s what it is.”

“But,” said Margaret, determined not to give way, although she saw she
was irritating him, “the state of trade may be such as not to enable
them to give you the same remuneration.”

“State o’ trade! That’s just a piece o’ masters’ humbug. It’s rate o’
wages I was talking of. Th’ masters keep th’ state o’ trade in their own
hands; and just walk it forward like a black bug-a-boo, to frighten
naughty children with into being good. I’ll tell you it’s their
part,—their cue, as some folks call it,—to beat us down, to swell
their fortunes; and it’s ours to stand up and fight hard,—not for
ourselves alone, but for them round about us—for justice and fair play.
We help to make their profits, and we ought to help spend ’em. It’s not
that we want their brass so much this time, as we’ve done many a time
afore. We’n getten money laid by; and we’re resolved to stand and fall
together; not a man on us will go in for less wage than th’ Union says
is our due. So I say, ‘hooray for the strike,’ and let Thornton, and
Slickson, and Hamper, and their set look to it!”

“Thornton!” said Margaret. “Mr. Thornton of Marlborough Street?”

“Aye! Thornton o’ Marlborough Mill, as we call him.”

“He is one of the masters you are striving with, is he not? What sort of
a master is he?”

“Did yo’ ever see a bulldog? Set a bulldog on hind legs, and dress him
up in coat and breeches, and yo’n just getten John Thornton.”

“Nay,” said Margaret, laughing, “I deny that. Mr. Thornton is plain
enough, but he’s not like a bulldog, with its short broad nose, and
snarling upper lip.”

“No! not in look, I grant yo. But let John Thornton get hold on a
notion, and he’ll stick to it like a bulldog; yo might pull him away wi’
a pitchfork ere he’d leave go. He’s worth fighting wi’, is John
Thornton. As for Slickson, I take it, some o’ these days he’ll wheedle
his men back wi’ fair promises; that they’ll just get cheated out of as
soon as they’re in his power again. He’ll work his fines well out on
’em, I’ll warrant. He’s as slippery as an eel, he is. He’s like a
cat,—as sleek, and cunning, and fierce. It’ll never be an honest up and
down fight wi’ him, as it will be wi’ Thornton. Thornton’s as dour as a
door-nail; an obstinate chap, every inch on him,—th’ oud bulldog!”

“Poor Bessy!” said Margaret, turning round to her. “You sigh over it
all. You don’t like struggling and fighting as your father does, do
you?”

“No!” said she, heavily. “I’m sick on it. I could have wished to have
had other talk about me in my latter days, than just the clashing and
clanging and clattering that has ever wearied a’ my life long, about
work and wages, and masters, and hands, and knobsticks.”

“Poor wench! latter days be farred! Thou’rt looking a sight better
already for a little stir and change. Beside, I shall be a deal here to
make it more lively for thee.”

“Tobacco-smoke chokes me!” said she, querulously.

“Then I’ll never smoke no more i’ the house!” he replied, tenderly. “But
why didst thou not tell me afore, thou foolish wench?”

She did not speak for a while, and then so low that only Margaret heard
her:

“I reckon, he’ll want a’ the comfort he can get out o’ either pipe or
drink afore he’s done.”

Her father went out of doors, evidently to finish his pipe.

Bessy said passionately,

“Now am not I a fool,—am I not, Miss?—there, I knew I ought for to
keep father at home, and away fro’ the folk that are always ready for to
tempt a man, in time o’ strike, to go drink,—and there my tongue must
needs quarrel with this pipe o’ his’n—and he’ll go off, I know he
will,—as often as he wants to smoke—and nobody knows where it’ll end.
I wish I’d letten myself be choked first.”

“But does your father drink?” said Margaret.

“No—not to say drink,” replied she, still in the same wild excited
tone. “But what win ye have? There are days wi’ you as wi’ other folk, I
suppose, when yo’ get up and go through th’ hours, just longing for a
bit of a change—a bit of a fillip, as it were. I know I ha’ gone and
bought a four-pounder out o’ another baker’s shop to common on such
days, just because I sickened at the thought of going on for ever wi’
the same sight in my eyes, and the same sound in my ears, and the same
taste i’ my mouth, and the same thought (or no thought, for that matter)
in my head, day after day, for ever. I’ve longed for to be a man to go
spreeing, even if it were only a tramp to some new place in search o’
work. And father—all men—have it stronger in ’em than me to get tired
o’ sameness and work for ever. And what is ’em to do? It’s little blame
to them if they do go into th’ gin-shop for to make their blood flow
quicker, and more lively, and see things they never see at no other
time—pictures, and looking-glass, and such like. But father never was a
drunkard, though maybe, he’s got worse for drink, now and then. Only yo’
see,” and now her voice took a mournful, pleading tone, “at times o’
strike there’s much to knock a man down, for all they start so
hopefully; and where’s the comfort to come fro’? He’ll get angry and
mad—they all do—and then they get tired out wi’ being angry and mad,
and maybe ha’ done things in their passion they’d be glad to forget.
Bless yo’r sweet pitiful face! but yo’ dunnot know what a strike is
yet.”

“Come, Bessy,” said Margaret, “I won’t say you’re exaggerating, because
I don’t know enough about it: but, perhaps, as you’re not well, you’re
only looking on one side, and there is another and a brighter to be
looked to.”

“It’s all well enough for yo’ to say so, who have lived in pleasant
green places all your life long, and never known want or care, or
wickedness either, for that matter.”

“Take care,” said Margaret, her cheek flushing, and her eye lightening,
“how you judge, Bessy. I shall go home to my mother, who is so ill—so
ill, Bessy, that there’s no outlet but death for her out of prison of
her great suffering; and yet I must speak cheerfully to my father, who
has no notion of her real state, and to whom the knowledge must come
gradually. The only person—the only one who could sympathise with me
and help me—whose presence could comfort my mother more than any other
earthly thing—is falsely accused—would run the risk of death if he
came to see his dying mother. This I tell you—only you, Bessy. You must
not mention it. No other person in Milton—hardly any other person in
England knows. Have I not care? Do I not know anxiety, though I go about
well-dressed, and have food enough? Oh, Bessy, God is just, and our lots
are well portioned out by Him, although none but He knows the bitterness
of our souls.”

“I ask your pardon,” replied Bessy, humbly. “Sometimes, when I’ve
thought o’ my life, and the little pleasure I’ve had in it, I’ve
believed that, maybe, I was one of those doomed to die by the falling of
a star from heaven; ‘And the name of the star is called Wormwood; and
the third part of the waters became wormwood; and men died of the
waters, because they were made bitter.’ One can bear pain and sorrow
better if one thinks it has been prophesied long before for one:
somehow, then it seems as if my pain was needed for the fulfilment;
otherways it seems all sent for nothing.”

“Nay, Bessy—think!” said Margaret. “God does not willingly inflict.
Don’t dwell so much on the prophecies, but read the clearer parts of the
Bible.”

“I dare say it would be wiser; but where would I hear such grand words
of promise—hear tell o’ anything so far different fro’ this dreary
world, and this town above a’ as in Revelations? Many’s the time I’ve
repeated the verses in the seventh chapter to myself, just for the
sound. It’s as good as an organ, and as different from every day, too.
No, I cannot give up Revelations. It gives me more comfort than any
other book i’ the Bible.”

“Let me come and read you some of my favourite chapters.”

“Ay,” said she greedily, “come. Father will maybe hear yo.’ He’s deaved
wi’ my talking; he says it’s all nought to do with the things o’ to-day,
and that’s his business.”

“Where is your sister?”

“Gone fustian cutting. I were loth to let her go; but somehow we must
live; and th’ Union can’t afford us much.”

“Now I must go. You have done me good, Bessy.”

“I done you good!”

“Yes, I came here very sad, and rather too apt to think my own cause for
grief was the only one in the world. And now I hear how you have had to
bear for years, and that makes me stronger.”

“Bless yo’! I thought a’ the good-doing was on the side of gentlefolk. I
shall get proud if I think I can do good to yo’.”

“You won’t do it if you think about it. But you’ll only puzzle yourself
if you do, that’s one comfort.”

“You’re not like no one I ever seed. I dunno what to make of yo’.”

“Nor I of myself. Good-bye!”

Bessy stilled her rocking to gaze after her.

“I wonder if there are many folk like her down South. She’s like a
breath of country air, somehow. She freshens me up above a bit. Who’d a
thought that face—as bright and as strong as the angel I dream
of—could have known the sorrow she speaks on? I wonder how she’ll sin.
All on us must sin. I think a deal on her, for sure. But father does the
like, I see. And Mary even. It’s not often hoo’s stirred up to notice
much.”