A Life's Secret Part 37

'And think of the society's expenses,' interposed Mrs. Quale, with suavity. 'The scores of gentlemen, like Mr. Shuck, there is to pay, and keep on the fat of the land. He'll be going into Parliament next!'

'You shut up, will you?' roared Sam. 'Ryan,' called out he to the Irishman, who was lounging up, 'here's Darby saying he thinks he shall go to work.'

'Oh, but that would be rich,' said Ryan, with a laugh, as he entered the garden, and took his standing beside Sam Shuck. 'Darby, man, you'd never desert the society! It couldn't spare you.'

'I want to do for the best,' said Darby; 'and it seems to me that to hold out is for the worse. Shuck, just answer me a question or two, as from man to man. If the masters fill their yards with other operatives, what is to become of us?'

'They can't fill their yards with other operatives,' returned Shuck.

'Where's the use of talking nonsense?'

'But they can. They are doing it.'

'They are not. They have just got a sprinkling of men for show--not many. Where are they to get them from?'

'Do you know what I heard? That Mr. Henry Hunter has been over to Belgium, and one or two of the other masters have also been, and----'

'There's no fear of the Beljim workmen,' interrupted Ryan. 'What English master 'ud employ them half-starved frogs?'

'I heard that Mr. Henry Hunter was quite thunderstruck at their skill,'

continued Darby, paying no attention to the interruption. Their tools are bad: they are not to be called tools, compared to ours; but they turn out finished work. Their decorative work is beautiful. Mr. Henry Hunter put the question to them, whether they would like to come to England and earn five-and-sixpence per day, instead of three s.h.i.+llings as they do there, and they jumped at it. He told them that perhaps he might be sending for them.'

'Where did you bear that fine tale?' asked Slippery Sam?'

'It's going about among us. I dare say you have heard it also, Shuck.

Mr. Henry was away somewhere for nine or ten days.'

'Let 'em come, them Beljicks,' sneered Ryan. 'Maybe they'd go back with their heads off. It couldn't take much to split the skull of them French beggars.'

'Not when an Irishman holds the stick,' cried Mrs. Quale, looking the man steadily in the face, as she left the palings.

Ryan watched her away, and resumed. 'How dare the masters think of taking on forringers? Leaving us to starve!'

'The preventing of it lies with us,' said Darby. 'If we go back to work, there'll be no room for them.'

'Listen, Darby,' rejoined Shuck, in a persuasive tone of confidence, the latter in full force, now that his enemy, Mrs. Quale, had gone. 'The bone of contention is the letting us work nine hours a day instead of ten: well, why should they not accord it? Isn't there every reason why they should? Isn't there men, outsiders, willing to work a full day's work, but can't get it? This extra hour, thrown up by us, would give employment to them. Would the masters be any the worse off?'

'They say they'd be the hour's wages out of pocket.'

'Flam!' e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Sam. 'It would come out of the public's pocket, not out of the masters'. They would add so much the more on to their contracts, and n.o.body would be the worse. It's just a dogged feeling of obstinacy that's upon 'em; it's nothing else. They'll come-to in the end, if you men will only let them; they can't help doing it. Hold out, hold out, Darby! If we are to give into them now, where has been the use of this struggle? Haven't you waited for it, and starved for it, and hoped for it?'

'Very true,' replied Darby, feeling in a perplexing maze of indecision.

'Don't give in, man, at the eleventh hour,' urged Shuck, with affectionate eloquence: and to hear him you would have thought he had nothing in the world at heart so much as the interest of Robert Darby.

'A little longer, and the victory will be ours. You see, it is not the bare fact of your going back that does the mischief, it's the example it sets. But for that scoundrel Baxendale's turning tail, you would not have thought about it.'

'I don't know that,' said Darby.

'One bad sheep will spoil a flock,' continued Sam, puffing away at a cigar which he was smoking. He would have enjoyed a pipe a great deal more; but gentlemen smoked cigars, and Sam wanted to look as much like a gentleman as he could; it had been suggested to him that it would add to his power over the operatives. 'Why, Darby, we have got it all in our own hands--if you men could but be brought to see it. It's as plain as the nose before you. Us, builders, taking us in all our branches, might be the most united and prosperous body of men in the world. Only let us pull together, and have consideration for our fellows, and put away selfishness. Binding ourselves to work on an equality, nine hours a day being the limit; eight, perhaps, after a while----'

'It's a good thing you have not got much of an audience here, Sam Shuck!

That doctrine of yours is false and pernicious; its in opposition to the laws of G.o.d and man.' The interruption proceeded from Dr. Bevary. He had come into the garden unperceived by Sam, who was lounging on the side palings, his back to the gate. The doctor was on his way to pay a visit to Mary Baxendale. Sam started up. 'What did you say, sir?'

'What did I say!' repeated Dr. Bevary. 'I think it should be, what did you say? You would dare to circ.u.mscribe the means of usefulness G.o.d has given to man--to set a limit to his talents and his labour! You would say, "So far shall you work, and no farther!" Who are you, and all such as you, that you should a.s.sume such power, and set yourselves up between your fellow-men and their responsibilities?'

'Hear, hear,' interrupted Mrs. Quale, putting her head out at her window--for she had gone indoors. 'Give him a bit of truth, sir.'

'I have been a hard worker for years,' continued Dr. Bevary, paying no attention, it must be confessed, to Mrs. Quale. 'Mentally and practically I have toiled--_toiled_, Sam Shuck--to improve and make use of the talents entrusted to me. My days are spent in alleviating, so far as may be, the sufferings of my fellow-creatures; when I go to rest, I often lie awake half the night, pondering difficult questions of medical science. What man living has G.o.d endowed with power to come and say to me, "You shall not do this; you shall only work half your hours; you shall only earn a limited amount of fees?" Answer me.'

'It's not a parallel case, sir, with ours,' returned Sam.

'It is a parallel case,' said Dr. Bevary. 'There's your friend next door, Peter Quale; take him. By diligence he has made himself into a finished artizan; by dint of industry in working over hours, he is ama.s.sing a competence that will keep him out of the workhouse in his old age. What reason or principle of justice can there be in your saying, "He shall not do this; he shall receive no more than I do, or than Ryan, there, does? Because Ryan is an inferior workman, and I love idleness and drink and agitation better than work, Quale and others shall not work to have an advantage over us; we will share and fare alike." Out upon you, Slippery Sam, for promulgating doctrines so false! You must be the incarnation of selfishness, or you could not do it. If ever they obtain sway in free and enlightened England, the independence of the workman will be at an end.' The Doctor stepped in to Shuck's house, on his way to Mary Baxendale, leaving Sam on the gravel. Sam put his arm within Darby's, and led him down the street, out of the Doctor's way, who would be coming forth again presently. There he set himself to undo what the Doctor's words had done, and to breathe persuasive arguments into Darby's ear. Later, Darby went home. It had grown dusk then, for Sam had treated him to a gla.s.s at the Bricklayers' Arms, where sundry other friends were taking their gla.s.ses. There appeared to be a commotion in his house as he entered; his wife, Grace, and the young ones were standing round w.i.l.l.y.

'He has had another fainting fit,' said Mrs. Darby to her husband, in explanation. 'And now--I declare illness is the strangest thing!--he says he is hungry.' The child put out his hot hand. 'Father!' Robert Darby advanced and took it. 'Be you better, dear? What ails you this evening?'

'Father,' whispered the child, hopefully, 'have you got the work?'

'When do you begin, Robert?' asked the wife. 'To-morrow?'

Darby's eyes fell, and his face clouded. 'I can't ask for it; I can't go back to work,' he answered. 'The society won't let me.'

A great cry. A cry from the mother, from Grace, from the poor little child. Hope, sprung up once more within them, had been illumining the past few hours. 'You shall soon have food; father's going to work again, darlings,' the mother had said to the hungry little ones. And now the hopes were dashed! The disappointment was hard to bear. 'Is he to _die_ of hunger?' exclaimed Mrs. Darby, in bitterness, pointing to w.i.l.l.y. 'You said you would work for him.'

'So I would, if they'd let me. I'd work the life out of me, but what I'd get a crust for ye all; but the Trades' Union won't have it,' panted Darby, his breath short with excitement. 'What am I to do?'

'Work without the Trades' Union, father,' interposed Grace, taking courage to speak. She had always been a favourite with her father.

'Baxendale has done it.'

'They are threatening Baxendale awfully,' he answered. 'But it is not that I'd care for; it's this. The society would put a mark upon me: I should be a banned man: and when this struggle's over, they say I should be let get work by neither masters nor men. My tools are in pledge, too,' he added, as if that climax must end the contest.

Mrs. Darby threw her ap.r.o.n over her eyes and burst into tears; Grace was already crying silently, and the boy had his imploring little hands held up. 'Robert, they are your own children!' said the wife, meekly. 'I never thought you'd see them starve.'

Another minute, and the man would have cried with them. He went out of doors, perhaps to sob his emotion away. Two or three steps down the street he encountered John Baxendale. The latter slipped five s.h.i.+llings into his hand. Darby would have put it back again.

'Tut, man; don't be squeamish. Take it for the children. You'd do as much for mine, if you had got it and I hadn't. Mary and I have been talking about you. She heard you having an argument with that snake, Shuck.'

'They be starving, Baxendale, or I wouldn't take it,' returned the man, the tears running down his pinched face. 'I'll pay you back with the first work I get. You call Shuck a snake; do you think he is one?'

'I'm sure of it,' said Baxendale. 'I don't know that he means ill, but can't you see the temptation it is?--all this distress and agitation that's ruining us, is making a gentleman of him. He and the other agents are living on the fat of the land, as Quale's wife calls it, and doing nothing for their pay, except keeping up the agitation. If we all went to work again quietly, where would they be? Why, they'd have to go to work also, for their pay must cease. Darby, I think the eyes of you union men must be blinded, not to see this.'

'It seems plain enough to me at times,' a.s.sented Darby. 'I say, Baxendale,' he added, wis.h.i.+ng to speak a word of warning to his friend ere he turned away, 'have a care of yourself; they are going on again you at a fine rate.'

Come what would, Darby determined to furnish a home meal with this relief, which seemed like a very help from heaven. He bought two pounds of beef, a pound of cheese, some tea, some sugar, two loaves of bread, and a lemon to make drink for w.i.l.l.y. Turning home with these various treasures, he became aware that a bustle had arisen in the street. Men and women were pressing down towards one particular spot. Tongues were busy; but he could not at first obtain an insight into the cause of the commotion.

'An obnoxious man had been set upon in a lonely corner, under cover of the night's darkness, and pitched into,' was at length explained.

'Beaten to death.' Away flew Darby, a horrible suspicion at his heart.

Pus.h.i.+ng his way amidst the crowd collected round the spot, as only a resolute man can do, he stood face to face with the sight. One, trampled on and beaten, lay in the dust, his face covered with blood.

'Is it Baxendale?' shouted Darby, for he was unable to recognise him.