A Life's Secret Part 21

'Because I feel strongly. When I become a master, I shall, if I know anything of myself, have my men's interest at heart; but none of them shall ever presume to dictate to me. If a master cannot exercise his own authority in firm self-reliance, let him give up business.'

'Have masters a right to oppress us, sir?--to grind us down?--to work us into our coffins?' cried Sam Shuck.

The gentleman raised his eyebrows, and a half smile crossed his lips.

'Since when have you been oppressed, and ground down into your coffins?'

Some of the men laughed--at Sam's oily tongue.

'If you _are_--if you have any complaint of that sort to make, let me hear it now, and I will convey it to Mr. Hunter. He is ever ready, you know, to----What do you say, Shuck? The nine hours' concession is all you want? If you can get the masters to give you ten hours' pay for nine hours' work, so much the better for you. _I_ would not: but it is no affair of mine. To be paid what you honestly earn, be it five pounds per week or be it one, is only justice; but to be paid for what you don't earn, is the opposite thing. I think, too, that the equalization of wages is a mistaken system, quite wrong in principle: one which can bring only discontent in the long run. Let me repeat that with emphasis--the equalization of wages, should it ever take place, can bring only discontent in the long run.'

There was a pause. No one spoke, and the speaker resumed--

'I conclude you have met here to discuss this agitation at the Messrs.

Pollocks?'

Pollocks' men are a-going to strike,' said Slippery Sam.

'Oh, they are, are they?' returned the gentleman, some mockery in his tone. 'I hope they may find it to their benefit. I don't know what the Messrs. Pollocks may do in the matter; but I know what I should.'

'You'd hold out to the last against the men?'

'I should; to the last and the last: were it for ten years to come.

Force a measure upon _me_! coerce _me_!' he reiterated, drawing his fine form to its full height, while the red flush mantled in his cheeks. 'No, my men, I am not made of that yielding stuff. Only let me be persuaded that my judgment is right, and no body of men on earth should force me to act against it.'

The speaker was Austin Clay, as I daresay you have already guessed. He had not gone to the meeting to interrupt it, or to take part in it, but in search of Peter Quale. Hearing from Mrs. Quale that her husband was at the Bricklayers' Arms--a rare occurrence, for Peter was not one who favoured public-houses--Austin went thither in search of him, and so found himself in the midst of the meeting. His business with Peter related to certain orders he required to give for the early morning.

Once there, however, the temptation to have his say was too great to be resisted. That over, he went out, making a sign to the man to follow him.

'What are those men about to rush into, Quale?' he demanded, when his own matter was over.

'Ah, what indeed?' returned the man. 'If they do get led into a strike, they'll repent it, some of them.'

'You are not one of the malcontents, then?'

'I?' retorted Peter, utter scorn in his tone. 'No, sir. There's a proverb which I learnt years ago from an old book as was lent me, and I've not forgotten it, sir--"Let well alone." But you must not think all the men you saw sitting there be discontented agitators, Mr. Clay. It's only Shuck and a few of that stamp. The rest be as steady and cautious as I am.'

'If they don't get led away,' replied Austin Clay, and his voice betrayed a dubious tone. 'Slippery Sam, in spite of his loose qualifications, is a ringleader more persuasive than prudent. Hark! he is at it again, hammer and tongs. Are you going back to them?'

'No, sir. I shall go home now.'

'We will walk together, then,' observed Austin. 'Afterwards I am going on to Mr. Hunter's.'[1]

FOOTNOTE:

[1] 'It need scarcely be remarked, that Sam Shuck and his followers represent only the ignorant and unprincipled section of those who engage in strikes. Working men are perfectly right in combining to seek the best terms they can get, both as to wages and time; provided there be no interference with the liberty either of masters or fellow-workmen.--_Ed._ L. H., February, 1862.'

CHAPTER II.

CALLED TO KETTERFORD.

Austin Clay was not mistaken. Rid of Peter Quale, who was a worse enemy of Sam's schemes than even old White, Sam had it nearly his own way, and went at it 'hammer and tongs.' He poured his eloquent words into the men's ears--and Sam, as you have heard, really did possess the gift of eloquence: of a rough and rude sort: but that tells well with the cla.s.s now gathered round him. He brought forth argument upon argument, fallacious as they were plausible; he told the men it depended upon _them_, whether the boon they were standing out for should be accorded, not upon the masters. Not that Sam called it a boon; he spoke of it as a _right_. Let them only be firm and true to themselves, he said, and the masters must give in: there was no help for it, they would have no other resource. Sam finally concluded by demanding, with fierce looks all round, whether they were men, or whether they were slaves, and the men answered, with a cheer and a shout, that Britons never should be slaves: and the meeting broke up in excitement and glorious spirits, and went home elated, some with the antic.i.p.ation of the fine time that was dawning for them, others with having consumed a little too much half-and-half.

Slippery Sam reeled away to his home. A dozen or so attended him, listening to his oratory, which was continued still: though not exactly to the gratification of Daffodil's Delight, who were hushing their unruly babies to sleep, or striving to get to sleep themselves. Much Sam cared whom he disturbed! He went along, flinging his arms and his words at random--inflammatory words, carrying poisoned shafts that told. If somebody came down upon you and upon me, telling us that, with a little exertion on our part, we should inevitably drop into a thousand a year, and showing plausible cause for the same, should we turn a deaf ear? The men shook hands individually with Slippery Sam, and left him propped against his own door; for Sam, with all deference be it spoken, was a little overcome himself--with the talking, of course.

Sam's better half greeted him with a shrill tongue: she and Mrs. Dunn might be paired in that respect! and Sam's children, some in the bed in the corner, some sitting up, greeted him with a shrill cry also, clamouring for a very common-place article, indeed--'some _bread_!'

Sam's family seemed inconveniently to increase; for the less there appeared to be to welcome them with, the surer and faster they arrived.

Thirteen Sam could number now; but several of the elder ones were out in the world 'doing for themselves'--getting on, or starving, as it might happen to be.

'You old sot! you have been at that drinking-can again,' were Mrs. Sam's words of salutation; and I wish I could soften them down to refinement for polite ears; but if you are to have the truth, you must take them as they were spoken.

'Drinking-can!' echoed Sam, who was in too high glee to lose his temper, 'never mind the drinking-can, missis: my fortian's made. I drawed together that meeting, as I telled ye I should,' he added, discarding his scholarly eloquence for the familiar home phraseology, 'and they come to it, every man jack on 'em, save thin-skinned Baxendale upstairs. Never was such a full meeting knowed in Daffodil's Delight.'

'Who cares for the meeting!' irascibly responded Mrs. Sam. 'What we wants is, some'at to fill our insides with. Don't come bothering home here about a meeting, when the children be a starving. If you'd work more and talk less, it 'ud become ye better.'

'I got the ear of the meeting,' said Sam, braving the reproof with a provoking wink. 'A despicable set our men is, at Hunter's, a humdrumming on like slaves for ever, taking their paltry wages and making no stir.

But I've put the brand among 'em at last, and sent 'em home all on fire, to dream of short work and good pay. Quale, he come, and put in his spoke again' it; and that wretched old skeleton of a White, what's been cheating the grave this ten year, he come, and put in his; and Mr.

Austin Clay, he must thrust his nose among us, and talk treason to the men: but I think my tongue have circ.u.mvented the lot. If it haven't, my name's not Sam Shuck.'

'If you and your circ.u.mventions and your tongue was all at the bottom of the Thames, 'twouldn't be no loss, for all the good they does above it,'

sobbed Mrs. Shuck, whose anger generally ended in tears. 'Here's me and the children a clemming for want o' bread, and you can waste your time over a idle good-for-nothing meeting. Ain't you ashamed, not to work as other men do?'

'Bread!' loftily returned Sam, with the air of a king, "tisn't bread I shall soon be furnishing for you and the children: it's mutton chops. My fortian's made, I say.'

'Yah!' retorted Mrs. Sam. 'It have been made forty times in the last ten year, to listen to you. What good has ever come of the boast? I'd shut up my mouth if I couldn't talk sense.'

Sam nodded his head oracularly, and entered upon an explanation. But for the fact of his being a little 'overcome'--whatever may have been its cause--he would have been more guarded. 'I've had overtures,' he said, bending forward his head and lowering his voice, 'and them overtures, which I accepted, will be the making of you and of me. Work!' he exclaimed, throwing his arms gracefully from him with a repelling gesture, 'I've done with work now; I'm superior to it; I'm exalted far above that lowering sort of toil. The leaders among the London Trade Union have recognised eloquence, ma'am, let me tell you; and they've made me one of their picked body--appointed me agitator to the firms of Hunter. "You get the meeting together, and prime 'em with the best of your eloquence, and excite 'em to recognise and agitate for their own rights, and you shall have your appointment, and a good round weekly salary." Well, Mrs. S., I did it. I got the men together, and I _have_ primed 'em, and some of 'em's a busting to go off; and all I've got to do from henceforth is to keep 'em up to the mark, by means of that tongue which you are so fond of disparaging, and to live like a gentleman. There's a trifling instalment of the first week's money.'

Sam threw a sovereign on the table. Mrs. Shuck, with a grunt of disparagement still, darted forward to seize upon it through her tears.

The children, uttering a wild shriek of wonder, delight, and disbelief, born of incipient famine, darted forward to seize it too. Sam burst into a fit of laughter, threw himself back to indulge it, and not being just then over steady on his legs, lost his equilibrium, and toppled over the fender into the ashes.

Leaving Mrs. Shuck to pick him up, or to leave him there--which latter negative course was the one she would probably take--let us return to Austin Clay.

At Peter Quale's gate he was standing a moment to speak to the man before proceeding onwards, when Mrs. Quale came running down the garden path.

'I was coming in search of you, sir,' she said to Austin Clay. 'This has just been brought, and the man made me sign my name to a paper.'

Austin took what she held out to him--a telegraphic despatch. He opened it; read it; then in the prompt, decisive manner usual with him, requested Mrs. Quale to put him up a change of things in his portmanteau, which he would return for; and walked away with a rapid step.

'Whatever news is it that he has had?' cried Mrs. Quale, as she stood with her husband, looking after him. 'Where can he have been summoned to?'

"Tain't no business of ours,' retorted Peter; 'if it had been, he'd have enlightened us. Did you ever hear of that offer that's always pending?--Five hundred a year to anybody as 'll undertake to mind his own business, and leave other folks's alone.'

Austin was on his way to Mr. Hunter's. A very frequent evening visitor there now, was he. But this evening he had an ostensible motive for going; a boon to crave. That alone may have made his footsteps fleet.

In the soft twilight of the summer evening, in the room of their own house that opened to the conservatory, sat Florence Hunter--no longer the impulsive, charming, and somewhat troublesome child, but the young and lovely woman. Of middle height and graceful form, her face was one of great sweetness; the earnest, truthful spirit, the pure innocence, which had made its charm in youth, made it now: to look on Florence Hunter, was to love her.