Put Yourself in His Place Part 9

When he read this, Little's blood boiled, especially at the cool advice to lay down his livelihood, and take up scenery: and he dashed off a letter of defiance. He showed it to Bayne, and it went into the fire directly. "That is all right," said this worthy. "You have written your mind, like a man. Now sit down, and give them treacle for their honey--or you'll catch pepper."

Henry groaned, and writhed, but obeyed.

He had written his defiance in three minutes. It took him an hour to produce the following:

"DEAR SIR,--I am sorry for the misunderstanding. I did not, for a moment, attach that meaning to any thing that fell either from you or Mr. Parkin.

"I must now remind you that, were I to strike work entirely, Mr.

Cheetham could discharge me, and even punish me, for breach of contract.

All I can do is to work fewer hours than I have done: and I am sure you will be satisfied with that, if you consider that the delay in the settlement of this matter rests with you, and not with me,

"I am yours respectfully, HENRY LITTLE.

"I furnish you, as requested, with two replies to the objection of a respectable workman that I am paid above the list price.

"1.--To sell skilled labor below the statement price is a just offense, and injury to trade. But to obtain above the statement price is to benefit trade. The high price, that stands alone to-day, will not stand alone forever. It gets quoted in bargains, and draws prices up to it.

That has been proved a thousand times.

"2.--It is not under any master's skin to pay a man more than he is worth. It I get a high price, it is because I make a first-rate article.

If a man has got superior knowledge, he is not going to give it away to gratify envious ignorance."

To this, in due course, he received from Jobson the following:

"DEAR SIR,--I advised you according to my judgment and experience: but, doubtless, you are the best judge of your own affairs."

And that closed the correspondence with the Secretaries.

The gentle Jobson and the polite Parkin had retired from the correspondence with their air of mild regret and placid resignation just three days, when young Little found a dirty crumpled letter on his anvil, written in pencil. It ran thus:

"Turn up or youl wish you had droped it. Youl be made so as youl never do hands turn agin, an never know what hurt you.

"MOONRAKER." (Signed)

Henry swore.

When he had sworn (and, as a Briton, I think he had denied himself that satisfaction long enough), he caught up a strip of steel with his pincers, shoved it into the coals, heated it, and, in half a minute, forged two long steel nails. He then nailed this letter to his wall, and wrote under it in chalk, "I offer L10 reward to any one who will show me the coward who wrote this, but was afraid to sign it. The writing is peculiar, and can easily be identified."

He also took the knife that had been so ostentatiously fixed in his door, and carried it about him night and day, with a firm resolve to use it in self-defense, if necessary.

And now the plot thickened: the decent workmen in Cheetham's works were pa.s.sive; they said nothing offensive, but had no longer the inclination, even if they had the power, to interfere and restrain the lower workmen from venting their envy and malice. Scarcely a day pa.s.sed without growls and scowls. But Little went his way haughtily, and affected not to see, nor hear them.

However, one day, at dinner-time, he happened, unluckily, to be detained by Bayne in the yard, when the men came out: and two or three of the roughs took this opportunity and began on him at once, in the Dash Dialect, of course; they knew no other.

A great burly forger, whose red matted hair was powdered with coal-dust, and his face bloated with habitual intemperance, planted himself insolently before Henry, and said, in a very loud voice, "How many more trade meetings are we to have for one ---- k.n.o.bstick?"

Henry replied, in a moment, "Is it my fault if your s.h.i.+lly-shallying committees can't say yes or no to L15? You'd say yes to it, wouldn't you, sooner than go to bed sober?"

This sally raised a loud laugh at the notorious drunkard's expense, and checked the storm, as a laugh generally does.

But men were gathering round, and a workman who had heard the raised voices, and divined the row, ran out of the works, with his ap.r.o.n full of blades, and his heart full of mischief. It was a grinder of a certain low type, peculiar to Hillsborough, but quite common there, where grinders are often the grandchildren of grinders. This degenerate face was more canine than human; sharp as a hatchet, and with forehead villainously low; hardly any chin; and--most characteristic trait of all--the eyes, pale in color, and tiny in size, appeared to have come close together, to consult, and then to have run back into the very skull, to get away from the sparks, which their owner, and his sire, and his grandsire, had been eternally creating.

This greyhound of a grinder flung down a lot of dull bluish blades, warm from the forge, upon a condemned grindstone that was lying in the yard; and they tinkled.

"---- me, if I grind c.o.c.kney blades!" said he.

This challenge fired a sympathetic handle-maker. "Grinders are right,"

said he. "We must be a ---- mean lot and all, to handle his ---- work."

"He has been warned enough; but he heeds noane."

"Hustle him out o' works."

"Nay, hit him o'er th' head and fling him into sh.o.r.e."

With these menacing words, three or four roughs advanced on him, with wicked eyes; and the respectable workmen stood, like stone statues, in cold and terrible neutrality; and Henry, looking round, in great anxiety, found that Bayne had withdrawn.

He ground his teeth, and stepped back to the wall, to have all the a.s.sailants in the front. He was sternly resolute, though very pale, and, by a natural impulse, put his hand into his side-pocket, to feel if he had a weapon. The knife was there, the deadly blade with which his enemies themselves had armed him; and, to those who could read faces, there was death in the pale cheek and gleaming eye of this young man, so sorely tried.

At this moment, a burly gentleman walked into the midst of them, as smartly as Van Amburgh amongst his tigers, and said steadily, "What is to do now, lads?" It was Cheetham himself, Bayne knew he was in the office, and had run for him in mortal terror, and sent him to keep the peace. "They insult me, sir," said Henry; "though I am always civil to them; and that grinder refuses to grind my blades, there."

"Is that so? Step out, my lad. Did you refuse to grind those blades?"

"Ay," said the greyhound-man sullenly.

"Then put on your coat, and leave my premises this minute."

"He is ent.i.tled to a week's warning, Mr. Cheetham," said one of the decent workmen, respectfully, but resolutely; speaking now for the first time.

"You are mistaken, sir," replied Mr. Cheetham, in exactly the same tone.

(No stranger could have divined the speakers were master and man.) "He has vitiated his contract by publicly refusing to do his work. He'll get nothing from me but his wages up to noon this day. But YOU can have a week's warning, if you want it."

"Nay, sir. I've naught against you, for my part. But they say it will come to that, if you don't turn Little up."

"Why, what's his fault? Come now; you are a man. Speak up."

"Nay, I've no quarrel with the man. But he isn't straight with the trade."

"That is the secretaries' fault, not mine," said Henry. "They can't see I've brought a new trade in, that hurts no old trade, and will spread, and bring money into the town."

"We are not so ---- soft as swallow that," said the bloated smith.

"Thou's just come t' Hillsborough to learn forging, and when thou'st mastered that, off to London, and take thy ---- trade with thee."