A Life's Secret Part 26

'But what is it that you have got?' pursued Austin, who was completely at sea.

'Got! why, we have got the STRIKE,' she replied, in joyful excitement.

'Pollocks' men struck to-day. Where have you been, sir, not to have heered on it?'

At that moment a fresh crowd came jostling down Daffodil's Delight, and Austin was parted from the lady. Indeed, she rushed up to the mob to follow in their wake. Many other ladies followed in their wake--half Daffodil's Delight, if one might judge by numbers. Shouting, singing, exulting, dancing; it seemed as if they had, for the nonce, gone mad.

Sam Shuck, in his long-tailed coat, ornamented with its holes and its slits, was leading the van, his voice hoa.r.s.e, his face red, his legs and arms executing a war-dance of exaltation. He it was who had got up the excitement and was keeping it up, shouting fiercely: 'Hurrah for the work of this day! Rule Britanniar! Britons never shall be slaves! The Strike has begun, friends! H--o--o--o--o--o--r--rah! Three cheers for the Strike!'

Yes. The Strike had begun.

CHAPTER IV.

AGITATION.

The men of an influential metropolitan building firm had struck, because their employers declined to accede to certain demands, and Daffodil's Delight was, as you have seen, in a high state of excitement, particularly the female part of it. The men said they struck for a diminution in the hours of labour; the masters told them they struck for an increase of wages. Seeing that the non-contents wanted the hours reduced and _not_ the pay, it appears to me that you may call it which you like.

The Messrs. Hunters' men--with whom we have to do, for it was they who chiefly filled Daffodil's Delight--though continuing their work as usual, were in a most unsettled state; as was the case in the trade generally. The smouldering discontent might have died away peacefully enough, and probably would, but that certain spirits made it their business to fan it into a flame.

A few days went on. One evening Sam Shuck posted himself in an angle formed by the wall at the top of Daffodil's Delight. It was the hour for the men to quit work; and, as they severally pa.s.sed him on their road home, Sam's arm was thrust forward, and a folded bit of paper put into their hands. A mysterious sort of missive apparently; for, on opening the paper, it was found to contain only these words, in the long, sprawling hand of Sam himself: 'Barn at the back of Jim Dunn's. Seven o'clock.'

Behind the house tenanted by the Dunns were premises occupied until recently by a cowkeeper. They comprised, amidst other accommodation, a large barn, or shed. Being at present empty, and to let, Sam thought he could do no better than take French leave to make use of it.

The men hurried over their tea, or supper (some took one on leaving work for the night, some the other, some a mixture of both, and some neither), that they might attend to the invitation of Sam. Peter Quale was seated over a substantial dish of batter pudding, a bit of neck of mutton baked in the midst of it, when he was interrupted by the entrance of John Baxendale, who had stepped in from his own rooms next door.

'Be you a going to this meeting, Quale?' Baxendale asked, as he took a seat.'

I don't know nothing about it,' returned Peter. 'I saw Slippery Sam a giving out papers, so I guessed there was something in the wind. He took care to pa.s.s me over. I expect I'm the greatest eyesore Sam has got just now. Have a bit?' added Peter, unceremoniously, pointing to the dish before him with his knife.

'No, thank ye; I have just had tea at home. That's the paper'--laying it open on the table-cloth. 'Sam Shuck is just now c.o.c.k-a-hoop with this strike.'

'He is no more c.o.c.k-a-hoop than the rest of Daffodil's Delight is,'

struck in Mrs. Quale, who had finished her own meal, and was at leisure to talk. 'The men and women is all a going mad together, I think, and Slippery Sam's leading 'em on. Suppose you all do strike--which is what they are hankering after--what good 'll it bring?'

'That's just it,' replied Baxendale. 'One can't see one's way clear. The agitation might do us some good, but it might do us a deal of harm; so that one doesn't know what to be at. Quale, I'll go to the meeting, if you will?'

'If I go, it will be to give 'em a piece of my mind,' retorted Peter.

'Well, it's only right that different sides should be heard. Sam 'll have it all his own way else.'

'He'll manage to get that, by the appearance things wears,' said Mrs.

Quale, wrathfully. 'How you men can submit to be led by such a fellow as him, just because his tongue is capable of persuading you that black's white, is a marvel to me. Talk of women being soft! let the men talk of theirselves. Hold up a finger to 'em, and they'll go after it: like the Swiss cows Peter read of the other day, a flocking in a line after their leader, behind each other's tails.'

'I wish I knew what was right,' said Baxendale, 'or which course would turn out best for us.'

'I'd be off and listen to what's going on, at any rate,' urged Mrs.

Quale.

The barn was filling. Sam Shuck, perched upon Mrs. Dunn's was.h.i.+ng-tub turned upside down, which had been rolled in for the occasion, greeted each group as it arrived with a gracious nod. Sam appeared to be progressing in the benefits he had boasted to his wife he should derive, inasmuch as that the dilapidated clothes had been discarded for better ones: and he stood on the tub's end in all the glory of a black frock coat, a crimson neck-tie with lace ends, and peg-top pantaloons: the only attire (as a ready-made outfitting shop had a.s.sured him) that a gentleman could wear. Sam's eye grew less complacent when it rested on Peter Quale, who was coming in with John Baxendale.

'This is a pleasure we didn't expect,' said he.

'Maybe not,' returned Peter Quale, drily. 'The barn's open to all.'

'Of course it is,' glibly said Sam, putting a good face upon the matter.

'All fair and above board, is our mottor: which is more than them native enemies of ours, the masters, can say: they hold their meetings in secret, with closed doors.'

'Not in secret--do they?' asked Robert Darby. 'I have not heard of that.'

'They meet in their own homes, and they shut out strangers,' replied Sam. 'I'd like to know what you call that, but meeting in secret?'

'I should not call it secret; I should call it private,' decided Darby, after a minute's pause, given to realize the question. 'We might do the same. Our homes are ours, and we can shut out whom we please.'

'Of course we _might_,' contended Sam. 'But we like better to be open; and if a few of us a.s.semble together to consult on the present aspect of affairs, we do it so that the masters, if they choose, might come and hear us. Things are not equalized in this world. Let us attempt secret meetings, and see how soon we should be looked up by the law, and accused of hatching treason and sedition, and all the rest of it. That sharp-eyed _Times_ newspaper would be the first to set on us. There's one law for the masters, and another for the men.'

'Is that Slippery Sam?' e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed a new comer, at this juncture. 'Where did you get that fine new toggery, Shuck?'

The disrespectful interruption was spoken in simple surprise: no insidious meaning prompting it. Sam Shuck had appeared in ragged attire so long, that the change could not fail to be remarkable. Sam loftily turned a deaf ear to the remark, and continued his address.

'I am sure that most of you can't fail to see that things have come to a crisis in our trade. The moment that brought it, was when that great building firm refused the reasonable demands of their men; and the natural consequence of which was a strike. Friends, I have been just _riled_ ever since. I have watched you go to work day after day like tame cats, the same as if nothing had happened; and I have said to myself: "Have those men of Hunter's got souls within them, or have they got none?"'

'I don't suppose we have parted from our souls,' struck in a voice.

'You have parted with the feelings of them, at any rate,' rejoined Sam, beginning to dance in the excitement of contention, but remembering in time that his _terra firma_ was only a creaky tub. 'What's that you ask me? How have you parted with them? Why, by not following up the strike.

If you possessed a grain of the independence of free men, you'd have hoisted your colours before now; what would have been the result? Why, the men of other firms in the trade would have followed suit, and all struck in a body. It's the only way that will bring the masters to reason: the only way by which we can hope to obtain our rights.'

'You see there's no knowing what would be the end of a strike, Shuck,'

argued John Baxendale.

'There's no knowing what may be the inside of a pie until you cut him open,' said Jim Dunn, whose politics were the same as Mr. Shuck's, red-hot for a strike. 'But 'tain't many as 'ud shrink from putting in the knife to see.'

The men laughed, and greeted Jim Dunn with applause.

'I put it to you all,' resumed Sam, who took his share of laughing with the rest, 'whether there's sense or not in what I say. Are we likely to get our grievances redressed by the masters, unless we force it? Never: not if we prayed our hearts out.'

'Never,' and 'never,' murmured sundry voices.

'What _are_ our grievances?' demanded Peter Quale, putting the question in a matter-of-fact tone, as if he really asked for information.

'Listen!' ironically e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Sam. 'He asks what our grievances are!

I'll answer you, Quale. They are many and great. Are we not kept to work like beasts of burden, ten hours a day? Does that leave us time for the recreation of our wearied bodies, for the improvement of our minds, for the education of our children, for the social home intercourse in the bosoms of our families? By docking the day's labour to nine hours--or to eight, which we shall get, may be, after awhile,' added Sam, with a wink--'it would leave us the extra hour, and be a blessing.'

Sam carried the admiring room with him. That hard, disbelieving Peter Quale, interrupted the cheering.

'A blessing, or the conterairy, as it might turn out,' cried he. 'It's easy to talk of education, and self-improvement; but how many is there that would use the accorded hour that way?'

'Another grievance is our wages,' resumed Sam, drowning the words, not caring to court discussion on what might be a weak point. 'We call ourselves men, and Englishmen, and yet we lie down contented with five-and-sixpence a day. Do you know what our trade gets in Australia?