A Life's Secret Part 42

'Can one clam?' fiercely returned Mrs. Dunn, speaking at her husband, not to him. 'Let him go to work.'

'Don't be a fool, Hannah Dunn,' said Mrs. Cheek. 'I'd stand up for my rights till I dropped: and so must the men. It'll never do to bend to the will of the masters at last. There's enough men turning tail and going back, without the rest doing of it. I should like to see Cheek attempting it: I'd be on to him.'

'Cheek don't want to; he have got no cause to,' said Mrs. Dunn. 'You get the living now, and find him in beer and bacca.'

'I do; and I am proud on it,' was Mrs. Cheek's answer. 'I goes was.h.i.+ng, I goes chairing, I goes ironing; nothing comes amiss to me, and I manages to keep the wolf from the door. It isn't my husband that shall bend to the masters. He shall stand up with the Unionists for his rights, or he shall stand up against me.' Having satisfied her curiosity as to the cause of the disturbance, Mrs. Cheek went out as she came, with a burst and a bang, for she had been bent on some hasty errand when arrested by the noise behind the Dunn's closed shutters. What the next proceedings would have been, it is difficult to say, had not another interruption occurred. Mrs. Dunn was putting her entangled hair behind her ears, most probably preparatory to the resuming of the attack on her husband, when the offending Mary Ann entered, attended by Mrs.

Quale.

At it she went, the mother, hammer and tongs, turning her resentment on the girl, her language by no means choice, though the younger children were present. Dunn was quieter; but he turned his back upon his daughter and would not look at her. And then Mrs. Quale took a turn, and exercised _her_ tongue on both the parents: not with quite as much noise, but with better effect.

It appeared that the whispered suspicions against Mary Ann Dunn had been mistaken ones. The girl had been doing right, instead of wrong. Mrs.

Quale had recommended her to a place at a small dressmaker's, partly of service, chiefly of needlework. Before engaging her, the dressmaker had insisted on a few days of trial, wis.h.i.+ng to see what her skill at work was; and Mary Ann had kept it secret, intending a pleasant surprise to her father when the engagement shall be finally made. The suspicions cast on her were but a poor return for this; and the girl, in her temper, had carried the grievance to Mrs. Quale, when the day's work was over. A few words of strong good sense from that talkative friend subdued Mary Ann, and she had now come back in peace. Mrs. Quale gave the explanation, interlarding it with a sharp reprimand at their p.r.o.neness to think ill of 'their own flesh and blood,' and James Dunn sat down meekly in glad repentance. Even Mrs. Dunn lowered her tone for once. Mary Ann held out some money to her father after a quick glance at Mrs. Quale for approval. 'Take it, father. It'll stop your going to prison, perhaps. Mrs. Quale has lent it me to get my clothes out, for I am to enter for good on my place to-morrow. I can manage without my clothes for a bit.'

James Dunn put the money back, speaking softly, very much as if he had tears in his voice. 'No, girl: it'll do you more good than it will me.

Mrs. Quale has been a good friend to you. Enter on your place, and stay in it. It is the best news I've heard this many a day.'

'But if the money will keep you out of jail, father!' sobbed Mary Ann, quite subdued.

'It wouldn't do that; nor half do it; nor a quarter. Get your clothes home, child, and go into your place of service. As for me--better I was in jail than out of it,' he added with a sigh. 'In there, one does get food.'

'Are you sure it wouldn't do you good, Jim Dunn?' asked Mrs. Quale, speaking in the emergency he seemed to be driven to. Not that she would have helped him, so improvident in conduct and mistaken in opinions, with a good heart.

'Sure and certain. If I paid this debt, others that I owe would be put on to me.'

'Come along, Mary Ann,' said Mrs. Quale. 'I told you I'd give you a bed at my house to-night, and I will: so you'll know where she is, Hannah Dunn. You go on down to c.o.x's, girl; get out as much as you can for the money, and come straight back to me: I'm going home now, and we'll set to work and see the best we can do with the things.' They went out together. But Mrs. Quale opened the door again and put in her head for a parting word; remembering perhaps her want of civility in not having given it. 'Good night to you all. And pleasant dreams--if you can get 'em. You Unionists have brought your pigs to a pretty market.'

CHAPTER VIII.

A DESCENT FOR MR. SHUCK.

Things were coming to a crisis. The Unionists had done their best to hold out against the masters; but they found the effort was untenable--that they must give in at last. The prospect of returning to work was eagerly welcomed by the greater portion of the men. Rather than continue longer in the wretched condition to which they were reduced, they would have gone back almost on any terms. Why, then, not have gone back before? as many asked. Because they preferred to resume work with the consent of the Union, rather than without it: and besides, the privations got worse and worse. A few of the men were bitterly enraged at the turn affairs seemed to be taking--of whom Sam Shuck was chief.

With the return of the hands to work, Sam foresaw no field for the exercise of his own peculiar talents, unless it was in stirring up fresh discontent for the future. However, it was not yet finally arranged that work should be resumed: a little more agitation might be pleasant first, and possibly prevent it.

'It's a few white-livered hounds among yourselves that have spoilt it,'

growled Sam to a knot of hitherto staunch friends, a day or two subsequent to that conjugal dispute between Mr. and Mrs. Dunn, which we had the gratification of a.s.sisting at in the last chapter. 'When such men as White, and Baxendale, and Darby, who have held some sway among you, turn sneaks and go over to the n.o.bs, it's only to be expected that you'll turn sneaks and follow. One fool makes many. Did you hear how Darby got out his tools?'

'No.'

'The men opposed to the Union, opposed to us, heard of his wanting them, and they clubbed together, and made up the tin, and Darby is to pay 'em back so much a-week--two s.h.i.+llings I think it is. Before I'd lie under obligation to the non-Unionist men, I'd shoot myself. What good has the struggle done you?'

'None,' said a voice. 'It have done a good deal of harm.'

'Ay, it has--if it is to die out in this ign.o.ble way,' said Sam. 'Better have been slaving like dray-horses all along, than break down in the effort to escape the slavery, and hug it to your arms again. If you had only half the spirit of men, you'd stop White's work for awhile, and Darby's too, as you did Baxendale's. Have you been thinking over what was said last night?' he continued, in a lower tone. The men nodded. One of them ventured to express an opinion that it was a 'dangerous game.'

'That depends upon how it's done,' said Shuck. 'Who has been the worse, pray, for the pitching into Baxendale? Can he, or anybody else, point a finger and say, "It was you did it?" or "It was you?" Why, of course he can't.'

'One might not come off again with the like luck.'

'Psha!' returned Sam, evincing a great amount of ridicule.

'But one mightn't, Shuck,' persisted his adversary.

'Oh, let the traitors alone, to go their own way in triumph if you like; get up a piece of plate for them, with their names wrote on it in gold,'

satirically answered Sam. 'Yah! it sickens one to see you true fellows going over to the oppressionists.'

'How do you make out that White, and them, be oppressionists?'

'White, and them? they are worse than oppressionists a thousand times over,' fiercely cried Sam. 'I can't find words bad enough for _them_. It isn't of them I spoke: I spoke of the masters.'

'Well, Shuck, there's oppression on all sides, I think,' rejoined one of the men. 'I'd be glad to rise in the world if I could, and I'd work over hours to help me on to it and to educate my children a bit better than common; but if you come down upon me and say, "You shall not do it, you shall only work the stated hours laid down, and n.o.body shall work more,"

I call that oppression.'

'So it is,' a.s.sented another voice. 'The masters never oppressed us like that.'

'What's fair for one is fair for all,' said Sam. 'We must work and share alike.'

'That would be right enough if we all had talents and industry equal,'

was the reply. 'But as we haven't, and never shall have, it can't be fair to put a limit on us.'

'There's one question I'd like to have answered, Shuck,' interposed a former speaker: 'but I'm afeared it never will be answered, with satisfaction to us. What is to become of those men that the masters can't find employment for? If every one of us was free to go back to work to-morrow, and sought to do so, where would we get it? Our old shops be half filled with strangers, and there'd be thousands of us rejected--no room for us. Would the Society keep us?' A somewhat difficult question to answer, even for Slippery Sam. Perhaps for that reason he suddenly called out 'Hus.h.!.+' and bent his head and put up his finger in the att.i.tude of listening.

'There's something unusual going on in the street,' cried he. 'Let's see what it is.'

They hurried out to the street, Sam leading the way. Not a genial street to gaze upon, that wintry day, taking it with all its accessories.

Half-clothed, half-starved emaciated men stood about in groups, their pale features and gloomy expression of despair telling a piteous tale. A different set of men entirely, to look at, from those of the well-to-do cheerful old days of work, contentment, and freedom from care.

Being marshalled down the street in as polite a manner as was consistent with the occasion, was Mr. James Dunn. He was on his road to prison; and certain choice spirits of Daffodil's Delight, headed by Mrs.

Dunn, were in attendance, some bewailing and lamenting aloud, others hooting and yelling at the capturers. As if this was not enough cause of disturbance, news arose that the Dunns' landlord, finding the house temporarily abandoned by every soul--a chance he had been looking for--improved the opportunity to lock the street-door and keep them out.

Nothing was before Mrs. Dunn and her children now but the parish Union.

'I don't care whether it is the masters that have been in fault or whether it's us; I know which side gets the suffering,' exclaimed a mechanic, as Mr. Dunn was conveyed beyond view. 'Old Abel White told us true; strikes never brought nothing but misery yet, and they never will.'

Sam Shuck seized upon the circ.u.mstance to draw around him a select audience, and to hold forth to them. Treason, false and pernicious though it was, that he spoke, his oratory fell persuasively on the public ear. He excited the men against the masters; he excited them to his utmost power against the men who had gone back to work; he inflamed their pa.s.sions, he perverted their reason. Altogether, ill-feeling and excitement was smouldering in an unusual degree in Daffodil's Delight, and it was kept up through the live-long day. Evening came. The bell rang for the cessation of work at Mr. Hunter's, and the men came pouring forth, a great many of whom were strangers. The gas-lamp at the gate shed a brilliant light, as the hands dispersed--some one way, some another. Those bearing towards Daffodil's Delight became aware, as they approached an obscure portion of the road which lay past a dead wall, that it bore an unusual appearance, as if dark forms were hovering there. What could it be? Not for long were they kept in ignorance. There arose a terrific din, enough to startle the unwary. Yells, groans, hootings, hisses, threats were poured forth upon the workmen; and they knew that they had fallen into an ambush of the Society's men. Of women also, as it appeared. For shrill notes and delicate words of abuse, certainly only peculiar to ladies' throats, were pretty freely mingled with the gruff tones of the men.

'You be nice nine-hour chaps! Come on, if you're not cowards, and have it out in a fair fight----'

'A fair fight!' shrieked a female voice in interruption 'who'd fight with them? Traitors! cowards! Knock 'em down and trample upon 'em!'

'Harness 'em together with cords, and drag 'em along like beasts o'

burden in the face and eyes o' London!' 'Stick 'em up on spikes!' 'Hoist 'em on to the lamp-posts!' 'Hold 'em head down'ards in a horse-trough!'

'Pitch into 'em with quicklime and rotten eggs!' 'Strip 'em and give 'em a coat o' tar!' 'Wring their necks, and have done with 'em!'

While these several complimentary suggestions were thrown from as many different quarters of the a.s.sailants, one of them had quietly laid hold of Abel White. There was little doubt--according to what came out afterwards--that he and Robert Darby were the two men chiefly aimed at in this night a.s.sault. Darby, however, was not there. As it happened, he had turned the contrary way on leaving the yard, having joined one of the men who had lent him some of the money to get his tools out of pledge, and gone towards his home with him.

'If thee carest for thy life, thee'll stop indoors, and not go a-nigh Hunter's yard again to work!'