Mrs. Bindle Part 4

"But I didn't want to strike," protested Bindle.

"Then you should have been a man and said so, instead of letting that little rat make you do everything he wants, him sitting down to a good dinner every day, all paid for out of strikes."

There were sympathetic murmurs from the surrounding darkness.

"But----" began Bindle.

"Don't let me 'ear anything more of you to-night, Joe Bindle," came Mrs.

Bindle's uncompromising voice, "or next time I'll throw the jug an' all at you," and with that she banged-to the window in a way that convinced Bindle it was useless to parley further.

"Catch my death o' cold," he grumbled, as he turned on a reluctant heel in the direction of Fulham High Street, with the intention of claiming hospitality from his sister-in-law, Mrs. Hearty. "Wot am I goin' to do for duds," he added. "Funny ole bird I should look in one of 'Earty's frock-coats."

IV

The next morning at nine o'clock, the wives of the strikers met by arrangement outside the organising secretary's house; but the strikers themselves were before them, and Mr. Cunham found himself faced with the ugliest situation he had ever encountered.

At the sight of the groups of strikers, the women raised shrill cries.

The men, too, lifted their voices, not in derision or criticism of their helpmates; but at the organising secretary.

The previous night the same drama that had been enacted between Bindle and Mrs. Bindle had taken place outside the houses of many of the other strikers, with the result that they had become "fed up to the blinkin'

neck with the whole ruddy business."

"Well!" cried Mrs. Hopton as, at the head of her legion of Amazons, she reached the first group of men. "How jer like it?"

The men turned aside, grumbling in their throats.

"Her-her-her!" she laughed. "Boot's on the other foot now, my pretty canaries, ain't it? n.o.body mustn't do anythink to upset you; but you can do what you streamin' well like, you lot o' silly mugs!

"Wotjer let that little rat-faced sniveller turn you round 'is little finger for? You ain't men, you're just Unionists wot 'ave got to do wot 'e tells you. I see 'im yesterday," she continued after a slight pause, "'aving a rare ole guzzle wot you pays for by striking. 'Ow much does it cost 'im? That's wot I want to know, the rat-faced little stinker!"

At that moment "the rat-faced little stinker" himself appeared, hat on head and light overcoat thrown over his arm. He smiled wearily, he was not favourably impressed by the look of things.

His appearance was the signal for shrill shouts from the women, and a grumbling murmur from the men.

"'Ere's Kayser Cunham," shouted one woman, and then individual cries were drowned in the angry murmur of protest and recrimination.

Mr. Cunham found himself faced by the same men who, the day before, had greeted his words with cheers. Now they made it manifest that if he did not find a way out of the strike difficulty, there would be trouble.

"Take that!" roared Mrs. Hopton hoa.r.s.ely, as she s.n.a.t.c.hed something from a paper-bag she was carrying, and hurled it with all her might at the leader. Her aim was bad, and a small man, standing at right angles to the Union secretary, received a large and painfully ripe tomato full on the chin.

Mrs. Hopton's cry was a signal to the other women. From beneath cloaks and capes they produced every conceivable missile, including a number of eggs far gone towards chickenhood. With more zeal than accuracy of aim, they hurled them at the unfortunate Mr. Cunham. For a full minute he stood his ground valiantly, then, an egg catching him between the eyes brought swift oblivion.

The strikers, however, did not manifest the courage of their leader.

Although intended for the organising secretary, most of the missiles found a way into their ranks. They wavered and, a moment after, turned and fled.

Approaching nearer, the women concentrated upon him whom they regarded as responsible for the strike, and their aim improved. Some of their shots took effect on his person, but most of them on the front of the house. Three windows were broken, and it was not until Mrs. Cunham came and dragged her egg-bespattered lord into the pa.s.sage, banging-to the street door behind her, that the storm began to die down.

By this time a considerable crowd of interested spectators had gathered.

"Just shows you what us women can do if we've a mind to do it," was the oracular utterance of one woman, who prided herself upon having been the first arrival outside the actual combatants.

"She ain't 'alf a caution," remarked a "lady friend," who had joined her soon after the outbreak of hostilities. "That big un," she added, nodding in the direction of Mrs. Hopton, who, arms on hips and head thrown back, was giving vent to her mirth in a series of "her-her-her's."

A policeman pushed his way through the crowd towards the gate. Mrs.

Hopton, catching sight of him, turned.

"You take my advice, my lad, and keep out of this."

The policeman looked about him a little uncertainly.

"What's the matter?" he enquired.

"It's a strike and a lock-out," she explained, "an' they got a bit mixed. We ain't got no quarrel with a good-looking young chap like you, an' we're on private premises, so you just jazz along as if you 'adn't seen us."

A smile fluttered about the lips of the policeman. The thought of pa.s.sing Mrs. Hopton without seeing her amused him; still he took no active part in the proceedings, beyond an official exhortation to the crowd to "pa.s.s along, please."

"Well, ladies," said Mrs. Hopton, addressing her victorious legions; "it's all over now, bar shoutin'. If any o' your men start a-knockin'

you about, tell 'em we're a-goin' to stand together, and just let me know. We'll come round and make 'em wish they'd been born somethink wot can't feel."

That morning the manager at the yard received a deputation from the men, headed by Mr. Cunham, who, although he had changed his clothes and taken a hot bath, was still conscious of the disgusting reek of rotten eggs.

Before dinner-time the whole matter had been settled, and the men were to resume work at two o'clock.

Bindle reached home a few minutes to one, hungry and expectant. The notice had been removed from the front door, and he found Mrs. Bindle in the kitchen ironing.

"Well," she demanded as he entered, "what do you want?"

"Strike's orf, Lizzie," he said genially, an anxious eye turned to the stove upon which, however, there were no saucepans. This decided him that his dinner was in the oven.

"I could have told you that!" was her sole comment, and she proceeded with her ironing.

For a few minutes Bindle looked about him, then once more fixed his gaze upon the oven.

"Wot time you goin' to 'ave dinner, Lizzie?" he asked, with all the geniality of a prodigal doubtful of his welcome.

"I've had it." Mrs. Bindle's lips met in a hard, firm line.

"Is mine in the oven?"

"Better look and see."

He walked across to the stove and opened the oven door. It was as bare as the cupboard of Mrs. Hubbard.

"Wot you done with it, Lizzie?" he enquired, misgiving clutching at his heart.

"What have I done with what?" she snapped, as she brought her iron down with a bang that caused him to jump.

"My little bit o' groundsel."