Johnny Ludlow First Series Part 97

"Then _do_ it," returned the Squire in a pa.s.sion; and went stamping away with his gun.

"Johnny, they are all pig-headed together," he presently said, as we crossed the stile into the field of stubble whence the corn had been reaped. "One can't help being sorry for them: they are blinded by specious arguments that will turn out, I fear, to be all moons.h.i.+ne. Hold my gun, lad. Where's that dog, now? Here, Dash, Dash, Das.h.!.+"

Dash came running up; and Tod with him.

In a fortnight's time, Crabb Cot was deserted again. Tod and I returned to our studies, the Squire and the rest to d.y.k.e Manor. As the weeks went on, sc.r.a.ps of news would reach us about the strike. There were meetings of the masters alone: meetings of the men and what they called delegates; meetings of masters and men combined. It all came to nothing.

The masters at length offered to concede a little: the men (inwardly wearied out, sick to death of the untoward state of things) would have accepted the slight concession and returned to work with willing feet; but their rulers--the delegates, or whatever they were--said no. And so the idleness and the pinching distress continued: the men got more morose, and the children more ragged. After that (things remaining in a chronic state of misery, I suppose) we heard nothing.

"Another lot of f.a.ggots, Thomas; and heap up the coal. This is weather!

Goodness, man! Don't put the coal on gingerly, as if you were afraid of it. Molly's a fool."

We were in the cozy sitting-room again at Crabb Cot. The Squire was right: it _was_ weather: the coldest I have ever felt in December. Old Thomas's hands were frozen with the drive from the station. Molly, who had come on the day before, had put about a handful of fire in the grate to greet us with. Naturally it put the Squire's temper up.

"That there strike's a-going on still, sir," began Thomas, as he waited to watch his wood blaze up.

"No!" cried the Squire. For we had naturally supposed it to be at an end.

"It is, though, sir. Ford the driver telled me, coming along, that Crabb Lane was in a fine state for distress."

"Oh dear! I wish I knew whose fault it is!" bewailed Mrs. Todhetley.

"What more did the driver say, Thomas?"

"Well, ma'am, _he_ said it must be the men's fault--because there the work is, still a-waiting for 'em, and they won't do it."

"The condition the poor children must be in!"

"Like hungry wolves," said old Thomas. "'Twas what Ford called 'em, and he ought to know: own brother to Ford the baker, as lives in the very thick of the trouble!"

Scarcely anything was talked of that evening but the strike. Its long continuance half frightened some of us. Old Coney, coming in to smoke his pipe with the Squire, pulled a face as long as his arm at the poor-rate prospect: the Squire wondered how much work would stay in the country.

It was said the weekly allowance made to the men was not so much as it had been at first. It was also said that the Society, making it, considered Crabb Lane in general had been particularly improvident in spending the allowance, or it would not have been reduced to its present distressed condition. Which was not to be wondered at, in Mr. Coney's opinion: people used to very good wages, he said, could not all at once pull up habits and look at every farthing as a miser does. Crabb Lane was reproachfully a.s.sured by the Society that other strikes had kept themselves quite respectable, comparatively speaking, upon just the same allowance, and had not parted with _all_ their pots and pans.

That night I dreamt of the strike. It's as true as that I am writing this. I dreamt I saw thousands and thousands of red-faced men--not pale-faced ones--each tossing a loaf of bread up and down.

"I suppose I may go over and see Eliza," I said to Mrs. Todhetley, after breakfast in the morning.

"There is no reason why you should not, Johnny, that I know of," she answered, after a pause. "Excepting the cold."

As if I minded the cold! "I hope the whole lot, she and the young ones, won't look like skeletons, that's all. Tod, will you come?"

"Not if I know it, old fellow. I have no fancy for seeing skeletons."

"Oh, that was all my nonsense."

"I know that. A pleasant journey to you."

The h.o.a.r frost had gathered on the trees, the ice hung fantastically from their branches: it was altogether a beautiful sight. Groups of Miss Timmens's girls, coming to school with frozen noses, were making slides as they ran. As to Crabb Lane, it looked nearly deserted: the cold kept the men indoors. Knocking at h.o.a.r's door with a noise like a fire-engine, I went in with a leap.

The scene I came upon brought me up short. Just at first I did not understand it. In the self-same corner by the fireplace where d.i.c.ky's bed had been that first day, was a bed now, and Eliza lay on it: and by her side, wedged against the wall, was what looked like a bundle of green baize with a calico nightcap on. The children--and really and truly they were not much better than living skeletons--sat on the floor.

"What's to do here, you little mites? Is mother ill?"

d.i.c.ky, tending the fire (I could have put it into a cocoa-nut), turned round to answer me. He had got quite well again, arm and all.

"Mother's _very_ ill," said he in a whisper. "That's the new baby."

"The new what?"

"The new baby," repeated d.i.c.k, pointing to the green bundle. "It's two days old."

An old tin slop-pail, turned upside down, stood in the corner of the hearth. I sat down on it to revolve the news and take in the staggering aspect of things.

"What do you say, d.i.c.k? A baby--two days old?"

"Two days," returned d.i.c.k. "I'd show him to you but for fear o' waking mother."

"He came here the night afore last, he did, while we was all asleep upstairs," interposed the younger of the little girls, Jessy. "Mr. Cole brought him in his pocket: father said so."

"'Twasn't the night afore last," corrected 'Liza. "'Twas the night afore that."

Poor, pale, pinched faces, with never a smile on any one of them!

Nothing takes the spirit out of children like long-continued famine.

Stepping across, I looked down at Mrs. h.o.a.r. Her eyes were half open as if she were in a state of stupor. I don't think she knew me: I'm not sure she even saw me. The face was fearfully thin and hollow, and white as death.

"Wouldn't mother be better upstairs, d.i.c.k?"

"She's here 'cause o' the fire," returned d.i.c.k, gently dropping on a bit of coal the size of a marble. "There ain't no bed up there, neither; they've brought it down."

The "bed" looked like a sack of shavings. From my heart I don't believe it was anything else. At that moment, the door opened and a woman came in; a neighbour, I suppose; her clothes very thin.

"It's Mrs. Watts," said d.i.c.k.

Mrs. Watts curtsied. She looked as starved as they did. It seemed she knew me.

"She be very bad. Mr. Ludlow, sir."

"She seems so. Is it--fever?"

"Law, sir! It's more famine nor fever. If her strength can last out--why, well and good; she may rally. If it don't, she'll go, sir."

"Ought she not to have things, Mrs. Watts? Beef-tea and wine, and all that."

Mrs. Watts stared a minute, and then her lips parted with a sickly smile. "I don't know where she'd get 'em from, sir! Beef-tea and wine!

A drop o' plain tea is a'most more nor us poor can manage to find now.