SOMEBODY 'PITCHED INTO.'
How do the poor manage to pull through illness? Through distress,
through hunger, through cold, through nakedness; above all, through the
close, unwholesome atmosphere in which too many of them are obliged to
live, they struggle on from sickness back to health. Look at the
children of Robert Darby. The low fever which attacked them had in some
inexplicable way been subdued, without its going on to the dreaded
typhus. If typhus had appeared at that untoward time in Daffodil's
Delight, why, then, no earthly power could have kept many from the
grave. Little pale, pinched forms, but with the disease gone, there sat
Darby's children. Colder weather had come, and they had gathered round
the bit of fire in their close room: fire it could scarcely be called,
for it was only a few decaying embers. All sat on the floor, save Willy;
he was in a chair, leaning his head back on a pillow. The boy had
probably never been fitted by constitution for a prolonged life, though
he might have lasted some years more under favourable surroundings; as
it was, fever and privation had done their work with him, and the
little spirit was nearly worn out. Mrs. Darby had taken him round to Mr.
Rice. 'He does not want me, he wants good nourishment, and plenty of
it,' was the apothecary's announcement! And Mrs. Darby took him home
again. 'Mother, the fire's nearly out.'
'I can't help it, Willy. There's no coal, and nothing to buy it
with.'--'Take something, mother.'
You may or may not, as you are acquainted or not with the habits of the
poor, be aware that this sentence referred to the pawnbroker: spoken out
fully it would have been, 'Take something and pledge it, mother.' In
cases of long-continued general distress, the children of a family know
just as much about its ways and means as the heads do. Mrs. Darby cast
her eyes round the kitchen. There was nothing to take, nothing that
would raise them help, to speak of. As she stood over Willy, parting the
hair with her gentle finger upon his little pale brow, her tears dropped
upon his face. The pillow on which his head leaned? Ay; she had thought
of that with longing; but how would his poor aching head do without it?
The last things put in pledge had been Darby's tools. The latch of the
door opened, and Grace entered. She appeared to be in some deep
distress. Flinging herself on a chair, she clasped hold of her mother,
sobbing wildly, clinging to her as if for protection. 'Oh, mother, they
have accused me of theft; the police have been had to me!' were the
confused words that broke from her lips. Grace had taken a service in a
baker's family, where there was an excessively cross mistress. She was
a well-conducted, honest girl, and, since the distress had commenced at
home, had brought her wages straight to her mother, whenever they were
paid her. For the last week or two, the girl had brought something more.
On the days when she believed she could get a minute to run home in the
evening, she had put by her allowance of meat at dinner--they lived well
at the baker's--and made it upon bread and potatoes. Had Grace for a
moment suspected there was anything wrong or dishonest in this, she
would not have done it: she deemed the meat was hers, and she took it to
Willy. On this day, two good slices of mutton were cut for her; she put
them by, ate her potatoes and bread, and after dinner, upon being sent
on an errand past Daffodil's Delight, was taking them out with her. The
mistress pounced upon her. She abused her, she reproached her with
theft, she called her husband to join in the accusation; and finally, a
policeman was brought in from the street, probably more to frighten the
girl than to give her in charge. It did frighten her in no measured
degree. She protested, as well as she could do it for her sobs, that she
had no dishonest thought; that she had believed the meat to be hers to
eat it or not as she pleased, and that she was going to take it to her
little brother, who was dying. The policeman decided that it was not a
case for charge at the police-court, and the baker's wife ended the
matter by turning her out. All this, with sobs and moans, she by degrees
explained now.
Robert Darby, who had entered during the scene, placed his hand, more
in sorrow than in anger, upon Grace's shoulder, in his stern honesty.
'Daughter, I'd far rather we all dropped down here upon the floor and
died out with starvation, than that you should have brought home what
was not yours to bring.'
'There's no need for _you_ to scold her, Robert,' spoke Mrs. Darby, with
more temper than she, meek woman that she was, often betrayed: and her
conscience told her that she had purposely kept these little episodes
from her husband. 'It is the bits of meat she has fed him with twice or
thrice a week that has just kept life in him; that's my firm belief.'
'She shouldn't have done it; it was not hers to bring,' returned Robert
Darby.
'What else has he had to feed him?' proceeded the wife, determined to
defend the girl. 'What do any of us have? _You_ are getting nothing.'
The tone was a reproachful one. With her starving children before her,
and one of them dying, the poor mother's wrung heart could but speak
out.
'I know I am getting nothing. Is it my fault? I wish I could get
something. I'd work my fingers to the bone to keep my children.'
'Robert, let me speak to you,' she said in an imploring tone, the tears
gushing from her eyes. 'I have sat here this week and asked myself,
every hour of it, what we shall do. All our things, that money can be
made on, are gone; the pittance we get allowed by the society does not
keep body and soul together; and this state of affairs gets worse, and
will get worse. What is to become of us? What are we to do?' Robert
Darby leaned in his old jacket--one considerably the worse for
wear--against the kitchen wall, his countenance gloomy, his attitude
bespeaking misery. He knew not what they were to do, therefore he did
not attempt to say. Grace had laid down her inflamed face upon the edge
of Willy's pillow and was sobbing silently. The others sat on the floor:
very quiet; as semi-starved little ones are apt to be. 'You have just
said you would work your fingers to the bone to keep your children,'
resumed Mrs. Darby to her husband.
'I'd work for them till the flesh dropped off me. I'd ask no better than
to do it,' he vehemently said. 'But where am I to get work to do now?'
'Baxendale has got it,' she rejoined in a low tone.
Grace started from her leaning posture.
'Oh, father, do as Baxendale has done! don't let the children quite
starve. If you had been in work, this dreadful thing would not have
happened. It will be a slur upon me for life.'
'So I would work, girl, but for the Trades' Unions.'
'Father, the Trades' Unions seem to bring you no good; nothing but harm.
Don't trust them any longer; trust the masters now.'
Never was there a better meaning man than Robert Darby; but he was too
easily swayed by others. Latterly it had appeared to him that the
Trades' Unions did bring him harm, and his trust in them was shaken. He
stood for a few moments, revolving the question in his own mind. 'They'd
cast me off, you see, the Trades' Unions would,' he observed to his
wife, in an irresolute tone.
'What if they did? The masters would take you on. Stand right with the
masters----'
Mrs. Darby was interrupted by a shriek from Grace. Little Willy, whom
nobody had been giving attention to, was lying back with a white face,
senseless. Whether from the weakness of his condition, or from the
unusual excitement of the scene going on around him, certain it was that
the child had fainted. There was some little bustle in bringing him to,
and Mrs. Darby sat down, the boy upon her lap.
'What ailed you, deary?' said Robert Darby, bending down to him.
'I don't know, father,' returned the child. And his voice was fainter
than ever.
Mrs. Darby pulled her husband's ear close to her lips. 'When the boy's
dead, you'll wish you had cared for him more than for the Trades'
Unions; and worked for him.'
The words told upon the man. Perhaps for the first time he had fully
realized to his imagination the moment when he should see his boy lying
dead before him. 'I will work,' he exclaimed. 'Willy, boy, father will
go and get work; and he'll soon bring you home something good to eat, as
he used to.' Willy's hot lips parted with a pleasant smile of response;
his blue eyes glistened brightly. Robert Darby bent his rough, unshaven
face, and took a kiss from the child's smooth one. 'Yes, my boy; father
_will_ work.'
He went out, bending his steps towards Slippery Sam's--who, by the way,
had latterly tried to exact the title of 'Mr. Shuck.' There was a code
of honour--as they regarded it--amidst these operatives of the Hunters,
to do nothing underhanded. That is, not to resume work without first
speaking to the Unions' man, Sam Shuck--as was mentioned in the case of
Baxendale. It happened that Mr. Shuck was standing in the strip of
garden before his house, carrying on a wordy war over the palings with
Mrs. Quale, when Darby came up. Peter Quale had of course been locked
out with the rest, but with the first hour that Mr. Hunter's yard was
opened, Peter returned to his work. He did not belong to the Trades'
Unions--he never had belonged to them and never would; therefore, he was
a free man. Strange to say, he was left to do as he liked in peace;
somehow the Union did not care to interfere with Peter Quale--for one
thing, he occupied a better position in the yard than most of the men.
Peter pursued his own course quietly--going to his work and returning
from it, saying little to the malcontents of Daffodil's Delight. Not so
Mrs. Quale; she exercised her tongue upon them whenever she got the
chance. Her motive was a good one: she was at heart sorry for the
privation at present existing in Daffodil's Delight, and would have
liked to shame the men into going to work again.
'Now, Robert Darby! how are them children of your'n?' began she.
'Starved out yet?'
'Next door to it,' was Darby's answer.
'And whose is the fault?' she went on. 'If I had children, and my
husband wouldn't work to keep 'em out of their graves, through getting
some nasty mistaken crotchet in his head, and holding out when the work
was going a-begging, I'd go before a magistrate and see if I couldn't
have the law of him.'
'You'd do a good many things if you wore the breeches,' interposed Sam
Shuck, with a sneer; 'but you don't, you know.'
'You be wearing whole breeches now, which you get out of the blood and
marrow of the poor misguided men,' retorted Mrs. Quale. 'They won't last
out whole for ever, Slippery Sam.'
'They'll last out as long as I want 'em to, I dare say,' said Sam. 'Have
you come up for anything particular, Darby?'
'I have come to talk a bit, Shuck,' answered Darby, inwardly shrinking
from his task, and so deferring for a minute the announcement. 'There
seems no chance of this state of things coming to an end.'
'No, that there doesn't. You men are preventing that.'--'Us men!'
exclaimed Robert Darby in surprise. 'What do you mean?'
'I don't mean you; I don't mean the sturdy, honest fellows who hold out
for their rights like men--I mean the other lot. If every operative in
the kingdom had held out, to a man, the masters would have given in long
ago--they must have done it; and you would all be back, working in
triumph the nine hours per day. I spoke of those rats who sneak in, and
take the work, to the detriment of the honest man.'
'At any rate, the rats are getting the best of it just now,' said
Robert Darby.
'That they are,' said Mrs. Quale, exultingly, who would not lose an
opportunity of putting in her word. She stood facing the men, her arms
resting on the palings that divided the gardens. 'It isn't _their_
children that are dropping into their winding-sheets through want of
food.'
'If I had my way, I'd hang every man who in this crisis is putting his
hand to a stroke of work,' exclaimed Sam Shuck. 'Traitors! to turn and
work for the masters after they had resorted to a lock-out! It was that
lock-out floored us.'
'Of course it was,' assented Mrs. Quale, with marked complaisance. 'If
the Union only had money coming in from the men, they'd hold out for
ever. But the general lock-out stopped that.'
'Ugh!' growled Sam, with the addition of an ugly word.
'Well, Shuck, as things seem to be getting worse instead of better, and
prospects look altogether so gloomy, I shall go back to work myself,'
resumed Darby, plucking up courage to say it.
'Chut,' said Shuck.
'Will you tell me what I _am_ to do? I'd rather turn a thousand miles
the other way than I'd put my foot indoors at home, and see things as
they are there. If a man can clam himself, he can't watch those
belonging to him clam. Every farthing of allowance I had from the
society last week was----'
'You had your share,' interrupted Sam, who never cared to contend about
the amount received. 'Think of the thousands there is to divide it
among. The subscriptions have come in very well as yet, but they be
falling off now.'
'And think of the society's expenses,' interposed Mrs. Quale, with
suavity. 'The scores of gentlemen, like Mr. Shuck, there is to pay, and
keep on the fat of the land. He'll be going into Parliament next!'
'You shut up, will you?' roared Sam. 'Ryan,' called out he to the
Irishman, who was lounging up, 'here's Darby saying he thinks he shall
go to work.'
'Oh, but that would be rich,' said Ryan, with a laugh, as he entered the
garden, and took his standing beside Sam Shuck. 'Darby, man, you'd never
desert the society! It couldn't spare you.'
'I want to do for the best,' said Darby; 'and it seems to me that to
hold out is for the worse. Shuck, just answer me a question or two, as
from man to man. If the masters fill their yards with other operatives,
what is to become of us?'
'They can't fill their yards with other operatives,' returned Shuck.
'Where's the use of talking nonsense?'
'But they can. They are doing it.'
'They are not. They have just got a sprinkling of men for show--not
many. Where are they to get them from?'
'Do you know what I heard? That Mr. Henry Hunter has been over to
Belgium, and one or two of the other masters have also been, and----'
'There's no fear of the Beljim workmen,' interrupted Ryan. 'What
English master 'ud employ them half-starved frogs?'
'I heard that Mr. Henry Hunter was quite thunderstruck at their skill,'
continued Darby, paying no attention to the interruption. Their tools
are bad: they are not to be called tools, compared to ours; but they
turn out finished work. Their decorative work is beautiful. Mr. Henry
Hunter put the question to them, whether they would like to come to
England and earn five-and-sixpence per day, instead of three shillings
as they do there, and they jumped at it. He told them that perhaps he
might be sending for them.'
'Where did you bear that fine tale?' asked Slippery Sam?'
'It's going about among us. I dare say you have heard it also, Shuck.
Mr. Henry was away somewhere for nine or ten days.'
'Let 'em come, them Beljicks,' sneered Ryan. 'Maybe they'd go back with
their heads off. It couldn't take much to split the skull of them French
beggars.'
'Not when an Irishman holds the stick,' cried Mrs. Quale, looking the
man steadily in the face, as she left the palings.
Ryan watched her away, and resumed. 'How dare the masters think of
taking on forringers? Leaving us to starve!'
'The preventing of it lies with us,' said Darby. 'If we go back to work,
there'll be no room for them.'
'Listen, Darby,' rejoined Shuck, in a persuasive tone of confidence,
the latter in full force, now that his enemy, Mrs. Quale, had gone. 'The
bone of contention is the letting us work nine hours a day instead of
ten: well, why should they not accord it? Isn't there every reason why
they should? Isn't there men, outsiders, willing to work a full day's
work, but can't get it? This extra hour, thrown up by us, would give
employment to them. Would the masters be any the worse off?'
'They say they'd be the hour's wages out of pocket.'
'Flam!' ejaculated Sam. 'It would come out of the public's pocket, not
out of the masters'. They would add so much the more on to their
contracts, and nobody would be the worse. It's just a dogged feeling of
obstinacy that's upon 'em; it's nothing else. They'll come-to in the
end, if you men will only let them; they can't help doing it. Hold out,
hold out, Darby! If we are to give into them now, where has been the use
of this struggle? Haven't you waited for it, and starved for it, and
hoped for it?'
'Very true,' replied Darby, feeling in a perplexing maze of indecision.
'Don't give in, man, at the eleventh hour,' urged Shuck, with
affectionate eloquence: and to hear him you would have thought he had
nothing in the world at heart so much as the interest of Robert Darby.
'A little longer, and the victory will be ours. You see, it is not the
bare fact of your going back that does the mischief, it's the example it
sets. But for that scoundrel Baxendale's turning tail, you would not
have thought about it.'
'I don't know that,' said Darby.
'One bad sheep will spoil a flock,' continued Sam, puffing away at a
cigar which he was smoking. He would have enjoyed a pipe a great deal
more; but gentlemen smoked cigars, and Sam wanted to look as much like a
gentleman as he could; it had been suggested to him that it would add to
his power over the operatives. 'Why, Darby, we have got it all in our
own hands--if you men could but be brought to see it. It's as plain as
the nose before you. Us, builders, taking us in all our branches, might
be the most united and prosperous body of men in the world. Only let us
pull together, and have consideration for our fellows, and put away
selfishness. Binding ourselves to work on an equality, nine hours a day
being the limit; eight, perhaps, after a while----'
'It's a good thing you have not got much of an audience here, Sam Shuck!
That doctrine of yours is false and pernicious; its in opposition to the
laws of God and man.' The interruption proceeded from Dr. Bevary. He had
come into the garden unperceived by Sam, who was lounging on the side
palings, his back to the gate. The doctor was on his way to pay a visit
to Mary Baxendale. Sam started up. 'What did you say, sir?'
'What did I say!' repeated Dr. Bevary. 'I think it should be, what did
you say? You would dare to circumscribe the means of usefulness God has
given to man--to set a limit to his talents and his labour! You would
say, "So far shall you work, and no farther!" Who are you, and all such
as you, that you should assume such power, and set yourselves up between
your fellow-men and their responsibilities?'
'Hear, hear,' interrupted Mrs. Quale, putting her head out at her
window--for she had gone indoors. 'Give him a bit of truth, sir.'
'I have been a hard worker for years,' continued Dr. Bevary, paying no
attention, it must be confessed, to Mrs. Quale. 'Mentally and
practically I have toiled--_toiled_, Sam Shuck--to improve and make use
of the talents entrusted to me. My days are spent in alleviating, so far
as may be, the sufferings of my fellow-creatures; when I go to rest, I
often lie awake half the night, pondering difficult questions of medical
science. What man living has God endowed with power to come and say to
me, "You shall not do this; you shall only work half your hours; you
shall only earn a limited amount of fees?" Answer me.'
'It's not a parallel case, sir, with ours,' returned Sam.
'It is a parallel case,' said Dr. Bevary. 'There's your friend next
door, Peter Quale; take him. By diligence he has made himself into a
finished artizan; by dint of industry in working over hours, he is
amassing a competence that will keep him out of the workhouse in his old
age. What reason or principle of justice can there be in your saying,
"He shall not do this; he shall receive no more than I do, or than Ryan,
there, does? Because Ryan is an inferior workman, and I love idleness
and drink and agitation better than work, Quale and others shall not
work to have an advantage over us; we will share and fare alike." Out
upon you, Slippery Sam, for promulgating doctrines so false! You must be
the incarnation of selfishness, or you could not do it. If ever they
obtain sway in free and enlightened England, the independence of the
workman will be at an end.' The Doctor stepped in to Shuck's house, on
his way to Mary Baxendale, leaving Sam on the gravel. Sam put his arm
within Darby's, and led him down the street, out of the Doctor's way,
who would be coming forth again presently. There he set himself to undo
what the Doctor's words had done, and to breathe persuasive arguments
into Darby's ear. Later, Darby went home. It had grown dusk then, for
Sam had treated him to a glass at the Bricklayers' Arms, where sundry
other friends were taking their glasses. There appeared to be a
commotion in his house as he entered; his wife, Grace, and the young
ones were standing round Willy.
'He has had another fainting fit,' said Mrs. Darby to her husband, in
explanation. 'And now--I declare illness is the strangest thing!--he
says he is hungry.' The child put out his hot hand. 'Father!' Robert
Darby advanced and took it. 'Be you better, dear? What ails you this
evening?'
'Father,' whispered the child, hopefully, 'have you got the work?'
'When do you begin, Robert?' asked the wife. 'To-morrow?'
Darby's eyes fell, and his face clouded. 'I can't ask for it; I can't go
back to work,' he answered. 'The society won't let me.'
A great cry. A cry from the mother, from Grace, from the poor little
child. Hope, sprung up once more within them, had been illumining the
past few hours. 'You shall soon have food; father's going to work again,
darlings,' the mother had said to the hungry little ones. And now the
hopes were dashed! The disappointment was hard to bear. 'Is he to _die_
of hunger?' exclaimed Mrs. Darby, in bitterness, pointing to Willy. 'You
said you would work for him.'
'So I would, if they'd let me. I'd work the life out of me, but what I'd
get a crust for ye all; but the Trades' Union won't have it,' panted
Darby, his breath short with excitement. 'What am I to do?'
'Work without the Trades' Union, father,' interposed Grace, taking
courage to speak. She had always been a favourite with her father.
'Baxendale has done it.'
'They are threatening Baxendale awfully,' he answered. 'But it is not
that I'd care for; it's this. The society would put a mark upon me: I
should be a banned man: and when this struggle's over, they say I should
be let get work by neither masters nor men. My tools are in pledge,
too,' he added, as if that climax must end the contest.
Mrs. Darby threw her apron over her eyes and burst into tears; Grace was
already crying silently, and the boy had his imploring little hands held
up. 'Robert, they are your own children!' said the wife, meekly. 'I
never thought you'd see them starve.'
Another minute, and the man would have cried with them. He went out of
doors, perhaps to sob his emotion away. Two or three steps down the
street he encountered John Baxendale. The latter slipped five shillings
into his hand. Darby would have put it back again.
'Tut, man; don't be squeamish. Take it for the children. You'd do as
much for mine, if you had got it and I hadn't. Mary and I have been
talking about you. She heard you having an argument with that snake,
Shuck.'
'They be starving, Baxendale, or I wouldn't take it,' returned the man,
the tears running down his pinched face. 'I'll pay you back with the
first work I get. You call Shuck a snake; do you think he is one?'
'I'm sure of it,' said Baxendale. 'I don't know that he means ill, but
can't you see the temptation it is?--all this distress and agitation
that's ruining us, is making a gentleman of him. He and the other agents
are living on the fat of the land, as Quale's wife calls it, and doing
nothing for their pay, except keeping up the agitation. If we all went
to work again quietly, where would they be? Why, they'd have to go to
work also, for their pay must cease. Darby, I think the eyes of you
union men must be blinded, not to see this.'
'It seems plain enough to me at times,' assented Darby. 'I say,
Baxendale,' he added, wishing to speak a word of warning to his friend
ere he turned away, 'have a care of yourself; they are going on again
you at a fine rate.'
Come what would, Darby determined to furnish a home meal with this
relief, which seemed like a very help from heaven. He bought two pounds
of beef, a pound of cheese, some tea, some sugar, two loaves of bread,
and a lemon to make drink for Willy. Turning home with these various
treasures, he became aware that a bustle had arisen in the street. Men
and women were pressing down towards one particular spot. Tongues were
busy; but he could not at first obtain an insight into the cause of the
commotion.
'An obnoxious man had been set upon in a lonely corner, under cover of
the night's darkness, and pitched into,' was at length explained.
'Beaten to death.' Away flew Darby, a horrible suspicion at his heart.
Pushing his way amidst the crowd collected round the spot, as only a
resolute man can do, he stood face to face with the sight. One, trampled
on and beaten, lay in the dust, his face covered with blood.
'Is it Baxendale?' shouted Darby, for he was unable to recognise him.
'It's Baxendale, as sure as a trivet. Who else should it be? He have
caught it at last.'
But there were pitying faces around. Humanity revolted at the sight; and
quiet, inoffensive John Baxendale, had ever been liked in Daffodil's
Delight. Robert Darby, his voice rising to a shriek with emotion, held
out his armful of provisions.
'Look here! I wanted to work, but the Union won't let me. My wife and
children be a starving at home, one of them dying: I came out, for I
couldn't bear to stop indoors in the misery. There I met a friend--it
seemed to me more like an angel--and he gave me money to feed my
children; made me take it; he said if I had money and he had not, I'd
do as much for him. See what I bought with it: I was carrying it home
for my poor children when this cry arose. Friends, the one to give it me
was Baxendale. And you have murdered him!' Another great cry, even as
Darby concluded, arose to break the deep stillness. No stillness is so
deep as that caused by emotion.
'He is not dead!' shouted the crowd. 'See! he is stirring! Who could
have done this!'