MRS. GASS AMID THE WORKMEN.
There was trouble amongst the Dallory workpeople. It had been looming
in the distance for some time before it came. No works throughout the
kingdom had been more successfully carried on than the North Works.
The men were well paid; peace and satisfaction had always reigned
between them and their employers. But when certain delegates, or
emissaries, or whatever they may please to call themselves, arrived
stealthily at Dallory from the Trades' Unions, and took up stealthy
abode in the place, and whispered stealthy whispers into the ears of
the men, peace was at an end.
It matters not to trace the working of these insidious whispers, or
how the poison spread. Others have done it far more effectively and to
the purpose than I could do it. Sufficient to say that the Dallory
workpeople caught the infection prevailing amongst other bodies of
men--which the public, to its cost, has of late years known too much
of--and they joined the ranks of the disaffected. First there had been
doubt, and misgiving, and wavering; then agitation; then
dissatisfaction; then parleying with their master, Richard North; then
_demands_ to be paid more and do less work. In vain Richard, with his
strong sense, argued and reasoned: showing them, in all kindness, how
mistaken was the course they were entering on, and what must come of
it. They listened with respect, for he was liked and esteemed; but
they would not give in. It had been privately told Richard that much
argument and holding-out had been carried on with the Trades' Union
emissaries, some of whom were ever hovering over Dallory like birds of
prey: the workmen wanting to insist on the sense of Richard North's
views of things, the others speciously disproving it. But it came to
nothing. The workmen yielded to their despotic rulers as submissively
as others have done, and Richard's words were set at nought. They were
like so many tame sheep blindly following their leader. The agitation,
beginning about the time of Bessy North's marriage, continued for many
months; it then came to an issue; and for several weeks now, the works
had been shut up.
For the men had struck. North and Gass had large contracts on hand,
and they could not be completed. Unless matters took a speedy turn,
masters and men would alike be ruined. The ruin of the first involved
that of the last.
Mrs. Gass took things more equably than Richard North. In one sense
she had less need to take them otherwise. Her prosperity did not
depend on the works. A large sum of hers was certainly invested in
them; but a larger was in other and safe securities. If the works and
their capital went to ruin, the only difference it would make to Mrs.
Gass was, that she would have so much the less money to leave behind
her when she died. In this sense therefore Mrs. Gass could take things
calmly: but in regard to the men's conduct she was far more outspoken
and severe than Richard.
Dallory presented a curious scene. In former days, during work time
not an idle man was to be found: the village had looked almost
deserted, excepting for the children playing about. Now the narrow
thoroughfares were blocked with groups of men; talking seriously, or
chaffing with each other, as might be; most of them smoking, and
all looking utterly sick of the passing hours. Work does not tire a
man--or woman either--half as much as idleness.
At first the holiday was an agreeable novelty; the six days were each
a Sunday, as well as the seventh; and the men and women lived in
clover. Not one family in twenty had been sufficiently provident to
put by money for a rainy day, good though their wages had been; but
the Trades' Unions took care of their new protégés, and supplied them
with funds. But as the weeks went on, and Richard North gave no sign
of relenting--that is, of taking the men on again at their own
terms--the funds did not come in so liberally. Husbands, not
accustomed to being stinted; wives, not knowing how to make sixpence
suffice for a shilling, might be excused if they felt a little put
out; and they began to take things to the pawnbroker's. Mr. Ducket,
the respectable functionary who presided over the interests of the
three gilt balls at Dallory, rubbed his hands complacently as he took
the articles in. Being gifted with a long sharp nose, he scented the
good time coming.
One day, in passing the shop, Mrs. Gass saw three women in it. She
walked in herself; and, without ceremony, demanded what they were
pledging. The women slunk away, hiding their property under their
aprons, and leaving their errand to be completed another time. That
Mrs. Gass or their master, Richard North, should see them at this
work, brought humiliation to their minds and shame to their cheeks.
Richard North and Mrs. Gass had both told them (to their utter
disbelief) that it would come to this: and to be detected in the
actual fact of pledging, seemed very like defeat.
"So you've began, have you, Ducket?" commenced Mrs. Gass.
"Began what, ma'am?" asked Ducket; a little, middle-aged man with
watery eyes and weak hair; always deferent in manner to the wealthy
Mrs. Gass.
"Began what! Why, the pledging. I told 'em all they'd come to the
pawnshop."
"It's them that have begun it, ma'am; not me."
"Where do you suppose it will end, Ducket?"
Ducket shook his head meekly, intimating that he couldn't suppose
anything about it. He was naturally meek in disposition, and the
brow-beating he habitually underwent in the course of business from
his customers of the fairer sex had subdued his spirit.
"It'll just end in their pawning every earthly thing inside their
homes, leaving them to the four naked walls," said Mrs. Gass. "And the
next move 'll be into the work'us."
In the presence of Mrs. Gass, Ducket did not choose to show any sense
of latent profit this wholesale pledging might bring to him. On the
contrary, he affected to see nothing but gloom in the matter.
"A nice prospect for us rate-payers, ma'am, that 'ould be! Taxes be
heavy enough, as it is, in Dallory parish, without having all these
workmen and their families throw'd on us."
"If the taxes was of my mind, Ducket, they'd let the men starve,
rather than help 'em. When able-bodied artisans have plenty of work to
do, and won't do it, it's time they was taught a lesson. As sure as
you and I are standing here, them misguided men will come to want a
crust."
"Well, I'd not wish 'em as bad as that," said Ducket, who, apart from
the hardness induced by his trade, was rather softhearted. "Perhaps
Mr. Richard North 'll give in."
"Mr. Richard North give in!" echoed Mrs. Gass. "Don't upset your
brains with perhapsing that, Ducket. Who ought to give in--looking at
the rights and wrongs of the question--North and Gass, or the men?
Tell me that."
"Well, I think the men are wrong," acknowledged the pawnbroker,
smoothing down his white linen apron. "And foolish too."
Mrs. Gass nodded several times, a significant look on her pleasant
face. She wore a top-knot of white feathers, and they bowed
majestically with the movement.
"Maybe they'll live to see it, too. They will, unless their senses
come back to 'em pretty quickly. Look here, Ducket: what I was about
to say is this--don't be too free to take their traps in."
Ducket's face assumed a mournful cast, but Mrs. Gass was looking at
him, evidently waiting for an answer.
"I don't see my way clear to refusing things when they are brought to
me, Mrs. Gass, ma'am. The women 'ould only go off to Whitborough and
pledge 'em there."
"Then they should go--for me."
"Yes, ma'am," rejoined the man, not knowing what else to say.
"I'm not particular squeamish, Ducket; trade's trade; and a pawnbroker
must live as well as other people. I don't say but what the money he
lends does sometimes a world of good to them that has no other help to
turn to--and, maybe, through no fault of their own, poor things. But
when it comes to dismantling homes by the score, and leaving families
as destitute as ever they were when they came into this blessed world,
that's different. And I wouldn't like to have it on my conscience,
Ducket, though I was ten pawnbrokers."
Mrs. Gass quitted the shop with the last words, leaving Ducket to
digest them. In passing North Inlet, she saw a group of the
disaffected collected together, and turned out of her way to speak to
them. Mrs. Gass was quite at home, so to say, with every one of the
men at the works; more so than a lady of better birth and breeding
could ever have been. She found fault with them, and commented on
their failings as familiarly as though she had been one of themselves.
Of the whole body of workpeople, not more than three or four had
consistently raised their voices against the strike. These few would
willingly have gone to work again, and thought it a terrible hardship
that they could not do so; but of course the refusal of the majority
to return practically closed the gates to all. Richard North could not
keep his business going with only half-a-dozen pairs of hands in it.
"Well," began Mrs. Gass, "what's the time o' day with you men?"
The men parted at the address, and touched their caps. The "time o'
day" meant, as they knew, anything but the literal question.
"How much longer do you intend to lead the lives of gentlefolk?"
"It's what we was a-talking on, ma'am--how much longer Mr. Richard
North 'll keep the gates closed again' us," returned one whose name
was Webb, speaking boldly but respectfully.
"Don't you put the saddle on the wrong horse, Webb; I told you that
the other day. Mr. Richard North didn't close the gates again' you:
you closed 'em again' yourselves by walking out. He'd open them to you
tomorrow, and be glad to do it."
"Yes, ma'am, but on the old terms," debated the man, looking
obstinately at Mrs. Gass.
"What have you to say again' the old terms?" demanded that lady of the
men collectively. "Haven't they kept you and your families in comfort
for years and years? Where was your grumblings then? I heard of none."
"But things is changed," said Webb.
"Not a bit of it," retorted Mrs. Gass. "It's you men that have
changed; not the things. I'll put a question to yon, Webb--to all of
you--and it won't do you any harm to answer it. If these Trade Union
men had never come amongst you with their persuasions and doctrines,
should you, or should you not, have been at your work now in content
and peace? Be honest, Webb, and reply."
"I suppose so," confessed Webb.
"You know so," corrected Mrs. Gass. "It is as Mr. Richard said the
other day to me--the men are led away by a chimera, which means a
false fancy, Webb; a sham. There's the place"--pointing in the
direction of the works--"and there's your work, waiting for you to do
it. Mr. Richard will give you the same wages that he has always given;
you say you won't go to work unless he gives more: which he can't
afford to do. And there it rests; you, and him, and the business, all
at a standstill."
"And likely to be at a standstill, ma'am," returned Webb, but always
respectfully.
"Very well; let's take it at that," said Mrs. Gass, with equanimity.
"Let's take it that it _lasts_, this state of things. What's to come
of it?"
Webb, an intelligent man and superior workman, looked out straight
before him thoughtfully, as if searching a solution to the question.
Mrs. Gass, finding he did not answer, resumed:
"If the Trades' Unions can find you permanently in food and drink, and
clothes and firing, well and good. Let 'em do it: there'd be no more
to say. But if they can't?"
"They undertake to keep us as long as the masters hold out."
"And the money--where's it had from?"
"Subscribed. All the working bodies throughout the United Kingdom
subscribe to support the Trades' Unions, ma'am."
"I heard," said Mrs. Gass, "that you were not getting quite as liberal
a keep from the Trades' Unions as they gave you to begin upon."
"That's true," interrupted one named Foster, who very much resented
the shortening of supplies.
Mrs. Gass gave a toss to her lace parasol. "I heard, too--I've seen,
for the matter of that--that your wives had begun to spout their spare
crockery," said she. "What'll you do when the allowance grows less and
less till it comes to nothing, and _all_ your things is at the
pawnshop?"
One or two of them laughed slightly. Not at her figures of speech--the
homely language was their own--but at the improbability of the picture
she called up. It was a state of affairs impossible to arise, they
answered, whilst they had the Trades' Unions at their backs.
"_Is_n't it," said Mrs. Gass. "Those that live longest 'll see most.
There's strikes agate all over the country. You know that, my men."
Of course the men knew it. But for the general example set by others,
they might never have struck themselves.
"Very good," said Mrs. Gass. "Now look here. You can see out before
you just as well as I can, you men; your senses are as sharp as mine.
When nearly the whole country goes on the strike, where are the
subscriptions to come from for the Trades' Unions? Don't it stand to
common reason that there'll be nobody to pay 'em? Who'll keep you
then?"
It was the very thing wanted--that all the country should go on
strike; for then the masters must give in, was the reply. And then the
men stood their ground and looked at her.
Mrs. Gass shook her head; the feathers waved. She supposed it must be
as Richard North had said--the men in their prejudice really could not
foresee what might be looming in the future.
"It seems no good my talking," she resumed; "I've said it before. If
you don't come to repent, my name's not Mary Gass. I'm far from
wishing it; goodness knows; and I shall be heartily sorry for your
wives and children when the misery comes upon 'em. Not for _you_;
because you are bringing it deliberate on yourselves."
"We don't doubt your good wishes for us and our families, ma'am,"
spoke Webb. "But, if you'll excuse my saying it, you stand in the
shoes of a master, and naturally look on from the masters' point of
view. Your interests lie that way, ours this, and they're dead opposed
to each other."
"Well, now, I'll just say something," cried Mrs. Gass. "As far as my
own interest is concerned, I don't care one jot whether the works go
on again, or whether they stand still for ever. I've as much money
as will last me my time. If every pound locked up in the works is
lost, it'll make no sort of difference to me, or my home, or my
comforts--and you ought to know this yourselves. I shall have as much
to leave behind me, too, as I care to leave. But, if you come to
talking of interests, I tell you whose I do think of, more than I do
of my own--and that's yours and Mr. Richard North's. I am as easy on
the matter, on my own score, as a body can be; but I'm not so on yours
or his."
It was spoken with simple earnestness. In fact Mrs. Gass was incapable
of deceit or sophistry--and the men knew it. But they thought that, in
spite of her honesty, she could only be prejudiced against the
workmen; and consequently her words had no more weight with them than
the idle wind.
"Well, I'm off," said Mrs. Gass. "I hope with all my heart that your
senses will come to you. And I say it for your own sakes."
"They've not left us--that we knows on," grumbled a man in a
suppressed, half-insolent tone, as if he were dissatisfied with things
in general.
"I hear you, Jack Allen. If you men think you know your own business
best, you must follow it," concluded Mrs. Gass. "The old saying runs,
A wilful man must have his way. One thing I'd like you to understand:
that when your wives and children shall be left without a potater to
their mouths or a rag to their backs, you needn't come whining to me
to help 'em. Don't you forget to bear that in mind, my men."
Waiting for her at home, Mrs. Gass found Richard North. That this was
a very anxious time for him, might be detected by the thoughtful look
his face habitually wore. It was all very well for Mrs. Gass, so amply
provided for, to take existing troubles easily; Richard was less
philosophical. And with reason. His own ruin--and the final closing of
the works would be nothing less--might be survived. He had his
profession, his early manhood, his energies to fall back upon; his
capacity and character both stood pre-eminent: he had no fear of
making a living for himself, even though it might be done in the
service of some more fortunate firm, and not in his own. But there was
his father. If the works were permanently closed, the income Mr. North
enjoyed from them could no longer be paid to him. All Mr. North's
resources, whether derived from them or from Richard's generosity,
would vanish like the mists of a summer's morning.
"What's it you, Mr. Richard?" cried Mrs. Gass when she entered, and
saw him standing near the window of her dining-room. "I wouldn't have
stopped out if I'd known you were here. Some of the men have been
hearing a bit of my mind," she added, sitting down behind her plants
and untying her bonnet-strings. "It's come to pawning the women's best
gowns now."
"Has it?" replied Richard North, rather abstractedly, as if buried in
thought. "Of course it must come to that, sooner or later."
"Sooner or later it would come to pawning themselves, if hey could do
it," spoke Mrs. Gass. "If this state of things is to last, they'll
have nothing else left to pawn."
Richard wheeled round and took a chair in front of Mrs. Gass. He had
come to make a proposition to her; one he did not quite approve of
himself; and for that reason his manner was perhaps a little less
ready than usual. Richard North had received from Mrs. Gass, at the
time of her late husband's death, full power to act on his own
responsibility, just as he had held it from Mr. Gass; but in all
weighty matters he had made a point of consulting them: Mr. Gass
whilst he lived, Mrs. Gass since then.
"It is a question that I have been asking myself a little too often
for my own peace--how long this state of things will last, and what
will be the end," said Richard in answer to her last words, his low
tone almost painfully earnest. "The longer it goes on, the worse it
will be; for the men and for ourselves."
"That's precisely what I tell 'em," acquiesced Mrs. Gass, tilting her
bonnet and fanning her face with her handkerchief. "But I might just
as well speak to so many postesses."
"Yes; talking will not avail. I have talked to them; and find it only
waste of words. If they listen to my arguments and feel inclined to be
impressed with them, the influences of the Trades' Union undo it all
again. I think we must try something else."
"And what's that, Mr. Richard?"
"Give way a little."
"Give way!" repeated Mrs. Gass, pushing her chair back some inches in
her surprise. "What! give 'em what they want?"
"Certainly not. That is what we could not do. I said give way a
_little_."
"Mr. Richard, I never would."
"What I thought of proposing is this: To divide the additional wages
they are standing out for. That is, offer them half. If they would not
return to work on those terms, I should have no hope of them."
"And my opinion is, they'd _not_. Mr. Richard, sir, it's them Trade
Union people that upholds 'em in their obstinacy. They'll make 'em
hold out for the whole demands or none. What do the leaders of the
Union care? It don't touch their pockets, or their comforts. So long
as their own nests are feathered, the working man's may get as bare as
boards. Don't you fancy the rulers 'll let our men give way half. It's
only by keeping up agitation that agitators live."
"I should like to put it to the test. I have come here to ask you to
agree to my doing it."
"And what about shortening the time that they want?" questioned Mrs.
Gass.
"I should not give way there. It is impracticable. They must return on
the usual time: but of the additional wages demanded I would offer
half. Will you assent to this?"
"It will be with an uncommon bad grace," was Mrs. Gass's answer.
"I see nothing else to be done," said Richard North. "If only as a
matter of conscience I should like to propose it. When it ends in a
general ruin--which seems only too certain, for we cannot close our
eyes to what is being enacted all over the country in almost all
trades--I shall have the consolation of knowing that it is the men's
own fault, not mine. Perhaps they will accept this offer. I hope so,
though it will leave us little profit. If we can only make both ends
meet, just to keep us going during these unsettled times, we must be
satisfied. I am sure I shall be doing right, Mrs. Gass, to make this
proposal."
"Mr. Richard, sir, you know that I've always trusted to your judgment,
and shall do so to the end: anything you thought well to do, I should
never dissuade you from. You shall make this offer if you please: but
I know you'll be opening out a loophole for the men. Give 'em an inch,
and they'll want an ell."
"If they come back it will be a great thing," argued Richard. "The
sight of the works standing still; the knowledge that all it involves
is standing still also, almost paralyzes me."
"Don't go and take it to heart at the beginning now," affectionately
advised Mrs. Gass. "There's not much damage done yet."
Richard bent forward, painfully earnest. "It is of my father that I
think. What will become of him if all our resources are stopped?"
"I'll take care of him till better times come round," said Mrs. Gass,
heartily. "And of you, too, Mr. Richard; if you won't be too proud to
let me, sir."
Richard laughed; a slight, genial laugh; partly in amusement, partly
in gratitude. "I hope the better times will come at once," he said,
preparing to leave. "At least, sufficiently good times to allow
business to go on as usual. If the men refuse this offer of mine, they
are made of more ungrateful stuff than I should give them credit for."
"They _will_ refuse it," said Mrs. Gass, emphatically. "As is my
belief. Not them, Mr. Richard, but the Trades' Unions for 'em. Once
get under the thumb of that despotic body, and a workman daredn't say
his soul is his own."
And Mrs. Gass's opinion proved to be correct. Richard North called his
men together, and laid the concession before them; pressing them to
accept it in their mutual interests. The men requested a day for
consideration, and then gave their answer: rejection. Unless the whole
of their demands were complied with, they unequivocally refused to
return to work.
"It will be worse for them than for me in the long run," said Richard
North.
And many a thoughtful mind believed that he spoke in a spirit of
prophecy.